candeo

"Our crowns have been bought and paid for--all we have to do is wear them." - James Baldwin

My good young friend candeo posted this quote by James Baldwin. It immediately reminded me of my drawing from June 5 2003. Amazingly this came from a collision of verses from the Bible.

I cannot present burnt offerings to the Lord that have cost me nothing 2Sam 24:24b

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. Acts 2:3

And when the chief Shepherd appears you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. 1Peter 5:4

Further quotations by Baldwin bring this crown into deeper perspective as I reflect about life, injustice, struggles and denials, to blinkered vision and refusal to see the world in front of us.

The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.

You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who have ever been alive.

What unites us and should bring us together is our brokenness and willingness to sit with each other, protest by all means but it is not the matter of solutions but somehow education and sightedness is key: The need for revelation, the epiphany, the coming of insight and a new way of seeing. Baldwin as Afro-American writer and civil-rights protester, seemed to be an educator through his literature offering alternative perspectives. Until we are willing to stop looking at, namely gawking at the world, and begin to see the world in a different light it is difficult to claim the crown to which Baldwin refers.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matt 5:10