Toni is a former Christian with seminary training from Union Theological Seminary. Her continued presence in Christian spaces is a tribute to her ancestors. Though forced to adopt a religion meant to enslave their minds as it did their bodies during chattel slavery and Jim Crow eras, they remained free in Spirit. She rejoices in that resiliency and is committed to nurturing future generations of healthy ancestors in her work as a Death Doula, informed by the African Spiritual Tradition of Akom.
What opens to us between its covers is a window into eras long past and into the depths of our own souls in the present.
Sometimes, it feels like the whole world is burning, flooding, warring, and dying. Personally, these times are very ungrounding and fear-provoking. I love a good story, and the Exodus story is one of the best in the Bible!
Mythology is a way to tell the truth, and the Hebrew writings are a string of pearls, one myth after the other, one truth after the other, and the truths tell a grim story about who we are as human beings. My spouse is Hispanic, from Panama.
Both she and her younger sister, who lives with us, say they no longer feel safe here. In a living religious tradition, participants have, not simply permission, but more: a moral responsibility to adapt and innovate in an attempt to improve the truth, goodness, and beauty of the version of the tradition they received from their ancestors.
