Recollections...

"...this is my kingdom come..."

I was born and raised as a young man in a spanish Pentecostal environment.  My mother held church in our Dyckman Street apt almost 3 times a week.  I knew righteousness and sin with nothing in between and there was no "being human" as that too was considered sinful.  As time went on, I grew into the ministry but decided to marry at 18 for passion and in two years time, I came to raise a beautiful family.  It was a 17 year odyssey that revealed the hidden man I never really explored.  I became a man, a husband and a father.  Titles that required honor, integrity and fidelity.  In this period, God graced me to understand my humanity.  After 17 years, my wife and I amicably divorced and in due course, I came to understand my flesh in all its extremes.  I sought out debauchery in excess.  I became the cliched poet.  Going so far into vice that it almost claimed my very life. Although my years of this particular exploration were short...their impact remains as does everything else.

I only share this history to let you know how extreme my pendulum swung until I found my center. That zone where all of me is understood to have a purpose.  It was here that I understood grace.  It was here that I found the best in me in places I'd never think to look.  As a young man, I learned about my spirit.  As a family man, I grew into my soul and as a free man...I came to understand my flesh.  Now, here at my center...I'm just me.  The whole of me that sees what God sees in me affording me the understanding that both light and dark...have their grey.  I can do a good deed for the sake of pride and I can do an evil that I've calculated will lead to good.  All decisions led by conscience.

A truism I could never understand as a pious boy reading about the sins of our biblical patriarchs.  It took a lifetime for me to understand that internal struggles are always decided by split decisions of the heart. Whose influence will your soul accept in an argument?  Will you choose rage or forgiveness?  Or will you take a bit of both and decide to allow yourself to be angry...but quietly understand why?  In all cases...it's human and it's fine. You will grow in either case so long as you come to understand the consequence of each.

Understanding the whole of you...towards the letting go of shame.  Some might say that shame is essential for change but looking back on my life and the life of others...I found that to be a lie.  When one is ashamed, the guilt alone can stifle them as they will spend all their time either hiding what they've done or flagellating themselves until they bleed with nothing but broken skin to show for it. There is no real lesson in shame...there is only the acquired fear of being discovered as it is not solely based in truth.  No...it is primarily based on accusation.  It's the pointed finger whose objective is control.  Conviction on the other hand needs no finger but your own.  It does not control nor does it need to be hidden as there is no guilt.  Conviction simply lets you know where you went wrong based on what you know to be right and all it requires is a course correction derived from the lessons learned.  A process that produces real growth and real change based on an internal compass we call "conscience".  Shame will keep a man crying for absolution from his accusers.  Conviction will show the man what he did wrong with a real desire for change as his absolution is found in that change. We will never reach perfection but its pursuit is not in vain as it is in this pursuit that we find ourselves becoming better everyday.

Consider all that speak about the evils of our nation's past and what judgements are required.  I'll use slavery as an example.  The undeniable truth is that it was conviction that had the people of this great land fight a civil war where countless lives paid the price to end the scourge of slavery.  Regrettably today, it is shame triggered by the pointed finger from those that have something to gain by way of control that keeps it mired in senseless debate.  Yeah...I added this bit to get to this:

With all that I have learned about myself, I treat my land like a lover needing understanding after a mistake.  She's apologized and I accept that she's learned from her error.  I know she's a good enough woman still deserving of love. So I endeavor to show her love and support that she may know that a mistake is not exclusive to her because I too have failed.  I accept that it's time to grow together in what we now know to be true about each other...because I love her.  Folks, we've all made mistakes...as individuals and as a nation.  As a nation, we've worked through our conviction and came to absolution by the progress we've made.  Anyone says any different...don't listen.  They just want to control you...don't let them.  As an individual, if you carry guilt on your back, allow conviction to work itself through.  It might require you to ask for forgiveness.  It may even require you to make amends.  Do all you need to once and for all and let it go.  Step forward...move on and live life...I'm out

Oh and lest I forget: The name given to satan...is "the accuser"...

~Moses Apollo