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My new sounds:

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thanks for listening!

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the second phase of the 40rty-years project is almost complete! thanks to the folks at kingdom builders ministry here in austin (www.thehodp.net), we'll be giving away our first CD on juneteenth! for the tracks on the project, please visit www.juneteenf.tumblr.com! peace!

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Good News Talk Show Austin #1

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the first phase of the "40 Years" CD project is almost complete!

you can find the uploaded tracks on www.40rty-years.tumblr.com

please tell us what you think! the reason we're doing it in phases is because the goal is fostering conversation and dialogue about these themes!

stay tuned for upcoming videos about our responses to the "Real Marriage" book chapters. this is important to the CD project because God used this book to help us apply our pastor's sermon on psalm 95, and this CD is only one of the applications. enjoy!

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this is why we're looking forward to march 16th (check out www.kingdomexperience.com if you don't know). this is called "contextualization" and it's gonna be really important in a few minutes, especially if the troops are coming home (peep http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/us/politics/obamas-2013-state-of-the-union-address.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

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addition to MLK Day poem

this one's for Soledad

Brotha made bad decisions

faithful are the wounds of a friend

i'm praying you would listen

dropped out the relay 'cause

your race lacked worthy causes

but still i see no cause

more worthy than Martin's

you mock King cuz of his

Christian sensibilities

but would you turn the other cheek?

Pssh! Neegro pleease!

but that's the only thing standing in

the way of you doing for the sake of

revolution the hate that you say

if you broke out...

tell me, what would be your mission?

if you emptied Attica, or let yo people

out San Quentin?

if you could do it again, help Attica be free,

knowing they'd be massacred like

Birmingham in '63?

or Selma in '62,

what's revolution to you?

for all your intellect,

i'm thinking you haven't a clue

cuz while you mock King's

Christian sensibilities

you cry out to your father

hoping for Christian sympathy

cuz God's the only One

who cares in this cold world,

where revolution begets revolution

as the world turns

and you know your readers

would probably stop reading if you

did the stuff you write about,

martyred like you was stephen

in acts chapter seven

please watch the Hater's plot

cuz you ain't got no worthy cause bro,

you're just like Bin Laden,

a US-made terrorist

caught in the same trap and

now you makin my poetry

sound more like i'm rapping!

but i can't take it!

i through listening to trap musik,

and watching trap artists

saying their song is a movement

cuz you ain't moving nowhere

if you're not in Jesus

His salvation protects us

and His justice polices...

[and then it will transition into the rest of the MLK Day poem:

"...it's easy to spout the ethics of nonviolence..."]

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Prologue to "A Tale of Three Kings" by Gene Edwards

Well, dear reader, how nice to be with you once more. It is a privilege to spend this time with you. Thank you for meeting here, and I suggest we hasten into the playhouse, as I see that they have already dimmed the lights. There are two seats reserved for us not too far from the stage. Quickly, let us take them. I understand the story is a drama. I trust, though, you will not find it sad. I believe we will find the story to be in two parts. In part 1 we shall meet an older king, Saul by name, and a young shepherd boy named David. In part 2 we shall once more meet an older king and a young man. But this time the older king is David and the young man is Absalom. The story is a portrait (you might prefer to call it a rough charcoal sketch) of submission and authority within the kingdom of God. Ah, they have turned off the lights, and the players have taken their places. The audience has quieted itself. The curtain is rising. Our story has begun. Prologue The almighty, living God turned to Gabriel and gave a command. “Go, take these two portions of my being. There are two destinies waiting. To each unborn destiny give one portion of myself.” Carrying two glowing, pulsating lights of Life, Gabriel opened the door into the realm between two universes and disappeared. He had stepped into the Mall of Unborn Destinies. Gabriel spoke: “I have here two portions of the nature of God. The first is the very cloth of his nature. When wrapped about you, it clothes you with the breath of God. As water surrounds a person in the sea, so will his very breath envelop you. With this, the divine breath, you will have his power—power to subdue armies, shame the enemies of God, and accomplish his work on the earth. Here is the power of God as a gift. Here is immersion into the Spirit.” A destiny stepped forward: “This portion of God is for me.” “True,” replied the angel. “And remember, whoever receives such a great portion of power will surely be known by many. Ere your earthly pilgrimage is done, your true character will be known; yea, it will be revealed by means of this power. Such is the destiny of all who want and wield this portion, for it touches only the outer person, affecting the inner person not one whit. Outer power will always unveil the inner resources or the lack thereof.” The first destined one received the gift and stepped back. Gabriel spoke again. “I have here the second of two elements of the living God. This is not a gift but an inheritance. A gift is worn on the outer person; an inheritance is planted deep inside—like a seed. Yet, even though it is such a small planting, this planting grows and, in time, fills all the inner person.” Another destiny stepped forward. “I believe this element is to be mine for my earthly pilgrimage.” “True,” responded the angel again. “I must tell you that what has been given to you is a glorious thing—the only element in the universe that can change the human heart. Yet even this element of God cannot accomplish its task nor grow and fill your entire inner being unless it is compounded well. It must be mixed lavishly with pain, sorrow, and crushing.” The second destined one received the inheritance and stepped back. Beside Gabriel sat the angel Recorder. He dutifully entered into his ledger the record of the two destinies. “And who shall these destinies become after they go through the door to the visible universe?” asked Recorder. Gabriel replied softly, “Each, in his time, shall be king.”

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new title: "40 years"

with the post below in mind, i searched the broader context of my surroundings for where this CD would fit in the conversation happening right now.

our vision for a "spoken word CD" is that it encourages dialogue among those called to be the Church (both saved and unsaved presently) that will help us to transition well into positions of leadership in our families and other institutions, because this will happen whether we are prepared or not.

with the above statement in mind, i wanted to (re)connect our struggle with that of the generation before ours, in the hopes of fostering the kind of intergenerational dialogue that would help us to learn from their example as we prepare to assume their positions. 

so we will relate these themes to those in three different generations: "40 years" before the year i became a christian (in 2000), our contemporary situation, and the struggles that our children will perhaps inherit if the present trends continue. 

i hope that this project will contribute to the conversation that books like john piper's "bloodlines" and brady goodwin's "the death of hip hop..." have already powerfully weighed in on (especially as both posit that the future of king's legacy and missions to folks like us belongs to the christian hip hop movement of today)

if you have any thoughts or questions, please send us a letter via this site's mailbox. either way, please pray that God would help us as a church make this transition well. our future depends on it.

grace and peace,

kwasi 

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why i'm changing the title of the project:

it started when i discussed the vision with local pastors and coworkers and random people on the bus, and it became clear that what i can describe as a "burden" to do this project started before this, last year, through a sermon by our pastor at north austin christian church on hebrews chapters 3-4. in it, he addressed a generational view of obedience and disobedience to God's call.

at that point, it became clear that much of what God wanted us to learn and live after our sending here to our hometowns was to be focused on this theme. it was a twofold task: one, of identifying and cultivating those things that we believe God has called us to, and passing them on to our children, and two, of identifying and repenting of the issues in our lives that we did not want passed to our children.

from that process came the poems contained in this project. most are about christian love expressed in the context of interpersonal relationships, whether it's the marital context, family, job, church, or on the bus.

when God gave me the Martin Luther King Day poem, it marked a turning point both because we were encouraged to create a CD out of these poems by other believers, and because the research on the civil rights movement gave the necessary historical context to reach outside of the narrow scope of our own marriage and engage similar issues in the world around us.  

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Psalm 95 (KJV) --------------------- 1 O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. 3 For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. 5 The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land. 6 O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker. 7 For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice, 8 Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: 9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. 10 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: 11 Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

www.biblos.com

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here we go...prov 28:1

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The cross we bear preceds the crown we wear. To be a Christian one must take up his cross, with all of its difficulties and agonizing and tension-packed content and carry it until that very cross leaves its marks upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way which comes only through suffering

Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 17, 1963

National Conference on Religion & Race,

Chicago, Illinois

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so here's the cliff's notes to all this research, expressed in a video

(i'll give a quote in a minute that similarly attempts to tie the themes together):

-we as the inheritors of mlk's legacy are in the midst of a changing of the guard

-we must look closely at his example, especially this moment in the movement, if we want to learn valuable lessons for us as we prepare to assume positions of influence in our families, institutions, and communities

-i am convinced, as a christian, that the most critical areas of focus should be on his character, in how he responded to pressures that we face both now and in the future. with this in mind, i will give my quote...

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As the years passed King increasingly realized just how extensive and thoroughgoing this change would have to be. In part he was influenced by the realization that purely idealistic and moral appeals to southern white business to support desegregation did not work, while boycotts and protests, which reduced business volume and profits, triggered quick, positive responses. By 1967 King was telling the SCLC staff, "We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power," and by early 1968 he had taken the final step to the admission that issues of economic class were more crucial and troublesome, and less susceptible to change, than issues of race. "America," he remarked to one interviewer, "is deeply racist and its democracy is flawed both economically and socially." He added that "the black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws--racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.'" King himself was fully conscious of his journey from reformer to revolutionary. "For the last twelve years," he remarked to the SCLC staff in 1967, "we have been in a reform movement....But after Selma and the voting rights bill [in 1965] we moved into a new era, which must be an era of revolution. I think we must see the great distinction here between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement." The latter would "raise certain basic questions about the whole society...this means a revolution of values and of other othings," reaching far beyond the question of race.

David Garrow,The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From "SOLO" to Memphis(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1981), 214.

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"King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes....King, like all frauds, your end is approaching....There is only one thing left for you to do...you have just thrity-four days in which to do it...you better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation." This unsigned letter was written not by a black, but by one of the highest officials of the FBI, to Martin Luther King, Jr., on November 21, 1964.

David Garrow, The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From "SOLO" To Memphis (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1981), front jacket quote

(quote included and explained more comprehensively on page 126.)