Wow, has it been a long time since I posted anything. I’m not sure my lungs are strong enough to blow the dust off this space. If there are still faithful and interested readers out there, bless you. Thank you. Still, I value this space, and so I want to continue to nourish and nurture it, and anyone who is still reading with me, thinking with me, practicing with me, praying with me.
Image Description: the nub of a candle in the palm of a brown-skinned hand, alit, almost burning out. Image by Eyasu Etsub via Unsplash
This summer was amazing. Impossible. Incredible. One of the hardest things I’ve done in recent memory: a unit of clinical pastoral education, which is to say deep personal work masquerading as hospital chaplaincy. I am still learning about what it is doing in me, but it’s changing a lot. One of the greatest gifts it is giving me is a growing comfort with death. I’m going to die. So are you. So is everyone you have ever known. Not in an abstract way, we’re going to get sick or old, or make bad decisions, or be in accidents, and the vibrant, delightful, hurtful, infuriating, confusing both/and that we are is going to end. It’s still scary, but it’s less strange now. One of the writing exercises we did was called an Ethical Will. It feels closest to something. Here’s some of it.
An Open Letter to my Loved Ones after my death:
If we were all at a cocktail party, I’d probably be working the room, trying to connect you all, the various circles of my life. But it’s not a cocktail party; instead you are reading this in the wake of my death. Take a deep breath together, Beloveds. There I am, with you in your breath.
I’m sorry that I hurt you. When I hurt you, I was likely hurting or afraid. It’s not an excuse, just an explanation. I was hurting and afraid a lot, and that made me careless and anxious, even when I wanted to be deliberate. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. It doesn’t hurt anymore, so I hope you can let yourself off the hook.
Many of you told me I was brave when I was alive, and so to all of you I leave you my bravery. Do your best to listen to the voice inside you that is incessant about taking a step or making a change or doing what scares you. Interrogate it. Trust it. Listen to it. It’s okay to be afraid as you do the thing, but the fear doesn’t need to stop you from doing the thing. Recognize the fear of a hard thing and do what will move you closer to others and closer to yourself, even if it is hard.
Work a little less. Laugh a lot more. Say yes as often as you can, and say no whenever you need to, because a yes without a no is meaningless, and a no without a yes is cruel. Look for what is Sacred in what is Mundane. Acknowledge and play in paradox. Join the ends of the line and make a circle. Be changed. Pay attention to the small part of yourself and listen to what they are asking for or saying. They’re smarter than the part of you that runs the show.
Besties: thank you for being such excellent best friends. You teach me so much about how to live in community with the people who matter most to me and with the parts of myself that I value. You have taught me to be deliberate and careful, and so I leave to you my attention to detail, my capacity for listening, and my practice of looking without flinching at feelings. These are skills and lessons you already have, so I’m just fortifying your own stock. You know how to listen and when to surrender. If there is anything that I have that I can give you, it is a fire that moves us forward, so I leave you that as well. God knows there is enough to go around. May the fire burn off what is useful, clarify what is good and pure, and move you closer to the center of yourselves.
Teachers, I leave you my attention. I am so grateful to have been able to sit at your feet and listen to your words and surrender to your efforts. Thank you for the container you created for me. Thank you for letting me keep asking questions. Thank you for pushing me to do things I didn’t think I could do. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for changing the trajectory of my life. I listened to you so deeply, could you feel that? I hung on your every word, even when I thought it was crap! I am grateful for the moments when you saw me and made me feel seen; I am grateful for the moments we were able to step outside the one-up/one-down paradigm so prevalent in learning spaces in our world and just be people together. I am grateful that you didn’t laugh at me to my face when I was ridiculous, because we both know I was. I paid you attention. I was watching. I leave you that attention. May you continue to encounter students and people who listen to you so deeply that it makes you more deliberate and attentive with your words; and may you pay close and unwavering attention to those things and people you encounter as teachers, so that your learning, our learning, continues.
Fellow Writers and Artists, I leave you my voice. You don’t need it, but here it is anyway. A thing I have learned is that sometimes my voice is as powerful when it’s silent as it is speaking. You have such marvelous voices, and you are continuing to seek and share stories that need to be told. Listen even more. Be careful with your voice: make sure that the light and power you lend to a story is building and constructive of what is good, what our world needs. Do not tell a story that you don’t need to tell. Tell the story that won’t release you until it is told, and whenever possible, ask if it is your story, or if someone else needs the center of it, needs the voice. May you use the power of your own voice to amplify others. I don’t know if I did this with my voice, but I always wanted to. I do know my voice was loud, so use it as a microphone to lift up what has been silent too long.
Cousins, you are always in my heart, even when we are far away from each other. I’m sorry I didn’t know you better. I’m sorry you didn’t know me better. I love you like the brothers and sisters that you are to each other. I love your families. My life is less different from yours than we think; we have more in common than we know. K, I see you. Your life has value. To all of you I leave a longing to connect that moves you closer to those you have yet to connect with. May that longing be a thread that draws you closer to the folks that need you, toward the folks you need, and may your love make your family circle ever wider, ever stronger.
Sorors, thank you for teaching me of the power of the love of black women. Thank you for teaching me about a bond that transcends time and place, thank you for teaching me the shared values of sisterhood, volunteerism, movement, and joy. I love you. I love your power and your determination and your connection. I leave you my desire for belonging. Ship, I leave you all of the connection that we shared for so many years. You are the best. You are my twin who shares my soul. I want you to be happy. Take the connection that we shared and fashion it into a connection that you can build with the person who makes you happy, my dear friend and sister.
Husband. Ai-ren. Favorite. Loving you has been the greatest work of my life. I am so grateful to God for giving you to me, my greatest spiritual teacher. This isn’t how I wanted this. I wanted you to go first. I’m sorry. Do you feel alone? Are you scared? Are you sad? It’s okay, sweetheart. Take a year, don’t make any big decisions, let yourself feel the feels. Teach your brothers how to be with their feelings by being with your feelings. Smell my clothes and read my James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison and Sylvia Plath, and giggle whenever someone uses words like ontological or epistemological, and talk to me because I can still hear you. You have my heart, my life, my deepest and most abiding love. Do you remember the day you kissed me, standing in front of that Starbucks on Wilson avenue? And dinner at Le Colonial? And seeing each other on our wedding day? Do you remember when they wheeled me away for surgery, and when I left you at O’Hare to board a plane to India? Do you remember our fights, and me asking you, sweetheart, what do you want, and you never letting me quit or walk out? I look back and even our fights seem sweet now. All I remember is how much you made me laugh; the sound of your voice so calming it put me to sleep; watching you learn to tell me what you needed. I remember all the live music we heard together--Sade, and John Legend, and India.Arie, and EWF, and the hours and hours and hours of Kurt Elling, and making love, and all of the hours we wasted playing video games and watching mediocre TV. Thank you for teaching me to play, for reading me your writing, and for giving me feedback on my writing even when I was too stubborn or defensive to hear how smart it was. Thank you for holding me. Thank you for asking me to share your life with you. To you I leave this community of amazing people. Can you see my face when you look at them, can you hear my voice when they call your name? Let them take care of you. There is no separation between us, Bear, it is simply not possible to be apart; you take me with you wherever you go. If I know what love is, it is because of you.
I’m not ready to go. But it isn’t up to me. Thank you for everything you all have taught me. Use your phones less. Look around. Soften. Exhale. Finish writing your book. Have dinner together. Look beneath the anger. Drink your water. Get on your mat. And lead with vulnerability.
I wish we were both here,
jess