It’s
the first hour of a new day. I’m riding my recumbent tricycle on a familiar
bike path, waving and smiling at the oncoming cyclists. Each rider smiles and waves
back. The exchange feels good; we are all members of the same tribe. I happily
soak up the spirit of brotherhood like a dry bar mop.
Then at an intersection, a wizened, leather-clad
rider on a Harley cruiser rolls to a stop, and I think, “He and I are members of another tribe. We are both in the autumn of our
lives and yet precariously balanced over wheels. He is my brother.” So I snap him a sharp salute. And he glares
at me, not in honor of our kinship, but with pinched, scowling eyebrows, as if
I had just called his mother a soulless “lady of the night.” Perhaps he was
disenchanted by my six-foot high hot-pink and periwinkle blue flag swishing
behind me like a rainbow trout in the shallows. Whatever the source of his discontent,
his message was clear: I was not his brother.
It’s a funny thing about tribes: Their
number is equal to every passion on earth. There are church, military,
language, and ethnic tribes. There are even tribal devotees to tiddlywinks and didgeridoo.
All of which is pretty cool.
There are two ways to react to tribes.
The first is with curiosity. The second is with suspicion or even contempt. I’m
an advocate of the former.
In my lifetime I have eaten pig
ears, frog legs, and duck brains in France. I have danced the Kalamatianos on the streets of Greece,
shouting “Opa” in celebration. I have sat cross-legged on a Berber hilltop in
Algeria and listened to the local musicians play their tambourines, drums, and
flutes, while the women trilled their high-pitched ululations.
Not everyone understands my sense of
curiosity. Frankly, some are surprised or even offended that I would leave my
ancestral tribe, if only for an hour.
A year ago, a friend and I were
traveling through Georgia. It was Sunday and, faithful to our custom, we sought
a black church—usually Southern Baptist—to soak in the wonderment of gospel
music. As we crisscrossed the streets, we came upon an all-white Baptist church. Two of the church members were greeting
the parishioners at the door. Surely they would know where we would find the
local black church.
I parked the car, scrambled up the
church steps, and looked into the eyes of one of the greeters. “Excuse me,” I
said, “could you tell me where we could find the black Baptist church?”
All at once, the greeter stared at
me with eyes narrowing into gashes of reproach. “Why would you want to do
that?” he asked.
“Because we love the music,” I
replied truthfully.
“We have beautiful music here.”
“I’m sure you do, but it’s not often
that we have a chance to experience authentic black gospel music. I hope you
understand.”
“I’m not sure I do,” the greeter
said, “but I can tell you where to find those people.”
True to his word, he directed us to those people.
When we arrived, we basked in the
tradition of the most soulful church I have ever attended. The organist
improvised a score that made the minister’s words soar, while the choir
answered his every call.
“They shall mount up with wings as
eagles,” the preacher heralded.
“Wings as eagles,” the choir
answered.
The pure joy of the congregation
surged like an ocean wave over my body. You do not have to be a believer to
feel the honest purity of that kind of celebration.
When the minister asked the
parishioners to greet each other, a round radiant grandmother in a broad
flowered hat wrapped her arms around me and said, “I be so happy you come visit
our church. I got a blessin’ wid yo name on it.” And then she hugged me again
as if I were her long-lost son.
I truly loved that black Baptist
tribe, and for two hours of worship, I was one of its spirited members.
Why must we see other tribes with
suspicion or, worse, enmity?
Not all tribes are as loving as the
Georgian Baptist congregation. And, yes, a fraction of all the tribes on earth are
malicious. But disregard the deluded extremists for a moment. What would happen
if we explored—if only for an hour—the ninety-nine percent of all the
good-hearted tribes that are foreign to us? What if we sought to understand and
respect (with no obligation to accept) an unfamiliar theology? A strange flavor?
A new dance? An exotic music?
What if the leather-bound Harley
rider had smiled and acknowledged that we are all members of the largest tribe
of all: humanity, with well over seven billion cousins? What if the white
Georgian greeter had said of the black disciples, “You will love their service,
they are good people”?
Don’t you think the world would have
been a better place? But what if such instances were multiplied by seven
billion times a day—one moment for every resident on earth? Can you imagine the
rumbling surge of charity, rising up from under our feet, lifting us up “with
wings as eagles”?
Amen, brothers and sisters.
