The Night is Long but Light Comes in the Morning
Meditations for Racial Healing
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the winner of The President Joseph R. Biden Lifetime Achievement Award, a spiritual guide to restoring yourself from racial trauma and committing to the long work of dismantling racism.
In her work as Executive Director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing, Meeks has fought tirelessly to shed light on racism and provide tools and experiences to enable faith communities to work to combat it. In this new book, she shares highlights and insights from her journey and offers a much-needed meditative guide for the weary and frustrated. By looking inward and at each other clearly, she argues, good people of all backgrounds can forge a long term and individual path to making a difference. With personal stories and thoughtful direction, she takes the reader on the trajectory from self-awareness to recognition of the past to a new and individual way forward.
Meditation topics include how to work through fear and rage, how stories can help heal, honoring your ancestors while looking toward the future, what it really means to love one another and the meaning of social justice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Meeks (Living into God's Dream), executive director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing, challenges readers to better understand racial healing in this standout guide. American society has reached an inflection point as false racial narratives threaten groups' ability to coexist, Meeks argues, and the work of racial healing is more pressing than ever. She encourages readers to look inward and ask: "Do really want to be well?" In the 48 brief meditations that follow, Meeks helps readers tackle this question by examining different aspects of racism and paths to healing. Weaving together history, spirituality, and current culture, Meeks touches on police brutality, gun violence, lynching, and the school-to-prison pipeline. Meditations discuss the abstract (how fear keeps racial divides in place) and the concrete (reparations), often concluding with questions ("What circumstances need to change in order for you to open your heart to someone in a group that differs from your?") or calls to action ("Try being half a shade braver and say yes to all... invitations to engage in... healing work"). Meeks offers eye-opening lessons that are practical without being overly prescriptive; her focus on deep spiritual truths ensures readers can return to her words at various stages of their racial healing process. Readers will be challenged and changed by this moving work.
