The Beloved Community for Engaged Spirituality with Kaira Jewel Lingo and Father Adam Bucko, is restarting monthly Buddhist Christian gatherings, now on Saturday mornings from 11-12:30pm ET. (This used to be called The Buddhist Christian Community for Meditation and Action)
These gatherings will include guest teachers and conversations that draw from the lives and wisdom of the saints of the beloved community—those whose lives remind us that even in difficult and violent times, groundedness, courage, and a spacious vision are possible. Their witness helps us remember that oppression and cruelty never have the final word.
We invite you to join us on Saturday, April 25, from 11 am-12:30 pm ET for our Saints of the Beloved Community series, in an intimate conversation with Ambassador Andrew Young.
Ambassador Andrew J. Young has earned worldwide recognition as a pioneer in and champion of civil and human rights. Ambassador Young’s lifelong dedication to service is illustrated by his extensive leadership experience of over sixty-five years, serving as a member of Congress, African American U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Mayor of Atlanta, and ordained minister, among other positions.
During the 1960s, Young was a key strategist and negotiator during civil rights campaigns that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Appointed as an Ambassador to the United Nations in 1977, Young negotiated an end to white-minority rule in Namibia and Zimbabwe and brought President Carter's emphasis on human rights to international diplomacy efforts. As two-term Mayor of Atlanta, Young brought in over 1,100 businesses, over 70 billion in foreign direct investments and generated over a million jobs.
Ambassador Young has received honorary degrees from more than 100 universities and colleges in the U.S. and abroad and has received various awards, including an Emmy Lifetime Achievement award in 2011 and the Dan Sweat Award in 2017. His portrait also became part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
Ambassador Young also serves on a number of boards, including, but not limited to, the Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Social Change, Morehouse College, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State and Americas Mart. In 2003, he and his wife Carolyn McClain Young founded the Andrew J. Young Foundation to support and promote education, health, leadership and human rights in the U.S., Africa, and the Caribbean. Young currently serves as the Chairman of the Andrew J. Young Foundation.
In 2012, Young retired from GoodWorks International, LLC, after well over a decade of facilitating sustainable economic development in the business sectors of the Caribbean and Africa. Young was born in 1932 in New Orleans, and he currently lives in Atlanta with his wife, Carolyn McClain. He is also a father of three daughters and one son, a grandfather of nine and a great grandfather of two.
He is author of An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America
“Working closely with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he endured beatings and arrests while participating in seminal civil rights campaigns. In 1964, he became Executive Director of the SCLC, serving with King during a time of great accomplishment and turmoil. In describing his life through his election to Congress in 1972, this memoir provides revelatory, riveting reading. Young's analysis of the connection between racism, poverty, and a militarized economy will resonate with particular relevance for readers today.”
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Our monthly gatherings are offered on a donation basis.
Recording will be available.
Register here for April 25: An Easy Burden: An Intimate Conversation with Ambassador Andrew Young
Online
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We will gather monthly through June, on Saturdays from 11-12:30pm ET, for teachings and shared practice. The remaining dates of our gatherings for the first half of 2026 are:
No gathering in May,
and June 13, Guest speaker TBA