"I have a deam"

I do not remember the now famous "I have a dream" speech. 

If you know me, you know that my saying I don't remember anything is a stretch.   I don't remember it because the plight of people whose skin was a different color than mine didn't seem to be a  consideration in my upbringing.  My siblings and I were taught to be kind to everyone - that was the "Christian thing to do". 

In the fifty years since that time, however, I have heard remarks from my dad that made me think he was a racist.   In fact I have been known to make disparaging remarks about him, saying that he was both a racist and a sexist only to be reminded by my children that "granddaddy was more a part of his generation than he was anything else" so I've learned to give him some slack rather than be critical of a father that I really loved and admired. 

And when I dig deep and remember the depth of love for others that both of my parents had, not to mention the way they believed in serving God, I know that we were taught that we are  all God's children.  

They even took us to Sunday school where we sang "Jesus loves the little children...red and yellow black and white - they are precious in His sight" and I think we meant it when we said it.

And then I read Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin who artificially darkened his skin to pass as a black man.  And I came to understand that some people, people who would be considered to be "good Christians", didn't really think that song we sang in Sunday school was true. 

When I was a junior in high school (shortly after the Walk on Washington when Martin Luther King, Jr. made his now famous "I have a dream" speech),  I wrote a short story about a the daughter of a plantation owner's friendship with with the daughter of one of the family's slaves. My teacher told me I was "dreaming", that would never happen. 

Was he right?  According to what we know about history - probably.

But that concept has never left my creative spirit - or my sense of God loving us all equally either for that matter.  I wrote another short story about a young white mother who had been widowed who fell in love with the black butler...and my idea was far from original.

The concept? We really are all the same.

Hum.

I remember vividly the first Martin Luther King holiday.  My children were in elementary and middle school.  I came home from work to find them saying repeatedly "I have a dream that some day my little black children will walk hand in hand with white children...".

And has that dream come true? I hope so but sometimes I'm not so sure.  I do know that the suggestion made in a song by Swedish pop group, Abba, makes a lot of sense to me.

"I have a dream, a song to sing  - To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale - You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels - Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels - When I know the time is right for me
I'll cross the stream - I have a dream"

Sometimes dreams come true - but that's another story!

You have to own it

"Each time I write a book", says Maya Angelou, "I think, 'Uh, oh, they're going to find out now.  I've run a game on everybody and they're going to find me out."

I did some research to see exactly how many books Angelou has written and found at least 30.

Guess we haven't discovered anyone running a game when it comes to this renown author, poet, speaker, and who is, according to her website, a Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University (that's big to me; many years ago, a favorite pastime was walking on the campus of Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina).

I think she's a writer - don't you?

How about Sarah Ban Breathnach, the author of one of my favorite books, Simple Abundance, A Daybook of Comfort and Joy.  In the pages of that book I read that after she had written her first book, she had a difficult time referring to herself as the writer of the book.

Breathnach was having a heart to heart with her sister, Maureen, who told her that  it was high time for her to own up to her talent.  Breathnach said that she had found comfort in thinking of herself as a wordsmith, not a "real writer".

My aunt, Beth Weitzel gave me this book many years ago.  I put it on the shelf thinking - I"ll read it one of these days.  Later a copy arrived from my friend, Deborah Fairchild Hansen and I thought "Hum - two people I value have thought I should read this...".  Better check it out.

So I did and it's been a daily encouragement to me - after devotional reading.  And sometimes, just like the words from Scripture help me, so do these words.

Especially this week the words  about owning my talent.

My what? Do I have talent?  I must.  At least others (my mother, my siblings, my children and other family members and now my friends, my peers and my editor) seem to think so and they have encouraged me beyond anything I ever dreamed.

I have written before of a writer's conference experience where I said "She's the writer" when talking about Deb Hansen.  She was a bit irritated with me as she said, "so why are you here?"

"Okay", I said, "I'm a writer".

I started saying it, told my children and grandchildren that when asked what their mother/grandmother does for a living to say "she's a writer", and I paid attention to what I was hearing.

So this is a formal acknowledgement .

I'm going to own it - I am a writer!

It's also a note of appreciation.  I would never try to name the people who have encouraged me in my quest to become a "real writer" but I so appreciate their support.  From  Ray to Rich to Coulter (with a couple 'of 'love interests' in between) and so many of  my family members and friends - especially Tamra, Sandy, Diane, Debbie, Virginia...you have me convinced.

So did the check that came from Beson4 publications :) and the contact pages on HealthSource, Mature Matters and North Florida Doctor - the ones that list the names of contributing writers and where I see the name Paula Huffingham-Suhey!