When I feel like I don’t deserve what’s coming I get tempted to run away Often I make it to the door But 95 percent of the time I stay The reason isn’t because I’ve gained some clarity Or feel like I should be a screen for folk’s projection It’s because I know that he didn’t run away Which created the path to resurrection All of us have been crucified before It makes sense to want to escape it But the power that’s on the other side Only comes when we choose to face it That doesn’t mean that you should be a victim Or try to keep your abusers near It simply means that only perfect love Can cast out the toxicity of fear You see this Universe has a crazy way Of calling up what causes revulsion Through a process that rarely goes away It’s called repetition compulsion That means even when we’ve been hurt before We keep the patterns in our life With the hope that one day we’ll learn the lesson And handle the situation right But that’s a peculiar kind of insanity That makes us become what it is we hate In a backwards way of trying to save ourselves From the behavior that becomes our fate That’s why I’d rather wind up dead sometimes Than become what tried to destroy me Efforting to cast out all my cares So that the Creator can employ me To most this sounds like a justification Or an extreme version of denial But to me I can’t return to innocence If I never go on trial
A million opportunities For me to be A million different people Who were never me Negative one Plus infinity Makes me less than the man I’m supposed to be Made like the Creator Supposedly But show up in my power They’re opposed to me The essence of the One Is meant to flow in me And flow inside of you Hopefully But we’re taught not to try To live in a lie See ourselves as less The higher us we deny On earth as in Heaven I see it so clearly While the Logos Way Is disappearing We’re called to show love But we’re steady fearing Wanting to escape We hope the end is nearing But we’re back in the beginning There’s no loss and no winning Reality is virtual So we’re virtually sinning Missing every mark Too fast and no aiming Preaching to the choir Is so spiritually draining But here is my thesis We’re stuck in mimesis Copying the bound So we don’t know what free is It’s not supposed to be this Leaders who just hinder Taking advantage Because your souls are so tender Don’t knock, but still enter Hypocritical mind splinters So consistently cold It’s like perpetual winter Frozen in place Condemning with no Grace Filled with emptiness Like a room with no space So come face to face Breathe the Breath of the Living Surrender everything To be eternally giving Take part in the Whole Out of the many become One A million choices become choiceless Now the ego trip’s done
Listen Without words To what can only be spoken With Silence There is no loss There is no gain In the Place where Love is Home Like the top of the inhale And the bottom of the exhale Where in and out are One And coming and going cease to be There resides the thought That tells you what you already know You are more than enough And worthy of all Creation Here is where In Silence you hear The Voice of the voiceless Noiselessly shouting Everything I Am Is Communicating To Everything You Are Telling You Once and for All We have Everything We need When We have each Other
Grief is a midwife, giving birth to who we’d never be without loss’ seed. Realizing that you’ll never again be who you used to be makes room for who you are becoming So let yourself weep. Be emptied of who you’ve been Because someone wiser, more capable, and more honest is waiting to emerge Everything you held back, waiting for the right time can be released from its temporal prison The time to be who you were created to be is always now And yet, in the realm of human relating, there is always an order First the mother and the father, then comes the child is the way it is written But also true, is that before mother, father, or child took residence in the womb, they were wholly conceived and fully known in infinity BEING from the beginning AND dwelling in time is the Spiritual reality of those who embrace the human reality that in this life we must learn to hold grief in one hand and joy in the other So grieve as you must, tremble with the pangs of rebirth It is the falling away of who you can no longer be So that who you’ve always been can come to LIFE
In my last poem, Higher Dimensions, I mentioned that my friend, Bishop Carlton Pearson was sick. Well, a few days ago on November 19, he died. Since that moment, I have been going through the 5 Stages of Grief by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D. pretty much in exact order and quick succession.
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
I don’t know if I am going through them in an orderly fashion because I know of them or because they are natural. Either way, I am going through them without resistance and telling everyone that I am meeting up with in person during this holiday season that if I go in and out and look disinterested it is because I am grieving someone I felt very close to.
The Sixth Stage of Grief The poem above is part of the lesser known sixth stage of grief by David Kessler, Finding Meaning. In the text below from Carlton, he was ministering to me in my grief about leaving ministry. But, I find that it is equally applicable for grieving him.
I have been holding back so much over the years because I didn’t feel like I could bear to relive the rejection I received from the Pentecostal church I was a part of years ago. I met Carlton in the height of his rejection and the scarring over of mine. For a season I had easy access to him because many in his life had turned on him. In that time, we talked out all we had endured and marveled at how our lives mirrored each other even down to both of our wives working for airlines and the adventure of flying on standby. It was kind of uncanny. What differed was that he still wanted to go back to the folks who rejected him and make plain what he had not fully been able to articulate at his dismissal. I did not. I only wanted to talk to people who indicated their openness. And that’s where our paths diverged.
Now that he’s gone in the body, I’ve been trying to make meaning of the last couple of years. He was way busier and folks who formerly rejected him started popping back in. He was terribly hurt by Trumpism and how easily evangelicals surrendered to this so called “strongman” and seemingly put him on par with the Christ Carlton loved so much. He was trying to reconcile how he gave so much of his life to that expression of Christianity and how in some ways he felt complicit in many folks, especially Black folks, believing such painful doctrine. He wanted to make up for it. And in that way, he was like a modern day Paul of Tarsus trying to preach his new understanding of Christ.
I totally understood AND I couldn’t get into it with people who didn’t want to meet even halfway. Twice in his life, he gave up everything for his love of God and people. The first time it almost cost him his life. The second time, it did.
Even though I foresee myself writing out a lot of words in my grief processing, words can’t begin to express the contribution this man has been to human evolution in consciousness. I predict that we’ll be discussing him for generations. As for now, I’m going to keep talking to him in my heart and writing my way into who I’m becoming.
You finally gave your heart away The recipient returned to sender Now you don’t want to ever hurt again So you’re incapable of surrender You barely survived the heartbreak You say you can’t do it again But if you don’t keep putting your heart at risk Love will never win I know it’s a dilemma I’ve known that pain myself If the first person thought I was not enough How can I ever trust someone else? There’s some validity to that logic No one wants to suffer But putting ourselves out there despite the risk Is how we find each other Besides holding back doesn’t hurt the one Who caused you so much pain In the end you only hurt yourself By not giving your heart to gain You see every time you survive a heartbreak Then get back in the saddle You’re secretly becoming more like God Whose Love will never lose a battle Didn’t you know that while God’s watching us God’s heart is always breaking But Love always comes in and fills the gaps In the midst of our forsaking Imagine if most of your children Lie and say they love you But take the gifts you have to them And put those very things above you You try to teach them to use them wisely They push you away and will not listen Only thinking of themselves as usual They take what’s One and cause division So you send them Love’s instructors But they won’t listen to them either Instead they ignore or murder them Then label them deceiver Or worse they pretend to worship them In order to make them something special And when they fail to live like them They blame it on the Devil Any excuse that they can think of To do what they want to do Their only goal is simply to feel they’re right To justify ignoring you Meanwhile your heart is breaking You feel like you’ll die inside But you surrender because you know the Truth And instantly you’re more alive It’s the Mystery of the Heartbreak By giving your Love you will get more For Love is the gift that you received That by faith is always restored
I despise the fact that you make me necessary And yet I love you because I’m here But I am pained by watching you on your path Knowing I’m powerless to interfere In your weakness I find my strength Though it is the last thing on my mind Your emptiness gives me a place to fill But this too will end with time In this place we are often seen as enemies In Truth, together we express the One Because you’re insecure, I must show I’m not Just as darkness creates a need for Sun You are my partner that I cannot work with Bound together by what keeps us apart Although we’ll never occupy each other’s space We’ve been together from the start.
I really don’t get it When liars get mad at being lied to Bending truth like a pretzel But cry “foul” when others tried too I’m totally confused By cheaters who hate a cheater Their tragedy is a comedy All of the drama but no theater I have no time for manipulators Who hate being controlled I’m past your passive aggression You can’t imagine the heavy toll And polite people are perplexing I’d rather be kind than nice Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear Because in time there is a price And the “Holier than thou”, Who are you trying to convince? God sees your thoughts and so do I So you can cut it with pretense And I can’t forget emotional martyrs Who find joy every time they suffer Feeling good is like a full assault From which they always have a buffer Then there’s the guilty for feeling guilty The ashamed of feeling shame The people who say “I’m bored” so much You’d think it was their name There’re those who give advice They never seem to take And the ones who always “keep it real” By being really fake Every kind of reactive being Whose heads are such a mess But act like they have the whole thing down But when confronted won’t confess I can’t tell if they’re pretending Or if they know not what they do All I know is if I’m “too direct” They say “Something‘s wrong with you” If I say exactly what I mean They ask “What do you mean by that?” If I actually answer what they have asked They say, “You’re too serious with all your facts.” If I have no opinion on certain things Because I have never explored them They proclaim “experience-less expertise” But are offended if I ignore them They get angry if I talk calmly Saying, “You don’t have any feelings.” Little things can throw them off They want my thoughts while they’re concealing They are killers afraid of dying Committing murder with their mouths Always seeking clemency But won’t give benefit of the doubt And yet, I’m the one they call divergent Because I’m slow to pick up norms Discovering life as it shows up Instead of aiming to conform It’s enough to make me crazy But I’m not trying to be neurotic I refuse to believe it’s normalcy To use emotions like narcotics However this is what I witness In the way that folks react Feeling their way through unseen worlds Then crashing like trains that go off track But when confronted about their behavior They cry and say, “I didn’t mean it.” It’s like having your cake and eating it too Now isn’t that convenient?
Lately I’ve been thinking about
All the moments that we missed
When we’re younger we think we have plenty of time
And don’t think about stuff like this
We put so much off until later
But what if later never comes?
All tomorrows repeats of yesterdays
The future setting like the sun
I’m not ready yet to miss you
When I know that you’re right here
There’s so much I wanted to give you
Before my chances disappeared
Now it hurts that we talk almost everyday
And yet we never talk at all
Or that I battle with all these tempting thoughts
Not to answer when you call
Of course I want to be here for you
But it seems this is always where we’ve been
You telling me about how hard it is
While I listen on the other end
I look back and feel like a failure
I wish I could’ve spared you from some pain
But the best I can do is be a witness
And pray for something else to change
I wrote this poem as I started to think about how many conversations I have with my mom are about how to make it from month to month. We talk everyday. Sometimes multiple times a day. But rarely are our conversations about thing that I would like us to talk about. Because of all of the stress over the past few years, there has been a strain on the relationship. I’ll be honest and say that often I am acting like I am her parent rather than the other way around. I want her to be safe and make decisions for her well-being. I know how hard she tried to be whatever and whoever she felt she needed to be to make sure we survived growing up. That took a toll on her. And I know that she had huge dreams–most of which never got fulfilled. This is a wound in her heart.
She always told me that she wanted to leave my brothers and I with a legacy. What she meant was money. That hasn’t happened and it saddens her. She apologizes for not being in a better financial situation and asks me to believe in her that she can still pull it off. I want to believe, but… And now that I am witnessing her forgetting so much and yet still holding out hope for a miracle or for her “ship to come in” as she says, I feel a twinge of regret. I ask myself, “If I knew we were going to end up here anyway, what would I have done differently?”
At first, I told myself I would’ve stayed in the military so that I would have my retirement right now and I could be working another job to provide for her. But then I look at my wife and kids and know that I had to take the course I did. I then think that I should’ve chosen a more lucrative profession than being a pastor. But then, I was having a conversation with a guest at the church who is experiencing homelessness and watching members of the congregation–to include children–serving food and sitting with our homeless neighbors and I thought, “I am glad to be in this moment.” And then I thought, well maybe I was called to be a pastor for a season, but now that my mom needs me, I need to move on and do something else because my responsibilities demand it. And then I prayed and I felt the spirit moving me to be honest about how hard this is and to tell my friends. And so I did. And they stepped in and blessed my family and gave me room to breathe so I could figure out how to make the next best move for my mom. They showed me the truth of the teaching that says, “[God’s] strength is made perfect in our weakness.”
And so then in that space, I asked God what I could do differently for my mom. And in my soul’s language I heard, “Don’t miss her while she is still here. Because that’s what you’ve been doing. If you want to have different conversations with her, change the subject. Talk about the things that you wish you could talk to her about. If she misses it and repeats something else she just said, tell her you love her. Tell her your dreams and maybe she’ll get joy in knowing that she is a part of them. Have an unreasonable belief in miracles because you never know what might happen. And don’t forget, you are not in this alone.”
So if you are reading this, what my soul spoke into my life, I speak into yours. There are so many things in life that can distract us from the moments we are in–something to tempt us to forget that there is always the possibility of great beauty around the corner. In my weakness, I found strength in hitting my limits and reaching out. My hope is that in sharing what I am learning, it is blessing you all too.
They say a friend in need is a friend indeed
Or is it a friend in deed
Meaning a friend is one who acts as one
When another friend’s in need
Or maybe it’s the former one
We’re friends when we’re in want
But otherwise we give no others thought
Just to make it blunt
But perhaps it is more gray than that
Which makes it difficult to name
Because where self-sufficiency is idolized
To be in need is to be shamed
It’s really hard to put my finger on
As I examine my condition
When I’m aware enough to know I should ask for help
But won’t fully give myself permission
On one side, it’s because I don’t want help
I have learned so much from all my failing
But on the other side, I know that there’s sufficient grace
For those of us prone to self-assailing
Furthermore when I’m on the giving end
I always do what I can do
But when I’m on the receiving end
I do my best to just push through
But presently I am torn
This uphill battle seems unending
I could keep on trying to handle this
But in reality I’m pretending
I’ve always been good at holding burdens
But now my burdens are holding me
As I consider that I’m just a request away
From a space that feels more free
Well, if anything, there’s a lesson
These constraints I feel won’t last
And it matters little if I hear “yes” or “no”
Things will get better because I asked
I wrote this poem after wrestling with my thoughts about whether or not I should share a fundraiser I created for my mother to help ease some of the financial impact of her pending move. This season has been really tender for me for a lot of reasons. Besides watching my mother succumb to the effects of a lifetime of stress and anxiety, trying to keep this pressure to myself has taken its toll on me and my family, both emotionally and financially. But it’s not all bad. This also has been a very creative season for me as I’ve tried to make sense of my own anxieties in light of my faith that when we are open, there is a solution to every concern. I’ve written poems that I never would’ve been able to write were I not translating, what at times felt like, overwhelming emotion. I completed a rap that I’m really proud of despite the fact that it has not yet brought in any of the money I’d naively thought it would. And in my social justice and community building work, knowing that I am personally impacted by so much of the challenges that we’re trying to ameliorate, has shaped my preaching and public speaking in a way that perhaps it would not if my family was more shielded. And finally, by putting this out here, I feel that it is on the path of healing the ill effects of the negative type of pride. And so here we are.
It's All In Me - Poetry Blog 