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In this episode of The Justice Table, the conversation between Jefferson J. Jones, Pastor Dion Evans, and Darryl Ford explores the complexities of the holiday season and holding the tensions of celebration and lament, joy and grief, hope and mourning. They talk about mental health and the importance of community support. You’ll be encouraged by the discussion about the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation and the freedom to show up as you are this holiday season.
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Executive Producer – Latasha Morrison
Producer – Sarah Connatser
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Not all views expressed in this interview reflect the values and beliefs of Latasha Morrison or the Be the Bridge organization.
*this was transcribed by Spotify and has not been checked for errors
0:00
Oh, boy.
What’s up, everybody?
Welcome back to the Justice Table, I believe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Man, I’m so excited here to be with my Bros, Pastor Dion and Darryl, and just how we’ve gotten to this, to this place, Esquire gotten to this place that was birthed out of a chat.
0:24
Yeah, we started from the We started from the chat.
Now we’re here.
Now we’re here.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, first, just want to acknowledge who’s really making this all possible.
Natasha Morrison, founder, CEO of Be the Bridge.
0:39
And we just want to honor her in her absence this go round.
And we’re looking forward to this conversation as we are in the middle of the holidays.
Guys, I want to give you an opportunity just to introduce yourself at this time.
1:00
I’m going to start with Pastor Dionne.
Well, you know, my name is Dionne.
I am a pastor of Amalgamated here in Suwannee, Georgia, Father of three beautiful children, married to wonderful wife Michelle and friends with these brothers right here and Los Angeles native.
1:21
So even I’m in Georgia right now, I’m always wrapping the West.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Nice.
Yeah.
So Darrell Ford, a former pastor of Icon Church here in Atlanta, attorney as well, also an adjunct professor at Morris Brown.
So it’s all the things during this holiday season, grade and final exams and all of that.
1:41
Detroit native.
What up though, Big, big Detroit fans.
So, Dionne, our our local teams are playing each other this Sunday.
The Rams and and Detroit’s much love, but you might not hear from me on Sunday.
Let’s go, Rams.
I know, I know, but no, it’s great to be with you brothers today.
1:59
Yeah, yeah.
What’s up, man?
So I’m your host.
I’m Jefferson Jones.
I am deeply connected to be the bridge.
I had served as the the youth and university program manager, still do racial reconciliation work, and also now the youth or kids director at Change Church at the Gwinnett campus here in Duluth, GA.
2:20
So y’all, let’s get into this.
Yes.
Sir want us to rest on the most wonderful time of the year or is it the most complicated?
So we know we get into the holiday season and people get cheery and excited and joyful and just full of yo, let’s just have a good time in the holidays.
2:42
I’m just going to, I’m going to pause right there.
And, and before I pass the mic, I want to say this, that I think that with all this happening in the world, all this happening in society, what’s happening in our nation right now, we need to be able to normalize this idea that it’s OK for the season to not feel magical.
3:06
So let that sit like there.
You’re going to let that sit right there, huh?
Let that marinate.
That’s how you said it and backed off of it.
He’s like, yeah, you want to.
You want to.
I’ll let you take your first bastard, OK?
I was going to the fastest *.
Person Oh, shoot, here you go.
No, I well, I, I, I resonate with that.
3:24
We’ve been, we’ve been well, I got so many different things there.
But I won’t say more right now.
But I will say my wife and I were driving recently.
We’re on the freeway.
We were going, where are we going?
We’re on 400 going somewhere this past weekend or maybe the last week.
Either way, my mind’s messed up.
3:39
But we’re driving on the freeway and it’s the Christmas season.
So I was, I told her, I said, babe, look at all these cars going back and forth and I wonder, but it was Thanksgiving.
We’re going to some first house.
That’s what it was.
I said, I wonder, you know, how many people right now are going to their friends or family’s house or how do people are just going home to an empty house?
4:02
And it makes me think about, you know, a lot of times I think we get caught up in the where the Thanksgiving or Christmas, the magic or, or the supposed magic of the season.
Now we could say a whole lot about that because if we get into like Mary and Joseph and Jesus birth and the Advent season just in general, wasn’t that magic as a 91 magic, You know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, any of the Gospel accounts, even though we had magnificent things happen, but those things are accompanied with some stress inducing moments.
4:32
You know, they were on the run.
They were going back for the senses, all this different stuff.
They got a bounty on her head.
Go figure.
I was thinking about the fact that these people are going, so many people are going home just to be alone, heat up ATV dinner, if those are still things, but be by themselves.
4:50
Yeah, right.
I’m aging myself and just be by themselves, you know, and the the stress is compounded for them because they’re going home feeling as if there’s an expectation to be a certain way in the moment.
5:06
But they don’t sometimes don’t have the means to be that way financially or mentally, emotionally, and don’t have the people to be that way with.
They don’t have a village or community.
So it’s like, I think in this time when it’s not so magical like you mentioned it there was in, how are we addressing that with people who we know who may be experiencing that?
5:24
But even for us, the pressure to make it feel magical when sometimes it don’t feel magical.
Right.
That’s my kind of response to kind of what you mentioned, what you’re kind of marinating.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I man, I mean, I, I think you nailed it.
5:39
I, I, I feel like people I’ve, it’s always been difficult, specifically as a pastor entering in spaces like this, because I feel like the pressure is always on to do just what you said.
The that help to create and, and to lean heavily into the fun part, the joyous part, which is important.
5:59
That’s a huge, you know, it’s definitely not less than that, but it should be more than that.
You know, the I, I, I do find that the holiday season becomes a, a vehicle by which people anesthetize themselves against lament and, and, and, and we can find anything to use that for.
6:19
But I think the holidays are good, a good one that we use it for.
And, and you know, so people will say, OK, it’s the most wonderful time of the year, but but that depends on where you’re standing, right?
I mean, as you guys have already said, I mean, for many, for many folks, especially in marginalized communities, this season carries like a really shock tension, right?
6:39
I mean, the lights are dark, but the world, I mean, the lights are bright, but the world still feels dark.
So we are celebrating Christmas, but we’re watching wars unfold.
We’re watching families that are grieving losses.
6:54
That’s, you know, seats at the table won’t hide.
I mean, there’s injustices.
That’s like shaping who gets to feel safe, who gets to feel heard, who gets to feel floor.
So.
So, yeah, when somebody asks if it’s the most wonderful time of the year, I feel like, and I think we all agree with this as pastors, Christmas was never has never meant that the world was all right.
7:15
I mean, Dionne already said it.
The original Christmas story is surrounded by political violence and poverty and forced migration and state injustice and babies getting killed and people getting displaced.
I mean that that’s always been the case.
So I think the wonder of Christmas is not that everything is perfect.
7:33
I think the wonder is that God chooses to step into a broken world anyway, and that Christmas is like this reminder, I think, trying to remind myself that God refuses to stand at a distance from human pain like Emmanuel.
7:50
Meaning God with us is really is God being with us while injustice is still raging, like while the world is still in fear, while we are still trying to hold ourselves together.
So no, it might not be the most wonderful time of the year for many people, but it’s a deeply meaningful time because hope shows up in places that look nothing like perfection.
8:10
And having the Christmas story teaches us that like, joy and justice are not separate conversations, right it it invites us to tell the truth about what hurts and still hold on to the promise that healing is still possible.
That’s so good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s so good.
8:26
Y’all, you make me think about, you know, now looking at just this consumeristic, the consumerism of Christmas and how much, I guess the, how much there’s been a, the sanitation of the text of the story to make everything merry and bright.
8:45
That’s right.
That’s right.
But if you sanitize the text, you sanitize the story, then you allow people this, the opportunity to suppress certain emotions because they feel that they are wrong.
9:02
In the Christmas season, that’s right.
Yeah, that’s right.
Yeah, it doesn’t fit.
It doesn’t fit the motif right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right.
Yeah, you’re right.
You’re right.
So if you so if you mourning, if you feel some level of mourning, you feel like your mourning is going to be so off putting because everybody here came to party.
9:22
You know what I mean?
Everybody here is ready to.
So like, you don’t want to be the downer.
Right.
But but and and and, the implication is that God’s not here for downer stuff.
Boom.
As such, that’s going to a wider conversation.
9:37
You said that, OK, that goes into a whole theology that we have, you know that we went down there for the downer stuff.
But I mean, like what you mentioned about not wanting to be the downer in places that that even increases the mental health piece of it because then there’s a stigma.
9:53
And for us, if we’re that person that doesn’t want to be the downer or has it, we’ll then kind of get into this avoidance.
So since we don’t want to be the downer, we end up being by ourselves.
We don’t go around.
We don’t come around.
Yeah.
And and the thing about the holidays that’s wild is that many times the people when you don’t go around the the the ask as to why you didn’t go around is more of an accusation versus hey, I know I noticed you didn’t come to the the turn up.
10:21
Everything OK?
Yeah.
It’s no, you weren’t there.
You messed in.
And there’s this indictment as to why you didn’t come versus maybe there’s a reason why I didn’t come.
Yeah, but we got to hold up this exterior posture of like there was there, this, this, this, the magicalness of it in the turn up and got to be filled this kind of the lights are on and everything is happening when that’s not necessarily a consistent way for everyone to be feeling or a consistent way even for yourself to be feeling in certain moments, you know?
10:51
That’s right.
That’s right.
Yeah.
No, that’s real.
I think.
I think getting people the the hardest part, I feel like to the point that you brought up Jefferson, you know, the folks that feel like they can’t authentically show up with everything, right, because we tell everybody, right.
11:09
As pastors, you tell people, man, you know, come as you are Jesus loves you where you are Jesus.
But but these are the seasons where people just are like it’s not that people are expressly saying don’t bring any of your sad stuff.
Nobody’s saying that right?
It’s.
Implied.
It’s implied and it’s implied it’s implied.
11:26
It’s modelled, it’s something that we see like very rarely is there time.
It it, it almost sounds foreign to talk about lament during Christmas.
It sounds foreign for people because, you know, it’s like, you know, we got family stuff and Christmas tree stuff and lights and performances and Christmas cantatas and, and, and I am not besmirching any of that.
11:49
Like all that’s good stuff.
Right.
But it’s very much like we have to have a place to hold what is merry and what is melancholic at the same time.
Yeah.
Yeah, and if you’re if you’re a race or if you remove the centrality of the justice of Jesus birth.
12:09
Yeah, yeah.
Right, man, you, you take away that tension.
Man, yeah, you do.
And So what are we left with?
We have people now who like, if you look in the body, we just look amongst, we don’t know lament, We don’t understand the tie of lament to justice.
12:31
No, there’s no.
There’s no place for it in a lot of churches, sadly.
For sure, but Jefferson, you definitely alluded to it.
But then Daryl also he he took the the words off the page when he talked about joy and justice because like so for for Advent at the church, you know, we’re in a in a series called make room and the first instalment was making room for joy and justice because we’re looking here at Isaiah 9.
12:55
Everybody does everybody when they talk through Advent about Isaiah 9.
When pastors do touch Advent, they are they go to Isaiah 9.
They go to Isaiah 96.
That’s where they stay.
They don’t go, they don’t go from 1:00 to 6:00 or they don’t go to seven.
13:11
They go to six, but until the child is born until the son is given and yada, yada.
But when you look at verse one, when the prophet is talking to them, they’re, they’re in captivity, they’re in boundaries, are in oppression.
And he’s talking about how there there is this sense of lament and he’s talking about how, you know, the, the, the their boots and and the blood cell garments are going to be, you know, he’s talking about the joy and the justice and the reclamation.
13:38
And then in verse 7, he talked about the House of David and Jesus bringing to justice.
And so, but in in I think verse three and four and five, he says, joy, joy, rejoice.
And so at the hope of what’s coming.
But what, when the prophet is speaking to them there in this lamentable, terrible place, and then they’re getting the hope of this Messiah coming.
13:57
And so we always jump to the, the, the hope.
But it’s like, well, what’s the hope for?
Because it jumps into verse 6.
It says for unto us.
So there’s there, there, there’s a transitory praise.
So what happened?
So The thing is, I’m giving you all these things.
And so for unto us, so this thinks it gives me a hope that is contrasting.
14:15
So it’s letting me hold this joy and this justice that he came to bring.
But it’s it’s, it’s two things that I’m holding in tension like Jefferson opened up with.
But we don’t I, I think if we approach Advent with a little more of the reality of that Advent is not a party.
14:33
Advent is an expectant waiting in the moments of where we are.
And so they’re, they’re, they’re the sitting that we don’t do in that there’s so much.
And then we get the spiritual bypass and all that kind of different stuff.
Because if you come to like who?
So nobody feels that they can.
14:49
And I’m, I’m gonna let it go because I can go on this forever.
Nobody feels they can come to church sad, right?
They can’t come to church sad, depressed and upset because of the joy I have to have now realizing that, hey, maybe it’s so.
But the person who feels that way, they should, they should have the inkling or somebody should let them know, hey, I can come in this in this state that I’m in.
15:11
And maybe the person would come and see me in that and sit with me in that at Christmas.
But we don’t let the at Christmas be a thing where I can, I can come and be sad.
I can come and be upset.
15:26
I can come and be anxious and worried.
I can come because here, and I’m sure we’ll get this later or at least I’ll come back to you later so I can shut up right now.
But there’s an idea at Christmas, at the Advent season, at the Christmas season, that we have to have all the things together.
15:43
We so, so we have, do you know, like how many people at the end of Christmas, when Christmas is gone, are, are, are lamenting now either the loneliness they had or the, the, the, the expiration date on their mental Wellness and their pocketbooks because they they had to put up this ruse during the holiday that was not there.
16:07
It wasn’t there.
I mean, go ahead.
Go ahead.
Yeah, go ahead.
No, no, no, I’m just.
I’m walking with.
You no, because I just and I’m going to say this, I’m going to get off.
And I remember years ago, years ago, years ago, years ago, because one of the like statistically that they’re one of the huge stressors and mental health stressors.
16:24
And Christmas is the, is the financial stressor.
But people feel like I need to do the, I need to, I need to do all these things.
I remember one time years ago, man, 1, Christmas, Christmas morning, my youngest, he was a baby, you know, my, my middle of my oldest, they were young.
16:40
But this, I mean, this is years ago.
And Christmas morning, I broke down and I’m on the couch, man, and pajamas, pajama pants and a tank top, bawling, crying.
Yeah, this boohoo crying in front of my whole family and my kids now like, well, why are you crying, Dad?
16:58
I’m like because in my in my in my dad mind and my husband provider mind, I’m like, I did not have the financial wherewithal to do.
This how it would.
Be done.
I’m pointing to myself because I don’t have all the things together.
17:17
And so that, yeah, so that, and that’s something that that’s not unique to me, that’s unique to folk all around every Christmas, even this Christmas where people are feeling that way.
And it’s a mental health it, it’s a high stressor, it’s.
Very, very.
High, yeah.
Yeah, like that’s man.
17:34
Thank you for sharing that too.
That’s not a that’s not a, that’s not a small thing to even be able to admit.
Hey, when all this light is around, there’s some heavy stuff that we’re carrying.
And, and, and I think, you know, I, I, I think about how this time of the year, there’s always, there’s a lot of light, which is what we want and we want to talk about the light, right?
17:56
And we know what I mean.
The Scripture says, right, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it, but the but that.
But sometimes we almost have to fight for finding that light.
In these times, you have to fight for that light.
It’s not just something that’s always readily apparent.
And what happens around Christmas is from the pulpit.
18:13
Sometimes we can almost act like it’s just so easy to ascertain that light.
Y’all, it’s so easy.
And it’s like, no, not always.
And there’s a a poem I had up because I wanted to.
It’s just two stanzas on it from famous theologian and Mystic Howard Thurman and Thaman has a really, really famous, famous poem called I will light candles this Christmas.
18:37
And I just want to read just two the the it’s 2 short stanzas, but it really does encapsulate what we’re talking about, right?
How do we in the midst of, look at right now where we are in the midst of all types of racism and, and, and kind of nationalism and some of the, the ways that people are being ostracized and, and dehumanized, right?
18:59
How do we, how do we fight for a light and hope without gospel gaslighting folks, right?
And so, so, So what, what Howard Thurman said was this.
He said I will light candles this Christmas.
Candles of joy despite all sadness.
19:16
Candles of hope where despair keeps watch.
Candles of courage for fears ever present.
Candles of peace for Tempest tossed days.
Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens.
Candles of love to inspire all my living.
19:34
Candles that will burn all the year long.
Wow, wow, bro, that poem and he really, he was inspired by John 1/5, right?
The light shines in the darkness, darkness.
But but what’s interesting about that is there is this idea that if we have the regular rhythm of carrying a light in the midst of dark things and being able to hold that tension throughout the year, then we’ve got the muscle memory to engage in that when Christmas comes.
19:59
That’s so good.
Yeah.
You made me think about Second Corinthians chapter 4 and how we are all these these these dark, these clay pots.
Right.
Scripture says we have this treasure in earth and vessels, and I think it’s up in five and six, six let light shine out of darkness.
20:19
And so it makes me think about just this again, this tension, light and darkness, fragility, weakness and strength.
Yeah.
That, that as we come into these different seasons, we don’t have to leave a piece of us behind.
20:37
That’s right.
God, God doesn’t ask us to leave any of us behind when we come to him.
That’s right.
And so like this, this treasure, this light in this earthen vessel, in this fragile vessel that I am, that even when I’m fractured, even when I’m going through something, even if I’m feeling a little, you know, melancholy, if I’m feeling sad or grieving, I still have a light that shines.
21:01
And I think for us, you know, as men of faith and just for other believers who are watching and listening to this, that when we show up as our authentic self and we are going through a tough time, we’re going through a hard time.
It is in those moments that others around us need to see our strength come forth, our light come forth.
21:24
And and it becomes a mystery to people.
How are you still standing?
How are you still in your right mind?
How are you still joyful when this just happened?
And this hits different from me.
Guys, it’s time because oh, this season, because my mom passed November the 4th and my dad, so it’s three years ago, passed in January on January the 4th.
21:57
My my dad’s birthday is December 28th.
Yeah.
Christmas is the 25th.
Yeah.
So I have all these dates now.
Yeah, my mom’s birthday, October 21st.
She passed on November 4th.
22:15
Christmas, December 25th.
Yeah, Dad’s birthday, December 28th.
He passed on January 4th, so I have all these dates now.
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
And it’s just so fresh.
22:30
Yeah.
And when people know me, they’re like, Jeff, how are you?
It’s like I’m OK.
Yeah.
But the sting is still there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
And so it’s like, even in these moments, man, it’s like for us, like we have this wait and this charge that even in the midst of, you know, grief and hard times that we, we keep, it’s like we’re holding this torch.
23:01
And I, even when I go down, I still got this torch.
And it’s like, and there’s a mandate that we hold on to this torch.
But just because I’m holding up this this torch, Yep, it doesn’t mean that I’m not hurting.
That’s right.
23:17
And the two.
Can the two can coexist?
I don’t.
I don’t think we do a great job of helping people navigate in discipleship on how to do both.
No, no.
Man, you got OK, You got to start something.
So were you going to say something, Darrell?
23:32
I don’t want to cut.
You.
No, no, no.
I’m just.
I’m just.
So you made me think of two things, Jefferson, when you when you shared that about having these dates and kind of like what this stretch of, you know, from October through January, how it holds space for you.
Maybe think about no, they’re they’re the social media meme that people are saying we’re checking your strong friends, right?
23:52
And I feel like not Even so much checking your strong friends.
I think about checking all your seasonal friends, right?
I think about, I think about, I think about what the holidays does for people.
I think about the the stress and the sadness and the grief that people hold on the holiday season.
24:07
And so like the Jefferson is a perfect example that he saw about this October to January.
That’s the holiday season.
You know, we’re the next celebrate Halloween, whatever, But that’s the how that October that that’s the ramp up, right?
And then January 9th is just at January, or is that just at 4th after the crux of the new year?
24:24
I think about the season.
There are people in this season that you know, whether it be a Jefferson who has the dates tied to it or whether it be anybody when that Christmas season comes around that we should be checking on people that we know who have, you know, had a loss or have something or have some some emotional deficiency now because of the season of what happened that season.
24:48
And people we don’t know who have had something because sometimes we don’t know that they’ve had it, but they’ve had it.
And I think about what since the season already has high intensive anxiety, sadness and grief for so many people, whether it’s retail store workers who are crazy anxious right now or those people who can’t afford stuff where the people who have lost people.
25:06
There’s a thing where I think about like if you play a sport, right, and you have an injured ankle or injured knee, not, not now the kids play basketball, they wear these Patella bands, right?
That to get that support.
Or if you have a injured ankle or a soft ankle, you have an ace bandage or ankle brace that you get because it supports you during that certain, that certain moment for that certain part.
25:26
Think about that support that people need that extra that they need during that certain moment and certain part.
No, we need to be able to give to people.
And I also thought about from Jefferson about talking about that light that we’re holding out.
And because he’s holding that light doesn’t mean that at the same time, it doesn’t hurt and doesn’t stain.
25:44
And I think and you you mentioned Gerald about Howard Thurman, I think from Howard Thurman perspective and even from like a traditional black church perspective.
And we don’t see this so much in the modern church age per SE.
But whether he talked about it enslaved Africans who are doing the Underground Railroad or enslaved Africans in general or Africans in general when who held the gospel There was there was this and even for all of us who grew up in black church spaces.
26:13
There was there was this piece when you when you were preached to the preachment the calendar of preaching in the sermons or where about yes, these things are dark.
These things are crazy.
These things are we’re under tyrannical government or whatever is happening right now, but somehow be able to uniquely feed the light of Christ in that same moment to and teaching us to hold the tension.
26:34
You know when you had as late Africans coming, you know underground role.
Whatever we have these Negro spirituals that are being sung, you know, holding attention and I don’t think now in our modern church age we are preaching towards or encouraging towards that you can hold attention.
26:52
So people think that if I don’t have this facade of everything being OK all the time, I I, I I begin to suppress the hurt, suppress the pain, suppress the grief and anxiety and what happened.
I tell a few people this all the time because happened to me.
27:08
You implode.
I imploded because I used to suppress this is even the Christmas story that I was saying about this something else there this suppression of how you need feel.
You need to be emotionally and if when you crash out, you crash out right and a lot of Christians or in in route to crashing out emotionally because we don’t feel that we can hold both of these things.
27:32
No one taught us, one, that it was OK and two, how to do it.
You know, but.
Scriptures replete with how to do it and that it’s OK.
Yeah, yeah, so good.
No, I’m, I’m just like piggybacking because it, you know, there are some church traditions that are, I hate using the phrase, but I think in theological circles, people know what they mean when they talk about high Church, right?
27:56
Some of these high church traditions where they have the liturgical calendar.
One of the beautiful things that I’ve always envied because I didn’t come from high church background, right, coming from very proud Pentecostal background.
But but one of the things that were often not a part of that was the idea of a liturgical calendar and what those who come from those traditions are familiar with the early churches practice of Advent, right.
28:21
Advent is something we all use the word you know, but but, but.
Yeah.
We don’t know what it means.
I mean, is that cute, right?
It is.
It’s cute.
It’s become a part of the accoutrement of Christmas, right?
If you’re a Turk person.
But but the truth is, I mean, Advent, it was never something that was created as a happy countdown to Christmas gifts, right?
28:40
It it was, come on, historically.
I’m just saying historically it was, it was always a season of quiet reflection.
It was a season of repentance.
It was a season of waiting in the darkness for light.
And this ties directly into conversations about mental health and emotional heaviness because Advent honors the fact that people often meet God in the dark.
29:08
So when you’re sitting in that dark place, they’re in a better time of the year.
It didn’t Christmas.
Because ultimately that’s what it’s designed for.
Like we need to, I think a, a spiritual discipline of, of intentional Advent seasons for us is necessary to get what you got at Dion.
29:27
Because you’re right, we’ve lost that.
That’s not a part of our rhythms.
That’s not a part of our muscle men.
We need it.
You do.
It’s so good.
It’s just heavy.
My, my head is going in so many directions because I’m thinking about this now from a, a cultural perspective, you know, as a, as a black man and thinking about things historically and thinking about man, what was, what was central to Christmas for black families historically?
29:59
Man, listen, yeah, like, I mean, I, no, I don’t want to cut you off.
I’m thinking oh.
You’re good.
I’m just thinking.
No, because you, It’s funny that you, man, Jefferson my mind.
Was going to a very.
Similar place, I’m just.
Stepping off.
No, I’m just like sitting there thinking, you know, because.
30:16
And I’m glad you’ve drawn the senators Jefferson, because the truth is this ain’t new to the folks that come from the traditions that we know this attention.
It’s it’s only a tension for us now because frankly, we have the luxury to let it be attention.
Even even as black men with with some awareness of the heaviness, we are privileged to a degree where our ancestors were not right.
30:39
And, and, and one of the, if you were to go back to New Year’s Eve of 1862, OK, let’s go back to the Christmas season of 1862.
What were enslaved people doing?
They were gathering, they were praying, they were waiting for emancipation, right?
30:56
The Emancipation Proclamation is dropped.
They’re just waiting to get word that it’s going to affect them, right?
So they’re waiting for New Year’s.
The whole Christmas season is a time for them of spiritual waitiness, right?
That to me, that history shows how.
The Bible say, but the Bible say right?
31:14
Yes.
It’s like, yeah, like, and it.
And it shows how our communities have always had to navigate joy and sorrow in the same season.
Like the Black tradition of Watch, Night teaches us that the holidays hold both deep longing and deep hope at the same time.
31:32
Yes, yes.
Period.
Yes, no, you, you, you, you hit on something, Darrell, because you talk about the cultural aspects of it.
I mean, and Jefferson started and you segwayed into that as far as the cultural aspect of thinking.
And it makes me think about even, and this is not Advent related so much, but it makes me think about, I remember when, and this is, it’s going to sound bad, but it’s not at the beginning when a lot of people were crashing out deconstructing from Christianity, right?
32:04
I, I, I find the use of terms interesting.
And this is, I’m gonna get there in a moment.
The point.
So a lot of people who were deconstructing were white folk.
Black people were decolonizing.
So black people weren’t leaving the faith because like you mentioned, Joe, they all we’ve always had to traverse and, and, and and tether ourselves between the joy and the justice.
32:28
We’ve always had to.
That’s right.
Fine.
Find the the hope of the exodus in spite being enslaved.
We’ve always had to do that and we’ve always had a keen understanding and awareness that those far right evangelicals ain’t about nothing.
32:43
That’s.
Right.
So, so when, when the mask was off or the hood was off, he weren’t like, Oh my God, Jesus isn’t real because we always got it.
So.
So for those of us who were engaged, we just decolonized that.
We knew that over there.
32:59
So we don’t we still going to say ride on King Jesus, no man, but but on the other culture and folk were losing their minds and leaving Jesus because they didn’t ever have to make those distinctions.
That’s not think about like you mentioned from the cultural perspective.
33:17
And I don’t want us to lose this in our modern modern evolved fancy times that we’re in right now.
I don’t want us to lose how to do that, lose that connection of how to hold Jesus and let Jesus be supreme over this and, and but help ease me and massage me and heal me in this because, because the same way that Jesus can handle those moments.
33:45
My God, my God will have you forsaken me and nevertheless not your will, but my will.
We don’t even know I want this cup to pass and we see Jesus hold those tensions and still let God arise at his enemies to be scattered.
That’s the old school hymn for people to listen to me, and I know what that is.
But we should be able to do that now in this 21st century as well.
34:03
So that’s good, that’s good.
And I was and I was just thinking too for like people of color, brown, black people specifically in this, you know, really coming to a place of owning both faith and emotion, right?
34:25
Faith and feelings.
Being able to see those things is not not an opposition.
That’s right.
That’s right.
Yeah.
Right.
Then helping them to say that, you know, therapy and you know, mental health, caring for yourself in that way, that we normalize those things.
34:47
Yeah, that’s right.
But.
Then then also coming to a point now like what what do we do with or not?
What do we do?
But man, what do we say to people who have been programmed or conditioned to think programmed?
35:04
Yeah, that like you got to suppress those things and you you don’t need therapy.
You don’t need help.
What?
Where do we go it it?
So I think I think the conversation, right that you just man you, you’re lighting the fire because that is often been such a taboo topic, especially in in black communities.
35:29
A lot of times to talk about that.
I think in communities at large, but especially in the communities that came from sure.
And similar to y’all, talking about therapy and mental health is still relatively new in some of these church spaces, right?
And I say that, you know, Jefferson, I, I connect deeply with what you shared, brother, about having lost parents and what that does during this holiday season.
35:57
I lost my mom unexpectedly very soon and her birthday is December 31st.
And so and, and the holiday season, right, is a season where in all of you know you, my mom was the kind of person that curated memories during the holidays, right?
36:17
So, so you sit with these, these things do something to you, right?
You replay things, you long for things, those conversations you wish you could have had.
You internalize that there are things that you wish you could make right.
You internalize that all those things hit right?
Well, you’re, you’re, you’re sitting in that and you’re like, man, what, what do we do with that?
36:36
And I would just say it’s, it’s really important that we model this, that we show that we, that we show it’s OK to, to, to, to, to be in the both.
And it’s not a new war.
We can be in the both end.
I can sit and enjoy and we can watch our movies and we can enjoy each other and still hold a place or even a large place sometimes where there’s a real warning.
37:00
Because one of the things that we all agree, and I think we’ve seen this throughout history, but one of the things we all agree is, look, our ancestors survived by burying one another’s burdens.
They survived, right?
37:17
The the same calling rests on us today during during a season that often magnifies emotional strain.
I think that we’ve always been even before there was such a thing as mental health, there was always this idea of our community showing up for one another.
37:33
That’s all.
That’s how we survived.
I mean, we didn’t have a there there, you know, I mean, our, our prayer closets were far more inclusive back then.
I just put it that way.
And, and, and I, I think that we’ve got a model that to be like not just talking to, Hey, how are you doing?
37:49
You can tell me we got to model it by saying, Hey, y’all, we’re really, I know this is great, but I just got to share something heavy that’s hitting me right now.
Just just being vulnerable enough to go Christmas, ain’t I?
Don’t.
I ain’t got it all together this Christmas, y’all?
No, you hit that and made me think about because we talked about this at church a while ago and what you were just mentioning with Galatians 6 bear you one another burdens hopeful for the law of Christ.
38:15
So we talked about that as far as like sharing in your church spaces, sharing with sharing with your communities.
Sometimes the burden is is like a two way burden where the people who we who are going through who should be sharing, a lot of times they are not sharing because of what happened last time they shared.
38:38
Yeah, that’s right.
That’s right.
Lot, lot, lot of times somebody will share the thing, the hurt, the pain, the deficiency, whatever it is.
And it became an example in the sermon.
You weaponize your.
Counseling yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:54
Or, or you told somebody in the church, hey, I’m struggling financially.
And that came back to bite you with because they, they just so the, the, the, the person or the people should have been holding space and holding protection and security for your deficiency and your ailment.
39:10
And whatever it is.
We actually end up doing a huge and, and there’s an accountability on us for, for kind of shunning them away and not making a good space for them to share because they, they, they don’t feel.
We always say, you know, whether they don’t feel OK sharing.
39:27
We never ask ourselves, why don’t they feel OK sharing?
Yeah.
And a lot of times they don’t feel OK, sure, because the last time I shared with you what you did with what I shared with you was so traumatic, so hurtful that I’m not going to share again.
And so then we kind of by proxy at least force them to internalize so much, whatever the slow spiritual death and mental death or emotional death and decline they go into.
39:51
Many times it’s our fault because of what we did the last time they shared, we did we.
So the church oftentimes or Christians oftentimes that community, oftentimes we have not.
What we supposed to have been, we fell short.
And so we didn’t make it a place where they could share.
And so we, we would say anything like you say, it’s OK to share or you know, we, we play the, the act of I’ll bear you a burden, I’ll bear you a burden.
40:15
But when, when, when I give it to you to bear, it’s, it’s like when people say, you know, how can I pray for you?
But they really just want to know that know what you’re going through so they can have to eat.
They’re they’re not really praying for you.
They’re praying PRPREY and you as ay and you.
So yeah, nothing like to your question, Jefferson, about how do we let them know?
40:35
I mean, I think it’s a matter of no, it’s cliche, but let them know it’s OK to not be OK.
You can you you can really be broken.
You can really be like a life sucks kind of attitude.
And that’s OK in this moment now because I love you.
We’re not going to let that be your eternal spot.
40:51
But but but bring that here, you know, bring the burden, bring the tear, bring the exact, bring all the stuff.
And but The thing is the thing that sad to me, even as I say that as as we say that so many times as a church, pastors always say it, you can bring your brokenness here and then both bring their brokenness here.
41:13
And we just make it more broken.
We make it more.
And I think during this holiday season, it’s tough because people need places to land, but there is nowhere to land.
And if you think about, and I’m, I’m going to jump off this and see how I can jump.
41:29
And do I think about like if you’re flying a plane, the first thing that if they’re ever, if you’re ever going to plan that was low on fuel.
That first thing they do now if it’s Air Force One, they’re going to refuel it in the air with fighter jets.
But for anybody else in a passenger jet, they’re going to try to find a place to land to get fuel.
41:46
And if you think about a place where you can’t land, you’re just circling around because there’s nowhere to get fuel.
You’re going to crash and everybody who’s in you is going to die.
So I think about the people who end up dying because we have no safe place to land because no one provided a place for us to fuel.
42:03
And then the people that are attached to us, our kids, they’re like, Mom, dad, why are you depressed?
And then they get to them.
And so, so just like, just like the cargo in a plane or people in a plane, they die when there’s no word of fuel.
We also die and people attached to us have a particular dying because we’ve not provided safe places to land and be burdened and be hurt and be sad in this Christmas season.
42:26
And so it’s a shame.
It’s it’s sad, it’s sad, but we can do better.
We can do.
But I think.
Yeah, that’s good.
Yeah.
Yeah, man, I just want to say just the people who are going to see this and listening in this is a practical, A practical thought.
And that is just to give yourself permission to not be around people who continue to ’cause you pain.
42:51
Man, the gift of freedom.
Set the boundaries.
Man talk.
About that and it’s it’s OK to change your mind.
Yeah.
It’s OK to say no because, you know, because bro Bros, when we don’t set limits and boundaries in our life, other people will do it for us.
43:12
Yeah, and sometimes we get forced to learn that in some very hard ways.
That part.
It’s, it’s, and I would say, you know, in church spaces, you, you can often be made to feel like the Christ like way is to just be ever available and, and, and boundary lists because that’s, that’s good grace, that’s showing grace to people, that’s showing compassion.
43:40
I thought you loved me.
Man, see.
No, see it really.
This is Jefferson’s post.
This is Jefferson’s post when he said it, when he said that just now it dropped in.
I’m like I because I when I when I saw this post, I ran to my wife right away of that bag and he he did this last week.
43:58
He don’t have to be around certain family members for the that are on the holidays just because they make the demand.
You’re an adult and you have the right to not go adulting one-on-one.
Holiday Edition.
That’s it.
That’s that’s drop that that mic is dropped and it’s and you know what I think I think so.
So if I tie around some churches language that gets thrown to guilt people, right.
44:17
I, I think that also folks listening, learn the substantive difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.
You know, I think, and this is a time of the season where people often feel forced into reconciliation without there being good forgiveness and repentance, right, right, right.
44:37
So, so, so it’s important for people to realize, and it took a lot for me.
I’ve always had to work through this too.
Forgiveness requires one person, you, you, you don’t need the other person to forgive them.
So for those in this holiday season who have brokenness, some heartache, some pain, you’ve been sinned against, you’ve got to be robbed.
44:57
Yes, we have the responsibility of forgiving and not to go too preachy on it, but it simply means I give up my right for revenge against you.
So I’m not trying to seek your worst.
I’m not trying to exact my pound of flesh.
But forgiveness is not a right of reentry.
45:15
So.
So if I’m forgiving you, I forgive you.
I’m not trying to come for you.
I’m not trying to come after you.
But also, if the rhythms of repentance have not yet happened satisfactorily, then you are not called to go into this plastic reconciliation for the sake of the holidays.
45:33
Be free.
That’s it.
Be.
Free.
In other words, I would just say know your know your Judas from Peter.
Come.
On Jesus told Judas.
Judas, go, go and do what you got to do quickly.
That’s right, Deuces.
45:49
Listen, listen, yo, OK, I got I got one last little question as we wrap this up.
Just give us a nugget on, you know, because I know holiday season, I know we talked about consumerism.
We talked about grief, mental mental health and being well, what is peace on earth look like for us today?
46:18
Let’s give the people some hope.
OK, I look like Darryl still pondering, so I’ll jump in real quick while he ponders.
He’s going to say something deep anyway.
It’s going to blow up the waters.
I’m used to that.
But I, I, I think what I think about peace during the season, I, I don’t think about it in terms of being a peacekeeper.
46:40
Peacekeeping capitulates.
Peacekeeping is go on to get along.
Peacekeeping is, you know, assimilation, Peacekeeping is all that.
But I think about the the peace that has the blessing on it according to Matthew, and the attitude is blessed are the peacemakers.
46:59
That’s right.
Right.
And I think about peace during the season, it’s not just an all of this is amazing with Darrell alluded to when we started about the war, the different things going on.
So I think as far as if we’re talking about Nugget even of hope where peace is concerned that we are intentional in making peace, doing the things that ’cause there to be peace, not waiting for it to come without a passive thing.
47:24
It’s it’s active, it’s involved, it’s engaged, it’s vigilant.
And, and, and it’s something like the same thing we talked about like Justin’s reconciliation.
It’s not something peace is not caused by us.
It’s OK.
It’s OK like especially right now that I think people can find hope in the fact that even with it being Christmas season, it’s still OK to cry loud and lift up your voices.
47:50
It’s still OK to have a protest.
It’s still OK to have something to say about a Gaza.
It’s still something OK to have something to say about ice.
It’s still OK to have something to say about all the injustices that we’re singing even in a Christmas Christmas season.
48:07
And so here, here’s a negative hope that Christmas does not mean that you’re muted.
It means even that your peace, that your peace making efforts are all the more especially when we look at the true meaning of Christmas, the true meaning of the Advent.
That is when Jesus came, in a radical, obvious way, to make peace in a place where there was done.
48:29
Come on.
Come on.
So good.
Man, well, I certainly don’t want to follow that.
I’ll just say that that when, when man, I mean, Jefferson, you, you hit us with a heavy hitter there because you’re using.
I mean, obviously it’s a phrase that almost becomes trite come a holiday season because it’s just said so often, right?
48:52
And so in many ways, it feels like, like a like a reference to some type of fantasy land because Christmas time, everything’s magical and dreamy, peace on Earth, goodwill towards men.
And it’s almost like Christmas be is the time to cosplay who we are not.
49:12
And, and so when we hear, you know what I mean?
Like when, when, when, when we hear when we hear the words peace on Earth, it it can feel almost impossible to imagine in a world like ours that really exists, right?
I mean, we we’ve already talked about it.
49:27
We’re living with war on every screen, violence in in our neighborhoods, political division that tears families apart.
We all that happens, right?
You got systems that are still failing the most vulnerable, but I would say like biblical peace, as Dion just put, put it so perfectly, it’s not the absence of struggle, right?
49:46
It is the presence of God’s justice, God’s healing, God’s nearness right in the middle of the struggle.
So what does it look like today?
I think it looks like communities refusing to surrender to despair.
I think it looks like people choosing truth over silence.
50:03
I think it looks like people choosing compassion over cynicism.
I think it looks like people choosing dignity over dehumanization.
Like it’s it’s it’s like neighbors checking on one another, churches creating what what Dion was pointing out safe spaces for people to breathe.
50:23
Even some of our families learning new patterns of love that break generational harm.
Peace, peace on earth.
For me is is, is structural.
I mean, it’s policies that protect the vulnerable.
It’s it’s leaders who value human life.
50:39
It’s it’s it’s it’s it’s system like public systems that reflect God’s heart for the widow, for the stranger, for the oppressed.
Is, is, is it pieces is never passive.
What is I think somebody said peace is justice with his work boots on right?
50:55
And and, and, and, and I think at the same time, right, peace does begin with the soul pieces, that quiet courage to try to hope again.
Peace is kind of that.
People describe it like it’s this, this stillness that God gives when everything around us feels so unstable.
51:16
I feel like it’s, it’s like a knowledge that darkness doesn’t get the final word.
So when we so, so, so when we, I mean, even even the angels, right, they announced peace at a time when Rome’s empire was crushing people.
I mean, they weren’t describing, they were not describing what the world already was.
51:33
They were declaring what God was bringing about through Jesus, right?
So, so when we say peace on earth today, we’re not pretending everything is fine.
That’s my point.
We’re, we’re, we’re holding on to that promise that the God is still moving, the God is still healing.
The God is still freeing.
51:50
The God is still restoring.
And so I think, and I think peace on earth begins wherever people choose love over fear and justice over convenience.
And, and that’ll always mean that peace is not far away because it starts with us.
It flows through US, it starts with Christ, but it flows through US.
52:05
And it it becomes visible whenever we choose to live, as if God’s future is already pushing into our present.
That’s so good.
All I got is one line.
I’m going to say this and we’re going to close it out, but I choose to reject a peace on earth that is projected as a spiritualized toxic positivity that that erases the suffering servant that I can identify with.
52:35
Say that, Say that.
Toxic positivity, brother.
I love that, man.
We just need to sit in that.
I sit in that phrase often.
Yes, that’s it.
It’s a pet peeve, but it’s a real thing.
That’s it.
And we can identify with the suffering of Jesus.
52:54
There’s there’s space for that.
God makes room for that.
And whoever watches this, this episode, know that God makes room.
The Creator makes room for your suffering during this season, for your pain, for your grief, for the lack that you have, for the things you want to buy, the guilt or the frustration with even what seems mundane to others.
53:18
That the God makes room for all the emotions, all the fields that you have during this holiday season.
That sounds like a benediction, brother.
Yeah.
Yeah.
53:34
And so be it.
Yes.
Yo you guys, my Bros and whoever sees this, thank you all for joining us.
Thank you for sitting with us at the Justice Table.
Yes.
Right.
And until we meet again, you all enjoy this season as you sit in that tension and what you feel and what you’re going through.
53:59
You’re having peace and the pain, the joy, the tears, all of it.
God makes room for all of you, not just pieces of you.
Amen.
All.
Right y’all?
I’m man.
Peace out.
Blessings.
Peace.
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