Transcendent Kingdom

by Yaa Gyasi

Before long, Pastor John took the microphone and went up to the makeshift pulpit at the front of the room in order to say a word. “We know that Nana was a talented young man. Many of us in this room saw him on the basketball court, shooting that basketball toward the Heavens themselves. It brought us joy to watch him and to recognize in this young man the glory of the Lord. Now whenever a young person dies, it’s easy for those of us who were left behind to get angry. We think, why would God do this? Nana had so much to give, God, why? It’s normal to feel that way, but let me remind you, God doesn’t make mistakes. I said, God doesn’t make mistakes. Amen? God in his infinite wisdom saw fit to bring Nana home to him, and we have to believe that the Heaven where Nana is now is so much more wonderful than anything this world had to offer him. Nana is in a better place, with our Heavenly Father, and one day we will have the great joy, the great, great joy, of meeting him there.” I sat there listening to Pastor John’s words, listening to the amens and hallelujahs that rose up in chorus around those words, thinking, Nana would have hated all of this. And that knowledge, and that roomful of people who knew my brother but didn’t know him, who skirted around the circumstances of his death, talking about him as though only the portion of his life that had taken place before his addiction was worthy of examination and compassion, wrecked me and felled the long-growing tree of my belief...