When I Became A Man

BY Phil Allen

"...Before I became a man

I was much shorter
Not just in height but in spiritual insight
Because I never had a picture
Nor did Pixar ever have a film
Showing me what God’s man really looked like

But when I became man
Oh, When I became a man
I learned how to love Father God right back
Even though I’m good at falling short of the glory
I reflect on my story
Through my praise I’ll self publish a testimony..."

Want to know more about Phil? Click here!

93 Million Miles

Mraz is oh so good! His lyrics always read like poetry and always come exactly when I need to hear them! If you havent gotten his new CD, please please please do!

93 Million Miles
BY Jason Mraz

93 million miles from the Sun, people get ready get ready,
'cause here it comes
it’s a light, a beautiful light,
over the horizon into our eyes
Oh, my my how beautiful,
oh my beautiful mother
She told me, "Son in life you’re gonna go far, and if you do it right you’ll love where you are
Just know,
that wherever you go,
you can always come back home"

"to write your memories on my heart too"

Memory
BY Susan Baba

Tell me the places you’ve been.
I want to write your memories on my heart too.
I want to see that starry and faraway look
And travel to that place with you.

The first sunset –
You were so tiny beside the vastness of that Arabian coast
But you never would have known it from the power in your voice.
You were not scared.
You stared down the sun
Made it quiver in its boots
And, when you were finished,
You coaxed the moon out to play with the tapping of two sticks.
Your baby sister did not understand
But I promise I will.

Take us back there.

To the first day you learned that you were invincible –
You swung higher and higher
Everything below looking liked patchwork and pebbles
You leaned forward,
Let go,
And jumped regally off of the swing set.
No cape, but you were just as majestic.
No parents and their cautious hands below to catch you
Just you and air and courage.

Take us back to that place.

Where the timbre of her voice rang even in your dreams
She was a flawless first love.
Her hair smelled like Magnolia blossoms and her smile made it all make sense.
You wanted to kiss her forever
But she turned her face too quickly
Took a step away from you and never looked back again.
Tell me how it pained you to let her walk away, without so much as “I love you” or “goodbye.”
How you vowed to keep walking too,
In the path of your own choosing, this time.
You must have thought the world was ending then.

So, tell me how it ended.
How many “hallelujahs” it took to lead you back to yourself and onto my doorstep.
I want to know.

You are a man.
A brave and collected soul.
You come to me worthy of much admiration
But, I know your path was not always straight
That you fought your way through thick forests
That made you look around for your father’s arms
Let's travel back there.
Feel the intensity of those things already past.
When you go back to those memories,
Take me with you.

"The First Love of My Life Never Saw Me Naked"

Private Parts
BY Sarah Kay

"I made up for them
by handing over
all the private parts of me
there was no secret I didn't tell him
there was no moment I didn't share

we didn't grow up, we grew in
like ivy
wrapping
molding eachother like perfect yings and yangs

we kissed with mouths open
breathing his exhale into my inhale,
we could have survived under water
or outerspace
living only off the breath we traded
we spelled love
G-I-V-E"

Feeling a Bit Nostalgic Tonight

This song came on my ipod tonight and all I could do was ::sigh::

Oh memories...

Whenever I hear it, it takes me all the way back to him.

Hope you enjoy it.

Chasing Strange
BY Lizz Wright

It´s just three digits
but I´m far from home
Fallen, nobody cares
I twist three keys and I´m all alone
There´s a party upstairs
It´s not the first time I´ve been lied to
I knew nothing about you

I am chasing a strange
And I will rearrange
To be a part with every change that you make

Breaking shadows every time that I run
Under a love I can´t share
The liquid daughters and the liquid son disappear in thin air
Every single breath, every single sight
Is all the earth
And it needs to be...

My First Visit to Nigeria

The most clear memory I have of my first visit to Nigeria was of the village. My family is from a small village in Kogi State and it's most common for everyone, even our city-slicker relations, to make the exodus back home every Christmas. This was another one of those years. I was about 12 years old and wanted so badly to go to the village well to help fetch water for the family. Of course I was the American cousin, so they begged me to stay put and avoid over-exertion, but my on-going nagging eventually wore down their defences:)

They allowed me to walk with my aunt to the well, which was about a 15 minute walk away. I carried a jug on my head like all of the other girls and boys and made the successful trip to the well and back. I was smiling from ear to ear, as I entered my grandfather's compound. I called everyone within earshot to see how strong I was. As I got closer to our family's water tank, I tripped and spilled all of the water on myself and on the floor. I instantly started crying. I'm certain that I was inconsolable for hours and ended up crying myself to sleep that afternoon. Man!! I still remember the embarrassment that lasted for days after that...

I can laugh at it today, but I was mortified. lol. Events like this are practically life-shattering when you're 12.

Anyways. I have many fantastic and happy memories, but that's one that for sure sticks with me. Happy 50th Birthday, Nigeria. Although we are far apart, you are still my home.

In honor of this big-deal birthday for the motherland, check out Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's poem Visiting Nigeria. If you've ever visited a homeland that felt both foreign and familiar, you'll love this poem. The popular author of books Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and, most recently, The Thing around Your Neck really captures it all in this lovely piece.



Also check out the pics from my last visit to Nigeria. Hoping to go back in the next few months. We'll see...:)

Visiting Nigeria
BY Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

At first we goggled the
sprawling savannas; flat, vast expanses bearing
heads of grain, yellowish-brown in the scorching sun,
that nodded – swayed in the evenings – to the
magical drums of the northern winds

Then – south-bound - the joyous tears
of wise and wrinkled ancestors
trickled, and then poured down
to herald the resurrection of the yams

Then the lush wealth of green
surrounded us and we saw
on the stern-faced gods
carefully carved of living wood
a smile of benevolence

Then the brown, bare earth
turned red
with earthworm paths, with spicy dew
and our creased feet
like charred, parched brown paper
soaked the richness of re-birth

Then the Niger, still and silent
- housing its mermaids, its watery gods -
bore our canoe, zig-zag lines etched in its weather-beat body
in spiritual and dominant acquiescence

And at last
while the spirits roamed the hills
their piercing singing in the wind
(that our guards said were horny, mating crickets)
carrying the folklore of the wise tortoise
and feathers slipped off of humming birds,
our souls danced

What Can Make You Jump

US Poet Laureate Billy Collins once said, "Not since Taylor Mali has there been a poet of the likes of Taylor Mali"

Oh so true! Mali translates his academic mastery of the English lanaguage into a highly polished and accessible delivery. He writes about things we all can relate to in a way that we all wish that we could. This is one cool cat!!

Anyway...while listening to some old poetry podcasts, I found this oldie but goodie that always makes me tear up. A poem about his late wife...


Depression, too, is a kind of fire
BY Taylor Mali

...and I was going to write a poem
about how fire is the only thing
that can make a person jump out a window.

And maybe I’m an idiot for thinking I could have saved her—
call me her knight in shattered armor—
could have loved her more,
or told the truth about children.

But depression, too, is a kind of fire.
And I know nothing of either.

Text from Spindle Magazine

Listen Up!! The "Oldies" Have Something to Say

I know you’ve heard the “uphill both ways in the freezing snow with no shoes on” stories more times than you can count, but please put that angst aside for just one day. There’s more to our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles than all that. At least that’s what NPR’s Story Corps is saying. I guess you never know until you ask, right? In celebration of today's National Day of Listening, NPR is encouraging people across the country to grab their tape recorders, ask some tough questions of their loved ones, and listen to the answers. Easy enough.

Pass on the Black Friday craziness and spend some time with the "oldies but goodies" in your family. This is the second year that they’re doing this and I think it will bring a lot of families closer together (or at least help us understand where we inherited our crazy neuroses from). Either way, there’s nothing like communication to show us that we’re a lot more similar than we want to think.

I’m planning on grilling my mom today (check out the two of us below). I plan to ask all the tough questions. Like...ALL the tough questions – Stay tuned:-)



Not totally sold, check out the USA Today article. If the media's covering it, it must be legit!!

National Day of Listening promotes oral history
BY Travis Loller, Associated Press Writer

NASHVILLE — A national oral history project is trying to start a new tradition for Black Friday. Instead of hunting for bargains, StoryCorps suggests families sit down together and talk about their lives on a National Day of Listening.

Amanda Rigell, a 30-year-old middle school teacher from Johnson City, Tenn., interviewed her grandmother, who was 89 at the time, for the first National Day of Listening last year.

"She was reluctant at first," Rigell said. "She doesn't really talk about herself." But then she talked for more than two and a half hours.

"She talked about her early education. She went to a tiny little school, I think there was only one other person there for a while. And she talked about drinking fresh milk from a cow. I guess that shouldn't have surprised me, but it did," Rigell said.

StoryCorps is a nonprofit project that seeks to preserve the stories of ordinary people. Rigell first learned about it when she heard some of those stories broadcast on public radio during her morning commute. She had already interviewed two people at StoryCorps recording booths when she and her father decided to interview her grandmother at home.

"I'm really glad we did it last year because her health has been declining," she said. "There was a while last month when she couldn't speak."

Rigell said her grandmother, who lives in Campbell County near the Kentucky border, was around for all the "big events" of her childhood. Some of her fondest memories of her grandmother involve home cooked meals and "amazing" buttermilk biscuits. But there were a lot of things Rigell didn't know about her.

Rigell recorded the interview on her computer and plans to give copies as Christmas presents.

More

You Are Dangerous!

"For now,
I am miles from you.
By day, I wade through strange cities;
By night, I sit in motel rooms
In the company of bad art and unsent postcards;
And if all I can be to you is a memory:
Remember me"

This poem is such a gentle picture of love and longing. Sarah weaves the story of seperated lovers whose memory of eachother is strong enough to transcend time and space. This poem has been in my top ten for almost a year now and, for some reason, I woke up with it on my mind.

Enjoy!

You Are Dangerous
BY Sarah McKinstry Brown

Listen

Because you look like my father
And you taste like water.

Because in this circus
You do not juggle flame or paint your face but
Pitch the tent;
Your sweat falls
Unnoticed on dirt;
Planting salty seeds to grow whole oceans
For the women you love to swim in;
So that
When you come to them,
Towel in hand
They will tell you,
Honestly,
Lungs at half mast in half
Sleep:

"I am doing swimmingly,"

And you'll both go under, breathless.

You are dangerous,
Bent on one knee, hell bent on loving me
While the earth around us spins about,
Drunk on its own neon sermons and nursery Rhymes,
You wait,

Full of silence,
A piano in the palm of a wheat field at dusk;
This is hardly common,
And you have everything in common with dreams;
It is thus your eloquent bones
Startle me.

For now,
I am miles from you.
By day, I wade through strange cities;
By night, I sit in motel rooms
In the company of bad art and unsent postcards;
And if all I can be to you is a memory:
Remember me,
A still life of woman in want of your company,
Return to me again and again.
Because tonight, even the moon
Is on your side;
Persistent, she wills her light into my window,
A floodlight burning your skyline into my heart.