There is a thought that I cannot shake: people in America prefer big business over big government.

All over the place, I hear that people don’t want health care reform because what has been proposed is big government. The cry of “socialism” was (and still is) loud and clear when a government option for health care was on the table. The people didn’t want it; the politicians ran from it.

But if it is control that people are afraid of, what is it that makes people NOT afraid of big business? Surely, it has not been lost on people that it is big business that is controlling health care now? It is the insurance companies who are controlling who we can see, when we can see them, what treatments we can get, when we can get them, and what will not be covered at all?

It is big business which has determined that it is not profitable for them if people with “pre-existing” illnesses are bad for business; therefore, if you have high blood pressure, or cancer in remission, and you change jobs, chances are great that no insurance company will pick you up.

If you get too sick and require too much hospitalization, you might be dropped. You might not be able to see the doctor you really want to see if he or she is not on a list which the insurance companies have compiled.

Ummmm, isn’t that control?

I thought, and maybe I was wrong, but I thought that in a democracy there was supposed to more emphasis on egalitarianism. I know,I know …that from the beginning, the scales were tipped toward white men with money. But wasn’t the underlying principle of the new government supposed to be egalitarianism? You know, a living out of the “all men are created equal” declaration?

Government was supposed to be “of the people, by the people and for the people.” I remember that from elementary school lessons on the United States Constitution.

That was the protection against “big government,” and certainly, there is some consolation in the fact that because of our Constitution, America will never be a dictatorship.

But there is no protection against big business …and in fact, big business might be considered a new dictator. Big business makes money on the backs “of the people,” and big business makes life difficult “for the people,” and ignores cries “by the people.”

If one does not pay, one is cast aside.

I keep thinking about this, why people cannot see, or will not see, that it is big business that is running the so called democracy. Big business has gotten in the way of health reform for over 70 years, because it is protecting itself and its interests.

If we’re afraid of “big” control, we ought to be really afraid now, today, because big business has the people right where it wants them and will fight with big money to keep it that way. Big business has the means to shut down any and all opposition, because it fights with what people want more than anything else: money.

I just cannot see why control by big business is any better or safer or comforting than some government control which seeks to make it possible for more people to get health care.

And that is a candid …and confusing… observation.

Sometimes, there are just no words to explain the “now.”

This was the week of the horrid earthquake in Haiti. No words…

And it was also the week that a vibrant, intelligent 24 year old grad student who was a member of my church shot herself to death. There…are …no… words.

Damn if it isn’t painful enough on its own. This young woman left no note to anyone, said nothing about what she was about to do. In fact, she appeared to be doing well. She had plans to do things with friends later in the week.

I have heard that when a person is serious about committing suicide, he or she says nothing. They have crossed a line, and seldom go back. Once they have decided that things are so bad, that their pain is so deep that nobody can really understand and help, they say nothing. They become living Nike mottoes: they just do it.

And so, my member left her house early Wednesday morning, said to her partner she’d see her later, and left. I don’t know where else she went that day, but she wound up at a local shooting range, to learn how to use a gun.

She learned … and then she turned in on herself and shot herself in the chest.

Goodness mercy! There are no words, and the lump will not leave my throat, nor will my heart come up from the depths of hell. I am asking myself where I failed her, but I am not alone. All who loved her are asking the same thing. There are no words. There are no answers.

The only thing I can do is try to be “the good pastor” and help my members, the people left behind, deal with this loss. I can do that. Maybe that will help lessen the weight of this burden.

My mother used to say that suicide is selfish. I was mad at her for saying that because the statement seemed devoid of compassion.

But if “selfish” means that one is concerned only with one’s self, my mother was right. It is the people who are left behind who are left wandering in a wilderness of confusion, pain and loss.

But maybe this wilderness experience could have been avoided had we done more, seen more, reached out more, …something.

I don’t know.

There are no words.

A candid observation, for sure.

There is a blessed point of consciousness one can get to which absolutely improves the quality of life.

It’s called surrender.

Seun Adebiyi, an Nigerian who trained to be on the Olympic skeleton team but now has been waylaid by leukemia, said something powerful in an interview: He said that his illness is rather like skeleton. “There is a time for all out effort, and there is a time for surrender.”

Surrender he must, because he must receive treatment for his leukemia, including a bone marrow transplant. He will be in isolation for at least six weeks. He can do nothing but surrender. Until that time, he is working to get people to give bone marrow for transplants. Then, he goes into treatment, and refuses to look on his illness as a pothole in the road, but rather as a command to surrender.

I have surrendered as well. I think that’s why 2012 seems to much like a breakthrough for me. All my life, and into my adult life, I sought to be in groups that did not receive me. I was always trying to make myself fit in.

I didn’t. No matter what I did.

In my adult professional life, I worked again to be a part of “the group” of preachers that got lots of invitations to speak. Didn’t happen, and I agonized for years. I worked to model my church after the church of a person whom I admired deeply. Didn’t work.

I felt not like a fish out of water, but like a fish that been born on land and had never known water.

Well, after so many years of trying to “fit in,” I had an “aha” moment. It started with a realization that with struggling to fit in, I didn’t know who I was, nor did I know what God really wanted me to do. It took me forever to learn that the answers I was looking for were not going to come.

It hit me, finally, that I was asking the wrong questions.

When I finally stopped trying to “fit in” with kids at school, I had peace. When I finally stopped trying to “fit in” with the group of preachers I so admired, I found peace. And as I began to discover who I was and what I am to do, I had more than peace. I had joy.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. I tried to fit in because I never fit in even with my family. There was this hunger…

But thank goodness for age and the wisdom it brings. A few years ago, I preached on New Year’s Eve that there is a difference in one’s spirit when one says “I’m tired,” as opposed to saying, “I’m done.”

When one is tired, there is an implication that a fight will continue,albeit wearily. But when one is “done,” finished, through, there has been a completion of a sentence. A period has been placed at the end of the sentence, which has been way too long.

I have surrendered. I am through, done, and it feels so good. I have moved into my place, the place, I guess, God had waiting for me all along. It’s a bit dusty from not having been visited often enough.

But I am cleaning up that space and making it my own. I find that I do not have the same questions, nor to I crave the same answers. Bigger than that: I don’t want answers to those questions at all. I am making new friends. I am exploring the house in which “my” room sits. I didn’t know the house was so large. So many possibilities…

I surrendered, finally. And I feel good … finally.

And that is surely a candid observation!

OK. I know that when people have been hurt or oppressed or anything of that sort, they are hypersensitive.

I am hypersensitive as an African American living in America. The American way hasn’t been all that good for African Americans.

Given that hypersensitivity, I have to pull back sometimes when I have a reaction against something that has happened. I have to ask myself if I am overreacting.

Which brings me to the point of this writing. Am I being too sensitive when I object to white people seemingly only thinking a movie is worthy of an award when it shows black people in a bad light?

I saw the movie “Precious,” which grieved my soul to the core. Not only was the story a sad one, albeit powerful, but it struck me because far too many people – black and white – live lives like that. The issue is more often one of poverty and class, not race.

While I was in the theater, I noticed two sets of reactions, and mind you, this was just in the theater where I saw the movie. Black people sat quietly weeping some, shaking their heads, but the white people who sat near me seemed to have no reaction at all, at least not that I could see.

That was interesting.

On the way out of the theater, my friends and I commented that while the movie was good and all, the tragedy is that too many white people think that that way of life is all black people are about. The movie and actresses may all win awards for their work, and they would deserve it , but the fact is that it feels like black people only get awarded for excellence in movies when we act like the white culture thinks we are.

We commented that Denzel Washington, as fine an actor as there is, didn’t win Academy Awards, or even nominations, for all the fine work he’s done … until “Training Day.” In that movie, he was not a good guy, but a tough black guy with issues …and the powers that be, or the people who support the powers that be, were put at ease enough to nominate him.

Then there’s Tiger Woods. His marital infidelity is a problem, and his life has been radically changed, but I am stunned by what I saw this week – a picture of him on the cover of an upcoming magazine taken by Annie Liebowitz. It shows a bare-chested Tiger with a black skull cap on his head, and he looks quite a bit darker than he is. He looks like a convict. I was stunned at the picture. Is it my imagination? Do I need to wait until the magazine comes out to get a clearer picture?

Why do I not think I am overreacting? Why do I feel the picture was designed to make people think of him as a bad guy … an image that people are more comfortable with when it comes to black people? The commentator was remarking that the image certainly helps us get rid of the image of Tiger as a good guy. He suggested that the picture begs the question of whether or not Tiger uses or used steroids. A picture inside the magazine shows Tiger doing pull-ups, and the commentator again cast a shadow of disapproval. “Certainly, golfers don’t do that,” he said.

Excuse me? Tiger is a young man; all young people, or most of them, are body-conscious. They live in the gym. Why in the world is it a point of contention if this young man wants to stay in shape?

Then there was the horrible story of the young white boy who was set on fire by his friends, but no mention of the young African American boy who was also set on fire earlier in 2009 by his friends – who happened to be white.

It exhausts me, the way racism works in this country, and it exhausts me to always have to step back and wonder if I am overreacting of if what I am seeing is accurate and my feelings justified.

There is still so much work to be done. The disease called racism has spread all over the soul of America. It is truly part of the legacy of this country.

And that’s a candid observation.

Happy New Year!

I am as excited about this new year as I have ever been. It seems like the possibilities for new growth and new opportunities are swirling around, and are tangible, palpable. It is a good feeling. It’s not about resolutions. It’s about a changed mind, a changed attitude, which didn’t happen all at once, at midnight on December 31, 29, but was a work in progress.

It feels like the foundation for a new life has been laid.

I am reading Wayne Dyer’s new book, “Excuses Begone!” and it is feeding this fledgling new spirit of mine. It is amazing how, when you are ready for a certain kind of nourishment, the “food” shows up. I find myself nodding in agreement with the belief that what we want and need is “out there,” not all that far away, and that if we can fix our minds to understand and accept that, a new life awaits us.

I have long objected to the notion that people have to wait until they die to “see” heaven, just like I have objected to the belief that one only “goes” to hell after death. Nope. People live hell and miss heaven while they are alive. We spend countless hours thinking about what was, or worrying about what will be, and in the process miss golden nuggets of “now” that we will never have again.

It finally hit me; or maybe it hit me again and I know understand. I am feeding off words and books that I merely glanced at before. The poem, “Invictus,” has become a battle cry of sorts for me; the end pronouncement that “I am the captain of my soul; I am the master of my fate,” feels like good, warm oatmeal, eaten to protect my spiritual immune system. I find myself mumbling those words over and over, and feel stronger the more I state them.

I am not sure what my new life will look like; I only know that already, it is new. I will probably not learn how to skydive, as someone asked if I wanted to do; neither am I interested in trying to learn how to speed down a mountain on a pair of skis. I think I will go skiing, though, just to say I tried it. I will write some songs and another book in 2010. I will. Since I am the captain of my soul and the master of my fate, the power to do or not to do lies within me. There is nobody to look to to do it for me, but that is not a complaint. It is a proclamation!

Ntozake Shange wrote that she’d found “god in herself” at the end of her play,”for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf,” and Iyanla Vanzant wrote, “one day, my soul just opened up.” How about I know what they’re talking about. I have found God in myself and my soul is opening up day by day … and it feels good.

So, I write to share that this newness of life and spirit feels like “the gift,” the “something” that I have been looking for all my life but didn’t know it. The god in me smiles and makes me smile and believe and know … that this is a new chapter in a book that begs to be continued.

And that is a …candid observation!