Some things just take time.

The Mexican agave plant can take up to forty years to bloom, especially, if it is growing without cultivation at all.  I asked the Lord, who would want a plant that is only going to bloom once in their lives.  If they are lucky, they may catch a second bloom, but no one will live to see the third generation of the plants offspring for the plant dies after blooming.  They call this plant, the century plant.  The impressiveness of the bloom makes it all worth the wait.  Some crops will just have to be waited on.  They are not late.  They are not delayed.  They are not sick.  They are not denied.  They are on time.  Your harvest will come, it just takes time.  People who cultivate this plant put in work for years before they see the bloom.  If they stopped watering the plant and taking care of it, you run the risk of not seeing anything at all.  What a shame and waste of time and energy.  The old folks used to say, " I believe I'll run on to see what the end is gone be."  They did not judge a thing before it's time.  At weddings, they were silent.  Baby christenings, they just smiled.  They knew that time was going to tell what that marriage or that child would grow up to be.  Only after the manifestation is there a proclamation.  They knew this.  All things are revealed by time.  All things.

I Rest

I have a secret comfort.  At the end of the day when there is nothing left to do but go home, I take the long way.  I swerve through streets and country roads just to take part of this wonderful thing called light. It always amazes me how just little spots of brilliance takes the fear out of an alleyway or the danger from sidewalk.  I don't just look at the streetlights, but the lamp light that makes the living room glow like warm cider.  In some homes, you see the television set playing and people resting on the couch.  In the purple eve, I also see someone sweeping off a front porch or playing with a dog.  College kids are getting ready to unwind at the Pub while Wednesday night church goers are coming in from Bible study with their children.  Me, I am circling the block like a dog does his favorite sleeping spot and then, when I settle, I bring it on home.  There simply has to be a time of day, when your not doing something, a time of day when "nothing" is the order.  It is my time to stare at the moon and count every star and cry.  I love to cry in the evening.  Nothing says rest like knowing, "It is finished".  We will resurrect tomorrow morning and begin again, but for now, I rest.

Too

When the prophet, Jeremiah, had to prophesy that the children of Israel would go into exile, it was not well received.  No one wants to hear that a storm is coming.  Some of them foolishly stayed in Jerusalem while the rest were headed to Babylon.  Jeremiah did not just leave them with the words of exile, but he also gave them words of instruction.  He said,

 

Build a home, Plant a garden, Marry and have children, Pray for the peace of Babylon.

 

 

These are the words he gave so that they could survive the seventy years.  I interpret them as this.

 

Build a home so you are not too cold, Plant a garden so that you are not too hungry, Establish a family so that you are not too lonely and Pray so that you have hope.

 

Difficult situations are just that, they are difficult, but the sun shines on your good days and your bad days.  Enjoy it.  There are still things to smile about in your bad days.  Make your home your sanctuary.  Make it the place where you can lay your head down and find peace.  Keep your refrigerator stocked with foods that bring you pleasure and good health.  Don’t neglect your meal times.  Take time to eat a good meal.  Make sure you have plenty of opportunities to socialize.  Pray without ceasing.  It gives you hope for a better day whether you will be alive to see it on this side or the other side.  You don’t have to live a defeated life just because you are in Babylon.

---

 

Embrace the shadows

I am now a mature woman in my forties and I think I can safely say that I have learned to embrace every part of who I am.  At a young age, I had a very small system of support of which all was gone by the time I reached  forty.  My brothers were absent or dead.  My parents were fertilizing daises and my family was limited to calls on Christmas or Thanksgiving.  At some point, I had to learn how to embrace loneliness.  I wore it like a scarlet letter until I decided that I was going to embrace it.  I spend so much time alone, that I feel violated by those willing to take up my precious thinking time with vain repetition.  I got comfortable with death.   I walk through cemeteries just for the peace of it.  I can wear black every day.  I dance in the rain. I play melancholic music and I cry every evening for cleansing.  I used to be ashamed of my journey.  It seemed like God had cursed me with a lonely life.  Now, I embrace every solitary moment.  It is my portion.   I have sunshine in my life.  I have my share of greatness, but I don't struggle to embrace that.  No one has to tell me show off my trophies.  I embrace that.  No one has to beg to see my degrees.  I embrace that.  It's the shadows that I want to leave hidden.  It is the shadows that I want to leave behind.  I have heard people say, embrace the light.  I say, embrace the shadows.

Total Eclipse of the heart
http://youtu.be/ykexpgHrTkI
 

---

 

It's OK

At one time in my life, I had to a get exactly what I wanted from God and everyone else.  I had ideals.  I had dreams that would float me out the nearest window.  I enjoyed that time.  As I got older, I had to reassess those ideals to see if I wanted to put the effort into it.  Some, I put my whole heart into.  Some,  I abandoned.  I am not in that place anymore.  No, where I am is in the place where I understand that there are some things that are simply not going to happen in my lifetime.  If I was younger, I would cry my brown eyes blue, but I don’t have to have that now.  It is perfectly alright that my portion has what it has and doesn’t have what it doesn’t have.  I don’t want what is not mine and all that I have I will own.  It may be darkness, it may be sadness, but it is mine.  It may be challenging and it may be overwhelming at times, but it is mine.  I find that is O.K. to embrace the part of you that you don't want to embrace.  I don't have to dress up the rough spots and smooth over the dry patches.  I don't have to believe for something that I will never have just to seem pious.  It's really O.K.  That is a good place to be.

---

 

Bliss

Today, I went to see my old hometown.  It was a press, since I literally had to find someone to go with me.  Traveling down the highway through the familiar place that I know as home, my heart began to lift.  As I saw the land begin to roll like gentle foothills and the vast cornfields turn to forest with deer, I cried inner tears.  Oh how I remember this place because it was the place I met God.  I still remember the day in January.  It was a warm winter because we never had really cold winters.  I told God that I would give him a try for a week.  That week has turned into almost 30 years.  When I go back home, I still can see the church where I got saved and the church where I got filled one block from each other.    I see change and I see rebuilding.  I see old icons walking down the street and faces I have never seen.  Despite the changes, I really love this two horse town.  I guess you can call it bliss.

Georgia by Ray Charles
http://youtu.be/yZceOIAh1i0

---

 

Dying everyday.

1 Corinthians 15:31

New Life Version (NLV)

³¹ I say this, Christian brothers, I have joy in what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for you. That is why I face death every day.

It is hard to face death.  I have had to entertain it for my times than I thought necessary.  I guess you are wondering about physical death.  Yes, I have faced that too, but the death that I endure most often is internal death.  There are parts of me that try to live.  They keep coming back like zombies in the night.  I killed them once before, but they don't stay dead.  They want to be resurrected because Satan is a master counterfeiter.  He wants to do what God does.  God resurrects dead things and Satan wants to resurrect the dead things in your life.  He keeps those old memories of past failures, past victimization and past hurts ready to come back and haunt you.  Well, if you killed it the first time, just get your Bible and kill it again.  Sometimes, you have to do it once and it never comes back.  Other times, you have to do it daily.  In certain seasons, you will kill it at six o'clock and then see it walking in your living room at nine.  Just kill it again.  You may have to starve it by giving it no attention.  You may have to strangle it by choking the life out of it.  You may have to pray and get some help to cast it.  You may have to just lay down and sleep on it, knowing that it cannot live in the light of the new day.  Yep, sometimes, you die once and other times, you die daily.  Lord hep us.


Thriller by Michael Jackson

http://youtu.be/ZEHsIcsjtdI
 

Help me make it through the night.

There comes a time, at the end of the day, when unavoidable battles creep into my brain.  This is the stuff I worked over in the day so that I did not have to acknowledge it's presence.  In the night time, It comes because it knows that I have nothing else to cover it with.  I can't sing a million songs or write a million poems, I just have to now get through the night.  Now, there used to be a time when dead bodies were buried in the parlour of the home or the living room.  A piece of gauze was laid on the body and it would wait burial the next day.  Well, when the body was in the home, visitors would come by to help you pass the night.  They wouldn't come to talk, or even be visibly seen in their chair in the corner, you just knew they were there if you needed them.  They may bring a pie or a piece of fried chicken or a bottle of homemade wine.  Their only purpose is to make sure you don't spend this difficult night alone.  God is like that.  He makes sure that you don't have to spend the worst moments of the evening by yourself.  He sits up with you through the night.  In the morning, the body is laid to rest and you may not have another event like that for the next twenty years, but when you do, God will set up with you through the night.



Help Me Make it Through the Night Norah Jones, written by Kris Kristofferson.
http://youtu.be/a0Fb0cuQyMg

Happy until

Denial is a lifestyle.  I once met a woman who lived a glorious life in denial.  She told me that she wanted a new home.  I agreed that she should have a new home.  Then she began to buy things for her new home.  She bought china for her new home and comforters for her new home and light bulbs for her new home and beds for her new home.  When I looked at the state of her present home.  She had no good china, she had no good beds, her comforters were rags and you couldn't find a light bulb no where.  She was living this impoverished life trying to save and wait for something better to come into her life.  That is such a dangerous place to be.  No one should live like a pauper because one day they will live like a prince.  Better does have levels.  You may not have the house, but ask God how to enjoy living in the apartment.  How do I enjoy being single until I am married?  How do I enjoy being at a minimum wage job until I get a salaried position with benefits.  You can be happy until happily ever after happens for you.

Waiting is an art form.

The art of waiting is all about the attitude.  I have had to learn the art of waiting.  I don't call it waiting, I call it occupying.  Waiting is the art of continuing to feed the desire of what you want while filling it with smaller desires that you don't have to wait for.  I have learned that multi-tasking is not real.  You can't do two things at one time, but you can start something and occupy the waiting time by doing something else.  It makes the wait palatable.  It takes the sting out of waiting.  You have not left your desire, you have just decided to fulfill other desires until your day has come.  I call this an art form because many people cannot wait.  Because they cannot wait, they take inferior things and live inferior lives and are then forced to lie.  "Look at my wonderful inferior thing.  Isn't it great".  How much more fulfilled could you have been if you had learned to wait.

Wet N Wild

You would be surprised at the things that brought me comfort.  When I was about thirteen, I found a dollar somewhere and I went up to P.N. Hersch and bought a tube of orange lipstick.  My mother did not mind, I was in the seventh grade.  You couldn't imagine how that ninety-nine cent tube of lipstick made me feel.  I knew I was smart, but most folks did not call me pretty.  I was overweight for my age and I was poor.  I didn't stop there.  I then went to the 3D discount store and bought earrings for a dollar.  I thought I was a queen with my earrings.  Then I bought perfume.  I loved perfume.  You couldn't tell me nothing when I had on my Verve'.  Now, most of the in crowd were wearing Giorgio perfume and carrying Espirit bags, but I could not afford to.  They had so much more than I but I had something they did not have.  I had the ability to be happy with small things.  I was just as happy eating a pickle than eating at Ponderosa.  I had to remind myself of that happiness.  Now, I do so by buying an ample supply of the cheap stuff that makes me smile.  So, I have a ton of dollar makeup in crazy shades.  I still buy Wet n Wild lipstick for a dollar.  I keep earrings around that I buy for a dollar.  Among my coveted fragrances is a bottle of Jovan Gardenia, Primo perfume, and Sand and Sable.  I have been rocking that since college.  God has blessed, so I have lipsticks that are fifteen times the cost of Wet n Wild and my fragrances have been on the pricey side.  It is good to know that I can enjoy them or I can enjoy the smell of a great cheap soap.

My healing place

There are very few healing places left in the world.  I mean, those places where the diseased, the damaged and the disserted can sit down with a good friend.  I have a place like that.  It's the kind of place where people stop and greet one another and ask about where who you belong to.  I loved it because it took care of me when I belonged to no one.  I lived in a land of lawlessness with unlawful people who only comfortable in unlawful places.  You could trust no one.  You shouldn't trust anyone.  I did not trust at all.  When I came to the healing place, the first person I met was one that I could trust.  I waited for the other shoe to drop, but it didn't.  No one was trying to hurt me.  I liked that.  Every now and then, I wear orange and black and think of that place.  I try to remember the taste of the fried mushrooms or the chicken fried with cornmeal.  I stop and try to remember where I bought my first lipstick and where I met God.  Yep, everyone needs a healing place.

Sometimes, I surprise myself.

I am near sighted.  I don't know why I am but I just am.  I take a look at what is around me and I try to make sound decisions without acknowledging that I serve a mighty God who can intervene at anytime.  I spent far too much time fighting battles with such meagerness that I looked like an ant fighting a lion.  It never dawned on me that God was in the battle with me.  I never connected that somewhere down the line, I disconnected.  I had become a deist.  God was supreme, but he was too busy to come of his throne to see about me.  To make matters worse, I find that he was not only with me, but he orchestrated the situation so that I win.  Who can't win a fixed fight. 

Always full

God is bigger than where you are.  My mother was one of the most influential people in my life.  We lived in a very limited system and she always encouraged me to go and see what opportunities lay in other places.  It is because of her that I found an eclectic nature in Christ.  I eat from a variety of tables and am fed continuously.  I never starve because I am not a picky eater.  How do you starve in the house of bread?  You starve by never getting outside your own four walls.  Why sit there and die?

Don't Linger

Luke 24

He Is Risen

24 Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them,^[a] came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. ² But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. ³ Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴ And it happened, as they were greatly^[b] perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. ⁵ Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, ⁷ saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’”

 

It is a flaw in my character to linger a bit long at the tomb.  You try to tell people what happened to you and they don't want to believe it.  For their own selfish reasons, they don't want to believe it.  They would rather believe that all is well and hide their heads in the sand.  I asked myself, "How long are you going to remain at the tomb trying to convince them of their folly"?  How long are you going to keep going over the same story like they did not hear it the first time.  Shake the dust from your feet and put on your white clothes.  Lingering at the tomb does not make you a more competent spiritual person.  It does not make you more believable, it just irritates those who won't believe you anyway.  Allow your grave clothes to speak for you.  Rise above the tomb and excel above the grave dug for you.  In your ascended place, they will come for glory, they always do, and when the come for glory, then they will be a captive audience.  At this time, the story can be told.  This time, they will listen.  You can't tell it from the tomb.  They can ignore a tomb.  They can't ignore success.

His way is easy

This morning, my mind is thinking on the leadership of Moses and how easy it should have been.  I think that it is unfortunate that all of his trials did not lead him to Canaan.  Yesterday, I thought of taking a long journey.  I live several hours from Atlanta.  One does not just decide to go to Atlanta, you plan for Atlanta.  The children of Israel were told to pack light and when they exited Egypt, there were guidelines for them to follow them.  The way was simple.  Just follow God.  Some idiots attempt to make the trip to Atlanta in one day without stopping for bathroom breaks and leg stretches.  Sometimes, you need to plan a nice meal at a restaurant or some sightseeing along the way, so that the way does not become laborious.  Those, who become embittered by the way, are those who were foolish in their following.  God sent a cloud and a pillar of fire to lead the children of Israel in the wilderness.  God moves the cloud, Moses follows the cloud, the people follow Moses.  That was the plan.  Somewhere along the way, the people stopped following the plan.  They wanted to question the way.  They wanted to question God, but since that was deadly, they questioned Moses.  They messed up the plan.  God's yoke is easy and his burden is light.  What he gives us to do is not a very hard thing to do.  When people become bitter about the way, it usually is something that they have done that has caused them to feel this way.  I think of those who arrive in Atlanta way too tired from no sleep, irritated because they have to go to the bathroom, lost because they did not use a map, hungry because they did not stop to eat, nervous because they have never driven through the mountains and weary because they got bitter along the way.

Pray for the Peace of Babylon

You better be glad God does not totally annihilate your enemies.  I woke this morning thinking about my enemies.  I had to admit, that if God took my enemies off the map, I would be in a pickle.  Some of my enemies, I work with.  Some of my enemies, are my relatives.  Some of my enemies, I owe money to.  Some of my enemies, are major players in the state in which I live.  If God were to place his hand on my enemies, I would be affected too.  In Jeremiah 29, God instructs Israel to pray for the peace of Babylon.  He says that their peace is your peace.  My mother married a man who was not a Christian and prayed that God would, “Get him”.  Well, when God got him, he left her with his children and no child support payment.  Even though I can’t stand being in the same room with people who I know hate me, I must acknowledge that God can’t bring the roof down on them and then I be spared.  In this spirit, I have to realize that I am joined to the sinner just like the sinner is joined to me.  I heard something that disturbed me years ago.  An evangelist reported that hurricane Katrina was punishment for all the sinners in New Orleans.  I had a problem with that.  You see, there were an awful lot of really great people who got hurt in that city who were not voodoo worshippers and snake charmers.  There were a lot of bible toting, rosary counting people who should not have had to go through that situation.  We just can’t separate ourselves from this world like that.  We must be in this world, but not of this world.  There is no island you can go to that would make us independent from other people.  Pray for the peace of Babylon.

---

 

Anyway you bless me...............

I don't have a good recollection of something being freely given.  I always waited for the other shoe to drop.  I have struggled with this for years.  When I was seven years old, my mother threw me a birthday party in the theme of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  At that party, I invited some of my  friends from school.  One such friend gave me a popular gift.  It was a purse with a doll inside of it.  I made the remark that I already had a purse that had a doll inside of it.  My mother rebuked me and made me accept the gift.  Much later in my life, I was forced to live a life of taking charity.  I was ashamed of my family for what we had been reduced to.  When I grew up and got my own job and could finally rely on my own income, I refused to take gifts of any kind.  If I could get it myself, I did.  I refused to be seen as a charity case and I hate having to take what was handed to me.  I continued to pray and ask God to fix my financial situation, but I wanted him to do it through my own hand.  I wanted him to help me settle myself into a new place in my life, but I wanted him to do it through my own hand.  God informed me that he does not work like that.  He does things through gifts.  He may place the gift in the hand of anyone he pleases.  You make no demands on a gift because it is a gift.  You don't tell the giver how you want to be blessed.  You ask for a blessing and anyway he does is, you just go somewhere and be satisfied.  In this, I realize, that I now have a different type of lack.  It is a self-imposed lack that comes about because of pride.  I only want to be blessed by certain means.  I repent of that.  However and whomever you choose, I freely receive.

I know how this looks............

Yesterday morning, I woke with a thought that I could not process because of time.  It is a direct reference to how things look.  If you look at my life right now, things don't look good.  On many levels, I look God forsaken.  I have prayed against a disease that appears to be going nowhere.  I am stuck in a job that won't give more than a three percent raise.  Men ignore me and my family sleeps in Oakwood Cemetery.  The only color that this picture can be painted in is blue.  I hide it in shadows so that the feeble minded would still have hope.  I run from the lament that most people feel obligated to give.  I smile in the face of it.  The bottom line is that it looks bad, but looks are just one dimension of it.  People are more complex than looks.  We have a depth that sometimes is ignored by what we see at first site.  I am not unhappy.  My disease has not overtaken me.  My job has been consistent where other teachers are working at WalMart.  The men, who ignore me, should ignore me because they can't afford me.  The family that landed in the grave kept me obligated with their needs while my own vineyard I have not kept.  My home is empty, but most people come and relish the peace that resides in it.  They come to my house and just sit down.  I have been told that it is warm and pleasant.  People love to come visit me because my home is a home.  God has not forsaken me.  It just looks like he has.

It's in the bag.

I can remember when getting dressed required a good soap and clean clothes.  Then with age, I added a good haircut and some makeup.  Red lipstick is my signature.  In my thirties, I noticed that my oily skin required powder makeup and my hair became allergic to chemicals, so I rocked the twa.  As I pulled into my forties, I finally lost enough teeth to have to replace the chewing surface.  Yes, some of my teeth sleep in a cup of water.  My hair, that was already thin, thinned so much that it looked like baby hair.  Baby hair is not "chic".  I am on a medication that causes my legs to bruise easily and I developed a hematoma from being kicked by a student.  I now wear brown stockings with everything.  My weight that I lost at 32 came back with a vengeance at 42.  I bore all that with the grace of a bull in a china shop.  Two years ago, I made the final addition to my changing body.  I went down to the store and bought a wig.  It was heartbreaking for me to add this piece because I always prided myself in wearing my own hair.  I ran from glue and weave because it was just too much.  Even braids was something I did not tolerate well.  My first wig was short, but it felt like I was wearing a monument of hair.  Before the year will be out, I would have now purchased over forty two wigs.  I have come to realize that excellence for my hair must now come in a bag.  Replacing my hair was hard.  I believe there is a lesson to be learned.  Sometimes, no matter what you think, you are not going to reach perfection without some help.  The fact that I refuse to sit and watch my hair wash down the drain speaks to my pursuit of excellence.  The refusal to have teeth missing all over my mouth speaks to excellence.  My refusal to have this bruise be the center of my silhouette speaks to my excellence.  Sometimes, beauty is in the body.  Sometimes, my beauty is in a cup.  Sometimes, my beauty is in a bottle.  Sometimes, my hair is in a bag.

No Rewind

Sometimes, I battle with regret.  Time is funny.  It does not afford me the luxury of rewinding and redoing parts of my life that caused much sacrifice.  When you make a decision to take a certain road, you can't untake the road.  You can't go back in time with mature eyes and make different decisions.  Time, has unfortunately moved on and the day of your foolishness is in the past.  I told one of my students that some things you have to live through.  It is just a temporary thing and some things you have to live with.  I am in the live with stage.  My age prevents me from ever being what I was when I gave up what I wanted.  I can stay on that spot forever, but I must remember what I chose and the value of why I chose it.  Regrets don't happen when you just make decisions.  Regrets happen when you make any decision.  You will always wonder what your life would have been like if you had chosen the other option.  The poem, The Road Not Taken is a poem about such thinking.  The author does not regret the road he took, but he sure does remember that, at one point in his life, there was another road.  We always seem to remember the other road.  The Bible says, "Forgetting those things which are behind......."  That is where I am.  I am at a place of forgeting.  There is a road, I did not take.  It is not worth mentioning.  It is not worth meditating on.  It has little value because it is the road I did not take.  It is the life, I did not live.  There shall be no tears shed over what "should have been" when "what is" is before me.

Life Happened, Tammy Cochran
http://youtu.be/F8rHJrXgm7Y

The Shame of Youth

Last night, I dreamed about adults stuck in childhood.  They had childish ways, but they were fully grown.  They knew this.  Unlike adults who are cognitively delayed, these adults knew that they were immature.  They dressed themselves as adults in the daytime and they put on mask at night so that they were not recognized.  In the dream, you could tell the adults who were childish in the dark by the shame they displayed in the daytime.  You could look at them and see the secret they wanted no one else to see.  They were ashamed.  Immaturity looks good on something that is immature.  It becomes “the shame of youth” when you are too old to act that way.  It makes the adult feel like they are missing their mile markers.  I am a teacher and children have things that have to be taught in Elementary school so that Jr. High is possible.  I am a junior High school teacher.  Students who did not learn the basics in elementary school will struggle without a doubt in the higher grades.  Students who have not developed with the majority of their peers will feel the shame of dressing in the locker room and your buds have not blossomed.  Young boys will feel the sting of their peers gaining height and manliness when they still look like a boy.  An adult will feel the sting of immaturity when they think like children.  They will feel it when they do not have the ability to problem solve, for that is the immature trait that separates adults.  Adults will feel it when they are forty years old and they own nothing.  They have no house, no car, no family.  They have not progressed one day above a common teenager.  The shame of your youth is not the same as the shame of youth.  Everyone should look back at when they were younger and less refined and see a different person.  I take extreme pity on the person who looks back at their life and sees the exact same person.  Many immature adults are failed people.  They don’t do well in life.  Maturity begins when you take a look at what you have done and take responsibility for the mistakes that you have made.  Even if you are a victim and what happened to you was not your fault, it still now is your problem.  You have to solve that problem because you are responsible for you. 

---

 

Beat the box

One day, I visited a friends home and she offered me some of her banana pudding.  She offered me, with the utmost pride, a serving of her mother’s banana pudding.  She then emphasized that the pudding was from “scratch”.  My mouth watered and I willingly said, “yes”.  When I got the pudding, I noticed that it did not look as appetizing as I previously thought.  She had made the pudding, but had not made it well.  The pudding was grainy as if the sugar was not cooked all the way and then there was a great absence of milk to make the pudding light instead of heavy.  I thought to myself, that this person should have used a box of banana pudding because she could not make it that well.  As a matter of fact, this person as not a good cook at all.  She thought that if she made it herself, that was better than buying it.  Not in my opinion.  The reason why we have boxed pudding is so that we can have excellent pudding in a few steps.  If you can’t beat the box, than buy the box.  Homemade is not the best when it can’t beat the store bought.  Excellence is like this.  We sometimes think that we are doing something well, when actually someone else can do it better.  Excellence is not just knowing how to do something, but it is also knowing when to outsource it to someone else who can do it better.  It is shameful pride that would make someone do something inferior when someone can do it better.  I wish my friend would have trusted her pudding to Jell-o.

---

   

We Perish for Lack of Knowledge.

In the days of sharecropping and slavery, African-Americans were hindered by a machine called Jim Crow.  Under this plan it was completely legal to swindle farmers for most or all of their crops.  Black farmers bought feed, seed, plow and mule on credit when the crops were not harvested and paid it all back when the crops came in plus risk money for borrowing anyway.  At the end of the season, they may never see a dollar, but they did a whole years worth of work.  At the sound of such gross injustice, who would not raise a hand to protest against the rape and pillage of black economy in the south.  It would be a miscarriage of all that was fair.  I understand that, but I also know that you can’t make nobody change their ways.  The external issues would remain the same for generations if something else did not happen.  When black people began to prize education, then the chains came loose.  You can’t cheat someone when they absolutely know that they have been cheated.  You can’t keep them tied to the land when they absolutely know that they are free.  When we became readers and writers and mathematicians and journalist and lawyers and doctors and educators, we became free.  An educated man will never be bound and an ignorant man will never be free.

---

 

Everybody gets a little of everything

This morning, I am thinking about rain.  The Bible says that He rains on the just as well as the unjust.  God is not partial, making the lives of saints void of trouble.  Everyone will have their fair share of troubles and joys in this life.  It is just called life.  Evil people are partial.  They find ways to exalt their own children over the children of others.  They reward people they like over people they don't like.  They nurse grudges and treat people with difference in some instances and indifference in others.  They watch some for mistakes and they close an eye to some.  God is not like that.  Life will happen to the best and to the worst.  These are things that are universal.

1.  Death
2.  Birth
3. Natural Disaster
4. Weddings
5. funerals
6. sickness
7. disappointments
8. birthdays
9.festivals
10.sunshine
11. rain
12.  love
13.  betrayal
14.  friendship
15.  loneliness
16.  abundance
17.  poverty
18. fear
19. religion
20. God

Life is all these things and no one will leave this earth without experiencing life.  Now with that, go and live the life that you have been given to live.  Desire not the portion that is not yours.  Live your wonderful, glorious, and God given life.  Live it, today.

An Elegant Economy

All my life, I have desired to be wealthy.  I don't know where it came from other than God, but it is there.  I do believe I had the desire without understanding what the desire was.  More money does not make you more refined or more tasteful, it just gives you more money.  I found that what I really wanted was to be refined and special and sparkling.  I also found that I could achieve that by adopting an elegant economy.  I found that I could actually give up more and look better with less.  Who would have thought it..........

You can't put new wine............

As a child, there was a time when I wore a lot of clothes from Goodwill's, rummage sales, and thrift stores.  I had an older cousin who blessed me with her hand-me-downs.  I like her hand-me-downs.  Actually, I liked my clothes.  I did not have a problem with thrifty living.  Even with my comfortability, there still was a time, when you had to have a new dress.  I liked that time.  I am talking about something right off the rack and worn for the first time.  Some moments in life are new experiences all together.  God can't attach any more cloth to the old garment.  He can't put this new wine moment into old wineskins.  He has to have a new garment for the new moment and new wine for the new moment.  I have a feeling that what is to come in my life is something that has never been seen before, it has never been experienced before.  I can't even prepare for it because nothing in my life comes remotely close to what is coming now.  Eyes have not seen it.  Ears have not heard it.  The prophets can't discern it.  The scholar strains to learn it.  The Pastor can't preach it.  The teacher can't teach it.  The bird can't sing it and the dreamer can't dream it.  What wonderful things lay in the mind of God that causes the earth to moan and groan for him to reveal it.  I can't wait.  I can't wait.  I can't wait.  I can't wait..............................................................................................I can't wait.

Chaos creaters

Today, right at the end, there was chaos.  I mean, I could barely get my coat on before chaos came strutting through the hallway.  It was looking to deposit something.  Maybe a seed of discord or an uncomfortable feeling.  It came hoping to spread a little of it's misery into my life.  I knew that had to be dealt with and I dealt with it.  I dealt with it by inviting it to come and sit in my presence and be open and honest.  That just kills people when you invite them to stop whispering and stop telling tales and stop ranting to passers-by.  I invited chaos to come in a structured manner where the words can be weighed and apologies given if they are needed at all.  Chaos hates that.  She wants to remain aloof and alone and hurt and hurtful.   She wants to walk past you with something in the air that brings the patheticness that is her dwelling place.  She has no peace and those who are around her will have no peace either.  I find that dealing with her is like dealing with a troublesome dog.  If you don't run from her, she looses interest and she chases after the cat.

Did not our hearts burn

There were two disciples who were on the road to  Emmaus (hot springs) when they met someone who appeared to be a stranger.  This stranger began to speak and expound in scripture.  I don’t know if it was how he did it, or the words he said or the ease in which he said it, but when he left, he left an impression.  I don’t know how long I am going to be in your life.  I am not guaranteed to be alive tomorrow, but when I lay down, I want to leave an impression on the world that I live in.  I guess that is to live dynamically.  Some people live and die not caring about the impact that they have on their very own lives.  That would be torture for me.  Each night I want to lay down like the sun that impacted the entire world.  When it slips beyond the horizon, you long for it.  The two on the road felt like they had a spa treatment on their hearts.  It was so good and refreshing to speak to him whom they never knew the identity of.  A real impression is one that does not have to come and announce that it is impressive.  It is not impressive because of the plumes and feathers.  It is not impressive because of past deeds rehearsed for all to know and respect.  A true impression is relevant, and awe-inspiring, and real, and like you’re talking to a long lost friend.

---

 

Hotdog buns

There are few loves in life, like the love of something that is consistently the same all your life.  For me that is hot dogs.  I love hot dogs.  Growing up, they were the cheapest form of protein that I could have and afford.  I mean, when I was younger, you could go to Aldi's and get a pack of hot dogs and a loaf of bread for under a dollar.  If you add another dime or so, you can get a soda for fifteen cents.  Hot dogs were a staple, like rice and potatoes.  Though we ate hot dogs, we never bought hot dog buns.  My mother thought them to be a waste.  Why buy buns when the hot dogs taste just as good on bread.  I don't even remember feeling bad about hot dogs on bread.  At other people's home, I had buns and at school, I had buns, but never at home.  I am remembering this now because I am at a place of blessing where buns are no longer a luxury.  They aren't something you get when you go to your rich aunt's house.  Buns are a part of my life like good soap, and fine perfume, and fresh fish, and medicine.  I have to strain my brain to remember when bread was my only option.  I have more options than I have ever had in my life.  I have more money than I ever had in my life and I don't have to shop low, but I still do just to save a few dollars here and there.  God can bless you so well, that you have to strain to remember the way we were.