It’s not what you have done that brings you a breakthrough; rather, it’s what you consistently do – time and time again – that secures your victory. And keeps you victorious. We can’t – I can’t – get by on just what I know. I have to do what I know to do. And so do you.
Saturday’s radio program began just as they all have, since we first started podcasting the show on February 6 of this year. After greetings and introductions, we launched into our “Let’s Talk About Everything!” segment and began discussing the top-of-mind stories and events of the week. Inspired by the new documentary – Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work – the show was themed “The Hustle That Is Our Lives” and was all about how we each have a purpose for being here; and how to, day-by-day, pursue that calling.
About fifteen minutes into the show something happened when I made the statement: “The hardest thing for most people to do is to look into their soul (in prayer and in communion with God) and ask: what am I here for?”
The energy of the conversation shifted. I could feel my co-hosts leaning in. For the next several minutes, I expounded upon that statement, but even I knew something was different in the dialogue beginning to unfold.
I had changed.
There are moments in my life when I absolutely feel the presence of the Holy Spirit of God. And on Saturday’s show, in the moment I made that statement, it had fallen down on me.
For the next two hours, we talked about hearing from God: how to do it and what to do after you have done it. I shared notes (from the years and tears of my journey) about sowing the seeds of silence in my life in order to hear what God is saying to me at any given time. The four of us engaged each other in the importance of doing the day-to-day work of dream building – and how to begin doing that. Or how to begin again doing that.
“I know that part of my purpose is to write,” I said at one point. And I dominated the conversation – minute after minute – with the nuggets of manna the Holy Spirit has written on the walls of my heart over the years I’ve been in communion with God. As is often the case when I’m on the radio airwaves, I couldn’t stop from sharing my personal stories that make the point. Only this time, I had gone from sharing to teaching – and from teaching to preaching. And I almost felt sorry for it. In fact, I think at one point I did apologize to the listeners for seemingly stepping up onto the proverbial soapbox and sounding off, as if I were the sole possessor of truth and wisdom.
I, of course, am not. But, as a child of God, I can be used. I am a vessel. And when I am willing to receive, God can pour out of Himself into me, so that I might speak (and write!) words that encourage and inspire those who hear (and read) them. I have lived long enough, and written enough, to know that God works His Word through my words. And I have the collected testimonies of hundreds who have reached out to me, to let me know that what I am telling you now is true.
When the show was over, one of my co-hosts said, “I need to take a few deep breaths.” Another said, “That was truly inspiring.” And the feedback from listeners and viewers has been about the same. People were challenged to look within – and many of them are now doing exactly that.
I am one of those people.
In the several days since that program, I have had a few revelations: First, I need some rest. Since our premiere broadcast, I have been going nonstop, interviewing scores of amazing people, producing two shows a week. Second, while I was speaking to the masses, I was also talking to myself. Everything I said to inspire others was also meant to encourage me.
While I went on and on about writing being my gift, the truth is this: I haven’t written anything since mid-January of this year. While I extolled the virtues of sitting in sacred silence so that one can better hear from God, I cannot tell you the last time I consciously did just that. It’s not what you have done that brings you a breakthrough; rather, it’s what you consistently do – time and time again – that secures your victory. And keeps you victorious. We can’t – I can’t – get by on just what I know. I have to do what I know to do. And so do you.
It is time for me to get busy: practicing what I preach.
And so, as I write, the television is turned off. I have unplugged from cyberspace. There is none of my favorite music playing. No distractions. And once again, I stare out over the balcony and onto the suburbs of Washington and back to my laptop, facing the blank page, determined to do what God has purposed me to do: write it all down and be an encouragement to others.
Over the next several days, sitting in sacred silence, that is exactly what I intend to do.
Let me please encourage you today: How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30:19-21 (NIV)
God has given you a gift. Search for it. Mine the depths of your soul for it. Discover it. Rediscover it. Get comfortable with it. Practice and define it. Hone it to excellence. Use it. Be used by it. This gift awakens your purpose. This gift is the true love of your life. Fall in love with it – for the first time or all over again. This is the love affair that leads you into the wealthy place that is your heart’s desire.
You work each day and yet have no soul satisfaction. Some of you are experiencing a rapid heartbeat at the very thought of entering the building where you will toil the day away – working for money to keep your bills paid and your life moving forward. You may be sitting at your desk, right now, at a major corporation whose business agenda is slowly sucking the life and vitality out of you. You long for the weekend – for two days off – and yet on Sunday morning, your stomach and your chest fill with anxiety as the clock counts down the hours till you have to return to that place, and to those people, and to the myriad phone calls and meetings, and to the constant checking of your Blackberry for the fires you are ever extinguishing and the crises you are perpetually managing. You don’t want to stay, but you are afraid to leave. And so you feel trapped by another day of doing things the same old way. Many times, you fail to realize what is happening. All you know is that there are moments when you really love the work you are doing – and you enjoy the perks (window office, expense account, international travel, position and status) that keep you in the game! This is the push and pull of big business: reel you in with worldly “promise” and grind you to a pulp with daily spiritual compromise.
In my twenty-plus years of working in and out of corporate America, and in my writing and coaching life – working with media professionals, entertainment artists, PR and production companies – I see (and have seen) firsthand the diminishing returns many of us experience everyday, working to satisfy our wallets and not our spirits. In God’s Perfect Will, you make money and you live a life of meaning and purpose! In fact, the spiritual purpose of your money is not just to get your own needs met (and those of your family and friends), but to use your financial resources to serve a hungry and hurting world.
Wealth eludes some (and tragically torments others!) because many people are profit-seeking primarily for their own sake, for the answering of their own vainglorious desires, for the fulfilling of their own creature comforts, and for the accomplishing of their own self-focused ambitions. That is exactly how I used to be. For years, I corporate climbed and jockeyed for position, said and did things to “make it” to the top of whatever heap looked attractive to me in the moment. I shook the hands and stayed up late. I made the presentations and traveled to places far and near to conduct business for someone else’s bottom line – and mine. I put in the hours and did the work. And I knew success. Still do. But I have lived long enough to know this one true thing: There is a price for every ticket. And we will each (in our own way) pay it! And pay for it.
Part of my training to become a life coach required that I hire one for myself. In those days, I chose a then Chicago-based woman named Simone Peer, whose business is called A Life U Love Coaching. The whole premise of Simone’s world view, and indeed her coaching practice, is that you can in fact create a life you love. It takes courage to create a life you love. There are ferocious fears to fight and the demon of uncertainty to battle and conquer. Getting off the comfortable path you’ve created for your daily living is, perhaps, the biggest, most terrifying one step you’ll take (or have taken) in years. Your heart may pound and your stomach may flutter just like it does every day when you walk into your office. It takes bravery to take that deep breath and make that leap of faith – from merely existing to really living. But it is work that can and must be done if one ever hopes to live one’s dreams. And hear this: there will come a day (for you and for me!) when it is harder, more excruciating and terrifying, to stay exactly where we are, than it will be for us to get up, get out, and get on with our own business of dream chasing.
For many of us, the real work to be done is in bridging the gap between spiritual service and making money, between the accumulation of “things” and the satisfying of our soul. For years, I have been searching for ways to reconcile these competing desires within myself. The inner conversation continues. And yet there are a few things I’ve learned along the way that I’ve taught others, even as I continually practice the principles and formulas myself. And this one thing I know is true: we can go from pain to passion to purpose to profit. Just below the pain you feel every single day of your life – existing in the wrong place, doing the wrong work – is a passion for something you have always loved to do, a feeling you have always loved to feel, a thing that every time you do it, doesn’t feel like work at all. For me, this passion is writing: it’s as natural as breathing. Always has been. God has given you a gift. Search for it. Mine the depths of your soul for it. Discover it. Rediscover it. Get comfortable with it. Practice and define it. Hone it to excellence. Use it. Be used by it. This gift awakens your purpose. This gift is the true love of your life. Fall in love with it – for the first time or all over again. This is the love affair that leads you into the wealthy place that is your heart’s desire.
You can do work that you love and you can live with all the money you’ll ever need, to do good and inspired things (for your family, your friends, and for the world) all the days of your life! You can create a life you love. And I will.
Find the love – and satisfy your soul.
Let me please encourage you today: Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Isaiah 55:2 (NIV)
Right here and right now, there waits for you a sacred space – far above the rush and noise and hustle and game of everyday living.
Maybe you are facing the uncertainty of a medical appointment today. Perhaps you are preparing for a pivotal interview – the one deciding whether (or not!) the job is yours. Maybe you are staring down the numbers on a bill you cannot pay right now. The baby cries, the meal remains uncooked and the clothes unwashed, and you may be standing in the middle of the room, this very moment, without a clue as to how to bring together all the scattered pieces of your living. A bridge looks attractive today to someone wanting to end it all, for the futility of your own thinking has brought you to the end of all your understanding. In the workplace, there may be a conversation you want and need to have with someone you are avoiding. In the secrecy of your undisciplined mind, you may be fighting the urge to drink, smoke or eat away your pain and your problems. You sit there, perhaps someplace you know you do not really need to be – and your stomach is churning, your nerves are jumping, your mind racing, your heart pounding – and it feels like there is no way out of whatever it is you’ve gotten yourself into this time.
Whether or not you see yourself (or someone you love) in any of these realities, there remains this truth: every single day you live there will be something or someone – seen or unseen – threatening to steal what you possess; seeking to kill what you are nurturing; pursuing all avenues to destroy everything you adore and hold dear.
We are ever receiving a constant stream of inflowing stimulus: advertisements and commercials from radio and television, subtle and obvious messages from movies and magazines, and the perpetual power and energy of the words spoken to and from us.
Right here and right now, there waits for you a sacred space – far above the rush and noise and hustle and game of everyday living. In all your appointment-making today, dedicate some time to meeting in that secret place; set apart a portion of your day devoted solely to remembering who you really are, reflecting upon the blessings in your life, and listening to the voice of God within you.
This is exactly what I did a few weeks ago: I turned off the television and moved away from the computer. I lit my favorite candle and sat quietly, taking in its aroma. The ambient noise outside my house soon faded. And before long, I could hear only that still small voice within – leading me into all truth about the present state of my journey. This became my before- and after-work environment day after day, at the height of the holiday season. It wasn’t long before the clarity I sought, the peace I desired, found its way on the longest journey ever: from my heart to my head. The prayers I had been praying for months were answered. And the changes I had vowed to make were opening up before me. All because I dared to unplug from the noisome flurry and all the multi-tasking that makes up my day-to-day world. Once I signed off to all of that, I heard my unseen Partner – the Holy Spirit – and I listened to the wisdom that creates a life worth living.
There is a better life – another way of thinking and being and doing in this present world. You do not have to live another day the same old way – and neither do I. You do not have to remain caught up in the confusion, envy and competition that brings with it depression, hopelessness, insecurity and uncertainty. I can create a life I love. And so can you. You can live above everything and everyone trying to bring you down! And I will.
It is possible to create for yourself – daily – a silent and sacred moment, a brief time away from everyone and everything around you, where you can slow your mind and breathe deeply, and see yourself and your life exactly as you would have it to be. I guarantee you this: God will meet you there and lead you to higher ground.
Dare to listen within – and do what you hear.
Let me please encourage you today: What you decide on will be done, and light will shine on your ways. Job 22:28 (NIV)
Your truth is your power: it changes lives wherever you tell it, beginning with your very own.
It takes courage to admit your mistakes, to confess your struggles, and to ask for support. I made a mistake recently. And, for a moment, I was tempted to lie about it and orchestrate a cover-up to conceal the error of my ways. Then the thought occurred to me: just tell the truth! So I sat there, figuring out how to do it and still not look bad. And then came another thought: ‘Try these words – I made a mistake and I am trying to fix it!’ And so, when the time came to come clean, I said exactly those words and the woman I was speaking to replied, ‘It happens!’ And that was it! My life went on. My day went on. And it was well with my soul. I spoke the truth. And the truth made me free.
My mother sometimes tells the story of how, as a child, I would look her directly in the eyes – and tell her a lie! And then, I would argue with her about the lie I told, refusing to admit my falsehood! She said she knew I was lying and just wanted me to confess my untruths, but I wouldn’t do it – and my refusal enraged her anger! And rightfully so!
Lies are often a non-productive form of self-preservation, most often fueled by the fears within. We learn fear early on! We teach fear to the little people we call our children; we show them how to be afraid – and what to be scared of. We do not mean to do this; after all, we as adults are fighting our very own fears and just because we give birth and become parents; this does not mean our fears disappear; on the contrary, as we age, they often multiply. Fear and lies: a toxic cocktail, a parasitic relationship that inhibits many in their spiritual lives.
Lies, left unchecked, can become habitual; something you do repeatedly, until the day and the hour when you become fully aware of the devastating effect they are having on your everyday living. Lies are very often symptoms of self-hatred. They are most often told to cover up one’s truth – those things, situations, circumstances and realities that are too hard to face, too difficult to share and too painful to live with. Some of us create new realities through the telling of lies. For a season, it can seem like the right thing to do. Lies are a pathway to spiritual destruction, the slow erosion of one’s soul. Lies may cover pain, but they do not cure it.
There is a better way to live in this present world. In a world of more compassion and forgiveness, people would not be compelled to tell lies; rather, they would be encouraged to speak the truth, knowing it would rest upon soft ears and be met with gentle tongues, cloaked in love. The goal for the spiritually conscious is to live without lying and to create an environment that invites honesty and integrity. We do not want people to think they cannot speak their truth in our presence, for fear of criticism, condemnation and judgment. Even now, all these years away from being that little boy who lied to his mother in her face, I am still learning the value and importance of telling the truth, no matter how painful it may be in the moment – to myself or to someone else.
Your truth is your power: it changes lives wherever you tell it, beginning with your very own.
Fear and lies are not useful. And you are more than your fears and more than every lie you have ever told. The real power is in never telling that haunting lie again! When you choose to do this in all your future moments, you will look up one day and what you will not see is the fear that precipitated your perpetually told lie. It is possible – today – to begin the process of loving yourself more than every lie you have ever told. Loving yourself more than every fear you currently have that will probably never come true. Your mistakes are not fatal. Wounds are mended through soulful confession.
Let me please encourage you today: Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Psalm 34:12-14 (NIV)
Life is worth it. Fight the good fight. Keep living.
You are not alone. You are not alone in your struggles, you are not alone in your challenges and in your crises, you are not alone in your pain and your problems, you are not alone. You are not alone in the symptoms causing you fear, you are not alone in the habits you have (that you hate), you are not alone in fighting off the excess weight that won’t seem to detach itself from your body, you are not alone today. You are not alone in your debt and your doubts, you are not alone in your past defeats, you are not alone in your low self-esteem and your greatest insecurities, you are not alone. You are not alone in your depression, you are not alone in your hopelessness, you are not alone in your worry (your waywardness) and your weariness, you are not alone today. Though soul satisfaction eludes you this day, though peace like a river you do not currently possess, though scared and confused in the here and now, though tossed and vexed, though tried and convicted, though you are hiding and lying and running from yourself, you are not alone today.
It takes optimism to keep us moving forward (with meaning and purpose) at the present speed of life. It takes faith to live without sorrow in a competitive society and material world that perpetually favors fluff over substance, surface over deep, and external over internal. Every day, you will have to fight to keep your joy! This is the good fight of faith. Every step you take out on the streets of your life today, you will have to wrestle the temptations threatening to trap your mind, will and emotions. Your resistance is the path to your better life. With all you are sure to witness (about town and in society) on this day, you will have to make the choice not to be sad and sorrowful, for there is much to dim our spirits.
As we move through our formative years into adulthood, we manage our lives as best we can, engaging in the dangerous risks of youth, many times believing we are completely in control and invincible. As we develop into full maturity (and as age becomes our nemesis and wisdom our constant companion), we are inevitably humbled by the facts of life. You will reach a critical moment (we all do!) – an excruciating hour of absolute clarity about who you have been, who you are now, and who you really want to be. Many of you have already experienced this rite of passage.
It is the faith of our fathers and the prayers of our mothers keeping us in the game on days when our bodily strength wanes and our higher judgment fails. In the shadows of sorrow, we see the possibility of better days and so we carry on and keep living. We make it our business to get our work done and we consider ourselves saved from sorrow and from sickness, and ultimately saved from ourselves, and from the fire next time.
Life is worth it. Fight the good fight. Keep living.
Let me please encourage you today: But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:11-12 (NIV)
There comes a time in many of our lives when we have to flee – and not look back! Sometimes we have to take a deep breath – and this may seem like the longest, most excruciating breath you have ever taken. And then we have to begin again.
Watching the recent Whitney Houston interviews on The Oprah Winfrey Show, I was reminded of the bittersweet struggles of my own life – past and present.
We all have addictions: food, power, sex, greed, cigarettes, alcohol, being right, gambling, persistent pleasing, shoplifting, pornography, sugar, street drugs, work, money, men, women, television. You are addicted to whatever it is you cannot stop doing; even though you know it is destroying who you are and who you want to be.
Not too long ago, I would slowly savor a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts extra large coffee with cream and sugar each morning at six-am! Morning coffee, for me, was a delicious ritual I looked forward to everyday. It was not just about the coffee itself, it was more about everything I thought, said and did around the drinking of the coffee. (Some of y’all know what I’m talking about!) I planned my morning schedule around the six-am opening of Dunkin’ Donuts. Rising at four-am as I do, I’d work at my pre-dawn tasks until the opening of the shop. I then walked the short block there, grabbing the day’s papers, waiting in line with the same extremely chatty elderly gentleman (who runs his own trash hauling business!), the same impatient postal worker (who never says anything to anyone!), and the same cool and low-key tow truck driver (who stopped drinking beer over 10 years ago!). Each morning, I looked forward to small talk with the two very friendly Ethiopian women who poured and prepared my coffee, and who sometimes only charged me for a medium cup. This was more than morning coffee; it was morning community. I was, however, addicted to coffee.
That was nearly a year ago.
I haven’t been inside of my neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts since October of 2008. And on the infrequent occasions when I do now drink coffee, I make decaf at home. My addiction to Dunkin’ Donuts has been broken. And I am as surprised as anyone.
I have lived long enough to know this one true thing: Everything must change.
We are more than our bad habits. You are more than the cigarettes you consume without ceasing; more than the drugs you can’t seem to stop taking. I am more than the coffee I thought I had to have each morning. You are more than your broken commitments, more than your foul language and unbalanced checkbook. I am more than my fears and insecurities. You are more than your ill health and unpaid bills. You are more than your debt and your doubt. I am more than the negative words I sometimes speak about the unlovely people I am often surrounded by. You are so much more than your lack of planning and your disorganization. You are more than your procrastination and envy, more than your jealousy and competitive ambitions. I am more than the cocktails I sometimes over consume. You are more than your title and your bank balance, more than your investments and your life’s messes. You are more than your burdens and your bad behavior. You and I are more than everything that is not going right in our lives right now.
One day, when you finally sit down and catch up with yourself, you will discover what’s beneath the surface of your bad habits, what’s driving your addictive behavior. That’s what happened to me: I became aware of the deep and very dark voids within my soul that I was trying to fill. Where there is a void anywhere, there is too something or someone willing to rush in, seeking to occupy that empty space. Sometimes you turn to things – very non-constructive and dishonorable things – to ease the pain of your particular void. And then, after you have gone through all those things – the very stupid, useless things – you think will work, that do not, you come back to what you know.
There is a space within each of us that only God can fill. And God is revealed, in us, through hard and impossible things, circumstances, situations and people.
Many of us resolve to (in some way) reform, to start a diet and exercise program, eliminate a habit or to revise our lifestyle in some significant way. Between the point of your initial awareness for this change and the moment you actually experience the full manifestation of the transformation you seek, your body will revolt: it will desire to walk its own way. You will have to consciously (and continually) seize and subdue those lower impulses wanting to return to the very thing you have vowed to surrender. This is a period during which your body will experience yearnings that will test your will, your resolve, and your commitment to a better life.
Whatever keeps you bound is destroyed whenever you endure suffering, whenever you starve yourself of the pleasures bringing you down – those temporary states of feel good that fail to bring real happiness, lasting contentment and inner joy. Another reward of suffering is that you will learn things about yourself you may have forgotten or never knew before; you will experience a version of yourself that is more authentic than the shell of your being you celebrate and enjoy while engaging in bad habits and lascivious behavior. In other words, through suffering, you will gain access to your higher self, and it is in this higher self where you will actually live out all your heart’s desires. Everything you really want, you access through your higher self: that part of your nature that is made in the image of God. In this life, there are excruciating (and ultimately useful) periods of suffering where we are called to deny ourselves some of the things we want and think we need.
You and I can battle back from addiction. We can be released from the pull of any and every useless, non-productive habit we have developed. It is possible to put some time and distance between everything you are currently thinking, saying, believing and doing that does not represent who you really want to be.
What is not paying off in our lives is costing us!
There comes a time in many of our lives when we have to flee – and not look back! Sometimes we have to take a deep breath – and this may seem like the longest, most excruciating breath you have ever taken. And then we have to begin again.
I have not conquered all of my addictions, but this one thing I know is true: I just want to do God’s Will.
Let me please encourage you today: I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly price for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Philippians 3:12-14 (New Living Translation)
People-watching is one of my favorite spectator sports. I am fascinated by power dynamics, especially in corporate America, where nearly everyone is constantly jockeying for greater position – for more money, a bigger office, a higher title, and increased control over people and available resources. Everyone wants their name up in lights – to be well regarded, to be known for their successful ideas, to be adored and highly esteemed among their peers and by the industry titans of whatever vocation they practice.
Those were some of the thoughts flowing through my mind-space as I surveyed the scene, recently, from a very public luncheon table seating ten. Navigating through the customary baked chicken and sautéed vegetables, I took in the expansive room: beautiful women in high heels and tight skirts smiling and passing business cards; well suited and booted men shaking hand after hand, prospecting new business and more; brothers and sisters huddled together in tight conversations, exploring mutually beneficial interests. People were working the room. And each other. And so I sat, nibbling the artfully plated poultry and taking it all in, pondering the career path that brought me some three thousand miles – from the right coast to the left – into that toney banquet hall.
It has been eighteen months since I shuttered my life coaching practice of three years and returned to the world in which I spent more than a decade: making cable television. And one of the programs under my purview was up for an award at this very prestigious industry function, where the brightest and the brownest had gathered to celebrate the work we’ve accomplished in the past year. While I didn’t necessarily want to re-enter this world of executive producing television, I am grateful for the opportunity to continue contributing my talent. The up-side of corporate America is the plethora of opportunities, like that one, afforded to the talented tenth; the downside is the people politics involved in one’s persistent pursuit of day-to-day excellence.
It is a curious phenomenon – one which I first noted many years ago, in my early 20s, while working at the Washington Urban League – the more high-profile success one enjoys on the job, the more some co-workers seek to hate instead of appreciate. I have watched this play out time and time again in a certain milieu. And all these years later it continues to elude me why colleagues don’t more often reach for celebration of each other’s accomplishments rather than hater-ation. It is sad to say that I have often found that the more multi-talented and dynamic one is at work, the more of a target one becomes around the office. Somebody somewhere, from the shadows of some closed door or tucked away cubicle, will see to it – through gossip, mockery, rudeness or public disrespect – that you are, in some way and in their eyes, humbled.
As the awards program progressed, I found myself replaying the cliques and antics of everyday life at the office and thinking about the difficult people who must be worked around on a daily basis – some of whom were now ensconced around the banquet table, representing, as it were. As I keenly observed, and partook in, the lunch time chit-chat, I was reminded once again of something I first read many years ago: The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Matthew 23:11-12).
What I love about life is this one universal law: You will reap what you sow. You can count on it every single time. You cannot walk around practicing evil – being deceptive, manipulative and treating people poorly – and think that everything is going to be alright with you. It is not so.
We all show up for work each day with our lessons still unlearned. We bring our insecurities, our fears and doubts, and our pain and problems with us to the board room table each Monday through Friday. And yet even in the midst of the woundedness we are seeking to heal, we can still practice love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This is my intention every single day I walk into my office and commence with the work I am called to do there.
It is possible to do well in business, to have your name up in lights, and still be kind and generous to others, to be open, expansive and inclusive with others, to create a team environment where all ideas are welcome and all points of view respected, encouraged and empowered. These are the hallmarks of true leadership.
I am not yet the man I am becoming. But this one thing I know is true: Life will humble you. And love will lift you.
Let me please encourage you today: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Philippians 2:3-4 (NIV)
I am blessed to spend this weekend in Tampa, Florida, and this is the view from my hotel. A change of venue is, sometimes, good for the soul. I am enjoying Sunday morning, in quiet reflection and meditation, with this beauty as a backdrop.
Life is a series of first days and last days. We begin and we end. And we begin again.
Walking home from the office on a Friday evening, I passed a familiar face on Wisconsin Avenue.
“David!” she smiled.
“No, Robert!”
“Oh, that’s right. Robert!”
“Well at least you didn’t call me Richard this time!”
We laughed together, as we always do when passing one another, usually in that same spot. For years, I’ve seen this woman from a distance: eating lunch in the courtyard behind my house, walking to and from her office nearby – on a coffee break or just out to get some fresh air. From day one, we smiled and said, ‘hey’ to one another in passing.
“Well you won’t be seeing me much anymore,” she said. “Today was my last day. I just found out – after 17 years with the firm.”
“You just found out? And today is your last day?” I reached out for her hand. And then, she did what I’ve seen oh-so-many women in the church pews of my childhood, do: she testified, right out there on the sidewalk!
“God must have something really good planned for me,” she shouted.
I watched her face. She believed the Lord would provide. “Our paths will cross again. I know it.” I sometimes say this to people I suspect I will probably never see again. But with her it was different. I meant it. And with that, we parted. On the rest of my short walk home, I thought too of a colleague at the television network where I am an executive in charge of production. That same day was her last day too. In light of the LA office closing its doors, when faced with the “option” of moving from Los Angeles to Washington, DC and continuing on in her executive position, she chose to take the package and move on. In our last phone conversation, she too testified to the goodness of God in tough, uncertain times.
The next morning, walking to the neighborhood Staples, to re-up my home office supplies, I noticed that Pier 1 Imports – at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Bradley Boulevard – is shuttering its doors. On the way back home, I saw too that the Maurice Villency design store was also advertising a store closing sale. Even more last days for another crop of folks.
The U.S. jobless rate rose to 7.6 percent from 7.2 percent in January (11.6 million of the total labor force of 153.7 million). The Labor Department a few days ago announced that 598,000 jobs were lost in the month of January. A few weeks back, almost 4.8 million people collected unemployment insurance, the highest weekly number in 40 years.
Walking through my door at the end of yet another day in my corporate life, a week later, I could hear the phone ringing as I let down my briefcase and turned on the lights in that sacred space called home. As I stood over the answering machine, peeling off my suit jacket and bringing my heel out of my work shoe, I spied my best friend’s number in the caller ID box. Even though I texted him on his recent birthday, we hadn’t spoken in some time. And I knew exactly why he was calling me now. I could feel it. I didn’t want to call him back. I didn’t want to hear what I knew he would say.
Back from the fridge, with a cold glass of Sauvignon Blanc, I dialed him and sat down on top of my desk, to listen to a man I’ve known for more than 20 years. And he told me exactly what I expected: today was his last day. He’d been let go by the NBC station in St. Louis, where he has been a reporter for many years.
In times like these, friends and family are all you really have. And your good health! When the bottom falls out from your life, a comforting phone call to someone you love, who also loves you back, can actually walk you away from the edge of despair and depression, hopelessness and the fear that haunts men’s souls. We talked for over an hour, well into my bottle of white wine; we laughed, we reminisced, and I tried to encourage my friend to see the opportunity afforded him in the wake of such a devastating body blow. In the years to come, when we both sit back and reflect on how we got over, I hope he will remember that I tried to be a friend on that particular last day – when he piled all of his TV reporter things into two cardboard boxes and loaded them into the back seat of his BMW.
Someday, my last day will come too – for whatever the reasons may be. And so will yours. Life is a series of first days and last days. We begin and we end. And we begin again.
Let me please encourage you today: The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid? When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident. Psalm 27:1-3
None of us knows where life will ultimately lead us. There are those among us, however, who can count on someone being there to hold our hand on the journey.
A resume from Detroit kept landing on my desk.
It has been a long time since I fast-walked the five miles from Bethesda to Fletcher’s Cove – my favorite spot along the banks of the Potomac River. It’s an hour-and-fifteen-minute brisk walk from my home to this national historic park along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which, in spots, runs parallel to parts of the Potomac River. Yesterday, I took that walk. And I thought about that resume from Detroit.
Walking into the cove, dodging park poo, it was good to see the ducks still there, taking their morning baths. The canoes for rent rested upside-down, all lined up in a red and yellow painted row. And the picnic table was, as always, pulled right up to the water’s edge, where I sat and reflected upon that resume from Detroit.
Our cable television network was, in 1996, primarily a commissioning organization. In lay terms, that means we hired people to go out and make programs to air on our channels. They field produced, we picked up the full tab, and we executive produced.
The Special Programming Unit, in which I was an associate producer, was beginning production on another episode of a long-running TLC series called Understanding – and we were staffing up. And once again, this resume from Detroit came in with the day’s crop of mail. Then I got a phone call from Renate. We became fast phone friends and I eventually put forward one of the five or so resumes of hers I had stacked in my in-box. Renate was hired as an associate producer on the Understanding Cities program and, soon after, as the show went into production, she moved to the District of Columbia.
After the Understanding project wrapped and aired, Renate moved to Los Angeles. A few years later, as an executive producer myself now, I hired Renate as what us industry folks call a “show runner” on A Personal Story – a TLC daytime series I oversaw for the network. Renate was the first African-American woman to ever supervise a network series at that LA-based production company. And it was a nasty dog-and-cat fight between their executive and me in order to finally place her in that position. Perceived as a “Robert loyalist on the inside” of their company, the principals left Renate on her own to run the series and treated her poorly from day-to-day, in the wake of their dust-up with me.
This was one of my first lessons learned while in a corporate position of power: pick your battles wisely and be prepared to walk in the consequences of your wins and your losses! In that sometimes shark infested environment, there can be a backlash to winning a battle. Somebody somewhere will see to it.
Over long sushi and sake lunches on Ventura Boulevard during my monthly visits to LA for production meetings, Renate and I had heart-to-heart talks that I fondly remember and deeply treasure, even now. I did my best to keep her motivated throughout the first season of that series. When our work together ended, Renate lingered in Los Angeles for a bit, and then made her way back to Detroit.
Two years ago today, Renate left Detroit for the next chapter of her life – on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where she is now a loving caregiver to her mother, who is progressively challenged with Huntington’s Disease. For years, I have watched Renate’s selflessness in this regard. I have seen her hit the hold button on her own plans and dreams for the future in order to be the one consistent, stabilizing and healing force in her mother’s life, as together they fight the effects of that illness. I have listened, firsthand, to the stories of her willing sacrifices – all of them made for the mother who first loved her.
None of us knows where life will ultimately lead us. There are those among us, however, who can count on someone being there to hold our hand on the journey.
What a blessing.
Let me please encourage you today: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Philippians 2:3-4
Words can, and will, change your life. Words can move the mountains in your mind – those stumbling-blocks you’re aware of and the ones you don’t even know exist.
It has been a long time since I’ve had a pity party.
And the good news is: I don’t see one coming any time soon! As James Cleveland used to sing, to my soul’s complete satisfaction, I don’t feel no ways tired/I’ve come too far from where I’ve started from/Nobody told me the road would be easy/But I don’t believe He brought me this far to leave me!
In this hour, I am thinking about the rain: I love it! Always have. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why Seattle is one of my favorite places to be, second only to Boulevard St. Michel in Paris. Surveying the morning’s hazy horizon, it looks and feels a lot like rain. And while I’ve been excited about this over the past few days, as time ticks on, like in Los Angeles, the haze burns off and the sun appears about midday. And I’m my regular self again.
It was raining the day I sat across from a director friend of mine, listening, as she described her latest film project. I called the meeting to gauge her interest in directing a film I’m developing – a cinematic treatment of a short story by my all-time favorite author. When it was my turn to speak, I jumped into the plot details and sketched out the main characters – two brothers living in Harlem. After what we in “the industry” call “the wind-up” to my pitch, I asked her to take the director’s chair on the project.
“I’ll direct if you play the main character,” she said. As is her custom, her thoughts were crystal clear and her tone was straight-no-chaser.
“Acting?”
“Yeah. I don’t think anyone can play that character better than you can.” Her eyes held my gaze. She was absolutely serious.
Words can, and will, change your life. Words can move the mountains in your mind – those stumbling-blocks you’re aware of and the ones you don’t even know exist.
Life will surprise you – with a moment when someone looks over at you and sees more in you than you see in yourself at that time. It is a beautiful thing. Moving. Loving. An absolutely self-less act of kindness and generosity.
I remember sitting there, saying nothing, just looking into her eyes. And seeing God. The rain outside rolled down the window next to our table. And inside, her light was shining. In an instant, in my head, I made the transition – from “why me?” to “why not me?” – and I received the gift she was giving. Like pressing on the weight bench, I could feel my muscles growing. We are all something more than what we’ve told ourselves till now.
I haven’t seen this very spiritual woman in several years and I’m not sure if she ever made her film. I have yet to make mine.
Ah, here comes the rain now.
Let me please encourage you today: I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13
When you know your core values, you are then able to remind yourself of them in that late and lonely hour when temptation knocks.
I spent the better part of this morning and early afternoon listening as a client described her lifestyle.
Part of the process of helping someone achieve their dream is to ask them what they really want – and to listen while they tell you. (And then there are those inevitable times when, after you have listened, you are tasked with telling the person you’re helping something they don’t really want to hear. But today’s conversation wasn’t one of those!)
That’s what life stylists do – we assist people in getting what it is they say they want! And so I listened as she detailed the various aspects of her lifestyle. And I began to think about one aspect of my own everyday living.
What is your lifestyle? Every morning, after brushing my teeth and splashing water onto my face, after walking to Dunkin’ Donuts and returning with a large cup of coffee with cream and sugar, and the day’s New York Times – all the things you already know about me – I then do two things: (1) rinse the soft wheatgrass berries that are always sprouting in tall glass Ball jars in the back of my apartment and (2) water the wheatgrass trays growing on my balcony and indoors – right in front of the large sliding glass doors that are my window on the world.
In the evening, I clip the wheatgrass (as close to the root as possible), grind it to a juice, pour the green mixture into a glass and fill it to the rim with Rejuvelac – the lemony, aromatic liquid that comes from three days of fermenting those soft wheat berries I told you about earlier. I drink one glass of this liquid every single day of my life.
Going through this process of rinsing, sprouting, fermenting, planting and watering is a lifestyle. It is a wheatgrass lifestyle. And this daily ritual is a part of the pie that is my total lifestyle. I do it for the health and wellness benefits derived from the properties in wheatgrass. (Do some Internet research on wheatgrass and you’ll see what I mean.)
One of the advantages of examining your lifestyle is that you uncover (and in some cases reacquaint yourself with) your core values. In this case, because I value wellness, I go through the daily motions of buying, growing and consuming wheatgrass. While not every aspect of my lifestyle is a healthy one, I am gaining ground on those parts of it that are counterproductive to my becoming who I am ultimately becoming.
I am not yet the man I am going to be.
When you know your core values, you are then able to remind yourself of them in that late and lonely hour when temptation knocks.
I am learning to answer the door less often.
Let me please encourage you today: Jesus said, “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” John 10:10
We never know what impact we’re having on others. Unless they double back and tell us.
Standing in line this morning at CVS, purchasing today’s New York Times, I witnessed a tense exchange between a very rude customer and the brother behind the counter handling her transaction. As she left and I stepped up, the clerk said, She’s lucky I don’t hit women!
Without missing a beat, I said, No, you’re lucky you don’t hit women!
He held my gaze. And I could see the calculus going on in his eyes – like the scrambled images racing vertically on Vegas slots.
Yeah let me rephrase that, I am lucky I don’t hit women!
There are those moments when, in an instant, what was once twisted, is made straight.
I see this brother all the time in CVS. His mother worked for the same company – for 26 years – way back in the day, when it was called People’s Drugstore. He’s a friendly man who is easy to talk to; yet, in that moment, he got pushed to a limit that released his dark side. We all have one, you know. The apostle Paul wrote passionately about this very thing in the New Testament (see below).
Speaking of Paul and dark sides, I remember one afternoon several years ago, sitting in Dupont Circle with my friend Melissa, who I’d just purchased a brand new Bible for, so that we could begin regularly meeting for spiritual study. In that particular part of northwest Washington, the homeless congregate to play chess, sleep, loiter, and to wash up in the fountain (when it’s working!). When the weather is nice (and it was on that day!), the benches are crowded and the lawn is full of people from all walks of life, just hanging out.
As Melissa and I sat together, while I inscribed the new Bible with a personal note to her, we each noticed a woman hovering just beyond our reach. She stared at us both, at me in particular, but said nothing. Finally, I greeted her and asked how she was doing. The woman, very old and extremely dirty, began to tell us her life story – about her kids who don’t help her and the whole nine yards. One sad fact after another, she stood there and unburdened herself before us.
A bit stunned, Melissa and I curiously listened and being the storytellers we both are, each of us began to engage her with questions, which she carefully and comprehensively answered.
The whole time she spoke, she kept looking over at me and lingering with her eyes on my face. And she would appear to go off into a daze. I thought she was drunk and didn’t think too much about it. Then she said, I look at you and I see the apostle Paul.
And then she walked away.
My eyes filled with tears. Melissa touched my hand. We sat in silence.
My negative internal dialogue began to replay all the foul things I’ve said and done to people over the years. The errors of my ways. The sins of my youth. The imperfections of my character. In spite of it all, I had just been touched by an angel.
We never know what impact we’re having on others. Unless they double back and tell us.
What a blessing.
Let me please encourage you today: I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Romans 7:18-19
I am learning to breathe in every single bit of goodness life has to offer – right now, on this day! For all we know, tomorrow may never come.
Going from production assistant to associate producer is one giant leap in the corporate television production world. The party line is that, in order to be promoted up the food chain, you must have outside production experience. (Jesus was right when he said no prophet is accepted in his hometown.)
Well, after eight months working as a freelancer and two years as a production assistant, I was promoted to associate producer. And it was all because of Anne: after getting married, enjoying an extended honeymoon and coming back for a short while, she was promoted out of our small production unit, leaving the executive producer (EP) and me. I expected an outside replacement for Anne, but one never came; instead, the EP asked me to step up. And I did.
I didn’t see much of Anne after that. She excelled in her new position, became pregnant, began remodeling her house, and continued her ascent on the job. And then one day, I heard whispers in the hallway. Anne had a cancerous tumor. And it was in her brain.
I immediately thought of Judy, a 24-year-old woman I met back in 1988 while reporting one of my first newspaper stories. She too had a brain tumor and I was assigned to write about her recovery process. To this day, I remember Judy’s humor and optimism, even in the wake of the devastating effects wrought on her body by the tumor, which was never removed.
The few times I saw Anne after learning of her tumor, she always wore that wide smile like nothing was wrong with her, as if she was completely healthy. Anne laughed and giggled in the same girlish way that made me chuckle as well, and she always took an interest in how I, too, was managing the corporate climb: from associate producer to producer and finally to executive producer myself.
The last time I saw Anne was in Black’s Bar & Kitchen, during lunch, just a few months before she died, leaving behind a husband and two small children.
Anne and Judy remind me to live. And to live well. Each in their own way, they remind me that life is big, fragile and short! My life is better when I remember to remember this truth.
I am learning to breathe in every single bit of goodness life has to offer – right now, on this day! For all we know, tomorrow may never come.
It’s time to live now!
Let me please encourage you today: I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done. Psalm 118:17
Through the eyes of a child, you begin to understand your place in this world. And sometimes, it takes a lifetime of re-thinking these first thoughts and ideas, in order to reposition yourself in a healthier place on Higher ground.
One of the last projects I worked on as a Discovery Channel executive producer of television was the feature length film With All Deliberate Speed, directed by Peter Gilbert – the man who also brought us Hoop Dreams. This documentary was produced in conjunction with the 50-year anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case decided by the United States Supreme Court on May 17, 1954, that established the legal precedent for the subsequent integration of this country’s public school system.
In recent days, TV news reports and newspapers have been filled with stories – hailing from the south – of parents still struggling to secure good public education for their children. And equal justice under the law.
It seems as if we have gone from segregation to integration – and now to what some folks are calling resegregation – the practice of rezoning school districts and transferring primarily students of color to homogenous, low-performing schools.
Next to John H. Bayne Elementary School stood a series of mid-rises: Kennedy Woods, Joel and Walker Mill Hall Apartments. These three complexes were low-income units; what some would call the projects.
Rudolph lived in one of those apartment houses. We were each in the first grade. And he became my friend. Everyone called him Bucky. On some days after school, he would walk down the hill by himself, to my house, to play. For my part, I was not allowed to walk anywhere alone; especially up the hill, across the road and over into those apartments. This was one of the first distinctions I was able to draw about my life and his – Bucky seemed to have more freedom and less adult supervision.
While I am not a parent, just like you, I have been a child. And what I know for sure is that children are all the time taking notes on their parents: watching what they say and do, and registering how they feel and react. Kids pay attention to their parents as a way of finding their own individual selves. And what they aren’t taught at home, kids learn at school – in those critical formative moments away from their parents, when left exclusively in the company of their peers.
What I was beginning to understand, even then, in the first grade, was this: People are different. Parents are different. Every child is different. And yet, among first graders, there was a group-think emerging, subtle pressure to think, talk, and be just like everyone else. All day long – across lunch time cafeteria tables and in single file lines marching through school corridors – little people are making judgments about other little people. And their little people words are inflicting wounds on their little people classmates. Scars are forming. And some day the pain caused from these life-changing exchanges will reach its tipping point.
As a child, you don’t have the language skills and cognitive development to express what I write here, but even then, in your very young mind, you begin to put people into categories. Your first grader’s worldview – which was only as big as the distance between your home and your classroom – begins to take shape. Your ideas about the little people in your world start to form.
Through the eyes of a child, you begin to understand your place in this world. And sometimes, it takes a lifetime of re-thinking these first thoughts and ideas, in order to reposition yourself in a healthier place on Higher ground.
Let me please encourage you today: When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 1 Corinthians 13:11
Somewhere in you, in this very moment, there is God. And God in you is more than whatever pain challenges you right now. Hurt don’t last always, for after the bone crushing blow, there comes something more – it is the wisdom that will bring you up off your knees and back into the flow of your life. Wisdom trumps pain! And the lessons learned in this life build muscle that is impenetrable in the days ahead.
I hung up from the long distance call and stared across the room, out onto the balcony, gazing beyond the frozen horizon in disbelief. A faint hope, a distant possibility, a long shot and long held desire had, in a brief conversation, been turned into yet another dashed expectation. How many times must I cross the same river twice, I questioned. How many times have I ended up right here, in this same space, I asked myself.
And then came to mind the words of a Nikki Giovanni poem I read so many years ago:
And Sometimes I Sit
and sometimes i sit
down at my typewriter
and i think
not of someone
cause there isn’t anyone
to think
about and i wonder
is it worth it
Funny – what enters the heart right before the fall.
Every now and then, I cry for the life I think I want, but know I will never have; I cry for those I think I love, who show me by their actions that I am not loved in return; I cry for the consistently bad choices I make that, over time, leave me eating the bitter fruit of my own way. Sometimes I cry. Today I cried. And somewhere in the midst of those tears, as always, I find again the strength that is God, the love that is God, the hope that is God. And once more, I am strong again. Even stronger.
For every earthly struggle, there is a Divine strategy, I once heard T.D. Jakes preach. Funny – the things you remember while on your knees.
There is a hurt that is bone deep, a pain that is, at once, completely crippling – then absolutely liberating! As intensely as I often hurt on days like these, there follows an unspeakable joy, for you know-that-you-know-that-you-know that this particular pain has carried with it an enduring wisdom that will, in force and effect and in faith, veil you from this particular hurt again. Some of y’all know what I’m talking about, for you too have said: So help me God, I will never allow this to hurt me again! That’s what I’m talking about here: the awareness that you are better than the pain of this very moment and that you are stronger because of it.
Somewhere at the end of my pain, I perceive a more focused purpose for living! Somewhere at the end of my tears, there is muscle emerging that can never again be made soft and weak and vulnerable. Somewhere beyond the bitter fruit of my own way, I taste and see that the Lord is good – and His way the best path for my feet to take. Somewhere down by the bedside, life brings me to my knees, and I weep for wasted days gone by and for all that could have been – that is not. And even then, when the mask I so often wear has fallen into the dark dungeon of my lower nature, the better angels of my higher calling tend to me in soft whispers of tender mercies. Somewhere – in me – there is God.
Somewhere in you, in this very moment, there is God. And God in you is more than whatever pain challenges you right now. Hurt don’t last always, for after the bone crushing blow, there comes something more – it is the wisdom that will bring you up off your knees and back into the flow of your life. Wisdom trumps pain! And the lessons learned in this life build muscle that is impenetrable in the days ahead.
Let me please encourage you today: My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. Then you will understand what is right and just and fair – every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. – Proverbs 2:1-11 (NIV)
Look a little closer at everything you see, hear, read and do on this day, so that you’ll perceive just what God is trying to tell you. Take notes! And let your notes always begin like this: Thank you God – I’m still here!
Flipping through the Washington Post Metro section the other day, I stopped at a picture on the Obituaries page. A strikingly beautiful woman whose coffee-with-cream skin, long ringlets of hair and serene smile literally stopped my eyes from scanning along the page any further. Her last name rang familiar, bringing to mind someone I knew briefly back in the 80’s, when I was heavy into nightclubbin’ in Washington (smile!). As I read through her obituary, I was stunned to learn that she was the grandmother of that fellow partygoer, who was listed in the obituary as her late grandson. I hadn’t seen him in over 20 years, and it felt odd to learn of his death by reading his grandmother’s obituary. Each time I experience the loss of someone I know well or, in this case, an acquaintance I knew all-too-briefly, I always end up saying these words: Thank you God – I’m still here!
What I absolutely love about life is this: Everyday’s a new day! Each sunrise brings a fresh opportunity to begin again, to experience deeper levels of personal freedom. Little tidbits, like learning of this young man’s death, come into our consciousness to force the question: In a world where so many are dying each day, what am I living for? If you are taking notes while you live, you will perceive these subtle opportunities for exactly what they are: a chance for you to course-correct your thinking, your speaking, your living.
God is speaking to you all the time! Even in the most subtle ways, He seeks to get your attention, to lead you along the perfect path He has predestined for you to take. It is a good path. He is showing you new truths and confirming old ones. God is ever putting the information at your fingertips, so that you will add action to your awareness. He is gently wooing you His way, speaking to you through your very own eyes, allowing you to see (and perceive) what He would have you to witness this day. God is working through your ears, causing you to hear the words that will ring true to you today – and inspire you to move up higher in Him. He is too wrestling with your flesh, allowing you pain (but not causing it himself!), His tender mercies ever softening the blows of your willful errors and buttressing the sting of foul choices you continually make, all resulting from your hardened heart of stone.
Even on my roughest days, I perceive the good plans of God guiding me forward. When I’m on the mountaintop of success and accomplishment, there too I hear the Lord saying, “Well done, my good and faithful servant! Now I would have you to remember x-y-and-so! I love that about the Lord – He calls us to humility, so that we will remember that He alone is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
Here’s the whole point: Look a little closer at everything you see, hear, read and do on this day, so that you’ll perceive just what God is trying to tell you. Take notes! And let your notes always begin like this: Thank you God – I’m still here!
Let me please encourage you today: The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair; for giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young – let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance – for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. Proverbs 1:1-7 – NIV
While not always harmonious, the family table is, nonetheless, a sacred place. And every filled seat is a blessing.
Sunday dinner with family is good for my soul.
Clara Hairston Kimbrough, my maternal grandmother, cooked soulful and comforting meals and, like many women of her era, she always wore an apron in the kitchen. And every Sunday afternoon, there was a roasted chicken on her dinner table – usually served in the early afternoon, just following church services.
So many sons, daughters and grandchildren can tell the same story, for Sunday tables – across the world – are each week adorned with variations of this classic (and tasty!) fare.
Clara Hairston Kimbrough departed this life on Monday, May 8, 1972. I was six. And so I didn’t know her well, but stories of her life and times live on in her namesake – her daughter, my mother, Clara – who especially remembers her mother’s pies, her potato salad, her candied sweet potatoes, and her fresh homemade biscuits.
I watch my mother go about stuffing her own traditional Sunday chicken and I think about my grandmother, and of the long line of women just like her, who not only put food on the table; they also put love in the food.
Sitting with my family on a recent Sunday, feasting on roasted chicken, sharing our stories, laughing, watching football, just being together – this is the good life! Simple, soulful times that linger in the heart and mind, giving you the inner strength to face the days ahead.
While not always harmonious, the family table is, nonetheless, a sacred place. And every filled seat is a blessing.
I am learning to treasure creating new memories with those family members still here and breathing. And my life is better when I reminisce on the stories – the struggles and the glories – of those who have long since gone on to another place.
Let me please encourage you today: Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Exodus 20:12
In the end, when I’m rocking on the porch and looking back over my years, I want to smile that bittersweet smile and to say to self, I did that!
Abbey Lincoln singing Who Used to Dance (with Savion Glover tapping in the background) – this equals a great morning in my house! I can listen to her Street of Dreams all day long – on repeat, repeat, repeat!
While working on a recent writing project for a client, I discovered this: Most heart attacks occur on Monday morning! Some years ago, medical researchers released a study citing this finding. When I read that, it immediately made sense. Folks are headed off to work – many of them to jobs they have trouble tolerating. Now check this out: that same study said that the Monday morning heart attack phenomenon is true too for unemployed folks! The very thought of looking for a job you know you’ll have trouble tolerating – this too brings on stress and pressure for many people (who aren’t even currently working!).
Wow!
People accept work often leaving them soul-empty. They take the money, but end up robbed – divorced from feeling happy. They eat, drink and drug, trying to be merry so the pain will go away, but they can’t escape the life they’re leading; it remains with them, a constant reminder of being less than they expect of themselves.
Some have become what many folks have become, what I would surmise the vast majority have become: people working at jobs for which they feel little passion. For the uninspired, a position is ideal; for the visionary, a job is not enough; for the dreamer, nothing less than the dream will do.
In his poem, Dream Deferred, Langston Hughes asked the question: what happens to a dream deferred? I believe he knew what it felt like to realize that some things you will never know outside of your dreams; that some dreams will only be dreams; that sometimes the dream has to be enough. I do not believe you ever have to say goodbye to a dream. The charm is to learn to live with the unfulfilled dream – and to keep dreaming.
It can be both terrifying and liberating – waking up to what is left of your life, seeing what of the dream is still possible (for you), determining once again (for the first time), to live.
The alternative, I do believe, is a hard death: the slow suicide of walking the days of unfulfilled aspirations and shallow hollow love. It is the unrehearsed march to the grave of low expectations and unachieved potential. It is the crawl of numbing comfort that keeps you in the cradle of mediocrity – rocking as it were – motion and no movement.
I am a dream chaser. And like John Lennon once sang in his song Imagine – you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one/I hope one day you’ll join us/And the world will be as one.
Where my dreams are concerned, I am learning to be tough (when it seems that I have to), and to hold on (to what I know to be true). I am learning to keep up (with these dreams that I’m chasing), and to be strong (in this life that I’m facing).
In the end, when I’m rocking on the porch and looking back over my years, I want to smile that bittersweet smile and to say to self, I did that!
If you’re asleep at the wheel of your life, it’s never too late to wake up (and snap out of it!).
You can walk on your own street of dreams!
Let me please encourage you today: Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4
