Now Reading: “God Is a Black Woman”
Last night, jet lagged and feeling immense gratitude for my recent travels through New York, I started reading Dr. Christena Cleveland’s God Is a Black Woman, a souvenir from my visit to The Lit Bar in the South Bronx. (More on that in a forthcoming post).
After spending the day getting my brain and body back in line on West Coast time — and with the work week ahead — I grabbed Cleveland’s book from the middle of the book pile stacked on my nightstand. It was just after 10PM, and my phone was already in bedtime mode. I was wide awake knowing I needed to be asleep, too. I considered meditating. Then She (the Black Madonna, not Cleveland — or both, maybe) whispered: Be still…and read.
So, read I did.
God is a Black Woman was one of those books I picked up both drawn to its cover and the title. I felt like whatever it was about, I needed this work in my life — and sweet Black Jesus, did I ever.
Journeying to find the more than 450 Black Madonnas around the world, Cleveland, a social psychologist, theologian and activist, taps into an understanding that I have always believed: I am the creation of a deity who not only looks like me, but IS me.
