In Search of Wisdom

Once upon a time, there was a person who thought she could only find wisdom, truth, and beauty in tomes of theological reflection written for the few people who had the time and space to wade through dense and inaccessible language.  

Spoiler alert: It was me. 

I would wake up at absurd times to read these theological titles like Jurgen Moltmann’s A Crucified God​​, Elizabeth Johnson’s​​ Ask the Beasts and Quest for the Living God, and Miraslav Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace. I’d take diligent notes in the margins and underline the text. Each title and backflap summary would get the wheels inside of my head turning about the wisdom that could lie within. Deep down, I would hope this would be the book to help me make sense of the world. Then, I’d consume the book, page after page of blue lines in the space between each line of text, and be left with a vacancy. Despite the sometimes beautiful language (other times deeply boring), my questions and longings were often left dancing in my head. 

The volumes I read offered commentary on the Bible and the beliefs that have evolved through generations of institutional maintenance and expansion. Yet, they rarely touched the every day like experiences I was having. They didn’t touch the disconnect I felt within myself serving a church with people who had vastly different interpretations of the role of faith, the public square, and the relationship between the two. They didn’t touch the exasperation that filled my chest every time someone made me feel like I didn’t belong. They didn’t allow me to walk in the shoes of someone whose experiences were unfamiliar to me and rather served as an echo chamber of my belief system. 

Fast forward to 2020 when the world was locked inside for fear of spreading or catching the dreaded novel virus. With very little respite from a rambunctious 3-year-old and a stressful job, I needed an escape from the world. I was unmoored and found little comfort in the theological volumes that expounded upon the problems in the world or dissected an argument for or against a particular belief. 

I thumbed through my home library and picked up Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer and in entering into Hiram Walker’s narrative, I learned more about power than in any non-fiction book I could have read. 

“They knew our names and they knew our parents. But they did not know us, because not knowing was essential to their power. To sell a child right from under his mother, you must know that mother only in the thinnest way possible. To strip a man down, condemn him to be beaten, flayed alive, then anointed with salt water, you cannot feel him the way you feel your own. You cannot see yourself in him, lest your hand be stayed, and your hand must never be stayed, because the moment it is, the Tasked will see that you see them, and thus see yourself. In that moment of profound understanding, you are all done, because you cannot rule as is needed.”

I was submerged in the world Coates built and protected by the distance between me and the page to explore the implications of what I was reading. To be moved. To be transformed. 

In getting to know Hiram Walker, I learned about someone vastly different than myself. I learned about a time that was unfamiliar to me. I learned about a mysticism that until then I could not fathom. Through The Water Dancer, I encountered my own privilege–a tendency to claim naivité–no, ignorance–in a way that upholds power imbalances. Flashbacks of moments struggling to remember people’s names came to mind. Memories of mispronouncing names, or avoiding calling someone by their name altogether. 

And it is here that my journey began. 

Four years later, I have started and stopped this newsletter more times than I care to admit. But now is the time because I need these stories now more than ever and maybe you, dear Reader, do too. The world feels chaotic still, like in 2020. While we don’t have the uncertainty of the pandemic to contend with, chaos and uncertainty still abound. We have a presidential candidate receiving virtually half of the country’s support whose xenophobic, misogynist rhetoric not only sounds like a fascist dictator, but also stirs violence in the heart of our country. We’ve watched as multiple once-in-a-generation storms decimated parts of the southeast within weeks of each other. I find myself reaching out for an anchor to steady me and find it only in the characters I find on the pages of books like The Giver, A Psalm for the Wild Built, The Color Purple, Americanah, and so many more. 

Join me on this journey to broaden our understanding of sacred texts, discovering wisdom, depth, and meaning in an expanded, modern canon. Each week, I'll share a brief reflection on a novel or excerpt, exploring how its themes resonate with and enrich spiritual life in the 21st century.