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THE CASE AGAINST UNIFICATION

(Text of a talk given in February of 2021 to The Livingston Diversity Council)

With calls again for “going back to normal” I think it’s time for a repost. The very real concerns for public health aside, I’m making the case to move forward – away from “normal” – not back. In large, due to fact that we really don’t have a true accounting of how we go here.

After 4 explosive years under our last chief executive, a very contentious election, and a full-blown insurrection on January 6th (2020), there is a strong call in the land for unification. In fact, it is a regular talking point of our recently elected president. We live in frightening times. Threatening inflammatory rhetoric has been turned up “well past eleven” for quite some time. And there is still a very real threat of fascism ascending to the federal seat of power under an authoritative strongman. Besides, our country is under the threat of economic collapse brought on by a world-wide pandemic. Wouldn’t now be the time to unify under the American banner?

Well, it depends. Unification for whom? Certainly not for black Americans. In fact, unification is a direct threat to the welfare of black citizens. We only have to look to history to understand why.

At the end of the Civil War a crowd gathered on the front lawn of the White House in celebration of the defeat of the Confederacy, clamoring for a speech from President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln respectfully declined and promised a speech for the following night. In consolation, he requested that the Marine band play “Dixie.” Lincoln declared, “I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it.” As the crowd cheered him on, he added, “It is good to show the rebels that with us they will be free to hear it again.” In choosing to welcome the Union’s “adversaries” back into the fold with that song, Lincoln helped set a pattern for the betrayal of the formerly enslaved for decades. Not only was “Dixie” enjoyed by the throng on the White House lawn that day, it became emblematic, along with the rebel battle flag, of the oppression and degradation of black Americans for decades to come. Oppression and degradation that began with the end of the Reconstruction era.

Contrary to what generations of children were taught in school, the Reconstruction Era immediately after the Civil War was very successful. For 11 years the formerly enslaved, aided by the protection of Union troops and with the sanction of the federal government, worked tirelessly to secure full citizenship in these United States. Ironically it was “radical abolitionist wing of the Republican Party” in opposition to the efforts of Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, who triggered the passage of the Reconstruction Act of 1867. Included in the law were the following measures:

• It divided the south into 5 districts governed by military governors until such a time that acceptable state constitutions could be written that eliminated all vestiges of slavery.

• All males, regardless of race, excluding former Confederate leaders, were allowed to participate in the constitutional conventions forming the new state governments.

• These new state constitutions were required to provide universal voting rights for all men regardless of race.

• States were required to ratify the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed black citizenship, in order to be readmitted to the Union.

Marinate on this a minute if you will. 1867, The Republican Party calling for full citizenship rights of black Americans at the exclusion of former Confederates from involvement in the process. Confederates who were legally barred from interfering in the lives of black citizens. Think of what could have happened if this had continued into the 20th century. Think of what highly motivated, industrious, and capable men and women could have done when granted the freedom afforded white Americans, afforded the often celebrated European immigrants, to pursue the full rights and benefits of American citizenship. Unfettered by Jim Crow, allowed to flourish as their imaginations and their industry dictated.

What did happen? As I said, for 11 years the United States actually began to live up to its promise. Congress passed the Freedman’s Bureau and the Civil Rights Bills, successfully overriding Andrew Johnson’s vetoes to pass them into law. They even moved to impeach Johnson.

Ulysses S. Grant, elected after Johnson, supported Reconstruction and enforced the protection of African Americans. He used another law, The Enforcement Act, to put down the Ku Klux Klan, essentially wiping them out by 1872. Grant integrated the federal ranks, extending job opportunities to black Americans. He championed equal rights. He supported a 2nd Civil Rights Act of 1875. During this era, black Americans enjoyed the highest representation in government ever. Across the south and in Missouri, there were 1517 black state officeholders, 6 of them lieutenant governors. At the federal level 16 congressmen, 185 federal officeholders in all.

Furthermore, across the south, local officials had great success in creating integrated governance. Accordingly, the formerly enslaved prospered in land and business ownership, in education, in all phases of life.

That is, until the cause of white unity became more important. The election of 1876 did not produce a clear electoral winner between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden. Neither had the 184 electoral votes required at the time to be declared the winner. The parties formed a bipartisan Electoral Commission to decide the race. To break the deadlock, the 2 parties came to an agreement to provide Hayes 20 disputed electoral votes to win the vote. To secure the support of southern Democrats, the terms of the agreement included that the federal government would remove all troops remaining in southern states and that southern democrats had the right to deal with black citizens without “northern interference.”

Unity achieved.

Southern whites immediately resurrected the Ku Klux Klan and began a campaign of violence and terror that by 1905 had removed any significant traces of black political power.

In 1898, unified in their opposition of integration, the white population of Wilmington, South Carolina staged an actual coup. A mob of 2000 white men overthrew the legitimately elected local Fusionist party consisting of black and white leadership of the city. They expelled city leadership who would comply, murdered those who wouldn’t. They destroyed private property and businesses, burned the only black newspaper to the ground and killed an estimated 300 people. By this point, Mississippi had passed a new Constitution which disenfranchised black voters. South Carolina and the rest of the south followed suit. In effect, “whiteness” nullified the 14th Amendment and overrode any claims of legal citizenship by black citizens. The Wilmington Coup appears to be the watershed moment that cemented this notion across the land. And it became the template for the unity of whites at the expense of black lives and livelihoods for the decades to come.

In a show of labor unity and solidarity a series of massacres the summer of 1917 in East St. Louis, Illinois left an estimated 250 black citizens dead and another 6000 homeless. The violence was triggered in reaction to the recruitment of black workers to replace white union employees striking the aluminum and meatpacking industries. The very same unions that had denied black workers membership. Reporting at the time indicated that East St. Louis’s white police force either ignored or participated in the violence. And the National Guard, called in by Illinois Governor, Frank Lowden, largely allowed the massacre to continue. Much of East St. Louis’s black population fled over the bridges spanning the Mississippi river, connecting their city to St. Louis, Missouri, never to return.

In the summer of 1919, Eugene Williams a black 17 year old living in Chicago was playing on raft in Lake Michigan with friends. The raft drifted into a white swimming area and angry white beach goers began throwing rocks at the raft. Williams fell in and drowned because, according to the official coroner’s report, the rocks that white bathers continued to throw at him prevented him from coming ashore. The white beach goers were unified under the need to keep recreation strictly segregated.

When black beach goers on the scene complained, they were attacked by a white mob that spread into the black community. The rioting continued for 5 days. As with East St. Louis, police arrested black participants but steadfastly refused to arrest whites. At the end of it 15 whites and 23 blacks were killed. 500 total were injured, over 60% of them black. Over 1000 black families were left homeless. Not one white rioter was convicted of a crime. That summer there were similar incidents in Washington, D.C., Knoxville, Tennessee, Longview, Texas, Phillips County, Arkansas, and Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1921 white rioters, unified by the mandate to protect a white woman’s virtue, destroyed over 35 blocks of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Greenwood community, also known as “Black Wall Street”. Greenwood had been organized in 1906 after Booker T. Washington toured the Arkansas Indian Territory and Oklahoma.

At the time, Greenwood was the wealthiest black community in the nation. It contained several grocers, 2 newspapers, 2 movie theaters, several nightclubs and churches. Estimates have ranged from 75 to 300 black citizens killed. The violence was precipitated by the claim that Dick Rowland, a 19 year old black shoe shiner, had assaulted Sarah Page, a 17 year old white elevator operator. Note that much of the violence was organized by the very same Klan that US Grant had eliminated in 1872.

Rowland was taken into custody and word quickly spread through the black community that a crowd of white men was gathering at the jail to likely lynch the young man. A group of 75 black men stationed themselves outside the jail to protect Rowland. Upon the assurance of the local sheriff that Rowland would be protected, the black citizens agreed to disperse. As they were leaving, a member of the white mob attempted to disarm a black man and the confrontation devolved into a firefight. 12 men were killed, 2 black, 10 white. White rioters gathered and rampaged through the black community that night and into the morning. At least one plane was reported to fire on the black community from the air. Reportedly, the first instance of the use of air power on American soil. When the dust settled, 10,000 black people were left homeless. Property damage estimates ran to more than $1.5 million. There are other examples that echo through our collective history; Detroit, 1943, St. Louis 1949, Charleston in 2015, Charlottesville in 2017. And while last 2 instances involved single actors, they were by no means “lone operatives” as they were radicalized by their exposure, in unity, with like-minded affiliates.

Black History is the story of the struggle for liberation. Starting effectively in 1619 on through to Ferguson (Mike Brown), Staten Island (Eric Garner) and Kenosha (Jacob Blake) to name just a few. We struggle to liberate ourselves from racism which, I take pains to emphasize, is not a defect of individuals, but a system and structure designed to serve white supremacy, to serve white people who often unify in its service. Often violently.

I recently heard the celebrated activist, Angela Davis, say that “unity is an abstract.” She had been asked about the concept of America unifying in this moment in history. Dr. Davis suggested that to be effective, people must unify around “something.” She suggested that unity in struggle makes sense. Otherwise, she implied, it’s just lip service. The struggle for black liberation goes beyond allyship, beyond just “listening” and lip service to commitment and “action.” Let our country unify around liberation of its black citizens. Too often it has unified against us.

Trust Is Earned

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice…” – MLK

So…

Black people cannot relax outside of our own spaces. We are on constant alert.

And when we are assaulted, whether physically or verbally, we’re expected to take “the moral high ground” no matter the intent, or the neurological make up, of the offender.

And we generally do, not out of some sense of “virtue” or “righteousness”, but for survival. Because it wasn’t that long ago when retaliation, a word spoken in haste, even a cross look, could bring rebuke, cost a livelihood, or incite a lynch mob.

Everyone knows this whether we acknowledge or not. It is why a confident Black woman is viewed as “arrogant” or better yet “angry”. It’s baked into the operating system of the majority of the Western World.

I think Black people will continue “go high” as the former First Lady famously said, or as another poster said earlier this morning, “vibrate higher.” To do otherwise poisons the soul, weighs us down.

Besides we got bills to pay, kids to raise, elders to care for.

But don’t expect us to accept the excuses that white folks give at the expense of our humanity. That’s a bridge too far.

I told a white politician once that I didn’t trust the motives of white people at face value. She allowed that it was a wholly rational response.

REV. JACKSON

My first recollection of Rev. Jackson is some version of this speech

Not so revolutionary now but a big deal to a child who really didn’t see himself reflected in the larger culture.

It taught me that my worth didn’t depend on where I was born or who I was born to but rather on the mere fact that I was alive. That I didn’t “earn” basic respect. That it was due me.

By the same token I had to give it to everyone, no matter their circumstances.

Nah, I’m Good

While I hear that generally he’s as popular as ever with the faithful, I’m relieved to hear that many of the people who voted for the current Chief Executive are “coming around” now that they are actually experiencing actual harm from his policies.

However, I find little motivation to “join with” or “welcome” them. Not out of spite or any desire for “revenge” (as I heard one progressive writer blithely put it).

Who am I to judge? I’ve got my own shortcomings to answer for.

Rather, I was never “in community” with these folks, especially the truly MAGA faithful, to begin with. Personally, I often find myself on the outside looking in no matter what space I find myself in. Beside the fact that I’m currently “living Black” in an overwhelmingly white, conservative community, I generally don’t trust the logic of crowds, I ask too many questions, and frankly, I live in my own head a lot. So I’m always a bit detached. Awkward really.

I have to be on guard against the temptation toward snobbery because of it. Awkwardness can often lead to elitism if left unattended.

Regardless, I feel no kinship with, or any desire for same, with any current or former supporters of the current Chief Executive. I certainly am willing to work in tandem with the like minded against a common threat and to support vulnerable communities (no matter the political bent).

But let’s leave it at that. Perhaps an unnecessary distinction but it’s one I require. And there is precedent: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/the-first-rainbow-coalition/

The Revolution Will Not Only Not Be Televised… It Will Never End

Black citizens know that American democracy is not a destination. Rather, it is a constant struggle. Point of fact, America has never been a democratic state. At our inception, women and non-landowning men could not vote and though slavery is never mentioned in the Constitution, it was provisioned for in the Three Fifth’s Compromise and the Second Amendment to name a couple of examples.

To paraphrase Sherrilyn Ifill, America only approached democracy in 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act that finally provided government protection for the voting rights of Black citizens, less than 4 years after I was born. Unfortunately, the Roberts Court has all but unravelled it.

Wednesday night, my daughter and I watched a Livestream from the University of Michigan that featured Ta-Nehisi Coates and Dr. Angela Davis where Dr. Davis surprised everyone in attendance in stating that she was actually “optimistic” about America’s prospects. Sure we’re in grave danger. But historically speaking we are moving in the right direction. She likened it to the “3 steps forward, 2 back” analogy. We’re obviously in a “2 back” phase, but to her mind we are making progress, else the party in power would not be taking such extreme measures.

She also reminded everyone that we need to see ourselves from a historical perspective. That we are a part of history rather than living separate from it. I wrote down a quote without attribution and I cannot remember whether Coates or Dr. Davis actually said it but it struck me like a bolt of lightning:

“You are here because people who could not see you fought for you.”

I’m fond of saying that “I know where I am.” I cannot afford the delusions of traditional American propaganda or patriotism. But I also have to remember that the survival of my people is not an accident. That those who went before me had even less reason to believe that America would make a place for them, yet they fought for me.

I can do no less for those who I cannot see.

WELCOME!

While I get that the results of the last election lay bare the fascist, racist, oppressive tendencies and preferences of American society for a lot of people, (takes deep breath) this has been apparent to a LOT of us for a very long time. For generations to be precise.

So what many people see as “the end of American Democracy” is just “Tuesday” for us. Which is not to say that we are not collectively in dire straits, but “we been tryna tell y’all” for a minute now and have been largely ignored, or worse, we’ve been expected to “rescue America.”

And we have; as Sherrilyn Ifill so eloquently noted on 60 Minutes (Google it), America can only really lay claim to calling itself a democracy since the mid-60’s, largely due to the Civil Rights Movement only to lurch back into the welcoming arms of white supremacy once the dust settled.

Only to find that white supremacy does not even protect all white people.

To say it another way: Welcome To The Hood, Y’all.

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

God Is A Woman

2 Kings 4:25-30. Key verse:  30 “And the mother child said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And he arose, and followed her.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Key verse: 5 ”[Love] Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not, her own.”

This Lenten season, like all Lenten seasons, we occupy our hearts and minds with preparation. In anticipation of the Passion Story, of Jesus’ death on Calvary and his ultimate victory on Easter morn we immerse ourselves in the rituals of fasting and denial, in special services like Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday. We focus on the events of the savior’s life leading up to his betrayal. His triumphant ride into Jerusalem, his purging the temple of moneychangers, his moment of despair in Gethsemane.

And beside the fact that Easter truly is the biggest day on the Christian calendar – sorry Christmas – and that it’s the culmination of The Messiah’s life’s work on earth, and it’s THE WHOLE FOCUS of Christianity, I must ask, what’s the point here?

Not to trivialize what is obviously the single most important event of our faith, but what is the point beyond death and resurrection?

Asked differently what is the motivation behind God fulfilling his covenant with Abraham (and ultimately Adam)? And what drives Christ to volunteer for the job?

We all know the very easy and obvious answer is found in John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It’s the modern equivalent of shorthand for the basic tenet of the Christian faith, Salvation through Jesus Christ, through Jesus’ blood. And why? Because he loves us.

Love. Love is the key here. Love is that motivation. Love is the source from where the Messiah’s actions spring. Love is the pinnacle. “Faith hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.”

There is no higher ideal of a Christian’s life.  Scriptural references abound:

Love is sacrifice. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Love is all encompassing. “For God so loved the world.” Referencing John 3:16 again. No one gets left out.

Love makes glad, it uplifts.  Luke 6:35 says, “But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.”

Love redeems.  Isaiah 38:17 reads: “Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind my back.”

The above are fine examples of love carried into the world, of love in action. But what of its essence? What is the nature of love?

Our New Testament scripture is more enlightening in detailing what love is not. Reading from the New International Version, while love is patient and kind for sure, it also does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil. And going back to the King James version, Love “seeketh not her own good.”

“Her”?

I find it interesting that the only time a human characteristic is ascribed to love, it is given in the feminine. It could be merely a term of art. Poetic license if you will.

But consider the point at which Paul chooses to refer to love as “her,” in the middle section of verse 5 where we learn that love “…Seeketh not her own…” In every other reference to love in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians Paul uses the third person possessive.  It could be noted that in other interpretations of this scripture, love is left in the 3rd person. I choose to favor the King James version for the purposes of this presentation.

In this one characteristic of love, at least in the King James version, love is feminine. Love seeks not her own way, or if you’ll allow me, her own good. Well if not her own good, then whose? I believe the answer is illustrated in the Shunammite woman from our Old Testament lesson.  For her kindness to the Prophet Elisha God blessed her and her much older husband with a son.  The Shunammite woman told Elisha that she needed no boon for her kindness but was glad of the blessing. One day while in the field with his father, the boy took ill. He was carried back to his mother where he died in her lap. As our reading states she immediately went to find Elisha, and upon meeting him declared that she would not leave him until he went home with her. Eventually Elisha prayed over the boy and God restored him to life.

There are two junctures in this story where the Shunammite woman displays selflessness or seeks not her own good.  The first in which she prepares a room in her home for Elisha for his use when he travels nearby. She refuses to take reward when Elisha offers it. The second in which she travels to find Elisha after her son has died. Elisha’s reputation as a man of God – as The Man of God – is well known. Scripture says that he had a double portion of the spirit of his mentor Elijah who with but a word, stopped the rain from coming for a number of years.

Our text does not say so but one can infer that the Shunammite woman took quite a risk in confronting The Man of God. She fairly rebukes him when she finds him. “I didn’t want this child Elisha,” she seems to say, “but you had to go ahead and meddle, and now he’s dead. What are you going to do about it, Elisha?” You can almost hear her say.

In both instances the Shunammite woman was not seeking her own good, but attending to the welfare of others, even at the risk of her own life.

This then, it can be said, is the essence, the nature of love; selfless giving, even unto death. We often say that God is love. And Paul refers to love as “her.” And I’ve just offered to you that at its core, love is feminine.

I submit to you then this day then that God is a woman.

Now we believe that God is a spirit, or at least beyond the gender concerns of mortality. So I’m being a bit facetious in my supposition. However in practically every reference to God in scripture – and anywhere else for that matter – he is described in the masculine. So I think it’s fair to argue for a feminine interpretation, at least, in talking about the love of God.

Consider again the Shunammite woman. Scripture says that she was wealthy, a woman of means. She wanted for nothing. She was self-sufficient. It’s fair to assume that she had plenty of responsibility with the considerable holdings she shared with her husband and she had her own plans to carry out. Yet she set it all aside, first for the needs of Elisha and finally in putting herself at risk for the life of her son.  She was willing to extend herself for the needs of someone other than herself where she certainly didn’t have to.

In similar fashion God is self-sufficient, the uncaused first cause. She wants for nothing. She has considerable holdings. She has Her own plans and responsibilities. Yet She sets them aside for even the least of Her children. Children who wander into Her house needing shelter, needing support, needing comfort. God gives Her all for Her children. Even at the sacrifice of Her own son. Despite the fact that She doesn’t have to.

Consider beloved that God does not need us. Is not required or obligated to come to our rescue when it is we who have transgressed against God.

Time and again, isn’t this the mark of a woman, of a mother’s love? Wiping ungrateful noses, catering to the needs of often thoughtless children, asking for nothing in return. This is not the love that branches from eros, from “I love you because you love me,” that feel good love that we hear constantly on the radio. This is agape love. Selfless love. The love of a mother. The love of God.

We often proclaim that God is love. We say that we want to be more like God as embodied in Christ Jesus. Then perhaps we could benefit from the example of Godly women in our lives.

An Ecclesiastical Frame of Mind

“The sun rises and the sun sets,
    and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
    and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
    ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
    yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
    there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
    more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
    nor the ear its fill of hearing.” Ecclesiastes 1:5-8

Having yet to catch my breath from the current year, I can hardly look forward to a new one. But isn’t that kind of the point? Life moves on whether we’re ready for what comes or not, whether we want what it brings or not.

And I’m learning that “wanting” anything in terms of the outcomes of my living to be a pointless exercise. It’s akin to a leaf in a hurricane expecting to “get somewhere”, just tossed about aimlessly, spinning about comically with no defined path.

Better to adopt the pose of the surfer. Wait on the next wave and ride it for as long as I can. Enjoy it for as long as I can knowing that I will fall – often awkwardly and foolishly – until the last wave comes.

And knowing that I won’t be ready to stop.

FEAR OF A BLACK PARENT

We spend a lot of time afraid. Catch any local news broadcast and you will run the risk of fear dominating your life. When I was a child, I regularly imagined that my mother was abandoning me when she went off to work. She, and most of the women in my family, were my refuge. For I was often afraid of the men in my family. Which, I think, they rather preferred.

Black men in the 60’s and 70’s had very little agency beyond fear, especially in the South. Fear is what they knew, intimately. It kept them “in their place.” It often kept them alive.

To say that I was afraid of storms wouldn’t be quite right. Because storms didn’t bother me when I was with people. In fact,  in those circumstances, I rather enjoyed them. Which probably means that, at heart, I was afraid of being alone, of (again) abandonment. Similarly with the dark; as long as I was with someone, the dark held little terror.  However, proximity mattered much more in the dark. The closer the better, because if I was alone and others were not nearby in the dark, every fear was magnified. Every little sound brought terror.

As I grew older, I learned to subvert my fear because I realized that other people despised the fearful . Especially the men in my life. Showing fear meant that you were “weak,” and weakness was considered the worst trait of all. But hiding my fear made me into a fraud, because, while pretending to be brave, or at least, uninterested, I disguised the fact that I often felt things deeply.

And then, there was my father. I was certain at times that he didn’t like me. Oh, I’m sure that he “loved” me. I was his. What man doesn’t love what’s his? But I often felt like an interloper around him. Not unwanted, but certainly an inconvenience.

In retrospect, I’ve learned that a lot of what I took as my father’s disregard for me probably originated in illness. Today, he’d likely be diagnosed with sleep apnea. I have it myself and know from personal experience the brain fog and general peevishness that a chronic lack of sleep can cause. And that the energy and incessant curiosity of a small child in perpetual motion will set your nerves on edge.

What do I fear now? Death? Poverty? Disgrace? Obscurity? Surely, all of these at one time or another (and sometimes all together). But I think at the top of the list is that I don’t know myself. I faked it too long. Avoidance becomes reflexive after a while. Anything to avoid being found out, hiding so much that whatever is left of the real “you” gets warped beyond recognition. You can convince yourself of anything if it keeps you from facing yourself. But eventually, the bill comes due. Not that I necessarily pretend any less. But, acknowledging it is a start.

I be strokin’

September was quite a month.

Over the span of two weeks, I had two seizures, or, as they are referred to clinically, “hemorrhagic strokes,” due to a brain bleed.

I don’t like using the “stroke” word. Conjures up bad memories of paralysis and slurred speech and, you know, disability. And we don’t reckon well with disability in our society.

The first occurred on August 28th when I awoke to what I thought were leg cramps, only to realize that something was horribly wrong . The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor beside my bed, my daughter, who was standing nearby, already having called 911. Naturally, I was  disoriented, but we both remained remarkably calm given the circumstances.

My daughter, as many of you know, is an exemplary human being, by the way. She performs exceptionally well under pressure (takes after her mother).

Two EMS techs promptly arrived, took my vitals, and, since the results were basically “normal ”, actually asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. Reckoning (correctly) that I’d just had a seizure, I replied, “of course”. I was even able to walk to the gurney.

Twelve hours at U of M hospital and every scan known to man turned up nothing out of the ordinary, so they eventually released me having informed me that a certain percentage of the population will have a seizure in their lives and never have another. Of course, they advised, managing my weight and blood pressure would probably help prevent recurrence and I promised to “do better”, and put this aberration off to work stress and grieving the loss of my wife in April.

In the second instance, two weeks to the day, on September 11th, I was sitting in my home office when I became light-headed and I noticed tingling in my left foot. My daughter placed a second 911 call. This time, I had to be carried to the gurney and was awake for the onset of the second seizure enroute to U of M.

This I do not recommend.

Another round of scans turned up a brain bleed in the right lower quadrant of my dura. I have learned that the dura is a “thick membrane made of dense irregular connective tissue that surrounds the brain and spinal cord.” The source of the bleed was an “AV Fistula” which is “an irregular connection between an artery and a vein.” Or, as one of the smart people at U of M put it “a really gnarly mass of blood vessels that you were probably born with.” The blood leaked from my dura and made contact with my gray matter, which is never a good thing. 

Note: There is a “blood-brain barrier” for a reason, folks.

Do not cross it.

Now here’s the thing: a lot of people are born with AV Fistulas (or develop them at some point) and live their entire lives knowing nothing about them . A very small percentage of people will have them burst because of unmanaged (or poorly managed) high blood pressure and/or stress.

Of course, I was guilty of the former and living through the latter. Fortunately, the only “damage” resulting from this whole affair is some numbness in my left foot, which has greatly improved over time. But the numbness doesn’t hinder me;  I’ve taken to walking about 4 miles a day for exercise, which has helped me drop about 35 pounds and significantly reduced my blood pressure.

What have I learned?

Well, this whole year has taught me that I have control over nothing, something I knew but now truly understand. However I do have responsibilities; to my faith, my family, my job, and myself, to name a few. I’m no martyr, but I really wasn’t looking after that last item on the list. So I’ve made my health a priority. Otherwise, I really cannot live up to any other responsibilities, can I?

What did I get out of all of this?

Certainly, charity and support from family and extended family. “Extended family” being a wholly strange term that usually applies to friends. We generally think of the concept of extended family as “taking the other in,” of extending familial bonds beyond blood ties. Which, wrongly, makes family exclusive. As if, someone is being “let in” to a select club.

In my case, I see it as the other way around. Others extended themselves for me. It’s hard for us as Americans, and especially for Midwesteners, to accept the kindness of others, because we often labor under the notion that we are undeserving of care, of mercy, and, even of love.

But isn’t that the point of mercy, that it’s “unmerited favor?” You cannot “earn” the love of the people that care for you. “Earned love” is just “payback.” Something transactional and rancid and also, unfortunately, all too American.

Besides, “blood ties” are just a matter of circumstance. The instances of blood relatives who cannot stand each other are as common as water. I’m satisfied  with the family that I picked and that picked me.

September was one for the books, as was the entire year. I’m glad that things are as well as they are. 

The title I picked for this essay is a play on words from the title of an old Clarence Carter song (IYKYK). The carnal implications of Mr. Carter’s lyrics aside, there is also a commitment to stay with it, to keep going. 

To persevere. 

At the end of it all, that’s what I’m left with.

In spite of two successive strokes, perhaps, even because of them, I be strokin’.