Together? How?: An Experiment in Biblical Genres

A Skripcha or Two

Although I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink; instead I hope to come to you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete. — 2 John 1:12 

"Because [she] possesses two turntables, a DJ exists in two time zones. One turntable plays music that the dancers are partying to right now, the other is playing music that they will be partying to in the imminent future. Now. Future. Alright?"— Netflix’s The Get Down.

A Psalm of Lament

I want a Hawaiian roll.

I can buy my own Hawaiian roll but it don’t hit the same without some baked chicken, green beans, a plastic table cover underneath. Accompanying soundtrack? Little kids running around the fellowship hall because now they get a chance to be loud.

I wanna hear church ladies talking about “how nice the children sounded this morning.”

I wanna hear the elders argue about who can catch the best fish. I wanna see the uncles preening their fros and mustaches right before they go up for prayer. I wanna see some eye rolls from teens as they just hold out and placate their families for the last few weeks before being shipped off to someone else’s alma mater. I wanna witness the “come see me after church” handoff, because “I went to that school in the 60’s, here’s some hot dog money, send me your address so I can check in on you.”

I wanna pass that candy bag around the first few rows and watch the saints come into church late, not because they live far, but because they wanna make an entrance with their outfit.

I want to see summer hair and fashions. I wanna run into people at the Boardwalk on dates and pretend like I ain’t see you because you want your privacy (and I want mine) but also….

shout outs to you for having a Sunday afternoon date at the boardwalk, message me about it later.

And I wanna run into you at Dance Africa by the corn and I want you to introduce me to your cousin who started the wobble (again) in front of the earring spot.

An Epistle to the Church at Blue Light

I want to make it through this season together. Maybe together doesn’t mean “on the same page,” or “agreeing consistently.” I don’t even actually know why “together” is something I feel so drawn towards. I felt seen when Angela Davis said, “There are some Black people I don’t want to unify with.” I don’t even want to be in the same room (or on the same flyer, these days) as people who have served as bully-proxies for White Supremacy. I want to be with people who also want to be free.

I learned this summer that some of our folks are more efficient bullies than the red hat crew. Because they went to our schools, they joined our sororities and fraternities, they preach at our church, they have cousins by our way. When I raised my voice about a Christian influencer (lol) hosting a self-hating homophobe on his show, I was reminded of just how evil our own folks can be. Black Christian trolls, in a pandemic, took the time to harass me and troll my accounts. It was so dizzying and heartbreaking. Instead of “trust Black women,” I watched how quickly people came to HIS defense for hosting such an irresponsible conversation.

I have learned that I am not rooting for everybody Black. I am rooting for everybody Black to be freed from internalized oppression and hatred. I pray that we learn how to love each other because Satan is BUSY. We don’t need to be each other’s nightmare. Why do the Devil’s work for him?

Imagine who we could be if all the time we spent convincing folks about the sacredness of Black queer and trans lives were actually spent doing something worthwhile?

Who could we be if we spent more time building our Arks and less time arguing about who can get on it?

What resources have we wasted by running the Diversity and Inclusion Conversation Train into the ground?

Still, after several months of not being together, I (maybe foolishly) crave togetherness.

I watched The Wiz and cried at Theresa Merritt singing, “The Feeling That We Have.”

I haven’t even gotten past the wounding of 2016. Some bells just can’t be un-rung. Some generalizations just can’t be forgotten. We’ve been gaslit. We’ve been swindled. We’ve been misquoted. We’ve been targeted. We have been programmed to be skeptical of people in our home, and we had few supports to restore trust. In every direction. Generational divides were made more drastic because we don’t even socialize in the same watering holes. We’re all operating off of the avatars we’ve designed for folks. People said things that they just can’t walk back now. And it’s not just about 2016.

Prophets have warned us all. They were rewarded with finger-wags and expulsion.

As a personal note, I’m embarrassed about how I let soundbites and clickbait titles get under my skin. I found myself responding to The Powers on the terms They’d set. And in that way, The Powers had already won. I wish I had fortified myself (and supported others in that quest) instead of trying to outrun the wickedness in high places.

I’m not ready for this election season. I wish we had space to pause enough to say that. But everything is so damn urgent. I owe so many people phone calls but I can’t right now. 

Hundreds of thousands of people are gone. Black people are so very intimately connected with Death through COVID. We all know someone who is never coming back. Because our national government is absolutely useless. It didn’t have to be this way. It’s been every state for itself, which, historically for Black people, YIKES. 

And Still. So many of us have not had a hug since March. We haven’t been able to smell burnt hot dogs at BBQ’s. We haven’t been in church in months. We haven’t been to parties, on dates with new people, on a real vacation. We haven’t seen each other’s actual faces in months. We’ve been teaching on zoom, beating ourselves up for not being able to seamlessly transition it all, and (in vain) dreaming what it would look like to “go back to normal.”

This World is trying its damndest to train us to be comfortable with mass death. There is no time to breathe, to cry, or to mourn. Prophets warned us. Using war-against-COVID metaphors sets us up to consider nurses, doctors, hospital workers, grocery clerks, cab drivers (and now waiters and nail techs) heroes. As veterans who die an honorable (and completely avoidable) death. But the truth is, they should still be here.

Our world has never allowed us to name our need for intimacy and for touch. Humans need intimacy. I don’t just mean sexual intimacy (because some people aren’t interested in that anyways). I mean, the kind of intimacy that makes space for you to ask, “what do you mean by abolition?” and “can you help me see it from your side?”

I’m talking about the kind of intimacy that the genderqueer court official in charge of all of Queen Candace’s bands had in Acts 8.

“How can I [understand] unless someone guides me? Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

The most skilled educators travel with people, even years after their death. Thank you Dr. Cone.

The most skilled organizers can see the potential in everyone. Thank you, Deacon Zelma.

The most skilled pastors can hold the complexities of life without excusing BS. Thank you Pastor Tabatha.

And all of this takes a level of intimacy that has been nearly impossible to replicate online.

I wonder how much longer the internet will exist.

It already doesn’t exist for so many.

Intimacy, trust and elastic community is the foundation of ANY movement. To organize now feels so cruel and impossible. To debate now, when we can’t see each other’s faces, and can’t restore with drinks at the bar or at the cafe, feels so odd. We sit here staring at electric squares, phones, iPads, Computers.

I’ve preached a few times virtually since this pandemic, and every time I close the computer, I cry. Preaching has very little to do with me. It’s about building connections and learning that so and so used to work with my mom, and Mrs. Whatshername lived down the block from my aunt in Ohio back in the day. It’s about peering into the congregation and seeing God’s people, and knowing that they see me back.

We’re not organizing under the same conditions as 2016. Some of the arguments we made then just don’t hold up now. 

The world is going to keep changing. What remains true in spite of it all? What do we deserve, no matter what? And what will we do to get it? 

I have more questions, but Mack asks great ones here.

“So what do we do then?” I want you to figure out what resources the elderly in your community need access to. I want you to help an elder do some grocery shopping. Is an elder struggling to afford prescriptions? As it stands, no one running for office is interested in even discussing universal healthcare. Perhaps you can help pay for their meds? Maybe do some crowdfunding? What about the single parent households where you live? I want you to be a resource to those who are about to struggle with starting virtual learning in the fall. Can you talk to them and find out what they need? Can you and a group of your friends mobilize around that? I want y’all to get so angry about what’s about to happen, that you do something. 

History from The BeforeTime

(I wrote this in February 2020 and it was never published. I haven’t changed the words at all.)

I remain in awe at how God moves through choirs. I felt this most vividly at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference. The Proctor Conference is a gathering of Black clergy and lay leaders who seek to deepen our practice of Justice and Ministry. It convenes mostly progressive Black folk around this: how do we faithfully dig deep into sacred Black imagination? What do we need as faithful leaders and comrades to become fortified in the fight for quality and affordable healthcare, housing and education? 

Of course, one thing we need is worship. And not just worship for the sake of worship. But worship as a necessary sacred container for the spectrum of human emotion. Joy. Lament. Grief. Curiosity. Hope. Fear. Worship can hold this. Worship can provoke this. 

At this year’s conference, the most beautiful moments have been when the Spirit b-r-o-k-e through technology. 

On a projected video during a plenary, the late Rev. Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor sang “I’m Gonna Stay On The Battlefield.” The in-person congregation assembled in the hotel ballroom continued on to the next verse. Without prompting.

The Holy Spirit poked Her head in. 

One night at an impromptu happy hour off-site, the DJ played You Brought the Sunshine by the Clark Sisters, and the entire bar of mostly young adults started singing and dancing.

The Holy Spirit cackled.

On another night, a backing track cut out (unexpectedly) and we could hear the choir in their fullness. They didn’t miss a beat.

The Holy Spirit danced among us. 

This same night, Brian Courtney Wilson started singing “A Great Work,” only for the energy in the room to shift as he and the choir led us in singing the vamp. Though he started with a backing track, he ended with the musicians following and an entire church full of Black people finding their note. The track may have had a limit, but the worship moment did not.

The Holy Spirit belted with us. 

After Dr. Raquel Lettsome preached a powerful sermon, Stachelle Bussey heard the call to go to the piano. She led us, with wisdom and grace, in a medley of “Alpha and Omega” and “Revelation 19 (Hallelujah, Salvation and Glory.” The multitalented conference music minister, Rev. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones helped us all by singing and directing us all from the stage. The Holy Spirit busted through. 

And then, Dr. Jeremiah Wright asked for the microphone and began to recite his signature narration behind Bussey’s “Total Praise.” The Holy Spirit captured us all. 

None of this was in the program. No one could have prepared for this, and yet, everyone was prepared. 

There is no substitute for the choir that assembles in the flesh.

There are many ways for us to assemble “in the flesh.” I have made the mistake in the past believing that “The Street™” is the only place we can work. You can be a worthy comrade from your own living room. Raising Black children who love themselves and others is the movement. Sharing meals and stories is the movement. 

There is room for all of us in this movement. 

Still, my fear is that with a dependence on livestream links and other forms of digital technology, we are teaching people that they can passively worship, learn, organize… all without meeting and building with other folks. Even worse, we sometimes behave as if the only worthwhile holy thing happens when someone is mic’d or in the view of the camera. But God said “all flesh.” Periodt.

And yet, digital activism still requires relationships, lest we fall prey to cyber-surveillance and infiltration. 

My fear was calmed when I saw how a choir assembled without a rehearsal. Without missing a beat, thanks to the anointed Rev. Dr. Alisha Jones and other musicians, the First Third Last Baptist Methodist AME COGIC Presbyterian Church of Proctor sang praises unto our God. It was moving. Moments like these give me hope. 

I wondered, if we can get hundreds of people to sing in harmony, what else can we do? What regimes can we overthrow? What prisons can we close? What homes can we save? What Black neighborhoods can we preserve and strengthen? What families could be restored and transformed? If we practice and rehearse new worlds through singing, what else can be possible? Who could be freed if we really lived into the fullness of the most liberating principles of our faith? If we didn’t just passively listen to sermons and lessons that called us to a higher version of ourselves? What if we let the song of Justice get stuck in our head all week, even after the conference? What if we truly surrendered to the move of the Holy Spirit?

As we head into this election season, we have to be as “wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.” We must be discerning about the battles we choose to fight, whether at the State Building, the church business meeting or in the comment section online. This movement is one that requires principled struggle. And there are always informants and agitators whose sole purpose is to sow seeds of discord. They want us to be mistrustful of each other. Which means, we have to ALL do our part to be trustworthy, compassionate, and worthwhile comrades. 

I want to be “worthy, my calling to fulfill.” I want to prove myself a trustworthy comrade. I don’t just want to call myself trustworthy, I want to be it.

I am embarrassed to say that there were a few people I met “in the flesh”  this last week who became unlikely friends. The one inch profile picture can only do so much. It was not until people had invited me for drinks or offered to help carry my stack of books from a workshop that I realized that I was responding to a fictional digital avatar I had designed in my mind. I was responding to the tweets and posts and stories, and not to the person behind the curtain. 

The Internet will do that to you, if you let it. 

If we are going to survive 2020 and beyond, we must commit to some sort of community. It may be a book club. Or an organizing home. A faith community. An artist collective. We must resist the temptation of letting one voice speak to and for us. We must find ways to build consensus and meaning together. We must surrender to the truth that we simply do not know everything. We must behave as if God is bigger than our egos and our voices, as if She sometimes speaks to someone else every once in a while. We have to figure out how to disagree in ways that get us closer to our shared purpose. It’s not going to be easy. That’s why we rarely do it. But in a moment when it’s so easy to abstain from showing up (however that looks), we must press towards love.

God can be found in our machines, but She is not confined to them. 

There are some moments that will not be captured via Livestream. There are some times when you must be present “in-the-flesh.” Which then compels us to ask, “what are we doing to make our communities loving, sustainable, truthful, accessible, welcoming and elastic? What will make this gathering one that transforms lives for the better?”

Come let us sing, let us rejoice. 

Commentary from the Writer

“We are often tossed and driv'n on the restless sea of time.”

If you’ve been paying attention, the communal grief through CoronaVirus comes in waves. Each new wave compounding (never canceling) the last.

First, we got ready for two weeks of being inside. We danced to DJ D-Nice. We made sourdough bread. We wrote letters. We praised ourselves for being tech-savvy “already.” We argued about who was doing church/school/mutual aid/dating right and wrong. We took virtual trips across the country to different panels and conferences. We learned how to do the Savage Challenge. People recited the “and the people stayed home” poem. We lost people. We lost people due to racist, sexist, transphobic malpractice across industries. And losing people changes you. Even if it doesn’t change you, that changes you. We poked our heads out to protest because police departments still found ways to kill us in a pandemic. We occupied spaces across the country. We argued at each other about voting in the United States, as if this country would ever argue about us with such passion. The Postal Service is in danger, and it’s been in danger. We’re about to see a wave of mass evictions, addresses are gonna change. Which makes living, and voting, quite challenging. We read Angela Davis all over again. We read about CeCe McDonald and listened to her in her own words. We registered for webinars. We engaged in mutual aid. We planted sunflowers. We taught grandma new music. We argued with people about WAP. We argued about protecting all Black women. We tried to feed the children. We tried to have parties. We got married. We got engaged.

And. We split up. We dealt with the shame of “not being able to make it.” We cried.

We fell back into unhealthy habits. We said goodbye to businesses that lasted generations. We texted people we shoulda BEEN left alone. We wondered if it would always be like this.

It’s been a hell of a year. And that’s not even the half of it.

The illusion was believing we could shift things onto Zoom without making many other assessments.

Why are we having the same Zoom conversations every week with no dreaming/action items at the end? At what point do we allow the Spirit to speak through, no, BREAK through, these machines? At what point do we divest from the cult of celebrity (both in pop culture and elsewhere) and get ready to do something ourselves? How many times will we speak to the State of Black America? And how many times will we passively watch Smart People (TM) tell us what the Revolution is?

Bibles are written by human beings. Your tweet threads are Lamentations. Your selfies are poetry. Your Facebook posts are epistles. Your webinars are histories.

We can look back at the Bible and say, “wow, we are living in the last and evil days.” We can use old books to confirm our own biases about “Jesus coming back looking for a church without a wrinkle or a blemish” and try to track his Citibike arrival. We can let the impending doom of the apocalypse send us into inaction and apathy.

Or.

We can look at the Bible and feel empathy for time-traveling comrades who lived under a different version of the monster we know today. There have always been Pharaohs, Caesars, Kings and Kingdoms. These are the ones who design textbooks and executive orders and inscriptions and decrees to their own glory.

And then there’s the rest of us.

Together? How?

Baby, I wish I knew. It’ll be revealed.

Keep pulling the curtain.