In the novel by the great Toni Cade Bambara titled “The Salt Eaters,” the healer character Minnie Ransom asks this question of Velma, the main character, “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?… Just so’s you’re sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well.”
The novel is a powerful examination of the pressure and psychological stress that African American political and community organizers suffer, particularly Black women, in a society of gross inequity, blatant racism, and sexism.
I have postulated that there are many people who are healed of some malady, be it physical or mental, but who are not whole, not well. As the character in Bambara’s book points out “wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well.”
Two thousand years before Toni Cade Bambara used this question in her novel, that religious rabble rouser from the northeast African region of biblical Palestine asked the question to a man
in the gospel of John. In the fifth chapter of John, Jesus passes through the Sheep Gate by a pool called Beth-zatha (also known as Bethesda in some translations) and comes upon a man lying by that pool who has been paralyzed in his legs for thirty-eight years. The name Beth-Zatha or Bethesda means in Aramaic “house of mercy or house of grace,” yet for this man, mercy and grace had eluded him. There were hundreds of other people who were brought like this man to this pool to be healed.
When Jesus sees this man, he asks him “Do you want to be made well?” Notice not “do you want to be healed.” The response from the lame man illustrates the healer’s question in Bambara’s book. The man responds with a series of excuses for why he has not been able to get to the water, despite a mythical angel stirring it up. “Wholeness is no trifling matter…” says the healer in Bambara’s novel and there are many people who would rather choose to stay stuck in whatever has them ill than be well. Many more see the victim mentality as a way to garner attention without the responsibility of actively participating in their own liberation. We see this in the political arena where many people do not want to be made well but choose to complain and disparage the justice work of others. We see this in the therapy arena, where so many people will not seek therapy for the traumas that they have experienced from the hands of people who should have nurtured and cared for them.
Dr. Joy DeGruy has powerfully demonstrated how the trauma and the psychological torture of chattel slavery is epigenetic. That means the trauma travels through generations of people and has been passed down through their DNA, affecting their progeny today. The village is not well in most cases because of past traumas that were never addressed.
We often say hurt people will hurt other people. This is not limited to people of African ancestry, but white people in this nation have passed down a lack of empathy and hate for people of darker hue because of the fear and trauma of feeling that by 2050, they will no longer be the majority race in this nation. From the inception of this empire, white pious evangelicals and profit-minded robber barons have used the trauma of fear to coerce others of their race to dislike, demean, and dismiss people of the darker hue.
The question of Bambara’s character and Jesus is a penetrating one: “Do you want to be made well? Wholeness is no trifling matter…a lot of weight when you are well.” Part of the weight is to see the real enemy to your wholeness. The real weight is to see that people of other races, religions, sexualities, and genders are not your enemy. It is the people who profit off your pathology that are the true enemy. The weight is maintaining your wholeness in a sick society that values profit over people and fear over peace.
The weight of being well is also to show others, by example, that love is stronger than hate and people are more precious than profit. The weight is to show people that the Earth has created enough for everybody to have enough of what they need. “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?
Be authentic, Be aware and Stay Woke! Uhuru Sassa!!!
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.”
Do you want to be well?
In the novel by the great Toni Cade Bambara titled “The Salt Eaters,” the healer character Minnie Ransom asks this question of Velma, the main character, “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?… Just so’s you’re sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well.”
The novel is a powerful examination of the pressure and psychological stress that African American political and community organizers suffer, particularly Black women, in a society of gross inequity, blatant racism, and sexism.
I have postulated that there are many people who are healed of some malady, be it physical or mental, but who are not whole, not well. As the character in Bambara’s book points out “wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well.”
Two thousand years before Toni Cade Bambara used this question in her novel, that religious rabble rouser from the northeast African region of biblical Palestine asked the question to a man
in the gospel of John. In the fifth chapter of John, Jesus passes through the Sheep Gate by a pool called Beth-zatha (also known as Bethesda in some translations) and comes upon a man lying by that pool who has been paralyzed in his legs for thirty-eight years. The name Beth-Zatha or Bethesda means in Aramaic “house of mercy or house of grace,” yet for this man, mercy and grace had eluded him. There were hundreds of other people who were brought like this man to this pool to be healed.
When Jesus sees this man, he asks him “Do you want to be made well?” Notice not “do you want to be healed.” The response from the lame man illustrates the healer’s question in Bambara’s book. The man responds with a series of excuses for why he has not been able to get to the water, despite a mythical angel stirring it up. “Wholeness is no trifling matter…” says the healer in Bambara’s novel and there are many people who would rather choose to stay stuck in whatever has them ill than be well. Many more see the victim mentality as a way to garner attention without the responsibility of actively participating in their own liberation. We see this in the political arena where many people do not want to be made well but choose to complain and disparage the justice work of others. We see this in the therapy arena, where so many people will not seek therapy for the traumas that they have experienced from the hands of people who should have nurtured and cared for them.
Dr. Joy DeGruy has powerfully demonstrated how the trauma and the psychological torture of chattel slavery is epigenetic. That means the trauma travels through generations of people and has been passed down through their DNA, affecting their progeny today. The village is not well in most cases because of past traumas that were never addressed.
We often say hurt people will hurt other people. This is not limited to people of African ancestry, but white people in this nation have passed down a lack of empathy and hate for people of darker hue because of the fear and trauma of feeling that by 2050, they will no longer be the majority race in this nation. From the inception of this empire, white pious evangelicals and profit-minded robber barons have used the trauma of fear to coerce others of their race to dislike, demean, and dismiss people of the darker hue.
The question of Bambara’s character and Jesus is a penetrating one: “Do you want to be made well? Wholeness is no trifling matter…a lot of weight when you are well.” Part of the weight is to see the real enemy to your wholeness. The real weight is to see that people of other races, religions, sexualities, and genders are not your enemy. It is the people who profit off your pathology that are the true enemy. The weight is maintaining your wholeness in a sick society that values profit over people and fear over peace.
The weight of being well is also to show others, by example, that love is stronger than hate and people are more precious than profit. The weight is to show people that the Earth has created enough for everybody to have enough of what they need. “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?
Be authentic, Be aware and Stay Woke! Uhuru Sassa!!!
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.”
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.”