Graylen Testimony for Wanting to Facilitate a Black Male Dialogue graylengraham1962.blogspot I started the Black Men Dialogue blog because I believe that there is strength in numbers. I wanted to first focus on Unforgiveness because I believe it is an Issue Black Men Face Today. I believe that it has shape us into the men whom we have become today. All of us have a story to tell, and healing comes from expressing and sharing. And the more men that share their story, the more men we have the possibility of reaching who will find their voice by reading and discovering it in what someone else has written. There is nothing more empowering than to discover the treasure of your own story in the writing of someone else. This is exactly how I found my own voice. Growing up in a white male dominate society as a poor minority, I was made to feel alone, inaccurate, and not processing the right to feel the way I did about anything even to the point of trying to muster up some type of self-respect and taking up for myself when others were blatantly obviously abusing me. I was forced to feel that something was wrong with me, and I had no God given right to feel the way I did or even the right to exist. It seem that any thought of my own quickly was beaten out of me before it even had time to develop any type of roots of self-identity. I was innovated with the demons and especially the spirit of depression and his cousin suicide. I first attempted my own permanent demise at the age of nine. I must also admit that no man is an island, and with the aid of angels God brought in my life here and there who had compassion and a genuine interest in me plus my own self-discovery as well as a personal relationship with God when I was fifteen (note: I said God and not simply religious experience because religion is manmade rituals and I had a supernatural experience with the all mighty), literature (discovery of other people’s stories), I would have defiantly succeed in the taking my own life. For example, I was blown away by the story of a man in the Bible who was said to be a man after God’s own heart name David who cried once until he could cry no more after losing everything and even having his own men turn against him and wanting to kill David by making him the scapegoat. I could relate! I have been betrayed by so call friends and love ones. But David encouraged himself in the Lord at his lowest point and took console of God pursued his enemies and won a great victory. This was David’s MO, and I could defiantly relate to David. There were many times I cried so much until I could not shed another tear, and I had no one to turn to but God. And because of his grace and mercy, I had the courage to go on and pursued until that victory was mine. This is what I call finding the strength in the actions of another. Like I said, no man is an island, and I was very fortunate to have those angels God put in my life. For example, a no-nonsense nun, a caring older priest, my fifth grade student teacher, my godmother self-adopted parents, and an older black man in my neighborhood exposed me to opportunities and culture outside of environment that life was willing to offer me. This included the aid of a ninth grade English teacher, who assisted me in fighting my way out of being forced into a below average English class right into an honor’s literature course because I wanted to add the classics to the literature that had aided me in escaping my circumstance mentally because I was not in a position to do so physically. God even brought across my path a white business man and his wife that literally support me and paid my way through Bible College simply because God show him a vision of me being a missionary the black culture. His name was Brother Robert Milton. After graduating, a pastor in San Bernardino, CA invited me into the home of him and his family and church, because of the encouragement of my baby sister and gave me a high position in his church. He gave me the position of a Sunday school superintendent. When he first told me that he was giving me this position, I asked him was he sure I could handle it because no one had ever trusted me being in charge over a group of people not even a Sunday school class, and I saw this serious look come on his face, and he said, “God told me to do it!” He approved everything I wanted to do with the Sunday school department without once sticking his nose into anything I was doing, and God blessed everything I touched. What a high! This gave me the confidence that I could do anything I set my mind to. Not only was I shaping the lives of other blacks but Hispanics and whites as well. It was not until I was twenty-three when a white man working on his doctorate at Notre Dame in English gave me a novel by Toni Morrison entitled Song of Solomon. In this this novel, I first discover validation for feeling the way I did. I was made to believe that something was wrong with me but now I had a vehicle to ride out of the self-forefeeling prophecy others had cursed me with. I started reading every book I could get my hands on that brought me self-discovery. I read novels from authors such as Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Richard Wright and many others. I this time not only found strength in the actions of others but I also found my own voice. With the strong encouragement of three strong white women I truly respected and who had shown genuine concern for my wellbeing and talents, I was strongly encouraged to go back to school and pursued my dreams of teaching in order to help other males of color in the intercity. It took me eight years and working a full-time job and part-time jobs with the grace of God to earn my first degree. I had to depend on God all the way because those demons of self-doubt and depression as well as outside forces, the powers to be, who did not think I was polished enough to have a right to a degree and a position in teaching that I fought all the way. After graduating, a principle, with encouragement of the teacher I did my student teaching under, gave me my first break after interviewing for a position of a reading teacher in the intercity which could also lead to teaching English. After what I felt was the worse interview I had ever given, I stopped at the door on my way out and said, “For years, I have always been told to give back to the black community, but how can I if the black community won’t give me a chance?” Before I even got home, this principle called and left a message offering me the job stating that the black community needed me. Just like San Bernardino, CA, I was given much responsibility even teaching reading to special education students part-time at a juvenile center. I felt so honored when Brother Robert Milton called me to express his appreciation for me finally becoming a missionary to the blacks he saw me ministering to in his vision. God blessed everything I touched to the degree that a famous researcher from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University asked me to come work under him to complete my graduate work. I had to write an essay in order to be considered for a scholarship but was able to because of the divine supernatural instruction of God to express myself using my own voice, and I was granted one of three minorities scholarships offered campus wide. After graduating, I landed a teaching position in Atlanta, GA. You will have to read more about me on my “LinkedIn” page as well as ask me to share with you my being actually delivered from the demonic forces that hindered me from living an abundant overcoming life because It is obvious that I have left out a lot of information due to time restraints but the main point is that I believe that not only do I have a burden for my brothers but I am also qualified to facilitate a dialogue on issues that have shape us into the men we are today that will lead to group and self-discovery, ownership and finding one’s own voice. Like I stated before, there is nothing more powerful than to discover your own voice and draw self-strength from the writings of others. Please read my detailed personal testimony as well as the stories shared by others. This is our time and forum to discuss issues that we have been shame faced to even admit that we have actually experienced or was at least close to those who have. I am even honored at a story one of my college composition students shared of discovering the mutilated and raped body of his mother and how the experience attributes to how unforgiveness has shaped him as a black man. Please blog! Graylen Todd Graham My contact information: 678-519-1833 home and 678-668-0931 Cell graylengraham@yahoo linkedin/pub/graylen-graham/53/354/3b2 BLOG DIRECT LINK: graylengraham1962.blogspot/
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 09:11:14 +0000
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