• Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

 

I had the privilege of working for Jessica Ginnow and her business, “The Clay Date.” An Amazing experience it was. I have had the opportunity to tell Jessica (the owner) thank you for hiring me and trusting me with your business. When I had started the job, I was pretty sure my bipolar disorder was going to rule my life and I would never be able to function like a normal person. Jessica saw differently! I worked my first 35 hour work week without calling out. I felt capable! I felt strength! I felt joy! I always felt loved!

The world around me could be going up in smoke, but while I worked at The Clay Date, I was given a glimpse of heaven. I was happy and happiness found me. Hope was restored. I gain more than a job, I gained a friend and a new church home at City Church. Jessica came to work every day with a big smile, and great energy, she has a passion for art and granting people serenity, peace, hope, and making encouraging each customer and employees heart with purpose, grace, and mercy.

The four months I worked there and my temperament changed, self-esteem increased and love for people was magnified. I was never judge for being who I am, Jessica treated and saw me as a child of God.  I was also able to get to know her family. I saw the way they function and her being a mom. She also worked with her husband Dave who gave me my first piece of pottery to paint. Dave, I’m grateful. You guys are a family to me, and great friends. You’re great people. You have great energy and great intent.

The Clay Date is a small business, and Ujama is a day during Kwanzaa when we celebrate small businesses. So I’m celebrating Jessica, Dave and her family and their business The Clay Date. We need places like The Clay Date. The world needs more Jessica Ginnow’s not big corporate evil operations. We need places where the money is going to a good cause, hearts are being changed and children are being raised to be leaders and being told that it’s okay to be an individual.

And guess what, you can also enjoy a good “latte” while you’re there because it’s also a coffee shop. 🙂 I forgot to mention. I love me some good coffee. So If you’re in New Haven, CT and want to paint pottery, hand make candles, build your clay projects, paint pottery, glass fusion, board or canvas art stop by.

No, this isn’t a paid advertisement, but I hope my followers and people new to my blog, will see how important it is to invest in little America, and be able to find an art studio like I have where they’re free to be who God created them to be.

Joyous Kwanzaa.

 

• Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.

The first prayer my mother taught my brother and I was, John 11:35 “Jesus, wept” I remember people would argue with her, attempting to persuade her that the “Father’s Prayer” should be our first prayer. Nope, she was sticking to it. So before every meal, and before bed, we would get on our knees and say “Jesus, wept” Amen

Here is my prayer:

Dear God,

You came down to heaven to experience pain, sadness, hunger, fear, rejection, hate, and oppression. You wept! You came down from your thrown to experience life with us, so that generations later we would be able to testify that, we are NOT alone. You wept! I think about all the tears I’ve cried, and the one flowing from my eyes right now; you’ve cried them too. Jesus, you wept too.

There is so much power in facing humanity. There is so much power in and strength in letting a tear fall. For tears say what that heart and mind are afraid to say, and don’t know how to say. Tears are the pathways to freedom and healing. Tears in what you a supreme being have in common with us.

You may have not experienced every trial we have while you lived on earth, but you cried just like we have. You’ve felt the pain of humanity and burden on sin on the cross, and wept.

Weeping is the result of fear, pain, happiness, joy, freedom, hope, life, and death. So when we weep, and tears flow, you weep too. Thank-you for crying with me. Thank you for crying for me. Thank-you for weeping.

Ujima means that we take care of one another, we cry with one another. We are our brother’s keeper. We are to lift our brothers and sisters up and encourage them to continue on their walk.

I pray for moments in my walk as a student, as a client, as a social worker, as a teacher, as a minister that I am able to weep when my brothers weep. I pray that I am able to express joy when there is time for celebration. I pray that I am able to mourn when any life is taken, black, white, and blue. I pray I am able to join in be the support that you were when you wept that day. When you put down your godliness to experience humanity. This is my prayer for the upcoming year. This is my Ujima prayer.

For we are all spiritual being having a humanistic experience!

In Jesus Name

Amen!

 

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define and name ourselves, as well as to create and speak for ourselves.

Kujichagulia, means the most to me and I reflect most intimately on this day, because of the words, “self-determination”. Here’s why:

Plagued with an invisible illness

A illness that allows me to hear the voices of many

See visions and terrors

Feel what is not real

Drenched in darkness

Facing an open door of self offered mental oppression

Mental Darkness

Lost Hope

Invisible Darkness

Plagued with endless fatigued

Tears that will fill the Nile

Shivers and Coldness that resembles death

Then cursed with desire for death

Plans for death

Hoping for death with life bubbling around me

I’m isolated, life can’t penetrate me

As much as I need it

Mania is around the corner, offset for this oppressive descriptive depression

The energy of a child

Thoughts of a God

Creationism is in my grasp

I am Alpha and Omega

Sleep is obsolete

My words are as fast as a bullet

Scaring my mind

I am Manic

I am free my mind tells me

The energy I am producing is destroying me

Destructive, my mind is a great place for delusions

That I call imagination

Hallucination rest with me

My voices speak death to me

My head is loud and speeding

I’m not free

I’m not depressed

I’m manic

To the doctors, I go

Medications and therapy is apart of my RECOVERY

One Pill, I swallow four times a day

The second Pill, I swallow three times a day

The third Pill, I swallow twice a day

The fourth Pill is prescribed: As Needed

This is my Story

This is my Poem

Living with Bio-Schizoaffective Disorder

Living with Manic Depression

It takes self-determination to see past the mask of symptoms

and take medicine

To admit a flaw

It takes self-determination in the vision of my future

Belief in another energy

Belief in the TRUE me!

Every day I wake up, go to work, go to school, go to church = Kujichagulia 

My favorite day of Kwanzaa, Kujichagulia because I am able to see how strong I am, and how much more of a fight I have. I can make. I will make it. I am making it. So cry Domenia, it’s okay. You get going in the mornings, always. So scream Domenia, make your pain heard. You’ll take your meds and be soothed. So panic Domenia, and remember panic attacks leave always. You’re making it, to graduate college, to get to your master’s program, to reach RECOVERY, no more scars. You’re healing. You’re healing. 

Recovery is within your reach

This is:

Kujichagulia= Domenia “Zih” Dickey’s Self-Determination Story 

 

Dear God,

I am just a grain of sand.

I am no one special;  no special talent

With a Hidden Agenda

I speak from the hearts and confess what mind suppresses.

One question: How much longer will hate win?

Two Questions: How much longer shall our children suffer?

Three Questions: When is it ok to hate? When Is it okay to withdraw my love, and hold what’s left and sacred deep within my heart?

Are all men not created equal? Are we not your creations, and you our creator? It is your voice that which shakes the oceans, howls the wind; ceases trepidatious storms, makes the sunshine; fresh dew drops on each leaf, and a cool breeze?

Are you this God I speak of? Are you this God I’ve read about, dreamed about and desire?

I just speak from the hearts of my people.

When will the spread of innocent blood on our streets end?

Lady Justice, why are your eyes still covered? Lady Justice do you hear the screams from the grave, from the prevalence of injustice and shouts from the living who are shouting and not being heard, and when silent they are then accused. Lady Justice, when will you put an end to this?

If my skin is not white as snow, and eyes as blue as the sky, my voice is limited, my life is non-equivalent, my rights are non-existent, but my money is appreciated. Lady Justice you’ve helped the 1% and failed the public. Were your slaves, working for dimes and pennies while you shit gold and your urine flows out diamonds; at our, the public, the other 99% expense.

I walk around with an empty stomach, while your latte is $7 bucks. I’m visible during the holidays, but 352 days a year, my face is invisible. I’m hungry, will you feed me. My child is malnutrition, will you feed them.

We attend church to pray and worship an invisible God with the hope of tangible and miraculous answers. So we grip faith with our lingering, cavity and plaque-filled teeth.

Does anyone hear me? Does anyone see me? Am I relevant? Am I a person; a human being? Does my blood no longer shed red? Does my heart no longer matter?

To ignore my cries, and cover your stains you medicate me. Ativan, Prozac, Xanax, Morphine, and Oxycotin. Now I’m addicted and to fix it I’m not relying on Methadone and treated like a criminal when in reality I’m your scientific experiment (me) went wrong.

Oh God, do you see my arms? Oh  God, do you hear your people desperate of a savior a new home? Oh God, show yourself! NO longer be silent. I hear the chaos when I need to hear your peace and feel your love.

One thing that remains

One thing that’s the same

The Rich and Poor Alike

The healthy and sick alike

The Mentally Ill and Addict alike

We all have a void, an empty presence

We all have questions and no answers

We all bleed red, and we’re running out of band-aids

We all crave like a drug

We all feel empty at the end of each day

Crave that gun, but we know there are not bullets

We crave a God, a creator, a universal presence

Not to fix problems

But to give the Earth, your Bride a hug

We crave God and his voice

We are like children throwing a tantrum, yelling “look at me; look at me”

And hoping for a father, to open his arms

Lift us up, and embrace us

To feel safe once again

To know that and comprehend the words “I love you, my beloved”

To be tucked in bed

And provided a nights rest

Trials and Tribulations won’t stop, hunger won’t end, poverty won’t end

Until the day Jesus returns

So we must endure like a good soldier, thankful for our journey; for it pushes us closer to HIM

In HIM we ARE

In us is HIM

We are with HIM until the end and beyond the timing of man

May God be with us.