The Dig
A funny thing happens when you start getting up with the sun. Your body shifts towards the rise of nature.
After almost three hours of working in the yard. I uprooted so much junk, dirt, rock and discovered something growing in our front lawn!
It's wild how the soil was scattered, the grounds rock and littered with plastic waste and weeds growing from all directions, but in the digging came to comfort.
With each whack of the spade, a release of anger left my limbs. Diving forward I couldn't be stopped. I was mad. Of course, I was. Wrestling with wanting to both be on the front lines and at the same time a gapping wound sit dormant on my side, screaming for time to heal. Once again, I felt stuck.
The same stuck that seems to plague people still searching for a unity that's not been seen since color lines weren't drawn in shares but in picket fences.
But I continued to work.
I had to.
The sun beaming down on my slightly covered brow, I felt sweat run near my eyes.
I've cried spontaneous streams over the last three nights.
Bursts stemming from a frustration with the racial record we all seem to play.
“Why are we back where we were in 2016? 2012? 1992?”
The decades shift and we hit replay longing for the same answer to be the new solution and yet all we're left with are the blisters of a nation so excited to pop them for dramatic effect and continue in the pursuit of "normal".
What cannot escape my mind are the messages. The missed calls. DMs sent as a reminder that I'm not alone but often I'm left with the residual baggage of responding. Making sure that the individual who extended a hand is heard.
Seen.
Perhaps at times, it feels as though the gesture was never for me in the first place. And guilt floods in.
My hands were tired from beating soil that seems to go forever. But I do.
I continue the work.
Continue to dive into the matter
Surrounding the clusters with my bare hands until I can get closer to the root.
The true problem.
Yet, what's discouraging is feeling the root and seeing it's connected to the another.
And another.
And another.
A what feels endless cycle of a simple problem.
Perhaps this is why we stop before the truth.
Why we count our losses, consider the gains and rush back to the comfort we left upstairs in our own homes.
"At least I tried, right?"
There is something undeniable about the earth. We spend an eternity striving to get to the core and on our own, we fall short.
Protests erupt. Hashtags litter the soil as countless names, faces and voices chant the justice that is acknowledged but at its core deliberated on.
“Why must we still juggle Malcolm v Martin?”
Do we not see that the truth was always in unity at the core that could produce a guided action. Directed frustration is a power greater than gravity but a misguided rage sends embers all over the land.
So I pressed on.
Determined to lead with the iron spade towards the earth. Unshaken and determined. There are few things more beautiful than the body of black determined and equip.
Deep
Dig
Deep
B R E A T H E
Repeat.
I stayed with it. Passed calls. Distractions. Obligations to things that on the surface seem more important but a pandemic proves that faith, family, and food are all needed.
I thought of Psalms 55.
I thought of David.
Trapped in hiding from his enemies.
There seemed to be but no hope for his future. Death and hatred seemed clearly fixed on following him. As they persecuted those without justice he remained in hiding.
Healing and praying to God.
"Listen to my prayer, O God. Do not ignore my cry for help! Please listen and answer me, for I am overwhelmed by my troubles. My enemies shout at me, making loud and wicked threats. They bring trouble on me and angrily hunt me down. My heart pounds in my chest. The terror of death assaults me. Fear and trembling overwhelm me, and I can’t stop shaking. Oh, that I had wings like a dove; then I would fly away and rest! I would fly far away to the quiet of the wilderness.' (55:1-7)
As a Black man, I often want to fly.
Far away to the quiet of the wilderness.
The desire to run away is real. Our hearts pound with exhaustion that often gets misunderstood as 'Charisma'.
But all too often 'Aggression'.
We thought of the land I worked on.
I missed my days in northern France and the German countryside. Family my closest companions. My mother teaching me how to garden. Brothers and sisters armed with nothing but our laughter and imagination.
We were in a distant land.
We were safe.
However, we still were not free.
And then I remembered David's following cry.
"But I will call on God, and the Lord will rescue me. Morning, noon, and night I cry out in my distress, and the Lord hears my voice. He ransoms me and keeps me safe from the battle waged against me, though many still oppose me. God, who has ruled forever, will hear me and humble them. Interlude For my enemies refuse to change their ways; they do not fear God." (55:16-19)
Though not allowing my fatigue and pain to define me, I learn to breathe in it and through it. Casting it off to the God whose words have always been rooted in justice. A promise that salvation beyond is greater than the justice present. A reminder that the valley of the shadow of death had no power when surrounded by the community and family equipped for healing.
I see the soliders at their posts. Some protest. Others pray. Some legislate. Some create. But they fight.
Holding to a united front centered around the cause of deliverance like from Egypt to the promised land but from the hands of racial passivity and aggression towards equality through diversity. The messages of my brothers and sisters suddenly fill me with strength. The video chat and text from the comrade I've seen with battle scars to assure me of their companionship in this greater struggle gives me hope. The breath I intake with each moment shakes me with joy. And more importantly, the reminder of the simple word of David to God gives me peace.
““Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.” (55:22)”
I hold strong to that.
Uprooting the remains I find peace.
Drained and sweating I think of my past.
The ancestors whose blood left this world in a time capsule afraid to embrace new oxygen.
I breathe.
My work for the day is done.
I cast my burdens off to the greater.
Seeing them as what they are and not denying them but no longer do they carry the weight and power that the enemy of destruction and hate desperately clings to.
The victory is not in our burdens and the scars they bear but in our willingness to surrender them and fight from that place.