Mistakes & Miracles UU Common Read Discussion Guide

The UUA Common Read for 2022-23 is Mistakes and Miracles: Congregations on the Road to Multiculturalism (Skinner House Books, 2019). In this book, co-authors Nancy Palmer Jones and Karin Lin—a white minister and a lay person of color—explore five UU congregations' journeys toward Beloved Community and share the joy, disappointment, and growth these congregations found.

Today, UU congregations are grappling with a charge to dismantle white supremacy in ourselves, our communities, and our world. As we enter a Common Read of this book, we find ourselves receiving its report with a changed spirit and an urgent need for multiculturalism and antiracism work in our congregations and our movement.

This discussion guide invites Unitarian Universalist congregations and groups to engage deeply with the stories of others who have chosen a faithful path and struggled along the way. If you would like to facilitate this Common Read and/or promote it in your faith community, please start with the section, "Using This Guide."

About the Authors

Susan Dana Lawrence

Susan Dana Lawrence is the managing editor for the Faith Development Office of the Unitarian Universalist Association. She is also a writer and educator who has worked in broadcast television, corporate communications, and print journalism. She belongs to Reform Jewish and Unitarian Universalist...

Karin Lin

Karin Lin is a member of First Parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she has played a number of leadership roles related to multiculturalism, antiracism, and social justice.

Nancy Palmer Jones

Nancy Palmer Jones has served as senior minister at the First Unitarian Church of San José, California since 2005. With the late Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley, she co-edited Soul Work: Antiracist Theologies in Dialogue.

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