the enemy's camp: testimony from a stolen life

A prelude to a series called "Woven: Reflections on the Wonderfully Weird Web"

Hello gentle-people,

October is greeting me with a vibe that says “chill.” I am still getting used to my new job, where I mostly work from home. This past year was a transition year, as I was finishing up school and working part-time. I worked part time through seminary and took on all kinds of freelance work.

In this season, I am embracing the shape my life is taking while working a full time job. Especially as my role changes and I get to integrate more of my skills, experiences and education from the last 5 years.

I have written in the past about approaching this newsletter leisurely¹ and I see a need to lean into that more and release some of the structures I have put around it. At my church, we have a guiding principle of ministering from the overflow and not from depletion. I want to honor that in the work I do here.

So I want to write when I feel like it. I want to publish when I know I am ready to let the words mean something to someone else. I want to greet the community that I find in the comments when I am ready to engage—

That might look like more newsletters or less. But I am intent on building an archive I am proud of nonetheless.

One of my friends.

Robert the contemplative

, has a Sacred Stack of books that sits on his desk. Maybe you’ve seen a picture of it on your timeline. These are books he refers to often, finding that they help him come back to the ideas that ground him.

I don’t have a stack on my desk—one, because I know I would have a hard time keeping it modest. But my favorite books to reference can be found on the bookshelf closest to my desk or in my book cart. For the sake of this post, let’s imagine I had them all on a Sacred Shelf. One very special book for me on that Sacred Shelf is called Black Imagination by Natasha Marin.

I reach for this book when I need to remember something about the vastness of the Black experience. When I need to reach for a dream other than my own to keep going. Marin divides the book, which is filled with contributions of prose and poetry, into three questions:

1. What is your origin story?

2. How do you heal yourself?

3. Describe/Imagine a world where you are safe, valued and loved.²

Often, I don’t even delve into the contributions…my heart is called into a space of reckoning just sitting with these words in the front matter of the book, just before the dedication:

“close you eyes— 
make the white 
gaze disappear”

—Natasha Marin, Black Imagination

What is your origin story?

the enemy’s camp

I remember singing this song in Church:

Well, I went to the enemy's camp and
I took back what he stole from me 
I took back what he stole from me 
I took back what he stole from me 

Let me testify—before I could write the way I write now, I was writing for an audience I was hoping could understand me.³ Before I went to seminary, I studied religion in undergrad and felt like I was awakening to a family conflict. Because I was a Christian and Black, there were elements of that conflict that felt personal and exposing.

Still, I was learning about a Eurocentric Christian history. We talked around whiteness without explicitly naming it. So I made it my mission to name it often, I pointed to the tangled webs of Christianity and racism wherever I could find them. I became a verbal dancer, finding ways to talk about the most offensive, life-denying characteristics of the faith—while keeping it friendly and light for white people.

It was seminary that led me to revelations about my deep need to love Blackness. In a place where there was less dancing around the dark history of Western Christianity, I let myself relax from my beautiful⁴ posture of defense.

But that relaxation turned into shock when I felt betrayed by whiteness, only this time, it wore a progressive spirituality. It knew how to speak my language and even keep up with the lingo. I was introduced to the ugliness of the academy. The tongue that could once loosen into eloquent, nonthreatening sentences was locked behind my teeth.

I had to learn new defenses.

This poem emerged for me the summer after my first semester, and it began with a warning:

Life of the Mind (summer 2019) by Rose J. Percy

Be careful where you take your steps 
In that place
They did not build it with your face in mind.

I did not know that the life of the mind could 
teach me how to dance
But I have learned how to let others lead
To protect my space and yours 
While we appear to be in sync
I am minding my feet
Hoping I don’t step on you
Hoping you don’t step on me
Knowing that with every twist of my wrist 
I am aware that you are telling me with your eyes
Which way I should turn 

I did not know the life of the mind could 
Teach me how to embody apology
I am sorry that I am here now 
And you must deal with me
While I deal with myself
And no one deals with you. 
This is just the way things are—

The metal box that takes me there
Trains me to look down
I hate its screechy sounds
It is never on time but I am always late
Out of breath and 
Out of place. 

The metal doors do not promise safety 
They promise to promise in as many words as one can use to sentence 
Me into a prison of gratefulness.
They are heavy with welcomes 
That close too fast behind someone 
Who has never learned to look over their shoulder

The negroes of the past line the walls across from the elevator
You tell me we are proud of them
The metal box takes us up again
I do not have enough seconds to tell you 
How often I second guess myself

Before I came here
I felt who I was
Now I think too much about her
As I wish I did not know this life of the mind
Would be a life in your mind.

the White imagination

I can list several books that have helped me name what I felt I was trapped in, but none have had more salience to me than Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. This book is on my Sacred Shelf and I have written on it briefly before:

Black Matters

Morrison looks at how the “classic novels” in the American literary canon are full of myths about Blackness that reinforce racial stereotypes, flattening the Black experience. In other words she names that there is a general naiveté (or willful ignorance) in the dominant culture about the inner life and worlds of Black folks.

For more receipts, consider the Lucille Clifton poem, “reply,” which Kevin Quashie references in his book Black Aliveness, Or a Poetics of Being.⁵ (Oh wow, look—another title on my Sacred Shelf.):

From a Letter Written to Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois by Alvin Borgquest of Clark University in Massachusetts and Dated April 3, 1905.

“We are pursuing an investigation here on the subject of crying as an expression of the emotions, and should like very much to learn about its peculiarities among the colored people. We have been referred to you as a person competent to give us information on the subject. We desire especially to know about the following salient aspects: 1. Whether the Negro sheds tears…”

reply 

he do
she do
they live
they love
they try
they tire
they flee
they fight
they bleed
they break
they moan
they mourn
they weep
they die
they do
they do
they do

they moan

“In the howls and wails of a saxophone solo, we hear the echoes of our stolen lives, the rhythms of our struggle for liberation.”

—Fred Moten, Stolen Life

“When we liberate ourselves from the expectation that we must have all things figured out, we enter the sanctuary of empathy.”

—Sonya Renee Taylor, The Body is Not an Apology

I wish more people knew how much I love jazz. I much it helps me live with a little more mystery in my life.⁶

Jazz came into my life when I was a brooding teenager. One of my church friends introduced me to a young Black boy who seemed to be steeped in a deeper brooding spirit. He was the definition of “too smart for your own good.” He regularly struggled with depression just like me, but we also had beautiful things in common—things people would tell us kept us from being “Black enough.”

People have told me I have a gift for suspending judgment. It was certainly evident in the conversations I entertained with him. We would connect over Myspace and chat when he was online. As hard as he was on me, he was harder on himself. It came through in writings that highlighted a deeply pessimistic worldview. He was an atheist⁷ and regularly lectured me on how Christianity was anti-Black. He would speak harsh words, dismissing my faith claims as juvenile and uninformed.

If you’re asking yourself why I let someone talk to me the way he did, here’s your answer: At 14/15, he was a rare friend who didn’t dismiss my deep questions. They were normal for him. He would remind me sometimes that they were beyond him. He wasn’t intimidated, and though he might have sounded annoyed in his messages, he continued to engage my questions and ask some of his own. To put it simply, the more we spoke, the more I found him beautiful, frightening, and confusing.

In my curiosity—and my crush—my internal world found a friend unlike any other for the first time. All he had to do was mention something and I would research it and let it lead me to appreciation. So when he mentioned listening to Charles Mingus—just mentioned it—I did so, too, hoping it would bring us closer. This is how I fell in love with jazz. It was a byproduct of a childhood crush and to this day, it continues to awaken new love in me.

I have never had it in me to share that story publicly until now. But it feels like an origin story that points to so many threads of Black aliveness for me. I have struggled with depression since I was a teenager. I go through some days feeling like my mind is heavy. But I have been growing in my love of my wonderfully weird Blackness since I was 14. All because of a wonderfully weird friendship sustained by connection on the wonderfully weird web.⁸

How do you heal yourself?

Translation is something many of us do to reach out and experience being understood. But so much can still get lost in translation, even between people who speak the same language/dialect. I once thought I needed to leave predominantly white spaces in order to get a break from translation. I thought it was possible to be in a space where I wouldn’t have to translate, since mistranslation seemed to be the source of so much pain. And believe me when I say I know this pain through so many of my identities—learning theologically and spiritually only added more layers to it. But what else is one to expect from a journey that begins with “I went to the enemy’s camp”?

So how do I heal myself? I heal by recovering a love for mystery and openness, especially when I am trying to communicate ideas. Or when I am trying to comprehend them from others. I try to remember there is more space in the world for me then I can fathom. I remember my people are out there, and there is just as much space in the world for them, too. A question from Sonya Renee Taylor’s The Body is Not an Apology guides me here: “What if we all understood the inherent vastness of our humanity and therefore occupied the world without apology?⁹

But I won’t pretend holding nuances and remembering the contradictions isn’t hard. On the one end it can inspire wonder, on the other, a heartbreak shaped by intense cynicism lingers. 

On a good day, I’m leaning more on wonder, even if I still feel the pressure under my calluses.¹⁰ 

On the best days, I’m glad to know what I know and see my agency. I see my imagination pulling me towards freedom and feel sure that this uncertainty hurts because I’ve never been there before; to those new horizons calling themselves “home.”

On the best days I wanna get there and take everybody with me. On the good days it’s enough just to drag myself forward.

I won’t spend too much time on the bad days. But I can tell you I’m done denying their existence. They want to be recognized as remarkably survivable days where there is just enough beauty in the dark to bring me back. 

Describe/Imagine a world where you are safe, valued and loved.

Lately, I’ve been battling a deep depression. I have had one too many days that were just survivable. I have needed to lean on the imaginations of others to help me describe what it means to feel “safe, valued, and loved.”

On my good days, I remember I am lucky enough to experience more than the imagined. I can remember all the ways I have been held in good community. I can remember the affirmations that bring me home. In a world where I am safe, valued and loved, the feeling of home is not so far.

As a teenager, I reached out through my computer screen to regularly engage with someone who was odd in ways that felt familiar. In this newsletter and through social media, I am still reaching and against the odds, I am recognized. Still, there is some translation work involved.

This post exists as the first in a series of writing where I reflect on my journey through digital media, the spirituality it has shaped, and the beautiful connections it has brought close. I hope this post serves as a reminder as I engage in some critique and hard reflection, that online connections have shaped me in deeply beautiful ways.

I went to the enemy’s camp and I…still remember the war. I remember it in a trembling body. I remember it with ears sore from tears. I remember what I used to say “yes” to before I began the journey of coming home to myself. I remember until I make peace with my rememory,¹¹ unfolding like it’s own jazz song. I am invited into an openness to enjoy the song beyond the theory. I went to the enemy’s camp and I…still remember the war. But in a world where I am safe, valued and loved, I have stolen my life back.¹²

Back from the life of the mind divorced from the body.

Back from a place of centering the white gaze.

Back from the lie that blackness, abjection, and nothingness are one in the same.

Back from the depression and fatigue that drags.

Back from a need to understand everything about jazz so I can ensure the liveliest conversation possible with another malcontent teenager—

No seriously. I wanted to impress that boy so much but nothing I said ever seemed to move him. I kept coming back to our conversations with more and more fascination, seeking to understand him completely. But soon, after months of conversation, he stopped replying. He eventually moved on to a different world: Facebook.¹³

We lost touch but I still remember him. I remember him in the songs I enjoy beyond understanding. I remember him in the ways I still reach out online, especially with the desire to affirm the vastness of the Black experience.¹⁴

In a world where I am safe, valued and loved, I don’t have to have a simple testimony. I can admit I am still running, with my stolen life in hand.¹⁵ I can admit I am still looking back and feeling the shadows of these things I named chasing after me. I can admit I still have a hard time with Natasha Marin’s prompt to “close your eyes/make the/white gaze disappear.”

But in a world where I am safe, valued and loved, there is more to life than what is chasing after me, wishing to snuff it out; than what wishes to understand me to death. There is space—like the people in the world of Lucille Clifton’s “reply”—to just be and be found being.

Landing Tracks

1. How do the digital spaces you are a part of affirm or challenge your imagination of what it means to feel “safe, valued, and loved”?

2. Take some time to reflect on the vastness of Black experience and aliveness for you. Do these spaces contribute to your personal sense of care and safety?

3. In what ways do you experience communal spaces that help you take a break from a type of translation? How do these spaces help you build capacity for loving what makes you different or unique when you re-engage other people or spaces?

1. For more on the “at your leisure” concept that guides this intentionally playful study, check out these two posts:

at your leisure

"At Your Leisure": Moving at the Pace of Flourishing

2. Marin, Natasha, Black Imagination, 11.

3. I try to practice writing to people I have in mind who would understand, with every sentence. My hope is to write to the communities that see me. I want to write to the people I want to hold on to. To read more on this see this post:

4. It had to be beautiful. It had to be poised. I had to wear my anger around my chest and take shallow breaths—

I do not miss being a token.

5. Robert and I did a podcast episode on this book and have themed this season of Black Coffee and Theology around it. (Here are a few links, but you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts.) &! &! &! we have a Bookshop for this season, and you can find the book there.

6. There was even a time in my deeply evangelical days when I gave up jazz because I was afraid to love it too much.

7. Not all atheists are pessimists.

8. I propose we tell future generations this is what “www” stands for.

9. Taylor, Sonya Renee. The Body is Not an Apology, p. 14.

10. I wrote this thinking about how my fingers feel from playing guitar. Especially in seasons where I wasn’t playing consistently.

11. This is a word from Beloved by Toni Morrison. She uses it to describe the repressed memories that seem to interpret the present for many characters. These memories are memories of the suffering of slavery and also include the actions certain characters have taken to escape it.

12. I am slowly reading Fred Moten’s Stolen Life, which is a part of his series constent not to be a single being.

13. It right around the time they started opening it up to more than college students. Whew, what a time to be alive.

14. He continues to be a mystery to me, since, in my adulthood, we’ve never reconnected. I still find myself sometimes wondering if he survived adolescence. I wonder if he found something to place some hope in. I hope he has a community of people around him who love him even if they do not understand him.

15. If you find yourself interested in the work of Fred Moten, the concept of fugitivity as an aspect of Blackness is something he explores beautifully.

A book I haven’t read but heard about explores this concept in pedagogical ways: Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching by Jarvis R. Givens.

I also always have a nerdy corner of my mind thinking about the petit marronage of enslaved Black people in history, and its reclamation in practices of rest.