ANDREW CHAPEL METHODIST REDUX

Reminds me of my paternal grandparents church in Pickens, Mississippi, Andrew Chapel Methodist.

SERMON ON THE MOUNT AND AFRICAN AMERICANS

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AND AFRICAN AMERICANS The "Sermon on the Mount" of Jesus Christ sets forth super-human attributes for mankind to follow to achieve "perfection." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sermon_on_the_Mount As slaves in America, Africans were forced to become 'superhuman' simply to survive, and even thrive, under torrid conditions, like living in the hungry lions' den like Daniel, or like surviving the fiery furnace, like Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednego. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Dispiriting indeed was slavery, and dispirited also were the slaves, but the assurance of heaven was hope. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Mourning was common as kinsmen were torn away, then sold away, from shrieking relatives in slavery. These words of Jesus gave them their blessed assurance of comfort. "Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth." Meekness was our methodology of survival then as now in many times. Though criticized as capitulation, meekness preserves one to fight on another day in some better way. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled." No one has hungered and thirsted more for righteousness in America than the deeply wronged Africans. The promise of fulfillment is being realized in our time within our view! "Blessed are the merciful , for they will be shown mercy." During the Civil War, when many able bodied white men were away fighting to preserve their slavery, there were no slave rebellions, nor murders, nor rapes. Rather, the slaves' mistress was shown mercy. "Oh, oh! Oh mercy mercy me. Oh things ain't like they used to be," sang Marvin Gaye for us in the '70s. Mercy we gave; seldom got! But ours is an abiding faith in God. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God." A "pure heart" is pure, light as the feather of Maat, at the Judgement Scene of Osiris, as balanced on the scales of justice against your heart. An impure heart is eaten by a dog, having weighted down the scale. A pure heart enters into immortality. "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God." "Walk together children there is a great camp meeting up ahead." This stanza from a song inspired fleeing slaves on their journeys. Later, the intervention of the slaves for the Union brought victory to it; which brought peace to the U.S.A. We are the children of God, indeed! "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Persecution in every imaginable form we have known and yet know. Over and over, we have urged our nation , this country , to do the right thing by us, by its documents! Heavenly home is right here in us! "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and say all manner of evil falsely against you because of me." "Because of me" speaks to the redeeming ministry of Jesus Christ as intuited, as interpreted, as temporized, by our falsely insulted, persecuted, reviled forebears, who created institutions to sustain us ! "Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way persecuted they the prophets who were before you." The heaven of which Jesus speaks is not a place where men say "lo here nor lo there." Rather "the kingdom of heaven is inside of you." That means it is inside of us. Inside of our righteous assembly, and outside of it too we have been repeatedly insulted, persecuted, reviled, and dispirited; repeatedly we have mourned, been meek, have hungered and thirsted for righteousness; have shown mercy. Repeatedly we have been pure in heart; have been peacemakers. We have borne our burdens as Jesus bore his cross up Calvary aided by our black brother, Simon of Cyrene, in whose shoes be stand in history! So then, having embodied the heart and soul of the "Sermon on the Mount" as written in Matt. 5:3-12, we have been "perfect," as Jesus preached in Matthew 5:48. Rejoice and again I say "Rejoice!"

FORKS IN THE ROAD/FORT MCPHERSON

https://npsseac.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/fort-mcpherson-meets-the-forks-of-the-road-the-nexus-of-slavery-freedom-and-resistance-in-civil-war-era-natchez-mississippi/ This description of "Forks-of-the-Roads" near Natchez, Mississippi, and the former Fort McPherson, contrasts sharply with that neo-conservative tripe being blithely parroted by so-called "black" websites! Black is the truth, not uncorroborated tripe! Here, there is no mention of women and children starving and dying of disease in the thousands, desirous of returning to the plantations, as was claimed in the false tale! Here, black troops kept watch over their families even as they pursued Confederate guerillas in Mississippi and Louisiana. Here they tore down the slave pens and built Ft. McPherson to fight and to win their freedom. After the war, the Rebel elements returned to power , tore down the fort, whitewashed history also! H/t Sheryl Owens, beloved Bison sister!

CONCESSION AND ACCESSION

After 100 years of trying to "simplify" Dr. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity calculations, physicists have opted to drop these short-cut simulations of the iconic one's original calculations, which short-cuts had consistently failed. Now, finally conceding the absence of a better model, they are using Einstein's originals, in computer codes, scaled up to "graph" the universe. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160624105045.htm

"COMMON KNOWLEDGE" MUSINGS

COMMON KNOWLEDGE MUSING "Common knowledge" is not so common as it sounds or seems. Which knowledge is referred to? Is it that "common," intuitive, knowledge that is mysteriously embedded in the neural and cellular morphology of mankind prior to birth; that is genomically, culturally, epigenetically recycled into embryos, being the naturally selected byproduct of all prior generations' ontology? Or is "common knowledge" that body of acquired, codified information that is shared among certain nations, as man's common heritage? Included within this broad category would be mathematics, music, science, dance, art, farming, medicine, technology and many others? Which knowledge is "common" and which is uncommon ? Otherwise stated, which brand of common knowledge does the idiom refer to? Both?

NATURE IS LOVE EXPRESSED AS SPIRIT

NATURE IS LOVE EXPRESSED AS SPIRIT Nature shells and sorts among us . It shakes, bakes, freezes, works us. Washes, illumines, darkens, burns . Nature does to us all whatever it wants to do: however, whenever, wherever, to whoever or whatever. Nature is Love expressed as Spirit. As Spirit, Love's Nature precedes time and space and imagination, then, as mysteriously, proceeds to manifest "life" that they as three in one--Nature, Love, Spirit,--in each one of us individually as in all of us corporately, differentially:  create, empower, enable, restore, animate, reclaim, renew, until their reconsecration by death & dawn.

MY APOLOGY

MY APOLOGY I apologize to modern era black people for my many condemnations of their too-often fickle fidelity to the black race in their consumerist spending practices for needed goods and important services. I was wrong! These consumer practices did not begin in the modern era, post-Jim Crow, as I had wrongly assumed, and heard others, in business, say. Reading in the works of William Wells Brown, fellow Missourian, and internationally-traveled author, who was a self-taught, escaped slave, I note that he decried the same tendencies in the 1880s! So too did New York native, Dr. James McCune Smith, erudite, Scotland-educated physician, abolitionist, newspaper columnist, and polymath, who died in 1865, decry this, anti-self development disposition, prevalent back then! So, it is not new. Perhaps our people's subconscious acumen knew something, sensed something, about black economic patriotism that preserved us intact. Certainly those places where economic self-help was practiced most successfully did not survive the white terrorist mobs' bombs and arson in Wilmington, NC; in Tulsa, OK; and dozens of others, where racial consumer patriotism was most assiduously practiced! Again forgive my ignorance and my silly, unwarranted condemnations!