Tag: justice

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My Journey to Justice and Joy: Overcoming Challenges

dinahsings

At last, I finished! I received my Doctor of Ministry (DMin.) degree from Pacific School of Religion (PSR) in Berkeley, CA. The last six months were difficult, but as anyone who has done a doctorate knows, the tenacity and mental focus it takes to push to the finish can be overwhelming. Thus, I have not written anything on my webpage for quite some time. So, I’m back…again! (I know I’ve probably said that before-LOL.)

My original plan was to finish in August 2024, then I pushed out to December of 2024. Trust me, I HAD a plan; then life happened. There’s a saying going around now, “life be life-ing!” Well, it was truly LIFE-ING! There comes a time when one must surrender to the divine flow. That’s what I chose to do…surrender. Even with what seemed setbacks, I believed I was in divine timing and stayed on course with my divine assignment. I just knew God would see me through it all.

I don’t mean to sound flippant or easy, because it wasn’t. I DO, however, intend to emphasize celebrating and accentuating the accomplishment! God would not have placed this vision in my heart if the vision was not going to be brought into completion. Regardless of appearances, I kept hearing the still small voice saying “keep going and trust.”

Feeling the Call

My heart had been pulling me in this direction toward justice work for quite some time. Even as I was leaving seminary in 2016 with a Masters of Divinity and becoming an ordained Unity minister, I felt the pull to go farther, but I didn’t have all the pieces how it would unfold. I remember leaving teary-eyed out of my advisor’s office feeling like there was more to do. I felt like I had just scratched the surface.

Something more was opening up for me. The world was changing fast. I watched the dismal newscasts on Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, the Charleston Mother Emmanuel parishioners, and more. I felt called to do something outside of a brick and mortar church, and something related to joy and hope. I sing, and singing has always allowed me to share joy with others. So, I ventured into setting up a joy ministry, singing and speaking at various churches, while also facilitating inclusivity workshops.

Fast forward to 2020, following the murder of George Floyd. As much as I wanted to share a joy ministry online, I also felt pulled toward more social justice. I wrestled with how to bring both joy and justice together. I found very few people talking about joy back then, other than the commercialized happy pink bubble joy. I’m not labeling that kind of joy as “bad.” There was just something deeper I believed needed to be explored. I enrolled in Pacific School of Religion’s doctoral program to dig at the heart of it.

My first continuing seminar with my doctoral cohorts in January 2021 was on Zoom and was suddenly interrupted when a classmate in Washington, D.C., had to leave class abruptly due a serious emergency on Capitol Hill. It turned out to be an insurrection! Oh, and did I mention we were in the middle of a global pandemic? So, my journey out the gate was turbulent. How would I maintain my joy?

Connecting Justice and Joy

Eventually, I found a spark that resonated in my soul and my bones when I discovered Dr. Barbara Holmes’ book, Joy Unspeakable–Contemplative Practices of the Black Church. I understood more of the deeper joy that is derived from contemplative practices. When accessed and reclaimed, joy is a sustaining energetic force while advocating for peace, justice, and equality, principles aligned with the divine will of God. Over the centuries, African Americans have tapped into this deep wellspring of joy in various ways as they encountered the forces that sought to diminish and de-humanize their lives and their very existence.

Joy counters despair. It is not a spiritual bypass ticket; i.e., something in which we involve ourselves or spiritualize in order to keep from dealing with the realities around us. When challenges and the myriad forms of oppression seem overwhelming, joy is always present and readily available to strengthen and steady us in many ways: through nature, dance, music, poetry, art, and contemplative practices, just to name a few.

I am a child of the 60s, and I remember the marches and rallies during the Civil Rights movement. There was always some music. During this time, the church in which I was raised had overnight “shut-ins” in which we prayed all night. These were two key aspects of my lived experiences that signaled to me that contemplative practices generate life-sustaining joy and is crucial to our well-being during challenging times.

Grief in the Final Months

Toward the end of my program, my champion and constant inspiration and encouragement, my dad, Elder George Taylor, Jr., passed away in early February. Needless to say, that whole month was heavy…it felt like one big blur. However, I distinctly felt Daddy’s presence pushing me to finish throughout March and April.

A week after returning from my Dad’s funeral, another one of my champions passed away. My professor, Dr. Dorsey O. Blake, presiding minister of The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, a true justice advocate, mentored by the late Howard Thurman, passed away on March 2. Once again, this grief hanging over me. Now, I had two angel guides to help me finish, Daddy and Dr. Blake. And yes, even through seasons of grief, I knew a very real Presence, the Spirit, was undergirding me, for which I was extremely grateful.

Crossing the Finish Line

On May 1st, I successfully defended my dissertation with my committee: Dr. Aaron Brody, Dr. Leonard McMahon, and Rev. Dr. Jesse Tanner. Thank you! My thesis title was: ” Justice and Joy: African American Spiritual Leaders Engaging Racial Justice and Equity in the Unity Movement.” I sought to amplify the voices of African American spiritual leaders who were championing justice and how they maintained their joy in their spiritual communities, the Unity movement, and the world.

The PSR commencement celebration on May 25th was the icing on the cake!! I was so very grateful to my family, friends, and all who supported me in PERSON and VIRTUALLY, AND of course, my angel guides (including Mama), my ancestors, and a great cloud of witnesses!

Stay tuned. I’ll have more to share as my work continues in this “all hands on deck” moment in history. We cannot be silent and complicit. Let us do what we must as we are led by the Spirit to be on the side of justice, divine love, and joy. Remember that setbacks can be reminder to re-set and re-focus. I close with the words of Howard Thurman that I hope we can all embrace::

“Keep before me the moments of my high resolve, that I fair weather or foul, in good times or in tempests…I may not forget that to which my life is committed.”

Blessings to you! Please share with me how you access joy, and remember:

  • If there’s a dream in your heart, act on it. It’s not too late.
  • Make a plan and execute it.
  • Surrender to divine timing even when it seems like there are setbacks.
  • Be grateful for the love and support of those who support you.
  • Trust and keep going.
  • Celebrate the accomplishment!

Grace, peace, love, and unrelenting joy,

Rev. Dr. Dinah Chapman, DMin.

Uncategorized

Joy and Justice for All of Us

dinahsings

Two divine ideas flowing from the same heart…

Flashback! About a year ago, I created and posted this simple diagram on Instagram (May 3, 2021). I had been contemplating these two divine ideas of joy and justice. It seemed like there had been so much chaos and confusion, but thankfully in May 2020 I ran across this beautiful book, Joy Unspeakable - Contemplative Practices of the Black Church, by Dr. Barbara A. Holmes, that helped me reclaim the kind of joy that is, as she says, “as comfortable in the shout as it is in the silence."1 

In 2020, it seemed like so many people were trying to be joyful through the pain of everything that was going on, a pandemic, a nasty election cycle, the murder of George Floyd, and so much more, including our own personal losses.  It seemed like some folks just wanted to escape (to the pink fluffy cloud) - and some wanted just an absence of the tension (no noise at all).  For me, this was the perfect season to continue to focus on the sustaining power of joy, not to ignore what was going on around me, but to draw upon the inner strength of joy. Though it very much felt like a season of turmoil, grief, rage, and division (and still does), I anchored myself in faith and the richness of unspeakable joy that celebrates the truth and the light regardless of appearances to the contrary. On my morning walks, I would contemplate joy.

I recall thinking early in 2020 how much kinder and wiser we all were going to have to become with what was coming in the days and months ahead. I felt like it was the quiet before the storm. Now as I look back, the storm billowed and rolled! We might have been tossed and disheveled. But somehow, by the grace of God, joy was there all along…ever present, and we are still standing!

I’ve been a collector of joy - all things joy - for quite some time, posters, cups, shirts, etc. These are reminders to keep my own joy stirred up. And I do that by centering myself daily in prayer, affirming that divine love and joy is a part of who and what I am, no matter what; we are created with it and wondrously made. Two and a half years into a pandemic, lots of folks want joy now! But guess what...Are we willing to know the source and giver of true joy?

One thing I’ve come to realize is that there’s no “pursuit of joy”…we already have it. But we need to access it and activate it, and this is an act of our will. Oh yes, plenty has been written on how to get “happiness” from outside ourselves. But really, joy is an inside job. It must be released from the innermost reservoir of our own hearts. The good news is there are plenty ways to access it: prayer and meditation, walks in nature, sitting by the ocean, music, rhythm, dance, poetry, performing arts, spoken word, gatherings, etc. - these of some of the ways that help us reconnect with our joy. Again, if we are willing.

And if there’s one thing I’ve witnessed and felt in my very bones, my ancestors knew real joy. They HAD to know real joy to sustain them through an outer society that wanted to make us “the least” in society. My ancestors knew better. They knew their real value and true worth was rooted in joy…the joy of knowing who we really were all along… God’s very own! That’s why we used to sing this song as I was growing up in the church:

	This Joy that I have, the world didn’t give it to me
	This Joy that I have, the world didn’t give it to me 
	This Joy that I have, the world didn’t give it to me
	The world didn’t give it, the world can’t take it away.

This joy is powerful. It is our God-given birthright, the fruit of the Spirit. It can loose the chains, ward off despair, and break down walls. It is rooted in divine love and it is our choice whether we want to cultivate it, stay in the life-giving stream of it, or not. I believe when we embrace it, we can change the world for the better. We can create the beloved community. I believe all justice movements that truly seek to create a world that works for all will find joy to be a restorative, relational, renewing force for good.

I say let’s get in the stream of it together and DANCE! Let’s see what wondrous things can be re-imagined and brought into fruition in our lives and in our world. More love & joy to come. Don’t despair, my beloveds. Let’s get into the presence of deep inner joy. ASK, SEEK, KNOCK…joy is always ready to rise up and answer.

“You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy…”
- Psalm 16:11

Peace & blessings,

Rev. Dinah

1 Barbara A Holmes, Joy Unspeakable—Contemplative Practices of the Black Church (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2017), 200.