Who Told You That My Name Was Eve?

In the voice of my maiden self...

I once heard a moderator of a women’s ministry national meeting say that it is the woman’s responsibility to take care of house and home.  Furthermore, it would be wise for us younger women to pay heed.  It was impressed upon us to come into the full realization that even though we’ve made career moves and big strides in the professional world we are still “helpmeets” and it is our utmost duty to make sure our husbands come home to a place of peace, cleanliness, comfort, and a pipin' hot meal.  Honor thy husband.  Ultimately, it is my role to be the “rib,” the support to hubby’s endeavors above my own.  You know, kind of like friendly fascism.  Obey thy husband.  Hmm, interesting idea but it lacks a kind of “je ne sais quoi” in its appeal.  Apparently suppression of self is the most virtuous of godly attributes among wives…far above rubies indeed!  Who knew?   Well, there is nothing inherently wrong with the term helpmeet.  I have no qualms with it.  But what I do furrow my brow at is the assumption by some albeit intelligent women and men that helpmeet is synonymous with "executive assistant to the groom"  and sole arbiter of household and child rearing duties.  Why should I, whether I work outside the home or not, bear the brunt of responsibility where it concerns home grounds?   Why do so if I have a nice burly, wide-backed man at home to help with the labor?  Likewise, why should I sleep to my dreams while helping my spouse wakefully pursue his?  If that is the only barter and trade agreement that men and women can come up with in the negotiation of matrimonial union then I will kindly push my chair away from the negotiation table.  It is not worth the centrally located bald patch of mental duress nor the varicose veined legs.  If some dude presented the “gift” of marriage to me adorned with such an archaic bow I’d jiggle it, give it a peculiar look – raise my eyebrow with a curled lip and put it in the back of my linen closet unwrapped.  Why?  Because being the only person cooking, cleaning, and consistently participating in the lives of our children is tedious work.  It's tedious work for two!  It takes balls or tough titties rather to take on such a load. Salute to my foremothers for their thankless deeds!  But personally I'd like mine to stay soft and plush.  And as far as marital identity goes...leaving behind most of mine and cleaving unto all of his is definitely NOT my idea of Shangri La.  

My Truth…I have a secret desire to go rogue, enlist a sperm donor and call it a day.  Yes, I can have the kid but minus the encroachment of patriarchy.   Yea, I know my logic is faulty but hey right or wrong it is what I'm feeling.  The idea of motherhood is much more appealing – the give and take of this relationship is clearly defined in accordance with the parameters of true need.  But wife...um...I don’t know.  I asked my cousin at a family dinner once, “How do you like being married?”  Her response was unexpected yet refreshingly honest, “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be!”  Now mind you, she has been married for nearly fifteen years but what I know is that her response was a hard won insight - the grease and grit of infidelity is hard to scrub off but as a ministers wife it is still your duty to continue to scrub.  Her arms tired ten years ago but she still has her brillo pad in tow.  Shoot, she still types into the wee hours of the morning preparing HIS sermon notes.  So again I ask why?  Her response surely didn’t make me want to “skip to my lou” down the aisle!  Also, her response took me aback a bit because it was candid and not characteristic of the culture of silence surrounding the lack of sustenance in the institution of marriage especially in the culture of church.  Some women just don’t get their daily spiritual, intellectual, sexual, and emotional bread.  Where is the due benevolence in that?  Where is my helpmeet?  I was not put upon this earth to simply be some gangly-brained boy’s life secretary.  I want a mentally robust, spiritually strapping man - an adept, a man who tangibly applies the knowledge that to assign a woman as your literal “side piece” is essentially sacrilege.  God did not put me here to simply further SOME MAN’S aspirations and agendas.  God put me here with MY OWN.  We are heads too!  And it is not my DUTY to buff and wax my future husband’s.  So until I find the man ordained by Spirit to be my balance, exuding power sufficient unto mine, I’ll be staying away from church endorsed finishing school lessons.  I need no finishing.  I’m already finished...fearfully and wonderfully so!

"The way you get people to testify against themselves is not to have police tactics and oppressive techniques. What you do is build it in so people learn to distrust everything in themselves that has not been sanctioned, to reject what is most creative in themselves to begin with, so you don't even need to stamp it out...It wasn't even black men; it was black women testifying against ourselves.  This turning away from the erotic on the part of some of our best minds, our most creative and analytic women, is disturbing and destructive.  Because we cannot fight old power in old power terms only.  The only way we can do it is by creating another whole structure that touches every aspect of our existence, at the same time as we are resisting."
~Audre Lorde 

Why Did You Leave Your Husband's Family Church In Spring?

Illuminate.  I am a child of the Morning.

Because it was never fully mine.  It is an extension of who he is.  It is the place where he grew from babe…to boy…to man.  And well, we were not fashioned to walk the same path.  I’m a woman…he’s a man.  I love books…he loves football.  I’m Nat and he’s E.  See, different paths. ..parallel by way of matrimony but not the same.  And those differences were delineated with a purpose.   I have no spiritual need to be vetted by any religious institution.  I attend church to “touch and agree” with like minded spirits in the same way that I do when I am in the company of my natural family.  For me, being in the midst of loved ones no matter the venue is church.  But that is my truth, a truth that I relinquished to be a part – apart from God.  I wanted to be a member so I became one.  And that is okay because it was a step in my journey that aided in reestablishing knowledge present at birth.  God is already here…with me…right now.  I’m a kinesthetic learner of sorts so in due course I learn by doing – going through.  Sometimes I come to fully know a rose by experiencing its thorns too.  And that’s okay.  Being a member of what I am not confirmed who I am…as night to day.  That’s good.  But what’s not okay is for me to perpetuate feelings of lack – give over myself, sign over personal sovereignty to any entity be it church, woman, or man that is not edifying to MY SOUL.  My husband’s church is a good place.  It indeed is.  But it is a good place FOR HIM!  It aided in creating the spiritual constitution I have now.  And for this I am grateful. 

Illuminate.  I am a child of the Morning.

I believed.  I believed that I was being “obedient” to God by following the precepts of an institution.   But there was always, even from the moment I joined, an unconscious sense that I had forfeited self for a place in a pew.   I denied my uniqueness; my mores, my beliefs, and my ideas.  I changed how I talked…how I dressed…how I moved…how I be.  I suppressed the spirit of creativity that frames, gives voice to who I am.   I denied the Christ in me, turning away from who God had created…just plain ol’ quirky and quiet Nat, the apple eating girl in the kicks and jeans.   I transposed obedience to Spirit with obedience to incorporation.  I was a member alright…a confused one. 

Illuminate.  I am a child of the Morning.

It was all vanity and there was no profit under the Sun.  God is not the author of confusion.  When folks try to stamp out “uniqueness” they in turn deny Christ.  Christ didn’t come to maintain the status quo – the same ol’, same ol’.  Christ waxed confident in the authenticity and spirit of who he was even against accusations of demon possession and blasphemy.  He remained stalwart, centered in his own soul even when his family and the church leaders of his day (Sadducee and Pharisee) spoke ill of him.   Christ was and is a paradigm shifter anyhow!  He was and is a comforter and defender of those on the margins of normal…the “different” ones. 

Illuminate.  I am a child of the Morning.

 I’ve learned that anything less, being anything less than ME is vexation.  I am “saved” but NOT because I joined a church (affiliation with a building) but because I stopped quenching the spirit of who I am.   I stopped denying Christ, the spirit of unconditional love that dwells within even until the ending of the age.   I’ve gained an understanding of who and what Peter (the thrice denier) actually is…the immobilizing fear of my true self – the image of The Most High.  Peter made an attempt to hinder purpose.   But almost doesn’t count!

Illuminate.  I am a child of the Morning. 

Get thee behind me task master of Spirit.  My walk with God …is mine.  I’ve learned that agreement is divine.  How can two walk together, labor in the vineyard side by side lest they mutually honor one another?  Unity is not the absence of variation but the ability to see its usefulness in a common scheme.  Any religious presence (person, place or thing) that I allow intimate space in my life must have a working respect for how I view God :

·         “The Way” to God is embedded in many spiritual systems.   Unfortunately the covertly corrupting element of avarice has tainted that truth.  The truth is present …seek and I will find.  Knowledge is surely power.

·         Balance is an aspect of God...feminine and masculine at equilibrium.   God is both which is made plain in the title “The All in All.”  Women are spiritual leaders too and as a mother of daughters I must expose them to such.  And it is just as important for my son to be exposed to the same. 

·         Righteousness is an inward phenomenon.  Reverence for life is holy.

·         Whatever music speaks to my spirit in the way of love is sacred (Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway are my favorite ministers).    

·         Sin is ANYTHING that separates me from love. ..anything that disturbs a sense of balance, God-centeredness.

·         The acquisition of heaven and hell is a personal choice.  A CHOICE…a daily, moment by moment battle in the high ground of the mind.  Yes, I would like for everyone to choose heaven but who am I to usurp free will. 

·         GOD IS UNIVERSAL AND TOO EXPANSIVE TO CONTAIN IN A BOOK.

Illuminate.   Without the nip of winter one does not appreciate the great return of warmth.  My words are not an admonishment of my husband’s church but rather a kind of confessional offering so I may fully…Shine.  It is certainly a community of faith enlivened by the love of its members…a community that I will continue to lift up and love.  But it wasn’t me.  I was hiding from myself and, in effect, hiding from God.  I am no longer hypnotized, signaled to conform.  My eye has ceased to be transfixed on illusions, entertaining myself with flickering figures upon enclosed walls.  The desire has left me…making idles out of shadows.   Even Jesus knew that Light was, in fact, outside of the tomb.  So like him I walked out to more abundantly enjoy Dawn.  I am a child of the Morning…

Ase’

Her Song

I can still hear

Ashes skirting the corners of his words

I don’t want to be here

In this flaming whirlwind of memory and pain

Calling forth every singeing punch

And the hot tearing of flesh

I weary of flailing against

His tongue

His fist

His dick

And I succumb to the crackling of death

Memory and pain burn asunder

I am Risen from dust. 

Yeshua,

I remember going to Lake Tobesofkee with her.  I remember her coming to Hinesville to take care of me and my brother.  I remember her cooking and feeding me.  I remember summer with her.  I remember visiting her at Dobbins.  I remember going to the skating rink with her.  I remember the joy.

And I remember the Thanksgiving when she was in her third trimester…nearly due with the swell and unnatural hue of a fresh beating upon her face.  I remember the tremble in her smile as she wore someone else’s wrath.

I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember the joy of loving her then just as I do now.  I love her without fail.  I am proud to call her Auntie.  I am proud to call her mine.

Beloved Messiah, I have one request…show her The Way.  Show her how.  Show her the Power, the Glory of death and resurrection.  Show her how to release memory and pain.  Show her how to give up the ghost of him.   Ase' 

"He took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise."   ~Mark 5:41

 

How Do I

"Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness.”    ~Richard Wright, Black Boy

My sweet black boy…

The moment you were conceived I was charged with the responsibility of raising an African American male in a society that seemed to have little or no value for the wealth of gift and tenacity that is the soul of your existence.  You have inherited the shadow of enmity upon your life simply and solely because your skin is cast with a dark hue.  I was beset with the thought of the ensuing challenge of revealing to you the binary nature of a black and white world and what the unsightly implications are for a young man like you.  How do I explain “driving while black?”   How do I justify the sheer viability of “liberty and justice for all” when economic peonage is a reality in our inner cities?  My colored child, I bemoaned the day I would have to say that there is seemingly an unspoken caste system in which “the untouchables,” young black males endure an existence that continues to be calloused like the hands of their cotton picking American forefathers.  How do I explain the “strangeness of fruit” in the genteel south and why America’s estranged Uncle, Jim Crow was once offered a generous helping of freshly baked apple pie?  How do I go farther to say that our many Samsons’ crown and glory was sheared every time they were relegated to the farm animal status of stud?  How do I explain to you, my Negro boy that there are some trace elements of this past that render it necessary for me to instill in you a unique code of conduct, the fundamentals of black male etiquette to save your life from judicial inequity, media buffoonery, and scholastic dilapidation?  How do I speak plainly to your innocence and state, 'Nigger' is more than a word, it is a belief system?  How do I... 

  “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”   ~Matthew 13:57 

Prayer of the Black Madonna

    For my first born, Beautiful Light of the Lord

For my second born, One Who Attains God

For my third born, Divine Purpose of Faith 

Elohim,

It is with humble concern and earnest intent that I petition, intercede for my children.  It is clear to me that the principalities, the rulers of this misbegotten world seek to distract and misinform them of who you are…of who they are just as they stand, worthy.  I do not claim to fully understand the height and depth of your greatness.  But your presence is felt.  Your presence is known.  You are my relation and I am yours.  Thank you for a spiritual space with you that I can call my own.  You have called me at a time such as this to rear, to mold, and to give life.  And it is with reverence that I walk in the way of mother and vessel.  I am not perfect but Love indeed has made me whole.  I thank you for renewal and raising my gaze to eternity.  And as the hart panteth so I beseech your care.  

In the name of the one who stood in the balance, I pray that my children go higher.  I pray that they are more spiritually adept than me and their father.  I pray that they are imbued with consciousness that is universal in effect and scope.  I pray that they are endowed with the gift to discern, the ability to divide asunder religiosity from truth.  I pray that my children have a vision of you that is not bound by the assignment of gender.  May they only know you as Spirit, the Cloud and Fire of their days.  Oh my God, my most precious savior may they “live, move, and have their being in you”.  And in a world that forces them to careen violently into experience may they not lose the innocence of joy.  May they never know themselves as separate from you.   May they meditate on you with every breath that they breathe.  And in the circumstances of life that sway them to and fro may they establish an altar in their home and with each eventide cleanse themselves of all negative energy.  May they consecrate themselves with your light.  Almighty One, I pray that in times of trial and despair that they take refuge in your strong tower.   And when the enemy seeks to besiege their soul may they rest in your shadow.  My Love of loves, may they stand and act in their inherited authority, children of the El Elyon.  I pray that my children trust in the guiding powers that you have set before them.  May they acknowledge with gratitude and respect the ancestors and angelic host that guard the gates on their behalf.  I pray that they take hold of their own agency.  There is no mediator between you and them.  They are the only arbiters of their faith.  And may they only be obedient to the call of Spirit, laying aside all attempts to stagnate them with fear and vain tradition even if the culprit is me…from you they came and to you they belong.   May they never put on the cloak of piety to disguise a decrepit heart.  My God, I pray for them to have Power.  I pray for them to be keenly aware of who they are in Heaven’s book.   May they know once again that you are not a subject of contention nor to be intellectualized and reasoned but to be embodied.  My children are wonderfully fashioned in your image so may they live in this thought…I AM.  May they stretch beyond reliance on linear concepts of you and intuit wisdom of the ages.  May their prophetic voices be neither muffled nor muted.  May they speak with the expediency of the one who was sent.  El Shaddai, please fight for them daily against all physical, mental, and spiritual foes.  May they have divine balance, heart and feather set at equilibrium.  Lord of lords, I pray my beloveds sit on the top most branch of life’s tree.  Incline unto me, oh Lord.  I love them; they are the treasure of my soul.  I surrender them to you.

By the power of Jesus, the Messiah…AMEN.

        

“Your children are not your children.  They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.  They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.  You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts.  You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow…”

~The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran