I was raised with a deep and enduring faith. A faith which I ran from at times, in youthful rebellion, but one which has always caught up with me. My faith is one I have been awed by, have faltered in, have embraced and triumphed through. It is also one which has perplexed me at times.
I was raised to believe that if I trusted in Jesus, if I poured out my heart before God, that He would come through. That He, having been the one to plant desire within my heart, would satisfy it (Psalm 37:4, NRSV).
There are areas in which this has been true. God gifted me with life, breath, heartbeats, and enough tenacity to make certain dreams alive: living in New York City, earning my MA in Seattle, self-publishing and editing my first book. These are rich, grand experiences, things which have been mine, to dream, discover, and taste.
I have also known the bitterness of great pain and hope deferred. Anxieties which were more inherited than chosen. Financial struggle. The loneliness which comes with being a black woman fighting it out on her own, even while evoking positive change in the world. There are plenty of things about life—and not just my own---that I just don’t understand. There are things, experiences, and struggle in this world I have trouble comprehending.
Like the premature death (no---let’s call it what it is, murder) of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25 year old black man who was out for a jog near his mothers neighborhood in late February of this year and was hunted and killed by two ignorant, racist white men. A father-and-son combo. The father cheered on what the son executed. What they deserve is execution.
My faith-filled family lives in the United States of America, the only home we have ever known. Within this home our ancestors were enslaved and exploited, raped and discriminated against, then portrayed to be criminals because of the color of our skin. This land, the only home we have known, holds us suspended between from where we came (and don’t know, as a result of slavery) and the place which kills those who look like us daily, because we are home eating ice cream (Botham Jean). Or driving to work with our girlfriend and her daughter (Philando Castile). Or taking a jog (Ahmaud Arbery).
I can think of nothing more heinous than a people group enslaving and exploiting and abusing another and then criminalizing the exploited people group. Nothing more devilish than millions of us dying behind bars because of the color of our skin. Nothing more insidious than the way white people have treated blacks (and indigenous people) in the history of America.
Yet I, a deeply spiritual person, hold this faith: Faith in a God whose Spirit my own cannot deny, for I feel his breath and his words and her fire emanate from me. The breath, the word, the fire. Undeniable.
So why have we been so denied?
I first experienced the Holy Spirit sitting on a rock at summer camp when I was about eleven. My parents had dropped my brothers and I at our respective Christian camps on their way to a much-needed Lake Tahoe break. I loved our yearly treks to this camp, with its canoeing and craft adventures, but just as much as the activities, I savored being amongst the mountains and trees.
One morning, the Holy Spirit met me. My lanky brown body had found reprieve on a mountain rock, near the lake, guarded by Redwoods and Pines. Jesus was there, and Father God must have been, too. I have known, since that moment of fire, wind and words that the Trinity is real. That God is real, and He knows me. I believe this God created, sees, and meets each one of us where we are.
So then, why is there so much suffering in the world? Why so much chaos, oppression, and confusion? How long, oh, Lord, my soul cries out (Psalm 13, NRSV). How long for black people? How long, for those who suffer from poverty, and those who live with daily dreams deferred?
The question of evil is one which theologians and humans have been asking for years, and yet I have not heard an answer to that question which has satisfied. That MA degree I mentioned---it’s in Theology---and still, I have no answer.
This week I sat in a meeting of the organization I am founding for black women and their well-being with my three co-founders. All are fierce black woman slaying demons in the world. K asked how we were each “coming in,” in light of the past week, when the video was released of brother Ahmaud being hunted. The four of us paused. We shared deep sighs, shakes of our head, rolls of our eyes. Sorrow. Pain. Exhaustion. Heaviness. That is how we were coming in.
We all are deeply faith filled women, but we refuse to happy-clap our way to victory this week. Because it is just too much. It is too heavy. The reality of the pain and trauma our bodies have carried cannot be ignored anymore. And we can no longer wait for white people to care enough to do something about it. We cannot afford to. In the words of activist, womanist, and author Alice Walker, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”
This week, WE launch our business, and the fact of the matter is, we are women who cannot wait for anyone else to create the space we and our people need to breathe. We cannot wait for our Caucasian counterparts to give enough of a damn to create mental and emotional wellness, nor the community we are in need of. We cannot wait anymore. And soon you won’t have to either.
Though we may not ever receive the final answer to the question of evil on this side of paradise, perhaps one hope we can hold in the face of suffering and chaos in this world is that we are the body. Perhaps we must do more than wait for God to act. We are the hands and feet of Christ. We are meant to do our job to create the wholeness we need for the whole body to operate in health and wellness, together.
The WE Collective is a space for mental health, community, and wellness for and by Black women, based in Northern California. Look for its goodness to be fully revealed the week of 5/11/2020.