Uncheered Triumphs

It’s getting harder and harder to maintain focus these days. The church, job, and family seem to demand so much of my time. I’ve been reading The Color Purple again. It’s amazing how we romanticize the bad things in life. I remember seeing this movie at the Columbia Theatre in Atlanta. I had just began my enrollment at Morehouse College in 1985.
It’s amazing how we make ourselves feel for those characters on the big screen. Some people even cried for Whoopi Goldberg's character Celie as Danny Glover's character Mister knocked her around. And we all applauded Celie when she publicly and verbally stood up for herself. I couldn’t help but think of all the Celies and Misters not played by celebrities or placed on the big screen for the entire world to see that agonize over and over again. There is no one that would cry for them. Their triumphs of individuality go uncheered.
The Celies in my life have been played by the African-American, White, Native American, Latino, Asian; the list goes on. Celie and Mister have been female and male, male and female, male and male, female and female. I haven’t always taken the time to cry for them. Sometimes I didn’t even take the time to hear their stories.
I loved the way Celie talked to God about her situations. For many, God is like a secret friend that must be whispered to. Celie seems to observe everything. I think that it’s easy to observe when one is not included, invited to participate. After awhile one can become invisible even to one's self. In scripture, in the story of Jacob and Rachel, too some extent Bilhah the slave is invisible. She is not recognized as an equal or human being. Her character appears flat. She is an object to be acted upon. I wonder how different the story would have been in Genesis 30:1-6 if Bilhah told it. In verse 7 of Chapter 30, the narrator writes that Bilhah conceived again. I believe that if Bilhah told this story verse 7 would have read, “And Jacob raped Bilhah over and over again. She became pregnant yet for a second time.” Bilhah would have shared her experience and survival story with other oppressed peoples. After all, she and Rachel bore the same amount of children. Rachel lived a much more protected lifestyle; yet Bilhah outlived Rachel. She survived one of her oppressors, as well as the oppressions.