Pilgrimage I, Day 5 – Heading Home
I have just completed a six day pilgrimage to the civil
rights sites in the Mississippi Delta and environs. These are my reflections.
End of Pilgrimage
It had been a very powerful and often painful week. We had
stood in places where the music we loved was born. We had stood in places where
the people we admired had been slain. We had visited the site of some of
America’s most powerful turning points from the Mason Temple, where Martin
Luther King, Jr.’s extemporaneous Mountaintop Sermon was preached just hours
before his death, to the front steps of Little Rock Central High where nine
courageous high school students broke the back of Jim Crow segregation amidst
threats, jeers and spittle from their classmates. And we had stood at the
shrines of a 14 year old saint, Emmet Till, who was tortured and slaughtered
simply for doing what teenager boys do.
This last day, we would end our pilgrimage in a place of
serenity. The Memphis Botanic Garden, just down the road from Memphis
University, was where we had chosen to hold our last reflections as a
community. It could hardly have been a better choice.
The vegetation amidst a springtime flush was so full of life
and new growth. The sculpture and fountains scattered throughout the park were
inspiring. A travelling exhibit entitled “Save the Humans,” created by a
California artist, Thomas Dambo, featured larger than life sculptures made from
recycled materials. Wind activated mobile sculptures provided motion as a host
of mockingbirds serenaded us with their repartees overhead.
I would slip away to offer my morning prayers here. I wasn’t
able to remove my shoes but as I stood on the paving stones in the Scent
Garden, I was able to connect to the Earth in this very complex place, offering
my gratitude for all I had experienced, for the community that I had shared and
for the lessons I return with.
And then it was time to return to circle for our final reflections, to say our final goodbyes. As is often the case in such circumstances, the Navajo Blessing Way I learned 30 years ago in my parish in San Jose came back to me:
With dew about my feet, may I walk.
With beauty before
me may I walk.
With beauty behind
me may I walk.
With beauty below me
may I walk.
With beauty above me
may I walk.
With beauty all
around me may I walk.
In old age wandering
on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering
on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
It is finished in
beauty.
It is finished in
beauty.
It is finished in
beauty.
For this experience and the wonderful fellow pilgrims with whom I shared it I am deeply grateful.
With Gratitude to Memphis
I had not been to Memphis in 50 years. And then it was only
driving through enroute to visit family in Arkansas, the state just across the
Mississippi River. I wasn’t sure what to expect. And I had to remind myself
that no person and no place is reducible to their worst moments, even that of
an assassination.
I cannot say Memphis is one of the more beautiful places
I’ve been. It has its moments. But, in many ways, it’s simply a large city with
an industrial persona, well represented by the gleaming glass pyramid that in
theory honors Memphis’ heritage in Egyptian culture, beginning its life as an
arena that was the home of the NBA Grizzlies and today is a megastore for the
Bass Pro Shop.
But this city has an amazing history, a hospitable people
who greet you warmly on the street regardless of race. That, in itself, is a
remarkable development in this city with its history of slave markets which
gave rise to some of America’s most beloved music and became the site of the
martyrdom of its most beloved prophet.
I had never really thought much about Marc Cohn’s 1991
popular song, Walking in Memphis, prior to this time. But when I got
home, I pulled up the video for his original performance and realized it truly
spoke to the experience I had just had in Memphis and the Mississippi Delta
environs.
I was surprised to find myself weeping. Memphis had clearly
touched my soul. So I offer the lyrics here and Cohn’s original performance at
the link below.
Walking in Memphis, Marc Cohn (RHINO Music, 1991)
Put on my blue suede shoes
And I boarded the plane
Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues
In the middle of the pouring rain….
Then I'm walking in Memphis
Was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel?....
They've got catfish on the table
They've got gospel in the air
And Reverend Green be glad to see you
When you haven't got a prayer
But, boy, you've got a prayer in Memphis
Now Muriel plays piano
Every Friday at the Hollywood
And they brought me down to see her
And they asked me if I would
Do a little number
And I sang with all my might
She said "Tell me are you a Christian child?"
And I said "Ma'am, I am tonight"
Walking in Memphis
So, thank you, Memphis, for a memorable visit. You are a
place with a history worth knowing. And you have left a mark on my soul.
Somehow, that seems appropriate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgRafRp-P-o
[Image: art at Westy's Barbeque Restaurant, Memphis]
Pilgrimage’s End: The Embrace of the Jungle
There is no small amount of cognitive dissonance in suddenly
finding yourself in familiar surroundings - a place where you know you belong
and where your safety is not in question – only hours after visiting sites of
deep depravity and atrocity. But as I slipped into my Jungle barefoot this
morning, to offer my morning prayers and to consciously and intentionally speak
my gratitude for a very rich, albeit painful, first round of pilgrimage
completed, I exhaled a great sigh of relief and gratitude.
This past week we saw a lot of things, heard a lot of
stories, entered into a lot of history, in this incredibly rich and often
conflicted cultural matrix that is the Mississippi Delta and its environs. I
know we all have a lot to process. That reflection will take some time.
I return home tired, worn after an extended flight home
delayed three hours by thunderstorms at MCO, which meant arriving home just
before midnight. But for today, I am just happy to be home, to have a 10 day
respite before Round Two of the Pilgrimages begin in the western plains of
indigenous America. And, as is often the case when I return home from trips
like these, the sounds and words of one of my favorite films of all times, The
Wiz, come back to me:
“When I
think of Home
I think of
place
Where
there's love overflowing
I wish I
was home
I wish I
was back there
With the
thing I've been knowing…
Maybe
there's a chance
For me to
go back
Now that I
have some direction
It sure
would be nice
To be back
home
Where
there's love and affection…..
And if
you're listening God, please, don't make it hard
To know if
we should believe the things that we see
Tell us,
should we try to stay
Should we
run away, or would it be better just to let things be?....
I can relate to all of that this beautiful, warm, humid
morning, my feet touching the rich soil of my beloved Jungle. I am back in my
home, surrounded by my family of choice - my beloved husband, our non-human
animal companions, the beautiful flora
that makes up the Jungle and the fauna that finds refuge here.
As I stand here this morning, I am highly aware that I am a
very fortunate man. And very grateful for that. And I find myself saying “Thank
you, Holy One, for guiding me, looking over me, keeping me safe, bringing me
home.”
I’ve attached the finale of the 1978 film version of The Wiz
(to which I once took my severely emotionally disturbed middle schoolers in
1979 as a reward for their good behavior) with Dianna Ross. Take the time to
listen with my gratitude and may you find your own way to be grateful for the
place you call home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRKT_CVeWt0&t=1s
Dianna Ross, The Wiz (1978)
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Harry Scott Coverston
Orlando, Florida
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely
an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth
holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.
Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected
don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi
For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and
to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d? - Micah
6:8, Hebrew Scriptures
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to
complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami
Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)
© Harry Coverston, 2025
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