Archive for November, 2011

Life in the Pitt: Week 5 (My first thanksgiving away from “home”

Posted: November 27, 2011 in Uncategorized
1

This week was an extremely significant week in our time of getting adjusted to life in the ‘burgh. Why so significant? Could it have been my new gym membership to Planet Fitness? Could it have been Yvette’s new blog? Could it have been depositing my first paycheck into my new PNC bank account? Maybe it was learning the distinction between someone who is from Pittsburgh and someone who is a yinzer? All these things were significant but the most meaningful and memorable experience was celebrating my first Thanksgiving away in Pittsburgh and on top of that my first Thanksgiving away from home.

My first Thanksgiving here in Pittsburgh (more accurately   Western Pennsylvania) was actually spent with Yvette’s family in New Castle, PA about an hour north of Pittsburgh. The food was good and I have been taking the leftovers to work. But even more special than the food was the fact that I did not feel lonely or out of place on Thanksgiving. For 34 years I have spent Thanksgiving on the west coast with my family and it has been comfortable. You know who is going to say what. You know who is going to do the prayer. You know that there will be nothing but football and naps after the meal. This Thanksgiving all that was not anticipated and I was going to a new place. But although it was new it felt very familiar. Yvette asked me whether I felt like an outside or with family and I said “Like I was with family”. That is something to be thankful no matter what day it is or where I find myself in the world

The Beautiful Spill

Posted: November 26, 2011 in art, personal, poetry, spirituality, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,
1

It sat there on the countertop

Tomato soup

Sliding down the side of a jet black mug

Into a red shaped puddle

Liquid mass

Sending out signals

Of this all too well known

Experience

Of imperfection

But in a moments time

It grows on you

Not as ugly as it first appeared

Red and White

Contrasting

Coming together

Never totally blending

The black cup

Sitting in the pool of their intimacy

Yes! It stopped me

Long enough to see the mess made on the countertop

Was beauty. Beauty incarnate

And that reminds me of another beautiful spill

3 things to do when u have a bad day

Posted: November 25, 2011 in life hack, overcoming obstacles, personal development, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
1

A bad day. Have you ever had one of those? It could be summed up in spilling coffee on your blouse the day you have a presentation at work. It could be getting a bill that you thought you paid months ago and realizing you currently don’t have enough money to pay it. It could be a day of telling kids “don’t” over and over and over again and they still do it anyway.

For me recently my bad day consisted of being late for work. You might say that’s nothing. Who hasn’t been late for work? Well it seems trivial but I was late for work in the worst way….two hours late. It turns out that I had written my schedule down incorrectly. So I walk in unaware and ignorant that my manager had called me two hours before wondering where I was. Oh I forgot to add: My phone is not functioning properly so it only has power when I plug it up to the charger. On top of that something is wrong with the receiver so I cannot hear calls. Needless to say everything kind of snowballed from there. It wasn’t my worst bad day but it definitely was a bad day. I managed to get through the night and thankfully I still have my job but I began thinking about what it takes to cope with a bad day, month, year, or even a decade (Yes those exist. Think about puberty or the 70′s). So here are my steps to getting over a bad day:

Discover the “at least” or rock bottom principle.

One of the ways that I get over bad days is by using the “at least” or rock bottom principle. If you are not dead then you have not hit rock bottom! I repeat: IF YOU ARE NOT DEAD THEN YOU HAVE NOT HIT ROCK BOTTOM! To put it simply things could be worse. I use this principle all the time. At work if I drop something I feel like a klutz but it is all smoothed out with the at least principle: “At least what I dropped wasn’t glass”. Or take coming in to work two hours late: “At least I didn’t get fired”. It works for just about anything except death and even that is not entirely off limits if you believe in a hereafter. Can u imagine it now? Well at least I’m here and not being tortured over there…

Get a Do over mentality

If it’s a bad day, week, month, year or decade then trust that you will get the opportunity to have a better one and don’t squander it. All the mistakes I made in my high school years I got to correct in my twenties. All the mistakes I made in my twenties I am getting a chance to correct now in my thirties. If you still have breath in your lungs then you have an opportunity for a do over. Golfers have a word for this. It’s called a mulligan!

Have grace for yourself

Lastly have grace for yourself. If you are having a bad day do not make it worse by judging and devaluing yourself. A bad day does not mean a bad you. After arriving to work late all I could think about was how much of a screw up I was. At the same time that was mental energy I could have been using to do a good job and make what seemed to be a bad day better. I tried hard to make up for it and prove to everyone that I wasn’t a spaced out lazy jerk. The thing is I don’t think anybody was thinking that but me. It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving and the place was a madhouse. No time to be thinking about how bad somebody else screwed up. Sometimes we can be so self centered that a bad day becomes worse because of all the negative thoughts going on in our heads.

So those are my three healthy ways of coping with a bad day. What are yours?

Life in the Pitt: Week 4 (Church Shopping?)

Posted: November 22, 2011 in change, goals, personal, spirituality, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,
1

For previous Life in the Pitt posts click here

The very term “church shopping” leaves a bad taste in my mouth. When I say it I feel transported into the land of the consumer where the prices are low and the options are limitless. Can I really customize my church experience? Can I really customize spiritual community?

At the same time that is the reality of our American religious landscape. Due to the fact that there is no state church and free market capitalism holds sway we are bombarded with choices when it comes to what faith community we will “belong” to? For some reason it feels as though belonging is cheapened when we have so many choices and such a penchant for customization. It explains why searching for a church has come to be called “church shopping”.

And then there is the actual experience itself. I now have a new sensitivity to visitors of churches now that I have been a visitor. It can be overwhelming. For the first three weeks you get more attention than a 2 month old. I know people mean well but sometimes it seems contrived. Ultimately I know this kind of attention won’t last long. I always wondered what people thought when they came to one of our gatherings….

So far we have gone to a few churches in the area and there is one that really stands out to me: Vineyard Southwest. We only visited Vineyard Southwest once but it is growing on me. That’s because 1) the pastor said “sin cooties” in his sermon (as in stop acting like hanging out with people who are not Christians will give u the sin cooties) and 2) they came by last Saturday and gave us chocolate chunk cookies. Not just chips but chunks! What more could a consumer ask for?

Where should I get my tattoo???

Posted: November 22, 2011 in art, bible, personal, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
5

I am 34 years old and I have decided to get a tattoo. Yes it seems a little late but I had numerous excuses including the following:

* I did not have enough money (I have spent the same amount of money on countless other things including stupid Christian self help books that I will be selling and giving away shortly)

* I was scared of the pain (Pain is relative if you really want something)

* I was a pastor and it would have distracted people from my sermons (please! there are numerous other things that would distract them (football, lunch, my nervous pacing, their own existential angst etc.)

I never bought into the whole thing of Christians not having tattoos because it is based on some bad hermeneutics of an Old Testament verse (that’s fancy seminary talk for “people can’t read the Bible”). The passage in question is Leviticus 19:28 which states “You shall not ” ‘Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.” This is often read as a clear prohibition against the tattoos that people adorn themselves with today. But actually this is taken out of context. When it comes to understanding the Bible the one thing that is important is context! Say it with me: All meaning is context dependent!

The context of this passage is about idol worship and sorcery. This specific verse pertains to religious rituals for the dead where people would gash themselves and give their blood for the dead. The tattoo marks would be different images and symbols associated with a certain god.

This is a very different purpose than what tattoos are for today. In the vast majority of cases tattoos are for body decoration and not to worship any idols or for witchcraft rituals.

You can read more at Sacred Ink

Now back to my tattooing dilemma. I really want one. I want to do one of an Ethiopian cross something like this…

Ethiopian Meskel (Cross

Why? I love the artwork and design but it also has a lot of meaning in my life. I have been to Ethiopia eight times and the first time totally changed the trajectory of my life. It is also a symbol of my African and Christian heritage. On top of that it is a symbol of where my life is headed as I practice contemplative spirituality. Ethiopia is a land full of monasteries where monks have been living the contemplative life for centuries. So that’s why I want to get a tattoo of an Ethiopian cross. Sometime this year you will get the chronicle of my experience with pics and everything.

Now the big question is… Where should I get my tattoo? Have you ever wanted a tattoo? What did you want for a tattoo? What’s been holding you back?

My 1 Year Sabbatical Goals

Posted: November 19, 2011 in goals, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,
1

Do NothingYes I know Sabbatical and Goals don’t seem to go together. As paradoxical as that may sound there is a good reason for having goals for a sabbath. As obvious as it sounds, a year is a long time to just sit there. But there are other reasons as well.

  • You do not want to end up doing things that you should not be doing. I do not want to end up running around like a chicken with my head cut off and in the same tired and stressed place. I can avoid this by having boundaries and avoiding the activities that would disqualify this time as a sabbath
  • You want to end up doing the things that you want to be doing. I want to take time during this year to follow my heart and let me passions emerge to the surface after being buried for so many years. Already my passion for music and art has come back with a vengeance.
  • Sabbath does not=inertia. From ancient times to now the Sabbath had a purpose. The weekly sabbath was a day to honor God and rest from work. Yes even resting from work is a goal.

So my boundaries for this sabbath are simple: no long term commitments to make money and no long term commitments to full time ministry. To put it simply I will not take on a second job, start a business, or work as a pastor of any kind. Really simple. If someone asks me to speak or preach or write something then that is fine but I do not want to enter into any role that has constant deadlines that are connected to my income.

My goals for this sabbath are as follows:

  • Participate in a workout program
  • Practice a contemplative spiritual discipline (breath prayer)
  • Hike a section of the Appalachian trail
  • Practice a spiritual discipline with my wife Yvette
  • Write in blog and work on my book in order to improve my writing and learn the craft.

So those are my “goals” for this year of sabbath. What goals would you have for a year long sabbath?

Start Here!

Posted: November 19, 2011 in about, focus, life hack, personal, sabbath, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,
0

Some things are pretty obvious. If u see a blog titled “Writer’s Block” you would probably guess it’s about writing or a writer trying to get over her writer’s block. If u see a blog entitled “Hip Hop News” you expect to see news about Hip Hop. And if u see a blog entitled “Mama’s Musings” you expect to hear about a mother’s thoughts on motherhood and life. Well my blog is named after me but it is about more than just me. It is about my journey. See for the past eight to ten years I have taken a hiatus. A hiatus from living authentically as me.

See I have been an impostor for a long time. Not the kind of impostor with sinister motives to topple down governments but pure motives. I was an impostor for others. An impostor who had sincere motives of serving others; of serving God. The past two years have been very revealing and have helped to shed that false mask. I have seen a church that I love become a church that I don’t love and eventually go from declining to death. All the while I have noticed that not only was it the church that I didn’t love but I also didn’t love the person I had become.

So now I am back from hiatus and undertaking a  journey into becoming a better person. It is the journey of a pastor who has preached about living an abundant life-a better quality of life-but has not fully experienced that. See I believe true authentic spirituality is supposed to encompass more than just religious observances but it is supposed to show you how to live 24/7. It is designed point the way to a better quality of life in all areas that you touch-work, relationships, recreation etc. So this blog will chronicle my journey in becoming a better person; a better me; as I seek a better quality of life.