GRATITUDE THE UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT MAKES US WHOLE…When you learn real GRATITUDE your life shifts. You no longer entertain the negative…..which is the biggest shift….your enough becomes enough. You really do appreciate that enough is all you need…..Gone is that feeling you have to “chase” the world.  Your BLESSING and ABUNDANCE just appear. GRATITUDE also shows the meaning of sharing what you have, that IS what we are here for to “PAY IT FORWARD” opening the SOUL and SPIRIT for more ABUNDANCE.  GRATEFUL for all thing large and small… opening  our HEARTS to LOVE…. tearing down the walls…more like the fortresses  we built to keep the BEAUTY OF THE  WORLD out…

I fast for Lent and although I know in that short period of time I cannot change everything, BUT  I can change some things..the starting is the hardest part…I’m starting another  GRATITUDE JOURNAL today and the best part is how GRATEFUL I am for MYSELF…….HEALTHY….HAPPY…..HERE!!!!!!  Much LOVE & GRATITUDE

Happy Birthday Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr……..I started my day watching the movie SELMA which is what I had planned to do…….WOW what a powerful reenactment of BLOODY SUNDAY…..all should get awards for their acting….One thing I kept thinking was..back then we were marching for LAWS to be  acknowledged and changed,,,to give black people the rights they were ALREADY entitled to. We were FREE people RIGHT!!! Funny because there were sooo many similarities to the way black people are being treated today and the marches are not  to change and LAWS.but to acknowledge that 50 years later black people do matter and have a very important place in our history……but the treatment of black people is the same. Why doesn’t America want to give black people the respect and dignity they deserve and have earned. We educated ourselves equal to our counterparts and it still not enough. Our President is black still it is not enough,  Still today our legal system does little or nothing to benefit poor and inner city people. Reading the newspaper and watching the news we see so blatantly the difference and so bold. The people who marched across the Edmund Pettis Bridge both BLACK and WHITE were HEROES!!!!!!!…..

But yet 50 years later we are still fighting and marching and praying for change.  Every man in this country should be free because thats what our constitution says RIGHT!!!!!   CIVIL RIGHTS is very real and it is our birthright So I say to the 25,000 people who crossed the bridge 50 years ago THANK YOU!!!! Clearly it would be MUCH worse if you had not paved the way…………

Let me start by saying I LOVE MY PRESIDENT….but Mr President you dropped the ball on this one. You should have been on the front line of the PEACE rally in Paris….Isn’t AMERICA supposed to be the leader in world peace.  Now as I watched your press secretary squirm as he was asked why you did not go…..I’m thinking well secret service is ALWAYS available to you under any and ALL circumstances including playing golf and vacations sooooo I would think you could have rounded some of them up for this very important rally…A CALL FOR WORLD PEACE….your press secretary actually said that he didn’t know what you were doing and he said that security was an issue…..I do get that but, some of the strongest world leaders were there….YOU should have lead THEM!!!!!…….they needed security as well…BUT THAT DID NOT STOP THEM….thank you White House for acknowledging  that you did make a mistake by not attending  we can respect that…BUT it was more like too little too late…..We can no longer afford not to step to the front line…..in war there is always casualty but we do not run from war if the means protecting the masses and we are definitely at war….Just a different kind of war. GOD BLESS THE WORLD!!!!

Originally I wanted to write just about DISRESPECT,  but after waking to the disaster in Paris I have so many thoughts……Let me start by saying I by no means believe in terrorism of any form….but I do believe in provocation…I also believe that FREEDOM OF SPEECH is overrated and abused…now let me clarify that by saying can you just walk up to a person and say WHATEVER you feel just because you feel like it….nope…because it causes problems….We have lost our ability to sit down and talk to our enemy or friend because mockery and jokes have become the prominent form of communication..Now I understand that terrorist nor radicals have no place in any society, BUT that what they  believe,  they believe.  And maybe just maybe we should try to understand what their fight is  verses continually provoking.  Mainly its about their religion…..this has been a middle eastern fight for centuries……so why provoke them.  Don’t we understand that maybe they don’t understand us just like we don’t understand them…Why  make jokes about what people feel or believe isn’t that the same as common bullying……There is a huge difference between Freedom Of Speech verses the POWER OF THE POISON PEN……I am not suggesting that we revoke our rights to express ourselves….what I will say is maybe we can express ourselves  more in a way where other people and other cultures don’t feel so disrespected…..The world is so unrest right now……peace is no where in sight so I would think that the POWER OF THE PRESS would choose to calm not instigate and provoke ……so please lay down those POISON PENS and pick up PENS OF PEACE……..

My thoughts and PRAYERS are with our friends in Paris tonight…………..

I said I wasn’t going to blog this topic again because I thought it would be rhetorical…BUT I’m watching the news as always today and the story of Eric Frein comes on…Remember him…no…ok well he’s the white guy who ambushed and killed a state trooper in Pennsylvania a couple of weeks ago…Well the first thing I noticed was how healthy…groomed…clean..and dressed he looked…but I remember when the news showed video of him being arrested how carefully he was placed in the police car….ANYWAY are you getting my point……A BLACK man is beaten and strangled to the ground for some loose cigarettes by white police officers…A BLACK 18 year old  male is gunned down by a white police officer for only GOD knows why….that story is soooo convoluted you have no idea what or who to listen to…….A WHITE man stalks and executes a state trooper…he is carefully arrested taken to a warm holding jail…fed…”.because after all he was hiding in the forest for three weeks”…….showered and given a place to rest.

Am I the only only who sees the difference….Now let me be clear I am NOT trashing law enforcement, we need them…BUT I am addressing those in law enforcement that do daily make the difference between BLACK & WHITE….so right this is nothing new about this topic  BUT now with average people video taping we are seeing more reality…..getting a clearer picture that this kind of behavior is VERY prevalent in our community and society….I don’t really like always to make these issues BLACK & WHITE…why not make it a issue of humanity……TREAT US LIKE YOU WANT TO BE TREATED….Why do some police officers treat BLACK MEN differently…seems to me the same officers who sooooo disrespectfully turned their back on The Mayor Of New York City Bill de Blasio while at the funeral of “one of their own” would be the same type of officer to abuse power while making an arrest of a BLACK MAN……I’m just saying…..PEACE!!!!!!!..BLACK LIVES MATTER!!!!!

Gone are my NEW YEARS resolutions….ALL of which have never lasted much past the 2 or 3 of January….BUT I can honestly say if I change this 2015 its due to a continued evolution of my SPIRIT and SOUL anyway…….I don’t believe we change just because we write something on a piece of paper and poof the next day we are different….that can be a start, but change takes passion-learning-loving and most of all being. BEING PRESENT….not only for yourself but for the people and circumstances around you…..Change also takes time….time to figure out why you feel you need to change in the first place……Change is also a constant work in progress…I believe if we really want to change  toward improvement, our work is never really done…..And sometimes  there are days when one feels no change at all…..But with FAITH and BELIEVING in ones self change does find its way…..so I say no NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS just BE……and see where you go from there LOVE AND LIGHT HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

We cannot kill each other PERIOD…..Do I understand the injustice that has become LAW in this country..Yes..are my sympathies with the families of slain black men at the hands of our police…Yes..but we cannot hold ALL of our police accountable and we cannot randomly kill them..What happened in Brooklyn isn’t going to change the outcome of any of the cases that have been in the news this year. Violence only begets Violence….Do I have the answer no…because these trials have been going on long since before I was born. But what I do know, is we all have to find a place where we can co-exist and talk. LAY DOWN THE GUNS…perhaps our police need to go through some sort of sensitivity training…clearly several do not understand the mentality of the everyday people…..I am choosing my words quietly today because I consciously do not want to sound inciteful. I want to begin the process of spreading peace…..I know we have heard this all before but each day is a new day to start a new war a war for PEACE.  So I ask you all come and join the WAR FOR PEACE!!!! thats the only way we are going to survive…..

As we close out 2014 and welcome 2015 lets all just breathe…..If we personally change ourselves we can pass it on….be kind to the person standing next to you,  smile and greet the cashier waiting on you….redirect your ego minds to only attract the goodness that is still in the world today…PRAY……MEDITATE…if something is bothering you try to talk to someone about it…people listen more than you think…..and have a plan for your life so you don’t feel like your missing something….LOVE.. IT WORKS…..this is for EVERYBODY…..no color code…..no gender……PEACE…..BLESS YOU ALL

Yes Black men are under seize in the USA ..nothing new …..THE DREAM never really changed anything in that regard. White police  officers will ALWAYS feel HONORED to kill black men…..I’m sure if we were a fly on the wall of the police department we would not be surprised what we would hear. The jokes about another ni**er dead…..Now that I’ve vented that lets just say this, a lot of feeding the flames come from news journalist like Shaun Hannity from FOX news. He has got to be the most misinformed news journalist in the WORLD…..He is totally removed from black life in america…….All the intelligent people that clearly saw the wrong in the Eric Gardner decision he just didn’t get it…Yet he is allow due to the 1st Amendment to nightly get on T.V. and bash all black people. He is a racist Shaun Hannity is……The Eric Gardner case opened another chapter of black male murder in this country…….The history is extensive, black men have been murdered for no reason by white males in positions of law enforcement  since they first stepped onto american soil……AND since the beginning of time white people just are designed not to prosecute each other…Now I really hate to make such general statements but I think you understand what I’m saying …. not all white people are bad…..many are just like you and me….but it just seems like when sooooo many of our black brothers, sons, fathers, husbands, friends are murdered like dogs in the street history denotes that white america turns a blind eye….I must say in watching the protests around the country I am quite impressed with the input of white folks…

Before I bring this to a close let me be clear I am neither a bigot or racist……I see things as I see them….all police officers aren’t bad we need them……they go into the streets everyday themselves not knowing whether they are going to survive the day……BUT their training should not be to shoot to kill…..IF they need to use a weapon why not maim, shoot in the foot or the hand…..so many of these young men were not armed so why  such aggression from the police…whenever ANYONE POINTS A LOADED GUN AT ANYONES HEAD THE CHOICE IS TO KILL……”HANDS UP DON’T SHOOT”…….”I CAN’T  BREATHE”…….HOW MANY MORE TIMES DO WE HAVE TO HEAR THIS BEFORE SOMETHING IS REALLY DONE!!!!!!!….GOODNIGHT……

Today I attended the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk at Jones Beach…This has always for me been a VERY beautiful and PERSONAL function. A sort of celebration of life. On March 26, 2005 my beloved sister Karen Pia Jones died of Metastasized Breast Cancer at the young age of 49. Her journey started about two years before. What do you do when your WHOLE family gets this kind of news. The point of this blog, is that today I fully realized that there is no real compassion or empathy for the CO-SURVIVORS. During the walk this year every time the workers spoke to you the first thing the would ask is “ARE YOU A SURVIVOR” one booth even denying us a sweatshirt because we were not CANCER survivors and patients of the doctors that were advertising. So I ask is our grief not important enough not to have a title. Was our journey not filled with enough emotion and pain to warrant an acknowledgment.

My suggestion to Making Strides is that next year have a table for co-survivors. Have a rose for co-survivors.  And perhaps include a sensitivity training. Because when someone asks me am I a survivor and I say no PLEASE don’t just dismiss me like nothing happened to me. When I attend these walks I do it because I believe that there are like-minded people who understand that after all this time I still cry for the loss of my sister as well as celebrate her life. So I end this by saying CO-SURVIVORS ARE SURVIVORS TOO!!!!!  until tomorrow bye

When did we become so bored with our own lives that other peoples lives became our interest. The image that has become Reality TV is disgusting people fighting and cursing UGH!!!!!! Love and Hip Hop..Real Housewives Of Everything the shows should be banned from TV…..Just today  Joe and Theresa Giudice although I do feel for their children they did commit a crime STEALING MORTGAGES..TAX FRAUD..LYING…ETC…..if you or I had committed these crimes we would be under the jail..And there are honest hard working people that apply for mortgages and don’t get them, So since when is the message the only way to get MONEY in this country is to steal it.

I say lets cancel Reality TV and get back to something close to real TV like SCANDAL…DATELINE heck SHARKTANK they help and promote and give some of the best FREE business information ever.  So I challenge EVERYONE THAT IS HOOKED ON REALITY TV LETS STOP WATCHING IF THERE IS NO AUDIENCE THERE IS NO SHOW!!!!!  Lets save ourselves….. Until tomorrow bye!!!