INSIGHTS FROM ORIGEN

INSIGHTS FROM ORIGEN As I read in the book written by iconic, 3rd-Century AD, African philosopher, who was the first Christian theologian, Origen, author of the Christian classic ON FIRST PRINCIPLES (2013), which was only recently translated into English, I have come to perceive, to appreciate, more fully, the common Spiritual linkages connecting the devolution of knowledge pertaining to man, his law, history, Scriptures. Law is aimed to improve mankind . History records the deeds of man. Scriptures connect the foregoing to God: man, law, history, in mystery. Sapient inquiry would encompass all of these to perfect mankind to accord, to harmonize, with nature. "Nature" is the outermost husk of God's existence, God's evidences.

SPIRITUAL AND NATURAL

SPIRITUAL AND NATURAL The spirit produces nature, not vice versa, as most humbly I conceive it. Therefore, I do not adhere literally to the declaration, the inverse statement in 1 Cor. 15:46 that the natural precedes the spiritual: "The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual." To the extent that the two: nature and spirit may be defined at all, linearly--which is means sequentially, not by homogeneity, meaning everywhere at once; linearity seems to me to be most improbable. My intuition conduces this end, given prevailing scientific theories of knowledge, held by some theorists. But they may be conflated. They may be mutually complementary, coextensively defined, even in a worst case, but linear like 1-2-3, I would say not . The chicken and the egg obtains. I may be wrong. May God have mercy on me for my conception.

THE WISDOM OF GOD

THE WISDOM OF GOD Apostle Paul makes clear that the "wisdom of God," predated the age in which he/they lived , for he says that "wisdom" was ordained "ages" before the rulers of his world lived, so they did not know it, nor could have known of it , since they crucified its divine perfection , its earthly exemplar in the person, in the majesty of Jesus Christ. 1 Cor. 2:7-8 Conceiving ourselves as "souls that make use of bodies;" rather than as is more typically the case, human bodies that make use of souls, turns-- as does Origen in ON FIRST PRINCIPLES (2013), p. 373--totally inverts, the human epistemological paradigm from body-based to soul spirit-based, within our world. In larger context, Origen wrote: "This being so, we must outline what seems to us to be the marks of the true understanding of the scriptures. And in the first place we must point out that the aim of the Spirit who, by the providence of God through the Word who was 'in the beginning with God' (cf. Jn 1:1), enlightened the servants of the truth, that is , the prophets and apostles, was pre-eminently concerned with the unspeakable mysteries connected with the affairs of men--and by men I mean at the present moment souls that make use of bodies--his purpose being that the man who is capable of being taught might by 'searching out' and devoting himself to the 'deep things' (cf. 1 Cor 2:10) revealed in the spiritual meaning of the words become partaker of all the doctrines of the Spirit's counsel.... P.373-374. "8. Now while these and similar subjects were in the mind of the Spirit who enlightened the souls of the holy servants of the truth, there was a second aim, pursued for the sake of those who were unable to endure the burden of investigating matters of such importance. This was to conceal the doctrine relating to the before-mentioned subjects in words forming a narrative that contained a record dealing with the visible creation, the formation of man and the successive descendants of the first human beings until the time when they became many; and also in other stories that recorded the acts of righteous men and the sins that these same men occasionally committed, seeing they were but human, and the deeds of wickedness, licentiousness and greed done by lawless and impious men. "But the most wonderful thing is that by means of stories of wars and conquerors and the conquered certain secret truths are revealed to those who are capable of examining these narratives; and, even more marvelous, through a written system of law the laws of truth are prophetically indicated, all these having been recorded in a series with a power which is only appropriate to the wisdom of God. For the intention was to make even the most outer covering of the spiritual truths, I mean the bodily part of the scriptures, in many respects not unprofitable but capable of improving the multitude in so far as they receive it. "But if the usefulness of the law and the sequence of case of the narrative were at first clearly discernible throughout, we should be unaware that there was anything beyond the obvious meaning for us to understand in the scriptures. Consequently the Word of God has arranged for certain stumbling blocks, as it were, and hindrances and impossibilities to be inserted in the midst of the law and the history, in order that we may not be completely drawn away by the sheer attractiveness of the language, and so either reject the true doctrines absolutely, on the ground that we learn from the scriptures nothing worthy of God or else by never moving away from the letter fail to learn anything of the more divine element. "And we must also know this, that because the principle aim was to announce the connection that exists, those that have already happened and those that are yet to come to pass, whenever the Word found that things which had happened in history could be harmonized with these mystical events he used them, concealing from the multitude their deeper meaning. But wherever in the narrative the accomplishments of some particular deeds, which had been previously recorded for the sake of their more mystical meanings, did not correspond with the sequence of the intellectual truths, the scripture wove into the story something which did not happen, occasionally something which could not happen, and occasionally something which might have happened but in fact did not . Sometimes a few words are inserted which in the bodily sense are not true, and at other times a greater number. "A similar method can be discerned also in the law, where it is often possible to find a precept that is useful for its own sake, and suitable to the time when the law was given. Sometimes, however, the precept does not appear to be useful . At other times even impossibilities are recorded in the law for the sake of the more skillful and inquiring readers, in order that these, by giving themselves to the toil of examining what is written, may gain a sound conviction of the necessity of seeking in such instances a meaning worthy of God. "And not only did the Spirit supervise the writings which were previous to Christ, but because he is the same Spirit and proceeds from the one God he has dealt in like manner with the gospels and the writings of the apostles. For the history even of these is not everywhere pure, events being woven together in the bodily sense without having actually happened; nor do the law and the commandments contained therein entirely declare what is reasonable." P.376-381 Amen !

GET YOURS!

GET YOURS WHILE YOU CAN Those in between catch it from the left and right, from high and low. That's the price of being between. I have been in between. I still am in between on some things; but not so on other things, most gratefully . Take money for example: in church services, the rich man was scorned in scripture. It was even said that a camel could more easily squeeze through the eye of a needle than a rich man could get into heaven. That commentary was from the right. But the right has never failed to pass those collection plates to everyone assembled, rich, unrich together, all contributing as one! Or take the left side, the so-called "conscious" folks: these ones were busily decrying the capitalist pigs for being greedy, avaricious, petty, unethical , yet like the church, they did not hesitate to take pig money! The high look down on those who have little money, and the low look for opportunities to divest them of their money, however little it may be. So it is those in between who catch it, from high-low; left-right always . An attorney friend of mine once asked me, as we looked from my hotel window in the Bahamas, upon the azure Caribbean Seas, the following , after our legal seminar: "Larry, you are a bright lawyer. In fact, you are a brilliant lawyer. 'But, Larry, "How are you going to get paid?'"I soon burst out laughing when I recognized the simple magnitude of his plain inquiry, in the context of my then-black, socially-conscious, law practice! My advice to any people who are in "between" is to get yours, to supply yourself with enough cash, capital , property, resources, to enjoy life now and right now, while you can!

SKY TAPESTRY

WHEN ONE'S SOLE TAPESTRY IS ON HIGH ONE'S ONLY BODY COVERING IS THE SKY: WHENCE COMES SUN, RAIN, NIGHT, DAY LIFE, BREATH, DEATH, RENEWAL, DECAY. ETERNAL TAPESTRY OF SKY "COVERS" ALL .

DEATH

DEATH DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE That death might ensue in combat has never deterred soldiers from enlisting to go to fight war. Death's mortal prospect did not, does not, deter them. Death might ensue, will ensue, from anything, at any time. Soldiers and sailors always enlist, nevertheless, regardless of risks: evidently deeming adventure to be estimable ; deeming it to be more preferable to die, fighting, nobly, than to die pining, whining ignobly; better knowingly than unknowingly. Besides, there is the esprit d'corps, the glory, the spoils, the sense of belonging to a grander cause, all are additional inducements to go. Truth is : we are all soldiers, sailors. We all have conflicts, combat, duty. We all make pledges. We all have allegiances. We can either fight or flee. We may be a benefit or betray. So soldiers immemorially deign to do, when their moment of truth had arrived, to die gallantly or cowardly. The grave takes all soldiers, sailors, without discrimination, distinction .

NEGROES--SWEET AND DOCILE

SCIENCE DENIALS

http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/04/23/fed-trumps-lies-neil-degrasse-tyson-just-publicly-shamed-republicans/ https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8686621618490150781#editor/target=post;postID=6205371838855494209 SUCH SCIENCE DENIALS HAVE PUT ALL ELSE IN PLAY THAT ARE LESS PROVABLE,LESS RELIABLE THAN "SCIENCE." THIS INCLUDES HISTORY, RELIGION, LAW, DEMOCRACY; BUT NOT MATHEMATICS, ASTRONOMY.

AMERICAN'S TALE OF TWO'S

AMERICANS' TALE OF TWO'S Virginia and Massachusetts are early British colonies, which later were symbolic of later American hegemony for whites, black, native. Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Virginia in 1856. William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born free in Massachusetts in 1868. On the lives of these two: states, men, statuses, the history of American politics, people, privilege, do pend. Each state advanced in accordance with its conceptions, as did each man, as did the nation in each era: colonial, Revolutionary, equivocal, Constitutional, industrial, imperial . Washington knew slavery's scorns intimately. He worked hard to get education with blacks and Indians. DuBois never experienced slavery. He attended school with whites in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Black Americans' lives were shaped by the life experiences of these: two states, two men, two eras: slave and free, along with others.

ROOTLESSNESS

ROOTLESSNESS RUTHLESSNESS Rootlessness predicts, presages ruthlessness. Land marks a man. Land centers a man. Land proves, improves the man, and provides for a man. Land . A man without land is rootless, often ruthless, since he is a mere tenant of those persons owning land. Tenancy is not too far from slavery. Slaves own no land! Tenancy means land dependency. Tenants by definition could care less about the land, any land, being non-investors, non-purchasers, but flotsam and jetsam upon the land. Booker T. Washington said that: "I would rather live in the hollow of a tree on my own land, than to live in somebody else's castle." These words, these truths mean nothing to rootless people, but are logical to truthful people who do love land!

"MATTER"

"A thing then need not have magnitude in order to receive form: it may receive mass with everything else that comes to it the moment of becoming what it is to be: a phantasm of mass is enough, a primary aptness for extension , a magnitude of no content--whence the identification that has been made of Matter with The Void." P.101, "Matter," THE ENNEADS by Plotinus (1991)

PLUNDER NOT PREDATION

FOR PLUNDER NOT PREDATION Profits, plunder, riches were more disorienting than any brainwashing. Who needs "values", when one's coffers are flush with gold, silver, gems, trade commodities, ships, guns, armaments, monopolies; and trusting, naive, credulous, laboring captives, who are #1 prime capital? These thoughts occur to me as I reflect on Spike Lee's "predators," comment relative to European, Arab, and American avarice over Africans and diaspora Africans all over the world the past 400 years. Profits drove the slave trade from within Africa itself as tribes fought over trinkets: beads, gin, cloth, etc. to enslave their "enemies," unless they be sold: with guns, lies, tricks: from Africa: to Asia, to Europe, to the Caribbean, and the Americas. Africans not only built and enriched Europe, Americans, Arabia, and the Americas by hard labor , perfecting mercantilism, but moreso, they also spawned the Industrial Revolution! The Berlin Conference of 1884, was convened in order butcher the continental carcass of Africa itself into spheres of colonial dominion as refined and civilized gentlemen had ought to do. These lords even magnanimously granted the vast Bantu-Homeland, Congo, to dwarf Belgium, the traditional roadkill, for every conquering European army, navy, magnate and/or capitalists. "Capitalism" itself is another direct descendant of the centuries old African slave trade, that later became colonialism, with the supporting array of despicable myths, creeds, scholarly, religious lies: enlightened, unenlightened; educated, illiterate--but, always "whiteness," the caul for it all, and preening false narrative, spewed to deceive the naive, since PLUNDER was the real one, appearances to the contrary, notwithstanding ever!

FUSION AND FISSION

FUSION AND FISSION Thursday, April 27, 2017 By Larry Delano Coleman FUSION AND FISSION ARE RIVALS UNDER CERTAIN COSMOGONIES, CERTAIN WORLD VIEWS, OR PARADIGMS: PITTING’ THIS’ AGAINST ‘ THAT,’ RATHER THAN BLENDING THIS AND THAT. IT’S WHAT MOTIVATES MEN, NATIONS, RELIGIONS, CORPORATIONS IN THEIR CONCEPTIONAL VIEW OF ALL. AS ONE SPECIES, HOMO SAPIENS, MANKIND IS MUCH MORE SIMILAR THAN DIFFERENT. YET, THE INFINITESIMAL DIFFERENCES ARE ELEVATED, EVEN CELEBRATED, BY SOME HARD-CORE DIVIDERS. FISSION YIELDS THE ATOMIC BOMB. WHAT MIGHT FUSION YIELD, WHEN BLENDING IS NOT BANE? MIGHT IT RESTORE NIRVANA, JUSTICE, BELOVED COMMUNITY, GARDENS OF EDEN, OR PARADISE? AS THERE IS NOTHING ‘NEW” UNDER THE SUN, THERE HAD TO HAVE BEEN, PREVIOUSLY, ERAS OF BLESSEDNESS ON EARTH, FOR US TO KNOW OF IT, FOR ELDERS TO WORSHIP, TO SING PRAISES OF IT. FISSION DOUBTLESS TORE THE FRIEZE OF FUSION ASUNDER, YIELDING FISSION THAT NOW PREVAILS. BUT AS DIURNAL AS DAY AND NIGHT, MOON AND SUN, MALE AND FEMALE, AND AS DIFFERENTIAL; FUSION WILL RETURN, MUST RETURN, CAN DO NOTHING ELSE BUT RETURN, TO RESTORE LOVE TO US.

STONE SOUL

SOUL

WHAT IS "SOUL?" Who can know what a soul is, much less what it "contains," if anything? This question arises from my reading of Plotinus, "Matter," THE ENNEADS (1991). In it he writes: "The Soul, for example, contains all things, but holds them in unextended unity; if magnitude were one of its attributes it would contain things in extension." P.100 Is soul collegial? everyone sharing one soul or is soul individual? each with its own soul? What is soul?

SENSE

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY Sensibility and sensible appear to mean, to connote consciousness; accruals arising from one's senses; certainly awareness derived from sensory intakes common to man, is a meaning contained in the general definition of sensible or sensibility. Inputs from senses like inputs from food must be processed, however , in order to be assimilated properly. Such processing is what separates man from men; separates woman from women. Processing involves more than senses. It takes tools, templates, temperatures: heat, cold; textures, labor, knowledge. "Processing" preparation requires exertion of some kind to be able to process whatever may be received. Thus, though all human senses are God-given, processing whatever is sought or received by the senses must be exertion-driven. Exertion means "effort" mental, physical or both, being brought to bare to be able to process and to assimilate properly whatever opportunity sensibility produces . Uncooked food is unsavory, unhealthy. Unprocessed information is useless, and people who do not exert themselves in the pursuit of processing apparatuses are insensible wasting away in rot! "Act like you got some sense," is an old folks' aphorism that sums it up!

AFRICAN AMERICAN INFRASTRUCTURE

BLACK INFRASTRUCTURES Richard Allen, founder and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was illiterate. So is it written in the history of the AME Church that was written by later AME Bishop Daniel Payne. He also writes that Bishop Allen's then 15-year old son was commonly used as the church's first secretary of annual church conferences, who recorded notable events, religious proceedings from its founding 1787 as the "Free African Society" and its formal incorporation in 1816. Literacy was no major obstacle to Bishop Allen. He worked around it, even as he has worked around his own personal enslavement. He converted his own master from heathen to Christian by his example. Allen worked hard with his blood brother to make something of and for himself, as well as of and for the sons and daughters of Ham, living in this barren land! He was anointed ! Slaves in America did extraordinary things. This includes founding a Masonic Lodge in Massachusetts by Prince Hall, another former slave , according to a history written by Charles Wesley, there being a number of "Prince Hall's". Hall had to acquire his African Lodge's embossing charter from the Grand Lodge of England in 1784, due to American racial bias, against black Masons by white Masons, which as yet continues . Prince Hall was later appointed the Provincial Grand Master of North America by the Grand Lodge of England in 1791. With this authority, Grand Master Hall diligently moved about establishing other African Lodges. One was raised in Providence, Rhode Island, and another was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1797, with Absalom Jones and Richard Allen as Master and Senior Warden, as its officials. Absalom Jones had earlier founded the first black Episcopal Church in America after leaving the Free African Society, which he and Allen had jointly formed, with others, for mutual benevolence of Africans. Together, the AME Church and the African (Prince Hall) Grand Lodge are the oldest national institutions in black America : bedrocks of all. By bedrock, I mean infrastructure.

PAST PRESENT FUTURE

PAST PRESENT FUTURE The past matters as much or more as the present and the future, being the foundation of both present and future . Arguably we live forever in the past. The present is fleetingly instant, gone. The future never arrives being forever out there! So expressions like "forget your past," are telling you to forget your present and your future. Similarly, expressions like "you cannot change the past," yours or another's, is also untrue;'past' is all that you can change, and you change it by what you do now.

TRIAL BY JURY

TRIAL BY JURY No one can lampoon traditional trial by jury like the inimitable Mark Twain. In ROUGHING IT, he writes: "The men who murdered Virginia's original twenty-six cemetery-occupants were never punished. Why? Because Alfred the Great, when he invented trial by jury, and knew that he had admirably framed it to secure justice in his age of the world, was not aware that in the nineteenth century the condition of things would be so entirely changed that unless he rose from the grave and altered the jury plan to meet the emergency, it would prove the most ingenious and infallible agency for 'defeating' justice that human wisdom could contrive. For how could he imagine that the simpletons would go on using his jury plan after circumstances had stripped it of its usefulness, any more than he could imagine that we would go on using his candle-clock after we had invented chronometers? In his day, news could not travel fast, and hence he could find a jury of honest intelligent men who had not heard of the case they were called to try--but in our day of telegraphs and newspapers his plan compels us to swear in juries composed of fools and rascals, because the system rigidly excludes honest men and men of brains. "[S]uch men could not be trusted with the case. Ignoramuses alone can mete out unsullied justice. "When the peremptory challenges were all exhausted, a jury of twelve men were impaneled--a jury who swore they had neither heard, read, talked about nor expressed an opinion concerning a murder which the very cattle in the corrals, the Indians in the sage-brush and the stones on the streets were cognizant of!... "The verdict rendered by the jury was, Not Guilty. What else could one expect? "The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity, and perjury. It is a shame that we continue to use a worthless system because it was good a thousand years ago....Why could not jury law be so altered as to give men of brains and honesty an 'equal chance' with fools and miscreants?" P.782-783, MARK TWAIN (1984)

HUMAN MODELS OF GOD

HUMANS MODEL GOD Humans, made of trillions of parts into living beings, who live, who work, who reproduce, then "die;" whose souls are vital, magnificent, wraiths, winds, wisps of cosmic wonder, which worship the sources of their being with words too fine to be uttered, with symbols whose meanings are too recondite to recognize; in assembly representing the infinite universe symbolically, holy, completely in vitro, in miniatures: humans are made by God, consist of God, subsist in God; insist on being God; whom they all irresistibly model as true aspects of God in all respects.

MY THIRTIES

In my thirties, in the 1980s, I made four or more decisions which molded my life today: 1. Retained physical custody of my son 2. Abandoned my novel to read a Bible 3. Married a woman from the South 4. Entered private solo law practice 5. Confessed Jesus Christ as Lord There may be others. These dominate.

PAINED BY PLEASURE

"The self-indulgent man, then, craves for all pleasant things or those that are most pleasant, and is led by his appetite to choose these at the cost of every thing else; hence he is pained both when he fails to get them and when he is merely craving them (for appetite involves pain); but it seems absurd to be pained for the sake of pleasure." --Aristotle, "Nichomachean Ethics" THE BASIC WORKS OF ARISTOTLE , edited by Richard McKeon (1941, 2001), p. 982

YOU NEVER KNOW

One never knows where one's influence or work may lead or come to rest. My niece surprised me one day in exclaiming that one of her college texts had included a quotation from my former black history newsletter (now defunct). It was discussing the subject, "Black Man/Black Woman: Can the Breach Be Healed?" It was in my old historical newsletter THE NILE REVIEW, which I self-published from 1981-1986. It was around 2008, when my niece amazed me by mentioning that it was in her book at the University of Illinois . One never knows!

ESSENCES

INEFFABLE ESSENCES MIX, MESH, MASH, INSIDE OF ME, MYSTERIOUSLY, INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF ALL.

SELF-CREATION, CONTEXT AND GOD

SELF-CREATION AND CONTEXT AND GOD Arguably nothing is self-creating. All things exist in context. Context preexists all of its things,preexists all of its contents. Thus, anything, meaning, any content that is contained within any given context, whatsoever, was brought into being, was created later than its context, with seminal contributions from its context. Therefore nothing, no content can be self-created. This is proof of God being no "thing;" God having no context. God exists, self-created, outside of context, beyond all content.

IT IS WRITTEN

IT IS WRITTEN With their three forms of distinct writing: hieroglyphics (sacred), hieratic (business), and demotic (common), each of which shared a common purpose of documenting its model culture, ancient Egyptians continue to amaze present-day historians, philosophers, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, theologians, and politicians, as they marvel us as a masterful four thousand year old civilization, year-after-year, that we exhume its African detritus from the sands of time, archaeologically. 

SELF-CREATION

SELF-CREATION AND CONTEXT Arguably nothing is self-creating. All things exist in context. Context preexists all of its things,all of its contents. Thus, anything, meaning, any content that is contained within any given context, whatsoever, was brought into being, was created later than its context, with seminal contributions from its context. Therefore nothing, no content can be self-created.

TRUMP'S TROPE

HOW TO DEFEAT TRUMP'S TROPE  A great way to defeat rampant lies, and diabolical iniquity is with the truth, with understanding, with an accurate consistency that is being rigorously applied to our daily lives.

PLATO REITERATED, HE DID NOT 'CONCEIVE'

It is customary to read that Plato "conceived " this or that in various learned books by diverse authors. But, from what I have read, and learned, thus far, in Plato's own books, he reiterates that which he has learned from prolonged study with the ancient Egyptian priests; rather than from what he had "conceived." The books of Plato that I have read so far, include : The Republic , The Laws, The Timaeus. In these books, Plato credits the ancient Egyptians as teaching the Greeks, whose knowledge they had termed "childish." This lack of understanding of the Greeks, in comparison to the Egyptians, if anything, is what Plato "conceived."

SALUTE TO SCIENCE

There is neither shame nor dishonor in being superseded, as D'Arcy Thompson did to Charles Darwin. Make your mark magnificently . All antecedents have consequents, as all magnitudes have counterparts; equal or multiples, greater or lesser. Ultimately, life is orbiting axially in the heavens. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Arcy_Wentworth_Thompson

SHARE YOUR LIFE STORY

SHARE YOUR LIFE STORY Reading about (or just viewing or hearing about) others' unique life experiences greatly enriches our own life experiences, by adding depth, dimension, appreciation, humor, excitement, for life human life and death, themselves. Each life is fascinating . Each life is extraordinary. No matter what the person did for a living, where or when they lived, who they were , their stories are engrossing! I never weary of reading slave narratives, for example , the heroic tales of our amazing ancestors. There literally are thousands of them still waiting to be read, containing enough inspiration, wit, courage, energy, faith, strength to move mountains; to cross or to ford many rivers: raging rivers, frozen, or placid ones, in the singular quest to be free, to live, to breathe, to produce, and ultimately to reproduce! Your own life is just as interesting! Sharing bits and pieces of your life's story with the public in some form fuels the ages to come with renewed faith, hope and love. What else, after all, are the gospels? The Testaments?

LOVE IS WHERE YOU FIND IT

LOVE IS WHERE YOU FIND IT As a teenager I was conditioned to look for females in my age group or within my class, or one nearby. As a consequence of this, older females were "verboten," most younger ones, were too. So I bypassed many opportunities, that I now know were overtures to me. Alas , alack! So it comes and goes! Now. That I am much older, more worldly, I realize that love is where you find it, to quote a favorite song. This point was especially brought home by a certain slave narrative describing the successful escape of a husband and wife to Canada, where the wife was 20 years older than her husband! Talking about age differences! But maturity is maturity, at whatever age it exists.

AFRICAN AMERICAN PASSOVER

While I was Pastor of Brooks Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Butler, Bates County, Missouri, we began celebrating the "African American Passover" to pay homage to the military defeat of slavery and of white supremacy on April 9, 1865. This illustration of Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendering to Union General Ulysses Grant is epic, more epic to my black people than that of any Continental Congress! Our church began our own celebration of this epochal surrender in the year 2000, and I have carried it on into other venues, in Kansas City, St. Joseph, Missouri, since then, as my itinerant ministry moved about in time and space. How deeply do I hope and pray that this ameliorative American holiday catches on and takes hold! https://newrepublic.com/article/121406/civil-war-150th-anniversary-confederacy-defeat-should-be-holiday

EPIGENETICS

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/inheritance/ I preached a sermon on epigenetics at Ebenezer AME Church--KCMO, in 2008, Rev. Carmi Woods, Pastor. I also wrote a short book about it, a novelette, THE COLORED GREEN TREE in 2011, Amazon.com, as it pertains to a correlation involving collard greens and African Americans.

SPACE AND SPIRIT

SPACE AND SPIRIT Same planet. Different worlds. Same space. Different realities . Space confines. Spirit defines. Life refines in space and time . Spirit vivifies what space reifies. Spirit and space are interlaced. Where one is so too is the other. Spirit subsumes space and life.

TEACH

TEACH! Teach . Teach someone. Teach someone something. Teach someone something that you already know and know about. Might be a song. A poem. Or a recipe. Changing the motor oil. Potty-training a child. Building a house. Making a cake, or pies. Cleaning chitterlings. Whatever else it may be, that you already, know, teach another. Teaching them perpetuates your memory, and enriches the texture of living.

MONEY POWER OVERRATED

That African Americans at the end of slavery lacked both money and power, but managed to survive and to thrive , to produce us is testimonial evidence that money and power are overrated as determining the future of a people.

THEMES OF IDENTITY

"The natural flow of population from the African heartland outward brought groups to settle in the Nile Valley . Would they have been black? Necessarily so, according to [Cheikh Anta, 'Civilization or Barbarism' p. 16] Diop: Melanin, greater or lesser quantities of which determine dark and light skin colors, protects the human body against high levels of ultraviolet radiation prevalent in equatorial regions. Black skin here like white skin in Europe are matters of adaptation.... "Egyptian wealth and culture attracted successive invasions of Asians and Europeans from Iran, Macedonia , Greece, Italy, Arabia, Turkey, France, and England, who mixed with the original population. It is a matter of some irritation to scholars who favor the European view that such Ancient Greek authorities as Herodotus and Aristotle confirm the blackness of the original ancient Egyptians . Herodotus, in a passage on the Colchians, says "'...the Colchians were clearly Egyptians....My own guess was based on the fact that they are dark-skinned and woolly haired....But the following is more important: that alone of mankind the Colchians, the Egyptians , and the Ethiopians have circumcised from the first. The Phoenicians and the Palestinian Syrians themselves agree that they learned this from the Egyptians. (Herodotus, 'The History,' tr. David Greene, Chicago, 1987, 173 2.104)' "There is no point in lingering over European assumptions of the impossibility of connections between ancient Egypt and Africa. It is a racist view. Time spent confronting European believers with evidence that invalidates their racist vision is wasted time." P. 228-9, "Themes of Identity," THE ELOQUENCE OF THE SCRIBES by Ayi Kwei Armah (2006)

PRECIPITATION EVAPORATION

PRECIPTATION AND EVAPORATION Thursday, April 20, 2017 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman PRECIPITATION AND EVAPORATION ARE ONE. LIKE LIFE AND DEATH, BEING AND NONBEING. AS RAINDROPS, DEW, SNOW, HAIL, DUSTS, ICE FALL TO EARTH AND RETURN TO THE SOURCE, SO DO ALL HUMANS IN SYNCHRONY WITH THESE. WE ARE BUT PRECIPITATION AND EVAPORATION: TO EARTH FROM GOD, WHO ALL RETURN TO GOD.

QUANTUM THEOLOGY

“Quantum Theology”-- (A poem without end) Friday, June 12, 2009... Wednesday, June 19, 2013 latest revision #10 By Rev. Dr. Larry D. Coleman 1 On the verge of happiness At the cusp of joy, Beckons “Quantum Theology’s” Healing alloy. 2 Scientific rigor strains To transcend that Man-God dyad Stained with “sin.“ 3 Bereft of “evil,” It would subsume both: The notion of devotion, And the shock of doom. 4 Jesus died to expiate The “sins” of all; Then to propitiate, And reinstate that Dyad. 5 Yet, orthodox doctrine would maintain the deceit that: His life, death and resurrection Yet remains incomplete. 6 That despite his oblation So perfect and true, A cross remains For me and for you. 7 If “sin” precedes And if “sin” is abides Was our Savior’s death Mere fratricide? 8 Of no force, nor effect? Just another dead Jew: On a Roman cross, In the morning dew? 9 “Heaven and earth shall pass away: But my words shall not pass away.” Mark 13:31 predicts, while Gen. 1:1 “In the beginning God” inveighs: 10 An ineffable energizing spirit, Creator of time and space; The devolution of matter is, Within God’s enduring grace. 11 Jehovah created Good and Evil According to Isaiah 45:7. “He is before all things,” says Col.1:17 “and in him all things hold together.” 12 “To be or not to be,” Wrote Shakespeare in Hamlet. The harmony of polarity is Quantum Theology’s epaulet. 13 Whether wave or dot nor neither Each observer’s act decides. Here and there simultaneously, Where both curses and blessings abide. 14 Both Literal and figurative together At once, male and female too. It’s the reconciliation of allegory With what science believes is true. 15 Where math and myth play together Approving each other’s theorems; Where life in its all dominions Is as varied as Solomon’s harems. 16 Where everybody is somebody On God’s spectrum of being; Where everything is everything: Divinely embued with meaning. 17 “Who (or what) shall separate us from The love of Christ?” asks Rom.8:35. “Neither death nor life, nor angels nor Principalities ...” Nor any sect’s doctrinal jive! 18 “Nor things present nor things to come, Nor height nor depth, Nor any other created thing, shall… separate us From … Christ,” our redeeming brother. 19 In Christ, the wolf and the lamb dwell together. Likewise, The leopard and the kid. Cow and bear are not otherwise. From none is God’s presence hid. 20 Isaiah 11:10 predicts: “a root shall come out of Jesse,” whom the Gentiles will seek, Enabling recovery of the remnant, And the redemption of the meek. 21 The amorphous God and the personal God Exist as one and the same. “His“ Uncertainty Principle, And “His” Ordered Universe bear “His” sacred name. 22 Symbol and substance walk together From one source both having come, Light and dark and day and night Unite in the Summum Bonum. 23 In earth’s life-giving water, gas, liquid and solid exist; external factors determining which condition subsists. 24 That which was, that which is, and that which is yet to be; Sanctified, mortified, glorified: There for the blessed to “see.” 25 Great in the kingdom of heaven Are they who live in God’s law. But least in the kingdom of heaven Are they who abide in scofflaw. (Matt.5:19) 26 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, He must deny himself and Take up his cross and follow me. (Matt.16:24) 27 With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you: Pressed down, shaken together (Luke 6:38) And running over: your due. 28 Go neither to Gentiles, nor Samaritans, only to “Jews” who are “worthy”; (Matt.10:5-15) Then, extend your peace to these. If rejected, shake off their dust fully. 29 While all may grieve, Only some may receive. Trees which do not bear fruit, Are rightfully cut off at the root. 30 For he that hath to him more shall be given: And from he that hath not, Even this shall be taken! (Mark 4:25) 31 Sow, then, Sower your seed. Like a treasure hid in a field, It shall betide man’s rediscovery, Like Quantum Theology does recovery. 32 God has not given us the spirit of fear. But of love, a sound mind, and power. (2 Tim.1:7) We are all “The children of God” (Rom.8:16) every day and every hour. 33 Some theology claims we must “choose” “Whom” we shall serve. But, as God created everything, to breathe is to serve with verve! 34 No so-called “Satan,” nor priests of Baal, Nor other demon Can rend God’s veil! 35 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, (Ephe.3:20)through his spiritual food and drink: 36 Monday, September 19, 2011 I am both scientific and spiritual, both literal and figurative, both mathematical and mythical, both historical and allegorical, both sacred and secular, both gutter and grandiosity, both alpha and omega, formed in the likeness and image of God. Is anybody else? 37 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/09/quantum-gravity-the-key-to-the-evolution-of-the-universe.html

ENJOYMENT MEDITATIONS

MEDITATIONS ON ENJOYMENT Enjoyment delights and induces our further partaking of the activity, that engendered the sensation of enjoyment. Enjoyment, not variety, should be called the "spice of life." Enjoyment is the true spice of life. Eating is done if enjoyable. So, too, drinking is done if it is enjoyable . Listening to enjoyable music or conversations are requisite to future listening of the artist or kind. Smelling or touching whatever is enjoyable are delightful sensations. Similarly, watching or reading what is deemed enjoyable are definitely matters of fact. Even just breathing must be enjoyable for anyone to want to continue breathing, to live. No one wants to do what is not enjoyable. Few persons regularly, willingly do what is not enjoyable, without forms of coercion or force. Yet enjoyment is maligned, as evil. How can something that is so good still be deemed to be so bad, by so many people, as being not-good? Hard for me to understand. Very!

HEAVEN

"HEAVEN IS OUR HOMELAND." Literally! A Facebook friend had commented, as quoted, on a post that I had earlier written, while I was in the process of reading a relevant book chapter entitled, "Geometrical and Astronomical Standards Governing Architectural Structures," in AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY : THE PHARAONIC PERIOD, 2780-330 BC, by Dr. Theophile Obenga (2004). Ironically, when she made her prescient comment, I rejoiced! It overflows with divine truth! Thanks 🙏! The post on which she commented read: "Implicit in the concept of "citizenship" are such duties as fellowship, fidelity, sharing, caring; plus privileges such as partaking , protesting , contributing. As such, each citizen is a synecdoche of a nation as the nation is of each citizen." Dr. Theophile Obenga in his remarkable book writes: "There is a special set of Egyptian diagrams, star charts...on which it was noted that certain constellations appeared regularly in the same positions for ten days. Such lists of 'Decans' are described on sarcophagi of the 9th Dynasty, about 2150 BC, long before Hipparchus produced his first astronomical catalog . The Decan lists are, in effect , the oldest astronomical texts known. Similar diagrams are found in the royal tombs of Ramses IV, Ramses VII, and Ramses IX. In sum, the ancient Egyptians did not only discover the movement of fixed stars; they also discovered the precession of the equinoxes, another effect of the precession of the world 's axis.... "Those who make a sport of putting down ancient Egyptian science--admittedly a dying tribe these days--have always found such data awkward to account for. In Greek and Roman antiquity , the problem did not arise; for Egyptian astronomy was well known and highly valued as the irreplaceable work of pioneers in the scientific study of the heavens.... "The Egyptians showed a constant concern for precision in their astronomical observations, a tendency that enabled them to orient their funerary and religious monuments in an astonishingly accurate manner. Before the Greeks invaded their country, Egyptians cared little for 'astrology.' What they were interested in was to measure the passage of hours, and to mark out exact orientations for their sacred buildings, so that they could perform their ceremonial ritual correctly, in their encounter with the immensity of an open universe, which to them meant the cosmic order, itself the perfect chart. Any activity programmed to harmonize with such a chart would have to be abundantly effective and efficient." P. 328-331 "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ." (Philippians 3:20) Glory be to God for divine blessing!

OPENNESS

Leave a window open to catch a breeze. Your mind to catch facts.

AS GOD

AS GOD As life so death As here so there As fire so water As time so space As energy so matter As male so female As this so that As God so everything : is was forever shall be As God of God. Amen.

ORANGE REVULSION

ORANGE SLICES REVULSION Eating candy excessively has consequences for teeth, blood pressure, and causes diarrhea . The same happens to society, to any government that continuously exceeds the bounds of propriety in the mistreatment of its citizens (or residents) for unnatural reasons. Donald Trump is the other side of Barack Obama. Trump represents the America that might have been , but for the mitigating affects of its War of Independence, Civil War, Civil Rights Movements '30s-'60s. That Trump was elected with less than a majority vote proves that we don't live in a democracy, but in a hypocritical, color-centric republic , that color being "white," or orange . Orange slices were among my favorite candies during childhood , but gastrointestinal dyspepsia ensues now as revulsion, at their mere suggestion in my elder years. I paid a price and yet pay a price for having consumed such sweets to excess . Our nation now pays a price for its excesses with Donald Trump, as President with less than a majority vote, but more electoral votes, as color-centrism rebounds, and with it, historic mistreatment of citizens and residents, regardless of color, who are not already rich !

NATHANIEL PRENTICE BANKS

This Nathaniel P. Banks who vetoed a bill as Massachusetts governor enabling black men to enter the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in 1858, according to Roger D. Cunningham , author of BLACK CITIZEN-SOLDIERS OF KANSAS (2008), was the same miserable political Union General who maliciously wasted black lives at the siege Port Hudson in 1863; Louisiana's black-commanded Corps D'Afrique, who in spite of Banks' venal incompetence, still carried the day against the Mississippi River fortress , which turned the fortunes of War in the West, with Vicksburg's fall! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_P._Banks

EASTER, WHITE AND BLACK

EASTER IN WHITE AND BLACK "Whiteness" is a con game. It was invented by colonial British settlers in Virginia and Maryland in the 1600's to maintain financial control: of unimproved land, political power, and to deputize Europeans of every stripe and economic class, against Africans and Indians. It worked so well that "white" became a fixture of American politics, policy, culture. It doled out "white" distinctions in law, business, education, religion, labor, crime, punishment, politics, culture, in short, in everything. It ranks with democracy, communism and any oligarchy or plutocracy in mankind's history for its efficacy. Never mind, that the so-called "whites" of America were formerly enemies in Europe, or were actually at war in Europe, or upon the high seas anywhere, once they landed in the United States of America, they morphed into "whiteness'" privileges and status, from formerly being: French, English, Dutch, Irish, Scotch, German, Greek, Russian, Swede, Dane, Italian, or any European or Eurasian, to white! "Blackness" was also an invented "con," almost by default, as a foil to nebulous "whiteness" in America. African tribes who saw themselves as discrete, unique, not "black," who knew nothing of Africa as a paradigm, nor as ancient historical vital force; but who looked locally, tribally, for their history and for verity. Finally, after centuries of raiding, enslaving, mis-educating after transportation across the seas as raw cargo, as chattel, in the holds of slave ships, a few of these Africans saw and sensed that some greater opportunity was enfolded inside seeming tragedy: that they had left all, like Abraham, who left Shinar, for a new land, a new world, by the will of God, for some greater glory to mankind, as yet unknown . Many "blacks" and "whites" may not have known that the religion of the enslaved Africans' captors' was itself as African as were they. That its many martyrdoms in North Africa, its vast wealth of written scholarship was epic, as were its votaries, victims, virtuous and valorous ones. Their religion had been appropriated by Constantine, of Rome, as a new mode of power. Many still do not know that this theft is true historically, doctrinally. As I write this précis on Easter Sunday morning, April 16, 2017, I write proudly, pensively, appreciably, as an African American Christian, as a descendant of the "blacks," primarily, and of the "whites," secondarily, described above. I am part of the ever-unfolding divine deliverance of God's glory to this once-largely, undeveloped, land of ours: fertilized by forebears' blood, tears, hopes, prayers, labors, love . As con begets con, so too game begets game, and deep calls unto deep. "Whiteness" extended the fraud of Emperor Constantine, the "wolf" who laid down the law with the lambs, and with the woolly rams of Africa of and its nearby Christian lands, by the flip of his imperial-pagan Roman hand. Later, President Thomas Jefferson did, as Constantine had done, with his book NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, "Query XIV," wherein he proclaims the inferiority of Africans, while begrudging them their utility . Process has its place with product . Who has sinned, the man who was born blind or his parents, Jesus was asked by his disciples? that "Neither has sinned," Jesus replied. "This happened so that the works of God may be displayed in him." (Jn 9:1-12) By reason of Jesus Christ's ministration of a paste of mud and spit to his eyes, that were later washed out in the Pool of Siloam, his sight unfolded. There is a message of deliverance here for North-South-Central American and Caribbean "blacks" and "whites" all of whom were born blind of truth, of understanding, of the universe, and their place in it. May the love of the risen Christ enfold you, enlighten, enrich you and yours this Sublimation Sunday, this Resurrection Sunday, forever! Amen.

BLACK CITIZEN-SOLDIERS

"In 1855 about eighty black Bostonians--'among the worthiest our colored population'--organized a volunteer unit called the Massasoit Guards. The governor refused to arm this company, so Robert Morris, a prominent lawyer who commanded the unit , proposed 'to raise by subscription the means to purchase arms and equipment.'... "3. Massachusetts' constitution abolished slavery in 1780. Vermont had no slaves in 1790, but did not become a state until another year... Massasoit was an Indian chief who signed a treaty of friendship with the Plymouth Colony settlers in 1621. Robert Morris (1823-1882) passed the Suffolk County bar exam in 1847, and became one of the first African Americans licensed to practice law.." P.8, "African American Militia During the Civil War," THE BLACK CITIZEN SOLDIERS OF KANSAS (2008) by Roger D. Cunningham

LIFE NOT ASHES

LIFE IS NOT INTERRED WITH ASHES That "Your life is not your own," as is well stated several places in holy scripture, is also proven by the fact that even after "death," your life, sometimes even centuries later, may become a subject of historical, philosophical, scientific, theological archaeological wonderment, comment, controversy, speculation, exploration, appropriation, adoration, condemnation, dispute . Life is not interred with ashes, but belongs to the ages that produced it, and those before it in sequence. http://biblehub.com/galatians/2-20.htm

EASTER SUNDAY PREPARATIONS

EASTER SUNDAY PREPARATIONS As children, the night before Easter was a most festive time. Boiling and coloring eggs, making Easter baskets or bags for distribution in our church, St. Matthews C.M.E. Church, near St. Louis, Missouri. There were "parts" to be perfected; that is, our personal speaking parts for the Sunday afternoon church program that was as much a test, as it was a testimony for kids and families. And you'd better know it! There were clothes to be tried on: shoes to be shined, shirts ironed, suits and ties to be laid out. Easter Sunday meant getting clean from head to toe; hats were "de rigeur!" This is Ole School, I know. It's the only and best one, I know! Years ago, a young man walked to the front of the church, one afternoon. He looked around, slowly studying the audience. Then loudly said: "What are you looking at me so hard for? (Pause) I did not come to stay. I just came to wish you all, a very 'HAPPY HAPPY EASTER DAY!" The church rolled with gleeful joy!