Because I Love You

Good morning God! Thank you for today! Thank you for yesterday! Thank you for answering all of my prayers and the ones unspoken - the desires requested in my heart that you also answered. Thank you for JOY this morning! Last night I rested. I let go and feel deep within your love, grace, and power and fell asleep. It was a feeling that I would be fine no matter what happened. The feeling reminded me of Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech when he said, "I am not afraid... I am not fearing any man."   For many of us there is a perpetual fear, a feeling that someone is always out to get you when you’re a person whose outward identity is negatively targeted by others. There’s a feeling of a dark cloud diminishing your family’s joy when a close family member is chronically abusive. There’s a feeling of perpetual loss, of seeking and wanting to be found, when you’re separated from your mother or father at a young age. And there’s a constant fear associated with hidi...

A portrait of Tyre Nichols is displayed at a memorial service for him on Jan. 17 in Memphis, Tenn. NPR website 1/28/23 I love writing about joy, I love writing about love, but sometimes I must write about hate. Why? Because it’s with us, and every now and then it raises it’s evil head and shines upon us. I began writing this in my journal 1/28/23, Saturday morning around 6:00AM. The news report of Mr. Tyre Nichols’ killing and video footage released the day before was most disturbing. It left me, and the world, grappling to understand how this happened. I wrote ten pages by hand about my thoughts, and spent the next week, typing them into my computer and trying to organize them more efficiently. I ended up with a five page sort of essay exploring group behaviors. It’s organized by my earliest memories of being seen by others in  When a Baby Smiles , behaviors of bullies and victims in school in  The Lure of Excitement , understanding group behaviors in Mob Mentality  and...