"…at that point, even though he didn’t know it at the time" (S86)

…at that point, even though he didn’t know it at the time, his life gained a new set of colours. A new lens of meaning to look through at the world. 2020 was a drastic year for all of us, it’s a cliche to mention the pandemic, politics, the BLM uprising. The only original comment would be to explore the personal. In a rare moment, Jesse’s instagram feed showed him something profound. It shed light on the current political situation, his personal conflicts in the present, and the conflicts and triumphs of all peoples in the past. For the first time, he heard the words of James Baldwin. Jesse was instantly struck by the deeply emotive, passionate, spiritually insightful message his voice carried. The way Baldwin crafted a sentence tore apart the present, revealed the intricacies of the past, and left hope on a future horizon. That voice was forged in his youth as a boy-preacher. Jesse and even Baldwin, when the speech was filmed, walked away from the Church. Yet the moment was alchemical, it carried with it a profound emotional resonance that Jesse could only remember, from his childhood imagination, associating with the old Church stories of Paul, Moses, Abraham. It shifted something in Jesse. Captivating to hear a speech from the sixties, say something about 2020 which no contemporary voice could, Baldwin pulled off the mask of power and showed the heights and depths of humanity. That was Jesse’s moment. That was the summer he started to really read. It followed that he began to see and hear, in a different way, for the first time, what life could offer. This gave him the freedom to feel. And that brought the power to learn.