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Are Your Beliefs Your Own with Candice Benbow · Deeply Well with Devi Brown

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Speaker 1: Mm from grandmothers who whispered in their baby girl in
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Speaker 1: two fathers on dimly lit street corners, instructing young soldiers
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Speaker 1: to always keep their eyes open. You be queen, you
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Speaker 1: were fired. You will pass through centuries on the hands
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Speaker 1: of your daughters. They called you wisdom. Proverbs on the
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Speaker 1: backs of diamond eyed school children who growing into hymnals
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Speaker 1: recited by amethyst holding urban philosophers who recited neighborhood commandments
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Speaker 1: out of the windows of restored Alchemedo cheriots to keep
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Speaker 1: the warmth of their blood, be wise, be smart, being black.
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Speaker 1: Opal Brown courts bloodstone and prayer. Be every form of
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Speaker 1: Jim se King told scribe, scribe, told son, son, told wife,
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Speaker 1: wife told her daughter, and daughter told the as this is.
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Speaker 1: And the ancestors told me that you would come to
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Speaker 1: give wisdom. Thousands. They said you would come dropping chain
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Speaker 1: dropping Jim. Hey, welcome to episode twenty three of the
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Speaker 1: Dropping Gyms podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Brown. We are
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Speaker 1: back this week, and UM, first, I just want to
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Speaker 1: say you guys are hilarious. I have been reading all
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Speaker 1: the messages and emails I've gotten over our episode on
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Speaker 1: sexual healing. UM, I have to say, I did not
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Speaker 1: know everyone was going to be that shook, but I
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Speaker 1: love it and I'm here for it. And so I
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Speaker 1: just say, if you are uncomfortable with anything that comes
1:41
Speaker 1: up on this show, just sitting that for a minute,
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Speaker 1: That's okay, and just investigate, like what am I feeling?
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Speaker 1: Where am I feeling that discomfort, and then challenge it
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Speaker 1: by asking why. UM. So I love that. I love
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Speaker 1: hearing from you guys on the episodes. UM, just so
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Speaker 1: so many beautiful messages, and I'm so grateful. And make
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Speaker 1: sure you take a second to subscribe and to rate
2:05
Speaker 1: and write a review for the podcast. Okay, all right,
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Speaker 1: So today's show we are talking about God, but specifically
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Speaker 1: we're talking about God in the context of religion, and so,
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Speaker 1: as I've shared on a few different episodes, UM, I
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Speaker 1: am very open to almost all things that exude God's love.
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Speaker 1: And so growing up, I did not grow up in
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Speaker 1: the church, but I always longed for the church. I
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Speaker 1: remember the first time, when I was a little girl
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Speaker 1: that I heard the stories and the teachings of Jesus,
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Speaker 1: and I was so profoundly impacted by it and to
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Speaker 1: this day, uh, and I remember just really sitting in
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Speaker 1: the works of Christ and feeling like I aspire to
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Speaker 1: live and feel like that. And so for me, that
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Speaker 1: really represented what the power of teachings are. It doesn't
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Speaker 1: always have to be done in the right polish way.
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Speaker 1: You don't always have to know all the text or
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Speaker 1: all the scripture, all the theology. But if you stay
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Speaker 1: open and you stay connected to the essence of the understandings,
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Speaker 1: to the embodiment of the ways of walking in the paths,
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Speaker 1: I think our lives are so deeply enrenched, and so
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Speaker 1: I love to explore different belief systems and I'm so
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Speaker 1: deeply curious about the things that both lead us to
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Speaker 1: God and the self imposed barriers that keep us from God.
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Speaker 1: So I'm really excited about this episode. I will be
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Speaker 1: speaking to a phenomenal, phenomenal woman named Candice Marie Binbo
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Speaker 1: and some of you might be familiar. She has a
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Speaker 1: celebrated podcast called Red Lip Theology. She and I originally
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Speaker 1: met at this amazing event called God Talk. She's a writer,
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Speaker 1: She's an essayist, a screenwriter, a theologian whose work lies
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Speaker 1: at the intersections of beauty, baking, faith, feminism, culture, and
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Speaker 1: she gives voice to black women shared experience of healing
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Speaker 1: and journeying towards wholeness. In two thousand and fifteen, Candice
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Speaker 1: created Red Lip Theology to encourage women to embrace themselves
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Speaker 1: as good creation, and through Red Lip Theology, she merges
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Speaker 1: theological ideals with beauty industry participation to celebrate Black women's
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Speaker 1: creativity and spirituality. She also went to seminary school, went
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Speaker 1: to Duke, was in a PhD program that she decided
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Speaker 1: to walk away from on her own terms. And something
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Speaker 1: I love so much about her is the way she
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Speaker 1: challenges thoughts on faith as a woman who has spent
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Speaker 1: her entire life in the church, whose families have spent
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Speaker 1: their entire lives in the church, and who has also
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Speaker 1: dedicated her life to God. Really excited to explore these
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Speaker 1: conversations with her today, Candice Bevenvo, Welcome to this show.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. I am
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Speaker 1: so hype. So I'm a fan, like I am a
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Speaker 1: big fan of your brain, of your heart. I love
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Speaker 1: the way that you think. I love the way that
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Speaker 1: you share yourself. I fell you on social media. I'm
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Speaker 1: liking all your posts. Um, but you and I originally met.
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Speaker 1: Actually now a couple of years ago. Um, but we
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Speaker 1: we had a chance to connect at God Talk, which
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Speaker 1: was this beautiful event put together by Teddy Reeves of
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Speaker 1: the African American Smithsonian Museum. He did an incredible exhibit
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Speaker 1: at the museum that we're both a part of, the
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Speaker 1: d C Museum on Black spirituality, Black millennial spirituality and
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Speaker 1: the church, and this wonderful event that he did, and
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Speaker 1: he's done it in multiple cities. This one was in
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Speaker 1: l A. We did it at the African American History
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Speaker 1: Museum in Exposition Park in l A. And I remember
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Speaker 1: I got there and I didn't know anybody. I didn't know, Um,
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Speaker 1: I hadn't been introduced anybody yet. I walked in the
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Speaker 1: room and I saw you and you were just so bright.
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Speaker 1: I remember you had this like gorgeous red lip on
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Speaker 1: and you just had you had this radiance about you
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Speaker 1: was so commanding. And you were a part of the
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Speaker 1: panel that was right before the one that I did.
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Speaker 1: And I had a chance to sit in the audience
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Speaker 1: and here you speak before I went up, and I
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Speaker 1: just fell in love with you. I was just like,
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Speaker 1: oh my god, I love the way her brain works.
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Speaker 1: And I felt like, you know, you were saying things
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Speaker 1: that it really felt like no one in the audience
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Speaker 1: had ever thought they had permission to thinker here before.
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Speaker 1: And it was so striking because you know, there are
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Speaker 1: so many conversations happening, um, not just now. You know
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Speaker 1: a lot of the leading conversations are around mental health. There,
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Speaker 1: they're around mindfulness, but there are so so many multifaceted
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Speaker 1: conversations happening around religion and specifically around the Black Church
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Speaker 1: exactly exactly. I'm I'm so excited to be here you, um,
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Speaker 1: I have I have fan girl to you because I
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Speaker 1: think that in align with what you just said, there
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Speaker 1: are so many of us who want to give ourselves
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Speaker 1: permission to think about our faith and spirituality differently, and
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Speaker 1: you help to give permission, um in ways that also
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Speaker 1: don't make it feel like who we are as spiritual
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Speaker 1: beings is disjointed from our experience. And so I'm so
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Speaker 1: excited to just have I've been looking at like this
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Speaker 1: is the highlight of my week, like I've been looking forward, same, same, same.
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Speaker 1: I love that you said that too, because you know,
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Speaker 1: I had a conversation with a really close friend this
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Speaker 1: week that it was it was kind of eye opening
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Speaker 1: for me, um, because you know, when you're in the
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Speaker 1: thick of your own process and you have your own
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Speaker 1: relationship with God and speak to Him in your languaging,
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Speaker 1: you don't always understand how other people are observing you
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Speaker 1: and experiencing that. And so this person in my life,
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Speaker 1: who who I respect mentally and have such a gorgeous
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Speaker 1: relationship of their own with God, Like they asked me
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Speaker 1: if I believed in God, and I was shocked. I
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Speaker 1: was like, wait, is that a question? Like you don't
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Speaker 1: see God in me, Like you don't feel God in me?
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Speaker 1: Like every ounce of me is in service to God
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Speaker 1: and in gratitude to God. But you know, I think
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Speaker 1: for them, they said, well, I see you talk about
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Speaker 1: meditation a lot, so I didn't know if you knew scripture.
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Speaker 1: And I said, well, why do I have to know
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Speaker 1: all the scriptures to know God? You know? And and
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Speaker 1: that's just such an interesting place to be in now
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Speaker 1: that through social media, through the world old, through just
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Speaker 1: like broadening of our collective consciousness, you know, so many
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Speaker 1: of us are realizing that there is not one road
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Speaker 1: to God exactly. Yeah, and we also don't always have
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Speaker 1: to have a middle man exactly. You know, I think um.
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Speaker 1: I think so much about um, even in my own
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Speaker 1: journey with faith, that the scriptures that talk about um
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Speaker 1: when Jesus, when Jesus was on the cross and Jesus died,
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Speaker 1: the veil was ripped in the temples to kind of
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Speaker 1: to signal that there is no middle man, that there is,
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Speaker 1: that that this kind of mediator between that that had
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Speaker 1: been accomplished, right, and that that you have this this
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Speaker 1: relationship um that you can that you can lean into
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Speaker 1: on your own, and gave me permission to explore that
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Speaker 1: even further, to realize that I didn't really even need
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Speaker 1: a scripture aligning with Jesus to give me permission to
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Speaker 1: recognize that my relationship with God was my own UM.
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Speaker 1: And that you know, I had a mom who who,
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Speaker 1: for all the ways that she raised me to be
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Speaker 1: a bona fide church girl, would always say that God
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Speaker 1: was so much bigger. God is so much bigger than
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Speaker 1: the sixty six books that are in the Bible, and
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Speaker 1: that our lives are scripture. And so I didn't know
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Speaker 1: what that meant, right, Like I didn't know what that
10:40
Speaker 1: meant as a kid. I was just like okay, Like
10:43
Speaker 1: she must have read it in a book somewhere, but
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Speaker 1: the but the older I got, I realized that there
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Speaker 1: are that there are parts of me when I just
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Speaker 1: get steal and I can, like my body can shift.
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Speaker 1: And that is an instant and immediate appeal to who
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Speaker 1: I know God to be to come see about me.
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Speaker 1: Right that I don't have to quota scripture, but I
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Speaker 1: can just get still within myself and it is a
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Speaker 1: very clear calling. But not just God, but from my ancestors,
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Speaker 1: my angels, thea Recha's, everybody that that is conspiring together
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Speaker 1: in the spirit world to see about me for them
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Speaker 1: to come. And I think that we've spent so much time.
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Speaker 1: I I just say for me that we were taught
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Speaker 1: so so much of us who identify as black women
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Speaker 1: and are Christian, so much of what we understand faith
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Speaker 1: to be is rooted in scripture because all we did
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Speaker 1: was go to church, church, Sunday school, Bible study. So
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Speaker 1: and if it ain't in that book, then then we
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Speaker 1: don't really know, you know what. And I think that well,
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Speaker 1: And it's funny because depending on who's translating the book,
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Speaker 1: so it's it could be so many different ways that
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Speaker 1: you're interpreting it or that you're experiencing God like you know,
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Speaker 1: some people believe in the God of vengeance, some people
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Speaker 1: believe in the God of joy like. So much of
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Speaker 1: it is rooted in how you experience yourself and how
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Speaker 1: you were taught to think. And this is what's so
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Speaker 1: funny to me, how you were taught two think of
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Speaker 1: God's personality, as if God had a personality that had
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Speaker 1: anything to do with ego. It is so interesting to me,
12:44
Speaker 1: and and and as if you could even find the
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Speaker 1: words to articulate it. Right, So so it was I
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Speaker 1: never again. I was in seminary class, and I was
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Speaker 1: in seminary and we were in theology, and my professor said,
13:08
Speaker 1: he held up the Bible, and he said, we have
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Speaker 1: this book, we have these courses because so much of
13:18
Speaker 1: what we are trying to do is find language to
13:25
Speaker 1: articulate one who cannot be contained by human language. And
13:32
Speaker 1: so we fell miserably because we try. We we we
13:38
Speaker 1: are always grasping towards it. And we and he said,
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Speaker 1: and we make that grasp towards it a certainty, and
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Speaker 1: it's never couched in the grace of our of our
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Speaker 1: human frailty. And so when he said that, I was
13:56
Speaker 1: like bro like that gave me. That gave me so
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Speaker 1: much more permission to honor that God was bigger. God
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Speaker 1: is bigger than my language. God is bigger than than
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Speaker 1: everything that I thought, Um I knew, um who I
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Speaker 1: thought I knew God to be and and to be honest, Debbie,
14:22
Speaker 1: it was. It was very cute to to kind of
14:26
Speaker 1: to say that, like I was, you know, a budding
14:30
Speaker 1: theologian and scholar. I gone, and you know it was
14:34
Speaker 1: a duke and it was graduated, was doing already work
14:39
Speaker 1: so um at this kind of intersection of faith and feminism.
14:43
Speaker 1: So it was really easy for me to kind of
14:45
Speaker 1: say that as like God is so much bigger like
14:49
Speaker 1: all of the words that we say. It wasn't until
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Speaker 1: I had to live it right when um it was.
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Speaker 1: I graduated seminary in May. My mother unexpectedly passed in
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Speaker 1: that November, and everything about my world crumbled because my
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Speaker 1: mom was who everything about church was phenonymous with my mother,
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Speaker 1: Like my relationship with God, like if I did something
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Speaker 1: I liked, I would pray and then but I knew
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Speaker 1: she I knew if God wasn't hearing me, Guy was
15:23
Speaker 1: definitely here my mama. So like so that there was
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Speaker 1: this that I still had this cushion and I still
15:29
Speaker 1: had this buffer. And when my mom passed, there was
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Speaker 1: so much about faith that I had to contend with,
15:42
Speaker 1: because when you think about scripture, there were all of
15:46
Speaker 1: these scriptures that you know, God will give you the
15:49
Speaker 1: desires of your heart if you delight yourself and Him
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Speaker 1: and and all of these kind of like methodical procedural scriptures.
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Speaker 1: If you do X, then Y and Z happened. And
16:04
Speaker 1: I could not reconcile that my mother had been as
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Speaker 1: devoted to God and as devoted to her faith that
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Speaker 1: she was, and she died alone from an asthma chad,
16:16
Speaker 1: you know that like that you know, our like our
16:21
Speaker 1: greatest fears were we were each other's like, I'm not
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Speaker 1: only child, she was a single mom, like being away
16:27
Speaker 1: from each other, and like a crisis like that was
16:32
Speaker 1: that's my biggest nightmare, you know, and like and so
16:37
Speaker 1: when things happened, when that happened, and then a series
16:41
Speaker 1: of events happened afterwards, it it caused me to look
16:46
Speaker 1: at this thing called faith and really asked myself, was
16:51
Speaker 1: it mine? You know, um, because there's a way that
16:58
Speaker 1: I was living admittedly into a faith that belonged to
17:03
Speaker 1: my grandmother, a faith that belonged to my mother, and
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Speaker 1: I was living into it into the I was living
17:09
Speaker 1: into it the ways that I thought they would want
17:12
Speaker 1: me to. And it wasn't fully authentic to me. It
17:19
Speaker 1: wasn't fully authentic to the girl that they were raising,
17:22
Speaker 1: the one who had a lot of questions that sometimes
17:24
Speaker 1: frustrated them. But it was but did not check her
17:29
Speaker 1: brain at the door right in every other scenario of
17:33
Speaker 1: her life. So why was I doing it when it
17:35
Speaker 1: came to faith? So it didn't wow, It didn't honor
17:42
Speaker 1: who I really knew, and and and was beginning to
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Speaker 1: understand that God actually had created me to be right,
17:51
Speaker 1: and so that kind of it would it took me
17:57
Speaker 1: to say, to understand what it means that our language
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Speaker 1: fails us. Yes, yes, And we are always we are
18:12
Speaker 1: always trying to speak to a holy thing that its
18:19
Speaker 1: greatest power is its mystery. It's greatest power is its mystery.
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Speaker 1: And that's why I think it is so hilarious to
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Speaker 1: know God. To experience even a partial peace of the
18:39
Speaker 1: vastness of God's being is to not be in a
18:43
Speaker 1: judgment for anyone. And so that's what always is so challenging,
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Speaker 1: I think when we have these conversations, and part of
18:49
Speaker 1: me even being in the world of mindfulness, it's so
18:53
Speaker 1: much around educating my audience, so much around educating people
18:57
Speaker 1: on what certain things are and really diving deep in
19:00
Speaker 1: kind of unpacking them so that it doesn't feel so
19:03
Speaker 1: conflicting with anything they were taught to know. We're taught
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Speaker 1: to believe. But there is not one language for God,
19:10
Speaker 1: you know, like He God, He, She, Father, Mother, God,
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Speaker 1: the entity, the being, the just, the supernatural force that
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Speaker 1: is the divine. It's not fathomable like the fullness of God.
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Speaker 1: We can pretend. We can study and and and recite
19:30
Speaker 1: all of the scriptures, you can study and recite all
19:32
Speaker 1: of the belief systems, all of them, it would never
19:35
Speaker 1: make a dent in the full understanding of what God
19:39
Speaker 1: is and what God can be to you. God has
19:42
Speaker 1: to be experienced, And I think it's it's much like
19:45
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like when people read all
19:48
Speaker 1: the self help books or give all the advice but
19:50
Speaker 1: aren't applying. Right, You're at the intell intellectualization phase, but
19:54
Speaker 1: you have not yet embodied to know God. And this
19:58
Speaker 1: is fine. I go to church to like you know,
20:00
Speaker 1: I do, Um. I have so many friends that are
20:04
Speaker 1: embedded in the church, and I love it. I love
20:07
Speaker 1: I honor anyway people authentically. No God, Um, But I
20:12
Speaker 1: think it's so you know, it's just so interesting how
20:16
Speaker 1: limiting we can make our relationship with Him, because the
20:19
Speaker 1: deeper truth is that when you have God fully in
20:22
Speaker 1: your life, you are in this constant state of surrender.
20:26
Speaker 1: This you constantly have access to joy at some level,
20:30
Speaker 1: and you feel God in every fiber of your being.
20:34
Speaker 1: It's a it's a mind body soul connection. You know.
20:38
Speaker 1: I may not, you know, wake up every Sunday and
20:41
Speaker 1: go to the church, but every single day that I
20:43
Speaker 1: meditate for one hour with God and with Christ, I
20:47
Speaker 1: feel it radiating through my being. My body is a buzz.
20:52
Speaker 1: And you can't tell me that because I don't show
20:55
Speaker 1: up in a certain kind of way that is just
20:59
Speaker 1: shred out it. In societal expectation more than anything, and
21:03
Speaker 1: in tradition more than anything, you can't. I live my
21:06
Speaker 1: life for God. You can't tell me I don't know
21:09
Speaker 1: God because I don't call him what you call him exactly. No,
21:12
Speaker 1: It's and it's so interesting and said that because Um,
21:17
Speaker 1: I was talking earlier this week with UM. I do
21:21
Speaker 1: spiritual direction, and UM one of the one of my
21:26
Speaker 1: spiritual direction clients. I told her, I said, we're talking
21:30
Speaker 1: about mindfulness. And she was nervous, UM because she was like,
21:35
Speaker 1: where is Jesus in mindfulness? And I was like, well,
21:40
Speaker 1: if you get quiet, I think I think you'll hear.
21:43
Speaker 1: And I said, I said, I said. The funny thing
21:48
Speaker 1: is that I asked her what she understood prayer to be.
21:54
Speaker 1: And she's like, it's this conversation you um, you you
21:58
Speaker 1: you tell, you tell God what you need, and you
22:02
Speaker 1: thank God for your for his blessings, and you you
22:06
Speaker 1: asked him to protect it. And I mean she she
22:09
Speaker 1: laid out this very um clear understanding of what prayer
22:15
Speaker 1: was for her, and none of it included listening. And
22:20
Speaker 1: I told her that I was like, I said, so,
22:23
Speaker 1: so in prayer, when does guy have an opportunity to
22:26
Speaker 1: talk to you? And and she she kind of looked
22:31
Speaker 1: at me, and I said to her, I said, perhaps
22:36
Speaker 1: it could be possible that you could see the art
22:41
Speaker 1: and the practice of mindfulness as a reorientation for you
22:49
Speaker 1: to what prayer can truly be. I said, because then
22:53
Speaker 1: as you empty yourself, and as you sent to yourself,
22:57
Speaker 1: and as you you meditate, you then begin to allow
23:03
Speaker 1: to hear God, I said, because it's not about you talking.
23:07
Speaker 1: I said, so, so how can we best shift what
23:13
Speaker 1: we understand mindfulness to be as invitation? Right? And I
23:20
Speaker 1: think I think for so many of us, um, we don't.
23:27
Speaker 1: It's the silence that is just oh my God, right,
23:31
Speaker 1: like so it's it's it's it's having to be with yourself.
23:36
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't. And and it's so funny because
23:38
Speaker 1: so and I know you can get it. Like so
23:41
Speaker 1: I've growing up in a Christian context, Like we don't
23:44
Speaker 1: even like the silence of the holy silence of Advent,
23:51
Speaker 1: or even like the holy silence of Good Friday or
23:55
Speaker 1: Holy Saturday before Easter, like we always gotta rush to
23:59
Speaker 1: Jesus doing something right, like we like we we Advent
24:04
Speaker 1: were in Advent, which is this holy time of this
24:07
Speaker 1: season of miracles, of expectation and waiting. You can't do
24:13
Speaker 1: anything if you're waiting, like it is the most frustrating
24:20
Speaker 1: position and space to be. And I watched this beautiful
24:25
Speaker 1: I watched the service the other day and I had
24:27
Speaker 1: to text my friend because the preacher went to the
24:33
Speaker 1: cross and then went to Jesus like, and I was like,
24:36
Speaker 1: this ain't even boring it, Like can we not just
24:40
Speaker 1: like stay in the in, in in the silence? Right?
24:48
Speaker 1: And I love that you say that, because you know,
24:50
Speaker 1: when I experienced Christ, it is for me some of
24:56
Speaker 1: the greatest inspirations of Christ. It's the tenderness of Christ.
25:00
Speaker 1: And it is the patience of Christ, like that beautiful
25:06
Speaker 1: patience of Christ, like moving through the world and listening
25:11
Speaker 1: to the small, subtle sounds and signs from God and
25:15
Speaker 1: walking as your highest self. You know, that's that's what
25:19
Speaker 1: the takeaway of Christ life should be. Christ. You know,
25:22
Speaker 1: Christ wasn't a Christian. Christ wasn't any religion. Christ was
25:26
Speaker 1: the son of God, the embodiment of the essence of
25:29
Speaker 1: God on earth that was meant to be the beacon
25:33
Speaker 1: of how we should live. We should aspire to live
25:36
Speaker 1: in such a way that we know God the way
25:39
Speaker 1: that Christ did, that we live for God the way
25:42
Speaker 1: that Christ did. And so it's like, if if any
25:44
Speaker 1: of your religious structure doesn't lend that knowing nous to
25:48
Speaker 1: you from the inside out, then there are other tools
25:51
Speaker 1: that need to be cultivated, because you're missing the point.
25:54
Speaker 1: That's the I think that that's the part is that
25:56
Speaker 1: so many of us have missed and are missing it
26:00
Speaker 1: because Church did not Church and I teach us necessarily
26:07
Speaker 1: to be christ Like as much as Church taught us
26:11
Speaker 1: how to conform to what culture and society who to
26:17
Speaker 1: who culture and society wanted us to be. So when
26:20
Speaker 1: when you think about when you think about scripture, there
26:26
Speaker 1: is which which a lot of us don't want to
26:29
Speaker 1: sit with. When we read scripture, there's about justice, a
26:34
Speaker 1: much justification for everything. You can justify murder, you can
26:39
Speaker 1: justify I mean, they're like, you can just justifyed genocide.
26:43
Speaker 1: You can justify a whole lot of stuff with scripture.
26:47
Speaker 1: What gets muddied is when you when you mediate those
26:55
Speaker 1: scriptures against the life of Jesus. Because there are some
27:01
Speaker 1: there are some parts of scripture, there are some parts
27:03
Speaker 1: of the of the text that the love and life
27:07
Speaker 1: of Jesus rub against right, But a lot of us
27:13
Speaker 1: were not taught to allow the love and life of
27:19
Speaker 1: Jesus to permeate who we are. Because that is very
27:28
Speaker 1: that is true, that is true, renegade in its in
27:33
Speaker 1: its purest form right. So Jesus was rogue like in
27:38
Speaker 1: in his you know that the truth is is that
27:42
Speaker 1: you know there were Jesus following Jewish customs, Jesus following
27:47
Speaker 1: on when he wanted to, because then when someone needed
27:51
Speaker 1: to be healed on the Sabbath, Jesus healing on the Sabbath,
27:54
Speaker 1: and it was like, bro, like what you don't you know,
27:56
Speaker 1: we don't do that, right, So like, so there's there's
28:00
Speaker 1: somethink about the inherent essence of Jesus. He was a
28:06
Speaker 1: disruptor for real. That exactly that causes you two. It
28:12
Speaker 1: is it is in direct opposition sometimes to these very
28:16
Speaker 1: rigid structures of dogma and doctrine, right, And so what
28:21
Speaker 1: then happens is you find yourself trying to live into
28:28
Speaker 1: everything that everybody else wants you to be, because they
28:32
Speaker 1: tell you that that is what it means to be holy,
28:35
Speaker 1: that is what it means to be pure, that is
28:37
Speaker 1: what it means to be righteous, and you find yourself
28:40
Speaker 1: crumpling against the weight of that when when you think
28:45
Speaker 1: about Jesus's life, the only thing Jesus ever asked for
28:49
Speaker 1: was authenticity, right, Because when you are who you are,
28:53
Speaker 1: when you are who you are created to be, there's
28:57
Speaker 1: a freedom there, and that free them breathe even more
29:01
Speaker 1: liberty and even more freedom right and then and it
29:04
Speaker 1: is from that that place that then you can say, okay,
29:09
Speaker 1: m these actions, these these these relationships, these things may
29:15
Speaker 1: not necessarily allow for my highest good. Right, not that
29:21
Speaker 1: I'm pushing them away because a because a book or
29:26
Speaker 1: because the way someone in turpets that book told me
29:28
Speaker 1: to write. Because the truth is, when I'm leaning into
29:31
Speaker 1: authenticity and my highest self, I might actually need to
29:35
Speaker 1: be inviting in relationships that the church may tell me
29:39
Speaker 1: to pull away. I talked about that a lot when
29:42
Speaker 1: it when it comes to intimacy and black women, right, like,
29:47
Speaker 1: let's go there, girl, like we like case on point.
29:54
Speaker 1: I don't know when this is coming out, but but
29:55
Speaker 1: we're recording it on my birthday and so thank you
30:01
Speaker 1: and so thanking this time. Like I literally when y'all
30:06
Speaker 1: sent the dates, I was like, oh no, we're having
30:07
Speaker 1: this conversation on my birthday, Like this is this is
30:09
Speaker 1: my treat to myself. But four women, four of my
30:15
Speaker 1: home girls, reached out to me to say happy birthday today,
30:19
Speaker 1: and they're all they have they all have quarantine bays,
30:25
Speaker 1: and we laughed about their quarantine bays. But they said
30:30
Speaker 1: to me, in in in. In their own ways, each
30:35
Speaker 1: of them thanked me for encouraging them to pursue joy.
30:42
Speaker 1: And one of my friends said to me, I am
30:45
Speaker 1: the happiest right now that I have been in a
30:49
Speaker 1: very long time. And she was, and she said, I'm
30:52
Speaker 1: not mean anymore. And another one of my friends told me,
30:58
Speaker 1: she said, I I am allowing myself to be held
31:03
Speaker 1: and she said, I don't remember the last time that
31:07
Speaker 1: I let somebody else hold me up instead of me.
31:11
Speaker 1: I'm learning how to let myself be help. And the
31:15
Speaker 1: truth is is that these dudes and gave them rings
31:19
Speaker 1: right the if they if they went to church, it
31:21
Speaker 1: would be what are you doing? Like like this is sin,
31:24
Speaker 1: Like no, you can't do this. And yet that these
31:30
Speaker 1: it's not the relationship, but it is. It is them
31:33
Speaker 1: giving themselves permission to to experience joy and pleasure. That's
31:39
Speaker 1: allowing them to literally remember themselves. And that's the holy act, right.
31:46
Speaker 1: Like one of my friends is like, you know, I
31:48
Speaker 1: see this relationship. We've talked about marriage, we talked about children.
31:53
Speaker 1: I had another friend who was like, you know what
31:56
Speaker 1: if this last by the vaccine, then I'll be amazed,
32:01
Speaker 1: but right now I'm enjoying it. It was. It was,
32:05
Speaker 1: but we all of us laughed because we all grew
32:10
Speaker 1: up in church, and we we talk about how we
32:13
Speaker 1: still work to overcome a lot of what we have
32:18
Speaker 1: been taught, because I do think a learning it's a
32:22
Speaker 1: lifelong journey. But it was just this one step of
32:26
Speaker 1: saying that, in a year that has taken so much
32:31
Speaker 1: from us, I'm going to give myself something. I'm gonna
32:36
Speaker 1: give myself permission to be loved and to experience love
32:42
Speaker 1: and joy and and and I'm going to take off
32:50
Speaker 1: everything that tells me this is wrong because it's not
32:54
Speaker 1: inherent and intrinsic to me, right, you know, Um, But
32:58
Speaker 1: it's what other people have said, right. And so I
33:01
Speaker 1: think that, like I think that that it requires relationship
33:10
Speaker 1: that is deeply, deeply centered in authenticity to say this
33:19
Speaker 1: is what I know to be true about God for
33:22
Speaker 1: myself and and and for my faith, and these are
33:26
Speaker 1: and these are the things that I know to be
33:28
Speaker 1: true about what it looks like for me to show
33:33
Speaker 1: up as my as my best and my higher self. Um.
33:38
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I'm I'm excited because I think
33:42
Speaker 1: that that there are so many sisters in our generation
33:47
Speaker 1: and coming behind us and even older than us that
33:50
Speaker 1: are giving themselves permission to think that right now, Um,
33:56
Speaker 1: that that may have done it before previously, but but
34:00
Speaker 1: but could not live it out loud in certain ways,
34:03
Speaker 1: Like there were ways that I know my mom had
34:07
Speaker 1: conversations with me at home that couldn't necessarily be couldn't
34:13
Speaker 1: necessarily be conversations and ways that she lived in church
34:19
Speaker 1: or publicly, because I mean she was a single mama
34:22
Speaker 1: with a baby and with a little girl that she
34:26
Speaker 1: was trying to like she was trying to survive, she
34:28
Speaker 1: was trying to keep safe, like there were there were
34:31
Speaker 1: you know, like there's grace there right Um, And so
34:37
Speaker 1: understanding that now, I say, okay, what what do we
34:42
Speaker 1: learn about the ways that our mothers and our grandmothers
34:48
Speaker 1: may have had to navigate these longings in private that
34:53
Speaker 1: give us permission to say we can do this publicly.
34:59
Speaker 1: I just have to say, you're the spirit of your
35:01
Speaker 1: mom is so strong, because this is the second time
35:04
Speaker 1: that you have referenced her and I'm covered in full
35:06
Speaker 1: body chills, so I definitely, um, yeah, I felt her
35:10
Speaker 1: come into the room. Wow, she's powerful. Literally right now,
35:15
Speaker 1: like rubbing my body and freezing. Um. Wow, that that
35:20
Speaker 1: was such a beautiful thought because I you know, I
35:22
Speaker 1: think too in my own way. I think to that
35:26
Speaker 1: piece so much. I think right now, spiritually, so many
35:29
Speaker 1: of us can be a little full of ourselves when
35:32
Speaker 1: it comes to our relationships with God or the way
35:35
Speaker 1: that we're able to show up in the world. Something
35:37
Speaker 1: that gets said a lot, which is absolutely accurate, But
35:40
Speaker 1: I had to check myself in it and really seat
35:43
Speaker 1: myself in some humility. You know, this idea that where
35:46
Speaker 1: the you know, where the chain breakers, or where the
35:48
Speaker 1: generation that has come to heal our lineage past, present
35:52
Speaker 1: and future, and the level of pressure that comes with that, right,
35:55
Speaker 1: because that's it's an immense amount of work. But you know,
35:59
Speaker 1: it would be deeply unfair to not recognize that every
36:04
Speaker 1: generation that has come before us moved us forward in
36:09
Speaker 1: the way they were able to given the construct of
36:12
Speaker 1: society or their systems at the time, you know. And
36:16
Speaker 1: it's like I was thinking about that in terms of
36:19
Speaker 1: my journey when I think of like, you know, I
36:21
Speaker 1: do all the things, I mean to all the things,
36:23
Speaker 1: I do, all the things, but it's all really in
36:25
Speaker 1: service to to fully heal myself and and every cell
36:29
Speaker 1: in my being and lend that healing generationally for everyone
36:33
Speaker 1: that's to come from me. When I'm the ancestor and
36:35
Speaker 1: everyone that came before me. I believe that we can
36:38
Speaker 1: send healing backwards and forwards. Um. And you know, I
36:42
Speaker 1: had gotten a little maybe drunk off my own righteousness
36:47
Speaker 1: at times, you know, and I sat down and I thought, God,
36:50
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I'm doing some big work. But also,
36:54
Speaker 1: I exist in a time where guess what, I'm allowed
36:56
Speaker 1: to be a multi hyphen it, multidimensional woman. I'm in
36:59
Speaker 1: a space where I don't have to have a man
37:01
Speaker 1: to co sign me, so I can just open a
37:04
Speaker 1: bank account and have my own money. I can have
37:06
Speaker 1: a career, I can you know, I can do multiple things.
37:10
Speaker 1: I have access to books and to symposiums and to
37:13
Speaker 1: meditation retreats and all of these things that no one
37:17
Speaker 1: has ever had, you know. And so I love that
37:20
Speaker 1: thought you you brought forward, because I do think part
37:23
Speaker 1: of our healing is really also extending grace to our
37:27
Speaker 1: parents and to our grandparents for the things they didn't know,
37:31
Speaker 1: and not judging them through the lens of a child.
37:34
Speaker 1: But looking back on them and their choices through our
37:37
Speaker 1: adult healed lens that we have now exactly it. Um
37:41
Speaker 1: it has been the absolute Um. It's been a gift
37:48
Speaker 1: to UH to to in and prayer and meditation, send
37:55
Speaker 1: grace and I say it just that way to to
38:00
Speaker 1: the twenty six year old who was pregnant and felt alone. Um,
38:07
Speaker 1: it has been. It has been. UM been. It's been
38:13
Speaker 1: a gift to send an apology to the thirty year
38:18
Speaker 1: old mama who was like, why can't this girl just
38:21
Speaker 1: be quiet in class? Because I'm doing I'm doing the
38:25
Speaker 1: best that I can right like that. And it's it's
38:29
Speaker 1: so funny you said that earlier because I cannot stand
38:32
Speaker 1: like this will be the generation language. UM. But but
38:37
Speaker 1: I will also say that, you know, this year and
38:41
Speaker 1: the work that I've done myself has been um. And
38:45
Speaker 1: and the work I've done myself through in therapy and
38:48
Speaker 1: my own accountability has been one of of of working
38:54
Speaker 1: on my own humility. Because there are ways that that
38:59
Speaker 1: you UM like success and I use I use air
39:07
Speaker 1: quotes in this space can be very seductive, UM, and
39:13
Speaker 1: that like when you are doing this kind of work, UM,
39:19
Speaker 1: there is this there can often be this seduction towards
39:25
Speaker 1: you know, oh, like this hasn't been done before, you
39:29
Speaker 1: know this, like like like you know, we can, we can,
39:33
Speaker 1: we can figure this out. We can, you know, and
39:36
Speaker 1: you can kind of get high off your own supply.
39:39
Speaker 1: And And what I found even as I was thinking
39:43
Speaker 1: as extending grace to my to my grandma and and
39:47
Speaker 1: and what it was like to be young with six
39:49
Speaker 1: kids even though she was married, UM, but you know,
39:53
Speaker 1: trying and her mother dying unexpectedly, um, and trying to
39:58
Speaker 1: figure that out and what and extending grace to my
40:02
Speaker 1: mom and what it was like for her has also
40:05
Speaker 1: been about um, extending grace to myself to say, you know,
40:15
Speaker 1: I at my core this should always be about honoring
40:24
Speaker 1: the miracle and the mystery that has been my own healing.
40:29
Speaker 1: Right that when we think about where we have our
40:34
Speaker 1: own life stories and our own journeys, we do not
40:37
Speaker 1: overcome these things to be equipped to do this kind
40:42
Speaker 1: of work, to become arrogant like we you know, to
40:47
Speaker 1: to to to suggest. And there was the ways that
40:50
Speaker 1: I was like I had, you know, like I had
40:53
Speaker 1: the degrees, and I had the platform, and I had
40:57
Speaker 1: you know, um, this kind space as a cultural critic
41:02
Speaker 1: critic and it and it was all working and it's
41:05
Speaker 1: still working in in to to to manifest answer prayers.
41:11
Speaker 1: And at the same time there's the there's like this
41:13
Speaker 1: little shift that can be that the work is fully
41:19
Speaker 1: immense and the humility and the gratitude of what has
41:24
Speaker 1: happened in your life, and then that could be that
41:26
Speaker 1: little shift where ego begins to bleed in and though
41:31
Speaker 1: the work can be profound, and though the work can
41:34
Speaker 1: still be powerful because um, you know they I believe
41:40
Speaker 1: the scripture where it says the gifts come without repentance.
41:43
Speaker 1: Um it it is it's tainted still, right because because
41:50
Speaker 1: it is suggesting that you are doing this in your
41:53
Speaker 1: own kind of power, right, um, that you then have
41:57
Speaker 1: the tools, right it It It has the arrogant assumption
42:03
Speaker 1: that three generations from us, they're not gonna look back
42:06
Speaker 1: and be like, y'all didn't know what the hick y'all
42:08
Speaker 1: was doing. So you know, I like, I had this
42:13
Speaker 1: conversation with one of my friends and we were laughing
42:17
Speaker 1: so hard, like the tears of just joy because we
42:22
Speaker 1: went through all of the like things that that generation,
42:28
Speaker 1: whatever it would be, will say about millennials and how
42:33
Speaker 1: overly ridiculous and out of touch we were, and how
42:37
Speaker 1: it is going to be hilarious for us to be
42:41
Speaker 1: in the seat that we in, the hot seat that
42:45
Speaker 1: we have other people in because we are not gonna
42:48
Speaker 1: get it right. We're not right if we even look
42:53
Speaker 1: at like our collective consciousness has risen in such a
42:57
Speaker 1: staggering way, and just the last three years, right, Like,
43:01
Speaker 1: in the last three years, we have for the very
43:04
Speaker 1: first time in human history, been having vast conversations about sexuality,
43:09
Speaker 1: vasque conversations about gender, vast conversations you know, about trauma
43:14
Speaker 1: that women face, trauma that all non white people face.
43:17
Speaker 1: Like I mean, it is just incredible and beautiful but
43:22
Speaker 1: also overwhelming the amount of unpacking we have been doing
43:26
Speaker 1: seven for the last handful of years. And that's just
43:29
Speaker 1: the last handful of years. So can you imagine when
43:32
Speaker 1: they look back on our lives prior to really like
43:37
Speaker 1: we were a hot like think about things that were
43:41
Speaker 1: said and that were commonplace that would get you canceled
43:45
Speaker 1: forever now just three years ago, and that's really a
43:49
Speaker 1: lesson in grace. Like when people's all tweets come up,
43:53
Speaker 1: I just I'm like, I sit there and I thank
43:56
Speaker 1: God that I deleted all of mine, UM because because
44:01
Speaker 1: the truth is is that like we were all fumbling
44:05
Speaker 1: UM and I and I honestly, I honestly have this
44:09
Speaker 1: conversation with my younger cousin, and I have this conversation
44:13
Speaker 1: with friends about learning, and it's and it is actually learning.
44:21
Speaker 1: It is truly about learning to be easy on ourselves
44:25
Speaker 1: because we were stumbling and fumbling because we were trying
44:30
Speaker 1: to we were trying to figure it out. We did
44:33
Speaker 1: think we knew everything right, that it was it was
44:37
Speaker 1: the fumble of just like of life and trying to
44:43
Speaker 1: um and that we a lot of us have been
44:46
Speaker 1: formed in certain ways that at one point, you know,
44:51
Speaker 1: we might have we might have you know, believed that
44:54
Speaker 1: this part of our formation needed work, but this part
44:57
Speaker 1: of our formation didn't. And so there were all of
45:00
Speaker 1: these pieces of us that we're still that were that
45:07
Speaker 1: weren't that weren't just you know, harmon other folk's favorite
45:11
Speaker 1: harmonist too, and and that like it is it is
45:17
Speaker 1: unfair to look at it is unfair for Candas to
45:24
Speaker 1: look back at Candas and be like, why why couldn't
45:31
Speaker 1: you think like this? Right? Like, it is unfair what
45:35
Speaker 1: I say to her, is by share grace resilience for
45:43
Speaker 1: such a time as this, you were able to endure
45:46
Speaker 1: and get to displace and let us let us instead
45:51
Speaker 1: of wishing that we got there earlier. Because I do
45:54
Speaker 1: that a lot, and I have to check myself for
45:56
Speaker 1: that honor that I'm here, And should candidates be able
46:05
Speaker 1: to see and so forth and so on, then what
46:11
Speaker 1: what do I take right so that my growth is
46:17
Speaker 1: not rooted in in this and in this kind of
46:23
Speaker 1: desire to like outrun trauma, but that my growth is
46:29
Speaker 1: rooted in this desire to be to be healed and
46:34
Speaker 1: my best self. So when I think about when people
46:37
Speaker 1: are saying we're going to be the generation that breaks
46:41
Speaker 1: chains in our families and the weight of all of that,
46:46
Speaker 1: what I likely suggest is shifting to say, you know what,
46:54
Speaker 1: there were. What I hope for us to understand about
46:58
Speaker 1: our generations or the work and we're doing, is that
47:03
Speaker 1: we are instead of instead of chain breakers. Maybe what
47:08
Speaker 1: does it look like for us to be sowing the
47:11
Speaker 1: next set of seats that every that every generation so
47:16
Speaker 1: seeds right like that, like that, and that we're watering
47:22
Speaker 1: them right that, And it doesn't mean that we're gonna
47:25
Speaker 1: and where where where we get where we get off
47:27
Speaker 1: the hook is that or not off the hook right
47:30
Speaker 1: where we give ourselves grace is that it doesn't mean
47:33
Speaker 1: we're going to get it right all the time, Like
47:35
Speaker 1: they're gonna be some they're gonna do some things that
47:38
Speaker 1: other generations have to work through that we're not going
47:41
Speaker 1: to get it right. But what we will do is
47:45
Speaker 1: our best. And what because we have we have more resources,
47:51
Speaker 1: and and the resources that we have are the building
47:55
Speaker 1: blocks of the resources that the next generation will have
47:58
Speaker 1: and they'll see us doing what we did, and I'll
48:02
Speaker 1: pay it forward. And because really quickly for me, I've
48:08
Speaker 1: had to like let go of like language that has
48:14
Speaker 1: been kind of steeped in it's like power dynamic of violence,
48:19
Speaker 1: like of this breaking of this um And that's that's
48:24
Speaker 1: because I've experienced a lot of it. And so it's
48:26
Speaker 1: like going back to what you said earlier about the
48:30
Speaker 1: personality of God and like and and and how we
48:34
Speaker 1: have experienced Jesus and the the truth for me is
48:40
Speaker 1: that it has been the faithfulness, It has been um,
48:48
Speaker 1: the g It has been that God has been a
48:51
Speaker 1: soft place to land for me, and that and that
48:55
Speaker 1: God has been God has held my hand in the
49:03
Speaker 1: darkest moments, and that has been tender care. And so
49:07
Speaker 1: when I think about that, that is what in my
49:12
Speaker 1: powerful resilient self that I believe and aim and work
49:18
Speaker 1: to show in the world, is that in this like
49:23
Speaker 1: all of these other forces are brute against our survival.
49:30
Speaker 1: And yet we as people need tender care and soft
49:37
Speaker 1: places to land. And how do we cultivate those right?
49:42
Speaker 1: And some of it comes through unpacking faith, some of
49:47
Speaker 1: it comes with understanding that, like our relationships with the
49:51
Speaker 1: church might not always be what it has been and
49:54
Speaker 1: we might have to walk away from that. It might
49:57
Speaker 1: be that, like you know, we give ourselves permiss to
50:01
Speaker 1: to explore other avenues of faith and spirituality, so that
50:07
Speaker 1: in a world that is so committed to our harm,
50:13
Speaker 1: like like, if there's anything that we have learned, I
50:17
Speaker 1: mean we are literally we have been in the house
50:21
Speaker 1: for almost a year and have and some of us
50:23
Speaker 1: have only gotten twelve dred dollars right, and that we
50:27
Speaker 1: have a we have a government that is arguing about
50:30
Speaker 1: whether or not to give us more. And in a
50:34
Speaker 1: when people live in worlds like that, they need soft
50:40
Speaker 1: places to land, they need they need softness, and I
50:47
Speaker 1: have that is what God is to me. Like I'll
50:49
Speaker 1: tell a lot of time, if God is fighting my battles,
50:53
Speaker 1: then I know God is fighting my battles. But when
50:55
Speaker 1: it comes to me, God the spirit shape shifts and
51:00
Speaker 1: becomes what I need, and I need a hug. I
51:04
Speaker 1: don't need to necessarily be a part of the the um,
51:09
Speaker 1: the breaking of the reclamation of that. It's all of
51:14
Speaker 1: these things that that church teaches us. But sometimes God
51:19
Speaker 1: is like, Okay, I'm gonna hold you right now, so
51:21
Speaker 1: you can take an app and in this map be
51:25
Speaker 1: be arrested and know that you're okay and that I've
51:30
Speaker 1: got you. And I think that where I see our
51:37
Speaker 1: work and the work of so many others, is fighting
51:42
Speaker 1: against the notions that that would suggest that God cannot
51:48
Speaker 1: be that. You know, the God that I know in
52:01
Speaker 1: my life is a God of softness, of tenderness. It's
52:05
Speaker 1: a God that is not in constant judgment of me.
52:08
Speaker 1: And I think it's so important that we just and
52:11
Speaker 1: and I think I think we should all do whatever
52:15
Speaker 1: is the thing that gets us nestled closest to God,
52:19
Speaker 1: whatever that looks like for you, whatever care practice that is,
52:22
Speaker 1: whatever rituals, whichever whichever church, with whichever books, whichever leaders,
52:27
Speaker 1: like whoever helps you nestle closest to God and really
52:31
Speaker 1: embody the teachings that is, that is what you need
52:34
Speaker 1: to pursue. But you know, it's it's so interesting because
52:37
Speaker 1: when we think of unpacking so that we can deep
52:41
Speaker 1: in our relationship to God. I think it's so important
52:44
Speaker 1: to really think of, like, what are our what has
52:47
Speaker 1: kept us from getting closer? What are the systems in
52:50
Speaker 1: place that have actually held us back or given us
52:53
Speaker 1: a warped understanding of who we could show up as
52:56
Speaker 1: in the world. Because you know, if we think of
53:00
Speaker 1: if we think of certain things that we believe are
53:04
Speaker 1: God punishing us, or God's expectations of us, or certain
53:07
Speaker 1: behavioral parameters, it's just so important to investigate when did
53:11
Speaker 1: those come up? Are they really true? Is that how
53:14
Speaker 1: you experience God? Because the earth has existed for billions
53:20
Speaker 1: of years? Right, Human human language has existed for thousands,
53:26
Speaker 1: Societal societal structures and the way that we know them
53:30
Speaker 1: now have existed for thousands. So in the evolutionary timetable,
53:35
Speaker 1: humanity has been alive for seconds, you know, And so
53:39
Speaker 1: this idea that God could ever fit in such a tiny,
53:44
Speaker 1: finite structure of the consciousness we've developed in the last
53:48
Speaker 1: few thousand years. You're just selling yourself short exactly. Yeah,
53:54
Speaker 1: and then and and you are you are just robbing
54:00
Speaker 1: herself of of of all of the ways you get
54:06
Speaker 1: to know and understand God. So I mean, Debbie, I
54:11
Speaker 1: I didn't go to church for two years. And in
54:15
Speaker 1: those two years, I I joined a Buddhist UM, a
54:22
Speaker 1: Buddhist UH community and we met once a week UM I.
54:28
Speaker 1: We met once a week on a Monday, UM I
54:32
Speaker 1: UM once a month, the first Sunday of every month,
54:37
Speaker 1: I walked a prayer labyrinth and UM had communion with myself. UM.
54:45
Speaker 1: I read spiritual autobiographies UM written by women, and I
54:51
Speaker 1: just explored. I became. I allowed myself to be the
54:57
Speaker 1: truth seeker that I have always been, m and divine
55:02
Speaker 1: and it and I learned and in that and in that,
55:08
Speaker 1: I actually got the opportunity to go to Israel for
55:11
Speaker 1: a week. And it was the most beautiful two years
55:20
Speaker 1: of my life because I actually got circling back around.
55:27
Speaker 1: It was no longer my grandmother's faith, It was no
55:30
Speaker 1: longer my mama's faith. It was mine, and that it was.
55:36
Speaker 1: I knew whether and not anybody else agreed, well not anyway,
55:41
Speaker 1: but wheen and I other people agreed didn't matter. I
55:44
Speaker 1: knew that I could pull from these vast experiences and
55:51
Speaker 1: articulations of the divine and create a robust understanding of
55:58
Speaker 1: who I was in the world, right like I being
56:03
Speaker 1: a seeker being somebody who I love. I love divine curiosity. Um,
56:08
Speaker 1: I love that language. But I didn't have to fight
56:12
Speaker 1: that anymore. Yeah, I didn't have to fight that anywhere.
56:16
Speaker 1: And there was so much freedom in that. And I
56:20
Speaker 1: tell I tell people all the time, I'm like, look,
56:23
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you gotta you have to to, um
56:28
Speaker 1: come to the waters where I am, although they are
56:31
Speaker 1: they are wonderful out here. Um. But what I do
56:36
Speaker 1: tell them is that your questions are holy right, that
56:43
Speaker 1: God is big enough for your questions, and in my
56:48
Speaker 1: head wants you to have to being here is exact
56:53
Speaker 1: exactly in my head. I tell people, I'm like, in
56:56
Speaker 1: my head, I see God like, come on, come on,
56:58
Speaker 1: like asking if on it to for your tongue, go
57:00
Speaker 1: ahead and ask it because it feel as you ask it.
57:04
Speaker 1: I can't unlock all of this other stuff to you.
57:09
Speaker 1: And it has been the joy of my of of
57:17
Speaker 1: of my life now to honor that about me. It
57:22
Speaker 1: is it is it. It changes so much about what
57:28
Speaker 1: I know to be and we definitely have to have
57:31
Speaker 1: another part two. But like it changes even how I
57:35
Speaker 1: understand quote unquote sin and all of these things that
57:39
Speaker 1: are it is about no what what dishonors the truth
57:45
Speaker 1: of myself and the truth of my relationship. If this
57:50
Speaker 1: does not dishonor it, but but also but actually allows
57:55
Speaker 1: me to flourish in it, that's not sin. But if
57:58
Speaker 1: it dishonors the truth of those relationships, that's sinful. But
58:03
Speaker 1: I was able to understand that the more I lead
58:06
Speaker 1: into that relationship, the more I lead into what is
58:10
Speaker 1: faith and spirituality for me. Right And so I think
58:15
Speaker 1: when when when sisters, when sisters reach out and d
58:19
Speaker 1: m s and we have conversations, I'm like this, if
58:22
Speaker 1: you don't get anything, I just want you to know
58:26
Speaker 1: it's okay for you to ask your questions because the
58:30
Speaker 1: journey that I'm on that and I told this is
58:35
Speaker 1: someone this week. I said, the journey that you say
58:40
Speaker 1: has blessed you, it's a journey that started with questions
58:46
Speaker 1: because I had no choice but to ask them. My
58:49
Speaker 1: mama was gone, and I could not fake it, you
58:54
Speaker 1: know the ways that like we're kind of taught to
58:57
Speaker 1: fake this um that we're okay, and like the church,
59:05
Speaker 1: how the church. Yeah, Like I wasn't like, I ain't
59:08
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and pretend like no. I had questions
59:11
Speaker 1: and I was mad and and it was not going
59:15
Speaker 1: to I was not going to be okay until I
59:18
Speaker 1: was able to voice those questions. And so I tell
59:21
Speaker 1: people that life it's only because I was able to
59:27
Speaker 1: ask the questions, and I gave myself that permission. Ask
59:30
Speaker 1: us this is all the time. Just ask it once.
59:33
Speaker 1: Once it comes out, it's out there. It's not stupid,
59:38
Speaker 1: it's not silly, it's not inappropriate, it's not sinful. But
59:43
Speaker 1: once you ask it, then you get the beauty of
59:46
Speaker 1: journeying towards the answer and sometimes the answer. Most times
59:52
Speaker 1: the answer is the journey itself. That's the that's the answer.
59:58
Speaker 1: It's the journey of thing. Yeah, it's the journey. And
1:00:02
Speaker 1: you're sitting there like, wow, like I thought I wanted this.
1:00:06
Speaker 1: I thought I was coming for this and this whole
1:00:10
Speaker 1: beautiful life, this whole beautiful life that has unfolded in
1:00:17
Speaker 1: front of me is more than I could have ever
1:00:21
Speaker 1: asked for, and I'm able to access it are because
1:00:26
Speaker 1: I gave myself permission to ask for it. Mm hmm.
1:00:34
Speaker 1: I love that so much. You know, I think I
1:00:37
Speaker 1: would love to extend out the end of all of um,
1:00:40
Speaker 1: all of our episodes, we do some soul work, so
1:00:44
Speaker 1: we offer up either a journal prompt of thought, UM
1:00:48
Speaker 1: an activity of ritual that anyone listening that feels so
1:00:52
Speaker 1: called can connect to for the next week. So I
1:00:55
Speaker 1: would love to extend to you anything that comes forward
1:00:58
Speaker 1: right now, if you could give all the nerves of
1:01:00
Speaker 1: dropping gems a little soul work that they can take
1:01:04
Speaker 1: with them. Yeah, it's something that it's something that I do. Um,
1:01:09
Speaker 1: it is, it is, and I just I just thought
1:01:13
Speaker 1: I just redid it because it's my birthday today. But UM,
1:01:16
Speaker 1: my recipe for a perfect week. I'm a baker and UM,
1:01:22
Speaker 1: I actually got this from a m I was sitting
1:01:27
Speaker 1: in a in a session at a workshop with a
1:01:30
Speaker 1: therapist and she encouraged us to come up with our
1:01:33
Speaker 1: recipe for a perfect week. All of the things that
1:01:37
Speaker 1: if we did them in this week we could be
1:01:40
Speaker 1: like wow, like this is like the best week ever,
1:01:45
Speaker 1: spending time with ourselves to think about what makes us
1:01:48
Speaker 1: happy so that when we are off for a week,
1:01:52
Speaker 1: when we are when we're feeling a day or a
1:01:55
Speaker 1: few days has been off, we can go back to
1:01:58
Speaker 1: this recipe and see what ingredient we need to add
1:02:01
Speaker 1: to that week for us to have a quote unquote perfect, blessed,
1:02:06
Speaker 1: happy week. Um. For me, I have these games on
1:02:09
Speaker 1: my phone that when I or baking, or or face
1:02:14
Speaker 1: timing with friends and talking telling people that I love them,
1:02:17
Speaker 1: or you know, playing their makeup like. These are things
1:02:20
Speaker 1: that when I add them to my week, um My.
1:02:24
Speaker 1: I love constant comment tea um. Having a cup of tea,
1:02:28
Speaker 1: a cup of constant comment um. One. It helps us
1:02:33
Speaker 1: to get in touch with the things that give us
1:02:36
Speaker 1: joy um, and sit with what makes us happy in
1:02:42
Speaker 1: this world and to it also gives us the ability
1:02:48
Speaker 1: to honor that there may be a lot of things
1:02:51
Speaker 1: going on that we can't control, but there are some
1:02:55
Speaker 1: things that are in our power to shift our to
1:03:00
Speaker 1: shift our spirit in our space. And so there have
1:03:04
Speaker 1: been a lot of things in most of it that
1:03:08
Speaker 1: has been beyond anything that I could control. And when
1:03:13
Speaker 1: I found myself becoming weighted by that, I literally pulled
1:03:19
Speaker 1: out my recipe and was like, Okay, I'm gonna go
1:03:22
Speaker 1: bake some cupcakes. I'm gonna play this toy blast game
1:03:26
Speaker 1: for two hours and re center myself. That says this,
1:03:31
Speaker 1: you can't have everything like I actually get to put
1:03:36
Speaker 1: back into me. I get to hold some things. So
1:03:39
Speaker 1: if I could give so work, I would say that, like, like,
1:03:42
Speaker 1: sit with yourself this week and think about the things
1:03:45
Speaker 1: that if you could do them, just a list that
1:03:49
Speaker 1: they would that there are a part of your recipe
1:03:51
Speaker 1: that that in a week when you are filling heavy,
1:03:55
Speaker 1: you can add that ingredient and and hope to shift
1:03:58
Speaker 1: that shift that that we'scare for that week. M M.
1:04:03
Speaker 1: I love that, Candice. You are just a phenomenon. You're
1:04:07
Speaker 1: such a dynamic woman, such a powerhouse. UM. I just
1:04:11
Speaker 1: celebrate you. I celebrate you in such a grateful way.
1:04:17
Speaker 1: UM and thank you, thank you, thank you for joining
1:04:20
Speaker 1: our show. And how can everybody find you? You can
1:04:23
Speaker 1: find me on Instagram and Twitter at Candice Bimbo for
1:04:26
Speaker 1: best C A N D I C E B E
1:04:29
Speaker 1: N bow and then my website UM is Candice bimbo
1:04:34
Speaker 1: dot com. Beautiful Candice, thank you so much, thank you. Hey.
1:04:43
Speaker 1: Find me on social let's connect at Debbie Brown. That's
1:04:47
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram, or go to my website Debbie Brown
1:04:50
Speaker 1: dot com. And if you're listening to the show on
1:04:53
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, please please please don't forget to rate, review,
1:04:59
Speaker 1: and describe, and send this episode to a friend. Dropping
1:05:04
Speaker 1: Jams is the production of I Heart Radio and the
1:05:06
Speaker 1: Black Effect Network. It's produced by Triple and Me Debbie Brown.
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