Tyler Perry’s superb resurrection of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf reminds us that its message is not just for colored girls.  It is a lesson for all of us — that God is not merely in us, but God is the divine energy that keeps co-creating as us, that part of us that  continues to be transformed by the Spirit revealing pure possibility as us.  No matter what our challenges are, we are not here in this experience that we call “life” to just go through the motions.  We are not just here to flirt with life but to be better than ourselves by allowing God to use us.

So what is holding us back?  Are we — like Ntozake Shange wrote — “half notes scattered without rhythm/no tune”?  Are we “distraught laughter fallin’ over our shoulder”?  Are “we whispering don’t tell nobody?  don’t tell a soul — because we [just] dancing on beer can and shingles”? Do we even realize that the Love of God embraces us with a joy that runs from the bottom of our feet to the top of our heads?  Do we even know that the magnitude of God radiates through us as the glorious light of truth and the everlasting energy of divine ideas?

In the Book of Matthew, the 6th Chapter, the 8th Verse, it says that God knows what we have need of before we even ask.  The good that we seek is already part of the endless energy of God.  The only person standing in the way of that good is us — when we give our power away to people and events and the appearances of stuff.

As Loretta Divine, the Lady in Green from Perry’s For Colored Girls movie, says “somebody almost walked off with alla my stuff — not my poems or a dance i gave up in the street — but somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff — like a kleptomaniac workin hard and forgettin while stealin — this is mine!  this ain’t your stuff!”  The question that Ntozake so ingeniously raises is how do we keep our stuff — and baptize it in the Spirit and fill it with the Holy Ghost power of who we are — so that we can grow and soar as a divine expression of God?

I believe that Thandi Newton, the Lady in Yellow in Perry’s For Colored Girls, hits it on the head when she says: “bein alive & bein a woman [and I add bein’ a man] & bein colored is a metaphysical dilemma i haven’t quite conquered yet/ do you see the point that my spirit is too ancient to understand the separation of soul & gender…”  Our spirits are too ancient to understand that we can’t drag around misery.  That doesn’t belong to us.  We can’t give our power to being victims.  That ain’t good enough for us.  We can’t worry about what somebody -sposed to be doin.’  That’s too toxic for us.   We have to realize that who we are in the flesh is a compliment to who we are in the Spirit.  We have to recognize that we are the good in everything that we experience.

We need to breathe good into everything and everyone — just like the sugar that you put in something to make it sweet.  We need  to sweeten our consciousness.  The difference with spiritual sweetness or goodness is that it doesn’t backfire with excess calories or fat or diabetes.  It is all good for this reason: you will get out of everything what you put into it.  So we are going to make a conscious effort to put good into every situation.  The metaphysical dilemma, you see, is that someone else has painted us as weak, when we are strong.  Someone else has painted us as less than, when we are more than worthy.  Someone else claims to have the power when the power is in God.

We need to keep our mind stayed on God and move on.  The Lady in Blue from For Colored Girls says: “one thing i don’t need is any more apologies.  i got sorry greeting me at my front door.  you can keep yours . . . iI can’t get to the clothes in my closet for alla the sorries . . . .i’m gonna do exactly what i want to & i won’t be sorry for none of it.”  In other words,  I am not about wrath.  I am not about vengeance.  I am not about regret.  I am not about holding onto who you are in consciousness because I am liberating, freeing, empowering who I am in the Spirit — and I am not sorry for any of it.   Because when I can’t release your crap, it becomes my crap. I am bigger than you — the hell in you, the craziness in you, the disrespect in you!  So, here’s what I’m gonna do:  I am going to forgive all of your nonsense seventy times seven, and I’m going let it go.

We need to radiate the love within.  For Colored Girls demonstrates something very important — that the love that each one of the women needed, they had within.  They said — “my love is too beautiful to have thrown back in my face; my love is too sanctified to have thrown back in my face; my love is too magic to have thrown back in my face; my love is too music to have thrown back in my face.”  We relate to love on a human level — based on what we give and receive.  But on a spiritual level, love is not giving or receiving — love  simply is.  We evolve in it.  We create out of it.  We are reborn in it.  We are sanctified by it.  We are saved as it.  Love is the only  salvation that there is.  It doesn’t worry about receiving because it is constantly giving.  It doesn’t worry about giving because it is always being blessed.  There is nothing that it needs or lacks because Love is divine source.

We need to praise our power.  Prayer works because it realizes that its deliverance is part of the divine order of the universe.  Prayer works because it is not simply us speaking, it is Absolute Good.  As soon as we ask, we begin the process of receiving.  The only way that we shut the door — is by not believing.  When we give praise and thanks for the manifestation of our good, then we allow it to take shape.

What people rarely focus on in For Colored Girls is that at the end of the play, it says “& for this is for colored girls who have considered suicide/ BUT are moving to the ends of their own rainbows.” (Emphasis Added.)  You see, they are not tragically ending life but have come to the realization that they are the covenant between humanity and God — all the colors of the rainbow.  When we realize that we can breathe good into everything; when we know that nobody has the power to walk off with all of our stuff;  when we radiate the love within;  when we praise our power — we watch life give shape to us — a more spectacular us than we could ever imagine.  And then, only then can we say —  “i found god in myself, and i loved her[/him] fiercely.”

 i saw good radiating from me like endless streams of light bouncing off the edge of all possibility.
just as my stuff was about to walk off, i realized that it was mine, and i claimed it!
i began again and witnessed my own love as the ultimate salvation.
and just as i was about to give up, i saw prayers swinging from trees and heard blessings break branches and scatter to the wind, answering everyone and everything, saying nothing is impossible.

 i moved to the end of my rainbow, and i was born again!  

Namaste,

Reverend Cecilia Loving

About SPIRITMUV:  Spiritmuv® is a trans-denominational church, which means that it transcends the confines of religion and teaches unconditional love for one another regardless of race, creed, culture, or religion.   At the heart of its teachings is what Jesus taught — that we love one another, as well as the community that Mahatma Gandhi inspired when he said, “I am a Christian and a Muslim and a Hindu and a Jew.”  Reverend Cecilia Loving is the founder and creator of Spiritmuv, which was formed in 2007.  Services are held for an hour every Sunday, from 2:30 P.M. to 3:30 P.M. at the Unity Center of NYC, located at 213 West 58th Street.

Rev. Loving, author of Prayers for Those Standing in the Edge of Greatness, is the sole owner, creator and administrator of God is a Brown Girl Too®, which holds annual retreats and workshops.  The next God is a Brown Girl Too Retreat will be held April 1-3, 2011, at the Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center.

None of the content herein may be copied or otherwise used except with Reverend Loving’s written permission.

 

Join the Spiritmuv  Community at www.Spiritmuv.ning.com for special postings by Rev. Loving.

GOD IS A BROWN GIRL TOO® 

“CREATING  BEYOND THE  BOX  OF CONVENTIONALITY ” RETREAT
will take place in the Spring of 2011
from April 1 at 5:00 P.M. through April 3 at 1:00 P.M. 

Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to enjoy the peace, serenity and creative consciousness of a like-minded group of women of color at the Mariandale Retreat and Conference Center, located at 299 North Highland Avenue, in Ossining, New York.   All rooms are single and surrounded by the loving prayers of the Dominican Sisters who own the facility. 

 The cost of the entire weekend, including rooms, workshops and three delicious meals per day, is only $450.00.  There is a $100 discount for senior citizens, so seniors pay $350.00. 

 Registration has already begun at http://www.godisabrowngirltoo.com/or you can mail payment directly to God is a Brown Girl Too, 376 President Street Unit 2H, Brooklyn, New York 11231.  But act fast because rooms are selling and there are now only 13 rooms left.