The Story of My “READ THIS” Interview with Alice Maria James
I first met Read This Host Alice Maria James at the September 7, 2024 Harlem Book Fair. There I was, standing on the plaza of the historic Adam Clayton Powell Building, outside the canopy that I had erected to cover my vendor booth table, when she approached with microphone in hand to ask me questions about my books. I had done these kind of spontaneous interviews countless times before, but this one felt different. Even then, I sensed that Alice took great pride in being able to introduce emerging Black authors like me to larger audiences.
I answered all of Alice’s questions, giving her brief overviews of each of the books I had on display. The encouraging words she offered in response to my fictional storylines and poetic themes evoked toothy smiles from me. She made me feel as if my words matter, and to an independent artist like me, that’s pure gold.
Months had passed since this encounter, where I had the privilege of walking along sidewalks frequented by Harlem Renaissance authors and/or poets like Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston, to name only a few. I continued to work from my Northern Virginia home, putting the finishing touches on my unproduced screenplay RECONSTRUCTION: Power Cell, and adding more chapters to my young adult novel Junior Achiever. I submitted poems to literary magazines like the Mid-Atlantic Review. And I continued to sign onto my weekly Let’s Write Something Sundays/Black Writers Collective Zoom call with Black writers from as far away as Georgia, Virginia and California. I even joined the Northern Virginia Writers Club and the Poetry Society of Virginia so I could have more in-person contacts with more racially diverse groups of creative writers.
Only when I took a break from all this activity did I come across a LinkedIn email from Alice. In the email, she invited me to be a guest on her Read This program. I accepted, of course, and the rest is history. I will leave it to you to click on the video above to see what we talked about.
SUPPORT MY EFFORTS BY PURCHASING ONE OR MORE OF MY TITLES THROUGH MY J. A. Faulkerson Books website.
But as you watch the video above, it is my hope you will begin to understand the motivation behind my writing.
For those who don’t know, I write to educate, entertain and enlighten. And while I am constantly endeavoring to strengthen my creative voice, I often find myself focusing on themes that pay homage to my Black ancestors – enslaved and oppressed Black Africans and Black Americans, the Black Civil Rights leaders of the 1950s and ‘60s. They are the reason I penned the poetry collection March of the Compassionate Neighbor, for they are the ones who were led by the unconditional love and neighborly compassion in their hearts. Unfortunately, remnants of their legacy are needed now because we live in an era of deep racial retrenchment that hasn’t been seen since 1877, when the first period of Reconstruction ended following the presidency of Andrew Johnson.
But my heart also bleeds for other men, more specifically the ones who have been blessed to be fathers. Back in 2015, I wrote a book titled Real Men Raise CHAMPIONS: Unleashing Your Inner COACH, to let fathers and father figures know they are thermostats that set the temperature not thermometers that measure it. Their mission is to cultivate stronger connections with their children, so these same children grow up to become great nurturers, great learners, great workers and great leaders that lead independently fearless and empowered lives.
But as I endeavor to heed my own parents’ spoken and unspoken lessons on how to lead an independently fearless and empowered life, I also recognize that we fathers and father figures should not have to cultivate our father-child relationships in isolation. I firmly believe fathering males relating well with their own children represents a wonderful opportunity for them to join forces and extend their service to the other children in their communities. By “huddling up” on a regular basis, they can draw up plays that can be executed to improve outcomes for all God’s children.
As many of you know, I’m traveling to Atlanta in late July to attend Black Writers Weekend. While there, I will participate in the annual pitch fest.
I’m going all in, y’all, pitching my unproduced screenplay RECONSTRUCTION: Power Cell. Because the screenplay’s plot speaks to the times we’re living in, I hope the attending film studio representatives view the story as a revolutionary statement to the powers that be. I also hope my Black American and Black African contemporaries view my Black characters pursuit and display of Black excellence as the playbook for reconstructing Black labor today for the jobs of tomorrow.
But enough about me.
Let’s get back to Alice, give her the flowers she so rightly deserves.
I encourage you to visit her sites – Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, Apple Podcasts, Facebook and LinkedIn.
She’s the real deal, y’all, manning a Read This empire that I hope will one day be uttered in the same breath as Oprah’s Book Club and Troy Johnson’s African-American Literature Book Club (AALBC).
Thank you, Alice, for affording me this opportunity to think out loud.
More significantly, thank you for being such a gracious host.
JUNIOR ACHIEVER: A Novel by J. A. Faulkerson (Excerpt)
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I am feverishly working on my new novel “Junior Achiever”, but as I write, I, at times, like sharing a little something-something with my fans. What follows is nothing but a taste. Just know, I’m endeavoring to allow Junior Blevins, my main character, to share the steps he took to build his own platform for success.
To PEEP & PURCHASE some of my older titles, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.
Silence as Roma took a few more bites from her sandwich. As she chewed, I almost felt compelled to say something about the fact that she did not offer to fix me one. In that moment, my heart was just too heavy.
I peered over at Roma as she continued to consume her sandwich. I noted her dress – black, loose-fitting shorts and a matching sports bra. She had just gotten home from swim practice at the high school. I found it difficult averting my gaze, as my eyes lingered over her moderately pimpled face and toned body. Her head rose and she stared back at me, her toothy smile a clear indication that she knew I had been sneaking glances at her.
“Your little brother gonna be mad at you,” she exclaimed with a chuckle. “He done claimed me as his girl, you know?”
“Are you?”
“Should I be?” she quipped back.
Her quick comeback caused me to rock back and forth in the recliner with laughter.
“Answer the question, negro,” Roma said. “Should I be your brother’s girl, or should I be… yours?”
I got up and joined her in the kitchen, standing at the head of the island directly across from her. My hands were inserted into my sweatpants pockets. I desperately wanted to give her a straight answer, but in that moment, I was at a loss for words. I wondered how a relationship with her would work with Damian and I being taken into her parents’ home for respite, all to prevent us from coming into foster care.
“What would your parents say?” I asked. “Seeing us holding hands, kissing even?”
“They wouldn’t know,” she replied, walking along the left side of the island to draw near to me. “It would be our little secret.”
She now stood in front of me, her interlocked hands resting on the island countertop. I peered longingly into her brown eyes, getting lost in them as she stared back at me.
I took a momentary glimpse at her pouty lips as my right hand reached over to cover her interlocked ones. I then leaned in and pecked her on those same pouty lips. When I drew back slightly, the expression on her caramel-colored face told me that she wanted a little more than what I was giving.
That’s when she took matters into her own hands. She grabbed the back of my neck with her right hand and pulled my mouth to hers. When her tongue parted my lips and started swirling around in my mouth, I didn’t know what to do at first. But then I followed her lead. The swirling motion of my tongue started to match the swirling motion of hers. But right as our French kissing intensified, the door leading to the garage swung open.
I turned to my right, Roma to her left.
There stood Damian in the open doorway – with Charley looming large behind him, his mouth agape – with an angry scowl on his dark face.
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“My parents would have a fit if they had seen you locking lips with Roma,” Charley exclaimed moment later as we stood on the back patio. “And you saw your brother’s reaction. He up in his room, probably ballin’ his eyes out. This ain’t gonna age well, dude.”
I couldn’t shake the truthfulness of Charley’s words, but I also couldn’t shake my attraction to Roma, especially after discovering that these feelings were mutual. But my heart ached for Damian. While Roma considered his attraction to her as puppy love, 11-year-old Damian had real emotions for her. Hell, Roma represented everything that was going well in his little world, his head really.
“So, you’re saying I should back off, just ignore how I feel about her, how she feels about me. Is that it?”
“Yeah, man. At least until Mr. Malcolm finds a new placement for your brother, you. My parents find out, they gonna be sleeping with one eye open, the other eye closed. Shit, now that I know, I’m gonna be doing that my own damn self.”
“Why? This has nothing to do with you.”
Charley squared his shoulders with mine and proceeded to emphasize his statements with finger jabs at my face. “Look, little nigga’, this has everything to do with me. That’s why it has to stop now, ‘cause if I find out you knocking boots with my sister, I’m gonna break you in half.”
Charley glared at me under a furrowed brow. That’s how I knew he was serious. I met his glare, then sheepishly looked away.
He was right. Our placement in his parents’ loving home was more important than my personal desires, which is another way of specifically saying my raging hormones. But I also knew Charley didn’t want me being the reason Roma did not fulfill her fullest potential. Like I said before, Roma was an over-achiever. Even as a high schooler, she knew where she was going and what she wanted to do. I didn’t have a clue.
With that, Charley left me standing alone with my arms crossed on the back patio. I sank into the corner of the back patio railing, the wooden plank pressing into my lower back and buttocks. I faced the house, so when I looked up at Roma’s third floor bedroom window, I immediately spotted her looking down at me. She pursed her lips to blow me a kiss. I dared not blow one back, out of fear Charley would see me doing it. Therefore, I shook my head somewhat vigorously and turned my back to her. This girl, two grade levels ahead of me, was in hot pursuit of love, and I was that day’s designated prey.
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Copyright 2024 Jeffery A. Faulkerson. All rights reserved.
Slaps and Kisses: Black Voters Beware
Last week, I watched as 12 jurors in Donald J. Trump’s election fraud trial convicted him on all 34 counts. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for United States president, is now a convicted felon. But to hear him tell it, this historic trial was nothing more than a blip on the screen.
His now being a convicted felon is significant, though.
Monumental really.
It is something that has never been seen before, at least in these United States of America.
The last person who was under this type of scrutiny was former president Richard Nixon, who submitted his resignation from the post before his term ended. Nixon was ultimately pardoned by his predecessor, Gerald Ford.
But what does it say about us, the Republican Party really, when you allow a man who is also facing legal jeopardy in Georgia and Florida, to even be allowed to take a third shot at the presidency, at being the Leader of the Free World?
What does it say about us when participants in the Fake Electors Scheme (in support of Donald J. Trump’s Stop the Steal Campaign) are being indicted in states like Wisconsin and Nevada?
What does it say about us when the insurrectionists who stormed the U. S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 are serving jail sentences while the person who lit the fuse, Donald J. Trump, is taking a third shot at the presidency, at becoming the Leader of the Free World?
It says more of us need to see the writing on the wall. Donald J. Trump and his conservative Republican acolytes are trying to play the U. S. electorate for fools, make us suspend belief in what our ears are hearing, our eyes are seeing.
Trump and his conservative Republican acolytes are quick to say that we Black people should more closely identify with Trump because U. S. jurisprudence has never been on our side. Disproportionately, Black Americans have been incarcerated at higher rates than any other racial/ethnic group.
Last I checked, though, Donald J. Trump isn’t Black, he’s white. As a white man, he is the beneficiary of unmerited privilege, while Black people have been browbeaten by past slavery, ongoing oppression and micro-aggressions since our Black African ancestors arrived in captivity on that Virginia shore in 1619.
So, why is he equating his real crimes with the plights of Black Americans and Black American criminal defendants?
Because the self-proclaimed emperor is now wearing no clothes.
In short, his fraudulent behavior is now on full display, and he’s afraid.
He seemingly wants us Black people to use our votes on November 5, 2024 to save him from being convicted and incarcerated. This desire seemingly is at the forefront of his mind, even though he and his conservative Republican acolytes were the proponents of campaigns that successfully terminated Affirmative Action, eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and banned books written by Black American writers from public schools and libraries. Ultimately, Donald J. Trump and conservative Republicans are undeniably endeavoring to dictate what we Black Americans can and cannot say about white supremacy, racism, prejudice and discrimination.
If you’re Black, this is all you need to know. Donald J. Trump does not have, and has never had, our best interests at heart. This is nothing more than another one of his con jobs. Consequently, any Black person voting for him on November 5, 2024 should have their Black Card revoked.
A person should never be rewarded with a kiss on the cheek when they’re violently and repeatedly slapping you across the face.
Donald J. Trump knows winning the presidency will give him the power to make his federal charges go away. However, he will still have to answer for his state-level crimes in Georgia, where he tried to pressure state officials to find one more vote than he needed to receive the state’s Electoral College votes.
Again, we Black Americans have been about the business of saving the nation’s soul since our Black African ancestors’ 1619 arrival. We, more than any other racial/ethnic group, want the USA to live up to its creed, that all men and women are created equal, that we have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A historical analysis reveals that we have fought back against our enslavement and oppression both violently and nonviolently. At the end of the day, the unconditional love and neighborly compassion in our hearts allows us to remain nonviolently resolute in our quest to work with like-minded individuals to create a more perfect union.
On November 5, 2024, let’s use our voting power to excise the cancer that is Donald J. Trump and irresponsible, conservative Republican leaders from our body politic.
Democracy and the Rule of Law must prevail.
No human being is above man’s law…or God’s law.
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J. A.’s Full “The Forced Pivot” Interview with Host Antoine Medley
Below, please find the link to my full audio interview with Brother Antoine Medley, Host, The Forced Pivot podcast. Afterwards, share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Stay blessed, and continue being blessings.
It’s Not About Him, It’s About Us
Lately, I have been growing increasingly frustrated with Stephen A. Smith and his attempts to draw equivalences between the criminal prosecutions of Donald Trump and Black American men. Smith seems to think we Black American men have a propensity for committing crimes, and as a result, we Black American men should be more inclined to identify with Trump’s legal travails. Smith even thinks this perceived affinity should motivate us Black American men to vote for Trump in the upcoming presidential election. But let’s be clear: Donald Trump isn’t being victimized by the American criminal justice system. He spent four years as US President thumbing his nose at American jurisprudence while allegedly going out of his way to break its laws.
Smith wants us to ignore the fact that Donald Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Trump’s inherited privilege is what causes him to falsely believe he is entitled to preferential treatment, even after he allegedly 1) paid off a porn star to prevent her from talking about their sexual affair, 2) stole and then stored classified and top secret government documents at his Florida resort and 3) asked Georgia election officials, all fellow Republicans, to find the exact number of votes he needed to steal the presidential election from the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, Joe Biden. And let’s not forget he lit the fuse that turned his MAGA supporters into insurrectionists on January 6, 2021.
Stephen A. Smith seemingly wants us Black American men to forget that the unenlightened (or Un-Woke) segment of White America has been trying to make us Black American men the face of criminality since the general Black American population stopped working for free after then-President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1864.
It seems obvious that Smith is unfazed in making this equivalence because of who he associates with. He has been known to break bread with the likes of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who reportedly is one of Donald Trump’s closest friends. Because of his association with Jones, it’s safe to say Smith has probably broken bread with the former president as well, and has undoubtedly completed 18 holes of golf with him at his Florida resort. So, it’s not much of a leap to surmise that Smith has probably been asked to use his platform to do Trump’s bidding.
Smith has built a reputation for being one of ESPN’s most brash and opinionated sportscasters. Who doesn’t enjoy watching episodes of ESPN’s First Take, where Smith’s topics of conversation center around sports, not racial politics? But Smith’s comments on race are inflated with ignorance and insensitivity, for it shows he is possibly working with the Trump Reelection Team to get more of us Black American men to vote for Trump in November.
My Black American brothers, it’s not about him (Donald Trump), it’s about us, our ability to remain the default leaders of the movement to inject unconditional love and neighborly compassion into the hearts and minds of the living. It is our Black ancestors’ exercise of these superpowers before, during and after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ‘60s that have allowed us, their contemporaries, to develop and display reconciliatory excellence in the present age.
Donald Trump is not deserving of our time, attention or votes. Unlike us, he is not committed to creating a more perfect union.
Affirmative action as we knew it was eliminated by a conservative Supreme Court that Trump’s Republican Senatorial minions corruptly seated by first preventing the first Black American president, Democrat Barack Obama, from making more progressive appointments.
He denounces and supports the elimination of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs.
He equates Black history with Critical Race Theory.
And he supports the banning of books written by Black authors.
As men, we are called to stand in the gap for our women and children. As Black American men, we are called to stand with our closest constituents – our Black American women and Black American children – while pressuring the country’s duly elected leaders, both Democratic and Republican, to do right by all its people, not just a select few.
Stephen A. Smith seemingly wants us to deviate from this purpose, even as he enjoys the perks of being associated with the wealthy, influential and powerful. What I hope he realizes, though, is the conquering oppressors that he chooses to associate with have no desire to develop authentic relationships with us, their more compassionate neighbors.
While our Black ancestors established the longstanding tradition of demanding that this country live up to its ideals- that all men (and women) are created equal, and have been endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – the fact still remains that it has not. And when Black celebrities like Stephen A. Smith float false equivalencies to get a criminally indicted former president re-elected, it confuses matters. We Black Americans are wired to be compassionate and neighborly because lashing out violently only makes things worse for everybody. We must get in each others faces and share truthful and heartfelt stories that speak to where we were, where we are, and how much further we have to go as a people and as a nation.
We will know that our nation is starting to become defined by unconditional love and neighborly compassion when more of us are seen hugging it out with people who look different than us but share the belief that our union can be perfected.
Stephen A. Smith would have us Black American men embrace a man who wants us to hate more and love less.
“UNCOMMITTED” | A Poem by J. A. Faulkerson
You say you want to send a message, one that pushes the US president to demand a ceasefire along the Gaza Strip. What you fail to realize is he’s not the one calling the shots, the Israeli president is. And he’s on a mission to reshape the region to benefit Israel alone, not create a two-state solution. Everyone agrees that Israel has a right to defend itself, but Palestinian citizens aren’t enemies, they’re neighbors. Stop targeting their homes, schools and hospitals. Target hearts, minds, souls on both sides of the ideological divide. Righteous words and deeds signify that persons have compassion for all in their hearts.
“RETREAT OF THE CONQUERING OPPRESSOR” | A Poem by J. A. Faulkerson
To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.
You came.
You saw.
You conquered.
You oppressed.
But now you’re reeling, from the impactful but nonviolent haymakers thrown in the 50s and 60s by Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mamie Till-Bradley, John F. Kennedy,, Nina Simone, Malcolm X, Ruby Bridges, Lyndon B. Johnson and others.
You, Conquering Oppressor, are trying to hide your depraved state of mind…
….body…
…and soul…
…by telling anyone who will listen that your actions were, and continue to be, permissible because of our skin color, our allegedly being members of a subordinate and inferior caste.
But all you’re doing now is hiding your crimes, the atrocities you committed, and continue to commit, against other human beings.
You know full well these crimes were, and are being, committed in the light of day to advance your priorities, enrich yourself and individuals that look like you, the ones who wear their whiteness like a badge of honor.
We see you.
Or better said, we see right through you, a soul devoid of compassion, an unwillingness to embrace us, your more compassionate neighbors.
Do you ask yourself why we, your compassionate neighbors, remain compassionate, neighborly?
Why we default to nonviolence when it is within our right to violently lash out at you?
I’ll tell you why.
We love you.
As siblings bound together by the blood of the risen Messiah, Jesus Christ.
And because our Lord and Savior is both merciful and transformative, we believe you have the capacity to change for the better.
Better means you, Conquering Oppressor, will come to recognize that your unrighteous acts are driven by hatred, buoyed by a superiority complex.
Better means you, Conquering Oppressor, cannot go it alone, that creating a more perfect union is an all-hands-on-deck proposition.
Better means you, Conquering Oppressor, must develop the capacity to love again, to be faithful to our God, kind to your neighbors.
We see that you’re repulsed by what we’re saying.
We see that you want to retreat to the silo that prevents you from hearing the wise counsel of the compassionate and the neighborly.
But actions speak louder than words.
That’s why we stand before you now, arms spread wide, waiting for you to step forward into our hearty embrace.
We see those tears, a testament to your newfound compassion wanting to see the light of day.
Take that first step, toward us, your compassionate neighbors.
Accept this kiss to your cheek as I accept the one you’re applying to mine.
Redemption feels good, doesn’t it?
Welcome to God’s More Perfect Union.
Copyright 2024 by Jeffery A. Faulkerson. All rights reserved.
To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.
“CHECKMATE” | A Poem by J. A. Faulkerson
To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.
THE TIMES THAT WE LIVE IN
Require moments of reflection
Temporary pause to consider
Historical inflections
We weren’t born
To be enslaved by the naysayer, the other
We all were made in His image
To be sister, brother
THE TIMES THAT WE LIVE IN
Cause us to doubt our place
Wanting to be citizens of this country
Not members of a specific race
Don’t get me wrong
Beautiful is the color black
But when they confine us to a color
They’re suggesting we lack
THE TIMES THAT WE LIVE IN
No reason to spat
Kindness, civility
A tip of the hat
Compassion and love
Should be the basis of our interactions
Making additions to the family
Not senseless subtractions
THE TIMES THAT WE LIVE IN
A call to make it right
Neighbor helping neighbor
Overcoming our collective plight
Don’t allow the naysayers
To call Black History CRT
Unite with enlightened others
Demand racial amnesty
THE TIMES THAT WE LIVE IN
A perpetual game of chess they play
Enough of this nonsense
It’s not the bed I wish to lay
By working together,
More can be great
Proclaim to the naysayers,
“Checkmate!”
Copyright 2024, Jeffery A. Faulkerson. All rights reserved.
To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.
“March of the Compassionate Neighbor” | A Poem by J. A. Faulkerson
To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.
Compassionate.
Neighborly.
Two words with different meanings but working toward the same goal.
The Literati say they are adjectives that modify nouns. I say they become active verbs when they are embodied in a person, in a people.
There have been protests, there have been marches. The one I think about most is the 1964 March on Washington, where the keynote speaker was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, King, Jr.
This march produced results, specifically passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
But then there was the one in 1965, at Selma’s Edmund Pettis Bridge, where then Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Chairman John Lewis and other black residents were beaten with sticks wielded by white police officers.
Bloody Sunday, they call it.
Black bodies bloodied by white lawmen, white lawmakers, for wanting to participate in the franchise – local, state and federal elections.
These are the marches I think about, the ones that resonate with me the most.
No, I wasn’t there. I arrived in 1968, 16 days before an assassin’s bullet ended Dr. King’s life.
Nor was I there in October 1995, when Louis Farrakan invited Black American men and their non-black allies to something called the Million Man March.
I may have not been present that day, a small speck among the sea of black men, but my spirit was. Watching this event play out on TV, I prayed that the nation would look past Farrakan’s fiery rhetoric to hear his admonishment to black men.
Black men, you must do more to stand in the gap for your black women, your black children, your American nation.
These marches had goals, righteous ones.
But then January 6, 2021, happened.
The Stop the Steal Rally.
An event organized by supporters of a former United States president.
The individuals who came to Washington that day weren’t compassionate or neighborly.
If anything, these insurrectionists were livid, driven by hatred for their fellow man, their fellow compatriots, all because their candidate had lost his bid to serve a second term as the United States president.
The question that we, members of the US electorate, must ask ourselves is what hope did these insurrectionists have in reclaiming something that had not been stolen?
Why didn’t they just stay home, accept the loss like so many others have done, support the peaceful transfer of presidential power?
That’s what the citizens of democracies are expected to do when voters duly elect a new leader to office.
But that begs another question.
How are we supposed to act in times such as these?
Times when absolute truths, facts really, are ignored, disregarded.
Times when news of candidates’ criminality, indiscretions, don’t disqualify them from running for political office but instead allow them to lead by double digits in their party’s statewide primary elections.
Times when marches led by the descendants of enslaved Africans are wrongly contrasted with one that served the purpose of one person, the defeated former president.
The Christian Bible admonishes us to do unto others as we would have others do unto us.
These united states of America can be great, but they can never be great again. That’s because they have never been great.
Enshrined in the United States Constitution is the pledge to create a more perfect union.
Why?
Because our Native Americans ancestors had their land stolen from them.
Because our Black American ancestors were enslaved and oppressed.
Because our Asian American ancestors were relegated to concentration camps on US soil during World War II.
Nothing great about denying people’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The fact is, I’m not better than you, and you’re not better than me.
We’re equals.
Equals that become better individuals, better unions, when we acknowledge the gifting that has been bestowed upon the other.
But we don’t stop there.
We also go out of our way to embrace and comfort others when the weight of the world weighs them down.
I am your Compassionate Neighbor, the guy who lives with his family next door.
Love me.
Work with me.
Pray with me.
March with me.
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Copyright 2024, Jeffery A. Faulkerson. All rights reserved.
To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.