Hello World!!!

It’s hot to death in the A, ain’t it? A few weeks ago, I was contemplating buying a row boat to get around it was raining so much and now ya girl is two shades darker and sweating at the most inconvenient times…God must be like, “I make it rain, y’all complain…I make the sun shine, y’all grumblin’…it don’t stop!” Ha, ha, let me stop trippin’ and complainin’…Thank God it’s sunny!

Okay, so last week, I was checking my home page at Facebook and one of my friends posted a most fascinating article, Crazy Right-Wing Myths About Obama 2.0: The Post-Inaguration Edition of Odd Things Conservatives Believe About Obama. Teleprompters! Hitler Youth! Satan!written by the Salon staff. Excellent piece! Wish I had written it!  The article includes an assemblage of ludicrous myths and the data to dispel them. So here are some of the myths they included…

• Obama can’t function without a teleprompter, even uses it for answers at press conferences.
• Obama’s stimulus provided cash for a “levitating train” between Disneyland and Nevada brothels.
• Obama is a socialist.
• Obama has created his own version of the Hitler Youth. And MY PERSONAL FAVORITE…
• Barack Obama is the antichrist!

So during the election, I heard whisperings from people around me that Obama could be the antichrist…after all, he descended on the scene without much of a warning. Cornell West said Obama “rose like Phoenix” in a speech at Morehouse last year. And anyone who has attended church for more than a year has heard about the antichrist and how he will mysteriously appear on the world scene…But I did not know there was a whole movement dedicated to this whispering…According to the article, there are several Web sites devoted to this topic such as www.barackobamantichrist.blogspot.com, www.obamaantichrist.blogspot.com and www.beastobama.com.

On obamaantichrist.blogspot.com, there is a post about Obama distancing himself from the observance of the National Day of Prayer. The author states this is a reason why Obama could be the antichrist. But then, the author confesses about worrying at point if past President George W. Bush was the antichrist in the same article…That’s just weird…So on the one hand, this author thinks that Bush, the creater of the word “evildoer” could have been the antichrist and on the other hand, the most intelligent president we’ve had in quite some time is the antichrist…Sounds like an illness a few pills may help! The title of another post is “Obama and the Pagan Aspects of the White House Easter Egg Roll.”

According to the article, the antichrist is described as “lightning from heaven” in the Bible which translates to ”baraq o bama” in Hebrew…Biblical scholars is that true? And the president’s limo is nicknamed “the Beast.” And finally, on the day after the election, the winning lottery number in Illinois was 6 _ _…(Yes, I’m crazy superstitious…I have a hard time writing that number out for any reason…) So is that enough evidence for y’all? I’ve said this before, and I will say it again: Why the black man gotta be the antichrist? We’ve had slave masters, adulterers, racists and warmongers as presidents! Why does the black man have to be the antichrist?

In other news, another one of my Facebook friends posted another article, “What Single Women Can Learn From Michelle: Would Most Type A Professional Women Have Dated Dated Barack When He was a Broke, Big-Eared Organizer With a Funny Name?” byJenee Desmond-Harris on the root.com. You can see where the author is going from the title. As we have all heard at this point, although our president was a summer associate from Harvard when he met our future First Lady, he was not the typical guy. He had a weird name. He was a community organizer. In one interview, President Obama said his car was so raggedy, you could see the road underneath the car. He had big ears.

The author states that many black women would have overlooked him because he didn’t have swag at that point in his life…Do you agree? I’m not so sure about that…Yeah, he didn’t have swag but he was a black man at Harvard…I wouldn’t pass that up – raggedy car or not…But I can see where the author is going…many of us seem to overlook the regular guy who may be going places for the guy who seems to have already arrived…My girls and I have been discussing this issue for a while…One of my friends, who is known to date men with impressive credentials, said,”Where would one even meet a regular guy,” or something similar. Funny, huh? She said this statement after another friend recommended dating “regular guys.” What makes a man regular? That’s the question to ask I think…If regular means hard-working, decent, intelligent, attractive, Christian sans the snooty attitude, I’m ’bout it.

But here’s another question: What Can Single Men Learn From Barack? As one commenter noted, are many Ivy-league educated black men checkin’ for that quintessential girl from around the way…? Or is it that once they have achieved that height, all they can see is white…y’all know what I’m saying…it’s certainly the move for many black men in power…Our First Lady is now known for her guns and style of dress, but I wonder if the same men that are praising her right now would be trying to step to her if they saw her at the light on Memorial Drive…She is smart and capable, but she doesn’t have Eurocentric features…so what many black men may need to realize is that smart, capable, assertive, undeniably black women are the way to go…As we’ve come to know, Michelle LaVaughn is the woman!

So to the “around the way girls” myself included, I post this throwback LL Cool J jam:

Any thoughts?

Tripped me out at the beginning of this video when LL said he was looking for a “regular” girl, not Ivana but Tawanna…

Hello World!!!

At long last, my Bible study class has finished studying the book of Revelation. Months earlier, I blogged about my anxiety in reading the Bible’s final and likely most mysterious book. So what are my final thoughts…Revelation is not as scary and cryptic as I once thought…However, I’m not sure if it will ever be the first book that I choose to curl up in bed and read just before nodding off to sleep. But the final words of the book fill me with a strange sense of joy…First of all, death itself will be killed…

¹¹ And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

 ¹² And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works.

 ¹³ And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

 ¹⁴ And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire.

 ¹⁵ And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.  Revelation 20:11:15

And as a result, death will not be a part of reality as it is in Earth…

³ And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God:

 ⁴ and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the first things are passed away.

 ⁵ And he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he saith, Write: for these words are faithful and true.  Revelation 21:3-5

 It is only these words that give me comfort as I have heard about so many deaths recently…Now if you’ve been living on this Earth for any time at all and are old enough to pay attention, you hear about death every.single.day. There is just no getting around it…people cry and people die…One my favorite poems succinctly and eloquently illustrates this principle…

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. 

Robert Frost

And speaking of Eden, according to what I’ve heard, Adam’s original sin is what caused death to enter this world at all. I cannot pretend to understand all of this…so I will let the theologians debate about that…but I do know that death is part of Earth’s reality…but I have faith that death will not be allowed to enter Heaven…

But it is with a heavy heart that I tell you about some of the deaths that have happened recently that have got me asking, “Why God? Why God is there so much pain?”

Last summer, I was touched when I heard about the death of Rev. Timothy Wright’s wife and grandson as a result of  a car crash. The gospel singer, his wife and grandson were traveling home from a conference. It struck me because that very same week my father,  mother and nephew were also traveling home from a conference, but nothing happened to them at all. Since then, I’ve been praying for Wright and his family….I cannot imagine such a tragedy. I read on Friday that Rev. Wright has now died. From what I’ve read, he never fully recovered after suffering injuries in the crash. This man was known for singing God’s praises…why was he and his family allowed to die this way…

If you live in the Atlanta area, you’ve heard about the car crash that happened on Easter Sunday in which Delisia Carter and her whole family were killed…Carter was an inspirational speaker who had been abused by her father and first husband but was finally living the life of her dreams. She had recently married her second husband, and she gave birth to their first child in February. Delisia, her husband, her daughter from a previous marriage, their son and another child all died in that crash…What a senseless tragedy…

Merciless bullying led to 11-year-old Jaheem Herrera hanging himself. Apparently, the children at his school here in Atlanta teased him because they thought he was gay and a snitch. His 10-year-old sister discovered his body…Now I know that teasing is a part of childhood…but what makes children continue to tease someone after they realize they are clearly traumatizing a child…I don’t know who raises these type of children, but there must be something going on their home life to create these little monsters…I was mercilessly teased as a child, but even if I hadn’t been a victim, it would have never occurred to me  to treat others that way…just plain mean-spiritedness…

At any rate, why did God allow these deaths to happen…I certainly don’t know, and it saddens me…but I have to hold on to my faith that one day death will be no more, and the answers to my questions will be revealed…

Any thoughts?

P.S. Here is one of Rev. Timothy Wright’s  most popular songs, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” which he wrote about the victims of Hurricane Katrina…

Hello World!!!

On Saturday mornings, after I’ve completed my workout, I enjoy piddling around the house…picking up papers in my office, making myself something to eat, planning the rest of my day. As I’m multi-tasking, I often have one of my favorite shows, “Snapped,” playing in the background. Usually on Saturday morning, several reruns of the show air back to back on Oxygen. It’s my guilty pleasure you could say…From the country preacher’s wife who murdered her husband to the deaf lesbian that killed her ex-girlfriend’s friend, I find it all fascinating. Sometimes I am so mesmerized, I stop what I’m doing and plop my behind down on my living room floor to watch…

I guess part of my fascination is the show’s premise. According to the “Snapped” Web site, each year approximately16,000 murders take place around the country. Only 7 percent of the killers, however, are female.  According to what I have seen on the show, women kill for different reasons than men. Women kill their husbands who have abused them. Women kill their boyfriends, husbands or partners in the heat of a fight. (Shout out to Adrienne Emily Hickson, the promising law student! I found this one particularly disturbing as she could have been a friend of mine…but maybe not.) Women kill because they want out of a boring marriage and the insurance money. A woman may kill her ex-husband if the two are embroiled in a bitter custody battle. It seems that in each case, the woman knew her victim, and the murder had to do with some sort of romantic relationship. That is one of the reasons why the story of Melissa Huckaby, the California Sunday School teacher who was recently accused of killing her daughter’s friend, is sooo disturbing. This story caught my attention for two reasons: the fact that this woman is a Sunday School teacher and the granddaughter of a pastor in other words she is supposed to be a Christian and the gruesomeness of the crime.

Huckaby apparently kidnapped the eight-year-old girl, raped her, stuffed the body in her suitcase and threw it in a pond just miles away from their homes. The child lived a few doors away from Huckaby. What made that woman commit that terrible crime – particularly when it would be safe to assume this woman knew Jesus Christ?  My guess is that she is mentally ill and possibly under the influence of demonic forces….what do you think?

According to Scripture, demons can inhabit human bodies.

²⁴When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.  ²⁵And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.  ²⁶Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Luke 11:24-26

Demons can masquerade as various ailments according to Scripture.

¹⁴ When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. ¹⁵ “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. ¹⁶ I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”  ¹⁷ “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” ¹⁸ Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.  Matthew 17: 14-18

¹¹ and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. ¹² When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, ^[a] you are set free from your infirmity.” ¹³ Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.  Luke 13:11-13

I think demons often attempt to make Christians look like fools to the rest of the world. I think that is one of the reasons why so many relish joking about pastors and other Christian leaders who have fallen from grace. This story is no joking matter to me – a former Sunday School teacher. I’ve never been a regular classroom teacher, but I think I understand some of the joy and frustration that regular classroom teachers experience. When I first graduated from college, I began teaching Sunday School at my church for fifth and sixth graders. One of my first students was this young boy named Alex…Goodness gracious, this boy could talk. Any time I opened my mouth to say something, he was already talking – sometimes he made sense and sometimes he didn’t…He was in my class for a while, and I grew to love his incessant chattering…I haven’t seen Alex in a few years now, but his grandmother still attends my church…He recently said to me through her, “Tell Miss Jackie I said, ‘Hello’ and that I am graduating from high school.”  In fact, many of the children I taught are now in high school and college, and I have been blessed to get to know them and watch them grow up.

How could this woman kill a precious child especially when she has a daughter of her own? I’m inclined to believe the adversary and his agents had a hand in this horrific crime…

Any thoughts?

P.S. I don’t plan to post on this, but have y’all heard of Mel Gibson’s divorce from his wife of 28 years. She could get half of his billion. Wowee!!! I imagine that he made lot of money from Christians who saw, “The Passion Of  The Christ,” an excellent film that was co-written, co-produced and directed by Gibson. Any thoughts on that?

Hello World!!!

Can you believe it? It is almost the third month of 2009 already…It seems like it was just yesterday that I was in our nation’s capital celebrating the inauguration of our 44th president! To God be the Glory…

But y’all know that to every yin, there is a yang. So if there is God, there must be the adversary also known as the devil…I love thinking about God…well sometimes I don’t like thinking about God actually - particularly when it comes to something that I want to do when God has clearly told me that I shouldn’t do it…But I really never like thinking about the devil…just thinking about the adversary and his wiles make me scared actually although I know that God is infinitely more powerful than His adversary…but I’ve discovered that to not think about the devil is to give him more power because he exists…yes, he does…

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8

My father says that one of satan’s best tools is convince us that he is like the tooth fairy…that he is a figment of our imagination and doesn’t exist at all…that way he can wreak havoc in our lives and we don’t even know the source…if you don’t believe me, think back to when you have tried to do right…whether it be attending church on a regular basis, getting up every morning to have devotion, praying each day, having a testimony, etc…Didn’t it seem that there was some force that tried to prevent you from accomplishing your goal? I think that force is the adversary…

I’m an obsessive thinker…at any given moment, the same thought will be traveling through my mind over and over and over again…sometimes when I have experience this, it’s just me being me I think…but sometimes, when the thought is destructive and leads me into constant worrying and fear, I think that is a thought planted by the real evildoer (Thank God, we have ushered in change!!!)

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.    2 Timothy 1:17

This is a verse that I say to myself over and over again when an obsessive thought whirs in my mind…There are several verses in the Bible in which God tells us it is not His will that we worry and be in fear…Here is another verse that calms me down…

 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him,  and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

Because I know the Father, He is constantly leading me, and I can trust that He is leading although I have no idea where I am going…Here’s another way of looking at it…In my finite human wisdom, I can’t possibly know everything and everybody and whether this person or that person intends to hurt me or not…but God does…and IF you have given your life to Him, He has got your back….and your front and your sides and over and under you for that matter…surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…Praise Jesus!

My favorite apologist, C.S. Lewis, wrote a fictional account of a demon and his apprentice and the ways they tried to influence a newly converted Christian man to do wrong…think of the whole angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other shoulder scenario. I read “The Screwtape Letters” some years ago, and it is a brilliant depiction of what could be going in the spiritual dimension.

I don’t know much about the Minister Joyce Meyer, but I have been reading about her book, “Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind” on the Internet…I found an excerpt of the book in which the struggle of a married couple is described. The devil planted destructive thought patterns in each of their minds based on their individual backgrounds, personalities and fears, and their marriage was suffering as a result…Of course, that was the adversary’s goal…

In fact, I sometimes gage whether I am in the will of God by how much opposition I experience in a particular situation…A few years ago, I wrote an article about the book, “The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life,” by Bruce Wilkinson. I even met the man. Although it was a religious article, I wasn’t working at a religious publication. Anyway, my boss was…well to put it nicely – let’s just say we didn’t get along…While she was reading through the article, she yelled at me from her office, “When you pray the Prayer of Jabez, do you pray for a new boss?” She cackled after she finished her statement…I am saved, but a few choice words ran through my mind (let’s just say one word rhymed with witch)…And then she gave me a hard time about the number of sources I had in the article and other stuff…it was opposition for sure…but the article was published as God intended…

Anyway, I could say more, but I won’t…

Any thoughts?

P.S. One way to defeat the adversary is to praise God…Here is one of my fave praise songs!!! This a great song for when you’re “going through.”