Here’s Your Miracle

The In Memoriam piece on Babatunde Folayemi was wise to lead with his “soulfulness.” His beatification—were it to take place—would surely recognize his election to the Santa Barbara City Council as a miracle. Baba was not one to say the right things to the right people, to be on time at the right places, to duck instead of stand. He carried his righteous spirit into the fray and lived the poet Robert Browning’s “Epilogue To Asolando,”

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.

To know Baba was to feel affirmed, to be encouraged to pursue your true purpose, and to place your faith in yourself and God’s plan for you. Baba made no secret of where he’d placed his faith. One of the last things he said to me, a day before he passed, was, “I know I’m going to Heaven. And if I’m wrong I’ll deal with it when I get there.”