Hurry, boy, it's waiting there for you!

Well.

When I mentioned my need to go abroad at the end of this entry in June of 2009, I did not expect that over a year later, I'd be getting ready to leave for Ghana.

And yet, here we are.

I have never been out of the country before and at 10:10pm I will take off on a non-stop flight to Accra, Ghana, where I will be living for four months.

There are many reasons I decided to go to Ghana, and many reasons that have popped up since my decision. I'll expand on these reasons in future blogs, but for now I will confess:

Africa was never in my life plan. Italy, London, India, all were. Africa, not at all. No one saw it coming. And yet, somehow, it seems to make perfect sense. A friend of mine said, "I remember when you got accepted and it was like, 'What?! Africa?!! You're going to GHANA?!' but now it's like, 'Of course. Of course you're going to Ghana.'" And I don't know why it makes sense, but it does.

"The wind blows where it wants to. You hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going. That's the way it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." John 3:8

I picked this as a title for this blog back in 2009, and now, that verse holds more true than ever.

The fact is, spiritual and religious practices guide my entire life. If I have ever had a conversation with you, I have talked about God. If we have talked about art, theater, Sweeney Todd, microphones, philosophy, education, voice, subways, Waffle House, the weather, how our days have been, or voiceless stop-plosives, then I have talked to you about God. This is simply how I operate. There is an essence that runs underneath all things that we cannot understand--religion is a language we give to talk about that essence, to talk about something we don't have language for. My defalt language for that is Christian. I may talk about God or Christ, you may talk about Allah, we could talk about Buddha, we could talk about Shiva, we could, even, talk about beauty, light, the Universe, the power of human choice, science, or (and most especially) love, and we would be talking about the same thing. God is existence, the miracle of being.

I believe this essence guides us. I might call it the voice of God (because I love God and I love voice). Many, many theater people call it "impulse". "I don't know why this image feels like the play but I know there's something about circles." We don't know what it means, but we trust it and figure it out. When I have listened to the voice of impulse, things just make sense in a way that I usually eventually see. Like, "Oh, THAT'S why that happened."

And right now, it's saying, "Africa."

And I, of course, like many, said, "What?!?!" ("Pharaoh? Egypt?!" "Ninevah?!" "SAUL?!!")

And it said, "Africa."

And I said, "...okay."

And truly... that is why I'm going to Ghana. It makes sense and it doesn't.

So here we are.

For those of you who wandered over from Facebook and are just tuning in:

This blog has been in existence for a while now. For the past two summers, I have been working at a Presbyterian conference center in Black Mountain, NC (yup, where John Cage and Merce Cunningham and Robert Rauschenburg staged the first Happening, not that anyone around here noticed a thing when Merce Cunningham died last summer). I was on AV crew, meaning I was paid to run sound and listen to worship services and keynote addresses that people would pay to hear. It was simply the best job ever, and this blog was started on the suggestion of a pastor of mine who wanted to keep up with all the good stuff I was hearing. It has since become a chronicle of (largely) my religious/spiritual journey.

I briefly considered starting a new blog for my Ghanaian adventures. However, it's all the same path. A strange path, that leads me from New York to the South to Africa, but it is definitely one path and so it will stay on one blog. What I will say about this blog to any newcomers is:

There will be a lot of talk about Africa.

There will be a lot of talk about God.

There will also probably be a lot of talk about theater.

I know many people who get a deep sinking hole in their stomach when they hear someone talk about God. I know that the church, the Christian church specifically, has scarred a good many people. I will always try to expand my language to be the most inclusive I can possibly be. But please always know that I mean "God" in the most expansive way possible, and that I believe religion is a way to teach how to radically love every single person. Every single form of life, even. That love is the goal and if the act is not of love, something has gone wrong. If, by chance, I do offend you, email me and let's talk it out, because if I've offended you it probably means I have something great to learn from you.

(In the South, I spend all of my time trying to convince people I'm not insane because I often have a shaved head. In the North, I spend all of my time trying to convince people I'm not conservative because I wear a cross.)

So now.

I'm going to go finish packing.

Let's do this.