My Greatest Gift

My greatest gift has also been my greatest curse. NO LONGER.

I always asked questions but I stopped expecting them to be answered directly. I always find out on my own. Sometimes that meant learning the hard way. Lately, that hasn’t been working for me. Learning the hard way, that is. A persepeective shift allows me to see my gift as only that. I can ask questions and I can find my own answers but I don’t always have to learn the hard way. I can be more patient when seeking cooperation. I can be because I will it to be.

What I learned in Church: Pimps, Streets and Hiding in the Church

Announcements: Please read the disclaimer above the blog. I'm coming with a new spirit this week. And welcome for all my first time visitors. My apologies for the lateness of my message. Let me get right to it then...


So Saturday night I went to a gospel stage play. "The Lawd Done Sent Me A Man" was wonderful. It went far beyond my expectations. Well acted, well sung, well written and it was just genuinely entertaining. And they are traveling. If you want to see it or want to bring it to your church or theater, let me know and I'll put you in touch with the producers.

Among the many messages in the play, one that stood out was about a devil lurking inside the church. Evil pimps (Not good pimps) are in the church, so the church (the good pimps) needs to hit them streets. It's so important because many churches are hesitant to let their congregations mingle with the world. The World is who we are sent to speak to.

Like most church plays, there was the standard message. God will have his will in the end. After you try everything else. After you've tried all that you can, just stand. Let go and let God.




Now to Sunday. OMG! What a pleasant surprise! We had a guest speaker. His name was Father Maurice Nutt from New Orleans. I wasn't big into church when I lived in New Orleans. He is definitely not the typical Roman Catholic Pastor. He is every Charismatic, Baptist, Methodist, Christian Preacher ever. But he should be, after all, we (Catholics) started it all. If you are ever in New Orleans (Chicago now), I am sure you are sinning and need to go to church anyway, look him up. Edutaining is what he is.

This week we went from:

Genesis Chapter 12 - Abram's received a promise from God. A promise for generations to come.
to
2 Timothy Chapter 1 – Paul encouraging us to suffer WITH the Gospel. God promised. Be patient. If you can't be patient with God just go to hell…

Matthew Chapter 17 - Jesus changed (Transfigured [not to be confused with transgender]) and God told the apostles not to be afraid.

Father Maurice was reminded of movie previews. These texts were "A preview of the coming attractions"
Wets your appetite
Stimulates
Motivates

From Moses to Elijah Dueteronomy 15:18 (The people asked for a gentler message. They were tired of the raining fire.) to Jesus (And they STILL didn't want to listen!) The mountain top symbolized removing ones self from ALL distractions. My father would turn the TV off so we could hear the voice of God whenever we "had to talk". And it worked. (Remember the focus we are trying to achieve this Lenten season.)

So God will make us promises. And we can never tell exactly when those promises are coming. They could come immediately or years down the line. But we must suffer ((verb) 3. endure something) with patience and faith. Change IS coming. We must endure WITH the word of God. And the suffering is not limited to the waiting. The important part is after. In an instant, change can come. But the effects will remain forever. Your friends will run from the new you. We are all afraid of change. ADMIT IT. Think about the people who have and have not left your hometown. A lot of people want to. But who actually does.

Expect the suffering. Expect the trials. Expect the tribulations. When you have been brought to higher levels, expect new devils. And that is where we are going. Don't ask why me. I didn't do anything. YES YOU DID! You met Jesus. You made the change. You prayed. You set the goals.

Don't sit on the mountain top. MOVE! Don't sit on your blessings. He wants to use you. Bless somebody.

I know a lot of people have promise. I know even more with talent. I know even more with dreams. AND I STILL KNOW EVEN MORE WITH HOPES. The common factor in all of our failures is choking. We all choke at some point because we get impatient, or we get too scared of the change or we get tired of hearing people tell us to be scared of change. We can't afford to be scared. We are all so close. Plus, God promised. Focus on that. Keep you eyes on the prize. When we come out of this Lent, we will be strong enough to withstand the haters and the doubters and the scary assed people.

It's the scary assed people who want to stay inside the church and not mingle with the world. Its scary assed people who tell you to stay in your small town or on your own side of town (in the larger cities).And it's scary assed people refuse to grow or learn or do anything different. But we can pimp the system for God. We can hit them streets, those gutters, those sewers, those back alleys and juke joints and spread the truth.

Keep it real people

Co-Dependence, self-sabotage and settling... : Dating Questions

Current mood:Just Thinking
Category: Romance and Relationships

Co-Dependence

I used to blame the men. How could it not be some lame trying to get his first piece, or the quasi-pseudo player trying to mack without the pimpin' telling every virgin he meets or getting tricked by a young pimptress into saying things which give females the slightest reason to believe they will ever have a chance at a future. Why else would men whine about women who they cant get to go away? If men weren't giving females these ideas, then where did the ideas comes from? I knew women wouldn't just come up with these ideas on their own. No one could lie to themselves like that.

Then it happened to me more than once. I promise yall, I told the girls point blank, flat out all I wanted was a physical relationship and nothing more. I also said there was no possibility of any type of future. They (the women) didn't go away. They stayed. They laid up. They never gave up. And the questions - Do you want me to stay? (No) Do you want me to come over? (NO) Don't you like me? (Not really) Are you listening? (Absolutely not)

And now I am in the buckle of the bible belt. The heart of the south. Atlanta's a whole new variable in the relationship equation. There are a whole different type of people lying to themselves. People are married much younger. They stay in fucked up relationships for absolutely no reason at all. Women date gay men.(Really, they are gay There is no down low. That's a whole other blog.) Men trick ridiculously. And they all cheat. This may not seem out of the ordinary. But it is. Its the degree to which these things occur here.

Understand, there are people in successful relationships out there. But that's not our focus right now. We are looking at the dysfunctional ones in the hope of repairing them.

The curse and the blessing of the human race is our co-dependence. People need people. Its the natural order of things for men and women to get together. Children are usually closer to the parent of the opposite sex. In fact, future relationships are determined by the dynamic between the child and parent of the opposite sex. And when we get older we all go out in search of the improvement on that mother-son/father-daughter dynamic. Then all hell breaks out.

There is distrust. There is denial. The longing for something better. The doubt. The insecurities. The self sabotage. The hang ups. The superficiality. The loss of individuality. All the things we deal with/ignore that ruin our adult relationships.

How did we all become so desperate? Is the urge to have someone in our lives so intense that we stay in bad relationships? Or that we constantly seek validation from the opposite sex to make ourselves feel better? True, we are driven by the quest for that perfect mate. But what makes us settle for less than perfect situations? Who told us that is the way its supposed to be? Is it fear? Fear of being alone. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of rejection. Fear of spiders. Just fear.

I meant to write about co-dependence. But again, I come to the question of settling. Maybe that is the answer. Another question. (Good GotDamn!) When will I have a conclusive answer to this? I guess the game keeps changing.






Okay. I read the whole thing and the only thing that stands out to me and that I took away from this blog was:

There are a whole different type of people lying to themselves. People are married much younger. They stay in fucked up relationships for absolutely no reason at all. Women date gay men.(Really, they are gay There is no down low. That's a whole other blog.) Men trick ridiculously. And they all cheat. This may not seem out of the ordinary. But it is. Its the degree to which these things occur here.


When I get passed the reality of this, maybe I can focus enough to say something more substantial....

My Biggest Fear

I am scared to write. I have never finished any major wirting project not mandated by school or some authority figure. I used to be able to blame it on my perfectionism but I am beginning to think that’s a cop out. I’m just scared. Of what I will try to find out. What do I do when I finish? Will people read it? Will they understand? Most of all will they like it? 

You know what I’m twenty-seven. I may or may not be suffering from the quarter life crisis and I live with family and still have chores. I think I don’t care anymore. Really, I just don’t give a shit. I’ve been all over this country; experiencing different cultures and different people. You know what people are all the same. They just need people to listen and empathize with their situation. So I’ll just write what I know. I’ll write what I’ve picked up in all my travels from friends, acquaintances, colleagues, a few winos, and a bunch of bums. 

Since we started out discussing my fears, lets explore my biggest fear. My biggest fear is failure. Not just in a try and fail sense, but an ultimate failure to accomplish every goal I set for myself since I was 10. I am deathly afraid of settling. And I abhor the middle. I am all or nothing. I hate the middle class. I refuse to settle down with any woman. And most importantly, I will never be serious about any job that is not my ultimate career.

When I was 12, I read about Solomon. He was supposed to be the paradigm of wisdom. Out of the three vital qualities: knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, wisdom is the penultimate. But at 12, I realized that knowledge and understanding were first necessary in order to gain wisdom. In my conceit, I knew, I had knowledge wrapped up. So I committed myself to true understanding. I understand a great deal. I can find parallels in many, many things that people would never realize are related. At around 17 I set out to understand the most complex creatures in the universe – human beings. I do alright in that aspect. I can relate to a lot of people one would think I would never fit in with. 

I have had trouble of late though. I am stuck on one topic and I haven’t the slightest clue as to how I can make this work. Lately I have been surrounded by people who settled. Don’t get me wrong most of them have achieved middle class status. The problem is that virtually none of them have attained that status doing what they set out to do when they were younger. I have also been around people who have had no idea what they wanted to do with their life. These people I have encountered in a diverse sample. I have met people who just bounce around from job to job with no true aim except to ultimately retire and no real time frame to accomplish even that goal. At the other end of the spectrum, there are the numerous “doctor and lawyer wannabes.” I have met A Lot. These people who go to college and want to be doctors but hate blood and dissecting things. These people who want to be lawyers and can’t read. Or the ultimate directionless college student, the Business major. 

Maybe I can get a response to this question. It is my ultimate obstacle and has become my deadliest fear. I say deadly because I will be terminally depressed if I end up middle-class. I must know how people end up being middle-class from having upper-class dreams. I must know without having to experience it myself. I really want to know how a person can have a dream and just give it up. There is nothing wrong with one’s life plan taking a little longer than the average. Nothing wrong with being an adult student. Nothing wrong with taking a break and starting over late in life. But what makes people just stop pursuing their goals? Holler back people.