From Stillness to Justice:

Honouring the Power of Our Collective Story

Well, hello there!

Welcome to all the new subscribers who have recently joined me. It’s always a blessing when someone takes the time to like, comment, follow, or subscribe. To those of you who have been with me for a while, your continued support is deeply appreciated.

Today’s offering is sandwiched between two significant dates in the global calendar:

Lent—a period of preparation for those who observe it—and International Women’s Day. This is an opportunity to celebrate the extraordinary achievements we have made in the world and to honour those who have paved the way for us, often at great personal cost.

As this missive lands between these dates I’ll attempt to navigate the middle way like a desert-dwelling sister. A voice crying out in the wilderness saying:

‘Prepare ye the way…’

As a black women standing in the gap, having witnessed much from the margins, I am coming to understand my sacredness, first through stillness—then through story. That’s the justice part. Stillness allows my stories to emerge from a place of knowing.

Sometimes it can be a challenge to counter the narrative that seeks to diminish your presence and silence your words. Particularly when systems and structures actively seek to marginalise your authentic expression by determining what is ‘appropriate’. That or by hiding your labour, suppressing your creative ideas or placing burdens on your ‘strong as an Ox’ (black female) shoulders.

In society, one could easily believe the lie that one’s voice, one’s story doesn’t matter. Looking to society for validation simply won’t work when the narratives about you are biased.

We are Living Data

And yet, as living data, we depend on one another for feedback to navigate our way through life. Our personal stories interconnect and collide with the story of the other. And at times we find that we are one in the same. We as the human family are more alike than unalike (as Maya Angelou would say); part of a bigger story.

All the Worlds a Stage…

We present ourselves in every day life, entering stage left and exiting stage right, not always knowing the back story of the other, but nevertheless impacting one another’s lives with our narratives.

I find this quote from from Margaret Atwoods novel ‘Cat’s Eyes’ to hold truth:

‘Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.”

Perhaps we are not as curious about our neighbours story - because we risk having to actually care about the other person’s story (read life) more than we wish to. We risk seeing that their vulnerability is much like ours.

Storytelling Desert Dwellers Should Never Travel Alone!

I may use the desert dwelling metaphor (with a nod to the prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist) as I prepare to voice stories of injustice, but I never travel alone. I am learning how to better honour the ancestral stories that shape me!

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

I follow a long line of pioneers in the prophetic tradition, walking in the footsteps of my ancestors who spoke in parables and embodied wisdom. My grandmother, I.B. Golding, is the first among the best:

“Never take anyone else’s eyes to walk the road…” she used to tell me “…because when they squint they will drop you off!” Long after her passing, her words continue to guide my path.

I honour the stories of those that stand, pioneered, fought, served, moved, harnessed power of spirit among them: Nanny of the Maroons, Mary Seacole, Nina Simone, Harriet Tubman, Ntozake Shange, Pearl Primus, Katherine Dunham, Hagar, bell hooks, Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou, the matriarchs in my family and many others.

The desert for them might have been the plantation, the theatre, the work place or the mind but they mapped their way out and left their story. I honour the men too. I drink from the well of all of their stories. If you look intently enough, you can hear the cloud of witnesses between my words. Between the worlds I create out of the lived experiences of myself and others.

‘We are born into a story and we are all living out of someone else’s story until we define our own, and even then, we travel not alone’.

Christ, the ultimate desert dweller, spent 40 days resisting temptation, only to return empowered. Born into a story before the foundation of the world, he overcame his adversity with a word: “It is written!” From the beginning was the word and the word said let us make stories, knit them together in the mystery of their mothers womb and let them multiply.

From stillness came the word and it formed the ultimate story that dwelt among us.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Preparing the way

When I think of those that have paved our own stories - I am directly connected to my Windrush story; heritage and ancestors (which I write about here). There are also ancestors like Harriet Tubman; a woman of incredible courage, who not only imagined her own freedom but took action to achieve it. After escaping from the plantation, she had the audacity to return and help others find their freedom as well. Her bravery in risking her life for the liberation of others demonstrates the power of one person to make a difference.

Tubman’s story provides those of us who have faced intergenerational trauma and oppression with the courage to seek divine assistance. It instils hope that we, too, can pave the way for others and leave behind a storied legacy that serves as a guiding path for the next generation.

I am storied by a people of courage- women (and men) who knew how followed the cloud of unknowing. Co-creators and spiritual architects who mapped their way out of no way, putting pieces of the jigsaw together and calling on the impossible to make a path to liberation possible.

Fire shut up in their bones, eyes watching God, they sang, danced and wrote their way out of the limited imaginations others had placed on them, like an unequal yoke. The stakes were high. Yet, for Tubman she saw only two choices death or liberation. She once said:

“I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.” Harriet Tubman

Either she’d get her freedom or die trying!

What a story!

So what’s your story?

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Writing Prompt or Reflection:

Since we are sandwiched between a season of preparation and honouring ancient stories why not take some time to ask yourself:

What is my story?

Whose story am I honouring or do I honour?

Whose story do I take with me and why?

Do they offer courage? Humour? Wisdom?

Call to Action:

If you have time make an inventory of ancestral stories, and reflect on your part in their story or their part in yours.

I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Blessing,

Natasha (your desert dwelling sister).