UNCLUTTERED LIVING meets CLARITY equals PURPOSE!

The Spiritual Preamble
Lyrically Speaking

 


I have been rummaging through my thoughts and I cannot remember which song/lyric did it! When was the first time I listened to a song on the radio or at a friend’s house and thought “Hmm, that sounds like it would make a good sermon?” As long as I can remember, however, I can think back on ‘hearing’ God in secular music.

Okay, wait! I think I might have it. I remember listening to a powerful vocalist from the 70s (I believe it was Loletta Holloway) sing:
“I May Not Be There When You Want Me, Baby!
I May Not Be There When You Call Me, Sugar.
I May Not Be There When You Want Me,
But I’m Right On Time!”

I recall thinking to myself… “Oh, she gon’ get in trouble cuz that’s from the church!” And it took me a minute before I could reconcile church upbringing, soul music and lessons placed in the soul. But that’s odd…It’s called SOUL MUSIC. I do believe that somewhere between Aretha Franklin’s return to the church in 1972 with AMAZING GRACE and the gospel-influenced intro of Natalie Cole’s rousing “This Will Be,” composed by her preacher-husband/producer in 1975, I felt God present in secular music. Even as I travel back in my mind to the first time that my mother took my brothers and me to Carron Baptist Church, as punishment for a week of bad behavior, I remember Sister Delores Waldo singing “A Deep Center Peace.” She took my breath away and I wanted to go back, to that place where God seemed so present and real; tangible and available.

I remember my Momma coming home and catching me ‘shouting’ to Natalie’s PARTY LIGHTS from her 1978 “Natalie…Live!” album. Momma yelled at me because while she may have thought that I was simply dancing around, I am clear, as I was in that very moment, that something God-like was happening as I shouted to that foot-stomping tune and had church all by my li’l 12-year old self.

As I moved into ministry in the early 1990s, I walked into that stage of my life with a strong sense of music that had only heightened while at BET in many capacities—from Music Researcher and Record Label Liaison, later to Producer and Talent Coordinator and ultimately Supervising Producer for Specials & Series. My Pastor in DC, the Bishop Rainey Cheeks, would call me his “pop-culture preacher” because I always thought, and was taught, that you have to make the word come alive and be new for people and sometimes that includes the unconventional. I still recall that my first sermon as a Student Clergy was not only a song title [“It’s Getting Kinda Hectic, But I Got The Power” (by Snap!)], but it included references to Endora from Bewitched, Wonder Woman and Clark Kent. But the congregation got it! As I talked to them about understanding that we are imbued with wonder-working power by the blood of Christ, they laughed, cheered, co-signed and they got it.
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I had begun writing this book in 1997 and stopped. However, I knew, as the new millennium unfolded, that UNCLUTTER was about to come to fruition. I knew because I was starting to hear God in the music again—deeply, passionately, poignantly and real. I remember sitting at my desk and listening to Musiq Soulchild sing …
“Love.
There’s so many things I’ve got to tell you
but I’m afraid I don’t know how,
cuz there’s a possibility that you’ll look at me differently.”

By the 2nd listen, I was in tears, because I was hearing “Lord” in place of each “love.”

I was sure that God was speaking through that song, because it only fortified that saying “GOD IS LOVE AND LOVE IS FOR EVERYONE” that is the benchmark credo of Unity Fellowship Church, where I was now ministering.

And then, Jill Scott came along and sang about “The Way” that you love me and this time, the lyrics just morphed and changed and I was singing the song with the same melody and chorus, but completely different verses. And then I knew. It was time.

God has been talking to me, daily. From birds to Beyonce, from the book of Matthew to the music of Maxwell, I knew that I had to finish this work and get it out to the people, for the people are hungering for a new perspective on God and as Auntie Mame once said “The world is a smorgasbord and most poor suckers are starving to death.” I knew that I could no longer be silent and hold onto this pot of gold that seems to stream through me in music and movies and moments walking down the street. The more that I preach/minister—Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Washington, Baltimore; at churches and on panels—the more that the people get it and seem to find God and understanding brand new.

 


I have written UNCLUTTER, first and foremost, because I had no other choice. I had to be obedient. I had God smacking me upside the head, waking me up at night, talking to me through songs on the radio and just constantly revealing that this word had to be finished. Secondly, I had to write this because I like people and have passed on a word through 15 minute exchanges and 5-hour counseling marathons and people seem to always be willing to go higher, but just didn’t think that this ‘high’ was accessible to or available for them. I hope, through this work, that someone will be willing to dig deeper and go into the dark and unspoken places. Then, maybe they can let this word shine a light within them or even light a fuse, and that light will give them all the fire that they need to clear cobwebs and clean up messes and make the space that is their lives livable.

Hopefully, because music can dig so deeply, you will first be able to relate to these lessons because the title will recall a song that is special or relevant to you. Then, underneath that façade, perhaps you will remember the LYRICS to that song and how much they apply—sometimes bad, sometimes good, all the time true—to YOU! Some of the song titles/lyrics are immediately familiar and known; others may seem completely foreign, because they are. Those are compositions that are being culled from my soul. You will hear them under different guises and in different arenas at another time and space—some recorded, some as poems, some as sermons. But now, we have other matters to which we must tend.
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Section One: DELVE, the first 33 Revelations, speaks to going within and searching, seeking and sorting out those things that you say to yourself about yourself. It’s about removing the junk that you can live without! It’s the truth of who you believe yourself to be and the stuff that pushes your engine along. This section speaks to the real conversations that you have WITH yourself ABOUT yourself. Delving will allow you to tell the truth, the ‘hole’ truth [as in that when leaks out your joy] and nothing but your whole truth, because it is work that you and only you can perform. It will make you go within and purge those things, those voices, those ideas that slow you down and slug you along, making your journey less prosperous and more weighted. And then you will be able to move into…

Section Two: DISCOVER, the next 34, which goes deeper into the truth of Truth and God’s awesomeness to unfold what God really brought you here to do and to be. DISCOVER is about fresh waters and new perspectives and self-realizations. God made you for a reason and that reason wasn’t to be dogged or doubted or dragged along or to simply observe. You have been bought with a purpose and that purpose will reveal itself when you give it room to grow and develop and breathe. The Law of Physics says that “No two things can occupy the same space at the same time,” so in order to make room for the New Thing in God that will become you, you have got to be rid of the old things that you have been telling yourself. And then, its reconstruction time, which leads us to…

Section Three: DESIGN--The final series of 33 lessons is about building yourself up again, with this new information, this new perception of self that will allow you to walk sweetly and with blessed assurance into the magnanimous blessings that God has for you. It would be a diabolical Lord who would bring people onto a planet to simply be poor or unloved or worthless. God Made You and God Don’t Make No Junk. But maybe you have been storing up junk along the way and it’s time to clean house and clear heads of old thoughts and cleanse hearts of old pains and processes and begin to Walk In The Light.

 


Love and Power, Rev. Kev!