Ever been in a place where suddenly all the sins of the world come crashing down upon you? On the traditional celebrations of All Souls Day and Day of the Dead this week, when we paused to reflect on our connection to the spirits of the past, reading an internet story in Scientific American suddenly reminded me of the night many years ago in the Old South when I stared frighteningly into the face of God over the evils of slavery.
Hee, hee. In the Navy stationed in the old Southern city of Norfolk, VA, I was. It and Portsmouth are right side by side. After a night of drinking and barhopping alone, and before returning to my ship, I’d dared to walk into the “bowels” of one of the city‘s warehouse districts. I always figured it was Portsmouth.
Stumbling along on some lonely, half-darkened street there--crisscrossing ribbons of steel rail lines that glistened beneath sagging street lamps--I was sobbing at my own loneliness, despaired in it; crying out repeatedly, “God, God.” For him to “show yourself!”
Give me a sign! That I’m not alone! I screamed. God, God! Where are you!!!
When it happened (the starkness of it; the heavy umbrage of our society’s past collective sins I felt), I was in a street intersection, approaching the next block’s curb on the right-hand side, stumbling along. There was a streetlamp behind me to the right; and one 12-15 ft. ahead of me, to my right.
Suddenly out from beneath a large, pile of spread-out newspapers on the sidewalk ahead of me--from where he’d been sleeping--an old, black African-American, very tall, gaunt-looking he was so thin--sprang straight up in the air, empty wine bottles clanking noisily into the gutter, papers rustling about noisily on the sidewalk. He’d answered the call.
Here I am, kid! Here I am! his raspy old voice shouted. Waddaya want!?”
No more than 4-5 seconds turned into an eternity. Deep-set eyeballs (white lasered candles that’d fixed me with beneath the soft streetlight glow) glared down at me. Forty-odd years later now, I still remember the fear that shot through me at that sight. My guilt’d been speared. I instantly turned and ran like hell!
Ran ‘til my lungs screamed for me to stop. To slow down. To walk. Ran until only a taxicab’s repeated honking sound could pull me out of the abyss the fear of God had put me in, a nagging noise that pulled me up into consciousness again.
I slowed down at it, quickly got into the back of the cab; and said, “Take me to my ship, please. I’ve just seen God!”
Taxi drivers in that Norfolk area, a Navy metro town, have seen it all; they spook at nothing. “Which ship you on?”
“Independence, a flat-top!”
“Have ‘ya there in a few minutes. Just calm down, boy. You‘ll be OK.”
All Souls Day, Nov. 1, is when we reverently acknowledge and honor the contributions of those who’ve gone “on” before us. In Mexico the next day is called Dia de Los Muertos, and communications with the spirits sometimes takes on joyful celebrations.
As is the custom, the local Catholic diocese here joins with ones in Juarez and in Las Cruces, on the Rio Grande at the border fence, for a mass to also honor those immigrants who’ve lost their lives while seeking better things for their families, and to further spread God’s love for humanity. We’re all immigrants.
From our home in El Paso in Far West Texas, the grave of Noemi’s mom is many miles and many hours away, down river and across from Presidio; me, Mom’s grave is in Sweetwater, dad’s even further, near Stephenville. So little money; so far away; so little time. So we’re being kind of melancholy, yes.
Finally she turns on a Catholic radio station and listens to the mass broadcast; I retreat to the study and read the internet news. And come upon the Scientific American story, “Believing in Bad Vibes.”
And I was reminded again of the Norfolk street corner scene that night--where the spirits of all the sordid spoils of African slaves being brought down from ships and traded and sold inhumanely on a Southern plantation market, a scene that once had leaped at me and curled my blood with its frightening ugliness--and I still flinched once or twice at it. Even today.
Was that involuntary twitch God being asked again to answer the call of a repentant, guilt-ridden sinner? To marshal up again a “sign from heaven"? Nope, I smiled. Not this time. Simple repugnance of it.
Reactions to such spiritual tugging from scenes of previous occurrences--really, remember things spooky like this when you‘re somewhere? ”Emotional residue,” the author of the story calls it--depends upon the maturity of the individual involved, it seems. (Good story; again, read it here.)
The point is made to clear out “negative energy” from one’s life and not dwell on it. And if you can’t do that, by chance, then you’re reflecting some particular morass from the culture in which you were raised; and somehow you need to deal with that as an issue. Now.
The reason I smiled was that I was accepting an attaboy, I guess. In 40 some-odd years I’ve matured a little; wizened up to the nature of the world and to the imperfections of mankind in all its spittle glory. And have been forgiven for whatever role I had in that lingering culture of segregation in which I was reared.
The history of these Americas, like the history of the world, if you want to argue it, is a history of overcoming our collective guilt of the past to make us somehow better tomorrows. The Mayans, American Indians, and African slavery account for only a part of it.
Sooner or later, even this present “Occupy Wall Street" generation of Americans I dare say, (like the Germans, Chechs, Russians, Italians, African and Spanish Americans et al all before us), will have to “forgive” greedy bankers, financiers, stock speculators and such for their recent past abusive actions, all in order to “get on” with the business of building a better America today.
For, as in the past, New Worlds have been sectioned open and quartered. New ways of financing and banking, new technologies on making new products and such, all have been discovered and launched into society. We’re teetering on the cusp of a New Wave.
And as in all previous such “discovery and development” forays, there have been those who abused God and their fellow men and women in this latest process of building the Americas. It now stinks to the point it's threatening political atrophy. Yes, it's best to move on.
Will there be reparations for the abuse? Maybe, but not physically, I'd wager. Hee, hee. Ask any of the above groups if they or their immediate ancestors inherited any checks for it.
But as for something else?
As an old spiritualist on another east side told me, whom I’d gone to as a teenager once growing up in Cleburne, TX, to ask if I’d ever get my wallet back someone had stolen from me, “Son, don’t worry about things like that. God always keeps all his options on the table.”
A good motto for us as we climb further into this the 21st Century.
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