My oldest daughter was born in Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Chester, PA. Those hallowed grounds were once occupied by the Crozer Theological Seminary attended by such notables as J. Pious Barber, Samuel Dewitt Proctor and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These were giants of men, men of faith I hold in high regard. I often walked these grounds where they walked in honor, remembrance, and reflection.
We had relocated to Pennsylvania on faith in what I do as an artist to start a new life. We named our daughter Imani, which means faith with Arabic and Swahili origins in East Africa, as a testament to that move. This year Imani returned from Alaska, another faith move – there and back. At the morning of this writing, she is on a beach in Maryland, as I am in one of my favorite places on the planet, Chicago. We exchanged sunrise images. The one thing constant in them both is the glow of the morning sun. Faith is the knowing that the sun will always rise. No matter how dark the night or tumultuous the storm, that golden orb ascends to the heavens as a metaphoric reminder. A reminder that we can always begin again, and that success came before us on the same planet that we walk. Sometimes even the same ground that we walk over. Remembering and thinking on things like this can help to put things in perspective as we go about the tasks involved in doing what we do.
Think of your most revered luminary. In this case allow it to be someone that you admire in your field of choice. Someone who has made accomplishments in the area of which you aspire to succeed. See them in action in your mind going about their tasks from the mundane to the magnificent. Above them every day is the same sun that shines down on you. The setting of your story has the same lighting as theirs. The warmth, the light, the brilliance — all of it bathed their path just as it bathes yours. The same source of energy that sustained their journey is sustaining you now, fueling your own rise, your own breakthroughs.
It’s easy to look at those who’ve gone before us and imagine that they had some secret, some hidden resource, but the truth is they moved forward in the same rhythm of faith, resilience, and consistency. Like the sun, they showed up, even on cloudy days when success seemed distant. And just like the sun, their brilliance was a reflection of what already existed inside them.
Faith, like the light of the sun, is a force we often take for granted, yet it’s always with us. Just as we trust that the sun will rise each morning, we must trust that our own light, our own success, will also emerge — even when it’s not immediately visible. Even on those days when we whisper in quiet desperation,”What the hell am I doing?”
Imani, faith, is not just the name of my daughter; it’s the principle that guides the journey. It’s in the small actions, the steady discipline, and the unwavering belief that, just like the sun, the time will come to rise higher. No storm, no night, can prevent the dawning of your potential. So as we stand on this shared ground, beneath this shared sun, know that you’re already on the path — step by step, light by light, day by day, moment by moment — to becoming the luminary that will shine for the generations to come.
Notes of A Native Son 