Quotes I Like

I tell them dance begins when a moment of hurt combines with a moment of boredom. It tell them it's the body reaching, bringing air into itself. I tell them that it's the heart's triumph, the victory speech of the feet, the refinement of animal lunge and flight, the purest metaphor of tribe and self. It's life flipping death the bird.
- Dance in America by Lorrie Moores


I need to know to what cross of stereotypes I'm going to be crucified because in the coloring book of skin I need to draw outside the lines.
- Alvin Lau


When my spirit leaves my flesh, let my tombstone, let it carve, let it say; The Life of a Refuge. To live for yourself is to live selfishly, but to live for others is to live eternally, and I, Wyclef Jean live for all humanity.
- Wyclef Jean


I challenge you to find something that you're really willing to die for, and then live for it.
- Black Ice


The Lord may not always come when you call, but he's always on time.
- Lemon

Things that make me Cry

How can people so young, know such pain, have such a realistic view of what life is really like, while I sit here, complaining, of trivial things.

This is just one participant. Look at all the others. I have watched most of the 2005 Urban World NYC Poetry Competition, and it's some of the best I've ever heard...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTnxJdxhU7o

want to cry along with me? Check all of them out; these are my some of my favorites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJArzOTZ8LU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJArzOTZ8LU

Coolness

I don't even remember what I was looking for on youtube, but I wound up watching this really cool artist, Edgar Mueller create his street art. I thought it was really cool!! I would love to see something like this!!! I love his talent to do small things to a picture, making it detailed while the picture itself is so large! I admire his 3-D talents! If you look at some of his other pictures, you might think you'll actually drown!

I couldn't ask for a better weekend!!! I got to make these.....

I got to play with these.....

And I not only got to take pictures of, but also managed to hold/play with Alashia!

It was nice to have one last weekend home. Well, it really won't be my last weekend home, but I start working at Panera this week, so this will be my last free weekend, with no obligations! I went to an "orientation to the company" type of meeting yesterday which was okay, but probably only because there were only two of us there, so the guy leading it made it more of a conversation, instead of an actual class. I still have absolutely no motivation for school work, which is why I am writing this, and not reading my text book.

Who gets to make textbooks anyway? Do they try to make it boring? I think teachers should have to read them all the way through, each semester, so they get to see how boring it actually is!

Birthday Galore

The Civil Rights Museum....

the Zoo.....

Sips N Strokes....

And Cupcakes....

All make a birthday fabulous!!!

So I've been reading this book Called No Turning Back, about a man (Gurdon Brewster) who spent a summer working for Ebenezer Church in Atlanta, GA. while Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr. were copastors there. It is a great book so far, and I would definately recommend reading it, but since I am personally trying to not hate certain people, this chapter got to me.

Brewster has just encountered a difficult situation and is talk with MLK Jr. about how to not hate raciest people, and how you can still love them after the hurtful things they say and do. This was their discussion.

He began to talk about hate and love. “Hate will build up in you until it explodes in violence. You must meet the force of hate with the force of love, or you will be consumed by hatred. You must meet the force of hate with the force of love.” It was hard for me to imagine how I could do that.

“You have three choices,” he continued. “Only three. You can adjust yourself so that you go along with their oppression and hatred, like the Hebrews speaking out against Moses because they would rather resign themselves to oppression than struggle for their freedom. Or you can fight violence with violence, but an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. The way of violence is both impractical and immoral. It seeks to kill people, not convert them. It leaves bitterness and brutality in its wake.” I had read some of these words in his writing before, but hearing him say them directly to me carried a tremendous force.

“But there is a third way – nonviolence resistance. Nonviolent resistance against evil.” Evil must be resisted, he explained. The struggle is against the evil system, not against those corrupted by the system.

“How did you get to that position of nonviolent resistance?”

He had started in Montgomery by emphasizing Christian love. The Sermon on the Mount guided him. It was those words of Jesus that first inspired blacks in the Montgomery bus boycott. Soon Gandhi’s ideas made sense. Not passive resistance but nonviolent resistance to evil. The one who passively accepts evil is as guilty as the one who perpetuates evil. The aim was not to defeat and humiliate white people but to win them over to friendship and understanding. Nonviolence, in the last analysis, is not a technique or a strategy; it is a way of live.

“Passive resistance,” he added, “is easily misinterpreted, as if it were merely passive, not requiring courage and strength. Some people always find it easier to pick up the gun.”
I wondered if I had it within me to change so completely, to turn my hatred and anger into love, to turn my temptation to violent action into acts of compassion, to turn my search for an effective strategy into a way of life. How could I accomplish that?

“You must get discouraged,” I said. “How do you keep from discouragement and despair?”

“You have to decide whose work this is. Is it your work or God’s work? If it is just you,” he went on, “then when the road gets too steep you stumble and fall and turn back. If it is God’s work, you’ve part of a larger force for good. You meet setback with calm assurance. You believe you are part of a larger purpose.”

“Is that what happened to you that night in Montgomery when your house was bombed?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. Then he told me about the crisis that changed his life. His house was bombed; he was at the end of his powers. “I just told God I was afraid. I couldn’t face the struggle alone.” Suddenly, he said, he felt the presence of God. And he heard a voice saying, “Stand up for righteousness. Stand up for truth, and God will be at your side forever.” After that he was ready to face anything.

There was a long pause. There was so much I wanted to ask. He broke the silence again. “Remember,” he said, “the struggle is not against bad individuals. It is against evil systems.” He spoke of segregation and how it affected passenger who rode the bus to and from work each day. Good people get caught up in evil systems and act in evil ways. If you use one evil system to fight another, all you do is compound the evil in the universe. When he spoke about confronting evil his voice began to rise.

“How do you break the power of evil?” he asked. “Only with the power of good.” He paused again. “It is never the right time for an evil system to change. Change is always too fast. Change is always at the wrong time…..”

States

This comes off of postsecret. Even though the states are not the same, this is exactly how I feel....