Free Where Do I Go? by Neta Jackson Page B

from the coffee urn, or chatting loudly in their seats. Several men and women with instruments—an electronic keyboard, saxophone, and two guitars—were looking around as if wondering how to get everyone’s attention.
    Another window-rattling crack of thunder did the trick. “Praise the Lord, sisters—and brothers too!” Avis called out in greeting. “It’s Resurrection Sunday!”
    Several people responded loudly: “That’s right! Hallelujah!”
    â€œWe can’t let the rocks cry out in our place—or in this case, thunder.” Several residents snickered. “If Jesus Christ can sacrifice His own life so that we can live, we can bring Him a sacrifice of praise.”
    Turned out that was the title of the song, but I didn’t know the words, so I just hummed along as best I could. It was hard to make out the words over the saxophone, anyway. I wasn’t alone. Only about half the shelter residents sang along, and many of those were mumbling. Sacrifices of thanksgiving? Sacrifices of joy? Hmm . If the only bed I had was a bunk in a shelter, I might be able to drum up a sacrificial “thanks.” But joy?
    When was the last time I felt joy? A smile tickled the corners of my mouth. Running barefoot in the sand a couple of days ago, sending the gulls fluttering like dancing girls with gauzy white scarves. Yes, that was joy. My prelude to that strange encounter in the park with a metal cart belonging to a bag lady under a bush—
    Lucy. I glanced quickly around the room but didn’t see her. Oh Lord, she’s not out in this storm, is she? No, no, surely not. She’d find shelter somewhere . . . wouldn’t she? But I did see lanky Josh Baxter and his cute wife, Edesa—a poster couple for racially mixed marriage. A white man and woman stood next to them, the woman holding baby Gracie and nuzzling her affectionately as the singing group launched into a new song. Josh’s parents, if I had to take a guess.
    Interesting. Did the Baxter clan go to this SouledOut Community Church too? If so, this church certainly had a mixed group of people. The praise team had both blacks and whites too.
    The next hymn was more familiar. “Up from the grave He arose!” I wasn’t used to singing without a hymnbook, but I’d sung this one many times growing up, and it was also a staple when we made our Easter appearances in Petersburg. The guitars and sax gave it a rather funky flavor, though. Even the tinny piano at my home church in Minot, North Dakota—not to mention the majestic organ at Briarwood Lutheran—seemed more appropriate somehow.
    We finally sat, and the woman who’d seen right through my claim to buddyness with Lucy in the lunch line two days ago—Carolyn, I think Precious had called her—stood up and read from a paperback Bible. “For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.” She read several more verses, which basically said the same thing in more words, then lifted her head. “That’s from Romans, chapter six. Amen.” And sat down.
    What was her story? I wondered. Pallid skin, middle-aged, thirty pounds too heavy, slicked-back brownish-gray hair worn in a ponytail, but quick on her feet, and she read smartly. Obviously not a high school dropout. But why homeless?
    After the Bible reading, Avis Douglass gave what she called a short devotional on the meaning of “new life.” She was certainly an attractive black woman—hair swept up into a sculpted French roll, black pantsuit, silk blouse, very professional looking. Her husband wasn’t bad either. Salt-and-pepper hair cropped short, dark gray flannels, black open-necked shirt. I caught him eyeing his wife with a little smile.
    â€œJesus didn’t rise from the dead just to prove He was God,” Avis was