Watching Spike Lee's If God is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise

According to Governor Blanco of Louisiana, Mississippi had 25% of damage from Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana had 75% of the damage.

Yet, President Bush's FEMA administration granted 50% of federal funds to each state rather than granting funds proportionally.

President Bush, a Republican; Governor Blanco, a Democrat.... guess what party the governor of Mississippi belongs to?

I wonder what Obama would have done....


 Spike Lee's HBO Special - If God is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise

What is my sentence?

In his book, Drive, Daniel Pink tells us that "the secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world."


In Part Three of that book, he writes about two questions that we can ask ourselves as a source of motivation and purpose (see page 154).

1. What is my sentence?
2. Was I better today than yesterday?

How on earth can I sum up what I am all about. I am a parent, a manager, an economist, a learner, a volunteer, an analyst, a sister, a colleague and more. How can I get it all into one sentence? ..... well let me see... it goes something like this:

"An effective leader, empowering people and processes to be their very best"

Was I better today than yesterday? Yes.

 I peacefully parented, respectfully reviewed work, I patiently led new managers, and I was attentive to my health and well-being....


more to come.

Life Half Full?

I have finally reached that point in life… the place I really, really am not ready to be. It is that time in life where it begins to feel as though more of my living is behind me than in front of me…. The half-way point. I know I really do not know where the half-way point is, but then again I have cheated myself out of about 20 years so half won’t feel like half whenever it does actually come. I am 43 years old and very proud of my age and my accomplishments. I have felt fulfilled in my living and glad for all my blessings.

I do have regrets. None of which are significant enough for me to want “do overs”.

The only trouble I have comes when I am around the twenty-something crowd…. Then I get a bit weird. When I am with that age group, I am reminded of myself when I was twenty and boy was I dumb. I was young, ignorant and blissful. Life held every promise, I had every option, and my choices were all my own. Win or lose, rise and fly, do or die, Pam called the shots and Pam was in control. And only Pam suffered the consequences of Pam’s choices.



God is my source and my protector as was the case back then…. It’s just that twenty years ago I had no idea how much protection I was enjoying. Now, I am wiser and less ignorant. I control so very little it is quite pitiful. My commitments dictate my choices and my values run the show.

So when I listen to the plans and dreams, hopes and schemes of today’s twenty-somethings, when I listen to the optimism, the faith, the aspiration, I am moved. I think of their aspiration and feel inspired. I think of my ambition and feel driven. My optimism has turned to pessimism, my faith to despair as I wonder if I will “make it” succeed at these efforts and endeavors I have chosen.

I am a mother. And that changed everything for me. Maybe I take myself too seriously, maybe not. But there is so much less in my life that I do for me… I use my job to fulfill a sense of vocation and purpose… but I keep that job to pay for the life I want to live as a solo parent. My volunteer time is spent investing in the church and the school that help me grow my child. I invest heavily because these are my pseudo-parenting partners in lieu of a husband or my son’s father. My dad used to be my parenting partner, helping me raise my son. He is no longer here. I no longer have his help. I miss him.

I do as much as I can in all the places that I can because I care about doing a good job. I care deeply about being a good mother. I enjoy being good at my job, but failure to be a good mother has a higher “at-stakeness”. A life is on the line… literally. Yes, I sound dramatic. And yes, I believe I am right.

Lives are on the line every day as parents fail to parent their own children and leave the duties and responsibilities to others. The costs of failure to parent keep soaring and the costs are born by us all. We pay every day in the social and emotional costs that accompany the killings and beatings and violence that is our every day norm in urban America. We pay every day as we grow number and less sensitive to those people, the ones who are not my problem, but are my community. We pay every day in lost productivity and human capital growth as our urban Americas sink further and further behind growing more illiterate by the hour. And when my son grows up and is a black male who is educated, enlightened, unimprisoned, and employed, I cannot help but wonder…. What statistic will he be? one in one hundred? one in one thousand? One in two thousand?

So, yes, my life may be about half over. But my parenting career is not even half begun. I have a long haul and sometimes the load sure feels heavy. But every day, I know I am closer and closer to creating a life lived powerfully, productively, powerfully, and prosperously … a life that is my son’s because of the way I have paved.

I am forty-something and I thank God for each and every minute I have lived and for each one I might have left.