The Story of Our Becoming Unveiled
Empire’s Reach
Every empire has sought to control not only land and labor but also rhythm: the pulse of culture, the cadence of memory, the song of freedom. Empire thrives on distortion, breaking coherence by silencing voices, suppressing rituals, and replacing sacred rhythms with imposed order. In Gravity: The Story of Our Becoming, Gerald L. Deloney unmasks the subtle and overt ways empire distorts identity and community. Yet he also highlights the power of rhythm and refusal as tools of restoration, pointing to a path where Becoming is reclaimed as a sacred journey.
Empire as Distortion
Empire is more than political domination; it is a cultural and spiritual force that fragments coherence. By manipulating faith traditions, empire transformed worship into control. By enforcing racial hierarchies, it distorted identity and belonging. By imposing scarcity economics, it undermined communities’ ability to flourish.
Deloney identifies empire as a central distortion that continues to shape the present. Its reach is seen in systemic inequities, in inherited traumas, and in narratives that normalize exploitation. Empire insists that its rhythm, hierarchy, scarcity, domination is the only rhythm available.
Rhythm as Counter-Narrative
Against the false rhythm of empire, Gravity offers cultural rhythm as counter-narrative. Rhythm is more than music or art. It is coherence embodied in practice. It is the heartbeat of a people who survive distortion and insist on wholeness.
- Rhythm in Faith: Reclaiming worship as community song, ritual, and presence rather than control by hierarchy.
- Rhythm in Culture: Preserving language, dance, and storytelling as acts of resilience.
- Rhythm in Systems: Designing education and economies that move with life’s cadence rather than empire’s extraction.
In Deloney’s framework, rhythm is both survival and resistance. It keeps memory alive when empire seeks erasure, and it restores coherence by reconnecting people to themselves and one another.
Refusal as Restoration
Restoration is about refusing its terms. Refusal is not passivity; it is an active stance that says no to supremacy, no to scarcity, no to distorted faith.
Deloney names refusal as an act of sovereignty, a reclaiming of authorship. Communities that refuse to internalize empire’s rhythm instead create space for restoration, grounding their lives in dignity and enoughness. Refusal becomes a practice of Becoming, a way of stepping outside empire’s demands and into coherence.
The Interplay of Empire, Rhythm, and Refusal
Empire fractures; rhythm restores; refusal sustains. Together, these dynamics form a cycle of Becoming. Deloney frames this not as abstract philosophy but as lived practice:
- Recognize the distortion of empire.
- Reclaim rhythm as cultural memory and spiritual alignment.
- Practice refusal as a daily act of restoration.
This interplay reshapes both systems and selves, creating communities that no longer march to empire’s drum but instead move to the deeper rhythm of coherence.
Unveiling the Story of Our Becoming
Gravity: The Story of Our Becoming unveils a truth long hidden by empire, that restoration is possible when rhythm and refusal guide our lives. Deloney’s invitation is clear: coherence can be reclaimed, but it requires courage. It requires remembering rhythm where empire demanded silence, and it requires refusing distortion where empire insisted on obedience.
In this unveiling, Becoming is transformation. It is the restoration of identity, the reclamation of culture, and the authorship of a future where coherence, dignity, and equity are the true measures of life.
Gravity: The Story of Our Becoming is available now on Barnes & Noble, Google Books, Draft2Digital, Kobo, Lulu, and IngramSpark.