Theology on The Tracks

Saturday Free-Write (arriving on Sunday, because time is a fugitive too)

From the Bay Area, Theology on the Tracks

Dear Becoming Ones—

I’ve spent the weekend in the Bay Area, moving between rooms, trains, cafés, and conversations. I attended the Ember Conference and felt that old, familiar ache: the ache of not quite belonging anywhere. Nepantla.

I didn’t recognize someone. I could see in their eyes the story they might tell about me—elitist, distant. The truth is simpler and more human: when the context is new, my mind doesn’t always catalogue faces the way it “should.” We are so out of practice with one another. We silo. We self-isolate. We choose cliques over covenant. We numb ourselves with fleeting pleasures and call it connection.

Have we lost our minds?

I live in a country that believes genocide and war are legitimate tools of political power. I live in a state governed by carceral logics. The longer I am out in the world, the more State Patrol I see. The more surveillance hums. The more the acceleration of collapse feels real.

Can you see what I am seeing?

What terrifies me most is not only the collapse—but its speed.

And yet, as I continue this pilgrimage of repair—taking copious analog notes, asking strangers my research question, practicing ethnographic listening—I am learning something deeper than fear.

I am learning to listen for what is not being said.

To the presence of absence.

To silence.

To rest.

To revelry, even.

Theology on the Tracks has given me encounters with strangers that feel like sacraments. I am snaring these moments for a future book. They are teaching me estrangement. We are estranged from one another in ways that only a spiritual revolution can mend. Only a resetting of bones. Only a flock remembering how to move together.

I’m writing this at Moe’s, jazz humming in the background, mate in my cup, a little herbal companion keeping me soft. Third spaces matter. We need them. Without them, another possible world cannot materialize.

It was James Baldwin who taught me to love the mysticism of words.

It was Ta-Nehisi Coates who taught me to tell the truth no matter the cost.

And it was Gloria Anzaldúa who gave me the language of nepantla—the in-between, the wound that becomes a bridge.

I live there. Existentially rich. Tethered to the threshold.

This week, I shared an Ethiopian meal with Rebekah. We practiced truth-telling across injera and spice. It was belonging. It was freedom. I’ve written so much about unbelonging and unfreedom that something unlocked in me: perhaps I am now ready to write toward belonging and freedom.

Thank you, Rebekah.

When we believe in the magic of connection, we begin to nurture seeds long abandoned—inside ourselves, inside rural villages, inside sprawling metropolitan grids.

I see the collective estrangement here in the Bay. I see the limits of big city living. You don’t often see people outside curated social rituals. It can be as isolating as exile.

And yet—when Frida suddenly passed on Friday, my community came through. The love was real. My grief has nowhere to go except toward growth.

Did you know humans are genetically similar to daffodils? Thirty-something percent. We grow toward the light. Michael McRay reminds me of this in Becoming Restoried. We make the way by walking.

I remain in the Dark Forest. Guided by energetic beams of light that find me anyway.

After I speak in Berkeley and observe Ramadan with my friend Irfan, I’ll board the train again—toward Albuquerque and Santa Fe. I’ve loved the strangeness of train life: sleeping while traveling, showering while traveling, eating while traveling. Being hosted by a Trans Latine artist. Supported by native Californians. Witnessing community in different contexts.

I am far from the piney woods of Longview, Texas, where I first tasted belonging in a small Southern Baptist church. And yet, that hunger remains the same.

People want belonging.

People want freedom.

People want to flock. To dance. To move collectively.

Metanoia Meals continue. The work continues. The listening deepens.

I must narrate the impossible. I must tell the truth. After all, story is the currency of human connection.

We remain estranged—but not beyond repair.

And if collapse is accelerating, then so must our courage.

We make the way by walking.

With you in the in-between,

Roberto+🪷🚂

P.S. I typed this on my phone please excuse any typos!