Where Harmony Lives…
By: Mazaré
imagine this...
you push open the doors
and a warm, cinnamon-scented
blanket
with fresh-from-the-dryer heat
envelops you.
there.
i wanna go there.
i wanna go to a place where
what greets me is:
“welcome, truly.
you are free
to hang your masks, walls, and cloaks
on our rack.
you’re black.
beautiful!
we won’t draw back.
we’ll draw you in.
we don’t recoil
when we see different skin.
we rejoice.
and not in some
moist, gooey
i’m just using you
to buoy
our numbers
way.
you can’t be quantified.
****************
guide me there.
show me a church
where
people dress in
kimonos & kente,
dashikis & saris,
hanbok & sarong,
to worship God.
and the kimonos play with the kentes.
the dashikis and saris are like magnets.
the hanbok know and love the sarong
intimately.
here in this community,
leadership reflects the people.
power is shared
among the mice and the eagles.
hierarchy is fair
and members view
the so-called poor
as their equals.
peaceful
doesn’t mean pepper me with polite platitudes.
it means spit me the salty truth
so we can spread salve
on the wounds.
i want a church where they confess the most grotesque offenses
like how they used to barricade the doors
to keep blacks from attending
and used to teach interracial marriages were sin.
show me a congregation
whose pulpit has moving feet,
whose pews morph into race cars
that after the sermon
will speed you into the streets.
be ready to disciple me.
and when you give me something to read,
look beyond Keller, Calvin, and Graham.
teach me about Origen and Tertullian,
some of the african OGs.
and
Trillia Newbell, K.A. Ellis,
and Brenda Salter McNeil.
do a gender reveal.
show me the black women
who also have the theologian seal.
much respect to R.C. Sproul,
but white men aren’t the only ones
who can write about the gospel
and I need to see
being a faithful black woman of God
modeled
bring me to a place
where people who are different colors
genuinely enjoy one another.
and where people also understand
that sometimes
i just need to recharge
my battery
with my black friends.
take me to a church where
after service
you’ll smell fried fish and greens,
and bibimbap, pho,
and even a little kimchi.
i want that harmony aroma.
with a heaping helping of cinnamon.
a warm blanket that welcomes me and says
this is harmony.
this is home.
where you been?