I was recently bullied online by someone I considered a friend because I hadn’t shared my views about the war in Israel/Palestine on a social media platform. I and others have a moral obligation to speak out online she posited, presumably voicing an opinion she shares, but I think her anger was just that I hadn’t spoken out at all. It hurt me really deeply that this person that I respect and admire would choose to manipulate me this way into doing something that I clearly wasn’t going to do. Additionally, it felt not at all relational: if she wanted to know what I thought, why didn’t she ask me? If she wanted me to understand how my reticence to share impacted her, why didn’t she share that with me? Anyone who knows me well knows that trying to manipulate me into doing something will only antagonize me, and thrust us both into conflict, and I might not like conflict, but baby, I ain’t afraid of it. Finally, it dawned on me that this person is also a woman of color, which made me really angry: for a Black woman to be publicly angry is a risk to her life in our world, and this person’s behavior seemed to ignore that completely.
Generally, when I get this hurt and upset, I have one move: emotional cutoff. I flip a double bird and bounce. (Well, let’s be honest, I rail and shout at the person and judge them, and then I flip a double bird and bounce.) One of my life lessons is to befriend the question of why: so for the rest of the day, this painful interaction worked in the back of my mind and in the space between my shoulders. Why did this bother me so much? Why had I been so hurt by this action? It’s never outside of yourself, I heard one of my teachers say to me. What is this touching in you, I heard another teacher say. Who do you want to be in this? I heard my higher self ask.
Let’s find out.
black-and-white photo of hedge labyrinth with person walking through it. photo by Maksym Kaharlytsktyi
*
The other morning, I was making my bed before work. It was dark out, my partner was away, and I was trying to move toward another day of meaningful (and taxing) work with equanimity, unwisely ignoring the fatigue and anxiety that I felt. I was listening to a recording of “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” by Audre Lorde, read by Teneshia Samuel. (As I write this, I rise from my desk, looking for my copy of Sister Outsider, so that I can run my fingers over the words, and I realize that, having just relocated to Boston from North Carolina, I have no idea where in my house that text is. The book hunt makes me smile.) Those prophetic and convicting words from Sister Audre were spoken:
“I began to recognize a source of power within myself that comes from the knowledge that while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into a perspective gave me great strength.
I was going to die, if not sooner, then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.
”
At the time, I shook my head while tugging on the sheet, as if being admonished by the ancestral auntie who was, in fact, chiding me. What was I not saying, and why? What was I saving by holding my tongue, and would it be good for me in the long run? I look at my book today, and in the margin of this essay, I wrote in blue pencil, “permission to GRIEVE.” I am sure I was thinking about the way in which Black women must hold our grief apart from our presentational and subjective experience, because grief makes us human and vulnerable, and existing in a culture in which we weren’t meant to has taught us that to grieve and to be vulnerable is not safe. Anger is, at least, a shield by which we can defend and fight back; grief just makes us penetrable, pierce-able.
And so, if I will be pierced regardless of my consent, if I will die, if not under the gears of the machine, then by the Hand that transforms all things, then what must I say before I die? Who is served by my silence? Who is harmed by it?
*
I am in the process of working toward ordination in a mainline protestant denomination in the United States. One of the questions those in process with me are asking ourselves and one another is, is jess someone who will steward the access, privilege, and microphone of the Church with integrity, safety, and justice? Will she share the gospel thoughtfully and in accordance with the head of our Church, Christ? One of the ways in which folx discern this about me is by witnessing my preaching.
Now.
My husband will tell you that I love to preach, but that’s just because he’s closest and he often gets the earful. Truly, my day-to-day doesn’t offer me much opportunity to interpret scripture with and for others the way that my pastors and mentors do when they step into the pulpit. Not only that, but I feel the weight of that space whenever I preach: it isn’t (just) that I feel I have to say something that makes folx uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable that they stop listening, and also interested enough to reflect on their own way in the world and that if they don’t like it, I don’t want to hear about it, and I will. Something happens when a person steps into that space. Suddenly, for some who are listening to them, that person becomes a vessel onto which we project all of our fears, or insecurities, or demands, or expectations, or needs related to our relationship with Divinity. Not only do I carry my own burdens into the pulpit that I have to deal with, but I receive those from others, without my consent. This is an occupational hazard, and it’s a rough one. Can I deal with it? I’m not sure—and for the record, don’t trust anyone who says yes unequivocally, they haven’t really sat with it if they’re super sure. With the help of God, yes, but this is what discernment is, right?
One of the questions I’ve been asking myself is, where exactly is my pulpit? If I were working as a pastor—assistant, lead, solo, resident, fellow, whatever—I’d know, it would be architecturally, energetically, and consistently clear. But I’m not; I’m working as a chaplain, and I’m doing so because Spirit has called me it. The Venn diagram of chaplaincy and pastorship is an intersection, but it’s not a union. For me to use the death of a loved one in my work as an opportunity for conversion to a faith tradition is religious abuse. (I happen to believe it is this when pastors do it at funerals, too, but that’s a different essay.) I do not preach at or to people in my hospital; I abide with them. I listen to them. I bear witness to them. I reflect them to themselves, and to others who may not see them as clearly. I invite them to feel, and I feel with them. My ministry has a different ask and a different shape.
Do I preach? Where do I preach?
I used to preach on social media; hm, well, if preaching is being vocal about my politics and the way they intersect my faith, then I used to preach on social media. I no longer think preaching is this simple. I haven’t preached lately, nor for a while. I’ve thrown all my energy into holding others’ trauma, into celebrating and grieving and lamenting and petitioning with others in real time, in real life, and the apps just don’t often feel like a space where that lives. I listen a lot on the apps, but I speak less, and if I’m honest, I think it’s really good for me. I also follow folks I consider faith leaders on the apps: my executive conference minister, Rev. Darrell Goodwin; Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis of Middle Church in New York; Candice Benbow; Gail Song Bantum; Jessica Chapman Lape; @TheHospitalChaplain; @DivergentChaplain, and many others who model for me what it is to engage social media (read the wild west) as a spiritual leader. Some of them preach with memes, some of them preach with videos or threads, and some of them preach with photos of themselves, in joy, in movement, in humanity. Their models cause me to wonder, am I doing this correctly? Do I need a “professional” account in places, and a place where I just wanna post selfies of me in my Black queer joy, or me with my Honey, or what I’m witnessing, or me face-deep in vegan food somewhere else? Is this a boundary worth holding, even? I tend to like erasing these lines, to like being my full self in one place, and it’s generally better for my mental health. To have an account that is “appropriate” touches a bunch of injury seeded in my family of origin that I am working to heal.
But until this person antagonized me for not saying what she wanted me to say, I never even wondered if anyone was listening to me on social media. No one else has asked me to speak on anything, not like they have asked Jamyle Cannon or Sunn M’cheaux. Our culture is such that if you step away from the mic for even a minute, your loyals will forget the sound of your voice, and so I have not been amplifying my voice because it’s already so facking loud out here, and no one is listening for me.
I was heated, literally, by this interaction I had online—I felt bullied, manipulated, and hurt that someone I thought was my friend sacrificed our friendship in favor of vitriol, antagonism, and frankly, cruelty. Fortunately for me, I have no chill, so I said to my colleagues, I need help, and I told them what had happened and how I was feeling. One of them wisely asked me, what’s this relationship like, maybe this person sees you as a spiritual leader. I couldn’t believe it. We don’t share a faith tradition; we haven’t been in conversation for years; we don’t worship or ritual together. It’s inconceivable that she actually cares what I think.
My higher self asked, but what if she does think of you as a spiritual leader, despite all that other stuff? I mean sure, in your embedded theology, a spiritual leader was a straight dude, Black or white, head of the family, and he told you what to do and you did it? You weren’t even present as a spiritual leader. Are you still erasing yourself?
Nah, that’s just ego, I said to myself. It doesn’t look like that out here.
Yeah, but they told you when you went to HDS, that after they came out, that reality was going to land for others heavy on the table. Maybe that MDiv is a microphone that is in front of you and others are waiting for you to speak into it. You made an impression while you were there, you made an impression in residency. You are out here hustling for reproductive spiritual needs. You aren’t invisible.
Ugh, but this isn’t the place. Nothing about this is real, it’s all curated and performative. If I really thought a well-timed post or story or TikTok was going to sway foreign policy, I’d do it. It’s just cacophony out here, full of sound and fury. I’m not Barak Obama for fuck’s sake, no one is waiting for me to sound off.
You’re right. You aren’t. And your silence will not protect you. Someone may not be asking you to speak, but they notice that you’re silent. You are going to die. So how do you want to live?
*
illustration of hand reaching down to take two hands in waves. illustration by Sue Carroll
I remember being angry for most of my thirties. I was unafraid of my anger; I understood it, and it felt like a resource, like a weapon, like a tool of clarity and meaning making. Man, did it cost me a lot to be so angry. I remember sitting at my dining table with a dear and wise friend, railing about how freely and indiscriminately Black folx were being killed, and how angry I was with the yogis in my life (still at sea in the white supremacy that undergirds the wellness industrial complex) who were either ignorant of the fact and who were advising me to spiritually bypass. Why weren’t they more angry? Why weren’t they doing or saying anything?
“It’s okay to be angry with people for not being angry enough,” she said to me. “I’ve felt that way. And if you are angry with others for not being angry, you’re going to be angry all the time.”
It stunned me. It was a lesson that keeps on giving. What a waste of my prana. My anger could continue to clarify my work, could invite me to speak on what mattered to me, but to rage at others for their way of moving through the world was just going to burn me alive. It was immolation that would not resurrect anyone’s daughter, would not bring her back from whatever field or alley or cell she’d been left in. My self-righteous anger would not make abortion access easier for a teen who lived in the bible belt, nor would it ease the aching heart of a mother who’d miscarried three times. It wouldn’t help the trans person discern their relationship to their changing body and how it related to their vision of parenthood. It wouldn’t transform the history of the American police force, it wouldn’t rewrite state and local policy. It wouldn’t even teach breathing techniques to police officers, which is something I could actually do.
I think about this person who attempted to manipulate me into action, and I remember a younger version of myself, who also needed other people to be publicly as angry as I am, to draw a line in the sand and say no, not anymore.
If this person is anything like I was, underneath the layers and layers, and layers, of rage, are bone-deep fatigue and grief. And fear. That version of myself is tired of living in a world that does not love me, does not see me, and will not keep me safe. That version of me wants to live, she wants to feel sunlight on her face and worship in joy and laugh with her loved ones. She wants to believe there is enough for all of us, and nothing about life has confirmed that. She is almost struck dumb with how difficult it is to live. She wants to live. She wants to feel safe, to know who she can trust, to know who will hold her during this existentially terrifying moment that we blithely call life. Who can she look to, will they recognize the grief and fear in her eyes? Who will protect her? It is intolerable to feel this frightened and angry and sad.
It is intolerable. It is part of the human experience, and it is intolerable. So when I felt feelings that were so big that I couldn’t hold them by myself, I absolutely slung them on other people and called it justice. The feelings were too big, I couldn’t hold them on my own, and so I slopped them onto others like mud and I made them deal with it. I discharged onto others. Did it make me feel better? Maybe for five minutes. But it didn’t change anything about the reality I was living in that is so painful, and it torched my relationships, which is not what I wanted.
We do this all the time. We make other people responsible for our feelings every time we yell at our kids or our spouse, the barista who messed up the order, the person on the other end of the phone who doesn’t understand us, whoever isn’t meeting our expectations. We do it every time any one of us picks up a weapon, whether we have a flag on our arm, a cause in our heart, or a manifesto on our computer. We do this because we don’t know how to feel our feelings, because our nervous systems are overloaded, because this is not how we were meant to live, and our bodies know it, and we can’t handle it.
I try so hard to love that version of myself. I see her reflected in every soldier, every civilian, every lone gunman, every disappeared girl. I try to love radically, and loving radically upsets our paradigms. It defies duality, it rejects the notion of arrows and straight lines. I pull that version of myself into my lap, and I encircle her in my arms, and I breathe with her until our bellies are soft. I smooth her hair and we cry together, and then I whisper, I am here. This world is a prison, and this life is a penance, and the only remedy I have to offer you is that I am here and that I love you. I see you and I love you and nothing about this is fair or okay. Here we are, we have our breath, and we have ourselves, and we have each other, and we have a love that is more powerful than each of us. That can make something healed. That can make something new.