The Ethiopian Church Journal Blog

The Suitcase BY NEBIY MEKONNEN TRANSLATED BY MITIKU ADISU At airport terminal luggage zone A conveyor belt goes round and Comes around; A suitcase with no owner, Tagged and leisurely making the rounds, Revolving as it wandered. It could be a depository of knowledge Or of items of little worth. A suitcase under lock & key; Zippers under gag order; What is it about shut and dark spaces? This suitcase turns, turns some more, Returns, glides by again; Twirls like a young lady standing on her head; A suitcase none would pick up; A suitcase unable to get off the belt; A suitcase unable to get off abroad Or duly return to its homeland; It keeps moving back and forth like a thought; It moves sideways, Like rainwater rolling on the green; Exile is just that— A nation losing its conscience; Conscience forcing one to flee; To flee to interior self; To flee on other’s behalf; Subjected to alien heartaches; A flower deprived of a butterfly; A butterfly, and no flower; Aimlessly wandering; Loose...

Top left to right: 1/ played ganna 2/ plowed 3/ left parents' home 4/ recruited into Imperial Guard 5/ joined the Guard 6/ trained to run Marathon 7/ traveled to England 8/ run a race 9/ took first 10/ flew back 11/ greeted public 12/ His Majesty pinned a medal 

Landscape, Untitled, Undated : Gebre-Kristos Desta Evening Sun  Tiptoeing roofs of neighboring hamlets,   Caressing the crown of the knoll,   See the setting sun glide by up above   And man here below;  See her leave him behind   Spent and laboring so.    Poet: Gebre-Kristos Desta  | የማታ ጀምበር | Translator: Mitiku Adisu, © 2019   ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

O Bird of Paradise BY FIKRE TOLOSSA   TRANSLATOR: MITIKU ADISU O bird of paradise, My good fortune, my sustenance, Blessed among bird species – Sing to me, I’m downcast; I am worn-out by the gripe; My ears are longing for lovely tune, My soul, my mind, my spirit too; From song-filled chest, a refrain, And make my wishes come true. Born to chirp, chant and chatter, You craft and dish out melody For the pleasure of humanity; O guileless bird, Like the very sun, you light up each; Your wine you lavish, on the just, the fiendish; You sing so charitably, boulders softened, The rains are gone, the sky has cleared, The scorched earth once again green, Heart of barbarians now less mean, The frenzied, serene; Sing to me, little bard, Sweeten life’s bitter years, Ring out your voice from mesa to mesa And dry my tears. © Blue Nile Poems, 2018, p.113 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: This ode was originally composed in 23 stanzas and titled, Woffa-Yared (ወፈ ያሬድ). First three stanzas are sampled here. Yared (...

               

“Tree of Hope”   When my hope like a tree was clipped,   Knocked down, pulled up and about to snap   As a glimmer of light dimmed     And the eye of day shuttered   I spread and wrapped myself in sackcloth Unaware New Year was here Unaware of Adäy my flower I sat in the belly of a dense night   Intent to unfocus my thoughts,   To rebuke a weepy heart And pin my hope on despair. Poet: Debebe Seifu, 1971 | "የተስፋዬ ዛፉ"፣ ለራስ የተጻፈ ደብዳቤ ፣ 1963 ዓ.ም፣ ገጽ 19 |  Translator: Mitiku Adisu | ©2019 Note: Ethiopian NewYear is in September ( ≃ 11th) and Adäy flowers (Bidens macroptera), endemic to Ethiopia, returned during this time. The poet possibly is mourning his beloved Adäy.

Help, Lord, for no one is faithful anymore; those who are loyal have vanished from the human race. Everyone lies to their neighbor; they flatter with their lips but harbor deception in their hearts. May the Lord silence all flattering lips and every boastful tongue— those who say, “By our tongues we will prevail; our own lips will defend us—who is lord over us?”   “Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan, I will now arise,” says the Lord. “I will protect them from those who malign them.” And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver purified in a crucible, like gold refined seven times. You, Lord, will keep the needy safe and will protect us forever from the wicked, who freely strut about when what is vile is honored by the human race. Psalm 12   Hear me, my God, as I voice my complaint; protect my life from the threat of the enemy. Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from the plots of evildoers. They sh...

"Our Father" on bagana በገና Birhanu Molla on masinko ማሲንቆ | Jesus's Life from baptism on   Meseret Mebratee, Jesus is worthy of all praise Deacon Tewodros Yosef: እንደምትወደኝ አውቃለሁ I know You love me

Christianity Is Eastern    Christianity is not Western. Christianity is (Middle) Eastern. We need to go back to the world of first century church to sort out claims groups have made and creative interpretations they have come up with. Understanding the historical context is indispensable to interpreting Scripture.  Romanticizing things ancient and exotic without rigorously examining the evidence is a sure way to unreality. A spate of articles published in Western media since the early 1980s especially seem to share several things in common. First is an observable frustration with Christianity in general and politicized North American evangelicalism in particular. Secondly is the search for a ‘pure’ form of Christianity—a form that is untainted by Western colonialism and ‘missionary adventurism.’ Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity somehow fits the latter bill.  Ethiopia did repulse European colonialism. Her rock-hewn churches and ancient manuscripts (Book of Enoch and...

Home of the Shy, Land of the Brave By Mitiku Adisu Ethiopians are often portrayed as "shy" people. We are told that athlete Kenenisa is not quite the marketable commodity that Usain Bolt is because he is 'shy’ or to be more precise, ‘diminutive and shy’. It is not surprising that the world has little patience for the long distance; instant gratification is what really mattered. "Farm life agrees with "this shy Ethiopian girl" Or "a shy and beautiful Bodi woman from Ethiopia"; "A shy Borana girl from Ethiopia"; "Two shy girls from Aksum." We don’t want to take the "shy thing’ too far, but according to Ortolani et al., most dogs observed in four Ethiopian villages surveyed "are shy and prefer to avoid human contact." Not to confuse men with dogs, "Ethiopian men are generally shy"; "Birdlife abounds and indigenous animals, from the rare Walis Ibex (sic) to the shy wild ass, roam free just as nat...

The King's Prophet hathitrust.org …. in the third year Jehoshaphat king of Judah went down to see the king of Israel. The king of Israel had said to his officials, “Don’t you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us and yet we are doing nothing to retake it from the king of Aram?” So he asked Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to fight against Ramoth Gilead?” Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.” But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, “First seek the counsel of the Lord.” So the king of Israel brought together the prophets—about four hundred men—and asked them , “Shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?” “Go,” they answered, “for the Lord will give it into the king’s hand.” But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no longer a prophet of the Lord here whom we can inquire of?” The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat, “There is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of the Lord, bu...