Alyssa Tuininga

“And this is what I need you two to understand: You have always known who I am. Who I am is your mother. This is the truest part of me.”
― Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake

“And at some point, those two pilgrims realized that their mysterious walking partner was no ordinary man. He could tell them the story because He wrote the story. “Because He was the story. “We are told that ‘their eyes were opened.’ “And this is what the pair subsequently recalled when they spoke of their seven-mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. “‘Our hearts burned within us.’ Their hearts burned within them.” Father Lundy allowed the phrase to linger in silence for a few seconds before he resumed. “We all walk roads of various descriptions in life. The long and winding road. The road to ruin. Easy Street. The road less traveled. “Along the way, there are questions, there is news, there are concerns and fears and uncertainties that furrow our brows, trouble our souls, and break our hearts. Death terrifies many of us. “But God, in His sublime goodness, has always sent others, mysterious others, to walk with us — prophets, preachers, friends, teachers, artists, storytellers, wives and husbands, children, songbirds and rivers, even hardship and loss — to help us see clearly. They are ones who make our hearts burn within us, who call us out of our indifference, our lethargy, our death and defeat. They call us to be fully alive, or at least more alive than we were before we met them. “And so . . . Theo. “For a year, he was in our midst and now, looking back, can’t we say that, when we were with him, our hearts burned within us, our souls stood on tiptoe, our eyes recognized something good and true, and our minds could believe, if not fully, then ever so slightly, that love and heaven and forgiveness are the most real things that we can know in this world? “I think we are only beginning to understand and appreciate what a unique man Theo was. Can you call to mind anyone who quite so beautifully integrated the concrete and the spiritual? Who lived with such a winsome commitment to the seen and the unseen, the ultimate and the proximate, the wide grace and the narrow way?”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“possessed of power no less potent than thunder and lightning. No wonder Simone was so protective of it. This cello was his flesh and bone, heart and soul, language and voice. It did not merely belong to him. It was part of him. The demure Simone, with cello cradled in his arms, was a force of nature. Electrified. Ravished and ravishing. Arms, hands, shoulders, neck, head, eyes, legs and feet: every part of him felt the song and brought it to life for the audience.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden