Truth-Telling Together
Wholeness does not mean perfection -
it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.
~ Parker Palmer
In a recent gathering of the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis (LSP), we said an official goodbye to a good friend. Mary and her husband Stephen are moving away very soon to embark on the next chapter of their common life. At the end of our gathering, each one of us took turns truth-telling, speaking to Mary about what she has truly meant to us. Then, she returned the favor. It was a deeply rich, meaningful, bittersweet time.
I spoke of Mary’s invitation to me when I left the LSP board to spend more time on “church work.” I’ve come to understand my ministry using a different definition of DEI: denominational, ecumenical, interfaith. One example is my experience with Sacred Ground, a denominational curriculum for racial healing and justice.
The Episcopal Church encourages us to share Sacred Ground in ecumenical settings. When Mary first heard about this curriculum, her strong invitation was: “Tom, you need to go and talk to the leaders at Idlewild Presbyterian church!”
In that invitation, Mary invited me to expand my vision, to dream bigger dreams (Joel 2:28, Acts 2:17). Three years later, I’m helping the Episcopal Church make Sacred Ground an even more ecumenical offering in Memphis. That offering is now part of a larger vision, a bigger dream for “my DEI,” thanks to Mary.
In Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day, Kaitlin Curtice writes, “creating a vision is holy work, deep and strong work….It is cyclical and fluid….A vision lives and breathes; it is a way forward, a dream that is sure to come.” For me, visions and dreams are part of wholeness.
Wholeness also means embracing my brokenness, my imperfection. Yet I know I can only be whole some of the time. I need help with that. We who are part of this spiritual community called LSP move toward wholeness, time and again, whenever we dare to share some truth in our stories of brokenness and pain. Unlike Carly Simon’s song “Haven’t got time for the pain,” we make time - together.
Life without Mary always among us will indeed be painful. It will feel less whole. But Mary, always the teacher, keeps inviting us to see visions and dream dreams - larger visions, bigger dreams. May we listen to what she is saying to us. May we believe her, and, encouraged by one another, may we keep doing the hard, good work of truth-telling, healing, and justice we have been called to do - together.
~ (The Rev.) Thomas A. Momberg
June 26, 2025