Ethics That Matters: African, Caribbean, and African American Sources

Chapter 15: Still on the Journey

229 Chapter 15 Still on the Journey Moral Witness, Imagination, and Improvisation in Public Life .Barbara A. Holmes. For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.—James Baldwin, “Nothing Personal”1 in thiS poSt–civil rightS, post-9/11, post-Katrina world, there are no maps or GPS systems to guide us or our institutions toward moral flourishing .Yet, we know that the period of waiting is over, and we are on the move again. The responsibility is to honor and learn from the past, and simultaneously to reclaim a theology of public life that invites the emergence of the beloved community. Given where we are on the journey, neither tinkering nor angst will do. The Obama-Nation and the generations that precede and follow must completely reform absolutely everything . The scholarship of many African American ethicists, such as that of Peter Paris, inspires the interplay of moral witness, imagination, and 230 Barbara A. Holmes improvisation as means toward that end. Until change comes, the moral imperative is to speak truth to power, to imagine outcomes that cannot come into view in any other way, and to reshape public life creatively. “Generations Do not Cease to Be Born” James Baldwin offers a view of reality that we avoid at all costs. We are not here to stay; others will follow us. He says that everything is shifting, nothing is fixed.The implication is that the life journey may be exhilarating , but it is also perilous. We have no time to congratulate one another on victories won during the twentieth century, because the ground is moving underneath our feet. What a blow to our careful mythologies about permanence! The truth of the matter is that we are on a journey, that was already underway when we arrived. We take the world as it is and shape it as we go. As we change the life space, it changes us. Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder of the singing group Sweet Honey in the Rock, spoke about the life journey at a 2007 speaking engagement . She said, “Why would you travel on a road that someone else built? It will take you where they want you to go. Instead walk to the edge of a cliff and leap.”2 Her suggestion that we leap into the unknown is not a call to end it all; instead, we are urged to dive into possibilities, to explore and invent, and to see the world differently with every glance. I am convinced that it is possible to change our world, to lay down our weapons, and to institute a politics of care and concern. Public life can be restored through creative acts of moral witness, imagination, and improvisation. The hope is that we can reorient the life of the community toward one another in ways that will allow us to embrace a “cosmological spirituality” that invites remembrance and innovation.3 Becoming Moral Witnesses Today everything is accessible all of the time. Fifty years ago, the world was viewed through the lens of limited and local day-to-day experiences. Public life changed when television was invented. Television was in its infancy during the 1950s, when a naive nation gathered around blackand -white sets to watch a program called Truth or Consequences. The Still on the Journey 231 premise of the game was that you had to tell the truth before “Bertha the Buzzer” sounded, or you faced the consequences. The questions were “straight lines” that had jokes for answers. No amount of study would allow the contestant to avoid the inevitable.The consequences ranged from silly stunts and embarrassing tasks to reunions with long-lost loved ones. Like others across the nation, my parents sat transfixed and delighted as they watched snippets of human life that ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime. The television set became the center of family entertainment and a lens that allowed a passive...