Who am I?
Greetings, my name is Yanan Rahim (he/him), and I am from Cagayan de Oro, Philippines. I am also pursuing an M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary, where my research explores the intersections of race, religion, and ecology. I am also a poet and musician who seeks to bridge the gap between theological mysticism and artistic curiosity under the moniker Yanan & Siegfried.
For more context: at the outset of my third year in Bible college, I encountered James Cone’s God of the Oppressed, and my entire world changed — nothing was ever the same. Not only did Dr. Cone introduce me to the liberative power of Black theology, but his writings brought me to know and be discovered by Jesus of Nazareth, the Palestinian Jew, in ways I’ve never imagined before. Today, I am curious about the potential intersections of Jewish, Black, Indigenous, and Asian (-American) theological imaginations toward creative modalities of belonging together against the racial violence of our modern world.
I think this project begins with disrupting our racial programming, that is, improvising alternate ways of be(com)ing-with-one-another that transgresses the borders of homogenous congregating (a racial gathering predicated on whiteness, or being the same). I believe that the task is to dream and perform different ways of living-with-one-another, or alter-performances that destabilize the regime of the racial optic that programs us to see one another as racial beings, thus perpetuating the racial, and segregating all creatures along racial lines.
Indeed, the task is to struggle against race and dream of what could be radically and disruptively, even anarchically, “otherwise.” This is to strive for an intermixed belonging that brings to an end what pioneering Black scholar W. E. B. Du Bois called “the problem of the color line.”
My prayer is for a miscegenated gathering that blurs the categorical boundaries between the divine, the human, and the more-than-human at the site of the earth, where lines and borders are no longer drawn between who’s in and who’s out, who can be and who can not. Instead, this is a gathering that does not dissolve differences, but joins differences in myriad dances of multiplicity and plurality… all intermixedly gathered within the earth as our shared site of communioning.
This, my dear reader, is what I am hoping to call “Home.” Our place of belonging. Our common / comm(uni)on / comm(unity) of liberative rest, or as Jewish peoples call it, “Sabbath,” “Shabbat Shalom,” … “peaceful rest” … in the garden of Eden, that is: earth. This earth. Our Home.
What is Sacred Sonder?
Sacred Sonder is a Substack newsletter where I share my reflections on faith and beauty as they intersect with my research on race, religion, settler colonialism, and ecology. In my writing, I strive to understand the world in terms of a vision of creation that invites belonging and inspires diverse modes of making.
“Sacred”—adjective. Considered to be holy and deserving respect, especially because of a connection with a deity.
“Sonder”—noun. The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
Hence, I thought it would be apt to call Sacred Sonder my “fieldnotes”: concise journal entries exploring the varied terrains of my field(s) of study. Here, I seek to inspire others to see beauty in the places that have been torn asunder — to touch the dirt and discover the journey of living in harmony with the land itself; to be enraptured by the wonder of creation(ing), and work toward justice in places where beauty is being distorted. I know that this is a grand premise. Still, I believe that it is a vocation worth undertaking.
And truly, I hope you join me on this journey. 🌄
Connect with me
Instagram: @yananrahim
Linkedin: in/yananrahim
Facebook: /yananrahim
Email: yananrahim@gmail.com
Website: yananrahim.wixsite.com
