Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Tapping Into Your ‘Bigness’: A Conversation with Bishop O.C. Allen III

Transcript

Tapping Into Your ‘Bigness’: A Conversation with Bishop O.C. Allen III · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Have you ever wanted a safe space where you can
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: just exist, where for a moment in time, you can
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: be you, with all the intricacies and parts of you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: that people don't always understand. Welcome to in the deep
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: stories that shape us. I'm your host, Zach Stafford, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: each episode we create a space to be you, all
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: of you and all your messy and complicated glory. Every
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: story shares what it means to be a black and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Latin X man living with different hardships, whether it's a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: struggle of identity, discrimination or health, and how they've managed
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to push forward despite the circumstance. We hope to get closer,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: even it's just a little to a road of healing
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and understanding. Welcome back to the final episode of the season,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and what a season it has been. Over the last
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: few weeks, we've spoken about identity, community, trust, and healing,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and in this closing episode we try to bring it
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: all together what it means to be authentically us in
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: all our complicated glory. We've heard stories of hardship, forgiveness
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and redemption ultimately ending in a place filled with acceptance
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and self love. And what better guests to help us
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: bring this season to a close than Bishop O. C.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Allen the Third, a religious trailblazer, human rights activists, and
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: founder of the Vision Church of Atlanta, whose journey as
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: a gay black man was defined by a number of places,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: all juxtaposed in their definition of what a man looks like.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Bishop Allen's story largely begins at Atlanta, particularly at Morehouse College.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I was curious to hear about his first interactions here,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the college where he became the quintessential more House man,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: a symbol of ultimate black masculinity, and a place filled
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: with contradictions of what he was meant to represent versus
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: who he truly was inside. I was born and raised
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, California, lived in New York, uh, lived
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: in Baltimore, and came to Atlanta. And I was totally
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: blown away because I grew up hearing about how Atlanta
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: was the Black Mecca, and you know, all of the
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: rhetoric that people, particularly in the nineties, we're using to
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: talk about Atlanta. It was exactly what they said. Coming
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: from the West Coast, I grew up in a profoundly
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: diverse environment and coming to Atlanta that, uh, it's diverse,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: but I think it's sort of sectioned out and if
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: you will, in various communities, like a lot of other places.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: But it just became very start that there was a
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: very strong Black presence and very deliberate Black culture and
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: legacy and history in Atlanta. And I thought that was
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: just astounding. Now I came to Atlanta, um broke confused
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: about a lot of different things, my own mental emotional
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: state as relates to my life and my sexuality and
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: and my culture and just all of that to some
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: very basic things. You know, I was trying to get
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: my financial aid together. You know, they lost all of
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: my information, you know, all of the just a lot
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of chaos and conflict and questions that I had. You
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: know now that I look back in on hindsight as
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: always twenty or fifty fifty, and uh, I really thank
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: God and thank the universe for all of it. But
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: at the time I was just you know, it was
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: a lot. And I stayed with a family that was
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a friend of my family and out in Marietta, and
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I was in their basements, sleeping on the couch, and
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I had a little black Nissan and um got to
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: campus and then was blown away on a whole another level,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and you know, that I was at this all black
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: male school that has such a powerful legacy, and the
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: moment you step on campus, you feel it, you understand
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: it in ways that are hard to articulate. UM. I
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: had gone to Morgan State University, which was an HBCU,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: but you know, morehouse UM has a particular heritage and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: tradition of nurturing young black men. Then, of course, underneath
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the cover is this black gay culture space reality that
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: was just profound, and I hadn't reconciled and resolved everything
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: in my own life, and so it just brought all
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the questions and all of the things to the surface.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Creating spaces that were reflective of his own identity, especially
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: within his community, was important for Bishop Allen, but he
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: would find out that these spaces were not created equal
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and challenge the status quo, especially when it came to
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: issue use of masculinity. I was there when the young
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: brother was beaten in the shower with the bat. I
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: was there. As a matter of fact, Not only was
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I there, but I was a part of a delegation
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of young black gay men who created a space too
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: revolt and protest the administration about the homophobic climate and
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: making sure that there were um official statements by the campus.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I was a part of all of that. You know,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: looking back at it, I think it's multilayer because I
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: think on one end there is the complications of moving
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: into a space that has the homophobia and the challenges.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: But I would also say, at that age and that stage,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: most black men are men in general, are still trying
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: to figure out life, and so it's easy to focus
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: on the homophile be which I think is important. Um,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: it's also important to look at all the complexities of
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: just what's going on with you socially, sexually, mentally, emotionally
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: as you're trying to be come, what you think a
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: man is and what that means for you. And I
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: think Morehouse has a legacy of at least uh trying
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: to provide a space for people to figure that out,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: men to figure that out. Yeah, you know that makes
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: me want to talk to you about the idea of
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: safe spaces. You know, we hear that word a lot,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: especially with religious spaces, especially as churches are seen a
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: safe spaces. And I think people have this idea that
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: a safe space means that it won't be uncomfortable. But
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: what I've learned is that safe spaces can sometimes be
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: really uncomfortable because they're there to mold you and shape you.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Do you relate to that, or what are your thoughts
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: around that idea of when you go to a place,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: like should you be catered to or should you be pushed?
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I pushed, you know, I I don't know where I
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: sit completely on a lot of things that relates to
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the term space. When we first started the ministry in particular,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: we use a lot of the terms, you know, safe space,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: safe space, space, space, And then I transition and said, well,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know if any space is really safe any space,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: like how safe is a space for anyone? Any space?
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: And is that the language that we're really looking for.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I think what we want is a bold space where
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: people figure out how to become their best selves, how
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to tap into their potential and their purpose, bold enough
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: to push me. And I think that is the challenge
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: that I would like to call myself an honorary millennial,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: honorary Generation zer um. But I think that's the problem
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: with Generation zers and millennials is they're looking for safety
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: and comfort, and that's not what makes us. We're not
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: a strong people. You're not a strong person. You're not
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: a strong woman, you're not a strong man, are a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: strong human being because your space is without the tension.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: If you look at any successful, profound person in history,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: it is because they were thrown into the the gap
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: where the tension exists. And I think that cannot be
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: omitted from the process if we're going to be all
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: that we're supposed to be. Bishop Allen realizes that the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: safe spaces don't represent him, all of him in full form.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: There was certainly a need, especially for black men, straight men,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: bisexual men, gay men, to be accepted exactly as they came,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: much like he had done it morehouse, disrupting the status quo,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: he decides to challenge one of the biggest institutions, the church.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: He creates the Vision Church, a place where people from
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: all backgrounds and walks of life can freely preach and belong.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: But bringing his vision to life would be a long
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: and trecious road of self discovery. It was powerful. Yet
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I will say this, We all have a destiny. And
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: what do I mean by that? There is something I
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: saw of ourselves not only pulling us to it, but
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: um shaping the steps, you know, molding the staircase putting
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the staircase in front of us. And so while I
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: was blown away by Atlanta, what I've come to understand
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: is that all of it was designed. The thing that
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: was consistent through all of it was I'm supposed to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: be here. This is a part of my journey. I
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: didn't know where it was taking me. I didn't know
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: how I would get there. I didn't know all the particulars.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I certainly had an enormous amount of challenges in the process.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: But I think even through my pursuit for equality with
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: so many other brothers on campus, um it was a
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: part of my molding. It was a part of my development,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: was a part of my growth, and it was frightening.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't fully understand how I would get to this
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: picture that I had in my head. I think I
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: was raised to believe I was a change agent. But
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: you know, when you're broke, and I say broke to
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: also include broken, when you're sleeping on the couch, all
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: you have is closed in your car and you're trying
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: to figure life out. When I first got to Moorhouse,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: you wonder, how will I manifest this thing that I see?
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: And so I think most certainly it moved from fright
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: two almost this acceptance that you know, maybe I'm not
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: going to be a change agent to maybe I'm going
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: to be just a change a gent to myself, you know.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And it's fascinating to see just the road and the journey.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I would tell anybody you know, the staircase is long,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: but it has a destination. And you must continue to walk.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Tired walk and if you cannot walk, crawl up the
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: damn stairs. Do whatever you have to do. You'll get there.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I promise you. That's part of my mantra. If you
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: will like it's the story of my life in spite
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: of all of the challenges as a black gay man
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: and that, and then as a leader and and and
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: as someone who believes he is called to help people
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: see who they are. You will get there with this
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: idea mind being the change agent to himself. First, Bishop
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Allen had begun to crack the code, but finding the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: value and meaning of individuality, especially in a place that
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: was so devoted to the better of an entire group
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: of people, force Bishop Allen to dig deeper. With his
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: role well defined as a leader, he had to continue
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: scaling his message by helping his community see their personal
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: internal beauty and greatness. I think that I'm going to
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: use some symbolic language. The right people are people who
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: serve as a net and an umbrella, you know, to
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: cover you. They got you. That net is to catch
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: you and to hold you. But it's all for the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: purpose of helping you see more of who you can be.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Sometimes that happens through rejection, and it is easy. I
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: think the greatest deception is that rejection has no direction
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: mm hmm, and that we are sulk now I'm you're ready, okay?
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: That Sometimes the great deception for us is that a
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: lot of our rejection turns us into attention seekers and
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: affirmation seekers and acceptance seekers rather than using that rejection
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: or that tension, are those challenges, are those problematic people
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: to turn us inward? Because ultimately I believe you are
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: the AHA, you are the answer, you are the person,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: you are the one, You are it. You are great,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: you are phenomenal, you are brilliance. You're not brilliant, you
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: are brilliant. And it takes all of everyone to birth that,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: to make that, to develop that, to manifest that in us.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: But the challenges with rejection and trauma, it can force
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: us outward because we're rejected. We make acceptance a fetish.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: We spend our entire lives trying to seek and get
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: acceptance rather than seeing that all of it was designed hopefully,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: if it was designed to help us accept ourselves. And
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: and that's tough, and it's the truth is. It is
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the lesson of life. It is the most difficult thing
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: to turn people inward to see who they are and
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: see their possibilities. But it takes the umbrellas, it takes
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the nets, it takes the tension in between. In Atlanta,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: a black mecca that is constantly intertwined with a complicated
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: mix of values, finding acceptance isn't always easy, and as
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: he knows, breaking out of this need for affirmation and
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: learning to love ourselves first isn't something we are used to.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So when it comes to matters of healing, especially in
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: regards to mental health, spiritual health, or physical health, creating
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: the spaces that allow people to heal the many parts
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: of themselves can be daunting. And as much as Bishop
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Allan places and emphasis on redefining future spaces for ourselves
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and for others, he also realizes that there are outside
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: forces at work. In particular, painful, oppressive parts of our
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: history that we collectively must address in order to move forward.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: But how do we move past these deep wounds that
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: have collectively hurt community so profoundly, much like HIV, poverty
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and racism, And how do these communities heal from their
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: history so that their futures are much brighter. It's multi layered.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: And the thing that we don't talk about, you know,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: HIV is much like COVID nineteen HIV, it raises up
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: all the disparities that influence it. You know, HIV is
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: a victim of homophobia, It's a victim of tortured religion.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: It is the victim of poverty, it is the victim
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: of low, selfless same it is the victim of so much,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: you know. And there are so many factors that play
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: a role in what causes us to be vulnerable. And
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: we cannot discount history. I don't know why. It's so,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: We're just we have been trained to avoid history. We
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: have been taught to not put everything in its context.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Vulnerable populations have a history that was vulnerable. It makes
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: sense that the lives of black people are Let's talk
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: about the most vulnerable population. Young black gay men are
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: at risk because you live in the United States of amnesia.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: And I know we want to move on, and if
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: we don't want to talk, I get it. We we
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: have been culturated in the same environment, in the same structure,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: in the same system that has its roots and white supremacy.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: That is the legacy, that is the culture, that is
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the room, that is the space, that is that is
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: everything that is a determining factor on risk. And we
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: you know, as long as I live, I will not
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: not raise that because when we talk about every other disparity,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: it could be economic disparity, it points in one direction
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the history of this legacy of this country. We talk
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: about health disparity. But while this is what KNDA, what
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Kanda steal sits in Georgia, and what KNDA is not
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: larger than Georgia. How are you sit in a space
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: of understanding the reality of your life and still wanting
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: to build more out of that understanding that you are
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: a black gay man that deals with all of the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: off or you are a immigrant that's dealing with all
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: this stuff, And how do you get to a place
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: where you're like, yeah, I live in this really messy
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: place where I am oppressed. I have so much weighing
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: down on me, but that's not an excuse to not
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: want more for my life. Yeah, I think it is first,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: And I may answer this in a very simplistic way,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: so I'm not suggesting that it is simple. Their layers
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: and structures and all kinds of stuff that are designed
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: in the world. But I think ultimately it is understanding
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: who you are. You are a sexual being, but you're
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: greater than the sexuality. The melanine in your skin is
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: a biological reality, it's not your spiritual reality. You are
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: a spirit that found itself in a body maybe to
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: contain you, because you're that great and you're that phenomenal,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: and you're that brilliant and you just had to walk
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: into some flesh to kind of walk it out. And
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: when you understand that, and you understand your power, you
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: understand who you are, you can accomplish anything. I believe
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: you are divine, and that is how I think we
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: become change agents. You cannot change the world around you
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: until you first change your own perception about you. What
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: advice you give to people, especially Black ay Men, who
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: are so afraid of standing in their truth because they
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: think that's one thing will define them, And how do
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: you get them to understand that that one thing will
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: not define them. It just is the beginning of a
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: much bigger conversation that will let them be bigger than
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: that one thing. I've said this is a lot of places.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I believe this wholeheartedly. That you must live in your
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: truth so that you don't die and a lie. Live
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: in your truth. It's your truth, and it is truth.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: The greatest thing you have is your truth, yours. It's
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: not somebody else's truth, and it's no one else's truth
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to define or to explain or It's like this term
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: coming out coming out of what I'm inviting you in.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: There's no such thing as come out, come out of what,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: if anything. If I'm coming out, I'm coming out to
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: come into something even greater than what I came out of.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not coming out. I invite everyone in. So we
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: have to first change the language. We have to change
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: our own language about how we see ourselves. And again,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: this is why I think if you put stuff in
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the context of not religion, but in the context of
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: definity or spirituality, that you see yourself as greater than
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: your parts. Your parts are important too, because the other
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: thing that I don't want to discount is the beauty
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: of your parts. And our sexuality is beautiful and it's
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: a gift, and it's to be express and is to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: be embraced. It is excellent. Like we must wrap our
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: heads around that uniqueness that out of the population, you
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: have been given even greater gifting, you know, even greater
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: brilliance in your sexuality because your sexuality, particularly those of
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: us who are lgbt Q I UM we're talking to,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: particularly young black gay man. Because of it, you have
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: a particular wisdom and a particular insight, and a particular understanding,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: a particular thing that has been given to you. Know,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: other culture has understood that, whether it was indigenous and
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: native cultures, they understood that two spirit communities cultures in
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Africa and in Asia, they understood that that first of all,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you have a gifting, and the gifting is you and
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: what you understand that, then you can move out of
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: this space of trying to get the world to affirm
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: what is already affirmed. It's affirm because it's you have it.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: You have it, it is you. And once you can
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: do that, then you move out of vulnerability into what
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: I call true identity. You are greater than what some
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: evangelists said. The Bible never actually did say, or any
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: sacred text said, and if it did say it, it
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: was still written by somebody. Right. It doesn't matter however
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: you slice it. You are greater than the voices, particularly
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the negative voices that have been spoken over you. For
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: those of us that often feel overwhelmed by the greatness
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of the world, those of us that look up at
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the stars that think, wow, I'm nothing, I'm so tiny
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: in the bigger scheme of things. This message that Bishop
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Alan Bree is so important that your contributions to yourself
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: to others, regardless of how big or small, do matter.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And for him, learning our place in the space, this bigness,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: as he calls it, helps us heal internally. Yeah, I
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: mean you were created out of that bigness. You came
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: out of that. Now. You know, if I was talking
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to black people as a whole, a group of black people,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I would even get more mystical and say, you came
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: out of that black sky. Is you, that's you, and
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that is in you, and it was created for you
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and we are both anned. So you are a spec
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: but you're also the thing that created the spec and
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: I think so many spiritual teachers have have tried to
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: say that in one way or another. I think we
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: miss it because it is particularly you know, unfortunate lee
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the Christian tradition I came out of, Like, I appreciate
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: you saying that you know taught us. You know you
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: are dusted, you are nothing, and you are just sing
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: and you are at all. Yeah, I don't believe that.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Like that absolutely contradicts everything I understand about God. Like
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I am wonderfully made, I am beautifully made, I am everything.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Even my flaws have beauty. It's like a rose. You'll
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: look at the beauty of the rose and miss the
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: thorns if you're not careful. They're both on the same thing.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: But that's what makes it beautiful. And we have to
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: see that. If we can see that, and it takes
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: work to see that, that's why we need more zacks,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: we need we need more safe spaces really, because that's
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the point. The point is helping us see who we are. Well,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: it's easy to focus on the other stuff, but how
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: about we and our attention to our bigness rather than
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: our smallness. Yeah, I love saying this. A stereotype is
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: just a chapter in a book someone hasn't fully read.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Jet you know, for people out there and people out
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: there who think who take things like you know, their
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: sexuality there j V. Sat As, all these slices of them,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and if they think that's it that defines them, then
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: they need to change that, as you're saying, and see
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the bigness be like, that is a beautiful piece of me.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: But I am all these other things, and within that,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: I am dust and I'm big. Let me tell you
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: why I love the story of Jesus so much, um,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and I would rather follow the principles of Jesus than
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the religion of Jesus. Right that people the religion they
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: impolosed on Jesus. But you know what I absolutely absolutely
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: think is a very interesting way of looking at the story,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: particularly at the end where you know he's carrying this
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: cross through a city and it's just I mean, it's
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: really painful and traumatic time for him, and you can
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: you know, people make it so religious, but I think
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: just the humanistic part of some man carrying a piece
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: of huge wood that's bigger than him, it's like carrying
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: your sexuality. And you know they nailed him to it.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: That's like your sexuality. You know, people will nail you
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: too publicly. You know, even people who have been exposed.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: What is it? Are your HIV status or you know,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: crucify you or ship maybe you crucify yourself. Most of
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: us we crucify ourselves. We put ourselves on the cross
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of our trauma. But what I luck about the story,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: this is a great tie into Easter right that if
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I were to turn it into metaphor, that Jesus takes
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: that same experience and turns that that whole thing into
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: my dynamic resurrection, like turns the whole thing upside down,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: like they complete. I'm gonna use my sexuality and so
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: of using as a metaphor as my resurrection, I'm going
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: to use all of what I've been through that crucified
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: me as a part of my coming out, as a
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: part of my growth, as a part of my development,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: as a part of my power. Is my superpower. It
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: makes me what conduct because of the trauma, not in
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: spite of it, not in spite of it. So whoever's listening,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: if they are HIV positive, or they're struggling with their truth,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: or their family has rejected them, you can turn that
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: into your superpower. You can use it, so rather than
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: avoid it are move a wife from it, it might
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: be your superpower. For Bishop Allen, redefining safe spaces is
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: crucial to the healing of the individual, and although these
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: safe spaces are communal, he reminds us that the most
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: important space is the one within ourselves, that we are
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: great and enough and powerful exactly as we are. Throughout
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: the season, we've seen how complicated and nonlinear healing can be,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: especially when tapping into those unseen facets of identity. Stepping
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: out into the world as simply us with all of
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: our contradictory identities, regardless of how messy, complicated, or imperfect
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: they are, can be terrifying. But, as Bishop Allen defines it,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: tapping into those different portions of ourselves this bigness helps
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: us see that we are so much more than one
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: thing or one group, and on the road to healing.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Believing that we do belong, regardless of our preferences, status,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: or background, is the ultimate key to self love and redemption.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: This has been in the deep stories that shape us,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: and what I want each of you to know that
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: has been with us this entire season is that your
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: story no matter how big or small, matters, Because you matter.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Find this episode and others on the I Heart Radio app,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to share, rate, and review if you enjoyed this conversation.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: The show is produced by Ivan Chian and mastered by
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: James Foster. Our show researcher is join A Raggio and
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: our writer is Evette Lopez. A special shout out to
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: our guest Bishop O c Allen. I'm your host, Zack Stafford.