As a child, when I heard the phrase “Once a man twice a child,” I visualized my parents shrinking. The causation was not clear, but the fear was real, heightened by the movie “The Incredible Shrinking Man.” It was 1957. Even at 13 years old, the movie would materialize in a dream, reinforcing the fear. As adults, we can sometimes take things for granted. Observing life from an adult perspective, but a developing mind lacks the experience to decipher innuendos.

Leaving home, developmentally, I was still a child, mentality-wise, putting myself in a man’s place, blessed with two essentials—the labor habits of my father and my mother’s love of reading. Besides Sunday School, it was my library card, which gave me access to “The Æsop for Children.” Now, Library of Congress Aesop Fables https://www.read.gov/aesop/001.html Short stories and quotes with a moral for teaching the hills and valleys of life.

But when I became a man, I had to put away childish things. 1 Corinthians 13:11: The transformation was Ecclesiastes Chapter 3.

I cannot stay quiet. It is the persistent perseverance in me. Demonstrating TENACITY is indeed a gift, as it embodies the unwavering determination to overcome challenges and achieve goals. Tenacity is crucial in various fields, such as sports, where athletes push through injuries and setbacks, and in education, where student persists despite difficulties. It is often described as a blend of determination, persistence, and resilience, which separates successful individuals from those who fail.

As a nation, cultivating TENACITY is similar to farming. It involves planning, setting clear goals, maintaining focus, and adapting strategies to the needs of the crop. In the end, the harvest of a nation will either be fruitful or futile; the fertilization is called unity in the spirit: “We the People,” The Preamble. One Nation. Under God.

Character building begins in infancy and continues throughout life. Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, for they are who you are. When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

To Lady Eleanor’s words, I will add, “Even a smaller mind denigrates people rather than build bridges.”

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, serving during her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s, four terms as President from 1933 to 1945. Through her travels, public engagement, and advocacy, she essentially redefined the role. Widowed in 1945, she served as a United States delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952, and took a leading role in designing the text and gaining international support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1948, she received a standing ovation from the assembly upon the adoption of the declaration. President Harry S. Truman later referred to her as the “First Lady of the World” in tribute to her human rights achievements.

I share in the quest for Unity and Understanding, the us, which is the U and the S, the United States, fact-checking what I share through my accumulated library for the love of life and the love of people.

Born 81 years ago today, raised through a garden of wisdom, reproducing and instilling proclivity in me, ever-evolving and non-transformative; even on my BD, endemic, like a craving for Baltimore crabs, and a day of fishing to share my thoughts, the conceptualization of the “WHY.” “Through the Bible”

Forever, endeavoring to create a metal roadmap is like treading water for a breath of life in an ocean of sharks, constantly engaging in conversations that foster more divisiveness than love.

Our children are watching, and we are at the “Y” on an unpaved road to salvation. Joshua 24:15  

The wisdom of the “WHY” from my mom and dad encouraged me to read. Years ago, I read about the decline and legacy of the  Amorites. The Amorites are described as descendants of Canaan and are often associated with the land that the Israelites sought to conquer. The decline of the Amorites was due to internal strife.

There is a phrase, “When there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do you no harm. ” African proverb, enunciating a cause, that wisdom should not only be proclaimed individually, but a quest of society or history will repeat itself.  

.The fundamental force of attraction between objects is the natural force of gravity, but when not conceptualized, demagoguery conjures a road to nowhere. Put that in tariffs and smoke it.

Our children are watching, but not on bended knees.

I love to write.

   I love to share.

      I endeavor to inspire.

Writing is like planting a garden, mixing subjects with herbs and verbs with predicates on a leaflet of life while avoiding the sowing of innuendos that hinder the germination of fruitful ideas.

             It is the INTENSE fertilization of the mine through reading that enables the Heart to pump passion into other souls by cultivating the soil of our inner being.

           Planting words with tears of joy, words that mimic love, coming from the sagacity of our faith, which proliferates the Mind.    

           Ultimately, pollinating our instincts to produce “Food for Thought,” which metabolizes into vitamins for the body.

The Mind is control central.

           The Heart, the pumping station,

                and the Soul, the storage bin.

                                                  As the body was created in HIS image.

Therefore, the vitamin supports the immune system, cell and bone growth, and metabolism and synthesis.

                In the proper context, your words become vitamins

                                                                    The epitome of your garden.

The embodiment of one’s pneuma.

Under the auspices of one man’s opinion, the alignment of souls is surmountable at the beginning of any conversation, becoming genial with having preordained respect for a fellow human being’s taste/opinion. It purposively curates an atmosphere of being a good listener, seasoned with the ingredient of respect. However, when respect is sought and not given in return, the diner becomes foul, causing the stew to be dumpy while it was cooked in the wrong temperament. Respect cannot happen when prejudgment is on the recipe, i.e., race, religion, sexual orientation, hearsay etc., etc. Thereby enunciating death ears through body language. Books have been my melting pot, history, the ingredients of many souls, past and present, including my book, “Guidance Against the Odds.”  It was not written against any taste of authority but about how I evolved under the tapestry of hate and divisiveness. A catalyst for conversation and a beacon of bacon for encouragement for others. “Black Boy” by Richard Wright, “Josiah Henson’s Autobiography” by Harriet Stowe, “Destiny” by Bishop T.D. Jakes, “The Seat of the Soul” by Gary Zukav, “Instinct” by Bishop T.D. Jake, “A Knock at Midnight” by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama, and “The African Americans Many Rivers to Cross” by  Henry Louis Gates, JR., to name a few, enlarged my coronary. But “The Measure of a Man,” A Spiritual Autobiography by Sydney Poitier, increased my red and white blood cell counts. He was 17 years my senior, but our lives took a similar course. Maturing under depravity, we both joined the military very young, maturing on a diet of rejection.

This post was channeled under “Friends” on FB but your sharing would be a sign of caring: as “The mind is a garden, and our thoughts are the seeds. We can plant flowers, or we can plant weeds” William Wordsworth. It has been written in five parts, in book form, and will be sowed separately. Characters, Setting, Plot, Conflict, and Resolution. By the grace of God, born a “Black Boy,” this was “Destiny,” and with divisiveness watering the fields, an “Instinct” sprouted from “The Seat of the Soul.” But the question remains, “Where Do We Go from Here? “It was a Call to Conscience.” Initiated seven years ago by a “Knock at Midnight,” accentuating “The Audacity of Hope” for “The African Americans Many Rivers to Cross.” A minuscule of book titles that have filled the cockles of my heart.

I call it a Mini scroll. Titled “Cordial Communications.” I was energized by a recent conversation with my soul about a rhetorical comment made by an individual from one of my several private groups. These groups share and promote unity through book reading and discuss the causes and effects of life’s inequities, which often lead to divisiveness. I am a conversationalist, not a gossiper, harvesting a “what he said, she said” mentality or a disparager of another. I write and share picture quotes, short stories, etc., on www.bookmystory.net, which became metastasized by my DNA, replicating a foundation for my obsession, the realization of climatic change, and the need to change the climate of hatred. Unfortunately, there are always those genetic poopers who run amuck. A question was asked in one of my groups. What is your identity? How do you like to be addressed? American, Black American, African American, etc., etc. With the response I made, I was personally trolled. Generally, my response would be to offer the devil a seat and walk away because Satan cannot stand to see you blessed. On this occasion, the fruit was in the pudding, and I decided to lower the ladder to add a pinch of sage, as my mother would say. Please feel free to copy and share, harvesting the saged-minded if your heart is free of pepper and aligns with your soul.

The Setting is soon to come.

I’ve always believed that we shouldn’t celebrate the season without faithfully understanding the reason.  I also know that a rainy day won’t last forever because; “A Change is Going to Come.”  In 1964, I saw the world outside the bubble in which I was born: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Fifty years later, in 2024, the ugly continues to exacerbate the bad while diminishing the good, leaving no peace or goodwill on earth. Sam Cook was shot and killed by Bertha Franklin. Tupac Shakur was shot and killed 32 years later, not to mention the thousands of non-public souls across the nation on the daily. This alone should generate a lesson of unity under the blessed and a reason for harmony through sharing from the seat of our souls. It’s a beautiful thing when people listen to share the spirit of others while delineating hate. We can progressively hear things into existence, thereby codifying the presence of others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEBlaMOmKV4

Humans are generally creatures of habit rather than logic and are defensive by nature, even when we are wrong. We perpetually destroy the moral fiber of our being as we try viciously to trump each other, “no pun intended.” 

            It has been scientifically proven that some human beings are not rational. In 1994, neurologist Antonio Damasio laid out a somatic marker hypothesis in his book Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. In it, he proposed that human beings are not rational but rather rationalizing over emotions. That is to say, first, we feel, and then we think from what is rooted in our belief system and mental framework.

            The ultimate faith of America will depend on the unity of an interim new generation of thinkers void of offensive tactics. Millennials and the “Z” generations are known as incredibly sophisticated, technology-wise, immune to most traditional marketing and sales pitches; many, but not all, not only grew up with it, but they’ve also seen and been exposed to the smash-and-grab mentality of the rich over the poor, since early childhood. The rich because of greed, the poor because of survival of the fittest, and the diminishing middle class torn in between. Tactics of fear and hatred with a pound of alternative facts, a phrase coined in 2017 and now AI, Artificial intelligence

            With DYN (Dynamic Data Exchange), social media is the CPU (Central Processing Unit) with the help of FPU (Field Processing Units) and LANs (Local Area Networks).  I love acronyms, the Military Phonic Alphabet, and the linguistics that brings clarity to communications. Being on the same page and listening left no enclave for alternative truths.

             Time is running out; outside forces are radicalizing our youth as we procrastinate to self-destruct in the name of self-initiated “internal fear.” A political philosopher named Edmund Burke once wrote, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is enough good men to do nothing.” No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning, as does the mindset of fear.

             Millennials and Gen-Zs have a voting population expected to rise above 75 million, which can be a game-changer. The combined arrogance of a younger creative mindset, united, selflessly giving positive input with the power to vote, can germinate a new inside-the-beltway mentality. Millennials make up over 25% of the US population and have at least 21% of direct buying power, a massive influence on older generations. 46% of millennials have 200 plus friends on Facebook. These statistics alone would be a show of strength if unified in the mindset of eliminating divisive politics and racism. An old saying is, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” especially if the mindset is donkey-driven. At age 80, by physical standards, I am old, but through experience, my mental capacity is beyond reproach because I work at keeping an open mind. I can’t make the mule drink, but I can lead by example.

             In these trying times, we must propagate our senses with knowledge rather than hate, with wisdom rather than hearsay. Void the mind of vile thoughts while empowering it with words of jubilance, exuding Love in the caliber of which becomes the ammunition from the chambers of our SOULS. Millennials, it’s your time. Gen “Z’s” it’s your future. Don’t allow money and divisive politics to dictate your and your children’s future. And to my older citizens, a reminder of Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, he said: “The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”  I say: If you are motivated, compare and contrast the speech of March 4, 1861, with the insurrection of January 6, 2021. One was external, the other internal. Then, willfully read “The Soul of America” by Jon Meacham and ask your soul where you stand on the future of America.