Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him. 2 Samuel 14: 14

In another bible I read this same verse read “All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which can not be gathered up again. That is why God tries to bring us back when we have been separated from him. He does not sweep away the lives of those he cares about - and neither should you!” The first thing that stood out to me was the analogy of life and water. I thought of how when a cup spills onto the ground, the water soaks in whether it is concrete or soil. You know I like metaphors so I started thinking about how in a perfect world life would be more like a counter top and we could run some of the water off the edge back into the cup but this is not the case. Life is like the concrete, jagged at times, smooth at others. It can be like the soil, plentiful for growth or it can bury you alive.

Just made me think about how when a moment is gone, it is what it is! That moment is gone, we can not live life by the water that is spilled but more by the moments we still have left to live. Making the best out of those opportunities. I like how it speaks of God bringing us back when he feels we have been separated, it shows the compassion the Lord has for us. That he will continue to protect us if we allow him to, he will not just discard us as if we never existed. All in all from today’s verse I recognize that life is short and we must make the most of every moment that we have, fill our days with love and glory. Set out to accomplish what will make you feel whole, what will make you feel warm in heart. And while doing so if we make mistakes, let’s be thankful that we have a God who will continue to hold us down. How will we hold him down? Peace and Grace be unto you!

Proverbs are the daughters of experience.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12: 2

Funny how you find things, I read a letter yesterday to the graduates of 2008, where a Princeton professor apologized for the lack of education that older generations have bestowed upon the younger generations. One thing that struck me was that she spoke of how we are taught to be afraid to take risks, we are taught to chase the dollar and not our passions. Then I was rapping with my man who quit his job in search of his dreams, in search of his passion. Of course that’s a brave move, took a lot of courage and support to make such a transition but he’s doing it and doing it well. How can we succeed if we place all of our faith in worldly perceptions of how we should live and what we should follow?

I love that here in Romans the word tells us to no longer conform to the pattern of the world but be transformed by renewing our own minds. To me that concept is such a blessing, the road that I am traveling may not be the path of others or the path that is widely accepted by the world but trusting in God’s will will surely land me where I need to be, where he wants me to be. In order for us to renew our mind we must be concious of what we allow to affect our thoughts. In order to be transformed we must believe that we can change, that we can make a change. It does not matter if your background is finance and the world is telling you to go make bookoos of doe, if your passion lies somewhere else follow that. Follow it with God’s strength though, we have to truly believe in our own abilities. Sometimes that’s the hardest part, if we are truly honest often it is easier to see someone else’s talent and neglect your own, I know I do. But when we start thinking like that we just have to re-read the first part of today’s scripture and allow our minds to be renewed.

Realize that so many of us want more, yet do so little with what we have been given.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Colossians 3: 5-10

I was looking through the bible for some words of joy, some words of praise because I feel blessed in a lot of ways. I read a topic called right living and figured I would check it out. As I started reading the above passage I was saying to myself “word, this is true, but I’m not about to write about this with my imperfect self”. Then I thought there must have been a reason that I was drawn to this specific passage and God knows that I am far from perfect so I can at least touch on it because it did speak to me.

What I immediately gained from reading these words and having gone to church and hearing the preacher’s talk about the days when they were in the streets is that it is all a process. No one became holy and sanctified over night. But see that word process becomes a crutch for me, I can’t speak for others. As long as something is a process, that is not delineated with a specific time frame we can continue to relapse and do what we feel because their is no clock that we are working on. It’s easy to say that our own conscience should be the clock but it’s not that simple. Over the years I have created many destructive habits, they haven’t destroyed me yet so I continue on that path. Having a renewed love for God but still battling with other temptations. I don’t really have a purpose for today’s message, more of my own confession. In the back of my mind I am asking myself, if I truly want to walk on the right path and receive God’s blessings why am I stalling in the process? Peace and Grace be unto you.

When the cock is drunk, he forgets about the hawk.

City of Ruin

Torn by a situation, life is everything you make it, everything you will it to be.
Young black men wine and cry about the knowledge their fathers never taught them.
Beautiful black women confused by what their daddy didn’t show them.
Moms play a Part TOO!
Young black men spoiled by their mothers attention and affection. Longing to be spoiled by their women in a similar fashion. Sometimes creating unrealistic goals of a relationship that is supposed to be reciprocal.
Young black girls caught up by their mothers imperfections. Either they were silent so she learned nothing or they spoke chords of wrongness and those chords echoed into empty halls of mindlessness that became stone.
So what is this confusion, these mind games, these strange feelings. I call it
LOVE

Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Psalm 51: 11-13

Psalm 51 is a long Psalm and I have quoted from it before in the Pardon me messages. I find strength in repeating the whole chapter aloud after I am done praying to God. It is clear that we all make mistakes. No sin is greater than the other and I’m sure I sin everyday. In this Psalm David says “cast me not away from thy presence”. It’s like, I know I am not perfect and I continue to make mistakes Father, but please do not turn away from me for I am your work in progress. I was laying down last night and I was saying to myself how easy it is to talk about faith. To say with your mouth that you believe everything happens for a reason and that it is all in God’s plan. However, I would be lying if I said that its easy to actually make those beautiful words practical. I guess it’s all a journey and a beautiful test we hope to pass.

Speaking of tests, I took my final exam of my 1L year today. A sense of relief came over me when I was finished with the exam. Anxiety set in too however, when we accomplish one feat we often look to the next ordeal or obstacle without taking a moment to be satisfied with our small victory. But back to this scripture, I love it because he asks the Lord to restore joy to him and he asks the Lord to uphold him. It’s like please don’t turn away from me, I make mistakes, but please hold me up with you awesome spirit. After that I am indebted to you, I will teach your word to others and speak highly of your amazing work. Listen we all make mistakes, and we should try and learn from the ones we repeatedly make. Thankfully, the Lord does not turn his back on us, instead he lifts us up to achieve greater heights and we praise his name for that. Sounds like a good look to me. Peace and Grace be unto you.

Things are easier said than done!

Photo courtesy of New York Times

Wear all black on Monday for the injustice verdict in the Sean Bell case Please pass this on to anyone who can receive a text.

I received this text message numerous times throughout the course of the weekend and again I ask “Is wearing all black the new activism”. Has wearing all black taken the place of such notable activism as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I remember back when the Jena 6 movement was thriving and we were all wearing black as a means to show the masses our “black solidarity”. I participated and heard many say that they felt good walking into their corporate offices and seeing other people of color representing the injustice that was being served in Jena. But does our action stop there, does what we wear really signify that an injustice has been done?

So today I woke up and threw on my black shirt and my black Chuck Taylor sneakers in memory of the brother Sean Bell. I walked into my classroom and unlike that glorious Jena day, barely any people of color were wearing all black. What does wearing all black mean anyway; do the people who we want to see our solidarity even know that we are wearing this color to represent the fact that a brother was murdered by the NYPD. That yet again the NYPD walked out of a court of law not guilty of all charges. My own Constitutional Law professor had no idea who Sean Bell was and that this verdict had drastically affected the lives of many people. He was unaware that many young brothers and sisters had taken to the streets and were seeking Justice for the loss of yet another young talented black man. He definitely had no idea why one of his students had on black today; all he wanted to know was if I was familiar with the material that will be on his exam next week.

I checked through my usual news media outlets hoping that I would see something in the headlines about the injustice the Bell family was served this past Friday. Instead, I was inundated with news of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the Democrat Primary’s, but there was no sign of any measures that would be taken towards the Bell family finding JUSTICE. And why should their be, a brother is dead and we all go back to our regularly scheduled lives. More concerned with celebrity gossip than the fact that black men can be killed in this country and their murderers receive absolutely no punishment.

The NY Times had a brief article about this issue however, and it largely dealt with the few people who were outraged by the verdict and were protesting in Harlem yesterday. One of the brothers on the bull horn asked “why aren’t more people out here”. The days of marching and blocking traffic for a day or two didn’t work then and they will continue not to work now. All the police do is re-direct the traffic and the protest becomes more of a nuisance than a movement that affects change. So what my generation has come up with as a means of fighting injustice is wearing all black; then we are really fighting institutionalized racism and brutality, we’ll show em!

Wrong, we need a strategic effort on a variety of fronts to fight the injustices that are facing our people. I refuse to believe that we are as lazy as the Civil Rights Guard of Leadership paints us. No we are not lazy at all, we are the internet generation; the text message generation. All of that to say we have the fastest and often most effective modes of communication to get messages across to our peers and move in a organized manner. We have to fight these different injustices on many different fronts. The Judge who rendered the verdict; we have to find out if he was elected or appointed; if elected we make sure that those who are eligible to vote in that district show up in record numbers to relieve him of his position.

Let’s take it back to the boycott days since the loss of revenue is the only thing that makes politicians and businessmen understand that we are angry about something and are seeking some type of remedy. This shouldn’t be hard to do because we are spawning into a recession anyway and people are already strapped for cash. We need to find out exactly what businesses that if we stopped patronizing would affect Michael Bloomberg the fastest. Once those major businesses are affected they will call up their high powered friends ad say “hey we have to do something about this’ its affecting my pocket”! You see when when we start to use our creativity and organize our efforts we begin to fall upon the ears who really create change in our cities. Maybe then the NYPD will stop believing that it is perfectly fine and legal to kill young black men. But if all we are doing is wearing black; trust me the courts, the politicians, the police and definitely the law are not hearing our voices.

We need to tap into the resources in our communities who have the know how and ability to propose legislation for stricter monitoring practices over the police departments who brutalize communities of color. All cops are not the scum who murder and harass people of color so we need to reach out to those who are fed up with their colleagues behavior and off the record find out what we can do to upset their internal situation that will help us make the changes we wish to see. I could write on for days about different measures that we could take however my one voice will not create this change. Our collective voice will not change these scenarios but our collective voices coupled with our strategic collective actions will create this change. In memory of Sean Bell and all of the other forgotten fallen soldiers; please let’s Make It Happen!

ps. I will be at the Black and Male In America Conference the weekend of June 15 - 17 in Brooklyn, NY. I think we all need to be there!

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.
Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal. Isaiah 26: 3-4

I remember being in junior high school and hearing Prodigy of Mobb Deep rap “there’s a war going on outside no man is safe from, you can run but you cant hide forever, from these streets that we done took, you walking wit ya head down scared to look, ya shook!” While I lay in bed this morning, refusing to get up I thought the same lyrics only I said there’s a war going on inside, inside ourselves, our own personal demons. We really can’t run from them even though we attempt to by suppressing our feelings and acting as if things aren’t truly bothering us. Prodigy rapped about the streets that he and his cohorts took; the demons that exist within us, the skeletons in our closet they take over the streets of our lives. Our minds, our hearts; they produce doubt and and low self esteem causing even more pain and strife in our lives.

So what do you do? Well we can keep running until the day it all catches up with us and we’re to fatigued to even fight back. Or we could trust in the Lord; but really trust in the Lord. I mean you can go to church and hear beautiful gospel songs, a mighty word that makes you jump and shout and go home and still feel empty. Trusting in the Lord starts with trusting in yourself and trusting that he made you the way you are supposed to be. Trust that the experiences that he takes you through, he is taking you through because you can handle them and he has a great reward for you when you pass his test with flying colors. I know I’ve been stressed out; went to church, felt good there, came home and was stressed out. Three weeks later, still stressed out until we really hear the words in today’s passage. Trust in the Lord forever for he is our ROCK. Trust in yourself because the Lord breathes within you and face the war going on inside because with his grace you are safe from it and you will prevail. Peace and Grace be unto you.

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. II Corinthians: 7-10

Today’s scripture couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s a message that I truly believe in; people who are blessed deal with strife and struggles as testament to their faith. Tuesday I’m getting interviewed on CNN, my blog reaches the highest numbers its ever seen. Wednesday I feel like I am in utter darkness; literally. Through it all I smile because I know that i have been blessed time and time again so any troubles that I receive just build my character. Times of hardship also show us our true friends who surround us and the Lord allows them to come to our aid. What a blessing! The experiences that we have in life build the people who we are becoming. If everything in life was easy, we would take the beauty of life for granted. I want to appreciate all of the blessings I am given, and so if that means I have to be in the dark before i can see the light then so be it. For I plan to be relish in the light much longer than I will ever be in the dark and I pray the same for you. Peace and Grace be unto you.

Water always finds a way out.

Today we have a piece that far too many black men can relate to from one of my favorite poets merged with a stunning photographer and artist; The Poet Nightday and Michael Wilson present Tired of Waiting for My Father. I hope you all enjoy!

Tired of waiting for my father

As I sit here on these steps waiting,
Eyes grow weak ,
Weak from tears that flow,
Flow for a perfect image lost.

Looking through a squint
Dreaming of a dead beat ready to become a man,
Fatigued from dreams becoming nightmares,
Drained from thoughts of lost promises.

Weary of lies spoken,
Falsehoods that make traps.
Body bushed from continues emotions stomped on
A rolling stone rolled over his son.

Finally understanding that this is the only option
To let go of the thought of a relationship,
Giving up unable to go on
The hope that was had fell from untamed skies.

Looking through these closed eyes
Closing is my only true escape,
Time to get up and move on
Its dark and I’m tired.

Tired of looking of down these streets
Waiting till the street lights come on
Finally realizing
That I am Tired of waiting for my Father.

You can purchase this book at any one of the following websites.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Man-Possessed/Steven-A-Lewis/e/9781425991562/?itm=1

http://www.amazon.com/Man-Possessed-Steven-Lewis/dp/1425991564/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208818776&sr=8-5

www.Authorhouse.com

To view more artwork from Michael Wilson please click:

THE LIES
By Ma’at

Fuck this country so hard it bleeds the wealth and prosperity of your forefathers
Inseminate your mind with limitless understanding and watch your seeds grow
The revolution will not come easily but it will come
Over and over again until
New birth
A new age
This county was built with on the foundation of REVOLUTION!!!

Hypocrites!!
Each framer more faced then the last
But at the core of their new country…..
“ We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,…… and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,”
Our being white male slave owners…..
Not there white wives
Not their male nigger slaves
And sure as hell not fucking me
I was good enough to rape
My security taken from me, after my husband was taken from me, my father taken from me, my children taken from me… he took the only thing he knew I still had that he could physically take

Surprise Mother fucker
My spirit is stronger than you can imagine
My back forged with the strength of generations of matriarchs, kings, queens, family, unity
You can not take my legacy
It runs through my veins, my children’s veins, my children’s children’s