Just another daughter of the Diaspora...
*Hi
Spiritual being with an affinity for Jill Scott and bad reality tv.
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Did you know the Catholic Church recently accepted artificial insemination within married couples under the guidelines that:
The sperm cannot be retrieved through masturbation nor the pull out method
Instead a man must poke a hole or two in a condom and have vaginal intercourse with his wife then take the semen from the condom as his sample
Why?
Because the only sexual acts permissible in the eyes of the Catholic Church must leave room for possible conception.
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“It is said that Kehinde (the second born) sends Taiyewo (the first) to check out what life is like on earth and to tell him (or her) whether it is good. Therefore, Taiyewo goes as sent by Kehinde, and becomes the first child to be born. He then communicates to Kehinde spiritually (believed to be from the way he cries) whether life is going to be good or not. The reply determines if Kehinde will be born alive or stillborn. Both return to where they came from if the reply from Taiyewo is not good enough for both of them.
The Yoruba traditionally say that Kehinde is the true elder of the twins despite being the last to be born, because he sent Taiyewo on an errand, a prerogative of one’s elders in Yorubaland. Kehinde is therefore referred to as Omokehindegbegbon (which means, ‘the child that came last becomes the elder’). However, the first-born twin is also sometimes referred to as Taiyelolu or Tayelolu, which is short for Omotaiyelolu and means, ‘the child that came to taste life excels’.”
(Source: Wikipedia)
They said, “He’s preaching hate against the white man; he’s telling us to hate the white man.” They thought there was something wrong with that. It just shows you how far down we were. We were even ashamed to hate a people who had hated, oppressed and exploited us for almost four hundred years, who had brought us to America in slave ships, sold us on slave blocks, raped our women and lynched our men! Not to hate people like that was a sign of mental illness.
Albert Cleage, ‘Black Messiah’
As-salatu Khayrun Minan-nawm
Prayer is better than sleep
“The focus on blackness does not mean that only blacks suffer as victims in a racist society, but that blackness is an ontological symbol and a visible reality which best describes what oppression means in America. The extermination of Indians, the persecution of the Jews, the oppression of Mexican Americans, and every other conceivable inhumanity done in the name of God and country –these brutalities can be analyzed in terms of America’s inability to recognize humanity in persons of color.”
-James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation
It seems that whites forget about the necessary interrelatedness of love, justice and power when they encounter Black people. Love becomes emotional and sentimental. This sentimental, condescending love accounts for their desire to “help” by relieving the physical pains of the suffering blacks so they can satisfy their own religious piety and keep the poor powerless. But the new blacks, redeemed in Christ, must refuse their “help” and demand that blacks be confronted as persons. They must say to whites that authentic love is not “help,” not giving Christmas baskets, but working for political, social and economic justice, which always means redistribution of power. It is a kind of power which enables the blacks to fight their own battles and thus keep their dignity.
-James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power
“The appearance of Black Theology on the American scene then is due exclusively to the failure of white religionists to relate the gospel of Jesus to the pain of being black in a white racist society. It arises from the need of black people to liberate themselves from white oppressors. Black theology is a theology of liberation because it is a theology which arises from an identification with the oppressed blacks of America, seeking to interpret the gospel of Christ in the light of the black condition. It believes that the liberation of black people is God’s liberation.”
-James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation
I was doing an assignment for my African Religious Traditions class and they spoke about pouring out libations for deceased loved ones. By pouring out beer, milk, etc. they pay their respects and keep the memory of their loved one alive which in turn keeps them living in spirit.
Kinda reminded me of pouring some out for the homies that ain’t here no more. Everything has an origin.
“So what do we mean by “poor”? I do not think there is any good definition but we come close to it by saying that the poor are non-persons, the insignificant, those who do not count in society and all too often in Christian churches as well. A poor person, for example, is someone who has to wait a week at the door of the hospital to see a doctor. A poor person is someone without social or economic weight, who is robbed by unjust laws; someone who has no way of speaking up or acting to change the situation. Someone who belongs to a despised race and feels culturally marginalized is insignificant. In sum, the poor are found in the statistics, but they do not appear there with their own names. We do not know the names of the poor; they are anonymous and remain so. They are insignificant in society but not before God.”
-Gustavo Gutierrez, Essential Writings
“This is a way of life, not a religion. We first nations people have no religion. That is a European concept, done ceremoniously at certain times of the week or year. For us, we begin every day of our lives in prayer and end every day in prayer. Our way of life begins before conception and goes into old, old age. There are the courting ways, before a man and woman become boyfriend and girlfriend, there are the ways the woman and the man prepare for childbirth after conception. These ways have been passed down for centuries, and they provide for a balanced way of life. We believe in the circle of life. We don’t believe death is final. We make the journey to the other side to continue in another form of energy. Death is not our way, but it is out there. Mr. Ray brought death.”
-Longblackcat statement on behalf of Lakota Nation re: sweat lodge incident lawsuit
My Old Testament professor gives me so much life.
It could be a really boring class but he makes it personal and interesting. He compared our relationships with God to our relationships with spouses. When people say they have a perfect marriage and never fight he equated it to them living separately or being very distant, the closer a relationship the more conflicts arise. The same with relationships with God and religion. If you’ve never questioned what you believe once or had doubt than how can you possibly have faith? Faith itself is a choice, choosing to believe despite apprehension.
“God limits knowledge to make room for faith”
My Old Testament teacher likes to ramble so we somehow got on the topic of Mormonism. It’s literally the most interesting religion I’ve heard of (jews in Peru BCtime building pyramids with the Mayans and Aztecs). I wanna take a class on it now.
Rastafarianism is a Jamaican movement that has entertained millenarian expectations in the prophecies of Alexander Bedward (1895) and Marcus Garvey.
In its vision, blacks have a special role in the coming new era. Some interpreted a prophecy attributed to Garvey as applying to the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, and hoped that black Jamaicans would be given free passage to Africa. Rastafarians wear dreadlocks as a protest against industrialized society, and some view marijuana or ganja as sacramental. Interestingly, women are not considered capable of Rastafarian awareness except through their husbands. The movement has spread to the Caribbean, North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
Sikhs often refer to God as Sat (“truth”) or Ik Onkar (“One Supreme Being”). God is formless, pure being
According to Sikh belief God’s light shines through the Gurus and the Guru Granth Sahib, and indeed all of creation, in which Nam or the name of God dwells. Sikhism shares with Hinduism belief in karma and reincarnation; for Sikhs, the ultimate goal is mystical union with the divine.
