I'm looking for a committed, long-term relationship where romance and covenant remain foremost; a commitment expressed in the lil' ordinary things yet surely felt like an early morning country breeze which engulfs spirit, soul and body.

I enjoy visiting museums, taking walks, sharing in conversation about politics, creation-evolution-origin of life debate, philosphy and science; and those issues closest to my lady's heart. There's really no topic that's taboo only measured by mutual respect and consent: for me, a journey's mix and synthesis of orthodox and heterodox points of view; and so, in that spirit and in very practical ways, I've chosen to visit numerous church denominations and have come to feel very comfortable within each whether large or small congregations; whether black or white--Greek Orthodox, Jewish Synagogue, Presbyterian, Catholic, Sabbatarian, Word of Faith, Baptist, Charismatic, Lutheran, Shrine of the Black Madonna, African Hebrews, etc.

My core religious beliefs reflect a hard-won respect for theological diversity yet tempered with moderate Sabbatarian sensibility. Translation: humbly suggest that I'm a "religiously-hip-multicultural-renaissance-man" in a non-dogmatic sort of way. Ain't I somethin' cause ((you)) and I both know I ain't all dat'.:-)

I really enjoy listening to contemporary jazz(Paul Taylor, Keiko Matsui, Marion Meadows, Chris Botti, jazz masters, Kenny G, etc), classical(Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach...), lite rock(Seal, Boston, Kansas, Sade, ...), R&B(Philadelphia, Toni Braxton, Luther Van Dross, Anita Baker, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston...), and Christian Contemporary(Casting Crowns, Mandesa, Third Day, Yolanda Adams, Petra, Jars of Clay, DC Talk, Chris Tomlin, Nicole C. Mullins, Michael W. Smith, CC and BB Winans, Stephen Curtis Chapman, Bryan Duncan, Trinitee 5:7, Toby Mac, Natalie Grant, Phillips, Craig and Dean, Newsboys); going to the summer jazz festivals, visiting Miller Outdoor Theatre throughout the year, visiting fine arts and science museums.

For the past year, I've committed time to jogging 3 miles/3x/week for better health and energy and have begun to watch my diet more closely; jogging during the summer was a bit tough but well worth it. And then there are times when I love to read quite a bit and less so at other times.

I look forward to spending time with someone who has an appreciation of both diversity of thought and will--remains very important to me; for this is how a true relationship begins, I humbly submit; will grow and eventually become a source of refuge, healing, and love. In practical terms, I think, the expression of a real life mixture of agape and eros--the nitty-gritty working out of romance, respect and mutual submission unto the other; just spending time together and learning to share from the heart is soo important.

And yet, with romance, the spark that I believe will continually bind a man and woman endlessly together with a real yearning for the other, well, I think both Shakespeare and Milton have captured a good part of its essence; something so often ineffable yet felt so intensely and desired:

Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be appetite,
Which but today by feeding is allayed,
Tomorrow sharpened in his former might.
So love be thou; although today thou fill
Thy hungry eyes even til they wink with fullness,
Tomorrow see again, and not kill
The spirit of love with perpetual dullness.
Let this sad int'rim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new
Come daily to the banks, that when they see
Return of love, more abundant may be the view;
Else call it winter, which being full of care,
Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.

Shakespeare, Sonnet 56
~~~~~~
By nature free, not overruled by fate
Inextricable or strict necessity,
Our voluntary service He requires,
Not our necessitated: such with Him
Finds no accceptance, nor can find. For how
Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve
Willing or no, who will but what they must
By destiny and can no other choose?

...Freely we serve
Because we freely love as in our will
To love or not: in this we stand or fall.
...Yet that we never shall forget to love
Our Maker and obey Him whose command
Single is yet so just, my constant thoughts
Assured me and still assure, though what thou tell'st
Hath passed in Heav'n some doubt within me move
But more desire to hear, if thou consent,
The full relation which must needs be strange,
Worthy of sacred silence to be heard....

John Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk 5.527-555

I love the art of poetry 'cause it encourages me to meditate more clearly upon those areas of life sometimes neglected or taken for granted: to love and appreciate the ordinary, to strive for compromise that two might walk together, to find the best in the practical and unexpected, and to think reasonably for 'as a man thinks, so he is'. In that spirit, I think the two poetic excerpts reflect this ineffable mixture of both eros and agape if but only in part yet soo elegantly.

Am looking for a soulmate--the one, my lady of my heart; God's precious gift to be protected and cherished above all others in Christ--with whom to join hands and become one in life's journey; appreciating each day's country morning breeze.

A Few Favorite Authors:

Race and Politics--Ralph Ellison, Cornell West, Shelby Steele, Langston Hughes, John McWhorter, Henry Louis Gates, Dinesh D'Souza, Houston Baker, Thomas Sowell, Patricia Williams, David Horowitz, Eric Michael Dyson, Eric Sundquist, Ellis Cose, Tony Brown, Clarence B. Jones, Afrocentrists including Cheikh Anta Diop and Martin Bernal, and classical scholar Mary Lefkowitz.

Origins--Phillip Johnson, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer(www.signatureinthecell.com), Hugh Ross(www.reasons.org), William Provine, Stephen J Gould, Dean Kenyon, Access Research Network(www.arn.org); both young-earth and old-earth authors; Discovery Institute(www.discovery.org), Yubert Yockey, Thaxton-Bradley-Olsen, Michael Denton...

Theology-- Francis Schaffer(L'Bri Fellowship), Toni Evans, Ron Dart(www.borntowin.net), IV Hilliard(www.newlight.org), SCP(www.scp-inc.org), Malcolm Smith(www.malcolmsmith.org), TorchBearers, KC Price(www.faithdome.org), C.S. Lewis, John Polkinghorne.

American/British Literature--William Wordsworth, Shelley, Lord Byron, Shakespeare, Emerson, Whitman, Stephen Crane.

I also like listening to these radio stations: 89.3(KSBJ, Christian Contemporary), 102.1(Tom Joyner Morning Show; 'Ms. Candy', R&B), 90.9(KTSU, Jazz, AP News), 99.1(Easy Listening), 106.9(Soft Rock), 107.5, KHCB, 88.7(NPR, Classical, Hearts of Space-New Age).

We would share starbucks coffee or meet at a public setting where we would just talk and grow closer together, ingiting just perhaps that endlessly enduring spark.