The Black Woman is God

by Wanda Sabir, Former LSPC Board Member

The phrase the Black Woman is God is topical during Women’s History Month. Am I strong because I am Black too? Newsflash, I am no stronger than another woman. I have just survived a lot more. There were people in my community who could have lent a helping hand to this girlchild, grown people with resources or information who might have intervened on my behalf. People thought my presentation reflected what was happening behind closed doors. It didn’t and I, we, my family suffered. No one asked me how I was doing. You know, looked at me and listened to what remained unspoken and asked questions. Kids are an easy read; I was no different. 

We were so poor sometimes we ate one meal a day because that’s all we had. Our gas was turned off sometimes because my parents couldn’t pay the bill, so we had to heat water for a bath and wash clothes in the tub.

We were evicted often, but I would still show up for school and religious meetings. I was the kid who went to the mosque without her parents. No one thought this was strange or asked about my parents. The adults would ask me to carry messages to my mother which were not nice. I never did. My face must have reflected what I was thinking one day even though I said, Yes ma’am. The Sister Captain said, “You’re not going to tell your mother are you?”

I told her, No ma’am, and she stopped talking bad about my mother, a woman she didn’t know whom I loved. My mother worked hard to take care of us. We used to attend as a family, but my father’s vices were too hard to hide, so he couldn’t attend. The leadership did not have treatment or support for sick members. If you couldn’t hold it together, then you were asked to leave—put out. My father dropped me off on Fillmore and Geary until I was old enough to catch the bus.

I survived my childhood, because I could look out my window at night, find the moon in my telescope lens, and dream of escape. I thought some knight would ride up and save me.

“Just my imagination running away with me”¹ would echo down the empty street.

There was no escape, not even on a spaceship called the Mother Plane (Ezekiel 1: 4-28). Disassociation and daydreaming got me through a lot. Today, to stay in my body, I practice wonder.

I wonder about the sunrise I am missing, the clouds passing overhead I might miss if I don’t open the door, the sunset I will regret not seeing earlier when it first started its decline.

If I can just get up I know things will get better. I can get through anything. I don’t want to have to get through anything, but it’s good to know I am capable.

The Black woman is God. That’s a lot to carry, but some of us know we’re all made from the same fabric and if God made us then the material world is God-stuff.

There is nothing outside God. People like to talk about stardust. However, if we are also stardust then stardust is God as are the many grains of sand we can’t count and the water that divides land mass and the sky oceans above.

The calabash we live on, with Damballa or the snake deity wrapped around its center holds the two halves of the gourd together— sky and land. Our home, earth, is God too. The earth is God’s gift to its species.

We are gifts to each other. We are a blessing to each other. The symbiotic relationship we sit in with other species, life forms, both animate and inanimate— sentient beings, bless each other.

I am not fully me without you: rocks, stars, dirt, water, air, trees, people. When we forget we are nothing without each other we suffer. Suffering exists in this flesh container, but we can lessen suffering if we understand the root causes of suffering.

You know, there are people who could have lives free from suffering, but they stay present in this world to help us suffer less. How can each of us know suffering and the causes of suffering and then act in ways that do not cause suffering? Self-reflection is a way to ease suffering, to not cause suffering. Another way to ease suffering is to be thankful. 

My suggestion is to practice forgiveness not forgetfulness. Evil is real, so I am not saying ignore signs. Be security minded. If you don’t know if a situation is safe or if a person is trustworthy: wait, watch and weigh your options.

Don’t rush into anything unless it’s to save someone’s life and even then think before you move.

Remember, remembrance is love. We are our own love well.

Call those people you haven’t seen in a while. If you can, visit the sick, if not, send a text, mail a card, call the person on the phone. When you wait for the funeral it’s too late.

That wellness call could save a life. Sometimes those of us who drop out of sight don’t know if our lives still matter. We need to be reminded of who we are. We all matter because we matter— matter, something that cannot be destroyed yet transforms.

We have always been here. We will always be here. Nothing goes away no matter how many times we press delete. Our lives are cumulative— ancestors live in us. The way we walk this calabash is a libation to those spirits who walk within and beside us. Those spirits whose souls breathe us. We are renewed, not new. Goodwill is a great affirmation. Gently worn is something to aspire towards.

If we are each other’s garments or keepers as some say, then we are always mindful of our impact regardless of intent.² Good intentions are not enough. We need insurance. Our liability insurance lives in our God-consciousness or taqwa.

Buddhists call this the Eight-Fold Path: Right view, Right intention, Right speech, Right action, Right livelihood, Right effort, Right mindfulness, Right Concentration. It’s similar to the Ten Commandments. 

Lauren Oya Olamina in her Earthseed scriptures says God is Change, yet we shape God.³

Other traditions say, there is no good. There is no bad, there just is.

I believe in freewill. I also believe in responsibility. I believe grown people are responsible to other beings to be righteous, to be good stewards of this calabash, to take care of those who walk, fly, crawl, swim and those whose movement is so finite . . . the impatient eye misses it.

I take being human seriously. I think it is a gift and a responsibility. We keep each other safe. We give each other a reason to get up in the morning. We inspire each other.

Yes. We are each other’s breath, oxygen, energy. Sometimes just the thought of my grandsons makes my body smile. We smile with our eyes, mouths, hearts, lungs, legs. Air travels throughout our circulatory system and this air is like the smile that lifts our spirits.

Think of the billowing sails. That’s happiness. That’s love. That’s positive energy. We can smile even while suffering. If we can focus on our breathing with gratitude, we can smile because we are still here and we can get through this moment. Nothing lasts forever and for those of us who have seen many moments, we remember those hard moments we survived.

I have survived a lot, yet I am still here. When I was a young wife in an abusive relationship I couldn’t see tomorrow, yet here I am.

When I was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness four years ago this summer, I couldn’t see this moment, yet here I am.

 When I was a child and my home life was chaotic with domestic violence, drug addiction, alcoholism and rage, I could not see the road ahead, yet all of that led me here.

Here. 

I am here. I survived it all and now my focus is on recovery from the survival strategies like people-pleasing, codependency and trauma responses I adopted that are no longer necessary.

I am safe, I tell myself every day. I am grateful for this safety. I am grateful for this healthy body. I am grateful for this life.

When you have a terminal illness and you wake up in recovery, gratitude is your response.

I have survived a lot. I am now practicing living. It’s all practice. We are just rehearsing. The script is inherited; however, we don’t have to follow the script if it is not bringing us joy. 

We get to change. Change is our birthright. We are not stuck in old patterns. Grab a shovel and dig yourself out. There are many tools: prayer, meditation, psychotherapy, acupuncture, sound healing, 12-step recovery, expressive arts: writing, drawing, music, dance, storytelling.

The paths are many to God, as many as we, God’s people, the Az-Zumar.

Thank you is my prayer. Try it. Pass it along. 

_________________________

1. A song by the Temptations (1971).

2. eastbaymeditation.org/2022/03/agreements-for-multicultural-interactions/

3. Lauren Oya Olamina is the protagonist in Octavia Butler’s novel, Parable of the Sower (1993).