chastise-meant 2 heal

One day when I was about seven or eight years old, my sister and i were jumping on the couch in my father's house. I turned to my right and noticed that my sister was seated with a single tear streaming along her cheek as she held her mouth. On my next jump I spun and began to ask her what was wrong but my speech was met with the snap of two large fingers against my lips. Our dad was standing there silently and I was now seated beside my sister holding my mouth with a single tears streaming my cheek... and no longer needing her explanation. Needless to say that was not the first time i jumped on a couch it was however the last although i have jumped on a few beds but i was 19 in a hotel and there was a monkey swinging from the chandelier or maybe i was drunk...in Canada where its legal lol.

And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

Hebrews 12:5-8

on a more serious note a few days ago one of my teachers, Adisa Omar, chastised me for reasons i will not address here. i initially took to it with anger and responded to him accordingly then i carried it around on my face for the remainder of the evening straight into a friends birthday celebration where i had not fun at all and began to weigh down others with my heavy heart. it is here that i apologize publicly for my private retaliation at his rebuke. i was wrong for reasons that i also will not address here for neither of these (the rebuke or the response) are not important to the intent of this blog as is the realization that we someone who guides us, even if briefly, along this journey toward god-consciousness, regardless of their station in life, offers a sincere rebuke you must be mindful to humble yourself and hear with clarity before speaking because what you see may not be what is there and what is there may not be what you see.

spiritual growth is not a painless development nor does the pain of daily living no longer exist because you now know that God is the only reality. you will and must be disciplined on the occasions that you stumble your receipt of the discipline of course remains in your hands. i am striving to take the approach of humility though as you read that was not my first choice.

those who discipline you are likely to be the ones who love you most or at least enough to care how the finished product of you turns out.

what this moment has taught/reminded me is that i have an even greater response-ability to the world and to spokenword that i previously realized and i already thought i had an immense one.

so thank you Adisa Omar for caring enough to attempt the correction of a man as stubborn as i.

to my other teachers in the realm of spirit:

Evangelist Barbara Williams thank you for showing me the Christ in the female form as well as church beyond buildings

Rev. Vernon "Kitabu" Turner thank you for revealing the teachings of Buddha and the practice of Zen

Ms. Dorthy thank you for inviting me into your space of peace and reinforcing the feelings I had about God being greater than any one religion can express yet so personal that He/She/It resides closer to us than our own flesh

Francis Ellen Worrell thank you for teaching the meditation classes @ A.R.E. back in 2000-01
and teaching me that God operates beyond color of skin and that racism/bigotry is a choice and though it may be a fact of life it is not a truth of life

I have not seen and/or spoken to any of you in years but you are not forgotten as the many sources from which the well of who i am becoming springs. thank you all for being who you were where you were at the moments our lives intersected 13 of Nazareth as he is currently does not exist without you.