It's hard to know where to start with this one. I have no reason to believe things are going to get better. These last few weeks exposed to me, more than ever before, the depth and persistence of systems and associated mindsets that result in an ongoing assault on the lives of Black and brown people around our planet. 

More and more I see, and then speak about, how much this is so. And I feel the tension in me of holding it without collapsing into judgment, paralysis, or numbness. How to keep my own heart open and open and open and open to more and more and more, to hold it all without losing faith, without losing love, without losing vision? 

The Path of Nonviolence

In these days, my deepest longing is for companionship on the path of nonviolence. I feel my limits - one small human body trying to contain so much suffering, and remain open. I need the support of my comrades. I think of myself as having "signed on the dotted line" of nonviolence. There is no going back, no matter what happens. Nonviolence is not for the convenient times, not a fair weather endeavor. Nonviolence is precisely for these times, for when hope seems so distant, hatred so present, collapse so imminent. Nonviolence is about courage. About love. About truth. Not about passivity.  

I feel immensely the weight of responsibility that comes with aiming to hold a picture of liberation for all within a fractured world. This responsibility is not a "should" that I would want to release myself from. Rather, I experience it as a sacred call to action that I want more and more people to accept. In my writing, in how I teach, in every moment I am conscious of anything, I see myself inviting others to hear the call and respond to it. 

In my recent two posts, for example, I notice myself taking more and more risks in what I am willing to say, even if it means losing some people. In the third part of my "Apart and Together" series about the Coronavirus, the one subtitled " Grounding in Interconnection and Solidarity," I speak about what I hold and see. And in my more recent one " King's Two Messages: The Power of Soul Force in Times of Social Unrest," I plunge even more deeply into the unrelenting horror. And I didn't include, in either piece, my recent discovery that lynching continues in the US, even now, and is growing. And there's only so much talking about it that I can do with friends and colleagues. And thus the grief about where we collectively are often remains unmetabolized. 

Mourning and companionship are my main sources of comfort, of nourishment for my soul. Then I hear about people such as Patrick Hutchinson, whose story you can hear about here: he carried a white, right-wing anti-protestor to safety at considerable risk to himself during a Black Lives Matter protest in London. And then I remember I am not alone in the knowledge that another world remains possible. 

As part of all this, I want to highlight two Black women, one a dear friend, the other an author and speaker previously unknown to me.  First, Roxy Manning recently wrote two articles. One is " How Can Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Be Helpful in These Transformative Times?" And the other is " Empathic, Powerful Responses to Covid-19 Inequities." Both articles fill a gap in the way NVC has been thought about, showing how it can be used in difficult moments in service to transformation and solidarity. Second, Kimberly Jones was recorded making a seven-minute speech that's been one of the most powerful I've listened to, perhaps in my entire life. It's called " How Can We Win?" and it's a brief and wrenching window into the deep roots of racism, and why calling anything "looting" is problematic. If you've never listened or read anything about the history of racism in the US, you may as well start with this one. I hope you will learn, through her presentation, why equal treatment isn't and can't be. Unless we reckon with the legacy and the systems that perpetuate what we currently have, and create massive shifts, any attempts to create equality are more likely than not to reproduce the huge gap in life experiences that we already have. Watch it. I can't come close to her power in making it clear. 

If you are white, find all of this utterly overwhelming, and are looking for a gentle entry point, I have one for you. A blog post by John Bell seems to me like an antidote to the harshness towards white people that I see in many places. I found the language accessible, heart-centered, and inviting. It's called " Freedom and Energy from Healing Our White Racism."

Joy Against All Odds

And now for the joy. My friend, Victor Lewis, about whom I have spoken before, has taught me an expression I hadn't known before: "Don't let the devil steal your joy." The devil, in the tradition that Victor comes from, refers to the white masters. Joy was one of the core elements that got generations of Africans and their descendants to survive the unspeakable, unimaginable horrors of enslavement, physical brutality, humiliation, and major assaults on their basic humanity. Defiant joy, joy against all odds. If ever those of us who weren't blessed to have come from this ancestry fully embrace the magical and beautiful humanity of our Black brothers and sisters, one of the benefits we may get is joy beyond what most of us know. I leave this with two examples. One a song actually titled " Don't Let the Devil Steal Your Joy," a recording from 1983 by Rev. Isaac Douglas and his choir. The other, a version of what has come to be known as the Black National Anthem, otherwise called " Lift Every Voice and Sing" that displays the uplifting lyrics against the background of what Black history in the US has been. This is from 2009, sung by the Balm in Gilead. If joy was available then, let us never forget that it is available to embrace, in all conditions, as part of liberation for all of us, none left behind. 

 

Miki

 

P.S. If you want to hear more of what's been happening in the last couple of months, click here for both work and personal celebrations and mournings, including more developments within Nonviolent Global Liberation (NGL), new articles and recordings, and more.

Credits, from top:  

La tua Verita solleve anche la Polvere by Rita M. licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Happy Martin Luther King Day by Darwin Bell licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

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