Do you ever think, I can feel the growth happening in me right now?
This (very) small corner of the internet, Growing Into Kinship, is all about that. Exploring those moments and spaces where something in us is changing. Something is awakened. Something is being transformed.
It’s about paying attention to all of this.
For those who believe in God—I think this is where God is.
In Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone, Minna Salami offers some reflections that I want to share with you all. She’s writing about decolonization—and whether or not you’d use the word “decolonizing” to describe your own journey, I think that really is the path we’re on, here.
We’re aiming to move away from the patriarchal, white supremacist, ableist, dehumanizing, greed-and-profit-driven ways of being that often characterize dominant white US society. And we’re aiming to move toward equality, justice, flourishing for everyone, healthy ways of interacting with our earth and one another.
To me, these things are all wrapped up in the journey of decolonization.
And when we think about this journey, sometimes we talk about unlearning and relearning, or deconstructing and reconstructing, or something along those lines.
That “unlearning” part can be framed in very religious terms: God is removing this temptation from me, or God is excising this sin from me and releasing me from it, or God is saving me from this way of thinking.
It can also simply be framed in terms of I’m unlearning this way of being. Or, I don’t want to think this way anymore.
I think it can be helpful to talk in these terms—the language of unlearning, unraveling, excising, releasing, deconstructing. (If I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t have spent the whole first half of Nice Churchy Patriarchy identifying all the different ways patriarchy can operate in faith communities—basically, analyzing all the many things we want to leave behind.)
At the same time, though, sometimes we don’t only get rid of something by, well, trying to get rid of it. (Anyone thinking about a pink elephant? Just me? Never mind, then.)
I’m struck by the way Minna Salami writes about this:
“We also speak of decolonization as though the prefix de- means to amputate wrong thoughts from your mind. But you cannot extract colonial thinking by forcefully removing parts of your character and behavior. The mind does not work that way. You cannot just remove thoughts as one might get rid of old furniture. All such attempts result only in self-censorship, collective deception, and paranoia.
“Decolonization of the mind should instead cause a sense of unity and calm in the mind. It is not removing thought patterns by force but instead gently inserting new insights, which eventually reshuffle and do away with harmful thoughts.
“Imagine the mind as a garden. Our traditional idea of decolonizing it would be like vigorously chopping down a poison ivy that is threatening to infest the garden with its toxic branches. But decolonizing the garden of the mind is more about planting new, rare, forgotten, and hybrid trees, herbs, and flowers that eventually do away with the ivy. It is decorating the trees with bowls where birds can rest and sing songs of freedom. It is creating a wild meadow in the center of the enclave and finding time to just lie in this green place” (Sensuous Knowledge, p. 71)
Isn’t that gorgeous? And thought-provoking.
I wonder if many of us default to trying to amputate thoughts and behaviors we want to leave behind. I do, at least sometimes.
But Salami’s reflections give me pause. She connects this sort of amputation to “removing parts of [our] character and behavior.” I feel like this raises some key questions.
If there’s a belief I want to eradicate, what else within me is this belief tied to? How has it shaped my character—potentially in some really damaging ways, but also perhaps in some ways that formed who I am?
If there’s a behavior I want to change—what would it really mean to remove this behavior from my repertoire of actions? What would be the range of impacts, for better or for worse?
I deeply appreciate Salami inviting us to reflect on these sorts of things. Perhaps it’s a way of calling us not to simply react away from something without examining the impacts of our reaction.
I love the garden metaphor, too. The word re-wilding comes to mind. I recently read Camille T. Dungy’s lovely book Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, and I think about the section of her yard that she called the “prairie project,” turning a grass lawn into a gorgeous space of wildflowers and other native plants.
Sure, digging up the grass is part of this process. But it isn’t the only part. And perhaps it isn’t the most interesting or life-giving part, or the part we’d want to focus most of our energy on.
To make these metaphors a little more concrete—for white folks like me, maybe this means we spend less time berating ourselves for our whiteness (by which I mean the white supremacist ways of being that are baked deeply into most of us) and more time actively and reflectively listening to the thoughts of people of color. Not just amputating willy-nilly—or weeding, to use the garden metaphor—but asking what more beautiful thing we can plant instead. Maybe as we all learn new ways of being that honor people of all races as equals, we find ourselves released from white supremacist ways of being along the way.
Or for men, maybe they find themselves spending less time being ashamed of toxic masculinity or feeling vaguely accused when people try to talk about it honestly, and more time listening well to the thoughts of women and nonbinary people. Maybe as we all learn new ways of being that honor people of all genders as equals, the sexist parts of ourselves fall away.
I think this refocusing can be helpful. And I find hope in it.
As someone who has spent a ton of time these last few months talking (and talking and talking!) about patriarchy in churches—no really, see all the podcasts listed at the bottom of the page here…that’s a lot of talking, lol—I can say that I value these kinds of conversations. And, as the second half of Nice Churchy Patriarchy gets into, I don’t only want to talk about excising the poison ivy of patriarchy. I want to talk about how we plant gorgeous flowers that out-compete it.
I love Salami’s vision of “planting new, rare, forgotten, and hybrid trees, herbs, and flowers,” of “decorating the trees with bowls where birds can rest and sing songs of freedom,” of “creating a wild meadow in the center of the enclave and finding time to just lie in this green place.”
Let’s plant those flowers, welcome those birds, re-wild those meadows.
And as we do so—as we build this beautiful kind of world together, these beautiful kinds of communities—may we find ourselves parting with the things we need to part with as we go.
Thoughts? Reflections? Have you experienced—or are you experiencing—this transition from only trying to amputate things to seeing what beautiful things might grow? I’d love to hear.
Love this reflection, Liz (and +1 garden metaphor)--thanks for sharing!