Do you know that song? It’s been recorded by the incomparable LaShun Pace, though I always understood it to be something of a negro spiritual. A song all church going Black folks know. We just know it like we know “Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing.” The lyrics speak to our bodies being temporal, limited vessels for our incorporeal and eternal essences. “I’ve got another building, a building not made by man’s hands,’” LaShun and her backing choir sing. The song is such an experience that I cannot think of it without singing or listening to it at least twice. It’s one of the best songs to have stuck in my head.
Not too long ago, I lay in bed listening to “There’s a Leak in This Old Building,” for probably the hundredth time since I began sheltering in place. I asked myself which parts of my life are old, leaky, sinking, or leaning. That’s a really scary question, even when you want to answer it. I liken that clarity to scales falling from Saul’s eyes (yes, this is gonna be a post full of church/ Bible shit; please bear with me), the removal of something obscuring my sight or understanding of a situation. Where do you go when the building is no more good?
Is the current system of capitalism an old building? Yeah, it is. It’s on a foundation of racism, misogyny, transphobia, anti-blackness — all the isms and practices we suffer under daily. Looking at the uprisings across the US and the world, it seems to me that we are moving on. We’re hopefully moving home to a new world, one we build to care for each other and actually support each other instead of supporting systems. Every day, there are new practices to show us we really can do and be something different.
Which building should you prepare to leave? Is it a relationship? A habit? A job? Where are you going? Will you have to flee that home, too?