Jbrd's Blog

Change Your Vibration - A thought

2009-01-26T12:30:00.000-08:00

I was driving down the road and realized that our mental state determines, in the longrun, the quality of our life journey. It's kind of a tricky concept to understand. I remember hearing something like this awhile back. I even read about it. The ancient Egyptians even spoke on it. I tried to do it myself a couple of times awhile back, but forcing it didn't work. You have to be ready and only when you are truly ready, you'll clear yourself of negativity along with help from God. How you do know when you are ready to make change? Well when you start gradually improving yourself, you'll slowly see it. It's natural as getting hungry, feeling lovesick, or having to use the bathroom (laugh). It will naturally happen. So pay attention. Your life won't be the same again when you realize that you gaining momentum in the world of positive change, occurrences, outcomes.

To put your life in order and realize the blessings of God, your first step is of course is to sincerely want change. Then ask for it, and pursue it in the best, logical, simple, and pragmatic way. Meanwhile, let go and let God. Trust him. Let his will be yours. This may take some time. So let him know your thoughts, your aspirations, what you think will make you happy; more importantly, what you think will make you joyful. Don't overthink it, or over do things. There's so much you can do in trying to change yourself. Like in anything, we can over do it. In cleaning a house or scrubbing a pot clean for instance, you only can scrub so much. Don't be obsessed in improving your life journey. Don't be overbearing. Just again, want change, ask for it, yearn it, pursue it in the best logical, pragmatic way possible and let go.... let go...and let God do his (her) thing. Wait on him. Trust him. Remember it's a natural thing.

Secondly, Think good of everyone and every situation. Dwell on what is positive or make that particular situaton positive if positive. Take baby steps. Don't over do it. Don't go cold turkey and appear like some crazy flower child from the sixties! Notice your negative outlooks, concepts of yourself, thoughts, situations, and on others'. Just be aware. There's always something good out of some situation, no matter how minute it is. There's something good out of a person, no matter if you can only see one. If you feel down, ride out those emotions. It's okay. It's the right thing to do. It's good for you, if you will. But learn from them, appreciate them and move on.
Acknowlege that you are not alone in your situation or lack there of. Acknowledge that you are special, unique. God did not make junk. Acknowledge that others around you are also special and unique and more importantly, we are each other. We are each other. Let go of those negative thoughts, even let go of some people who can't shake their addiction of living in the cesspool of muck and negativity. They can taint your environment and thoughts unconsciously. But be mindful of treating them like how you want to be treated. So pray for them to enjoy their life journey - to seek a quality bound life. Wish them well and take flight...or crawl, walk, run. Enjoy this life!

Thirdly, change involves action. What better way to change and live in the sunshine, to live positively is through action. You may start by doing some volunteer work at a homeless shelter, or a nursing home. Or, sometimes its great to just treat the ones around you like how you want to be treated. You may want to call mom or dad more often. Or, spend more time with your children and or spouse. That coworker that irks you perhaps make yourself be aware of some of their good qualities and appreciate them. Change your thoughts about that person. Every time you see that person, speak to him or her in a sincere fashion. Or perhaps just remember their good qualities whenever you see them. Just a hello is also great. To bring it closer to home, treat the family member that gets under your skin a little different. Patience is a virtue we all can hone in on. Remember, we are each other so let's treat each other better. Our perspectives on others, even situation will let change come easier.

God created us and everything around us so we can experience all of his love in different ways. Don't hinder it with distorted perceptions. There's probably six million ways to love. Instead of choosing one, experience them all! Realize that we can do anything we set our minds to do. We can be anything and the best part of it, it shouldn't kill us to achieve one or all of them! That will suck huh?

We can do it! We can love God, ourselves, and others with all our hearts, minds, and souls. I know we can. Let's just open our eyes and see things differently. Let's see things the right way!It's amazing, and watch. Before our eyes, our life journey is coloring itself with brilliant shades!

2009 Inauguration of the Forty-Fourth President of the United States

2009-01-25T00:05:00.000-08:00

Yall didn't know?
We had church.

Ms. Aretha humbly approached the front which is located right below the pulpit, aka the platform between the US Capital steps, and sung The Lord Heard My Cry (The Star Spangle Banner), that ol' slow slavery song that all real Baptist churches (Patriots) sing almost every Sunday morning. It had meaning - history that only the old folks really know about.

If we had to sit behind Ms. Aretha in the church's wooden worn-out pews, we wouldn't even see a lick of what was going on in the front, due to her silver church hat with a bow tilted on the side decked out with sparkling diamond trim!

Nope.

Graciously, the Lord would have given us a partial view of the Preacher's wife's fashionable gold attire, a.k.a The First Lady Michelle Obama, and a splintering view of the new Pastor, (President B. Obama, by the way) delivering a profound new message to the people "It's a New Day".

Yall, if ya didn't know, We had church.

But thank Gaawd !, we had balcony seats! (a.k.a live television and huge flat screens distributed among the congregation below).

First up, no doubt, was Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, aka the church secretary, making church announcements sprinkled with a hint of all the lowdown and scandal on what had happened within the church history among the evenings scheduled events:

I am delighted to announce this superb line-up of participants in the 2009 inaugural ceremonies. The inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama will be an event of historic proportion. It is appropriate that
the program will include some of the world's most gifted artists from a wide range of backgrounds and genres."

Why is this "event" an historic proportion? Like many churches, scandal hits them hard, and this one was no different. The former Pastor, a.k.a Former President George W. Bush had squandered the building fund money due to ignoring the choir's president's mismanagement of choir dues and ignoring their responsibilities (Bush Admin. ignoring corporate banks' bad investments), leaving the church in the red, big time (almost crashing economy). And this scandal topples over with the poor leadership of the former pastor himself (The IRAQ War)! The church's role as beacon of Jesus Christ within the community (aka, the US as the leader of the free world) is all but blackened with grime.

It was "an event" of an historic proportion because the church members, aka The American people, listened to their hearts and chose the unconventional, the-young-hope-filled-bright-eyed-then-minister-now-Pastor Barack H. Obama to lead Mount Shiloh Holy Trinity Church in God in Christ Episcopal Missionary Baptist Church Cathedral, aka, The United States of America! "It's a New Day", President Barack Obama preached on (aka his inaugural speech) and by choosing him out of all the old folks (McCain, Hilliary, Guilliani, Thompson, Hucklebee....McCain hehehe gotta count him twice!) was monumental.

We had church yall.

But let's be frank. The church secretary no doubt,aka Senator Dianne Feinstein, was always in support of the new Pastor, aka the President of the United States, Barack H. Obama. It's always like that. She was the one who always supported him from day one. As church secretary, somehow gossip and scandal flies her way to be sprinkled among the correspondence that she reads during church service. She knows what is bull and what's not. Mark my word, when it is time for the Pastor to retire, (Pres. Barack Obama after 8 years of service) she may receive his blessings to take his place. If the Lord can you use a donkey to get over his message, surely he could use a woman. Can I have an Amen?!

If you didn't know, it was church yall.

Like all churches, there's always a fashion show. So as the First Lady, aka First Lady Michelle Obama, holds the bible of one of the former reverend Pastors, aka President Abraham Lincoln, who united this church together centuries ago, it seems, the church fashionistas, the choir director, the organist, desperate single church ladies, and the old-married-drama-queens, (aka People Mag, EXtra, ET tv shows etc.), marveled over her attire and the First Daughter's, making mental notes to plunged through every fashion article known to man in hopes of hunting down where she bought them or more importantly, what fashion designer made them.

We had church.

Because after the Pastor, aka President Barack H. Obama, the Forty-Fourth President of the United States, finished preaching, folks got the Holy Ghost! Shouting, cheering, passing their babies among each other (strangers mind you), and tears tumbled down their cold-almost-frostbitten cheeks; and when the old wise deacon who really tells it like it is, aka Reverend Joseph Lowery, sealed it with his benediction; it was a done deal.

It was church yall. And if you still can't grasp the concept of it, remember Ms. Aretha's hat? It tells it all.

See:

2009-01-15T13:57:00.000-08:00

Please read!!! Dr. Manis teaches at Macon , GA colleges and wrote this for an editorial in the Macon Telegraph. Dr. Manis

When Are WE (White Folks) Going to Get Over It? For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it?

Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous
obsession with skin color?"

Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us.

Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk."

Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.

We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment, perhaps.

But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster. But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we're back in the sixties again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we've proven what conservatives are always saying -that in America anything is possible, EVEN electing a black man as president. But instead we now hear that schoolchildren from Maine to California are talking about wanting to "assassinate Obama."

Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?" How long before we white people realize we can't make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us? How long until we white people can -once and for all- get over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color? How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us superior? How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites?

How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head of the line merely because of our white skin? How long until we white people end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations?

I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners? How long until we white people will stop insisting th at blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?

How long before we starting "living out the true meaning" of our creeds, both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that "red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in God's sight?

Until this past November 4, I didn't believe this country would ever elect an African American to the presidency. I still don't believe I'll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem. But here's my three-point plan:

First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves built I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people.

Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama.

Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth" sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome."

Andrew Manis is author of Macon Black and White and serves on the steering committee of Macon's Center for Racial understanding. It take a Village to protect our President!!! Bob

Daddy

2009-01-14T19:34:00.000-08:00

Groovin', dancin', almost completely absorbed into the reggae rhythm being played by the not-so-good reggae band on stage, I suddenly lost my groove. A dark figure caught me. He stood there looking at me as if that loud reggae ruckus behind him wasn't even there.
He wore a shirt with a fly away collar and polyester pants like the one's Dolomite wore in his black exploitative movies in the seventies seemed familiar. His averaged bushy afro was nostalgic. I found myself remembering the smell of it. I use to play in it when I was a child. The slope of his forehead and his deep set eyes brought back the rapids I hid well inside me. Something as vague as his silhouette unearthed them, rupturing them into tiny fits. I tried to manage them so to keep control.

He stared at me, and I remembered thinking, "Why?... I miss you and now I'm no longer the same." My dad never said a word while I stood there in this dream. I felt that he wanted to talk but couldn't. I remembered telling him telepathically without using words, "I went full circle. I was once a derivative of a derivative of myself. I had lost my footing, my own way, my swagga for years. And now I am just getting back to myself! Like, I'm virtually, reborn!
I was like a zombie playing the part of a character I never knew or understood after he had passed away with cancer. But now life is good. I hope that next time I dream, I'll tell him that. I'll tell him that it has gotten better, a lot better; that my dreams are no longer what I looked forward to; waking up to the real world is no longer a sigh of disappointment. Life is now refreshing! And every night he visits me in my dreams, I am blessed to also awaken to another beautiful day!
I want to tell him, "I learned Daddy." I am telling him now, "I learned! I learned what you were trying to show me - us, your family, what life is about: God's love, happiness, fun, reaching for the stars, lovin', stretching upward and outward and always moving and living forward. And most importantly, that we are each other."

As I think about it, the rapids of emotions inside me stir. And yet again, I control them involuntarily. I guess, I know he hears me, and feels them roaring.

It's 2009 and the Songbird is Already Chirping!

2009-01-11T17:58:00.000-08:00

It was December 31st. I went to a New Year's Eve party, organized by the Knights of Peter Claver, a predominately Black Catholic Fraternal Order. There of course, I danced my tail off, especially to Little Richie's, Make Me Wanna Shout.

Boy did I shout! I shouted for all my family and friends, and for myself; for good times and higher achievements. I ended the night dancing with others, in a line dance, to the New Orleans Second line song with white napkin in hand, dispelling the negativity from below and above me; allowing God's blessings to come in for my family, my friends, and myself. The universe blessed me, blessed all of us with its fruits. I knew this year is going to be a good year for everyone. The feeling was awesome!

"2009 is a good year. Trust. Listen. It's our year. So get to flyin" The songbird is already chirping a lovely song.

The name jaybird is a nickname a dear old college friend gave me, Pilar. I love her dearly for it. I never knew what a jaybird looked like until now. It's colorful, intelligent, a singer. I especially like the bluejay. That's how I see myself if I was actually a jaybird. It has special calls like no other songbird. It calls to ward off predators from her fellow feathered friends, and I'm sure it sings of love, promise, and of wonderful things too. As a jaybird, a bluejay in particular, I call out to all:

"This year, listen. 2009 is a good one. Trust. Listen. It's our year. So get to flyin'. "
Why do I think it is a good year?
Look at the Precursors:
1. My sister took two tests which took her about 10 years to nerve up to take and prep for.
2. My other sister gave birth to a blessing, Aliyah.
3. My mother, 65 years old , goes to Central State. We cheered her team on during Homecoming. We even went to a step show - a step show!
4. O-BAAMAAA
5. I'm not hating my job anymore. God sent a fellow friend to work with me to make it easier for me to endure this in-between-time before greatness. My destiny is more than a county employee. (Thank God for my job though! Don't get me twisted!)
6. My husband is making good money with his real estate business in spite of the economy
7. Everyone around me is moving forward
8. I'm writing again. This time a book.
"Listen. 2009 is a good year. It's our year. So get to flyin'."
Why is this year a good year?
1. My Aunt gave me great advice for my writing - In 2009
2. My dinner club's first gig this year was spectacular!!!! My client loved us and so his guests!
3. My other sister has an internship dealing with sport management
4. The sister who took her tests which she prepped for off & on for about 10 years, will also be starting her own non-profit. She's a juggernaut too!
5. My brother is in LOVE, and he wanted to go to church with me last week...and did! What the He**!!!What's that all about?!
Listen. Feel it. Smell it. Taste it...

Liiive it. It's scrumptious ain't it! 2009.

KM People (keep moving people)