Oh, how I long for the day as stated in Galatians 3:28-29 (Christian Standard Bible version) when “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”[1] Quite often, when there is a conversation or reading about “the other”, my mind lands on this verse. I desire to experience the level of unity and intimacy mentioned in that verse. And I wrestle with whether it will happen before Jesus Himself returns. Yet, while I live in this earthly realm, I wonder how many times it will happen in the interpersonal exchanges between individuals that are genuine in the moment. A oneness. A unity. Not me or you, but an us that is conceived from a moment of authentic exchange. It may last only for that moment in time. And that’s where I have to remind myself not to diminish whatever existed even if for only a brief moment.
The Baby. My Baby.
As a mother, I immediately remember the brief period of time there was life growing inside of me. And suddenly that baby was gone. I wanted so much more for that life and from that life. I longed for an opportunity for a type of intimacy, a knowing to occur. The brevity of that baby’s life does not mean there was no life at all. There was a desire for more life beyond those very few and fleeting moments. There was a hope to see how this baby’s life would unfold with an expectation he or she would have a long and fruitful life.
I reflect on my three pregnancies. I was graced and privileged to experience two of those three children whose little faces made me smile while tears streamed down my face. I stroked their faces as I took in the reality of life. And then there’s the one that I never met in the flesh. I live with a haunting of sorts. There is a void because someone who was so close to me grew within me for a brief period. And yet, I was denied the opportunity to look into and stroke this face. This life did not grow where we could interact outside of the womb. There was no flesh that I could engage. In that respect, I was a mother to one I would not be able to extend a smile. Even if the baby had not drawn a single breath outside of my womb, I would have been granted an opportunity to hold, to smile, with tears for a different reason at this little life wrapped in flesh.
These are the thoughts and feelings that emerge as I read Esther Meek’s essay “The Other: Returning to Our Natal Philosophy in the Mother’s Smile”. I must confess my apprehension in responding to Meek’s essay. To be transparent, the “other-ed” part of me (I am a Black woman and being othered is part of my everyday lived experience), immediately wondered if I will receive a welcoming smile from (m)other or another rejection. I imagine the (m)other being Meek or another reader. I desire the smiles because they are indeed essential to my “emotional and physical well-being”. And yet, rejection is a possibility. It is always a possibility when my lived experiences include being rejected for living in my God-given flesh. I am the Other.
The Other
I will return to why I started with a Bible verse and reflections on the brevity of my baby’s life. For now, I have a disclaimer. I usually groan at the mention of conversations around “others” and “othering.”
Will (m)other understand my response to this article? Will Meek or the reader be able to look at me with the natal philosophy in mind? For me, the natal philosophy includes the flesh in which I was born. Will the reader gaze in not only my eyes, but also my mind and recognize my response as that of another as opposed to an-other? My response is heavily influenced by my lived experiences in this flesh, a Black woman with brown skin. I think it is important to name my flesh.
These preliminary thoughts are enough to forego the opportunity to respond to Meek’s work. The risk of rejection threatens my well-being.
And yet, here we are.
I decided to risk the rejection.
This statement by Meek prompted me to pause, “I want to offer a philosophy anchored in regard for the other. Reinstating it is necessary for effective efforts to bring shalom to the world.”
I think to myself this is good. Because I am exhausted.
I experience an ongoing exhaustion from living in a world that is constantly engaged and enthralled in conversations that are framed by dichotomies. Disagreements that feed the frenzy of polarization. The constant clawing. As a result, someone has to be scapegoated. Someone will be “othered”.
And usually, that’s me. I am the Other.
Annihilation of the Flesh
The more that I read and review and reflect on that passage from Galatians, the more I am impressed by what it says. The Jew. The Gentile. These categories are explicitly named. These are ways we “other” others through God-given flesh that is seen. I think about Edwin Friedman, who was influenced by Murray Bowen, and his approach to working with families and their various cultural backgrounds.
Friedman writes in “Failure of Nerve”, “rather than assuming that a family’s cultural background determined its emotional processes, I found it far more useful to see culture as the medium through which a family’s own unique multi-generational emotional processes worked its art. I began to see that stripping families of their cultural camouflage forced family members to be more accountable for their actions and their responses to one another.”[2]
Now, I agree and I disagree with this thought. I agree when I think of this from a spiritual perspective guided by the verse in Galatians. My theological frame guides my understanding there will be a day when we all will be “one”. Which to me means the necessity of othering will cease to exist. I believe these sociological categories will no longer be weaponized resulting in the continual feeding of polarization and marginalization. However, for now they remain.
I think the road to that “genuine regard” Meek speaks to goes through those various cultural factors which Friedman minimizes or collapses. I believe the way to genuine regard is through the Jew. The Gentile. The flesh. Through what is seen when we are seen. “Truly” seen (not erased) or not. The flesh is seen. It is what we see.
As long as I am embodied in the flesh of a Black woman, I must contend with it. Especially as one of the “others”. My mere survival is dependent upon me contending with my flesh. Every. Day. And wondering how another (even an other) also contends with my flesh.
I understand the point Friedman makes. And also, I still believe there can be a call to accountability without a stripping of the “cultural camouflage”. Can we not speak to the cultural aspect with honor and also point out where it might be problematic? Can we perhaps suggest how to still acknowledge the culture without eliminating it? I, in my Black flesh, feel somewhat triggered by the call to camouflage. There’s a familiar reaction within my body.
Annihilation? Extinction? Is this another way I must fight for my existence?
There is no sense of shalom as I ponder that idea. What is the intent when one collapses culture?
I assert the road to peace, to oneness, goes through the flesh. My stance is rooted and formed in how the disciplines of psychology and theology not only inform one another but also intertwine. My personal and professional development have been shaped at this intersection.
Path to Shalom
Back to Meek, I believe the heart of our messages is the same. We speak in the vernacular of our own locations. And yet, wrapped in different words, influenced by different languages and ways of speaking – the message is the same. Meek’s essay has undertones and broad strokes of spirituality. She uses philosophy. I use psychology and theology.
From these different backgrounds, I smile at her. I hope she smiles at me. I hope she hears my positive regard toward her being, my contending with her flesh, the forging of a pathway to her spirit. And with these efforts I hope there is a recognition in her spirit that we are one. Gadson. Meek. Different and yet we are one. I can therefore appreciate her definition and declaration of other, especially her emphasis on not being dismissive toward the other. She defines other as “the same as me and different from me”. This is a differentiated individual. One who can define self and still recognize and be with an other or another. There is no demand on the self to enmesh and be as she is. There is no bypassing and denying the existence or the value of one’s existence. There is a willingness to engage the fluidity of a spectrum between being and being with others. I am hesitant and yet appreciative. I dare to consider this may be a moment of shalom.
Shalom for me involves being known. Or even yet to be known. As Meek says, the real. And I, yet again, assert that to know me involves knowing the real me. The me that is wrapped in the flesh of a Black woman. To know me, one must be willing to look in my face, perhaps ask me my name as I reciprocate and ask the inquirer’s name, engaging in the exchange of niceties where we enter into “an interpersoned, mutually transformative, intimate encounter and unfolding communion -with the other”.
I am that other.
Yet I seek and crave for an unfolding, ongoing communion, a sharing of thoughts and feelings that does not cease. Indeed, this is the same desire I had for my baby whose life ended prematurely. I desire one who is willing and able to repeat those mutually transforming encounters, over and over again. This unfolding communion involves a peeling back of our self, an entering into the space described as interpersoned by Meek. This is intimacy. This is becoming one. This is the ability to be and allow another, especially an other, to be and move toward that other, as outside of our self. And yet we still choose to engage in mutually intimate and transformative ways. This I would declare to be shalom.
And this all starts with my flesh. This is interpersoned. The recognition of my flesh is the way to positive regard. The path does not avoid or ignore the flesh. Then I believe once we recognize the flesh then we will have an opportunity to get beyond the flesh arriving at a place where it does not matter if one is the Jew or the Gentile. It does not matter, for there has been a bond developed, a relationship that sees the flesh and chooses to engage the one in the flesh regardless. One would possess an ability no longer hindered by the flesh or the need to annihilate the flesh of the other.
The moment when the smile of the mother is spontaneous and genuine as she looks at another or an other as a part of her and also a very separate individual is invitational. These are moments in which we make headway knowing and loving one another because of and in spite of the flesh. These are moments of shalom.
Let It Be
Shalom is disrupted when society triangulates and entangles an other. Why is this a reality for some groups and not others? Friedman describes entanglement as “a way to avoid facing the emotional processes that are driving that family to become symptomatic.” Another way to state this is to ask why it is hard for society to allow another “to be” as Meek states. She reasons that “the opposite of domination involves letting be”. So, then it begs to question – what leads society to dominate the other as opposed to letting them be?
I recall one day when my youngest daughter attended a homeschooling program and left feeling othered by the adult who facilitated the group. After I spoke with this individual, expressing how her remarks were insensitive and triggering to people of color, she said “I do not see your daughter as a Black person. I see her as one of God’s children.” I proceeded to tell her that she does not see her at all much less as one of God’s children. She erased who God created my daughter to be and how God housed all of her personality and gifts and talents in a Black body. The woman insulated herself from my feedback by avoiding the essential emotional processing informing her comments. Dominant populations and dominant philosophies have that privilege.
In “The Souls of Black Folk”, W. E. B. Du Bois describes how “being a problem is a strange experience, – peculiar even for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood”[3]. This is an interesting exception. What happens when that gaze from the (m)other to the baby turns into a look of contempt and repugnance? There is a function to objectifying and othering an other.
I desperately want to believe that however we return – philosophically, theologically, psychologically – we return expeditiously as we contemplate how to best love the other. But I would be ecstatic if we just stopped oppressing and dominating the other. Is it too much of an ask to let the “other” be?
Stepping Into Flesh
My dad was a product of and a pastor in the traditional Black church. He once told me the older male pastors would mentor him and his colleagues telling them they have not preached a sermon if you do not close mentioning the work of Jesus on the Cross. I have listened to numerous sermons over my formative years and beyond where those older ministers with various inflections in their voices would masterfully weave the narrative about the life of Jesus, from His birth, His growth in stature and wisdom, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension in the most captivating and colorful of ways. We were invited to imagine Jesus volunteering to leave the comforts of His heavenly home to be born to an ostracized, single, virgin mother. He stepped intoflesh and walked the earth in the flesh of what would look to others as a Jewish man (see for example, the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman).
Since I have chosen to be a follower of Jesus, I study His life—observing how He related to people. And for Him to relate, He stepped into flesh. Jesus also chose to look like a marginalized man who would be objectified and oppressed. There are some who choose to dominate or sit in positions of power attempting to bypass the cultural characteristics of individuals, but I cannot do that. I must reiterate that God chose flesh, a flesh of the oppressed.
In that flesh, Jesus, a Jew, engaged with a woman from Samaria, something that was uncommon at that time (see John 4:9).[4] Jesus saw her in her flesh. She saw Him in His flesh. They saw one another. There was not initially a gaze or a smile, but they saw one another. As they negotiated in and with their flesh, they engaged in conversation. It was a bit snarky at first, but eventually there was a pressing toward one another. I think there is a grace that happens in relationships at this place as Meek describes, “the mother’s smile is a gesture, an action, a personal address; it can be received only through a reciprocating response.”
Like Jeremiah, before I was born, I was known (see Jeremiah 1:5).[5] We are all born with an innate desire to be known – I believe that to be God-given. Meek says that “knowing in its natal and native form requires the other, responds to the other, honors the other, and obediently serves the other.”
I believe this is shalom. This is that intimacy, that unity I so desperately want to experience. Yes, it is good for the moment but how much better if it is a way of being? An ongoing way of doing and living and serving.
God the Father looked in the face of His marginalized Jewish Son and expressed pleasure.[6] Hearing sentiments of adoration echoed from the lips of a parent can be experienced as shalom. The Father’s pleasure of the Son and with the mother’s smile toward the baby together give us a working paradigm in which to return to begin anew. I assert we can start “in the beginning” [7] with the Father who chose flesh and the m(other) who chooses not only to smile for a moment but also to unfold and commune with the baby in his or her flesh.
The baby. The babies. Me. You. Us.
We must take the opportunity to gaze and behold and interact with and in the flesh to note the hair color, eye color, and facial features -the wonderful and marvelous ways we have been created and housed in the very specific hue God chose to swaddle us. And we must strive toward making these opportunities more than a moment to a way of life -a philosophy, a theology, a psychology – an interdisciplinary approach – that informs a consistent practice. A way of being.
We smile. We live according to the flesh. We smile. We live according to the Spirit.
So then, may we enact a regard-filled (embodied) encounter with the other, with philosophical, (coupled with theological and psychological) awareness and intentionality, to the healing of our time.[8]
[1] Galatians 3:28-29
[2] Friedman, E. (2017). A Failure of Nerve. New York: Church Publishing. 8.
[3] DuBois, W. (2014). The Souls of Black Folk. Millennium Publications. 4.
[4] See John 4:9
[5] See Jeremiah 1:5
[6] See Matthew 3:17
[7] See Genesis 1:1
[8] Parenthetical emphasis by the author.