LETTING GO OF 2014

A few weeks ago, I thought about this blog.  Earlier in the year I had promised myself that I would make it an annual thing.  But this past year was a bit rough and I found myself seriously wondering; ‘did I learn anything this year?’ There is always a lesson in life but sometimes we have to remember to stop and let it sink in…

This coming year, I anticipate some significant changes to take place not just in my life but also around my life.  I would be lying if I said that I was totally prepared.  In a way, it’s very scary knowing that things will change.  It’s scary not knowing how much more you can take.  But over the past few years I learned that the only real courage comes from facing our own fears.  That moment when you realize that things weren’t as scary as you imagined or that you weren’t as weak as you thought you would be, is priceless. 

I will also be taking these valuable lessons from 2014 to 2015:

1.  There is always a lesson in life, but sometimes we have to remember to stop and let it sink in. (Yes, I just said that.)

Happy Holiday

Here's to wishing all those who celebrate in the Christmas holiday; a very happy and prosperous holiday!

Here's to those who do not celebrate in the Christmas holiday; may the warmth and cheer of the season fill you none the less!

Here's to those who hold sacred, the birth of The Christ; may his spirit be with you as he fills your lives!

May we all have the heart to love and the words to care, regardless of our belief.

May we remember to be our brother's keeper

and may we learn together that compassion has no season.

May we learn together, to give of ourselves while asking nothing in return

so that we may better understand selflessness.

May we learn to see the humor in all the silly things around us.

But more importantly, may we learn to laugh at ourselves.

And may we continue to defend those who cannot defend themselves.

If you move by faith, be blessed.

If you move by fate, good luck.

If you march to your own drum, be safe.

May your hearts overflow like your glasses as you celebrate!

May your home be stuffed like your turkey!

And may your memories be as sweet as your cookies!

Happy Holiday to all!

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Where Strength Lies

My life is such that I often wonder how some people would get by without me. When its broken, I fix it. When its empty, I fill it. I carry the weight and take the responsibility when things go wrong. I do so silently without asking anything in return because I've learned to accept that some people simply don't know how to do it on their own.

This is my love: I don't say, I do.

But sometimes the strong isn't always so strong and sometimes the brave isn't always so fearless. It angers me sometimes that if I were to die today or tomorrow, these people would weep over my grave. But I am here, now, today, in this moment, where my name is called mostly when I'm needed. And my biggest fear is that tomorrow, I may not care so much to stand in someone else's shadow. That's when they start to hate you...I've seen it many times.

No matter how much pride you have, always recognise who is on your side. People get so caught up in the sound of words that they weigh them carelessly. When we go to battle, we face forward. But when the smoke clears and your enemy is no longer before you; look behind you. So the next time you fight and loose, you'll understand better exactly what it is you've lost.

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Rebirth

Rebirth

Few things in human existence trump the majesty and prestige of birth.  New life is a wondrous gift that can not (or should not) be neither compared to, nor compromised with any other aspect of life. 

The birth of a child is like the pursuit of happiness: we know what to expect, we know how to prepare, but somehow the grandeur of what new life truly is never really fills us until we arrive at that very moment.  With happiness, we first choose to be happy.  We then pursue what makes us happy.  Then one day – although we were expecting it – the grandeur of happiness suddenly fills us up, and simultaneously, shakes us to our very core!  True happiness rejuvenates our existence.  And new life redefines the meaning of life.

Throughout our lives, we make decisions and pursue interests with the sole intent on growing the contentment that is inside of us.  When we do this, we often come to find that one of the most difficult things to do in such a fast pace world is to slow down and take a breath.  More so, when we are able to steal such a moment to ourselves and to breathe a slow and careful breath, it only serves to make us wonder; what really is the meaning of this life? 

Every man has a heart. Inside of every man’s heart is life.  And every life has many purposes.  We have a purpose in our careers; in our social status; in our social welfare and in the lives of the people who live around us.  Every choice we make is made for the reason of defining that purpose.  And each time we are able to distinguish our purpose; we breathe just a little bit easier, and wonder just a little bit less.  We fall into a place of contentment - a place that is not unlike the spectacle of birth or the acquisition of happiness.  We fall into a space that takes our breath away.

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***Essay from the series "The Meaning of Life" produced by The Public Blogger***

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MY PERFECT PERFECT

Signage for perfect

No one's perfect.  But why not try to be?

To be flawed in theory means that we possess characteristics that prevent perfection.  Perfection, theoretically, is to exist without flaw. And, again theoretically, we are all imperfect because we are
human.  Theoretically.  Realistically, however, we are imperfect because we do not strive for perfection.  We don't strive for it because, for the most part, we believe that no person should be or is capable of becoming perfect.

The fact that we are able to recognize our flaws shows that we are aware of our perfect selves. But defining perfection may be a more complicated problem.  Most of us live by some standard of morality - it may be religious, political, spiritual, scientific or some other cosmopolitan view.  Our personal convictions, more often than not, also often matches that of other individuals in our communities.  While community mindedness has it's usefulness in personal development, when it comes to making conscious decisions, it has the potential to become self destructive.  What I may view as perfect, others may beg to differ.  And with so many definitions of standards, morality and perfection to start with, whose ideologies can be trusted?  So in a sense, when we adopt the principal that 'no one is perfect,' what we are really doing, is refusing to give effort.

My perfect, is effort.

Conditioning the mind to believe that it is acceptable to be imperfect is the same as conditioning the mind to believe that perfection is unacceptable.

Why do we like to shy away from perfection? For the most part, fear, shame and the fear of being shamed.  Or in other words...we lack conviction.  Fear causes us to hide our core desires when we are certain that our communities will not accept them. Shame happens when we recognize that our actions were unacceptable - not by someone else's standard, but by our own standards. Generally, anything that is deemed unacceptable is shamed.  We are harsher judges of ourselves than we are of other people.  So the only thing that really keeps us from perfection, is ourselves.

Ironically; the first step in changing anything is changing the way we think about it and admittedly; it is rather daunting to think of changing the way we think of things that we hardly ever think of to start with.  Personally, I like to start with a question.

Question is: What does perfect really mean to you?

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

The mind is everything.

What we think, we become."

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FINDING BALANCE

"…a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices…" ~ Official definition of Aristotle's theory of virtue

[Musings]

We find that the purpose of desire is to find fulfilment.  

If greed is a vice, then how could pleasure be called a virtue?  

And the sacchariferous climax of fulfillment—however brief, however fleeting—can also be easily mistaken for happiness.  So what is virtue?

There is an absolute power, above that of human existence.  Whether it is a god or anything else; our existence pivots at this median.  

It is a point that we can neither reach nor change because its purpose is balance and therefore,   it must remain constant.  
For the need of pleasure and fulfilment, we cannot judge ourselves...
because we will not know how to find the balance between the virtue and the vice.

Why All the Noise, Ferguson MO?

Courtesy of thestar.com

For lack of a more dignified way to ask the question:

What exactly is the POINT in all this protesting over Michael Brown's death?

Twelve nights now and I haven't seen anyone step forward to organize and lead these protests - not to push a black agenda or any agenda at all.  The world is watching Ferguson Missouri right now and presumably the people are hoping to break down racial barriers in law enforcement.  Presumably they want to see more blacks on the police force and in public office.  

Our Featured Presentation: The Meaning of Life

I would like to say a sincere thank you to Mr. Kendall F. Person for the graciousness of his invite to participate in one of his always spell binding productions!  This marks the first blog collaboration that I'm involved with and I could not have been more content with any other artist!

I hope you all enjoy!

Our Featured Presentation: The Meaning of Life

prologue written by Kelly Lewis of Kelly’s Wandering Mind, Los Angeles, California
soundtrack  by VVS Stone & Bud Da Bishop, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
set design by Kelly Lewis & Kendall F. Person
visual artist  Rick Daddario Art, Hawaii, USA
Interlude written by Neavada Dames, Miss Opinionated: Letting Go of Gone, Bahamas

written, edited & produced by 
Kendall F. Person, thepublicblogger
Sacramento, California

LETTING GO OF SILENCE

Even with my closest friends and confidants, I do not like to lay my emotions on the line or wear my heart on my sleeve, so to speak. I have been hurt many times. Beaten, broken, let down and disregarded more times and in more ways than I care to recount in full.  But I still believe in love, I still believe in humanity and I still believe in the beauty that we rarely see around us. I believe in these things because despite all the ugly I've seen in my life I've also seen the beauty.  The people closest to me will tell you that I am a straightforward and rational person with little tolerance for frivolous things. This is how I protect my heart - my heart being the gentle pieces of me that break so easily - my defence mechanism is logic and reasoning.

Scream

I started blogging as a way of dealing with a very tough heartbreak that I've had. I needed to say things.  Not intimate details of my life - not anything particular at all.  Just things really.  Because there's something about silence.  There's something about the feeling you get when you say things and no one listens.  I often imagine that it would be the same as if you were floating in the middle of an ocean on a calm day; the surface placid as glass; the sun beaming down; the waters coolly caressing your tired body.  Then you scream so loud and so long that it begins to hurt.  And you see yourself screaming and you feel yourself screaming, but you can't hear yourself screaming.  And although you know that no one else is there to hear you, the thing that really hurts the most is that you can't hear yourself screaming.  And somehow ahead of the fear of being lost at sea for all eternity; there lives a fear that the silence will kill you.

My older brother passed away two years ago this summer.  The pain and loneliness of that loss was almost too much to bare.  There was hardly anyone to talk to about it - my family was hurting too, and it seemed every time I brought it up the conversations quickly turned into a back and forth about who missed him most - so that became frivolous.  My friends, for the most part, simply didn't know what to say.  And I quickly began to feel burdened by even the thought of sharing my pain; so I let it go.  The average person on the street always made pointless remarks..."It's gonna be ok."  "Worst things could happen."  "Dying is a part of living."

Did you know that the worst advice that you can give a person who has a problem, is anything cliche?  There is a trove of truth in cliches but still no sincerity.  I've grown to despise them these past two years.

I started wondering what the point of life is if I; a woman with few friends, two children and nothing much else in this life; could be so unworthy to God that He would take such a big part of me so easily. When others have so much to give; why would He take from me the little that I had? I tried to convince myself that God had a special plan. That He was preparing me for the greatest victory of my life. That He would never put more on me than I could bare.  I tell myself this constantly but I can't say honestly that I believe it.  I've had to fight so many battles and if no one else, my brother was the one who fought beside me.

I was depressed and my life started to fall apart. Other troubles started to appear - on top of the troubles that were there before my brother passed.  People started walking out.  The person that I was dating at the time told me plainly that my life was just too much for him to deal with.  I became even more depressed.

One day I was just sitting there, staring blindly into space without thinking of anything.  And I looked at my children and I imagined their life without me - because I sincerely wanted to die.  I wasn't happy with what I saw and it made me realize that these children were my purpose in life.  I looked at the darkness, the pain and the emptiness in my heart and I knew that that pain was nothing compared to what it would be if I were to lose one of them.  And I knew also that I would suffer this pain a thousand times before I let one of my babies suffer it once.  I realized then that what I feel for them and what I felt for my brother is love, unconditionally. It cannot die.

And from this knowing...my journey began...

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What inspired this post is a private message that I received in response to something I recently posted in social media.  Recently, I've been trying my best to be unshrouded because I believe that nakedness helps to rebuild a broken heart.  How so?...Because I no longer waste effort, energy and time stacking skeletons into my closet.  It's part of my journey in becoming a better person.  I was asked the question; 'what do you know about struggle.' That made me smile.  Funny thing is, everything that I write is written from a point of struggle.  Everything that I talk about; I've been through.  Writing is my way of facing down the demons that are ever present in my life.  I've made the choice to not allow the things that have hurt me in the past continue to hurt me now or in the future.  Secrets are powerful.  And so I lay my past bare so that it has no power over me.  I refrain from assuming the secrets of others.  I never read words and see only black and white.  Because I imagine that every mind and every heart is so simply complicated...just like mine.

I know what it feels like to be lost and confused.
I understand what the sister felt like who longed only to touch the hem of Christ's garment.  It is not an empowering feeling nor a glorious one.  It is a feeling of desperation.  It is an unholy and undesirable feeling.  The kind of feeling you get when you are no longer able to define your existence.  The kind of feeling you get when your only hope comes from believing that some how, there must be hope.
And I know what it feels like to have the need to say something - anything - to someone - anyone - who is willing to listen - not a pretend kind of listen, but a real and heartfelt listen.

But what I've come to learn is that I can't wait for someone to listen.
What I've come to learn is the wisdom in the words of Maya Angelou...

"Listen to yourself, and in that quietude, you might hear the voice of God."

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TRUTH IS

"The truth does not hurt, it simply sets us free."

Sitting here thinking of the many voices in my head - of all the things I want to say - and I realize that the best choice I have ever made in my life is to grow...

Truth is constant. It is the unchanging result of circumstance. It can be argued, altered or hidden but it will always remain the same. Regardless of what we add, it will be no more - regardless of what we remove, it will be no less. And whether we choose to accept it or deny it, it will always define us as it is.

I look at my life and find contentment that I am moving forward and truly learning moment by moment how to let go of the things that have held me down for so long. I remember several years ago a friend of mine had advised me that I need to find a way out of the rut that was my life at the time. I was insulted. As far as I was concerned back then, I couldn't help where I was. Life was simply a struggle for me. I never asked for hardship. Well, life is still a struggle. But I realize now that there is a difference in not wanting to fail and not allowing myself to fail.

Through my journey of introspection, one of the most valuable lessons that I have learned is that the value in truth is immeasurable. We do not always like the truth and we do not always believe the truth. But in truth there is to be found a glory that cannot be defined with comfort nor courtesy. There is no point in moving forward without truth.

Truth is, my life is more unsavory today than it was back when I received said advice but with one major difference: I understand the world more in truth than I had that day. I don't know how far the day is when I am able to say that I've let go of everything that hurts me. But today I can say, I'm truthfully ready to try.

I am free!

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MY WEIGHT IN GOLD

This morning, a feature at MSN.com is HOW TV SHOWS HIDE STAR PREGNANCIES. 

As I scroll through the article, I am humored not only by some of the gimmicks but also by the fact that with certain shows; like Sex In The City, Friends and Seinfeld; I’ve actually been a fan long enough to remember the times when the leading ladies were preggers. 

Kerry Washington "Scandal"

Sarah Jessica Parker "Sex in the City"

But alas, as it often does, my mind began to wonder toward past experiences and—of course—extraneous circumstance…

The women that were featured in this particular article are all well know and well liked and although in many instances their pregnancies did not fit their ‘character’, they were none the less embraced by their adoring fans.  But for the average professional woman, it rarely works that way.  In terms of our careers, pregnancies are often viewed as unsavory set backs—particularly the maternity leave period.  Our dependability and efficiency are automatically questioned.  And pregnancy, in allot of cases becomes a scapegoat for not performing at our optimum.  But if multimillion dollar studios can work around a pregnancy; for an employee whose performance is 100% about being visible; what separates these women from the average woman? 

THE SNAKE

Sitting under a tree, deep in thought on a quiet morning, I heard a rustling noise above me.  I’m accustomed to birds playing in the tree so I paid it no mind.  Much to my surprise, moments later, something falls out of the tree onto my back.  I hear it land onto the wooden bench with a ‘thud.’  I jumped up—startled—and turned around expecting to see an injured bird.  Much to my surprise, and horror, I found instead a snake!

Now, not to be misleading, there are no poisonous snake species currently known in The Bahamas.  The snake was a racer.  Racers eat lizards, frogs, mice, other insects or even smaller snake species.  They are commonly referred to locally as garden snakes, because it’s not uncommon to find them hiding among leafy, low laying plants; particularly during the spring and summer months.

None the less; I’ve never been fond of nor fascinated with snakes and I was sufficiently frightened.  Apparently, so was the usually docile, two foot critter; as he opened his toothless jaws to hiss his warnings at me!  I didn’t dare move.  After a moments’ long stare-down, he dropped to his belly and slithered away.  It took me another moment or two to compose myself.  And I had to move away from the grassy area in an attempt to gather my sanity.

STRAIGHT ON GAY PRIDE

With the cries for LGBT rights steadily on the rise, unsurprisingly, the newest movement in popular culture is “Straight Pride.”  As I ingest the arguments from both sides of the fence I can’t help but wonder:  In a so called modern and progressive world; why does any human have to fight to be considered equal to another?

Why exactly, are we up in arms about the rights and freedom of homosexuals?

Unless I’m mistaken, equal rights for the LGBT community do not mean that it’s no longer acceptable to be straight.  Just as black rights never meant that it was no longer acceptable to be white.  We live in a free world.  In order to maintain freedom, it is essential that every individual is held in equality against all others in accordance with the law.  The law is not a matter of personal convictions. 

I ASKED GOD...

I asked God for the strength to face the adversities in my life—He supplied me with more adversities because I am not yet as strong as I can be.

I asked God for the courage to face the challenges in my life—He supplied me with more challenges because I am not yet as brave as I can be.

I asked God to give me the faith to always believe that He alone can save me—He gave me the wisdom to know that there are times when I must save myself.

I asked God to teach me the value of every moment and every breath—He called away those whom I have loved.

I asked God for someone to talk to—He sent me no one, so that I may learn to speak with Him.

I asked God to carry me through my hard times—He reminded me of where I’ve come from then showed me again where I am now.

I cried to God to please lift my burdens—He did not.

And I remembered that God will never put more on me than I can bear.

And so I rejoice—even in sorrow—because I know now that where there is darkness, there can be light.   

Psalms 46:1

God is my refuge and my strength, a very present help in the time of trouble.

#TGFL

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DRUNK IN WHAT? (Mild language)

Perspective…as in: What you sippin on?

Perspective is a very serious thing.  In order to maintain balance in a healthy mind, we need to understand how to weigh perspective.

‘Popular culture’ is not really my stick.  Even still, in a recent forum I almost got tricked into defending (gasps) Beyonce.  Loll.  I’m not even a fan of hers…anymore.  But here was this guy, making the most uncalled for and unnecessarily derogatory comments to the point that I actually felt insulted as a woman and a mother to be in his virtual presence.  I have a hard time deciding whether or not people honestly believe that the media is the primary source of moral decay in our society.  Personally, I believe that humankind is the cause for the moral decay of society.  In my view, it doesn’t matter what band wagon you jump on…a band wagon is a band wagon.  And the fact that you have to wait for someone else to form an opinion (i.e. a band wagon) before you decide to have one is of no greater value than not having an opinion at all.  I believe that when a person stands up for something, at the very least, we should try to make sense of our conviction. 

Now, about Beyonce’s last album; yes, it was nasty as hell.  Yes, the messages she convey with her lyrics as well as in her videos, as a matter of principal, are inappropriate for a respectable lady, wife and mother to publicize.  Of course, that’s argumentative depending upon one’s personal perspective of respectability.  But at the end of the day, the woman is an entertainer…she’s out there trying to make some money.  It doesn't matter if she's wrong or right; sex sells.  The odd thing about consumerism is that you can’t force a person to buy something that they’re not willing to pay for.   Some people are slaves to popular culture while others are intent on being slaves to opposing popular culture.  There's no such truth as a lesser of two evils.