Ashe – a prayer for Black History Month
We used this prayer, drawn from a Black History Month call to worship by Rev. Dr. Velda Love, Minister for Racial Justice at the United Church of Christ, for our CCS staff worship this month, adding some names that were meaningful for our context.
Ase (or às̩e̩ or ashe; pronounced ah-shay) is a West African philosophical understanding through which the Yoruba of Nigeria conceive the power to make things happen and produce change.
Call to Worship
In a beginning before humans were formed
and nature knew Creator’s great presence, the Spirit moved over the universe
People of God: Ashe! (ah-shay)
The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it;
God has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers. Psalm 24:1-2
In quiet peace God created animals, insects, birds, trees, fish and humans;
colorful, balanced and creatively diverse,
and the beauty of Creator’s love filled the earth
People of Life: Ashe!
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind;
and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22: 37-39
In honor of Black History and Present we remember names
because of the ancestors who made a way out of no way
with God before them, beside them, and lovingly guiding succeeding generations:
Nana Yaa Asantewa of Ashanti; Taharqa, ruler of Napatan Kush; Queen Nzingha, West African leader; Mansa Musa I, Emperor of the West African Islamic Empire
People of Love: Ashe!
Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, Gabriele Prosser, Nate Turner and Denmark Vesey
Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Jerena Lee,
Viola Desmond, Jean Augustine
W.E.B. DuBois, Thurgood Marshall, Bayard Rustin, and Martin Luther King, Jr,
Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Ella Baker
Mary Ann Shadd Cary, James Calbert Best, Bromley Armstrong, and Marie-Joseph Angélique
These and more represent the great cloud of witnesses.
Their spirits linger with us creating new generations of warriors, preachers, teachers, activists, organizers, prophets, parents, siblings and niblings of the African Diaspora.
People of Hope: Ashe!
“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count,
from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing together, singing with palm branches in their hands.” Rev. 7:8
Let everything that has breath, offer thanks!
People of God: Ashe and Amen
