The Long Way Up

An exchange of thoughts and opinions. A shared laughter or a smile. An affirmation displayed through a listening ear or a pat on the back. These are some of the gestures that convey reception and relationship, which comprise the core need of a human being: to feel and be connected with another one and with one another. Whether between a parent and a child, a husband and a wife,  siblings and friends, or even with perfect strangers, people have an innate desire to form relationships where they can find acceptance, forge trust, feel safe, and foster happiness. Can I get a connection? The world has become not only a small place in the last few decades, but it has also become a busy one with too much to do with what little time its people have. As if a typical 9-to-5, five-day-a-week work weren't enough to keep us humans occupied, we had to go and add sports, hobbies, travel, and other pursuits into the mix. Because of this, making deep and meaningful connections with pe

Fathers have been endued by God with a powerful impact on the life of their children, whether they realize it, admit it, own up to it or not. This is especially true during the formative years of children (I would say from conception to ten) when most everything kids experience early on in life is presented to them by -- and filtered through the involvement of -- their fathers. When a father abdicates his parental role, the chances of a young person finding a wayward path in life is exponentially increased, since the main guiding force in their life becomes physically or emotionally absent. However, when fathers take up their paternal mantle of loving, mentoring, validating, and directing their sons and daughters, the chances of children finding their purpose in life, learning to spread their proverbial wings, and soaring high despite the adversities of life is dramatically amplified. Even with pronounced flaws and inherent human weaknesses, a man who musters enough courage and

I could be bitter But I want to be better I want to be still, abide Be left intact in Love's abode I could all your mistakes accent But you as mortal I accept I could begrudge your faulty quest But in my heart come be my guest I have in lowly tryst just waited Believing all my faith's not wasted I want to shout it in a whisper Because I need this woe to whimper I could exact in full revenge But I loathe hate as revenue I will in trust refuse the torment Because in comes a blessed torrent I will get by with smile and whistle Believing hostiles will somehow whittle I will protest in justice wordless But I in hope not be workless

When I'm staring at the blank space on my computer screen or on my smart phone, I am always enticed to fill it with words. The same thing happens when I'm looking at clean, unused leaf of a journal or diary. There's something so inviting about an empty page just waiting to be saturated with the physical exhibition of my contemplations: it's a call to creativity. Even the mere exercise of writing one sentence at a time, line by line, filling out the white expanse of a sheet of paper is an allurement to me. I find pleasure in being able to put together different letters of the alphabet into different kinds of words; and then put those words together into sentences expressing different things; and then string those sentences together in different ways to convey concepts and opinions that range from the simple to complex. Sometimes, the concept carries me away and I end up spilling my thoughts out freely and continuously. Some

I don't demand much from people, if I do at all. I'm typically easygoing and really not hard to please once you get to know me. Anger doesn't come as easily to me as offense does, but even then a subsequent response comes as a carefully thought out proceeding. I do not hastily respond when I am angry, as I prefer to weigh my words first before launching them from my mouth because once they're spoken, there's no taking them back. So when people come at me with repeated disrespect and condescension, I think it is but fitting that I put my foot down and speak my mind, especially when blatant disrespect is done repeatedly and in the presence of others. Never mind that I'm a pastor; that part can be disregarded, as far as I'm concerned. But if the other party can not, will not, or does not have the capacity to exercise good discretion, extend basic honoring to another human, and express respect to a fellow believer, I would most likely be provoked to g

The imagery of dark-skinned Africans bound hand and foot by iron chains, shepherded into big wooden ships by their pale-complexioned captors, taken to distant lands as merchandise sold to the highest bidders, put to hard labor against their will without any compensation, and suffering abuse and injustice from cruel task masters may be a long-forgotten visual aid of the atrocious nature of human slavery, but the essence of it has lost none of its potency. We may not all be bound by chains, but we are all bound by something, whether we admit it or not. We are all tied to at least one thing that we either refuse to let go of, or another that refuses to let go of us. We may live in a day and age where blatant enslavement seems to be a thing of the past, but we are in fact living in a world where slavery -- in its so many varied forms -- is still in full swing. Cha-ching! Some of us are bound hand and foot by the chains of financial and material pursuits. We gain the whole wo