Dr. Charles W. Ferguson

It has been a while since I have written a post. Many things have taken place in my life. Many changes have occurred. I am definitely not the same person I was at the beginning of 2018. In the midst of learning more about myself, I have come to realize some of the root causes of many interpersonal challenges of my life.

During this reflection, I want to begin with a simple question….Have you ever wanted to be accepted?

Have you ever wanted someone somewhere to look at you and say simply, You’re alright with me! for 37 years, I have looked around at different times hoping that someone would simply say those words. Yes, I still deal with the challenges of acceptance. Yes, I love God and know that God loves me. Yes, all people want to be validated in their uniqueness. And yes, people do arrive at certain points of existence to discover that healthy doses of validation are very useful to one’s existence.

At different points of living, I realize why I attached myself to certain people at certain moment. When somebody saw my value (or what eventually was my value to their lives), I held on for dear life. I held on believing that one day that they would pour back into my life when I need it. 90% of the time that type of reciprocal relationship did not develop. When I would arrive at that conclusion, I faced the normal cycle–resentment, anger, hurt, depression, and isolation.

The cycle is a very painful experience. You hate going through it. You despise the feelings from it. You are prepared to do almost anything to get rid of it. You will even sacrifice certain elements of yourself (spiritually, emotionally, personally, etc) just to make the feeling stop. Only you realize that it becomes a spiral effect to your existence.

So what can a person do to get through this testing issue? 

Whether you believe it or not, no simple answers can be given. Some people go to counseling to unpack the problem. Some individuals place a significant amount of energy into their spiritual development. Yet, others choose to find other outlet to process their issues. Nevertheless, I offer some imagery from the Christmas narrative that hit my spirit in an unusual way this morning.

Mary and Joseph followed an order of the government to return to their birthplace. They were to be accounted for tax purposes. The move would give an accurate of account of the assets of the Roman Empire and cause a significant boost in the economic status of all hospitality businesses (hotel, motel, Holiday Inn…). They arrive prepared to pay for their stay, but every place was booked.

One innkeeper saw the condition of Mary and provided a solution. The solution was to allow the couple to stay among dirty animals in a barn like structure. Even though the pregnant condition was significant, birthing a child did not warrant a more sanitary response. So Jesus was born among animals, wrapped in milk cloths, and was placed in a feeding trough.

For all the different ways we attempt to romanticize this scene, the truth is that they were put out back. The Christ was not born in a palace. The heir to physical throne of Israel did not receive the royal treatment he deserved. The basic human value of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus was not readily received. Yet, Jesus was the promise of redemption and the premise for our salvation.

So, what does any of this have to do with acceptance?

1. We must recognize that all people in our environment will not have knowledge of our significance. Most people are not prepared to encounter or embrace our significance to God or the environment. They are not always privileged to the inside information about our lives and purpose. They will treat us according to their basic roots and values.
2. Don’t waste time on making people understand who you are. In the story, you never hear Mary or Joseph announce the importance of this pregnancy to anyone. It is not depicted in the story as a point of urgency or privilege. The more we attempt to push our value toward people who can not receive it, the more weary we become in the process. It takes more energy to teach a brick wall than allowing a revelation to hit a willing, open vessel.
3. God will always provide the right type of validator to encourage your purpose and destiny. Even though the innkeeper did not place greater value on the family, God sent individuals to affirm and confirm the arrival the Lord’s Christ. Hear me today! No matter what temporary individual think of you in a moment, God provides those who see you in your future in spite of your current temporary status. The shepherds came in reverence to the manager. The magi traveled from the east to show respect to the fulfillment of prophecy. The angels sang at his arrival. It is not your current address that makes you. It is the journey and purpose that will define destiny.
4. God will intentionally teach us how to receive our own value through His eyes. I cannot lie to you. This thought is the hardest one to embrace from time to time. We focus so much on what our environment tells us that we can forget that God uniquely designed every aspect of our existence. When we want to spiral out of control, we must remember that we have a design. We are created on purpose, with purpose, for a purpose. We must remember that a humble beginning is not the confirmation of our lot in life. At every stage, God will remind us we are worth it.

When you don’t feel like you’re worth it, remember God gave you a magnificent gift. You are not just special, but you are unique. You are necessary. You are important. You are a gift to the world. The baby we celebrate was the manifestation of salvation before the cross or grave entered the picture. You are the seed that will make impact on the world. Even if no one accepts you today, they will not be able to deny you tomorrow.

Merry Christmas to all…

 

 

Being on the brink of many transitions can produce a myriad of feelings that we do not always enjoy. Most of us desire to have one course of action that will lay out the journey of our day. Never being to high or low is usually the most desire emotional journey people seek. Yet, that hope is not always obtained. We live in a world that constantly challenges us to face the ebb and flow of life’s changes. We are faced with navigating the emotional, mental, and spiritual gymnastics that impact our living. This truth is more evident today than days gone by.

I have asked myself is it possible to be bombarded by so much dirty rhetoric without being affected. The answer is no. Every negative action or thought has a reaction. The only thing that can be determined is how we respond to it. The response….the reaction of the soul and emotions. The activities and words of others can produce a reaction that many people are not prepared to receive.

Consider for a moment the most recent wave of threats spread throughout the political spectrum. Many people will point toward the many tirades of the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. While I do agree with the sentiment, I have learned that you can not dismiss what seeds were already planted in the hearts of people.

People did not suddenly become racist. People did not suddenly become bigoted. Many people have been holding on to the negative feelings for several years. For some people, the fear of being outed in these negative lights has dissipated. The current tone that has been set has embolden individuals to risk many personal freedoms in order to perpetuate a destructive message of supremacy and bondage.

This reactionary climate has brought me to my knees to ask the question–Where do we go from here? Is it the ballot box alone? Is it public and private improvement in civility? Is it accountability? Is it common sense? Yes.

We have to move from the tech side of human affairs to come back to human affairs. I am convinced that people have moved so far away from recognizing the uniqueness of all people that we no longer attempt to find common ground. People have become so inundated with information that we have lost the ability to examine the true realities of the human existence. People have more hiding places. Individuals lack conflict resolution skills. People are now extremely tone deaf with perfect pitch for calamity and confusion. This path is not the one that will deliver us. We must rediscover who we are and whose we are.

My pastor, Dr. Charles E. Booth, had a time in worship that was known as Moments with the Youth. Every Sunday morning, he made it a point to give us more than practical application of scripture for our lives. He made it a mission for us young African American boys and girls to be in touch with the divinity of our existence and the sanctity of our history and heritage. It was those Sunday engagements that subconsciously incited my desire to learn about history in full context.

We were challenged to learn more than a watered down version of events from the perspective of narrative controllers. We were challenged to have greater sense of self. I hear his booming voice in my head as I type this piece. (Mount Olivet youth will remember….)

Pastor: Who are you?!?

Youth: We are God’s children

Pastor: Who are you?!?

Youth: We beautiful African American children

Pastor: Young ladies, who are you? 

Young Ladies: I am a beautiful African American princess! 

Pastor: Young men, who are you?

Young Men: I am a beautiful African American prince!

The affirmation that we come from more than perceived stereotypes has lived with me all these years later. It is the same type of affirmation that I have instilled in my son. I no longer have to have him repeat after me. He looks me square in the eye and says, I am a strong black boy. I am a smart black boy. My son may live in a world that will attempt to say that he is less than. However, he will never lack the internal resolve of knowing that his life and destiny is beneath no one.

In the same manner, we must resolve to bring people back to a place of seeing that value that God has placed within their being. Not just feeding egos. We must find constructive ways to uplift those who have found themselves maligned, disenfranchised, and disregarded.

We can no longer continue in the constant back and forth that leads us to nowhere. We must find the deeper, valuable aspects of people and draw the best out of them. Even when individuals have made the conscious decision to lock up their God-given value behind walls of hatred and destruction, we must continue to strive toward empowering others to continue to pursue the best in all created in the Imago Dei. 

We must use every tool accessible to us to make it know that the existence of people matter to God and each other. We must remove the walls that people hide behind to see what it is that we are truly up against. We must remember that the battles are fought in the flesh, but they have commenced in the spiritual realm long ago.

So if you are going to react in a manner to bring about liberation, empowerment, and civility, do the following things:

1. Pray
2. Live
3. Advocate
4. Vote
5. (If you don’t vote) Change the system
6. Stop theorizing and act
7. Use your platform to move forward
8. Get out of the pit of overthinking
9. Love people
10. Love God
11. See the bigger picture
12. Fight injustice
13. Connect to your history
14. Change history
15. Live in the now
16. Prepare for the future
17. Stop complaining about what you have the power to control
18. Act positively
19. Reject negativity
20.  Do justice
21. Love kindness
22. Live in humility

Peace…..

It’s been a long time…shouldn’t have left you without a dope beat…oh my bad! I realize I haven’t posted for a while. Life has a way of making you decide what is most important. God has been granting me the opportunity to refocus and renew. However, I must admit that another major reason for withdrawal is all the constant bombarding of the same old news.

I realize that people are up in arms about every moved made in government. I understand the necessity for the people of God to live prophetically in this unusual moment that has been presented before us. Bigotry is being played before us with no shame as in the days of the 1960’s. We feel all of the injustice all around us. However, I have one great concern that is eating at me just as much as the many issues before us–the denial of our uniqueness.

As a black man in the United States, I find it difficult to feel good about individuals attempting to dictate how a person ought to recognize their unique nature in the midst of an assumed melting pot of diversity. The deeper issue for me is how people have decided to deny their blackness in the name of fitting an incomplete theological narrative. (I warn you all in advance of my potentially assumed rant)

I am a pastor and leader in the Christian faith tradition. I recognize that many elements and branches of the faith have produced ideas that do not remotely associate with the teachings of Christ. Furthermore, many people have taken Scripture and attempted to bend truth into rhetoric designed to produce harm. Criticism and critique of execution of the Gospel from this perspective is necessary and should be engaged in order to produce a group clergy practitioners that are not lazy in the delivery and living of the Gospel.

However, I will not stand for individuals within the faith who are of African decent to continue to dismiss the power of what God place within them. I am as proud today as I have ever been to be black. I thank God that I was created in the part of the Imago Dei that produced the darker melanin that people see. Why? History teaches me that people that look like me created institutions of higher learning. I come from a people that literally used God given creativity to forge movement for equality and equity. Denying those elements suggest that God was incomplete in the work of those in the African diaspora.

To take it a step further, I must reference at least one place in Scripture that provides aide for moments that people deny my uniqueness. When Jesus is on his way to Calvary, a man was pulled out of the crowd to assist in carrying the cross. It was a black man named Simon. The Cyrenian was forced to pick up the cross with Jesus was absorbing the streaming blood pouring out of the Savior’s body. What an image. What a set up.

Imagine you were in a crowd attempting to see what was going only to be pushed into the scene without justification and cause. Treated as a person who was supposed to be an afterthought because the focus was on the execution of an enemy of the state. It could have been anyone. It could have been another. However, a black man was chosen to bear burden and injustice to a place that would usher in redemption and hope.

To deny who I am in the name of a “cleaner, more sanitized” Gospel is to remove the power of suffering, redemption, and victory is the name of cheap grace and empty salvation. The price for years has been too high for the souls of people. The cost remains astronomical for the redemption of the lost. I understand that price that was paid for the freedom of my mind, heart, and soul. I can not allow any thought or incomplete perspective take away that value because they don’t want any blood on their worldview.

I believe in the opportunity for the liberation of all people spiritually. I also believe that a complete understanding of Christ will liberate the minds and souls of those longing for chains to be broken. I believe that the zeal that I possess for systematic bigotry and oppression to be broken is based on the blood on my life. I recognize that current suffering ultimately brings redemption, but it also informs my desire to see that suffering should be the last resort for freedom also.

The blood shocks my blackness to teach my son about the beauty of his heritage and power of his DNA. My blackness informs my self-esteem to never accept the denigration of my existence to make anyone feel superior. It also informs my ability to make people feel the truest sense of community. I am proud to be a Black man who (to borrow from Howard Thurman) follows the religion of Jesus.

For those who feel the necessity to tone down in order make others comfortable, allow me to reintroduce you to the Scripture that informs you of your choice as being “sinful”.

For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them. –Psalm 139:13-16

Everyone in the world takes pride in who they are. Some people do not do it in the name of God at all. However, take a moment to look at yourself. Remember that the Creator took time to make every attribute of who you are. Yes, society will continue to try and strip you of your value. Nevertheless, you are called to embrace your uniqueness in spite of incomplete understanding. You are not obligated to make others feel better by making yourself feel worse. That idea is abusive. Know the blood has marked you. Know that the Creator made you. Know that you are a gift to the world.