God says "Be Still"

Here's what my pastor used as inspiration for his sermon today. I read the whole Psalm to Gigi and she listened with her chin in her hands, attentively. I hope she gets as much out of it as I did. I'll just give you the profound beginning and ending of the Psalm. I encourage you to read the whole thing for yourself. The part that gets me, (and Gigi seemed to like this section also), is God's command for us to "Be still, and know that I am God." She even asked me, does it really say "Be still?" I guess she was surprised to hear that one of God's directions to his children (all of us) is the same as as my direction to her, on occasion.

Psalm 46 (King James Version)

1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea ...

10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

11 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge, Selah.

Fourth of July: What's it to Us?

"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn." And he asked them, "Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?"
-- Frederick Douglass

On July 5, 1852 Frederick Douglass gave a now-famous speech titled, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" The Rochester Ladies Antislavery Society had invited Douglas to speak before nearly 600 people who paid an admission price to hear Douglass speak after a local minister warmed up the crowd by reading of the Declaration of Independence.

This biting bit of oratory is considerd one of the greatest speeches of the 19th century.

Below is an excerpt from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation�s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY....

Click here to read the speech in its entirety.

Click here to read a Time magazine article about the speech.

Monstrous Crime: Modern Day Slavery

“This has got to stop.”

If you’ve heard reports about the worldwide problem of modern day slavery, this is what you must have said to yourself. I know I did.

As the mother of a 7-year-old girl, I cannot fathom the idea of her being misused in the way that children and adults, all around the world, are.

When I heard a report on NPR recently about an author’s trek to Haiti to research the dilemma of modern day slavery, I wanted to scream about it.

When Benjamin Skinner, the author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery, was conducting research for his book a few years ago, he went to Haiti and discovered that he could buy a 9-year-old girl to use as a sexual and domestic slave for $50.


Skinner went to 12 countries to meet with slaves and traffickers and found that there are more slaves around the world today than at any time in history.
For Skinner, his trip to Haiti was especially eye-opening.

“I pulled up in a car and rolled down the window,” he told NPR. Someone said, ‘Do you want to get a person?”

How detached. How cruel. Can you believe it?

“The thing that struck me more than anything afterwards was how incredibly banal the transaction was,” he told NPR. “It was as if I was negotiating on the street for a used stereo.”

Skinner, who was raised in Wisconsin and northern Nigeria, learned about slavery as a child at Quaker meetings. His great-great grandfather and other family members were abolitionists.

After hearing this story and others about current day child and adult slaves around the world, I started thinking about abolitionism and how more people are needed to help end all forms of slavery.

Let’s join in the cause.

Go here to discover what you can do to help fight modern day slavery and to help victims of this atrocious practice.

Act now!

Statistics:

Ndioro Ndiaye, deputy director general for the International Organization of Migration, reports that an estimated 5.7 million children are laboring in debt bondage, about 1 million young girls are being detained and sexually exploited in prostitution and pornography rings, and 250,00 children are forced to fight as soldiers in about 30 worldwide conflicts.

Draw Closer

James 4:8 (New International Version)
Come near to God and God will come near to you ...

Me on a Saturday

Just plain silly.

Michael Jackson and Floetry: Butterflies

Michael Jackson's passing has inspired me, along with millions of others I'm sure, to do a mental tally of my favorites by the gloved one.

My top two are: "Butterflies" and "Remember the Time."

Then I remembered that Jackson didn't actually write "Butterflies" -- Marsha Ambrosius, one half of the former group Floetry, wrote the song.

Here's the story of how Jackson discovered the song and made it his own, according to Songfacts.com:

Marsha Ambrosius of the English Neo-Soul duo Floetry wrote this ballad when she was still at school. She and her Floetry colleague Natalie Stewart ... met Jackson through John McClain, DreamWorks's senior urban executive, who also manages Jackson. MJ heard this song and decided he wanted to record it.

Jackson invited the two Floetry girls to the studio and asked for their input on the recording of the song. Natalie Stewart of Floetry told Yahoo: "It was incredible because he asked, he continually, asked, 'Marsh, what's the next harmony? Girls, does this sound right? What do you think? Is this what you were looking for? He was so open."

Marsha Ambrosius told Yahoo that it took a few minutes for her to calm down. She recalled: "To begin with, I was kinda shook. Because you don't realize how you're going to feel until you're put in that kind of situation. I had the tears in my eyes and got kinda nervous. But as I got into it, I realized it was work, it was a job. I had to vocally conduct a legend."

Ambrosius told VH1 that Stewart had a dream that the two girls were in a limo with Michael. She continued, "He was singing a song and it was like, 'Oh, I like that song.' A year later, we're in the studio cutting 'Butterflies' with Michael Jackson."

A year after this appeared on Invincible, Floetry's original version was included as a bonus track on the English version of their debut album Floetic.

Michael Jackson has said that this is his favorite song on the album.

Ambrosius has gone solo and is currently signed to Dr. Dre's record label, Aftermath Entertainment.

Here's Ambrosius singing this gorgeous song:

Alicia: Beloved Child of God

I want to thank Shelton D. for inspiring me, several months ago, to write the text below by asking me:

What does it mean to be the beloved child of God?

-- Being the beloved child of God means that I go to God for advice and counsel (prayer, the Bible, pastoral counseling, etc.)

-- It means that I know and listen to what God thinks about me and I focus on how God sees me as opposed to how others see me (especially people who have misused me and been abusive).

-- It means that I don't have to be anxious or depressed.

-- It means that I respect my body and my spirit and not allow unclean things into my body or soul. It means that I'll take good care of myself.

-- It means that I respect other people and treat them with compassion and kindness as long as they mean me no harm. It means I have the right to defend and protect myself from harm.

-- Being the beloved child of God means that I deserve to be loved, nurtured, cherished, and adored like God wants me to be. God wants the best for me.

Gigi and the Grandparents

Gigi and her Grandmom and Granddad, Mary and Bobby

Gigi and MaDear (Grandmom Cynthia)

Gigi's Blast: She's Growing Up!

Gigi's Blast: She's Seven Years Old!

I can't believe Gigi actually walked on a tightrope during her 7-year birthday bash. She's braver than her mom!