*A version of this post has been posted at RaceRhetoricandReligion. On Wednesday, I awoke to the news that Bethel University's St. Paul, Minnesota campus - the school I attended for Seminary - experienced a racist incident. The Kresge rock that had been recently painted in solidarity with Black Lives Matter was now painted over in …
Continue reading White Church So Silent, White Church So Complicit
"Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him. For the help of his presence." - Psalm 42.5 After another agonizing week of around the clock coverage of the war against black bodies, we find ourselves here again. Once …
Continue reading Where Do We Go From Here? Maintaining Faith in the Midst of Suffering
They told me I was white Because I did not speak like the other black girls So I stopped talking And learned to write instead. I hid behind the written word So that no one would ever call me that again. Link to image >
How should I compose myself? Now that you have killed my children, Raped my mother, And beat me beyond recognition? You force me to live in dilapidated housing conditions, Where the rent is higher than a two bedroom in the suburbs Yet you pay me less than the minimum wage, and threaten to take that when …
I can't breathe. Your unrealistic expectations are suffocating me. But you can't hear my cries for help, Over the noise of your ego. Maybe my existence clashes with your own. But I don't need to die, Just so that you can live. Link to image >
Dirt. Ending up in places you don't belong. Whoever thought you could be the source of so much unhappiness? What did I ever do to you? Have you come to disturb my peace? Have you come to unearth its fragile state? Dirt. I don't know what to make of you. I will clean you up …
Ebony Johanna 