edithchillo

A Blog

By Edith Chillo

Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7).

Who would have thought or imagined at the beginning of the year 2020 that some of the New Year’s sermons and pastoral messages would prophetically manifest in the quest for racial justice?

At the beginning of every Year, churches have sermons to usher in the New Year, and pastors give messengers to point towards the hope and vision for the Year. The beginning of the year 2020 was no exception. Sermons and expressions of hope and vision for the New Year were preached in churches, online, and shared on social media. As the year progresses and unfolds, some of these messages and visions about the year are unfolding in some very specific arenas. I doubt, though, that at the beginning of the year, any of us could tell precisely where the prophetic messages would manifest, especially that some of these prophetic messages would manifest so profoundly in the quest for racial justice. I share the connections that I see between these New Years’ messages and some of the things unfolding in our world; This is my own personal reflection; I do not claim that this is what the speaker necessarily may have meant, nor that the speakers themselves make such connections.

On 2nd January 2020, a prominent pastor in America wrote on Twitter: “The Lord is revealing new visions this coming year 2020 that will be absolutely stunning; They will include insights, ideas and concepts that have never been heard of before.” I noted this in my notebook. I have found myself, five months later revisiting these prophetic words, as we witness what is going on in our world today. Without a doubt, we have seen and continue to see absolutely stunning insights, ideas and concepts. We could not have known or imagined at the time, that these new insights, ideas, visions and concepts would find fruition in the struggle for racial equality, but God knew and God knows. Right before our very eyes, the prophetic messages are, clearly showing that God’s fullness permeates issues of racial justice.

For one, the COVID 19 pandemic came, with a lot of new concepts applied to our daily interactions to help protect ourselves, help keep the virus from spreading and to save lives – Social distancing, flattening the curve, quarantine, self isolation, lock downs, super spreaders, and so on. The impact of COVID 19, particularly the lock down, which Queen Elizabeth II of Britain during a speech described as giving us the “opportunity to slow down, pause, reflect in prayer”, provided us, in the solitude of our homes, in fact almost forced us, to think about and focus more profoundly on something that has been glaring and staring at us for years and Decades and Centuries – Racial injustice. The world begun to see racial injustices faced by black people in ways we had not envisaged before, in new light, with new voices speaking out and adding new insights into understanding, recognising and addressing racial injustice. The result, even as it is still unfolding, has been absolutely stunning.

New concepts, and insights and values have emerged, which many had never heard of before. Those who have used such concepts to speak about racial injustice, often with limited response to issues that they raise, are now seeing many others make use of the concepts and insights, and apply them in parameters previously closed. Black and Brown people who have lived these experiences of racial injustice, and ‘cried out’ about them, are finding new allies and supporters speaking out against racism. There have been, for many people, new ideas and insights to express or understand the differing experiences of Black and White people, not just in the US, but around the world. Words people have perhaps heard of, but never used are now increasingly becoming a significant part of our daily frame for understanding our world, providing us with new vocabulary to speak about, and speak out against racism. Many of these terms are not new to some people, especially Black and Brown people who have lived and expressed them often, but they are new to many, who have not lived them. Among these new words and concepts are:

– Racial injustice
– Systemic racism
– Systemic discrimination
– White Privilege
– White supremacy
– White nationalism
– Unconscious bias
-White privilege codified in systems
– I can’t breathe
– Racism as a plague alongside the plague of corona virus
– racial power and privilege
– White knees on black necks

There are certainly other concepts being employed to understand racism that we can add to this list, I have only identified some of the ones frequently used in social media posts that I have been reading since the protests begun following the death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of a white policeman, an experience that has been shown to be a pattern of Black experience in the US, indicated by the list of names of so many other victims.

There have been further insights shared to understand racism once these concepts became readily available for use – the insight that there is action behind these words impacting black lives everyday, that these concepts portray realities that produce radically different experiences of Black people from that of White people. In the US, and globally, insights have emerged on the extent to which many White people have not actually known what it is like for Black people to grow up in environments of racial injustice, and hence the need to listen and learn from Black people. A number of church leaders have now increasingly, publicly pointed to racism as sin, racism as evil, racism as demonic and as a spirit of division, racism as rebellion against God. It does not mean that everybody agrees, or that there are no challenges to these concepts, publicly or in private, but clearly, they are now in use, portraying to the world, the experiences of so many black and brown people.

Then, there are concepts that embody visions of ways to try and address the continual issue of racism and racial injustice.
– Racial justice
– Racial humility
– Black Lives Matter – Both the principle of this statement, and the BLM movement.
– Racial humility
– Being an Ally
– Listen to Black People
– Recognise, see, lament racism
– Learn from Black People
– Take action
– Speak out against racism
– Do not remain silent
– Challenge your self
– Self audit
– Diversify
– Harm and offence audit (As per Australia)

There have also been new insights shared about ways to respond to some of the popular counter claims and ‘resistance quips’, which conversations about racism so often elicits. I have personally found two very useful ones for my own conversations. To the claim, “I am not a racist”, a polite, respectful, but powerful response – “it isn’t about you, it’s about the system that benefits you”. Another one that I have found very useful is in response to the deflection of conversation on racial injustice to the question of black crime, especially on black people, when racism is discussed. A powerful response I found is that black people are actually doing a lot to try and combat these for one, but even more powerful, for me was the response that, black people do not need to be perfect in order to have or deserve justice.

These concepts are now global in our daily lives. There are new visions of platforms through which to speak out against racism. A variety of voices are advocating for racial justice and racial equality in many platforms, sectors, and arenas. The church is speaking out at the same time that it is soul searching on the role of the church and followers of Jesus Christ. So, while we never would have thought, imagined, or known the fullness of God behind this New Year’s message, as the year unfolds, God has shown and is showing His fullness; God is not on the sidelines in this quest for racial justice, but right in the midst of it, revealing new visions, insights, ideas and concepts in the quest for racial justice in this year 2020 that are absolutely stunning. Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets.

Thank you for reading!

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any – kind and helpful comments – Let’s build each other up, not tear each other down.

Writing a biographical work: Interplay between the present and the past

Question: in thinking and writing about the past, there is a tendency to rework experiences, thus narratives about the past, change over time, did this happen to you? Did you have to consult others to help you remember this past that you write about?

These related questions were posed to me at AMKA Literature Forum at the Goethe Institute in Nairobi, on November 26, 2016, where I was the guest speaker about my book Recovery Healing and Restoration through Isaiah 54. AMKA is a forum for upcoming, unpublished as well as established women writers and literary critics to share stories, poetry ideas and ideals with the aim of enhancing women’s creativity. At that time, I responded to the question thus: Remember, I did not set out to write about my past, so there was no that moment of sitting back and thinking about this past in ways that could rework the narrative, and secondly, I had shelved or locked this aspect of my past all these years, never thought about it, never talked about it, so I did not have occasion to reflect, think or re-work the experiences or narratives – It is like those fossils of the ice age where something is sealed in its original form … so when the Holy Spirit opened up this past to me, it was the way I had left it and I wrote as the memories poured out; there was no occasion to rework the story… I wrote it in its original form.

After the meeting, I reflected further on the question. These were young professional writers and aspiring writers who wanted to know more about the intricacies of biographical writing and my experience of it. This orientation and perspective from which the question was asked made me reflect more on my writing of the book. The essence of the questions is: How does the present influence the past that we write about? I reflected on the variety of layers of memory moments and contexts from which I remembered my past and how that linked to the moment during which I wrote, the variety of moments from which memory arose, and narrative found expression. I found areas where I could expand and elaborate the answer further, and found that I can identify at least five strands or contexts from which I drew the memories of the past that makes up my story in the book.

The first context is seen in ‘the episode’, which marks the moment where the Holy Spirit took me back to a specific past that I had long locked out of my memory, opened this past that I had locked out of my remembrance, and brought it back to my memory. This memory and narrative came directly from being taken into that past, by the Holy Spirit, which triggered my remembering my experience of that past relationship for the first time in over 3 Decades. My response to AMKA participants likening this remembrance and writing about it, to a fossil in ice age found in its original form referred specifically to this strand from which I remembered this particular past. Here the remembering was involuntary; I made no deliberate effort, or decision to recollect this past – the memory just gushed out. The present was quite active even here, in terms of my reaction to these memories flooding my mind – I laughed, I cried, I asked questions.

The second context arises from the context of the Holy Spirit showing me that this story of my past that I had locked out of my memory had shaped, albeit unknown to me, the trajectories of my relationships, and that God had been with me through it all. Here, I deliberately remembered the trajectories of my life, which had been shaped by the past to which the Holy Spirit had taken me. In this layer, these are experiences that I thought about now and again, and I had talked about some aspects of it from time to time. I had not buried any of it, so they were at times part of my conversations. For example, I had talked about my failed marriage from time to time; I had spoken about my experiences in Australia, etc. What had not been known to me, was just how intimately God’s presence was with me all those times, so I was recalling this past and the Holy spirit was connecting showing me how God was with me at every point of my life through those experiences that I recalled. I wrote this past as I deliberately recollected these past events, and what the Holy Spirit connected for me, drawing my attention to God’s presence in what I was remembering about my past following the breakup of the relationship.

The third layer of writing was my reflection over what was happening. These are found sprinkled in various places in the book, many of them my questions to, and conversations with the Holy Spirit, about this past, and about how God was handling this past or how God had handled that past. These also include my “wow” moments as the Holy Spirit revealed fairly profound things and connections to me. These were pretty much in the present. I would journal my questions and the responses I received, at whatever time they came.

A fourth layer was to do with the logistics of writing and publication. This layer marks what I wrote from moments of taking a step back from what I had written in the book, looking at it from that remove, and explaining what had happened. We had to do the back cover, and I had to write an introduction to the book. Also, because the story begins in my late teenage and college life, I felt I needed to write something brief about my earlier background growing up, a bit about myself, who I am. So I looked at what I had written in order to come up with an introduction, which introduces what is happening in the book, I used this same process of looking at what I had written to work on the back cover, together with my publishers. Both of these came directly from the text. In writing a brief of my background, I had to recall my childhood, as far back as I could remember, and also write about my parentage, growing up, as well as my Christian heritage. I recalled my childhood, and selected facts relevant to what had happened to me in this experience that I write about in the book.  I wrote about my childhood, and growing up, from my memory of experience of it. I wrote about my parentage and heritage from what I had learnt and heard, especially regarding my grandparents. It is here where I talk very briefly about history of people other than mine, that were not my personal experiences, but this is in the epilogue. Everything else is my own personal experiences of the people, moments and places that I talk about in the book.

There is perhaps another layer from which some memories arose, coming from moments when I spoke with my family members as I healed. I did not hold these conversations in order to help me corroborate the past, rather; they were part of the healing experience, although they also contain some reminders of that past. So, in a nutshell, my experience of biographical work and my reflections on writing about my past, I can identify at least five different strands of contexts from which the memories I write about arose, and yes there is some intricate interplay between the present and that past, and in my case, not necessarily shifting the narrative in one way or the other, but rather, actively interacting with it through my reactions as the memories came through.

Thank you for reading.

Remember you can ask me any question about the book or about my blogs on this site, or on my official author website at: http://sbprabooks.com/edithachillo/

If you ask me a question, I will respond.

Welcome to my blog where I will be talking about my book, Recovery, Healing and restoration through Isaiah 54, and the issues and themes that arise in the book including answering questions that my readers ask me at different forums.

Recovery, Healing and Restoration through Isaiah 54 is a Christian Inspirational memoir that has been released recently. I wrote the book following instruction by the Holy spirit to write it for the glory of God. A professor of gender studies and history, I write academic works, and I never thought I would write a Christian book, but in obedience to the Holy Spirit, I wrote this book. As people read the book, I have received so much encouragement and met people whose lives resonate with  my story and are exceedingly encouraged by what the Holy Spirit taught me about the endurance love of God, the sufficient grace of God in spite of choices that we make, the struggles that we have, especially concerning complex relationships in which we engage. I agree with one of my reviewers who says: “A non-prescriptive book that releases you to take the first step of opening up your wounded heart to a warm and gracious God”.

I have received many interesting questions: How exactly did the Holy Spirit speak to you? How did you know it was the Holy Spirit? How vulnerable do you feel after writing the book and your personal life, which most people never talk about? Are you in touch with the people you talk about in the book? How did you survive all the struggles and rise to become a professor, so vastly traveled and working in Australia and the US? and so on. I will address each one of them through my blog. I look forward to interacting with you and to hearing your views as you read and engage my book and what the Lord taught me, and as I respond to a variety of questions and thoughts.