September 23, 2009
By Larry Delano Coleman, Esq.
Given the undeniable white supremacist history of these United States of America, as embodied in its constitution, supreme court decisions, legislation, customs, and practices, the term “black lawyer,” came to symbolize, that oxymoronic paradox wherein and whereby certain of these oppressed and repressed subjects and objects of American law came to morph into those who utilize said law’s interstices and blandishments in liberating themselves, and their nation, from its nadir of jurisprudential hypocrisy, and state-sponsored or state-sanctioned domestic terrorism.
Black lawyers, historically, were central to this process of transformation. Are they yet such? Is the term “black lawyer” now a misnomer? Are black lawyers still the “social engineers” envisioned by the late, great Charles Hamilton Houston, former Dean of the Howard University School of Law? Do they in fact conform to the definition above written? Need they?
Or, has that era of the so-called “black lawyer” passed quietly into history with the implosion of the mythical doctrine of “separate but equal,” whose utter destruction was Houston’s crowning achievement, albeit posthumously, in the Brown v. Board of Education, et. al. decisions?
Is the war for equality over? Has “victory” been won? In short, is the term “black lawyer” a misnomer, rendered moot/mute by its own success?
Few and far between are the lawyers of African descent who represent individual civil rights plaintiffs on any level, federal or state, presently, in any kind of case. This is tough work, where the lawyer is unappreciated, if respected by the client, and frequently viewed with enmity by the courts. There are other forms of work, which are far more lucrative and far less stressful.
With the judicial and legislative victories arising from the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960’s, as a tumultuous tailwind, the nation sailed into the 1970’s and 1980’s on the force of yesteryear’s momentum. The goal now became full-fledged and unabashed assimilation into that American mainstream into which blacks had long sought admission.
Black lawyers have successfully pursued professional options in so many realms of endeavor, as individuals, there is hardly a field where they are not to be found. Some black lawyers even mutated to the point they were able to thrive during, and from, the Ronald Reagan years, well into the Bush years, when racial “quotas” were eliminated (assuming they ever really “existed”) and “Affirmative Action” was vilified and proscribed.
This brings us to the present day, in which the President of the United States, Barack Obama, as well as the Attorney General, Eric Holder, and First Lady, Michele Obama, are black lawyers, all inconceivable “firsts” just a few short years ago.
Latent in this analysis and in this transition has been the capacity of certain black lawyers to eliminate the adjective “black” and to simply be lawyers. For a few, however, “Black Lawyer” remains a proper name and noun.
What is true for black lawyers has also been true for black people. Robert Johnson, Oprah Winfrey and many other wealthy persons in business and entertainment, even in the realm of religion, exemplify this capacity daily.
All civil rights are necessarily individual and personal. One cannot speak for another, neither should one suffer for the conduct of another, nor be rewarded for the work of another. Group-think, group-speak, group-act alternate between beneficial and detrimental, dependent upon prevailing circumstances. Right now, what appears to be most conducive to “the advancement of colored people” is self-assertion as individuals poised and prepared for productivity.
Adjectives are by definition modifiers of nouns. “Expressio unius est exclusio alterius,” goes the Latin maxim, which means to state one thing is to exclude another. Why limit one’s self, by an adjective such as “black”, when the goal is, and has always been, to free one’s self?
“Black” like “White” are states of mind, yes. But, more so, these social constructs were political devices meant to predetermine and to manipulate decision making over and in one’s life. They are forms of mental programming, reinforced by the reward and retribution dichotomy imposed and enforced by law, custom, and heritable values. Both blacks and whites are and/or have been afflicted by these constructs’ its pervasive power. But, their noon day has passed, and the gloaming now appears. Objective conditions have changed, so the myth cannot be maintained.
Stated directly, “black lawyer” is a misnomer, an inappropriate term which does not fit. Any lawyer of any color can and does practice human rights law. Similarly, lawyers of all colors sit in judgment of their endeavors.
So, yes, “black lawyer” (and “white lawyer”) are misnomers. There are only lawyers, just like there is only law.
#30
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
JOURNEY TO THE “GENTILES” : OVERCOMING MY “BIAS”
Sunday, April 26, 2009
JOURNEY TO THE “GENTILES” : OVERCOMING MY “BIAS”
AGAINST “WHITE” PEOPLE
I am “biased” against “white” people. I, fundamentally, endemically distrust them, and, when given an option, I will avoid them. This “bias” is not unique to me, whether openly expressed or not. Many African Americans have this “bias”. It is, doubtless, epigenetic. Just as many whites’ bias against blacks is epigenetic.
Epigenetics is defined thusly:
In biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of inherited changes in phenotype (appearance) or gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence, hence the name epi- (Greek: επί- over, above) -genetics. These changes may remain through cell divisions for the remainder of the cell's life and may also last for multiple generations. However, there is no change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism;[1] instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
The epigenetic effect/causation “bias” factor is explained below:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/05/27/racial-bias-weakens-our-ability-to-feel-someone-else%e2%80%99s-pain/#more-1730
http://groups.anthropology.northwestern.edu/lhbr/kuzawa_web_files/pdfs/Kuzawa%20and%20Sweet%20AJHB%20early%20view.pdf
My bias, curiously, does not extend to individual “whites,” whom I know, personally or professionally. It only applies to “whites” generically, corporately, whom I know only historically or anecdotally or not at all.
This bias is the residue, the detritus, of a survival mechanism inculcated in me, from birth, by my family and my society, to protect me from harm by “whites,” and yet embolden me to compete against “whites” and others, effectively. This immunity system, early warning system, was both negative and positive.
Many things have now changed. I, too, must change, if I am to remain viable, relevant and valuable in this current age. This is not to suggest that I must change who I am or what I am. Rather, it requires a reconfiguration of my predilections, from skin color or ethnic type, to a meritocracy based on individual worth.
In a word, I must learn to dispense with “color-coding.” Yesterday’s crutch has become today’s encumbrance.
Mine is a work in progress. Hence, mine is a “journey to the ‘Gentiles.’” It is a journey to overcome biases engrained in me, since birth. These preemptive, defensive mechanisms are part of the African American sociological immunity system which aided my development, at one time, amid the miasma of “white” racism.
My biases are not offensive; they do not intentionally hurt anyone. Instead, they reflexively, autonomically protect me. They are preventative and preemptive. “A prudent man forseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.” Proverbs 22:3. They are also transformative and creative, when inverted, rooted in self-reliance and self-love. “Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.” Zech. 2:7.
“Gentile,” of course, is a biblical term, which means “non-Jew” or heathen. Its first use appears in Genesis 10:5: “By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; everyone after his own tongue, and after their families, in their nations.”
“Gentiles” devolve ancestrally from Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah, Genesis 10:1-2, Noah’s other two sons being, Ham and Shem.
Japheth, in turn, is popularly known as the progenitor of “white” people. “Gentiles,” being descendents of Japheth, are also “white” people. Thus, my “Journey to the ‘Gentiles’” is my wary, life-long and individual journey toward reconciliation with American “white” people, the kidnappers, transformers and oppressors of my people:
“For thus saith the Lord of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. For, behold, I will shake mine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know the Lord of Hosts hath sent me.” Zech.2:8-9.
I put the word “white” in parentheses to denote its peculiarity. It is, after all, a racial construct, a geopolitical phenotype, created by those “whites” who profited by dividing one person, from another one nation from another, to facilitate the exploitation of all, in all things.
In America, it goes back to the English colony of Virginia, whose burgesses at Jamestown used this tool to divide and to separate European indentured servants from African indentured servants, politically, economically and sexually, so as to fortify and to fructify the ruling class’ control over all.
In the wake of “Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion,” 1675-1676, in Virginia, an unsuccessful, multi-racial uprising of indentured servants, against the colonial ruling class, racial distinction privileges, became especially pronounced. Put directly, “whiteness” an amorphous intellectual construct was legally and culturally adopted, as a “divide and conquer” strategy to preclude the social, political and economic amalgamation of black indentured servants with white indentured servants from again occurring.
Naturally, “blackness” is “whiteness’” antithesis. As such “blackness”--and by extension, black people-- ineluctably defaulted to the negation of that which was either “legal” or “cultural” or “privileged,” inhering in “whiteness.” See, http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-We-Need-Black-White-Un-by-Perry-Stein-090219-171.html.
Thus, “racism,” as we know it, became the pervasive and ubiquitous upshot, culminating in chattel slavery, which denied all Africans--free or slave-- not only “citizenship,” but personhood itself, as declared by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case:
Dred Scott v. Sandford,[1] 60 U.S. (How. 19) 393 (1857), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants[2]—whether or not they were slaves—were not legal persons and could never be citizens of the United States. It also held that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The Court also ruled that because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Lastly, the Court ruled that slaves—as chattel or private property—could not be taken away from their owners without due process. The Supreme Court's decision was written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford
When the United States of America won its independence from Great Britain, its ensuing Constitution codified what the southern colonies had already reified. Thus, blacks became 3/5’s of a person for political apportionment purposes. They were taxed as imports at $10.00 per head, and no legal sanctuary could lawfully be accorded to them by any so-called “free state,” should they escape bondage in a slave state. Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. 539 (1842). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prigg_v._Pennsylvania
Chief Justice Taney, who dissented, over a minor implication, in the Prigg case--but not its critical holding--, was the principal author of the Dred Scott case, 15 years later. The Prigg decision involved an escaped slave from Maryland, Margret Morgan, who resided for 5 years in Pennsylvania, before being captured by a slave catcher, named Prigg. Prigg was indicted and convicted under a Pennsylvania statute, which forbade the seizure or arrest of any “negro or mulatto,” except in compliance with that state’s elaborate statututory provisions. A jury found that Prigg and his confederates had violated the statute. Yet, Prigg and company, were ultimately acquitted when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed their convictions by declaring the Pennsylvania statute to be unconstitutional.
What is ironic and significant about Roger Taney’s dissent is that it foreshadowed the facts of Dred Scott. See Prigg, Page 41 U. S. 628
The right of the master, therefore, to seize his fugitive slave is the law of each State, and no State has the power to abrogate or alter it. And why may not a State protect a right of property acknowledged by its own paramount law? Besides, the laws of the different States in all other cases constantly protect the citizens of other States in their rights of property when it is found within their respective territories, and no one doubts their power to do so. And, in the absence of any express prohibition, I perceive no reason for establishing by implication a different rule in this instance where, by the national compact, this right of property is recognized as an existing right in every State of the Union.
I do not speak of slaves whom their masters voluntarily take into a non-slaveholding State. That case is not before us. I speak of the case provided for in the Constitution -- that is to say, the case of a fugitive who has escaped from the service of his owner and who has taken refuge and is found in another State. (emphasis added)
Dred Scott’s suit, of course, was based upon the fact his master had “voluntarily take[n]” him “into a non-slaveholding State.” Thus, Prigg’s premonition presented itself in Dred Scott, before Taney.
The prophesy of Job 3:25 was fulfilled in Taney’s presentiment about the Missouri slave: “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.”
Earlier, former President Thomas Jefferson, that iconic Virginian who wrote the “Declaration of Independence,” http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html, and who consummated the Louisiana Purchase http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564763/Louisiana_Purchase.html, from which Missouri was created, stated http://www.monticello.org/reports/quotes/memorial.html:
"For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever . . . ."
-- Notes on the State of Virginia
"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. . . ."
-- Notes on the State of Virginia
"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them."
-- The Autobiography
Arguably, Jefferson, was the “King of the Gentiles,” so great has been his impact on the face of America: from The Declaration of Independence to the Louisiana Purchase. But, even he, like Abraham Lincoln, who became President 50 years after him, could not apprehend that there were no “indelible lines of distinction” between “the two races,” when both are “equally free;” that they “can live in the same government,” because “Nature, habit and opinion” are all extremely adaptive.
Lincoln, long revered as “The Great Emancipator,” echoes Thomas Jefferson’s view that blacks and whites cannot live as “equals.”
While debating Stephen Douglas in 1858, Lincoln doubted that states had the power to declare negroes voting citizens, and "if the state of Illinois had that power, I should be opposed to the exercise of it." He added:
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. [Emphasis added.]
Lincoln frankly expressed his solidarity with what he perceived as the racism of society at large. Speaking of the slaves at Peoria in 1854, he said:
Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this ; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals. [Emphasis added.] http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22750
So, both iconic Presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, agreed with each other’s white supremacist views. Both also erred in their condign roles as American prophets, of black “equality.” Ensuing historical events and occurrences, continue to demonstrate, since Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, to Ulysees S. Grant on April 9, 1865, that blacks will be free and equal.
Thus, in our lifetimes, in our very lives, the Biblical prophesy of African descendents’ “equality” is being fulfilled:
2 Corinthians 8:13-15 (New King James Version):
13 For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened; 14 but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack—that there may be equality. 15 As it is written, “He who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.”
African Americans, and, by extension, and necessary inclusion, Americans generally, are a “brand plucked out of the fire.” Zech.3:2. Formerly “clothed with filthy garments,” Zech.3:3, our filthy garments have been taken away, and our “iniquity has passed” Zech. 3:4 from us. Even moreso, a “mitre,” Zech.3:5, has been set upon our head, and we have been clothed with a change of raiment.
The redemptive suffering and righteous forbearance of my formerly enslaved people have, now, blessed not only me and my nation, but, indeed, the whole world as they become, in innumerable fields, avatars, exemplars and paragons of the spirit of Jesus Christ, who now harvest, in love, the mysterious power of his promise. Mark 4.
The Apostle Paul undertook a similar journey:
Romans 11:13For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
Galatians 2:8(For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles:)
My journey to the Gentiles, then, is not unprecedented. Neither shall it be unrequited.
Isaiah 42:1-9 states: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect in whom my soul delighted; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law. .. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house… Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”
#30
JOURNEY TO THE “GENTILES” : OVERCOMING MY “BIAS”
AGAINST “WHITE” PEOPLE
I am “biased” against “white” people. I, fundamentally, endemically distrust them, and, when given an option, I will avoid them. This “bias” is not unique to me, whether openly expressed or not. Many African Americans have this “bias”. It is, doubtless, epigenetic. Just as many whites’ bias against blacks is epigenetic.
Epigenetics is defined thusly:
In biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of inherited changes in phenotype (appearance) or gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence, hence the name epi- (Greek: επί- over, above) -genetics. These changes may remain through cell divisions for the remainder of the cell's life and may also last for multiple generations. However, there is no change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism;[1] instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
The epigenetic effect/causation “bias” factor is explained below:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/05/27/racial-bias-weakens-our-ability-to-feel-someone-else%e2%80%99s-pain/#more-1730
http://groups.anthropology.northwestern.edu/lhbr/kuzawa_web_files/pdfs/Kuzawa%20and%20Sweet%20AJHB%20early%20view.pdf
My bias, curiously, does not extend to individual “whites,” whom I know, personally or professionally. It only applies to “whites” generically, corporately, whom I know only historically or anecdotally or not at all.
This bias is the residue, the detritus, of a survival mechanism inculcated in me, from birth, by my family and my society, to protect me from harm by “whites,” and yet embolden me to compete against “whites” and others, effectively. This immunity system, early warning system, was both negative and positive.
Many things have now changed. I, too, must change, if I am to remain viable, relevant and valuable in this current age. This is not to suggest that I must change who I am or what I am. Rather, it requires a reconfiguration of my predilections, from skin color or ethnic type, to a meritocracy based on individual worth.
In a word, I must learn to dispense with “color-coding.” Yesterday’s crutch has become today’s encumbrance.
Mine is a work in progress. Hence, mine is a “journey to the ‘Gentiles.’” It is a journey to overcome biases engrained in me, since birth. These preemptive, defensive mechanisms are part of the African American sociological immunity system which aided my development, at one time, amid the miasma of “white” racism.
My biases are not offensive; they do not intentionally hurt anyone. Instead, they reflexively, autonomically protect me. They are preventative and preemptive. “A prudent man forseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.” Proverbs 22:3. They are also transformative and creative, when inverted, rooted in self-reliance and self-love. “Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.” Zech. 2:7.
“Gentile,” of course, is a biblical term, which means “non-Jew” or heathen. Its first use appears in Genesis 10:5: “By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; everyone after his own tongue, and after their families, in their nations.”
“Gentiles” devolve ancestrally from Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah, Genesis 10:1-2, Noah’s other two sons being, Ham and Shem.
Japheth, in turn, is popularly known as the progenitor of “white” people. “Gentiles,” being descendents of Japheth, are also “white” people. Thus, my “Journey to the ‘Gentiles’” is my wary, life-long and individual journey toward reconciliation with American “white” people, the kidnappers, transformers and oppressors of my people:
“For thus saith the Lord of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. For, behold, I will shake mine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know the Lord of Hosts hath sent me.” Zech.2:8-9.
I put the word “white” in parentheses to denote its peculiarity. It is, after all, a racial construct, a geopolitical phenotype, created by those “whites” who profited by dividing one person, from another one nation from another, to facilitate the exploitation of all, in all things.
In America, it goes back to the English colony of Virginia, whose burgesses at Jamestown used this tool to divide and to separate European indentured servants from African indentured servants, politically, economically and sexually, so as to fortify and to fructify the ruling class’ control over all.
In the wake of “Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion,” 1675-1676, in Virginia, an unsuccessful, multi-racial uprising of indentured servants, against the colonial ruling class, racial distinction privileges, became especially pronounced. Put directly, “whiteness” an amorphous intellectual construct was legally and culturally adopted, as a “divide and conquer” strategy to preclude the social, political and economic amalgamation of black indentured servants with white indentured servants from again occurring.
Naturally, “blackness” is “whiteness’” antithesis. As such “blackness”--and by extension, black people-- ineluctably defaulted to the negation of that which was either “legal” or “cultural” or “privileged,” inhering in “whiteness.” See, http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-We-Need-Black-White-Un-by-Perry-Stein-090219-171.html.
Thus, “racism,” as we know it, became the pervasive and ubiquitous upshot, culminating in chattel slavery, which denied all Africans--free or slave-- not only “citizenship,” but personhood itself, as declared by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case:
Dred Scott v. Sandford,[1] 60 U.S. (How. 19) 393 (1857), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants[2]—whether or not they were slaves—were not legal persons and could never be citizens of the United States. It also held that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The Court also ruled that because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Lastly, the Court ruled that slaves—as chattel or private property—could not be taken away from their owners without due process. The Supreme Court's decision was written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford
When the United States of America won its independence from Great Britain, its ensuing Constitution codified what the southern colonies had already reified. Thus, blacks became 3/5’s of a person for political apportionment purposes. They were taxed as imports at $10.00 per head, and no legal sanctuary could lawfully be accorded to them by any so-called “free state,” should they escape bondage in a slave state. Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. 539 (1842). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prigg_v._Pennsylvania
Chief Justice Taney, who dissented, over a minor implication, in the Prigg case--but not its critical holding--, was the principal author of the Dred Scott case, 15 years later. The Prigg decision involved an escaped slave from Maryland, Margret Morgan, who resided for 5 years in Pennsylvania, before being captured by a slave catcher, named Prigg. Prigg was indicted and convicted under a Pennsylvania statute, which forbade the seizure or arrest of any “negro or mulatto,” except in compliance with that state’s elaborate statututory provisions. A jury found that Prigg and his confederates had violated the statute. Yet, Prigg and company, were ultimately acquitted when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed their convictions by declaring the Pennsylvania statute to be unconstitutional.
What is ironic and significant about Roger Taney’s dissent is that it foreshadowed the facts of Dred Scott. See Prigg, Page 41 U. S. 628
The right of the master, therefore, to seize his fugitive slave is the law of each State, and no State has the power to abrogate or alter it. And why may not a State protect a right of property acknowledged by its own paramount law? Besides, the laws of the different States in all other cases constantly protect the citizens of other States in their rights of property when it is found within their respective territories, and no one doubts their power to do so. And, in the absence of any express prohibition, I perceive no reason for establishing by implication a different rule in this instance where, by the national compact, this right of property is recognized as an existing right in every State of the Union.
I do not speak of slaves whom their masters voluntarily take into a non-slaveholding State. That case is not before us. I speak of the case provided for in the Constitution -- that is to say, the case of a fugitive who has escaped from the service of his owner and who has taken refuge and is found in another State. (emphasis added)
Dred Scott’s suit, of course, was based upon the fact his master had “voluntarily take[n]” him “into a non-slaveholding State.” Thus, Prigg’s premonition presented itself in Dred Scott, before Taney.
The prophesy of Job 3:25 was fulfilled in Taney’s presentiment about the Missouri slave: “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.”
Earlier, former President Thomas Jefferson, that iconic Virginian who wrote the “Declaration of Independence,” http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html, and who consummated the Louisiana Purchase http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564763/Louisiana_Purchase.html, from which Missouri was created, stated http://www.monticello.org/reports/quotes/memorial.html:
"For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever . . . ."
-- Notes on the State of Virginia
"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. . . ."
-- Notes on the State of Virginia
"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them."
-- The Autobiography
Arguably, Jefferson, was the “King of the Gentiles,” so great has been his impact on the face of America: from The Declaration of Independence to the Louisiana Purchase. But, even he, like Abraham Lincoln, who became President 50 years after him, could not apprehend that there were no “indelible lines of distinction” between “the two races,” when both are “equally free;” that they “can live in the same government,” because “Nature, habit and opinion” are all extremely adaptive.
Lincoln, long revered as “The Great Emancipator,” echoes Thomas Jefferson’s view that blacks and whites cannot live as “equals.”
While debating Stephen Douglas in 1858, Lincoln doubted that states had the power to declare negroes voting citizens, and "if the state of Illinois had that power, I should be opposed to the exercise of it." He added:
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. [Emphasis added.]
Lincoln frankly expressed his solidarity with what he perceived as the racism of society at large. Speaking of the slaves at Peoria in 1854, he said:
Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this ; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals. [Emphasis added.] http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22750
So, both iconic Presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, agreed with each other’s white supremacist views. Both also erred in their condign roles as American prophets, of black “equality.” Ensuing historical events and occurrences, continue to demonstrate, since Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, to Ulysees S. Grant on April 9, 1865, that blacks will be free and equal.
Thus, in our lifetimes, in our very lives, the Biblical prophesy of African descendents’ “equality” is being fulfilled:
2 Corinthians 8:13-15 (New King James Version):
13 For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened; 14 but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack—that there may be equality. 15 As it is written, “He who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.”
African Americans, and, by extension, and necessary inclusion, Americans generally, are a “brand plucked out of the fire.” Zech.3:2. Formerly “clothed with filthy garments,” Zech.3:3, our filthy garments have been taken away, and our “iniquity has passed” Zech. 3:4 from us. Even moreso, a “mitre,” Zech.3:5, has been set upon our head, and we have been clothed with a change of raiment.
The redemptive suffering and righteous forbearance of my formerly enslaved people have, now, blessed not only me and my nation, but, indeed, the whole world as they become, in innumerable fields, avatars, exemplars and paragons of the spirit of Jesus Christ, who now harvest, in love, the mysterious power of his promise. Mark 4.
The Apostle Paul undertook a similar journey:
Romans 11:13For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
Galatians 2:8(For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles:)
My journey to the Gentiles, then, is not unprecedented. Neither shall it be unrequited.
Isaiah 42:1-9 states: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect in whom my soul delighted; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law. .. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house… Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”
#30
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Fulfilling My Reason for Being
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Fulfilling My Reason for Being
When I was in high school, in St. Louis County, Missouri, in the 1960‘s, certain female friends called me, what sounded like, “Diddy.” Confused by the sobriquet, and uncertain as to its meaning, I asked what they were saying, and, why? They were mum. Years later, one of them told me they were saying “Deity,” viz., “Deity Coleman.”
Naturally, I was confused. How could they infer anything like that about me--one who was quite skeptical about all things religious at that time? And one who sensed no divinity in himself, whatsoever. Sure, I was a founder of the black students’ organization, well read, reasonably smart, and readily acknowledged to be a student leader. But, “deity”? That was way over-the-top even viewed retrospectively.
Later, much later, I learned there is, necessarily, divinity in us all. And divinity in all-- continuously and uninterruptedly. Eternally.
This conception germinated slowly within my consciousness, over time, gaining sustenance from many sources, in many ways. The teachings of Jesus Christ became the crystalline epicenter of them all, after having thrice been delivered from death by his grace and mercy.
He taught me far more than I could ever “know” about myself, my God and my context. He still teaches all who earnestly seek to know. Jesus heals and fulfills. Christ healed and fulfilled me. Providing living water that slaked and quenched my thirst for understanding.
His declaration in John 14:12 assured and encouraged me. “Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me , the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” Belief and work. Belief in his work. Believe.
This apprehension, this realization came to permeate my entire consciousness. It empowered me. It edified me. It emboldened me. It also wounded and convicted me, impelling study and activity, while emasculating all excuses. To know and believe is to do and achieve, necessarily, world without end. Amen. Matt.28:20.
But, no one goes joyfully to Golgotha, not even the Savior, the exemplar of us all. Mark 14:36: “And He was saying, Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will."
Thus, I fled away from my mandate. In doing so, I emulated Jonah, Elijah, and Paul, nee Saul, and many of you. Now, spent, cornered and cowering, I surrender to his will. “Touch me, Lord Jesus!”
In Jonah 1:2, we find where God orders Jonah to: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” Instead, Jonah attempts to flee the command of God by sailing to Tarshish, by way of Joppa. This precipitated near-disastrous consequences for Jonah and the sailors. In a fierce storm, the crew threw him into the sea, reluctantly, as an act of expiation.
God’s whale swallowed Jonah whole. And, after 3 days, the whale vomited him, safely, in Nineveh. Here, Jonah would, now, gladly cry against Ninevah, as God had originally ordered.
Similarly, Elijah, the mighty prophet of God, after defeating, then slaughtering, the 450 priests of Baal in 1 Kings 18:20-40, flees in terror for his life when their sovereign, Queen Jezebel, threatens retaliatory vengeance upon Elijah, himself, in 1 Kings 19:2-4:
2Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.
3And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.
4But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
The Lord saved Elijah. But, rebuked this prophet’s claim of presumptive uniqueness, noting there remained 7,000 other prophets whose knees had not bowed to Baal and whose lips had not kissed him. 1 Kings 19:18
Elijah, who met God in the mouth of a cave at Mount Horeb, obeyed God’s command to return on his way to the wilderness of Damascus, and to anoint Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha, enroute. 1 Kings 19:15-17
The Apostle Paul, as is well known, was not always an “apostle.” Acts 8:1-3; 9:2. Neither, was he always “Paul.” Only after meeting Jesus on the Damascus Road and being converted, did Saul become Paul, only then did the former persercutor, Gal. 1:23, become the Lord’s preacher and apostle. Acts 9:1-31.
Jonah was already a good man. Adversity made him a better man. Elijah had already out-dueled, then slew, the priests of Baal. Yet, he feared and fled from Jezebel unto Mount Horeb. Saul was a destroyer of the followers of Christ. But the Damascus road flipped his script. Paul surrendered. Elijah surrendered. Jonah surrendered. In the end, we all surrender. Because, in the end we surrender all to its source!
I, too, am a good man. But, whom the Lord loves, he prunes that they may bear more fruit. John 15:2. And so it was on July 20, 2010, he “flipped my script:” purged me, by striking me with a stroke on the left side of my body. In that instant, my purpose in life became clear. He has enabled me by disabling me, so I may perfectly pursue his ministry. He has emboldened me by withholding from me my lucrative legal legacy. I chose. But God disposed.
Over the years, I have attempted and studied many things. Yet, my efforts have, somehow, all fallen short of my expectations. I’ve been constrained to look inward, to retrace my steps to more sapient and satisfying moments. All of these have involved organizing, teaching, writing, and/or implementing some spiritually-derived stratagem for change, in society enabling greater good and inducing greater love.
The Bible says in Romans 4:17--
As it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations." Abraham acted in faith when he stood in the presence of God, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that don't yet exist.
I have been called by God from the womb, from the moment I breached the matrix. My high school friends saw the call of God upon me. They saw an unfolding anointing, which I could not see.
Romans 8:28 says
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
In the black church, being “called” is good stuff. The scripture, Romans 8:29-30, equates the “call” with both predestination and justification.
29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Predestination is more than inevitability and justification is more than forgiveness, in this context. That is because God’s grace is the context. God’s foreknowledge is itself grace, and forgiveness.
But all cannot hear, or will not heed, that “still small voice.” 1 Kings 19:12. To be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ is the final consummation of glory.
And if one does not “hear” God’s call upon one’s own life, one may still be blessed by simply calling on God. Romans 10:13-17 explains:
13For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
14How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
15And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
17So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Hearing is one thing. Heeding what has been heard is quite another, as Jonah’s example teaches. Faith is fundamental. Hebrews 11:6:
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
“Heeding” is obedience. Allowing God’s will to be done through you is complete obedience, a difficult task. Even Christ decried the bitter cup, which he was called to consume: crucifixion and resurrection.
Even so, there is a reward for obedience that is at once temporal and eternal. Mark 10: 29-31 is reassuring.
29And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's,
30But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.
31But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.
Another reward is one’s ability to “call” things into being as though they were, through God’s grace. Mark 11:23-24 instructs:
For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
The mantra “Perceive, Believe, Receive” commends itself to this precept. “Whosoever,” means anyone, “sinner” or “saved” or someone in between. All have this same power to call things into being as though they were, if they do not doubt in their hearts.
“Doubt” disables, disarms, destroys and devastates man, internally. Doubt, in short, dissipates belief, which undermines faith, which separates and isolates the created from the creator, man from God, which deprives man of access to divine knowledge, wisdom, power.
In 1916, Rev. Charles A. Tindley wrote the hymn “Leave it There.” Apropos to the issue of doubt is this line: “If you trust and never doubt, he will surely bring you. Take your burden to the Lord and leave them there.” http://nethymnal.org/htm/l/e/leaveitt.htm
Daniel, a “dissolver of doubts,” Daniel 5:12, 16, was commended to King Belshazzar of Babylon, by his queen, to interpret the mysterious handwriting on the wall which so greatly troubled the king that “the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote against one another.” (Dan.5:6) None of the king’s astrologers, soothsayers, or wise men could read the writing, nor interpret it to the king. But, Daniel could and did, (Dan. 5:25-29), by and through God‘s grace. (Dan.2:19-23) The queen’s confidence in Daniel was based upon his singularly successful interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.
Lorraine Hansberry, the great African American playwright, author of “Raisin in the Sun” and “The Drinking Gourd,” among other works, resolved “I am a writer, and I am going to write.” Such synchronicity between one’s self awareness and one’s self-actualization; between one’s true reason for being and one’s life’s work; and between one’s predestined purpose and one’s passionate pursuit, is divinity, itself.
Writing, for “Sweet Lorraine” Hansberry, as for me, is “thy first love,” referenced in Revelations 2:4. It is “the first works,” which one must “do,” after repentance and remembrance of past failings. Rev. 2:6. “Write the vision and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Habakkuk 2:2-3
“Failings,” of course, is relative. One may appear to succeed and yet fail. One may appear to fail and yet succeed. Jesus Christ is a prime example of one who appeared to fail--the crucifixion--and who yet succeeded, the resurrection. Judas, on the other hand, appeared to succeed, receiving earthly reward, the symbolic pieces of silver, and also universal opprobrium and eternal damnation.
One, indeed, may display good works, patience, faithfulness, multiple virtues and multiple attributes, and still come up short in God’s sight. A good example is “the rich young man” who inquired, “Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” Jesus admonished him “to keep the commandments.” The young man rejoined, “All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?“ Matthew 19:20. Jesus told him to “Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” He sorrowfully declined this earthly sacrifice requisite to “perfection.” His possessions precluded his perfection.
Even so, perfection is the standard enjoined upon us all. “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:45. The disciples were astonished by this formidably high standard, and asked “Who then can be saved?” Matthew 19:25. “But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.”
Foremost among the gifts of God is mercy. We need it. For even if we do all that God would have us do, we remain unprofitable servants, Luke 17:10--
So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.
God’s grace and mercy is a vital part of the perfection enjoined upon us. “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.” Psalm 52:8.
The most compelling question in the Bible is: "Whom do you say that I am?" Matthew 16:15. Jesus' question is far more important than Peter's response to the question. Each of us must answer Christ directly, for ourselves.
"Salvation," unfortunately, cannot be "earned," any more than life, itself, can be earned. It is "the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." Ephesians 2:8-10.
While men may revile us and do all manner of evil against us, this question remains:
"Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:33-39.
Just like everyone who claims to be a "jew" (Romans 2:17-29) is not, but is a liar, Revelations 3:9, many who claim to be saved, sanctified, and glorified are not either, but are also lying.
Therefore, "Behold, I come quickly, hold that fast that thou hast that no man take thy crown." Rev.3:11.
What is at issue is "the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he has purposed in himself." Ephesians 1:9.
The truth is, while there are many, many formulations, there are only two destinations: "everlasting punishment or life eternal." Matthew 25: 46.
"Whom do you say that I am?" Matt.16:15. Each must answer for himself or herself, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love..." Ephesians 1:4.
There are three stages of spiritual nutrition. "Milk" (I Peter 2:2) and "strong meat", (Heb. 5:14) are commonly addressed.
Herein, I focus upon the too-often-missed first stage: colostrum.
The "colostrum" stage, which is the pre-milk stage, http://www.answers.com/topic/colostrum consisting of water, vitamins, antibodies, and proteins, essential to a child's early, foundational development: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6. A new-born child, like a born-again Christian, must be fortified, with colostrum, its mother's pre-milk before being fed her actual milk.
Therefore "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom, he may devour." (1 Pet. 5:8)
This primary, pragmatic stage can be easily overlooked, by unsuspecting parents, weakening the immunity system of the spiritual and physical babe, increasing its vulnerability to evil germs, and to evil incarnate. Vigilance must begin, in fact, before the child's birth as Rev.12:1-5, attests:
1And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
2And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
3And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
4And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
5And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
I was a breast-fed baby, at least, initially, according to my mother. But, eventually my feedings became too painful for her, so she switched me to a glass bottle. In due course, she told me, I threw the bottle across the room and broke it. But, before I switched to the bottle, however, my body was fortified through Momma’s colostrum.
As with breast feeding, so, it was with the church and the word of God. I was fortified and sanctified from the womb in the redeeming gospel of Jesus Christ. “For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Gal. 1:12 Therefore, whenever the devil arises, in whatever guise, I see him and am able to withstand and resist him, through the grace of God. Praise God!
Seeing, withstanding and resisting evil are my reasons for being.
Fulfilling My Reason for Being
When I was in high school, in St. Louis County, Missouri, in the 1960‘s, certain female friends called me, what sounded like, “Diddy.” Confused by the sobriquet, and uncertain as to its meaning, I asked what they were saying, and, why? They were mum. Years later, one of them told me they were saying “Deity,” viz., “Deity Coleman.”
Naturally, I was confused. How could they infer anything like that about me--one who was quite skeptical about all things religious at that time? And one who sensed no divinity in himself, whatsoever. Sure, I was a founder of the black students’ organization, well read, reasonably smart, and readily acknowledged to be a student leader. But, “deity”? That was way over-the-top even viewed retrospectively.
Later, much later, I learned there is, necessarily, divinity in us all. And divinity in all-- continuously and uninterruptedly. Eternally.
This conception germinated slowly within my consciousness, over time, gaining sustenance from many sources, in many ways. The teachings of Jesus Christ became the crystalline epicenter of them all, after having thrice been delivered from death by his grace and mercy.
He taught me far more than I could ever “know” about myself, my God and my context. He still teaches all who earnestly seek to know. Jesus heals and fulfills. Christ healed and fulfilled me. Providing living water that slaked and quenched my thirst for understanding.
His declaration in John 14:12 assured and encouraged me. “Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me , the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” Belief and work. Belief in his work. Believe.
This apprehension, this realization came to permeate my entire consciousness. It empowered me. It edified me. It emboldened me. It also wounded and convicted me, impelling study and activity, while emasculating all excuses. To know and believe is to do and achieve, necessarily, world without end. Amen. Matt.28:20.
But, no one goes joyfully to Golgotha, not even the Savior, the exemplar of us all. Mark 14:36: “And He was saying, Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will."
Thus, I fled away from my mandate. In doing so, I emulated Jonah, Elijah, and Paul, nee Saul, and many of you. Now, spent, cornered and cowering, I surrender to his will. “Touch me, Lord Jesus!”
In Jonah 1:2, we find where God orders Jonah to: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” Instead, Jonah attempts to flee the command of God by sailing to Tarshish, by way of Joppa. This precipitated near-disastrous consequences for Jonah and the sailors. In a fierce storm, the crew threw him into the sea, reluctantly, as an act of expiation.
God’s whale swallowed Jonah whole. And, after 3 days, the whale vomited him, safely, in Nineveh. Here, Jonah would, now, gladly cry against Ninevah, as God had originally ordered.
Similarly, Elijah, the mighty prophet of God, after defeating, then slaughtering, the 450 priests of Baal in 1 Kings 18:20-40, flees in terror for his life when their sovereign, Queen Jezebel, threatens retaliatory vengeance upon Elijah, himself, in 1 Kings 19:2-4:
2Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.
3And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.
4But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
The Lord saved Elijah. But, rebuked this prophet’s claim of presumptive uniqueness, noting there remained 7,000 other prophets whose knees had not bowed to Baal and whose lips had not kissed him. 1 Kings 19:18
Elijah, who met God in the mouth of a cave at Mount Horeb, obeyed God’s command to return on his way to the wilderness of Damascus, and to anoint Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha, enroute. 1 Kings 19:15-17
The Apostle Paul, as is well known, was not always an “apostle.” Acts 8:1-3; 9:2. Neither, was he always “Paul.” Only after meeting Jesus on the Damascus Road and being converted, did Saul become Paul, only then did the former persercutor, Gal. 1:23, become the Lord’s preacher and apostle. Acts 9:1-31.
Jonah was already a good man. Adversity made him a better man. Elijah had already out-dueled, then slew, the priests of Baal. Yet, he feared and fled from Jezebel unto Mount Horeb. Saul was a destroyer of the followers of Christ. But the Damascus road flipped his script. Paul surrendered. Elijah surrendered. Jonah surrendered. In the end, we all surrender. Because, in the end we surrender all to its source!
I, too, am a good man. But, whom the Lord loves, he prunes that they may bear more fruit. John 15:2. And so it was on July 20, 2010, he “flipped my script:” purged me, by striking me with a stroke on the left side of my body. In that instant, my purpose in life became clear. He has enabled me by disabling me, so I may perfectly pursue his ministry. He has emboldened me by withholding from me my lucrative legal legacy. I chose. But God disposed.
Over the years, I have attempted and studied many things. Yet, my efforts have, somehow, all fallen short of my expectations. I’ve been constrained to look inward, to retrace my steps to more sapient and satisfying moments. All of these have involved organizing, teaching, writing, and/or implementing some spiritually-derived stratagem for change, in society enabling greater good and inducing greater love.
The Bible says in Romans 4:17--
As it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations." Abraham acted in faith when he stood in the presence of God, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that don't yet exist.
I have been called by God from the womb, from the moment I breached the matrix. My high school friends saw the call of God upon me. They saw an unfolding anointing, which I could not see.
Romans 8:28 says
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
In the black church, being “called” is good stuff. The scripture, Romans 8:29-30, equates the “call” with both predestination and justification.
29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Predestination is more than inevitability and justification is more than forgiveness, in this context. That is because God’s grace is the context. God’s foreknowledge is itself grace, and forgiveness.
But all cannot hear, or will not heed, that “still small voice.” 1 Kings 19:12. To be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ is the final consummation of glory.
And if one does not “hear” God’s call upon one’s own life, one may still be blessed by simply calling on God. Romans 10:13-17 explains:
13For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
14How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
15And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?
17So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Hearing is one thing. Heeding what has been heard is quite another, as Jonah’s example teaches. Faith is fundamental. Hebrews 11:6:
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
“Heeding” is obedience. Allowing God’s will to be done through you is complete obedience, a difficult task. Even Christ decried the bitter cup, which he was called to consume: crucifixion and resurrection.
Even so, there is a reward for obedience that is at once temporal and eternal. Mark 10: 29-31 is reassuring.
29And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's,
30But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.
31But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.
Another reward is one’s ability to “call” things into being as though they were, through God’s grace. Mark 11:23-24 instructs:
For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
The mantra “Perceive, Believe, Receive” commends itself to this precept. “Whosoever,” means anyone, “sinner” or “saved” or someone in between. All have this same power to call things into being as though they were, if they do not doubt in their hearts.
“Doubt” disables, disarms, destroys and devastates man, internally. Doubt, in short, dissipates belief, which undermines faith, which separates and isolates the created from the creator, man from God, which deprives man of access to divine knowledge, wisdom, power.
In 1916, Rev. Charles A. Tindley wrote the hymn “Leave it There.” Apropos to the issue of doubt is this line: “If you trust and never doubt, he will surely bring you. Take your burden to the Lord and leave them there.” http://nethymnal.org/htm/l/e/leaveitt.htm
Daniel, a “dissolver of doubts,” Daniel 5:12, 16, was commended to King Belshazzar of Babylon, by his queen, to interpret the mysterious handwriting on the wall which so greatly troubled the king that “the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote against one another.” (Dan.5:6) None of the king’s astrologers, soothsayers, or wise men could read the writing, nor interpret it to the king. But, Daniel could and did, (Dan. 5:25-29), by and through God‘s grace. (Dan.2:19-23) The queen’s confidence in Daniel was based upon his singularly successful interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.
Lorraine Hansberry, the great African American playwright, author of “Raisin in the Sun” and “The Drinking Gourd,” among other works, resolved “I am a writer, and I am going to write.” Such synchronicity between one’s self awareness and one’s self-actualization; between one’s true reason for being and one’s life’s work; and between one’s predestined purpose and one’s passionate pursuit, is divinity, itself.
Writing, for “Sweet Lorraine” Hansberry, as for me, is “thy first love,” referenced in Revelations 2:4. It is “the first works,” which one must “do,” after repentance and remembrance of past failings. Rev. 2:6. “Write the vision and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Habakkuk 2:2-3
“Failings,” of course, is relative. One may appear to succeed and yet fail. One may appear to fail and yet succeed. Jesus Christ is a prime example of one who appeared to fail--the crucifixion--and who yet succeeded, the resurrection. Judas, on the other hand, appeared to succeed, receiving earthly reward, the symbolic pieces of silver, and also universal opprobrium and eternal damnation.
One, indeed, may display good works, patience, faithfulness, multiple virtues and multiple attributes, and still come up short in God’s sight. A good example is “the rich young man” who inquired, “Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” Jesus admonished him “to keep the commandments.” The young man rejoined, “All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?“ Matthew 19:20. Jesus told him to “Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” He sorrowfully declined this earthly sacrifice requisite to “perfection.” His possessions precluded his perfection.
Even so, perfection is the standard enjoined upon us all. “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:45. The disciples were astonished by this formidably high standard, and asked “Who then can be saved?” Matthew 19:25. “But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.”
Foremost among the gifts of God is mercy. We need it. For even if we do all that God would have us do, we remain unprofitable servants, Luke 17:10--
So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.
God’s grace and mercy is a vital part of the perfection enjoined upon us. “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.” Psalm 52:8.
The most compelling question in the Bible is: "Whom do you say that I am?" Matthew 16:15. Jesus' question is far more important than Peter's response to the question. Each of us must answer Christ directly, for ourselves.
"Salvation," unfortunately, cannot be "earned," any more than life, itself, can be earned. It is "the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." Ephesians 2:8-10.
While men may revile us and do all manner of evil against us, this question remains:
"Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:33-39.
Just like everyone who claims to be a "jew" (Romans 2:17-29) is not, but is a liar, Revelations 3:9, many who claim to be saved, sanctified, and glorified are not either, but are also lying.
Therefore, "Behold, I come quickly, hold that fast that thou hast that no man take thy crown." Rev.3:11.
What is at issue is "the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he has purposed in himself." Ephesians 1:9.
The truth is, while there are many, many formulations, there are only two destinations: "everlasting punishment or life eternal." Matthew 25: 46.
"Whom do you say that I am?" Matt.16:15. Each must answer for himself or herself, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love..." Ephesians 1:4.
There are three stages of spiritual nutrition. "Milk" (I Peter 2:2) and "strong meat", (Heb. 5:14) are commonly addressed.
Herein, I focus upon the too-often-missed first stage: colostrum.
The "colostrum" stage, which is the pre-milk stage, http://www.answers.com/topic/colostrum consisting of water, vitamins, antibodies, and proteins, essential to a child's early, foundational development: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6. A new-born child, like a born-again Christian, must be fortified, with colostrum, its mother's pre-milk before being fed her actual milk.
Therefore "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom, he may devour." (1 Pet. 5:8)
This primary, pragmatic stage can be easily overlooked, by unsuspecting parents, weakening the immunity system of the spiritual and physical babe, increasing its vulnerability to evil germs, and to evil incarnate. Vigilance must begin, in fact, before the child's birth as Rev.12:1-5, attests:
1And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
2And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
3And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
4And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
5And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
I was a breast-fed baby, at least, initially, according to my mother. But, eventually my feedings became too painful for her, so she switched me to a glass bottle. In due course, she told me, I threw the bottle across the room and broke it. But, before I switched to the bottle, however, my body was fortified through Momma’s colostrum.
As with breast feeding, so, it was with the church and the word of God. I was fortified and sanctified from the womb in the redeeming gospel of Jesus Christ. “For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Gal. 1:12 Therefore, whenever the devil arises, in whatever guise, I see him and am able to withstand and resist him, through the grace of God. Praise God!
Seeing, withstanding and resisting evil are my reasons for being.
Monday, October 25, 2010
AFGHANISTAN'S EERIE ECHOES
AFGHANISTAN’S EERIE ECHOES
Friday, October 9, 2009
By Larry Delano Coleman Esq.
Afghanistan is the belly-button of Asia. http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/countries/country_afghanistan.html
It is surrounded by the ancient Persians (Iran), the ancient Slavs (Indo-Europeans), the ancient Mongols (China), and ancient “Indians” (Pakistan). Then, too, “Afghanistan” boasts its own antiquity; it melded all of these forces under the spiritual influence of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and others. http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&zTi=1&sdn=ancienthistory&cdn=education&tm=107&gps=106_212_806_357&f=00&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/kush/hd_kush.htm
This land of 30 million Sunni and Shiite Muslims is known as “the grave yard of empires.” It represents a conundrum for American military might. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4lXzptzWTg.
Afghanistan is not really a “country.” It is a biomass whose improbable life is leeched from its strategic geography along trade routes, inaccessible mountainous redoubts, virulent, recombinant and militant tribalism (Pashto, Afghan Persian (Dari), Uzbek, Turkmen, 30 minor languages) and entrenched opium trade. http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&zTi=1&sdn=ancienthistory&cdn=education&tm=26&gps=67_69_806_357&f=00&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.fsmitha.com/h1/map13al.htm
It is an impoverished nation whose gross domestic product is approximately $700 per person, whose life expectancy is 46 years, and whose literacy rate is only about 36% of the population. http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/maps/map_country_afghanistan.html
“Jinn” -like are the people of Afghanistan, who have repelled all invaders, including Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the British, the Russians, and now the Americans and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it would appear. Their warlike tenacity and perseverance is legendary, mythical.
“In Islamic theology jinn are said to be creatures with free will, made from 'smokeless fire' by Allah in the same way humans were made of earth.[10] According to the Qur'an, Jinn have free will, and Iblis used this freedom in front of Allah by refusing to bow to Adam when Allah told Iblis to do so. By disobeying Allah, he was thrown out of Paradise and called “Shaitan”. Jinn are frequently mentioned in the Qur'an, Sura 72 of the Qur'an (named Al-Jinn) is entirely about them. Another Sura (Al-Nas) mentions Jinn in the last verse.[11] The Qur’an also mentions that Muhammad was sent as a prophet to both “humanity and the Djinn”.[12][13]
Similar to humans, jinn have free will allowing them to follow any religion they choose. They are usually invisible to humans and humans do not appear clear to them. However, jinn often harass and even possess humans, for various reasons, such as romantic infatuation, revenge, or because of a deal made with a practitioner of black magic. Jinns have the power to travel large distances extremely quickly and live in remote areas, mountains, seas, trees, and the air, in their own communities. Like humans, jinns will also be judged on the Day of Judgment and will be sent to Heaven or Hell according to their deeds.” [14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie
The Muslim holy book, the Quran provides in Surah 51:56-59:
051.056
YUSUFALI: I have only created Jinns and men, that they may serve Me.
PICKTHAL: I created the jinn and humankind only that they might worship Me.
SHAKIR: And I have not created the jinn and the men except that they should serve Me.
051.057
YUSUFALI: No Sustenance do I require of them, nor do I require that they should feed Me.
PICKTHAL: I seek no livelihood from them, nor do I ask that they should feed Me.
SHAKIR: I do not desire from them any sustenance and I do not desire that they should feed Me.
051.058
YUSUFALI: For Allah is He Who gives (all) Sustenance,- Lord of Power,- Steadfast (for ever).
PICKTHAL: Lo! Allah! He it is that giveth livelihood, the Lord of unbreakable might.
SHAKIR: Surely Allah is the Bestower of sustenance, the Lord of Power, the Strong.
051.059
YUSUFALI: For the Wrong-doers, their portion is like unto the portion of their fellows (of earlier generations): then let them not ask Me to hasten (that portion)!
PICKTHAL: And lo! for those who (now) do wrong there is an evil day like unto the evil day (which came for) their likes (of old); so let them not ask Me to hasten on (that day).
SHAKIR: So surely those who are unjust shall have a portion like the portion of their companions, therefore let them not ask Me to hasten on.
On December 1, 2009, when President Barack Obama announced an increase of 30,000 additional U.S. troops, for the subjugation of Afghanistan, I marveled that a brilliant black man who ran and was elected on a historic platform of “change we can believe in,” would acquiescence in, and, even raise the stakes upon, a course of conduct so fraught with futility.
How does one battle jinn, much less defeat them? And, supposing that we “win,” whatever that is, what have we won, worth having? Rocks, opium poppies? More important, how do we hold it, the rocks and the opium poppies of Afghanistan, for how long, to what end, and at what cost? Scott Ritter, a foreign policy expert and military intelligence officer, has raised similar concerns, in “McChrystal Doesn‘t Get It--Does Obama?” written in November 2009. http://dprogram.net/2009/11/02/mcchrystal-doesn%E2%80%99t-get-it-does-obama-scott-ritter/
It would appear that our brilliant young black president has been bewitched, if not beguiled, into making such a catastrophic decision in the midst of an economic crisis, diverting additional billions away from a domestic program too long deliberately deferred by domestic demons intent upon dominance.
In that respect, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said regarding the connection between militarism and the alleviation of domestic poverty, in his Riverside Church address in New York on April 4, 1967, entitled “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.”
Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html
What was true for Vietnam is perversely and conversely true for Afghanistan. Dr. King’s prophesy still rings true. Attempts to equate President Barack Obama, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and to conflate their legacies are vainly driven by illusionists and t-shirt marketers, being well off the mark. Dr. King was a prophet. President Obama is a “politician,” just like his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright said at his, now infamous, National Press Club appearance:
MODERATOR: What is your motivation for characterizing Senator Obama's response to you as, quote, "what a politician had to say"? What do you mean by that?
WRIGHT: What I mean is what several of my white friends and several of my white, Jewish friends have written me and said to me. They've said, "You're a Christian. You understand forgiveness. We both know that, if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected."
Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls, Huffington, whoever's doing the polls. Preachers say what they say because they're pastors. They have a different person to whom they're accountable.
As I said, whether he gets elected or not, I'm still going to have to be answerable to God November 5th and January 21st. That's what I mean. I do what pastors do. He does what politicians do.
I am not running for office. I am hoping to be vice president.
(LAUGHTER) http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2008/04/28/transcript-rev-wright-at-the-national-press-club/; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2H1dMbkYa4
Being a politician, President Obama has fallen sway to the powers and forces of the military industrial complex of which President Dwight Eisenhower warned as he left office:
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or, indeed, by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual --is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Unless ancient history reverse its inexorable course, which I doubt, the eerie echoes of Afghanistan will din into us the painful lessons taught former would-be conquerors of this dusty, distant, desiccated and denuded land: Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the United Kingdom, the former Soviet Union: “Welcome to the Graveyard of Empires, United States and NATO!”
Saudi Arabians, Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, perhaps, jinn themselves, are smokeless and invisible, except to other jinn in this desolate, mystical non-country now known as Afghanistan. Leave them to the tender mercy of the indigenous Taliban of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They, like other non-Pashtun invaders, will sooner or later get the boot from these bellicose, Islamic avatars who abhor literacy, modernity, science and women’s rights.
#30
Friday, October 9, 2009
By Larry Delano Coleman Esq.
Afghanistan is the belly-button of Asia. http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/countries/country_afghanistan.html
It is surrounded by the ancient Persians (Iran), the ancient Slavs (Indo-Europeans), the ancient Mongols (China), and ancient “Indians” (Pakistan). Then, too, “Afghanistan” boasts its own antiquity; it melded all of these forces under the spiritual influence of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and others. http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&zTi=1&sdn=ancienthistory&cdn=education&tm=107&gps=106_212_806_357&f=00&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/kush/hd_kush.htm
This land of 30 million Sunni and Shiite Muslims is known as “the grave yard of empires.” It represents a conundrum for American military might. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4lXzptzWTg.
Afghanistan is not really a “country.” It is a biomass whose improbable life is leeched from its strategic geography along trade routes, inaccessible mountainous redoubts, virulent, recombinant and militant tribalism (Pashto, Afghan Persian (Dari), Uzbek, Turkmen, 30 minor languages) and entrenched opium trade. http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&zTi=1&sdn=ancienthistory&cdn=education&tm=26&gps=67_69_806_357&f=00&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.fsmitha.com/h1/map13al.htm
It is an impoverished nation whose gross domestic product is approximately $700 per person, whose life expectancy is 46 years, and whose literacy rate is only about 36% of the population. http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/places/maps/map_country_afghanistan.html
“Jinn” -like are the people of Afghanistan, who have repelled all invaders, including Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the British, the Russians, and now the Americans and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it would appear. Their warlike tenacity and perseverance is legendary, mythical.
“In Islamic theology jinn are said to be creatures with free will, made from 'smokeless fire' by Allah in the same way humans were made of earth.[10] According to the Qur'an, Jinn have free will, and Iblis used this freedom in front of Allah by refusing to bow to Adam when Allah told Iblis to do so. By disobeying Allah, he was thrown out of Paradise and called “Shaitan”. Jinn are frequently mentioned in the Qur'an, Sura 72 of the Qur'an (named Al-Jinn) is entirely about them. Another Sura (Al-Nas) mentions Jinn in the last verse.[11] The Qur’an also mentions that Muhammad was sent as a prophet to both “humanity and the Djinn”.[12][13]
Similar to humans, jinn have free will allowing them to follow any religion they choose. They are usually invisible to humans and humans do not appear clear to them. However, jinn often harass and even possess humans, for various reasons, such as romantic infatuation, revenge, or because of a deal made with a practitioner of black magic. Jinns have the power to travel large distances extremely quickly and live in remote areas, mountains, seas, trees, and the air, in their own communities. Like humans, jinns will also be judged on the Day of Judgment and will be sent to Heaven or Hell according to their deeds.” [14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie
The Muslim holy book, the Quran provides in Surah 51:56-59:
051.056
YUSUFALI: I have only created Jinns and men, that they may serve Me.
PICKTHAL: I created the jinn and humankind only that they might worship Me.
SHAKIR: And I have not created the jinn and the men except that they should serve Me.
051.057
YUSUFALI: No Sustenance do I require of them, nor do I require that they should feed Me.
PICKTHAL: I seek no livelihood from them, nor do I ask that they should feed Me.
SHAKIR: I do not desire from them any sustenance and I do not desire that they should feed Me.
051.058
YUSUFALI: For Allah is He Who gives (all) Sustenance,- Lord of Power,- Steadfast (for ever).
PICKTHAL: Lo! Allah! He it is that giveth livelihood, the Lord of unbreakable might.
SHAKIR: Surely Allah is the Bestower of sustenance, the Lord of Power, the Strong.
051.059
YUSUFALI: For the Wrong-doers, their portion is like unto the portion of their fellows (of earlier generations): then let them not ask Me to hasten (that portion)!
PICKTHAL: And lo! for those who (now) do wrong there is an evil day like unto the evil day (which came for) their likes (of old); so let them not ask Me to hasten on (that day).
SHAKIR: So surely those who are unjust shall have a portion like the portion of their companions, therefore let them not ask Me to hasten on.
On December 1, 2009, when President Barack Obama announced an increase of 30,000 additional U.S. troops, for the subjugation of Afghanistan, I marveled that a brilliant black man who ran and was elected on a historic platform of “change we can believe in,” would acquiescence in, and, even raise the stakes upon, a course of conduct so fraught with futility.
How does one battle jinn, much less defeat them? And, supposing that we “win,” whatever that is, what have we won, worth having? Rocks, opium poppies? More important, how do we hold it, the rocks and the opium poppies of Afghanistan, for how long, to what end, and at what cost? Scott Ritter, a foreign policy expert and military intelligence officer, has raised similar concerns, in “McChrystal Doesn‘t Get It--Does Obama?” written in November 2009. http://dprogram.net/2009/11/02/mcchrystal-doesn%E2%80%99t-get-it-does-obama-scott-ritter/
It would appear that our brilliant young black president has been bewitched, if not beguiled, into making such a catastrophic decision in the midst of an economic crisis, diverting additional billions away from a domestic program too long deliberately deferred by domestic demons intent upon dominance.
In that respect, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said regarding the connection between militarism and the alleviation of domestic poverty, in his Riverside Church address in New York on April 4, 1967, entitled “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.”
Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html
What was true for Vietnam is perversely and conversely true for Afghanistan. Dr. King’s prophesy still rings true. Attempts to equate President Barack Obama, with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and to conflate their legacies are vainly driven by illusionists and t-shirt marketers, being well off the mark. Dr. King was a prophet. President Obama is a “politician,” just like his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright said at his, now infamous, National Press Club appearance:
MODERATOR: What is your motivation for characterizing Senator Obama's response to you as, quote, "what a politician had to say"? What do you mean by that?
WRIGHT: What I mean is what several of my white friends and several of my white, Jewish friends have written me and said to me. They've said, "You're a Christian. You understand forgiveness. We both know that, if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected."
Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls, Huffington, whoever's doing the polls. Preachers say what they say because they're pastors. They have a different person to whom they're accountable.
As I said, whether he gets elected or not, I'm still going to have to be answerable to God November 5th and January 21st. That's what I mean. I do what pastors do. He does what politicians do.
I am not running for office. I am hoping to be vice president.
(LAUGHTER) http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2008/04/28/transcript-rev-wright-at-the-national-press-club/; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2H1dMbkYa4
Being a politician, President Obama has fallen sway to the powers and forces of the military industrial complex of which President Dwight Eisenhower warned as he left office:
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or, indeed, by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual --is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Unless ancient history reverse its inexorable course, which I doubt, the eerie echoes of Afghanistan will din into us the painful lessons taught former would-be conquerors of this dusty, distant, desiccated and denuded land: Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the United Kingdom, the former Soviet Union: “Welcome to the Graveyard of Empires, United States and NATO!”
Saudi Arabians, Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, perhaps, jinn themselves, are smokeless and invisible, except to other jinn in this desolate, mystical non-country now known as Afghanistan. Leave them to the tender mercy of the indigenous Taliban of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They, like other non-Pashtun invaders, will sooner or later get the boot from these bellicose, Islamic avatars who abhor literacy, modernity, science and women’s rights.
#30
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Daddy Makes A Difference!
Sunday, June 20, 2010
“Daddy Makes A Difference!”
Sermon Delivered at:
Greater New Bethel A.M.E. Church
Kansas City, Kansas
(Rev. Edward Walzer, Jr. Pastor)
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Occasion: “Father’s Day”
Today, is Fathers’ Day!
All fathers, please stand and take a bow!
Ladies, give these brothers a hand!
All of us have fathers.
Whether we know their names or not.
Whether we’ve met them or not.
Whether we love them or not.
We all have fathers.
No Mother could be a “mother” without the timely, indispensible help of a father. And no father could be a “father” with the timely, indispensible help of a mother.
The Bible says:
Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf. Job 21:10 (KJV)
Their ox is ready at all times to give seed; their cow gives birth, without dropping her young. Job 21:10 (Bible in Basic English)
Today church, I’ve come to let you know that “Daddy Makes A Difference.” What I say? “Daddy Makes A Difference!”
The idea for an official “Father’s Day,” ironically, came up just two years after the first official Mothers’ Day. One hundred years ago, in 1910, a married woman in Spokane, Washington, named Sonora Smart Dodd was in church. While listening to the preacher extol the virtues of mothers, she reflected that she and her five (5) brothers had been raised by their father, a farmer, following the death of her mother in child birth. Her father’s efforts called to mind the unsung feats of fathers everywhere. So, she worked to make Fahter’s Day official. From that beginning the idea spread, until President Nixon made it official in 1972, some 62 years later. http://www.ideafinder.com/guest/calendar/fathersday.htm
That just goes to show that persistence pays off. Listening in church helps, too.
Both mothers and fathers, males and females, make up the “phylum” known as “Man.”
Both were created in the image and the likeness of God. Genesis 1:26-28 states:
26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
In biology, a phylum (plural: phyla)[note 1] is a taxonomic rank below Kingdom and above Class. "Phylum" is equivalent to the botanical term division.[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylum
God did not simply create us to praise and to worship him. God also put us here to work, “to till the ground from whence he was taken.” Gen. 3:22. God put “us” out, expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, when they disobeyed. Gen 3:
22And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
23Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
If you don’t obey, you deserve to get put out. If you get too big for your britches, you will be chastised. Under my roof it’s either my way or the highway.
That includes getting a job. If you can’t find a job, make your own job! I had a lady deliver me a delicious turkey dinner this past Friday to my office. I met her at Gilbert A.M.E. Church, where I preached last Sunday. She made her own job. And she got paid. Work is good. “Rust kills quicker than wear,” they say.
We were put here to work. The Bible says 19In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Genesis 3:19
Even Jesus worked! Praise be to God, Jesus still works in you and me, and through you and me!
In John 9:4, he said: I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
Hear me now, church, Daddy’s work! That’s what Daddy’s do. Being Daddy is work. And for me, being Daddy is fun. In addition to work, however, Daddy’s also:
Love
Provide
Protect
Respect
Empower
Forgive
Encourage
Cleanse
Teach
Inspire
Discipline.
These are things that Daddy’s do. Daddy’s make a difference!
Without Earl Woods, there’d be no Tiger Woods.
Without Martin Luther King, Sr. there’d be no Martin Luther King, Jr.
Without George Bush, there’d be no George W. Bush (sigh)
Even Barack Obama’s Daddy, whom he barely knew, made a difference. Read Dreams of My Father, please.
The Williams Sisters Daddy made them.
And Rev. C.L. Franklin made the Diva, Aretha Franklin –R E S P E C T!—
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my own Daddy, Elvis Mitchell Coleman, who married my Momma in 1950, and who produced 8 children, all of whom went to college, 7 of whom graduated. Neither one of my parents finished high school.
Daddy makes a difference, church. Daddy makes a difference!
In fact, open your Bibles to John 9:1 and read quietly as I read:
1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.
8 The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged?
9 Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he.
10 Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened?
11 He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.
12 Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not.
13 They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind.
14 And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.
15 Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see.
16 Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.
17 They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.
18 But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight.
19 And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see?
20 His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind:
21 But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself.
22 These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.
23 Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him.
24 Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner.
25 He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.D
Daddy makes a difference! And Big Daddy makes a big difference!
You can ask the woman at the well. Daddy makes a difference!
You can ask the 10 lepers who were healed. Daddy makes a difference!
You can ask the woman caught in adultery. Daddy makes a difference!
You can ask the 5,000 he fed with 2 fish and 5 barley loves. Daddy makes a difference!
You can ask our 4 million forefathers whom he delivered from slavery! Daddy makes a difference!
You can ask me, as he lifted me off the death bed, and gave me health, strength, love, power, compassion and undying faith in his holy name!
Daddy makes a difference! Daddy makes a difference! Daddy makes a difference!
Amen.
“Daddy Makes A Difference!”
Sermon Delivered at:
Greater New Bethel A.M.E. Church
Kansas City, Kansas
(Rev. Edward Walzer, Jr. Pastor)
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Occasion: “Father’s Day”
Today, is Fathers’ Day!
All fathers, please stand and take a bow!
Ladies, give these brothers a hand!
All of us have fathers.
Whether we know their names or not.
Whether we’ve met them or not.
Whether we love them or not.
We all have fathers.
No Mother could be a “mother” without the timely, indispensible help of a father. And no father could be a “father” with the timely, indispensible help of a mother.
The Bible says:
Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf. Job 21:10 (KJV)
Their ox is ready at all times to give seed; their cow gives birth, without dropping her young. Job 21:10 (Bible in Basic English)
Today church, I’ve come to let you know that “Daddy Makes A Difference.” What I say? “Daddy Makes A Difference!”
The idea for an official “Father’s Day,” ironically, came up just two years after the first official Mothers’ Day. One hundred years ago, in 1910, a married woman in Spokane, Washington, named Sonora Smart Dodd was in church. While listening to the preacher extol the virtues of mothers, she reflected that she and her five (5) brothers had been raised by their father, a farmer, following the death of her mother in child birth. Her father’s efforts called to mind the unsung feats of fathers everywhere. So, she worked to make Fahter’s Day official. From that beginning the idea spread, until President Nixon made it official in 1972, some 62 years later. http://www.ideafinder.com/guest/calendar/fathersday.htm
That just goes to show that persistence pays off. Listening in church helps, too.
Both mothers and fathers, males and females, make up the “phylum” known as “Man.”
Both were created in the image and the likeness of God. Genesis 1:26-28 states:
26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
In biology, a phylum (plural: phyla)[note 1] is a taxonomic rank below Kingdom and above Class. "Phylum" is equivalent to the botanical term division.[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylum
God did not simply create us to praise and to worship him. God also put us here to work, “to till the ground from whence he was taken.” Gen. 3:22. God put “us” out, expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, when they disobeyed. Gen 3:
22And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
23Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
If you don’t obey, you deserve to get put out. If you get too big for your britches, you will be chastised. Under my roof it’s either my way or the highway.
That includes getting a job. If you can’t find a job, make your own job! I had a lady deliver me a delicious turkey dinner this past Friday to my office. I met her at Gilbert A.M.E. Church, where I preached last Sunday. She made her own job. And she got paid. Work is good. “Rust kills quicker than wear,” they say.
We were put here to work. The Bible says 19In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Genesis 3:19
Even Jesus worked! Praise be to God, Jesus still works in you and me, and through you and me!
In John 9:4, he said: I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
Hear me now, church, Daddy’s work! That’s what Daddy’s do. Being Daddy is work. And for me, being Daddy is fun. In addition to work, however, Daddy’s also:
Love
Provide
Protect
Respect
Empower
Forgive
Encourage
Cleanse
Teach
Inspire
Discipline.
These are things that Daddy’s do. Daddy’s make a difference!
Without Earl Woods, there’d be no Tiger Woods.
Without Martin Luther King, Sr. there’d be no Martin Luther King, Jr.
Without George Bush, there’d be no George W. Bush (sigh)
Even Barack Obama’s Daddy, whom he barely knew, made a difference. Read Dreams of My Father, please.
The Williams Sisters Daddy made them.
And Rev. C.L. Franklin made the Diva, Aretha Franklin –R E S P E C T!—
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my own Daddy, Elvis Mitchell Coleman, who married my Momma in 1950, and who produced 8 children, all of whom went to college, 7 of whom graduated. Neither one of my parents finished high school.
Daddy makes a difference, church. Daddy makes a difference!
In fact, open your Bibles to John 9:1 and read quietly as I read:
1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.
8 The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged?
9 Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he.
10 Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened?
11 He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.
12 Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not.
13 They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind.
14 And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.
15 Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see.
16 Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.
17 They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.
18 But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight.
19 And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see?
20 His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind:
21 But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself.
22 These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.
23 Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him.
24 Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner.
25 He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.D
Daddy makes a difference! And Big Daddy makes a big difference!
You can ask the woman at the well. Daddy makes a difference!
You can ask the 10 lepers who were healed. Daddy makes a difference!
You can ask the woman caught in adultery. Daddy makes a difference!
You can ask the 5,000 he fed with 2 fish and 5 barley loves. Daddy makes a difference!
You can ask our 4 million forefathers whom he delivered from slavery! Daddy makes a difference!
You can ask me, as he lifted me off the death bed, and gave me health, strength, love, power, compassion and undying faith in his holy name!
Daddy makes a difference! Daddy makes a difference! Daddy makes a difference!
Amen.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
"Easy Like Sunday Morning"
Gilbert A.M.E. Church
Kansas City, Missouri
(Rev. Brenda J. Smith, Pastor)
“EASY LIKE SUNDAY MORNING”
Sermon by Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Delivered on Sunday, June 13, 2010
Lionel Richie, the great singer/arranger/composer, etc. has popularized the song, “Easy”:
Know it sounds funny but I just can’t stand the pain.
Girl, I’m leaving you tomorrow.
Seems to me girl you know I’ve done all I can
You know I beg stole and I borrowed. Yeah.
Oooh, that’s why I’m easy,
Easy like Sunday Morning.
That’s why I’m easy,
Easy like Sunday Morning.
Well, long before Lionel Richie and/or the Commodores—“Aww, she’s a Brick House, she’s mighty mighty, just let’n it all hang out!”--
Jesus had already said: For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:30.
That’s today subject: “Easy like Sunday Morning.”
There is a popular saying known as the KISS Principle. Kiss stands for “Keep it simple stupid!” “Keep it simple stupid!”
The KISS principle states that simplicity should be a key goal in design, and that unnecessary complexity should be avoided.
The acronym was first coined by Kelly Johnson, lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works (creators of the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes, among many others).
The principle is best exemplified by the story of Johnson handing a team of design engineers a handful of tools, with the challenge that the jet aircraft they were designing must be repairable by an average mechanic in the field under combat conditions with only these tools. Hence, the 'stupid' refers to the relationship between the way things break and the sophistication available to fix them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
Sometimes, things break down in our lives. But, if we remember the KISS principle, we’ll be able to fix them. The tools in our hands are the words and life of Jesus.
He said in Matthew 11:28-30:
28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
We are the ordinary, every day mechanics. Life is our jet aircraft, which regardless of its level of sophistication, breaks down.
Then, is when we need to apply the tools of Jesus to fix our problems and fix our lives.
Romans 9:15-18 says:
15For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
17For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Too, often, in this Christian walk, man has imposed his rules, his tastes, his predilections, upon us and misrepresented them God's.
For example, when I was a little boy, it was considered a sin to:
Go to a baseball game
Dance
Wear Lip stick or skirts at or –Lord help us--above the knee
Drink any kind of alcohol
Listen to blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll
In fact, just about everything was a sin, especially if it was fun, except going to church 24-7.
But now, there’s no more sin in baseball. Folks now dance in church. Lip stick is common. Dresses are now at or above the knee. Blues and rhythm and blues are played in the church—“Easy like Sunday Morning.”
We’re coming out from under a cloud. The storm is almost gone. The cloud was a cloud of hypocrisy.
Take alcohol. Jesus’ first miracle was changing water to wine at a wedding. Notice it was at a wedding. Not in the work place. Not on a street corner, hello. Not in a school or church. Hello.
At weddings people drank wine and champagne, too. In fact, Jesus drank wine.
Earlier, in Matthew 11, he said:
16But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,
17And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
18For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.
19The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
At the last supper, Matthew 26:29, Jesus said: "But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."
The pericope reads:
26And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
27And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;
28For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
29But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
Applying the KISS principle in our day to day lives, we can overcome the world, church! Overcome the world!
1 John 5: 1-5 shows how to overcome the world:
5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
Our faith is the victory. Our faith in Jesus Christ. We show that we love him by keeping his commandments.
In fact, Jesus even simplified the commandments. There used to be ten. He reduced them, simplified them, to two. They are now called "the summary of the Decalogue":
Mark 12:30-31
And 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.
And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
The background context for this simplification is found also in Mark 12:
28And 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 oh 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.
Gilbert A.M.E.! Keep it simple. Take it easy. Hear. Love the Lord. Love your neighor. Love yourself.
May God bless you, and God keep you. Amen! “Easy Like Sunday Morning.”
#30
Kansas City, Missouri
(Rev. Brenda J. Smith, Pastor)
“EASY LIKE SUNDAY MORNING”
Sermon by Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Delivered on Sunday, June 13, 2010
Lionel Richie, the great singer/arranger/composer, etc. has popularized the song, “Easy”:
Know it sounds funny but I just can’t stand the pain.
Girl, I’m leaving you tomorrow.
Seems to me girl you know I’ve done all I can
You know I beg stole and I borrowed. Yeah.
Oooh, that’s why I’m easy,
Easy like Sunday Morning.
That’s why I’m easy,
Easy like Sunday Morning.
Well, long before Lionel Richie and/or the Commodores—“Aww, she’s a Brick House, she’s mighty mighty, just let’n it all hang out!”--
Jesus had already said: For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:30.
That’s today subject: “Easy like Sunday Morning.”
There is a popular saying known as the KISS Principle. Kiss stands for “Keep it simple stupid!” “Keep it simple stupid!”
The KISS principle states that simplicity should be a key goal in design, and that unnecessary complexity should be avoided.
The acronym was first coined by Kelly Johnson, lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works (creators of the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes, among many others).
The principle is best exemplified by the story of Johnson handing a team of design engineers a handful of tools, with the challenge that the jet aircraft they were designing must be repairable by an average mechanic in the field under combat conditions with only these tools. Hence, the 'stupid' refers to the relationship between the way things break and the sophistication available to fix them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
Sometimes, things break down in our lives. But, if we remember the KISS principle, we’ll be able to fix them. The tools in our hands are the words and life of Jesus.
He said in Matthew 11:28-30:
28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
We are the ordinary, every day mechanics. Life is our jet aircraft, which regardless of its level of sophistication, breaks down.
Then, is when we need to apply the tools of Jesus to fix our problems and fix our lives.
Romans 9:15-18 says:
15For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
17For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Too, often, in this Christian walk, man has imposed his rules, his tastes, his predilections, upon us and misrepresented them God's.
For example, when I was a little boy, it was considered a sin to:
Go to a baseball game
Dance
Wear Lip stick or skirts at or –Lord help us--above the knee
Drink any kind of alcohol
Listen to blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll
In fact, just about everything was a sin, especially if it was fun, except going to church 24-7.
But now, there’s no more sin in baseball. Folks now dance in church. Lip stick is common. Dresses are now at or above the knee. Blues and rhythm and blues are played in the church—“Easy like Sunday Morning.”
We’re coming out from under a cloud. The storm is almost gone. The cloud was a cloud of hypocrisy.
Take alcohol. Jesus’ first miracle was changing water to wine at a wedding. Notice it was at a wedding. Not in the work place. Not on a street corner, hello. Not in a school or church. Hello.
At weddings people drank wine and champagne, too. In fact, Jesus drank wine.
Earlier, in Matthew 11, he said:
16But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,
17And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
18For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.
19The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
At the last supper, Matthew 26:29, Jesus said: "But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."
The pericope reads:
26And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
27And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;
28For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
29But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
Applying the KISS principle in our day to day lives, we can overcome the world, church! Overcome the world!
1 John 5: 1-5 shows how to overcome the world:
5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
Our faith is the victory. Our faith in Jesus Christ. We show that we love him by keeping his commandments.
In fact, Jesus even simplified the commandments. There used to be ten. He reduced them, simplified them, to two. They are now called "the summary of the Decalogue":
Mark 12:30-31
And 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.
And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
The background context for this simplification is found also in Mark 12:
28And 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 oh 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.
Gilbert A.M.E.! Keep it simple. Take it easy. Hear. Love the Lord. Love your neighor. Love yourself.
May God bless you, and God keep you. Amen! “Easy Like Sunday Morning.”
#30
Friday, June 4, 2010
“Racism:” America’s “Toxic Tort”
“Racism:” America’s “Toxic Tort”
Racism is the systemic deprivation of all variants of human dignity based upon one’s perceived ancestry, by "white people", its inventors.
Systemic deprivation means “ubiquitous,” i.e., universal injury against certain “persons,” especially African descendents, who are impaired, divested, disabled, or disallowed from or in every day pursuits.
“Variants of human dignity” means that whole panoply of human endeavors, from earning income, to being educated, to living in a house, to religious and musical expression, to sports and the arts, to marrying and raising a family—in short, just plain living, including, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, itself.
“White people,” are people of Western European descent who are or who become inexorable beneficiaries of assorted rights, privileges and opportunities, without more, so long as they adhered to the predominant mores of North American (and formerly Southern African) “white people": being racist against blacks, ipse dixit.
Early English settlers in Virginia invented racism at Jamestown in North America, after 1619, when a Dutch man of war brought 20 captured Africans there, who were traded for tobacco. These early blacks became indentured servants, among the settlers, just like the white indentured servants with whom they co-existed and cohabited, under the sovereignty of the colonial master caste.
This colonial master caste invented racism to divide the black indentured servants from the white indentured servants, especially after Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, wherein the indentured servants, black and white, rose up against the colonial caste under the leadership of a scion of the landed gentry and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, Nathaniel Bacon. Bacon died before the rebellion concluded, which at any event failed. But, it succeeded in causing the master caste to construct, encode and enforce ever deepening distinctions, between whites and blacks, eventually codified in law and custom and calcified in economics and culture. See Cooper, William J, Liberty and Slavery: Southern Politics to 1860, Univ of South Carolina Press, 2001, p. 9-10. http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Slavery-Southern-Politics-1860/dp/1570033870#reader_1570033870.
Because white people invented “racism” which furnished them an economic boon, and was a white unifying force, racism not only has subsisted, and persisted; it has flourished, it has exponentially multiplied, as a staple of American democracy, as originally reflected in the U.S. Constitution and as formally declared in many United States Supreme Court decisions.
Under these decisions, Blacks were not “outlaws.” They were outside the law: Other. They were non-persons, “invisible men” to quote Ralph Ellison, author of the eponymously named classic, Invisible Man. http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Man-Ralph-Ellison/dp/0679732764
Like the oil now gushing forth into the Gulf of Mexico, racism also gushed forth, like a plague, across the United States of America, and into every fiber, sanctuary, and estuary of American life. We are still endeavoring to mop up its lethal and lubricious legacy. It spread all over America, because its benefits covered all of white America, whether they wanted it to or not.
Moreover, as oil is toxic, so is racism. As oil has many byproducts, so does racism. As oil is ugly, so is racism. Racism is toxic. As practiced, racism is also a “tort,” a civil wrong. Even so, lawyers typically classify racism under “civil rights.” There’s nothing right about racism. It is America’s toxic tort: crying out for remediation.
If we would contribute the soon—to—be billions of dollars used to attempt to staunch the oil gusher to also attempt to staunch the racism gusher, America and the world would be a better place. The oil is a mere metaphor. May neither oil, nor racism, presage an All--American Apocalypse. And, may both be overcome in the near term!
Racism is the systemic deprivation of all variants of human dignity based upon one’s perceived ancestry, by "white people", its inventors.
Systemic deprivation means “ubiquitous,” i.e., universal injury against certain “persons,” especially African descendents, who are impaired, divested, disabled, or disallowed from or in every day pursuits.
“Variants of human dignity” means that whole panoply of human endeavors, from earning income, to being educated, to living in a house, to religious and musical expression, to sports and the arts, to marrying and raising a family—in short, just plain living, including, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, itself.
“White people,” are people of Western European descent who are or who become inexorable beneficiaries of assorted rights, privileges and opportunities, without more, so long as they adhered to the predominant mores of North American (and formerly Southern African) “white people": being racist against blacks, ipse dixit.
Early English settlers in Virginia invented racism at Jamestown in North America, after 1619, when a Dutch man of war brought 20 captured Africans there, who were traded for tobacco. These early blacks became indentured servants, among the settlers, just like the white indentured servants with whom they co-existed and cohabited, under the sovereignty of the colonial master caste.
This colonial master caste invented racism to divide the black indentured servants from the white indentured servants, especially after Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, wherein the indentured servants, black and white, rose up against the colonial caste under the leadership of a scion of the landed gentry and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, Nathaniel Bacon. Bacon died before the rebellion concluded, which at any event failed. But, it succeeded in causing the master caste to construct, encode and enforce ever deepening distinctions, between whites and blacks, eventually codified in law and custom and calcified in economics and culture. See Cooper, William J, Liberty and Slavery: Southern Politics to 1860, Univ of South Carolina Press, 2001, p. 9-10. http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Slavery-Southern-Politics-1860/dp/1570033870#reader_1570033870.
Because white people invented “racism” which furnished them an economic boon, and was a white unifying force, racism not only has subsisted, and persisted; it has flourished, it has exponentially multiplied, as a staple of American democracy, as originally reflected in the U.S. Constitution and as formally declared in many United States Supreme Court decisions.
Under these decisions, Blacks were not “outlaws.” They were outside the law: Other. They were non-persons, “invisible men” to quote Ralph Ellison, author of the eponymously named classic, Invisible Man. http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Man-Ralph-Ellison/dp/0679732764
Like the oil now gushing forth into the Gulf of Mexico, racism also gushed forth, like a plague, across the United States of America, and into every fiber, sanctuary, and estuary of American life. We are still endeavoring to mop up its lethal and lubricious legacy. It spread all over America, because its benefits covered all of white America, whether they wanted it to or not.
Moreover, as oil is toxic, so is racism. As oil has many byproducts, so does racism. As oil is ugly, so is racism. Racism is toxic. As practiced, racism is also a “tort,” a civil wrong. Even so, lawyers typically classify racism under “civil rights.” There’s nothing right about racism. It is America’s toxic tort: crying out for remediation.
If we would contribute the soon—to—be billions of dollars used to attempt to staunch the oil gusher to also attempt to staunch the racism gusher, America and the world would be a better place. The oil is a mere metaphor. May neither oil, nor racism, presage an All--American Apocalypse. And, may both be overcome in the near term!
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