21 minute read
From The Pulpit
It is a very common thing to see people wandering into the world looking for life. They never get it. What they get is existence. Existence is something that you find; life is something that you create. Existence is the mere raw material from which all life is created. Therefore, if life ever seems worthwhile to you it will not be because you found it that way, but because, by the help of God, you made it so. Life is not something that you find. Life is something that you create.
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It was always Jesus' conviction that life is worth living and that men through the proper adjustment and attitudes could create a meaningful life. On one occasion Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Yet in spite of Jesus' words, we are confronted with the tragic fact that so many people today are disillusioned about life. Suicides are quite prevalent, and frustration and bewilderment are on the march. So many people today have decided to cry with Shakespeare's MacBeth: “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Others have decided to cry with Paul Lawrence Dunbar,
“A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in;
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in;
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, and never a laugh that the mourns came double; and that is life,”
Still others have decided to cry with the philosopher Schopenhaur that “life is a tragic comedy played over and over again with slight changes in costume and scenery.”
Why is it that so many people have taken this attitude?
I think one reason among others is that many of us fail to see that life is largely what we make it, by the help of God. Many of us are unhappy and disillusioned about life because we are looking for it to be handed to us on a silver platter. But it doesn't happen like that. Life is not something you find. Life is something you create.
Now we may well ask how do we create this abundant life that Jesus came to bring? What should we do and what attitudes should we develop to make life worth living.
First, if we are to create the abundant life we must give ourselves to some great purpose and some great cause that transcends ourselves. This is what Jesus meant when he said he who loseth his life shall find it. In other words, he who loseth his life in some great purpose or cause transcending himself shall find his life.
This giving of oneself to some purpose transcending oneself might take place through ones life's work, provided that this life's work is decent and honest. Every man should learn to love his job. And there is a joy and an eternal satisfaction that comes out of a job well done.
Whatever your life's work may be, I admonish you to consider it significant. If God has endowed you with some great and extraordinary talent, use it well. If God has endowed you with just ordinary talent use that well, for ultimately God's standard of measurement is not in terms of how much we have but what we do with what we have.
The words of Douglas Malloch are relevant still:
If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill,
Be a shrub in the valley.
But be the best shrub on the side of the hill.
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
If you can't be a highway, just be a trail.
If you can't be the Sun, be a star.
It isn't by size that you win or you fail.
Be the best of whatever you are.
Discover your calling, then give your heart, soul and mind to it and thereby life will present you with meaning that you never thought was there.
A second thing that is necessary to make life worth living is to live every day to our highest and best selves. We don’t have to go very far in life to see that it is possible to live to our lowest and worst selves. We all observe within ourselves something of what psychiatrists call Schizophrenia or split personality…a conflict between what we actually are and what we ought to be.
The “isness” of our present natures is out of proportion with the eternal “oughtness” forever confronting us.9
This is what the apostle Paul meant when he talked of the conflict between flesh and spirit. This is what he meant when he “the good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I would not, I do.”
This is what Saint Augustine meant when he said, “Lord make me pure, but not yet.”
The conflict between what we know we ought to be and what we actually are is one that confronts us all. The wider the gap is between our higher selves and our lower selves, the more disintegrated we are; the less meaning we find in life. The more we live up to our higher natures, the more integrated we are and the more meaning we find in life.
Any man who lives out of harmony with his higher nature, is living out of harmony with his true essence, and such disharmony brings unhappiness and cynicism. Such with the plight of that “Prodigal Son” who had gone into a far country and wasted all, living on the low and evil planes of existence. But then one day out in a swine pasture he came to himself. He came to see that the life that God had given him was too precious to throw away in low and evil living, and he knew that so long as he remained there he would be frustrated and disillusioned, finding no meaning in life.
My friends, when I see how we often live our lives in selfishness and hate envy and jealousy I find myself saying, man is not made for that. Man is a child of God, made for the stars, created for eternity, born for the everlasting, and so long as man lives out of harmony with this high calling he will find life a frustrated and meaningless drama played over and over again with slight changes in costume and scenery.
The third thing we must do to create the abundant life is to choose to have an abiding religious faith. In other words, we must have a lasting faith in God.
H. G. Wells was right, “the man who is not religious begins at nowhere and ends at nothing, for religion is like a mighty wind that breaks down doors and knocks down walls and makes that possible and even easy which seems difficult and impossible.”
Religion keeps alive the conviction that life is meaningful and that there is purpose in the universe. Religion gives the individual a sense of belonging. It instills the awareness that in all of his struggles man has cosmic companionship.
On the surface it might appear that religion is a sort of unnecessary pastime, which we can do without. But then one day the tidal waves of confusion roll before us; the storms and winds of tribulation beat against our doors, and unless we have a deep and patient faith, we will be blown asunder.
You see religion doesn't guarantee us that we won’t have any problems and difficulties. What religion does is to give us the power to confront the problems of life with a smile.
Religion does not aim to save us from the troubles and reverses of life, these come alike to all; but it aims to support us under them and to teach us the divine purpose in them.
Religion does not say that everything which happens to us is good in itself, but it does say that if you love good properly, all things work together for good. It assures us that although we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God is there. It assures us that life has meaning because God controls the process of life.
In our scientific age there is a great temptation to usher God out of the universe. We are prone to believe that only that exists which we can see and touch and feel,– i.e. things which we can apply our five senses to. But this is certainly false. Science can never make God and unseen realities irrelevant, for in a real sense the everything that we see owes its existence to something we do not see. You may see my body, but
True Friendship Missionary Baptist Church 7901 South Van Ness Ave. Inglewood, CA 90305 (323) 750-7304 Rev. James A. Perkins
Sunday School: 9:30am Early Worship: 8am Morning Worship: 10:45am Bible Adventure Hour (Tues): 6pm Bible Study (Tues): 7pm Bible Study (Thurs): Noon Christ Second Baptist Church 1471 Martin Luther King, Jr., Ave. Long Beach, CA 90813 (562) 599-3421 • Fax: (562) 599-6175 • www.csbclb.org Rev. Welton Pleasant II, Senior Pastor
Sunday School: 8:30am Sunday Worship Service : 9:40am Wed. Bible Study: 7:00pm Wed Youth & Young Adult Ministry: 7pm
Grant AME Church of Long Beach 1129 Alamitos Av. Long Beach, CA 90813 • (562) 437-1567 grantamelb@aol.com Rev. Dr. Michael W. Eagle, Sr. Sunday Worship: 10:45am Wednesday Food Bank: 9:00am-Noon Mothers of Murdered Youth/Children: Thurs by Appt.; (B.U.S) Blankets, Underwear, Shoes: Thursdays Facebook Live•YouTube•Free Conf Call
Antioch Church of Long Beach 350 Pine Ave. ,Long Beach, CA 90802 (562) 591-8778 •www.antiochlb.com Senior Pastor Wayne Chaney, Jr. Online Services Stream live: Sun 10:00am at antiochlb.com Give: text antiochib to 77977 Social Media: facebook.com/antiochlb instagram.com/antiochlb youtube.com/antiochlongbeach
In Long Beach
Walking In The Spirit Ministries In Norwalk Double Tree (Sonoma Grill) 12623 Norwalk Blvd, Norwalk CA 90650 (213) 248-6343 P.O Box 1597 Norwalk CA,90651 Tim & Leshia Brooks Morning Worship: 11:00am Services Held Every 2nd & 4th Sunday and Free Breakfast Is Served Bible Study: 8:30am (Every 5th Friday)
Chef Spotlight Adrienne McDaniels
They say necessity is the mother of invention. It couldn’t be more true for Chef Adrienne (McDaniels) whose business was launched following the health issues of her third child. “She constantly had to go to the hospital, so I had to stop working and come up with a way of providing more funds for the household. I believe the Lord told me to open a restaurant,” said McDaniels, who learned to cook from her grandmother. “I said with what money? And He said he would provide”. She found a 2000-square foot location in Pasadena and the owner was persuaded to rent the space to her for $5 a week. That, for McDaniels, confirmed that the move was God-inspired. “I rented that from him for about four years until I realized I really didn't understand how to run a restaurant, so I went back to culinary school and became a professional chef.” Today, the Pasadena native has a thriving catering business dubbed “the Adrienne Experience”. Customer favorites include her seafood boil and homemade seasoning blend; creole neck bones over rice with shrimp and chicken; Thai coconut shrimp and seafood sausage made with smoked salmon, scallops, shrimp and crab meat. But she is best known for her deep fried collard greens and she and her husband recently acquired a food truck. “I've been doing some deep fried collard greens that I do as well as meat pies, jerk meat pies are some of the special things we do on the truck. Also, I'm creating a spice blend and sauces we will be selling as well.” You can follow Chef Adrienne on Instagram@ chefadriennemcdaniels.
Award-Winning Chili with Kidney Beans Recipe
Ingredients:
1/2 Ib 80/20 Ground Beef 1/2 Ib Beef Stew Meat 1/2 lb Beef Short Rib Deboned 2 Bulbs of Garlic 1/2 bunch of Garlic 3 cups of Kidney Beans 1 cup Refried Beans 1/8 cup Cumin 1/8 cup Chili powder 2 bell peppers 1 large Onions 3 1/2 stalks of Celery 1 1/4 Jalapenos Seasoning Salt TT 2 1/2 cups Diced Tomatoes 1/4 cups Mayonnaise 1/8 cup Brown Sugar ¾ cup tomato Paste
Directions:
Cook Ground Beef Lightly sprinkle Sea salt on Beef Stew Meat & Beef Short Ribs Braise Ribs & Stew Meat in vegetable oil until browned. Add 1 cup water and cook for 1 hour Pour water in bowl Add all the other ingredients to meat for 30 min. Add Mayonnaise at the end for a smooth finish Makes 15 Servings
Billion dollar fund continued from page 6 there are almost no additional qualifiers (properties must be owner occupied, though, but some multi-unit properties may be eligible).
Homeowners with fully paid mortgages may be eligible for relief as well. Those having trouble paying their property taxes because of the pandemic may be eligible for Property Tax Relief. To qualify for the property tax relief, individuals must have missed a previous property tax payment last spring and fallen into delinquency.
Thanks to the program, to date 8,302 households have received relief. Officials anticipate the funding will reach 20,00040,000 more homeowners. A total of $246,538,132 has already been disbursed, leaving more than 75% of the allocated funds still available. The average amount granted across the state was $29,696.
For more information, call 1(888)8402594.
Love continued from page 7 renamed campus buildings, including an apartment building that was renamed in honor of the abolitionist and author Sojourner Truth, who was owned by Rutgers’ first president.
Other universities have acted and made overtures to atone for their shameful past. For example, students at Brown University in Providence, R.I., voted overwhelmingly to have the school pay reparations to the descendants of Black people owned by Brown founders and former leaders. Georgetown University–a Jesuit Catholic institution that sold 272 enslaved people in 1838 to stay financially afloat–pledged $100 million for a “truth and reconciliation” effort for the descendants of the enslaved.
The College of William and Mary formed a slavery reconciliation project with courses, research and symposiums, and the University of Virginia created a consortium of universities studying slavery after it released a report on its own involvement in enslavement.
In the United Kingdom, Glasgow University pledged £20 million ($24.7 million) for restorative justice to address its financial gains from slavery. Meanwhile, the University of Cambridge formed a commission to study its ties to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the role of colonial-era racism in its scholarship. And the University of Bristol–whose crest features the slave trader Edward Colston and which depended on the slave trade for 85 percent of its wealth–has come clean on its past.
When Harvard and others announce their coming-to-Jesus moment on the sins of the past, we should not view this as the end of the story, but only the beginning. Hopefully, this will inspire governments, corporations and others to stand up, wake up and do right by the descendants of the enslaved. David A. Love is a journalist and commentator. For more information, visit davidalove.com.
Elder continued from page 7 slaves, selling many in the Atlantic slave trade in exchange for items like rifles, tobacco, and alcohol. Many of the slaves they sold ended up in America. ... The business of slavery is what brought Dahomey most of its wealth. ... There are accounts of Dahomey warriors conducting slave raids on villages where they cut the heads off of the elderly and rip the bottom jaw bones off others. During the raids, they'd burn the villages to the ground. Those who they let live, including the children, were taken captive, and sold as slaves."
So, will Africa reimburse American reparations-paying taxpayers? Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, visit www.LarryElder.com.
Pulpit continued from page 19 you can never see my personality. You may see the stars at night, but you can never see the law of gravitation that holds them there. Everything we see is a shadow cast by that we do not see.
So, let us go out with the conviction that God is still most certain fact of the universe. Let us realize that all of the advances of modern science and all of the comforts it has brought about can never be substitutes for God, as significant as they are. For long before any of these came into existence, we needed God, and long after they have passed away, we will still need God.
Have faith in the God of the universe, the God who is the same yesterday, today and forever, the God who threw up the gigantic mountains kissing the skies, the God who threw up the stars to bedeck the heavens like swinging lanterns of eternity, the God who has been our help in ages past and our hope for years to come, our shelter in the time of storm and our eternal home.
This is the God that commands our faith, and only by have faith in him do we create the abundant life. This sermon was delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery.
IUSD continued from page 7 English language arts.
Because statues governing state loans offer no way for IUSD to regain local control at this time, legislation amending those statues is needed that recognizes for 10 years state and county administrators have failed IUSD students and that it’s in their best interest to have the school board retain all of its legal rights, duties and powers.
The education system in California is based on local control. The new legislation needs to recognize that a statute of limitations has to be established on how long school districts under receivership have to put up with ineffective state management, especially if the school district is no longer in financial hardship.
Specific agencies have to be identified in the legislation with authority to hold the State or County accountable for addressing the slow progress it is making to qualify the district for a return to local governance. Incentives for quick turnarounds must be offered.
The offices of the legislators representing IUSD — Sen. Steve Bradford and Assemblymembers Tina McKinnor and Isaac Bryan have been approached about the need for legislation to return local control to IUSD. The office of recently elected Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas was also contacted, but no staff was available to discuss legislation. Support from the California Legislative Black L.A. Focus/January Caucus is also being solicited. It will be up to IUSD’s legislators to 2023 introduce a bill for the return of IUSD to local control. 25
SavingGrace
Twenty six years ago I drove from Alabama with $3000, a 48-inch TV and a suitcase and heart filled with dreams…this dream,” said Oscarwinning actress Octavia Spencer as she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last month. “To be forever cemented in the mythology of this city and the film industry is an amazing honor. It took me a minute to absorb the profundity of this moment.” It is a moment that has taken a fair share of her 52 years to realize. A moment reflective of such career highs as three Oscar nominations–the second most among Black actresses behind Viola Davis; a best supporting actress Oscar win in 2012 for her role in “The Help”; and making history as the first Black actress to receive Oscar nominations in back-to-back years. It is also a moment fueled by the passion that has mirrored a most impressive body of work, including such hit movies as “The Help”, “Fruitvale Station”,
“Get On Up”, “Hidden Figures” and most recently,
“Spirited”, opposite Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell in Apple TV+'s musical comedy re-telling of "A
Christmas Carol''. In 2020, she produced and starred in “Self Made:
Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker” which earned her an Emmy nomination, and later this month (January 20) will mark the season three premiere of her hit Apple TV series “Truth Be Told”. In the NAACP Image Award-winning drama,
Spencer stars as Poppy Parnell, an investigative reporter turned true crime podcaster. Based on Kathleen Barber's novel While You Were Sleeping, the series examines America's obsession with true-crime podcasts and what happens when justice becomes part of the public discourse. Joining her this season is Gabrielle Union who assists
Poppy in her latest pursuit for justice: the plight of o f t e n overlooked missing young Black women in the public consciousness and in this case a suspected sex trafficking ring that may have taken them.
In so many of her roles, Spencer hopes to challenge viewers and or break casting stereotypes, once stating, “It’s important that everybody who does what I do, get to run the gambit of special characters and interesting characters and not set in one or two archetypes that they get to play.”
It has also been important for her to shed a light on issues important to her as with “Fruitvale Station” spotlighting police brutality and gun violence; “Hidden Figures” spotlighting the excellence of three Black women who were integral in NASA’s race to space; or as basic as the 2022 documentary titled “The Quest for Sleep” which has Spencer sharing her own struggles with insomnia.
“My dream role is that of a producer — a woman behind the scenes — who creates roles for diversity in films. I want to help create an industry that demonstrates what our society is as a whole,” Spencer noted.
To that end in 2019, she launched her production company, Orit Entertainment, to produce television and film projects across all genres that inspire, uplift and entertain. Among the first projects was the Madam C.J. Walker limited series along with her successful Apple TV series, “Truth Be Told”.
In June, Orit entered into a partnership with ID and Discovery to develop and executive produce a slate of true crime projects, including “Highway 20” about a stretch of road in Oregon where many women and girls went missing between the 1970s and 1990s. And in December, Orit entered into a multiyear firstlook deal for scripted TV projects with Skydance Television.
Said Spencer, “To be a producer was a win, to be an actress was a win, and now I’m getting to do both so it’s a win-win.”
Failure was never an option for the Montgomery, Alabama native who was the sixth of seven children born to a single mother who instilled in her children not only a love for God, but that there were no limitations except for the ones her children placed on themselves.
No truer words for Spencer who overcame dyslexia as a child to pay her way through Auburn University partly through oration and speech competitions. In 1990, she worked as an intern on the set of “The Long Walk Home” starring Whoopi Goldberg and while she was always interested in acting, it was a job in the casting department of films shot in Alabama that led to her acting debut.
On occasion she would be asked by directors if she wanted to read for small parts in the films. Having not been trained as an actor, she was at first reluctant, but while working on the set of “A Time to Kill”, Spencer said she felt compelled to asked director Joel Schumacher if she could read for a role. The rest is show biz history.
Having been raised in church, Spencer equates faith as a necessity.
“Where I’m from, you learned about God before you learned to read and write. Our faith is what grounds me. Faith is as much a part of my life as breathing and eating and sleeping, all those necessities.”
It is that faith coupled with the friends who she calls her L.A. family or “tribe”–including besties Allison Jamey and Viola Davis–that have helped her to weather the highs and lows along the way, including a fair amount of failure and rejection. “I surround myself with people who are grounded people, and we are there for each other throughout the entire process–the ups and the downs.”
In fact, more than 15 years–and a host of guest roles on TV shows and small film roles in movies like “Big Momma’s House” and “Legally Blonde 2”–passed between the time Spencer made her film debut with a one-line role in the 1996 legal drama, "A Time to Kill," and her breakout role in “The Help”, which garnered her an Oscar and landed her on Hollywood’s A-list, opening the door to a steady stream of marquee roles opposite some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry.
Spencer put the resilience and inner strength she has cultivated into words last year when she posted a picture of herself at five-years old alongside this powerful statement: “In about four days this five year old will be 52. What she couldn’t know is the woman she’d grow into would be fearless (of people… critters and germs are another story). She couldn’t know that the woman standing with open arms escorting her into the next phase of life would be an alternate version of herself, a version that would eviscerate any foe that would expect her to diminish her light.”
There is little chance, however, of her star being diminished with a hit TV series, a production company in partnership with three studios and a handful of projects in development.
Spencer closed out her “Walk of Fame” ceremony remarks stating, “If you happen upon my star, while mine will be the only name you see… this isn’t a solitary achievement– for me it took my family, my tribe, my village.”
And of course, her faith.
“To everyone who has a dream, keep going,” said Spencer. “They’re all possible, even for a 26-year-old driving from Montgomery, Alabama to Los Angeles to live out hers.”
Octavia Spencer
