Unity

I went to church yesterday.

Normally…no big deal.  Nothing to write home about.

But this was something different.

I belong to one of Annapolis’ mega churches.  It’s a contemporary church with contemporary music.  It began in l987 with 25 people and has grown to include two campuses in Maryland – one in Annapolis and another on the Eastern Shore – with sister churches on five continents.

The membership is predominately white, middle-class, and middle aged.  Several thousand people attend one of the four services every weekend.

The church I attended yesterday was founded in l803 on land purchased by seven former slaves.  It is a couple of blocks from where we live, the oldest African American church in Annapolis, and one of the oldest in the state.  The congregation is small, old, and almost entirely black.

I went to the 11:00 AM service – the only service – and joined the 75 to 80 people there.   I came in with my head full of nonsense from the morning news:  Is Elizabeth Warren really a Native American?  Did she claim to be one for political purposes?   What’s up with the Governor, Attorney General, and Majority Leader in Virginia?  Is there anyone in Virginia politics who didn’t think it fun or funny to wear black face while in college?  How much does it all matter?

As the service began, I felt some peace and an immediate kinship.  I was struck by the spirit of the congregation and the warmth of the people.  That combination in the context of my morning musings forced a conclusion that has escaped me for a while.

I am African American.

…So are you.

I’m not running for office, so bear with me.

Years ago at Jane Goodall’s invitation, I participated in the National Geographic’s Genographic Project.  It was designed to use DNA analysis and cutting-edge technology to answer fundamental questions about where we originated and how our ancestors came to populate the Earth.

This study of genetic diversity allowed scientists to reconstruct a family tree of the human population.  There were a lot of interesting findings, but the largest was this compelling truth:  In a very real sense, everyone alive today is African.

In my case, the results show my ancestral trail began in North Africa.  About 60,000 years ago, those who were to be my direct ancestors moved north to the Mediterranean.  In the early 1900s, about a hundred years ago, one of them, my grandfather, arrived at Ellis Island from Greece.

As I sat there and considered the import of this information, I realized that the things that seemed to separate me from the rest of the congregation were distinctions without a difference.  The truth is we were separated only by generations, the distance and the direction from where we began to where were we are.

Theologians have long said that if we believe there is one God, if we believe He is the Father of us all, then no child of God can be said to be outside the pale of human kinship and no individual can be considered less human, fundamentally different, or apart.

Science now offers its confirmation.  In the words of Craig Venter, a pioneer of DNA sequencing and a leader of the National Geographic’s study, “The concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis.