#how do you know your ancestors were native? have you done any genealogy?

[bucephaly]

Cool, a native blogger! I want to connect to that part of me, got some native in myself, so hi! 👋

What tribe are you from ? Are you a citizen?

[tipsycad147]

How To Connect With Your Ancestors in 10 EFFECTIVE Ways

posted by : kitty fields

Your ancestors are here. They’ve always been and always will be. When you breathe, you use DNA given to you by your maternal ancestors. When you cry or laugh, you cry and laugh with your ancestors’ DNA. I have spent the past five years connecting with my ancestors in various ways. There aren’t many books out there to guide you in your efforts. This I had to learn on my own. Now I wish to share my experiences with you to help you connect with your ancestors on a deeper level and hopefully they become a pillar of your spiritual practice.

Cultural Ties and Ancestors

Preliminary Ways to Connect With Your Ancestors

geneaology

scrapbooking

framing pictures

1. Genealogy

The first way to connect with your ancestors is get to know them. Sounds difficult seeing as how they are dead, right? Wrong! It’s tedious work, but it’s well worth it. Start a family tree online, on a Word Doc, or manually on a poster board. For me, I went with the online family tree via ancestry.com. The cool thing about ancestry.com is that it searches a huge archive of files and documents for information. If you enter your parents’ names first, the website will notify you of document matches almost immediately. For instance, you’ll find your father’s war documentation or your mother in a newspaper article. These are just minor examples.

More on Family Trees

The point to setting up a family tree is to get to know who your ancestors were as far as their names, time periods in which they lived, their occupations, where they lived, and where they were originally from. If you live in the United States and not Native American, this means your ancestors came from somewhere else (obviously). Do you know anything about their original mother-land? Do you know the traditions, religions, and history of your ancestors’ land? These are all ways to dive into your ancestry and get to know your ancestors.

DNA and Ancient Ancestors

I know some people are hesitant about having their DNA analyzed. I’ve had mine done and it’s helped me connect to my ancestors in many ways…but it has also had its drawbacks. So be aware of the potential negatives that can occur after doing your DNA. However, once your DNA is analyzed, you may be surprised of your ancestral connections. In addition to having your DNA done through Ancestry or 23andMe, upload your results into MyTrueAncestry to discover your ancient and Medieval ancestors! For example, my initial DNA results told me I am half English…but MyTrueAncestry took that back even further and told me I’m part Saxon, Celt, and Danish Viking!

2. Scrapbooking

Once you’ve established a family tree either, create a scrapbook of your ancestors. This is another very time-consuming project; however, you’ll grow closer to your ancestors by focusing on their lives in this manner. Get a large scrapbook from a craft store and gather stickers, craft papers and media, and whatever other tidbits you might like to add. Designate this book to your ancestors only. From there, start by separating your ancestors one-by-one or by family name, whatever you feel is best. Then add photos of your ancestors, their names, dates of birth and death, occupations, etc. Anything that you feel is important and relevant to your connection with your ancestors can go in the book.

Shutterfly

If you’re not big into crafting, use Shutterfly.com to put together a scrapbook for you. I’ve used this service multiple times to build pretty photo albums of family vacations and holidays. More recently, I put together an entire album of my grandmother’s ancestry and gave it to her as a gift. Following, I knew my ancestors were honored and pleased. It costs anywhere from thirty to sixty dollars depending on how many photos you want in your album. But it cuts out the physical work for you!

Framing Photos

In addition to ancestor scrapbooking, if you have any older photos of your ancestors (especially originals) it’s time to frame them. The time that you put into framing these photos and hanging them is time spent with your ancestors. Think of them and of the lives they lived, and think of the blood that courses through your veins and how it also ran through theirs. Hang these photographs in one place to honor your ancestors, or hang them around the house to show reverence and invoke protection over your home.

Ways to Spiritually Connect With Your Ancestors

altars

offerings

dreamwork

ritual

prayer

hobbies

foods

3. Set Up Ancestor Altars

You’ve spent time getting to know about your ancestors’ lives, now it’s time to spiritually connect with your ancestors. Set up an ancestor altar or shrine. The altar can be inside or outside. It can be a corner of the hallway or an entire wall in your living room. Basic items to include on your ancestor altar: candles, pictures, mementos/heirlooms, flowers, herbs and stones, incense.

4. Ancestor Offerings

Once your ancestor altar is set up, begin honoring them with an offering. When you decide on an offering, be sure it’s something your ancestors like. If you’re honoring ancestors from ancient times, take an educated guess. They will let you know if you are off…trust me. Examples of ancestor offerings include: spring water, wine/mead/beer, fruits of various kinds (apples and citrus will keep nicely on an altar for days), cakes and breads, cigars and tobacco. Change them out as necessary.

5. Dreamwork

Our ancestors will come to us in dreams. How do you talk and connect with your ancestors easily? Ask your ancestors to visit you in your dreams. You will be surprised how quickly they show up. I had one particular ancestor visit me in my dreams and I remembered her name. This was before I even realized she was my ancestor, until I started doing research on my family tree! I had missed one letter in her name originally, but she made it abundantly clear later on! Again, all you have to do is to ask them to show up and they will. In the morning, record your ancestor dreams so you can refer to them later.

6. Ritual

Incorporate your ancestors into your rituals and meditations. Call on your ancestors to protect your circle and workings and invite them to be present. My suggestion is to invite them to your sacred space first, then ask for favors later. You can create an entire ritual with the simple intention to connect with your ancestors. Some people have an easy time writing their own rituals, but if you are not one of those people…here’s one of mine.

7. Ancestor Prayer

When I pray, I don’t typically pray to God or Goddess…I pray to my ancestors. Talk to them as though they’re right next to you, listening to every word you say. I do this in my head or out loud, depending on who’s around. You can pray to your ancestors, too. It doesn’t have to be elaborate or rhyme. You don’t have to bow or get on your knees. They are your family and want to hear your voice. Just pray. Another big piece to the ancestral puzzle is healing generational curses. Though this is something that takes many years. Prayer is the start.

8. Hobbies

An effective way to learn how to connect with your ancestors is to do what your ancestors did. Did your grandmother like to crochet? Time to pick up the crochet needle! Was your great uncle an expert fly fisherman? Consider taking up his pasttime. Or take it back to the older days and learn a skill your ancient ancestors might have known: survival skills like building a fire, hunting, weaving, etc.

9. Foods

A fun way to connect, especially if you love food, is to cook meals in honor of your ancestors. Make your grandmother’s bread pudding recipe or your aunt’s gingerbread. Pull out the old family cookbooks and choose a recipe to recreate. OR research your ancestors’ foods from their ancestral homeland. For example, if your ancestors are Irish – Dublin coddle, soda bread or colcannon. If they are Nigerian – pepper soup, gari, or egusi soup. Set a place at the table for your ancestors and/or leave part of the meal on their altar.

10. Meditation

Meditation is helpful in so many ways, and it can also be used to communicate with your ancestors. Find a guided meditation on YouTube. Wait until you have a quiet moment alone. Turn off your electronics and dim the lights. Ask your ancestors to be present with you and for your ancestral guide to come through during your meditation. Then let them speak to you in that quiet space.

You’re struggling to connect with your ancestors. Have you tried pathworking to meet and talk to them? Pathworking is a clever, fancy name for guided meditation. Here I give you one of my ancestor guided meditations. You’ll just need to have someone read it to you, or record it to play for yourself. Pathworking is a great way to practice your meditation skills PLUS reach out to your ancestors on a more personal, experiential level.

A Guided Underworld Meditation: Conversation With An Ancestor

Start by finding a quiet place where you’ll be alone and undisturbed.

Close your eyes and slow your breathing.

Focus on the air moving in and out of your lungs. One breath at a time. (pause for 15-20 seconds)

Continue to breathe in this way until you’re fully relaxed. From head to toe. (pause for 15-30 seconds)

With your eyes still closed, you’ll begin to see a tree in the distance. Walk towards the tree. As you get closer and closer, you notice the tree is very large. It’s great limbs stretch into the heavens, and it’s roots jut out all around it and then penetrate into the earth. The trunk of the tree is glowing.

Slowly walk towards it. Don’t be afraid of it. (pause 15 seconds)

The light from the trunk grows brighter and brighter until it envelopes you completely.

You feel yourself being gently pulled down into the tree by the light. This feeling is comforting and warm. You give in to where the tree’s light wants to take you.

Down. Down. Gliding down the roots of the tree and through the earth your soul travels.

The earth breaks apart and you’re now standing in an open cave. Someone also enveloped in a bright, white light is walking towards you. You smile when you realize, it is one of your ancestors.

Your ancestor approaches you slowly and when his or her face comes into view, you notice he or she is smiling. His/her eyes are bright and full of love for you. (pause 15 seconds)

Speak with your ancestor for a few minutes or as long as it takes. Ask them their name and what message they have for you. What guidance they have for your life. Ask your ancestor to agree on a particular sign they will send you when you ask for one, sort of like a secret handshake. Also ask them how best you may honor them in your spiritual practice. (pause 2-5 minutes)

When the conversation is over, thank them and turn to go back up the tree’s roots.

The divine light from the tree pulls you up, up, up and back to middle earth. Your feet are planted firmly on the ground and you turn to leave the glowing tree behind you. (pause 15 seconds)

[abbottikeler]

The Ikelers: A Family Chronicle, 1753-2018 (Part III)

The Ikelers in the Nineteenth Century     There are many descendants of Wilhelm who, to this day, live within a few miles of Jerseytown and his original Greenwood farm. They are, most of them, eight or nine generations removed either from his eldest son, Andrew, or his only daughter, Elizabeth.  (Barnabus, his second son, did not marry, and William, his third born, though he married in New Jersey and lived out his life in Columbia County, could not convince most of his descendants to stay.   Many migrated west to Ohio and beyond.)     Especially if you can trace your ancestry back to Andrew Ikeler, you will easily find third, fourth and fifth cousins in Bloomsburg and neighboring townships.   Evidence of their long presence and influence is everywhere in Columbia County—in two Ikeler cemeteries, a church, a street, and even a village named Ikelertown.  In the case of Wilhelm’s friend Daniel, and his son-in-law William, Elizabeth’s legacy lives on in the ubiquity of the Welliver name in local phone directories, in the Jerseytown cemetery established by Daniel, and in numerous published histories of Daniel’s involvement with the ill-fated Whitmayers.   There is, in fact, near Bloomsburg a country crossroads and a hamlet surrounding it named “Welliverville.”       Those two families, after all, were among the first pioneer farmers to clear and work the land after the 1780 treaty with the local native-Americans.  Ikelers and Wellivers have been there ever since.     In this segment of the narrative, I’ll be looking at three generations of Ikelers who lived all or most of their lives in nineteenth-century Columbia County, PA.  They are, in order, Andrew Ikeler (1772-1850) and his wife Christiana, nee Johnson (1774-1865); Andrew’s son Isaac (1804-1883) and his wife Mary, nee Taylor (1810-1872); and Isaac’s son Elijah (1838-1898) and his wife Helena, nee Armstrong (1840-1913). For information about the siblings of Isaac or Elijah (there were in fact a dozen), the best local sources are the County Courthouse and the Columbia County Historical and Genealogical Society in Bloomsburg.  Under discussion here are only the children from whom my immediate family and I are descended.       Andrew reached his majority in New Jersey under the sole care of his mother.  In 1792, he married the daughter of an English settler—the first with the new surname Ikeler to do so. Christiana Johnson’s father, Isaac, was most likely sympathetic to the British cause, since he allowed the union of his daughter to the son of a notorious loyalist.  He also later moved to the Pennsylvania neighborhood where Wilhelm had settled.  It appears that Christiana and Andrew may have been the last of their generation of Ikelers to leave New Jersey for Columbia County. The 1888 Beers Book makes reference to Andrew’s journey there in 1804.  Presumably, he was waiting for confirmation from his father that the land they needed for their growing family had been purchased.  That news came in 1804, and Andrew appears on the tax records of 1805 as the owner of a log cabin and a saw mill and 150 acres of land in Greenwood Township.       Unlike most of the farmers around him, Andrew seems to have cut quite a public figure.  Near the end of the War of 1812, he led a company of militia to the defense of the nation’s capital.  While underway, they learned the threat had passed, so he and his men returned to Columbia County without firing a shot. Again, in 1835, he made news when elected Magistrate at the ripe age of 62.  At his death in 1850 he had outlived his brothers and his sister by nearly a decade.     We know precious little about Christiana’s life, either in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, but she and Andrew lived long enough to see many of their grandchildren grown, long enough to celebrate their 57th wedding anniversary, and, in her case, long enough to see the end of the Civil War.  Born before the nation itself, she died at 91 in 1865.  One can only image what a diary of her times she might have written!     She and Andrew are buried in the far right corner of what is known as the “churchless” Ikeler cemetery, at the top of a hill overlooking both their and Wilhelm’s original homesteads, and planted in corn to the very borders of the graveyard.  The site functioned up until 1840 as the informal burial place for Ikelers and their near neighbors.  In that year, Andrew’s eldest son, William, set money aside to preserve it in perpetuity and later erected the limestone tombstone that marks his parents’ last resting place.  In the row immediately behind them are several broken slabs of slant, the inscriptions on them (if any) long since effaced.  It is very likely that they mark the burial place of Wilhelm and his wife, presumably carried there (in 1808 and 1815 respectively) from their nearby log house in a homemade pine box, or perhaps simple in winding sheet.     Ironically, far less is known of Andrew’s son Isaac, my great-great grandfather, and his wife Mary Taylor.  Though he followed his father’s example and married a woman of English stock, he kept close to the land Andrew left him, and rarely participated in the life of the wider community.  Yet, since he lived into the 1880s, I suspect at least one photograph of him must have been taken, and may somewhere still exist.  Certainly there are available photos of other children of Andrew.      Much research remains to be done on his wife as well.   Happily, some has recently come to light through the efforts of my third cousin, Chris Sanders.  Mary Taylor was sold by her father into indentured service at age twelve, along with her brother.  The promise of an apprenticeship was often written into the contract—in Mary’s case, the promise was, in the course of her seven years of servitude, that she would be taught “the mysteries of housewiffery.”  Why her father, a widower, was driven to take such an extreme measure remains a mystery.  Perhaps he simply thought he couldn’t manage their upbringing on his own.  It was, as one wise genealogist reminded me, a different time.      Mary’s servitude did, at least, have a foreseeable end.  She married Isaac Ikeler immediately upon regaining her freedom at 19, in 1829.  Her son Elijah, perhaps as a tribute to the suffering she had endured in her adolescence, christened his second son with the middle name “Taylor” just two years before his mother’s death.  Her memory was apparently cherished by later descendants as well---they passed it down to this very day as the middle name of at least four other Ikeler males.  Mary, fortunately, was something of a genealogist herself, and faithfully kept what she knew of the Ikeler family tree on the flyleaf of her bible.  For most of us, that partial record represented the starting point for our research into the early generations.     Mary Taylor Ikeler predeceased her husband by eleven years.  Isaac passed away in 1883.  All but one of their eight children survived into adulthood.  Both parents are buried under well-preserved limestone monuments in what became the next, newer Ikeler cemetery, atop Ikeler Hill and directly across the road from the Ikeler Church.   Their resting place sits right above the border between Mt. Pleasant and Greenwood Townships, looking down on the very hills and fields they plowed.       Elijah Redmond Ikeler, their fourth child and second son, is perhaps the most widely remembered and controversial of all the Ikelers in this history.  Even his birth year is debatable, variously recorded as any of four years between 1837 and 1840.  Most sources, including his large granite tombstone in Bloomsburg’s Rosemount Cemetery, declare it to be 1838, however.       From his early days he appears to have been disinclined to take up farming.  At 18 he was apprenticed to a mill owner, and shortly thereafter had acquired a share in the business.  At the outset of the Civil War, he seems to have been equally disinclined to take up arms in defense of the Union. Whether he paid the standard $300 to send someone else in his place, or simply wasn’t called up because the local quota of soldiers had already been filled, he clearly had no interest in risking his young life for a cause he didn’t believe in.  In a Bloomsburg newspaper article from 1864, in which a local volunteer at the front complains about the lack of support and enthusiasm from the folks back home, Elijah is quoted (among others) arguing in favor of a compromise with the Confederacy that would allow the Southern States to keep their slaves and end the bloodshed sooner.     By that time he had already been married for a year—to one Helena Armstrong, two years his junior and a resident of Bloomsburg.  Her father owned a prosperous stonemasonry business, producing monuments in limestone and granite for local cemeteries and public places, as well as the marble window frames and sills for the more prepossessing homes along Main and Market Streets.  Helena also brought an impressive pedigree to the union with Elijah: among her father’s ancestors were the socially prominent Rittenhouses of Philadelphia, and the Hiesters, one of whom had been an officer under Washington in the Revolutionary War.  She was thus a member of the D.A.R., with the bona fides to prove it.  On her mother’s side she was descended from the Vanderslices, a Dutch family and one of the wealthiest in Columbia County.      How did Elijah, the 25-year-old son of a Greenwood farmer, manage to marry into an established upper middle class family such as the Armstrongs?  Probably a combination of ambition, political savvy, and good looks.  He looks out from photographs and portraits taken of him then and later with a self-assurance and a symmetry of aspect that commands admiration.     By 1865, he and Helena had taken up residence in Bloomsburg, the county seat, at the time a settlement of some 3,000 souls on the banks of the Susquehanna.  Elijah would remain a townsman the rest of his life.  He struck up a friendship with a much older Bloomsburg lawyer, John Freeze, who had lost his own sons to childhood illnesses several years before.   Freeze took him under his wing, taught him the law, and, from 1867, admitted him into his own practice as a fellow attorney.  Thereafter, Elijah rose quickly to political prominence, becoming Bloomsburg town treasurer in 1870 and district attorney a short time later.     His domestic fortunes, despite an initial setback, were also advancing.  In 1867, Helena had lost a pair of twins, but she gave birth to one healthy son, Frank Armstrong Ikeler, the next year, and another robust boy, Fred Taylor Ikeler, in 1870.    Why they had no more children after that, though both were in their early thirties, I can only speculate.     Certainly Elijah grew increasingly involved with public affairs and the business of making money.  He participated in the early prosecution of the Molly Maguires (though the miners were ultimately tried, convicted and hanged by others), and he bought numbers of residential properties within Bloomsburg proper (whether for rental income or resale I haven’t been able to ascertain).  By the 1880s he thought himself well enough known and respected to run for elected office.  The position he sought was that of Presiding (or President) Judge: a five-year term of office with jurisdiction over both Columbia and two adjoining counties.   He was twice elected: in 1888 and again in 1893.  He ran again in 1898 at the age of 60, but fell ill in the midst of the campaign and died within a week in August, 1898.   At the time of his death he was living on Market Street in a mansion-sized home of his own design, known for years after as “the Judge’s house.”  The building has since been extensively renovated and functions today not as a place of residence, but as a funeral home.     In the last two decades of his life, there was also much going on at home to keep him happy with only two children.  Given his risen position in society, Elijah was clearly ambitious for his sons.  They both attended and graduated from Lafayette College—the first Ikelers to earn baccalaureate degrees—and, by the mid-90s, both boys had begun to practice law, just as their father had done.      Aside from vague rumors that Elijah was a bit too fond of the bottle, and his arguable lack of patriotism during the Civil War (neither one of which sins was considered much of a problem in that part of Pennsylvania), everything about his life and his family seemed above reproach.  Particularly in 1888, when he ran for high office, it was essential to his success: he needed to present an unblemished record to the voters of three counties.       One small problem arose the year before that election.  A chronicle of Columbia County was being prepared, a chronicle that would rely for much of its information on interviews with prominent members of long-established families in the region—people who could recount their own and their ancestors’ history.  The chronicle (known then and since as “The Beers Book”) was due to be published in 1888, shortly before Elijah planned to open his election campaign.  And, given his social prominence, there was certainly no Ikeler more likely to be approached for genealogical information than Elijah.   All to the good, it would seem: a chance to boast, modestly of course, of his and his forefathers’ accomplishments, and perhaps, amongst interested readers, to gain a few votes.     The Ikeler section of the Beers Book that appeared in 1888 does indeed suggest the interviewee was Elijah—more than half of the entry praises the deeds of the would-be Presiding Judge, and has little to say of his siblings or his parents.       But the passage makes some quite curious claims about earlier generations.  Fact gets oddly mixed up with fiction—the first Ikeler [it reads] was “Joseph Eggler...of an honored old family of German extraction,” not a tenant farmer named Hieronymus Eichler; he landed in New Jersey, not Philadelphia, arriving in 1760, not 1753; most curious of all, “at the outbreak of the Revolution he promptly enlisted with the Colonists, and throughout that historic conflict unselfishly rendered service to his country.”  This founding father of the American Ikelers is also said to be Elijah’s great-grandfather, when in fact Hieronymus is his great-great-grandfather.  Elijah skips a generation in order to make Andrew, not Wilhelm, the son of this fictional hero.  It is Andrew, so the account runs, who brought the Ikelers from New Jersey to Greenwood Township in 1804.       What Elijah’s version does, of course, is to wipe out the first seven years of the family’s indentured servitude, credit Hieronymus/Joseph with an honorable, unselfish war record on the side of the Colonists, and eliminate Wilhelm and the “shame” of his fugitive years altogether.  There simply is no Wilhelm in Elijah’s account of his ancestry.     It’s a neat blending of fact and fiction, calculated to sit well with his neighbors and the electorate.  But I suspect Elijah’s dissembling had a second, and perhaps more powerful motivation behind it.  He was, we remember, married to a member of the D.A.R., a descendant of a genuine hero on the side of the Revolution.  When the chronicler came calling, Elijah could enhance respect for his heritage in the eyes of Helena by “recalling” an equivalent hero in the Ikeler family past.  But it was even more important for both husband and wife that he expunge any trace of Wilhelm and the family’s loyalist background.  And God forbid, Helena should find out one of her husband’s ancestors was a redcoat under arms during the conflict!     Elijah’s efforts to bowdlerize or mythologize his family’s past remained unchallenged for another 27 years, until both he and Helena were no longer among the living.  At last, in 1915, and just two years before his own death, I suspect it was I.B. Ikeler who offered a very different story to the county historian who came by collecting information for a second edition of the chronicle:  “In another account it is stated that William Ikeler [so the 1915 printed version reads] was the name of the founder of the Columbia county branch of the Ikelers.  William Ikeler also came from New Jersey and settled on a farm…approximately one hundred twenty-five years ago [i.e., circa 1790].  His wife’s name was Barnhart, and their issue were four children: Andrew, William, Elizabeth and Barnabus.”  Except for getting Elizabeth Bengert’s maiden name wrong, his version squares with the facts as we now know them.  I.B. Ikeler was in the best position to set things straight, after all, since it was he who held that “ancient” deed of sale, the proof that William Ikeler had paid 450 hundred pieces of gold or silver for an additional 350 acres of land in 1804.

[romancatholicreflections]

25th August >> Daily Reflection on Today's First Reading (Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14-16, 22) for Roman Catholics on Friday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

Commentary on Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14-16, 22 We move on today to a very different piece of Scripture, the short book of Ruth, which consists of just four chapters. (The only other biblical book bearing the name of a woman is Esther.) We will just have two readings from this lovely work which follows immediately on Judges. Introducing the book the Jerusalem Bible says in part: Although its action is placed in the period of the Judges (Ruth 1:1) the book does not form part of the deuteronomic corpus which runs from Joshua to the end of Kings… The main purpose of the book is to show (2:12), how trust in God is rewarded and how God’s goodness is not restricted by frontiers. That a woman of Moab should be privileged to become the great-grandmother of David gives a particular value to this narrative; nor is there any reason to doubt its historical foundation. – Jerusalem Bible The New International Version Study Bible makes this comment: The story is set in the time of the Judges, a time characterised in the book of Judges as a period of religious and moral degeneracy, national disunity and general foreign oppression. The book of Ruth reflects a temporary time of peace between Israel and Moab (contrast Judges 3:12-30). Like 1 Sam 1-2, it gives a series of intimate glimpses in the private lives of the members of an Israelite family. It also presents a delightful account of the remnant of true faith and piety in the period of the Judges, relieving an otherwise wholly dark picture of that era The book – and our reading today – tells the sad story of Elimelech, a man from Bethlehem in Judah. It was the days of the Judges and the area was hit by a famine. Because of this, he had to move to Moab with his wife, Naomi, and his two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. There they settled. Bethlehem lies south of Jerusalem while Moab was a tribal region on the east side of the Dead Sea and hence Gentile territory. The time of the Judges was probably from around 1380 BC to about 1050 BC. By setting such an edifying story in this period, the author calls to mind a time in Israel’s history noted for its apostasy, moral degradation and oppression. The famine mentioned here is not recorded in Judges. Bethlehem in Judah will be David’s hometown and, as descendants of David, Joseph and Mary will go to Bethlehem to be registered (cf. Luke 2:4). Bethlehem means the ‘house of bread’ but right now there is no bread there. The names are not those of real people and have been chosen mainly for their meaning. Emilech means ‘my God is king’, while Naomi is ‘my fair one’. The two sons, who die relatively young, are called Mahlon (‘sickness’) and Chilion (‘pining away’). Their two wives are called Orpah (‘she who turns away’) and Ruth (‘the beloved’). Naomi and Ruth are the two ‘lovely’ people in the story. It reminds one of the names given to the characters in John Bunyah’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Ruth, too, is one of the four women listed in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. The others are Tamar, Rahab and Bathsheba (Matt 1:3,5-6). After they moved to Moab, Elimelech died, leaving Naomi a widow with her two sons. This is the first blow. Each of her sons married local Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth, and the prospect of continuing the family line remained. The Moabites were descended from Moab, who was the son of a liaison between Lot and one of his daughters (Gen 19:36-37). (Both his daughters slept with him while he was too drunk to know what was happening.) Marriage with Moabite women was not forbidden to Hebrews, though no Moabite – or his sons to the 10th generation – was allowed to “enter the assembly of the Lord” (Deut 23:3). Then, after about 10 years, both the sons died. Naomi, a widow, was now left without her husband or her sons. Nor did her daughters-in-law have any sons to support them. Namoi’s emptiness is complete. She has neither husband nor sons. She has only two young daughters-in-law, both of them foreigners and both childless. It was a complete ‘kenosis’ or ‘emptying’. In those times, the lot of the widow could be a very sad one with no means of support and little chance of remarriage. All three women had become outsiders and rejects: of no more interest to their husband’s family and a disappointment to their own. Naomi then decided to leave the Plains of Moab and return to Bethlehem with her two daughters-in-law, having heard that God had visited his people and the famine was over. The ‘visit’ here is a way of expressing God’s blessing and favour on the place. It is just one point in the story where God’s control of events is recognised. Bethlehem, the house of bread, now has bread once more. There seems to be a mutual echoing between the famine in Bethlehem and the emptiness of Naomi and her daughters-in-law. The end of the famine foreshadows the end of the emptiness. So, together they all left the place and set out for Judah, Naomi’s homeland. However, on the way, she urged the two daughters-in-law to go back to their homeland. They had a better chance of finding husbands there than in Judah but they were reluctant to leave her. Then, with many tears, Orpah agreed to go back to her native place but Ruth insisted on staying with Naomi, one outsider offering to take care of another. While Orpah left reluctantly and only after the urging of Naomi, her departure highlights the loyalty and selfless devotion of Ruth to her desolate mother-in-law. Naomi still urged Ruth to go back with her sister to her own people and her gods. (The chief god of the Moabites was Chemosh.) But Ruth asked Naomi not to force her to leave or to prevent her staying with Naomi. She will accompany her mother-in-law into a future that shows no promise for either of them. She expresses her feelings beautifully, in poetic form: Wherever you go, I shall go, wherever you live, I shall live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Whereas Orpah returns to Moab and its god Chemosh, Ruth chooses Yahweh’s territory and his people; in doing so she will have no other God but him. Ruth is now doubly an outsider: she does not belong to the family of Naomi’s husband and she is a Gentile Moabite who has left her native land. It is this loyalty to her husband’s mother, a loyalty that was not expected and which transcended tribal and religious boundaries, which is one of the qualities for which Ruth is admired as a specially good woman. Indeed, very much a person for our time. She also anticipates the Gospel teaching that, before God, there are no outsiders. And so, the author tells us, that was how Naomi returned home to Bethlehem with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitess from the Plains of Moab. The author keeps reminding the reader that Ruth is a foreigner from a despised people. “They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.” Naomi and Ruth arrive in Bethlehem just as the renewed fullness of the land is beginning to be harvested – an early hint that Naomi’s emptiness will be ended and she will be filled with joy again. Reference to the barley harvest also prepares the reader for the next major scene in the harvest fields. Harvesting grain in ancient Canaan took place in April and May (barley first, wheat a few weeks later). It involved the following steps: 1, cutting the ripened standing grain with hand sickles – usually done by men; 2, binding the grain into sheaves – usually done by women; 3, gleaning, i.e. gathering stalks of grain left behind; 4, transporting the sheaves to the threshing floor – often by donkey, sometimes by cart; 5, threshing, i.e. loosening the grain from the straw – usually done by the treading of cattle, but sometimes by toothed threshing sledges or the wheels of carts; 6, winnowing – done by tossing the grain into the air with winnowing forks so that the wind, which usually came up for a few hours in the afternoon, blew away the straw and chaff, leaving the grain at the winnower’s feet; 7, sifting the grain to remove any residual foreign matter; 8, bagging for transportation and storage. Threshing floors, where both threshing and winnowing occurred, were hard, smooth, open places, prepared on either rock or clay and carefully chosen for favourable exposure to the prevailing winds. They were usually on the east side – i.e., downwind – of the village. (NIV, edited) As mentioned, one of the special significances of this story for us is that Ruth is the great-grandmother of King David, who was from Bethlehem, and hence also an ancestor of Jesus and one of the four women mentioned by Matthew in the family tree of Jesus.

[surge42-blog]

Do What Thou Wilt: A sermon by Ab-Soul

Ab-Soul's Do What Thou Wilt album is perhaps one of his most controversial offerings. Soul having called it a love story and female appreciation album, it baffles many listeners when they listen to the album because it seems as if Soulo is throwing too many concepts all over the place.....or is he? After a random listening of the album I picked up a something out of nowhere. EVANGELISM The album starts out aggressive as it kicks off with RAW(backwards). Soul starts out by evangelizing listeners as the Carson native raps "another Baptism by Pastor Black Lip". What is he evangelizing them from? Well it's answer in hook which goes "we don't wanna hear that whack shit no more",which could be directed towards his contemporaries who rap about money,hoes,clothes,drugs dealing, and glorifying the gang life. The "battlemongers"(haters) called him a reject as he puts considering how much negativity he's gained from his previous album "These Days...",but Soul doesn't allow this to deter him. Then comes the most notorious part of the sing,which is a jab at Jay Electronica who was featured with Kendrick over the controversial Control track. It should be noted that there has been tension between Kenny and Jay after the chain of events set off by Lamar's verse. Ab protests that "it hurts when an O.G who was supposed to be a G.O.D is standing next to King Kunta(Lamar) feeling like Tobi",he means that it saddens him to see a respected artist as Electronica shows signs of having an inferiority complex for a song verse that was not really supposed to have bothered him...or anyone for that matter. This song is called RAW(backwards) which is WAR,not physical but rather a war of words,Soul's preachings are a weapon to fight against the problem he is yet to elaborate on. "Cause we don't die, we just multiply,divide and conquer": Ab-Soul's fan base or rather converts keep growing despite any hindrances (These Days...). He warns listeners that "the truth is scary" and that they must brace themselves for his teachings and making the listener anxious. "Wicked as Aleister Crowley" is a line Soul has used time and time again...not to be misinterpreted by any means,he is comparing himself to Crowley because Soul has cult following of fans similar to how Crowley had a cult following of converts. The next song Braille comes in with a wonderful Bas feature. But why Braille? Braille is a writing system used by the blind in place of normal alphabets,it is an unusual alphabet system for the normal seeing person which makes sense as I continue to explain. The song begins with the hook "Try saying something new,ain't nothing new to say, everything been did each and every which way" in reference to the wack shit that Soul spoke of: the repetitive songs about money,fame,women etc. But he continues "you ain't never seen it done like this" meaning Soul is about to bring something new to the masses,something out of the ordinary kinda like making non-blind people read Braille..am I right? The song doesn't seem all that 'new' as you listening to it,Soul uses a generic flow,and raps about the same things he just called wack("we went from Pentos to Benzos" along with the braggadocio that ccomes with hip-hop), although he does keep his witty lines accompanied by Bas' killer verse. This song seems more like a parody of today's music really...until the end of course. The beat becomes distorted and Ab raps "What the tongue can't taste,what the eyes can't see,what the ears can't hear",it's about his subject matter of the album,stating to the evangelized listener that it makes no sense or better yet,it is unfathomable. Huey Knew THEN begins to play its sinister instrumental. This song is about the financial prosperity of the black man as Soul begins with a rendition of The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air theme. Will Smith on the show portrays a young man from his low income lifestyle in Philadelphia moving to a neighborhood of wealth. Soul raps "I gotta shoot a fuckin' free throw to make my point". A longstanding stereotype about the black man is that the only way a black man can make it out of poverty is through basketball. Now onto Huey, the man who the song is named after. He was a civil rights activist fighting for the equality of the black man in order give him a chance to prosper but the system has been designed to keep the black man from achieving: the guns and drugs prevalent in black neighborhoods which lead to gang wars and the likes. Black out is used as a metaphor for death,black out being a minor sleeping state which is considered the cousin of Death which is in turn reaffirmed by the reference of the pale white horse. Telling white lies refers to the underhandedband shady dealings of gangbanging which also leads to the demise of the black man. "White lives matter when I black out" means white people become the topic of discussion in the death of a black man(such as the case of Trayvon Martin). Soul talks about "looking for shortcut to be an icon" but later says he's only doing it for the money,but not in a condescending way,he means he's doing it to make a living for himself as a black man with limited opportunity. And then the line "your 16 is pint sized to me" is referring to the rappers he addresses in RAW(backwards) and Braille meaning that their raps are meaningless to him,and furthermore lack true meaning to him. In the first three songs of the album Soul directs our attention away from these unnamed rappers and directs us towards him instead. This is the evangelism phase of the album. But wait...there's more. Huey was part of the Vanguard and it is a known fact that women were not allowed to join in. This sets the stage for the next song. THE SERMON Now that Ab-Soul has converted you and baptized you into his religion, he begins his sermon to the new and old converts(fans). He begins his song Threatening Nature with "this time around we're taking atheists to church,serving serpents with sermons with curse words". He talks to not only the nonbelievers of God but also the sinners using his profanity filled raps. Soul says his heart pumps the same blood as Jehovah's son or rather Joseph meaning Jesus. White people have long used religion to paint other races as inferior,but this statement by Soul challenges such a notion firstly because Jesus was a human like anyone else and on top of that he wasn't even white to begin with,this is continuing the theme of racial equality from the previous track. He challenges (threatens) the norm(nature) that he is white. Soul then switches the focus from race to something else...gender. He says "coming with lies to tell fairies(women) out of nowhere to help my selfish desires(sex)",Soul talks about how he deceived women into sleeping with him. "My life is about the vices(sin)" no explanation needed. Then he opens the first book of the bible and takes us to the garden if Eden. He talks about Adam,"If Eve never ate that apple he'd be mad sad",apple in this sense refers to Adam's sexual organs(the forbidden fruit),"and would've never pulled the leaves off of Eve and seen all that ass like a true man",Soul details how men use women as sex objects by using the example of himself and Adam and he says its "10 times harder fighting temptation". Men are tempted to feed their primal urges to have sex with women,but he is by no means defending men. Soul criticizes men by telling them that they bow down to pray to a man they don't understand (God) and get on one knee to propose to women(getting married without understanding the true meaning or purpose of marriage). Oh I love this part,"in grade school I learned about HIStory but what about HER story,did anybody ask?". In history women are not represented as much as they should and thus are overlooked in most cases. If it's not about the founding FATHERS,JFK,the first man on the moon, Martin Luther King,or Obama then it's rarely about women. "Tryna flower Queen Elizabeth",in a male run world it seems that in most cases the female power(Queen Elizabeth) is always shut down and dismantled(deflower). Soul says Genesis is the genealogy of Isis. With all that is going on around the world I can bet all my money that we all thought about the terrorist group ISIS...you know I'm right. But I think Soul is referring to the Egyptian goddess worshipped as the ideal MOTHER and WIFE. Isis is held in high regard and using her to symbolize Eve says a lot. "The chicken came before the egg"...uhm,hold that thought for now I'll explain that later. Soul goes back to HIStory when he talks about his ancestors picking cotton to their liberation from slavery today(Huey Knew) but we were so focussed on everything else that we forgot about speaking out on sexism because "the black man could vote before the women could". We sing hymns in church but what about the hers Soul asks with his witty wordplay. "Hilary Clinton tryna get ahead in the senate",Hilary was so close to making history as America's first female president the most powerful spot in the world,something that seemed like a dream at first but the fact that she didn't become president proves Soul's point even more on how the female power is always shut down. Soul says "getting head and I'm sinning"(female sex object theme). Men don't want to see a woman in power,they rather they cook,clean,pleasure them in bed...such a travesty don't you think? TESTIMONY OF THE PRIEST In mid-sermon, Ab-Soul takes a moment to talk about his sins as a man. The beginning of his testimony starts with Womanogany. In the song Soulo uses the imagery of Aphrodite (goddess of love,beauty,pleasure,and procreation) and her son Eros (god of desire,erotic love, attraction,and affection) and how they play tug of war with him. Aphrodite symbolizes genuine love while Eros symbolizes lust and thus Soul struggles between forming a genuine relationship with a woman and sleeping with a woman just for the sake of sleeping with her. This theme echoes throughout the hook that goes "I LIKE girls that's in LOVE with me". Soul manipulates women's attraction to him to please his sexual desires and confirms this when he says "gave her morning wood and rolled my wood in the morning" (one night stand). ScHoolboy Q's part on the hook "From the womb to the tomb nigga,keep that womb in that tomb nigga" is about some of the women aborting their babies(from the womb to the tomb) after Soul defiled them. A SINNER'S PRAYER The testimony continues as Soul details his calls for God's favor (an invocation) in the next song. Soul has been womanogamous(slept with so many women) and worries that his behavior might harm him as he symbolizes pussy as destructive and dangerous (Sexually Transmitted Infections). "That's why the wealthy need welfare",many affluent(wealthy) men have used their money for sexual favors and like Soul they fear for their health. In the hook Soul raps "He is I and I am Him" meaning he is a God...or rather God the Son(Jesus), symbolism he used heavily in "These Days...",and he also raps "I pray to Lord my soul's a G,if I O.D before I awake,I pray I ressurect on the third day". If you look closely at that line Ab is spelling out the word GOD,and also with the ressurection part he is praying it the Lord that he reaches a state of godliness and righteousness before he dies. Soul continues comparing himself to Jesus as people talk about him at barbershops and white kids wanting his autograph, his fame is spreading just like that of Christ, and like Christ he too is challenging the norms of his time. This prayer to God as I said is for Soul to be righteous and flee his sinful nature(sex). But like any recovering sinner he stumbles too as he says "Come suck Jesus'(Ab-Soul's) penis on Venus (desire)" going back to treating women as objects of sexual fulfilment. This is also relates to how women would want to satisfy Jesus in anyway they can(story of Mary Magdalene),the only difference her is that unlike Jesus who didn't seek sexual pleasure, Soul did. The Crowley and Jesus references go hand in hand because they also thought Jesus was spreading an evil doctrine although he was trying to enlighten people. Soul talks about "faith without the 'h' ",it is fait(fate) which is destiny...our destiny to go to "where the arc of the covenant is still" (Heaven). FELLOW SINNERS We move on from the struggling Ab-Soul and focus on his peers on Wifey vs. WiFi. This song is about Soul's friend,Riley. On verse 1 Riley gets arrested for possession of drugsdrugs and we hear the cell doors close on him. The hook is Riley reprimanding his girl(Wifey) for complain about missing her calls when he has to deal with matters of doing time in prison. In verse two Riley complains to Soul about his(Riley's) mother always arguing to him(most likely about his mistakes which lead him into prison), and calls her devil which Soul reacts to by telling Riley to "chill" and Riley continues to insult his mother(misogyny theme) by correlating the word "MOM" to it's corresponding numbers on the dial pad (666). Then we move on to Riley on the inside of prison,portrayed by BR3. This details Riley's survival on the inside of prison and somehow making many to send to his mother. He asks "why did I have to lose the case?" and continues "I feel like Biggie when he lost faith". Riley's life has been controlled by the system because of the life he chose(drug dealing,banging,etc). He has lost faith in having a better future and lost faith in God (although he reaped what he sowed). His life has spiraled and to top things off he suspects his girl is having sexual relations with other men. Riley chose the thug life which is about the masculinity that comes with street cred,and machismo which is evident in his disrespect of his mother and girlfriend. There's a Boondocks reference here. Huey the older brother is the activist fighting for civil rights of black men and Riley the younger brother is the one with an affinity for the thug life. But even with this difference they share one thing in common....they forget about the women. Riley aught to repent from his sinful ways like Soul but he doesn't. IT'S A SINNER'S WORLD Riley is saddened that he had to lose his case. But some sinners were luckier than Riley who are able to elude the clutches of prison. They are better off because they don't allow the system to send them off to every black man's perceived destiny (prison) so they beat the case like runaway slaves fleeing from their oppressors. But they're oblivious to the fact that their actions contribute to the control system. Straight Crooked sheds more light on the situation on people like Riley. "A prisoner's best asset is his liability (lie ability)",the criminals who beat their cases in the court room lied their way out of their situations and misleading the law enforcement (don't snitch). Ab calls the government a Muppet show or rather a joke of a system which is used to keep the black man from succeeding. Huey tries to break this system to give the black man equal opportunity to financially prosper but in failing to do so people like Riley resort to criminal activity to try and financial prosperity. All the efforts seem to be in vain. DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER Portishead In The Morning begins with Soul reviving his Jesus reference by calling himself a demigod (half human half god). Soul tells us he's "the brightest silver lining" and urges the converts at the service to not "make me take my light back". This sentence relates to one of Soul's lines "You can have all my shine I'll give you the light" as in the phrase "shed light"(knowledge/information). Like Jesus he tries to spread a message and urges listeners to withhold this knowledge which has been withheld from them by the system (forbidden knowledge). He asks congregants if they view him as man carrying a message(prophet) or think this is just Soul using a gimmick for financial gain(profit). They acknowledge his intellect but they tell him to dumb it down to gain greater appeal from the masses. Ab-Soul tests the male listeners in his sermon by asking a trick question: "Do you really wanna go to Heaven? Ain't no bitches mentioned". There are no female figures mentioned to be in heaven, all Angels that have been mentioned have been male, God is male,cherubs have various body parts with the head of a man. Soul paints a picture of divine sausage fest but the question is used to test the hearts of men, would they rather go to heaven or go to hell to fornicate as much as they want to. He references his song from Control System "Bohemian Grove" which is about the club of the same name which rejected women from joining, which it has been criticized for being misogynistic. In a way Soul's question is also sarcastic because he knows women are allowed in heaven(I ain't sexist,I'm inviting sisters too) so why doesn't the Grove do the same? Soul grabs the attention of atheists when he says the devil is a creation and not a creator and quotes the scientific law "energy is not created nor destroyed". God is energy because he is the uncreated creator. He uses science to prove the existence of God to the atheist converts. Describing the devil in an opposite way makes him less powerful and godlike and making him more inferior (Soul is not a satanist guys remember that). Soul ends with "God gotta be a thot". Let me explain, this song comes after two songs about sinners and criminals who have no problem in disrespecting women so this is where Soul addresses the misogynists in the room because God gave birth to Adam, thus making him a lifegiver meaning God is a female in that sense so by disrespecting the females you're nalso disrespecting God too. THOT is a term of disrespect for women so therefore if men call women thots(that.hoe.over.there) then you're pretty much calling God a that too....I hope you understood what I meant in that explanation. So when Soulo talks about the blood from your brain and beat rushing elsewhere (penis) and can't think and can't run(function) which is pretty much how men are when they are around these so called thots,they get horny and let their instincts drive them without thinking about what is it they are doing(which is defiling women),so this is Soul sort of asking you "you defile women,do you want to defile God too now?"(obviously the answer from the congregants at Soul's funeral should be no). Soul is teaching them a harsh lesson here to respect women. THE TRUTH IS SCARY Ab-Soul pretty much dropped a bombshell in the previous track which made way for the scary truth he spoke of earlier in the album which is God's A Girl...but it's more of a question from the congregants "Reverend are you really saying God's A Girl?". Some might think Soul contradicts himself,"you shit on us for calling women thots but you call them bitches",but Soul has stated in an interview with Soul that nowadays the term "bitch" is more of a term of endearment, kinda how men calk each other dawgs(dogs) so the female equivalent would be bitch. God's A Girl? is a second testimony by Soul. He starts by saying "you got me crying with a hard dick,I love you so much that I hate this shit",Ab trying to keep to his promise to refrain from his sexual urges says he cares about women that he hates the fact he has this urges in the first place, but then Soul reverts to sin when he says "come have sex with Jesus(Ab-Soul)" and "do your job" followed by a woman moaning during sex. He now uses women as sex objects again and being misogynistic again by telling the woman to do her job(sex). He thought he learned from his mistakes on Womanogamy but failed as he gives in to temptation. He shows the men he addressed in the previous song that "I too am not perfect so don't feel too ashamed when you also slip up". Soul raps "all I got is Goddess,I'm a heroine addict"......Soul becomes womanogamous again. The song pauses as Soul has a conversation and in the background we hear SZA's chorus on God's Reign...you do the math. In the second part of song,Soulo fell off way hard as he talks about going to rehab and the possibility that he might relapse(Soul's repentance and return to sin). He winds up acting like the rappers he addressed in RAW(backwards) as Soul raps about the "wack shit" too such as indulging in alcohol with peers,trying live recklessly like a rock star, getting fellatio in an expensive car and bragging about having more money than certain individuals. Towards the end Soulo contemplates his actions. "On the mountain top about to cry cause it gets so lonely up here",like any rise to fame it gets lonely at the top,he has the money but not the happiness. "Is anyone out there? Can anybody hear me?" is where he references his song from Longterm 2 of the same name where he raps about selling his soul and "Am I the next Shakur or an attention whore"...this is what Soul became,"I could save you with quotes"...this is what Soul needs to be again. This is the point of the song where he gets sense knocked into him and he realizes how much he's fallen and scrutinizes the world around him which is the "generation of complacency (self satisfaction)",the same world he became a part of for a moment. Soul vows to better himself to do the right thing when he puts his "right hand in the Bible with you". In his testimonies he has just revealed to us his demons and vows to try his best to change for the better and to leave his life of self satisfaction and misogyny. Now Jesus (Ab-Soul) goes back to his mission of trying to teach listeners. He raps "my ancestors came on a mother ship so I had to take it farther(father)". A child is born of the mother and lives under the rules and guidance of the father,Soul's ancestor(Adam) came on a mother ship(given birth by God) and lived under the rules of his father(also God). The song title is a question of whether God is a girl or not but the way Soulo puts it he is saying "Yes,God is a girl....but...he's also a man,so he's both" meaning God is equally male and female. This is a powerful revelation from Soul because what this teaches us is that even by divine law men and women are equal(the whole point of feminism). TAKE THE TRUTH AND EAT IT And Now You Know the scary truth Soul was hinting at in the beginning,the theory that the chicken(mother) came before the egg(child). At this point Soul knowing that this is a lot for you take in tells you to "try to relax". This track serves as a revision as Soul rreprises the line "I'm just a youngin' Del Amo"(Huey Knew),"cups with ices"(alcohol from God's A Girl?). Soul talks about being "miseducated, misled,misinterpreted, misunderstood, mistaken,misjudged" and a misfit causing mischieve. Majority of these words pretty much mean "I had things all wrong" and noting the "mis-" prefixes Soul is saying not only did he have women all wrong but also that he was doing them wrong. When he said "all you feminists should be on my dick for this shit" he meant they aught to be Stans (dickriders) for coming with a such a powerful and elaborate means of promoting feminism. Soul says he would change out the 'y' in mystery with an 'i' meaning that he is now figuring out women and what they want...which is to be treated as equals. He references the Bohemian Grove song intro. Thus reminding us of the objective of gender equality. Soul alludes to his conception in the womb as he talks about meiosis and mitosis (cell division) and floating through a body of water(sperm swimming in uterus) and says "And you know why I love my momma so much" is because his mother gave him life(God's A Girl) which hints the hook of the next song. At the end of the song Soul takes a misogynistic pledge which is basically a summary of his old self and also clarifying to the male listeners on what constitutes to misogyny. THE PAIN OF THE PRESENT D.R.U.G.S is a call for help from Soul. Soul talks about his personal and emotional issues and the pain he tries to take away with drugs. Mac sings "I can't help myself I think I need some help" but the only help present to Ab is his drugs which have become his crutches. Towards the end he says "Aderall Admiral give Danny credit",Aderall Admiral is a song by Danny Brown about the drug Aderall. It should be noted that at one point in time Danny went onto Twitter to vent about his internal pain telling people that he doesn't do drugs because it's cool,he does drugs becausenhe has problems in his life and Danny has hinted at suicidal tendencies on his song "30". Soul referencing Danny in such a way tells us that behind the calm shades lies a broken man as we see in the album cover. He openly asks us his "brethren" to alleviate his pain. Ab-Soul has been using the Jesus symbolism throughout the album,so this moment on D.R.U.G.S is reminiscent of Jesus crying during prayer asking God to free him from the suffering he'll endure during his trial and crucifixion. This is the moment in the Bible where Jesus shows that he too is human with fear and pain. Soul is human too with problems like anyone else even though he keeps his composure in the public eye. In the music video for this song Soul calls to check up on his mom(God) and says he'll be coming home soon. But in Soul's background we can see Jerusalem as he says he's coming home(Heaven). This means souls will be crucified for our sins(album art of These Days...) and ascend to heaven. Don't Ruin Us God Said is lyrical reference to Lupe Fiasco's song "They.Ressurect.Over.New" which Soul is featured on. This means Soul will die and rise again (his song Stigmata) into something new and transformed....or rather reincarnated(which is the theme of T.R.O.N) this could also be hinting at Andy Weir's short story called The Egg where God says we are all one entity living out different incarnations of ourselves also giving a secondary meaning to Ab-Soul's line "he is I and I am him,they ain't me and I ain't them" meaning we are all different incarnations but we are one. This theme of unity ties in with the feministic theme of the album of male and female equality or in spirit science terms: unity of male energy(logic and analytical thinking) and female energy (creativity and abstract thought),unity of yin and yang to find peace and thus reach nirvana, a place of no suffering. This is the penultimate conclusion of Tetsuo & Youth which life,death,reincarnation("proceed to the next level") and finally Nirvana. Tetsuo & Youth is the game and Do What Thou Wilt is our instruction manual to get us to nirvana. TRIBUTE TO THE DEAD Evil Genius is a memorial service of Alori Joh(Ab's deceased girlfriend). He gathers longtime Alori Joh collaborator and friend Javonté for the ceremony. Soul first talks about himself as the misunderstood "evil" genius although his motives are good and talks about how Alori would help Soul as a partner in crime and calls her an evil genius too because she understood Ab and his motives. In the hook Soul references the song "Let You Shine" by Alori which he referenced on "The Book Of Soul' too,plus he even samples the song on Evil Genius but the song is distorted and gives it a ghostly feel. The last time Alori was heard was on Section.80 and Control System and so this is like Alori's ghost ressurecting and Teedra Moses' voice which is eerily similar to Joh's indeed makes it seem like she is rising from the grave. On D.R.U.G.S,Soul has a void in his heart which only Joh would've been able to fill and thus Soul realizes even more how alone he is and starts to break down. A BISHOP'S TEARS On Lonely Soul reiterates how much he is misunderstood as he baffles people like the Baphomet. The Baphomet anatomy is all over the place and is confusing and misunderstood by onlookers but in the madness there is meaning,kinda like Soul's lyricism,but the only person who understood Soul is dead and gone and he feels out of place. He sulks in this song telling people to "Leave me (a)lone". He goes back to his crutch,drugs[lavender(purple kush) and pastel green(chronic)]. When he is asked "What happens after Control System?" he replies "the system controls me". The loss of Alori hit Soul so hard and it heavily accounts for his reckless nature in his testimonies stated above and how the depression he felt made him even more vulnerable to the system and sinning. He says "a coward killed my brother Georgiano and his momma"(the thug life/Riley). The loved ones around him are dying and adds on to his depression. The only person who could help was Alori. Soul is the male energy which is destructive in the absence of the female energy (Alori),emphasizing the importance of a woman in a man's life. Soul is the Black Lip Pastor and Alori was his priestess. Alori made "The Love Religion",an album full of live songs dedicated to Soul. In the absence of the priestess,The Black Lip Pastor now takes over The Love Religion and is about to minister to us what the law of this religion is....."Love is the law,love the only law" as SZA sings. Soul gains his composure at this point of the sermon. Ab revisits the past and in a way "The Law" can be seen as a bonus track for "The Love Religion". He talks about getting money to feed his female(Alori). "We are divided to restore the balance" and remember the song by Alori "Happy Medium ft. Ab-Soul" where the couple is engaged in argument(divided) and they make up after Soul says "You know I'm tryna make your family my in-laws". The song is nicely completed by Rhapsody as she says "we took him(men) to heaven where those golds and arcs are at" as a cherry on top to what Soul has been saying throughout the album in the importance of women in the lives of men and reaffirming that male energy cannot function without female energy. THE END OF THE SERMON YMF is Soul rapping up the sermon. The hook basically means that Soul is a sinner like everyone else and in a way states that we need love to get through life. Love for each other not only as blacks and whites,natives and foreigners, but also as men and women. "Another portions of the big picture that you'll leave out of the portrait that you will paint for me",Soul is the portrait,and the woman in his life is destined to finish the portrait and finally make Soul to be whole. God is love God is peace God is a man God is a girl Women are the missing piece of men needed to bring peace into their lives and as such should be treated with respect. Soul is a Young Mind Fuck who is misunderstood, waiting for a woman who'll understand him so Soul can be at peace in this lifetime and reach a state of Nirvana. At the end of the song God in His female personification brings light into this surround by darkness. I'm not sure if I'm 100% correct but one thing is for certain.... DWTW will go down in history as one of Soul's most powerful albums.

[jkabbrisons]

New Age Or Craze

Authentic, or is it?

Everywhere I turn I find people selling misleading “authentic” Native American items.  There are books on Native American spirituality, dream catchers, turquoise jewelry, medicine bags, and even opportunities for “sweat lodge” experiences.  Ironically, Native American spirituality is not written and “sweat lodge” encounters are not sold. Janet McCloud, from the Tulalip tribe, exclaims “First they came to take our land and water, then our fish and game…Now they want our religions as well…Indians don’t sell their spirituality to anybody, for any price”. (a)(b)

What I find interesting is that for the majority of the last century and a half, we white Euro-Americans have gone to extreme lengths to destroy everything pertaining to the Native American’s life, education, family structure, survival methods, and religion, sometimes with intent and sometimes not knowing. White men nearly destroyed the buffalo simply because they could make money on certain parts such as the hides. We forced the Natives onto reservations, only to take away more land from these reservations later.  We took their children and sent them to boarding schools, cut their hair, forced them to wear white men’s clothes and forbid them to speak in their native language. We limited their hunting practices and forced them to farm, with some tribes having never before farmed. Why, now that we almost succeeded in destroying these honest, respectful, indigenous peoples’ livelihoods, do we desire to adopt and steal the one constant element of their connection with what they truly are?

Ownership of the melting pot

Every person who is not of Native American blood has come to the United States from ancestors who arrived on ships.  Yes, America is the melting pot of the world. So many different traditions and cultures have come to America for a better way of life.  As this has happened, countless families have become mixed cultures. With time and each new generation, portions of culture and tradition have been lost, leaving countless individuals with no sense of where they come from.  

Many of us came here with the belief that “what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine.”  Many times, squatters, those arriving at and claiming a certain piece of land as theirs, determined that a plot of land was theirs, regardless of whether it was Native land or not. The gold rush in the Dakotas played a big part in limiting the area’s reservations. This also happened in California and in Alaska.

The Natives utilized every part of what they used from Mother Earth for survival with gratitude.  When they attained their kill of game, there was a gratitude “prayer” given to each animal for giving its life for their sustenance.  They used each part of the large game animal using meat, organs, tendons for sewing, and yes, even the brain for tanning the hides. They even fought their wars with respect.  Some nations found it more honorable to touch the live enemy than to kill him.

The role of media

When I was a small child, I was intrigued with John Wayne movies.  I noticed a pattern of the Native always being portrayed as a “savage” and it made me sad. I felt in my heart that these portrayals were inaccurate. Having always been interested in the Natives, I have done a lot of reading and research throughout the years.  The main time the Indian is “savage”, so to speak, is during war. I don’t know a country, culture or gathering of people who are not “savage” during war. The Native is a family person with humble pride, honesty, and respect. For many centuries they not only sustained life, but prospered as well.  Most Native principles are based on “respect” (b).

I have noticed in the portrayal of the ‘red man’ that he would do anything for “fire water”.  The inaccurate yet common belief in this country over the last few decades is that all Indians are drunks. That is simply not true. Knowing quite a bit about the disease of alcoholism, I fully understand that there are some bloodlines whose genes have the propensity for an actual “manifestation of an allergy” to alcohol (c).  No one color of man is immune to this disease. If a man or woman, of any color or race, had gone through complete displacement and mistreatment such as the Native had, having a propensity very well could bring that disease to an advance stage. I ask, who introduced the Native Americans to alcohol? Who brought the “fire water” to the bartering table to get the Indian drunk so that he could get a better trade?  The white man did, just as we brought the smallpox virus to a people who had no immunity, nearly wiping out many tribes. Alcoholism, being a family affective disease, I believe with time will find more and more Native “drunks” who attain recovery.

New age disrespect

Before mentioned are just a few of the destroying factors that the white man brought into the once serene lives of the Native American.  Now I wonder what is this “craze” of many people, New Age Spiritualists and many more, of borrowing and twisting the elements of Native American culture to their own best needs?  Have so many people become so unhappy within themselves that they must steal another's lifeline? Is it really necessary to pick and choose which elements they wish to ‘borrow’, restructure those elements, add in a few other pieces and call it “Authentic Native American Spirituality”?  This dishonors the respect that they claim to have for the Natives. Stealing one’s cultural identity is the epitome of “Disrespect”. (b)

A portion of a very pertinent quote by Terri Jean, author of the article entitled “Cultural Theft”,  “So many are misguided…to become part of something they only know through books and movies—material stolen from Native people and then warped to meet an outsiders needs…” (b) Jean an author, activist, columnist, and freelance writer states that cultural property is specifically the “values, language, music, literature, healing practices, traditions, spiritual belief system, agriculture, art, names, holidays, folklore, and ceremonies” of a group of people (b).

Here are some tips to prevent receiving imitation items such as non-Native made dream catchers, medicine bags, and “New Age crap”.  

Do not give yourself a Native American name and if there are Native blood ties, fill in your family tree.

Never participate in a ceremony or ritual that is not directed by a reputable person and especially don’t pay for such.

Peace Pipes are never sold and they are never made out of plastic.

Medicine Bags are sacred objects to be worn only by people qualified to wear them.

Hamilton plates and figurines and Indian blankets made in Korea are considered to be insulting. Buy genuine products and support genuine Native American people and businesses. (a)(b)

My unsubstantiated theory in part

The extreme upswing in the “craze” is very possibly due to the intense unhappiness that Americans have within themselves.  So many people have the attitude that “when I get this, I’ll be happy”. Then when they attain that component that they so desired last week, they are once again unhappy and the cycle starts over and over.  This restlessness tends to leave a hole in their soul. As we white folks get to learn and hear about the positive side of the Native, we think we can just take their culture to fill our holes. It doesn’t matter how many things we do to try and become Native, we can not. It’s impossible.  

Native American spirituality is a way of life.  Many aspects of it are passed from generation to generation not through books or “study”, but through daily living and story telling, another important aspect of their culture.  “Native people have shared everything and have only their culture to hang on to.” (b)

Oft times I have wondered if many people are confused with who they are and where they come from.  For those searching for something to fill that “hole”, rather than beg, borrow or steal from a culture that is not a part of you, may I suggest searching the possibility of finding comfort in doing your own bloodline, family tree or genealogy?  I have found many stories of my ancestors in doing my genealogy. It is comforting to my soul to find out where each ancestor came from, learn of their struggles and strengths in their autobiographies, and discover the details of their culture and spirituality.  I have since gathered several traditions and such simple things as recipes from my ancestors. And I didn’t even have to steal them. Maybe you’ll find your own traditions and culture to either celebrate or solicit.

Jacobs, Trisha.  “Cultural Theft.”  Gohiyuhi 27 July 2005, http://users.pandora.be/gohiyuhi/

Jean, Terri.  “Cultural Theft, When Claiming One’s Cultural Identity Turns Into Thievery.”  Awakened Woman 19 Aug 2001. 25 July 2005 http://www.awakenedwoman.com/cultural_theft.htm

Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous, Third Edition, xxvi New York City 1976

Author: Kathleen Mays

#spirituality #nativeamerican #culture

[newssplashy]

Opinion: Are genetic testing sites the new social networks?

Three years ago Dyan deNapoli, a 57-year-old author and TED speaker who specializes in penguins, was given a 23andMe genetic testing kit for her birthday.

About two months later she received a pie chart breaking down where her ancestors lived (99.4 percent of them were from Europe).

What she was most giddy about, however, was a 41-page list of all the people who had done the test and were genetically related to her: 1,200 in all. (Customers can choose whether their information is shared with others.)

“I had the names of everyone from my immediate family members to my first cousins, second cousins, third. Once I got past fourth cousins, it went to my fifth cousins, and beyond,” said deNapoli, who lives in Georgetown, Massachusetts. “It started me down this genealogical rabbit hole.”

Using the website’s internal messaging system supplemented with Facebook, she connected with three second cousins, who were in neighboring towns. She met each one for breakfast in a local diner, where they spent hours drinking coffee and poring over family trees and photos, marveling at various resemblances.

“Jorge is an older cousin, a very young 90,” deNapoli said. “Everybody agreed he looks just like my dad.”

Last June she visited a third cousin and other relatives in a mountainous village in the Campania region of Italy, her paternal grandmother’s place of origin, walking the narrow streets, eating four-course meals and learning stories of her ancestors, including a long-ago Hatfield-McCoy-level feud. “That’s why I really didn’t know this side of my family,” deNapoli said in wonderment.

‘Are You Sure You Are My Sister?’

At-home genetic testing services have gained significant traction in the past few years. 23andMe, which costs $99, has more than 5 million customers, according to the company; AncestryDNA (currently $69), more than 10 million.

The companies use their large databases to match willing participants with others who share their DNA. In many cases, long-lost relatives are reuniting, becoming best friends, travel partners, genealogical resources or confidantes.

The result is a more layered version of what happened when Facebook first emerged and out-of-touch friends and family members found one another. Children of long-ago casual sperm donors are finding their fathers. Adoptees are bonding to biological family members they’ve been searching for their entire lives.

Sherri Tredway, 55, is a marketing and development director for a social service agency based in Washington, Indiana. She was adopted as a baby, and in January she drove 2 1/2 hours to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to meet her biological half sister, Patty Roberts-Freeman, 60, with whom she connected through AncestryDNA.

Roberts-Freeman needed an outfit for a wedding, so they arranged to meet at a shopping mall to find one together. They started in the food court, where they bought sodas and talked for more than an hour about their mother, their current lives, their upbringings.

They then went to a Belk department store, where they tried on outfits. “I was looking at some dressy dresses and showed her a few, and she said, ‘No, no dresses for me!'” Tredway recalled. “I remember saying, ‘OK, are you sure you are my sister?’ which we both laughed about. She found a silky floral shell and a beautiful sweater in rose, pink and cream to wear with some slacks. It was very classy.'”

The half sisters have since seen each other several times, meeting in restaurants between their homes. They also see other relatives including two more half siblings, Sissy Bonham, 51, and Michael Clavette, 54, as well as their biological mother’s sister, Nancy Kalman Bell.

“Not a day goes by when I don’t talk to Aunt Nan,” Tredway said. “I call her to talk, when I’m upset, anything. She’s my family now.”

Josh Broadwater, 44, a deputy police sheriff in California, was abandoned when he was 1 day old in a gas station bathroom in California. When he was in his 30s, he implored the agency that placed him with adoptive parents to give him whatever information they had about his biological ones but ran into constant dead ends.

In July 2015 he sent a kit to AncestryDNA and found a cousin who shared DNA with him. That led to him discovering his biological father: a man who had had a one-night stand in the front seat of a ’69 pickup truck and never knew he existed. They connected over the phone, and soon Broadwater was driving 500 miles to go elk hunting on his father’s farm in Kingston, Utah.

“He kind of sat there quiet for 10 to 15 seconds,” said Broadwater about their first conversation. “And then in his cute little country voice he said, ‘Well, if Gloria is your mom, and this thing says I’m your dad, there is a damn good chance I am your dad.’ He is just the coolest person.”

The two got along so well that they now talk on the phone once a week about the weather, what is going on with the children, about the hunting season. “I never thought finding my biological dad, he would be the one calling me,” Broadwater said.

He also talks to a half brother who is eight months older than him. “I just got a text message from him that I’m going to be an uncle in October,” Broadwater said. “I don’t know how much I will be involved. This whole new family is new to me.”

The Genetic Global Village

Others who have their DNA tested are forming relationships not with specific people, but with their family’s places of origin.

One example is Leah Madison, 32, an education outreach coordinator for the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada. She was planning trips to Peru and Korea when she learned a year and a half ago from 23andMe that her family came from Greece, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula.

Over the winter she and her father went to the Iberian Peninsula for two weeks. She felt an ineluctable connection to the people as she ate their bread masterpieces, toured buildings by Antoni Gaudí and danced to flamenco music.

“I had a piece of paper that tells me I’m from Spain,” Madison said. “But then I went there and I noticed all these people have curly hair, and maybe that is where mine comes from?” Now she feels compelled to visit the other places as well.

But other testers have found their results more alienating.

In February 2016, Christine Carter, a marketing strategist, was on a business trip to London when she decided to open her 23andMe dossier. She was in her hotel room, rushing to dinner. “I thought it would be a quick reveal,” she said. “I was going to learn that I was Native American and black, and maybe learn a little bit more about the stories I heard as a child.”

Carter was shocked when the results showed she was 31.5 percent white or European. She struggled through dinner, keeping this revelation mostly to herself, until she got back to her home in Baltimore and contended with her feelings.

She wrote a Huffington Post blog post, “I Celebrated Black History Month ... By Finding Out I Was White” that went viral. It attracted thousands of comments, from white supremacists who berated her, to people who had a similar experience and shared her sentiments.

“It took me less than 30 minutes to write the post, it was like journaling, something to get it off my chest,” said Carter, 32. “So to have that reaction was insane.”

Perhaps the most frustrating reality is when users don’t have any known connections at all. This can happen to people in certain ethnic groups, including Latinos and Asians, that thus far have fewer people using the services and a smaller database.

“Diversity in genetic research is a global problem,” said Joanna Mountain, the senior director of research at 23andMe, adding that the company is offering free testing in some countries to begin to rectify that. “The results for Hispanics and Asians aren’t there yet, but they are coming,” said Jenn Utley, a family historian at Ancestry (the parent company of AncestryDNA). “The database keeps growing.”

Finding Your Tribe

Even for those privy to rich data, using a genetic-testing service as a social network poses challenges. DeNapoli has written to 25 people related to her and has heard back from only nine. “I guess a lot of people aren’t doing the tests to connect with family,” she said.

Tredway said she had a difficult experience after reaching out to her biological mother, getting an out-of-the-blue phone call from North Carolina while she was getting a haircut: “She said, ‘There is no way you could be my daughter,’ even though I knew I was.”

And then there is David Hughes, 38, the owner of an executive search firm, Sandbox Partners, who was ecstatic when he got his results back from 23andMe. “My breakdown is basically 60 percent Balkan, which is Mediterranean or Greek, 25 percent Native American Indian, 11 percent Middle Eastern and 4 percent Eastern African,” he said. “I’m like the heritage of warriors or something.”

But as much as Hughes wants to explore the different regions he comes from and meet the family members whom he got that DNA from, he hasn’t matched with anyone through the genetic testing service.

“My biological dad is 50 percent Native American Indian, so I eventually hope to find which tribe I am from,” he said. “But I have nothing yet.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

ALYSON KRUEGER © 2018 The New York Times

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/06/opinion-are-genetic-testing-sites-new_16.html

[bucephaly]

congratulations on reconnecting with your cherokee ancestry!!!!! if it's not too nosy could i ask how you got started on this journey? did you know you had native ancestors and decided to look more into it?

Thank you !! It's not nosy! I'll put it under a cut cuz idk how long it'll get

So honestly no, I didn't really know. It's on my dad's dad's side and I never knew him. My grandma divorced my grandpa when my dad was around 10 and his step dad adopted him. Plus he never really talks about or to his family much and I'm only just now getting back in touch with my aunts on facebook

I just remember once my grandma telling me my dad had Cherokee ancestry, and I ignored it cuz i was so sure it was the same granny story everyone around here [in the south] has lol. [I didn't know at the time that my dad was born in WA and his dad was from there, my g grandad moved from OK to WA in the 40s, idk why]

Then later I asked and he messages one of his sisters, who said that their dad went to OK and found that 'his great grandma came off the reservation' and so they assumed my dad was 1/16 and me and my siblings were 1/32 [not true], which they somehow got in their head was 'the lowest the tribe still recognizes' lmao [also not true, if you have an ancestor on the dawes roll you're eligible for CNO citizenship]

Anyway, about a year ago I started doing research on ancestry [my mom luckily had a membership] and I quickly found that my gg grandad and his dad are both on the dawes rolls, the later of whom was a baby during the trail of tears. I'm also a Nancy Ward descendent

I found all this a year ago, got excited for a bit and kept going wildly back and forth abt whether I had any right to reclaim that identity, seeing as how I'm 1: very thin blood and 2: white, but I am eligible for CNO citizenship, but I didn't even know I was until then, but I'd love to learn more, etc etc etc. I kept talking myself out of it saying 'nah dude shut up you're white and you'd be taking resources and shit from others if you went around calling yourself cherokee'

So a year passed and something got me looking into it again abt a month ago, I looked at r/cherokee on reddit and saw some folks being pointed towards a cherokee genealogy Facebook group + people saying that yea anyone who has a documented ancestor on the dawes roll is valid to reconnect etc etc

So I got research done in the genealogy page and everyone was so welcoming, I got invited to a group of Nancy ward descendants, I got into the main cherokee Facebook group and I'm seeing how welcoming everyone in there is etc.. and I'm working on getting documents together to apply for citizenship! [Which is a massive pain since my dad was adopted, those documents are hard to get] and now I'm finally feeling like I can claim that identity ! Obviously I'm not a citizen yet but I'm working on it, and I have no doubt I'll be granted citizenship barring some sort of documentation mishap.

Obviously I'm still learning and reconnecting and I'm also white, I don't claim to know anything abt anything, nor do I claim any sort of oppression or whatever lmao, I'm just learning more and I'm really excited about it! I'm grateful to the cherokee groups I'm in for being so welcoming and open to 'lost' cherokees that were disconnected [and note these are legit groups, like ones that are exclusive to those who are citizens or can prove that they are documented descendants, not some random bullshit Facebook group haha]

I'm also learning the language some! So far I only know a few words and the syllabary, but I plan to jump into the live language classes when they start again in fall.

ᏩᏙ! Thanks for the ask! I'm glad you did ask because I know it's common to just sorta claim cherokee ancestry so I've wanted to explain and all.

[newssplashy]

Three years ago Dyan deNapoli, a 57-year-old author and TED speaker who specializes in penguins, was given a 23andMe genetic testing kit for her birthday.

About two months later she received a pie chart breaking down where her ancestors lived (99.4 percent of them were from Europe).

What she was most giddy about, however, was a 41-page list of all the people who had done the test and were genetically related to her: 1,200 in all. (Customers can choose whether their information is shared with others.)

“I had the names of everyone from my immediate family members to my first cousins, second cousins, third. Once I got past fourth cousins, it went to my fifth cousins, and beyond,” said deNapoli, who lives in Georgetown, Massachusetts. “It started me down this genealogical rabbit hole.”

Using the website’s internal messaging system supplemented with Facebook, she connected with three second cousins, who were in neighboring towns. She met each one for breakfast in a local diner, where they spent hours drinking coffee and poring over family trees and photos, marveling at various resemblances.

“Jorge is an older cousin, a very young 90,” deNapoli said. “Everybody agreed he looks just like my dad.”

Last June she visited a third cousin and other relatives in a mountainous village in the Campania region of Italy, her paternal grandmother’s place of origin, walking the narrow streets, eating four-course meals and learning stories of her ancestors, including a long-ago Hatfield-McCoy-level feud. “That’s why I really didn’t know this side of my family,” deNapoli said in wonderment.

‘Are You Sure You Are My Sister?’

At-home genetic testing services have gained significant traction in the past few years. 23andMe, which costs $99, has more than 5 million customers, according to the company; AncestryDNA (currently $69), more than 10 million.

The companies use their large databases to match willing participants with others who share their DNA. In many cases, long-lost relatives are reuniting, becoming best friends, travel partners, genealogical resources or confidantes.

The result is a more layered version of what happened when Facebook first emerged and out-of-touch friends and family members found one another. Children of long-ago casual sperm donors are finding their fathers. Adoptees are bonding to biological family members they’ve been searching for their entire lives.

Sherri Tredway, 55, is a marketing and development director for a social service agency based in Washington, Indiana. She was adopted as a baby, and in January she drove 2 1/2 hours to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to meet her biological half sister, Patty Roberts-Freeman, 60, with whom she connected through AncestryDNA.

Roberts-Freeman needed an outfit for a wedding, so they arranged to meet at a shopping mall to find one together. They started in the food court, where they bought sodas and talked for more than an hour about their mother, their current lives, their upbringings.

They then went to a Belk department store, where they tried on outfits. “I was looking at some dressy dresses and showed her a few, and she said, ‘No, no dresses for me!'” Tredway recalled. “I remember saying, ‘OK, are you sure you are my sister?’ which we both laughed about. She found a silky floral shell and a beautiful sweater in rose, pink and cream to wear with some slacks. It was very classy.'”

The half sisters have since seen each other several times, meeting in restaurants between their homes. They also see other relatives including two more half siblings, Sissy Bonham, 51, and Michael Clavette, 54, as well as their biological mother’s sister, Nancy Kalman Bell.

“Not a day goes by when I don’t talk to Aunt Nan,” Tredway said. “I call her to talk, when I’m upset, anything. She’s my family now.”

Josh Broadwater, 44, a deputy police sheriff in California, was abandoned when he was 1 day old in a gas station bathroom in California. When he was in his 30s, he implored the agency that placed him with adoptive parents to give him whatever information they had about his biological ones but ran into constant dead ends.

In July 2015 he sent a kit to AncestryDNA and found a cousin who shared DNA with him. That led to him discovering his biological father: a man who had had a one-night stand in the front seat of a ’69 pickup truck and never knew he existed. They connected over the phone, and soon Broadwater was driving 500 miles to go elk hunting on his father’s farm in Kingston, Utah.

“He kind of sat there quiet for 10 to 15 seconds,” said Broadwater about their first conversation. “And then in his cute little country voice he said, ‘Well, if Gloria is your mom, and this thing says I’m your dad, there is a damn good chance I am your dad.’ He is just the coolest person.”

The two got along so well that they now talk on the phone once a week about the weather, what is going on with the children, about the hunting season. “I never thought finding my biological dad, he would be the one calling me,” Broadwater said.

He also talks to a half brother who is eight months older than him. “I just got a text message from him that I’m going to be an uncle in October,” Broadwater said. “I don’t know how much I will be involved. This whole new family is new to me.”

The Genetic Global Village

Others who have their DNA tested are forming relationships not with specific people, but with their family’s places of origin.

One example is Leah Madison, 32, an education outreach coordinator for the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada. She was planning trips to Peru and Korea when she learned a year and a half ago from 23andMe that her family came from Greece, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula.

Over the winter she and her father went to the Iberian Peninsula for two weeks. She felt an ineluctable connection to the people as she ate their bread masterpieces, toured buildings by Antoni Gaudí and danced to flamenco music.

“I had a piece of paper that tells me I’m from Spain,” Madison said. “But then I went there and I noticed all these people have curly hair, and maybe that is where mine comes from?” Now she feels compelled to visit the other places as well.

But other testers have found their results more alienating.

In February 2016, Christine Carter, a marketing strategist, was on a business trip to London when she decided to open her 23andMe dossier. She was in her hotel room, rushing to dinner. “I thought it would be a quick reveal,” she said. “I was going to learn that I was Native American and black, and maybe learn a little bit more about the stories I heard as a child.”

Carter was shocked when the results showed she was 31.5 percent white or European. She struggled through dinner, keeping this revelation mostly to herself, until she got back to her home in Baltimore and contended with her feelings.

She wrote a Huffington Post blog post, “I Celebrated Black History Month ... By Finding Out I Was White” that went viral. It attracted thousands of comments, from white supremacists who berated her, to people who had a similar experience and shared her sentiments.

“It took me less than 30 minutes to write the post, it was like journaling, something to get it off my chest,” said Carter, 32. “So to have that reaction was insane.”

Perhaps the most frustrating reality is when users don’t have any known connections at all. This can happen to people in certain ethnic groups, including Latinos and Asians, that thus far have fewer people using the services and a smaller database.

“Diversity in genetic research is a global problem,” said Joanna Mountain, the senior director of research at 23andMe, adding that the company is offering free testing in some countries to begin to rectify that. “The results for Hispanics and Asians aren’t there yet, but they are coming,” said Jenn Utley, a family historian at Ancestry (the parent company of AncestryDNA). “The database keeps growing.”

Finding Your Tribe

Even for those privy to rich data, using a genetic-testing service as a social network poses challenges. DeNapoli has written to 25 people related to her and has heard back from only nine. “I guess a lot of people aren’t doing the tests to connect with family,” she said.

Tredway said she had a difficult experience after reaching out to her biological mother, getting an out-of-the-blue phone call from North Carolina while she was getting a haircut: “She said, ‘There is no way you could be my daughter,’ even though I knew I was.”

And then there is David Hughes, 38, the owner of an executive search firm, Sandbox Partners, who was ecstatic when he got his results back from 23andMe. “My breakdown is basically 60 percent Balkan, which is Mediterranean or Greek, 25 percent Native American Indian, 11 percent Middle Eastern and 4 percent Eastern African,” he said. “I’m like the heritage of warriors or something.”

But as much as Hughes wants to explore the different regions he comes from and meet the family members whom he got that DNA from, he hasn’t matched with anyone through the genetic testing service.

“My biological dad is 50 percent Native American Indian, so I eventually hope to find which tribe I am from,” he said. “But I have nothing yet.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

ALYSON KRUEGER © 2018 The New York Times

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[newssplashy]

Opinion: Are genetic testing sites the new social networks?

Three years ago Dyan deNapoli, a 57-year-old author and TED speaker who specializes in penguins, was given a 23andMe genetic testing kit for her birthday.

About two months later she received a pie chart breaking down where her ancestors lived (99.4 percent of them were from Europe).

What she was most giddy about, however, was a 41-page list of all the people who had done the test and were genetically related to her: 1,200 in all. (Customers can choose whether their information is shared with others.)

“I had the names of everyone from my immediate family members to my first cousins, second cousins, third. Once I got past fourth cousins, it went to my fifth cousins, and beyond,” said deNapoli, who lives in Georgetown, Massachusetts. “It started me down this genealogical rabbit hole.”

Using the website’s internal messaging system supplemented with Facebook, she connected with three second cousins, who were in neighboring towns. She met each one for breakfast in a local diner, where they spent hours drinking coffee and poring over family trees and photos, marveling at various resemblances.

“Jorge is an older cousin, a very young 90,” deNapoli said. “Everybody agreed he looks just like my dad.”

Last June she visited a third cousin and other relatives in a mountainous village in the Campania region of Italy, her paternal grandmother’s place of origin, walking the narrow streets, eating four-course meals and learning stories of her ancestors, including a long-ago Hatfield-McCoy-level feud. “That’s why I really didn’t know this side of my family,” deNapoli said in wonderment.

‘Are You Sure You Are My Sister?’

At-home genetic testing services have gained significant traction in the past few years. 23andMe, which costs $99, has more than 5 million customers, according to the company; AncestryDNA (currently $69), more than 10 million.

The companies use their large databases to match willing participants with others who share their DNA. In many cases, long-lost relatives are reuniting, becoming best friends, travel partners, genealogical resources or confidantes.

The result is a more layered version of what happened when Facebook first emerged and out-of-touch friends and family members found one another. Children of long-ago casual sperm donors are finding their fathers. Adoptees are bonding to biological family members they’ve been searching for their entire lives.

Sherri Tredway, 55, is a marketing and development director for a social service agency based in Washington, Indiana. She was adopted as a baby, and in January she drove 2 1/2 hours to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to meet her biological half sister, Patty Roberts-Freeman, 60, with whom she connected through AncestryDNA.

Roberts-Freeman needed an outfit for a wedding, so they arranged to meet at a shopping mall to find one together. They started in the food court, where they bought sodas and talked for more than an hour about their mother, their current lives, their upbringings.

They then went to a Belk department store, where they tried on outfits. “I was looking at some dressy dresses and showed her a few, and she said, ‘No, no dresses for me!'” Tredway recalled. “I remember saying, ‘OK, are you sure you are my sister?’ which we both laughed about. She found a silky floral shell and a beautiful sweater in rose, pink and cream to wear with some slacks. It was very classy.'”

The half sisters have since seen each other several times, meeting in restaurants between their homes. They also see other relatives including two more half siblings, Sissy Bonham, 51, and Michael Clavette, 54, as well as their biological mother’s sister, Nancy Kalman Bell.

“Not a day goes by when I don’t talk to Aunt Nan,” Tredway said. “I call her to talk, when I’m upset, anything. She’s my family now.”

Josh Broadwater, 44, a deputy police sheriff in California, was abandoned when he was 1 day old in a gas station bathroom in California. When he was in his 30s, he implored the agency that placed him with adoptive parents to give him whatever information they had about his biological ones but ran into constant dead ends.

In July 2015 he sent a kit to AncestryDNA and found a cousin who shared DNA with him. That led to him discovering his biological father: a man who had had a one-night stand in the front seat of a ’69 pickup truck and never knew he existed. They connected over the phone, and soon Broadwater was driving 500 miles to go elk hunting on his father’s farm in Kingston, Utah.

“He kind of sat there quiet for 10 to 15 seconds,” said Broadwater about their first conversation. “And then in his cute little country voice he said, ‘Well, if Gloria is your mom, and this thing says I’m your dad, there is a damn good chance I am your dad.’ He is just the coolest person.”

The two got along so well that they now talk on the phone once a week about the weather, what is going on with the children, about the hunting season. “I never thought finding my biological dad, he would be the one calling me,” Broadwater said.

He also talks to a half brother who is eight months older than him. “I just got a text message from him that I’m going to be an uncle in October,” Broadwater said. “I don’t know how much I will be involved. This whole new family is new to me.”

The Genetic Global Village

Others who have their DNA tested are forming relationships not with specific people, but with their family’s places of origin.

One example is Leah Madison, 32, an education outreach coordinator for the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada. She was planning trips to Peru and Korea when she learned a year and a half ago from 23andMe that her family came from Greece, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula.

Over the winter she and her father went to the Iberian Peninsula for two weeks. She felt an ineluctable connection to the people as she ate their bread masterpieces, toured buildings by Antoni Gaudí and danced to flamenco music.

“I had a piece of paper that tells me I’m from Spain,” Madison said. “But then I went there and I noticed all these people have curly hair, and maybe that is where mine comes from?” Now she feels compelled to visit the other places as well.

But other testers have found their results more alienating.

In February 2016, Christine Carter, a marketing strategist, was on a business trip to London when she decided to open her 23andMe dossier. She was in her hotel room, rushing to dinner. “I thought it would be a quick reveal,” she said. “I was going to learn that I was Native American and black, and maybe learn a little bit more about the stories I heard as a child.”

Carter was shocked when the results showed she was 31.5 percent white or European. She struggled through dinner, keeping this revelation mostly to herself, until she got back to her home in Baltimore and contended with her feelings.

She wrote a Huffington Post blog post, “I Celebrated Black History Month ... By Finding Out I Was White” that went viral. It attracted thousands of comments, from white supremacists who berated her, to people who had a similar experience and shared her sentiments.

“It took me less than 30 minutes to write the post, it was like journaling, something to get it off my chest,” said Carter, 32. “So to have that reaction was insane.”

Perhaps the most frustrating reality is when users don’t have any known connections at all. This can happen to people in certain ethnic groups, including Latinos and Asians, that thus far have fewer people using the services and a smaller database.

“Diversity in genetic research is a global problem,” said Joanna Mountain, the senior director of research at 23andMe, adding that the company is offering free testing in some countries to begin to rectify that. “The results for Hispanics and Asians aren’t there yet, but they are coming,” said Jenn Utley, a family historian at Ancestry (the parent company of AncestryDNA). “The database keeps growing.”

Finding Your Tribe

Even for those privy to rich data, using a genetic-testing service as a social network poses challenges. DeNapoli has written to 25 people related to her and has heard back from only nine. “I guess a lot of people aren’t doing the tests to connect with family,” she said.

Tredway said she had a difficult experience after reaching out to her biological mother, getting an out-of-the-blue phone call from North Carolina while she was getting a haircut: “She said, ‘There is no way you could be my daughter,’ even though I knew I was.”

And then there is David Hughes, 38, the owner of an executive search firm, Sandbox Partners, who was ecstatic when he got his results back from 23andMe. “My breakdown is basically 60 percent Balkan, which is Mediterranean or Greek, 25 percent Native American Indian, 11 percent Middle Eastern and 4 percent Eastern African,” he said. “I’m like the heritage of warriors or something.”

But as much as Hughes wants to explore the different regions he comes from and meet the family members whom he got that DNA from, he hasn’t matched with anyone through the genetic testing service.

“My biological dad is 50 percent Native American Indian, so I eventually hope to find which tribe I am from,” he said. “But I have nothing yet.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

ALYSON KRUEGER © 2018 The New York Times

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/06/opinion-are-genetic-testing-sites-new.html

[romancatholicreflections]

26th August >> Daily Reflection on Today's First Reading (Ruth 2:1-3, 8-11; 4:13-17) for Roman Catholics on Saturday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

Commentary on Ruth 2:1-3, 8-11; 4:13-17 Our second and final reading from Ruth describes the outcome of the goodness and loyalty of this widowed and childless outsider to Naomi, her widowed mother-in-law. There is a combination of pure coincidence and God’s over-riding Providence in the unfolding of the story. God is ultimately behind everything that happens to us. First we are told that in Bethlehem Naomi had a kinsman, called Boaz, who was related to her deceased husband, Elimelech. And he was well off. ‘Boaz’ probably means “in him is strength”. Boaz is included in both genealogies of Jesus (Matt 1:5; Luke 3:32). One day, Ruth asked Naomi for permission to go and glean ears of corn in the footsteps of a man who would allow her to do so. As a foreigner and a young woman on her own, she could be quite vulnerable in the harvest fields. Nevertheless, she is willing to take the risk in order to provide for her mother-in-law, who has no other resources. Later, Naomi will return the favour by putting Ruth cleverly in the way of her future husband (Ruth 3:1ff). Naomi gave her blessing for Ruth’s request. According to the Law the poor had this right but its exercise depended on the goodwill of the owner of the property. The law of Moses instructed landowners to leave what the harvesters missed so that the poor, the alien, the widow and the orphan could glean for their needs. Gleaning was a work which was normally done by women. It was also a way for the landless poor to pick up any grain that got left behind. (When the Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples for picking ears of wheat, it was not because they were stealing but because they were doing it on a Sabbath.) So Ruth set out to glean in the fields behind the reapers. As chance would have it, she was led to a piece of land belonging to a man called Boaz, who was of the same clan as Emilech, Naomi’s late husband. It looked like chance but divine providence was also at work. (At this point we add in material from some omitted verses for a fuller understanding of the passage.) Again, apparently by chance, Boaz himself arrived just then and greeted the reapers. And, seeing Ruth, he asked a servant to whom this woman belonged. In the east every woman ‘belongs’ to someone, father, husband, brother, master. He is told that she is the Moabitess woman who came back from Moab with Naomi. She had asked for permission to glean what the reapers left behind and the servant says that she has been working non-stop from dawn till now. (We now resume our reading.) Boaz speaks to Ruth and tells her to continue gleaning in his field and not to go anywhere else. She is to stay close to Boaz’s other work women and to work close behind them. Boaz’s men have been forbidden to molest her in any way. It was customary for the men to cut the grain and for the servant girls to go behind them to bind the grain into sheaves. Then Ruth could glean what they had left behind. Furthermore, Boaz tells her that, if she is thirsty, she can get water from the pitchers the servants have prepared. Ruth then falls prostrate before Boaz. “How have I attracted your favour, for you notice me, who am only a foreigner?” She is surprised at his kindness. In the eyes of many, perhaps most, Ruth would be the lowest of the low – an unknown person, a foreigner and a widow. But Boaz tells her that he knows her story, how good she has been to her mother-in-law since her own husband’s death and how she has left her own parents and her native land to come and live among a people of whom she previously knew nothing. Ruth’s commitment to care for her desolate mother-in-law remains the centre of attention throughout the book. We now move to the end of Ruth’s story and also of the book. The conclusion of the story balances the introduction (1:1-5). 1, In the Hebrew both have the same number of words; 2, both compress much into a short space; 3, both focus on Naomi; 4, the introduction emphasised Naomi’s emptiness, and the conclusion portrays her fullness. Boaz has now decided to make Ruth his wife. In doing so, he is also honouring the memory of his kinsman, Emilech. By marrying his kinsman’s widow he ensures that Emilech’s line will continue through him. And, when Boaz came together as man and wife, Yahweh was instrumental in their having a son. And the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be Yahweh who has not left you today without anyone to redeem you… The child will be a comfort to you and the prop of your old age, for he has been born to the daughter-in-law who loves you and is more to you than seven sons.” The baby son is seen as a redeemer for Naomi, who now knows that she will be cared for in her old age. Even in our own day, this is a major concern for parents who do not have social welfare to take care of their old age. Only a son can do it; a daughter will be lost by marrying into another family. ‘Better than seven sons’. Since seven was considered a number of completeness, to have seven sons was the epitome of all family blessings in Israel. Ruth’s selfless devotion to Naomi receives its supreme accolade in this statement. There could be no higher praise. Then Naomi took the child, held him to her breast and it was she who looked after him. Such an action was understood as an adoption ritual, also used by other peoples in the ancient Near East. The barrenness and emptiness of Naomi is at an end. The son is almost as much hers as it is Ruth’s. In fact, Ruth, being the outsider, the child is spoken of as the grandson of Naomi. Naomi is the child’s legal mother just as Elimelech is his legal father. Through Ruth, the aged Naomi, who can no longer bear children, obtains an heir in place of her son, Mahlon. And it was the women of the neighbourhood who gave the child its name – Obed. ‘Obed’ means ‘servant’, i.e., of Yahweh. He will be the father of Jesse, who in turn will be the father of David. The dutifulness of Ruth and Boaz thus makes Naomi the ancestress of King David. But there is another point of universal interest: it is a foreigner, Ruth, who is also the ancestress of David and through him of Christ. The gospel will call attention to this. In fact, in his genealogy of Jesus, Matthew will mention Boaz and Ruth as ancestors but not Naomi. Through Ruth’s ‘alien’ blood, the House of David is linked to peoples outside that of Israel. Jesus will be the King of the new Israel, which will embrace peoples of all kinds. His Gospel will be for “all nations”.