Our statement of commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion

In the Light House community, we are committed to growing increasingly representative of the diversity of our global human family. We seek to be—and are taking intentional action toward becoming—a space where contemplative women of any age, race, ethnicity, spiritual path, ability, size, orientation, and income level not only feel welcome and included but able to find their place of belonging.

If you identify as a woman and desire to steward your light from a contemplative posture in the world and in community, you are welcome here.

Steps we have taken to support this commitment

  • Utilizing the generous work of Tema Okun and others on divorcing white supremacy culture in organizations. We are taking each of the 15 characteristics of white supremacy culture in turn and incorporating their antidotes in intentional ways into our ways of being and practices as a community. Thus far, we have incorporated:

    • Shared leadership as an antidote to power hoarding. We ask members of the community to lead us in our weekly glow-up gatherings. We are grounded in the wisdom and discernment of the Wisdom Council, made up of members who meet every other week to notice and listen to the invitations for growth and leadership of the community. We encourage our members to take the lead on initiatives when they bring ideas to us. Our founder works in deliberate partnership with a programming partner in the community. Our weekly examen groups are facilitated by a leader for the first 3-6 months and then go on to lead themselves.

    • Appreciation as an antidote to perfectionism. At the end of every gathering, we pause to bring an appreciative gaze to what we received, to those we shared it with, and to those who led us. We focus on our gratitude for what was received rather than perceived shortcomings or what may have gone wrong.

    • Speed of soul as an antidote to sense of urgency. Moving at the speed of soul is one of the core values of our community and is named often in our community gatherings and leadership meetings. We slow down and, if necessary, push pause on plans when urgency creeps in or timelines reveal themselves to be unrealistic to the present moment’s needs. We take the time to seek wisdom we do not have before making significant decisions.

  • Quarterly commitments by each member of the Wisdom Council to continued personal diversity work. Each quarter, the members of the Wisdom Council name how they will continue to learn, unlearn, and take action on their personal diversity work in the coming quarter. At the end of each quarter, we devote one of our Wisdom Council gatherings to sharing the progress each person made on those commitments and naming our commitments for the new quarter.

  • Doing the Work group and diversity threads in the community. From June 2020–July 2021, we hosted a Doing the Work group in the community for those following an invitation to do the work of anti-racism in their lives. This group was co-led by members of the group and provided weekly accountability threads. In July 2021, following the encouragement of a BIPOC member of the community to bring these diversity conversations into the main community, we closed the group and invited the community to share ongoing resources, questions, and conversations on these subjects in the main space going forward.

  • Group and individual conversations within the community to listen and learn. Between March–June 2021, we invited conversations in group and private settings with members of the community who are part of marginalized groups or who live or work with those who are. We sought to listen and learn about what we could be doing better to support these identities in the community. These meetings included conversations with those who identify (or live or work with those who identify) as neurodiverse, differently abled, queer or lesbian, interspiritual and interfaith, and BIPOC.

  • Guidance from those with wisdom outside the community. The founder of the community worked with a DEI coach in October 2020 and consulted with the executive director of another contemplative organization in May 2021, seeking to learn from both how to keep growing an organization that is increasingly and intentionally inclusive and representative of the diverse human family.

  • Commitment to accessibility. We make three pricing tiers available for the community, all sharing the same level of access to the community, which allows members to participate at the contribution level they are able to afford. We make payment plans available for our premium mastermind offerings. We make closed captioning available in our live gatherings and include transcripts with the replay recordings.

Areas we still have to grow

  • Greater diversity of ethnicity and BIPOC representation in the community

  • Increased representation of gender nonconforming, trans, and/or queer folx in the community

  • Continued growth of interfaith, interspirituality, and ecumenical diversity among our members

  • Greater learning around neurodiversity and how the contemplative way meets this paradigm

  • Continued integration of the antidotes to dismantling the 15 characteristics of white supremacy culture in organizations

Diversity in the Light House community right now

  • 12% of our active members identify with a spiritual path outside the Christian tradition

  • 18% of our members live outside the United States

  • 1% identifies as BIPOC

  • A small handful identify as queer and/or lesbian

  • Our members range in age from the mid-20s to the mid-80s, with a projected distribution of:

    • 12% in their 20s and 30s

    • 25% in their 40s

    • 40% in their 50s

    • 19% in their 60s

    • 4% in their 70s and 80s

We have further to go, and we will always have further to go. As a community and as a leadership team, we are committed to continued learning, unlearning, doing, and undoing as is our responsibility along this path.