Earlier this month, 13 speakers and creatives gathered virtually to enflesh the meaning of grief, hopeful longing, and the practice of homegoing during Enfleshing Witness 2022. 

While we know that so many of us are tempted to move beyond the grief and heartache of the past in general, and the last several years in particular, the planning team felt it necessary to gather to attend to this grief because, as the planning team wrote earlier this year, grief can be funded by a hope for new life.

Time and again during this year’s gathering that is what we heard: hope-filled longing. Yes pain, yes restlessness, yes discouragement, but also hope, and healing, and defiance. 

Here is a list of some of our favorite quotes from the gathering:

Every time we lament, we refuse to take dispair as the final word. 

Grace Imathiu

Culture and community…I’m giving you immunity from the pain and the sorrow given to you inhumanly.

YaNi Davis

Without our wound, where would our power be? 

Jared Alcantera

In the midst of grief, in the midst of struggle, in the midst of trauma…when we are with our kin-folk we can still say, “I am ok.” This is a word of hope, a word of joy, an ethic, a practice for the people of God. May it be so in your life!

Rev. Dr. Valerie Bridgeman

For me homegoing has really been about being grounded and touching the soil and touching the earth as a way of re-centering after going out into the city that’s a concrete jungle where it can be hard to find life. 

Kimberly Jackson

Enfleshed witness is scarred witness. 

Amar Peterman

When we experience tragedy and trauma it can be hard to stay present in our bodies and spirits. We often times will have stress responses where we go into flight, fight, or freeze. And it makes it difficult for us to stay courageously and compassionately socially engaged with our friends and our family and people that we care about. We get sucked into this trauma vortext where we are overwhelmed by thoughts and emotions. But I feel that the scriptures invite us to stay down…the sacred texts allow us the space to dwell in the word - to breathe in sweetly and breathe in deeply the breath of the most high. 

Joe Davis

I think of the words from Wiz,

“Everybody look around

there's a reason to rejoice you see

Everybody come out

let's commence to singing joyfully

Everybody look up

And feel the hope that we’ve been waiting for

Can't you feel a brand new day?”

Can I confess something?

These words are haunting me these days. 

When I hear these words…they tease me!

Candace Simpson 

What if in a world that idolizes certainties and fundamentalisms - progressive or conservative with their “right” opinions - what if they’re revealed to be the sham building materials and shaky foundations that they’ve always been? 

Jeff Chu

What grabbed your attention? What spoke to you during Enfleshing Witness?

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