Lenny Duncan is the author of United States of Grace: A Memoir of Homelessness, Addiction, Incarceration, and Hope.
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A Black Queer Kid Sticks His Thumb Out In Virginia
AMERICA IS THE crucible, the forge, the hammer beating me out of shape. Or into a new shape. But the fire is all God. A fire that is untamable, that has been harnessed and misused but not conquered by the powers that be. God’s mercy is the force that kept breath in my body as I tried to dash my life against the rocks. It’s Resurrection. Moments like that snowy day in Virginia, when the world conspired to drag me by my hair, kicking and screaming, toward life.
My life has followed a trajectory of grace: the specific route God used to reach me that was built through a series of actions and events piling up and creating a spiritual momentum that I couldn’t avoid, duck, or hide from.
The truth is nothing went perfectly to get me from where I was on Feb. 12, 2010, to where I am today, sitting in a random coffee shop in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, putting my story down in words for you, a stranger.