The Red Lady

This has been one of my favorite works done for the greeting cards. I don't know why I like her so much. Perhaps her sassyness and boldness reminds me of my sheer determination to be here and stand no matter what anybody has to say.

Contact childrenswriter100@gmail.com to purchase.

Yoda, not her real name

On 9/14/09 I met Yoda. Her real name will be kept anonymous because she wants it that way. Yes, Yoda, like in Star Wars. I was sitting in Panera Bread and she came in with her stuff, just like me and plopped it down on a table in front of me. She was like we are when we come into a different space; looking around, fiddling, trying to get her spirit to come into the place with her body.

Finally she settled down and got her lunch, covered it and oddly enough brought out paperwork, pencil cases, highlighters and got to work…Who was this person? Someone like me, her manner, not her look – protecting herself, careful, watchful. I smiled at her and she smiled back – especially after I noticed two senior citizen Caucasian women starring at her set up. I don’t know what it was about, but they weren’t being friendly. Was it her long graying dreadlocks?

After quite some time I went and got lunch. As I sat down, pushed my laptop away and concentrated on my lunch, Yoda said, “What are you studying over there?” All of a sudden, out-of-the-blue, without a please ma’am or thank you, with no hello (as a Nigerian would say). Used to the blunt manner of Americans and without missing a beat, I answered “I’m a writer”.
And that was the beginning of our intense, amazing, magical, conversation. I got a lot from her and it tickles me what she said she got from me and how she kept pulling out paper to write it down.
· That’s what you need to blog, she would say – a stranger at a party giving me $100; strangers who were pastor and his wife, letting me live with them in Georgia; Gloria feeding and taking care of me and then taking me to Virginia Beach;
· You need to blog! And I know I do. Some guy she read about, sad about his high powered job, quit and started writing and then started blogging, only his mother and wife as readers, but eventually had 7,000 followers. I told her about Stanice Anderson who wrote e-mails to people for 2 years and Walk Worthy gave her a contract to turn that into a book.
· God wants me not to look down on anyone. Everyone is loved by Him, whether they are New Age or Buddhist or anything else. And God talks to everyone.
· Why don’t we like our names? Why do we have so many problems with these given names from parents or husbands? She wants to be called Yoda. My issue is I don’t know what I should be known as.
· People are acting like her and I and many of my friends and opting out of the ‘normal’ 9-5 work, for a salary the regular way, for pension and health insurance. Someone has studied this and put it together in a Harvard University course about living your life thriving, letting go. What these courses miss is the spirit, the Holy Spirit, the supernatural, the magic… that which cannot be explained. Her and I began to talk and complained about the coldness of the air in the restaurant. As we talked it got warmer. When it was time to go, the cold air blew in again. This, cannot be taught in college. This is the supernatural that can only come from the Father.
· Yoda found a wonderful place in busy New York called Zen, run by a woman who charges $50. Can you believe it? And all she asks is that you leave her property nice and she has plenty of rules so you know what she’s talking about.
· Yoda also found communes of the kind I was thinking would be good for me. She said you write to them and tell them what you can do to contribute to the commune and you need to live there for 3 months or whatever. That’s what I was thinking about and as I was telling her that, I realized and said, that God really wanted me to go through this time without relying on anyone but Him. He would put me in the home he had ordained and it would be obvious and other doors would be closed except the ‘door’ to the place He wanted me.

We talked about stepping out on faith and what was the reason that so many of us are doing that and that many of us are over 45, and could be thinking retirement plans. I talked about being in my third widow’s home, (like Elijah, 1Kings 7:7-16) after stepping out in faith from my job in March 2008. Yoda laughed, looking under the restaurant table, "Are you walking on the ground or on air? You really are walking by faith.”

The importance of the walk I’m on, is to see that I’m not writing to bring people to me so that I can make money, I am writing because God asked me to do it, so that I could show people, Him.

It’s not about me. It’s about Him.

Yoda asked what is happening that we are all choosing this way. I said I thought it was because things are coming to an end. That was disingenuous. I know very well that things are coming to an end. Time is drawing to a close. The Bible has shown us and we can see it. I said things are getting wrapped up and cleaned up. So we have to shed all weights and things that encumber us.

Dad's Life and Times

Well, here I am with another blog. It came about quite by chance really. I wouldn't say accident, but it seems My Father in Heaven wants it. Art & the Beauty of Life. The other two blogs I have princessayo.blogspot.com and tundethelittlenigerianprince.blogspot.com are about words the Lord gives me to say and what I'm doing and what's happening with stuff I'm selling and the children's book.

I envision this one being about my artwork and how beautiful life can be. Mmm, let's see how it goes. Should be interesting. I start with this family picture. It's bitter sweet as time marches on. Families cannot stay the same. After 54 years as head of our family Daddy went on to Glory on July 2. It's like the group has broken up. We've been the six Durodolas for so long, but change must come. Even though I know he's happy in his new home, I miss him. Like he told me one day, some years ago, "I can't stay here forever, Carroll".