I wasn’t entirely sure that I should leave. The thought of lingering in their midst, enjoying more conversation bounced in my mind as I reached for the doorknob. The company was sweet, erudite and committed to the process. The conversations were engaging and probative.
Sixteen grownups in socks, listening, digesting, contemplating the morass and morose of the eschatological moment. Dr. Lisa Bowens, Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary breaking the revelatory bread of the life and lessons of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In the house – turned conference space – turned monastery – turned sacred space, sat the hearts and minds of thoughtful scholars searching the past and provoking perspectives, in hope of producing together something prescient for the present moment.
And I left, unannounced, perhaps unnoticed. My feet moved me out the door, across the porch and down the steps to the undulating concrete sidewalk. My hips joined in the rebellion and turned me to the left as we had been invited. We had been told that there was a walk, a paved pathway that wound its way along the shoreline. We had been invited to take in the view. It was hinted, that from there, one could see halfway to forever. Maybe it was my soul driving my body without my mind being consulted? But I left. Alone.
It is hard to state the value of solitude. Especially when it comes after one’s mind has been opened… and filled… and drained… only for the process to begin again. How does one contemplate chaos? How is one to knit together yesterday’s prophetic with today’s profane while maintaining sanity and sobriety? How are we to think, as the sounds of children’s limbs being amputated without anesthesia reverberate through our psyche? How are we to listen to each other, as the bombs bursting in air give proof through the night that our flag is a portentous sign of injustice and death?
They didn’t know I noticed but their kindness leaked through. The scholars, thinkers, those who were malcontent and determined to reject the ubiquitous pressure to conform and accept life as it is lived, death as it is dealt and the powerlessness demanded by the society of which we are a part, laid bare their hearts and hopes. The men and women, there in that sacred space, listening, conferring, thinking… made space for each other… and me. I watched them as they listened. I felt them as they conferred with my own thoughts and offered them back to me honored. Their hope in humanity was undaunted by the violence and torrent of lies littering our lives.
The words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came alive as we read them. His ethos and imperative are as prophetic today as they were sixty years ago. His call to each of us, his example for all of us, still pleads for us to gather and move forward together. The essential MLK, resurrected from his postmortem commodification, breathed belligerent optimism in the face of the current obnoxious, malignant narcissism.
Martin is still alive.
I am not alone.
Hope has cards to play.
I hadn’t realized any of this until I was alone, on the paved pathway, sitting as the sun warmed my face, watching the tugboat in the distance pushing a barge out to sea, beneath the shadows of the mountains.