Lost and Found

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Luke 15: 8-10

I knew immediately that it was gone. My hand felt lighter. Although it weighs much less than an ounce, I could feel at once something was missing. I looked at my left hand and a pain pierced my heart. My diamond was gone.

My wedding ring had a gaping hole. It must have come out while I was packing my groceries. I searched through every bag I had put into the minivan. It had to fallen off while I was putting the groceries in the bag because I would have noticed it was missing when I paid the cashier. I would have noticed it was missing when I picked up the yogurt or sorted through the chickens.

I had known for a while that one of the mountings was broken. I intended to get it fixed, but it seemed like it could wait. One mounting was missing but there were still four others holding it down. I would have it remounted one day, but there were so many other things that needed to be done. I could live with a missing mounting. It would get fixed one of these days.

But now it was gone.

I remembered when my husband gave it to me. A pear-shaped diamond. It was just what I wanted. I remembered how much he sacrificed to buy it. His sacrifice was something that I appreciated more and more over the years as I understood how much it cost not only financially, but emotionally for him to invest in. I tried to remember it was just a thing. But I said, “God, I loved that ring.” I loved what it represented.

The tears flowed as I drove home. I prayed. And I made up in my mind to look through every bag again when I got home.

I thought about the parable in the Bible about the woman who lost her coin. Palestinian women received ten silver coins as a wedding gift. Besides their monetary value, these coins held sentimental value like that of a wedding ring, and to lose one would be distressing. The coin was precious. My ring was precious to me. I thought about how much more precious my children and husband, my family and friends were than the ring. The ring could be replaced. Those people and relationships could not be.

But I still wanted my diamond.

I was starting to feel that it was hopeless and pointless, but I still emptied my pockets. I emptied my purse. I sat on my family room floor and carefully searched every bag, even the ones I knew that the cashier had packed and not me. I came to the last bag. It was a double bag. I searched the inside bag. Nothing. But I felt a little chip between the bags. It was probably just a food particle. It couldn’t possibly be my diamond. A flicker of hope.

I reached down and there it was-- a small clear stone. Thank you, Jesus! I cried. I shouted. I rejoiced. What was lost had been found. I immediately went to the jewelry store to have the stone remounted into my ring. I told the associate at the jewelry store about finding my lost diamond.

“It’s a miracle,” she said. She informed me that it would cost a little over a $100 to repair the ring, but to replace the stone would have cost thousands.

She said that the ring would be back in a week and while they were repairing it, they would also resize it, clean it and polish it. “It will be as good as new,” she promised.

Just like my ring and the coin in the parable, people are precious to God. Precious does not just mean something is valuable. But is valuable because it is valued by the owner. Jesus Christ bought us with his own blood. We really weren’t worth much. Just dust. But God valued us and loved us so much that He gave His only begotten son.

The tears rolled down my cheeks in the car as I drove home from the grocery store that day, mourning the loss of my diamond. My tears flowed for a lost stone. But how often do I cry over lost souls who are dying every day? Do I weep over the souls of men? Jesus wept when his friend Lazarus died. Jesus cried over the city of Jerusalem. Do I mourn for those who leave this world without knowing the greatest love of all? Do I put off telling a friend about the love of Jesus, figuring I’ll get around to it one day? Do I not properly appreciate the value of people’s lives and their need for Christ?

Jesus sacrificed his very life for our salvation. He paid the price. We were small, but he valued us and made us valuable. Through his blood, he made us brand new. My lost diamond had taught me a valuable lesson. I need to cry more. But after I’m done crying, I need to get up and diligently seek the lost.

Sistergirlfriend

I read a post this morning from my friend Lisa's wonderful web site, Single Moms and More. I've known Lisa since I can't remember. We grew up together in my hometown of Kankakee, Ill. We were in Sunday School together. We wrote our future married names and the names of our future children in homeroom during high school. I am the godmother of her oldest child.


I was surprised when I read a post on her blog about domestic violence and she mentioned "Monica" as a friend who she knew she could turn to for the unvarnished truth when she needed to hear it.


"I needed someone who would give it to me straight, no chaser. And I knew I could count on Monica to not sugarcoat anything," she wrote in another related post.


I was surprised and honored by the compliment. We all need friends who will love us enough to tell us the truth in love. It made me laugh because I thought of other friends who have said through the years, "You keeps it real." or "No matter what crazy idea I came to you with you would just say, OK. Have you thought about going back to school?"


Reading Lisa's posts reminded me of how blessed I have been through the years with wonderful women as friends. I always wanted a sister. When I was growing up, I told my parents I wanted a baby sister or a dog. I got a poodle named Pierre.


But through the years, God has blessed me with some very special sistergirlfriends. Some years ago, I wrote a poem for a Kwanzaa celebration for a group that I belonged to called Mocha Moms, which is a group for stay-at-home mothers of color. This poem is a compilation of sistergirlfriend moments that I have shared with others and some are experiences of others that they have shared with me that I incorporated into this poem. But it expresses my love and gratitude for all the grace, beauty, strength, wisdom and love of my phenomenal sistergirlfriends.



Mocha Mom Kwanzaa Celebration
Dec. 26, 2003

Sistergirlfriend
By Monica Fountain

I came tonight to talk about
Unity
Among the sisters especially
Because they say Black women
Can be
You know—catty
Or sometimes they just say we’re B’s
Female dogs
Lassies

But the truth is
They just can’t see
Our love
Our bond
Our unity

So this odes to you
My sister
My girl
My friend

For all the things through the years
You’ve been

Sistergirlfriend
Remember when
We stayed up all night
Talking about him
Trying to figure out
How many kids we’d have when we was grown
Making up their names
Playing tricks on the phone
And we watched “Roots” and got so mad
We wanted to beat up every white person
Who crossed our path
Thank you Sistergirlfriend
For making me laugh

Sistergirlfriend
Acting crazy together
Even having babies together
1,2,3 and then you went for four
And I said I just can’t have no mo’

Sistergirlfriend
Remember when
We stayed out in the cold that night
Talking about the struggle for civil rights
Our hopes for our children and family
I told you when I was 6, my uncle molested me
You’ve always listened to me
Even if my idea was crazy
When I was pregnant, you called me
When I had the baby, you fed me
When my son was sick, you came to the hospital and prayed with me
Thank you for sharing your pain
Your dreams, your hopes with me

Thank you, Sistergirlfriend for keeping
The Unity
In the Black Family
Working in your community
Holding things together
Taking something from nothing and making it better
Supporting your man
Making him think that idea came from him
Changing diapers, wiping a snotty nose
Doing homework, dishes and the laundry
Loving your family
Keeping the unity

In you I see me
Beauty, strength, power, dignity
Thank you for making me the
Best I can be
My sister, my girl, my friend
You bring me together
Make me whole
We’re one in spirit, heart and soul

I’m talking unity
Umoja
And this is for you
Sistergirlfriend
Mama Mocha

Still Searching

In 2005, the Washington Post published an essay by my husband John W. Fountain entitled "No Place for Me." The essay literally went around the world, published in newspapers across the country, overseas and forwarded via email to thousands. The impact of the essay and the discussion that it generated were phenomenal. John received thousands of emails from people of every denomination (even atheist), race and walk of life.

Below is an excerpt from the original essay (please click "No Place for Me" to read the full essay) and some recent poetic thoughts from John.

MRF

“…I am the grandson of a pastor and am myself a licensed minister. I love God and I love the church. I know church-speak and feel as comfortable shouting hallelujahs and amens and lifting my hands in the sanctuary as I do putting on my socks.

Yet I now feel disconnected. I am disconnected. Not necessarily from God, but from the church.

Somewhere along the way, for us, for me, the church -- the collective of black churches of the Christian faith, regardless of denomination -- lost its meaning, its relevance. It seems to have no discernible message for what ails the 21st-century black male soul…”

From Washington Post essay “No Place for Me” by John W. Fountain

Still Searching for the Church I Once Knew
By John W. Fountain

I sit here, no place for me
The sanctuary filled with psalm and praise,
though I am mostly in a haze
Stuck between the memories of times past
When the spirit was high
When I stood on Sunday's
Clinging to my last
Hope
Of one-suit days
And heart-felt praise
And yet, I sit dazed
Feeling like a fish out of water
Like a son with no father
Under the incandescent lights
Pews half filled
The usual sights
And yet I feel here
So un-Christ like

Noise
And rhythm and motion
Yet no plan for the sick,
The widows
The poor
For brothers who need so much more

Just commotion

And yet,
I love this place
Where I found grace and the wisdom of the church mothers
Who mothered me
And fathered me
A spiritual son to maturity
But now full grown
It feels so wrong
Even as my feet pat to song
Another song
Ringing: “Thank the Lord for Jesus”
Everybody singing
Everybody singing
Just singing
Just singing
Just
Singing
Just
Sing-ing
...Just.

Toy Guns Not Child's Play

Brother to Brother Column

By John W. Fountain

My son Malik’s big brown eyes lit up as the woman, a distant relative, handed him a gift, still tightly packaged and glistening in the sun as children at our family reunion in Indianapolis, frolicked on a summer afternoon, their voices drifting on a breeze.

Malik tightly held the toy in his spidery fingers as she walked away. By the time we arrived most of the assortment of gifts annually given to children had been dispensed. My son’s face shone with glee. Mine twisted.

“Uh, I’m sorry Malik, but uh, you can’t have that.”

“Why not?” my son asked, staring up at me.

“Because…,” I said, “Because it’s a gun.”

“But it’s only a water gun, Daddy,” Malik responded, not loosening his grip. “What’s wrong with a water gun?”

“It’s a gun, Malik. You can’t have guns,” I said, though internally, I was at war: My angst over guns marked by my wife’s and my decision that our children should not have guns of any kind versus the innocence of a gift that only shoots water, given to a son to whom I would gladly give the world.

It is not as much opposition to guns as it is to gun violence, though some might say they are the same. As a former Chicago crime reporter, I have witnessed the toll of guns in the hands of young men with hair-trigger tempers and a moral void that enables them to kill and kill again.

I have witnessed a summer’s weekend carnage inside the Cook County coroner’s deepfreeze filled with cold, lifeless bodies of young black men wearing orange toe tags. I have stood at the edge of a pool of blood on a basketball court and looked into the aching eyes of mothers and fathers, written the public epitaphs of far more young victims of gun violence than I care to recollect.

Guns don’t shoot people—people do. I know, I know. But what I also came to know, growing up on the West Side, is that guns in the hands of young men who looked like me led to the premature demise of so many young men who looked like me. And as a man, I came to believe that unrestricted access to guns is one thing. But this is another: A culture of misogyny, self-hatred and the absence of moral lessons—chief among them, “Thou shalt not kill”—a culture that inevitably produces calloused young killers.

I am not anti-gun as much as I am pro-life—the lives of my son, and my daughter, and my neighbors’ sons and daughters. And our stance reflects a belief that no matter how much we as a people march, or call for stricter gun laws or more police—that unless we do something to change the culture, we can only expect more of the same. That our greatest threat is not the enemy from without but within. That ultimately we must heal ourselves.

We see our ban as one small step in raising a black boy who respects the sanctity of human life and grows up to be a black man.

Together, Malik and I walked over to a picnic table where I spotted the relative who had given him the gun.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“Uh, yes,” I said, “It’s the gun. He can’t have a gun.”

I instructed Malik to hand it back. A few moments later, after rifling through a bag of leftover gifts, she emerged with a package of little lizards—perfect. Malik smiled.

Inside I still wondered whether I had done the right thing, until we returned home that evening and the television blared with news of more shootings, this time of three boys fatally shot while sitting in a car in Maywood. And I knew I had.

Living Water - Toy Gun - John W. Fountain

Stuff vs. Substance

“Better to be nobody and yet have a servant than pretend to be somebody and have no food.” Proverbs 12:9

The book of Proverbs is rich. Whenever I read it, I find so many nuggets of wisdom. When I was reading today, I came across the verse highlighted above, and it spoke to me, it said, “Stop fronting!” “Be for real!” “Stop perpetrating!”

And I began to wonder whether the reason our country, so many businesses and so many families are in the economic mess that we are in is because we were trying to pretend like we had something or perhaps because we on some level believe that our possessions make us “somebody.”

And I can’t help but wonder whether instead of being honest with our financial circumstances or learning to be content with what we have, we haven’t acted like we can live on credit today and keep rolling over our debt for tomorrow. Except now the bills have come due and we find ourselves bankrupt. We have, as the scripture says, “no food.”

For we seem to have valued stuff more than substance.

Far too many of us have lived above our means, trying to keep up with Joneses often unaware that the Joneses were themselves often drowning in debt.

What’s amazing to me is I have met truly wealthy people. People who had Picassos hanging on their walls. People who didn’t just have a job, but who owned the company. And you couldn’t tell that they were rich. They drove an old Chevy, not a Ferrari. They weren’t dripping in excess.

But I know grown folks who don’t live in their own house but drive luxury cars. From the wardrobes of some I have seen, you would have thought they were a millionaire, but they could barely pay their bills.

Sometimes my children and I walk around our neighborhood when the weather is nice. The kids are amazed by some of the houses. “Look at that house. Oooh, they have a swimming pool. They got a big house.”

In those times, I remind them that it’s all right to admire nice things but not to be enthralled by or in awe of stuff, because in the end, that’s all it is, just stuff. I tell them to be grateful for their house, because it is God’s blessing to us. I remind them that somebody out there simply wishes they had a roof over their head. That some family is living in a car. That someone is living under a bridge.

And this much I remind myself: My house may not be as large as the home of R. Kelly who happens to live in my neighborhood. But I wouldn’t trade my “mansion” for his any day. I wouldn’t trade my small patch of garden and roses in my backyard for someone else’s emerald acres. I love my fireplace in the winter time and my sun porch in the summer. But more importantly, I wouldn’t trade the love and peace that fill the space God has blessed the Fountain family to occupy. I thank God for house and food and all things in between.

And I thank Him that I am somebody, not because of my stuff, but because of whose I am.

Truth and Consequences

“The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.” Proverbs 10:9

What is up with Roland Burris?

My new senator seems to be having a problem. The biggest problem is that his story keeps changing. It seems like just yesterday he was standing in the rain outside of the U.S. Capitol, surrounded by a horde of media as he fought to be seated in the United States Senate. Now I see pictures of him running from reporters.

The problem is that Burris was appointed by our now former and infamous governor, Rod Blagojevich. Although Blagojevich was under a cloud of suspicion for allegedly trying to sell the Senate seat of President Barack Obama, Roland Burris’ reputation was that of a man of political integrity. As a condition of securing that seat, Burris had to appear before the Illinois House impeachment panel and testify about the circumstances surrounding his appointment.

During that hearing, Burris told the committee he had no contact with anyone in the governor’s office before the governor appointed him in late December to replace President Obama in the U.S. Senate. Then his story changed. He later told the committee that he had been contacted by a friend of the governor. Then his story changed again. He now says that he actually had contact with five people in Blagojevich’s camp, including the governor’s brother who asked Burris to raise money for the ex-governor.

Now Burris’s reputation is under fire. And a chorus of colleagues, columnists and newspapers is calling for his resignation. I don’t know how all of this will turn out, but I do know that if Burris had told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, from the beginning, he wouldn’t be hearing calls for his resignation right now. Some might argue that if he had told the whole truth, he might not have the Senate seat right now. Except, he won’t have it anyway, if it comes out that he lied or if the FBI has tapes of him talking with the governor’s brother about fundraising.

For now, it just makes it appear that Burris was willing to do anything to become a senator, at least to withhold the truth. He says he has nothing to hide, but it sure looks like he does.

I am reminded of a scripture that urges us to flee even the appearance of evil. And also another that says your good name and reputation are more valuable than gold. And I might add, in this case, even more valuable than a Senate seat.

A Breakthrough Weekend

Florida in February. That's where I have the privilege of sitting at this moment--in a beautiful resort and spa in Sanibel, Florida. For the next few days I will be blogging from the Break Away Conference in Florida where my husband will be speaking on Friday. Breakthrough is a ministry on the West Side of Chicago that provides services for homeless men and women and ministries for youth and families.

My husband, John W. Fountain, will be talking about growing up on the West Side. Gospel singer Babbie Mason is singing right now and Dr. Tony Evans of the Urban Alternative will be teaching.

Stay tuned.

John "The Baptist"

Brother to Brother Column

John "The Baptist"




By John W. Fountain

Early one Sunday afternoon, I walked to the front of the church, toward the pulpit, to have words at the behest of my grandfather, the pastor.
Unsure of what to say, I could still hear the words of my dearly departed grandmother’s spirit-filled voice ringing inside my head: “Let the Lord use you, John Wesley.”

I stood before the small congregation and mouthed the proper honors to the pastor, the assistant pastor, the deacons and such… Then came my sacrilege.

“You know,” I said, “they told me as a child that only (people in our denomination) were going to heaven.” Then I dropped the bomb: “I guess I’m on my way to hell… because I’m Baptist.”

There was a collective gasp, then laughter.

“No, uh, I’m not,” I declared, laughing. “I’m not going to hell. The truth is, I have learned that all truly Christian churches are churches of God in Christ Jesus; and that there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism…”

I left the pulpit to a chorus of Amen’s, though feeling uneasy, if not queasy, over what I had said—feeling like a religious misfit. I always have.

A Religious Misfit

Raised as a fire-and-brimstone Pentecostal at a small family church in Chicago, I was often uncertain about their antics, about whether their demonstrations of the spirit were authentic. I was especially leery of the notion that everyone, except us, was going to hell as my “sanctified” family had assured.

As a boy, I wondered why it was “sin” to go to the movie theater, or for women to wear makeup or pants, or to listen to any music other than gospel. It seemed everything was sin, even dancing the boogaloo.

The problem with our Christian cousins—the Baptists—the saints said, was that they smoked cigarettes and drank liquor, partied on Saturday and praised on Sunday. And for it, Baptists were going to bust hell wide open, we had been assured. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what all that backbiting and gossiping I had witnessed among “the saints” would earn them in that great day.

Our negative view of Baptists wasn’t just their smoking, but their general so-called lack of commitment to a sin-free way of living 24-7.

As I grew older, I heeded my grandfather’s instruction to always find a church within my denomination in whatever new city life’s wind carried me. Usually, that meant simply thumbing through the yellow pages.

Along the way, I found good churches and wonderful God-fearing people. But I also found my faith challenged, perhaps none more than by my wife—a good Christian woman who happened to be Baptist. She challenged me less by what she said and more by how she lived. Raised by Baptist parents, she grew up in her father’s church. Her daily walk with Christ seemed to reflect a deep commitment and yet liberty that I had never known. It was clear to me that her conception of who she was in Christ was not based on denomination or religion, but on relationship, on the principle of God’s grace and love and willful obedience to His word.


The Letter

That was what I was trying to express that Sunday. Later that week, I got an email from a sister who had been in the congregation:

“I was glad to hear you make the statement in the pulpit Sunday that you are a Baptist and are not going to hell,” she wrote. “I wished that my husband could hear you.”

He had been coming to church after his mother died and was “emotionally distraught and felt the need to get closer to God.

“He was doing pretty well for a while coming to church with me on Sundays. Then a comment was made by someone in the church (I'm not going to mention the name) that Baptists were no good. …I explained to him that the comment was the person's opinion. …He stopped going to church altogether.

“I wished that he could have heard you today…” the note ended. “You hit the mark today!”

Still, I found no rejoicing. For the cold truth was that by the time of my proclamation, this sister’s husband was dead—and he had died apparently mortally misled about the gift of eternal life.

That saddens me. But what chills me to the bone is to ponder the fate of those who have misled, or who continue to mislead others down the path of religion rather than into relationship with Christ.

Watch Your Mouth

“Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk from your lips.” Proverbs 4:24

Devotional:

Bleep. Bleep. Bleep.

My former governor, Rod Blagojevich, is in some hot water for some words that he has said. Besides the fact that some of his conversations caught on tape by the FBI may prove to be criminal, without a doubt, they were embarrassing.

“You and your wife are such potty mouths,” said Joy Behar, when Blagojevich appeared on “The View.” The ex-governor’s expletive filled conversations become fodder for late night comedians.

On a recent whirlwind media tour, Blagojevich explained that “Had I known somebody was listening, I wouldn’t have used language like that.”

We all would be embarrassed if some of our private conversations were caught on tape and played for the entire world. But even if we aren’t being taped by the FBI, shouldn’t we watch what we’re saying?

God is always listening. And even more important than what comes out of our mouth, God knows our heart.

What we say and how we say it is a barometer of our heart condition. In Proverbs 4:23, we are warned, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of your life.” Then in the very next verse we are told, “Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk from your lips.” What is in our heart inevitably will come out of our mouth.

What are considered “bad” words can differ from society to society. Bloody is a bad word in England. Nobody will bat an eye if you say bloody in the United States. Besides whether we use words that are considered “bad” by our society, we should examine the content and sentiment behind the words we use. Are our words meant to build or destroy? Are your words full of anger and bitterness? Are your words full of gossip and lies? Are they negative or positive? Are they bringing hurt or healing?

You can never say a “bad” word and still be cursing your fellow man. Are you assassinating others with your tongue? Many who have professed to follow Christ have destroyed their fellow brother or sister in Christ with their words and they never said a four-letter one or the ones used by former Gov. Blagojevich. Ugly, dumb, fat and stupid are all words that can hurt and destroy.

The book of James tells us about the power of the tongue. He calls it “a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body." Just as fire can destroy, it can also be productive, warming us and keeping us alive. James goes on to say, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.”

Is your tongue a burning wildfire, destroying everything in its path or is it a place where people can feel the warmth of God’s love?

My father used to say that God fastened the tongue to the bottom of our mouth, barred it with teeth and sealed it behind our lips for a reason. We need to watch our mouths.

The psalmist put it this way, “Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.” (Psalm 141:3)

Reflection:

What sort of atmosphere are your words setting?

Do the words that you use reflect anger, resentment or hurt?

Application:

· Give someone a compliment, and mean it.

· Write an encouraging note to a friend or loved one. Tell them what you admire about them or the difference they have made in your life. Forwarding a mass email does not count.

· Look back on your day and examine the words you have used and why you used them.

Scriptures:

Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18

A wise man’s heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction. Proverbs 16:23

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 1 Corinthians 13:1

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. James 1:26

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18

Prayer:

Dear God,
Let the words that come out of my mouth bring honor, not shame, to your name.
Amen