Black liberation begins with centering Blackness in our minds, our hearts, and our contemplative practices.

The tension between Black Liberation and Afro-pessimism is similar to what we deal with when we engage with this scripture. We're dealing with the reality of God's absence and, at the same time, knowing that God is there. This tension, this idea of God's presence and absence, Job teaches us, is the discipline of living in the chasm. Living knowing that we may not get tidy answers to these profound questions.

Over the course of the many sermons I have preached, I have included a number of hip hop songs. This below, though not very fancy, is a playlist of the songs I have used. It includes a mixture of jazz, hip hop, reggaeton and even rock. Some people have asked me for it, so, even though I am sure it is incomplete, here it is.

While widespread acceptance of hip hop as contemplative music may be unlikely, I believe it can be a powerful tool for all communities—and specifically for Black communities—to engage in contemplative practices.

We have to engage in these conversations so we change the narratives of Latinidad, the narratives around Blackness and to continue to remember that the revolution doesn't only happen around us, but must begin within us and among us, together.

We must bear the good news somehow. We each carry Christ's message in the world. We do this by talking to people we have not spoken to in a while, by calling and texting friends, by inviting people. We do this by how we walk in the world. We too are called. Even amidst our pain and struggles, we can be bearers of Christ's message. We can do this even when burdened – by our own struggles, the world's suffering, and everything in between.

This was just the start of my connection to James Baldwin as a contemplative guide – someone who helps us become more whole and true to ourselves, someone whose words can change us. We often find these guides in traditional figures like Thomas Merton, St. Teresa of Avila, or, more recently for many, Howard Thurman – all important guides within the conventional definition. But during that first silent retreat at Holy Cross Monastery, Baldwin was mine. A non-traditional choice. He journeyed with me as I sought greater integration within myself.

But when we reclaim our stories, we embrace all of who we are, and all of whom everyone else is and this allows us to live intensely, because as Audre Lorde also says “there is no separate survival” we need each other. And we need each other to undo negative stereotypes of God.

Harmonia Rosales is asking us to change the master narratives we hold within and that we tell ourselves, even as Black people. She is asking us to look at the divinity of Black Lives, not only in Black depictions of deities, but in depictions of quotidian Black people. She is communicating to all visitors that Blackness is divine, and that Blackness is sacred. This aspect, the sacredness of Blackness, is not usually mentioned by any of the narratives we traditionally hold.

All writers make observations, but what sets these writers apart is that they are not just observing; they are also grappling with questions and expressing their perspectives on society from a contemplative heart. At the center of their work is a response to a call: a call to ensure that love is what guides our future and brings us closer to ourselves, one another and the Divine. I would argue that this contemplative outlook on society may be inherent in Black writers.

James Baldwin talks about salvation and something that is communal, something that is not on the individual, but that is enacted by the entire community because of love, that unites and does not divide us.

Understanding the lived experiences of Black people is the only way that we will strive to live in an Anti-Racist society and affirm all expressions of Blackness as being important in our struggle against white supremacy. By highlighting different stories of not passing, of gaining a Black consciousness, of immigration, of love, we gain an insight that is seldom seen in Black collections of poetry and are invited into seeing Blackness more fully.

Music that hails from Latin America or is made by Latino/as is so influenced in African rhythms that to deny this should be considered illogical. From Merengue to Cumbia to Tango, all our music, and even the names of the genres, are African Based. The music that we colloquially know as Salsa is composed of many rhythms which we know hail from African and Afro-Cuban roots. Most of our music has so much Africanity in it that it’s sound can’t be any more influenced by the African Diaspora.

Just like my great-great grandfather, there are many stories of Latino/as of African Descent who became early converts to Pentecostalism and helped its spread throughout the Americas. These stories are not usually highlighted but are important to our understanding of Pentecostalism because they help us see it as a movement that “has been a home to the people’s cultures and to marginalized groups”[2] and one such group has been Afro-Latino/as.

If we can embrace an understanding of God and a spirituality that is informed by the lived experiences of Black Latinxs, then perhaps we can better understand more of the fullness of God.

We know that Afro-Latines are present, we see them in our churches, we know they attend our institutes but we often do not allow their lived experiences, their faith and their navigating of the world to inform our theological perspectives that come from a Latine perspective.

It's Juneteenth and I'm a Black man freely leaving a reclaimed plantation.

Sometimes our Christian theologies have made us too focused on self-sacrifice over self-love, lack over embrace, denial over affirmation. What we need to do is to really embrace a theology that changes the way we see ourselves, our world and others.

There is a need for us to develop an Afro-Latine Theology. A theology that informs us what the faith, experience and spirituality of Afro-Latines is and why it is inimitable.

It is apropos to talk about the faith, the hope and the expectations of both James Baldwin and Martin Luther King jr. especially as those hopes relate to the Church.