I don’t value my job anymore. I don’t really see a lot of value in it. I work with people whose primary concern is what they are going to eat or wear for the day. They don’t look for much more in life. They criticize and ridicule others who eat or wear something different than their customs or culture dictate.

I live and have my being in a culture that values the physical. They value physical labor and physical appearance. Spiritual needs are addressed very superficially and literally. People quote scriptures and blame God for every negative aspect of their life. They blame God for the flood which devastates their houses and yet they don’t blame themselves for failing to build a damn in anticipation of the yearly rainy season which brings the floods.

There was an ice storm in the region 19 years ago. The ice storm damaged trees and buildings. It never occurred to anyone to cut down the trees damaged by the storm and plant new ones. They would rather be complacent and stare at the damaged trees and blame God. The ice storms occur every 100 years and people talk about avoiding the planting of trees so that they can avoid the terrible sounds of frozen branches snapping. No one considers that they will not be around when the next ice storm occurs and that the trees will be quite beneficial for 100 years and if they do die in the storm, they will have served their purpose.

I see so much of human nature in the book of Job. People assume that suffering is due to some act of God that needs punishing. Pain communicates to us that there is something wrong which needs to be corrected. Misfortunate does not translate into evil. Many children born with negative characteristics that both children share like sickle cell committed no sin. Human beings possess different characteristics because of the evolutionary process. Those characteristics manifest at different times. When we celebrate life instead of mourning that life meeting some pre-planned expectations, we abide in a world of gratitude.

I work with children and the adults who work with children as well as the people who love them. They are not always the same people. I serve as a bridge during crisis to connect people with the needed resources. I don’t see many of these people after the crisis has been abated. They move on and I move on. I celebrate my availability when my services were needed and let them go on to their greater good.

I can’t imagine having 10 children like Job and losing them in a single moment. I don’t want to think about how it would alter my life and my relationships after that event occurred. I pray that I never lose a child. I know that I can not focus on death as long as there is life to be lived.

I avoid my “friends” during stressful events in my lives. Like Job, I have a brain and I don’t need someone to tell me what I am doing wrong. I don’t need someone to help me focus on sickness, death and sin or to allow me to feel depressed and sorry for myself.  I retreat to solitude and focus my mind on learning something new and feeling alive.

My children felt that I was unfeeling during their childhood illnesses because I focused on what needed to be done and I did it. I didn’t want to sit around crying and complaining about the way things appeared. I chose to change the appearance of sickness and disease. I knew that both my children suffered from allergies and asthma. I chose to implement lifestyle changes and plan for activities and outings which celebrated life instead of focusing on sickness and disease. I knew that planning trips to Disneyland and the San Diego Zoo which required everyone to be healthy would be a self-fulfilling prophesy. I knew that focusing on sickness and how to avoid disease would also serve to be a self-fulfilling prophesy.

I am a Scientist. I don’t see the contradiction between science and spirituality. I have read the bible several times before in it’s entirety. I have read Job many times when I have felt the pressures of life. This time the law impresses me so much with it’s order and structure. I can see the hand of God and recognize it as the work of a Master Scientist who created an orderly Universe.

Job represents a beautiful rose to me. I plant, water nurture and feed the rose but I still must prune the rose. I cut off the dead branches and sometimes the sap runs. I cut off the extra blossoms so that more nutrients can get to the remaining rose. I pull out the grass and weeds so that they won’t use the nutrients that are needed by the rose. My roses bloom magnificently with this kind of care.

I don’t worry about the cutting hurting the plant because I understand the advantage of cutting. I don’t worry about the blossoms that never bloom because they were not meant to bloom. I don’t grieve the grass and weeds that get pulled so that my rose may have nutrients. I believe it is so with God. We are trimmed and pruned so that we may bloom more magnificently.

I have met people who have lost their child or children. There is a sadness about them, which pervades their entire being. I met a woman  this summer whose son had committed suicide. I met a woman whose son was spending his life in prison because he had taken the lives of others in a drunk driving accident. I found solace in the fact that these two women were able to create a life for themselves after these terrible tragedies. I knew that if I experienced such a terrible tragedy, that I would go on as well. I had hope, once I actually met someone who had experienced a parent’s worse nightmare and continued to move forward.

No one wants to lose a child but it is something that one hears about constantly when one has a child who suffers with a chronic illness. Doctors predict the worse on a continuous basis. One has to get out of the bed each day and move forward despite whatever dire predictions are being made. It hurts to live under this type of cloud.

As much as it hurts me to live with a child with chronic illness, I know that it hurts my grandson even more to live with a mother with a chronic illness. My grandson has never known his mother when she wasn’t ill. She started suffering with a debilitating disease when he was 2 years old and has been in and out of remission every since. This child lives with this feeling of impending doom over his head. It breaks my heart to see him consumed with so much fear.

Job suffered every humiliation there was to suffer. He asked that his life  end but he never blamed God. I have begged God for the life of my child and enlisted the prayers of any and every one that I could find. I question God in the still of the night and I know that there are no answers. I know that I am not being punished for some imaginary wrong. I know that I could have made different choices yet I know other people who could have made different choices and they don’t have a child with a chronic disease.

Events happen in our lives to make us stronger and to make us appreciate what we have. Could we really appreciate sunshine if we never had rain?  I don’t know how we would ever appreciate gratitude unless we experienced hardships. I am glad that I have fasted and prayed for 36 days. It makes my daughter’s current hospitalization, a little easier to bear.

I understand Job. Even though I don’t believe in the devil, I believe in fear representing the unenlightened part of us. I have lived in fear that my daughter would be taken away from me and like Job, I thank God for every minute that I have been able to enjoy her. I look at other people with their daughters and I find myself asking why does mine have to be ill. I question myself and others question me. I must have done something wrong for my daughter to suffer with such a debilitating illness. Yet I persevere. It pales in comparison to what Job underwent during his trials and tribulations.

I met a woman who lost her child to leukemia. She started drinking vodka to ease her pain. She decided to open her own day care in her home, which would allow her to be around other children. So many little girls reminded her of her own dear daughter which she lost. Then she would become sad because these little girls were alive and her own precious daughter was in a box in the cold, hard ground. She would drink away her sorrow every evening when the children went home. There was such sadness about this woman and she didn’t enjoy life. I shuddered to think that I could ever be in this situation.

I believe that we have many spiritual battles in our life. We can be swept away by outward appearances or we can focus on what’s right for us. I know that my daughter’s illness gives me no reason to stop living my life. I watched and read about every leader in the bible who had a mission and a vision. They parented children and lived in families just as we live with our families today. They achieved their destiny and lived a full life. They loved and lost but continued forward.

I understand Job. I have experienced illness in my life.  I have experienced heartbreak and sorrow. I lost both of my parents and many other people who loved me unconditionally. I was not fortunate enough to replace those people with other people who loved me unconditionally. I grieve the loss of family members and friends. Job’s friends reacted the same way as most friends. They questioned Job’s goodness and decided that God must be punishing him for something. Pain teaches us lessons which pleasure cannot teach.

I grow roses in my garden. I see them die and turn to seed and be reborn again after the rains come. Roses need nurturance, sun, good soil, fertilizer and water to grow. They also need to be pruned in order to yield the most beautiful roses. Sometimes you see too many roses on a branch and they never develop proper

Pruning is painful. It is a cutting away of that which no longer serves one’s needs. It hurts and it feels like one will die from the cuts. Ridding ourselves of what doesn’t serve us only makes us stronger and better.

As a woman, it is interesting to me that Esther wasn’t the second most powerful person in the kingdom, it was Malachi, her uncle. Esther accepted her role based on the culture and the times in which she lived. She used her assets to the best of her ability. She  and her people prospered  because she embraced her situation and moved forward. She did the best she could with what she had.  I admire Esther.

Ministers  use the story of  Esther to manipulate  women to use their creative energy to be the silent partner in the background and promote their male partner’s interests. Esther used the tools that she had available during this point in time in history. I think that all women can learn from her as well as all men. Joseph was the man behind the pharaoh in Egypt. He used his talents to save his family and his people as well. He started where he was with what he had and used it to do what he could. Many people in the bible demonstrate this principle.

The key is to look at all the stories in the bible and extrapolate the principle and use it in your life to fit your particular circumstances. Moses was a  great prophet who never made it to the promised land. I may never see every child in the world receive a free and proper education. I may not get to the promised land but I will certainly be the best leader that I can and let the generation that follow me see my vision realized. David was not able to build the temple but he was able to get all the materials together and make all of the arrangements that he could make to easier for his son to build the temple and I have two children and a grandson who can continue my work.

I admire Esther for her ability to assess her circumstances and make good decisions based on her circumstances. She didn’t spend her time pining away for different circumstances or waiting for her circumstances to change. She didn’t complain or freeze with anxiety or become depressed. She was astute enough to pray and meditate for three days and ask those who were asking her to risk her life to pray and meditate for three days before she took the action which may have gotten her killed.

I have to accurately assess my circumstances. The truth is that I can do a lot more than what I am doing if I didn’t waste so much time wanting my circumstances to be different.  I live in the richest, most powerful country in the world and I take for granted conveniences that most people only dream about in their sleep. I know that I am blessed but it does not stop me from being stagnant. We watch television and movies and see someone’s fantasy of an idealized life and feel that our life doesn’t measure up to the lives of the fictional families.  So I can learn some things from Esther about accurate perceptions.

I don’t need to compare my situation to Esther and feel like I have done something wrong by living life on my own terms. Women today enjoy so many more opportunities. We can create a life for ourselves using our minds and creative talent. We don’t have to rely on being attractive and pleasing in the eyes of a benefactor.

People, especially men enjoy beauty as much today as they did in ancient times yet beauty is no longer a defining factor. Women gained access to education,  the right to vote and to be self determining a long time ago. The key is to start where you are, with what you have and do what you can. I see so many people allowing the opinions of others or fear of authority stop them from living a full life.

Malachi knew his own worth. He refused to bow down to a man that he didn’t respect. His adversary burned with hate. In the end it was his own hate and destructive nature which killed him. He was impaled by the same spear that he wanted to  use to kill someone else. His adversary lived by the spear and he died by the spear.

Malachi informed the king of the plot against his life and the king rewarded him with a high position because of this warning and due to his relationship with the Queen. It must be noted that Malachi performed a great service to the king or he would not have been able to maintain his position. So it is important to do the right thing, to know the right person and to develop the rights skills for the position. One or two things alone are not sufficient.

I keep thinking about my daughter’s illness and how I would love for her to get better instantly. The truth is that she didn’t get ill instantly and she won’t get better instantly. Esther took a year to prepare herself mentally and physically to assume the role of Queen. I can allow my daughter to take a year and do the right things mentally and physically to get her body in the best shape possible.

Daily bible reading gives me a better perspective on time. I tend to want things immediately and if they fail to occur immediately, I blame myself. I condemn myself. Reading the bible stories assures me that things happen when they are suppose to happen if I keep the faith and keep moving forward.

I view the bible as a part of the evolutionary process. At one point in our evolution, physical strength was very important in the sense that life required a lot of physical labor. We have a lot of modern technology now and we don’t need so much brute strength. So most people interact with the environment without using much brute strength. We drive cars, which require very little force, and we have assistance with most areas of our life.

I have never valued physical labor because I come from a culture, which values the physical above the spiritual, intellectual and emotional. I spent my life feeling deprived because these needs were not addressed. I learn to appreciate the physical including physical beauty by reading the bible. I appreciate the beauty of Esther and how it opened the door to save her people.

I don’t know what it feels like for people to look at you and to not know your race.  My race is obvious so that anyone who has issues with my race know that I am one of the people that they oppose. I know what it is like for people “to make exceptions” for me because I don’t fit their stereotype.  I do not what it feels like to be in a favored position within your race because of skin tone, intellect and social skills. It doesn’t feel good. You have a lot of superficial friends. There are many people who consider you to be there friend and yet you consider very few people to be your friend.

I know what it feels like to defend your race. I know what it feels like to represent your race and expose yourself to harm and even ridicule because of race. I know what it is like to be a bridge between two races or cultures that have strong feelings against each other.  I know that it gets burdensome to always have to speak as a representative of an oppressed group instead of speaking for you.

I know what it is like for your race to make you feel guilty and feel as if you have not done enough because you are blessed. I understand Esther’s feelings with Malachi asking her to risk her life and break the king’s rules to save her people. I know what it is like for people to make you feel guilty because of the sacrifices people made before you.

My mother once told me that I walk in the footsteps of the women who came before me. It is true my grandmothers and great-grandmothers sacrificed their dreams and prayed for a descendent to live the dreams, which failed to appear in their lives. Many times in my life, I have been torn between being the best that I can be and neglecting my development in order to save someone else from their poor choices. It is not a good place to be. No matter what choice you make you will be perceived as a traitor. Malachi insisted on defying the authority of the king’s official and instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he made it Esther’s business to save him.

Esther understood through the tutelage of Malachi that beauty was very important to all men including the king. Malachi was smart enough to put his pony in the race for Queen of the Land. He knew that his niece was beautiful and men desired her. He taught her to use her beauty to meet her own needs as well as put her in a position to be responsible for her people as well. She was in a position to influence the decision maker in the kingdom and influence the treatment of her people for generations.

We live in a different time. I admire Esther and I have embraced my beauty after a half century on this earth. I choose to use my intellect to create and discover. I did not choose to use my physical attributes a lot when I was younger. I see the wisdom of Malachi’s advice and counsel to Esther. It makes sense even today.

I want to ensure that every child receives a free and proper primary school education everywhere in the world. I believe that any child who receives a firm foundation in K-8 skills anywhere in the world has received the tools s/he needs to achieve whatever s/he choses to accomplish. I have created a project to ensure that I implement this goal.

I need to market and advertise this mission all over the world. Beauty captures people’s attention. I need to take a year just like Esther and become the best physical specimen that I can become in order to promote my vision and mission. Malachi understood human nature. If I want to promote my vision and mission of ensuring that all children have access to a free and proper education, I need to learn from his wisdom and example.  I need to focus on following in the footsteps of Esther and making myself as pleasing to the eye and pleasant in personality.

People look at the messenger before they listen to the message. The King enjoyed being around Esther because she had a pleasant personality. She humbled herself and made sure that she was pleasing to the eye as well as pleasing to the spirit. People enjoy listening to attractive women with a pleasant personality. I will humble myself in the manner of Esther to meet my mission with the courage that she demonstrated to meet hers.

My mind raced along focusing on the fact that I had a plane to catch and needed to leave, yet I had a daughter who might die if she left the emergency room. I knew that I wouldn’t be leaving and left the hospital to assist my grandson prepare for school. I forgot everything, the keys the gate remote as well as other personal belongings. I knew that I had to get the child ready for school without raising his suspicions about his mother’s health.

We went to the hospital emergency room two days in a row and the last day, my daughter needed to stay. I kept reading the same scriptures in Nehemiah over and over again. Everything had order. One thing preceded another thing. I didn’t blame my daughter because she was afraid of dying. But I accepted that she had failed to do things in order.

My daughter has a chronic illness and needs to consult with specialists on a frequent basis. She had not consulted with the specialist for over 6 months because she wanted to forget about them and live without their services like other young people her age. This neglect of her health or omission on her part contributed to her being in the hospital with pneumonia and congestive heart failure.

My head hurt and my chest ached all day. I returned to the bible again for solace. I read Nehemiah over and over again. I read about the plots to hurt people and I learned about how they chose to deal with those plots. They didn’t stay in their rooms and crawl under the covers. They performed the duties that were those to perform.

I listened to my Kiswahili all night. It sounded familiar and I felt comforted by the sounds. I knew that I was supposed to be learning Swahili and I didn’t need to stop now. I visited my daughter in the hospital. It exhausted me to be there. I felt this episode could have been prevented with proper medical attention prior to this massive flare-up. I felt exhausted but I knew that things happen for a reason and something good was going to come out of all this.

Nehemiah faced opposition through ridicule, discouragement and extortion. His life sounded like mine.  Nehemiah was determined to build the broken wall. He faced opposition through compromise, slander, and treachery and yet he persevered until he completed the wall. Once the wall was finished, the people could return and be safe. I thought about my own life and the walls.

I needed to fix my walls. I kept thinking about the girl group that I was working with at  school. Teachers and community members plotted all the time to keep us apart. The ridicule, slander and treachery all because my family left this little community long ago for something better. I decided  to continue the group of girls and see where life would take us. I enjoyed the girl and we were building a support system within the group which served to protect them from outside predators.

Nehemiah gathered the people together to read the law. I needed to establish a schedule for the girls and gather them together to read the rules. We need to discuss what things went well and what things need to be improved. We don’t need to make the same mistakes over and over again. I believe that such forums serve a purpose and they give girls more confidence.

I thought about my own daughter. I thought about choices that I had made. I thought about choices that I could have made. I interrupted my thoughts. There are so many people in the bible who could spend their time lamenting the past. These people chose to move forward and so do I.

The most difficult part of my day involved sitting my grandson down and explaining to him that his mother would not be home tonight. He struggles with his mother’s illness and becomes very upset when she is hospitalized. It is for this reason that I think that any and all measures should be taken to avoid hospitalizations which means making the proper appointments for pre-care and following through to prevent severe flare-ups.

We learn something each time that we move forward. I stop focusing on the fact that my daughter is in the hospital. She moved to a new city with a new job all by herself. She made a successful transition for her and her child that she can be proud of accomplishing. She met all the right people when she needed to meet them. She opened herself to the right people and closed herself to the wrong people. Two tasks that require a lot of insight. She returned to the place of her birth and resettled. She separated herself from people who don’t share our spiritual beliefs and values. She emerged victorious.

When I let my friends know that my daughter was ill, I received prayers and kind thoughts from around the world. I was surprised at how many people cared about us. I could feel the prayers lifting me up and carrying me over my troubles. I knew that my path was becoming clear as well as hers.

An angel offered to care for my grandson while I attended to my daughter and rested. I was grateful for the respite. I felt blessed to have such wonderful people in my life. I felt blessed to know that I could undergo difficult times and people would be there for us to carry us when we were tired to carry ourselves.

Measuring in qualitative and quantitative terms has been my livelihood for over 25 years. I am a School Psychologist by profession and I measure output, how much is retained in memory and how we are able to use what we have retained but I never thought that it was sanctioned by the bible. I realize that it is important to weigh and measure and the role that it plays in good governance.

My ex-mother in law used the story of Ezra to justify her son’s negligence in taking care of his family. She justified his abandonment of his family by saying that I was a  pagan wife and God had told the Israelites to separate from pagan women in the Old Testament. I hated Ezra after she made these comments over 25 years ago. I read the last chapter of Ezra for the first and the last time as she justified her son’s abandonment of his family because I was a Baptist and he was a Methodist.

This was not the first time that an ignorant person used scriptures out of context to justify their lack of responsibility. The bible doesn’t tell what happened to those men after they abandoned their wives and children. I understand how one could make a poor choice and see that decision reflected in the generations which follow.

I come from a large family. Our lives have taken a different turn based on the people that we married or shared parental rights. The brothers who married educated women with high moral values have children who understand discipline and order and achieve a measure of success. The brothers who parented children with less educated women with few or no moral principles have children addicted to a  social life which involves alcohol and drugs. Those of us who failed to stay married have children who suffer from low self esteem. So I understand  the importance of sharing a marriage with a person with the same values.

Many Americans view themselves as victims. A disproportionate number of African-Americans blame slavery for the majority of their problems. The truth lies within. The people in Ezra faced some hard choices. They worked together and stayed the course. They didn’t try to oppress each other or anyone else. They worked together to accomplish a common goal, rebuilding the gate and walls surrounding Jerusalem.

They established a system of accountability. The chose quality materials in large quantities in order to get the work done. They worked on projects which benefited the group as a whole. The worked on projects which required them to cooperate with people whom they did not know. They developed skills which allowed them to perform a quality job. They didn’t wait on anyone else to do it for them. They did it for themselves and took pride in their work.

It makes me sad to see people so dependent on the government. They only time that they come together to work together is when they  have a grant. The realize the problems but instead of working together to fix the problem, they allow the problem to get worse and expect some government agency to fulfill their responsibility. I watch people who allow roofs to leak and refuse to fix them at their expense because they expect some government program to repair their roof. All the while the roof gets worse from lack of attention. It is a terrible state of affairs.

I read the bible in it’s entirety 20 years ago. I don’t remember a lot of the details because they didn’t shed so much light on present times as they do now. I thought about how people here read the bible constantly. It is the only book that they read on a constant basis. But they don’t realize that there is something unbiblical about refusing to work unless someone pays you to work and expecting someone to give you something for doing nothing.

People in modern times seem to have an obsession with what to wear and what to eat. They talk about nothing else. They fill their bodies with non-nutricous foods and wonder why their quality of life is so  poor. They blame God for their poor health yet all holy books clearly state that some foods are to be eaten in moderation and some activities are not healthy for the human body. 

So when the body speaks of foreigners, I don’t think that they referred to people who were spiritual and followed spiritual principals at all. Because most spiritual principals are the same. They may sound different or use different words, but the prinicpals are the same. We miss so much in life by judging others and not minding our affairs or doing what we should be doing.

Today a mother came with a court order to take her child. Someone called the father and a fight ensued. The police came and took sides and then the Sheriff’s office and independent body needed to step in and establish order. The bible gives clear instructions that we are  to follow the law and use make decisions contrary to those elected in those positions. The bible illustrates example after example of people who took the law in their own hands to save a friend or love one, only to have the situation become worse. Laws are to be made and enforced to benefit the whole and not to serve one individual.

I intend to keep waking up at 4:30 A.M. to pray and meditate. I incorporate yoga in this process to stretch my body or my temple in preparation for the work that I need to do. I eat before dawn as I have for the past 31 days. I review the things for me to do today and I leave for work on time so that I may do them.

I meet the same petty, small minded officials that the Israelites meet in Ezra. People feel that they need to make themselves look important by impeding my progress. I don’t waste any time with such people. I turn to my bible. I read the details of the census and inventories.  God requires leaders to be accountable to the people whom they serve. I wonder what would have happened if the people had decided to avoid documentation or decided that documentation wasted their precious time? We would not have such a brilliant model to follow.

The auditors arrive at my place of work and unlike my superiors; I feel no fear or concern. I understand that audits concur with God’s plan for leaders to act as good stewards with the people’s money.  Schools receive funding from tax dollars and administrators need to take this responsibility seriously. I like the way people in 2 Chronicles and Ezra volunteered to complete tasks together. They required no pay to complete the temple. They needed no force to perform the things that they needed to perform. They agreed to utilize their skills for the betterment of all of the people.

Habitat for Humanity and similar organizations follow this code of ethics. If more people volunteered to work together, the country would not know recession. The principles and models provided by the bible exist in all holy books. My focus needs to stay on the lessons in the bible instead of the intentions of others.

One of the officials who ignored me for three weeks humbled herself and came to ask me for help. Help, which I readily gave. I insisted on speaking to her when we passed in the halls even though she demonstrated and unwillingness to respond.   When she needed my help, she asked someone to ask me for help and thus avoiding a face-to-face meeting. Through the course of time, it became evident that she needed my help to properly fulfill her duties and that it would not be possible to use another person as a spokesperson. She asked for herself and her request was granted.

The other official who tries to make my life difficulty out of a petty need to control and feel important came to me throughout the day. He needed support and encouragement. Despite my feelings or past experiences, I help those who need help. I don’t hold grudges or act on those grudges. I recognize that I need to stay in prayer and meditation to avoid sinking to the level of those who have leadership’s positions but don’t have the emotional maturity or the skill to handle that position.

I fear no one. I believe that God controls all things. I know that God provides me with gainful employment and will always provide me with gainful employment. I need freedom to express myself and to create. It dampens my enthusiasm to work in a place that does not value creativity.

I don’t see the point of holding on to yesterday. I am blessed to live in a country that provides so many conveniences. I can live alone and independently because we have developed an infrastructure, which supports independent living.  People toiled for generations to make sure that this generation enjoys a higher standard of living than ever before in history.

I read about the people in the bible who needed to exert physical energy for the smallest of needs and I am grateful. I don’t have to hunt and kill before I can prepare food to eat. I don’t need to make a fire and tend it in order to have sustenance for my family. I drive to work and any of the other places that I need to go. I am grateful that I don’t have to ask permission to move about and conduct my daily business.

The details in Chronicles and Ezra impress me. They kept meticulous records of how they spent their time and utilized their resources. They believed in budgets and record keeping. They accounted for all the tithes of the people as well as the work that was conducted. I realize the importance of organization when you want to accomplish something. It doesn’t matter how little or how much you have if you don’t use it properly.

The most important thing that I learn from fasting and prayer is to take responsibility for myself. I don’t worry and fret over the actions of others. I find it difficult to empathize with people who choose to be victims. I waste little time with people who want the easy way out and expect others to do their jobs for them. I reflect on how many people in the Bible Belt read the bible and attend church on a regular basis. Yet  feel no connection with the  principles of each person contributing with is outlined in the bible. I make a decision to commit to greater responsibility for the outcomes in my life.

My school will be audited this year. People who receive grants based on economics fail to understand the importance of documentation. They don’t have any skin in the game so they feel that documentation slows them down from doing the job. The truth is that documentation and accountability reveals their waste and lack of responsibility.

I read in Chronicles about the care and diligences that people were instructed to account for all the resources and people in the kingdom. All families are recorded; the number of fighting men is always documented. The mothers of the kings are recorded. The names of the Kings are recorded and the length of time they reigned and this was all done 5000 years ago. I think about the extension that I filed for my taxes. It is time that I filed my taxes and assumes responsibility for my obligation to my government. It is time for the people with whom I work to assume responsibility for all the goods and services they have received from the government. The government is not harassing them but ensuring that they are good stewards of taxpayer’s dollars. If the audit frightens them it is probably due to guilt.

I read the story again of how David was told that he wouldn’t be building the temple of the Lord. He knew that his son had been designated by God to complete that task. He knew that his son was young and inexperienced and so he gathered all the things that he needed to assist and support his son in doing what had to be done.

Solomon spent 7 years overseeing the building of the temple. David provided the plans and a lot of the materials but Solomon still needed to trade with other leaders to get the right materials to finish the job. Solomon oversaw the building of the temple, which took 13 years. These facts give me hope.

I started a non-profit organization St. Carrie’s Center, which I named after my mother. I conceived on the idea 8 years before I established the organization. Planning the concept of the organization helped me to cope with my overwhelming grief after my mother passed. It was a way of acknowledging her sacrifices.

One day I was looking out of the window passing judgment on a neighbor who was unmarried and pregnant with her fifth child. I made the remark that I didn’t like men enough to allow one of them to get me pregnant that many times.  My mother was sitting on the couch across from me. She calmly spoke and said “You take too much credit for yourself” When my back to her and still facing the window, I rolled my eyes in my head. I asked, “ Pray tell Mother, whatever do you mean” She ignored my sassiness and tied a knot on the thread and started to sew the button on my brother’s shirt. “The people who were suppose to love you did their job. You have always known that you were loved. The people who were supposed to love that child failed her. That is the difference between you and her, love. You walk in the footsteps of the women who came before you.”

Fast-forward 14 years later. I am finishing my masters program. I come home from my internship, dejected, tired and totally confused. Again, my mother is sitting on the couch sewing but this time it is my house and my couch. I am going through a divorce with two babies.  I tell my mother about my week. One mother beat her 8-year-old son naked and pierced his penis with the prong on a belt buckle; he had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital. One mother gave her daughter to her mother to raise and the little girl’s IQ dropped from 130 to 70 in 5 years. This middle child was a shade darker than her two sisters, hair was about an inch shorter, which she twirled nervously, and she sucked her thumb. Her mother rejected her because she felt she was less attractive than the other two girls. The last child was 5 years old and selectively mute. Her 15-year-old mother and boyfriend had burned her with cigarettes when she was 2 and she stopped talking to strangers.  I couldn’t believe that women like this existed.

I told my mother that she had to help me. I didn’t know what to do. My mother spoke” I am here to organize your household, love your babies and cook your food. Everything else is on you,” I told my mother that “nothing had prepared me for this.”  Our eyes met and we spoke the language without words.  Her look told me that she had told me that I was too “tenderhearted” to be a psychologist and work with emotionally wounded children and families. My look told her that we were past that now. I spoke first. “ I am a California Scholar at the top of my class. I have received all this grant money that I can’t pay back.” She spoke” What would you have me do child. You are the one with the education. I can’t live your life” I replied

” You are my Mother and I expect you to help me” My mother put down her sewing for a minute and looked at me and sighed. These are the words of my mother with a fifth grade education:

“Start with love. You have been given a lot of love and it is time for you to give some back. You have read more books than anybody I know and whether you realized it or not you have learned some things. Uses that stuff you have learned in books. Then you end with love”.

I stared at my mother. I don’t know what I expected. “You mean if I give them love no one will know that I don’t know what I am doing”. She put down her sewing again. “If you give them love no one will care that you don’t know what you are doing” So here I am Momma giving them love until that day that I leave this world. Thank you  Ramadan for the memories.

The Old Testament has been quoted out of context to frighten people into submission and consider God to be someone outside of themselves. I don’t share this perspective. I know that a lot of battles and wars have been fought with each side claiming righteousness and God on their side. I know that a lot of scriptures are quoted without reference to the scriptures before the quote or after the quote and omitting the context of the whole story. I am glad that I am reading the stories from beginning to end and integrating the stories into my own life.

I view these stories in the context of today and what has happened and now happening in my life. I make decisions today based on what I have learned while reading the bible today so that I greet tomorrow with a loving and grateful heart. I know that I am making the right decisions today. Even if they are not the most comfortable decisions and no one recognizes the decisions that I make as the right principles.

We may not build golden calves and worship but we do worship certain cars and the people who drive those cars. We worship celebrities and athletes and teach our children to worship them. We crave immediate gratification to the point of being self destructive. We covet the belongings of others and allow our envy and jealousy to cause us to commit heinous acts. Are we helpless because people of the Old Testament committed the same kinds of discretions? No we can make different choices. We can learn from the mistakes of Manassas and others in the Old Testament. We don’t have to follow or elect leaders who encourage conspicuous consumption.

We can learn from the past mistakes of others and make better decisions. We don’t use the bad decisions of others to continue the pattern. It is hard for me to explain what fasting for an extended period of time has revealed to me. I am not Muslim and I can not speak for Muslims. I speak for myself. Abstaining from conveniences for a significant period of time is a powerful experience. It forces you to take a look at the habits that we have formed which no longer serve us and make a decision whether we want to continue those habits or not.

All brains function in the same way, Muslim brains, Christian brains, Hindu brains, Buddhist brains etc.  We use our higher level thinking skills to learn new information. We use more brain cells and blood flows to the frontal lobes to accelerate this process. As the information becomes more familiar, less brain cells or less blood needs to flow to the areas need for planning, decision making, impulse control and execution. The information become routine and automatic with repeated use. We refer to this process as learning. It is a survival technique that we have to survive as the human species.

The value of prayer and abstaining creates cognitive dissonance. It forces us to re-evaluate why we do certain things in a certain way if we choose to evaluate. It takes away the habit and automatic thinking and so this becomes a window of opportunity to make changes in your life or to realign your life with the principles that you have internalized or to learn those principles at a deeper more meaningful level.

Prayer and abstaining teaches one to take responsibility for your choices. It gives the responsibility to the person making the choice. Kings in the Old Testament talks about parents not being killed because of the actions of their children and children not being killed due to the actions of their parents. Each person taking responsibility for his/her own actions as an adult and can not lay blame at someone else’s feet. We blame our parents for a lot of decisions. My parents taught me a lot of values which I maintain to this day. There are other values my parents taught me which I have rejected. I am not making light of the difficulty of changing something learned in childhood. There is a reason that there is a scripture which states “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it”. Yet there is a time, when we are adults that we make the decision whether this is the way that we should go.

My father was a philanderer. He bragged about it and didn’t have a problem with it. I experienced a lot of pain due to his indiscretions as a small child.  I never talked to my mother about what I heard or saw with my father but I knew in my gut that he was wrong. When I grew up, I chose to be faithful to my partner and insisted upon the same in return. I have other siblings who chose to follow in my father’s footsteps because that is what we learned at home. My father was wrong.

My mother recognized that she and I shared the same temperament. We are gentle souls and maintain our equilibrium despite the chaos around us. My mother trained me to a be the caretaker for our family and keep the family together after she passed. I need intellectual stimulation. I am not interested in the details of other people’s lives.  I don’t want relationships in my personal life which are one-sided and I am always sacrificing my happiness for my siblings or their children. I chose not to follow this path.

Ramadan allows us to re-evaluate those principles upon which are lives are based.  Muslims refer to this as obedience to Allah. I believe that Allah or Jehovah lives within.  Ramadan has allowed me to renew my commitment to righteous living and I am thankful and filled with gratitude.

Generations of people use the Old Testament to justify war and killing. I no longer see the war and killing of others. I see the battles that wage within. I bless people who try to harm me and send them on their way. I don’t need to seek revenge. I am old and wise enough to know that they will meet their own end with the tactics they use. I am old and wise enough to know that I will meet my own end as well.

I speak the truth a lot. But I also tell my share of lies. I believe that unjust rules were meant to be broken. My life is guided by a set of principles, the first of which is treating others the way that I want to be treated. The second rule involves loving my enemies the way that I love my friends. These may be difficult principles to follow but necessary ones for living a righteous life. There are so many quotations in 2 Kings, which resonate with me.

I work in an area where embezzlement happens on a regular basis. People feel that the government owes them something and so they misappropriate funds all the time. Any administrator in this region will be challenged to do the same. If you reject the challenge and insist on using the funds in the proper way then expect to be friendless. Keep in mind the words of Elisha “Those who are for us are much greater than those who are against us”.  I understand how people succumb to the pressure, but I don’t have those attachments.

The book of Kings 2 rivals any office of any major corporation in my country. There are leaders who fight, take over divisions and companies, keep some people, fire others, attempt to destroy others and start new companies, all in the name of God. There are times when the takeover involves all new people and all the old ones must leave and then there are times when the two companies blend together. The Principles remain the same, only the times and details differ.

Elisha confidently represented righteousness and did not question his relationship with God. He acted and lived in this righteous state and saw many wonders accomplished during a long and prosperous lifetime. He didn’t seem to care how powerful the person might seem to be; he acted in alignment with his principles.

Kings came and went. They lived and they died, just as presidents, prime ministers and heads of state come and go today. The countries and companies they represent rise and fall but most of them survive. I will die some day and so will others. What will we have to show for having lived? We are all links on a chain and must decide whether to be a strong link or a weak one.

Hezekiah kept the principles. He lived his faith and the kingdom prospered. He almost died and had such conviction that he was given 15 more years of life. I have seen people ill and doctors pronouncing their entry into another dimension and then watch them come back stronger than ever because they have work to do in this life which is not complete.

I watched my mother whom the doctors gave 2 months to live due to her brain cancer, return from the gates of death and put her affairs in order and make her transition. My mother held our family together with her strength and courage. She lived for 18 months after her brain cancer was determined to be terminal. Her life was a miracle.

My mother received an injury in the head from fire as a young child. She suffered with migraines as a young woman and found relief by tying a tight band around her head. She started having children 10 years after she was married. She felt it was God’s will. Her mother died when she was 13 and she helped to raise her younger siblings. When she had her first child, her youngest brother turned 16 and joined the navy. She felt that this was God’s way of letting her know that she had finished her role of big sister and was now ready for a family of her own.  My mother’s headaches decreased markedly and she had few bouts of migraine headaches until she was older.

The miracle is that she lived with the effects of this childhood injury until she turned 73 and that she was able to make a contribution to her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews and cousins for such a long time. Her legacy lives on and I am a product of that legacy. I believe that God heard her prayers and realized that she was doing such good work on earth with her family that he allowed her to stay on this earth longer and finish her race.

My mother never feared death. She faced death with her head held high and filled with dignity. She taught the rest of us how to transition from this life to the next. She knew that everyday was precious and with surgeries and chemotherapy and treatments looming, she still watched her grandchildren play from the window and called to me to go and check on them when they were out of sight for too long.  She was always thinking of her family and being the good mother to the end.