We are trying to hold one another, while our knees are weak, chests are tight, our worlds on fire, burning and burning and burning and burning. —Danté Stewart
It took time for author and minister Danté Stewart to acknowledge and allow his own anger:
After running from rage my whole life, it took some getting used to. I noticed that rage neither set me free nor made me feel better. But it did give me some words and some energy to fight white supremacy in myself and white supremacy in the world, and all the ways white supremacy destroyed us and those we loved. It shook me out of my illusion that the world as I now knew it was the world that God wanted. It forced me to deal with the ways in which my Black body and Black children, women, and men live in a system of injustice—a system of inequality, exploitation, and disrespect. It became my public outcry that our bodies and our souls must be loved, and that our bodies and our souls mattered to God, and that our bodies and our souls must find rest.
I started to see that my Black rage in an anti-Black world was a spiritual virtue…. Black rage is the work of love that protests an unloving world. It is the good news that though our society has often forgotten us, there is Someone who loves us and believes us worth fighting for.
Stewart recognized power in joining his anger with love:
I began to see that being enraged becomes dangerous when it is not channeled through love, serious deep love for ourselves and our neighbor. It can become a lonely place, and I have had my struggle with loneliness. When rage becomes the spark that embraces Black flesh, moves us to universal love, to struggle, to fight, to pray, to embrace, to remember, this becomes a sword and shield. In a world that wounds our souls and bodies, this becomes the work of love: holy, healing, and liberating work. Love dancing with rage, rage dancing with love, becomes the greatest spiritual, moral, and political task in each generation. It is a call for us as Black people to what Jesus called abundant life, spirit of the Lord upon Black flesh, freedom for all people.
Stewart writes that Jesus embodied love, healing, and liberation:
Jesus loves bodies, no matter who or where or what they are. And Jesus does not hurt people in order to love them. He did not live out of his own woundedness; he did not cover up his pain by enacting it onto others…. Jesus wanted us to learn love…. I learned too late, but I learned. I learned that we all live in brokenness, deep brokenness. I learned that Jesus does not forget bodies, despised and abused bodies, but becomes good news to them by remembering them, touching them and being touched, and creating a world where their bodies are liberated, redeemed, and resurrected.
Reference:
Danté Stewart, Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle (New York: Convergent, 2021), 94–95, 97–98, 152, 153.
Image credit: Benjamin Yazza, Untitled (detail), New Mexico, 2023, photograph, used with permission. Click here to enlarge image.
Anger is a spark that motivates us forward. Love is a pathway that funnels our motivation in an impactful direction.
Story from Our Community:
As I continue to read the meditations and participate in the practices and courses here at CAC, the word “contemplative” has taken on a whole new, purposeful meaning to me…. I have deep concerns for the anger and fear throughout the world and in our church, families, and communities. I am concerned for future generations … with no church affiliation. But perhaps a new day of faith is already dawning. I have witnessed the younger generations caring for others, sharing with the community and each other, protecting one another, and experiencing God’s grace as I once did. Thank you for helping me discern these things and offering calming practices for my anxious heart and soul. —MYN.
