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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.