Its been years since I wrote on my blog, but her birthday is Tuesday, and its Advent. This year has been a particularly difficult one for me as I lost my best friend, my champion, my guide, my heart....my Mother, Minister Carolyn Burt . As I journeyed alongside her through her cancer fight these past few years, and as I now continue this life without her, I have navigated other painful circumstances simultaneously. I have had to face the aloneness of grief, the pain of harmful people who capitalize on other's vulnerabilities, the confusion about life as accomplishments are juxtaposed with pain, etc.... One can imagine how I struggled when asked to write a devotional article for this Advent Season. Yet, as I lean into the biblical text (Isaiah 12), I am reminded that God is in the midst....even as we struggle. God is not merely a bridge over troubled water but a lifeboat in trouble water. God is present and actively involved in your circumstances as well as mine. I hope this devoti...
The late comedian Richard Pryor once joked about his wife walking in on him having sex with another woman and his attempt to convince her that she was not seeing the situation accurately: "Who are you going to believe ”, he asked hoping to confuse her, “me — or your lying eyes ?" While it was just a joke and the audience probably got a good laugh from it, trying to convince someone that they did not see what they actually did see is a tactic used by manipulators to gain power and control. It’s abusive, and although the terms manipulation and abuse are not synonymous, it seems undeniable that they often go hand-in-hand when one seeks to gain or maintain power and control over another person. I recall being at a friend's house a few years back and stumbling upon the book, "The Art of Manipulation: How to Get Anybody to Do What You Want". This book literally provides the "how-to's" of manipulation as well as the telltale signs for kn...
