i am coming alive

perching lines, no. 22

Hello gentle-people,

I was recently reflecting on how one of the greatest gifts I can give the people around me—people I love and want to see do well—is patience. It demands that I am unhurried and present. Lately that has been a bit more challenging—my systems are being stretched to their limit.

I am grateful then, to have a low-tech/no-tech week ahead.

Today I was lingering on this from a little more than a year ago:

I recently realized I have recovered my sense of ambition. It went through the ringer from 2021-2024. But from 2023-to now I finally found myself in a living situation where the alarms of survival mode settled and it was safe enough to heal. I shed so many layers of armor to get to the tenderness you see today. A tenderness I hope helps other folks see that the light that came to Lucille Clifton also found me.¹

I cannot wait to study her archives. As the poetic ancestor I most often venerate,² she helped me find my way to this joy...and I feel...wild.

Like Hagar's wild child—if he held the aura of a wallflower who is surprisingly loud.³

I've recovered my sense of ambition.
It no longer looks the same as it once did—
but I still look good wearing it.

How am I leaning into this sense of ambition? I’m in a season of shooting my professional shot. It is funny how healing makes you believe in what you have to offer in the world.

All across my social medias I have been saying: This is a Black joy archive. Today, let us observe this:

I am coming alive—⁴

This is what they promised me was possible when I first read the Howard Thurman “Sound of the Genuine” speech.

So much is flowing out of me so naturally in this season, laced with joy. I’ve seen dreams rise up from the valley of dry bones⁵—Lucille reminds me we will wear new ones—

And I feel it in the cracking, the stretching and the sturdiness of my legs when I jump.

perching lines:

Speaking of jumping, I recently went to an event⁶ called “Double Dutch Dialogues,” featuring Lakisha R. Lockhart-Rusch, author of Doing Theological Double Dutch: A Womanist Pedagogy of Play. When I say I had to go off camera to jump up and down in my room as I listened! I have felt like I was in a season of play before her talk and knowing her work was out there, affirming that direction made me giddy. Here are some perching lines from her book—in the form of one gorgeous paragraph, which I will read so that you can feel the spirit of it.⁷

a contemplative moment:

From the table for my choreopoem class, where I get to practice playing with poetry among others. The quote on my little orange notebook is from the workshop facilitator, the wonderful poet and playwright, Letta Neely. It comes the sermon she preached at my church on the 20th. She says “Sit with a plant and let it name you before you name it.” It has been a gift to learn from her!

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landing track:

• Today’s landing track also come from Doing Theological Double Dutch, and is found at the end of the chapter I quoted from above:

  Remember a time when you experienced play…
  Where were you?
  What was the space like that invited the play?
  Who were your play partners?
  What emotions, attitudes, or behaviors did it engender?
  How did you feel before, during, and after the playing?
  What did you learn from the play?

catch me outside this newsletter

I have nothing to highlight right now but I will soon! Sometime after I return from my week of rest, you’ll hear about a 6-week course that is kind of an expansion of my Woven series. Just check your calendar and make sure you’re available on Wednesdays from Sept. 17-the end of October (minus the week of 10/8).

Teaching is one of the many things that makes me come alive. I have missed it now for years and I am glad I found a gentle path back to it. I am most excited for DIALOGUE PARTNERS. This coming season will be spending time with many dialogue partners, new and old. I am EX-CI-TED.

Again, my awesome brother Ro took this photo.

The “new bones” Fund & tender work

In case you’re new here, I’m raising funds to support a season of transformative fellowships and cohorts that will deepen my work as a writer, artist, and spiritual leader. This includes travel, lodging, tuition, and integration time for four opportunities: the Better Selves Fellowship (August 2025), which offers rest and renewal in nature; the Rest & Reimagine Cohort from Nevertheless She Preached, which nurtures justice-rooted spiritual leadership; the Made for PAX Fellowship, which will ground my songwriting practice in contemplative activism; and a research fellowship at Emory University’s Rose Library, where I’ll study Lucille Clifton’s papers and further develop my framework of archival devotion.

This campaign, The “new bones” Fund, is an invitation to co-create with me as we imagine future spaces where spiritual creativity and rest-centered ministry are offered to the restless dreamers who find this tender work.

I love a word with beautiful interlocking meanings and “tender” is one such word for me. I am tender—soft. I am tender—bruised. I am a tender—mending. I invite you to join in the tending that is supporting me in sharing from the overflow in these newsletters.

If you can’t become a paid subscriber yet but want to tend monetarily you can Buy Me a Feather. You could visit the Bookshop, where I earn a 10% commission and buy a book for yourself or for me.

Want to explore collaborations, connect or share a resource for A Gentle Landing? Feel free to click these helpful Substack buttons below.

1. And just like her, I plan to be so mysterious about what we saw.

2. The weary, let me assure you: veneration is not the same as worship.

3. Don’t believe me? Hand me an acoustic guitar.

4. This song by Two Another called “Coming Alive” makes me cry sometimes.

5. Queue Lauren Daigle “we call out to dry bones, come alive, come alive!” Shout out to MKK. I miss harmonizing with you.

6. Shout out to the Black Sports Ministry Network, where it was hosted! Lookout for it to be posted on their website at some point.

7. From page 114-115.