God and Wine

i started preaching on accident. and my life has been in complete chaos ever since. On a cold day in February, a colleague of mine emailed a few people asking if we wanted to preach a chapel service at Union Theological Seminary . Upon first read, I said "Hell No!" I mean like, WTF? I had never preached before in my life. Matter of fact, I started seminary telling everyone that I wasn't a preacher . I simply wasn't interested in doing ministry in that way. But there was something that whispered to my soul that brisk morning that led me to reply with a hesitant "Yes. I'll do a lil somethin' somethin." I hadn't planned on writing a homily. I thought I'd do a spoken word piece that was infused with a lil scripture here and there, maybe even squeeze in a song or two. Some kinda way my spoken word piece turned into an exegetical exploration as I fell in love with the wonders of hermenuetics more and more. It was a beautifully frightening moment...

When I was 8, I went to a cousin's wedding in Lansing, Michigan. My mom and I stayed after the wedding festivities to sight-see. One afternoon, we were walking to the public bus and it flew passed us to the bus stop, a good distance away. My mom told me to run! I took off jogging, casually. Frustrated and annoyed, I stopped running. I turned around and proclaimed that I was tired and our efforts were futile. She told me to keep running. Rolling my eyes, I took off in a light sprint and the bus driver was gracious enough to wait for us to catch up (this clearly wasn't anything like the brutal NYC transit operators who could care less about you). We winded-ly climbed on the bus and to this day, my mother uses this story to lecture me about the benefits of not giving up--of not quitting. Although my mother would never want me to stay in a toxic situation, that experience has shaped the narrative around my vigorous fight against being labeled "quitter." I'm an o...