Member-only story
The Graffiti of Your Life Matters
Be the prophet on the subway walls, even if no one listens
“Turn on the light, you’re going to hurt your eyes.”
I don’t know how many times I heard that, growing up.
I would be reading in my bunkbed, the lower one, tilting my book towards the window where the summer twilight was deepening into darkness, desperate to stay in the story. To know how things turned out.
I was not grateful to be interrupted with a flash of light. Even if it was for my own good.
Stories were my lifeline to a whole other world. They saved me.
I was a nerdy little kid. I was immersed in a very strict fundamentalist Baptist system, social structure, and family.
My father was a Baptist preacher. At one point, he was my father, my pastor, and the head of my school.
There was no escaping his oversight.
He was charming in public, an effective speaker — preached sermons and told stories and jokes (same jokes over and over) — but less charming in private.
These days I don’t like to call myself a Christian, much less a prophet. But I trust God and Jesus and I listen to the Holy Spirit, and he/it gives me guidance and words for people. Like a prophetic word.
