Dances of Universal Peace Testimony from Dr. Colleen Carpenter

Dr. Colleen Carpenter invited Conie and two colleagues to share Dances of Universal Peace and street justice songs for a paired Religion and Music honors class early in March 2022.  After the demonstration, Carpenter sent this note.  Shared with permission.  

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"I am someone who finds it very difficult to really trust in God’s love and justice. I BELIEVE in it, and I cling to it, but the horror and the suffering of the world seem to me more “real” in a lot of ways.

I have to believe in God’s love, because if I don’t there’s nothing but despair, but I don’t think it’s going to save anyone on a practical level in the world right now. Putin will continue to level Ukraine.

But when I was driving home, I believed that love would reign and war would cease. I could FEEL it.

That doesn’t happen to me often, and I treasure deeply the times it does, because I know I know I KNOW that this is the truth of the world, even as the bombs continue to fall.

So thank you.

You opened up a space for me to see and feel Divine Goodness, Hope, Joy, and Love.

What an incredible gift."

- Dr. Colleen Mary Carpenter, PhD
Professor of Theology and Women's Studies
Saint Catherine University, St. Paul, MN

How do we move from knowing intellectually to a deeper, dare we say, more complete and whole felt sense of knowing in our bodies?  We're grateful for the words of Resmaa Menakem, who has given us language around how fear/trauma impact the body and embodied practices to help us reclaim our bodies with the help of our communities.  

We are organizing a reading of Resmaa's book, My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies to begin in late April. To hear more about it, sign up for that newsletter here.  

We will also be organizing more in-person singing and dancing events as this respiratory pandemic subsides.  Sign up for those newsletter (same link as above) or watch this space for more details!