9.28.2007
Is this thing on?
Life is strange that way.
Sometimes you just need a break.
Sometimes, just to clear your head.
It's been a long time. A very long time.
But things are good. I'm in a good--no--great space in my life.
Re-invention is a necessity.
I'm happy.
Are you?
Sometimes you just need a break.
Sometimes, just to clear your head.
It's been a long time. A very long time.
But things are good. I'm in a good--no--great space in my life.
Re-invention is a necessity.
I'm happy.
Are you?
2.06.2006
Anger Sweetened
"If you want to ruin the truth, stretch it." ~Author Unknown
I wonder how often you say exactly what you mean? I wonder how, if you don't say the words lurking just beneath your tongue, do you deal with the reflux of them later?
Though we have been told all our lives "the truth shall set you free", many of us, as reported by New York Times columnist Frank Rich, "live in an age of 'truthiness'", where what we believe to be true is often passed off as truth despite having any empirical evidence of its truth; it simply is because we say so.
Though truth is an abstract word, it should hold some concrete weight in our lives. It should be examined with a fine toothed comb, and used willingly and freely. It shouldn't be covered up, hidden, or made to feel unneccesary. It should be the first thing we greet in the morning, and the last thing we speak at night. When we subscribe to truthiness we do more than compromise who we are, we set into motion the idea we have to lie in order to make it in this world.
For the last six years I've been searching for a truth, something to sink my claws into, something to sustain me, validate me, embrace me. What I have found over and over again, is me. I am the truth, when I choose it. I am the light, when I see it. I am any and every thing my little heart can dream, and there is no greater truth than that, none, whatsoever.
The poem I'm about to share, the words Oprah closed her show with a few weeks ago (paraphrased: it's not whether or not James [Frey] lied, it's about how much our contemporary generations view the truth) and the fact that I don't always say what I mean, or mean what I say is the reasoning behind this post.
I wonder how often you say exactly what you mean? I wonder how, if you don't say the words lurking just beneath your tongue, do you deal with the reflux of them later? Though we have been told all our lives "the truth shall set you free", many of us, as reported by New York Times columnist Frank Rich, "live in an age of 'truthiness'", where what we believe to be true is often passed off as truth despite having any empirical evidence of its truth; it simply is because we say so.
Though truth is an abstract word, it should hold some concrete weight in our lives. It should be examined with a fine toothed comb, and used willingly and freely. It shouldn't be covered up, hidden, or made to feel unneccesary. It should be the first thing we greet in the morning, and the last thing we speak at night. When we subscribe to truthiness we do more than compromise who we are, we set into motion the idea we have to lie in order to make it in this world.
For the last six years I've been searching for a truth, something to sink my claws into, something to sustain me, validate me, embrace me. What I have found over and over again, is me. I am the truth, when I choose it. I am the light, when I see it. I am any and every thing my little heart can dream, and there is no greater truth than that, none, whatsoever.
The poem I'm about to share, the words Oprah closed her show with a few weeks ago (paraphrased: it's not whether or not James [Frey] lied, it's about how much our contemporary generations view the truth) and the fact that I don't always say what I mean, or mean what I say is the reasoning behind this post.
Anger Sweetened, by Molly Peacock
What we don't forget is what we don't say.
I mourn the leaps of anger covered
by quizzical looks, grasshoppers covered
by coagulating chocolate. Each word,
like a leggy thing that would have sprung away,
we caught and candified so it would stay
spindly and alarmed, poised in our presence,
dead, but in the shape of its old essence.
We must eat them now. We must eat the words
we should have let go but preserved, thinking
to hide them. They wer as small as insects blinking
in our hands, but now they are stiff and shirred
with sweet to twice their size, so what we gagged
will gag us now that we are so enraged.
1.31.2006
Behind Every Great Man, Is a Great Woman
Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated. ~Coretta Scott King
Certain news just doesn't sit well early in the morning, and the death of Coretta Scott King is just such news. My heart hurts. I feel as if I've lost a mother, a grandmother, a friend. Over the years her presence, strength, grace and fortitude has meant so much to me. I still can't believe she's gone. I will pray for her family today. I will keep her memory alive. I will not disappoint her, or the million others that died so that I might be free.
ABC NEWS | Jan. 31, 2006 — Coretta Scott King, widow of slain civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., has died. She was 78.
Scott King was admitted to Atlanta's Piedmont Hospital on Aug. 16, 2005, suffering from a stroke that left her weakened on her right side, unable to walk, and barely able to speak.
Family Blazed Trails
Coretta Scott was born April 27, 1927, on a farm in Heiberger, Ala. Though the family owned the land, it was often a hardscrabble life. The young Coretta, her sister, Edythe, and brother, Obie, all had to pick cotton during the Depression to help the family make ends meet.
The Scott family was resourceful and blazed trails for blacks in its small corner of the world. Her father, Obediah, was the first black person in the area to own a truck, and he eventually opened a country store. Her mother, Bernice, hired a bus to drive all the black children to and from Lincoln High School — nine miles from Heiberger.
An intelligent and hardworking student, Scott King played trumpet and piano, and graduated from Lincoln High at the top of her class in 1945. She followed her older sister to Antioch College in Ohio, where Edythe had been the first full-time black student to live on campus.
At Antioch, Scott King majored in music and education. When she graduated, she decided she wanted to pursue music instead of teaching. She received a scholarship to study violin and voice at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she met her future husband, Martin Luther King Jr., who was studying theology at Boston University.
The Kings were married in 1953, and the following year, they moved to Montgomery, Ala., where King began his ministry.
Civil Rights Activists
Scott King spent much of her life devoted to raising their four children — Yolanda Denise, Martin Luther III, Dexter Scott and Bernice Albertine — and to supporting her husband's work in the civil rights movement.
Scott King was often seen beside her husband during freedom marches, traveling abroad and giving speeches. Though she had essentially retired from her music career, she conceived of and performed in the Freedom Concerts, which combined the poetry, stories and music of the civil rights movement.
Scott King became an activist in her own right, as well, carrying messages of international peace and economic justice to organizations around the world. She was the first woman to deliver the Class Day address at Harvard University and the first woman to preach during a service at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
When King was assassinated outside a motel room in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, Scott King channeled her grief into action. Days later, she led a march through the streets of Memphis, and later that year took his place as a leader of the Poor People's March in Washington, D.C.
Scott King continued working for equality, peace and economic justice for the remainder of her life, both in the United States and abroad. Her travels took her to Latin America to speak out against poverty, South Africa to fight apartheid, and back to Washington, D.C., to mark the 20th anniversary of the historic March on Washington with a second massive gathering of human rights groups.
Honoring Martin
Scott King also devoted much of her time to developing the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a memorial to her husband's life and dreams. Scott King served as the center's leader until 1995, when she turned over the helm to her son Dexter.
She also led the campaign to make King's birthday, Jan. 15, a national holiday in the United States. By an Act of Congress, the first national observance of the holiday took place in 1986.
Scott King focused much of her energy during the last decade of her life on AIDS awareness and curbing gun violence.
Certain news just doesn't sit well early in the morning, and the death of Coretta Scott King is just such news. My heart hurts. I feel as if I've lost a mother, a grandmother, a friend. Over the years her presence, strength, grace and fortitude has meant so much to me. I still can't believe she's gone. I will pray for her family today. I will keep her memory alive. I will not disappoint her, or the million others that died so that I might be free.ABC NEWS | Jan. 31, 2006 — Coretta Scott King, widow of slain civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., has died. She was 78.
Scott King was admitted to Atlanta's Piedmont Hospital on Aug. 16, 2005, suffering from a stroke that left her weakened on her right side, unable to walk, and barely able to speak.
Family Blazed Trails
Coretta Scott was born April 27, 1927, on a farm in Heiberger, Ala. Though the family owned the land, it was often a hardscrabble life. The young Coretta, her sister, Edythe, and brother, Obie, all had to pick cotton during the Depression to help the family make ends meet.
The Scott family was resourceful and blazed trails for blacks in its small corner of the world. Her father, Obediah, was the first black person in the area to own a truck, and he eventually opened a country store. Her mother, Bernice, hired a bus to drive all the black children to and from Lincoln High School — nine miles from Heiberger.
An intelligent and hardworking student, Scott King played trumpet and piano, and graduated from Lincoln High at the top of her class in 1945. She followed her older sister to Antioch College in Ohio, where Edythe had been the first full-time black student to live on campus.
At Antioch, Scott King majored in music and education. When she graduated, she decided she wanted to pursue music instead of teaching. She received a scholarship to study violin and voice at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she met her future husband, Martin Luther King Jr., who was studying theology at Boston University.
The Kings were married in 1953, and the following year, they moved to Montgomery, Ala., where King began his ministry.
Civil Rights Activists
Scott King spent much of her life devoted to raising their four children — Yolanda Denise, Martin Luther III, Dexter Scott and Bernice Albertine — and to supporting her husband's work in the civil rights movement.
Scott King was often seen beside her husband during freedom marches, traveling abroad and giving speeches. Though she had essentially retired from her music career, she conceived of and performed in the Freedom Concerts, which combined the poetry, stories and music of the civil rights movement.
Scott King became an activist in her own right, as well, carrying messages of international peace and economic justice to organizations around the world. She was the first woman to deliver the Class Day address at Harvard University and the first woman to preach during a service at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
When King was assassinated outside a motel room in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, Scott King channeled her grief into action. Days later, she led a march through the streets of Memphis, and later that year took his place as a leader of the Poor People's March in Washington, D.C.
Scott King continued working for equality, peace and economic justice for the remainder of her life, both in the United States and abroad. Her travels took her to Latin America to speak out against poverty, South Africa to fight apartheid, and back to Washington, D.C., to mark the 20th anniversary of the historic March on Washington with a second massive gathering of human rights groups.
Honoring Martin
Scott King also devoted much of her time to developing the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a memorial to her husband's life and dreams. Scott King served as the center's leader until 1995, when she turned over the helm to her son Dexter.
She also led the campaign to make King's birthday, Jan. 15, a national holiday in the United States. By an Act of Congress, the first national observance of the holiday took place in 1986.
Scott King focused much of her energy during the last decade of her life on AIDS awareness and curbing gun violence.
1.24.2006
Love: One Man's Definition
"I have again and again been faced with the mystery of love, and have never been able to explain what it is..." ~Carl Jung
One day you wake up and you just know. And while there seems to be no rhyme or reason for it somewhere, buried deep within you, you know it makes all the sense in the world. After all, you've waited your entire life for this moment, for this feeling, for this person and now after years of preparation, it's here.
And so, you begin the journey seemingly prepared, overwhelmingly cautious yet all the more eager to embrace all it has to offer. You open your heart, open your mind and shun the naysayers. You begin to see and feel its power; you begin to understand why, out of all the people in the world he chose you. You begin to understand her moods, his truths, and your world. It's there in that one sacred place you begin to feel comfortable enough to let your hair down, relax and breathe and know with every breath you take you won't be judged, or ridiculed or made to feel insignificant, needy or even expendable. In his arms you are safe and wanted and valued. You are seen and heard and admired. You are truth, light and honesty. You are in a word, love.
And so, you grow together, laugh together, exist together. And though it's never easy, you understand fully: it is what it is, and so you appreciate it for what it is, ups, downs and in-betweens. That in a nutshell is my definition of love. What's yours?
One day you wake up and you just know. And while there seems to be no rhyme or reason for it somewhere, buried deep within you, you know it makes all the sense in the world. After all, you've waited your entire life for this moment, for this feeling, for this person and now after years of preparation, it's here. And so, you begin the journey seemingly prepared, overwhelmingly cautious yet all the more eager to embrace all it has to offer. You open your heart, open your mind and shun the naysayers. You begin to see and feel its power; you begin to understand why, out of all the people in the world he chose you. You begin to understand her moods, his truths, and your world. It's there in that one sacred place you begin to feel comfortable enough to let your hair down, relax and breathe and know with every breath you take you won't be judged, or ridiculed or made to feel insignificant, needy or even expendable. In his arms you are safe and wanted and valued. You are seen and heard and admired. You are truth, light and honesty. You are in a word, love.
And so, you grow together, laugh together, exist together. And though it's never easy, you understand fully: it is what it is, and so you appreciate it for what it is, ups, downs and in-betweens. That in a nutshell is my definition of love. What's yours?
1.18.2006
The Boondocks on A Revived Short-tempered King
I've yet to take in this cartoon, but found this forward too interesting not to post. My main purpose was to see what you thought of it. Be warned, it is rough, controversial but yet, in some deep dark way, honest. At least, as far as I'm concerned.
