It’s been a long time since I have taken time to sit, to be, to watch and observe, to hear the inner workings of my mind. Years ago, I vigorously pursued these moments of peace, on a park bench, a roadside dhaba, or countless car, bus, and plane rides. When I traveled abroad I would walk for hours to find a quiet spot, or take multi-day train rides for the sake of being in one place, while moving through the land.
I know how brief a time this will be. I sit and feel the vibration of my heart. This familiar and comfortable feeling slows my mind. I am calm. I am relaxed. I notice the irregular movement of the wind as it moves through the trees and the grass. The wind has unusual turbulence to it; uneven gusts of wind followed by stagnant air, each cycling in an unrecognizable pattern.
My son rests in my arms. He is just over two weeks old, born at home in the early morning hours of Mother’s Day, nearly three months into the international quarantine due to the spread of COVID-19. My family is uncertain as to what the future holds. At night, my wife and I talk about our children, about decisions we may soon need to make, about choices at school and home, about growing food, about our ability to take care of our precious gifts. We remind ourselves to be grateful but are both aware of a possibility for much more difficult times ahead.
As I hold my son, none of this comes to mind. I feel his little weight in my arms and the quiet of his breathing. He is healthy and rests well. Little smiles have begun to shower his face with joy. He is growing so much each day, and yet time is moving slowly, without the rhythms we have come to expect as normal.
Tonight, as he rests and the day darkens, the reality of the difficulties that lay ahead for my son and daughters begin to dawn on me. As I see him now, he is pure and beautiful and in so many ways perfect. But his mother is black and I am brown. In the eyes of the wider world, he will soon be tarnished. In the same ways as his sisters, but also different. These thoughts have flooded in as fires burn in Minneapolis, like Los Angeles once burned, and Detroit, and so many other cities in this country. This burning reflects the fire in our hearts, as Thich Nhat Hanh called the ‘real enemies of man’: ‘intolerance, fanaticism, dictatorship, cupidity, hatred, and discrimination.’
Self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức, June 11, 1963.
I am familiar with the association with fear. One morning when I was seventeen, I heard on the radio that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. That can’t be right. I rolled over and went back to sleep, perhaps thinking it was a dream. A week later I went to college, and soon my personal choice to remain unshaven became a sort of political choice: mine was the face of fear.
All these years later, the War on Terror still unfinished, George Floyd’s death, and the ensuing public unrest reminds our country of the constant fear carried each day by black men. And I realize that my little boy will grow up to invoke fear in others. Maybe only enough fear to cross the street. Or enough fear to bear claims of self-defense.
I am left with questions. Will my children be welcomed in this world to be who they are? Will the potential my wife and I see be met with encouragement, or will they learn to silence themselves, for fear that their true expression will be misconstrued for disrespect or turn them into a threat? Will their beautiful skin be accepted as God’s gift or a symbol of sin and shame?
I believe in my heart that my son has chosen us, chosen his family at this time and in this place on Earth. I look at him and see his ancestors. I see all they overcame to arrive here, once again incarnated in this little boy. He is a bridge, of the past and the future, of the East and the West, of the powerful and the meek. This incarnation is much more than that. There is much more at stake. Beyond the current pandemic and the reminders of the ancestral pain, trauma, and suffering brought by racial separation, the possibility of life on Earth is in question.
These are not easy times to be in the world. There is sadness and darkness. Yet with all of this, hope remains. I find it anew each morning as the day dawns and the birds sing, and now hope renewed in this new life. In the quiet of the morning and the stillness of the night, the troubles of the world remain far away. Like birds flying overhead, and still further beyond the sky: untroubled, unbothered, peaceful in its place. I hope I can give my son this peace, in my presence and my absence, with my conscious action and through grace.
* * *
Within the garden of my heart, I walk very slowly, paying close attention. Each snapped twig and rustled leaf breaks the peace within. Something inside me remains unsettled. There is a snake in the garden, a voice of doubt. It continues to haunt me. It keeps me from the union; with my Creator; with my own self; with those around me, my family and friends, near and far. In so many ways I doubt my own existence, my incarnation, the value of my gifts. This is a struggle with my self-worth.
I enter into my heart to learn to heal and to understand. To be with my father, where I can still hear his voice, his slow and patient advice: The storm is calmed with faith and courage. In my heart, I exist and breathe. In my heart I find refuge.
My doubt strengthens each time I silence myself, my well-practiced form of protecting myself from the world. To overcome, to reach my destiny, I must find my voice. To overcome, to believe in myself, to find my voice, I return to silence so that I can trust what I find. Each moment, each step is either in the direction toward freedom or an invitation to suffer from the illusion my mind creates, keeping me from my heart.
Some days are more difficult than others. For many years I have felt stuck in place, stopped firmly in my tracks as my plans for my life changed into something more wonderful and beautiful than I could imagine. My wife and three children are with me, despite my agitations and anxieties, my sometimes inconsistent presence, and too often rude, blaming behavior. I am a patriarch learning to be a father. So much happens in the life of a family. Mine is young and we are still blooming and growing, discovering who we are together. For this, I am happy and satisfied.
I seek a place within myself of knowing. A place where I can trust what is found. A destination reached only to answer life’s most pressing question, that of one’s purpose in this incarnation and time on Earth, the means in which to be of service. For this life to have meaning a reconciliation must occur; to find one’s path inside of oneself, the path of the heart, the path of peace.