Afterwards, after the applause, after the question and answer period -- after the little kids marvel and move toward Thomasina, after the children crawl up to sit next to her, after I even add my comment about this moment that has stood out to me -- this is when I have the next conversation. The layered conversation, the race meets faith meets culture and language conversation.
Fr. Jules Omba Omalanga, my newly installed pastor from the Congo, is locking up the place. I say to this dear man, with brown skin and a warm, round face, "Hey! Good stuff, eh, Pere Jules?"
He is beaming, and notes, in his African-French-accented English: "Did you see all the little kids coming up to her? I love seeing children so engaged."
I smile. I nod. I say, "And, this took place in church, Father!? And there was not one overt mention of Jesus!?" He nods and turns his head to me. I continue, "It's powerful what the arts and opportunities like this do for engaging us all, eh?"
I want to squeeze him. I want to thank him for his role in having this kind of thing happen in our church. I want to talk about my own large catholic spirit layered notions of how faith intersects with story, and works to inspire us all. I hold back. I wonder if this appropriate? I wonder if my Congolese Catholic priest gleans the way words shared, performed, sung this evening, are not unlike the words we hear shared each Sunday morning at service? I consider the way I feel fed by this performance, in a similar way to how I feel fed each time I attend mass and receive the Eucharist. I wonder if I can even utter such things? I wonder how he perceives, what he gleans of this evening, what he gets from the history of African Americans? I wonder too, especially, what it's like when his own Congolese and French-speaking self has only been here a few short years? I wonder if he understands me? Ultimately, I wonder if I understand him?
"Fr. Jules, did you get the "Strange Fruit" reference I mentioned?"
He shakes his head, "no" and continues locking up. Fumbling with keys, he says, "What is this 'strange fruit'?"
I try to explain, "It's an allusion to the lynching of an African American in a song by Billie Holiday."
"What is this word, "lynching?" he asks, still turning locks, still looking puzzled.
I pause, put my hand on his arm, "Father, imagine Jesus is black, and instead of a cross, he's hanging from a rope in a tree. That is 'lynching.'"
Then he nods, stopping, looking straight at me, and says, "Yes. I know many stories like this. It reminds me of stories from home. Stories from places the Congo and other African countries... like in Darfur. I know what this is."
Whew. And there's another conversation, right? Another 15 conversations! Here I am thinking all about catholicism and race and culture and history as it mixes itself up on the North side. Here I am trying to sort if this fellow and I have much in common and how we might ever really communicate, understand one another, be on the same page. And here, in this honest exchange, in this slowing down and stopping sort-of-exchange, my priest and friend takes me right out into the larger world. Into his home country, and into his experiences -- into spaces that I have no first hand knowledge of, but desire to understand deeply. He also takes me right into his own heart. I feel like I am present, lucky, so privileged to be standing here and part of something that feels so much larger.
