Life Goes On

By Howard Thurman 

During these turbulent times we must
remind ourselves repeatedly
that life goes on.
This we are apt to forget.
The wisdom of life transcends our wisdoms;
the purpose of life outlasts our purposes;
the process of life cushions our processes.
The mass attack of disillusion and despair,
distilled out of the collapse of hope,
has so invaded our thoughts that what we know
to be true and valid
seems unreal and ephemeral.
There seems to be little energy left for aught but futility.

This is the great deception.
By it whole peoples have gone down to oblivion
without the will to affirm the great and permanent strength
of the clean and the commonplace. Let us not be deceived.
It is just as important as ever to attend to the little graces
by which the dignity of our lives is maintained and sustained.

Birds still sing;
the stars continue to cast their gentle gleam
over the desolation of the battlefields,
and the heart is still inspired by the kind word
and the gracious deed....

To drink in the beauty that is within reach,
to clothe one's life with simple deeds of kindness,
to keep alive a sensitiveness to the movement
of the spirit of God in the quietness of the human heart
and in the workings of the human mind--
this is as always the ultimate answer to the great deceptiion.

Howard Thurman was spiritual advisor to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King,  dean of the chapel at Howard University in Washington, DC, 1932-1944, as well as founder of Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, the first racially integrated church in the U.S. This reflection is an excerpt from his book, Meditations of the Heart.

Be Still, Be Refreshed

Even the bravest of  hearts and strongest of  souls become world weary. But if we look inward, we will  find everything we need to rest and replenish ourselves is there. Our true treasures are found within, not the illusions of the material world. But it  takes stillness -- that does not always come easy -- to savor and enjoy them. Meditation helps. This guided one by Karen Drucker reminds us of all  the peace and joy available to us in the stillness of any given moment.  May it  affirm the abundance in your life today.

Namaste. <3

In the Stillness

Blizzard 2013: A Silent Meditation

The snow came last night ... Now, in the morning light, she greets us gently,a prayer shawl donned upon the land. 

~ Kent Nerburn, A Haunting Reverence

The Past Unchained: Elizabeth's Story

Black history did not begin in chains. This statement by martyred civil rights leader, Malcolm X, more than 50 years ago rings as true today as did in the 1960s.

Still,  as we take the month of February to observe the contributions of black people from antiquity to present times, many African Americans find they must return to the crucible of slavery to recover their stories, and reclaim the human dignity of those whose lives have too long been defined by their bondage.

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Pope
(1828-June 22, 1925)

Slave ships bearing lofty  names such as Wanderer, Freedom, Hope and Henrietta  carried human cargo from Africa to the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe. Packed on the ships like sardines were craftsmen, teachers, poets and warriors. They were mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles.

While the black slaves in America continued to organize themselves as families, their marriages were not legally recognized. Children were taken from their parents and sold at auctions, and permanently estranged from their families and loved ones. This is the entry point where I discovered the story of my great-great-great grandmother,  Elizabeth "Lizzie" Pope, who was born sometime around 1828.

She and her younger brother were  removed from their mother when they were young children and sold to separate owners at a slave auction in or near Atlanta.  The date of the sale and the age of the two children are mysteries. All that is known of that fateful day is it was the last time they ever saw or heard from each other. Lizzie never saw her  mother again.

As a young woman, Lizzie bore a daughter. She named her Eliza. When Eliza was a baby, Lizzie "jumped the broom" with a man named Robert Monroe Pope. He, too, was a slave, and  "adopted" Eliza.  This was a common practice among slave families when a slave woman gave birth to a child either fathered by a slave who was killed, sold or removed from the plantation or fathered by her owner.

Elizabeth Davenport
Lizzie's granddaughter

 Lizzie served out her days in bondage, and after emancipation, as a midwife.Her reputation as an intelligent, strong-willed and determined woman defined her in her family. There is good reason to believe Lizzie lived well into her late nineties. She outlived both her daughter Eliza and granddaughter, also named Elizabeth.

June 22, 1925 is the date of her death recorded in a more than 100 year-old family Bible, whose pages were lose and pages fading fast when discovered in 1976.   

My great-great-great grandmother's  life has had an enduring impact on her family across the generations, beyond the slavery that stole her freedom, but not her soul.

Sankofa: Mythical Bird of Paradox

During a visit to Ghana several years ago, I became captivated by the Andinkra symbols of West Africa.  They are part of a rich cultural  tradition that can be traced back to the early 17th century. As a member of a church delegation, I had a chance to worship and serve with the Akan and Ashante people in cities and villages from the teeming capitol of Accra to the rocky shores of Cape Coast, formerly known as the Gold Coast, where the majority of the trans-Atlantic slave trade took place.

Following the land route of the slave trade,  we retraced the trek of the African captives, marched hundreds of miles on foot in chains from interior regions  to the coast, to where they were auctioned and stacked on top of each other like sardines in the dungeons located in the bowels of  the trading posts. It struck me as odd that these fortresses  of  horror were called castles. The time I spent time in the dugeons at Elmina and Cape Coast castles haunt me to this day.

SANKOFA  LADY

The more I became immersed in the history, the culture and  spirit of the land and its people, the meaning of  the Andinkra symbols  grew more powerful. Each symbol is like an oracle, containing a universal truth about life.

The symbol of the Sankofa  and its message of the importance of learning from the past  has become a personal totem of sorts as I attempt to fly forward and look backward at the same time. The Sankofa is a mythical bird said to be the only winged creature able to fly forward while looking back.

The message of the Sankofa  offers a  healing  for all cultures and communities on many levels. It reminds us that going back to fetch what we need to learn  from the past is necessary on our journey into the future. The paradox of bird's bird's physics also serves as a metaphor for the challenge we experience when we dare to look back while in forward motion.  It isn't easy. In fact, it's downright uncomfortable.

Sifting through my own family's archives is certainly proving more difficult than I imagined. Some ancestral narratives begin on an auction block, intersecting with some of the ugliest moments on our country's timeline. I'm finding looking back takes courage. It also takes time ... lots of it.

There is the time it takes to mine, research and organize  data. Then, there's the question of  time to write. But mostly, it takes time to reflect, and imagine and feel  what it must have been like forbidden to read and write, to have your every movement controlled; to be bought and sold as another person's property.

I call forth the the magic of the Sankofa.  Sorrow and joy are two sides of the same breath. Not only is it possible to move forward and look back at the same time, I am discovering it is also possible to keep both feet on the ground and fly.

Namaste.

< 3 <3 <3

Seeing Voices

The Cracked Pot:A Creative Fable for the 21st Century

Each of us has our own unique differences, which depending on how we chose to see them in ourselves and in others are viewed as flaws or gifts. Along the mysterious journey of contradictions and paradox we call life, one of the most elusive lessons  I've learned is  that what  are often  perceived as flaws are more often than not gifts waiting to be opened. That's why the fable of the pot bearer is one of my favorite teachers.

Many of you may be familiar with the story which goes like this:

There was an elderly woman, who was a water bearer for her community in a land far way. She had two large pots. Each of the pots hung on the end of a pole that she carried across her neck as was the custom. One of the pots had a crack in it. The other pot was perfect, and always delivered a full portion of water. Every day, the diligent water bearer would walk several miles to the stream, fill the pots and return home.

At the end of each trip, the broken pot arrived half full. This went on for some time. The perfect pot was quite pleased and proud of itself, but the cracked pot was ashamed of its imperfection and grew increasingly miserable because it could only fulfill half of its purpose.

After a couple of years of believing itself to be a bitter failure, it finally spoke to the water bearer one day at the stream, The pot said to her,  "I am deeply ashamed and want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all this work and you do not get full value for your efforts."

The bearer smiled and said to the pot: "Did you notice there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I've always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path. Everyday on the walk back, you've watered them."

She continued, "For two years now, I've picked these beautiful showers to decorate the table and give to friends. Without your being just the way you are, we would not have this beauty to grace the home and cheer the lives of  others in the community."

Reflection: What cracks and flaws do you have -- and the people in your life --that make community life more interesting and rewarding?  How are these transformed into gifts?

<3