"The secret of life is not only making lemonade out of lemons -- but it's understanding the benefits of the lemons. It's looking into the countless ways that lemons make us better." I've come to know my neighborhood well. As the days have gotten shorter and the skies more grey, I've taken to long, midday… Continue reading How to Sweeten Lemonade
If you come as softlyAs the wind within the treesYou may hear what I hearSee what sorrow sees. -from "If You Come Softly" by Audre Lorde Six months ago I wrote a piece about my corn plant that I had been slowly nursing back to health and how broken down things can be revived. Six… Continue reading Toward 34: “If You Come Softly”
Thirty-three. A year many refer to as your "Jesus Year." Scholars believe that 33 is the year that Jesus started a spiritual and political revolution that led to his crucifixion. It's a year meant to put you on a different path than the ones you were on before. The year you put the things together… Continue reading For 32: The Practice of Letting Go
Two weeks ago I walked into my hair salon and let my hairdresser Opal chop my hair off. Two weeks before that, I had been washing my hair and cried as clumps of it easily wound its way around my hand as I rinsed conditioner out of my hair. I'd been losing hair for more… Continue reading “Healing is a promise.”
I begin my days with the start of the prayer of Teilhard de Chardin: Above all, trust in the slow work of God. Time is something that moves slowly these days. Time between the next blood draw, the next doctor's visit, the next thing to change about my daily routine to adapt to new realities.… Continue reading Love notes to my body and the slow work of God
I have a beautifully worded tweet as my cover image on my Facebook page that contains the words, "The glory of God is Black people alive." When I first saw it, I drank in each word of the sentence. Memorized each curve of every letter. I often share and fall in love with beautiful statements… Continue reading Forgiven
It has been roughly a month and a half since my birthday. I usually write a reflection a day or two, or a few weeks after my birth. This has been the longest time. But in a pandemic year where we've been asked to shelter in place, time has taken on new meaning. Mainly, that… Continue reading Reading Esther in the Age of Trump and Another Cycle Around the Sun
"To provide for those who grieve...to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes." Isaiah 61:3 Last night during my small group for church, our pastor had us reflect on the biblical passage: "The people who survived the sword, found favor in the wilderness while Israel was seeking rest" (Jeremiah 31:2). That passage evokes… Continue reading Beauty for Ashes
The week began with reports that those whose skin kiss the sun most often already knew: black folk were contracting and dying from COVID-19 at alarming rates. Yet instead of naming the man-made terrains of whiteness - food deserts, poverty, red-lining, environmental and economic racism, to name a few - they label race, not racism,… Continue reading Waiting for the Resurrection
“there are feelings. you haven’t felt yet. give them time. they are almost here. – fresh” -nayyirah waheed Two weeks ago the sermon in church was about how God starts beginnings, the ways He takes nothing and makes it into something. He breathes life into a void and sprouts new life. Pastor Mike… Continue reading Breaths and Promises and the Quiet Whispers
Odelia Younge 