Posted on Sunday, January 3, 2016

Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church Pastor Proposes to Girlfriend During Watch Night Service! (VIDEO)

Why You Should be at Watch Night Service Next Year...

Hello World,

If you’re in the A, you may already know the news, but since my audience is worldwide ( 🙂 ), I hope I’m the first to bring you the news! Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of Atlanta’s Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, the “spiritual home of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” preached the Watch Night Service that will probably go down as the most romantic Watch Night Service of all times. At the end of the two-hour service, Rev. Dr. Warnock (who sounded a bit hoarse from preaching I guess or maybe it was nerves considering what he was about to do next) acknowledges Mrs. Christine King Farris, the longest serving member of Ebenezer and sister of Dr. King and people from his circle including his siblings, a friend from high school and one of his best friends who “know [him] before [he] was Rev. Dr.” BEFORE introducing the church to a Miss Ouleye Ndoye about the 2:07 mark of the video below.

He says that “Morehouse men don’t get far without Spelman women.” He goes on to say Ndoye, who is a graduate of Spelman, Oxford and Columbia, is the “one of the most brilliant people I know” and the tone of his voice lowers a bit before completing his statement with “and one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen” after which a collective “Oh” comes from the congregation…

Then he walks over to her at which some woman in the congregation says, “Uh oh, Pastor?” And then many members of the congregation armed with cell phones vacate the pews, furiously corralling themselves around the pastor and his special guest like he is a football player about to score a touchdown! (I saw “Concussion” last night so football motifs are on the brain. A must-see movie by the way!) He responds with, “Why y’all carrying on like this?” in the midst of the commotion. And the same woman it seems yells, “Go head pastor! Work it pastor!” “Can I talk?” says the Ebenezer Baptist Church pastor finally before beginning his proposal.

Obviously inspired by the words Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, Pastor Warnock recites his words to Ndoye, who is seated, as he stands before her.

“Those who are near me do not know that you are nearer to me than they are. Those who speak to me do not know that my heart is full with your unspoken words. Those who crowd in my path do not know that I am walking alone with you. Those who love me do not know that their love brings you closer to my heart.”

And then he quotes from the Word, reciting Proverbs 18:22 with a sweet twist as he pulls out a red jewelry box from one of his front jacket pockets.

“The Bible says that he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. So, will you do me a favor and be my good thing? Will you marry me?”

Pastor Warnock, who is on bended knee by the end of his words, had to stop for a moment the applause was so loud but he was able to get the words of his proposal out. Ndoye, who is trembling and intermittently clasping her hands around her face, responds by saying, “Yes, I will.”

All this time, I thought that Rev. Dr. Warnock, who became senior pastor of the church as a single man in 2005, was like Paul and had the gift of singleness. But as it turns out, he was just waiting for his “good thing” to arrive 🙂

Congratulations to the beautiful couple!

This Watch Night Service proposal reminds me on an episode of “Sex and the City” when Charlotte, who has converted Judaism to be a suitable marriage candidate for her Jewish boyfriend Harry, but they have a fight before he proposes. Still, Charlotte, who was serious about her conversion despite the breakup, goes to a Jewish mixer for singles where she bumps into Harry, who has by that time forgiven her for the fight. He proposes to her in the middle of mixer! One of the single Jewish women, who watches the proposal, responds by saying, “I’m so coming back next week!”

Maybe if more women knew they could score a marriage proposal (the football motif returns) at a Watch Night Service in church rather popping champagne in the club, they would show up there instead for their NYE festivities 🙂

Watch the whole service or just the proposal (which begins around the 2:07 mark below) below! Happy New Year Y’all!

Any thoughts?

P.S. UPDATE: Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock and Ouleye Ndoye are now married as of Valentine’s Day 2016! Read the story – Why Wait? Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church Pastor Marries on Valentine’s Day After NYE Proposal (VIDEO)!

Posted on Sunday, August 2, 2015

Hashtags, Confederate flags and Lions, Oh My…

Hello World,

I’m a hashtag away from jumping, head first, from a bridge…Okay, I’m so I’m being a wee bit dramatic…But I am a hashtag away from falling sideways from my desk chair onto the carpet below so that I won’t be able to see any new hashtags sure to pop up on my social media accounts on my laptop computer…

I’m still stuck on #PrayforCharleston and since then, the hashtag activism world has moved on to #SandraBland, #SayHerName and as of this week #SamDubose. Let me be clear, in my President Obama voice (Chile, what’s going to happen to us when he’s longer in the White House?), this post is NOT about trivializing any of these horrific incidents, diminishing the unfathomable grief these families must be experiencing right now nor downplaying the inspiring activism that has been organized to address these and similar incidents…This post is simply about my #fatigue and skepticism about various commentaries relating to these and similar incidents…

And I feel like an Internet traitor for feeling this way…Whenever a new horrific incident has transpired, we cannot wait not one beat before countless eloquently written diatribes are disseminated with the quickness…Just some knee-click responses if you ask me…It happens so predictably that I have to wonder if this #Internetoutrage is really true…And I have to wonder if I saw these people in real time, would they be ranting and raving like the way they do on the Internet…Sometimes, things that transpire are so terrible, so egregious, so tragic, there are no words that should be said and or written (outside of the basic news) for a while…

From what I’ve gathered from reading various blog posts, Facebook posts and tweets, it seems the popular sentiment is that black people should be walking around or driving around in fear of being stopped by the police or having any contact with the police altogether…It’s like an NWA song come to life…Truth be told, I tend to not care for the police, but my feelings about the police go back a long time way, way, way before a hashtag was created, when a hashtag was just a number sign even…Why, you ask? Well, #1, I don’t care for anyone telling me what to do (a character flaw), and #2, sometimes, I get the feeling that police officers and criminals are opposing sides of the same coin…However, that being aside, I refuse to live in fear of the police….My God, yes there are some racist, vile police officers out there, but I’ve also known some decent ones…

And maybe I’m not down with every aspect of the #movement because of my overall aversion to pain and discomfort and my ability to see good in almost anything…I wonder what I would been like if I had come of age during the Civil Rights Movement…I just can see myself marching with Dr. King and nem and after a while saying, “You know what? My feet hurt, and I’m ready to go back home to my mama’s house. I got rights there.” Or if I lived during slavery, when Harriet Tubman was trying to get folk to get on the Underground Railroad with her, would I have been the one who asked, “Do they have any snacks on the Underground Railroad cause Massa got snacks at the Big House?”

I jest…But seriously I do have #Fatigue…

***

Now on to this whole Confederate flag debate…I feel like this a classic case of “Come get yo crazy cousin.” Erebody has a trifling cousin that just won’t do right…That cousin who asks you for a loan but hasn’t paid you back from the 50-leven he or she has already asked you for money…That cousin who is always bragging about all of the moves they making when the last move he or she made is the move back to your auntie’s (mother of said cousin) house…That cousin who is hopelessly, undeniably, matter-of-factly stuck on stupid…I feel like rational people of all races realize the Confederate flag is about hate not heritage, but some white people refuse to see what everybody knows…I don’t care how you whitewash it… So to rational white people, I say, “Come get yo crazy cousin” because they are not listening to us (black people)…

Speaking of us…Case in point…Seen at a Confederate flag rally in Stone Mountain Park yesterday…An alleged KKK member wearing FUBU tennis shoes…The FUBU acronym means For Us By Us and is the creation of Daymond John, the black millionaire on “The Shark Tank.” If that ain’t a case of “Come get yo crazy cousin,” I don’t know what is…

And if the flag is about heritage not hatred, what’s up with putting Confederate flags outside of Ebenezer Baptist Church? Yes, that Ebenezer, the Ebenezer Baptist Church of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site? Allegedly, the culprits were two white males.…How are black people supposed to take that? “Come, get yo crazy cousin.”

***

Now on to this Cecil the Lion…As someone who loves the Cowardly Lion in “The Wizard of Oz” and Simba in “The Lion King,” I get the international outrage about dentist Dr. Walter Palmer hunting down and killing Cecil the lion…I guess it seems so inhumane because Cecil was big as a human being, and I just think there is something wrong with killing other human beings…I don’t see people being upset if Palmer would have stomped a million cockroaches to death or used his hands to smash a million mosquitoes although cockroaches and mosquitoes are also living creatures…#alllivesmatter, remember?

That being said, the #blacklivesmatter activists and the animal rights activists need to join forces because the animal rights activists are bout it bout it….they don’t play…they gets thangs done, you hear me?!

Actress Mia Farrow got gangsta with it and tweeted the Palmer’s address! He has had to close his business for fear of folk avenging the death of Cecil the lion! And now senators have created a bill dedicated to the the Cecil the lion according to The Huffington Post…

The Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large (CECIL) Animal Trophies Act would extend current U.S. import and export restrictions on animal trophies to include species that have been proposed for listing as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Read the rest of the store here.

Here is one thing that black people can do to gain the sympathy of animal rights activists…

LOL…I jest…truly, I jest…but there may be a kernel of truth here…

Alright, I’m done…

Any thoughts?

Posted on Wednesday, January 21, 2015

The Christian Faith of David Oyelowo…

Hello World,

As is my custom on the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, I always watch the Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Commemorative Service held at Ebenezer Baptist Church on television. You can count on hearing inspiring speeches that espouse the beliefs of Dr. King, seeing people of different races crowd the sanctuary, politicians promising to work together…You get the idea…All of it is good, but it is a rather lengthy service…And just like in any long church service, no matter how good it is, you realize that after some time that you are no longer listening, you are rather waiting for it all to come to an end…

This year, however, there was one speech, a jewel of a testimony, that shone because of its rarity…David Oyelowo, the actor that portrayed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the biographical film “Selma,” openly spoke about how his faith in God led him to the role of Dr. King…This is how he began his speech…

“I stand before you today as evidence that what God starts, He will finish. On the 24th of July, 2007, having read a script for ‘Selma,’ God told me I would play Dr. Martin Luther King in the film ‘Selma.’ It came during a time of prayer and fasting, and I know the voice of God.”

Oyelowo said he later auditioned for the role, but the director of the film at that time (not Ava DuVernay) did not agree with God so he did not get the role. However, in the mean time (How many of you know that when God promises something to you, it doesn’t mean it will happen immediately even though you know that you know His promise is being fulfilled? Or that there won’t be some roadblocks along the way?), he went on to play a part in the movie “Lincoln.” In 1865, his character said these words to Lincoln regarding the Gettysburg Address. “You cannot say these words. You have actually have to act upon them. Maybe one day we”ll get the vote.” He goes on to tell what happened when he did get the part.

“Seven years after God told me I would play this role in another film called ‘Selma, 100 years later. In ‘Lincoln,’ I played a character in 1865. In ‘Selma,’ I played Dr. King in 1965. Nineteen presidents later, my character as Dr. King asks the very same question. What God starts, He will finish.”

Insert praise dance…

He could have shut down his speech right then…But he had more evidence that God led him straight to the role of Dr. King…As tears shone on his face, he revealed that he prayed to God to “allow the spirit of Dr. King to flow through me.” And God answered his prayer…Just before one scene in the movie, as he portrayed Dr. King giving a speech in front of the capitol steps in Montgomery, Alabama, Oyelowo said he felt a “palatable, indisputable fear of death” and that he “felt a huge need to ask for the buildings around to be swept.” He concluded: “I’m an actor. I’m not Dr. King, but it was very real for me. At the end of that day, I was shocked I was still alive.” And he said it was no accident that Dr. King had the name “King.” “He was a king. He was a priest. He was ordained by God. He was a child of God.”

Oyelowo also introduced the sanctuary to his father who had flown in from the United Kingdom and talked about the tribal marks his father, who is from Nigeria, has on his cheeks and his stomach. The tribal mark on his stomach means “King.” Oyelowo said he thought the tribal marks his father and other Nigerians bear are a custom that predates slavery; however, in a conversation, his father told him he was mistaken. The tribal marks originated during slavery times.

“When we were taken away from Africa, we marked ourselves so that when we made it back, our people knew who we were and where we are from. I’m in the first in my line of over 400 years to not bear those scars.”

Insert shout…

Oyelowo concluded his message with some words about Hollywood (I’m guessing he was referencing the fact that “Selma” was snubbed during the Oscar nominations…).

“In my industry, in Hollywood, we are celebrated more for being broken and subservient than playing kings, than being leaders, than being in the center of our own narrative. I stand before you today as a man that has played a king.”

To see the speech in the entirety, please check these two videos….Thank God for E Powell who recorded the speech…