‘For me, it’s not a style’

Ever since he was a child, Reverend Bertram Gayle knew he wanted to become a pastor, but it never dawned on him that he would break the glass ceiling of one of the most sacred religious movements, by becoming Jamaica’s first dreadlocked Anglican male priest.

Gayle was ordained on July 3 and now serves the St Andrew Parish Church.

Usually, Jamaican priests are screened for years before being ordained. They are required to be well-groomed, and a unique character and demeanour fitting of a leader who is Christ-like, so in the past, locked hair would not have been permitted.

In an interview with Family and Religion, Gayle expressed happiness about taking the bold step of growing his hair and ultimately convincing the Anglican community that he is worthy of being a part of their clergy.

Gayle recalled that he was taken to church by his maternal grandmother when they lived in Westmoreland, and was baptised at the tender age of 12 years in 1995.

As a student, he would always try to lead devotion at Caledonia All-Age School, and was given the alias ‘Deacon’ because of that attitude. While attending Frome Technical High School, he enrolled in evening classes at a Bible college in Christiana to up his game in ministry. The goal was to become a pastor after three years of studies. But even with all the love from the church, Gayle, now 39 years old, still felt a disconnect because he never grew with his father.

His father is a Rastafarian, and that was the main reason why he thought of growing his locks; to feel a closer connection to him.

“I grew up in the first few years of my life with my mother and father. They separated, so I then went to live with my maternal grandmother, and a few years after that, I went to live with some friends in Bluefields, Westmoreland.

I continued living with them until I went to college in Christiana. Then I went to study overseas, returned to Jamaica and went to Kingston in 2008,” he explained to Family and Religion.

He says that as he grew older, other issues with identity developed and persisted, some like loving himself and the perception of self.

Gayle recalls an incident in the early 2000s that strengthened his decision to grow his hair. While making a purchase in the market, he heard a Rastafarian man say, “Hail, king.” It was just the character of the man that in his mind, continuously inspired him to finally make his hair-growth decision in 2011.

“That Rastafarian guy really helped me to emancipate myself mentally from the shackles that held me, in terms of the perceptions I had about self and blackness, and black history, and black culture and black language, etc. So my hair really is an expression ... of life from a different perspective. For me, it’s not a style,” Gayle told Family and Religion.

“Before [growing and locking my hair], I was concerned about what people would think; what family would think; what my workplace would think and so on, and I actually spoke to my boss at the Bible Society of the West Indies, where I was coordinating the Jamaican Creole [Bible] Translation Project. I asked him if it would be okay with me growing my hair, because I had gotten to the point where I said, ‘yes, this is what I want for myself and I’m going to do it.’ So I got his blessing, and my aunts from Cayman sent me some money to do it; and I locked my hair and I’ve not looked back since,” he said.

Rev Gayle says that when members of his Anglican Church first saw him growing his hair, publicly it was not an issue for most of them, but some still had concerns. This created a new struggle to explain his hair-growth choice to some members of the Anglican ministry, as it seemed too fashionable for a man who aspired to become a part of the priesthood.

“Growing my hair, to me, was not a style. It has never been a style. It’s never been a fashion. It has always been a mark of identity and an expression for Rastafari and what it has done really to help me embrace myself and love blackness and become conscious of self, and of other black selves,” he said.

Now, the priest gets interlocks done about two or three times per year, and had his locks done on the brink of his ordination. But beyond his embracing locks as an expression of black identity, Rev Gayle has also been making his mark on other aspects of black and Jamaican culture.

A linguist by profession, he has significantly contributed to the translation for the Patwa Bible in Jamaica.

“In Bible college, I learnt that being clergy is not the only way you can serve God and serve the Church. I learnt about Bible translation, so towards the ending of my time, I got the opportunity to go to Britain to study for three years. There, I focused on the biblical languages, courses related to mission, etc, and so for a number of years, I went into Bible translation. That is why when I got back to Jamaica in 2007, in 2008 I came to Kingston and I worked at the Bible Society of the West Indies until 2015 coordinating the Patwa Bible; the Jamaican Creole Translation Project,” Gayle explained to Family and Religion.

He continued, “When I went to the seminary in Britain, my intention was to go to the mother continent, Africa, to do Bible translation. In fact, I was thinking of going to Cameroon, because I had taught myself French when I was in college, so I was interested in going to a French official country to do Bible translation. However, towards the end of my studies in Britain, I learnt about the translation project here.”

He then went to the Bible Society of the West Indies in Kingston, where they had by then reached the translation for the Book of Luke.

It was after this period that Rev Gayle says he experienced a life crisis. To pull himself out of this critical period, he started going to church more often again, and started to serve in the sanctuary again. He then applied to attend seminary in 2016, graduated in 2021, and was ordained as a deacon.

Now, a year later, he has been recognised as Jamaica’s first ordained dreadlocked Anglican priest.

He hopes members of the Anglican community will grow to love and accept him as he is, and as Christ’s message encourages.

“I do not think the essence of Rastafari is opposed to the essence of what Christianity is, and to me, that is ‘love’…

‘For God so love the world that he gave His only begotten son...’. Again, the issue of ‘one love’. We are called into a community to express love for neighbour and love for God, and to the extent that the Church or any group at all has failed to love, is the extent to which we have failed to be what we are meant to be. And I think Rastafari has helped me to sort of see that very clearly, and to even better appreciate what I find in the Gospel,” he said.

His next major project is to release a book that is meant to teach mainly non-Jamaicans the Jamaican Creole language.

“I believe our [Jamaican] culture is valuable. It should be taught. It should be passed on. And just as how we learn foreign languages, foreign people can learn our language too,” Gayle told Family and Religion.

With this publication, Gayle said he would be the first linguist to create teaching material that seeks to teach Jamaican Creole to those who wish to learn it.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com