Sankofa: Honoring Our Past, Reclaiming Our Power

1:30:04 Yeah, I really appreciate this conversation, and thank you, Lee, for—that was powerful, so moving. And it reminded me of—I forgot the name, Pastor Ayers, of this documentary on Martin King. Was it King in the Wilderness? And Martin King was assassinated. He was 39. And when they did the autopsy and checked his heart, he had the heart of someone almost 65. 65 because being black takes a toll on you in this country and all of us deserve heard naeem akbar one time say events that all of us should just sit down and have a big group therapy session as a part of our reparations and so uh for me that is is huge and and i also want to just shout out my wife because um and again i i say this transparently maybe i shouldn't uh but like my dad died at 46 he had a stroke of the brain uh in the pulpit of third baptist church he's pastoring us and he has a stroke at the age of 46 and i ain't gonna lie jerica i didn't plan on living long because everybody on his side died young. Every black man on his side died young.

1:31:33 So it's very personal for me. And I was leading, leading a life up until Deb and I had our own crisis and she went through something. And when she went through it, we went through it together and she totally transformed her concept of self-care. And as a consequence, she is our drum major for self-care here at the church. And a part of that self-care, and I'll just share, one of the things that happened, we were diagnosed as not being able to have children. and um so it was said that you know she couldn't and we ended up with a doctor providentially only god could arrange how we eventually met her how deb especially met her first and when we go into her office and she's a sister and so she comes in with an entrance uh and a half marvel knows it She just had an entrance, very unconventional.

1:32:49 And so she walks in, hey, gang, and okay. And so first thing she asked Deb was, what's your purpose? Wow. That's the first thing she asked her. What's your purpose? And Deb was stunned. And it really offended me because she married to me. You don't know your purpose. I mean, I'm just really offended. and I'm just sitting there looking at her. She didn't have the sermon in her pocket? She did not have her sermon in her pocket and so when Dr. Jewell asked her that and she didn't have an answer, you know, I'm like, you married me. You didn't got a purpose. But Dr. Jewell was, so you want to bring a new life divinely on this earth and you don't have a sense of purpose and y'all, that was the beginning because the whole process was one of reorienting how we think reorient reorienting how we think why because as a man and woman thinks so are they yes and so deb then out of that not only do we have a daughter uh after being told by five doctors you can't have kids we got a daughter y'all know she's all the way live and and but but Deb took that and transformed pain into purpose and now you know if if if you go out with her to eat just just know it ain't gonna go well if you don't order right and and and oh I saw that garden Exactly. And exactly. And so you see a community garden that we have here at the church. And so, so we have a holistic approach to ministry that begins with loving the Lord, our God, with all our hearts, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves.

1:34:50 and so self-love and self-care is expressed in the ministries of this church and so that for me means yes therapy and so we've always had a counseling center here at the church uh that has to do with self-care because you got to have therapy all of us deserve it uh but it also entails taking care of yourself physically because if you don't take care of yourself physically the sad reality is it shows up in a whole lot of ways and so as much as i admire martin luther king jr i do not want to have a heart that's older than the life i have lived physically so i think all of us deserve self-care because the god we serve said okay jesus the greatest commandment is to love God, your neighbor, as you love yourself.

1:35:49 And you cannot do this justice work and love your neighbor if you ain't loving yourself right.