ALL I CAN SAY IS…

With my Jersey birthday (#33) looming; I have been in a reflexive state.  Generally, there are few things that bring me to tears.  However, today as I reflect on my life’s journey and the meaning of it; tears have been my portion.  I am left with few words and countless thanksgivings.  One of my favorite lyrics form an Isley Brothers hits says “I might as well, sign my name on a card that could say it better…”.  I made a video birthday card to share with my friends and family that expresses much more effectively my overwhelming thanksgiving.  

You may not know my story, or share my faith.  If you are not a person of faith, I love you; and mean not to offend, however, if you knew my story, you’d understand why its been faith that has allowed me to come this far!  

OLD SCHOOL PLAYERS AND NEW SCHOOL FOOLS!

“It has been said that a society is judged by how it treats it’s children; I believe the greater judgement is going to be levied on the basis of how we TEACH our children to TREAT others. ”

— Tim Terrentine

I had the fortunate occasion to spend some quality time with my chiildren at a huge indoor waterpark a few weeks ago. This was a refreshing experience for the family. (note to self: TAKE MORE VACATIONS!) While hanging out with my nearly four year-old son in the kids area, my joy was turned into mourning very quickly. I’ll explain; those who have met my son know that he loves to run, jump, wrestle, shoot, catch; be active. Just for clarification sake, he’s not the kid in need of a leash, he knows his boundaries; however, I noticed that he was just standing at the top of the water slide without taking a turn for 2-3 minutes per attempt. What was holding up my go-get-’em son? Our Future.
I sat and watched dozens of children who literally had no regard for others. Whether the child in front of them in line was a special needs child, a smaller child, an anxious child, or just ahead of them in line; the majority of the children pushed others, ran in front of them and TOOK their turn to slide. The largest offense of all…their suburbanite parental units were cheering them on with smart phone cameras ready to watch the behavior.
WOW. What are we teaching our children? Is this the future? My wife and I work very hard with little man to teach him that other people matter. Kindness matters. Patience matters. Being mindful matters. And the most important lesson of all; he matters. We try our best to tell our children that they matter and the way they live out their significance is to show others that they too, matter. I am afraid that what I saw at the water park might be what we have to look forward to in the next generation. I’m not as afraid of the kids as I am my parental colleagues who seem to be oblivious to these lessons.

Parents: please teach yourself and your children well that they do not exist in this world alone, and they do not hold the highest seat in the world. Greatness is determined by service, not by selfishness. We would do well to make certain that the generation coming forward knows that a sense of entitled arrogance never has and never will be a recipe for greatness in a person, a family, a community or a society.

Teach our children well.

Peace, Blessings, and Greater Futures.

T2

SOUL POWER – A KING-IAN THEME. VOL. V. (FREE-AGENCY)

“We have all been drafted into the league of humanity. And in this league, every player is a free agent, under free agency. We have the power to choose how we play the game, for what purpose we play, and for whom we play.”

— Tim Terrentine

Halftime fans of the world; fire up!  As we close this King week blog series, I’d like to usher us into an analogy that I hope helps move us to action. I remember being in the Kalamazoo Central Maroon G ant Marching Band.  Contrary to popular opinion and memory, I did not play the piccolo (shout out to comedian Robin Harris), I played the baritone.  The baritone was a mini-tuba.  I think back with fondness on the days in band class where we sounded like ‘wounded moose’s in mating season”(shout out to Mr. Mandel), and couldn’t get things right.  On those days, it was the drum majors job to pull this mess together and try to make 60+ instruments sound as one.  I was not the drum major, but I understood their role.  

Dr. King gave a great speech entitled the ‘drum major instinct’.  The basic idea of the drum major instinct is that human beings are all born with the desire to be significant. Human beings are wonderfully created by the Almighty with a desire to be recognized, to be important, to have value.  This desire in us is natural and quite frankly,  a good thing. However with most things in our lives that we are innately gifted to us, there are dialectical tensions that exist. For instance, we were born with a desire to be independent while simultaneously interdependent. Some communication scholars say that life happens in the tug-of-war between those two opposing thoughts. Both are needed, and both are exercised in life.

One of the greatest gifts in this life that we have is free choice.  Free agency to deal with and to choose how we apply our uniquely given gifts. Dr. King submits in the drum major speech, that if you’re going to be great,  be great with service. If you want significance that’s fine, but be significant in your fight for others’ well-being. If you want to be impactful; be impactful due to the things you do to make the world a better place. Dr. King urges us not to take for granted the gift of the drum major instinct and to be careful to make certain that if you’re going to be in front of the band; make sure it’s for the right. n the world sounds and feels horrible, if you’re going to be a drum major, be a  drum major for justice. Be a drum major for peace. Be a drum major for growth. Be a drum major in 2012.

Lead, learn, and love. 

Be Blessed, 

T2

SOUL POWER – A KING-IAN THEME. VOL. IV (SERVICE)

“Love isn’t love until you’ve given it away…”

— Commissioned, old-school gospel group.

 As we continue our week long blog on Dr. King and the effects of soul power on our lives, we must recognize that soul power (love) has a twin sister;  her name is service. Dr. Cornell West says “you can’t lead the people unless you love the people,  and you can’t save the people unless you serve the love and service our 20 powers that together create great communities and great families and great people. Many of us are calling ourselves lovers of humanity and community yet we do not serve the community nor the people that we love.

This is antithetical to our values and nonsensical. How can you love something that you don’t serve. How can you be passionate about something for which you’re not prepared to work?  Service is all about doing for others and making the plight of others more important than your own. We must in this year of 2012 be about service. As Dr. King would submit when speaking to the sanitation workers plight in the south; “the question is not ‘what will happen to THEM!” What happens to our city, our region, our State, our Nation, our world if we all decide to be so comfortable that we forget to serve others?  I am afraid that many of us have forgotten the role service played in our climb to “success.”  We must find ways to create a discipline of service.  

One  major reason that we may want to adopt love’s twins sister:

1. Service is acceleration upward mobility. I recently shared an article in my facebook post from Forbes magazine highlighting volunteerism and service as the number one way emerging leaders are accelerating their careers in America. Doing better for yourself starts with serving others. What you reap is a direct result of what you have sown.   If you sow service in the other’s lives and’s love is what fuels that service you will surely reap great success in this life.

I personally have learned that the more you serve and the more you love,  the less you have to worry about your own plight in the world. There seems to be an exponential power when you perform random acts of service fueled by your love for humanity. I encourage you today to think about your own schedule and your own life. If you have nothing outside of your family and your job that you currently serve on a regular basis, you are missing out on major blessing and major opportunity in your life. Service is required for a better future for ourselves.  If we serve well; we lead well;  and the recipients of that love and service can finally… live well.

Peace blessings and twins

SOUL POWER – A KING-IAN THEME VOL. III (CONSCIENCE)

A blessed King week to all of you.

In yesterday’s blog, I discussed how the power or love is a catalyst for courage. As we know, courage is a critical ingredient in the making of a great leader, however courage alone is not sufficient to be transformational. What we’re going to discuss today is soul power as conscience.

We have several examples throughout history of courageous leaders with no conscience. Courage without conscience almost always leads to catastrophe. How many times  have we witnessed the genocide of people, tribes, races, and nations of people destroyed because of leaders who had courage without conscience. Martin Luther King said in a great speech that “there comes a day when leadership asks us to do the things that are neither safe, nor politic or popular; there comes a time when the question is…is is it right?”  That’s what leaders have to grapple with today.  If you’re a leader who is been struggling on the sidelines of leadership and you observe things that go against good conscience; how do we stand by and let that continue?

 It is a dangerous time in our nation, our state,  and our cities when we ignore our conscience for sake of convenience or political gain. We know that there are several major issues in our world today that with some courage coupled with conscience we could have enormous impact for the good.. But what we have is cowardice, conscienceless people who ignore what’s right to do what’s convenient. Stand up for the issues of education, business growth, poverty, Wall Street, taxes, human rights issues, and many others; but please what ever side of the aisle you find yourself  standing on, whatever your political and/or religious persuasion;  please let’s not move forward without inserting soul power and love to pay attention to our conscience.

Love is required to pay attention to our conscience because you can’t see a person or an issue as your archenemy when your conscience is engaged. Engaging our consciousness will force us to listen more than we talk. It will force us to seek truth and not chatter. Conscience helps us to see ALL humanity as having equal worth and value to us in the world. We must engage our conscience!  If we do, we can move ourselves off of the cliff for which we are prepared to surely fall.

Blessings, peace and consciousness.

WHY I AM OPPOSED TO THE WAR IN VIETNAM

Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks.

SOUL POWER, A KING-IAN THEME… VOL. II

Soul power as a catalyst for courage.

I’m amazed as we celebrate this King week by the courage of Martin Luther King Jr. I’m not speaking to the courage that it took to fight for civil rights; that was Herculean in its own right, but the courage it took later in Kings experience to speak out very clearly against the war in Vietnam. America celebrated King’s nonviolent approach when it came to the sit-in’s, dealing with Bull Connor, the riots in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles,  etc. However the moment that King’s days on this earth became numbered in America was the moment in which he decided to speak out against Vietnam. King had the courage not to segregate his fight for justice just to the civil rights movement in the southern states and northern ghettos.

King as a leader was courageous enough to expand his conviction so that change was not just about the issue and plight of African-Americans in America underneath Jim Crow, it was about humanity.

It’s going to take that kind of courageous leadership to deal with and have good success with the problems we face today. If you listen to the speech that’s embedded below in this blog you’ll find that many of the problems that were facing America in the 1960s are the same problems we face today. There must be a revolution of leaders who are courageous enough to expand their convictions for the greater good. We can’t celebrate equality and condemn it at the same time. We must grow a backbone of courageous conviction that is fueled by soul power (love) and stand up straight with the truth that we can make a difference.

I believe that Dr. King’s soul power fueled his courage even until his assassination. And I don’t think he was assassinated because of the civil rights movement, I fully believe he was assassinated because of his stand against the United States’s choices as it pertains to war overseas and poverty domestically.   Have we become more concerned with politic and prudence or have you reached a point where standing up and fighting for the right thing is just right? Have we lost touch with soul power?  What is fueling our leadership?  Personal pride and power? Or, power to love?  That’s the King-ian question for all of us as leaders, and its surely the question for our political and social leadership today.  

SOUL POWER – A KING-IAN THEME VOL. I

This morning on the drive into work, I was thinking about what should I do today to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday.  The idea of being headed to work on Dr. King day is yet debateable. We probably should respect Dr. King’s day like we do other national federal holidays, however, it is no surprise that my children are on their way to school, and I am on my way to work.

Nevertheless, a pleasant surprise came in the form of a radio show;  I was listening to the Steve Harvey morning show, and when I sat down in my car Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech began to play.  Immediately I thought to myself ‘oh no’, I can’t believe that Steve Harvey is playing the ‘I have a dream’ speech as opposed to all of the other wonderful less celebrated, less politically correct speeches King gave in his lifetime. I  figured that we were deeper than ‘I have a dream.’ Not that the dream is somehow less powerful, it is just been so commercialized over time that it is in some cases lost its potency.

My, my, my  was I wrong. As Dr. King spoke through his dream on my way into work,  chills ran up and down my spine and tears began to flow. I begin to question in my own heart;  what is it about King and that speech that moves me to tears?. I’ve heard that speech 200 times if I’ve heard it once. And something about Dr. King still moves my spirit.

It came to me; there’s a power that touches my soul when I hear him speak. There’s something that connects me to a much greater space. It’s what Dr. King calls “Soul Power.”  

So this week as we celebrate Dr. King’s birthday and his meaning to our world, I will do my small part by blogging about soul power every day of this week, I will reflect on love as a powerful force,  and talk about Dr. King and his influence on teaching us how to use soul power in our everyday life. I hope to explore the subject of love as seen through Dr. King’s eyes and look at what it means for all of us today. So get ready!  Come with me on this journey this week as we explore Soul Power for today and tomorrow!