Upland

The Upland that Robert Finely grew up in was totally different from the one Norman grew up in.  When Norman came to Upland, he was ten years old and Brownsville folks thought it best for him to get away from Tennessee.  They were right.  A family was found for him in Upland, Illinois where he could spend the remainder of his childhood without smelling the smoke of burning flesh.  He went to Horace Mann school.  He was teased, but Norman was big so there were only words, no fights.  His Upland was pretty barren.  The town was so small, you still had to go all the way to St. Louis to find a decent piece of barbeque.  The high school was located about a mile from his house on the southern end of town with the rest of the colored.  He liked it.  Tennessee was segregated.  This place was not.  It didn't matter how you sliced it, it was better.  He got the same books, the same uniforms, the same teachers, and the same type of education.  There was only one burger joint and they served everybody.  He went to the same drive in and ate the same fries.  There were white people who didn't like him, but all they could do was "not" like him.  They couldn't burn his house with his family in it and no one come forward.  Upland saved Norman.  He found Jesus in Upland and a sense of fairness and community.  Norman played football with the mayor's son and their was no repercussion for knocking him into the fences.  He could eat at the burger barn and not get his food from the back.  His foster family kept him protected on Bell street and his church, Shiloh Missionary Baptiste, taught him the social graces of being who he was.  No one penalized him for those green eyes.  His foster mother told him to use whatever he had to open doors for himself because he did not have any other way to get them open.  When Illinois Power started to integrate their services with black workers, Norman moved to Decatur.  They liked his softened black ways.  They liked the fact that his hair was straight enough to never master an Afro and his eyes.  It was like talking to an Irish farmer in the summertime with a glow.  Norman was their kind of black man.  Now all he had to find was a woman and he would make sure she had ........................color.

Constantine Jackson-Kerengton

She was everything that a black woman didn't want to be.  She was taller than most men.  She was darker than most colored.  Her lips were thicker, her hips were fuller and her feet were immeasurable.  She was her mother's shame and her father's spitting image.  Her sisters were small, petite, lighter and more favorable than Constantine.  Her mother was always trying to explain Constantine.  While here sisters were praised for being pretty, Constantine was praised for being smart, or witty, or inventive, but not pretty.  Her mother tried to sell her to men who would rather run from her.  They laughed at her.  They called her names and praised her sisters.  There was no place for a six foot woman.  Constantine, took up all the space that a woman was given.  Unfortunately, she was forced to borrow space from the men.  They hated it.  She looked them in the eye.  She made them uncomfortable.  She matched their strength and she was smarter.  To punish her for her towering power, they ignored her.  They did not open the door for her.  They did not carry her groceries or help her over puddles.  They did not take her to dances or on dates for that matter.  They came to her door and asked to meet her sisters.  They treated her like a man.  When she left for college life in Decatur, Illinois, everyone understood.  Constantine was going the only way that she could.  She would have to learn to take care of herself because the chances are, there would be no love and no children.  How surprised she was to see a man, six feet two, with green eyes, who wanted to carry her groceries.  She was sure that he was just wanting to know who her sisters were, but that wasn't the case.  He said that she looked like his father, but not in a bad way.  She did not look like a man, but she had the features of his father.  She wanted to ignore him, but he bought her steak dinners from the Beach House, he asked her to the church social and he opened the door.  That was enough.  Milliken could give her an education, but not a legacy.  It was enough.  She left and got married to Norman Kerengton.  They got a small apartment in Longview and within months, she was pregnant.

Norman Kerengton Sr.

He always had breathing problems.  Asthma.  His mother told him that he would outgrow it, but for now, he had to go to the hospital.  Breathing treatments were expensive, but Calvin would sell a sow for it.  It was like he was going away to college.  His whole family was seated in the waiting room hoping that Norman could come home.  When the doctor suggested a few nights in St. Mary's, mother was overcome with grief.  Father began to count dollars in his head and his siblings cried like they thought he was dying.  No one had ever had to spend the night in the infirmary.  Even mother gave birth at home.  Hospitals are places you go it your are going to die.  Mother packed Norman's best night clothes and left him with a few sandwiches and apples.  They waved goodbye longer than they had to and then walked back to their farm.  It was the last time Norman saw any of them in a recognizable form.  Calvin had talked big.  He got his children treated by the white doctor and his son was going to be treated at the hospital.  There was no colored hospital so most colored folks stayed home and died.  Not Calvin's son.  His son would get breathing treatments and live.  Calvin's children wore shoes in the summer and ate ham.  Calvin's children learned to read by age three all played an instrument.  Calvin's children had that light coloring favored by whites on the count of that passé blanc mother.  Norman, who was light bright with green eyes was welcomed at the hospital.  Most colored, back then, wouldn't be welcomed except at the back door to clean slop jars, but Norman was not threatening.  He looked like one of them and was treated like one of them.  All this animosity swirled hate on both sides and somebody decided to burn Calvin's fields.  It was a sloppy job.  The fields lay untouched, but the house was gone.  Norman stayed in the hospital while authorities decided how to tell him the price of those precious green eyes.  Black folks said the Klan did it.  White folks said his own people did it.  All he had left was his milky skin and his glowing eyes.  He had no money, no family and no trust in his community, but he had himself. 

Robert Finley

He was the seventh son in a row of six sons who all had the same mother and the same father.  He, however, did not.  He was the love child of a relationship that had absolutely no love at all.  It was two people who passed each other at a truck stop and then hoped to never see each other again.  His father was married and his mother was promised marriage.  In due season, mother left to become a preacher's wife and father went back to his own.  Robert was left in the middle of twelve children with no claim to either side.  How can you distinguish yourself from the situation you would always be associated with?  Everyone was always trying to explain Robert.  They tried to tell him that his parents loved him, but it wasn't the right time.  They tried telling him that they loved him but did not know how to love him.   They tried to explain how he was black but yet white.  They tried to explain that he was a Finely but would never be allowed to attend the family reunion.  They explained that he was a Baptiste, but would be best off staying away from Louisiana.  There was so much in his life that had to be explained.  Even in the mirror, he saw white skin with black lips and curly hair with grey eyes.  He couldn't explain it.  All he could think was that he occupied a position of uniqueness that one day would not even matter, but for now, he would have to get used to occupying this space alone.  Robert stopped trying to define himself, because God already did that.  He did not fit into the round hole and then again, he wasn't a square peg.  The place that he fit, was just that.  He did not fit and that is where he fit in.  He was an outlier.  His features had no home and his ways had no country.  Robert knew this.  He understood that to become who he wanted to become, he would first have to accept that he had to create his own space and ...............................he did.

Covet

Exodus 20:17
¹⁷ Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.


I can remember a friend of mine who lived in the projects in the city.  She lived on a row with a bunch of other women similarly situated.  It was a weekly ritual for the women that they all got together and went to the Laundromat.  I can remember that this went on for years.  One day, one of the women was blessed by her husband to have a washing machine and dryer installed in their unit.  It was the small simple kind that you can hook up to the kitchen faucet.  It wasn't a big set, but it meant that she did not have to go to the Laundromat anymore.  You should have seen how her compatriots treated her.  She was immediately ousted from her peer group and branded as "bouchy".  There are some people who never have a desire for something better until they see better in and on you.  They sit in mediocrity and plan to die there until they meet someone who possesses what they always wanted.  Don't wait until you see your best friend go back to college to enroll.  Don't wait until you see your best buddy driving a nice car to get your own.  Let the beginning of your desires not be after you see it on someone else.  God is a big God and you can have what he has for you.  

A Good Night

Last night, I began to drive home.  In the dark, I drove home.  I drove home with things on my mind, but not obsessively on my mind.  I drove home wondering and reading and maybe I just should have driven home.  When I got to my driveway, the darkness did not drive me into it.  I rode around enjoying it and seeing the lights sparkle in the middle of the deep blue.  I rode into the country.  I rode around the block.  I went to my favorite house and when I got home, I went upstairs not to just close my eyes to sleep.  I went upstairs and enjoyed my evening.  I turned on the music that spoke to me.  I washed my face and brushed my teeth.  I donned some lingerie and I turned down the covers.  It felt good to finally lay my body down and forget the day.  At that time, God spoke.  He said, " I will not suffer thy foot to be moved, he that keepeth thee will not slumber."  You can't imagine how wonderful those words felt.  I had been wondering about his love for me.  You know, I have had people say that they had my back and they were presumptuous.  They wanted to have my back.  They so desperately wanted to have my back.  They wanted to be the Knight in shining armour, but the issue is, that they were just as human as I was.  In the middle of them wanting to be there, they realized that they had already signed up to be somewhere else.  They had other families, other loves and other commitments.  They wanted to say that they would always be there, but alas, they could not be.  They simply could not be.  God however, is not constrained by his other commitments.  Just as he is there for you, he is there for me.  He is there for me every time I need him to be.

Gregory Wesley Kerengton

He was bigger than the average person.  He was bigger than his brothers, who were big.  He was bigger than his father whom he inherited the bigness from.  He took up all the space and there was no room for anyone else by reason of himself.  It is funny how he did not know that as a child.  Growing up in a small project apartment, he found himself squeezed into places that never fit.  He slept in a bed that was too small.  He slept in a room that was too small.  He was served portions that was too small and was surrounded by friends, whose view, was too small.  How could he tell his beloved brother that there was more to life than becoming his father?  How could he tell Curry that life is more than meat and bread?  How could he tell Elvis, the only white boy on the block, that he was meant for more than serving beer in a pitcher and how could he tell Tionne that there was more to life than the Longview Projects.  He couldn't tell them, he could only express the nasty attitude that said, this life does not fit me.  It was like walking with shoes that pinch your toes in such a way that it caused you to snarl at the mailman.  No one ever thought that his salty silence or his wordless hellos were a sign that he was a great man pushed into an average man's life.  No one ever asked if one hotdog would fill him up.  No one wondered if he could lay in a bed without folding himself in half to fit it.  It was fine for them, but one day, he will go to Hess Park and stretch his full seven foot body in the grass and feel for a moment what it would be like to be comfortable in his own skin.  He would love it, relish it, search for it and never let it go again.  One day,  his world will fit.

Afraid

Last month, I had a very normal thing happen in my life.  I am now 44 and 44 brings with it it's own brand of health.  My bones crick.  My muscles ball up in a knot and I had a vitreous detachment in my eye.  It is harmless, but scary none the less.  My anxiety went through the roof.  I slept with the light on.  I cried like a spanked child.  I called on God.  My blood pressure went through the roof.  I felt like life was over.  Then I called on God again.  I realized that this was the price of living.  I drove anyway.  I eventually turned the light back off.  I learned to get a little more rest.  I started watching television.  I found a roommate and I started living again.  In the midst of it all, I realize that I was beginning to live my life afraid.  Afraid of the doctor.  Afraid of what they would say.  Afraid of what they would find.  Afraid to sleep alone.  I could not live life that way.  Somehow, I had to convince myself that the same God that kept me when I had nothing to worry about but the flu, was the same God that was going to keep me now.  He had not changed.  He was still there.  Despite the fact that I was feeling my age, God was still there being God.  He never left my side even though I had no clue what was going on.  God does not fade.  So I put my red lipstick back on and I started to live again.  I know that there are still some bumps in the road, but I don't have to be afraid.

Childlike

 

Matthew 18:2-4

² Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. ³ Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. ⁴ So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

I like kids.  They have a way of thinking that appeals to me.  They put their fallen teeth under the pillow with the full expectation that when they wake up in the morning, there will be a quarter there.  They leave out cookies and milk for Saint Nicholas.  You can’t convince them that Bunnies don’t lay pastel colored eggs.   I mean, you can talk until you are blue in the face and it won’t change what they believe.  Then magically one day, they grow up and feel the full weight of adult eyes.  They know that fallen teeth mean dentures, Saint Nicholas means a sale at Wal-Mart and the Easter Bunny is best served smothered with gravy.  We grow up to our adult realities, but that should not change how we believe in God.  You see, with God, you can still believe for the impossible because he has all power in his hands.  In Him, an old woman can still believe to bear children.  In Him, an old man can still take his mountain.  There is no such thing as being past your prime or being over the hill.  God still holds that magical quality where you life can get amazingly better than the day before.  Childlike faith is that kind of faith that only needs to know that Papa said he would do it.  That settles it.  Childlike belief doesn’t even need a word.  It is the belief that God’s character is sure and he may not do exactly what I was thinking, but he won’t do nothing.  He’s not a dead beat God.  In these regards, I am always amazed at how much relief I can find simply trusting him like I was that little seven year old putting her tooth under the pillow.  I can trust him like the little six year old girl who looked for four leaf clovers or the four year old child who was convinced that one day, I will find the end of the rainbow.

 

Neon Lights

He sits in the front of his father's restaurant.  He'll inherit it one day and that makes him cry.  In the land of opportunity he works from sunup to sundown frying rice while his friends drink Cokes.  His father tries to explain why he should be grateful, but he sees it as prison.  He thinks his father has run from one apron behind a wok to another apron behind a wok.  What is the difference between America and Shanghai.  Is it really better, he thought.  The son recalls the day when he and his father walked down a street where everyone on it knew how to pronounce and say their name.  Everyone ate dog every once in a while and "no", he never ate dog.  Now, he is in America where everyone calls him Mr. Wong and speaks as if he is an imbecile and expects his father to "bow" and calls his mother "Suzy".  Was it really a better trade.  Young son puts his head in his hands.  He'll inherit all of this ..........................one day.

The Roof, the roof, the roof was on fire.

I can remember when I was the fireman.  I ran from disaster to disaster hoping that I could make things better.  I think that is the way I was raised.  You always went toward the person who needed help.  Those people sort of expected to be helped.  Now, I ask questions.  I don't rush to save things that are not worth saving.  I might just stand and let your house burn if I find no redeeming value in the house.  I ask how the fire started.  If you started the fire based on your own stupidity, then your house can burn.  If I will lose my house to save yours....................let it burn.

You Don't Love Me

If God showed you that I was worth more money than your dreams could birth.
You would love me.
If God showed you my fields ripe for picking, juice dripping sweet for licking.
You would love me.
If God gave you a view of all the things I could do for you.
You would love me
If God supplanted all your fears showing you my hurting tears
You would love me.


Since God has left me behind the veil, you defame my name and condemn me to hell.  You encircle yourself with friends and lie, they then believe without asking why.  And I can tell when my name has been on your lips by the way they snap their heads and purse their lips.  I am nothing to you so I am nothing to them, and they reject me until you meet with Him.  He tells shows you what folly you have made and now I'm made in the shade.


But you don't love me.

No where left to go

I don’t like to think of children who are left with no place to go or adults who have run out of chances.  Today, my thoughts are on the group of people for which they truly have run out of chances.  There is nothing else left to say.  All of the chips have been cast in.  The time for change has passed.  What is, is now what will be.  To me, that brings me a sense of peace.  I like endings and I absolutely adore benedictions.  I can leave without saying goodbye, but it is nice to have one.  I enjoy the peace of it.  With that in mind, a prayed for a person who has come to the end of the road.  I don’t think that I will ever see her again.  If I do, she will not be what I know to be her.  She will be a shell with the life drained by life.  These are the times, when one truly needs to call on God as loud and as much as one can.  If God does not move, then what will be, will be.  I think of the times where God did not answer prayer and I can’t blame God for not intervening in the course of events that are just that.  It is a course of events.  It is as things should be.  It is the fate of man without the intervention of God.  When I consider the implode of my family, I understand that it was how it should have been giving all of the ills that plagued us.  If something great were to come out of something horrible, barring God, it would not make sense.  When I think of this child and where her life is going.  It is how it should be.  For this, I say Come soon Lord Jesus.  He is her only help now.

---

   

Experience.

Experience teaches you a lot of things.  I can remember when I was young and stupid.  I thought I had the world figured out.  I thought it would work out just like I had imagined it in my ideal state.  I would marry, have 2.5 children, a house with a white picket fence and a dog named Spot.  Little did I know that a day would come when I would cry uncontrollably over the fact that none of those things would be mine at the age I thought it would happen.  Even sadder, was the day I realized that some of it would never happen.  My hair thinned.  Menapause loomed over my head.  My bed was empty and so was my womb.  That was a hard crash.  I was devastated.  This was the thing that tempered me and took me off cloud nine into some reality.  I had to learn to be happy a whole new way.  I didn't think I could be happy a whole new way, but I did.  I learned that an amazing sun still shined on my empty days.  I learned that I can still laugh from the pit of my stomach.  I learned to find people to help me be the best I can be and I lived the life I never thought I would live.  Experience does that to you.  If your at this abyss, don't jump off the cliff.  I guarantee that it gets.............better.

Doors and Windows

I have learned never to move without doors and windows.  When I was young, my mother would flee her domestic situation in the middle of the night.  She would have nowhere to go.  She would not have a job.  She didn't even give notice that she was leaving.  Granted her situation was dire, it had been dire years before she decided to do something about it.  It had been dire so long that she could have made her exit with a little more thought.  One time, I remember her running to a city where her professional license was null and void.  She had to go back to school to take classes just to do what she had done so easily in the state that she ran from.  It was the worst year of our lives.  We were so impoverished.  I learned from that, that one should always look for doors and windows.  Never move to a place because you want a change of venue.  Move because there is a job or a spouse or an opportunity.  Move because you can be a better you in a better place.  If you are just fed up with seeing the sun rise over the same cornfield, .................stay where you are.

Build

I like how God illuminates something that I did not see before.  For the longest of time, I thought I was given a crummy life.  When you think about it, it was not pretty.  It wasn't God's fault.  African-Americans can foster the acceptance of an unhealthy family system that has a lot of man made ills in it.  I can say that my family was vulnerable way before "Life" hit it.  It began with having children far too young to parents who were not committed to each other.  When they did commit, the union was plagued with infidelity and drug abuse.  Because the money of two had now become one, we were plunged into poverty.  My mother married a man who brought to the cesspool of our lives his own addictions.  Now that our lives had been thoroughly messed up, my mother dies.  The natural ails of a home happen.  My mother was sick.  I became a teenager.  Kids had to get through school.  College had to be applied for.  Christmas came.  I needed glasses.  Someone broke their leg.  Life happened in the midst of  the horrible life that man made happen.  I see now, that my life was not made bad.  It was vulnerable before the storm hit.  Now, that I understand that the house was weak from the beginning.  I don't mind that it was blown away in the wind.  All we can do now is build.


We build by Nicole Nordman
http://youtu.be/N9vSoefIrR4

And the Horse You Rode In On

Sometimes, you can be attacked by one person.  Other times, you are attacked by a system.  Every bully has his or her sidekicks.  Bullies don't come without their own self-made "Amen" corner.  When the Bully attacks, the sidekicks egg him on to do hideous things he would not do on his own.  The children of Israel were not just being pursued by Pharoe, but they were being pursued by Pharoe and his entire army.  Can you imagine that?  Now, God gets involved.  He drowned Pharoe, his sidekicks, down to his horse.  When God delivers you from an abusive system, everybody gets whooped.  Even the tool you use to be abusive gets chastised.  God is complete in his judgements.  He is not like man.  God delivers you from the very source of your troubles, down to their sandals.  When the Israelites reached the shore, Miriam sang, "Horse and Rider have drowned in the sea".  Step back and let God handle it.  He can do much more than your simple tongue lashing can do.  He can do more than your few words can handle.  He can deal with your bully and the ...................................horse he rode in on.

Praise is intoxicating.

Praise is intoxicating.  You have to be careful with praise because it can run you into walls, throw you off cliffs and leave you in the quick sand with a smile on your face.  Praise can be inappropriate and at times, dysfunctional.  You can see it in the eyes of faithful fans.  They float in on cloud nine and live in a fantasy world.  They praise their idol more than they acknowledge their own family.  No one is rated higher and even God has to take a back seat.  You have to understand that praise is passable.  You take it and pass it own to God.  He is the only one who can really handle it.  He truly is the only one who deserves it.  For most people, Praise makes them think that they are right, and that may not be true.  Praise can be given you because it makes you softer and easier to deal with.  Real Praisers know that if they praise you for walking on the tightrope, you'll do it.  You'll only notice that they are laughing when your on your way down.

Done

I fail to realize how one can move on in life without being done with a portion of it.  People don't like it when your done.  They want to sing you that same song with the hopes that you will sing along like it 's all fine and dandy.  People don't like it when you are done.  They want to keep you in a cage or on a leash so that they can pull you out for their own entertainment.  The word, "Done" is one of my favorite words because, it denotes the finality of my involvement with you.  It says to me, that I love myself enough to keep myself from being hurt by you.  It tells me that I won't end up being abused and misused by people who have no other means of survival than your imprisonment.  Sometimes, you have to just get done.  Well, .....................I'm done.