An important lesson I've learned is to trust the Universe at life's crossroads. This advice is common but hard to follow! Over the years, I realized listening to my deepest intuition often goes against my desire for certainty. Taking big, potentially life-changing risks can feel nearly impossible. Yet, every transformation in my life happened when I got out of my own way. I've been reminded again and again that valuing my inner-knowing, which connects me to greater forces, will always guide me where I need to go.
Reparations: Three Fundamental Questions for White People
As soon as we closed the file on our essay, “How Two White Men Became Reparationists,” about our journey as white reparation advocates, we knew we had to go further. How do we, as European Americans, explain why it is crucial to demand reparative action for African Americans? Why now? How do we demonstrate that reparative action is restorative justice? We knew the objections that our friends and family would raise against reparations. But we also believed that their resistance- in part- is based on false impressions and misconceptions. That got us thinking!
White Supremacy: What's Religion Got to Do With It?
“Everything!” people exclaim when I tell them I’m teaching a course this semester for ministerial students called “White Supremacy: What’s Religion Got to Do with It?” We see it in the prayer rally the night before the January 6 attack, to the insurrectionists storming the Capitol with flags for Trump and Jesus. White supremacy is evident in the presence of right-wing Christians on the Supreme Court, the election of a stalwart Christian Nationalist as Speaker of the House, and the disturbing rise of explicit white Christian Nationalism in U.S. life in our news cycles.
Our Circles of Care: An Inside View
People who know me well, know that I have conflicted feelings about my profession. As a black woman and a doctor, I am both aware of how important my work is and how powerful it is for patients to see someone like me in this position. However, as a sensitive person, it is hard to know that I am part of a broken national healthcare system and feel powerless to change things.
The Braxton Institute West, in collaboration with Plymouth Church UCC, Seattle, welcomes the Rev. Dr. Yvonne V. Delk, October 18, 2023
400 Years of African-American History Commission Historic Reparations Gathering
Harm Protection Spell
A reflection: to have your body the subject of national moral panic is both odd and familiar.
It’s odd because one’s body–the very fact of its existence or your relationship with it–should be uncontroversial. The intimacy of one’s self-concept, self-identification, and self-determination is so obvious that it should not invite public scrutiny.
From the Library of Congress, featuring our CEO and President of the Board Rev. Joanne M. Braxton, PhD: "At the Crossroads of Health and Spirituality."
"The 'Tree of Life' project examines the ways in which people of African descent create pathways to achieve resiliency and sustain health through their responses to the legacies and impacts of slavery and structural inequality. Scholars suggest that spirituality emerges as a protective factor for physical and social well-being (Chao 2010; Crowther, et. al. 2004). What can be learned from the legacies and traditions of African American communities as sources of survival and healing for body, mind and spirit?”
"A Sermon for Dangerous Times: How Do We Rest With Our Broken Hearts?"
“After great pain, a formal feeling comes – (372)
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?
The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
From Colorlines, featuring attorney and Braxton Institute Board Member at-large, Richael Faithful: "Meet Richael Faithful, a Queer Black 'Street Shaman.'"
“I was seeking a spiritual cleansing, but I didn’t know that that was what I needed,” says Heidi Williamson, a black social justice activist who recently saw Faithful for a session. “The talk therapy alone was not working. The exercise, diet, meditation alone was not getting it either. I needed something else.” Faithful says this is a common thread among the people who seek out her services: “Sometimes I’m the person that folks seek out last because they’ve tried everything else.”
Writing the Sacred Self
There must be spaces where authentic selves engaged in interdisciplinary discourse can come together to address inequality and work for social justice. Dr. Nigel Hatton made this point when he spoke of the critical importance of the Braxton Institute at our October 27, 2014 “Recovering Human Sustainability in a Time of War” symposium. Nigel’s observations remind me of Parker Palmer’s essay “Now I Become Myself” and the importance of naming all of the fragmenting things that get in the way of that wholeness and that becoming: