The Black Madonna, The Beloved Community and The March on Washington

This year is a year of many anniversaries in the United States of America. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed into law in 1863, making this year the sesquicentennial celebration. On August 28, 2013, we will also be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. The original march was led by a core of distinguished labor, religious and social activists of the day including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. By some estimations was one of the most historic gatherings ever to assemble on the Mall of our nation's capitol.

We all know about the most famous words of the speech given by Dr. King, but what many forget about this monumental event in our history, is that the march was actually entitled The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. 

When you ask people who attended this march in 1963 what they remember, most say a feeling of wholeness, of inclusion. They felt proud to be participating in the ideals of the United States  of America, where it is our ideal all people are created equal. It is also the law, and this march was to ask our government to make sure that everyone, regardless of race would be treated equally in our nation. For one day, it was as if everyone was in a big community of equals, celebrating the greatness of the highest aspects of civilization.

Only a few weeks later, the nation was stunned by the murder of four young girls whilst they were attending Sunday School.

 Cynthia Wesley, 14, Denise McNair, 11, Carol Robertson, 14 and Addie Mae Collins, 14 were murdered at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama. Two young boys who participated in the unrest following the bombings were also killed by police for throwing rocks. Virgil Wade, 13 and Johnny Robinson,  16 were shot as they protested the bombing of the Church and other racial injustices in Birmingham. Alabama was one of the most segregated states in the nation at that time, the most resistant to change, and the most violent towards it's African American citizens. It was given the nick name "bombing-ham" because so many Black Churches, homes and businesses were the target of vicious racially motivated attacks. When you watch the newsreels of those violent days, and how viciously mostly young teenagers were attacked because they simply wanted to sit at a lunch counter or ride on a bus, it makes one wonder what causes one group of people to be so cruel to another.

It seemed incomprehensible that in only a couple of weeks after the peaceful and poignant March on Washington, where there were pleas and models of the highest degree of civil behavior to recognize the human dignity in every person regardless of race, that such a savage act could be perpetrated on a house of worship, killing innocent young girls readying for Sunday School.

In many ways, the death of those girls turned the tide of the Civil Rights Movement. While lynching had been going on for centuries, the entire nation was woken up by having to look at the injustices of racism when they witnessed the cruelty of these murders. Nothing was hidden in this atrocity. The terrible loss of these children in full view of the nation, changed the tide of the Civil Rights movement.

I have often pondered the nature of human relationships. We often hear, "we are all one." On some level this makes sense, but it is far from being a reality. As some people like to say, "some of us are more equal than others." 

There are many ideals that Dr. King proclaimed, but the one I find most meaningful was his passion for the Beloved Community.

"Our goal is to create a beloved community andthis will require a qualitative change in our soulsas well as a quantitative change in our lives." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Speaking to his supporters at the end of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, Martin Luther King, Jr., declared that their common goal was not simply the end of segregation as an institution. Rather, "the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption, the end is the creation of the beloved community." Dr. King’s Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. 

“The Beloved Community” is a term that was first coined in the early days of the 20th Century by the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce, who founded the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Scholars point to King's development of this concept as stemming from his deep roots in the Christian Biblical tradition. One example was of Christ's washing of his disciples feet, with the request to wash one anothers feet and to set an example.

My concept of the Beloved Community comes from my understanding of the Christ event. How through the deed on Golgotha, the blood of the Christ was shed and transformed all of matter. This deed was not done for a certain group, it was done for all of creation, all of humanity. Before the Christ event, only the elite initiates had access to divinity, after the Christ event, all were made equal, all had access to the divine. If we recognize the Christ in the other, how would we treat one another? 

My guiding verse as a Christian is Matthew 25:40 "What ever you did to the least of my brethren, you did to me also." In a sense, each time we encounter another person, we are actually encountering another member of the "Beloved Community" of Christ.

The main agents that carried the Black Madonna's to the European Continent, and some would say to the Americas, were the Knights Templar. The Ideal of the Knights Templar was to create a culture that could contain the Christ. The Templars knew they were living at a time when the age of instinctual wisdom and direct living connection humans had with the Spiritual and Natural world was coming to an end. The new age the Templars and other high Christian Initiates anticipated was the age of conscious Love. Art and beauty was invitation to be in a community with free and equal people. I believe that the Templars were instrumental in the discovery of the Americas by the Europeans with the hope of creating true, Christian Ideals of Democracy, where we all lived as equals, in freedom and community. The only way to do that is through love of our fellow human being.

Dr. King carried this Christ inspired model of community, one where there was reconciliation and love among all different types of people. Because, in the truest way, we are all equal before God. We are all loved equally. Only with reconciliation can the cycle of violence come to an end.

We have fallen very short of this ideal of the Beloved Community, but I think this is what people experienced on the Mall 50 years ago. I have experienced this in anti war marches as well as great gathering  of humanity with the purpose of doing good.

Let us re-dedicate our selves to the Beloved Community. Thank you so much Dr King, for your sacrifice, and for seeing the Christ in all you met.

The Festival of the Assumption of Mary

The Black Madonna of the Church of the Black Madonna in Vitina - Letnica Kosovo

August 15th is the Festival of the Assumption of Mary. Scholars report that the concept of Mary, mother of Jesus,  upon her death going straight up to heaven, body and soul has been part of popular belief since the first Christian centuries. The Assumption of Mary became church dogma in 1950, in no small part as a response to the horror of two world wars and two atomic bomb attacks. The world needed consolation and something great to believe in, this dogma raised the compassionate divine feminine to new heights in the Western world. When I was looking to see if there was any art that would reflect this feast day and the Black Madonna, I was surprised to learn that there is a Catholic Church in the hills of Kosovo, just outside of Macedonia, called The Church of the Black Madonna. It is believed that at this Church, Mother Theresa received her calling to dedicate her life to the service of God.

Mother Theresa was born in Skopje, Macedonia. There is a very beautiful center to her life and works in the City. I find it rather interesting that she received her inspiration from a Black Madonna.

Each August 15th in the town of Vitina - Letnica Kosovo, there is a festival of the Black Madonna, where the famous statue is brought through the town for pilgrims to witness. What is also of note, is much of the interest from the West was brought about by peace keeping soldiers participating in the Pilgrimage on August 15th.

Pilgrims in Vitina - Letnica

I knew about the nation wide pilgrimage that happens in Poland each year to the Jasna Gora shrine in Czestochowa,

What I found so very interesting, is much of the information I have found on pilgrimages to these Black Madonna shrines comes from US Soldiers. Some wrote of their conversion experience at the Letnica, some were baptized. I found this picture from the Illinois National Guardsmen who walked to Czestochowa along with German and Polish Soldiers. These nations in the past were at war with one another, now they march together to bow to the Black Madonna on their own pilgrimage.

What is it about the Black Madonna that attracts these soldiers? What about the Black Madonna inspired Mother Theresa? We know that both Bernard of Clairveaux, founder of the Knights Templar and great father, reformer of the Church was also inspired by a Black Madonna, as was St Ignatius.

Today was a somber Assumption day, particularly in the cradle of Christianity. The ongoing drama in Egypt, where there is great violence from the military towards the people, and in turn the people are attacking the Coptic Christian Churches, burning and looting them. 

The Coptic Church is one of the most ancient of all Christian churches. Tradition states that his Church was founded by St Mark, who was one of the original seventy Apostles and one of the four Evangelists. St Mark was an African native of Jewish parents, he was born in Cyrenacia. His family moved to Jerusalem to escape the violence of the day. They had their home destroyed and confiscated, so they fled for shelter to the holy city. St. Mark's main missionary work was in Africa, and the evidence of this lives to today as the Coptic Church is prevalent in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Iraq . Mark's Gospel is the shortest of the four. I like to think that Mark just got right to the point, he also was full of invitations to get moving, get doing to spread the Gospel.

The original Black Madonna's came to Europe through the Coptic priests and monks. I think it is no accident that the founder of this sect was an African, which is one of the reasons the Madonna's were black. 

Black is also the color representation of Cosmic Will. Maybe this is why so many great leaders of the Church were inspired by these Madonna's. Maybe this is why soldiers are drawn to these Madonna's.

The Symbol of St. Mark is the winged lion, symbol of Courage and the Heart. If he was the inspiration behind many of the original Black Madonnas, and the color of Black is related to the will and to courage, this may also be another reason why so many literally take up the cross when witnessing these images of the divine, these Black Madonna's.

The people of Egypt will need some of this courage and willfulness in the days to come. St Mark's family escaped violence to come to Jerusalem. Many of Egypt's Christians will need our prayers for courage in these days. It will be very easy to slip into despair or into violence, and neither is very useful. 

I am praying for the people of Egypt tonight on the Assumption of Mary day, where so many Christians are flocking to Black Madonna Shrines. I am praying for the mothers who are weeping for the loss of their children, I am praying for the Christians who are picking up the pieces of their burnt out churches, some of the oldest in the world, that out of this great pain and loss, that something new and life giving can emerge. We can survive and evolve together. In this way we can thrive. This I think is the best way to celebrate the Assumption of Mary and the Festival of the Black Madonna.

"…[the] abyss of despair is an important existential achievement for consciousness that evolves toward a greater sense of individual freedom and responsibility. In the past such states of extreme desperation, meaninglessness, and loneliness were consciously enacted as the most demanding tests of the human soul and spirit powers in all serious ancient, spiritual rites of passage and initiation."  Y Ben-Aharon. 

Hiroshima and the Feast of the Transfiguration

Russian Icon of the Transfiguration of Christ 15th Century

Growing up in a mostly protestant home, my understanding of the Feast days was minimal at best. I had 8 Godchildren all of approximately the same age, and I took my God Mothering quite seriously. Because I had so many and the nature of modern life made it difficult to spend time with them, I used to write my Godchildren letters about the different Religious holidays from a Christian perspective. I was fascinated by the feast of the Transfiguration, and that it occurred on August 6th. For me as a long time peace activist, and anti nuke person, August 6th was the date when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. Three days later, the US bombed Nagasaki, which many people like to think was the ending of World War II.

In the dark days before the internet, I was forced to actually talk to people to find out what the Feast of the Transfiguration was all about so I could write a letter to my Godchildren. I called a couple of my Catholic friends, who could not help me, they did not know what it was. One suggested I call a parish in Los Angeles, near my home in Southern California, which was called "The Transfiguration Catholic Church." The secretary at the office of the Church of the Transfiguration could not give me a good answer, but assured me that the retired priest of the congregation who was still available for consultations and such, could answer my questions. She gave me his number, telling me he had been a Naval Chaplain during the War in the Pacific, and might have some insights that other priests did not.

Highlight of Rafael's Transfiguration of Christ 1516-1520

He and I had a lovely conversation, he told me all about the festival which was when Christ Jesus first revealed his divine nature to Peter, James and John, who saw him illumined as the Christ Being, in between Elijah and Moses. In Christian teachings, the Transfiguration is a pivotal moment, and the setting on the mountain is presented as the point where human nature meets God: the meeting place for the temporal and the eternal, with Jesus himself as the connecting point, acting as the bridge between heaven and earth

Matthew (17:2) states that Jesus "was transfigured before them; his face shining as the sun, and his garments became white as the light."

I asked the priest if he thought there was any connection between the Feast of the Transfiguration and the American bombing of Hiroshima. He stammered, and basically mumbled, "Well, no, there is no connection." He remarked nervously, that no one had ever asked him that question. This was also quite interesting to me, because I felt there was a connection, not consciously, I am sure the Americans did not plan to annihilate over 100,000 people on a Christian Feast day, I am sure it was just a randomly picked date that fit in with the broader war plan. But that is how evil truly prevails, with mindlessness, the evil adversaries know what they are doing, and require our cooperation by not asking questions, or saying no.

My mother's gift was to raise me with a consciousness geared towards Christian Social Justice. Instead of going shopping for clothes with my mom when I was a teenager, we went to anti nuke conferences, and did freeway bannering for the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The city of Nagasaki, which for years prospered as a port of trade with Portugal, was also the window through which Christianity first arrived in Japan.

However, in 1587, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (the daimyo who unified Japan) decreed a ban on Christianity. This resulted in an incident known as "the execution of the 26 saints". 26 Christians were rounded up in the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Sakai, brought to Nagasaki via an overland route in large two-wheeled wagons, and executed at Nishizaka. This marked the first significant incident of martyrdom in Japan and triggered the period of pervasive persecution and martyrdom that followed.

In 1865, after an interval of about 300 years, a community of descendants of the original Japanese Christians was discovered living in the Urakami district. At the time of the US Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these two cities had the largest Christian populations of any Japanese cities.

 

The Head of a Statue of the Virgin Mary from The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Nagasaki

Nagasaki was the first Christian Community in Japan. The bombing of this city according to many scholars and military experts was unnecessary to end the war. Especially since the Hiroshima bomb completely devastated an already crumbling Japan, morally and militarily. What was also of note was that the US Military forced African American soldiers to witness the bombs with no protection to see how it would affect their health. Some would argue convincingly that the atomic bomb was an all around racist attack made by the Americans. It is hard to dismiss.

The head of the statue of the Virgin Mary which once stood in  Nagasaki’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception -– (Urakami in Japanese,) was the only art object of the Cathedral which survived. The cathedral was leveled by the blast, which claimed an estimated 74,000 lives.

Urakami Cathedral After the US Atomic Bomb Blast

Nagasaki was the secondary target on 9 August 1945, which bombers approached only after finding the primary target, the city of Kokura, shrouded in thick clouds. The nature of the bombs makes me wonder why they needed a target at all, it does not seem like precision was needed for this kind of power. The Bombers then went to Nagasaki, but clouds over the Mitsubishi Iron Works, the intended target, compelled the pilot to fix his target over the visible dome of the Urakami Catholic Cathedral. 

I spent New Year's Eve 1999 at a convent in Las Vegas. I had joined a interfaith gathering to pray for peace in the new millennium, and we greeted the New Year at the Nevada Atomic Bomb Test Site near Las Vegas. There were survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that came all the way to this barren center of evil in the Nevada Desert. They prayed and danced with our group which included the Shoshone Nation members who's land had been stolen so these atomic tests and bombs could be made. The rest of the world was worried that the electricity or their computers would not work. We were praying together for an end to armed conflicts, an end to nuclear threat. When I look back on that experience and all the hell that has erupted since then, I wonder, would it have been worse had we not prayed so fervently?

The mushroom cloud over Nagasaki

What is interesting to me is that the atomic bomb is the polar opposite of the Transfiguration. Both involved light, but the Light of Christ was the light of transformative love, life and hope. The first image humanity had of the divine coming towards us. It was the first time humans met the Christ. The light of the bomb is a false and deadly light, the death of everything for generations, thousands of years. Thousands met Christ that day, and millions afterwards from the ravages of radiation sickness and cancer. One event was loving and life giving, the other was mass murder.

It is significant to me that there is a Madonna who survived this blast, she was blackened through the greatest evil known to humanity. Her eyes are gone, but her countenance remains. She is steadfast in the face of evil. She shows that love, truth and beauty can prevail in the face of the greatest horrors.

I have always been struck and grieve heavily when the atomic bombers receive standing ovations for their deeds. In the past, Americans get very upset saying that it was worth it, because the war would have gone on costing so many lives, and well there was Pearl Harbor. Now, people have forgotten the bombs, they are part of history for most Americans.  The Japanese remember, which is why they are so interested in promoting peace. 

I wonder what would happen if we actually did do what Christ asked us to do, turn the other cheek and forgive seventy times seven when it came to war? I guess I am naive, but am I?

I go back to the Black Madonna, in this case she is blackened by experience, by my nations action. I cling to the hope and promise of the Transfiguration, and feel that since this most important of days in the ministry of Christ, he continues to reveal himself, to show divinity to humanity. We must not be distracted, we must be awake, and embody in our hearts and our will, the mission of the Christ.

The Ongoing War in Syria

An 11th Century Mural in a Syriac Monastery in Syria

If you are like me, you either ignore or watch in horror the unfolding events in Syria. 

When we consider the themes that surround the Black Madonna, one is that if any artist is associated with creating these works of art, they are attributed to St Luke the Evangelist. He is considered the artist that created the Black Madonna's of Częstochowa in Poland

                    and Montserrat in Catalonia, Spain

St. Luke the Evangelist when represented in art is usually portrayed with a Bull, with a book and painting the virgin.

St Luke the Evangelist was a native of Antioch which was then in the ancient kingdom of Syria. Antioch is now in modern Turkey. It is unclear if Luke actually met Christ Jesus when he was on earth, but we know that Luke accompanied Paul on several of his mission journeys, and that Luke did witness the Risen Christ on the road to Emmaus.

Icon of the Mother of God at the Our Lady of Saidnaya Monastery in Syria, 

8th Century originally from Jerusalem.

There are many ways to look at the symbolism of The Evangelist Luke and the Black Madonna. I discuss this at length in my book The Black Madonna: Journey of the Human Heart http://igg.me/p/434709/x/3595911 This morning I read an inspiring post from The Cristian Community website. One of the Priests of the Pennsylvania Congregation near Philadelphia is originally from Syria. Rev Nora Minassian wrote a passionate essay on the strife in Syria. She writes

Life amazingly still goes on in Syria. Those who are living there do not say much about what really goes on. Yet, they go on living their lives. When there is food, they eat. When there is connection, they connect. When there is water, they drink. What keeps them going? What gives them strength to live? Not the sides, nor the walls, not the governments, nor the media, not the rebels, nor the money nor the lack of it. It is what goes beyond the sides and the walls and the bombs. It is the activity of asking, speaking and listening to each other. It is the courage in them to have a dialog with each other. For what is a dialog? It is going through the Logos, through the Word, experiencing the Word and allowing the Word to reveal itself. By revealing itself, it also reveals what lives in us, the enemy in us and the friend in us. Through Dialog, we are seeking the truth. Dialog opens the possibility to seek the truth. How would it be if everyone puts down the gun and starts having a dialog with each other? How would it be if those who are making decisions talk with each other? Dialog opens the door to move from being a foe to becoming a friend. Dialog has the power to turn war into peace

You can find the entire article here

 http://www.thechristiancommunity.org/blog/living-in-the-midst-of-a-battleground-the-war-in-syria/

St. Luke was from ancient Syria, he experienced the living etheric risen Christ both in his own experience and from St. Paul's experience in Damascus. Luke's Gospel is seen in many lights, one that I think has the most significance in terms of our Christian journey is that this Gospel is considered to be one long journey to Jerusalem. The journey of Christ towards Jerusalem in many ways is a guide for us as humans. The journey of Life, of the Human Heart is one of trials, of betrayal, of Crucifixion and Death, but ultimately of Resurrection. The scarred and stern faces of the Black Madonna's I feel are a reflection of this journey to Jerusalem. A recognition of personal pain and suffering, but an agony with purpose. We agonize in pain and confusion, but ultimately we journey towards a union with the Divine.

Our brothers and sisters in Christ suffer unimaginable torments within this war inside of Syria. Let us pray for their strength, that they can feel our love and support for their suffering, and if need be, let us welcome them as refugees within our communities. But most of all, let us pray that through this agony, the Light that binds us all to one another can show through, as Rev Minassian so eloquently states: 

It is the courage in them to have a dialog with each other. For what is a dialog? It is going through the Logos, through the Word, experiencing the Word and allowing the Word to reveal itself. By revealing itself, it also reveals what lives in us, the enemy in us and the friend in us. Through Dialog, we are seeking the truth. Dialog opens the possibility to seek the truth.