The Origin of Our Beliefs

I was raised in a religious tradition that not only frowned upon yoga, it demonized it. Yoga was evil and if you participated in yoga, you would be opening yourself up to demon possession. Chakras were evil. Horoscopes were evil (never mind that the so called “wise men” found Jesus by reading the stars). It was all evil. All bad. All demonic.

And I bought into those absurdities, hook line and sinker. So much so that when one of our children was in middle school, I forbade said child from participating in PE when the class was doing a unit on yoga. I even showed my natural brown behind when the teacher suggested giving said child something to do other than yoga. Completely convinced my child would need an exorcist if they were anywhere near the going on of yogic activity, I demanded they be nowhere near the practice and demanded the teacher place my child far outside the room away from the activity. My child, in all of their compliant, mercy prone ways never pushed back on my absurdity (at least not vocally to me, that I recall).

Fast forward a whole lot of years later, that child is an adult, and I am being invited by Spirit to hand over everything I ever believed to be true about God and allow those beliefs to be sifted and myself to be gifted back what is true. One year into this divine exchange, Spirit asked me to learn to love my body the way I had learned to love my soul and my spirit. And truthfully, I had no idea how to do that. I have always hated my body, struggled severely with eating disorders and never learned to move beyond a critical stance to what i saw in the mirror. Suffice it to say, I needed help. So, I asked for Spirit’s guidance and was gifted three invitations: 1) the word, “Breathe” which led me to learning about breath work 2) Mindful Meditation and 3)Yoga

Can you believe that? Spirit actually suggested yoga (which means holy union) to me. And, even though Spirit had led me to yoga to reconnect with my disembodied self, the first time I got on my yoga mat, I expected something bad to happen. I also felt this way the first time I ever stepped foot in a Catholic Church two months ago (which we were also taught was demonic). I had been conditioned to believe a certain way and had never questioned those conditions.

I had been handed a belief system, an ideology based on someone else’s experiences and fears. I hadn’t been given the opportunity to develop my own concepts around yoga, chakras, or being guided by the stars, much less the Catholic Church or LGBTQIA. I’d merely been told, if you’re a Christian, these things are evil. And as a good mom, I wanted to protect my kids from that evil and gift them the “salvation” of Christianity. Sounds noble, right? I mean what’s so wrong with protecting yourself and your family from demons? 

Nothing, except I was living a constructed reality based on misinformation. I didn’t know that the fathers of Eastern and Western religion had excommunicated one another, and Western religion would go on to “demonize” Eastern religious practices. Nothing wrong with yoConquest of Guinea) to Madison Grant’s, The Passing of the Great Race and beyond, the truth is there for us to see...if we want to wake up and show up. 

All we know is what we’ve been told. How we order and shape our lives all continues to exist around what we know as “our truth”. Could it be possible that there are some things you’ve believed to be true, that aren’t really true at all? Could it be possible that the truth, like life in its complexities, has several layers? Are you willing to take another look, read a different book? 

I was wrong about yoga, chakras, the Catholic Church, LGBTQIA. I was wrong to choose a belief over a person. Will I continue to turn a blind eye to the ways I’ve been wrong or will I allow waking up to my own complicity guide me into seeing new truths? How will your complicity lead you to act?

Our Wrestle

Dear Black America...

Let’s talk. Yes, the media will make a mockery out of Brandt Jean’s forgiveness and use it to perpetuate an old narrative. Yes, there were huge missteps of injustice in the sentencing. But c’mon now, we all knew that was gonna happen. Yes, the judicial hug and bailiff hair smoothing were all a bit of an overreach. Yes, if you were raised Christian, you’re likely to deny your anger (be disconnected with it) and reach first for forgiveness. Yes, if you’re raised Black in America, you’re likely to deny your anger (at least dial it down or dial it back) and placate a white person to “keep the peace” (or, as we black people know, to stay out of jail - because mass incarceration is today’s answer to lynching). Yes, if you’re black and from the South, especially, you know how to act in the presence of white people. Yes, all of these things are 100% true. 

And even as we decolonize and deconstruct the ways in which we’ve been socialized and assimilated into our own whiteness, we can include and transcend. We do not have to let go of every good virtue just because we learned it in white space. Forgiveness is a good virtue. It’s not just a “should” of Christianity that’s been badly explained and wrongly taught. 

Forgiveness is owning your own head space and heart without contention. Forgiveness unchains you from the drama of someone else's madness. The practice of forgiveness is to transcend the ego’s need to be vindicated. And really, that’s what our cries are about today. We want to be vindicated. We don’t want to look through or let go. But that’s us. That’s how we feels 

We don’t know what is in the heart of another. We don’t know their process or their wrestle. We can only speak to what we would do, what we know to be true for us. We have to allow room for our differences and our place on the journey. We have to - or else we will become oppressors ourselves - forcing others to think like us, act like us, be like us. 

Deep breaths today. Feel all of it. Acknowledge the pain. See it for what it is. Accept that someone chose to offer forgiveness. If the act triggered you, take the role of unattached observer (when you can) and ask yourself why. Dig deeper toward your own shadow, see what’s there. 

Our biggest disillusionment is still heavily entwined around our expectations. We expect white folk to see us, understand us, get us. We expect black folk to all be radicals and respond the way we would to every situation. We expect the system to change without people changing, without us changing. We expect the system to be different when it has always proven to be exactly what it is, not for you. 

Dear Black America, our expectations are killing us. Unforgiveness will not save us. If we mirror back the indifference we’ve always received, we will perpetuate indifference. If we mirror violent responses we will perpetuate and even excuse violence. How can we begin to move to a no dual place as a race of people that sees the injustice for what it is, speaks truth to power and uphold virtues that move the trajectory of common good further down its path? Am I asking you to hear the burden of this alone? It is true that we’ve always shouldered the heavy weight, and I am not suggesting that at all. What I’m asking today is that as a person, we open our hands, free ourselves from the demands of our own injured expectations and mirror want we want to see in our own lives and in the world at large.

Peace be with you

Effecting Change

Today’s CAC Daily Meditation writes of St. Francis, “Rather than fighting the systems directly and in so doing becoming a mirror image of them, Francis just did things differently. The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better(one of the Center’s core principles).”

How do we live into “something different”?

An organization like systems are made up of people. We can’t demand a system change without addressing the heart of its people. And we also have to let go of an unconscious but faulty supposition: I can force someone to change. 

While I might make enough noise and cause enough ruckus through protests to make them modify their behavior or dial back, on a good day, I only control me. 

To influence the collective, I focus on myself as an individual. How do I become a “”Prime Attractor” to what we as a society really want, what we definitely need, and who we finally are [called to be]?” 

I intentionally mirror the good of our humanity. I become the lived experience of “something different.” I manage me, and I offer others the freedom to manage themselves. Unconditional acceptance is the foundation of every healthy relationship not shifts in power structures or hierarchy.

Do I see you as a human equal to my humanness? Or are you still an inferior that needs to be saved, 3/5 of a human? Do I see you as a superior that I defer to, shape shift for? Or do I realize our inherent dignity, that we both are powerful beings created in the Image of Love?

Do I offer space for you to be seen, heard, valued, and protected? Can you live fully expressed in my presence without fear of harm, judgment or retaliation? 

Bryan Stevenson said in his HBO documentary, True Justice, the north won the civil war, but the south won the narrative. I say, it is in the heart that all wars are won. Starting first, with my own.