Notes From A Broken Heart

  When I first started attending the Evangelist's Saturday noontime meetings, I'd recently returned to Colorado after trekking through the South, my parents' birthplace, on what I'd lightly dubbed my missionary journey.  My search for a mythical, (or was it mystical) genesis in the Mississippi town of my birth certainly bore no resemblance to the "historic South" I had envisioned.  In fact, my fantasy about a romantic, welcoming South shared no basis with reality for Black people!  Surely, my parents would've laughed at my mind's machinations!  Jimmie and Velma Taylor would have clearly explained that they'd been part of the great migration from South to North because of unforgiving social conditions and a culture that denied our right to live as valued humans.  They hoped to lessen the debilitating weight of Jim Crow laws and their pernicious enforcement that had threatened to destroy their lives and livelihood.  My parents would not relinquish t

Fads.  Gratefully, I recall how back in the day (I call the decade the "Eager 80's) . physical fitness took on the patina of a "religious movement." And no, this isn't about riding the "religion train" where you might think.  I'm talking about ME and how I embraced physical fitness with a ferocity unlike any other.  With a vengeance! It was around 1983 or thereabouts that I graduated from exercising  (drudge, drudge!) in drab gray unisex sweat pants into what felt like a magical Land of Oz.  Straight into the haute couture of workout design. I understand how George Jefferson must have felt when he saw himself "moving on up to the East Side, to that deluxe apartment in the sky!"   One day, here traipsed Cinder Ella, relegated to hand-me-downs, and in an instant, there strutted Cinderella, decked out in gorgeous garb and being courted by Prince Charming.   Sounds a bit hyperbolic, yes, but you get my drift?  Lined up with other fitness aspi

  I am learning to release, to free myself from imposed obligations that transform into crosses to carry and burdens to bear.   If I remember correctly (and I could be off a bit), all my life my record seems stuck in a groove akin to:  "Hear ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Listen up, everybody! Whatever you feel you can't handle---whatever---"stuff" life seems constantly to throw at you, that drags you down, bring it to me! I can handle it.  I will handle it!"   The pure idiocy becomes apparent when someone, anyone, asks, "Whatever made you take this on?" Would you accept, "I don't remember.  People just started asking me to "take care of this and that." And at first, I did.  No problemo. Really, I don't think I distorted the invitation of Jesus who assured, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28, NKJV}.  I'm not delusional now and I wasn't then.  Not even a little bit

It's become cliche-ish, almost, this robing myself in innocence.  I shrug as I admit, "I know  I take too much for granted,  I realize that I'm walking around with a loaf of bread under each arm while complaining about what I don't have  or what I didn't get  when a less deserving schmuck did! My shrug captures a thousand words and manifold excuses. It's always easier to blame someone or something, It happened so fast! I didn't see it coming! Please forgive me, but I'm feeling the weight of the world right about now.  Or (and this is classic!), it's my birth order; what was I to do?    When those "reasons" don't seem worthy of consideration, I find myself swirling among truths and "dodges."  A choice point, surely.    Or to mix a metaphor, it appears I've jailed myself in a place whose key I (mistakenly?) tossed eons ago.  Or maybe, I didn't do the incarcerating.  It's a changing and changed world out there.    Ma

"My child, never drift off course from these two goals for your life: to walk in wisdom and discover discernment. Don't ever forget how they empower you.  One of my sisters just   loves jewelry.  The other sibling  really adores "Dead Presidents" of the $20, $50, and $100 variety.  In contrast, I s imply revere  knowledge and seek wisdom.  Neither of us is wrong, necessarily; yet, each of us may innocently have missed the mark.  We embraced materialism as a visible measurable barometer of success.  Maybe my sisters may not have understood the presumptions of their choices as they derided mine.  Alright, but each choice carried consequences. For years, I have marked the passing of each day by reading a chapter from the Book of Proverbs.  For at least a decade.  Months with only 30 days meant I read all the Proverbs, doubling up on short-day months.   Good discipline.  Keep in mind, this decade-odd practice accounts for a certain sameness and sequencing,  a"taking

A mixed metaphor---red apples and yellow onions---one that had never popped up as spontaneously as that one, from where and from what recesses I can't begin to imagine.  I like apples of all colors and sizes perhaps a little more than the wide array of onions, but each occupies a place in my kitchen.  They really have nothing to do with material sustenance; they strode into my consciousness as comparisons.  When I contrast my situation/problem/issue or worry to a friend's and try to make them equal, try to identify some symmetry between hers and mine, it's like looking at her apples and trying to turn it into my onions (phew)!   Comparing my children to a best friend's offspring takes me down that slippery association slope that ends lopsidedly.   Her daughter graduated from West Point while my son  graduated from a State college.   Barely.    She tools around in the latest luxury Lexus while my "Struggle Buggy" perseveres from one oil change to the next, and