For this week’s reading pod selection on the topic of pneumatology, we read “More than Suffering: The Healing and Resurrecting Spirit of God” in Dancing with God: The Trinity from a Womanist Perspective by Karen-Baker Fletcher. In this chapter Baker-Fletcher discusses the work of the Holy Spirit through the parallel of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and Mamie Till-Mobley, mother of Emmett Till. She compares the grief Mary must have suffered in seeing her Son unjustly and cruelly crucified by the hands of violence to the grief Till-Mobley experienced when Emmett was lynched. Mamie Till-Mobley’s grief and lament did not end in cynicism or violent rage. Instead, she was spurred on by her faith and the Holy Spirit to actively fight against injustice.

Our group discussed many of the tensions we felt when reading this section. One of which was the tension of using our suffering to push us to be active in the fight toward injustice and knowing God works all things for good (Romans 8:28), while also finding space to condemn wrongful acts and acknowledge that the world is not as it was intended to be and God does not ordain the death of black young men.

Another tension our group experienced was the understanding that the Holy Spirit brings healing, but we should not necessarily expect healing. God is not a genie who grants our wishes, but God does have the power to heal and bring about miracles (p. 159). This is a delicate dance that has been experienced by the African-American church and seems contradictory to the notion of the Prosperity Gospel. We must hold the tension of “already, not yet,” knowing that is it not about being healed from affliction, but instead is about rising into the lament of what it means to be broken and living into the fullness of life because, “All things, including one’s afflictions, are woven into one’s wholeness” (p. 166).

Throughout the course of the Christian church, it has been the women who have had to bear the brunt of suffering, the women who have had to be strong as they bear pain and pray through suffering to keep their faith. African-American women, especially, have had to be strong in faith in the midst of enduring suffering. How is it that one remains faithful when hardship and despair make it hard to hope? Especially, in the case of what Mamie Till-Mobley endured. The Holy Spirit gives us the capacity to love, especially in the midst of violence and injustice, but it is a messy “dance” we enter into.

It was the Holy Spirit who gave women like Mamie Till-Mobley, Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, and Coretta Scott King the ability to walk in love. “They could have sunken into violent rage, but instead they walked in holy indignation and holy dignity. They led others as they followed Christ in the comforting, encouraging, and healing power of the Holy Spirit,” and all this in the face of their oppressors (p. 168). Baker-Fletcher ends her chapter with a charge to Christians to be the miracle of the Spirit — people who live in divine grace and follow Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. While there is a fine line between anger that spirals into destruction and righteous anger that leads to action, we aspire to hold onto hope and bless our moments of lament that lead to change, knowing that God is always faithful.