School Kids Exiting Elmina Castle (Torture Camp for Slaves)
I am indebted to the Presiding Bishop’s Office and ERD for giving me the opportunity to return to my own ancestral land to meditate on the cost to which Jesus refers. Herein, as if teaching to school kids, Jesus teaches that the lesson in building the tower is just as ancient as the ridicule. The lesson is ancient in the following way. The Portuguese (1482), Dutch (1637), British (1837) all intended to build a tower, but never estimated the cost. Of course, the cost is the eternal value of human beings made in the image of God. I mean, how do you pay for that anyway! This is what no one could truly estimate in the Atlantic Slave Trade. As to the ridicule, what I mean is this: We labor in vain if there is no healthy communal outcome. The consequences of the ridicule in not counting the cost in our daily lives have brought street protest throughout the world. Such ridicule causes an outcry of indignation because of the violence inflicted on people by the lack of spiritual, political and socio-economic structures in cities, states, and countries. These protests are motivated by a clear sense that the very fabric of social life unravels when there is nothing on which to base social cohesion. Jesus knew this and warns us to count the cost that no human being can pay.