Relational Covenant of the One TransVersal Network

Introduction:

This work found its final creative energy after an encounter with the Guardians of Baltimore, a group of local Black women who, when the state abandoned them to structural violence and environmental racism, built networks of safety and survival for their families and neighbors. These guardians were mothers and aunties, organizers and elders, whose leadership came not from titles or institutions but from love, proximity, and moral clarity.

The work they were doing reminded me of the stories of the waves of mothers and aunties of families forced onto reservations who taught their people to survive when all they were given to work with was bug-filled flour and rancid oils. In both cases, a way was made from no way. Their work echoes the grassroots organizing of female ministers in the early Jesus movement, leaders who gathered in homes, broke bread, offered healing, and challenged oppressive systems by caring for the widows and the orphans, not through becoming aligned with empire, but through building community.

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Our covenant is inspired by these foremothers and wisdom-bearers. We do not seek to replicate the Christian church as it evolved after Roman recognition in the fourth century. We reject the imperial inheritance of colonial Christianity, its hierarchies, its exclusions, its whiteness, and instead invite those committed to a new way to help us rebuild the church as it could have been, to reclaim a decolonial church. 

From the beginning of its acceptance of Christianity, the Roman Empire used the religion of love and acceptance as a tool of colonizing. First, they eliminated the Celts, the Druids, and all other spiritual traditions from Europe. Then they built a continent of kings ordained by the god they co-opted who became nothing more than a tool of the Roman Catholic church for over one thousand years. So, let’s start over and repudiate that trajectory and return to the personal, spiritual path of our ancestors on all continents.

We are building a network grounded in the vision of what the community of Jesus-followers might have been had they remained on the margins opposing those seeking to destroy, marginalize, or assimilate people they witnessed living into radical love, shared resources, and collective liberation.

We draw inspiration from the Black Panther Party, who understood that community defense begins with feeding people. Their free breakfast programs and health clinics were not charity, but tools of communal liberation. And by feeding the people, the Panthers showed that when people’s basic needs are met, their dignity is restored, their voice returns, and their spirit rises.

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We are also guided by the Sikh principle of seva, selfless service, especially the tradition of langar, where free, nourishing meals are offered to anyone, without question. This sacred practice is rooted in the belief that to care for the body is to make space for the soul. That when we remove hunger, we also remove shame. That when people feel safe and fed, they are free to dream, to believe, and to act in ways that are rooted in that communal care.

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One TransVersal is not a single place or polity. It is a constellation, a network, of people and organizations rooted in their local communities. It is a web of storytellers, caregivers, resisters, and rebuilders who live into a decolonial ethic of mutual care. Our covenant is not a contract, it is a living agreement of how we will walk together, hold one another, and remain accountable to the sacred work of liberation. I will provide educational opportunities and individual guidance along the path, but this is a commitment to finding a group of like-minded people in your local community to do the work.

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One TransVersal is not building a new church in the old image. We are remembering what could have been, what was and what was taken from us, before empire reshaped radical love into hierarchy and before systemic whiteness declared itself divinely blessed. Ours is a congregationalist model, but not the model that has so often been used to shield harm behind majority rule. Ours is a model rooted in community accountability, not control. In sacred interdependence, not institutional protection even when harm happens. It is centered and committed to Indigenous and diasporic ways of knowing, where healing is collective and power is shared.

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We gather as a local and interconnected network of people committed to human dignity, ancestral wisdom, and radical inclusion. Not everyone will walk with us, but all who come with a willing heart and a desire to live in mutual love, dignity, and care are welcome to join in this movement.