AS WE SAT in the third row of the movie theater, dread washed over me. Would my neck survive this two-hour Spike Lee Joint? I leaned against my non-plush movie seat and looked up at BlacKkKlansman, laughing, gasping, and, as always, appreciating Lee’s cinematography.
Then, in the final frames of the film, Lee broke the fourth wall to speak directly to his audience. In an instant, we were transported from 1970s Colorado Springs to Aug. 12, 2017, Charlottesville, Va.
My body seized up. Even as my fingers peck out these words, my body is charged with energy. I was there. Hundreds of faith leaders offered public witness in Charlottesville that day. We declared to the world, “There is another way!” Among many other people, 80 priests, pastors, imams, rabbis, and faith leaders walked arm-in-arm to what was then called Lee (now Emancipation) Park, where white supremacists were protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. We found men armed with AR-15s, guarding “their” turf.
We knelt and prayed aloud for our nation. We sang “This Little Light of Mine” for hours. We led a counterprotest with chants of peace and love.
Then hell broke loose.
Some of us were punched and shoved by white supremacists. Antifa defended us. I led a group that ran back to a safe place and spent the next hour in prayer for the others who stayed. Then we heard the news.
Another counterprotester, Heather Heyer, had died, mowed down—along with 19 other people—by a neo-Nazi using his car as a weapon.
A year later, I sat in that dark theater and shook uncontrollably. My body sounded an alarm. My body was still in Charlottesville. I was the last person to leave the theater, my face wet with tears.
Three days later, I bent down to pick something up and felt a severe pain shoot through my leg. I woke up the next morning and could not feel my right leg. The morning after that, I could not get out of bed. I had sciatica.
Immediately following Charlottesville, I left my body. I cried for a week, then got on with life. I filled my days with tasks and travel, takeout and delivery. I lugged my body onto planes, squeezed it into seats and used extender buckles to keep it there, managing my embarrassment and pain by upgrading to larger seats whenever I could. Eating gave instant pleasure and suppressed the pain, but cooking would mean fully connecting to life, agency, and my body. So, Uber Eats became my best friend, and over a year I gained about 30 pounds.
Sciatica got me back into my body. I had no other choice. I had to stretch. I had to feel again. For the past two years I have been on a journey home ... to myself.
Our bodies hold our trauma. If we listen, they will tell us where God wants to heal our souls. Body and soul: They hurt and heal together. Don’t forget your body, lest you lose your soul.
Lisa Sharon Harper, a former Sojourners columnist, is the founder and president of Freedom Road and author of Fortune and The Very Good Gospel. You can follow her work at lisasharonharper.com.
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