The Seperation of Church and Hate [Guest post by soulrebelj]

About two weeks ago or so, the Catholic Diocese of Washington, D.C. threatened to cease providing services to the poor in the city if the city went forward with a bill allowing same sex marriages. When I read this, I was instantly appalled.

How could the Catholic Church make a decision like this? When did politics take the place of compassion in the Church? I know this decision could not have been on the grounds of morality after all those years of the Church turning a blind eye and a deaf eye to the myriad of horrendous cases of sexual abuse by its priests.

But I will not go on a rant. I will instead turn the floor over to my friend and fellow blogger soulrebelj who blogs at Black Everyday. He approaches the issue much better than I ever could and in fewer words without all the emotion. When you finish, show him a little soul with your comments and do go over and check out his blog.

The Catholic Church has given Washington D.C. an ultimatum. The letter, sent by the Archdiocese, is a threat to stop helping the 1/3rd of Washington D.C.'s homeless currently receiving social services if they pass same-sex marriage legislation. Morally questionable or not, this move is good for us all.

The line separating church and state is long overdue for redrawing. The Vatican, which operates as its own independent nation, should not be writing US policy--at least not without Americans referring to the Pope as Supreme Leader or Ayatollah. In this Democracy, citizen elected leaders are meant to create the policy.

That's where the line separating church and state gets blurred.

Shouldn't the Catholic Church be allowed to spend their money wherever they please? Correct, however using money to influence government policy is called lobbying, and lobbyists have [albeit weak] rules very different from the tax benefits and freedoms granted to religious institutions. Between the Catholic Church and 1/2 the policymakers claiming to be on the “religious right,” separation of Church and State is practically obsolete. To say religion has no influence over US policy is a joke. As these institutions continue to flex their economic muscle, we need to even up the playing field. If you want to play the bribery—I’m sorry--lobbyist game, you need to play by the lobbyist rules. Religious institutions need to be under the same category as other non-profit organizations.

There is no separation of Non-Profit and State. In fact, the opposite is true--we expect them to advocate for policy change beneficial to their cause (Republican National Committee, The Young Turks, etc). Churches, on the other hand, are operating the same way under the illusion of neutrality—an illusion which grants them unprecedented access to policymakers. Nobody would blink twice to hear Politician X meeting with or even quoting Minister X. If, however, Minister X was instead just Mr. X, leader of Non-Profit X (ie, Acorn), the rest of the political alphabet would be up in arms. They would demand every email, text message, or note passed among the two, and scrutinize any policy which appeared beneficial to Non-Profit X. They would demand the revocation of Non-Profit X's status, and attack the credibility of Non-Profit X (assuming Non-Profit X supported their rivals).

Both the Catholic Church and the politicians vying for their votes should consider this policy change. Threatening to “re-allocate funds” if disagreeable bills are passed is too blatant to be ignored. What we allow the Catholic Church to do today, we must allow the Muslim Church to do tomorrow. If Muslims had the same fiscal standing as the Vatican, would we be as willing to accept them using the same level of influence? If the GOP's response to Obama using Bush initiated policy is any indication, the answer is a resounding no.

Then again this is a church matter, and maybe non-Catholics shouldn't be involved with church decisions. It's not like...never mind.

I wonder what my mother is doing right this second (Someone is praying for you)

[For LP, LN, & LT: You would be surprised to know how much I fret about your well-being sometimes, but I am confident in the knowledge that joy comes in the morning.]

I will not be long this morning; I have something I really must do. You know I always like to begin each morning with something positive. More often that not, things tend to end just as they begin. If we begin the week on a positive note, perhaps that positivity will carry throughout the week.

But for some strange reason I dreamed about my mother last night. And I know what you are thinking. No, I did not eat pork or anything spicy before I went to bed. In fact, I had a very healthy, very nutritious meal that my wife prepared for me and my family with love and care. But back to my dream.

I dreamed that I was back at home in my mother’s house. I walked through the house calling her name, but she did not answer. Then I stood quietly for a minute and listened, and I could hear her voice coming from behind her bedroom door.

So I knocked on her door, but she did not answer. I knocked again and again but still no answer. I then cracked the door just a little to peek in, and there was my mother on her knees in prayer, her face twisted into a desperate, pleading scowl. As I got even closer, I could see her face shining with sweat as if she had been on her knees for quite some time.

And in my dream I was so unsettled by the whole scene that was playing out in front of me, and so frightened at what might be going on in her life that would cause her to pray with such determined fervor that reaching out, I called to her, but she still did not respond. When I got close enough to her so that I might hear what she was saying, I could hear only the same name being repeated over and over again as if it were a mantra—“Max…Max…Max…Max…”

I began shake her and shake her in an effort to bring her out of the seemingly hypnotic state she was under. And finally she stopped and she looked at me and she smiled. “How are you doing this morning, baby?”

I was practically in tears at this point, but I managed to tell her that I was alright. Through my tears tied to terror, I managed to tell her she could get up now, that I was okay. She need not pray for me any longer. But she just smiled and shook her head, and she told me that she was already assured that I was okay because all this time I had been away, she had been down on her knees praying for me. And she couldn’t stop now, because she knew I was too arrogant and full of myself to get down on my knees and pray for myself.

With that she put her hand to my face, hugged me, and left a kiss on my cheek. And then clasped her hands back in front of her, closed her eyes again, and twisted her face back into a scowl, and began once again to pray, to plead—“Max…Max…Max…Max…”

The Education of Max Reddick: Things I've Learned while on Twitter

A few months ago after I first launched my blog, my blog big brother RiPPa of The Intersection of Madness and Reality suggested that I set up a Twitter account to assist me in publicizing it. I was a little skeptical at first, but I must admit that he was right. In the few months that I have been active on Twitter, my readership has grown in leaps and bounds.

Not only that, I am constantly amazed at the range of people who I have met since being on Twitter. I have amassed a little over 1,500 followers in the short time I’ve been on and that 1,500 includes people who I might never have met or had occasion to have a conversation with otherwise.

For instance, most of my Twitter-friends are either poets, writers, or bloggers, but I am also Twitter-friends with a voodoo witch doctor from the Mississippi delta, more than one hardcore gangsta’ rapper, a nudist or two, and a self-described marijuana enthusiast. In addition, I regularly tweet with an internet porn star and two female Twitter-friends who engage in sadism and masochism and run S&M sites.

The internet porn star always tries to get me to check out her site, but once I see you booty butt naked in various compromising positions, that changes the whole dynamic of the relationship. And the S&M ladies are always giving me relationship advice, telling me to try this or that, but the thought of being tied up and whipped on my naked behind with a riding crop just doesn’t do it for me.

I did buy studded leather thong drawers from one of their sites, but I threw them away after the first wearing because I couldn’t figure out how to get them clean, and I was too embarrassed to take them to my cleaners. Plus, the studded leather thong drawers made my naughty place sweat profusely and unnaturally.

In addition to all the people I have met, I have had to almost learn a new language. Because you have only 140 characters to express an idea, many of the most common terms must be truncated. For instance, thank you becomes simply TY. And by the way is BTW.

Some of my favorites though are WDDDA which means “where dey do dat at?” which is used to express surprise when confronted with something out of the ordinary, and ROTFLMBAO which means “rolling on the floor laughing my black ass off.” This one is to be used when something is extremely funny such that it forces you from your seat onto the floor where you roll around in raucous laughter until your behind detaches itself from your body. I have not had occasion to experience this phenomenon yet, but I have come close on occasion.

There are also acronyms that the tweet-peeps (that is how us real tweeters refer to ourselves) use to describe their lifestyles. I found out just yesterday that by adding LTL to your Twitter name identifies you as “Living the Life.” Now, “Living the Life” can mean one of several things. In the main, it means that you are “ballin’”, that you wear only the finest clothes and jewelry, drive only the finest cars, and drink only top shelf alcohol.

However, lately I am beginning to suspect that “Living the Life” means that you are being irresponsible with your flow (income) and spending money you don’t have on things that you don’t really need and that when I see you conspicuously and unexpectedly absent from Twitter for days on end, your fiscal mismanagement has caught up to you and your utilities to include your cable are probably in a state of suspension until you can get back on that come up (earn more money) so that they might be reinstated.

And I have learned even more useful terms as well. For instance, the other day my family and I were out and about all day and became very hungry. We stopped at a Chinese restaurant, and instead of me simply eating my meal, I “went in on it.” And I cannot tell you how much better the food tasted and how much more satisfying the meal was when I “went in on it” as opposed to simply eating it. Later in the week I “went in on” a McDonalds Filet-O-Fish with the same satisfying results.

Also, through Twitter I have been introduced to the concept of “going hard.” Recently I had a stack of papers to grade and a number of other tasks to perform, but instead of just approaching the tasks as I normally would, I decided to “go hard.” And before I knew it, I was completely finished and in record time. That going hard stuff really works, believe it or not.

So, thus far I have enjoyed my time on Twitter. Not only has it helped me to grow my readership and even keep me entertained at times, it has been a very educational experience. If you are not on Twitter, come on over and check it out. If you are and have not followed me yet, please do so and become a part of my Twitter experience.

The Psychology behind Black Friday: The Big Bone Theory

Okay, Thanksgiving has finally come and gone, and I had a wonderful day. I hope you found equal enjoyment in the day.

And I am more than aware of the history of imperialism and genocide subtending the holiday; if we really view the holiday with a critical eye, it is almost as if the nation takes a day off and feasts in celebration of the decimation of a people.

However, even in light of this, I choose to observe Thanksgiving. Notice I didn’t use the word celebrate. I choose to spend the day with my family and friends. Sometimes life becomes so hectic that I get to see these people, even those living only a five minute drive from me, only infrequently, and this day becomes one in which we can all get together and put aside petty internecine quarrels and just enjoy each others’ company.

But I still cannot for the life of me understand the psychology behind Black Friday. Even as Thanksgiving wound down and we worked to sweep away the remains of the day, I could hear people making plans for Black Friday.

Some of them planned not to even sleep. They had set an itinerary that included visiting Toys R Us at twelve midnight, then swinging by Old Navy at three in the morning, followed by a trip to Best Buy at five, and ending with an excursion to Walmart.

As they formulated their plans, I watched their faces twist into masks of almost sinister, diabolical anticipation. Mothers who only moments before had lovingly prepared plates of food for their children and had gently swept the crumbs from their laps and wiped their cherubic little faces were suddenly given to masterminding hostile shopping forays into various locales throughout the city.

And as I looked on not knowing whether or not I should also be afraid, I wondered what drove them, what motivated them. What could transform mild mannered mothers and grandmothers into marauding shopping soldiers? Then I glanced across the room at my children’s dog, and I began to formulate a theory.

Sometime following Thanksgiving dinner, someone thought it would be hilarious to give my children’s nine pound rat terrier a huge ham bone. The bone was so big, almost as big as he is, that he could only move it inches at a time, but to the delight of the crowd, he doggedly (pun unintended) pushed and pulled that bone until he got it right where he wanted it, and then set to stripping it of whatever meat that remained.

Now he and his bare bone are ensconced in a corner where he vigilantly stands guard over it; however, the children are using his big bone ambitions to manipulate him. If they want him to go into another room, they simply grab his bone and protesting all the while, he follows behind. They are using the bone to force him to do all kind of tricks that I didn’t even know he knew how to do. Evidently, this dog is some kind of canine savant who has kept his talents hidden all this time.

And also I am seeing a side of him that I have never seen before. In his pre-big bone life he was a mild manner, playful little pup, but suddenly, when you get near his big bone, he turns absolutely viscous. This animal is suddenly exhibiting traits I never knew him to have, and it took the big bone to bring them out.

I may be oversimplifying this whole Black Friday thing a bit, but based on my empirical data, Black Friday is the simply the equivalent of my children’s little dog’s big bone. The department stores and other retail outlets offer us a big bone in the form of fantastic deals on merchandise that has been steeply marked up in the first place, and we lose our collective minds. We rush from store to store in the wee hours of the morning spending, and in most cases overspending, obscene amounts of money, and then we go home to sleep, consoled by the thought of how much stuff we managed to amass and how much we saved in the process of doing so.

Then a week later, the same stores run the same sales all over again. And as we get closer and closer to Christmas, and the stores get more determined and desperate to move as much merchandise as possible, the deals get even better, so we go out and spend even more money.

Come New Year’s when the spell wears off, reality sets in, and we begin to receive those credit card statements, we’ll all probably be cursing our collective selves. But I am not trying to chastise or criticize anyone. I just got way too much time on my hands today just to sit around and come up with stupid theories and philosophize about nothing.

Plus my wife and mother-in-law are out there somewhere in that barbarian horde of shoppers. When they left here, I could not even recognize them as the people I have grown to love over all these years. It was almost as if they were in some kind of trance. Their eyes were glazed over, and they moved methodically, robotically like cyborgs. So please don’t even tell her I wrote this, or she’ll probably return home and in her frenzied, out-of-mind state, hit me upside the head with that same big bone that inspired this post.

Recommended reading: “A Brief History of Black Friday”

Wishing Everyone a Very Happy Thanksgiving

I must admit that I don’t understand the motivation and rationale behind Thanksgiving. Of course, I understand that Thanksgiving is a day set aside so that we might give thanks for the bounty of the past year, but I don’t really get the traditions behind the day.

So we give thanks by overindulging, by stuffing ourselves until we are utterly miserable? I have often questioned the rationale of showing thanks by engaging in a day of sanctioned gluttony. Just doesn’t really seem to make sense. Wouldn’t make better sense to show our thanks by spending a day of fasting and thoughtful reflection?

But who am I to go against the grain? Who am I to upset the applecart? So I will spend Thanksgiving indulging myself in direct proportion to those blessings that have come my way this past year, and those blessings have been many. In other words, I am going to make a pig of myself again this year, and by late this afternoon, I will be cursing myself for overdoing it once again.

But in all seriousness, I have plenty this year to be thankful for. I am thankful for having been blessed with a loving wife and wonderful children. I am thankful that we finish this year with a roof over our heads and food on the table; there are so many others who cannot make that claim.

I am thankful for the talents that have been given me. I am thankful for the opportunities I have been given this year as well as the opportunities that are to come. I am thankful for a future that looks bright.

I am thankful for supportive and understanding friends. I am even thankful for those who come against me; in responding and dealing with their negativity and opposition, I emerge on the other side a stronger, better individual.

I am thankful for the prayers of my mothers and my aunts and other family members and friends who continue to pray for me even when I am too foolish (or too arrogant) to pray for myself.

If I were too continue with those things I am thankful for, this list would continue ad naseum; however, there is one more thing that I feel I must give thanks for. I am thankful that I continue to have readers to come over and read my pitiful commentaries and occasionally leave a comment or two. Thank you and I wish you and your family and love ones a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Evolution Is Beautiful by Nature: The Revolution Inherent in Evolution

This morning I awoke and ventured over to my poet friend Poet Rhythm’s site, SisterGarten, where she has composed a wonderful piece dealing with musical artists and artistic evolution entitled “In the Shadows of Our Younger Selves.”

And even as I was finishing my comment on the post, the phone rang, and on the line was a cousin from home calling to see if I would be coming home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. As I spoke to him, a line from Poet Rhythm’s post suddenly came to mind—“Evolution is beautiful by nature”.

As a young person, everyone has that favorite cousin, that cousin a few years older than you that you completely idolize, that you follow doggedly behind and try to emulate in all things. Well for me, that cousin who phoned this morning is that cousin.

When we were children and young men, we were so close that when someone saw one of us, they naturally looked around for the other. However, as adults there is a certain distance between us, both literally and figuratively.

At one time after I left home, we spoke on the phone frequently, at least once a week. Then the frequency slowed to once every few weeks. Then, we spoke only every few months or so. Now we usually only speak when I drop into town.

And it’s not that my affection for my cousin has lessened in any way. I wish that we could speak more. I really wish that we could find more occasions to laugh together, to enjoy each other’s company. But now our conversations have ceased to be unique; each is an exact facsimile of the rest. The main topics he wishes to discuss are women, cars, and weed,and in that exact order.

Additionally, he still lives with his mother. He has several children by several different women which I suspect he doesn’t support because he only works enough to take care of his car, the only thing he owns. The attention he gives that car baffles me.

He is the same person I idolized as a young man, that I sought to emulate. And that is the problem.

I know so many people, and I meet so many people who seem unwilling or unable to change, to evolve. They are the same people today that they were last year. And the year before. And the year before that.

And I hear these people complaining, bemoaning the fact that they seem to find themselves in a rut, wishing that somehow, someway, something different, something spectacular, something dynamic occurs in their lives to make their lives better, but when you suggest that they might want to change a few things, they balk at the notion. Perhaps the familiar, even if it is inimical to their happiness, to their self-fulfillment, is more desirable than the unfamiliar as suggested by change.

But I believe change to be necessary. I see change as inevitable. In fact, to not change or evolve is unnatural. If you are the same person right now that you were last week, or last month, or last year, or five or ten years ago, something is wrong. To change, to embrace change, to embrace evolution is naturally beautiful.

To be able to stand back and take account of yourself, to be able to honestly assess and admit your faults and shortcomings, is a necessary part of change, of evolution, and is truly a revolutionary act. Most of us would rather close our eyes to the worst parts of ourselves and remain stagnant rather than evolve into the best person that we can possibly be.

But back to my cousin. I last saw him this past summer. In the cool of the evening, we sat under a shade tree in his mother’s front yard just as did as young people. We talked, we laughed, and we teased one another just as we did as young people.

And at some point in the evening we decided to walk to the corner grocery just as we had as young people. To my surprise, the corner grocery had not changed all that much since I had last been there about twenty years ago, except then it was owned by a Jewish family, and now it is owned by a Palestinian family.

When we returned from the store, he uncapped his quart of Colt 45 malt liquor, poured out just a bit for the brothers no longer with us, tilted the bottle to his lips, and took a long, deep swig. He then held the bottle in my direction just as he would have when we were young people. But at that moment I hesitated for just a moment before finally accepting the bottle and taking my turn.

When I gave the bottle back, he looked at me for a long second. And as he examined my face, I suddenly felt ashamed. I felt out of place. Suddenly this familiar front yard of this familiar house is this familiar neighborhood felt so strange, so foreign.

“You’ve changed,” he finally told me as he gazed at some unidentifiable point across the street. And as I struggled to come up with a rebuttal, as I struggled to come up with a reasonable argument to defend myself, he let me know that it didn’t matter. That he was proud of my change. He was proud of the man I had become. That he wished he too could change, but he simply did not know how.

Brown People

Recently while looking through a series of family photo albums, I ran across a photograph that I had all but forgotten about. It is a photo of my youngest daughter posed against a palimpsest of black people of varying hues. Her eyes are wide open as if she is surprised, and the biggest smile she could possibly muster is spread across her face. In front of her, her hands are clasped together in utter glee.

When I showed this old photograph to my wife, the two of us almost laughed until crying while remembering that moment and the events that lead up to it.

When my son and daughter were still very young and forming their view of the world, they perceived and spoke of everything around them literally. For instance, they divided their world to the extent of their knowledge into two groups of people—brown people and white people. And when a white classmate asked my daughter why she was black and how she got that way, my daughter promptly corrected her and informed her that she was not black; she was indeed brown.

But that incident sparked a journey of discovery on my daughter’s behalf to somehow learn all she could about brown and white peoples and the differences thereof. She became a keen observer of people. Often either my wife or I would catch her just staring at people, until one day she finally declared that she really could not tell the difference between brown people and white people except for their skin color.

Then one weekend, my wife and I took our children along with us to Tallahassee, Florida, as we went to celebrate Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University’s (FAMU) homecoming. And if you have ever been to Tallahassee, Florida, during FAMU’s homecoming week, you know that the locals pretty much vacate the city, leaving it to the family, friends, and alumni of the predominantly black university.

So, for a period of about a week, we were virtually surrounded by “brown people.” We dined with them and worshiped with them in attending an ecumenical service. We went to an old-school concert with them. We went to pep-rallies and tailgate parties with them. We even managed to catch a step-show, my children's first, the battle of the bands, and finally the game.

And this whole time my children’s eyes, especially my daughter’s, were big as saucers as my grandmother was found of saying. I don’t know if it was all the excitement and festivities; I don’t know if she was surprised by seeing so many “brown people” she did not know in one place. Nevertheless, she soaked it all in.

Then there was that one particular moment that occurred just as we were leaving the stadium. I’m not certain what happened, but as the crowd surged out of the stadium entrance, a bottle neck occurred preventing anyone from moving forward. And I expected the worse. I expected people to begin pushing and shoving and cursing one another, but that did not happened. Instead, the crowd, that huge throng of “brown people” broke into an impromptu rendition of the Negro National Anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as they swayed back and forth in time to the melody.

As a warm wave of emotion, well-bring, and community spread through the crowd, my daughter must have gotten caught up in the fervor of the moment because she suddenly threw her arms up in absolute delight and exhilaration, brought them down and in clasping them in front of herself exclaimed, “I JUST LOVE BROWN PEOPLE! I LOVE BEING A BROWN PERSON!” Those within earshot of her proclamation laughed at her temerity. It was at that moment that my wife snapped the picture.

Since then my daughter has learned a little more about the world. Since then the realities of race have become a bit clearer and a bit more complicated to her. Since then she has witnessed “brown people” at our very best as well as at our very worst. She often admits in frustration and utter disbelief that she cannot understand for the life of her why we act the way we do sometimes. But in the same instance, I watched her swell with pride on election night in 2008.

She had gone along with us as we canvassed neighborhoods and attended rallies and other campaign functions. She felt as if she was a part of and had helped contribute to the moment she was witnessing.

After her mother and I had finished laughing and reminiscing, we called her in, showed her the photograph and asked if she still remembered that moment. She just smiled, chuckled a little, and nodded her head yes. So, I went a step further. I asked her that in knowing all she knew about “brown people” now, did she still love them? Did she still love being a “brown person.”

She fingered the photograph for a moment, and she ran her finger across the backdrop of “brown people,” and she told me unequivocally, “Yes, I still do. And perhaps now more than ever. I love ‘brown people,’ and I really love being a ‘brown person.’”

It was really a moment for all of us which my son promptly ruined by only half playfully spouting some nonsensical stream of black power rhetoric in the background. I know that he loves "brown people" too. He just expresses it differently.

And by all means, love yourself and be a blessing to somebody today!