There is this Zen saying I can’t get out of my head: Before I was enlightened, I chopped wood and carried water. After I was enlightened, I chopped wood and carried water.

You don’t have to stop doing what you were doing once your eyes are opened, once you have the answers, once you see things for what they are.

You don’t have to leave church.
You don’t have to end the marriage.
You don’t have to quit your job.
You don’t have to walk away now that you know.

Besides, leaving is not always possible.

But you can stay–differently. By bringing a new consciousness to what you’re doing and where you are. A new heart. A new mind. A new vision. A new voice. A new knowing.  For staying doesn’t provoke the old feelings anymore. The anger is gone. You can accept the limitation of others and perhaps even begin to notice the good that’s in them as well. A change would be good, perhaps is even needed, but for now the change in you is what’s more fascinating. Let that be the catalyst for others. After all, your change means they can no longer treat you the same way.

And so you stay differently, lovingly, but dissidently.  

Special thanks to Jessica Davenport, a 26 year old recent graduate of Emory University Divinity School in Atlanta, for stepping in and contributing this special guest column today here on Something Within.
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It’s Sunday and the clock on my nightstand reads 11am. Typical church hour. I swiftly divert my eyes away from the clock and back at the novel I’m reading, pretending not to notice. “You ain’t missing nothin,” I grumble out of the side of mouth as I turn the page.

And there you have it: my Sunday morning ritual. Instead of squeezing myself into pantyhose and my “Sunday best” and rushing out the door like I once did, I spend the morning trying not to think too hard about where my relationship with the church went wrong.

But given that most 18-35 year olds are missing from Black churches across the nation, my absence isn’t really all that significant. Except that I’m a licensed minister.

I’m a minister who just spent 3 years in seminary writing papers attesting to the prophetic tradition of the black church, but who can’t seem to will herself to step foot in one these days.

And no, the reason I’m not in church is not because seminary, or rather the academic study of religion, somehow “took my Jesus away.” Actually it was the other way around. I gave up Jesus (or rather, my traditional, Baptist-bred beliefs about him) before I went off to seminary. It was seminary that kept me from giving him up altogether.

The major reason I’ve gone AWOL from pursuing ministry is because I’ve become ambivalent—wait, “ambivalent” is an understatement—I’ve become downright disgruntled with what it means to be a black woman in ministry these days. So, I’ve decided to take my work with young people, particularly black teenage girls, elsewhere.

Truth is, my frustration has been mounting for sometime. Perhaps the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back occurred at women’s conference I attended a year ago. This particular conference, organized by some senior women in ministry, was held on the heels of the Juanita Bynum beating and the torture of Meghan Williams. To my horror, there was no organized, intentional response at this conference to the rampant violence against black women that pervades this nation. In fact, not a word was spoken about either of the two cases, save a couple of panelists who had no other choice but to respond to a question about the incidents that was posed during an open Q&A session. That was enough to make a black woman in the church like myself snap her neck and wonder, “What gives?!” Have we really become so beholden to the same recycled conference topics that we can’t organize and speak out about urgent, relevant issues that are literally killing black women in mass numbers?

This is not to wholly dismiss the importance and impact of the topics that are typically talked about at these conferences, like our personal relationships with God and how to build wealth. But, honestly, how can we talk about such topics in isolation of the larger social and political issues of our day and still claim to be prophetic?

But let me be clear: This is not a rant against my immediate foremothers in ministry. At least not entirely. They have followed in the historic tradition of Julia Foote, Ida B. Robinson, Pauli Murray, Prathia Hall Wynn and other “Daughters of Thunder.” It is because of them that there is not only a gaping hole in the proverbial stained-glass window, but we are able to have annual meetings called “women’s conferences” because of their vision.  In many ways, they were first to bring issues concerning women to a national platform within the black church. And for this, we should all be eternally grateful.

So, perhaps this confession is less about what my foremothers in ministry are (or aren’t) doing. This is more about how their legacy is being carried forward by those in my generation. I’m talking about those of us who find it relatively easy to navigate through the rough gendered terrain of ministry. And when it hasn’t been so easy, there have been enough women in ministry with us to have a strong support system to lean on. We have reaped the benefits of our foremothers’ struggle, but we have been slow on the uptake when it comes to making our presence in the pulpit a collective benefit for the women we minister to. Instead of making sure that social issues that impact black women and girls are central to conference agendas, we simply put a new twist on the same topics that have been talked about for the past 20 years. We allow men to continue to set the larger agenda for the black church while we act as if we are mute, content to just have a seat at the table. Instead of prophetically preaching against the systemic oppression of women in our communities and the silence that surrounds it, we preach prosperity gospel-laden sermons, afraid to jeopardize our growing celebrity on the preaching circuit.

It’s important to acknowledge that there are many older and younger black women in ministry who have been breaking with this mold. These are women in ministry who have chosen to walk off the beaten path and courageously cut themselves a new one by boldly tackling issues like HIV/AIDS, violence against women, and the sex trafficking of girls. But these women often do ministry in isolation and without the camaraderie and collective backing of other black women in ministry.

This morning I woke up wondering when the “Deborahs” among black women in ministry will come forward. Those observant, perceptive women who know instinctively what to do when there is an attack against their people. Women who know that these types of attacks require more than a workshop or a plenary session; they require sustained, organized, collective action and their willing to put their heads together with women community leaders and activists to come up with offensive tactics. I’m also wondering where the “Esthers” are. The women who have power, influence and a seat at the negotiating table. Women who are willing to speak up and use their influence to lay out a new agenda that includes issues that threaten the lives of black women. And as a young’un in ministry, I’m searching for the “Ella Bakers” (not a woman in the Bible, I know, but a fierce woman all the same). I’m looking for women who take seriously the voices and ideas of younger women in ministry and who are committed to helping us strategically channel our energy (albeit youthful angst) in constructive, empowering ways.

This wouldn’t be a full confession if I didn’t admit to being part of the problem. Instead of hanging in there, I’ve chosen to pick up my equipment and leave the field too soon. It’s hard to make a difference when you’re shouting from the sidelines. Not to mention, my critique sounds like a temper-tantrum when there are so many trailblazing black women in ministry who are faithfully remaining true to their prophetic work without collective support. Their witness compels me to prepare to gird my breasts, sharpen my game and get back out on the field.

But in the meantime, I’m offering these confessions. And for now going back to reading my novel.

Other writing deadlines prevent me from blogging much over the next couple of days, so I thought I’d give this morning afternoon over to dashing off a few comments (cough, cough) to a few headliners that have thinking women standing on rooftops screaming at the top of their lungs. Mind you, I decided a month ago to take a hiatus from commenting on political headlines once my candidate pulled out the race. I took a bath, cleaned off the slime, and went out on my back porch and found some different dirt to play in as I planted my flowers. But dirt is dirt, I suppose. And here are a few of my thoughts

Jesse Jackson Said What??

Jesse Jackson may be is a foolish old man, but he is not stupid. Evidently, bad attention, to Jackson, is better than no attention at all. I don’t believe for a moment that Jackson’s crudely worded metaphorical joke there on Fox News about wanting to cut off Obama’s sexual member was an off guarded statement. Only a fool comes into a Fox News studio with his guard down. Only a fool thinks there’s still such a thing as an “off the record” comment when sitting before a camera these days.

And by the way, as much as I deplore Jackson’s comments I equally deplore the characterization made by young turks that Jackson is representative of a whole generation of old guard “haters”, icons from the Civil Rights generation who resent that Obama owes nothing to them and has managed to bypass needing their blessing to get to where he is, a generation that oughta go somewhere and sit their/our a#$% down (says more than a few) and let the young folks take it from here. I will have to get back down into the slime to fully respond to this one the way it deserves. Like whether they mean to say that it’s better to owe the Chicago Daly machinery for your rise to power than it is to owe the Civil Right’s old guard. Like since when do CR icons like Joseph Lowery and Joyce Ladner not count as some of Obama’s staunchest supporters. Of course, the old wise woman in me recognizes this talk for what it is: youthful posturing. “Don’t trust anybody over 30” was the mantra of the Berkeley movement back in the 60s. It’s the sort of youthful posturing that got me plenty backhand slaps in the mouth from my great aunt, the great aunt I told when I was 15 years old that she at 60 was too old to drive and too old to know what’s really happening. “New broom sweeps clean, but an old broom knows the corners” was the response I got. She’s right.

Madam President Cynthia McKinney?

As a fire breathing black woman I probably should have commented before now on The Green Party selecting former  Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney as the party’s Presidential nominee and the fact that McKinney turned around and picked journalist and activist Rosa Clemente as her running mate. I have lots of respect for McKinney and have long been an admirer of her experience, accomplishments, and voting record. While I do believe in taking moral stances, I don’t believe in casting symbolic votes. Gas is too high, and so is the price of rice, to waste my money on a long shot no matter how much I may admire her courage to be in the race.

Poor Michelle

I don’t know which I’m more pissed at. The media or Michelle Obama’s acolytes. Satire is one thing, but The National Review cover portrait of Michelle Obama strung up on a tree wearing a red, strapless dress surrounded by klansmen and the more recent New Yorker cover of her as a gun toting, big Afro (yea!) wearing throwback from a previous militant era (and, oh yeah, of Barack Obama dressed as a Muslim) are downright repugnant and offensive. These cartoonic depictions  of Michelle Obama pander to the most ignorant of white fears and the basest of this culture’s stereotypes of black women as lusty and wild and requiring taming. Satire is what some call it. And perhaps that’s the proper name for it. It certainly didn’t begin with the Obamas. There’s been lots of satirical cartoons of public figures before that while their edginess may have caused a raise eyebrow, rarely made me see red. Why not? Because I felt no connection to the public figure on the chopping block. But I do recall plenty of tasteless, misogynistic, satirical characterizations of Hillary Clinton in the media that went uncommented upon by those who are now up in arms about how Michelle Obama is being satiricized.

Which brings me to the second thing that pisses me off. Those who stayed quiet about the misogynism hurled at Clinton during her campaign, and who took secret delight in some of it on the grounds that they believed she somehow deserved what she got, oughta zip it. Sit down. What friggin’ right have you to complain now? You have no moral ground on which to decry how the media treats Michelle Obama. Listen, I have no beef with Michelle Obama. It’s her acolytes who piss me off. The media got the message, even if you didn’t. Women who aren’t offended by misogynism when it’s another woman being pummeled have no moral ground to protest when the rocks get turned in their direction. Men in the media, both black, white, and brown, saw women’s silence about Clinton’s treatment in the primaries and took it as their cue to do the same to Michelle Obama in the general election.

James Baldwin was correct. When writing to Angela Davis in 1971 while she sat in prison awaiting the government’s trial against her, explaining why both bourgeoisie and common black folks had to step up and speak out against the government’s characterization of Davis as a subversive militant, he said: “If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own…. For if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.” Knock. Knock. Michelle.

The Secret Life of Bees is coming out soon as a movie!

Bah Humbug.
For those of you have written asking whether I’m looking forward to the movie The Secret Life of Bees. I’m not. Don’t get me wrong: I love every one of Sue Monk Kidd’s books. But I hated, and I mean hated, the book The Secret Life of Bees. And no amount of headlining the movie with beloved black female celebrities will redeem the movie for me if it sticks close to the black woman-white woman stereotype/story line of the book which drove me to speak in crude tongues. (Forgive me Lord.)

That’s all for now. Now where was I? Oh yeah, back to those deadlines.

I’ve learned at lot from gardening. Pot gardening, that is. I could learn lots more if I ever got nerve enough to take my trowel and gardening gloves out and started poking around outside in my yard. But I am not Eve. I don’t cavort with snakes. And snakes are what come out whenever there’s new construction in the neighborhood, and two houses are going up across the street from my house. So everything I’ve learned from gardening has had to be learned this summer from caring for the plants growing in the big clay pots on my back porch deck.

Watering the the flowers on my back porch is the first thing I do when I get out of bed. My family has to get breakfast whatever way that they can. But not my potted plants. They can depend upon me. I look forward to studying their growth. The back of my house faces south which means that the sun beats down on my plants throughout the day leaving my potted friends constantly thirsty. Not to mention that clay pots drink up a lot of water themselves. I have to water my flowers daily, and watering them is my morning ritual. (I call back home when I’m out of town leaving reminders on the answering machine for someone to water my plants.) This is the first year my plants have not all died by midsummer. I water my flowers in clay pots. I talk to them. I pinch off the dead heads. In exchange they bloom and give my eyes beautiful colors to feast on as I look out my breakfast room window.

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life…which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?…Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin…” (Matthew 6:25-34)

Speaking as the teacher of wisdom that he was, Jesus invites his listeners to see God and their relationship to God in relation to nature. Consider the lilies. Five times in the passage, Jesus says to his hearers, “Why are you anxious, O people of little faith?” He encourages them to study carefully how God feeds the ravens and clothes the lilies in beauty in ways that transcends Solomon’s reputation for grandiosity. He uses the example of nature to invite them to a trust in the cosmic generosity of God. Why be anxious? If God cares enough to see to it that flowers and birds have what they need to thrive, would God do any less for you?

For those of you who are like me, a reader, an intellectual, and a serf to technology, there is much to be learned about God and life by getting outdoors and spending time in nature.

Consider the lilies.

I don’t grow lilies, but I have learned a lot from the flowers in the pots on my back porch.

Some days I feel myself like God when I’m watering and tending my plants. Some days I feel like the flowers in my clay pot as they bloom, die back, and bloom again.

Consider the lilies.

The opposite of faith we like to say is doubt. But Jesus is talking about much more than doubt here. The opposite of the faith Jesus has in mind is anxiety. Worry. Panic. Stress. Anxiousness.

If there’s something worrying you right now, stop. Stop. Trust. Worry won’t fix it. Have Faith.

Consider the lilies.

First things first. Do what’s required today. Do justice. Show Mercy. Walk humbly. Leave tomorrow and the rest to God.