My wife and II hear the rhetoric, white privilege, white supremacy, cops hate blacks and on and on. This is to sow discord amongst us and destroy the truth of who and what we are. I have been thinking about this and wondering how we came to this impasse in our nation. I know one thing, slavery has a history as long as human history. In the beginning it was that the group who won the war enslaved the losers, over time the slaves became citizens and a part of the greater civilization.
However, things changed over the centuries and millennia, and slavery became a money making business. In the 1600’s it was a thriving business, slave ships would go to the African coast, purchase a cargo of slaves and bring them to Muslim nations, and, European nations. Finally as the colonies were settled, the south became an agrarian area vast plantations were owned and cotton was king, they needed cheap labor so they began to import slaves. This eventually led to the Civil (civil?) War and the deaths of thousands of young men fighting for and against slavery. It also was the beginning of the tearing down of the Constitution of the USA. Today there is NO United States, we are a sorry bunch of people who cannot any longer survive as a united country. We were founded on Judean and Christian principles, of course it took the war to finally bring us to the place where we could change how people were to be seen. Not by color but rather by their character, and it took another 75 years or so to see the beginning of real integration of our society.
Today, we have returned to racial hatred, division and destruction of the very society that had promised so much. I grew up in the days of real progress in the north, we lived in integrated neighborhoods, we kids did not care about color as much as how well you could run, catch, pitch, etc.
Let me speak in this missive in regard to the truth of who we are as a people. We are all first, human beings, second we were created in the image of God, third we are all imperfect because we are finite people. We live in a linear world, we will EACH of us one day die, our money, our position, our toys if you will, have nothing to do with where we end up in eternity. We cannot take any of it with us, know that we came into this world naked, and we will leave this world also naked, nothing can go with us into eternity.
In the beginning of this world God created man that is you and I, but, he did so by also creating woman, let me tell some of the story to those who do not know it, and to some who have perverted it.
“Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in the likeness of ourselves; and let them rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the animals, and over all the earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the earth.” So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. God blessed them: God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth.”
(Gen 1:26-28 CJB)
The CJB is the Complete Jewish Bible, the quotations in this missive from the Bible as translated from the Hebrew. I have given here the first part of this creation of the human race, now here is the rest of the story from Genesis 2.
“Then Adonai, God, formed a person [Hebrew: adam] from the dust of the ground [Hebrew: adamah] and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living being. Adonai, God, planted a garden toward the east, in `Eden, and there he put the person whom he had formed.” (Gen 2:7-8 CJB)
“So the person gave names to all the livestock, to the birds in the air and to every wild animal. But for Adam there was not found a companion suitable for helping him. Then God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the person; and while he was sleeping, he took one of his ribs and closed up the place from which he took it with flesh. The rib which Adonai, God, had taken from the person, he made a woman-person; and he brought her to the man-person. The man-person said, “At last! This is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. She is to be called Woman [Hebrew: ishah], because she was taken out of Man [Hebrew: ish].” This is why a man is to leave his father and mother and stick with his wife, and they are to be one flesh. They were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.” (Gen 2:20-25 CJB)
So now you know, God himself created both man and woman, please note the phrase the man and his wife in verse 25. This is of course not the end of the story, it is but the beginning and there is the fall from grace that takes place some time later. There is temptation from a talking snake, and the woman is the one who is tempted first, but, as you will see from the story, her husband was right there taking part in the fall from grace. It is, by the way, his sin not hers although both sinned and fell short of God’s perfection.
The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat from the fruit of the trees of the garden, but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, ‘You are neither to eat from it nor touch it, or you will die.’ ” The serpent said to the woman, “It is not true that you will surely die; because God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it had a pleasing appearance and that the tree was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her; and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves loincloths. They heard the voice of Adonai, God, walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, so the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Adonai, God, among the trees in the garden. Adonai, God, called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I ordered you not to eat?” The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” Adonai, God, said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me, so I ate.” Adonai, God, said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all livestock and wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and eat dust as long as you live. I will put animosity between you and the woman, and between your descendant and her descendant; he will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.” To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pain in childbirth. You will bring forth children in pain. Your desire will be toward your husband, but he will rule over you.” To Adam he said, “Because you listened to what your wife said and ate from the tree about which I gave you the order, ‘You are not to eat from it,’ the ground is cursed on your account; you will work hard to eat from it as long as you live. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat field plants. You will eat bread by the sweat of your forehead till you return to the ground—for you were taken out of it: you are dust, and you will return to dust.” The man called his wife Havah [life], because she was the mother of all living. Adonai, God, made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Adonai, God, said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, to prevent his putting out his hand and taking also from the tree of life, eating, and living forever—”therefore Adonai, God, sent him out of the garden of `Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So he drove the man out, and he placed at the east of the garden of `Eden the k’ruvim and a flaming sword which turned in every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.”
(Gen 3:2-24 CJB) Just a note on k’ruvim, in our English Bibles it is Cherubim, in either translation, you don’t want to mess with this heavenly guardian.
We know that all men and women have come from one central location in this world, science has found that the population of the world came from 3 female persons. We also know the story of Noah, Chapter 5 in Genesis, he had three sons, they each had a wife, 3 female persons, whose lineage goes back to the Mother of all Living. Adam’s wife Eve. Now that we know the story, let us realize that WE ARE FAMILY, all lives matter because all life matters, since we are all one family, Black, Brown, Red and Yellow as well as White. We are brothers and sisters, cousins or whatever else we see as designations of family, but the colors are just covers, not something that separates us, unless you believe the hateful rhetoric.
This missive has gotten a bit long, more will follow, feel free to comment.
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