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By the Rivers of Babylon

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Yunghi Kim/Contact Press Images  Originally published October 2020 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept   when we remembered Zion.   There on the poplars   we hung our harps,   for there our captors asked us for songs,   our tormentors demanded songs of joy;   they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”     How can we sing the songs of the  Lord   while in a foreign land?  ~  Psalm 137:1-4, NIV   When I first moved to Minnesota one of my first actions was to look for a church to attend. I went to the Yellow Pages to find Methodist churches near where I lived and found two that got my attention. One was an African Methodist Episcopal Church which appealed because I have attended AME churches in the past, have relatives in Chicago and Texas who are members of AME churches, and love the music which sounds like the music in the Methodist churches I attended growing up. The other was a United Methodist Church which appealed because I’ve been a UMC member since I was a teenager in Chi
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“I Remember, I Believe”

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My maternal grandparents: Felix and Annie Mack   I don’t know how my mother walked her troubles down I don’t know how my father stood his ground I don’t know how my people survived slavery I do remember that’s why I believe   Sometimes, when life becomes too much to bear, I escape into music – listening or singing songs with lyrics that resonate with me or dancing to the rhythmic invitation of the Holy Spirit to enter into grace.   When I don’t have the energy, I let Sweet Honey in the Rock soothe my soul with songs like “We Are,” “Sing Oh Barren One,” and “Balm in Gilead” from their album  Sacred Ground . Or “Ballad of the Broken Word,” “Wanting Memories,” “No Mirrors in My Nana’s House,” and “Sojourner’s Battle Hymn” from  Still on the Journey , their 25 th  Anniversary album.   Lately, since 2020, I’ve lingered, listening to “Stay on the Battlefield” (from  Sacred Ground ) and “Ella’s Song” (from  Breaths )   more and more  because “We who believe in freedom cannot rest.”  But some
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Signs

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After learning my new cousin was a Teacher’s Assistant at the Georgia School for the Deaf, I eagerly asked her to teach me some signs. My teenage self was intrigued by this new language and I wanted to know more. Language and lexicon have fascinated me since I was a child reading the big dictionary and  World Book Encyclopedia  my grandmother kept at her house in Jackson, Mississippi. Public libraries were my second home in Chicago, but Black folk like me weren’t allowed in the Jackson public library and I was desperate for something to read when we visited Jackson. I’d already learned the Greek alphabet and used it to write my diary in a language my parents didn’t understand. But this sign language was a new language to explore. When we returned to Chicago from our visit to Georgia, I dug out the alphabet card I was given by a deaf man sometime in the past year or so. And I practiced the letters again but now I knew there was more than the alphabet to signing. Not knowing where to go
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I can’t stop thinking about Mamie Till

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I can’t stop thinking about Mamie Till.     If you don’t know Emmett Till, do some research. I’ll make it easy for you. Google “Jet Magazine Emmett Till Project” and you’ll find it all there, the way I remember this very familiar story.   For her son’s funeral, Mamie Till insisted on an open casket so the world can see "what they did to my baby.” His bloated tortured body was so unrecognizable, his mother had to identify him by a ring that he wore which was cutting into his fingers from the swollen flesh left in the water so long.   I’ve been thinking about the consequences of “perception becoming reality” and “there are two sides to every story.” Perception is never reality and all stories are multi-faceted, far more complex than two-dimensional. And stories are not reality either.   A jury decided that when a young man perceived his life was in danger, he was justified in murdering unarmed people he thought were a danger to him. His paranoia, his misconception, his bias was perc
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Beer and Bible: Is That Old Time Religion Good Enough?

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Give me that old time religion, Give me that old time religion, Give me that old time religion, It's good enough for me.   It was good for Paul and Silas, It was good for Paul and Silas, It was good for Paul and Silas, It's good enough for me   “Old Time Religion” (African American Spiritual, Public Domain)   Beer and Bible is a small bible study group at our church – about a dozen or so attendees has been our max number so far. B&B meets every 2nd Wednesday of the month at 6:30 pm to discuss selected scripture we’ve read on our own since the last gathering. Before the COVID Era (BCE), we met at Merlin’s Pub, a couple of blocks from our church, to drink a beverage of our choice, ranging from beer to wine to water. Not everyone likes beer. Some of us also enjoyed fish and chips with our drinks while some sampled other pub foods from the menu while others mooched off other people’s plates.    It’s a fun fellowship with a great deal of laughter and learning, critical thinking
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Why I'm Not Writing My Story- An Author's Journey

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(Dana Amihere/LAist) In late October or early November, Steve Reiser, my pastor at Epworth United Methodist Church, asked me if I wanted to write for  Black Voices Unveiled . It was a first-time event presented by Minnesota Annual Conference’s Commission on Race and Religion / Racial Reconciliation Movement partnered with Black Methodists for Church Renewal.   I hesitated to commit at first because I didn’t know what to write nor why I was writing it. I was full of questions with no answers. So I contacted Shawn Moore -- a pastor at Living Spirit UMC, one of the organizers, and someone I somewhat knew -- with an email bombarding him with all my questions about writing guidelines, theme, genre, audience, purpose, deadline, and more.   Ron Bell, a pastor at Camphor United Methodist Church and another organizer of the event, responded with answers to five of my many questions: The deadline – November 13 Theme – “ give voice to the current social condition we find ourselves” Purpose – “hel
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Color Struck: A Brighter Shade of Black

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  If you white,  yo u alright If you yellow,  y ou mellow If you brown,  s tick around If you black,  s tep back   We were Negroes and I was in the first grade when our teacher for some inexplicable reason asked us to line up by skin color. Thinking generously, one might think she was just trying out a new method for lining up so the same beginning and end of the alphabet weren’t in the front and the back. Thinking otherwise, one could imagine all manner of reasons as I have over the more than six decades since then.    Still it’s inexplicable because this was in segregated Mississippi, meaning all the students were Negroes as was our teacher. But I no longer think the why is really important as I look back.   I see my six-year-old self place myself in line among my darker chocolate friends near the end of the line. My friends laugh and my teacher tells me to stop fooling around. When I look at her with my face wrinkled in confusion, she grabs my arm and moves me until I’m second in li
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