Why I started this blog in the first place...

This summer I was granted an Undergraduate Fellowship by the Fund for Theological Education.  This fellowship included an all expenses paid conference in Boston, MA, at Boston University's School of Theology and a $2000 stipend that I can use for educational expenses or to fund a vocational enhancing trip.  For the past couple of months, I have swayed back and forth between going to South Africa to study racial reconciliation ministries or paying off student loans.  After some prayer, soul searching, and price planning I figured I couldn't swing a trip to Africa and I have all of my life to pay of student loans, so why start now? 

Recently I received a Facebook invite to participate in the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer in May 2011.  This got my ADD mind a whirling, and I thought "how cool would it be to re-trace the path of the Freedom Riders?"  Then I dawned on me... why don't I?  The inspiration and motivation for this trip come from a paper I wrote my junior year for a Peace, Religion, and Justice class where we studied non-violence movements and how peace can be found in any religion.  I wrote my final paper on pilgrimages that Buddhists monks often made to promote peace and healing in a conflict torn area.  I wrote about an interracial/international group that decided to make a peace pilgrimage of the slave trade between Africa and the Americas.  As this group visited different ports and slave exchange centers, they conducted small prayer services that asked for forgiveness and healing of the pain that was inflicted at that place.  This was not a trip where people cast judgment on those who owned or traded slaves, but as a time where they remembered the horrors and the pain of that period, prayed for the healing of those who were harmed by it, prayed for the forgiveness of those who committed these acts, and prayed to prevent something like that from happening again in this time.  The stories the pilgrims shared were so powerful I have always wanted to have a similar experience.  Now I have the opportunity to do my own peace pilgrimage!

I named this blog "Mississippi Pilgrim" as a nod towards my pilgrimage I hope to start in May of 2011 as soon as I graduate.  I plan on driving from Jackson, Mississippi, to Washington, D.C., and along the way stop at cities and sites where major and minor Civil Rights events happened.  I am using the book Worry Feet, Rested Souls: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement by Townsend Davis as my guide for some of the smaller events I don't know about.  I plan to use this blog as a means of documenting my journey for this trip.  Also "Mississippi Pilgrim" also applies to my life's pilgrimage in discerning what I am being called to do.  From time to time, the blog will be used as an outlet for introspective reflections and general musings I wish to share with my family and friends.

I want to sign off this post with the lyrics of "Lift Every Voice and Sing".  This song has been dubbed as the African American national anthem, but I think it should serve as a rallying cry for all of us who wish to stand against oppression and persecution and as a remembrance that God is with us always.

Lift every voice and sing,

'Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by Thy might

Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,

May we forever stand,

True to our God,

True to our native land.