DOREEN CUDNIK

July 23, 1999 GAY PEOP

CHRONICLE

Reflecting each day on life and soul

Keith Boykin

Respecting the Soul

Daily Reflections for

Black Lesbians and

Gays

by Keith Boykin

Avon, $10 paperback

Reviewed by Bob Roehr

Respecting the Soul is a milestone in Keith Boykin's personal journey through life, and a companion that many of us will welcome for our own journeys. Its title clothes a far sa more universal message as found in the words of folks ranging from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Dennis Rodman.

In a recent interview, Boykin said that the book grew out of his work with the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum, as well as touring with his first book One More River to Cross: Being Black and Gay in America. It brought home the fact that what really resonates with people are not the political issues he was raising, but personal issues.

Boykin also was going through his own spiritual development.

"All of the difficulties I've had to overcome, and struggles I've experienced, have been the direct result of my own fears," Boykin says.

He mentions his own reluctance to ask for money for an organization he believes in, or something as simple as asking someone tó dance at a club. Fear of rejection is often our biggest inhibitor.

"All of the blessings that have come to me, and all of the good things that have been

bestowed upon me have been because of love," Boykin says. "Love for myself, love for others, love for

my community. It

seems trite but it became so clear when I finally sat down and focused on that.”

Respecting the Soul structures the words of others and a short commentary by Boykin into a daily format that challenges, provokes, and inspires the reader. Each month has a unifying theme.

Boykin struggled with whether to begin with faith or love, and ultimately settled on that order.

"Those two principles really ground us for everything that comes after that," he says.

Forgiveness is one virtue that does not have its own chapter, but in a way it permeates the entire volume. "The ability to forgive ourselves and to forgive others is an incredibly limiting aspect of our growth," Boykin says.

"A lot of people are stuck with not having met their career goals, or with what their parent's did to them, or that somebody else has wronged them. They are stuck in the racism of the world, the homophobia of the world."

"Those things may be true. But we are never going to be able to grow and develop, as individuals and as a community, if we only dwell on what other people have done to us. We need to accept responsibility for what we can do for ourselves."

Boykin marked his own birthday, also the date of the fabled 1963 civil rights march on Washington, with a quote from Dr. King: "Nothing pains some people more than having to think." Boykin called it “appropriate for me because that is my life's mission and my life's journey."

Respecting the Soul ends with the words of the late novelist James Baldwin: "You have to go the way your blood beats, you have to live the only life you have or else you'll never live any life at all."