Spiritual Gumbeaux
Rev Lynne discusses spiritual leadership
Spiritual Gumbeaux
The Divine Spark Within: Celebrating Holiday Spirituality and Cultural Heritage with Bishop Jack Bomar
As the yuletide season wraps its arms around us, Bishop Jack Bomar and Rev Lou stir the Spiritual Gumbeaux pot rich with wisdom and warmth. They share the holiday spirit through a spiritual lens, acknowledging the contrast between festive joy and the world's unrest, particularly in the Middle East. Their insights on faith leadership during times of despair offer a beacon of hope, while we also tenderly recognize those experiencing a "Blue Christmas," a time tinged with sorrow for some. The spirit of giving becomes a balm, as we hear about the magic of sharing.
Venturing beyond the visible decorations and songs, we unravel the threads of spirituality that weave through our daily existence. The Bishop and Reverend unveil the true essence of Advent, with its powerful weekly themes that transcend the season, becoming mantras for a fulfilled life. They urge us to cultivate an inner joy that stands resilient against life's tempests, and we explore how spirituality, distinct from religiosity, fortifies us from within. It's a gentle reminder that the peace and joy we seek often reside in the quiet corners of our own hearts, as we navigate the tumult outside.
We honor the rich legacy of African spirituality and its quiet yet profound influence on Christian traditions. Our conversation leads us to cultural heritage's vital role in shaping spiritual identities and the unspoken strength in Black women's prayers. This episode is an invitation to reflect on the light, hope, joy, and peace that the holiday season represents, through the lens of truth and spiritual connection, affirming the divine spark in each of us.
Welcome to Spiritual Gumbeaux. This podcast is our holiday podcast in conjunction with Hillside International Center for Truth here in Atlanta, Georgia, across the street, neighbor to the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, and it is with Bishop Jack Bomar and Reverend Lou. We're here to say Merry Christmas.
Bishop Jack:Merry Christmas, thank you. Thank you so much for allowing us to be a part of this sharing today. It's always a joy to be with my sister in the ministry and our neighbors across the street. Thank you.
Rev Lynne:Thank you, thank you. So, as you know, Spiritual Gumbeaux is for leadership in the spiritual venue and not spiritual leadership in the Western context of leadership. And as I started to think about the season, I thought what does this season really mean to us as spiritual leaders in this community and what does this mean for our families and the people who we love and worship with and take care of, and all that stuff and the midst of the turmoil, especially in the Middle East? To this morning I was reading the Los Angeles Times and I saw this article about Bethlehem and where Christ was born, and the image showed a baby surrounded by brick and mortar instead of the baby in the cresh, and that really kind of shook me and it was designed to do just that Bethlehem, which is located in the Palestinian territory, and it is an act of remembrance and defiance about what is actually happening in the Middle East. And that really made me think about what is this Christmas season about this year?
Bishop Jack:Well, that's quite profound and a great way to set up this conversation. You ask the question what does it mean for us as spiritual leaders and leaders and the leaders of the faith means it's a lot of work this season, not just a lot of the outer work, but a lot of inner work that we are required to do to be messengers of hope and healing and faith and joy and inspiration to so many who are struggling during this time. All over the world, it's been noted that during this holiday season, people, a lot of people, are struggling. The suicide rate, depression rate is at an all-time high.
Bishop Jack:And what is our role? How do we keep the message of Christmas and all that it represents alive in the hearts and minds of so many who are in such despair today? So that reminder that even in the midst of all of that, in the midst of the chaos, in the midst of the turmoil, this sparkle, this light of hope, this glimmer of hope that can come forth and come through, that can change lives and change societies and nations. And that's, for me, is what the Christmas season and the story is about. And that is holding on to hope, when I'm hearing the words of James Weldon Johnson, when hope unborn is already dead. How can you hope when hope that is unborn is already dead?
Bishop Jack:And that's what the season affords us, that we can tap into the spirit of what Christmas represents and what the season offers. And I believe in tapping into that spirit, that power, that it can lift us, it can bring light, it can bring inspiration to the hearts and minds of many, and it's work. It's work. It's work. It's more than just singing the carols, because the season to be jolly when you might not feel jolly. For me, this is an interesting Christmas this year. This is the first Christmas since my mother transitioned, so it's an interesting time for the family, sort of a bittersweet, and yet we find ways to lean into what this season represents and what she represented. That is, a giving of living, of joy and good cheer and spreading love and hope to those who need it today.
Rev Lynne:Yeah, you brought up a very interesting memory of your mother. It's called Blue Christmas. For so many it's called Blue Christmas. My mother died on December 16. So recently my father sent out a text message to kind of remind everybody. We all remember we just weren't going to say anything to him because we didn't want him to be blue, and so it's really difficult, especially for those who have lost close family members or anybody really, during this season. And I have never experienced there's a Blue Christmas service and I have never experienced a Blue Christmas.
Rev Lynne:But, I have thought about. Maybe that's something that I need to do at Incarnation, because there are so many people silently working through Christmas and just trying to make it to New Year's because of the depression and sadness and loss and loneliness. And so this Blue Christmas that I've heard about but haven't experienced Interesting.
Bishop Jack:I'm quite interested in that yeah.
Rev Lynne:Is one that supposedly helps during this time of challenge in a Blue Christmas, so maybe that's something we need to jointly do next year.
Bishop Jack:We can collaborate on it and absolutely A Blue.
Rev Lynne:Christmas and figure it out.
Bishop Jack:Yeah, yeah, you know, and it's all about reaching people where we are Not where they are, but where we are. We're all at different stages and places in our lives and I believe that true spiritual communities, faith communities, that's what we're here to do To reach people where they are.
Rev Lynne:And this is the message.
Bishop Jack:This is the gospel of Christmas, the good news of Christmas, that God will meet you where you are.
Rev Lynne:Well, I want to just share with you what good news that Hillside allowed me to participate in. Last week. You go bble, gobble, gobble, turkey, turkey.
Bishop Jack:Turkey's.
Rev Lynne:And so, as I was coming to pick up Turkeys, I thought to myself hmm, the arts exchange over in East Point. I said there's a lot of people over there who don't have time or can't leave their jobs to come and pick up a Turkey, even though those Turkeys are needed. And so I called my son over there, who's the new program manager, and I said go and find out how many people need Turkeys. Do people need Turkeys? And so he said oh, mom, okay, just bring one or two. And then he called me back and he says can you bring at least five or six Turkeys.
Rev Lynne:And as I was leaving picking up the Turkeys and whatnot, he then called back for some extra ones.
Rev Lynne:But I thought, wow, this. You know, we often want people to come and pick up Turkeys, but there's so many people who can't come and pick up Turkeys because of their job situations, and so I took the Turkeys over there and I tell you the gratefulness of the arts exchange, and a lot of them were all women working who immediately when they get off of work, they've got to go and take care of family situations. So squeezing out that extra moment to get food is not as easy as one would thought, and so that was a true, I think, moment of Christmas blessing, or, as we say, advent blessing. Advent blessing, yes, the coming, and I was happy to be able to facilitate in that because I was blessed to be able to come and get it. So hey, then, bother me to go and drop it off and make somebody else's Christmas special, and that's what it was all about you know, providing Turkeys and all of the items that would make for a rich holiday meal to those who are.
Bishop Jack:So many are at need today. So many of our people in our community, in our churches they might not say it are in great need and when we can, I'm so grateful to be a part of a community that has a heart for the community, people who have a heart for the community and just providing support as we can you know we might not- be able to reach everybody but those that we can reach, making a difference.
Rev Lynne:We're grateful that you're able to share those items with so many Me too, In fact, tomorrow this week we're doing this toy giveaway, toy drive for partnering with.
Bishop Jack:SWEAC to make available all of these toys and gifts for families who are financially struggling and can't provide that for the children and the youth and their households. So we're very grateful. So when you go to the King Chapel you'll see that. Did you go through? No, I didn't. I haven't been there.
Rev Lynne:You go to the.
Bishop Jack:King Chapel. It's like toy land. My inner child just jumps up and down Really. Oh you got to see it, it's fantastic, wow. So yeah, and that's what the season calls for us, calls us to do. I believe that when we get out of the self, out of our individual selves, and into the collective self, it helps us to transcend those low moments in life, those dark moments in life we can never lose by giving and giving from that pure space within ourselves to help somebody else. That's true.
Bishop Jack:I believe that we used to sing this song and the missionary Baptist church where I grew up, williams Grove, missionary Baptist in Camden, tennessee. You can't be God's giving, no matter how hard you try, and so in our context here, we can't be the universe, we can't be life-giving, and when we seek to give and be a blessing to others, it just comes back. It keeps coming back and it's quite miraculous how it happens, even in providing joy for someone else, and I'm a big believer that whatever it is that you feel that you want or need be that for somebody else, provide it for someone else and you watch how it comes back to you. So if we want to feel more joy and cheer, let's seek out ways that we can be that for somebody else and just see what happens in our lives.
Rev Lynne:And I think that's the grace of this season, if we really leaned into it, yeah, yeah, and really leaned for us. For the four weeks of Advent there's always a lighting of a candle, and the lighting of the candle is so symbolic, it's so symbolic and the lighting starts with joy, joy, joy and peace and hope and love. So by the end of the four weeks you've lit all of those symbolic and those words. And if people were really into the spirituality of it, let's use that language as a mantra for our days.
Rev Lynne:So this is the week of hope. What does hope feel like? What does it look like to me? How does it feel? How can I manifest hope this week? Yeah, yeah, and that time of Advent, for us as a liturgical church, is something that, really, if people were serious about these things, then they would be able to say, hey, you know, the word of the week was hope. How am I manifesting hope for somebody? Or how am I manifesting joy for somebody? How am I manifesting?
Bishop Jack:love.
Rev Lynne:Yeah, and so they work as wonderful reminders. I think, in many ways, though, we've become so conditioned that we've kind of moved away or stepped back from the real intrinsic pieces of that, because it wasn't a part of the original church, it was something the church created much later, but it still has significance to it. It has a great deal of significance, absolutely, if we lean into it, lean into it.
Bishop Jack:If we lean into it and that's pretty true and interesting we're actually we're leaning into those same themes. Here at Hillside, sunday was about joy for us and how do we joyful living and what does this mean and how does it look and how do we create these moments. A lot of people think that joy comes with things, or with things we find joy. We understand it's an inside job and the things can. Things might provide us happiness, temporary happiness, happiness contingent on what's happening around us, but joy is that comes from, I believe, the relationship. It comes from the knowingness of where the true source of joy lies and connecting with that.
Bishop Jack:You can be unhappy and still have joy.
Rev Lynne:That's right.
Bishop Jack:I've known people in very unpleasant, unhappy with their lives unhappy, you know I share this Sunday. I remember growing up once again in the missionary Baptist church services high. This music is great, the preaching is on point and all of a sudden you'll see the church mothers and fathers responding to the movement of spirit in the space and they would start responding with the shouts and screams and dance and rejoicing.
Bishop Jack:And we'll say, oh, they got happy. They got happy. Yeah, they were happy, but they might not have been happy with what was happening in their lives at that moment. But what they were able to do is tap into that inner source of joy that helped them to transcend that moment, transcend those circumstances, and it brought them a kind of relief and a release. So, as we're, as you mentioned, joy and hope and peace and love, all of those, we call them the greatest commodities of life that we can enjoy in Baskin, and they're really not contingent upon what's happening. Peace is not the absent of war. We can still be in peace in the midst of the storm, the storms of life. And for us it comes from relationship, having that connection and that oneness, that relationship in our teachings with God, with the Christ within, with whatever your reference is to this power and presence that transcends your physical self, that relationship, and you know, bishop, it's interesting.
Rev Lynne:This is a great conversation because we have so many people who are so caught up in this notion of being religious and don't quite see that being religious is not being spiritual. No, and they are very different commodities. They're very different. You have and this is nothing against the faithful, because we need the faithful. We need the faithful who come into the church, who are there on Sundays, who welcome, who do the busyness of that. But it is as important to have those who understand the spiritualness, the prayerfulness, the internal work, so that the external work can be done with joy. I often hear a lot of people talk about burnout. You know, and when you have an older congregation you do meet people who have a lot of burnout. But the interesting part about it is you can sometimes tell those who have done the spiritual work because they're not burnt out. I still feel alive, they're still full of life.
Bishop Jack:They're still full of life and still I'm excited to be of service.
Rev Lynne:Yes and amen, Ashe and amen and abe and whatever else you wanna say. But you can see it, because the energy is still there, because they are able to recognize that this is not about me. Yeah, yeah, this is not about me, and just the bounciness.
Bishop Jack:You know, if I had to, I guess, give a description of what it means to be religious and what it means to be spiritual, I equate that with the sisters Mary and Martha. Remember Martha was so busy in the house cleaning and.
Bishop Jack:Mary ran to sit at the feet of Jesus. And Mary and Martha says to Jesus why don't you tell Mary to come in and help me clean up? She should be up here. That's the religious part, the busy and the outer. And the spiritual is busy on the inside, working on the inside, and the great mystics would say that those who are spiritual are those who seek a greater connection with God, with source. Is it Meister Eckert who talks about? He was a friend of God. He wanted that connection, he wanted that relationship. And if it means, as Paul would say, everything else is rubbish but just knowing Him, having that one meant that atoned meant with Christ, with God, with Spirit, and so all of the stuff we do in the elder, from the scriptures and the singing, all of the good leads to it. But if we don't have that and make that, yeah we don't make that connection.
Bishop Jack:It's all for naught, it's just routine. Then you do find brown. So people tell them all the time you need to go get some rest and yeah, I know a problem. But I am invigorated and reinvigorated. I am refueled. I am refueled by what I do.
Rev Lynne:It's interesting.
Bishop Jack:I don't feel exhausted by it. I mean, of course, there are days when you've been here all day and you're doing everything but the ministry, the call and the. I would probably not be alive today if I wasn't doing this work. It's keeping me alive.
Rev Lynne:Wow, that's powerful. You mentioned Martha and Mary, so this is kind of a wonderful tie-in. So scholars have now figured out or have gone back and looked at some of the oldest biblical documents, right, and they have determined it was a woman scholar, who they have now. This is going to shake the theological world. But there was no Martha. Really there was no Martha, and what they have found in the papyrus is that the name was added in in the second century. Some scribe added the name Martha in I'm not surprised.
Rev Lynne:But here's the powerful thing of what you just said, because if we look at Martha as religion and Mary as spiritual, now we now know that there was no Martha. Maybe that is leading us To come back to so Back to so.
Bishop Jack:What's our true connection? What's the true spirituality? What's the true faith?
Rev Lynne:Yes, I mean. There's no coincidence that in this generation, this information or if we look into non-Christian spirituality, that thousand years of darkness is supposedly gone in the year of Aquarius. Okay, so those of you who are sitting out there going.
Bishop Jack:Oh, that's not.
Rev Lynne:Orthodox, or what you're talking about in Christian Christianity is not Orthodox religion we're talking about. But the truth is we now know that there is no Martha, wow, wow, and, unfortunately, most of Christendom. Well, you can never tell them that there was no Martha Because of the fear of shaking one's faith.
Bishop Jack:You know, I remember. This is interesting that you say that I remember. You know, it's probably a couple of years after college and I have friends who were going to seminary and they were Bible students and going to Harvard. And they would come back and tell me everything they're learning in class and I'm like why don't we teach the people? Why aren't you all teaching the people this? Why aren't you teaching this truth in the church? And this was the response that one of my friends, who's a phenomenal pastor, said who am I to shatter the faith of the masses?
Bishop Jack:I remember one of my professors at ITC, dr Jonathan Jackson he says he tells the story. He went to this new church. You know he graduated from BD, boston University. You know went to seminary.
Rev Lynne:That's what Dr King went yeah.
Bishop Jack:He goes in his first church he says everything that you've read in the Bible is a lie. Yeah, and that went over well and they put him out of the church and there's nothing real, nothing true in the Bible. So you have to learn to rightfully divide this word of truth. And so I remember even a seminary, the Hebrew professor did something similar right there. I mean, they cast, they tried to perform an exorcism. They tried to those, some of my classmates who were rooted and staunched in tradition and the literal interpretation of scripture. They were very challenged by that Right. I remember a couple people ran out of the class. I was tickled because it's everything that we've been taught. We know. The Bible is filled with alchories and stories and all of these things and metaphors.
Bishop Jack:We knew it took thousands of years for the book to even be compiled and it was passed down by word of mouth. I was thinking about this this morning and we have become so glued to the literal interpretation, the literal interpretation of what this book that was compiled by so many, and how, the intention behind how it was compiled, I mean, nobody knows. We, unless you read the original manuscript, we don't know. We only have a translation of what those original scrolls and texts might say, and so we can. Only it's our faith and I often tell the congregation here if these words don't come alive in us, these are just dead words that we're reading.
Rev Lynne:I mean why?
Bishop Jack:do we keep going back to it?
Bishop Jack:We have to find ourselves ourselves in this text and find the text within us. So in our teachings here, when we read about everything that's happening, even in the Christmas narrative, joseph Mary, baby Jesus, king Herod, all of them are represented in us. They're part of my own soul structure and as we understand the story from a spiritual perspective, then it becomes alive in us. I am the Herod that tried to kill the Christ child. I am the Mary. Who was it? The myster Eckhart who said what good is it for Mary to give birth to the baby Jesus if we are not given birth to the Christ? We're all called to be the mothers of God.
Rev Lynne:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's scary. That's scary for people, unfortunately, because most people don't want that big of a responsibility.
Bishop Jack:No, you tell me, you the minister, you the priest, you tell me, you tell me, yes, yes, and we're telling you, no, you got to get it for yourself. I mean that should be liberating, right? Because for so long, for so long, even the Bible people, the average Joe and Bo, were not allowed to even have the Bible or even read it, allowed to read.
Rev Lynne:I had to tell you, as the leader, as the priest, what the said, the Lord, what you should be believing and how you should believe, and you need to come to me.
Bishop Jack:Yeah, and now you've been told that you can go to God for yourself, right, and we thank God for the ministers and the ministries and all of these things. We thank God, yeah, and there's a purpose.
Rev Lynne:Well, and that's the beauty of this season, I know. For us, I think one of the things that's very powerful is that, for those who are in their Episcopal tradition or Anglican tradition, is that you can be far right and far left, but our tradition holds its ground in the center, the via media, the center, and it's it's. It would be wonderful to see more people able to hold the ground in the center. I think one of the biggest challenges that oftentimes we have is a tradition, especially a tradition that has predominantly people of color, is to be able to live into this cultural norm. I mean, from a philosophical and even from a spiritual perspective, it's wonderful, but I think where we get stuck at is the cultural aspect. Yeah, okay, if I turn around and shout is who's looking at me and who's looking at me? Or and that comes oftentimes with the shame that has been brought into- blackness.
Rev Lynne:And that is something that I think that we have to wrestle with. Put our arms around, because spirit should never be contained, not at all. They should never be contained, and that's you know. They tease me, they call me the little Afrocentric priest, but spirit should never be contained, and that has nothing to do with the scriptural.
Rev Lynne:Yes, and so I feel that and I hope that this advent season again, if we choose to go deeper into who we are and to what God's promise is and the symbol of those lights, those candles that light within us, that each week or each Sunday or moving forward, that those that light becomes brighter and brighter.
Rev Lynne:And I would say to those who are listening to us even if you don't engage in Kwanzaa, you still have seven days to light candles. If you didn't get the four weeks or five weeks of Lent, you got, you got. You have the seven days of Kwanzaa to light those candles because they're important. And maybe, just maybe, spirit is saying this is your season, this season when the world is dark spiritually and many parts of the world, nordic countries there and there won't be a whole lot of light happening because that's just the way it is, or when it gets dark so early for so many of us, maybe this notion of lighting that candle, the physical candle, is also a reminder to light that candle inside of you and try to keep it lit all year. That's just my thought about this holiday season.
Bishop Jack:We actually on Sunday as part of our which has happened at Christmas Eve is on Sunday this year. How fun is that? Part of our Christmas concert is that we incorporate the candle lighting component ceremony as part of that, and it's the reminder of keeping the light of Christ, that light of God, lit within us. How do we shine it? How do we keep it lit? How do we light it? By acknowledging it by Paramahansa. Yogananda talks about the path to Self-realization and that's the ultimate realization that God is in us and we can light that Christ. Light that candle.
Rev Lynne:We are created in the image of God to let that. But Jesus says you will do greater things than I. And I'm glad we're talking about that, because when I bring that up people are shook by it. And why would he have said it if he didn't believe that you have that light of God in you and that you can do greater things than he?
Bishop Jack:You know to that point, Reverend Lynn, I believe that this young, the generation that's coming up now, this is like their language. For many of them, you know this is their language. I think it's those who are steeped in traditionalism and literal you know, literal interpretation that's more challenging for many of them, but for the new, younger generations, they get it. This is their language. Yeah, they have a more global, universal approach to faith and life and living and community and humanity.
Rev Lynne:Yeah, but they've had more access than we have More access.
Rev Lynne:Because I didn't grow up with the internet. I didn't grow up with anything. Anything you wanna find, you can find it on the internet and the truths that were hidden we didn't talk about. And they look at institutional churches and say, well, wait a minute, you didn't say that, you didn't teach that, this is not what we've learned, and so I think that you're absolutely right with that. And they've taken that information and they're living it out in a way that we didn't get that opportunity and to your point you know there are, especially when talking about the black community, because of how scripture was used.
Bishop Jack:And certainly I was recently gifted with by Dr Bratis Bari on Savannah, georgia, who gave me the slave Bible, the Bible that where they extracted any passages of towards liberation or freedom or justifying any of that was extracted, and they were only. It only includes scriptures that speaks to being a content in your bondage and in the black community. For so long that's been, we have capitulated to this kind of slave slave Christianity.
Rev Lynne:Slave religion. Slave religion.
Bishop Jack:And because there are more who have studied and now being exposed to the truth and realize that it's only that truth is gonna set us free.
Bishop Jack:And it's the truth that we know and they're speaking to it. Like yourself, you have more coming up to know. I'm not gonna continue to perpetuate the miseducation, religious, spiritual education of my people. I'm not gonna lean into demonizing the spirituality that helped us to be who we are and it's amazing. I look at even our heritage and how we have taken, we've taken that thing that enslaved us, those teachings that kept us in bondage and transformed it and used it as a source of our liberation.
Bishop Jack:Yes, yes, and that's even the religion and we added our own to it. That's why we shout, we clap yeah and we respond and we do all. That's our African spirituality. Very much so, that's why we're having our on the last Sunday, our burning bowl Bimbe ring shout celebration.
Rev Lynne:Oh, the ring shout.
Bishop Jack:You gotta come on over.
Rev Lynne:The ring shout is wonderful.
Rev Lynne:Yeah, I mean and that's another piece, bishop because we have to invest in learning about our heritage.
Rev Lynne:And when I say that, you know, as you know, I'm working on my PhD, so I do a lot of enormous study on our traditions coming out of West Africa, and there's one book called Jesus, jesus Jobs and something else like by Collier, and they talk. It talks about how black women, specifically, who came over as slaves, held on to those traditions but also embraced this Jesus in a different kind of way to liberate them. And we've lost some of that. We've lost some of that in our denominationalism and people forget that those things they tell us that we're supposed to believe were number one. They were never created by you, they were created by Europe, white males, and we have some things that came from the early church fathers of North Africa, but many of them, like Augustine and Origen, ended up getting kicked out because they said something that the other piece or the part of the church didn't agree to, and so we have got to be able to claim those things that give us life. The Ring Shout is one of them.
Bishop Jack:Well, you know, in the low country of South Carolina, some of these traditions are still alive. There, the Ring Shout the praise, but they were able to, as you said, take what they had and infuse it with, and that's where the whole Gullah-Ghiji culture, although they were brought from the west coast of.
Bishop Jack:Africa, mostly from Sierra Leone, I believe, and it says, I think about 85% of all African-Americans in this country have roots in the Sea Islands of South Carolina and they were put on these islands and because they were put on these islands with others who were from the same culture, they were able to maintain this particular cultural dynamics, the language and the eating and the way they eat, time, the singing and that spirituality.
Rev Lynne:I am East Coast Giji. People tend to think that the Giji population was limited to South Carolina, but it actually was all the way to Maryland, really All the way to Maryland. My mother, my grandmother are Maryland Giji. Really I don't know From Eastern Shore, Maryland.
Bishop Jack:And it was like a 300, 350-mile stretch.
Rev Lynne:Yeah, yeah, and my father always tells the story of him being a Navy in Annapolis. So when he met my grandmother he said he had to look at my mother and say can you please translate? Because there's a dialect that comes with Giju.
Bishop Jack:Absolutely. They were able to support their language. Yes.
Rev Lynne:And he always talks about not being able to understand what my grandmother was saying. I vaguely remember some of it and she would speak very fast, but what I do remember are some of her traditions that she bought with her, that I started to learn as I got older and because the Maryland Giji population was disconnected, there are still very much Giji people on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Wow, wow, all that water coastal area. The Gichis were there but people forget that they were also traded up North Louisiana, down South South Carolina. They were traded as well, but they still had their small population Interesting. Yeah, I didn't know that.
Bishop Jack:You know, as you talked about some of these traditions, and it always just amazes me, regardless where I go, new Year's Eve coming up right and what are the things that we've talked to do on New Year's. My mother always said you got to cook, your got some black eyed peas, you got to have something green for prosperity, for milk, you got to fry some bacon. I'm like I don't need bacon, just fried anyway, and so I would just go get, whatever it is, bacon or something fried, some bacon cooked, some bacon and green beans to keep prosperity and well-being and good relationships. And then when.
Bishop Jack:I got to South Carolina, same thing they were preparing a hop and, john, you know, collard greens or whatever you have, and some of those same traditions are passed down. It's a part of, I guess, our culture.
Rev Lynne:Well, it's actually, you know, as one who goes to Africa pretty frequently, that's very African the pig. When they want to do a service for financial prosperity, you cannot do it without a pig. Rice, pigs, greens are a part of whatever religious or spiritual celebration is happening in the Yorba and Ghanaian traditions. Now I don't know if that goes across Africa, but that's where that comes from, I mean, and it is very much a part of their tradition, which is also in their sacred book or their sacred memories, because they don't have most of the Ashante, akhan, yorba, edel, bani, all of those traditions. They haven't really written them down, they're still very oral, just like our Bible, and they're writing some of that stuff. But the challenge is the same. It's the interpretation, because the way in which it's interpreted there and the way in which it is interpreted here, the context, are very, very different, Very different. But the elements that are needed are often the same the pig, the rice, some greens, black eyed peas, all of those kinds of things, have certain spiritual connections.
Bishop Jack:Interesting? Yes, and so that's why you find you know people, individuals in different parts of the country adhering and continuing those traditions.
Rev Lynne:Yes, and that's. It's all a part of our the beans. Why beans? Well, think about your ancestors in heaven or your mates in heaven. You got beans because there are a lot of beans on a plate. There's a lot of ancestors in heaven. That's why you offer black eyed peas and beans.
Bishop Jack:Interesting yeah, so that's why that's so important for the new year. And we have such a rich, rich heritage you know, culture and spiritual heritage and to be able to embrace it during this time of the year to really understand the richness I believe and it's interesting when I see other cultures leading into especially African spirituality and now the teachers and leaders of African spirituality, when most of, especially in our own community. Shy away from it because of how it's been demonized.
Rev Lynne:Yeah, I was just thinking the same exact thought.
Bishop Jack:And when I see I'm like I don't really right, so now, but it's then. You look, I've even seen photos of from the Vatican and and some of these other great leaders in the faith honoring, you know, the Black Madonna, honoring or leading into some aspects of the African spirituality that was demonized for so long.
Rev Lynne:Yes, yes, yes.
Bishop Jack:And so you do it, they, they applied it in secret.
Rev Lynne:Well, you know, think about it, though. If I tell you that what you're doing is wrong, then I am able. I take away your family, your homeland and I tell you your spirituality is wrong. Then you have a slave. That's what you have. I take away everything that is about your being. Then you have a slave, right? And if your spirituality is so powerful, well, that's the first thing I'm going to take. I take away your family, then I take away your spirituality.
Rev Lynne:Well, you've been broken down to literally nothing. I mean, there is nothing more powerful than a Black woman praying. I know that's right. There is nothing more powerful than a Black woman praying, yes, I mean, and that's important. I'm not saying Black men praying ain't important, but what we know is that a Black woman praying is very important. So if you look up every Sunday and you see this image of the Black sacred divine as female and the power that comes with that, or the knowledge of God in the darkness of the womb Mmm, and that imagery, you've got something there, yeah, so let's take it away. Let's make her look like something else. Let's take away the way your mama looks, so your grandmother looks. Create something else. Right, you've taken away that think of how many years or how many generations we've looked at these images of the divine that don't look like us.
Bishop Jack:that takes dr Naim Akbar to talk about that break in the chains of psychological slavery.
Rev Lynne:Yes, yeah, I mean it is You've taken away and that's that part of spirit is broken. Yeah, so we have to reclaim these things. And you know, some people will say well, why is it so important that you know, we identify with this notion of blackness? Well, we have to begin to claim, to claim it and reclaim and reclaim we. And that is a part of Reclaiming and claiming the God in us our true identity.
Bishop Jack:Yeah the true self, coming back home to the truth, to the true self, and that's a it's a great journey that we're on and called to be on, and you can see that the resistance, especially in society. All of these, whether it's from government and in education, all of the resistance to the truth and that tells us should tell us that, hey, we're on to it, so keep going and the other thing you know.
Rev Lynne:Recently I did a class called blacks in the Bible.
Bishop Jack:Yeah, that was a listen.
Rev Lynne:It was a big and so one of the things that most of the class did not know, this notion of Esther and.
Rev Lynne:Esther's actually name breaks down to nest air and Actually what Esther was thought to be was a female Messiah. So this notion of Esther, who was lifted up in these impure on the Jewish festival of Purim, is a very important Ritual for the Jewish community because she is the savior of the Jewish people as we know it in scripture Wow, she. And. And in the book of Esther there is no Mention of the of God as we know it, none, because she was.
Rev Lynne:She was. But to talk about that in that kind of language is not. It would be considered heretical, especially within our culture, because it's never been taught before. The only people who really know it would be Hebrew Israelites.
Bishop Jack:Interesting they know it.
Rev Lynne:I mean, but that's who she was, that's why she was so important in scripture, so this notion of black, of blackness, sacredness, and so I showed the class, okay, so, if this is what Esther Probably looked like more so than what you know her to look and I gave them some of the European classical images of Esther and what is thought to have looked like Esther, wow, and I know that was life-changing. Yes, yes.
Bishop Jack:Yeah.
Rev Lynne:Yeah, that's why we got to keep these teachings going.
Bishop Jack:Yeah and thank you for teaching that course. You got to do your next course. Well, they asked me. They said what are you gonna do another?
Rev Lynne:one. I said I'm good, if Bishop has me we've had to talk about I'll do another one in the fall. But I just got to get through this PhD and get it over with and be done with it, and Then I can. I feel like I could have the freedom to go even deeper. And so they said well, I Said but I really want to do a class on African spirituality because it's very much a part of our Christian witness, but it's just concealed in a different kind of way and we need to be learning about these things. And For me, at at incarnation, we have claimed to be a spiritual community and we have to live into that, what that means, and there is no other.
Rev Lynne:Absolutely there is no other. If you're really serious about spirituality, there is no other. That's beautiful.
Bishop Jack:Well so this is our season, our savor and to bring light, to bring hope, to bring joy, to bring peace through truth.
Rev Lynne:Yes yes, truth and may the God in me meet, the God in you and the Christ in you, christ, and so it is. I should amen. Oh yeah, happy holidays you.