The Black Female God

Originally I intended to post this under MeginLea Fights, but I decided it deserves a place of its own. I cannot live with it getting lost amidst the issues, important as they are, that we tackle together.

A few weeks ago, a friend suggested I listen to this podcast by Christina Cleveland. It took me a few days, three attempts spread out over a full week, to get through a fifty minute podcast, but I did it, finally, and was able to take notes through sticky babyfood fingers, relentless requests for Bubble Guppies, a dog, a cat, a husband, and an 8-month-old still breastfeeding. What finally transpired was the inspiration to get down some thoughts that have been welling up inside me for quite some time... some godly thoughts, inspired by God's revelation of justice, goodness, humility, and grace to me. I dedicate this to the black women in my life who have been my teachers and will continue to be my teachers, who have had to bite their tongues more than a few times knowing that unleashing the words they deserve to be able to speak would be counter-productive in this sin-ridden, not-yet world in which we live. These women are strong. These women possess infinite value. Their worth is much more than I could pen through mere words. To them I raise my sticky hand and bow my head and lower my eyes. Thank you. Thank God for you. I mean that, as cliche as it sounds coming from my place of privilege.

Published in San Francisco Bay View June 4, 2016
a submission from “The Black Woman Is God” exhibit

My Black Female God

To the black women in my life who have taught me what it means to be black, who have taught me what it means to be white, and who have taught me what it means that we are children of God, sinners saved by grace: I have not been easy to teach I am sure, not always amenable to admitting I needed to be taught. Who wants to be considered racist? I would venture to say many of us have much to learn about racism and our own bias, especially if we are white, certainly if we are white. Privilege is just that, privileged- fortunate not to have to recognize that it is favored. Indeed, it is the human inclination not to pick up upon injustice until one is on the receiving end of it, but that is not how it should be. We should be sensitive to injustice everywhere, all around us, even when it does not affect us. Injustice didn’t have to affect Jesus, after all. He allowed it to affect Him.

So thank you to these black women, who have taught me while not knowing they were teaching me, these women who simply shared their experiences without holding it against me that I had not previously understood or could not understand or had incalculable questions for them. And thank you to the countless black women, and men for that matter, who have taught me through their silence, through not raging against me in the face of my own racist actions, words, and thoughts. I have done things of which I am not proud, said things upon which hearing back, I realized were basically blather cutting away at the souls of human beings made in God’s image for the soul purpose of trying to get my own way. I would be angry that the world was not revolving around me, and wanting it to. I would lash out with my tongue in retaliation, or accuse someone in my mind, blaming her race for my frustration when in actuality this person had merely expressed her God-given rights… rights which if expressed by a white male, I probably would have apologized for having asked him to forego in the first place.

Sin. Pride. Ego. Selfishness. Haughtiness. Racism. Privilege. Disgusting.

I met the Black Female God long before I had such language to describe Her as such. Though I grew up in a patriarchal culture, immersed in a conservative-masculine, white, Southern, fundamental church, I knew the Black Female God. My church taught the white male God, for sure. That God I encountered each Sunday at the pulpit, and that God I sought to obey feverishly lest I die and go to hell, but the Black Female God got me through the week, the Black Female God gave me hope. The Black Female God tended my soul and offered me grace through faith. 

How did I meet Her, one may ask? Well I met Her, quite simply, through reading Scripture. I met Her in the pages of my bible, in the pages of my journal as I prayed and cried out to God, through my tears, and through my need to survive. She spoke to me of hope. She comforted my wounds. She allowed me to be dirty and messy. She gathered me, as Jesus longed to gather Jerusalem. She was El Roi, the God who saw, as God saw Hagar and Ishmael.

I came from a home of abuse, from parents who were products of abuse. They were doing their best to get it right, but they were making mistakes. We are all products of our home-environments, each generation, by God’s grace, taking another step toward redemption and healing. At least that is what my experience has proved. Thus my parents attempted; they tried their hardest, but there was pain which resulted in a hurt, scared, little girl left to the side at times, in need of a God to save her. But she is okay. I am okay because God was there as a Black Female. 

If it were not for the Black Female God and Her ability to reach out to us when we are in need, even before we can get the words on our tongues, none of us would survive abuse, or life for that matter. I would venture to say a great many people profess faith in the Black Female God without realizing they do so. Do you know you are worshiping a black woman? Probably not, but that is okay, because the Black Female God does not need you to acknowledge her and validate her. She validates Herself, in faith, in courage, in strength, through inner dignity that She has scrounged up off the floor by having to believe the truth in the face of a world that screams otherwise. This God, my God, is strong; this God, my God, is savior. This God saves me and lifts me up when I am lost and hanging by a thread. The Black Female God mends. She mends shalom.

This God is deliberate, yet this God is patient. This God is not forceful, but this God is heavy, so much so that She encompasses us and pushes out every ounce of pain and fear to let us know that She is with us, for us; therefore, we can do all things through Her who strengthens us. She is patient with our failure, patient with our weakness, patient with our stubbornness, patient with our ignorance, but strong in Her truth when finally we get around to asking Her the right questions.

Amy Julia Becker is an author who has written much about the journey of recognizing what it means that she has been a privileged, white woman figuring out how to wield her God-given power for God’s good and God’s glory. She is wise, and she is honest. Yet she herself admits that she did not recognize her privilege until she was in the position of being the disenfranchised. Why is that so? Why are we like that? Why am I like that? Why does it take being weak, being broken, having to suffer, for us to realize that we have been singularly preaching a white male God and robbing God of God’s glory? Are we that steeped in society? In cultural norms? "Yes. Yes, child," the black female God says to me. "Yes, child, you are."

I am Her daughter, and She mothers me well, letting me figure this out for myself, and not holding it against me that I hurt Her in the process. Thank You my God.

As Christina Cleveland notes, with the Black Female God, it is not about control; rather, it is about about invitation. "It is not about mastery; it’s about mystery. Everyone is welcome, not to be dominated, but to be connected," to commune with God as God intended- in a garden of clarity and reality, vulnerability and strength, where we are seen for who we are, and loved for who we are, loved for the God we image whether we are black, white, brown, yellow, male, female, or trans-gendered… We are all created by God. We all reflect God. We all bring God glory. We all fall short of God’s glory, but one day we will see God face-to-face and be transformed into God's glory.

I look forward to seeing God’s face and basking in that part of it which is deep, rich, strong, Black, and Female… I imagine it will feel similar to how I have basked in the Black Female God my whole life, but on that day, I will look more fully into God’s face, full of Black, full of White, full of every Color under the sun, because I will be fully complete and see God fully complete. Now I see as in a glass dimly but then, then shall I see in full. Now I know in part and am known in part, but then I will be fully known. The Black Female God has always smiled down upon me and known me, and I, one day I will know Her in full, with all Her otherness- God for all God’s self…for all God is…so rich…and complete and Colored. But for now, I am satisfied; I am quenched, cradled in the arms of the Black Female God. Amen.