Tag Archives: get up

Book Review: DAVID AND GOLIATH by Malcolm Gladwell

The stories in David and Goliath reconfirmed that all the challenges in my own life have been blessings. Certainly, in the short-term, pain does not feel like a blessing. But the way you process your pain and build from it over time, strengthens you and adds wisdom and insight that you otherwise would not have.

Nelson Mandela: “Retiring from retirement.”

“I was not born with a hunger to be free. I was born free – free in every way that I could know. Free to run in the fields near my mother’s hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran through my village, free to roast mealies under the stars and ride the broad backs of slow-moving bulls. As long as I obeyed my father and abided by the customs of my tribe, I was not troubled by the laws of man or God.

It was only when I began to learn that my boyhood freedom was an illusion, when I discovered as a young man that my freedom had already been taken from me, that I began to hunger for it. ~ Nelson Mandela”

How many calories did I burn climbing this mountain?

I fell behind. At first I felt self-conscious for holding up the group. Then I realized I wasn’t holding them up. They were moving speedily forward like young goats. After that, I slowed down more and took deeper breaths. I rested for as long as I needed and moved only when I was comfortable doing so. I stepped aside to let people pass me. I took in the view and shared conversation with the woman lagging behind with me.

Song & Verse: ALL OF ME by John Legend

Recently, I heard John Legend sing his new single, All of Me, live on David Letterman. The song took me away. A beautiful and emotionally eloquent expression of love. I rewound my TV twice to hear the song again and again. I haven’t bought popular music in years – at least I can’t remember theContinueContinue reading “Song & Verse: ALL OF ME by John Legend”

FOR WHITES (LIKE ME): on white kids

Originally posted on formations. // living at the intersections of self, social, spirit.:
Dear parents of white children, I vote that we strike the following from our parental lexicon: “Everybody is equal.” “We’re all the same underneath our skin.” I realize this is counterintuitive. But I’m completely serious. These statements are so abstract they’re mostly meaningless…

Poem: KISS OF LIFE by LaShawnda Jones

Kiss me, my knucklehead Stop running Don’t tease Just be Still Breathe Clear your mind Exhale I’m here When will you See Accept my embrace Relax This is where you belong You’re too far away To kiss me now, my knucklehead Pull me close Closer Closer still So close neither Of us ends or beginsContinueContinue reading “Poem: KISS OF LIFE by LaShawnda Jones”

Happy July 4th! Declaration of Independence

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. ~ from The Declaration of Independence

Love, Marilyn – Quotes from the HBO Documentary

The more I think of it the more I realize there are no answers. Life is to be lived. And since it is comparatively so short – maybe too short; maybe too long – the one thing I know for sure — it isn’t easy. Now that I want to live and I feel suddenly not old, not concerned about previous things except to protect myself, my life and to desperately (pray) tell the universe — I trust it.”