A Psychologist’s Thoughts On How To Make And Keep Friends

Rev. Dr. Melinda Contreras-Byrd, Contributing Writer

I have learned many things over the more than 40 years I have practiced as a psychologist.

I want to share a few about friendship pitfalls that I believe are true.

A. Understand friends.

1. While this may seem obvious, many people do not consider that friends are human and that they do not or cannot always behave in ways consistent with friendship.

2. Even the best of friends or family members will, from time to time, disappoint you. Many of our expectations of those we love turn out to be unrealistic. It is unfair to discount them as friends when this happens. It is only human for us to consider what is best for us rather than our friends in certain circumstances. It is only human that no matter how much we love and honestly care for someone else—there will come times when we cannot understand their needs or have the strength to say “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

3. Some people have not learned to, or their life struggles prevent them from being able to, say when they are in the wrong. A true friend who owes you an apology may not be able to tell you that they recognize their error or are embarrassed and disappointed in their behavior but may express this through their actions. Learn to recognize and accept unverbalized apologies.

B. Show ourselves friendly.

1. Each time we feel disappointed or recognize negative expectations of others, we force ourselves to recall when someone we called a friend was honest, supportive, and loving toward us. This determination will balance the negative thoughts in our heads that result from the betrayal, disappointment, or unloving behavior we have experienced in past friendships.

2. Force ourselves (even if it means we talk aloud to ourselves) to acknowledge the truth–that NOT everyone is untrustworthy, duplicitous, or working a scheme. We work to not let our past dictate and falsely stereotype and limit our future.

3. “Do for others” without the expectation of being repaid.

In this way, we increase our selfesteem, enrich the lives of others, and leave behind a witness that God has good, kingdombuilding people distributed throughout the earth. Having this belief will enable us to determine to search for them; and, by our actions, increase the hope of those who are friendless and unsupported that there are, in fact, people who are magnanimous, good-friend material.

4. Help to balance the pictures in our heads that we have of others. Learn to be assertive and use our voices to admit when our feelings have been hurt or when we feel misunderstood, left out, or taken for granted. I have learned that many of us have given others the untrue and unrealistic idea that there are some special people whose feelings can never be hurt and who are never saddened by feelings of being left out. ...continued on p5

5. Be able to assume the role of the initiator in some situations. I say “some” situations because no one welcomes “pushy “people. But I have found that Christians often have the misconception that they are only required to be “silent witnesses” and to remain anonymous followers. While no one will say that this is what they believe—if you watch—their actions will show it. So, teach yourself how

Manage What You Can

Byron Washington, Columnist to enter a room and assume the role of the one who suggests everyone introduce themselves. Be the one who makes the first move to break an uncomfortable silence or to say, “I’m sorry.”

6. Be able to assume the role of investigator. Relationships are often lost or broken because we have made false assumptions without giving the other person the opportunity to tell their side of the story; doing so gives us important missing information that can correct faulty assumptions. So instead, we mute and avoid a one-time friend, which becomes our way of handling relationship conflicts. When too unassertive to speak directly to friends—we become judge and jury, assuming that without any input, we can know all the facts necessary to make a correct judgment.

These are major challenges for those who would live as followers of Jesus. ❏

Time Management, have you heard of it? Most people have, and most people do not do it well. The reason for this is that time management is a tricky concept. The Hoover Dam sits on the border of Nevada and Arizona and controls the flow of the Colorado River. The Three Gorges Dam in China controls the flow of the Yangtze River. These two dams “manage” the flow of each of these rivers. The dams can allow more or less water; they can stop the water and change the water flow as needed. Here is the dilemma with time management: we cannot manage time as these dams do. We cannot slow time down. We cannot speed time up. We cannot allow time to pass faster when bored and slow time down when it is an enjoyable event. Time management is almost impossible and is similar to trying to grab air with your bare hands. But we can, however, manage priorities.

Our focus should be on how we best manage our time based on our main priorities and using the time. Some people will use to-do lists. Others will block time off for specific tasks or group activities based on dependencies. I usually order my priorities based on deadlines and reorganize them based on importance.

However, in all our prioritization, there is one priority that should be at the forefront of all that we do, though it usually gets pushed to the back of the line. Our main priority should be our time with God. We will schedule and prioritize everything, and then God gets the leftovers or often gets left out. God becomes an afterthought. God is essential in a crisis, yet people tend to ignore or forget about him when all is okay, but Matthew 6:33 reminds us that we are to 33seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

The key to time management that most of us are missing is prioritizing God. Before we get on our phones or check social media in the morning, the least we should do is talk with God. Before we post for the morning or get out of bed to start our morning routine, we should read our Bible or pray.

As we are still early in the year and people are still chasing their goals for 2023, I suggest that if you want to reach your goal, excel in that job, or see those doors open, put God first. If you prioritize God, God will add all other things to you. Think about it. ❏ ❏ ❏

What’s Driving The Objections To “Lift Every Voice And Sing” At The Super Bowl?

Robert P. Jones, White Too Long

The setting of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” alongside “The Star-Spangled Banner” changes the performance of what it means to be an American.

I had an interesting conversation recently with The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin about the breathless objections by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to a pre-Super Bowl performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a song informally known for more than a century as the Black National Anthem. If you did not tune in to the Super Bowl early (or at all), you missed a moving performance of the song by Tony and Emmy award winner Sheryl Lee Ralph. It was performed just prior to the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by Grammy award winner and country music star Chris Stapleton. If you did not catch it, I invite you to watch it before reading on.

Following the performances, a predictable duo took to social media to accuse the National Football League (NFL) of trying to divide the country:

• Rep. Lauren Boebert tweeted: “America only has ONE NATIONAL ANTHEM. Why is the NFL trying to divide us by playing multiple!? Do football, not wokeness.”

• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted: “Chris Stapleton just sang the most beautiful national anthem at the Super Bowl. But we could have gone without the rest of the wokeness.”

It is easy to dismiss these antics—a fully incharacter straining duet—with an eye roll. But the Super Bowl is a major cultural event, and as I reflected on my conversation with Rubin, I realized that examining this conflict more deeply would be fruitful.

As someone who studies religion, culture, and politics, the most interesting question for me was this: how does the setting of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” alongside “The Star-Spangled Banner” change the performance of what it means to be an American?

First, for some context, Sunday’s performance was not new for the NFL. But, as Rubin notes in her column, over the last few years, the NFL has made efforts to be more openly supportive of racial equality and justice, especially given its prior missteps in this area.

The NFL has tried to address these concerns in ways big and small. Playing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which has become associated with the Civil Rights Movement, before some games has been a part of that effort. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the league directed the song to be played before every game on opening day. And again, in 2021, the NFL announced that, in conjunction with its efforts to combat racial injustice, it would play the song at all “tentpole” events, such as playoff games.

At the heart of the conflict is this juxtaposition, which played out on one of the nation’s largest cultural stages. The two songs evoke strikingly different moods and modes of being American: one rooted in the struggle for freedom for all, the other in the American expansion into lands held by others.

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” was written by James Weldon Johnson in 1900. It was written during a tumultuous time for African Americans when the opening decades of the twentieth century were marked by a revival of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), lynchings, and the passage of Jim Crow laws codifying segregation across the country. Originally written as a poem celebrating the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, it was soon set to music by James’ brother.

It was claimed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as its official song in 1919, the year before Johnson became the organization’s executive secretary. It became informally known as the Black National Anthem over time and was regularly sung at civil rights meetings and marches. The Rev. Joseph Lowery quoted the lyrics at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.

Although most Americans do not realize it, while “The Star-Spangled Banner” was penned by Francis Scott Key in 1814, it was not adopted as the official National Anthem until more than a century later, in 1931. Other songs such as “Hail Columbia,” “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and “America the Beautiful” all served as unofficial national anthems in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

As many early objectors to adopting “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the official National Anthem noted, it is bellicose. Its origins lie in the War of 1812, a conflict with the British principally over the continued westward expansion of the United States into Native American lands claimed by England. While the Revolutionary War was about colonial independence, this second war was a contest for the rights to occupy indigenous lands and control indigenous bodies.

At its root, “The Star-Spangled Banner” is an anthem of assertive innocence, divine favoritism, and unbridled triumphalism. And although we mostly sing the first stanza, the final lines of the fourth and final stanza reveal its animating spirit:

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: “In God is our trust,” And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

When Key wrote these words, the “land of the free” had enslaved 86% of its 1.4 million African American residents (see 1810 U.S. Census). In the names of God and justice, the nation was also preparing to launch a brutal “Indian removal” policy that would result in the forced migration

Rising Out Of The Ashes

Dr. Herman O.Kelly, Jr., Columnist

Along life’s journey, difficulties come, and problems cloud our often-clear bright days.

When we face tragedy and monumental situations, we can lose focus and see our life becoming ashes. But, like the phoenix, we all can rise from our ashes. I write not as an observer, but as someone who knows how it feels to have your life in ashes. My friends and family were of over 100,000 indigenous people and the estimated deaths of more than 15,000—mostly the elderly, women, and children—along what became known as the Trail of Tears. Placing the anthem in its historical context strains its principles to the breaking point.

With contrasting origins, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” is patriotic and hopeful about an American future. Still, it does not trade in American myths of white Christian chosenness or innocence. This line pair, for example, is anathema to those whose only vision of America is of a nation that cannot, by definition, do wrong.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us. More than seeing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as a competing national anthem, it is opposition to this more sober, honest vision of America—a journey toward an unrealized future rather than a defense of an innocent past—that is behind the visceral reactions by Boebert, Greene, and their ilk. Its clarion call to humility and equality exposes the hubris and violence that typically escapes scrutiny in our official anthem.

One final thought (which deserves more space than I can give it here—I will return to this in a future post). It has always puzzled me that conservative white Christians, given our dismal history of slavery and segregation, can so easily use “woke” or “wokeness” pejoratively.

Over and over, Jesus and other writers of the New Testament implore Christians to be “born again,” a metaphor that implies a paradigm shift in the way one sees the world. The very act of baptism, particularly the immersive version practiced by Baptists and many other evangelicals, represents dying to the old and arising to a new way of living.

One of the earliest Bible verses I memorized as a child was the apostle Paul’s command to Christians, “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2, KJV). Just one chapter later, Paul also had this to say: “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13:11).

Each of these commands assumes that, caught as we are in our arrogance, stubbornness, and sinfulness, we may not see things rightly. “Waking up” is an apt, even biblical, metaphor for understanding what Christian for formation is about.

Christians who arrogantly reject this possibility—especially those of us who are white and shaped by traditions that supported slavery and segregation—are failing to learn the hard lessons of our troubling history; we are also shutting ourselves off from the possibility of change.

In theological terms, knee-jerk rejections of “wokeness” risk hardening our hearts and quenching the ongoing work of the Spirit, which blows where it wishes. Such a posture is the very antithesis of Christian discipleship. ❏ ❏ ❏ concerned about me. My colleagues called and prayed for me. I was in ashes.

How do we rise from the ashes?

First, we leave all our cares and concerns in the hands of God. The Lord never leaves us or forsakes us.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; God will never leave you or forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6)

We rise from the ashes by the strength of the Holy God. We rise from the ashes because God is our strength and a very present help. (Psalm 46:1)

Secondly, we rise from the ashes because God directs and provides for us. We have the assurance that “God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that we need, you will abound in every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8)

We rise because God gives us what we need. We rise because God is a sustainer of life.

Lastly, we rise because God is faithful. We know God did not bring us this far to leave us. As my ashes blinded me, I realized it would not be my ending journey. Great is God’s faithfulness and God’s love for us. From the ashes that I faced and you face, we still rise.

“Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise.

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise.

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise.

I rise.

I rise.

“Still I Rise”

By Maya Angelou ❏ ❏ ❏

Despite the challenges for our Annual Dominican Conference, it is a celebration to have admitted four (4) candidates to the ministry on trial. Not only that, but five (5) itinerant deacons were also ordained:

Rev. Yoanlis Esther Jones, Bachelor of Accounting

Rev. Abraham Rodriguez Pacheco, Bachelor of Accounting & Master of Theology

Rev. Wilfredo Paulino Esteban, Bachelor of Psychology

Rev. Alexandro Azor, Bachelor of Education

Rev. Ana Doris King Matinés Law Degree

In addition, four (4) itinerant elders were ordained:

Rev. Enercida Rodriguez Pacheco, Bachelor of Theology, certified as an English-Spanish Translator

Rev. Benita Martines, Bachelor of Education

Revda. Evelin Medina, Bachelor of Education

Revda. Mercedes Farington presiding

And we are very pleased that all of persons ordained itinerant elders are women.

In addition, the 95th session of the Dominican Annual Conference was the most attended with a quorum of 99% of the conference members from the first day, a session in which all the churches presented their reports and we had a large number of observers attending to support their churches. So many people were there, that the auditorium was not enough to bring them all together.

I believe that this 95th session of the Dominican Annual Conference marked a before and after in the history of the AME Church in the Dominican Republic with the added distinction that four of the ordained elders are children of pastors of our beloved AME Connnection.

For me, Abraham Rodríguez Jones, this being my twenty-first (21) report as presiding elder, it is an honor to know that two of those ordained are my biological children. It is satisfying to know that the pastoral legacy of my family in the AME Church is still standing and this being the first time that it has been recorded in the Dominican Republic, it must be reflected in the memories and lives, especially of those who read this article. So, if you are someone wondering: What will happen to my legacy? Or, who will continue the hard work of expanding the kingdom of God on earth? Know this: It requires persistence, perseverance, and dedication. Getting my children ordained at the Conference has been a struggle, but true warriors do not stop in the face of adversity but rather fight hard because resistance is gained by making resistance. So, hold on! His legacy will continue.

I don’t know when something like this will happen again, but today, the AME Church in the Dominican Republic rejoices in handing over and passing the relay baton to the next generation of men and women born and raised in our brilliant church. For me, it represents personally a fourth generation of pastors who uphold the name of Jesus Christ, and the historical legacy of Bishop Richard Allen.