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Rev. Jeremiah Paul.
The Rev. Jeremiah Paul, pastor for Hamden Plains United Methodist Church, held his hand high as he spoke to the crowd assembled to hear him at Hamden’s Town Center Park on Friday evening. His audience were members of his congregation, but also from the greater New Haven community, a mix of languages, ages, cultures and creeds. Among them were artists selling their pieces and food truck vendors feeding the people.
“We had a little rain shower, which I consider a blessing from the heavens,” he said amiably. With the sun out, the show was ready to start.
The occasion was the second annual HeArts for Justice, an afternoon and evening of art, music, and food on Hamden’s town green organized by Hamden Plains United Methodist Church. The purpose of the event was to bring “awareness to social injustices through the freedom of artistic expression,” as the event’s description put it. “With the participation of all ages, races, identities, and religions,” the aim lay in “using the arts to advocate social justice in our communities.” From both the range of performers on the stage and the people who came to see them, the event’s aims were clearly met.
At the beginning of the event, Paul explained the origins of the idea for HeArts for Justice. He had attended a protest and watched with concern as he felt the tone of it tip toward divisiveness and violence. He decided instead to throw an event that was mindful of the problems we face as a society, but encouraged as many people as possible to work on them together.
“We are stronger together. All of our differences are what make us unique. They make us family,” he said. “And we ought to celebrate that.” He emphasized the word celebrate rightfully, as HeArts for Justice was about the work of social change, but it was also about finding ways to bring people together to have fun doing it.
Young.
A presentation by Kelvin Young, a certified sound healer, set the tone. He told the assembled crowd his story: about his battles with mental health and multiple drug addictions, and about how he discovered yoga and meditation while serving a two-year prison sentence. He described how his journey toward recovery — he has been substance-free since 2009 — was an exploration of various healing techniques and a coming to terms with his own personal and cultural past. Yoga and meditation led him to singing bowls, qigong, and vegetarianism. It led to a strengthening of his faith. At the same time, he went through a process of unearthing traumas. Some were from his own childhood. Others are those he inherited as a Black man, stemming from 400 years of slavery and oppression.
“Those issues are in our tissues,” he said. They lay at the root of his addictions. As a younger man, “I had to reach for something outside of myself” at first to deal with them. “Society conditions us to look for things outside of ourselves.” The drugs he got addicted to worked until they didn’t. In prison, he began to look within. He did it for himself, but also for his daughter. “I wanted to be the kind of man she could look up to and be proud of,” he said.
In his recovery, he dealt with both self-worth and social anxiety. But in time, he also learned how to not define himself by his struggles. He wasn’t just an addict, and he wasn’t just a victim; he was too complex (as are we all) for those simple frames. “Addiction is a human experience, not a human entity,” he said. “Behind the so-called addict, behind the so-called alcoholic, is a human being.”
“I believe that life is about learning, growing, evolving,” he said. It was a journey he was still on. He was learning the value of singing, of listening to music, of being in nature, of spending time with friends and family. He had also come to understand how his past could help him savor the present. “How can we truly experience the sunshine without having experienced the rain?” he said. “A beautiful flower needs both the sunshine and the rain in order to grow.”
Part of that growth involved learning to be more open, to talk to friends, family, and community and break down the stigmas associated with mental health and addiction. But that, in turn, involved everyone being able to break them down for themselves. In Young’s experience, meditation helped. He ended his presentation with a demonstration of his singing bowls, offering everyone the chance to be in the moment. Many took him up on it.
“There’s so much wisdom inside of us,” he said. “So much insight, so much truth, if we just take the time to be still.”
Having focused on the energy within, Paul then brought up the energy level throughout the park, serving as vivacious emcee for a parade of performers that demonstrated the principles he had articulated — that a diverse community is stronger together. Earl Ali-Randall, from New Haven, fired up the stage with high-energy African dance, an art form he has been practicing for 15 years and currently teaches as well. Hamden High student Cecilia Cangiano carried rays of hope on her voice as she sang a selection from The Little Mermaid.
Mariachi Laureles del Monte, based in Meriden, wowed the crowd with lush and confident renditions of western Mexican classics — and that was before the audience learned that all of the members were in high school.
Alanna Davis commanded the microphone with a few current pop hits.
The programming then switched over as Stout, a.k.a. Denise Renee, who brought the audience to its feet and closer to the stage to dance as she pulled out a few of her more recent songs. She was a harbinger for the gospel extravaganza to come later in the evening. But the afternoon’s programming had already proved the point of HeArts for Justice, that strengthening community lay at the core of sustained justice work. The event was rooted in the congregation of Hamden Plains United Methodist Church, but it was one in which all were welcome. The tone was encapsulated in a prayer of thanks Paul offered at the beginning of the event. “Lord, we thank you for an opportunity to be better than we were yesterday, an opportunity to love a little bit harder, to feel a little more compassion to our friends, our loved ones, and our neighbors … We know that with you, all is love, all is good.”