ERNEST CLEO GRANT II
JANUARY 18, 2018
Christianity Today | January 2018 Issue
“It’s ironic that as I crossed
the Walt Whitman Bridge
to attend
an urban apologetics conference
in Philadelphia”
I encountered the very religious pluralism
that makes conferences such as these a necessity.
As my weathered SUV pulled up to the stoplight,
I could see the Marcus Garvey–inspired
Pan-African flag pirouetting in the wind,
and I…
A Selection from UTENZI WA ADILI
by Swahili poet Shaaban Robert:
“For the benefit of his son, original form is made up of 100 verses.
Ni tone samahani,
La asali moyoni,
Hutia furahani,
Mpewas na atoaye.
Forgivness is a drop
Of honey in the heart,
Happiness it brings
To the bestower and the bestowed alike.”
Sometimes, I forget my original purpose, the thrust of my complete devotion to the Christian walk: liberation.
More than a future foot tattoo, but a full and complete way of being:
to be liberated.
Overcoming the generational bondage of my family,
my ancestors,
and my People,
I am compelled to walk with my Jesus.
I walk,
knowing that this life I have been given is not my own,
but a testament to the liberating power of the Almighty.
Everyday my prayer is that my life be an example,
“a living epistle”
of overcoming all earthly, carnal, material shackles
to live free.
(more…)
A version of this article by Lauren Christensen appears in print on December 24, 2017, on Page 23 of the [New York Times] Sunday Book Review
[Photo Credit: Michael R Barnes/Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture]
In 2010, a church hymnal that once belonged to Harriet Tubman — the American abolitionist hero who, after escaping slavery in 1849, devoted her new freedom to leading hundreds more of her fellow enslaved out of captivity, first as a conductor on the underground railroad and then later as a Union spy — was donated to the National Museum of African American History and Culture by the collector and historian Charles L. Blockson.
Crishuana & Co. 