“yes. surrender. bloom. (number 5)” — PRINT

an invitation to joy, this posture, this praise. something happens in the flesh when one is unbounded and available and attempts solicitation, when one attempts the yes. i wanted the cutouts of elder lucy smith, the founding pastor of all nations pentecostal church in chicago, to sort of approach what the saints call “quickening,” what it looks like to “quicken,” which are these really quick, rapid movements that are not at all planned but because of the visceral nature of praise, the choreosonic movements absolutely happen. the flesh quickly moves beyond and otherwise than itself, registers ecstasy so forcefully internally that it has no choice but to be moved. such that internal and external as categorically distinct evaporate away. this being moved is noncoervice, happens because it is desired to happen, though it is neither the force of the praiser or of a coercive outside agent that produces the occasion. there is something that happens between worlds, worlds otherwise, that is taken in and given by the flesh almost instantaneously. definitions of quicken that i find useful for thinking with are: to give or restore life to; cause to burn; to begin to show signs of life. to live life in the posture of the yes, to give life, to cause to burn, to begin to show forth. the praise of blackpentecostalism is so beautiful to me, still gives me life and joy and pleasure. it is a solicitation to otherwise possibility. to live in this posture is an invitation to spirit to indwell, to augment reality, to be undone and changed. bloom. (photographer was very likely Lee Russell, 1941).