She Said It Saturday: We SEE You!
When I was young, coming up in ministry, one of my Big Sisters in Ministry (BSIM) caught me acting at an Annual Conference. She pulled me aside and, with Brooklyn all over her face, asked me, “who are you right now and who are you trying to be?!”
I was acting. Pretending. Whoever I really was had ceased to be visible for the character I was playing, the person I thought I should be for the Church, for my family, for … some strange reason. As seasons change and I shift with the winds of life, I frequently hear her voice in my head demanding to know who I am and who I’m trying to be. Sometimes, I look around me and want to ask the world, the Church, the people around me the same thing. A couple of years ago, I did.
On this first (and maybe last) “She Said it Saturday" I share my version of my BSIM’s question. Set to Cee-Lo Green’s “Big Ole Words,” I ask simply, “what happened to y’all?” I was tired then. And I’m tired now. Here is We SEE You! from July 2020.
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In the middle of his song “Big Ole Words (Damn)” (y’all should listen to it) Cee Lo Green says:
“When I first got my big break I said I would never bend/ Or discredit my character to keep up or contend. /I believe beats and bass lines secrete such a special blend./ I am not like them at all and I cannot pretend. (Damn)”
That Cee Lo wouldn’t recognize the new Cee Lo. (And I’m so grateful for the last year the MOB has spent touring together...because...)
We all had a starting point, a beginning, a point in time when we were the Novice, the Newb. Most of us, in that starting place, watched the people who were in places we thought we needed to get to, where we thought we needed to be. We watched how they treated us. We watched how they treated the people around them. We theorized and wrote sermons about what it meant to have a taste of power. And we said we would be different. Or we said we’d do the same. We eschewed their methods and declared the need to treat people better. Or we adopted them because we saw how profitable it is to treat those who are just starting as though they are inhuman.
“I’m not inspiring to be any lower or higher than. I get equal as in eye to eye again.”
We all started somewhere. We are not there, though.
And I’m up, tired with a sick kid, wondering just how far we’ve come. I’m up wondering if we, like Kanye and CeeLo, have become that very thing we said we’d never be. I’m up wondering if we ever stop to notice how the journey has changed us and if we are really incapable of seeing how we are treating people who are just like us, just like we were treated, just for the same fleeting power we watched others gain and lose.
“I am internally evolving, entirely extensive, eclectic, expression, eloquently, instantly innovative, courageously creative. I’m driven. This God-given gift comes naturally to the native.”
And I’m watching folk who struggle for justice for themselves dole out injustice to those who are “beneath” them.
And I’m watching folk who insist on equity grab for the greater share while those around them go without.
And I’m watching the same folk who started well... well, be who they said they’d never be. And I’m like Paul: what happened to y’all?
What happened, mid-race, mid-walk, mid-journey to turn you into what you despised? What happened to reshape you from who you were supposed to be into what harmed you, such that you so willingly harm others in the same way? What happened to make you not finish well?
Was it the allure of power that will be gone tomorrow?
Was it the sound of your name being called over the speaker?
Was it seeing your name in print?
Was it seeing your face on a TV screen?
You were running well. What happened?
And I don’t know what y’all said y’all would and wouldn’t do when y’all first started. That ain’t my business. But I pray, as you look back over your life and see how far you’ve come, that you also willingly assess how far you have gone to get to where you are.
“Caution, competitors approach carefully/I’m able to see/rare ranges if of distance.”
The thing about everything being out in these eStreetz and not behind church walls is that it’s all visible. All of it. Every part of who we are is visible. There’s nowhere to hide it. Even encrypted spaces can be screenshot. That kind of visibility requires us to be honest about who we are, who we’re trying to be, who we’re pretending to be, and who we’ve become. I pray we start looking in the mirror to check something other than how much authority we have and over whom... so we can finish the race as well as we started it.
“Pre-meditative, political, critical, compelling, story-telling, defining desire. Faith fueling the fire. Brilliance, prophylactic, philosophical, psychological. Willingly waging warfare. Withstanding. Commanding, demanding the listening ears to hear what God’s forcing. Instead endorsing education, equality not hate. Just a revolution of the mind state. Not mere words, but emotions... which is essential. Influential, proving my people’s potential. Militancy, innocence, insight. Listen to God, then write. Since my birthdate, I been tight. (Damn).”
We see you.
I’m tired.
Post-script: On the connection between the beat, bass lines, and the Holy Spirit, see the pneumatological rendering in “Catch the Beat: Heidegger, Derrida, and Hip-Hop.”
Post-post-script: Screenshots can also be screenshot. We see what y’all sending, just like we see who y’all are.
