whirlwind.

whirlwind. the best word to describe the glorying fury/furying glory of the past 3 days (and 2 weeks).

2 days ago we held hands and shared the body of Christ under a bridge and sang glory to God arrayed in our varying shades of black, brown and beige.

yesterday hands young and old, hearts "poncho-laden and collard-lovin, dug deep into our common roots - betwixt the rhizomes and wriggling things - the deep dark living earth to honor a man whose life lives on and reminds us that we've strayed so far from the garden and grace God intended for us as brothers and sisters.

this morning folks looking their sunday best gathered with those looking their farmer worse-for-wear , kleenex and prayers abounding. what is this power that brings together the satin-laced and the dirt-caked? looking like a pie-piece of the kingdom come. history changed. and yet the goats still need to be milked. the eggs washed.

"Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of."

i left my quiet pastoral iowa town with dreams all up in my head to never resign to the everyday. the ordinary. but to fight the system. never become complacent. so i moved to the southside of chicago and received my true schooling. in the reality of race politics. was schooled daily by very large men recently released from prison. and my heart grew dark (and my speech a bit ghetto now and again).

these past 3 days have given me bit more hope that we - a fallen humanity and christianity - are doing a bit better at reconciling our ways, but my heart (unlike the heart of my fellow farming friend, see previous post) still remains cynical and black.

until the day i can walk down mlk boulevard or mlk drive and do not see a young man selling his future for pocket change and prestige, or a young lady selling her dignity for her baby's future. only when i see a wild stand of collard greens and cabbage sold by high school students who dream of college and will work weekends in windy waco weather to make their dreams of first generation college student a reality - only then will i believe that we are on our way to making mlk's dream more than a forty-year-old forgotten longing.

"Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair."

i haven't become complacent, but i have come to understand that the revolution begins with these small everyday tasks, the stitching of hems and patching of tires. God bless us, farmers and politicians, whoever we may be, as we go about our days, repairing the things in need of repair.


(lines from elizabeth alexander' inaugural poem)