We Were All Church'd: The Permission Slip

speaker-0: We live. This is the song! Yeah. Y'all, welcome to church. It's a community conversation, but it's the people that's been church. Where my church folks at? I am super excited to be here, but come on. ⁓

speaker-1: Don't stop the music.

speaker-0: This song was so good.

speaker-1: Did you just play every instrument when you were a kid? I used to play the keys to this part. Like I knew how play the keys. Go to free. or pushing the envelope wherever he needed to.

speaker-0: I'm gonna turn that down y'all but Welcome to church I'm Penelope French your host my pronouns are they she he I am a spiritualist a theologian an ethicist and a cultural community organizer and ⁓ I did this because I wanted to just talk, to have a conversation about all things faith and spirituality for everyday people, right? There is so much going on in our world. We have so many conversations about so many things, so many mics that don't... Let me not talk. So many mics, so many voices, ⁓ and the importance of... being in conversation about spirituality and how to be in practice of that and what can come of that is so important. It's the integration pieces that people love to talk about. We get so much information, so much knowledge, but are we integrating it? And this is the first episode and I'm nervous as hell. I'm not gonna go let y'all. I'm nervous and I'm nervous because I'm opening up, I'm speaking up, I'm using my voice in a way that I haven't in a long time. Just so... y'all have a background of me and who I am. ⁓ I was raised full gospel Baptist. ⁓ Okay, shout out to Bishop Paul Morton ⁓ and ⁓ PK grew up tending, mending, continuing and maintaining church. So much so that it was my identity and becoming a youth pastor a minister then going to seminary traveling the world Doing evangelism doing other leads and feeling like I just don't think I I know enough and what feeling Unsatisfied really with the information that I had about the work that I was doing as someone who was a spiritual leader Right, and so I decided to go to And I'm thinking, all right, I'm gonna master, you know, trying to understand God. No, no, I wasn't. I was actually going there to master what I believed, to figure out what was my ideology and build that myself. And that led me to a place that made me realize, okay, We doing a whole lot of talking in church. What the hell is we doing outside? How is this impacting the people on the street? Like going to churches where we there's the highest sex trafficking rate in the country. And then. Right outside your doors, literally on Fulton Industrial here in Atlanta. But ⁓ don't go outside unless you got security. Don't. And so much so that, you know. If your church left this area, would people even know? You know what I'm saying? And so that convicted me on a a a path where I'm like, I have to go and do something. So I founded ⁓ a nonprofit called Neighbor and exactly what it sounds like is what it is. How do we get back to being in the way of the neighbor? How you are me, I am you. We are of it. We make up, you know, you know, people used to love use the imagery of the body, the head, the tail, the arm of Christ of God and so forth. Well, like Come on all that shit actually has to tend to one another But I guess that's also a reflection to how we treating our bodies in this society and how the government treats our bodies as well but these are the conversations and things that became so important to me and because I was going on this transformation of Honestly moving away from being like, okay, the church is not my lighthouse It can be a lighthouse for people on their journey, but it's no longer my lighthouse. And so because of that, what what and where, you know, do I move to navigate through now sit in and when you lose light, what happens? You lose the lighthouse. It's dark now. And how that felt for me, it was uncomfortable, it was scary. It was. a lot of me decide trying to even remember or understand who I am, who am I? Now that that is not my lighthouse, who am I? And that break or journey or step or so forth away ⁓ really brought me back to myself and back to... my relationship with Christ from a place of consciousness, meaning I actually am doing the things, right, ⁓ to a whole other level. And so I am ⁓ so. excited to continue to have these conversations and have them from a place where people can think about their own personal journeys and be like damn that happened to me ⁓ because that's why we're here because our stories are new and so I had to give y'all a little background of me and who I was and and so forth so ⁓ that y'all knew who y'all was talking to. Someone who has... ⁓ done all the studying, learned how to read the Bible in Hebrew and in Greek, learned how to move through these things and ⁓ experience God in new ways for my own self. And so I'm validating my own voice right now because I couldn't keep up with the aesthetic. I stopped talking because I couldn't keep up with the aesthetic of what it meant to be a preacher while I was changing, while I was authentically going through this. serious journey I couldn't keep up with the aesthetic so I stopped talking because nobody is going to see my voice as valid if I don't look these ways because that's just where I came from and part of this podcast is deeply personal because it's really about you know that embodiment of I don't gotta go through anybody to get to the source. I can hear, I can receive, I can profess, can, from that very place that is absent of any structural institutionalized ways that I have been engaging spirituality and faith. And so I'm here today with my homie, Devonte Hudson. ⁓ Can I call you Rev? ⁓

speaker-1: You know, we still function in that role. We do. Occupy the role. We can say rev today. Let's cheers to that.

speaker-0: and I call you Red. Okay. But tell people who you are. Tell people why you here.

speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, I'm here because you called. And I think that that's more important too, is I think we're showing up for each other in this moment. think we went to seminary together. I even bought your book. I bought your book in seminary. Now don't ask me the title of you might have to remind me of Boom, I got the book. It's still in my, it's still in my.

speaker-0: Yes you did! doesn't change per And it's still very relevant for me is it never will

speaker-1: And I appreciate that. I appreciate you sharing where you have been in your journey and where that's brought you because again, that's a very similar story to all of us. Even me, I'm a Midwest kid, grew up in Ohio, Pentecostal, Kojic.

speaker-0: Told you.

speaker-1: right? You can't join in, gotta be born in. Right? I was part of Kojic when the late great Bishop G.E. Patterson was the presiding bishop of the Kojic church. every morning, we knew it was Sunday in the house because G.E. Patterson would be on the TV in the morning and then it would be followed by Bobby Jones gospel. But this is how churched I am.

speaker-0: But.

speaker-1: Right, so yeah, G Patterson was my bishop. ⁓ yeah, mean, very, very similar. You have that journey. You are Christian, Christian, Christian all your life. I went to school. that's your identity. That was my life. I mean, again, this is not unfamiliar to a lot of people, particularly black Americans experiences in black church. And ⁓ so, yeah, I I grew up under the pew. mean, my parents were teenagers when they had me. My mom was 18, my dad just turned 20. This is their introduction to new community was the church. They went, that's the first place they went was to the church.

speaker-0: And we were taken care of by the church. That's also another thing. Community, mothering, community like the church was.

speaker-1: It was was it was his own welfare system. Again, the church as much as we talk about the church, let's also

speaker-0: functionality.

speaker-1: Yes, it was functional. It was and it served a purpose. to that point, I to this day, I have many women who I call mom. Yeah, because of the church. Yeah. To this day, Grandma Peevee, right? Grandma Linda, Mother Weaver. I can call them by name because those were that was my community. That's the village. And so while we talk about church, I think a lot of what a lot of us church kids experience at this point is that we are the products. of deep and intentional community that was found at that time in church. was found in church because the church was a community center, was a spiritual center, it was an education center, it was a resource center, right? It was everything. And so that's why I

speaker-0: Facilitated community church facilitated. So when I tell people about my organizing journey, they're like, where did you start organizing? I'm like church church like I've been a community organizer and organizing people vote both as Mobilizing their bodies, but they but spiritually so this this way of I actually believe that what my grandfather taught me was a system of how to be in the world through being a PK and how you engage members and people of your church community. They're your church family as we would say. They're the church family and so when I'm in the world I actually engage people from a place of knowing this system of love that is practical and actually works from a place of I don't have to exploit you. I don't have to harm you. I don't have to take advantage of you. can be in community and community can grow and be well and be great in good ways. And so that is why I'm someone who has hope for our society is because I am someone who carries in my body and I don't assume that I'm the only one that carries in them this way of being and understanding.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to always remember that we are always products of any environment that we're in, but I think it's been good for me to own that I am a son of the church. I'm very much a son of the black church.

speaker-0: I'm a church girl down, not going nowhere.

speaker-1: I think this whole idea of deconstruction, I think has tainted a lot of very starch-like... Christians devote devout Christians because we've been taught that first of all questioning is a sin right in that even having questions about My identity or who I am in God should always be assumed right? I'm fearfully and wonderfully made but I'm also wretched right? It's this it's this interesting like merge is interesting clash that happens, but that's the that for whatever reason it functioned as a way of living in church life. like, yeah, it is a struggle.

speaker-0: the struggle in Taoism, it is called the way. It's literally between understanding good and evil, know what mean? Good, bad and good, you know, and so forth. It's the in-between of reconciling between good and evil. And I feel like church really gave me this container of black.

speaker-1: and did it. ⁓ I always emphasize that. Yeah, I always want to emphasize that because we are in a Western evangelical Christian context. So I think everything that we see as a form of Christianity in this context has been touched by some form of evangelical white European thought. I think it's important for us to say that.

speaker-0: Exactly. It is in this episode is about we were all church and we were all churched because of Exactly what you said this experience that we live in a Judeo-Christian society are meaning at the at the very base of What we are experiencing they there are 1.3 billion Christians in this world And when we think about even going back into time in history, Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman government because it was a political move of control. Well, when we think about something even on the basis of the smallest scale of, okay, how do laws come to play? When you come into this world, your first relationship is with spirit. You don't know nothing but spirit when you get here. Your first interaction is with the all, right? And for people who... Are on the eastern side of the world or or when humanity first began? And was able to communicate in ways that we can now understand. That's how the Sun becomes God Right. Mm-hmm. That is the thing that I'm interacting with or the water is God or that these are things that are Literally giving me life. They're the reason why I can be here and present in this understanding and so I was walking down the Beltline one day and the this this woman her son was on This gentleman's shoulders and he was really tall and my I was with my family and my husband goes yo dang say lafayette My son is never going to get up that high and the lady said no don't say that she said To you to your children you are God So if you can understand me on that your first engagement with anything so we understand spiritual law before we implement or communicate anything and so our governmental laws come from what we Believe the simple principle of what we believe and that inspires human intention. That's where we moved from anything so from that place and the world being Judeo-Christian you've been church whether you've been in a pulpit out of a pulpit when you in community and folks are like ⁓ I can't I can't show up this way why can't you what more authority authority are you moving by it's church

speaker-1: It's church. mean, it's literally been our orientation to life, as you said. And I think for me, that has become more apparent as I've gotten older. And hence why the deconstruction is so intense for many of us is because everything that we have understood about ourselves, is literally crumbling, at least the ethos of it, the understanding of what it means to ⁓ be of in the world, but not of the world, right? Or what it means to hate the... Right, the world's in church. Or the hate the sinner, hate the sin, but love the sinner. Like we have these interesting ⁓ juxtapositions that we always have, that we've always understood in church, that when you put it up to the light,

speaker-0: in the church now.

speaker-1: It don't pass the test. It don't pass the test. so that starts the questioning of what is this thing that I actually have been told is to be true. And I think that's the scary, to your point of view, talking about why deconstruction was so scary for you is imagine being ripped away from everything you've understood about yourself. ⁓ Yeah.

speaker-0: notice a lot.

speaker-1: It's a grieving process of realizing that it sounded good and it felt good. And that's why we can also talk about church in a positive way still, because there were positive and affirming things about.

speaker-0: the church. How do you feel? You feel spirit.

speaker-1: You feel spirit. And no matter the kind of doing it, it's genuine, it shows up as genuine. And I think the church has been a genuine space when intentional relationships are in time. I think because

speaker-0: because there was a difference now.

speaker-1: Well, because it was born out of empire. And I think when something like, when anything is born out of empire, you have to expect for it to fail at some point. And not because ⁓ it doesn't have... It has a cycle. It has a cycle. It has a life cycle. And I think what many of us are experiencing, because we are at what I believe many of us believe at the... the falling, the crumbling, the crackling of an empire, we're watching it happen in front of us, is that everything that the empire supported and propped up is also seeing that failing. Exactly. And IE Christianity, a very central part of how colonialism and imperialism in this context spread. was through the- was a Yes, yes.

speaker-0: Church was everything. The 13 colonies had DLCs at one point. These are the ways in which, you know, when Native Americans in this country experienced genocide, it was through...

speaker-1: It was, we forget, Manifest Destiny was a doctrine that the King of Spain said that if you, sorry, sorry, not the King of Spain, the Pope at the time, right, gave the papers to say if you find a nation that is not Christian.

speaker-0: ⁓

speaker-1: You own that. It's a right to you. And that level of ownership, that level of possession is baked into what we understand as Western Christianity. that, that, and so again, I know we're talking about the machinery here and I think it's important to look at the pieces that contributed to how we've gotten here. I can imagine that in the 1600s Christianity wasn't as widespread in the Americas as it

speaker-0: fish.

speaker-1: has been now because there wasn't the formation. took mediums and now we have all the tools, all of the access to do, I think, some of the most damage. And I'll go back to context because I think we're always sitting in what it has been for us and for me growing up in the black church.

speaker-0: how it the mediums the spread way.

speaker-1: in having the type of community that I had, I never understood why the church wasn't more effective. I never understood why it wasn't more effective. worked in big mega churches. If you look at the revenue,

speaker-0: Yep. Yes. compared to what's happening in community.

speaker-1: You have to ask yourself the question, what is vital, like what's his usefulness?

speaker-0: Insucible is the also a conduit of capitalism in our society in the continuation of that and I think to with just around like the ways in which it has been a machinery to Possess and control I think about that ownership that is taken up like because I'm Christian I have the authority or audacity and it belongs to me and it's a supremac mindset right even the thought like sometimes I think about like when I'm talking to people who are part of the black church and they're like ⁓ no if it ain't God then you know basically this this this Christian cutting off the monks while here in Georgia right right right you know Jesus no it's Jesus is the way and you're gonna go to hell and I care about your soul and I love you and the monk was like I actually love you and if you don't agree with Anything you have your way and I have mine and that's okay You worry about yourself, but this ownership like he would not move He was indignant about you need to and I think that's connected to the slave slave trade It's connected to the ways in which we in our communities and I'm talking to other like, know, like, nah, you can't and I can tell you this and you need to hear it from me. And it's righteous judgment and all of these different things. And it's disconnected from the context that you live in America and you're black in America.

speaker-1: I Penelope, we remember that enslavement wasn't long ago. Like, had, like not, like my great grandma.

speaker-0: Great great grandma

speaker-1: Right? We're not that far removed from slavery. And why do I mention that? Because we have to think about the systems and the tools that were used during enslavement of our ancestors about what they could think and what they could read. What they were allowed to There was a slave Bible.

speaker-0: There was a Bible. pages.

speaker-1: took out the entire Exodus.

speaker-0: Literally the the they still have missing I said that to I Said that to some older Christians one at one point I said y'all still got missing paper pages in your Bible because we are passing down the past down from the past down of The things we still quote in the same. You know what? This is the perfect time. Let's play a game

speaker-1: Let's play it. Let's play it.

speaker-0: Let's play a game. This is the perfect moment because we are passing down these scriptures. We're repeating the same things. They've lost their context. They've lost but they also survived the fact that you you're holding on to this these scriptures more than anything. And if we took all of the scriptures, you know, and y'all we've repeated in our culture. Do we even know what the Bible says?

speaker-1: I feel like you about to test my seminary

speaker-0: I'm not okay, so I'm not trying to test your gangsta because to be honest I stopped reading the Bible for about four years straight, and I don't care It was imperative when your whole life is built off of this thing and you're like I got to come about to see where I am You can't keep consuming the same thing It's not it's not helpful to the process and though I wanted to run back and be like, ⁓ this is gonna I Needed a moment. I needed a second and I was glad I took my second but you know, that's why I'm saying is cuz Things just stick with you. So I'm going to say some scriptures and I want you to finish them for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. And then we're gonna talk about what that would mean to us through our journey and our lens of where we are today. So the first one is Romans 12 and two. and be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your

speaker-1: of your mind. Yes. what does that mean now? ⁓ It's an evolutionary process. think there's always been this separation between the world and the church, or this idea of secular and sacred. And the idea about transforming your mind, first of all,

speaker-0: What does that have for you now?

speaker-1: Paul is a whole nother conversation that we don't, don't need it because again, we're seminarians. So like when you mentioned Romans, I'm like, Paul is not the guy y'all think he was, you know, needless to say, needless to say, I think this idea of, Oh yeah, he would have been, he would have been outside the He would have been outside the church because he was very much testing.

speaker-0: never stop feeling Christian would have called Paul crazy in today.

speaker-1: a lot of shit that was happening within this. Anyway, but anyway, what does that mean for me? Transfer by the renewal of your mind. Like there is a way in which I have to keep acknowledging the gaps in the way that the church has taught us to acknowledge the gaps was just to say that it was done by Jesus. Right. So the four, I'll give you an example. The

speaker-0: It was saying where the weak...

speaker-1: the four men in the fire, that story in Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abiligo, and the bad Negro was in the flame. And then the text says that there was a fourth man that was walking in the fire with him and was not being burned, was not being touched. And in sermonic moments, what we will get from that is that Jesus was in the fire. Now, That sounds great because it can definitely send a church into a frenzy.

speaker-0: I it does it sends what into a frenzy state?

speaker-1: It feels good. It feels good. It's that moment. I hear it. I feel it. But the reality of it is that you haven't done the work to understand what that, understand the context, but you haven't done much work to like investigate, right? I think the church is one of the black churches, unfortunately, and the church in general is one of the most illiterate like context that we have.

speaker-0: The thing you learned how to read was the Bible. The first thing I learned how to read was the Bible.

speaker-1: was the body and nobody and nobody really understand so what does it mean to transform your mind the idea that questioning is a part of the evolutionary process for understanding yourself and the divine one thing that I understand about transforming my I have to question I have to stay inquisitive be not conformed to this world be not conformed to the systems that are in play but be transformed by all way

speaker-0: in.

speaker-1: evaluating, always evaluating. Now again, I'm, where I'm, it's always interpretation. So we can go deeper into what Paul meant, but the idea of what I understood that to mean when I growing up was that I had to be more like Christ. I had to be more like

speaker-0: Yeah, and and not more like Christ more like what the church looked like like let's yes, yes, yes, yes when we use language and it was like God said that no you said

speaker-1: And you want me to be more like

speaker-0: You want me to be like you, you telling me to be more like you and then saying it's more like Christ and equating and that's probably one of the hardest things that I think is ⁓ for a lot of people who are on this deconstruction journey is detaching ⁓ this idea or personhood of God as the central focus of knowing God. I honor who Jesus Christ is not through the fact that I'm so concerned with his personhood or his manhood or because when we also have to sit with this thing, like there's language like God is not a man that he will not lie, but God is not no man. Like I ain't no woman, ain't no man. That's the most non gender conforming nigga I've seen.

speaker-1: The is we acknowledge that like we even in songs we say like he's a mother to the motherless father to the fatherless. We're already taking that type of restrictions off of God, but we're still sitting in a very patriarchal. We're sitting in the context. We're sitting in a capitalistic Western evangelical context. So it's hard for us to separate and even realize the dissonance.

speaker-0: No.

speaker-1: and what we're even saying.

speaker-0: And that is like... For me, when I was like, nah, I gotta call Devonte, we gotta do this, we gotta have this conversation, it really came from a place of like, I was like, I went to hang out with one of my friends and they still lived in the same apartment that they lived in in 2020 when everything shut down and it was just me and them because neither one of us had family here in Atlanta and I walked into there and I felt more like myself than I have felt in... years and I realized I damn we time hopped where was I and what would I have been doing in 2020 well in 2020 I had come to this inflection point in the world felt it the world felt the inflection point that mass movement or mobilization or righteous outrage that the world felt in 2020 that took me to the point where I was like, yeah, this doesn't make sense to me anymore. This I cannot fully, I cannot fully, that's where I felt in my spirit in a serious way that I align with myself because. for a time I was believing and having experiences that told me, taught me, educated me, sat with other people in other countries that believed different things than me and still felt the God that I know. I understood it as a new experience of the God or expansion of the God I already knew. And through that process becoming, still being in the church, right? I have to get to myself. I have to get in my body. My body had to align with where my mind was, where my spirit was, where my heart is. And that's the journey for a lot of people right now. We are trying to get in ourselves. ⁓ Solange said, be weary about the ways of the world. And then she says, I'm gonna go look for my body. I'll be back soon.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: In a sense, we are all trying to find and so I was like, what would I have been doing going through that journey? I would have been talking about it. I've been saying things about it. So this is me actually Yeah, taking some shit with me back to like ⁓ yeah We should have been in that and doing that and being that but I think that I had to give myself permission, which is why this You know, we're talking about the permission slip. A lot of people won't give themselves permission because my thought process of what permission has been for me like I mean being churched is the church is over your shoulder telling you the pastor God is over your shoulder telling you every second don't do that limiting you saying don't be be afraid be scared be and It has not allowed us, even when no one's there, to not give our own self the permission to say, I don't actually believe that. I'm experiencing it this way and actually my lived experience because that's how I think we come back to ourselves is through our validating our own lived experience because I'm living this. I am in control of this experience that I'm having. I am God within my own world experience and that's why I am of because for me it never shifted. My foundations won't ever shift. I'm so very grateful that I was Baptist and Christian and it gave me the understanding of how I now understand all of the other spiritual systems and philosophies in the world. when I am having this moment of okay God is the all. Well if God is the all then God made everything meaning I can reconcile other belief systems. Right?

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. You know, the interesting thing about what I think people are afraid of, this is your question about why aren't we questioning or what makes people not step into that authentic authenticity. The idea of what church meant for many of our church kids was it was also community. We talked about that at beginning. It was also very community. was was belonging.

speaker-0: Yep, along.

speaker-1: So questioning, right, it is a scary place because it could remove you from a place in a community of who you belong to. I think that regardless of if you're religious or not, you know what it is to lose people. And I think the reason why the church

speaker-0: It's everything.

speaker-1: the black church has such an indent on our lives is because it was authentic community. We felt like we belonged. And something that you said before we started recording, before we started recording that I was reminded of last week in the conversation is that we carried so much. And many of us, carried it at such a young age. I'll never forget, I was licensed to preach, and you can find the sermon online when I was 16.

speaker-0: I'm telling you

speaker-1: And I preached my introductory sermon that luckily it wasn't called a trial sermon because I wasn't in the code of church at that point Because it was a trial sermon from for many people in the coach that you have a trial sermon To make sure that's what

speaker-0: to make sure we need more podcast mic actually we

speaker-1: You need a trial period on this. But I did my introductory sermon. I was licensed. And I remember a member of the church, it was a woman. She was at, it was in her 40s. She walks up to me, not at that, not when I was licensed, but at some point. And she's telling me about her divorce and like her relationships. Again, I am 16. And you're not even. And I don't, because she sees me as a mature figure in the church.

speaker-0: I'm gonna drive. It actually and thank you for bringing that point back up because Church the black church we are also matured in the black church very much so very much so but I think it's deeply connected to the ways in which The systems that are in power or in place keep us in a place where we're Thinking that we're mature and also our relationship with suffering and as we learn suffering in in the church context and so now when we're experiencing the society shit, it's normal. This is normal for you to be seen as a grown man when you walk outside so I can shoot you. It's normal for you to be sexualized, over-sexualized, molested, raped, married off young because this is how, again, the spiritual laws and the laws of our government actually work. not spiritual laws, but spiritual rules, traditions, laws is another thing, we'll get into that conversation. But these moments keep us matured and we miss out on our childhoods, we miss out on our different things, but I think.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: this connection of separation is because a lot of our childhood is in the church, right? Because community, mothering, community, so forth. So if I lose my identity, I lose my family. I lose my, my, you know, way of being. And it, it, it can get intense, but yeah.

speaker-1: I'll tell you, one of recently what I realized is that my memory has been little spotty when I, like from childhood. And I know this because my partner is really, really good with like recalling play-by-play moments in their life. And my brother's also the same way. Me and my brother grew up in the same household. my brother, with Minjus, I'll give you a perfect example. My brother's birthday was recently and he called me because he, his boyfriend got him a WWE belt and we loved WWE growing up. Like we were, we were, I was an Undertaker fan. I'm you know, I was dark. was dark, you know, but Undertaker was, was dope. I, but that's, we grew up watching that and my, brother, I was like, Oh yeah. Remember we went to that wrestling match when we were younger.

speaker-0: have cable because they know what's coming on.

speaker-1: Exactly. It was. And my brother was like, I was like, yeah, do you remember when we went to the wrestling match? He was like, yeah. And do you remember what happened before that? How we got the tickets to go? And I was like, no, what happened? He tells me this whole scenario with my parents and us before we got the tickets, they wanted to talk to us about sex. And they were trying to tell us that when we were young, my brother was like, ⁓ and in that moment I was like, I forgot about that, but that's not the first thing I've forgotten. And I've been pondering over my, I'm like, why the fuck am I forgetting so much of my childhood? Things have become spotty. I haven't like I'm like and I and again, this is my my my self-diagnosing self-diagnosing the problem But it is partially trauma and it is parts because I felt like I was in a fucking trance. Yeah my entire childhood being in Christianity and so yeah, there's so much there

speaker-0: And I think also language is important when you are on a journey of deconstructing and I think it's a lot of shit out there on social media concerning decolonizing and deconstruction and a lot of it is been like y'all don't know what you're talking about. This actually means this this actually means this and people don't need to be talked at like that. Like I don't I What does that mean for me nigga? Like that's how I feel like what, what, does that play a role? And so that's why it's not really ⁓ grasping. It's a lot of people are exploring it, but their point of departure is confusion. And the people that I know that are in my generation are like, that's confusing. You're telling me because I don't have the seminary context that we think it's impossible for old folks to change their ways. Well, no, we're not speaking to them in a language. they understand and that's important. So when we talk about deconstruction, it's important for us to say our stories so that people can understand, oh, how these things are mixing or becoming together. I think it's, I'm gonna bring it back to this month because this month was like, y'all are not, speaking the gospel and y'all are Leading people the wrong way and the month was like the month was like we haven't even been talking We haven't even been saying anything. He was like, ⁓ yeah when you all do your little ritual and stop and he called it a little ritual and I'm like This is how disconnected people are from experience Church is ritual Everything about it is ritual and then to break it down to another level ritual is you? Having the morning you get up in the morning every morning you get in the shower every morning you brush your teeth every morning That's your morning. It's ritual rich That's what ritual means and being able to like

speaker-1: This is a ritual.

speaker-0: Hey, this is not a far hop saying a ritual and now it mystifies or scares or deters and it's like, bro, come on, you saying the Lord's Prayer is you being in ritual.

speaker-1: Go back to the idea about what church has taught us, taught us dissonance, cognitive dissonance in an interesting way because like we said, we hate the sinner, we hate the sin, but we love the sinner. It's an easy way for us to disassociate people and dehumanize someone, right? It's the same idea. So I think that this guy

speaker-0: was dehumanized and we're okay with it. Wow, look what this person has done to us and we glorify and magnify the dehumanization of somebody for the rest of the world or for for the better of others. And so now there's this psychological thing we experience where we're like, it's okay for some people to suffer for us to have it is

speaker-1: But again that moment watching that clip of that that guy standing in of the monk It's it's the epitome of religious psychosis, right? Because the idea that You have the right To in to to to in to obstruct someone else from doing whatever. In this context, there's no harm, right? This is not stopping some type of mass murder. This is a peaceful wall. It's the complete... opposite of the demonstration that he's showing, right? Hostility meets peace. what does that say about what Christianity has taught us? It has taught us a lot about intolerance. So we don't know, and I was telling my parents this not too long ago, is that you don't know discipline, you know intolerance. You can't stand what you believe is wrong. And again, that idea of wrong and right, sin and not is so subjective. But the idea that you feel that way is a level of intolerance. You don't know how to handle difference. And that is something that think has been and will continue to be the downfall of society, is that when we don't understand that our own rituals, our own practices, our decisions that...

speaker-0: They belong to

speaker-1: Belong to us. can't chalk this up to some outside force, right?

speaker-0: Yes, and I think that is ⁓ so this concept that I've been in study of and research of just in and that is spiritual ownership. I believe that spiritual ownership is the vehicle to self-determination.

speaker-1: Mm-hmm

speaker-0: the ways in which we make up or understand or are in relationship with spirit. When you say spirituality, the suffix ality means ownership. It literally is telling you to own this thing for yourself, own yourself, own your body, own your autonomy. And that it's been scary for people to do that because our society doesn't support autonomy or agency. It doesn't benefit off of those things. And so it is an act of defiance when you say, this is what I believe. is a taking back or it is a stepping into, not a taking back because I don't believe that concept of. Power to the people or I think power in the people and when the people realize how to step into their own power that is where the the the that process of self-determination and being able to wield power comes and so spiritual ownership is important because you know what god feels like I I Don't care where I go Being ⁓ a part of Solid Rock, Full Gospel Baptist Church and being under the tutelage of Bishop James E. Edward Carter Sr. has taught me in my body what God feels like. And I won't ever let anything or anybody take that from me. So when I go somewhere and I experience something new and if I feel that feeling at all, that's God. That is the expansion and an experience of the God I already know and I'm gonna lean into it. because of that, actually grew up. ⁓ There are pieces of me that became afraid when I made the choice to say, I have to this, build this for myself. And through my years and experiences, because again, our parents, we're who our parents wanted us to become, right? They put us in the schools, they gave us the education, they said, think for yourselves and be well, be well in the earth, right? They did that for us. Through my experience, I had roommates that were Muslim, I had friends. who were Buddhist, who were Sikh. I had friends who practiced African spiritual traditions that were Yoruba.

speaker-1: Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: Had these experiences and so I experienced pieces of them and I actually got to experience new things out of Curiosity because of what I had to do. I had to go to school I had to this was who I had to room with my first time being on a plane at the age of 18 because we couldn't afford all that growing up I went out of the country and So because I had to go do things I was connected to what I was told to do I had to have these beneficial experiences that opened me up And I'm grateful for that and that's not also everybody's experience. It is mostly uh-uh I can't yoga is the devil and you praying down I see some might say them different positions that they calling out is different gods and Hinduism definitely has ⁓ many deities but ⁓ There are I'm getting into that there there are ⁓ just in general, many different ways to experience God. And I think if people grasp that, they are many gods, that they are present. It's in there. It's, it's, all right. Yeah. Yeah. And so I, I wanted to,

speaker-1: It's in the book. There are other gods in the book.

speaker-0: ⁓ empower folks in this this podcast is to continuously empower folks to ⁓ Know that you have the power to investigate what you believe, to be curious and be in rediscovery of yourself. It's not actually you becoming somebody new, you're remembering and then connecting that to where you are today and the information that's present now. like, you know, We have given ourselves that permission and it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy for me to give myself that permission. And what did help was talking to other people who gave themselves that permission.

speaker-1: Yeah, I definitely had to give myself permission to ask questions and to think differently. That came in a consequence. Right. It came in a consequence of relationships. It came in a consequence of my own sometimes sanity because sometimes I would have rather not have asked the question because that question set me on a spiral. Right. And I think that's I don't think people talk about that enough. It's like it's a it is a dark. It's not fun because it's not it's not what

speaker-0: in the dark.

speaker-1: It is not what is truly desired when we really think about it. if you could think about You don't want it. You don't want-

speaker-0: Your soul must have it. Yes the point that you can't you don't want it but

speaker-1: But yeah, think we're longing for something. I think that's what a lot of us are feeling in this moment. Again, I went to go try to see the monks last week when it came to Decatur. and I got there a little early so I was walking around talking to folk. And again, the thing that I was trying to grasp is like, why are people here? And the consistent thing is nobody knew. Nobody could answer why they wanted to be there. They just said, I'm here to feel something. And I think there's a longing for people in this, particularly in this, I don't think it's a coincidence. That we have. ⁓ A government who has shown us right the propaganda out front. We we just attacked Venezuela, right? Yeah, we have we have a we have a church the church is Experiencing one of the greatest declines that is seen. No matter what you're saying numbers in church are not what you think No, the church church is not what it used to

speaker-0: They showing you them close-ups. See so many abandoned churches. Just drive through your neighborhood. They're all abandoned.

speaker-1: People are for alternative. They're for an alternative and realizing now that that alternative was always a part of a questioning process. All you had to do was create the space. All you had to do was create the space. But we have become so, we were so institutionalized. Yeah, that the church was what it has been, but understanding that when empire falls, the church will as well. And because it has to be rebuilt.

speaker-0: Peace. It's a little to that. Literally and that point that you said absolutely you cannot Up like you cannot change or tear down or abolish a government or systems without addressing the belief systems that uphold them and so that those things are going to shake break Transform and we have to be open to that and the spiritual leaders who? ⁓ Who want to make the jump because there's a jump happening? It's a time who want to make the jump have to be open to what God is saying right now.

speaker-1: Yeah, Bishop Yvette Flunder had this line that she said, she said, something cannot be completely resurrected unless it's completely dead. And I've all I took that and she made it. She said it in the middle of like, think the pandemic, I believe she's at a conference. And when I heard that it was a signal, right, it was a signal to a lot of things. But more so is that there has to be a complete transition. Yeah, we understand that. That's we say. When somebody died, they transition. There has to be a complete transition. of the way that we understand the world in order for a new world to come. And that means that everything that we've understood about this world has to die in order for, and that means leaders have to die. We've seen a lot of deaths lately, people that we didn't think, right? They said people that died and they never died before, right? Right, but with every death there's life, and I think the idea though for the church, is that in order for us to confront all of the, all of the sick isms and all of the sick things in our society that we say, we have to renew our minds. And what does that mean? We have to reanalyze what we've been taught. I'll give you this one last thing, because I listened to a lot of podcasts and stuff. There was a CIA agent that was on the Diary for CEO podcast and he was talking about the way the CIA investigates and interrogates people. And he talks about the Rice method. The Rice method is how the CIA does their work. all the avenues in which the CIA infiltrates countries, regimes. But he says there's there's a, Rice, it's an acronym. So, and don't reward ideology, coercion, and ego. Those are the four ways that the CIA will infiltrate anything. But he said the most effective is ideology. If I can make, if I can infiltrate the way that you

speaker-0: Christian nationalism.

speaker-1: I have everything. So again, you got to think about Christianity in a broader scheme because of the powers that be. If we know that systems are exploiting ideology and ways of thinking, you cannot forego the fact that Christianity is a part of that same system.

speaker-0: Part of that. That is the exclusivism that Christianity has always offered.

speaker-1: Yes.

speaker-0: I want say I thank you so much. It has been sweet as it has been every time. I appreciate you as a whole, but I appreciate you as a spiritual leader who is committed to doing the self-work because it is the self-work that helps us release, emanate, show up, and support our communities and our loved ones. So I want to say thank you.

speaker-1: Yes, thanks. We're here. We're gonna keep walking, keep journeying, keep living, keep drinking. That's the whole number.