Why I'm Not Writing My Story- An Author's Journey
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In late October or early November, Steve Reiser, my pastor at Epworth United Methodist Church, asked me if I wanted to write for Black Voices Unveiled. It was a first-time event presented by Minnesota Annual Conference’s Commission on Race and Religion / Racial Reconciliation Movement partnered with Black Methodists for Church Renewal.
I hesitated to commit at first because I didn’t know what to write nor why I was writing it. I was full of questions with no answers. So I contacted Shawn Moore -- a pastor at Living Spirit UMC, one of the organizers, and someone I somewhat knew -- with an email bombarding him with all my questions about writing guidelines, theme, genre, audience, purpose, deadline, and more.
Ron Bell, a pastor at Camphor United Methodist Church and another organizer of the event, responded with answers to five of my many questions:
- The deadline – November 13
- Theme – “give voice to the current social condition we find ourselves”
- Purpose – “helping our larger Church community (of all nationalities, ethnicities and tribe) embrace this moment in time with authentic assessment”
- Audience – “The target audience is the larger Church.”
- And minimal guidelines (and a direction towards genre) – “The essay doesn’t need to be long. It does need to be personal.”
I tried, I really tried, because I wanted to do something in this critical time in history. I wanted to reach that audience that Rev. Ron described but I was blocked by the one other guidelines that Rev. Ron gave me: “This is a Habakkuk moment. To write prophetically from the scene of action about the conditions we see, with a bent toward hope.”
Assuming that the “current social condition we find ourselves” referenced the murder of George Floyd, I could not find a prophetic voice. Every time I attempted my personal essay, not only wasn’t I inclined towards prophecy; the essay refused to bend toward hope.
I told myself, “Just tell your story, Shirley.” But since I had told tiny bits of my story before, I knew parts of that “larger Church community” would be offended.
Then I decided to switch to one of my other genres: poetry. But what I wrote, it turned out, was not a Habakkuk moment. Although my poem voiced my “authentic assessment” of this moment, it did not offer hope.
I searched for one of my previously written pieces but nothing was in response to the “current social condition.” And when I went back to what I wrote in response to current events, they were obscure haiku poems or self-censored essays I wrote for my church’s newsletter.
I stayed stuck with a story that refused to be written and a hopeless poem, both of which I’d put away from sight. Then I decided to employ a technique that I employed in grad school when a deadline was approaching and I was blocked. I started writing about what was holding me back, what obstacle stood in my way.
I knew immediately after writing one paragraph that the poem I’d written had authentically unveiled my voice. Why did I want to keep that voice veiled? Before I lost my courage, I added one brief paragraph and emailed my poem (attached below) to Shawn and to Frenchye Magee, a pastor at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church and another organizer of the event.
Zooming in to the event the night of November 20, I nervously waited my turn to unveil my voice. I heard a powerful poem full of hope and joy, even in the midst of tribulation, and I heard the poet speak of her inspiration and the unquenchable faith where she can always find joy. I saw poignant photographs I want to frame and hang on my walls as I heard the photographer tell her story about the hope and inspiration she captured in the images from Africa to Minneapolis.
Both the poet and the photographer, though amazingly powerful and poignant, did nothing to assuage my nervousness. They were just that good and sounded super-confident about their works while this was maybe the third time in my life, outside of a writing group, I’d spoken my writting out loud in front of an audience. And I knew that afterwards I would be interviewed about that work.
Although I had prepared for questions, Rev. Ron started with a question I was not expecting. He wanted to know my audience. He wanted to know to whom I was addressing my poem. I gave him a true and real answer but I knew it wasn’t complete. There wasn’t time for the complete story behind my poem.
I was addressing all those people who post on Facebook or speak at meetings I attend who tell me we just have to be nice to each other and lead with love. I felt buried under the nice I’d lived with in Minnesota for two decades. I was drowning and left shivering beneath that (n)ice burying me. The poem I wrote heated up my emotions and melted that ice, freeing me to find breathing room and return to myself. My poem is my hope that I was offering after all, an offering to myself.
In my poem, when I wrote about “righteous anger” and “Whipping away your joy,” I was thinking about Jesus using a whip to drive the moneychangers from the temple. This story is in all four gospels so we know it must be important but only John's gospel has the whip.
When I wrote about “Killing your dream,” I was thinking about all of Langston Hughes dream poems, of course:
- Hold fast to dreams/ For if dreams die /Life is a broken-winged bird/ That cannot fly. / Hold fast to dreams/ For when dreams go/ Life is a barren field/ Frozen with snow. (“Dreams”)
- To fling my arms wide/ In some place of the sun, / To whirl and to dance / Till the white day is done. (from “Dream Variations”)
- What happens to a dream deferred? (from “Harlem”)
But I was also remembering Martin Luther King, Jr., his dream, and his death. And that always reminds me of the story of Joseph, another dreamer, and his jealous brothers:
- And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams. (Genesis 37:19-20).
And though Joseph was saved from death in the next verse by his brother Rueben, Rueben’s solution was to sell him into slavery. Slavery was not an option for Dr. King. Been there. Done that. Ain't going back.
The song lyrics allude to the story of when Paul and Silas were in prison and an earthquake miraculous unlocked the prison doors. But I also remember that Paul and Silas did not leave their prison, instead choosing to stay, suspicious of this act of generosity from their jailer. In one sermon I heard, the preacher said it was so that the prison guard was not punished for their escape. They were being nice in that moment and that’s the story a lot of preachers like to tell – the miracle and the sacrifice.
But I also knew why they were in prison in the first place – for driving a demon from a slave girl who was a fortune teller. She lost her ability to tell fortunes which meant her owners lost the income she earned for them. They were powerful men who complained to the authorities which led to Paul and Silas’ arrest. But what happened to the slave girl? Was her dungeon shaken? Was she released? Was she saved by a miracle or —dare I say it? -- a sacrifice? That would be a sermon to preach!
All of these things inspired my poem. Plus, in this moment, the just “be nice” responses to George Floyd’s murder, enflamed my ire, shaking me loose from my prison. But I have a lifetime of moments like this, going back to Emmet Till, whose death occurred when I was a toddler and my father, like many Black men at the time, was motivated to relocate from Mississippi to Chicago.
All of this history has come to a peak in this time of a new coronavirus and a new awareness of the injustice my people and I have known all our lives. This history is my story and it would take my lifetime – and longer -- to tell it in its entirely.
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