An Open Letter to Dr. Lana van Essen

Let this be the beginning of a long correspondence. Liberation is intersectional. #bravespace

Dear Dr. Lana van Essen,

Hello from the other side of Church Hill!

I never know how to begin these things. I want to check in. I want to know how you are doing. How are the kids? Your wife? I hope everyone is doing well. None of this matters if I don't know how you are doing. What is the state of your heart?

All of this matters because our relationship matters. The friendship that we are developing has become very important in my life. I know it is complicated by Richmond Hill at the same time that it appears to be sustained by Richmond Hill. This place of prayer and healing is how we met. I could not be more grateful.

It can also be an incredibly stressful and painful place to be. This letter is about the pain and stress of Richmond Hill for certain bodies.

When I was being interviewed for my present position, I stated that Richmond Hill is still a white space. No matter how much anti-racism work we do, the organization still principally serves the white community in Richmond. Don't get me wrong, that's important. It's good work. But it means that the people of color who work here are on the front lines of racial reconciliation work. They have to face racism every day while remaining in conversation with those who struggle with their own racism. I would love for Richmond Hill to be a place of solace, a Haven for people of color. I would like it to be a place where they don't have to work. That is the goal.

We experience varying degrees of success in this regard. Black leadership faces many challenges here…acceptance being chief among them.

Maybe I am being naive. Maybe there is no such thing in America. Maybe there is no such thing as a safe space. Not really. There are safeER spaces. Richmond Hill may be one of those. But it still takes some bravery to do the work we do.

Black bodies still suffer on our land.

Women, too, face bigotry and sexism at Richmond Hill. That cannot be news, can it?

Queer people face bigotry here. All. The. Time.

None of this is to say that Richmond Hill is a bad place. It is simply an American place, a Virginian place, a Richmond place. We may aspire to be a safe place for all people, but what we really are is a brave space for all people.

For our readers…

Brave Space is a concept that goes beyond the traditional safe space ideology. While safe spaces aim to provide refuge from discrimination and harm. Brave Spaces encourage individuals to engage in courageous conversations, confront biases, and challenge perspectives constructively. It acknowledges that discomfort and growth often go hand in hand, and by stepping out of comfort zones, meaningful progress towards inclusivity can be achieved. (link)

Today, I want to talk about how Richmond Hill treats queer bodies. I want to talk about how it treats trans bodies.

Can we do that? Can we be brave, loving, and true to one another? You wrote something that really helped me. You wrote…

We already live in the thing we fear, and the question isn’t whether the system will come for us; it already has, in forms we’ve mostly normalized. The question is whether we can stay human, relational, and genuinely curious within that reality, rather than harden into the mirror image of what opposes us.

Richmond Hill had to come to terms with itself early on, and its ministry. To be a place of racial reconciliation work, you first have to name your sins. Sins of your city. The sins of your community. And, here, the sins of the church. We had to openly discuss racism as it presently exists within ourselves.

This is very Twelve Step of us. The first half of the first step is to admit you're powerless. The second half of the first step is to name the thing that has you in its clutches. We first had to admit that we are powerless over our own racism. We had to admit that only God could rescue us from it. We had to do the work, but God would be the one to rescue us. This is the foundational theology of Richmond Hill, I believe. God will heal us.

Intersectionality never really comes into the story with this method, however. What about female black bodies? What about queer black bodies? Black female bodies? By only naming one aspect of the intersectional nature of human life, we ended up cutting out a lot of other people. The mission of Richmond Hill is racial reconciliation. Our policies, however, need to and can reflect the complexities of intersectional reality for all people.

To proclaim liberation for one, we must proclaim liberation for all.

To proclaim liberation, you must name that which imprisons you.

Is it overt homophobia or heterosexism? Is it internalized homophobia? Is it transphobia? Is it all of the above all at once?

I think it is all of the above all at once. Liberation is intersectional. So is sin.

I know you know this. I just needed to say it.

Richmond HIll struggles with homophobia and transphobia. Not overtly. Not by policy. But, like so many other communities, we struggle relationally. On the individual level, we struggle. Collectively, we struggle. The privileges we all embody get in our way all the time. They inhibit our best selves. Privilege does that.

Privilege is sticky stuff that is often mistaken for the best self.

I was educated at an elite southern liberal arts university. Then I was educated at an elite Episcopal seminary which was a part of a broader consortium of schools. Then I went to Berkeley California and studied at Cal and the Graduate Theological Union. So much liberalism! That does not rid me, however, of my privileges. Instead, it serves to underscore my privileges. It highlights my privileges. In fact, it might actually shore up my privileges. How much privilege can one man possess? Let's find out!

You are out of the closet. Radically. Bravely. You are queer and trans and Richmond Hill doesn't always know what to do with that. Richmond Hill has been closeted in its own way for decades. We struggle with people who are not closeted.

But I would like to propose is that you and I develop a strategy for helping Richmond Hill come out of the closet. We need Richmond Hill to be a safe place or at least a safer place for not just Black people, but for women and queer people.

To do the work of Black liberation, we must find a way to escape our own privileges. Or at least turn them upside-down somehow.

I suggest that it begins with our prayer life. We gather to pray three times a day seven days a week. The Benedictine rule, its spirit, is the heartbeat of this place. We can change the language of our employee handbook. That would be great, but we need to start with prayer. We have to find a way to admit that we are powerless over this thing called bigotry.

We must pray for ourselves and name that.

To pray for the racial healing and transformation of metropolitan Richmond is to pray for ourselves. But we rarely name our own sins. What if we did? What if we confessed?

Here is a sample confession from the Episcopal tradition.

God of all mercy,
we confess that we have sinned against you,
opposing your will in our lives.
We have denied your goodness in each other,
in ourselves, and in the world you have created.
We repent of the evil that enslaves us,
the evil we have done,
and the evil done on our behalf.
Forgive, restore, and strengthen us
Through our Savior Jesus Christ,
That we may abide in your love
And serve only your will. Amen.

Let’s edit it.

Let’s use it as a template for our own Richmond Hill confession.

What do you think?

Peace and All Good Things,

Tripp

Photo by MacDonald Almeida on Unsplash