They Call Us Crackers* Sometimes

"When they go, Ghana will be here. They are like mice on an elephant's back. They will pass...He is just part of Africa." --All God's Children Need  Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou

The American writer and poet, Maya Angelou was among the last of a generation who were raised under the full weight of segregation. As a child in rural Stamps, Arkansas, Ms. Angelou was privileged to be the grand daughter of a land owning woman with an independent business in the village of Stamps. From her relatively secure position, she became educated and an inveterate reader of all types of literature. Steeped in the ways of the old South, by necessity, Ms. Angelou's early life formed a resolute character that later supported her as she forged forward to New York's Harlem in the 1950's. A supporter of Martin Luther King and later of MalcomX, she earned her "radical" stripes early.

Reading her work chronicled together as an autobiography is an eye-opening journey with a brave and determined woman. But she also shows herself to be like anyone anywhere; Ms. Angelou is not perfect. She repeatedly retorts with prejudices of her own youth and despite her extensive literary style, does at times pejoratively refer to some as "crackers". For the casual reader of Ms. Angelou, this may come as a surprise. She, these days, is perhaps equally well known as one whose words accompany Hallmark greeting cards. Yet a more thorough reading of her works reveals a woman who is complex and honest enough to admit her thoughts and what she learns. All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes has many nuggets; one in particular is when as the focus of the tale, Maya emigrates to Ghana, intending to leave all the strife behind in America. In Ghana she is surprised and repeatedly confronted with the unexpected:

"Professor, why you let them disturb your heart?"
 I stuttered... 

"They were insulting my people. I just couldn't sit there." 

His smiled never changed. "And your people, they my people?"

"Yes but--I mean American Blacks."

"They been insulted before?"

"Yes--but..."

"And they still live?"

"Yes, but... they also insulted Ghana, your country."

"Oh Sister, as for that one, it is nothing..." 

He said, "This is not their place. In time they will pass. 

Ghana was here when they came. When they go, Ghana will be here. 

They are like mice on an elephant's back. They will pass."

She is then astonished that a simple Ghanaian man could be so secure in this knowledge that he could ignore another's rudeness. He concludes his thought with the observation, that even that man, he is also a part of Africa, a place made of many nations, peoples and cultures. Despite many false starts, Ms. Angelou comes to learn that she too has a place while not as a returned African, but as a living, breathing "Black American" in Africa. This story tells her tale. Spiritually it is poignant in her struggle for understanding of herself and others; she makes sense of the precept of meeting one another on level ground, neither better no worse, telling her experience as she perceives it.

Imagining Heaven

“Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would get
in.” Mark Twain

Does heaven exist; if it does, what’s it like, how do you get there? What is more thought  provoking, curious and confusing than the subject of heaven? Many faith communities have a teaching on this subject. It is known variously by names such as: paradise, enlightenment, majesty, nirvana. With names such as these no wonder it inspires.

“Americans have described heaven’s wonders as luscious, stunning, spellbinding, exhilarating, captivating,” writes author Gary Scott Smith in his new book, Heaven in the American Imagination. While most often depicted as a wonderful and desirable place, most Americans find the notion attractive but at the same time are in no hurry to visit the place. And while due to the limits on size of his book, Smith gives little attention to eastern spirituality, he does acknowledge that there seems to be an almost universal affinity to the idea of this kind of place.

Many, if not most, of us have at least a passing interest in what happens after death. We are curious about a life after death. In the everyday, temporal place it is a sad testament that the world is littered with graveyards of one type or another. This life as we know it is not survivable beyond a given time span. For most Americans that time inches to upwards of 78 years or so about now. So regardless of how well we live our lives, what food we eat or what illnesses do or do not befall us, life is limited. From the First Great Awakening of the 1730s, to the Civil War era to present day, especially during turbulent times Americans speculate upon the life in heaven. From pop music to popular literature, to religious sermonizing, and “end-times” prophesy, as many as 90 per cent of modern Americans believe in the place.

While Karl Marx may have derided heaven as some place for those poor souls longing for comfort in an imaginary place, which in his view, gives the oppressed false hope that their travails will be rewarded and justice finally meted out; heaven, he thought, only prevents them from working for remedies and justice here on earth. Others disagree, remarking that the imagination of heaven gives rise to a view of hope for a better place, a better world and the courage to move forth to that world. They may better cope with sorrow,
disappointment and loss of loved ones. And while some argue that heaven is here on earth, others advocate for access by faith and deed; still others by faith and good works alone. The debate rages on.