In The Image of God

This is where I begin to lose some, piss off some, and confuse others. If you’re still with me after this, congratulations, you rock. If not, I don’t know if your name is Felicia, but BYE.

I generally make it a point not to do religious editorials, simply because religion is the single most divisive facet of human existence. However, I will make an exception this time.

Since I am impatient and quite blunt, I will simply say this:

Quit asking God to save you from situations you are completely capable of handling. Quit begging God to deliver you from this or that. Quit begging God to drop some random thing in your lap that you can obtain yourself by simply doing the work. Now, do not get me twisted. I am not saying, in any way, what you can and cannot pray to God for. That is why I speak in generalities. What I am saying, unequivocally, is to stop treating and approaching God as if he is your fairy godmother. He’s not. He doesn’t work that way.

I see this stuff on social media all day, every day. You want to ask God to do something major in your life? Awesome, you do that shit. You want to ask God to give you strength to endure? Rock on, you badass you. However, each of us needs to realize (that is…if you believe this) that God gave us two arms, two hands, two legs, two feet, two eyes, and two ears. He also gave us a brain which just so happens to be the most powerful computing machine in the history of…EVER. God gave us the tools to get shit done. The way so many people approach God is like a grown man asking his father to tie his shoes.

Granted, there are some situations we have no control over. If you’ve actually cracked open the bible and you know the story of Paul sitting in jail singing and praying, that’s one of those situations. Dude was locked up tighter than the Coca Cola recipe. He was wrongly imprisoned and there was nothing he could do other than sing and pray, so that’s what he did. And God was like, “Man, they got my dude locked up on some dumb shit. Excuse me while I go fix this.” And he did, like the boss man that he is. Paul got up and walked right out of jail. What I’m talking about isn’t that. What I’m talking about is what we have all done.

I can’t say exactly how God will work, cuz…I’m not God. I can, however, say with certainty that a large portion of our issues simply require a little brainpower or elbow grease. Or both. We expect God to do everything for us. I read a long time ago, “Stop asking God to give you a lighter burden. Ask him to give you a stronger back.” That has stuck with me for many reasons, namely because if we don’t get stronger in both life and faith, then we fail at everything we do because we didn’t learn the lesson. You don’t get better at your job by having less to do. You don’t do better in school by having less challenging work. You don’t become physically stronger by not doing anything. The same goes for faith. You don’t become closer to God by not having any adversity in your life.

God allows adversity in our lives for two reasons: to learn how to trust him, and to learn what we are capable of when use the tools he has given us. But too many times, we don’t use the tools and we expect him to take care of our problems. I am not saying not to trust or consult God. I am saying to trust that he has endowed you with the tools you need to overcome your adversity, whatever it may be. We can overcome most things by applying some thought and action, but we get so scared that we forget how strong and capable we really are, and before we really give our best effort, we ask God to take it away or make it easier. Not cool dude, not cool.

Only you can determine what you take to God. And he did say that whenever we call, he’ll be there. But it’s rarely when/where/how we want. Sometimes that silence you perceive is actually God telling you to keep calm and apply yourself. God will always be there, but, like any good parent, he also wants to see us make a valid sustained effort. He’s got no problem stepping in or lending a guiding hand, but he’s not going to live your life for you.

God is not a pair of magic slippers that you can click together 3 times. He’s not a “bippity-boppity-boop” wand waving fat grandma figure that turns you into a princess (or prince). He is God, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the big boss man. Psalm 139:14 says “I will praise you, o Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” 2Timothy 1:7 says “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of love, power, and a sound mind.” Yeah, he said he’d always be there for us, but he also said that he created us in his image and that he made us to be pretty badass.

God is not your babysitter, so stop treating him like one. You are not some helpless infant, incapable of thinking for yourself or taking legitimate action, so stop acting like one. Pray to God to bring more financial stability in your life, but at the same time, work on getting that promotion. Work on getting that better job. Work on getting that job period. Take some classes to improve your value. Learn how to invest, smartly. Pray to God to help you lose weight. But while you're praying, walk a mile every day. Get a bicycle and ride around the neighborhood every evening. Learn about proper nutrition. Trade the fast food for whole grains and vegetables. Pray to God to bring the right person into your life. But at the same time, quit looking in the bar or the club. Quit jumping into every ill-prepared relationship you come across. Work on becoming the right kind of person for the right kind of person. In short, quit asking God to do things in your life you are too lazy and too unwilling to put in the work for.

God fearfully and wonderfully made you. Remember that. He gave you a spirit of power and a sound mind. Use that. Never think that you can’t go to God, but remember at the same time that he designed us to handle our shit.

Dear White People

Dear self-deprecating white people,

For the love of all that is pure and holy, please, cut that shit out. First off, I can do bad all by myself. So, when I break the law by willfully committing crimes and get arrested, thus becoming another “black man” statistic, I am to blame, not you. When I point a gun, or a facsimile of one, at a police officer and get shot, I am to blame, not you. When I skip school to hang out on the corner with my equally irresponsible friends, I am to blame, not you. When I have opportunities that my parents and grandparents could only dream of, and I fail to take advantage of those opportunities, thus becoming another statistic, I am to blame, not you. When I get stopped for a seemingly insignificant traffic infraction, and I am found with drugs and/or paraphernalia, thus getting arrested and becoming another statistic, I am to blame, not you. Ten percent of my life I have zero control over; what other people choose to say or do to me, the weather, the economy, traffic, etc. The other 90%, I, and I alone, am fully responsible for. Not you.

As I am typing this on a computer and as it is uploaded onto social media, it is safe for you to assume that I was not alive during slavery. Neither were you. It is safe to assume that on both our sides, none of our family within 3 generations lived during slavery. Therefore, I do not need you to feel guilty for the existence of the North American Slave Trade. I don’t need you to sit with your equally self-deprecating hippie friends and chain yourselves together, wearing t-shirts that say “Guilty.” That means absolutely nothing to me. It does absolutely nothing in my life but make me ask myself, “What is it with these white people?” If you choose to feel guilty for something you did not do, for something neither of us were alive to experience, that is your choice. But do not sit there and claim that it is on my behalf. Do not claim to do it for my sake. It has nothing to do with me. In fact, it only serves to speak toward your own bloated self-importance. It speaks to your own narcissism-to think that events that ended 150 years ago somehow center around you making apologies and declaring yourselves guilty, to think that your own self-perceived guilt is somehow a major factor in my life, who are you? I am more than capable of feeling guilty for my own flaws and misdeeds. I do not need to carry your self-aggrandizing and misplaced guilt as well. You were not there. I was not there. So what makes you think you owe me anything? What makes you think that your own importance, relative to the passage of time in relationship to those events, has any bearing on my life?

Our parents and grandparents lived during the social upheaval that was the Civil Rights Movement. We did not. Maybe your family was on one side and mine on the other. Maybe they were both on the same side. The point is that neither of us were there. You did not lynch me. You did not kidnap me. You did not burn crosses in my yard and terrorize my family. You did not refuse me service in your establishment. You did not call me “nigger.” Nor was I alive then to experience any of those things.

I can understand later generations apologizing for the actions of earlier generations. It happens often, however, not to the point that the apologetic parties begin to hate themselves or feel guilty for what they have not done. The apology is still sincere, however, it is an acknowledgement that what was done in the past was wrong, and an agreement to find better ways in the present and future.

What you fail to realize is that as a black man in America, I was raised by this society to be ashamed of my blackness. I was raised to be ashamed of big lips, a big nose, “nappy” hair, etc., all things I could not control. I was raised to believe that there were only two places for a black man to end up, jail or the cemetery. I was raised to believe that the primary purpose for a black man was to play basketball or football. Imagine the surprise on the actual bigoted racist white people when they found out I completely sucked at basketball and was not passionate about football. Imagine their surprise when they found out I was an avid reader. To this day, people are still surprised when they have heard my voice or read my writing and then actually meet me. As a black man, I am not supposed to be eloquent or well versed. Even further still, I am not supposed to have an intense fondness for rodeo, country/bluegrass/folk music, NASCAR, baseball, big trucks, country girls, and country living. But I do. I am who I am. The point of all that is not to give you further reasons to torture yourself. It is to tell you that I know what it is to feel ashamed of yourself, based not on any valid reasoning, but on the actions and prejudices of others. THAT is not something you want to take upon yourself-being ashamed of your identity and factors out of your control. At the end of the day, I am-as we all are-who I choose to be.

I cannot be held accountable for the deeds and words of my father, my grandfather, my great grandfather, etc. In the same vein, I cannot, and will not, hold you accountable for the deeds and words of your predecessors. That, in itself, is just as unfair as subjugating someone based on an ignorant prejudice.

We all have numerous things we could feel guilty for. However, we do not need to invent new kinds of guilt to add to our collection. You do not need to carry your white guilt like a cross of crucifixion. I do not need you to do it either. If you want to do something positive and invaluable, stop with the wholly unnecessary “white guilt,” stand up, look me in the eye, and let us address each other on the same footing. Let us put our hearts and intelligences together and find a way to ensure that our children never experience any of these things. Let us work side by side, as equals, to fix the problems of the past so that we may build a better future together. Let us finally release the past and relegate it to its proper place behind us, so that we may look forward together and share the same vision of the future. That’s what I need you to do.

Your constant apologies, well intentioned as they may be, do absolutely nothing for me, for my son, for our future, or for yours. Your self-flagellation produces no other results than drawing attention to yourself and keeping both of us from working together to create a future in which none of this is even necessary.

Just as we cannot be held accountable for what our descendants do generations from now, we cannot be held accountable for what our ancestors did. All we can do is hold ourselves and each other accountable for what we do today. If we do not let go of the past, we will have no room for the future. If we continue to stare into the past, we will never see the future. We cannot change what happened yesterday, nor can we dictate what will happen tomorrow. The one and only thing we can do is work together today.

Viral Victimization of Our Once Venerable Society

As a society, we have victimized ourselves to the point that we are no longer responsible for our words or actions. We have invented excuses for every criminal, immoral, and irresponsible action imaginable. We have placed the blame for every offensive action-not at the feet of the offender-but squarely in the hands of society itself. As a result, programs, hashtag campaigns, and awareness drives are implemented to combat these contrary and unproductive behaviors, all to no meaningful effect. 

The inherent purpose of taking action is to affect change or provide tangible support. However, the most we have accomplished is to have further victimized ourselves, on the low end, and self satisfyingly assuage ourselves from the guilt of not actually making any definitive headway. Words are tools that, when properly used, have the power to ignite the passionate fires of change. Yet, we build straw fortresses with our words, and then fail to comprehend why they fail to fulfill their half-assed intended purposes. People will fight, conquer, congregate, and build nations on the foundation of a single word. Yet, we construct edifices, worthy to be listed as wonders of the world, with our words, only to have them blown aside by the winds of reality and practical application. We shoot words, like bullets, from our keyboards onto social media, with the intention of striking down the vile enemies of social justice. Facebook and Twitter warriors stand tall on an internet battleground, only to be pounded down by the hammering blows of real life. We use words whose meanings we don’t truly know to speak about things we know nothing about in order to cause an effect that doesn’t come. 

No, instead of using words to bolster us in our fights for fairness and equality, and to clearly define the moral and social right we use them to justify our failures, not only to ourselves but to society. We have turned irresponsibility in to a “right.” We have turned criminal behavior into the fault of one race, perpetuated against another. We have turned decidedly immoral, inappropriate, and inadvisable behavior into a perfectly reasonable choice. To exemplify our hypocrisy, we selectively ardently defend and justify the resulting social consequences as the result of someone’s skin color, sex, and/or financial standing. 

A poor black man, even just a black man, is not to be held accountable for his criminal behavior simply because of his skin color, even though he willfully chose to engage in such activities. Despite his own personal choice to act in a criminal manner, he is inherently innocent on the basis of his blackness. Yet, a white man, even a poor white man, should bear the full burden of his actions because he chose to act as such and should know better. Any man who exhibits loud, inappropriate, and/or vulgar behavior is decried as an oppressive and misogynistic chauvinist based solely on his male genitalia, whereas a woman who exhibits the same behavior is lauded and praised for her strength of character. A criminal black man is simply a product of the system of the white man and therefore cannot be held accountable. A woman is oppressed in every aspect of her life because she doesn’t have a penis. An unruly child simply suffers from one of a hundred different disorders instead of needing to learn patience and self-control. 

The black community should automatically receive that which has not been earned, based solely on the basis of being black, while white people should perpetually suffer the guilt and indignity of having been born white and be burdened with guilt for actions they did not do. Everyone has the right to do and say as they please, as long as everyone else agrees with it. An offense is considered such, not because it truly caused harm, pain, or anguish, but simply because an individual did not like or agree with the offending word or action. Failure is not the effect of one not meeting the standard. Rather, failure is the fault of the entire body for not making it easier. After all, everyone gets a trophy, right? 

Difficulty and adversity no longer teach willpower, persistence, dedication, or independent thought. No, they are vile and contemptible enemies, and as such, have no place in our society. We no longer teach the merits of learning to overcome or to be self-sufficient. If we are not making it easier, then we are the reason for failure, regardless of any individual’s choice. The individual is no longer responsible for his choices. We have mandated that society assume responsibility for his every thought and action, failure and success. 

We cannot, and will not, strengthen and produce a prosperous and diverse society by absolving the individual of his responsibility to himself, his community, and his nation. In doing so, we effectively cripple the individual by presenting him with the tools of free will and choice, neglecting to teach him how to most effectively use those tools, and then wondering why he failed. Just as we cannot, and do not, punish an entire company for the failure of one employee, we cannot punish an entire race or nation for the failures of the individual. While the state and the community certainly have a responsibility to its citizens and residents, the individual does not just have rights, he also has responsibilities. Absolving the individual of his responsibility is the quickest and surest way to destroy the prosperity of the community and state. By removing responsibility from the individual and placing it in the hands of society, we effectively tear apart the foundation of a well-structured and prosperous society-a population comprised of individuals with fortitude and strength of character.