Talking ‘bout My Freedom … People Freedom and Liberty!!

 

” 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!
Yes, we’ve been trodding on the winepress much too long:
Rebel, rebel! “  - Robert Nesta Marley

 

A Crisis of International Proportions

It rained today… In the place where I am now writing this piece the grass all around is a brownish green. It has been reported that the rainfall deficit for the last month is just under four inches. It started raining overnight, and the system that is bringing this well-needed relief will continue its presence for the next few days… And so, around here, there is renewed hope for everything that grows, the grass included. We all enjoy the sunny days of Summer, but no one wants a protracted drought under the influence of which things wilt…and die. It has been a long hot summer, and one in which the themes of wilting and dying have predominated in the experience of many.

All over the Globe that we share we are witnessing what seems to many to be an interminable drought of reasonableness and compassion. The season of wilting and dying is expressed in the suffering, displacement, and killing of many.Thousands of men, women, and children, have had their lives shattered as a result of heated conflicts that seem to have no end in sight. The need for showers of hope to green again the scarred landscape of war-torn countries is acute. This is the reality in Palestine and the other places where the just aspirations of human beings are violently suppressed.

All over the world people displaced by these conflicts are on the move daily in desperate search of a place where they can again hope for some stability for self and kin. Their collective desperation is exacerbated by a drought of workable ideas among those who lead. This desperation is worsened by a drought of moral rectitude on the part of those who see war as the only solution. Combined with a drought of economic opportunity in the circumstances created by strife, multitudes come to believe they have no choice but to succumb to their role as victims.

 

Tyrants and Warlords

There are no easy answers, much as we would like there to be. Digging into the anatomy of conflict is an exercise in exploring the uncomfortable underground of the human psyche. The motivations of the primary actors in the tragic dramas of death and destruction are at times perplexing, as perplexing as the contradictions in the human psyche itself. What moves us to act out our abrasiveness in the tragic ways that we do? At what point in the experience of being human do we settle for the idea that it is ok that “the good suffer with the bad”? Where in the dark recesses of our consciousness do we build an existential monument to the idea that it is acceptable to blow up women and children? What kind of person chews on the roasted limb of some creature while he wallows in the blood of innocents? What kind of human being virtualizes rape, and murder, and the conscienceless exploitation of those who can’t or won’t defend themselves? What kind of human-being “brands” another, marking him or her for ruthless exploitation? At some point, as individuals and as societies, we must face these questions with the force of a civilized morality. We must face them with a view to effectively resolve the many contradictions in our ways of seeing things.

Not all villains roam around the earth as bloody brutes. Some indeed present themselves as “respectables” among us. They sit on the boards of giant corporations. They occupy the halls of our congresses and parliaments. They are the genteel-appearing bastions of industry that many idolize in ignorance. Instead of the cliched fatigues of brutes, they wear the teflon suits that appeal to the superficial sensibilities of many among the masses. But, by their deeds we know them. They deliberately reduce workers to chattel by refusing to pay a fair return for work done. They build their estates at the expense of the lives of impoverished workers. They bask in the glow of material “success” while the masses are left to scrounge for the “crumbs” that fall from their tables. In many instances they appear to keep their hands clean while they harvest the “blood diamonds” of an iniquitous underworld. They share one particular feature of the human experience with tyrants and warlords… Heartlessness. They don’t give a damn about anything or anyone except themselves and their brash ambitions.

 

The Clash of Antagonistic Ideals

We need to change the circumstances of our dehumanization. This change must begin with a more dynamic sense of our potentials as human beings. At some point it falls to each person to make a decision as to whether he or she will continue to permit the kind of victimization that robs one of one’s true humanity. This is the seminal moment in which every true revolution begins. It begins with the idealization of the notion that one can own and control the circumstances of one’s life. It begins with a rejection of victimhood.

The culture of oppression takes root with the imposition of ideas that limit the rights of the oppressed to a life characterized by the absence of the essential qualities of liberty. A life in which the pursuit of happiness is claimed as a human right. Thus liberation must begin with the rejection of ideas that limit one’s right to a life fulfilled. The clash of civilizations has its genesis in a clash of antagonistic human ideals… A clash of opposing aspirations. A revolution is inevitable when the hopes of a determined group breeds despair in another group which is equally determined to claim and live out their perceived potential. Every struggle begins as a clash of ideas competing for supremacy in the common experience of peoples. First the ideas… Then the fists.

The conscientization described in the preceding paragraph leads to the determination to get rid of the spiritual, cultural, and physical shackles that weigh down the dispossessed. It expresses itself in the determination to collectively work for the change necessary to live into the new reality of a life liberated. This new consciousness is powerfully articulated by Marley when he declares: “You can’t educate I For no equal opportunity: (Talkin’ ’bout my freedom) Talkin’ ’bout my freedom, People freedom (freedom) and liberty! Yeah, we’ve been trodding on the winepress much too long: Rebel, rebel!”. Marley, in the powerful anthem called “Redemption Song”, calls us to live into a revolutionary consciousness. He reminds us of the responsibility that we each have to personalize the work of redemption when he channels Marcus Mosiah Garvey: “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds…”.

 

The Season of Rebellion Beckons

The Season of Rebellion comes. It is inevitable. The contradictions inherent in the perpetuation of hope and despair in our social and economic relationships demand to be resolved. The societal dysfunctions bred by this antagonism cannot be wished away.  That resolution of which I speak must necessarily lead to a better world in which the hopes of some do not breed despair in the lives of others. The prophetic vision of a more just society fuels the fires that burn in the hearts of displaced and dispossessed people everywhere. That vision is the tip of the burning spear that threatens the old status quo of the cultural and economic domination of the many by the few.

Those who have ears to hear can hear even now the voice of the prophet Amos as he declares: “… let Justice roll down like a river, and Righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” An economic culture in which CEO compensation increases over nine hundred fold while the average worker barely sees a five percent increase must be rehabilitated. A political culture that perpetuates the cult of vampires must be obliterated by the cultivation of enlightened self interest in all our economic relationships. We cannot continue to accommodate corporate greed while people are left to subsist on a less than livable wage. The militarization of the police to suppress the just rebellion of people against the brutality of law enforcement must end. The use of the police as enforcers for a parasitic political culture must cease. The injustices that find expression through racism, sexism, and genderism, must be exposed for what they are… Injustices.

The Season of Rebellion beckons us into a new, more liberated sense of ourselves. It calls us to be the definitive architects of our destinies. As architects we reject the world imposed on us. We claim with our every breath the responsibility to build something new with our own hands and hearts and minds… .  Something more in keeping with our own needs and aspirations. As the prime movers in the new, more hope-filled world we desire, we look forward to that more fertile earth in which we can realize a greater rootedness. And so we live in anticipation of the showers that will “water” our just aspirations. By the same token we rise up in affirmation of our own fecundity, and against every dried out idea that would suppress our innate abundance.

Fall… A Season to Unburden Ourselves of the Inessentials

Autumn is upon us. Let us take a moment to lighten our existential load.

The changing hues all around remind us of the multifaceted nature of everything in our universe. They make us aware of the necessity to reevaluate all the many simplistic assumptions that go into the daily operation of our lives. This is a great time to take a new breath and look with clarity at the many relationships that we are part of.

This is a season in which we are reminded of the inherent beauty of nature. We look outside our windows and are inspired by the wonderful display of colors. Leaves become orange and yellow and red and brown and colors that, my wife will gently remind me, I am not able to name. Summer’s verdant green becomes a multi-colored display of the many wonderful hues that are always there, but seldom noticed. This is a great time to get away from the clutter of our congested lives. A leisurely venture into the the open country at this time of year is awe-inspiring.

Fall is indeed a time to turn inwards. It is an occasion to retreat from our heat and reflect on all the ideas that we take for granted. It is a time to become aware of the inconspicuous parts of all our lives. Now is when we recover the truth that beauty is more than skin deep. This season presents us with an opportunity to repent of the snap judgements that too often sabotage our social discourse. By not doing so we render inconsequential the vital roles we play in each others lives and in the world around us.

And then the leaves fall. An oh so solemn reminder to us of the necessity to take inventory of ourselves. We can, and we must separate from ourselves those things that have become redundant. Let us let go of those rude attachments that weigh us down. Let us find again the strength to forego those superfluous conveniences that we allow to clutter our lives and limit our perspectives.

This is a season to unburden ourselves of the inessentials. This is the time to lighten our existential load. Take a moment to reevaluate your worries. Act now to separate the substantial facts of your life from the superimposed fiction that fogs and distorts your way forward. Recognize and reaffirm your truths. Let us assume a position of wisdom-inspired strength in our lives. Let us expose and obliterate the falsehoods that can, and do corrupt our vision of a life well lived.

After Fall comes Winter. This is a season when many animals go into hibernation. It is a time of dormancy for many. Let us be aware that beneficial rest is always preceded by a process of unburdening and proper positioning. Fall provides this opportunity. Our own vitality, and the robustness of the relationships we engage in, depend on this synchronicity with the natural order of things. The consciousness of this lends new meaning to the idea of being one with Nature.

BAD WEATHER

Dark clouds setting

Covering a smiling sun…

Cold draft coming

A message that summer is done…

And on my face a seasoned frown

Takes the place of a smile well worn…

Tempers flare…

And we fail to keep our passions

Under the lid

Of a practiced superficiality

Now pours our vented rage

In fiery flashes and thunders loud…

Our view obscured

By fierce funnel clouds

Today we knew

The reign

Of our wrath

As a dreadful frightening

Thunderstorm

 From - In My Element ~ Roy Alexander Graham

https://books.apple.com/us/book/in-my-element/id574441227

This material may be protected by copyright.

Forbidden Fruit

 Enters horned desire with bowing grace

But scant regard for the thorned trunk

That it must climb

To touch and taste

And pluck from its place…

The prize of its obsession

Descends again with bleeding hands

And seeming cherished pain

With scant regard for injuries self-inflicted

Totally oblivious to the slow death

Which creeps upon a soul

That constantly bleeds itself

Comes stumbling now

Under the influence of a fleeting satisfaction

And falls

Losing the grip it had

On the forbidden fruit

For which it sacrificed its life

For the promise of vain ecstasies

And finally reaps

The Grim Reaper’s due

Excerpt From - In My Element

By - Roy Alexander Graham

https://books.apple.com/us/book/in-my-element/id574441227

This material may be protected by copyright.

WITNESS

 …And I awoke in the arena of my intrigue

To witness the dark tales of my surreal anticipation…

A lion embracing a bear

And littering reality with the offspring

Of an altogether illicit affair…

I saw the marriage of an old stumbling empire

As she fell in time

To the capricious wiles of an enticing romance…

Whore to whore wedlocked

And vowing allegiance

Till death…

I saw the prophet led to his death in chains

While a bootlegging pharaoh and his sons

Aspired to throne after throne

Dying death after death… but aspiring still

While young lions slept…

I saw the priests of an untenable union

Inwardly and outwardly frocked

In robes that hid them from the uncomfortable truths

Of a time when lions lay down with lambs

Having crushed the capricious existence

Of an abominable union…

…And I pinched myself

To confirm that I was not dreaming…

For all around me the earth shook

As whore ran to whore for shelter…

The rock of their convenience

Having been obliterated

And rising out of the earth like gods…

The prophet’s sons…

With sword and shield… advancing

I have witnessed the weeping and wailing

Of those who mocked and scorned

When righteous men bade them

Behave.

From

In My Element

Roy Alexander Graham

https://books.apple.com/us/book/in-my-element/id574441227

This material may be protected by copyright.

GAZA… Of Paradise Despised And Lives That Bought Into A Lie

                                                       Rafa in the southern Gaza Strip - Reuters / Hatem Khaled

Devastation all around…

Blighted spirits weighted down

On bended knees

To hierarchies

Of powers in conflict that compete

For the loyalties of those oppressed

By the hardened heart of wickedness

And their own sense of void…

Wanton wasted brokenness

That looks at life through blood-tainted eyes…

Rancid stench of wretchedness…

Dark arresting passions

Of a sinful nakedness

Raging red

Till death and hell

Confirm the dread-full truths

Of paradise despised

And lives that bought into a lie…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And when we sorrow for the lives of our children

Who indulge in the violence of their mutual despair

Will our tears yet quench the barrenness

Of this heated state in which we live…

And can we stop this crimson rain…

This predestined clash of conflicting loyalties…

If we replace the shanty towns

With fertile places unconfined…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And on this rise

From which we survey

The woe-begotten aftermath

Of a Megiddo inspired conflagration

We retire to wipe our tears

And find a place

To build a house of hope

Through which flows

The eternal spring

Of that love… that softens hearts… restoring hope

And heals the brokenness of every passionate soul

The Salted Mortar of Incompatible Ideals

                                                                      Ruins of Folly Mansion

A few miles east of Port Antonio, Jamaica, a quaint little town on the beautiful northeast coast of the island, is to be found the ruins of what has come to be called "The Folly Great House". It sits on a beautiful rise just above the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea.

This was once a two story 60 room mansion that was built around 1905 by a wealthy merchant for his wife. They both lived in this ostentatious manor until the husband’s death in 1912. The declining state of what was once an impressive structure led to its abandonment a few years later. By 1938 the roof and other parts of the building had collapsed, exposing unfixable flaws in its construction. 

The reasons given for the demise of this once illustrious abode have taken on mythic proportions. One often repeated reason has to do with alleged shortcuts that were taken during its construction. 

The story is told that salt water from the sea just below the mansion was used in the mixing of the mortar, leading to the untimely corrosion of the steel components of the building. Some accounts dispute this assertion, going as far as to say that all construction materials were imported from abroad, including the water for mixing the concrete. It is noteworthy that Port Antonio sits on the leeward side of the Blue Mountains, and is one of the rainiest locations in Jamaica. 

Whatever the reasons for the fatal flaws in the building of this mansion, today it remains an enduring spectacle… an example of human foolishness. For the philosophically inclined, it is a symbol of the corruption that ensues when noble intentions are combined with unrealistic notions. What was once the pride and joy of idealistic lovers is now an irredeemable eyesore. It is a monument fashioned out of what I will deem "the salted mortar of incompatible ideals". 

In a poem titled "Uninhabitable", I wrote the following about this fabled place:

“Now here it stands… On a pastured rise...

A sad place... 

Wasted by the many generations of its emptiness...

Hope discolored... Columns that weep… 

Under the burden of helpless beams...

Day by day it falls apart … Materially... 

And in every heart that has ever known Love

And sought to build a monument

With the steeled character of passion determined

And the salted mortar of incompatible ideals...

Here it stands... 

A monument to passion... 

A concreted folly…

Uninhabitable.”

The durability of any idea or ideal is a function of the various elements that go into its construction. The compatibility of these elements will invariably determine the impact and historical viability of all our efforts to create and maintain the things we build; whether they be monuments or movements. When the mortar of the very foundations we seek to bet our futures on is corrupted by the existential incompatibility of its essential elements; those movements or monuments will have no future… Except, of course, as spectacles of our shortcomings. 

It matters not how convinced we may be, or how passionately we engage with ideas about ourselves or the world we seek to create; the salted mortar of incompatible ideals will prove inadequate to the establishment and maintenance of our objectives every time. 

Ideals imbued with our folly are destined to crumble.

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!