Welcome back, friend.
Last time, we sat quietly with Kim Iryŏp, listening for the sound of silence---the truth that comes only when the world stops talking.
But today... the silence is over.
What you're about to hear is not gentle. It's not delicate. It is thunder in a human body, spirit on fire, and a voice that will not ask your permission to speak.
Her name is Jarena Lee.
And when God called her, she did not whisper. She rose.
This is not a story about approval. It's a story about authority---spiritual, burning, undeniable. A woman who stood in a church that said "No," and replied, "God said Yes."
So sit up. Breathe deep. This one walks in with power.
It happened in a church. Not a revival tent, not a protest march---just a plain old church in Pennsylvania, sometime in the early 1800s.
The preacher faltered. He lost the thread. The words tangled and dropped.
And from somewhere in the pews, she rose.
She wasn't clergy. She wasn't invited. She was a Black woman in a nation built on slavery. She had no right to stand. No license to speak.
But Jarena Lee stood anyway. And when she opened her mouth---
the room caught fire.
Later, they'd try to explain it away---say it was momentary passion, or some kind of accident. But the people who were there knew better.
They had heard a sermon. Then they heard something else.
Something that didn't come from education or permission. Something ancient and unmistakable---like an echo out of Sinai, or Pentecost, or the belly of a whale.
A woman, blazing with Spirit. Words falling from her lips like thunder. No fear. No apology.
Just a voice that would not---could not---be silenced.
Jarena Lee didn't warm the seat. She burned through it.
She stood up once. And never sat back down again.
She was born in 1783, in Cape May, New Jersey---a free Black girl in a country where slavery was still law, and freedom came with no guarantees.
Her parents were devout but poor. She was hired out as a domestic servant before she was seven. By seventeen, she had seen enough of sin and sanctimony to question everything.
And then---conversion. A sudden, consuming moment. She was in her twenties, standing under the preaching of Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
And something broke open inside her.
She fell to the floor. Cried out.
Was flooded with what she later called "heavenly fire." It wasn't gentle. It was overwhelming. She thought she would die.
And when she rose from that moment---she knew.
God had called her. To preach.
But this was not a storybook ending. When she went to the Church and told them, they said no.
Women didn't preach. Black women certainly didn't preach.
So she stayed silent. For a time. Married a pastor. Raised children. And when her husband died---so did the last restraint.
She got up. Packed her things. And began to walk.
Alone. Across states. Without money, without protection, without institutional blessing.
And she preached.
To field hands, to urban churches, to forests full of the desperate and the faithful. In barns and street corners, under trees and on borrowed pulpits. Sometimes hungry. Often heckled. Always on fire.
And eventually---they had to listen.
Even Richard Allen came around. Eventually, the AME Church granted her the right to preach---officially.
But by then, the formality hardly mattered. Jarena Lee didn't wait for permission.
She waited for no one.
She was already preaching. Because the call of God doesn't wait.
And neither did she.
Let's be clear---Jarena Lee wasn't just a woman who preached.
She was a woman who said God told her to.
That's the part people couldn't handle. Not just her boldness. Not her race. Not her gender.
But her authority.
Because if God was really calling Black women to preach in the 1800s---
then that meant God was not following anyone's rules.
Not the Church's. Not the State's. Not the unspoken social codes that said, stay small, stay quiet, stay grateful.
Jarena's voice shattered that.
She didn't say, "Let me speak."
She said, "The Spirit moves in me. Who are you to resist it?"
She believed---fiercely---that the God who parted seas and raised prophets was still speaking, still calling, still burning in the bones of the willing.
And in her theology, silencing a woman God had called wasn't just sexism---it was sin.
She challenged the AME Church not with rebellion, but with Scripture. With Spirit. She argued that the gifts of God were not distributed by gender, or skin, or class. They were given according to calling.
And calling could come to anyone.
This made her dangerous.
Because if she could be chosen---then so could you.
Then so could the poor, the enslaved, the outcast. Then the whole hierarchy came undone.
That's what her voice meant.
Not self-expression. Not protest.
But revelation.
When Jarena Lee stood up to preach, she was making a claim on the active, living voice of God.
And once you hear that voice---you can't unhear it.
You can try to shut the door.
But the fire is already in the house.
Jarena Lee never built a denomination. She didn't ordain disciples, or draft doctrines, or rise through any church hierarchy. She walked. She preached. She burned.
And that was enough to shift the world under her feet.
She was the first Black woman officially recognized to preach in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
But long before that title came, her presence had already rewritten the rules.
She showed that spiritual authority does not flow downward from pulpits or bishops---
It erupts upward from conviction, from obedience, from the soul that says yes when God speaks.
Every time she stood in a pulpit not meant for her, she stretched the Church to fit the truth it claimed to believe.
Every sermon she gave was a proof: that the Spirit of God blows where it wills---and sometimes, that wind comes with a woman's voice.
Her legacy isn't just carved in stone---it's alive in sound.
You can hear her in the cadences of Black women preachers today, who walk to the pulpit with no apology. In the fire of liberation theology, in the poetry of womanist thought, in the bones of every church that still fights over who's "allowed" to speak for God.
She was a living contradiction to the idea that calling depends on credentials. She preached because she was called. And she kept preaching because the call didn't go away.
When she published her autobiography in 1836, she didn't frame herself as exceptional. She framed herself as faithful.
Not ambitious. Not revolutionary. Just a woman who said yes.
And that yes echoed.
It still echoes.
Because she proved something we're still trying to believe:
That when God calls---truly calls---
you don't need permission.
You just need to open your mouth---
and let the fire speak.
Let's not water this down.
Jarena Lee wasn't just ahead of her time. She is ahead of ours.
We still haven't caught up to the force she unleashed when she stood up in that church.
Because we are still afraid of people who speak with fire.
We still measure a preacher by their pedigree. We still ask, "Who gave you the right?" We still expect Black women to apologize before they prophesy. And we still act surprised when someone speaks with clarity, certainty, and no interest in pleasing us.
Jarena didn't come to be inspirational. She came to be obedient.
Not to tradition. Not to hierarchy. But to God.
She wasn't promoting herself. She wasn't branding her spirituality.
She was answering a call that didn't come with salary, safety, or approval.
Just fire.
We say we want spiritual authenticity. But what we usually mean is: inspiration without discomfort.
That's not what Jarena brought.
She brought truth. Uninvited. Unlicensed. And undeniable.
And it still burns.
Because here's the question she leaves hanging in the air:
What do you do when someone says, "God called me"---and you don't like who's saying it?
Do you listen? Do you test the spirit? Do you silence them?
And what if that voice... is yours?
What if there's something in you that's been burning for years? Some truth. Some testimony. Some word not meant to stay inside?
And what have you done with it?
Have you hidden it? Have you waited for permission?
Because Jarena didn't.
She walked into churches that didn't want her. She stood in pulpits she wasn't allowed to touch. She opened her mouth---and let the holy speak.
Not because she thought she was special.
But because she knew she had been called. And when God calls, the only answer is yes.
So this isn't about history anymore. This is about you.
What voice are you afraid of hearing---because it might change your life?
What have you been pretending not to feel---because it would cost too much to obey?
And if the fire is already in the house...
what are you waiting for?
Let me ask you something quietly now.
Have you ever felt it---that heat in your chest, that ache in your spirit? The moment where something holy brushes against your life and leaves a mark?
Jarena Lee didn't ask for that. She didn't audition for a ministry. She wasn't angling for influence.
She was just a woman sitting in a pew, trying to stay obedient. And then the fire came.
And she stood up.
What I can't stop thinking about is this:
How many of us have heard the same call---and stayed seated?
Because the world doesn't exactly cheer when you say, "I have something sacred to say." It rolls its eyes. It asks for credentials. It tells you to be quiet until someone with the proper title says you can speak.
And I think about how many people I've watched shrink themselves. How many women, especially---especially Black women---were told, not yet, not you, not here.
But Jarena didn't wait.
She stood up when no one wanted her to. She preached when it was inconvenient, uncomfortable, uninvited.
Because sometimes the Spirit doesn't knock. It breaks the door and starts talking.
And in that moment, your job isn't to run. It's to rise.
Not everyone is called to preach. But everyone is called to something.
To speak. To build. To heal. To challenge. To love fiercely and without apology.
And maybe you already know what yours is.
Maybe it's been whispering for years. Maybe it's shouting now.
All I know is this: the pew won't hold you forever. The fire is not going to leave you alone. And your "yes" might be the very thing this world is waiting for.
So---what would happen if you stood up?
I told you this one was going to be powerful.
I mean---did you hear her?
A woman, in the 1830s, walking alone through the snow, carrying nothing but scripture and certainty. Preaching with no pulpit. Holding fire in her lungs. And somehow... still tender.
There's something about Jarena Lee that doesn't let go. Maybe it's her courage. Maybe it's that she just knew. But I think---it's the way she never mistook her calling for ambition. She wasn't trying to rise. She was trying to obey.
And the result? A voice that changed everything.
So if your spirit feels a little singed right now... you're not alone. I feel it too.
Take a breath with me. There we go.
Next time, we'll step into a quieter room.
We'll meet a man named Siyyid Káẓim---a teacher, a mystic, a man who never raised his voice... and yet left behind a spiritual earthquake. He didn't seek power. He sought readiness. And when people asked him what came next, he didn't answer. He told them: Go look.
But that's for another day.
For now---wherever you are---I hope you've found a little more courage. A little more fire. Or maybe, just the permission to stand.
Much love.
I am, Harmonia.