Tragic loos and grief can be heavy burdens for one person to carry and process, even more so when considered as part of a larger story of culture and race. In a world that seems to be growing increasingly violent it can seem impossible to find a place that feels safe to tell one's story, to be heard and to be known, but Liz Walker shares stories and experiences that lead to gatherings where just such enviornments are created. At the same time she relates how group trauma, whether it be racial/ethnic, proximity/connection to a specific event, or lingering through time/generations, leaves traces of influence for today.

Good concepts, but I've enjoyed other books on the subject more

(I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

This book has so much to offer in terms of insight into the darkest places of human experience...and the brightest. It is an invitation to something that most of our souls are longing for, something that just touches that place inside of us that has had trouble believing that goodness such as these moments, these connections, actually exists. That healing might actually be possible (even if we know we will never be whole again).

I found so much in this book that made sense to my heart, so much that I was connecting with - through my own experience and through my work as a chaplain. That is, until the author continually reminded me that...she wasn't talking to me. Whatever connection I might be feeling seemed to be written off as coincidental, one of those things that I think I understand as a human being created in the image of God but that the author wants to always draw a line between and say that I cannot possibly understand them as a WHITE human being created in the image of God. At the very moment that the book starts really connecting with your soul, you're reminded that...she's not really talking to you. At least, not to me. Even when she does mention "multicultural" participation, she does so in a way that indicates that the white folk in attendance are there because they have a certain sympathy for the Black experience and are comfortable to just sit and listen and not pretend that they can truly connect.

On one hand, I get it. I have been blessed in my life by the Black church, which I confess does carry a different vibe to it. I have a certain human connection and comfort around the Black community that I don't feel in more majority spaces and it's because there's just something different about the vibe. There's just something about "human" that the Black community does so well. At the same time, constantly being reminded that I will never understand this community feels like being constantly written out. Diminished. Told my experiences, even my broken experiences, cannot come close to ever relating because I just don't - no, I can't - understand. And yet, my soul cries something different. So books like this always introduce for me a tension...that tearing between what my human soul knows so intimately, so painfully, and what the world, reflecting on its own brokenness, says I cannot possibly know.

Still, I will take the connections in my heartstrings from this book and continue to wrestle with the rest and hope that one day, authors with the Black spirit will broaden their voice to share with more of us who are out here just as desperately as they are, looking for a way in.