A Beautiful Tree - A Bedtime Story

Once upon a time, there was a Little Girl who couldn't sleep until her Daddy told her a story, and the story he told her was the story of A Beautiful Tree.

This story begins in the United States of America, where there were some 30 million Black Americans.

For reasons that have been very, very well presented in another story, these people, who a long time ago, in Africa, had lives that were in balance with nature and had lives that helped them grow Spiritually, ... now for millions of parents life was a constant struggle, for millions of parents it wasn't easy to see how life was going to be much better for their children.

The children just wanted to laugh and play with their friends. They wanted to ride their bicycles, to ride horses and go karts with their moms and their dads. They wanted to go to parties and eat cake and ice cream, of course not until after the barbecue chicken and hamburgers!

Finally, one day, a little girl was talking with her friends, and they decided on a plan to get those hamburgers, and get those parties, and get more time to play and have more fun doing it!

That night, they each asked their parents, what if all the parents got together and made a new home? Where all the parents get the jobs they wanted, and invite their friends over to laugh and play cards, and ride horses and fly their airplanes ( well, one of the daddies wanted to stick that one in there ), and have parties and go out and have a good time when they wanted to. Their parents all smiled and said it was a good idea but it wasn't that simple, which is what the children expected, and that was ok.

The next day, they all told more friends about the plan, and their friends talked with their parents also. And the next day they told more friends who talked with more parents. And so on, and so on, until finally, a THOUSAND children were talking with their parents, and then 10 THOUSAND chldren, and then 100 THOUSAND children.

Well, as you might expect, eventually the parents started talking to the other parents about this phenomenon. This was incredible! Something had to be done, of course, and if that something meant there were going to be more parties, well that's just fine!

So, some of the parents who were project managers, and computer programmers, and business leaders and others, created an app for the computer and the phone, so they could organize with a MUCH, MUCH, LARGER number of project managers, and business leaders, spiritual leaders, scientists and engineers, government leaders and others.

And through that app -- you wouldn't believe it! -- They all worked together to create the greatest plan ever, to organize 30 million Black Americans, ...

...to create a New Home.

The parents were all getting excited about things like having all their votes counted, and getting fair treatment in the courts and from the police and when looking for jobs, and better healthcare, and ... well, actually, ...

President Obama

had already worked with Congress and made healthcare much, much better, so it wasn't clear that that still had to go on the list. But the children listened and definitely heard the parents talking about bicycles and parks and parties and cake and ice cream. No one was sure whether or not they had mentioned vegetables or chores, but if they did, it would still be worth it!

The parents all decided, to call the New Home:

Lakhaya

from 2 words,

1) ekhaya, which is Zulu for Home,

and 2) lakay, which is Haitian for Home.

The Zulu people had beaten something called apartheid, which meant they couldn't vote, they were beaten by the police, they were put in jail even if they were innocent, and they and their children were forced to be poor.

The Haitian people had beaten slavery, beating their slave masters, taking over the country, and creating their own government.

The Black Americans decided they would, for the first time ever in history, bring together more than a million leaders and professionals of all professions to work together to design and create this new home,

Lakhaya

for all Black Americans, and for anyone else who wanted to join them. And the parents assured their children that, not only would they create parks, and build bicycle factories, and computer companies to create phone apps for the children to play on,

But they would also create a very special app, called

Edua Fefew

which means A Beautiful Tree in Fante, which is a Major dialect of Twi in Ghana, Western Africa. This app would record for all history, not only everything being done to create the New Home, Lakhaya, ...

... it would record everything the old griots in Africa used to record before we were brought to America. It would record the fact that these children got together and made a plan, it would record that this little girl over here was so smart and that she was always one of the top students in her classes, and this one over here was such a great actress in the school plays, and this boy over here was so good at basketball, and this one was always a winner in the business class contests, and this one was such a good dancer ( they called him "cat" ), and this one was so good at helping her teacher to help the other children with their work, and so on, and so on....

And parents would tell stories to their children of what parents and children had done when the parents were children, and when the grand parents and great grandparents were children, and so on, and so on....

The scientists, engineers, spiritual leaders, business and government leaders, and all the other parents decided early on to create a HUGE, HUGE, computer program, similar to Sim City, where they, and especially the children, would be able to add their ideas to what Lakhaya should be like. They were surprised at some of the ideas some of the children had!

Some had brand new ideas about how home and work and school would be in buildings next to each other so the parents could eat lunch with the children. Some had beautiful ideas about how the buildings would look, about skateboards with small engines on them, about clothes that change colors and could be washed in 5 minutes with very little detergent used, and shoes that turned from shoes to sneakers to sandals at the touch of a button, and so on, and so on!

One little boy had an idea that some parks would be behind huge glass walls and the people could see the deer and giraffes and all as they walked to the store. Another little girl had the people walking on sidewalks with the huge glass through larger parks with even more animals!

And so everyone, parents and children, were talking about what this New Home would be like. The parents and leaders decided that Lakhaya would continue to be part of the United States, that many Black Americans across the whole country would migrate to settle in 5 contiguous states. Apparently, over several hundred years, a pattern had developed that showed we were getting less than 10% of the votes when we were only 10% of the population. So this was the way to get 10% representation in both houses of Congress, or something like that.

It was also decided to designate certain cities as Sister Cities, wherever 500 thousand Black Americans remained after the Great Migration.

Finally, we would be Home again after 400 years of unbelievable hardship. The spiritual leaders reminded everyone that through Material hardship often comes Spiritual Growth. And that the incredible hardship of slavery and directed social de-engineering that we had been subject to, had created a focal point for the greatest collaboration on social consciousness and engineering that was still known to Man at this time.

Some stories still persisted about some of the things the parents and children might have done in Atlantis, Ancient Egypt, and perhaps some other cultures before them, and God Bless them if it was true. But even if it wasn't we were going to create some new legends of our own, right here!

And so, all the children and all the parents started planning and working together on their New Home, and they called it

Lakhaya

And the stories were recorded for all the children who would grow to be parents, who would have more children, who would then grow to be parents, who would have more children, and so on and so on, for all time, for ever and ever.

And so it was, and so it was good!

And that brings us to the end of our story.

At the end of the story the Little Girl said, "Daddy, that was a good story, but why was it called A Beautiful Tree?"

And her Daddy told her, "because in 1860 there were 4 million Black Americans, of which 3.95 million had these ..."

Roots

and God used all of these Black Americans and their children, and their children, and their children, and their chidren and so on, ...

to create a Beautiful Tree

just as God Almost Always creates things through All the People.

So at the end was the beginning, and in the beginning was the middle, and where was the end? ... well ...

the end is in the People!

And do you know what the Little Girl said at the end of the Story?

Daughter: No, what?

Daddy: She said "Daddy, that was a Beautiful Story."

And do you know what the Daddy said?

Daughter: Yes.

Both: They said, God Bless You, Little Girl! Good Night!

Daddy: And he kissed her right here, where he always kissed her Good Night....

Daughter: But you don't *ALWAYS* kiss me Good Night!

Daddy: Well I will from now on!

Good Night Little Girl .....

Both: The End!