“I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.”

~Zora Neale Hurston

 

Zora Neale Hurston, the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, wrote these words in a letter to the poet Countee Cullen.  But, much like Paul’s letters to Timothy that speak to me as a believer and as a Christian leader,  Hurston’s words strike at the very heart of my convictions regarding the race-less life.  It does in fact take nerve… guts… spirit to walk my own way when there are ways that are easier, their paths paved and familiar.  And there are even fellow travelers.  But, sometimes you have to walk alone and it is often for the better as this journey toward racelessness will bring out the very worst in you.  It certainly has in me.  As I have realized that the race-less life is a patient work and the first person that needs work is me.

I’ve wanted to stop, not wanting to go the all of the way… alone.  But Leonard Sweet, in his introduction to Spiritual Leadership in a Secular Age: Building Bridges Instead of Barriers teaches me that “you can’t build a bridge by starting in the middle…. There are no halfway measures in the body of Christ.  Jesus always went the whole way.”  So, I keep on walking.  Besides, Sweet says, “The middle-of-the-road is home to only one thing: road kill.”  I don’t want to die in the middle.

I keep on walking because I don’t feel that I am moving away from someone that I am supposed to be.  Instead, I am walking toward the person that I am to become,  with each step no longer searching but creating my reality, one that does not include being ruled by race or its minion.  Sometimes, I get tired of walking, searching, seeking, knocking.  Sometimes, I want to just jump on the bandwagon and get whereever they’re going as quickly as possible.  I want to lose myself in their illusions and never be found.  Because it is often easier to live in the reality of others than to find and participate in our own. 

Finding my reality, finding myself is hard work but it is a good work.  It is a blessed work.  My other option is the reality of race and I simply cannot go back there so, I’ll keep on walking.