The Kaleidoscopic Trauma, Disclosure and Joy

Gemstones Blog submission by Diane Ford Dessables

I’m 63 years old. I come from a generation and a culture — African American and baby-boomer — that offered little space for open talk about sexual identity. For decades, I kept my bisexuality in the shadows, even as I pursued ministry. That containment — like so much else we learn to hide — is part of internalized oppression, the inherited silence that burrows into our bones.

Even within circles that championed liberation, I was asked to choose sides: advocate for single Black women and mothers or for queer rights — as if I couldn’t hold both. Only later did I begin to see how deeply internalized oppression shaped not only me, but the whole body of faith in America.

Across my lifetime, I’ve seen cycles of horror and hope: children separated from parents at borders, trans siblings assaulted, First Nations women disappeared, immigrants detained, Black men and women slain, whole islands denied aid. Yet I’ve also seen laughter rise out of floodwater and prayer circle around the wounded.

This is the truth: our collective trauma is not the end of our story. The vast horizon of our experiences reveals that we are dynamic, not broken — multicolored, not shattered. The more we share our stories, the more we discover that disclosure itself is medicine.

Our shared truth is kaleidoscopic: pain and joy, shadow and dawn, wound and wonder. And as the sun rises on this work, what waits for us is not despair but joy — a joy born of honesty, community, and the courage to see one another whole.

Selah.
— Rev. Diane Ford Dessables