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Beyond Regalia: Prologue

Photo by Jason Wong on Unsplash

I haven't set fire to all the bridges yet. I hesitate out of fear. It's a fear that my family might suffer at my hands, that I might return to my table with a lame offering. It's taking a knee during the American anthem with much less resources than a star quarterback in the NFL. To be plucked before bloom time, and cut off from all the necessarry nutrients that enable one to survive in a power grid of social contracts. I hear the elders spewing wisdom in my subconscious. "Make sure you don't burn no bridges now."

It means leaving things clean and orderly when you pass through. It takes the shape of passivity, never churning the waters, but being a likable standardized consumer. This sentiment betrays why one writes in the first place. Yet, in the age of social media, I sense a slight reluctance in every keystroke. It's the contemplation of real consequences. It’s an episode of “When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong." As with most things that make us laugh, it brims with reality for a black man.

I was the first in my immediate family to attend college. I too feel the urgency to break the cycle of addiction, the cycle of violence, and the cycle of incarceration that scars my house. I feel the weight of being twice as good as my white peers just to get in the front door for a chance to rise through the ranks on merit. But once in, I still carry a sense that I can never fully embrace my whole self. I imagine it in the way, Barack was never fully permitted to do so as the first black President.

We are oversupplied with negative models of black men in the media. Many of us feel the pressure to demolish age-old stereotypes especially if we find some semblance of success in this country. Perhaps it’s deep feelings of inadequacy, inner scabs, the remains of the great immoral fire that licked up so much from my people. It's the observation that opportunities don't usually come in bouquets and the realization that there is no safety net to catch you if you tumble backward. It's a nail-biting highwire act where one false move could prove irrecoverable. I find myself measuring my words and calling it wisdom.

A black man in America is historically different. In many ways, still hindered by invisible evils perpetrated by a ruling class of human beings who don’t know God. But, if I believe in God and what his word says, that he raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6), that he did not give us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7), if I believe no weapon forged against me will prevail (Isaiah 54:17), but on the contrary I have at my disposal God's mighty weapons, to knock down strongholds of human reasoning and destroy false arguments (2 Corinthians 10:4) than I'm ready to torch the bridges, which every writer must be prepared to do when his sentences take center stage.

One must be of mind to become the poet in the craw of culture. For as long as society refuses to acknowledge truth, you must be willing to go beyond regalia. - R. S. Mills

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?" "Of course, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden," the woman replied. "It's only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, 'You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.'"

"You won't die!" the serpent replied to the woman. "God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil." The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful, and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. At that moment, their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. 

So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. The man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden when the fantastic evening breezes were blowing. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Then the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" He replied, "I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked." "Who told you that you were naked?" Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” - Genesis 3:1-11

Ever since the fall of man, Eden has become a wasteland. We have attempted to play God by desiring first and acting in rebellion second. We shunned obedience for an awareness that ultimately destroys us in the end. The burden of knowledge is far too heavy for mankind to discern and handle righteously. In our finite wisdom, we persist as if we know better than God, our Creator. 

Though we may not be fully conscious of our folly, we hide behind our limited intellect to circumvent our accountability to a higher power. But it’s because knowing good and evil makes us feel like God, so we act as if we are. We are still hiding amongst the trees attempting to cover up with illusions of power that keeps us feeling godlike. 

Nations hide behind militaries and nuclear codes, presidents behind the emblems of state and bulletproof glass. To the detriment of their citizens, governments hide behind law, policy, and philosophy. We sew fig leaves of class, race, resumes, titles, political parties, celebrity, and consumer goods that signal status ever-widening the canyon between our godlike avatars and who God says we are.

We hold crowns and scepters, office and order, finery and clothing, royalty and riches, and rights and privileges. Without these things, we don't know who we are, and we threaten one another with and for these things. It’s all just regalia, a costume, and in this book, I will endeavor to get beyond the veil and drill down to the source of our true identity.

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Beyond Regalia is still under research and development. If you enjoyed this piece and would like to support my journey to becoming a full-time writer, I'd be grateful for your yearly pledge.

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Matchless,

R. S. Mills