Opening Ceremonies
General Assembly—Portland, Oregon
Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley
June 24, 2015
We have come from across the country and from all around the world…and we make within this city, a humble altar.
High upon this altar, we do place an offering
As we gather dear and loved ones to our side
To witness that cathedral of our presence happening
To sanctify this moment in our lives
As if raising hands to hold a gentle breeze
—l. dunkley
We build the cathedral ourselves. We used to build it with stone and wood. Now, we build it with blood and bone, with our bodies, with our hearts and minds. We come together and something magical happens. We see ourselves in one another and we remember that we’ve come home. So, hello and tender greetings. It is good to be together.
Can we take just a moment to breathe, to breathe deeply and to slow down? Can we become fully present in this space? Can we send roots into the Earth and be nurtured by Oregon ground enough to help us to open up our hearts and flower? It’s not that hard.
Alice Walker taught me how to do it...in her writing. She taught me about a woman named Kate Talkingtree, a woman who practiced walking meditation. As Alice Walker explains, and I quote,
Up and down the path that led to the front door of the hall they did a walking meditation that had been taught them by a lot of different Buddhist teachers, some from America and some from Asia. It was a slow graceful meditation that she liked; she enjoyed the feeling of a heel touching the Earth long before a toe followed it.
Alice Walker reminded me that meditation takes time. Life takes time. Let’s slow down just a little and live.
I have to slow down. My life depends on it. When I don’t slow down, I get really caught up in things that have happened around me. I get caught up in what happened in Ferguson and in Sanford, Florida where Trayvon Martin walked with tea and skittles. I get caught up in what happened in Cleveland and caught up in the deaths of Tanisha Anderson and Tamir Rice and Eric Garner in Staten Island and Rekia Boyd in Chicago and what happened to Miriam Carey in Washington DC and to Freddie Gray in beloved Baltimore and I ball my fists and I clench my teeth and my chest gets tight from shallow breathing…and I close down…and I forget what Alice Walker was teaching—to sit down with the redwoods, for they know time much better than we do; to wake up early in the morning and greet the day and live it long; to walk gently on the earth. As Walker explains with the very title of the book from which I’ve quoted, Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart.
The first time I came to the Northwest, the first time I saw that famous mountain with my own eyes, I was surprised. She seemed almost calm…much more resolved than I thought she’d be, even after all of this time. Thirty-five years ago, on the 18th of May in 1980, she erupted in violence and catastrophe. She darkened the sky and took the lives of 57 people, including 83-year-old Harry Truman. She overwhelmed herself with her force, with her own power.
She stomped her feet in anger on the Earth until it quaked beneath them—5.1 on the Richter scale. She threw three cubic kilometers of Earth into the heavens or down the mountain like an earthen tidal wave. What remained of her peak, of her summit, was 1,300 feet lower than it was the day before. She made a mile wide crater in a matter of minutes and sent a vertical plume of ash 16 miles into sky and I thought to myself...reflecting honestly, I’ve had days like that.
I have been so caught up in the tensions of American life that I, too, have stomped my feet and I, too, have quaked the Earth and I, too, have darkened the sky for those around me.
And, yet, there she was. She seemed almost calm…much more resolved than I thought she’d be. How quickly beautiful life returned to her. Of course, it did. She found an honest way to the gifts of forgiveness—forgiveness, being that precious agreement to see the world as it actually is. The mountain that we have come to know as Mount St. Helens figured out what she believed about life. She looked for beauty with her own eyes and she opened up her heart.
Do you know what you believe about life? Can you see the beauty that is within you, especially when you’re caught up in the world? I know what I believe. I believe in something absolutely and mountainously strong that resides within the soul of every one of us. I still believe in the mountain that erupted years ago. She helped me to open up my heart...and in spite of everything...and because of everything...
I still believe in a mountainous volcano
That lost itself in its own violent rage
And I believe in looking out up into the open depths of my own soul
And in flying with both feet in Portland
Forgiving Helens
—l. dunkley
I don't believe in angels, I'm too busy falling from the heavens myself
Tripping on my own wings, tripping on my own wings
I don't believe in miracles,
Not when there's still this much going wrong with the world
Eyes on the mirror of yesterday
And I don't believe that Jesus
Would be very pleased with how I keep falling down,
Would be very pleased about these tears in my heart
And how I can't quite keep my feet on the ground
But I still believe in a mountainous volcano
That lost itself in its own violent rage
And I believe in walking out up into the open depths of my own soul
And in flying with both feet in Portland
I don't believe in cocaine or any serum I can melt in a spoon
Tripping on my own wings, tripping on my own wings
I don't believe in bad dreams,
Not when my youngest daughter lay asleep in my arms
Rising like this days youngest light
I don't believe in violence
Or in these sorrows that I keep on the shelf
Or in impossible angers that I fire at you
Or in invisible arrows that I aim at myself
But I still believe in a mountainous volcano
That lost itself in its own violent rage
And I believe in walking out up into the open depths of my own soul
And in flying with both feet in Portland
I don't believe in angels, I'm too busy falling from the heavens myself
Tripping on my own wings...and rising.