A Leap of...Faith?

Picture a 3 story apartment complex, an old rusty fire escape ladder, and a guy. Now picture a guy hanging from an old rusty fire escape ladder at the top of a 3 story building at 4am. I bet you’re thinking that this person is either a thief or someone trying to escape to save their life. We’ll you’re wrong. I was neither of those. Yes, I said “I.”


Its July, 2010. My friend and I had a night of video games and movies at my house. After our fun, I drove her back to her home at 3am. She lived in an apartment complex, if you haven’t figured by now. The front entrance was locked and she forgot her key. We spent an hour calling her roommates that she knew were probably in the building at that time. Nobody answered. She had a fallout with her neighbors after several noise complaints over her 2 months of living in the building. With none of her roommates answering and being on the bad side with her neighbors, calling the complex owners was a last resort. It was a last resort because it would cost her $50 to get a replacement key for the night and she was already behind on bills due to lack of funds and not having a job. She claimed that this scenario happened before and she once resorted to climbing up the fire escape ladder to get into her apartment through her window. To this day, I don’t know if she was serious when she told me that story.


Well here I am, thinking I’m a superhero or something, offering my services to climb up the ladder to get into her room and walk downstairs to unlock the front entrance for her. Oh yea, keep in mind I said “walk downstairs.” This girl stayed at the very top of the building. Now, for those who are close to me, they know that I have a fear of heights. She didn’t know. She wasn’t close to me. I just met her a week ago.


Pause. Stop! Rewind! Eject!!


What in the very southernmost, hottest, darkest, corner of Hades would possess me to jump to great heights (in my case, climb) to do something like this for someone I just met? 
I hadn’t even memorized her last name yet. I can tell you exactly what possessed me to do something like this.


Throughout years of loneliness and self-hate, I created a void in my life. Many times I thought that void could be filled by the companionship of others., especially since I was an only child. To keep a friend or after the thought of me losing a friend, I would go to great lengths to maintain the relationship. I would do things like put myself to the side (physically and unknowingly spiritually) just to keep them happy. And I was always giving, giving, and giving. I didn’t want to see them go away because I only had a couple people that I would call friends come into my life. But they would always depart eventually. We’d either grow apart from each other or move elsewhere. I first had this problem of loneliness during my late preteen and early teenage years. It remained dormant mostly through my late high school and early college years, but it came back with a vengeance by the time I hit 21. When I say “with a vengeance,” I mean panic attacks, depression, and hospital visits. I would cry and shake uncontrollably. But that’s another, more in-depth blog post. Now back to this ladder.


I walk up to the ladder. Its about 10 feet off the ground. I had to jump into the wall beside it and propel myself upward in order to grab it. My legs are dangling, spider webs all in my face, my hands are hurting from the impact of grabbing unto the rusted iron surface of the ladder, and my friend is watching safely in the distance. I pulled myself up 4 steps before I could even get my feet on the ladder.  I now start climbing with a little more ease but my fear of heights is starting to kick in. Talk about the amount of sweat that was streaming down my face, whew! I climb some more and I get to a point where that ladder ends. Now what I have to do is shimmy across a balcony to get to the other side where another ladder allows me to go higher. Now at this point, my fear of heights was starting to fade because the fear of losing my life was much greater. Who knows how unstable that rusty ladder could have been! And let me tell ya, all that James Bond type stuff you see in the movies is not that easy in real life. I was pulling myself up with all my might and I’m definitely glad that wind wasn’t a big factor. 


So I make it to the top just to find out that the window is locked. All that for nothing? Heck no, I ripped the screen open. Yep, yep. I climbed in through the screen, walked down the few flights of stairs, and unlocked the front door entrance for my friend.


Have you obtained something and went to great lengths just to keep it? Then, you find out in the long run that the thing you obtained was not worth going great lengths for? This could be a job, an object of desire, an achievement, or anything. I bet you probably have but you didn’t go as far extreme as I did to keep it. I was doing all of this to fill a void. A void that should’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit and not my own pleasure. I felt that I was going through a never-ending cycle of losing people. I didn’t put my faith in God that He would bring me through a storm that plagued me throughout the majority of my life so far. I brought this despair upon myself for not trusting in Him. Have you ever thought of your own resolutions to problems instead of seeking the Word of God? I thought that this night would be the pivotal moment in my life that I could redeem myself from what I called a failed childhood. I took a greater leap up this ladder than any leap I’ve ever taken toward God. SMH.


I felt low and ashamed the more I thought of that night. I knew it was time to start turning my life around. And you know what the funny thing is? You’re gonna love this, watch. She got pregnant within a week later by some guy.

Tattoos

The issue of wanting a tattoo has only popped up a handful of times in my life. The last time I even thought about getting a tattoo was December of 2009. It wasn’t until me recently running across Leviticus 19:28 that the word “tattoo” ran through my brain as a topic of focus. The verse states, “Do not cut your bodies for the dead, and do not mark your skin with tattoos. I am the Lord.” 


Now, when it comes to the Bible, some say you can’t just take the words directly for what they are but take into account the time period of which the passages were written, who it was written by, and why was it written in that context. Sometimes, I just look at that as an excuse to alter God’s word to fit your own desires. But for this instance, I did do a little research because this particular verse was very relevant to me at times in my life. I found an article on the internet that talks briefly about this verse. It noted that this verse was dealing with the pagan religious rituals of the people living around the Israelites. The Lord gave this word to His  people because it was His desire to set them apart from the other religious groups. He wanted His people to not engage in things that imitate the practices of the heathens because ultimately that would lead them away from Him. 


The article then brings up verse 27 of Leviticus. “Do not trim off the hair on your temples or trim your beards.” Tattoos and cutting your hair were associated with pagan rites and rituals. Today they are not. 


Although times have changed, constantly trying to determine if verses are relevant to you today can be dangerous. If this continuous frame of thinking ends up with a weak-minded individual, it will indeed lead into a slippery slope. One can start questioning the Word of God throughout the Bible, asking themselves if this really relates to their modern day living. As time passes, the person will be deliberately disobeying God. Maybe it will get to the point where they just see parts of the Bible as void. Something I did think was useful in the article I read were the questions it gives us to ask ourselves. Where I have blanks is where the word “tattoo” should be. I believe we can also replace the blanks with other things in our lives: things like music, clothing, choice of career, girlfriend/boyfriend, etc. 


What are my motives for wanting a ____? Am I seeking to glorify God or draw attention to myself? Will my ____ be a source of contention for my loved ones? Will getting a _____ cause me to disobey my parents? Will my _____ cause someone who is weak in the faith to stumble?


I also believe we should think about if we’re desiring this thing for our own pleasure and will having this thing steer us away from God. We should think about if we’re wanting this thing because everyone around us has it and we’re envious because we don’t have it.


Of course, many of us say that tattoos are just a form of expression; flat out. But don’t use this typical argument to justify your actions. Look deeper into your motives. I only sought after little information regarding tattoos in relation to biblical context. The best way to find about tattoos and other things is to not come up with our own conclusions but instead talk with those who are truly educated in the Word of God.

Following a Road

I was in a room filled with dozens of people. I felt so out-of-place knowing that I was the only one in the room under 25. In fact, I was under 15. I had a notebook and a pen, sitting in a chair in the far right of the room. Not wanting to draw any attention to myself by grabbing  bagels and juice in the back, I patiently waited in my chair until the program started. I used this time to scope out the audience. I’m 14-years-old at a music business seminar. I found out about this event and had my mom drop me off. This became the first of many similar events like this in my life.


This was at a time when I was leaving middle school, took myself even more seriously as a music producer, and was relying on myself as well as God to push me further into a career in music. I never played video games that often, nor did I have cable or satellite TV to occupy my time. I started locking myself in my room with my Optimus MD- 1200 keyboard at the age of 11 and made music until I got tired. I didn’t have but 2 friends. We never hung out anywhere but my room in the basement. The times that I did play video games was when they would randomly stop by on some weekends. We eventually started a short-lived rap group and used my beats for our songs. We recorded on an old, early 90s boom box and a cheap microphone I bought from a department store. We even taped the microphone to hang from the ceiling to give our “studio” a better look. As crappy as that sounds, it was actually an upgrade to my preceding recording technique. At first, I was rapping solo using a microtape recorder. I’d get up close to my stereo speakers, queue the cassette tape to a jazz song I recorded off the radio, and use that song as the instrumental to my rap. 


The fact that I was rapping and making hip-hop beats around this time of my life was odd. Throughout middle school, I mostly listened to jazz and classical music. I went to several high school from the years 2002 to 2006. It was mainly because I was very unhappy and I did get put out of one because of having straight Fs; a total opposite of who I was. I ultimately graduated from the school I started attending during my 2004 junior year. I joined the concert band just as I did at my other schools. I’d play trombone, baritone, and tuba interchangeably. Most of the time it was tuba because either nobody else played it or the section needed my skills to make it stronger. 


I met another musician in concert band that had an interest in making beats. At the beginning of band class, he would play a CD of his recent music. I was impressed but I think he was even more impressed with my work after I let him listen to a few of my CDs. He was a grade above me and before he graduated, he introduced me to a guy who was an A&R for a popular local production team which won Grammys and plaques for their work with national recording artists. The three of us started our own production team and by my senior year we already had a song on the Billboard charts. It climbed up to number two on the Billboard Hot 100. In the summer of 2006, right before I was heading to college, we finished up the album with our artist. He was signed to Jive Records. It was cool seeing the label pay for our studio time and extra expenditures (usually food). I was also able to send in music to newcomers like Chris Brown and others who were with Jive. At 17, I received a newfound hope in my life as a producer.


I felt a little discouraged and intimidated being the only kid in that seminar I mentioned earlier. It wasn’t the only time that I was the sole kid in a room full of adults but being there gave me an advantage to those who were of my age. Its also amazing how God sent me through several schools but the one I finally finished at was where I would meet someone who would jumpstart my career as a producer. God guided me through it. I worked so hard at writing raps in my preteen/early teenage years. If it was up to me, I would’ve been a rapper instead of a producer but God obviously had better plans. I leave you with a devotional passage I read from my NIV Bible: 


If you have only come as far as asking God for things, you have never come to the point of understanding the least bit of what surrender really means. You protest, saying, “I asked God for the Holy Spirit, but He didn’t give me the rest and peace I expected. “ And instantly God puts His finger on the reason- you are not seeking the Lord at all; you are asking something for yourself. Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you…” (Matthew 7:7). Ask God for what you want and do not be concerned about asking for the wrong thing, because as you draw ever closer to Him, you will cease asking for things altogether. “Your father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8). Then why should you ask? So that you may get to know Him. Are you seeking great things for yourself? Have you said, “Oh, Lord, completely fill me with your Holy Spirit”? If God does not, it is because you are not totally surrendered to Him; there is something you still refuse to do. God always ignores your present level of completeness in favor of your ultimate future completeness. He is not concerned about making you blessed and happy right now, but He’s continually working out His ultimate perfection for you.

Unveil the Mask

Click Here For My First NBA Video

I think back to March of 2010. It was during my spring break that some things were hitting me hard. I didn’t know how to break off from the negative feelings I had going on. I guess I wasn’t talking to God enough. I decided to head out in my car. I wanted to go on a drive and get lost again. I filled up my gas tank and told myself that I was going to drive as far as I could, not thinking about where I was going.

I hit the highway and came to a junction. I was either going to circle around the city or head to a bridge that crossed over to Illinois, Alton more specifically. I took the bridge route and stopped at the McDonalds at the first exit. I wasn’t too hungry but I ate a cheeseburger to keep my stomach filled. I didn’t know how long I was going to be driving. This whole area was new to me. I never ventured to this part of the state of Illinois so I didn’t go deep into the roads. I stuck with a road that ran along with the Mississippi river and the small bluffs. I drove north for about an hour just thinking about life and watching the beautiful scenery. I was thinking about the past and when I would finally let it go. I was thinking about the present and how things around me just didn’t seem right. One of my friends kept calling the whole time. I had to have about a dozen missed calls from him. After about an hour and a half of driving, I was getting so annoyed by this dude constantly calling me. I finally picked up.

He told me he wanted to introduce me to some people and that he was sitting outside of my house waiting on me. I started to get mad just because I didn’t like when people would show up to my house uninvited. I told him I was running some errands and didn’t know when I would be back home. He started to complain and stated that the people he wanted to introduce to me were on their way to St. Louis from California. They were already within a half hour from the city and needed directions to my home. My friend gave me the visitors’ numbers to call. By this time, I was furious because I wanted to keep driving and get away from it all. But I didn’t want these peoples’ trip to St. Louis to be a waste so I called them and turned around to head back home. 

I made it home to find them all waiting outside of my house. They introduced themselves outside but by the time we made it inside my house, I had already forgotten their names. They were all producers. They talked to the same talk I would hear from just about everyone in the business. Nothing they told me really stood out but they did carry themselves a little more professionally than the average. They showed me some clips of their work on the internet and I played some of my music for them. They liked what they heard and gave me their contact info. After about an hour they left.

Two months pass and I think nothing of the meeting. They were just guys similar to many I’ve met over the years. I was just used to the process of meeting people, trading contact info, and not having anything big ever happen between us. In mid May, I get this call from an area code I didn’t recognize. It happened to be one of the guys I met that day back in March. He called to tell me how he was impressed by my music and my work ethic. He gave me a proposition. He broke off the ties with his other partners and was currently on his own. One of his jobs was making music for a high school basketball website that profiled players around the country. Somehow, the NBA found out about this website and was impressed by the music they heard in the highlight vids. They decided to present him with a contract for producing music for the NBA for a period of two years. Without a doubt, he took the risk of having the contract looked over by a close friend that studied law and proceeded to sign the contract. The NBA’s response to him was provide two-thousand, three minute songs as soon as possible. Feeling that the amount was virtually impossible for one man to do in a short period of time, he called me to bring me along.

Another one of mine I found on YouTube 

I had nothing going on with my music at the time. I recently broke my ties with old production team also. I lost a few of my contacts in the process. I made a personal commitment not to work with artists that would lead to the impoverishment of Blacks, degrade women, and promote deviant behavior. All of those things limited the amount of people I could work with. Uninspired by my surroundings and staying true to my morals, I didn’t make music like I used to. Maybe one song every two weeks. And by the time I’d start a new song, I’d forget about the last one. I didn’t know why I was making music anymore.

But the NBA news changed everything. I went full force with my music. Since my name wasn’t actually on the contract, I had to work under this guy‘s name. I was also taking a risk because he could’ve easily stolen my music. I couldn’t take any legal action because it was no paper signifying our work together and this guy was stationed out in Indiana. I just went with my guts and gave him some of my trust.  I felt that I didn’t have much to lose and I was spending most of my days inside the house drowning myself with sorrow. I didn’t have any friends to hang with so I thought I might as well do something different with my time.

I made about ten songs a day. It was very draining. Some days I wouldn’t sleep at all. The most that would be in my stomach for twenty four hours would be just a peanut butter sandwich. I didn’t know what my reward would be at the end but I pushed on because I felt I had a new purpose. As the basketball season went into the finals, we watched TV to see if some of our work had been placed yet; nothing. The Lakers won the championship and the season came to a close. We were wondering where our music was going. It wasn’t until a month later that we got a call saying some of our music had been placed for a video featuring John Wall, the number one all-around draft pick. The funny thing is neither me or my new partner had a big interest in sports so we didn’t know who this player was. We were just glad to see how our hard work was paying off.

Around the time we placed our first vid, my partner’s computer crashed and he was unable to make any more music. Afraid that the NBA contract would be terminated because of this, I picked up his workload and worked twice as hard. I continued to supply the music for months so we could keep the ball rolling. I became the sole producer. It was hard physically and emotionally but when we finally got that first check, everything was all worth it. For the first time in both of our lives we had a consistent, lucrative job. We would get paid over a thousand dollars per video, earning enough money help ourselves as well as others close to us.

My questions are: What if I continued to run away? What if I didn’t take any risks. Everything needed to fulfill your destiny is within your reach. If you use what you have, God will multiply your talents and multiply your resources. God wont give you an oak tree, but instead an acorn. You won't realize its a blessing but eventually He will turn the small into large, the natural into the supernatural, etc. Its the people that recognize what they have that will be victorious. There are people in your life ordained to be instrumental. Be careful not to miss out on them. 

Chain of Rocks

I woke up that day at 6:50am. I didn’t understand why I woke up so early because I wasn’t restless. Nothing was on my brain but the random thoughts you’d get as you depart from a dream but yet there was enough on my brain that prevented me from falling back asleep. I couldn’t pinpoint what is was though. 

I turned on the tv and flipped though the channels. I couldn’t find anything to watch so I decided to get up and cook breakfast. I wasn’t hungry but I knew I was about to go somewhere so I wanted to put something in my stomach before the trip. Where I was going  was something I didn’t know at that time. I cooked some rice and warmed up some sausage biscuits. I took a quick shower while I let my food cool down. After coming out of the shower, I found Joel Osteen on the TV. He was preaching about letting go of the past, allowing God to deal with those who did you wrong, and to not look for apologies from those who’ve done you wrong. The sermon was relevant to some feelings I had for a few people. It made me think of all of the fun times I wanted to have with these people in the past but didn’t happen because either they were too busy or didn’t care enough to go out with me.

Once I finished breakfast, I got in my car and just started driving: still not knowing where I was going. This type of thing is not unusual for me. I’ve purposely gotten myself lost many times before in my car to enjoy unknown areas: to admire God’s lands and let my imagination run free. I wound up driving pass my newfound chill area that’s at the Mississippi River shore about 8 miles north of downtown (a very desolate place that holds a trail that runs parallel with the river, providing a great view of the river and Mosenthien Island). I drove pass the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge and unto the new Chain of Rocks Bridge. I crossed over to Illinois, barely keeping my eyes in front of me. I couldn’t help but gazing into the river and its beauty. The sun was shining softly upon me because the clouds that took away much of the opacity of the light. The sunrays on the crashing waves of the river made the great Mississippi look like gold. 

When I made it to Illinois, I immediately took the first exit and turned to go back to Missouri. As I backtracked, I took a second look at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge and it brought back old memories. I went to the bridge once in the early 90s for an elementary field trip. We never actually crossed the bridge but instead met with wildlife experts at the base of the bridge to view bald eagles that would perch on the bridge from December until late spring.  Even back in those times, the bridge was actually closed. I wasn’t sure if it reopened but I told myself that that day was the day I was going to go to that bridge and find out. I wanted to at least get close enough to it to take pictures.

The was nowhere to park near the bridge so I parked at my chill spot that was two miles down. I didn’t care if I had to walk a long way. This was something I wanted to do. A spontaneous moment of this caliber is something I would have loved to have with friends but I was tired of waiting on others to enjoy myself. There were so many dreams of activities I let pass me by in life because I didn’t have anyone to spend it with but I told myself that this time wasn’t the case. I was going to walk there: up the trail, through the wooded area, cross the highway, and enjoy myself.

I made it there to find out that the bridge was open for crossing. The trail I was walking on actually led me to the entrance of the bridge. Until this point, I thought that this trail only led me to go the opposite direction of where I was now. I would normally walk the trail from my chill spot to the abandoned resting area where it ended on the south end.

 I began to walk across the bridge. As I started elevating from sea level, the wind gusts became stronger. At about 300-400 feet above the Mississippi River, I could barely walk without being pushed by the wind. My fear of heights resurfaced a little as I reached the middle of the bridge above the crashing waves. I began to pray that God would keep me safe cause I questioned the strength of this bridge to stand firm. I pushed on and took some pics. The view was beautiful. I could see a hazy view of the Gateway Arch that was 10 miles down. It was amazing to see the whole Mosenthien Island on the river. From my chill spot, I could only see straight across the island but with this view on the bridge, I stood above it and could see almost the whole perimeter. 

The bridge was over a mile long. It definitely gave me a better grasp of how wide this river actually was. I love nature. Seeing the untouched areas of the shore made me think of how God designed such a wonder and how it remained just as God made it. The unusually warm weather for the late November day sealed the deal. When I made it to the end of the bridge, I was surprised to see that it’s finish was on Choteau Island. These two islands I’ve named were places I only read about or fantasized about. I’ve always wondered what it was like to actually travel to one. On that day, I made it there. I would have liked to experience this quest to conquer one of my fears of the unknown with friends, but this experience I had with God was even better. I loved it.