Weren’t They?
I awake to see my blackened face in the mirror and ask myself what shall we wear today? a touch of white? or perhaps half tone, or would it be impolite to be black to the bone and chance losing my life simply walking home…
I awake to see my blackened face in the mirror and ask myself what shall we wear today? a touch of white? or perhaps half tone, or would it be impolite to be black to the bone and chance losing my life simply walking home…
I have heard many women say and listened as they have been told to “wait on tha lawd” for a good man. But I think there is a lot of confusion as to what that really means. We are drawn to Bible stories of prophets and angels and people being told where to go and when. But that was then and this is now. Plus not everything man interprets as God is really God even if it is written in the book you call the Bible. God is not in the matchmaking business. God does not specifically choose to raise up or send a man to you. As much as it makes people feel good to want to believe that, you need to understand that God is not a respecter of persons no more than the rain or snow chooses not to fall on you when you forget your umbrella or your coat.
Just because we have a right to say or want something don’t always make it the wisest thing to say or do. At the same time there is nothing wrong with saying what you find attractive as long as you understand that the outward appearance does not define the character of the person inside. Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder but is truly only skin deep while ugliness runs to the bone. The world will never truly be color blind, but you also can’t afford to be stuck on color stupid such that you overlook blessings standing right in front of you.
I used to teach in my counseling classes that there is a reason that a lifeguard throws you a life ring. Because a panicked person can’t drown a life ring but they can drown YOU. I don’t care how strong a swimmer you are, you can’t drink that much water fighting somebody you trying to save. That’s also why the first thing a rescuer says when running into a situation by themselves is “Call 911”. That is for several reasons. In case the person don’t grab on to the life ring. In case the person drown. In case the person drown you. And in case you got to bust them upside the head in order to save them. The time of rescue is not the time for relationships.
It kind of reminds me of that scene from the Matrix Trilogy when The Oracle says “We can never see past the choices we don’t understand” and Neo says “Are you saying I have to choose whether Trinity lives or dies?” and The Oracle replies “No, you’ve already made the choice. Now you have to understand it.” So many of our choices that have led to stress in our lives were made long ago. The stress is in understanding why. Once we begin this process of discovery, we can start to have peace through knowing what needs to change and how to change it if only within ourselves.
NEO why is it so hard to find a man who ain’t just full of lies? I mean they step at you like they got it all together and as soon as you close you find out they just fake?
NEO, I just feel like right now…I only have my heart and love to offer…am I wrong for putting my love life on hold until I get back up on my feet? He’s willing to stick by me but I feel inadequate. ..
NEO, my question is how do you stay with somebody you discover you really don’t love and don’t really love you after you meet someone you know is meant for you?
I think that if someone is worth moving closer to then take the time to find a job and your own place and establish yourself there with the understanding that at the end of that year, you should be headed for marriage.
I will only say that the only single mom I know who got pregnant by keeping her clothes on gave birth to Jesus and she still managed to attract a good man. All your friend is going to attract are repeat offenders but she is the one, like every other single mom, who will end up serving the life sentence each time.
A young lady on my page is 19 years old and asked a simple question last night, “Am I pretty?”. Within minutes a 30 year old dude chimes in and says “No. You sexy”.
There is no question in my mind how you came to be. It wasn’t lust, I wasn’t blind, It didn’t happen accidentally. I gave my all in love and you are what that love conceived. That didn’t change just because of what later happened between your mother and me
Nobody expects perfection of anyone they meet. What most of us look for is balance- someone who comes to us and doesn’t take us off balance by the weight of their world.
That Crown of Life is a reward for RIGHT NOW. It is that peace that passes all understanding that says whether you were raped, abused, lied to, disgraced, or lived a life you wasn’t proud of, when you join your life to growing in wisdom, you are yoking your baggage and your burdens to the love of God and they won’t feel so heavy anymore.
What happens far too often in our community is we have unprotected sex for lustful reasons without consideration that a child needs the love and support of both the parents WHO ACTUALLY MADE THEM, then we decide after the fact that person is really not for us so we all keep trading mates until we get what we want- forget that we just totally screwed over a child for our own selfish reasons and then wonder why so many of our kids are so messed up.
Neo, I feel like I have so much anger in me and dont know how to deal with it. Its just like how do I go day by day with a smile on my face around everyone but on the inside I know he damaged me
The friends I have with permanent STD’s didn’t get them by being deliberately promiscuous. Most got them from compromising themselves at a point of loneliness or weakness and now have to live with that for the rest of their lives. And even when the result wasn’t an STD but an unplanned pregnancy, it is still hard to look a child in the eye knowing that either your lust or your loneliness created a life that should have been made out of love.
You need to look at your surroundings and ask yourself if you are truly embedded within a group of toxic people. If so, there is a reason that Jesus said let the dead bury the dead. Sometimes you truly have to just come out from amongst the foolishness.
Holy people give me the creeps. But, in my experience, those who truly understand grace, are more likely to extend mercy to others with humility of spirit.
We are all, often, our own worst enemy but it would seem, more so with women. I especially laugh when one of my female friends say “well you knew I was wrong and not acting right, why did you let me do it?” like I have some kind of magic powers to stop them from doing what they have chosen to do.
You know sometimes when you got a deep problem it hard to want to go talk to somebody in church because all they want to do is give you a Bible verse and pray and then you feel stupid like they perfect and something must be wrong with you.
I won’t lie. I got what I wanted. But I got a lot of lies too, a lot of baby mama drama and wifes calling my phone.
I understand exactly why so many black women have given up on black men because, based on my experience, I would have given up on black women except for these things
It is never good to give anybody the sense that they can ask you anything just to be asking.
Sometimes, I don’t know who to feel sorrier for-my friends who have no idea what a day like this can be, or for myself and others who, when faced with such a day alone, truly know what we are missing.
As I grow older, well meaning women wonder why I deny them the company of our wiser years together. But Golden Years are not meant for me. I will be a father til I die. There is no rocking chair for me, no retirement party in my future, no sunset days where it will be only you and me.
I have traveled a long way to finally being me. And I lost two women who married me who deserved to know that the direction of my life would outgrow what we would be capable of remaining. If I had known that, I would have never married them. But had I never married them, I would not be the man that those experiences have taught me to become.
It isn’t about everything being suddenly right with the world, but setting things right within your own heart and mind so that you are prepared to confront this New Year with courage in spirit and in truth…
I found one of your newspaper articles from a few years ago where you mentioned four areas that single people need to look at before getting into a relationship but now I can’t seem to locate it online again. I wanted to save those points. Can you share them again?
when you “touch a nerve” I’m forced to stop and take a moment to at the very least acknowledge that there are some I need to face or consider…
If it is not too personal, can I ask you how you handle being single and not giving in to just wanting to have somebody close sometimes?
I hope you will share this because what I would like to say in case nobody has said it to you lately is THANK YOU.
I have a friend who is n a situation with her x. She still loves him but yet he doesnt tell her how he feels. They break up over a txt, but yet he still contacts her.
My daughter is 15 and her dad lives over 300 miles away. Her dad & I had the birds & bees talk with her together. I think that it went very well. But because her dad has not fully grown up to real man status & is not here for when she begins to date I need to know how to protect her from making the same mistakes that I made.
I was born with discernment. It always scared the adults around me because there was nothing they could hide from me even as a child so it took away my childhood innocence very early. It also scares the women in my life because I know them so well long before they even open their mouth.
Neo Blaqness is often called to lecture and present. Watch this video post of his 2013 visit to the University of Illinois
you have heard me say over and over again that the church is WHO WE ARE and not no preacher or building. The church is the fellowship we share even in a place like this. The church is ANYWHERE we choose to be used by God.
In a sense … God does send us to each other, but not in the mysterious way people think.
What I remembered most over the years is how much those little dirt poor congregations gave and even though we didn’t have anything ourselves, she would always give it back to the church until one pastor told her that they gave it from the heart and to please take it as a thanks for blessing them.
I don’t fear God or Man. A spirit of fear is not something God gave us. That is something that has been brainwashed into us so that we will follow whatever man says we should think about God.
You can’t flirt or beg somebody into loving you. You can’t pay their cab, bus, train, or plane ticket into loving you. You can’t pay their bills into loving you. All those things do is leave you broke, used, angry, and confused.
I have seen many of my friends ruin the potential of a new beginning by getting that itch scratched by a flea bitten ex they shoulda neva laid back down with.
I am no more favoured than any other. Everyone has a path that is uniquely theirs to follow. They need only acknowledge it
Someone said look there’s Jesus see Him up there on that cross…while the world does what it pleases He died so that sinners won’t be lost
When there is always somebody online who will lie to you and tell you that you are right just to get in your pants, the relationship in front of you doesn’t stand a chance. In the absence of real mothers and fathers, the conscience of relationships has now reached a the new low of whatever the friends list thinks.
That is not to say that it is wrong to want more. But for that, you always have to consider the price, and whether or not it is worth paying it…. Extra work hours and child raised by strangers and the TV just so you can have a fancier house or car and you wonder why your child’s values are so messed up.
That story in the book of Samuel is where we get the popular quote that “man looks at the outward appearance but God looks on the heart”. I have always tried to have my outward appearance be a reflection of my heart.
A simple email encounter with a lesson inside.
No one is responsible for your happiness but you. Others can only bring their own to add to yours and enhance the flavor of both lives.
The children
of a good mother or father
are the echoes
of a voice
no longer present
If you have never known the responsibility that comes with great gifts or a calling, it is very easy to misunderstand the one who has chosen to be a servant to it- easy to become an obstacle instead of a partner in it- easy to say “this is not what I signed up for”.
Bobby reminded me today by saying “you got the gift to take the small words I know and make them beautiful in a way that people will listen and understand. And you got the heart and respect to do it right. That is why I check on you. I ain’t want nuthin. Just seeing how you was.”
I have had so many reasons in my life lately to think about that time in my childhood and how much we really don’t stop to consider the energy it costs someone when we stand in the doorway of decisions letting out the cool to the summer heat or the warm to the winter cold not realizing the bill we are running up in the home, heart, and mind of someone else who has to pay it.
I have learned that the Creator and the universe gives us two sets of answers- that which has been made especially for us, and that which can be made by our actions and choices, and that both can be an equal blessing
Neo Blaqness is a seasoned host and interviewer whose style is to engage his guest on a very human level. Here is a 2013 interview he did with blues legend Bobby Rush to honor TrubuPRESS author and 1959 Golden Gloves Champ, Khair Ali.
Now we are so addicted to whatever the government hands us that we think we doing something and think we got our own when in reality we are the ones owned and enslaved by Section 8, and WIC, and Food Stamps. It has become our new slavery and social services has become our new overseers as we tell them all our business to keep getting a check.
People often ask me what is it that I find so appealing about autumn? Is it the color of the leaves? The briskness of the air? The grey cloudy skies? The coming of the winter snow?
I learned that you just can’t fake kids out with store bought love. Even if it is a little late and a little less in your mind, anything done by the heart of your hands is always going to be the best.
Mine is a dying breed. I know because you keep telling me. I am an old skool father because a man was in my life to raise me. I am thankful for this young lady’s mother and the other mothers who have listened to their spirits and allowed me help with their children.
You sistahs got to stick together and stop hatin on each other and stop thieving from each other over these worthless men who don’t value nuthin but controlling you and gettin in your pants. You already should know that if you can steal him, you can’t keep him.
A generation later we have gotten so hooked on laughing at the reruns that we forgot that our liberties are steady being assassinated, the hate speech is back stronger than ever, but they still don’t mind handing our sons and daughters guns to go do their dirty work in the name of protecting a freedom that nobody overseas is threatening any greater than what they are doing to us with their own legislation.