How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?

Is anyone sick? He should call for the elders of the church and they should pray over him and pour a little oil upon him, calling on the Lord to heal him.  And their prayer, if offered in faith, will heal him, for the Lord will make him well; and if his sickness was caused by some sin, the Lord will forgive him.  Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and wonderful results. James 5:14-16

Having grown up in a household of 10 sisters, I was very much aware that being “the boy” meant being in the minority.  But, over a 20 year evolution as a United States Marine, I learned that being in the minority does not necessarily make me a minority.   I can choose to be equal—an asset and therefore, not a liability.

By Eric Stradford, U. S. Marine Corps, Retired

AMWS, December 29, 2018 - Let me be the first to congratulate the disappointed, downtrodden, distressed and depressed friends-n-kin who have ever anticipated economic benefits from an emotional appeal.  Confession, I’ve heard, is good for the soul. As a matter of faith or fact, healing results when good folks take action.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!   

Yes, it’s true.  Donald Trump is the President of the United States…STILL!  Yes, it’s true.  The federal government shutdown over a boarder wall, or, perhaps beautiful steel slats, a fence, “beaded curtain” or unprecedented shock and awe.   You are no doubt anxious to see what a divided 116^th United States Congress will do to protect and defend the Constitution “from all enemies foreign and domestic.”  

As the elected consider their roles in “forming a more perfect union,” each of us, even me can consider a shared cause for healing.  But, be careful, self-diagnosis could be as harmful as ignoring the problem.

Dissociation is a mental process that causes a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memory and sense of identity.  My particular ailment stems from emotional experiences over a lifetime where the need for healing was, as Langston Hughes put it, a dream deferred.  In my own experience, growing up as “the boy” with testosterone in a predominately estrogen household of emotionally endowed siblings may have shaped lifelong personality traits that were more transactional than transformative.

As you come to pray for my healing, know this.   

Transient and mild dissociative experiences are common. Almost 1/3rd of people say they occasionally feel as though they are watching themselves in a movie, and 4% say they feel that way as much as 1/3rd of the time. The incidence of these experiences is highest in youth and steadily declines after the age of 20.

Transactional leadership and management focuses on supervision, organization, and performance.  In pursuing a healing strategy, we’re cautioned that that folks leaning toward the transactional approach look to keep things the same instead of looking to change the future.

Transformational leaders, like my bride of a quarter of a century, serves to enhance motivation, morale, and job performance of followers through a variety of mechanisms; these include connecting the follower's sense of identity and self to a project and to the collective identity of the organization.  Stephanie believes in being a role model for followers, inspiring them and raising their interest in a particular project.

Over the Christmas holiday, Stephanie and I discovered common ground for our politically bipolar partnership. As a result, we’re redirecting our efforts with new shared goals for a post-Trump America. 

Some influential friends-n-kin have added value to vision on our journey from hurt to healed.  Among them, Bill and C. DeLores Tucker, Grainger and Jo Ann Browning, Spencer and Juliette Bartley, Ofield Dukes and, Arthur Allen Fletcher.

In the seventies, Al Green sampled the Bee Gee’s 1971 release, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.  His journey to healing witnessed a trail of hurt that included an emotionally charged encounter with his girlfriend, Mary Woodson White.

Although she was already married, White wanted Green.  An angry White doused Green with a pot of boiling grits while he was bathing. Police found a note inside White's purse declaring her reasons for causing severe burns on Green's back, stomach, and arms.  They also found the .38 handgun with which she had killed herself.

Stephanie A. Walker Stradford paved her own pathway from hurt to healed during the seventies.  After graduating from the University of Maryland, Stephanie put to test a new minority hiring policy and landed a studio engineering job with the likes of David Brinkley, Willard Scott and others at NBC Washington, DC. 

Republican Arthur A. Fletcher, a former board chair for the United Negro College Fund, celebrated “four quarters” in what he called, “Victorious Living.”  As U.S. Department of Labor Assistant Secretary for Wage and Labor Standards, Fletcher offered unique insights on being African American and unapologetically, Republican. 

When Stephanie and I met Dr. Fletcher, he had discovered the formula for healing a broken heart.  In the sixties, his family had been denied a rental house in Berkeley's white section.  Continuing racial problems, combined with continuing economic pressures, took their toll, and Fletcher's wife, Mary, committed suicide.

In 2005, Arthur Fletcher called on us to plan an event commemorating The 36^th Anniversary of what he called, The Affirmative Action Enforcement Movement.  The event marked his implementation of the Revised Philadelphia Plan, which required federal contractors to meet certain goals for hiring minority employees. 

Fletcher’s presentation on “the glasses’ endowed believers with an inclusive vision of America’s future.   The event was Fletcher’s last public event.  He died later that year at age 80.

After coordinating a star-studded homegoing and Arlington burial for Fletcher, Stephanie and Eric Stradford set out once again on their Learning Journey.

In the New Year, we are reaching out to seven-year-old Americans proposing an economically inclusive vision of their 21^st Century futures.  We’re learning that  six-in-ten Millennials (59%) affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, compared with about half of Gen Xers and Boomers (48% each) and 43% of voters in the Silent Generation.

Many of them see a need for alternative outcomes in both Republican as well as Democratic primaries, but few are ready, willing and able to lean right to make a difference.

In a 2005 study, the Pew Research Center identified nine typological groups. Three groups were identified as part of each, "the left," "the middle," and "the right." In this categorization system, "the right" roughly represents the Republican base, those on "the left" the Democratic base and those in "the middle" independents.

Within the left are the largely secular and anti-war "Liberals", the socially conservative but economically left "Conservative Democrats", and the economically "Disadvantaged Democrats" who favor extended government assistance to the needy.

In "the middle" are the optimistic and upwardly mobile "Upbeats", the discouraged and mistrusting "Disaffected” citizens, and the disenfranchised "Bystanders."

The right comprises the highly pro-business "Enterprisers," the highly religious "Social Conservatives" (also known as the Christian right), and the "Pro-Government Conservatives" who are largely conservative on social issues but support government intervention to better their economic disposition.

 

#SavingOurOwnLives

By Eric Stradford and Stephanie A. Walker Stradford

GENIUS AT WORK

A perspective on the final chorus of #WeAreTheWorld from Quincy Jones' notes. 
 "Love is all we need."

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AMWS July 16, 2018 – “There comes a time when we heed a certain call, when the world must come together as one.”  Now is that time!

#SavingOurOwnLives, an urgent cause for action, sparked an unprecedented demonstration to address a credible threat to a nation’s #EconomicSecurity. 

#WeAreTheWorld demonstrated endless possibilities for people who will stand together as one.  It’s been more than three decades since artists Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie etched this cause into a global call for action. 

A threat to the world’s most vulnerable citizens intensifies with each generation of wealthy folks who simply do not pay attention.  

BREAKING NEWS: Donald J. Trump is openly colluding with his Russian "competitor," despite months of denial by political conspirators.  The alleged action follows the indictment of 12 Russian officers for unlawful activity during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections. Though not necessarily a crime, punishable under U.S. law, collusion is a secret understanding between two or more persons to gain something illegally, to defraud another of his or her rights, or to appear as adversaries though in agreement.

Trump is hardly the first to learn that past acts, words and deeds matter.  "Tear down this wall!" is a line from a speech made by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. 

 

Reagan was reportedly raised in a poor family in small towns of northern Illinois. He graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and worked as a sports announcer on several regional radio stations.  Hollywood acting and trade union attacking perhaps links the mid 1980’s to today’s news on foreign influence in American rights and responsibilities.

No international summit, multi or unilateral trade agreement, broken treaty or meet and greet will make a difference without facing reality.  “The poor can stop being poor if the rich are willing to become even richer at a slower rate.”  The assistant director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Hyman Bookbinder, declared that the long-range costs of adequately implementing programs to fight poverty, ignorance and slums will reach one trillion dollars in the future.

“The future is here,” said Stephanie A. Walker Stradford, CEO for Youth Achievers USA Institute.  We know what to do, but will we? Stradford is calling on fellow organization, civil rights, business, faith, and political leaders in a #BelovedCommunity to #PayAttention. #SavingOurOwnLives underscores the urgency for #WeThePeople to act now to #StandOurGround against enormous threats to our children, families and communities.

Depending on one’s political perspective, Ronald Reagan’s supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated tax rate reductions to spur economic growth, economic deregulation, and reduction in government spending.  Sound familiar?  From a historically disadvantaged perspective, the outcome was “trickle-down” for the middle class and a dream deferred for the poor.

In his first term, Reagan reportedly survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor.  Meanwhile, remnant factions of a #BelovedCommunity drew on indigenous assets to encourage a national offensive against the effects of unfavorable Washington policies.

Walls came down after realizing the need to engage in #SavingOurOwnLives and defeating apartheid by proclaiming #WeAreTheWorld.  Hands Across America was a benefit event and publicity campaign staged on Sunday, May 25, 1986.  It is reported that approximately 6.5 million people held hands in a human chain for fifteen minutes along a path across the contiguous United States.  Several international cities joined the cause and many donated ten dollars to reserve their place in line.  The proceeds were donated to local charities to fight hunger, homelessness and those in poverty.

In 1985, the supergroup United Support of Artists (USA) for Africa, brought to life the proclamation #WeAreTheWorld.  The song was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie with arrangements by John Barnes. Quincy Jones produced it for the album. With sales in excess of 20 million copies, #WeAreTheWorld is one of the fewer than 30 all-time physical singles to have sold at least 10 million copies worldwide. 

On a relative small scale, #WeAreTheWorld demonstrates endless possibilities when people stand together as one.