Let’s get focused on the work.
Let’s get focused on empowering the un-empowered.
Let’s get focused on uniting countries at war.
Let’s get focused on ending terrorism.
Let’s get focused on taking care of our elders.
Let’s get focused on equal rights. Equal pay. Equal respect. Equalism in the face of division.
Let’s get focused on raising up readers, to be leaders.
Let’s get focused on education.
Let’s get focused on giving everyone a chance.
Let’s get focused on creating opportunities for our people.
Let’s get focused on surviving the earth’s backlash to our existence.
Let’s get focused on raising up our next leader.

Let’s get focused.

Let’s get focused on God.
Let’s get focused on health.
Let’s get focused kicking the habit.
Let’s get focused on life without distractions.
Let’s get focused on safe sex.
Let’s get focused on self care.
Let’s get focused on talking to a therapist.
Let get focused on silence, sometimes.
Let’s get focused on putting down our phones to make human connections.
Let’s get focused on turning off the TV.
Let’s get focused on holding hands.
Let’s get focused on looking into each other’s eyes again.
Let’s get focused on a date night.
Let’s get focused on giving someone new a chance.
Let’s get focused on loving what we see in the mirror.
Let’s get focused on the most important moment in all of human existence, which is this one.

Let’s get focused.

Let’s get focused on creating music.
Let’s get focused on that start up idea.
Let’s get focused on new ideas.
Let’s get focused on the great American novel.
Let’s get focused on writing.
Let’s get focused on our craft.
Let’s get focused on the gift that God gave us.
Let’s get focused on doing it.
Let’s get focused on tagging every alley in a five block radius.
Let’s get focused on getting strong.
Let’s get focused on building our own empires with room for the people.
Let’s get focused on making new streams of income.
Let’s get focused on creating wealth.
Let’s get focused on gaming, before we are gamed.
Let’s get focused on business.
Let’s get focused on entrepreneurship.
Let’s get focused on lifting up our head no matter what.
No matter who.
No matter when.

Let’s get focused.
So we can turn this page, for good.

Imagine being a child who had suspicions that there were monsters under your bed tormenting you. After years of you and your family and friends convincing yourself that there were no monsters under your bed, one day, you decide to get on their knees and look for yourself.

And to your surprise, the monster was in fact real all along.
It’s sitting there lighting a fire to your mattress.

And every memory of something touching you, poking you, hurting you and biting you at night wasn’t your imagination — as your parents and friends told you.
It was all real.
Now you are mad at the monster and the bed on fire, but also really mad at the parents and the friends that never believed you or did anything to help.

That is what this feels like everytime racism shows its ugly head.
This is how it feels when people say ‪#‎alllivesmatter‬ or ‪#‎bluelivesmatter‬ in opposition to ‪#‎blacklivesmatter‬
Or when people talk about banning Islam.
Or when cops kill wild, young and free black people, while wild young and white people can rape women and walk away.
Or when a judge sells black kids into prison and the media makes no mention of it.
And what TRUMP’s ‪#‎MakeAmericaGreatAgain‬ campaign means to people that have been quietly tormented everywhere.

For all those that want to look away, or say that it hurts too much to watch and pay attention or want to debate the injustice in our world, stop it, please.

Let’s focus on fighting the monsters together.

If I look away,
I save my heart
but sacrifice my soul.

What a privilege it would be to save my heart.
🌚

If you want her.

I mean really want her, then you have to pursue her.

You have to open the door for her.
You have to lay your coat down when there is mud in your path.
You have to use gentle words for her.
You have to point out her beauty.
You have to long for her.
You have to look into her eyes.
You have to whisper her praises to your parents and your friends.
You have to cast away your other lovers.
You have to protect her from criminals.

You have to win her over.

But if you do all this, you still won’t have her.

She’s got to have you.

But let’s just say, she gives you her approval and she hands you her heart. You still don’t have her.
Because now you have to win over her heart.

But her heart is a living, ever-changing, shifting and morphing delicate being of its own, born of ancient civilizations — it waits for someone to claim it. You can no more know it, than you can know the wind.

But you spend your life chasing it.
Pursuing it. lusting for it. Caring for it.
Running after it with all you have.

And that’s as close as you will ever get to it.
You know this,
And you continue anyways.

That’s when you win her.

When you resign yourself to its pursuit
with everything you have,
for the rest of your life.

Her name is
Justice.

And she is beautiful.
If we could just pursue her
we would see.

Pop pop.
Gunned down.
Hands up.
On the ground.

I never seen a prison cell
Accept my own house.
because as soon as I step out side
police come out.

I never seen a prison cell
accept my own mind
As soon as we have some fun
They creep up from behind.

Pop pop.
Gunned down.
Hands up.
On the ground.

I did an extra 7 years
Just to make sure they don’t mess with me.
But the color of my skin
aint a match for my master’s degree.

I make a lot of money
and I’ve never sold D.
But I know they’re going to
find a reason eventually.

Pop pop.
Gunned down.
Hands up.
On the ground.

They never have to put the cuffs on me
for me to be in jail.
because i’ve seen it so many times,
the memories are my — Pop pop

Where is Holy in our lives?
What is holy really?
A thing that is Holy, is a thing that is specifically set apart for the sole purpose of God’s glory.

Let’s be honest. What do we have in our lives that is completely 100% set apart for God’s purposes?

Most of us would say — not much.
Historically, people would set aside a portion of their field for God.
Or a particular animal. Or a particular location. Or a particular kind of song. Or a particular day. Or a particular meal.

But we are becoming a people less and less concerned with the holy.
At times, we find energy in pronouncing what is not sacred.
Instead of setting aside more of life to be holy.

Did you see the movie RAY, with Jammie Foxx? Remember when he started singing gospel music in the club. I thought it was funny then, because I didn’t know better. I didn’t think about this kind of music being set apart for God. Now, I understand why there was such a backlash in Ray Charles’ day.

When I was a young, a friend of mine threw a bible across a room to make the point that it didn’t matter and it’s just a book — there was nothing special about it. He was ultimately trying to liberate people from faulty religious ways. Maybe he was right — that point still resonates with me. But maybe, he had just declared one more thing to be not holy. Now there is one less sacred thing in the world. Is there room for both?

Should we be peeling back what is holy?
Or, should we be declaring more things to be holy?

I think God would desire us to become more and more holy.
To be more specific, I think God wants us to find more and more things that can be set aside for Him.

The more things that we set aside as holy, the more we get to build God’s kingdom on Earth, as it is in heaven.

Where can we find more opportunities for the holy?