Home Alone on New Year's

Wow, it has happen so fast. I must've fallen asleep around 8 or 9pm and the next thing I knew I was waking up to the sound of my phone alarm 6:45am. The night before my sleep was not so good and my body finally took over and gave into the much needed rest. Well, Happy New Year to me and This morning I choose to claim a happy new year. With all the bad predictions and recession talk, my soul needs some good news, my soul needs to know that there is more than media speculation. Today's affirmation from the Science of Mind website states " Today, I go within and listen. I live my purpose with renewed vigor. I remember that the greatest gift I will ever receive is the life I live."
For so many years, actually for most of my life I have lived at the whims of others, doing what I thought other people wanted me to do, trying to live up to other people's expectations, trying to make up for alleged transgressions, trying to be perfect, trying to be black, trying to be a lesbian, trying to be cool, trying not to show my intelligence, trying to take care of people who had no intentions of ever taking care of me or of themselves, trying to make life better for all those around me, trying to save the world with a hand-basket, trying and trying and trying and trying and trying. And with nearly 42 years of living under my belt, I've been completely unsuccessful with trying to be what the world wants and I figure since I'm no good at that why not try to be what I want to be, why not try to take care of myself and for heaven sakes, why not try to save myself.
Today is about accepting spiritual truths, it's about embracing the truth about Love. I was raised in a holiness church (Church of God in Christ) and I spent more time in my youth being scared of the devil, I had no recollection of God. I thought God was somewhere off in the by and by, thought God was for good people, men people, white people but not me. I felt the best that I could do was bow down at the hem of Jesus' robe, look upon his feet and be grateful. Where the church failed to teach, my soul yearned for more. I wanted to know love more than anything. When in high school and college, I wrote paper after paper about love. My teachers assumed I'd be a philosopher and warned me against this type of rhetoric, that it wasn't argumentative writing. I was hoping Love wasn't something I had to argue for but something I could attain in simple steps. On my darkest days I cried for love light a hungry child cries for food. I refused to believe that I couldn't know love and at the same time I refused to live without it. Yet, for some reason, the God of my mind, who was somewhere in the mountain tops had reason to pause in my suicidal moments. It was in those moments when a voice would call upon me, a voice assuring me that I was loved but when you choose to not live anymore, voices as soothing as they may sound are more of an annoyance than something to pay attention to but I look back and realize that in the depths of my being was a desire to live. In the part of me that I had pushed to the side and ignore was enough energy to keep me alive, enough energy to open my heart to the possibility of Love.
I can't tell you the number of times I felt suicidal, there were only a few times I ended up in a hospital due to a failed attempt. But I will say this, suicide is not a choice I would make anymore and I don't beat myself up for those moments, I just wish I knew what I know now. What I know now is that God is inside of me, I am a manifestation of the great divine universal energy and this knowing, this feeling, this inner recognition comforts me. Knowing that I am one with the spirit keeps he suicidal tendencies far away, actually thoughts of suicide are no longer acceptable to me. With each breathe I am so grateful to be alive, so blesssed to have this physical experience with endless spiritual capabilities.
It took a while to embrace the one with God thing and for a long time I wasn't a believer, I was a pure skeptic who had plenty of concrete living proof that God was no where near me but in the same breathe, I had to admit the multitudes of events that could of not occurred without the supernatural power of a being greater than myself. Today I take a moment to reflect on the people who helped shape my spiritual awakening. I give a majority of the credit to a woman name Renee McCoy who was the minister at Full Truth Unity Church. I remember this time vividly because I had just returned home from one of my many disappearing acts (when I would decide to up an leave, move to another location that tended to be many miles away without telling anyone and without closing out important details before I left, although in time my disappearing acts became more responsible in some ways or so I think). Upon returning from Philadelphia where I had lived for a year or so, I was pregnant which was a mystery in itself because at the time I was a self proclaimed lesbian but the truth was I had started to be a lesbian (as weird as that may sound) and had engaged in an act of heterosexual sex to figure out if I was truly a lesbian or what the die heart lesbians called "bi-curious." This casual, sexual orientation defining moment included a broke condom and in time a pregnant me. I couldn't be pregnant in the land of lesbians or so I thought, so I went back home.
Back at home, I started attend the holiness church of my upbringing realizing that lesbianism was a sin. For a year I talked, reasoned, fought, philosophized with God and in the end I told the great creator, look if being a lesbian was a sin then I'm going to hell because what I know for sure is that I enjoy and will be partaking in intimate relationships with women or at least that will be an option because I was more bisexual than lesbian but I didn't God cared about the middle ground anymore than the full on gay thing.
With a toddler in tow, I began to understand lesbianism, I read books, surfed the net for information and attended lesbian support meetings. I wish they still had those types of meetings because while I'm not a lesbian per say anymore, I sure could use some advice about dating again. Nonetheless, I met an amazing woman named Amorie Robinson, who at the time was a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan, she told me about a church and invited me.
The first thing I recall about Full Truth was the way I was greeted at the door. the person said to me, "your in the right place." And I recall hugging the person, accepting my bulletin and running into the bathroom and crying. I cried because it was the first time in the 25 years of living that anyone had said that I was in the right place, that somehow, someway I belonged. the woman in the next stall asked if I was alright, I wiped away the tears and responded favorably but before I could walk out, she said everything was going to be okay. She went on to mention that so many people come here broken, it's almost like a hospital and she assured me that I would get the medicine I needed to live a good life. i didn't believe a word she said but I did feel good about being in the right place.
The service was reminiscent of the church of my upbringing, same type of gospel music, same type of call and response, hand waving, church fanning, hallelujah shouting but the only stark difference was the pastor. The leader of this church was a woman, a woman with dark brown skin like mine, heavy set, short hair, glasses with a deep alto voice bordering on baritone. She spoke with a clarity that startled and shocked me. She told me things I thought I would never hear, she said that God was okay with me whether I was gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, confused, questioning or straight. And it wasn't just those words that made me believe because I'm too smart for my own good, I needed biblical proof and concrete reasoning. And she preached a sermon I thought was designed specifically for me, words taken from the Holy Bible, words taken from the heart of spiritual truth.
The phrase that sticks out in my mind that has become the theme for the church and it's sister churches is "God is Love and Love is for everyone." So there I was faced with what I had been searching for all along, Love. And if God was Love then that's what I'd been searching for. And that this thing called Love was for me also, although it was hard for me to understand. This is when I became angry about the teachings of the church of my upbringing because they said God loves you as long as you do the right thing all the time and Lord knows I didn't do the right things all the time, so there was no way God was going to love me but this new translation of God as Love was revelatory and evocative. I left that first service intrigued, hopeful and open.
I've been open every since and I've embraced that concept of Lover every since and well what I know is that I slipped into the arms of the Universal energy, where I was cradled in my sleep and successfully brought into the new year alone but connected to all mankind. I am love, I am God, I am perfect, I am whole and I am complete. I LOVE ME.

Morning Pages Go Public

Okay, I've decided to do something completely crazy and unique, instead of writing my morning pages in my journal, I've decided to inflict the cyber-field with my free writing and while I'm a little concerned about the days when I will write things that may indicate some emotional instability or excess information with raw vulnerability, it's okay. I wish I could figure out how many words I've typed so that I can stop at some certain point but we live and we learn.

Okay, so the words I want to share as we enter in the new is this, 2008 wasn't a bad year. It was a year of change and a year that presented events that will hopefully challenge the human race to take pause and consider every action that we take. I'm a fan of chaos because what arises from the ash of mass confusion and dysfunction is clarity, is a new beginning, is a chance for positive change, is an awakening that signifies the truth and the truth is the universe is open to endless opportunities. I'm feeling as if 2008 taught me valuable lessons and confirmed my deepest fears. Luckily, I had started to live below my means back in 2001, so when financial challenges occurred, for the most part I was unaffected, at least I wasn't affected in any major way. Of course the price of everything increased but when one lives below their means, there is cushion for increases. Had I been living above my means, I would of felt the stress of trying to figure out where to come up with more money. So financially I'm still living at or below the poverty level but when I take a close look at my life, I have everything and I do mean everything that I need. This having of everything that I need is a complete blessing and the reason why my life is wonderful.
Lastly, what 2008 reiterated for me is the simple fact that the things I truly desire, money can't buy. This became crystal clear when I took a job making twice as much as I'm making right now. The job wasn't the problem but there was a problem with the working environment and I'm choosing to be vague so as to not give energy to negativity, what I do know is I gave it my best but then one day I realized I deserved better. Better meant asking for my old job but at least in my old job I feel safe, I feel a part of the team, I feel respected, I feel like I make a valuable contribution, I feel supported, I feel I fit, I feel that the work I do is good and I feel as if the people I work for are committed to maintaining a positive working environment. Sure I miss the extra and I do mean extra money but the peace I feel, outweighs the misery. Nonetheless, this lesson challenged me to think about what I want to do with my life and what I'm doing with my life and where I want to be with my life. Also, I recognized that if I can put this amount of work into working situations and watch the company/organization/institution thrive surely I can put that energy into things that I'm passionate about.
So what am I passionate about? Writing, comedy (I love laughing), storytelling, helping people to succeed and I still have the filmmaking bug although I'm taking a short hiatus. I've committed some time to all of the activities I'm passionate about but what I realize is that I didn't have a plan and no clear goals. I have clear 2009 goals or at least a list of actions that I will take in support of my personal goal.
I will share a few of my 2009 action items, these are not new year resolutions. I'm taking a comedy class and it starts January 12th. I'm working on one story per week for either public telling or for print publishing. But my main focus is on being open and listen to my inner voice while not having any expectations, my goal is to be curious about life and not put it in a box.
My mantra for 2009 is 2009 is mine and it sounds selfish but it's not, it's my commitment to myself, to live a healthy life, to engage in the things that my heart desires and to open to love. I'm really working on staying focus on eating more healthy, growing food in a community garden, buying organic as much as I can and finding more ways to respect the planet and create self sustainability. Yeah, I'm going green and looking to decrease my carbon imprint.
I'll close by saying that if anyone knows how to figure out word count, please drop me a line otherwise I'll just write for however long my soul desires.
2008 was a wonderful year for introspection, for increased conscious behavior, for realizing that money can't buy what we really desire, for opening up the collective consciousness and for the most amazing act of people power I've seen in a long time. In 2008 America elected it's first Black president but more than that American put into action, in a concrete way the words of our constitution. I recall the words of Barbara Jordan, who states her faith in the constitution, in her memory I say, America exercised it's faith in the constitution and that alone superseded everything else. In 2008 I felt like I belonged in America and that's a feeling that no amount of money can buy. Peace and cornbread because this is only the beginning.