unacknowledged greatness

I remember a time when I worked for a University in a program that helped to establish young kids in a college routine.  These kids were first time college students.  No one in their families had accomplished getting to college and therefore, it seems liked these students came in with a disadvantage.  Many of them had very little support.  I remember parents who did not understand that books alone can be hundreds of dollars and college loans have to be paid back.  Some students got off the Greyhound bus in front of the Bone student center with nothing but their ambition.  Not a family member in site.  The saddest part was when graduation came.  I saw more family members gather for a prom sendoff, than for a graduation.  I remember a family who missed an important event because a relative was being released from prison.  One such young man was very gifted, but he had so little family support.  He bought his first home alone.  He graduated alone.  Another gifted young man had just earned his second master's degree and none of his family members attended.  My work at Illinois state was truly revelatory.  One thing I told these students is that the lack of acknowledgement of the great things you have done, does not erase that you have done great things.  They were told that the student thought they were better. My reply was that your decisions will lead you to a better life and better is just better.  Don't diminish your accomplishments because you are in a circle or place where they are not appreciated.  In some families, the biggest celebrations are for significantly failed  people.  They don't know how to celebrate a new home, or a graduation, or a job promotion.  Their disability does not make your accomplishments less.  Unacknowledged greatness is still greatness.

Gone

2 Corinthians 6:14-18 King James Version (KJV)

¹⁴ Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

¹⁵ And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

Sometimes I think we read the word of God and we think that it is optional. One of the ways that you're going to change is that you are going to change the people who you associate with. It is impossible to change when the people in your circle are still engaging in the thing you are supposed to be disengaging from. I don't know why we think we can hang around addicts and not be affected by Addicts. Change has to be more than just in you it has to be in your environment. I remember a story my mother told me of when she moved from Chicago to California. She was dressed in a bunch of bright colors and she was screaming up the street some rhetoric she had heard on the street. She found out they were looking at her like she was crazy. In California she learned how to join book clubs and she went back to get a high school diploma because you can't get a job washing dishes without one there. When she changed her environment it changed her life and therefore you have to begin to change your environment if you truly want your life to change.

Peace

I woke up one morning to Herman ranting and raving about something I left out on the counter too long.  It was the bacon.  I should have thawed it in the refrigerator or placed it in cold water, but I was too tired.  I worked eight hours myself.  I took out the bacon and set it on the counter while pulling off my clothes to go to bed.  When I thought about it, Herman legs weren't exactly broke.  If he wanted bacon that bad, he could have taken the bacon out himself.  No, Herman was already snoring on his side of the bed and part of my side.  Herman was a selfish man.  His thoughts and actions seemed to always be about himself.  Herman did not begin as a selfish person, but years of unconditional reward caused him to feel like life was his automatically.  Even his courtship of me was simply about himself.  We ate at his restaurant, drank his favorite wine and watched his favorite movies.  I only had his attention and affection when life was about him.  Now, I done done it.  The bacon is ruined and he has reckoned it to the loss of the Titanic.  His words, are always on the cutting edge of accusation so I just waited for it.  He spoke of his blessed mother who could do no wrong and his father who was a saint.  He talked about the heritage of great people he had come from and how he should have married a girl named Shirley.  Shirley would know how to thaw bacon.  I slipped on my coat to run to the nearest convenience store in my daily request for redemption.  I reached the parking lot and a panic settled over me like an impending spanking.  I cried like a child and shivered like an addict.  I stayed in that car far longer than it took to buy bacon and I realized that I just could not go back.  I had twenty six dollars in my pocket and the clothes on my back.  I had a quarter tank of gasoline and flip flops on.  I didn't even have a sanitary napkin in my purse.  I went past the stoplight and into the open road.  I didn't care that the next town was twenty miles away.  I never saw Herman again and I never cared.  He wrote and he cried, but Peace had finally been achieved.  I could never see myself in Hermans arms again.  The only reason I attended his funeral was for the closure I needed.  I did not find love again, and I did not care, but I did find peace.  Finally, I found peace.

Full

Proverbs 27:7New Living Translation (NLT)

⁷ A person who is full refuses honey,
    but even bitter food tastes sweet to the hungry.

 

I can remember being young and expecting marriage, but I was not hungry for it.  Then I can remember compatriots who were so hungry for the ring, that you could have dressed up a scarecrow and stuck him at the end of a church aisle for a groom.  It was sad to see young women like that.  I don't think that she knew how hungry she was.  She was so hungry that she married stale bread and ate like a queen.  I guess no one ever told her that queens don't feast on stale bread.  That is hungry at it's best.  Then there is full.  There are some people who have life so presented on a platter that they never experience hunger.  They despise a well cooked chicken, a soft bed, a beautiful mate or the air that they breathe.  They come to despise good things because they have never had to deal with the poverty of not having.  Sweet water becomes boring when you have never had bitter.  For this cause, sometimes, I pray that God allows a bit of hardness in a life.  It will help give a healthy perspective on things.  A bit of hunger does well to the appetite.

Big Kids Eyes

I can remember a spot in time.  I was ten years old and my family had went to the grocery store together.  We normally did not do this, but this was the case on this day.  Our family had gone through many storms and there was a shred of light at the end of the tunnel.  Both my parents were finally working.  We rented a nice house and we had a car.  We finally had a car.  I was feeling like all was going to be well when my mother started this conversation with her husband about quitting her job.  There was talk that she had made a mistake, but she felt that it was someone else.  I heard her mention that there was a serious medication error.  I thought to myself that it would end her career.  We only had two hospitals in the entire town.  If you messed up at one, the other would not hire you.  It was at this point, that I realized that we were soon going to lose everything that we said we had.  I thought we were off the roller coaster ride, but it has just stopped to start all over again.  Eventually we did lose the house, the car, and the family unit.  My mother and stepfather separated permanently.  My brother went to live with another relative.  We made it in on bits and pieces.  I could tell all of that was coming from that one day in the back of the car.  It is truly amazing when a kid gets his big kids eyes.

Loosing

There comes a time in every game where you have to decide how you are going to end.  I remember those games.  You can look at the moves you have yet to make and you can see that you have run out of options.  You now simply have to decide how you are going to end.  I can remember when an acquaintance of mine was at that point.  There were no more relatives to run to.  There were no more cities to welcome.  The boyfriends left.  The children grew up.  The public aid checks got smaller and her health was spent.  She changed.  She became calmer and more accepting.  She stopped panicking and started packing her life up in paper bags.  She planned the end the way she wanted to end.  This she had to do because the end was coming and instead of fighting it, she welcomed it.  We always plan to win, but no one teaches us the art of loosing.  No one says that you don't have to go out kicking and screaming.  You don't have to transition that way.  You don't have to always throw a fit.  A good friend of mine said, "I'll always have to fight, but I don't always have to cry".  I may always have to face loneliness, but I don't have to cry  about it.  I may have to be broke for a while, but I don't always have to cry about it.  I may be sick longer than I supposed, but I don't always have to cry about it.  You go out of here with your head held high even if some things in your life are just going to be that way.  Be to ornery to wither and die.  Play your last piece as if it was your first and live life................................to the end.
Ecclesiastes 7:8-14King James Version (KJV)
⁸ Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof:

Free

My mind falls on a day in the fall when my mother filled out the paperwork for school and gave it to me to return.  In all my days, I never thought to open the envelope and read what she wrote, but one day I did.  It was the standard free lunch and free textbook form.  I had a short walk from our home on thirteenth street to Dr. Andy Hall School, but once I got there, I had an epiphany.  The form entitled my mother to free lunch and textbooks if she did not make over a certain amount of money.  As a matter of fact, I understood that the moment she wanted to better herself, she would have to assume the responsibility of paying for the lunches.  If she wanted the help, she had to remain poor.  My mother signed up for a program to pay the utility bills after the winter.  Once again, you had to remain poor to receive it.  We moved across the street from the community center where they gave out free cheese and butter and once again, we had to identify with poverty in order to qualify.  My mother made sure we always qualified, but it hit a sour note with me.  It dawned on me that she was selling her identity to receive what she thought was free.  As a matter of fact, what got her out of the bed on certain days was getting something for free.  I examined this in my mind as a child.  You have to stay poor to get the oldest cheese in the universe.  You have to stay poor to get glasses made by inmates.  You have to stay poor to have the worse doctors in the profession.  You have to stay poor to shop and get the worse grocery stores.  Qualifying was producing a way of life that I did not want to live.  I did not want a free life.  I would rather pay and get good glasses.  I would rather pay and shop at the good grocery stores.  I would rather pay and eat the good cheese.  Even if I did not have the money, I will never identify with poverty.  Everything that is free is not..................free.