Malcolm helps me answer is: how can I participate in serving the world without making matters worse in the world, especially by patronizing those I encounter? When thinking about how better to serve, one should distinguish between charity work and community service. Charity work implies “detached beneficence”; whereas community service “conjures up images of doing good deeds in impoverished, disadvantaged (primarily Black and Brown) communities by those (mostly White students) who are wealthier and more privileged.” My role as spiritual leader, taught by Malcolm, is to challenge the perceptions of both community service and charity, replacing them with spiritual and human responsibility in a pluralistic but unequal society. By doing so, community service shifts from an individualistic experience into a social responsibility.
Malcolm prays, “Help me not to be dead while I am still alive, Lord.”26
In terms of further defining community service, one may go back to 1969 to the Southern Regional Education Board in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who defined it as “the accomplishment of tasks that meet genuine human needs in combination with conscious educational growth.” Current theorists on service learning still seem to agree with this definition, although a problem remains.27 There have been many ways to describe community service. Although descriptions of service learning appear to be politically neutral, of course service learning, as multicultural education also demonstrates, is deeply political. All of this points toward ideological considerations behind any notion of service. What moves such programs beyond “charity” work is the intentional and critical focus of spiritual work.
This biography breaks new ground in walking out on the ledge of biography cum autobiography. It offers you a perspective on a significant life both through Malcolm’s own perspective and mine. Even more, Malcolm gives us his unadulterated voice in a way that is unavailable outside this biography. At some points, however, you may not like his voice. Similar to a voice crying in the wilderness, the secret-bearer disturbs us. As we will soon learn about Malcolm’s life, some will find his spiritual direction either blasphemous or divine. I pray this book will shed more light on the divine life of Malcolm Boyd—a life that should have much more public acclaim.
Dear Michael: I like your progress. The way you are so much a part of this. In a sense, then, our dialogue, our common/shared experience. Maybe the best way in the moment is for you to start each of the different chapters and see how they lead you. And, how each encompasses you as well as me.
Clearly, you need to flesh this stuff out (for example, see the trove I gave you of old papers, etc.) What may help most of all is the way EACH CHAPTER seems to grow and develop in its own way.
Most interesting, I think, will be the chapter on Celebrity. It is the cornerstone. Celebrity has changed the world. (Is it a virus?) You have the opportunity to explore the “Hollywood” side of this in my material, and how it deeply affected my life. Then, utterly ironically, how I “happened” to write a book that became not only a best-seller but a celebrity itself. Then, link this with you and Tutu (irony upon irony, if you will). So we’re in the midst of this. Where does it lead? What can we do about it? Can we make it work for “good” instead of our being simply slaves or victims of it? I think you need to shut out the world briefly, concentrate, focus, and do a damn fine first draft of the Celebrity chapter—which should, in reality, lead off the book itself. It gives the book its glamour, its immediacy, its hard challenge, its utter relevance. It simply combines sacred and secular by DOING it instead of merely “talking about” it. . . .
You need to be unafraid to bring yourself into the center of things. Including your fears, inadequacies, confusions, awakenings. In a sense the book is a thrilling trajectory of spiritual direction as well as a biography. You’re looking into your own life as well as into mine. So what does “success” mean? What can/does one do with “fame”? Include Tutu. “What’s it all about, Alfie?” But why are “success” and “fame” so often suicidal and self-destructive? (Why do they often seem to bring out the worst in people?) Indeed, why are they seen as selfish? How is this related to Jesus—and, especially, to the cross?
There is so much involved here! Isn’t it fascinating????28
So, here, in this book, is my response to Malcolm. This is not just another black book or gay book. This book is born on the miracle of the election of Barack Obama, which no doubt makes both Malcolm and me reflect more deeply about the repercussions of the Civil Rights Movement. For example, is it over? Also, this book emerges in the threshold of the debate for full inclusion of gay and lesbian persons. Can they marry? Is marriage a good idea? And could a gay or lesbian person be a head of a church? The answers that a reader discovers in the life of Malcolm Boyd are deeply contemporary (he is way ahead of his time)—and more importantly deeply divine.
Beyond getting to know Malcolm as a modern-day prophet, I have now enjoyed the privilege of receiving spiritual direction from Malcolm. Because of the life of God that I have learned from Malcolm, I think it is appropriate that I give some of this spiritual direction to the reader as well. I, therefore, write this book as it is intended to be read—with new perspective while at the same time testing current and past realities. So, read this biography as a focused reflection upon a person conscious of unnecessary hierarchies and false gods. By doing so, the genius that you will discover is that none of us are called to worship false gods.
Dear Michael: I realize for the first time what an extraordinary book you have here. It is a part of (has grown out of) spiritual direction. Quite aside from the book itself, this is simply extraordinary.
The book is not only my biography. It is also your autobiography in numerous ways. You must place yourself (as well as myself) in these pages. I believe you already are doing this. So it can be informal in places, intimate, unpretentious, natural, even conversational. This is the progression of your own spiritual development growing out of our conversations and our looking together at similar issues and themes. Here, the very title of the book comes alive. I’m wondering if perhaps the subtitle should be changed from “A Biography of Malcolm Boyd” to “Biography-cum-Autobiography.”
This can make the book itself a matter (and example) of global and international interest. This can be of intense interest. What is going on here? Something altogether fascinating, unique—that teaches virtually everyone new directions, insights, questions, approaches. It also opens up countless “old” questions and dilemmas, illustrating how to approach them in altogether fresh ways, with new attitudes and insights.
SO you place yourself in the book from the outset. (I think you’re doing this.) There’s dialogue (with me) instead of monologue. As we trace our public course, I’ve also offered you—step by step, detail by detail—spiritual direction. I love the scope and naturalness and depth of this. Actually, all sorts of people in all sorts of places may want to read and share this book.
Your chapters are your own genius. Pursue them. (Talk about gravitas.) Next week I’ll have an opportunity to delve into chapter one and respond specifically to you in detail.29
3. Malcolm Boyd, “New,” e-mail message to author, October 25, 2010,
4. Malcolm Boyd, “Funky,” Yale Daily News, February 19, 1969.
5. Conversation I had with Malcolm during spiritual direction, January 6, 2011.
6. Malcolm Boyd, “A Bit More on Brokeback,” e-mail message to
