Love transforms and reenergizes; yet challenges

Love hurts.  It  hurts so bad and so good.  It hurts so bad because we want to keep and protect what we love.  We hurt at the deepest when we it is threatened or taken away.  It hurts so good because love enriches our lives with such intensity that we struggle to absorb it all.  It leaves us feeling like we are unworthy and we are often struck with the sense of fear that even when it is good, it could leave us within the drop of a hat.

We often love and never get it back in return or the love get shifted to someone else.  We have our hearts broken or cracked at some time in our lives.  We have been let down, disappointed and betrayed.  Consciously or unconsciously we have inflicted pain on others and they have inflicted pain on us. In order words, love is risky business whether in our professional or personal lives.  Life partners and spouses leave.  Business partners and valued clients leave.  Marriages dissolve and businesses become insolvent.  It can all go so wrong and so right at different times and for different reasons.

Are you loving as it you have never loved before and never been hurt before? Do you love spontaneously and generously?  Or do put up an emotional firewall between you and your potential partners because of the pain you experienced in the past?   The love you receive may be as a direct result of the love you give.  If you stop or slow down the flow of love to others, it is possible that you are slowing down the flow of love from others to you.  The risk is never that we will give too much love to others, it is whether we will be able to keep on giving when our love is not reciprocated.

Love is never lost. it gets redirected.  Love given selflessly, enriches the person who receives it.  Love as though you have never been hurts.  Whatever, your past experiences, make the decision to love freshly from today.  Learn from your mistakes but do not allow them to incapacitate your ability to love.  To love is to live and to live is to love and there is no in-between.   As social being, if we are not loving something, an activity or a cause that benefits others, it is likely that we are leading a half-life.

Love is the magnet that draws the best emotions out of others.  Love has withstood many withdrawals, threats, disappointments, losses, sacrifices.  Mike Lipkin captured it in a way that I could not.  According to him, "Love is the enduring source of energy and inspiration.  It's an unconditional commitment to hold fast, hug slow, stay true, give back, pay it forward and to make other person or thing better, whatever it takes... It surges, not trickles and once it's turned on, it keeps on flowing."

Be open.  Learn your language of love and use it in ways that are right for you.  Take every chance to let people know what you love, why you love the things you love, why they should love and why you love them.  Love continuously.

Getting Black Kids Back In School

Is there an easy answer to getting our Black kids back in school?  Who is responsible? Is it the parents, the government, the community or a combination?  I think it a combination and with that said, the other question that comes to mind is - why are we not seeing more Black kids graduating from high school and going on to universities and colleges?

Are we failing our children and what can we do about it?  What are parents doing about it?  What is the community doing about it?  Is it that we are so focus on our personal advancement that we have little or not time to give our kids that kind of attention that they require, especially in those early years?

Are we allowing the thugs and gangs to raise them instead and if so, why are we surprised when we see so much of them turning to that kind of lifestyle, taking up the gun, doing drugs, lacking the social skills to engage each other and to resolve basic interpersonal conflicts that may arise from time time amongst them?

Lets take action and safe our Black kids.  They need us and we need them.  Let us be mentors.  Let us be guardians.  Let us be friends.  Each of us can play a role and have been playing a role.  Was your role that of a bystander who watches to see what happens or an active community member who provide support and guidance when needed?

For those of us who are actively participating, kudos to you.  Will the rest of us take on a supportive role and save our Black kids from disaster?

Our Black men are dying! What can we do?

There is no easy answers to this question.   It is my opinion, however, that we have to go back to what is happening in our homes.  Our boys spend their formative years in the homes, sometimes with both parents, sometimes with just one.  In spite of this, this is where they learnt to communicate, say yes!  Say no! Learnt to love and all the other things.  

I would like to take some time to explore this issue over the next weeks.  Will you join me?