I have had the opportunity to observe two ceremonies of gathering soil samples of lynching sites in my county.  The organization, Volusia Remembers Coalition, provided a powerful presentation so that we would visualize and feel the violence the victims of horrendous lynchings experienced.  As I visited the EJI Peace & Justice Memorial later that year, those stories stayed with me as I walked through reading the names of those who had been lynched.  They were not just names – they had a story…they were beloved and they had experienced violence. I need to always remember that there is a beloved person behind each victim of racism.  I need to learn their story.

As an everyday peacemaker, not only should I know the stories of violence and hate but I also have to dig deeper to hear and understand the stories of resistance and resilience.  Those are the stories that are often not told or are left out of the history books (especially here in Florida!). These are the stories that help me to see the targets of racial violence as images of God, as Beloved and not just victims.  These are the stories that will help me move from just expressing mercy to fighting for justice.

What happens when you lose sight?

It gets dark real quick! 

Yesterday evening I was sitting outside in my backyard. My husband and I were in different places but on a conference call with our business manager. He was delivering bad financial news. My mind started racing. The tug of war began. The war between worry and centeredness, between resting in easeful, trusting belovedness and walking with anxiety over to shame. Shame was calling.

I noticed what was happening in my body. I noticed the stark contrast between feeling safely pampered in Paris just a few days ago on this gift of a trip from my mother. And the financial concerns I returned home to in real life. A primary concern being, how will this affect the kids? Then…

BAM! The sound of the bird’s body came crashing into the window near me like a torpedo. Swooshing down to follow was another bird. This one  just missed  the  window and landed on the first.  The sharp  reverberation snapped me out of my worry spiral.  I was suddenly mesmerized by the  cloud of feathers fluttering around the birds.

Then, stillness.

As my mind took in what had happened I stood up and saw, directly in my line of sight, standing Triumphant on the dove, a hawklike bird of prey. Staring back at me. And just like that, the hawk spread its wings and lifted off with the dove clenched in its talons. 

WOW. Ok what just happened? This is so bizarre and jarring. I left the conference call and walked over to the feathers on the ground and looked around. All was back to normal.

I looked over to the phone and immediately took in the placement of this shocking event. What does this mean? What a shocking display of animal spirit tearing into my experience and interrupting my Darth Vader meeting of darkness that was coming for my soul. Or at least my peace. What synchronicity this was. It felt like a sign. 

So, I looked it up. “What does it mean, spiritually, when you see a hawk take its prey?” Not in my topical  Bible index of course but in the slightly less holy writ of Google. And not to disappoint, one  tradition, with highly ranked first page search engine optimization on Google, believes what I saw,  “… represents abundance, and that you’ll always be able to care for yourself and your family.” 

Okaaaaaaayyyy. Maybe it IS a sign. And  you know what? At this crossroads of cynicism verses belovedness – I’ll take it. Today the Lord speaks in mysterious ways. Today I still have the power to choose Belovedness. Today God reached through the fabric of my normal and used nature to get my attention. “Hey, hey you. I’m still here. You’re still mine. All this is mine. Keep your eyes on me”.

Also, weirder things have happened. So why shouldn’t they happen to me?

But I also know that even without this bird-sign interruption, I would get to remembrance of resting eventually. Yet this sign helped me get there sooner as it felt personal, caring. And maybe there’s a reason for my needing to get there sooner. Maybe my steadiness is needed now. I determine to remember, “I have the power to set the tone. I can show my children we remain Beloved, come what may.”

So many times the pattern in my life has been God sending me signs – reminders of my belovedness. Reminders of whose I am and of what really matters. I choose to take in those synchronicities, signs and wonders. 

I am reminded that, be it little or big problems, short or prolonged, I do not suffer without hope. Hope of the Spirit’s presence with me here and now, within me, even going before me, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of hosts”. What a gift! 

Now most of my life my guidance has been found primarily in Scripture or “special revelation”. But sometimes, general revelation speaks a word of truth. Today I am going to let nature, or “general revelation” speak to me. Reveal to me. Shake me out of my doubts and back into Beloved’s Presence. 

PS – Since our larger conversation is also about race and injustice, I want to include that when I hear white people say, “God always takes care of me” that it has given my body a reaction and I think “That might also be because you have historically had many safety nets available to you that minorities have not. So it’s easy for you to say that you magically always come out on top”. And I am aware of how it may sound naive when white people say “God always takes care of me materially”. So I write about my hope and trust while also acknowledging how white people have designed a whole system of safety nets to keep us materially and financially stable more easily. And that feels unfair and unfair to attribute it only to God. So I want to acknowledge the unfairness and realness. And the discomfort I have writing something that could sound or even BE ignorant and unfair. I’m here to hold this up to the light and explore that discomfort with you. 

Years later, I found myself learning more about the history of the sacredness of the land I walked throughout my life. The stories that were embodied in the land. The bdote where women would walk for miles upon miles and days after days to give birth to the place of genesis. The place of creation. I learned of the concentration camp that was less than a mile away from my own home. The bodies that were buried, the tears and cries and death that happened on the land that I joyfully strolled through. 

I am now holding multiple stories that exist in this one place. The sacred stories that connect me to those that came before me and those that will come after me. The weight of awful things and the joy of new life and everything in between are held now in my hands. The rivers have converged that once were parallel. Or maybe they always were the same river? I just didn’t know it yet. Always deeply interconnected but unless I paid attention I didn’t know what my impact was on the other water that joined my own. 

This last summer when I went on a sacred sites tour with a group of students to the same place I walked as a kid, we were invited to take tobacco with us to honor the stories that the land holds. I slowly walked with a different intention than previous walks.  I closed my eyes and listened. I envisioned the people who came before me. I sprinkled the tobacco and whispered thank you. When I think about how to have an embodied, sacred relationship with creation, I think about that walk with the tobacco. A remembering of those who co-sustained the land before we forcefully took it away and now occupy it.

I was part of the garden leadership team at the church I used to work at along with other young adults who cared passionately about creation. We intentionally have a pollinator garden that is a food source to the bees on top of the church and for our neighbors. We are strategic and intentionally about what and where we would plant. It seemed to be easier on that land than in my own home. There is a team together with a goal and community surrounding how we steward that land.

As a new homeowner I think about the land I am on. As I am laying down roots, what other roots already exist here. What are the stories that live here? In order for me to have an embodied relationship with the creation in my own back and front yard. How can I invite a community to join me in co-sustaining the land I now am on. As we approach the spring and the land is becoming green and ask I pick seeds and get ready to tend to the land that is not actually mine, I am sitting with that question of how I co-sustain this land around me with what I plant and who I invite to share this space with. I think the answer lies in reflecting back to my experiences on the tour, from our speakers and my experience tending a garden team. It is an embodied community working together with the land not on the land or for the land, but with.