Beyond Words
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Archive for April, 2007
How To Measure A Man
“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”
– Samuel Johnson
Now that the genesis of what I believe is an opportunity for personal growth has begun, what’s the next step? Reading “Where Do We Go From Here?” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as found in the book, A Testament Of Hope, will provide some valuable insight. This treasure chest contains “The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.“ This must read is conveniently located in the sidebar section of my homepage for those of you who choose to add A Testament Of Hope to your library.
Copyright 2007 by Roderick O. Solomon. All Rights Reserved.
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7 comments April 24th, 2007
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K.I.S.S.
K.I.S.S. is an acronym for a familiar phrase that I’ve slightly modified since my soon-to-be 3-year old daughter believes that “stupid” is a bad word. Whenever she hears comedian Steve Harvey say it while driving to work in the morning, her response is,
“Daddy, that’s not nice.”
As a sign of respect to her, I have chosen to acknowledge her request by refraining from using the word stupid to avoid offending her. My altered version of K.I.S.S. is,
“Keepin’ It So Simple”
Reading the book, Simple Faith, by Charles R. Swindoll, reminded me about how easy it is to please God. Mr. Swindoll offered the following commentary about the “four questions this Old Testament prophet asked God in Micah 6:6-7.
“Micah’s words state exactly what many, to this day, wonder about pleasing God. Teachers and preachers have made it so sacrificial…so complicated…so extremely difficult. To them, God is virtually impossible to please. Therefore, religion has become a series of long, drawn-out, deeply painful acts designed to appease this peeved Deity in the sky who takes delight in watching us squirm.”
What God requires from each of us is not as complicated, nor demanding, as our spiritual and political leaders have managed to make it as evidenced by this prophet’s response to verses 6 & 7.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?”
–Micah 6:8 NASB
Thinking about the simplicity of each of these three tasks compelled me to ponder the possibility that pleasing God was never intended to be a series of unduly burdensome exercises comprised of legalistic, unrealistic rituals.
How difficult is is to:
1. Do justice?
2. Love kindness?
3. Walk humbly with God?
When time permits, compare Micah’s short list of simple tasks to the lengthy list of complicated tasks that one too many of us honestly believe we must accomplish on a daily basis to please God. What do you do on a daily basis to please God?
In closing, I hope many of you were encouraged to know that pleasing God is not complicated, demanding, nor difficult. No wonder Jesus Christ said,
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30 NIV
Copyright 2007 by Roderick O. Solomon. All Rights Reserved.
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2 comments April 22nd, 2007
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What Makes You Angry?
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
– Edmund Burke
Misogyny, the hatred of women, will also prevail when good men fail to “do something” tangible to protect the women that one too many racist, sexist men still hate to love. Don’t be afraid to challenge our blended, extended family members to do more than stand around simply complaining about what’s still wrong with the way we, as men, still treat women.
As critically thinking, God revering men, our initial response whenever any of us hears about any person spouting inflammatory, insensitive, incendiary rhetoric, is to get angry, outraged, and defend the honor and dignity of the offended, verbally vilified woman. Even Jesus Christ got angry or righteously indignant. John 2:14-17.
What happened this week that made you angry? Did the massacre that occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech anger you? Does police brutality make your blood boil? Do the casualties of the civil war in Iraq upset you? Does social injustice in any form anger you?
“Be Ye Angry And Sin Not,” by Mere Comments has proven itself to be quite helpful as I struggled to control my own thoughts and emotions during the last couple of weeks. Am I still angry enough to chew nails because I share the pain generations of great women that we, as men, have inexcusably brutalized and dehumanized? Not any more.
During such a season as this, “cooler heads must prevail” in order for the healing process to begin. Our emotionally energized generation’s subsequent behavior must be God honoring, consistent and non-violent instead of becoming antagonistic enough to provoke a potential ally to anger. To do so will test our faith in God and in each other.
I offer this insightful article, “When Good Men Do Nothing,” by Mr. Wayne Greeson as a source of encouragement to all the men who still choose to “do nothing” when our women need us to “take the hit” for them. That’s what it means to be the head of your household.
Standing up on God’s battlefield and courageously taking the hits will give our women more than enough reasons to respect us and love us. As always, the choice to get angry enough to ensure that evil does not prevail is yours alone to make.
In closing, it’s my prayer that God’s love will inspire our generation to “do something” constructive to ensure that all women will feel safe and secure while so many of us are still so “passionately stirred up.” Whatever makes you righteously indignant, try not to let the sun go down on your anger tonight.
© Copyright 2007 by Roderick O. Solomon. All Rights Reserved.
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6 comments April 20th, 2007
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To Win, You Must Begin
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
–George Elliot
The title of today’s post’s is borrowed from a poem I wrote back in 1992 after listening to the next generation of leaders who intrigued me with their profound insights. Little children have so much to say if only we, as grown folk, took more time to engage them. Children are fearless. They will try anything and do anything without ever thinking about failure. Unlike grown folk, these little leaders have no fear of failure.
In the beginning, children are quick to say, “Help me” or “Show me.” They readily admit when they don’t know how to do something. My pearl of a girl, who’ll be 3 years old in May, is extremely independent. She gets upset when I attempt to assist her with many of the tasks I enjoyed doing when she was totally dependent on me.
As my daughter grew older and wiser, she began telling me, “No daddy. I can do this all by myself.” Matters not how long it takes or how many times she tries but falls short, she persisted. She was relentless. Days would pass. Weeks would pass. Nevertheless, she succeeded more times than she failed. I watched what she did after each failure. She reminded me that just because we failed before doesn’t mean that we’ll fail the same way again.
Now that she can dress herself, she’s moved on to bigger, more complex challenges. She loves helping me get dressed in the mornings. I love watching her face light while she’s helping me with my belt, bringing me my shoes, pushing the buttons on the blender, locking and unlocking doors, turning on and off the lights.
My gift from God reminds me of the little engine that could. She believes she can. She’s the perfect illustration of what I imagined while writing “To Win, You Must Begin.” We, as writers, pen poems for a plethora of reasons. I recall writing this particular poem to encourage and inspire myself to pick up the pieces after Adversity paid me an unexpected visit. It’s amazing how differently we view ourselves and our abilities after a great fall.
We stop believing in ourselves. We start second guessing ourselves. We doubt. We lose faith in our abilities to do what we did without thinking before the fall. We lose trust in our ability to make wise choices. The glide in our stride becomes a “stutter step.” How many of you know what I’m talking about? Have any of you been there and done that before? Are any of you there now?
On January 1, 2007, this blog was birthed as an act of faith. I dubbed 2007 as the “Year Of Firsts.” As evidenced by the news, there have been many firsts. What have you done for the first time this year? Do you have a new attitude, new habits, new goals, new friends to replace the old ones? Do you have a project that you started but never finished because tough times introduced you to “Murphy’s Law?”
As an ex-perfectionist, half the battle for me was getting up and showing up. I didn’t have much time to plan, to prepare, to plot a predetermined path. I didn’t have all the answers, didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know what to expect. But I trusted God.
Had I kept leaning upon my own understanding and demanding to know all the answers, this blog would not exist. So, I stepped out of what gave me a false sense of security and walked away from the comfort zone of “what is known.” Have any of you been there and done that before? Are any of you there now?
Each day that I challenged myself to dig inside the cluttered place where we hide our secrets, God graciously unearthed the truth about what I had forgotten after falling flat on my face and bumping heads with Adversity, Failure, and Setback. God used my daughter to remind me that before I can achieve great things, I must honestly believe that I can do all things through Christ.
Everyday that God blesses me with another day, I thank my Creator for the new mercies that always come in the morning. Watching the rising sun shatter the darkness inspires me to do the same. Watching my daughter gives me the courage to “keep risin’ after every fall.” She’s my inspiration. She’s my champion. She believes in me. She loves me. She watches everything I do and listens to everything I say.
Since one’s actions speak louder than one’s words, what message am I, as the first man my persistent princess will ever love, sending to her? Am I teaching my diligent daughter to love, honor, and respect herself, to believe in herself, to have faith in God, to trust God? Am I teaching one of the leaders of the next generation that “to win, you must begin” by my actions?
Am I, as her father, showing my daughter that “impossible is nothing but a word to God,” by trying to achieve what pessimistic peers believe is an impossibility? Am I, as a mentor, practicing what I’m preaching while reaching out and teaching in the light what Adversity taught me in the dark? I hope so.
But I’ll never know the answers to the aforementioned questions if I never begin. We will never know what “might have been” if we keep procrastinating and waiting until it’s too late to win. So, who or what are you waiting for before you believe you can achieve great things? “To win, you must begin. If not now, when?”
“A winner is nothing more than a persistent person who was once a humbled beginner.”
© Copyright 2007 by Roderick O. Solomon. All Rights Reserved.
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2 comments April 19th, 2007
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Beyond Words
In honor of the great people who lost their lives, my wife, KWiz and I extend our hands in peace, send up our prayers for comfort to all who are in mourning, and offer our love and support to the blended, extended family members of Virginia Tech.
May the souls of the dearly departed rest peacefully in God’s presence. The world will miss you.
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Add comment April 18th, 2007
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Message To Men Making Misogynistic Music
“A good name is to be more desired than great wealth, Favor is better than silver and gold.”(emphasis added)
Proverbs 22:1 NASB
For the past few days, my heart has been grieving for all the beautiful women that are hurting because we, as men, refuse to “begin within so we won’t have to do without our women.” As evidenced by my previous posts, I honestly believe that
“a woman is a man’s most valuable resource.”
The women from Spelman College need to know that we, as men, heard their passionate cries for our help more than they need our excuses and justification for the “dehumanization of an entire generation” of great people. The question that’s still lingering in the hearts and minds of one too many of the women who participated, or watched, the Oprah Winfrey Show, “After Imus, Now What?,” that aired on ABC this past Monday and Tuesday is
DID YOU HEAR ME?
There’s no sweeter sound that the power of a wise woman’s words. When was the last time an entire generation of women felt safe and secure in the presence of our generation of men? Sad isn’t it. It’s our responsibility as men to fix what we all played a part in killing, stealing and destroying the women God commanded all men to love.
The word “destroy” means to “render utterly useless.” How can we as men defend an industry that continues to condone and justify the destruction of an entire generation of women who deserve nothing less than the best we have to give?
Can we honestly look our women in their tear stained faces and say with a straight face that we’re giving them our best, doing our best, loving them with the best that we, as men, have to give? If you believe we are, then you deceive yourself. I have to respectfully disagree with any person, male or female, who believes that we, as children of God “can’t dew no better.”
The denigrating, degradating, and demoralizing words that are coming out of our mouths are killing, stealing, and destroying the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of entire generations of great men, women, and children. Do you agree or disagree with me?
Please don’t get this message to men making misogynistic music a socially acceptable art form twisted. I’m not blaming, bashing, judging, condemning, or scapegoating you. Nevertheless, I am challenging us as men to face our biggest fears, to shed tears in the dark, to remember all the years men raped women for fun.
Come Sunday morning, praise God for the women who didn’t leave us, who didn’t kick us to the curb, who birthed us and our children, and stood by myopic men who failed to love, honor, respect, and protect their dignity, their honor, their womanhood.
Come Monday morning, let all the women we, as men, meet on the street how much we love them as we witness without words. Let our actions show our women that we can raise the level of our thinking. Let our action show our mothers, sisters, and wives that we can clean up the lyrics we choose to use to tell our stories. Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No.
“Impossible is nothing but a word to God.”
Let our actions, as men, show all women that we are ready and willing to spend more time listening to the pain in the voices of our “sheroes” than we spend trying in vain to defend men making misogynistic music. Let the women, who are still standing tall on the shoulders of our ancestors, know that we hear them and that they have no reason to fear us.
No good can come out of any neighborhood that would allow any man making misogynistic music to make money and profit at the expense of any woman. Since no person can correct what one isn’t willing to admit, it’s time to quit making excuses for why we, as men, made our women cry, sigh, and die a slow spiritual death. The women who live in fear need to know that we hear them loud and clear.
Racist, sexist, dehumanizing words have stripped our women of their self-respect and dignity and ripped gaping holes in the severely wounded souls of women for the last time. I’m sorry that myopic men making misogynistic music have grieved the hearts of women who believed in us when we didn’t have enough money to pay attention.
Surely, we, as creative men, can devise an innovative way to show our appreciation to every generation of great women who stood by our side until the day they died and cried for the last time.
Quick question. What would our great grandmothers and grandmothers say today if they could hear the words we’re defending and pretending are just artistic forms of expression? The choice to begin within so the next generation of men won’t have to do without our women is yours alone to make.
Enough Is Enough!!
In closing, I beseech each of the racist, sexist men making misogynistic music to choose the battles you fight and the paths you walk wisely before you lose a lot more than just your good name and money. I can’t begin to imagine a world without our women. Can you? I hope not.
© Copyright 2007 by Roderick O. Solomon. All Rights Reserved.
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