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? ....
Showing posts with label barack obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barack obama. Show all posts
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
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!
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!
Friday, August 29, 2008
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.
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.
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.
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.
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