oh Father
in my time of distress be my comfort
be my rock my strongtower
hide me in the shadow of your love
my heart is sore pained with grief and worry
my eyes too naive to sing their own song
be my strength
i know you are where i am not
and can be where i cannot
be there Lord.
Jehovah Rapha
heal what they cannot find
Oh Jehovah Shalom
bring your peace to a most
tempestuous situation
send your comforter
in my stead.
you admonished us to visit the sick
forgive me for being unprepared
hear my heart oh God
i know you are there Jehovah Shammah.
el elyon in my distress
pass me in your visitation if it means
wholeness and favor and peace
for my friend.
thank you for your sacrifice
that i may approach you so boldly
hear me God
your child cries out to you oh God.
in love i ask
in love you give.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
mothers and daughters part two
when i was a little girl, i thought my dad was the most awesome person who ever lived. he could do anything. he made me feel special and loved and pretty and smart and good. a lot of people talk negatively about him as a person, which is hurtful to me, because i love him so, but that's what ignorant people do. he treated me like i was the most important thing in the world to him, and when he died, it created a chasm in my soul that will never be filled. another chasm was created by my mother's mother after he left, that i know now was happening because my daddy wasn't there with his love to counteract. love protects you, it shields you from the barbs and arrows, the erosion of the soul that negativity can cause. i never felt lonely or sad around my father, never felt unwanted or unloved. that's how the woman who reared me made me feel. that's the shift i was speaking of in part one. the shift from something to nothing that takes place when we choose to insult or demean children, girls in particular. no matter what the world says about you, you can negate it or ignore it if you have someone telling you how beautiful and intelligent and worthy you are at home, in your haven, your safe place. but if that place is also a cesspool of insecurity and anger and peril, then you have nowhere safe to go. what do you do then? you seek that goodness in places where, unbeknown to you, it cannot be found.
i was never promiscuous. even though i didn't know much about sex or whatever, i knew i didn't want to be "that girl", so i didn't engage in those activities. but i did start drinking at a very early age. i think i was like 12 when i realized that alcohol made me numb, and numb felt good. it's in my pathology to drink and drink heavily, so it happened. when i got to college, and the alcohol was more readily available, i felt a sense of release that no matter what happened, i could drink it away. i also started smoking weed and popping pain pills. i was addicted to numbness, to the dulling of the senses, the desensitization of my body, and my soul and the quieting of my spirit from the screaming, angry hurt that had been heaped on my head. the lie that i told myself was, it's okay because i'm not "that girl" and i can hold my liquor so it can't be that bad. it wasn't really. but it was still damaging.
we place an obscene amount of pressure on our daughters. to be pretty, and manner able. to be attractive and sociable. to be good and smart, and we don't pause to consider societal pressures, peer pressure, and the internal pressures they also must be experiencing. so when our daughter is gaining weight, or moody, we just assume it's because she doesn't like us. or she is just going through a phase. we don't pay attention. bulimia and anorexia affect our community too. let's talk about it. the pressure to be skinny, shapely, beautiful is deeply ingrained in a woman's psyche. remember the example of the confident woman and the breaking down of her image for our own satisfaction? what differentiates her from the others? her self esteem. regardless of where her esteem has its genesis, or whether or not it is genuine or a front, it is tangible. and it is dangerous to someone who has none. to tell your daughter she is beautiful should be like second nature. if not, i would have to question whether or not you feel you are beautiful. if no one told you, start telling yourself, then it will be easy to tell your daughter she is also beautiful, if for no other reason than she is yours and you are beautiful. we can counteract promiscuity, drug abuse, bad behavior, poor body image and a host of other negative energies, habits and experiences with love . love protects. let it marinate.
in my mind i am 15. sometimes 13. not necessarily those two ages per se but around that maturity level at times. not the giggly simple girl. but the shy naive one to be sure. i don't feel beautiful or pretty. i used to obsess about gaining weight or getting blemishes on my skin. let's watch the cycle shall we? ok.
my great grandmother was a tall, shapely, dark skinned woman. she married a tall, handsome dark skinned man. they both, being somewhat fresh off the plantation, had white blood in their genes, so when they had children, 3 of them were light skinned, and two dark skinned. that happens in our community alot. my great grand father died when his youngest child was around 12. that left my grandmother with 6 children to feed (they had adopted another child from within the family, as is customary in our community), and a farm to maintain. she told her daughters and grand daughters not to marry dark skinned men because they were no good. this is coming, again, from a dark skinned woman who married a dark skinned man. he died and she was bitter. now don't think i'm disrespecting my elders or ancestors with my language, i'm simply trying to highlight sentiments and emotive energies that have been passed through my bloodline. so, her daughters and grand daughters married (with the exception of one) light skinned men. the boys married light skinned women. so cycle number one is color bias. my grandmother, who is light skinned, married a light skinned man because the dark skinned man she was in love with wasn't acceptable to my great grandmother. she settled for the man who looked better and had a better standing financially. she settled. she was getting older (in her mid twenties) and the pressure to be married in those days was intense. especially in our community. so she married. and they had a child, my mother, who was brown skinned, and of course female. my grandmother, who was already insecure and hurt and bitter, felt slighted by this lil brown skinned girl child because her husband adored the baby, and ignored her as a wife. they separated off and on. the little girl caught hell. because she was brown and female. 8 years later, they had another child. a light skinned boy with hazel eyes. but the boy came out different, special, and in those days he would have been overlooked because of his mental deficiencies. so even though he is the boy they both wanted, he is useless because he isn't "whole". they separated completely, and that left my grandmother in the same position her mother had been in, single mother, rearing children, working, with a man somewhere else. independent and bitter. cycle number two.
now my mother, who by all accounts was a woman among women, was mistreated by this bitter, lonely, angry, hurt, insecure woman. she was progressive. when she met my father and i was conceived , she was just fine with rearing me alone unmarried. but at that time she could have lost her job for being an unwed mother (she was a teacher. interesting how the moral code has changed for teachers), so she waddled into a courthouse with my father and they got married. he was light skinned, she was brown, i am brown (pecan tan is what the crackhead told me). when i was born, it started over. first child is brown and female. and she catches hell from the matriarch. this thing has trickled down through three generations. and i believe had my mother still been alive it would have stopped with her. but it will indeed stop with me. go back into your genealogy and find the cycles that keep you and your family in bondage. BREAK THEM!
in my grandmother's house, i had to bleach my skin (didn't work), i had to watch what i ate (she hated fat people), i had to keep my hair a certain way (she hated nappy heads, imagine how she felt when i let my soul glow in 03), i had to wear sunscreen and protective clothing (i was already too dark), and that's just the beginning. everything about me was wrong and most of it wasn't my fault. my eczema, allergies, eating habits, bowleggedness, body shape, all of it was WRONG. that's genetics. why are you mad at your child for what you and her father gave her? bitter much? disappointed in your misappropriation of your own genetic make up, attributes, strengths and weaknesses? love yourself so you can teach your baby how to love herself. pathology. my father's father was dark skinned, his mother very light. both of my brothers are dark skinned. their skin got darker and darker as they got older. my grandmother was so pissed when my brother's skin finally hit that last lil dark chocolate hue. she hated it. blamed it on summer camp. but it never went away. since he was a boy, the insults were fewer, but the color bias was still there. his daughter is a light brown skinned ball of energy with curly hair. that pleases her. but if it gets nappy, she's unhappy. break these cycles honey.
i watched her mistreat darker skinned people. "poor" people. less educated people. it affected me. i watched how she cloaked her skin in product after product to protect it's color. i saw how good she felt standing next to her darker relatives because of her skin color. this is the craziest and dumbest ideology to witness. it was simply a flip of the genetic coin that gave her that complexion. to this day she swears her father said she and other two other lighter skinned sisters were the favorite because they were light and beautiful, and that her darker skinned sister was mean and evil to them because she was jealous. it couldn't have been because she was a jerk from day one? nah. had to be the melanin. girl stop.
the father is the protector. he is the rock behind which the girl child can be shielded from the mess of the world. daddy's little girl. some women hate the relationship their daughters have with their fathers. jealous, bitter women. he married you, you birthed her. realize your worth and your place and stop being an asshole. who is he protecting her from? YOUR BITTER CONFUSED ASS. stop it. she should be able to find that in both parents, not just him. she should be able to look up to you and up at you to find her example of finer wombmanhood. greater personhood. why do you think a woman will stay in a relationship that is abusive and detrimental? he said i love you. he said you're beautiful. he gives her dirty little love trinkets that could have been beautiful treasured jewels from YOU. but you wouldn't give or couldn't give because what? you weren't raised that way. clearly it didn't work for you either. stop handing your daughters your duffel bags of death. FREE HER and yourself from that bondage. be the mother you wish you had, and if you had a loving, supportive, God fearing mother, be that to your child. overcome your issues for her sake, and together the two of you can break these ridiculous, deadly cycles. if you don't have daughters, be that to some little girl somewhere. a child can never have enough motherly love. i know i found myself in MANY a perilous and unnecessarily poisonous situation because i wanted my grandmother to love me. she didn't, so i looked for it in other places, with other people, doing and experiencing things i could have avoided if only...
i admire women who have great relationships with their mothers. open loving interactions that are strong and almost tangible in their deliciousness. these relationships breed strong generations, and perpetuate strong women who help build nations.as a wombman you have power. use it. stop acting like what you say and do doesn't affect or effectuate changes in your child's life. i was told i'd never be good enough, smart enough, that i was ugly and no one would ever want me. i'm STILL trying to shift myself from nothing to something in my mind. thank God for Jesus.
and now, the bullets.
* if you heard somebody talking negatively about your child you would be ready to(and some of you will) fight them to the death for what they said right? why don't you punch yourself in the mouth then, because they're just repeating what you put into the air in thought and deed.
* when you learn that life and death are in the power of the tongue, will you be ready to face what happens when your child confronts you with the death sentence you gave them?
* God created the entire universe and everything in it with words, what are you creating with yours?
* when children die, parents are left with regret and pain. the pain i understand. why regret?
* if your child left here tomorrow, would they know you loved them?
* would you let someone talk to you the way you talk to your child?
* sticks stones break bones, words break people.
* if you don't tell your daughter she's beautiful, some man or some other woman will, are you ready for that?
i was never promiscuous. even though i didn't know much about sex or whatever, i knew i didn't want to be "that girl", so i didn't engage in those activities. but i did start drinking at a very early age. i think i was like 12 when i realized that alcohol made me numb, and numb felt good. it's in my pathology to drink and drink heavily, so it happened. when i got to college, and the alcohol was more readily available, i felt a sense of release that no matter what happened, i could drink it away. i also started smoking weed and popping pain pills. i was addicted to numbness, to the dulling of the senses, the desensitization of my body, and my soul and the quieting of my spirit from the screaming, angry hurt that had been heaped on my head. the lie that i told myself was, it's okay because i'm not "that girl" and i can hold my liquor so it can't be that bad. it wasn't really. but it was still damaging.
we place an obscene amount of pressure on our daughters. to be pretty, and manner able. to be attractive and sociable. to be good and smart, and we don't pause to consider societal pressures, peer pressure, and the internal pressures they also must be experiencing. so when our daughter is gaining weight, or moody, we just assume it's because she doesn't like us. or she is just going through a phase. we don't pay attention. bulimia and anorexia affect our community too. let's talk about it. the pressure to be skinny, shapely, beautiful is deeply ingrained in a woman's psyche. remember the example of the confident woman and the breaking down of her image for our own satisfaction? what differentiates her from the others? her self esteem. regardless of where her esteem has its genesis, or whether or not it is genuine or a front, it is tangible. and it is dangerous to someone who has none. to tell your daughter she is beautiful should be like second nature. if not, i would have to question whether or not you feel you are beautiful. if no one told you, start telling yourself, then it will be easy to tell your daughter she is also beautiful, if for no other reason than she is yours and you are beautiful. we can counteract promiscuity, drug abuse, bad behavior, poor body image and a host of other negative energies, habits and experiences with love . love protects. let it marinate.
in my mind i am 15. sometimes 13. not necessarily those two ages per se but around that maturity level at times. not the giggly simple girl. but the shy naive one to be sure. i don't feel beautiful or pretty. i used to obsess about gaining weight or getting blemishes on my skin. let's watch the cycle shall we? ok.
my great grandmother was a tall, shapely, dark skinned woman. she married a tall, handsome dark skinned man. they both, being somewhat fresh off the plantation, had white blood in their genes, so when they had children, 3 of them were light skinned, and two dark skinned. that happens in our community alot. my great grand father died when his youngest child was around 12. that left my grandmother with 6 children to feed (they had adopted another child from within the family, as is customary in our community), and a farm to maintain. she told her daughters and grand daughters not to marry dark skinned men because they were no good. this is coming, again, from a dark skinned woman who married a dark skinned man. he died and she was bitter. now don't think i'm disrespecting my elders or ancestors with my language, i'm simply trying to highlight sentiments and emotive energies that have been passed through my bloodline. so, her daughters and grand daughters married (with the exception of one) light skinned men. the boys married light skinned women. so cycle number one is color bias. my grandmother, who is light skinned, married a light skinned man because the dark skinned man she was in love with wasn't acceptable to my great grandmother. she settled for the man who looked better and had a better standing financially. she settled. she was getting older (in her mid twenties) and the pressure to be married in those days was intense. especially in our community. so she married. and they had a child, my mother, who was brown skinned, and of course female. my grandmother, who was already insecure and hurt and bitter, felt slighted by this lil brown skinned girl child because her husband adored the baby, and ignored her as a wife. they separated off and on. the little girl caught hell. because she was brown and female. 8 years later, they had another child. a light skinned boy with hazel eyes. but the boy came out different, special, and in those days he would have been overlooked because of his mental deficiencies. so even though he is the boy they both wanted, he is useless because he isn't "whole". they separated completely, and that left my grandmother in the same position her mother had been in, single mother, rearing children, working, with a man somewhere else. independent and bitter. cycle number two.
now my mother, who by all accounts was a woman among women, was mistreated by this bitter, lonely, angry, hurt, insecure woman. she was progressive. when she met my father and i was conceived , she was just fine with rearing me alone unmarried. but at that time she could have lost her job for being an unwed mother (she was a teacher. interesting how the moral code has changed for teachers), so she waddled into a courthouse with my father and they got married. he was light skinned, she was brown, i am brown (pecan tan is what the crackhead told me). when i was born, it started over. first child is brown and female. and she catches hell from the matriarch. this thing has trickled down through three generations. and i believe had my mother still been alive it would have stopped with her. but it will indeed stop with me. go back into your genealogy and find the cycles that keep you and your family in bondage. BREAK THEM!
in my grandmother's house, i had to bleach my skin (didn't work), i had to watch what i ate (she hated fat people), i had to keep my hair a certain way (she hated nappy heads, imagine how she felt when i let my soul glow in 03), i had to wear sunscreen and protective clothing (i was already too dark), and that's just the beginning. everything about me was wrong and most of it wasn't my fault. my eczema, allergies, eating habits, bowleggedness, body shape, all of it was WRONG. that's genetics. why are you mad at your child for what you and her father gave her? bitter much? disappointed in your misappropriation of your own genetic make up, attributes, strengths and weaknesses? love yourself so you can teach your baby how to love herself. pathology. my father's father was dark skinned, his mother very light. both of my brothers are dark skinned. their skin got darker and darker as they got older. my grandmother was so pissed when my brother's skin finally hit that last lil dark chocolate hue. she hated it. blamed it on summer camp. but it never went away. since he was a boy, the insults were fewer, but the color bias was still there. his daughter is a light brown skinned ball of energy with curly hair. that pleases her. but if it gets nappy, she's unhappy. break these cycles honey.
i watched her mistreat darker skinned people. "poor" people. less educated people. it affected me. i watched how she cloaked her skin in product after product to protect it's color. i saw how good she felt standing next to her darker relatives because of her skin color. this is the craziest and dumbest ideology to witness. it was simply a flip of the genetic coin that gave her that complexion. to this day she swears her father said she and other two other lighter skinned sisters were the favorite because they were light and beautiful, and that her darker skinned sister was mean and evil to them because she was jealous. it couldn't have been because she was a jerk from day one? nah. had to be the melanin. girl stop.
the father is the protector. he is the rock behind which the girl child can be shielded from the mess of the world. daddy's little girl. some women hate the relationship their daughters have with their fathers. jealous, bitter women. he married you, you birthed her. realize your worth and your place and stop being an asshole. who is he protecting her from? YOUR BITTER CONFUSED ASS. stop it. she should be able to find that in both parents, not just him. she should be able to look up to you and up at you to find her example of finer wombmanhood. greater personhood. why do you think a woman will stay in a relationship that is abusive and detrimental? he said i love you. he said you're beautiful. he gives her dirty little love trinkets that could have been beautiful treasured jewels from YOU. but you wouldn't give or couldn't give because what? you weren't raised that way. clearly it didn't work for you either. stop handing your daughters your duffel bags of death. FREE HER and yourself from that bondage. be the mother you wish you had, and if you had a loving, supportive, God fearing mother, be that to your child. overcome your issues for her sake, and together the two of you can break these ridiculous, deadly cycles. if you don't have daughters, be that to some little girl somewhere. a child can never have enough motherly love. i know i found myself in MANY a perilous and unnecessarily poisonous situation because i wanted my grandmother to love me. she didn't, so i looked for it in other places, with other people, doing and experiencing things i could have avoided if only...
i admire women who have great relationships with their mothers. open loving interactions that are strong and almost tangible in their deliciousness. these relationships breed strong generations, and perpetuate strong women who help build nations.as a wombman you have power. use it. stop acting like what you say and do doesn't affect or effectuate changes in your child's life. i was told i'd never be good enough, smart enough, that i was ugly and no one would ever want me. i'm STILL trying to shift myself from nothing to something in my mind. thank God for Jesus.
and now, the bullets.
* if you heard somebody talking negatively about your child you would be ready to(and some of you will) fight them to the death for what they said right? why don't you punch yourself in the mouth then, because they're just repeating what you put into the air in thought and deed.
* when you learn that life and death are in the power of the tongue, will you be ready to face what happens when your child confronts you with the death sentence you gave them?
* God created the entire universe and everything in it with words, what are you creating with yours?
* when children die, parents are left with regret and pain. the pain i understand. why regret?
* if your child left here tomorrow, would they know you loved them?
* would you let someone talk to you the way you talk to your child?
* sticks stones break bones, words break people.
* if you don't tell your daughter she's beautiful, some man or some other woman will, are you ready for that?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)