Personal thoughts of Branden G. Mattox, Director of the Love Under Fire Campaign on matters of Marriage Equality, relationships, love, marriage, family and romance. The Love Under Fire Campaign is a grassroots movement to advance the matter of and ultimately win Marriage Equality in Georgia by uniting everyone under the banner of love.
Wedding Address for Jazzie and Sonny Jones-Smith, by Branden G. Mattox. Stockbridge, GA, August 22nd 2014.
When two lives become one, the wedding is its official first birthday, which we hope will have as many birthdays as GOD will allow you.
The love may have been conceived a long time ago, but today we are here to celebrate the merged life, the first fruits of that love. Anything conceived out of love is holy.
In a world where we are constantly inundated with news and images of war, poverty, sickness, civil unrest, the bickering of partisan politics and bigotry, it is both refreshing and inspirational to be reminded that love still lives in the land.
It will continue to live on and bless people’s lives no matter who says otherwise because LOVE is the will of GOD, for GOD is LOVE.
Somebody told a lie one day, which said the romantic love of a woman for another woman, or a man for a man is not real, that it is wrong, ugly, disgusting and perverted, because it had nothing to do with a man’s dominion over woman, because supposedly the world revolves around a man and his dominion over women.
With this event, we are demonstrating that the world revolves around love. That the love we hold for the special persons in our lives is indeed real. Because the love is real, it cannot help but be right. It is beautiful. It is holy and has real meaning and purpose in society today, which have taken marriage vows for granted with sky-rocketing divorce trends. Oh, if their love only had to fight for the right to be, perhaps they might not leave their vows by the wayside, a trivial novelty to be thrown away once the thrill is gone.
Though, here we are in the midst of: Disrespect, Dishonor, Discrimination, Disregard, Dismissal and sometimes just plain Dissed by those who say they love us. In the midst of it all, we are here with smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts. We are too filled with love to hate back. The more our love is oppressed and repressed, the more defiant it rears it beauty and its strength. That my dear, is Love Under Fire, no less defiant than the love which led Ashech, Meshech and Abednego dancing through the fire unscathed, no less passionate than what led Jesus to the cross, ravaged and scorned to then resurrect himself anew like the Phoenix, no less fierce than any mother or father, husband or wife would protect and defend the honor of those they love.
On this birthday of your merged lives, remember Frederick Douglas was denied the honor and dignity of a birth certificate. Though he was born indeed, to give him one would admit the humanity of a slave. As brilliant as he was, becoming more erudite than the men who had once owned him, he never truly knew his age. Denying him a certificate documenting and acknowledging his life, his existence, was society’s way of telling him from the very beginning that, “You do not matter, you have no rights, your humanity is not real nor the same as that of a white man and you have no value other than that which you can be sold for.”
Today, this special birthday of your merged lives is experiencing a Frederick Douglas style entry into the world. Though, like Frederick Douglas, it will be heard and will be recognized. Like Frederick Douglas, your love will liberate others from the mired depths of traditional hatred, ignorance and fear.
Your love will stand tall as the trees.
Your love will spread wide as the seas.
Your love will be for the whole world to see.
Your love will shine bright in the night like the stars above.
The fire of your love will melt rigid hearts of stone and change people’s wrongs to right.
Your love will soon teach our state of Georgia to redneckognize the moral error of its ways in making itself an enemy of love.
Today, the vindication of your love is already at hand, and so we celebrate that as well.
Love is indeed a spiritual fire which edifies and illuminates and never destroys. May the spark between you two ignite to blaze an inferno capable of engulfing the whole world. Amen!
Life is not about throwing yourself away. See, that's the kind of stuff we do with trash.
If you honor GOD, then nothing created by GOD and infused with the blood of GOD's spirit, which is the energy of life itself can ever be considered trash. Life is the highest capital there is in the world, more valuable than all the diamonds, gold and ores of oil than can ever be produced. And here you are vibrating with the stuff. In fact, you are the stuff and not its packaging, even though you may be beautifully packaged.
What we are then to do is to give that stuff away with gleeful abandon and with the highest quality we can offer. You can not do that if you consider yourself trash to be thrown away. And who wants trash anyway? Give your time, your most precious asset, for it can never be regained. Give your listening, nonjudgmental ear, and be that presence of awareness for someone needing to be acknowledged. We all have this need. With every breath, tone, and look, communicate, "I see you. I hear you. I understand you and you matter because you are here in matter." Give away your creativity. If you sing, are a musician, a poet, an orator, a writer, a painter, a teacher, a sculptor, an actor, a dancer, a comedian, or a cook, use your unique talents and passions to serve and build people up with as much value as you can put into it. This is both an expression of love and an expression of who you are and how you feel about yourself. If you have passion for what you do, you will do this with Platinum quality and be recognized that you were here on the face of the earth. Lastly, and most importantly, give away your love. Show appreciation for people. Commit random acts of kindness. Hug people. Affirm people. Help people however you can. It is not your duty to save the world or fix anybody or their broken lives. But, you can be that person who showed them some love. What they decide to do with that is between them and GOD.
Even when you give your best self away, you will find yourself with critics. These are like those who complain about free samples at the grocery store. If they don't like it then they shouldn't purchase it. But, they'll exaggerate the importance of their opinion and expect it to matter to you. Meanwhile, your free sample has been the only meal for that hungry person. If your best does not serve someone, it is simply not for them, but it is just what the doctor ordered for someone else. Jesus says, "Cast not your pearls before swine, nor give what is holy to dogs or they will turn on you and tear you to pieces." -Matthew 7:6. This is not to call your critics pigs or dogs. Simply, pearls mean absolutely nothing to pigs, they have no need for them, and dogs have absolutely no appreciation for things which are holy. They eat their own dung. When you understand that your best is not for them, you can relieve yourself of the duty of needing to be all things to all people and then there is no need to get your feelings hurt or hurt theirs. May they find who is serving slop and bones and relieve you of the duty, if slop and bones is not in you to give. We all know when we have given our best and when have not, if we are honest and truthful with ourselves. So just commit to giving your best, and then nothing else will matter.
When we commit to giving our best selves away, we find that nothing else in life matters. You will find happiness, because you are giving away what is in your heart. Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas, "If you produce what is in you, what you have will save you. If you do not have what is in you, what you do not have will kill you." -Gospel of Thomas, Saying 70.
You will find meaning because you will find those who desperately need what is in your heart, and no one else can do it quite like you do it.
"But what about me? I have needs too. If I do not feed myself, house myself, clothe myself, who's gonna? And what will I have to give to anyone else?" When you give your best selves away, you will find all of your needs met and more.
When you give your best selves away, you increase your value in the market place, and thus may command a larger salary or get that promotion. You are only one person, so there is only but so much of what you are able to give and for a limited time while you are alive. You could not satisfy the whole world with your giving, even if you wanted to. Your life and your existence is a once-in-a-lifetime event, therefore when you give your best self away, the law of supply and demand will always be in your favor bringing you all the wealth you are needing. With increased wealth, you'll be able to give even more. Limited supply+increased demand=increased value. When you have faith in this, you can let go of the concern of serving yourself and only be concerned with giving.
Do not be afraid of money changing you. Money only makes you more of what you already are. With money, pure spirits become philanthropists and humanitarians. With money, selfish, egotistical spirits become capitalists who exploit and use the people more than they serve them to increase their own glory and namesake. There is nothing wrong with money. Money can be either a blessing or a demon. It is how it is used, and that depends on the user. Poverty actually steals and inhibits your gift by reducing you to the desperation of meeting your basic needs, making you selfish as a means of survival. For this reason, you can not give so long as you possess a poverty mindset, and a poverty mindset can only bring you more poverty. A person's highest happiness is in giving to those they love and expressing their truest identity. This happiness is often stolen by the spirit and psychosis of poverty, which is rooted in fear and a belief in the lie of lack and scarcity. People who have money work for them harder than they work for it, so that they can have more to give and the means to express themselves, are those who are masters of money. Those who slave themselves for money, enslave others and then hord it when they get it, are mastered by money and they will never find true happiness. In this present society, it is impossible to escape a relationship with money, therefore right now, you are a master of money or money is your master. There is no in between. This is how Jesus could say, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." -Matthew 6:24. True Masters of Money, are not mastered by it, they use it. They could lose it all and gain it right back because they understand how it works, and their lack of fear about money is what allows them to do this and take calculated risks which cowers many. As with many things in life, huge risks carry with them huge rewards. Jesus advises to place even your very lives at risk for the greater good, so what terror is there over loss money? "For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it; but if you lose your life for me and for the gospel, you will save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"-Mark 8:35-36
Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." -Matthew 6:25:34.
When you give your best self away, you unlock all the benefits of the Law of Attraction to ensure that you are not lacking in anything or desiring anything which is not available to you. You may then go on and live out your dreams. Jesus says, "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” -Luke 6:38. When you give your best self away, you will attract those who are wanting to give their best selves away to you. When you resolve to give your best self away, it will be an honor for others to give their best selves dedicated to you in return for what you have meant to them. You will then have more than enough you will know what to do with other than continuing to give it away, which then returns more to you. You will then become a portal of abundance in the world, on the receiving end, and on the bestowing end. When you give your best self away, you will find that true happiness lies never in the getting, but in the act of giving and expressing who you truly are, and your lives will then be wealthy and abundant in all respects. This is GOD's will for you, never that you should be poor. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." With the proper spirit and attitude, there is nothing you could ask of GOD, that GOD can not and will not give to you at the proper time, if you ask in faith and wait in patience, while working in preparation to receive. No, GOD will not give you that Corvette when you are 8 at the time of asking. You will have to wait until you are old enough to operate it and wise enough to keep it. In the meantime, that 8 year old is going to have to learn how to make some money to purchase it and save his money. He is going to have take his driving lessons seriously and pass them. He will do all these things if he has faith that what he has requested is on its way. Then, by age 16 he has saved $5000, not enough to purchase a Corvette. His heart is then pulled to give the money instead to a charity for childhood diabetes amputees to get prosthetic legs. He altogether forgets about the Corvette and falls in love with seeing others regain their mobility. GOD has not forgotten, and on his 18th birthday, a philanthropist touched by the service of this young man rewards him with a Corvette, he asked for 10 years ago. The philanthropist contacted his parents and was let in on that this Corvette had been on his Christmas wish list every year since he was 8. This is how it works. There are many true life stories paralleled to this one.
If anyone tries to tell you that you are not to enjoy your life, do not listen to them. If you are not enjoying what you are giving, then please stop! If there is no joy in what you are giving, than it will be of low quality and you will be helping no one. In fact, you will be punishing yourself and others for no good cause. Again, stop it, please!
Today, search for what brings you to life, excites your imagination and wholly absorbs your attention into the present moment and then give it away. Give it away with honor, with respect and with quality, and let no one pass judgment over it because it may not be what is in their hearts to give or not what they are needing. Tell them to mind their business. If they did, they would have no time to be concerned about someone else giving something they are not even interested in. If they can not help you, then don't hinder you. No really, mind their own business, as in pay attention to what GOD has given them to give away and leave you alone. You can render to GOD and humanity, and yourself, no greater service, no higher form of worship, than to offer your best self. No one can show you what this is, but you. Your feelings will confirm it for you. Like love, you'll just know when it shows up. ;-)
