{"id":11244,"date":"2021-03-16T09:56:57","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T13:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/?p=11244"},"modified":"2025-07-18T10:33:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T14:33:46","slug":"como-prosperar-sin-sentirse-limitado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/es\/resources\/news\/how-to-flourish-without-feeling-restricted\/","title":{"rendered":"C\u00f3mo prosperar sin sentirse limitado"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hannah Drake\u2019s \u201cDo Not Move Off the Sidewalk Challenge<\/a>\u201d says a lot about allowing people to flourish in whatever body God gave them.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Rev. Dr. Christine Hong<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

During a Facebook Live event last week, the Rev. Dr. Christine Hong, an assistant professor of Educational Ministries at Columbia Theological Seminary<\/a>, told the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty that for her to succeed as a woman of color, \u201cit might cause those in more privileged bodies to feel like they aren\u2019t flourishing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have to share space [for more on that see Drake\u2019s account above of the sidewalk challenge] and move in ways that are different, that may feel more restrictive to you when you are used to taking up a lot of space in order that people like me might take up my share of space, or live and flourish in ways I might live and flourish. It\u2019s going to feel restrictive for people in dominant cultural spaces,\u201d Hong said. But \u201cflourishing isn\u2019t flourishing if it\u2019s on the back of other people\u2019s suffering and oppression. When I say we have to flourish together, I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s the same flourishing occurring in every body or in every community. Some of us need to flourish in ways that are counterintuitive to the way empire has told us that flourishing looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hong\u2019s half-hour conversation with Hinson-Hasty, the senior director for Theological Education Funds Development for the Committee on Theological Education at the Presbyterian Foundation<\/a>, can be heard here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hong said she tried the same sidewalk experiment in her town, Decatur, Georgia. She was determined not to readily yield the sidewalk to white bodies, particular those of white men.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned it\u2019s not only that white men don\u2019t know how to move out of the way, particularly when people of color are coming toward them,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I have conditioned my own body to move out of the way. I had to stop myself from scooting out of the way or making space for white male bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have internalized so much of that,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s about what happens out there and [pointing to her heart and her head] what\u2019s happening in here and in here. \u201cI am still working out ways I am reifying and perpetuating the colonial machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThis should not be the responsibility of people of color with less privilege,\u201d Hanson-Hasty responded. \u201cIn a predominantly white church, we have a lot of opportunity for growth,\u201d including in ways churches govern and even in the way they set meeting agendas.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to figure out a way to maneuver around that without getting clobbered,\u201d Hong said. \u201cI\u2019d love to be able to walk down the street and not worry, to be able to talk freely about some of the stuff that I write about in some Presbyterian spaces without having to prove with my body that my pain is real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hong and the artist\/theologian Darci Jaret<\/a> have been teaming up in recent weeks to teach a seminary class that employs a half-dozen pieces of art that students study in depth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you use art as epistemology, a way of being and knowing and conveying your particular understanding of the divine and the concept you are wrestling with, it\u2019s a conduit for a different kind of dialogue than many times seminary allows for,\u201d Hong said. \u201cI have been blown away every single time. I am learning so much. My pedagogy around using art is to approach it in a noncolonial way, not centering my own knowledge as a teacher but to bring my knowledge and experience alongside the experiences students share themselves. \u2026 I told them, \u2018I don\u2019t know what will emerge. It\u2019s up to the Spirit, how we listen and engage and create, and have the courage to speak the truth we are hearing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery week has been an adventure,\u201d she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be a professional artist to engage art and appreciate it and receive its impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking about decolonizing \u2014 dismantling the structures that promote the status quo and addressing power dynamics \u2014 is one thing, Hong said. Actually doing the dismantling it something else. For Native Americans, that would involve returning the land that was taken from them.<\/p>\n

\u201cDecolonization isn\u2019t a synonym for social justice. It literally means return the land,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not a conversation about a concept \u2014 it\u2019s a very real giving back what we stole \u2026 It\u2019s not enough that we write and confess these complicities and violence. That doesn\u2019t get us to decoloniality \u2014 it\u2019s a process toward that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we vaccinate more and more people against COVID-19 \u201cand rush toward this reunion of life,\u201d Hong said we\u2019re entering \u201cinto a time together as a society that is going to look very different.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is the Spirit inviting us into places of resurrection and renewal and revolution? How are you going to move your body and use your voice in a different way \u2014 particularly those of us with power and privilege? I\u2019m always cognizant that on this terrible anniversary of Breonna Taylor\u2019s murder [March 13] that the fight for Black lives happens in every place, in every space in every time. We have to continue to press forward, and that\u2019s my charge \u2014 in all spaces, not just public spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTalk to your kids about this,\u201d she suggested. \u201cThe Spirit is watching and witnessing us in private spaces too. Tell the truth in all you do. It doesn\u2019t necessarily mean using words. Tell it in how you function in the halls of power, in ways in which you move aside so other bodies can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBe present in your body in this moment,\u201d she said, \u201cbefore the great window opens toward reunion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

La Rev. Dra. Christine Hong dice que todos los hijos de Dios pueden florecer juntos<\/p>","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":11246,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}