By Eddie Griffin
Monday, January 10, 2011
There is no excuse for killing an innocent 9-year old child, even in a random act of violence, not even for distraught political purposes. Nothing can justify, nor rationale be given for the senseless shooting death of young Christina Taylor Green, an elementary school student, who had many dreams cut short.
The third grader wanted to be the first woman to play major league baseball. In fact, she was the only girl on the Canyon del Oro Little League baseball team. She played second base.
An All-American young girl, she loved animals, singing, dancing, and gymnastics. She was elected to the student council and begun to explore a career as a public servant “that involved helping those less fortunate than her”. She had dreams of attending Penn State.
Born on September 11, 2001, Christina was no ordinary child. She was once featured in a book called “Faces of Hope”, one of the select 50 babies born from each state, in the wake of the terroristic attack on the New York twin towers. She perished in a hail of gunfire that took the lives of five others in Tucson, Arizona, on Saturday, January 15, 2011. She died, an innocent child.
The Faces of Hope was a theme designed to renew the nation’s spirit, in light of the twin towers attack in New York City. It was a theme designed to show our national resolve and prove to the world that “life goes on” in America, even as 3000 souls perished at the hand of al Qaeda. New babies were being born, we said, to comfort us of our loss.
Christina Green typifies a little girl we all knew like Shirley Temple, a wide-eyed wonder child herself. A young girl searching for courage to enter politics some day in life, Christina went to see U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. She was among the throng struck by an assassin’s bullet.
Jared Lee Loughner ended all Christina’s hopes and dreams. Loughner, age 22, went to a Tucson supermarket parking lot, for the sole purpose of assassinating a U.S. Congresswoman, Democrat Gabrielle Giffords. Maybe Christina just got caught in the crossfire.
But then we must remember that we gave birth to Christina, as a Face of Hope. On the most tragic day in U.S. history, she was born. And, on an even more tragic day, her soul was taken away from this world, through a so-called random act of gun violence.
No one, but God, knows the mind of a deranged killer. And since the time that Cain killed Abel, there has been violence and murder in the world. Loughner once wrote: “No! I won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver. No, I won't trust in God.”
God Bless America! Have we come to this? Through gun rights advocacy and incendiary politics, and no godly restraint, American has created a mutated aberrant offspring, in its own image. Guns and politics created Loughner.
(See also “Unhealthy Rhetoric” by Eddie Griffin, FW Weekly, 03/31/10)
… someone out there in the vast reaches of America was feeding on all this hateful rhetoric, and found this an opportune time to strike. There may be others (quote by Eddie Griffin after the shootings in Wichita Falls, Texas, April 2010)
Monday, January 10, 2011
Monday, November 8, 2010
Dealing With Bullies in Sagging Pants:
An E for Effort and I for Idealism to Prof. James T. Branch
RE: The church must rise up to stem the violence
By Eddie Griffin
Monday, November 08, 2010
If we lived in an ideal world, ideal solutions would work perfectly, as Prof. James Branch advocates in his article “The church must rise up to stem the violence”. Considering the church was the first victim of violence, the course of peace has always been the charted path of the Christian. But everybody does not handle violence, or the threat of violence, in the same manner.
Mr. Branch is presumptuous to even suggest setting a pastor’s agenda over his flock. Intervention into youth culture may not be a part of their gospel. His desire for his daughters to grow up and marry “good men” is idealistic and personal. Being in the good-daughter raising business puts him also in the “good men” raising business. Good sons (sons-in-law) are groomed out of a flock of good sheep, and the father is the shepherd.
When men were men, they trained up good young men. If a man wants a good son-in-law, train him up during courtship, lest he get out of control later on.
Branch also writes: “… some adults are intimidated by or have given up on too many of our young boys. We must continue to help them understand that sagging, a fashion originating in the penal system is not needed on the outside.”
Here, I get the image of a young man with sagging pants, exposing his underwear, and clutching his crouch, as if he is proud of something. This overly rebellious image intimidates some people. They avoid the potential for hostility and keep their mouths closed. Bullying follows in the making, not far behind the rebellious trait.
NIP IT IN THE BUD
Whenever I approach a young man with sagging pants, he either voluntarily pulls them up or he gets a word of encouragement from me to pull ‘em up. If not, I have an alternative that has worked more than once.
In one example, there was a young man at an event wearing sagging pants, and one of the elder women asked me: “What’s with the sagging pants?”
I eased into a seat next to the young man and whispered: “Jack ‘em up, or I’ll drag them down to your knees. Don’t mess with me, boy! I’ll snatch the pants right from under you, grab me a hand full of nuts, and squeeze and pull till you holler mama. I’ll make a eunuch out of you, boy; or a paraplegic for life.”
Other people may feel intimidated, but sagging pants is a tactical disadvantage to a street gladiator. This is why I always give this warning to young men coming under my purview, wearing sagging pants, including my own nephews.
Bullies assume that nobody will snatch their pants down, snatch their feet from under them, and grab their testicles. Nevertheless, this is the tactical advantage that I would give to my children and grandchildren, if they must defend themselves against bullying.
Not that I am a violent man or advocate violence or blow-for-blow retaliation, but iron sharps iron. Good strong men build good strong young men, not by verbiages, but by trials of fire. I am a true believer in : Make him or break him, because “As the twig is bent, so the tree inclines”.
RE: The church must rise up to stem the violence
By Eddie Griffin
Monday, November 08, 2010
If we lived in an ideal world, ideal solutions would work perfectly, as Prof. James Branch advocates in his article “The church must rise up to stem the violence”. Considering the church was the first victim of violence, the course of peace has always been the charted path of the Christian. But everybody does not handle violence, or the threat of violence, in the same manner.
Mr. Branch is presumptuous to even suggest setting a pastor’s agenda over his flock. Intervention into youth culture may not be a part of their gospel. His desire for his daughters to grow up and marry “good men” is idealistic and personal. Being in the good-daughter raising business puts him also in the “good men” raising business. Good sons (sons-in-law) are groomed out of a flock of good sheep, and the father is the shepherd.
When men were men, they trained up good young men. If a man wants a good son-in-law, train him up during courtship, lest he get out of control later on.
Branch also writes: “… some adults are intimidated by or have given up on too many of our young boys. We must continue to help them understand that sagging, a fashion originating in the penal system is not needed on the outside.”
Here, I get the image of a young man with sagging pants, exposing his underwear, and clutching his crouch, as if he is proud of something. This overly rebellious image intimidates some people. They avoid the potential for hostility and keep their mouths closed. Bullying follows in the making, not far behind the rebellious trait.
NIP IT IN THE BUD
Whenever I approach a young man with sagging pants, he either voluntarily pulls them up or he gets a word of encouragement from me to pull ‘em up. If not, I have an alternative that has worked more than once.
In one example, there was a young man at an event wearing sagging pants, and one of the elder women asked me: “What’s with the sagging pants?”
I eased into a seat next to the young man and whispered: “Jack ‘em up, or I’ll drag them down to your knees. Don’t mess with me, boy! I’ll snatch the pants right from under you, grab me a hand full of nuts, and squeeze and pull till you holler mama. I’ll make a eunuch out of you, boy; or a paraplegic for life.”
Other people may feel intimidated, but sagging pants is a tactical disadvantage to a street gladiator. This is why I always give this warning to young men coming under my purview, wearing sagging pants, including my own nephews.
Bullies assume that nobody will snatch their pants down, snatch their feet from under them, and grab their testicles. Nevertheless, this is the tactical advantage that I would give to my children and grandchildren, if they must defend themselves against bullying.
Not that I am a violent man or advocate violence or blow-for-blow retaliation, but iron sharps iron. Good strong men build good strong young men, not by verbiages, but by trials of fire. I am a true believer in : Make him or break him, because “As the twig is bent, so the tree inclines”.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Lazy Tendencies: Oversleeping
Written for and Dedicated to Ex-Offender Re-Entry
By Eddie Griffin
Thursday, September 16, 2010
When a man is not prepared to meet the morning, he has a tendency to oversleep. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands together to take a nap, so shall a man’s poverty come upon him like an armed robbery.
Lazy people are generally poor. But poor people are not generally lazy. Most poor people do not have the luxury of rest and sweet dreams. They cannot afford to slumber, lest they sleep the sleep of death. But the slothful is always looking for a spot to rest, fold his hand, nod off into slumber land, and sleep the sweet sleep of ease. His wake-up is a surprise, as sudden and as shocking as an “armed robber”.
Speaking from experience, nobody likes to be roused out of their sleep by an armed robber or murderer.
One morning in my prison cell, I was paid a visit by Casper, the Unfriendly Ghost. They called him Casper, because he had killed 10 men in Atlanta Federal Prison. Nobody ever saw him. He left no evidence, other than the slit throat of his victims. Over a period of years, during the 1970s, the FBI never caught him. That is how he got the nickname Casper, the Unfriendly Ghost.
Doing time in a super-maximum security prison can be draining. There was always tension in the air and threats of violence all around. And every night, when I returned to my cell, I was totally fatigue and exhausted. My only reprieve was sleep, an escape for the mind, into a painless abyss. But even in the twilight world, there is the dragon.
Out of another world, I was called out of my sleep at the touch of a sharp object at my throat, and immediately I tumbled out of bed clutching the arm of a hand with eagle claws. It was the hand of a man who had sharpened his fingernails into hardened talons like that of an eagle or a falcon.
The dawn had not yet broken. It was chow time. All the cell doors were open. And, I had overslept. Now I was wrestling for my life against a man with a claw for a hand, a convicted murderer.
To make a long story short, we wrestled to an exhausted standoff. He warned me to never oversleep again. And, that was when he told me the story of Casper. He was the infamous killer of 10 inmates who all overslept, and was attacked early in the morning before men emerged from their cells for breakfast.
Strange that we would become friends and he would become one of my trainers. Every morning thereafter, before day, he appeared at my cell door, checking to see if I was awake and alert. From there, we would drink honey, run 10 miles around the track, barefooted on jagged rocks, lift weights, and punch the punching bag until our knuckles bled. And, after all this, he would come at me in fury, and say, “Stop me from killing you.”
He had a killer’s instinct and he thirst for it. And, there was little doubt in my mind that he would kill me, if I slacked off one bit, if I slumbered just a little, got too comfortable, or folded my arms to get some rest. He would kill me at the drop of a hat pin.
So, this is how I learned not to oversleep.
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall poverty come upon you like an armed man. (Proverbs 24:33)
By Eddie Griffin
Thursday, September 16, 2010
When a man is not prepared to meet the morning, he has a tendency to oversleep. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands together to take a nap, so shall a man’s poverty come upon him like an armed robbery.
Lazy people are generally poor. But poor people are not generally lazy. Most poor people do not have the luxury of rest and sweet dreams. They cannot afford to slumber, lest they sleep the sleep of death. But the slothful is always looking for a spot to rest, fold his hand, nod off into slumber land, and sleep the sweet sleep of ease. His wake-up is a surprise, as sudden and as shocking as an “armed robber”.
Speaking from experience, nobody likes to be roused out of their sleep by an armed robber or murderer.
One morning in my prison cell, I was paid a visit by Casper, the Unfriendly Ghost. They called him Casper, because he had killed 10 men in Atlanta Federal Prison. Nobody ever saw him. He left no evidence, other than the slit throat of his victims. Over a period of years, during the 1970s, the FBI never caught him. That is how he got the nickname Casper, the Unfriendly Ghost.
Doing time in a super-maximum security prison can be draining. There was always tension in the air and threats of violence all around. And every night, when I returned to my cell, I was totally fatigue and exhausted. My only reprieve was sleep, an escape for the mind, into a painless abyss. But even in the twilight world, there is the dragon.
Out of another world, I was called out of my sleep at the touch of a sharp object at my throat, and immediately I tumbled out of bed clutching the arm of a hand with eagle claws. It was the hand of a man who had sharpened his fingernails into hardened talons like that of an eagle or a falcon.
The dawn had not yet broken. It was chow time. All the cell doors were open. And, I had overslept. Now I was wrestling for my life against a man with a claw for a hand, a convicted murderer.
To make a long story short, we wrestled to an exhausted standoff. He warned me to never oversleep again. And, that was when he told me the story of Casper. He was the infamous killer of 10 inmates who all overslept, and was attacked early in the morning before men emerged from their cells for breakfast.
Strange that we would become friends and he would become one of my trainers. Every morning thereafter, before day, he appeared at my cell door, checking to see if I was awake and alert. From there, we would drink honey, run 10 miles around the track, barefooted on jagged rocks, lift weights, and punch the punching bag until our knuckles bled. And, after all this, he would come at me in fury, and say, “Stop me from killing you.”
He had a killer’s instinct and he thirst for it. And, there was little doubt in my mind that he would kill me, if I slacked off one bit, if I slumbered just a little, got too comfortable, or folded my arms to get some rest. He would kill me at the drop of a hat pin.
So, this is how I learned not to oversleep.
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall poverty come upon you like an armed man. (Proverbs 24:33)
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Man on a Chain Gang
By Eddie Griffin
That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang, sang Sam Cooke. The year was 1960. As listen to this oldie, and watch the video, there is a point in the song that hits close to home and I shed tears.
Can’t you hear them saying, “I’m going home. One of these days, I’m going home. See my woman whom I love so dear. But in the meanwhile I got to work right here.” That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang.
Chained together, by iron shackles, feet to feet, ankle to ankle, hip to hip, wrist to wrist, and yoked together at the neck. From the slave ships to the cotton fields of Texas, some never came home again.
I weep for them, because the spirit of their memories haunts me, day and night. I can still hear the cries of Brother Herman, a prisoner, set to be released within days, stabbed to death by his best friend and running buddy, who could not bear to see him go free. Jealousy is a brutal killer.
Give me water, I’m thirsty. My, my, my, my work is so hard.
Shoot me, Boss. I just can’t do this kind of work no more. Cursed was the ground before I was introduced to the aggie. And, cursed it will be when I return to the dust thereof. So, shoot me now, Boss, before I recover my senses and want to live.
I wasn’t cut out for the ole plantation fields of Texas, with prison guards on horseback riding shotgun over me. I never saw a cloud in the sky, nor a shade tree, and the water wagon only came at the turn-row. And, fields stretched miles and miles, forever, and there was no end in sight, except death.
How many times the thought entertained my mind?
“Griffin, you’re chopping the Captain’s corn,” the man on horseback shouted. “Don’t you know the difference between corn and Johnson grass?”
Really, to tell the truth, I couldn’t tell the difference, even unto the very day.
Somewhere out there is a cemetery for all the nameless inmates that never saw the light of day again. Nobody knows their number. Nobody cares to inquire. Neither the end, nor the means, concerns the public. Death is death, whether by execute or a thousand cuts.
Except for a little red bible, I would have been out there with them, among the dead and forgotten. My end was beyond pain. I had endured entombment in solitary cages, behind steel doors, in refrigerated strip cells, and padded psyche ward cells. And, at last, in the twelfth year of my captivity, I baste to death in the Texas 110-degree heat.
I was beyond pain. I begged for death. I pleaded for death. But first I needed to set things right between me and my Maker. I had to finish reading the little red bible. It was a friend to me, having survived, from solitary cell to solitary cell, throughout all my dilemmas and rebellions. After this, I would take my stand: Shoot me, Boss. Take me out of my misery.
From the beginning of my captivity, I never expected to survive a 50-year sentence. I was unreasonable to even hope. And, I didn’t want to build my hopes up too high.
Every man pays for his sins, and there is an exactor that comes due. With a total of 50-, 20-, and 10-year sentences, I felt the burden of my sins. If I were to survive, I would have to walk through hell on earth. Only about seven men have gone into the dungeon of the abyss, and survived to reemerge. I am one, favored and bless.
I guess Sam Cooke conveys the spirit of my feelings in his soulful rendition of Stand By Me. The song tells of how the Lord delivered Daniel out of the lion’s den. “Do me like you did Daniel,” the singer sings, “Stand by me, Lord.”
[To be continued]
That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang, sang Sam Cooke. The year was 1960. As listen to this oldie, and watch the video, there is a point in the song that hits close to home and I shed tears.
Can’t you hear them saying, “I’m going home. One of these days, I’m going home. See my woman whom I love so dear. But in the meanwhile I got to work right here.” That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang.
Chained together, by iron shackles, feet to feet, ankle to ankle, hip to hip, wrist to wrist, and yoked together at the neck. From the slave ships to the cotton fields of Texas, some never came home again.
I weep for them, because the spirit of their memories haunts me, day and night. I can still hear the cries of Brother Herman, a prisoner, set to be released within days, stabbed to death by his best friend and running buddy, who could not bear to see him go free. Jealousy is a brutal killer.
Give me water, I’m thirsty. My, my, my, my work is so hard.
Shoot me, Boss. I just can’t do this kind of work no more. Cursed was the ground before I was introduced to the aggie. And, cursed it will be when I return to the dust thereof. So, shoot me now, Boss, before I recover my senses and want to live.
I wasn’t cut out for the ole plantation fields of Texas, with prison guards on horseback riding shotgun over me. I never saw a cloud in the sky, nor a shade tree, and the water wagon only came at the turn-row. And, fields stretched miles and miles, forever, and there was no end in sight, except death.
How many times the thought entertained my mind?
“Griffin, you’re chopping the Captain’s corn,” the man on horseback shouted. “Don’t you know the difference between corn and Johnson grass?”
Really, to tell the truth, I couldn’t tell the difference, even unto the very day.
Somewhere out there is a cemetery for all the nameless inmates that never saw the light of day again. Nobody knows their number. Nobody cares to inquire. Neither the end, nor the means, concerns the public. Death is death, whether by execute or a thousand cuts.
Except for a little red bible, I would have been out there with them, among the dead and forgotten. My end was beyond pain. I had endured entombment in solitary cages, behind steel doors, in refrigerated strip cells, and padded psyche ward cells. And, at last, in the twelfth year of my captivity, I baste to death in the Texas 110-degree heat.
I was beyond pain. I begged for death. I pleaded for death. But first I needed to set things right between me and my Maker. I had to finish reading the little red bible. It was a friend to me, having survived, from solitary cell to solitary cell, throughout all my dilemmas and rebellions. After this, I would take my stand: Shoot me, Boss. Take me out of my misery.
From the beginning of my captivity, I never expected to survive a 50-year sentence. I was unreasonable to even hope. And, I didn’t want to build my hopes up too high.
Every man pays for his sins, and there is an exactor that comes due. With a total of 50-, 20-, and 10-year sentences, I felt the burden of my sins. If I were to survive, I would have to walk through hell on earth. Only about seven men have gone into the dungeon of the abyss, and survived to reemerge. I am one, favored and bless.
I guess Sam Cooke conveys the spirit of my feelings in his soulful rendition of Stand By Me. The song tells of how the Lord delivered Daniel out of the lion’s den. “Do me like you did Daniel,” the singer sings, “Stand by me, Lord.”
[To be continued]
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Dr. Schlessinger: Free Speech or Racist Psychology
Why must we learn the same lesson over and over again? I thought radio talk show hosts had learned from the Don Imus affair. There are some things radio personalities should not broadcast over the airways. People are sensitive in the area of bruised nerves, and racial sensitivities are on edge as it is.
Don Imus’ blurt about “nappy-headed whores” set off a flurry of outrage and allegations of racism across the nation, forcing him briefly off the air. Where was talk show host and psychologist Dr. Laura Schlessinger at the time? Didn’t she know that racial epithets were taboo over the airways? Nevertheless, her racial tirade in repeatedly using the N-word to a call-in listener was an unwanted and unwelcome attempted to force acceptance of a loathed word we have all since rejected.
As in the case of Don Imus, Dr. Schlessinger claimed impunity because she heard black hip-hop artists use the N-word on the airways all the time. And after being rebuked, she plans to end her radio program and become a martyr for free speech.
Schlessinger can have her free speech, but she must realize that speech brings with it a consequence. That is to say, can she accept the consequences provoked by her chosen words, seeing that nobody forced her to say what she said?
The U.S. Supreme Court also recognizes a person’s free speech right to yell “fire” in a crowded theatre. But the Court also holds that person responsible for whatever harm caused if someone is trampled in a stampede to the exit.
But the real question is this: Does Schlessinger have the right to free speech, considering the that she is a professional psychologist, and her on-the-air responses to callers actually constitutes psychological advice?
The caller in this case was an African-American woman, grappling with an interracial marriage problem. Dr. Schlessinger’s response was like the drill sergeant therapist on the GEICO television commercial who calls his patient a “Jack-wagon” and suggests that maybe he ought to chug on down to “Namby Pamby Land” where we can find some self-confidence.
The commercial commentator asks: Does a former drilling sergeant make a terrible therapist? Maybe the same should be asked of Dr. Schlessinger who suggests to her on-air patient that if she is so “hypersensitive about color and don’t have a sense of humor” then she should not marry out of her race.”
What’s love got to do it?
When the caller attempts to explain or clarify, but Schlessinger rudely cuts her off and chides the woman not to “NAACP” her. [I wonder what NAACP means as a verb. I wonder where “out of your race” is. What race, if not the human race?]
I do not have a problem with Schlessinger’s freedom of speech. I have a problem with the psychology that she studied in school. We have always contended that psychology, as a pseudo-science, was never created with African-Americans in mind.
Also, we contend that racial categories are artificial, and identification by skin color is more a psychosis than a fact.
If Schlessinger wants to be a martyr, it would not be for free speech, but for a faulty psychology for which we are all enslaved. If she wants to be Joan of Arc, then go ahead and light her butt up.
Don Imus’ blurt about “nappy-headed whores” set off a flurry of outrage and allegations of racism across the nation, forcing him briefly off the air. Where was talk show host and psychologist Dr. Laura Schlessinger at the time? Didn’t she know that racial epithets were taboo over the airways? Nevertheless, her racial tirade in repeatedly using the N-word to a call-in listener was an unwanted and unwelcome attempted to force acceptance of a loathed word we have all since rejected.
As in the case of Don Imus, Dr. Schlessinger claimed impunity because she heard black hip-hop artists use the N-word on the airways all the time. And after being rebuked, she plans to end her radio program and become a martyr for free speech.
Schlessinger can have her free speech, but she must realize that speech brings with it a consequence. That is to say, can she accept the consequences provoked by her chosen words, seeing that nobody forced her to say what she said?
The U.S. Supreme Court also recognizes a person’s free speech right to yell “fire” in a crowded theatre. But the Court also holds that person responsible for whatever harm caused if someone is trampled in a stampede to the exit.
But the real question is this: Does Schlessinger have the right to free speech, considering the that she is a professional psychologist, and her on-the-air responses to callers actually constitutes psychological advice?
The caller in this case was an African-American woman, grappling with an interracial marriage problem. Dr. Schlessinger’s response was like the drill sergeant therapist on the GEICO television commercial who calls his patient a “Jack-wagon” and suggests that maybe he ought to chug on down to “Namby Pamby Land” where we can find some self-confidence.
The commercial commentator asks: Does a former drilling sergeant make a terrible therapist? Maybe the same should be asked of Dr. Schlessinger who suggests to her on-air patient that if she is so “hypersensitive about color and don’t have a sense of humor” then she should not marry out of her race.”
What’s love got to do it?
When the caller attempts to explain or clarify, but Schlessinger rudely cuts her off and chides the woman not to “NAACP” her. [I wonder what NAACP means as a verb. I wonder where “out of your race” is. What race, if not the human race?]
I do not have a problem with Schlessinger’s freedom of speech. I have a problem with the psychology that she studied in school. We have always contended that psychology, as a pseudo-science, was never created with African-Americans in mind.
Also, we contend that racial categories are artificial, and identification by skin color is more a psychosis than a fact.
If Schlessinger wants to be a martyr, it would not be for free speech, but for a faulty psychology for which we are all enslaved. If she wants to be Joan of Arc, then go ahead and light her butt up.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Turning My 10-Year Old Grandson into a Man
By Eddie Griffin
Monday, August 16, 2010
As I sit on a park bench, hedged about, I am unperturbed by the bees and wasps that came to gather nectar among the bushes. I meditate, remembering Sunday with my 10-year old grandson. He has recently attempted suicide, on several occasions. It makes me pondered why a child is so miserable that he would attempt to take his own life at such a tender age.
Maybe I already know.
He, and his two sisters, were taken away from their mother by the courts and given to their father, my son, who already has three kids, two of which are stepsons, ages 7 and 9. The baby girl is one. Altogether, there are now eight of them living in a two-bedroom apartment, and it is hard to find larger accommodations on a single low-income budget. Grandpa’s fixed income covers some of the gaps, but not the whole.
I sense that there is something void in his life.
This Sunday, he just wanted to hang out with Grandpa all day. He wanted to get out of the crowded apartment. He wanted some individual attention, which was hard to do when he was the oldest among the six kids in the house. But hanging out with Grandpa was not all fun and games, as he would discover.
But where would I take a troubled child after church, on a hot Sunday afternoon in August? There is one place.
We first visited the Huguley Nursing Home, where he heard Grandpa delivered a sermon to a group of elderly seniors, who suffer various ailments of aging. They are usually heavily medicated and deeply depressed. And when I did not see Glenn, our resident centenarian, I was concerned, as always, whenever a regular church attendant in the nursing home suddenly disappears. But one by one, they trickled in, including Glenn, peddling his wheelchair with his feet.
My grandson had been here before, singing Christmas carols and passing out gifts. But this was a different mission. This was about a spiritual transformation.
As I preached, the audience faces came to light and a gleam returned to their eyes. But my grandson had dosed off and slumped over in his seat. All the more, I felt unworthy as a preacher, not being able to keep my own child awake. And, here I was an overworked teacher and mentor, stretched between the extremes of this generation, with a 10-year old on one hand and a 100-year old centenarian on the other.
Afterwards, we visited the Michael Jacobs Jr. National Memorial, named in honor of a mentally challenged young man who was tasered to death by a Fort Worth police officer. I was compelled to be here because here were some of the young men whom I had mentored over the years: men like SCLC President Kyev Tatum and Success Movement motivational speaker and author Junichi Lockett.
My hopes would be to someday entrust my male children and grandchildren into the hands of honorable men like these.
At the same time, we fellowshipped with members of the Nation of Islam, New Black Panther Party, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, LULAC, Rainbow P.U.S.H. Coalition, and other community groups who came together to form a coalition and fight to save the Michael Jacobs, Jr. Memorial. These, too, I could rest assured would have my grandson’s wellbeing at heart, for the simply fact that he was a young black man, imperiled by a cruel and dangerous society.
In the end, my grandson took pictures of the Memorial field with its erected 465 crosses, each representing a taser death victim. Then, it was time to go back to church for evening service. At last, he was tired, sleepy, and totally exhausted from the 100-degree heat.
It reminded me of the days I shared with my own grandfather, a preacher in the dusty backwoods of East Texas in the 1950s.
Back to the old man’s morning bench with the bees and the wasps swarming about, I feel like a beekeeper with the ability to summon the bees upon my fingers and hold them in my hand. It is a paradox that a man can be so at peace with nature and yet so at war with the world?
Monday, August 16, 2010
As I sit on a park bench, hedged about, I am unperturbed by the bees and wasps that came to gather nectar among the bushes. I meditate, remembering Sunday with my 10-year old grandson. He has recently attempted suicide, on several occasions. It makes me pondered why a child is so miserable that he would attempt to take his own life at such a tender age.
Maybe I already know.
He, and his two sisters, were taken away from their mother by the courts and given to their father, my son, who already has three kids, two of which are stepsons, ages 7 and 9. The baby girl is one. Altogether, there are now eight of them living in a two-bedroom apartment, and it is hard to find larger accommodations on a single low-income budget. Grandpa’s fixed income covers some of the gaps, but not the whole.
I sense that there is something void in his life.
This Sunday, he just wanted to hang out with Grandpa all day. He wanted to get out of the crowded apartment. He wanted some individual attention, which was hard to do when he was the oldest among the six kids in the house. But hanging out with Grandpa was not all fun and games, as he would discover.
But where would I take a troubled child after church, on a hot Sunday afternoon in August? There is one place.
We first visited the Huguley Nursing Home, where he heard Grandpa delivered a sermon to a group of elderly seniors, who suffer various ailments of aging. They are usually heavily medicated and deeply depressed. And when I did not see Glenn, our resident centenarian, I was concerned, as always, whenever a regular church attendant in the nursing home suddenly disappears. But one by one, they trickled in, including Glenn, peddling his wheelchair with his feet.
My grandson had been here before, singing Christmas carols and passing out gifts. But this was a different mission. This was about a spiritual transformation.
As I preached, the audience faces came to light and a gleam returned to their eyes. But my grandson had dosed off and slumped over in his seat. All the more, I felt unworthy as a preacher, not being able to keep my own child awake. And, here I was an overworked teacher and mentor, stretched between the extremes of this generation, with a 10-year old on one hand and a 100-year old centenarian on the other.
Afterwards, we visited the Michael Jacobs Jr. National Memorial, named in honor of a mentally challenged young man who was tasered to death by a Fort Worth police officer. I was compelled to be here because here were some of the young men whom I had mentored over the years: men like SCLC President Kyev Tatum and Success Movement motivational speaker and author Junichi Lockett.
My hopes would be to someday entrust my male children and grandchildren into the hands of honorable men like these.
At the same time, we fellowshipped with members of the Nation of Islam, New Black Panther Party, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, LULAC, Rainbow P.U.S.H. Coalition, and other community groups who came together to form a coalition and fight to save the Michael Jacobs, Jr. Memorial. These, too, I could rest assured would have my grandson’s wellbeing at heart, for the simply fact that he was a young black man, imperiled by a cruel and dangerous society.
In the end, my grandson took pictures of the Memorial field with its erected 465 crosses, each representing a taser death victim. Then, it was time to go back to church for evening service. At last, he was tired, sleepy, and totally exhausted from the 100-degree heat.
It reminded me of the days I shared with my own grandfather, a preacher in the dusty backwoods of East Texas in the 1950s.
Back to the old man’s morning bench with the bees and the wasps swarming about, I feel like a beekeeper with the ability to summon the bees upon my fingers and hold them in my hand. It is a paradox that a man can be so at peace with nature and yet so at war with the world?
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