I’m 63-years of age. My baby-boomer culture and African-American culture combined never offered me an opportunity to openly talk about my sexual identity with ease. Up until I was in my late thirty’s while in seminary, I never even dared to openly explore it, let alone proclaim my attraction to women. I found the courage to do that while keeping it a carefully guarded secret that bisexual-leanings were and are the part of my identity that I “comfortably” suppress.
Read MoreI have searched for work since January 2012. A month later I got job screened for computer programming work at the local electric utility. The job screener invited me to attend a rally opposing a rate increase proposal before the city council. The job screener also invited me to share my rate increase opposition sentiments publicly at the rally in front of the building where I might find work. I consented to do so and we ended the phone call. Then I realized my free speech conflict with greater private property.
Read MoreStrange how the familiar and benign can become scary if we look just below the surface. Writers for the old 80's t.v. show, Tales from the Dark Side, knew all about adjusting our angle of vision. They took banal, everyday events of a life to a whole new place. At the start of each episode, Donald Rubenstein intoned, Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But...there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit...a dark side.
Read MoreI finished high school and college, and, quite naturally, continued to have more questions about life and God. I became really intrigued by Shirley McClaine and her conversations about reincarnation. What if we have chosen everything in our life? Our race, gender, parents, sexual orientation, health, financial status, etc., the acts we created from our past life. Pure and simple. Cause and effect.
So, who we are? What we are enduring - our gifts, our misfortune - are karmic.
Read MoreSince the early 17th century, the people of African descent have an unsettled debt beyond an agricultural and economic remuneration. The psychological, social and emotional damage that has occurred due to the continual systemic assault on Black identity, Black bodies, and Black life; it must be assessed and repaired. It is necessary to recognize the value in the original African ways of being and the indigenous social practices of both African people and the descendants of African people in that assessment and repair. In the African worldview, there is no separation of the sacred and secular such that their spiritual being inextricably connected to the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of the person and community.
Read MoreHaving been raised in China, the attitudes about money that I was exposed to as a child never quite left me. I grew up poor, living with my grandparents in a small, government subsidized housing that was just city enough to not be considered a village, but just rural enough that everyone in the city considered us outsiders. Because money was always tight, savings was something to be treasured. Hoarded, even. I remember my grandparents kept wads of cash in the back of their closet, and I only got a glimpse of it around Chinese New Year, when it was time to stuff bills into little red sleeves to gift to people.
Read MoreA true educator never really retires. A true educator continues to be unsettled by the evidence all around us that there is much work yet to be done. The playing field for students labeled “at-risk” is still extremely uneven for numerous reasons. Now that I have retired from the “system,” I am free to be more strategic in my purpose and passion for lifting up our youth in the same spirit that others embraced and invested in me--a young girl from the projects. If we truly believe that our children are our future, then we should also believe that our lives become more meaningful when we commit some portion of our talents, gifts and wisdom to their benefit. We all have something to share. This has become my “Why”—the thing that drives me to make every moment a teachable moment. The inner voice that reminds me there is always something new to learn and pass on to someone else.
Read MoreI was born a Ayisyen (i.e., Haitian) in Belgium. I acquired my parents' nationality, and, in many ways, I was raised as a Haitian child, too, partly in Belgium and France, partly in Senegal, moving "back" to Haiti as a young adult.
Later on, as an adult living in Ayiti, it felt natural and easy for me to dive deep into the world of Vodou ceremonies, close encounters and intimate communications with spirits, and to embrace the underlying Shamanic mindset that honors the great mystery through which everything that exists on the visible and invisible dimensions is interconnected.
Read MoreOur habitual dependence on, and fixation about money in American life-practices and society is increasing in strength. People of color are drinking the poisoned well water to their own, and our collective spiritual detriment.
When people of color tell our own stories, each story bestows this common remembrance: The driven aims and ventures encouraged by and for the benefit of those who have held power and who work at funding “progress” at the expense of all else in mind, will continue to fail at an unprecedented rate of acceleration. The fallen privileged will turn to us and ask for wisdom and guidance that we will have been positioned over many centuries of struggle to offer. And I think that, my dear family, is poetic equity, stability, growth, and justice, indeed. Just claiming it so feels healthy to me, just as my sharing with you holds out an opportunity for transformative healing for all of us, haves and have nots alike.
Read MoreWhen I look back on my memories on the city of Santiago, Chile in the 1960’s, every person in our little town really shared the same values because they reflected the cultural customs of our town. I call the values that we shared there the “colectivo,” (i.e., commonly held interests) mostly because the ways we were taught to act, the things we were taught to believe, and connections that endured in our community were a part of the fabric that wove us together and enhanced our lives, even when we were not aware that this way of our being drawn together was happening.
Read MoreA lot of father’s were prevented from doing that because for their families to receive a small amount of financial support from the US government of get social services support, the man in the household was required by law not to live in their homes with their families. And that destabilized those families and their entire communities! My grandfathers didn’t have father’s that were present…for whatever reasons. Later in life, once I began to grow into who I would become, I understood the importance of a male figure being able to live in their household with their family members.
Read MoreI am a Nigerian woman who’s lived here in America for over 45 years. I am a born-again Christian minister and am incredibly grateful for God’s Holy Spirit, who gives me guidance and brings about natural (and holy) responses in/through me these days. It’s a good thing He does because I clearly remember how different I was before getting born again.
I can recall how I operated with money. I was nice-ish, a bit charitable, and concerned mainly for the preservation of me and mine. The people I grew up around were similar; focused mostly on self-protection and not feeling any responsibility to be concerned for the needs of others. In fact, generosity was actually frowned upon as a weakness, and I did not want to seem weak.
I did not start off in this country feeling like America was lucky to have me here. When I first arrived in DC, I do remember, however, being taken by seeing people from all over the world coming together.
In my Sudanese culture, if I have money, I can't abandon someone that is homeless in the street without sharing it and helping them. That would almost be unheard of! Community for us living in a personally owned home that is still connected to everyone else’s home. Families in our community live together in proximity. It's always been this way of being in our community of origin because we are people that are known for living with our extended families.
Read MoreI found dissonance in each group. While they were all toting a different massage of what the right type of Black person acted, and often what they looked like; they were all saying different things. I wondered how messages of solidarity and separatism could coexist in the same structures. Isn’t it some great injustice that our people have gone through so much only to spend their freedom on trying to disqualify each others relation? Where was the blessing in defining your race as an ever-expanding category with no concrete qualifications?
Read MoreAs I sit here balancing my monthly budget, feeling my usual mix of hopefulness and regret, I was wondering what it would be like to live in a world without this stress. Perhaps anyone who has dealt with everyday annoyances like this might feel the same. I begin to think about escape, release, sanctuary, and I recall the story of John the Baptist from the Gospel of Matthew, third chapter. Perhaps you have heard of it?
Read MoreMy Mom has shared a lot with me and my sister about her youth and the struggle of being a Mexican American girl in a predominantly German town in Texas. As a girl, she knew she was being treated differently than her classmates. They liked her well enough but in public their differences were defined by others. When Mom was in junior high (middle school), she was invited to a friends birthday party that included a trip to see a movie at the Brauntex Theater – a segregated business where people of Mexican and African descent were relegated to the balcony.
Read MoreI am a 35-year old Pakistani American woman with a mundane job and a comfortable life. I attend a great church. Yet, I cannot say that I have ever thoughtfully or thoroughly considered faith and money, together. Though, I’ve put my money where my faith is many times, giving to causes and people that align with my values and religion, as I perceive them. I have also put a lot of stock in the power of money to ward off trouble and to provide for my needs and wants.
Read MoreI listened to a friend express intense dissatisfaction with the Church universal. The crux of the displeasure did not concern sermon length, matters of theology, worship style, or even God God’s Self. The dissatisfaction was about stewardship: my friend disagrees with how the Church allocates its money. “I want the Church to do more.” By way of example, my friend discussed a popular, multi-campus, primarily African-American megachurch nearby. With all its land and other resources, that church could serve the community in greater, more substantial ways.
Read MoreI’m a black millennial businessman. In today’s time, sadly there is a huge gap of knowledge, respect, morals and values between these three generations: Millennials, Generation X and Baby Boomers. Together these three generations make up the bulk of todays workforce/society.
During a business meeting with a peer and his mother, the topic of why it’s so hard for millennials to come together, network and support each other arose. This was very shocking to say the least for “mom.” While we were discussing coming up with a business plan and contemplating which individuals we knew from college, growing up, or work that could help with different aspects of the business plan, my peer and I had to explain why reaching out for help would be a difficult task.
Read MoreAs young black males, we were faced with crucial decisions for survival most days and there was certainly no shortage of opportunity to get involved in less than favorable activities. Other days were spent doing what was considered more “fun” an escape if you will, playing the sport that really changed my life and that I love dearly: Football. Practicing on a dirt field, it wasn’t uncommon to find a needle or two, we even spotted a dead body once then finished practice after the coroner left.
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