The Devil and Truth

Growing up, after I’d watched a scary movie, I would find it very hard to fall asleep. It was as if every squeak, creek of the floor or even the blow of the wind, was the sound of the devil coming to get me and take me to hell. I swore he was in my closet.  I’d scream and yell for my daddy to come “save me”. He would come, as always, and he would say, “there’s no devil in that closet lil darling”.  And I would cry and say that I heard the sounds and on TV, he was hiding in the closet just waiting for the opportune time to come and take me. I’d picture the devil with red skin, big fangs, two horns and long sharp fingernails. When I told my dad this, he laughed. He said, “the devil isn’t scary-looking, nor is he ugly. Actually, the devil will always be the best looking thang in the room”! I never understood that until I got older.

When you think of all the things, people and places that betrayed you, I am sure all of them were very attractive, or shall I say, appealing to the senses (because attraction varies from person to person). We fall prey to the things that are physically appealing to us, even when we know deep down it is destructive. As I live and learn, I find that the Truth has been the most frightening thing. The Truth can be downright disruptive! And what we fail to recognize is that the Truth was there all along, but because it’s not glamorous, boisterous or flashy, we tend to overlook it when we are enjoying ourselves. We tend to blame the Truth because in a sense, the Truth is God’s Messenger and we all know the old adage of “don’t shoot the messenger”! I’ve always grouped the Spirit and Truth together because whenever the Spirit is present so is the Truth.  And because we are all spiritual beings, the Truth is there all along. But why do we choose to ignore it or get angry when Truth makes an announcement?

I will tell you why, the Truth is convicting. When the Truth speaks, all the wrong thoughts, actions or intentions are called on the carpet and we, as human beings, hate being wrong, let alone called out on our foolishness. That’s where the anger comes into play. We want to throw a rock and hide our hands and not be held accountable when something breaks and that is how the devil operates. The devil will always give you a million explanations or justifications for doing something wrong. The devil will fund your endeavors, hell, he will even find you fans to cheer you on in your foolishness! But when the chips fall, the devil has moved on but the Truth will stare you directly in the eyes without moving a muscle. And when you are wallowing in the mess you created, the Truth is standing over you with a mirror.  

The message I ultimately wanted to convey is, appearances are very misleading. What may look good isn’t really good. Seek that which stirs & calls your Spirit and not things that touch and arouse your senses. And be wary of the beautiful ones aka the devil … for they always break the mirror …

And I Can't Tell You Why ...

It puzzles me how people can move about day to day without a clear direction or understanding of their lives. The society we live in would rather we all become a band of walking zombies so that our actions can be easily influenced by those who know better. When you can influence and control a person’s thoughts; the battle is already won. I have conducted my own independent study of discovering the answer of “why” people do what they do, say what they say or believe what they believe. And although I wasn’t surprised that most people don’t really have a good explanation, I was very shocked at the anger I received once I continued to ask the simple question of why. People seem to get upset when they are asked to validate their claims. I find that most people are really upset with themselves when they “hear” the answer they give. I asked a close friend why she was a Baptist and not Methodist, Catholic, Agnostic or followed Judaism, and the best answer she could give was, “my mama & grandma raised me in a Baptist Church, so that is why”. And I asked her using that exact theory she provided, if a person grows up and smokes crack because their mother and grandmother did, is that okay? She immediately got offensive and said we are talking about God not craziness! I had to calm her down and tell her that I was only testing the theory and the reasoning. If she could base her religious beliefs on that of her ancestors and what she was taught, why couldn’t a crack addict do the same? That is something that makes me go hmmm….start asking yourself why you follow the paths you do people.

The past few weeks during the NBA playoffs, I have read tweets, Facebook statuses and overheard many conversations about who is going to take it all and who is going to be the MVP, etc. I overheard one guy say that he wants Lebron to get a ring, as if he knows Lebron or that Lebron needs a ring to continue living. So I asked him why he wanted to see that? And he said, “because Bron Bron is my dude! He needs to make Cleveland fans mad!” So I asked him what his son would be doing this Summer when school gets out? He said, “I don’t know, his mama handles all that.” So I said, well what would you like to see him do? Have you asked him? He begins to get agitated and told me to “go on somewhere with all that”. I told him that I wasn’t questioning his fatherhood or involvement (of lack thereof) in his son’s life, I just wanted to know why he would want to see a grown man, one he doesn’t know personally accomplish a short term goal, but can’t tell me what he wants to see his son be involved in this summer. He remained very defensive and said that he provides his son with everything he needs and that he knows his dad loves him and that I needed to “stay in my lane”. So I said, well if that’s the case, it’s Erik Spoelstra’s job to guide the Heat to a championship and that he needs to stay in his lane and just be a fan of the sport. He didn’t like that last comment I made, so I moved right along.

It fascinates me that people will much rather follow the masses when it comes to their own thought process. People do so many things based on what others have done and what others may think without thinking for themselves. We need to sit and critically think about why we do the things we do….OFTEN! Are you a creature of habit? If so, why? Do you like surprises? If not, why? I never intend to make people angry when I seek to help them reach a higher level of consciousness, I am just passionate about people KNOWING themselves and having their independent thought process as undiluted as possible.

Changing Your Landscape

For the past few years, I've suffered more than my fair share of job losses. Being your classic overachiever and highly functioning professional, you can imagine what that did to my pysche. My self-imposed state of being was being tested. The first job loss was loud, yet deafening. My mental state was in complete mayhem, it was if my thoughts became tornadic. All of them were dark, fast and destructive. I didn't understand WHY this was happening and honestly, I didn't want to KNOW why, I just wanted everything back to normal, back to the "predictable". I wanted my "predictable" paycheck back, I wanted my "predictable" day to day schedule back, I wanted my "predictable" day offs back, basically, I wanted my familar way of living back. But something in my spirit turned on after the third job loss in three years (the old folk always did say that it comes in "threes"). Finally, two additional job losses later, I finally "hit me". A life full of familarity and predictability is like living a slow death. You will not grow in a controlled environment, you will either get worse or stay in the exact same state. When you alter/change a controlled variable, the test subject will almost always undergo some kind of change. And in life, simply taking a break from something whether it be a job, a physical location or from a person; it will never be enough to evoke change. You know that what you left is still in tact and waiting for you. But what do you do when what is left isn't waiting for you anymore? You are forced to find a new place to go or you can CREATE a new environment for yourself. Don't ever start believing that you don't have a choice as to what you want out of life. You will always be in control of where you end up. But you have to accept the fact that you can not and will not be able to do it by yourself. God will provide you with the roadmap, some gas, a vehicle, and some people along the way to get you to a better landscape or He will either place many roadblocks in your path to get you going in the right direction.



It is crucial that you become familiar with your inner voice because it tells you when you need to change your direction. If you ignore it, God will intervene and trust me, when He intervenes, he PRUNES!! And pruning hurts but it is so very necessary if you want to harvest fruit. The back to back job losses were my pruning experience. I KNEW that my life had become so mundane and stifling. The truth is, I wanted a change; I needed a change, I was too afraid to allow myself to imagine or even move into living differently because I didn’t know what the landscape would look like once I moved. I wondered, will I like it? Will it be fun? Would I have more money? Would my friends and family be there? I was finding every excuse in the world to keep from paying attention to the inner discomfort I was feeling. Instead, I filled my time up with noisy distractions to hopefully drown out the quiet voice that was telling me to “do something else”. I can tell you fear is one hellavu drug! God gave me opportunity after opportunity to get on the right track, but I kept seeking the familiar and the ritualistic day to day routine because it was comfortable. Let me tell you, comfortable don’t win no awards! You will not triumph in comfortable; you will not accomplish what you are destined for in comfort. When you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, CHANGE YOUR LANDSCAPE!   



Changing your landscape means accepting that you will be walking into unchartered territory. EVERYTHING will be new. If it’s too scary for you to think about critically but you don’t want God to start pruning; I suggest that you start making small changes. Start building your confidence by implementing small but yet strengthening activities. Start by changing your drive home, start my saying positive affirmations out loud every morning, take a bath one day instead of a shower, walk up and give a stranger $20 one day out of the blue, hell, go buy different color apparel than you’re used to! Just do some things DIFFERENTLY and I promise, you will start to SEEING a change in your life. Get used to change, embrace it, practice it and your LANDSCAPE will start to change to reflect the your seasons of life and there will be beauty and joy in it all.



Happy Travels!

Windows of opportunity

I’ve been absent from the blogging scene for a minute now so I thought it was only fitting that I come back with something profound. For the last month, I’ve been contemplating a lot, reviewing many aspects of my life whether it be the past, present or future. In a sense, I was attempting to gain some focus and direction on where the next 30 years will take me. As I recounted several instances in my past, I kept coming to different windows. When I say windows, I mean brief/short periods of time where I was able to see something great or rewarding. In its literal sense, a window is an opening; it changes the entire landscape of any room whether it is big or small, short or long. Oftentimes windows allow light to shine in or outward. There is something about a window that instinctively makes us all want to look in or out of it. I am convinced that ”something” is opportunity. Over our lifetimes, we will be blessed to come upon a window; if we are lucky we may come across tons of windows as we continue to live and grow. Today we live in a society where everything comes at us fast and in a hurry. We are taught to map out our goals and set forth strategies in order to achieve them. But what most textbooks or self help books fail to tell us is that life cannot be mapped. God interjects our day to day lives with windows, and we make the choice to look out or in those windows to see what or where it is that He wants us to go. If you stop and think about people, places or things that could have had a life changing effect, I am sure you are also able to recognize that window where you had to make a decision to do something, but you failed to. Unfortunately I am sad to admit that a lot of those windows I have been permitted to come across have been passed because I was too focused on a path and goals I had set rather than looking at what He wanted me to see. Opportunity rarely knocks twice, so when you see window, stop and look. When you look, look good! Then pray for what vision it is that God wants you to see while you look. If we did this every time someone or something new crosses our paths, we would probably be much more productive and happy people.

The Jena 6

I’ve been hesitantly following the Jena 6 case for a few months now because I feared it would stir an array of extreme emotions within my own psyche. This particular case made me sit and think about my childhood school days (for I was educated in a small Alabama town) and how I would react if this would have happened in 1995 at my school. There was an obvious racial divide throughout my all my schools ranging from kindergarten to me being a senior. It’s as if we are still in the mindset of separate but equal mindset when it comes to race. But in case of the Jena High School, the racial mix is about 85/15, with the predominate being white students. The infamous noose hanging from the “prep” tree is what apparently incited the violence which led to the gang beating of one particular white student who did not end up seriously injured, but yet attempted murder charges were filed against all but one of the black teens arrested for the assault. Now back when I was in Jr. High School, we almost had a race war. There were black and white students fighting everyday at the bus drop off and pick up behind the school almost everyday. It began to escalate quickly with students bringing brass knuckles and even guns to school. Because I’ve always been a hothead when it came to racial discrimination, my father sat me and my brother down and flat out told us that if we were involved in any fighting or got found with any possession of guns or weapons that our ass would be grass when he found out. And I personally would much rather be called a punk at school for not participating than dealing with my daddy if I did! I told that story because, I feel strongly that parental guidance could have prevented this entire situation. It is sad that no one took these boys to the side and told them the truth about violence and how to handle racial tensions. I am also upset with the school system for not holding a school wide counseling session on racial tension and diffusing it, I would like to know the school guidance counselor stance on this situation and see what he/she had to say, because they have failed their students and their community. I am disgusted as I see JJ and AS out in front leading what they call a 21st century civil rights movement, this is such propaganda!! I also see where the parents are petitioning the public for money to help in their legal costs. Now if JJ and AS are as powerful as they say they are, why haven’t they asked some of their very prominent lawyer friends to come and try the cases pro bono? Oh my bad that would be too much like right… I just don’t believe that these two are concerned about “racial equality”. I will say this in closing, violence is never a solution to any situation, especially with teens, but the charge of attempted murder was too harsh regardless of race. I pray that the harsh lesson is learned by all parties involved, and that is that more times that not, life is not fair.

Defining Moments

While I was in Chicago last week, a total stranger asked me how I would define myself to a complete stranger. I had to think about that for a second, I did not answer it as he had hoped, and instead I asked him how he perceives me considering that I am a complete stranger. He chuckled and said, oh boy, you are a thinker! And right he is! But sometimes I have the tendency to over think things. Our conversation pretty much ended with that (I don’t like talking to strangers too tough). After that brief encounter, I started thinking about the defining moments in my life, then I and some co-workers began to discuss some of our own experiences with each other. A defining moment is the moment you understand what your true character is. I only have a couple, but I will tell you the first one I had (I have experienced the most profound one to date already, but it is too personal to put in a blog). When I was 10 years old, I decided that I wanted to be a member of the 9 & 10 year old girls’ basketball team. My brother played all sports so I wanted to participate in something bigger than myself, and what better way than to try out for the team. Anyone who knows me for real knows that I am NOT athletically inclined, but at 10 years old, I thought could really play!! I will never forget trying out and actually making the team and getting the infamous #11 I wanted (just like my brother)! My dad took and attended every Saturday practice I ever had and went to every one of my games. I only got to play in one game partially because I refused to go back in after one game where this really big girl fouled me and made me break a nail. Nevertheless, our team won the local championships and I got a trophy. I ran home with it, so excited to show my daddy and when I showed him he said, “I didn’t know they gave trophies to benchwarmers?!” At that moment, I was CRUSHED, it was the first time I ever felt incompetent. I loss all desire to play any sport in that one moment and at the same time, I vowed to never feel incompetent again. With just one statement from my daddy, the tenacious, never fail attitude I have, was borne, I was changed forever. Sometimes, people will have moments in which we discover who we are and what we are capable of and some will go through life with none wandering aimless through life never knowing who they are or what makes them tick. How many of you can actually pinpoint moments in your life in which your whole world changed and you defined who you are or wanted to be?

Casting the first stone

I know I have been blogging a lot lately, but this is MY blog and I’ll blog if I want to J ! But for the last time (I promise), Michael Vick is the topic of discussion. Because I was at work today, I was unable to view his public statement live until now. He looked extremely sad and it is obvious that he is not a public speaker, but nevertheless, he stood like a man and apologized and pointed no fingers at anyone and for that, he deserves some credit. I will admit that I laughed when he said he found Jesus in all of this. Now I am not perfect neither is anyone else, but the reactions from the media and from the general public has me a little dismayed at this point. How can anyone really point any fingers at Vick? I will never condone any illegal activity regardless of who it is, even if it’s me, and I have put myself in some dangerous situations during my lifetime, but to take someone’s career away? I just don’t think it’s just. I have personally drunk too much and gotten behind the wheel of my car, and for that, I was dead ass wrong. And to me, drinking and driving has far worse consequences of raising pit bulls for illegal dog fighting. So you won’t see me adamantly going off about Vick and saying that he needs to lose everything he has based on an error in judgment. A lot of people are saying that he should be an upstanding role model because he is a public figure and plays in the NFL making millions, but I say; take a closer look at NFL players over time. The NFL is full of convicted felons, rapists and thieves! If you ask me how I rank the slew of felonies, dog fighting will be at the very end of the list. How can the public be so harsh towards a stellar athlete with a clean criminal record at such a tender age of 27? It is as if we are walking among saints! And we all know that is not true. But I am quite disgusted with this entire situation and dwelling on it only makes me feel worse, so I am going to “let it go” for there is nothing I can do to make things better besides pray. I will end with this centuries old saying straight from the Good Book, and it goes a little something like this: He without sin…………