Book Alert / Covenant

Covenant: Scenes From An African American Church, Photographs by Tyagan Miller, Essay by Yusef Komunyakaa, Indiana UP '07 in coffee table-size format, ISBN #0253348358. Scores of b&w glossy images.

Meet the parishoners of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Meet 'em up close -- crying, laughing, praying, shouting, grieving. Why should you care about one small, African-American church out there in the heartland? Because its 93 images communicate what it is for any of us to live a life in a way that few readers won't be able to relate to.

The book begins with a movingly evocative essay by Yusef Komunyakaa. Yet just as moving are brief recollections from those pictured, some of which may break your heart. In a graveyard tent, next to a casket settled on silver rails, ready to lower into the grave, a man embraces a woman holding a lone, white rose. She is "Sister I.T., 52 years old," who comments:

"He left me here for a reason. What it is I don't know. He lifted me through all these deaths, through all of the heartache and the pain of burying my father, mother, and brother in a five-year period. And that's a hard thing to go through. But with God, anything can happen. I have no one else. I don't have a mother to lean on. I don't have a father to lean on. I only have God to really talk to, and He knows my heart. It was only Him that brought me through all of this. To see everybody gone, and you're the only one left, and I still don't know why."