Welcome Holy Black Girls!

If you know me, you know it is only right that I reflect on Beyoncé’s “Church Girl” from her latest album, Renaissance. No, we do not need another think piece on anything pop culture, but I wanted to share why this song is so important to me. You will deal (lol).  I believe in my very first blog post I expressed my identity as a church girl and for sure it is always peppered throughout my writing because it is a lens that I use to make sense of Black Girlhood Spirituality. My grandmother raised me and she was the most saved person I’ve known. I remember in her final days she was in deep praise and worship. During what was such a grim and sad time for her loved ones, my grandmother laid on her bed of affliction proclaiming how much she loved God. Years before that I recall telling my grandmother that I never wanted her to die. She could not leave me! Her response was not one of compassion, but one of anticipation. “Shay, we all have to die…I can’t wait to just sit and rest and walk...

 *Note: I first drafted this on April 10th and I published it today (8/19). It just seemed so final, but I wanted to share.   The old saying goes that cousins are our first friends. This is absolutely true for my family and I. My dad would tell the story that on one of our earlier trips from California I cried cried and cried the whole 4 hour plane ride. I only settled down the final moments of the trip after our seating neighbor gave me a baby doll to play with. Needless to say, my father, a new dad,  was pissed and likely embarrassed. To add insult to injury when I got off the plane my first cousins, Jerome and Jamal, were waiting for me and I ran to them as if I knew them my whole life. Perhaps they were familiar to me or maybe I knew that their job was to protect me, even from my parents.  :) This year Jerome transitioned to an ancestor and it has really been a surreal time for me. Like, he really passed? We really buried him? That is so very wild. Jerome a...