It’s too hot to write aka I have writer’s block AGAIN…

Hello World,

It just was about a year ago that I could barely manage to write a coherent sentence….So there must be a connection with 90 -degree and above temperatures and my uninspired prose…I give you full permission to stop reading here because it’s doubtful that I will have anything meaningful to say…But I will serve up a few of the stories that I find vaguely interesting…When all else fails, celebrity dish is the order of the day…feel free to comment or not…

1. Antoine Dodson – If you have not seen this young man and his menacing but hilarious words to the would -be rapist who attacked his sister, then you must…Since Dodson blew up on YouTube, he with the help of some benefactor obviously has set up a Web site and is asking for donations to help move his family out of the projects…This should not be funny for many reasons but it is…

2. Maia Campbell – If you did not know, Maia is the daughter of deceased prolific author Bebe Moore Campbell. Maia Campbell was recently arrested and apparently has been in jail since July….This must be heartbreaking for her family especially since they recently faced the loss of Bebe Moore Campbell in 2006. I met the author a few years ago at a local Barnes & Noble, and she was very graceful and approachable. Her daughter’s behavior is compelling evidence that mental illness cannot be ignored…

3. Montana Fishburne – Laurence Fishburne must be holding his head in his hands while he ponders what in the world has happened to his daughter…This child wants to be a porn star…Yeah, you read that right…And she is releasing a porn tape later this month…Foolishness I say…

4. Wyclef Jean – I’m sure you heard that he is now running for the presidency of his native Haiti…In the words of Ed Lover…C’mon son…dude, stick to music…experience does count….jeez….

5. Naomi Campbell – Now, this infamous supermodel is accused of receiving “blood diamonds” which were allegedly given to her by former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor who is believed to have used diamonds to fund civil wars in his country – wars that led to the deaths of over 100,000 people…If she ain’t allegedly throwing her cell phone at her servants, she is allegedly receiving blood diamonds from a former ruler who allegedly hand a hand in killing thousands of his countrymen…she is a trip… that is for sure…

6. Alicia Keys – As you probably know, she is now married to Swiss Beatz…My thing is (don’t you just love that phrase?) I wonder how she feels about allegedly taking a man away from his former wife and children…Allegedly, their relationship started while Swiss Beatz was married to another woman…I’m not saying Keys should be worried about losing her husband to someone else but it has been said how you get a man is how you will lose a man…yep karma, is something and even more ironically, one of her hit songs….

7. T.I. & Tiny – I know it took them forever to get married and a lot of their relationship drama played out on the airwaves of Atlanta radio, but I am really rooting for them…Tiny and I went to high school together at Benjamin E. Banneker High School in the CPK. Back then, she used to rock long black hair and a L.A. Raiders starter jacket or bomber I believe…We never talked or anything but she seemed cool enough….Kudos!

Empathy…

Hello World,

Please bear with me today…I’m not feeling sad for myself, but I am feeling sad for someone in my life…So I really don’t feel like writing this morning…but I will share a few Bible verses on empathy…and a song that captures my feelings this morning….

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Romans 12:15

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. Job 2:11

Jesus wept.  John 11:35

Check out “When Something is Wrong With My Baby” by Sam & Dave…

Any thoughts?

 

The Outsiders…

Hello World!!!

I hope you have found a way to keep cool during what feels like the heat wave of my 36 years! I ran yesterday morning and during the last mile or so, I felt I like I was gulping oven air…

So on to the topic of today…It all started when I about six years old…At least that is as far back that I can remember feeling a certain way…At that time I lived in a black neighborhood just off Camp Creek Parkway…but I went a white private elementary school miles away….and on top of that, my parents had thick Jamaican accents…I was an outsider without question…So what did that little girl do…A lot of the time I found myself by myself…By the time I got to the sixth grade, I convinced my parents to send me to public school…but they chose a white public school miles away from our College Park neighborhood…in fact, it took over an hour for my brother and I to get to our schools in Sandy Springs…and because I was black and from way across town, I was an outsider there too….And by the time I got to high school age and actually convinced my parents to send me to the neighborhood high school, nothing had changed…I was still an outsider there too because I was ridiculed for “talking white” and because they hadn’t known me since elementary school…

But by then, it was all good…I had gotten accustomed to my outsider status, and I relished hanging around other people who felt like oddballs too…people who didn’t have the best clothes, people who had strict parents, people who were “lames,” people who weren’t the prettiest or the most popular, people who dressed in all black and wore skull jewelry, people who rode skateboards and hung out at Little Five Points – those were the people that I wanted to be around…

That’s why there is a part of me that totally gets famous author Anne Rice’s (author of “Interview with the Vampire”) recent announcement via Facebook…

As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten …years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

While I don’t agree with all of Anne’s views, I get where she is coming from…I have literally been going to church all of my life, and I became an official Christian myself when I was about 13 years old…But I have struggled with what has been widely perceived as Christian — at least in the South…Yeah, I’m blessed and highly favored as a Christian but I’m not always going to say that because it’s just weird…And even if I never get  filthy rich, I still feel that I am prosperous…And sometimes the people that say that they are sanctificed all of the time seem like they are just fakin’….I could go on but this is the Internet…

But I love, love, love Jesus…And He was the ultimate outsider….He didn’t care for the religious people of the day either…He preferred the prostitutes, the liars, the poor, the humble….Although Jesus was blessed and highly favored, He didn’t always say that…And Jesus was not rich while He was on earth and didn’t seem to be into material goods that much either…and He chastised the religious people of the day for acting like they were God’s favorite while their thoughts betrayed them…

I don’t know what God thinks of Anne Rice’s Facebook announcement, but I don’t have to…I do know that if she is sincere in her faith in Christ, He will lead her to His truth…

Any thoughts?

This song reminds me of my outsider childhood…