Re-post in Memory of One Year Anniversary of Dad's Homegoing

Fly.
So high, Daddy, fly!
The clouds are your new roadway to roam free -
Free.
So free, Daddy, totally!
No pain, no docs, no needles, no locks…

The doors of new life opened wide for you
Just awhile ago
Mama and I saw a withering arm of flesh
While you saw unspeakable joy.

Is that why you could not speak?
When we called your name in those last days,
Last hours.
Minutes- -
Breathing in and out
In and out
Then you breathed in
And you were -

Out of here and finally there in complete ecstasy.
Did you hold your hand out to us because
You hoped to share a little of it with us?

Oh, Daddy I do see -
Clear
Much clearer…how you taught me to be

Stronger - Wiser - Better

Now you are so much better.

And now I’m getting to be free
Now I’m finally learning to fly
So high.
So free -
I love you, Daddy…

There Is a Season For All Things

I am sensing that this blog has been an opportunity for me to reunite with my love for writing in a way that I had not had before. I will certainly continue to support everyone else's blogs, but for now I must get back to focus on my personal writing projects. I sense that I do not have unlimited time to complete them and hopefully, I will be able to return to this blog in another season. Love you all...

Thinking...

Check it out. This painting hangs in the hallway outside my bedroom. I call it my "Soul's Reflection" because when I saw it, I saw myself in it, head in a book, propped to the side, thinking...

This is Labor Day Weekend and I plan to take it literally for a change. Instead of bumming around, hanging out, etc. I have some plans:

Think things through on my goals for the rest of this year and next year. Write them all down in detail. Short and long-term goals.

Lay off the red meat, dairy and sugar because they make my mind fuzzy and I have to think clear and get over the last of this stubborn summer cold.

Go on and print out all my application materials for going back to school for my clinical doctorate. Scary.

Organize my tax files from 1996 that are still piled up in cardboard boxes in the garage and put them in the attic...Clark Howard (ya'll in ATL know who I'm talkin about!) says to NEVER throw those things away!

Repack my car's trunk full of equipment (again) for work so I can spend less than 10 minutes finding stuff. I work with about 60-odd kids ranging from pre-K to high school who have special needs in the public schools and I have to tailor-make a treatment for each one of them every week, so my trunk gets so junky!!

Crank out at least 5 more pages on my screenplay I started earlier this year. I have 40-some pages in the can so far - that means at least 50 more to go-

Put together my banana pudding for a gathering this weekend. It'll be the bomb as usual (smile)

Last but not least, keep track of what's going on with u guys in blogworld, I luv it!!

The Face of a Hypocrite

Headliner: No one has called me a hypocrite. Not to my face. And I’m not calling anyone a hypocrite, although some people have crossed my radar especially during this election year that were highly suspect. But I do hear people call other people fake, full of it - or is it ‘ish’? Some people just 2-face-ded…that’s the ol’ school way of putting it. Those of you who saw the last Batman movie saw the most gruesome and literal visual of the character Two-Face, but what’s the REAL deal here? How do we really determine whether someone is a hypocrite or not? What’s the real criteria? Do we just vibe off somebody who we think we just don’t like and when no reasonable reason comes to mind, “they just don’t seem REAL enough to me” seems as good as any reason to write them off -

When I hear people refer to hypocrites the most is when they are talking about Christians or people who go to church. I honestly cannot disagree with them. Some of the biggest hypocrites have been seen scurrying around inside churches - BUT I think that Christians do get hit the hardest because they are held at a higher standard. Not letting them off the hook, either - simply saying in the purest definition:

Hypocrite hyp·o·crite

hyp·o·crite [híppəkrit]
(plural hyp·o·crites)
noun
somebody feigning high principles: somebody who gives a false appearance of having admirable principles, beliefs, or feelings
nothing but a bunch of hypocrites

[12th century. Via Old French ypocrite from, ultimately, Greek hupokritēs “actor, pretender,” from hupokrinesthai (see hypocrisy).]
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

A hypocrite is someone who tries to appear to others to be better than they really are -

Who in the world doesn’t fit THAT description on SOME level?

Think about it.

In our society we like to look good. We have perfected the means to cover up any and every flaw known to mankind. Physically, intellectually, yes, spiritually - image makes and breaks you on so many levels socially, financially - and we see this even in other cultures in the world as we saw in Beijing China last week at the Olympics. The Chinese literally had a cuter little girl lip-sync for another girl they thought was not cute enough to represent them in the opening ceremonies…I know we like to call ourselves “keeping it real” but don’t you sometimes really find yourself “keeping up with the jones’”? Do you ever compromise your true feelings about your boss or coworkers and smile and grin around them even when they are doing and saying the opposite of what you believe just to keep things smooth at the job? Is that hypocrisy?

Disagree? Agree? Keep it REAL with me!

R U Proud??

Michelle Obama did not only knock last night's speech out of the park, she may have earned the right to do a Chris Rock and drop the mic like it was hot!!! She looked like a sparkling little diamond as she passionately spoke and represented for women, specifically for black women and girls, for the benefits of family, education and marriage all in one speech. She left no more excuses for the naysayers who tried to say "What is Obama's background - who is he - really?" After listening to this speech, if you still don't know who the Obamas are, you obviously just choose NOT to know...

Good things can come from the least expected places, even from the southside of Chicago -

I for one, was so, so proud.

Jack of All Trades and Master of None

You know you've got it goin' on
You don't ever even sweat
Feelings faded and now gone
Accolades given you now marked regret

It doesn't seem to phase you
Heartbroken stains beneath your feet
Takin' time for contemplation's through
Forgot all those promises so sweet

Flirting and teasing is a honed skill
But at this rate you can never master one
You are a jack of all trades for real
Chasing the fractions of a whole 'til you're done

The equation is so simple but incorrect
You think you deserve a sample of them all
No woman's delicacies seem to be perfect
One day the tables will turn you to the wall

The day of enlightenment will allow you to see
A lifetime of refining your love for just one
Tips the scales playing with hearts of the plenty
Make a choice for your own sake, son

Become a master of loving just the one

Selah.

Black Men Revealed - Too Much??

There was a new installment on TV One's "Black Men Revealed" concerning being on the "Down Low" - members on the panel included a bisexual doctor, a man who claimed he was made publicly gay by a TV commercial from P. Diddy's "Making The Band" show and a minister who says he has been free from being homosexual for 17 years and helps gays struggling with their sexuality. It was all kind of fascinating, even though it is an old topic, but the thing I found most interesting were the comments -or the lack of serious ones - made surrounding men potentially infecting their wives. It makes me wonder if we have come to the point that married people have to actually mandate testing of their own spouses? I mean, when we hear of statisitcs like 75-80% of HIV/AIDS cases involve black men and women and we make up only 13% of the total population, it does make you consider -

Also, how about this comment made by the gay man that the reason black men stay on the "down-low" more so than their white counterparts is because black women will be more likely to put them on full blast out on the streets, telling the man's family, friends, coworkers, whoever will listen as opposed to white women supposedly just trying to work it all out privately??? Jus' puttin' it out there -

Much love and prayers for the families of Bernie Mac and also the great icon Isaac Hayes's family - MizRepresent reminded me of "Isaac Hayes' "Walk On By", so I thought I'd throw in another one you may or may not remember -