I thought I would use this opportunity to bring you up to date on a couple of my previous Connection articles. It was back in November that I wrote about our partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association and our desire to offer a Memory Café here in our building. Through much hard work (especially on the part of Judy Banta!) we transformed the old Outpost area into a bright and inviting space in which to welcome our Memory Café guests. We also assembled a core team of volunteers who have pledged to give of their time to act as hosts for these monthly gatherings.
Just yesterday, March 16th, we hosted our first Memory Café with four couples participating. These cafés are intended to simply provide a fun opportunity for couples to socialize in a safe, supportive and engaging environment and from all we saw yesterday…we succeeded!
Our Memory Cafés have been covered recently in the Bay View Compass and in the South Shore Now section of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, so we anticipate it growing as we move along. And this is where you can help! If you know of couples who are dealing with early to moderate Alzheimer’s please consider inviting them to attend one of our Cafés. They are scheduled for the 3rd Monday of each month from 1pm to 2:30pm. Our next Café will be April 20th. More information is available from Wendy Betley of the Alzheimer’s Association at (414) 479-8800.
In February I suggested that it was time to have “The Talk,” the “talk” being an honest conversation about
race. Several of you took up that invitation and joined with over twenty others from seven United Methodist churches, as well as from the greater community. Together we have been reading and discussing Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking work, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. What has made this gathering so meaningful has been an almost fifty-fifty mix of African-American and Caucasian participants.
As an almost sixty-year-old white guy it has been, at times, an especially difficult conversation to be part of. I’ve had to come to grips with the privileges that have been extended to me by virtue of nothing more than my gender and the color of my skin. A particularly sobering moment came for me as we read Alexander’s comment that “For good reason, many people…especially poor people of color…fear police harassment, retaliation and abuse.” I asked the group if this was a realistic fear for them personally and every person of color around the table responded with stories of unwarranted traffic stops and worse.
We still have two weeks to go and we’re looking at ways to continue this conversation so we might build on the new relationships we are forming. I hope as we move forward you will join me as we address this difficult issue.
Shalom!Pastor Andy