Stretching to Change the world (Weirdness)

Love today, is weird.  It's weird to forgive someone for wronging you before paying them back.  To love someone who doesn't look like Zoe Saldana or Terence Howard (or whoever you women like) is well, weird.  When someone decides to spend their life's passion helping others, for little pay, especially in communities around the world, many of our sensibilities begin to oppose their idea.  How can you leave America? Where you going? For how long?

The reality is Love is a choice, a revolutionary one that is contrary to all the world (or America rather) stands for.  Love is smiling at someone who wants to spit in your face, holding doors and not caring about the thank you's.  Love is allowing yourself to get sick just so that you can show affection to your son who can only see you on weekends because he lives with his mother and not you (you know I had to throw something specific to me in there...fatherhood is my revolution :-).

(I type this post in bed.  Sick.  Beware of cute kids with coughs, sneezes, runny noses and other indicators of germs.  Their cuteness  lures you in while the germs take you down.) 

I must say that in my life I've eased up on my plans, on my endeavors, on my efforts to make sure that others around me are comfortable.  I'm guilty of taking it easy in Madden when I'm whooping someone that I always beat, of slowing down a bit in practice so that I didn't embarass one of my teammates on the track, of neglecting to mention the Master's in Education I earned in '09.  I've been pumping the brakes on my endeavors so that the Status Quo is comfortable with my maturation and progress.  I've done what Marianne Williamson described as: shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you" ("Our Greatest Fear").

With that being said, these next few years will be painful.  I will be training myself to stretch beyond the imaginary limitations that I've set for myself.  I'll be training my mind and my body to do things that it refused to do in order to be someone who people could be comfortable around.  But the genius in me, the social investor in me (took that from a dynamic young lady -- Danya Steele), the father in me, needs to be freed. I don't believe there is anyone great who specializes in making other people comfortable.  Jesus shook the world with His audacity to claim to be the Son of God, His quest to love all. What person could be completely comfortable around Jesus.  Looking into the flames of His eyes, feeling the piercing love of His words and seeing the Peace of His soul sounds like enough to send imperfect, fallible men and women like us headed for the hills...

Who could be comfortable around Dr. King or Malcolm X? Who could be complacent around Barack Obama? Or Huey Newton, Or W.E.B. DuBois?  Who could be comfortable around the protestors of apartheid and Mandela? The slaves who dared to run towards freedom? Dorothy Height? Harriet Tubman? Ida B. Wells? Michelle Obama?  Truth be told a black man or woman that stirs up the greatness inside of others is a threat to the social order of America, it's why most of these men were either killed or censored, and why many of these women weren't celebrated until after their death.

One of the ways my HS coach got me to come back to Track & Field was that he used a spiritual truth to compel me to rethink my heinous decision to flip burgers for minimum wage rather than run track and invest in my future: "It's a sin to waste God-given talent." 

The same way I stretch before workouts and races, I'll be stretching to ready myself and my spirit for the crazy races that lie in store for me and my loved ones.  I don't apologize if my endeavors begin to make you question your own lives, that's the price you pay for being around someone dynamic.  From now on if you don't want to be challenged, lurk the corners of your nearest hood...You won't catch me there though...I'll be busy running laps around continents, infecting young people with a love of learning and life...only thing special about the education I'm serving, is that it's not for the faint at heart...be great...

Mandela Photo Courtesy of this website

Fatherhood Friday delayed: Superpowers (long post)

I'm huge on community. Anytime I get to talking to someone about the state of Black America I complain about two things: Fatherlessness and Lack of Community. I'm not gonna bedazzle you with my sociological wit by spitting random statistics about the social epidemic, I'm really talking about community. So, here's the story:

Mi amor y yo were on the J train traveling from Manhattan to Queens. The train wasn't too crowded for a late evening commute. We sat next to a young lady with two baby boys so close in age I'm going to assume that they were twins. Needless to say, as a father, my thoughts began to drift to the whereabouts of the father. Probably some dude that ran out on them, or was chilling with his boys, hugging the block trying to stack paper...I know it's horrible to stereotype people but if we can all be honest and dig deep, we can find that we stereotype day in and day out. This young lady had one baby in the strapped baby carriers and the other boy in the seat next to the doors. The baby who was strapped was chilling. Not a peep out of him. He had his pacifier in his mouth, like a real life Maggie from the Simpsons. He was cool as a fan. The other baby was screaming like the grinding of the 3 train, screeching, think Fulton-Broadway Nassau station, yeah, that bad.

One of my observations of young parents, especially moms who haven't learned the language of the cry (because in fact that is babies' way of communicating with us since their vocabulary is too limited for them to functionally make specific requests) is that they try to shut the baby up with techniques that are quick fixes. The problem is that often times quick fixes in these scenarios just prolong the inevitable, the crying baby on the J train. Her first tactic was to stuff his mouth with Toblerone Swiss chocolate candy. Yes, this toddler was getting Swiss chocolate shoved into his mouth, one piece at a time. After three sizable chunks of the sugary sensation, the baby was back to crying.

As the boo and I watched this situation unfold I sat there being a parental Marv Albert, calling the play-by-play of the seeming debacle in real time. It was my way of showing my expertise and proving to the boo that I can certainly handle reading the behaviors of children with a better eye than the shallow "he crying cuz he spoiled!"

Eventually an older lady thought she'd reach into her bag of tricks and pull out the finger-wag-stern-eyes. Yup. Middle-aged women were able to use this trick to perfection back in the day, that's because gullible boys raised in spiritual households (like myself) were told that to have an older woman wag her finger at you was a bad omen. So, if I was ever that bad in public (which I will venture to say I wasn't) that finger-wag shut me right up.

We must remember though, at this age a finger wag will do nothing but annoy the child. He was too young to understand the concept of omens, or even disrespect. She tried the "you-stop-that-crying-right-now" approach. To no avail. You cannot defeat an early toddler. If there's a battle, you lose. Children have way more will power. Her last attempt was a direct invite to battle. She lost.

The crying never stopped. He kept going and going. After a long day of work and watching two women unsuccessfully soothe this baby I decided to try and allow my fatherhood superpowers reign supreme. I got up and asked the mother if I could pick him up. She said yes. I looked the baby in the eye, smiled, got down to his level and grabbed him in a single bound. LOL. He was still pouting when the conversation, or lecture rather, began. I guess it was more of an interactive monologue, he never answered any of my questions. But the tone of my voice and the attention was all he wanted. He didn't want chocolate, or finger wags...he wanted to be soothed and paid attention to, like his brother was getting. I decided, way before this day, that fatherhood was a superpower, and I can exercise it in situations that called for it. Even if you are not a father, it takes a village to raise a child...help out...




"It takes a great man to be a good listener." - Calvin Coolidge


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Location:Chinatown bus...

FatherHood Friday: Heartbroken...

I usually try to stay away from the news. The mixture of gossip, negativity and pessimism can leave one drained and depressed.  It's like that person who gives the defeated exhale everytime you ask them how they are doing.  You know the monologue (this person rarely allows verbal exchange) that will follow that defeated exhale will be filled with complaints and gripes about miscellaneous crap that a mere change in attitude would probably remedy them.

Well, listening to the news with my mother during the last days of my vacation I learned about the untimely and tragic death of a couple from North Jersey. Mike Muchioki and Nia Haqq, ages 27 and 25 respectively, were murdered in Jersey City over a robbery and carjacking gone awry.  Carjacking.  Over a car.  A piece of metal that depreciates in value the minute it's driven off of the lot.  A car, that dents, scratches, friction and irresponsibility could ruin.  A car, that is old news six months after it comes out.  The marital union that was to happen on the beautiful island of Aruba next year is now cancelled and it its stead these two will be joining each other in burial.  

Death is a part of life. I understand this truth.  I've had to deal with the loss of many loved ones in my lifetime. Most recently my beautiful Aunt Martha.  My dear Aunt Martha died in early January after a little over 50 years of life. I feel that she was still young and had much to offer to this world. This couple's age combined is about the age my Aunt was when she passed.  When death hits this close to home, it really creates a situation where you begin to question your mortality, and the condition of our community. 

I'm twenty-six years old.  The son of a preacher and an evangelist, the father to a four-year-old boy, the brother to two men and one adolescent and the boyfriend to a beautiful writer.  I'm fiercely in love with my lady and have had talks about marriage, and engagement as we move forward in our relationship. I swim the same waters they swam, the post-collegiate I'm-grown-but-don't-feel-grown waters.  The I'm-in love-and-I-wanna-get-married-but-I'm-trying-to-find/i-think-I-found-the-right-one-waters. The I'm-trying-to-get-my-credit-score-up-so-I-can-own-a-home waters

On fatherhood friday I have to reflect on the fact that there is a father who lost his son, and his future daughter-in-law.  I'm still heartbroken.  I recognized my boy's picture on the website that shows the pallbearers at the funeral.  They were connected through the brotherhood of a fraternity (Alpha Phi Alpha).  It's sad to see that I was one person away from meeting this brother.  Six degrees of separation means really that we should truly mourn the death of all who pass, especially those who pass from something violent, something tragic.  The irony lies in the fact that I feel like I know him when I look at the pictures on the website memorializing them.  I feel like at some random Alpha event in Philly (i'm not an Alpha btw) we met, shook hands, exchanged words.  Maybe I told him he had a dope perspective on the uplifting of the black community, or he told me he liked my glasses.  However we are truly connected I mourn the loss of him, and of her, of them.

Fatherhood fridays was designed to celebrate men who choose to be fathers. Today I honor a dude who was choosing to be a husband.  And I offer my condolences to his father.  Words can't quite capture the magnitude of my sorrow for this tragedy...I pray that the black community gets it together, because after these thoughts of sadness and sorrow comes anger...

If you'd like to donate to helping the families with a joint plot go here

Be Blessed