What I Learned Today

  Tomorrow I have an arduous trip. I'll be going to Edina, Bassa County, to preach at the First Baptist Church. The pastor is the Reverend Al Green! (at least that is what his friends in Liberia call him).
  The road to Edina is good, by Liberian standards. By American standards, however, it will be a challenge. We will have four hours, each way, on rough, but paved roads.
  By comparison, the road from Buchanan, Grand Bassa to Greenville, Sinoe County would be called "impassible" by American standards. On that road the ruts are deep enough to swallow an SUV.
  I digress.
  Since I have a very early departure tomorrow I decided to bathe about 6p. Wow. That's what I will do from now on. I am still fresh (as my Liberian friends say) and have had a great evening.
  My hope is to find some support for Rev. Green to visit the States. He would be a good ambassador for Liberian Baptists--he is a VP in the Baptist Convention of Liberia. He is witty and well-spoken. I'll be asking friends in GA, SC, AL, and beyond to consider welcoming him.

Friends in Real Places

  I guess it was twenty years ago, or so, that Garth Brooks lured me back into the fold of popular country music. His chart-bustin’ “Friends in Low Places” was and is a classic commentary on seeking influence and expecting privileges through friends in high places. What he sang about—tinged with the twangs of his style—was the comfort of friends in low places who don’t seem to have as much interest in influence and privilege that high-toned friends expect.

  These days back in Liberia have reminded me, too, that I have friends in real places. Since my first trip in 2007 I have had the privilege of getting to know folks in Liberia who are, I think, part of the strong skeletal system that is allowing Liberia to stand erect and proud after years of war.

  Here are some of my friends in this real place:

Joseph Dennis and Rick Wilson

  Mr. Joseph Dennis is one of the first people I met at Ricks. His tenure at Ricks stretches back to the 1970s. He has seen the glory and the horror at Ricks. Now he is a part of its renewal. Polio rendered Joseph lame, but he limps with a grace that challenges others to learn to live with challenges. In those days he learned some accounting skills and demonstrated unquestioned integrity as he handled money. (He yearns to get some formal education—at Mercer—but I don’t see how that is possible.)

  I’ve learned from others that even before the wars devastated Liberia Joseph’s character was smeared in the midst of his loyalty to place and superior. He lost face and suffered for wrongs that were not his. In the early 2000s as the war was winding down, Joseph languished in a dilapidated building on the campus of Ricks, barely subsisting.

  When Olu Menjay came to Ricks he learned about Joseph and his plight. Gradually Joseph was nurtured back into the good graces of the community. Menjay allowed him chances to burnish his character in the face of the challenge to rebuild Ricks. Today Mr. Joseph Dennis is Ricks’ business manager, once more managing the money and accounts.

Bob Boy Wilson Styling on a Campus Walk

  Bob Boy Wilson is a painter at Ricks. If you watch him you will see that he carries himself with a pride and verve born of military exposure (you can see it, too, in the photo on the right). A few years ago one of my Mercer colleagues joined me on a trip to Ricks. David was a US Army officer stationed in Monrovia at the time of the coup dé tat that ended the life of President William Tolbert and sent Liberia reeling down a path of uncertainty and destruction that lasted a quarter of a century. When the retired US Army officer entered the room Bob Boy stiffened at attention, recognizing his old acquaintance and giving him due respect. David told me that he remembered Bob Boy from those many years ago; he appreciated the show of respect.

  Bob Boy calls to me, “My son!” each time he sees me. I respond, “My Papa!” We have great fun telling people we are related. Papa says, pointing to himself, “Liberia Wilson,” and then, pointing to me, “America Wilson.”

  After several days in country this time I was concerned that I had not seen Papa. I asked, and learned that he had been ill and had required surgery. Another friend, Isaac Jallah (see below), offered to take me to see Papa. One morning we made our way to a building on campus that had a couple of accessible rooms. There was Papa and his wife. We embraced, laughed, and talked. He told me of his injury on the job—a hernia—that required surgery. Matter-of-factly he said, “But in Liberia, if you have no money you die.” I knew he told the truth. He disappeared into a small room and returned with an envelope that contained the simple bills of his surgery and post-op care, all marked “paid.”

  Now Papa is on leave, hoping to return to work in a couple of months. One morning this week he showed up at my door, looking fit and trim. He was out for a recuperative walk on the campus.

l-r Robert and Isaac

  And then there is Isaac. He is a master carpenter who probably never has used a power tool. He saws a square cut with a handsaw better than I could do with a Skil saw. Over a life of carpentry and paying attention he has become a friend of wood and iron, knowing how to let them—not make them—work together. He knows about real friendships.
  When a team from First Baptist Church of Christ came to Ricks in 2009, Isaac quietly taught us all about resourcefullness, especially the reason to save sawdust! I'll never forget that lesson.

  He has a story, too. Not long after Menjay came to Ricks under bleak conditions, post-war, Isaac’s elementary-age son was injured in a playground accident. He broke his back in a fall. The physicians could do nothing for him and the child died. The next day Isaac was at work—looking for lumber scraps suitable for building a coffin. Menjay intervened, making it possible for Isaac to make a proper coffin and, too, making it possible for Isaac to bury his son with dignity.

  Each time I come to Ricks I’m eager to find Isaac at his job. His eyes sparkle; his strong snappy handshake rattles my weak arms; and he embraces me with obvious pleasure. I share his joy.

  Isaac is from the Gola tribe. One of my simple pleasures is going into the bush on a Sunday morning to the Good Shepherd church where Isaac worships. If I go, I have to preach, but that is fine.

  There are other friends, too; maybe I’ll introduce readers to them another time. You would like to know about Ma Musu, an extraordinary cook, or Robert (see photo, above), an intelligent worker of wood and tile, or James, a porter at a local grocery, or that “Charles Taylor’s Child”—an amputee—who sits outside the grocery and greets me, “Hello, Doc!” each time I go to market.

  I’m happy to have friends in real places.

The Palace of Healing

from the front of the house

from the rear of the house

one of the corner rooms

  For a few years folks at Ricks Institute and Mercer University have been nursing a grand idea of a "Mercer House" on the campus of Ricks. The hope is to establish a permanent place for Mercer's growing interest at Ricks. Already Mercer has a strong partnership with Ricks through the Mercer on Mission program. Since 2008 there have been five trips from Mercer to Ricks (I'm including the in-process trip for 2013). Four of those adventures were joint journeys with the College of Liberal Arts and the Tift College of Education. More than fifty students from Mercer have experienced the "challenges and possibilities" at Ricks.
  As an aside: Most mornings at Ricks the Principal, the Rev. Dr. Olu Q. Menjay, greets students with the call and response that goes:
Menjay: "Every day is a new day, with what?"
Students: "New challenges and new possibilities!"
Menjay: "New challenges and new possibilities!"
  The chance to have a Mercer House is a challenge that brings new possibilities to Ricks and Mercer, and, too, to all of Liberia.
  When the idea first was broached Menjay seized the dream and began working toward its realization. A structure on the campus--ravaged by war and neglect--was selected. The residents of the house, faculty and staff at Ricks, were relocated to other equally dilapidated buildings that bore the testimony of war and want.

the commons area,
which will be a classroom

  Now the Mercer House in waiting has a new zinc roof. The ceiling has been restored (look closely at the photos). The old windows and doors have been removed. Structural repairs to some walls have been completed. The floors, mostly, have been prepared to receive new ceramic tiles.

a prayer of hope

  Yesterday I went through the house and made the photos you see. In a back room I was brought to tears by graffiti on the wall: "The Palace of Healing." I imagined that one of the displaced persons scrawled on the wall something of a prayer for what could become of the building. Perhaps I will explore my impression, or not. I saw what I saw: a prayer of hope. My many trips to Liberian and to Ricks have taught me that Liberians are hopeful people, eager to find healing after the fourteen years of war that nearly destroyed a proud and productive nation. Too, I know about the history of Ricks Institute and its hope for restoration.
  A Mercer House at Ricks would be a fountain of hope. It would be a place, eventually, where Ricks teachers could become better prepared for the tasks they have accepted. It could become a place where College of Liberal Arts students spend a semester learning about Liberia and her challenges. It could become a place where students in the Masters of Public Health program could have a staging ground for surveying local villages for health needs. It could become a place where Ricks and Mercer could show the world--yes, the world--that hope drives and nourishes people of all kinds.

Firebell in the Night

When Missouri appealed for statehood in 1819 the issue of slavery in the Union was thrown on the table, where it would writhe for decades, first as an economic issue with moral implications and later as a more-nearly pure moral issue, not so much about the institution of slavery, but as the smoldering issue of race relations. Thomas Jefferson called the appeal a "firebell in the night” that struck terror in him. Smoldering. From the establishment of the colonies slavery was a moral issue.

  A few years before the “firebell” rang for Jefferson, a cadre of forward-looking citizens, including statesmen, businessmen, and even plantation owners, launched a society to address “the negro problem.” With the likes of Henry Clay, Francis Scott Key, and James Monroe—some of the notables in a group with a host of activists—the American Colonization Society began its arduous work to address the nearly impossible challenges of slavery. The Society was founded in 1816 and was disbanded in 1964. Along the way there was a remarkable success—the founding of Liberia in 1822—and a long string of failures.

  My time in Liberia as I am “looking for Blyden” has demanded that I also explore the formative period of US history that saw the mercurial rise and fall of slavery. As I do I am nearly overwhelmed by the complexity of the issues and, too, the courageous attempts to address them.

  Early Lee Fox (The American Colonization Society: 1817-1840, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1919) has helped me grasp the magnitude and gravity of the issues. Through an impressive array of primary sources he lays out the “ultra-abolitionists” and the “radical pro-slavery” camps that hemmed in the ACS.

  The story of the ACS is, of course, centered upon the establishment of the colony of Liberia that, in 1847, became the Republic of Liberia. It is a story of vision, ambition, moral courage, racial cooperation, high ideals, and the depth of human suffering.

  My subject, Edward Wilmot Blyden, was enmeshed with the ACS. Because of his experiences in the Union—rejected as a student at Rutgers and elsewhere in the 1850s, mistreatment in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, in the 1860s—he gladly became an advocate for the repatriation of freed slaves to Liberia. In the 1860s Blyden accepted the task of being an itinerant among “the coloreds” in the North of the Union  at the behest of the President of Liberia. From the 1860s through the 1890s Blyden addressed the annual convention of the ACS now and then, offering challenges and perspectives on the ever-changing nuances of repatriation.

  Blyden became the Negro Patriot who, on the one hand, encouraged all of African descent to return to Liberia and, on the other hand, affirmed the hopes of those who chose to remain in the US that there would come a day of racial reconciliation.

  My time in Liberia, my time with Blyden’s works, my time with the history of the 19^th century, all are changing me day-by-day.

  It is not new. For more than 30 years I have been steeped in Liberation Theology. Now I am looking back, looking for Blyden, and finding deep mines that demand digging and assaying.

My Normal Routine

  My daily routine in Liberia is fairly simple. I rise in the mornings, around 6, and tend to hygiene in the comfort of the buckets (see right). The water rarely runs through pipe or faucet, but when it does I have to be prepared to catch as much as possible for storage in the large white barrel. I imagine it holds about 40 gallons.
  Bathing is a matter of wetting oneself with the dipper, soaping up liberally, and then rinsing with the dipper. The green bucket is where I put water so as not to unduly contaminate the white barrel with soap, etc. I confess that some days I heat up some water and mix it with cold in the green bucket. I prefer a lukewarm rinse to the bracing cold.
  The purple/yellow bucket I use for flushing the commode. Water is precious, so I have to decide when flushing is a necessity and not a luxury. (I know, too much information for some readers.)
  When school is in session I attend the morning assembly at Rick Institute. The end of my first week coincided with the end of the first semester. For two weeks the students will be away and I will be rising with the roosters and not the alarm clock. And, yes, that is a literal comment. The campus is the roaming place for chickens, goats, dogs, and cows. The roosters greet the dawn vociferously. It is hard to sleep past dawn.

  To the left you see my workspace. It took me a few attempts to get it right. In front of the desk/table is a bank of windows facing West. Ambient light most of the day allows me to work with ease. Although it cannot be seen, there is a light fixture on the wall above the box fan. I was relieved to find that it works (there is a matching fixture on the wall behind my chair that does not work). When it is overcast, and always in the evenings, the energy-efficient fluorescent bulb--yes even at Ricks--provides good light for my poor eyes.
  The box fan is my friend. Most days the heat and humidity requires me to change shirts two or three times. I am tempted at times to sit naked . . . . In the cool of the mornings (use your imagination to discover "cool" and "mornings" six degrees North of the Equator) and in the evening after sunset the fan pulls in fresh air.
  My work is regular. In the mornings I hope for a strong connection on the USB modem so I can correspond as needed and, too, check on news at home and around the world. That usually takes place while I boil water in preparation of making Liberian coffee. (If you've not had Liberian coffee, you should try some.)
  Next I review what I accomplished the previous day. I revise notes that I made from my readings. Then I decide what to take up next.
  My explorations of Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912) include a dozen or more primary source pamphlets, a helpful anthology of his writings--some of which are abridged from the other materials I have. I read them all. I compare the full texts to the abridged texts in hopes of muting the influence of the editor(s). I also have Blyden's most complete and intriguing work, which he wrote late in his life, Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race. I am passing familiar with that work and, as I read the earlier works with the memory of where Blyden lands. For example, early in his amazing vocation Blyden used "negro" exclusively. Then there is an essay that includes a bombastic critique of the lower case in the writing of white missionary; Blyden considers it an affront on the Negro race.
  I also have with me some secondary materials relating to West African politics and history, specifically an investigation of the sources for the Pan-African Movement, which builds mightily upon Blyden's careful construction of race nationalism in Africa. And, too, I have the last critical review of Blyden's life and work, Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro-Patriot (Oxford Press, 1960) by Hollis R. Lynch. Finally, I have a dense history of the American Colonization Society that is a trove of cited primary materials from the likes of Henry Clay, Francis Scott Key, and a host of lesser-known advocates for the repatriation of freed slaves to Liberia and elsewhere in West Africa.
  Midday I break for lunch and walk 1/4 mile to the house of my host, Olu Menjay, where I am served a Liberian meal. Usually that meal holds be for the day.
  After lunch I nap. Then I return to the tasks described above.
  I do try to break up my day. I may invest my morning in a 30 page essay/speech--recall that in the 19th century public addresses were quite involved! And aside: Blyden's rhetoric often enthralls me. His use of language, his ability to craft an image, his broad learning, all keep me alert. His remarkable language skills challenge me. This morning I read an Independence Day Address, delivered in 1865, that included Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and German--almost always citing poets or historians. The afternoons are less focused. I'll chase a rabbit or two . . . .
  My evenings give me a chance to look away from my task, if I so desire. I write blog entries, for example. I have other writing projects to which I devote a few hours. I have correspondence and--unfortunately--administrative tasks to attend. An aside: The joys of the Internet and Cell Phone are soured by the connectedness to what I have tried to leave behind.
  And, too, I confess that I packed three biographies (Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, and J. Edgar Hoover) that I had begun reading last year in the throes of my malaria adventure. Now and then I take a break from the 19th century and feed my hungry mind on the character of notable people.

  Without looking at the clock, I retire when I feel like it. What I mean is that I don't have a bedtime. I do look at the clock when I head back to my sleeping quarters, but only out of curiosity. Sometimes it is early--9p. Other times it is approaching midnight. I guess it depends upon the length of my naps.
  I sleep in a wooden twin bed with a thin mattress on a plywood base. This is the first time I have come to Liberia that I sleep under a mosquito net. My malaria adventure will always be fresh with me. I use a fan most nights, but the last two have been cool enough to forgoe the fan. My corner room allows for a good breeze, which contributes to good sleeping.

A Macedonian Call . . . from Liberia

Colonizationalists, notwithstanding all that has been said against them, have always recognized the manhood of the Negro and been willing to trust him to take care of himself. . . . They have believed that it has not been given to the white man to fix the intellectual or spiritual status of this race. They have recognized that the universe is wide enough and God’s gifts are varied enough to allow the man of Africa to find out a path of his own within the circle of genuine human interests, and to contribute from the field of his particular enterprise to the resources—material, intellectual, and moral—of the great human family.

~ Edward Wilmot Blyden, “The African Problem, and the Method of Its Solution”

A Young Blyden

I can think of no better-prepared authority from the 19^th century to address “The African Problem” than Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832–1912). Born on the island of St. Thomas in the Dutch West Indies one year before the Dutch government ended slavery in its territories and granted freedom to all slaves, Blyden began his life ahead of the times of nearly all people of African descent living in the Americas. He was afforded a good education, was welcomed without prejudice into the Reformed Dutch Church, and came to manhood without the daily suspicions of his character and ability endured by nearly all Africans living in the Americas.

  When Blyden was but 18 years old, the wife of his pastor, Mrs. John P. Knox, carried him to the United States to seek admission in one of the theological colleges in the Northeast. At least three times he was rejected merely on the basis of his race. The sting of that rejection never left him, but Blyden refused to succumb to bitterness.

  He accepted the encouragement of the New York Colonization Society, an auxiliary of the American Colonization Society, founded 1816, and soon found himself bound for the world’s only colony established to provide a haven for displaced Africans: the colony that was to become the Republic of Liberia.

  Once in Liberia the young Blyden wasted no time seizing the opportunity that lay before him. He entered Alexander High School in Monrovia and rose to prominence, so much so that at his graduation he was appointed Principal at the school.

  Remarkably, Blyden received no further formal education. His innate intelligence, hungry mind, and thirsty soul, however, drove him to become the greatest intellectual, moral, and spiritual force West Africa, the Americas, and Europe ever had seen from an African. By the end of his life Blyden was known for his linguistic skills. He mastered all of the Romance languages. He read and wrote in Greek and Latin. He pursued Hebrew in hopes of unraveling the 19^th century claims of Negro inferiority on the basis of “the malediction of Noah” in Genesis 9. Upon encountering African Muslims, Blyden threw himself into the study of Arabic, as well as the practices of Islam in West Africa.

  Blyden was no retiring intellectual. He carried his vigor into the public arena. He was an educator, serving on the faculty of Liberia College three different times, and as the President once. He was a statesman, serving as Secretary of State in Liberia and, too, as Ambassador to St. James Court in London (at his own expense), and later, to France. He had a failed attempt at the presidency of Liberia. 

Blyden, c. 1890

 In the midst of it all, Blyden was an indefatigable activist for the plight of Africans, slave and free, in the Americas. Owing to his own opportunities from the New York Colonization Society, Blyden accepted an appointment in 1861–1862 from the Liberian President to become one of three Commissioners to “itinerate and lecture among the people of color in the United States” with the hope of attracting more immigrants to the growing colony.

  The “Macedonian Call” received by the Apostle Paul (see Acts 16.9) captures the verve and hope of Edward Wilmot Blyden. He was the one issuing a call from Liberia to all displaced Africans from the 18^th and 19^th centuries. “Come and help us,” he said.

The Intellectual Plow and Rake

The richness of the uncultivated soil shows itself in the rankness and luxuriance of the weeds which it produces. The soil, then, must be cultivated, if we expect to reap a harvest of any value. So with the mind. The intellectual plow and rake must be used, and the good seed introduced. Knowledge must be imparted.  

 ~Edward Wilmot Blyden, “Hope for Africa”

Flag raising ceremony at Ricks Institute

  The students at Ricks Institute are taking their end-of-the-term exams this week. The days of this week begin like all others in the school year: at 7:30 a.m. the students line up by academic grade facing the flag pole; selected seniors hoist the flag of the Republic of Liberia and lead the student body in the pledge of allegiance, the Ricks school ode, and the national anthem; students file in to the auditorium for a brief time of devotion that includes a hymn, a prayer (both student-led), and some reflective thoughts from a member of the staff or a visitor; finally, the announcements of the day are spoken.

  As “theologian in residence” at Ricks Institute from mid-January through early March, I have the assignment to offer reflective thoughts each morning this week. I've chosen to focus attention on the aphorisms and parables that bring Matthew’s sermon on the mount to a close. We took up Matthew 6.19-24 with the emphasis upon choosing value that lasts and being single-minded. We took up the images of “the narrow gate” and “the wide gate and broad road” in Matthew 7.13 and 14. We also accepted the challenge from nature that teaches “a good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit” from Matthew 7.15-20. We will end our week with attention to the importance of doing (Matthew 7.23) and the parable of the foundations (Matthew 7.24-27).

  (I especially am looking forward to Friday. Liberia has recently emerged from the wet season and the lesson of the hard rain on soft ground will be fresh in the minds of the students.)

  For this week, as is the case for all exam weeks, there is a respite of half-an-hour between the announcements of the day and the beginning of the exam periods. Perhaps it was the anticipation of the exams themselves or the knowledge that they would get a short break that has made the students so attentive this week. Perhaps the work of the “intellectual plow and rake” has been effective this school year. For whatever reasons, the students have been attentive.

  Even in the midst of the demands of the week, two eleventh grade young women made an appointment to talk with me this afternoon. Onell and Carina are bright and energetic. They are part of the interview staff for the Ricks Institute Press Club. Their assignment was to interview the visitor. On Friday this week they will report to the student body.

  Our conversation is what reminded me of Blyden’s line about the “intellectual plow and rake.” Onell and Carina asked good questions about values, my perception of progress in Liberia, how the Ricks students are doing at Mercer, and why I keep coming back to Liberia. It was clear to me that not only have these young woman benefited from the “intellectual plow and rake,” they also have begun learning how to use them.