Didn’t it feel like summer yesterday? It was a perfect day for a free outdoor concert with Bobby Brown, Miki Howard and the opening band – The 911 Band…And the City of Riverdale delivered it. The city hosted a free concert complete with big boy fireworks to celebrate the opening of its new City Hall and amphitheater…Yeah, that’s right, I got to see Mr. My Prerogative in all his bad boy splendor up, close & personal for the free free…And as an added bonus, the true saaanger, Ms. Miki “Love Under New Management” Howard was a part of the bill…And I must say, the opening band, The 911 Band, also got down with their renditions all the way from Carlos Santana’s “Maria, Maria” to Prince’s “Purple Rain!”
So there I am…two hours early…Yes, I was in full groupie mode as R put it….(Insert Kanye shrug…who cares chile…)
Not the best overall pic of the new City Hall…but hopefully, you get the idea…
A better view of the new amphitheater which is directly in front of the City Hall…Apparently, more stars will be on deck next week, and I think for free…but don’t quote me…if you look closely, you can see Bobby on stage doing a sound check!!!
“BOBBY!!!” in my best shrill Whitney voice….I still love some Bobby…I don’t care what anyone says….
The 911 Band….
Woman to Woman, I know this isn’t the best photo of Miki but this is the best one I have….sorry Miki, but you still got it…She told us she recently turned 50 years old!
Me in Miki’s armpit lol…Girl got all in the audience and took off her shoes channeling Patti Labelle…She sang to recordings of her music and had me laughing when she said that she would have a brought a band with her but it was too expensive…At one point, her music stopped and she threatened to go to church and start praying if it didn’t start again…And then she said she would have have a take an offering because you can’t have church without an offering….hmmm…I don’t agree, but it was funny…After I Googled her, I discovered she is the daughter of two gospel singers…very interesting…And apparently, she will be featured on an upcoming episode of TV1’s “Unsung.” (Love that show!)
Bobby in his show gear…He still got it too although R begs to differ…
At the end of his show, Bobby introduced his nephews who have started a new group, CMG – it stands for Certified Money Getters – who came up with that name…I bet Bobby wit his crazy self had a hand in the madness…
Also, here’s a little snippet of the sound check…I’m not a videographer so forgive me…
All of that music for free…I was getting my Clark Howard on for real…yes!
Any thoughts?
P.S. Bobby was on his best behavior although you could tell the crazy was dying to get out…he mentioned that he is newly engaged with a child and he is happy…Was I wrong for thinking he should still be with Whitney…
Check my title. Remember this Janet Jackson song? If you don’t, let me refresh your memory…It was megahit song from Janet Jackson’s Control (1986) album and her first hit on both the pop and R&B charts according to Wikipedia. This song is about a woman’s growing dissatisfaction with her man as she realizes that all of the nice stuff he did for her was becoming a distant memory hence the question, “What Have You Done For Me Lately?”
I imagine that in many, if not most, romantic relationships, somebody is asking that question at some point…But what about our relationship with the Lord…I wonder if the Lord asks that question from time to time about me or about you…I would guess the short answer is yes. If you’re anything like me, you find yourself offering prayers to God that sound like this…”Lord, give me favor with my boss” or “Lord, get me a book deal” or “Lord, who is the one you have for me?” And I believe the Lord does want us to come to Him with all kinds of requests (Ephesians 6:18). So those type of prayers are not wrong…But sometimes, I know the Lord must tire of us asking Him to do things for us…Sometimes, He must want to yell, “What have you done for me lately?!”
Obviously, as mere human beings, there is nothing that we can do for God that He cannot do for Himself, but like the woman in the Janet Jackson song, I’m sure that He wants our actions in the present to demonstrate our love for Him…Now here is the caveat. Usually acts of love require sacrifice…This post reminds me of a story from my childhood and a comparable story in my early ’20s…When I was a little girl, I was taught that I should become a Christian or “give my heart to the Lord,” but I once famously told my Sunday School teacher that “I was not done being bad yet!” I also did not want to be a missionary…I met some missionaries as a child, and it sounded like hell on earth to be in some hut in a faraway rural country proclaiming God’s world… and they were always begging for money to support the mission too…it just was not appealing to this city girl who even refuses to go camping unless there is an air-conditioned cabin involved…As a child, I had this nagging fear that the Lord was going to call me to be a missionary, and I wanted no parts of that…I remember when I worked as an intern at a Baptist newspaper right after college, and we ran a story about some missionaries in Buckhead (yes in the north of the A)…I chuckled to myself as I read the story…Now, if the Lord wants me to be a missionary to the affluent, I could certainly do that, I said to myself..
But back to the dreaded sacrificial acts of love….What should our sacrificial acts of love be? I think these verse offers some direction…
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:35-39
Acts of sacrificial love, I believe, involve doing things to help others.
My mother just came back from Jamaica where she spent a week helping to facilitate a Vacation Bible School that had over 200 children each night…And my mother and her team stayed in accommodations that did not have air conditioning…Say what? My mother adores children so I’m sure that is was so much fun for her, but I think it was a sacrifice too…one that required her to give up air conditioning, energy, my father and her adoring daughter (me) and sons, her schedule, etc…I’m sure the Lord was pleased…At some point, I hope I work up the courage to do a short-term mission trip…Yeah, I said it…I have no inclination to be a long-term missionary…
But even if you do not decide to travel to a faraway country in an act of sacrifice, I am sure there are things we can do in our own neighborhood and corner of the world to demonstrate our acts of sacrifice and love for the Lord…Have we given money to some worthy mission? Are we volunteering for a ministry at our church? Do we allow time in our schedule for “divine appointments?” A divine appointment is an appointment that you did not plan for that day that may involve you spending an hour talking to someone that needs your insight when you planned to do something or be somewhere else. Have you given a ride to someone who needs it?
If you’re anything like me, it is so easy to think about all of my goals and dreams for my life –and many of them include goals I have for the kingdom of God…But I don’t think that God is pleased when my life becomes singularly about accomplishing about my goals…sometimes I have to just put aside my goals for a moment or longer and just be available to whatever God wants me to do at the moment – whether or not it gets me any closer to my goals…
And here’s a hint…whatever you or I decide to do, I don’t think we have to tell others if we can help it…I think God is especially pleased when we do things for Him when only He is watching…
3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Matthew 3:3-4
Anywho, as I go throughout my day today, I will be thinking of my acts of sacrifice…What about you?
Any thoughts?
Check out Paula Abdul in this video! And remember the dance “The Snake?” They were gittin’ it in this video, lol!
Hello World!!! (Note: I originally posted this last year, but since I love this post, I thought it would be okay to post again. Happy Father’s Day! )
Happy Father’s Day to all of the fathers out there!!! In my Mother’s Day post, I mentioned that my mother is the heart of my family, but I am unquestionably a daddy’s girl! I can think of all sorts of sweet childhood memories of my dad. First of all, my daddy is the ultimate Renaissance man. When my brother and I were young children, he would take us for long walks in the woods. We would feel the bark of the trees, gaze into the sky and listen to the sounds of what we hoped were far away animals. Sometimes, he would walk ahead of us and we would hear him pronouncing different words over and over again. Diction is very important to my scholarly daddy.
On Saturday mornings, back in the day, I swayed to the old school reggae music my father played as he washed his car. Later in the day, he would wash my huge afro before sending me to my mother for her to plait it. Sometimes, we would go to arts festivals at Piedmont Park. At night, my father read Disney books to us before we went to sleep. I credit my father for awakening my desire to be a writer. I remember when my mother was pregnant with my youngest brother David, she had to go into the hospital for several months. She got pregnant with him when she was 40 years old so it was considered a high risk pregnancy. At any rate, the summer before my brother was born in October, my daddy was responsible for making lunch for my brother Delvall and me. Thankfully, the women at the church made our dinners. (My father has been the pastor at Central Christian Church for nearly 30 years – since I was six years old.) Anyway, my father, who can’t cook, boiled hot dogs and toasted buns almost every day for our lunch during that summer. I couldn’t even look at a hot dog without feeling sick for years after that summer…
My father has never been afraid to show his faith in public which was the source of utter embarassment to my brothers and me. Whenever we would go out to restaurants to eat, the three of us would start to cringe as he asked us to bow our heads to pray. And then my father’s deep voice made more obtrusive by his Jamaican accent made us want to hide under the table. I used to get into a lot of fights with the neighborhood kids when I was a little girl. I think they used to pick on me because I went to a private school instead of the elementary school in the neighborhood. I think it was named Kathleen Mitchell Elementary School…Anyway, I may have been small but I had a mighty mouth, and I “wrote checks with my mouth that my actions couldn’t cash.” When my father got wind of these fights, he would sit down with the two of us on the front porch and talk to us about being peacemakers. I used to wish that my father would be the like the other fathers in the neighborhood who encouraged my friends to fight those who picked on them. But now I know it takes much more control to be a peacemaker than it does to lash out verbally and physically…still working on that lesson daddy…
I remember when my first high school boyfriend and I broke up. My father, who has always worked from home, heard me wailing in my bathroom and asked me what was wrong. With my red face and swollen eyes, I tearfully explained how Imani and I broke up before homeroom that morning. My father looked in my eyes and said, “Well, this kind of thing happens in life, and it won’t be the last time.” Those words weren’t exactly comforting words, but I recognized he was trying to comfort me. In hindsight, he was probably a bit surprised that I was finally old enough to be wailing over a boy.
I was on the drill team in high school. Being on the drill team was one of the ways I got out of the house on weekend nights because I wasn’t allowed to go to parties and dances until I went to college. (I was allowed to go the prom though.) One year, I really wanted to go to my school’s homecoming dance in the gym. I asked my father to go, but I was not surprised when his answer was simply,”No.” So I got to scheming. When we had away games, we often didn’t get back to the school grounds until midnight or after. So I lied and told my parents that we had an away game (although it was homecoming) and that he shouldn’t pick me up until at least midnight. I figured that would give me some time to enjoy the dance plus I never invited my parents to come to the games because I knew they would not appreciate some of the provocative dances that the drill team performed.
My dad and my nephew DeAnthony probably crying about not getting his way...
So I thought I had the perfect plan in place as I sat on the bleachers in the gym talking to my one of my high school hearthrobs, Brian. I swooned over him as he talked and enjoyed watching people dance. The gym was so dark it was hard to make out everyone until without warning, a door to the gym opened and light flooded in. Looking like Al Bundy from the hilarious but now defunct sitcom,” Married… with Children,” there stood my father in the middle of the light. You are not going to believe this. All the way from the bleachers, I could see that my father was wearing pajamas covered by his trench coat. I felt like a deer cornered in the headlights. I could not move as my father looked around for a few minutes before getting to me.
Right in front of Brian, my father finally came up to me and said we had to leave. He escorted me out of the gym and to his car. To this day, I don’t know how my father figured out I was at the homecoming dance instead of the game. I don’t know what happened at school in the weeks afterward. I think I blocked it out of my memory I was so embarassed.
My father celebrating his 65th birthday...whew Dad, you gettin' old!
I have a vault of memories I could share, but I won’t. Consider yourselves lucky if you have a father that is in your life because I have learned that many of us did not grow up with fathers including my own father. He often shares that he met his father once in his life after he was already a grown man. I feel sad when I think of my father not having a father like the father that he has been to me. My father, who is by no means perfect, has enabled me to feel secure and cherished and I love him dearly for that…
Any thoughts?
There are countless songs about mothers but not as many, it seems, about fathers, but I have included two here. “Color Him Father” by The Winstons is about a stepfather’s love and the other song, “Daddy,” by Beyonce’ is about being a daddy’s girl…enjoy!
