the human being of july 14, 2008 is woody carter who wrote the piece below. it takes such courage to share a testimony. and it takes strength to change your life. this essay by woody carter is a testimony about mud, meditation, and changing his life. i believe that's ONE of the reasons we suffer and live through: so we can tell the story and ease the suffering of others. i am perpetuating woody's story so that his suffering will never be in vain. i share this testimony so that someone who may be suffering from the same experience can gain strength, insight, wisdom, and vision. share your story with me if you like ... so your own suffering will not be in vain.
By Woody Carter
In everybody’s life there is some suffering and pain along with love and happiness. Now, let me tell you a story about being in the mud but not knowing it.
Soon after returning in 1968 from two years of volunteer service as a Peace Corps teacher in Harar, Ethiopia, I went off the deep end. You see, I had been living on the edge of the Ogaden desert that stretches between the Ethiopia highlands and the Somali border and had returned to a densely populated New York City, where women were wearing brightly colored shorts called hot pants. I was living in Harlem off 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue and studying acting at the African American Studio for Acting and Speech.
During the day, I worked as a social worker with young black boys in foster care, and at night, I studied acting and performed in black plays. But after the lights dimmed and the performances were over, I would find myself walking the streets of the city, talking in my head or out loud to myself. I kept the dialogue under raps during the day, but at night, when I was alone and tired and walking the streets, I would let the madness out.
One weekday night, I found myself at 3 a.m. walking past a dark storefront window in Grenwich Village. I thought I saw someone in the window’s reflection walking beside me so I turned around. No one was there. So I walked back to the storefront to take a second look, and what I saw frightened me. Someone I didn’t know was staring at me. It took a moment to realize that who I saw in the window was actually me. I looked dog tired. I needed a shave. My clothes were disheveled, and the marijuana that had become my nightly companion had given me a throbbing headache. I needed to be at home and asleep, but there I was, standing in front of a dark looking glass talking to myself. My body began to shake, and I felt frightened.
The next day, I telephoned my friend Tony, who had been my roommate while I was a student at Howard University in Washington, D.C. I remembered that he meditated, and although at the time I considered myself an atheist or agnostic, I knew that the very moment Tony sat down to meditate, a quiet feeling invisibly invaded my room. I never asked him about his daily “quiet time” or even discussed my experience living with him. But after that night, walking like a zombie in Grenwich Village, I called him.
“Tony, I feel like I’m coming apart and need to talk to somebody so am calling you,” I blurted out after some small talk. I explained that I had been walking at night in exhaustion, talking gibberish to myself. “Woody,” he said, “you go and see Luther. He’s a friend of mine, and I’ll call and tell him you’re gonna call him. … He’ll know what to do.” He gave me Luther’s address and phone number, and soon after, we hung up. About two weeks later, I knocked on Luther’s door. He lived in a small, one-bedroom apartment in Upper Manhattan. As soon as the door opened, I started talking a mile a minute. I really didn’t know Luther or why I was even there. I rambled on about acting and working. I started making comments about the yoga books that I was reading. I knew I wasn’t making much sense, but my mouth just wouldn’t stop. I wanted to impress him with my education, my learning. And as my motor-mouth rambled on, I noticed that Luther’s tiny living room was lit only by candlelight. Floral incense filled the air. There was no television. On and on I talked until Luther said very quietly and calmly, “Woody, come sit down.” I was nervous, perhaps because it was so deadly still and quiet in that room. I was uncomfortable in the silence, thinking that it was unnatural to be so quiet and still in the middle of New York City.
Luther was a short, darkskinned man who spoke with a slight Southern drawl. I would later find out that he had retired from working all his adult life at the U.S. Post Office. He hadn’t made it past the eighth grade in his education. He never married nor had any children. But this first evening in Luther’s presence, he remained a mystery. As soon as I sat beside him, he reached for a piano stool that seemed to roll out from nowhere. A rectangular wooden box sat on top of it. Luther unlocked a small metal hook on top of the box. It released a type of bellow. He pressed his hand against the rear side of the box that began to move like the side of a small accordion. This instrument, which I later found out is called a harmonium, began to make a one note drone as Luther pressed and released his hand against the side of the box.
“What’s that?” I interrupted. I began to wonder why I had come here. Where was this all leading? The drone continued, and then suddenly he said, “Close your eyes and watch your breathing. Don’t control your breath in any way … just watch your breathing as the air goes in and out.”
I tried to get my mind to settle down and do what Luther asked, but I kept thinking about other things. I felt my leg twitching and thought that I should scratch it. I wondered if I would get out of his apartment in time to call my mother before she went to bed. On and on my thoughts passed through my mind like wild horses that would not be tamed. And then I heard the drone and Luther’s calm voice saying once again, “Try to sit still and watch your breathing … See if you can find the space between your in-breath and out-breath … when there is no breath at all … just watch your breath,” he whispered. “Don’t control it in any way.”
So I settled down to try once again. Luther began to sing, “Mother, I give you my soul soul … soul call. You can’t remain hidden anymore. … Give my mother a soul, soul, soul call; she can’t remain hidden anymore. Come out of the silent sky; come out of the mountain glen. … Come out of my secret soul, Ma; come out of my secret soul; come out of my cave of silence, come out of my cave of silence.”
And as Luther repeat this chant over and over, his voice got stronger. I began to recognize the words and wanted to sing along with him, but could not. I was afraid, uncomfortable, embarrassed. Then, suddenly, I knew, with such clarity and directness that the thought almost lifted me off my chair, that this man was chanting with all his heart a love song to the Divine. He sang with such love and devotion that his singing made me uneasy.
I was uncomfortable because I felt no such love, devotion or communion with the Infinite. I had never heard anyone sing like Luther. I knew that if I sang along with him, I would be a fraud. I didn’t feel worthy to join him in chanting such a prayer-song. I was in the mud, and now I knew it. Instead, I quietly began to cry. It was then that I began in earnest to watch my breath … breathing in and breathing out.
And as the months passed, I visited Luther often. At times, I’d come talking gibberish only to leave feeling a deep sense of peace and calmness — a centeredness. Sometimes, there were others in Luther’s apartment, sitting wherever they could find a place to meditate and chant.
Eventually, I knew that I wanted to be like Luther McKinnie (1907-2002), and as awkward as I felt, I, too, began to sing, “Mother, I give you my soul … soul … soul call. You can’t remain hidden anymore. You can’t remain hidden anymore.” And my own uneasiness began to gradually melt away.
Some 39 years later, meditation remains a part of my daily life. It enables me to live up to the four principals of Critical Mass Health Conductors. As conductors, we commit to: 1) assuming personal responsibility for our health and wellbeing; 2) advocating for cultural messages that promote and embrace healthy lifestyles; 3) asking for support when necessary to make healthy lifestyle changes; and 4) removing the inner obstacles in our lives that prevent the power and the voice of Spirit from working within and through us.
If Luther were alive today, he’d make an ideal Health Conductor.
For more information on Critical Mass Health Conductors, visit the Bay Area Black United Fund’s website at www.babuf.org or contact Toya at the BABUF office at (510) 763-7270.
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