House of Roots and Bones: BMCB Wisdom and Poetry

WISDOM & POETRY
Study Deeper. Pray Stronger. Live Wiser.
BMCB BCH 201 — Job: When Trouble Doesn’t Mean You Did Wrong
Examines Job as a necessary corrective to the belief that every terrible condition proves wrongdoing, punishment, crossing, or spiritual failure. Students study suffering, loss, friendship, divine sovereignty, and the dangers of people who explain another person’s pain without understanding it. The course teaches that trouble must be investigated rather than automatically attributed to an enemy, curse, sin, or judgment.
BMCB BCH 202 — Psalms I: The Rootworker’s Prayer Book
Introduces the Psalter as a major Biblical prayer resource in Black American religious and conjure traditions. Students examine praise, lament, petition, confession, protection, thanksgiving, justice, and deliverance as recurring Psalmic conditions. The course teaches students to read, understand, and work the Psalms rather than memorizing correspondence charts.
BMCB BCH 203 — Psalms II: Protection, Enemies & Deliverance
Concentrates on Psalms addressing enemies, false witnesses, traps, danger, persecution, reversal, and rescue. Students study the adversarial language of the Psalter within Black American historical experience. The course teaches practitioners to distinguish protection, exposure, escape, correction, judgment, and destruction according to the circumstances.
BMCB BCH 204 — Psalms III: Healing, Mercy, Prosperity & Thanksgiving
Examines Psalms concerning mercy, restoration, healing, provision, forgiveness, peace, and gratitude. Students learn to distinguish prosperity as provision and stability from modern claims that wealth proves divine favor. The course teaches how lament becomes petition, petition becomes trust, and trust eventually becomes thanksgiving.
BMCB BCH 205 — Proverbs: Big Mama’s Book of Sense
Studies Proverbs as practical instruction concerning speech, money, work, sex, anger, gossip, friendship, parenting, justice, and self-control. Students compare Biblical wisdom with the role of proverbs and elder instruction in Black American family life. The course emphasizes that spiritual power cannot rescue a practitioner from foolish behavior and that sometimes the most powerful prescription is to quit doing the foolish thing.
BMCB BCH 206 — Ecclesiastes: Some Things Just Ain’t Worth Chasing
Examines Ecclesiastes through mortality, work, wealth, ambition, pleasure, injustice, and the limits of human control. Students confront the exhausting cycle of chasing what cannot permanently satisfy. The course teaches the Root Doctor that wisdom includes recognizing seasons and knowing what is worth working for—and what needs to be left alone.
BMCB BCH 207 — Song of Solomon: Desire, Courtship & the Body
Studies Song of Solomon through desire, beauty, sexuality, courtship, and mutual attraction. Students examine both literal love poetry and its long history of spiritual interpretation. The course develops a Biblical language for love that acknowledges sexuality without reducing love to control, and explores botanical and fragrance imagery without automatically converting every plant into a Hoodoo correspondence.