listening to...Janet, featuring Chuck D



A house in Guadaloupe



I would never return from here.

Taking chances

If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.



Erica Jong

I have a friend who lives in Madison Wisconsin. Every mid- October she begins to dread the approaching winter thats around the corner, because as most people know, the midwest has harsh winters, every single winter. I hate snow, so I got out as soon as I could. Yes, I miss my mom, and my brother and sister and their families, and my closest friends, but I wasn't happy in that climate. I could have stayed there in my comfort zone, where everything was familiar,  but I had to take a risk when I sought, received and accepted an employment opportunity in Oregon. Yes, it rains and sprinkles  alot here, but I'll take rain anyday over snow. And my friend in  Madison still complains, while making no attempts to move away despite her siblings and even her parents who have moved to warmer climates.

Have you taken any risks?

Wednesday Flashback

Tell me something good

Let's Uplift Black Marriage for a Change

Everyday I wake up in a good mood but then I feel bombarded  and overwhelmed with news stories about Libya, the teabaggers, the nuclear reactors in Japan that do a good job of bringing me down. But I saw this article and loved it. It let's me know there is hope in the idea of black marriage. Click here

LOL

The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
                           --Noelie Altito

i feel like dancing...

Your task

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.   --Rumi

                                     If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?

                                                          --Rumi



Death of a Loophole, and Swiss Banks Will Mourn

To everyone that believes that the working class, the un- and under-employed, the parents that receive meager welfare benefits, the disabled, and the undocumented citizens are a problem: News Flash. The wealthiest people in this country are sucking us dry - not the poor. Thank you.

--Jocelyn Halverson

Click here

Saturday

                                                                   Be not simply good - be good for something.
                                   --Henry David Thoreau


                                            

                                                   What are you good for?

Well, son, I'll tell you:

Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
--   Mother to son,   by Langston Hughes

This is love

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.

--Rumi

song in my head

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENRjGUTA2H4

Bria Valente featuring Prince

Listening to...

 You know that feeling you get when everything goes perfectly, constantly and nothing's ever wrong with anyone or anything? Me neither.

 

Etheridge Knight- The Idea of Ancestry

On today,

 in 1965,   

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and civil rights activists began the their third attempt, leading thousands of people on a 54 mile march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama to call for voting rights for African Americans.  Soon after, the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed by the U.S. Congress.  

--courtesy  blackfacts.com and credo.com

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
- Abraham Lincoln

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.
- Rumi

Truth

It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.

- Marlene Dietrich

Question of the day: those that you hang with in your free time, would they  get out of bed at 4 in the morning if you needed them to do so?

The only thing worse

Friday Flashback-

Kelly Price is back

شتائم أن يكتب على الرمل, ويشيد منحوتة في الحجر.

Insults should be written in the sand, and praises carved in stone.

                                   Arab Proberb

one of the perks of human-ness is that we can speak of things yet unseen- we can hover in a world beyond that in which half our existence dwells...
thus falls the shadow of night to cover day. it's interesting that now is when i sing again... 
physically, i don't have all that i want and i'm easily cynical, but lately i've been more content than i have been. i know when, but not how
it started.
and i take it one day at a time. i'm on my way

For God Himself works in our souls, in the deepest depths, taking increasing control as we are progressively willing to be prepared for His wonder.

    --Thomas R Kelly

For what is faith unless it is to believe what you do not see?

                                                                                   --Aurelius Augustine 

    sometimes what you're looking for is right around the corner.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

                                                                           --Margaret Thatcher

Boxer, Jack Johnson

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

                            ----  Mahatma Gandhi

Late Nights, Early Mornings

Containing the drums that made Prince famous, the LM-1 drum machine, Marsha Ambrosius and Producer Rich Harrison are obviously Prince fans. So am I, and I'm a fan of this song.

A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.

--Marie-Henri Beyle, aka Stendhal

A Good Man

A good man is not a perfect man; a good man is an honest man, faithful, and unhesitatingly responsive to the voice of God in his life.
--John Fischer

I think I've been going at it all wrong. I've been trying to be as good, as perfect a man as I can be, but no one is perfect; no one but God, and I am honest and faithful to Him. I am responsive, but I need to be even more so, to His voice in my life.

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. 
--Ayn Rand

On this day in 1959, Lorraine Hansberry's 'A Raisin in the Sun' opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City with Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil in the lead roles. The play ran for 530 performances, becoming the longest running Broadway play written by an African-American. This was also the first Broadway drama written and directed by an African-American woman. In 1961 'A Raisin in the Sun' was made into a movie, again starring Sidney Poitier as the chauffeur Walter Younger. Hansberry's landmark career was cut short when she died of cancer in 1965 at the age of 34.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

                 --Langston Hughes

Take a leap of faith

Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees, and looks to God alone; laughs at impossibilities, and cries it shall be done.
--Charles Wesley

Faith is risky.


Stepping out in faith risks looking like a fool. We want to get it right. We want to make Him proud. He is a God who demands our best, so it makes sense to do everything in our power to give Him our best.

Mark 5:21-42  talks about risky faith. Remember this story?

21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered round him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet 23 and pleaded earnestly with him, My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live. 24 So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.
26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed. 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30 At once Jesus realised that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, Who touched my clothes?
31 You see the people crowding against you, his disciples answered, and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' 32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering. 35 While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. Your daughter is dead, they said. Why bother the teacher any more? 36 Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, Don't be afraid; just believe. 37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James.
38 When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. 39 He went in and said to them, Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep. 40 But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, Talitha koum! (which means, Little girl, I say to you, get up!). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished.
Faith is risky
She knew, in her heart, that if she could just reach out and touch His clothes, that she would be healed.
When you step out in faith, God doesn’t leave you hanging. Not forever. Noah got laughed at for forty-years, before God brought the flood that covered the earth, saving Noah and his family, and the animals. . Your faith is tested all the way to dipping your head under water that seventh time. Your arms are too tired to carry in the load of fish that managed to evade your net all night long. You have your fill and have baskets full of leftovers.

Note to self
You get your reason, your knowledge, your evidence after you move. It’s called ‘faith’ for a reason.
--Alex George

if the answer is yes

To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.


--Confucius

NOTE TO SELF- THIS IS YOUR LIFE

listening to...Stefano

"...Not another second
Or another minute
Not aother hour of another day
But Lord I need you right away
If I never needed you before
To show up and restore
All of the faith that I let slip
While I was yet searching the world for more


The true best friend I have indeed
You’re my best friend I know indeed
I stretch my hands to thee
Come rescue me
I need you right away..."

wednesday flashback...

Be ready (when you come to me)

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

--E. B. White

 

 

Noemie Lenoir

                          I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches.

                                                                         --Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Remember this...?

on today, March 4

in 1877, Scientist Garrett Augustus Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky. Inventor of a belt fastener for sewing machines, the gas mask, and the automatic traffic signal, he sold rights to General Electric for $40,000.

Affordable Gas Masks

The African American inventor of a life-saving device, mechanical traffic signals, and more had to fight for recognition.
Son of Freed Slaves
Garrett Morgan's safety hood saved the lives of countless firefighters and others. He was born in Kentucky during the Reconstruction era, in 1877. His father was the mixed-race son of a slave and a Confederate colonel, John Hunt Morgan. His mother, half Indian and half black, was the daughter of a Baptist minister. His race would impact Morgan's career profoundly.
Inventive Nature
Though Morgan only had a sixth-grade education, he had a mechanical genius and an entrepreneurial bent. Finding work in a textile factory, he learned how the machines worked, and became the only Negro adjuster, fixing and improving mechanical problems. In 1907 he opened his own repair shop, and soon launched a clothing business with his wife, an immigrant seamstress from Bavaria. It was an era of difficulty for African Americans, but Morgan made money, becoming the first black man in Cleveland to own a car. He branched out into cosmetic products, joined a new organization called the NAACP, and soon was donating money to Negro colleges. In 1920, he started a newspaper for African Americans, The Cleveland Call, and opened an all-black country club. In 1923, he patented a mechanical traffic signal that he sold to General Electric. It was widely used, yet Morgan earned only $40,000 for the invention.
The Safety Hood
Morgan's biggest venture was his safety hood. As a young man, he had seen firefighters struggling to withstand the suffocating smoke they encountered in the line of duty. In 1914 Morgan secured a patent for his device, a canvas hood with two tubes. Part of the device held on the back filtered smoke outward, while cooling the air inside. Morgan's safety hood won accolades and wide adoption in the North, where over 500 cities bought it, over time. He sold the hoods to the U.S. Navy, and the Army used them in World War I. But sales in the segregated South proved challenging. Morgan's hood got great press in 1916, when he used it to save workers in a collapsed tunnel under Lake Erie. But Cleveland's newspapers and city officials wrote Morgan -- who had ventured into the tunnel first -- out of the story, lauding other men and ignoring Morgan's heroism. It would take years for the city to recognize his contributions. Morgan died in 1963, vindicated as a hero of the Lake Erie rescue and restored to his place in history.
 *******                                                                          
Unable to sell his gas mask to fire departments in the South, Morgan hired an actor friend to pose as an inventor while he dressed up as an Indian chief. The actor would announce that Big Chief Mason would go inside a smoke-filled tent for ten minutes. When Morgan emerged after 25 minutes unharmed, people were amazed. Business boomed.

Anthony Mackie and real talk

Friday Flashback-

yes, it's scary to go through pain but the alternative is a wasted life.

   --Rabbi Keleman

A smile you sent, will always return
                       --Indian Proverb

if

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

                            --Rudyard Kipling

Listening to...

 

    when the truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie.

                                -- a Soviet dissident named Yevgeny Yevtushenko

sentence in my head this morning

                    ‎Someone you haven't even met yet is wondering what it'd be like to know someone like you.

                                                                   --Alexgeorge