"The video of the murder of George Floyd shook me to my core..."
Erin Slone, Director of Strategy and Operations for Attune, shares this-personal story of formation:
…The recent string of unarmed black people killed by white officers or vigilantes destroyed my spirit. I’m a 40-year-old black woman, the daughter of migrants from the deep south who came of age in the sixties in segregated Chicago. Racism in all of its forms, from the micro to the macro aggressions, has been a part of my daily life. I have learned to push through this dark reality and most importantly pray for the healing of our country from this awful reality. The release of this video was different though. I could not push on any longer. I was an emotional wreck, I lost hope, and feared that nothing was ever going to change.
I thank God on a regular basis to be working at Attune. Tracy and I have worked hard to foster a culture centered around grace, that is free of judgment, where we can show up as our full authentic selves, and support one another to grow and attune to God’s voice and purpose in our lives. We can discuss the hard things. We have been companions to one another on our spiritual journeys. We laugh often, we cry at times, we go deep into our personal struggles and triumphs as women of Christ, but we had never discussed our personal experience with racism as two women of color. Was it impolite? Were we afraid to offend one another? Was it not germane to our daily work? Perhaps it was just hard. Whatever the reason, we had never discussed race directly, yet we were compelled during this time to process current events and feelings, refusing to let fear get in the way of God’s desire to deepen our relationship into further understanding.
One particularly heavy morning, Tracy and I decided to walk through Attune’s Big Story Lens - and God came through without fail! Our collective discernment brought about so much healing. For me, God restored hope! He affirmed that the more honest and vulnerable we can be, and the more actively we listen, not only to one another but to God Himself and His Word, the closer we can actually get to creating heaven here on Earth.
For Tracy, God breathed courage into her, calling her to engage more intentionally in the work of racial reconciliation. God compelled her beyond her very present fears of venturing into territory that would likely expose the ignorance within her that she was becoming ever more aware of. Tracy expressed how God whispered acceptance and anointing despite this ignorance, and despite the years of apathy that had led to it. Largely through Attune, God had been showing her how to create spaces that allow people to hear from God in new ways, and He was now calling her – calling us – to bring this forward as a vital part of this deep and hard and ultimately life-giving work.
After we completed the lens, both of us walked away feeling as if a great heaviness had been lifted, and yet at the same time with a deep resolve to bring what we have to the table. We’ve discerned that God is calling us to offer Attune tools toward this work of building bridges across racial lines, to help people attune to more of His hope, courage, wisdom and power – and where He guides, we will follow.