What Brings You LIFE? Your Way, Your Truth, Your Light

What Brings You LIFE? Your Way, Your Truth, Your Light

“But the basic fact remains. If life is to manifest itself in a particular form, it poses the conditions, the discipline, essential to that end. A particular form of life is committed to a way of survival, a way  of keeping alive. When this no longer operates, when the line of communication is broken and the organism is cut adrift, death is automatic.”

Howard Thurman Disciplines of the Spirit    p. 16

John 14:6-7

⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”  NRSV

Sometimes the life we live can sap the life out of us. This happens when the life we are living is not that which we were created to live. We have a job, we are paying the bills, we are making a living but we don’t have a life. You are not created to pay bills you were created by the creator to create that which the creator gave you the gifts and tools to create.

Life is about having the discipline to do that which you were created. Life is about finding that thing(s) that lights you up, gives you life, makes you vital and keeps you going. It may not be what you majored in, in college but is it what you need to major in if you want to have life

Jesus came and he said he was the truth, the way and the life! As Jesus said this he says this to us: “If you want to find your way be true to yourself and have the courage to live the life that will keep you alive.” By alive we don’t mean simply this side the grave but we mean doing that which brings you satisfaction, brings joy and allows you to live your truth. Yes, your truth is being true to yourself and telling your story through that which you create and share with the world.

Talk to yourself, listen to yourself and be true to that conversation. Commit to your way, your truth, your light and your life! What brings you life?

Now go and create something beautiful!

Blessings,

Ralph Basui Watkins

Walk in the Light: A Sermon / Mediation in memory of Mamie Till-Bradley and in honor of Darnella Frazier

Genesis 1:1-5

¹ In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 

² the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 

³ Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 

⁴ And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 

Lets title this: Walk in the Light

This text is one my favorite text in the Bible

It is one my favorite text because I am a photographer and photography is all about light 

Photo means light

Photography literally  means writing with light 

The first thing God does is God writes with light

God separates light from darkness

God does this because darkness covered the face of the earth 

God knew that Adam and Eve couldn’t do their job if they didn’t have some light

See they couldn’t walk in darkness

The old song writer said…walk in the light, beautiful light

Come where the dew drops of mercy shine bright

Shine all around us by day and by night Jesus the light of the world

See God has a track record of bringing light into dark places

When the Israelites left Egypt God gave them a pillar of by day and fire by night so they could walk in the light

The Lord said through the Prophet Isaiah 

⁶ I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, 

I have taken you by the hand and kept you; 

I have given you as a covenant to the people,

a light to the nations, 

⁷ to open the eyes that are blind, 

to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, 

from the prison those who sit in darkness.

Jesus said..in John 8:12

¹² Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. 

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

See light, brings life and it enables us to see through the darkness

Light exposes what is done in the dark by shinning on it

To put it another way…

Light helps us see what we don’t see

When you study light as portrayed in the scripture..what you find is that…

Light represent the love of God

Light represent the justice of God

Light represents the righteousness of God

Light represents the power of God

Light represents the presence of God 

Light represents the way of God

Light represents the path of God 

Walk in the light

See when we walk in the light we see where God wants to take us

When we walk in the light we see what evil does not want us to see

When we walk in the light we shed light on injustice while simultaneously calling out to justice

When we walk in the light we see what God is doing

When we walk in the light we see what God is doing in the world in liberative ways

When we walk in the light we see evil, we expose it, we confront it and we cast it out

In the1960s America choose to walk in the light

It was photography that shed the light on evil so that we could see

Leigh Raiford is clear in her book: Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare: Photography and the African American Freedom Struggle 

 

She convincingly argues that it was photography that changed the world and made us see the struggle

The images of Bull Connors Dogs in Birmingham, Alabama

The images of a bombed out  16th Street Baptist Church

The images of water hoses released on peaceful protestors

The images of peaceful marchers being attacked by police at the foot of the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama. 

The images of Emmet Till the teenage boy who was murdered on August 28, 1955 in Money, Mississippi

Emmet Till  murdered by two white men allegedly because he had been to friendly to a white woman 

Emmett Till had been sent to Money Mississippi from Chicago by his mother Mrs. Mamie Till for summer vacation 

They wanted to have his funeral in Money Mississippi but his mother did the unthinkable

She said, no, 

His mother, said, send his body back to Chicago and instead of grieving privately as any mother would naturally want to do

Mrs. Mamie Till Bradley grieved publicly and invited the world to grieve with her

Mrs. Till called on them to send her  sons body back to Chicago 

she said I want the world to see what they did to my boy

Mrs. Till secured the services of the Jet Magazine photographer David Jackson 

And in September of 1955 her sons beaten and battered body was returned to Chicago and David Jackson was their to take pictures 

The images of this teenage boys body and  the images of the open casket funeral flooded news outlets around the world

And as a result of these images, the world had to see what they hadn’t seen or choose to ignore

See what the images did, was they made the world see what 

African Americans had been experiencing for years

The images shed light in darkness

The images made the world stop and see..they saw the evil that was alive and well in our world

The world couldn’t turn away from these image 

As result of making the world look at these images, and the evil they exposed,  the modern Civil Rights Movement was born 

When the world saw what was done to Mamie Till’s  boy, millions of dollars poured in to Civil Rights Organizations 

And to top it all off on December 1, 1955  Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery Alabama

It is reported that Mrs. Parks said, I couldn’t get up out of my seat because I couldn’t get the picture of that boy out of my mind

In the 1960s We saw the light 

And as children of God we are to see the light, shine the light and testify to the light

In John 1:6-12 the writer penned these words:

⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 

⁷ He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 

⁸ He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 

⁹ The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 

¹¹ He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 

¹² But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 

We are the children of God

As children of God I believe we are called to testify to the light

We are called to bring light into dark places

We are called to make light shine on that evil that has hidden 

We are called to shine shine light in dark places, where the lights off and where they don’t allow cameras

We are called to turn the light on

We are called to turn the cameras on and let the light shine in the darkness so that evil will be exposed

It was Darnella Frazier a 17 year old teenager who was the light in Minneapolis Minnesota 

As officer David Chauvin kneeled on the neck of George Floyd for over eight minutes

Darnella Frazier took her cell phone out, cut on her camera and she brought  the light

We were horrified by the evil that we saw and the world is reacting because they had to see

We only saw, what African Americans have been experiencing for years, because Darnella Frazier was willing to walk in the light

I think that’s all God expects of us 

I think that is all God expects of us

To walk in the light

The beautiful light

Some where the dew drops of mercy shine bright

Shine all around us by day and by night Jesus the light of world

My sisters and brothers go and walk in the light 

Bring light into dark places that we might see 

So that we might act and make this world a more just place

Walk in the light!

Protest and Vote: March to the Polls

As people of faith we must engage the public square. Jesus was always amongst the people addressing their issue. If we are to be like Jesus we must deal with the things that are adversely affection our people. In the public sector we have to vote.  It isn't protest or vote but rather we must protest and vote.

Frederick Douglas put it this way:
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lighting. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will.