Daily Archive

The day after Super Tuesday, a clear front runner finally emerges in the Republican party.  John McCain  pulls ahead of Romney and Huckabee with 613 of the 1191 delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination.  He’s running the type of campaign he tried to mount eight years ago before he was Bushwacked and Roved all over the country.  He’s a former Vietnam POW who has gained the respect of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle and is nationally thought of as being a conciliator.  After a shaky start and low  funds (I actually thought he pulled out couple of times) he is now the man to beat for the Red nod.

He wants this.  For real, he does. 

He’s resonating with the people but not with a lot of conservatives.  Ann Coulter has called McCain a liar and that if he gets the nomination she’ll start campaigning for her mortal enemy, H. Clinton.  Rush Limbaugh said on January 15 that if McCain gets the nomination it would destroy the Republican party and has accused him of manipulating the media.  Both Romney and McCain have accused one another of harboringliberal tendencies, with the real far Righter’s going for Huckabee. 

Like Obama, McCain draws the Independents.  Whether you agree with him or not, you know where he comes from and what he stands for.  You know that he is a man of duty and integrity and even after his run in 2000 he still harbored no ill will to Bush and stood behind him as Commander in Chief.  Whether you agree with him or not you know he will never play you underhanded and will actually do what is best for the good of everyone, not just for interest groups who have his ear.

This is probably what is bringing a lot of people to cast their votes for McCain.  After this Bush administration people are finally looking deeper than have before and want more than smoke and mirrors.  Votes for McCain aren’t necessarily votes against Romney and Huckabee.  Vote for McCain are for the image he projects and how he’s perceived.  Finally, on both sides, people actually have a choice for something.

But McCain’s nomination isn’t inevitable.  Both Romney and Huckabee haven’t conceded anything yet and in the following weeks we will truly see what stuff these guys are made up.  Hopefully they are deserving of all the votes they have earned.

I hadn’t heard from Sybil for a while so I was surprised to find a letter in my in-box asking for information on the Korean language class I was going to take at a local church.  She said she had a friend who was interested; I suspected she was slyly referencing herself and for some reason wanted to be coy about it. 

A few weeks later I called her up to tell her about someone we were friends with and also to see how the Korean classes were going.

“Oh, it wasn’t for me,” she said.  “The classes were for a friend of mine.  She is interested in moving up in the church that we attend but she needs to know Korean in order to do it.”

Huh?

Sybil began to tell me about this church she has begun to attend.  The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification is concerned about building communities and nurturing families, she said.  She has been studying with them for a few months now although she hasn’t gotten deep into the word.  It seemed like a perfect fit.  She has been practicing deliberate sexual abstinence for a few years now and she has always been on a spiritual journey (although it’s more like a search to me).  She liked the way the church encourages volunteerism and puts focus on the family and feels once she has become more comfortable with church doctrine that she will be able to find her match through the churches services.  The church in our city has a mostly white congregation but one in Columbus is more racially mixed. 

“It sounds like a great,” I say to her as I make my way over to the computer.  “Volunteerism is very important.  So what’s taking you so long to get hooked up?”

“I don’t know,” she said.  “I just have to memorize and learn more stuff.  Like my friend who wanted to take the Korean classes, she’s black.  She’s at a certain level in the church but the best way to move up higher is to know the language.”

“Any language?”

“No, just Korean.”

I had found it.  The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU) used to be called the Unification church.  Hmm… Oh, it was started by Sun Myung Moon.  Sun Myung Moon…. Sun Myung Moon… Oh!  Sun Myung Moon!

She’s going to church with the Moonies?!

Seems about right.

Sybil has been on a spiritual quest for as long as I have known her.  Back in high school she had given up Catholicism to worship at the church of Prince who preached colorblind love (as long as you weren’t too dark) and prayerful funky beats.  She attended church with me a few times in the early 90s before she began going to the Hare Krishna House.  She and her fellow punkers used to go there mostly for the food (”They have really good stew,” she said) but had to listen to the teachings for a fair exchange.  She drifted in and out of that religion along with learning about Wicca and Hinduism.  For a while she decided to get deeper into Hare Krishna along with getting deeper in a cute Indian guy she met in temple.  But when that fell apart she was in search again and then happened into Buddhism where she met a cute Japanese guy.  That relationship was also short-lived and now 40 and man-less she has pulled up stakes, gone deep into daily meditation and decided to get in touch with who she is, where she is and what she wants.

That’s when the Unification church came into her life.

“You know it’s a cult!” my friend Danger said to me at a later time.  I tried to procure her to take a nice photo of Sybil, just in case she might soon be ready to get her match up.  “It’s run by some Korean dude who thinks he’s the true Messiah.  You need to get her out of it.”

I think back to all of Sybil’s religious dabblings and shake my head. “She’s a grown woman,” I said.  “What can I tell her that she can’t know for herself?  Besides, whenever I try to tell her stuff like that we go head to head.  It’s best that she finds out for herself.”

And it’s not like they are going to make her drink “The Kool-Aid” I thought.  But I googled it anyway just to make sure.

The FFWPU was started and is run by one man, Sun Myung Moon.  Reverend Moon to most of the world he is known for the periodical mass weddings where he matches up the couples.  The Moonies teach that Jesus didn’t come here to die, but to start a new order on earth where people married, multiplied and tried to make love themselves into a new world.  As I quickly looked the information over on the net I kept my opinions to myself about what type of organization I thought the Moonies were.  I didn’t even refer to them as Moonies with her.  “So, have you looked at the pickings for a hook up?” I asked.

“No, not yet.  I have to be emotionally ready to receive.”

I cocked my head to the side when she said it.  I had to agree with her although I’m wondering how this all falls in line with her need to procreate for this church if need be since she is getting closer to an age where conceiving may soon be impossible.  And who gets to choose?  The Reverend Moon is known for looking at an individual, sizing up their needs with a glance and then matching them up with another person who he also quickly assesses.  How is that to make for a long lasting marriage?

Sybil told me that the couples now come about from an online matching service that the church now has.  I wonder in this way will she be able to find her true Asian soul-mate? Or how would she react if she were to be hooked up with a white dude from around the way?

I keep my mouth shut. And I’m keeping my fingers crossed.  It’s odd to me that spirituality and mating have cross-sectioned in her life.  Maybe God (or the Universe) is trying to send her a message.    Something is trying to get her to look deeper into herself before she can look to someone else to share her life with.  Which is not to say that atheists and agnostics have not been able to find true love.  I am sure there are many who have, it’s just for Sybil, her search for purpose and self-actualization have been teased with the promise of love, but then those bonds weren’t tight enough for them to stay together.  Maybe if she was more in touch with who she was then she could have figured it out earlier and been able to project another vibe outward.

I’m praying for her, though.   I understand that we need time to find ourselves and have alone time but I truly believe we learn more about ourselves through others.  I’m praying that she finds herself in time to have a long and happy life with whoever else she is supposed to find to take this journey with her. 

Is it me or did dude look like the love child of Dwayne Wayne and Mars Blackmon?

Coming to a black movie festival near you, “I’m Through With White Girls: The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks“,  is an independent film directed by a young sister named Jennifer Sharp.  Centered around an atypical brother named Jay Brooks is a sci-fi and comic nerd.  As he watches his friend prepares to take the big step of marriage Jay decides he wants it for himself but realizes that he has been dating the wrong women.  As he takes assessment he realizes that all the women have one thing in common, they’re white.  He tries do date black women but gets rejected out of hand becasue he’s not a thug.  He finally meets the girl of his dreams whose in-between and everything he’s been looking for.  But can Jay get out of his own way to be with his perfect match?

That’s my quick summation just from reading the synopsis.  From the preview it looks like a film that wants to examine racial and gender issues in dating from a black male perspective but not stereotyped black male that we see everywhere but the brother that some young black women don’t want to give a chance most of the time because they think they are corny (which was most of the black guys I dated.)