As for myself, I entered Springfield, Missouri with the tiniest seed of apprehension; if Sioux Center brought such mixed signals in the first hours of our arrival, would all of our stops bring vandalizing slander and juxtaposed acceptance? My well founded fear was unneeded however, because Central Bible College had only one stance on our visit there: repudiation.
We woke early and held a vigil for the entire day, breaking for lunch. Standing solemnly and singing songs alternately; Our voices carried the songs farther as the students began to exit from chapel and two straight allies, Abby and Brandy stepped onto campus side by side, with simply their bibles in their hands. They were arrested before they had gotten to the end of the driveway. We stood and sang for several more hours until leaving for lunch, where I met three incredible Missourians who had found out about our visit the day before and stood with us that morning.
Returning that afternoon, we sang and took steps forward together, over the sidewalk and closer to the line of demarcation that assured us we had no business on CBC's campus as non-students, only to kneel side-by-side, holding hands. I was overwhelmingly aware of the pumping of my heart, of the scratch of leaves on my knees, and warm sun on my back when I heard a strong female voice carry a bible verse over the grass and tree-spotted campus in front of us. Hospitality. And after Abby had finished another rider carried another verse to the distant students and squirrels above us. Love. And another.
We alternately, as inspired, stood or knelt and read the verses that stirred our hearts and hopes for unity. And then we sang again, standing together, to the campus that would not acknowledge our presence, our requests for conversation, or our petitions for reconciliation, with the unrelenting belief that perhaps the students on campus who needed to hear our voices the most, could.
Community members and members of a local uu church spent time with us that last evening we were in town for a bbq in a park. They were energized from the events of the day and we were able to relax for a while in the midst of Springfield in our carefully constructed safe and community. I have become increasingly aware of my physiological reactions to unsafe environments, so the profoundly different environments that are intentionally created with other riders and community members of the cities we visit. Similarly, on Sunday the UU church had brought us into their house of worship for their service and an amazing meal afterwards. Riders, who had never felt accepted in a church before, did with these people who value equality and justice in measures that are not often found.
Welcome to our world. The dichotomies of beauty and wounds continue in every facet of our journey. And so it is....
