Category: Sistas Umoja

Uplifting and supporting sisterhood

Watch your words, Sis, they can kill…

She was tired. The results did not match the effort. “Why was this so hard? O God I just want to die! Come, Lord, I can’t bother no more.” She puts down her sword, puts down her armour and just sits there. She thinks she’s ready. She thinks she’s ready to die, because why should she live if she has nothing to give…

You are too harsh by far. You are too harsh to yourself and each word you utter cuts deep and leaves a wound. Soon, you will start bleeding until all the life is drained from your body. Be kind to yourself, just as you are kind to somebody else. Your words are causing those wounds that will be hard to repair.

There are times when we feel so much despair we just don’t care. We look at our situation and think of death before dishonour and so we say, death. We claim death to our dreams, relationships and our very being. We lose sight of our purpose and speak so much nonsense and we start to believe them. We start to nurture them, water them protect them; we start to worship them. Then we feel despair hounding us and we get tired. Yes, we get tired and we think those thoughts, over and over again until, our light is diminished. We lock ourselves off and forget our powerful friend. We forget we have a friend in Jesus. We sink into a hole so dark and so deep that we are consumed by it.

However, to give in is when despair truly begins. This is where the dishonour becomes a real thing. Giving reign to the dark disqualifies our purpose, and dishonours a gift given in love, blood and unimaginable pain. Yes, Sticks and stones can break bones but words and be the death of us. Little by little those words of failure of surrender begin to chip away at our tenacity, our resolve and our birthright. So be careful, be very careful of the things you tell yourself. Because what others say to you, doesn’t really matter, until you begin to repeat them to yourself. Only then do they become true. So, be careful that the words you think of, the words you use with yourself are words, God, has commissioned over your life, not those carelessly tossed around by a desperate mind.

“Let me give you a preview of what your words can do and tell me what you think…”

“Oh God! I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord, forgive me!”

Pull back when you are closest to the edge, reach out and seek help. But don’t allow yourself to be enticed by the tragedy of your story. It’s better to seek the repairer of the breach, that’s what we should seek than to blindly orchestrate and actively participate in our defeat. Words are powerful use the with wisdom, love and kindness.

A Letter with Love. For My Sisters in Distress

“It’s a vicious cycle”. A good friend of mine uttered these words to me recently. She had grown frustrated with herself. She was not herself. And so she was condemning herself. I wanted to give her a hug because I know how it feels. When you wake up each day to change those things that seem to take you down a dark road you end in the same way you were the day before. It can be so frustrating. Especially when we place so much pressure to do the right thing and give no grace for our humanness. “I hate that I am…” But what do you love that you are? Yes, there are things we wish we could change at the snap of a finger but just a well-placed thought. However, it never ends up that way. But Sis, where is the grace?

We live in a world that is so fast-paced that we place so much pressure on ourselves to rebound, bounce back and carry on. All in haste to get nowhere, just being further away than where we started. The funny thing is that each day it is the same. This is a vicious cycle. We do not stop to think that maybe it’s okay, to not feel okay. We think it horrific to just allow ourselves the space to have this thing play out to its own conclusion, even if right now we feel stretched thin so we can catch ourselves back down the road when we come back together again. We need to be comfortable with a process that is uncomfortable so that we can come out fine on the other side, in our own time and not when we think we should. Our body knows the score, it knows it’s a process but when we interfere with its attempt at healing we undermine our very being. It is hard, and words are easy – sometimes. But we have to stop the cycle by being kind about what we say and think about ourselves. Maybe you too feel like my friend now feels and you too are silently suffering:

It's that feeling in the pit of your stomach
it balls up in your throat
blocking the air 
flow
It's the tightness of and suffocation from
the mask you wear
It's the jumbled thoughts in your head
It's not knowing what exactly is wrong 
but
sensing the weight
It's... (by S.A.D)

Yes that darn feeling, that paralyse the strongest of us at one time or another. There is little that can be said in those moments to truly brings us the salvation that we need. We have to wait, we have to wait for the feeling to pass so we can get back to ourselves and then we have to hug ourselves and remind ourselves, that we are doing our best. It will take time, just breathe and wait. 

And I have learned too
to laugh with only my teeth
and shake hands without my heart.
I have also learned to say,’Goodbye’,
when I mean ‘Good-riddance’:
to say ‘Glad to meet you’,
without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been
nice talking to you’, after being bored.

But believe me, son.
I want to be what I used to be
when I was like you. I want
to unlearn all these muting things.
Most of all, I want to relearn
how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror
shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs! (from Once Upon a Time by Gabriel Okara)

When you don’t feel like yourself, it’s knowing someday you will, if only you push through to the next day. It is not easy but it can be done. It is not easy but thy will be done. You just need to know that you have a choir singing behind you reminding you to stay true to your intentions and more importantly, to stay true to who you are. and when you don’t see how great you are then remember whose you are and sing with conviction:

… Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art

And because He is great you are great. You are greater than your circumstances. You are greater than your troubles. You are greater than anything that is kicking your ass now. You were always great, never less than great and will always be great. You are great SIS! But never feel less because you don’t feel great when a moment or moments of weakness have you in a chokehold. This too shall pass

Sis… We need to let it go!

She has always felt not quite right where she was planted. Yes, she grew but not as tall as she wanted to. Yes, she spread wide, but not as wide enough to touch the universe and come back to herself. Yes, she laid down roots, but they were shallow, not deep or strong enough to withstand the storms. And so she left. She slowly and painfully pulled up those roots. She folded herself tight enough to fit on that ship. She hid her colours to blend into the atmosphere of her despair and she left. She left because she felt if she stayed one more day, she would die. Her beauty would shrivel like a dried-out meat and die. It was not easy for her to leave. Several times she fainted, was revived and fainted again. It was a process. She nearly did not make it. But God!

She made it. She was strong. She stepped off that ship because she made it. Immediately something felt as if it was missing. She walked the streets, looking for a bed to rest her head and she knew something was missing. But how sway? She had been through so much to get here? She had sacrificed her peace of mind to find her peace. Now, here she was in a new place, looking for the familiars. The environment was not “envionmenting” for her, it did not give her the spark of joy that she needed and so she stopped. She stopped because she could see a new challenge on the way. Which way was the right way? She looked back and knew she could not. She could not go back. But to go ahead was uncertain. What would she do if she failed? Who could she turn to? What would become of her yet unfulfilled dreams? What was there outside of herself that she could turn to?

Do you know, you can travel halfway around the world trying to realise your new and still feel imprisoned by your old? Physically escaping the place of your trauma or traumas is one thing but emotionally and psychologically you can still be held captive by them because you have not truly let go of them. And even if God creates the right atmosphere and environment for you to grow and flourish, if He sends the right people, if you do not participate in all the things he prepares for you it will come to nothing. Opportunities are great and new experiences are encouraged but make sure they are not mixed with the refuse from your life that should have been disposed of a long time ago. So, we can move to the ends of the earth but we cannot escape our problems but, we can rely on God for direction. For pruning when we need pruning and for renewal when we are dry and thirsty for the encouragement we need, there must be a constant connection with God. I am not talking about friends and family, they are important. However, I have come to realise that only God can give peace, encouragement and confidence needed to thrive wherever you are planted.

We need to stop thinking we can operate outside the will of God. We need God even when we’ve made it because we made it to a point and there are many more steps to go. As- a -matter -of -fact we never reach our goal steps in life, we have to keep meeting and setting new steps. In all this stepping and goal making we need to abide in God so He can abide in us.: If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you[a] will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you (John 15:7). Challenges will come, no matter where we are and what we are doing but we hope in Christ and not the things we gain here on earth. We therefore need to remember that all that we do must be done consulting with God seeking Him and heeding His will for our lives. It can be hard but not impossible. If we do not rely on God for everything we become vulnerable to anything, we accept any standard outside of ourselves and God’s purpose. We may forget that we are not powerless and begin to believe that we need things outside of ourselves to truly measure our worth. Let us not allow ourselves to be cast into the fire and burned but let us bear much fruit by abiding in God. Let us bloom, not because we did it, but because we did it with Christ as our gardener.

There was nothing outside of herself. All that she needed she was already equipped with. She had the Sipirt of her gardener ready to instruct her and guide her to her success. She would not die, she knew this. She had just forgotten because where she came from was so filled with light, that she was momentarily disoriented by the darkness and dampness of this new place. She remembered that power was within and had never left her and her source was the Comforter. So, she began to move again but now with renewed purpose. She had all she needed to go anywhere, take root and bloom

The Value of a Seed

The Value of a Seed

Look in my hand,
what you see is a seed.
This seed I hold though must be freed 
to live in its potential.

This seed,
will become a tree
that will one day bear fruits
and those fruits too
will also have seeds - 
potential trees,
if only you can see
more than what is before you
if only you can see
not what is 
but what could be.

Now it is tiny and useless it seems
hard and of little significance even.
But if you plant
and water it,
this seed will exceed
even your vision of what it can be.

“The Road of the Dread” A Metaphor for A Time Like This

I have always felt an affinity for this poem by Lorna Goodison. It is not only the language used that phonetically reflects the Jamaican dialect, inclusive of the famous Rasta talk that created this affinity. But more importantly, it is the fact that even though this poem was written in the 1980s, it still reflects the need for us to be resilient in the face of oppressive forces, whether tangible or intangible.

The “Dread” that walks this road represents many persons, many of us, who are faced with different challenges in this lifetime. We are faced with this seemingly endlessly obstacle course of a road that we must traverse – this is life. While a great deal of the focus is on this road, of interest too is the speaker, who has obviously experienced not just hardships but poverty and injustice:

Pan dis same road ya sista
sometime yu drink yu salt sweat fi water
for yu sure sey at least dat no pisen,
and bread? yu picture it and chew it accordingly
and some time yu surprise fi know how dat full
man belly.

“The Road of the Dread”

It is clear that the speaker could be classified as being a member of the Rastafari community in Jamaica based on the “Rasta talk”, but many of us can identify with the experiences of oppression in one form or another. This could be in the physical, spiritual or mental realm. We all have felt oppressed along this road called life. In the extract above the speaker hints at passed betrayals that have caused him or her to be cautious in how they interact with others in their present and future reality. But within this very somber reality is also resilience. The resilent nature built intoour DNA, forces us to use what we have – even if it is only our imagination to weave a reality that can ensure our survival. At the end of the day working through our struggles is an act of self-preservation. To weave this world that ensures we survive we have to leave our starting point, we have to travel the road of the dread.

This archetype of the oppressed must travel this road or fail in their pursuit to survive. So he travels. Along the road there are many challenges and life ensures we are gifted with them:

for sometime you pass a ting
you know as . . . call it stone again
and is a snake ready fi squeeze yu
kill yu
or is a dead man tek him
possessions tease yu.
Then the place dem yu feel
is resting place because time
before that yu welcome like rain,
go dey again?

But, is that all there is to it. Is life filled wth snakes hiding in the grass ready to attack? Is the road littered with disingenuous persons who mean one thing when their mouths utter honyed words to ensare us into a boiling pot of vinegar? Yes it sounds a bit dramatic but we know that there are unspeakable tragedies that one can encounter on this road, so be grateful if you have not.

The answers to the questions above are also reflected in the poem: no. We see a shift of focus from all the trauma and tragedies waiting on the road that compels us to continue moving on this journey no matter how hard it may seem:

Den why I tread it brother?
well mek I tell yu bout the day dem
when the father send some little bird
that swallow flute fi trill me
and when him instruct the sun fi smile pan me first.
And the sky calm like sea when it sleep
and a breeze like a laugh follow mi.
Or the man find a stream that pure like baby mind
and the water ease down yu throat
and quiet yu inside.

And better still when yu meet another traveler
who have flour and yu have water and man and man
make bread together.
And dem time dey the road run straight and sure
like a young horse that cant tire
and yu catch a glimpse of the end
through the water in yu eye
I wont tell yu what I spy
but is fi dat alone I tread this road.

There are better days. On this journey there will be good times, when you can find joy in any situation at anytime. Where you can find hope pushing out of the soil, quivering relentlessly to thrive and flourish. When, like the speaker points out, “the father send some little bird that swallow flute fi trill me“, it is the little things that oftentimes matter and bring us back from the edge. We also see the importance of the spiritual as this “father” mentioned near the end of the poem,speaks to a creator who alone can bring us the kind of joy that will touch our souls, not the transient pleasures in this world. If we allow ourselves we too can be trill(ed), we too will have the sun smiling on us and the laughing breeze following us. All these personifications speak to the importance of taking time away from the world and finding peace beyond the physical, beyond those who would derail our purpose. Instead we need to find our metophorical stream, one that will put our minds at ease and allow us to find true peace while we are on this road.

What also becomes clear at the end of the poem, is the importance of finding our community. Those who will help us up and not push us down. We need to find our people who, like the speaker has found, one who have flour and yu have water and man and man make bread together. That is when the road of life becomes bearable, not when you can make do for yourself, but when you have the support of your community. So though the road of the dread is and can be indeed dreadful, there is hope. It is a hope that will tear down those barbed wire fences that we or others place around our lives to keep us limited, that makes us smile, laugh even, as tears pour from our eyes. It is the gift of transformative possibilities, present in the seemingly ordinary and simple blessings, gems even that act as the elixir that will drive our lives. These all supported by the community that will stand with and for us.

So continue to travel this road of the dread knowing that those things that threaten us have no power unless we never realise the truth of how much power we can harness we are once we stay the course and find our community.

   The Road of the Dread

That dey road no pave
like any other black-face road
it no have no definite color
and it fence two side
with live barbwire.

And no look fi no milepost
fi measure yu walking
and no tek no stone as
dead or familiar

for sometime you pass a ting
you know as . . . call it stone again
and is a snake ready fi squeeze yu
kill yu
or is a dead man tek him
possessions tease yu.
Then the place dem yu feel
is resting place because time
before that yu welcome like rain,
go dey again?
bad dawg, bad face tun fi drive yu underground
wey yu no have no light fi walk
and yu find sey that many yu meet who sey
them understand
is only from dem mout dem talk.
One good ting though, that same treatment
mek yu walk untold distance
for to continue yu have fe walk far
away from the wicked.

Pan dis same road ya sista
sometime yu drink yu salt sweat fi water
for yu sure sey at least dat no pisen,
and bread? yu picture it and chew it accordingly
and some time yu surprise fi know how dat full
man belly.

Some day no have no definite color
no beginning and no ending, it just name day
or night as how yu feel fi call it.

Den why I tread it brother?
well mek I tell yu bout the day dem
when the father send some little bird
that swallow flute fi trill me
and when him instruct the sun fi smile pan me first.
And the sky calm like sea when it sleep
and a breeze like a laugh follow mi.
Or the man find a stream that pure like baby mind
and the water ease down yu throat
and quiet yu inside.

And better still when yu meet another traveler
who have flour and yu have water and man and man
make bread together.
And dem time dey the road run straight and sure
like a young horse that cant tire
and yu catch a glimpse of the end
through the water in yu eye
I wont tell yu what I spy
but is fi dat alone I tread this road.




Lorna Goodison, Selected Poems, University of Michigan
Press, 1993.

I Can Only Imagine

I Can Only Imagine

I can only Imagine
all the pain you went through
all the doubts that defeated you
when you needed to fight
that's when you withdrew
and life continued to remind you
the only way to survive
is to be true to you.

I can only imagine
how great the burden was
bent double from wretched sobs
of loss and despair.

I can only imagine
how alone you felt
there were many
but not that one friend
who could give you a hand
no judging just to understand
that you were weak
foolish yes,
but not a freak
or abomination.

I can only imagine 
how you struggled to stay alive
not knowing how to survive
the greatest blow you ever received.
How even now you don't know how
how much grace you can allow
because nothing can ever be the same.

Be That Friend

Be That Friend

When I need comfort
comfort.
When I need a hand
give it.
When I need to be seen
be my eyes.
When I need to be authentic
speak it into me.
Be that friend
that will be there
spend time when
the ugliness oozes everywhere.
Be that friend.
Be my Wren
say my amen
dust me off again and again
whenever I fall
Be my friend
be my strength,
and I will never be weak.