January 11, 2024 • 70 mins
Have you ever considered the metamorphosis of one’s spirit akin to navigating the vastness of the ocean? This episode welcomes the deeply insightful reflections of Barney and Jazzy, as they chart their academic and spiritual voyages through the realms of religion, ethics, and ministry. Their stories of personal growth, akin to learning to swim in the deep waters of life, offer a poignant understanding of community and the profound impact of fellowship.
Within the tapestry of this conversation, we unravel the intricate relationship between power, magic, and the journey to self-validation. The episode is a sanctuary for the exploration of inner strength, particularly in seasons where external recognitions fail to anchor us. You’ll witness the emergence of a powerful narrative that hinges on the belief that language holds magic, and that our own light is conjured not from the validation of others, but from the depths of our personal convictions and worth.
As we wade through the concept of apocalypse, our dialogue shifts to a terrain that examines destruction and rebirth, informed by eco-apocalypse studies and the wisdom of black feminist literature. Barney and Jazzy join me in dissecting the potential that lies in what many fear as the abyss, suggesting that amidst the foreboding shadows of endings, there are seeds of transformation eager to sprout. This episode is an invitation to reimagine the way we view our world, our legacies, and the creative power we hold—urging us to craft a future that respects the intricate dance of life and its complexities.
Life After Leaven is sponsored by Sub:Culture Incorporated, a 501c3 committed to eradicating cultural, social, spiritual, financial, and academic barriers for Black College Students. If you are interested in giving a tax deductible donation toward our work with black college students, you can do that here. Thank you for helping us ensure temporary roadblocks don't become permanent dead ends for students with marginalized identities. You can follow us on Instagram: @subc_incorporated, Facebook: facebook.com/subcultureinco, and Twitter: @subcultureinco1.
Our episodes are written and produced by Tamice Namae Speaks LLC.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up everyone.
Welcome to another episode oflife after 11, and we're in the
birthday season, which meansthat the center of gravity this
season, thematically, is mePeople.
I love people who have had asignificant impact in my life,
people who have taught me andchanged me, and so, of course, I
had to have my previousco-hosts from stoop communion,
(00:21):
barney and Jazzy, on, becauseI've known them for a while now
and every conversation I havewith them is extremely Edifying.
It's life-giving.
There's so many levels anddepth to our conversation that I
wanted you to meet people whomatter a lot to me.
So Today, barney and Jazzy aregonna read pieces that they
(00:43):
created and then we're gonnajump into it like we used to,
and I know that you will beenriched, just like I'm enriched
every time we talk.
So welcome friends.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yes, I'm having us yeah so glad you're here.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I want to know, I want you all to tell us, before
we jump into the piecesthemselves kind of what you do,
what space you're occupyingright now, like in the world of
faith and life and justice.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, it's good to be with you.
It's me and I let's see whatspaces am I occupying.
Okay, so I am a second-year PhDstudent.
I'm a PhD student in religion,which is, I think, an important
distinction.
I am trained as a theologianbecause I have a master of
(01:28):
divinity and now I'm alsostudying religion and kind of
like some of the maybe evenbigger patterns around religion
and religious practiceespecially, and but I still very
much identify as a practicaltheologian, being trained in
religion and a minister and andI think that is like, yeah,
(01:48):
where I'm located, I still findmyself as like kind of a
minister in the in and I like tosay in the wilderness, and also
of the wilderness in the senseof like.
I think the wildernessmetaphorically shapes a lot of
how I see and understand ourspiritual practice and how I'm
like trying to be in the world,and I think it also just like
(02:11):
practically speaks to my ownplace right now of I am not
Attached to you a churchdenomination, but I'm still very
much a minister and pastor.
I am studying and learning fromthe wilderness places that I
feel that we actually are as apeople, a greater people in
general, which I, you know,maybe we get to.
(02:33):
But yeah, I'll say that that is, that is, that is me as far as
my kind of orientation in theworld which there is a religious
historian who talks aboutreligion actually being about
and our orientation in the worldultimately in the ultimate
sense.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So Love it.
Oh my god, I'm so excited,barney.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Thanks for having me back to me.
I am am also working on my PhDin theology and ethics and I,
and you know, loving my peopleat our church that Jazzy and I
(03:15):
go to, with a theologian inresidence there and Living here
in Pasadena, california.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I'm very excited.
So what we're gonna do is we'regonna have you all read your
pieces and then, and then we'lljust chat like we used to.
Barney, won't you go first?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
All right.
My life.
Growing up, I was taughtinadvertently to float up, to
swim upward, not to drown,though my body was heavy, tied
with tombstones, rock in mystomach, rocks in my stomach.
(03:59):
I needed to hide fear in mythroat.
I Was taught to strain, to cutoff parts of Myself so I could
get lighter, to ascend tolighter, clearer, whiter waters,
to not drown.
But parts of myself could notbe cut out, dark parts Too deep
(04:22):
to integral.
I Couldn't get the heavy rocksout and I always wondered but is
this terror worth it?
Am I supposed to swim up?
But I was always told by thosehigher than me that, as long as
I kept swimming upward, that Iwould be eventually saved, not
(04:42):
drown.
And so I swam hard, adrenalinepumping strong, but also saw
other bodies behind and besideme sinking and People bidding me
to pay them no heed.
But pity that I had to savemyself.
But in 2014, the spirit trembled.
(05:05):
The whole ocean got shaken upand I got turned around.
I Lost my way which way was up,which way was down, and I found
others with heavier weights,their cries bubbling up from
below and the rocks in mystomach cried back.
(05:26):
It's like the Sun haddisappeared, shrouded by the
cloud by day.
But people were so sure ofwhich way was what.
This way was up.
They said keep going.
But my rocks pulled me down Tothe company of the weighty ones,
the ones who joined arms andswam together.
(05:47):
The weighty ones who raged andthe ones that loved them held
back their punches with theirown bodies.
The weighty ones who wept andthe ones close enough to be
penetrated by their muffledcries, wiping and crying with
them.
The weighty ones who werecatatonic and the ones who
carried them to.
(06:08):
They were all bound by theheaviest weight of all love.
And Along the way I gotconfused, I felt lost.
I was angry about those who hadshouted To me in the name of
the Sun.
Bile finally leaked out of me,while weighty ones taught me
(06:31):
that to hold it in would trulykill me.
But the exchange, the cost ofthat exorcism was Estrangement
and betrayal from all that hadgrounded and directed my upward
life before, and so I sank.
But the heavy ones didn'tabandon me, though they didn't
(06:52):
always agree with me, for theyremembered their anger and those
who had absorbed their blows.
They remembered their ownweeping and those who had sat
with them, and they rememberedthose who had held and carried
them gently in love.
And now, 2023, 63 days later.
(07:12):
Now, we are together on thebottom of the ocean, the depths
of the abyss, amidst thewreckage of the nations and all
those imperfect limbs discarded,all the used-up Products,
precious gems of the earth thatwe named trash, and down here I
Can finally find my footing Withthe many, many more who are
(07:34):
hurting, crying, broken, healing, who have been drowned by the
weight and waters of love, yetfind ourselves walking on the
ground of many worlds, breathingspirit, blind eyes, learning to
see and weep and be born again.
Maybe we drowned like those ofNoah's time, but at least we,
(07:59):
swaddled and swallowed by theweighty waters of love, will
perhaps be or avoid or watchBaldwin's fire next time and
receive the many angry,terrified, immolated bodies who
try to fly up and away but findthemselves in the end, by grace,
weary, unable to escape theirown weight, drawing them down to
(08:23):
the depths of love.
Judged, received, like me, forto be drowned in this abyss,
then not as I was taught, is torest and and be free.
Oh.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Take a little minute oh.
Oh thank you for offering thatand for sharing that and Jazzy,
whenever you're ready.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Thank you, barney.
As a little bit of contextbefore I begin, barney's piece
was in mind as I wrote mine andas constant kind of like, just
like friends, as likeco-strugglers, as Ken I do.
(09:36):
You think I appreciate youNaming 2014 as a crucible moment
, because I think it was truefor all of us and the piece that
I have written is rooted in aparticular another crucible
moment that we all findourselves in.
As a little bit of context, asI also am offering some
(10:00):
reflections From and about theabyss, particularly coming out
of a Season of what Christianscall Advent, which is often
focused on light and of Jesus ascoming light.
But I've been wrestling withthat a lot in our understandings
of light.
So there's context for thispiece, and Now I will.
(10:30):
To our dear siblings ofPalestine, of Diarkongo, of
Sudan, other places where Kensuffer under blankets of white
phosphorus vapor and the thumbsof Western Imperial greed, and
to those whose cries we have yetto hear.
I Hate that your cries, yourthreatened lives, your
(10:57):
involuntary martyrdom arebringing me back to where I
belong.
You did not choose to forge thepathways to our salvation, nor
did you volunteer to becomeancestors as children, clouds of
witnesses, as adolescents.
There is no redemption in yourcrucifixion and I beg you to
never forgive them.
And I beg you to never forgiveus, dear ones.
(11:23):
You have already given us toomuch.
You have called us back to thedarkness to dwell with you, to
recover what you know, and manyof us have been made, remade to
forget.
In an advent season of light,even on the eve of Christmas, I
(11:45):
have found I no longer trust myability to discern what light is
.
Hmm, is it that thing thathovers over us or near us as we
keep spinning, that shines uponsome of us but others cannot
feel its warmth through cloudsof smoke and dust and thick
enemy smog?
Is it the one who appears asthe day grows old and cold, as
(12:09):
we return to the safety of ourhomes at night, with roofs and
walls intact, as we took ourchildren into their beds, and
not mass graves?
The one in the sky that comesto us in phases, which reminds
us how many cycles have passedand still we have not traded
bombs for bundles of food,medicine and drinkable water.
Which reminds us how manymonths have passed since you
(12:34):
held your loved ones.
They were taken from you.
Since you were taken from you,what is light, when you barely
sleep and your eyes cannot restfrom the terror of each waking
moment, when there is nocontrast between the things that
go bump in the night and thethings that hunt you by day,
(12:58):
there are no monsters to beimagined.
Everything that could haunt youaccompanies you with no breaks
and no rest.
But these are not symptoms ofdarkness itself.
Boogie men are not themachinations of darkness herself
.
They are the creations of thosewho call themselves people of
(13:20):
light.
There are ways of life lit bycell phones, laptops and
television screens made frommaterials in humanely extracted
In the Congo by you, our dearenslaved siblings.
It is the places and the peoplewho have audaciously crowned
themselves ourselves as a cityupon a hill, as lighthouses of
(13:42):
democracies, as Beacons of lightand morality, as the free world
, who have plundered anddesecrated the darkness, giving
her a bad name, decreating herinto the anti of light, into the
evil in opposition of good.
I Think perhaps it is possiblethat most light I know, most
(14:06):
light we know, has been created,maintained and preserved by
your blood, your labor, yourloss, dear ones.
These lights burn with stolenoil, they are powered by our
plunder, but your grief, yourlove, your rage is rising from
(14:28):
the abyss, dimming that whichhas lit the world for so long.
Lately, my loudest ancestorshave been those who found a new
home in the deepest waters ofthe Atlantic, teeming with life,
after colonial conquestforcibly removed them from their
lands.
Their voices speak in concordwith you, dear ones, as they
(14:50):
beckon me back to the darkness,to remember that which you, as
dwellers in darkness, alreadyknow that it is not the darkness
that betrays you, that we'veforgotten darkness is the womb
of all creation.
So we must remember how tolabor in the darkness, as you
(15:14):
all, birthing mothers in Congo,in Gaza, in Sudan, have
continued delivering life intoconditions of almost certain
death, where blood continues toflow and clean water does not.
We must remember how to pray inthe dark with you, for you and
for us.
We must remember how to love inthe dark with you, from you, we
(15:37):
must remember how to fight, howto swim, how to march, how to
heal and mend, how to play inthe dark.
We must remember how to live inthe dark rather than accepting
false light, trusting that thelight we seek, the light who
conspired with the deepestdarkness to form and birth
creation, will make themselvesknown, for it is the people
(15:59):
walking in darkness who haveseen a great light.
On those living in the land ofdeep, teeming darkness, a light
has dawned.
It is this light that does notexist in opposition to darkness,
but was also formed in thedarkness of Mary's womb.
It is this light, emmanuel, thatis not bright or boastful, not
(16:22):
dominating or domineering, thatI believe is with you under the
rubble, as Reverend Dr MuntherIsaac has declared over and over
again this season.
But why doesn't this light showup through the changed hearts of
Western government officialsand the downfall of genocidal
(16:44):
bank rollers?
What kind of light leaves theland in peril while filling the
people underground with theaudacity to rise and keep
surviving in body by miraclesand spirit everlasting?
This is something I do not know, dear ones, but perhaps you do.
(17:04):
It is something the ancestorswhisper about, something the
deepest, darkest waters discussbeneath us, something we know in
our womb spaces, but perhapsnot our conscious minds,
something Mary did know abouther baby boy and savior,
something that the deep, thedarkness knows, something that
(17:25):
is activated in the darknessevery time the light approaches
her to conceive new worlds.
Perhaps this next world will beone where you might live and
not be sacrificed With the lovethat my people knew and know in
the abyss, I sign this blacklove letter with an amen and
(17:49):
haché.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Thank you for offering that and for sharing it
, and it's hard to move soquickly on, but I was trying to
keep track of all of the thingsthat were bubbling in my mind
while both of you were sharing,and a couple of things came up
in terms of even things thatI've been thinking about.
(18:25):
So I'd love to have aconversation about.
I've been thinking a lot aboutconjure and I recently a little
bit of context for that.
The ministry that I was a partof before I came to the place
where we work together is nowembroiled in all kinds of
(18:46):
whatever and did a lot of thework in religious trauma and
understanding cults.
But I realized that the powerof a lot of these smaller cults
and then these largerideological cults a lot of it
has come from identity and powerthat is conferred rather than
(19:12):
conjured, and I've been thinkingabout that in the context of
light as well and hope andresurrection, and thinking about
all of these things just indifferent ways.
So I would love to play withthat idea here of what does it
mean to conjure light fromdarkness?
(19:35):
Can y'all hear me okay?
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
You froze a little bit, but I know it's so funny.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
My whole computer froze and I'm like man.
Is it because we're talkingabout Palestine?
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Okay, there you are, but we did hear your question.
Okay, good, okay, they don't beplaying with that stuff Right,
how interesting it is that youare talking about conjured,
because Barney and I have bothbeen spending a lot of time
thinking about magic and writingabout magic.
I just wrote a whole paperabout magic and, yeah, I do
(20:20):
think a lot.
This is just an initial thoughtand then I'm curious how Barney
will answer your question.
It's interesting juxtapositionbetween conferred versus
conjured and I'm curious to hearmore about your thinking on
that, because so much of what Ido think is constantly happening
(20:42):
in these apocalyptic moments isthe revealing.
It's like the apocalyptic is toreveal, and what I've been
experiencing is the revealing ofhow power works, and even the
(21:05):
shaking or unsettling for me hasbeen around the ways that were
taught that power looks like thepositions that have been like
conferred, but actually thenthat that teaches us to look
away from actually the manysources of power that we
(21:25):
actually do have as the peoplewho are not in those conferred
positions or even if we end upin them, where we're tapping it,
what we're tapping into, and soI've been thinking a lot about
sources of magic.
Barney and I've been talkingabout this in a lot of different
ways and, I think, in the waysthat I wrote about it recently.
(21:46):
I'm thinking about it from likethe kind of like imaginational
sources of magic, like the youknow, barney, as a like, as a
thinker in that with me, wastalking about like linguistic
and like kind of lingual power,like the power of language that
we tap into sources of magic.
I think the, the I could listoff all the things I said, but
(22:08):
like, obviously, like the lineis one part of the power and
there's all these other forms ofpower that we can like tap into
as sources of magic for thelike shifting of consciousness
and conditions, right.
So that's my like initialthought.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, to me.
That was really intrigued byand wanted to hear more.
If you would share with usabout that distinction about
conferring versus conjuring.
Can you tell us more about that?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, so I mean, obviously I was thinking about
it in the context of how do wecontinue to be, or what was the
root cause that I foundpersonally in finding myself
myself in toxic, abusivesituations, toxic, abusive work
environments, toxic, abusive,abusive theologies, and all of
(23:08):
it had to do with I felt Ireally bought into a sort of
intrinsic unworthiness thatsomething outside of me needed
to validate.
But not just validate Validateactually feels like a very
shallow word.
It was, it was.
It was more profound than that,I hate to say, but it was
(23:32):
meeting someone else, somethingelse, even a god I have to climb
the mountain for, instead ofrecognizing within and sort of
pulling out of myself.
It made me susceptible todelusion, to believing lies, and
I think most of the what I'mfinding in my life is that the
(23:55):
lies that were the mostdetrimental were the lies I
believed about myself, becauseof the lies I believed about the
divine right, and so I've justbeen finding that in this, at
this stage right, I'm turning 40, right I just feel like there's
a lot that has shifted from mein terms of the way I even think
theologically, religiously, anda lot of it has to do with that
(24:18):
.
I am not on the chopping blockof any god from here on out and
or any idea from here on out.
I've learned to trust myself andI think part of it is some of
that.
I keep finding myselfsurrounded by darkness or in
these deep, weighty, hard, darkplaces, and I have to save
(24:43):
myself.
Right like I, I have had tosave myself.
I have had to pick up my stuffand leave, or say no to the job
or, you know, say I know that Iwill lose something because of
taking a stand on my genderidentity, my sexual orientation,
my feelings about Palestine, myfeelings about whiteness.
(25:04):
So I've been finding that thesavior was not external in that
sense or in the ways that I wastaught.
The savior was external, right,it was me having to say I am
worth more than this and I bringthings to the table that no one
else brings, and there'sabsolutely nothing wrong with me
, even though I'm limited andmay eff up sometimes, you know,
(25:28):
and and kind of.
That is a kind of a concoctionof whatever my way of being in
the world.
It's coming from thisconversation about.
I have had to conjure so muchin myself and I've never felt
more comfortable in my skin.
I've never felt more awarethough of of darkness, and
delusion has never felt so sharpand hurtful to me.
(25:50):
Um, and I think part of it isbecause I'm learning to kind of
find myself in at the bottom ofthe sea, like you've been saying
, like I've had to learn toproduce the light to put to for
the power of the resurrection tobe conjured, like I will live
and not die in this place and Ipull myself out you know, in a
(26:12):
weird way.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I don't have the language, but um that's kind of
what's making me think about ityeah, when you say what I'm
hearing you say and tell me,come back and like, be like.
Oh yeah, that's help, sir.
But I hear you talking aboutthe difference between
conferring versus conjuring, assomething that comes out of you
conjures, like from the insideof you, versus bird which is
(26:34):
like, oh, some external sourcehas to confer on me power or
right to be right yeah is thatwhat it is?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
yeah, and I think it gives that person.
Whoever has that power, can doa lot of damage.
I think, um, and I think I'mseeing that in several different
arenas in life and religion,justice, all of it, um.
So anyway, that's where I'm atright now.
I'm like, what if we conjure um, but that's, you know, I
(27:07):
haven't thought for years andyears and years on it, yet it's
just new for me as I'mreflecting on life yeah what are
your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
I love that.
I mean, I'm just so grateful tofor you sharing that.
I do feel in a very similarplace myself in um, the journey
of what I've been writing aboutand thinking about is it is a
re-existing, like a coming tolife or being reborn, and it is
(27:44):
not a shift of thinking orbelieving.
It is an entire like how wemove through the entire world,
see the entire world and belongin the world, to have a right to
exist in the world and not needthat to be conferred upon us by
(28:05):
whatever power there might beout there above us.
Yeah, so I feel that reallydeeply and resonate with that,
with you hmm, I'm thinking aboutthat too, jazzy.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
When you're talking about apocalypse, what do you
all see is like kind of the yousee um conversation between
apocalypse and revolution.
Like I feel like, how are thosethings in conversation for you?
Because apocalypse always feelsvery like dystopian and you
know, I'm seeing fire and flamesand smoke and clouds and
(28:37):
billows, right, but revolutionfeels more grassroots and human.
What are your, what are yourthoughts on the ways that those
things play into each other orinform each other?
Speaker 2 (28:47):
that's interesting no , that's interesting, was my
thought too.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I think it's interesting because I think a
lot of my work in the last, Iwould say probably maybe six
years has been re um like and Ithink we talked about this too
community too, of like.
I do think that we always comeback to the apocalypse, but I do
think that, like I, what I'mgrateful for specifically around
(29:16):
um womenist folks and um blackscience fiction writers have
helped me with this is is is umnot making the apocalypse with
not seeing the apocalypse withthe imagery you just described.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Actually that's it it's been.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
It's been like a re understanding of apocalypse, um,
as like as that which isrevealed as as, and and though I
think why I say womenist I saywomenist specifically, and black
science fiction, um, creatorsis because I think what they do
in their work is womenist remindme that, like, specifically,
(29:57):
our peoples, black peoples, havelived through many apocalypses.
I also love the way that, likepeople like adria marie brown
and autumn brown and and kind oftheir like crew, talk about
this because they're like, yeah,like, how to survive in the
world is like, because ourpeople have survived the ends of
many worlds and our many worlds, um, and so I think I have made
(30:20):
apocalypse less, um, scary inthat way that this is always,
this is, this is actually thepatterns of how uh, existence
works.
In some ways, and even when Iread it scripturally, I've come
to understand that, like whenI'm like interacting with text
of apocalypse, they're like tell, they're like actually like
(30:42):
more than predictive apocalypse.
They're like revealing to usthe ways that, like powers work
and inevitable, like, almostlike, inevitable, like
revelation of, like, wherepowers, like, if they continue
to work in this way, will leadus right and are ready, are
already happening right um, thedeath of destruction that we're
imagining, that we externallyimagine in the ways that we
(31:05):
envision, apocalypse are alreadyhappening for a lot of folks,
right um, and and so, in thatway, when I think about the
relationship between apocalypseand revolution, I think what?
(31:25):
I wonder?
I don't know.
I think I have interestinglystopped thinking about
revolution.
Wow, okay, I think a lot aboutrevolution, um, and a lot about
changing the world, and it's amore recent thing for me to to
abandon those projects, um, notbecause, not because I do not
(31:48):
desire revolution, but butbecause I think that there are
ways that, like, my like, aimsand commitments have shifted, um
, and even things like ourfriend, you know, our friend
Leanne, said to us recently oflike, oh, I think I think
changing the world is a, like, aproject of whiteness, and I'm
(32:12):
like sitting with that a lot,because all of the things that
you all just actually what youjust described around like
conferred, um, like what isconferred, it comes from the
ways that, like whiteness, whitesupremacy, maleness, patriarchy
, like these, like variousforces that exist in the world,
have changed the world and toldus who we are, you know, like,
(32:35):
and and so I think I like havemoved away from these big
projects of like of that,because I don't know if that's
um taking us where we need to go.
I don't, I don't know.
I'm with it more to to expressit in the ways that I really
want to, but those are myinitial thoughts.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Oh, are you got thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, I think, similar to Jazzy's initial
reaction is just likeinteresting.
I think that some of even how Ihave thought about apocalypse
and is through, you know, my alot of my own formation is
through the bible.
That's just like my ownbackground and so I didn't grow
(33:25):
up grow up in a charismatic orpentecostal space and we just
didn't know what to do with thebook of revelation.
We're like I don't know, this isgetting weird, you know, um, so
that's a way that you and I aredifferent to me than just how
we were formed, right, um, but Iwas working on a conference in
(33:46):
2018 and the book we werestudying was revelation, and it
was really interesting becauseit was really clear that your
social location dictated a lotof how you read that book and a
lot of folks, primarily peopleof color, we're reading it.
(34:09):
Being like this is a peelingback of the curtain that shows
us what is happening right now.
It shows us and tells us whatis true.
Um, and others were like thisis about what's coming at the
very end of time, and it nearlylike broke us, I think, in some
(34:33):
ways, to have such differentimages of what apocalypses are,
and so for me, I think you knowjust the biblical word for
apocalypse is a revealing, whatis being revealed, and that's, I
just think, how I do feel likewe are in an apocalypse.
(34:54):
Some of the stuff that I justshared, as well as what Jazzy
has written, is that we are allgrappling with like seeing more
and perceiving more.
That was that we wereintentionally like made to not
perceive before the blood of themartyrs is making things very
(35:18):
clear so that you choose whetheror not to see yes, and you can
choose to harden yourself andsee something and say that is
not true.
That kind of feels like themoment that we're in in this
kind of, in this apocalypse.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
And so I just want to thank you all for that
perspective.
I think I need time with itbecause I think I've been using
the framing of revolution totalk about change in a way that
causes people to recognizehumanity in one another, and so
it's kind of a different.
(35:58):
I hadn't thought about that.
Maybe even the frame, maybe theframings of the ways that we
think about both of those thingshave been leavened with
whiteness.
I just had never even thoughtabout it because we talked about
so many of my heroes asrevolutionaries.
But I'm wondering, if I'mwondering if it might be a
(36:20):
helpful change.
I mean, I'm getting a doctorright now in social
transformation.
I'm like, oh shit, whitenessagain.
So I'm kind of like, okay, howdo we?
Okay, so what does it look liketo subvert that right, to
subvert the ways that I evenentered into thinking about what
(36:41):
social transformation actuallymeans and and what is the
outcome of that?
But I wonder if transformationis actually just a reorientation
to the fact that we're alreadyin the thing and we have to.
We are being asked to wranglelight from darkness, and I've
(37:04):
been writing a new thing abouthope and all of these tropes,
that that you're given andyou're looking at pictures of
babies every day on Instagrambeing bombed and it's like what,
what Like?
None of these words have anysustenance, they have no weight
to them, right?
And so thinking about hope thathas teeth and and even, how do
(37:28):
you even?
Where does that come from?
Where do you find it?
What is it bound to like?
What does it expect?
I've been kind of thinkingabout these because I think I
maybe just didn't know how todeal with the weightiness and
being asked not to swim up, soto speak.
Right, like you're told thatstruggle, you know, struggle,
(37:52):
swim, keep swimming, like,instead of going.
This is where we are and I havey'all seen this is random, but
did you see, don't look up,right?
so the way that that film ended,I love, was kind of like oh, it
is the Tell the story while theroom is shaking and we sip
(38:15):
coffee while the thing is comingdown, and is that in and of
itself saying, you know, love isstronger than death, that life
is stronger than death, likethat, that, that light, light
can pierce through darkness sothat it actually is born of
darkness?
Those are things that I havebeen kind of not having the
language for, but have been kindof poking at me a little bit
(38:40):
that maybe, yeah, like you'rethinking it, your desire is
right, but the framing might notbe as expensive as you're going
to end up needing it to bewhich has been my experience
right and evangelicalism andeverything else that the framing
itself was not expansive enoughto make sense of the world,
because the world doesn't makeany sense.
Thank you for that.
(39:03):
I think I'm going to thinkabout that.
Was that a shift?
What kind of started that shiftover for you, like, can you
tell that trajectory?
I mean, I'm not sure you everspoke about revolution and
social transformation, but Ithink just the shifting in
apocalypse in general and andhow we, if we knew we were
(39:24):
living in apocalypse right now,I might we live, those are
questions I think.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Well, I actually do think I spoke a lot about
revolution and change, socialchange.
I talk about a lot aboutdeveloping world changers, right
and oh yeah, which is justinterestingly, I, you know,
recently actually returned tothe organization we all used to
(39:51):
work for and offered a teachingaround how we need to move away
from world changing and worldchangers and like how that
carries legacies of, likecolonialism, the whiteness, and
so I do think it's something Iused to talk about a lot.
I actually do think it drove mea lot, a lot, to be very, very
(40:13):
honest.
I used to even say like, oh, Ilove college students because
they are the people who willtruly change the world.
Now, the sentiment behind thatis still true in the sense of,
like I do love them and I thinkthat there are ways of living
and ways of being.
There's a there's like a lotthere that really matters.
But I'm no longer that's notthe thrust that I think I'm like
(40:36):
focused in on and and I thinkyou know, one of the big shifts
for me did actually come fromyou know we're talking about
apocalypse.
Actually, a lot of it came fromtaking a class called eco
apocalypse During seminary forme, and it was taught by Colin
blame and I, my seminary, andwhat I really loved about that
(41:01):
class was like he just he helpedus like see a lot of different
perspectives around theecological crisis and apocalypse
.
But like did it from?
Like just doing good politicaltheology and good like kind of
theological engagement.
But then also, like we didrelate science fiction.
We read parable of the sewer.
So I would say, like LaurenOlomina taught me a lot actually
(41:22):
from parable of the sewer,octavia Butler, labor butlers
work, but what came out of thatclassroom we foundationally was
of was like we have got to stoptrying to save the world.
That moves me toward some ofour stuff around world changing,
because there One I think likeand even trying to like tap into
(41:46):
the scientific kind ofgeological conversations around
the Anthropocene and us livingin, living in even a geologic
era that has been so greatlyimpacted by like human making
and specifically colonial worldmaking that has like disrupted
(42:07):
the patterns of the world andand and the ways of being.
And then like then then tothink that we can do something
to save the world from our owndestruction that we've created,
and I think about like thinkingthrough those things started to
help a lot.
And then I do always rememberthis moment that like I think I
(42:29):
say that other people doesn'tsound as profound, but I
remember having a conversationin that class and our professor
was like Well, what does thismean for our like discipleship
and what are the like Christianpractices that we have in our
disposal?
So we're like talking variousforms of lament and all these
different things, and then oneof the things he said to us is
he was like I also find ithelpful to remember that we are
(42:49):
people who love dying things andfor some reason that shifted a
lot in me.
I remember like feeling reallyemotional about that when he
said that and I do, like I thinkthat there is something to
offer, I think from my ownspiritual practice as someone
who still identifies within, youknow, christianity, christian
(43:11):
message of like there'ssomething about dying things
that matters, and whether thatwas from like Christians, like
honoring and loving, like likethe dead and actual like bodies
of dying, but then also, like Ido you think there was something
in the ways that, like Jesus inlike bringing forth a shift to
(43:33):
his people, was like you know,like loving people through the
death of like, of like how we'renot going to die, how we're not
going to be anymore you knowlike and I think there's like,
there's like an honoring of theloss and the grief that comes
with like.
I think some of the things wetalk about is revolution of like
we, but like why that'sconnected to Apocalypse, is like
(43:56):
we need old world orders to dieand so we stop trying to save
them, you know.
And so I think that was a placewhere I started thinking a lot
about these, like the shiftstarted happening a lot for me
in that way.
And then I do think that's whenkind of like womenist work and
(44:20):
black feminist work withinfiction, a lot of it, because
not only like, not only likethings like Parable of the Solar
, but like returning to text,like beloved, return to the
color purple where I'm like, oh,I'm within a lineage of black
women who have always beenwriting about the abyss and
(44:40):
there's always been love in theabyss, there's always in the
abyss.
There's always been creativity,like in search of our mother's
gardens, of Alice Walker, likethat essay alone of her mother,
like planting gardens in theirhome, any place where she's
creating beauty, like that isactually the work of the abyss.
And so I realized there wasalso my like inheritance, you
(45:04):
know, as a black woman, to liketo be like recognize the abyss
not as like a desolate placeonly.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
I was just.
Can I let that hang for aminute?
The abyss doesn't have to be adesolate place.
Um, barney, I want to hear fromyou, but I feel like this is I
have I'm having a visceralreaction, so I wanted to talk
about it.
Um, so I was recently and thisis this is just personal, but
(45:40):
you guys are my friends Um, wewent to, I was at a thing for
next generation leaders orwhatever, and the guy was doing
this thing called togethernesspractice and he says you know,
sometimes we have to trust whenthere's not a reason to do it.
And I felt this reaction and outof my mouth, said fuck you to
(46:03):
this man in the middle of thegroup.
But the way that the group wasframed, it was almost like a
Hail Mary for me, for in termsof the ways that these systems
work, I wasn't going to go, butthe way that he handled that was
um, no, okay, just breathethrough it, like, and pay
attention to your body, likelet's do some journaling and
(46:25):
then, when you're ready to comeback and join us, you'll join us
.
The first time I ever had thathappen, because I didn't have an
ability to stop that right thatlater that night we went out
for drinks to celebrate that wewere having a baby and then four
days later I was in the midstof miscarry, my partner was in
the midst of miscarriage, and sothat four day trip starting off
(46:50):
with me kind of having thisvery angry response to the idea
that someone would ask me totrust if I don't have a reason,
and then kind of having this joyin this, like devastation, all
kind of mixed up in the samefour day period of time, that
was also very kind of lifegiving for me, or I would say,
(47:13):
rejuvenating for me in terms ofvision for my own life.
And I'm thinking about that asyou're talking, jazzy, because
I'm like to say that the abyssis not a desolate place, or
doesn't have to be a desolateplace.
How on earth, what?
Like?
(47:34):
I just feel like, how do you,um, how does someone reconcile
that?
I mean, I feel like that that'sprobably my own preoccupation
with hope and change is becauseI don't believe that, like I
don't believe you should trustwithout a reason.
I don't believe that the abyssisn't, doesn't have to be
(47:55):
desolate, like, isn't that thedefinition right?
And I'm aware that there issome sort of um, even
enlightening, happening for mein this moment.
I'm just wondering, like, canyou tease that a little bit?
Or, barney, if you want tospeak to that like, like how
could, how could someonepossibly bring themselves to the
brink of even shifting theirthinking on something like that?
(48:17):
Yeah especially people who'vebeen hurt, traumatized, abused,
had deep pain in life, and I'mtrying to say that and have it
be relative to the fact that wejust talked about Palestine and
Congo and Sudan, so it's likethe yes, it's not comparable in
that sense.
So can you all of that, all ofthose things are what is popping
(48:41):
up for me, and I think thatthat's why I really enjoy
conversations with you all,because I think the way that my
formation would call this isthis is very much discipleship
for me learning about how tohold space for these very
conflicting ideas and veryconflicting feelings and bad
(49:05):
memories, and also having hopeand just the whatever you would
call that.
So can you help people like mewho might be feeling viscerally
the abyss doesn't have to bedesolate.
What does that even mean?
And is it possible to reallybelieve that?
Speaker 3 (49:28):
I'm going to respond and I want to T Barney off to
talk about things that he'sreally good at talking about,
which is epistemology, which isI think epistemology is a big
word really to capture our waysof knowing and the reason I'm
saying I'm team burning offbecause I think I want, I would
(49:51):
like for you to take us there,barney.
I don't know if you know whereI'm coming from, but I think
what, why I respond in that wayis, first of all, I want to say
that I am in no way seeking toglorify the abyss and like there
is a reality that, like theabyss as we talk about it comes
from, like structural a lot ofit comes from structural,
(50:12):
constructed suffering, right andthat, or just like harm you
know like.
So I'm not glorifying it, right, and why.
When you asked me the questionof where the shift has come from
, I pointed to kind of likewomanist folks, women,
especially Alice Walker and ToniMorrison and Octavia Butler,
(50:36):
who you know, like some of thesefolks are going to still
identify themselves in that way.
But I experienced the work inthis way and also I want to, you
know, I want to bring in boththe color purple as a text and
also recently saw the new filmright, and to even just give the
color purple as an example oflike you have these black women
who are experiencing pretty muchevery level of harm that can be
(51:01):
experienced, and they find waysof women loving women and women
loving themselves and findingthe divine in themselves.
And why should a breezecharacter is so significant?
(51:23):
And just like there's just likeso much there of like you know,
there's a way that she writestheir circumstances do change,
like silly, circumstances dochange over time, but but
there's something that mattersbefore her circumstances change,
right, there's, there's,there's something that matters
about the love that she andsilly find together, even when
(51:46):
she's still under the thumb ofMr Right.
Like there's like, and this iswhy I say don't glorify these
things, because I wouldn't wantany of us to be in the
conditions that we often findourselves within.
But why I'm I'm naming it inthis way is is I found that it's
an inheritance, because I speakof it as an inheritance that
(52:06):
comes from.
I'm sure that it can pointbeyond what happened in the
Atlantic, in the, in thetransatlantic slave trade and
that all altering of the world.
I know that it comes frombefore, then I think I can even
speak to various Yorubatraditions and Orishas who in
(52:27):
deities who are connected to thedeepest waters, right, and also
I recognize myself as someonewho is descended from people who
were enslaved on this land andwho come through that that
Atlantic deepest waters abyss,and so I, I I am pointing to
this of a place of belief.
(52:48):
Mainly, it's not a place ofbelief, it's a way of knowing.
I know that the abyss is notonly desolate, because that's
what.
I have, like, lived through itand actually like love through
it, and like love continues tobe what comes out of it and in
it, and and it's a way ofknowing that that it's not only
(53:10):
desolate, it's a way of shifting, you know, to speak to Barney's
piece, it's a way of saying I'mnot going to keep swimming up
because up is actually notfreeing me, like, not like I
like there's something I'mknowing in like stopping the
strokes to swim up that knowsthat that's not where rest comes
(53:30):
from, or loves come from, orfreedom comes from, but there's
something in embracing theweighty ones and being here
together that is actually adifferent way of knowing and a
rejection of these other ways oflike.
Of like knowing that I've beentaught is like the way you're
supposed to know.
You know and that's why I wantto tee Barney off and to go into
(53:52):
it, because I think it's been.
It's not even like.
I think some of our language offaith and belief and hope and
stuff like that leaves uswanting, and but there is
something in this embodiedguttural knowing.
That is why I can say thosewords to you, you know that's
yeah, no, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
That's very helpful.
Yeah, yeah, barney.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Dear question to me is I think that you know a lot
of the work that I've been doing.
A lot of the work that has beenhappening in me is re existence
is, if we use biblical language, like a resurrection, and the
(54:43):
way that I think is the poemthat I read at the beginning and
what Jazzy's talking about iswhat I'm trying to do right now
is put into words what has beenhappening in me and some of what
it sounds like has beenhappening in you, to me, and I
refuse to let those who gaveharmful theologies to us have
(55:13):
the right to retain that.
They have the corner on whatChristianity is, because it is
the Bible, or the scriptures, atleast for me, are such a source
of power that if they can takeit and I know that it's been so
traumatic but if it can becompletely taken and then
(55:34):
abandoned as a source of power,it's like that's like a wind
that I don't want, I don't thinkshould be, and it is.
It is our inheritance, it's myinheritance, and so when you
were talking about that, Ithought a lot about Psalm 139,
(55:54):
if I go up to the heavens, youare there, and if I make my bed
in the depths.
You are there and I think aboutthe central, animating memory,
bodily memory, of Christiantradition, which is solidarity
in the abyss.
(56:16):
So much of the ways that we'vebeen taught about what hell is
or what heaven is.
I think all that is wrong.
It is to make us afraid thatthe abyss has no life and the
abyss is hell.
But it's a reorientation tosaying, actually the body of
(56:39):
Jesus showed us that there waslife in the abyss, that there's
a coming through of that.
There's this empty tomb, thisopenness of life that comes and
it doesn't have that.
Actually the demonic comes.
When you try to avoid thatplace, you start to try to make
yourself more than you can be.
(56:59):
And going back to me as to thevideo, it's so the movie don't
look up.
I've referenced that movieseveral times and felt kind of
like you to be like anybodywatch this movie Because it was
so profoundly moving to mebecause, you have this elite
class of politicians andcorporate executives who are
able to escape earth.
(57:21):
God was so wonderful whenBrontorac got killed on that
eight planet by that alien birdwhatever it was called.
I was like God is divine justiceright there.
But I was so moved by itbecause it's also it was such an
image of me of is what this iswhat faith looks like when
(57:44):
you're in the midst ofapocalypse happening, and it's
in these small things of sittingaround a table and of love that
comes in the midst of theseabyssal moments.
It cannot be killed, it cannotbe killed, and it did something
to me.
It deposited something in methat reverberates, because at
(58:05):
the center of my own inheritanceis somebody who showed us that
there is a way through death andthat is full of life.
I love Jazzy's language and herlove letter.
It teams the abyss teams withlife.
It's not something we believe,it's something we know.
(58:26):
And what each of us haveexperienced in knowing our
bodies is that that is true.
So, going back to therevolution language, a lot of
the folks that I've been readinghave said even Marxist
revolution is a white idea.
It's a white idea and itrequires societal violence.
(58:47):
But, who gets the most harmedin revolutions?
It's like the most vulnerable,like the poorest, the children.
That's what happens, and so I,too, feel like I still want, I
still think that I have peoplewould call us probably
(59:08):
revolutionary, but there's anentire way that that, the way
that that has been pictured, isjust not the future that we
desire.
Jazzy and I have been talkingabout this this past week too,
that some of the ways I thinkthat social media works is that
(59:33):
it teaches us and disciples usand disciplines us to be
antisocial, because we thinkthat justice can come without
what Jazzy has told me oftenabout, which is like organizing
person to person.
Organizing organizing isinherently social.
Social media is inherently kindof antisocial, but with
(59:57):
pandemic, with everything that'shappened, we have an entire
generation of people who thinkabout a social justice ethic
that comes from an antisocialmeans Instead of what it really
means to build life in likesmall, revolutionary ways, in
ways that Jesus was like notleading a new regime, but like
(01:00:20):
loved a small group of people,and yet his name comes down to
us as an ancestor that has, likeGod's hand, changes and directs
our life in different waysstill, and so I feel like that's
some of my own shifting aroundrevolution and also in embracing
that God is in the abyss.
Where can we go?
(01:00:41):
Where can we be cast?
There's nowhere that we can becast.
That is outside of where God iswith us and in us.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Thank you.
That was some sort of a portal,something I don't know Like I'm
just very grateful to you bothbecause I think I have and this
always happens is I come to youall with like my little budding
Y'all?
I've been thinking about theselittle sparks and I don't know
(01:01:28):
how to name them or even saythem in a way that isn't like
saying what I don't mean andkind of getting clear on what I
actually do mean, and I'm justgrateful for, among other things
, for that from you all.
In my life personally, I thinkwhat I want to do is have people
(01:01:49):
.
If you're interested in this,where can people find you and
learn from you?
If that's what you want, Iappreciate it.
Because I think that this is avery, very powerful and potent
conversation that I'm surepeople who have probably had the
same little things bouncingaround are going yes, that's yes
(01:02:13):
, and so I would love to offerthem more of your wisdom if
you're open to sharing withfolks where they can read or
find you or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Well, I think, Jazzy, you can speak for yourself.
It's funny because a lot of theways I think that I work or we
work is in very like small andlocal ways and in some ways, we,
both of us are also in thewombs of like a PhD program or
like a metamorphosis, like acocoon of a time to like really
retreat and do some deep work.
(01:02:48):
So that's circumstantial.
But also in our own ethics, Ithink we think a lot about like
faith in small things.
That's just who I am for sureyou can find me on Instagram,
but I write stories once.
I write stories, but that'sabout it.
But I was thinking to me ifthat's true, I think you could
(01:03:10):
offer like an ask us anythingand host us, and I'm more than
happy to come and like talkabout these things, because
Jazzy and I are talking aboutthese things all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
It's so funny that, like even the like just I'm used
to this from Stoop Communionbut watching you both smile over
the same like phrase orsomething at the same time, I'm
like yeah, that's the way theyare kin bro, that's true.
Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
And that's revolutionary right.
We come from very differentworlds and we found each other
in the abyss.
You know, and that's how you doit.
You know, that's how you live,that's how you survive.
Yeah, I would say yeah, I agreewith Barney's idea.
I like the ask us anythingthing.
Similarly, you can find me onInstagram.
(01:04:04):
I'm in the middle of trying tofigure out what I wanna do with
Instagram because of the thingswe're reflecting on social media
.
But people I always love whenpeople like we're genuinely
wanna connect in that space, soI do open.
You know, that's so myInstagram is.
Should I say what my Instagramis?
Okay, it's Jazzyjzyy,underscore Simone S-Y-M-O-N-E.
(01:04:27):
This is also making me be likeI always wanna like restart my
blog.
That I have, but I'm not gonnatell y'all what it is until I
get it together.
But all I have to say is Iagree with Barney.
Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
I do, yeah, and I know that you are both firmly in
your values and at the sametime I'm like I don't know, the
way I'm wired is just like morepeople to the truth, more people
to the truth, like that'salways been an impulse that I
don't know if I'll ever be ableto get rid of.
But I'm like I'm getting thehow complicated it can be to
(01:05:05):
kind of like it's complicated,it's very complicated.
Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Well, to me I also feel like that's just like your
like gift in the body to likeplay.
You know like it's so, becauseyou do it, because other friends
of ours do it, we don't have todo it, you know.
Exactly, that's true, you'redoing something that is needed.
You know and you're functioningand I love that that impulse in
(01:05:29):
you has continued throughdifferent you know spaces,
because it's just so core to whoyou are and I hope that you
continue to do it, and I hopethat you continue to do it and I
hope that you continue to do it.
Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
Yeah right, god, dad, go on it.
Those things really areirrevocable, because at the
heart and at the truth of themit's.
Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
It is a true thing, the true thing about who you are
, and how you're wired.
Yeah, I'm on it.
Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Yeah, you're on that, yeah, but it's true like it's
complicated.
Yes, that's true People show updifferently.
Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
that's how, yeah, but I'm wondering about what does?
Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
it look like to.
I just don't, I'm notinterested in like more of the
stuff.
It's like how do we really havethe same values, not in a
hegemonic way, but like the sameethical yeah ways of thinking
(01:06:28):
and what?
How dynamic could it be to getpeople with those?
What could you build?
What could you create?
in the sense but now I'mthinking about do we need to
create?
So that's why you guys arealways like, you're always just
spurring me to think morebroadly and more deeply, which
is a real gift, and I'm verythankful for that, and I'm very
(01:06:49):
thankful for both of you.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Yeah, thanks to me.
I do think we need to create.
I just think we want to do itour way and I feel all that
instincts in you of like it'stricky.
We're like figuring out how todo something that we haven't
really seen.
Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
Yeah, it always makes me think of, yeah, we
definitely still believe increating and, like I do think,
like worlds are birthed, youknow, like in the abyss as well,
like I think that that's,that's not something to negate.
It makes me think of of WillieJennings language of like
whiteness as a form of maturity,but as a form of creating that
(01:07:28):
destroys creation, and so we'retrying not to do that.
Yeah, creating is actuallyreally core, you know, I think
it makes sense.
Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
I love you guys on a deep level.
Thank you so much for being onon the show and I think I will
be birthday.
Thank you, I'm over the hill.
Hey, hey, here we go.
I'm looking forward to that.
I'm looking forward to what agood years.
What's up everyone.
Welcome to another episode oflife after 11, and we're in the
birthday season, which meansthat the center of gravity this
season, thematically, is mePeople.
I love people who have had asignificant impact in my life,
people who have taught me andchanged me, and so, of course, I
had to have my previousco-hosts from stoop communion,
(00:21):
barney and Jazzy, on, becauseI've known them for a while now
and every conversation I havewith them is extremely Edifying.
It's life-giving.
There's so many levels anddepth to our conversation that I
wanted you to meet people whomatter a lot to me.
So Today, barney and Jazzy aregonna read pieces that they
(00:43):
created and then we're gonnajump into it like we used to,
and I know that you will beenriched, just like I'm enriched
every time we talk.
So welcome friends.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yes, I'm having us yeah so glad you're here.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I want to know, I want you all to tell us, before
we jump into the piecesthemselves kind of what you do,
what space you're occupyingright now, like in the world of
faith and life and justice.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, it's good to be with you.
It's me and I let's see whatspaces am I occupying.
Okay, so I am a second-year PhDstudent.
I'm a PhD student in religion,which is, I think, an important
distinction.
I am trained as a theologianbecause I have a master of
(01:28):
divinity and now I'm alsostudying religion and kind of
like some of the maybe evenbigger patterns around religion
and religious practiceespecially, and but I still very
much identify as a practicaltheologian, being trained in
religion and a minister and andI think that is like, yeah,
(01:48):
where I'm located, I still findmyself as like kind of a
minister in the in and I like tosay in the wilderness, and also
of the wilderness in the senseof like.
I think the wildernessmetaphorically shapes a lot of
how I see and understand ourspiritual practice and how I'm
like trying to be in the world,and I think it also just like
(02:11):
practically speaks to my ownplace right now of I am not
Attached to you a churchdenomination, but I'm still very
much a minister and pastor.
I am studying and learning fromthe wilderness places that I
feel that we actually are as apeople, a greater people in
general, which I, you know,maybe we get to.
(02:33):
But yeah, I'll say that that is, that is, that is me as far as
my kind of orientation in theworld which there is a religious
historian who talks aboutreligion actually being about
and our orientation in the worldultimately in the ultimate
sense.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So Love it.
Oh my god, I'm so excited,barney.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Thanks for having me back to me.
I am am also working on my PhDin theology and ethics and I,
and you know, loving my peopleat our church that Jazzy and I
(03:15):
go to, with a theologian inresidence there and Living here
in Pasadena, california.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I'm very excited.
So what we're gonna do is we'regonna have you all read your
pieces and then, and then we'lljust chat like we used to.
Barney, won't you go first?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
All right.
My life.
Growing up, I was taughtinadvertently to float up, to
swim upward, not to drown,though my body was heavy, tied
with tombstones, rock in mystomach, rocks in my stomach.
(03:59):
I needed to hide fear in mythroat.
I Was taught to strain, to cutoff parts of Myself so I could
get lighter, to ascend tolighter, clearer, whiter waters,
to not drown.
But parts of myself could notbe cut out, dark parts Too deep
(04:22):
to integral.
I Couldn't get the heavy rocksout and I always wondered but is
this terror worth it?
Am I supposed to swim up?
But I was always told by thosehigher than me that, as long as
I kept swimming upward, that Iwould be eventually saved, not
(04:42):
drown.
And so I swam hard, adrenalinepumping strong, but also saw
other bodies behind and besideme sinking and People bidding me
to pay them no heed.
But pity that I had to savemyself.
But in 2014, the spirit trembled.
(05:05):
The whole ocean got shaken upand I got turned around.
I Lost my way which way was up,which way was down, and I found
others with heavier weights,their cries bubbling up from
below and the rocks in mystomach cried back.
(05:26):
It's like the Sun haddisappeared, shrouded by the
cloud by day.
But people were so sure ofwhich way was what.
This way was up.
They said keep going.
But my rocks pulled me down Tothe company of the weighty ones,
the ones who joined arms andswam together.
(05:47):
The weighty ones who raged andthe ones that loved them held
back their punches with theirown bodies.
The weighty ones who wept andthe ones close enough to be
penetrated by their muffledcries, wiping and crying with
them.
The weighty ones who werecatatonic and the ones who
carried them to.
(06:08):
They were all bound by theheaviest weight of all love.
And Along the way I gotconfused, I felt lost.
I was angry about those who hadshouted To me in the name of
the Sun.
Bile finally leaked out of me,while weighty ones taught me
(06:31):
that to hold it in would trulykill me.
But the exchange, the cost ofthat exorcism was Estrangement
and betrayal from all that hadgrounded and directed my upward
life before, and so I sank.
But the heavy ones didn'tabandon me, though they didn't
(06:52):
always agree with me, for theyremembered their anger and those
who had absorbed their blows.
They remembered their ownweeping and those who had sat
with them, and they rememberedthose who had held and carried
them gently in love.
And now, 2023, 63 days later.
(07:12):
Now, we are together on thebottom of the ocean, the depths
of the abyss, amidst thewreckage of the nations and all
those imperfect limbs discarded,all the used-up Products,
precious gems of the earth thatwe named trash, and down here I
Can finally find my footing Withthe many, many more who are
(07:34):
hurting, crying, broken, healing, who have been drowned by the
weight and waters of love, yetfind ourselves walking on the
ground of many worlds, breathingspirit, blind eyes, learning to
see and weep and be born again.
Maybe we drowned like those ofNoah's time, but at least we,
(07:59):
swaddled and swallowed by theweighty waters of love, will
perhaps be or avoid or watchBaldwin's fire next time and
receive the many angry,terrified, immolated bodies who
try to fly up and away but findthemselves in the end, by grace,
weary, unable to escape theirown weight, drawing them down to
(08:23):
the depths of love.
Judged, received, like me, forto be drowned in this abyss,
then not as I was taught, is torest and and be free.
Oh.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Take a little minute oh.
Oh thank you for offering thatand for sharing that and Jazzy,
whenever you're ready.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Thank you, barney.
As a little bit of contextbefore I begin, barney's piece
was in mind as I wrote mine andas constant kind of like, just
like friends, as likeco-strugglers, as Ken I do.
(09:36):
You think I appreciate youNaming 2014 as a crucible moment
, because I think it was truefor all of us and the piece that
I have written is rooted in aparticular another crucible
moment that we all findourselves in.
As a little bit of context, asI also am offering some
(10:00):
reflections From and about theabyss, particularly coming out
of a Season of what Christianscall Advent, which is often
focused on light and of Jesus ascoming light.
But I've been wrestling withthat a lot in our understandings
of light.
So there's context for thispiece, and Now I will.
(10:30):
To our dear siblings ofPalestine, of Diarkongo, of
Sudan, other places where Kensuffer under blankets of white
phosphorus vapor and the thumbsof Western Imperial greed, and
to those whose cries we have yetto hear.
I Hate that your cries, yourthreatened lives, your
(10:57):
involuntary martyrdom arebringing me back to where I
belong.
You did not choose to forge thepathways to our salvation, nor
did you volunteer to becomeancestors as children, clouds of
witnesses, as adolescents.
There is no redemption in yourcrucifixion and I beg you to
never forgive them.
And I beg you to never forgiveus, dear ones.
(11:23):
You have already given us toomuch.
You have called us back to thedarkness to dwell with you, to
recover what you know, and manyof us have been made, remade to
forget.
In an advent season of light,even on the eve of Christmas, I
(11:45):
have found I no longer trust myability to discern what light is
.
Hmm, is it that thing thathovers over us or near us as we
keep spinning, that shines uponsome of us but others cannot
feel its warmth through cloudsof smoke and dust and thick
enemy smog?
Is it the one who appears asthe day grows old and cold, as
(12:09):
we return to the safety of ourhomes at night, with roofs and
walls intact, as we took ourchildren into their beds, and
not mass graves?
The one in the sky that comesto us in phases, which reminds
us how many cycles have passedand still we have not traded
bombs for bundles of food,medicine and drinkable water.
Which reminds us how manymonths have passed since you
(12:34):
held your loved ones.
They were taken from you.
Since you were taken from you,what is light, when you barely
sleep and your eyes cannot restfrom the terror of each waking
moment, when there is nocontrast between the things that
go bump in the night and thethings that hunt you by day,
(12:58):
there are no monsters to beimagined.
Everything that could haunt youaccompanies you with no breaks
and no rest.
But these are not symptoms ofdarkness itself.
Boogie men are not themachinations of darkness herself
.
They are the creations of thosewho call themselves people of
(13:20):
light.
There are ways of life lit bycell phones, laptops and
television screens made frommaterials in humanely extracted
In the Congo by you, our dearenslaved siblings.
It is the places and the peoplewho have audaciously crowned
themselves ourselves as a cityupon a hill, as lighthouses of
(13:42):
democracies, as Beacons of lightand morality, as the free world
, who have plundered anddesecrated the darkness, giving
her a bad name, decreating herinto the anti of light, into the
evil in opposition of good.
I Think perhaps it is possiblethat most light I know, most
(14:06):
light we know, has been created,maintained and preserved by
your blood, your labor, yourloss, dear ones.
These lights burn with stolenoil, they are powered by our
plunder, but your grief, yourlove, your rage is rising from
(14:28):
the abyss, dimming that whichhas lit the world for so long.
Lately, my loudest ancestorshave been those who found a new
home in the deepest waters ofthe Atlantic, teeming with life,
after colonial conquestforcibly removed them from their
lands.
Their voices speak in concordwith you, dear ones, as they
(14:50):
beckon me back to the darkness,to remember that which you, as
dwellers in darkness, alreadyknow that it is not the darkness
that betrays you, that we'veforgotten darkness is the womb
of all creation.
So we must remember how tolabor in the darkness, as you
(15:14):
all, birthing mothers in Congo,in Gaza, in Sudan, have
continued delivering life intoconditions of almost certain
death, where blood continues toflow and clean water does not.
We must remember how to pray inthe dark with you, for you and
for us.
We must remember how to love inthe dark with you, from you, we
(15:37):
must remember how to fight, howto swim, how to march, how to
heal and mend, how to play inthe dark.
We must remember how to live inthe dark rather than accepting
false light, trusting that thelight we seek, the light who
conspired with the deepestdarkness to form and birth
creation, will make themselvesknown, for it is the people
(15:59):
walking in darkness who haveseen a great light.
On those living in the land ofdeep, teeming darkness, a light
has dawned.
It is this light that does notexist in opposition to darkness,
but was also formed in thedarkness of Mary's womb.
It is this light, emmanuel, thatis not bright or boastful, not
(16:22):
dominating or domineering, thatI believe is with you under the
rubble, as Reverend Dr MuntherIsaac has declared over and over
again this season.
But why doesn't this light showup through the changed hearts of
Western government officialsand the downfall of genocidal
(16:44):
bank rollers?
What kind of light leaves theland in peril while filling the
people underground with theaudacity to rise and keep
surviving in body by miraclesand spirit everlasting?
This is something I do not know, dear ones, but perhaps you do.
(17:04):
It is something the ancestorswhisper about, something the
deepest, darkest waters discussbeneath us, something we know in
our womb spaces, but perhapsnot our conscious minds,
something Mary did know abouther baby boy and savior,
something that the deep, thedarkness knows, something that
(17:25):
is activated in the darknessevery time the light approaches
her to conceive new worlds.
Perhaps this next world will beone where you might live and
not be sacrificed With the lovethat my people knew and know in
the abyss, I sign this blacklove letter with an amen and
(17:49):
haché.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Thank you for offering that and for sharing it
, and it's hard to move soquickly on, but I was trying to
keep track of all of the thingsthat were bubbling in my mind
while both of you were sharing,and a couple of things came up
in terms of even things thatI've been thinking about.
(18:25):
So I'd love to have aconversation about.
I've been thinking a lot aboutconjure and I recently a little
bit of context for that.
The ministry that I was a partof before I came to the place
where we work together is nowembroiled in all kinds of
(18:46):
whatever and did a lot of thework in religious trauma and
understanding cults.
But I realized that the powerof a lot of these smaller cults
and then these largerideological cults a lot of it
has come from identity and powerthat is conferred rather than
(19:12):
conjured, and I've been thinkingabout that in the context of
light as well and hope andresurrection, and thinking about
all of these things just indifferent ways.
So I would love to play withthat idea here of what does it
mean to conjure light fromdarkness?
(19:35):
Can y'all hear me okay?
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
You froze a little bit, but I know it's so funny.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
My whole computer froze and I'm like man.
Is it because we're talkingabout Palestine?
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Okay, there you are, but we did hear your question.
Okay, good, okay, they don't beplaying with that stuff Right,
how interesting it is that youare talking about conjured,
because Barney and I have bothbeen spending a lot of time
thinking about magic and writingabout magic.
I just wrote a whole paperabout magic and, yeah, I do
(20:20):
think a lot.
This is just an initial thoughtand then I'm curious how Barney
will answer your question.
It's interesting juxtapositionbetween conferred versus
conjured and I'm curious to hearmore about your thinking on
that, because so much of what Ido think is constantly happening
(20:42):
in these apocalyptic moments isthe revealing.
It's like the apocalyptic is toreveal, and what I've been
experiencing is the revealing ofhow power works, and even the
(21:05):
shaking or unsettling for me hasbeen around the ways that were
taught that power looks like thepositions that have been like
conferred, but actually thenthat that teaches us to look
away from actually the manysources of power that we
(21:25):
actually do have as the peoplewho are not in those conferred
positions or even if we end upin them, where we're tapping it,
what we're tapping into, and soI've been thinking a lot about
sources of magic.
Barney and I've been talkingabout this in a lot of different
ways and, I think, in the waysthat I wrote about it recently.
(21:46):
I'm thinking about it from likethe kind of like imaginational
sources of magic, like the youknow, barney, as a like, as a
thinker in that with me, wastalking about like linguistic
and like kind of lingual power,like the power of language that
we tap into sources of magic.
I think the, the I could listoff all the things I said, but
(22:08):
like, obviously, like the lineis one part of the power and
there's all these other forms ofpower that we can like tap into
as sources of magic for thelike shifting of consciousness
and conditions, right.
So that's my like initialthought.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, to me.
That was really intrigued byand wanted to hear more.
If you would share with usabout that distinction about
conferring versus conjuring.
Can you tell us more about that?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, so I mean, obviously I was thinking about
it in the context of how do wecontinue to be, or what was the
root cause that I foundpersonally in finding myself
myself in toxic, abusivesituations, toxic, abusive work
environments, toxic, abusive,abusive theologies, and all of
(23:08):
it had to do with I felt Ireally bought into a sort of
intrinsic unworthiness thatsomething outside of me needed
to validate.
But not just validate Validateactually feels like a very
shallow word.
It was, it was.
It was more profound than that,I hate to say, but it was
(23:32):
meeting someone else, somethingelse, even a god I have to climb
the mountain for, instead ofrecognizing within and sort of
pulling out of myself.
It made me susceptible todelusion, to believing lies, and
I think most of the what I'mfinding in my life is that the
(23:55):
lies that were the mostdetrimental were the lies I
believed about myself, becauseof the lies I believed about the
divine right, and so I've justbeen finding that in this, at
this stage right, I'm turning 40, right I just feel like there's
a lot that has shifted from mein terms of the way I even think
theologically, religiously, anda lot of it has to do with that
(24:18):
.
I am not on the chopping blockof any god from here on out and
or any idea from here on out.
I've learned to trust myself andI think part of it is some of
that.
I keep finding myselfsurrounded by darkness or in
these deep, weighty, hard, darkplaces, and I have to save
(24:43):
myself.
Right like I, I have had tosave myself.
I have had to pick up my stuffand leave, or say no to the job
or, you know, say I know that Iwill lose something because of
taking a stand on my genderidentity, my sexual orientation,
my feelings about Palestine, myfeelings about whiteness.
(25:04):
So I've been finding that thesavior was not external in that
sense or in the ways that I wastaught.
The savior was external, right,it was me having to say I am
worth more than this and I bringthings to the table that no one
else brings, and there'sabsolutely nothing wrong with me
, even though I'm limited andmay eff up sometimes, you know,
(25:28):
and and kind of.
That is a kind of a concoctionof whatever my way of being in
the world.
It's coming from thisconversation about.
I have had to conjure so muchin myself and I've never felt
more comfortable in my skin.
I've never felt more awarethough of of darkness, and
delusion has never felt so sharpand hurtful to me.
(25:50):
Um, and I think part of it isbecause I'm learning to kind of
find myself in at the bottom ofthe sea, like you've been saying
, like I've had to learn toproduce the light to put to for
the power of the resurrection tobe conjured, like I will live
and not die in this place and Ipull myself out you know, in a
(26:12):
weird way.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
I don't have the language, but um that's kind of
what's making me think about ityeah, when you say what I'm
hearing you say and tell me,come back and like, be like.
Oh yeah, that's help, sir.
But I hear you talking aboutthe difference between
conferring versus conjuring, assomething that comes out of you
conjures, like from the insideof you, versus bird which is
(26:34):
like, oh, some external sourcehas to confer on me power or
right to be right yeah is thatwhat it is?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
yeah, and I think it gives that person.
Whoever has that power, can doa lot of damage.
I think, um, and I think I'mseeing that in several different
arenas in life and religion,justice, all of it, um.
So anyway, that's where I'm atright now.
I'm like, what if we conjure um, but that's, you know, I
(27:07):
haven't thought for years andyears and years on it, yet it's
just new for me as I'mreflecting on life yeah what are
your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
I love that.
I mean, I'm just so grateful tofor you sharing that.
I do feel in a very similarplace myself in um, the journey
of what I've been writing aboutand thinking about is it is a
re-existing, like a coming tolife or being reborn, and it is
(27:44):
not a shift of thinking orbelieving.
It is an entire like how wemove through the entire world,
see the entire world and belongin the world, to have a right to
exist in the world and not needthat to be conferred upon us by
(28:05):
whatever power there might beout there above us.
Yeah, so I feel that reallydeeply and resonate with that,
with you hmm, I'm thinking aboutthat too, jazzy.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
When you're talking about apocalypse, what do you
all see is like kind of the yousee um conversation between
apocalypse and revolution.
Like I feel like, how are thosethings in conversation for you?
Because apocalypse always feelsvery like dystopian and you
know, I'm seeing fire and flamesand smoke and clouds and
(28:37):
billows, right, but revolutionfeels more grassroots and human.
What are your, what are yourthoughts on the ways that those
things play into each other orinform each other?
Speaker 2 (28:47):
that's interesting no , that's interesting, was my
thought too.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I think it's interesting because I think a
lot of my work in the last, Iwould say probably maybe six
years has been re um like and Ithink we talked about this too
community too, of like.
I do think that we always comeback to the apocalypse, but I do
think that, like I, what I'mgrateful for specifically around
(29:16):
um womenist folks and um blackscience fiction writers have
helped me with this is is is umnot making the apocalypse with
not seeing the apocalypse withthe imagery you just described.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Actually that's it it's been.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
It's been like a re understanding of apocalypse, um,
as like as that which isrevealed as as, and and though I
think why I say womenist I saywomenist specifically, and black
science fiction, um, creatorsis because I think what they do
in their work is womenist remindme that, like, specifically,
(29:57):
our peoples, black peoples, havelived through many apocalypses.
I also love the way that, likepeople like adria marie brown
and autumn brown and and kind oftheir like crew, talk about
this because they're like, yeah,like, how to survive in the
world is like, because ourpeople have survived the ends of
many worlds and our many worlds, um, and so I think I have made
(30:20):
apocalypse less, um, scary inthat way that this is always,
this is, this is actually thepatterns of how uh, existence
works.
In some ways, and even when Iread it scripturally, I've come
to understand that, like whenI'm like interacting with text
of apocalypse, they're like tell, they're like actually like
(30:42):
more than predictive apocalypse.
They're like revealing to usthe ways that, like powers work
and inevitable, like, almostlike, inevitable, like
revelation of, like, wherepowers, like, if they continue
to work in this way, will leadus right and are ready, are
already happening right um, thedeath of destruction that we're
imagining, that we externallyimagine in the ways that we
(31:05):
envision, apocalypse are alreadyhappening for a lot of folks,
right um, and and so, in thatway, when I think about the
relationship between apocalypseand revolution, I think what?
(31:25):
I wonder?
I don't know.
I think I have interestinglystopped thinking about
revolution.
Wow, okay, I think a lot aboutrevolution, um, and a lot about
changing the world, and it's amore recent thing for me to to
abandon those projects, um, notbecause, not because I do not
(31:48):
desire revolution, but butbecause I think that there are
ways that, like, my like, aimsand commitments have shifted, um
, and even things like ourfriend, you know, our friend
Leanne, said to us recently oflike, oh, I think I think
changing the world is a, like, aproject of whiteness, and I'm
(32:12):
like sitting with that a lot,because all of the things that
you all just actually what youjust described around like
conferred, um, like what isconferred, it comes from the
ways that, like whiteness, whitesupremacy, maleness, patriarchy
, like these, like variousforces that exist in the world,
have changed the world and toldus who we are, you know, like,
(32:35):
and and so I think I like havemoved away from these big
projects of like of that,because I don't know if that's
um taking us where we need to go.
I don't, I don't know.
I'm with it more to to expressit in the ways that I really
want to, but those are myinitial thoughts.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Oh, are you got thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, I think, similar to Jazzy's initial
reaction is just likeinteresting.
I think that some of even how Ihave thought about apocalypse
and is through, you know, my alot of my own formation is
through the bible.
That's just like my ownbackground and so I didn't grow
(33:25):
up grow up in a charismatic orpentecostal space and we just
didn't know what to do with thebook of revelation.
We're like I don't know, this isgetting weird, you know, um, so
that's a way that you and I aredifferent to me than just how
we were formed, right, um, but Iwas working on a conference in
(33:46):
2018 and the book we werestudying was revelation, and it
was really interesting becauseit was really clear that your
social location dictated a lotof how you read that book and a
lot of folks, primarily peopleof color, we're reading it.
(34:09):
Being like this is a peelingback of the curtain that shows
us what is happening right now.
It shows us and tells us whatis true.
Um, and others were like thisis about what's coming at the
very end of time, and it nearlylike broke us, I think, in some
(34:33):
ways, to have such differentimages of what apocalypses are,
and so for me, I think you knowjust the biblical word for
apocalypse is a revealing, whatis being revealed, and that's, I
just think, how I do feel likewe are in an apocalypse.
(34:54):
Some of the stuff that I justshared, as well as what Jazzy
has written, is that we are allgrappling with like seeing more
and perceiving more.
That was that we wereintentionally like made to not
perceive before the blood of themartyrs is making things very
(35:18):
clear so that you choose whetheror not to see yes, and you can
choose to harden yourself andsee something and say that is
not true.
That kind of feels like themoment that we're in in this
kind of, in this apocalypse.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
And so I just want to thank you all for that
perspective.
I think I need time with itbecause I think I've been using
the framing of revolution totalk about change in a way that
causes people to recognizehumanity in one another, and so
it's kind of a different.
(35:58):
I hadn't thought about that.
Maybe even the frame, maybe theframings of the ways that we
think about both of those thingshave been leavened with
whiteness.
I just had never even thoughtabout it because we talked about
so many of my heroes asrevolutionaries.
But I'm wondering, if I'mwondering if it might be a
(36:20):
helpful change.
I mean, I'm getting a doctorright now in social
transformation.
I'm like, oh shit, whitenessagain.
So I'm kind of like, okay, howdo we?
Okay, so what does it look liketo subvert that right, to
subvert the ways that I evenentered into thinking about what
(36:41):
social transformation actuallymeans and and what is the
outcome of that?
But I wonder if transformationis actually just a reorientation
to the fact that we're alreadyin the thing and we have to.
We are being asked to wranglelight from darkness, and I've
(37:04):
been writing a new thing abouthope and all of these tropes,
that that you're given andyou're looking at pictures of
babies every day on Instagrambeing bombed and it's like what,
what Like?
None of these words have anysustenance, they have no weight
to them, right?
And so thinking about hope thathas teeth and and even, how do
(37:28):
you even?
Where does that come from?
Where do you find it?
What is it bound to like?
What does it expect?
I've been kind of thinkingabout these because I think I
maybe just didn't know how todeal with the weightiness and
being asked not to swim up, soto speak.
Right, like you're told thatstruggle, you know, struggle,
(37:52):
swim, keep swimming, like,instead of going.
This is where we are and I havey'all seen this is random, but
did you see, don't look up,right?
so the way that that film ended,I love, was kind of like oh, it
is the Tell the story while theroom is shaking and we sip
(38:15):
coffee while the thing is comingdown, and is that in and of
itself saying, you know, love isstronger than death, that life
is stronger than death, likethat, that, that light, light
can pierce through darkness sothat it actually is born of
darkness?
Those are things that I havebeen kind of not having the
language for, but have been kindof poking at me a little bit
(38:40):
that maybe, yeah, like you'rethinking it, your desire is
right, but the framing might notbe as expensive as you're going
to end up needing it to bewhich has been my experience
right and evangelicalism andeverything else that the framing
itself was not expansive enoughto make sense of the world,
because the world doesn't makeany sense.
Thank you for that.
(39:03):
I think I'm going to thinkabout that.
Was that a shift?
What kind of started that shiftover for you, like, can you
tell that trajectory?
I mean, I'm not sure you everspoke about revolution and
social transformation, but Ithink just the shifting in
apocalypse in general and andhow we, if we knew we were
(39:24):
living in apocalypse right now,I might we live, those are
questions I think.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Well, I actually do think I spoke a lot about
revolution and change, socialchange.
I talk about a lot aboutdeveloping world changers, right
and oh yeah, which is justinterestingly, I, you know,
recently actually returned tothe organization we all used to
(39:51):
work for and offered a teachingaround how we need to move away
from world changing and worldchangers and like how that
carries legacies of, likecolonialism, the whiteness, and
so I do think it's something Iused to talk about a lot.
I actually do think it drove mea lot, a lot, to be very, very
(40:13):
honest.
I used to even say like, oh, Ilove college students because
they are the people who willtruly change the world.
Now, the sentiment behind thatis still true in the sense of,
like I do love them and I thinkthat there are ways of living
and ways of being.
There's a there's like a lotthere that really matters.
But I'm no longer that's notthe thrust that I think I'm like
(40:36):
focused in on and and I thinkyou know, one of the big shifts
for me did actually come fromyou know we're talking about
apocalypse.
Actually, a lot of it came fromtaking a class called eco
apocalypse During seminary forme, and it was taught by Colin
blame and I, my seminary, andwhat I really loved about that
(41:01):
class was like he just he helpedus like see a lot of different
perspectives around theecological crisis and apocalypse
.
But like did it from?
Like just doing good politicaltheology and good like kind of
theological engagement.
But then also, like we didrelate science fiction.
We read parable of the sewer.
So I would say, like LaurenOlomina taught me a lot actually
(41:22):
from parable of the sewer,octavia Butler, labor butlers
work, but what came out of thatclassroom we foundationally was
of was like we have got to stoptrying to save the world.
That moves me toward some ofour stuff around world changing,
because there One I think likeand even trying to like tap into
(41:46):
the scientific kind ofgeological conversations around
the Anthropocene and us livingin, living in even a geologic
era that has been so greatlyimpacted by like human making
and specifically colonial worldmaking that has like disrupted
(42:07):
the patterns of the world andand and the ways of being.
And then like then then tothink that we can do something
to save the world from our owndestruction that we've created,
and I think about like thinkingthrough those things started to
help a lot.
And then I do always rememberthis moment that like I think I
(42:29):
say that other people doesn'tsound as profound, but I
remember having a conversationin that class and our professor
was like Well, what does thismean for our like discipleship
and what are the like Christianpractices that we have in our
disposal?
So we're like talking variousforms of lament and all these
different things, and then oneof the things he said to us is
he was like I also find ithelpful to remember that we are
(42:49):
people who love dying things andfor some reason that shifted a
lot in me.
I remember like feeling reallyemotional about that when he
said that and I do, like I thinkthat there is something to
offer, I think from my ownspiritual practice as someone
who still identifies within, youknow, christianity, christian
(43:11):
message of like there'ssomething about dying things
that matters, and whether thatwas from like Christians, like
honoring and loving, like likethe dead and actual like bodies
of dying, but then also, like Ido you think there was something
in the ways that, like Jesus inlike bringing forth a shift to
(43:33):
his people, was like you know,like loving people through the
death of like, of like how we'renot going to die, how we're not
going to be anymore you knowlike and I think there's like,
there's like an honoring of theloss and the grief that comes
with like.
I think some of the things wetalk about is revolution of like
we, but like why that'sconnected to Apocalypse, is like
(43:56):
we need old world orders to dieand so we stop trying to save
them, you know.
And so I think that was a placewhere I started thinking a lot
about these, like the shiftstarted happening a lot for me
in that way.
And then I do think that's whenkind of like womenist work and
(44:20):
black feminist work withinfiction, a lot of it, because
not only like, not only likethings like Parable of the Solar
, but like returning to text,like beloved, return to the
color purple where I'm like, oh,I'm within a lineage of black
women who have always beenwriting about the abyss and
(44:40):
there's always been love in theabyss, there's always in the
abyss.
There's always been creativity,like in search of our mother's
gardens, of Alice Walker, likethat essay alone of her mother,
like planting gardens in theirhome, any place where she's
creating beauty, like that isactually the work of the abyss.
And so I realized there wasalso my like inheritance, you
(45:04):
know, as a black woman, to liketo be like recognize the abyss
not as like a desolate placeonly.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
I was just.
Can I let that hang for aminute?
The abyss doesn't have to be adesolate place.
Um, barney, I want to hear fromyou, but I feel like this is I
have I'm having a visceralreaction, so I wanted to talk
about it.
Um, so I was recently and thisis this is just personal, but
(45:40):
you guys are my friends Um, wewent to, I was at a thing for
next generation leaders orwhatever, and the guy was doing
this thing called togethernesspractice and he says you know,
sometimes we have to trust whenthere's not a reason to do it.
And I felt this reaction and outof my mouth, said fuck you to
(46:03):
this man in the middle of thegroup.
But the way that the group wasframed, it was almost like a
Hail Mary for me, for in termsof the ways that these systems
work, I wasn't going to go, butthe way that he handled that was
um, no, okay, just breathethrough it, like, and pay
attention to your body, likelet's do some journaling and
(46:25):
then, when you're ready to comeback and join us, you'll join us
.
The first time I ever had thathappen, because I didn't have an
ability to stop that right thatlater that night we went out
for drinks to celebrate that wewere having a baby and then four
days later I was in the midstof miscarry, my partner was in
the midst of miscarriage, and sothat four day trip starting off
(46:50):
with me kind of having thisvery angry response to the idea
that someone would ask me totrust if I don't have a reason,
and then kind of having this joyin this, like devastation, all
kind of mixed up in the samefour day period of time, that
was also very kind of lifegiving for me, or I would say,
(47:13):
rejuvenating for me in terms ofvision for my own life.
And I'm thinking about that asyou're talking, jazzy, because
I'm like to say that the abyssis not a desolate place, or
doesn't have to be a desolateplace.
How on earth, what?
Like?
(47:34):
I just feel like, how do you,um, how does someone reconcile
that?
I mean, I feel like that that'sprobably my own preoccupation
with hope and change is becauseI don't believe that, like I
don't believe you should trustwithout a reason.
I don't believe that the abyssisn't, doesn't have to be
(47:55):
desolate, like, isn't that thedefinition right?
And I'm aware that there issome sort of um, even
enlightening, happening for mein this moment.
I'm just wondering, like, canyou tease that a little bit?
Or, barney, if you want tospeak to that like, like how
could, how could someonepossibly bring themselves to the
brink of even shifting theirthinking on something like that?
(48:17):
Yeah especially people who'vebeen hurt, traumatized, abused,
had deep pain in life, and I'mtrying to say that and have it
be relative to the fact that wejust talked about Palestine and
Congo and Sudan, so it's likethe yes, it's not comparable in
that sense.
So can you all of that, all ofthose things are what is popping
(48:41):
up for me, and I think thatthat's why I really enjoy
conversations with you all,because I think the way that my
formation would call this isthis is very much discipleship
for me learning about how tohold space for these very
conflicting ideas and veryconflicting feelings and bad
(49:05):
memories, and also having hopeand just the whatever you would
call that.
So can you help people like mewho might be feeling viscerally
the abyss doesn't have to bedesolate.
What does that even mean?
And is it possible to reallybelieve that?
Speaker 3 (49:28):
I'm going to respond and I want to T Barney off to
talk about things that he'sreally good at talking about,
which is epistemology, which isI think epistemology is a big
word really to capture our waysof knowing and the reason I'm
saying I'm team burning offbecause I think I want, I would
(49:51):
like for you to take us there,barney.
I don't know if you know whereI'm coming from, but I think
what, why I respond in that wayis, first of all, I want to say
that I am in no way seeking toglorify the abyss and like there
is a reality that, like theabyss as we talk about it comes
from, like structural a lot ofit comes from structural,
(50:12):
constructed suffering, right andthat, or just like harm you
know like.
So I'm not glorifying it, right, and why.
When you asked me the questionof where the shift has come from
, I pointed to kind of likewomanist folks, women,
especially Alice Walker and ToniMorrison and Octavia Butler,
(50:36):
who you know, like some of thesefolks are going to still
identify themselves in that way.
But I experienced the work inthis way and also I want to, you
know, I want to bring in boththe color purple as a text and
also recently saw the new filmright, and to even just give the
color purple as an example oflike you have these black women
who are experiencing pretty muchevery level of harm that can be
(51:01):
experienced, and they find waysof women loving women and women
loving themselves and findingthe divine in themselves.
And why should a breezecharacter is so significant?
(51:23):
And just like there's just likeso much there of like you know,
there's a way that she writestheir circumstances do change,
like silly, circumstances dochange over time, but but
there's something that mattersbefore her circumstances change,
right, there's, there's,there's something that matters
about the love that she andsilly find together, even when
(51:46):
she's still under the thumb ofMr Right.
Like there's like, and this iswhy I say don't glorify these
things, because I wouldn't wantany of us to be in the
conditions that we often findourselves within.
But why I'm I'm naming it inthis way is is I found that it's
an inheritance, because I speakof it as an inheritance that
(52:06):
comes from.
I'm sure that it can pointbeyond what happened in the
Atlantic, in the, in thetransatlantic slave trade and
that all altering of the world.
I know that it comes frombefore, then I think I can even
speak to various Yorubatraditions and Orishas who in
(52:27):
deities who are connected to thedeepest waters, right, and also
I recognize myself as someonewho is descended from people who
were enslaved on this land andwho come through that that
Atlantic deepest waters abyss,and so I, I I am pointing to
this of a place of belief.
(52:48):
Mainly, it's not a place ofbelief, it's a way of knowing.
I know that the abyss is notonly desolate, because that's
what.
I have, like, lived through itand actually like love through
it, and like love continues tobe what comes out of it and in
it, and and it's a way ofknowing that that it's not only
(53:10):
desolate, it's a way of shifting, you know, to speak to Barney's
piece, it's a way of saying I'mnot going to keep swimming up
because up is actually notfreeing me, like, not like I
like there's something I'mknowing in like stopping the
strokes to swim up that knowsthat that's not where rest comes
(53:30):
from, or loves come from, orfreedom comes from, but there's
something in embracing theweighty ones and being here
together that is actually adifferent way of knowing and a
rejection of these other ways oflike.
Of like knowing that I've beentaught is like the way you're
supposed to know.
You know and that's why I wantto tee Barney off and to go into
(53:52):
it, because I think it's been.
It's not even like.
I think some of our language offaith and belief and hope and
stuff like that leaves uswanting, and but there is
something in this embodiedguttural knowing.
That is why I can say thosewords to you, you know that's
yeah, no, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (54:13):
That's very helpful.
Yeah, yeah, barney.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Dear question to me is I think that you know a lot
of the work that I've been doing.
A lot of the work that has beenhappening in me is re existence
is, if we use biblical language, like a resurrection, and the
(54:43):
way that I think is the poemthat I read at the beginning and
what Jazzy's talking about iswhat I'm trying to do right now
is put into words what has beenhappening in me and some of what
it sounds like has beenhappening in you, to me, and I
refuse to let those who gaveharmful theologies to us have
(55:13):
the right to retain that.
They have the corner on whatChristianity is, because it is
the Bible, or the scriptures, atleast for me, are such a source
of power that if they can takeit and I know that it's been so
traumatic but if it can becompletely taken and then
(55:34):
abandoned as a source of power,it's like that's like a wind
that I don't want, I don't thinkshould be, and it is.
It is our inheritance, it's myinheritance, and so when you
were talking about that, Ithought a lot about Psalm 139,
(55:54):
if I go up to the heavens, youare there, and if I make my bed
in the depths.
You are there and I think aboutthe central, animating memory,
bodily memory, of Christiantradition, which is solidarity
in the abyss.
(56:16):
So much of the ways that we'vebeen taught about what hell is
or what heaven is.
I think all that is wrong.
It is to make us afraid thatthe abyss has no life and the
abyss is hell.
But it's a reorientation tosaying, actually the body of
(56:39):
Jesus showed us that there waslife in the abyss, that there's
a coming through of that.
There's this empty tomb, thisopenness of life that comes and
it doesn't have that.
Actually the demonic comes.
When you try to avoid thatplace, you start to try to make
yourself more than you can be.
(56:59):
And going back to me as to thevideo, it's so the movie don't
look up.
I've referenced that movieseveral times and felt kind of
like you to be like anybodywatch this movie Because it was
so profoundly moving to mebecause, you have this elite
class of politicians andcorporate executives who are
able to escape earth.
(57:21):
God was so wonderful whenBrontorac got killed on that
eight planet by that alien birdwhatever it was called.
I was like God is divine justiceright there.
But I was so moved by itbecause it's also it was such an
image of me of is what this iswhat faith looks like when
(57:44):
you're in the midst ofapocalypse happening, and it's
in these small things of sittingaround a table and of love that
comes in the midst of theseabyssal moments.
It cannot be killed, it cannotbe killed, and it did something
to me.
It deposited something in methat reverberates, because at
(58:05):
the center of my own inheritanceis somebody who showed us that
there is a way through death andthat is full of life.
I love Jazzy's language and herlove letter.
It teams the abyss teams withlife.
It's not something we believe,it's something we know.
(58:26):
And what each of us haveexperienced in knowing our
bodies is that that is true.
So, going back to therevolution language, a lot of
the folks that I've been readinghave said even Marxist
revolution is a white idea.
It's a white idea and itrequires societal violence.
(58:47):
But, who gets the most harmedin revolutions?
It's like the most vulnerable,like the poorest, the children.
That's what happens, and so I,too, feel like I still want, I
still think that I have peoplewould call us probably
(59:08):
revolutionary, but there's anentire way that that, the way
that that has been pictured, isjust not the future that we
desire.
Jazzy and I have been talkingabout this this past week too,
that some of the ways I thinkthat social media works is that
(59:33):
it teaches us and disciples usand disciplines us to be
antisocial, because we thinkthat justice can come without
what Jazzy has told me oftenabout, which is like organizing
person to person.
Organizing organizing isinherently social.
Social media is inherently kindof antisocial, but with
(59:57):
pandemic, with everything that'shappened, we have an entire
generation of people who thinkabout a social justice ethic
that comes from an antisocialmeans Instead of what it really
means to build life in likesmall, revolutionary ways, in
ways that Jesus was like notleading a new regime, but like
(01:00:20):
loved a small group of people,and yet his name comes down to
us as an ancestor that has, likeGod's hand, changes and directs
our life in different waysstill, and so I feel like that's
some of my own shifting aroundrevolution and also in embracing
that God is in the abyss.
Where can we go?
(01:00:41):
Where can we be cast?
There's nowhere that we can becast.
That is outside of where God iswith us and in us.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Thank you.
That was some sort of a portal,something I don't know Like I'm
just very grateful to you bothbecause I think I have and this
always happens is I come to youall with like my little budding
Y'all?
I've been thinking about theselittle sparks and I don't know
(01:01:28):
how to name them or even saythem in a way that isn't like
saying what I don't mean andkind of getting clear on what I
actually do mean, and I'm justgrateful for, among other things
, for that from you all.
In my life personally, I thinkwhat I want to do is have people
(01:01:49):
.
If you're interested in this,where can people find you and
learn from you?
If that's what you want, Iappreciate it.
Because I think that this is avery, very powerful and potent
conversation that I'm surepeople who have probably had the
same little things bouncingaround are going yes, that's yes
(01:02:13):
, and so I would love to offerthem more of your wisdom if
you're open to sharing withfolks where they can read or
find you or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Well, I think, Jazzy, you can speak for yourself.
It's funny because a lot of theways I think that I work or we
work is in very like small andlocal ways and in some ways, we,
both of us are also in thewombs of like a PhD program or
like a metamorphosis, like acocoon of a time to like really
retreat and do some deep work.
(01:02:48):
So that's circumstantial.
But also in our own ethics, Ithink we think a lot about like
faith in small things.
That's just who I am for sureyou can find me on Instagram,
but I write stories once.
I write stories, but that'sabout it.
But I was thinking to me ifthat's true, I think you could
(01:03:10):
offer like an ask us anythingand host us, and I'm more than
happy to come and like talkabout these things, because
Jazzy and I are talking aboutthese things all the time.
Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
It's so funny that, like even the like just I'm used
to this from Stoop Communionbut watching you both smile over
the same like phrase orsomething at the same time, I'm
like yeah, that's the way theyare kin bro, that's true.
Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
And that's revolutionary right.
We come from very differentworlds and we found each other
in the abyss.
You know, and that's how you doit.
You know, that's how you live,that's how you survive.
Yeah, I would say yeah, I agreewith Barney's idea.
I like the ask us anythingthing.
Similarly, you can find me onInstagram.
(01:04:04):
I'm in the middle of trying tofigure out what I wanna do with
Instagram because of the thingswe're reflecting on social media
.
But people I always love whenpeople like we're genuinely
wanna connect in that space, soI do open.
You know, that's so myInstagram is.
Should I say what my Instagramis?
Okay, it's Jazzyjzyy,underscore Simone S-Y-M-O-N-E.
(01:04:27):
This is also making me be likeI always wanna like restart my
blog.
That I have, but I'm not gonnatell y'all what it is until I
get it together.
But all I have to say is Iagree with Barney.
Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
I do, yeah, and I know that you are both firmly in
your values and at the sametime I'm like I don't know, the
way I'm wired is just like morepeople to the truth, more people
to the truth, like that'salways been an impulse that I
don't know if I'll ever be ableto get rid of.
But I'm like I'm getting thehow complicated it can be to
(01:05:05):
kind of like it's complicated,it's very complicated.
Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Well, to me I also feel like that's just like your
like gift in the body to likeplay.
You know like it's so, becauseyou do it, because other friends
of ours do it, we don't have todo it, you know.
Exactly, that's true, you'redoing something that is needed.
You know and you're functioningand I love that that impulse in
(01:05:29):
you has continued throughdifferent you know spaces,
because it's just so core to whoyou are and I hope that you
continue to do it, and I hopethat you continue to do it and I
hope that you continue to do it.
Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
Yeah right, god, dad, go on it.
Those things really areirrevocable, because at the
heart and at the truth of themit's.
Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
It is a true thing, the true thing about who you are
, and how you're wired.
Yeah, I'm on it.
Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Yeah, you're on that, yeah, but it's true like it's
complicated.
Yes, that's true People show updifferently.
Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
that's how, yeah, but I'm wondering about what does?
Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
it look like to.
I just don't, I'm notinterested in like more of the
stuff.
It's like how do we really havethe same values, not in a
hegemonic way, but like the sameethical yeah ways of thinking
(01:06:28):
and what?
How dynamic could it be to getpeople with those?
What could you build?
What could you create?
in the sense but now I'mthinking about do we need to
create?
So that's why you guys arealways like, you're always just
spurring me to think morebroadly and more deeply, which
is a real gift, and I'm verythankful for that, and I'm very
(01:06:49):
thankful for both of you.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Yeah, thanks to me.
I do think we need to create.
I just think we want to do itour way and I feel all that
instincts in you of like it'stricky.
We're like figuring out how todo something that we haven't
really seen.
Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
Yeah, it always makes me think of, yeah, we
definitely still believe increating and, like I do think,
like worlds are birthed, youknow, like in the abyss as well,
like I think that that's,that's not something to negate.
It makes me think of of WillieJennings language of like
whiteness as a form of maturity,but as a form of creating that
(01:07:28):
destroys creation, and so we'retrying not to do that.
Yeah, creating is actuallyreally core, you know, I think
it makes sense.
Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
I love you guys on a deep level.
Thank you so much for being onon the show and I think I will
be birthday.
Thank you, I'm over the hill.
Hey, hey, here we go.
I'm looking forward to that.
I'm looking forward to what agood years.
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Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com