A Plea for God’s Mercy By: Ethan Brisby

October 13, 2011 

God, do I ever need help. One minute I feel good about everything happening around me. Then the next I realize by pursuing my goals, I am only asking for more problems. It’s an inevitable tale of freedom by way of bondage. This got me to thinking what exactly is freedom? I do not know of any people who are free on this earth. All creatures of this world are hostages of the seven deadly sins. Each person sabotaged by his or her own idea of vindication. 

At this hour, I have to question was going to college the best option for me at the time. In August of 2006, I was working full-time for Citibank making about 22,000 a year. Had I stayed with the company and been working there now I would undoubtedly be making 60,000-80,000 a year in some capacity. I did after all walk away from the option of earning my Series 7 License and becoming a Financial Adviser. I walked away from that at the age of 24, and instead quit my job to explore what else the world had to offer. I do not regret this move, but I do wish I would have been smarter about how I went about doing it. 

Now five years later and with 50,000 in college debt added to my tab I am looking for what’s next. This is definitely a monumental fall from grace where I am the one who has pie in the face syndrome. I have not been able to sustain any meaningful relationship with my son, and now as he approaches the age of nine I am caught between leaving Bryan, Texas once again in pursuit of a sustained and comfortable lifestyle and remaining near him as he grows older. Somehow I continue to hold on to the hope that I can have both. By this I mean I can have a comfortable lifestyle and a healthy father-son relationship with my son. 

So what are my excuses? For starters, I like so many other young black boys have not fatherly influence. I have had mentors, but nothing that could take the place of a father. So that’s one crutch I can hold on to, and the other is the fact I was born into poverty and am yet to find my way out of it. I was born and raised on welfare, food stamps, HUD vouchers, and close cooperative family ties. Now at 29, my family cooperative ties which I believed would be a lasting force are no longer viable. There is not camaraderie within my family. Instead there is bickering, fighting, hatred, back biting, envy, and deceit even in the face of a dying patriarch.  

So what am I to do? Where I am to run? Who can I depend on to help me through these trying times? I have a help mate in the form of a 24 year old lady whom I met and fell in love with while in college. She is a strong and steadfast partner. She is very supportive and wants so badly to be with me despite what may exist now and seem like a scary situation to live through. So half of our relationship is based on hope, and the other half is based on what ifs, doubt, looking back, unfulfilling outside advice, and a seemingly endless search for answers. There is light within this though, and I know I will come out of the other end having made progress and gain an unimaginable strength to conquer whatever is waiting for me on the other side. 

Throughout this time I have gained many new friends and acquaintances that I can count on when I make it to the top of whatever mountain I am climbing. The thing is I am unsure of how to use this network to help me while I am weak. Its more uncharted waters and I just need to understand what this network is to be used for. I was told recently that now I am supposed to use the network and sooner or later I will become the network. This network I speak of is the Morehouse/Spelman network. I just really need someone to give me a job or give me money to create some jobs. At this point I am prepared for either one. I just need something new and something fresh to happen while I still have the bounce in my step to overcome adversity and defeat.