SEEDS' CYCLE

Not all seeds take root; fewer grow; growers require attention before they yield a crop; which crop must be harvested; or revert to seed.

LIFE'S EXPERIENCES

"LIFE'S" EXPERIENCES & DEATH Favor and intelligence insinuate, indeed, saturate life. Perhaps all three: life, favor, and intelligence flow subliminally, syncretically, silently, secretly, effortlessly, through & in all living things, continuously. That discrete infinitesimally minute, remainder, that inheres within our conscious realm barely blushes. Neither word: favor, intelligence, nor life is competently described, but they are being felt, variously. Their sensate feeling is life itself in the throes of experiencing its own lively intelligence & favor. Death is an integral part of life, favor, and intelligence not some alien, however, it is disavowed!

RACIAL SELF-STUPOR

SELF-STUPOR When one considers that one of the first foreign treaties that the new United States of America government signed was with a black nation, a Mediterranean Sea-power, by its then, ministers plenipotentiary and future Presidents, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, based in Paris and London, respectively, one double-takes. That document was entered into with another sovereign state in 1787, Morocco, the Moors of the so-called Barbary States on the "shores of Tripoli." We had to pay to them $60,000 per year, not to engage in the "white slave trade" of white Americans and the release of those then captive. When grasped, one understands the depths of utter ignorance, and darkness that our race has fallen from its former heights, former knowledge of itself and light to be oblivious of this. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1801-1829/barbary-wars When "Othello" and "Titus Andronicus," two plays that were written in the 1600s, by William Shakespeare that center around noble Moors, who walked in the highest realms of European society, Othello in Florence with Lady Desdemona, and Aaron the Moor, in Gaul with Anne, Queen of the Goths, one can only marvel at our race's current historical stupor regarding these things. http://www.angelfire.com/ca/janechaos/OthelloTitus.html Indeed, such intellectual lapses as above on our laden people's parts, and their consequential cultural occlusions occasioned thereby in our black communities, do much to explain our collective cultural aversions to the acquisition of the truth, our frightened disdain for learning, even fear of knowledge, itself, reflexive pretentiousness to the contrary notwithstanding. Traumatized into believing we are nobody from nobody, we conform. To us then befalls and befits the teachings of Hosea 4:6-- "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you from being a priest for me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children."

GREATER REWARD

GREATER REWARD When you do good without any desire or expectation of a material reward, or even the reciprocal receipt of a kind acknowledgement of your efforts from others, and yet, you still continue in obedience to an internal impulse of unknown origin, it becomes clear, then, that yours is the greater reward; that yours is that "reward" that defies space or time, or life or death, matter or energy, or earth. Amen.

PRE-"MISSIONARY POSITIONS"

PRE-"MISSIONARY" POSITIONS The fact that Christians did not invent the so-called "missionary" coital position, may be reasonably inferred from the mere fact of the prior, ancient, presence of millions of earlier people all over the earth. Our species predates, by a million years, at least, the natural births of either Joseph, Mary, or Jesus, their son, who was presumably the first "Christian," although Christ is never deemed a "Christian" in his lifetime, only afterwards by his believers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ Research shows that the phrase, "missionary position" as it pertains to human sex, first appears in the English dictionary in the mid 1960s. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/missionary-position Not sure that this coital missionary position discussion yields much inspiration, or accords much in the way of insight to my many, married Facebook friends, most of whom are parents or even more than likely grandparents, like me; but, it never hurts to know or to learn anything !

MAKING THE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND

MAKING THE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND Make sure the people understand God's law. Make sure that they know they, themselves--each and every one of them--personally personify, in their person, embody, in their unique bodies, God's laws. Then, they will know that they are always a part of God, and that they are never apart from God in life. Such knowledge: loves, empowers, emboldens, clarifies, liberates, refreshes, educates, fecundates! 'You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.' John 8:32. What is the truth? 'Greater works than these can you do, for I go unto my Father.' John 14:12. With such knowledge, we come to realize that we are one. We are in Christ, he is in us, all are in God. One. No separateness, ever. John 14:20. Such uplifting teachings were given to the people in Nehemiah 8, by Nehemiah, the Governor, and by Ezra, the scribe, who was both a lawyer and the high priest with joy. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Nehemiah+8%3A8-12 And with great joy it was received!

RESURRECTION REFLECTIONS

RESURRECTION REFLECTIONS When evil dominates the airwaves and violence the news, when greed and acquisitiveness are virtuous, and personal moral responsibility is optional, when injustice sits in legal judgment and lying is a way of life, it is small wonder that two million Americans sit in prison and gun sales and gunfire mortality surges. Guns have context. Evil, violence, vanity, greed, immorality, injustice, and lying afford ideal contexts for the corrosion occasioned by guns. Diminution in the dimensions of the causative contexts may improve the cultural occlusions between our claimed cultural values and actual deeds, governmentally, personally. What is true for guns is likewise true for poverty and homelessness. The same contexts that produced the one, guns, induced the other one , poverty. They are conjoined. A similar dimensional diminution in the one will likewise work a reduction in the other one. What is at stake, then, are simply humane values spread abroad. Small acts committed by a few might contagiously inspire other such acts. In time, like wicked contagions, these redeeming viral values might attract many by virtue of the inverse cosmological forces. You can be a part of this resurgent cosmological force for good, just by doing that which is right, loving, & kind. No clubs to join. No secret oaths or membership dues. No special attire or training or codes are needed. Just naturally you being the best of you; instinctively doing unto others, as you would have them to do unto you, loving.RESURRECTION REFLECTIONS When evil dominates the airwaves and violence the news, when greed and acquisitiveness are virtuous, and personal moral responsibility is optional, when injustice sits in legal judgment and lying is a way of life, it is small wonder that two million Americans sit in prison and gun sales and gunfire mortality surges. Guns have context. Evil, violence, vanity, greed, immorality, injustice, and lying afford ideal contexts for the corrosion occasioned by guns. Diminution in the dimensions of the causative contexts may improve the cultural occlusions between our claimed cultural values and actual deeds, governmentally, personally. What is true for guns is likewise true for poverty and homelessness. The same contexts that produced the one, guns, induced the other one , poverty. They are conjoined. A similar dimensional diminution in the one will likewise work a reduction in the other one. What is at stake, then, are simply humane values spread abroad. Small acts committed by a few might contagiously inspire other such acts. In time, like wicked contagions, these redeeming viral values might attract many by virtue of the inverse cosmological forces. You can be a part of this resurgent cosmological force for good, just by doing that which is right, loving, & kind. No clubs to join. No secret oaths or membership dues. No special attire or training or codes are needed. Just naturally you being the best of you; instinctively doing unto others, as you would have them to do unto you, loving.

MISSOURI A SLAVE BREEDER STATE

Somewhere recently I had read that my home state, Missouri, had been a slave-breeding state. But, I found that thinly-supported assertion to be improbable, given my study of Missouri history and my 54-years of living, visiting, working, exploring here. In no way could I be, or have been, ignorant of such, I snorted! Yet, when reading Chapter XI in fellow Missourian's, William Wells Brown's book, "My Southern Home; Or, The South and Its People (1880)," his moving autobiography, I see: "The invention of the Whitney cotton gin, nearly fifty years ago, created a wonderful rise in the price of slaves in the cotton states. The value of able-bodied men, fit for field hands, rose from five hundred to twelve hundred dollars, in the short span of five years. In 1850, a prime field hand was worth two thousand dollars . The price of a woman rose in proportion; they being valued at about three hundred dollars less each than the men. The change in the price of slaves caused a lucrative business to spring up, both in the breeding of slaves and the selling of them to the States needing their services. Virginia , Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and North Carolina became the slave raising sections; Virginia, however, was always considered the banner State. To the traffic in human beings, more than to any other of its evils, is the institution indebted for its overthrow... "The removal of Dr. Gaines from 'Poplar Farm' to St. Louis , gave me an opportunity of seeing the worst features of the internal slave trade. For many years, Missouri drove a brisk business in the selling of her sons and daughters, the greater number of whom passed through the city of St. Louis. For a long time , James Walker was the principal speculator in this species of property . The early life of this man had been spent as a drayman, first working for others, then for himself, and eventually purchasing men who worked with him. At last, disposing of his horses and drays, he took his faithful men to the Louisiana market and sold them. This was the commencement of a career of cruelty, that, in all probability , had no equal in the annals of the American slave trade. "A more repulsive-looking person could scarcely be found in any community of bad-looking men than Walker. Tall, lean, and lank, with high cheek-bones , face much pitted with the small-pox, gray eyes, with red eyebrows and sandy whiskers, he indeed stood alone without mate or fellow in looks...." P.754-755, WILLIAM WELLS BROWN : CLOTEL, AND OTHER WORKS (2014) https://www.nps.gov/jeff/learn/historyculture/african-american-life-in-saint-louis-1804-through-1865.htm

SILLY DEBATES

WASTING TIME AND BREATH DEBATING ABOUT GOD IS AS SILLY AS ARGUING ABOUT DAY, NIGHT, SUN, MOON, LIFE AND DEATH. SUCH DEBATERS EMBODY THAT VERITABLE PROOF.

SOUNDS OF EASTER 2016

SOUNDS OF EASTER 2016 Neighboring birds' early morning whistles, warbles, flutes, calls are seemingly celebrating our softly soothing Easter Sunday rains now falling. Quite the chorus they are. Bursting forth a soloist punctuates piercingly with a "chew-chewy-chew-chewy-chewy-chew"; which is answered by another's riposte. Then. All is still except the swishing of rolling tires and the thumping of spring rains on our roof. Good day!

CHRIST THE GARDENER , JOHN 15

…14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away." 16Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" (which means, Teacher).…

MY HOWARD AND ITS CRITICS

MY HOWARD AND ITS CRITICS Dr. James Edward Cheek and I entered upon the main campus of Howard University in lock-sync in September 1969, he as President, me, more humbly, as a Freshman. Dr. Cheek, formerly President of Shaw University in North Carolina, remained at Howard for 20 years and dramatically improved it, while withstanding withering criticism from every side, including naive students and nagging local press. Yet, attendance zoomed; physical plant expanded; academic degree offerings multiplied. As importantly, we acquired a radio station which electrified Washington with its "360 degree black experience," WHUR-FM, 96.3. Here too I later worked as a student intern in 1972. In short, Dr. James Edward Cheek richly blessed me, blessed us, in his administration of alma mater. Many who have criticized Howard, in my era of the 1970s, and even currently, as in the speciously avuncular Washingtoncitypaper.com article of March 25, 2016, have dealt with Howard U.'s mystery and majesty in vacuity, as though it has existed virtually, isolated from the material world, suspended in the ethereal world, of their gilded imaginations! Ha! "Come on in the room!" Goes the refrain of that gospel song meaning, leave the "contrabands encampment" of the District of Columbia, you critics! Come on out to Missouri, to Mississippi, to New York, to Washington state, to Ohio, or Colorado. Go anywhere, then dare compare Howard to any other educational institution in America, populated and controlled by black Americans, one will surely find that it compares favorably to anything, anywhere, run by anyone whether in or out of the educational realm. This fact is true of the entire world.

"RACIAL CONSCIOUSNESS"

"RACIAL CONSCIOUSNESS " Similar suffering should conduce to substantially similar sentiments, but they have not always done so, rigidly, in American history, in either the blacks nor, especially, in the whites. Here, classes of poorer "whites" possess privileges of "whiteness" to protect them from the usual brutal burdens borne exclusively by non-whites. All they need to do is to accept uncritically the creed, the practice and perquisites, of white supremacy; should they choose to accept their 'whiteness' privileges. Fortunately, not all whites have chosen to be constrained by the carrot and stick contradictions, in that pervasive cultural syndrome. Some have chosen or succumbed to martyrdom like John Brown or Viola Liuzzo or Rev. Elijah Lovejoy. Others have less dramatically, less traumatically, helped out in myriad other ways, quietly, individually. White supremacists are violent and belligerent liars, who will kill anyone and subvert anything in opposition. Among the blacks, some of the most heavily burdened have been traitors or informants, while some of the least burdened have been leaders, and vice-versa, judging from history's friends, foes, foibles. Therefore neither the classic 'class' nor 'racial' analyses enjoy exclusive currency in analyzing the American dilemma. More, much more, is at play within our paradoxical political and economic paradigm, than merely race or class, though both are historically predominant, surely! These thoughts occur to me as I read the words of early 20th century, editor Hubert Henry Harrison's essay entitled, "The Negro's Own Radicalism, " published in 1919 in "The New Negro," his own newspaper. Therein he wrote: "In the first place, the cause of 'radicalism' among American Negroes is international. But it is necessary to draw clear distinctions at the outset. The function of the Christian church is international. So is art, war, the family, rum and the exploitation of labor. But none of these is entitled to the mantle of its own peculiar 'internationalism' to cover the present case of the Negro discontent--although this has been attempted. The international Fact to which Negroes in America are now reacting is not the exploitation of laborers by capitalists; but the social, political and economic subjection of colored peoples by white. It is not the Class Line, but the Color Line , which is the incorrect but accepted expression for the Dead Line of racial inferiority. This fact is a fact of Negro consciousness as well as a fact of externals. The international color line is the practice and theory of that doctrine which holds that the best stocks of Africa, China, Egypt, and the West Indies are inferior to the worst stocks of Belgium, England and Italy, and must hold their lives, lands and liberties upon such terms and conditions as the white races may choose to grant them. "On the part of the whites , the motive was originally economic; but it is no longer purely so. All the available facts go to prove that, whether in the United States or in Africa or China, the economic subjection is without exception keener and more brutal when the exploited are black, brown and yellow, than when they are white. And the fact that black, brown and yellow also exploit each other brutally whenever Capitalism has created the economic classes of plutocrat and proletarian should suffice to put purely economic subjection out of court as the prime cause of racial unrest. For the similarity of suffering has produced in all lands where whites ruled colored races a similarity of sentiment, viz.: a revulsion of racial feeling. The peoples of these lands begin to feel and realize that they are so subjected because they are members of races condemned as 'inferior ' by their Caucasian overlords. The fact presented to their minds is one of race, and in terms of race do they react to it. Put the case to any Negro by way of test and the answer will make this clear ." P.77-78, "Race-Consciousness," WHEN AFRICA AWAKES by Hubert Henry Harrison (1920, 1998)

ANCIENT NORTH AFRICAN CHRISTIANS

"There is, however, a precolonial African Christianity that does not depend upon either Western or European sources . it is a rich and thoroughly African written intellectual tradition of the highest quality. "In the period of its greatest vitality in the first half of the first millennium, the African intellect blossomed so much that it was sought out and widely emulated by Christians of the northern and eastern Mediterranean shores. Origen, an African, was eagerly sought out by the teachers of Caesarea Palestina. Lactanius was invited by Emperor Diocletian (245-313) to be a teacher of literature in his Asian palace in Bythinia. Augustine was invited to teach in Milan. There are dozens of similar cases of intellectual movement from Africa to Europe.--Plotinus, Valentinus, Tertullian, Marius Victorinus, and Pachomius among them. "This point must be savored unhurriedly to sink in deeply. The Christians to the south of the Mediterranean were teaching Christians to the north. Africans were informing and instructing and educating the very best of Syriac, Cappadocian, and Greco-Roman teachers. This flow of intellectual leadership in time matured into ecumenical consensus on how to interpret sacred Scripture and hence into the core of Christian dogma." P. 28, "The Missing Link: The Early African Written Intellectual Tradition," HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND: REDISCOVERING THE AFRICAN SEEDBED OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY by Thomas C. Oden (2007)

CELEBRATE AFRICAN AMERICAN PASSOVER NEAR APRIL 9, 2016

CELEBRATE AFRICAN AMERICAN PASSOVER NEAR APRIL 9, 2016 We became a new people after our involuntary transportation to the Americas from Africa from the 15th century through the 19th century. Coming from diverse African tribes with different tongues, religions, histories, and cultures, we merged into "new creatures," after assuming the shapes, textures, and the characters of the domineering European colonists that became masters of our new homes: the Christians: Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, and English. When the United States of America was formally established in 1789, we became African Americans after having formerly been simply called Africans. We achieved our national independence as a race on April 9, 1865, when the South surrendered to the North ending the Civil War. In Western Missouri since the year 2000, on or about April 9 of each following year, we have joyfully celebrated our resilient race's resurrection from slavery and legal subjugation with a religious and historical commemorative program commonly known as THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PASSOVER. We do this in remembrance of those who birthed us, loved us, trained us--our foreparents! We do this also to sing praises to our God who tested us, severely,, and who found us to be worthy of renewal! Our seventy-six years of American captivity, 1789-1865, is also a glorious Bible case-study of grace abounding in us, encompassing the tales of Jonah and the whale; Joseph and the coat of many colors; Gideon and his minority 's victory over many; Ezra and Nehemiah's standing upon the wall; Moses' burning bush and Red Sea crossing; David and Saul's battles and Jonathan 's love; Mary; Jesus Christ's birth, flight into Egypt, life, crucifixion and resurrection ; and lastly the Comforter whom Christ foretold would teach us all things! Wherever, or whoever you are, please be inspired to celebrate THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PASSOVER in peace! And love with food and joy! Celebrate our "passing over from slavery to freedom of African American people" near April 9, 2016. Won't you? Why don't you?

"STANDING FIRE"

"I often have asked myself why was it that, with this capacity for daring and endurance , they had not kept the land in a perpetual flame of insurrection ; why , especially since the opening of the war, they had kept so still. The answer was to be found in the peculiar temperament of the races, in their religious faith, and on the habit of patience that centuries had fortified. The shrewder men all said substantially the same thing. What is the use of insurrection, where everything was against them? They had no knowledge, no money, no arms, no drill, no organization,--above all no mutual confidence. It was the tradition among them that all insurrections were always betrayed by somebody . They had no mountain passes to defend like the Maroons of Jamaica,--no impenetrable swamps like the Maroons of Surinam. Where they had these, even on a small scale, they had used them, --as in certain swamps around Savannah and in the everglades of Florida, where they united with the Indians, and would stand fire --so I was told by General Saxton , who had fought them there--when the Indians would retreat ." P.141, ARMY LIFE IN A BLACK REGIMENT by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1870)

OUR ROLLING STONES GATHER MOSS

Our African American history may be the foremost in human history for daringly adventurous resilience and for its triumphal brilliance. Torn from family and homes in Africa and in America, we rebuke the proverb that "a rolling stone gathers no moss." We regenerate "moss" in motion wherever we are found or may land. "Moss" in music;moss in literature; moss in science and religion; moss in art, dance, and athletics; moss in education, law, medicine, and government; moss in inventions and practical applications; and more! These thoughts are evoked by a compliment paid to us by Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson of the 1st South Carolina USCT, when he said in his anthropological book, ARMY LIFE IN A BLACK REGIMENT (1870) that he had no need to read any fiction, including "Uncle Tom's Cabin," when his men's own stories of escape (including that of some of their wives) made that classic seem "tame." I completely agree! History is more gripping, more exciting than any myth, fable, or fiction contrived in man's mind. Our forefathers left thousands "slave narratives,"--7,000--many of which remain unread. Read these as history. Study them and our own history and re-calibrate yourself, your dreams, accordingly.

JAMES ARMISTEAD LAFAYETTE--REVOLUTIONARY WAR SPY

Intelligence gathering--AND INTELLIGENCE ITSELF-- is the key to victory in war and in peace . Gather ! James Armistead Lafayette - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Armistead_Lafayette

CHILD TRAINING & BALANCING

CHILD TRAINING & BALANCING Children represent another chance for parents or grandparents, even great -grandparents, to achieve a dream, goal or ambition that they failed to realize as fully as hoped. Offspring then are our hopes , our second chances, new opportunity. At the same time, each child has hopes, dreams, ambitions of its own that it may wish to pursue, regardless of whatever its parents or progenitors may pray it pursues. Balancing the hopes of the parents with that of the child is precarious, requiring confidence and peaceful persistence. Too much of a push is just as ineffectual as too little of it. Such parental deftness is aided by their didactic memories of the way they were "trained"; how they were "raised,"as children, especially how they too resisted and struggled to come into their own, to become. No longer, in our culture, are the children's prospects limited by or defined by their parents', as before. In this there is both clarity and uncertainty. One need not be a farmer or baker of lawyer or actor simply because your parents were. "Train up in child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." This assimilated wisdom found in Proverbs 22:6, purifies and purveys proven child "training" findings and insights learned by eons of past progenitors. All would do well to recognize; it gives the right touch. It doesn't preach what but which! Which being "the way he should go." What being a chosen vocation. Values matter more than vocation. The truthful verse imposes a duty of training upon the parents. At the same time it tacitly concedes that youth will drift, and wander, as they too drifted before them. But it also confidently assures us that, in the end, children will fall back upon that which they were taught while young, that which they witnessed while at home, still blithely believing that they knew what was best for themselves, as had their parents and progenitors before them. https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Proverbs-22-6/

SILENT SENTIENCE

SILENT SENTIENCE You can always learn something else, from someone else, at some other place or time. There is simply too much existing, or that has existed, for any one person to know it all. Always, new things are forever being born. You are ever learning new things about yourself daily! Given that inexorable fact, learning something new about something new is twice confounding! As the value, "Pi"--3.14...--is ever unraveling, never repeating, infinitely, indefinitely, number after number, so too is, or must be, our innate learning imperative as infinite. Given this welter of learning that simultaneously assails us with each scent, sight, touch, taste, sound, or intuition, that we experience, we must be learning in spite of ourselves, without any specific intent to learn; without any specific effort on our part! We probably, even learn, subliminally, while we are asleep, as silent sentience sings sonorously within our souls! http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sentience Of course, whenever we seriously apply ourselves to learn or seek to learn how to do something that must be done, we inevitably find a way to get it done! Energy applied to learning, then, particularly when guided by some grander ideal or purpose, is very enabling.

MARTIN R. DELANEY'S "BLAKE" REVISITED

President Obama's historical 2016 visit to Cuba has prompted me to repost a book review of Dr. Martin R. Delaney's historic 1859 novel, BLAKE, about the slave trade involving America, Cuba, and Africa. BLAKE or THE HUTS OF AMERICA, a novel (Beacon Press, Boston, under auspices of Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, introduction by Floyd J. Miller, Editor: 1970) By Dr. Martin R. Delany Book Review— By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman Saturday, July 28, 2012 This pre-Civil War novel by the free-born, iconic black physician, explorer, abolitionist, editor, Union Army Major, and expatriate, Martin R. Delany, describes the incognito, transcontinental intrigues and escapades of a peripatetic, fugitive slave, who is the sole organizer of a muchanticipated slave revolt in the American South and in Cuba, a much-coveted Spanish slaveholding island colony. This was the first novel by a black person to be published in the history of the United States! That is a rare distinction by itself, apart from its literary merits, which are considerable! Sweeping in scope, it takes place on land and on sea, in Africa, Canada, Cuba, and the U.S. Published originally in serial fashion in the weekly newspaper, The Anglo-African, in 1859, it is reputed to be the black man’s reply to Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose 1852 novel, is said to have contributed to the Civil War. Stowe’s book, which personified slavery in human terms to the “North” through its melodramatic, empathetic characters, one of whom, “Uncle Tom,” is yet ingrained—though incorrectly and derisively -- in the black, national subconscious as a demeaning sycophant. Her book was based upon the earlier autobiography of A.M.E. preacher, runaway ex-slave, and Canadian emigrant, Josiah Henson, whose The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (1849), served as the template for Stowe’s bestselling novel, which even President Abraham Lincoln is claimed to have read and to have praised. A detailed introduction by Floyd J. Miller, Editor, written in 1970, issues a clarion call for the missing, final, six chapters of Blake, yet to be found, perhaps irretrievably lost. “Henry Blake,” is the Anglicized surname of the Cuban-born protagonist, “Carolus Henrico Blacus,” the scion of a well-to-do black Cuban tobacco merchant, who was impressed into slavery, during his apprenticeship as a seaman. This footnoted novel provides a compelling background narrative of Delany’s own life in its fictionalized aspiration for Pan-African liberation, as it tracks his own travels, readings, and life experiences. Editor Miller piquantly opines, “[A]lthough an author of some ability, Delany clearly subordinated his writing to his own ideological orientation, and consequently his only fictional effort marks the artistic epitome of a social and political position—that is, the creative offering of an activist rather than the political expressions of an artist... [I]t is this nationalist bent throughout his career which gave Delany a prominence among blacks exceeded by few Afro-Americans in his generation.” P.xiii Delany’s “activism” also manifests itself in scholarship, as his book, The Principia of Ethnology was published in 1879. The brazen use of the word, “Principia,” alone, evokes Sir Isaac Newton’s 1687 physics and mathematical classic, Principia, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy: a very lofty comparative to deign to attain for any man at any time of any color. Clearly, Delany was no ordinary man! Nor is his an ordinary book. Part 1 describes slave life in the United States and Canada, including a harrowing chase, re-capture and escape via the underground railroad, cross-country, into Canada. Part 2 deals with life at sea, in Cuba, and in Africa, including color distinctions and differences between Spanish and American enslavement. The hinge of the book is its compelling, detailed account of the process of enslavement from the African barracoons— coastal barracks/prisons—through the fetid, weeks-long trans-Atlantic voyage—the “Middle Passage.” It also portrays the ensuing sale in the Americas of the “fortunate” survivors, our ancestors, and their amazing adaptive and coping mechanism rooted in the religion and faith that produced us! In that regard, Delany writes: “You must make your religion subserve your interests, as your oppressors do theirs!” advised Henry. “They use the scriptures to make you submit, by preaching to you the texts of ‘obedience to your masters’ and ‘standing still to see the salvation,’ and we must now begin to understand the Bible so as to make it of interest to us….Dat’s gospel talk,” sanctioned Andy. P.41 Throughout the work, spiritual allusions are ubiquitous, try as he might to distance himself from its overwhelming, centripetal force. He also addresses the power and importance of having money, which is so essential to obtaining and securing one’s freedom. He describes blacks who betray blacks, and whites who aid blacks. African ship pilots, he points out, were the norm in African coastal waters and in slave ports like South Carolina. He recounts tales of Prophet Nat Turner’s “Dismal Swamp” devotees who cling to the hope of insurrection and freedom, and he makes reference to Dred Scott and James Somerset, conflicting Anglo-American judicial decisions which rejected black freedom in America in 1857and after it was initiated in Great Britain in 1772. That conflict was surely the real cause of the so-called “American Revolution,” slavery of blacks, as the British Royal Navy enforced the judicial ban on the African slave trade on the open sea and off the West African coast, after 1808, which embargo, American slave privateers, including the one Henry Blake piloted, repeatedly sought to subvert. All these and many other fascinating things are described most interestingly in the book. Of especial moment are the “seclusions” those covert insurrection planning meetings all across the country conducted across the South and in Cuba. Whatever Delany’s actual ending may have been to his novel, “the African Freedom War” came, in the guise and form of the American Civil War and continues to this day “to secure these rights” which originate in the Magna Carta. The work is memorable, indeed, unforgettable, and is commended to all as a true classic, worthy of its name. #30

"SINCE YOU WON MY HEART"

Smokey Robinson's music has been more than music, more than sound and lyrics; it has been food for my soul and water for my loins, since the 1950s. Not just Smokey and the Miracles, but musicians of that era and of that genre, from Motown in Detroit , from Stax in Memphis, from Chicago, LA, and Philadelphia as well. They renewed us, rocked us, soothed us, assured us, amused us, inspired us, then, and now. When any music embeds one's person and one's personality like this, one becomes that music. So we who love them and have been viscerally impacted by them and by it become miraculous , tempting , delphonic, topological, supreme , vandellan, wonderful, impressive, stone family! https://youtu.be/pQcNwTm4CbQ

EUCLID'S ELEMENTS AND THE OXYRHYNCHUS PAPYRI OF SOUTHERN EGYPT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyrhynchus_Papyri "Also found were the oldest and most complete diagrams from Euclid's Elements. Fragments of Euclid discovered lead to a re-evaluation of the accuracy of ancient sources for The Elements, revealing that the version of Theon of Alexandria has more authority than previously believed; according to Thomas Little Heath." This is "Euclid's Element's" find in southern Egypt not in Greece. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid%27s_Elements

Palm Sunday resonance--Say "Heh!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heh_(god). The palm frond symbolized infinity or immortality to the ancient Egyptians (Kemet). Here, Heh, a member of the 8-member "Ogdoad", whose female counterpart is "Hehut," is holding 2 palm fronds, mathematically symbolizing infinity in their cosmology.

ANOTHER KING TUT TREASURE HUNT?

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/sifter/king-tut-s-burial-chamber-may-hide-secret-second-tomb

NATURAL BRANCHES AND GRAFTS

NATURAL BRANCHES AND GRAFTS Has not that violently rapacious, Old Testament, devil-god taken by storm, taken by violence, and by deceit, the true God on earth; "in the kingdom of heaven," since the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, since, too, the days of John the Baptist ? "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." Matthew 11:12. Why would that evil one's votaries stop merely at the outer temples of history, law, science, philosophy, government, mathematics, physics, when the Sanctum Santorum , the "Summum Bonum," the untold treasure of the inner temple of God, lies wide open, awaiting, like the gates of Troy, the fallen Greeks' tributary gift of that magnificent wooden horse? Judging rightly from my reading, it would seem that the priests and votaries of Baal, Seth, Beelzebub, Lucifer, did not stop diffidently on the outskirts of total victory; but instead, they lifted, confidently, the inner skirts of complete plunder, then plunged into the truest prize! Once inside the bar of the holy of holies, they usurped, they sullied, they slew and distorted. They also donned the vestments, mimicked the motions, lifted the ensigns, symbols, literature; they assumed the identities, resumed the former rituals of those now either, displaced, disgraced, or destroyed, then, boldly declaring that hey were God! In so doing, they spawned a new paradigm that was a poor parody of the divine, but as the primordial people were blind, they were fooled time after time. Their usurpations and desecrations were many, are many, continuing to unfold. But, it was only by grace that they were permitted to exist, much less to subsist: to whet, perfect, correct, those whose primal stewardship ended. But the paradox of their paradigm is that it too has served its time! It has now succumbed to another one that is much more sublime with no signs, no priests, no ensigns, no lands, no cognizable leaders, yet like soldier ants it too relentlessly rebuilds anew. Woo! "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give light to the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." 2 Cor. 4: 6-10. So God has not forsaken, nor cast away his people. Rather, there remains a remnant who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. "For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee... For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee... For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?" Romans 11: 16-24

CARGO

What does your cargo hold? a fortune in human souls? A larder of stolen gold? or humbler fare untold? Great ship. What does your cargo hold?

MITCH McCONNELL & TERTULLIAN

Larry Delano Coleman The current United States Senate Republican embargo of President Barack Obama 's Supreme Court nominees without a hearing, a vote, or even a simple inquiry into their individual merits, reminds me of the 2nd century African author, Tertullian's, castigation of the Roman Senate for its indiscriminate persecution of Christians under similarly absurd circumstances in his classic work, THE APOLOGY. This Carthaginian writes: "Rulers of the Roman Empire, if, seated for the administration of justice on your lofty tribunal, under the gaze of every eye, and occupying there all but the highest position in the state, you may not openly inquire into and sift before the world the real truth in regard to the charges made against the Christians; if in this case alone you are afraid or ashamed to exercise your authority in making public inquiry with the carefulness that becomes justice; if, finally, the extreme severities inflicted on our people in recently private judgments, stand in our way of being able to defend ourselves before you, you cannot surely forbid the Truth to reach your ears by the secret pathway of a noiseless book. She has no appeals to make to you in regard to her condition, for that does not excite her wonder. She knows that she is but a sojourner on the earth, and that among strangers she naturally finds foes; and more than this, that her origin, her dwelling-place, her hope, her recompense, her honors are all above. One thing, meanwhile, she anxiously desires of earthly rulers--not to be condemned unknown.... For what is there that is more unfair than to hate a thing of which you know nothing, even though it deserve to be hated? Hatred is only merited when it is known to be merited. But without that knowledge, whence is Its justice to be vindicated?... When men, then, give way to a dislike simply because they are entirely ignorant of the thing disliked, why may it not be precisely the very sort of thing they should not dislike?" P. 1-2, (2014)

PROVE IT

Larry Delano Coleman PROVE IT! A lot of nonsense can be stopped by saying two words, "PROVE IT!" Whether the topic be sports, gossip, family, finances, science, news, history, politics, religion, --whatever it is--requiring its proof very quickly discloses the truth ! Most folks talk to be talking without really knowing what they're talking about. Requiring proof demands a measure of accountability for mere talk, which too many listeners pass own without discerning if it's true. "Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good." 1 Thess. 5:21. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Thessalonians+5%3A21&version=KJV

BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY

BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY! We each & all have at least 6 billion relatives who produced us. Every one of which was indispensable to the production of me and of you. No one of them was unimportant. Such knowledge is humbling and extraordinarily exalting at the same time! We are each vital links in that same great cosmic chain that dates back to the very dawn of creation ! Therefore be fruitful & multiply!

OBAMA BOOMAH YAY!

When measuring achievements, one must first mark the starting point and then the ending point. The difference between the two is the measurement. Using this criterion, President Obama bypasses ALL prior U.S. Presidents. First, he is a black American.That extraordinary fact, alone, surpasses the rest, given the history of American slavery, white supremacy and hypocrisy. That is the starting point. Adding on his character, economic and political achievements against a recalcitrant, intransigent Congress, press, and conservative Supreme Court boggles the mind! Overwhelming resistance!. So, then, when adding-in dynamic unrelenting resistance to the unfavorable starting point, his record of achievements surpasses all other 43 Presidents! President Barack Hussein Obama has been the best in American history!

VAINGLORY

VAINGLORY Vainglorious declarations do not reflect that humility becoming one who claims to follow Jesus Christ. Rather, such better befit the devil. Or the Pharisees or the Sadducees. Far better servants of the Master are they who lower their vocal levels to more sensuous decibels. Then that "still quiet voice" might resound, high to low sky to ground. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vainglory

JOHN WALTER JONES

"[in] Elmira [New York] was ...a black gravedigger named John Walter Jones... In 1844, Jones and four other slaves escaped together from a plantation in Leesburg, Virginia. They stuffed their pockets with all the food they could, and one of them carried a pistol and a knife. They walked nearly three hundred miles, with Jones and his four companions fighting off slave hunters in Maryland. In Elmira, Jones first worked as a gardener and laborer and later became sexton of the First Baptist Church. He moved into the yellow house near the church, a house that would shelter hundreds of fugitive slaves in the decade before the Civil War. As the Underground Railroad agent at the Elmira station , he helped more than eight hundred other slaves escape. His allies included a bank president, a college founder, several lumber dealers, and a hardware merchant . In 1864-1865, John Jones became a legend for burying and recording personal information about nearly three thousand Confederate soldiers who died in the Elmira Prison Camp, known as the death camp of the North. It is ironic that those dead who had enlisted in the Confederate army to preserve slavery, had been buried by a man who had escaped slavery and become a symbol of what a free black man could do." P.38-39, "The Special Delivery Package," FORBIDDEN FRUIT: LOVE STORIES FROM THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Betty DeRamus (2005)

BUZZARD IN THE HAND

BUZZARD IN THE HAND! Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Majority Leader from Kentucky, is not running for President. Instead, he is blocking Presidential nominees to the U. S. Supreme Court, and is violating, thereby, the Constitution. Yet, the media focus is on Trump, Cruz, Kasich, who may never become President, not on Mitch McConnell. Better to focus on present traitors who willfully violate law, and violate "the separation of powers," than to worry about future prospectives!

GRANDDADDY'S "TALK"

GRANDDADDY 'S "TALK" Age 12 is a pivotal time in a boy's life, maybe for girls as well, but most definitely for boys . It was for me. That was the year of my "talk" with granddaddy , mama's daddy. He spoke of many things, but mostly about his own life, while I sat wide-eyed and open-eared at the end of the bed. Granddaddy had led a sporting life of horse-racing , booze, cards, and women, and he is told me about them all. I have never forgotten that talk or that great man, who so profoundly impacted my life that day, in 1963. He lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There he had worked at the Allis-Chalmers Plant, among many Pollocks, whom he called "hunky." These he had to fight all the time as he sought to earn his living. He drove a new Buick, powder blue, white-walled tires, with a novelty: automatic windows, power steering and brakes. On the weekends, after getting off work, he would "get clean," and would drive down to Chicago, Illinois, from Milwaukee, 80 miles, to have fun. Granddaddy had had a lot of fun. Wherever his fun began, whether in Mississippi, his birthplace, whose mnemonic spelling he taught me as ("I-crooked letter,crooked letter-I-crooked letter, crooked letter-I-hump back, hump back-I,"), or elsewhere, it continued in World War II. There, he and fellow Navy corpsman had run a Chinese junk up and down the river filled with prostitutes, as a money-making sideline, he said. I was fascinated. He also referred to himself as an Ethiopian, saying "I ain't no nigger." He also referred to mama, his only child, as "black girl." When I asked him why he called mama by that term. He replied, "because that's what she is." Mama just laughed and laughed when he called her that, taking no offense, just love! This 1963 trip was granddaddy 's second time visiting us on our Big Bend Blvd location in Kirkwood, Missouri. The first visit he had brought along a friend, some very beautiful 21-year old, fair-skinned, women named "Faye." When I asked about her on his second visit, 5 years later , he said she was "doing fine" and he moved on. Granddaddy was not pleased with our living arrangements in that too-small house for our burgeoning family. We were monthly tenants, not owners. He told mama and daddy his displeasure, I later learned. To help them get into their own home, he had sent them goo-gobs of money, that they assiduously stored between the mattresses on their bed. I had seen it one day, when straightening their bed, then had shown it to my sister, Schleria. Granddaddy also introduced me to fried, breaded, shrimp, the best food that I had ever tasted! He would buy frozen boxes of it, that we would feast upon as a family. Granddaddy also liked to drink Old Crow whisky, "dirty bird," as he called it, yet he was never drunk. I offer these glimpses into my own life in the hope that they may help others in their lives, especially when dealing with the "talk" with their black boys in puberty, a pivotal time when wicks must deftly ignite other younger wicks. Bring your presentation "straight down Broadway" with no sugar-coating is my recommendation. Bring it true, directly from your own life, if you are a man, or from the worthy life of a trusted near-male relative. Sincerity, honesty, and love are the three vital ingredients. "Rites-of-Passage" programs are okay, too. But, right before you is the chance of a lifetime to mold your own son or grandson in your image who are in need of your initiation, in need of your unique, cultural inculcation. The spirit of the boys will draw light and warmth and insight from your own testimony. Books are great, so too are tapes, seminars. But the best ingredient is you and your life; or if you're lucky, his granddaddy's!

NOK ROCKS!

"HOROSCOPE"

"True hearts! Ye who desire freedom turn not aside from the real issues that call for all our labor with all our might; these are a Constitution broad as humanity to stir our intellects, and sweet HUMAN BROTHERHOOD crucified in the black man to kindle our hearts; whatever embraces not these embraces not freedom, and is unworthy of our sympathy and support. Whatever we win in the name of these, we win surely and permanently. Is it not time, now, that the people and the land are covered with false issues? Is it not time that we hold up the true ones? Regarded in its true historic light, each Presidential election is but a record of how many of the people think this, and how many of the people think that thing. Shall we not put upon the record at the ensuing election how many of the people think the U.S. Constitution establishes freedom for all human beings in the United States, and that the NEGRO IS ALSO A MAN AND A BROTHER?" P.147-148, "Horoscope (1856)," THE WORKS OF JAMES McCUNE SMITH : BLACK INTELLECTUAL AND ABOLITIONIST edited by John Stauffer (2007)

FORMATIONS

True to form follows form, regardless.

PI PERPLEXITY

http://news.discovery.com/history/us-history/pi-day-facts-about-todays-math-holiday-160314.htm?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dnewsnewsletter If the value PI, being infinite, irrational, and non-repeating, is a geometric and mathematical "constant," simulating the relation of a circle's circumference to its diameter, what then is a finite, rational, discrete integer like 3? "variable?"

AUGGIE, MY BROTHER

MOST DO NOT WANT TO KNOW

MOST DON'T WANT TO KNOW Not only were we not taught the history of black peoples in school, neither were we taught the history of the English people, nor of the Christian Church, nor of any other antecedents, meaningfully, except that of modified state-approved, American curricula as propaganda . Even this would not have been so bad, had not the spirit of learning, of self-discovery and inquiry, had also not been suffocated in so many vulnerable children's minds. Thus, the consequence is a people who are not merely predictably ignorant of their cultural origins, but who are lacking sufficient drive, interest, curiosity to want to know, nor much of anything else besides! Most Americans do not even want to know anything else beyond that vapid educational state-approved propaganda programming that they were fed. These deficits in most of its people explain American history.