A slightly revised edition of a writing posted in July 2019, while in Silent Retreat in North Carolina, USA.
This is a rather long and intimate sharing. I share frankly about some matters from the past and have communicated with others who were involved, only after prayerful silence and receiving peace to be open about such.
I hope you enjoy! And please refer this posting, and others, to persons who might be edified and encouraged through them.
Lightly & Quietly,
Brian K. Wilcox
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Stanza from closing poem -
once in a while look back and see how what hurt so much is now known as a holy place that even the moment of being broken open was the moment of rebirth
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Antonio Machado -
wanderer, there is no path, the path is made by walking
* * *
I seem to have been born a border crosser, destined to live as what I call a spiritual immigrant. I was one of three boys, the other two older by three and four years. I grew up up on a farm, and like the generations before me, in the small community of Handtown and nearby Hazlehurst, Georgia, staying close to the homeplace. In my late teens, after graduating from high school and working for a year, first at a coat factory, then at a woodyard, I left and continued moving - even to today, as my little, rented cabin in Northeast Maine is strewn with belongings waiting for another move.
My first move was to live at a college about forty-five minutes drive from home. I lasted less than one day in the dorm. I rushed back home and commuted for a time. Then, I reassessed and moved back closer to the college, to live alone in a garage apartment.
After becoming a part-time pastor of a little Baptist church in Lyons, Georgia, Hammond Baptist Church, I moved once more. While serving the church, a church member and widow offered me a room in her house. After nine months of serving these twenty-five parishioners, I realized I was not ready to be a pastor. I still wanted to enjoy my youth. And, anyway, dear Betty, who seemed to think she was Queen of Hammond, made life somewhat problematic for a young man who was shy and did not begin to know how to work with church conflict.
Part of the conflict that arose at the church is I dared, according to some, to invite a family of dark skin to worship with us. I had assumed, I am glad, that anyone ought to be welcome anywhere persons spoke of it being "God's house." I think what first turned Betty against me is I did not take romantic interest in her daughter; she had planned we two would hook up. I was a handsome preacher, and that appealed to Betty for her attractive daughter, but not to her daughter and not to me. I moved again, back to the college and glad to be free of Betty and to live as age nineteen again.
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Since this is not an autobiography, we move on quickly, bypassing many borders crossed over the following years, including the states of Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia. The crossings brought much success in education, with two Master's degrees and a PhD, as well as six years as a college professor. However, there was a dear price to pay for that: a collapse of health amid a spiritual crisis, which led from being that professor to working part-time at a nursery, watering plants and pulling up weeds. If I ever write an autobiography, that will be a good chapter, I think, very, very interesting.
Sometimes, for integrity or to save your life, one may leave their religion. I left, after my mind and body threatened to fall apart completely. That was a dark place, one you are thankful for having survived, that you came out alive and hope - really hope - never to return to. Yes, there are hells on this Earth, inner hells as well as outer hells. Sometimes, it takes hell for us to be ready to move on.
