Dichotomy of a Man

A little personal today. Sometimes I feel like there's two Me's. There's the creative, poetic, artistic, L.O.G.O.S.(new stage name, trying it out) and then there is Laurent. I'll explain.

The creative me, also known as Squeak in my head, is lively, listens to soul music, appreciates and loves art, and writes. Man does he write. I love this cat, and when I'm in that mode, i feel like i can do anything. 

Then there is Laurent. Husband, father, man of God, you know all that. Works the 9-5 and supports the fam. Tries to be a good husband and father, and walk by integrity. I love this guy too because of the personal rewards (and the not going to hell factor). The problem I'm having is that it seems i either feel like one, or the other. Rarely both.

I feel most times that I have to suppress my artistic side and try REALLY hard to be just Laurent. L.O.G.O.S comes natural. It just flows (C)Tonex. Laurent at times feels forced. Like i have to make a cognizant effort to be this person and that discourages me, and makes me jaded at times, moody, and a little depressed. I'm still searching for a way to merge the two people, or if that is even possible  to do, but my biggest fear is that one day I'm gonna have to give up one, and since there is much more at stake for the family man, it will obviously be Mr. Creativity. Don't know if I'll be ready when that day comes.

Thing i can't figure out is which "me" is essential to me achieving my purpose. At times I feel one or the other, but rarely both. I can't decide if it's me being unable to decide who i want to be, or if it's because I'm supposed to fuse them into one. What do y'all think?

Church: Good Place to Mate?

So...yeah. I'm back. I always get this urge to blog like every few months so I keep my account open so I can just jump back into it whenever I get the urge. I know, not the most dedicated stance but it my stance nonetheless.

Anyway, after some insightful Twitter discussions on relationships and their relevance in the church, I thinking may have come to one conclusion.  I'm starting to think the church is not the best place to meet a mate. Now I'm not saying its a bad place, and you definitely should make sure your spiritual priorities line up, what I am saying is that there are a few factors that may inhibit you meeting the person you'd like to meet. Here are a few:

1. The Glory Goggles

 Glory Goggles are what I call the view everyone looks at everyone in church initially.  Since we're both in church we are obviously both spiritual or at least pious right? Wrong. There's some crazy folks at church and just because you see someone ushering, or helping out in the children's ministry doesn't mean that they got it all together. In fact, I'd venture to say that the church consists mostly of people who don't have it together, because that's what it's for. The Glory Goggles however, hide, or ignore all of this. You see me suited and booted, praising my way through the storm and assume I'm a prime candidate for matrimony. In actuality, I'm unemployed, have three babies mommas and live at my mom's crib. Glory Goggles.

2. The Ratio of M/W

This is something that has bothered me lately. The ratio of women to men in the church. Now, I'm married, and most of the guys I know who go to church are married as well, yet most of the women i know who go to church I know are single. What does this tell me? Two things: 1) If a man wanted to be a player (and some do) he could have a field day in the church because a. the women are all looking for husbands and b. there's a plethora of choices and opportunities. At a church big enough a brother could have four options in four different corners of the church. 2) Men are not seeing the value of being apart of church mainly until they get families and have someone to provide and example for. When a man sees his wife and kids needing him to step up, then it's like, "I gotta get my act together", and for black men, church is the place to start getting your act together. However, if you're a single woman and you're in church, you don't have many options. Most men go to church for personal reasons, not to look for women. The men who look for women, soon realize the plethora of opportunities,  and ends up running between women unable to decide. And the women allow this because, well, there aren't very many opportunities and church hugs can only be satisfactory for so long.

3. Lack of Common Interests Outside of Church

This reason may be the most important one. Here's a scenario: Woman meets man at church, woman and man both serve on hospitality team and have worked together in various outreach functions where they both secretly pretended to be on a date with each other. Man decides to pursue woman, and they start to date. Here is the problem. Up until now they have only seen, spoken and spent time together at church. So now seeing each other in the outside world, the Glory Goggles are off and they realize that they have nothing in common. He likes to go to action movies and play video games. She likes sitting at Barnes and Nobles or Starbucks people watching and reading novels. She likes Tyler Perry. He hates Tyler Perry. See where this is going? BUT they both like church. And they both love Jesus and their both ready to settle down so they figure they can work out the other issues (which is really woman-speak for "I'll change him") and still make it work because the Lord is on their side. And this may be true. But not wise. Without common interests, what do you talk about at home? What do you talk about out to eat? What do you do together that you both enjoy other than praise and worship? See what I mean? Not saying it can't work, but it'll be difficult. And when the lack of outside interests began to outweigh your church participation, look out.

Hope this wasn't too long, and obviously there's a tongue in cheek humor here, but you get my drift. Do you think the church is a good place to meet people? Share.

It is Finished

I know it's been a minute but I've been pouring my time into family and making my life more consistent. I've also been honored to use my gift in the past few weeks on the stage at Greenwood so that's been a blessing for me as well.

The next thing I'll be doing to honor the Lord on on this, Holy Week, will be as a poet apart of the Seven Saying of Christ service. Each of us have one of the seven last saying and I got, It Is Finished. I can't begin to describe how much this pushed me to really dig into what Christ did on the cross for us, and how important, and consequently unimportant certain things are in our lives. So I pose this question to myself and anyone reading.

How bad do you want to be whole? How important are your idiosyncrasies and hang ups that you really want to hold on to them rather than experience the life of freedom provided for us by Christ's salvation? I'll end off with an excerpt from the piece I plan to perform:

"...Choosing to embrace my debauchery
and enjoy the forbidden pleasures
of my secret sins,
i was determined to forfeit my chance
at greatness
for a moment of fleeting carnality."

Is that you?

Peninsula, Maybe

I've learned a lot about myself in the last year. Primarily my co-dependence on friends that has made me weak. I guess I was too busy being a friend, worrying about those relationships that I never paid attention to my own decencies in the character department. Or maybe I hoped to subconsciously live vicariously through those I thought better than me. In any event, the results have been negative to say the least.

They say no man is an island. What if he's forced to be one? How many relationships should a man force or pursue that yield no dividends, in the name of accountability or camaraderie? How long should I try in vain to be apart of something or build something with people who don't share the same interests or intentions? I'm starting to think that being an island is the only way to survive. Hawaii is an island and they get along great. People forget about them until they want to get away for vacations or until hurricanes hit. Sounds a lot like once going on with me right now. Unless there's a crisis, or someone needs to get away from their own problems, there's no need for interaction.  Which is cool I guess. I get a chance to get to know me even better.

So this is the evolution into manhood, huh. This is putting our childhood things behind us. This is growing up. Selah.

Rejection

It hurts to be rejected. I've experienced it time and again and it's something that you never really get used to. I just got rejected for a job that I was sure I had locked. I was all faithed up on this one. Really confessing and making plans to move from the old job to the new one. Lord knows I needed it. Finances are rough right now and things arent looking easier. I saw this job as a way to ease that. Maybe that was the problem.

I was looking to this job as my sustenance when I should have really placed that faith in God. I can't help feeling like I'm not good enough, but I know that wasn't the case. Maybe the job wasn't what I thought it would be. Maybe God saved me from a worse situation. Either way, part of faith is accepting what comes as God's ultimate plan. Nothing more, Nothing less.

Searching Inside Myself, For Myself

I am a poet
I did not choose to be
I just AM
It was thrust upon me
birthed inside of me
planted in a garden
of creativity
I am not always
cognizant of it
i am not always
sure of it
i do not always
embrace it,
but it is
and so am I
a poet

Selah

Simon Says Shift

Man. It has been a minute! Apparently the last time I blogged here was at the end of 2009. Then i went on to have the WORST year of my life yo. To sum it up, I almost destroyed my marriage, lost my family, and ruined my career. All through bad and selfish decisions.

But enough about that. I'm back now. New and better than ever. Finally tapping into the purpose that God put me on this earth and it feels good. A lot has changed in the last  year. I'm responsible now. I'm a good father and husband, active in my kids lives. Almost losing everything meant that I had to make some decisions about whether I wanted to grow up or keep playing around with my life.

Which brings me to my last point. Last night at church Simon T. Bailey, author of Release Your Brilliance, spoke and he killed it! I've been walking around wondering what has been holding me back in life, and now I'm realizing that it has been me! A disbelief in who God says I am, and in my ability has caused me to underachieve all my life. Well I'm puttin it to an end in 11. Time to make moves. Let's GO.