Marvelous by Bishop T.D. Jakes and the Potter's House Mass Choir featuri...

SOUL MUSIC FEATURING ARETHA FRANKLIN'S TIME COVER 1968

Aretha Franklin's Time Magazine - Circa 1968

Friday, Jun 28, 1968
LADY SOUL SINGING IT LIKE IT IS

HAS it got soul? Man, that's the question of the hour. If it has soul, then it's tough, beautiful, out of sight. It passes the test of with-itness. It has the authenticity of collard greens boiling on the stove, the sassy style of the boogaloo in a hip discotheque, the solidarity signified by "Soul Brother" scrawled on a ghetto storefront.

But what is soul? "It's like electricity —we don't really know what it is," says Singer Ray Charles. "But it's a force that can light a room." The force radiates from a sense of selfhood, a sense of knowing where you've been and what it means. Soul is a way of life —but it is always the hard way. Its essence is ingrained in those who suffer and endure to laugh about it later. Soul is happening everywhere, in esthetics and anthropology, history and dietetics, haberdashery and politics—although Hubert Humphrey's recent declaration to college students that he was a "soul brother" was all wrong. Soul is letting others say you're a soul brother. Soul is not needing others to say it.

Where soul is really at today is pop music. It emanates from the rumble of gospel chords and the plaintive cry of the blues. It is compounded of raw emotion, pulsing rhythm and spare, earthy lyrics—all suffused with the sensual, somewhat melancholy vibrations of the Negro idiom. Always the Negro idiom. LeRoi Jones, the militant Negro playwright, says: "Soul music is music coming out of the black spirit." For decades, it only reverberated around the edges of white pop music, injecting its native accent here and there; now it has penetrated to the core, and its tone and beat are triumphant.

No Moon in June. Soul music is sincerity, a homely distillation of everybody's daily portion of pain and joy. "It pulls the cover off," explains Jim Stewart, a former banker and country fiddler who heads Memphis' soul-oriented Stax Records. "It's not the moon in June. It's life. Sometimes it's violence and sex. That's the way it is in this world. Sometimes there's animal in it; but let's face it, we've got a lot of animal in us." The difference between Tin Pan Alley and Soul is not hard to define. A conventional tunesmith might write: "You're still near, my darling, though we're apart/ I'll hold you always in my heart." The soul singer might put it: "Baby, since you split the scene the rent's come due/ Without you or your money it's hard, yeah, hard to be true."

In all its power, lyricism and ecstatic anguish, soul is a chunky, 5-ft. 5-in. girl of 26 named Aretha Franklin singing from the stage of a packed Philharmonic Hall in Manhattan. She leans her head back, forehead gleaming with perspiration, features twisted by her intensity, and her voice—plangent and supple—pierces the hall:

Oh baby, what you done to me . . .

You make me feel, you make me

feel, you make me feel like a

natural woman.

"Tell it like it is," her listeners exhort, on their feet, clapping and cheering. She goes into a "holiness shout"-a writhing dance derived from gospel services, all the while singing over the tumult. This is why her admirers call her Lady Soul.

Bearing Witness. Aretha's vocal technique is simple enough: a direct, natural style of delivery that ranges over a full four octaves, and the breath control to spin out long phrases that curl sinuously around the beat and dangle tantalizingly from blue notes. But what really accounts for her impact goes beyond technique: it is her fierce, gritty conviction. She flexes her rich, cutting voice like a whip; she lashes her listeners —in her words—"to the bone, for deepness." "Aretha's music makes you sweaty, gives you a chill, makes you want to stomp your feet," says Bobby Taylor, leader of a soul group called Bobby and the Vancouvers. More simply, a 19-year-old Chicago fan named Lorraine Williams explains: "If Aretha says it, then it's important."

She does not seem to be performing so much as bearing witness to a reality so simple and compelling that she could not possibly fake it. In her selection of songs, whether written by others or by herself, she unfailingly opts for those that frame her own view of life. "If a song's about something I've experienced or that could've happened to me, it's good," she says. "But if it's alien to me, I couldn't lend anything to it. Because that's what soul is about—just living and having to get along."

For Aretha, as for soul singers generally, "just living and having to get along" mostly involves love—seeking it, celebrating its fulfillment, and especially bemoaning its loss. Aretha pleads in Since You've Been Gone:

I'm cryin'! Take me back, consider me please;

If you walk in that door 1 can get up off my knees.

And in the earthy candor of the soul sound, love is inescapably, bluntly physical. In Respect, she wails:

I'm out to give you all of my money,

And all I'm askin' in return, Honey,

Is to give me my propers when you get home . . .

Yeah, baby, whip it to me when you get home.*

"That's what most of the soul songs are all about," says Negro Comedian Godfrey Cambridge. "Take Aretha's Dr. Feelgood:

Don't send me no doctor fillin me up with all of those pills;

Got me a man named Dr. Feelgood and, oh yeah,

That man takes care of all of my pains and my ills.

A woman works all day cooking and cleaning a house for white folks, then comes home and has to cook and clean for her man. Sex is the only thing she's got to look forward to, to set her up to face the next day."

Rats in the Basement. No amount of empathy from outside can give a singer the realism and believability that constitute soul. He has to have "been down the line," as Negroes say, and "paid his dues" in life. Aretha, in spite of her youth, has paid heavily. "I might be just 26, but I'm an old woman in disguise—26 goin' on 65," she says only half jokingly. "Trying to grow up is hurting, you know. You make mistakes. You try to learn from them, and when you don't it hurts even more. And I've been hurt—hurt bad."

Aretha grew up on the fringe of Detroit's Negro East Side in the same neighborhood with several singers-to-be —Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson and all of the Four Tops. The Franklin house was a big tree-shaded one with a tidy lawn, even though it did have cockroaches in the kitchen and rats in the basement. Yet the gamy life of the ghetto was only half a block away. Recalls Aretha's brother Cecil, 28: "The people that you saw who had any measure of success were the pimp and the hustler, the numbers man and the dope man. Aretha knew what they were all about without having to meet them personally." Her mother deserted the family when Aretha was six and died four years later, two shocks that deeply scarred the shy, withdrawn girl. "After her mama died," says Gospel Singer Mahalia Jackson, "the whole family wanted for love."

Aretha's father, the Rev. C. L. Franklin, was—and is—pastor of Detroit's 4,500-member New Bethel Baptist Church, where the preaching is so fiery that two white-uniformed nurses stand by to aid overwrought parishioners. Franklin commands up to $4,000 per appearance as a barnstorming evangelist, has recorded 70 steadily selling LPs of his sermons. He may not be a member of the Baptist Ministers Conference, but his Cadillac, diamond stickpins and $60 alligator shoes testify to an eminently successful pastorate. Just how successful is not altogether clear, although when he was convicted last year for failing to file federal tax returns, the Government had shown that his income between 1959 and 1962 was more than $76,000. Franklin paid a $25,000 fine. Now 51, he is a strapping, stentorious charmer who has never let his spiritual calling inhibit his fun-loving ways.

Through her father, Aretha became immersed in gospel music at home as well as in church. Such stars as Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward and James Cleveland often came by the house for jam sessions, whooping and clapping, singing and playing all through the night while Aretha watched intently from a corner. Once, at a funeral for an aunt of Aretha's, Clara Ward was singing the gospel tune Peace in the Valley; in her fervor, she tore off her hat and flung it on the ground. "That," says Aretha, "was when I wanted to become a singer." Aretha had the spirit, all right; after her first solo in church at the age of twelve, excited parishioners crowded around her father, saying, "Oh, that child can sure enough sing."

Cutting Loose. Two years later, she was a featured performer with her father's gospel caravan, an evangelist show that crisscrossed the country by car (except for Franklin, who preferred to travel by plane). Though it ripened her vocal and professional skills, the experience of touring was in other ways a harsh initiation for Aretha. Says Cecil dryly: "Driving eight or ten hours trying to make a gig, and being hungry and passing restaurants all along the road, and having to go off the highway into some little city to find a place to eat because you're black—that had its effect." And the post-performance parties among older troupers in hotel rooms, where the liquor and sex were both plentiful—they had their effect too.

At 18, inspired by the example of former Gospel Singer Sam Cooke, Aretha decided to try the pop field. She started by auditioning for a New York manager named Jo King. "Aretha did everything wrong," recalls Mrs. King, "but it came out right. She had something—a concept of her own about music that needed no gimmickry. She was a completely honest musician." Groomed by Mrs. King, signed to a Columbia Records contract, Aretha began plying a sometimes seamy circuit of jazz and rhythm & blues clubs—with disheartening results. "I was afraid," she says. "I sang to the floor a lot." In the recording studio, she cut side after side with stereotyped pop arrangements —which sold indifferently. Deep down, she knew what was wrong with her repertory of standards, jazz tunes and novelties: "It wasn't really me."

Then 18 months ago she switched to Atlantic Records, which for two decades has specialized in bedrock rhythm & blues. Savvy Producer Jerry Wexler backed her with a funky Memphis rhythm section (which she ably joined on piano), and cut her loose to swing into the soul groove. Her first disk, I Never Loved a Man, sold a million copies. "It had looked for the longest time like I would never have a gold record," she says. "I wanted one so bad."

It was only the beginning. Aretha embarked on a remarkable year. She collected four more gold single records, sold a total of 1,200,000 albums, won two Grammy awards for record performances, and was cited by Billboard magazine as the top female vocalist of 1967. She toured Europe and was hailed in England as the new Bessie Smith—the first (1894-1937) of the great blues belters. Ray Charles called her "one of the greatest I've heard any time." Janis Joplin, 25, probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement, ranked her as "the best chick singer since Billie Holiday." Her troubles were over.

Wrestling Demons. Professionally, that is. Personally, she remains cloaked in a brooding sadness, all the more achingly impenetrable because she rarely talks about it—except when she sings. "I'm gonna make a gospel record," she told Mahalia Jackson not long ago, "and tell Jesus I cannot bear these burdens alone."

What one of these burdens might be came out last year when Aretha's husband, Ted White, roughed her up in public at Atlanta's Regency Hyatt House Hotel. It was not the first such incident. White, 37, a former dabbler in Detroit real estate and a street-corner wheeler-dealer, has come a long way since he married Aretha and took over the management of her career. Sighs Mahalia Jackson: "I don't think she's happy. Somebody else is making her sing the blues." But Aretha says nothing, and others can only speculate on the significance of her singing lyrics like these:

I don't know why I let you do these things to me;

My friends keep telling me that you ain't no good,

But oh, they don't know that I'd leave you if I could . . .

I ain't never loved a man the way that I love you.

Now that Aretha can afford to be in Detroit for up to two weeks out of a month, she retreats regularly to her twelve-room, $60,000 colonial house to be with her three sons (aged nine, eight and five) and wrestles with her private demons. She sleeps till afternoon, then mopes in front of the television set, chain-smoking Kools and snacking compulsively. She does bestir herself to cook—a pastime she enjoys and is good at—and occasionally likes to get away for some fishing. But most of her socializing is confined to the small circle of girlhood friends with whom, until a couple of years ago, she spent Wednesday nights skating at the Arcadia Roller Rink.

The only other breaks in her routine are visits to her father, her brother Cecil —now assistant pastor of the New Bethel Church—or sister Carolyn, 23, who leads Aretha's accompanying vocal trio and writes songs for her. Another sister, Erma, 29, is a pop singer living in New York City. Sometimes, with her family, she opens up enough to put on her W. C. Fields voice or do her imitation of Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula ("Goodt eeeeevnink, Mr. Renfieldt; I've been expectink you!"). But Cecil says: "For the last few years Aretha is simply not Aretha. You see flashes of her, and then she's back in her shell." Since, as a friend puts it, "Aretha comes alive only when she's singing," her only real solace is at the piano, working out a new song, going over a familiar gospel tune, or loosing her feelings in a mournful blues:

Oh listen to the blues, to the blues and what they're sayin' . . .

Oh they tell me, they tell me that life's just an empty scene,

Older than the oldest broken hearts, newer than the newest broken dreams.

Hollers & Blues. Negroes have been sifting their sorrows in songs like this for centuries. It started, says Mahalia Jackson, who is now 56, with "the groans and moans of the people in the cotton fields. Before it got the name of soul, men were sellin' watermelons and vegetables on a wagon drawn by a mule, hollerin' 'watermellllon!' with a cry in their voices. And the men on the railroad track layin' crossties—every time they hit the hammer it was with a sad feelin', but with a beat. And the Baptist preacher—he the one who had the soul—he give out the meter, a long and short meter, and the old mothers of the church would reply. This musical thing has been here since America been here. This is trial-and-tribulation music."

Out of the matrix of these Negro work songs, field hollers and spirituals of the 19th century sprang the first crude country blues. It was spread by bardic singers with guitars or harmonicas—beggars, itinerant farm laborers, members of jug bands and medicine or minstrel shows. Then, with the Negro migrations to Northern cities in the early decades of the 20th century, the blues gathered a more elaborate accompaniment around itself (sometimes a jazz group) and moved into theaters, dance halls and recording studios. This was the era of Bessie Smith's classic records. By the 1930s, a new style was forged around tenements, speakeasies and rent parties—a harsher, more nervous brand of blues that reflected the stress and tempo of urban living. This style mingled with the blaring jazz and blues that swept out of the Southwest during the swing era (Andy Kirk, Count Basic), and so the stage was set for the emergence, after World War II, of rhythm & blues.

Proxy Performances. Even more slashing and frenetic than urban blues, R & B introduced amplified guitars, honking saxophones and gyrating singers in lamé costumes. Popularized and commercialized as it was, it still retained the fundamental quality of the blues. Such was the force of R & B, in fact, that white singers of the 1950s quickly saw the potential for lifting it out of the limited Negro market and filtering it into the far more lucrative pop field. Much, if not most of what the white public knew as rock 'n' roll during this period consisted of proxy performances of Negro R & B music by people like Elvis Presley and Bill Haley. The success of the white performers produced a caustic resentment among the Negro musicians, many of whom still bridle at the irony of it all —they produced the music, but the white men cashed in on it. In those days, the only way for Negroes to really make it in the white world was to do precisely and painfully what the Nat King Coles and Lena Homes did: forsake their own music and sing white pop.

All this began to change with such English rock 'n' roll groups as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Animals, who made a point of crediting their sources—not only R & B figures such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, but also country and urban bluesmen such as John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker and B. B. King. "Until the Beatles exposed the origins," says Waters, "the white kids didn't know anything about the music. But now they've learned that it was in their backyard all the time."

Jubilation Shouts. Meanwhile, the rhythm-&-blues strain was picking up new momentum, while post-Beatle rock charged off on its own creative path. The man who gave R & B its fresh thrust was a blind, Georgia-born bard named Ray Charles, one of the most hauntingly effective and versatile Negro singers in the history of pop music.

Negroes had always rigorously main tained a distinction between gospel and blues—the sacred and profane—despite the affinity of their sounds. But Charles boldly brought them together, blending foot-stamping orgiastic jubilation shouts with the abrasive, existentialist irony of "devil songs." He even carried over the original gospel tunes and changed the words to fit the emotion. "Lord" became "you," or "baby," and it didn't matter if the bulk of the prayerful text remained the same. Thus Clara Ward's rousing old gospel song, This Little Light of Mine, became Charles's This Little Girl of Mine. (A wonderful indemnification!) Oldtimers who had once been forced to choose between the two genres were offended. "I know that's wrong," said Bluesman and former Preacher Big Bill Broonzy. "He should be singing in a church."

But Charles's innovation brought waves of gospel talent into the blues field, and at the same time offered blues performers a chance to employ the climactic cadences and mythic ritual of black evangelism. Some of his more ardent followers adopted stage mannerisms in which they appeared to be seized by God; they tore off their clothes, called for witnesses, collapsed and rose up again. The bespangled James Brown's whirling, convulsive performances have even been analyzed as enactments of the Crucifixion.

Most important, once Charles broke the barrier between gospel and blues, the way was open for a whole cluster of ingredients to converge around an R & B core and form the potent, musical mix now known as soul—among them, in Critic Albert Goldman's words, "a racial ragbag of Delta blues, hillbilly strumming, gutbucket jazz, boogie-woogie piano, pop lyricism and storefront shouting."

Chitlin Circuit. It was not long before the soul sound began to move directly into the white market of pop music, and its purveyors started outstripping their white imitators. Charles was the first to reach a mass white public, starting as far back as 1955 with his hit record, I Got a Woman. In more recent years, a string of others have come along behind him. Lou Rawls, for example, is a former gospel trouper who spices his blues songs with reminiscences of his boyhood in Chicago's South Side slums. He used to work only in the Negro nightclub "chitlin circuit." As for radio, Rawls says, "I never got played on the top 40 stations because they said I was too, uh—well, not too 'limited,' but too . . ." Black? "Yeah." Now Rawls's albums sell upwards of 200,000 copies from coast to coast and are played throughout the radio band. He has filled Manhattan's Carnegie Hall three times in concert appearances.

Before this started happening, soul music was recorded mostly by small, independent companies and shipped straight to the South's black belt and the North's big-city ghettos. Now the upsurge of nationwide soul-oriented firms is so strong that it has jostled the balance of power in the pop record industry. Manhattan-based Atlantic, with such singers as Aretha, Wilson Pickett and Sam & Dave, can now sell more records in a week (1,300,000) than it did in six months in 1950; now it ranks with the top singles producers in the business. Detroit's Motown Records, formed eight years ago by Berry Gordy Jr. with a $700 loan, last year grossed a soulful $30 million. Gordy's slick, carefully controlled "Motown sound" (noted for its rhythmic accent on all four beats of the bar instead of the usual R & B emphasis on alternating beats) has launched, among others, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, and Martha and the Vandellas.

Badge of Identity. By all the commercial yardsticks used in the trade, soul has arrived—and it has arrived in the hit parade as well as the "race market," in the suburbs as well as the ghettos, in the Midwestern campuses as well as Harlem's Apollo Theater.

By yardsticks used outside the trade, soul's arrival is even more significant. Since its tortuous evolution is so intertwined with Negro history and so expressive of Negro culture, Negroes naturally tend to value it as a sort of badge of black identity. "The abiding moods expressed in our most vital popular art form are not simply a matter of entertainment," says Negro Novelist Ralph Ellison. "They also tell us who and where we are."

Militant young Negroes put a more defiant slant on it. Explains Charles Keil, a white ethnomusicologist and the author of Urban Blues: "For a Negro to say 'B. B. King is my main man' is to say 'I take pride in who I am.' With this self-acceptance, a measure of unity is gained, and a demand is made upon white America: 'Accept us on our own terms.' " Yet when soul solidarity is founded on a fellowship of suffering, it may involve not a demand for white acceptance but an outright exclusion of whites, as Godfrey Cambridge makes clear. "Soul is getting kicked in the ass until you don't know what it's for," he says. "It's being broke and down and out, and people telling you you're no good. It's the language of the subculture; but you can't learn it, because no one can give you black lessons."

Used in this way, the soul concept becomes a mystique, a glorification of Negritude in all its manifestations. The soul brother makes a point of emphasizing Negro inflections such as "yo" for "your," of abandoning slang words and phrases as soon as they reach universal currency, of eating foods such as chitlins, pig's feet and black-eyed peas, in mastering a loose, cocky way of walking down the street—in doing all the things that are closed off or alien to Whitey.

Blue-Eyed Soul. Does this mean that white musicians by definition don't have soul? A very few Negroes will concede that such white singers as Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee have it, and Aretha also nominates Frenchman Charles Aznavour. A few more will accept such blues-oriented whites as the Righteous Brothers, Paul Butterfield, and England's Stevie Winwood—largely because their sound is almost indistinguishable from Negro performers'. But for the most part, Negroes leave it up to whites to defend the idea of "blue-eyed soul," whether by the criterion of talent, experience or temperament. Janis Joplin argues it this way: "There's no patent on it. It's just feeling things. A housewife in Nebraska has soul, but she represses it, makes it conform to a lot of rules like marriage, or sugarcoats it."

If the earnest racial jockeying can be suspended, the question of who has soul actually becomes intriguing, if rather fanciful fun. The very elusiveness of the soul concept invites a freewheeling, parlor-game approach. Not long ago, in an eleven-page feature on the soul mystique, Esquire half seriously argued that there are only two kinds of people in the world: the haves and the havenots—soul-wise. Others have taken up the sport, which prompts the engaging notion that important personalities of history and legend can be classed in these terms (see box).

As for those to whom soul is anything but a parlor game, one thing is certain: the closer a Negro gets to a "white" sound nowadays, the less soulful he is considered to be, and the more he is regarded as having betrayed his heritage. Dionne Warwick singing Alfie? Impure! Diana Ross and the Supremes recording an album of Rodgers and Hart songs? Unacceptable! Yet many "deviations" may be solid professionalism, a matter of adapting to changing audiences. As Lou Rawls says, "Show business is so vast—why should I limit myself to any one aspect if I have the capabilities to do more?"

On the other hand, some soul singers are so deeply imbued with the enduring streams of blues and gospel, so consumed by those primal currents of racial experience and emotion, that they could never be anything but soulful. Aretha Franklin is one of them. No matter what she sings, Aretha will never go white, and that certainty is as gratifying to her white fans as to her Negro ones.

Going Home. The depth of Aretha's fidelity to her own heritage can be heard on an occasional Sunday night when she is in Detroit. Just as she did a dozen years ago, she goes to her father's services to sing a solo. She was there one recent evening, standing somewhat apart at first, a little dressy in mink-trimmed pink, preoccupied and somber. A drenching rain was falling outside, but 1,000 parishioners had shown up: Aretha was back.

She decided to sing the gospel song Precious Lord. The words, as the congregation knew them, were straightforward and simple:

Precious Lord, take my hand,

Lead me on, let me stand.

I get tired,

I get weak and worn.

Hear my cry,

Hear my call,

Hold my hand,

Lest I fall.

Take my hand,

Precious Lord,

Lead me on.

As the first mellow chords rippled from the organ and piano, Aretha stepped out of the robed choir that was massed on tiers behind the altar. Moving in front of a lectern, she closed her eyes and sang: "Precious Lord, take my hand ..." The congregation nodded or swayed gently in their seats. "Sing it!" they cried, clapping hands. "Amen, amen!" Her melodic lines curved out in steadily rising arcs as she let her spirit dictate variations on the lyrics, finally straining upward in pure soul:

Please! Please! Please! Hear my call, 'Cause I'm gonna need you to hold on to my hand,

And I'm gonna need my friends right now 'cause I might fall. . .

"All right!" answered the congregation. She was with them now. Her voice spiraled down to a breathy whisper, then broke into intense, halting phrases as she almost talked to the end:

You know what's happening . . . and it's bad times right now;

Just lead us, just lead us, lead us on—We've got to get home.

Afterward, spent and exalted, Lady Soul said something that nobody in the church that night needed to be told: "My heart is still there in gospel music. It never left."


* "Sock it to me," one of Aretha's variations on "whip it," is another in the long list of sexual terms from blues or jazz that have passed into respectable everyday language. Having come to prominence through such recordings as Aretha's and Mitch Ryder's, "Sock it to me" is now used in a neutral sense as a catch-phrase on TV's Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and is a common sight on bumper stickers and even political placards. Jazz (originally a copulative verb) and rock 'n' roll (from a blues lyric, "My baby rocks me with a steady roll") are other examples.

@Lovleeannwise all rights reserved 2014

Party Dont Cry

What did I say! A C-SPAN Caller Calls President Obama A “N*gger” On Air

What did I say!

•  A Racist - is a bigot who only likes his kind or tribe and doesn't mix with outside races other than work never socially.
• Racism - when one race feels Superiority over all other races and impose their will and ways to repress others. 

 ERGO "NIGGERS" We've always been on the Top of the list, but never forget these important words... 

'Segregation Forever': A Fiery Pledge Forgiven, But Not Forgotten 

"Segregation Now, Segregation Forever"  hailed by the former Governor George Wallace from the great state of Alabama with Confederate Flags flown all around him.  They still fly that flag in the South today..

If you don't relate to any of these types of people way down in your soul, and that was repulsive to read and hear.
 I just have one question no matter who you are

Black/White/Other

 This Cspan Caller is part of a base of people called "Republicans" their color is "RED"
They deplore "BLACK" and darker races
and thier symol is "GREEN" the almighty Dollar
their motto "Be Afraid, Be very, very afraid"

Why do you keep voting against your own interest?

or
Not Voting at ALL!!!!

Both stagnate your growth in society &  limit any hope for real independence..

#Wake Up People - God Bless

note: Wallace reached out to civil rights activists and appeared in black churches to ask forgiveness. In his last election as governor of Alabama, in 1982, he won with more than 90 percent of the black vote. Wallace died in September 1998.

@Lovleeannwise  all rights reserved 2014

Colonel Abrams - How Soon We Forget

Moral to the story, never hide what real inside of you, to thine own self be true..it's called "Core Beliefs" who you are and what you value, the same folks who made you will break you.

Despite what you may have heard that's what the Republicans do out loud warrants respect and disdain. The Democratic Party ran away from their own successes by denying their accomplishments oh how they oohed and awwed about the "First African American President" only to Turn their backs on him after they had no spine in Congress to stand their ground to me I relate this parallel to Peter denying Jesus 3 times and lied but He knew it before Peter did it, part of a process for a greater plan. Some things in life is just more important or bigger than you in GOD's mind.  Nothing is new under the sun.

GOD Bless

@Lovleeannwise 2014  all rights reserved

The World Is A Ghetto/Amazing Grace How sweet the sound, AGAPE unconditional Love…

Amazing Grace How sweet the sound, AGAPE unconditional Love…
War The World Is A Ghetto Lyrics
Songwriters: Oskar, L; Scott, H; Miller, C; Dickerson, M; Allen, S; Brown, H; Jordan, L;

Walkin' down the street, smoggy-eyed
Looking at the sky, starry-eyed
Searchin' for the place, weary-eyed
Crying in the night, teary-eyed

Don't you know that it's true
That for me and for you
The world is a ghetto

Don't you know that it's true
That for me and for you
The world is a ghetto

Wonder when I'll find paradise
Somewhere there's a home sweet and nice
Wonder if I'll find happiness
Never give it up now I guess

Don't you know that it's true
That for me and for you
The world is a ghetto

Don't you know that it's true
That for me and for you
The world is a ghetto

------ long instrumental break ------

There's no need to search anywhere
Happiness is here, have your share
If you know you're loved, be secure
Paradise is love to be sure

Don't you know that it's true
That for me and for you
The world is a ghetto


(The world is a ghetto)
{21 times and fade}

Suffering for Doing Good - 1 Peter 3 8-17

3:8 Finally, all of you be harmonious,sympathetic, affectionate, compassionate, and humble. 3:9 Do not return evil for evil or insult for insult, but instead bless others because you were called to inherit a blessing. 3:10 For the one who wants to love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from uttering deceit.
3:11 And he must turn away from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.

3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer.

But the Lord’s face is against those who do evil.

3:13 For who is going to harm you if you are devoted to what is good? 3:14 But in fact, if you happen to suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. But do not be terrified of them or be shaken. 3:15 But set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts and always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope you possess. 3:16 Yet do it with courtesy and respect, keeping a good conscience, so that those who slander your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame when they accuse you. 3:17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if God wills it, than for doing evil.

3:18 Because Christ also suffered once for sins,

the just for the unjust,

to bring you to God,

by being put to death in the flesh

but by being made alive in the spirit.

I often pay attention and listen when I"m hearing a sermon or during my moment of meditation - prayer, and praise. It often happens around dawn or just before..

But moving forward I’m trying to get a clear word or sense of direction from the LORD so I’m cautious still when it pertains to whose feeding my soul. Discernment of the Spirit becomes more complex if you’re wounded. I find it hard to be vulnerable these days so prayer is important and listening to the Word of GOD becomes more prevalent to me no one else seems to be able to make sense of what has happened to me these past few months. While still seeking job opportunities and other major challenges unemployed more obstacles that would have devastated most who are accustomed to having some of the finer things.. Even if you stop and ponder about how I’ve been able to maintain communicate via Internet That’s simply GOD+AGAPE his Grace and Mercy. Nothing I’ve done haven’t gotten any help not soliciting either just sharing nobody is paying me to write. I’m not selling anything to anybody this is right where you can stop reading… The way GOD moves is a mystery just like soon as you think you know guess what time to go back to school again..

You have to be where I’m sitting to understand what I’m about to drop on you now. People can only do what they are able and have to accept when GOD’ places it on their heart to serve HIM to reach out to others that don't always make sense to those in your circle. But only to the Father, the Son, & the Holy Spirit…. Truth is hard to accept for many of us hard reality about ourselves but love is as Infinite as the Omnipotent it has dimensions like looking into a tri- mirrors seeing your reflection on all sides. Well, for you lay people think of it like good sex what’s next, like Joy and Pain, Agony & Ecstasy it parallels itself. Then to come through the storm and struggle with the same feelings you originally had for the person who might have hurt or harmed you with a good attitude, well not too many can claim that type of forgiveness, tolerance and love in this world.

For to see how GOD gives us plenty to meet our daily needs in spite of what we give back to HIM and each other. When we limit our ability to give either through guilt or complaining it becomes a wasted effort because it’s conditional – if it makes me feel good then I’ll reflect a giving spirit. If I give you this then you must repay me double! Some of us even say to GOD give me double for my trouble...Your expectations are of human instinct that we can’t overcome unless we actually enter into a relationship to commune with GOD, (notice I said WE as me too and I refer to GOD as but one person, one place, one thing), to rely on for counsel. Fellowship is mandatory to survive in a community helping each other achieve mutual goals, lending a helping hand up instead of a handout. Taking it to the LORD in prayer is one thing but allowing Him to teach us, guide, and direct us learning to Sacrifice something in order to really grow. Because no one can mess with what GOD has blessed even you - then HE'll convict your conscious (soul) to let go release - give up the things that would jeopardize you often times to stifle our growth but instant gratification in any form makes us feel good…but the effects can cause pain or discomfort. You know what I’m saying those things or person(s) that hurt you sometimes maybe all the time! Just start right there ask youself honestly. He will not do this until We become willing but GOD loves us so unconditionally the WORD spoke that He will never foresake or leave His sheep and it is impossible for GOD to lie!

Have you loved anything or anyone enough to let them go for a greater good that has nothing to do with how it left you feeling? Have you tried trusting GOD do you believe that He does love you in all ways exactly for who you are, and thus far has guided you into the place where you are in life right now?

What have I sacrificed lately, to experience true Joy because to let go of anything or someone we love causes much pain which often leaves us feeling vulnerable and therein is when Faith comes. Faith comes by hearing the word and believing in those things that are unseen (a plan, dream, vision), which will manifest (by doing the footwork), then it becomes reality.. speak Boldy! If you can conceive it believe it, then recieve this..........enjoy this one.

GOD gave us everyone of us FREE WILL and with that comes a responsibility that man has never fully been able to understand it’s powerful.
Free Will in itself allows you to speak into being what you call blessed or curse those that you call cursed the old saying is what comes around goes around simply put it's "KARMA";The tongue is the smallest member of the body but carries so much power and gives weight if you think I’m lying look at what just happened to America. Inspired by the words of one Man to do better become greater started a movement the result still has some people trying to figure out what just happened.

He was free to believe being President could happen, trusted GOD, and he walked humbly from the process into the promise.

GOD is living and believe what I’m saying this is getting edited for personal reasons what has been revealed in my life is due process. People make the mistake of putting GOD on their level and minimize his Omnipresence but HE is far greater than we all can imagine and nothing, no thing or no Man has ever really been able to understand or explain fully we believers just trust HIS WORD for me it's the Bible. Sometimes GOD does takes us into a strange place in order to elevate us even while we are bruised and hurting not just to get our attention but to move us out of the way to do something more significant to serve his purpose not our own foolish sense of want and needs. Then there are times family the closest loved ones not just your enemies enjoy observing while others are in pain, naked, and bleeding; but GOD knows no boundaries when it comes to divine healing. He'll use your situation to teach you and others HIS way is the only way! What HE has put in me is enough to survive anything even mankind and our limited ability to truly love on one another without conditions. Now, That's so priceless

HE is greater in me than he that is of this World....Then once you've walked through the fire as did Shad rock Me shac and Abendigo(sp) everybody wants some of that; what did you do; how did you do and blessings bestowed many upon you. For with that level of Ecstasy arrives Victory then comes the Agony of winning… Everybody wants some of you. So you see Love defined shows up in three dimensions. Human form, Soul’s realm, and Spirit realm. You need to be able to accept and embrace humbly all three. Study the Word; hear the word, and listen to the word of GOD no matter where you are in your walk in His Grace. He loves you exactly where you are at, and one last thing what GOD has called blessed in your life is meant for you so enjoy it;always give Him Glory because everything comes from El Elyon (the most high God); Adonai (our master). So when he moves you to give or serve your brother/sister remember how Cain messed up when he was faced with that question; his response “Am I my brothers keeper”…. my response to Cain woulda been, "Yes I AM." because He lives in ALL of us remember that GOD is always with you AGAPE.

Jesus said, "I am . .

the resurrection
the way
the truth
the life
the light of the world
the bread of life
the good shepherd
the door of the sheep
the true vine."
"Before Abraham was, I AM.

 Be Blessed!!! Repost

@Lovleeannwise 2010  all rights reserved

REASONS

orig posted on 06-2005

Reasons 


Maurice white, charles stepney & philip bailey

Now,  I’m craving your body, Is this real Temperatures rising, I don’t want to feel I’m in the wrong place to be real

Woahh and I ; longing to love you Just for a night, Kissing and hugging and holding you tight Please let me love you With all my might

Reasons, the reasons that we hear,

The reasons that we fear Our feelings a-won’t disappear

Oooh!

and- after the love game has been played

All our illusions were just a charade

And all the reasons start to fade

laalahh~ ahh ah-ahhaa

After all our reasons why

All the reasons were a lie

After all the reasons lo-ove was ne’ver decide

I'm, longing to love you for one night

Please let me love you with all of my might,

baaaaby Ooohhh, baby!

Reasons, the reasons that we hear,

The reasons that we fearOur feelings a-won’t disappear

Oooh! and after the love games have been played

All our illusions were just a charade

And all the reasons start to fade

AND

In the mornin when I rise no longer feelin hypnotized

find the reasons the reason have no pride......after allllllllllllllll the Reasons Why, all of the reasons were a lie love subside!

Can't find the reasons Why I love you baby

my dear, can't find the Reasons'

Lust of the Eyes can end in A Lifetime of Committment!
Marriage is a Committment not "A One Night Stand"

HONORING FATHERS, IRON SHARPENS IRON

All my brothers share this with another brother who needs to be properly schooled

Any sister's you know for FYI purposes. 

Then Brother's you decide are you a man or a male and sister's you decide if you are attracted to a man or a male.

What is your definition of a Man? 
Article: By Kendall Ficklin

If you ask that question to a group of men you'll hear many different answers depending upon environment and upbringing.
Some may say he is a man when he has reached a certain age, some may say when he has moved out from under mom's roof and has his own car and apartment, and some believe that making a certain amount of money is attaining manhood. None of these things, however, are characteristics of a man. Manhood is a process, a transition from maleness.

The chart below states some of the differences between a male and a man.

Are You A Male Or A Man?
A Man

• does not carry a grudge
• looks to better himself; he invests in his success
• gives to his community
• is measured by his character
• is a protector of women in general and committed to one woman in particular
• word is his bond
• A Real man is a leader
• thinks with his big head
• uses his intellect and emotions to make decisions

A Male

• looks for ways to get even
• complains that he has to stay where he is
• takes from his community
• is measured by his sex drive
• views a woman as an object of pleasure, and isn't committed to anything!
• has no word, he will tell you what you want to hear
• is a follower
• thinks with his little head
• makes emotional decisions

Males Are Born But Men Are Made
As you can see there are some distinctions between males and men. Being a man is not easy, especially when you understand a man's roles and responsibilities. I was speaking with a brother one day, and he said to me, "Bro, this being a man thing is hard!" I knew exactly where he was coming from. Walking in manhood can be overwhelming because were going through the process of being reshaped, renewed, restored and completely retrained.
Most of us have been operating as males with sprinklings of manhood. For example, some of us may find a good woman, marry her, provide for her financially, sometimes emotionally, and do most things right. After about nine months to a year when she starts "trippin" because we're hanging out with the fellas, that's when we meet the other woman and revert to being a male. You see, a man has emotions but is not ruled by them. So when his wife starts "trippin", he doesn't allow her actions to dictate his reaction. A man understands that he is held accountable by God for the way he treats his wife regardless of the way she may be treating him.
The Making Of A ManGod created man to have dominion, to be a ruler, and to master his environment He created us in the beginning to be totally dependent on Him, He taught us directly. He instructed us and gave us our assignments. So, the making of a man was founded in and through Him. The only way this transition into manhood can take place is that we go back to Him.
1 Corinthians 13:11 states "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things".

Keys To Becoming A Real ManGod created man to be a Provider, Protector, Cultivator, Visionary, and Leader
Provider: In Genesis 2:15 God put His man, Adam in a garden and gave him his first assignment, to work. Work was given to him to advance the purpose of God. God wanted Adam to have fulfillment, and to enable him to provide for his own needs as well as those for whom he would eventually be responsible for.

Notice that before he gave the man a woman he gave him work. Therefore a man needs work before he takes on a wife. A provider finds a way to supply for his family's need. He plans ahead and anticipates needs before they arise.
Protector: When God put us in the garden to take care of it, not only did he want us to work in it and cultivate it, but he wanted us to also protect it, and all the animals, the plants, and the woman that he put there for us.
We are natural protectors, designed by God to protect everything we are responsible for.
Cultivator: To cultivate means to make something better than it was when you first received it. Look at your woman, how many of us are really cultivating our women?
Single Brothers: You should be cultivating every woman that comes into your circle. They should leave you a better person, NOT Pregnant, or emotionally abused after we've run so much game on them.

Married Men: We have this picture in our minds of what we want our wives to be and when she doesn't measure up to that we blame her. Ask yourself, what have you put into her? What kind of deposits have you made into her spirit? Have you cultivated her to be what you envision? Or what she envisions for herself? Do you know what her goals and dreams are? How are you helping her achieve them? A woman is like a seed, and we are water and light for her. If we pour into her and shine our light on her, she will blossom into a beautiful, compassionate, nurturing, submissive, help mate. Then you can look at her proudly and say "look at what I have cultivated".

Visionary: Proverbs 29:18 says "Where there is no vision the people perish".
To have vision means to conceive something in your mind and then move toward bringing that vision into reality. Every man should have a vision for his life. If he is married, he should have a vision for his family. The vision should include but not limited to Faith, Family, and Finances. We should have short term and long term goals, and they should be attainable.

Most of us don't have a vision for our family and we wonder why our wives and children won't submit to us. Brothers, look at the word submission, the prefix "sub" means under, and mission simply means goal or vision. So submitting is coming under one's goals and vision. Well, brother she won't submit if you don't have a vision for her to submit under.
Leader: Every man is created by God to lead and a man should display leadership characteristics. Some men run away from the responsibility of leadership. They are selfish, only concerned about their own needs and not the needs of others.
Take a look at some leadership characteristics listed below:

• A leader is disciplined
• A leader is the first one up in the morning and the last one to go to bed
• A leader sets the tone
• A leader has integrity
• A leader has character
• A leader's word is his bond
• A leader is a role model
• A leader provides, protects, cultivates, and has vision
• A leader leads by example

Men, you are on the way. The first step was reading this article. Now you know what a man is, God winks at ignorance but holds us all responsible for what we know.

Let's start the transition into manhood now!

Nothing else ruins the truth like stretching it.

_________________________________

Diamond Covered Mercedesof Prince Waleed:

THE CAR COSTS $4.8 MILLIONAND IF YOU WANT TO TOUCH IT, YOU HAVE TO PAY $1000.IT BELONGS TO PRINCE ALWALEED FROM SAUDI ARABIA.

Note from Editor: 20200618
About last night.... One Night Stand, and Half on a Baby Keep this up front before you lie down

Self-Worth Self-Love will allow you to Love another Human Life and Value that' person as much as yourself.              

 The Best Gift from GOD is LIFE w/a Free Will

Moments of Ectasy can result in a lifetime of Pain. Sex isn't for pleasure as much as it's an expression of how GOD connected two individuals to make One Body. A Vessel that produces Fruit from the Loins created from a sperm cell and a woman's egg "The Orgasm" of Pleasuremanifests into a living creature over the course of 9 months causes a woman to "Travailing through Labor in much Sorrow. 
She gives birth a new life becomes both of them.

Happy Fathers Day....

@Lovleeannwise 2008 all rights reserved  

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

'You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; 

I am the LORD. "(Leviticus 19:18)

our love is usually conditional and based upon how other people behave toward us.
This kind of love is based upon familiarity and direct interaction. The Greek word "phileo" defines this kind of love, often translated "brotherly love." Phileo is a soulish (connected through our emotions) kind of love - something that can be experienced by both believers and non-believers. This is in contrast to agape, which is love extended through the spirit. 
Agape love requires a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, since the non-regenerated soul is unable to love unconditionally. Agape love gives and sacrifices expecting nothing back in return

I'm writing this because of the climate of things in our country called America the Beautiful. My mother use to say to me when I acted out of hand, "Pretty is, what Pretty does." Meaning no matter how great you look on the outside if you not right within can have a reflection of uglyliness. America isn't Beautiful on the inside appearances are deceiving.

As a race - the Human RACE we take much for granted, yes we might come in different shades and speak [culturally] with different tongues, but

we are all charged with the same commandment 

"Love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD. " (Leviticus 19:18)

"Christians"

How you gonna reach those who need love, healing and salvation

 by waiting for the doors of the church to open behind closed doors?

Wrong!

The door to your greater self should always be open....

No, GOD even uses treachous fools when necessary to achieve his purpose i.e., Judas.  Even a man like Donald Trump, because of his inflammatory rhetoric and bigoted comments have gotten to the national consioucness.  Did you notice we are all openly having diaglog about race relations in America arcross all social, cultural, and economic lines.

We are talking to each other, only good can come from exposing such a well kept secret within the most powerful nation on our planet.

We lead by example!

Well, tell me how will you experience loving another

embracing something new...

Well, all of this is considered

I'm your next door neighbor, a co-worker, stranger sitting next to you on a subway or a train.

Why can't love your neighbor as yourself?

We all share the same air, eat, sleep, our blood is red; 

and this entire earth belongs to GOD,

and the fullness thereof...

no one has territorial rights here in America or in any other foreign land.

We gotta stop the hating and find way to heal

When you witnessing all these natural disasters in this world all around the globe.

Many People suffering inflation due to greedy financial "global" economy

High gas, food prices - we all feel that pain..

Social unrest around the globe

Monetary problems nobody is getting a pass no matter

what class, culture or religion you identify with.

ALL of US

Our race is dying everyday

The Human Race

When will we understand that we all must give a little ourselves

Fellowship with each other

spend time learning about the plight of another individual

stop thinking and coveting material things.

Once you stop and realize you might be surprised how we are more alike than different!

Without prejudging a book by it's cover - dive in and read that persons book

We can achieve more if we stop

comparing out you might come to know what we have in common.

Americans please believe

Everybody wants to have a shot at a successful life nobody grows up to fail.

We all require

stability, love, want respect from others,
we all seek to find Faith in GOD

however you perceive or worship Him.

We strive to achieve these successes not just for material gain

but to proclaim My living has not been in vain. Serve your purpose

and with an open mind keep this up front.....

GOD said it first - Jesus gave it as his last commandment

before he departed to sit on the right side as

Lord and Savior

Intercessor!

Humans shall love your neighbor as yourself.

So when you talk against somebody because they look different

maybe they went about life different from the way you may approach

We all die that's how your story ends....

Make your life count

You can't take anything out of this world but make your mark

Fellowship!

I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)

Lovleeannwise 2011 All rights reserved