Journey 2: See No Stranger—Intro

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You’re listening to Shameless Honesty. I'm Amy Marshal. This is a special series of episodes I've called “Journey,” where I'm recording what I'm learning from those who live at the margins of power and privilege—whether by faith, race, gender, orientation, ability … or in the intersections. These are folks who have long been reaching out to others with love and are changing the world one relationship at a time. I'm excited to see communities coming together, and I'm so glad you're here!

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I named my website Shameless Honesty, so I’m letting everyone in on a little behind-the-scenes moment in my life. When I recorded last week’s introduction to the Journey series, I had not yet started reading Valarie Kaur’s See No Stranger. In fact, I’d only just ordered the book; I hadn’t even received my copy yet. While I described this episode, saying I would share what I learned in the first part of the book, I had no idea the book was actually divided into three sections labeled parts I, II, and III. Whoops. I considered reading and commenting on the whole first hundred pages or so, but let’s be real—my life is too crowded to be taking in, processing, and sharing my thoughts on that many pages of text in only a few days. Thus I called this episode "See No Stranger—Intro," as I’m covering the book’s introduction. I’ll plan to dive into Chapter One next time. 

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Valarie begins her introduction with her 2016 Watch Night Address at the historically Black Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C. She describes seeing the “grief and anticipation in people’s eyes.” That moment was eight years ago, but those same emotions are in my heart today, watching the U.S. and the world prepare for the second term of a man who is arguably America’s most unprecedented president. She questions the darkness of the future, asking, “What if … this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb but the darkness of the womb? What if our America is not dead, but a country that is waiting to be born?” and “What does the midwife tell us to do? Breathe! And then? Push!”

The term “purple pushing” is used in birth advocacy circles. It means holding your breath while you push as a way to increase and sustain pressure. The idea is to get the baby out more efficiently. Unfortunately, purple pushing can result in tissue damage, exhaustion, and fetal distress. It is not the most effective way to give birth, but it remains popular because it seems like pushing longer and harder should be better, right? Yet, whether birthing a child or a new society, endurance is not simply continuous pushing. This is why it is so vital to be surrounded by community. We all must have our own rhythm of pushing and breathing, of working and resting. As one works to push, another can rest to breathe.

I’ll admit the a paragraph describing Valarie’s own year away from advocacy work lost me for a minute. Her family’s help in moving the writing desk and years’ worth of writings is heartwarming and image of the lush green valley as a womb is lovely, but taking a year off to live in the jungle is certainly not an option in my life, nor in the lives of most people I know. The ability (physical and financial) to leave the country and to hike in the rain forest simply isn’t reality for many people. Those of us who, by necessity, will stay where we are must have opportunities to rest within our own communities. 

This is something to consider as a way to employ your own privileges for the benefit of others: How can you use your spaces, your abilities to allow places or opportunities to rest? Consider various types of rest people need: physical, emotional, spiritual, mental. Whether it’s a weekend in your guest suite, a gathering around your campfire, a stack of frozen meals, an evening of childcare, a day of help with household chores … we all have something we can give or do to facilitate another person’s rest. Part of coming together in community means actually offering what we are able to share—it also means graciously accepting what we ourselves need in order to balance our breathing with our pushing.

Valarie states, “Revolutionary love is the call of our times.” Revolutionary love, as she describes it, is not “sentimentality or civility or thoughts and prayers.” Instead, it is “a form of sweet labor: fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving—a choice we make over and over again.” Furthermore, it’s “the choice to labor for others, for our opponents, and for ourselves in order to transform the world around us.” As I mentioned in the previous episode, Valarie's notion of love resonates deeply with the Christian faith tradition in which I was raised. She calls on us to labor in love, not merely for our neighbors, but also for our enemies. 

In the final paragraph of the introduction, Valarie tells us, “We birth the beloved community by becoming the beloved community.” We are not only the life bearers, but also the living. We are both the one in labor and the one being born. Let me end with a few lines of a poem I wrote in the days after this year’s election, as I considered the idea of breathing and pushing and wondering what will be next. I titled it “Resistance.”

Birth is an uncontrollable event of pressing and squeezing and tearing apart. Bearing babes is hard enough as a mother on hands and knees, yet in these moments I not only push and stretch and shudder and pant, I am also the being expelled from her dark, cozy warmth to a glaring, blaring world where I must now take on life once again.

And I cheer as I wail for I know I'll learn well that the exhales and inhales form a call and response to the rhythm in each beat of my heart. As the song of my soul splits into dissonant harmonies I will sing the wild beauty of the flames and the rains and the cycles of the seasons yet to be.

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Find full transcripts for this series and be a part of the conversation at ShamelessHonesty.com/Journey. Until next time, this is Amy Marshal with Shameless Honesty. Thank you for joining me on the journey.

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Conversation for See No Stranger posts is hosted at facebook.com/ShamelessHonesty