YES WE CAN!!

This is a piece written by one of my Lodge brothers, Bro. Mike Grant:
“Yes We Can” – for me personally, in my life, represent the words that were whispered into my ear by my mother as a young black boy in South Carolina raised in a single parent household. Words whispered quietly, while gently embracing my small body to offer hope to the daily challenges and obstacles that awaited me in the cold, cruel, and unfair world that I was born into especially in the geographic region of my upbringing still plagued with overt racism and constant discrimination. “Yes We Can” as a mother/son family team sacrifice and make time to live by Christian values and establish core life/work skills such as integrity, clear communication, dependability, punctuality, and reciprocity.

At night, before getting on my knees as a toddler to say my bedtime prayers, the concept of faith and hope was instilled into me. I was taught to pray without ceasing, challenged to live my life by the scripture that all we need is the faith of a mustard seed in God and he shall deliver his promise of providing all of our needs and never giving us any more than we can handle. Words do matter – words can inspire people to transcend beyond barriers, obstacles, the evil ways of people that may despise you for various reasons and want to see you fail and in despair. Words can inspire people to set forth a spirit of excellence within themselves to realize “that they do possess the change that they have been looking for” as Obama states. Once we wage the battle within ourselves to stand for excellence without excuse and let that spirit of excellence within us permeate into our daily interactions with others, how we conduct ourselves on the job, how we treat our loved ones, how we approach life challenges, how we greet those that agree and disagree with our thoughts, then we can begin to showcase our character of excellence to society. If more children were given those words of inspiration and nurturing consistently at the earliest age possible– then perhaps they would not be torn apart as often by the unfairness of school systems that try to label, marginalize, and categorize our youth into “tracks” for how they will be educated and exposed to information.

When it rains, it is extremely difficult to set a fire to a massive pile of substance. You normally must wait until the rain stops and the elements begin to clear up before a fire can be blazed, which can be summarized into the spirit of timing. Well, I and many others, have had an overwhelming down-pouring of rain in our daily lives spawned from a wide array of negative forces and unfair treatment where it seems to keep that fire from spreading into our spirit and heart to consistently strive for overall excellence. Our psychological emotions have been washed and flooded with frustration and doubt, but now…the elements of many hearts, minds, and bodies, are becoming dry from the rising sun and a new flame of energy, inspiration, and hope is getting us “fired up and ready to go” so that our internal fire to be greater than we ever hoped can burn long and shine bright for all to see. God bless us all and Obama for President!

Michael M. Grant