Thoughts & Poetry From The Freedom Ride

Beloved Community

I am so thankful to have experienced the Freedom Ride Pilgrimage with others who have become the Beloved Community for me. Learning more about our cruel history was hard. Being in spaces that depicted so much anguish, pain, and injustice was heartbreaking. Deep sadness and anger welled up in me. How do we make amends? Hearing about the courageous souls who stood up to the injustice, despite the consequences, was inspiring and stirred in me hope for the future.

As I see what is happening now in this country - the division, the greed, the anger, the prejudice, the cruelty and lack of compassion, I wonder how I can live as Howard Thurman encourages us to live...with love and grace. I realize that I need the Beloved Community to keep reminding me that non-violent resistance and love are the only ways to justice and peace.

In the words of Coretta Scott King: "I still believe that Love, universal, unconditional Love, is the key to peace. Love leads to Forgiveness. Forgiveness leads to Healing. Healing leads to Community. Community leads to lasting peace." May it be so.

- Robin Brooks

I Lay It Down

Baptized into..
Overtaken by
Washed in the
Tears and fetid waste of nourishment that delays our drowning in the
Blood of the ones beside us, above us
Gasping in the under tow of sweat mingled with the stench of sorrow
for loss and lost and laws that govern this vessel of death
Plunged into the depths of dark wonder, wondering and wandering deeper still
I’ll take my chances…
I’ll take me to the waters..
I know this dying way..
Giving my breath and breathing the breadth and depth of salty expanse
Eyes open to the Sky
Me enveloped into a sea of cry
The uttermost parts of the sea
I know, I’m known and no free falling..
Your right hand holds me
Will Raise me to life
Sweet dove descending
3 days in the depths
I’ll fly away

- Alisa Ginyard

Freedom Ride, The Donkey & Grace

As I participated last week in the Freedom Ride down to Montgomery, AL my mind wandered to GK Cherston's poem on the donkey.  The poem outlines the "monstrous, sickening cry of the tattered outlaw" in the donley.  I have this vision of the donkey being kicked around.  

In many ways, that image is what I saw last week in Montgomery at the Legacy Museum.  A black race being kicked around.  Tattered, scourged, broken.  

And yet, if you read on in the donkey poem, you come to the end and read :

"For I also had my hour, one far fierce hour and sweet, there was a shout about my ears and palms about my feet."  I cherish how the donkey was the animal of choice for Jesus to ride in on that Palm Sunday.  And in the same vein, this sweet aroma of the donkey I constantly exhibit in the grace that black Christians have for me.  I count it a miracle.  Their love, joy and grace for me despite my inability to truly understand what my ancestors did to their ancestors and how I might perpetuate that in my own life today.     

The grace that the donkey received from Jesus is the same grace I witnessed last week from the 16 black folk towards the 33 white folk.  It was a joy to behold.  Amen.

- Steve Swayne

I Give You A New Commandment

In John 13:34-35, Jesus said, “ I give you a new commandment - that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.” I thought of these verses over and over on the Freedom Ride, of how I and many others have failed to do this particularly in our current culture. It was heartbreaking and painful to see and read stories of what human can do to each other, of families torn apart and people lynched for petty reasons. I was encouraged by the faith of Civil Rights leaders to persist with nonviolence when faced with so much hatred and violence. In our world today, we encounter a lot of anger. Yet on this trip, diverse individuals, many who had not met before, started a pilgrimage together that was exhausting and also joyful. We listened to each other - sometimes disagreed, and learned to care for and love each other. So going forward, I keep thinking of these verses from the “Right Reflections with Others” prayer by Dr. Howard Thurman, “Our Father, we come to Thee, seeking in quiet ways the courage to ease the tensions and break the discord in which, in one way or another our lives are surrounded….”

- Brenda Summers

Wall at the King Center in Atlanta