Echoes and Moments

My mind is busy when you enter, the first one who comes today The space where I work full of books and writings, all Testaments to my people, their pictures covering my desk. Your question is innocent, yet opens wounds again You did not know, and so I answer in truth: "When you ask 'What part Indian are you?' it reminds Me of the way this question was used to separate my people From yours, defining lands and breaking treaties." Yet you persist, and still you ask; the wound becomes A chasm of blood, driven into me like a knife Ten thousands generations deep. You say you know my city, but you do not. All you want is for me to endorse your cause, but No cause will ever heal the war between us, one That wages on because of questions like this, when Our people become numbers instead of flesh And these answers never satisfy your need to Go home justified before your Maker. The violence is done, you shake my hand and leave As I return to the space an

I remember vividly the first time I spoke in the capacity of a preacher, unmediated by the role of worship leader, MC, or other function that was separated from the platform of public engagement from the "pulpit." In this case, it was a flimsy black music stand, standing near the aisle between unnecessary rows of black chairs set up in a room at Allan Hancock College, where I spent the first two years of my career as a campus minister. It was a warm night in April, free of the fog that normally cloaks coastal Santa Maria like a blanket, or the persistent winds that funnel from the sea into the inland valleys festooned with grapevines and fruit orchards. That year was one of radical reorientation to a new life out of college. I lost the dependable rhythm and purpose of a regimen of courses, for I had recently graduated from Cal Poly a few months before. I also lost the emotional support of a long romantic relationship, and was just feeling the stabbing pain and gut-twistin