Where are your roots?
I ask because I see a distinction between your home and your roots. We often talk about where we grew up and where we live now. It matters where we have come from as it helps where we are going. My home is in San Francisco, California with my husband and four kids and dog. My roots are back in Georgia where I grew up with my parents and two sisters.
Where is home for you?
Where are your roots?
I challenge you this month to return to your roots and to know your town. It can undo you in the purest ways.
It’s the stickiness of okra, the massiveness of the magnolia, and the faces of family that plunge me back to my roots every time I go and visit.
What are your rooted triggers?
My sister and I recently visited our childhood hometown of Camilla, Georgia - a place we haven’t lived in over 20 years, but a place we lived for most of our growing up years. My dad warned us as we got in the car for the 4 hour drive further south, “it’s smaller than you remember.” Was he right! The school campus seemed to fit in our hands when it once felt like a sprawling university. Within 30 minutes we had driven all the main streets and the streets that branch off the main streets. For nostalgic reasons, my sister and I went inside the Stop N Shop and the library and ate at Krispy Chik. Every place was still there. It’s just that some places had lost its soul. The American Legion pool that held 60% of our summer hours was covered in vines. Restaurants and grocery stores were under new management or new names or boarded up. The rain left a damper in the air that day. All of our emotions had a big gapping hole in it. We haven’t lived here in decades while the town was still functioning without us.
We did step inside the church. If nothing else, we made this drive to do just this. To step inside the white columned First Baptist Church.
The prayer room was unlocked. I grieved more than I prayed. No, that’s not right. Grieving can be praying. The pink carpet had to still be the same 20 years ago. I had hoped it was worn out and needed replacing. Maybe people don’t know the prayer room is unlocked.
Someone from a cleaning company was taking care of the sanctuary. It was rare to see people of color in the sanctuary when we lived in this town in the 90s. My sister and I were so delighted that I am certain we overwhelmed her, but in a good way. We shared about growing up in this town and this church and how we returned to let God heal us. We returned on the back end of a racially charged year to apply our unlearning and rethinking. She shared about her life - her struggles and her accomplishments. We chose to pray together. This felt just as special as where we prayed.
It was in this sanctuary where God called me to full-time ministry in middle school. It was in this sanctuary where my senior class held its graduation ceremony. It was also in this sanctuary where Ben and I exchanged our wedding vows. But it was also in this sanctuary at one time, when some church members frowned upon people of color stepping inside to worship.
In all of our living here years, we had hoped this sanctuary to be a place where all could come and worship. Twenty something years later, God used this strong and brave woman to help me and my sister heal.
“A mark of lifelong learners is recognizing that they can learn something from everyone they meet.”
While in the south, we continued to return to our roots by making an overnight trip to Montgomery, Alabama to visit the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice. This has been on our son’s bucket list for the past 15 months as he is forever shaped by the work of Bryan Stevenson, founder of EJI, lawyer and social justice advocate.
We had so much to learn and process and did so differently, from my mom and aunt down to our kids, nieces and nephews.
We had no idea there had been a Camilla Massacre on September 19,1868. How did we not know about this? As a 43 year old, myself, my mom and two sisters, both who are school teachers in Georgia, had never heard about this. To date, there is not a marker in our childhood town nor was this taught in our private school. You can read about it here. As we moved in slow motion and remembrance, we honored James Roland, D.C. Johnson, Collins Johnson, Morris Daniels, Joe Nowling, Will McGriff, Jet Hicks, Meta Hicks, George Franklin, Robert Mitchell, and the unknown others who were shot near the courthouse square. This is the same courthouse where I got my marriage license in the fall of 2000.
Call me a learner. Call us learners who gather here. Sometimes learning comes unraveled and other times it surprises us with a heap of emotions tied to it. Let us not be afraid to return to our roots. To know our towns. Learning brings truth into the light and it tends to shine bright for others as well.
Consider one of the following action steps:
Research your roots online. The Zinn Education Project is helpful.
Reconnect with a family member who tells truthful stories.
Read Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy. (Sam recommends)
Watch “Our Town,” an HBO documentary I recently watched and recommend.
Watch a movie that connects you to your roots or town. I recommend “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.”
What has helped you return to your roots and know your town? Your comments might help someone else.