On Racism in America– Where we have come from

On Racism in America– Where we have come from   -Sept 30, 2016

( I cannot believe it's 60 years since the 1950's and we are still dealing with this)

I had a head-start liking black people. Not that I knew anyone black growing up.

There was one black kid in my high school; the exchange student from Uganda. And I would see an older black woman waiting at a bus stop from time to time, and somehow I understood, she was a cleaning lady for some white family. No, I didn't get my head-start in high school. I got my head-start from my father's jazz record collection. My Father loved Satchmo, the master, Louis Armstrong, also known as, “Pops”.

From wikipedia- “Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over", whose skin color was secondary to his music in an America that was extremely racially divided. He rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, but took a well-publicized stand for desegregation in the Little Rock Crisis. His artistry and personality allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society which were highly restricted for black men of his era.”

I, myself, did not adequately appreciate Mr. Armstrong. But there were many others in my father's collection that I enjoyed more.

As a boy, I remember a road trip we took to Florida. I still remember going to some run-down, dirty, “filling stations” for gas in the South and seeing a sign on the rest room door, “Whites Only”. That would have been in the late fifties. I was maybe ten years old.

I also saw very slender, meagerly dressed, black folk in the cotton-fields of the South working under the sun in the fields, and some of the shacks that they may have worked and lived out of. A very different time in America. And not one I am proud to report.

I merely state it as the time I came out of.

     By the beginning of the sixties, I had started my own record collection, with some very prized jazz and old blues records. I had also started reading a series of books which were pivotal in my belated education, for I certainly did not get much, if any, useful information from school. I read “Black Like Me”, by Griffin, a white reporter who dyed his skin black, and traveled through the South, and reported his experience.

I remember books by Dick Gregory describing his feelings and thoughts; “From the back of the Bus” and “Nigger-an auto-biography”. Eldridge Cleaver's, “Soul on Ice” made quite an impact on me. There were also others; “Man-child in the Promised Land” by Claude Brown, “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, and “Go Tell It On The Mountain” by James Baldwin.

     All this is to say, by 1969, I was quite ready for Richie Havens opening the show at Woodstock and I remember his set since I happened to be there, somewhat by coincidence.

     I was about 19 at that time and still did not know my ass from a hole in the ground. The fact that Richie was the only one ready to go on and that he carried the whole weight of the entire event on his shoulders, and they kept sending him back out to keep playing, because they did not have anyone else to put on, still brings tears to my eyes, as I think of what a pure spirit he was and what a gift of his beautiful soul he gave us that night. 

      During that golden time in history when we somehow thought we had vanquished, or at least had met the monster of segregation and racism, and had the beginning of a solution, we deluded ourselves that we ourselves were not racist. But of course, we were young and did not realize how deep were planted the seeds of our fears and all the subtle ways we all participated in the collective choice of society to defend the elevated position of white privilege. That understanding would take many more decades to begin to explore.

      But the upside was that we had opened a door and we were able to enjoy James Brown, Jimmy Preston, Sly Stone, ( especially Sly Stone who brought the whole situation together under one exulted vision ), Stevie Wonder, and the whole galaxy of black humans who shared their special appreciation for the miracle of life.

      And the special tragedy now, even after electing a black president who has been vilified by a sizeable number of Americans, even after all the beauty black men and black women have shared with America and the world, we are still embroiled in the same fear of losing our own sense of specialness as unique humans.    So we all have some “splain-ing” to do, as Desi Arnaz used to say to Lucille Ball.    We have work to do to see ourselves as one human race, equally precious and valuable in God's eyes.    Maybe if we try to see it from God's eyes instead of our own, we will be further along.

Talking to God as if we used human words, even though I know no words can explain God

Holy Creator 

what do I do when I don't feel worthy

of Your love,    when I doubt? 

And before I finished the thinking the thought,

The Holy Creator whispered to me the answer,

                                                    without scorn and with great kindness:

"Do not be afraid, my son,

you are part of my Creation,

you are one of my children,

you will always be loved by Me.

you are not alone for your fate is the same fate reserved for all life, 

you will return to Me, when it is your time...

and you are only forgetting the blessings you have already been given by Me

and you are only forgetting you are special but no more special than the others

and you are only forgetting to live not in your mind which is full of fears,

for that is the smallest part of you,

the smallest part of the many blessings you have been given by Me,"

Holy Creator

what do I do when my heart is weak and small,

like a little baby bird fluttering in it's nest,

what do I do when my vision is weak,

and I cannot read Your words?

And again the Creator spoke to me without rancor and without derision:

"Do not be afraid, my son,

My words were inscribed on your heart

at the same time your parents

lovingly called your name

and brought your soul forth

out of My divine energy...

and you are only forgetting you are not like a man-made machine,

and you are only forgetting your parts are not like the parts of a clock,

and you are only forgetting you breathe the borrowed air of My forests,

for all creatures breathe My air and drink of My waters, and share My spirit"

Thank You Lord of Life, my Rock, thank You Great Spirit

Thank You Nameless One for I will try to remember and try to see You in my heart

Thank You for lifting me up and bringing me to Your sacred and holy world of life.

Reasoning with God - Coming to Terms with Atheism and Arrogance

Dear Lord, dear Lord, dear Lord, hear my prayer,

I need You, I need to remember it is not all about me,

but how do I walk the line?

How do I strut the high wire of my pride

and also know that I am as nothing in Your Greater World,

but still I touch Your divinity when I vault through the echoes of my endless mind,

becoming lost in the infinity my ideas, for there is no end to our imagination,

which is really Your Grand Imagination, Your Great Intelligence active in me,

when I let go of thinking I am separate from You,

for the more I see how intimately You have created this world and us,

and how You woven the perfection of this miracle we are in,

the more patience I can allow myself,

the more eager I am to see how your marvelous landscape

changes in impossibly small steps,

defying me to observe how You blend Day into Night,

Spring into Summer, each tiny increment of Your Timeless Time,

bubbling and tumbling over each other, like the froth of an ocean wave

making it's way up the shore, flowing and ebbing, breathing in and breathing out,

a harmony we do not comprehend, because we are woven so deeply into it,

we cannot stand back far enough to see it,

and even if we could define our reality without seeing ourselves in it,

Where would we stand Then and Who would we Be?

If we divorce our infant understanding from Your Great love

and kick ourselves out of the Garden, declaring we do not want to live in Your faith,

and Your Spiritual and Supernatural World hold no interest for Us,

because:

We do not believe in anything except what our senses tell us,

We do not believe in anything except our own adult abilities, and we do not owe anything to anybody;

And if we do all of these things, are we then free?

Can we move about the cabin freely, knowing we fly only by our own power,

and there is nothing more to life, than what we can see with our eyes?

We are untethered to anything more than ourselves,and we travel free, owing no debts, for we sprang like a Jack in the Box out of nothing, and everything is emptiness and can be expressed by a mathematical equation,

And we 'believe' we will solve the mystery of our origin

by peering out into space and back into time,

we believe we will see our eventual destiny?

And all these things we do   are solely because of our own intelligence and will,

which we inherited from no one,

and the universe is a big clock, free of soul or intention,

and everything has a cause and effect, including atheism,

and lastly, there is nothing we cannot know, 

except ourselves when we deny our Connection to You.

Speak first to Your God when you wake

A Poem and a Prayer without Rhyme or Reason     Aug 2016     408 words

Speak first to your God when you wake,

say a blessing of thanks to the miracle of life,
the Gift which we can never repay,
just as we can never adequately thank our parents,
for all they have done to birth and to nurture us,
to dream and to live in that dream of all of our possibilities,

to give of themselves without reservation,
to respond to our tantrums and upsets with love,
just as the Great Spirit has done in the Creation of the Living Earth,
allowing all creatures to have a chance at life,
to know and to touch each other, to smell the wind and the rain,
to feel sunlight on our skin,
to see the constant motion of white changing clouds in the ever-changing sky,
and to be aware of our life and our small death,

to be aware of what it is to be human and connected
to an innumerable number of other humans in ways we cannot imagine,
and finally to know what it is to touch material reality
and feel the friction of living life as corporeal bodies in intimate contact
with all the marvels of our physical world,

a gift we will give up eventually when we return to the pure
spirit of the God's infinite universe and God's primeval energy,
and irrevocably join again with God's greater truth
of pure yearning and intention,
spirit seeking concrete form, desiring connection and contact
with the sweetness and honey of knowing life,

always pilgrims on a journey of faith, never reaching our limits,
but pushing the boundaries of our awareness,
and also enlarging our appreciation of the Gift,
constantly refreshed each day we get to draw another breath of the air we borrow from our brother and sister trees,
the breath which swirls around this fine earth,
assuming the shape of all our various forms,
our cousin caterpillars, the leviathan whales in the ocean,
the whirling hummingbirds, the buzzing bees,

God's infinite om of pulsating intention whispering in our primitive ears,

“love life, love the Gift you have been given, for it is precious and beyond price,
see the hand of God working to give you this opportunity to recognize this miracle that the hand of Man did not create,”

so speak first to your God when you wake and bless the Gift which we can never repay.

Keeping America Good Again

The following is one of the best things I have seen about making ourselves and keeping ourselves great.  I would suggest we change it "keeping America Good".

Excerpted From “Making America great again” August 2016

*Not an ad for Mr. Trump

• a short essay by Richard Nelson
  
• for the full article, see the link below
  

http://www.richmondregister.com/opinion/making-america-great-again/article_059bd068-689e-11e6-ba6e-bb630c757f87.html

*NOTE 

even though Richard Nelson is a conservative, my feeling is that he wrote this in contradiction to Mr. Donald Trump, and as an attempt to show that Trump has it all wrong in his race-baiting and rabble-rousing. Trump has not spoken about God and maybe no candidate wants to go there, but Mr. Nelson gives us a true definition of becoming great because we know God is the source of any greatness we may hope to achieve.

Richard Nelson wrote in part:

“Here’s where we can start:  Cultivate character.
Take ownership of your life and the choices you make.
Guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. Be careful with your words and be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.
Live a life of gratitude. Realize that God made you for a purpose. You are unique with gifts and abilities and talents unlike anyone else.
Be careful with your time, for we are only allotted so many days on this earth. Be diligent in your work and pursue excellence.
Invest in your family more carefully than you invest in your retirement, for that’s your real treasure. Nurture your children and love them deeply.
Train them to walk in goodness, justice and mercy. Invest in your community and practice good citizenship.
Minister to the needy. Care for the widows and orphans and help those who cannot help themselves.
Love your neighbor as yourself and love even more the God who gave that commandment.
Ok, end of sermon. But shouldn’t we preach these kind of things to ourselves daily?”

My Morning Meditation

My Morning Meditation   Friday 16^th of Sept 2016

in the mellow morning, I ponder Your delights,

after my forgotten dreams and the darkness of my nights,

in the always pregnant quiet of a day both cool and fair,

I breathe a breath of Your sweet peace and put all my small hopes there,

for there is no stillness in Your Vision, there is no empty in Your rhyme,

and if I sense it clearly, there is no change in Your unending time,

yes, although I feel the weight of mighty dunes of slipping sand,

in my hourglass of measured time, I also feel Your loving Hand,

always on my shoulder, always cupping the offered gift,

a chance to see a little way along Your Continental Drift,

You put me on the planet, You put me on this plane,

so I could see the miracle and have a small chance to explain,

my joy to all my brothers, and see Your light reflected in their eyes,

and know that all of us live and breathe beneath Your silken skies,

so thank You holy awesome God, even though I possess not a clue,

no matter what words I try to use, may my heart be always with You.

HAND WRITING YOUR DREAM

Hand Writing Your Dream - You are More than what the world tells you

inspired by “Wouldn't take Nothing for My Journey Now” – by Maya Angelou

Oh my brothers, and Oh my sisters, how hard it is to find our way,
when everything on the menu does not include what we really need,
when we confuse what we really need with what we think we want,
and it is so hard to know what it is that winds our clock,

when we look with our eyes and forget to look with our hearts,
and we let the fear take hold and let the world set our agenda,
and we forget the agenda of the world often leaves out the real things,
and the real things are not always stated and not on the menu,

then your eyes are no good for seeing what our hearts need,
and you have to look deep inside to know what winds your clock,
what keeps your spirit free, your heart at peace, your soul intact,
and ready to do the bidding of your clear mind,

so you must hand-write a new menu, with the choices that matter to you,
and you are not bound by the world's agenda, but only by what is real for you,
you have set yourself free and now you know there is a difference,
between what we need and what we want, and what is on the world's menu,

there is a difference between letting fear be the driver
or letting your own soul be the driver and seeing with your heart
how you want the world to be, that you make the choice when you decide
to live your dream and refuse to accept that others have any right to interfere,

or try to diminish what you can imagine with your fearless heart, 

with your clear mind,
with all your many abilities engaged in living your dream,

 and keeping it real and fresh,
living on the crest of your own personal tsunami, 

your desire to live and to be free,
and your desire to create your world 

and to create the menu that has the choices you have chosen,

see yourself as part of the Big Parade, your life is precious and to be valued,
you have a duty to those who came before you,

 those who helped cut a path through the fear;
they chose hope over fear so that you can live in the light,

knowing freedom lives in our spirits and our hearts,
when we allow ourselves to pay back the gift we have been given.