WHEN IT HITS HOME (or Why You Haven't Heard From Me)

It is possible, that a few of you wondered why I stopped blogging so abruptly, a couple of years ago.  In short, my "societal observations" became so up close and personal that I was not only too traumatized to comment, but doing so would have breached a delicate trust.  Well, it's still tender territory, but a couple of years distance, and witnessing the power of God, without any involvement on my part, whatsoever, kind of obligates me to "testify".

Why did I come "home"?  Why have I felt so much pain and worked so passionately on behalf of our youth?  What have I learned ultimately?  I wrote this back then when "it" happened, and maybe sharing it now, will help build your faith in your own prayers.

God IS.

He's always, "right now".  He didn't drop back and let you get ahead of Him.  He didn't speed up and leave you behind.  He didn't go away with plans to come back "one day".  He's right now.  He's right here.  God IS.

              ...........and don't you forget it!

Love you all!

                                  WHEN IT HITS HOME

Over the 14 years I was in California my stomach would get tight every time I saw my mother’s number pop up on my cell phone.  It was never good news and pretty much, that’s the only reason she’d ever call… to deliver bad news.  It was typically some terrible thing going on with one of the children in my family.  Young cousins, my nephew… and I’d only get cursed out if I tried to explain that the refusal to discipline or put time into them was “setting them up for the prison or the grave”.  My encouragement to pray was met with the bitter, “YOU pray!” or, “It don’t take all that! or “Don’t you go calling her trying to pray for them.  She aint into all that!”  And so, the situation became worse and worse.

Sometimes, I’d get so worked up and frightened, I’d hop on a plane, delaying paying my rent for a last minute flight to Chicago dropping everything to help in an “emergency” situation.  I’ve messed up jobs, blown opportunities, I even rejected a grant to conduct my Youth Program for an organization in Cali after getting one such phone call, determining instead, to pack up and move to ATLANTA, GA!… and another time, to BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA to get my then much younger nephew out of Chicago and out of their reach.  But only getting to Chicago, over and over again and then being told, “You stay out of it.  It’s fine now.  We don’t need you.  You think you’re so…” blah blah blah… you get the picture.

About six years ago, I even got a 13 page letter from my sister begging me to “come home” because I was badly needed and her son was out of control.  I packed up my place, gave notice, then when I asked her if she had done the three simple things I needed her to do to get the ball rolling on getting him into the awesome high school I went to, she went flip mode.  “We don’t need you.  He needs his mother!”  When I reminded her of the 13 page letter she wrote, she retorted, “I was emotional then.  And, emotions change.  Get over it!”

He eventually didn’t go to ANY high school and dropped out of school in the 8^th grade.  He’ll be 19 next month with only an 8^th grade diploma.

Now, I hear you.  That should have been the end of it.  I SHOULD have finally learned my lesson.  But I love her son.  And, because he was once reading at the 9^th grade level in THE SECOND GRADE, and was only given an eighth grade diploma because his national test scores were high enough to go straight to college, it was breaking my heart to see him lose all that potential and be even more solidly placed on track to become a statistic.  I just couldn’t give up.

So, I redirected my efforts to bringing him to Cali instead.

Two years later I did, but he’d been groomed by a lifetime of watching his mom and grandmom call me when they need me, then kick me in the teeth, that he cursed me AND my prayer partner out the first day he arrived.  Why not?  He’d watched THEM do it all his life?

I sent him back to Chi and things just got worse and worse.

So, six months ago, I came back home --to try “one more time” to pull him out of the fire, and also offer my Youth Program (born of this heart to give our kids emotional tools to create a better life), to the other at risk kids out here.  In my first blog, you read how that initially turned out.  Got cursed out royally and he got on a bus to Iowa.

But, needless to say, that didn’t last a good month.  He was determined to get back to Chicago and the life he knows.

But by then, I had backed off.  However, I got another call from my mom Saturday night.  Just two days ago.

He was in surgery.  Stabbed in the chest.

I thought about it.  Texted some close friends to pray and got down on my knees to join them.

Didn’t want to talk to anybody because if I started talking, I would cry and I just didn’t want to cry.  I wanted to think.  I wanted to hear from God.  I prayed in the Spirit.

Though it was raining and my windshield wipers had stopped working, I decided to drive the long distance to the hospital he was in after the surgery was over.  He was in ICU.

I walked in and he looked like he did in the emergency room at 4.  All hooked up to tubes and machines.  He’d spent a lot of time in emergency rooms as a child from neglect.  I took him then back with me to California but the lack of support (from my family, and the fact that I had just arrived in California and didn’t know anybody), pressed my hand to send him back once I got him well.  His life fell down the rabbit hole after that.  And that’s why I always felt such a huge pall of responsibility for him.  I KNEW his life would turn out tragically unless I kept him.

But, it was too hard, my faith wasn’t strong, and I sent him back.

That was when he was 5.  And now on this day, fourteen years later, he lays there unconscious at 19.  The doctor said his lung and the tip of his heart was punctured but he was young and would pull through.

I looked down on his unconscious, skinny little body.  I’d recently learned that over the years, he’d already been shot in the chest AND in the head.  But he kept on going and going like a ghetto Energizer Bunny, which would be funny except there he was with this tube down his throat now.

I asked for privacy so I could pray over him and I did.  I prayed and prayed.  I laid delicate hands on him, spoke life and God’s Calling for his life into his ear.  I finally wept and I sat at his bedside for a couple of hours until I decided to just go home.  But I still couldn’t sleep.  At home, I surfed the web til 5am, realizing now that’s what I do when I’m agitated and want to avoid my feelings.

The next day, yesterday, I went to church, then came home, changed, ate, walked the dogs and went BACK way up there, again in the rain, to see him.

I was stunned to see him sitting straight up in his bed, arguing with the security guard about his property which they were returning to him.  “I’m not signing this!” he was declaring.  “This says I can only regain my belongings between 8am and 5pm Monday through Saturday.  This isn’t Saturday!”

“But you already have your things,” the officer was trying to explain, referring to his money, cellphone and keys on his lap.  “No!  This says…”

The officer was exasperated.  I was almost speechless.  This child had his chest ripped open less than 24 hours earlier and he was sitting up here, inventorying his property and arguing with the guard like NOTHING had ever happened!  He turned to me.  “Ma!  Read this!  See if this is right!”  He thrust the bag toward me. Gently, I urged, “You’ve already got your things.  That is just to acknowledge that you’ve received them.  You can sign it.”  He read it again and signed it.  The frustrated guard walked out.

My nephew commenced to grilling me.  “Did you leave that stuff for me?”

You mean the scripture? (I’d written  out some scriptures and left them under his pillow the night before).  “Yeah”.

“How did you know I was here?” he demanded.  Apparently, I didn’t answer fast enough.  “How did you know I was here?!” he demanded more loudly.  I told him my mother told me.  He then commented about the person who stabbed him and commenced to recounting his money and checking his text messages like I wasn’t even there.  “Well,” I said, “apparently, I drove all the way up here, in the rain, without windshield wipers for nothing.”

He started yelling.  He stays amped up, but to be amped up RIGHT AFTER SURGERY ON YOUR LUNG AND HEART DEFIED MY IMAGINATION.  “You always takin stuff personal!  I just got stabbed in the chest! And I…”

 “That’s why I drove up here today AND yesterday,” I tried to cut him off but that’s pointless.

“I love you!” he suddenly barked from a totally stone face.  His intense dark eyes, staring directly into mine.

I put my purse back down and walked over to him, leaning over to kiss his face-- the face that looks so much like mine-- over and over.  “I love you too.”  He kissed me back.  I fought back the tears.

That tender moment was short lived.  “My phone isn’t on!  Let me use your phone!”  Everything he says comes out as a command.  He called my mother and basically ordered her to turn his phone back on.  “I ain’t gonna let nobody take my phone away.”   It was a quarter to four and he told her they close at 5.  In other words, get up and get over there NOW.  She asked about her other car (She has two).  He assured her that it was safe with one of his friends and wouldn’t entertain a conversation about giving her back her keys.  Over the years, I’d warned my mother that you have to train a Rottweiler when it is a PUPPY.  You can’t wait until it’s a 180 pound mass of muscle and teeth and THEN try to train it.  As usual, I got cursed out back then.  Now, she was running out the door to follow THIS Rottweiler’s orders.

After that call, he said, “let me make one more call.”  I took my phone back.  “Who you gonna call?” I asked.  He was gonna call the person who stabbed him (of course, most folk know the people they get shot or stabbed by).  “Nope.  I said.  Not with my phone.  I’m not getting in it.”

He had rung the nurse.  She walked in.  “Can I get something to drink?  I’m feeling really dehydrated.  My mouth is all dry…”  I noticed there was a cup of ice water beside him.  He didn’t want water.  He wanted what HE wanted.  The nurse tried to explain that though his MOUTH might want something to drink, his BODY might not handle it because he has fresh internal injuries.  She went to the lengthy trouble of EXPLAINING to him that he could aspirate, etc. and in his condition, throwing up would be extremely unpleasant and even dangerous.

He ignored her.  She wasn’t saying what he wanted to hear.  She asked if he’d been using his swabs to swab his mouth and walked over reaching for one of the swabs.  “I don’t want that!” he snapped.  She threw her hands up as if to say, “forget it then”.  I commiserated.  “I hear you,” I said.

“You know, you might want to be kinder and more courteous to the people who saved your life,” I said.  “I ain’t bout to die!” he snapped and kept scrolling his text.  And, true enough, this boy wasn’t even REMOTELY acting like he had just had major surgery.  He had all the strength, energy and focus and attitude he had BEFORE the whole incident!

Now, God has brought me a long way from my OWN temper so I resisted the urge to just walk out.  I sat there forcing myself to keep him company.  Then, he piped up, “You ain’t got to be all fake about your phone!”   Whaat?? I asked.  “Sayin you don’t want to be in it.  You just fake!”  “Look,” I forced myself, like the nurse, to give him an undeserved explanation.  “I am not trying to get in the middle of you guys’ mess.”

Astonishingly, he sat there in a hospital bed, hooked up to all manner of machines and tubes, chest all patched up, and asked, “What mess?”

Crazy makes crazy.  And for a second, I wondered if I was the one out of sync.  Then, I found some words.  “THIS mess,” I said, gesturing to the accoutrements around him. “You are sitting in a hospital bed after being stabbed in the lung and in the heart.  THIS mess.”  Was I really explaining this?

Well, that made no sense to him.  I was the one that was wrong.  He started balling me out.  Loudly.  The entire nurses station looked up with their mouths hanging open.  I walked out.  He kept yelling after me.  “You didn’t need to come here!  And you don’t need to come back!”

Maybe, what he was saying, in actuality, in his own, hurt, twisted way, was, “Please don’t leave.  I’m a f’d up mess that was raised this way and you should have never left me with them!” but at almost 19, he’s gonna need to learn to say just that.

I love that boy/man/mess.  Always will.  And I’ll always keep him in my prayers.  I still believe God has a great Calling on his life which is why God keeps preserving him over and over, and healing him, literally, supernaturally.  And, despite not being in school for the last five years, he STILL recently scored college level on one of the standardized tests.  But, I’m letting him go his path the way he needs to go it… no matter how rough.  He can handle it.  Like I said in my earlier blog, I’ve put in enough years trying to fight through the flames for not only HIS life, but his mother’s before him.  Now I see that God wouldn’t let me get in because the process He has for THEM isn’t the process He had for ME.  God knows I tried to bust down the door.  My love for them is extraordinary.  But God kept it locked for a reason.

But this one thing is clear: “the fervent, effective prayers of the righteous availeth much” (James 5:16).  Even when you need to detach from your family with love, place them in your FAITH IN GOD.  Don’t be like MY relatives.  “Humble yourselves and PRAY!”  (2 Chron. 7:14)  AND don’t let the enemy use them to piss you off so much that you stop praying for them!  Samuel told the Hebrews after they kept going against what God told them, that “far be it from me that I should sin against The Lord and cease praying for you.” (1 Samuel 12:23).

The enemy knows my gifting is intercession and people have sought my prayers from all over.  My prayers have sent supernatural healing to friends across the country!  Satan would like nothing better than to stick his hand up my nephew’s butt and work his mouth like a puppet to piss me off so much that I just say, “forget it!”  And, the enemy would like to do that in YOUR family too!  But don’t let him.  Jesus is LORD and God is sovereign.  “The blessing is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” (Deut. 30:14)

DON’T LET SATAN SNATCH THE BLESSINGS OF GOD OUT OF YOUR MOUTH or worse, OUT OF YOUR HEART!  The POWER of life and death lives in your tongue!  (Proverbs 3:1-12)  Not just over YOUR life, but those around you!  I am CONVINCED that my nephew is still here because I have had a battalion of Prayer warriors praying for him consistently over the years.  And, I am equally aware that there are strong demonic forces that have taken ground in his life because of his family’s rebellion.  I know it’s not even him talking which is why I don’t even feel particularly upset when he goes off.  He’s being used.  And, I know that.  But, GREATER is God in me than ANYTHING in this world.  NOTHING shall befall that child that is beyond the reach and will of my Heavenly Father!  NOTHING!

And, if you walk in holiness and commit your prayers to The Lord (because you can’t activate change in the world while still holding onto your sin), you can CONFIDENTLY bring your petitions before the throne of God.

 Where my nephew is concerned I didn’t always have COMPLETE confidence.  My HEART wouldn’t let me take my HANDS off the situation.  My HEART wouldn’t let me completely believe that my prayers, which sent healing to friends across the country, would be sufficient to uphold and deliver the person I love most in the world:  This knuckleheaded boy. I always felt I had to don my cape and literally fly across the country to help God out.

But, one of the scriptures I left under his pillow was this:

1 John 5:14-15

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁴ This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

How about that?!  When I was in Cali I didn’t know that God had already delivered him from gunshot wounds, and all manner of mayhem.  Wisely, they never told me.  But now, SEEING how God brought this child through this critical surgery with basically full strength, literally overnight… like Thomas, I finally believe.

Don’t be a doubting Thomas.  How about all of us FINALLY having confidence in God and not in our own strength?  Finally BELIEVING in the Power of our Prayers?!  The Bible tells us “when we pray, we are to BELIEVE and not doubt because those who doubt are like waves of sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ” (James 1:6)  Do we really want our faith like a little dingy in the ocean or do we want it unmovable, on a rock?

And unlike what my nephew told me, I DON’T take everything personally.  If I did, I would have stopped praying for all of them years ago, and I SURE as heck wouldn’t have come back here.  But when the Hebrews went against Samuel, God assured him, “They’re not rejecting you, they’re rejecting Me…”  Nothing’s changed.

You stay on your watch!  Keep praying for those crazy people!  And don’t attach to outcomes… Because your prayers might not insure you get the results YOU want, but have CONFIDENCE that “if (you) ask anything ACCORDING TO HIS WILL… (you)  have what (you) ask of Him.”

Jesus IS Lord!

Love you ALL!

What do you think?

*Oct. 12, 2013 P.S….  Not long after that, God used yet another tragedy to begin to line my nephew up in his will.  Ofcourse, I warned them all, but, as usual, my mother advised him to ignore anything I have to say.  Naturally, when the other shoe dropped, rather than looking at themselves, my mother directed them to all blame me.  My observation is this is the pervasive mindset and dynamic in Chicago which keeps it firmly established as the “dysfunctional family capital of America”, as one magazine put it, and the “homicide capital”, nine years running.

But this was a true blessing for me!  Not only did it mean they were not going to call me with their drama anymore (yippee!), but this was God’s way of FINALLY wrenching my hands off their lives so that He could finally get a “clear shot”.  They are still dealing with the consequences of their actions, but things are getting better, I hear.  My nephew is growing in the midst of it and the situation has given him a catalyst to exercise his true nature—a brave heart with a TON of love and determination.

And, as for me, it showed me in yet another tangible demonstration, that it’s ok to “Let go… and Let God.”

Jesus IS Lord.

Not me.

Love you all!

OCCUPY THIS! (Or "What Would Jesus Do?)

Earlier this year, I was asked to write an article for a magazine that never came into being.  In light of the current "Occupy Wall Street" movement, I thought it worth re-printing and sharing with all of you.

Let me know "what you think".

Love,

Rayel

Like Taking Candy From a Baby…

by Rayel

Copyright 2011.  Lisa Rayel Jeffrey.  All Rights Reserved.

As I write this, the news reports that the top executives of Goldman Sachs Investment firm just gave themselves 111 million dollars in bonuses.  Not salaries.

Bonuses.

The CEO and President received 24 million dollar bonuses each.  The CFO, 21 million dollars, and so on.

That’s just ONE investment firm of many on Wall Street.  The other investment firms have rewarded themselves similarly, meaning that the year end bonuses on Wall Street alone, will go way into the billions, if not trillions—NOT COUNTING the billions MORE in year end bonuses being given to top executives in Corporate America, as they lay off millions of workers.

THIS on the heels of the wealthy Republican politicians literally “holding hostage” the unemployed and poor children, refusing to extend both unemployment benefits OR subsidized school lunches until they got their extraordinary tax concessions—which include the ability to leave up to 20 million dollars to their children TAX FREE.  This will further extract trillions and trillions of dollars from the economy, further sinking all the public institutions and infrastructure these tax dollars would support.  As if our roads, schools, hospitals and social services weren’t suffering enough.

Why am I talking about such things in a Christian magazine?  Particularly, one devoted to evangelizing God’s mandate to “prosper”?

Well, I found myself in a Facebook “conversation”, over this, with a fellow Christian who felt that “the problem” was that the poor needed to stop expecting “free lunches” and get over their “outrageous sense of entitlement”.

Hmnn….  Let’s see.  So, we’ve got multimillionaires extracting more millions from a depleted economy, and LITERALLY taking food out of babies’ mouths to do it  (By the way, you should know that Governor Schwarzenegger has cut almost all Child Care funding here in California AFTER getting elected on a campaign pledging commitment to CHILDREN), BUT the POOR are the ones with the “outrageous sense of entitlement”?

Well, I couldn’t help but wonder what Jesus would say about all this—and how HE would define “prosperity”.

I turned to my trusty friend, The Bible, and was lead to Psalm 112.

Come along!  Read with me!

(vs, 1-5)  Praise the Lord!  Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandments.

          His descendants will be mighty on the earth, the generation of the upright will be blessed.

          Wealth and riches will be in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.

          Unto the upright there arises light in darkness; he is gracious and full of compassion, and righteousness.

          A good man deals graciously and lends; he will guide his affairs with discretion.

(vs. 9)  He has dispersed abroad, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever; his horn will be exalted with honor.

So, we see that yes.  It IS important to leave an inheritance for our children.  That’s the mark of the righteous.  That’s the reward of those who obey God – that his descendants will be blessed!  That he WILL prosper!  And, I’m gonna talk more about that in later articles.

BUT—

It ALSO says that he is to be COMPASSIONATE.  In fact, it says he should be FULL OF COMPASSION!  This “screw the poor”, “I’ve got mine, you get yours” attitude is decidedly ANTICHRISTIAN.  And, anyone who calls themselves a Christian and feels this way is fooling themselves.  Jesus Himself, dedicated His entire ministry to reaching out to the poor and the alienated who were excluded from the temple system.  They couldn’t worship in the temple.  They had to perform their ceremonial baths in a pool outside of the city.  If they were sick, they were considered not worthy of a blessing from the High Priest.  In fact, the temples were connected by an elaborate tunnel and bridge system so the Priests could leave their homes and go directly into the temple without even having to touch the “commoners”.  BUT, you’d better believe hefty taxes were still extracted from those very sick and poor.

Jesus was born “in the hood”.  “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” they asked.  (John 1:46)  Like, “What good thing can come out of Cabrini Green?  Or Nickerson Gardens?  Or The 5^th Ward?”  Jesus grew up seeing the oppression of these people – HIS people.  These poor people were HIS family and neighbors.  The folk that raised HIM!

He grew up seeing so many of their bodies dot the landscape, rotting on crosses, because, indeed, the Romans crucified over 2,000 Jews BEFORE Him.  It was their favorite way of punishing even the hint of insurrection.  Leaving decaying bodies hanging for weeks sent a message that was hard to confuse:  Don’t even THINK about dismantling this system.

But Jesus did.  He challenged the High Priests.  He confronted the moneychangers.  He warned of those who played religion, but whose hearts were actually far from Him.  Hearts cold and indifferent to the suffering of others.

And, He sought to INCLUDE the poor…AND the rich.  His disciple, Matthew was a wealthy tax collector.   Come onboard! Jesus said, Just stop stealing!  He called the Roman Centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant with just a word, a man of great faith.  The disciple, Luke was a wealthy physician, and indeed, Theophilus, to whom the books of Luke, and Acts were addressed, is speculated to be among the wealthiest members of society who perhaps underwrote publication of the books.  Jesus’ ministry was subsidized by many wealthy women and it was the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea who gave Jesus a proper burial.

Jesus had no problem with people prospering.

But do you think Jesus would think it’s ok to give the wealthy Roman rulers billions of dollars in bonuses and tax breaks while cutting off subsidized lunches and day care to children of the poor?

I don’t know.  What do you think?

As we go into this new year, in this new decade, be mindful that TRUE prosperity, in GOD’S eyes, is a two sided coin.

One side says,

“Give”

The other side says,

“…and it shall be given unto you.  Good measure.  Pressed down, shaken together and running over shall men give into your bosom. (Luke 6:38)

It’s not heads OR tails.  It’s heads AND tails.  Flip often!

Happy New Year y’all!

BE love…. and love will follow.

Rayel

Rayel is the founder and Executive Director of Rayelity Check Ministries, a faith based, non-profit organization dedicated to offering children and adults in crisis, assistance and tools for effective living (www.MySpace.com/RayelityCheck  and www.RayelityCheck.org ).  

WARREN BUFFET & ME

An old friend from high school had a simple post on her Facebook Page: 

"Warren Buffet thinks it's time for the super rich to pay a lot more in taxes.  I couldn't agree more.  If you, and me, and 199,198 agree, we'll deliver Warren's op-ed and all the signatures to Congress."

The Comment after that was from someone who said he "sort of" has a point.

Well... I'm an interesting "sort of" person.  And, out of that "interestingness", I had to respond.  You know what they say, "To whom much is given, much is required."  Well, God has blessed me with a LOT of exposure to a LOT of different kinds of people.

I was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago.  Spent childhood summers on a chicken farm with my Grandparents in Dumas, Arkansas, sat in old fashioned, white-washed, wooden churches in the pulpit, watching my Grandfather preach as old black women caught the Holy Ghost and sent fold up chairs flying.  I attended a high school that was the junior equivalent of the United Nations, college in "The Redneck Riviera", worked in Commercial Lending on Wall Street, Advertising with the world's largest agencies, sat in Corporate Boardrooms as an adult, and on concrete stoops in Lawndale in my cousin's gang meetings, when I was a child.  I've travelled across the world and across the country, meeting and getting the perspectives of people as diverse as those living in one room tin huts, to those with multiple, million dollar homes.  I've worked in Cook County jail and I've shared dressing rooms with some of Hollywood's most beloved stars.  To say I've been around, would be an understatement.

And, this is why I feel uniquely qualified to put in my two cents on this whole "rich paying taxes" thing.  I can't say I know a lot, but this I know, both through public information and through personal confidences:

Major corporations paid ZERO in taxes last year, due to slick, LEGAL tax loops.  TRILLIONS were tucked away by the super rich in ILlegal, offshore accounts, hidden for years by UBS and LGT, who simply REFUSED to cooperate with the IRS.  The IRS conducted a sort of "surveillance" of these activities for eight years (from 2000 to 2007) and when they felt they had an "airtight case" they went to the two powerhouse capital managers.  LGT patently IGNORED them.  UBS agreed to give them LESS THAN 10 PERCENT of the names of their clients, under the condition that they would have a kind of IMMUNITY from prosecution-- even though they were patently guilty of "participating in a scheme to defraud the United States".

FROM LESS THAN 10 PERCENT OF THE CRIMINAL TAX EVADERS, THE UNITED STATES STANDS TO RECOUP BILLIONS!  Do you hear me?  BILLIONS!!! OF DOLLARS in otherwise uncollected taxes as a result of this paltry deal.  Now, just imagine if they collected the DUE TAXES from the FULL 50,000 (THAT'S FIFTY THOUSAND) SUPER RICH TAX DODGERS that the IRS was initially going after, in this just ONE case!!!!

The rich are so powerful that they made the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SETTLE FOR A MEASLEY 4,450  SUPER RICH TAX CHEATERS!    THIS CASE ALONE, COULD HAVE SOLVED THE US DEBT CRISIS AND IT'S STILL JUST A SMALL TRICKLE OF THE AMOUNT OF LEGAL TAXES THE SUPER RICH HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO GET AWAY WITHOUT PAYING!  We don't even need to raise their taxes!  We just need to make them pay what they already owe!  Amend the loopholes, and launch a mission as "determined" as the one in Iraq to shut down the offshore stashes.  But that won't happen.  They're all friends with the legislators and policymakers.  Neighbors, golf buddies, and the legislators have stock in THEIR companies!  They have a vested interest in the set up.

So, there is no real incentive (besides the drowning of this country) to make them pay their fair share.  They make money in this country, BIG money, but they just take, and take, and take  it out and put nothing back!  They've all got lifeboats, posh gated communities, and golden parachutes so who cares?  But, what happens when you put a straw in a glass and suck out its' contents without refilling it?  Exactly what's happened to this country.  It goes dry.  I worked on Wall Street back in the day and I saw it there.  I lived in what is considered the "richest city in America"... and listened to them there.  They are ADAMANT against paying ANY taxes, but they want everything they can suck out of this country.

Everything.

At one point, they fought against "taxation without representation" (See, The Boston Tea Party).  Now, today they are fighting tooth and nail for "representation without taxation"!  (See today's "Tea Party").

THAT'S a very big part of the real problem.

But, to be "bi-partisan", that is, equally excoriating of the rich AND the poor, I'll ask today's popular question.  Are the poor wasteful, also?  Absolutely.  Wasted food, wasted money, paying too much for EVERYTHING (but then, that is by design.  The poor are always gouged.  I remember as a child, visiting a building with my mother, who was a Social Worker, and walking into an apartment that was literally SNOWING INSIDE from an approximate 4-foot wide hole in the ceiling.  The residents were forced to pay the hell-bound slumlord MARKET RENT to live there!  Also, did you know that in Beverly Hills, you can pull as little as FIVE DOLLARS out of the ATMs?  They don't MAKE the rich take a whopping $20 out of their accounts.  Leave that money in there to keep collecting interest!)

But, I digress...  Anyway, back to the poor.  Just as I've sat in the living rooms of the ultra rich, and listened to their obsessive determination to avoid taxes, I've watched the extravagance of people who do not have to EARN anything.  The young women frequenting the welfare offices of this country pretty much all collect their benefits with the freshest hair weaves, fly-est manicures, and the trendiest clothes.  My mother complains about me wearing the same faded T-shirts I had in HIGH SCHOOL!   Well, thank God I can still fit them cause I couldn't afford their wardrobes, let alone their hairstyles!  And, I've had a professional manicure only three times in my life!

However, the most egregious welfare queen could not even begin to touch the thievery of these "immune elite".  And, that includes those just getting here from other countries.  There are particular groups (I won't say which ones cause I'm scared of them :-), that come here, actually TAKE UNDERGROUND CLASSES on how to bilk Medicare, and set up Home Health and Hospice agencies.  Within six months, they are literally extracting MILLIONS... ALSO from the United States government.

No welfare queen, black or white (and I'm sure you know by now that the majority of people on welfare are NOT black), comes even remotely close to the burden these IMPORTED "immune elite" place on the system.

And, let me mention just one more thing:  The banking bailout.  Banks were given a TON of money to make new mortgages to potential homebuyers.  To NEW, middle income homebuyers, to my understanding.

Well, they sat on the money for a lonnnnng, lonnnnng time.  Giving each other even BIGGER bonuses than the bonuses they were chastised for.  Then, certain of my neighbors in this "rich" city I mentioned earlier, shared with me something very interesting.  They were getting called, out of the blue, by banks offering to refinance their nearly paid for million dollar homes with next to no interest.  I'm talking homes with less than 50-thousand dollars on the balance.  The neighbors were like, "Sure!  Why not?  I can take this measley balance, stretch it out another 30 years and pay virtually no interest? I can then take the mortgage I HAVE been paying and make money on it elsewhere?"

It's a win-win!  The homeowner gets to continue to live opulently, make more money, and the banks get to say they technically issued a "new" loan, satisfying government requirements for the bailout!

Another neighbor, who's monthly mortgage on THAT home (like I said, they have more than one), is $15,000 a month, said that if she wanted to, she could just stop paying it, cause the banks have lost the papers on so many of the rich's multi-million dollar homes, that if she did, they probably wouldn't even notice.  She won't do it, but has friends who have.

What you're hearing on FOX news and all these other propagandic media, is a smokescreen to cover their own raping and pillaging.

Like I said, to whom much is given, much is required.  I've been given a lot of this information so I'm just doing my duty and sharing it.

Dont shoot the messenger.  I'm just telling what I know.  I'm not a huge fan of taxes either, but Jesus said, "render to Caesar what Caesar is due." (Mark 12:17)

What do YOU think?

*NOTE:  A lot of people are telling me they posted comments on earlier blogs but they didn't come through. I think I fixed the problem.  Now, I believe all comments will be accepted, so feel free!  Love you much!
Rayel

A CHECKERBOARD TRAP

I was driving across 79^th street the other day.  Most of you know by now that I recently moved back to Chicago and have already been stunned by the Saturday night free for all gunplay that’s so easy to come across.  But, then, it really doesn’t have to be a weekend.  For instance, Wednesday night my doorbell rang at 4:26 in the morning (so, technically, I guess it was really Thursday morning).  The dogs went ballistic so I was forced to jump up and answer it, though totally disoriented.

It was the police.  ANOTHER Black teen was just shot and killed just three blocks away.  The detective was canvassing the area, ringing EVERYBODY’S bell, to see if any of us heard anything…. Saw anything…  I was a little perplexed because I live on a block where admittedly, I’ve barely even SEEN any Black teens!  But then, Chicago is a city whose landscape changes dramatically, at a stones’ throw.  Thus, three blocks away, another young, Black life was gunned down.

So, the next day, I’m pondering this as I drive across  79^th street
from Stony Island to Damen, head north to Marquette, then drive from Damen to just PAST Midway airport.  For those of you not from here, just let me say, it’s a long drive, and largely through Black communities.  And, I noticed something quite distinct.  Quite systematic.

Approximately, every 4 to 6 blocks the gang colors would change… from blue to red… from red to blue… to the White T’s… and back to the red or blue.  It was a PATTERN!  Like a chessboard!

Young, black men, in their “groups”, in their colors, pretty much QUARANTINED within a few, crowded, filthy, city blocks, “imprisoned” there by territory lines too close, rival gangs on either side.

OF COURSE they aren’t going to school!  Unless the school’s in their backyard, they’ve got to risk their lives to go!  OF COURSE they aren’t going to look for a job… same thing.  So, they just better make their money off this square on “their” corner.  In fact, the number you frequently see tatted on the forearm of any young slinger is usually the BLOCK he is relegated to.  If you see a 67, he's "permitted" to stay on that 6700 street block.  83... 8300 street block and so on.  This single, city block is the only place you are "relatively" safe, for the rest of your foreseeable life.

And, don't fall for some girl in another block!  The majority of shootings THESE days, I'm told, are over GIRLS!  Usually, a young guy crossing into the wrong territory (which might be a single block, remember), to see a girl he likes.  So, you can't even express the normal yearnings and leanings of puberty without putting your life on the line!

Jacked up, huh?

And, this pattern is CONSISTENT!  To be sure, I took the same route going AND coming and there it was…. Red…. Blue…. Red….. Blue…. Oh!  There’s a “White T” crew…. Red…. Literally, every four blocks.

Does someone want me to believe that this is coincidental?

This is as coincidental as the U.S.’s lowered Credit rating and the Republican’s sabotage agenda.

When I was coming up, I remember gang territories were more along the lines of entire sides of town!  Major chunks of the West side were mostly “this”… Big chunks of the South side were mainly “that”…  It was still a wretched system, but the noose was nowhere near as tight as it is now.  NOW it has been tightened EXPONENTIALLY.

Once Chicago went on its’ land grab gentrification spree, and reclaimed all the prime real estate all those projects sat on, tens of thousands of their residents got thrown on the South side.  Evicted gang members thrown right in the middle of rival gang territories and then the murders began to skyrocket.

Many officials want to pretend that they have no idea why.

In answer to the overnight overcrowding, and in the interest of self preservation, these little “micro territories” must have formed.  Blue… Red… Blue… Red… and they’re imprisoned in a way that literally funnels them into prison.

…  if they survive.

It’s a Checkerboard trap.

What do you think?

LITTLE TOYRIANNA

A friend of mine forwarded to me a newsclipping today of a young, teenaged girl named Toyrianna, who killed her baby, then carried the baby around while she went shopping. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/29/toyrianna-smith-killed-ba_n_886772.html

I share her heartbreak.  "Why Lord, Why?" was the heading of the email she sent.

This was my response:

This is the result of EXTREME NEGLECT AND ABUSE of this PARENT when she was
growing up.  The years I worked at 26th and California, (Cook County Jail), I noticed that EVERY one of the juvenile offenders that would be up on felony charges were, THEMSELVES DCFS cases when they were growing up, being VICTIMS of extreme abuse and neglect often, from infancy.  Their capacity to process emotions in a healthy way was killed long ago as they were forced to endure unspeakable horrors within their families and terror-filled neighborhoods, with NO protection.

I'm reading this book called, "The Adolescent Self" by Dr. David B. Wexler to help me with my youth ministry and this child's condition is called, "Narcissistic Rage".  It's explained, thusly:

"The narcissistically sensitive individual (child, adolescent, or adult) expects to be able to exercise full control over the environment.  When the environment fails him, the blow to his fragile grandiosity is often overwhelming.  The result of these intense feelings of betrayal is an urge to gain revenge and to somehow destroy the offending agent.  Fragmentation (the internal experience marked by anxiety, tentativeness, or moodiness) is the result.   The person in this state, experiences no capacity for productive self assertion (they can only react in a destructive way).  The state is intolerable.

The origin of this form of narcissistic rage lies in the experience of traumatic helplessness as a child, when injuries were experienced and there were no avenues to adequately express the feelings nor idealized self-object figures (i.e. caring parents or caregivers to provide food, touch or warmth; grandparents who consistently remind them of their fundamental self worth; an authority figure to help foster identity development), who could serve containment functions.  This sets the groundwork for hypersensitivity in later life, when small slights or perceived betrayals threaten to resurrect the same (childhood) experiences of  both injury and helplessness."

So, THIS is the fragile psyche from which someone can shoot someone for stepping on their gymshoes... and yes... kill a baby for making them feel out of control and helpless... and then go shopping.  ANYTHING to escape the panic and make themselves feel better.

The Black community has GOT TO STOP FROWNING ON PSYCHOTHERAPY!!!!

It's real.  It HEALS.  We need it!!!!  The psychic traumas we have endured since we were crammed on those ships over 500 years ago, and those we endure everyday have KELOIDED OUR SOULS!  They are scars on top of scars!  This child is SICK and has been for a long, long, LONG time but it became normal in her world... OUR world... to just go on, limping along with the pain, fear, confusion, rage and emptiness.

There is no shame in getting help!   THIS is the shame-- the generational tragedy of NOT getting help!  There's so much help out there!.. MUCH OF IT'S FREE!

Sadly, I want to hug the mother, and cry for HER as well as that departed new life.  Children in my OWN family have experienced and witnessed some things veterans of WAR have not had to be exposed to, and yet, I have wept countless tears as my pleas to their caregivers to get them some therapy were rebuffed.  I even called DCFS on them to try to force it, to no avail.

In 12-step programs, they say the addict or alcoholic has to "hit bottom" before they are ready to finally get some help.  Clearly, we, as a people, have not "hit bottom" yet.

How much lower do we have to go?

What do YOU think?

DODGING BULLETS ON MEMORIAL DAY.... HOW IRONIC!

A friend of mine sent me an email today hoping I'd had a nice Memorial Day with my family. Wow!  If it had only been that simple!  This was my response.....

 Hey Brian! (name changed to spare him any association with last night's drama :-)

Actually, my family (cousins) got together and "forgot" to invite me.  Guess they're just too used to me being away.  I took the chance of inviting another relative, who's a brilliant artist, but with "issues", to a free jazz concert at the park behind the Museum of Science and Industry.  I'd hoped for the first time in 30-something years, we could spend some time together without her having an "episode".

Not!

I woke up this morning to texts and four voicemail messages accusing me of stealing her nail polish and why I'm always stealing from her.  What?!  I called my mother just to tell her, up front, that I did NOT, since she tends to blow off her insanity... no matter how extreme, and, she agreed it was ridiculous but, as usual, she turned it into a monologue about HER. Typical, but then, I've been watching "Two and a Half Men" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" for awhile, so now I've come to accept that this kind of "mother behavior" isn't so unusual).  I just eased myself off the phone.

At the park, there were hoards and hoards of Black teens.  Like locusts!  Are teenagers the dominant population in Chicago now?  I had the top down and young, testosterone filled boys leaned all in the car offering me "footlongs".  I wasn't faded.  Thought it kind of humorous, actually.  I'm old enough to be your GRANDmother, I thought to myself, but just graciously told them, "Thanks, I'm straight".  Noticing that a LOT of young brothas here are locking their hair, I complimented them.  Naively, I was thinking it was some beautiful, proud expression of their African heritage, until I witnessed the behavior.  Then, it hit me... They're emulating Lil Wayne!  What the...?!

When I left the concert, at 11pm, a couple dozen of them got into a fight, and then, right before my eyes, shots rang out and they scattered like roaches when you turn on the lights.  I mean FAST!  It's a shame so much has been stripped from the schools, including Sports.  Some of them would have been shoo-ins for The Olympics!   Since I'm not accustomed to gunfire (Thank GOD!), I wasn't sure what I was hearing.  "Are those firecrackers?" I wondered.  But, when I saw everybody break and run, I knew it was gunfire.  I saw one kid limping away.  I was in my car, stopped at the light.

I got so confused that I turned the wrong way, and went back INTO the crowd that was walking and driving away, and got stuck in traffic.  Everyone was on their cellphones.  Police cars, ambulances and firetrucks started roaring by and descending on the scene.  I heard young girls, saying "Oh God!  Oh God!"  I asked if anyone was actually shot (about 5 or 6 shots had rung out).  She said a girl got shot.  I was still trying to figure out which way to go once I got an opening.  I'm still so turned around in this city.


I wanted to ask some boys how it started and what was the beef, but by the time I got into Hyde Park, I wasn't sure if these were the same kids that were by the museum so they probably wouldn't know.  I finally made my way out of the crowd and continued to hear sirens and see flashing lights all around.  I decided I wanted something to eat, and like I've commented, so many of the food options here don't agree with me, so I drove allll the way over to 79th and the Ryan to that Chinese Restaurant by Dukes Lounge.  They were closed.  On the way, I naturally drove through packs and packs of more Black teens along 79th street-- still with the top down.  They didn't really seem to take much note of me, though.  They were being entertained by a battle between a guy and a tow truck driver.  This guy's car was up on the tow hitch and he was IN THE CAR, GUNNING IT, TRYING TO RESIST THE TOW!  And, the tow driver was just as aggressively, trying to hoist the car up!  The guy was grimmacing and burning rubber trying to pull AWAY from the tow truck and the driver was concentrating on shifting gears and flipping switches to take the car!  This guy was gonna tear his own car up trying to get away, I thought!  Meanwhile, bystanders shouted, "Take the mother f**ker!"  A ghetto spectator sport.

I cruised on through the midst of that, thinking, "Wow!"

But, that wasn't all.

Like I said, I finally get to the Chinese spot and it's closed so I go all the way BACK East, deciding to get some White Castle at 79th and Stoney Island.  Somewhere along the way, at around 1am or so, I decide it might be a good idea to put my top up.  Now, again, I say, I DON'T EAT THIS CRAP!  But, I'm tired of eating Salmon (not anymore :-)  Bet I'll be gobbling it up today!), so I don't want to go home and cook.  I just want something tasty and fast that I haven't really eaten in years.  White Castle, here I come!

I get there.  There is a HUGE motorcycle brigade in the lot.  "That doesn't look good", I thought.  "That looks like trouble waiting to happen."  But, those bikes aren't cheap, and the few riders I catch a glimpse of look beyond their teens, and, I've just driven from 57th and the lake, to 79th and the Ryan, and back to Stoney Island, so I'M GOING TO get something to eat!  Doggonit!  I inch past the bikes and pull in the drivethru.  Not a lot of cars in line but it still takes awhile.  "What are White Castle burgers gonna taste like after all this time?" I muse.  While sitting there, I hear about 4 or 5 loud pops from behind me.  I look up.  No one is running, so I'm hoping it's just a motorcycle backfiring.  "PLEASE, Lord, let it just be a motorcycle backfiring," I pray.  I sit... I inch up.... I sit... I finally get my food.  Police are again marching past me, descending on the restaurant from the other side of the drivethru.

A young woman, in flip flops, micro mini shorts, and a tight T-shirt with her boobs hanging too low and her stomach sticking out too far, skips by with a manic smile on her face.  She's apparently seen someone she recognizes in a car next to me.  She stands there chatting.  "What happened?" I ask her.  "Oh, they started shooting," she says casually.  And, keeps right on talking!  The female Security Guard walks past.  "They were shooting HERE?!" I ask her.  As if, the police envoy, the shots I heard, and the report I got wasn't enough confirmation.  The Guard just sighed "yeah", shook her head heavily, and went back to her post.  Another day in the office.

A policeman directed traffic out of the lot and I was forced to go right on 79th instead of the left I wanted to make down Stoney to get back on the Drive.  I didn't dare turn down a side street, to get back to Stoney, so I just kept going all the way BACK over 79th.  The whole way, ambulances, police cars, and assorted sirens whizzed past me.  A friend called me who was heading back home to South Shore from visiting friends on the North side.  He commented on all the yellow taped off crime scenes along HIS route!  He said it's always like this and especially since it's the first hot day of the season.  If this is the case, it's going to be a long, brutal summer.

Interestingly, he's entertaining friends from Japan who are staying at his house.  They are getting the REAL Chicago.  Not just the roped off "tourist playground" The Mayor has carved out for public view while the South Side has desintegrated into a Third World border town!

Ironically, I'm glad I witnessed all that last night.  I "knew" that Chicago has led the nation in Black teen homicides for the past six years, but it's one thing to "know" about the earthquake in Japan, or the Tsunami in Indonesia, or the tornadoes in Missouri, and it's TOTALLY another to be in the midst of it!  I "knew" all this before I came back with my galant "youth programs" but SEEING the wreckage lets me know that something so much bigger is needed.  These teens have had no "youth".  Something so much more mobilizing, Psychiatric, and indeed, even Supernatural, is in order.

Last night was a "defining moment"... or rather a "REdefining moment".  A new agenda is being shaped and I pray for the strength and wisdom to hear and act accordingly.

What made it all the more ironic for me was what I discovered about "Memorial Day".  Did you know that Memorial Day was originally known as "Decoration Day", and was first observed in 1865 by freed, enslaved, Southern Blacks in Charleston, South Carolina?  Yeah!  It was a day first honored at the Washingon Race Course to remember fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War.  The recognition of the fallen victims was then enacted under the name of "Memorial Day" by an organization of Union veterans-- The Grand Army Of The Republic (GAR)-- to honor Union soldiers of The American Civil War.

A day to celebrate the hard won freedom of Black people from slavery.

Ain't THAT 'bout a blip!
 
After World War I, it was extended to honor all Americans who have died in all wars.  (Wikipedia)

NOW, African American communities, in cities all over the country, are  in the throes of a different kind of "war".   And that this "Memorial Day" weekend would be marked by gunfire and the marring of dozens of Black lives, that have not been honored, just magnifies the irony.

Lord, help us all.

Nothing stays contained forever.  I learned today that that girl last night got shot in the head!   Had just graduated college two days earlier.  Went to the lake with a couple of girlfriends.  Started heading out when she saw the fight break out, but got caught by one of the bullets.  One more of our children... This is ALL our problem.

What do YOU think?