Contemplations on Time

 

 

 

"Too young to be unhappy. Too old to waste my time." ab/kc (c) 2012

I wrote this line in a poem I wrote to commemorate my 39th birthday. It's been coming to mind a lot lately. The deeper I get into my 40's, the truer it becomes. If there was any advice I would write down and pass on to folks in their 20's it would be a slightly paraphrased version of this: "Life is too long to be unhappy and too short to waste your time." Live out loud and live it to the fullest. Don't let inconsequential people waste your time and cherish every moment you get with the people who matter. Because one day you wake up and you're 45 and you wonder "How the heck did that happen?" because you still feel 25 in your heart but your knees tell you something different. LOL!

All of the recent deaths of folks in their 40's has caused me to feel the fullness of my mortality. And that feeling motivates me to as fully, as large, and louder than I ever have before. Tomorrow is not promised and time really waits for no one. I always get real contemplative this time of year. My birthday is less that 2 months away and so I start recapping the personal year that's passing and evaluating how I will embark on the year to come and the themes I will take with me into my personal new year to propel me forward. I haven't formulated them all but I know the quote from my poem above and the words of James Taylor below will be guiding thoughts:

"walk on if you're walking even if it's an uphill climb.

And try to remember that working's no crime, just don't let 'em take and waste your time." ~ James Taylor

The Pure in Heart SEE GOD.

I must admit it has been a while since I've read through the Beatitudes. They are however, embedded in my memory as a result of having to memorize them for recitation in the Pentecostal church in which I grew up. They are stuck in my brain right next to the first solo song I ever sung and the monologue I memorized for my first acting jury in high school. That is why it was refreshing for me to see something for the first time in this scripture I know by heart, while reading them yesterday to follow along with the sermon my friend was preaching. Verse 8 of Matthew chapter 5, where the beatitudes are found says, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." All my life my understanding of that verse positioned it as a command to strive to keep ones heart pure so that 1) You will get to see God at the end when your time here on earth was done (my initial understanding as a child/teen) and 2) God will show up in your life in needed ways (my understanding as an young adult). However, when vising that scripture today there was a new revelation that I, someone who has now lived through 45 years and is almost through with my 46th year here on earth, found. The thought hit me before the sermon even started, while were were just reading the text. And my friend actually took her sermon in a different direction than this revelation, but even after sitting through her thoughtful sermon, I was brought back to my initial revelation when considering the text later in the evening.

When our heart is pure, we see God everywhere we look. This is not a directive for faultlessness or behavior without error, but rather a declaration that those who make the effort toward wholehearted love have the ability to see the god nature of their fellow humans. If we are indeed made in the image and likeness of the creator, and if the Most Beloved's breath is the spark that gave humanity its existence, then is there not a reflection of divinity in each of us? When we push past the cynicism that comes from living on earth and living within the effects of its various isms and oppression, we are able to see the divine in every creature and being. If we strive to acknowledge the very sacredness of the experience of life that we are having on the planet, we will recognize the divinity of those around us living into, out of, and through that experience.

When I considered the implications of this interpretation of Matthew 5:8 it brought to mind such clarity of another scripture that is often quoted by both Christians and non Christians alike. In Matthew 25:31-40 Jesus, after having told the parable of the talents, starts into a sermon where he instructs those listening of how things will be when he comes into his throne. He advises that the blessed of the lord will be welcomed into his kingdom because they have clothed, fed, visited and otherwise cared for him. And anticipating their confusion, Jesus also says in his sermon that when these blessed ask "when did we see you to do any of these things for you?" his response will be that when they did it for the least of his brethren they had done it for him. The pure of heart can look at the poor, the hungry, the homeless, and the otherwise disenfranchised and see God. Standing with and caring for the oppressed and marginalized is the very definition of being pure at heart. This is what was revealed to me today as I read through the beatitudes for probably the fiftieth time in my life.

Now, I am no theologian; no New Testament scholar. I have no formal scholarship in the book of Matthew as yet. This is just a Sunday morning musing on scripture by a woman who has spent most of her life seeking to understand the nature of God, Her/His/Their existence, and their relationship to us and our lives as humans. So you are welcomed to consider this as heavily or lightly as you will. I was just struck by not only the new perspective I had on this scripture but also by how my perspective had changed even though the scripture itself had not.

I often remember hearing as a young girl in church that "God's word is sure and it does not change." Words on a page indeed do not change, but if we are living this life to its fullest we should be ever growing, evolving and changing. As Muhammad Ali once said, "A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life." That applies to scripture too. And this new perspective on Matthew 5:8 not only serves to inform the way I will live my own life from this point, but will also effect the way I engage those in our world who claim Christianity while simultaneously opposing the rights and equality for the marginalized and oppressed. Because I now know the pure in heart, SEE GOD in us all.  

Selah.

Sad to See these Pharisees and Sadducees

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are." ~Matthew 23:15 (NIV)

 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness."  ~Matthew 23:27-28 (NIV)

It is no wonder that the only people that Jesus openly rebuked while on the planet were the religious leaders of his time. Institution breeds corruption. Traditions not reflected upon with deep analysis become idols themselves. The meeting of these so called “inner city preachers”  with the willfully racist and openly compassionless president of the USA is just the most recent in a long line of actions that reveal the "religious right" of all races in this country as the Pharisees and Sadducee of this current day. They talk a good game about God and feign piety but rarely show the love of Christ to those around them or follow his example of compassionate action. Instead of pushing back against corruption like Jesus driving the merchants from the temple, they have decided to collude with this modern day Herod in hopes that their proximity to empire will simultaneously save them from the persecution to come and enrich their pockets. They have chosen to be counted in the number of people who support an administration that is actively abusing children and holding them in modern day concentration camps, that worked for months trying to strip away health care from millions, and is seeking to strip away people's civil rights in the name of religion. They are sitting at the table with a man who openly refused to condemn ACTUAL Nazis and patting him on the back. As my friend the very learned Rev. Brandee Jasmine Mimitzraiem said, “The Church co-signed Hitler too.” So, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that these preachers have aligned themselves with with this malignant administration.

I think the thing that angers me the most about these displays that these hand full of mostly black clergy insists on making with Dorito Mussolini is that it reinforces the misconceptions of the Hoteps, Noteps and Super Woke, that Christianity is only a religion for the weak minded and that anyone who claims Jesus in any way is participating in their own oppression. I guess what I'm saying is that I hate that these feckless plebeians who would claim themselves authorities on religion have chosen to follow the centuries of bad theology that serves only to magnify the reach of "the church" and the ego of it's clergy while ignoring the person and principle of the man they claim to follow as an example. It never ceases to amaze me the atrocities wrought in the name of the Prince of Peace. I'd like to ask them All "What Would Jesus Do?" Selah

Jesus Would Have Baked My Gay Wedding Cake

Love God, Love Yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. On this premise lives all the laws you are trying to keep and all the prophets' work you are trying to follow. ~Matthew 22:38-40 (Kenyetta Translation).

THIS is the answer Jesus gave when asked about the greatest commandment. So WHY is it that those who claim to follow Jesus seem to put so much focus on every possible way to condemn folks and not these 3 basic tenets. Why are they spending so much time trying to govern their lives and lives of everyone else by an antiquated set of laws(half of which they are misinterpreting anyway) that even their favorite, Apostle Paul said will kill you in the end.

If they REALLY believe that Jesus "paid it all" on the cross, then why do they keep charging folks for a debt that's been cleared? Let people live their lives, and live your life as a Christian in a way that would inspire others to see value in the way you're living. There's no need for these ideas of sequester that say "I can't serve or even associate with you because you're not of the same faith as I am." That is actually the exact opposite of what Jesus modeled for his followers. And when he was preparing to leave them he told them that the way the world should be able to recognize them as his followers was by following his example of love. He kept company with many of the same folks that these so called "Christian" business owners are trying to reject in the name of a savior they clearly don't fully understand themselves. The fact that the Attorney General of this country has created a committee to assist these so called Christians to discriminate against folks is not only constitutionally questionable, it is biblically incorrect.

Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding reception. And I'm convinced he'd have baked a cake for mine, no matter who I married. Selah

A Message for the Tender Heart

Anyone who knows me knows that at this stage in my life, I am not fond of tears. It is a personal shortcoming of which I am quite aware, but I've navigated my life successfully to this point with a stoicism that has served to protect my very tender heart that lies beneath. When I was young my mama used to tell me I had a "soft heart" because I cared so much about the plight of all the world's living things, people, animals and the very planet itself alike. I was that teenager and young adult at every protest and every rally for every cause I believed in. Around my mid twenties I developed a callus and toughened my skin to protect myself. The pain of the world was so great and relentlessly continuous. I learned to "care less" As a survival mechanism. But something happened in me back in 2011 when Troy Davis was unjustly executed. That was the first time in many years I found myself thinking "Wow, this is the world I am still living in. Just because I stopped noticing doesn't mean the horrors stopped happening. Not much has changed." And I found myself thinking of the mothers who daily lost children to the burn of the fire of this white supremacist system. And my "soft heart" shed its callus and felt the pain. I was never able to reapply that callus, And I didn't want to either. I mean sure, I had tough skin but what good is that when the world is going down in a blaze. My tough skin would not really protect me in the end. It would just make sure I was anesthetized when the fire consumed everything in its wake. 

This summer has really taken its toll. Weekly we have been presented with facts and footage of the onslaught of death by the state that is taking place in America. Unfortunately, this is just a carryover from the very brutal year black and brown folks had last year at the hands of those sworn to protect and serve. And it does not seem to be stopping as we embark on this next season of the year. For this reason, I cried yesterday. I cried heavy hearted, salty tears for every life lost. I cried for every child's innocence that was stripped from them this year because they lost a parent to state sanctioned violence, or because a parent had to take a moment to warn them about the world they send them out into every day. I cried for my own feelings of insecurity about navigating this world that is hostile to me a Black, Queer, Woman, in every way. And I cried for the years I spent shielding myself from it all.

And then I started writing. It is the only weapon I have ever wielded with any skill, well that and singing. I started writing poems at 11 yrs. old to try to make sense of this crazy world and to combat the cruelty that was my daily existence growing up in a place where I was the only black face in a sea of white ones. Poems lead to songs and prose. Writing was the tool my "soft" adolescent heart used to cope and soon became the only language I knew how to speak. As an adult I have often found it hard to express my heart's concerns verbally. But give me a pen and paper and I will recount the history of how we got here, theories of how we fix it and anthems to strengthen our hearts as we work to make it a reality. I lost the edge of my sword though, when I toughened my skin. I mean, how could I herald solutions in poem and prose, if I never gave voice to the intense pain of the problem? It is the question I asked myself after Troy Davis died and kept asking as I bore witness to the madness that has played out in this second decade of the new millennium. The answer was a firm "You can't."

And so, I've been writing to give voice to the pain I have suppressed for over a decade now, regarding the state of this planet we all share; in songs and Facebook posts mostly. LOL! But those social media rantings have brought me to this place where I now tearfully pick up my sword sharpened on the stone of grief and wield it for those whose voices have been silenced by an unjust system and violence sanctioned by the state. My mama was right. I do have a "soft heart." It can be my burden at times, but I know it is also my secret weapon against this system of oppression. Apathy is the friend of the status quo. Fear is the tool of tyranny. But compassionate, tender hearted outrage has often changed the world.

So, if you have found yourself in tears this summer. If on this Fall equinox your shoulders quake with sobs as you hear and read about the state of the world. It's okay. Your pain affirms your humanity and speaks to the beauty of your soft heart. As you sit with those tears and maybe even the feelings of helplessness that sometime accompany them, know that you are not helpless. There is SOMETHING you can do. We are not all great strategist or orators, but we all have talents that can be focused in the direction for justice. Take your skills, whatever they may be and find a way to use them for change. There is a need for the compassion that comes with true humanity right now. THAT is your place to fill. Whether you know it or not, YOU my "soft hearts" were made for this time.

xx One Love

"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty..." 2 Corinthians 10:4

In Times Like These...

 

 

This week, just like that first week of July hit both my head and my heart. These tragedies and epic losses of Black lives are not new, but the advent of a photo-centric society makes the knowledge of them much more rapidly available to us. On a daily basis we don't just know of our uncle's, sister's, cousin's, friend's run ins with the system and state sanctioned violence. We are now also privy to the the atrocities affecting families throughout this country whose only kindred we share is a heritage rooted in ancestors whose blood feed the soil of this country that is ours through birth (so they tell us) but never fully ours to claim.

This can be a lot for people to consistently consume and self care is important. However, as a person of faith and a faith leader who took an oath to bring healing and comfort to suffering where I can. I am also always searching for what can be said and done in these tough times in which we find ourselves. As an artist I have been writing music and poetry and will continue to do so. This week, what I found to be true, in the face of the deaths of Joyce Quaeway, Korryn Gaines and Skye Mockabee is a bit more personal. 

My personal spiritual journey has been an evolution from what I call dogma to divinity. I've worked with Spirit for years to release myself from the dogmatic practices of the "shoulds and should nots" that existed in  the religious denomination of my upbringing and embraced a broader understanding of the divine essence that we know and understand as God. I accepted Love as the basis of my walk with Spirit. This process illuminated the scriptures of many of the holy books for me and opened my eyes to new and wonderful interpretations.  In that process I have gained a personal freedom that has allowed me to have a closer relationship with the divinity both within me and the cosmos. But I would be lying if I said that as I evolved in my understanding part of me did not question at least in part why some chose to cling to antiquated traditions that to me were binding and antithetical to free spiritual expression. The events of this week changed my mind about some things though.

As I watched via social media the ignoring of Joyce Quaeway's and Skye Mockabee's death by everyone except other black women, and watched Korryn Gaines be denied the benefit of the doubt in the wake of her death by the state by her own people, even seeing some goes as far as to deem her death justified; though mind you, there is usually always a collective outcry by black folks when the major media outlets trot out someone's past to justify their deaths. I was struck by the fact that none of these women's names would even have been spoken if it weren't for social media, since they were all but invisible to the mainstream media. This all has brought me to a new revelation and thus a new position when it comes to my sisters and their gods.

 

I WILL NEVER BEGRUDGE A BLACK WOMAN HER CHOSEN SPIRITUAL PATH EVER AGAIN. I WILL NOT JUDGE IT!

 

In a world that constantly shows black women that we are not loved, trusted or valued, I understand the need to feel like there is at least ONE SOMEBODY in the universe who loves us unconditionally, Who believes in us, Who cherishes us just the way we are. In a way that feels tangible and real. However you find your way to that unconditional love my sisters, Be it Jesus, Allah, Oludumare, Jehovah or Shiva I support you.

We all need a rock to anchor our hope to when this life becomes too tough. We all need something to comfort our minds so we can actually get to sleep when the world is raging. WE black women are usually that rock for EVERYONE else. But where is our rock? That strength in the storm can't always be accessed intellectually. I've always know that, but this week, I truly understand it.

Black Women, I love you. Black women, I trust you. And when faced with the choice to believe a system that has done nothing but deprived people who look like me of our basic human rights and tried to strip us of our  dignity or YOU, I WILL ALWAYS GIVE YOU THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT. And you will never hear me say that the state had the right to take ANY of your lives. When given the opportunity I will always call out the toxic masculinity that supports your being killed for lack of submission or being threatened by your sexual or gender expression.

My sisters, do whatever you need to do to make it through this world whole and sane. Pray to whichever God (or Goddess) that brings you value and comfort.

I leave you with a few words of an old hymn from my Pentecostal upbringing. It was written referencing Jesus. I offer it to you as an invitation to embrace divine love in whichever expression heals and helps you.

In times like these we need an anchor. Be very sure your anchor holds and grips a solid rock...

On the State of Being "Woke." (Be Ever Waking)

Just as one rises in the morning to a day unexplored, the act of "waking" is continuous. Remaining "awake" for hours and days on end skews perception and feeds illusion. Even in times of battle, sleep must be obtained. Soldiers take turns sleeping while the others stand watch so that they all can be more effective. I see the declaration of "stay woke" used to admonish and belittle quite often. It implies that one can awaken to an idea, concept, or truth and then must perpetually maintain that state of knowledge & acceptance. 

But the clearer picture shows that we awaken to a concept. We understand it. We rest in it as true until some new piece of information brings deeper understanding. I think it would be more beneficial for us instead to encourage each other to "be ever waking." This acknowledges and validates that resting in what we know is an acceptable pit stop on the road to knowing more. 

Just like a spouse that greets you with a smile or the mother that kisses your forehead in the morning after being awakened by an alarm that is necessary but can be jolting, lets us as kindred be there to say "Good Morning! Let me help you get into this new day" as opposed to decrying how long they've slept. Waking to ridicule only makes one long for the "peace" of the "sleep." 

To make it through this thing called life we need each other, and at any given moment we rotate between being the sleeper, the alarm, and the awakened. Whatever your current state, remember you're coming around to the next state soon enough. ‪‬ ‪ 

Be Ever Waking!‬