check out the above video message from yours truly, unscripted and real. if you’re in Nashville, come check out the latest two events i have coming up in the next several days. help me make a difference, like you always do. and talk to me!! :-) love you all.

joc

www.theamunratheatre.org for Tickets!

legacy.

the e-universe is ablaze with talk about Osama (Usama) Bin (ben) Laden’s Death or non-death (depending on who you speak with). there are those who are hailing this as one of the great moments in the history of Western Civilization. people immediately took to the streets in Washington, D.C. yesterday, dancing, pop-locking, hi-fiving, flag-waving, hugging, weeping, and celebrating once it was announced that a human being (The Bad Guy) had been assassinated by another group of human beings (The Good Guys). do i have a problem with that? politically, not really, because i understand geopolitics, nation-building, national security, and war. the death of Bin Laden is a measurable objective within that framework, and makers of war scored a top prize less than 24 hours ago, a crown jewel in the crown of nationalism that sits squarely atop the head of the United States of America, the supreme military complex of the world. do i have a problem with it spiritually? well, that’s a different matter altogether.

i can’t, in good conscience for myself, see myself whipping my mind and mouth into a frenzy of celebration at the snuffing out of a human life, however justifiable. maybe that’s because i’m not able to grasp the concept of taking something that i can’t give back. you can have retribution for money and property, but life? that’s up to God to decide. personally, i’m glad they caught Bin Laden, and i wish they’d have captured him alive. you ask “what kind of fucking American are you, buddy? if you’d have lost someone in the two towers, you’d want him dead, too! Why don’t you talk to someone who lost someone in the towers and you’d change your mind.” i have had conversation with people in those categories, and i can say definitively, that there is a flip side.

can you imagine the pain of losing someone so close because of the actions of another person? we may have all been in that situation before in some kind of way, so try and remember how you felt or how you really would feel. would you want the person at fault to be punished? in grief counseling, i’ve often found that people want the offender to feel what THEY are feeling: the sense of loss, the stripping of their power and their center, pain. a person can’t feel that when they’re dead. and when they believe that through death they live on, there is no sting or victory in dying. consider this: if Bin Laden had been captured alive and made to live out his years not in a mansion with the internet and piles of money and resources, but in a cell with no access to his minions, his money, and his mechanisms for moving his masses, then he’d have to die, slowly, knowing that there was no hope or honor at the end of his life’s journey.

with no body anyone has seen, conflicting reports over whether he was actually dead or alive, and a history of governmental cover-ups and secrecy, after the celebration has itself died down, how much closure is this actually going to bring to people?

as for our President, who tactfully handled the decision to advance this mission and the announcement of its success, did it really do anything to sway his naysayers closer to liking and supporting him? no, the naysayers are now pushing us toward the policies of President Bush as the reason for a successful kill (albeit after 2 terms of Presidency during which Bin Laden was a ghost in the darkness). the supporters of the President are all shouting, “Yeah! How about THAT!” in an attempt to prove that they were right in electing the first President of both White and Black descent to the Oval Office in American History.

now there is a debate that is doing exactly what: dividing us up all over again. and what do enemies of “freedom, justice, equality, our way of life, blah blah ad nauseum” want? to keep us divided and bickering with one another.

who really is winning in this scenario?

i refuse to fight and argue over this bullshit, and you know why? because of my Daddy and my Mama. you see, my father, whom i speak of often–rest his soul, was a remarkable man. he fought through circumstances (poverty, lack of formal education) to marry a wonderful woman, my mother (of the same background). together, they raised my brother (a PhD Dept Head of a prestigious university), my sister (a highly-respected Educational Consultant), and me (a Weaver of Dreams and Theater Founder) to be productive citizens. my father was retired Military and Deacon, while my mother is a Queen Mother of her adopted home city who is sought after daily for her wisdom and insights. in our family, they will be the stuff of legend. their legacy is secure.

President Obama–love him or hate him–has cemented his place in human history. they will speak of him through the end of time when referencing the early part of 21st Century America. Osama Bin Laden has also cemented his place in human history, even more so thanks to the US. you see, on one side of the world, the story will be told that a criminal mastermind terrorist was tracked down and killed for his crimes. on another side of the world, the story will be told that God spared a liberator to endure a decade of assault from evil forces who finally found him and performed a modern day lynching (execution, crucifixion) on a spiritual savior. either way you look at it, it’s undeniable that all of the individuals i’ve mentioned have done something to put their names into the mouths of people who will carry them forward in history, which leads me to the question i ask in the middle of all this debate and celebration:

what are YOU doing to create or cement YOUR legacy?

that’s why i have to think before i take to the streets celebrating other people. what will i be remembered for? that’s what guides me when i get up every day. will i be remembered as a voice of love or of hatred? will i be recalled as someone who brought joy into other people’s lives or will i be remembered for pain i inflicted? would i be considered an asset to my fellow man and woman, or a liability?

we all, being human, are created equal. some aspire to greatness, but i have this notion that we all can be great in our own way. i truly believe, based on my life experiences, that what you put into the universe does come back to you. ask yourself, as you think on these words, when your time comes–either from “natural causes” or an “accident,” will people dance and celebrate your life? or will they celebrate your death?

if you want people to celebrate the life you live, then put the energy into the universe you want to receive. if you keep getting back negativity, division, and “evil things,” take an assessment of what you’re putting out into the universe and what is giving you joy. i wouldn’t dare say that my perspective is “the right way,” because then i’ll be setting myself up for a fight i will not engage in. the way i choose to see things gives me peace, and so i’d recommend to anyone that living in peace feels a whole lot better than living in turmoil. life is short and meant for us to enjoy, even as we build our legacies.

that Dash (-) between “born” and “died” is all we’ve got to live on. let’s make it something good and be remembered for such. Obama and Osama have done their thing.

let’s do ours.

Meditation to Revelation

Write it down. Highlight it. Memorize it. I guarantee it’ll change your
life.

My father, Haywood Haskell Carr, was a rich man, spiritually speaking. The oldest of 11 children born to sharecroppers in East Tennessee, and armed with a 6th-grade education, my father embarked upon the journey of life with a sense of wonder and amazement I’ve tried my best to emulate in my own dealings with people. Retired from the military and a food service worker at the V.A. Hospital most of his life, he didn’t make it outside the borders of the continental U.S., but that man–God bless his eternal soul–was global in all of his thoughts and deeds.

He remains the smartest man I know, and he transitioned to the realm of The Ancestors in 2001. He never got to get even a GED, but all three of his children finished college and beyond. He made sure of that by marrying a queen of a woman named Catherine Hayes Carr, herself not even a graduate of what we call “middle school” in today’s educational system, who labored countless hours during the week in the back of sweat shops disguised as dry cleaners and did domestic work for white folks on the weekends to make sure we had an opportunity for a better life, which we did, even though we dumb kids didn’t know it at the time.

Our clothes weren’t always up to date, and we often shopped at the Goodwill, which we called endearingly “The Big Wheel,” presumably after my little sister Gussie mistakenly referred to it as such once and it stuck with us as a familial joke. My father insisted that certain styles would come back in vogue, so by continuing to stay a decade behind, in his head, he actually was a forward thinker. That worked for him, but not always for us. Peers can be torturous in their insults, especially about clothing. Between jokes on the tightness of our pants and the counterfeit nature of our Pro-Keds tennis shoes (Converse were the in-style expensive shoes in the inner-city, so anything non-con- verse was group together as “Buddies”), we never got much breathing room from the kids at school. My dad was also the lightest among us: a fair skinned, keen-featured man, with a very full mustache, and very long, straight, wavy hair. Of course, to the kids in the ‘hood, that was fodder for the ongoing joke that “Jeff Carr daddy a Mexican.” Instead of getting overly agitated with the burning, we just learned how to burn back.

When we reached working age, which began with cutting yards in the neighborhood right at adolescence, we were informed by my father that if we wanted to have our own style of clothes, we could work for them and buy them, and that’s pretty much what my brother Greg and I did. I held down my first job at 12 years old, working as a janitor and eventual repair boy at Khone’s Vacuum Service on the corner a block away. I earned $4.00 a week, and managed to save enough money to buy myself my first pair of shoes while in Jr. High. My father thought the shoes, some docksiders, were odd looking, but hey, it was the 80s, so everything was odd-looking. I preferred mine to the “stacks” he was still trying to hold on to, just for the record.

My father was always reading something: the Bible, Shakespeare, various books, magazines, and pamphlets. He even read the flyers the Jehovah’s Witnesses would leave in the door, often inviting them in for dialogue. I couldn’t understand why he’d do that. It wasn’t like he was into church or anything. Although by the time he passed away, he’d rejoined the church and become a beloved Baptist Deacon, all the while growing up, my memories of my pops on Sunday were of him sitting in a chair in the back room bidding us well as the rest of the household loaded up for Sunday School and Church. Yet, he’d engage anyone in a religious and philosophical discussion, even my Church of Christ family members, who swore up and down we were all going to burn in Hell one day because we were Baptist.

Haywood H. Carr had a saying for everything, something that used to get on our nerves growing up:

“Son, cool heads prevail.”
“Son, there’s nothing new under the sun.”
“Son, pick your friends like you pick your fruit.”

Pops was also very adept at talking about shit, figuratively and literally. If we ever tried to lie to him or pull the wool over his eyes, he would always look at us squarely and say, “Son, listen. Whatever you do, don’t try to out shit the shitter.” I had absolutely no idea what that meant until I was almost grown, and to this day, I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to spring that one on. I now have a teen daughter, so I’m sure I’ll be delivering that one any day now.

One particular shit story he always told is one that has kept me away from major conflicts to this very day. It goes something like this:

“Son, if you’re walking down any given road, and you happen to smell some dog shit, don’t go looking for it, because you’ll find it. If it’s laying there in the road, just walk around it and leave it alone. If you have to come back down that road again, just be mindful of where the shit is, just so you don’t step in it. I’ll tell you something else about a pile of shit, if you leave it alone, it’ll dry up and turn to dust. But if you get a stick and start stirring it up, it’ll start smelling like shit all over again and take forever to get rid of.”

Isn’t life just like that? When you’re trying your best to navigate through the road, there’s always some shit somewhere. If we’re smart, we just hold our nose and keep pressing on. Most of us aren’t smart, though. We’re trained by our lack of regard for one another, the reality-show culture we exist in, and the confrontational nature of our government and political system, to go looking for shit. One thing about shit, in this thing called life, it’s all over the place. The thing is, shit can really be avoided. Once we see where it is, the best thing to do is to just navigate around it. Keep an eye on it if you must, but stay out of it. If you ignore the shit you encounter on the daily, it will eventually go away. We end up stirring up shit in our personal, professional, and spiritual lives, and then turn around and wonder why our world stinks.

It’s all just common sense, and fortunately, I’m born of people who demonstrated that “taught sense is better than bought sense.” It may have taken me the better part of my adult life to learn the lessons they taught, layers of which I’m still discovering I might add, but lessons like the ones my father taught me are invaluable; and the experiences I had in his household-even the tough ones-prepared me for life in a way I could never imagine as a child. Having to defend the family from insults by the kids in the neighborhood helped the Carr children develop a razor sharp tongue, devastating debate skills, and a sardonic wit that would carries us to scholarships, forensics trophies, lead roles on stage and screen, and the ability to write and speak to thou- sands without fear or intimidation. The development of a work ethic gave us confidence in our ability to shape and mold our own destiny and to never master the art of making excuses. And those sayings he always delivered? I think he knew we had no idea what he was talking about at the time, but he kept delivering them to us, knowing that with each passing day of adulthood, those verbal lumps of coal he planted in the mines of our minds would be transformed by the pressures of living life into shining diamonds of clarity.

His greatest gift was a secret formula. Actually, it was a saying that I translated recently into a secret formula. Whenever we found ourselves at a crossroads in life, facing a tough decision-no, let’s face the facts: whenever we screwed up something really bad, my father would ask take us through a dialogue that back then started our eyes rolling back into our heads:

“Son”
“Sir.”
“You know how fast the Speed of Light is?”
“No, Sir.”
“The Speed of Light is over 180,000 miles per second.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Do you know how fast the Speed of Sound is?”
“No, Sir.”
“The Speed of Sound is over 300 meters per second.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“There is only one thing that is faster than both the Speed of Light and the Speed of Sound combined. Do you know what that is?”
“No, Sir.”
“Son, it’s a change of mind. It can happen so fast that it cannot be measured.”

How’s that for wisdom?

I got tired of it as a kid, but my father knew something back then we should all take a listen to. I turned it into a formula so that I would never forget that a Change Of Mind (COM) is Greater than (>) the Speed Of Light plus (+) the Speed Of Sound.

COM>SOL+SOS

We really don’t have to stay in the shape we are in. We can make a decision, right now, to start doing things differently. We have that choice and it’s all ours. Each second that ticks by becomes a part of the past, and we can’t go back and get those moments in time back. All we can do is deal with the right now, adjust our mind to our present set of circumstances and choices, and decide we want to do something special and unique in the here and now that will, hopefully, be a down payment on a brighter future.

I worked in a play by August Wilson called The Piano Lesson with an actor in his 70s who was phenomenal. As a young actor, we’re always taught to “steal” knowledge from people who are our elders in the craft, so I spent a lot of time on stage and off gleaning wisdom from him. I would ask about character development, the storytelling arc, all that old artsy fartsy stuff. One day, we got on the subject of acting as a calling in life. I’ve always known I wanted to act, so I assumed it was the same for the elder, so I wanted to know his personal story. It was nothing like I expected.

He told me that when he was my age-at the time I was in my 30s-he had no idea what the hell he wanted to do in life. All he knew is that he had done the military thing, had quit college to get a job, and was facing 40 years old with two divorces in his back pocket, a dead-end job, and no love for anything, barely himself. He found himself laid out on the floor, weeping and wailing like a baby, until something inside him spoke to him. He said that he heard a voice say “Try acting.” Just the thought of it alone was amusing enough to back off the tears for the moment.

He found himself in an acting workshop. He possessed a triple threat of challenges: the only black man, without a college degree, and the oldest cat in sight. But he stuck it out because he had changed his mindset, refocusing it on something new and different from anything he’d known before. Before long, he’d landed a small role in a New York play, and over the years, he built quite a resume.

His name was Carl Gordon, and before he passed away at age 78, he’d become a legend, appearing on Broadway and stages across the country. He was best known as patriarch Andrew Emerson (Charles Dutton’s father) on the television series Roc, and appeared in film and television series for years and years after he made a mental decision in the middle of his life to do something that would make him happy.

Sometimes you don’t know what you want in life until you reach that sweet spot where you are old enough to know how to do it well, yet young enough to still have the energy to do it. It’s called Middle Age, and it’s been given a bad connotation by society, but it’s really not a bad place to be in at all. I’d prefer to be happy from the middle of my life until the end, than to be happy just from the beginning to the middle and have to live out the other half in regret and disappointment.
Changing your mind is about valuing the voice inside of you.

Sometimes it’s hard to hear that voice because of all the ambient noise we are bombarded with from all around. Everyone is talking. The preacher is shouting, the family is demanding, the job is tripping; and in the midst of it all, we find ourselves reeling back and forth trying to figure it all out. Changing a mindset, refocusing, takes concentration, and concentration takes the elimination of the noisy space. Find some time, some space somewhere where you can sit and tune out every other voice except for the one that comes from within you.

It’s worth it to pay attention to that voice, because it is the one that was implanted in you early on, that knows the true desires of your heart. When you close your eyes and tune out the world, you’ll begin, if you trust yourself, to see the marvelous tapestry of your dreams that God specifically painted on the insides of your eyelids for you and you alone; a vision that gets clouded when we have our eyes wide open to the world and our surroundings, not realizing that the sensory overload of the world we exist in now can convince us-if we are not careful-that the external is the norm instead of what’s within. Churches are challenged by that because they realize that if you seek the answers within, there won’t be much of a need for them anymore. If there isn’t a need, we won’t attend; if we don’t attend, a lot of people who’ve become rich off telling other people what God’s purpose in their life is will go hungry.

The more I reflect upon how fast a change of mind is, the more I realize how profound my father really was. I miss that man like lungs miss air, but I’m comforted in knowing that his continual verbal “harassment” was nothing short of the gifting of a key that will open the doorway of the storehouse of my dreams.
Thanks, Pops.

*Excerpted from the book:

Leave God Alone (He’s tired of you bothering Him): Liberating Essays from a recovering Church Addict

by jeff obafemi carr, available at major bookstores and online at all major retailers.

i don’t get into it for the same reasons i don’t get into most commercial holidays. Christmas is a retail-sponsored celebration of excess that has little to do with the Mass of Christ. Easter has less to the rising of a Savior from the grave and more to do with the matching of a suit to a pair of shoes for a once-a-year visit to church to style. Halloween, well, if you aren’t seriously delving into a worship of the dead, then it’s all about whether you like the peanut butter candy in the orange or the black wrappers. in the end, they’re mostly about one thing: Seasonal Sales.

Easter brings sales of clothing and flowers. Halloween brings sales of costumes and candy. Christmas brings sales of everything else. that’s 3 major holidays. why not make it 4 and secure for the candy and greeting card industry another blockbuster: Valentine’s Day. never mind the plethora of myths that surround the so-called “origins” of the Holidaze–they’re interchangeable. they generate retail income for business owners. i ain’t mad at retail. i applaud the gimmicks. on tomorrow, restaurants will be packed, jewelry stores will be orgasmic, flower shops over-run, last-minute road side vendors empowered, hotels-a-bursting, and fine chocolatiers well-spent. that’s good money. but not always good intent. let me tell you why i stopped celebrating Valentine’s Day and went for Double Love instead.

i used to workout like crazy, and when you do that, you’re around a lot of testosterone. i can’t tell you the number of guys who’d be out macking, spending up the mortgage money in the strip club, and chasing tail, who figured they could get a pass if they just bought the right ring, flowers, or dinner package for Valentine’s Day. i’m not a Saint by any definition, but that stuff used to scare me.

at the same time, i was running with some “enlightened” cats who traveled all over the place to hear good speakers who were culturally aware. this one gentlemen started speaking about the nature of love and holidays and he made two points i’ll never forget:

1. Birthdays are about the mother in many cultures, not the individual. why? well, because we didn’t do anything when we first emerged from the womb. nothing except cry. our MOTHERS endured the pains of death to bring us into this world.

2. People go all out on Valentine’s Day, even though they may treat the ones they love like crap the rest of the year.

those things changed my perspective. from then on, i started celebrating holidays a little differently.

on my birthday, i call my mom, or get her flowers or a thank you card, to let her know that i appreciate her. i do the same for my mother-in-law on my wife’s birthday. if i’m tight with you, on your birthday, i’m liable to call your mama before i call you to say “thank you for all the work you put in to bring _____ into the world. you deserve all the love you gave.”

i resolved to not participate in the Valentine’s Day fiasco–with an important Caveat: i resolved to do every single thing men do in going all out for their women on Valentine’s Day, on a regular basis, the whole year round. i’ll write a poem on impulse; i’ll leave an “i love you” card at any given moment; i’ll wash up those dishes; i’ll have that bouquet delivered; i’ll have that surprise meal, and that kicking it night out all throughout the year. my goal (and no one is perfect) is to have my woman so flooded with love that when she hears how her peers’ men did “special things” on V-Day for them, she’ll say, “wow, that must be tough for you to not have it like that all the time, honey!” i don’t want to throw salt in anyone’s game, but many people i used to know went so far out on V-Day simply because they’d not done anything at all throughout the year.

how’s that for pressure?

but let me tell you this: it works when you create your own, meaningful rituals. my family and i beat the crap out of established Holy-daze.

CHRIST-MASS

We created “Christ-Mass,” where we put up an Ancestral Tree and make our own ornaments. this year, the tree was topped with a fishing hat some Nubian brothers made for me in Aswan Egypt. We sneak into the kid’s rooms and take stuff they already have, wrap it up in paper, and stack it under the tree. they open them on “Christmas Day,” laugh (or cry), are admonished to be grateful, then we eat a big meal. the next day, we pass out money, and we all go shopping and get double the things we could have gotten if we’d played into the commercialism of “Black Friday” and beyond.

DOUBLE LOVE DAY–Feb 15th!

Double Love Day is our alternative to “Valentine’s Day.” with no disrespect meant to Esther Howland, we just love loving on each other and people we know. Double Love Day starts the day after Valentine’s. we get up and hit all of the retail stores, when all of the candy and cards and everything is 75% OFF, and we load up the car with stuff. then we go around to family and friends, flood them with candy and hugs, and sing to them a theme song we wrote:

“It’s Double Love Day, Time For Double Love!”

we laugh, act silly, show love, but most importantly–we stick it to the man (whoever the hell that is these days).

so i’ll be gearing up tomorrow to celebrate the day after V-Day, and encouraging all my friends to do the same. i’m nowhere near perfect, and i always feel like i can never show enough love to the people in my life who are valuable, especially my wife, who deals with four kids on top of my own insanity everyday without blinking. when you have someone special in your life, you really have to think outside the box.

when i started dating after my denouncement of Valentine’s Day, and i would tell a woman i didn’t celebrate it, she would wince and look me up and down. she’d ask why, and when i explained, the look always softened.

you can answer the question yourself: which would you prefer–if you had to choose:

A) An annual, super-sweet, extra special day in February where you feel like a Queen or King?

B) Royal treatment all the time, an earnest “i love you” every day in thought and action, honesty, sacrifice, and random acts of kindness?

okay…if you wanna stick a “C” in for “all the above,” i won’t be mad at you…

HAPPY DOUBLE LOVE DAY! Spread the love (and save the cash) Feb 15th. i may be dropping something on your doorstep…

well, it is.

i had a great conversation with my wife this morning. she’s an artist, too. gifted songstress, talented director, solid actress. heck, she even writes plays. we were talking about how grateful we were to have been a part of founding a professional theater company, and all of the ups and downs we faced. we’re getting ready for a huge “Alumni” event and we were talking about all of the people who have come through the halls of the theater we call ART. many have gone on to higher levels of success; some have retired from theatre; others do sporadic work here and there as a part-time hobby; and then there are the others: those who were so gifted, but found themselves gripped by fear, as opposed to the other way around.

it’s tough to live in this world sometimes; i acknowledge that. as an artist, an entrepreneur, a mother, a father, heck just an average citizen. it’s tough at times for one reason: many people live in fearfulness. fear that they won’t have enough money; fear that people won’t approve of their decisions; fear that people won’t like them; fear that they have on the wrong clothes; fear that they haven’t saved enough for retirement; fear that that won’t ever find a mate; fear that their mate will leave them; fear that they are raising their kids wrong; fear that they might make a mistake and offend someone; fear that they might lose their job; fear that they may never get a job; fear that they won’t get the job they truly desire.

ugh. do you feel how heavy that is?

that’s the power of fear, and it is infectious. people who live in fear reinforce that fear in other people. i’ve known actors over the course of my 20 years in the business who were gifted and powerful, who i thought were destined to grace stages world-wide, but fear relegated them to bagging groceries. bagging groceries is an honorable profession mind you, and honest work, but only if you choose to do it because of desire, and not because the thought of being successful in what you love scares you so much you bury it deep within you. once you bury a dream out of fearfulness, something else happens: it consumes you to the point you become a fear monger. so when you’re bagging the groceries of a young aspiring actor, you find yourself telling them, “yeah, i used to want to act myself, but that shit is hard. the best thing you can do is find something solid to fall back on.”

Dream-Killer. you look up and you’ve become a dad-gum Dream-Killer. that’s what fearfulness will do to you. it will make you inspire fear in others.

i have a friend who is in the beauty industry, has been for years. she’s always wanted her own salon and talked about it for years. she was recently downsized at one spot and looked in the mirror and told herself it was now or never. she called me and told me about her idea to open her own place. she listed her concerns (the economic environment, competition, etc.) and listed intently for my response, which was: “What the hell, go for it. it’s your dream, baby!” now i’m not claiming any credit whatsoever for her starting up her dream; i’m just bearing witness that i’ve committed myself to not be a Dream-Killer. i didn’t hear from her for several weeks, but then the other day i got a picture text message of the sign hanging over the door of her new salon. that’s grabbing fear around the neck right there.

so whatever industry you find yourself in, keep in mind that you’re going to have to work a little bit everyday to shake off the concept of fear, only because it’s what has been taught to us. there is an unstated agreement that fearfulness is a part of life. but i’m here to say that it doesn’t have to be like that. fearfulness is an addiction, like a drug. and like with drugs, you can decide that you’ve hit rock bottom and had enough; that you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired; you can put yourself into re-hab right now by pushing through that fear one moment at a time.

pick something inside you you’ve always loved and dare to bring it back into the light of your daily existence. let it live and breathe again. enjoy it. let it make you smile. work on it a little bit every day with some significant action to give it more life. and when you feel that tinge of fear creeping up behind or beside you, whirl around, grab it by the throat, squeeze, and tell fear:

“You can’t have this, because this belongs to me. Now, get to stepping!”

and watch what happens next…

i also caught up with family and friends, discussed my coming film project, my book Leave God Alone (He’s Tired of You Bothering Him), and most importantly, held my wife’s hand and wrote our names in the sand of the beach on a sunny, slightly cool day. having my feet bathed by the cooling waters of my mama Yemaya, even for just a few moments, was rejuvenating. add to that the fact that i got to attend church at the Agape Spiritual Center and listen to Dr. Michael Beckwith (of “The Secret” fame) totally charge up a couple of thousand people with positivity, and you can say i’m pretty well done. stick a fork in me.

more than just a good opportunity to dialogue, do business, and have a little family fun, i really got the opportunity to be reminded of just how many assets i have in my life. sometimes, we all get so isolated by our circumstances (bills, deadlines, workloads, etc.) that we miss out on the power we get from taking an assessment of what–and who–we are connected with. in just a few days, i was able to dialogue with some of the sharpest minds in theology, hang out with people who “get me” without explanation, be inside a church where people are having fun and getting along, learn about my wife from her 83-year-old grandmother, and remember how calming a sea breeze can be.

those things have always been there, and there will be more to come, but it takes being conscious of them and assigning these deeper connections more importance than the circumstances. one of the great points i got out of Beckwith’s message was that human beings are created in the image of God and God is a Creator who forms things out of nothing (or, No-Thing). so we can look at apparent no-thingness and choose to make something out of it, or we can let our perception be shaped by our circumstances. if we do the former, then we chase our dreams and make them real; if we do the latter, then we’ll always be chasing a bill, an addiction, an affirmation, or a carrot being dangled in front of us.

i choose to create. on Donald Miller’s Blog, he has a great posting on creators just creating, instead of talking. i recommend that everyone–artist or not–check it out, because in the end, we are all creative in our own unique way.

now that i’m back in the ‘Ville, it’s a lot easier to soar through the tasks at hand. sure there are a lot of them, but i’m up to the challenge. i’d rather be busy than have nothing to do.

in April of 2001, i pulled together a group of talented artists i’d known since college and told them about an idea i’d been working on for over 5 years: a professional African-American theater company. it was nothing new. i got my professional debut with the American Negro Playwright Theatre helmed by Barry Scott, who i’d been watching act since my childhood days. ANPT was churning out works like “A Raisin In The Sun” and “Harlem Voices.” i’d even sat on the board of Stella Reed’s Black Taffeta and Burlap, a company dedicated to training new black voices in theater. Stella’s East Coast sensibilities introduced Nashville to “Day of Absence,” “Happy Ending,” “For Colored Girls” and more.

after spending so much time working around the country (i had to leave Nashville to find more meaty work), i wanted to put together a unique institution, one that would draw upon the wealth of unseen black talent that was languishing untapped in my hometown. the best you could hope for if you were a black, union, card-carrying actor back then was a role as a slave (sometimes a singing one), a domestic (usually a “sassy” one), or a sidekick (usually a whitewashed on). rarely did we have a chance to tell our own stories, with our own perspective, in our own voice.

so i dragged some people along with me, and the dream began. Amun Ra Theatre was born, in the Fisk Memorial Chapel, April 27th, 2001 with the world-premiere of the show that would grow to become my sustaining entity for years to come: “How Blak Kin Eye Bee?” i made a personal promise to Nashville that we would establish some tradition here, and whatever we learned, we would hand down to a whole new generation of artists. 10 years later, i think it’s safe to say that part of that mission has been accomplished.

so i’m going to go back to the road and leave the homestead with the kids.

there has been something growing in my spirit over the last year that has been hard to describe. i can only liken it to a woman being pregnant (from what my wife tells me and i’ve observed myself through very real sympathy pains). i’ve been feeling a shifting inside, as if parts of me are being moved around to make way for something. at other times, i’ve felt swollen. bloated if you will. over a long holiday season last year i finally realized: it was time to give birth to something new.

Apprenti-what?

when i was learning the craft of theater, Tyler Perry wasn’t en vogue, although there always has been an equivalent figure in popular urban culture. even Tyler was raised in the culture i was, though. one of Apprenticeship, where you spent time, sometime years, working under the guidance of a master teacher to learn a craft, finally growing up enough to step out on your own. that’s just how it was done back then. i was blessed to spend years all over the place on the road picking up tips and lessons from some of the giants in the theater world. ten years ago i came back and assembled that knowledge into a structure called Amun Ra Theatre, what would come to be known by staff and friends as the “Voltron of the Artistic Universe.” sure there had been theater companies, but one that had an Adult and Youth Ensemble, a Dance Group, Choral Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble, Performing ARTs Academy, and New Playwrights Series? it didn’t exist, so we built it by each taking a piece of the monster to construct, and by building it, people did come.

several new actors, technicians, designers, writers, musicians (and everyone that wanted to be one of these) came out of the wood works, excited to have a chance to show what they could do. i remember the first production of Black Nativity we did in 2005. i knocked on alex stadaker’s door and asked him to arrange some music. we assembled 13 people we both knew between us, and in 12 Days we rehearsed a show that had people lined up around the block by the time the weekend run was over. magic.

we expanded that out into writing and showcasing new work. we did plays on history, civil rights, music, poetry, Kwanzaa–heck you name it. we started sending out the jazz ensemble to play for classy events, the singers to perform at large gatherings, and we funneled everything into our Performing ARTs Academy Summer program, while picking up support from a growing audience and many good people in the business community. The more shows we did, the more actors came, and eventually we ended up building our own facility. for a long time, i was seeking to find some younger leadership to eventually hand it all down to.

but no one ever came.

sure, we had some hungry people, but they introduced me to the 2000′s way of thinking: do just enough to learn what appears to be a process, then run off and do it on your own. i wouldn’t dare claim credit personally for all of the black theater culture of all talent levels in Nashville–i’m just a brick in a long, winding road of tradition dating back to the Majestic in 1903 and the TOBA circuit after that–but i will say that, if you look up now, everybody and their mama and mama’s cousin is a producer/actor/director/playwright/dramaturg/critic, etc. that’s not too bad i suppose, in some senses. i know The Secret teaches us to speak what we want and it will manifest. i just came up in the old school of not saying you are something if you aren’t competent at doing it. but i blame that on the over-arching culture, not any individuals who so desperately want to live a dream.

so now, there are grown folks all over the south chasing their dreams of being “the next Tyler Perry.” (that’s also new school. the old school way was to not try to be “the next” anyone, but to be “the first” you). if you can pay the rent on a space and photocopy a script, you’re “doing the doggone thing.” after a few years, many of the great workshops and learning opportunities we held started having fewer people show up. then people started teaching their own, and so the story goes.

some would look at that and say, “that’s fucked up.” i look at that and say, “mission accomplished.” or, at least, partially. the good thing about this wonderful dream i’ve pursued is that there has always been a component that has remained so wonderful and fresh and eager and energetic: those young people. many of them started out with us at 9 and 10 years old and are now into their teens, driving cars and working jobs. still eager to dream big. so it hit me what had been churning in my gut for many months.

it’s time to give it to the kids.

so as i stand at a crossroads myself, staring down the lens of a camera that’s been calling my name to produce something through it and a stack of milk crates full of developed ideas to create through writing, directing, and producing, i realize that it’s time for me to give birth to a new kind of program.

on the morning after the big snow a few weeks ago, i awakened from a dream. in the dream i was moving through a house with some old colleagues from my past. we were exploring new spaces in a deceptively large place. i was led into a cavernous basement where so many people from my past were just hanging out and having a good time. eventually i was led up a hill, through an old coal-supply window, and into a bright day at a crossroads where red alabama clay stained my shoes. i was outside my grandaddy’s house in the country.

i got up, opened the blinds (geez i didn’t have any clothes on, i hope i didn’t traumatize anyone), and took a deep breath as i realized that it was indeed, time for me to celebrate a 10 year anniversary of planting artistic seeds in Nashville, and give the next decade to those who really deserve it–the young people. i slept on a roof a year ago to raise money for them; this summer, i’m going to do everything in my power to take them to the land of their origins, mother Africa, and help them help orphaned youth who are their same ages. now, i’m going to gift them a theater to call their own.

i smiled widely on that day, as i envisioned our kids in the lighting booth, building sets, directing plays, acting, dancing, singing, and writing year-round (instead of having to wait until the summer). i thought about all the great artists i’ve worked with over the year, who will now have a great place to stop into and drop off some of their knowledge. and i thought about all the work i get to now jump into all over the world. i feel the call of the road again.

i won’t totally leave this city. it’s got a strange nostalgia about it, and i’ve put down some good roots that i have to keep watering. but i do get to step away a lot in 2011, and the things i get to build–with the caliber of people i’m blessed to build with–will have impact for years to come.

Seminal

even as i prepare to end this stream-of-consciousness flow without checking my spellings (smile), my mind is on the palm trees i’ll see in a little over 24 hours. after i bury my father’s brother, Virgil Carr tomorrow, and reflect on his amazing 87 years of life, i’m headed out to California for a speaking gig at the prestigious Claremont Theological Seminary and to transact some other biz. the world is opening up, and i’m looking forward to embracing it. and so i pause for the cause of packing drawers (make it rhyme), committed to blog more often, create more, and most importantly, embrace the world that calling my name so loudly.

i was at the post office, mailing off an individual copy of my book to an individual in a northern territory who thought enough about me to scroll through my blog archive and find a link to a paypal purchase of a signed copy. sure, that kind of thing is typically handled by a staff member, PR director, management, or even–and especially–an intern. but something about standing in that holiday line, holding a piece of me and my mind in my hand, and waiting to stamp and send it off to an appreciative supporter reminded me of the true reason you write a book in the first place:

to connect with people.

i smiled as i proudly handed the clerk the packaged book; smiled as broadly as i did 12 years ago when i wrote my first book, “Black Stuff,” and did all the printing, marketing, distribution, and sales out of the back seat of my car and my kitchen table. it took me back to those days, and i honestly needed that. i needed that because, as the book is just now starting to make its way into the hands of “the right people,” i have to keep in mind that doing something of any kind of relevance takes time to catch on, to spread, to become “viral” as they say. that takes patience on my part, and i have an ample supply of it, but i’d be lying if i said i didn’t want to be on Oprah next week. not for the fame of it all or the fortune (although with a wife and 4 kids that wouldn’t be a bad thing), but for the healing element.

i wrote “Leave God Alone (He’s tired of you bothering Him)” to help people who’ve been disenfranchised by so many “churchy” people, who have used the banner of Christianity to create a discriminating body that is on par with every kind of “ism” known to man and womankind. i wrote the book, which people who’ve read it are telling me is “hilarious” (yes, much is satire), to let people know they aren’t alone when they don’t feel embraced and affirmed by religious institutions and personality-based cult following. finally, i wrote the book to share observations on the nature of human relationships; the beautiful things and the ugly things that make us truly spiritual beings often trapped in living a worldly experience.

maybe if enough people actually read the book (instead of taking the title, frowning, and running top speed in ignorance into the dead-end that is Dumbass Street) we’ll have an opportunity to discuss the themes, grow together, and heal one another–as God has truly equipped us to do.

so i’m preparing to meet people all over the place–in bookstores, in churches, in community centers, in private homes, on the radio, on TV, in public forums. wherever this book will take me to meet and interact with my fellow travelers on the path to enlightenment. should i cross paths with any of you, i’ll look forward to grasping hands and hearts. know that in the end, i’m not a big shot, i’m just an average person with a lot on his mind.

kind of like everybody.

Click Here To Purchase

i wrote Leave God Alone to express the feelings of many people i met who have become disenfranchised with church and it’s dogmatic and rigid ways.  i did not write this book to tell people to turn their backs on God, to kick preachers in their butts, or to stop loving one another.  on the contrary, i wrote this book to share reflections on the good things that are missing in the modern church we need to go back to, to encourage people to find the things we share in common as opposed to resting into our individual camps, and to tap into the creative power God put inside each of us. that’s why today’s release is special.

the book is short, sweet, funny (i’m told, at least), honest,  affordable, and will only give you one secret that will change your life forever, if you let it; a secret my father taught me that has given me every success i’ve ever experienced. after that, it’s up to you to plot your own path. that’s how this book differs from the traditional “follow me” guru books that are often written for the masses.

finding my audience may be a slower process, because frankly, it’s tough for free thinkers to break from tradition because we feel we’ll be all alone and it is easier to stand with the masses.  i’m encouraging everyone to get this book, read it, share it, and participate in the discussion.  i’ll come and speak anywhere you’d like to dialogue–inside the church and outside of it. so i’m calling on all members and non-members, believers and disbelievers, ministry leaders and pastors, book clubs and stores, civil and social organizations to launch a whole new type of dialogue with this book of essays.

i look forward to today’s launch. it will be available widely on Amazon.com. just click on the picture to purchase and you’re good to go. i’m encouraging everyone to stop by today, Dec. 1st, and make your purchase if you can between 12-1 CST. if you’ve read the book, please review it, and participate in the discussions.

it is also available at Barnesandnoble.com, booksamillion.com, and all the major retailers. just go in and place an order, and it’ll come in, just like all other books. i’m asking you, reader, to get a few of your friends together, order the book, and have a discussion. large or small, we can find a way to do a Q&A. let’s get things rolling.

stay tuned for  a special announcement on a holiday book-signing in Nashville, where i’m going to host all who are available to come. we’ll read some excerpts, have a drink, listen to some music, and have some fun.  then we’ll do the same thing all over the country. if you’re interested in hosting a signing, just hit us up here at booking@jeffobafemicarr.com.

i appreciate you all. see you on the PR Circuit as we move forward to bring us all a little closer together.

blessings

obafemi

We are safe and i will check back here for updates