Keeping On in "The Work My Soul Must Have"--Because Hate is Gonna Hate
Read Pt I | On Writing Love|Balms as “The Work My Soul Must Have”
Need a shorter Love|Balms Journey?
1) Jump to the Journey Flow Forwards at the end.
2) Check out the annotated Journey Playlist narrating the piece in mediums aside from text.
Here’s the second thing that I’m allowing to block me from the work my soul must have, what I won’t be able to say I’ve genuinely lived my life without seeking, pursuing, fulfilling:
It’s one thing to know and embrace for my Self how I am uniquely gifted. I am incredibly gifted, and I love being unique. I’m a calling and vocation coach—I believe and know that this is true of every. single. one of us.
It’s something else entirely to be aware that it’s my time and my turn to step out and live it in a world that neither genuinely appreciates nor supports uniqueness and giftedness that it can’t harness or control.
This is why we crucified Big JC. (See rundown from Pt. 1)
Fannie Lou Baemer suffered multiple severe beatings over her life, and died from heart disease and cancer for insisting…that white folks (who would overwhelmingly have identified as Christian at the time) acknowledge and respect her and fellow black persons as fellow human beings and children of God.
She famously said she was “Sick and tired, of being sick and tired.” Being sick and tired of the social conditions and discord created by white supremacism and systemic poverty is what killed her. Systemic racism and poverty are health lynchings which create what we today refer to as “health disparities,” and have claimed the lives of so many freedom fighters and everyday folks who we otherwise claim died of natural causes (see: Rep. Elijah Cummings).
We took MLK’s head clear off his shoulders because we thought it was sweet and precious that he had a dream, but we didn’t want to hear that that dream meant that white supremacism and economic greed must die in order for us to “get to that mountaintop.” And now we prop him up and assassinate his legacy each year in “celebration” of his birthday by whitewashing his legacy to, “Hush, hold hands, and pretend it doesn’t hurt.” We hear strong echoes of this assassination still today in our drive in the US to “reopen the economy” in the midst of a viral pandemic, by which we explicitly claim “some people ‘must’ die” so that money can keep moving as backwards and contradictory form of voluntold solidarity.
Two of these people punished for so committedly living and advocating for their whole and holy Selves were clergy. (Though I certainly have FLB on my pastor list.) One of them is literally Jesus Christ.
I don’t know that I’m going to an MLK, Jr. or an FLB. I also don’t know that I’m not. What I do know is that I want to life my life fully and deeply.
Look at my Fannie Lou…being her amazing… photo by Methodist Church Global Ministries Kenneth Thompson
And I also know this: Living and advocating for our whole Selves in any capacity, living “the work our souls must have”—this is when we are most dangerous to the world as it currently exists. In a world committed to misalignment with wholeness and the holy, our Selves are what we are most forbidden to be. Because our living genuinely awakens and leads one another to desiring the same. Because living genuinely disintegrates the false paradigms and dynamics of this world as we see more and more: We are far more and far greater than what we are “allowed” to be. Each and all of us.
We are created to live beyond and above the various supremacisms around which we as human beings have unfortunately chosen to shape and sustain so many of our societies, this constant challenge to “be better than others,” rather than simply our whole and realized Selves. If we are each and all unique—and we are—then we are each called to fulfill our lives uniquely. We’re never competing against one another. We’re living to become the next, fuller, deeper version of our Selves. In fact, it's with and from one another that we learn and grow.
Kobe doing like only Kobe could.
For example, folks can argue all day whether Kobe was better than Jordan, but Kobe told us himself: There’s no Kobe without Jordan. And Jordan told us there’s no Jordan without David Thompson. And each of them, while their inspiration’s influences may be visible, crafted their own unique style, flair, and legacy.
Jordan flying like an eagle.
Whether we are inspired to outdo or to just to get in the game in the first place, each generation of unique giftedness builds off of and so emerges from the generations before. And because of those immediately around us. Whatever our innate gifts, we manifest “the work our souls must have” as we do because of our influences and inspirations from one another—never from ourselves alone, yet also never a duplicate of someone else.
David Thompson living his fly and funky fresh.
And I try to hold this truth, that the greatest Me is influenced by—yet doesn’t manifest like—anyone or anything already in existence. I hold it when folks think my writing is weird because I in fact think in music, and my literary teachers are MorrisonTanReichl, with a dash of King James because I grew up Pentecostal—the first thing I learned to read was the Book of Jonah. I hold this when I hear the voice telling me to stop writing or asking questions of my own and our everyday living, demanding to know:
Who do I think I am having and sharing awkward ass experiences and conversations, stumbling my way towards one another when things get confusing and rocky, when we’re just supposed to be disgruntled with one another over even the most innocuous things, and go on without caring enough with one another to seek resolution?
Why am I dumb enough to care about genuine peace, justness, and belovedness in a world where we are only supposed to live spiritually bypassing versions (Thoughts and prayers! When we don’t ever think about what’s happening, let alone bother to actually pray…), or give up and decide that concepts like peace, justness, and belovedness are trash?
Why am I stupid enough to waste my life and try and do it for real? To give my whole life to this?
How can you be an elder when you’re too young? How can you claim that you’re a mystic, but want people to believe you’re a real Christian?
What institution gave you a degree that certifies you to figure out how to be whole and genuine? Or permission to do any of this at all in the first place?
photo by Godisable Jacobs
And the answer is simply because: This is who I am. Peace, justness, and belovedness are who I am. I must find them, because I must find me. And because it’s who I am, I must begin in me. And if the journey of my life is to find my way home with and to them, then I’m a’walkin. Crawling. Sometimes sitting, crying. (I walk into things while I’m crying, so I sit.) But mostly walking. Definitely some cussing. While walking. And plenty of learning. Cringing at myself. And laughing (at myself for being awkward). LOTS of walking.
I am so thankful that I had within me a page (or rather a snippet) from Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love that gave me the gift to take those resounding questions, because sis Marianne flips them around and tosses back:
‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
Or, as Cousin Jill just said on this Verzuz with Cousin Erykah:
It's a lot of great writers that are watching us tonight that are holding on to a lot of amazing work, thoughtful work, work that will change lives. Because they don't know how people will accept it or receive it. And it doesn't matter. You have to get it out. You're just holding onto to something that--at this point, it doesn't even belong to you anymore. Once it's on paper, once you put it down, you have to release it to the world. It's your life...It's mandatory.
When I feel challenged by the reality that I have always lived in “dual” spaces, and hear already and always the echoes of voices wanting to convince me to discount my Self when I don’t measure the way they think I should, I remember this: Who am I not to be great? Which means, who I am to to hold onto what God gifted me and asked that I share beyond my Self? Who are any of us in this regard?
However our gifts manifest, however unfinished, incomplete, or still in need of editing or tweaking we may feel they are—because we’re stuck in someone else’s projection of perfection rather than willing to celebrate that we simply are—they are not ours to hold back or squander, but to shine and share with one another as mutual inspiration. But Holy Spirit has me on Drink Your Water and Mind Your Business right now, so Imma stay on me.
I already know that there are folks who will think this is/I am “too black”; folks who will think it is/I am not black enough. It’s too much; it’s doesn’t go far enough and is kind of blah. It’s too highbrow; it could be more scholarly. I have spent my life having folks voice at me how they think I and what I create should present to please and satisfy them—rarely if ever solicited. And I have done this to one another at varying moments.
To all of this, I just have to shrug: Love|Balms is simply me. Because I am and am continually becoming more simply me. Becoming and being my God-created and God-gifted Self is the greatest work my soul must have. I am created of God, so I already have everything in me that I’m here to be. I need only unearth it, own it, and live it.
___________
I have this whole reflection and dive down, and God Themself finally speaks:
“Sis, I created you—here you are. A whole gift in your Self. By My work, you are gloriously: black, woman, asexual, left-handed [these last two were huge social “problems” not that long ago, one still is], an empath, and incredibly brilliant and gifted in, through, and alongside each of those identities.”
And after I closed my mouth, and stopped looking around talmbout, “ME?!,” I received that God’s point is this:
At this point in my journey, I personally have the resilience and strength to live forward, and stop looking frantically around and backward over my shoulder to see who’s coming for me, or trying to tear me down.
And. JC, FLB, and MLK, Jr. had plenty of folks telling them “No,” “Not Yet,” “Never,” “You’re not allowed,” “You can’t,” “You never will,” “We won’t let you.” Each of them on literal pain of death. Not because they were committed to death, but because they were committed to the work that their souls must have, even in the face of death. It is that serious, and it is that real. Once the work our souls must have has found us, once we have received it, we can’t live anything but this.
So, where it is true that folks may be seeking to doubt and even undercut me in my life, it is not my business that someone else doesn’t like my whole Self, feels uncomfortable around aspects of my Self, or wants me to change my Self to suit them. Worrying about people not receiving the whole of me is not where my vision lies, and in fact takes my eyes and living from my vision and focus.
Not me, but someone who kind of looks like me, doing as I’m committed to: Minding my business, and living my greatness. photo by Retha Ferguson
Love|Balms specifically is a space that people literally have to click to find. And if they click on it, don’t like what they find here, and want to tear me down or demean me for it, that is very much a self-created problem on their end. I have to work to focus on and to live.
This absolutely doesn’t mean that folks don’t and won’t attempt to make their self-created problems mine. We live in an age where we confuse having the ability to have an opinion with that opinion being inherently meaningful and valid.
And again—I have been guilty of this myself, and likely will be again. I understand. And we also need to cut this ish out. Because we keep living example after example where some of our belief that we have the right to police one another’s existence scales up to costing physical lives, on top of the damage that it does to everyday existing, thriving, and relationship.
In the event that one another may forget Whose we all are and try to force their issues to become mine, I will do my best to respond in the name and Spirit of Jesus…as much as I am capable. I give you permission (and ask for accountability) to please do the same with me.
My Flow Forwards
Hard truth: Human society attempts to deter us from being our genuine Selves, and even kills us for it. And—whether or not someone attempts to kill me bodily, socially, or psychologically for the life and passion of love, healing, and justness that I’m here to lead, I’m already living a dead existence if I don’t live and share the whole of my genuine Self—what emerges from my soul—with one another.
I am never competing against other people. I am here to be me, and they are here to be them. Genuine articles may resemble others, and are also distinctly and powerfully them Selves. My greatest “competition” is my current and former selves, and how I envision my Self flowering and burgeoning from them. I look to one another for inspiration, for co-creation, and to discover greater innovation for me doing me—and to encourage and provide the same for them. Jealousy and fear of “losing” to one another are both manifestations of lost sense of my own Self.
There were many times in my life where I was struggling under the strain of abuse and oppression, trying to breathe and maintain meaningful consciousness. And, at this point in my life, I have been so breathed into with love and support that I have developed enough healing and resilience to live forward. To learn to breathe on my own, and to breath into and with one another. Period. My biggest obstacle now is me—moving so slowly, still looking back in fear, worrying about if/when I’ll be gasping for air again. I have to remember and practice that I now know how, and so can focus forward in hope.
Read Pt. 3 | Because Self-Righteousness is NOT Cute