A Message From The Publisher
pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, “You are exacting usury from your own countrymen!” So, I called together a large meeting to deal with them. Nehemiah 5:7 (NIV)
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
As I begin to tackle the task of writing my thoughts concerning the message that comes forth through me, I have to pause and take some moments to give up me to receive a message.
It is difficult today because there are many things that separate me from the message. I am bombarded by my personal feelings of wanting to attack my weaknesses that I see in others. But I can’t do that; I only suffer more, thereby causing all of my blessings to be blocked when I become so petty. I do understand that what I do can ultimately affect us all.
I do see how those in positions to help others become so timid that they wind up doing more harm than good to the ones that need the most.
Operating from the “I am the first” syndrome has created a vacuum free of oxygen that causes them to choke to death, and there is no one to help them because they have made that impossible.
I want to give my condolences to the families of those who have buried loved ones since this year has begun. Heaven must be smiling because of the harvest.
What are we doing to increase the membership numbers in our organizations? For right now let’s look at our local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). I don’t know of too many organizations, Black or white, that have been around for over 150 years fighting for the rights of Black and poor people. that the scope of the organization is much broader than that, but let’s face it, we all know that the merits and focus of this great organization has been on the causes of Black people. So why do we run from that? Why all of a sudden, “IT’s not politically correct to be Black and in power to be a member of the NAACP?” That’s BS (Being Stupid). You just don’t want your white friends to question your loyalty to them.
Do you think that Dr. Carter G. Woodson might have been onto something when he wrote, The Mis-Education of a Negro- something that makes you go hum?
Our organizations need us, so let’s step up to the plate and do what we have to do.
Here lately, as Black media owners engage in discussion on the condition, worth and viability of our life, we find, now more than ever, how we need each other. We may never agree totally on any one issue, but the certainty of it all is that we can never forget that we owe just as much to those that can represent themselves as well as those who find it difficult to do as well.
To those elected officials who barter and compromise their leadership positions for the convenience of misconceived power, it is the short, fused fail that causes the most damage. After your short lived political life, you still have to come home. In the words of an old blues song: “The same thang it took to get your baby, it’s gonna take the same thang to keep her.”
I remember listening to a radio commercial about lactose intolerance, I was thinking what’s the cure for different people’s intolerance.
The medical use of the term lactose intolerance includes an excessive sensitivity or allergic reaction to a medicine, foodstuff, or other materials. In other words for me, it meant a physical rejection.
As it, intolerance, related to my thoughts, it was concerning relationships between Blacks, Jews, Caucasians, Asians, and Cubans; well frankly speaking, any other people than the people that I get along with.
How selfish of me to be so myopic and iron hearted.
Further into the commercial there was a remedy mentioned for those who suffer from lactose intolerance.
What cure could there be for the stiff-necked individuals who refuse to embrace and try to systemically deal with their personal intolerance of the diversity of this country?
I do believe that there is nothing new under the sun, and if it happened before it can happen again.
So, I began to reason that if there is a cure for a sickness caused by an infiltration of an organism or whatever, then somewhere there is a cure for diversity intolerance.
I thought about the story in the Bible concerning the Tower of Babel. In this story, commonality of the same language almost caused the destruction of the entire world.
If sameness can cause that much destruction, why can’t diversity be a means to a beginning of a much-needed healing in this country?
Just as the scientists found a cure for the lactose problems by identifying the culprits, there is a medical book for curing the ills that affect man’s social imperfections, The written Word.
The cure for any intolerance must begin with understanding the effects of the intolerance on the body and then how the body behaves due to the intolerance.
As in lactose intolerance, the body produces a vile stench in the form of a colorless gas causing others to suffer when it is expelled from the body, and it can clear a room causing embarrassment to the person responsible for it.
For those who suffer from diversity intolerance, please go to the Word and search for your cure, thereby eliminating that pungent offending odor that one cannot see, but believe you me, it sure smells!
Let us be mindful that our days upon this earth are already numbered. Be that as it may, I am saddened when I look around and see our elders fading away from our presence as if they were pages in a great novel being turned to get to the next chapter.
However interesting the novel, the pain of completing the book leaves an empty void that’s not easily filled.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m growing older and what was is no longer there, just like the guava trees and the huckleberries, gone or just too difficult to find:
Once gone, how do we replace them?
The elegance of aging is a noteworthy progress that requires just the right amount of everything. Too much of any one ingredient could spoil the whole thing and just because it has aged doesn’t make it ripe.
Sure there is an aging process to becoming an elder, but what constitutes a seasoned elder is the benefit to all that has been woven into the fabric of life from the hands, mind and spirit of the elder.
Close your eyes and think back on the wisdom of your grandparents. Who would ever think that a spider’s web could stop the bleeding of a severe cut or that fatback and a penny would draw the poison out of the punctured wound from a rusty nail?
Perhaps the sickness that was mentioned in James 5:14 was not merely a physical body illness but a sickness of a people, land, and government as well as a sick economy worse than the Great Depression!
The sage wisdom of our elders is slowly, quietly, and unnoticeably drifting away. And the sad part about it is a vast amount of the population doesn’t even recognize it; that wisdom is certainly without a doubt an unequivocally an endangered species.
One day we will look around to find ourselves in a nothingness created by our lack of resuscitating the value of what our elders gave to us.
Let us allow life to remember them by forever keeping them in the present by living what they gave to us. Not by passing on the legacy of gangs, drive-by shootings, sexual transmitted diseases, and a trillion-dollar deficit.
Yes, we can continue to make positive history and not be fearful of a daunting future without them, when we exhibit all the constructive wisdom, they imparted through us.
Miss them we will, but without fear. The greatest we can request, for our elders is, that the Lord will award them mercy, when called to cross the chilly Jordan River, and come to sit in the judgment seat before Christ.
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