I pray that You be not white, that You be without color and that You be in all men because goodness cannot be encased only in white. Are You then the god of white people, and if we who are brown worship You, do we receive Your blessings as white men do? The men who taught us of Your presence, who opened the doors of Your temple that I may see the light – they are white like You.

Should I worship You in silence, without the obeisance and obedience to Your ministers? Should I stop singing and, within me, let my deeds speak of my belief and gratitude in Your greatness? I can see You in the morning, in the dew on the grass. A man who knows himself can live with his imperfections he knows instinctively that he is part of a wave that started from great, unnavigable expanses.” The search may not be fruitful from this moment of awareness, there is nothing more frustrating than the belief that you have been meaningless. Then you know that you have to be sure about who you are and if you are not sure or if you do not know, you have to go back, trace those who hold the secret to your past. And knowing this, you wonder where you came from and who preceded you you wonder if you are strong, as you know those who lived before you were strong, and then you realize that there is a durable thread which ties you to a past you did not create but which created you. But a person is more than a face or a bundle of nerves and a spigot of blood a person is more than talking and feeling and being sensitive to the changes in the weather, to the opinions of people. Your flesh, your skin, your lips-you know that that face which you behold is not yours alone but is already something which belongs to those who love it, to your family and all those who esteem you. “Sometimes you look at yourself in the mirror, any mirror, and you wonder why that nose looks as it does, or those eyes-what is behind them, what depths can they reach.

Vanquish definition literature