Sabbath: James Baldwin
This Saturday Sabbath is an introduction to James Baldwin (or a renewal if you already know him and his writing.) The above video sets Baldwin in our American context while naming his lasting gifts. The second video (below) is a recording of Baldwin delivering the "Pin-Drop Speech" at Cambridge University in 1965. The final video (bottom of the webpage) is of Chris Rock, actor and comedian, reading Baldwin's essay "My Dungeon Shook" or as it is better known "Letter to My Nephew."
As a Saturday Sabbath practice you are invited to choose the second or final video offered here and practice sacred listening. Sacred listening is a means of deeply hearing another person without planning your response or needing to react. It is listening that isn't about you, but about another human being naming their truth.
After practicing sacred listening to James Baldwin's words, take a few deep breaths and listen to your body and its sensations. Then, take a few more deep breaths and listen to your heart and its feelings. Finally, after a more deep breaths, listen to your mind and thoughts.
As a Saturday Sabbath practice you are invited to choose the second or final video offered here and practice sacred listening. Sacred listening is a means of deeply hearing another person without planning your response or needing to react. It is listening that isn't about you, but about another human being naming their truth.
After practicing sacred listening to James Baldwin's words, take a few deep breaths and listen to your body and its sensations. Then, take a few more deep breaths and listen to your heart and its feelings. Finally, after a more deep breaths, listen to your mind and thoughts.
James Baldwin: Pin-Drop Speech
It is a terrible thing for an entire people to surrender to the notion that one ninth of its population is beneath them. And until that moment, until the moment comes, when we, the Americans, we the American people, are able to accept the fact that I have to accept for example, and my ancestors are both white and black, that on that continent that we are trying to forge a new identity for which we need each other. And I am I am not a ward of America, not an object of missionary charity. I am one of the people who build the county. Until this moment there is scarcely any hope for the American Dream.
- James Baldwin the "Pin-Drop Speech"
James Baldwin: Letter to My Nephew
You must accept them and accept them with love.
For these innocent people have no other hope.
They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand;
and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.
- James Baldwin "Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation"