Weekend of Service, Culture

This post was contributed by Diomass Intern Waetie Kumahia. 

It was during Lent this year that I our entire group of Life Together fellows gathered to meditate and discuss what we would be giving up and taking on for Lent. One of the things that I decided to do was to restore my long lost habit of reading a blog called SomethingWithin.com. It is written for “Thinking Women of Faith” by the author, professor, and all around inspirational leader, Rev. Renita Weems. I think of her as a virtual friend in my head - someone whose opinions, expertise, and judgment reveal light on both the word of God and everyday current events. I discovered Rev. Weems on a search for integration of myself as a middle-class, first-generation, African-American woman. In searching to connect with a community of other women who follow Jesus, I sought to see what it looks like to bring all of ourselves and experiences into our reading of the Bible. Weems’ commentary has helped to challenge my consumerism, question the Black churches of America, and ultimately, expand my understanding of what a modern-day Christianity might look like in being lived. Commentary from her very astute readership on everything from world politics, and relationships, has allowed me to become enveloped into a circle of wisdom.


Perhaps one of the most important things I have learned from being a part of this blogging community is that for all of its social protection, and support for the African- American community, even those church communities have not been able to create anything like the perfect shelter that I imagined as a child. While for many years, I mourned the fact that my family and I were a part of a community where we were one of few families of color, the benefits of what I learned from this exposure would become evident later in life.


But, as a child of African immigrants whose culture already set us apart from African Americans, I imagined that a Black church would have made me more familiar with all of the various expectations and cultural codes that I always seemed to miss. Reading Renita’s work helped me to appreciate that each community has its own peculiar strengths and growing edges.


In college, I was amused and flattered by the many who mistook me as being from the Caribbean. There were a series of other events which fueled my curiosity interest in learning more about my people, the African people of the diaspora. My ensuing discovery of African interconnectedness led me to major in anthropology and to study abroad in Jamaica. At the same time, my desire to find a spiritual home led me to seek an even deeper connection with all things related to the cultural preservation of African heritages. My explorations included taking Haitian, Brazilian, and West African dance lessons. To this day, there is nowhere that I feel more in tune with a group of people than when I can leave my love of books and words to escape into a tactile, sweaty place where sharing love and creativity through dance is all that matters. There is a synchronicity that seems to quickly develop amongst people who are captivated by the deeper meaning behind the drum rhythms that roll rapidly off Jaiffar and Juju’s hands on any given night.



When I was asked to attend a conference at Sewanee, School of the South, in Tennessee, I saw it as another time where I would represent the Episcopal Service Corps and the Life Together Programs and then come home. I had prepared my notes for presentation, read up on all the various web sites so that I could answer specific questions, and then copied my handouts for the weekend. The part of me that had prayed on the flight, and had asked God to be with me and the participants, was clear that this would be a wonderful opportunity. I was clear that this would be a chance for these young adults of color to consider the possibilities for lay and ordained leadership in our church, and yet I was not expecting to be moved so personally my self.

 But after arriving just in time for my presentation, Amaya, a young lady who I would find made sure that everything I needed was taken care of the entire time, began to minister to me and others while managing to take good care of herself as well. I soon learned that the conference would focus on six big sessions on:


Exploring Cultural Identity


Life as Mission


Discernment as a Spiritual Practice


Clarifying Questions


Exploring Our Questions


Living a Discerning Life


The most memorable session for me addressed our questions about how to build the church that we most want. Our leader and conference organizer, Jason Sierra, deftly helped gather people’s questions and complaints about the church into action plans, demonstrating and modeling what needs to happen to transform ourselves from those who remain observant in the pews into those who light our lamps and lead the way. As we took part in these activities, I could see the demeanor of the many participants change as they examined their own power and questioned any helplessness.


I am sure some went back to their communities to confront and challenge any feelings of isolation, but for so many of the participants who had generations of family members in their same church community, there was also a sense of true and solid Episcopal pride and a yearning to create even more progress.


As we jumped into the various exercises, I was pleasantly surprised that I would find such a deep well of generosity of spirit and a feeling of historical rootedness. In particular, as the group of people from the African Diaspora planned our contribution to the cultural share portion of the program, we were issued a challenge by Roxanna. Instead of breaking off into various countries and groupings, to make mini presentations that were based upon separate groups, such as, Ghanaians, Liberians, Jamaicans, and African-Americans, and then combining the presentation at the end, she asked the group to create something that could be presented as a 27 person unit. Yaw, our facilitator, and Darian, our note-taker, were exuberant about taking on this challenge and led us through the process with only a few bumps or snags that all ironed themselves out along the way. The end result was an inclusive and powerful exploration of challenging stereotypes about Black people using skits, song, and presentation. The other groups represented in the Cultural share were the Native Americans, several sub divisions in Asia, as well as a Latin American group, all of whom made varied and beautiful presentations, including video, dance, costumes, comedy, and power point.


Particularly moving to me was that several of the dances we participated in, gathered us into a circle, reminding me that there are many places to find the kind of spiritual community that might nurture me as well as my dance community has done in the past.


Later, we headed to service that truly brought together all of cultures into one for a period of time. This was the kind of service that I couldn’t have imagined as a child, but prayed might exist. I realized that I had never took part in an Episcopal Service where I didn’t stand out to myself, where I was just one in the number. During that service we sang in Lakota, we danced in the aisles, swayed and bowed, and even stood enveloped in silence. As we went forward to be smudged by a bundle of sage, the Holy Spirit moved us while we were covered in layers of smoke.



Over the course of this weekend, I did present information about the Episcopal Service Corps. We explored questions like: What does it mean to you to be an Episcopalian? What does discernment mean to you? What are some big decisions you’ve made in your life? How did you come to the decision that you reached? The answers were too great and varied to be shared here. But, more than my presentation, I think setting the resources and time aside for a gathering like this one will ensure that there are a significant number of people of color in the church taking on leadership in the future. And what stands out most to me is that we this weekend planted a big seed of possibility. It was an affirmation that the Episcopal church is a place where we all have the capacity to feel fully at home. Despite our few short days together, the House of God was established with force and power. I am convinced we all took this memory with us. All that is left is to use these models to build even more diversity and acceptance in the places we have come from. In building an Epsicopal church were we can all be at home, this is certainly one of the most important building blocks that any thinking person of faith could ask for!


Aside from the Main organizer of the Conference, Jason Sierra, names are changed to protect confidentiality of those present.