Divination, Spirituality And Money

Baba Orunmila refuses to give me the winning lottery numbers! No matter how often I ask or how often I plead his answer is always a plain no. One time I thought I had a very logical and irrefutable argument for getting the next numbers. In a remarkably true impersonation of a Johnnie Cochrane interrogation style, I started my leading logic with a statement confirming that Baba was the repository of all knowledge and he would know how to get anything. But before I could ask my question, how would Baba get the Baba to give me the lottery numbers, he cut me off at the pass and told me he always has a choice of whether he wants to answer the question or not. Baba may know everything but he thinks he’s funny.

The reason he chooses not to give me, or anyone else, lottery numbers is pretty simple, how would that help me on my path? If anything winning the lottery would probably be such a diversion off one’s spiritual path it wouldn’t be funny. I’ve heard too many people tell too many stories about how the lottery destroyed their lives. One story is about a guy who used his money to do stupid things like buy his seventeen year old granddaughter a fleet of cars (a Corvette, a Hummer, a Mustang, and two I couldn’t recognize) and her own three thousand square foot house (not her parents but her), and whatever and then he cried when the girl’s highly materialistic lifestyle ended tragically with her death from a drug overdose. The man blames the lottery for his granddaughter’s death. But he absolves himself of any contribution.

Be that as it may, the point is Baba isn’t in the business of fate to help some people get rich while others struggle. Come to think of it, Baba probably wouldn’t tell you how to survive minimally. It isn’t his job to run our lives. His job is to guide us spiritually and not financially. And one thing I’m pretty sure about is that immense financial accumulation is directly disproportionate to one’s ability to achieve truly spiritual health. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also, Matthew 6:21. It’s not often that I pull New Testament scripture, but this text is just too appropriate.

For a lot of people, money is the be all and end all of our existence. He who dies with the most materialism wins. Wins what though? The seventeen year old granddaughter of the lottery winner pretty much had access to anything material she wanted and yet it doesn’t sound like she won anything. Anna Nicole Smith lived a life full of money and yet couldn’t find happiness if it walked up to her and body slammed her into the ground. Financial success shouldn’t be our focus.

Members of the black community should seriously take this message to heart. Too many black people are chasing the white community looking for crumbs of wealth to satisfy our need for identity, respect, acceptance, whatever. But our individual achievement of economic success comes at the expense of our racial integrity. Name any successful and famous black person and they are successful not because they maintain their African heritage or even the heritage of their true African American history. Black people are successful because they maintain their blackness comfortably within the confines prescribed by white Americans. The person of obvious African heritage who chooses to wear their African legacy on their sleeve will find themselves operating outside the wealth exchanging environment of corporate structure. Not necessarily a problem it itself. But if one chooses to be a proud African as defined by black people don’t expect a huge bank account full of wonderful zeroes behind other digits and in front of the decimal point.

Besides, it’ll be hard to focus on developing an African based spirituality when one’s attention begins to focus on developing secular bank accounts. Most financially wealthy people didn’t get that way by being generous with their purse string. A couple of characteristics of spirituality that are absolutely contradictory to the accumulation of wealth is a healthy sense of community combined with an impulse to share with those less fortunate. As Matthew 6:24 says, No once can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. And if I may paraphrase a bit you cannot serve spirituality and money.

Baba isn’t going to help me win the lottery. I honestly don’t expect him to. The lottery number thing is like a running joke between us. Believe it or not but an Orisa can manifest a very good senses of humor. But what’s even more impressive is their ability to holdfast to a decision once they make one. If I win the lottery it’ll be because of dumb happenstance and not because I have any inside information. Although I may think it would be nice if he did it may be the worse thing to ever happen to me. I really need to be more careful with what I wish for. I just might get it.