There is Another Way of Looking at the World.

I'm just sick of all this mess. I'm sick of our preoccupation with how somebody chooses to diddle somebody else. I'm sick of an apparent or perceived lack of integrity among those we lift up as our spiritual leaders. I'm sick that people are making accusations about people of the cloth and there's nothing -- nothing about the way they live their lives, nothing about their ministries -- nothing about them that give me information on how to even have an opinion on the matter.

But the Course for today says that I need to begin to recognize that I can shift my perception of the world in both its outer and inner aspects. Any time something threatens to disturb me, I simply need to remember that “There is another way of looking at this.”

I don't know about the guilt or innocence of anyone, and as I said before, Jesus saw the best in me when everyone around me could only see the worst in me. Let's say for a moment that these men of the cloth are guilty as accused. My immediate response is one of revulsion, but I need to shift it to one of compassion. I need to remember that they are just Another Soldier Down. Let me make a vow not to let Another Soldier Down. So here's the video(and no, that is not me in the reflection or singing. Someone I don't know posted this YouTube video. I just love the song.) The lyrics are below the video:



Here are the lyrics:
It was really good to see you on the redeye last night
I didn't want to bother you, so I waited til the time was right
Blew you a kiss hello and mouthed the words "I love you,"
But when you acted like you didn't know me, I thought my heart would break in two.

You were such a warrior as we fought side by side
Steady moving up the ranks, I bragged about you all the time.
Everybody's hero, but you gave up the fight.
Now what I see is Another Soldier Down.

Another soldier down needing us to pray,
Instead of talking up the situation and looking the other way,
Another soldier down, someone we can't afford to lose,
Let's take a vow not to let another soldier down.

I think about you every now and then
Then I take a little time to pray, I have faith you're going to win
Somebody prayed for me in my darkest hour.
I used to be ANOTHER SOLDIER DOWN.

Another soldier down needing us to pray,
Instead of talking up the situation and looking the other way,
Another soldier down, someone we can't afford to lose,
Let's take a vow not to let another soldier down.

When the journey is hard, its so easy to stray,
Cause the pull of the world can draw us -- we just gotta to pray,
But then if you fall, a good soldier gets up again,
And I'll be here for you, my brother, my friends.

Another soldier down needing us to pray,
Instead of talking up the situation and looking the other way,
Another soldier down, someone we can't afford to lose,
Let's take a vow not to let another soldier down.

Another soldier down needing us to pray,
Instead of talking up the situation and looking the other way,
Another soldier down, someone we can't afford to lose,
Let's take a vow not to let another soldier down.

Another soldier down needing us to pray,
Instead of talking up the situation and looking the other way,
Another soldier down, someone we can't afford to lose,
Let's take a vow not to let another soldier down.

There is another way of looking at the world. I walked into my current job and it was a mess. We needed a culture change. We're in the midst of a culture shift. I took my senior staff on a one-day retreat last weekend, and here are some pics from us "shifting."


There really IS another way of looking at the world...

Towards that end, here is a link to an article written by my friend Anthea Butler. Anthea was introduced to me by someone who thought she'd be a good role model. She helped me to see that, at the end of the day, I'm not interested in working full-time and attempting to do full-time coursework, and I'm not (yet) interested in entering into academia full-time. Anthea is a brilliant woman with a passion for the church, its history, its theology, and how we people of color live our lives and "do" church. I thought her article was interesting and worth a read. Please check it out!

Again, some of my more conservative brothers and sisters will not agree with her, but There REALLY IS another way of looking at the world. It's clear to me that we need to begin discussing these issues of sex and sexuality in the Black Church. Kudos to Anthea, to Kelly Douglas, and to the brother at General Theological Seminary (Horace L. Griffin) for starting the dialogue.

What opens up for me (and I apologize if Anthea said this; I don't mean to plagiarize her thoughts) what opens up for me is the way we in the black church (not all of us, but many of us) long for a relationship with God. We long for respectability and social acceptability. So it's like we pursue those things from the outside in, rather than from the inside out. And we put constraints on things that SEEM unholy, rather than striving for holiness from within. People of African descent in the US have always been seen as sexual objects, and I think that's why sex and sexuality are such hot topics for us -- we desperately want to NOT seem like Mandinka men and whorish women. We want to dispel all notions of sexuality, but ESPECIALLY aberrant sexuality. I could go on, but it's been a long day....

There really IS Another Way of Looking At the World....