Full Free in 2010

In the 44 years that I have been walking this Earth plane, I am hard-pressed to recall a New Year's resolution that I have kept for longer than a day.

This pastime that we have of making a list of vices that we resolve not to repeat in the upcoming year is hog wash. Sorry for my directness but having duped myself so many times into believing that I could vow not to overeat, lose weight, save money or some other folly of that nature makes me cynical on this score.

For several years now, New Year's Eve have found me envisioning, not vowing, a better path for my life. My decision to spend December 31 into January 1 praying, scanning magazines for images and creating a collage of my New Year started in 2006. It was a decision made in desperation but one of the best I have ever made.

Instead of dancing the night away with a bunch of drunks, looking to get laid (sorry for the frankness but it's the truth) by someone other than their partners, husbands or wives I spend my evening in the quiet of my home, usually alone with my dogs, praying for guidance and making a collage of the best me that I can see.

Yesterday (Sunday December 27) my husband said he wanted to hear a sermon. This was an unusual request, one that was partially prompted by my eliciting a promise from him to layoff Farmville (Facebok) for the day.

Actually, he wanted me to deliver the sermon as I have not done so in more than a year now. One of his proudest memories of me is sitting in the pews of a church listening to me preach and for some reason he wanted to be in the space again yesterday morning.

He agreed to watch Bishop T.D. Jakes instead on the computer.

As we prepared breakfast the worship service got underway at Potter's House, however, unlike many other services this one did not grab my attention. Well not until Bishop Jakes got into the meat and potatoes of his sermon.

"Kill it, destroy it…!" he shouted. "Then give praises!"

What the heck is he on about I thought.

"You cannot go into the New Year with the old year's baggage!" he was saying or something to that effect. By now he had my full attention.

Hash browns in my mouth watered down by my silent tears, I raised my hand when Bishop Jakes said, "I am preaching to somebody in here today!"

I didn't know about any of the well coiffed, high brow ladies and deaconess in the Potter's House but for sure I knew Bishop Jakes was talking out my business!

How many years have I been walking around with the pain of rejection, loneliness, abandonment, low self esteem, not feeling good enough, deep unhappiness despite the smile on my face? How many times have I fooled myself into believing that I have released an issue only to have it resurface across the oceans? How many vows have I made to do right the next year, eat less, exercise more, give unselfishly and never managed to achieve any of these?

I listened keenly to Bishop Jakes teaching all who cared to learn that until you "kill and destroy it," – the ghosts of the past that keeps haunting your now – you will not find real peace and meaning. The truth of his words stirred a memory.

Some many years ago I attended my first Burning Bowl Service in Kingston, Jamaica. It is a special service hosted by the Universal Centre of Truth for Better Living in January each year and participants are invited to write out and burn in a collective fire the issues of their hearts. I attended two of these services and have burned many pieces of paper in that bowl. I have even had my own private burning sessions, setting alight paper, pictures, cards, anything that would hold me in a past that I so badly needed to be free of.

Proverbs is possibly my favourite chapter in the bible and some of the best advice, at least to me, comes from the fourth chapter. My preferred translation is the New Revised Standard Version and these are some of the verses that I hold dear:

²³Keep your heart with all vigilance,
   for from it flow the springs of life.
²⁴Put away from you crooked speech,
   and put devious talk far from you.
²⁵Let your eyes look directly forwards,
   and your gaze be straight before you.
²⁶Keep straight the path of your feet,
   and all your ways will be sure.
²⁷Do not swerve to the right or to the left;
   turn your foot away from evil.

In my opinion this is what Bishop Jakes was reminding me as I prepare to enter 2010. Enough of the meaningless New Year's resolution – it is time to kill and destroy the self-talk and thoughts that would take my eyes and feet away from the Journey. It is not enough to "let go." To begin to realize a deep seated freedom in my 45^th year, it was time to "kill" the remnants of my bondage.

I know he was speaking the truth because since I have stopped the New Year's Eve night debauchery and spent the night in quiet reflection creating my vision board, things have been very different in my life. Just about every image that I have pasted on my collage has materialized – house, new vehicle, someone who loves me "more than cook food", marriage, vacation(s), career growth, etc.

Yet, some things are outstanding and cannot be mounted on any board.

"Full free" - as that would-be slave Cinque said in the movie Amistad, is what I am aiming for in 2010. And to be fully free requires killing those New Year's resolution prompted by society's notion of what is normal, beautiful or cool. Full freedom is even more than wearing my hair kinky and in a fro' because that is what I want to do. To me "Full free" is what Jim Morrison is quoted as saying:

"The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on and individual level. It's got to happen inside first. You can take away a man's political freedom and you won't hurt him- unless you take away his freedom to feel. That can destroy him. That kind of freedom can't be granted. Nobody can win it for you."

On December 31, 2009 I will prepare, reflect and envision my journey to Full Free. My prayer for you my friends is that wherever New Year's Eve finds you ringing in 2010 you too will one day start your journey to "Full Free!"

Blessings!

Claudette