Earlier this week, I listened to the first virtual Integrative Project Symposium presented by the candidates for MATC and MDiv degrees at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.
The capstone projects of the graduates are a way for the students to look back at the work they have done, as they have devoted years of their lives to navigating family of origin stories, personal and communal lament, and psychological and theological education. Completing and presenting the IP project is a proud moment. It’s one that is culmination of the work that is behind, yes; but is also indicative of the good work to come. All while it showcases the people we’ve become in the middle.
This year, the work produced by the graduate students was very reflective of the present moment, confronting the narcissism, systemic injustice, and dangerous centering of "whiteness" which has oppressed so many for so long.
Mercedes Robinson, candidate for the MATC degree, said, "I believe this is a prophetic moment in our nation's history. The lies inherent in America's DNA are being exposed in ways society has not seen before. My hope is that we do not turn away from this opportunity.”
There is a profound shift happening across the face of the earth, a prophetic reimagining which confronts the oppressive systems, institutionalized lynching of a people group, hatred, and intolerance which has kept some voices elevated and others silenced. The playing field of the entire world has been leveled as tribalism is called out in the face of a disease which has changed the world as we know it, affecting the human race, people from every tribe, for the first half of 2020.
Amidst all of this, as Mercedes named, we are faced with an opportunity. Will we take it?
America: it is time to do this work, otherwise there will be dire repercussions for us all. It’s time to talk to one another and learn how to listen to those who come from different experiences. It’s long been time to heal wounds, to act towards justice, to get uncomfortable and leave behind our worship of ourselves long enough to look into our neighbor’s eyes and find some empathy for them. White folks, its time to have the hard conversations that make your body feel weird, and to name the anxiety and the shame, and to remain in the conversation with your neighbors of color. It’s time for white folks to begin having hard conversations amongst themselves. BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) folks, it’s time to stand in solidarity with one another; to speak our truth, and also to stand up for one another (even if the wider messaging we have been inundated with is to assimilate, to be the model minority, etc.). Empathy without inaction is not allyship. Clearly, there is so much work to be done, and we all have a part in it. The only way out of this mess of the brutal enslavement, oppression, and suffocation of a people group is going to be together.
In this present time, I (along with my co-founders, Amanda Morris, Kierra Conover, and Becky Morris) am answering a call to provide resources specifically for Black women (and men) in need of space to breathe, be, rage, and grieve. Visit thewecollective.org for mental health and wellness resources specifically for the Black community.
On the WE Collective site this week, we spoke to JOY; how intentionally putting oneself in the way of JOY is an act of warfare when surrounded by chaos. Remembering the good times and reminding ourselves that they will come again is part of it. So also, is remembering that we are loved.
Watching the Integrative Project Symposium took me back to a joyful period of my life, when I stood on a stage before my peers and presented the case for the Belovedness of the Black Woman Despite Racial Trauma. In listening, may you find grace and be reminded that our identity is not one which we have to fight for or earn from other people. May we remember that there is Holy space for us; that we were intentionally created in brown bodies, to live in the presence of our God, walking with Them in the cool of the day, for the sole purpose of being loved.
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