Last night I walked out of Project HIP-HOP with a bouquet of amazing flowers, a great card and a plate of cake. My sabbatical time has officially arrived and I am realizing how hard it is to let go of something that has become such an important part of your identity. This summer marks 15 years that I have been with the organization in some way. I joined when I was 15 and I am weeks away from my 30th birthday.
In this last year I have seen the organization get much stronger financially and in terms of our staff and at the same time I have mourned the loss of two youth who participated in our work and paced at the hospital twice hoping that young people who I care about would be spared - praying that the bullet didn't hit anything fatal.
As I said my goodbyes during our Open Mic I started to cry - something I try hard to avoid. Some of the tears were a release of the pain I have been carrying as I have put my all into supporting young people and I haven't been able to stop the streets from claiming their lives. Some of the tears were because I looked out and saw one of the young women that I trained, Janine Quarles, handing out papers for the organizing she is doing around education reform.
In that moment I realized that you win sometimes and you lose sometimes, but you always got to keep going. So as a person whose battery has gotten a little worn down I am embracing this time of rest and reflection. I am so excited to be going to Brazil. I have studied many cities and countries but there are only a few that stand out to me as places that have always stuck out to me for their deep sense of spirit.
South Africa is one and I got to visit in 1996. New Orleans is another and I continue to maintain my relationship with that city since I first went in 2004 on the Project HIP-HOP Civil Rights Tour. Brazil is at the top of my list of cultural meccas that I need to get to. So I am going. I have no idea what I will find or who I will meet. I am far from organized about my journey, but I am actually okay with the fact that I don't have an air-tight plan. I will make the road by walking (and flying, and riding the bus :) )
I hope that you will join me on this journey as I discover Brazil and re-discover myself and who God is calling me to be. I hope you will pray for me, send me comments and use my reflections to spark something in yourself. I thank you for being part of the community that supports me and I hope this blog will be a source of discovery, laughter, reflection and inspiration.
Please feel free to comment back to me. I will definitely appreciate that!
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Hello Mari,
ReplyDeleteKeeping you lifted up. Here's today's devotional. I think you, as did I, will find it most informative, as well as inspirational.
Love you.
Rev. Gail-Lenora
--forwarded text --
WHAT NEXT?
"If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." John 13:17
If you do not cut the moorings, God will have to break them by a storm and send you out. Launch all on God, go out on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and you will get your eyes open. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the smooth waters just inside the harbour bar, full of delight, but always moored; you have to get out through the harbour bar into the great deeps of God and begin to know for yourself, begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know you should do a thing, and do it, immediately you know more. Revise where you have become stodgy spiritually, and you will find it goes back to a point where there was something you knew you should do, but you did not do it because there seemed no immediate call to, and now you have no perception, no discernment; at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-possessed. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to go on knowing.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you work up occasions to sacrifice yourself; ardour is mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfil your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is a great deal better to fulfil the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. "To obey is better than sacrifice." Beware of harking back to what you were once when God wants you to be something you have never been. "If any man will do . . . he shall know."
The Open Mic was really great, after you lefy, Kevin really got on the Emcee duties and was actually very engaging and funny. We will miss you Mariama. Have Fun and stay safe.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds great. I trust that God's favor will be upon you and whatever road you discover reveal what is truly important in your life and ministry. God Bless
ReplyDeleteRahsaan