a welcome letter
Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all! Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.
Dear friends, don’t be obsessed with taking revenge. Allow God’s wrath to make sure justice is served. For the Scripture says, “I’ll do the judging. I’ll take care of it. I will settle all scores” says the Lord.
But consider this bit of wisdom: “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will make them burn with shame as if you were piling coals on their heads.”
Don’t let evil conquer or get the best of you, but overpower and conquer evil by doing good.
St. Paul
Often in this epiphanic and riddle-ish space of 2200 characters or less, I am unconsciously suffocating myself. I don’t even notice that I’ve been holding my breath and wringing the air dry while reconsidering this word and that word, constructing and deconstructing all the ifs, buts, and maybes before rewriting the whole thing, still second-guessing my initial inspiration. In that sealed and tight space my prayers become liturgies filled with stifling doubt. It’s not until I hit ‘send’ and simultaneously gasp a breath of fresh air, that I realize there was a reason I felt so ill and and lightheaded.
That’s what it’s like to write so many posts here. It’s equivalent to peeling back my black skin to show that I am human first.
The funny thing about being human is that it means we will be desirable to some, but undesirable to many. Being human means that although we are cosmically tethered to one another, we don’t necessarily like this inescapable condition of our co-existing.
To be a black woman who is neither rich nor poor, not degreed yet not entirely uneducated, not beautiful but privileged with enough good looks to avoid publicly shunning, not skinny but certainly not fat, and neither young nor old—to be a black woman stretched right down the middle of an average life and with the nerve to write about race in this country means that I am sometimes an easy target for a lot of anger, usually of the white-hot-white-anger variety.
I’m not talking about being trolled, which is also the cost of being human—but about the anger I sometimes receive from people who thought we were in agreement about who I was and what I stood for, only to be surprised to learn that there are some things on which we disagree. And to be further unraveled when they realize that neither of us is willing to split the difference in order for us to remain separate but equal. It’s shocking for them when I insist that in order for this to work—and because it is my space—my opinion must prevail.
I love this space. For me it has become a truly thriving community that is as real to me as the city in which I live and the streets on which I travel. It’s so real to me, and therefore matters more than the number of its inhabitants and their “likes”. This community that gathers around a series of pictures, or a couple of bible verses, or a few lines of poetry, or just the mention of a name, is where I go to remind myself that yes, I am human, but I am not the only one. I am not alone in my joys, fears, triumphs, worries or grief. I grieve a lot in this space. I weep openly. And when I do, I cannot lay my grief aside and help you understand me. I cannot comfort you in your discomfort. I cannot handle your angry “what about” questions. I can only tell you the truth as I’ve seen and lived it. The rest of it, whether you accept it or not, whether you stay or unfollow, is entirely up to you.
In his famous Letter From The Birmingham Jail, Dr. King writes to those who are questioning the way he is handling his grief. They see what he is grieving and they feel badly about it. But they don’t agree with the process of his mourning and, like the group of friends that came alongside Job when he was at his lowest, they take it upon themselves to explain away the devastatingly inexcusable, and in so doing further bruise his hurts. In response, King writes:
“I must make two honest confessions of you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice: who prefers a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to the positive peace, which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’”
This little bit of space of mine, this little hard-won and hard-to-keep listening corner that I believe could only be a gift of Divine Fate that I cannot even begin to grasp, is my public protest of all injustice, but very much so the injustice inflicted upon black skin, black hearts and black breath. And this post is my letter from the prison some of you would surely feel was deserved, all because I wrote something you didn’t like.
King goes on in his letter to say, “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
And I couldn’t agree more. I can handle the trolls under the bridge. What I cannot handle are those who call me friend and march beside me on the bridge, but all the while are throwing stones at my feet, hoping that I trip and fall. They are literal wolves in sheep’s clothing. They give themselves away the moment they type: “I agree with you, but…” Every one of their words is a pothole, a trapdoor, a bottomless pit that can’t be filled with an adequate enough answer. They are the ones who thrive on my pain, refusing to sit beside me in the muck and the filth and the tears. Because they demand answers to their chiding, self-serving questions, the pain they see doesn’t ignite any semblance of empathy or compassion.
In this space, all earnest seekers with earnest questions are more than welcome. I would even go so far as to say that this space is for you. And all who consider themselves weary sojourners in search of true water, please know that I am thirsty too, stumbling right beside you in search of lakes and rivers. You are so welcome in this space. You’ve already blessed me as I hope I’ve blessed you.
But if there are any of you who are only here to keep an eye on me, I think it’s fair to warn you that any chuckholes, ditches, or bunkers you dig will be deleted. Any obstacles or snares that try to manage my feelings, tame my grief, or tell me my story, will be blocked. That kind of behavior is just as insidious as a coward who burns a cross while hiding beneath a hood and a sheet—all of which I and my ancestors have had our fill.
And for the rest of us crazy kids who believe that the world can do better and must do better, I am so very glad to have you here. May we keep each other company as we travel through the light and through the shadows.
