Walking the Way of Harriet Tubman: Public Mystic and Freedom Fighter

By Therese Taylor-Stinson and Barbara A. Holmes

Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter and leader in the Underground Railroad, is one of the most significant figures in US history. Her courage and determination in bringing enslaved people to freedom have established her as an icon of the abolitionist movement. But behind the history of the heroine called "Moses" was a woman of deep faith.

In Walking the Way of Harriet Tubman, Therese Taylor-Stinson introduces Harriet, a woman born into slavery whose unwavering faith in God and practices in prayer and contemplation carried her through insufferable abuse and hardship. Her deep spirituality rooted in mysticism, Christianity, and African indigenous beliefs sustained her escape from slavery and led her to an internal liberation, giving her the strength and purpose to lead others on the road to freedom.

Harriet's lived spirituality illuminates a profound path forward for those of us in the fight for justice and equity--a freedom which Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and people of color must cultivate to be fully who we are called to be for ourselves and our communities. As the luminous significance of Harriet Tubman's spiritual life is revealed, so too is the path to our own spiritual truth, advocacy, and racial justice as we follow in her footsteps--for Black lives and all people of color.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Broadleaf Books
• Release date: Feb 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781506478340

Therese Taylor-Stinson

Therese Taylor-Stinson is a native of Washington, DC, and an ordained Deacon and Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), who recently served as Moderator of the National Capital Presbytery. Taylor-Stinson is a founder and incorporator of the Spiritual Directors of Color Network, Ltd., and serves as the Managing Member. A graduate of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, she has served on the board of directors, is a member of the Shalem Society for Contemplative Leadership, and was commissioned associate faculty to offer Shalem's Personal Spiritual Deepening Program in her local community.

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Cover Page for Walking the Way of Harriet Tubman

Walking the Way of Harriet Tubman

Walking the Way of Harriet Tubman

Public Mystic & Freedom Fighter

Therese Taylor-Stinson

Foreword by Barbara A. Holmes

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

WALKING THE WAY OF HARRIET TUBMAN

Public Mystic and Freedom Fighter

Copyright © 2023 Therese Taylor-Stinson. Printed by Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email [e-mail] or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Illustration: James Kegley

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-7833-3

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-7834-0

While the author and 1517 Media have confirmed that all references to website addresses (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing, URLs may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Contents

Foreword: Leading from Within

Prologue

1 Understanding the Mystical Road to Freedom

2 Conditions for Freedom: How to Be a Public Mystic

3 Who Seeks Freedom?

4 Dreaming of Freedom

5 Networks to Freedom

6 The Courage for Freedom

7 Prayers Along the Way to Freedom and What to Do When Freedom Is in Sight

8 Embracing Freedom

9 The Mystical Road to Freedom

Epilogue

Notes

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Leading from Within

Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

~meme popularly attributed to Tubman, unsourced

There is within the human spirit a source of renewal, courage, and ingenuity that equips us to fulfill our purpose here on earth. Howard Thurman refers to this powerful interiority as the sound of the genuine within. This deeply contemplative wellspring strengthens both individuals and entire communities as they seek freedom.

However, seeking freedom is one thing; obtaining freedom is quite another. If freedom was a stationary goal, we would have reached it long ago. Therese Taylor-Stinson, in Walking the Way of Harriet Tubman: Public Mystic and Freedom Fighter, reminds us that freedom is a spiritual state of being that shape-shifts from generation to generation.

Those who lead us toward that elusive state of being must also be led by Spirit. We have known Harriet Tubman as a freedom fighter and abolitionist, whose exploits and courage are highlighted every Black History Month. Taylor-Stinson affirms Tubman’s status as a freedom fighter but awakens us to her role as a public mystic and spiritual exemplar.

When I was growing up, most of the mystics that I was introduced to were of European lineage. Although their messages of faith, personal salvation, and the love of God continue to bless me to this day, I needed more. I needed leadership that lifted and protected the community; I wanted to see women and men who looked like me leading freedom’s charge. This book fulfills that need.

In Joy Unspeakable, I refer to public mystics as leaders who embody the ineffable while attending to the ordinary, those who host the transcendent, the mystical, and the mundane while engaged in pragmatic justice-seeking acts.

Public mystics are peculiar people. Harriet was no exception. With her brain injury, she had an additional weight of struggles but trusted in God. God brought visions in the trances that resulted from the injury, pointing her to safety and freedom.

Whether you are leading escaping Africans toward the Ohio River or filming the murder of George Floyd in real time, you are relying upon the Divine One and not your own resources to sustain and protect you.

But what does that mean? It may mean that in times of trouble, we enter the fray led by choirs and public mystics rather than the military and that we rely on a living God for ultimate outcomes. So where are the public mystics when you need them most?

I see them in the peaceful resistance of another generation of freedom fighters. They are with us in the stories told and retold of lives well lived. They are in our prophetic imaginations as we welcome Harriet into our present reality. Her counterintuitive leadership empowered by dreams and trances confronts the delusion of empires that they have ultimate control.

As renowned biblical scholar Walter F. Brueggemann often said during Old Testament theology classes, God has other ideas about that.

If we are willing to follow unlikely leaders, public mystics, and a crucified Messiah from the hood (Can anything good come out of Nazareth? John 1:46), if we are willing to forsake the managed reality of empire, then anything is possible. Harriet Tubman speaks into our lives through the particularities of her own suffering as an African American woman born into slavery and the oppression of her community.

But she is no longer confined by racial mythologies to one community or another. Instead, she bears witness that spiritual freedom is possible for all who are marginalized and oppressed. Can’t you see her? I can see her now, small of stature, big of heart, running for free. She is running past her fears and ours, her exhaustion and ours.

As she traverses rivers to avoid the slave hunters and dogs, she keeps an eye on the North Star and reflects on the wonder of the Creator/trix. Although she dies of natural causes in peace and a modicum of freedom, in my mind’s eye, she is running still, encouraging us, all of us, to go on and see what the end is going to be.

Rev. Barbara A. Holmes, JD, PhD

President Emerita

United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities

Core Faculty

Center for Action and Contemplation

Prologue

As I stood on the bank of the Choptank River in Dorchester County, Maryland, one early spring afternoon, in a single line across the sand with other pilgrims on this