I watched a movie titled "Frybread Face and Me". It featured the life of a modern Navajo family focused on the experiences of two Navajo youth, one male, one female. One of the featured characters was the Navajo grandmother. She only spoke the Navajo language as she had refused to learn how to speak English over her lifetime.
I thought to myself, it would be great to be able to learn about the culture of Native Americans. It would be great to learn about the culture of my own African ancestors who I discovered through an African Ancestry DNA test are from what are now called in Africa the countries of Guinea-Bissau and Gabon. The Balanta people of Guinea-Bissau and the Eshira and Eviya people of Gabon are whom my DNA connect to. Beyond that connection, I do not know the traditions and culture of my ancestors. I do not know their spiritual foundation. I do not know how they lived day-to-day, or what they ate.
The reality is that I was educated on the culture of "America" which is based on the culture of European Americans. My ancestors were forcefully brought to "America" to perform hard labor that European Americans were too lazy to do themselves. That is a basic truth. If that is not the truth of why Africans were brought to this country, then what is the truth?
I was recently having a part 1 spiritual discussion related to the relationships between men and women. As I thought about the topic, I came to the conclusion that how I relate to a woman is based on the European American culture I grew up under in the United States of America. My thoughts and views of women is not based on my being educated by African ancestral values and traditions. So, I truly am not able to respond to how to spiritually relate to a woman as my partner.
Why not? Because the European American culture did not teach me how to approach a woman as a spiritual partner. The European American culture taught me humanistic traditions and roles a man and woman should display. As a black man, I am doomed to failure in knowing how to treat a woman because I never was taught the spiritual values and traditions of my ancestors on that topic.
How can I get better? First, I need to create a spiritual foundation working with a female partner. We both have to work together to create the spiritual foundation we both want to start from. We need to weed out all those humanistic actions and behaviors that create conflict and problems in male-female relationship. We have to agree to reject those human cultural values that get in the way of our spirituality.
We have to face the reality that neither of us was given a spiritual guide to having a great male/female relationship. I have never met anyone who has shown me that they have such a guide. I have never met anyone who has had a perfect male/female relationship based on applying the values and culture of the country they live in.
Are you preparing a spiritual guide to give your descendants? A spiritual guide that will guide them in a "successful" male/female relationship? Human beings have been around for over 2,000 years. Many lessons have been learned and maybe shared within families. Still we struggle in relationships.
Maybe the answers do not even relate to my original culture? Are we all just doomed to never being able to establish a spiritual foundation, because we never start from a spiritual foundation? Can a person truly reprogram your humanity into a life where all your actions result from spiritual thinking?
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