“…If you lie, you’ll cheat. If you cheat, you’ll steal. If you steal, you’ll kill…”--Old Preacher

I call this a statement of the spectrum. I’m on the spectrum. I have 5 Grand Theft Auto Raps in my back pocket. Don’t Push Me. I’m on the spectrum. 

I recall several stops on the spectrum. I can talk about and often do talk about many of them. I talk about moving to California and being a beach bum. I talk about going to NCA&T and becoming an honor student after almost flunking out and then subsequently getting into grad school at Yale. Miss my black ass with that shit about there being no God. I talk about turning my back on my Baptist roots and joining the Episcopal Church for the money and benefits. I talk about moving to Houston 8 years ago because I heard the voice of God tell me I needed to get here to rescue my son.

But there are these other stops on the journey I call the spectrum that I rarely have occasion to share about. These experiences include my “brother from another mother” being there to hear me speak to a group of homeless men and telling me this wasn’t all God had for me. That was a powerful word. They include the time I told my old man to kick rocks behind shit about my criminal odyssey. I told him he wasn’t my judge. They include finding my son in the middle of a Walgreen’s parking lot having a manic episode of a by-polar disorder.

I not only recall these stops on the spectrum. I also get the important things they were designed to teach me. I get things like “get in where I really fit in” not where others think the fuck I ought to fit in. I get things like “let no other human being make me any less than fearfully and wonderfully made or made a little less than angels and crowned with glory and honor”. This is true no matter what the fuck I’ve done. I get no matter how spiritual I think I’ve become I can count on the fucking enemy to come for the ones I love.

I’m fucking glad I answered a call to medicate being disowned by family thru drinking. I’m fucking glad I answered a call to being thrown out of the church by going on a criminal odyssey. I’m fucking glad I answered the call to treat the loneliness I experienced after divorce thru an addiction to pornography. I’m fucking glad I answered all these calls as I did because it taught me “Invictus” ain’t just a fucking poem. This is who the fuck I am. This is the powerful truth my Higher Power has gifted me to share with this world:

Out of the night that covers me,

     Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

     For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

     I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

     My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

     Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

     Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

     How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

     I am the captain of my soul.

There’s something more I found because of how I answered this call. I call it the God of my understanding. I remember sharing with this woman named Joyce how I was being put out of the church in which she was a member and I was the pastor. She said to me “…If it don’t kill you, it will make you stronger…”

Not the shit I wanted to hear. I had lost trust in this God of my understanding. I had yet to internalize the spirit of what I call the MJ Attitude (as in Michael Jordan). This is the spirit that recognizes thru is the fucking way out. This is the spirit of not fearing any man as I walk thru this valley of the shadow of death. Why? Because I’m the baddest MF in this valley called my story and my life. This is the spirit I didn’t want to acknowledge because Joyce was right. The shit that hasn’t killed me is fucking making me stronger. This is the spirit that has taught me thru thick and fucking thin that harder yet may be the fight. Right may often yield to might. Satan’s cause for a while may seem to gain. But there’s a God that rules above with hand of power and a heart of love. If I’m right, he’ll fight my battles.

Yeah, I have found some good shit from answering this call just the fucking way I have. Most importantly I found:

We are all fallen, flawed and fallible. We all have our demons. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. Most of us sit down to shit and we all have gangster proclivities. No one is better than anyone else for everybody has some shit going on and the ground is level at the foot of the cross. We are all trying to get home the best fucking way we know how

I’d say I found some good shit. But, like I said in one of them meetings the other day, I’m still on the spectrum so Don’t fucking Push Me.

Read more about the Hunter story In These Rooms.

The Struggle Continues...

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