The Angel

The Angel in my room, the one that lights up, twinkles, and sends dancing patches of light around the walls every night has stopped.

I could take this as an ominous sign: The Angel has left, its light extinguished.

Then again, its absence of light can serve as an example of faith: We must believe even when our path is not lit. The Angel is clearly still there. Its lack of illumination only indicates that we must believe in what we can not see, have faith through the darkness.

Then there's the reality that I am just out of C batteries. As soon as I put the new ones in, it will light up again.

What's really real is that I can put C batteries on the grocery list, but that light will not go on until I actually put them in and flip the switch. It's on me.

Blessed week...

Love,
T

Conversations

This is no time to stay inside a comfort zone.

Time to take a long hard look at ourselves - because we are supposed to take the log out of our own eye before addressing the speck in our friend's.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Matthew 7:3-5

The truth is we can do better. 

Conversations that are long overdue are now taking place. Will we say something stupid? (Probably.) Will we give another person the opportunity to judge us? (YES!) Are we experts on a subject before we start to open our mouths? (Not usually.) Would we pounce on someone else's lack of expertise if they got something incorrect? (Just nod your head yes here and wonder when I'm going to shut up because I already made this point.) 

Alright. But we have to be committed enough to walk this path anyway. We have the ability to change our own minds. We have the ability to learn. We can reject our own habitual responses and grow into something new and better.

We are about to change the world.

We are going to be more kind toward each other. We are going to be more understanding. We are going to listen and learn. We are going to take that one extra step. We're going to unearth a new level of truth within. Someone will reach out a hand when we stumble and we'll do the same for another. We are going to be courageous together. We are going to build.

"Justice never comes when you only do what's comfortable and convenient. Change never comes, oppression never ends, equality never prevails. You have to be willing to raise the issues, to challenge the systems that don't educate people about the history honestly."

- Bryan Stevenson, Equal Justice Initiative

"We have been practicing silence about our history for a very long time. In this country we don't talk about slavery, we don't talk about lynching, we don't talk about segregation. We have a hard time talking about race and it has burdened us. We don't think it's odd that we don't talk about this history. We actually think it's odd when somebody tries to talk about it. We react to the effort of trying to talk about it as if THAT's the threat, not our continued silence."

- Bryan Stevenson, Equal Justice Initiative

Blessed week.

Love,
T

More to learn (There's ALWAYS more to learn):

Click here for The Equal Justice Initiative

Click here for NationalGeographic.com's article: 'It was a modern-day lynching': Violent deaths reflect a brutal American legacy

We need to talk about Injustice - Bryan Stevenson

Yes We Are

Yes we are going to talk about it. Because everyone should be talking about it. Because no one should be afraid to join the conversation. Because it is time and long overdue that everyone participate in the conversation.

Since becoming a mother, there have been times I have been plagued with the terror of worry over my son. I've vividly imagined various scenarios in which he is in peril. I have settled on the idea that this is a normal "mother" thing. When he was an infant, I would check his breathing as he slept. Mini movies of him stumbling into danger would play in my mind as I tried to baby proof the house. My heart has skipped a beat as I watched him fall off a chair and couldn't catch him fast enough. I can not fathom the kind of constant inherent danger that is a part of life for young people of color - or know the emotional strain, or tragic grief, of their mothers.

If any of the "privileged" are tired of hearing about it... Try not just hearing about it but also thinking about it, facing it, fearing because of it, waking up with it, going to bed with it, eating with it, sleeping with it, trying to work despite of it, and breathing it in - every waking moment of your life until you breathe no more because of it.

Show some compassion. Out loud. Right now.

Who do I think I Am? I Am privileged enough to speak my mind. I Am somebody's mother. I Am fortunate enough to know the Love of family - some by blood relation, some not - that includes a variety of skin tones. I Am someone who has felt the beauty and warmth of being welcomed into musical families of R&B, Soul, Hip Hop, Reggae and Funk musicians for all of my adult life and career. Friends, loved ones, mentors who have faced unimaginable hatred, prejudice and pain have treated me as a sister without EVER holding any malice toward me. Amazing opportunity and Blessings have come to me through African American people, companies, and organizations.  I Am - most importantly and qualifyingly - HUMAN.

His name is George.

I never met him, but he was my brother. He was your brother too.

Love come cover our hearts.

There is a call of duty - for all of us.

https://colorofchange.org

https://nationalactionnetwork.net

https://nul.org

https://www.naacp.org

https://www.splcenter.org

https://www.aclu.org

https://www.obama.org

https://thekingcenter.org

Love,
T

Fueled By Love

It's so easy to be motivated by things like anger, frustration, jealousy, etc. Sometimes we have to make a real conscious effort to increase our positive thoughts enough to be moved into action by them. What inspires us so much that we must DO something? 

Luckily, I have Zachary around and he wanted to make cookies - for the sheer joy of it. I think he wanted to be like Cookie Monster actually, but it was a joyful ride.

I wanted to plant some flowers.

Here's wishing us all a week of deliberate action, inspired by something good, fueled by Love.

Hope you all had a Blessed holiday weekend. I remembered this Memorial Day poem from 2014. It takes on a whole new layer of meaning this year...

"In Memoriam"

With teary eye I thank you, Boy

For giving me your life,

And who am I to take you from

Your mother, son and wife?

With heavy heart I thank you, Miss

Your courage hired for pittance.

If honor earned be heaven's price,

Be sure of your admittance!

To all we've lost, but Angels gained,

Who fly now free from chains,

Unburdened from this world of war,

Your light be not contained.

Our tribute then, could never be

The glory you deserve,

Our closest humble offering, 

In liberty preserved.

- Tanya Diona

Originally published in blog posted May 26, 2014

Love,

T

Gratitude and Hindsight

Cleaning off some bookshelves, I happened across a receipt. At first, it was hard to make sense out of what I was seeing. Why would I be in a hotel for several days, around the corner from my house? It was from Feb 16th.

Funny. I remember being beside myself at the time - at how crazy it was that both the furnace and hot water heater failed at the same time, filling the house with carbon monoxide; at how the garage doors stopped working after the fire people came; and at how I had a gig to get to that evening. The baby sitter had to wait at the neighbor's house because I had to take the dogs to the kennel after picking up Zachary from school. She had to come with me to the hotel where the show was and watch him there while I performed, then Uber home.

That seemed like the craziest sequence of events ever.

Little did I know.

How fortunate it was to have had both of those household repairs done then. How amazing is it that everything was falling into place ahead of time - a solid month ahead of all this.

If "today me" could go back in time and tell "then me" to be thankful for all those crazy happenings because they were such Blessings...

Gratitude. Oh for the strength of Faith to understand that all things happen for reasons unknown at the time, but always for the good.

Blessed week...

Love,
T

P.S.
On a totally unrelated subject, can anyone explain to me why my watermelon has a mustache??? Is this normal? #randomweirdthings #whatisnormal

It led me to this song:

xo

Where to Start

My morning run is often the only time I have to myself, to let my thoughts flow. I had just been thinking about how, despite all of the most recent changes in the world, we have the ability to continue being our unique selves when I noticed the pavement looking back up at me.

I stopped to take a picture. It's not often I jog by what looks like a giant pastel eyeball.

Returning to my thoughts, it occurred to me that while we may need to get creative about how we are able to express our individual talents and abilities, it's been positively heartwarming to see people doing what they do and being who they are. Whether it's being helpful by delivering food to those in need, making people laugh, mobilizing teams to raise money, organizing community services, doing yoga, dancing, teaching, cooking, nursing, writing, etc., people all over the world are finding ways to help each other (and the world itself) with a sense of purpose as never before.

We all go at our own pace. We might each, in our own time, stop and evaluate our path deciding how best to proceed. As we are forced to adapt we might temporarily be in what I call a blind spot - that place we find ourselves when we can't yet see our own future. Faith is necessary. Hope is necessary. Even when these are in short supply, we can keep going. Even when we can not see what is ahead, we can continue our journey with deliberate intention. We might take a new direction. When we don't know where to start, we can just start somewhere - anywhere.

As I put my phone away to continue my run, there was another sign...

I love when the pavement speaks! Who knows where our journey will lead? I ran along the chalk outline until the numbers faded away and finally disappeared completely, but by then I was running again so I just kept going.

Have a beautiful week.

Love,
T

Blue Skies

 

Sometimes it's really just that simple.

It's amazing how many things we may have taken for granted. Just carelessly running out for groceries was such a Blessing. Wouldn't it be great if we developed a profound sense of gratitude for the incredible Blessings we still enjoy? The sky is so blue and beautiful. 

 

xo

Love,

T