Some Woman Trying to Be Good Soil

There are a lot of days that I sit and watch the trees, the comings and going of life, or the waves of the ocean and ponder life. I think deep down I am a mystic. Nothing like Harriet Tubman or Howard Thurman, but in my own way, very much a spiritually grounded deep thinker.

Such as it is, I have my morning muse. Me, a hand ground coffee - usually one from Rwanda, Burundi, or Ethiopia - and I sit.

The very act of sitting is often eschewed in America.

Very much so in historical Foundational Black American communities. Who has time to sit when survival has taken all the essence of life and being?

Sitting, being still, pondering, perhaps there is some privilege in that, I'm not sure, but it is what I have always done early in the morning. I want to be silent in the deeper places of my heart and soul and hear from God.

Probably thirty years ago, I remember the feeling of "what now?" after enduring some tumultuous changes in my life from age 23-29. The twenties are definitely formative coming-to-you stages of life that can deeply impact a young person. Back then, one was considered an adult at 18, so I was almost assuredly in my adulting phase of life, that world before social media, that world before cell phones, that world before the necessarily-always-connected essence that young people find themselves in today.

I can't even phantom what it would be like to have the questions of life in my mid-to-late twenties in this hyper-surveillance-existence we are in now.

Enter some women who are trying to be good soil and in so doing, are inviting us to become our truth.

The Nap Bishop who has intentionally spent the past decade telling women, particularly FBA women, to "go sit down and take a nap." She has been a vocal critic of the grind and hustle culture that is pervasive in millennial circles. The Nap Ministry has become a movement and a conversation about what really matters in life and what can we discover about ourselves, our being, our calling if we just sat still?

My daughter is the other woman that I have been learning from. She is a college graduate, a current grad student and even though she spent the first year post-baacalaurete in an assistant editor position, has been very intentional about taking space for her heart and soul. Unlike many of Gen Z, she is not an influencer, even though she does have the platforms, she does not center her life as a "brand" with every single moment put out for public fodder. She was the one who was my inspiration behind logging off Instagram.

The other women that I've been encountering and engaging with through their work is Cole Arthur Riley in her book, The Black Liturgies and the one before that, This Here Flesh. It was a reclaiming of self and story that she, a millennial, invited us to consider.

Imani Perry is an historian and her collection of essays in Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People has given me a bit of respite along with a bit of understanding. It has been an ah-ha slow journey through this collection.

Lastly, Tracey Michae'l Lewis-
Giggetts in her work, Black Joy, has challenged me to pause and reach into myself for those moments of simple exhilaration for existing. She followed up her book with The Black Joy Playbook that is a consumable journal experience that included moments of remember what it felt like to swing to what an ice cream cone tastes like at first lick on a hot July day.

So, I muse.

It can sometimes feel like a warmth overcoming me, a smile and no one is in the room but myself, and just a knowing that even with all the craziness that has been swirling around the atmosphere since January, there is still life.

Life in all the beautiful ways she unfolds, like in simply remembering that we are worth it, life in knowing that love is greater than hate and in the end, good will win.

I may not know what the tomorrow of tomorrows hold, none of us do, what I do know is that if we are brave, if we choose to, we can be good soil.

Hannah's Song

We came together last night and sang Hannah's song. Family from California was in town, it was the night before Aunt Hannah's Home Going Celebration. We met at my house late in the evening to fellowship, remember, hug, eat, and laugh. Thom felt the love in the room and I'm sure his mom would've appreciated us doing what she did all her life - love. Aunt Hannah was a gracious woman. Her gentle spirit, sparkling eyes, and constant smile will be remembered. She has left us physically, but never spiritually. The laughter was like music in Thom's ear. For the first time in weeks I saw my cousin relax. He has been in a tornado for the past four weeks from his mother's diagnosis to her death. Even in her final stage, Aunt Hannah was granted her desire. She asked to not suffer long when it was her time to go, she had been a caregiver her whole life and I'm sure her prayer was for her son. In the last days of her life, she still greeted well wishers with a wa...

Brothers, Can we Talk?

I'm a Black woman, born of a Black woman and a Black man. When my mother died, it was my father who nurtured me and instilled in me a sense of pride of self, of my race, of my abilities to do whatever I put my mind to do. He never imposed limitations on me as a Black woman. The only caution he ever gave me was to not burn my candle at both ends and to be mindful of my health, I am an asthmatic. He never stopped me from trying anything and always encouraged me. Daddy was a strong Black man who introduced me to Shirley Chisholm when I was a little girl. He reminded me of the fortitude of my late mother's quest for gender equality in the workplace and of the namesake who marched at Selma. He is the one who gave me my pseudonym, Tayé. Daddy was a strong tower of empowerment and fought all the way to his last breath for social, gender, and racial justice. It is in remembering my father this morning that I'm asking the brothers, can we talk? What is it, especially those of my g...

Ashes to Ashes

This is Ash Wednesday. For a lot of Catholics and Anglican Christians, it begins the holy season of Lent. We remember we are but dust and to dust we return, ashes to ashes. It is a somber reminder of our humanity and the finality of life. We are a mere breath. Today, as a Hospital Chaplain Resident, I am imposing ashes on patients, family, and staff. It is a visible marker of a shared faith and belief. We look with anticipation to the finished work of salvation on the cross and in eager hope of the resurrection. As my day progressed, I noticed how much hope was in the eyes of the ones giving and receiving this reminder of our existence. It was both a somber moment and a joyful moment. Two things can exist at the same time. Like the world we find ourselves in. Even as it seems like the darkest, certainly the darkest I’ve known in my six decades on this earth. Completely imperfect as a nation, there was still a glimmer of light until the nightmare became reality. We wonder abo...

The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

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