I’m in a mostly-black church, and we’re starting to sing gospel hymns. I pick up the hymnal and I know it is going to be unfamiliar, and I can’t find the hymn I’m looking for, so I give up and just start singing along. We’re walking around the sanctuary singing, and I see a pile of little books of published sermons in the corner with ornate cover frontispieces that tell me that the church I’m in is in Ypsilanti, MI. Everyone is friendly and I feel welcome despite the fact that I’m in an unfamiliar place among strangers.

The song we’re singing is a 1-4-5-1 gospel number, and the leaders who are singing the verses are mostly white people, who are singing about the evils of racism. The chorus (I could still sing it when I woke up, but as the morning has progressed I’ve forgotten it), went either “A-li-bah-mah” or “A-li-ham-brah”. The former is of course a southern state, the latter is either a bluegrass band, a Moorish fortress in southern Spain, or a city in Northern California.

I awoke, singing.