Ah, but what of the important arrival? What are we expecting? We are in the worse economic crisis since the stock market crash of 1929. So many people without jobs. Mortgages foreclosures at an all time high. Sick people with no insurance. Gas prices fell for a bit but they are back up.  So what is it we are waiting for this advent season?

We have bigger houses yet we spend less time in them. We have more ways to communicate and yet, we communicate less.  We have more gadgets and gizmos to make life easier and yet, we are stressed more than ever. What is this important arrival for which we have spent the season preparing?

I guess we should look at the preparation.  Have we prayed without ceasing for an end to this economic situation? Or have we shopped with money we don’t really have in order to make ourselves feel better about our economic state? Have we fed the hungry or did we mindlessly reach for the year old can of cream of mushroom soup in the back of the panty to add to the “poor” family’s basket at church? Have we welcomed a stranger at church or have we gossiped an old member out the door to a new church home?

If Christ was to be born in your home on Christmas Day, would it be as peaceful and calm as the lowly stable? Could you quiet your inner confusions in order to hear the angels singing? Would you brag and boast and invite all of the most important people or would you humbly receive the gift that God gave to you?

When I lived in southern California and my children were young, I organized a caroling event for the family. Aunt, uncles, cousins, everyone. The Saturday before Christmas we would meet at Aunt Martha’s house.  I handed out song sheets.  Everyone had hats and gloves and flashlights. We’d all bundle up and head out to sing Christmas carols for strangers.

Everyone had a part to play.  The younger children had their own version of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” while the men enjoyed booming out the verses of “We Three Kings”.  After singing for blocks and blocks we’d be back at Aunt Martha’s for hot chocolate and cookies. Yeah, it really is that simple. Family at Christmastime. That’s when the ultimate family came into being.

So, with money so scarce let’s give what we have to give.  Forgive someone. It matters not how great or small their offense. You can always afford to be magnanamous. Smile at a stranger. It may save their life. Do a kindness for someone unsuspecting. Laugh and light the way for someone who is silent in the dark. Call a long lost friend you haven’t spoken to in ages. Bake the cookies you used to bake before you got so busy and take them to a nursing home.  Gather the family and sing a few carols. A lot of us are so busy with what we think is important, that we don’t have time to actually speak to one another on the phone or meet and share a meal. SO, take the time while you have the time. You just might find that the thing you’re waiting for shows up. The important arrival of the Christmas spirit. The spirit of Christ that we should carry the entire year.

Oh, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant! Oh, come let us adore him, Christ, the King!

I also lost my uncle this summer. Charles Richard Dawson. Though he was not famous and most of you did not know him, his loss was monumental to our family. As is usually the case with death, old feelings bubble to the surface. We remember past hurst and wounds are freshly opened. Sometimes the things we hold on to are significant. We were right to feel hurt. Sometimes the grudges are petty.

It is almost certain that the only chance we have to forgive is in life. We come together at weddings and funerals and we say, “we should get together more often.” We leave the gathering and the we wait for the next event to see each other. We do not call. We make no effort to reunion with one another.

The old jealousies and petty differences are back on top. We feed them by talking about them. Over and over. I wasn’t invited. He never called and told me. She went without me.  So, we wait. For them to call us. For the other one to apologize. We make a big show of family importance but we do not speak to this one or invite that one.

How marvelous it is that God does not treat his family the same way. He loves us when we don’t invite him in. He cares for us when we don’t remember to repay him. He does not deny us even when we deny each other. We are his children. His family.

When my children were growing up and they would have disagreements with cousins or friends I would always say, ‘you can always afford to be magnanimous.”  And you can, too. You can say you’re sorry even if you think someone else should. You can pick up the phone and call, even if you feel someone else should. You can extend your hand. You can smile.

We here the time honored cliche all too often. Tomorrow is not promised. We often add an amen and “no one knows the day or the hour.” That being said. Get your house in order. Like a preacher once said, “sometimes you don’t have time to get ready. Sometimes you just have to be ready.”

I get that we all all so busy. That there isn’t enough time in the day. Our calendars are filled with events we don’t have enough time to attend. But life should be about more than summer barbeques and long weekends. Our world should be bigger than ourselves.  We should cherish each other. Family and friends.

So pick up the phone and call someone that you haven’t spoken to in a while. Someone you’ve been thinking about. Put down the remote. Turn off Bejeweled Blitz and re-connect with humanity. Face Book is no substitute for hearing a real laugh. Whatever it is that is stopping you is in your control. Cast it aside. Tomorrow might be too late.

Okay, I’m clear now. I am mad. Really mad. Pissed off, in fact. That the world would come at one man so hard that he died at age 50 in a time when people are living into their eighties and nineties. 

I had to turn my television off. People were talking and even though they weren’t sure he was dead, they kept saying he was. Then, in order to fill time, they started rehashing what they called his “sea of troubles”. Did he or didn’t he do things to little boys. Was he or wasn’t he sick. Was he or wasn’t he unstable, after all, he did dangle the baby. And what about his finances?  It sort of reminded me of the image of a lynching. The one where the dead man is cut down by the angry mob and they cut his penis off or set him on fire because, after all, a black man can never be dead enough.

I clicked off of Face Book, too. People seem to delight in being mean. One person commented: leave it to Michael to steal Farrah’s light.  As if he chose to die immediately after Farrah so we wouldn’t take note. As if he wanted to die.  But let us be very clear, one thing Michael never had to do was steal a light. He was born with a light of his own. More talent than the world will ever see again in one person. 

His light shone on music videos and turned them into cinema. Something superb. Marvelous. We Are the World opened the door for celebrities like Bono and Oprah to draw attention to Africa and other causes. Michael allowed the NAACP to shadow the Victory Tour so that when fans were waiting in long lines to get in they were being registered to vote. Eighty thousand people were registered as a result. Yeah, rock the vote.

I don’t need to take you back to the Ed Sullivan Show and the Jackson 5 featuring little Michael Jackson sing Since I Don’t Have You. I fell in love and so did the rest of America. His career is so iconic that to review it is unnecessary. We were all there. I don’t have to tell you how many Michael Jackson songs are a part of the soundtrack of our lives.

I go back to the news. I’m still mad. I was watching the 2003 Academy Awards the year Roman Polanski won Best Director for The Pianist starring Adrian Brody. The entire room stood to their feet in standing ovation. Of course, Polanski was not there to accept his award. Unable to return to the United States because of the decades old sex-with-a-minor charge that still hangs over his head. But his community still honored him. No one brought up his sordid past. But the news agencies couldn’t wait to drag out the footage of Michael and his baby on the balcony and all of the rest. 

One minute they love him. The next they hated him, for who could love a black man that the whole world loved? Who could love a black man that transcended his blackness? Who could love a black man who called himself the KING of Pop?

He was never Wacko Jacko. Genius is not weird. Talent is not weird. A child’s heart is not weird. Different is not weird. Different is God’s creativity. The sparrow does not scoff at the peacock. The tabby cat does not mock the tiger. Only man seeks to make himself feel better by thinking less of his fellow man.

Over the last couple of days as people have recounted their favorite MJ song, The Man In the Mirror was sited by many. The man in the mirror is me. The man in the mirror is you. He’s the world. Michael Jackson was the mirror. Reflecting our flaws and anxieties. Our joys and our fears. Showing us our imperfections and yes, our own weirdness and idiosyncrasies  He reflected back one of our most prized possessions. That thing that sometimes gets covered in the dirt of hypocrisy and the grime of greed. Michael Jackson showed us our humanity.

I got a MySpace account to see what all the buzz was about. I had a screen name so nobody knew it was me. I had one friend, Tom, who apparently is everyone’s friend. At the urging of two friends, I joined FaceBook. “We can share pictures and talk” is what they said. To date, no “talking” has occurred. Naturally, because my name was so prominently displayed, I felt like a loser with only two friends so I hunted up a few more. More than once I asked a complete stranger to be my friend and they accepted. Strange.

Almost as soon as I joined, there was a furor about FaceBook changing the rules. They backed down for a second but now they have figured out a way to get around their millions of users. They have posted the two proposals and they want us to vote. Well, it doesn’t take brains to figure out that people who have now become addicted to six second communication are not going to read pages of legalese in 6 pt. typeface and vote. Conclusion: they will change it what they wanted it to be in the first place.

I saw the Oprah show where she was so enamored of FaceBook. I loved how she kept saying, “I did not know what people were talking about.” I watched her and Mark and Gayle oooh and ahhh over the wonders of FaceBook. I saw the twentysomething millionare  walk them through how to update their status. 

I don’t have to know what you ate for dinner. Every meal. Every day. I don’t need to know that you have to go pee or that you’re stuck in traffic. I have blocked some people out because they update every hour. 

Two weeks later, Oprah was enamored of Twitter. “I hear people talking about this all of the time and I had no idea what they were talking about.” I kept waiting for one of the panel to ask how Twitter was different from FaceBook. No one did. Perhaps because they aren’t really different. 

This past weekend I found out about the loss of a friend. Had it not been for a timely phone call from my daughter, I would have found out in the most impersonal way. She found out on FaceBook. Yikes!

Every application comes with the caveat that people will now be able to see your whole business if you use the application.  And let’s talk about the applications. Did you know you could take a quiz and find out what U.S. President you are most like? Or what element you are most like. Or what cheeseburger you are most like. Okay, there is no cheeseburger quiz but you get my point. Who has time to take a quiz and discover you are most like Grover Cleveland.

Anyway, I make a peace with FaceBook and suddenly I am behind the times because I do not Twitter. All of my FaceBook “friends” want me to follow them. Does any of this sound remotely cultish? I checked out a few people on Twitter. It’s the same as FaceBook. Yup. Only now your friends are followers and you are following others. Question? Does anybody know where the hell they are going?

Are we concerned because we no longer have handwriting? Does anyone notice that you have no voice. Only emails and texts and status updates and Tweets. I get the whole marketing value of these venues. If you have a show and you want an audience this is a good way to get one. All of your friends and followers have friends and followers and before you know it there are people in the house. It’s great for marketing books and music, too. I have been able to listen to sermons by my home church pastor, Bishop Charles E. Blake and find out what my former students are up to. But, OMG will never take the place of hearing the excitement in my  voice when a friend says she is pregnant and  LOL will never replace the lyrical sound of laughter floating upward to tickle God’s ears. There is warmth in the human voice and soul and spirit in our pen. Long story short, call me. I miss the sound of your voice.

And then I began to read the Easter story in Luke 22. I started  with the preparation for the Last Supper. The end was nearing and though he had spoken of it many times, he felt the need to prepare the disciples. I was at first struck by how little faith the disciple had. Here were these men that had traveled with Christ, lived with Christ, watched him perform miracles, been a part of his ministry and yet, they still doubted that what he said was true. The began to question him and each other. They didn’t trust each other or themselves, asking, “is it I, Lord?” when he talked of denial or betrayal. I can almost guess that they began to talk and argue among themselves relegating Jesus to a casual observer as their faith fell apart.

Is it much different today? How many times have we questioned God? After spending time with Him. Praising Him for the miracles He has performed in our lives. After He has truly answered our prayers. We turn around and ask, “why?” He can tell us that our plan is not going to work and we don’t believe Him, plowing full steam ahead down our own wrong path.

I continued to read the familiar story when suddenly the lines became illuminated for my further understanding. “Then Jesus asked them, ‘When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack for anything?’  ”Nothing,” they answered. He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have  sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”  (Luke 22:35 – 36 NIV)  At first, I thought of my grandmother, a diminutive five feet tall and weighing all of 95 pounds, when she was going off to do battle with our school, the electric company or a tiresome neighbor, she would put on her good shoes, grab her purse and her Bible.  

Jesus was very clear about the fact that sometimes we need to allow him to provide for us. He will often send us with nothing and yet, we lack no thing essential to our existence.  We marvel at how protected we are by God. But Jesus also wanted us to know that there will be times when we need to have a sword. The end was nearing and Jesus understood that they would be coming to get him, but he knew that the forces of evil wouldn’t stop with him. That they would be coming to get the disciples as well. And he wanted them to be able to protect themselves. It was so important that he emphasized by telling them to sell their coats to buy a sword if necessary.

How many of us go through life without what we need to protect ourselves? We don’t read the Word of God. Or we read it but do not understand it. We know we don’t understand it but we don’t go to Bible Study for illumination. Get it. When Satan comes for you and your children and your health and your finances, you will definitely need a sword. It is my hope that in this Lenten season you grow stronger in the Word of God and like my grandmother you do not leave home without your purse, your good shoes and a sword.

I just finished listening to that song and I was so overcome with emotion. I forgot how much I love Luther’s voice and how much I love that song. My father was a great dancer. My mother, as well. Not the kind of dancing that you think of if I say Alvin Ailey or the Royal Canadian Ballet, but the kind that happens at the YMCA dance on a Saturday night. Whenever people talk about my mother and father they always talk about how they would clear the floor at the Y and people would just watch them as they jitterbugged and made up their own steps.  There are even a few stories of when stage shows would come to town, He would get up on stage with the acts and dance until security made him stop. Funny, even though I never danced with him, I hear Luther singing that song and I want to.

My sister and I didn’t know my father very well. He and my mother were divorced when I was two and a half years old. I guess there was a time that I mourned his absence. A time when I longed to see him turn the corner leading the horse that I so desperately wanted him to bring me. I logged countless hours sitting on the front porch waiting for his promised visit. Waiting for the promised present. At some point I just waited because because my mother told me to. Experience had taught me that he wasn’t coming.

As I began to mature, I realized that I have a father that keeps his promises. Even when I stray from him. He loves me and he answers my prayers. It doesn’t matter how well I know him today, he knows me. Before I knew you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart. Jeremiah 1:5  

Dancing with our father isn’t as difficult as we sometimes make it. So many times we feel we are spiritually “grown up” and we stray away from God. We forget what it was like when He held us in his arms and twirled us around, keeping us from harm’s way and often out of our own way.

So, as we share this holy season, let us be reminded to draw closer to God. Let us lay down the cares of the world. Walk away from our stresses and trivial pursuits and sing a song that will never, ever end. A praise song for all that we are and all that we have. Praise God for everything. If you feel good, praise Him. If you feel bad, praise Him because you can still feel. Pray at least one prayer everyday where you don’t ask God for anything. Find that inner child that loves with all your heart and dance with your Father again.

Let’s start with something easy. Basketball. Let’s say you’re really good at playing basketball. And you’re tall. Do you think, God must want me to be in the NBA because he made me really tall and I’m good at basketball. Yup, I’m gonna make lots of money and play ball all day because I love it and God made me really tall and really good at basketball. Okay, but what if that’s not it?  What if God gave you basketball so you could work at the Boys & Girls Club or the YMCA or coach a junior high school basketball team? Maybe you were never supposed to be rich or famous. I know, but you’re reeeeally tall. Maybe God just wanted you to look good.

Seriously, I know some really talented people. Folks that can sing and act and dance and write music and write books and play instruments and speak languages and cook. I have been blessed to meet and know some of the world’s most talented individuals.  I’m not always sure they know just  how talented they are. They know what talent looks like in others and they are staunch supporters of their talented friends. But sometimes I think they get caught up in their own plans for their talent that they forget that God has a plan for them.

So here is a shout out to some of my talented friends and what I love about them. Derek and his ability to make everyone feel important. Kamilah and her compassion and humility. Shoshana and her courage. Terron and his daddy vibe. Renee and her fierce passion. Deborah and the way she makes me laugh. Ron Kellum and his integrity and leadership. Dana and the way she keeps going. Heshimu and the way he never stops trying to “get it”. Stephanie and her generousity. Crystal and the way she gets it done. Ron Hills and his sensitivity. Michael Jay and the way he cares. Pamela O and the fun she brings. Pamela R and the way she keeps going. Beckie, Carolyn, Ada, Janette, Nancy, Adele , Aimee, Martha and Betty and the way they do friendship and motherhood. The list is endless, like I said I know a lot of talented people. Honey they can siiiiiiing and daaaaance and wriiiiiite and cooooook and figure numbers and fix things and teach and rock babies and, and , and. 

I love their music and their acting and their mexican rice and all the things they count as their talent, but today, I see something else in them. Something ordained of God. Something really beautiful and stunning. I hope they see it in themselves. I hope they remember that the stars don’t have to struggle to shine, rivers don’t have to struggle to flow and  God created them just like he did the stars and the rivers. And today, I hope my talent has been to live in gratitude for all the great people I share the planet with and to let them know I’m always praying for them. To increase their talents. To discover why God gave them talent. To share their talents. And to be fulfilled.

It would take a blog of a thousand words (don’t worry) to pay homage to the ancestors that came before us to make this moment possible. Indeed, a volume to house the collective blood and tears of slaves and itinerant farmers and sharecroppers and washer women and pullman porters and garbage men and maids and mammies and chauffeurs and preachers and teachers and the lynched and the disenfranchised and those that died in the water on the long journey to America.

What a stunning sight to see the faces of people on the Capitol Mall  Faces so resplendent  and beaming with hope and joy and promise. They were beaming because of the light from the fire within them. Within me. The brightest light. And so I lift a glass to the keepers of  the flame. Those that made sure the fire did not go out even in the face of great winds. Winds of the lash and winds of injustice. Winds of  water hoses and barking dogs. Those flame keepers made sure that the flame did not go out. That there would be enough to burn in a future generation.

Only moments after the actual swearing in, the analysts and pundits began to shake their heads from side to side saying President Obama has an awesome task and that the people might soon  ”fall out of love” with him. That the task at hand is too big for anyone and that he has “big plans and lofty ambitions” for the country. I  am amazed that after all he has done in the last four years, people still think he might not be able to do it.  He has overcome every mountain that has been placed before him. So, as they talked I shook my head from side to side. I know something they may not know.  Because you have so little faith, I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. (Matthew 17:20 NIV)  

I know that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” (Hebrews 11:1 NIV)

Today, we, Africans, are finally able to be the people God called us to be. We are your people, called by your name. And so as we go forward I ask that you pray a special prayer over President Obama’s first 100 days.  I remind you that he needs us as much as we need him. as you pray for our new President not to let us down, I ask you to pray, also, that we won’t let him down.

But, whether we make resolutions or not, we mostly all agree that the current year was horrible and that we can’t wait to get on to the new year which will most assuredly be better. So, I’m going to talk about being grateful. I personally knew six people that passed away in 2008. Add in Bernie Mack, Harold Pinter, Eartha Kitt, Freddie Hubbard, Michael Crichton, Odetta, Cyd Charisse, Heath Ledger, Studs Terkel, Miriam Makeba and Van Johnson, just to name a few. I actually took the time to read the entire list of celebrity deaths. It was staggering and while a lot of people were in their eighties and nineties, Heath Ledger was only twenty-eight.

It made me wonder how many of those people would have rushed to get rid of 2008, and I can’t help but think they would have been glad to savor the last days of a glorious year. A friend lost her mother and her dog on the same day.  I lost my dog but I still have my mother. I am grateful. I didn’t see my own children as much as I wanted to this year, but I have two very good friends that are pregnant with their first babies and I am over the moon with gratitude. I tried a couple of good ideas and they bombed, but God has blessed me with a few more good ideas and the time to try to make them work so I am grateful. I’m not any thinner but my blood pressure is lower because I am more at peace. And though I missed a few more Sundays at church in 2008, I feel closer to God than ever before.

See how it works? At this writing there are still two days of 2008, and I intend to savor them.  They won’t be anything spectacular. Work and a New Year’s Eve, alone. But I hope I can find the spectacular in sunny day, even though it’s cold, or a phone call from a California friend. I hope I get to hear a child giggle or take a bath with some yummy smelling potion. I pray that the people on my prayer list will feel the hand of God on whatever it is they need. And I can do all of that in two days.

As for 2009, no resolutions for me. I prefer to live each day of my year one  day at a time. I will ask God to bless me and enlarge my territory. I will pray for peace. As for the rest, my children are happy, Barack Obama is in the White House and God is still on the throne. Happy New Year to you all.

Ah, but what of the important arrival? What are we expecting? We are in the worse economic crisis since the stock market crash of 1929. So many people without jobs. Mortgages foreclosures at an all time high. Sick people with no insurance. Gas prices fell for a bit but they are back up.  So what is it we are waiting for this advent season?

We have bigger houses yet we spend less time in them. We have more ways to communicate and yet, we communicate less.  We have more gadgets and gizmos to make life easier and yet, we are stressed more than ever. What is this important arrival for which we have spent the season preparing?

I guess we should look at the preparation.  Have we prayed without ceasing for an end to this economic situation? Or have we shopped with money we don’t really have in order to make ourselves feel better about our economic state? Have we fed the hungry or did we mindlessly reach for the year old can of cream of mushroom soup in the back of the panty to add to the “poor” family’s basket at church? Have we welcomed a stranger at church or have we gossiped an old member out the door to a new church home?

If Christ was to be born in your home on Christmas Day, would it be as peaceful and calm as the lowly stable? Could you quiet your inner confusions in order to hear the angels singing? Would you brag and boast and invite all of the most important people or would you humbly receive the gift that God gave to you?

When I lived in southern California and my children were young, I organized a caroling event for the family. Aunt, uncles, cousins, everyone. The Saturday before Christmas we would meet at Aunt Martha’s house.  I handed out song sheets.  Everyone had hats and gloves and flashlights. We’d all bundle up and head out to sing Christmas carols for strangers.

Everyone had a part to play.  The younger children had their own version of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” while the men enjoyed booming out the verses of “We Three Kings”.  After singing for blocks and blocks we’d be back at Aunt Martha’s for hot chocolate and cookies. Yeah, it really is that simple. Family at Christmastime. That’s when the ultimate family came into being.

So, with money so scarce let’s give what we have to give.  Forgive someone. It matters not how great or small their offense. You can always afford to be magnanamous. Smile at a stranger. It may save their life. Do a kindness for someone unsuspecting. Laugh and light the way for someone who is silent in the dark. Call a long lost friend you haven’t spoken to in ages. Bake the cookies you used to bake before you got so busy and take them to a nursing home.  Gather the family and sing a few carols. A lot of us are so busy with what we think is important, that we don’t have time to actually speak to one another on the phone or meet and share a meal. SO, take the time while you have the time. You just might find that the thing you’re waiting for shows up. The important arrival of the Christmas spirit. The spirit of Christ that we should carry the entire year.

Oh, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant! Oh, come let us adore him, Christ, the King!