Tag: belief

For Such A Time As This

The other day, I pulled up to a family member’s house. Across the yard, a young man bent his neck, eyes locking on me in recognition, then called my name. It was a former student—an award winning visual artist. He walked over, eager to share life talk like we had back in the day. I noticed a black guitar case strapped to his back and asked about it. The floodgates opened. He swung the case around, drew out a basic looking electric guitar, and for the next 20 minutes or so, plucked out some mean chest thumpin’ neo-blues riffs. It was a sight—his lanky six-foot-plus frame bent almost double, draped in bright patchwork clothes, pants sagging, unleashing sounds I could feel in my soul. Sounds that were older than both of us put together and multiplied. He didn’t even know he was playing the blues, but he had it. His eyes kept darting up for approval. I nodded, bobbing to the ping and thump of the instrument, inspired. “Play that thing, boy, play!” I was late to my destination, but right on time for the reminder: whatever you have to offer through your craft is as vital for these times as the beat in our chests.

In all the twists of science and biology, I stand on the belief that we were not here by accident. Our gifts and talents were not haphazardly bestowed, or given to be buried in fear, or tucked into the closet of our indecision. This is the time for which we were made. The world groans for light, for beauty, for truth — and our hands carry the spark. Do not shrink. Do not wait. Create boldly. Sing loudly. Build fearlessly. We have been molded and shaped for such a time as this.

There come moments in history when the ground itself trembles with the weight of what must be done. Moments when darkness crowds the horizon, when fear and confusion battle for our attention. Moments when ordinary people are summoned to do extraordinary things. The temptation to shrink back and stay silent grows strong. But it is in these very moments we should heed our calling — a call to those who may not even know yet, to the comfortable, to the idle, and to the ones who can feel the fire shut up in their bones. We were not given our gifts by accident. We were not given our vision, our voices, your hands, nor our hearts merely for quiet seasons. We were given them for such a time as this.

We need your art. We need your song. We need your poem, your painting, your dance, your bread rising warm in the oven. We need the light you carry, even if it flickers small in your chest. Especially then. We stand in need of the idea only you can birth, the story you are writing. Now is not the hour to be consumed by the chaos swirling around you. Now is the hour to reach into the storehouse of your soul and bring up what has been planted there. Your creative gift is not a pastime or hobby; it’s a weapon forged for battle, a balm for the wounded, a beacon for the lost. It is how you will move the needle, shift the atmosphere, heal the broken, and awaken the sleeping.

Your thing is your art and it is not merely something you do; it is something that does. It does the work of breaking chains and restoring sight. It stirs courage where fear has rooted. It plucks the doubt from the garden of hope. It resurrects dreams thought long dead. It sows seeds of change that governments and empires cannot stop. It is not weak. It is not trivial. It is power, entrusted to your keeping. So rise up. Take up your brush, your pen, your voice, your hands, your hammer, spatula, or spade. Do not wait until you feel ready. Do not bow to the lie that you are too small or not good enough. What you have is enough, because what you have was given to you by the Author of time itself. In days of uncertainty, creativity is an act of faith. In days of despair, beauty is an act of defiance. In days of division, the act of making, sharing, and being is a sacred rebellion for liberation’s sake.

History is not forged by those who sit and wait. It’s made by those who dare to bring forth what they have, however imperfect, and place it on the altar of the times they are given. So pick up your pen. Strum your instrument. Shape the clay. Sing the song. Bake the bread. Write the words. Build the bridge. Paint the vision. Move your body. Walk boldly into the now. Create boldly in it. Offer your light into the dark. Offer your voice into the silence. Offer your hands into the work. Offer the world that which only you can give. You are here for such a time as this.

Make-Believe: The Invisible Bridge Between Worlds

Last week, while visiting a job site with a business associate, an unexpected moment unfolded—one that has been echoing inside me ever since. We were talking through project details when an unhoused gentleman approached. Nothing unusual in a city where gentrification collides daily with poverty. But what came next unraveled some of the lines we tend to draw between people. Both men’s face lit up—not with friction, but with recognition. Turns out, they grew up just a few houses apart. Same block. Same neighborhood. Same era. I couldn’t help but ask what many might think but not say aloud: “What made the difference?” One man with homes in multiple cities, running quite lucrative ventures across several sates. The other, navigating life on the streets. He didn’t hesitate. “Attitude,” he said. That was a common answer. One that I actually expected. The kind of thing you hear in seminars or printed on coffee mugs. But it didn’t sit well enough with me for a number of reasons so I pressed further. That’s when he said it…

“It’s make-believe.”

“Make-believe.” I repeated the words. He went on, “Make-believe. I make believe I can do something or be something… and then I just start working toward it and make it real. It’s all made up anyway— laws, the dollar values, titles, cities, streets, and names. So I just make believe and do it.” We both chuckled at the way he made is sound so simple. But then… it hit me, feeling like home. Make-believe is the same tool we wield freely as children before the world tells us what is and isn’t possible. The same gift that built spaceships out of cardboard boxes and kingdoms out of yard dirt. Pillows became forts and sticks transformed into swords. Towels became superhero capes billowing in the wind as we charged through the house, out the door and leaped from the front porch in that brief airborne glory of flight. It is in so many ways the same energy I now use as a creative. I imagine what doesn’t exist yet—and then bring it into the world out of a blank canvas, a sheet or paper, or a wall…or whatever else.

It’s not pretending really, it’s a form of creating. It’s so easy to think of imagination or daydreaming as child’s play, but what if it’s actually the cornerstone of everything real? What is money, after all, but a mutually agreed-upon myth of perceived value? A green piece of paper backed by our belief. What is a city but a series of stories and structures laid out in grids and street signs activated by someone’s rules of the game? What is a career, a title, a boundary—except a fictitious outline agreed upon by the masses? Just food for consideration here.

The difference between one person and another, between despair and drive, between stagnation and growth, might just be one’s willingness to believe in the invisible long enough to build it. Make-believe. That’s what creatives do. That’s what visionaries do. That’s what children do. Then we grow up. Perhaps that’s what we’ve lost in the vainglorious grind of adulting: the sacred skill of making believe. But here’s the beautiful twist—I’ve come to understand that the artist and the entrepreneur, the educator and the dreamer, the activist and the builder—all require the same core recipe: imagination infused with intention, carried by action.

We imagine.
We believe.
We begin.
We become.

So next time someone dismisses “make believe” as a childish thing, we can smile and nod… knowing full well that the world we live in—every towering building, every invention, every institution, political or otherwise—once lived only in someone’s imagination. It’s all made up. So, if we don’t like the world we live in, just like someone made us believe in the this one, let’s craft another more equitable one of our choosing. Our inner world would be a great place to start.

Same Sun

My oldest daughter was born in Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Chester, PA. Those hallowed grounds were once occupied by the Crozer Theological Seminary attended by such notables as J. Pious Barber, Samuel Dewitt Proctor and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These were giants of men, men of faith I hold in high regard. I often walked these grounds where they walked in honor, remembrance, and reflection.  

We had relocated to Pennsylvania on faith in what I do as an artist to start a new life. We named our daughter Imani, which means faith with Arabic and Swahili origins in East Africa, as a testament to that move. This year Imani returned from Alaska, another faith move – there and back. At the morning of this writing, she is on a beach in Maryland, as I am in one of my favorite places on the planet, Chicago.  We exchanged sunrise images. The one thing constant in them both is the glow of the morning sun. Faith is the knowing that the sun will always rise. No matter how dark the night or tumultuous the storm, that golden orb ascends to the heavens as a metaphoric reminder. A reminder that we can always begin again, and that success came before us on the same planet that we walk. Sometimes even the same ground that we walk over. Remembering and thinking on things like this can help to put things in perspective as we go about the tasks involved in doing what we do.

Think of your most revered luminary. In this case allow it to be someone that you admire in your field of choice. Someone who has made accomplishments in the area of which you aspire to succeed. See them in action in your mind going about their tasks from the mundane to the magnificent. Above them every day is the same sun that shines down on you. The setting of your story has the same lighting as theirs. The warmth, the light, the brilliance — all of it bathed their path just as it bathes yours. The same source of energy that sustained their journey is sustaining you now, fueling your own rise, your own breakthroughs.

It’s easy to look at those who’ve gone before us and imagine that they had some secret, some hidden resource, but the truth is they moved forward in the same rhythm of faith, resilience, and consistency. Like the sun, they showed up, even on cloudy days when success seemed distant. And just like the sun, their brilliance was a reflection of what already existed inside them.

Faith, like the light of the sun, is a force we often take for granted, yet it’s always with us. Just as we trust that the sun will rise each morning, we must trust that our own light, our own success, will also emerge — even when it’s not immediately visible. Even on those days when we whisper in quiet desperation,”What the hell am I doing?”

Imani, faith, is not just the name of my daughter; it’s the principle that guides the journey. It’s in the small actions, the steady discipline, and the unwavering belief that, just like the sun, the time will come to rise higher. No storm, no night, can prevent the dawning of your potential. So as we stand on this shared ground, beneath this shared sun, know that you’re already on the path — step by step, light by light, day by day, moment by moment — to becoming the luminary that will shine for the generations to come.

Believe…

The other day in a very intense conversation I was having, the person stopped mid sentence and said these words to me, ” I saw your body language change. Remember, if your brain doesn’t believe it, nothing’s going to happen.” At that precise moment my mind glitched then morphed into an ultra clear movie projector. Everything else we had just talked about, everything I’d attempted in the past, everything I was thinking about became strikingly clear. I literally saw a light come on. Belief is an all empowering ingredient to any level of accomplishment, whether it be the completion of a sketch, a full drawing, or a sold out show at Laxart Gallery.

Napoleon Hill told us ““Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve.” It CAN achieve. In an effective scenario, the body is servant to the mind. So when your brain believes, it not only kicks the body into gear but activates the spirit which summons all manner of assistance to bring the intent to pass. Belief moves providence to move on your behalf. Belief goes beyond hoping. True belief is laced with intent which revs up the to a superhuman level of operation. The accomplishments are often followed by comments like Wow! How did you do that? I wish I could do that! That is amazing! These exclamations are the brain’s way of saying this is actually possible in a question and a definitive statement. Think about it. We all have so many reminders of this. One that comes to mind at the moment is the photo of Gabrielle Union and Zoe Saldana standing in front of one of my paintings on a movie set.

Belief is so powerful, it’s never limited to the mind in which it is activated. It’s like a fire. The more you stoke it the warmer everything around it gets. Martin Luther’s beliefs reformed the church. Albert Einstein’s beliefs shifted understanding, relatively. Martin Luther King’s belief motivated and mobilized a nation. Hitler’s belief nearly destroyed one. The power of belief is there for us to utilize as we will. That instance when you first believe will create a paradigm shift in your story. The moment when you can exclaim this changes everything, everything can change.