Many of us know that there has been an ongoing  assault on the beauty, strength, success, and wisdom of black women.  The assault was escalated with the release of a movie about “tired black men” — with a sideshow of commentary from one or more misguided rap stars and anybody else who cared to join the attack.   It’s unfortunate that someone thinks so little of humanity’s unlimited potential as children of God that he would dare complain that black women have “standards that are too high.”  The even more troubling aspect of a movie that depicts black women as unworthy, lazy, irrational, angry, evil, insecure, insensitive, bitter, and greedy — is that there were black women who portrayed these caricatures of themselves.

This on-going dialogue of the denigration of black women made me realize that God is a Brown Girl Too® is not only important to a black woman’s understanding of herself as divine but also to the black man’s realization that the black woman is a sacred expression of God.  In July, we are having a retreat for women that will celebrate who we are in the Spirit and re-build, restore and heal our pain.  If there is some work that you need to do in release, or in learning to love yourself, or in tapping the creative power within you, you need to come and join us.  We will have a wonderful time in the beautiful, restorative community of Mariandale.  (See www.godisabrowngirltoo.com for more details.)

Not only are we our Mother’s offspring, but we are also our Father’s daughters in whom he is well-pleased.  Our Father is our creator, our protector, our source, and our strength.  Like my 89 year old Dad, our Father is that energy in the universe that is not merely committed to our achievement but is the foundation of our success.  Dad reminds me constantly that he is proud, supportive and joyous that I am strong, creative and successful.  He acknowledges (like the blogger DaWriter) that “the Black Woman doesn’t need to tone it down a notch, maybe everyone else needs to raise it up a notch.  Rather than telling her to descend, maybe we should concentrate on ascending and reaching higher levels.”

It was my Dad and my husband Marlon and my spiritual brother Patrick Bradford and my brother Christopher Loving who helped fund God is a Brown Girl Too.  Because of their contribution, this wonderful new ministry has been born to restore our spiritual legacy.  They support me in asking how the Mother of Creation was somehow left on the editing room floor when the story of beginnings was told.  They agree — when I say “if we don’t lift the black woman up as made in the image and likeness of God, then how can we see God in her descendants?”  They  demand our respect for the mothers who birthed us, fed us, protected us, healed us, uplifted us, educated us, endorsed us, and restored us.  They  know that if we don’t love our mothers, we cannot love ourselves.

God is a Brown Girl Too is about God as so much more than the proverbial white man in the sky.  God is much greater than a sex or any time-space continuum.  When anyone looks at a black woman, he should know that the Kingdom of God is within her.  The glory of God is expressing in every aspect of her greatness.  Jesus said the Holy Spirit will live in us and be in us.  He said I am in the Father and you are in me and I am in you.  Paul said we live and move and have our being in God.  There is no separation between all that we are and all that God is.  Fathers must teach their daughters that we are all heirs to the throne.

Regardless of sex or color, we must begin to open our consciousness to realize that we are greater than we could ever imagine.  There is no reason to fear, despise, resent, patronize, marginalize, or denigrate someone else.  When we do so, we just undermine ourselves.  Fathers must awaken to the reality that we are not just in need of love,  but as gods — we are Love itself — the vehicle for all compassion and patience and understanding and wisdom and enlightenment.  My husband Marlon is always reminding me that God is Love and we are God’s holy dispensers of life’s most precious re-useable source.   The only fight that we need to have is one with our own demons — anything and anyone who blocks our ability to re-connect, re-center, and re-ignite the love that shaped us before we were formed in the womb.

The men in my family and the brothers in my circle of friends help me remember that I am much greater than who I am in the flesh.  I am my Father’s daughter — free and unencumbered by social structures or economic appearances or even religious hierarchy.  We are here to bless the world.  We only stop short of the attainment of our goals, the realization of our dreams and the reinvention of our lives because we get so caught up in the short-sighted meanderings of false prophets that we never fully reach the point of expressing the best in us.

Being about my Father’s business, I step outside of the confines of the box where someone tried to put me, or more importantly where I have dared to limit myself.  I don’t define myself by what anyone else says or thinks.  I move out of my own way.  I dance away from my comfort zone — with a rhythm that defies gravity and logic and sense.  I take risks that astonish even myself.  I leave the prison of my own imaginings and I take charge of who I AM.  I leave the prison where I suffocated myself with somebody else’s foolishness and name-calling and finger-pointing with the knowledge that what you say about me only reflects on what you think about yourself.

 I know that God doesn’t look like me; I look like God — not in the physical, but in the Spirit — the energy of pure power without parameters, or definition, or limitation.  God is our Father, but God is also our wife, and our Mother, and our sister, and our girlfriend, and our daughter.  God is a dark chocolate man, a radiant old woman, a pale beige boy.  God is a sweet honey cinnamon fudge cream — God is a brown girl.  And there is no question that God is a Black Woman, as well.  If you want to worship fully and celebrate the Spirit, lift up the God in her.

Happy Father’s Day.

Namaste,  Reverend Cecilia Loving
Pastor, SPIRITMUV  (www.spiritmuv.com )

(All of the materials in SPIRITMUV email messages are copyrighted by and may not be used without the written permission of Cecilia Loving. )
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