The Clearing

This world can be exhausting. Disorienting. Wearying. And over the last year I’ve definitely had more than a few of those kinds of days. But sometimes hidden between the folds of struggle and sadness have been delicate moments of pause and reflection. Moments that whisper to me to breathe in 1-2-3-4 and hold 1-2-3-4 and breathe out 1-2-3-4. Proverbial selahs tucked away waiting to be uncovered and explored. Moments of the kind of calm that settles the spirit and empties the mind. Or at least silences the noise long enough to make nice with my internal rigmarole, as my Nana would say. The kind of moments that sometimes last just long enough for me to untangle my mind from the twine that keeps my stomach in knots and my heart unsettled. A clearing.

Who doesn’t need these spaces to settle oneself? A place to dump the crazy of these days and the heavy of our minds. A safe place. A sacred place. A place that is hidden to those that would do harm. Not a place in the great by and by, but a place here. Now. Present. Accessible. A place for the rage and sorrow to be deposited, the burden to get light, for the lighthearted to get lifted, for the hips to sway and the knees to huck or buck or whatever one’s knee condition would allow by way of dance. It is a place to experience the fullness of our being. A place to name our crazy and rediscover and embrace our complexity. A place flexible enough to make room for the fullness of our humanity and that reconnects us with the divine. This place that clears the way for the imagination and the reimagining that these days require. A place that helps us to make sense of the chaos and to make something beautiful out of it. Our own place to “in the beginning” new worlds and possibilities into existence. 

Toni Morrison spoke of this hidden jewel in her novel Beloved. She named it “The Clearing.” The place where formerly enslaved Africans would gather at the behest of the sage Baby Suggs Holy. It was a place in the midst of the forest that was hidden to outsiders, hidden to slave owners, hidden to those who insisted that oppression was the order of the day. It was a place that held the kind of sermons that a people worn down by the violence of their times would need, sermons that reminded them that they were beautiful, valued, full, complete, worth loving, respected, and needed. A place for the fragmented to come and to be re-membered in and by community. A place where bodies in need of refreshing could be baptized not in water but in the kind of words that healed. 

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. As a bit of a rule follower with preexisting conditions and Chicken Little tendencies, sheltering in place was not something I was interested in defying. So early into the news of the pandemic hitting our area I took shelter. Thankfully, my place of employment went virtual early on and I have been able for the most part to remain safely inside. Of course with that came weeks of anxiety and depression, but again those Chicken Little tendencies and end of life as we know it predictions make for touchy bedfellows. But I am a woman of faith… a professional church goer. A Black woman minister in the Baptist denomination. A woman with progressive politics and deep spiritual leanings. Surely, if there was a word from the Lord, a sermon for these times, a proclamation from the heavens that would answer the why of these days, surely this would be the time for me to posture myself and receive the messages that had to be for me. But there have not been words from heaven about the whys and wheres and how longs of this crisis. Even as vaccinations roll out and most of the world it seems has decided to turn on the neon sign that blinks “Open for Business” I cannot say I am hearing the voice of God any more clearly. Truth be told even my own voice is a bit faint these days. Instead there have been more questions, more lamenting, and more recognition that the noise of these days, the clutter of crisis upon crisis have left me and so many others depleted, fragmented, overwhelmed, and anxious. And so at a time when getting away is not as accessible as it has been (at least not for me because traveling in closed in spaces after a year of being sequestered is way more peopling than I am interested in doing) I remember that what I still have are words. Words with the power to create places to breathe. Words to give expression to the right now that the not yet might be made possible. Words that speak new life in the midst of death dealing forces. Words that make laughter erupt more powerful than volcanoes. Words that remind us of who we are and open us to our process of becoming in real time. We may not all have the luxury of travel (or the interest) but we have our words. We have our ideas. We still have our imagination. We have the power to clear space so that the beauty of our lives, the beauty and complexity of Black life is what is honored. It is our words that hold the power to real us nuanced, to uncover the layers and brokenness that display us mosaic-like. Multi-dimensional. More than memes and five minute segments. Words that call places into being and make clearings in the midst of paths overgrown by persistent struggle and time and weariness. We have the power of our words to speak affirmation like Baby Suggs Holy in ways that help us to see ourselves again as we truly are... whole, complete, beautiful. 

So I invite you through these offerings in this newsletter to hear the call of your own drum, to follow the rhythm of those who influenced by wisdom and love have danced before you, to listen for the music up above your head that bids you to come, and quiet yourself, and listen for the voice of God… for the voice of God in your own throat and heartbeat and be reminded of just how beautifully human you are.