The Franki Valli and the 4 Seasons hit song of the 1960s, covered by Barry Manilow in the 70s and the reggae version released by Winston Reedy in 2021 is as close as rhetoric can come to the feeling of falling instantly and deeply in love – capturing the blissful fascination of those ensnared by Cupid’s arrow, totally enraptured, not caring whether there is reciprocity or mindful of consequence, totally abandoned to the fate of passion’s furious flame.
“Though I never laid a hand on you…” The fascination begins with the eyes but the desire to reach out and feel the object of desire, the ‘temptation to touch’ seems insatiable. This is the case with all those who have laid down their lives for Josiah Royce’s ‘Beloved Community’, the concept developed by the Harvard philosopher that once M. L. King Jr. got a hold of, it became the driving force of the Civil Rights Movement, the passion that forms tears in the eyes of all who listen to his dream speech and hear him describe his Beloved, for whom he would soon lay down his life, and needed to assure both his congregation and himself that he indeed would ‘get there’, one way or another. His life effort was worth it – there are some things greater than physical survival – such as the survival of the soul.
“… so close but yet so far.” Unlike the case of the Zionist, King’s promised land transcended specific geography. (this is not to downplay the Zionist cause, because without a geography, the community can hardly be conceived; so land is certainly a start, and to all Jews who tear up every time Hatikvah is sung, I totally get it. The ayin letziyon, Isaiah’s Zionic gaze is after all the entire subject of this piece. His immortal words in Chapter 33 of his book from the 20th verse to the end, some of the most passionate and beautiful words in all Hebrew Scripture are as resonant as King’s speech and although separated by time, they both are clearly in the same zone, mesmerized by the same woman, Isaiah like King traversing both space, time and if necessary, people to ‘get there’.
My prayers were trapped in my heart on Oct 7th when I attended synagogue with my friend, Ainsley, to pray, among other things for world peace. Ainsley was the former president of the synagogue and rebelled against every warning issued by the US Department of Justice for Jews not to gather that evening due to purported inteliigence on the high risk of terrorist reprisals. None of his family would take him, so when I volunteered, he invited me as his special guest and I sat in synagogue in the seat of honor.
I found it difficult to pray for what I knew I was not yet totally ready to receive. The task of repentant preparation is incumbent upon anyone aspiring to enter Her gates, and there remained a few heart matters of unfinished business, traces of anger and ego, subtle indications of unhealed hurt, hidden insecurity.
Like the Jew, like Josiah and like King, I see the gates of Zion ‘on earth’. To have any meaning at all, those issues of Justice and Truth must be settled in the here and now to enter into promised rest. I stand with Tosh and Marley in total condemnation of that damnable Fundamentalist soteriology that has poisoned and distracted Christians (Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical) for centuries who ideate the Promised Land as some after-life figment of the imagination of gleeful colonisers who recognize the precious value of religion as a tool of conquest.
It’s been a while. I’m almost 60 now. And I keep precious little company apart from the few travelers like King, Royce and Isaiah. I ‘got it’ some time ago. Not everybody’s going in the same direction, although the hope from the beginning was and is, that we’ll all ‘get there’ eventually.
Dedicated to the memory of the over 3000 toddlers from Gaza who never made it beyond the age of 5 because they were born into the wrong geography, slaughtered by those invoking the sacred memory of Holocaust, whose names were unable (and perhaps, unwelcome also) to be called at Synagogue during the touching memorial, and to the empowerment of the many thousands of children in Burkino Faso, Sudan, Congo, and so many other geographies of my people on our native continent who are looking to Jamaica for leadership in this generation as well, but have been offered little so far beyond Kartel, who is totally incapable of healing their pain (and quite possibly completely uninterested in any pain beyond his own).
YeKengalé 