Beloved Community is a vision to create a compassionate and inclusive society where Love is at the center.

Beloved Community has an intentional focus on growing an attitude of non-judgement, nonviolence, forgiveness, and mindfulness.

Beloved Community was first used by Josiah Royce and more recently recognized through the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.

As practitioners of compassion we seek to be agents of transformation in our communities where we are open and loving to one another, recognizing we need each other to be the whole body of Christ.

We are surrounded by fear, disrespect, alienation, and othering. Our world is in deep need of reconciliation.

As Beloved Community we are followers of Jesus and his inclusive, compassionate walking with those who were lost, least and left out. Jesus modeled for us and invites us to this ministry of love by feeding the hungry, weeping with the grieving, welcoming the outcast and those we other, and forgiving the guilty.

This response calls us to be counter-cultural and we find ourselves walking on the edges of society extending care, kindness, and compassion.

Now! We are called to live out our faith, love and compassion daily. For some this call begins through the waters of Baptism. Regardless, it begins with each of us and our actions toward self, one another, and God’s creation.

For those living in Beloved Community, we are invited to step back and hold a mirror up to ourselves to recognize in the many ways we struggle and are broken and yet called to live out this love. We have Love within us already waiting for us to recognize its presence within us.

Becoming aware of the many ways our world—its people and creation—is suffering, both concealed and outwardly observed. The first step requires an attitude that recognizes our connectivity and oneness with all of life.

Taking action to become self-compassionate—to actively comfort ourselves, Kristin Neff identifies these three core components:

• Self-Kindness vs. Self-Judgment — being gentle with yourself as you would a good friend in a similar situation. Awareness of those thoughts that become saboteurs to loving self.
• Common Humanity vs. Isolation — recognizing I am not the only one going through difficulties and shortcomings.
• Mindfulness vs. Over-Identification — acknowledging your suffering but not being consumed by it.

Developing deep listening to God, self, and one-another.

Love and compassion evolve as we heal and love ourselves as we see the goodness and light within that is shining in our neighbor. We hear this message in scripture. An example is the Parable of the Good Samaritan:

This is the work of the Beloved Community.

Joyce Rupp, Boundless Compassion: Creating a Way of Life (Sorin, 2018), pp. 26.

Christina Feldman, Compassion: Listening to the Cries of the World (Shambhala, 2005) (qtd. in Rupp 42)

Gail Straub, The Rhythm of Compassion: Caring for Self, Connecting with Society (Turtle, 2000) (qtd. in Rupp 63)

For more on Self-Compassion, see “What is Self-Compassion?” from Dr. Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion Institute.