Relational ethics are at the core of our efficacy in our walk toward our North Star commitment to lessen and mitigate the harm endured by Black and Brown people, perpetuated by white people and white supremacy. I’ve been talking for some time about reviving our Relational Ethics series, both to revisit previous content and to introduce new podcasts, videos, or essays, to further strengthen us in this aspect of our praxis.

The time is now.

Let’s re-invigorate our engagement with our relational ethics series by returning to Pádraig Ó Tuama’s discussion with On Being’s Krista Tippett, and by encountering his lecture “The Complicated Art of Reconciliation,” both linked below.

Tuama’s “Place of Lumpy Crossings” has become a byword for what we do here, in our Lace on Race community. If you’ve wondered what that’s all about, welp, here is where you’ll learn.

To engage with our Relational Ethics series, I ask that you listen to the unedited cuts of the podcasts or lectures presented, read available transcripts, which are sometimes abridged, and immediately pivot to how this relates to race, your internal work against racism, and how we work as a community towards racial equity.

In the “On Being” recording, listen for how Krista meets with Pádraig and the dynamic she and Pádraig work under. Be ready to compare and contrast to this to her interactions with the other guests we’ll feature in this series.

As well really listen to the words themselves, in both the recording and the video. There is so much rich stuff to sink your teeth into; I myself have watched the lecture at least twice, and had fully four pages of notes on the interview. Mix it up with me, and with your fellow community members. After we all experience this, it will only draw us closer, and take us deeper.

We have faced many lumpy crossings since we last focused on this series. It is still absolutely my goal for our community, and we people in it, to be to each other, as Pádraig puts it: ‘The Place That [We] Stand When [Our] Feet Are Sore.

Let’s dig in.

Listen, read, and confront:

On Being with Krista Tippett: Pádraig Ó Tuama, Belonging Creates and Undoes Us

Also watch and confront:

–Introduction co-written with Laura Berwick