what our souls must have (erin jean warde)

“We must do the work our souls must have.” —Rev. Dr. Katie Cannon

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inspiration

“We must do the work our souls must have.” —Rev. Dr. Katie Cannon

contemplation

This week I had the joy of attending the Nevertheless She Preached conference here in Austin. I thoroughly loved every offering I attended, but today’s quote — shared in a lecture by Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey — keeps showing up in my mind.

I have, in some way, shape, or form, been trying to respond to this question for my whole life. I wonder, now, if all discernment exists at the feet of Rev. Dr. Cannon’s prophetic words. Just hearing the quote from Lightsey sent me into researching about Cannon, and she is worth all the time you have. Cannon was the first black woman to be ordained in a leading branch of Presbyterianism, ethicist, theologian, and a founder of Union Presbyterian Seminary, just to name a few things I learned. In the New York Times article, Katie Cannon, 68, Dies; Lifted Black Women’s Perspective in Theology, the Rev. Dr. Emilie M. Townes, dean of the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University, is quoted as follows:

“What Cannon launched insists that God’s creation is much larger and more diverse when we listen to and learn from the moral wisdom found in the everyday lives of Black women… Her insistence that we listen and learn also helped give other groups who had been left out of scholarship or ministry a way to claim their space under the sun.

The number of Black women seminarians and doctoral students reached a critical mass and began to insist that the religious worldviews and insights of Black women were important to the life of the church and the health of the academy… As a Christian ethicist, Katie Geneva Cannon centered Black women’s voices and experiences in her scholarship and her commitment to the church to broaden and deepen the rich resources found outside of a White, male-centered canon.”

Cannon was a Black Womanist theologian, so when she speaks of what her soul must have, it’s not in the abstract, because Womanist wisdom is explicitly not abstract, concerning itself with the very real thriving of Black life. So then, when I meditate on doing the work our souls must have — me doing the work my soul must have — I know it is not for me, imagining my life as an end unto itself, but for the life of the world. I know the way it is for me is the way that my thriving is connected to the thriving of others, so I must live in a way that what I seek for myself I seek for all people around me, especially seeking this thriving for those who are so often on the receiving end of the world’s hatred. I know that “what my soul must have” is a way of life that cares for others, a way of life that believes liberation is not abstract, instead concerning myself with the very real thriving of Black life, and the lives of all those who are marginalized.

My sobriety has been the most liberating experience of my life, and it should shock no one that it has changed my heart toward caring deeply for the liberation of others. There are so many ways I could answer the question of what my soul must have that would serve only me, serve only my interests, serve money instead of God. Cannon’s word helps me as I try to align my heart with what I say I believe, because it reminds me that my spirituality believes on interdependence and care for God’s creation, such that any destruction of the creatures of God actively takes me away from what my soul must have.

I invite you, too, to reflect on what it is that your soul must have, because I trust a true answering of the question will bring us all into work that is not self-serving, instead calling us to care deeply about the liberation of others, knowing our shared liberation will care for us. In time, if we do the true work our souls must have, I wonder if we might begin to love our neighbors as ourselves.

reflection

What is the work my soul must have?
How will this work benefit others?
How will this work bring you into better union with yourself?

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