Page 29 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 26

Community
Religious or
Spiritual
WHICH ARE YOU?
By Samuel Phillips
someone by the name
of Mosali Mansa
(mosali551@gmail.com),
I guess in response to the
last issue of the magazine
that we shared. The email
reads, verbatim:
“The muzugu god will
not save Africa. You are
brainwashed with your
blessed nonsense!”
I looked at the mail, and
several thoughts and ways
to answer his insult came
to mind, but I also knew
what my response should
be. So, I wrote back and
said “God bless you sir.
Have a blessed evening.”
Like usual, I deleted the
mail so my wife wouldn’t
see it.
Now, when I wrote that reply
and sent it, which by the way
was what I was told to do, I was
also told that if the person who
sent that mail was to reply with
any other insult or curse the
blessing that has been extended
to him, then he is not worthy
of any blessings, he must be
cursed. There has been no reply
from him up till now.
Here is where I am going with
this story.
So many people think they
know and understand the
fullness of what being spiritual
means, or what spiritual warfare
entails, either because they go
to church on Sundays, they go
to the Mosque on Fridays, or
they worship some trees or give
sacrifices to some spirits in the
ocean and whatever else they do.
The reality, however, is that they
don’t. So, someone like Mansa
who sent that mail thinks
he knows what we should
embrace as our spirituality
or that we are brainwashed
for praying for the blessing
of Africa each time we send
out the magazine issues. But,
clearly, he is delusional. First,
sending a blessing in words or
text to someone has nothing
to do with being a Christian,
a Muslim, or anything else. It
is mostly the state of a man’s
heart towards others and
because out of the content
of the heart the mouth will
speak, or the pen will write,
extending a blessing to others
is also a founding principle of
the Ubuntu that Africans like
to talk about. Ubuntu starts
from the heart and not the
mouth.
There are dimensions and
realms of spiritual realities
that go way beyond what any
human mind can put together
in one space. Thus, for
anyone to say that what he or
she believes in is the ultimate
spiritual reality there is, and
then try to impose that on
someone else is foolishness.
It simply means the person
does not even have an
understanding of what being
spiritual is.
ISSUE 26 | APRIL 2024 29