Location: Horizon

Abstract

There is an irrefutable, special link connecting African and Jewish peoples, a bond of oppression, diaspora, and perseverance that renders Old Testament heroes (Moses, Daniel, and especially Isaiah) particularly relevant on the black side of the equation. These verses are one of my favorite prose/poetry passages. They are a “new testament” in the tenor of that young, revolutionary Jewish heretic who preached tough love and peace, regardless of ethnic heritage. This passage is frequently recited on Ash Wednesday the beginning of the Lenten season of fasting and meditation. It bespeaks the death-into-resurrection ethos of Christianity in a way that has resonated for centuries with the phoenix rising, “we shall overcome” spirit of Christianized peoples of African lineage: We read into it our history and the power and centrality of our presence in the human equation. We are survivors and transcenders, before and beyond the horizon.

But as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger; by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

—2 Corinthians, 6:4–10