I never met an African American before entering the Army less than a year earlier. Then this. It’s hard not to feel anointed by the privilege.
Their alleluias and amens will be part of the symphony that ushers me out of this incarnation whadaya bet.
My mind has turned to them so many times. When Dr. King was murdered. When John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists at the ’68 Olympics. Barack Obama’s first election night. Reading Isabel Wilkerson’s masterpiece, “The Warmth of Other Suns”….
Most recently this World Cup team. A band of women playing for a lot more than national pride of the flag waving variety. They represent a consideration vital to the health of humankind. Something beyond equal pay, or the acceptance of many forms of self-identity, or even the significance of women to the world’s survival––important as those things are.
This team, to me, symbolizes the wondrous light of truth leading the dark world of ignorance that sees only “us and them” to the power of divinity that can be characterized in a single word: Kinship––everybody inside the tent.
And as I reflect on this primal force of dignity, I hear the amens and alleluias of that other team of a half-century ago.
The symphony gets only richer.
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