Category: Articles

I shouldn’t see you before I see you. That’s what I wanted to tell her. She came into the office and sat in the waiting room. What should have been a skirt looked more like a napkin. A very tiny napkin.

But she was not concerned. In fact she was proud to be revealing what only God, her mother or a spouse should see. Flaunting her body as the beautiful asset it was seemed as natural as the breath she took…, away…,from those who gawked at her…., like me.

But wait a minute. I am the doctor here. So when the Medical assistant announced: “the doctor will see you now” I was thinking of responding “He already has”.

It seems as if some women of today are lacking mothers, morals and mirrors. Perhaps this is an oversimplified and very biased, judgmental statement. But as a physician I am supposed to say remove your garments and put on this paper robe. I feel like saying, please put on this robe to cover that face cloth, or napkin or whatever it is.

Well I am getting older and it may just be that it is really time for me to retire. However, I still believe that women who display modesty in their attire in public are the most attractive.

I shouldn’t see you..,, until I see you.

Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that fears the Lord , she shall be praised. Proverbs 31:30 KJV

Borrowed feelings are like borrowed clothing. I can slip out and out of them very easily. So I borrowed his feelings. I pretended for just one moment to feel as he felt. That way I could record it in my mental notebook as another good deed done.

This was a nice mental selfie of me standing next to a man who would just as soon remain unnoticed because he was used to being unacknowledged. Then once the pretend shutter of the camera in my mind had opened and closed, in an instant, I shed my pretense of empathy.

I wore this borrowed shirt, this sense of moral outrage and Christian compassion, just long enough to impress myself that I am a good person. Usually I rush pass these begging bums on the street, fearful that they will ask for the $5 I have in my pocket. I could easily give them $10 or even $20 without noticing it. But since they don’t give change, I won’t pull it out so I can give the single $1 I feel they deserve. After all they would waste that in a way worse than I would waste it on myself.

Wait a minute. I do have some coins in the bottom of my pocket. Ooppsss! He dropped some of them and the light has changed. Gotta go. Don’t hold up traffic.

I notice them, I just don’t acknowledge them. Borrowed feelings are easier than borrowed clothing to remove.

Proverbs 21:13 He who shuts his ear to the cry of the poor Will also cry himself and not be answered.

A reading of Psalm 125 without a look at the current geography of the nation of Israel would leave one to believe that Mount Zion is an actual set in stone place. It is true that we can actually point to a site that is presently designated as Mount Zion. However, according to the very trusted (???) source Wikipedia: The name Mount Zion referred successively to three locations, as Jerusalemites preserved the time-honored name, but shifted the location they venerated as the focal point of biblical Jerusalem to the site considered most appropriate in their own time.

In other words, their view of this depiction of the holy mount shifted with time. So when the Psalmist wrote Psalm 125: 1-2 “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever”, he had not read Wikipedia.

He was unaware of what the future would hold as far as political entities and nation states. He knew only one thing for sure. Though mountains may shake, they don’t move. Though volcanoes may blow their tops even implode, they remain where God has planted them.

God is our immovable mountain. We are swept along with events, the seasons and fashions. Wikipedia will define what is culturally normal today as what is right. And in the next millennia, next century, next decade or next week will define another shift in what is socially and morally acceptable.

God is an unchanging, unmoving mountain. If we trust in the cultural shifts as found in the Wikipedia oracles of the day, we are like the scepter of the wicked…. That the righteous use their hands for evil (verse 3).

We have a God who is un-moveable and unshakeable. The living God is moved with compassion, not fashion. He surrounds us and protects our hearts and minds even when it feels we are alone. We feel this un-moveable mountain only when we; trust in mount Zion.

Prayer

Father help us to trust in you and know that you are moved with compassion to protect us from the evils that surround us in this day as we grow closer to you. May we know without doubt that you will do good through us and in us as we desire to be upright in heart v.4

The phrase “God helps those who help themselves” is a popular motto that emphasizes the importance of self-reliance and self initiative. However, nothing could be further from the truth. God does not delight in self reliance. He takes pleasure when His children feel defeated without His presence. He enjoys our dependency on Him not just as a resource, but as the actual source. In other words we seek Him not just to find provision, but as the actual provision itself. We don’t need more of this or that. We need more of Him.

That is the setting of Psalm 124. It is the Psalmist declaration and affirmation that without God, we may as well give up. We are defeated not just by the enemy without, but the enemy within. Our victories of the flesh bring with them pride and a sense of being better than our foes. Our victories in Christ bring with them a sense of humility and thankfulness that God has done marvelous things in our lives. We praise our Father and tell others to look at Him and take their eyes off of us.

Our failures in the flesh bring a sense of worthlessness, and frustration. Self dependence is an anathema to God. It is sin because it tells God we cannot and dare not rely on Him. He is untrustworthy. I must worry and figure this out for myself.

The truth is God helps those who cannot help themselves. That is those who totally rely upon His grace and love rather than their own strength and cunning. That does not mean God helps those who will not help themselves. We are required to show up for the fight. But once we are on the battlefield, or in the boxing ring, the fight is fixed. The battle is won.

Psalm number 124 encourages me to stay on the battlefield because the fight is fixed. The battle is won even though the enemy refuses to leave the field of battle. It is not for me to figure out how to win. I am not called upon to be successful nor even a cheerleader. I am just called upon to stand my ground and acknowledge the Savior is victorious.

Prayer

Father help me to resist the temptation to run from the battle in fear or stand in self reliance. Help to acknowledge that You alone are my strength and shield and that without Your presence any fleshly victory is defeat.

Psalm 124:1-3

124 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say;

2 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us:

3 Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us:

White people have been white a long, long, loooonggg time. While black people, we have been evolving. Shanequa just arrived. Those of us who remember the book Roots by Alex Haley, do remember the young boy named Kunta Kinte who refused to be called Toby. It took the removal of his foot with a hatchet to convince him of his new name.

What should we be called? Nigra, negro, negress, ni**er, black, colored, brown skinned, high yellow, quadroon, octaroon, African, mullato, jigaboo, darkie, mixed breed are amongst the choices. Then there was always ‘BOY!” We have been recently elevated to African American. It took us almost 400 years to be considered American and there is still the struggle.

I grew up being called these names or at least hearing my relatives friends and neighbors called these names. We have had an identity crisis because we never knew what would society call us.

White people have been white a long, long, long time. There was no official term ‘honky, or cracker’. Those were completely pejorative words. No one ever had to put those names on an official document. There were no honkies before there were cars. More about that later.

Except for the what is now a dreaded ‘N’ word (only dreaded when socially convenient), the others mentioned were all fair game when applying for a job, a license, a voter ID or birth certificate.

It is impossible for white people to understand being anything other than white. Oh yes they may be European or the like…, but they are still white.

When the white immigrant or indentured servant such as the Irish, or Italian would escape from their captors they could hide in the woods and emerge on the other side as German or British. Of course they had to hide their accent or feign ignorance. But Africans did not have that as an option. They would go into hiding and emerge as still a person of darker hue than anyone else around them. Should their pursuers decide to do so, they would not have to recognize the Manumission papers they carried (freedom papers), and could return them to their owners or the highest bidder.

The name honky has it’s origin with the arrival of automobiles. There were no honkies before there were cars. White men could cruise black towns, neighborhoods or farms to fulfill their libidos and lust. In the event that they found what they wanted, they would honk their horns. A black child for instance could look out the window of his family’s shack and announce; ‘the honkey is here’. At that point the woman, his mother, sister, auntie or grandmother, was obligated to go out and fulfill her duty. The man of the home had no option but to let it happen. Cracker of course was derived from the sound of the whip that would crack upon the back of the men, women and children enslaved.

The desire for an ethnic identity has not been something to trouble them. One drop of African blood put you in one of these multiple mixed-race categories.

We had to accept names, not pick them. We did not have the luxury of choosing.

So when a black man was given a name by his master, his only responses could be ‘yes sir, or no sir’.

In the 1950’s and 60’s, we were told to throw off our slave names and take on African names.

Back in the Jim Crow and civil rights era, black men would refuse to take on first names because they were tired of being called by their first names, while they had to address white men by their last names. So you had a lot of TJ’s and JW’s instead of Tommy Joes and Johnny Williams born in that era. We were tired of having our names chosen then abused.

We knew little about Africa except for the emerging leaders, most of whom were murdered or exiled when they stood up against colonial powers. So we started to invent names. Hence, Takeesha was born along with Moneesha.

When we got the luxury to chose, we did . After all, who is Shaniqua? Where did Daquan come from?

We have been a lot of things in America. Talk about confusion.

White has always been white. They have been white for a long time Shanequa just arrived

It seemed like a good deal when I first heard it. Then she repeated it. It sounded even better the second time around and especially when a pretty woman says it. I didn’t need the first one but having ten more for free, well who could refuse that offer?

The sales pitch is straightforward and legal. It is even socially acceptable. Again, however, the problem is I don’t need the first one. Somehow it just seems right to go ahead and buy it.

Such is the way of making decisions based upon the desire to gratify appetites for hungers that never really existed. Somehow I have allowed the world to set my agenda, define my pleasures and offer solutions to problems I didn’t know I even have.

The best thing about this offer of buying one and getting ten free is that I get a lifetime supply of things I don’t need just as long as I will let this woman come in and sell me just one more.

Proverbs 5:9-14 (The Message) You don’t want to squander your wonderful life, to waste your precious life among the hardhearted. Why should you allow strangers to take advantage of you? Why be exploited by those who care nothing for you? You don’t want to end your life full of regrets, nothing but sin and bones, Saying, “Oh, why didn’t I do what they told me? Why did I reject a disciplined life? Why didn’t I listen to my mentors, or take my teachers seriously? My life is ruined! I haven’t one blessed thing to show for my life!” Never Take Love for Granted. Do you know the saying, “Drink from your own rain barrel, draw water from your own spring-fed well”? It’s true. Otherwise, you may one day come home and find your barrel empty and your well polluted.

17 Your spring water is for you and you only, not to be passed around among strangers.

18 Bless your fresh-flowing fountain! Enjoy the wife you married as a young man!

19 Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose – don’t ever quit taking delight in her body. Never take her love for granted!

20 Why would you trade enduring intimacies for cheap thrills with a whore? for dalliance with a promiscuous stranger?

21 Mark well that God doesn’t miss a move you make; he’s aware of every step you take.

22 The shadow of your sin will overtake you; you’ll find yourself stumbling all over yourself in the dark.

The Case for Buying Guns

It hurts to sleep and I am tired of the tears. Do you hear me Dr. Johnson? I am tired of the tears.

She repeated this mantra as though it would actually sink in deeper and I could understand her better. It was useless to do so. I am more distant from her world than if I still lived in Kenya. The fact that I attend church in her neighborhood and that our clinic is within walking distance from her front door does not make me empathetic or even sympathetic. She is from a distant planet, another galaxy and dimension. Hers is a world of violent loss of loved ones. My world is one that expects the good guys to do good and the bad guys to rot in jail or die.

She goes on. She tells me; I avoid going to bed. I am afraid that if I don’t remember his death and dying, I am guilty of depriving him of life. And this is in spite of the fact that I am his mother. I am tired of the tears of remorse, regret and remembering that I should never have had that gun in the house.

It was my grandmother’s gun and I kept it just in case someone broke into the house to steal or to hurt one of us. I never thought Bobby would take it and do something stupid. It is unfair for a mother to lose two sons. One in prison for life and the other in the ground for eternity for killing his brother. I am tired of tears.

When we first introduced our gun buy-back program to our supporters we had a tremendous negative response from people like us who lived in yet another dimension. They live in a dimension that the law is always on their side and justice always prevails. Our gun buy-back failed. We were dismissed as having no compassion for victims or hostile to the peace-keepers.

Now we are over three years since the introduction of this project and there are still so few people who are tired of tears. There is no question that people are crying. The daily reports of mass murders, random shootings and suicides lull the calloused to sleep and make the weary weep because yet again there is a gun still for which no one has accounted.

Who has that gun? Is it my son? Is it my brother? Is it a complete stranger? Or did Dr. Johnson succeed in buying that one gun? I hope and pray he did. I am tired of the tears.

To date we have had a poor response to this appeal. We are launching an initiative in conjunction with the city of Philadelphia and the South Philadelphia church community to get the guns out of closets, shoe boxes and from under beds and bottom dresser drawers. It is these guns that are used for revenge killings by gangs, drive by murders, hold-ups, robberies, to prove a point or pay a bill or even kill the very people charged with protecting our community.

Are you tired of the tears? Help us buy guns.

When Good Does Bad

I was told I should feel good about it. He touched me. He groaned, then grinned with excitement. I knew I was supposed to feel bad, but he told me I should feel good. So I complied. I tried to feel good. I was aroused at the same time I was being sexually abused. After all he said that he loved me and this was a natural expression of his love. So he touched, rubbed, grinned and groaned some more with excitement until what should have felt bad, felt good. I was abused as a child. I suffered the helpless embarrassment of being defiled. I told no one about it. Until now Dr. Johnson when I am telling you.

This is the story I heard from one of our patients recently. He is now living with and married to a man who is thirty years his senior. This man has been with several other men before. On occasion, he has also tried women.

This man, his marital partner has just been released from prison for sexually abusing children.

This man, his spouse, is also one of our clients better designated, our patients. He has hepatitis B and C. He is HIV positive. Both of their lives are at risk for a multitude of illnesses which are sexually transmitted. The tough part is, it began with what is normal and good now hurts and goes bad.

Statistically we are witnessing a worldwide epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases. Just looking within our own borders, the new normal is hurting us. According to CDC these are the frightening statistics.

1. Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) have been rising among gay and bisexual men, with increases in syphilis being seen across the country.

2. In 2014, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men accounted for 83% of primary and secondary syphilis cases where sex of sex partner was known in the United States.

3. Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men often get other STDs, including chlamydia and gonorrhea infections.

4. HPV (Human papillomavirus), the most common STD in the United States, is also a concern for gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men.

5. Some types of HPV can cause genital and anal warts and some can lead to the development of anal and oral cancers.

6. Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men are 17 times more likely to get anal cancer than heterosexual men. Men who are HIV-positive are even more likely than those who do not have HIV to get anal cancer.

Being on the right side politically and socially should be a good thing. We want to protect the civil and social rights of the oppressed and exploited. We want to acknowledge our past evils in order to confess what is wrong and profess what should be right. It is good. Unless of course that good does bad.

When can we start saying that being good is actually bad? When can we say that being normal is painful and costly individually and as a society. They are hurting. The incidence of drug abuse within this community surpasses that of the ‘old normal and old good.’

Although data on the rates of substance abuse in gay and transgender populations are sparse, it is estimated that between 20 percent to 30 percent of gay and transgender people abuse substances, compared to about 9 percent of the general population.

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/report/2012/03/09/11228/why-the-gay-and-transgender-population-experiences-higher-rates-of-substance-use/

We have not yet begun to count the health care costs of doing good or being normal. The economic burden is real. This freedom of sexual expression, to be whatever I want to be does have economic costs. We all pay it.

The total estimated burden of the nine million new cases of these STDs that occurred among 15-24-year-olds in 2000 was $6.5 billion (in year 2000 dollars). Viral STDs accounted for 94% of the total burden ($6.2 billion), and nonviral STDs accounted for 6% of the total burden ($0.4 billion). HIV and HPV were by far the most costly STDs in terms of total estimated direct medical costs, accounting for 90% of the total burden ($5.9 billion). The large number of infections acquired by persons aged 15-24 and the high cost per case of viral STDs, particularly HIV, create a substantial economic burden.

https://www.guttmacher.org/about/journals/psrh/2004/estimated-direct-medical-cost-sexually-transmitted-diseases-among-american Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2004, 36(1):11-19

So when he or she tells me it feels good and therefore is good and natural I have a decision to make. Do I join the chorus that is redefining sexual and marital relations, or do I advocate for a return to the mandate that Jesus the Christ stated in the New Testament as He quoted the Old Testament?

Genesis 2:24 English Standard Version (ESV)
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Matthew 19:4-5
And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH ‘?

This new normal, this being good is costing us more than we can begin to imagine. This new normal hurts.

Not one of us really knows who the next President of the United States of America will be. That question is debated every minute of every day. People are being paid to lose sleep over this issue. But there is one issue that remains without doubt. That is; Who remains the King of kings.

It is a calming assurance that those of us who know this King find peace and comfort. There is no need to debate, argue, register or line up to vote. The Winner was declared from eternity. We mark this event every time we write the day of the week, and month of the year. We designate the King this year by writing 2016, and next year…, if He does not return before then as we would write, 2017. All calendars around the world acknowledge Him as King.

Every knee bows to this King. So don’t worry about who might have to answer the red phone in the middle of the night, or have a finger on the nuclear button in the brief case buckled to the right arm.

God would never allow all of His creation to be held at the whim of His creatures. Vote for sure for the next President to rule the country. But choose Jesus always to reign in your hearts. The everlasting King of kings.

Philippians 2:10-11
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. King James Version (KJV)

There is a difference

Bless the Lord, oh my soul…, and all that is within me. Psalm 103:1 KJV

I belched. Then I prayed. I asked the Lord’s blessing on the food I had already consumed. Is that a correct application of this Psalm?

We live in a culture and time when we thank God only when things are going our way. We don’t know how to thank God and we don’t have a clue how to praise Him for suffering.

Suffering is for wrong doers. Suffering means, we have somehow not worked hard enough, prayed hard enough, or had enough faith. Suffering is for losers. Suffering is for sinners and lazy people. The poor are poor because they have not worked hard enough.

If they were only hard working and deserving like me. Buuurrrppp! I am sorry. As I was saying, God has really blessed me. It is clear that He loves everyone, but He really likes me more and the evidence is clear because I have a big house, a pretty wife, healthy children and even a house trained pedigree dog.

Buuurrrppp!! Excuse me. As I was saying. God is good, isn’t He?

Job’s friends felt the same way as they watched his wealth melt away. Bildad one of his best friends said this to Job.

Job 8:6 If you were pure and upright, surely now He would rouse Himself on your behalf, and He would prosper your righteous dwelling. (Modern English Version)

God is not impressed with our belching and burping. If we want to praise Him we must learn to do so not because of the abundance of what He allows us to steward. We own nothing. We are stewards. We are merely temporary guardians of wealth that passes through our hands and once we die, someone else becomes the steward.

Stop the belching. Start the blessing. There is a difference. Buuurrrppp! I am sorry. Did I do that again. Excuse me!

Philippians 4:11 And I am not saying this because I feel neglected, for I have learned to be satisfied with what I have. (Good News Translation)