A Poetry Book

In 2000 I spent a month living at an inner-city missions facility in Queens NY. Throughout this time Monday through Friday a group of us went throughout Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx giving food, faith, and hope to the impoverished hopeless masses in New York City. Some experiences I will never forget is playing cards with those on deaths door at the AIDS hospital, preaching in Mexican Town with a translator, taking sandwiches to those on the streets at midnight, the countless soup kitchens and coffee houses and making hundreds of children laugh as a clown on the streets in the Bronx.

Coming back to Michigan shortly thereafter, I enrolled in college and needed an income. Moved by the hand of God, in spirit, I searched online for any job openings. I simply typed in ‘youth” in the search. I went for the interview, got hired, and got trained as an Intervention Counselor in the city of Mount Clemens. This began my journey in the helping field. The field where you meet the hopeless, hurting; those people whom the devil has tried his best to destroy physically, emotional, spiritually, people the devil has attempted to devalue and dehumanize.  You meet them in hopes of undoing the devils work, in hopes of repairing, restoring, showing them their value, loving, and caring for those who have no one else; no one.

Over these past years, beginning in New York, I began to write poetry, both reflecting on situations, deflecting pain, empathizing with the hurt, and examining these effects on my life. Now these poems are together in an e-book recently published in the Kindle store.

megan

I am so impressed by how well megan did in college. She also scored the highest score on the state board test of any macomb graduate. She is very smart.

A Match to Light a Fire not to Burn Out

Just recently I finally watched a movie called Patton; about Gen. Patton. While it seems he was a pretty messed up character from the analysis of the character I am choosing to glean somethings from his life (i'm sure people don't use the word glean anymore in America anyway, do people still glean in fields?)

I recently put up a couple quotes in my office at work:
"better to fight for something than live for nothing"
"courage is fear holding on a minute longer"
"work harder than you think you can"
"do more than is required of you"

While it may be true that  (as some have told me) i am under paid and don't receive the recognition or reward for the work i do; this does not pave way to an apathetic or disgruntled outlook at my work. In fact if i worked in a retail store making minimum wage i would carry the same quote mentality with me; in fact encourage others to do the same. i would.

so i  remember a man once said to me while i was sitting in a large room. It was a room of about 300 people we were sitting down and he was on a stage talking and he said " young man stand up." i actually looked around me. He said "you there in the hat (i had a tigers hat on). i stood up and he said while pointing at me ," you are the match that is going to light the fire of thousands of young people" ;he said some other things as well. it's my choice to use those words as fuel or to disregard them. they are fuel. Another guy told me in a room of about 100 people; he pointed to me and quoted from the Bible saying, "saul has slain his thousands but David his ten thousands. you aren't going to be slaying people but you will be changing them". more fuel. Still another time a homeless man grabbed my hand and said to me one on one, "when you meet these young people look them in the eyes and give them hope."

i didnt make these things up, but maybe these things made me up. so i will burn until i "am utterly changed into fire".


(i just E-published my poems from over the past 10 years)