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Boo, Baby, and Blessings

Writer's picture: Lisa Magdalena HessLisa Magdalena Hess

Terms of affection. Terms of affiliation. Terms of profession. How do we welcome the heartfelt intentions of our elders when the words they use disrespect, even disempower us? I want to participate in a deeper honoring of the elders in my life even as the sacred work flowing through me has required that I differentiate from their worldviews, their beliefs, their customs. Hopefully without disrespect and yet with integrity, passion, connection. What does it mean to receive blessings regardless of what may be said to you?


A woman I’m blessed to call a friend holds this friendship with me across a lot of differences–race, faith community, geographical location, age, history/herstory. I still remember the first time she used a term of affection–”boo”--when we were in a circle of friends. I beamed inside, which I hope she saw, but I doubt she had any idea what it meant to me. She and I intersect in professional circles, but her language spoke to all of me, not just my role. While I don’t consider her an elder in my life, per se, she is an elder in many ways, knowing a whole lot more than I do in her ways. Even as she honors how much I know that she does not. We practice connection, both recognizing the importance of reciprocity in one another.


A stately gentleman comes into the DMin cohort peer-session, drawing ever nearer the ancestral plane but still present, stewarding, being who he is in a system he’s served for decades. He is an elder in this community, with all the respect due him, even unto adoration, within Black lineages much attuned to honoring their elders. He comes over to me, drawing special attention to my presence here, the integrity of my own work here, his deep appreciation of me. My heart was moved with the heart energy pouring forth from him. I looked up into his eyes and said, “Bless you.” I suspect he was moved as well, putting his hand on my shoulder saying “Thank you, Baby.” My heart was open, moved.


The hurt landed with no less force. 


I am a full professor in a freestanding seminary, having labored for decades to research, write, teach and find voice in toxic-masculine settings, regularly devaluing, disrespecting me as a woman, treating me without the dignity other male colleagues receive without question. Regularly I smile through gritted teeth called "Hon," "Kiddo," "lady," and more, regularly lowering my visibility and ability to be heard as a male colleague. Today, I serve in an institution moving further and further from what and whom I value, which means I serve constantly in environment where I feel unseen and unheard. Regularly do I hold space for those whose lives and intentions disregard me, the essence of who I am, the dignity of those I love. So the unresolved grief within me is always tender, always triggerable, always ready to be inflamed.


Yet this morning, after the stately gentleman left, I was sitting amidst Beloved Community family–words we use for one another. The Body of Humanity, I might say in my own vernacular. It was a circled community of pilgrims practicing beloved community together in a painful, fractious time. In their devotion to their/our elder, I could feel more the heart-connection, less the readied hurt within me. What if I trusted their devotion, their custom? The elder’s generational language did not disempower me in this circle, though I first felt it, accustomed to that hurt in my professional settings here with other colleagues. I know who I am in this circle, even as it is my profession that instigated my presence here. I am more who I am here than anywhere at my institution, though I honor my role makes it possible. Sitting here now, close to an hour after the entire exchange, my heart smiles shyly at the blessings I have received past and present. I was honored by an elder in a circle of family who could see me honored. Blessing. Healed, even.




The hurts I am conditioned to feel in my profession of higher ed are not insignificant, but nor are they remotely ultimate, which we all know in our best selves. It simply takes a particular kind of circling community to move from affection, through hurt in professional guise, gently into blessing.


A good day's work.



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