earlier this week someone said to me that “laughter is carbonated holiness” which made my jaw drop. then, this person also quoted the bible—the prayer to plow up the hard ground of our hearts, and someone else noted that laughter can break us up like this, break up this hard ground in us.1
the laughter quote is from anne lamott, which gave me pause because she is a white woman with dread locks. she has written many many books. the longer quote is, “we need laughter. laughter is carbonated holiness. it’s like the cavalry arriving to help us get our sense of humor back.” and she recalls reading these lines of poetry, which were an important interruption for her
And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love,
which also stunned me. and then i learned that the lines are from a poem that felt fraught, The Little Black Boy, i.e. William Blake writing as a Black child?
part of why the beams lines hit is that i’ve been thinking so much about James Baldwin writing that ‘everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light.’2 then i read this interview, in which adrienne maree brown and prentis hemphill were talking about shining, how long it takes to learn that it’s actually effortless and innate.
i thought i should talk myself out of the resonance i felt with anne and william, i thought it better to distance myself. then i remembered that we’re all entangled in the same violence. 200 years after willy and white people are still doing wild, questionable (terrifying) stuff.
i felt truth from these words, woken up again.
the questions abound (why do you have dread locks? how do i uproot the racial superiority and entitlement in me? and where does being rightfully critical end and woefully judgmental begin?)
it’s messy. leave the light on. please advise.