A teacher in Austria, I had finally given myself permission to indulge in English language reading when I ran across a paperback of The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart by Alice Walker in a Swiss bookstore.  It was the title that convinced me to the purchase the book as I had never read Alice Walker before.

The opening stories are a fictionalized reflection of Alice’s marriage to civil rights lawyer Mel Leventhal. Even though the reflections are weighted with the heaviness of a broken heart, I admired this couple in Jackson, Mississippi, Alice teaching and writing, birthing and raising their only baby girl, Mel working late nights all across Mississippi to prosecute civil rights violations. Alice also worked for the Legal Defense Fund, documenting cases of blacks who had been evicted from their homes because they had tried to register to vote.

When I first read Alice Walker’s work in Austria, I never ever would have imagined that I would find myself living in Jackson, Mississippi–since at that time I had no connections in Jackson. It was some time after I moved here that I picked The Way Forward off the bookshelf and was amazed that this book and I were here.

Since then I have read Alice Walker’s biography and was saddened to read the details of how Alice was unhappy and often felt her creativity to be stifled in Jackson. Obviously, she moved on as need be and has long felt Mississippi’s imprint.

This is an event, a book, a group of people that every independent bookstore in Mississippi is talking about.

Everybody’s talking about Lucas McCarty and the Trinity House of Prayer in Moorehead, Mississippi. The word is spreading because Mockingbird Publishing has teamed up with writer T. R. Pearson and photographer Langdon Clay.

The event has been making its way across Mississippi over the past couple of months–to Turnrow, to Squarebooks and finally to Lemuria on December 4th. As every other bookstore has said, I, too, say that this has to be one of the best events of the year and surely one of the most unique Lemuria has ever had.

The choir and band of Holy Trinity House of Prayer from Moorehead were gracious to travel to Jackson and share their good spirit along with Lucas, Bishop Knighten, and of course, writer and photographer T. R. Pearson and Langdon Clay. The Dot Com building was packed and no doubt that little green tin roof must have been thumping with the joyous singing.

Lucas McCarty with The Woods Family - One of the many beautiful photographs of Langdon Clay

Year of Our Lord is about so many things: the amazing journey of Lucas McCarty and his decision to join an all black church and leave behind his Episcopalian upbringing, a little church out in the Delta with no signage but a heart bigger than you can imagine. It is about hope and community and loving others just the way they are.

Watch this short video narrated by T. R. Pearson:

Here’s what one person from Alabama said about the event:

“Year of Our Lord is the story of Lucas and the community – black and white – that he has helped to create.  It is about looking for hope, not in Washington, as Bishop Knighten said so eloquently at the book signing on Saturday, but looking for it in the faces of those we live next to, go to school with, and worship with each Sunday.  Hope is each of ours to give.  It is the love we share with one another and in the humanity we display to our fellow man.”

“In that room in Jackson, Mississippi last Saturday night as we listened to the glorious voices of the Trinity choir, as we marveled at the coming together of people from every imaginable socio-economic range, as we clapped and sang and celebrated the young white man with cerebral palsy who brought us all together, I had hope.  Hope that we will see past the divisions that “they” keep telling us exist.  Hope that we will find our way out of the economic mess we are in.  Hope that people will continue to treat each other with dignity and humanity.  Hope that stories like these that we never hear about on the news or read about in the paper will continue to play out each and every day across America.  Because I believe that we are a nation of good people, generous people, caring people, kind people, even if “they” don’t want us to know about it or believe in it.”

I remember when the book came into Lemuria. I thought that Year of Our Lord must be a really special even though I had not yet had time to sit down and read it. Now, this one is top on my Christmas list.

Mockingbird Publishing partners with non-for-profit organizations on every book. A portion of the proceeds from Year of Our Lord will be donated to support the outreach programs of the Trinity House of Prayer and a foundation for Lucas McCarty. It’s available for purchase here.

You can also find Mockingbird and Year of Our Lord on Facebook.