By Dr. Dora Muhammad
i repeated & scribbled until it picked its way & stagnated somewhere i can’t point to anymore, maybe my gut—maybe there in-between my pancreas & large intestine is the piddly brook of my soul.
it’s the ruler by which i reduce all things now; hard-edged & splintering from knowledge that used to sit, a cloth against fevered forehead. can i let them both be?
this fickle faith and this college science that heckles from the back of the classroom now i can’t believe –
that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths “make room for wonder”
“On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs” excerpt
by Renee Nicole Macklin Good
2020 Academy of American Poets Prize
Make room for wonder
A wonder from the beauty of our souls united. A wonder that emerges from the sacred. Between our rage and our tears. Behind our fears and after our prayers. Inside our courage and above our differences.
The wonder in our spirits that won’t be silenced or suppressed. In the face of repressive violence meant to destabilize our communities and our minds and our everyday lives, like dropping off our children at school, make room for wonder.
From the Christmas night bombing of Jabo to the dawn rising over shattered sovereignty in Caracas, we witnessed the same destabilizing violence to extract resources and exploit workers under pretexts and fabricated danger.
Make room for the wonder embedded in the check and the balance that should hold all elected officials accountable. Continue to resist and call out every imperialist fascist abuse of power that crushes truth at every turn and covers it in utter chaos. The wonder that builds power to prevent the breaking of our will or the movement of the masses.
The wonder that fights against the fragmentation of decency that fuels the dehumanization and murder of innocent civilians by trigger-happy law enforcement, because there was never any widespread fraud of Somali-owned day care centers in Minneapolis, and Keith Porter was simply celebrating the new year in LA, and Marimar Martinez in Chicago survived seven gunshot wounds.
The wonder that fills our eyes as we witness 24 Buddhist monks on their journey to DC on a Walk for Peace, that should be called a Walk of Peace because it is a Dharmic demonstration that peace is a practice, not a destination, yet as elusive as truth, because justice lies in the streets.
A wonder beating at the core of our hearts. This wonder that centers the collective care we offer one another. There is a wonder that enables us to break free from the grip of politics loyal to cruelty, and can we finally vote to extend health care subsidies.
The 9th surah, “The Immunity,” is the only chapter in the Qur’an that does not begin with the words, “In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.” Why no mercy? No more beneficence? Have we no reserves or restoration left? The Immunity, also called “A Declaration of Freedom,” because its verses gave permission to break agreements with those who continued to lie and refused to acknowledge and redress their wrongs. It was revealed during Muslim pilgrimage.
Make room for wonder because long journeys bring clarity to where the Divine exists as a true banner that we can hold God’s name high above us because we have been walking this road of impunity of unfettered violence since the inception of this country.
Every religion upholds a duty to serve humanity and recognize the humanity in others as the fulfillment of our divine nature. And that is the wonder of it all. Make room.
My remarks, January 9th Faith in Action’s Witness at the White House
Dora is the founder of The AWARE Project (Advocacy for Women’s Activism, Rights and Empowerment) and convener of Creative Grace Conversations. She serves as Faith in Public Life’s Theologian in Residence and the Institute of Caribbean Studies’ Ambassador to Women.
