Notes From A Broken Heart

Back in the "olden days." (when "old" for a kid meant 40-something) and when Mother and Daddy vowed to "love, honor, and cherish...till death do us part," I'd engage in a harmless competition with my girlfriends.  We challenged each other in what I later learned was "one-upmanship" or "comparison and contrast," and involved our fathers. "Daddy."  The game usually began near the end of a summer's day when we'd used our energy playing "Hopscotch." double dutch. relay races, and kickball. One friend would say, "My daddy is stronger than your daddy," and I'd counter with, "But my daddy can sing better than your daddy!" Each of us would parry with an even stronger or more outlandish declaration.  Finally and thankfully, somebody's mama would call her into dinner and the duel would end---temporarily. Recently, I've speculated how a dialogue between adult friends making claims ab...

"Keep on pushing Keep on pushin' I've got to keep on pushin' I can't stop now"Move up a little higher Someway or somehow"  Many who heard the Impressions or Curtis Mayfield rendering the song probably classify it as Rhythm and Blues (R&B).  No matter who sang it, "Keep on pushin'" connotes multiple meanings.  When I listen, I hear social as well as spiritual undertones.  To illustrate, both Old and New Testament Scripture chronicles people and situations that required sustained efforts.  I assign the song to a Civil Rights era battle cry.  Its lyrics fit a  "different  strokes for different folks" mindset .   Both Old and New Testament Scripture describe people and situations that required sustained efforts.  Witness Hebrew slaves who beseeched Jehovah for freedom from Egyptian bondage.  Joseph's plight from a murder-on-his-mind brother and later prison proved the success of a "boy who made good" saga.  His trials...

Speak to my heart, Holy Spirit The message of love, love to encourage me Lifting my heart from despair, how you love love, love me and care for me Speak to my heart, Lord."  More and more I understand the sanctity of song, especially those of the "gospel" genre.  More and more, I'm appreciating its primacy in Mother's life.  I've noted before how as a kid, I'd wake up to one of her renditions, which served as a telling barometer of "our" life that day(since I didn't get a vote.  Too young ).   When Mother felt downhearted, she might sing "What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry  Everything to God in prayer! O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer."  I could sense introspection when Mother recalled " I come to the garden alone, While the dew is still on the roses, And the voice I hear, falling on my ea...

"Trust and Obey for there's no other way To be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey." Like the Two-Step that marked my parents' generation (along with the Great Depression), compatibility empowers movement.  The same applies to The Tango, although its beats and tempo differ.  What do I mean? Roles must be determined, usually from practice, with or without music. One of the main reasons (I later learned from my brother, Sam), the eighth-grade boys rarely asked me to dance? "You always try to lead."   Lead? Where? I had no idea what he meant! Later, of course, I understood.  Dance moves, as in the Two-Step or The Tango required identification of roles. A jauntiness characterized the Two-Step while sultriness branded The Tango.  When just two dance together, rudimentary questions need answering: Who will lead and who will follow.  Can I trust he knows how to lead before wondering where he's headed? Does she understand beats and tempo? The differ...

"Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:8, NSV) May I ask you a personal question that may seem intrusive?  I'd really like to know for my own edification. How do you define "pride"? I grew up with parents and grandparents, Southerners, who reflexively squelched any behavior my siblings and I may have used to over-esteem ourselves.  (Grand)Mama toned down any tendency toward undue self-promotion with,  "Girl, don't you think too much of yourself now!" or "Boy, you're getting too big for your britches! (Mama, though, frowned on girls wearing pants. Talk about old-fashioned!) "Children should be seen, not heard"  became the expected refrain we recited and obeyed at tender ages.  With us, p ride never entered the culture of Black life until the advent of the Civil Rights era.  And then it attached to our racial identity more than individually.  Say it loud! I'm  Black and I'm proud!...

Struggle.  Struggle marks my days.  Sometimes it even dogs my steps, from the moment I open my eyes to a brand new day until I let Kai, my faithful friend, out to start his day.   What's the struggle?   I must choose "joy" or "sadness" to define or endorse the next 24-hours.  No matter whether I open my eyes to the sun or shadow, my choice initiates an internal dialogue.  Where does it begin?  In the head first, or is it the heart?  The brain where consciousness identifies current events or past history? Or the heart which stores hurt, anguish, or pain that pumps like a tangled water hose---in spurts, squirts, or drops? Or does another phenomenon occlude all of them? Do I sound like a kid proudly reciting the recently learned "ABC" ditty to adoring relatives?  An amazing example of parental duplicity reminds me of what I used to say four out of five days to moody, teenage daughters (redundant?), "It's your choice, Baby Girl; it's up...

"Keep on pushin' Keep on pushin' I've got to keep on pushin' I can't stop now Move up a little higher Someway or somehow..."  Many who remember the Impressions or Curtis Mayfield render their poignant renditions, "Keep on Pushin'"  know the song carries social and spiritual import.  It motivates and challenges.   Coaches and mentors often invoke its declaration to urge younger charges to start and finish a project, program, or plan.  Especially since pushing often comes easier than pulling.  I tend to use less energy pushing a wheelbarrow across a rocky road than pulling a wagon filled with bricks up a hill.  The former can be done  while the latter seems downright  cumbersome.    It took years to understand that we can occupy various dimensions, the natural and spiritual among them.  Surely, however,  I'm no  arbiter of "dimensions."  Both Old and New Testament Scripture chronicles people and situations th...