I wanted to take the time to aplogize on behalf of the church for not being the example of Love illustrated thousands of years ago, for casting judgment in light of our self-righteousness.  I wanted to aplogize for falling short of the call, until I realized that we are not much different from anyone else.

We are people.

This world is full of these organisms ridden with emotion, experience and history that bias their world perspective. Selfish beings who think of their needs before another, hurt people who want to protect themselves. Hearts that have been broken by the disappointments in life and the choices that others have made. . .

And for some reason we think that once someone believes they go through metamorphisis. Yet, there'd be no need for Christ if we had it altogether. The Physican exists for the sick. We are all sick, twisted, shallow...at some point in our lives. We are people..And isn't this why Jesus came? . . .for people?

Let's not make the mistake misattributing human error to the One who is Perfect. If that's the case, then we are no better than those we accuse of casting judgment.

We're all jacked up. The difference, though, is found in the choice to receive and accept the liberty found in God's love. We are not of those who draw back, but are of those who believe unto the saving of the souls.

it's been a while since i've ministered through poetry so i never got to finish the overcome poem..here it is.

So I was 'building' with a friend of mine about the intricacies of self, social and cultural identity among native Africans and American- born Africans. We agreed that when it comes down to it, we are more similar than we are different. We asked ourselves why then do such divisions exist betweeen and within the groups (like a mixed factorial design). Besides the obvious intention of and production of colonialism, I had to confront my own pride and prejudice: I want to be different.

We want to be different. We want to boast about our Nigeriannes, our Yorubaness, our Igboness, or our Ondoness, our Ijebuness. . .magnifying each microscopic difference for the sake of feeling authentic, superior, or distinct. But the truth is culture is communicative and transitory, static, but evolving. As communicative beings we've been relaying and transferring values with one another for centures; blending, accepting and rejecting identities.

I don't know that the ego (or the id?) can accept that it's not the star of the show. That it, we are just average. I heard someone say for every great singer, there's someone twice as good. For every great athlete, a greater one is born. But we are all susceptible to failure, to guilt, anger, bitterness, pride. Not one can escape his own humanity. While we each have skills and talents given to us to help benefit the earth, the sad reality is life goes on. Of course, your presence makes a difference, but it is no more or less important than the dude setting next to you picking his nose.

I know...it hurts....but I'm thinking it's very close to the truth. what do you think?

there is only One who is truly Unique. . . and ooh i think he likes me... which is why i feel so special.

Legs were made for walking, then why aren't we going anywhere?

a month ago, i attended a chris tomlin concert. . . mr. tomlin said something, i don't think i'll ever forget.

"We need to put some legs on our worship"

i don't want to do Christian. I want to be it. To do Christian is to have the appearance of kindness, of social concern , but to still be very concerned with our selves. our dreams, our needs....I read once (Deut 18, I think) God comanded his people to take care of the poor....is this not our calling. Someone told me once, maybe that's what God put on your heart...I figured if it's on God's heart, it should matter enough to those filled with Him. No?

We look for excuses to not be concerned. We, including me, allow for a bystander effect, assuming that someone else will do it. Someone else will mentor young children, someone else will adopt...someone else will make a difference. . .but when will it ever  be us?

I've said this before. I will say it again. Worship is more than the songs we sing in our prayer closet. It is a lifestyle, one testifying of the heart and will of the Father. if Jesus himself could stoop low and clean my feet, why can't i clean someone elses's? If not us, then who?. . . someone else.

Sometimes I fall prey to the "works" mentality. I think if I do enough good things I can earn God's love. I keep forgetting that's not how He works, that my actions can't predetermine his affection because His affection came before me. . .

Love pursued us while we were (are) yet undeserving. And we are captured by this love. this choice to be faithful. this self-less act, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to extinguish it. To consider anything else, would be..uncivilized...unGod-like. not Him. untrue to who He is.

But who wants to be with someone who doesn't want to be with you?

Love chases after us, and when we are caught we find ourselves chasing after it. Not because we believe in our works, but because we believe in love. And we guard it selfishly, protecting it from threats against its purity. The moment it seems we've dislocated it, our appetite becomes wet for more. . .

WE REFUSE TO BE DENIED, like the Greek woman who asked the Messiah to heal her daughter. The Master appeared to have rejected her by saying children's bread shouldn't be given to dogs, but she was hungry. She believed in grace and mercy, all that he imbued and said "even the little dogs eat the children's crumbs. . ." In other words, call me what you want, I will not back down.

If only we had the persistence of the Greek woman or that of the issue with blood or the centurion who refused to be pushed away because of his lack of faith.. He said, yeah, I believe, help my unbelief. I'm imperfect, but you can make me perfect. Chasing after the one who had found them already.

So we bombard the heavens with our praise and supplications, believing in the one who loved us first, believing in his chaacter so that when thoughts imply that we are undeserving we can agree, but trust wholeheartedly in His grace-- that it is forever sufficient. and we'll forever be chasing ...pursuing love.

to see me as i am and still see beauty. i thought that was beyond human capability, but you've found a way to disconfirm my hypotheses. . and i must learn to trust you.

i hear love is giving someone the power to hurt you, and trust that they will choose not to, at least not intentionally. i admit that makes me a bit uncomfortable.

because i've known the warmth of daggers ripping through my chest. Gasping for air 'cuz i had no obama left, felt death reaching for me in my lonliest hours as tears bathed my face.

so to be honest, i'd rather choose the echoes of my cries over the risk of another failed heart. . .a cat has nine lives, i. . . . i have only one.

it's no mystery to you. i've tucked my heart in my sleeve. . . i don't know how to receive what's perfect. .

because i'm imperfect, disabled, broken, incomplete, constantly working towards a perfection, never earning enough points to deserve the arms you leave open every time i fall.

it seems i cannot defeat you, love.

Ever notice a cycle with blessings? We desire good things. A car, property,job, romantic partner. ..We pray and trust God for these things, and then they arrive.

And what happens next? 

It's work! A lot of work! There is opposition, but there's also lot required of us. I think we often characterize blessings as being good, favorable, fun, sweet--all positive qualities. But it seems to me that blessings come with a responsibility that challenge us, makes us feel uncomfortable, demands the potential in us to rise to the surface of our character--seemingly negative feelings. And we ask ourselves, how can this be a blessing, when it hurts so bad? But that's just it.

Every blessing comes from our Daddy who art in heaven. The same Daddy who gives is the One who chastises. He comforts us with his rod and his staff. He is the Ultimate Husbandman, producing fruit from His Seed (us). The blessing of the blessing is that it is preparing us for greater blessings that mold us into the responsible and humble human beings we then become. I guess that's why they say be careful what you ask for. Little did you know, you were asking to be grown up.

I gotta be honest. I don't understand love. Based on its Author, I think I get how it ought to be, but in actuality it...it looks like something else. I guess that's because when love as it ought to be is given to us we don't really know how to respond.

A friend of mine told me about an ex-girlfriend of his. Like most individuals, she was broken and hurting from past relationships. He stood by her side regardless. He spoke truthfully to her. He kept it real. Although he accepted her as is, he saw the potential in her, and for that reason he chose to never give up on her. Her problem was that he didn't say I love you. They had been dating for 7 mos. She'd been ready to hear it after 2 months.  He didn't want to say something he wasn't absolutely, positively sure about. She broke up with him. She left him for another dude who gave her the attention that she felt she needed. Two months later, he breaks her heart.

Isn't that just like man? To have a Father who says I love you without condition. I see your trash and think you're treasure. But for some reason, it freaks us out, and we search for "something else" in other things that can never satisfy. I don't understand us.

And God intended for that operational commitment , that act of self-lessness to be mirrored here between two people, and we can't seem to get over ourselves. What's worst, those who are willing to give themselves are displaced; replaced by people who are not yet ready to love as it ought to be. I've asked myself why we make these choices. Why do we push Love away and settle for the temporal things? Like my brother Solomon, I propose a conclusion of the matter.

Most people don't really want love; they want attention.

As for me, I  pray for the grace to choose to love.

When you study racial discourse, your view of the world becomes a bit jaded by violent acts perpetrated on Africans by Euro-Americans. When you consider that it was less than 50 years ago that men, women, and children were being hosed in the streets, it's easy to be infected with the same hatred that spawned such wickedness. I suppose it is for this reason Wallace Fard, founder of the Nation of Islam, presumed the White Man to be the Devil (Although...uh..he was pretty white himself, but perhaps he was a different white??).

After reading these books, Left to Tell and What is the What (still reading), I understand why Fard may have come to that conclusion. It all makes sense now.

Left to Tell is the story of the Rwandan genocide. Imaculee Ilibagiza tells the story of how her family and fellow Tutsi neighbors were slain by her fellow Hutu counterparts. Not shot, but stabbed. Many butchered with hatchets, axes. Some heads cut off. Some burned. Men, women, and children....by their fellow man...looking just like them.

In What is the What, Achak Deng describes how the mushaleen raided his village in Sudan with guns and swords. Cutting off body parts, burning homes and schools. Luring children with candy and kindness only to get them close enough to be blown to pieces by machine guns.. .Men, women, and children slain at the hands of their fellow countrymen, dark like them.

What would drive another human to determine the value of another, and conclude that they are no longer worthy of their inalienable rights? What posesses a man to judge the living, when he himself is subject to death eternal? Why must children die, having never lived out the promises of their destiny ordained by their Creator? Why must children become slaves to wickedness, never having experienced goodness?

This all looks too familiar. It favors the sinister ploy that led to the fall of man. Kinda looks like the impetus that led to the cry of Abel's blood in the ground. Smells like Potiphar's wife wanting to mar a young Hebrew boys character. It looks like Pharaoh who refused to release the children of Israel. Feels similar to the likings of Nero, Hitler, Sadaam, Mobutu,  Mugabe, Sani Abacha. . .The same spirit behind the women who drown their children, the fathers who molest their daughters....The evil that paved the way for the Trail of Tears is the same influence that destroyed the Twin Towers. . .

My fam, the devil is neither Black, nor White, Persian, Babylonian, or African. The face of the devil is not raced, as race is a social construction; it is not gendered because biology cannot constrain spiritual things. It is the spirit of evil that slays men, women, and innocent children. It is the influence of greed and pride. It is the audacity of the heart to dare its God, to live as though it was invincible, but no man can escape death. We are as frail as the autumn leaf caried by the winds which we cannot control. Life, is but a vapor.

Let us not forget our enemy is not man. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, ya'll...Know your enemy enough to not become like him. Love.

{and check out the books!)

So I was thinking about this journey I've been on. I've had my highs and lows. I did things I'd never thought I'd do. I was a child of Israel, in love with the giver of Manna, then requested to return to Egypt because I was no longer satisfied.

I've lived the testimony of Joseph, a dreamer who knew from a young age the purpose for which she was sent. I was sent to prison and like Joseph wondered what in the heebie jeebies was going on. But I chose to serve my God in a foreign land.

Like David, I've chosen the lust of my eyes for temporary pleasures and I've seen His redemptive power that causes us to turn back (repent)...to submit to his soverignty because we realize He is the ultimate Pleasure.

We are not that much different from those before us. They believed, and doubted. They sweet talked Abba with their lips, and rejected him with their actions. We draw nigh, and pull back.. . .

and His mercy has endured throughout the ages of time.

I thought about my relationships. the things that I hold dear to my heart. I thought about this world system., how one day things will end. These temporary things we hold onto. Perhaps my father and mother can chose to love me no longer. Perhaps my closest friends can feel me no longer.....Really, the only thing that never runs out is His mercy, evidence of His love.

I did a study once on relationship investment and cell phone usage where I examined whether or not people were likely to stay within their personal social networks (PSN) when staying in touch with people. The answer: Yes. Why? It's no cost to them.

Whereas it's a benefit to the various companies, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T, the concept is not as innovative as one might think. See, in the same manner we get that free connection when we stay within the family, we have that Spirit to Spirit communication.

God is Spirit. And those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit. We have things outside our networks bombarding our minds every day. Taking our minutes (our time)!! At times, it makes it a challenge to hear from God. At times, it distorts what we are hearing from God, but the point is we are able to hear from God because we have that Spirit to Spirit communication. We need only to still our hearts, our minds, the world around us and yield it to His Sovereignty. We can hear from the God who is Spirit because we are spirit and we have His Spirit.

Get connected. It's free!! And stay in touch.. . .worship.

I woke up this morning to a new America.

Gas prices are still high. People are still losing their homes. Soldiers are still dying in the Middle East. The poor are still begging for food. Young kids are still parenting their siblings. Social Security is still not guaranteed. The stock market is still plummeting, BUT nonetheless....at 11:03 pm (EST) on Nov. 4. the ENTIRE world rejoiced at the same time releasing a shout of praise for the marvelous work of God. The people confessed His glory without knowing it. He invokes praise by being Himself....and even those who don't believe will marvel...

And if we, being spiritual beings can release a shout of praise in the Earth who is waiting for the fulfillment of God's will...indeed, I woke up to a new world this morning.

For better or for worst, His Kingdom Come.
  

It hit me a couple of days ago. This earth has been around for quite a long time. People have come and gone. Children have been born, lived and died as old men and women. The earth has evolved through the four seasons. The vegetation continues to grow though it's suffered, it's still here. And throughout immeasurable and measurable time the creative word that brought all these things to past has not aged. It has not expired. It's as fresh as it was the second it was conceived.

There are no limited warranties on the promises of El Elyon. The one who existed before existence. His word has really endured the test of time. Kingdoms have fallen. People have come and gone. Children have been born, lived and become evidence of His testaments.  I am the face Abraham beheld when he looked into the stars that night when his God promised to make him a father of nations. We are the heirs Jesus prayed for in John 17. . .

..Kingdoms reign and fall. Presidents serve, then leave. Degrees are obtained then buried with the dead. Relationships expire. I'm learning now that blackberries mold like in two days!....But the promises of Yahweh endures forever...they are unmolded....they will not expire...they were for then. they are for now and for those who will come after....

He is the Promise

with love,
Your servant,

princess

Brief thought..

So yesterday in class we were discussing media and politics. Specifically, we were looking at political ads. One of my students identifies herself as a Republican so she took offense to Barack's ad  She was almost red...in the face I mean.

And I was thinking when you associate yourself with a party an attack against the party feels like an attack against you. And some of us are willing to contend to defend these associations, whether it be our political affiliation, sorority or fraternity, our school..our race/ethnic group....what have you....

But I think we've placed our identity in the wrong thing. If you attack Blacks, doesn't do much for me...that's the color of my shell, but it's not who I am...Because I'm associated with the Kingdom of God, an attack against the Kingdom, is an attack against me. An attack against my brother is an attack against me...now that...that's worth fighting for...everything else goes back into the box when the game is over*. . .

*referenced Tom Campollo

And when he saw that, he arose , and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. 

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. (1 Kings 19: 3-4)

 
Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad (Pro 12:25)

 Despondency is not unfamiliar to the believer who is in the process of learning to wait on the LORD.  It goes against our very nature to live by what we do not see when we are impacted by our visibility nearly every waking moment. Here, Elijah fled for his life because ultimately he perceived his incapacity. We have but so much ability to trust before the mind begins to entertain other possibilities. Father Abraham did it. "Um, Sara and I have been waiting for so long and we don't have what you promised. What's up wid dat?"(Gen 15:1-3 check it out)

Sometimes our anxieties can get the best of us, draw us into an isolated place and make us cry out, "G_d end this!". We cry out, "This is enough. I can't take it anymore!" But Solomon says, a good word makes the heart glad.  And an angel appeared to the burdened prophet and said, get up and eat. And the scriptures say that Elijah found strength in that food for 40 days just like he had found strength by the Brook Cherith. But notice that G_d was providing nourishment to a broken soul. G_d provided nourishment. This is different from the ding dongs we thrust down our throats to cure our anxiety. This is not the same as the over eating we do to distract us from our pain, but a word, a feeding from the LORD strengthened the heart.

Remember Immanuel (Is 7:14). He was given the  tongue of the learned so that he could speak  a word in season to the weary in heart (Is 50:4). He was a disciple of life. He learned obedience through the things he suffered so he could feed us with a word that gladdens the heart. Words like, "I have overcome the world, so you have overcome" Words like, "With Me, nothing is impossible,". Challenges like "The just shall live by faith". Songs like, "I will love you beyond the now"

Can we give our LORD, a hand clap for being so deliciously good?