Resurrection in Everyday Life: "Hubris to Humiliation to Hope":

Resurrection in Everyday Life: “Hubris to Humiliation to Hope”

A recent daily meditation offers a most poignant and promising reminder for jaded disciples whose personal circumstances appear to eclipse God’s presence thereby negating His unquestionable faithfulness.  A religious leader in a developing country had become immeasurably distressed and dismayed.  Following a lengthy period of strenuous ministry efforts, he saw very little consequence or significance.  A visiting missionary from a Mid-Western state noticed this man’s despondency and spoke these words of encouragement and empowerment.  “God can change anything in three days.”  Emboldened by these words, that religious leader found resilience and persevered.  That reference to the resurrection reminded him of the divine power and resources available to him on any day.

At a book signing forum, I heard a radio station marketing director’s personal story of resurrection.  She traversed in the drama of her life three major acts with equal number of scenes.  Her story begins with her immature and rather prideful defiance towards her parents and family in her decision to forego college.  She refused to apply and enroll.  Instead, she resolved to pursue a career combining acting and modeling.  She acquired an agent and dreamed of unimaginable success, unbridled stardom and millions of dollars. 

Initially, she believed that her agent was a well-intentioned man who sought the best opportunities for advancing her dreams and goals.  She obtained a brief television spot. Sooner than she anticipated, auditions dissipated and her ambitions flickered.  A drought of prospects ensued and lingered.  To her considerable chagrin, she found herself dancing in strip clubs.  While financially lucrative, this type of gig hardly catapults anyone to fame and fortune within acting and modeling.  Yet, she still naively trusted her agent who harbored ulterior motives.

Suddenly, he arranged a modeling assignment in the Caribbean.  The job paid well yielding $2500 for her.  Upon her arrival, she realized that this assignment lacked integrity.  After a meaningless photo shoot, she and the agent had dinner with an associate and friend of his at an upscale restaurant.  At the end of the meal, the men had a “tongue in cheek” exchange that seriously disturbed her.  “No, she is not ready yet.”  She heard those words even though she cannot remember the question that warranted that response.  As she reflected on the conversation, she finally realized that her “agent” intended to prostitute her.  He had always planned to be her pimp.  Somehow, she graciously escaped that potentially dreadful possibility. 

Upon her return to New York City, circumstances worsened.  She acquiesces to a photo shoot with a questionable national adult magazine.  Later, she shares copies of the pictures with her mother.  Her mother views the photos, hands them to her and silently walks away.  That silence echoed rather loudly in her mind and heart.  Hurled into the lowest experience of her life by her initial pride and defiance, she travels to the South and spends time with her grandmother to regroup.  This time of emotional, psychological and existential convalescence required that she convince her grandmother that she had not been “knocked up,” an African American saying for pregnancy.  Evidently, her grandmother was not agreeable to rearing anymore children.  Nonetheless, that period in the wilderness resembled the prodigal son’s epiphany in the pig pen when he came to his senses.

Eventually, she waited tables upon her second return to New York City.  One day, she served a man whom she retrospectively characterizes as an angel.  She had not seen him before and she has not seen him since that day.  Spontaneously and somewhat inexplicably, he said to her, “I want you to return to school.”  He finished his meal, paid with an appropriate tip and left.  In an hour, he returned to the restaurant with all the information that she needed to apply and enroll in school.  In due course, she returned to college and graduated with her bachelor’s degree.

Moreover, she experienced resurrection from her rejection by her parents and family.  As she concluded her remarks, she summarized her personal journey from hubris to humiliation to hope.  In waiting tables, a job she previously thought was beneath her talents and abilities, she received God’s amazing grace therein acquiring enduring hope.  She quoted Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord; plans to prosper you and not to harm and to give you hope and a future.”  She encourages everyone to believe that God has a plan for him or her.  Her story of her experience, strength and hope yielded an overwhelmingly positive response from the audience.

Resurrection in Everyday Life: "A Lawyer Who Becomes a Journalist"

Resurrection in Everyday Life:

“A Lawyer Who Becomes a Journalist”

Adherents and observers of Christianity mostly reflect upon resurrection and related themes during Lent.  During the forty-day period preceding Easter Sunday, they meditatively consider Christ’s Passion Narrative in which He turns decisively toward Jerusalem where His ministry culminates with an ironic plot twist.  The perennial spiritual practice of denying a personal enjoyment informally mimics the crucifixion.  Foregoing delights of food, shopping, television, entertainment and quite possibly sex frees time and resources for mental insight and internal revelation.  Utilizing spiritual disciplines of fasting and prayer yield increasing ability to listen to one’s inner voice and intuition.  Greater awareness of character defects possibly discards patterns of consciousness and behavior that undermine personal growth.  Hopefully, these newly acquired lessons morph into new patterns of happy, joyous and rewarding daily living.  Lent fosters death and burial of counterproductive habits through self-denial.  Resurrection to a healthier and progressive personality occurs on Easter.

Fascinatingly, disciples can experience resurrection in everyday life.  A horrific situation is not necessary to realize the power of Christ’s teachings.  Discerning your purpose and mission in life may require resurrection.  Often, external pressure of parents, siblings, extended family and close friends proves formidable.  Limited self-acceptance and character incapacities allow their voices to reverberate within the chambers of a person’s heart, mind and psyche.  Appeasing the well-intentioned suggestions and dreams of loved ones can lead to existential death. Some parents live precariously through their children; they expect their children and even grandchildren to achieve their unfulfilled dreams and goals.  Families take great pride in the success of relatives particularly if celebrity ensues.  However, if the carrier of these ambitions does not genuinely possess them within his or her heart of hearts, he or she will experience a glacial but steadfast internal death.  Each day, more vitality and joy will seep out of his or her life.  Of the one hundred and sixty-eight hours in a week, each worker minimally allocates a third of that time to employment and vocation.  It stands to reason that such a substantial commitment of time, intelligence, emotion and talent demands a task that yields more than a biweekly paycheck.  Passion and pure love of what a person does transform any job into sheer joy.  An adage offers, “If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.”  Still, it is vitally and psychologically critical that everyone makes an affirmative and fundamental decision as to how he or she will contribute to the betterment of humankind through a vocation.

I heard the story of a woman’s resurrection at a book release.  Captivatingly, she shared a brief version of her transition from pursuit of a legal career to a rewarding calling as a journalist.  I will identify her as Karen; respecting her desire for anonymity.  She had to reject the dream that her mother, family and community had for her.  This circle of family and friends who dearly love Karen and desired the best of life for her thought she should become an attorney.  Growing up in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York during the height of the crack cocaine epidemic in the mid-1980s and 1990s, Karen managed to escape addiction and teen pregnancy.  She maintained academic excellence despite her surrounding challenges and temptations.  Her abstinence and achievements earned the admiration of her family and friends.  Additionally, and rightfully, Karen obtained admission to a prestigious mid-Atlantic research university.  Her circle of loved ones took great pride in her college acceptance as she was an outlier who embodied their dreams and hopes.  They considered her forthcoming matriculation to college as the beginning of her legal career.

Karen deeply felt their collective aspirations for her through the prism of her very close relationship with her mother.  A veteran member of the New York City Police Department, Karen’s mom bragged to her colleagues that her daughter would one day become an attorney and possibly a prosecutor, affectionately called a police officer with a law degree.  To facilitate this dream, Karen’s mother took the bus to and from work; she forewent the purchase of a car, a staple and status symbol amongst police officers.  This act of self-denial enabled Karen’s mother to send a monthly allowance of four hundred dollars ($400) during her collegiate years.  Her mother resolved that her personal sacrifice was worth the investment in her daughter’s goal of passing the New York bar exam and practicing law.

At college, Karen chose to major in political science and minor in English.  Therein, she discovered her love of writing.  She knew internally and intuitively that she wanted to be a journalist.  However, Karen did not know how to tell her mother, family and community.  The end of her college years came and Karen graduated with magna cum laude honors.  Maintaining her silence, Karen earned admission to the law school of her university.  During the summer following her graduation, Karen nurtured her love of writing while treading her increasing anxiety as her entrance to law school approached.  Further repressing the dormant but live volcano in her heart, that fall, Karen left Brooklyn to begin her first year of law school. Feeling great angst, she participated in the annual pinning ceremony for matriculants.  A longstanding and revered tradition at this school, graduates and luminaries in the legal profession returned to campus each fall to put a pin on the lapel of each new student.  Interestingly, that solemn commissioning ceremony was the site of Karen’s epiphany.

Karen knew that she had to withdraw from law school.  She concluded that it was unfair of her to retain her scholarship when some other student could utilize it.  Karen met with the dean of the law school.  In response to hearing Karen’s summary of her emotional, mental and psychological journey to an existential realization that she wholeheartedly wanted to be a journalist, the dean inquired whether she was pregnant.  It took ten minutes to convince the dean otherwise.  Karen asked for a one-year leave of absence with full retention of her scholarship were she to return.  She and the dean agreed that Karen would spend the year in journalism school.  She would practically explore the dream that burned brilliantly within her consciousness and heart.  Karen, in her affirmative meditations, resolved, “God, if I am admitted to journalism school, then I will become a journalist.  If not, I understand You mean for me to return to law school even if I don’t understand.”  Her mother took a few days from her job and traveled to Karen’s law school to assist her in moving after her withdrawal.  In the return car ride, Karen finally revealed her heartfelt dreams to her mother.  As she recounts this story, Karen nearly burst into tears as she recalls her mother’s incredible loving response.  “Above all else, I love you.  We will figure this out.”  Soon thereafter, Karen entered journalism school.  She subsequently accomplished her dream and personal ambition.  Currently, she works for a longstanding national women’s magazine with widespread domestic and international circulation.

The story of this resurrected journalist who died existentially as a first-year law school offers encouragement and hope.  Karen’s withdrawal from law school was in the words of the title of Christian clinical psychologist, Henry Cloud’s, well received book, was Necessary Endings.  The complete title, Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses and Relationships that All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward, captures Karen’s inward journey of self-acceptance and self-determination.  As she discovered the internal resources to differentiate herself and her aspirations from those of her mother and family.  She willingly embraced the death of the idea and image that the legal profession was the only reliable pathway for her to succeed and gain respectability.  This decision necessitated burying the good intentions and well wishes of other people. 

Reminiscent of Christ’s Passion in which Jesus of Nazareth humbly and boldly embraces crucifixion, death and entombment, Karen equally received the non-negotiable reality of terminating the expectations of other people.  Had she acquiesced, she would have entombed herself to an unfulfilling professional life wherein purpose and joy decompose within her heart like a decaying body.  Wisely, instead, Karen chose to entomb herself to divest herself of any patterns of behavior that impeded her spiritual progress and personal development.  She chose to die and await rebirth.  Her hard-won willingness to say Yes to herself on the day of the pinning ceremony was a proactive response to God’s graciously given epiphany.  It allowed her resurrection from being an unhappy and unfulfilled first-year law school student to becoming a journalist living in purpose.

Karen concluded her sharing with a loving and enduring exhortation for the audience.  “Follow your heart.”

Resurrection in Everyday Life: A Corporate Business Woman Becomes an Entrepreneur and Proprietor

Resurrection in Everyday Life:

“A Corporate Business Woman Becomes an Entrepreneur and Proprietor”

I write at the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period in which Christian disciples worldwide embrace spiritual disciplines of self-denial and abstinence.  Colloquially, observants “give up something” as they meditate upon Christ’s teachings and engage introspection as means of more greatly acquiring the mind, heart and character of Jesus.  Reminiscent of the biblical scene in which the Lord retreats to the wilderness for purification, preparation and empowerment, disciples perennially adhere to these spiritual practices.  As they wait to commemorate His resurrection, they follow His example.  Lent reminds them that Almighty God graciously grants them divine power to resolve daily adversities and challenges.  Fortunately, resurrection occurs in everyday life.

Routine celebration of the crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as an annual religious holiday diminishes its practical and pragmatic significance in a disciple’s daily life.  Resurrection occurs in common experiences such as termination, divorce, health concerns, financial crises, parenting and myriad other challenges.  Agony, anxiety and anger combine to result in human despair sometimes yielding alcoholism, addiction, homelessness and hopelessness.  Mired within indefinable and immeasurable intrapsychic trauma, debilitating and paralyzing depression is an obvious consequence.  Cynicism and bitterness fuel a person’s downward spiral.  It is as if such an afflicted person undergoes an emotional and existential death. As it relates to any resolution of these dilemmas, the recovery community offers hopeful words, “No human power can resolve [this problem].”  Further, “God could and would if He were sought.”  As for practical spirituality during these fierce trials and inexplicable tests, Almighty God recalls a disciple to life through an experiential resurrection.

Attending a panel discussion of a book release, I heard a woman’s story of personal resurrection.  She began her career in corporate America.  The trajectory of her personal and spiritual journey starts with a multiple six-figure salary and fringe benefits; moves to a period of long-term unemployment after her mutually agreed upon departure from her corporate position; lingering in the depths and despair of uncertainty in job hunting; awakening dormant entrepreneurial abilities; and transitioning to proprietorship of a beauty salon.  Despite her high salary, she did own a house or car.  She wore expensive and nice clothes and shoes and carried equally impressive bags.  It happened that her job was adjacent to designer stores on the East side of Manhattan.  Previously, she studied marketing and advertising.  These factors led her to moonlight as an events planner which included assignments in Canada, Caribbean nations and throughout the United States.  As her “hustle” began to commandeer her time and energy, her work performance suffered.  This clash of passion and priority forced her realization that her heart was no longer in her job.  Proactively, she approached her boss.  “This is not working out.”  Her boss responded, “I agree.  What do you want to do?”  After discussion, the boss granted her request for three months of severance pay and approval of unemployment.  Hence, a year’s beginning of contemplation and existential entombment.

Those three hundred and sixty-five days became the hardest year in her life.  Very soon, marketing and coordinating events dried up.  The phone did ring because no one called.  Emails containing proposals did not receive replies.  As her financial landscape became more arid and fruitless, she and her daughter moved back into her mother’s residence.  Her little sister also lived there.  The security of a living space afforded her the latitude to imagine, dream and pursue various entrepreneurial possibilities that awakened opportunities.  As weeks became months, she received a near fatal blow to her pursuit of her ambitions.  Her little sister shared spontaneously, “Mommy always says you are busy with your fantasy businesses.”  That remark from her mother deeply wounded her.  Pausing in front of her laptop screen as she worked, she fought back tears as she thought, “I’m living with this person who does not believe in me.”  Consequently, she made the decision to move out of her mother’s residence and into her own living space.

In a spontaneous moment of meditation, a vison about a salon filled her mind.  She resolves that God gave her this vision to open a hair salon.  Interestingly, she knew nothing about owning, opening and operating a salon.  Drawing upon her cumulative business and corporate experience, she writes a proposal. Seeking investors, she shops her business plan to previous clients whom she helped.  To her great chagrin, these people declined her offer to collaborate.  Sadly, she found a copy of her proposal on the floor of one client’s sport utility vehicle.  Angrily, she took that copy and slammed it on the dashboard instructing the man to read the proposal and respond.  Whereas he would not invest, he shared her plan with a friend who eventually called her.  When they met, he had read the proposal and listened to her pitch.  When she paused, he simply said, “Ok.”  Accustomed to hearing “No,” she initially did not realize that he approved her proposal and was willing to work with her.  They traveled to the site she previously chose for the salon.  There, he again confirmed his decision to invest.  Finally, she realized that he said, “Yes.”  After a sigh of relief and taking a deep breath, she became grateful for her new partner.  She rejoiced for the end of one ordeal as she braced for what would follow.

A recipient of a friend’s good fortune and a smattering of bread crumbs of grace along her path, she finally opens the salon at her previously chosen site.  Early gross revenues of $10,000 per month hinted toward a successful and promising future.  At its height, the salon earned an average of $60,000 monthly.  Incidentally, some of her relatives and friends would not patronize her establishment.  They said her prices were too high.  In time, several circumstances coalesced and compelled the closing of the salon.  However, she did not fall prey to any feelings of failure.  Her journey toward opening the salon, operating and closing it taught her two valuable lessons.  First and foremost, obey God’s call and vision.  Second, the myriad mysteries and experiences of a person’s journey are often preparation for a greater purpose.

This ordeal’s ingredients of angst, anxiety, anger and agony ordinarily would have defeated a person with a lesser character.  They considerably undermined this woman’s confidence for extended periods of time.  Yet, she embraced her existential death as a corporate professional wherein she merely functioned perfunctorily rather than fulfill a more meaningful purpose.  Events management was a fleeting interest; its temporary profitability soon became evident.  As she found inner resilience and listened to God’s voice within rather than the multitude of voices around her, she experiences her personal resurrection.  Retrospectively, she accepts the opening and closing of the salon as an important precursor to her destiny. 

Her parting words of wisdom for the audience was “Obey the vision that God gives you.

Celebrating the Life, Love and Legacy of The Late Deacon Joseph E. Holley, Sr.

Celebrating the Life, Love and Legacy of

The Late Deacon Joseph E. Holley, Sr.

With praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God, we celebrate the life, love and legacy of the late Deacon Joseph E. Holley, Sr. whose formidable example as a husband, father and grandfather, Deacon within the church, visionary facilitator and provider of housing, teacher and mentor to young people and servant leader in community organizations will challenge and encourage many future generations.

“Deacon Holley” was the late Joseph E. Holley, Sr.’s official ecclesiastical title.  It reflects one component of his multidimensional character and multiple ways in which he enriched the lives of people with whom he worked, worshipped, served, socialized and befriended.  In addition to “Deac” he was “Mr. Holley,” “Brother Holley,” “Mr. Joe,” “Joe,” “Dad,” and “Granddad” among other professional and personal designations.  Each of these titles and names describes an endearing characteristic that Deacon Holley had.  The person using that description valued him and their relationship because of it.  As we celebrate his life, many of us will have the blessing of private and public remembrances that comfort us during this hour of bereavement.  More powerfully, these personal and collective recollections will transform our present grief and lamentations into permanent gratitude for the relationship we shared with him.

As it relates to his lifelong professional contribution, Deacon Holley worked tirelessly and painstakingly to expand the market of affordable housing.  Conceivably, his closest relationships within his family of origins and formative context instilled this passion within him.  Possibly, it began as he observed a family in need of a permanent residence.  Maybe, a visit to a friend’s house made him contrast the often stark differences in people’s houses and therefore, their ability to actualize their God given gifts, talents and natural endowments.  Undeniably, housing often determines quality of life.  However, the confluence of these and other circumstances created a path that led him from Orlando, Florida to Brooklyn, New York, we are grateful for his dedication to assisting nameless persons and countless families in acquiring housing and the stability it affords them to dream, strive and achieve.  The security that reliable, respectable and gratifying housing yields equates with an emotional and existential foundation upon which Americans build successful and fulfilling lives.  Deacon Holley taught us that the grand American dream of home ownership and residential stability extends to everyone.

His perseverance and passion regarding housing leads one to conclude that Deacon Holley was destined for this work.  Unquestionably, he was a visionary.  Where an average person looked upon a weather beaten, worn, eroded and abandoned house as worthy only of condemnation and destruction, Deacon Holley saw a potentially beautiful dwelling for a family.  He possessed the uncanny ability to envision what could be rather than surrender to defeat and hopelessness.  Not surprisingly, Deacon Holley genuinely desired to renovate and rehabilitate each dilapidated house he passed.  His unrelenting desire to provide a house for everyone sometimes led people to say, “Joe, please don’t stare.  Please don’t state at that run-down house.”  The people who pled with Deacon Holley on these occasions knew that he would inevitably begin a housing project seeking to transform that condemned dwelling into the equivalent of a mansion for someone. 

As an ordained Deacon in his church, he concretized his service to God through meeting this direct need of so many vulnerable people, “the least of these.”  His visionary impulse relating to a physical house equally extended to a person’s internal dwelling of mind, heart, soul and character.  He did not condemn anyone as he left open the possibility that any person could renovate and rehabilitate his or her character thereby making necessary changes to live successfully, joyfully and productively.  In obedience to the Lord’s commands in Matthew 25, Deacon Holley encouraged and empowered “the least” and most vulnerable citizens with a realistic chance to acquire suitable, stable and satisfying housing. Beyond an individual’s understandable desires to enjoy financial gain and material acquisition, Deacon Holley, as a spiritual leader, cared for a person’s holistic health inclusive of a fundamentally fair chance to actualize his or her internal skills and natural abilities.  What he saw in the potential of a damaged house, he also saw in human capability and probability if willing persons are given just and equitable possibilities.  Just as he disliked people’s indifference to a house’s potential to be a blessing to someone or a family, he evenly disdained society’s cruelty toward its most defenseless citizens.  Summarily, he devoted his life’s work to supplying affordable and respectable housing as a primary step to removing systemic barriers.

The word, deacon, translates from biblical Greek into the English word, servant.  Beyond the walls of the Church, Deacon Holley was a servant leader who strove to enhance the surrounding community’s quality of life.  He encouraged young professionals to commit time and service to this purpose.  He facilitated my election to the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Plaza Community Health Center, the first such community service board on which I served.   He served on several boards and donated years of unpaid service to myriad community service organizations. As we celebrate his life and legacy, we resolve to emulate his faithful example as a servant leader who fulfilled his Christian principles through advocacy for people who are unable to speak for themselves and direct service to people in need.

To some degree, each of us is a teacher.  We instruct by example.  Deacon Holley leaves countless lessons for our professional consideration and personal application.  To his employees, he eagerly shared lessons from his experiences.  Any young adult who had the requisite humility to listen could learn a tremendous amount from Deacon Holley on any range of subjects.  Personally, I recall his attendance at a young adult Sunday School class at Emmanuel Baptist Church.  Impressed by our commitment and attendance, Deacon Holley along with a couple of his fellow deacons came regularly.  He remained mostly silent and listened to our emerging discussion.  He departed with the customs of many elders to assume correctness of his positions and superiority of experience simply because he was older.  His respect towards attendees yielded our weekly request to hear his perspective.  Spanning the breadth and depth of compelling moral issues, ethical dilemmas, societal challenges and political problems at that time, Deacon Holley graciously shared his acquired wisdom borne of his education, work, background and spirituality. 

Deacon Holley took delight in his ability to teach as a father.  One Sunday during coffee hour in the Parlor as EBC, he, Brother Robert and I talked during a brief period of fellowship.  Deacon Holley shared a few unique gifts that he as a father offered his children.  Good, attentive and present fathers leave their children with the unique gifts of their distinct and unparalleled personality.  Moreover, Deacon Holley talked about his choices throughout his life and his subsequent efforts to transform each experience towards positive outcomes.  In that conversation, he taught us the power of faith, determination and optimism.  Further, Deacon Holley showed just how proud he was of his children and that he could learn from them.  As he beamed in recounting their accomplishments, he simultaneously acknowledged that he had to be a good steward of their dreams and goals.  Sometimes, that meant being a hard task master.  When I later became a father, I recalled that brief yet significant conversation.  Mostly, I remembered his chief premise, “Fathers are stewards of their children’s dreams and goals.”

Together, he and his beloved wife, Deacon Jacqueline A. Holley, taught us the promise, pleasure and power of love.  Their marriage bridged decades in time and traversed the challenges and rewards of establishing their respective careers, rearing a family, educating children, creating a better community, caring for their parents, loving the extended family and in the later years, facing health challenges.  The years of their marriage coincided with the childhood, maturity, marriages and parenting of a couple generations of congregants at Emmanuel.  Throughout life’s various plot twists and shifting circumstances, we could look to “Deacon Joe and Deacon Jackie” who personified the gifts of an enduring marital commitment.  We genuinely thank them for keeping oil in the lamp of love, faith and hope.  Moreover, we pray that love’s eternal and undying nature will comfort and sustain Deacon Jackie in the days ahead.

Finally, as we join his wife, children, grandchildren, extended family and circle of friends in celebrating late Deacon Joseph E. Holley, we continually express praise and gratitude to Almighty God for the unique expression of divine love, grace and faithfulness revealed through Deacon Holley’s invaluable legacy.

Grant unto our dearly departed brother and Thy son, Joseph, rest O Lord.  Graciously admit him to the communion of saints, the heavenly hosts and the goodly fellowship of the eternally redeemed.  Be Thou kind, O Lord, and receive Joseph into Thy direct presence.  Let Thy love and light perpetually shine upon him.  Grant unto Joseph rest O Lord and let Thy light eternally shine upon him.