A channel, a conduit, a portal, a pathway, a hollow bone — each carry something, allowing it to pass through. A line, a thread — they pull what is moving through me. Whose line am I holding? I begin with my own. I look just like my father, whose name I carry, and whose legacy I hold. My mother, who carried me, handed me her strength. For me, they were the first faces of God. I stand holding their line. And yet I am tethered to a greater, much longer, winding thread. What is it? How do I hold it? Where is it going?
I have only met two people whom the whole world knows. One was a president, the other an American hero. The great civil rights leader and U.S. Representative, John Lewis, and I stood a bit closer to each other than people do when they first meet because it was dark outside on that Washington, DC street. Being the same height, I was able to gaze straight into those discerning, steely eyes squinting back at me as I read the lines on his timeless face. A recent cancer diagnosis had its hands around him, but not as tightly as mine held his. I told him my name as my voice shook, saying “Thank you for what you’ve done for us… for all of us.”
Tears welled up, as they do now as I recall it, knowing that I was holding the hand of someone who was holding The Line. I wished him a long life, and he wished me the same. He thanked me for what I was doing, which seemed so out of place to me, as if it was a reflexive response to a statement he must have heard a million times before. But I did receive it. I had never met someone willing to give up his life for what he believed. For the soul of the nation — the soul of the world. As I walked away, I knew that I would never shake a more righteous hand.
The Line has never been broken, though it has at times lain fallow. The young rabbi held it many generations ago, and within a few centuries after he was murdered, he became “The Holder” that no one could equal. An unfair amount of pressure put onto a prophet who told his friends that they would do even greater things than he had done.* But after the movement aligned with empire, wealth, and control, the person and work of Jesus became a museum treasure and the cross became the purveyor of personal salvation.
How can I follow someone who’s stuck standing on a pedestal, memorialized in stone? A prophet always needs to keep moving, pulling as she goes. In an effort to glorify Jesus, we made him an idol, more than we could ever be, abdicating our responsibility as co-creators, as fellow pointers, as people who walk the same way… as holders of the same line. He called forth dance partners, not worshipers.
Jesus and John Lewis held onto the same red thread that weaves the seamless garment called justice, the tablecloth called mercy. The hand I held, held that line so tight that one could walk across it, like he did that bridge in Selma. And that same line will lead us towards the bridges we need to cross. Grab hold and pull. The line is yours now.
–Jim Marsh, Jr.
