SeaChange Center
For Beloved Community
"Hand in Hand" - One of several children’s drawings brought back from Iran by Vivien Feyer in 2007.
“But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of a beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this kind of understanding and goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles.” - MLK
What would a society that doesn't just tolerate our ever-expanding diversity but cherishes it, that sees our humanity as as our greatest, that recognizes our inescapable mutuality, honors everyone's inherent worth and that strives to be better today than we were yesterday look like? And just as importantly, how do we become one?
This is the essence of what it means to be a
Beloved Community
and is the vision that drives SeaChange.
Our starting proposition is that a just, inclusive society is not just possible, it's the very essence of what it means to form a more perfect union. As a nation comprised of people from all over the world, we simply can't be "one nation, indivisible" without it. And the more change that inevitably finds us, the more necessary unity becomes.
But that's also when it's hardest to hold onto it, or even value it at all.
It was great Roman philosopher Cicero in De Officiis, who stated, “When each person loves the other as much as himself, it makes one out of the many (unas fiat ex pluribus). This reference (or at least this era) is thought to be the point of origin for E pluribus unum – the motto adopted as the Great Seal by America’s first Congress in 1776, and which means, “out of many, one”. (It’s worth noting that it’s not sameness – whether of opinion or ancestry, religion or politics – that makes one out of the many. It’s love. According to Cicero, that’s the great unifier.)
Then, there's President Washington, who, in the first presidential farewell address ever given, implored us to preserve our unity, our greatest strength, with “jealous anxiety”, rejecting “the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties” that make us one. And though his warning is just as relevant today as when he spoke it, it's not part of our discourse or high on our list of concerns. We treat our unity, the shared identity that makes us one, as something that's enduring and assured. But it isn't. And while America, as President Obama described in his own farewell address, "is no fragile thing," its continuance isn't assured. And if we rail against any idea hard enough, even the idea of America, it will fracture.
If there's one thing we must never forget, it's that societies don't have lives of their own. They live because the people who are part of them, believe. We infuse them with love, imbue them with life and nurture them. We sacrifice for their well-being and rally to their defense. We create their institutions and infrastructure and entrust them to act on our behalf. And because we believe, we’re bound to and care deeply for the members of our societal family; both individually and as a collective. When those same people stop believing, those societies begin to die.
But that doesn't have to be our future.
We can build a better one if we can find it within ourselves to be our better selves, holding one another close and our sense of unity high. This is the mission of the SeaChange Center -- to empower each of us to build the Beloved Community -- a society that embraces and elevates all of us.
New Narrative - Campaigns that combat cultural toxicity
We Belong Social History Project - Every. story. matters.
Writing ALL our humanitarian heroes back into history.
Soul Work - The work we do on our own souls.
From the Quakers, the heart and soul of the abolitionist movement to the Jews who gave or risked their lives to end segregation in America to the multi-faith contingent that bolstered the march from Selma to Montgomery, it is people of spiritual consciousness who have called us to do and be better. But those actions weren't spontaneous. They were the outgrowth of deep work so many had done on their own souls, allowing the people they could be at their best to emerge. This project is about learning from them and passing those lessons on.
MMI Press
SeaChange Awards
The New American
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"Just do right. Right may not be expedient, it may not be profitable, but it will satisfy your soul. It brings you the kind of protection that bodyguards can’t give you. So try to live your life in a way that you will not regret years of useless virtue and inertia and timidity. Take up the battle. Take it up. It’s yours. This is your life. This is your world." - Maya Angelou