The Fierce Urgency Of Now

"We have ...come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of ... justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of ... injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children." 
--- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

All of us are moved, in one way or another, by the power of the vision of Life in our society as expressed in this well revered speech of Dr. King. Most of us can identify with the promise of an America, and indeed a World, in which the sacred space created by Justice is a reality. And while we long for that sacred space, there is an ever present hallowed spot in which we find ourselves. It is the immediate circumstance of our lives. It is the place with the many challenges that must be attended to in order for our lives to be all that they can be. In the days when the Reverend Martin Luther King walked among us, one of those challenges was the issue of Justice for all.

Doctor King raised his voice in a call for this Nation to live up to that most noble tenet of its vaunted creed... That all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That call... that raised voice still resonates among us these many years later. Not that it has gone unheeded. Indeed there is much to be celebrated in terms of the advance of Justice among us, but there is still important work to be done to make the ground we occupy together a more righteous place. Ferguson, Missouri, is a stark reminder of that; and so are places like Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Chicago, Illinois... Every place in which we are victimized, and in which we victimize each other.

It is not just Justice among us that we must be concerned about. Something deep inside compels the declaration that we must desist from the convenient pointing of the finger at the historical sources of injustice in our society. Our problems have an often ignored, but very intimate origin that we would be hypocrites to ignore. We cannot continue to claim that we are created equal while we apportion disproportionate reasons for the corruption of our sacred space to "others". Regardless of the disadvantages that are facts of our lives, there comes a moment when we must admit some fault, every single one of us, for the problems that continue to haunt us. And in so doing we must give due attention to the reality of the imbalance that is present within us as individuals. We must face the issue of the absence of Justice within us. If our social environment is to get better ...WE must become better. Better men. Better women. Better parents. Better citizens. Better sons and daughters. Better neighbors. It is time to recognize the gravity of the moment that is NOW. Now is when we are called to be better.

We are all very familiar with the tragic moments when we are forced to recognize that we cannot continue to give expression to the worst instincts in and around us. These are the moments when LIFE speaks with a profound echo, one that is hard to ignore. In those moments when we lose loved ones to the proliferation of vices in us... and all around us. You name them. These are the moments when we become inconsolable in the face of the brutal wrath of our shortcomings as individuals and as communities; when no shallow explanation can speak to the fact that WE must change our circumstances. It is when the thumb and index finger of our grief are indicted by the other three digits of our own complicity. This is the Moment when we all come to know in no uncertain terms what Dr. King meant when he uttered the salient words... The fierce urgency of now.

The fierce urgency of now demands that we stop putting off the need for change... Change in ourselves and in our society. It demands that we end our addiction to "the tranquilizing drug of gradualism", and the jaded spirit of our procrastination. Our society will begin to see real change when we all become more invested in the currency of Justice not just as a responsibility of others... But as an internalized dynamic of our individual lives.

Of Dicks And The Protrusions From A Horse's Ass

The story is told of a country preacher who was well known for speaking in very ostentatious terms. Never mind the fact that his congregants were for the most part simple country folk, most of whom were more accustomed to the forthright and culturally recognizable thoughts and expressions of their everyday lives rather than the imposed circumlocutions of “learned” men.

One Sunday, after embarking on a rather drawn out sermon, the preacher mercifully indicated the coming end of his protracted embellishment of a not so well known text with the phrase “And so, in conclusion…”; after which he proceeded to speak for another twenty or so minutes. Wearied by the length and verbosity of the sermon, the congregation let out a collective and impatient “Amen!” on what they all knew had to be his final words.

Approaching the preacher afterwards, an elderly woman remarked to him about her lack of comprehension of his use of the term “conclusion”. “What” she asked, “did you mean by that word given the fact that you just kept going on and on after saying it. Not grasping the obvious exasperation of this congregant, the man started to explain the meaning of the word in terms he thought the old woman might understand. “Well”, he said, “conclusion means the tail end…” at which the old lady just shook her head, smiled, and walked away.

Not too long afterwards as the congregation dispersed, the preacher mounted his horse to depart for home. Indulging a sense of being mischievous upon noticing what could be called a rather remarkable protrusion from the rear of the parson’s horse, the old lady declared quite loudly: “Preacher! Preacher!… there is something protruding from your horse’s conclusion.” At which the whole crowd burst out laughing. “Well said sister!”, came an anonymous endorsement from the crowd.

Brings to mind the meaningless drivel of so many of our public figures who can't recognize the fact that their time has past. In the absence of their being held to account for their...indiscretions, they continue to wear us out with the circumlocutions that they believe will serve their still nefarious ends. 

Lawless

Why…
And how do we confine
The wanderings of a violated soul…
Can we alter the constitution of the human heart
By policing the passions of our estranged selves…

Look at the tragic tales of folk
Who walk the stage
Of time
And hopes
And dreams
In search of wholeness
Only to find themselves more divided
By a morality unfounded in any true sense of right
And laws that have no abiding place
In our hearts.


From the book “Of Paradise Despised...” by Roy Alexander Graham

"Out Of The Huts Of History's Shame..."

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

Recently I sat with my wife in an audience at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, as Congressman John Lewis gave the Convocation Address to the thousands of incoming students and their families and friends gathered there to mark the start of their careers as college students. The Congressman is a great example of someone who refused to live in the mold prescribed by the prevailing socio-historical circumstances into which he was born. He had to overcome much in his own experience…  And he did. The following is an excerpt from the biography published on his website:

“He was born the son of sharecroppers on February 21, 1940, outside of Troy, Alabama.  He grew up on his family’s farm and attended segregated public schools in Pike County, Alabama.  As a young boy, he was inspired by the activism surrounding the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., which he heard on radio broadcasts.  In those pivotal moments, he made a decision to become a part of the Civil Rights Movement. Ever since then, he has remained at the vanguard of progressive social movements and the human rights struggle in the United States.

As a student at Fisk University, John Lewis organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee.  In 1961, he volunteered to participate in the Freedom Rides, which challenged segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South. Lewis risked his life on those Rides many times by simply sitting in seats reserved for white patrons.  He was also beaten severely by angry mobs and arrested by police for challenging the injustice of Jim Crow segregation in the South.”

I listened, overwhelmed by a substantial empathy, and I observed the rapt attention being paid to this man by an audience currently reflective of the American demographic landscape. His resounding message: “Never give up! Never give in!” And as I sat there in that audience listening to Congressman Lewis, the words of Dr Maya Angelou came to mind :

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” 

Dr. Maya Angelou… Wow! Say it with me… WOW! A woman who “phenomenally” refused to be defined by adverse circumstances, the scars of which she carried in her own being. Even now she “rises” … and she lifts us with her to new heights of consciousness and being! I hear her wonderfully commanding and beautifully distinct voice in my head constantly. It speaks with a powerful eloquence that stirs in us a mixture of memory and emotion that cannot be ignored.

“Out of the huts of history’s shame … I rise!

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain … I rise!

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, 

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. 

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear … I rise!

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear … I rise!

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, 

I am the dream and the hope of the slave. 

I rise! I rise! I rise!”

There is a life-proliferating quality to the work of Dr. Maya Angelou. Her literary offerings and the emotions they elicit plant themselves in our consciousness almost effortlessly, and they thrive there as if they have always been there… though unnoticed. In an act of cultural and spiritual intimacy she draws us to a most sacred place on our life-journey, and we experience a mating of ideas and ideals that leave us pregnant with the expectation of something greater for ourselves and the other selves connected to us. Her creative genius reaches deep within us and calls forth the memory of our sacred obligation to “be fruitful and multiply”. Hers is a call echoing from the Eden of our very beginnings. It is a call to new dreams, and new hopes, and a new vitality. She encourages us to revise and refine and redefine who we are and who we would be. In that respect Maya Angelou joins the Jesuses and the Kings and the Mandelas and the Oprahs and the Marleys, in engendering an ongoing work of renewal among us.

AUTHENTICITY AS DESTINY

To move forward in a positively creative way in our lives we must recognize and speak the truth about our experiences. By that I do not mean complain. I do not mean wallowing for attention in what I have called “the muck and disgraces” which are always there if we look honestly enough into all our experiences. Such activity in many instances become an end in itself. There is no denying the pain and grief that is a part of our lives, but if we are to heal we must find the wherewithal to identify their sources and effectively address them. Some people may gain notoriety from an overindulgence in self-pity, but it is ultimately an exercise in futility.

There are items of our lives that are sources of pain and shame. Some we are complicit in, and some we are victims of. Some we remain unclear as to what part exactly we may be accountable for. The path to authentic living helps to bring clarity where needed. Where necessary we must seek forgiveness… And we must also learn to forgive. A most empowering meditation in this regard is to be found in The Lord’s Prayer… “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. The absence of forgiveness as a vital part of our attempts to heal becomes a wall between us and the authenticity we seek. To leave the past behind and grant ourselves the power we need to move ahead, it is necessary to climb over that wall. This is how we gain the needed perspective our renewal demands… By acting to remove the barriers between us and our futures.

Taking charge of our lives is about being purposefully creative. We potentiate the process with acts through which we call ourselves to a spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual housecleaning. This requires us to truthfully unburden ourselves of those experiences that weigh us down in the miry clay of pain and regret. The objective is to rid ourselves of the hurt and guilt associated with bad experiences we have had, and or caused. This is absolutely necessary before we can embark on the journey of renewal.

As we continue this journey we must walk away from the psychological, spiritual, physical, and social instruments and actors that are complicit in the sordid episodes we want to turn away from. Talk is cheap. This is where the “rubber” of the commitments we make meets the “road” of our willingness to act out those commitments. This is where the demands of our renewal become real. It may mean new friends and associates. It may mean moving away from your familiar environment. It may require a new way of eating. New ways of thinking and acting and behaving are required for the renewal we seek. You may have to go back to school as you give up your old job in the club…or at the investment firm. The new you that you seek will need a new foundation from which to grow and develop.

Our personal journey to renewal demands that we commit ourselves to new habits. As humans we have come to think of ourselves as “creatures of habit”. Habit formation is a function of the repeated practice of the skills and behaviors we need in our improved selves. It is believed, and often said that, “practice makes perfect”. The remaking or redefining of our lives demands that we become new creatures through the renewal of our minds that come from the repeated practice of acts determined to speak with clarity about who we are and who we want to be. No longer must we be defined by the old habits, but by our new ways of seeing, and believing, and behaving.

Excerpt from the article "Redefining Ourselves... A Season For Breaking The Mold ".

Read the full article @ http://figtreeenterprises.com/redefining-ourselves/

BREAKING FREE FROM THE MOLD… REDEFINING OURSELVES

We have the power, each one of us, to cast off the definitions by which our potentials are limited. We acknowledge that power in declaring our right to name ourselves and thus determine who we are and what we will become. The recognition of this right and this power ushers in a new reality for anyone so inclined. It begins the process of breaking the molds that sabotage our ability to live authentic lives. It makes us available to the empowering possibilities of liberated living.

The responsibility to define who we are and what we will become is a sacred trust. It is the foundation on which we build the futures that beckon us away from the distresses of the imposed impotence of a mimicked existence. The authenticity of our being should never be determined by anyone else’s prescription, nor for that matter, anyone else’s proscription. The process of naming ourselves is an exercise in the kind of courage that takes for granted that we will make mistakes. Our imperfection however, should never be a deterrent to acting out our sense of who we are… Or what we want to become. Let us always keep in mind that we are works in progress. To the extent that perfection carries with it the connotation of being finished, it is a claim we cannot even pretend to make… None of us.

Excerpt from :  Redefining Ourselves… A Season For Breaking The Mold

Read the whole article @ : http://figtreeenterprises.com/redefining-ourselves/

What We Can't Ignore In The Adrian Peterson Story

• "The behavior of the oppressed is a prescribed behavior, following as it does the guidelines of the oppressor."---Paulo Freire

It doesn't matter how much money the descendants of an oppressed people have. Money can't buy us new minds. It can't replace the broken spirits that are part of our unfortunate inheritance. We have a history, and that history is filled with experiences that continue to inform our behaviors. Much as we ourselves would like to forget. Much as the guilt-ridden descendants of our oppressors would like us to forget that part of our experience ...it is there. I don't hear anyone telling Jews to forget about the holocaust. How dare they demand that we forget ours. The fact that it is an uncomfortable and ugly scar is a burden we all must share... and bear.

All of us in the experience called America share in a tragedy that we struggle to escape. That experience is a history of oppression that continues to have an impact on our shared experiences. The dynamic of oppression traps both the oppressed and the oppressor. Both become victims and perpetuators of the process of dehumanization that characterizes every relationship in this dynamic. That dynamic gets played out in our marriages. It gets expressed in our relationships with our children. We implement it in our experiences as employers and employed. It continues to wreak havoc in our lives until we recognize it and call it out for what it is. 

Charles Barkley may be right in his note that most families in the South beat their kids; but he misses the larger point. Adrian Peterson learned his abusive responses in the context of the history of that South. He came, as many have, to regard his out of control reactions to his children as the norm. That is tragic. It is however a tragedy that afflict many... Blacks and Whites. Judge Mark Fuller of Alabama has not gotten as much press for beating up his wife while in a hotel in Atlanta; but his actions cannot be separated from the same dynamic that informs the behavior of Peterson. Maybe he hasn't been as exposed to public critique as Peterson because he is a "powerful" white man. Maybe he is, but he is just as vulnerable to the dehumanizing history of oppression that still stains the South. He may have friends who shield him from the public scrutiny that black athletes have to suffer, but he can't hide from the fact that his behavior is just as despicable.

There must come a time in our experience as individuals and as a nation when we pause and recognize the need to seek the remedies for the afflictions that ail us and cause so much damage to those who share our lives. On that day we must stop treating others as property to be exploited. We must stop treating those who share our beds as objects to be used for our self-gratification. We must stop treating our children as owned extensions of our battered egos. On that day we will be fortunate enough to escape the trap of an oppression of our own making. Let us be clear, the change that must come to liberate us from the trap of the dynamic of oppression is part of our work to make this a more equitable society.