After 36 hours of plane and car rides I have finally arrived
in Grahamstown, South Africa!
Yes, 36 hours of travel is the physical and mental bear that
you might imagine. However, a day and a half of travel can reveal what it means
to be held and carried by grace. Such a notion of grace, for me, is the cosmic
stuff of God—the Mother Hen energy of God that protects and keeps us safe; and,
grace is the deep thankfulness and anticipation I have for the journey in which
I am embarking. I am physically and mentally exhausted; yet, the spiritual
sustenance of God’s love and my own joy for what lies ahead has kept me whole.
It has been my peace lying down, and my spritely rising up.
The morning of my departure, July 29th, began
with my sister Dominique waking me up to give me a parting gift. Her gift to me
was a black, wooden jewelry box that she made herself. On the outside of the
jewelry box she painted a façade of Africa, and a peace sign atop a heart. And
on the inside were all of the colors of the rainbow. For me this symbolized
that that which has materialized, this relational mission to Africa, is the
relational manifestation and essence of my own identity. In other words, the
very calling I feel to engage in relational evangelism, mission work—whatever
you prefer to call it—is fed by my socio-spiritual identification as a queer
man. For, queerness is the coming together of many things into one. For me, her
gift is a sacrament. It is a revelation that points to how what is on the inside
comes to bear that which is seen on the outside.
Then, it was off to the airport. And anyone who knows my
mother, Julia, and my father, Paul, can probably imagine the scene at our
good-bye. Julia was bawling and Paul was as cool as a cucumber, holding his
face in an ever certain smirk of approval. I can’t imagine, even for a second,
what it must mean to send your child away without the potential for immediate
access; so, holding my eagerness in tension with my mother’s apprehension was
difficult. Yet, my father’s evenness was so important in that moment, and
allowed for both my mother and I to live into our opposing anxieties. There was
a moment in the airport when the guttural reaction of each of us was held in
solidarity and legitimacy, even though they were different, even opposite,
perhaps. It was in that moment that we stood in love. Love is the intentional
binding of tensions into a single harmony. Sure, I wanted my parents to smile
and laugh me off with a hug, a kiss, and a wave. And sure, my mom wanted to
pack my bags to ensure I had everything and then run down the checklist again
before I left her sight. And sure, my dad wanted us to both to get it together.
But, none of our perfect realities were going to unfold as we’d hoped. So, for
a single moment we let each other be. We
went down into ourselves and came up in each other’s arms. Some might say, “we
let go, and we let God.”
My first flight was from Raleigh to Washington D.C. where I
would have a six hour layover. I was content with the layover. I just popped on
my earphones and proceeded to hold on to my love for North Carolina through J.
Cole’s “Born Sinner,” and thoughts of my childhood best friends, Kelly and
Kerwin, through John Mayer’s “Born and Raised,” and Asher Roth’s “Pabst and
Jazz.” And then I received a phone call from my oldest sister, Michelle. As
always, she was calling to make sure I was okay. If I was going to hear one
last voice before I left I wanted it to be hers. She was there from the
beginning of my application process to join the Young Adult Service Corps, and
the first stage of this process came full circle with her call.
After Michelle and I hung up I looked up. And what did I
see? I saw a Morehouse Man staring back at me. Yes, folks. A classmate from
college was sitting at the same gate waiting for the very same flight to South
Africa! And I saw him not too soon after my college President had wished me safe
travels on Facebook. Dr. Robert Michael Franklin, Jr. instilled in all of us at
Morehouse the importance of being well-traveled, and the high potential that
we’d meet another brother along the way. We knew each others presence, but not
each others names. And for some reason names didn’t matter at the moment. We
pointed at each other, and commenced conversation over a bottle of wine in a
restaurant in Dulles. He is from South Africa, and was able to tell me of the
people, the richness of the many cultures here, and some thing’s I might enjoy.
We praised God together, for bringing us together so unexpectedly. And having
flown between the States and South Africa so many times, I recognize him as an
angel of sorts—a person that God sends to us in unfamiliar spaces and times to
ground us in a sense of calm.
And it was off to South Africa…
To be given a gift that symbolizes how my identity is
becoming one with my calling, to have such disjointed emotional reactions to
separating from family held in a harmonious expression of love, for my last
phone call to be the first one I made when deciding whether or not I wanted to
travel abroad to live with God’s people elsewhere, and to unexpectedly board a
flight with a Morehouse brother moments after speaking to the man that told his
students we’d find each other all over the world, is like the concentric
circles that Ralph Waldo Emerson speaks of. Indeed, the most elemental truths
of life, from the homeostatic character of nature and our bodies, to the
unfolding of a persons story over time come meet in a full-orbed song of
balance, they come full circle; we are constantly creating a narrative for
ourselves with characters and storylines that occur to us as brand new, yet it
is the expression of the eternal in time. And in the moment of creation or
decision making—embracing ones self fully, applying to Morehouse College,
becoming a Missionary for the Episcopal Church—what we create or decide upon
may seem like an isolated decision or creation; yet, what I’ve come to realize
is that I am both living out a story I write day-by-day, and a story that has
been written in the stars. The coming together of so many narratives that seem
unrelated—stories of self-love, career, familial love, and fraternity—is an
epiphany that places great praise on my tongue. For, these concentric circles
of my life’s narrative is like the pulsating and vibrating of the Universe. And
to be entrusted with that sort of energy speaks a word of humility and
responsibility into my heart of hearts, and reveals to me the degree to which I
must be open to receiving the great deal of wisdom and love that the people
here in Grahamstown have to give; it is fodder for a greater story. And fixed
at the core of my soul is a sense of awe at the unexpected continuity of life
when it is lived fully and for the love of God!
There is more to come...in the name of God!
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