Lucy, my recovery partner in crime, read my last blog and had one question “…what was the Funk? You said you were in a Funk…”
Bull Connor was a racist sheriff down in Birmingham, Alabama during the 60’s. He strongly opposed the Civil Rights Movement. He was asked how he could turn firehoses and sic vicious dogs on not only civil rights workers but also helpless and defenseless women and children. Connor was known to have said “…It’s easy. It’s simply a case of mind over matter. I don’t mind and they don’t matter…”
I wrote in my last blog I had a better understanding of who and what matters in life because of COVID-19. I’m not down with the immoral, gutless and reprehensible inhumanity that obviously rotted Connor’s soul but if everything in life matters nothing matters. My failure to grasp this caused the Funk I was in.
We live in a highly racialized world. My life partner Kathleen is white. Isn’t that supposed to matter? Kathleen cared for my black ass while I had COVID and refused to separate or quarantine from me. She was my Doctor Mom. She defied her own mother who told her “…stay away from him…” But she is white. Doesn’t that matter?
The damn truth about what matters is we are all flawed, fallen and fallible. We all have our demons. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. We all sit down to shit and we all have gangster proclivities. No one is better than anyone else for the ground is level at the foot of the cross. Yea, it’s only taken me 61 years and COVID to get a grip on who and what really matters. This was my Funk.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was asked how he found the strength to keep going in the face of harsh criticism, relentless injustices and constant death threats. Dr. King said “… the person who doesn’t know the joy of finding something in life so dear and so precious they are willing to die for it if necessary isn’t living. They’re only existing…” PHunk is finding that joy.
PHunk is finding the miracle, magic and Higher Power in my COVID Story. PHunk is choosing to die on my feet than live on my knees another day. PHunk is seeking the hope that lies on the other side of the dangers in front of me. #PHunkMatters I was in a Funk. Now I know the joy Dr. King was talking about. He was talking about the PHunk that Matters. I have finally found the good shit. Funk is in my rear-view mirror. It can be in yours too.
“…They won’t say of me he was a good Nigger…”
X
Read more about Lucy and X and find your joy. Listen to X’s Podcast. All on wreckedamerica.com. In Wrecked America, #PHunkMatters
The Struggle Continues…
