Entitlements

As a child, I grew up on welfare.  I am ashamed of that fact.  All of my parents were able to work when I was subjected to the humiliation of poverty.  I can remember programs that were aimed at the poor that just kept us in poverty.  There were things designed to relieve the stress, but not solve the problem.  Monetary stipends ran out and left you waiting days until the next check came.  Food stamps were always just under enough and the doctors that took the medical card were rookies and amateurs truly "practicing" medicine.  When I went to college, I got financial aid.  It was a different type of entitlement.  It was one that paid back.  When I graduated, I got a job and have not used public assistance since.  Growing up was wonderful.  I know that rough times can come again, but entitlements made it a lifestyle.  As I grew up, that sense that someone should give me something because I am poor enough to qualify got on my nerves.  People would ask me for a ride in my new car with the thought that I could not say "no".  They asked for money, they did not pay back and expected me to write it off.  The completely lost their dignity because they were poor.  Did affirmative action make us better, or did it make us bitter?  Did it change our lives or did it change our mentality?  If entitlements were meant to change people, then why are there generations of people living in the same housing project that they grew up in?  Why are 2/3 of black men still unemployed or incarcerated?  Did social security really secure my future or did it jeopardize it?  Will I be working at WalMart when I am 65?  It is enough to keep you guessing for a really long time.

America

I can remember a day when me and God were having a conversation about where I was going in the world.  He told me that he was not calling me to help only black people.  He was calling me to help anyone who was in need.  In my life, there was a silent statement that is fading in the sunset.  That statement was that we were supposed to prefer helping black people over helping white people or any other people.  It was never spoken, but a silent rule.  When I began to have serious political thoughts, I often voted for candidates who were supposed to help black people.  I realize that prejudice is on both sides of the line.  When President Obama was elected, I saw folks dancing in the street based on the thought that he was going to really do something for black people.  At the same time, you can’t find a hand clap for Clarence Thomas or Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell.  They were seen as not for black people.  I found that anyone in that type of government cannot have a preference for any race when you were elected to represent everyone.  I wonder how preachers can preach a gospel that will build up one group and tear down another when he is not called just to his own native people, but to the entire human race.  We alienate ourselves and close ourselves with the message of Christ that is ecumenical.  Once upon a time, Christ was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, now he has given the clarion call to the lost sheep of the world.  In order to fully understand that calling, we must stop penning ourselves in and allow ourselves to enjoy all that America has to offer without pointing the finger and rejecting.  At one time, the chains were put on by society, now the chains are put on by those shackled by society.

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Affirmative Action

I remember the day I went to college.  I came from a small town with absolutely no preference.  We all went to the same school, the same mall, the same Pizza Hut, the same everything.  There wasn’t enough resources to have a white side of town and a black side of town.  The town was only 45 blocks long and about ten miles wide.  Some folks called it a two horse town.  I walked to school one Saturday morning and took my act test along with all of  my other peers.  I was happy with my score.  When I got to college with my score and my scholarships, I was herded into a group of people and told that I did not have to have a good ACT score because I was black.  The assumptions were so telling.  Without even asking, I was told that I was from the urban jungle and that I had to come from a home that had no money and that my race did not score well on standardized test and so on and so on…….  I even had that attitude from some of my professors.  Even the skills that I was not good at were contributed to the fact that I was black and not the fact that it just was not my skill.  This all changed for me when I met a teacher by the name of  Dr. Suggs.  He taught black music and many African Americans took the class.  Some of us thought that it was a blow off class.  That was one of the hardest classes I have ever taken and I am so glad that he was a wakeup call for us and the University.  For those who expected preference, he gave them a much needed comeuppance.  For those who thought we were only as good as an eleven on the ACT, he gave them a comeuppance too.  Affirmative action opened the door, but it also gave the impression that there was no way that I can open it myself.    It allowed me to come in as a supposed inferior and not that I had not worked my tailbone off to be there.  All I needed was for there not to be an impediment to me opening the door and we would know if I could open the door for myself.  Unfortunately, I worked in the office where the preference was abounding and I saw students who were allowed to come and add a little color to the campus who weren’t ready for it.  Sometimes, I cried when I saw how they struggled and I prayed that they could recoup the skills they had not come to college with.  Instead of opening the door, why not make the school right around the corner of their homes better.  Give them the tools and not just open the door.  When I look at the works of the Cross.  Jesus did not just  forgive our sins, he sent the Holy Spirit so that we could become better people.  He made it so that we did not have to run to the altar every month trying to atone for sin.  He put his laws in us and gave us a better hope established on better promises.  His blood took away the sin and his spirit gave us the righteousness inside to stay that way.  Now, that is affirmative action.  It causes change that goes well beyond stepping your foot in the door only to have to walk back out because you are not prepared to come in the door. 

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Sentimental Journey

I grew up in a society that had a soft spot.  The more I look back on it the more I am sure that there was a soft spot.  Certain crimes got their attention and their hearts.  Drug addiction was like a big forgivable black whole.  I saw women crying over their sons who were “caught up “ in drugs , like choices were not involved.  I then saw the same women, buying food stamps and selling their WIC coupons.  Was it still not a crime?  The same women who wanted mercy for their sons who were menacing society, could find no love in their heart for the Klansmen menacing society.  Some sins and crimes were just sentimental.  There was a soft spot there.  We often pick and choose those who get justice and those who get mercy.  I am so glad that I am not God and I am glad you aren’t either.  God’s mercy is not political or sentimental.  He rains on the just and the unjust.  His justice is Universal and his vision is not clouded by sentiment.  He is impartial only looking for one thing and that is the blood of Jesus.  He gives mercy to the thief on the cross.   He goes out of his way to see a woman by a well.   He heals a man cutting himself in the cemetery and he is the good Samaritan, who helped an innocent victim who had fallen among thieves.

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Victicrat

Victims are people who have consequences of actions not necessarily begun by them.  These are the people who were given a raw deal.  These were the people given a bum rap.  They are the unfortunate recipients of another’s actions and unfortunately the problem is theirs.  Ownership is a hard pill to swallow.  I can remember when I had many consequences from actions not begun by me.  It was simply on my plate and served.  For years, I sat in the black church and told my story until people got tired of hearing it.  It took me a while to figure out, but then I got it.  It was not their problem. Why should they own it?  Most of the problems they glorified were to perpetrators.  I was the one who took care of the drug addicts children and the wayward mother’s children and the abandoning father’s children.  I received the action of the perpetrator, but all the programs were for drug addicts and single mothers.  I was a victim that was ignored.  I took my problem and decided that it was my problem to solve on my own terms.  I actively sought the help of people who could help me solve my problem.  One of the greatest times in my life for rebuilding was when God led me away from black Pentecost into a predominantly white church with progressive African Americans in them.  Being a pregnant high school drop -out got you pity, but no praise.  They were looking for black people who could cut the mustard and I sliced that puppy up into a thousand pieces.  I healed there.  I enjoyed my time there.  When I realized that it was better for me to own my problems and solve my own problems, I stopped depending on the pastor and started depending on God to guide me to make the right choices in my life.  My realization caused me to become a card carrying black conservative republican.  I have no apologies for who I am because I found myself in the hard knocks of life.  It has been a pleasure, finally taking hold of my life and choosing what is the best course.  When I don’t, I will own it because that is my problem, not yours.

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Nathanael

There is an interesting dialog happening between two people in the Bible.  One by the name of Phillip who was a follower of Christ and one by the name of Nathanael.  Phillip seems to have come in contact with Christ and is a believer.  Phillip does what all good friends do, he tells his friend about the Messiah called Jesus of Nazareth.  I have heard about Nazareth and from the viticrat language used, we say, “Can anything good come from Nazareth” .  It is our way of justifying living like a sewer rat.  I have always hated talk like that.  People who sit and romance about food stamps and government cheese like that stuff was “the bomb”.  I have even heard people say, that they would rather live in the ghetto than in the suburbs because the people are more real.  I go home and laugh about that.  Nazareth was not comely because of its location.  The Bible states that it is despised because of its goodness.  It just was not a good place to be from.  There was a lot of wickedness in Nazareth.  This is the place where Jesus was almost thrown from a cliff.  It is the place where he had become so common as a carpenter’s son, that he lost relevance as a Messiah.  He says that a prophet is without honor in his own home.  Take your briefcase and go twenty miles out of town and you will be a hero.  I remember my sojourn away from my “so called “ home.  I realize, thoroughly that it was the leaving that made me special.  I earned awards and degrees and ordinations and titles all to come back home and be belittled because I was not married.  There is really no place like home.  Can anything good come from Nazareth?  That is a question that came not to deceive for Christ told him, that in him was no guile.  Guile is deception.  What you see is what you get.  There was no reason to fake the funk.  Nathanael was not a “yes man” grinning like a Cheshire cat and then slinking off to corners to finish his conversation.  What he felt about Nazareth was a plain as the tag on your shirt.  There was no pretense.  What I like about Christ is that he answers Nathanael who wanted to know how he knew him.  Christ said, that he saw him under the fig tree before Phillip called him.  Christ saw him.  Christ was looking for him on the horizon out of all the people he could have seen, he saw Nathanael.  The gift given him for his candor was an open heaven.  An open heaven is free access to things in the heavenly realm.  Nathanael received the gift of sight to see the angels ascending and descending.  He got a chance to see what no one else would see.  All this for daring to be honest about the way he felt. 

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This, That and a third.

Something was said to me about being a black woman and I have yet to form a response, but I know the response will not be recieved well.  It is the response that black women can't find black men because there is something wrong with them.  I won't argue on those grounds, but you have to bring in some truth and let it speak for itself.  Roughly a third of black men are in prison.  Roughly a third are unemployed.  Roughly a third are ready for marriage.  This leaves about two thirds of all black men being unprepared for marriage.  Black women seem to prefer black men and don't date outside of their race often.  I have never had that inclination.  Color is not as important as religion.  I simply ask that before we compare apples and oranges, that we acknowledge the lack of enough oranges to make the Holiday punch.  There aren't enough black men for black women.  Black women are often told that we have to work with our men and are trained to marry beneath ourselves to be happy.  No one says that there are plenty of working white men who would love to love a sister, if she would give him a chance.  Instead of compromiseing on marrying someone who is on his third wife and struggling with employment, find a better man and compromise of the color of his skin.  Love does not have to hurt, nor leave you humiliated.

Purely simple

I did something wonderful about two weeks ago.  I went into my bathroom and removed all of my makeup.  I then left it off.  I have become so accustomed to wearing it, that I did not know what I looked like.  Can you imagine, not knowing the state of your original skin because it is hidden under layers ? I have been trying to do this for years, but every time, I get the gook off, I put it back on.  I understand why people pick the strictest of religions to put their faith in from this experiment.  Your life can become so cluttered by the antics of life, that you really can't see it for what it is.  You can mask pure blessings by focusing on defeats.  Life is not that hard to live, but we make it difficult.  We make breakfast about pancakes and eggs and bacon and tomatoes, when it could simply be a bowl of oatmeal.  One Sunday, I forewent the big Sunday meal and had a simple dinner prepared for one and was completely satisfied.  I think I need to dig in my closet and find other things that are cluttering my world.  I find that most of the time, I have changed looks, but kept the old clothes.  I like this pared down me.  Pure and simple.

Let the dead bury the dead

I have, at times, rejected the hand that fed me because I did not like what was on the spoon.  Then, like an idiot, I complained of being hungry.  I finally know how people starve in the land of plenty.  I finally understand that we can want what we want so badly, that what we have is inferior.  I have been spending time with people, who don't live in a palace, but they enjoy the living space that they have and they maximize it.  I am determined to spend this Christmas with the loving family that is reaching for me instead of grieving over the ones that are in the grave.  When I get done ruining my holiday at the funeral parlour again and again, the season of joy would be over and they will still be dead.

The God of Love

I am sitting here thinking about how God was presented to me.  I never felt his love.  I never knew the love first.  I was told to get my life right and I was told that I would go to hell, but not that he loved me.  The church that I grew up in was a good church, but they struggled to express emotion.  Maybe this is why they portrayed God as such a mean and hateful man.  They made him into the image of the men they lived with.  He had to diminish you to love you and that is so far from the case.  I had to go to other churches to find the God of love, and sometimes, on a dark night, I struggle to know if he is there.  I wonder how a God defined as love, is not portrayed as love.

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The New Monastic

Who are we who rise long before the sun peeps over the distant hills.  We hear the call of the sacred and the beloved.  He wakes us up with a thought so pervasive that we fall into conversation like falling into step with an old time friend.   The hours pass and we pray.  The day ceases and we contemplate.  We think about the intimate details of life that he whispers in the evening, when our daily duties are done.  Those whispers drive us to sleep just so that it can begin all over again.  There is no other life as sweet as this.  There is no other endeavor than His.  He has taken my body and my soul.  Now, he possesses my mind.

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Just thought this was funny

There is this atheist swimming in the ocean. All of the sudden he sees this shark in the water, so he starts swimming towards his boat.

As he looks back he sees the shark turn and head towards him. His boat is a ways off and he starts swimming like crazy. He's scared to death, and as he turns to see the jaws of the great white beast open revealing its teeth in a horrific splendor, the atheist screams, "Oh God! Save me!"

In an instant time is frozen and a bright light shines down from above. The man is motionless in the water when he hears the voice of God say, "You are an atheist. Why do you call upon me when you do not believe in me?"

Aghast with confusion and knowing he can't lie the man replies, "Well, that's true I don't believe in you, but how about the shark? Can you make the shark believe in you?"

The Lord replies, "As you wish," and the light retracted back into the heavens and the man could feel the water begin to move once again.

As the atheist looks back he can see the jaws of the shark start to close down on him, when all of sudden the shark stops and pulls back.

Shocked, the man looks at the shark as the huge beast closes its eyes and bows its head and says, "Thank you Lord for this food for which I am about to receive..."

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Just thought this was funny

A one dollar bill met a twenty dollar bill and said, "Hey, where've you been? I haven't seen you around here much."

The twenty answered, "I've been hanging out at the casinos, went on a cruise and did the rounds of the ship, back to the United States for a while, went to a couple of baseball games, to the mall, that kind of stuff. How about you?"

The one dollar bill said, "You know, same old stuff ... church, church, church."

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Hell

We don’t talk about hell anymore.  I remember growing up with the idea of hell.  If you displeased God with sin, you were going to hell.  Then someone told me that a loving God would not send you to hell.  How can he say he love me and send me to hell.   If there is no hell, then sin has no consequence and that is OH SO convenient for some people.  Without hell, I can do what I want to do with no fear of the flame.  God can’t send man to hell, but man can send you to prison, he can take your life, he can sue you in court, he can repossess your house, he can repossess your car, he can put you on a list for the rest of your life………..

Man can exact consequences, but God can’t.  Come on people.     

Free

When I was young, I remember seeing my peers that lived on the other side of the tracks.  Life seemed so much easier to live.  I did not see a visible struggle for the basics.  Food was a given, clothes were a given, braces and leather shoes were givens.  They seemed to start off at such a higher place.  For a kid living in a place where you were not sure if they lights would be on when you went home, that puzzled me.  I was for sure that life was not supposed to be this hard to live.   In turn, I never knew how much hard work went into being middle class.  I never knew that living in an upscale neighborhood cost more than living in my neighborhood.  I am talking about way more.  I did not know what it took to own a house or to really have a car.  I grew up on welfare, so much of my life at that time was free.  Even the Christmas toys were free.  My school lunch was free.  My medical bills were paid for by the State.  I thought free was equivalent until I grew up and paid for these services.  My medical treatments was different when it was paid for.  My specialist were more special, my home meant more to me after paying the taxes.  I took care of things that I paid for much better.  I eventually realized that free often was substandard.  Free came with strings attached that you did not see and often times, you really did end up paying.  David would not offer up to the Lord, that that cost him nothing.  Even if you have to buy it at the Goodwill, pay something.

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Games people play

Today, I was reading about Samson and he just disturbed me.  This GROWN man is playing riddles with the things of God like it is a common joke.  It reminded me of the games that people play.  When we get our teeth kicked in, we want to pray.  When the party is hot and the booze is free, we want to forget we are saved.  I thought it strange that a man who is supposed to be killing Philistines, would lay his head in the lap of a Philistine woman who had proven that she was unfaithful in the first two attempts to get him assassinated.  I just think that he was playing with fire.  Are you playing with fire?  Are you walking as close to the line as you can get?  Are you telling riddles and jokes with your salvation?

Richard Pryor said this, “ I don’t tell God jokes.  One day, I might wake up and it won’t be funny.”

God Knows

Romans 8:26-30

The Message (MSG)

^26-28Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
^29-30God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

Mixed

A pearl of life that I am pondering on, as I watch the shadows lengthen from my classroom window , is the word “mixer”.  I am a mixer.  I float in and out of microcosms like fluid honey.  One spot tends to bore me and my taste can be exotic.  You never know what I am genuinely attracted to.  That leaves me with a rather colorful world, a world where people often ask to be introduced to my friends.  A mistake that I have made in my life has been to hold the door open for someone who would not have gotten through the door if it had not been for me.  They weren’t prepared for it.  They weren’t ready for it and they certainly made a mess once they got in there.  I have taken the motto, “What God has for me is for me” , to a new level.  I am in the process of being recreated.  My social circles are changing.  I am physically changing and that is opening doors for me.  The doors have swung so wide, that others in my life feel beckoned to come with me.  No, this door I will go through alone and if it is supposed to open for you, you will knock and it will open.

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Cake and eat it too

1 Samuel 15:24-35

24 Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. 25 Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may worship the Lord.” 26 And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” 27 As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe, and it tore. 28 And Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. 29 And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” 30 Then he said, “I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may bow before the Lord your God.” 31 So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul bowed before the Lord.

32 Then Samuel said, “Bring here to me Agag the king of the Amalekites.” And Agag came to him cheerfully. [1] Agag said, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.” 33 And Samuel said, “As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.

34 Then Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house in Gibeah of Saul. 35 And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

Say it ain't so

I have come across the most interesting of liars.  They reside in places that you would not expect to find them.  They carry hope like a torch in the sky and they talk like dreamers for they are dreamers.  I used to think that dreams and lies are as different as night and day, but it just ain’t  so.  Even your dreams have boundaries that must be respected.  Even your dreams have to be found in the word of God with respect to its laws.  I am among a unique situation where some of my colleagues are not colleagues at all.  I went to college at 18 and developed a community of peers long before we entered the wealth building of our lives.  Then there are those whose only dream is to have the same experience some 25 years later.  They think that they are my peers because we seemingly hold the same degrees, but they are not my peers.  My peers are the ones who developed with me.  The lie of the dreamer is this vain glorious thought that they would not have to reap what they sowed if they got saved.  All they had to do was wave their magic wand in the air and suddenly they would be sitting by my side without the work or sacrifice.  I don’t reject them because they don’t belong there, I reject them because they are not my peers.

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Momentum

Once upon a time there was  a young, sickly little boy who watched his world turn upside down as the stream in the front of his home dried to a swamp.  At one time, it was teeming with life, but that was before the mudslide that left his father dead and him unable to walk without a cane.  They had lived on the banks of this stream for most of their lives and the mother had no plan on moving.  She supposed she would dig a deep well and they would continue to live near the swamp.  One day, the little boy heard the voice of God tell him to go to the top of the mountain and he would restore the river.  With his word, the little boy grabbed his cane, left a note on the door for his mother and went to the base of the mountain to climb it to the top.  It took him six months to get there and he arrived in the dead of winter.  He built a shelter and rested.  On the sixth day at the top, he petitioned God for instructions for he had reached the top, yet did not know what to do once he got there.  He heard God say to find a rock the size of an orange and roll it in the snow.  He did.  Then God said to roll it again.  He did.  When it got big enough, God said to roll it down the mountain.  He did.  By this time the stone was able to roll by itself.  It rolled down the mountain and out of sight.  After the winter had passed, the young boy made it down the mountain with the spring thaw.  When he got home, the river was deep and blue and was running full of fish.  He asked his mother how it happened and she told him that a boulder, the size of the sun came down the mountain leveling trees and blazing a deep ravine.  When it rested, it melted and filled the ravine with water.  The fish began to thrive and the animals who lived on them came back.  The boy smiled and put on his swimming clothes.  Through careful calculation he dove into the water and pulled out the stone that solved the problem.  Never underestimate momentum.

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The Valley of Baca

I can remember being about twenty-five.  That time in my life was like being invincible.  I could conquer the world.  I am convinced that I did not really have faith either.  I had the kind of faith that you could see because I had my life before me and I had hope.  I did not understand that one could live in a hopeless situation and that faith in a hopeless situation would be difficult.  I am writing this from a place of losing so much that is impossible to get back.  Even if my life becomes filled with people and things, they will not and cannot replace what I lost.  You could not have told me that I would hit the valley of Baca.  It is the valley of weeping or the valley of Lamentations.  It is the place that you come to that even righteousness does not deter.  Christ hit the valley.  God hit the valley.  I hit the valley.  The solace that I take in the valley is that it is a passageway between two highlands.  The only way to get to higher ground is to go through the valley.  It is a place that you just past through.  If you are not careful, you will pick up depression and find yourself living in the valley.  If you are not careful, you can make the wrong decision and find yourself stuck in the valley.  You can make the wrong decision at the wrong time and find yourself dying in the valley.  I then make it a point to find out if the situation I am in is one for which I am simply passing through.  I would not want to trouble myself by trying to make “happily ever after” concerning a place that I should have left a long time ago.  The understanding that you were not meant to stay is hope in itself.  If I just hold on for change, it will come.  Even if I stand in one spot and do nothing, change will come.  Now, when I go through the valley for I am sure that I will again return someday, I understand that this too, will pass.

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Innocence from a guilty place

If he would have been in church on the altar, or parking cars or even singing in the choir, there would be seventy five accounts against the word of the liar, but he was not there.

If he would have been on this job, his seven to three or three to eleven, he would have been alibied when the enemy lied, but he was not there.

If he was at home tucking in his children and shelving the book he read, he could not possibly be shooting someone dead, but he was not here either.

If he had been at the bowling alley, or at the show, or grocery shopping,  or shoveling snow. 

If he had been cleaning his car, or doing his hair, or running a marathon , I swear,

No one would have thought he would have a gun.

No one would have thought that he was shooting and hiding, drive-by riding, and throwing the gun in the weeds.

No one would have thought he was clutching the bullets in his chest and firing on the nation’s best.

No one would have thought, but he was not here

All I know, is that he had a gun, he was not here, he was in the night.

How can I proclaim your wrong was really a right.

I would, but you were not here.

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New

Over the past year, I have found it necessary to reinvent parts of myself.  The essence of me does not change, but the look definitely has. I began to think about salvation and the newness of it.  Sometimes, I think that we shortchange the newness that God can do after salvation.  If God created the mechanism to invent you, than surely he holds the key to reinvent you.  In this way, God can always produce a more beautiful you.  I am liking the me that God is recreating.  I am enjoying having the age to produce something that would have been questioned if I were younger.  What is God trying to do with you ?  Are you holding on to something out of tradition?  Maybe it worked fifteen years ago, but is obsolete now.  Maybe he made you new in 2001.  Ask him if it is time to make you new again.  It can really be a fun process.

I'm New
http://youtu.be/XT08zi4YeWQ

What you hoped for has come.

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

I can remember laying in bed as a child in the midst of poverty and despair.  The only thing I wanted in life was a cozy home in the western edge of town and to be in a “nice” neighborhood .  I wanted my family to have a car so that walking was not my only option and I wanted a beautiful wardrobe.  That was all a dream.  I did not have any of those things at that time, it was all just wishful thinking.  At the time, I was not built up to believe that my life would be any more than getting married to someone who worked at the tire plant and maybe having a couple of kids by age 25.  That was all that was handed to me.  Now, here I am at age 40 and what I always hoped for has come.  I live in the nice part of town in my own home.  I own a reliable car.  I have two closets full of clothing and I am the most secure that I have been in my life.  To forget what God has already done, is just to keep me living in the state of poverty that I grew up in.  No, some of my desires are sitting in my living room and in my driveway.  I am not in the same place that I was before and I am grateful.  To keep your eyes peeled on what you don’t have is to live in a state of poverty all your life.  At some point, you have to say that it is finished.  God has kept his promises to me and I now move into a place of simple enjoyment.  I may not be where I want to be, but thank God that I am not where I used to be.  God has greatly prospered my way.  The best is yet to come.

Why don't you take a praise break and raise your hands for the dreams he has already made come true.  God is still a dreamcatcher. 

---

Pharoe

Today, I thought about Pharoe.  When asked when he wanted to be delivered, he said, “Tomorrow”.  I find it odd that locust have eaten your crops, flies are in your hair, frogs have taken over the city and your water source has been defiled with blood yet you want to be delivered tomorrow.  I guess, for some people, things have to get worse before they can get better.  They are not really prepared for deliverance.  They aren’t prepared to be free.  I notice that they will come to your house and vent about their frustrations, but become angered when you make suggestions.  Even a battered wife, will find a good reason to stay with her abusive husband.  The moment you say, “leave him”, she thinks you want him for yourself.  She accuses you of trying to make decisions for her life and she rejects you.  That person is not ready to be delivered.  For this I say, just walk away.  It may take some stitches before she or he gets the hint, but this situation cannot clog up my joy and peace.  I have problems of my own.

Friendship

Whether in the urban jungle or

In Bum Fly

Whether hidden under rocks

Or dropped out the clear blue sky

A friend is a sanctified sounding board

I could only hope that life would award

This takes time, don’t run too soon

Some turn to werewolves on the full moon

Yes, I often mistook

A disciple for a crook

The smoke reveals the plume

The masked man in the costume

Real friends come of the stock

Who walk the walk and

Talk the talk

In my life I have only had a few

But I swear I’ll fly to Timbuktu

To this world there will be no end

To what I will do for a real friend.

A Christmas Present

General Sherman began his famous march to the sea.  When he came to a town that resisted him, he shot everybody shooting at him.  He took all the livestock for provisions.  He destroyed the place of their munitions.  He pulled up the railroad tracks and when he was done, he barbecued it.  Atlanta was a sprawling southern town made mostly of wood and it was feeding the southern war.  General Sherman’s fame reached Atlanta and when he arrived they had blown their own gun powder up.  All that was left to do was to burn it.  Sherman did just that, he burned it to the ground.  As he continued his march, he headed for Savannah only to find that they had surrendered.  General Sherman offered the city of Savannah to Abraham Lincoln as a Christmas present.  Four months later, the Civil war was over.

At the end of his victory, there was an offering.  When God brings you through a battle like the one you have been going through, commemorate the occasion.  I like to mark my victories so that I will never forget them.  Sit around the old oak tree and tell the story of how we got over.  There is nothing wrong with bragging on the God you serve.

Sherman's Plan/Don't Back Up

General Sherman offered this solution to his superiors.

1.        He would take no provisions.  He would live off the land.

2.       He would only take the ammunitions he needed.

3.       He would fight confederate soldiers, and anyone who took up arms against him.

4.       He would take possession of any farm animals and provisions from the enemy he conquered.

5.       He would burn down everything he did not want.

6.       He would destroy the railroad.

7.       He would wrap railroad ties around trees.

In other words, he killed everybody, stole everything and then burned it all to the ground.  Many people thought that General Sherman was crazy.  They even told him that they did not believe he was going to make it.  When you look back at it, it was a brilliant plan.  The spoils of war kept the cost low, and the damage he left behind made you think before fighting him.  He was not one to wait until you saw him coming to wave your flag.  He was one you sent a message to with your white flag in it.  Once he was engaged, he did not stop until all your pigs were in a wagon, all your belongings were in a flaming heap and all your sons were six feet under. 

Total warfare is about follow through.  Once you are engaged, you must follow through.  You can’t back up and look like you are changing your mind.  When you are fighting a strong enemy, hesitation can signal a chance to defeat you.

Total warfare

My Hero

William Tecumseh Sherman (February 8, 1820 – February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator and author. He served as a General in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–65), for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy as well as criticism for the harshness of the "scorched earth" policies that he implemented in conducting total war against the Confederate States.^[1] Military historian B. H. Liddell Hart famously declared that Sherman was "the first modern general".^[2

It takes a strategic plan to create a war campaign to end a bloody war.  General Sherman was a man who understood that the ordinary way of fighting just did not do.  One thing I strongly dislike, is when people don’t know how to get off the merry-go-round and try something new.  I have sat on committee’s that want to implement something new, but reject everything new.  General Sherman was tired of the war and he was willing to try something different.  I believe that you have to get tired of doing what is not working in your life.  If you keep fighting a battle with the same mentality, you will be defeated simply because there is no element of surprise.  The enemy knows exactly what you are going to do.  He does not expect you to praise God in the midst of cancer, or break out in singing in your loneliness or dance in the aisle when you lose your job.  You have got to do something else besides, hit the bottle or grab the pipe.  General Sherman was willing to take chances.  General Sherman employed a strategy called "total warfare".  He would not only strip the land of it's soldiers, but all it's resources rendering them helpless and waving a white flag.

Guerilla Warfare

When the British came over to fight the Revolutionary war, we were a young country with little munitions.  We were unskilled and we were outnumbered.  In Britain, they learned how to fight formally by lining up in  a line.  Someone said, “Fire” and they all fired their guns.  When they got up, the next group got on one knee until they fired their weapons.  As they fired, they advanced.  The colonist knew that they could not fight that kind of war, they weren’t trained for it.  They used a method of warfare made famous by the Native Americans already on the continent.  It is called Guerrilla warfare.  It is a type of guerilla warfare that involved shooting, running, hiding, and tricking.  It was winning by any means possible.  The Britain’s were no match for this type of warfare.  They were not used to having to find their target hiding in the swamps.  They also had bright red uniforms with a big white “X” telling us where to shoot.  It is no secret that we won.  I think that we try to formally fight the enemy.  We try to gain strength from just coming to church on Sunday and Wednesday.  We try to gain strength by just doing the conventional.  When the enemy is more powerful than you or simply just wiser, you have to get crazy.  You have to go and find a revival, call up a friend and have a shut in, pump Christian music in your home all day long.  You have to go to every service that your church offers and make a friend out of the strongest person you can.  This is not a cute fight.  It is a nonconventional battle.  This nonconventional battle requires nonconventional means.

Manuever War

This war strategy is a strategy where the enemy hits you so hard that you become disoriented and confused.  This is the blow  that has you seeing stars and catching your breath.  It is the kind of hit where you may have to stop and think about how to recover before you move on.  In December of 1941, the Japanese army did just that at Pearl Harbor.  They hit us so hard that it took us a while to recover.  In Germany, they called this, "The Blitz".  I acknowledge that the enemy can punch you and leave you heaving, but the key is in how you get your wits about yourself.  After Pearl Harbor, it was like awakening a sleeping giant.  America came back and ended the entire war by dropping two bombs on two cities.  Now, all over the world people talk about why we did that.  I remind historians who question our ethics that we did not start the fire.  They bombed us first.  The blows of the enemy can shake us, but we should get up with the resolve to take them out.  We have the power because we have God.  The Father, the Son and the Holyghost is a deadly combination.  Japan may have won the battle, but America won the war.  You need to come back into the ring swinging until the bell rings.  I know that the blow will knock you off your feet, but it should not knock you out the ring.

Shut Up

A war of attrition can come upon you from people you would not think are attacking you.  When the enemy is trying to wear you out, he keeps coming at you in an area that you are weak until you just give in.  This is the couple trying to have a baby, who has to put up with meddling relatives asking them every five seconds if they are expecting.  This is the mother who crosses the line to remind her son or daughter that they really should lose weight every time their feet push under the table.  This is the meddling father who constantly reminds the daughter, that she is not getting any younger and she needs to get married, despite the numerous failed relationships from which she needs a break.  This is the church mother who is trying to hook you up with a husband while trampling on your right to privacy, like you need her help.  This is the person who constantly reminds you that you don't have the finances you need.  If they said it once, it may have been a constructive.  When they said it twice, it was irritating.  When they said it three times, it was an attack.  The attack was to make you jump up and do something without thinking just so you can get the enemy to shut up.  I can remember when many people seemed to violate the privacy of my life with their notions of how they think it should have ran.  When I got tired of the voices, I shut them up.  I told all them married women who stayed in my business to go to their own homes, jump in the bed with their own husbands and leave me alone.  I told my relatives that my weight was not their problem nor their concern.  I cut off a whole side of my fathers family because they could not accept a woman in ministry.  I have stopped folks in mid sentence.  I have addressed them while the words are oozing from their mouth, not because they were trying to help me, but because they were trying to attack me.  The problems for most of us is that we don't know when we are attacked.  We get confused because the attacker is our mother or our father or our friend.  Sometimes, you got to look folks in the eye and rebuke the devil if they are acting like the devil.  I love my relatives, but they ain't above God, so in the name of Jesus, get off my back.



An Attack
http://youtu.be/feK8DO8t-Ow

Not an Attack
http://youtu.be/TEmhq6tgY9Q

War of Attrition

War is not pretty, but it is necessary.  One day, while studying something for a class unit, I began to take a strong look at the strategies of how man fights man.  If these strategies work on man, then they may be strategies the enemies uses to defeat us.  As we know, Lucifer tried to exalt his throne above God and I read no where in the Bible where he still is not trying to do it.  He is trying his best to get the best of God.  One example of military strategy is a War of attrition.  In a war of attrition, the enemy attempts to wear out his opponent.  The Vietnam war was a war of attrition, the North Vietnamese were sure that they could tire the South Vietnamese.  It worked.  In a war of attrition, you have to make the enemy think twice about repeated attacks.  As long as America was in the conflict, we gave them everything we had.  It is only when we left that the South Vietnamese were overcome.  While we were there, the enemy thought twice about attacking.  If the enemy wants to keep attacking, you have to show him that it is not worth his while.  Bothering me makes me go deeper in God.  I run to the rock quicker.  I call for help sooner.  I get on the altar earlier.  I want the enemy to think long and hard before he attacks me, it just may make me go higher.  Don't let this tactic wear you out.  The enemy only backs off when the strategy is not working.



War
http://youtu.be/bX7V6FAoTLc

Shoutin time

The process of becoming something great is a great thing.  I like the ending but I love the process.  Sometimes, if you just stop and think about where you are versus where you were, you will run in the aisle.  I may not be where I want to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be.  I don’t have to run from elephants in the living room and I can shut my door on every kind of confusion.  You have to have an appreciation for the desert.  It sure ain’t Egypt.  I keep a scrapbook of different events in my life, so that I can do just that.  I like the to take that stroll down memory lane and then burst out into a shout when I see how far the Lord has brought me from.  If God has brought you from a mighty long way.  If God has turned your life right side up, here is your music.  Find some space and let loose.

Karen Clark Sheard 101 Convocation

http://youtu.be/A5XBNJ6lMyU

Pray

When I was a child, I remembered senseless praying.  The saints would pray for people that I wrote off in my mind as useless.  They prayed for people so close to death, that even the doctor had given up and went home.  I can remember a time when you prayed until there was no need to pray.  I miss that time.  Now, people pray until the odds are against them, but they don't pray against the odds.  They pray until God makes a decision but they then don't pray for mercy.  They pray for God to fix the problem, then don't pray for God to fix the problem maker.  We need to pray until there is nothing else left to pray for.  Hope against hope.  Until God gets me off my knees, I am praying.




I know what prayer can do.
http://youtu.be/ZE4QRK9Qr8o

Intent

God knows the heart and the intent of it.  We all tend to think that if we talk a lot, we can hide intent, but the sad fact is that intent is hard to hide.  Whenever I am with a person for whom I am looking for deception, they seem to follow the same pattern.  Private people, like myself, let you know from the beginning of the relationship that I will not tell you everything about me.  I have nothing to hide, but my life is not a museum.  I am pretty forward.  Liars are different.  Most of them try to find something to say.  They have spent time making up excuses and rehearsing lines so that when the subject comes up, they have a quick and easy answer.  it is almost, too convenient.  Many liars resort to the answer that they think makes all their problems go away.  "I don't know".  I have heard this in so many forms."I blanked out and when I woke up, I was in handcuffs", or "I hit my head and I can't remember anything" or "I got confused because of a medication I was on".  Intent is rarely said through the mouth, but if you watch what they do, it becomes as apparent as the sun at noon.   Behavior speaks louder than words.

Don't Know Why I Didn't Come
http://youtu.be/tO4dxvguQDk

I slept like a baby

Sometimes, I meet people in real danger.  I am talking about the kind that someone can end up in a coffin over.  I used to think that they were scared to come out.  Now, I think that there is something that they gain for being in the situation, even if the situation is bad.  I saw the danger a person was in and I knew that doing something about it, would destroy the thing she loved about it.  In order to help her, I would have to hurt her.  As I accessed, the look in her eyes pleaded for me to just be quiet.  She wanted me to allow her to continue in the awkward situation  and let it be.  Well, there was tears.  I filled out a ton of paperwork.  I talked to people and they talked to their people.  One by one, her world fell apart.  There was anger and veiled threats.  There was shaking fist and profane words.  There was a decision and nothing about it was pretty.  I didn't mean to make it pretty.  I meant to make it safe.  Even though her world was left in ruins, I went home and slept like a baby.

A friend that smells like rain

How dirty things can get

How grimy, how smelly, how wet

But she comes as a hero unsung

To whisper hope no matter how far flung

She sweetens my garbage dump

With a righteous sugar lump

My trial has run and she

Has done a job well done

Oh, how I sometimes pray in vain

For a friend who can make the sewer

Smell like rain.

Barbie Doll

I have spent over half my life as a motherless daughter.  I am super sensitive to the relationships between mothers and daughters.  My own mother was overweight and had big feet.  Though she prayed and prayed, I was born and I became overweight.  My feet aren't little.  I can remember thinking about her comments on my looks.  What did she think she was getting?  I was born with the same flaws as her.  I cringe when I hear women call their daughters names.  "She's too black", "Her hair is nappy", "She should have been a lawyer", "When will she get married".  Sometimes, the rule we use to judge our daughters, just is not fair.  They should not have to be perfect.  Sometimes, it is good to allow them to make mistakes, celebrate triumphs and learn from the life they live.  The Barbie doll, with the pink Cadillac, aquamarine pool and gorgeous boyfriend named, Ken, has never existed.  Love your daughter if she dropped out of school, cut off all her hair and wore a suit two sizes to small. 

As the ruins fall

As the Ruin Falls
by C. S. Lewis

"All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains."

Saturn

My life in the kingdom of God is like being in another world.  Though, there were struggles in God, they don't compare to struggles out of God.  I was young when I became a Christian, but I still remember what it was like to be in a room full of adults and unable to trust a single one of them.  I still can remember realizing that I would have to take care of myself.  I can remember getting dressed in the dark with no running water.  I don't recall hearing the word love from anyone in my family.  I can recall the culture of aggression where you had to walk around looking like you are mad and about to snap just to feel safe.  I remember seeing prostitutes on the corner with mesh blouses that you could see straight through.  I remember the park that I could not play in because the alcoholics needed a place to spend their endless days.  I remember the police cars going to yet another domestic abuse situation.  I remember the fears of being left alone, afraid of the dark, for days at a time.  I remember the bullies who were abused children used to the cycle and I remember the friends who got pregnant far to soon.  When I think of the culture of sin and deprivation, I am so glad I had another world to escape into and exhale.

Saturn/Stevie Wonder
http://youtu.be/p3KpUO6t9qQ

Silence

Today, I am thinking about the places I have been.  In some places, I was comfortable.  In some places, their obsession was a source of discomfort.  Some places, I have been, are places they perseverate on being thin.  I was not thin.  I was uncomfortable.  In some places, they perseverate on money.  I am not rich yet.  In some places, they perseverate on marriage.  I am not married.  Being pretty confident, I am living alright with my flaws and idiosyncrasies.  I make myself comfortable by keeping my mind on other things, but when the system you are in is obsessed with the thing you are trying to forget,  it can get under your skin.  In order to remain single without acting like a complete fool, I only discuss my love life with a dear friend in another country.  Everyone else is warned politely to mind their own business.  I find that constantly talking about an issue can create a psychosis that could lead to bad decisions on my part.  I think I am too old to make a bad decision in some areas.  What I like about God, is that I don't have to beat a dead horse with Him.  He knows what I need before I ask.  I don't have to remind Him, he is not senile.  I don't have to scream, He has perfect hearing.  What I really like, is that I don't have to talk.  Sometimes, my moans and groans are all that he needs.  I love sitting in his presence in complete silence.  I am not clapping and speaking in tongues and rolling on the floor or putting on a horse and pony show for him to respond to me.  In sweet compline, I just sit and allow the tears to roll and I know that how I feel and what I want to say has been communicated.  We don't have to talk about it.   We don't have to talk about my sickness.  We don't have to talk about my finances.  We don't have to talk about my career.  We don't have to talk about love.



We don't have to talk about love/Peabo Bryson
http://youtu.be/hLvY2nIMsek

Life after You

Though I have been a christian for many years, my relationship with God has not always been the best.  Having no authority in my early years that you could trust left me even doubtful of God.  He knew this and often times, he would choose to conversate about things he knew was wrong with me.  The result of those times, was me packing my bags and saying that I was done.  I was done so much that I had gotten used to the cycle.  In the back of my mind, I was waiting for God to fail me.  I didn't stop coming to church, I just stopped responding.  I went deadly silent.  I prayed for everyone except me.  I repented of my sin and I gave that precious tithe.  When God got personal, I went to sleep.  Those were undoubtedly the worse moments of my life.  Yes, the times when I wandered through religion walking the white chalk line, but refusing to kiss his presence.  God was relentless.  He never stopped trying to reach me.  He kept pulling for me.  The saints told me that God was through with me.  I accepted it because that was what I thought anyway.  I was well into my christian years before I really believed he loved me.  What drew me back every time, was the life I lived after God.  I was a robot just going to make the donuts.  I had no purpose.  My timing was off.  My schedules were off.  My life came to a screeching halt, and even as a christian, I contemplated ending it all. 

I came back.


Life after You
http://youtu.be/3RsirVKkkcA

I have problems of my own

I’m gone need your stuff off my plate

I have problems of my own

I don’t mean to exaggerate but

I have problems of my own.

My need to eliminate

Every problem but my own

It will cause me to dislocate

Every problem but my own

You see, I am the chief of state

Of every problem that I own

And I can’t reciprocate

The problems that I own

So I will need you to cooperate

With the problems that you own

And do not suffocate

With problems not my own.

I must go, It is late

and I have problems of my own

Simply sweet and the Master's touch

Every now and then, the nights become increasingly darker and I can't bear the light.  I see the grey pouring over my existence and I settle into the blues.  In a life of repeated loss, it just comes and sits on my bed like it lives here.  It does.  Silly women think a man will chase it away.  Little do they know that I have been in a room full of people, and they don't discern that his head is in my lap.  While they talk of trivial matters, I talk to the blues.  I'm humming his tune and he is relaxing me.  As many times as the faceless monster called death has knocked at my door, I have learned to relax with him around.  I might as well, he comes and goes often.  This comfort with losing has led me to a place where losing doesn't sting anymore.  In order to heal me, I had to feel loss again.  There are two young ladies in my life, who are more special to me than my closest relative.  I call them ladybugs.  One is simply sweet and the other has the master's touch. One you can't out preach, the other you can't outwork.  They are the closest that I have allowed someone to get in a while.  One day, I thought it appropriate to allow them to live without the nearness of me.  To my surprise, they cried.  I was rebuked and for the first time in a long time, I felt their loss.  I cry when they are mistreated.  I want to defend them.  I take up their causes and pledge to keep them as close to me as possible.  They have taught me how to feel.  Sometimes, it did not feel good, but I felt.  Losing everything, at one point, was just a way of life.  Now losing everything is like the sun going down on me.


Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me
http://youtu.be/FI5xme5k5AQ

I survived

Growing up in God was a chore.  I became a christian when I was twelve.  Being so young in God meant that a lot of life would happen while "in God".  My most disappointing day came as a christian.  My fears and failures developed when I was a christian.  I know now, what most of the older saints did not know.  Many of them became Christians after a life of sin and consequences.  They told me that being saved meant that I would not have those consequences, but they did not really know the cost of being saved young.  Most just lied because they did not have the testimony.  As time went on, I realized that salvation is not your guarantee that life will be sweet.  It is not your guarantee that troubling days won't come and stay for a while.  It simply means that you are going to cross the swelling of the Jordan with God.  He is not going to remove the Jordan.  Then there were the times when there was a denial.  God told David that he would not build a temple.  That must have hurt David.  I know now that some of my greatest dreams are not going to come to pass.  I know that you can be in the midst of a christian life and fill totally unfulfilled and unhappy.  I know that you can cry your worst tears in God.  It is a sobering knowing and one that makes me smile.  In time, you temper your desires, and keep moving on.  The day after I realized that life was just going to be rough for a while, I took a deep breath and lived it.  My absolute worst fears came upon me and something wonderful happened........................I survived them.  I looked around me and I was still here.  I decided that I can't allow myself to waste time worrying about what will never be.  I suck it up and live the life I have one day at a time.  In time, I even learned to create new desires to replace the dead ones.  You learn to recreate your desires to fit where you are now.  I refuse to not live the life I have.

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

A ten-year-old boy was failing math. His parents tried everything from tutors to hypnosis; but to no avail. Finally, at the insistence of a family friend, they decided to enroll their son in a private Christian school.

After the first day, the boy's parents were surprised when he walked in after school with a stern, focused and very determined expression on his face. He went straight past them, right to his room and quietly closed the door.

For nearly two hours he toiled away in his room - with math books strewn about his desk and the surrounding floor. He emerged long enough to eat, and after quickly cleaning his plate, went straight back to his room, closed the door and worked feverishly at his studies until bedtime.

This pattern of behavior continued until it was time for the first quarter's report card. The boy walked in with it unopened - laid it on the dinner table and went straight to his room. Cautiously, his mother opened it and, to her amazement, she saw a large red 'A' under the subject of Math.

Overjoyed, she and her husband rushed into their son's room, thrilled at his remarkable progress. "Was it the teachers that did it?" the father asked.

The boy shook his head and said "No."

"Was it the one-to-one tutoring? The peer-mentoring?"

"No."

"The textbooks? The teachers? The curriculum?"

"No", said the son. "On that first day, when I walked in the front door and saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I KNEW they meant business!"

---

Choaked by the Cloak

He lay in the cradle, cooing to sound and totally void of sight.

Responding to the voice of a lullaby, but unable to respond to light

His father Timaeus cried all night until his robe was soaked

He prayed that the future would be secure, consistent, legally, permanently cloaked.

The cloak would keep him from hunger and the cloak would keep him from cold

It was a perfect plan for a young blind man, but an embarrassment to an old.

He begged in the heat.  He begged in the rain.  He begged when he was sick.  He begged when he was afraid.

His voice was rasped, his body ached and the ends of the cloak wore frayed.

Now, at night it wraps around his neck and he awakes gasping for air.

Sometimes it brushes his cheek and he reaches to find that no one is there.

He hopes someone can untangle him from the cloak he needed each day.

He is tripping on it, stepping on it, just one thought from giving it away.

Bartamaeus unhooked the cloak and waited for Jesus to pass by.

When he heard that he passed his way,  he flung it to the sky.

Yes, when he heard Jesus passing his way, he flung it into the sky.

Change in the time of Change.

I have a friend of a friend who did the unthinkable.  He went back to college at the age of fifty and got his teaching certifiicate.  In class he was the wonder boy.  He was celebrated for the act of being persistent and changing the path of his life.  He was favored.  He graduated at the wonderful age of fifty-five.  In his mind, he thought that he was going to recieve what the college kids recieved who attended college in their twenties.  He even thought himself superior to those people.  Upon graduation, life settled in and one by one, all the youngsters began to get their first job.  He went on interviews and waited.  He never got called.  You see, fifty-five is too old to enter the teaching profession as a budding teacher.  You are so close to retirement that you will end up being a liability to the district.  I guess he did not thing that that mattered.  His timing did matter.  He did lose something by his lack of common sense.  Often times, we feel that if we just change with the times we will lose nothing.  This person changed and found that he lost everything.  There is a time and a season where you can sin and their is not enough time to make things right.  He should have been striving to change his career path while he could still give the district a twenty year reign.  As it stands, he may only be able to give ten before they would have to put more money into him than he would earn.  They don't tell the oldtimers that in college.  The old timers come to class with their shorts on and a bucket of coffee trying to relive what they did not do in their youth and it is sad.  They enter a market that leaves them out in the cold.  By the age of fifty, he should have been a superintendent or a dean, not a begining teacher, but no one told him that.  No one said that you will not have the same experience as those who attended college in the time of attending college.  You have to change in the time of changing.

Ashamed

When I was a budding fourteen,  my grandfather did the most embarrassing thing.  He dug up our backyard and planted mustard greens from the back porch to the alley.  Across the street from the home where he lived, there was one of those community centers where they handed out the free cheese, butter and powdered eggs.  In the cool of the morning, you could see the glistening faces waiting patiently for blocks of cheese aged by neglect and grade B butter dyed yellow.  They also handed out dried goods and I do mean dried goods.  Half of my hometown came out to get that old food and they were happy.  My grandfather was born in 1922.  He was a boy turning teen when the depression took hold of America.  I am told that they survived by hunting in the woods and growing their own food.  My grandfather had no shame in his green patch.  When times got hard, he bought a package of bacon and picked himself a pot of greens.  It was like seeing two worlds.  In one world, poverty was an advantage.  In the other world, poverty was fought like Goliath.  My great aunts and uncles would do just about anything to keep their heads above water and out of the soup line.  When I think of the jobs they held just to keep the family farm afloat, I am ashamed, not of them, but of us.  I have never chopped sugarcane.  I have never picked cotton.  I have never made a pot of soup out of a pig's tail and I have never made hog's head cheese.  These are skills that my grandfather had just to survive.  To think, I was ashamed of that green patch.  Over the years, I can remember a lot of people getting a pot of greens from the greens patch.  My grandfather always told the people to pinch the leaves off so that more would grow.  He did not just feed himself, he fed his community, and I was ashamed.

Deep

Shallow people are like shallow pools of water

No ripples or waves clear to the dirt

I can kick and splash with no regard

For getting the water on the hem of my skirt

If I stay too long the pool will fail

And the water will dry in the sun

It’s as though the end was prevalent

Before the beginning begun

Now, deep is something different

It’s pool has a tide and wave light bent

It ripples with earthquakes underneath

The place volcanoes vent

There my dead things are not disturbed

My demons so in the deep

I can splash on the surface with the dolphins

And my dragons can still sleep

I can come to the surface in full sun

And see the ships go past

Then retreat to a cave full of darkness

Peace and quiet at last

Playing God

I teach behaviorally disordered children.  They all have their differences.  To reward them, I give them a token for being good.  You can get up to 100 tokens a day.  At the end of the week, they spend the tokens on a little store that I set up.  When I have a severely problematic child, I may give them a token for doing things that the other children do automatically.  One child would not sit in his seat.  I gave him a token for sitting in his seat.  The other children received a token for getting their work done, but not for being in their seat.  On another day, I gave this troublesome child a token for staying in the room and not having to be put out.  I gave the other children tokens for getting their work done.  As time progressed, I had to reward my troubled child earlier in the day for him to make it through the day.  I rewarded him for the small gains he was taking but I only rewarded the students who did what they were supposed to do, their regular tokens.  One day, I looked at my chalkboard and behold, the kid who acted like an "nut" had more money than the kids who did not.  Now, I played God.  I took that chalk and I gave bonus after bonus to the children who did what they were supposed to do without reward.  I stood back, and if it did not look the way I wanted it to, I added more.  I usually did this on a Thursday because shopping day was Friday.  I made it so that the ones who were obedient had a lot of money, then I went to set up shop.  I priced things according to how much money they had.  My troubled child could only afford a bag of chips, but the others could get groceries.  If I had a special activity planned, I prepared the staff.  We took off our earrings, took off our shoes and rolled up our pants.  We did this because tokens don't buy special activity, behavior does.  The troublesome kid got the chips but he don't get the kit and caboodle.  Now, I have to just tell him that he did not earn the activity.  He will not get to go outside and play with the water guns when all he did was sit in his seat.  He will not get to make cookies when all he did was stay in the room.  Those rewards are for those children who did their work..  If he got mad, well, then we did what we had to do to stay safe.  God is like that in a way.  Heaven belongs to everyone, but that does not mean that all will get the same reward.  In the end, God will equalize things.  Heaven is the reward for repentance, but your crown is your reward for righteousness.  Some will get the crown and some will get wood, hay and stubble.

Plaid Illusions

I grew up in a town that was part blue collar and part white collar.  In high school, there was this grand illusion.  Some of my classmates had parents who worked shifts at the plant.  Others had jobs in the professional sector.  At school, you could not tell the difference.  The doctor's kids came to school with plaid shorts and polo shirts.  The shift workers kids came to school with plaid shorts and polo shirts.  They partied together, they played sports together, they attended rally's together and they graduated together.  I wasn't in the crowd, but I did have the sense to know that the doctor's kids and I were not on the same plane.  We weren't in the same field.  I way out of their league.  I knew that I was not going to be successful without a college education and staying out of trouble.  What good would a college education do me if I was in jail or pregnant.  The shift workers were not like that, they really thought that they were equal to the kids with professional parents.  When I returned to my high school for my ten year reunion, life had dealt some heavy blows.  Two of my classmates were doctors.  That did not surprise anyone.  One of my classmates went to West Point.  That did not surprise us.  I showed up as a teacher with Reverend on the front of my name.  NO ONE was surprised.  The group that we were surprised by, were the kids of the shift workers.  The nineties was cruel as we saw one factory after another head for the border.  Those whose parents took shifts instead of going to college, were left jobless.  Their children woke up from the dream and landed in a nightmare.  Though they wore plaid shorts, they did not have secure futures and they were too busy with their IZOD jackets to notice it.  By the time our twenty year rolled around, most of the shift workers were in low paying jobs, self-employed or in prison.  You would be amazed at how many were in prison.  Some were just wandering around town trying to be twenty-one all over again.  I can hear them now, "If I knew then what I know now............."

The Gates

Another form of history tracking is what you allow in the gates.  You have five of them, the eye gate, the ear gate, the mouth gate, the mind gate and the heart gate.  You can develop patterns in the eye gate which are the things you historically allow yourself to see.  You have a pattern in the ear gate of what you historically allow yourself to hear.  You have patterns in the mouth gate that governs what you say.  You have a gate in the mind of what you allow yourself to think and of the heart on the things you allow yourself to love.  I used to have very open gates.  I listened to anything, I said anything and so on and so on.  I was born into a family that had very open gates.  We did everything but repent.  When I became serious about being a christian, the gates became regulated.   For a season, I refused to see rated R movies.  I began to dress conservatively, meaning, everything was covered up.  I began listening to gospel music.  I refused to date boys who were not saved.  I am learning to be more positive than negative.  My mind gate is the gate I have the hardest time keeping guarded, but I won't stop trying.  Everything around you has to be selective and even exclusive.  I have learned to go to art museums just for the glimpse of beauty on the wall.  I stroll through gardens.  I listen to positive music.  You can't go wrong with gospel, but now, I have added some secular artist who are not vulgar.  I have learned to tame my tongue.  I don't say everything that I want to say.  I refuse to allow myself the luxury of profanity.  Speaking ugly makes you look ugly.  If a movie doesn't have some sort of deep point, I am not interested and  always skip the love scenes.  Most of all, I guard my emotions.  I can't fall in love with the enemy and hope it will work out anyway.  Guarding my gate is a full time job, but here are the things I will gladly let in.  I learned them at tonight's Bible study which has greatly affected my life.

Whatsoever things are pure
Whatsoever things are lovely
Whatsoever things are honest
Whatsoever things are true
If there is any virtue( Meaning Deep)
If there is any praise
I will let you in.

I love this song because this scripture is in it.
Treat Myself/Stevie Wonder
http://youtu.be/RLO19VjHjEs

Negative Success

Negative success is the term I use for being in the condition of losing and gaining.  As a child, I saw my parents buy cars and then lose them.  We had a house and then we lost it.  We had power and then we lost it.  Every time we took one step forward, we took two steps back.  It became our history and our pattern.  I knew if we got something, not to hold on to it because it would be a matter of time before we would lose it again.  Well, that pattern was hooked up to their behavior.  They had a history of signing up for items on a payment plan and then not paying on the payment plan.  Therefore, the furniture was taken back, the china cabinet was taken back and every car they owned was repossessed.  The Bible states that the wicked borrow and do not pay it back.  I remember when they did not pay the power bill and we had no electricity for a year.  I learned something from that.  Going from flop to failure and from failure to flop is not the pattern I want to establish in my life.  One associate of mine has lost more jobs than I have fingers to count them.  We both are at a point in our lives where we should have something but she is starting all over again.  Once again, the blood covers her sin, but she has to change her behavior.  Negative success looks bad over time.  When I was 21, none of us had anything.  We were in college and money was hard to come by.  When I got thirty, we were at least established in our fields with roots or we were in graduate school.  In my thirties, we worked in our careers, started families, bought homes and managed the debt of the previous decade.  Now that I am forty, I am not looking for someone still in college eating Ramen noodles.  Someone who shows up at that age with nothing tells me that there had to be some kind of negative success.  Somehow, that person blew it and is blossoming a bit late.  It looks bad to be forty and living in your parents basement.  It looks bad when you are forty and your kids are taking care of you.  It looks bad when you are trying to date someone established and they have to pick you up, pay for the dinner, get the tip, buy the coffee, pay the parking meter and then drop you off before the lights go out at the mission.  Righteousness will give you a victory to victory history.  It leaves you impressive.  it makes you glow like new money.  It makes you able to pick me up in your second car, drive me to a great restaurant, pay for dinner, get the tip, buy the dinner coffee and sit by the lake until the fireflies turn off.  That is the kind of success I like.

Potted Meat

When I was a child, my mother often took me to the store for a treat.  She bought potted meat, saltine crackers and Nehi soda.  Boy, we sat in front of the television and we ate like we were kings and queens.  When I got older, I loved to eat potted meat sandwiches using white bread.  One day, I found out what was in potted meat and I decided that it was not good for me.  I still have the taste for potted meat, but I refuse to eat potted meat again.  There are some things in my life that I have a taste for.  I could live off of that substance for the rest of my life, if I had to.  I know how to live if your water gets shut off.  I know how to live without electricity.  I know how to eat off of ten dollars for a week.  I can live with a drug addict and an alcoholic without it affecting me.  That  was the life I lead as a child and I mastered getting out of it by mastering it, but just like the potted meat, I refuse to live like that anymore.  Even though I know how to live with a drug addict, I refuse to live with a drug addict.  Even though I know how to make it off of ten dollars, I refuse to eat cheap.  At this point in my life, what I mastered to get here is irrelevant.  I am on a different plane and on a different level.  I am not trying to live a "potted meat" life for the rest of my life.  I deserve more than that and you do to.  You may have some questionable friends whom you actually get along with, but they are not the best people to be around.  I have relatives I dearly love, who I will gladly send to jail.  I just refuse to live beneath my privilege even if I mastered living beneath my privilege.