A tearful homecoming! Highlights from our stop in Fresno, CA — thank you @fresno_state!
@brynnsaito — best friend since childhood, now an award-winning poet and professor at @fresno_state, told the story of our ancestors in the valley. My Sikh grandfather Kehar Singh looked after the farms of Japanese Americans when they were incarcerated during WW II. That act of love changed everything for her grandparents’ generation. She calls it “ancestral solidarity” — a love that sustains our sisterhood still.*
@lisafreemanfordistrict4 — my childhood friend, a global peace-builder now running for office in Portland — read her letter of love to me. Lisa tried to convert me to Christianity when we were kids, and we lost our friendship. Her apology moved me to tears. We talked about how any theology or ideology that divides the world into “us and them,” “saved and unsaved,” severs us from our inner-knowing— love is our birthright. I am just grateful that my friend returned to me in this lifetime.
Then — a surprise!
When I was a kid, struggling with all the conversion attempts, I marched up to a church door to confront the priest who was damning my family to hell. Instead, the church organist opened the door. She let me in, played for me — and her music sent tears streaming. “I can’t believe in a God who would send me to hell,” I said. “I can’t either!” she said. She hugged me. She was the first Christian I met who loved me as I was. I wrote about her in Ch 1 #SeeNoStranger.
I spent 25 years searching for her. I gave up. Then — an elder came up to me at our Clovis event and said that the organist was her friend. And still alive. Faye De Long is 89.
Faye met me at Fresno State. She was as radiant as ever. I thanked her for changing my life. I read the book to her. We wept.
During the show, Lisa took Faye’s hand and said, “Thank you for doing what I did not know how to do yet.”
Healing happening in real time.
