Faith means....

I wish I could find a reprint of the poster. In the 1970s, my preacher father hung it on the wall of his church study. 

The left side was goldenrod yellow, the right was pitch black. A jagged line down the center of the poster divided them. 

The poster read: 

     Faith means

            walking to the edge of 

                  all the light you have

                                and taking 

                                             one

                                                   more

                                                                        step.

Every word was printed in bold black against yellow. Except for the last. The word step, in goldenrod, crossed over the line into the black. Into the unknown.

I've taken the new title for my memoir from this poster: The Edge of All the Light You Have: a story of love across race and time. 

For most of my life I haven't done well with the unknown. Even though I am the daughter of parents who took one step after another across that jagged line. 

I hold them close to my heart. I wonder sometimes--often!--how they found the courage to make choices that put our family in the line of fire. Choices that were dangerous and life-expanding at the same time. Choices that challenged the barriers that white supremacy is continually working to shore up.

At age 73, I have written a book that tells a love story, one that I am living as I write this. The first time William and I held hands, we were 16 years old, lying on the floor in the dark under a wall shattered by buckshot, and what was uppermost in our minds was not romance, but survival. When we found each other again more than half a century later, we were struck by the way that neither of us had forgotten the other in all that time--all the more extraordinary because we never dated in high school and had not seen each other in 52 years.

William is Black. I am white. Even if we had wanted to marry in 1970, North Carolina law would not have permitted it. Interracial marriage was illegal in this state--at least on the books--until ten years after Loving v Virginia ruled that such laws violated the Constitution.

Now, in a country that is slip-sliding backwards, our small story engages some big issues. But it is still our story, and it is precious to us. I don't want the love to get lost or mired in some crusade or other.

Because, at the end of the day, it is just us when we turn out the lights and yield our lives to whatever God there may be.

William frequently reminds me that “Life is not a problem to solve, but a mystery to live.” And that's where we find ourselves, living in the thick of the mystery.

We've chosen to build our home right on the edge of all the light we have. And every morning, together, we cross that line and stake our claim on the unknown.