Happy Thanksgiving!

This holiday season I decided my new favorite holiday song is (There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays by Brian McKnight.

If you drove past me during the past few weeks, you saw me clapping my hands and bobbing my head to this upbeat tune that paints a picture of joy and love that fills the air as Grandma cooks our favorite dishes in the kitchen and the old and young celebrate the holiest night of the year.

The quintessential holiday image.

The image of home for me – Philly – has figured prominently in my heart and mind this year.

After being displaced twice and witnessing several cornerstone family members make their transitions, 2011 left me reeling.

So I toyed with the idea of moving home to anchor myself a bunch of times.

I took several trips and even landed a couple of job interviews only to realize that the notion that I could achieve a more grounded life by living closer to my (allegedly) more intact extended family was just an illusion; a fable I’d conjured up in my own mind.

To quote my friend Carla Griffin, “The state you’re in (physical location) is not as important as the state (of mind) you’re in.”

I learned that no matter where I live, home is in me.

I learned that my family – whether they live in Philly or elsewhere - is no different than I am: we wake up every morning; thank God for another day; and do the best we can with what we have as we continue to strive for more.

We are one and we are the same.

So in the spirit of David Letterman, I’d like to bring in the New Year with my own Top Ten List of things that I’m most thankful for: 

1. I am thankful for a greater sense of assurance within that enables me to be more of who God created me to be.
2. I am grateful I am learning to focus my attention on more of what I want instead of what I don’t have.
3. I am grateful that I can regard this year of exponential growth and tectonic shifts as one of the best years ever!
4. I am super grateful that my heart and mind are filled with excitement and anticipation for the days and weeks to come.
5. I am grateful that it is becoming so much easier to be grateful!
6. I thank God for my health.
7. I thank God for good work with good people.
8. I thank God for an awesome, healthy, exceptional daughter!
9. I thank God for my loving, supportive, amazing family far and wide, adopted and inherited.
10. And last but not least -  I thank God for all of you who have been divinely-selected to share this journey with me and who support me and this blog!

Here’s to our best year ever!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wearing My Heart on My Sleeve

I want to talk about gentle people.

Flawed human beings who happened to have a tender heart that this world doesn't seem to tolerate very well.

I can truly relate.

For some reason, I am just wired in a way that has often been considered hyper-sensitive and I have often considered this trait the bane of my existence.

I’m not trying to paint a picture like I’m some kind of saint. I can get angry and throw a temper tantrum with the best of ‘em.

But one of the most troubling trends I see in our culture today is the acceptance, even the expectation that we will trample over the more vulnerable among us simply because we can.

Again, let me emphasize - I am far from perfect. And I have definitely had to develop a thicker skin. But I am wondering, particularly at this time of year, if we can’t consider that we truly are connected and that there’s nothing to fear in trying a little tenderness?

More often than not, we go through the motions of being loving and kind but we’ve shut our hearts down out of fear of being hurt. I get that because the hyper-sensitive me has been no stranger to heartbreak. But it’s that Spirit that connects us all that makes me pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.

I’m not saying be a doormat (one of my specialties in my early years) but at this time when genuine kindness is seen as somewhat normal, can’t we at least pretend we really mean it?

A couple of weeks ago I boarded the commuter bus home and, as is my custom, said hello to the bus driver. I do that because I am so grateful for the bus drivers who can navigate traffic with ease while I ride home in comfort. So with my weary but warm smile, I said, “Hi! How ya doin’?” Most of the time I get an equally weary but warm, “Fine, and you?” But this particular driver looked through me with a grimace, furrowed eyebrows, and tightly-pursed lips and declared, “I'm blessed and grateful.”

My eyes flew open as I thought to myself, “Oh really, now? Coulda fooled me!”

There was no smile, no warm fuzzies, no eye contact. But she was blessed and grateful. Her demeanor was so stern I was taken aback and didn’t know how to respond. I just kinda looked at her as she stabbed my bus ticket and shuffled off to my seat.

I’m all for affirming our spiritual heritage with gusto. But shouldn’t our demeanor at least match our proclamations? After all, this is Christmas; the time of year when it’s acceptable to let Spirit of Christ shine most brightly.

Just when I was tempted to think maybe she had a bad day or was just tired, Miss Blessed and Grateful pulled into our first drop-off and shouted, “Get your stuff because I ain’t takin' it if you leave it.”

Oh yeah, she’s got the spirit all right.

There’s a Scripture that says (paraphrasing) that the world will know we are Christians by our love. In his song, Not Just What You Say, Fred Hammond puts it this way:

[It’s] Not just what you say (It's mostly what you do)

Not a game that you play (To keep the winning hand with you)
Not just wasting time (With empty words that don't mean much)
Not just how you feel (When others need your tender touch)
So can you take out some time (To help somebody else in need)
And when this is done (The love of God is truly seen)
Then above all (We need to cover and forgive)
Then we can act like we know what love is

I would trade all the “Too Blessed to Be Stressed” license plates and WWJD? bracelets for a few encounters with people who don’t mind wearing their hearts on their sleeves just a little bit. It might feel a little corny or uncomfortable at first but it’s not that hard. Really. And it’s worth it.

So as you prepare to share the holidays with those you love, remember that we truly are all one and a little love goes a long way. Cliché as it sounds, it truly is the greatest gift.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Doing What I Love

When I was in the sixth grade, my Mom would drive my sister and me to school every morning. The year was 1976 and during every trip, without fail, Jerry Wells, infamous morning DJ on WDAS FM in Philly, would play Just To Be Close To You by the Commodores. And every morning, without fail, I would sing to my Mom at the top of my lungs. My favorite part would be emphatically telling her she was, “my purposessssss (Lionel Richie version), my reason for living.” I would go on to yell, “You’re my heart, you're my soul, you're my stoneeeee inspiration, baby!” [I know those of you over 40 are singing with me :-)]

It’s been many years since the sixth grade and I have since learned that my purpose is probably a bit bigger than loving my Mommy [even though she’s still my heart, my soul, and my stone inspiration :-)].

But one thing I have learned is that my purpose cannot revolve around a relationship (i.e., making my mother / husband / child happy).

Just a lesson learned I’m passing on for free.

Here lately, though, I’ve been thinking about my life’s purpose, particularly since I find myself on the back 40 (i.e., on the other side of 45, closer to 50).

Not just what I want to be when I grow up (even though that is a valid question that’s been lurking around for the better part of 30 years) but what was I born to do? Why was I created? What assignment has God given me? Or, here’s a whopper - what would I do for free?

Thank God I’m learning to think bigger than just making ends meet.

I find myself wondering about people who have all the money they need and want.

Since they don’t necessarily have to go to work, per se, how do they determine what to do with each day? Find value, purpose in and with their lives?

Even in this so-called recession, there are people out there living this way and I certainly plan to be one of them.

So the question becomes what would I do with my life, my time, if money was not an issue?

The adage and book title, Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow comes to mind. (The author is Marsha Sinetar, by the way.)

God knows I’ve been chasing money and, even though I have been blessed to continuously earn more over the years, I find that when that’s my focus (i.e., I need more), there never seems to be enough.

But that’s because there IS enough.

Always has been, always will be.

It’s just a matter of perspective.

In her book, How to Let God Help You, author Myrtle Fillmore notes, “…our purpose in life [is to] succeed in bringing forth God’s perfect idea of the perfect man.” She goes on to say, “…it should be our true aim in being to make manifest this perfect Self, or Christ of God, in our lives.”

For me this means God’s perfect idea of me is already embedded in my DNA.

I kinda already know.

It is a longing of my soul that I draw out through conscious connection with God in me, often through prayer.

Spiritual revolutionary Elijah Hakim-Adonijah notes, “Prayer is a conscious effort of the mind to absorb the wanting of the Soul. The real you. Your True Divine Self. This is that which no words at all or any other trivial ritual or repetition is employed. It is a constant meeting of the mind and Soul.”

My life, then, becomes a prayer that goes a little like this: get in the flow of life, and all these things will be added, i.e., more than enough money to share and to spare.

Or, as my Bible scholars know, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His (or Her – my addition) righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33 King James Version)

One of my spiritual sheroes - Mrs. Ollie Williams (love her!) - once pointed me to this definition of the Kingdom of God (also in the Bible):  “The Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17 New Living Translation)

See? There goes that flow again – the flow of the Spirit of God which is in all and through all and is definitely always holy.  A synonym for the Kingdom of God, which is in me.

Little ole me and you.

So this week’s meanderings through my heart, mind, and soul yield this precious morsel:  my purpose is to seek that conscious connection with the God in me. Everything else is gravy.

Love - What the Bleep Do I Know? – Part Two

So why are love and whatever the Bleep I know so important to me?

Well, I suppose it’s important to everyone. The core of what we all strive for. The great equalizer of us all.

I have to admit that when it comes to love, marriage, and family, I set myself up pretty badly by placing the barometer for measuring its success somewhere between The Brady Bunch of my childhood and The Cosby Show of my young adulthood.

But I am gradually learning to throw away the rulebook and get on with it! Stop wallowing in what ain’t and rejoice in what is! To not let anything about so-called unmet expectations or, as I heard one preacher say, “pre-conceived misconceptions,” block the flow of life and love from fully expressing through me.

Perhaps the core purpose underlying each of our lives is to fully share Who We Are with the world.

To give disappointments or so-called unfulfilled expectations the power to allow us to shrink back is criminal.

According to author and financial guru T. Harv Eker, "The world doesn't need more people playing small. It's time to stop hiding out and start stepping out. It's time to stop needing and start leading. It's time to start sharing your gifts instead of hoarding them or pretending they don't exist.”

This shrinking back does not honor God or me, and deprives the world of what God gave to me to share. And as Marianne Williamson so famously quoted about our deepest fear, “…as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” (Maybe I’m the only one with these issues but feel free to take note if applicable.)

You have to understand that all I ever wished for was a Cosby-esque marriage replete with Sunday Dinners spanning generations; birthday and anniversary celebrations dancing the night away at jazz clubs with the entire family; and HBCU graduations where my husband and I would march in full regalia alongside our children.

Plus I thought that doggedly embracing a staunch Black Christian church dogma would guarantee that this charmed life would surely come to pass.

However, this path did not unfold for me and I have spent a lot of time grieving the absence of this reality. This led me to the misguided belief that when it comes to love and family life, I had blown any chance of being loved and accepted by God or anyone else.

After all, no self-respecting, committed Christian woman parades up and down the aisle and in and out of the court house twice and deserves to be loved and accepted.

But I am finally loosening my grip on that albatross and beginning to embrace the notion that that couldn’t be further from the Truth.

And to paraphrase what author Elizabeth Gilbert (my Eat, Pray, Love she-ro) recalled her great guru Richard from Texas telling her, I need to let go of a wishbone where my backbone oughta be.

Wo-man up, Alli!

So even though I feel like I flunk a lot of this a lot of the time, here’s what the Bleep I am learning:

First of all, I was never not loved or accepted by God.

Second of all, no one can love or accept me unless I love and accept myself.

And finally, those who don’t love and accept me are none of my business.

I’m just gonna stick with those who do.

By loving and accepting God and myself, I automatically bring the right people and experiences into my life. And I do deserve the best life has to offer simply because God created me as a divine expression of Him / Herself in the earth.

And that includes, to quote one of my favorite movies, The Brothers, “Love, happiness, and all that other shit!”

When I think back to Neale Donald Walsch and his conversations with God, I can begin to see that perhaps it wasn’t until every imaginable and unimaginable so-called “failure” showed up in my experience that I could begin to accept that nothing on the outside makes me Who I Am.

My worthiness never changes. My value is a constant and is not assured or defined by my circumstances.

We (God and me) got this and, most importantly, God’s got me!

So what I unequivocally know about love is that it is.

And that’s good enough for me J