We Believe

He lives today and so will we, forever, those of us who indeed believe. 

Easter . . . “the most important and oldest festival of the Christian Church, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ and held (in the Western Church) between March 21 and April 25, on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the northern spring equinox.”

The above is the definition of Easter found in the New Oxford American Dictionary accessed in my laptop.

Long ago, when the minister preaching to us, his congregation, noted we were Easter people I held an understanding attitude, but I was puzzled.

Yet, it was simple.  Because we believe Jesus died on the cross, was buried and arose, because of Jesus’ resurrection, we have faith;  we believe in Him and His teachings, we have hope; we believe in new life after death on this earth.  We are Easter People.

May you and yours enjoy another glorious Easter.

A Disappearing Word

How many times have we heard I heart, rather than I love?  “I heart you.”  "I heart this."  "I heart that."  Love, the verb has been pushed aside.

 I'm thinking I’ve joined the trend.  I find myself closing text messages typing a brisk – LY – or simply inserting a tiny heart shaped symbol.     Lately, there's no “I love you” from me, not even a sweet “Love you.”

Am I helping ‘love’ disappear?

As a kid, I was totally familiar with ‘love, the verb’ due to avidly reading fiction and non-fiction.  Love just wasn't part of 'homespeak'. I didn’t hear my parents say, “I love you”; not to each other; not to me nor my brothers and sisters.  Today, writing and reading those words, I’m surprisingly sad because I never longed to hear the sentiment.  Their actions communicated love.  After all, the eight of us, each one constantly had mother and daddy's loving attention. If you’ve read my award-winning memoir, Black Star Girl, you know I KNOW they dearly loved each other and their family.

I pray my own parenting conveyed and easily spoke “I love you” to my girl and boy as I raised them in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s.  My memory is that I did!

I know my four grandchildren hear the words and are assured of my love with every contact we are blessed to share. 

“Heart” is growing in popularity, a hip representative of ‘love’, that verb, which could disappear from our vocabulary

It shouldn’t happen.

 “I love you.”

Pass it on.

Mrs. Robinson Went To China

Of course I’m talking about President Obama’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Marian Robinson.  

It was just last week Mrs. Robinson returned from a one-week visit to China.

She had accompanied daughter, Michelle Obama, our First Lady, along with granddaughters Sasha and Malia (the President and Mrs. Obama's daughters) on their trip promoting education.  

Me on the Great Wall - February 2002

In 2002, I traveled to Beijing, Xi’an, and Guilin, China.  This month, it was a thrill to see media coverage of Mrs. Robinson visiting many of the sites I toured on my dream-of-a-lifetime trip.  Keeping up with them via news, TV, Internet, and Twitter I re-lived my amazing time in China. (Oh how I searched for a photo I could use of Mrs. Robinson on her trip.)

News columnists reported the family of our President was well received by the Chinese government and the general population.  I don’t know if it is a correct designation to call them emissaries, but I appreciated them as wonderful emissaries of the United States of America.

And, I say Marian Robinson is a grandmother whose presence, energy, and demeanor quietly influence not only young people in her family, but surely those in our nation, and children worldwide.  To this grandmother, she is a parenting role model worthy of tribute.  What a joy it has been to observe history in the making by an exemplary grandmother, a contemporary of mine, and, yes, of my African heritage.

On this last day of Woman’s History Month 2014, I applaud with great pride, our nations ‘First Grandmother’, Mrs. Marian Robinson, a living national treasure.

Loved-Listed-Loved Again

These days, HGTV nourishes hopes, dreams, needs, anxieties, and passions about home buying.

Forty years ago, this year, I bought my home. 

It had to be done.  While confidently attached to a career opportunity in St. Louis, Missouri my employer said “we want you in New York City”.   It was a good thing, a promotion to Corporate, a career dream achieved.

I had to relocate, find a home in another community, move far away from friends and family.

I was thrilled.  I was scared.

The challenge was mine.  Newly teenaged daughter and nearly teen son were counting on me.  They would leave the home they had known since they were babies.

 

 Several years before becoming their old neighborhood

Excerpt from "Black Star Girl"  . . . ‘In Richmond Heights, our modest brick ranch with white picket-fenced yard was put on the market – a For Sale sign on the front lawn. ‘  

‘I made several trips to New Jersey to look for a new house. Other locations had been considered, New York, any of the five boroughs, even Connecticut.  New Jersey won when I learned Route 80 west from New Jersey was essentially a direct shot to my family home on the Pennsylvania/Ohio state line.’ 

The property selected was, as I write in ”Black Star Girl”,  ‘a well-maintained two story older building’.  I was impressed with features, new for us.  There was a larger kitchen, fabulous garage and master bedroom with en suite bathroom.  I’ve now learned, through online data, the house was built in 1910.

My daughter reminds me of how she cried and cried seeing the picture of what would be their new home.  It was so different.  My answer was “it’s a nice house, you’ll love it”.   They did. 

The seller was a gracious woman.   Many years later I met her daughter.  A letter came asking to visit the home she had loved since childhood - if she and her husband were in the area.  That happened and we are friends, linked through ‘our’ house’, and Social Media.  I love that.  I love the house.

                       _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _

 My award winning memoir, "Black Star Girl" is available through major book sellers.  Also purchase online through both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  It is e-book available for most e-readers at a fabulous price..  Find Black History woven into an inspiring life story.  

"We Wuz Robbed"

Lee Daniels’ The Butler should have been swamped with award nominations.  The movie was a wonderfully told story.  It was informative and entertaining.  It was classy and emotional, yet boldly miserable depicting life experienced  

by America’s citizens in this nation from mid-twentieth century almost until the turn into this new century.

It seems every widely known critiquing group, such as Golden Globes, Critic’s Choice, Screen Actor’s Guild, the Oscar folk, and People’s Choice essentially ignored the outstanding merits of Mr. Daniels’ important movie.

This land of ours is so big, so diverse, and so mighty fruitful that community despair in any corner of its wide expanse might be only a snippet of news, easily pushed aside.  That, I’m certain, for many in America is how the Civil Rights Movement is known, not much more than a headline.   Lee Daniels’ The Butler brought the human condition of that time to those who only knew, really knew, the outcome.  Opportunity for equality, denied for many generations in America, now exists.

Seeing layer upon layer of the Civil Rights story out there in a movie, in theatres everywhere was spiritually gratifying.  

Waiting to hear the movie applauded through the award nomination process then experiencing the practically total disregard for its excellence was shocking and heartbreaking.  I wanted to rant and rave about the injustice.  I couldn’t.

The passage of time finds me emotionally stable, able to simply document for posterity, “We Wuz Robbed”.

                          _   _   _   _

So many actors warranted recognition.  But, it was a tearfully sad shock that Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey were not nominated for their outstanding depictions of the butler and his wife. Their work from early in the characters' lives into debilitated senior citizen years, through one emotional minefield after another, was superb. 

Also quite impressive were Mariah Carey, Vanessa Redgrave, John Cusack, Lenny Kravitz, Terrance Howard, Jane Fonda, and Jim Gleason.

January 20th, 2014 - Remembering Him

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“He wasn’t elected to office,

Not appointed to serve.

The man stood up,

Spoke,

Planned,

Marched for freedom,

Our guide.

That man,

 A young man,

Was shot down,

And died.

What he did,

What he said,

Inspired

Peaceful protest

For human rights,

Then legally denied.

Minds closed – opened.

Paths narrow – widened,

Doors shut – opened.

America could be beautiful

For all."

                            -MLStith

We honor him with a Federal Holiday,

annually, the third Monday in January.

Tomorrow his work and his sacrifice, 

with gratitude, will have my attention.