Giving Up & Spiritual Death

When our spirit leaves and we “die,” it is sometimes referred to as giving up the ghost. Clearly we can die long before then as a result of giving up in numerous ways.

In Tyler Perry's movie, The Family That Preys, one of the many many themes is “giving up.” Very briefly: A parent giving up on a son. A person giving up the battle to disease. A mother giving up her life for her children and children's children. A man giving up on life after loss of job, family and identity. Persons giving up prejudices. Sister giving up on sister. A daughter giving up on home training. A wife giving up love she had. A wife giving up on love she never had. A husband giving up way too much trust. A husband giving up not enough trust. An employee giving up climbing up the wrong way. An employee giving up other people's business.

Physical death must come. Spiritual death does not. I wonder about spiritual death and spiritual leaving. What is the process? What goes on within the personality and character that allows the slow stifling and suffocation of our only faithful friend? What are some of the thoughts and feelings, the spirit has, when it decides to finally give up?

The Ghost Giving Up

I'm tired of offering, pleading
I need to scream
I'm from where truth came
So before mistakes and excuses
Become the aches death claims
Just-let-me-do-my-thing

After brief hugging, squeezing
You're back to trusting fear
Humming the same lovely lyrics
Making tighter those velvet nooses
Having no use for a faithful spirit
Today's the day I'm outta here

What we succeed at or succumb to individually, affects the momentum and magnificence of the world.

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Two Steps:
1. Scream at yourself then step towards your dreams.
2. Follow one thing you're not, that you have told your children.

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Two Questions:
1. What are we building life on? Job? Retirement? Someone Else?
2. What is the most important thing?

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fear, giving up, poetry, spiritual, trust

Valentines Love: Limitless, Spiritual, Virtual

Valentines Day. A day amongst all days to celebrate love is a fabulous thing; however, the hullabaloo of this day is usually centered around the type of love where both partners are still alive. That is shortsighted and insensitive. The following poem considers the strength and beauty of those who have physically lost a loved one. Virtual Love captures the essence of true love -a love not subject to the whims of those always looking for something new in their relationship instead of being the newness themselves. It describes a love that is flexible, adaptive, spontaneous and virtually anything the relationship requires that keeps it real.

There is only one valid Valentines Day type of love under any circumstance - a spiritual love that remains strong – a love that transcends dimensions – one that is made better and more beautiful by the aspects of love you feel, know and understand but don't touch. Though Valentines Day is heralded by romantics it is held together by the hearts of those who truly love and share that with their spiritual connection.

Virtual Love

Only death
will separate me from
your embrace
and then
only partially and briefly.

I will rise
in our new reality
and
search for you
there.

Just think my name
in the barest breeze
and feel my joy
tickling the tops
of trees.

If your second incarnation
is lightning
joining earth and ozone
then let mine be thunder
rolling over Blue Ridge Mountains.

Virtual Love, The Video
Virtual Love, The Connection

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true love, nature, poetry, spiritual, Valentines Day

Spirituality's Connection With Nature

I need to get out. My spirit needs country air filtering through trees to breathe. For the past year, I've had a hunger only nature can satisfy. There is a longing for groups of trees and native things. I remember being more aware of the mutual respect each time darkness and lightness exchange the baton of prominence. I remember dogs living outside and barking at night, something the neighborly dogs don't do 'round here. Mostly I remember there's something different that takes place when you step outside in the country. Something imperceptible happens when you greet the natural world with appreciation, look around and breathe deeply, reflexively. The earth breathes with you, the way a parent matches their breathing to the child resting on their chest.

Completing Moments, a poem about connecting with nature.

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Two Questions:
1.Are spirituality and nature connected?
2.Should we reconnect with the land?

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Barack Obama & The Common Man, Part 2

Read Part 1 of this series first

Sweet Dreams

Despite many soundbites indirectly and directly stating America has somehow changed significantly and fundamentally, not everyone is in dream mode:

Though it carries us further down the path toward equality, Barack Obama's election does not render my father's dream realized. Martin Luther King, III

...he [Dr. King] would not let the euphoria of the moment blind us to the unfinished business that lies ahead. Jesse Jackson

If you listen to the sweet sounding hype surrounding Barack Obama's actualization of becoming president, you might believe it was the belief in hope and the prospect of change that drove the dream home and forget it took nearly 800 million dollars and thousands of volunteers, millions of voters, uncommon thinking and a return to basic principles to make it happen. If you listen to the hype regarding what this accomplishment means in terms of America, you might forget power will still not concede anything without a struggle. Nothing has changed in that regard and never ever will.

Just as a relentless focus and resources by family, friends, tens, hundreds, thousands and millions powered Barack Obama from a community activist to a losing political bid to senator to president in eight (8) years, the struggle for the common man doesn't have to be long if the same effort is mobilized on his behalf despite the odds. Don't listen to the people/media/lost prophesiers who say it can't be done in four years, he needs at least 8 years. This is their way of lowering your expectations and getting you to wait. Look what only a portion of America did in less than two years supporting Barack Obama's candidacy for president. Why can't all of America do even more sooner for the common man throughout the human diaspora? We are a great nation aren't we or at least have the potential to be don't we?

Habits of Real Dreamers

The reason for celebrations and victories do not exist without reality and rigors of daily lives. You gotta get in the trenches and get funky. Dreams are always preceded by belief, incentive, discipline, hard work and sacrifice. It is highly likely most of the people who went to Washington didn't put in any work or didn't devote any resources to making the Obama dream a reality outside of voting. Nobody wants to plant the corn or bake the bread. All the people being interviewed should have been asked, “What did you do before the election to make this dream a reality and what are you going to do after the election to make sure change comes to America?” (That would be true journalism and real information, something the systemic problem in America knows is not in the best interests of self interests)

The essence of what it took to make this dream real has not gone unnoticed back in the original land of learning, Afrika.

..there are crucial lessons to be gleaned on the importance of active citizenship and of ordinary citizens taking full responsibility for the direction that their democracy takes. George Katito

Common Man's Responsibility

The common man must participate in every way possible in order to make possible ways where they wish to participate. It is not enough to be a part of or witness history by being at the inauguration or buying something with Obama on it. Every thing each one of us does in our individual lives becomes a part of history.

If you listen to the sweet sounding hype and are satisfied that you were somehow a part of a once in a lifetime event, you might be tempted to go back to sleep and dream some more. Rather than want for history, wait for historical moments or witness history, it is far better to be a testament to history, try to make history happen and understand how vitally important it is to take history in smaller increments as we do each breath. We must take our own breaths if we are to live and we must take our own steps in history as well. This is the dream of our fathers.

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Two Steps:
1.Vote in February 2009 local elections.
2.Spend your money in places where your faces aren't seen as disgraces.

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Two Questions:
1.What change has the Obama effect had within you?
2.What are things common folk can do today and every day?

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America, Barack Obama, common man, dreams, resources