YeKengalé

Having just watched our own national ritual of ancestor worship, I am reminded of Jesus’ frustration: “In vain do they worship me teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.” The New English Translation says “Their teachings are merely human rules/commandments. Jesus knew that for worship to be effective, it has to be both sincere and passionate….not forced and contrived.

Worship is about personal transformation. Through worship, our gods / heroes progressively live in us, as us. We become (more and more) like who we worship …. effectively. There is however as Jesus pointed out, vain (empty, ineffective, inefficient, non-transformative) worship.

Ancestor veneration, one of the most ancient forms of worship, older perhaps than even the conception of deity, which requires greater abstraction, is a thing that Africans and indigenous persons the world over are quite skilled in from millenia of practice. Although Colonial Christianity, with its initial iconoclasm and ‘indignification’ of indigenous cultures hides the fact, Judaism is as steeped in ancestor veneration as any other.

A Jew does not even speak the name of his god without reference to the chain of ancestors that directly establish the nation’s collective memory and identity (Avraham, Itzhaak and Yakov). The power of the god of the nation of Israel is constituted in those ancestral stories rehearsed by every Jewish male child on becoming a man, ensuring that he comes into adulthood with a sense of loyalty, purpose and self worth, with a sense of being a part of a long and wonderful tradition, spanning back, according to the stories, to the very beginning of time itself.

The African Diaspora scattered through the TransAtlantic Slave Trade had that once, many whips and chains ago. That we now worship according to the forced teachings and commandments of men can only be explained by us forgetting our own origins; for we know how to bridge the gap of generations, how to pass the prophetic flame. We wear Elijah’s Mantle, you just have to look at us in whatever worship form and tradition we claim. We have the fire. The passion. The ‘Spirit’ component of Jesus’ formula for effective worship.

Watching the Heroes Day early morning ritual practices (laying of wreaths on the shrines of the national heroes) spoke volumes to me on where we are… and where we need to go. As every good shrine keeper knows, (and Africans are the original altarologists, long before Avraham was even a spark in the longing eyes of his great, great, great grand parents … what the Jews learned about altars, they sourced from Africa); this technology for making psychic machines – for imbuing objects and places with consciousness for extending self and collectivizing spiritual energy … for all those very useful purposes they serve, not only the transactional as in sacrifice, but for the preservation of memory, value, and meaning as well…. (we would understand the Jew’s religion better than the Jew … if only we could remember.) … the essential ingredients for any effective shrine, any powerful altar, as Jesus said quite plainly….words (that’s the ‘truth’/rhetoric component) are insufficient; you absolutely must also have ‘spirit’ / passion / enthusiasm (en-Theos-ism), i.e. (emotional investment). What you place on the altar must cost you something and must mean something deeply personal. In Spirit and Truth is the winning formula. Herein is the pleasure of the venerated ensured and the vehicle of possession prepared – This is the process by which spirit (attitude, value, behavior) is incarnated.

Now how do you get positive emotional investment from a people whose territory you’ve just carved up and split amongst yourselves? Whose mothers you raped and fathers murdered? All this is designed to rob you of spirit, of agency – a deeply and deliberately despiriting drama.

This has absolutely nothing to do (lest I be misunderstood) with anybody forgiving anybody anything or anybody making reparation for what harm anybody has caused. We can have that conversation, but here I am talking about the present and future Jamaican generations having a sense of identity, purpose, destiny and power instead of walking around like zombies on God’s green earth thinking the best one can do in life is to imitate the Joneses next door….and generally failing at that by any meaningful measure.

And this is what it means to worship God alone – to have no higher image of worth and value than the creative spark that gave your own DNA its unique design. The god that knows your name knows your story; i.e. witnesses your journeys – genetic and geographical.

Ancestor worship (or call it whatever you want, I’m not beholden to anybody’s shallow theology – role modelling, hero worship, character emulation, honoring elders. .. whatever makes you happy) MUST be effective if standards and values of the past are to be successfully transferred across generations (for without Elijah’s mantle there is Malachi’s curse). Having a form of godliness without power is the path all tradition takes when Spirit is absent. And empty people soon lose their place to people who understand their … and its worth.

I will have to leave to another blog my reflections on the kind of emotional catharsis necessary to heal the disjointed national consciousness and what forms it may take. But here let me make at least one hint – you can never successfully transfer Paul Bogle’s spirit to a generation living with Eyre’s picture still hanging illustrious, decorated on the sacred wall of what we still call ‘King’s’ house. Tek i’ dung! …. with all of the other idol relics of British imperialism in our sacred places …. or leave Paul alone. He never wanted a statue. He wanted to live.

[A more apt translation into Jamaican appropriately (for the spirit realm) conflates time – past, present and future: “Im neva waa no statyu. Im jos waa liv.”]

Addendum

Since the original posting of this blog, we note that Eyre and the other ‘idol relics of British Imperialism’ were indeed removed from the walls of what still is unfortunately called ‘King’s House’ and appropriately replaced with the images of the National heroes of Jamaica. Although there is still work to do, as noted in the subsequent article: Tabernacle of Testimony, we celebrate each progressive step made in the journey towards Sankofa – the return to our self, our right mind, … what in the New Testament is symbolized by the Father’s House … although, unlike the prodigal son, our Journey away was not occasioned by our own lust or ambition, we were stolen away in ships of greed, and our journey back home has taken us much longer.