Monday Whatevers

November 15, 2021

Hello, Friend! 

It’s Monday, so… inspired by on one of my favorite bits of the Bible, let’s start every week off with a little bit of whatever’s good and noble in the world. Here are a few excellent and noteworthy things I’m seeing in the world right now. Some are beautiful, promising, and reassuring. Some are poignant, thought-provoking, and necessary. All of them add to a greater knowing of God’s presence in this world, within our humanity, and out in the great beyond. And, they all prove there’s an abundance of spectacular, breathtaking tangible and intangible cosmic matter between us. 

Please feel free to share in the comments whatever is good that you’re seeing in the world as well.  

Blessings,
Marcie 

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Last week, on Thursday afternoon, I signed my second contract for my first book. The story behind why I had to go through the process of two contracts is a long one. Perhaps I’ll share it someday – or not. But what I can share is that the whole saga showed me that sometimes what feels like an ending is only a necessary undoing. Of course at the time, the hurt is all-consuming. All that pain reveals a great multitude of breaks and bruises you didn’t even know needed mending. If you’re lucky—and I was lucky—time does heal. 

To be an unknown Black woman in this country who is just as ordinary a citizen as can be, and somehow manage to land a book deal is just as much a miracle as any miracle you read about in the Bible. I’m not being overly dramatic. The plan from the beginning was that we would not survive what happened to us in this country – and yet here we are and here I am, a nobody by every measure that counts in our society, being paid for my story. I feel as if I touched the hem of Jesus’ robe to stop the heavy bleeding that had plagued my family for generations. 

This epic thing that I never expected has happened, and I am glad and mournful and terrified. I’m so grateful for those who made this possible for me – Black writers who had the audacity to be heard and made it so that I can be heard now. Their work and lives are the embodiment of whatever is true and whatever is honest, whatever is just and pure, whatever is lovely and gracious, whatever is excellent and whatever is worthy of applause. For this Monday Whatever, I would like to celebrate some those writers who, by their works, cleared some of the racial fog that has lain heavy on the chest of our nation. For each writer I included their book dedication, because the reasons for whom and why something was written is just as important as what was written. 

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W.E.B DUBOIS: The Souls of Black Folk 

To Burghardt and Yolande,
the Lost and the Found 


HOWARD THURMAN: Jesus and the Disinherited 

To My Beloved Daughters
OLIVE and ANNE

and to the future of their generation
in whom the struggles of the 
past will find fulfillment


TONI MORRISON: Beloved

Sixty Million 
and more 


JAMES BALDWIN: The Fire Next Time

for James
James
Luc James

“God gave Noah the rainbow sign, 
No more water, the fire next time!”


LORRAINE HANSBERRY: A Raisin in the Sun

To Mama: 
in gratitude for the dream


ALICE WALKER: The Color Purple

To the Spirit:
Without whose assistance
Neither this book
Nor I 
Would have been 
Written. 


MAYA ANGELOU: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

This book
is dedicated to
MY SON, GUY JOHNSON,
AND ALL THE STRONG BLACK BIRDS 
OF PROMISE
who defy the odds and gods 
and sing their songs 


AUDRE LORDE: The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde
[This is not a dedication. But it’s my favorite of her poems which I receive as a dedication]

LITANY OF SURVIVAL

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone

for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us

For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning

when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again

when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return

and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.

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May your week be filled with whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, and worthy of praise.

Much Peace,
Marcie, BCWWF