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Showing posts from January, 2019

Dance As Life Practice

A well-trained dancer knows that when you "pose," you are never really done. You have not completed an action or arrived at a destination. Posing is a continuous action. It is a journey. You stretch and breathe into that thing until it's time to transition to the next "pose." Such are the seasons of life. You will never arrive . Arriving is a journey.  Once you get to a sort of destination, there will be something else to arrive to; that is, if you desire to come alive over and over again. There's nothing like a dancer who emptily sits in a pose. Great dancers know that the more you sit in a position instead of breathing through it, the harder it will be to transition to the next movement. In existential terms, there are no poses . Only movements. Only motion. Only change. So, be a good dancer today.  Breathe through this season.  Grow.  Come alive! Get every bit of energy out through the tips of your fingertips & t

My Life is Menstruating

I feel like my life is menstruating right now ... Stay with me folks... I feel like the discomfort and agony (which is not unfamiliar because it reoccurrs) is because I'm releasing some things from my life in preparation for the next phase of this journey. I feel like the egg has run it's course --certain experiences, certain relationships, and certain conversation topics have run their courses--and now it's time for me to, in gratitude, release it... and I'm in pain... and it's a beautiful agony... but still agony... And still beautiful because cycles are essential. I wonder how many people fight releasing to avoid the agony of menstruation? Or because we don't trust the cycle? Or how many of us have yet to find the beauty in the cycle as a God-ordained essential part of life? There have definitely been times in my life when I've fought the process of release. I can think back on some decisions I made two and three ye

Surviving the Community that Supports R. Kelly (and Men Like Him)

Read Finding Love After Sexual Assault Here _______________________ My brilliant colleague, Danielle Williams Thiam, preached a sermon this fall on the rape of Tamar (2 Samuel 13). In her sermon she pointed out all the ways in which, not just Amnon, but the community and world in which Tamar lived participated in her rape. "Rape is a communal sin," she preached. I honor her words as a sexual assault survivor and as an advocate for holding the collective responsible for the violation of women's bodies, particularly the bodies of black and brown girls. ______________________ For every person who knew that Deacon so-and-so (who was in with the pastor) was touching little girls and turned their heads cuz they didn't want to 'fall out' with the pastor- REPENT . For every person who stood outside a closed door knowing that what was going on behind that door involved an abuse of power that ravaged a female body- REPENT . For every lawyer who kn