Social and spiritual progress is a continuing evolutionary process. And the language that expresses it evolves, as well.
It was real progress for churches to begin using gender-neutral language in preaching and hymns, decades ago. The first attempts at putting this intention into words resulted in stilted, awkward language that in some cases alienated folks who otherwise might have been won over to the cause. Over time, creative minds found fresh, poetic, gracious ways to achieve the goal of gender inclusivity. (You can see my contributions to this cause here.)
Currently there is a laudable effort to recognize the non-binary nature of human sexuality and gender identities. At universities in particular, there is an expectation - increasingly an imperative - for staff and students to specify and employ preferred pronouns. This is obviously an awkward undertaking, because in most encounters there is no natural occasion to specify them. I predict that there will be an evolution of our language toward fool-proof, simple gender-identity neutrality. Someday we'll all be "they, them, and their". And we won't think twice about it.
It is likewise a step in the direction of progress for Americans to recognize that, in most places, we stand on land that was taken from Native Americans by force or fraud. This impulse to publicly atone has resulted in the recitation of "land acknowledgements" at all sorts of occasions. At universities it has gone from a common practice to a virtual requirement.
I predict that such acknowledgements will undergo an evolution as well. In order to avoid turning them into dull, performative boilerplate, we'll need to give them more context, depth, and beauty.
Toward that end, I have written this Meditation on Place and People - for Los Angeles:
Let us pay deep attention, for a moment, to this place on the planet where we gather here and now. Magnificent land pushed up and out of the Pacific Ocean eons ago by tectonic forces, land then covered with grasses and oaks, grazed by sloths and mammoths, roamed by saber-toothed cats, hunted and gathered upon by first nations, most lately the Tongva people... land taken from them by Spanish people, then claimed by Mexican people, then by European American and other immigrant people from around the world. May we remember our sacred responsibility to those who came before us, to those who share this place with us now, and to the natural environment that sustained them and sustains us. So be it!
I invite you to come up with your own versions of it, for your place and people, and use it freely. And I'd love to receive your comments and criticisms of my version here. Again, this is part of an evolutionary process, and I invite you to join it! Send me your versions and I'll post a selection.