Tonight I’m thinking about recovery and community.

I just watched Jamie Foxx’s new Netflix special “What Had Happened Was.” One of rawest hours of storytelling I’ve seen in a minute, the show chronicles his experience of a brain bleed that led to a stroke, and the journey of recovery in the year that followed.

Tonight I’m thinking about recovery and community.

I just watched Jamie Foxx’s new Netflix special “What Had Happened Was.” One of rawest hours of storytelling I’ve seen in a minute, the show chronicles his experience of a brain bleed that led to a stroke, and the journey of recovery in the year that followed.

This is my immediate reaction. I’m sure I’ll be processing it for awhile.

As Foxx begins his fight, his doctor tells his sister “He may be able to make a full recovery. But it’s gonna be the worst year of his life."

I can't say much about the life Jamie Foxx has lived. I have not been where he’s been or done what he’s done. I do, however, know a few things about brain bleeds, about waking up to a new reality that your head is not working well enough to understand. And I know something about the months of recovery that follow. I can identify with the struggle, and the pain, and the humbling moments that rob you of your most basic dignity, and the honest conversations you have with God, and the gift of experiencing His grace in the midst of it.

And I know that three of the strongest weapons you can have are music, laughter, and people.

Foxx is singing songs of deliverance. Some of them are church songs. Some are R&B. Some come from his old movies and stand up shows.

And as he’s telling jokes and doing impressions of everyone from Jay-Z to Donald Trump, he presents comedy as a weapon.

He says “sometimes you gotta laugh to keep from crying...If I can stay funny, I can stay alive.”

I know that for 3.5 months in the hospital, I wouldn’t watch anything but comedies. I didn’t listen to anything but gospel music. And I had a team of people helping me

Foxx credits community for his survival: His sister, his daughter, Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, his cool white doctor, his militant physical therapist, Halle Berry, black women in general, the people that prayed for him, the people that rooted for him, and countless others. He credits music, laughter, and love.

Among many other things, the show is a tour de force of gratitude, a humble acknowledgement that we are better together, that sometimes it takes a village to drag you out of a pit that has robbed you of most of your defenses, and all of your independence.

Foxx also indicates that he hasn’t found that community everywhere that he should have. He says, of his conversations with God “I promised I would go to church as long as I could find a church that didn’t feel like the Devil’s work in disguise.”

And to me, it’s a devastating indictment of the work we do. If we get nothing else right, we should be a beacon of hope in a night of despair. We should be a voice of truth in a cacophony of lies. We should be an oasis of love in a desert of indifference. We should be a very present help in trouble, whether that trouble is in spirit, soul, or body.

Tonight I watched a man, on the other side of trouble, share his gifts, and his weapons, and his story with the world

And I’m glad he fought to get there.

(Photo Credit: cottonbro studio)