A San Francisco that honors

Let’s build the SF Contemplarium, together

Where do you turn …

• If you want a quiet place away from home to light a candle for a friend you’ve lost?

• If you want to talk through a moral dilemma with someone you trust?

• If you simply want a moment to celebrate being single?

I believe that honoring our human journey, in moments like these, is one of the most important things for us to do as humans. Deep down, our inherent human dignity deserves our care and respect.

Our missing honoring infrastructure

Sadly, for many of us in the city—myself as a queer, nonreligious Chinese American included—there’s nowhere to turn in these moments. We’re left unhonored.

That’s because our secular society lacks a common honoring infrastructure that’s accessible and authentic to us. In the past, religious and cultural institutions might have offered tools, practices, and skills for honoring our human journey. But those forms don’t work for many of us today, especially in an increasingly secular and pluralistic city like San Francisco.

Building ways to honor

That’s what led me—both queer and nonreligious—to attend Divinity School, train in hospital chaplaincy, serve a congregation, and practice professional conflict resolution. I’ve sought to learn as much as I can about how our missing honoring infrastructure could be built—in a way that resonates in our pluralistic and secular society.

But to make a real difference, I can’t be on this journey alone.

That’s why I’m building the San Francisco Contemplarium — a community of makers and builders, poets and artists, dreamers and doers, all passionate about building our honoring structures here in our city.

Real experiments

So far, we’ve experimented with physical offerings like Reflection Stands, which allow the community to honor itself. People can write and hang their joys and sorrows on a card for the community to see, and passersby can drop a pebble into a vessel of water to honor the posted reflections. They’ve called it “a moment of pause”, “a pleasant surprise”, “just what I needed today”, “should be on every corner”.

We’ve also piloted Reflection Jams, a guided reflection on the last month, featuring a mix of private journaling, a bit of lightly social connection, and chill lofi beats. Soon, we’ll also be running our first Journey Groups, a series of small circles for a small, intergenerational group to share their experiences for each other to hold and honor.

Let’s build

How else should we bring honoring to our city?

Will we fashion new programming that facilitates creative honoring? Will we open a contemplative physical space to allow anyone to drop in for an honoring moment? Will we hone skills for the community to honor certain aspects of their lives? Will we empower honoring professionals like chaplains and officiants to serve the wider community?

How will we create a San Francisco where we treat the profound experiences of our community with the care they deserve? A San Francisco that makes space to honor the fullness of our human lives?

A San Francisco that honors?

Build with me, and let’s find out.

—Seanan

Next steps

🖐 “I’d love to help build the Contemplarium in San Francisco!” Whether you want to help envision and build a program, or just want to try things out as a user, head over to the SF Contemplarium website to join the effort!

💭 “I want to dig deeper into this idea!” Read A People Who Honor on Seanan’s separate ideas blog Moral Infrastructure, and subscribe there for more philosophically-oriented writing.

👂 “Keep me in the loop!” Subscribe to this newsletter to keep up with what we’re building and how to get involved in the future.