How to build an ark in Harlem

How obnoxious is your faith?

How wild?

My faith is so wild I prepare for things I haven’t yet received. I buy dresses and suits for events I haven’t been invited to or for awards I haven’t yet received. I establish contacts with people I don’t yet have the context to engage with. I educate myself on skills I have not yet been required to master. Like giving a TED talk. I make note of locations of places I am not yet prepared to enter, like looking up the addresses for Ivy League campuses during my junior year.

 This may be a chronic issue and I fear it is contagious. I bought my sister a stethoscope three years ago. She just began medical school last week. I have outfits for just in case I meet a foreign dignitary, or what I would wear to meet the CEO. You’ve heard it said that When you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready. I challenge you, what are you ready for? Everyone is prepared for something. It’s just that some people are prepared for failure, some have redoubled their defenses against loss and disappointment. That’s the easy way. How challenging and brave it is to prepare for a success that you have willed yourself to be inevitable? To build an Ark in Harlem when your neighbors are more concerned with the threats of gentrification and another shooting at the bodega than the rain you promised would come.