The Comedy In Connecticut
I’ve had an assignment for a few months now. It was right after I saw the movie The Haunting In Connecticut. The story is a work of fiction about the Campbell family’s encounter with the battle between good and evil from the supernatural realm. Trying to cope with the cancer ravaging their teenage son, in order to be closer to the clinic where he is receiving treatment, the family winds up moving to an abandoned funeral parlor that they did not realize was once used for séances and as a laboratory to study aspects of the dead and the supernatural many decades ago. The son struggling with his health is clairvoyant and starts to serve as a kind of homing beacon for spiritual entities to crossover into our reality.
Back in the day, the previous resident of the house would dig up bodies from the nearby cemetery and conduct experiments to communicate with the dead. I don’t remember the complete line of reasoning, but some how, cutting the eyelids off of a human carcass and cutting long phrases, perhaps prayers into the skin, prevents the spirit from moving on to the next realm of existence and forever leaving it trapped in the house. The trapped spirits would enhance the abilities of his clairvoyant young assistant and his skill would be used to conduct séances for a handsome fee and notoriety. The Campbell family finds a box full of dried eyelids under the floor boards indicating that dozens of bodies may have been mutilated. Predictably, the climax comes when all of the spirits, angry at being manipulated, manifest in their mummified bodies for a final show down with the innocent Campbell family.
While the movie is not meant for anything more than entertainment for people who enjoy horror flicks, it is yet another example of how we can allow ourselves to be programmed to fear elements of the supernatural. Dead bodies are little more than bags of flesh. It doesn’t matter if eyelids or any other body parts are cut off or how many or what words are carved into mummified skin, dead bodies cannot become anchors to our spiritual souls. If such was the case, cows and chickens would be haunting butcher shops and slaughter houses. It just doesn’t happen.
For some of us, when the lights go out at night, we can imagine all kinds of unspeakable horrors waiting for us in the dark because of the fictional spiritual drama we like to see and hear. Many of us love our ghost stories and want to be scared to death. But these ghost stories are to the supernatural what Michael Myers and Friday the Thirteenth films are to the suburbs. An abomination on the screen doesn’t necessarily translate into reality. A lot of us can watch a slasher film and keep what we see in perspective. We don’t go around thinking somebody in a spray painted Captain Kirk mask is going to pop out from behind the next tree and start kicking our ass to death.
But let it be something about some ghost that lurks in the closet. That stuff will start to haunt some of us the moment the lights go out, even though we may be safe and sound in our own home in our own bed. Add what will be our first line of defense against the supernatural that lurks in the shadows? Covers and bed sheets. That’ll keep those evil ghosts away.
We need to develop a more sophisticated sense of appreciation and perspective for all things supernatural. If somebody came to me with a movie script about how some doctor a century ago who dug up bodies and cut off eyelids to enhance the powers of a psychic, I’d probably give it back to them and ask them to make it a little more realistic. What’s the basis for such a hypothesis other than somebody’s vivid imagination about the relationship between our spirit and our body. I would give them back their script and suggest that they develop a little more respect for our ancestors.
A long time ago I would’ve been more than ready to believe our ancestors could be captured and controlled to do our bidding. But now I understand that such movies have as much realism as movies like Ghostbusters. And like Ghostbusters with its ectoplasmic slime, these movies are little more than comedy waiting to be appreciated for their silliness and their ability to distort and little more. I thought as much when I saw the movie so many months ago. When it comes to drama and thrills based on the supernatural, The Haunting In Connecticut misses the mark entirely.
The tag line to this movie says that some things cannot be explained. I guess what they were referring to was people’s attraction to a film like this and the resulting irrational response to and fear of all things supernatural. And then they have the nerve to say that the movie was based on true events. So was Alice In Wonderland. It was based on a real trip by Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth who rowed three little girls up the River Thames. That doesn’t mean any of us are going to fall down a rabbit hole anytime soon.
Silly Superstitions
One of the most frightening things about the old African traditions is its association with voodoo. The word voodoo here is not a reference to the many variations of the African based religions that developed throughout both American continents and throughout the Caribbean islands among African slaves and their descendants. Indeed, as a practitioner of a Yoruba based belief system, I have to confess that technically my family and I participate in this spirituality.
The voodoo I refer to is the more superficial based on silly superstitions without much in the way of facts to support such beliefs. This bastardized and overly dramatized version of the African belief system gets played in Hollywood with such films such as the Believers, Eve’s Bayou, Serpent and the Rainbow, Skeleton Key, and the James Bond film Live and Let Die. Playing on people’s fears of African spirituality, many people are quick to prey on our collective superstitious and are quick to portray African traditions as something evil and better left alone. As a young Christian in Sunday school I was taught that anything African was to be avoided if you wanted to stay in god’s good graces.
As I grew older I began to realize that a lot of what I was hearing was just plain silly superstition. But that was back in the early stages of me questioning what I was being told to believe and my relationship with Christianity began to wane. As I started to grow in my African based spirituality, I began to earn a better understanding of how the honest reality of African traditions can be manipulated into the silly superstitions that became so popular. While I may not believe the superstition that laying a broom at the door of your house will keep spirits out at night, I do believe that there are spirits.
I have to admit that there are things that I do not fully understand and yet I believe. But it’s not fully necessary for me to understand how things work to believe in them. I don’t understand how microwave ovens work but I believe that they will heat my food when I push that little button. I have faith that someone else understands how they work and my personal experience with microwave ovens gives me faith that I can take to the bank. The same thing is true with my beliefs in the Orisa based spirituality.
Now, with all of that said, I had to laugh the other day when I saw my old landlord driving a rental car. It seems the woman had an accident and her relatively brand new car was in the shop being repaired. My first thought was karma. We moved out of her apartment building at the beginning of September. Because of a post office mix up, despite how many change of address forms will fill out, our mail continues to go to her apartment building. The woman occasionally calls and tells us we have mail waiting for us to pick up. Whenever she calls, we apologize and go pick up our mail. Her house is practically in our backyard so we see each other often.
Well, last month we were expecting one piece of mail that was pretty crucial. It was a notice regarding my son’s health benefits that needed immediate attention and quick reply. We were trying to beat a deadline. Instead of forwarding the mail to us as usual my landlord sent it back to the sender. She said she thought it was too important to forward. By the time we found out what happened we had missed the deadline. Now, for the next year at least, we are paying an extra two hundred fifty dollars a month out of our pocket to replace his lost benefit. That’s an extra three thousand dollars that we need. The misses was upset. I said she’ll get hers.
But the misses wasn’t content just knowing that karma would address the issue. She took the case to Baba Esu and asked for some tangible justice. She didn’t want anything drastic. Just something that would make her life just as inconvenient as she had made ours. Just a couple weeks later, we now see her driving her rental.
The misses felt bad. I continued to laugh. She said that she asked for something bad in a fit of anger and now regrets it. I advised her in the future to make sure she’s calm and rational whenever she asks for such things. She asked me if I ever wished for something to happen to somebody. I said of course. And if whatever I asked for comes to past I will simply say thank you. If somebody pisses me off to the point that I’m asking Orisa to step in on my behalf and take somebody to the tool shed, then chances are pretty good that I felt that they deserved it.
Besides, there is nothing to support the fact that what happened to our landlord has anything to do with us. It’s not like our old landlord has never wrecked a car before. I think in the year and a half since we’ve been here she’s already had a couple fender benders. This is just the latest. Besides, I’ve been asking Baba to help us win the lottery and that never happens. I’m pretty sure that asking for something bad to happen to somebody in a fit of anger doesn’t work either.
But nevertheless, I think I’ll buy Baba Esu something nice today. You never know how the spiritual realm operates. And I’d rather err on the side of caution. Wouldn’t want to piss Baba off, even if I do think it might be nothing more than silly superstition. I might want to do some more superstitious stuff sometime in the future and I would like to stay on Baba’s good side.
The Backyardigans And An Opportunity To Teach Spirituality
My two year old son loves the Nick Jr. show The Backyardigans. The show is a computer generated animation about five neighborhood kids who play in the backyards of their house. There’s Tasha the yellow hippo, Tyrone the orange moose, Pablo the blue penguin, Austin the purple marsupial, and Uniqua the pink spotted little girl with a couple of antennas on her head. Whenever this series comes on, baby boy stops what he’s doing and gives the show his full attention. If he doesn’t watch, something’s seriously wrong. Each episode runs about thirty minutes. I think he can go through about three episodes before he gets ready for something else. So the Backyardigans are good for about ninety minutes of distraction.
Not too long ago there was a new Backyardigans episode titled It’s Great To Be A Ghost. In this episode, Uniqua, Pablo, and Tyrone are pretending to be ghost and do their best to try and scare each other and Tasha, who is not a ghost. Tasha has no fear of ghost and the others are challenged to scare her with tricks of haunting. One turns invisible and wave things in the air. Another pops out of a painting. They imagine themselves floating through the air and going in and out of objects. But Tasha is true to her word and remains unfazed. Tyrone plays the most inept ghost. He’s running around trying to find something to scare Tasha with when he accidentally winds up under a sheet. He looks and sees himself in the mirror and finds the image pretty scary. He then has the idea to use his new look to scare Tasha. He sneaks up to her and says, boo. Tasha turns, sees the floating sheet, and screams. She runs away and Tyrone is right behind her taunting her with an occasional boo. Each time Tyrone goes boo, Tasha lets out a little scream.
I watched my son as he watched this particular episode. And while he loves the Backyardigans, this one episode has a unique affect on him. While he will watch the other episodes without much of any reaction, when watching this ancestor themed episode, he’ll watch it from the comfort of the reassuring arms of one of his parents. When Tyrone starts going boo, he starts to try and climb into our laps. He’s not comfortable at all with what he’s seeing. And I notice the subtle programming that is taking place.
When Tasha reacts with fear to the sight of a ghost in a sheet, she is teaching my son to react with fear to supernatural manifestations and unnatural aberrations. This is troubling to me. As a practitioner of Ifa, the ancient African spirituality that embraces the supernatural, this is a potential conflict. The ghostly characters in the show have only one concern and that is to be as scary as possible. But the African tradition teaches that our enlightened ancestors, the people who have passed on from this plane of existence, are part of our lives to help guide us and develop our spirituality so that when we can become enlightened and when we pass on we will help lead our descendants to true enlightenment. When we respond to our ancestors with fear and suspicion, we cut ourselves off from their assistance thereby making it much more difficult for ourselves to get through this thing called life.
In order to counter the messages this particular program is giving my son, we started our own little game of ghost. Baby boy will come up to us and say, boo. But instead of reacting with outright fear, his mother and I act with surprise. Instead of a little scream of fear, we’ll respond with an exaggerated, Oh! And right after our dramatic surprise we will smile and reach down and give him a big hug. We’re trying to teach him that it’s okay to be surprised when we see something that we don’t know or didn’t expect or didn’t recognize. But we shouldn’t respond with fear. It is a subtle difference and it might be a little too nuanced to be picked up by a two year old. But we have to start somewhere.
We like The Backyardigans. Although I really appreciate the fact that the show can grab my son’s attention for a few minutes, I have to admit that I find the episodes pretty entertaining myself. The episodes feature music and some very imaginative songs expertly executed by some very professional musicians. My all time favorite episode is Pirate Camp. I don’t know who the drummer is when they do the song titled the Scalawag. But if you ever get a chance to see it or hear it, you’ll understand when I say he or she really earned his or her pay that day.
And I like the way the show teaches lessons of cooperation and listening from the perspective of five unique youngsters without making it so obvious that it’s trying to teach cooperation and listening. There is no race. Everybody is a unique color and shape and nobody is associated with any race, although it is pretty hard not to notice that Tyrone and Uniqua are indeed voiced by black people. And with a name Pablo it’s a sure fire bet that he’s Hispanic or Latino. They do an excellent job of not putting one type of person or race ahead of the other.
But even the people who develop this show can slip every now and then. When it comes to showing how we should interact with the supernatural I think they missed the boat on this one. It isn’t helpful to teach children to fear that which we might not fully understand. And one thing that is easy to misunderstand is our relationship with our ancestors and other spiritual entities. It’s not something we should automatically fear. Hopefully, this will be one lesson from this program that my boy won’t learn. Regardless, I still love those Backyardigans. Those animated characters are allowed to get it wrong every now and then. Although they look like colorful animal characters, in all honesty they are only human.
Oshumare
Not too long ago I was driving down the highway during a particularly strong thunderstorm. The rain stopped for a brief moment and the sun managed to find a break in the deep, dark, rolling clouds. But on the other end of the horizon, I saw the most intense rainbows I’ve seen in my life. Not only did the ends touch the ground, the typical arch going from ground arcing through the air and returning back to the ground was matched with a faint opposite that started way in the clouds, arced down and then went back into the clouds. I had never seen such a setup before. And didn’t think a rainbow with a mirrored image floating in the sky above was even possible.
The clouds gathered once again and the sunlight’s contribution to the rainbow disappeared. But five minutes later the clouds dissipated once again, the sunlight came back, and the rainbow came back, stronger than ever, with its mirror image in the clouds. I started to get suspicious. A couple minutes later the sun went away again. But a few minutes after that the rainbows came back for a second encore. I got the message. It was time to do a little something about Oshumare.
To listen to some people describe Orisa you’d swear they were more human than anything else. Orisa are supernatural beings that cannot be described in human terms. Even terms like Iya and Baba, mother and father respectively, really don’t do the Orisas justice because many of us have a tendency to take such terms too literally. Many people want to think of Iya and Baba in terms of sexuality and little else. Most people will use vague terms like paternal energies and maternal energies and other vague sounding nonsense to try and put these things into perspective. But really, to try and wrap human consciousness around the meaning of sexuality for an Orisa is a fool’s game.
Nowhere does the misapplication of sexuality is more evident than when we try to describe the Orisa Oshumare. Some describe him as androgynous and others might go so far as to say that he is bisexual. What the hell? Bisexuality refers to a biological condition where sexual behaviors manifest as an attraction to both genders, male and female. People who have a bisexual orientation will have an attraction to both people of their own sex and people of the opposite sex. But what does that mean for an Orisa? Is there such a thing as a homosexual Orisas as well?
Like most of the things we’ve been we’re taught about Orisa and the rest of Ifa, the ancient African spiritual tradition rooted in the Yoruba people, we simply accept what we’ve been told about Oshumare without really thinking about what we’re being taught.
The rainbow is a manifestation of Oshumare. He’s often referred to as the serpent and the rainbow, but he is no serpent. Caring and attentive he’s the messenger that carries communications back and forth between our plane of existence and olorun, or heaven. When people need some assistance getting their messages to any Orisa, Baba Oshumare will be there to help facilitate a dialogue. However, more often than not these days, people are ready to send a message but all too often have deaf ears to hear the response. These days, business is pretty slow for Baba Oshumare. The number of people who are ready to listen as well as they are ready to talk dwindles almost on an hourly basis.
These days, more people see the rainbow in the sky and the last thing they think of is an Orisa let alone Oshumare, and the children of Ifa are no exception. If it is not one of the most popular Orisas such as the Babas Ogun, Sango, Obatala, Orunmila, or Esu or one of the Iyas Yemonja, Oya, or Osun then most people don’t know much of anybody else. Oshumare is part of that obscure majority of Orisa. And if people think they do know him it is as an example of some spiritual sexual perversion.
Baba Oshumare is the Orisa recognized as a manifestation of the rainbow. It’s not to be interpreted as a judgment of his masculinity, at least not in our basic human terms. Orisas aren’t so limited and we really should learn not to transfer our ideas and experiences to them. Baba Oshumare is as prime an example as any Orisa for how we as humans misinterpret nature’s manifestations into the most incorrect terms. And some of us wonder why we’re out of touch with our spirituality. We experience the rainbow and yet we still do not see.
Old Fart Religion
“Peace, Peace, Peace… I guess it’s ok when we speak of things we don’t know or understand. Peace is one of those vague thoughts that sound great until we try to define it. Then wow, we have war. Well all of you new age gurus managed to obtain that fuzzy feeling of peace again (smug and somewhat tantalizing to the intellect, but void of any reality). What is interesting in this article is how far off base the writer really is. The Christian God is not as you inaccurately promote, mans attempt to fantasize a religion that strokes his incredible ego, it is God humbling Himself to rescue men who could not make it on their own. This Christian religion in reality doesn’t bode well for mans ego. Wow! This may not register with squishy, feely, check out your brain at the counter folks. The same ones who speak of peace and then slam a religion their intelect is truly incapable of understanding. Even the basics.” – Randy Koch
Thanks for the feedback Randy Koch,
And of course you know everything about your religion. Your god is so simple and that’s why you’ve got him figured out so easily. If I’m a new age guru then you must be one of those old fart gurus. And it’s not the principles of Christianity that makes it inappropriate but the way the majority of Christians put their beliefs to practice. Talk about people checking their brains at the counter. The Christian bible teaches that Jesus threw the money changers out of the church. And yet, mega churches are popping up everywhere telling people god wants them to be rich and bless everyone with material wealth and riches beyond our wildest dreams. All you have to do is give up the minimum ten percent of your gross income and give god his cut by cutting a check to the mega church. But of course, old fart gurus like your self see nothing wrong with this practice.
Old fart gurus say things like Christianity “is God humbling Himself to rescue men who cannot make it on their own.” Now that’s a real “don’t make sense” thought if I ever heard one. Why is god humbling himself to rescue men? To get man’s approval? If that’s the case, why isn’t god doing more to save all men? Why is the Supreme Being, creator of the universe, wasting his time and energy humbling his self trying to save men he made too weak in the first place? And this is the major flaw of people who practice Christianity. All too often the Christian concepts that people speak of only lead to more questions and it’s only a matter of time before it all boils down to “you just got to have faith”. If that’s your idea of understanding then you can keep it.
I’m not pretending to understand the Supreme Being. I wouldn’t be so egotistical to think that I can understand why he does what he does or why he doesn’t do what I think he should do. But the way some Christians tell the story you would think that they’ve studied god in a lab somewhere and did their thesis on the subject. Their only real “proof” is what’s written in the bible by somebody thousands of years ago who thought that the Earth was flat and the center of the universe. That was old fart thinking. Who knew it would endure for so long? God wants to save man? Why doesn’t he do it the easy way and just snap his fingers and make it so? Better yet, why did god make man so weak in the first place? Why doesn’t he just come out with a better model that is more resistant to our current plague of weaknesses?
By the way, Peacemaker is my name. That’s why I end my comments with “Peace”. Sort of like you putting your name at the end of a letter as Randy even though your name might be Randolph. Peace can mean more than just the absence of war. Expand your thought processes for a moment and you might be able to see things from a different perspective once in a while.
And while it is true that I mostly enjoy the double meaning of “Peace” at the end of a comment, some times it is just my name. As egotistical as you are, I could not care less about you achieving some sense of peace. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if you spent every waking moment of your life in turmoil. That way, when you do obtain some sense of peace, you might really appreciate it.
A Time For All Things
The past week has been one of the most intense ones for my family. A family member’s health took a turn for the worse and my brothers and sisters came home in an expression of love and support. It was a time for family. We came together, happy to see each other. To help relieve the stress of the moment we shared a few laughs. If anyone looked they probably would have thought we were simply having a family reunion because it was time and not because of circumstances.
Our family member needed immediate surgery and we needed a time for prayer. One of us started and we each got an opportunity to express a hope, a fear, a desired outcome, or a belief that things will workout. Some of us referred to our loved one’s condition as something evil that must be eradicated. Some of us were adamant that this was a time for a miracle. Unfortunately, our prayers did not result in a happy ending. The surgery was ineffective. We are now experiencing a time to cry and a time to mourn.
Along with everyone else I wanted to believe that everything would be okay and we would go home knowing that all would be as well as expected. As we sat as a family in the room waiting for some word about the operation, we were confident and sure. We were cheerful and buoyant, silly and playful. But all too soon our sister walked through the door and the tears in her eyes silenced everyone in the room like nothing else could. My heart sank. Before she could say anything several of us replied with our own tears. The news could not be good. It was time to put our silliness aside.
It was a time to plan. Some of us didn’t want to face the reality of the moment. But we did not have the luxury of more time. It was a time to decide. Decisions had to be made and we had to make them as a family. It is still very much a time to come together.
It was a time for me to reach into my spirituality. My family is deeply rooted in various forms of Christianity and I was participating in their belief system, my old belief system, out of a sense of solidarity with my family. It was time for us to be as one.
Sometime after the surgery, I asked Orisa for some help. Babalu Aye, the Orisa of health, said that he could not change the outcome. But we could make things easier by sharing the pain and discomfort of our loved one’s condition. No one should have to bear the sickness alone. If we all took a small piece of the pain away, we can dilute the pain enough to make it much more tolerable. Our family member deserves our help.
I participated in the Christian ritual of prayer with my family. Even though I haven’t been a Christian for years I still participated. So I asked my family if they would consider doing something for mom that is rooted in my belief system. I asked if they would take time to do something that I believe would help. I explained that fate may not change but we might be able to dilute pain and discomfort if we all were willing to share a little of the pain coursing through one’s body. We could show our willingness to help by doing something as small as eating popcorn in our loved one’s name.
It was a time for questions. Why popcorn? How can this work? Why would I want to do that? Because it is part of my belief system and I believe it will help. I can’t explain the spiritual mechanics of it. This is just part of my belief system. If we all are willing to take away some of the pain, share some of the burden, I believe our family member won’t have to suffer through this bearing the brunt alone. It was a time for trust. It was a time to step out of comfort zones and do something strange.
Some of us stepped right up to the plate. Somebody pulled out a bag of microwave popcorn and started going to town. It was a time of support. Others refused. In their opinion it wasn’t time for such nonsense. It may have been a time for disappointment, but I had no choice but to respect their choice.
Like everything else that has comes our way we will face it as a family unit. It would be nice if family learned a time to compromise so that we can try every thing at our disposal to face our life challenges. Unfortunately that’s not always the case. We are still a family. Not all of us are open to new ideas or to respect other’s belief system. That might come in time. I know I’m willing to do just about anything to help family. Even if it means coming together to support my family with their belief in prayer at a time when not everyone is ready to support my beliefs as well.
However, now is definitely not the time to write our family member off. Whether we have just a few more days or whether we have a few more decades we will be hurt whenever time is up. That time is not right now. We have things to do. There is a time for all things. But now is not the time for that. Now is a time for living. A time to die will come soon enough. No need to rush it along.
Burr Oak Cemetery Grave Robbers
Emmett Till must be spinning in his grave. At least he would be if he was still in it. Who knows for sure with all the happenings at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, a close suburb of Chicago? Three grave diggers and their manager are accused of digging up bodies and reselling plots at the historic black cemetery in order to make about three hundred thousand dollars on the side in a scheme believed to have stretched back at least four years, authorities said Friday.
It is feared that hundreds of graves have been disturbed with corpses being evicted from their resting place and either unceremoniously dumped in the nearby unkempt weeds on cemetery grounds or double-stacked in the graves of others who were simply pounded deeper into the ground to make room for others. Thousands of black families have descended onto the cemetery for answers about their ancestors.
Police first learned of the allegations when Trudi Foushee, an attorney for the cemetery, alerted authorities about skeletal remains and the fact that the facility was unable to account for some funds. Mr. Foushee had been acting cemetery manager after the previous manager was removed from her post because of allegations she stole money from the cemetery. Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes said that the process of revoking the cemetery’s license has been started and said that his office is investigating whether past monies received from for the perpetual financial needs of the cemetery is still safely held in a trust. The cemetery is owned by Perpetua Holdings of Illinois who started an investigation by calling Cook County authorities to report suspicions of financial problems by the cemetery staff.
The love of money drives despicable people to do reprehensible things. The violation of the human remains entrusted to a cemetery is about as low as human nature gets. These people weren’t pharaohs or the well to do from some bygone era. Many of the people in this cemetery were common black folk who were buried at Burr Oak Cemetery when no other cemetery would have our ancestors and elders. You would think that living in modern America we would make us all more respectful of humanity. The emotional trauma for the families associated with these desecrations is only beginning. Old wounds, scabbed over by time, have been ripped opened by the serrated edge of personal greed. No soul can rest in anything resembling peace at this place of such wickedness.
Records have been destroyed or altered or never made in the first place. As various law enforcement agencies try to piece together what remained of the cemetery’s paperwork, a small army of forensic anthropologists will try to assess the entire scope of this crime. The identity of all the human remains has to be established. And given the size of the open grave out back, an area measuring about a quarter million square feet, it will be a daunting task. It was reported that the grave robbers focused on older graves that were believed to have received few if any visitors. The combination of older grave sites and the lack of complete records and the desecration of remains mean that DNA testing would probably be the only way, if any, to identify the deceased. And even then, without DNA from descendents to use for comparison the effort could be useless. The DNA test will identify their genetic string but we may never know their identity. This is truly a crime without measure.
In African spirituality, ancestors hold a special place in the belief system. Ancestors rank right up there with the Supreme Being Olodumare and the Orisas. And of these three entities, only ancestors have the residual of earthly vessels, bodies held in graves. Like funerals, the choice of the perfect grave is for the living. Earth is earth and ground is ground to the deceased. Nature has a very practical way of looking at things.
But it is the living that wants the perfect shade under the tree or a scenic view from the grave site. We the living want those who go before us to be in the most scenic part of the most beautiful cemetery available. Such an emphasis on what we believe to be the more beautiful location brings an emphasis on value into the picture. And in human terms value equates to dollars. Those who can pay the higher dollars will get the better plots. Like real estate for the living, other than money the three most important factors are location, location, and location. And whenever money gets added to the mix there will always be someone who will be willing to throw human decency out the window and submit to their most sordid nature.
God Give Me Strength
Prayer and spirituality go hand in hand. With just about any popular religion there are a standard set of prayers for just about every occasion. Are you about to eat? You’d better thank god for the many blessings. Are you about to sleep? You’d better ask god your soul to keep. Are you about to come together to discuss community business? Better say a word of convocation. Are you about to play a football game? Better ask god for victory. Is a family member about to have surgery? Better say a prayer for their safe return. Humans are quick to bust out with a prayer for just about anything and everything that happens in our life.
The way a lot of people tell their story, prayer was the only thing they had in certain desperate situations. How many of us have prayed to pass a test that we may have been ill prepared for in school? How many soldiers have prayed in their foxhole? God, if you help me get this car started I promise to go to church this weekend. Many times prayer is all we’ve got. And then you have people who will credit their success in a particular situation to prayer. God is good and we have to give him all the glory. Halleluiah! God hears all and knows all and he knows what we need. Let us bow our head! God, help me finish this post! Have mercy on me and give me the strength to convey an intelligent message. Have mercy on me!
Prayer has its purpose. It’s very helpful in getting someone the self confidence or the self assurance to help us in our personal endeavors. There is nothing more uplifting than believing the all mighty has got your back when you’re running down a football field with the ball and there are eleven big ass players on the other team who believe god has got their back in their effort to stop you in your tracks. God please don’t let them catch me.
But then the players on the other team are saying their prayers too. God give us the strength to catch that bastard!
And if the other players are lucky enough to catch the little bastard and flatten him into the turf, they’ll want to say a prayer that they didn’t kill the guy. How many times have we heard the announcer encourage the crowd to pray for a player knocked unconscious? Ladies and gentlemen the defense just stopped that running back. Uh, oh! It doesn’t look like he’s getting up. Let’s bow our heads in a word of prayer.
And at the end of the game, when the team didn’t win they’ll have another prayer. Oh god, why didn’t we score that touchdown? But the answer to that is easy. God works in mysterious ways.
Are you angry at god? Let him have it with double barrels. God! Why the hell didn’t you do what I told you to? Are you even listening to me? I specifically asked that you do something for me and you didn’t. What was the point of all that prayer? God works in mysterious ways. It wasn’t god’s will. It is kind of complicated. You would understand if it was god’s will. Since you don’t understand you must not be praying enough. Just send me your tithes and I’ll handle all that prayer for you from my church funded Gulfstream IV with hand stitched ostrich leather seats at thirty five thousand feet.
But the reality is that it is really very simple. God and prayer go together like oil and water. With a little work and a little effort you could get a combination that can work. God will be more than ready to listen to you when you are ready to listen to him. But don’t be fooled into thinking that every time you open your mouth god is waiting at your beck and call. God is a very busy entity. Stop and think how busy the creator of the universe must be if the universe is as large as what we think it is. Last time I heard the known universe is something like several quadrillion light years east and west by a quadrillion light years north and south and another bazillion light years up and down. That’s a lot of galactic real estate that needs to be managed. And he’s ready to stop what he’s doing a megazillion light years away to listen to what one of us have to say.
God, thank you for the meal we are about to eat. I can imagine god’s response now. You stopped me from forming a new galaxy with a cluster of black holes at its nucleus, with a billion solar systems waiting to be born to tell me thanks for dinner? Didn’t you thank me yesterday? Didn’t you thank me this morning? Am I going to have to stop and listen to you every time you eat? If that’s the case maybe you need to stop eating! I’m busy. I don’t mean to be rude but I’m trying to do something over hear. If you truly have something to say I’ll be more than happy to listen. But until then, could you do me a favor and show a little more discretion with the prayer line? It would be very much appreciated. Now, where was I?
More often than not what happens in our lives is a product of human choices, human actions, and series of random events driven by environments and circumstances. God stood above the football field and helped one team defeat the other? Not very likely. More probable is that the oblong football took a favorable jump for one team, an unfavorable jump for the other. God stood over the people trying to cross the bridge on their long walk to Montgomery, Alabama when the police attacked with dogs and fire hoses? Not very likely. The dogs attacked, people saw the dogs attack, and developed sympathy for people who were just trying to demonstrate their resolve for equality in the face of white oppression. God stood over your shoulder and magically imbued the ill prepared test taker with knowledge he or she should have studied for? Not likely. Probably explains why they’re flunking the class.
God isn’t waiting to hear our prayers. If you want to have a conversation with god then learn to be still and clear your mind and learn to listen. It takes a lot more than falling to your knees, saying a few rote words, and going through the traditional motions of prayer. God shouldn’t be taken for granted so easily. Learn to respect who he is and your relationship to him. Humans are not god’s equal and he’s not sitting around waiting for you to give him something to do. I pray that you understand what I’m trying to say. God, did you hear that?
Our Very Own Golden Calf
To say that the untimely death of Michael Jackson not quite two weeks ago has impacted the world is an understatement. As I write this, Mr. Jackson’s public funeral is being held in Los Angeles’ Staples Center. I just heard a clip of Stevie Wonder singing his tribute to the King of Pop. Another clip had a sample of the eulogy given by Reverend Al Sharpton. A quick glimpse of the news on the internet showed a headline of Michael Jackson’s tribute with a gospel choir opening the service.
Hundreds of pictures of the event have already been posted. Millions of people all over the world applied for tickets to the event even though there was scant chance that many would be able to attend even if they had won the lottery known as the Michael Jackson funeral. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people traveled to Los Angeles from around the world without a ticket to the memorial just for the privilege to be denied access to Staples Center. One woman interviewed on television said she spent three thousand dollars to buy a last minute ticket from the United Kingdom to pay her respects and to gain closure. So many people took the death of Michael Jackson to heart. This event is truly unprecedented.
This is my third Michael Jackson themed article since his demise. Unlike the vast majority of people who have written about Michael, my writings have not been all that kind. Most people who respond to my articles reprimand me for being so harsh with a man who appears to have done everything imaginable, and some things beyond most people’s imagination, to put his blackness behind him and become a bona fide member of the racially generic dominant community. I didn’t forget the bleaching of his blackness before he died and I’m not going to forget it just because he died. Mr. Jackson was a strange and complex figure and his death will not change that. At least it doesn’t change anything for me.
Mr. Jackson’s death has catapulted him into people’s hearts in a way and on a scale that is hard to imagine. No one will ever enjoy such love and such worship for a long, long time if ever. You can compare the impact of his death to the death of Elvis Presley or you can compare his death to the passing of Rudy Valentino or to the death of anyone else to determine who had the bigger impact to the people of his or her time. Who is bigger and who is greater is moot. It really is an argument of apples and oranges as to who is the greatest star. Today is the day that many of us want to celebrate this man’s life.
I was listening to National Public Radio and heard that Michael Jackson was being buried in a golden casket. The allusion was much too stark to simply let it go by without saying anything. I searched the internet for a picture of the casket and found it within seconds. I saw Michael Jackson’s golden casket and all I can think of was the golden calf from the book of Exodus.
According to the Old Testament, right after the greatest manifestations of the power of the Supreme Being, some of the people needed decided that what they needed was something shiny and expensive to hang their worship on. The people gave of their selves, gave up their gold, so they could help build the golden calf. And once they were done, the shiny golden calf sat on an altar for all the people to see and celebrate. I’m sure if you ask some of the people why they did it they could have said that they needed some kind of closure from the past as well.
When most of us learned that story back in Sunday school, we probably thought we’d never do anything remotely similar. We would never worship idols in such a way that we lose perspective of our sense of spirituality and our sense of community, our relationship with each other. However, if today’s events are any indication, many of us appear quite capable of repeating the story. Many of us appear happy to give of our wealth in an effort to help create the greatest spectacle of a tribute possible to give a man.
Once the memorial is done we will come one step closer to putting this unpleasant affair behind us. It might take a week, it might take a month, but eventually, Michael Jackson will fall back into the cobwebs of our conscious and the vast majority of us will go back to the lives we led before he died. It will take time but all of us will move on to find another idol to worship. We will always have this time to look back on and shake our heads in amazement at the fact that for a few days the global collective took a moment to worship Michael Jackson in unison.
