Monday, March 24, 2025

BEYOND THE NOT SO INDELIBLE IMPRESSIONS OF OUR DOGMA

 




The Challenges of Being and Becoming

The tension between who we are and who we must become in order to realize our fullest human potential is real. That tension is, for many, a source of great physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma. 


The demands of growth and change can seem overwhelming, but to maintain our health and sustain our general well-being we must at some point make a determination to meet them. This process is without doubt uncomfortable, since it involves our breaking out of old ways into new ways of being and behaving. Some of us recognize and embrace the change that grows us; while some of us will have that change forced upon us in the very midst of our unwillingness.


Over the course of our lives, and from one generation to another, we develop a certain vested interest in keeping things stable. We do not like change. We work on the establishment of a certain status quo in our personal and communal experiences, and we invest substantial material and intellectual resources in its maintenance. We become comfortable with the ways we establish, and we resist any attempt to breach the walls that surround those ways. To keep those walls up we foster certain self-serving dogmas… We demand that others not rock our boats… And why?...  Well… We do not want our boats to be rocked! Simple. No more questions. That. Is. It.


Well, as for the no more questions part… Not so simple. For better or for worse, the rocking of boats is an inevitable fact of life in the very fluid course of our dynamic reality. The challenges of our existence are not just omnipresent and inevitable; they are necessary. They enliven us by stirring our creative juices. These challenges come and go like day and night. They are as present and as essential as oxygen in the air we breathe. They are at once as certain, and as unpredictable as the wind. And, when they come, they demand that we make adjustments in both the perceptions and the practices of our lives.


Back Then, As In Our Time...

I experience a certain guilty pleasure from relating this experience of someone probably known to you and me. He is Caucasian, I am Black. Having examined my soul for traces of insensitivity, and after eliminating the possibility that I do not share his existential dilemma… I can now tell this story without the constraints of any cultural/political sympathy; but with an appropriate consciousness of our shared humanity and the inherent frailties thereof. 


This gentleman grew up in the shadow of George Wallace’s South where the social, economic, and political prosperity of Whites was premised on the continued disenfranchisement and oppression of Blacks. He was probably there at Wallace’s inauguration as the Democratic Governor of Alabama in 1963, when in the face of the rising challenge to a racist status quo the newly elected Governor declared:


In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”


Segregation forever? Well, maybe not. 


All the passion in the world cannot make an untenable position durable. It matters not who it's proponent is, or the extent of his or her persuasion. Race was the outstanding ‘line in the dust’ here; but color was not the only factor in the offensive and grossly immoral social dynamic of the time. The twin markers of gender and sexual orientation also played a role in determining social and political progress, and thus the possibilities for one’s overall prosperity. These things were true then, and they are still factors influencing a person’s ability to thrive in our time.


Back then, as now, the players on either side of the cultural divide weren't always who you would assume or expect. There were homosexual persons who publicly condemned homosexuality. Blacks were complicit in the oppression of other Blacks, actively promoting the self-denigrating dogma that ‘nothing black is ever good’. Women were activists against the political empowerment of women.


The Stain of Cultural Myopia 

The stain of our cultural myopia still colors the sentiments, and impugns the integrity, integumentary and otherwise, of many. Which takes me back to the case of this man, the subject of my story. He, while in his early twenties, had the Confederate flag tattooed …emblazoned across his sun-tanned chest - to paraphrase him … So that it would go before him wherever he went. This being the case, he would wear his shirt buttoned low, or open-fronted as often as fashion and etiquette permitted. 


This son of the Confederacy himself became a father during the days of ‘Rock and Roll’. He thrived and raised his children during a period when the legacy of racial injustice and oppression, neo-colonialism, and the threat of nuclear war were ever-present themes. These were the overwhelming socio/political impressions of the time that led the inspired activist-artist Bob Dylan to pen such anthems as: 


Blowin' in the Wind

‘’How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind

The answer is blowin in the wind”


And ...


A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall 

“Oh, what did you meet my blue-eyed son ?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded in hatred
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall”. 


The season of Rock and Roll evolved into the season of Rap and Reggae… . Reggae, a sound that has its origins in the shared dynamic syncopation of our heartbeats. This season mobilized a strident uprising against racism and apartheid, against wars and rumors of wars, against economic vampires and their bloodsucking ways. It shook the foundations of the System of Oppression from Jamaica to Rome to London to Paris to Washington to South Africa to Mozambique. This season spoke with an unmistakable force in the voice of prophetic luminaries like Robert Nesta Marley and the Wailers… A force felt in the well-fired architecture of renditions of:


Babylon System

‘We refuse to be
What you wanted us to be;
We are what we are:
That's the way it's going to be. You don't know!
You can't educate I
For no equal opportunity:
Talkin' 'bout my freedom,
People freedom and liberty!
Yeah, we've been trodding on the winepress much too long: 

Rebel, rebel!”


And…


War

“Until the philosophy
Which holds one race superior and another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned
Everywhere is war
Me say war
That until there are no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the color of a man's skin
Is of no more significance than the color of his eyes
Me say war”


And it was in these days that this man became a great- grandfather… To a black baby boy. You see, his granddaughter was a student at one of our now desegregated colleges here in the South. Yes, the ones that have the authors of those strident racist dogmas - ‘Segregation forever!’ - turning over in their graves. And it was while she was a student there that she fell in love with an black classmate, a not so uncommon occurrence nowadays in the new evolving multicultural reality that a Barack Hussein Obama demographic represents. Oh, you did know that his mother was a white woman… ? Of course you knew that. And he went on to become POTUS… President of these United States of America; a world leader second in popularity only to this current Pope.


Being and Beneficence

There is a well repeated fact that we regard and repeat with a kind of liturgical steadfastness: The Lord moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. We say this with the reverence it deserves. Amen. When this man first learned that his granddaughter was expecting a child ‘‘by a colored boy’... that's how it was presented to him by one of the young woman’s aunts… he was speechless. In his own words, he ‘didn't know what to feel or what to think’. 


In the months preceding the birth of the child, they were introduced to the young man

on various occasions. If nothing else, these reintroductions provided opportunities to get over the very real awkwardness that existed on both sides. The initial tentativeness wore thin with the experience of a growing familiarity. By the time the baby was born our great grandfather had gone from soft hesitant handshakes, to firm but still awkward embraces of the now husband of his grandchild. 


That Moment …

And so that moment came when, as he sat in the well-worn, white rocking chair that adorned his verandah in rural Georgia; the baby boy… the black child of his white grandchild… was brought to him, and placed in his arms. He held the child up to his face with his arms straight at each elbow, and then he slowly brought him to rest on his chest... his suntanned confederate-flag-emblazoned-chest. 


It was a moment like none that he ever expected to experience. Rocking back and forth in that chair, his chest became more expansive with the deepened breath that came to him in that very moment - Some would say a sigh - I say a deeper breath than he had ever taken in all his years. And he became silent as something happened inside that flag-stained domicile of his emotional being. His face became flushed as his once very stubborn heart opened up and gave space to emotions that were more compliant with the demands of a deepened humanity. And as he experienced the liberation that Love brought, the tears that ran down his face became a libation to the sacredness of the moment. Those tears moistened and lubricated the now non-existent space between his cheek and the soft innocently fragrant face of his new great-grandchild. And some of those tears rolled to the corners of his lips, and he licked them in - savoring the essential blessedness of the new cultural reality that beckoned.


Love… An Agent of Change

Love, we can affirm, is an agent of change. It carries the full force and authority of the essence of what it means to be. It comes to break down barriers cemented in the substance of our convenient dogmas. Love came. And change came. It did like a raging torrent in that moment.  And the tears that flowed in its track washed into oblivion the brokenness of a cantankerous past with all its coarse debris. And the child looked up at his great grandfather’s face and smiled. And he… He groaned in relief, as if to lay a burden down.


The next day came, and not a moment too soon. He woke up early, and with a newfound determination he took time off from his usual chores. His world had changed. He must now become a willing agent of that change. Change does not require our permission or consent. It comes. And when it does we either flow in its course, or remain stubborn… But then, like unmovable rocks in the course of a determined river, we get reduced to sand and silt. We either comply with the demands of change, or we become the fertile remnants of a non-compliant past. 


And so this man went about the business of finding out how and where he might go about removing that tattoo from the flesh that housed his heart. He had for too long walked down that road where some men are not regarded as fully human… as truly men. He was once a man who was ‘wounded in love’, who now felt the urgency to stop being an agent of hate. No more would he trod the winepress of bigotry. A new consciousness dawned in his blurred world when his heart was touched by Love in all its eloquent splendor. 


In his quest to blot out that old symbol of hatred and oppression he was not totally successful. But he did manage to get that flag reconfigured to look more like the Star Spangled Banner. Not a perfect outcome we can agree, but one more in keeping with the promise of a more perfect Union. 


At The Heart of Our Education …

In the face of everything that we are taught about being, we remain yet ignorant until we open our hearts to each other. Our dogmas serve to indoctrinate us in the ways of our cultural biases; but they are no substitute for the true learning that comes from the affirmation of the needs and the potentials of our common humanity. Beyond the narrowed perspectives and the practice of the dogmas informing the status quo in our lives, a real education awaits. 


To paraphrase a wiser soul than myself … At the very heart of that education, is the education of our hearts!


Friday, March 21, 2025

SENTINEL … The Unmistakable Presence and Dynamism of Transcendence

 

I arise out of myself…The season of essential dormancy has run its course. I am awake now. With a deep breath and outstretched arms, I make myself available to this the season of my resurgence…my resurrection… my re-recognition of who I am and all that I can become. 

In a moment of affirmation I lend myself to the memory of what has been, and I give myself permission to embrace what is yet to come. And… as I slowly inhale and exhale I experience the interchange between memories rehashed and permission given. In this, the moment of my rising, I experience my new awareness, my wokeness if you will, as a kind of reassuring rumble in my heart, and in my stomach, and in the nether regions of my being.

Like a warm mist from a placid lake I rise. I am an ethereal tributary of the Fountain which flows from Eternity to Eternity. Through the inconspicuous caverns of challenging inclines, over rocks and their residual silt, around inconvenient curves… I find my way - fertilizing plains predestined to become the grove that expresses my innate fecundity. 

I ascend now in response to the beckoning of this new season and the many opportunities it will present for my expansion. The deepened breath evidenced in the clouds of my expiration tells the story of a transcendent new being ready to face new challenges. I am motivated by the inherent promise of the adventures that lie ahead - beyond the hollow obscurities, and despite the latent mystique that served to thwart my progress.

Like that ethereal stream - I forge my way… deepened by unwilling ground, and broadened by irreverent rocks. I am essentially unstoppable. I will toil without ceasing - and the sands will speak the legend of my indefatigability. 

Groaning… and roaring… and rumbling - I elocute my patience and my persistence to every present reed; and to each pressing need I shall declare the indomitable nature of my intentions. This new season shall usher in my renewed commitment to face and to overcome obstacles that were previously left unchallenged. 

In this season of reflection I arise… out of myself…marking time… . I will measure… and be the measure of every hour of this Eternity. Throughout this sacred Spring I shall become the sentinel of the Light… A guardian of the sacred pathways to an essential livity… A steward of the enduring narratives of this journey through Forever. 

Beyond the mist, and despite the mystification that has obscured my nature and my purpose and my vision; I will embrace a new perspective on being. I shall be the primary protagonist in this my life-story… and my destiny.

 In the course of my renewal I shall travel like a shadow. Lengthened by morning’s infancies… and compressed by the twilight charms of waning days. I will be persistent in my endeavors. I will remain faithful to my vision of a life meaningfully lived. I will make my indelible mark without striving to be seen and heard.

I am the form of the Uncarved… the Uncarveable. I exist to be… never to become the concrete expression of any preconceived notion. I refuse to be a hero or a villain. I arise out of myself like that Spirit given form by winds of unknown origin, and motivated by the waves of an inevitable destiny. 

I know no anxiety in time. I…am the forebear of Forever.

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Remembering Yitzhak Rabin

(On the assassination of a moderate leader)



Fanatics

Creating gods in their own image

Fashioning revelations

After the likeness of their vain fantasies

Obsessed with changing a world they do not understand

Proselyte purveyors of myopic tragedies…Prophets of doom

Preaching a vision colored in red fluidity…Blind to the broader view…

Deaf to the words of others…Unconvinced know-it-alls


Demagogues

Rabid demigods

Delusional seers

Lusting for powers that none can have

Who has not come to know the incarnation of love

As the only true religion


Wasps

Messengers of destruction

Harboring jealousies

Of those who know how to make honey in a world oft void of sweetness…

Helpers of the Serpent… 

Spoilers of Eden.


Excerpt From

Of Paradise Despised... Roy Alexander Graham

https://books.apple.com/us/book/of-paradise-despised/id574445446

This material may be protected by copyright.

Friday, December 20, 2024

The Gift We Give

It is the season of giving. It is that time again when we focus on acts of charity that we hope will bring joy to others, and a sense of community in our otherwise fractured world. This is a good thing. Despite the redundancies that inevitably become a part of our gift-giving, it is worth noting that it is, in fact, the thought that counts. 

Some critical minds will insist on highlighting the crassness of the commercialization of what is supposed to be a spiritually significant season. They complain about the materialism that tends to ruin what should be a steadfast focus on our spiritual needs. Truth be told, the point they make is to be seriously considered; but even so, this is at best only a half-truth. 

Some of us are fortunate enough to have all the things we need and want. The experience of being on the receiving end of another colorfully wrapped sweater or pack of socks elicits diminishing satisfaction over time. It is for this reason that the days immediately after the holidays are probably the busiest for returns in the retail world. Despite this being the case however, we should remind ourselves and each other that there are many who are cold and sockless around us, and in places near and far from us. 

An awareness of this fact leads some to insist that their friends and family and colleagues focus instead on those in real need, and not stress about what gift they can get them for the holidays. It is gratifyingly wonderful to have others express their fondness and appreciation for us in the gifts they take time and resources to purchase for us. We do a noble service however, when, considering the redundancy of some gifts, we encourage them to identify a worthy cause and contribute to it instead. Or, as someone reasonably suggested to me, get their permission to pass on the gifts we receive to others who may be in dire material/spiritual need.

In the midst of a world of great abundance; there are hungry, lonely, naked, shelter-less souls. On the outer margins of our merrymaking are scores of broken and broken-hearted folk. Let us remember those who have no friends or family. Let us give some attention to those who need a gentle touch, or some kind of material support; and let us initiate acts toward them that reassures them that they are not non-entities. 

The acts of giving and receiving create bridges in the course of our humanity that allow us to connect with each other in ways that sometimes become absent in the every-day-ness of our lives. Acts of charity allow us to facilitate the kind of connectedness that reminds us of our sacred duty to be one another’s keepers. Let us not forget that the essential focus of the season of goodwill should be the creation of communities where equity is the agency of peace; where hope replaces despair; and where love displaces fear

The easily observed, and justifiable critique about how materialistic we have become in our focus during this season has its place. The exploitation of our most gracious instincts for economic gain is an ever present dynamic of our lives in the market-oriented environment in which we live. But we can, and we must, turn this critique inside out and upside down. The quasi-truthfulness inherent in the dichotomy between material and spiritual must here be addressed. 

The perceived redundancy of gifts of bread and sweaters and socks for those who have, and therefore do not need them, may be an expression of a vapid materialism. But feeding and clothing and providing shelter for those in need is most definitely a spiritual imperative. Being with those we love and for whom we have a natural affinity is wonderful, even when done only out of a sense of familial or corporate duty. But when we act in concert, or as individuals, to bring hope and substance to the lives of the materially and spiritually dispossessed of our world, we are in fact engaging in the miraculous - as in the ultimate sense of the Divine becoming humanand dwelling in and among us.

The greatest of the gifts we give is the gift of the very best of ourselves to each other in a world that is in large measure spiritually unclothed, and hungry for a greater sense of connectedness. It is the gift of a Love that is present… and meaningful… and durable… and redemptive. A Love that is the agency of Peace on Earth … Goodwill toward its occupants.


One Love!

BEYOND THE NOT SO INDELIBLE IMPRESSIONS OF OUR DOGMA

  The Challenges of Being and Becoming The tension between who we are and who we must become in order to realize our fullest human potential...