...Plain Upon Tablets

  American biographer and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin*, through her extensive study of leadership, found that there were common traits and behavioral patterns that existed among distinctively different leaders, among those traits being "humility, empathy, resilience, courage; the ability to replenish energy, listen to diverse opinions, control negative impulses, connect with all manner of people, communicate through stories, and keep one's word." As I read through these traits, there is a word that resonates within me--and it's not found within this list but within each trait: LOVE. In Matthew 22:37-40, NASB, when Jesus is asked which commandment of the Law is the greatest, Jesus replied with two: "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Upon these two commandments hang the whole La...

In last week's post , I mentioned the booklet Holy Boldness that I received from Great Aunt Blanche. This week, I'm focusing on the short (1-1/3 pages) introduction. Despite its brevity, the reader learns quickly that there is no time to be wimpy in your boldness and that you will be doing BIG things with this boldness. Image by Steve Harvey at Unsplash Let me state that this text was created by the American Bible Society and published in 1995. It was prepared for The Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church. Because there is no expiration date on God or the Word, I'm diving into these words 25 years later still expecting to learn a thing or three. Now, let's jump in... Essentially, the introduction, written by the late Bishop Felton Edwin May, states that there are two prerequisites to Holy Boldness. "First, we need to know what we believe." We need to know and believe that Christ was both crucified and resurrected, and because we know ...

I was blessed to have a grandmother with six beautiful sisters--women who were bold, funny, kind, encouraging, and faithful among so many other wonderful things. Let's get BOLD! In picture: back row l-r: Aunt Caroline, Aunt Lee, Grandma Audrey; front row l-r: Aunt Margie, Aunt Blanche, and Aunt Ethel; missing from pic: Aunt Edna When my grandmother Audrey passed in 1998, one of these awesome women stepped up to encourage me along my journey: my aunt Blanche. My Grandma Audrey and me at my B.A. graduation My grandmother was a fervent believer of God. Never knew anyone who believed more or loved him more (though my mom is close behind her and Aunt Blanche is tied). She was the one who constantly kept me in the faith, and she was the one left heartbroken when I had my moment of disbelief in God. She wouldn't know that losing her and then my grandfather four months later would only deepen that disbelief. My great-aunt Blanche About a year after Grandma passed, Aunt Blanche began w...

We know her. On the outside, she is a woman that most men want and most women envy. She's the "everything's great, but..." woman. You know. She's beautiful. She has a great job. She has great friends. She has a great family. She has a great home. She has a great car. Her future is so blindingly bright your retinas can sear just trying to imagine what her future looks like. And when she smiles that toothpaste-commercial smile, it makes her whole universe that much brighter. But the smile is fake. A woman like this can't afford to let everyone know what's really going on in her world. Because everything's great, but... ...she's not happy. And she's usually not happy because of some man. Sometimes, she has everything BUT the man, and she goes home to all her wonderful things and feels empty and lonely. And sometimes, she has everything AND the man, and when the two are together, people are that much more jealous of her because she appears to have ...

One thing kept me fairly sane throughout the month of April - a month where crunch time is in full effect and plenty of major projects are coming due: working on my script for Script Frenzy [ LINK ]. Although I'm nowhere near DONE with the script [and much cutting is in my future with it], I did manage to cross the 100-page mark needed to win Script Frenzy! I'm really proud of myself because it's the first time I've written creatively since November with NaNoWriMo [ LINK ], and it's the first time in about 9 months in which I've written something that I actually want to go back to and edit and revise and submit. Below is an excerpt for the screenplay, the screenplay of NO NAME. LOL It will have a title some day, but the one I originally had, Hell's Angel , doesn't really fit the story or character any more. Remember, this is a VERY ROUGH, haven't looked at it at ALL draft of the script. LOL Judge accordingly if you must judge. Here's a quick syn...