I went to my first church service in over a decade yesterday. I can’t tell you why exactly – I’m fairly Buddhist these days – but there’s been this church kind of feeling nudging me for the past few weeks.
A friend of a friend recommended a black Baptist church a little ways away. Not realizing there was parking at the top of the hill, I pulled off onto the side of the road and huffed my way up to the crisp, modest building. Halfway there, I was relieved to see another car roll past me – I wasn’t the only tardy one. By the time I got to the door, a woman my age, shoving her arms into a dress shirt, smiled wide at me.
“It’s just one of those days,” she said.
I laughed. “You don’t have to tell me,” I wheezed. “I’m having one of those days too. I’ve never been so happy to see a car roll by me.”
She chuckled as she buttoned up her shirt. “Are you new here? I’m Lisa. Let me get the door for you.” I beamed at her as I walked in, the warmth of a new connection buoying me.
The service already underway, I sidled into a pew in the back row. When the pastor read a passage from Daniel, some dream Nebuchadnezzar forgot, I was confused, a bit intrigued. Why that particular passage? Why today?
It wasn’t until the pastor moved into his sermon that I realized it was MLK weekend. How apt then that this was precisely the pastor’s invocation: have we forgotten the dream?
Dr. King, the pastor reminded us, had a dream for the community he came from, for those who had breathed him life, yes, but that dream did not stop there. Dr. King’s dream spanned the country, the globe. Dr. King wanted to see an end to poverty and war, hatred and separation, violence in all its forms. And as the pastor’s voice reverberated against the cool, plaster walls, as we breathed together in a space filled with loving intention, I felt it – I felt that this was our dream too.
Later that day, I went on a date with a white man, bristly beard and pools of blue eyes. Sugarcane for insides, he told me he’d like to show me his senior year scrapbook and asked if I’d write something nice that he could give his grandmother for her birthday. I liked him.
He lived in the country, on a patch of the most beautiful land, silvery tall-grass against the dark line of mountains. He grew agitated as we walked up to his trailer home. “You know,” he halted, “I just want to warn you, it’s not exactly the nicest in there. I mean, it’s just not a lot. It’s not very big. It’s not much. You seem very nice and I just don’t want you to… I don’t know, I just…”
I laughed. “It seems nice enough from out here,” I said. “As long as it’s not like the aftermath of a frat party in there, I think it’ll be just fine.”
He chuckled as opened the door. “No, not like that, it’s just, I don’t have a lot and I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
I could feel him watching me as I stepped in, stress and anxiety radiating from him as I took it in. Nothing more to see than a lovely, little trailer home. A roof, windows, a small kitchen, a couch and an armchair, a television, two bedrooms, a bathroom. All the fixings. A little messy, yes, but lived-in, not dirty. It was warm.
Looking around, I could see that while there was absolutely nothing wrong with this man’s home, there was something wrong, something terribly, terribly wrong. You see, standing in this man’s house, it was crystal clear to me that somebody, some, very vile somebodies, had told this perfectly nice man that having a good heart and a roof over his head just wasn’t enough. Who was it that planted these rotten seeds of inadequacy and insecurity and shame in his generous and tender mind? I wanted to know and I wanted to know where they lived and I wanted to find them and then, I wanted to beat those fuckers up (with my words).
You see, that’s where Dr. King was going with all of this – that the system that enslaved black people for generations and generations, that continues to oppress black people for generations and generations more, that system does not care what color your skin is. All it wants to do is poison your innate ability to love and play and laugh and be happy with enough so it can convince you that you need more, more, more : the newest Tesla, heated floors, four sets of china.
But the truth is, it doesn’t take much to be happy, not when you get right down to it: safety, food, water, shelter, exercise, good relationships, connection to nature, beauty, fun, outlets for philosophizing and creating and sharing. And when you get your hands on those things, when you can weed out those nasty stories that you’re not good enough unless you achieve x or own y or make zamount of money, that, my friends, is when you are finally free.
This MLK Day, I hope you think about what was at the heart of Dr. King’s dream – the freedom to be, the freedom to live, the freedom to be happy, the freedom to be in relation with all of the beautiful, living creatures in this world from the woman who’s late to church to the man who wishes to impress to the red fox who crossed my path on my way home. Then think about how you can make that dream a reality.
I love you all.
Music Corner: Some dreamy tunes from Billie Holiday and Nina Simone to take us home.
Originally posted on LinkedIn.
