Yesterday’s blog ended with Damitra experiencing some relief after whipping the
“mess” out of Shirley and beatin’ some of the ugly off Baby Shrek also known as
Joan, the two ring leaders of the bullies that had antagonized her for
months.
Damitra
was promoted to middle school and though she tried her best, she just couldn’t
keep up with any classes except art, math and physical education. She was kept back again and out of
frustration at the age of 14 she dropped out of school and got a job working at
a local mom and pop store. Lala didn’t
like it but she didn’t put up too much of a fuss because the extra income Damitra
made helped offset some of the household expenses. However, Granny Fran had a cow and she made
it known every opportunity she could.
After about a year of working, one of her former teachers, Mr. Peace,
tracked her down and asked if she and Lala would be willing to meet him for
coffee. They both had a great deal of
respect for Mr. Peace because of the attention he showed to Damitra when she
was his student so they readily agreed more out of curiosity than anything else. They met the following week and listened in
absolute awe as he shared what he believed was the reason Damitra had such a
challenge in school. While sitting in Starbucks
she agreed to take the simple 40 question assessment (http://www.dyslexia.com/dyslexiatest.htm)
which proved his theory: she wasn’t autistic, developmentally challenged or
ignorant, she was dyslexic and with the right help she could learn just as any
other student, if she was willing to focus and learn. Lala cried tears of joy as Damitra sat speechless. He had already done research about a special
program in her area that would help her get back up to speed and possibly even
graduate with her classmates.
Two
years later with a lot of hard work, tutoring, pep talks from her counselors,
Mr. Peace and Granddaddy Wayne and Damitria graduated with honors and a full
scholarship to Atlanta Clark University which is where the declaration started
yesterday.
Raymond
Earl, Grandpa Wayne’s brother flew in from Chicago to witness this great event. He hadn’t been to the San Francisco Bay Area
in at least 20 years. Damitra and Sal,
Jr. had never seen their grandfather quite so happy. They didn’t know if it was because he had
been sober for the past few months, his brother being in town or if it was a
combination of both. She didn’t care
what it was, she was just glad to see Grandpa Wayne sober and enjoying his
family. After all the festivities were
over and they were getting settled for the night, Raymond Earl went to the
kitchen for a late night snack where he found his brother, Wayne doing the same
thing. He heated a medium sized bowl of
his momma’s peach cobbler and topped it off with a scoop of Bryer’s Vanilla
Bean ice cream. He knew he shouldn’t indulge
in a second bowl of cobbler this late but it was callin’ his name, nobody could
resist Granny Fran’s peach cobbler. He
sat down with his brother and told him how proud he was of him for being clean
for the past 366 days and for the opportunity to celebrate Damitra and Sal, Jr. As if on queue they both walked through the
front door after celebrating with their friends at several graduation
parties. They decided to join the OGs
for late night dessert before heading off to bed. Sal had heard all kinds of stories about why
Uncle Ray had left California but never felt like he got the complete truth so
he decided to ask him. Raymond Earl thought
for a minute, took a breath, got another bite of peach cobbler a la mode and
began the following story:
Twenty
years ago, I accepted Christ into my life and I joined the church where I was
born again, First Bapticostal Church of the Living Christ down the Road Missionaries
in Unity All Faiths Non-Denominational Fellowship of All People of All Color,
Inc. I supported the ministry
financially, volunteered my time and other resources; was generally the first
one there and the last one to leave. The
Pastor was an amazing woman full of humility that loved God with all of her
heart. I loved and respected her as a
leader but somewhere along the way she started to drink her own Kool-Aid,
believed her own press, and sadly the ministry became more about her, what she
accomplished, who she knew and what she was doing as if she was running for
some type of office in her own church. She
took credit for every positive thing that was ever accomplished in that
ministry but never took responsibility for anything that went wrong. She always found an unspecting target for
that assignment. Now that I look back
the impression that she gave was that she was somehow perfect and above
mistakes though she un-authentically said she wasn’t perfect with her mouth, it
didn’t come from her heart.
I
personally witnessed her berate people over the pulpit, whether it was in the
middle of her Sunday morning “talk”, at a business meeting which she had to
control from start to finish whether she was the presenter or not or in a bible
class. For example:
- She would have an open Q&A but when someone made a comment that she didn’t like, she would shut it down; or if you asked a question that made her feel threatened or uncomfortable she would shut that down too.
- Once I saw her go tit for tat with a brother in the middle of a bible class and it got so heated that the brother got up and walked out. She yelled for him to come back and sit down as if he was a kid and he kept going and never returned.
- We spent many Sundays scratching our heads wondering what the heck she was talking about and then realized she was “throwing off” on someone or some people during her message, at everyone else’s expense, rather than speaking to that individual(s) independently;
- I have even witnessed her sabotage the vote of the decision making body by polling each of them separately, convincing the majority of them to change their vote and then reconvene the meeting to get a formal approval. Several board members complained about it to me after the fact but what bothers me is that they went along with it. For he that knoweth to do good and doeth it not it is sin;
These weren’t isolated incidents, there
was always something going on that caused you to stop, drop and roll onto your
knees and ask God for help. I dared not
discuss my concerns with others because it would be viewed as heresy punishable
by tar and feathering followed by a first class ticket to the inner parts of
hell to let them tell it if I disagreed with the Pastor. For real?
Forget about trying to talk to her because she was “untouchable”
according to her bible which said: Rebuke not an elder.
The straw that
broke the camel’s back was when some money came up missing and she tried to
make me the scape goat. I watched in
disbelief as she discretely insinuated that I had misappropriated funds but
when I produced documentation demonstrating that I had followed the process she
put in place to the letter which discredited her accusations, she began to back
pedal and threw her posse under the bus right in front of their faces and they
stood their looking stupid. The
documentation that I produced accounted for every penny, do you hear me, every
single cent was accounted for but no one dared to question her to get to the
bottom of the missing funds.
Those
are just a few of the things I experienced over my tenure at that church and I
got to a point where enough was enough.
I was not going to be bullied by anyone regardless to whether they did
it from a school yard, classroom, street corner or a pulpit. Living a saved life should not be stressful
in the church, that’s illogical and contrary to the abundant life Jesus promised us. Life is too short to be fighting with other
Believers. So
when the job came up in Chicago for more money and less work I took it because
there was nothing tying me to the City.
I needed the break, the change of scenery and as hard as it was to leave
you guys, it was the best thing for me professionally because as an attorney I
could no longer support an organization that demonstrated the type of
discrepancies I had witnessed, but as a man of God I could no longer serve under
a Pastor that didn’t practice what they preached. It had nothing to do with Gender. God can use anybody and I don’t by that bigoted
nonsense prohibiting women as Preachers or Pastors. After Jesus was resurrected from the dead,
the first person he saw was a woman, Mary and he commissioned her to “go tell
the good news”. That’s what preaching
is, “telling the good news”.
I
understand that if we join a church we agree to abide by their doctrine, rules,
regulations, etc. but when the leader gets a tall glass of red Kool-Aid with
extra ice, lemon wedges and the glass is always empty, run because they're thirsty
and if you get in their way they will throw you under the bus, put it in
reverse and roll over you again while they sip on their Kool-Aid and then tell you to get up, get them a "free" refill and order you back on the
bus.
I’m
out of time, that’s all for now.
In
His New Excellence
Tania Not Tanya
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