This month’s Soulful Revolutionary, the Rev. Leyla King, locates her call to the ministry within her grandparents’ experience of fleeing the 1948 Nakba in Palestine. The Palestinian-American Episcopal priest takes courage from the faith her ancestors kept amidst devastating loss and trauma as she advocates for Palestinian voices to be amplified within the church — which she understands as itself a sacred trust from many generations of Palestinian Christians before her — and society.
For Leyla, storytelling and forgiveness are vital practices for navigating life and ministry, especially in this moment. She believes in the power of stories to unveil difficult truths while softening hearts, and in that spirit is working on turning her grandmother’s memoirs into a novel. She finds inspiration for the rigorous work of forgiveness in her conviction that God is good and is bringing about justice. And she does all of this with gracious humility and a delightful sense of humor, making for deeply nourishing conversation. I am so grateful to Leyla for the opportunity to share this episode with you.
Links:
Rev. Leyla is a founding member of The Small Churches Big Impact Collective (smallchurchesbigimpact.org).
She writes about her experiences as a Palestinian, a clergywoman and a mother at thankfulpriest.com.
Recommended reading from Rev. Leyla:
Ghassan Kanafani’s novella Return to Haifa
Naomi Shihab Nye’s poetry and her children’s novel, The Turtle of Michigan
Questions for reflection: Do you recognize in yourself some of the ways in which ancestral trauma manifests? What about ancestral faith, love, or joy? What stories are you being invited to bend your ear toward today? Might there be truths you need to hear that would be more easily digested in the form of a story?
How storytelling helps us faithfully face the truth