Who Said It Was Simple

There’s this great scene in Luke 21:1-2 where Jesus is hanging out with his disciples and notices what no one else does: a woman makes a remarkable statement, even though others pay no attention.

I imagine Jesus paying attention in the same way to the woman whose voice we hear in this poem. She describes intersectionality over a decade before Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term. What do you think Jesus would have noticed? Who was not noticing? Can you identify ‘the roots to the tree of anger’ in this woman? In yourself? In our world today?

Talk with Jesus about what he’s seeing and what you’re seeing.

Who Said It Was Simple
Audre Lorde

There are so many roots to the tree of anger
that sometimes the branches shatter
before they bear.

Sitting in Nedicks
the women rally before they march
discussing the problematic girls
they hire to make them free.
An almost white counterman passes
a waiting brother to serve them first
and the ladies neither notice nor reject
the slighter pleasures of their slavery.
But I who am bound by my mirror
as well as my bed
see causes in colour
as well as sex

and sit here wondering
which me will survive
all these liberations.

*Audre Lorde, “Who Said It Was Simple” from From a Land Where Other People Live. Copyright © 1973 by Audre Lorde.