Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White (47 page)

A CONVERSATION WITH
CLAUDIA MAIR BURNEY

Zora and Nicky is about two of the subjects held most sacred in America:
race and religion. How do you see racism reflected in our culture and the
church today?

I think racism is alive and well in America in both blatant and subtle
ways. How could it not be? We’ve got a painful legacy to contend with—the
shared soul wounds inflicted on us through the experience of chattel slavery.
I’m forty-three years old. If my great-grandmother could tell me stories
about her mother being greased and placed on an auction block, we aren’t far
removed from the horror of those days.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “It is appalling that the most segregated
hour in Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.” I don’t see
that things have changed much. If I go to my black church, I’m comfortable.
Everything is familiar—the music, the preaching style, even the way we
worship. I’m not a minority there. It’s the same for white Americans. Go to a
predominantly white church and you’re likely to have a distinctly European
experience of church. I’ve gone to several predominantly white churches
where I never saw a black person on the ministry staff or heard a black
gospel song during worship. I was completely excluded culturally. It wasn’t
intentional; it just showed what was culturally important to them, what was
comfortable.

I’ve seen these same church leaders deeply hurt that black people would
not come and stay. I know why they didn’t stay. It’s because they didn’t find
anything there for them. They had a European church experience in those
churches, and they weren’t European.

Doing what is familiar isn’t inherently wrong, but it keeps us separate.
We don’t have to deal with the messy issues of our biases when we stay with
the people most like us. We don’t have to confront our fears, or our hate. But
it’s still there, and until we can meet at the foot of the cross and say, “I’ve got
this wound, but I’m willing to give it to Jesus to heal,” and then say to our
brother or sister who is not like us, “Hey, show me your wound and we’ll take
that to the cross too,” we aren’t going to make any progress.

We also have to make a commitment to stop hurting one another. And
we must create safe places to share our pain, fissures, and scars, or we won’t
take that risk. And it is a risk. That’s why so many of us are trapped in our
little segregated dead ends, every bit the pious deniers, which in many ways,
is not much different than being pious liars.

Can you tell us a bit about your faith background?

In a word, my faith background has been messy. I started off having
my “born again” experience at the age of fifteen in a fiery Church of God in
Christ. From there I went to what is now called Word Faith or Word of Faith
churches. I went to a variety of independent charismatic-friendly churches,
black and white, some having very little accountability. I saw a lot of abuse
during those years.

I left the church as a young adult. I did a lot of running from God. I
chanted with the Hare Krishnas, wanted to be a whirling dervish, got all
new-agey. I blew through a whole range of religious experiences seeking the
love I’d left behind in Jesus. And then I spent years making my way back to
Him. Although I’d returned, I was unable to articulate or honor the deepest
longings of my heart, which I believe were put there by God. I wanted a very
multicultural experience in worship, and I don’t mean only black and white
together. I’m closer to having that now than I’ve ever been, but I’m not quite
there yet.

Now I’m Eastern Orthodox. I like it because it’s pretty much the same
everywhere. No matter what Orthodox church I go to, we’re going to be
celebrating the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. It isn’t personality driven.
You go to worship God and receive the sacrament of the Eucharist. We aren’t
driven into emotional frenzies. We don’t have a preacher who is a superstar.
It’s just one long prayer service until we receive the Body of Christ. I love it.
It feels safer than the madness I’ve been through.

Zora and Nicky are both changed by what you would describe as
incarnational Christianity. What does this mean to you? Is it something
you’ve experienced in your life?

I got a real “incarnational Christianity” bug as I wrote this novel. I’d heard
the term, but it didn’t click until I began asking myself questions as I wrote.
What does it mean to have “this treasure in earthen vessels”? If I were to take
being the body of Christ seriously, how would that affect how I lived? Christ
loved. He healed. He delivered. I asked myself: How do people heal? How do
they love through Christ? I put the characters in situations that challenged
them to make Christ real to one another. For example, Christ is concerned
about our needs. If we need clothing, He’s probably not going to drop a few
outfits out of the sky. It’s more likely that He’ll provide through community.
He provides for His body through His body. I believe if we caught on to this
we’d change the world. People like Saint Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa
of Calcutta changed the world through incarnational living.

I’m still trying to find my footing. This is all new and exciting, and it’s
turned everything I thought I knew about being a Christian on its ear. I can’t
be the same old self-obsessed, apathetic slug if it’s up to me to be Christ to
“the least of these.” There goes my worldly ambition! My desire for success
and fame falls to the wayside when I think of all the need out there. And it’s
up to me to do something. So, now I say, “Amen!” I’m trying to empty myself
like the Virgin Mary did and let the Holy Spirit fill me, and use me for service
that goes way beyond what I thought I was capable of giving. But it’s still a
challenge. It goes against the grain of all the selfishness I’ve absorbed because
of the fall, because I’m American, and because I’m an unwitting victim of the
disease of affluenza, no matter how much or how little money I possess.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR MAIR

My next book, tentatively called
Wounded
, is about a young African
American woman who is sitting in her Vineyard church and receives the
wounds of Christ—the sacred stigmata. I’ll explore some very personal
issues, particularly a question I’ve asked myself many times: What does
it mean to share in Christ’s suffering? In that novel I explore what makes
an individual more receptive to accepting his or her personal cross. The
main character, Gina, has lived much of her life as “the least of these.” And
now Christ wounds her in this peculiar and extraordinary way. And she
doesn’t fit the profile of one who’d likely receive such a grace. She’s a black
protestant single mother who is not particularly devout, but she knows
something about suffering.

The theme of poverty of spirit seems to be woven into all my work, and
from what I see in the Gospels, poverty of spirit is something we definitely
need to pay attention to, whether we understand exactly what it is or not. I
don’t think you can live out any of the other Beatitudes without being poor
in spirit first. Poverty of spirit is deep. We don’t particularly raise our hands
high to be chosen for that blessing. And blessed are they who mourn? Ewww!
No thanks, unless you’re the one who’s in deep mourning. Then you need that
blessing badly.

Christian community will also play a key role, and in my books,
community is often found outside of one’s “home church.” Many of my
characters have been alienated from church, or they have had experiences as
messy as my own. I want to give messy people like me hope.

Jesus loves us, meets us exactly where we are, and grows us through His
great love and unfathomable mercy. If somebody closes my book and feels
like no matter what kind of hot mess they are, God still loves them, then I’ve
done my job. I trust God’s love to draw them to Christ, and then the Holy
Spirit can begin to make them more like Him, but I really believe they have
to know the love is there first. The John 3:16 stuff. Love really does cover a
multitude of sins. I think we need a new revelation of that. We tend to forget,
and that is truly a shame.

Thanks for the chat. May God have mercy on us all.

Pax et Bonum!

Mair