I'd stare at them, face askew and tilted, while they jumped up and down, eyes swelling and hands stretched, as to reach the ceiling or some invisible apparition to which I was not privy. It was comical, and sometimes frightening to see bodies, once under human control, now limber, serene, connected to the unknown. They'd cry. More than cry. They'd weep - a stream of tears so genuine that it felt foreign to me. I was not a part of this community though I sat rows away from these sights and sounds. But how could I understand? I was someone who had sworn off emotion as a coping mechanism to maintain some socially constructed idea of masculinity. How foolish was I.
Some of them would run, a fire lit ever so strategically in their shirts near the position where the heart lay behind the rib cage. They would pant. Others ran to extinguish some burning that had taken hold of their feet. I had never felt it, so why did they. This too was funny - and yet frightening.
I'd turn to my grandmother on these Sundays, face shown with half amusement/half curiosity and I would ask "Why do people do that? Why do they act like THAT?" She'd calmly turn to me, bright chocolate face with the whitest pearls of teeth, and she'd whisper, "Baby, you gotta go through somethin' to understand why people act like THAT."
That message, though simple, never left me. But it also didn't make sense. Go through something? How unfair - that my belonging to a group was dependent solely on an experience I had yet to have. I wasn't sure that in my lifetime I would ever go through something. I'd never be a part of THAT community.
I was wrong.
In reflection, now, I can see that my grandmother never put a stipulation on the act of praise, the outcry of pure thankfulness to the creator. I made that part up. She was simply putting life into a perspective that I, as her sheltered grandson, could understand.
Now after all these years I get it. I get the reason why, when a certain song is sung by a choir or soloist, one can't keep still. Why sitting and thinking about the possibilities of life and how the negative ones have been miraculously avoided can cause someone's eyes to swell with tears. I now know what those people were reaching for. There's never been an invisible force or apparition. They were simply doing what they humanly could to be fully immersed in praise - to show the creator that they, indeed, were
THANKFUL.
And grandma was right (Ms. Agnes Brimmer always was).. I had to go through something to truly understand. To be catalyzed into a community that knows that nothing that occurs in this life is a random, chance happening.
I sit sometimes and experience those tears of thankfulness. I imagine the many times God has pulled me out of the worst situations and placed me back on my path. How despite my shortcomings and those of my family, community, and city, I am still able to receive new grace and mercy everyday.
To feel like I can't fail because I'm covered, protected, shielded from harm - for this I'm thankful. For a loving family who supports me in my endeavors and when I fail - for this I'm thankful. For a breath of fresh air, a body free of disease and ailment, a working mind, countless second chances - I AM THANKFUL.
I could go on and on. But just know that I am and have always been a part of that community of thankfulness. It just took going through something to reveal that to me.
fin.
