words that break the fall
on deconstruction, rehumanization and cultivating poetic purpose
Hello gentle-people,
To everyone who currently feels like they will never catch up: May you find your breath, find your pace, and find the people who make the journey you are on sweeter and smoother. I am taking my time weaving in more connections for the “I could care less” series. Part two is in the works! You are always welcome to revisit part 1 and the perching lines reflection.
Today, I am honored to share this collaboration with , who writes a newsletter called “.”
Trey and I are both theologians—or theologizers, to use his language. So there will be biblical and theological language throughout this post. As always, feel free to engage at the pace of flourishing. I trust you can discern for yourself what you want more of and what you have had enough of and move accordingly.1
Let’s delve into some “Ideas worth loving” and how they form “words that break the fall.”
“Ideas worth loving form…”
Rose:
Since graduating from seminary in January, I have struggled to pick up my theology books. I know—it wasn’t that long ago. Fatigue is to be expected, right?
I have certain parameters that I look for in what I consider a good “theological text.” At the heart of theology is perspective…and so often, some theologians superimpose their perspectives onto reflections that feel totalizing, to say the least. I like to read what I know is shaped by specific contexts and identities. I read to affirm myself but I also read with curiosity for contexts and identities that differ from my own.
As I found the desire to read theology again, I reached for Trey Ferguson’s book, Theologizin’ Bigger: Homilies on Living Freely and Loving Wholly.2 A few things stood out to me from the beginning. On the back, a pastor (and poet in his own right), Otis Moss III, offers his endorsement, naming Trey a “poet and a prophet for such a time as this.” As a poet myself, I felt called in by the aesthetics of this text. I felt drawn to looking at the invisible strings attached to the choices he made that make this book seem… deceptively simple.
I recognize this familiar feeling with Moss’ book Dancing in the Darkness: Spiritual Lessons for Thriving in Turbulent Times.3 I had a quote from the book I wrote in my calligraphy to keep at my desk in the office of my last job. The quote reads “We must cultivate what we love like a garden.” The simplicity of this task points to the care I see laced throughout Trey’s book. To “cultivate” requires pruning, paying attention to what blooms, and cutting away at the invasive, the rotting, the infested. This is the very definition of deconstruction. To quote Patricia Hill Collins, “[deconstruction is] exposing a concept as ideological or culturally constructed rather than as natural or a simple reflection of reality.”
I also get my definition of “deconstruction” from a cultivated love of philosophy.4 I say cultivated again here because I have had to do some pruning to maintain a love of it. Sometimes the task of the deconstructionist is to reverse engineer what has been pruned, imagine what was cut away before we are left with the flower before us. Sometimes they lay that process so bare, that we find it so hard to appreciate the flowers again.
But I think some deconstructionists can make peace with the ghosts of what cannot be reattached or examined. They may see all that has been pruned away and yet decide to create a bouquet of ideas worth loving. I know I tire of watching people cut sh*t up all day and offer only a discard pile worthy only of potpourri. As Black people, we are intimately familiar with a world that can only appreciate our beauty when we are crushed.
I am interested in those who deconstruct to preserve what is blooming. And I want to know about what they find beautiful, what they want to protect, and what they imagine we are all meant for as we grow more alive. So I asked Trey to collaborate with me here, to add to this garden I am cultivating through A Gentle Landing. In part because I had some lingering questions from an interview on Black Coffee and Theology.5
I want you to pay attention. I want you to feel as I felt engaging his words, like I was invited into what Elizabeth Alexander in The Black Interior6 calls the “living room.”7
In the spaces we designate and create, the self is made visible in the spaces. We occupy, literal "black interiors," the inside of homes that black people live in. Are the living rooms of those homes, the spaces, most consciously arranged, and presented, representative of not only living space, but of one’s aesthetic self?
—Elizabeth Alexander, The Black Interior
It’s difficult to even imagine we could have complete access to another’s imagination…but in many ways, when we read the words of a good writer, we are at the very least, held in the care of their salon, a cultivated space where our best speculation is invited. And yes, for some of us, you must remove your outside shoes before coming in, so you do not bring dirt into our house.
The invitation today is to sit in the salon with Trey’s answers to these questions:
Can we talk a bit about what it means for you to engage poetically in this book, and how does it create a gentle landing? Who do you want to see fall into the gentle landings you are creating?
“…words that break the fall.”
Trey:
You ever notice how a lot of the “latter prophets” in the biblical canon use poetry as a primary means of communicating the truth about God?
Poetry is the way we paint pictures with words. Even prose has the tendency to take on an air of the poetic when we’re trying to present an image and not merely a fact.
When I talk about God, it’s impossible for me to venture too far from poetry. God cannot be empirically defined. God is best communicated through actions, words, and ideas. We cannot understand God without poetry.
As Theologizin’ Bigger came into fruition, it was tough for me to successfully communicate that I do not conduct my God-talk in absolutes. The certain sound of the trumpet is not etched in Sharpie, but in the faithful work of improvisation. And so as I wrote, I riffed. Random breaks in thought, followed by changes in direction marked by brush strokes in the page. Droppin’ g’s on verb conjugations when the Spirit moved. Relaying stories as God directed. I couldn’t talk about the Creator without engaging in the work of creation.
I remember thinking about what I wanted the cover to look like. We’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but we do it anyway. I wanted to summon the best witness I could for this trial. I thought about photographs. I thought about icons. But ultimately, I couldn’t get past an image. Every word about God I share is with the goal of helping to bring the fuzzy images we carry into clearer focus, little by little. That’s the power of poetry.
So I thought about the environments where I felt most creative. I thought about how I set the mood for my own theologizin’. Parked in front of a desk with my laptop. Lofi music providing the soundtrack. And I decided to invite people into that space with me. Because poetry is always an invitation to a space.
That’s the beauty of sharing words. We curate spaces for other people to explore. And that’s a vulnerable place to be. If we’re honest, some of those explorations make us sort of uncomfortable. There are certain places I’d rather certain people not prod.
For instance, white people finding me on Twitter was weird. Is weird. Having certain conversations and making certain observations becomes a different sort of responsibility in mixed company. How am I supposed to talk about Clarence Thomas’s latest act of coonsurrection when people who do not have the range are liable to take it and run with it to places it will surely metastasize? That’s the danger of poetry. Once we share a word or image, we release our control over how it is used.
And so many of the “latter prophets” have found their pleas for justice for the vulnerable refashioned into weapons of judgment and condemnation against those selfsame people. Truths that were originally directed to the lords of society have been instead trained on its victims.
The poetry we make to communicate the truth about God will often accidentally speak louder truths about the people who recite it.
So much of this is beyond the sphere of a poet’s influence. All she can do is move with intention. All he can do is center with purpose. All they can do is focus on who they’d like to see made whole by their words.
When we speak of gentle landings, I want to break the fall for the people who’ve grown accustomed to harsh impacts. The people who’ve gotten so used to absorbing words that tear them down that the words almost seem to be losing their power. But the words never lose their power. We just lose touch with our humanity, becoming desensitized in the process.
I want to build gentle landings for those in need of safety. I want to construct sanctuaries and rehab centers for weary peoples. I want to paint the path to rehumanization with my words. I want to point us to salvation. That’s always my poetic purpose.
🐦⬛Landing Track
From Trey: Sometimes, rehumanization requires us reconnecting with the rest of creation. I like to look for poetry in nature, the first creation. So I got me and the family annual passes to the zoo. If you’d like to find a gentle landing, maybe you should check for one outside. Visit a local park (a national one, if there’s one nearby), nature trail, or zoo if you can. Take in the sights around you. Ask yourself if there’s a message
from the Creatorfor you to be found in creation.From Rose: Let’s help each other remember our humanity in the reminder to “stay sensitive.” Join the “Stay Sensitive” subscriber chat. Here is our most recent thread:
🐦⬛ Locked In Community & the Unlocked newsletter
(I have been making it a weekly thing to end with mentioning Locked In at the end of each newsletter. In a world increasingly siloed, I believe in space that encourage cultivating community.)
Locked In is a writing group for Black, Indigenous, and Writers of Color/the global majority on Substack. We currently write together on Fridays at 9am EST, with new times rolling out as our community grows. All are welcome to subscribe to Unlocked | BIPOC Reads to enjoy some curated posts featuring work from members of the Locked In community!
This is from my opening letter in the post in April called “more & enough,” which you can delve into if you are a paid subscriber.
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Specifically Jacques Derrida. I loved how he presented deconstruction, even in critique, as a form of devotion. He believed deconstruction is impossible without it and that we cannot ever fully divorce ourselves from ideologies and cultures that shape us. Hence the reference to ghosts, which linger in the places where truths are denied or silenced.
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From Alexander, The Black Interior, p. 9. The concepts in this text were so deeply formative to me. I still have so much learning to do with this book. Click here for a look back at my first mention of it on AGL.
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Love this. I've been struggling to read all of everybody's words these days on substack, but I always read Rose and Trey. You're both super smart, but reading you is easy. That's a gift. Rose, I can relate to being theology-fatigued but loving Trey's book. And Trey, I love what you said about the danger of poetry. I feel that deeply. Thanks for sharing.