Author: Higher Up IDEALS

  • To Be the New Me

    To Be the New Me

    Several posts ago, I wrote about how I sometimes hold myself back from shining my light. The excuse that I was using was that by holding myself back in some areas, I was somehow protecting the people who would otherwise try to hold me back. I’d hold myself back before they could try to. Yeah.…

  • Pretending to Be You

    Pretending to Be You

    There is this common idea in the world of appearances that is described as “faking it until you make it”. When I first heard that saying, it was disturbing to me. The way I interpreted it was that people should pretend to be someone others think they should be. This was something people advise people…

  • Harriet’s Daughters: The Legacy of the #StrongBlackWoman

    Harriet’s Daughters: The Legacy of the #StrongBlackWoman

    In theaters right now, there is a biopic based on some aspects of the life of Harriet Tubman. As a character in history, Harriet Tubman has always held a special place in my heart because she refused to be a slave. And according to legend, she refused to let anyone who said they wanted to…

  • The Marketing Mastery of Mr. West

    The Marketing Mastery of Mr. West

    Any organization that has endured the test of time would tell you that reinvention is the master key to longevity and continued relevance. Just ask companies like Apple, Coke, McCafe, I mean McDonald’s or even Polaroid or Kodak who are trying to get into the mobile phone accessory realm and you’ll see what I mean.…

  • Power Beyond Measure Part 4

    Power Beyond Measure Part 4

    We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. — Marianne Williamson One day my dad called me out of nowhere and invited me to visit him in Mississippi. He said he wanted to talk to me and that it had…

  • Being With God

    Being With God

    God is the ground of being, being-itself; who concerns us ultimately. Thus, God is our ultimate concern. — Paul Tillich I’ll be honest with you and say that on a weekly if not daily basis, I find myself wondering what good I am doing as a pastor. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what I do or the people with…

  • Mastering Your Greatest Weakness

    Mastering Your Greatest Weakness

    “Your greatest weakness is your strength overdone.” — Some Wise Person Whose Name I can’t remember. In a recent post, I reflected a little on being an 8 on the Enneagram. In it I mentioned briefly about 8s despising weakness in themselves and others. What I didn’t get into was examples of that in my…

  • The Journey and the Destination

    The Journey and the Destination

    If you google journey and destination quotes, you will likely come across plenty of words that express the idea that life is not about the destination but rather, it is about the journey. That wisdom sounds reasonable. Famed tennis legend Arthur Ashe said, “Success is about the journey and not the destination. The doing is…

  • How 8 Thou Art (Reflections on My Enneagram#)

    How 8 Thou Art (Reflections on My Enneagram#)

    For about 6 years now, I have known that I am a type 8 on the Enneagram, what is often referred to as the Challenger/Protector. Even before I had a name and a number to describe some aspects of how I show up in the world, I was aware of many of the dimensions of…

  • Brain Trust

    Brain Trust

    There is a reasonable chance that I am on the autism spectrum.  I have never written those words before. But, in the past few years, I have tried to leave clues to this possibility and have been openly sharing with some people that, when I was younger, family and some friends raised this possibility many…