“Holy Wednesday”: Behold the Lamb of God: Remembering the Kiss and the Sacrifice!

On this Holy Wednesday, we remember not only the kiss of betrayal from Judas Iscariot–one of the twelve disciples of Christ–which contributed to the eventual arrest and death of Jesus; we also remember Jesus’ attitude–active obedience, submission to the will of God, and generous forgiveness–toward his abusers, especially Judas’ ultimate decision to betray his master for 30 pieces of silver.

Psalm 41:9

“Even my close friend in whom I trusted, Who ate my bread, Has lifted up his heel against me.”

Mark 14:18-20

“As they were reclining at the table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly I say to you that one of you will betray Me–one who is eating with Me.” They began to be grieved and to say to Him one by one, “Surely not I?” And He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who dips with Me in the bowl.”

Mark 14:43-45

“Immediately while He was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs, who were from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now he who was betraying Him had given them a signal, saying, “Whomever I kiss, He is the one; seize Him and lead Him away under guard.” After coming, Judas immediately went to Him, saying, “Rabbi!” and kissed Him.”

Luke 22:47-48

“While He was still speaking, behold, a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was preceding them; and he approached Jesus to kiss Him. But Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”

John 13:21-26

“When Jesus had said this, He became troubled in spirit, and testified and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.” 26 Jesus then answered, “That is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him.” So when He had dipped the morsel, He took and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.”

Mark 14:10-11

“Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went off to the chief priests in order to betray Him to them. They were glad when they heard this, and promised to give him money. And he began seeking how to betray Him at an opportune time.”

Luke 22:3-6

“And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve. And he went away and discussed with the chief priests and officers how he might betray Him to them. They were glad and agreed to give him money.”

“The Need for Haitian Biographies in English: The Top Ten”

This is a great era for Haitian studies! The body of scholarship about Haiti and its national history continues to blossom in the Anglophone world, especially in North America (i.e. the United States). In contemporary Haitian studies, there are two major sub-areas that continue to dominate the contemporary academic discourse in the English language: studies on the Haitian Revolution and research on Haitian Vodou. Both areas are valuable as they contribute substantially to our understanding of the colonial system, slavery, the French empire, and the formation of the Haitian postcolonial state, as well as revolutionary Haiti’s contribution to modernity, universal emancipation, and human rights discourse. Second, correspondingly, contemporary studies on Haitian Vodou, what many American scholars simply call, the “Haitian Religion,” is also a significant sub-area that informs us in significant ways about the interesting link and intersection of faith, culture, identity, and politics in the Haitian experience and Haiti’s civil and political societies. The Vodou religion is also important to study because it helps us to establish linkages and parallels between Haiti and continental Africa, Haitians and their African ancestors, African traditional religion and other religious traditions such as ancient Egyptian religion, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam, etc.

Nonetheless, there exists a profound gap in contemporary Haitian studies and Africana studies to produce more “intellectual biographies” in the English language on Haiti’s major writers and thinkers. For me, this is a pressing academic necessity because Haitian studies as a promising learning field is growing rapidly in the Anglophone world. Allow me to provide two examples relating to this important concern. In 2017, I had the pleasure to publish a detailed intellectual biography on the renowned Haitian Marxist and communist public intellectual Jacques Roumain. The biography, “Thinking in Public: Faith, Secular Humanism, and Development in Jacques Roumain” was published by Pickwick Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Currently, I am working on an intellectual biography on Jean Price-Mars for Vanderbilt University Press. About two years ago, I had the immense joy to collaborate with a group of talented writers and thinkers contributing to the publication of a seminal book on Price-Mars entitled “Between Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars, Haiti, and Africa” (Lexington Books, 2018; I served as the lead editor of the book). A year ago, two senior editors of two different prestigious universities presses approached me to submit a book proposal for an intellectual biography on the prominent Haitian thinker and anti-racist intellectual Joseph Antenor Firmin. A biography on Firmin in English would be a major intellectual achievement!

Further, I have to admit a personal weakness. I love reading intellectual biographies on great men and women who have left their marks on our lives and their rich legacies that continue to inspire and empower us—toward social transformation, the common good, and human flourishing. I also enjoy reading big books that are interdisciplinary in scope and content, and whose focus is on the subject of history of ideas.

Generally, biographies are important for various good reasons I am not even able to name here. In the same line of thought, biographies about Haiti’s major writers and intellectuals are crucial for the following five reasons I outline below:

1. To help us understand the world that made those thinkers and the context that shaped their life, their actions, and their legacy in the world;
2. To assist us in making sense about the complexity of human nature and human relations from the perspective of the so-called subalterns and the political trajectories of the developing nation-state of Haiti;
3. To continue to enrich our intellectual growth and curiosity, as well as to nurture the life of the mind from different sources of knowledge production, and epistemological deconstruction and construction;
4. To expand the field of Haitian studies and Africana studies, respectively, and to integrate and to be in conversation with other equally important sub-areas of study, which will contribute to the expansion of human knowledge and understanding; and
5. To invite other role models and circles of influence, that have graced the former world, in our present life so we can learn from their experience, wisdom, and actions as to improve the present human condition—contributing to the common good and human flourishing.

It is from this perspective, I would like to recommend students of Haitian studies and Haitianists to consider researching and eventually writing (intellectual) biographies in the English language on the following major Haitian writers and thinkers; I limit my recommendations to ten writers who have lived through the twentieth-century:

1. Joseph Auguste Anténor Firmin (1850 –1911)
2. Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain (1898-1975)
3. Madeleine Sylvain-Bouchereau (1905-1970)
4. Félix-Morisseau-Leroy (1912-1988)
5. Marie Vieux-Chauvet (1916-1973)
6. Jacques-Stephen Alexis (1922-1961)
7. René Depestre (1926-Present)
8. Paulette Poujol-Oriol (1926 –2011)
9. Georges Castera (1936 –2020)
10. Franck Étienne “Frankétienne” (1936-Present)

*** Michel-Rolph Trouillot (1949-2012) needs to be among the top ten!

Happy research and writing!

Your trusted friend,

Doctor Lou

Let’s begin our Monday, the Holy Week, with a comforting word from Dr. Jesus Christ:

“Do Not Worry”

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

–Matthew 6:25-34

Stay safe and stay at home!

A poem of hope and resilience for difficult times:

“A Map to the Next World”
By Joy Harjo

In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for
those who would climb through the hole in the sky.

My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged
from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens.

For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet.

The map must be of sand and can’t be read by ordinary light. It must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit.

In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it.

Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the
altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace.

Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our children while we sleep.

Flowers of rage spring up in the depression. Monsters are born there of nuclear anger.

Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to disappear.

We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to them by their personal names.

Once we knew everything in this lush promise.

What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the
map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leaving a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood.

An imperfect map will have to do, little one.

The place of entry is the sea of your mother’s blood, your father’s small death as he longs to know himself in another.

There is no exit.

The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine—a spiral on the road of knowledge.

You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking
from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.

They have never left us; we abandoned them for science.

And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry.

You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song she is singing.

Fresh courage glimmers from planets.

And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns.

When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us.

You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder.

A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the destruction.

Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our tribal grounds.

We were never perfect.

Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.

We might make them again, she said.

Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.

You must make your own map.

“A Map to the Next World” from How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems:1975-2001 by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 2002 by Joy Harjo. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

“Love as the Global Pandemic”

One of the central problems with Western governments lies in their failure to recognize or validate the humanity and dignity of non-Western people.

This human shortcoming has fueled European leadership, history of ideas, and foreign policies, since the foundation of Greco-Roman civilization. The desire to govern, conquer, dominate, and even ruin is not only very Western; it centers the Western perspective on global history.

May peacemaking become our resolute lifestyle and shared vocation, and may we also become a people who intentionally pursue reconciliation and harmony with other nations and people in the world!

Le us find a common way to cure the world with a global virus that is love, interdependence, compassion, and kindness.

I wrote this short post in response to this article and to spport Dr. Who’s claim:

“Coronavirus: Africa will not be testing ground for vaccine, says WHO”

Here’s the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-52192184?SThisFB

“Oh, Holy Tuesday”: Remembering Christ the King!

Let us thus remember Jesus as King👑 and contemplate on the significance of his title for our ongoing relationships and actions as his followers, as well as the implications of his cosmic governance in the world today!

” 28 After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ” 32 Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 They replied, “The Lord needs it.” 35 They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. 36 As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. 37 When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: 38 “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” 40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” 41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

–Luke 19:28-44

***Today is the Third Day of the Passion Week

“Faith and Science in the Age of Coronavirus”

Here’s an interesting rapport between science and religion: in the difficult time of coronavirus, some people are waiting on God to work out a miracle so the virus can go away; others are desperately waiting on scientists and medical researchers to create a virus to bring global healing.

Yet there’s a third group of individuals who are incessantly praying to God to give our scientists the wisdom and knowledge to cure the world from coronavirus. The latter group believes both in God and science, understands the important dynamic between miracles and science, and does not undermine the power of supernatural intervention in the natural world and human affairs and correspondingly, they do not overlook the significance of science in the age of faith.

Folks, this is how the world works!

***As for me, I’m staying at home with my family praying and anticipating a radical intervention from both God and the world’s scientists and medical experts 🙂

“Haitian Poetry Reading in Creole and English by Dr. Celucien Joseph”

In this video, Dr. Celucien L. Joseph, Professor of English at Indian River State College, provides an exhilarating and energetic reading of Haitian Poetry, both in the Creole and English languages. He shares the poems by the following poets:

Felix Morisseau-Leroy, “Chouchoun” (Shooshoon); Georges Castera, “Pot Simitye” (Cemetery Gate); Denize Lotu, “Desten Nou” (Our Destiny); and Emile Celestin-Megie, “M’ap Ekri Youn Powem” (I’m Writing a Poem).

***These poems were published in “Open Gate: An Anthology of Haitian Creole Poetry” (2001) edited by Paul Laraque and Jack Hirschman

“Haitian Poetry Reading in the French Expression with Commentary (Part 2) by Dr. Celucien Joseph”

In this video, Dr. Celucien L. Joseph, Professor of English at Indian River State College, offers an energetic reading of Haitian Poetry, written in the French expression. In the process, he provides brief criticism and commentary on the selected poems and writers. Dr. Joseph reads the poems by the following Haitian writers:

Ileus Papillon, “Seul”
Stephane Martelley, “Plus definitivement”
Kettly Mars, “Resistance”
Josaphat-Robert Large, “De la mort”
Rene Depestre, “Celebration de ma femme”

Title: “Haitian Poetry Reading in the French Expression with Commentary (Part 2) by Dr. Celucien Joseph”

“The Slave Bible?”

Folks: I’m having a happy Saturday so far. Guess what I just found this morning in an online archive and repository?

Did you know that there was such a thing as a “Slave Bible” ? I’m not talking about the Thomas Jefferson’s Bible nor a Christian Religious Manual for the enslaved!!!! The latter was a common tool for the religious instructions of African slaves in colonial America.

The Slave Bible was published for the enslaved African population in the British colonies. In fact, the Slave Bible was published in 1807, only three years after the Haitian Revolution ended in 1804 and only sixteen years (August 1791) when Dutty Boukman called upon the enslaved Africans to put an end to the unholy trinity of the West: slavery, colonialism, and white supremacy, and ultimately to reject the god of their masters and to listen to the voice of liberty which speaks in their hearts.

The full title of the Slave Bible is called “Select Parts of the Holy Bible, For the Use of the Negro Slaves (this is italicized in the original) in the British West-India Islands.” The Slave Bible was published in London by an English company called “Law and Gilbert.” Interestingly, the two key phrases are “Select Parts” and “Negro Slaves.” Both terms indicate a complex relationship between the Bible and slavery, and the ambivalent rapport between colonial christianity and the ideological religious education of the enslaved population.

Now, I’m happy to say that I own a personal copy of the “Slave Bible” in my personal library. For further research, I need to investigate what is included and what’s been removed. Interestingly, the first passage I quickly checked in the Slave Bible was Genesis 1:26-27. I was both stunned and confused that those two verses were not removed. Did the slave masters make a mistake for retaining the cardinal verse in the Bible? I do not know the answer. The slaves would have (or must have!) to rethink about their “christian masters’ Christianity and humanity” and the relationship between slavery and christianity after they have read that God affirmed their dignity and humanity:

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27)

***Some Updates about the Slave Bible:

The book of Exodus ends in chapter 20; hence, Exodus 21-40 are missing . The famous anti-slavery passage in Ex. 21:16 is omitted.

“Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.”

The entire book of Leviticus is omitted. The first three chapters of Deuteronomy are missing. The famous Exodus 3 passage in which God declared to Moses that he will end slavery and oppression, and Pharaonic colonialism and imperialism in Egypt is not there.

7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” (Ex. 3:7-10).

Here are a photo of the front page and some random passage shots from the Slave Bible:

**** Yet consider my final words below:

Five Theses about God, Christianity, Jesus, slavery, and colonization1. The God of the slave masters and European colonialists is not the true God of the Bible nor the God whose preferential option is for the poor and oppressed.

*The Biblical God is a God of love, freedom, and justice. God’s ultimate desire for every individual is to experience freedom, peace, and love—in relationship with him and in relationship with each other.2. The Jesus of the slave masters and European colonialists is not the real Christ nor the biblical Jesus.

*While “Christ” means “the anointed one” or “messiah,” the Christ was a historical person the same was Jesus was a historical figure. Interestingly, both early and contemporary Christians believe that “Jesus was/is the Christ/Messiah.”3. Colonial Christianity is a false religion and not true or biblical Christianity.

*Colonial Christianity enslaved people and did not liberate them from oppression and the labyrinth of slavery. Colonial Christianity was an oppressive religion that failed to promote equality, justice, human dignity, reconciliation, and shalom.

4. Christianity as a religion was misused to enslave, subjugate, and colonize African slaves and other colonial subjects.

*One should not equate the use of a religion as a tool or instrument with the essence and teaching of that religion. Any system or institution could use any religion to carry out any desirable goals or intended objectives. This principle also applies to the misapplication of the name of God and the name of Jesus. Therefore, it is a logical fallacy to state that black people in the African Diaspora, whose African ancestors have been victims of colonial Christianity and Christianity of the slavers, should not become Christians or worship the God of their ancestors’ masters.

5. Black Christians do not worship a “dead Messiah,” but one who is living and has conquered death on the third day. Correspondingly, Black Christians do not follow a “blind faith,” but one that is grounded both in faith and reason, what many thinkers have phrased “reasonable faith.” One should separate the cultural construction of Christianity and biblical Christianity; in the same vein, one should not equate the cultural construction of the person and deeds of Jesus Christ in Western societies and history of thought with the biblical and Palestinian Jewish brown-skinned male named Yeshua.