Photo by Billy Pasco on Unsplash

If You're Ready (Come Go With Me)

Love is the only transportation
To where there’s total communication

— from If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me) sung by Mavis Staples and the Staple Singers and written by Homer Banks, Carl Hampton and Ray Jackson

Mavis Staples’ deep, rich voice carries me into a land where there’s “total communication” because of the love that’s present in all of us. Her voice surrounds my heart and calms it, preparing me for a world I would love to see.

I am a child of the 60’s the “peace and love” decade, and this song came of age just after I graduated from college, and close to the ending of the Vietnam War. I have been an educator since I was 21 working with students on the margins of society and education. I am now 71 and looking to find my way to the vision of humanity Mavis is singing about.

As a Black woman, with roots in her church, that vision is deep in her voice – a voice which transforms my current fear and anxiety about the state we find our country in, into tears and a more opened heart. I am ready Mavis, I am ready to go with you to that place where there’s “no economical exploitation, no political domination.” Thank you for singing these words in your way.

Emanuel Pariser, his daughter Yajia Girardin, and wife Lea Girardinin
Emanuel Pariser, his daughter Yajia Girardin, and wife Lea Girardinin

Emanuel Pariser
I am a lifelong Maine educator, co-founding The Community School in 1973 when I was 21, and then co-founding the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences in 2011.  Helping students  find self-respect and self-confidence in a society that often seems to be invested in taking those elements away from them – is my life’s work.

 

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