MY LIFE AS AN ASTERISK *
I am an outlier, an asterisk .*
Akin to an outsider, but more inside than outside, since I belong . This self-characterization covers every field of endeavor in which I am or have been engaged since 1973, the year I entered Howard University Law School from its undergraduate.
It includes ministry. I am AME (African Methodist Episcopal) preacher, with an asterisk. It includes Masonry. I am a Prince Hall Mason with an asterisk. It includes history. I am a lover and teacher of history with an asterisk. It includes writing. I write inveterately, even elegantly at times, but the subject matter of my writings are infrequently published by black or white publishers; and even then with their own asterisk.
I have been licensed to practice law continuously in Missouri for over 40 years, but 23 of these years was as a solo practitioner, alone. Ten years was as a government lawyer with the Departments of Labor and Justice in Kansas City, Missouri. Respected but rejected by the black and white law firms, I was and am an asterisk. Since 2011, I have been "inactive" in the practice of any law due to a stroke.
In the realm of social activism, it is the same thing: too this or too that for them all among such activists .
*So, what exactly is the nature of my asterisk? First is truth. Second is the natural over the artificial. Third is God. My cosmological sense of where we are in time and space, relative to all else within creation, is pre-Biblical, Biblical and Koranic. Fourth is study. Reading those masters who have gone before is fundamental to human progress . Fifth, money is not the be-all and end-all, but a major part of the means, the wherewithal of any movement, business, creed.
These asterisks have left me leper-like in the estimation of some folks. I had to accept that more onerous outlier role in this realm of being, content in this knowledge: that all labor has its due rewards, if not now, later, if not here there, in time.
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
LIFE AS AN ASTERISK*
MY LIFE AS AN ASTERISK *
I am an outlier, an asterisk .*
Akin to an outsider, but more inside than outside, since I belong . This self-characterization covers every field of endeavor in which I am or have been engaged since 1973, the year I entered Howard University Law School from its undergraduate.
It includes ministry. I am AME (African Methodist Episcopal) preacher, with an asterisk. It includes Masonry. I am a Prince Hall Mason with an asterisk. It includes history. I am a lover and teacher of history with an asterisk. It includes writing. I write inveterately, even elegantly at times, but the subject matter of my writings are infrequently published by black or white publishers; and even then with their own asterisk.
I have been licensed to practice law continuously in Missouri for over 40 years, but 23 of these years was as a solo practitioner, alone. Ten years was as a government lawyer with the Departments of Labor and Justice in Kansas City, Missouri. Respected but rejected by the black and white law firms, I was and am an asterisk. Since 2011, I have been "inactive" in the practice of any law due to a stroke.
In the realm of social activism, it is the same thing: too this or too that for them all among such activists .
*So, what exactly is the nature of my asterisk? First is truth. Second is the natural over the artificial. Third is God. My cosmological sense of where we are in time and space, relative to all else within creation, is pre-Biblical, Biblical and Koranic. Fourth is study. Reading those masters who have gone before is fundamental to human progress . Fifth, money is not the be-all and end-all, but a major part of the means, the wherewithal of any movement, business, creed.
These asterisks have left me leper-like in the estimation of some folks. I had to accept that more onerous outlier role in this realm of being, content in this knowledge: that all labor has its due rewards, if not now, later, if not here there, in time.