Links In The Chains by Jean-Marc Saint Laurent

Hello dear friends,

I am happy to say that the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated —I just live in Florida, simply meaning that I have traded outrageous train fees for outrageous gas fees and crazy neighbors for crazy relatives.

But living with family has its benefits, namely the chance of finding someone else's food to eat and picking up their stories while I have the chance.

"Your mother was about two months pregnant with you, " my father began, cleaning our Sunday chicken with grocer's lime, one Saturday night before.

It was the Autumn of 1985, my mother, growing rounder by the month took respite on the second floor of our Brooklyn home. Quite randomly, a visiting Nigerian pastor, my father met in a home prayer service came ringing the doorbell asking that they both see her right away.

He told my father to place his hand on her belly and pray. "You will have a son and he will be a servant of God" said the pastor and laid his hand on my father's in agreement as they both prayed for my destiny.

Months later when I was presented to the church, a newborn. I am told of the elderly pastor that held me and prophesied much glory over my life, only to die three days later.


No one recollects what denominations they were with. They were simply men of God.

Contrast those glorified predictions with this August, as I sat, much older in an old chair at my old church, with the eyes of an inquisitive old man watching me carefully.

I Have A Name Part 1

 

It was my first time in a psychiatric facility,

And medical Internship was bound to be interesting. Being just a new visitor there(thankfully), I met with the good doctor in charge and received the official tour from a staff nurse: offices, cafeteria, group sessions, all as one would expect, then she stopped by one of therapeutic rooms, allowing me to peek inside.

Everyone in the room seemed engaged in some activity:board games, television, and conversation but then there was her –— middle-aged, sun-reddened skin, shoulder length dirty blond hair; she was sadly involved in the business of looking at nothing in particular.

"That's "Rosie" ", my guide began with a smile "she has an interesting story, she is one of our Greyhound therapy cases".

Apparently aware that I was ignorant of the reference, she grew more serious in her elaboration: "That's when the family puts the patient on a bus one-way and says 'forget who we are' "

My Soul, My Self

My mind is about to explode,

The Lord has just made a bit of Truth -- which is himself, clear to me.

Walking along in Queens I was, from the pharmacy when I had to cross the street at the same time as a rowdy group of preteens. With my music on and my destination "locked in", my mind, idle yet free-wheeling,  made it's subconscious and therefore unsolicited commentary:

"Look, at this boy here -- kind of heavy and very loud -- must be making up for his insecurities"
It continued: "And that girl here of this type and that boy there of that  race, interesting they are in deep conversation. What could they have in common?"


But like a driver recognizing he had dozed off, I jumped back in the driver's seat and steered my mind to more positive terrain:


"We're all special in God's sight, Jesus loves the little children, all the children...etc."


But in the midst of this, I then asked the most dangerous question conceived, the kind if asked by a preteen is usually followed with  a "well...um...it's like..." from their parents and other well meaning adults: "Why?"


"Why can I not understand everything about a person just by looking at them?"


"Why can I not classify people by their group, race or portrayed image?"


The answer: 'Because you can't judge a book by it's cover' and 'God is into variety', no offense,  worked for us as kids, just how milk once satisfied our hunger, but nowadays as a meal --it is weak. But thankfully the truth is much meatier:


 “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb."(Jere 1:5)


The word in Hebrew, we translate as "knew" means more than just knowledge on a subject, if you turn back to Genesis you see it was written: "Adam knew Eve and she conceived". The word describes an intimate bond and relationship. Imagine a wife resting her head upon her husband's chest after a particularly difficult day at work as he simply holds her; and you have the picture: knowing something deeper than skin and body parts -- the soul.


God had an intimate relationship with our souls before we came to be. Before you were born, the Almighty had already mapped out the person whom you would be and he passionately loved that person.


I believe it was C.S. Lewis who said it best: "You are a soul, you have a body"


Your soul is you: your personality, what sets you ablaze and what frightens you, what makes you laugh so hard you can hardly speak--it is you, and God created it -- a divinely custom work.


Like an item covered by box and wrapping paper or a letter encased by an envelope are our souls in our bodies: You can not determine content by simply studying the container in which it is kept.


I am black but my soul has no color, I am Haitian but my soul comes from the same homeland as yours, I am '25 years of age', call me 'young', 'old'' or what have you but please know there is a part of me, the real me, that will never be buried or cease to be.


You were raised in a culture in which you learned to develop a taste for certain foods or relate to others in a specific way but it is as far from the entirety of who you are as ownership of a dollar bill is far from making you Warren Buffet


As one pastor has put: No one was given multiple choice before they were born. You simply woke up one day as you are and that was that. How can you put any stock in that? I am as helplessly 'black' as you are whatever you are. But God has a purpose for all He does.


Ponder this: The person of God was poured into a Jewish man whose people spoke Hebrew, we call him Jesus. But why that form?
Why these people?


It is worthy of noting, that what sets Hebrew apart from other languages is it's ability to be easily translated. Take the biblical books of poetry like our blessed Psalms and Proverbs. Had they been written by others, they would have relied on rhyme and meter, the placing of emphasis on syllables for expressing thoughts and ideas, which may sound lovely to the native but does not translate well for others. But the beautiful pattern of ideas we call Hebrew parallelism can be effectively rendered in ANY language!


And consider this: that Jesus came down and his disciples lived during the occupation of Jerusalem under the Roman Empire, when several different peoples and tribes were united by a common language: Greek, allowing for the Gospel to be spread to ALL in a single tongue!

God is more concerned about the accomplishment of His will than what it looks like to us and He is more concerned about the people we are becoming than what we look like to each other.

Is it no coincidence that God poured the souls of civil revolutionaries in bodies in which they could accomplish the most good, as a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi -- He raised up leaders in the midst of people who needed them.


John 8:
31 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. 32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Beloved, I sincerely believe the Lord is raising us up "for such a time as this" but we must freed from our preoccupation with sight.


What would you call a Christmas morning where all the members of a family traveled from all over the country to be at this one house, remaining seated, content in only staring at their wrapped gifts?  It may be  interesting for a time -- in anticipation --yet unless they "knew" the content of the gift boxes under the tree, I am sure we can agree the time spent would have been considered less than fulfilling, just as beauty being our main romantic motivator leaves the product achieved as less than fulfilling.


May we live for greater motivators. May we seek to "know" more of God. May we "know" more of each other. May we "know" more of ourselves.


Let us open some boxes.


In Him,

Jean-Marc