The Secret

I'm so completely overwhelmed! So many great things have happened already and I haven't even gotten to Orlando yet! First my nephew Thurman drove me to Terminal 3 in my car and took the car back to the house for me...no cab fare and I was early for my flight! Next I didn't get a seat assigned until Delta started boarding. I wound up with a window seat and nobody next to me! Now as I began to think about that, the Erikah Badu song "Window Seat" started playing in my head.

I had been playing the YouTube video for weeks so that I could learn how to play the song on my Yamaha Motif8 keyboard (and not so I could see Erikah naked like you're probably thinking!) The lyrics had become so profoundly engraved in my subconscious mind. Because of how I've been feeling about my job lately and with all of the stress and drama that my life has gone through recently I can certainly relate to Erikah's plea for a " window seat, don't want nobody next to me I just want a ticket outta town to look around in a safer town..." This was exactly how I felt! (Except for the line "if anybody seen Scotty tell him beam me up..." I did enough of that in the early 90's).

When the plane took off this time I didn't have the usual butterflies and nervous anticipation. I simply bowed my head and said a quick prayer. When I looked up again I realized that the plane was nothing more than an overgrown kite! It glided along the runway for a few minutes and then... whoosh! We were on a big kite 25,000 feet in the air. Thinking of the plane as a kite really helped me overcome whatever fear of flying or altophobia that may have been secretly lingering in my heart. I'm certainly not ready to skydive like my co-worker Shirley but I'm having fun right now with this whole kite concept.

One of the fondest memories I have of the short time I spent being a father to my son U.S. Army Captain Kumalo Bogan is the time I bought a kite and took him to an open grassy area near where we lived in Flushing. I had taken a 1000 foot roll of string from the toy factory where I worked and I remembered that Kumalo was in his stroller crying as I finally got the kite going. Eventually the wind took that kite up so far I used every inch of that 1000 foot string. I could no longer see the kite as it blended into the sky. I am imagining that right now I am on that kite; completely safe in the arms of the wind, high above the clouds at the mercy of the Lord!

Another great thing happened on this flight. I brought Rhonda Byrne's book "The Secret" with me! It had been sitting in the outer pocket of my laptop case, hardly touched since the last time I read up to page 45. I always loved this book and ever since I opened to the first few pages I knew that this was another great holy book taking its rightful place as one of the greatest inspirational books of all time. Clearly this book is correlated to the Holy Bible with its simple believe and receive message. Quoting Matthew 21:22 on page 54 it says "whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." And Mark 11:24 "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that you receive them, and ye shall have them."

The message of "The Secret" seems oversimplified, almost too good to be true at first. But then I consider the simplicity of Salvation which begins with a few earnest words of repentance; acknowledging the need for a Savior and recognizing and confessing (and BELIEVING) that Jesus Christ is that one and only true Savior. I ask myself, how many people overcomplicate this simple plan and nearly miss out on their blessing because it just seems too easy and too good to be true?

Anyway, back to the Secret. As I continued reading and the amazing "kite" gained altitude and as soon as the French-speaking white man stopped complaining because his non-English speaking Black children were not allowed to sit at the emergency window because if an emergency did happen they wouldn't be able to understand the flight attendant's instructions, I began to experience a heightened sense of exhiliration, an almost euphoric state. I know that the altitude and surroundings played a part, but the words in the book were the primary catalyst and they became immediately empowering. I decided right then and there that I was going to take the author's advice and implement positive thinking and unrelenting faith immediately. Realizing that it would take time to convert from discouraged to courageous and from retired to inspired I began to search for a starting point.

I began thinking about the test that I had coming up to remain certified for the X-ray at work. After failing twice, I would need a lot of faith in order to battle the aching sense of failure and the low self-esteem that usually goes with it. But the book expressed little tolerance for weak, wavering faith; the author made it clear that the Secret only works when the believer behaves as though he has already received the thing requested. Clearly Matthew and Mark concur. God knowing that I wasn't ready for such a great leap of faith so soon prepared a little step of faith for me instead.

Here is how it played out, and to me it reveals how great and compassionate God is and how He operates on us on so many levels and peels back so many layers at the same time. When I first took the book out of the laptop case I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a bookmark indicating the last page read previously. But now somehow the bookmark was gone! I used the missing bookmark as an excuse to not panic and to put the principles of faith from the book to work. I began to look for the bookmark in the seat beneath me and next to me, but not frantically. I kept quoting from the book in my mind while at the same time fighting rationalizing that the bookmark was not that important. The bookmark had to be important enough to me to generate enough faith to accomplish the task I hand. I had to be absolutely sure that I would find that bookmark! The unwavering faith that it would be found made me happier than I had ever been over a bookmark.

I didn't understand why my feelings were so strong at that time, but I was about to find out. I got up to go to the bathroom and I had to wait for a while because the flight attendant was blocking the bathroom with a beverage cart. When I got back to my seat the bookmark was on the floor under the seat! When I picked the bookmark up it was turned over from the way it was when I first saw it. Now I could see the full glossy design of the front of the bookmark. It was a bookmark from my 10-year-old daughter's elementary school P.S.90. At the top of the bookmark was a picture of my daughter from when she was 5 or 6. I kept staring at my daughter's photo and a wave of emotion passed over me. I could sense the very deep love that I feel for my daughter and at that moment I was surrounded by benevolence. The euphoria increased and a great lesson learned. Keep on searching, keep on believing until you find what you've been searching for. The least of things have incredible value. Hold on to them, treasure them. Hold on to your faith and your dreams and the people and things that are important to you! Don't let anyone talk you out of it! Better that you die believing and never receive than never to have believed at all!

Now I've got to start getting happy about passing the next test!