Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
THANK YOU MISS BROOKS!
THANK YOU MISS LYDIA BROOKS
Our outstanding 5th and 6th grade school teacher, Miss Lydia Brooks, had once told me that although my answer to her question was indeed correct, it is good to know the rule to understand why my answer was correct. She had asked me about a comma's placement in a sentence .
I had answered her, based on my innate intuitive rhythms, not upon grammatical rules of English class.
I thought of her again today, when reviewing "Euclid's Elements" Book 6, Proposition 27. That particular proposition had totally stumped, flipped me over, yesterday, due to its reliance upon Euclid's earlier rules of geometry already covered, applied by me, and as easily forgotten!
So, I went back to the rules that Euclid had cited and relied upon in construction of #6, 27. And voila! Understanding ensued to me anew!
Thanks again Miss Lydia Brooks, of now-defunct James Milton Turner Elementary School, Meacham Park, Missouri, Kirkwood School District!
https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/elements/bookVI/propVI27.html
Monday, July 23, 2018
ISAAC WRIGHT, JR. , LEGAL EXEMPLAR
Sunday, July 22, 2018
BECKWOURTH
"A party of nine trappers happening to call at the village on their way to the fort, among whom was my old friend Harris, I proposed to accompany them. We started, and reached the fort without accident, except sustaining another siege from the Black Feet. After our departure, the whole village followed to purchase their spring supply of necessaries at the fort. They brought an immense stock of peltry, with which they purchased everything that they stood in need of."
P. 291-292, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JAMES P BECKWOURTH (1856)
[I was struck by the fact that the Crow Indians with whom James P. Beckwourth was associated as a chief, in "the wild," were by then domesticated to the point that they found it necessary to exchange "peltry" of beaver , otter, deer, etc., that they had been proficient enough to procure by native means for their spring "necessaries" at a fort! There is undoubtedly a parable and a paradox in there somewhere for consumers!]
FAILED SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS
TWO FAILED SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS
In 3rd grade, my two practical science demonstrations both fabulously failed before the entire student body to their uproarious laughter. One had involved a boiled egg being induced to enter a glass bottle's top by heat subduction, by a match held to the bottle's bottom.
The other science demonstration née experiment involved placing a piece of paper atop a glass of water, flipping over the water glass, with the paper atop it, and the water not spilling out .
Both demonstrations nee experiments had worked perfectly in Miss Ming's 3rd grade class at James Milton Turner Elementary School in Meacham Park, Kirkwood Missouri School District in 1959-1960 term. My classmates were all excited and aflutter about science . But, for whatever reason that which had worked privately, failed publicly!
Specifically, the boiled egg did not get sucked into the bottle, but remained steadfastly on top. Moreover, when I turned over the glass of water with the paper atop, the water spilled all over my shoes! I was so embarrassed! We were so embarrassed! but we could do nothing more than join in the laughter and clean up our mess! Memories are magical things that renew our spirits!
HAPPY 150TH BIRTHDAY AFRICAN AMERICANS!
HAPPY 150TH YEAR AMERICAN BIRTHDAY TO WE WHO BECAME AFRICAN AMERICAN CITIZENS BY PHILIPPIC MEANS--CONSTITUTIONAL IMPRESSMENT
We Africans in America became African Americans in July 1868 by Constitutional Impressment upon the 14th Amendment's ratification, an act of practical political expediency to all!
We are 150 years old this month.
Instead of that former "peek-a-boo" citizenship in which certain rights and privileges that were common to some, were "iffy" to us, we were vested with a panoply of complete citizenship with all rights privileges and immunities that were enjoyed by other, full-fledged Americans in the 14th Amendment.
Thus, unlike others who were born here "white" and who became citizens as a matter of fright, or who attained citizenship upon naturalization also being "white," we Africans, and, the American Indians to some unique extent, but especially we newly African Americans, were "impressed" into becoming citizens, before we even had the 15th Amendment right to vote on the constitutional fait accompli option!
Happy birthday African Americans!
Saturday, July 21, 2018
PILLARS OF CIVILIZATION
Because it is so much easier, dismissively, to criticize than it is to read, to scrutinize, to synthesize, such culture icons as Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, and other resources--the so-called, "pillars of Western civilization," --far too many of our now-literate black people have been led astray by many quacks, charlatans, who, like themselves, have done neither, either! If it is true, as some usually say, that such resources are plagiarized writings, from, the ever-abundant intellectual property of, ancient Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, Africa, then, these cultural misappropriations have, to that same extent, also, been at least minimally preserved for our restorative benefit. For us to benefit successfully, however, from such rich, ancient wisdom, knowledge, know-how, we must know it. We can know it only by reading, by synthesizing, scrutinizing!
Don't criticize, scrutinize, synthesize, actualize your reparations!
EPISTEMOLOGICAL INFUSION
Friday, July 20, 2018
SACERDOTAL LAW
THE LAW'S SACERDOTAL GLORY
Law is a great discipline to have, a great degree to acquire, even if one has no desire to practice law. It is a bold quiver of many arrows, and an adornment to any bonnet. Before law schools became an institution, persons read for the law, in the law office of another lawyer or judge.
Law is ancient. Predating the great symbolic pyramids of ancient Egypt (Kemet), the assiduousness of the "law," its piquant precision, based upon a geodetic and mathematical orientation, as combined with law's spiritual potency, vitality, origins and essence is a divine priesthood.
Plato writes in the "Timaeus" that Solon, the Greek "lawgiver" --the first Greek lawyer--learned of that discipline from Egyptian priests. These sable savants, deemed the Greeks to be like children due to a lack of wisdom, and understanding.
https://classicalstudies.org/…/solon%E2%80%99s-egyptian-tri…
From Greece to Rome; from Rome to Europe; from Europe to America, came the law, losing at each stage of its legal devolution important attributes, until but traces remain.
The architecture of the United States Supreme Court has boldly embedded images of the history of the law from "Maat," the ancient Egyptian goddess of law, order, balance , beauty, recast to us as an anglicized, "gentrified" version of her; coming down to us as "Lady Justice" a gowned, blindfolded, female bearing a sword and scales.
Sculptor James Earl Fraser, in "Contemplation of Law " gives a mixed nod to "Maat" at the court's main entrance, installed in 1935.
Given law's philosophical, spiritual, ritual bases, ethics are central to its authority. Thus, codes of ethics and discipline govern each state, although none but "good behavior" bind the nine justices themselves.
Law has been used for good and bad, just like religion, education, philosophy, ethics, history; in short all things. Yet the knowledge of the sacerdotal origins of law may help us to restore her to primeval glory.
Thursday, July 19, 2018
SOCIALISM AND BLACK ICONS
SOCIALISM AND BLACK ICONS
All too easily we may no longer recall that Russia was an ally in World War II against Nazi Germany.
They whipped Adolf Hitler in Eastern Europe as the Allies did in Western Europe and in Africa. The post WWII "Cold War" that ensued (and still continues) was all about spoils, global hegemony between the two former atomic-powered allies as was the Russian scientific marvel of "Sputnik!"
Many African Americans were deemed to be socialists of sorts, up to WWII. Langston Hughes actually spent considerable time living in Russia, visiting big cities and remote villages. He writes of his experiences and observations of Russia, China, Japan in the 1930s in I WONDER AS I WANDER his second autobiography, after THE BIG SEA, his first . On the other hand Richard Wright, Langston Hughes's iconic literary contemporary did not care, finally, very much at all for socialism nor communism , as graphically shown in his deft novel THE OUTSIDER.
Just thought I would set another context for Trump-Putin detente !
MISSOURI LEGAL ABOLITIONISTS
LEGAL ABOLITIONISTS: McGIRK BROTHERS OF EARLY MISSOURI
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
By Larry Delano Coleman, Esq.
I was surprised and pleased to learn that several early Missouri lawyers cum judges were abolitionists, in this slave-holding state, that was a product of Spanish, French, American and Indian forces or influences.
Missouri became a State in 1821, as did Maine, both parts of the Missouri Compromise under President James Monroe. Missouri was a slave-state and Maine was a free-state that held for almost forty-years.
In addition to that “compromise,” Missouri inherited a mixed body of law: customary, statutory, regnal, that had defined and delimited the rights and privileges of its inhabitants under the Louisiana Purchase, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
Within the interstices of this mixed multitude of laws was the “once free always free” notion, which meant that if slaves could demonstrate that they had been previously freed, elsewhere, by whatever means, that once they were brought into the new state of Missouri, as slaves, they could sue for their freedom in Missouri’s courts, and an attorney could be appointed to represent them. Hundreds did so. Hundreds succeeded. Such early success surely inspired the suit of Dred and Harriet Scott for freedom.
Those early abolitionist Missouri attorneys included Matthias McGirk and his brother, Isaac McGirk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_McGirk
Matthias McGirk was Missouri’s first Chief Justice, having previously been in the Missouri legislature. He authored Rachel v. Walker, 4 Mo. 350 (1836), which freed an enslaved woman who had been taken to free territory by an Army officer. Walker was an important predecessor to the Dred Scott case. Before this, he was an attorney for some other “freedom suit” plaintiffs. Mathias' brother, Isaac McGirk, represented Marguerite Scypion in her claim for freedom in the Missouri courts in 1805.
Later Missouri judges and legislatures, in undoing the McGirk’s stellar abolitionist legal work, paved the way for Civil War, which Dred and Harriet Scott’s U. S, Supreme Court loss, rendered inevitable!
The book REDEMPTION SONGS by Leah Vandervelde (2014) is an excellent source of confirmation.
#30
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
14th Amendment Nullified in 1872!
Did not realize that the famous 14th Amendment whose 150th anniversary is this year and month had been so severely limited by law in 1872 during the administration of General Ulysses S. Grant. This set the stage for 1876!
EN.M.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
Amnesty Act - Wikipedia
The Amnesty Act of May 22, 1872 was a United States federal law which reversed most of the penalties imposed on former Confederates by the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the Act removed voting restrictions and office-holding disqualification against most of the secessionists who rebelled in the...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_Act
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
TRUTH JUSTICE MAAT 14TH AMENDMENT
TRUTH, JUSTICE, MAAT, 14th AMEN.
If equal protection is "truth" and if due process is "justice", then there is little reason for wonder that the 14th Amendment, containing both clauses , equal protection and due process , is rightly remembered in this 150 year of its ratification into American law, as the "constitution within the constitution." For the 14th's juridical antiquity equates to that of the "wheel in the middle of a wheel" of Ezekiel 1:16, and even more anciently, equates to goddess "Maat" of ancient Egypt, whose attributes combine 'truth,' 'justice,' law, order, balance, harmony and beauty, that each human heart as weighed against an ostrich feather on Maat's scale has to pass, before entering into eternal salvation at life's last judgment scene of Osiris. http://ib205.tripod.com/underworld_judgement.html
"AS THYSELF"
“…AS THYSELF”
Sunday, March 04, 2012
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? 29And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 31And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. 32And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: 33And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. 34And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.
Mark 12:28-34
“…As thyself,” Mark 12: 31, is an ancient and immanent measuring principle continually governing and animating human dynamics and human interactions.
We look outwardly and assess inwardly. We look inwardly and assess outwardly.
“The self” is conscious of itself. Its measuring rod is itself. Its plumb line is itself. Its only involuntary impulse is to itself: to love itself, to know itself, to preserve itself, to nourish itself, and to reproduce itself.
Whether the self’s human bearer, “you,” its “vessel,” Isa. 29:16, will or can perform any of these 5 above-named functions, for itself or not, the self’s will, drive, conation
demands their execution, nevertheless, by someone or something. It cannot help itself. It must do this for itself, impulsively, compulsively, so long as there is life in itself. It is that “still small voice” 1 Kings 19:12, which is known as “the God self.”
One’s personal “God self,” though, is neither exclusive, nor discrete, of others’ God selves, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. “You are not your own,” is literally correct, as the Apostle Paul taught centuries ago. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.” 1 Cor.6:19. As such, you are never, ever alone. Rather, you are a vital part of God’s infinitely interlocking network of connectivity which continuously renews itself. “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone.” Rom. 14:7.
Like amino acids in a protein molecule, you bind and cling together to perpetuate your own survival by promoting your own protein’s potency. What is true for protein molecules is also true for couples, families, tribes, creeds, and nations. Such combinations empower and extend “thyself” exponentially far beyond the physical capacity of the singular self. This is true, even though the singular self at all times retains its own capability, its own autonomy, and its own “God-self” impulses needed to sustain itself. This impulse impels, includes “assembling together.” Heb. 10:25.
What is called “The God-Self” is your portion of The Holy Spirit. I coined this term “the God-self,” in my 1985 essay in THE NILE REVIEW newsletter, entitled “Exhalations from My Soul,” which was self-published and is now extremely rare.
Jesus Christ taught “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. Mark 12:31, Matthew 22:39. The root of all things is “thyself.” Without “thyself,” nothing else matters, exists. Thus, everything else must be perceived as an extension of this primal dimension, “thyself.”
Jesus was restating a much older pre- Old Testament value, when he said “love thy neighbor as thyself”:
Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.
Leviticus 19:34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
These irresistible “God-self” tendencies even caused Jesus the Christ to cry out in agony the Garden of Gethsemene “Father take away this cup from me!” Mark 14:36, Luke 22:42. And it also caused him to cry out in anguish on Mount Calvary’s cross, “My God! My God why have you forsaken me!” Matthew 27:45-46; Mark 15:16-39.
The point is clear. If even the “God-self” in Jesus Christ must cry out for succor to God, so also must we, in the midst of adversity. No one’s God-self is exempt. Let no one diminish “thyself.” Part of you is divine; that portion known as the “God-self.”
6
I have said, Ye are gods; John. 10.34
and all of you are children of the Most High.
7
But ye shall die like men,
and fall like one of the princes
Psalm 82:6-7.
Some may be annoyed by this emphasis on the self, and of the attribution of divinity to the self. Such was certainly the case in the days of Jesus among his own people, the Jews:
30
I and my Father are one.
31
¶ Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32
Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?
33
The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; Lev. 24.16 and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
34
Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods Ps.
82.6 ?
35
If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken;
36
say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
37
If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
38
But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works; that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.
39
¶ Therefore they sought again to take him; but he escaped out of their hand,
40
and went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized; John. 1.28 and there he abode.
41
And many resorted unto him and said, John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this man were true.
42
And many believed on him there.
John 10:30-42
The world, continually, would have you believe that you and I are “man.” The truth is you, and I, are gods. Jesus came to teach us who we were and to demonstrate to us our true power and our true identity by his birth, life, death and resurrection!
Do not be conformed to this world, but continually be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may be able to determine what God's will is-what is proper, pleasing, and perfect. Rom.12:2
These “God-self” impulses may be transmuted by divine love to look beyond itself into: “this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:19. At this point, the self is relinquished, surrendered, subtracted, leaving only “God.” The “self” is extinguished, only for some higher, greater mission or duty which is anchored and tethered in a love and
“peace that passes all understanding.” Phil.4:7. It is succored in divinity, itself: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13.
This is the ultimate consummation of the “royal law” described in James 2:8. Thus, in the end, Jesus Christ was able to say “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34. An abject request made by one whose love overcame the world; whose undying love yet encourages the “God-self” in you to do likewise. This only happens if you love your neighbor “as thyself,” as the “God-self” demands.
#30
Monday, July 16, 2018
BRIEFLY AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
PUTIN-TRUMP SURROGACY
Sunday, July 15, 2018
WITHHOLD TAXES FOR JUSTICE
Saturday, July 14, 2018
UNCLE ALVIN AND NEPHEW JALEN
"A word to the wise is enough;" like "the straw that broke the camel's back," or others, are metaphors, idioms, aphorisms, witty sayings, that briefly express the presence of a coherent larger body of wisdom and knowledge on which they are based. This atmosphere of prior knowledge is the requisite context, essential precondition for subsequent distillation, catalyzation, realization. AMEN.
JOHN HENRIK CLARKE
"At Howard University , William Leo Hansberry, considered to be the greatest Africanist to emerge from the Black American community, trained a generation of students to learn and respect African history. His articles, monographs, and conference papers on the subject appeared in leading journals throughout the world....
"The American black press improved its coverage of news about Africa. In reporting on the Italian-Ethiopian War, this press was fortunate in having in its service at least two reporters who had been well schooled in African history in general. The reporters were J. A. Rogers, a historian and journalist, and Willis N. Huggins, historian, teacher, and community activist. In his dispatches from Ethiopia, J.A. Rogers gave an astute analysis of the war to the 'Pittsburgh Courier'. He was the only reporter on the scene who was looking at the Italian-Ethiopian conflict from a black point of view. Rogers also commented on the political intrigues in Europe that led this conflict . Later, in a small book, 'The Real Facts About Ethiopia', he digested his reports and produced the most revealing document about the Italian-Ethiopian War that has so far appeared in print. Willis N. Huggins, a high school history teacher and founder of the Blyden Society for the Study of African History, went to Geneva and reported on the League of Nations meetings concerning the war for 'The Chicago Defender.' Dr. Huggins had already written two books on Africa: 'A Guide to Studies in African History ' and 'Introduction to African Civilizations'....
"The history of Africa was already old when Europe was born."
P. 168, 170, "The Reclaiming of African History," by John Henrik Clarke AFRICAN CULTURE THE RHYTHMS OF AFRICA (1990) by Molefe Kete Asante and Kariamu Welsh Asante (1990)
CARTER G. WOODSON
"Carter G. Woodson was born of former slaves, Annie and James Woodson, in 1875, at New Canton, Virginia. He suffered all the hardships of poverty while growing up. Only a five-month district school was available to him, and he was unable to attend it on a regular basis. He studied at home while working on the family's farm. Already he has established a lifetime habit--studying at home. In his early years he was mostly self-taught . He mastered all the fundamentals of common school subjects by the time he was seventeen, then went to Huntington , West Virginia, where he worked in the coal mines. He later entered Douglass High School and earned a teaching certificate in less than two years; pursued further education at Berea College in Kentucky , where he received a Litt. B. degree. He continued his education at the University of Chicago, where he was awarded the B.A. and the M.A. degrees. His travels in Europe and Asia and graduate studies at the Sorbonne in Paris enriched his cultural background and prepared him for graduate work at Harvard University, where he was awarded a Ph. D. in 1912. After Harvard he had an extensive career as an educator: principal of Douglass High School, teacher of languages and history in the high schools of Washington, D.C. , dean of the School of Liberal Arts, Howard University, and supervisor of schools in the Philippines. This varied experience made Carter G. Woodson see the need for a special time each year to call attention to his people's contribution to the history and culture of this country and the world. Thus Black History Week."
P. 166, "The Reclaiming of African History," by John Henrik Clarke AFRICAN CULTURE THE RHYTHMS OF UNITY (1990) by Molefe Kete Asante and Kariamu Welsh Asante
Friday, July 13, 2018
BE A WRITER!
"Be a writer , take it to heart, so that 'your' name will fare likewise. A book is more effective than a carved tombstone or a permanent sepulcher. They serve as chapels as mausolea in the mind of him who proclaims their names. A name on a people 's lips will surely be effective in the afterlife.
"Man perishes; his corpse turns to dust; all his relatives pass away . But his writings make him remembered in the mouth of the reader. A book is more effective than a well-built house or a tomb-chapel in the West , better than an established villa or a stela in the temple!
Is there one here like Hordedef? Is there another Imhotep? None of your kin is like Neferti or Khety , their leader. May I remind you about Ptahemdjehuty and Khakheperraseneb! Is there another like Ptahhotep, or the equal of Kairsu?
"Those wise men who foretold what was to come: what they said came into being; it is found as a maxim, written in their books. Others' offspring will be their heirs, as if they were their own children. They hid their magic from the world, but it is read in their teachings. They are gone, their names forgotten; but their writings cause them to be remembered."
P.286-287, "Be A Writer," WRITINGS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT translated and edited by Toby Wilkinson (2017)
PERSONAL INSECURITIES
PERSONAL INSECURITIES
As if the external punishment and pain of being dark-skinned were itself not bad enough, many dark-skinned African Americans have had, also, to contend with baneful internal punishment and pain from their own race, in their own family!
I know whereof I speak being a dark-skinned man, having endured it, and having overcome its gravity .
If I may speak for myself, I had to battle with it into my adolescence, when my mobility, my literary agility helped me to see me, for who I am, rather than how others saw me; to love myself, first; thereby inviting the love of others unto me, and to know God as and for myself, apart from the multiple imposters that were foisted upon me in the images of others who did not resemble me!
Dark-skinned people were God's primal people! Chosen people! First people. If dark-skinned people are ever to overcome their unfortunate degradation, they too must repel this incubus, that bogey man of "colorism" that binds aspirations, imagination, liberating initiations!
But being dark-skinned is not alone among the banes of our mortality.
There are always others that are secretly hidden in all people. It may be their "whiteness" or handicap or poverty or their personal or family history. Insecurities discomfort all!
Amen 🙏
Thursday, July 12, 2018
TAKEN BY FORCE
…11Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet even the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subject to violence, and the violent lay claim to it. 13For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John.… MATTHEW 11
AMERICAN IMPLOSION IS TRUMPISM
President Donald Trump has initiated an implosion of the American empire , foreign and domestic. But for the fact that black people have advanced in earlier crises, I would be alarmed . But those who voted for him, who donated to him, who now support him, thought to do blacks harm by promoting him.
Wrong! Republican Trump is mainly hurting them, dividing them , dissolving them, our long-time racist oppressors at home and abroad! What they intended for evil, God intends for good to confound them and bless us! God can use anything, even a lying jackass! And is doing so before our eyes, by and through the cretin Trump!
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
ARISTOTLE
"From what has been said it is plain, then, that philosophic wisdom is scientific knowledge, combined with intuitive reason, of the things that are highest by nature. This is why we say Anaxagoras , Thales, and men like them, have philosophic but not practical wisdom, when we see them ignorant of what is to their own advantage, and why we say that they know things that are remarkable, admirable , difficult, and divine, but useless; viz. because it is not human goods they seek. "
P. 1028, "Nicomachean Ethics," BASIC WORKS OF ARISTOTLE (1941, 2001)
NOTHING NOBODY
Monday, July 9, 2018
THE GOLDEN RULE EXPLAINED
THE GOLDEN RULE EXPLAINED
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," is the Golden Rule. It's antiquity is untraceable. It is intuitive ethics based upon "you."
Who what why wherefore are 'you?'
"Do unto others as you would have them do to you" is embodied in the ancient Egyptian goddess Maat's personification of truth and justice, dating back from at least 2000 BC.
"The Golden Rule" has come down to us in the Christian religion in the verses at Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31. These are derived from the Jewish Torah at Leviticus 19:18 and 19:34.
Every human religious and spiritual tradition has some form of the old golden rule , stated negatively or positively. That is "Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you;" or "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
"You" are the axis for the golden rule. It revolves around yourself, meaning your idea of yourself is its compass, circumference, yardstick.
Its opposite is its negation that has come down to us symbolized by the serpent, evil, "isfet," "Apep," Satan Lucifer, the Devil, others. It is right there with good, as Satan was with the sons of God in Job 1:6-7.
Its application is contemporaneous, is interactive; is in the divine law of life, love, truth, justice. Each person walking upon earth is measured, is weighed, scrutinized by the golden divine golden rule's standards. The standards are based in each man from earliest times, mythologized.
The cumulative genetics, wisdom, knowledge, influences, beliefs, of humanity are represented, codified, symbolized, epitomized, recorded, personalized in our good and evil myths. These myths are the basis for all man's mathematics, religion, law , philosophy, natural concepts.
Amen.
Sunday, July 8, 2018
WISE COUNSEL
"There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything, especially government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded."
--Abraham Lincoln.
Epigram, "The Nixon Years," COUNSEL FOR THE SITUATION by William T. Coleman with Donald T. Bliss (2010), p. 205
"Heritage" by Countee Cullen, excerpt
"Quaint, outlandish heathen gods
Black men fashion out of rods,
Clay, and brittle bits of stone,
In a likeness like their own,
My conversion came high-priced;
I belong to Jesus Christ,
Preacher of humility;
Heathen gods are naught to me.
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
So I make an idle boast;
Jesus of the twice-turned cheek,
Lamb of God, although I speak
With my mouth thus, in my heart
Do I play a double part.
Ever at Thy glowing altar
Must my heart grow sick and falter,
Wishing He I served were black,
Thinking then it would not lack
Precedent of pain to guide it,
Let who would or might deride it;
Surely then this flesh would know
Yours had borne a kindred woe.
Lord, I fashion dark gods, too,
Daring even to give You
Dark despairing features where,
Crowned with dark rebellious hair,
Patience wavers just so much as
Mortal grief compels, while touches
Quick and hot, of anger, rise
To smitten cheek and weary eyes.
Lord, forgive me if my need
Sometimes shapes a human creed."
by COUNTEE CULLEN, "HERITAGE" excerpt
Saturday, July 7, 2018
RIVERS RELIGION SLAVERY
RIVERS RELIGIONS AND SLAVERY
As a number of streams and rivers flow into major tributaries like the Nile, the Congo, the Niger, and Amazon rivers, so, too, do many tributaries supply the sublime consciousness of mankind. For this reason, the interrelatedness of all such tributaries to the 'rivers' must be all factored in, if not all understood.
Langston Hughes' epochal poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," was written when he was a mere 18 years old boy, riding a train through the City of St. Louis, at sunset, besides the Mighty Mississippi River. That moving poem rafts upon a spiritual reality of rivers as reverie, history, magic, possibility.
Like rivers, religion has many sources that flow into it, that sustain its power, its potent vitality the divine thresher of grains of truth, from husks of untruth.
Mankind is primarily rational unlike spiders, beavers, fish, fowl, plants, bacteria; neither are we designed nor equipped by instincts alone to guide.
One source of religion is allegorical history. As used here, allegory means stories, aphorisms and parables applied analogously to man. The object of admixtures of myth historical allegory is to instruct, to educate mankind: answering who they are and where they fit in the scheme of things.
Such knowledge is instinctual in plants and animals. But mankind is unique upon the earth. Mankind is gifted by God in some respects, and made vulnerable in others. Mankind is an amalgamation of matter and spirit, with the power to imagine and implement.
Therefore, religion, philosophy, science, mathematics, government, arts, crafts, agriculture, education, music, poetry, literature, stories, etc., must supply mankind's deficiencies as we lack fully capable natural instincts.
These reverent reflections were in part precipitated by my reading on the topic today in A KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN (1853), a reference work by Harriet Beecher Stowe to her novel:
"It is a well-known fact that the influence of our clergy is looked upon by our statesmen as a most serious element in making their political combinations; and that that influence is so great, that no statesman would ever undertake to carry a measure against which all the clergy of the country should unite. Such a degree of power , though it is only a power of opinion , argument and example, is not without its dangers to the purity of any body of men. To be courted by political partisans is always a dangerous thing for the integrity and spirituality of men who profess to be governed by principles which are not of this world. The possession, too, of so great a power as we have described, involves a most weighty responsibility; since, if the clergy do possess the power to rectify any great national immorality, the fact of its not being done seems in some sort to bring the sin of omission to their door...
"What then is the influence of the church on this great question of slavery?
"Certain things are evident on the very face of the matter.
0. It has not put an end to it.
0. It has not prevented the increase of it.
0. It has not occasioned the repeal of the laws which forbid education of the slaves.
0. It has not attempted to have laws passed forbidding the separation of families and legalizing the marriage of slaves.
0. It has not restricted the internal slave trade.
0. It has not prevented the extension of the system with all its wrongs, over new territories....
"It may be well now to consider more definitely and minutely the sentiments which some leading ecclesiastical bodies in the church have expressed on this subject....
"1. The Presbyterian Church...
"'2. 'Resolved ', that slavery has existed from the days of those good ole slaveholders and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who are now in the kingdom of heaven ), to the time when the apostle Paul sent a runaway home to his master Philemon , and wrote a Christian and fraternal letter to this slaveholder, which still stands in the canon of the Scriptures; and that slavery has existed ever since the days of the apostle, and does now exist.
"3. 'Resolved ', That as the relative duties of master and slave are taught in the Scriptures, in the same manner as to those of parent and child, and husband and wife, the existence of slavery itself is not opposed to the will of God; and whosoever has a conscience too tender to recognize this relation as lawful is 'righteous over much ', is 'wise above what is written,' and has submitted his neck to the yoke of men, sacrificed his Christian liberty of conscience, and leaves the infallible word of God for the fancies and doctrines of men."
P. 103-104, "The Influence of the American Church on Slavery."
In light of the foregoing facts , it is well that one "study to show oneself approved unto God, a workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." For if not studious, one is likely to be swept away, washed away, in epistemological confusion!
Briefly, since according to the second Presbyterian precept "that slavery has existed from the days of the apostle," it is well to reflect that man existed long BEFORE "the days of the apostles," as well as long BEFORE the days of "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," who went into Africa, Mizraim, Kemet, Egypt, themselves for sustenance, and whose epic excellence inspired them!
Be not deceived by false bottoms!