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