"Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Are Hatched"

Click on the link below for a great real life illustration of the point... Courtesy of ESPN Video
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=11844727

Toward Operational Clarity In Our Lives

Excerpt from the book 'Of Paradise Despised...'  by Roy Alexander Graham

"... The task of sorting through the many and varied processes that inform our values is one that must be assumed with conviction. This has to be the case if we are to operate with the clarity that we need to lead truly functional lives. Indeed, it is necessary if we are to realize our full human potential. As inconvenient as it may be, it is work that we are each required to do if we are to effectively reclaim our lives to our advantage.

Tragically, the existence that many of us end up leading does not express our own spiritual initiatives. In the maze of expectations that exercise us daily, we ignore that little voice which prods us to find our true selves, and cultivate the courage to chart our own course though this journey we call our life. In the end we find ourselves expressing the essential frustrations that ensue from the realization that we have been the proverbial puppets on a string.

It is never a good thing to be dancing to tunes that essentially herald our demise, but many of us have been, and continue to do so. We engage in the chorus of our disenfranchisement with an amazing constancy because we have not critically evaluated the circumstances of our lives. Eventually, we end up as spiritually disjointed persons because we have not cultivated the courage to be the title characters on the stage which is our world. The time has come when we must take responsibility for the songs that we sing and dance to. We are being called to step away from that line dance that has us going along with someone else’s choice steps. The challenge to us is to become the choreographers in the production which is our lives.... "

'Of Paradise Despised...' available on Amazon Kindle

'Of Paradise Despised...' available on Apple iBooks

'Of Paradise Despised...' available on Barnes & Noble Nook

A Workable Faith

Excerpt from the book 'Of Scattered Seed and Broken Souls' by Roy Alexander Graham

“The crumbled walls of my fathers' house
Lies all around me... On top and below... Trapping and bruising…
I have lived the narrowed space of my mothers' degradation…

In the anxious hurt of the constant night of my fear
I have listened to every voice that told me
That for every reason I must stay here
And confine my existence to the shadows of a shattered time…
But…I…did not believe…

I chose to remove the clasp of my fathers' bondage…
I decided to rid myself of their names…
And I recreated my Mothers
Making of them virgins perpetual…
And my life became again…An Immaculate Conception.

I am…The begotten…And I…shall fall no more”


'Of Scattered Seed and Broken Souls' available on Amazon Kindle

'Of Scattered Seed and Broken Souls' available on Apple iBooks

'Of Scattered Seed and Broken Souls' available on Barnes & Noble Nook

The Obama Era Is Over...?

Howard Fineman, a prominent journalist and commentator on MSNBC,  in his appearance on that outlet on Election Night, announced quite emphatically that "the Obama era is over". While not as emphatically and as enthusiastically negative as his Fox News counterparts, he seemed to sum up the implications of the apparent drubbing that Democrats took in this mid-term election... at least as far as we could reasonably expect from a sensationalist-headline-driven mainstream media. In fact, nothing remarkably groundbreaking happened in this election cycle. The results are historically consistent for the most part with the experience of most Presidencies in their sixth year.  Every two-term President, going back to Ronald Reagan and beyond, has seen the kind of ego-correcting/agenda-resetting backlash that is a consequence of the kind of political process we have. This is even more so the case when only a third of the electorate participates, as was the case in this Election.

Barack Obama has much to hold his head high about. The economy has seen consistent growth that has lifted it out of the worst Recession in modern history. Unemployment is back below pre-recession levels. More Americans have health insurance than ever before in our history as a direct result of the ACA. We now have the lowest increase in Healthcare costs in 50 years. The cost of borrowing for a college education has gone down. According to the CBO, the Deficit as a percentage of GDP has gone from 10.1% in 2009 to 3% in 2014. Much needed Immigration Reform is currently on the front burner in Congress' kitchen. It is an issue which will not, and must not be ignored. It is remarkable to note that even in States where the electorate chose Republicans, they also overwhelmingly opted for an increase in the Minimum Wage, an item that Republicans have fought against. Barack Obama was not on the ballot, but this issue that is a major focus of his was... And it was overwhelmingly approved.

Popular media may, in the interest of its conflict-driven agenda, continue to focus on the cult of personality that serves its corporate ends. But a more meaningful presentation of the issues that our country faces far outweighs the convenient trivialities of a "drama" driven process. Ultimately the times of our lives and the issues we face in these times cannot be measured in terms of the cult of personality that a hero-seeking culture dreams up. The work that must be done to achieve the social progress we need and the proliferation of Justice that will make our world more secure, is work that demands that we all put our shoulders to the wheel. The Media needs to be a substantially more adequate partner in this work. It may opt to assume this role... Or face its own "midterm" in the minds of conscientious people.

The President has noted that there is one thing he is sure of... He is going to be busy working for the American people over the next two years. We fully expect that he will be. He is in fact... Still the President of the United States of America.

Street Money In Politics... A Slippery Slope

Pennsylvania Gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf has refused to give three hundred and forty thousand dollars to Philadelphia politicians to fund their "get out the vote" effort on Election Day. Wolf joins Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who refused to give money to Philadelphia ward leaders in the 2008 Democratic Primary for the same purpose. This granting of "street money" to local politicians is a well established practice in a number of American cities. In rejecting the request Wolf stated the following:
"I'm not one to do that, ... I think I'm trying to appeal to people's best instincts to vote. I don't want them to vote or bring people out or do something because I'm paying them - I want them to do it because they actually think their lives might be better. It might sound naive . . . if it takes some cash to do that, then I've failed as a politician."

Without mincing words I would agree with the objection the candidate raises... Again. If people can be paid for their vote, then they can be paid to withhold that vote. Not too long ago a certain campaign manager for a Gubernatorial candidate in the State of New Jersey "bragged" about spending half a million dollars to get some Black church leaders to influence their congregants to withhold their vote in certain urban precincts. We complain much, and justly so, about efforts to suppress the vote in mainly minority communities. The other side of that story is what I would call the self suppression of an electorate that refuses to take the initiatives necessary to ensure their meaningful participation in the democratic process.

Tomorrow is another Election Day. There are critical issues on the ballot that will impact the quality of life and the future of cities like Pholadelphia. These issues include the provision of adequate funding for Education, legislating a liveable wage, Healthcare policy, and many others. The very people whose lives are most affected by these issues must arouse the initiative within themselves that it takes to get the kind of leadership that will deliver on these issues. Talk is cheap. It is time to act in favor of the future we desire. No one can do for us that which we must be doing for ourselves. Wake up people, your future waits. Eventually we will get the government we deserve.

Living Into A Virtuous Fecundity

The following is the final excerpt from the article "Redefining Ourselves... A Season For Breaking The Mold."   Read the full article at http://figtreeenterprises.com/redefining-ourselves/

The redefinition of our lives that result from our work to create the destiny we determine to be fulfilling for us, brings into our experience of living the kind of abundance that we can only hope for in the absence of this definitive effort. That abundance results from the empowering clarity that we now possess as a result of new ways of looking at things. We discover new possibilities as we cultivate the ability to see things we were ignoring, to hear ideas to which we were once deaf, and to now apply ourselves with the kind of industriousness that Wisdom in her consummate omniscience dictates. Most meaningfully, our example serves as an indispensable guide on what is at times a profoundly difficult road through life. This work of Wisdom and Courage serves to establish lamps in the dark for fellow travelers on the journey to more abundant living.

This virtuous reproduction of ourselves and our lives will inevitably require new and improved templates of being. These new templates are molded through the persistence that a patient and determined willingness to pursue the destiny we have envisioned for our lives develops in us. In order to create the new templates we need it is necessary that we break out of the molds that limit our ability to grow. Complacency must no longer be tolerated as an ally. Fear must give way to courageous action. The existential malaise that saps our vitality must be addressed by proactive efforts to improve our health and well-being. The tendency to say “I can’t” must be replaced with a new enthusiasm that declares “I will!”.

By committing ourselves to growth, and by doing the work required by that commitment, we activate the process of change that fills us with a new dynamism. We move from promise to possibility, and from possibility to actualizing a more powerful sense of being. As agents of change we help motivate others, and thus we become prime movers in the perpetuation of that season for a redefinition of what it can mean to truly live.

Out of the old molds of being…!

We can be models for a “newness of life” that inspires…

The Disturbing Treatment Of Black Kids In Minneapolis

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/10/30/3586105/if-youre-a-black-kid-in-minneapolis-youre-16-times-more-likely-to-be-arrested-for-these-offenses/