Some days, my aunt will paste a Bible scripture into the tiny group chat that we share with my mom (her sister) and my cousin (her son). It’s where we share baby pictures, family news, and little reminders of how much we love each other. I’m the niece with something positive to say and something more important to do every time that Grandma invites me to her itty bitty church. I’m more likely to fav a quote from a celeb than The Holy Book, just because one feels less distant than the other. I could visit Hollywood in a heartbeat, but I’d have to lose one to get to Heaven.
When I was in elementary school at a private, catholic academy, I had lots of questions. Why did that one kid still have to come to class? Why didn’t the only other boy with a skin tone as warm as mine and a mom with a red dot on her forehead not close his eyes to pray when the rest of us did? Do people everywhere pray to this same God? When will we get to learn about these people? I knew I wouldn’t find these answers during school hours, so I did the grownup thing and scheduled a meeting with my pastor. He sat patiently, coolly reclining in his armchair, with a finger on his temple. He came prepared to answer each of the questions scribbled in my glittered notebook from his own sanctified memory. He said some words that the butterflies in my stomach flutter a little less and didn’t try to make the ever after sound too happy.
For a few Sundays after that, I was determined to find an image of God who looked like someone I wouldn’t mind getting close to. I’d close my eyes and think of a coconut-brown being in creamy white clothes and an everlasting desire to make me feel better and reassure me that everything would be okay. I can’t say that I was able to draw this image from my imagination alone. I needed to borrow the colors from a few others to paint a fuller picture.
On the rides to the church in my itchy stockings, flouncy dresses, and constricting sweaters, the music from the gospel station would invite me to breathe a little easier. If I just listened, I could hear that someone somewhere had loved Him enough to write a song about it. There were revelations, resurrections, trials, triumphs and testimonies. I was drawn by the strong language and the journeys that rested just beneath these stories. It didn’t sound like anyone could just wake up and get it. They had to walk. They had to fall. They had to stumble to know.
Thanks to Kirk Franklin, Mary Mary and The Clark Sisters whose buttery voices submitted to Him in the morning and made it all sound much more familiar. It had the echoes of the sugary voices that went on an endless search for love or money during rush-hour and on the late night stations. It was the same yearning, the same hunt, the same bitterness burned into serenity. I began to fall more in love with the journey than the destination.
Is this where I say that R&B is my gospel? Is there where I reassure you that I still pray to God using my own language? I think I just did. Amen.
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