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.

Aunt Lois

Aunt Lois once told me of the time several spotted goats appeared on the family homestead out of nowhere during a storm. Her dad, my great grandfather, made inquiries throughout the community for several weeks but no one ever claimed them. She gently, but firmly, scoffed at my suggestion that perhaps it was some type of sign that our family was somehow “set apart” in the same manner as done in scripture (in the story of Jacob I believe).

On another occasion, when she caught me bragging on her carport about my impending baptism to some friends, Aunt Lois called me inside and cautioned, “Son you can go in that water a dry devil and come out a wet one. It’s just tap water. What matters is your commitment and growth.”

Finally, upon learning of  a betrayal by a girlfriend whom she never really cared for, Aunt Lois said, “You can set your best linen and silverware, light your finest dinner candles, and then take out your most prized crystal bowl and go out into the yard and fill it with chicken shit. When you sit back down at your finely set table and put that first forkful into your mouth it will not miraculously change to chicken salad.”

Do you sense a pattern? 

Which is not to say that Aunt Lois wasn’t filled with a sense of wonder. It’s just that she reserved it for important things; like an exceptional sunset or the satisfaction of a good day’s labor and the laughter of friends.

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’.

Words Are Important (and so is owning the means of production)

Okay, so the term “truck farm” has nothing intrinsically to do with trucks. “Truck” is taken from the old north French word “troquer” which means “to barter” or “trade.” And here I’ve been wrong all of this time.

Fact is, many of the roadside farms that I’ve referred to as “Truck Farms” are actually “Market Gardens” in that they provide fresh produce for sale to a local market – usually a city – rather than to feed the farmer’s family.

Evidently, what distinguishes a “market” from a “farm” is the implement used. The former, a hoe, the latter, a plough.

Also, selling wholesale will earn a farmer 10% – 20% of the retail price while selling directly will earn 100% or $120/acre – $1200/acre vs $8k/acre – $20k/acre.

Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_garden#:~:text=Truck%20farms%20produce%20vegetables%20for,barter%22%20or%20%22exchange%22.

Free-ish

I approach all things surrounding Emancipation with footnotes. For instance:

1) The Emancipation Proclamation did not cover the slave states (Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri) that remained in the Union or were considered “border states”. Lincoln didn’t want to tip them toward the Confederacy. So the main intent couldn’t have been the complete manumission of the enslaved.

2) The announcement at Galveston on “Juneteenth” was not calibrated toward the complete freedom of the formerly enslaved. In fact, it seems to present a set up for the eventual establishment of Jim Crow. From General Order 3: “The freed are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” Note that there are no provisos given for the former enslavers (and no mention of “back pay” for the formerly enslaved).

I Swanni!

A while ago I learned that many of the idioms that I heard regularly down south in my youth were merely obscure forms of english, even old english (or Olde English, if you please).

Peep the 2nd meaning of the verb form below. I used to hear folks say “I swan…” or “I swanni” (sp) all the time growing up.

I had decided that it was a prudish attempt to avoid saying “I swear”. Because, I reasoned, some folks took the biblical admonition against swearing, or even using the word “swear”, very seriously.

Looks like I had that all wrong.

swan
PRONUNCIATION:
(swan)

MEANING:
noun: 1. Any of various long-necked large waterbirds, usually in white plumage.
2. Someone or something of unusual beauty, grace, purity, etc.

verb intr.: 1. To move about in an idle, aimless way.
2. To declare or to swear.

Ambivalence

It’s always ambivalence.

That’s the general feeling I associate with America. Take “General Order Number 3”, the official document associated with Juneteenth which says in part: "The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."

There’s always that parting shot,

“…they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

It’s the loophole that Jim Crow and The Black Codes ride through.

And remember, The Emancipation Proclamation freed the enslaved of the Confederacy on January 1, 1863. Also keep in mind that there were Union states where black citizens remained enslaved until the passage of the 13th Amendment.

So, let’s recap: Two and a half years after The Emancipation Proclamation which preserved slavery in Union territory, the enslaved of Texas were informed that they had been freed, conditional on a broad interpretation of their “good behavior” (check out that other loophole in the 13th Amendment).

Hence the source of my ambivalence.

My daughter has a Juneteenth poster somewhere around here inscribed with the tag #freeish

Here’s to a day when we’re all free.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_No._3#Physical_document

It May Be Time to Shake Off the Dust

Laban said, “This heap is a witness between you and me today.” That is why it was called Galeed. 49 It was also called Mizpah,[c] because he said, “May the Lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other. – Genesis: 31:48-49

If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. – Matthew 10:14

A bit of drama from the Michigan state senate gained the national spotlight recently. In a campaign mailing, Lana Theis, the state senator from Brighton, implied that state senator Mallory McMorrow, of Royal Oak, was involved in “sexually grooming” children for a supposed pedophile ring and that furthermore, Senator McMorrow is supporting something called the “raced based” education of our children.

The first accusation carries serious legal implications and should not be taken lightly. One would think that an accusation of this magnitude, with dire implications for our children’s safety, should be shared with local, federal, state authorities rather than be included in a fundraising email.

The second accusation, that of supporting “raced based education”, is overly broad and open to interpretation covering a potential spectrum between The Honorable Elijah Mohammed and The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. The major focus of the life’s work of both men had to do with race, yet from entirely different angles of approach.

Senator McMorrow did not take these accusations lying down. She stood in the Michigan chamber and delivered a powerful speech refuting Senator Theis’s lies and innuendo. Furthermore, McMorrow boldly stood up for the rights of citizens who are marginalized by Theis’s stance. The speech only lasted five minutes but it resounded around the globe as a long overdue response to the increasingly fascist, authoritarian, and racist public stance of the Republican party. Senator McMorrow has been rightly celebrated for the principles, passion and integrity exemplified in her comments. But her speech is not what I’d like to focus on today. It’s what she said after the speech. When asked if she would continue to work with Senator Theis in the senate, McMorrow stated that she had no interest in working with her further.

This would seem to run counter to the orthodoxy of a lot of politicians, including our current president, and many in the media, who urge Americans to find compromise with those with whom we disagree.

I’m here to suggest that it may be time to “shake the dust off our feet”.

When I was a teenager, we used to close our Baptist Youth Fellowship meetings at my home church in St. Louis with words taken from an Old Testament text: “May the Lord watch between me and thee, while we’re absent, one from another.” We discontinued the practice after someone reviewed the text leading up to that scripture and put it in proper context. In short, it’s the story of the dissolution of the relationship between Jacob, the Patriarch, and his cousin, Laban, for whom Jacob had worked for 20 years. Jacob felt that Laban had not dealt fairly with him. In fact, Jacob had been ordered by God to take his household, consisting of two of Laban’s daughters, and his share of Laban’s flock – that he’d worked for – and leave. Once he’d learned of Jacob’s surreptitious departure, Laban pursued him.

He eventually caught up with Jacob and after a lot of back and forth and rehashing of grievances, we come to what amounts to a covenant between the two men that signifies the dissolution of their relationship. However, I do not interpret this as an amicable parting. For in verse 52 and 53 Laban further states: 52 “This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this heap to your side to harm you and that you will not go past this heap and pillar to my side to harm me. 53 May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.”

These men will not be visiting each other for the holidays. They have irreconcilable differences. Jacob has taken a stand for himself and for what is right. To continue to associate with Laban would be foolhardy. Likewise, rightly, or wrongly Laban feels that he is the aggrieved party. For him to continue to ally with Jacob is pointless.

Turning to our New Testament scripture, we find Jesus instructing the disciples as he sends them out to preach and heal in his name. He has been very specific in his instructions, as one would think he’d be. These are his representatives. What strikes me is that Jesus makes the disciples completely reliant on the people they will be ministering to. He instructs them to take no coin with them, to not even take any extra clothes. “… for the worker is worth his keep,” he says.

This is vital because I believe it leads to the admonition to “shake off the dust.” If the people you are ministering to and working with don’t recognize your worth – and by extension, the worth of the God in you – move on. They aren’t worth the time. In similar fashion, Jacob, God’s anointed, had labored faithfully in Laban’s household. His worth was not reciprocated in kind, so God instructed Jacob to move on. When Laban caught up with Jacob after seven days, he chastised Jacob in bad faith for “abandoning” him. When it was obviously Jacob who had been mistreated.

All of this presumes that what one is trying to accomplish aligns with the will and purpose of God. But beloved, God does not want us to waste our efforts in alliance with those who would abuse us. We are to use discernment in our alliances. And while we are not to think too highly of ourselves, this is his mission after all, we are not allowed to waste God’s time. In verse sixteen Christ admonishes his disciples to be “shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves.”

So, I think Senator McMorrow was in order when she declared that she no longer intended to work with Senator Theis. There is an oft quoted epigram of Maya Angelou that says, “When people show you who they are the first time believe them.” Consider that the line is part of a larger quote that reads in part, “Live your life in truth. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. You will survive anything if you live your life from the point of view of truth.” Or again, again, as the Savior said, “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.”

Blot

“However our present interests may restrain us within our own limits, it is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits, & cover the whole northern, if not the southern continent, with a people speaking a same language, governed in similar forms, & by similar laws; nor can we contemplate with satisfaction either blot or mixture on that surface.” Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, November 24, 1801

“… nor can we contemplate with satisfaction either blot or mixture on the surface.” Ironic, right? Because based on not so recent scholarship, Thomas Jefferson had little reservation about mixing with at least one of the “blots” on at least six different occasions.

As much as we like to believe the origins of the American character are forged in democracy & fraternity, we’d be negligent if we didn’t consider the very strong impulses toward imperialism and white supremacy ably carried by the vessel of “Manifest Destiny.” Jefferson’s letter to James Monroe, excerpted above, was written roughly three years before he commissioned Lewis and Clark to map the Northwest Territory which he’d just bought from France, ignoring the sovereignty of the many nations of indigenous people who’d already live on this continent for centuries.

Lewis & Clark set out from St. Louis, the very site of the Cahokians, the “Mound Builders” who had established a vast civilization some 800 years prior. They built a network of at least 70 mounds used for festivals, religious rituals, and observing the stars. I camped in the state park near the few remaining mounds as a Boy Scout. We were told that they were crude burial grounds. The area surrounding the park has been zoned for industrial and commercial use. The nearby exits look like just about every other off-ramp in America, a mixture of gas stations, big box stores, and fast food franchises. Which is what it is, right? The new always supplants the old. Every city is built over the bones of earlier attempts at civilization.

But consider that Cahokia and the rest of the continental U.S. weren’t “settled” as much as taken by force. The civilizations already established on the land weren’t supplanted. They were obliterated. The bones of their prior cities ground to dust, or, as in the case of the Cahokia mounds, used to backfill the foundations of the new cities.