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There are wounds that language cannot easily describe, but the Bible offers one such word: Raca , a term of contempt that Jesus warns against in Matthew 5:22 KJV. It means “empty one,” a slur of spiritual arrogance hurled to diminish, to belittle, to erase. I believe I encountered that wordless violence recently while standing in a grocery store aisle. I was wearing a beautiful dress, made by an Negro woman, here, in the United States, when a woman from the diaspora approached me and said, “Beautiful African dress. Are you African?” “No,” I replied. She smiled slightly and said, “Thank you for joining us. ”I responded, “Thank you.” And she ended with, “You’re welcome.” To a bystander, this might sound harmless, even kind. But to me, it felt like dismissal cloaked in civility . A reminder that in her eyes, and perhaps her son’s watching quietly beside her, I was a guest in a lineage I was not born into, or at best, I am ignorant and unaware of my lineage. A woman tolerated, but not embraced. This was not an isolated moment. It reopened a wound from a past relationship with a man whose family saw me, a Negro woman, not as kin, but as inferior. Being called n****r to my face. .   Not the way we sometimes say it among ourselves in passing, not as musicians in rhythm with one another, and not even in the frustrated tone we sometimes use to capture the heaviness of our struggles. The word is spoken like one who eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: calculated and deliberate. Spoken with the quiet confidence that pigmentation is shielding them, allowing them to cloak the word in subtleties undetectable to bystanders, and even to the ears of those it was designed to wound. Yet the truth reveals itself not only in the word, but in their actions. In the louder, more defiant forms of exclusion, oppression, denial, rejection, and financial exploitation. The word carries venom, and their gestures testify more bitterly than the word itself. fabrications whispered into systems already predisposed to believe that Negroes are ignorant and disposable. Spreading false rumors from land to sea. Multiplying harm by making proselytes and drawing others into the same corrupt spirit. Drawing others into distortion. Baptizing them into a culture of contempt, by tradition, and by policy. I endured financial exploitation, verbal degradation, threats, and fear tactics; all in the name of cultural hierarchy. I was never good enough. Not cultured enough. Not enough. So when that woman in the aisle said, “Thank you for joining us,” I heard that same script playing again: You don’t belong. But you’re permitted to pretend. What many don’t understand is that African Americans, Negroes, carry a unique pain. We are descendants of the dismembered, the forgotten, the forcibly severed. Our languages lost, our rituals buried, our surnames assigned: And yet, we have survived being unpersoned. Yes, unpersoned! We have created beauty, brilliance, and culture under the crushing weight of displacement. But still, even within the broader Black diaspora, we are often treated as less than ; the ones without a homeland, without nobility, without lineage. This is not a cry for pity. It is a declaration of truth. Diasporic disdain is real , and it thrives in subtleties. It hides in compliments. It passes as etiquette. But its sting burns and uproots. . To my fellow Negro women: my sisters, my daughters, my mothers, and my neighbors: you do not need anyone’s permission to belong to the sacred. You are not guests in Blackness. You are its foundation. You are the altar, and the flame. And to those who look down on us from within the Diaspora: The children of them; the ones who Raca the Negro. In John 8 KJV, Jesus challenges a group’s reliance on ancestry for moral authority. Though they claim  Abraham as their father, their hearts and actions reveal a different allegiance; one hostile to truth, one that cannot receive the Word. The children of them, the ones who Raca the Negro,  channels that same energy. It names those, past and present, who wield cultural, religious, or ethnic superiority to demean, erase, or displace  the Negro. These are not just people with different traditions. These are people whose actions reject the Spirit of Truth , though they invoke the names of ancestors and divine lineage. The words spoken to our children, whether in aisles or in homes, shape how they see themselves and others. What is intended as culture can sometimes carry the weight of exclusion. May the words spoken be rooted in awareness, not assumption; in kinship, not comparison. As for me, I choose to name it. I choose to write it. I choose to breathe through it. This is my healing. This is my witness. This is my Raca in the aisle. “We Are the Children of Joseph” Just as Jesus was called the son of Joseph , so too are we; Negroes of the diaspora, the spiritual and historical children of Joseph, the son of Jacob. This isn’t about lineage: It’s about pattern, purpose, and prophetic identity. We, too, are carriers of dreams. We were buried in dungeons of oppression,Yet we carry the grain; the nourishment of nations . We speak wisdom in unfamiliar tongues. We hold forgiveness in our marrow and fire in our bones. We are not a cursed people; we are a preserved people . Not abandoned, but hidden for such a time as this. Like Joseph, we may have been forgotten by men, but we were never  forgotten by God. Closing Benediction So yes! call us Negro , but do not call us lost. We are the sons and daughters of Joseph. Dreamers. Survivors. Interpreters of mystery. We were clothed in sorrow, but we are rising in glory. We are Joseph’s prophecy fulfilled. And as Joseph said to his brothers: “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” Genesis 50:20 KJV

Introduction The synoptic gospels describe Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness as a period of fasting: “And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered”  (Luke 4:2, KJV). Traditionally, this verse is interpreted as a story of spiritual discipline, where Jesus resists the devil’s temptations by relying on God’s word. Yet a deeper theological reading sees this moment not as mere abstinence but as a cosmic act. Jesus did not simply refuse food: He ate nothing because there was nothing. In this act, He infused “nothing” with life, inaugurating a new creation. In that state of emptiness, He gave “nothing” life, and in this act, everything came into being. Jesus’ relationship to nothingness reveals His role not only as redeemer of history but as creator of existence itself. This essay will explore how the wilderness fasting can be understood as a creative encounter with nothingness, drawing from canonical scripture, Gnostic texts, and Christian theological tradition. Humanity’s Destruction and the Cosmic Void Scripture frequently portrays human sin as cosmic in scope. Paul states that creation was “made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope”  (Romans 8:20, KJV). The groaning of creation (Romans 8:22) reveals its wounded state. Humanity did not merely harm creation; it destroyed “what is,” leaving behind only nothingness. The Incarnation, therefore, is not God entering into a flourishing world but God stepping into a void. This aligns with apocalyptic imagery in Revelation, where “the first heaven and the first earth were passed away”  (Revelation 21:1, KJV). Into such void, Christ enters: not to preserve the remnants of the old, but to inaugurate the possibility of the new. “He Did Eat Nothing”: The Wilderness as Creation Event Luke’s account that Jesus “did eat nothing”  (Luke 4:2) is more than asceticism. Read ontologically, it reveals the condition of absence; there was nothing to consume. In this moment, Jesus embodies the primordial divine act: creation out of nothing ( creatio ex nihilo ). Genesis 1:2 describes the earth as “without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep”  until God spoke light into being. Similarly, Jesus enters into the void of wilderness-nothingness and gives it vitality. Patristic thought often dwells on this paradox. Augustine argued that God created the world not from pre-existing matter, but from nothing, declaring: “For what is anything unless You make it? Did it ever exist unless it existed because You are?”  (Confessions XII.7). Jesus’ wilderness fast re-enacts this truth: He did not merely resist hunger, He demonstrated that even “nothing” can be filled with the fullness of God. This act is not fasting-as-discipline but fasting-as-creation. By “eating nothing,” He did not simply endure emptiness; He gave “nothing” the capacity to become . The Gnostic Witness: Feeding Nothing into Life The Gospel of Thomas intensifies this vision. Jesus says: “If you do not fast from the world, you will not find the kingdom of God”  (Thomas, Logion 27). Here fasting is not simply bodily discipline but refusal to sustain the corrupted order. Another saying teaches: “Blessed is the lion which the man will eat so that the lion becomes human; and cursed is the man whom the lion will eat so that the lion still becomes human”  (Thomas, Logion 7). These cryptic words suggest that what one consumes, one gives life to. Placed alongside Luke, the meaning becomes profound: Jesus consumes nothing, and in consuming nothing, He gives it life. His wilderness act is thus the reverse of Adam’s: where Adam’s eating brought death, Christ’s not-eating brings life. Thus, the wilderness moment is not just symbolic preparation but the metaphysical axis on which new creation turns. Jesus as the Future Breaking Into the Present If Christ gave nothingness life (Jesus is the Christ), then He is not merely a figure of the past but the embodiment of the future. Paul calls Him “the firstborn of every creature”  and the one “by whom all things consist”  (Colossians 1:15–17, KJV). Jürgen Moltmann develops this perspective in Theology of Hope , where Christ is understood as the revelation of the future within history: “In the raising of Christ the eschatological future has already begun”  (Moltmann, 1967, p. 211). This interpretation aligns with this eschatological vision: Jesus’ wilderness fast is not only an event of deprivation but the first eruption of the future New Creation into the nothingness left by human destruction. In this framework, Jesus’ presence in nothingness inaugurates the cosmos anew, not as restoration of what was, but as the future breaking open in the present. He is not only from the past but from the future, but his very being embodies what has not yet come into existence; therefore, the resurrection is the full disclosure of this truth: death and void are not the end, but the raw material of divine life. Eckhart and the Ground of Nothingness Meister Eckhart deepens this insight with his mystical language of “nothingness.” He argues that God dwells in the ground  beyond all being, which for human perception appears as nothingness. “Therefore I ask God to rid me of God, for my essential being is above God insofar as we comprehend God as the principle of creatures”  (Eckhart, Sermon 52). For Eckhart, the soul meets God in the place where all being collapses into nothing. Seen in this light, Jesus’ act of eating nothing is not mere physical fasting but revelation of the divine ground: He stands in the place of nothing and there calls forth everything. Conclusion The statement that “He did eat nothing”  (Luke 4:2) is more than historical description; not merely descriptive of physical fasting; it is metaphysical revelation. It is a theological key to understanding Christ (Jesus is the Christ) as the one who creates out of nothingness. Humanity destroyed “what is,” but in eating nothing, Jesus infused emptiness with being. This act discloses Him not merely as savior of the past but as creator of the future, the one through whom “nothing” becomes “everything.” In Him, fasting is not refusal but creation, not emptiness but abundance, not the end but the beginning of all that is to come. References Augustine. Confessions . Trans. Henry Chadwick. Oxford University Press, 1998. Meister Eckhart. The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense . Trans. Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn. Paulist Press, 1981. Moltmann, J. (1967). Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology . Harper & Row. The Gospel of Thomas . In The Nag Hammadi Scriptures . Trans. Marvin Meyer. HarperOne, 2007. The Holy Bible: King James Version . Closing Note: The Willingness to Be If Jesus gave nothingness life, then the fullness of creation bears witness to His act. The earth and all its creatures: the flowers that turn toward the sun, the trees that stretch their roots deep, the birds that sing, the animals that breathe; all display a simple and profound truth: a willingness to be, to live, to thrive. In this willingness, creation itself testifies to the saving act of God, for all that lives has already been drawn into His life. Yet humanity stands before a question that is as old as the gospel itself: “Wilt thou be made whole?”  (John 5:6, KJV). Salvation is not merely imposed; it is embraced. To live, to thrive, to be; these require willingness. Jesus, who gave nothingness life, extends that same creative invitation to us: Will you allow Him to make you whole? Will you choose to live? Will you join creation in its song? The mystery of nothingness becoming everything culminates in this: that our response is not passive but willing. To be saved is to will; to lean into the life that Jesus has already breathed into emptiness.

Photo "Earthrise" courtesy of Bill Anders of NASA. Information courtesy of www.nasa.gov Do you know of Apollo 8 and its Christmas mission at the moon? Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders read Genesis 1-10 of the Holy Bible, King James Version while orbiting the moon on Christmas Eve 1968. “And the only instructions that we got from NASA was to do something appropriate.” -Jim Lovell You can read all about it at: Apollo 8: Christmas at the Moon Thank you, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders! When I consider you, it is with loving kindness and this: John 3: 13-16 KJV John 5: 26-27 KJV 1 John 5: 6-9 KJV "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her." -Proverbs 3:13-15 KJV **song of the day by Carrie Underwood, Feat. Vince Gill: How Great Thou Art Have a Happy Sabbath! Moreover, thank you to my father in heaven, Thurston Lee Williams, and my mother who is in purgatory, Lynette Marcell Cecelia Jackson. Please pray for me as I pray for you. I love you; always... -stanky stacy a/k/a fat momma Other songs to consider: **song of the day by Cece Winans: Worthy of it All **song of the day Feat Naomi Raine and Mav City Gospel Choir: Revelation 19:1 **song of the day by Whitney Houston: I Go to the Rock **song of the day by Hank Williams Sr: I Saw The Light **song of the day shared by David Mueller: On Eagle's Wings ("White's Chapel UMC choir, orchestra, and guest singers with their "dry run" prior to the trip to the Vatican. Shaunna Fuller conducting") **song of the day by Cece Winans: I've Got Joy **song of the day by Hezekiah Walker & The Love Fellowship Choir: I Need You To Survive **song of the day by Cece Winans: Goodness of God

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We give thanks to the Lord our God for preserving us alive this day. How do we at Juneteenthsc celebrate Juneteenth? We give thanks to the Lord our God for preserving us alive this day. After 400 years of slavery in the United States of America; the Word of God: for it is written in the King James Version of the Holy Bible year 1620-1622; is our governor. We know that the word of God is true. We know that God is true. We have returned to the one true God; the most High God. We have returned to His only begotten son, our Lord and our savior; Lord Jesus the Christ. We give thanks to the Lord our God for preserving us alive this day. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. -Matthew 6: 9-13 KJV Réponse à La Clochette. Dieu est : avec et sans ; Foi. (Response to The Tinkerbell: God is: with and without faith.) Lord God of Israel my God: make me to be a vessel of your peace. Where there is hatred, create in me your love. Where there is offense, create in me your forgiveness. Where there is discord, create in me your stillness. Where there is error, create in me your truth. Where there is doubt, create in me your faith. Where there is despair, create in me your hope. Where there is darkness, create in me your light. Where there is sadness, create in me your joy. Father, create in me your patience. That I do not seek to be consoled by any one. That your grace is in me, and it is consolation to us. That your grace and your peace is my understanding. That your grace and your peace is understanding for us. That your love which illuminates within me is my love. That your love which illuminates within me is love for us. Because: It is by remembering; one self, that we find ourselves in you. It is by forgiving; that we are forgiven by you. Response to: "Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi" Why do we at Juneteenthsc celebrate Juneteenth? We should give thanks to the Lord our God for preserving us alive this day. I believe I, Stacy Machell Maria Douglas believe that; that Jesus spake these words and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said: "And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." -John 17: 13-17 KJV Mission Statement To inspire the basics of financial consciousness to realize wealth; through the implementation of mental health, physical health, spiritual health, a support system and consistency. connect We are forever learning and sharing what we have learned. How are we doing so far? We would love to hear from you.