WILL A MAN ROB GOD?

WILL A MAN ROB GOD? "Will a man rob God?" The question posed in Malachi 3:8 requires circumspection, reflection. One may say "Yes!" too quickly. "Yet you have robbed me." Snap! Direct hit. Speaker's getting personal with it now. Not talking about any man. Talking about me! Reflexively I defend myself from slander. "Wherein have we robbed thee?" I reply, hurting like a Peter . "In tithes and offerings!" Concludes the verse in Malachi 3:8. Now tithes are first fruits. The best! Ten percent of our first fruits are supposed to be set apart to God. Alas. "God." Is the Pope God? Is the President? Is mommy or daddy or the grands? What about the white people, the police, the judge, maybe bishops! Who is "God." What is "God." Where is "God?" Tough questions! Each one and every one. "God" knows who, what, where, "God" is, as surely as you know who, what, where you now are. "God" is with you. "God" is in you, all around you. "Ye are gods!" Affirms Psalm 82:6. Will a man rob himself, then? Too abstract . Have I ever, or, do I now rob myself? Oh my! very poignant question! "Rob" then is self-steal! Do I now or have I ever knowingly stole, held myself back from God's grace? divine munificence of God? The first question inverted, turned inside out, upside down is just that. How might I do or have done that? By disobedience to the God-voice that speaks to me, us continuously. For surely the greater blesses the lesser with life, health, prosperity! Not the lesser the greater as now! Hebrews 7:7. "Life, health, prosperity" was the epigraph inscribed on the stelae of ancient Pharaohs who were viewed as gods on earth, representatively. And the Pharaoh set aside lands, incomes, for priests, for temples and servants, to enable them to teach the children and the people, in learned subjects, morals, arts, crafts, astronomy, maths, sacred rituals, sciences, writing, that the blessed Two-Lands of ancient Kemet, known as "Egypt" might be blessed forever, as it is in history. The Bible was written in Egypt by Jewish scholars, presumably to have access to ancient Egyptian papyri that were then lodged in the Great Library of Alexandria, the truth storehouse of the ancient world, which mysteriously was set on fire by some people who were all sinister, evil, depraved, envious. Thus upside down, rather than right side up, this ancient wisdom has come down to us from Europe. Curiously ancient Egypt is the most frequently mentioned nation in the Bible, even more so than Israel, its scion. Yet Mizraim is described as wicked in the Bible. History refutes this account of an evil Egypt. Every major power Russians, Americans, British, French, Germany, Italy are chock-full of its artifacts, obelisks and sacred icons. Each year the soil of Egypt and Nubia yield more! Will a man rob God ? Some men robbed Egypt and Nubia and are still robbing them today !

RECONCILING MAAT AND MAMMON

CAN AMERICA'S DYNAMIC MAAT-MAMMON MELODRAMA BE RECONCILED Clashing ideals are found in Maat, energy, and in Mammon, matter, seemingly. "Maat" is Justice , Truth, Order, Balance, Law, Beauty, Harmony. "Mammon" is injustice, untruth, disorder, imbalance, outlaw, scofflaw, ugliness , disharmony. The ideal of Maat, or energy, of a female goddess, was epitomized in ancient Egypt (Kemet) and Nubia. The ideal of Mammon, a male god, or matter, now found, is idealized in the United States of America, being derived from Rome's Constantine. The presence of some Africans in America has been epochal, for the Africans are archetypal ideals of Maat, transplanted in America. Europeans, Africans' enslavers, are the modern archetypal ideals of Mammon, also epochal being here, trapping African energy in matter. African imports built America by their energetic slave labor, as they have saved her by their valor, the structures of United States of America are African built but were designed, ruled by past colonists. In due course, an American ideal was secretly designed, brokered, financed, declared, by a group of white wealthy merchants, bankers, planters who thought it not robbery to join the European fight for rights to sole sovereignty over colonial homes, land, trade, slave property. Here, in America, these seemingly disparate ideals of energy and matter, of Maat and Mammon, seek reconciliation by an ersatz blend of each other's substance politically, phenotypically, philosophically. Carried forward precariously from 1776-1865, in which warring sides of white Americans fought against each other, Europeans, Mexicans, Indians, aided by Africans, warring for their own right to determine the ideals of America, especially to decide disposition of its resources. America is always in flux, due to the always energizing ideals of Maat's Africans, being pitted against the stalwart materialistic ideals of Mammon. Irresistible forces immovable objects is the American dilemma, that is now the year 2018 with Donald Trump's Mammon personified, as leader ! How this melodrama between Maat and Mammon, between American energy and matter, will play itself out is yet to be known. But, nature restores itself after storms, heals itself after traumas of all kinds; so there will be some reconciliation in time and space, between energy and matter, in America, as neither, standing alone, is pure but alloyed. 

TRUMP TOWER 2018

RELIGION AND ZORA

"When I studied the history of the great religions of the world, I saw that even in religion, man carried himself along. His worship of strength was there. God was made to look that way too. We see the Emperor Constantine , as pagan as he could lay in his hide, having his famous vision of the cross with the injunction: 'In Hoc Signo Vinces,' and arising next day not only to win a great battle, but to start out on his missionary journey with a sword. He could not sing like Peter, and he could not preach like Paul. He probably did not even have a good straining voice like my father to win converts and influence people. But he had his good points--one of them being a sword--and a seasoned army. And the way he brought sinners to repentance was nothing short of miraculous. Whole tribes and nations fell under conviction just as soon as they heard he was on the way. They did not wait for the stars to move, nor trees to jump the road. By the time he crossed the border, they knew they had been converted. Their testimony was on Christian experience and they were ready for the right hand of fellowship and baptism. It seems that Revered Brother Emperor Constantine carried the gospel up and down Europe with his revival meetings to such an extent that Christianity really took on. In Rome where Christians had been looked upon as rather indifferent lion-bait at best, and as keepers of virgins in their homes for no real good to the virgins among other things at their worst, Christianity mounted. Where before, Emperors could scarcely find enough of them to keep the spectacles going, now they were everywhere, in places high and low. The arrow had left the bow. Christianity was on its way to world power that would last. That was only the beginning. Military power was to be called in time and time again to carry forward the gospel of peace. There is not apt to be any difference of opinion between you and a dead man. "It was obvious that two men, both outsiders, had given my religion its chances of success . For the apostle Paul, who had been Saul , the erudite Pharisee, had arisen with a vision when he fell off his horse on the way to Damascus . He not only formulated the religion, but exerted his brilliant mind to carry it to the most civilized nations of his time. Then Constantine took up with force where Paul left off with persuasion."... "People need religion because the great masses fear life and its consequences. Its responsibilities weigh heavy, Feeling a weakness in the face of great forces, men seek an alliance with omnipotence to bolster up their feeling of weakness even though the omnipotence they rely upon is a creature of their own minds. It gives them a feeling of security. Strong, self-determining men are notorious for their lack of reverence. Constantine, having converted millions to Christianity by the sword, himself refused the consolation of Christ until his last hour. Some say not even then. "As for me, I do not pretend to read God's mind. If He has a plan of the Universe worked out to the smallest detail, it would be folly for me to presume to get down on my knees and attempt to revise it. That, to me, seems the highest form of sacrilege. So I do not pray. I accept the means at my disposal for working out my destiny. It seems to me that I have been given a mind with will-power for that very purpose. I do not expect God to single me out and give me advantages over my fellow men. Prayer is for those who need it. Prayer seems to me a cry of weakness, an attempt to avoid, by trickery, the rules of the game as laid down. I do not choose to admit weakness. I accept the challenge of responsibility. Life, as it is, does not frighten me, since I have made my peace with the universe as I find it, and bow to its laws....However, I would not, by word or deed, attempt to deprive another of the consolation it affords. It is simply not for me. Somebody else may have my rapturous glance at the archangels. The springing of the yellow line of morning out of the misty deep of dawn, is glory enough for me. I know that nothing is destructible; things merely change forms. When the consciousness we know as life ceases, I know that I shall still be part and parcel of the world. I was a part before the sun rolled into shape and burst forth in the glory of change. I was, when the earth was hurled out of its fiery rim. I shall return with the earth to Father Sun, and still exist in substance when the sun has lost its fire and disintegrated in infinity to perhaps become a part of the whirling rubble in space. Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing , ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance. P. 222-223, 225-226, "Religion," DUST TRACKS ON A ROAD by Zora Neale Hurston (1942, 1995) 

SELF-ORGANIZED AND SELF-ASSEMBLED SYSTEMS

"Self organized systems differ from self-assembled ones as they rely upon a continuous input of energy for maintenance and are far from thermal equilibrium. Classical thermodynamics--successful in the physical sciences do not apply. Instead of self-assembling into the lowest energy state, such as a crystal, energy-dissipating components self-organize into highly complex structures through which there is a constant flux of energy and material." P.28-29, "Self-organization in biology," BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE: Research Perspectives of the Max Planck Society (2010)

SUPER HEROES

My definition of super hero includes black fathers who stayed at home with their wife and children to work, train, discipline, love, inspire, protect, as if the outside world were no obstacle. It also includes black mothers of such families, who were "old ships of Zion."

BROKEN HOMES WITHOUT DADS

BROKEN HOMES WITHOUT DADS "Broken homes without dads," are surely contributory to more American dilemmas than just school shootings, as certain politicians have noticed. In the slavery era it was quite common for " broken homes without dads" to exist. Black people were chattels, mere property like cattle , horses, chickens, who were sold away or given away. We were deemed less than fully human and not "persons" in the constitution. A Civil War changed that classification, chattel, if not black characterizations at law, as non-persons, non-citizens. So we next evolved to being denizens, second class citizens, until this post-Reconstruction delusion dissipated too with many brilliant civil rights victories. But, since the 1960s, in the northern ghettos, "broken homes without dads" resurged by virtue of government laws and policies precipitating the return of that social pathology. But pathologies spread, like influenza across America. Whatever is over here is as surely over there, owing to media and socialization of diversities in one nation. Now, that "broken homes without dads" has hit the whites' society also, the sociology of this "broken homes without dads" epidemic may be addressed seriously by its societal enablers, the politicians. Very sad indeed. But having my father home with us was of incalculable benefit to me and my siblings' development. So much was this so, that when my first wife left, I remained primary custodian of our son in the divorce decree. My son would know no other man as daddy but me!

MISSISSIPPI

FARM BABY REFLECTIONS I don't remember much from my grandparents' farm as a small boy. I do remember sweet sugar cane, however, and the watermelon and cotton. I remember riding upon the back of a mule that was hitched to a cane mill-grinder, that ground the cane into a green liquid as the mule circled . Someone lifted me upon it. I do remember the sound of a long green watermelon splitting open, when it was sliced. It sounded like a log being split apart and the smell was was divine; its meat delicious! I also remember cotton, billowing fields of cotton and riding atop the wagon high atop the cotton regally. Such memories, remembrances endue, endear, endow me to land. My maternal Uncle Cyrus A. Moreland, told me that when he was growing up (pre-1963) in Canton, Mississippi, that he had picked cotton with Jimmy Reed, Elmo James, and Howling Wolf, all of whom are now blues greats! I was charmed to say the very least by this tidbit of information. I had called him to exclaim about this bad brother named C.O. Chinn who had boldly walked into a CORE civil rights worker's bond hearing with a holstered pistol in the Madison County court. The judge said, "Now, C.O., you know that you can't wear that gun in here." Chinn answered, "As long as that SOB has his gun --nodding at the sheriff--I 'm gonna have mine." THIS NONVIOLENT STUFF'LL GET YOU KILLED (2016) p. 188, by Charles E. Cobb, Jr. Eventually the judge coaxed both armed adversaries to lay their guns down on a table in front of the bench. Both men obeyed warily.

GOD SEARCH

THE GOD-SEARCH When one finds God for oneself, one finds clarity; one's life rights itself. Understanding ensues. Love issues forth, when one finds God for oneself, by oneself, in oneself. The search must begin with self; then it must sweep broadly away, fervently everywhere, ending again with oneself. Self is the center of the God-search, for oneself is an embodiment of God, as is all else. Therefore the God-search is both internal and external, new and old , near and far, written and unwritten . Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door will be opened. God is. God-searches must be individually particular. Mine is not yours, nor yours mine. Each one of us entered this plane from someplace else, at unique times and in unique places. These integral, individual time and place facts distinguish us from one another, yet bind us to one another. For we are all here, now, wherever we must later have to go; for surely we shall all go, as we have all come consciously empty, but intrinsically completely equipped to do as God has ordained, ordered us to do by virtue of our births: to find ourself. I found God for myself in 1985, when, after a life-long search into black history, I entered a realm of total blackness. It was then in that nameless, placeless realm of night that I saw the light: Conceived God, perceived God as darkness and lightness ; infinite and infinitesimal. Amen. 

BELOVED BLACK FEMALE PROSECUTORS

MOSBY AND GARDNER BLACK MUNICIPAL PROSECUTORS Marilyn Mosby and Kimberly Gardner are black prosecutors. Marilyn is in Baltimore; Kimberly is in St. Louis. One prosecuted six police after the death of "Freddie." The other is about to prosecute the governor of Missouri for fraud. I had always thought that Baltimore, Maryland, and St. Louis, Missouri were similar. Now with the two black female prosecutors going after paragons of white power and privilege we shall see if their supposed similarities that I had hypothecated hold true. Some police were acquitted and the cases of others dismissed by a black judge in Maryland. Will the charges against the governor go the same way at trial in Missouri? Marilyn Mosby had Maryland bar charges and lawsuits filed against her too, later. Will a like fate befall Kimberly Gardner, if things should go awry in St. Louis, Missouri? I will be watching . Of course, if Kimberly wins, she will probably be sought to run for higher office, maybe attorney general or governor. We will see. https://www.google.com/search… https://www.google.com/search…

JAMES P. BECKWOURTH

For sheer wonders and adventures, the life of Jim Beckwourth is it! This mulatto mountaineer, came to Missouri as a boy from Virginia, before it was a state with his white father; but left home as a teen to trap beaver with a trading crew out of St. Louis, who had followed the Missouri River and tributaries into Indian territory. There the legends begin! And legendary they are! I am currently reading two books about Jim Beckwourth : 1. "Jim Beckwourth, Black Mountain Man, Example Explorer, Guide, War Chief of the Crows, Trader, Frontiersman, Interpreter, Trapper, Adventurer, and Gaudy Liar," by Elinor Wilson (1972); and "The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth , Mountaineer, Scout, Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation, written from his own dictation by T. D. Bonner" (1856). They would make wonderful gifts for any man or boy who thirsts Old West's adventures, excitement, or movement, of any race or nation.

JESUITICAL ARISTOTLE

JESUITICAL ARISTOTLE? The term "Jesuitical," meaning, a form of illogic bandied about as true logic, came to be centuries after Aristotle, with the Jesuits , a priesthood in the Catholic Church. But, Aristotle, himself, had some mind benders of his own that were no less illogical than any Jesuit's may have been, I noticed reading. For example, he asks: "Is it truly possible to be willingly treated unjustly, or is all suffering of injustice on the contrary involuntary, as all unjust action is involuntary? And is all suffering of injustice of the latter kind or else all of the former, or is it sometimes voluntary, sometimes involuntary? So, too, with the case of being justly treated; all just action is voluntary, so that it is reasonable there should be similar opposition in either case--that both being unjustly and being justly treated should be either alike voluntary or alike involuntary." After several other rhetorical perambulations and inquiries, Aristotle, at length, concluded : "It is plain, then, that being unjustly treated is not voluntary." P. 1017-1018, "NICOMACHEAN ETHICS", THE BASIC WORKS OF ARISTOTLE (1941, 2001) I was gratified learn this fact from Aristotle: that unjust treatment is not voluntary! Who could have known, except a victim of injustice? Even the Jesuits must take a bow! http://www.dictionary.com/browse/jesuitical

BLACK LAWYER CHALLENGES IN MISSOURI

"Incidents of racial violence against black lawyers were reported in Missouri. William A. Cole was beaten by a mob near the Arkansas state line in Pemiscot County, for defending a black client. He was "chased out of the courtroom and...beaten for representing Negro defendants who had formed an organization to improve conditions of Negro sharecroppers." The volatile atmosphere interfered so significantly with Cole's ability to represent his clients that he filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Missouri Supreme Court to bring the violence to the court's attention." p.334, "The Southwestern States," EMANCIPATION: THE MAKING OF THE BLACK LAWYER 1844-1944 by J. Clay Smith, Jr.(1993)

HOMESCHOOLING

HOMESCHOOLING COMES FORTH "Homeschooling" as an education option has emerged to the "front and center" of private debate, now that mass murders have become far too common in America public schools. Raising it with a spouse can bring about sharp reactions , as each one personalizes individual learning experiences into the mix. Anciently education was at home. One learned from parents, elders. Over time, education became a function of first, the church, then the state. With these came taxes, fees, assessments, costs, wages, salaries, contracts, vendors, sales, politicians, judges , think tanks. Now guns have entered forcefully. Guns bring us back to square one. Not to square roots. Fractions not fractals. Fears and phobias rather than hopes and future aspirations. With access to content and images on the internet, school curriculums can be designed at home , done at home, without emotional drama. It would require that parents let go of certain things and people in order to concentrate spare time with the children, grandchildren, neighbors' children, or whomever wants to learn. The powers that be are trying to privatize everything government anyway . Let the people fight back by privatizing their own children's education. That is homeschooling !

TEACHING AMERICA

LOOKS LIKE A PREACHER

MUST LOOK LIKE A PREACHER I must look like a preacher. Once exiting an airplane in Chicago O'Hara Airport in the '90s, I almost bumped into a big fair-skinned man wearing a big cross on his chest, as we rounded a sharp, blind corner. Before I could beg his pardon, he immediately greeted me with this question: "What'd you preach about yesterday, Doc ?" I was blown away by his perceptiveness! Indeed, I was an AME preacher and also an attorney. This latter status had required my presence in Chicago; and the other gentlemen was an AME Bishop, from St. Louis, who I did not know; whose children had attended Howard University with me. I told him that fact . We chatted briefly. He boarded. I left. Another time, a few years later, I drove our family into a Holiday Inn Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, that was directly across the street from the famous Peabody Hotel; there, the National Bar Association (NBA) annual convention that was being conducted, was headquartered . No sooner had I opened the door of our Dodge Ram van , than the bellman met me at the van's door with "Praise the Lord" and similar Christian greetings typical of black church members. He was so effusive , in fact, that I had to ask him, how did he know that I was a preacher ? I was wearing an NBA cap with nothing to distinguish my appearance. He said he was also a preacher and that the anointing was all over me. I tipped him well! On any number of other occasions, when I was simply visiting other black churches, the sharp ushers usually have always asked if I was a minister? These thoughts come to mind this evening as the son of the bishop referred to above emailed me about the death of our old law professor at Howard Law School, the honorable J. Clay Smith, SJD.

MARY MARTHA AND BLACK FOLKS

MARY, MARTHA & BLACK FOLKS We too have chosen the better part. We being African Americans who, like Mary and Martha, were confronted with the choice of how to proceed, after 1876's political betrayal by our former Republican friends . We chose the better part. That better part was to work from the inside out of racial oppression, rather than battling from outside in. That means that soft tissue of love, joy, entertainment, music, worship, were worked relentlessly, not the tougher crusts of business, politics. We may not have known that we were following Mary, not Martha . But her better course we pursued . Now, partly because of our resolute pursuit of the better part, folks who formerly could call upon, count on, the racist dog-whistle of repression to rally around the Confederate flag do find themselves on the run; find that they are under their own guns! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10%3A38-42&version=NKJV

EDUCATION IN ANCIENT EGYPT

"Public school education was known in ancient Egypt as from the beginning of the Middle Kingdom (2052-1778 BC). Before then, the education and training of children was almost entirely the responsibility of fathers. School teachers were civil service officials who had previously trained as scribes. "There was a school textbook entitled 'Kemit'. Used for teaching reading and writing, it came into widespread use in the New Kingdom (1567-1085 BC). Other subjects such as mathematics, sculpture and painting, geography and sport, were also taught at school . Discipline in the classrooms was strict, as the following passage from 'Papyrus Lansing,' a 20-Dynasty document , attests: 'Because you beat me on the back, your teaching entered my ears.'... "'A stupid son, badly reared by his father, is a statue of stone. A son who remembers what he is taught, and has a strong desire to learn, has a splendid destiny; his character will help bring blessings upon him. When the learner's attitude is hostile, no instruction can succeed. He who heeds a first reproach is spared a second. If a child's character is wanting, it is because he is disobedient. Thoth, the great god (of writing) , gave the world the whip, to help educate fools. A child who steers clear of scandal will never be hit a regrettable blow. No child dies from a beating given by his father's hand.'... "It is the duty of parents to teach children the system of social ethics inscribed in the educational curriculum. This was based on the philosophy of Maat, a combination of Truth and Justice, which was supposed to regulate social behavior, thus assuring success and prestige in individual life.... "Pharaonic education based on the philosophy of Maat, also made a significant contribution to the greatness of ancient Egyptian civilization." P. 570-571, "In Praise of the Intellectual Life," AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY :THE PHARAONIC PERIOD (2780-330 BC) by Theophile Obenga (2004) 

i WAS RAISED

I was raised on my late mother's knee with her teaching me about Jesus and Booker T! Later I read all of his books; visited Tuskegee 3 times and George Washington Carver National Park in Diamond, Missouri 4 times! I revere Jesus, Booker T, and George Carver.

REFLECTING ON NATURE

REFLECTING ON NATURE Could it be that civilization may have flipped from being heart-centered to brain-centered as do the North and South poles, periodically? We live in a brain -centered era. Ancient Egyptians lived in a heart -centered era. I am not sure when the epic transition occurred, or, if it occurred at all. These thoughts first began to accrue, about the heart-brain dichotomy, when I was reading the Bible years ago, and noticed that I often saw the heart in scripture; but seldom saw the brain in scripture, as I now reflect on it. These thoughts are further quickened by reflecting on the geocentric vision or the early Christian church, when contrasted with the resurgent heliocentric fact, that is now proven to be true. There may not be any connection between any of these, except the fact of their occurrences on earth, all as natural as snow. What do you think?

ENVY AND CHARACTER

"There is one trait in Indian character which civilized society would derive much profit by imitating. Envy is a quality unknown to the savages. When a warrior has performed any deed of daring, his merit is freely accorded by his associate braves; his deeds are extolled in every public and private reunion, and his name is an incentive to generous emulation. I never witnessed any envious attempt to derogate from the merit of a brave 's achievement. No damning with faint praise; none 'willing to wound and yet afraid to strike '; no faltering innuendos that the man has not accomplished so much, after all . The same way with the women. When a woman's husband has distinguished himself, her neighbors, one and all, take pride in rejoicing with her over her happiness. If a woman displays more ingenuity than common in ornamenting her husband's war-dress, or in adding any fancy work to her own habiliments, she at once becomes the pattern of the neighborhood. You see no flaws picked in her character because of her rising to note; no aspersions cast upon her birth or present standing. Such and such is her merit and it is deserving of our praise; the fact is praised and it receives full acknowledgement. This leads to the natural conclusion that civilization, in introducing the ostentation of display which is too frequently affected without sufficient ground to stand upon, warps the mind from the charity that is natural to it, and leads to all the petty strifes, and scandalous tales, and heartburnings that embitter the lives of so many in civilized life." P.161-162, THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF JAMES P BECKWOURTH (as told to Thomas D. Bonner) (1856, 1981) Image may contain: 1 person

EXOSPHERE

Because our earth is immured in, is suspended inside a protective womb, that deflects harmful sun-rays, and that burns up most space debris that's falling to earth before it strikes; does anyone seriously believe that our exosphere, this cocoon-like, globular, enclosed atmospheric capsule's airlock, will allow any of us humans to remain alive in the event of nuclear war? I would think not. Locked out is also locked in, atmospherically it seems. Certainly, volcanic ash, smoke and soot circle the globe, as do winds, clouds, rain. The whole planet is therefore doomed if just one fool unleashes the hounds of hell by radiation, chemical, or biological on earth . They correctly referred to it as MADD--mutually assured destruction, in the 1960s. It would seem to be even more true now !

DONALD TRUMP IS NOT ALONE

DONALD TRUMP IS NOT ALONE President Donald Trump is not the only one who ignores, elides facts. "Booker T. Washington's vision for the appropriate role of African Americans in American society was that of tradesmen." Writes Dr. Joy DeGruy in her book, POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME (2005). She then states: "Given the limitations imposed upon African Americans in the South, it is easy to understand how he came to his belief. Unfortunately, many in our community bought into the notion that this was all we should aspire to. " p.125-126. This stale salacious slander of the teachings of Booker T. Washington is what has "unfortunately" been brought forward, as fact, by black scholars, who are in a position to know better, and to write factually. Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee University in Alabama in 1881. He believed in education, industrial training and business ownership, according to the link below. Industrial training in the early 1900s was equivalent to computer coding and cyber technology today. Not that there was anything wrong with some black men being skilled tradesmen, which a class of freed slaves were, before later discrimination, laws, economic sabotage gave those lucrative jobs to white immigrants and exclusively white labor unions . http://www.crf-usa.org/…/three-visions-for-african-american… Too many omitted facts detract from truth, calumniate, and bring a writer's or speaker's integrity into sharp question, regardless of race, gender, politics, or point pursued. Donald Trump is not alone in lying.

SOFT

SOFT THINGS Soft things overcome hard things by a gentle persistent pressure. Thus winds reduce mountains to rubble over time, just like water seeps through, under, and around that same range. Softness wins. A baby's mere presence reorders , even disorders its environment, making mothers coo and daddy's cry out loud for joy and happiness. Women's softness overcomes men's hardness, literally and figuratively, over and over again! Heat of soft sunshine evaporates rivers and desiccates grasslands, and melts the mightiest of glaciers. "A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger." Proverbs 15:1. Soft things overcome hard things in time. For, Time is the softest of all.

ARE WE AFRICANS?

ARE WE AFRICANS? Are we Africans? One need do no more than view the receptions of James Brown, Bob Marley, Jesse Jackson, when they toured Africa! It was ecstatic, emphatic, dramatic! When I went to Africa in 1983, in which our tour group visited ten countries, I was shown in starkest terms that I was not only a brother of African descent, but the brother who was very much most beloved. Only in the colonized city of Cairo as I walked along the banks of the Nile was I made to feel ostracized by an Egyptian-Arab. Even this unsavory man accused me of being Sudanese, still very African, not truly African American, ignorantly, incessantly. I dispensed with that traducer, but will never forget him. Being "African" is more than an attitude! African is perforce an epic ideal of man. Africans were blessed with cosmic rhythms, enduring beauty, celestial intelligence, from their being fated by endearing dusky divinities: for their primordial, original, earthly destiny to reproduce human life in the black fruitful womb of Africa by its seed, thence, to overspread earth with exacting, patient, faithful, philosophical love. 'What is Africa to me' asked black poet Countee Cullen in 'Heritage.' I reply "Africa is me. Africa is mine--" indelibly, indefinitely, holistically. 

CHECKING AND PREPLANNING

CHECKING BACK, PREPLANNING As snippets of microscopic DNA tell us about our very distant past, snippets of our distant recollection can tell us, teach about ourselves . In grade school, our teachers told us, continually to check, to go back over our answers, before turning them in. I periodically resisted this time consuming activity and when I did so, I also later paid for it in my grade. As I moved along further in school, I learned of the value of outlining sentences as well as future activities before doing them. Preplanning is just as important "checking" before doing anything. These thoughts occur to me as I reflect back upon my last night's reading in RADICAL EQUATIONS (2001) by Robert P. Moses and Charles E. Cobb, Jr., whose breadth of wisdom, history, practical utility leaps forth from their heroic struggles in Mississippi in the period 1960-1964 in SNCC. This book has introduced me to the magnificent Mrs. Ella Baker whose long life 1903-1986, grandmotherly training about slave revolts as a child in North Carolina, where she graduated from Shaw University in Raleigh, in 1927, made her the main resource for multitudes of leaders. Ella embraced "checking back" on the values, work of black forebears and the tactile strength of common folks, while preplanning for all work ahead. She reached everybody who was anybody and just as many nobody's who became somebody!

DIVINE ORIGAMI

Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, reminded me of my brother-in-law's adept luggage packing; until I reflected that the folds of DNA inside the cells in our bodies reach around the sun, if unpacked and strung end-to-end: 93 million miles x 2. Then, I got happy! No way in the world is any of that random chance! A divine intelligence beyond our ability to conceive created each one of our cells, DNA chromatin, protein packaging, sun and us!

GUNS AND AMERICAN IDENTITY

GUNS AND AMERICAN IDENTITY Guns are deeply tied into issues, tissues, of white American identity. Chattel slavery for hundreds of years of imported Africans, who were denied basic personhood, and all civil rights, was the reason for these white slave master fears. White fears were easily stoked of reciprocal vengeance, retribution, that might be visited upon whites, by armed blacks, such as had been visited upon the blacks, by some whites, were they armed with guns. Thus it was illegal for slaves to own guns, except under white officers; in times of national peril or crisis, i.e. the American Revolution, War of 1812, the Civil War, or World Wars. Thus, the 2nd Amendment and its white "fantasy" of imperviousness to some hypothetical black violent form of recompense has had great white political appeal. This bootleg lying "fantasy" has been rigorously planted, cultivated, harvested by white terrorists, law enforcement officials, Democrats, Dixiecrats, Republicans, the National Rifle Association, or other opportunists. Guns are, of course, objective . But the gun owners were all selectively subjective . Particularly susceptible to such subjectivity are those who are insidiously beholden to banal American identity issues like white supremacy, fascism, and Nazism. But, with the continued assimilation of African Americans into the body politic, after the fall of segregation, black cultural influences have been vigorously saturating the American mainstream in music, television, sports, fashion, schools, literature , even in politics with the election of black mayors, sheriffs, legislators, governors, judges, and President. Blacks have also broken through in the business realm with a slice of millionaires and billionaires of note. Now in wake of all these inexorable developments, in Parkland , Florida, where there have been maniacal mass murders by, yet another white man, this one, a former student at the high school, who slew 17 of his majority white, former classmates-indiscriminately and irrationally, the guns culture has broken an axle. Its lost, balancing, white power axle logic cannot carry the farcical load of latent black avengers. It was, it is nothing but mindless gun-mayhem. So, though the 2nd Amendment's historical roots may well have been crucially based in white enslavers' fears of black slave revolts in 1791, and may have morphed into black economic and political power fears into Reconstruction and past it; the 20th century was not so much about white fear as white terrorists' repression, suppression of blacks, who merely sought respect and self-sufficiency. But, now, since the nonviolent civil rights movements' bevy of lawyers, students, civil rights organizations, churches, in the 1930s-1960s, it is clear that white fear of black vengeance, was but a misplaced, displaced, canard. With the abundance of guns and the loss of any associative rationale for their ubiquity, besides the guns themselves, this has led to a vapid dissociative personality disorder of epidemiological proportions! A mentality of "me and my right to possession of my guns" is all that matters . No other lives , whether male, female, old, young, black, white, Hispanic , Asian, disabled, Muslim, Christian , American, or immigrant, is of consequence. Pure narcissism is this very strange fruit!

TEMPEST IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND RESTORATION

http://www.sci-news.com/…/science-tempest-stela-ahmose-worl… AHMOSE founding Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt has written of this great tempest, flood, and disaster, on stone stela @ 1550+ years B.C. It is also mentioned in the Phinds Mathematical Papyrus from Ahmose's prolific era. I was reminded of the Old Testament flood of Noah (Noe?).

PROPORTIONALITY

Proportionality imparts beauty, manifests truth, exudes harmony: in nature, in art, in architecture, in geometry, music & speech.

MAMMON IN THE BIBLE AND PARADISE LOST

Outside of the BIBLE, I do not recall seeing "Mammon" written anyplace. Then reading in John Milton's 17TH century. classic PARADISE LOST, I saw it again: "Mammon led them on--Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell from Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts were always downward bent. admiring more the riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, than aught divine or holy else enjoyed in vision beatific. By him first men also, and by his suggestion taught, ransacked the center, and with impious hands rifled the bwels of mother Earth for treasures better hid. Let none admire that riches that grow in Hell; that soil may best deserve the precious bane." p.9 (2015) Matthew 6:24 King James Version (KJV) 24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. King James Version (KJV)

VALENTINE HIGHLIGHTS

"February 14, 270: According to tradition, Valentine, a priest in Rome during the reign of Claudius II, is beheaded along the Flaminian Way. One explanation for Valentine's subsequent relationship to the romantic holiday is this: Claudius, seeking to more easily recruit soldiers, removed family ties by forbidding marriage. Valentine ignored the order and performed secret marriages—an act that led to his arrest and execution. February 14, 869: Cyril, "apostle to the Slavs," dies. Creator of the Cyrillic alphabet (still used in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and elsewhere), translator of the Scriptures into Slavonic, and bishop, he worked with his brother, Methodius, who carried on the missionary work for another 15 years (see issue 54: Eastern Orthodoxy). February 14, 1760: Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, is born. The first African-American ordained by the Methodist church, Allen also a co-founded the Free African Society, America's first organization founded by blacks for blacks (see issue 62: Bound For Canaan)."

POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME, EXCERPT

There are surely as many black people, historically, since 1865, who have by faith, collaboration, creativity, and hard work, --have overcome, the woefully decried epidemiological, "post-traumatic slave syndrome," as have purportedly succumbed to its baleful legacy. The nefarious POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME (2005), of which author, Joy DeGruy, Ph.D., has perceptively written respecting some black people, is defined by her as: "a condition that exists when a population has experienced multigenerational trauma resulting from centuries of slavery and continues to experience oppression and institutional racism today. Added to this condition is a belief (real or imagined) that the benefits of the society in which they live are not accessible to them. This, then, is a belief is Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome: 'Multigenerational trauma together with continued oppression and Absence of opportunity to access benefits available in the society leads to Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome M+A=P.' "PTSS is a syndrome. A syndrome is a pattern of behaviors that is brought about by specific circumstances. The circumstances that produce PTSS--multigenerational trauma and continued oppression plus a real or imagined lack of access are outlined above. What is the resulting pattern of behavior? Well, there is no single pattern of behavior, there are many. I have identified three categories: Vacant Esteem, Ever Present Anger, and Racist Socialization." p.121

REVERSE

REVERSING COURSE Having the technology to reverse the course of rockets, missiles, bombs (or perhaps drones or bullets), as some nations may now possess, is a powerful disincentive to any other's nuclear proliferation and/or aggression. it takes sophistication on a plane rarely seen to be able to effect this boomerang-like ability. Of proportional stature is having the capacious ability to reverse an aggressors' fiery slings, arrows that are unfair, unjust , injurious, confiscatory, in government, business, religion, history, science, law, in your human society, globally.