DarrenCalhoun.com

Wow… it’s amazing how differently things can seem just 24 hours later.  Yesterday when I wrote, I was pretty down.  This morning and the rest of the day have been a 180 change from the night before.  Some great things happend for and to me today, and some other things are still very uncertain.  The good news is that my focus is renewed on God — which makes everything else clearer.

Par of my trouble has been that I’m so concerned about what I can’t do or don’t know how to do.  I’ve spent so much time worrying about that that I lost sight of the fact that everything I do has been through God’s empowerment!   I never really had much of anything together, but I’m learning and growing and basically getting ahead of myself.

With that being said, I’m gearing up for a busy weekend.  Tonight I was invited to work on a potentially big project.  It’s still pretty sketchy, but it may be the beginning of GREAT things!

I had an interesting dynamic happening in my world today.  I’ve been feeling a bit down the last few weeks - this week having trouble finding the motivation to do anything at all.  I realize part of it is my frustration with my situation - finances being tight, being in transition in several close relationships, as well as attempting to reorgainze my business.  All of it makes my head spin and rather than facing my pain I turn away from (almost) everything.  The one thing I cling to is getting out of the house to connect with others.  It seems to be the only thing that I’ll do no matter how I’m feeling.

On the other hand, I have a friend who’s experiencing simlilar life circumstances, but who withdraws from people — adding to the isolation and pain.  He’s frustrated with his own progress in his life journey and in me talking to him I was preaching to myself!  I realized that I set my own expectations about how and when things should be progressing - and when it turns out to be more difficult thatn I anticipated, I get discouraged.  I’m trying to stay mindful of what I want to tell others — since it probably is ringing true in my own world as well.

So with that I’m going to keep my head up and keep moving forward… even if it’s slower than a snail’s pace.

Why is it that even in the afterglow of such a historic election, that MORE questions aren’t being asked? Surely the results of this election don’t mean the woes and deeply entrenched attitudes and beliefs of our country have magically been erased. Surely we as a country have MANY more hurdles to the ideals of equality, unity, and justice.

Now that we have President-Elect Obama should we all just go to sleep expecting to wake up to a ‘better tomorrow’ (whatever that is)?

Isn’t our math still skewed if Black + White = Black Child but Black + White does NOT equal: White Child? And we seem to be just too dang lazy to acknowledge both. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve heard Obama referred to as the first multi-ethnic or multi-racial president.

And why is it that the main time we make this created concept of race an issue is when it is ‘black vs. white’?

I’m not advocating that we all put on blinders and today be colorblind. I am hoping to raise the awareness of the influence of the idea of race and how prevalent it still is in our country. We as a society are constantly getting lost in the illusion of race and continuing to allow it to divide and identify us. This concept of “us vs. them” keeps us scared about non issues and draws our attention away from the real problems.

Anti-immigration is about money… Anti-affirmative action is about money too… but if we can keep the conversation of these things swirling around race things will stay the same. When you think of immigration rights - what nationality comes to mind? Eastern-Europeans? Canadians? Or when you think about the ‘unfair’ benefits of affirmative action: what group of people come to mind who are ‘getting over’ and in what ways does it directly affect you?

I’m not suggesting that I have answers to all of these questions. I’m hoping that we allow all the excitement and tensions draw us into a deeper conversation about our own attitudes and emotions about the state of race in our culture.

One thing that I noticed on election night was how diverse the crowd was in the non-ticketed area of grant park. It made me more aware of how segregated some of our Chicago gatherings can be. That night was a true picture of ALL of our city - every ethnicity, socio-economic, and geographic background represented in one place on one level for one purpose.

I hope to hear from others on this.

–Darren

Congratulations to President-Elect Barack Obama!

Wow… tonight I went into downtown Chicago for the Barack Obama Rally.  There was such beauty in what I saw.  Thousands upon thousands of people poured into downtown Chicago in support of Obama.  People of all ethnicities, social, and economic classes.  The sight of that kind of unity alone was moving.  I also took notice of the impact of technology on this election.  I heard the news of the win as a watched a streaming broadcast of MSN using SkyFire on my mobile phone.

I’ll write more shortly - Obama just took the stage.