Pre-Blog Writting 1

Monday, August 25, 2008

8:04pm
I hadn’t expected to be so moved. I recognize how historic the goings on are. I acknowledge the vast sentiment of disbelief coupled with profound amazement. I know that a wonderful thing is happening. But I hadn’t expected to be so moved.

The energy began anew on Saturday. I watched as the Democratic presumptive nominee Barak Obama shared with the world his choice for a running mate in Senator Joseph Biden from Delaware. However before then, I had seen countless youtube videos; I had visited http://www.barackobama.com/ multiple times daily; I had yelled with excited and cursed with anger as I took in the drama of the primary season. I even shed a tear or two on the night when he was confirmed as the presumptive nominee…that night when I looked on as a silent observer (a voyeur or sorts), as these older black women (regal, classy, gray-haired women) stared at a television screen, numb and transfixed by the event. They looked almost as if they could scarcely believe their eyes…as if they wanted so desperately to believe, but had lived far too long to give into what could very well have been a mirage. They stared. I stared.

However, something has shifted. What I thought I had known…what I believed I had understood…took a turn over the past few days. You see, yesterday I was schooled by my dear friend and brother, Charles Reese (who tends to school me often) on the historical fact that this coming Thursday, August 28, 2008 marks the 45th anniversary of the day when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood before a sea of believers and those laden with curiosity to proclaim a dream, and on that day two score and five years later, Barack Obama will stand before yet another sea of believers (and those laden with curiosity) as a living testament to the infinite potential embedded in a dream.



So today, I watched the opening ceremonies of the Democratic National Committee Convention. As I watched, I noticed that within me a deep emotional tide was welling up. Speaker after speaker surged the wave. It swelled. It was clear in one sense that I was witnessing history, not being made, but unfolding. The significance took my breath away. You see, for most of these 32 years, I have shown up in the world as a little black boy; who grew up in a little black community; who learned piece-mill about a history and a heritage; enslavement; and a struggle for freedom and justice. I grew up a little black boy who knew first hand what can manifest in a life that agrees to lack and limitation. But today, I’m an African-American man who had allowed a belief in the notion that “it’s just the right time” to delude me. My understanding is profoundly different now.

First, I understand that the only thing that is going on here is God! I know beyond doubt that only the Universe governed by a loving, conscious Spirit can align so many variables to orchestrate the wonderment of this symphony. I am conscious that the ancestors are rejoicing, but this consciousness is fully aware that these ancestors I speak of showed up in the world as former slaves and slave-owners alike, and spanned the rainbow of skin tones and ideologies and individual expressions. You see, we all are of one Spirit, and each of us has come by this way to show forth the glory of God; to bring about a most clear understanding of all that is scared and true.

There is great significance in the awareness that through the lenses of the complete story we are able to see all the beauty that lies in this very special moment. By "complete story" I mean: the stolen Africans and those that were bartered by tribal kings and heads of clans in exchange for guns and goods; the rebellious captive and those that quietly endured; the ship’s captain, the crew, the auctioneer, as well as the man (I reckon) who built the block; the field slave, the overseer as well as the house negro; “Massah” and “Miss Jane” as well as “boy” and “gal”; the abolitionist as well as the capitalist… that followed the hounds…that had the scent…and ferociously pursued the return of lost property; the trail of tears, the civil war, the great speech at Gettysburg, and the Juneteenth emancipation; Plessey vs. Furgerson, Jim Crow, poll taxes; Brown vs. the Board; the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights Movement, the Gay Rights Movement, the Farm Workers Movement, the Chicano Movement, and the movement for every other cause or group perceived to be disenfranchised and oppressed by seeming others; oh, and let’s not forget the men in sheets and the gun toting gang-bangers that terrorize our streets as well as those that sit behind antique desks… in oval offices… in white houses… as heads of state. However, if you look with the intention of seeing rightly you will discover, as I have discovered, that this trajectory of human experience is a divine amalgamation which has presented us so perfectly with an immaculate conception.

It is with this consciousness that I beheld history tonight. My body shook with a wellspring of emotion when a wife, who loves her husband, stood atop the heap of our combined story and set the stage for all of humanity to bear witness to what happens when consciousness perceives reality as not being held captive to that only which the eyes can see. Tonight I witnessed a demonstration of faith – the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen – and I have a slight inclination that as the week progresses, our collective faith will be healed.