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Marvin X/El Muhajir, Beyond Religion
toward Spirituality, Essays on Consciousness. Black
Bird Press, Paradise Ca, 2007, 281 pages, $19.95
Review by Ayodele Nzinga In his introduction
to, Beyond Religion Toward Spirituality, the X
man says: “How you begin is how you will end.” He goes
on to describe a new relationship with himself and joy.
Full circle, the boy from Fresno is a man of the world,
master of the small story, in possession of his joy and
a child like wisdom, simple, honest, and fresh.
The world according
to Marvin X is in beautiful place to visit but it is
also in serious need of a more spiritually imbued story
of itself.
El Muhajir has been
teaching us through the medium of poetry, drama,
lecture, and essay for four decades; this offering
signals his attention to his continuing personal
evolution. One of his greatest strengths as a
storyteller is he is never afraid to share what he has
learned. In the pages of Beyond Religion Toward
Spirituality Marvin celebrates the spiritual nature of
man and the world in a series of moving non-fiction
essays.
He speaks in an
authoritative voice in what he calls the fourth quarter
of a remarkable run. X is clear, concise, and straight
razor sharp. His lyrical use of North American African
vernacular remains as clear and as musical as his poetry
and his undiminished power of observation touches all
the nooks and crannies of his life and our own.
As usual Marvin’s
view is a wide one that takes in his subject from a
variety of vantage points. This volume is simple, yet
thorough in its scope. Flowing from a seemingly endless
well, Marvin’s eye moves like water from the
intricacies of love, to the nurturing of youth, into the
spiritual aspects of music, as his pen makes the leap
from the personal to the universal.
In Beyond
Religion Toward Spirituality Marvin has compiled an
“All you ever need to know” compendium for anyone with a
mind, heart, and soul living on earth. These are the
musings of a well-seasoned life traveler with stories
that instruct and inspire. In the tradition of “I wish I
could tell you the Truth”, essays, 2005, and “Something
Proper,” autobiography, 1998, Marvin blesses us with
the gift of his scholarship embodied in our lived
reality. Here philosophy is given flesh we understand,
for here is a philosopher of and from us, bold enough to
tell us the truth, continually serving us something
proper, and ready to move us beyond religion to an
enlivened spirituality.
“Let it be said
that we tried to expand our consciousness, to get high
with the Most High (Ali). And if we only touched the hem
of His garment, it is better than not having touched Him
at all.”
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Marvin X/ El Muhajir, Beyond
Religion Toward Spirituality, Essays on Consciousness.
This collection of “small stories” is another
well-written chapter in the ongoing grand narrative of
Marvin X, available from Black Bird Press, POB 1317,
Paradise CA 95967 , $19.95.
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Poet/actress Ayodele Nzinga is
doing her PhD thesis on Marvin X and the Black Arts
Movement. His archives were recently acquired by the
University of California , Bancroft Library.
posted 7 March 2007 * * * *
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update 1 July 2008 |
