Thursday, November 17, 2016

Stand out!

If God lead you to color outside the lines,
No matter how painful it may seem,
Don't try to fit in!
Those are not your boundaries!


You are not meant to blend in!
You are too fabulous to blend in!
The lines that society has drawn
Are not your lines.
Your lines lie elsewhere.


You are not meant to fit in.
You are not meant to blend in.


You are meant to go against the grain.
You are meant to swim against the tide. 
You are meant to march to the beat of your own drummer.
You are MEANT to be different.


Start your own band!
Write your own song!
Dance to your own rhythm! 
Croon to your own tune!
Revel in your difference!
In other words,
STAND OUT!

Monday, November 14, 2016

This Feeling (My reaction to seeing "The Birth of a Nation" on October 7, 2016)

I wish I could
Convey to you
The profundity
Of this feeling
I'm feeling.


I'd like your help
To define this new emotion
I'm experiencing.

I just saw "The Birth of a Nation,"
and yes,
my initial responses
were profound sadness
and rage.  

But,
like perfume,
the initial reaction
has now passed,
and the deeper, more lasting effect
remains.

I feel a form of contempt
and familiarity,
a renewed sense of self worth
and purpose,
an underlying pity and shame,
and yet a powerful hopefulness
riding on faith.

This movie
and it's accompanying effects and emotions,
is not for everyone,
for few will know
how to handle
the rush and multitude of the reactions
responsibly
I am unsure of where I fall.  

It comes at a time
when we
cannot cry "#blacklivesmatter" loudly enough,
yet we still receive resistance
and apathy,
pathetically enough,
sometimes from our own.

But what this movie
has helped me to recognize is
that with every battle,
there will always be
Benedict Arnold's and Judases,
willing and unwilling.  
I can no longer blame them.  
They,
like the countless Patty Hearsts among us,
have been brainwashed so completely
that they actually believe the filth
that their captors are spewing.  
I will leave them to their own paths,
and pray I am elsewhere
when they
experience their inevitable,
unenviable end.

But still,
I am left feeling this feeling
that am at a loss to define.
I want to do something,
but am at a loss as to what.
I have so much to do,
but am at a loss as to where to start.
I have so much to say,
but am at a loss as to how to convey the depth of it all.

I wish I could define this feeling...