For People with Bishop Rob Wright
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
Exploring Dignity with Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright
The concept of dignity—the unwavering worth within each human being—lies at the heart of our religious traditions, political systems, and human interactions. But what does it mean to respect someone's dignity, especially when society has trained us to look away?
In this episode, Melissa has a conversation with Dr. Beth Sarah Wright, author of "DIGNITY: Seven Strategies for Creating Authentic Community", centered on James 3:18. They discuss human dignity and how genuine community emerges when we honor each person's inherent value.
"Dignity isn't a moral imperative, nor is it a political imperative—it really is a human imperative," Dr. Wright explains. She unpacks how respect etymologically means "to look again," challenging us to see beyond our initial judgments to recognize the full humanity in others. Listen in for the full conversation.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright is an Atlanta-based author, dynamic speaker, and strategic thought partner who inspires and drives transformation in communities, institutions, and individual lives—all while centering human dignity.
As Co-Founder and Executive Director of Thrive With Dignity, LLC, Dr. Wright partners with organizations to build authentic, thriving communities. She works with a wide range of institutions—schools and universities, corporations, nonprofits, and faith communities—using her signature DIGNITY Lens©. This powerful framework, grounded in seven strategic pillars, helps organizations interrogate their practices, align with their core values, and embed human dignity into the very structures that shape daily life. More than a framework, the DIGNITY Lens© is both a leadership tool and an integrity compass—empowering communities to increase capacity, make meaningful progress, and change outcomes in sustainable ways.
She is the author of seven influential books, covering topics from organizational integrity and adaptive leadership to depression, healing, and spiritual growth. Her book DIGNITY: Seven Strategies for Creating Authentic Community (2020), selected as the 2023 featured book of the year by the National Association of Episcopal Schools (NAES), along with its companion The DIGNITY Lens Workbook, offers a practical and transformative approach to leadership, strategic decision-making, and creative problem-solving. These resources have been used across sectors to conduct integrity audits and enhance alignment with mission and purpose.
Dignity is a part of nearly every major religion. They have different names for this thing that refers to the breath of God inside of you. There are many other ways that we talk about dignity and we talk about it outside of faith, as the inherent worth and value that you have inside of you and that is what makes you human.
Melissa:Welcome to For People with Bishop Rob Wright. I'm Melissa Rau, and this is a conversation inspired by For Faith, a weekly devotion sent out every Friday. You can find a link to this week's For Faith and a link to subscribe in the episode's description. And today we have our final, very special guest. We have not just a wife of a very prominent bishop who we know and love. She's not just a mother of five young adult children, but she is a leader unto herself, an author of a number of books, but especially my favorite one, DIGNITY: Seven Strategies for Creating Authentic Community. She is the co-founder of Thrive with Dignity, a consulting firm that helps organizations with organizational integrity, and she's also been named as the Acting Executive Director of the Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing. Dr Beth Sarah Wright, welcome.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:Good morning and thank you. What a joy to be here with you, thank you.
Melissa:You based your devotion this week off of James, chapter 3, verse 18, inspired by the Message. It says and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. I would encourage folks to look at the episode description to see the full devotion. But really this is about honoring one another, living with dignity and honor, treating one another with respect, and so this is kind of like your jam, correct, dr Becerra?
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:Yes, it is. It's when I first read this passage in the message translation and it really does reveal and open up this idea of how to create community it does, and what community it does and what the type of community is. It's a community that's aligned with God, and the results of creating such a community it says you can enjoy its results. There's joy that comes from creating this type of community, but James talks about how we create this community. When I first saw this, I remember I was driving with my husband and we were reading the Bible and I came across this scripture and I was just like that's it. That has opened up every conversation I've ever thought about in terms of creating community. What does that mean? How to do it? And that dignity human dignity is at the center.
Melissa:Yeah, so could you summarize then in your own words what dignity actually is, in your own words, what dignity actually is?
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:So what I love about the term dignity is that, yes, people might think one that it is morally or religiously inspired Dignity being the breath of God inside of you. People from a faith background and you will find that dignity is a part of nearly every major religion. They have different names for this thing that refers to the breath of God inside of you. So, from a religious perspective or a faith perspective, it is that that you are a child of God. There's something inside you that is divine, there's a piece of the divine inside of you and that is unwavering. But that is only from a religious perspective. There are many other ways that we talk about dignity and we talk about it outside of faith, as the inherent worth and value that you have inside of you, and that is what makes you human and what makes us all human. And so, for example, the United Nations has dignity as part of their tagline. Nations has dignity as part of their tagline.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:We talk about that dignity we talk about as a human right. We have this thing, and so it's absolutely core to all of what we talk about. And then dignity is part of the founding documents of this country. So, in terms of a political entity we talk about this, that we all have this endowed. We're all created with this endowed right. We have this thing, all of us all citizens. We have this thing, all of us all citizens. And so what I love about dignity is that it is. It goes across all of these. It's not a moral imperative, nor is it a political imperative. It really is a human imperative for us to think about dignity.
Melissa:Yeah, I'm also struck by you know folks' notion. You know, sometimes we have a problem believing our own worth. That's a big problem, and yet we then also put down or diminish the dignity of other people. And what I like about this passage is that it reminds me it's almost like you get what you put in. You know you reap what you sow. You get what you put in, you know you reap what you sow. And so if you want to be treated with dignity and respect, then maybe there's a bit of a responsibility for us to be able to do that with and for others.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:I do believe that we all are to be treated with respect, no matter what we do. However, the baptismal covenant, the Episcopal baptismal covenant, really helped to nuance this idea of dignity and being able to see and recognize that dignity just as you've described. Recognize that dignity just as you've described. The last question of the baptismal covenant asks us to strive for peace and justice and respect the dignity of every human being. And respect the dignity of every human being, not respect the dignity of those people you agree with or who look like you or who worship like you, or who you like or who you know. It's asking something else, but it also asks us to respect their dignity, not tolerate, not even love the word love is not in there. So it's not to love their dignity, it's to respect their dignity, and so I was wondering what the heck does this mean? What is it asking us to do? And when I looked at the etymology of the word now, I'm just like well, what is really being asked of us? Respect their dignity. It's very simple To look again, Re again and spaghetta, just like spectacles.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:To look. It's a way of how we see one another. Can we see beyond what we think we see to see something else?
Melissa:And Jesus did that so well, right?
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:That's what is so powerful about all of this and the best I mean. Jesus did that all the time. Look at all the people that he walked with and worked with. And even when asking, gathering his disciples, he just said come and follow me. He didn't say let me check your resume, let me check what you've done, let me see who you are, let me see what you know all of this. No, it was just come and follow me, let me check what you've done, let me see who you are, let me see what you know all of this. No, it was just come and follow me. And the most poignant story I love about Jesus and dignity and respecting dignity is him with the Samaritan woman by the well.
Melissa:Oh my gosh, I was just thinking about this story in my head. I'm so glad you're bringing this up. I would love to hear your take let's go, come on.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:I mean, here we have Jesus. First of all, this is the longest conversation that he has with anyone in the Bible, anyone. And of all the people that he has this conversation with, it's a woman that wasn't really allowed and a Samaritan woman. There were such division between Samaritans and Jews. There was such division, such hatred. Even you were not supposed to have any sort of relationship.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:And yet, here at the well, he simply says he asks her for some water, can you bring me some water? And she is like for some water, can you bring me some water? And she is like why are you even talking to me? She couldn't even understand it. But then he said if you only knew God and the gift of God and you knew who you were speaking to, you would be asking me for living water is what he says. But what I love about that is that he to use the word respect to look again. He may have indeed saw her as a woman, as a Samaritan woman, but did not stop there. He looked again to see all of what, and because Jesus is Jesus, could see all of her story. And because Jesus is Jesus, could see all of her story, all of her story, all of her marriages, all of it, and none of that stopped him from having this relationship with her.
Melissa:She's at the well with nobody else. So she's in shame. She's feeling shame, that's at least how I'm interpreting it. She's in shame, she's feeling shame, that's at least how I'm interpreting it. And that there is something about Jesus that he looks, and he doesn't even have to look again. He doesn't look away, he doesn't get disgusted, he doesn't. He penetrates her all of the walls that she's had to rectify in her own shame because she's believed the messages of society. So she feels like an outcast and she thinks she deserves it because she doesn't have dignity, which is not true, right. So like we all have it, we just forget it.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:They have this conversation and she reveals that she is not married, but she's been married five times before. We don't know the circumstances of her marriages, whether or not they've been divorced or death. We don't know anything. But Jesus does and she does. But what you're saying is absolutely right. She may not have even seen her own dignity. She has it, but she may not have seen it, or it may have been diminished or unseen by those around her because of her multiple marriages, because of her background and all of this. They just, you know, writing her off. So I do, I absolutely. And what I love about what you said is that he does not even look away. He doesn't even have to look again. He does not look away. But how often do we do that today? How often do we do that? How often do we not look away? How often do we? Even if we do look away, how do we come back and look again to see more than what we think we saw?
Melissa:So can you talk a little bit about Thrive with Dignity?
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:As a part of a community. I was the director of enrollment management at Holy Innocence Episcopal School in Atlanta for 10 years and as part of the leadership team, I did a lot of looking and thinking about our community. In many ways, I was telling the story of our school with prospective families and students and had to be able to tell the story of the school with full integrity, as in what we were doing and said we were doing, we were actually doing so where our mission and our practices aligned. And oftentimes, when it comes to institutions of all types or communities of all types whether they be corporate, large corporations, small communities, small groups, small churches, schools there is often a mission, yes, there is an aspirational identity and then there is the execution of that and sometimes there's a gap.
Melissa:I was just thinking, mind the gap.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:Sometimes there's a gap.
Melissa:So how do you do that work then? So, really, you're talking about dignity, you're talking about missional integrity. How do we do that active work in community with one another?
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:Well, James was really instructive and said that the only way that we can do this is by the hard work of treating one another with dignity. The hard work what does that mean in community? What does that mean when it comes to our budgets? What does that mean when it comes to policies and laws and bylaws and rules and regulations in our communities? It means that we, no matter what, they're made up of people. They're affecting people, they're serving people. They're people who are serving. We are made up of people, so why don't we put human dignity at the center? And how do we honor that? And that's what I feel James's invitation is. And so I thought, well, there must be a practical way to this. How do we actually do this practically? And hence I created something called a dignity lens, a way in which we can look again through practical means to narrow the gap between what we say and what we do and those.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:When we begin to narrow the gap like that, do you know what that is? That is the hardest work of all, because they're going to be tied up with people's loyalties, people's understandings, people's views, their own biases we all have them. By the way, it's perfectly human to have biases when the biases stop us from work, that's a problem. So when we start to close the gap, there are lots of resistance that might happen. Oh, I don't want change. I'm comfortable where I am. This has nothing to do with me.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:Why are we doing this work? I don't understand why we need to do this work, and so there's a lot of resistance that happens there. But how do we manage the resistance? How do we manage the change? How do we build capacity in our community to manage this change? Build capacity in our community. We have to build, increase human capacity, capacity for curiosity, capacity for courage, capacity for competence. There's so much, there's so much, so much, there's so much. But with these seven strategies, if used appropriately, if used engaging them all, we can do this work appropriately if used engaging them all, we can do this work.
Melissa:You know, I'm curious if you might have a story, you know a short story of how you've seen a community do this, really lean into the messy work and where they were and where they are now as a result of having done it.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:So when I wrote the book, I wrote a story and I used a story from which we could look at all sorts of different perspectives and engage with these seven strategies through this story. It was a fictional story but it was inspired by a real story and I can share that story. That story happened at the school that I was working at, holy Innocence Episcopal School, and there was a beautiful chapel service that we had and, as you might understand about Episcopal schools, we are Christian communities that serve families, students, faculty and staff of all different backgrounds faith backgrounds or no faith background. It's a very unique. We are not Episcopal churches. That's a very different mission. We are an Episcopal school. That's a Christian community, yes, that serves community, that is created and made up of all different backgrounds. So we had a chapel service and in that chapel service, which is perfectly aligned with the mission of Episcopal schools, we had readings from the Quran, from the Bible and from the Torah Abrahamic faiths, perfectly in line.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:But there was such a vitriolic response to the reading from the Quran by a student who was an Alpha and Omega. She had been there since she was a kindergartner. She was a senior that year, so excited to share this beautiful reading. It was a beautiful reading from the Quran. She read it in her mother tongue, farsi, and she read it in English. It was gorgeous.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:The backlash was incredible surprising, but incredible, and there were a lot of misunderstandings, lots of anger questions why are we doing this? How, why, what does this have to do with us? Are we trying to indoctrinate our students? Are we trying to make them Muslim? Are we? There were just lots of questions. Now, the questions may have come from a very small group, but they were small but loud, and so some people said oh, what's happening to the school? I just came here because we were a Christian school and why are we having readings from the Quran? And what we did as a school was to remind people of who we are as an Episcopal school and remind people of the mission right Of our identity.
Melissa:And so really to drill down, is people felt threatened, and so where does dignity align with feeling the threat? Like where, how did?
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:Yes, we try to diminish or not see what we saw was something else which was limiting and unfair, and we do this on a regular basis, if you think about it. We do this. We do this as people, human beings. We write off people quite easily because they've hurt us. How hard is it to see the dignity in someone who's hurt us or a family member? Very difficult.
Melissa:and I'm curious, Beth, Sarah, if you could just share with us Beth- was the hope, Rather than going through the steps of how they did it? How was that transformation? What was the end result of doing the dignity work that you suggest folks might lean into?
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:Well, the dignity work involves being very clear about who you are, what your story is and how we can honor all people, stakeholders. And the dignity lens is written to democratize this work. So all people take up this work. We all have the work to do to say, wait a minute, what is my role in this and how can I look again and and now. That doesn't mean that happens overnight, but if we remind ourselves, okay, okay.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:Well, one human dignity is at the center of this and our identity is clear. We need to learn how to grow. What capacity do we need to grow? What do we need to put in place to nurture this? How do we hold ourselves accountable to the things, the words and language that we say about ourselves? How are we communicating that story through transparency and building trust? How do we know what we want? What do we want here? What do we want? Do we want an environment in which all of our students are not seen in the way that they should be? Is that what we want? What is our yield? And that's the why. But who do we have around? Who is helping us have these conversations? Who is around the table? So, this way of doing this, the hope is it takes hard work, but it is holy work and it's work that can be done.
Melissa:So, in a brief nutshell then, how is dignity restored, or at least reminded, amongst that community?
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:It's asking why do we do what we do? It's the why. It's the why, because our why is not that we're just going to serve some people and not others. It's just that's not the why. What is our why? And where does human people, human beings and their dignity come into that conversation?
Melissa:So is there a happy ending for that student?
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:Oh yes, Well, she was an amazing student anyway. She was remarkable. Her family was even more remarkable, but more than anything, yes, she didn't have to wait for anyone to restore her dignity. She restored her own dignity, with the support, certainly, of her fellow students and faculty and friends and family and school. But the school itself restored its dignity too, by realigning and doing the hard work of realigning itself and making sure that what they say and what they do align. Now, some people might not like that, and so some people say, well, this is not where I want to be. And what do you say to those people?
Melissa:Then go find the place that you need to be.
Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright:Exactly Because your dignity is important and that your dignity needs to be restored and honored and upheld. Restored and honored and upheld. And if you are feeling that your dignity is being violated by a community that is not aligned with your values, please, please, find a community that you feel that your values will be aligned. Indeed.
Melissa:Dr. Beth- Sarah Wright. Thank you so much for your great work and thank you for joining us on For People. Friends, thank you for tuning in. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright, or by visiting www. forpeople. digital. Please subscribe, leave a review, and we'll be back with you next week.