I see too many people who jump into spirituality as a shelter to hide from reality. It doesn't work that way. The way it works is for the spirit behind you to follow you wherever you go, like a loyal soldier, and show you how to face up to adversity. If you can't face adversity, you will get locked into a new age perception that everything is fine when it isn't. That makes you vulnerable to being exploited by the person who comes along and says, "I am a psychic. I have studied with this guy or that guy, and I know what you should do".

Historically the customs and traditions of day-to-day life in Africa have been dismissed by Western cultural anthropologists as primitive, chaotic, pagan activities that should be replaced by Christianity, the only civilized religion. The West has also long assumed that it should convert tribal cultures to literacy, which is to say an entirely different way of looking at the world, of living in the world. Most Africans who have achieved a comfortable Western lifestyle are Christian. Why? Because it comes with the package: Christian-ity, literacy, and a material lifestyle all come together.

Spiritual methods are essential in Africa if you are going to survive politically. My cousin is the chief security officer for the president of Burkina Faso. He knows the key medicine man who works day and night to keep the president in power. These medicine men don't have offices downtown; they live in huts in remote areas, but that is where the real political power resides. A medicine man has no clue about the actual workings of domestic or international politics. All he knows is that a person has a seat of importance somewhere, and his job is to keep that person on that seat.

It's true that tribal rivalries have something to do with political instability. It's also true that those rivalries were exaggerated by colonialism. Colonialism essentially insulted the tribal territories, and as a result, nations came to be composed of an agglomeration of many tribes - 65 in Burkina Faso alone. The Mossi majority sees itself as the owner of Africa; others are just negotiators for representation. That is the way it is now, and it is the sole responsibility of colonialism.

Peace is Letting Go--Returning to the Silence that cannot enter the realm of words because it is too pure to be contained in words. This is why the tree, the stone, the river, and the mountain are quiet.

Healing comes when the individual remembers his or her identity—the purpose chosen in the world of ancestral wisdom—and reconnects with that world of Spirit.

The spiritual thirst that is latent in everybody can never come to a place of fulfillment unless people begin to think of each other as potential brothers and sisters.