This morning’s canticles used the words “Glory!” and “Splendor!”
Ray used “Forsythia!” and “Camellia!” His asymmetrical masterpieces have earned him the nickname Ray-Angelo from one of his flower teammates. He says when creating an arrangement that his goal is to bring the outside in. This act describes my seeking after glory and splendor well.
Like many others, I grew up thinking of God personified. I am grateful to now ponder and use a wide and deep swath of Holy Names and descriptors for the Ineffable.
Removal of gall bladder. Removal of bladder. Reconstruction of brain surgery. Diagnosis of breast cancer. Esophageal cancer….
These are the ailments of my friends that spring to mind when the priest asks for “our prayer requests either silently or in the chat” during zoom Morning Prayer.
I lived this history. I remember my parents’ nervous whispers about Malcolm X over the newspaper or in front of news on our grainy black-and-white TV. I remember seemingly one assassination after another. I remember when my father, our elementary school principal, gathered us all in the auditorium to watch Martin Luther King, Jr’s funeral. A Black classmate told me that’s the act he remembers most vividly and gratefully about my Dad.
Studying this history almost sixty years later and reliving it from great seats at McCaw Hall last night was spell-binding.
The one blemish was when we returned to our seats after intermission. I heard the larger, older white man sitting on the aisle call a younger Black woman in our party “rude” when she struggled to climb over him. Wow. She tried to stick up for herself and, being one who generally believes it takes two to tango, I still wanted to wring his neck. All I could do in my anger and fear was retreat to find an usher. What was he thinking?! Of course, in that environment, he should have bowed to her or at least stood up to let us pass.
After all, we were there because Black Lives Matter. We whites must learn and act civilly, kindly, and justly on what history has tried to teach us.
Always Bridging 