You can’t ask to start over just because you’re losing the game.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, “Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me”

It’s your turn to kick the ball. The bases are loaded, there’s one out, and your teammates are counting on you. The pitcher, the big burly kid from around the way, looks at you with a scowl, his most menacing scowl, the one that usually makes you flinch. Ah, but this time, you’re not giving his scowl any attention. This time you’re determined to kick that ball right over everybody’s head and bring your team home and to victory. This time, you’re going to kick that ball high and wide, not like last time 2 times when you kicked the ball directly behind your head then stomped off the kickball field and went home. No, this time, you’re going to kick that ball well.

Okay, so here comes the ball. Ooh, look at that spin on that red rubber ball! Look at the dirt and rock it’s kicking up! You can hear the rubber of the ball spinning and burning as it’s coming your way! The last 2 times the ball was coming at you like that, you called a time-out and swore you had a rock stuck in the bottom of your Chuck Taylor All-Stars that was making your foot hurt. This time, though, there are no rocks to give your attention to. You’ve got to kick the ball.

You set your eye on that fast ball, get your kick stance ready, and start a little run up on the ball, kicking up some dirt of your own. You position your body so that your aim is straight for the mean muggers head; you want to knock him out – even though the last 2 times you aimed at him, you ended up flat on your butt with dust circling your head. This time, he better be ready because the ball’s coming straight for him.

Suddenly the kickball spins on a rock that causes it to bounce and change direction. Good, you get another chance. This time you decide that instead of aiming for the scowler or kicking it in the outfield over everybody’s head, you’ll just make it a grounder, a fast one, that’ll burn anybody’s hand that tries to stop it. That’ll give you some time to at least make it to first base and send one of your teammates home. But then, the last 2 times you tried to ground the ball, one was bunt that mean menace caught and happily threw at your butt; the other landed in a muddy ditch which the team made you go get. This time, though, you’ll have more control with your grounder and make everybody have to jump over it until it slows down.

You’re back in kick position. Here comes the ball! You start your dusty run! POW! The ball flies way into the outfield! Everybody’s watching just where the ball will go, everybody except you. You’ve taken off. You touch the sticks at 1st base, the smashed tin cans at 2nd base, and just as you get ready to head for the bricks at 3rd base, the ball is back in the infield and you decide you better stay on 2nd. The last time you made it this far, you thought you’d chance it and make a run for 3rd, but you got caught in the middle of the 2 bases and burned for 20 minutes after the 2nd baseman threw the ball at your chest. This time you’ll stay on base until you’re sure you can make it to 3rd. At least you brought 2 of your teammates home.

The next kicker bunts the ball, gets a foul, then gets out and pouts back to the curb, cussing everybody that’s in his way. You know what he’s feeling. He hears the jeers and blame and feels really bad about himself. You know this because the last 7 times you did the same thing and everybody heckled you, you felt the same way. But you don’t have a lot of time to think on it because the next kicker’s up and he kicks the ball into the infield. You have enough time to run to 3rd base. You stop there, one foot on the bricks another headed in the direction of home. You can’t wait to make your grand entrance into the backpack that serves as home. The next kicker grounds it and mean mugger stops it with his foot, looks at you, and dares you to move. The last time you took the dare, you tripped over your shoe laces, scratched up both knees and an elbow, swallowed some dirt, and got out. This time, you’ll stay put.

The bases are loaded and there are 2 outs. The street lights begin to flicker so you know this is the last run of the game. The kicker eyes the bases. Scowler checks out the bases. You call a time-out to tie your shoes. When you finish and get back in position, scowler rolls the ball with as much force and fierceness as he can. The kicker sends it into the outfield, you take off to homebase and the other runners follow. You are overjoyed! You made it! This is the first time you’ve ever made it! You played a good game. You played with strategy, awareness, and thoughtfulness. You are very proud of yourself as you make it to your porch just as the streetlights come all the way on.

So, what’s the point?

Who knows?

But it was just a helluva kickball game!

Sadiqqa © 2007

Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.
-- Maya Angelou

Each of us is a survivor of something. Our forebearers, be they Africans, Italians, Cubans, Jews, Mexicans, Native Americans or whomever, survived the ride to and/or living in this country. Daily we survive bigotry and racism, media slander and outright abuse. Every day women survive misogyny, men survive misandry, and all of us survive misanthropy. Each of us has endured hurtful relationships, betrayal, dishonesty, anger, and loneliness. Some of us have lived on through bad or missed medical and emotional diagnosis; others of us have lived on through miseducation and faulty information. Each of us has survived the passing away of loved ones. We’ve each survived an overabundance of stuff that had the potential to stain our souls and break our backs. We are, no doubt, survivors.

But after we survived, we did even more – we lived to tell about it. And each time we told our story, we grew, blossomed, peaked, shined, and matured.

Think on the slave and holocaust narratives that provide first-hand accounts of the experience of bondage and genocide, and how each of these stories acquaints us with unimaginable struggle and torment. Imagine that each time a story was told, its teller found solace, rest, and peace as they released the words and memories of their experiences and that each narrative told was purposefully shared to implore and instruct us to live free and well. Each storyteller lives on as we read and reflect on their chronicles and gain or renew our strength and courage to do just what they hoped for us. Through us, they not only survived, they thrived.

After surviving the Jim Crow era, living through inferior treatment and accommodations, we prospered, owning our own homes and businesses and teaching our children more than survival ways of thinking and behaving. And though we’ve sweat and oftentimes gotten off center, possibly our ancestors are proud of and avenged by our increase. Likewise, despite our disheartening efforts at love and relationships, despite the emotional bashings we’ve received by trusting in one another, we’ve remained steadfast in our attempts to find and be in love. We’ve suffered disappointing experiences and their fateful aftermath, yet we’ve not given up on love because we knew to do so would be a casualty, an act of unmitigated personal and communal betrayal, an overthrowing of the resilience within us. Instead, we’ve trusted and given of ourselves again, each time growing a little more, shaking off the bruises, and rising a little higher.

We’re thrivers, not just survivers. We haven’t just lived to see another day and whatever that day brings. We know how to find the joy and blessings in that day because survival taught us there was more to living than just getting by, that there was grace when we got over the hump, and the lessons to be learned and taught would sustain and perpetuate us and those we touched. At this very hour, each of us can shout and sing for not only making it through, but for flourishing after the fires and storms of our lives. We are even more beautiful because we survived.

Sadiqqa © 2007

Can’t sleep? Try counting your blessings.
-- Author Unknown

Not that counting your blessings would put you to sleep. As a matter of fact, you may find yourself getting up from the bed to do a halleluiah dance!

First, that you have a bed to lay your head in is a blessing in itself. The National Coalition for the Homeless estimates that there are more than three million homeless people in America, people who have no restful or personal bed of their own. And the borrowed and provisional beds or pallets they have don’t live in a warm and comfortable home. Your bed is housed in a home that is your own, surrounded by other stuff that’s yours too. You may be renting or your mortgage may be sky high, you may even feel you’re a paycheck close to making a pallet on the street for yourself, but right now, you have a place to call home and lie in a bed that’s all yours. Count those blessings.

What about the meal you ate for dinner. It may have been from the greasy fast food joint down the street; it may have been leftovers; it may have been gourmet. Whatever it was, you had a meal that many didn’t have. According to America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s food bank network, in 2005, 35.1 million Americans lived in food insecure, or hungry, households. And you, unlike many of these people, don’t have to choose between a meal and other necessities like rent, mortgage, medicine, or medical care. You make enough money and have enough insurance to cover those costs. Count all those blessings. And, by the way, did you wait awhile, at least 2 hours, before you ate and went to bed? You know undigested food will wrap around you like gauze and strip you of some of your blessings very quickly, right?

And, speaking of making enough money, you do, don’t you? Okay, at least enough to handle the necessities, maybe even buy and save a little extra. You have a job, maybe it’s the one you want, maybe it’s less than to be desired. Nonetheless you have income. Count the fact that you have choices – you can choose to stay at your present job or you can find a new one, possibly create your own job. And you can do that because you have the skills and knowledge you need to find the information and resources to make that happen. As a matter of fact, you have blueprints of an idea that could work if you would take it off the paper and go with it. The fact is you have options that make never being penniless feasible for the rest of your life. Wow, count that blessing!

Most importantly, count the fact that you have life a blessing, and that with this life you can do anything you desire. Anything! You can climb a mountain. You can teach a kid. You can clothe a nation. You can sing butt naked in the park on a sunny afternoon. You may be stared at, chased, or arrested but you can do it if you want to. You can do whatever you want. And by now, you’ve counted so many blessings, those named here and those between the lines, that you’re either sleepy from thinking, tired from all the energy you expended in your prayer dance, or Jesus has stroked you to sleep in preparation for another day of blessings to come. Whatever your state, you’ve been blessed. Go ahead and sleep now.

Sadiqqa © 2007

Here’s the horse – what happened to the prince?
-- Mother Love, “Listen Up, Girlfriends”

A long time ago, most of us – at least the ladies – heard about the tales of the knight who would ride in on his white horse to rescue us from the evil queen, place a jeweled crown on our head, then lead us into happily ever after. Sometimes we heard that tall, dark, and handsome would come along and sweep us off our feet giving us the world in return for simple affection. A few of us were told that after we kissed a few frogs a prince would surely appear and be forever indebted to us for helping to restore his true greatness.

Well, somebody lied ‘cause it’s a whole bunch of us just sitt’n on the curb, wait’n. And most of us been doused so badly in frog juice that even if tall, dark, and handsome did show up, he wouldn’t stay long ‘cause of the stench stuck to us. Even the evil queen left us alone!

What in the hell happened?! We fell hook, line, and sinker for the Cinderella and Snow White dreams, didn’t we? We really thought our private dick, oops, detective Shaft was going to show up in his ‘71 Plymouth Satellite Sebring and whisk us off to wherever our hearts desired.

Now, that’s not to say that some of us didn’t find our prince charming. As a matter of fact, quite a few of us reading this “Thought...” have sought and found a few jewels and those of us still holding out hope applaud you in your feat and want to know where we need to go to get our treasure.

Oh, and brothers, don’t think you are exempt from the tales. Somebody – that same somebody who sold us ladies on the fairy tales – told you that the love of your life would be less than 130 pounds, have long flowing hair, and should defer to your demands and requests. You got jacked, too!

Okay, so what’s real? Listen up, girlfriends – your man may ride in on a horse and provide the things your heart needs and desires. What if his horse comes from his farm? At least you know he’s relatively self-sufficient – he can grow and raise his own food.

And brothers, listen up – what if she weighs more than you do, has hair shorter than yours, and walks to the beat of her own drum but makes you feel like you always knew you could feel about love and life? Would she be your queen?

Get real, let go of the fantasies ‘cause they keep tripping you up. Pay attention to the guy down the street who may not have a corporate job and may not exercise the social graces or sophistication you think he should. He has a heart of gold and treasures every breath you take. So what if you can’t carry her across the threshold without losing your balance. It’s a guarantee you’ve got someone to stand up with you when times get tough. Perhaps once you’ve let go of the fairy stories you may find that you have standing next to you your noble knight or beloved queen.

Sadiqqa © 2007

No matter how challenging our lives may seem, life will never be as tough for us as it was for our parents and the preceding generations.
-- Susan Taylor

Few of us reading this “Thought…,” had to ride the back of the bus or drink from the “Negroes only” water fountains. Fewer of us were denied the right to vote, deprived of a fair and equal education, or had to sharecrop to live. None of us experienced the back-breaking, mind-stealing reigns of slavery, or traveling prostrate in chains and our own feces from one continent to another against our will. None of us can even imagine carrying a big-a crucifix on our backs that is at least twice our weight then hung from it and left to die for somebody else’s wrongs.

So what’s our problem?

Well, yeah, we’ve still got other issues. We live with a justice system that levies penalties and punishments on us like the sun rises and sets. We depend on an educational system to teach our children and that system doesn’t even tolerate or accommodate the viewpoints, perceptions, or special needs of our children. And we are bound by a flawed political system, a democracy that ignores and discounts the unprivileged and disenfranchised people it was established to serve and protect. But if we keep the irons in the fire and our Selves at the altar, we can manage, change, or overcome all that.

So, what’s our problem? Most of us have access to healthcare that can save our lives. Most of us make enough money to take care of ourselves and our families. Most of us work at jobs in which we are competent and that provide some sense of satisfaction and pride. Most of us lay our heads down each evening in a safe and comfortable domicile.

Face it, we’re privileged. We don’t have to march and picket and boycott too much these days. Most of the time if we just vote or visit the capitol hills, union halls, or NAACPs of our cities, we get what we need. Sometimes we have to do a little bit more to be heard or taken seriously but, for the most part, we’ve pretty much got it made in the shade.

But while we do enjoy some privileges, and even though we don’t have the same challenges our parents endured, we can’t sit on our laurels and think that we’ve so got it made that we forget how far we’ve come and then fail to teach and prepare our children to make things better than they are. We’ve got to teach our children to require more, to expect the best when they do their best, and to keep a fighting spirit alive within. We’ve got to be sure our babies find their voice and know how to use it for the maintenance and progression of our community and the world at large. Each of us must be sure our children understand who they are, why they are, and what they are expected to return to the earth. These things we must teach for it was these things we were taught by those who came before us.

So while we are much better off than our parents and their parents, to rest now, kick our feet up, and teach no more is suicide and a slap in the face to our foreparents.

Sadiqqa © 2007

What are you waiting for? With all you say you want, there is a dream for you to follow; a goal for you to set; a plan for you to make; a project for you to begin; an idea for you to act on; a possibility for you to explore; an opportunity for you to grab; a choice for you to make. If not, you shouldn’t have anything to talk about.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

In other words, pee, or get off the pot! Don’t just think about what can happen, what needs to be done, or what you figure you can do. Do it!

So there are obstacles that seem larger than life. Analyze them. Break them apart little by little. Climb and conquer them one by one. Move on.

So you’ve got naysayers in both ears. Hear them. Hear them not. Weigh what they say. Squash them and prove ‘em wrong. Shut them up.

So you’re afraid of failing, succeeding, losing, being wrong, getting hurt. Acknowledge your fear. Feel it in your bones. Pick it apart, douse it with water, smother its fire. Ride with your fear, ride it out of here, then do the damn thing anyway.

In other words, pee, or get off the pot. What are you waiting for?

Sadiqqa © 2007

Each of us has the right and responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, the we need to gather our resolve, and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that as well.
-- Maya Angelou

If you don’t like where you are, there’s no reason you have to stay there, right?

Okay, how about this – if you have no idea where you want to go or what you want to do, you don’t have to stay confused. Right?

Yes, that’s right. But then, the question becomes how do you go about figuring out what you want and what road you take to get there. How do you sift through all you think you want, through all you know to find an answer? Is it okay to put some of what you want and know on the shelf and just go for this one thing right here right now? Then, are you abandoning some stuff? What if you shelve the wrong thing? What if later you take something off the shelf, will it still be okay? Or will it have expired and no longer be of use?

How do you rattle through your everyday routine of making this end meet that end, caring for yourself and your vast responsibilities, and move beyond what’s comfortable, stable, dependable, and ordinary to step off the road to another direction? How do you wake up from a long, monotonous slumber? By an alarm clock that signals boredom and fatigue? One that rings loudly to tell you your life is passing you by? An alarm clock that rings the same way it did yesterday morning and the sound you hear is the wake up call that says your comfortable life is a downer and you’re just as dull as your life?

How so you move forward without grasping at straws, trying this thing, spending that time and that dime, taking 2 steps back for every chance you take? Or, how do you move forward without doubting and finding every reason to stay put? How do you take a chance, even when you’re afraid? Do you dissect and face every thing you fear, or do you chalk the panic and apprehension up to commonsense and sanity? Do commonsense and sanity then keep you stagnant and stuck where you are?

Or do commonsense and sanity make you ask yourself right and righteous questions and help you keep all that’s important to you in perspective while you seek new directions and opportunities? Do you resolve that just because you prefer reason over spontaneity, it doesn’t mean you don’t want excitement?

Do you then define excitement as enthusiasm, enthusiasm about something more than what you already know, something out of the ordinary, something off the beaten and worn path, and then determine that some area of your life will be immediately submitted and exposed to excitement, enthusiasm, adventure, and inspiration and that there’s nothing stopping you at this moment from finding it and doing whatever the thing is that can bring you joy or difference or positive change in your life? Don’t you then, at that very moment, no longer feel stuck? Less confused?

Then, it is right. You don’t have to stay where you are.

Sadiqqa © 2007

The essential message of unconditional love is one of liberation: you can be whoever you are, express all your thoughts and feelings with absolute confidence. You do not have to be fearful that love will be taken away. You will not be punished for your openness or honesty. There is no admission price to my love, no rental fees or installment payments to be made. There may be days when disagreements and disturbing emotions may come between us. There may be times when psychological or physical miles may lie between us. But I have given you the word of my commitment. I have set my life on a course. I will not go back on my word to you. So feel free to be yourself, to tell me of your negative and positive reactions, of your warm and cold feelings. Unconditional Love means that I cannot always predict my reaction or guarantee my strength, but one thing is certain: I am committed to your growth and happiness. I will always accept you. I will always love you!
-- Anonymous

I give you me, for I shared my hopes and my joys with you and you listened. I shared my sorrows and my fears and you didn’t taunt me or turn away. My secrets stayed between us, my fantasies were not bantered. When my moods were sour and my tongue curt, you waited. When I clawed and kicked at you, you waited again. When I ignored you or searched for something I thought was better, you waited, and waited some more. Thank you, thank you for waiting for me.

I give you my heart, the place where you’ve lived; my mind, the place that you work. I give you my ears to hear all that you say. I give you my eyes to take in all that you present. My hands will forever be held out to you, and they will forever care for you. I will walk in your direction as you lead us through our days, and I’ll show you the way when it’s my time to navigate. I’ll be your advocate, your audience, your devotee.

I give you me for I trust you with me. I feel safe in your care and completely loving in your charge. I embrace the freedom of loving you for I am free to love you and you only. I am free to express the extent of my love for you. I am free to dig within the depths of my love and bring out its treasures just for you. I am free to uncover my veiled passion and shower you with its effects. I am free to love you because you’ve loved me openly, patiently, slowly and endlessly. I promise you the same time, patience, gentleness, and devotion you’ve given me. For you, I am wholeheartedly and unconditionally yours.

I give you me to understand and accept our differences. I accept them and grow into them, expecting that we will have uncomfortable moments, and we’ll probably retreat into our separate worlds. But we’ll be okay and return to one another. I acknowledge that we have independent lives, our own friends, our own ways of viewing the world. But we’ll be okay and we’ll always return to one another. I’ll return to you each day so that we can begin a new day of understanding and acceptance together.

I give you me, unconditionally.

Sadiqqa © 1998

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
-- Thomas Edison

Ever wonder where you’d be and what you’d be doing if you didn’t doubt yourself so much, punch holes in your every idea, or second guess yourself in every other breath? Do you think if can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t weren’t the main characters of your conversations or in your mind, maybe you could move beyond stuck?

What if you really believed in yourself, in your capabilities, and you could cheer yourself on even when the tasks felt too big or too difficult? What if you trusted yourself enough to exercise and stand on your abilities and resources, moving about this life with certainty and confidence, only hesitating to make sure you had everything you needed to make it all go well? What if you loved yourself over your questions?

What if you could see yourself the way God sees you?

If only you could give up comfortable or doing just enough to get by. If only you could give up being afraid to live on the radar. What if you could give up living in the box, going with the flow, following the routine, doing it the way it’s always been done, and living another day just like yesterday? What if you weren’t so afraid to allow others to see the real you?

What if you weren’t afraid to speak up? Of not having all the answers when asked? Of losing? Of not having enough? Of being alone? Of looking stupid? Of all that would be asked of you? What if you weren’t afraid of working hard and long only to get tired and disappointed?

What if you actually talked with the scary looking kids standing on the corner? What if you went ahead and took that test you’ve been putting off to go back to school? What if you told her you love her and want to spend the rest of your life with her? What if she then said “yes?”

What if you just trusted that when you gave all you had it would all be alright?

The truth is there’s nothing stopping you from doing any and all of what you’re capable of doing. That is, nothing but you. You’re the one standing in your way. Now, granted, someone or something may have thwarted your confidence long ago with their pessimism and disapproval, and they made you believe you couldn’t accomplish anything you set your mind to. But now, you have the power to erase that and move on. You may need to seek professional assistance and enlist the help of Jesus when your doubt is too cumbersome and back-breaking. But, certainly if you want to do better than just the little bit you’ve done, you’ve no choice but to get rid of the doubts and move out the way.

Are you living your life halfway? What’s the point of that?

Sadiqqa © 2007

Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.
-- Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC

On any given day, children in schools and throughout neighborhoods are bullied. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that 1 out of every 4 children is bullied and that such bullying is mental, verbal, and physical. Our natural inclination is to either jack the bullies up by their collars or support the victims by infusing them with skills and strategies that will keep them from getting bullied. However, research indicates that a multidimensional approach is better, one that includes constructively activating and engaging all the bystanders silently and unresponsively watching the violence. Teaching bystanders – other kids, teachers, and parents – intervention skills is critical to maintaining learning and living environments that are safe, caring, and optimal places for our children to grow into conscientious citizens. Bystanders are key to creating these environments by acting in ways that will alleviate pressure and violence.

Likewise, each of us experience incidents of bullying in our adult worlds, and like our children, most of us don’t have the skills of intervention to make the bullying stop. In many cases the bullying, or discrimination and harassment, we experience is monstrous and just punishing the bullies or using our coping skills to protect ourselves from the bullies is ineffective. We still run or hide when the bullies come looking for us. As with our kids, the oppressive incidents we need to fight require each and every one of us who stand by be galvanized, organized, and in motion to defeat the bullies we face.

Never in more that 40 years have the tyrants we face today been more bold in repudiating justice. Never have they been more indifferent to our call for fairness and decency. Our bullies are overt and in our faces as they place our children in jail on vindictive charges, disregard blatant acts of hate, disparage working single mothers, and feel free to bombard us with self-serving, paternalistic, fundamentalist beliefs and babble. And while many of the incidents are not directly inflicted upon us, if it happens to one of us, it can happen to each of us. Thus, it is imperative that we not just watch it happen. We who are watching from the sidelines must do something.

But what do we do and how can we do it?

So glad you asked. First, we’ve got to join arms. We have to know the fights were up against require more than one, two, or a few people carrying the signs, making the speeches, and marching down the street. The fights we’re fighting require numbers, large numbers. And even if we don’t agree on every point, we’ve still got to stand united; there’ll be time enough for whittling down the fine points. There is strength in numbers; they can make a difference and positively impact the outcome of an issue.

Next, we must tell the bully to stop. Firmly and clearly we must tell our oppressors that what they are doing is unacceptable and they must discontinue the crap they’re doing at once. Bring out the facts, quote them correct and impassive theory and law.

Then, we do what we’ve done – support, encourage, and comfort the victim. We’ve been to Jena, we’ve been to DC, and now we’re going to the Louisiana state capital to appeal to the Governor on behalf of our children. We act as “villages” to all the children in the community, and we counter the erroneous beliefs and babble about our lives with our truth in song and spoken word. We’ve done a great job at supporting those who are hurting.

Lastly, we need to make sure we tell on the bully. Tell a person of authority. Because the D.A. and judge in Jena wouldn’t stop, would not listen, would not be reasonable, we told Congress and Congress ate some assets out and called for an investigation of federal and state judicial system practices.

None of these steps is easy and so many of us will choose, have chosen, to stay on the sidelines out of complacency and fear of retaliation. After all, who among us wants a noose on our doorknob?

However, in order for our children to be more than victims and bystanders, in order for them to experience and enjoy the fullness of life, we must be examples of conquerors. Each of us must take positive action to end the injustices perpetrated upon us by standing up to the brutes that try to intimidate and disenfranchise us. We owe it to our children to make the bullying stop.

We owe it to our children.

Get equipped. Act now.

Sadiqqa © 2007

Take each day as it comes.
-- Author Unknown

But, what if each day comes with illness and pain?

What if each day comes with confusion and heartache?

What if each day of your life is filled with so much of what you don’t want, you hate to see a new one turn over?

You still must take life one day at a time, no matter where your life stands. With each day, you must live in the moments and do the best that you can with each of them. You can’t live tomorrow today and you can’t go back to yesterday. All you have is today and right now.

If right now you’re living with pain, make a conscious decision to enjoy life anyway. Distract yourself from your pain, tell it to kiss your assets. Do some relaxation therapy like meditation or visual imagery – you can imagine yourself at this very moment free of pain, carefree, on the beach, butterball naked, can’t you?

If taking each day as it comes means that at this very moment you have to suffer through a broken heart, so be it. Grieve your loss. Whether it be the loss of someone you loved through death or a broken relationship or the loss of your human faculties, feel your feelings and think them through; don’t run from them or deny them, call the hurt and anger what it is. Then, do something for somebody else; love on yourself, and spend time with friends and family who make you laugh and feel good about living.

As you take each day as it comes, some days, even lots of days, may not be so good, but you can’t rush your life, this day, or this moment. They come as they come and they’ll go no faster than they’re supposed to. Live each day patiently, slowly, purposefully, and in God’s grace, even when they are less than you like.

Sadiqqa © 2007

I wasn’t as smart then as I am now. But who ever is?
-- Tina Turner

A long time ago, say, maybe 25 years ago, you wore the infamous Jheri Curl. Every 6 weeks or so you chemically loosened your tight curls with a cold wave kit, set them with another chemical on perm rollers, added yet another chemical to keep the curl in, poured on some SoftSheen Care Free Curl® activator, slept in a plastic bag every night, damaged several collars beyond repair, and avoided at all times being without an 8 ounce bottle of $6 curl activator. Today, your hair has recovered. It’s grown back after being lost to breakage, the texture is again pliable, and hardly anybody remembers the bald spots. The repair only took 15 years. Thank God you only wore that curl for 5 years!

Remember in high school how fine you thought his bow legs and strut were, how you believed it was cool the way he acted loud-mouthed with the teachers and some of the adults in the neighborhood, and how you felt special when he commented on the size of your butt and breasts thinking he actually noticed you? Remember when you and he finally went out and his boys seemed to come out of nowhere eyeing you like buzzards, licking their lips, and asking you for a “chance?” Remember how you pulled out your mace and whistle as they started to pull on your clothes? You still cringe when you see a pack of guys together, but now at least you’re able to discern what’s really cool. And, at last check, bow-legged and belligerent won’t be back on the streets until 2032.

Last week, she asked you if she looked fat in those pants. Of course you weren’t born yesterday so you tell her, “No, baby. You actually look great.” Feeling proud of yourself for coming up with such a quick and considerate response, you continue to pour praise and great compliments on her. She’s warmed by the admiration and wants to treat you to dinner at your favorite 5-star restaurant. When you prepare to leave, she’s wearing the pants she asked you about, looking all but slim and sexy. With a grimace on your face you said, “You’re wearing those?”

Perhaps a more honest response would have served you better. How’s your soup this week?

We’re all party to things we wished we hadn’t said or done, things that seem so beyond stupid now, things we wish we could do all over again. But, you can’t, and life does go on. We learn from our mistakes, and hopefully we learn to do things better, with more sense, and much more prudence.

Sadiqqa © 2007

To gauge your level of self-love, all you have to do is ask yourself, what have my romantic relationships been like? If your answer is that you’re currently in a committed, mutually satisfying relationship, you rate high on the scale of self-love. If you have a pattern of picking relationships that have been abusive and demeaning, or if you’ve thought that most of the men who cared about you were “boring” or “losers,” that too says a lot about how you feel about yourself. If you haven’t been in a committed relationship at all, or if you’ve convinced yourself that you “shouldn't even bother getting out of the house because there is no one out there,” that’s a sign that you’re creating scarcity for yourself because you feel unworthy of love.
-- Brenda L. Richardson and Brenda Wade, What Mama Couldn't Tell Us About Love

Perhaps when you find it difficult to open your heart to receive your honeylove, barring other adverse reasons, it could be a sign that you don’t feel worthy enough to receive that honey and all he or she has to give and share with you. Maybe you don’t feel emotionally capable of maintaining the relationship. Maybe you don’t love yourself enough to love another.

Or, maybe that honey’s just not your type.

While an inability to cultivate and maintain a loving and committed relationship can speak to a lack of self-love, perhaps an even more thorough gauge of determining your load of self-love can be found in the way you treat your career, finances, physical and mental health, and other important aspects of your life. Think about your job. Did you get to work on time today? Did you spend an unreasonable amount of time on the email sending jokes and chain mails? Have you spent most of the morning talking about your weekend, catching up on everybody else’s, and gossiping about the co-worker that everybody habitually talks about? All of these are a reflection on you, your work ethic, and your character. If you have love for your Self, you’ve gone above and beyond the normal call to set yourself apart from the rest of the latecomers and break room chatterers.

Is your checkbook always out of balance? Are you always paying bank fees for insufficient funds? Do you check your account online everyday, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day? Don’t you owe it to the Self you love to make and keep your finances in order? You don’t want to end up penniless, do you? That wouldn’t honor the Self you know and love.

And what about your physical health? How’s your weight? Are you eating healthy foods? Is everything internal working as it should? Have you been to the doctor for a check-up lately? Have you been to the dentist? And your mental health? What do you do to preserve it? Do you take a day off just to rest and replenish, thinking of nothing but rest while you’re taking off. Do you laugh, have some fun? Do you seek professional psychological help when you feel the need to? Are you loving your Self enough to acknowledge when you’re not doing these things then scheduling the necessary appointments to take care of your Self?

Self-love is more than lighting scented candles, taking a warm aromatherapy baths, drinking chamomile tea, and relaxing. Those are just the icing, or maybe the bandages. Self-love is examining recurrent patterns of neglect and scarcity in your life, getting to the root cause of those feelings and events, then making plans to rectify where you’re lacking. It is only after your issues, circumstances, and situations have been examined and you tell your Self some hard truths, forgiving your Self, coming up with viable resolutions for change, and realizing that each and every person in this world is looking for real ways to love and appreciate themselves, that you can burn a candle, take a sweet-smelling bath, and relax.

George Benson (and the old Whitney) sang that the greatest love of all was learning to love yourself. Until you can do that, not only will your life remain lonely and chaotic, you’ll keep chasing your tail trying to figure out why it’s always bruised.

Sadiqqa © 2007

It ain’t nothing to find no starting place in the world. You just start from where you find yourself.
-- August Wilson

And where you find yourself is perhaps where you’re supposed to be.

Think about it, right now you are where you are because of the path you’ve chosen. Maybe that path was ordained by God; maybe you chose that path because it was the easiest choice to make. Whatever the reason for the path, that’s the one you’re on. And, quite possibly, the laws of God’s universe require that you be on at this path at this point in your life.

You have the job you’re supposed to have right now. The honeylove in your life is who you’re supposed to be with right now. The circumstances and situations you’re in right now are those meant for you right now. Why? Who knows? Maybe it’s another law – the law of nothing in this world being by coincidence. Everything is on purpose and right now the things that are happening with you are happening on purpose because that’s the way life goes.

Now whether where you are is a good place or a station you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy is not the issue, though some of those desperate places you’re in are because of the enemy. The issue is that at each moment you have the opportunity to stay where you are, churning and thrashing water, chasing your tail, and making circles in the dust, or you can start over, start fresh, start something new. But even in staying still or starting over, whichever you choose, it’s the thing that’s supposed to be happening.

Perhaps you find that thought disconcerting and you feel your efforts powerless, even inconsequential. Perhaps the thought is liberating and frees you to think conscientiously about every juncture of your life so that you can make the most of it. However you feel, know it’s always your choice to move or stay still. But, whatever your choice, it is right where you are supposed to be.

Sadiqqa © 2007

If we would trust life and ourselves a little more, we would do what comes naturally, what we are good at, giving it all that we’ve got. If we would stop looking for fame and fortune we might find we are sitting on a goldmine of ideas and abilities. If we would stop blaming others and being ashamed of ourselves, there would be no way we could expect or accept anything less than the best from ourselves and for ourselves. If we would stop chasing castles in the sky and do what we can do, where we are, the world would probably appreciate it and reward us greatly.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

Go ‘head, dare you.

Dare you today to be void of pretense and posturing. Dare you to drop the façade, the public image, the outward show. Dare you to be who you are uncovered and bare, raw and unfettered, uninhibited and natural. Dare you to be honest, wide open, forthcoming, and available. Dare you to be simple, uncomplicated, and stress-free. Dare you to be real.

Double dare you right now to be dream big, bigger, as big as you can, then build. Double dare you to trust yourself, step out on your trust, and make your dreams come true. Double dog dare you to go get what you want.

Super double dog dare you to not be afraid of yourself, your ambitions, your obstacles. Super double dog dare you to conquer the obstacles and turn them into opportunities to get better, brighter, faster, stronger, tougher, cleverer, and higher.

Dare you to lead the way, be a pioneer, set the trail to blaze. Dare you to make a difference. Dare you to shape the solution that solves the problem. Quadruple dare you to keep us alive, make us safe, and keep us feeling whole. Dare you in epic proportions to love us even when we’re unlovable, especially when we’re unlovable.

Go ‘head, dare you.

Sadiqqa © 2007

People misunderstand happiness. They think it’s the absence of trouble. That’s not happiness, that’s luck. Happiness is the ability to live well alongside trouble.
-- Rachel Kadish, Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story

Have you ever thought that as soon as you get through this thing you’re going through, this thing you’ve been going through for a very long time, this thing that just never seems to be different or go away – have you ever thought that as soon as it does, you’ll be happy?

Have you thought that perhaps what you’re going through means you can’t be, shouldn’t be happy? So you walk around always worried, always grumpy, never having fun, always wishing this thing would go away so that you can find yourself some happiness and fulfillment? You’re miserable and depressed, the people around you don’t want to be around you because you’re always irritable and complaining, and there seems to be no end to your troubles or your sour moods. You wait for your turn, looking for the rainbow, all the while moping around and wishing for a different set of circumstances. If only you could be happy, you think.

The truth of the matter is you can be happy. There’s no reason for you to be walking around God’s green earth unhappy and denying yourself opportunities to be happy. Without a doubt life can be hard and confusing and can have you caught in a wringer at any time. But even when despair seems to be your only friend, happiness is merely a breath away.

It comes down to thinking of your situation differently than you normally would, of looking at a larger picture of your life than the one you’re currently hanging on to, and giving yourself room and permission to experience something more than your current place. All of that means unlearning or defying some habits and going against the feelings of the moment. It means looking into those moments and pulling from them energy, excitement, and harmony that supersede all anguish. It means acknowledging that your stuff exists, stinks, hurts, and needs resolution, but choosing to be in high spirits, relaxed, and free from anxiety in spite of the stuff. It means staring your stuff in the face, taking a deep breath then saying, “so what, you can’t steal or still my joy!”

So you have no money; you can still be happy knowing that the money you’ve spent has sustained you and your family. Maybe your health is failing you. You can still be happy because you’re here right now breathing and being loved. You sleep alone, but you can still be happy because you know you’re too fabulous to sleep alone forever, so in the meantime, you bless your honey wherever he or she is.

Though happiness can be fleeting, you deserve to experience it. And no matter what your life looks or feels like, it’s up to you to seek happiness at every turn. Right beside your worries, underneath your troubles, behind your heartache, in the bigger picture – there is where you will find happiness. Go get it.

Sadiqqa © 2007

“... where would you like for me to be?”
-- Sébakkha’s psalm

“... if I were anywhere,” Sébakkha said, “I’d be at sea, drifting lazily on the waves. I’d have to have you with me, so we could sail together anywhere...

He said, “I’d be in your heart, in your mind, gyrating inside your soul, making myself at home in your body’s living room... I’d be inside of you, and outside of you, and around you. I’d border your shadow. Inside you, I’d feel every thought you have; I’d make myself every thought you’d have...

“Anywhere?” he asked. “I’d be at the beginning and the ending of your day. I’d be in the middle of your day, at the heart of your hour, its minutes and seconds.

“I’d be in your dreams,” Sébakkha purred.

“I’d be anywhere, preparing a place for you, a place for us, where I’d wake up to you every morning, pray and plan over guava juice with you each morning, greet you lovingly when we’ve returned from our day’s work, share my evening with you every night, share my bed with you every night, sharing my self with your self as many nights as you could take me. And then, we’d begin all over again the next day, for the rest of our days.

He said, “Baby, I’d be wherever you needed me to be - at your feet when they’re sore, holding your hands when they’re cold, standing beside you, behind you, around you, for you.” That’s what Sébakkha said.

The Sébakkha said, “I’d be anywhere, posing as your shelter if your house blew away, standing as your family when death takes your folks away, looking like you if you lost your way...

“I’d be on your shelf, so I could watch you sleep. I’d be in your book so you could read me. I’d be in your favorite song so you could sing me. I’d be in the air so you could breathe me. I’d be in your perfume, and I’d stay on all day. I’d be on your person; you’d wear me so well.

“Where,” Sébakkha asked as he turned down the lights, “would you like for me to be?”

Sadiqqa © 2007

If grass can grow through cement, love can find you at every time in your life.
-- Cher

When love finds you, will you be receptive?

When love comes rising through the cracks looking for you, as it most certainly will – when it’s your turn – will it find you healthy and whole? Will it find you caring meticulously for your body and mind, eating the right foods, drinking liquids responsibly, and regularly exercising your body and mind? When love grows up through the cement, will you be healthy enough to pull it up?

When it taps you on the left shoulder, will you already be happy with yourself? Will you already be satisfied with your life? Will you already feel complete and know that you are beautiful, important, and desirable and that love only comes to complement the wonderful creature you are? Will you know without a doubt that you are worth loving, worth covering, and worth being adored and celebrated? Will you let love kiss and hold you and you kiss and hold love back?

Will you invite love into a clean and clear spirit, nestle it into an already functioning sense of joyfulness and peace? Will love feel welcome in the space of you?

Or, when it slips through, will it be crowded out by bags of stuff? Stuff so thick and tough and unexamined that it suffocates before it even has a chance to blossom? Will love come face-to-face with disbelief, mistrust, defiance, and disregard and have no choice but to rot and die? Will love be extinguished by bitterness and brokenness then balk forever from you, never again to be seen in your neck of the woods?

Just what will love find when it comes through for you?

Sadiqqa © 2007

Be respectful, but keep it real.
-- Michael Baisdon

Perhaps the reason race relations have not progressed is because we don’t talk with one another. Perhaps the reason we don’t talk is because we don’t think the other listens. Perhaps they don’t listen because sometimes when we Black folks talk, we tend to shout.

Who in the hell wants to be yelled at?

There’s a fine art to getting your point across. It takes savvy. It takes gracefulness. It doesn’t require that you shout, point fingers, place your hands on your hips, or roll your neck. Likewise, keeping it real doesn’t mean you have to call somebody on the carpet or, for affect, add expletives to the truth as you shout in people’s faces. The truth can be heard without all the drama.

At all times, though, say what needs to be said and to whom it needs to be said. Never be afraid to voice your opinion and needs, for thoughts left unspoken remain only thoughts.

So how should you tell others how you feel and what you need? Again, it’s all about art. Case, in point –

Your workplace is made up of lots of people, but the majority of them are not your race or ethnicity or religion or gender or whatever. You find in many cases that you have become the posture child for your race, ethnicity, religion, or gender and feel on occasion innately responsible for representing the difference and showing the office that your people are actually astute folks who should be considered and revered. Mostly, however, you spend a lot of your time feeling tired from representing and resentful because your officemates have prejudices.

But on days when you can stomach the differences, you go about making friends, real friends with whom you share things in common. You begin to earn their trust as well as that of the office for knowing and doing your job well, and being an upstanding person with a pleasing personality and a natural facility to care for others. You present yourself as fair, approachable, likable, reliable, knowledgeable and professional, and as your officemates begin to rely on you as part of the office team, your opinions and needs become integral to the culture and environment of the office. And –

BAM!!,

There it is! The point that you can stand up and speak up about the issues that are on your mind. The point where you can have honest conversation and have your arguments and beliefs received as credible and worth listening to. It is only after you have presented yourself as one of the team to be respected and valued that you can be heard and taken seriously about anything. You may even be able to throw in a neck or eye roll at that point.

You still can’t shout though. Nobody wants to be shouted at.

This doesn’t mean they’ll change their minds about the differences, but at least you’ve gotten your ideas across. Maybe somebody’s mind and life will be changed. It starts with just one anyway.

The point is, keeping it real doesn’t mean you have to shout or be mean or even dredge up years and lifetimes of injustices. All you have to do is be respectful, trustworthy, and truthful. Speak up, but speak righteously.

Sadiqqa © 2007

I hope I’ve contributed to your civility.
-- Rev. Jesse Jackson to Bill O’Reilly at the end of an interview on “The O’Reilly Factor”

Hey, Bill O’Reilly! Guess what?! All Black people don’t like chitterlings and watermelon, and all of us can’t dance!

Surprise!

And guess what else? A large number of Black folks are college educated and middle class, and most of us who came from or run female-headed households are not dangling below the poverty line or leaving our children behind!

Another big surprise, eh?

Oh, and check this out! We put our pants and shirts on just like you. We put gas in our cars and complain about the high prices of oil just like you. We’re baffled by the war, our choice of presidential candidates, taxes, and the depletion of the ozone layer just like you. And we’re as appalled by selected sound bites as you are.

Still surprised?

Get over it!

While some our perspectives about life in America may differ, when it comes down to an evening at home, loving our families, educating our children, earning our living, and worshipping a God we believe in, we all do it. And, we usually do it in the same way – civilly, respectfully, and in ways that successfully sustain our livelihood.

Seriously, we’ve lived in America together for quite some time now, and while you believe yourself economically and socially superior, we still live together and often mimic one another so much, who actually knows where you begin and we end?

Really though, get to know us – the way we know you – not by what you’ve seen on television (it has all Black folks depicted as gang bangers, poverty-stricken, or supporters of substandard lifestyles and habits) and not by the few you’ve passed on the street who make you nervous and declare you’re all afraid of us. And, please, not by the loud-mouthed of us who show up for the photo-ops and speaking engagements. Discern us from them. Please.

The next time you visit Sylvia’s, Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, or Joe’s Barbecue on the other side of the railroad tracks, instead of looking for differences then talking about them in ways you believe will sooth your paternalistic soul and make you feel comfortable, shut up and eat your damned food!

Sadiqqa © 2007

All life has its own current. Are you moving with it - or are you struggling upstream?
-- Oprah Winfrey

Over the weekend a friend explained that she had learned how to flow with life. Earlier in her life, she’d insistently fought against the currents and felt the ground of sand slide swiftly away from under her feet. Now, seasoned by life and experiences, my friend floats freely with the waves of life, makes friends with the jellyfish and albatrosses, and prayerfully, gracefully, and peacefully receives whatever washes ashore.

Oh that we could each embrace this attitude.

Imagine if you would the constant tides of the sea motioning at some times as gentle wind-blown ripples that meet a waiting shoreline; at other times an ocean’s current is as ferocious as a lion pursuing and consuming its prey. Most times, though, the sea is as calm as the sun rising and setting, and not even a storm passing over can change its constitution. The ocean is the ocean and it flows any which way it chooses.

Much like life. Life flows in many different directions, in many different ways. Sometimes life is up, marked by triumphs and celebrations, then, in the blink of an eye, it can be down, with sadness and pain around every corner. Most times, life is somewhere in between the extremes wanting you to just ride its surf.

Oh that we could just ride.

It’s only when you simply allow life to take you along its currents, whatever they may be, that you become stronger and more capable of managing all that swims and surfaces through its currents. It’s when you stop fighting the strong undertow of life that you begin to float and experience life in a new way. When you give in to life’s many uncertainties, carrying with you the lifeboat of faith and life jacket of love, even when it feels as though you will drown amid the circumstances and situations life presents; when you cease trying to beat back the currents of life, punching at it as though you could make it do what you want and getting angry, sullen, and fatigued as life takes on its own shape; when you simply accept that you’re a pawn and all of life is waiting for you to relax so it can give you all it wishes for you to have; then, and only then, can you finally be free.

Oh that we could be open to that which begets such freedom.

Hoist your sail and move with life’s flow. After all, swimming daily against the current can wear you out, distract your course, and bury you beneath the sea.

Sadiqqa © 2007

Stop when you’re full.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, “Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me”

Remember when your mama said you could not leave the table or take a drink until you’d eaten everything on your plate? Remember that she said you had to play outside or inside, not both, so stop slam’n that screen door!? Remember when you had to kiss and hug everybody at the party goodnight when it was time for you to go to bed, even that great aunt with the bad Polident® grip?

Well, today you’re a grownup and you never have to do any of that again. As a matter of fact, you don’t have to do much of what you don’t want to do ever again. Aside from the essentials like going to work, paying the bills, eating, sleeping, and a plethora of other odd fundamentals, whenever you think you’ve had enough, just stop.

Which can actually be one of the hardest things to do. For example, how easy is it to stop loving someone even when that person has taken your head and heart through so many hurtful places? You want to stop, you want to not feel; you’ve had enough, it’s hurting you. But, you just can’t stop.

Or, how easy is it to let go of a job that’s not taking you anywhere, that’s comfortable and stable, even though comfortable and stable aren’t increasing your pay or bringing you satisfaction? You gotta feed the kids, right?

And how easy is it to stop enabling your first-born child who depends on you to bail him out of his troubles, so much so you’ve mortgaged your home again just to post bail, jeopardized your mental, and subsequently, your physical health worrying over his well-being, and not moved him any closer to the resolution of his issues? How easy is it to stop holding up your baby and just let him go to fend for himself and learn his lessons the hard way?

It’s not easy. Something deep in our spirits pushes us to go on, to give more, give it another try, and stay until it’s all said and done. After all, not stopping is our claim to fame, that’s what got us to this point and place in our lives. Had your great ancestors stopped when enough was enough, would you even be reading this scribe?

Maybe. Maybe not. But for the sake of your own welfare and that of your children and those watching, if you’ve had enough, by all and any means necessary, stop. When you pronounce that you’re full and don’t want anymore, when you push back from the table of selfish and insensitive relationships, self-denigration, doubt, fear, resentment, depression, and loneliness, then you can make thoughtful and appropriate decisions and changes in your life. It is only then that you can really say you are a grownup.

Sadiqqa © 2007

The Power structure is not going to save us – never has and never will. We have to take things into our own hands and save ourselves.
-- Camille Cosby

Last evening’s nightly news programs and “magazines” – Hardball with Chris Matthews, Hannity and Colmes, Anderson Cooper 360°, and all the other programs with professional talking heads – covered one story and one story only – the latest adventures and calamities of O.J. Simpson.

After covering Orenthal James as the main topic, blood for oil – oops – the war in Iraq was the topic. If not those 2 items, the talk was of President Bush’s nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General and General Petraeus’ “it’s working” surge. Or, switch to another talking heald and it was MoveOn.org’s bashing of Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton’s new take on an old universal healthcare plan. If none of those were the topics, it was certain to be Iran’s nuclear arsenal, Greenspan’s criticism, Blackwater’s ban, a polygamist’s trial, ACLU’s support of Larry Craig, or another recalled brand of bagged salad for suspected E. coli contamination. All important issues and events with very significant ramifications.

But did the atrocious events in Jena, Louisiana appear as anybody’s story or even as an item on the ticker tape rolling across the screen?

Even Black Republican and 2 time candidate Alan Keyes made the CNBC ticker tape for his entrance as a candidate into the 2008 presidential race.

Is this just another indication of how Black people are marginalized and ignored, or was I just watching the wrong channels?

Isn’t the social injustice, spurred by a racist district attorney in a small town of about 3,000 people, that impacts not only the victims and their families but the country as a whole, newsworthy? Isn’t it worthy of the same, if not more, fanatical media attention that Kevin Federline got being the target of an assassination plot? When thousands of Black and white people will converge on a city the size of Jena to ensure their presence is felt and voices heard regarding the inequity of the charges and treatment of Black students and people, doesn’t Sally Field’s cursing and political banter at the Emmy’s Sunday night pale in comparison?

Face it, nobody’s talking about Black people or what’s important to us, so you know nobody’s coming to save us. Don’t look for nobody. Don’t hold your breath for ‘em.

Which is just as well because nobody knows what we need better than we do. History has proven time and again that the only way we’ll realize freedom and justice is to go get it for ourselves – which is what we’ll seek on September 20 in Jena. The only way we’ll grasp economic security and social stability is to build for ourselves with our own pooled capital and resources, then spend our dollars among ourselves. We can’t wait for others to do for us what needs to be done by us. The mainstream news media won’t do it and local, state and federal governments certainly won’t do it. Besides, self-help doesn’t need the help of the media or any administration.

Stay tuned in to Tom Joyner, Michael Baisden, Russ Parr, NPR’s News and Notes with Farai Chideya and the entire roundtable, Steve Harvey, and all the other Black media outlets who have kept the Jena Six issue at the forefront of America, even and especially without the conventional radar.

Sadiqqa © 2007

On reflection, one of the things I needed to learn was to allow myself to be loved.
-- Isha McKenzie-Mavinga

Allow yourself to be loved.

Allow others to pour over you as they wish, planting compliments, praise, and accolades all around you. Give them room to pat you on the back and tell you what a great job you’ve done. Let them honor you for your good works, place your name on the marquee, and give you a standing ovation each time your name is called.

Allow someone to do something for you. Oh sure, you can do it all by yourself and for yourself, but, today, if someone wants to help you, let them. Let them cut your grass, take out your trash, and walk your dog. Let them buy you lunch or fix your plate. Let them brush the lint from your shoulder.

Allow someone to touch your heart in the way it’s cried out to be felt. Speak your deepest thoughts and feelings to someone, letting them hear what you really need, then trusting them to provide it. Allow your vulnerabilities and availability to be exposed to someone who’s willing to care for you deeply. Open yourself up to intimacy, to closeness and familiarity. Trust someone with you, putting aside the fear that he or she will leave if they see and know the real you.

Allow someone to rub your hurting head, massage your aching back, and unnumb your tired feet. Allow them to undress you, emotionally and physically. Allow yourself to be engulfed in the freedom of expression as you let them wrap their arms around you and love on you. Let yourself relish the beauty of contented submission.

Hopefully all this isn’t too hard to fathom when you think on your past experiences. Hopefully misfortune hasn’t dampened your ability to even begin to imagine letting somebody love you fully and unconditionally. Prayerfully your emotional health is intact enough that all of this doesn’t sound incredulous.

Certainly you know this “Thought...,” was written just for you. Perhaps because you won’t allow yourself to be open to love, there’s not a soul knocking at your door to stay. Perhaps because you only allow room for a little love to be received, you only get a little love. Think about it – the last time someone complimented you, you tore holes into what they said and discounted their ability to make bright assessments (“She said I was attractive! I look like an old hag. My hair’s not done; my clothes are too big/little/raggedy. She must be crazy.”) And when your co-worker invited you for drinks, you immediately said you had lots of work to do or remembered you had to wash your hair then go see your mother. You won’t even give anybody a chance to love you. Imagine the wear and tear you’re giving to your psyche when you deny it the pleasures of love and consideration.

Imagine what it would feel like if there came a time when you could release yourself to being loved and loved on. Think on that for a moment.

Give yourself a chance. Allow yourself to be loved. If you’re having trouble allowing love in your life, talk with someone who can help you understand why you’re blocking those opportunities and let them help you to heal your maladies. Give yourself a chance. You deserve to be loved.

Sadiqqa © 2007

When you respond to me so that I feel special, it will make up for all those, who during the day, have passed me by without seeing me.
-- Leo Buscaglia

On a day like today, when you can’t be really sure who has your back, why they have it, and if they’ll have it for long, it’s nice to know you can walk in the door of your home and be regarded as the king or queen of the world by someone who loves and adores you.

As you navigate the world each day, you can bet the farm that somebody is going to pee on your parade, insult you, ignore you, second-guess you, discount you, curse you, and/or disrespect you, all quite possibly before 8:00 a.m. Before noon, you’ve taken several emotional and mental lashings, and by the time you say goodnight to the secretary, you’ve been cut up so badly, not even the king’s horses and men can put you back together again. But the warm smile, touch, hug, and listening ear of someone at home – your honey, your babies, your pets, or your friends – can certainly provide a seam that would at least keep you from cracking so easily the next day.

So what happens when there’s no one there to greet you, no one to say “honey, I’m home” to? What happens when you walk in to a dysfunctional empty home, a home that’s so dominated by turmoil, you’d just as soon be out in the frazzled world?

At all times you’ve got yourself to make you feel special. You’ve got you to bring home flowers to, to sing to, to run a warm bath for. You’ve got the one and only person who will always stick by your side no matter what, the one who knows what you need and can provide it for you every time. You’ve got you to be a friend to, mother to, father to, lover to. Tell yourself, “Self, when you respond to me so that I feel special, it makes up for all those, who during the day, have passed me by without seeing me.” Tamia actually says it best. She sings, “And her name is me and she loves me more than you’ll ever know... If you haven’t heard, she’s a bad chick...” Make and be good friends with yourself, the greatest person you’ll ever come to know. If no one else tells you you’re special, if no one sees who you are then treats you as special as you are, then you do it.

Sadiqqa © 2007

... when we humans feel emotional pain because of events, we often create unconscious beliefs that help us cope. But coping isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. While it’s true that it’s better than giving up, there’s a high price to pay for adaptability.
-- Brenda Lane Richardson and Dr. Brenda Wade, “What Mama Couldn't Tell Us About Love: Healing the Emotional Legacy of Slavery, Celebrating Our Light”

Needless to say, we all have stressors in our lives, and on any given day, some of those events and pressures are unmanageable and far too heavy for us to navigate or see beyond. And because they are bigger or get bigger than we can gracefully and effectively handle, we develop masks and costumes to drape and protect ourselves from the situations, living on the surface of what ails and disturbs us, trying never to dig up the roots of our pain. Many times we find that it’s far easier to just cope with the circumstances of stress than it is to go to the source of that stress, address it, then alleviate it.

Which is why most of us are in the physical and psychological shapes and positions we’re in now.

Think on it. The pain you’ve experienced throughout your life, whether that pain be direct or that which flows through your genetic bloodstream, partly defines and creates what you think, feel, and do. Thus, if you believe the sky is falling, because one time it did, all of your actions, conscious or unconscious, will precipitate strategies useful for protecting yourself against the burn of the sun and the dark side of the moon. Likewise, if you believe the world is out to get you, because you’ve been gotten before, then every behavior, conscious or unconscious, will be directed at protecting yourself and possibly destroying others.

Thank you very much, Sadiqqa, for that basic psychological breakdown of animal nature, but the bigger point, however, is the examination of the outcomes produced as we hold true to some of the beliefs we’ve accepted as a result of our pain and stress. There is a high price to pay for adaptability or the settling in to a way of thinking and acting that doesn’t uplift and empower, but instead keeps us weak and powerless.

Adapting to, or tolerating, unfairness and inequality because you believe all you can get is this very little you’ve been receiving breeds resentment. For instance, if you feel devalued on your job, once you resent being undervalued, you may decide to slow down your output which ultimately puts you in jeopardy of losing your job. And when they hand you the pink slip, you then feel angry and become belligerent and need an escort off the property. Had you disputed and refused the inequity in the beginning, believing you deserved to paid and treated fairly, you would not be sitting on your couch surfing through the want ads today. And now, your resentment is even deeper than it was before.

Adapting begets narrow-mindedness; you can only see what you see and what you see is very limited. Because you have acquiesced to capitalist, individualistic ways of thinking, you believe anything less or else is foreign and needs to speak and sound the way you do. As well, when you believe and accept, unconsciously or not, that you’re a second-class citizen, you act in marginalized ways and help to create perceptions that keep you forever oppressed. Thus, if you believe you don’t belong, you actions will show such and others will likely endorse your belief.

So unless you change for the better what you believe about your experience and pain, then question fully what you are willing to cope and live with, anger, resentment, distress, and any other debilitating thing will seep from your crippled Self and guide every single move you make. If you never want to get ahead, if you never want to reach your fullest potential, if you never want to overcome, stay stuck where you are.

Sadiqqa © 2007

Have a mouth as sharp as a dagger but a heart as soft as tofu.
-- Chinese proverb

And speaking of tofu, try something new today. Tofu is good for your heart; it’s high in protein and absorbs the taste of anything you add to it. You may want to try tofu in a vegetable stir fry or add some brown sugar, a little chili powder and red pepper flakes to your favorite homemade barbecue sauce, cut up a block of tofu, let it marinate in your sauce for a couple of hours, then toss it on the grill for about 5 minutes. Serve it up with a little eggplant, asparagus, and corn-on-the-cobb.

And try your barbecued tofu with some carambola, okay, starfruit. Some varieties taste like grapes, others like green apples. But wait, you may not want to eat too many starfruit if you’re diabetic; they’re high in sugar and acid. Instead, and if you can get past the funny-looking seeds, perhaps you may want to try a pomegranate. Or, with your tofu and eggplant, you could try a little grenadine – sweetened pomegranate juice – in your cocktail tonight. Perhaps you’d enjoy a little Sex on the Beach. The drink of vodka, triple sec, orange juice, lemon lime soda, schnapps, Jack D., and grenadine, that is.

Or, perhaps a bit of sex on the beach wouldn’t be something too darned awful to try. But, if you can’t get to the beach tonight, try sex in a new position. Touch your honey in a new and more pleasing way. Do something with your honey you’ve been too shy or afraid to try.

If that’s too steamy for you, keep it simple – kiss goodnight, get up earlier, go to work, and try a new route home from work this afternoon. Drive through parts of town you aren’t that familiar with and take in the differences from one part of town to the next. Stop at the local Thai restaurant and pick up some Satay Tofu. When you get home, instead of immediately jumping into your evening household duties, take 30 minutes to debrief about the day and get it out of your system. Try relaxing tonight; feed your honey a little tofu. Maybe you’ll feel like sleeping in the pajamas you’ve been reserving for a special occasion. Perhaps those pajamas may create visions and motions of sex on the beach.

Tomorrow, try wearing your hair a different way. Try saying something nice to that fool that chafes your butt all day long. Try loving your enemies. Get some more love from your honey. It’s all good for your heart. Just like tofu.

Sadiqqa © 2007

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
-- Anais Nin

In 2007 – 53 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities; 52 years after Emmett Till was kidnapped, beaten, shot, and drowned in Mississippi’s Tallahatchie River after having whistled at a white woman; 50 years since the Little Rock Nine enrolled in Little Rock Central High School amid threats and surrounded by federal guard; 43 years after legislation that outlawed segregation in schools and public places; 39 years after a leader was killed on a balcony for unabashedly speaking the truth instead of scratching his head – one small Southern town in central Louisiana is still “lynching black folk.

And we’re not keeping quiet about it!

Tavis Smiley, Tom Joyner, Al Sharpton, National Public Radio, and hordes of other vocal leaders and the media are headed to Jena, Louisiana on September 20 to let the natives there know that hell no, we won’t take no mo’!

Thus was the conversation on Monday’s Michael Baisdon Show when one caller made a huge point. She said that while we were right to be offended and pack the busses that will descend on Jena in a week, what about the issues happening in our individual back yards? What about aggressive gentrification in predominately African American communities funded by everybody but black folk? What about the mislabeling and herding of African American boys into special education and alternative, non-college track programs? What about losing your home because a lender believed you to be a high-risk borrower because you are black and convinced you to agree to unfair and abusive loan terms? The response Baisden gave was that we had to start somewhere and an issue as blatantly racial as “Jena Six” could not be ignored.

He’s right, something of that nature can’t be ignored and we do have to start with some cause. But, that’s the problem. We keep starting then stopping. We get mad about something that happens to us, rile the cavalcade, speak out, protest, and have prayer vigils with lighted candles. When the dust settles, the only ones left are those who had a prize pony in the show in the first place.

We start, we stop. And when a new offense rises, something that really ruffles our feathers and disrespects who we are, we start again. Then, we stop again.

Ooh look, isn’t that Warner Music Group still signing misogynist rappers to their label? Another “bitch” and “ho” ride the turntable and play the club.

We start, we stop, and each time we stop, we take some of the air out of our fight. We take even more air out of our credibility as a people who care and want justice when we pursue an issue just because it’s the most obvious and the loudest.

Certainly “Jena Six” is an issue we must all get behind, and certainly there are a plethora of other maddening problems and situations we must seize to improve as well. The issue though is we can’t start out strong to alleviate a thing, then when the wind changes, or our most vocal say so, we’re off to something else. We’ll never find solutions, closure, or peace if we keep stopping.

Sadiqqa © 2007

Before falling in love, I was defined. Now I am undefined, weeds are growing between my ribs.
-- Joyce Carol Oates

When you were single, you thought knew everything you needed to know about yourself. You knew what made you happy. You could specifically identify why you were feeling a certain way, and you clearly understood the direction in which your life was headed. You could control most things in your life and knew exactly how things would respond to you in return.

Then you went and got partnered up...

Let it first be said that there is beauty, solace, and sacrosanctness in being part of a couple. Being loved, feeling love, and loving in return are the foundations upon which nations are built and the phenomena that keep many homes intact. Loving someone as completely as you can is the stuff of God by which the angels constantly kiss your forehead. Being in love is such a wonderful thing it makes your head think of nothing else and your heart skip a beat. Which is probably the reason weeds are growing between your ribs – you can’t think to breathe!

When you allowed your partner into your life, into your space, into the intimacy of your heart, the things you thought you knew about yourself became a little fuzzy. You thought you were an eloquent speaker on most topics. Now you find you’re a bumbling idiot who can’t seem to get your thoughts straight, or what you do say sounds like the dumbest @#*% you’d ever said in your life. You once believed your moods were the most even in the world, but now, even the slightest disagreement can turn you into Medusa. Before loving as you do, you thought you had life all together. Now you don’t even know whose life you’re living, or, on some days, whether you’re living at all. Sometimes you even think that being single was much less trouble. At least you could sleep in the middle of the bed and walk around on Sunday afternoons in the unsexiest pajamas you owned. Well, you could still do that now, but you’d have to hear your honey’s mouth or see the repugnance on their face. And that’s new, too; before love, you didn’t care what anybody thought. Now...

All kinds of new things about you have come to the surface since you began loving your honey; things you had no clue about, things that make you feel you’ve lost yourself.

But, in fact, you’ve been found! Whether you know it or not, or believe it or not, your partner is helping you to grow into your true Self, the Self you were always meant to be, the one you could not be without having experienced the love you’re in now. So what if you can’t always find the words you need to complete a sentence? Isn’t that what honeys are for – to understand us enough to complete our sentences? You may arbitrarily turn into Medusa, but if you’ll recall your Greek mythology, Medusa, whose name is synonymous with “defender,” was considered beautiful and relished her ability to protect herself; perhaps your preservation instinct is reserved for your honey as well. And really, isn’t it better to pull life together with someone who loves you no matter the weather, tenor, ugly pajamas, or intensity of life?

You’re not lost; you’re stretching, expanding, opening up, and becoming. Don’t be afraid, don’t shy away. Enjoy getting to know more of yourself and enjoy being in love.

Sadiqqa © 2007

... I end the essay here, not telling you the particulars, as a demonstration of what, because of battering rather than constructive criticism, is sometimes lost.
-- Alice Walker, from “Getting as Black as My Daddy” in Anything We Love Can Be Saved

Huh?

Yeah, this is an odd thought. Especially since it doesn’t seem to connect itself.

Well, that’s the whole point. Alice Walker wrote this ending to an essay after reflecting on the many attacks she’d received over the years from writing about what’s real in the world and what’s real to and for her. She stopped writing right inside the essay’s argument against the dullness of writing about one’s personal life and interests, leaving readers with space to only imagine what this Pulitzer Prize winning writer could have composed and concluded. She squashed what she’d started to write and, as a result, an incomplete essay was born.

Now even for writers like Alice Walker whose many novels, short stories, poetry, and works of non-fiction have won numerous awards and accolades, criticism is off-putting, even damning as public libraries and schools ban their works because they are deemed too whatever. But for the most part, such condemnation doesn’t make them quit doing what they do best. But, for the rest of us mere mortals, disapproval and disparagement from others are often what stop our dreams from coming to fruition.

Take, for instance, equal pay for women. Still, in 2007, women, who, in many cases, provide half if not all of their families’ support, receive 77 cents to every dollar men receive. However, when lawmakers have opportunities to put teeth in 40-year old policies that can rectify this injustice, arguments about how often and easily women leave the workforce to have and care for families or that women aren’t as ambitious as men surface and override any attempts at economic reconciliation for women. So then what happens? Activist for such change are silenced and sent back to their dens, the issue returns to the back-burner, and women and families still struggle to make ends meet. Women and their families have essentially been told “no,” “shut up, and sit down” and they end up settling for the 77 cents and sacrifices too numerous to count.

Okay, maybe that was an opportunity to advance a platform, but hopefully you see the point – when criticized, no matter what the issue, we shut down and sit down.

Okay, think of something as simple – compared to the issue above – as starting your own business. Cynics and detractors will tell you day in and out that what you’re planning is impossible, that it’s already been done, or that you will surely fall on your face and end up alone with no one to love you in the middle of the night because you drove everybody away with your talk about this business. If you’re like most of us, you’ll stop your talk of business, or maybe slow it down until sometimes later. You’ll put your business plan on the shelf for later, but, because of the barrage of criticism and doubt, quite possibly that widget and gadget you imagined will never be created, tested, or sold. Thus, your widget will never save someone’s life or, at the very least, make life better.

The assaults to what we believe in, what we do, and what we fight to sustain can cause us to become mellow or less driven, and our journey practically purposeless. In the end, if we aren’t thoughtful about the harsh criticisms thrown our way, allowing them to steal our ambition, outlet, platform, and ability to move forward, we could leave empty space where something should have been said or done in order to further humankind.

Still yourself against the attacks that come at you. Don’t curb or silence your voice. Don’t change your words and don’t bow out. Be bold, hold your own, keep going, and never end your thought before you’ve said everything you need to say.

Sadiqqa © 2007

There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation.
-- Alice Walker

It is literally quite possible that Black people do possess the secret of joy. How else could we have crossed the 3,000 plus miles of the Atlantic Ocean from the West Coast to the Americas; 400 to 700 deep; shackled in cramped, unsanitary quarters in the bowels of a ship; eating one meal a day of beans and yams if such scant foods were available; diseased, frightened and depressed; not knowing of destination or fate; yet surviving in spite of it all? Somewhere deep within us, we held a secret of unmitigated and inexorable contentment that got us through the hardship of the journey we traveled.

It’s likely that we possess the secret of joy. How else could the 10 million of us who survived the trip from West and Central Africa have been dropped off in Hispaniola (present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic); Jamaica; Guatemala; El Salvador; Trinidad; Cuba; Jamestown, Virginia; and Columbia, South Carolina – all unwelcoming lands whose inhabitants’ sole intention was to create economic gain for themselves on the backs of our minds and spirits? Without the secret of innate joy imploding within us, how could we have lived through people selling our babies away from us as punishment; stealing sex from our girls and women because they could; emasculating our virile men to break their warrior energy; and splitting up the remnants of families just to show who was boss? The secret of paradise to come had to be what sustained spirits lost in the crush of chattel life.

We must possess the secret of joy. What other way could we have moved from the murky South, settled into an indifferent North, and moved fearlessly in the uncultivated West? What other way could we have stayed in the South, only to receive the lashes of Jim Crow, the nooses, the water hoses, the Ku Klux Klan, and Southern government? What other way could we have created a great migration northward to work in industrialized cities like Detroit and Chicago, leaving behind the only lives and family we knew? What other thing but a deep-seated secret of joy could have made us toil through Native American and Spanish territory that was as dry, dusty, and desolate as the moon was far?

We do possess the secret of joy.

This secret of joy probably has nothing to do with “the” secret touted by Oprah and Larry King, the one that basically says what you ask for and believe in you receive. Certainly Black folks didn’t ask for any of the above injustices, experiences, or off-chances, so this can’t be the secret referred to here unless, in fact, deep within the crevices of our Selves, we somehow looked beyond our circumstances, asked for freedom and redemption, believed it would be given to us, and ultimately received it in some form or fashion. Perhaps Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy had access to The Secret’s Emerald Tablet before the book and movie even came into existence. Humph, who knows? Who really cares?

Perhaps the secret we’ve possessed is one that has no definition, no name, no real form or content. Perhaps it just is and it just makes us do and be and live.

Certainly that same secret exists within each of us today. It’s got to in order for us to keep pushing through some of the things we endure daily. Thankfully it’s not the same stuff our ancestors encountered. Or is it?

Your secret of joy is at work right now, operating somewhere with the confines of your spirit. If you look and listen closely, presumably you can feel it churning. If you can’t, it’s in your best interest to keep pushing until you do so that one day we can remember and tell the stories of survival to babies who will need to know such a secret exists and that they do indeed possess it.

Sadiqqa © 2007

For most of my life, I had felt my spirituality was confined to a certain set of church ideas and rules. When I realized I could find spiritual expression in beating a drum, painting a picture, cooking a meal, playing a game, or singing a song, I finally understood the divine presence in all things.
-- Shelia Ellison, “The Courage to be a Single Mother”

Yes, there is Divine Presence in all things, like in the sun setting, in the clouds rolling, and in the raindrops falling. Divine Presence is in the trees billowing in the wind and the grass turning green each Spring. Divine Presence is in the coo and smile of a baby, the “puppy breath” of a week-old puppy, and the tender wrinkles on the hand of a gentle old man. God manifests Himself in all these things. The Divine Presence is everywhere.

Divine Presence was near last week when you cussed out that co-worker who is always in your business. Divine Presence was at the football game Saturday night when the other team won and you shot your middle finger at the coach then looked up to see yourself and your action on the stadium’s big screen monitor. Divine Presence even sat next to you Sunday morning when you stared that lady up and down as she walked in church an hour late in that little red dress and all that hair and makeup looking, you thought, like she’d just come from the club. Divine Presence saw you turn up your nose and felt you judge her.

Divine Presence is not only everywhere, it’s always available for access. You can tap into the power and presence of God at any time, even when the kids are working your last good nerve. You can tap God even when your honey-love is being stupid and selfish. You can tap it even when the boss is bigoted, sexist, and racist and has no clue that she is. You can tap into the Presence even when the world is fighting and you seem to be the ground that’s getting trampled. You can enter, open, retrieve, and approach the Divine Presence at any time you feel the need.

And Divine Presence is everywhere and available to everybody who believes it so. So not only are you getting the breath and touch of God, so is the lady in the red dress. Divine Presence is there with her, too. She’s also God’s baby, y’know.

A preacher friend said Sunday, Jesus is always in the room, no matter where you’re sitting or standing, no matter what you’re doing. You’re never alone and you never have to face anything on your own. Just as you can find peace and presence in the blowing of the trees, so can you when times aren’t as peaceful. Just remember to tap in to the presence and energy of God. He’s right there. Feel Him?

Sadiqqa © 2007

We met… and from then on, it became impossible ever again to give up completely. I have given some thought to why this should be. I believe it was love. When once you have encountered it, you will never sink again. Then you will always yearn for the light and the surface.
-- Peter Hoeg

On any given day, on each movie channel, in each song on the radio, out of the mouths of the storytellers at your local coffee house poets’ showcase, on the tips of your friends’ tongues, and always on your mind is the longing for and/or maintenance of true, lasting, and fulfilling love. And what people won’t do to get it and keep it is fascinating, and in some cases, frightening. But, it almost can’t be helped – once you’ve tasted what love can be, you want nothing less; no substitutes, no pieces here or there, you want the whole kit and caboodle. Is it any wonder why there’s so much talk and thought about love?

Think of the Shulamite and the shepherd in the Song of Solomon. Talk about desire and yearning! Of course most biblical scholars interpret such longing as that between God and His people or the physical yearnings of husband and wife. Whatever the interpretation, you can’t ignore the intensity for love with which the characters in the story implore from one another and how this longing is so primal and innate that to disregard or discount it is a tragedy to the very spirit of love and a slight to ones Self and survival. We were made for tender, passionate, meaningful love, the give and take of it, and the profound and exhausting experience it gives rise to. Having this kind of love gives us strength and character and helps us make it through most days.

So what is this guttural feeling of love, this love that can’t be denied, the love that’s true, lasting, and fulfilling? Can you put a finger on it? Do you know what it looks like?

I’m convinced that it exists even if you don’t feel it right now or if you’ve never felt it. Somewhere deep within the caverns of your Self is a longing waiting to be touched. A longing that knows what it needs and will identify it, ring your bell, and set you on fire when the love it wants even breathes your way. The longing within you will move you to grab hold of the love it’s found, wrap yourself around it, pour everything you have into and on it, and have your nose open so wide that nothing else will do. Should that fulfilling feeling of love ever leave, you miss it like nothing else, possibly search again for it, and know how to deny something else when it comes suited up to look like love.

If you live inside that yearned for love right now, care for it and protect it it. Some say love is fleeting, but believe that true love never dies. Cover it and make sure your longed for love is always at home getting fed something wholesome and being nurtured as often as it calls for. Should it only be temporary, never let it say you didn’t treat it well and right during its stay for it may decide to not rear its head again. You don’t want underground, flaky love. That’s not what you long for.
This “Thought...,” may be the result of watching too many Sunday afternoon love movies, reading an overabundance of novels about unrequited love or love gone awry, or listening to a flood of Sunday night Quiet Storm programs on the radio, but, know this – once love has been roused, either in the mind or off the paper, to put it back to sleep is the most disloyal task you’ll ever commit upon your Self. There’s no way to ever deny the yearning within you to have by your side true, lasting, and fulfilling love.

Sadiqqa © 2007