🌍 How to Celucienize the World: Lead with Light
To celucienize is to bring warmth where there’s coldness, and clarity where there’s confusion.
Your smile, your words, your faith — they carry healing frequency.
You don’t just enter a room; you shift its energy.
Every act of kindness becomes a quiet revolution.
“My greatest gift to the world is my smile; it’s contagious and welcoming.”
“Only the Memories That Are Left”
They sit quietly in the dim corners of my mind,
unfolding like fading letters…
each word a whisper of what once was.
The days have grown distant,
their light thin as smoke,
and yet, in certain hours,
the past returns: soft, uninvited,
like a familiar scent in the wind.
I do not chase it anymore.
I simply watch as it passes through me,
reminding me that even love,
when it leaves,
still knows the way home.
“A Dialogue with the Dark”
Night stretches thin daily,
a restless thread between thought and exhaustion.
The mind refuses silence,
turning over every shadow,
every whisper of the day.
Sleep stands at the door,
teasing my body and my soul
but will not enter.
This existential threat
to my joy and my peace.
Nightly dreams slowly fade,
comfort blocks access.
My body sways, unbalanced,
a compass without direction,
a flame burning at both ends of the soul.
Clarity dissolves like mist at dawn;
words stumble, focus fades,
and morning feels like mourning.
In this sleepless vigil,
I count not hours,
but the cost
of being awake too long
with my own unrest.
“For the Sake of Black People and the Common Good: A Biography on Jean Price-Mars” (forthcoming Vanderbilt UP)
Good People: I received very good news on Tuesday from Vanderbilt UP that the external reviewers who’ve evaluated my manuscript for the forthcoming (intellectual) biography on Jean Price-Mars recommended publication with minor corrections. My goal is to make these small changes before the end of the year. It’s a big book, good people. It’s about 400 pages; however, the original manuscript was a 600- page biography. Vanderbilt UP said it was too much. So, I removed three chapters. I’ve worked on this intellectual biography for more than a decade. I am grateful to the reviewers.
Say a little prayer for me for intellectual energy and clarity, and a good physical health.
“The Politics of Exclusion: Selective Christianity of Evangelicals”
(Some) Evangelical Christians in this nation can’t seem to decide who counts as “Christian.” When it benefits them, they bend their own theology and compromise their ethics to welcome those they’d usually reject. They include when it suits them, and exclude just as quickly when it doesn’t.
Let’s look at some examples:
In addition, the cheap American gospel reduces salvation to a momentary prayer, claiming that if you simply say a prayer in your heart and ask Jesus to be your Savior, you instantly become a Christian. This version of the gospel strips away moral accountability and erases any sense of ethical obligation. It divorces faith from discipleship, turning Christianity into a private transaction rather than a transformative way of life. As a result, it allows many American Christians to claim salvation while practicing xenophobia, fostering prejudice, and dehumanizing others without confronting the radical call of Christ to love, justice, and neighborly compassion.
True Christianity demands a faith that transforms hearts and societies, confronting systems of injustice and embodying radical love for the neighbor, especially the stranger and the outcast. Anything less is not the gospel of Jesus, but a cheap imitation that betrays the depth of Christ’s mission.
At the heart of this politics of exclusion is a faith too often driven by cultural religion—fueled by nationalism and political tst convenience— rather than genuine theological conviction and biblical truth. Until Evangelicals confront their double standards, their witness will remain compromised or defined less by the gospel of grace and the way of the cross they proclaim more by the politics they serve.
“The Healing Power of Love in a Violent World”
War will never bring peace to estranged peoples, communities, or nations. Retributive violence, though often justified as justice, is the most destructive response to violence and the greatest enemy of peace and the democratic life. The only enduring antidote to human violence and hatred is love, and it has always been love.
Love, the highest of human virtues, transcends cycles of violence, oppression, and human degradation. For this reason, if the laws and policies of nations are not framed within an ethic of care and love, they cannot serve the common good nor foster human flourishing in society. True peace demands not only the absence of war, but the active presence of justice, empathy, compassion, and love embedded in both personal relations and national institutions.
The command to love one’s enemy remains the purest expression of peace, friendship, and reconciliation. To treat one’s enemy as oneself is to embrace the very possibility of living harmoniously and peacefully within community and society. When we become stewards of love, we are transformed into peacemakers and builders of a more just and compassionate world.
Our society has scorned the power of love and its significance for human and political relationships. Too often, love is mocked as weakness, stripped of courage, and dismissed as lacking the strength to confront injustice and oppression. In reality, this is the very opposite of love’s true nature. Love requires profound strength and moral courage. In other words, love is the greatest courage, the fiercest strength, and the truest power.
Others regard love merely as an abstract idea, rather than a lived practice that should guide our relationships, interactions, and engagements. Love is more than a human sentiment. What we need is to reclaim love as a habit (not as a theory), as truth (not as weakness), a daily discipline, and the moral conscience shaping all human activity and practice. Love is a way of life and guiding force of every relationship and human encounter.
Love alone causes human relations to flourish. Love alone upholds human dignity, making it the foundation of any lasting peace and communal living. Love alone is the healing path to restore broken relationships and to set people free.
Love alone is the conscience of our world and the true light of democracy and politics.
Check out Katia Joseph’s (new) published article; it came out in July 01, 2025
“I Am Angry: An Autoethnography of a Black Woman”
Journal of Autoethnography (2025) 6 (3): 404–414.
Abstract:
This article explores the theme of anger as experienced by a Black woman in response to racism, the criminalization of Black individuals, and the cycle of police brutality against Blacks and people of color. Drawing inspiration from Audre Lorde’s essay “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” the article delves into the deep-rooted anger and pain caused by the daily occurrence of violence against Black individuals. The historical context of policing Black bodies is examined, highlighting the systemic racial disparities and unequal treatment perpetuated by law enforcement agencies. The paper employs critical race theory (CRT) as its theoretical framework, emphasizing the normalization of racism and the power of counternarratives to challenge oppressive beliefs and structures.
Through the utilization of poetic autoethnography, the author’s voice emerges as an “angry Black woman,” defying societal expectations and reclaiming agency. The article also addresses the traditional view of Black women’s anger, the constructed notion of the “angry Black woman” trope, and the need to embrace and express anger as a legitimate response to injustice. By presenting a series of poems, the research offers a critical perspective on racism and police brutality, aiming to provoke reflection and create a counternarrative that amplifies the experiences of Black individuals. Ultimately, the article argues that anger serves as a powerful tool to combat racism, challenge the normalization of oppression, and demand social justice.
Journal of Autoethnography (2025) 6 (3): 404–414.
https://lnkd.in/guEcnker
“Revisiting Haitian Identity: Firmin, Price-Mars, and the Legacies of German Racial Thought”
The idea to be Haitian is to be Vodou/a Vodouyizan is based on 19th century German racial concept and ideology, which was linked to the concept of nation and German nationalism.
Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, in My Father’s House and Lines of Descent, critiques this kind of thinking within Africana and African American Studies. He specifically challenges W. E. B. Du Bois’ notions of cultural and racial identity (see Lines of Descent). In “The Equality of the Human Races” (1885), Haitian anthropologist Joseph Anténor Firmin also engaged this debate. Drawing from Ernest Renan’s classic essay “What Is a Nation?” (1882) Firmin argued against racialist discourse that grounded nationalism, culture, and identity in supposed common racial or historical origins.
Interestingly, like Dubois, Jean Price-Mars would advance a similar theory in respect to Haitian nationalism and cultural identity, which he linked to religion—especially the Vodou religion. The enormous impact of Price-Mars on Haitian Vodou scholars and thinkers would undermine their logic on the relationship between nationalism, religion, and culture. However, this trajectory largely eclipsed Firmin’s approach. In other words, contemporary Haitian anthropologists, Vodou scholars, and thinkers did not follow Firmin when discussing these topics; rather, they followed the footsteps of Price-Mars. Today, I’ve seen many brilliant Haitian scholars continue to converge nationalism, culture, and identity, frequently without scrutinizing the German racial-ideological roots of this conceptual framework.
Check out my newly-published piece:
“Rooted in Resilience and Future Hope: A Letter to Young Haitian Immigrants Living in the United States”
Dear Young Haitian Immigrant,
I write to you not only as someone who shares our common cultural heritage and identity, but also as an individual who has lived the immigrant experience in the United States. This journey is often ambivalent; however, you will need to learn to balance personal dreams and choices with life’s challenges, ancestral heritage with adaptation to a new land, and individual ambition with service and solidarity within your community.
First and foremost, you should never forget that your African ancestors left you a remarkable legacy, and the latter is marked by a history of Haitian pride and courage, a spirit of resilience and boldness, and a communal optimism that has sustained generations of Haitians, both at home and throughout the diaspora. Your path in this host country is more than a personal story; it is part of a larger narrative of a strong people who have endured slavery and colonialism, resisted anti-Black racism and anti-Haitian prejudice, and yet they contributed meaningfully to the pursuit of a more democratic and just world. Don’t be deceived: Your freedom was not granted to you as a gift; your ancestors secured it through the toil of their labor and the sacrifice of their blood.
“A Message to Young Immigrants”
drcelucienjoseph, "Thinking and Meditating" 