change Archives – Janshea Bowens

Personal Advent Season

For the past six years, I have been marking each year in remembrance of the day my son died, while learning to dread the anniversary of his due date all the more. Thanks to Facebook’s “On This Day” function, each December 14 I am reminded of all the love and support as the due date dawned without even the chance of his arrival. My mom friends rallied to give words of love and thoughts of me as this date shared heavily among expectant parents, arrived while he had already arrived four months earlier to say goodbye.

It took about two years before the reality of the due date coming with no baby really set in. Frankly, it was a lovely gesture that so many remembered a date spoken of fleetingly, months later, especially after the sudden horror of his being born still. Yet those first years after his death, I was almost wholly transfixed with the date of his death. I dreaded it, I loved it, I celebrated it, I wanted to hide from it. August 11 came each year and I felt dragged back into those frightful hours as we waited for him to be born still. Gradually I experienced the gift of God’s peace on Hardison’s death. Of help in feeling this peace, was discussing the continued preaching of Paul and others after being persecuted in the early years after Christ’s resurrection. One thing covered in the discussion was the idea of not focusing on the persecution, but the perseverance. By keeping our focus on God, we can stay the course by virtue of His love. When we are focused on the persecution (struggle, opposition, tragedy) it is much easier to become angry, disillusioned, and to give up. God’s love is shown in the understanding of our turmoil because Jesus Christ experienced the struggle of human life, in part to aid us during our times of need. I took these known ideas to heart more than ever and eased some of the flailing of my soul that I felt upon Hardison’s death. Even so, I met August 11 with pain long before the date showed up on the calendar every year. Somehow, despite my best efforts it still loomed large. Understandable, I know, yet December 14 would sneak up on me and then strike me down based on friends’ remembrance. Then, this year, I learned to appreciate the coming reminder of his due date all because I made a connection between it and the Christian celebration of Advent.

The Christian advent has come to be all about anticipating the second coming of the messiah. Christians wait for Christ to return and fulfill the promise of His eternal kingdom. Each year during the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, a time which has come to represent the birth of Christ, we look back at His coming and forward to His coming again. Even when not speaking in the Christian sense, advent can be defined as “the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event.” While reading a devotional taken from Bo Stern’s When Holidays Hurt, this statement took on a whole new meaning. Ms. Stern says “One of the reasons Jesus came to dwell with us – and is coming again – is to wipe away every tear.” Did your lightbulb go off too, based on your own circumstance or what you have read of mine? The bells were ringing like the sound when you get an answer right on a game show and the lightbulb illuminated. I could look upon the advent of Harrison’s due date as a reminder of the love and joy we were anticipating with the advent of a new member to our family. The way Christians look forward to the second advent of Christ, a member of our eternal family. I will still be heart sore and sad as December 14 arrives, but I can also view it as a personal advent season, a reminder every year of what Hardison means to this family. No longer do I only have to be reminded of when and how we lost his physical presence. I don’t have to be bombarded with sadness once the memory reminders start showing up on Facebook, I can reach back to the happy shock the date originally stood for.

These thoughts on personal advent seasons are not only useful due to the loss of a child. Most loss, sadness, and pain, can be brightened by the idea of the remembrance of the excitement of arrival. It may be you will look forward to the coming of justice, of peace, of love. But look forward in anticipation, not just back in sorrow.

Welcome

A warm welcome to my faithful readers of Alacrity, don’t worry, all posts are transferred here for your reading pleasure. To all the new readers, soon to be faithful too, here for the first time, welcome! I look forward to communicating with you and learning from you as we interact through my writing updates and blog posts. Here at Janshea Bowens, I want to foster interaction on the writing process, the relationships that make our lives an adventure, and good reads from me throughout the year.

I have been drowned in family life since I last posted about the detective series featuring Cormoran Strike, and there have been exciting updates. The book series has been transformed into a television series on BBC One. HBO has picked up the series for the rest of us and I can’t wait to check it out. Actor Tom Burke plays the title character and has been getting rave reviews for his portrayal. Each book has its own small season, a bit in the vein of other cable series, and hopefully we won’t run out of shows before the next book hits the bookshelves.

While it has been a while since last I graced your devices, I hope you enjoy looking around the newly launched site and stick around for whatever comes next.

Thoughts 2 Weeks Later

After approximately two and a half weeks with the 45th President of the U.S.A. I am seriously at a loss for the right words to convey the utter confusion and exasperation I feel almost daily. When people voiced their exasperation with the loss of livelihoods during the 44th Presidential term, I listened and understood their concerns. What I didn’t really get was how the practises of the Republican nominee could be overlooked because of his vociferous voice for change based on the marginalization of seemingly every group of people who were not of white, European descent. I mean, really. You want me to overlook a person’s own words, which have not changed in content at all, when many can not look past the words, actions, mistakes of people different from them the world over. Many view the actions, words, and mistakes of people different from them to be all that defines them, that there is no change of heart or personality no matter what happens in that person’s life later. People of color are painted with a broad brush colored by any past misdeeds and placed before the world as a strategic problem of their ethnic origins or country of origin. White people of European descent on the other hand are often portrayed as acting alone, mentally ill, and hardly ever branded as terrorists. In America today, we seem to be showing the world that it takes large amounts of money to a targeted group, agreement that anything that uplifts others is to be suspect, and voices of difference are to be mocked and discredited at all costs, to be the standard bearer. People have long been leery of difference, strangers, and anything that questions the status quo, but the only real change comes from these things. It was true in the 1700’s and it is still true today. If the white founding fathers of this young country hadn’t been adventurous strangers who questioned the rule of the day, there would be no U.S.A. As a woman of color I have been looking into the face of discrimination and fear of change for all my life, yet most of that time it was well hidden behind seemingly courteous people who would never dream that they were in anyway oppressors of others. We have all been biased towards people and places for a myriad of reasons, yet today we are divided in ways I can’t recall since the Black Civil Rights Era or even the contentious American Civil War. People of color are often told to forget their roots, change their dress, language, mannerisms, all in an effort to be excepted in this country. Everyone else must acclimate but white Americans have the privilege of keeping your ancestral roots, language, and customs intact. You are even held in awe when you do so and devote festivals and days to this very thing. What we are telling these people of color now is none of that matters. No matter what you do, sacrifice, or learn to be in this country, we (white America) will not accept you. I have white friends who are sickened by this idea and its blatant visualization in America today. They have always been sickened by this and were often vocal about abuses of power and injustice. Yet many others are just awaking to a world that puts their own in jeopardy which they find unacceptable. These would also be the places here injustice that doesn’t personally touch them is viewed as suspect and not their problem. (This is another post itself) But, my friends of color are not surprised at all. We have been fighting this same fight to be seen on equal footing for hundreds of years and no matter how many apologies, reparations, or laws passed, what never changes is the learned perception of them versus us on the color spectrum. Unless we teach and show equality along with the systematic dismantling of the very system set up to run this country in a way that applauds and rewards a person’s white(ness) and connections, there will always be oppression, hate, and fear running rampant. Am I happy that many people seem to have awaken from a coma to question the power and reach of the 45th President? Sure I am, more people armed with knowledge usually leads to productive change for all. Am I sometimes disillusioned that it took something so drastic to make others take notice? Yes. Do I pray that these times bring a lasting change for the better? Constantly. I also work locally, speak in my small platform, educate whenever I can and seek knowldege so that I am doing my part to be an agent of change, not just a voice crying in the night about injustice that I won’t lift a finger to help eradicate. Why don’t you join me?