Who needs not your expertise but embrace?
Black History Month Series
Hi everyone,
In honor of Black History Month, I will be sharing a few distinct memories of of me in Black music that God uses to continue calling me from the past into the future. As always, I pray my stories help you hear yours.
Women in Uganda
The happiest I have ever been musically worshipping with others was when I was in Uganda in summer of 2014. At the time, I was a campus minister with InterVarsity, and we were serving alongside Ugandan campus ministers and students in Kampala and Gulu. In Gulu we spent time with girls/women and children at the Child Voice International rehabilitation center. All of the residents were survivors of war, most of the young mothers having been child brides to members of the terrorist group the Lord’s Resistance Army, founded and led by Joseph Kony (starting back in 1986). These women and children had escaped the army and had made their way to CVI, which was housing them and helping them learn skills so that they could transition back to civilian life.
Despite the horrors these women had faced, or perhaps because of the horrors these women had faced, their joy when we worshiped God during evening prayers was just off the richter scale. We would dance and jump nightly in the huts, singing and praising into a sweat, praising God for Jesus’ rescue. To this day I have rarely experienced such consistent, palpable joy. The way they would thank God was next level. Their joy reminds me of when my soul gets happy here in Black churches in the states. I am thankful for the resonances across the diaspora.
I do not share the macabre of their lives to romanticize their plight, or to thank God for this suffering that produced such fruit. Such theologies have been deeply exploitative of and injurious to faith. Rather, I share their stories to marvel at God’s gracious long-suffering as well as the women’s capacity to seek a way forward that affirmed their dignity, industriousness, and otherworldly faith and joy. I thank God for the good fruit of CVI that has rippled out around the world, and I pray Joseph and the LRA can be stopped, in the name of Jesus.
The joie de vivre of Jackie, Christine, and the other sisters remains with me. It grounds my faith and enlivens my playing. Spending time with them and my Ugandan ministry colleagues has helped me move seamlessly between the possibilities of both carnage and joy. It also reminds me that comfortable middle-class living can render obsolete the capacity to communally give God bone-deep thanks.
What makes you dance with all your might?
Kenneth W. Louis
Kenneth W. Louis was one of the deepest mentors I have ever had, and I still can’t believe he’s gone. He died in November 2020 and I never got to say goodbye in-person because of COVID distancing. He was the musical director at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Atlanta, which Carmen and I attended for a few years while in grad school at Emory.
Even though he was accomplished to boot, he never once taught me a chord. Instead, for just those two precious years we had together, he taught me the music of life. One of my fondest memories was when he and Fr. Jeffery Ott (the pastor of that parish) surprised me at my show with The JuJu Exchange in Chicago 2018 at Harris Theater. I had led the band in writing an oratorio called “Price of Peace” with Fulcrum Point New Music Project, Uniting Voices of Chicago (formerly Chicago Children’s Choir), and Young Chicago Authors. I had told him about the concert a few months in advance, but he never indicated he could come, and in fact, down the stretch made it seem like he wouldn’t be able to make the trip up. It made sense - the show was during Advent and he, being an amputee, would have to maneuver a lot in a wheelchair.
Because of all that, my body will never forget how I stretched my hands out in amazement when Fr. and Kenneth greeted me in the lobby afterwards.
Who looks up to you that needs not your expertise but embrace?
My fondest memories of Kenneth will be the meals we had. In retrospect, his focus was on helping me love myself. During our last dinner, I shared with him my dream of one day recording a full-length album. 4 years later, I’m now finishing up that record, Portraits, and there is a song dedicated to him on it: Farewell, Hello Again. I can’t wait for you to hear it.
abundantly,
Julian
Feb 11 Notes of Rest at Barrington United Methodist Church (Chicago)
Feb 15 Notes of Rest at Saint Leonard’s Ministries (Chicago)
Feb 17 Notes of Rest at Dominican University for Black Students Retreat (Chicago)
Feb 17 Notes of Rest at Chicago Black Methodists for Church Renewal Youth Holiday Hook Up
Feb 21 Julian Davis Reid’s Circle of Trust at Bronzeville Winery (Chicago)
Feb 24 Notes of Rest at St. Benedict the African (Chicago)
Feb 25 Isaiah Collier at Winterland Six (Jacksonville)
i love your substack, Julian. Thank you :)