Courage shouldn’t be required to love a Black Woman. To accept a heart given freely or a life offered for reciprocal tribute. Where is the danger in respecting one who aches with neglect from being habitually dismissed and discarded throughout centuries of generations? What terrors does this global shadow craft present? False images of projected insecurities, self-hate, irrational anger, exasperated impatience, and I-got-this-don’t-need-you independence. The illusions formed by men of hypersexuality, low morality, and mean-spiritedness to assuage their proclivities of abuse, torment, separation, abandonment, rejection, and destruction Society built a totem full of grievances, animosity and dissatisfaction and called it Black Womanhood. Onto this altar are thrown the most violent human attacks. Yet despite this intentional sacrilege, the Black Woman’s labor is expected without delay or complaint, her support is claimed as an entitlement right, her nurturing care as a duty of her skin, gender and status. Indeed, no part of a Black Woman’s body or existence is expected to be under her control. Everything she is, society and man claim as their droit du seigneur. The world delights in telling Black Women we are nothing. We are the least desired and even then, only wanted for what we give. We are rarely valued for our personhood; often only praised for the volume of our production and serving unto depletion or death. Yet ask a Black Woman who she is and be prepared to bask in the light of her glory. We see ourselves as the embodiment of love, conduits of grace, dispensers of mercy. We are Wisdom, Discernment and Truth. We are Unbroken, Unbowed, Still Standing. Society sees one thing. We Are Another. We are not who you say we are. We will not perform to your expectations. We will do what needs to be done, but we will be who we be. We are Love, ergo we do not require courage to love ourselves. It shouldn’t require courage for others to love Black Women. We are humans with human needs, Women with human desires. We, too, want to be loved, held, cherished, respected and honored. We desire to be accepted as fully as we accept others; Invited into spaces so hospitable we forget the hostility of the world; Spoken to with a gentle understanding that elicits the same kind response. We gleefully pour all of ourselves into everyone connected to us Even when they feed us nothing in return We, too need to be poured into. We, too, desire to bask in the radiance of another’s glory To be bathed in joy, peace and tranquility To rest without anxiety and wake without urgency We don’t need this grace from everyone Nor do we expect a societal shift out of gratitude for services rendered But for our men… It shouldn’t take courage to be a man of character, substance, integrity, conviction and discernment A man with enough strength to support a leaning respite. A man who follows his heart and spirit instead of social norms and biases, But alas here we are praying for courage to exist, to relate, to be who we are. It shouldn’t take courage to live well in this realm, But alas, here I am alone and unwanted in a world unable to eliminate my joy, exploring life with an unmitigated gall derived from loving myself.
The longest ongoing war in the world has been pitched by men against women. Men seek to control, possess and destroy women, in general. However, when men begin to nurture, respect and join with women’s feminine power, healing between the male and female will begin.
What’s your take on this?
The Woman and the Dragon
A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth.Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his heads.His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to deliver a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born.And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to ruleall the nations with a scepter of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne,and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days.
“During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me. I guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold.” “Now I am coming to you. I told them many things while I was with them in this world so they would be filled with my joy. I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do. Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth.” (John 17:12-19)
Reflect
The world hates Christians because Christians’ values differ from those of the world. Because Christ’s followers don’t cooperate with the world by joining in their sin, they are living accusations against the world’s immorality. The world follows Satan’s agenda, and Satan is the avowed enemy of Jesus and his people. Jesus didn’t ask God to take believers out of the world but instead to use them in the world. Because Jesus sends us into the world, we should not try to escape from the world, nor should we avoid all relationships with non-Christians. We are called to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16), and we are to do the work that God sent us to do. A follower of Christ becomes set apart through believing and obeying the Word of God (Hebrews 4:12). He or she has already accepted forgiveness through Christ’s sacrificial death (Hebrews 7:26-27). But daily application of God’s Word has a purifying effect on our minds and hearts. Scripture points out sin, motivates us to confess, renews our relationship with Christ, and guides us back to the right path.
Respond
Jesus prayed, “Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth” (John 17:17). You can pray that prayer for yourself or someone else. In what ways has God already revealed his truth through his Word? How has his Word helped shape your priorities and purpose?
Source: Life Application Study Bible, October 26, 2016
This video brought tears to my eyes and clutched quite a few from my heart as well. The power music has to transform, incite, unite, uplift, commiserate, to express our deepest feelings is illustrated in this video collage of street muscians from around the globe. This seamless collaboration was produced without any of the musicians meeting each other. They just listened to each others words and instruments.