The Struggle Continues - A Prelude

Sunday, November 16, 2008

11:19am
The irony has not been lost. In the wake of our recent tryst with history, many profound thinkers have been eager to juxtapose the significance of America electing its first African American President against the passage of California’s Proposition 8 legalizing a ban on gay marriage, and the bellowing demonstrations that have ensued across the country. The query has analyzed polling results, dissected campaign propaganda, and has sprinted to the finish line of laying blame and inflicting salt upon humanity’s gaping wound – our inability to see, validate and appreciate each other…our delusion of individualism…and the cataract which impairs our ability to recognize the interconnectedness of our fate.

This has led me to reflect on the concept of “struggle” – a construct in human experience that seeks to answer perceived wrongs endured and invokes yet another construct … “activism”. It makes me wonder what propels struggle forward toward the advancement of human thought. As I witness throngs of disenfranchised homosexuals and their allies protest in the streets and before the misidentified targets of their rage (the Mormon Church, the ultra-conservative right spurred by their evangelical ideologies, black voters incapacitated by their oppressors religion, et al), I beg the question: Is anger the operative ingredient for social change? Must it be? Moreover, do our interests really lie in social change or are we merely interested in adding yet another egoic layer to the status quo of human experience?

I am mindful of the adage which cautions: “When battling the beast, be careful not to become the beast!”

Barak Obama’s success has been tied to the unique values and skills associated with coalition building and community organizing. He set his sights high, cast his net far and moved intentionally toward changing the conversation in American politics, and in so doing, he shifted the energy surging through this country.

I propose we do the same. It is time for those of us who love justice to up-level our conversation from small-minded and immature discourse to a thoughtful dialogue where the goal is not simply to DO something, but rather to BE something. We must discontinue our addiction to performing within the confines of our limiting roles and self-proclaimed identities and move consciously into the embodiment of our collective purpose.

I am of the mind that when we busy ourselves with BEING present, BEING in conversation, BEING informed, BEING engaged, BEING enlightened, BEING communal, BEING in love, BEING HUMANISTIC!….our capacity for work is expanded and our vision for social change becomes crystal clear. For we know without vision, the people perish.

So now what? ....

The Dawning of A New Day

Wednesday, November 5, 2008 7:00am The sun has risen. It's a new day. I marvel at the sun's capacity to rise and fall in utter allegiance to its function – to give light; to shine without judgment; to remind us of infinite potential longing to be fulfilled. In the disciplined rhythm of time passing, the sun has always risen to illuminate the darkness. It gives us hope in times of despair. The sun has risen. It is a new day.

President Elect - BARACK OBAMA

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

6:12am
I'm still mesmerized.

On the Brink of History

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

3:33am
Today marks the convergence of so many realities that have distinguished the American experience. History – the long and the short of it… the brutality and the beauty of it…the mystery and the inevitability of it – prepares itself this morning to speak the familiar language of change in an unfamiliar voice. The change that we embark upon today has been the sleeping giant in a county that has for centuries lived beneath its ideal. We’ve awaited its awakening. We’ve yearned for its initiation. Today our course in history will change.

This is election day in America! We commemorate the struggle and we celebrate the triumph. Today we exercise the most fundamentally democratic right to express one's opinion with the VOTE!

VOTE FOR CHANGE!

Why I Voted NO on PROP 8

Monday, November 3, 2008 3:10pm "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." These are words of one of the foremost renowned Americans of the twentieth century, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As an African-American minister who was literally thrust onto the stage of history by racial injustice in the south, Dr. King was most clear about the insidious nature of hate and discrimination. Throughout the pages of our history we have seen time and again how the small-minded ideologies of one group of human beings have been allowed to oppress the lives of others. This is unfortunate. In California, there is such a proposition on the 2008 election ballot. Proposition 8 seeks to amend the Constitution of the State of California to exclude homosexuals from the right to choose and marry the person they love and enter into civil contract. (One group of human beings, in their small-minded ideologies, has set out to oppress the lives of others). Those in support of this proposition have framed the conversation in “defense of marriage.” My question is: Why does marriage need defending? The idea that marriage has been an unchanged tradition in the human experience is not supported sociologic- or anthropologically. Marriage has evolved from our earliest understandings of the agreement. These evolutions have followed the pattern of human progression in expanded thought and insight for centuries. Long gone are the days when 12 year old little girls of ancient times (and recent modern times) were bartered off in exchange for goods & familial reputation. No more do we experience in civilized society the occurrence of women, though “married,” being considered property and having their rights apportioned into their husband’s trust. No longer is it illegal in this country of expanded freedoms for members of differing races to enter into loving relationships and later marry, as it was some short forty-one years ago (Loving v. Virginia, 1967). We are grateful for evolution in human understanding. Now, we who love justice and equality have another battle to fight. It would be easy to base this decision on fear. The supporters of this proposition have offered us a heavy dose of that medicine. Even easier, may be the notion to decide based on religious beliefs. However, we’re a country of laws and principles and one such law is the separation of church and state and one of the founding principles of this country is the notion that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS; THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PRUSUIT OF HAPPINESS... Proposition 8 is discriminatory and discrimination is beneath humanity.

GREED: The Ironic Antecedent to the Fall of Capitalism (as we have come to know it)

Saturday, October 11, 2008

7:49am
Our free market system has been placed on life support. This cataclysmic attack has not been at the hands of global terrorists unwell with our duplicitous foreign policy or the corruption that stales our domestic political agenda. It was an inside job…the mastermind of a proverbial parasite. Moreover, the demise of this system has cast economic dominos tumbling downward throughout the world, and has sent us back to the doorsteps of communist China – hat in hand – requesting a “bailout”.

From economists, politicians, and savvy businessmen to retired teachers, farm workers and American dreamers from sea to shining sea, we have all had a whack at identifying the culprit of this catastrophe – feverishly searching for an outlet upon which to project anger and rage, disappointment and unease. Fear has taken hold of the minds and hearts of many of our countrymen as well as citizens that inhabit cities and towns around the globe. In the aftermath, we have been allowed to see yet again how intricately tied our destinies are.

This has occurred amid our seeking to democratize the planet and arrogantly insist that others follow our lead. While we can’t seem to dislodge our ego-inflated head from our own ass, we steadily offer the world our empty rhetoric of e pluribus unum, in exchange for their deeply rooted cultural understandings of such fundamentally human concepts as:

“I am because we are, and because we are therefore I am..."
"Between friends all is common…”
“I am my brother’s keeper…”
“When spider webs unite, we can tie up a lion…”

It looks to me like we have a lot to learn.

(I wonder if this makes me a 'socialist' or maybe even 'un-American'...if so, I guess I'm in good company)

The Best Birthday Gift Ever!

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

1:35pm
I had an amazing birthday yesterday! There was a lot of reflecting, some quality ME time and quite a few heart-warming notes from family and friends who I love and appreciate for making this life experience a tremendous ride. The cards I received were beautiful. The gifts were very thoughtful. However, yesterday I got a gift that I can honestly say will never be duplicated. It was one of a kind. It was the best birthday gift ever.

I found this gift in my mailbox. It was there with an Allen Brothers catalog, a bill for my student loan payment, and a beautiful card from my mother (yeah, I'm still a "mama's boy" no matter how I try to deny it). My hands trembled as I held the envelop. I smiled a very big smile. Of all the things I could have received on my birthday, I stood there holding my vote-by-mail ballot for the November 4th election. How freakin awesome was that?

Yesterday....on my birthday....I was given the opportunity to exercise my right to vote in a very special election. I proudly cast my ballot for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. What an amazing birthday indeed!

On Identity - Part 5 - Life Force (A Birthday Finale)

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

7:55am
Thirty-2 years ago today I showed up. I had chosen as a backdrop all of the identity props that I have mentioned in my previous posts on this topic – a race, a gender, a family, a hometown (Washington, DC). I’ve lived the vast majority of this life making agreements, doing what was "appropriate": being a good student…a good son...a good Christian; all as if who I was could be encased, defined, shaped, or understood by a human story. It often seemed as if I were in search of an identity, when in actuality I was returning to a truth.

There is a dimension of me – who I really am – that was never born and will never die. This dimension has never been hurt, harmed or endangered. It’s the energetic that plays the soundtrack of my existence. It’s an orchestral symphony; an improvisized jazz riff; blues that shout rhythms; spiritual hymns that speak a freedom unbeknownst to captivity; it’s the reverb of the drum....that beats the heart….that sources the blood… that awakens the house in which my soul dwells. It’s a feeling that illuminates a body. A force which animates a life! I AM LIFE FORCE (élan vital).

Main Entry: life force
Part of Speech: n.
Definition: the vital force or impulse of life; one's source of vitality, spirit, energy, and strength;

A great delusion has swept the consciousness of the planet. It has lulled us into a false belief of separation from the thing itself. As a result, we define ourselves according to outward appearances rather than inward realizations. We live victimized by circumstances, because we have relegated our creative power to performance rather than emboding it ontologically. We have the power, yet we consider it blasphemous to think that we ARE the power. There is no separation.

I have awakened to a conscious awareness that I am the very vibration of life. I am life itself. EXPANSIVE…WHOLE…BOUNDLESS! I am now free from the limited beliefs…which shaped the limited perspectives….which out pictured as the limitations of my experiences. The force is with me. I bring the force. I AM THE FORCE!

Happy Birthday to me!

On Identity - Part 4 - A Tribute to Autumn

Monday, September 22, 2008

11:53pm
Today, I am Autumn.

This is the season when I first appeared. I was ushered in with the crisp autumn breeze, the libra sun, the harvest moon. This is the season when change colors the landscape in browns and oranges, reds and golds....when tree branches lovingly release their foliage to the cascading fall.

I greet the autumn leaves....with autumn kisses.....and dreams that make for a season of bliss.

On Identity - Part 3 - From the Perspective of Who I Am NOT!

Saturday, September 20, 2008

1:05pm
I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I’ve spent a lifetime (or two…maybe even three) toiling with the fundamental question: “WHO AM I?” I started this discovery with the grotesquely obvious. However, in their conspicuousness, I have come to re-cognize (re-know) that those indicators are in fact antithetical to my enlightenment. I am beginning to understand that how I once defined myself is no longer sufficient. My old tools for crafting an identity for myself have long since worn out. They don't serve me anymore.

And hence, like Dorothy and Toto in the Wizard of Oz (or The Wiz, depending on your flare), I’ve instigated this expedition anew. I’ve decided that to go deeper in my awareness, I must first separate the wheat from the chaff.

I am not a summation of intricate parts or experiences. No matter how dynamic or complex I would like to think myself to be, who I really am is beautifully simple – once you see past the multitudes of illusions.

I AM NOT….

my family, my friends or my foes
my race, my gender, nor my sexuality
my religion, my politics, the place I was born
my education, my degree, my career
my dreams, my aspirations, my secrets
my success, my misgivings, my failures
this body, this skin, these features
what you think I am, what you want me to be, or what you remember me as…

I AM NOT MY STORY!

This is not a statement of better nor does it come from a place of judgment. This is a statement of truth – a truth I think we all share...a truth that simply says: I AM MORE THAN THIS. ALL OF IT!

Now the question becomes, what’s left?

On Identity - Part 2 - Stumbling in the Dark

Monday, September 15, 2008

4:55am
Trepidation looms in the darkness. Senses heighten. Ears question the quiet and search feverously for the faintest of sound. Eyes create formations of shadows and lines and the boogie man appears. Mind noise intensifies and no matter how tightly we hold our eyelids together, sleep does not come. There is no rest for the weary. This is the hour of reckoning.

Court is in session, and it is now judgment day … again. You assume your familiar position as defendant, as plaintiff, as juror and judge, and the interrogation ensues. Question upon question examines your fidelity to the immutable laws that demand meticulous adherence: know thyself and to thine ownself be true.

Your duplicity renders you incompetent to stand trial. However, the solace of double jeopardy does not apply. There is always tomorrow.

On Identity

Thursday, September 11, 2008

11:30pm
My mind has been preoccupied with “identity.” The concept intrigues me. What if the “identity” we have spent lifetimes crafting, at its core, was just a mirage? What if we discovered that who we thought we were was merely an insufficient, phenotypic, optical illusion; and that the catalog of groupings & causes, proficiencies & defects….even the very substance of our gene pool, though intricately designed and extensively studied, were simply pathways of expression for our most true Self? What if, in our quest for uniqueness & distinction….our insatiable need to be different, we have mistaken indicators and descriptors for the infinite substance of who we really are?

Often I feel we are all participating in one splendid masquerade. The scene reads like the opening stanza of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poetic lament, “We Wear the Mask”:

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes –
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Adorned in the most elaborate ideas of individuality, we are mesmerized by our own story. We mingle. We schmooze. We ignore the inclination that behind this story we represent is an awareness that there’s something more to tell, but we haven’t allowed ourselves to discover what. You see this discovery requires time we don’t have; discipline we can’t attain; attention that is disordered and deficient; and a willingness to bring all you believe to be true under scrutiny, at the risk of being left overexposed and unrecognizable to yourself. It’s far more easy to disappear into the clamor of religion and sect and family and gang and set and politics and nationality and ethnicity and tribe and creed and race and skin color and body type and gender and sexuality and age and status and pedigree and station and alma mater and degree and profession and privilege and access and limitation and lack and personality trait and diagnosis and handicap and ability and success and failure and right and wrong and familiar and other….. and…. this dance is exhausting!

.....who turned out the light?....

Knowing Beyond Doubt

Saturday, August 30, 2008

11:19pm
It’s time for a little clarification. This blog is not intended to be a political blog. I am not a pundit. I am an observer. However, I am fully aware that my observations are filtered through my personal experience. Therefore, I merely invite you into these ramblings that go on in my mind. These posts are not meant in any way to persuade, neither are they intended to be “objective”. I share these thoughts only from the vista of my personal perspective.

Given that, I will also say that I believe there to be a dimension of consciousness that is transpersonal...metaphysical. There is a right way of seeing, and knowing, and understanding what is true. However, the only barometer of this truth is a feeling tone. It’s what I call “knowing beyond doubt.” There are things that we don’t have to be convinced about because we KNOW them. Often times, we don’t know how we know them or why we know them. We just do. There may or may not be empirical evidence that supports this knowingness; and frankly there may appear to be tons of such evidence to the contrary of this knowingness, but yet we KNOW all the same. We may choose to act out of alignment with this knowingness, but what we know to be true remains true. This type of knowingness is beyond ideology, religion or even intellectual capacity. The genius behind this knowingness is encoded in the very vibration of our existence. It occurs at a level far deeper than the cellular; it is more innate than DNA. When we hear this truth, it resonates whether we are conscious or unconscious to its rhapsody.

I am moving into a place in my life where I am only interested in experiencing the resonating vibration of truth. This is not localized truth. It's not MY truth. It's Universal truth! It’s not the type of truth that you “speak to power”. It’s consciousness that understands that “truth IS power.” It's truth that transcends personal stories and the multiplicity of individual and group identities. It's not a respecter of title or position and it knows no opposites or polarities or preceived lines of demarcation. I search for this truth in human experience. My commentary here gives voice to my findings.

I welcome your comments, because I know that as we engage we all become more in tune with this truth.

Let it be easy!

Pre-Blog Writing 3

Friday, August 29, 2008

4:56am
Last night I went to sleep in a different country. No, I had not made some last minute trip across the ocean. Nor did I cross the imaginary lines that separate the United States from its boarder nations to travel deep into Mexico, South America or our neighbor to the north. It was the same bed, in the same building, in the same city where I have slept many nights before; however, last night this country changed. I changed. We all changed.

Last night, the United States of America was stretched, pulled beyond the limits of what she thought was possible for herself. She was made to stare into the mirror and see, in her reflection, the short-sited agreements that she had ascribed to – agreements that constituted her way of life; agreements that played out as her collective personal experience; agreements that had began to dash her hopes, and make her dreams feel out of reach. As she gazed more intently upon what was staring back at her, she recognized a glimmer in her eye that she had long since learned to ignore. Hidden behind years of pain that had rolled into a history of inconsistency and contradiction; wrapped in the delusion that as long as we had great ideals, and occasional experiences with diplomacy abroad and economic success domestically, we could ignore the fact that we have been a country divided along the lines of race and economics since our founding; beyond these potentially crippling realities she noticed the truth about herself. She saw hope.

She began to play songs that affirmed her creativity. She spoke words that recognized her potential. She danced and smiled and cried healing tears.

Last night, Senator Barack Obama accepted the democratic nomination to officially seek the office of President of the United States of America on behalf of that party. He stood in the gap between all that we have been and all that we will become and declared a new day. He was that glimmer, and as he shown we all saw more clearly that we are more than the smallness of our personal identities. We are bigger than war, and poverty, and discrimination. We are more expansive than race, and gender, and sexual orientation. He gave us permission to become free from the terror of fear, and to live unafraid of our greatest yet to be. Barack Hussein Obama stood on the promise that the forefathers of this great nation only understood in part - that the perfection of this union rests solely in WE THE PEOPLE – all of us, and then he invited us to stand with him. So the question becomes what do we stand for? What is the content of our character? What is the quality of our intent?

Think about it – lest in the eagerness of our response we slip back into the lull of individualism and otherness, which may require another 232 years from which to awake.

Pre-Blog Writing 2

Thursday, August 28, 2008

7:14am
I feel the passing of time this morning. It plays like a tightly wound clock which has been set to go off at a precise moment....each minute ticking louder than the previous with anticipation...with a clear intention to shift the history of our collective human experience. Each minute ticks under the weight of many years of knowing that within us lies a greater yet to be, an unfulfilled potential, and today it calls us into new existence.

I can see the threshold. As we move closer to its opening, I hear the thud of history’s doors slamming shut. Thresholds of the past fade away into the illusion of yesterday. They yield to the authority of today – the infinite urgency of now. The threshold is long and wide, and awaits all of humanity to pass through, reminded and renewed, in the consciousness that we are the dream. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Pre-Blog Writting 1

Monday, August 25, 2008

8:04pm
I hadn’t expected to be so moved. I recognize how historic the goings on are. I acknowledge the vast sentiment of disbelief coupled with profound amazement. I know that a wonderful thing is happening. But I hadn’t expected to be so moved.

The energy began anew on Saturday. I watched as the Democratic presumptive nominee Barak Obama shared with the world his choice for a running mate in Senator Joseph Biden from Delaware. However before then, I had seen countless youtube videos; I had visited http://www.barackobama.com/ multiple times daily; I had yelled with excited and cursed with anger as I took in the drama of the primary season. I even shed a tear or two on the night when he was confirmed as the presumptive nominee…that night when I looked on as a silent observer (a voyeur or sorts), as these older black women (regal, classy, gray-haired women) stared at a television screen, numb and transfixed by the event. They looked almost as if they could scarcely believe their eyes…as if they wanted so desperately to believe, but had lived far too long to give into what could very well have been a mirage. They stared. I stared.

However, something has shifted. What I thought I had known…what I believed I had understood…took a turn over the past few days. You see, yesterday I was schooled by my dear friend and brother, Charles Reese (who tends to school me often) on the historical fact that this coming Thursday, August 28, 2008 marks the 45th anniversary of the day when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood before a sea of believers and those laden with curiosity to proclaim a dream, and on that day two score and five years later, Barack Obama will stand before yet another sea of believers (and those laden with curiosity) as a living testament to the infinite potential embedded in a dream.



So today, I watched the opening ceremonies of the Democratic National Committee Convention. As I watched, I noticed that within me a deep emotional tide was welling up. Speaker after speaker surged the wave. It swelled. It was clear in one sense that I was witnessing history, not being made, but unfolding. The significance took my breath away. You see, for most of these 32 years, I have shown up in the world as a little black boy; who grew up in a little black community; who learned piece-mill about a history and a heritage; enslavement; and a struggle for freedom and justice. I grew up a little black boy who knew first hand what can manifest in a life that agrees to lack and limitation. But today, I’m an African-American man who had allowed a belief in the notion that “it’s just the right time” to delude me. My understanding is profoundly different now.

First, I understand that the only thing that is going on here is God! I know beyond doubt that only the Universe governed by a loving, conscious Spirit can align so many variables to orchestrate the wonderment of this symphony. I am conscious that the ancestors are rejoicing, but this consciousness is fully aware that these ancestors I speak of showed up in the world as former slaves and slave-owners alike, and spanned the rainbow of skin tones and ideologies and individual expressions. You see, we all are of one Spirit, and each of us has come by this way to show forth the glory of God; to bring about a most clear understanding of all that is scared and true.

There is great significance in the awareness that through the lenses of the complete story we are able to see all the beauty that lies in this very special moment. By "complete story" I mean: the stolen Africans and those that were bartered by tribal kings and heads of clans in exchange for guns and goods; the rebellious captive and those that quietly endured; the ship’s captain, the crew, the auctioneer, as well as the man (I reckon) who built the block; the field slave, the overseer as well as the house negro; “Massah” and “Miss Jane” as well as “boy” and “gal”; the abolitionist as well as the capitalist… that followed the hounds…that had the scent…and ferociously pursued the return of lost property; the trail of tears, the civil war, the great speech at Gettysburg, and the Juneteenth emancipation; Plessey vs. Furgerson, Jim Crow, poll taxes; Brown vs. the Board; the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights Movement, the Gay Rights Movement, the Farm Workers Movement, the Chicano Movement, and the movement for every other cause or group perceived to be disenfranchised and oppressed by seeming others; oh, and let’s not forget the men in sheets and the gun toting gang-bangers that terrorize our streets as well as those that sit behind antique desks… in oval offices… in white houses… as heads of state. However, if you look with the intention of seeing rightly you will discover, as I have discovered, that this trajectory of human experience is a divine amalgamation which has presented us so perfectly with an immaculate conception.

It is with this consciousness that I beheld history tonight. My body shook with a wellspring of emotion when a wife, who loves her husband, stood atop the heap of our combined story and set the stage for all of humanity to bear witness to what happens when consciousness perceives reality as not being held captive to that only which the eyes can see. Tonight I witnessed a demonstration of faith – the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen – and I have a slight inclination that as the week progresses, our collective faith will be healed.