José Humphreys III

AS A BLACK Puerto Rican, I grew up in a household that was as complex as a telenovela plotline. We lived within the intricate dance of traditional values. Mom ran the household with the precision of a general and the grace of a loving host, while Dad had veto power that he exercised sparingly. Like many women of her time, Mom was constrained by cultural narratives that persist today. Yet her wisdom taught me how the presence of power can move in the world in a way that signifies the divine. It was powerful — not in a forceful manner, but powerful like that dark invisible matter that holds the universe together.

Being curious and conversant with this divine love has helped me situate myself daily to decenter my machismo. Machismo, a close relative of patriarchy — but with a Spanish accent — is something I confront daily. Thankfully, I am married to someone who reminds me that her presence will not be a mere vapor in the world. Without this built-in community at home and church, I find, like many, that I can continue to externalize the work of justice: That is, I can be critical of systems and name what is wrong but unintentionally perpetuate the same injustices in my marriage or in my parenting.

The writer bell hooks has been instructive to me. She was a scholar and womanist who never wrote about the household as separate from a new vision of the world. In The Will to Change, she wrote, “The crisis facing men ... is the crisis of patriarchal masculinity. ... Our sons learn the code early and well, don’t cry, don’t be vulnerable; don’t show weakness — ultimately, don’t show that you care.” This book, with its invitation to dismantle toxic masculinity, is indispensable to the work of justice.

NOSTALGIA IS THE LEVERAGE of the powerful. When weaponized, it serves as a deft political tool. It plays on the sentiments of the disgruntled and disenfranchised. It creates a one-dimensional patriotism that never tells the full story. It preserves the story of privilege.

One white comedian reflected, “Here’s how great it is to be white: I could get in a time machine and go to any time, and it would be ... awesome when I get there,” he says. “That is exclusively a white privilege. ... A Black guy in a time machine is like, ‘Hey, if it’s before 1980, no thank you. I don’t wanna go.’” While this made for good comedic insight, many of my siblings of European ancestry who know the history of their ancestors — religious persecution and violence motivated some of their journeys to the shores of North America — also might not want to escape too far back in time.

EVER SINCE THE release of Bessel van der Kolk’s 2014 best-selling book The Body Keeps the Score, trauma education has proliferated. I have seen training in everything from trauma-informed lawyering to trauma-informed care in emergency rooms. Trauma-informed practices have even started making their way into some correctional facilities and corporate boardrooms. Yet much of the popular writing tends to focus deeply on the more personal elements of trauma, rather than systemic elements, such as poverty.

My colleague Derrick Stroud, who survived 27 years in prison and now is a clinician, once described poverty as the “first trauma” in communities of color. The impact of poverty increases the chances of both low educational attainment among children and placement in foster care; this, combined with the challenges faced by under-resourced schools, can become a pipeline to prison. Neighborhoods impacted by poverty can reinforce traumatic conditions, since residents are more likely to witness or experience violence or be profiled by the police. These ecosystemic conditions impact human bodies and produce negative health outcomes that can have detrimental generational effects — all of which can be traced back to under-resourced systems.

WHEN I WAS 17, I attended a New York City business school with aspirations of becoming a rich accountant. I had it all planned out: I envisioned a corner office on Wall Street, towering high over the city with views of the Brooklyn Bridge. Each morning I was going to power-walk amid the Wall Street crowd. I never really knew what business people did for a living. My knowledge of Wall Street was limited to what I gleaned from movies and a story my father told me about my cousin the insurance broker, who “made good” for a while, but it didn’t work out for him, so he moved to Florida.

About three semesters in, I uncovered that I wasn’t wired for accounting, nor did I have the social networks that could reinforce such an endeavor. No one told me that accounting would be mostly about accounting for money that didn’t belong to me.

I had inherited a dream with little substance. I was infatuated with a vision that was like an elaborate Hollywood set. While my dream process was somewhat typical of teenage development, it nevertheless demonstrates how imaginations can be shaped by the far-reaching stories we receive. And our identities can become shaped by our service to capitalist aspirations.

EVERY MONTH, TERRY KELLY sends a “rent” check to the Duwamish Tribe on behalf of Quest Church in Seattle, where Kelly serves as senior director of finance.

The church owns the property where it holds services. But the congregation’s monthly payment acknowledges and honors the Duwamish people and other original inhabitants of the land the church occupies, people who have never been “justly compensated for their land, resources, and livelihood,” as the Duwamish “real rent” program puts it.

Members of Quest Church are among the many people of faith who are reimagining the narrative of money in our world today.

The early Christian church was clear in its teachings that money was intended to be used for the benefit of the broader community, not for individual enrichment. But for centuries, and particularly since the Protestant Reformation, the institutional church has more often contributed to ideologies and illusions that reinforce the American form of hypercapitalism. And while money remains a highly visible reality in our everyday existence, our lived stories around money often go uninterrogated.

In America, our views about money tend to be very individualized. We ask questions such as: How is my money going to work for me? Will I have enough to pay bills or retire comfortably? What is my purchasing power? Even the story churches tell is often limited in scope, reduced to teaching about tithes, offerings, building funds, and missions giving. In some instances, we might see positive moves around personal budgeting and reducing debt. But church conversations about money are often left in the realm of personal finance.

SOON I WILL be stepping away from the church I co-founded 15 years ago. After the beautiful struggle of seeing it get rooted, Metro Hope Church remains a small but vibrant, justice-minded, multicultural community in the heart of East Harlem. Our reach continues to extend beyond our neighborhood throughout the city and to other parts of the country.

My reason for stepping away isn’t, thankfully, some scandal or health concern. Nor is it burnout (I’ve been there) from the pressures of keeping a church sustainable. Nor is it managing the diversity of cultures and personalities, nor even the heartbreak of seeing people leave. Nor is it even how pastors must, at the same time, draw from the resources of theology; management and leadership thought; and diversity, equity, and inclusion — all while navigating a dicey political climate.

Pastoral expectations can be flat-out overwhelming. But my reason for stepping aside is simply because the time feels right. Today, I’m able to pass the baton with much hope through a community that will continue to live out and pursue the good news of liberation and wholeness.

AT THANKSGIVING, MILLIONS of us across the country gather around tables. Gratitude will be expressed for blessings both great and small, which indeed is an opportunity to trace the goodness that enfolds our daily lives. Gratitude is one of the more ancient practices of our human society. It has long been observed across different religions, researched in the field of psychology, and mused over by philosophers. Orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”

One of my most formative perspectives on gratitude comes from Indigenous practice. Indigenous cultures in the Americas have observed collective practices of gratitude that have long preceded our legislated day of thanks. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Iroquois or the Six Nations, have a daily Thanksgiving Address recited by school children just before classes begins. This is a practice author Robin Wall Kimmerer calls “an allegiance to gratitude.” The address uses gratitude to trace life-sustaining provision to the Creator, to the community, and to every food and water source, through every plant, every creature, and even the land itself. Gratitude is essentially ecological this way.

NEW YORKERS CAN show up late to the party when it comes to slowing down with the summer. Even with the haze and humidity conspiring for an unholy pairing, thickening the air, and lathering our skyscrapers—our hustle remains undeterred. We might pause momentarily in the caress of the cool air leaking out of department store foyers. Still, many of us only begrudgingly slow down.

Fight as we might, our bodies are always communicating. Sending messages. Receiving them. Storytelling and processing the world. Heaven and life continue to stream data vying for our attention by different means. Thomas Merton wrote, “For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of [people].” For Merton, this data could land unbeknownst to us. Many BIPOC folks, however, have experienced this sense of knowing through the body. It is something many contemplative activists are also reclaiming as part of an abolitionist heritage.

STROLLING THROUGH MY neighborhood in East Harlem recently, I noticed whole blocks that felt almost desolate. Along 3rd Avenue I saw stretches of sidewalk once bustling with small businesses, street vendors, the smell of incense, and the sound of West African music, now abandoned amid the echoes of what was.

As a citizen of these barrio streets, the feeling I get is a form of ecological despair. And while some of these places of disinheritance were there before, it seems to have gotten worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. The glitz of gentrification fails to mask increased homelessness, open substance use, and the fatigue many parents and caretakers have experienced, even after the mandated quarantine ended.

At the height of the pandemic, I remember someone telling me, “We’re all in the same water but not the same boat.” Yes, it’s true, the privileged and those who are poor have been hit by the pandemic in multiple ways, but the impact is always felt differently among the most vulnerable. Yet here we are together—a part of the same ecosystem. I’ve done funerals for the poor and the privileged alike; grief has a way of making us feel more tender and more human.