Toni V. Lee

You know, folk are worshipping so many different versions of God: * The version created using cherry-picked scripture. * A version wearing a red MAGA hat.  * A Christian Nationalists version. * A white supremacist version. * A version who's closed fisted and selfish. * A version who cares more about money than people. * A version painted by Trump's prophets. * A version that's hateful, racist, and bigoted. * The version who approves lawlessness, inequity, and injustice. * The version who approves any and everything.  * The version who winks at sin dependent upon the person doing the sinning. * The version who cares more about politics than His creations. * The one where the body (which will turn to dust) of man is more important than the soul of man. * A version devoid of empathy and kindness. . . . I can choose or craft any version of God that supports my personal agenda, preferences, biases, politics, and any version to use as a whip to ensure my personal comfort and prop...

Can we talk about Israel? Christians are adamant that the US should support Israel because the Bible indicates we should. I have no problem with that. The problem is HOW the pertinent scriptures are being interpreted. * What does it mean to bless Israel? * What does supporting Israel mean or look like? * Do we have to give blind support? * Do we have to "help" make God's promises regarding Israel come to past? * Does supporting Israel mean we must join them in and/or approve of all aggressive or questionable actions? Does God really need help fulfilling His Word regarding Israel? The Bible said Israel was His and He would fight for them. Even with that, He did not give them blind support. Israel was corrected when they refused to obey Him and His precepts/principles. Personally, I bless--ask for God's favor upon--Israel and pray for the peace of Jerusalem. That's biblical instructions. Israel, America, family, friends, anybody operating against the principles and ...

Let's talk about Christopher Columbus... 👩🏾‍🏫 In 1492, there were already millions of folk in the Americas--the indigenous people. 👩🏾‍🏫 Leif Erikson, a Viking, was the first European to sail to North America. He reached Canada 500 years before Columbus ever pointed his ship west, intending to reach Asia. 👩🏾‍🏫 Columbus did not discover America in 1492. In fact he never stepped foot on North American shores.  👩🏾‍🏫 October 12 marks the day Columbus arrived in the Bahamas. He did reach the coasts of what today are Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, as well as explored the Central and South American coasts. 👩🏾‍🏫 What Columbus did in Hispaniola (what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) to the indigenous and friendly Taino people is absolutely abhorrent: he forced them into slavery, punishing them with loss of limb or death if they didn't collect enough gold. The indigenous population was destroyed by his brutality and transmitted European diseases. 👩🏾‍🏫 C...

There's a whole lot going on in churches where folk are professing to be Christians that requires the church's attention.  If they invested quality time sweeping around their own front door, they won't have time to police the choices of folk who are not and never have professed to be Christians.  If there wasn't so much known dirt going on in churches, more folk may turn to the church to find a way out of their life choices. Instead, what they're seeing are church folk doing the same things they're doing--and sometimes worse--while preaching against and excluding them for their choices.  I have never heard anyone say they became a Christian because folk excluded, devastated, or turned their back on them. Just keepin' it real...

Some folk will work against you simply because they can. It satisfies their need to have some measure of control over you no matter how small. Life Lesson:  I can save myself a lot of aggravation (and sometimes dollars) by working AROUND difficult folk instead of trying to work WITH them. The first question I asked myself changed from "How can I get them to cooperate WITH me?" to "How can I accomplish this WITHOUT involving them at all?" Listen, you've got stuff to do and places to go. It's not worth the aggravation, your time, and/or the expense. Find a new path. Just keepin' it real...

Plates covered in cemented beans, spaghetti, dried up gravy, and/or something green you can't quite identify. A cup of soured milk. Glasses containing black hardened residue. The surface covered in a thick dark brown, sticky substance containing trapped baby roaches and flies. A bowl with some kind of nose wrinkling white liquid and a huge cockroach floating on the surface...  Would you willingly sit and eat 🍽 at this table?  We sit and eat at the table to maintain our strength, to get nourishment, for fellowship, to help each other, to build relationships, for comfort, for encouragement, and to maintain the family unit.  But...would you sit and eat at THIS table?  This table is filthy and messy! It's a bacteria breeding ground...a toxic nightmare. 🤮  If you eat at this table, you may very well pick up something that will make you severely ill or even kill you.  Again, would you sit and eat at this table?  I believe the answer to my question is a res...