SOLDIERING THROUGH

JUST SOLDIERING THROUGH Back in May 1984 we brought a Negro Ensemble Company production, “A Soldier’s Play,” to the Folly Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri, a whole week. I was newly divorced, bitterly hurt, single parent. I quickly sought to fill in the void in my life with some self-affirming activity. But drama? Thereby I went from drama to a drama! But I risk being too froward. Anyway, the “first of its kind,” ‘now-playing’ in black Kansas City drama, as some people had claimed, was successful . The play house was paid. The entourage was paid. It was on tour anyway, in Denver, and its New York producers were not about to return it to New York City without finishing its run, because of disputes between me and Folly Theatre folks. I had tried to find co-sponsors in Missouri and Kansas. But each one had wanted to cherry-pick the weekends to maximize the returns on their investments. So did I a novice! In the end, the options ran out. I was left alone. It was up to me and The Nile Company (my literary alter ego that I often used in my African American productions), to make it work. Yet, even with our neophyte status and money woes, we could still have made a profit; that is, until the house told me that my advertising campaign was going to have to declare “who” was really backing, “who”’ was bringing the play to town; because its league of regular theatre goers had assumed that the Folly was its sponsor, since it was playing at the Folly. It was then that I learned, too-late , during my protests, that stage dramas are rarely profitable ; but are used as tax-write-off vehicles by Brahmans . Identifying the sponsor in race-conscious KC would severely dampen sales which, until then, were brisk, as few black people are stage play-oriented in Kansas City. The house then threatened to cancel the entire production if I did not relent, if I did not revise newspaper and radio advertising campaigns to say “who” was the play’s sponsor. Reluctantly, I buckled under! The Nile Company was listed as the play’s sponsor. As I was then an Assistant United States Attorney, I did not use my name as sponsor, for I did not wish to drag my office into what was my private effort. I was already far too heavily vested & financially invested, to have the deal killed by not meeting the demands of the house and its theatre leagues. So the play went on to half-empty houses for the entire week and like that was gone. But “A Soldier’s Play” that recaptured segregated black soldiers’ peculiar interactions vis a vis “Jim Crow” and each other, during American world wars , was marvelously acted, immensely interesting, and entertaining for me and the audience of often animated viewers , one of whom loudly dropped a bottle in a scene. The house was paid. The tour continued. I was left with the unrequited debt. But, on the brighter side, I had found a wonderful female friend of beauty, wit, character with whom I shared box seats, and the joy of child-reading at a critical time in my 33 year old newly-bachelorhood life . “We” had brought black theatre culture to Kansas City that was engaging, dramatic, thematic, not just comedic. Its aesthetic enjoyment was redolent of that felt earlier by me during my Ira Aldridge Theatre-going days in the 1970’s at Howard University. “We” had pulled it off! We had brought it from New York to KC via Denver, successfully . Most importantly it was by, through, with, “A Soldiers Play,” that I had personally “soldiered” through divorce, doldrums, deceit, self-doubt. In retrospect, as they say, had I known then what I know now, I might have done things quite differently. Then, Maybe not. We are shaped by our pasts. The point is this: I am still here! Despite the panorama of challenges, the difficulties, the rewards, the pleasures of that plethora of experiences sustains me joyfully into life. Amen.

RE-QUALIFYING BROTHER MALCOLM

RE-QUALIFYING BROTHER MALCOLM X “Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research. And when you see that you've got problems, all you have to do is examine the historic method used all over the world by others who have problems similar to yours.”  While that is true, with all due respect to brother Malcolm X, whom I love as my gifted teacher of truth and as my purveyor of wise philosophy & practical methodology, I now take philosophical issue with his use of the adjective “best” regarding history. “History” certainly rewards all manner of research surely, unquestionably; yet the history of mankind is but a subset of methodical research. Earliest mankind’s history was immured in nature, seemingly magically arose from nature and spirit. Thus born of both, mankind is a supernatural phenomena which masters, manipulates, rules the earth and it’s wondrous glories, species. Mankind is also innately blessed with imagination, intuition, into the eternal everlasting spiritual realm of the divine "God." For, far above the earth are the stars, sun, moon , planets, meteors, quasars, black holes, galaxies, constellations, infinite universe. Up above the earth also is atmosphere, whence come rain, snow, hail, winds, clouds afloat, and unknown flying objects. These too mankind has and yet studies , researches, records, teaches, codifies, symbolizes, deifies, in marble, sandstone, granite, basalt. Ancients' temple construction was based on survey, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, arithmetic, fractions, that were taught from infancy to boys and girls alike, as Plato writes in THE LAWS. Philosopher Plato lived, studied, worked in the 4th century B.C., three hundred years after the "fall" of ancient Kemet as a sovereign nation, when it was under Persian rule. Thus, returning to Malcolm X, I would simply say that research “best” rewards further research by affording a foundation for more research, that never ends. The history of mankind is one among many subjects that “research”richly rewards; but not the "best." Indeed, natural history is the unlimited umbrella of mankind in relationship to the infinity of nature. In addition to divine sensory tools, mankind’s acquired tools, works, disciplines, axioms, deductions formed from observation, experiments, trial and error are within the unending domain of an even greater universal natural history, world without end. Amen . Mankind's research into : astronomy, agriculture, navigation, mathematics, medicine, music, philosophy, chemistry , animal husbandry etc, flow from precognition of God as maker , master, giver of all things; however "God" may be defined, conceived. Amen.

COVID-19 PARTY IN CHICAGO

I just watched Tony Browder, a “historical memory recovery expert” a Howard University graduate, and black history expert, exalting iconic ancient African civilization, Kemet, on a video recording of the “Rock Newman Show,” only to also see, mere minutes later, a viral video on “TMZ, “ of an alleged 1000 young people at a west side house party in Chicago, some with mask hanging to the side in the covid-19 crisis! I am from another era . One that had its own risks, but not anything like covid-19. If the science is true; if folks can have the covid virus without symptoms, we will find out soon enough from the party!  My people either don’t mind dying or know more than the doctors and the scientists. Either way there’s gonna be a showdown: Science v. Silly or science shown to be not silly !

A MORE PERFECT MEMORY

MORE PERFECT MEMORY It strikes me as being not only incredibly unseemly, but also absurdly anomalous, that mankind, the created, would deign to ascribe imagined characteristics to God, the Creator of mankind, creator of life, time, space, energy, matter, all. The personification of God is even more daring than just ascription. For personifying God, in the form of man, as a messenger, a savior, avatar, makes God a man, a woman, with human beings' emotions! My personal quibbles aside, it is most clear that in past centuries, billions and billions and billions of people have not been uninhibited, nor unconstrained, in representing God: in ascribing characteristics to God, in graphically depicting God, in describing or in personifying, God,--as I have been, indeed as I now am. "God" is known to mankind by numerous names, by innumerable features, and is worshiped in many diverse ways—spiritual, material, technical, financial, philosophical. The Coronavirus covid-19 affords mankind another transit opportunity during this iconic, universal, event for the whole of mankind to test the truth of premises of prior philosophies, religions, scientists, against the facts on the ground in 2020. We are intrinsically in God, of God, in this dimension of life, as we are in death, as forbears, were, always and forever. Amen. Once we leave this world, this dimension of life, we likely recall nothing of this world. Indeed, we are not likely even “we" or “me” or "you" hereafter, but only inert spirits. Amen. "We" are defined by heavens above, by earth below, by nature, by environment, and by the spirit of divine life. At least these five facts define us: heavens, earth , nature, environment, spirit. Five fingers and five toes, doubled, tell us all. Connecting and imbuing all five factors is divine God. Nothing about our bodies is amiss. Our bodies are perfect, perfectly designed by a perfect God who designs everything. God commands perfection as our plumb line, as our horizon, as our true behavioral standard in relation to ourselves, relative to each other, to our environment, to our nation, to all! Perfection is our reasonable recompense to God for living. Jesus said, "Be you therefore perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:48. Perfect means complete as God has specially, particularly, made you to be in this life context. The 3rd century African philosopher, Plotinus, for example , in THE ENNEADS has written poignantly on man and God. As ancients are nearer to the sources of philosophy, astronomy, civilizations , their views are dearer to lovers of divine truth. Plotinus writes: “Now comes the question, equally calling for an answer, whether those souls that have quitted the places of earth retain memory of their lives —all souls or some, of all things, or of some things, and, again, forever or merely for some period not very long after their withdrawal ... “Now a memory has to do with something brought into ken from without, something learned or something experienced; the Memory-Principle, therefore, cannot belong to such things as are immune from experience and from time. “No memory, therefore, can be ascribed to any divine being, or to the Authentic -Existent or to the Intellectual Principle: these are intangibly immune ; time does not approach them; they possess eternity centered around Being; they know nothing of past and sequent; all is an unbroken state of identity not receptive of change. Now a being rooted in unchanging identity cannot entertain memory, since it has not and never had a state differing from any previous state, or any new intellection following upon a former one, so as to be aware of any contrast between a present perception and one remembered before. “But what prevents such a being (from possessing memory in the sense of) perceiving , without variation in itself, such outside changes as, for example, the cosmic periods? “Simply the fact of following the changes of the revolving Cosmos it would have perception of earlier and later: intuition and memory are distinct.... “For the same reason , memory, in its current sense, cannot be attributed to the Soul in connection with ideas inherent in its essence: these it holds not as memory but as a possession, though by its very entrance into this sphere , they are no longer the mainstay of its Act. “The Soul-action which is observed seems to have induced the Ancients to ascribe memory, and Recollection (the Platonic Anamnesis), ‘to souls bringing into outward manifestation the ideas they contain.’ We see at once that the memory here indicated is another kind; it is a memory outside of time.” p. 278-279, “Problems of the Soul,” THE ENNEADS by Plotinus (2001)

COVID-19 STUDIES

In addition to many studies now being done by “epidemiologists, virologists, scientists,” about covid-19 , cosmologists, musicologists geologists, everyone, must join or initiate covid -19 studies. For the entire earth is swallowed up in its web at once. This fact distinguishes this virus from all others. So its appreciation, dissipation, must involve us all.

DOUGLASS WAS FORMIDABLE

DOUGLASS WAS FORMIDABLE Frederick Douglass was a formidable writer. I note this fact mentally, parenthetically, while reading “Continuation of Our European Tour,” in his (1893) LIFE ABOUT TIMES. It is his final autobiography of three. He is riding in a ship down the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean traveling to Egypt. I quote him from there: “Here the Khedive has one of his many palaces and here and there are a few moderately comfortable dwellings with two or three hotels and a railroad station. How and by what means the people in this place live is a mystery. For miles around there is no sign of grain or grass or vegetation of any kind. Here we caught first sight of the living locomotive of the East, that marvelous embodiment of strength , docility and obedience , of patient endurance of hunger and thirst—the camel. I have large sympathy with all burden-bearers, whether they be men or beasts, and having read of the gentle submission of the camel to hardships and abuse, of how he will kneel to receive his heavy burden and groan to have it made lighter, I was glad right here in the edge of Egypt to have a visible illustration of these qualities of the animal. I saw him kneel and saw the heavy loads of sand put on his back; I saw him try to rise under its weight and heard his sad groan. I had at that moment much the same feeling as when I first saw a gang of slaves chained together and shipped to a foreign market. “A long line of camels attended by three or four Arabs came slowly moving over the desert. This spectacle, more than the language or customs of the people, gave me a vivid impression of Eastern life ; as picture of it as it was in the days Abraham and Moses. In this wide waste , under this cloudless sky, star-lighted by night and by a fierce blazing sun by day, where even the wind seems voiceless , it was natural for men to look up to the sky and stars and contemplate the universe and infinity above and around them; the signs and wonders in the heavens above and in the earth beneath. In such loneliness, silence, expansiveness , imagination is unchained and man has naturally a deeper sense of the Infinite Presence than is to be felt in the noise and bustle of the towns and men-crowded cities. Religious ideas have come to us from the wilderness , from mountain tops, from dens and caves , and from silent spaces from which come the mirage and other shadowy illusions which create rivers, lakes, and forests where there are none. The song of the angels could be better heard by the shepherds of the plains of Bethlehem than by the jostling crowds in the busy streets of Jerusalem . John the Baptist could preach better in the wilderness than in the busy marts of men. Jesus said his best word to the world when on the Mount of Olives. Moses learned more of the laws of God when in the mountains than when down among the people. The Hebrew prophets frequented dens and caves and desert places . John saw his wonderful vision in the Isle of Patmos with naught in sight but sea and sky. It was in a lonely place that Jacob wrestled with the angel. The transfiguration was on a mountain . No wonder that Moses wandering in the vast and silent desert, after killing an Egyptian and brooding over the oppressed condition of his people , should hear the voice of Jehovah saying, ‘I have seen the affliction of my people .’ Paul was not in Damascus , but on his lonely way thither, when he heard a voice from heaven . The heart beats louder and the soul hears quicker in silence and solitude . It was from the vastness and silence of the desert that Mahomet learned his religion , and once he thought he had discovered man’s true relation to the Infinite, he proclaimed himself a prophet and began to preach with that sort of authority and power which never failed to make converts .” P. 1009-1010, DOUGLASS (1994)

TENTH AMENDMENT DILEMMAS

TENTH AMENDMENT DILEMMAS Constitution of United States of America 1789 (rev. 1992): The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The United States Constitution created the government of the United States of America and empowered it. The Constitution also prohibits certain powers to the States. Any powers that are not prohibited to the states by the Constitution, are “reserved” to the States or the people. That sounds clear enough. But application to facts is ever the bugaboo in space & time. Right now, for example, power to reopen trade and commerce in the United States is at issue, in the wake of the worldwide covid pandemic. To know what “powers” are “reserved,”to the respective States, or to the people , one must first know what is “prohibited” to the States by the Constitution. States preexist powers, as the people preexisted the States. Powers prohibited to the States are those ceded to the United States of America , but no more. The people exist locally, and empower States. But States represent the combined localities. States’ delegates wrote the United States Constitution and by its provisions ceded powers to the government of the United States. The Constitution governs the union. But words on paper are not deeds. Actions speak louder than words. Doubtless this reopening matter will be resolved by deeds.

LOVE NOTES

LOVE NOTES I have always liked smart pretty girls, even in grade school . Their long braids, colorful bows, ribbons, barrettes, beauty, smiles, talk, and alert brains attracted me. In second grade we had been trading notes surreptitiously. At least we had thought that our love notes were in secret. But our sharp teacher, Mrs. Bill Jones, of James Milton Turner Elementary School, formerly located in Meacham Park, Missouri, caught us. She saw our love note being slipped in transit. She intercepted it and she read it aloud to the class. They all laughed. We laughed too! Puppy love . But practice makes perfect; small things add up.So over the years I’ve picked up a few more pretty correspondents to write to. Surely early love notes have helped me to become a writer.

NATURAL LAW AND COVID-19

NATURAL LAW AND COVID-19 “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” said Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of motion in physics . I had occasion to read of it in Newton’s 17th century magnum opus titled NATURAL MATHEMATICS translated into English, from Latin, several years ago. I had started, but did not finish reading it. I now must now return to some of it for my own soul-succor, must reprise it, for a measure of personal philosophical relief. So, today, the Holy Spirit had sent to me a series of queries relating to the origin of the inexplicable global illnesses brought on to our planet by the virus Coronavirus Covid-19. What, if anything, had mankind done to cause the propagation, plunder of covid-19 and what next, if anything, could mankind do to propitiate our planet, to get rid of covid-19 depredations of earth ? I thought again about the thousands of pieces of space junk and debris littering earth’s upper atmosphere from decades of pollution since Russia’s Sputnik satellite in 1957 shocked the earth; launching the “space race” competition , that now many countries, some private companies, have joined. They all have left debris in space , in the earth’s upper atmosphere, the one that protects our planet from harmful rays from deep space and & its objects as well. Perhaps, I surmised, this space junk and debris had set up an infectious disease in our atmosphere. Perhaps covid-19 is but a reaction to our earlier atmospheric action. That action-reaction interaction brought Sir Isaac Newton to mind. The possibility exists that if space junk can be removed from space, if earth pollution is removed from rivers streams and earth itself; that covid-19 might naturally abate thereby. If it does not abate, our decontamination of space (and earth) surely would not hurt mankind. Rather it would help mankind, not only physically help but mentally and philosophically help, by giving all mankind understanding and something to do. For we will have a sense that earth is alive! not dead; that insults to its integrity, to its biome invite involuntary counter-reaction. It’s only natural that all of life must seek to preserve itself by the first law of nature. Therefore, covid-19 is nature’s response to mankind’s assaults upon its membrane. Chips of debris in the eyes bring tears to clear the intruder. Well, “the sky is crying. Look at the tears roll down the street,” yet wails the late Blues great Elmore James. None of this may be true! But to quote our most impetuous President Donald Trump: “What have we got to lose anyway?” If mankind earnestly sets about to remove waste debris from space and waste debris from earth, if we assiduously work to decontaminate both, space and earth, we would have nothing to lose and we would have much to gain! Maybe the abatement of Coronavirus covid-19 or its successors!