A SEAT AT THE TABLE

By Marlene L. Johnson

Remember those family meals when you were a kid and had to sit at the “kids table” when company came? Remember how you kept “fighting for a seat at the table” with the grown ups, so you would be as important as they were and share in the camaraderie?

I remember those days. And in remembering, I know that race, poverty and gender can keep you from having a seat at the “company” table. I wore three of those labels. I worked hard to overcome being labeled as poor. Because the other two labels are God-given and innate, my life has been one long fight for a seat at the table.

My first memorable struggle was to be just like the other kids, even though as a foster child I was taunted by for being a “welfare” kid and seen as different by the other kids and adults saw me as a child to be pitied because I would grow up to be worthless.

That’s how too many whites still see all African Americans.

African Americans have been fighting for a seat at the table ever since we were brought to America and enslaved. After building this country, African American men had to prove they were worthy of defending it. The Tuskegee Airmen proved it as did other black military men. Black soldiers returning from the wars still had to “fight for a seat at the table” of equality for themselves and their families. They had to march in the streets for the right to vote, for the right to send their children to public schools, to protect their families from hooded white terrorists who hung them with impunity, dosed and destroyed their homes and churches with fire, and white farmers who stole their labor by underpaying them or paying them in pig guts and overripe vegetables from the fields.

But getting to the table may have been the easiest part. Once you got a seat at the adult table you were seen as a nuisance to be put up with and still were not part of the camaraderie. When the food was passed, you didn’t get to help yourself, someone gave you a scoop of this or a spoonful of that, as if you couldn’t do it yourself. And they watched for you to “mess up” saying ‘Don’t spill your food, wipe your face with the napkin,’ as if you they didn’t have food around their own mouths.

It’s like finally landing a job for which you have studied hard to educate yourself and finding that as an African American and as a woman you are undervalued, underestimated and marginalized. But we still go to that hard-won job where we are grudgingly dolled out this assignment by folks who don’t really want us to be there, who believe our skin color or gender means we are not up to the responsibilities of the job, and who don’t value our work unless someone wants to go on vacation, then we get to do their jobs as well.

The best assignments are deemed to be beyond the realm of our capabilities and are given to others, although we know full well we could handle them. We are either intentionally given more work than any one person can do and are scolded for “messing up” or are stripped of all but “make coffee” type duties that make it hardly worth getting out of bed to go to our jobs. But we do.

It’s time America sets the table for all of us. African Americans and women have earned a place at that table, so say the blessing and pass the potatoes please!

Marlene's Poetry

Twice Lost Identity
(1965)

I asked her why she cried.
She sniffled,
Then spread the mingling wetness
across the Nubian planes of her nose
and cheeks.
Sad brown eyes, swimming in the
ebony velvet of her face
looked out at me.
She said,
“Not to know once
is bad enough,
but twice
it’s happened now…
I cry for all my ancestors
whom I can never trace,
And for my father.

© Marlene L. Johnson 2007

ORPHAN
1970

He was abandoned,
a small bundled spark of life
left to be snuffed out by the bitter cold.
But someone heard him cry
and took him to a place
he would come to know as home.

He grew up in this walled off place of stone
and fenced-in hearts.
Inside there were no trees to climb
and dangle limb from limb;
or creeks in which to sail a twiggy boat,
and watch the fallen autumn leaves float
in it to their graves.
He found no trails he could explore,
or caves in woody places he could hide
and dream forbidden dreams
of baseball bats and bicycles to ride;
or snakes and rocks and balls of string
(all sorts of curious little-boy things)
to stuff the pockets of his patched pants.
He grew up in this walled off place,
no place like home. Never really living,
but with too much life in him to die.
The boy became a man,
and nobody had heard his cry.

© Marlene L. Johnson 2006

MUH DEAR
(1973)

Mixed gray wool, done up neatly in geometric plaits,
Washed out flowered cotton dress, but wearing no hat,
Singing the blues and wearing rocked over shoes,
ironing starch white shirts for stiff white folks,
while papa wore the faded denim kind,
worn out and elbow-frayed, from sweat and years the
price was paid.
Dusting nailed together furniture with care
Crocheting doilies from bits of string
And singing nearer my God to thee and
in the Sweet By and By.
Drying my tears when I came home crying
’cuz someone called me nigger.
Muhdear, you took me in your big, wide lap and held me close.
“Now hush, your cryin’ chil’,” you said.
“Youse old enough to know
Just ’cause someone says bad things
Don’t really make it so.”
Muhdear was always there
to braid my hair
to teach me how
to make my bed
and iron starched white shirts.
She could always find a dime for me to see
the Saturday afternoon matinee.
Calling you Muhdear was the only way we knew
to let you know we understood the many things you suffered through,
You were always working,
singin’,
prayin’
teachin’, and
lovin’
and we know we can never, ever repay you.

© Marlene L. Johnson 2007

Guest Musings

Make the Best of the Worst of Things
© Jason Blake 2007

Happy summer time everyone. I hope and trust that you guys are enjoying some much needed time off and are spending some quality time with your family and friends. I wanted to drop a quick thought, which I hope will encourage you right where you are.

I heard someone once say that, “Anger is just love disappointed”. Love has many faces and fortunately not limited to our own imaginations. You have a love that is between a parent and a child, between siblings, another that lingers between friends, between a man and a woman, and most importantly between God and His people. In our coming and goings we can easily hurt the ones that we love the most. It may never be intentional, but when we commit such acts it often can be difficult to heal the wounds that have been created by such encounters.

If you would, allow me to extend to you a thought. No one is perfect and we all will fall short of each other’s expectations, and that is where disappointment comes into play. Our disappointments are manifested when our expectations are not met and then we think to ourselves how can that person who is close to us let us down? Perhaps the closer the person the more let down we feel.

Though it is hard, let me encourage you to reach out in love to deal with and heal the situation(s). God loves us so much that despite our flaws He loves us unconditionally. I’m sure that is a tall order to fill when you think of the fact that God is God and we are just people, but remember that we are made in his image and so that means that we have deep within us the characteristics of Him; we to can love and forgive. When we step out side of our pain and our actions we can comfort people with love and love can cover a multitude grievances and sins. True and compassionate love can bring restoration, it can restore things that we thought was lost forever to hurt and pain. Granted a relationship may never ever be the same again but we will indeed find peace.

When we take a second to really examine a situation remember to stay focused on that situation and not a list of things that may really not matter cause it is at that time we can maybe even easily heal a situation that was consumed by misunderstandings and bitterness. When we have been wronged, let us not shut people out and withdraw, approach the person that has hurt you in love and if we have wronged our fellow man, let us put our pride and arrogance aside and approach the person that we have hurt in love; in other words, let us get back to the heart of the matter and begin to heal. Oh yea, and let’s try to be approachable, cause even the best fall down sometimes.

Folks, let’s begin to really take care of each other and ourselves. Be Blessed and have a Happy Summer J

Peace,
Jason B.

A QUESTION OF FAITH

“Fides Quarens Intellectum”
© Marlene L. Johnson 2007

St. Anselm of Canterbury’s definition of theology in his Pros Logion speaks of using reason to try to understand God’s truth, a truth Anselm already had accepted by faith.

Discourses on faith include a number of definitions. One is that faith involves believing and trusting that Christ was born for us personally and achieved salvation for us. To have faith means more than just believing something is true, it means we are prepared to act and rely upon that belief. Our faith comes from God, just as our understanding does if we are open to receiving what He wants to reveal to us. As John Calvin explains, “There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity.” Faith is the human response to this Divine initiative.

Because humans desire to experience the transcendence of God, in theology faith seeks understanding. Theology once a discourse about God, now is an analysis of religious beliefs, and according to John McQuarrie “seeks to express the content of this faith in the clearest and most coherent language available.” But whatever answers we come up with will fall short because we are ill-equipped to unravel the mystery of God and his creation. The use of reason to reflect on and understand the meaning of our existence and our relationship to God involves human thought and language.

While theology invites us to make connections between the tradition of faith and the language we use, this pursuit becomes difficult because the meaning of our language changes based on its context. Moreover, we humans use language that tries to create God in our image, rather than accepting that God created us in His image.

So, despite our best theological efforts to understand our faith, the existence of God remains a conundrum.