CHUMA SPIRIT Magazine

Stealing our Love Stories ...

* play video * Sometimes its too much. Convincing people you are worthy of the same rights and respect as they are should be a no-brainer. It's not. Obama's historic inaugural preparations are underway; in less than a month an alleged man of god will give the invocation, despite taking numerous repugnant positions in the past - not the least of which equating gay sex to pedophilia. Some say he didn't really mean it that way. It doesnt' really matter. It was a ham-fisted analogy which exposed his ugly heterosexist heart -- in his eyes, we (gays) will never be as good as them (straights). Watching Taylor Swift sing this song (yes, I love country music) and visually capture the magic that LOVE can be and wrap it in a fairy tale, all I could think was they wanna keep it all to themselves. That bastard Warren, the ex-Hitler-Youth turned Pope, and countless other wannabe men (and women) of God want to keep all this magic and fantasy and fairy dust to themselves. They want to rob us of our fairy tale love stories; force them back into the shadows and alleys and dark corners of our past. I've made my position on Warren very clear. Now is not the time to burn effigies. As a black man I wanna celebrate this event in just 21 days. I wanna cry hot tears because its been a long time coming. Then, President Obama, after all the confetti is swept away we're coming to take our love stories back -- because everyone deserves a fairy tale. And like my grandma used to say (and its oh so fitting here!) - "You can believe that like you read it in the Bible." ~~

Fisiwe's Voice: I Am Not The Same

Written by FISIWE

Six months ago, I was a practicing Buddhist seeking Enlightenment. Two months ago I got “saved”; accepted the free gift of salvation from Jesus Christ into my heart. Yesterday, I got baptized and committed my life to God. Today I am born again, possessing salvation and defining my place in Heaven when this life is over. Whoa! Right?

As a Buddhist I was intent on dieing to my sensory self. I meditated and sought to become detached physically, mentally and emotionally. The idea is that the connections that bind us to our current state of consciousness are what keep us suffering. My goal was ultimately to obliterate all this perception until I am completely divested from all that ties me to the world and the suffering that inevitably derives from it. This takes life times.

According to Gautama Buddha, God the Creator, was a non-question; a non-issue.1 That in and of itself never, ever sat well with my spirit. Still I pressed on, determined to becoming convinced one day that I could learn to meditate away the deep seeded memory and unshakable knowledge of God’s existence. As a Buddhist, I had to believe that even my connection to God was a tie to be dismantled.

As a Christian, I live to die to my egoic self. I love God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost so much I am willing to ultimately submit my life to them as we all do when we are truly in love. I live to manifest God’s presence and honor Him; to make preparations to live in the new earth with Him forever. It’s an awesome gift beyond compare that Jesus came to earth and exchanged his life to pay for my sins and give me everlasting life with Him. Long before I was ever born, before my parents were born, God knew me. And Jesus thought of me and decided that he loved me so much he would die for me to have everything in God’s Kingdom.