Enough!

If this society would stop its consumerism, people would be less lonely. It is an exercise in privilege to "shop" for the "perfect" man or woman, and miss the chance for a great relationship. You might lose your gift from God searching for a dime piece.

On the surface, this may sound like a plea for companionship for myself. This may appear to be my admittance that I am lonely, or longing for someone to see me for who I am. Honestly, these things may be true. However, I am speaking to the deeper truth, the more profound reality of relationships as a consequence of the larger society's preoccupation. Personally, my issues will come to their own conclusion. This isn't about keeping my mind stayed on Jesus (for he is on my mind), or reading Proverbs 31 to be reminded of the well-rounded woman (for I am well-rounded). This is about the awareness that the way society approaches relationships is quite different from how it used to be, and more than likely how God created us to be. I know that this is a nuanced argument, but I think it is worth the time and the consideration.

We are social creatures. We crave relationship. This is how God made us. It is nothing wrong with any of us who desire to be in relationship, and furthermore I honor the fact that God endowed us with the ability to choose. I have certainly enjoyed the ability to choose which schools I would attend, where I would live, even who I would marry, etc. However, as a minister, I have had several conversations that all evolve around loneliness, and the insanity that often accompanies it.

What I contend is that in a western society that is linear, individualistic, oppressive and exclusive, all of these things have crept into how we relate to one another. I know that attractiveness has always been important in the way we choose with whom we will be in relationship. Yet, I don't believe that we would have so many outside of community (because ultimately, I feel that this is what loneliness is) if we weren't such complete consumers.

Sure, my last boyfriend left much to be desired emotionally. He was antisocial and we weren't well matched. But do you know what he said to me? "My next girl is gonna be fine! You're smart and everything, but I need some arm candy. That's what I want, and I always get what I want." Besides the fact he was trying to be hurtful, he was saying what many people say everyday. I always get what I want. I get the job. I get the car. I get the friends. I get the money. If you are not what I want, then too bad for you. What in the world does this have to do with good relationship? It only creates winners and losers, when there is the ability for everyone who chooses to have what they need. The sad thing is many people never engage or get to know people enough to make a decision so quickly as to whether or not they are compatible.

When I was a girl, I loved being around my grandmother's friends at social events. I was always curious about people and their behaviors, and how people interact with each other. I remember how Johnnie Mae (names changed for anonymity) with the limp eyelid and missing teeth was married for 30 years to Deacon Alsbrook. I remember looking at the pictures in their home at wedding pictures and seeing that she was younger in the pictures, but she always had the limp eyelid and the missing teeth. Deacon Jackson was not without his own aesthetic challenges... his breath stank through his face, and his lips made you afraid to kiss him for fear of getting drenched. But you know what? When anyone saw them together, there was no doubt that they adored each other. There was no doubt that they were in that thing together, and that there was nothing that they wouldn't do for the other. They were in love.

So, no pat phrases. No quick responses. I will never say, "You didn't pray enough." I will never say, "Just wait on the Lord." My response is always God has a plan for your life that doesn't hurt, that doesn't leave you alone, that doesn't require poverty or an impoverished spirit (for the sake of poverty). It may require change, and it may be challenging. God desires that we are whole and fulfilled, and if this is not the case, I contend that it is because humans often superimpose their own agendas on top of God's way, and relabel it as God's. God will let us do it our way, but there will be a lot of oppressed and sad people on the fringes of society asking "why?" when we should be asking ourselves what we are even doing.

Reconciling Action: I will be reconciled to the fact that over the course of history, humans have made a simple gift from God an impossibly complicated thing. I will not beat myself up or try to make myself over when people reject me because I am not Beyonce's twin, and I will continue to open myself up to risk loving and being loved when love comes to me. I will refuse the notion that if I am not in relationship, then I must not be in the will of God, particularly when I know that most people believe only winners can speak for God. I will use the time alone to improve my own life, and I refuse to participate in games just to show that I can play them too. I will also accept my life of singleness rather than be in bad relationship. I will be, unashamedly and completely, me.

The Veil of Choice

Thought for the day:

Freedom is a struggle to maintain. Every now and then, the familiarity of bondage calls to me--and honestly, I respond, because it is reflexive. But then comes choice. Right there is a tangible place that I can touch, and I choose freedom. As I reflect, liberation and bondage aren't truly that far apart, but choice is the veil between.

That veil between makes all the difference. It acknowledges shadows but looks for light. My choicefulness is what makes me me, and today I will trust my decisions. Fear is an option, but I will choose to operate from a grounded place of love.

Reconciling action: I will not assume that my decisions are flawed. I will not spend a lifetime discerning what the alternative could have generated. I will go forward, breaking the conditioning that bondage creates, and replacing it with the purity of hope and everyday life. I will not be afraid to live, to fail, or to succeed.

Thought for the day:

It is such a curious thing. I am fascinated by the time I spend being about the trivial pursuits of life. As I get older and better, I tire of all these things--these fruitless, "keeping-up-with-the-Joneses" endeavors-- hanging off of me, jingling like keys to locks that have long been destroyed from doors that don't exist anymore. In confession, I admit I still have them, and I hold onto them like one day I am going to find those doors. Even if it were possible, I can't even imagine what I believe will be on the other side of those doors.

Today, I am reconciled to the fact there is no perfect job, no perfect relationship, no set way to be faithful to God, and no perfect way to live. I realize that at this moment, I have invested much of my life trying to look like, sound like, be like the image others created or that I believed they wanted. Now, I will invest in what is eternal--treating people well; working toward peace and justice; loving myself for who I am, for how I look, in all my complexity; and letting the Spirit of God use me for the benefit of the world.

Reconciling Action: I will not do things just to be a part of the club of conformity. I will not say things because they make me seem smart or faultless or pious or attractive, and I will understand this life is not about continuously flying above circumstances. I will live through what comes my way with as much courage as I can muster, even if I look foolish. I will enjoy when things go well, all the while realizing that I cannot let privilege dilute my strength. I must prepare for the times to come that may be full of sorrow. I will seek authenticity and healing in all that I do. O God, have the keys.

Thought for the day...

Relationships are like archaeology sometimes. You think of the old things you used to do, read old cards with old promises of loyalty and affection. Being single makes you want to consider resurrecting those things, to pump air into them and see if they will live. Sometimes this is possible, but a professor once told me that there is a difference between a resurrection and reanimating a corpse.

Reconciling Action: I will resist believing that what is best for me lies behind me. I will stop busying myself with "what ifs"--which only breeds resentment and insanity--and believe that what can be is within my reach. O God, I open my heart to you.

In the West you have been struggling for many years with the problem of evil. But in the light of non-duality, there is not any problem. You need both right and left to have a branch. Do not take sides, if you take sides, you are trying to eliminate half of reality, which is impossible. For many years, the United States has been trying to describe the Soviet Union as the evil side. Some Americans even have the illusion they can survive alone, without the other half. If we look at America very deeply, we see the Soviet Union. And if we look deeply at the Soviet union, we see America. If we look deeply at the rose, we see the garbage; if we look deeply at the garbage, we see the rose. In this international situation, each side is pretending to be the rose, and calling the other side garbage. Survival means the survival of human kind as a whole, not just a part of it. If the South cannot survive, then the North is going to crumble. If countries of Third World cannot pay their debts, you are going to suffer here in the North. If you do not take care of the Third World, your well-being is not going to last, and you will not be able to continue living in the way you have been much longer. It is leaping out at us already. You cannot leave the job to the governments or the political scientists alone. You have to do it yourself.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Source: Thich Naht Hahn, The Heart of Understanding, Commentaries on Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, 1988 p36

This quote pushes and makes reconciliation more urgent, because it supports that we are clearly living in illusion. The dangerous thing is that we take on the roles of polarity so completely that humans kill and maim to maintain what we believe about ourselves. We do not see our connection to each other, though God shouts to us everyday that peace is possible today if we stop trying to set ourselves over and against our perceived enemy. I vow to live peace, and to challenge the status quo, and to boldly love the other, even when it puts my life in harm's way. We must live courageously.

“If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes (German Playwright, Poet, Novelist and Dramatist. 1749-1832)

Is this spirit of this quote not the key to true reconciliation? If we who are in the act of reconcilation operate from an event or succession of events where you and I are victim ond oppressor, we can never be in community. However, if I live with you as one who through convenant will not intentionally hurt again, and if you live with me who is not objectified, who is more that one to lord over and manipulate, then we can live in right relationship. This quote is important to me, though a risky endeavor. Most people don't rightly know how to be more than what they have been. But today, I will attempt to live in the hope of this quote, that wherever I am on the spectrum of oppression, I can assist you in becoming your potential, and vice versa.

I know this is simplistic. I know this logic has plenty of holes. However, I want to boldly forward our journey today in a world that seems hell-bent on violence and opposition. Today, I will hope.

Rihanna and Chris Brown & The Talk Show Complex

I am a lay-sociologist. One concept that I hope to develop over the course of my life is what I call the talk show complex. Since Donahue, and then with Oprah, there is a way that some do community that I feel is extremely unhealthy. With the talk show, we don't encounter the other; we encounter their issue, determine a solution for them, and we're done. I will take the current Rihanna/Chris Brown scenario as my case study.

What has happened with these two young people is sad. Incredibly sad. Violence anywhere is tragic and hard to understand. This being said, there is a propensity in the world to believe that we have the authority to speak into folk's lives and we don't even know them. The talk show didn't create this strong urge, but it surely aggravated and magnified it. With the talk show, you have a person on the stage. Actually, this is not true. You have an issue on the stage. Over the course of the hour, it is our desire, and some think our role and right, to fix that issue and send the person back home "cured", maybe even healed. One hour to engage a lifetime of who people are.

The bad part is that once the lights go down, we don't know (or care often) what happened to the person. More often than not, the person is back in the circumstances that created the issue, and doesn't have 100 people in a studio audience to encourage them, pick them apart, or judge them. It feels good for the audience and the talk show host to feel as if they have helped someone. If feels good to get in a good cry and to hope that the person can withstand abuse, poor financial planning, the inability to parent well--whatever--after an hour of forced community.

I contend that this is pure arrogance. Even as a minister, I do not believe that it is my role to speak into the lives of people unless I have been invited! Period. I can think what I want. I can even share my opinions with others. However, in my opinion :), it is arrogance to believe that my little conjecture should amount to a hill of beans to the person. I can tell them everything I think they should do, but ultimately I know that the person has to live their own lives and make their own mistakes. Jesus knew this. Every person Jesus healed died. Every person he encountered had the freedom to follow or not. I say this to say that it was not Jesus role to stay around and make sure that everyone was doing what he wanted and were continuing Kingdom-living. It was his role, and I believe is his role, to meet each person where they are in the middle of their circumstances and offer life or death. He will not use his influence to force anything on us.

Oprah is an expert in the minds of most. I know that I am treading on thin ice here because she has risen to the level of divinity in the minds of some. She is a good person. I heard her speak when I was at Spelman College. However, no matter how wonderful she is, I think she is misusing her privilege and influence in this case. Oprah made the statement that Rihanna (which she pronounced Ree-Hannah) should leave Chris because he was going to hit her again. What Oprah says is probably true, but my issue is with the media who has ultimately said, "If Oprah says it, then it must be true, and she better do what Oprah says." Oprah can only speak her truth. Until Rihanna is asked what she believes is best for her life, all of us need to be quiet. The truth doesn't come from the top down. It comes from the bottom up.

The other piece of my talk-show complex is that we don't have access to Oprah. The talk show does not allow for the circle to be completed. We don't know if Stedman is beating her on the regular. We don't know what her home life is like. We can only assume that she is speaking from the authority that she is not currently in an abusive relationship. The same goes for the studio audience. While they clap, I am positive that at least one of them experienced abuse and stayed in the relationship.

An authentic conversation would allow for there to be dialogue and honesty so that Rihanna will not appear as if she is the only one in history who ever stayed. When Jesus engaged people, they engaged him. The woman at the well felt comfortable enough to have a back and forth with Jesus, and the Syrophenician woman even changed his mind when she asked for her child to be healed. In my opinion, my advice as a minister is strengthen because I am willing to speak and listen, to be open to critique if I am willing to be critical.

It was suggested that Rihanna needs to leave Chris to be an example to little girls who will think that it is okay to stay with men who are abusive. You know, little girls are getting lots of images here. On Thursday, right after the segment that talks about domestic abuse, some naked woman who is a size 2 will be rubbind lotion on her arse. Why is there no energy in finding out is Chris Brown is in therapy or has made emotional and physical reparations for what he did, not to the world, but to Rihanna? Let's be honest here. People are making money on this story. Lots of money.

I wish that Chris had not hit her. I wish that every relationship was one of kindness and without violence. But the truth of the matter is that public opinion could cause Rihanna to leave Chris Brown. Then what? Whew, she did what we wanted; she did the right thing, we'd think. But the right thing is whatever she and Chris decide. She might be more miserable without him than she felt beaten.

Reality check--There are women getting their arses beat everyday!!! The one instance that I was beaten, I do not remember an urgent call coming from Harpo studios. I was left sitting in the pain of the incident, left to figure out for myself what was best for me--by myself. We all need to take a deep breath. We do not own Rihanna. She is not this thing that is devoid of decision-making. Staying or leaving is up to her. It is not my right, or anyone's right to decide what is best for her. If I tell her that as a celebrity, it is her duty to leave for the sake of the world who is watching, I will not be there to cry with her when she is sad, or keep her warm at night, or even advise her on a day to day basis. Chris will, or whoever she chooses. If Oprah is so concerned, she should set up a private meeting with Rihanna, learn how to say her name, and share her heart. Then it will be as Jesus said, a private "prayer" in a closet with Rihanna, instead of gaining ratings off the pain, failures, and humanness of others. I guarantee that if Oprah talks to Rihanna instead of about her in an hour-long talk show format, she will come away with a different truth.