November 14, 2023 • 31 mins
Y’all asked me anything and I answered! Listen in as I answer YOUR questions about jumpsuits, sandwiches, God, and the creative process.
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Speaker 1 (00:25):
Hey, y'all, welcome back to a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And this episode is an Ask Amina Anything.
So I got these questions from social media, so here
I am. I'm going to answer your questions. Okay, first
question is favorite place to get jumpsuits. I am a
(00:46):
girl who loves jumpsuits. I did not know that I
would love jumpsuits as much as I do. Shout out
to Michelle Norris, who is a fantastic photographer and just
guru of style generally, and at the time, Michelle Norris
was doing some like personal styling just on the side,
(01:07):
and so she definitely is the person who got me
into wearing jumpsuits. She was like, you gotta try this on,
and I have never gotten back to not being a
person who wasn't wearing jumpsuits. Okay, favorite places to buy
jumpsuits I have to give Like I guess it's a
local shout out, but this boutique I'm about to name
also has an online store, Pink Sky Boutique. I've gotten
(01:31):
quite a few of my favorite jumpsuits from there. Also,
I have to give a shout out to TJ Max
because not so much for fall per se, but like
in the spring. In the summer, I have found some
of my favorite jumpsuits there. But here's the difference. Here's
the thing. It depends on what kind of jumpsuit you're wanting.
(01:53):
And I'm a girl who likes jumpsuits for any occasion.
So I have some jumpsuits that are like jumpsuits to
wear just in the house. Then I have some jumpsuits
that are like, you know, just something to put on
while you're running errands or whatever. And then I have
jumpsuits that to me are like, I'm going out type
of jumpsuit. And then I have more of like a
corporate or office see looking jumpsuit for certain events and
(02:16):
stuff like that. So TJ Max is really good for
a very casual or sporty jumpsuit. And the trick that
I've learned though, is for some reason, I don't find
as many casual jumpsuits in the women's section, which is
normally where my sizing would be. Sometimes in order to
(02:37):
find a very cute or sporty casual jumpsuit, I have
to go over to the junior's section and go to
like the end, the highest size of the junior section.
That is where I have found a lot of great
casual jumpsuits. I love to pay attention to jumpsuits that
athletic brands have, like the Jordan brand and the Adidas brand.
(03:00):
You can sometimes find some really really cool jumpsuits from there.
So yes, those are probably my favorite places to get
a jumpsuit. But pretty much any store that I go in,
I'm going to look at the jumpsuit section, Like anytime
somebody asked me, what were my reflections coming from? Evolving
Faith And for those of you that aren't familiar, Evolving
Faith is a conference but also an online community for
(03:23):
people who may have grown up in Christian environments or
you know, may have been Christian you know, a certain
time of life, and now may find their theology shifting
or broadening. Evolving Faith is, in its conference state, a
place where people can come and just hear from different
(03:45):
speakers who are not conservative Christians and are not evangelical Christians,
but are more progressive and liberal voices, and some voices
that are existing in these different places and expressing sort
of how their faith shows up in those environments. So
many of you know, if you've been listening to this
(04:07):
podcast a long time, that for the most part, I
no longer do a lot of the type of faith
based Christian events that I was doing for so long
in my career. Evolving Faith is one of a very
small small number of events that are related to faith
that I still do and related to Christian faith. And
(04:29):
I think what I love about Evolving Faith also though,
is that it's just such an inclusive place. You know,
it's inclusive for anyone. You know, however, whatever your gender,
whatever your sexual orientation, wherever you are theologically or spiritually.
You know, you could be atheist and Attendvolving Faith Evolving Faith,
(04:52):
you could be agnostic. I love that it is a
place that welcomes queer folks that is, having a lot
of conversation around what it means to be LGBTQ plus
and be Christian or be LGBTQ plus and having grown
up in environments that were very hostile to you because
of Christian religion. So there's a lot of just welcome
(05:15):
and inclusivity that I really love about that. So I've
been the MC for Evolving Faith for the past four years,
and as of this recording, I was just there in
the last week or two MCing and what are my reflections, man,
I think. I think one of the things that has
(05:36):
meant a lot to me about being a part of
Evolving Faith is really being an MC. I also get
to be in the audience too, you know, so I'm
introducing speakers, but I actually get to like sit down
and listen to some of them, And I, especially this year,
had the opportunity, since we were back in person, to
really have an opportunity to sit and listen to two
(05:58):
or three of the sessions in full. And as a
person whose theology has shifted quite a bit from maybe
the Christian theology I was raised with, or even where
my theology was when I first started performing in white Christian,
conservative evangelical environments, it's nice to feel like you are
with other people who are also on a searching journey.
(06:22):
It definitely made me feel less alone and made me
feel more aligned. And there was a lot of similar
messaging to say that when you realize that you know
the way that you believe may be changing, that that
can feel like you're a lot of the language around
evolving faith is that that can be this wilderness. But
(06:46):
there was a lot of affirmation during the event to
say that the wilderness is not a bad place. To be.
I even remember Dante Stewart, who was one of the
speakers there. He was talking about how law Us is
also a place and can be a good place, like
it doesn't have to be viewed as this bad place.
(07:08):
So yeah, I really enjoyed getting to be a part
of that and getting to be a part of the community.
And there are a lot of people who are speakers
and things that evolving faith that are my friends, and
so it's always nice to see them. But it's also
nice just to be in the crowd there. And I
think when other people see me there that may know
(07:31):
me from having been in a conservative church space, I
think when they see me there, like I can see
their eyes light up, like, oh my gosh, you're here,
you know, And I'm sure the last place they may
have seen me was in a more conservative church on
a Sunday or at a more conservative conference or something.
And I think it does my heart get to be there,
(07:52):
and I find that it does other people's hearts good
to see that I'm there and that I want to
be part of a Christian faith that is inclusive, you know,
that isn't excluding folks that are disabled, that isn't excluding
folks who are queer or trans. This isn't excluding anyone
(08:14):
you know that wants to do the work of anti racism,
Like that's that's the faith that I want to be
a part of. So I think the plus to evolving
faith is you get to be around people who you
know are not just against things that you're against, but
are also four things you're for, and are four people
that you're four. So there's that. I guess this segues
(08:34):
into my next question, why do you believe in God?
That's a really interesting question, and I would say in
this season of my life, it's really really layered. You know.
I will say I'm not a person who processes well publicly.
(08:54):
I can be an external processor in the sense that
when people are close to me, I like to talk
things out, and I like to say my thoughts out
loud and hear the people I love sort of bounce
their thoughts, you know, back off of me. I like
that kind of thing. But I'm not a person who
can be processing sort of the deeper things of my
(09:15):
life and blog about it or write about it on
social media. So there are a lot of things that
I believe, a lot of things I no longer believe
a lot of things that I've been in process about
that I haven't spoken about publicly. And some of that
on my part has been really intentional, because I don't
(09:37):
want their rush to be for me to make statements
if where I'm at is not a place that's ready
to make statements. And some of that has just been
me wanting to give myself the proper time in real life,
you know, to think about things. So why do I
(09:59):
believe in I will say, I guess I'll start with
even there. Even though there are a lot of places
my theology has shifted, I do still believe in God,
and I do still believe in Jesus, and I believe
in I believe in the message of Jesus in building
a table that welcomes everyone, in building a table that
(10:21):
has people there that other people may say shouldn't be
at the table, like I love that part about Jesus.
And I think sometimes I would say that I believe
in God because my ancestors did. Because I can look
back on generations of my family and all of the
things that my people have walked through and that they
(10:42):
manage to still find a way to look towards God.
I think that the idea that there is a God
who loves and who understands, and who feels our suffering
(11:03):
and our pain, who is not separated from that, all
of those things really jive with me. So I don't know.
It's hard to answer why, because I can't say it's
like I have this scientific proof that God exists. I
guess I'll say I believe in God because I feel
(11:24):
like that's a risk I'm willing to take. You know,
there's a whole lot about life and God. To me,
that is a mystery that we can go to theology
school for the rest of our lives and there'll be
a lot about the mystery of God that will never understand.
There'll be a lot about the mystery of life that
will never understand. But I believe in God because I'm
(11:45):
willing to take a risk unbelieving and I may discover
at the end of life that there isn't an afterlife
and that we just close our eyes and that's it,
you know. But I'm willing to take that risk and
believe that there is a God that loves us, and
there is a God that wants to be present to us.
(12:06):
So yeah, that's as far as I can get right now.
Next question says, what is one thing you wish you
could change with a snap to make the world better?
Of course, you know, my first thoughts about this question
are like just you know, very ignorant, but like my
(12:28):
first thought was like, I just want us to be
able to eat as many carbs as we want and
not do anything to our bodies that has any damage
at all. That was like the first thing. I feel
like I should have a deeper answer for that. I
will say, the concept of having something that you could
(12:53):
change about the world in a snap, it's probably not
something that I would ask for or really identify with.
I think life as a human and life on this
earth as we know it is full of a lot
of beautiful things, and it's also full of a lot
of really horrible things too, and heartbreaking things. And I
(13:15):
don't know, I don't know what the butterfly effect is of,
Like you snap your fingers and you change this thing,
then how does that affect all the other things? But
if I was going to say a more serious one,
you know, my one thing would probably be white supremacy.
That that would be the one thing I would want
(13:35):
to change because I think inside. I feel like in
white supremacy is purity, culture, is homophobia, is transphobia, is
so many things like that is ableism, you know, like
all of that stems from the roots of white supremacy
(13:58):
to me, So that would probably be my one serious
thing outside of being able to eat as many donuts
as I wanted without having to worry about my blood sugar. Okay,
(14:21):
somebody said I want to hear more spoken word. Well,
I have a poem here that I'm going to share.
It's technically not spoken word, but since it's poetry, I'm
going to share it. Anyways. I actually saw this as
a comment on IG and was like, I too want
to hear more spoken word, so I'll read you this poem.
This poem is a contrapuntal poem and shout out to
(14:47):
the homie Tawny Powell, who was doing a writing workshop
a few years ago here in Atlanta. And if you're
not familiar with the form of contrapuntal, it's basically like,
you have a poem that I do remember exactly how
many lines it is, but the lines you sort of
take two opposing ideas and you write one poem about
(15:10):
the one idea and then you write another stanza about
the other opposing idea, and then you link these two
stanzas together line for line. So normally a contrapuntal poem
would be best experienced on a page where you could
actually see it, but we will try it here where
you can hear it. So I really didn't have a
(15:33):
title for this poem, but the theme we were writing
from was actually around the same time of year that
this episode is being released. So we were writing this
poem during the fall. It was leading into sort of
Thanksgiving holiday time, and so the concept that we were
supposed to explore was in the one stanza explore the
(15:56):
idea of feast and in the other stanza explore the
idea of famine. And then you take the lines and
sort of intertwine them. So you read the one stanza,
you read the second stance, and then your third stanza
is the two stanzas combined line for line. So we
come to the table full of dads, smoke turkey and
(16:16):
mom's cornbread dressing, yams and greens. Say grace, say what
you are thankful for, and when it is your turn,
say a scripture and pray. No one has already said
Jesus wept. Little kids, eat first? Who will fix grandma's plate?
Did you fix your man's plate? Did she fix your
man's plate? Eat? Drink, be merry, be full, watch football,
(16:40):
fix a to go plate to remember them by. Can
skeleton thin relationships still hold hands? Love can still be
very hungry at a family dinner where the table is full,
Deserts don't have nothing on the parched way we communicate.
We have left each other wanting, with the gnawing sound
of malnourished marriages. When a mentality of poverty teaches you
(17:03):
to parent, you raise your babies to believe they should
only accept the scraps they are given. They should only
want leftovers somebody else has already chewed through. Besides, filling
your belly will only leave you empty anyway, Welcome to
the table. Can skeleton thin relationships still hold hands full
(17:24):
of Dad's smoked turkey, Love can still be very hungry
and Mom's cornbread, dressing, yams and greens. At a family dinner,
say grace, say what you are thankful for, where the
table is full, and when it is your turn. Deserts
don't have nothing on the parched way we communicate. Say
a scripture, we have left each other wanting and pray.
(17:45):
No one has already said Jesus wept with a gnawing
sound of malnourished marriages. Little kids eat first. When a
mentality of poverty teaches you to parent, who will fix
grandma's plate? You raise your babies? Did you fix man's plate?
To believe they should only accept the scraps they are given?
Did she fix your man's plate? They should only want
(18:07):
the leftovers? Eat, drink, be merry, be full, watch football
somebody else has already chewed through. Fix a to go
plate to remember them by. Besides, filling your belly will
only leave you empty anyway. Okay, Question six, what is
your creative process like these days? What genres or art
(18:30):
forms are you prioritizing? Mmm. I'm gonna be honest and
say that the last two years have been really difficult
for me, and there was a long period of time
where I wasn't writing at all. So a part of
my writing process and creative process has been returning to writing.
(18:55):
I don't know if any of you have ever been
through something so hard that even doing the creative thing
that you loved is painful to return to. That's kind
of what my writing process has been like. So I
feel like I had to slowly find my way back
to the page. And I'll say a larger part of
(19:15):
my process that's been really helpful is reading. I feel
like I've always been a reader. And I know, if
you're a writer listening, you always hear the advice about
you always hear the advice about reading, and then you're like, yikeuse,
I'm so tired of hearing it. But I know that
it's true. I know that when you read well that
you write better. Like I know that's true even if
you read a book that's not great, that will still
(19:37):
help you be a better writer. But when it literally
comes to the time that I actually physically sit down
to write, I don't normally read during those times, and
my initial return to try and write again, I picked
two or three books, Like right now I'm reading Black
women Writers at work. I'm reading through Julia Cameron's The
(20:03):
Artist's Way, and I'm reading through Trisha Hershey's Rests Resistance,
And I'm also reading through are Eric Thomas's Here for It,
as well as de Marius Hills. I think it's I'm
going to get the name of her book wrong, so
I'll look it up to try to make sure I
get it right for y'all. But I'm reading one of
(20:23):
Demarus Hill's poetry books which has been really really good,
so pretty much when I started, you know, wanting like
actually having the feeling where I wanted to write, Oh
here it is. The book of hers that I'm reading
is called A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing. That's
(20:46):
the poetry book by Demarus Hill that I'm reading. And
I want to give a shout out to the Watering Hole,
which is a poetry retreat that I went on last year.
And I went there last year almost feeling like, oh
my gosh, I'm going to this poetry retreat and I'm
struggling to even write. But I think being in an
environment where you're just sort of writing on the spot
(21:07):
for a week really kind of helped me get back
in the groove. So at first I couldn't write. I
would just read and then I would have to like
go do something else. And then I got to where
I could read for a certain amount of time, and
then I could write for like ten minutes, and then
I work my way up to where I could write
sometimes thirty minutes sometimes an hour. I don't think I've
(21:29):
written longer than an hour at a time still, So
I think that's a little bit of sort of an
example of kind of where my writing processes. There's there
used to be a lot of music and jazz and stuff,
and there's really been a lot more reading other work
and then taking time sort of read poems. I'm still
(21:51):
working on out loud. I am working on a few
other things that are not poetry. So some of that
is like trying to watch other genres of things, Like
I'm working on a project with some other creative folks
that's a musical, so having to study a bit more
the form of the musical and know a little bit
(22:15):
more about that. The other part of the question is
what genres or art forms are you prioritizing. Oh. One
other thing I'll say about my creative process, though, is
I'm also doing a bit of events because I am
the chapter host for Creative Mornings Atlanta. So I think collaboration,
I would say, is a much bigger part of my
(22:35):
creative process than it used to be. I used to
be very much a loan creator. Like I'm writing a poem,
I'm writing a poem in my office by myself. If
I'm working on it for a client or something, maybe
I send it over to them, maybe they give their feedback,
but it's not really like we're collaborating on the project.
(22:56):
And so I think in this season of time, I
have opened myself up to be in and more collaborative environments,
which I think is really really helpful because first of all,
then it's not all on you to make the writing
or whatever. I mean, typically what I'm doing mostly is writing,
but even in the case of working on events and
curating environments and things like that, it's not all on me.
(23:18):
I actually have other folks whose expertise and talents and
gifts that I can lean on as well. So I
think collaboration is a much bigger part of my creative
process now. And what genres or art forms am I prioritizing.
I think I'm still prioritizing poetry in two ways, in
writing poetry and in getting ready for stage as well,
(23:41):
I am prioritizing storytelling in some ways. In some ways,
it's dishonest for me to say that I accidentally became
a storyteller, because that really isn't true. I came from
a family of storytellers who may not tell stories professionally,
but I come from a family of people who gon
sit down and tell you a story that's just the truth.
But as far as like telling stories on stage that
(24:03):
happened to me accidentally, you know, I for a long time,
especially because I was performing sort of god word poetry
that would be done in sort of a church environment,
so I wasn't doing sets of poems. I would just
I would walk up, I would do my poem, they
would go back to doing music. So it took me
some years to learn how to build how to build
(24:26):
a poetry set, and how would I get from one
poem to the next poem. So that's really what made
me I feel become an accidental stage storyteller. So I've
been participating in the Moth in Atlanta, which has been
a really great sharpening ground on how to tell a
story on a theme, how to mine the stories in
(24:48):
your life and think about that. So I feel like
that's definitely like a genre or art form that I'm
working in right now, and the form of the essay.
I really love essays. My last book, How to Fix
a Broken Record, was mostly like short, kind of punchy essays,
and when I was working on that book, I really
felt like I was beginning to find my voice and
(25:09):
beginning to find the form of poetry that I like.
So I am very very beginnings of working on my
next book idea. This will be potentially the first book
that I will be putting out there that will not
be under Christian Publishing, which is wild to think but
also really fun, really fun to think about that. So
(25:34):
I've just been sort of writing some beginning essays for that,
and really, you know, essays is really same storytelling muscle,
but now how you represent that story in a way
that someone could read it and get a similar vibe
from it as if they were hearing me or watching
me on stage. So yeah, those are my answers there.
(25:56):
Most memorable meal at a restaurant Okay, I have to
say the meal that I had from my birthday at
gun Show, which is Kevin Gillespie's restaurant here in Atlanta,
And if you're a Top Chef fan, Kevin Gillespie was
definitely a cast member of Top Chef and one of
(26:18):
the few Southern chefs that was there, so I really
enjoyed getting to have a meal there at his restaurant
gun Show, because I wanted to go there for a
long time. So Matt took me there for my birthday,
which was great and my other favorite meal that I've had.
But I have to make sure I get it right.
(26:40):
It was a collective of chefs here in Atlanta, and
maybe they weren't all from Atlanta. I don't think they
were all from Atlanta if I think about it, right,
But it was a Sunday supper and it was all
black chefs, and it was inspired by Chef Edna Lewis,
(27:01):
who if y'all have been listening to this podcast or
watching other things that I've written, you know that I
love Edna Lewis very much and just think that she's
like so amazing. So oh, I got it now, Okay.
So there's a collective of chefs here in Atlanta called
Stolen Goods, and so Stolen Goods as a collective, did
(27:24):
a Sunday supper meal that was a tribute to Edna Lewis.
So some of the dishes were kind of inspired by
these things that Edna Lewis put in her various books.
And if you're not familiar with Chef Edna Lewis, she
was what many people consider to be one of the
fore mothers of southern cuisine and soul food cuisine as well.
(27:46):
So it was just gorgeous food, I mean field peas
and fried chicken. And the one thing that's very central
to chef Edna Lewis's work is that she really believed
in and farm to table before it was even referred
to as farm to table. She believed in cooking with seasonal,
(28:07):
seasonal foods and figuring out ways you can sort of
be more mindful of that. And so that Sunday supper
meal was probably one of my last and best, most
memorable meals. And last question, oh what is my ideal sandwich?
And let me tell y'all something. I I'm sure that
(28:28):
I've mentioned this here on the podcast, but I am
a big fan of sandwiches. Like, if somebody were to
be like, you know, you have an opportunity to have
a last meal, what would your last meal be? For me?
It would probably be a sandwich. Probably a sandwich the
closest to a HOGI that I could get. So my
(28:49):
ideal sandwich is definitely that like Hogy style, amazing kind
of soft bread. I like sliced swine on my sandwich.
Love a good preshudo salami, whatever kind of sliced kind
of Italian Deli meats that can be there. Really want
(29:13):
to participate in that. Love a crisp iceberg lettuce. I
feel like you really cannot play games with romayne or
any of those other other things or arugula. You really
don't want to be playing those games on my sandwich.
Love a tomato, big shout out if it's summertime and
(29:36):
you're actually getting like tomatoes in season where you're getting
heirloom tomatoes. Love that and a sandwich. Sometimes I really
get involved in like a good banana pepper on there
that can give you that kind of crisp but a
little bit of spice. Sometimes I just love a good
pickle also. But I feel like I'm generally like what
(30:00):
would fall in the category of an Italian grinder sandwich
is really it's really where it is for me. Like
I really feel like, can I tell y'all something funny?
I really feel like if I could be myself but
in another metaverse where I had like a different job
and I was just doing like different things, I still
think in that other metaverse, I would still be a writer,
(30:21):
but maybe it wouldn't show up as poetry. Maybe I
would be like a sandwich blogger and I would just
blog about all these different sandwiches that I got to eat.
That's like a side dream life for me, that I
just go around the country eating sandwiches and reviewing them
and getting to taste all the best sandwiches in America
and then eventually in the world, just being generally a
(30:45):
sandwich girl world traveler. That's still a dream of mine. Anyways,
thank y'all for asking such great questions, and I will
see y'all back here on the podcast next week. Her
(31:11):
with Amina Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Solography
Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network
in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget
to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.
Hey, y'all, welcome back to a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And this episode is an Ask Amina Anything.
So I got these questions from social media, so here
I am. I'm going to answer your questions. Okay, first
question is favorite place to get jumpsuits. I am a
(00:46):
girl who loves jumpsuits. I did not know that I
would love jumpsuits as much as I do. Shout out
to Michelle Norris, who is a fantastic photographer and just
guru of style generally, and at the time, Michelle Norris
was doing some like personal styling just on the side,
(01:07):
and so she definitely is the person who got me
into wearing jumpsuits. She was like, you gotta try this on,
and I have never gotten back to not being a
person who wasn't wearing jumpsuits. Okay, favorite places to buy
jumpsuits I have to give Like I guess it's a
local shout out, but this boutique I'm about to name
also has an online store, Pink Sky Boutique. I've gotten
(01:31):
quite a few of my favorite jumpsuits from there. Also,
I have to give a shout out to TJ Max
because not so much for fall per se, but like
in the spring. In the summer, I have found some
of my favorite jumpsuits there. But here's the difference. Here's
the thing. It depends on what kind of jumpsuit you're wanting.
(01:53):
And I'm a girl who likes jumpsuits for any occasion.
So I have some jumpsuits that are like jumpsuits to
wear just in the house. Then I have some jumpsuits
that are like, you know, just something to put on
while you're running errands or whatever. And then I have
jumpsuits that to me are like, I'm going out type
of jumpsuit. And then I have more of like a
corporate or office see looking jumpsuit for certain events and
(02:16):
stuff like that. So TJ Max is really good for
a very casual or sporty jumpsuit. And the trick that
I've learned though, is for some reason, I don't find
as many casual jumpsuits in the women's section, which is
normally where my sizing would be. Sometimes in order to
(02:37):
find a very cute or sporty casual jumpsuit, I have
to go over to the junior's section and go to
like the end, the highest size of the junior section.
That is where I have found a lot of great
casual jumpsuits. I love to pay attention to jumpsuits that
athletic brands have, like the Jordan brand and the Adidas brand.
(03:00):
You can sometimes find some really really cool jumpsuits from there.
So yes, those are probably my favorite places to get
a jumpsuit. But pretty much any store that I go in,
I'm going to look at the jumpsuit section, Like anytime
somebody asked me, what were my reflections coming from? Evolving
Faith And for those of you that aren't familiar, Evolving
Faith is a conference but also an online community for
(03:23):
people who may have grown up in Christian environments or
you know, may have been Christian you know, a certain
time of life, and now may find their theology shifting
or broadening. Evolving Faith is, in its conference state, a
place where people can come and just hear from different
(03:45):
speakers who are not conservative Christians and are not evangelical Christians,
but are more progressive and liberal voices, and some voices
that are existing in these different places and expressing sort
of how their faith shows up in those environments. So
many of you know, if you've been listening to this
(04:07):
podcast a long time, that for the most part, I
no longer do a lot of the type of faith
based Christian events that I was doing for so long
in my career. Evolving Faith is one of a very
small small number of events that are related to faith
that I still do and related to Christian faith. And
(04:29):
I think what I love about Evolving Faith also though,
is that it's just such an inclusive place. You know,
it's inclusive for anyone. You know, however, whatever your gender,
whatever your sexual orientation, wherever you are theologically or spiritually.
You know, you could be atheist and Attendvolving Faith Evolving Faith,
(04:52):
you could be agnostic. I love that it is a
place that welcomes queer folks that is, having a lot
of conversation around what it means to be LGBTQ plus
and be Christian or be LGBTQ plus and having grown
up in environments that were very hostile to you because
of Christian religion. So there's a lot of just welcome
(05:15):
and inclusivity that I really love about that. So I've
been the MC for Evolving Faith for the past four years,
and as of this recording, I was just there in
the last week or two MCing and what are my reflections, man,
I think. I think one of the things that has
(05:36):
meant a lot to me about being a part of
Evolving Faith is really being an MC. I also get
to be in the audience too, you know, so I'm
introducing speakers, but I actually get to like sit down
and listen to some of them, And I, especially this year,
had the opportunity, since we were back in person, to
really have an opportunity to sit and listen to two
(05:58):
or three of the sessions in full. And as a
person whose theology has shifted quite a bit from maybe
the Christian theology I was raised with, or even where
my theology was when I first started performing in white Christian,
conservative evangelical environments, it's nice to feel like you are
with other people who are also on a searching journey.
(06:22):
It definitely made me feel less alone and made me
feel more aligned. And there was a lot of similar
messaging to say that when you realize that you know
the way that you believe may be changing, that that
can feel like you're a lot of the language around
evolving faith is that that can be this wilderness. But
(06:46):
there was a lot of affirmation during the event to
say that the wilderness is not a bad place. To be.
I even remember Dante Stewart, who was one of the
speakers there. He was talking about how law Us is
also a place and can be a good place, like
it doesn't have to be viewed as this bad place.
(07:08):
So yeah, I really enjoyed getting to be a part
of that and getting to be a part of the community.
And there are a lot of people who are speakers
and things that evolving faith that are my friends, and
so it's always nice to see them. But it's also
nice just to be in the crowd there. And I
think when other people see me there that may know
(07:31):
me from having been in a conservative church space, I
think when they see me there, like I can see
their eyes light up, like, oh my gosh, you're here,
you know, And I'm sure the last place they may
have seen me was in a more conservative church on
a Sunday or at a more conservative conference or something.
And I think it does my heart get to be there,
(07:52):
and I find that it does other people's hearts good
to see that I'm there and that I want to
be part of a Christian faith that is inclusive, you know,
that isn't excluding folks that are disabled, that isn't excluding
folks who are queer or trans. This isn't excluding anyone
(08:14):
you know that wants to do the work of anti racism,
Like that's that's the faith that I want to be
a part of. So I think the plus to evolving
faith is you get to be around people who you
know are not just against things that you're against, but
are also four things you're for, and are four people
that you're four. So there's that. I guess this segues
(08:34):
into my next question, why do you believe in God?
That's a really interesting question, and I would say in
this season of my life, it's really really layered. You know.
I will say I'm not a person who processes well publicly.
(08:54):
I can be an external processor in the sense that
when people are close to me, I like to talk
things out, and I like to say my thoughts out
loud and hear the people I love sort of bounce
their thoughts, you know, back off of me. I like
that kind of thing. But I'm not a person who
can be processing sort of the deeper things of my
(09:15):
life and blog about it or write about it on
social media. So there are a lot of things that
I believe, a lot of things I no longer believe
a lot of things that I've been in process about
that I haven't spoken about publicly. And some of that
on my part has been really intentional, because I don't
(09:37):
want their rush to be for me to make statements
if where I'm at is not a place that's ready
to make statements. And some of that has just been
me wanting to give myself the proper time in real life,
you know, to think about things. So why do I
(09:59):
believe in I will say, I guess I'll start with
even there. Even though there are a lot of places
my theology has shifted, I do still believe in God,
and I do still believe in Jesus, and I believe
in I believe in the message of Jesus in building
a table that welcomes everyone, in building a table that
(10:21):
has people there that other people may say shouldn't be
at the table, like I love that part about Jesus.
And I think sometimes I would say that I believe
in God because my ancestors did. Because I can look
back on generations of my family and all of the
things that my people have walked through and that they
(10:42):
manage to still find a way to look towards God.
I think that the idea that there is a God
who loves and who understands, and who feels our suffering
(11:03):
and our pain, who is not separated from that, all
of those things really jive with me. So I don't know.
It's hard to answer why, because I can't say it's
like I have this scientific proof that God exists. I
guess I'll say I believe in God because I feel
(11:24):
like that's a risk I'm willing to take. You know,
there's a whole lot about life and God. To me,
that is a mystery that we can go to theology
school for the rest of our lives and there'll be
a lot about the mystery of God that will never understand.
There'll be a lot about the mystery of life that
will never understand. But I believe in God because I'm
(11:45):
willing to take a risk unbelieving and I may discover
at the end of life that there isn't an afterlife
and that we just close our eyes and that's it,
you know. But I'm willing to take that risk and
believe that there is a God that loves us, and
there is a God that wants to be present to us.
(12:06):
So yeah, that's as far as I can get right now.
Next question says, what is one thing you wish you
could change with a snap to make the world better?
Of course, you know, my first thoughts about this question
are like just you know, very ignorant, but like my
(12:28):
first thought was like, I just want us to be
able to eat as many carbs as we want and
not do anything to our bodies that has any damage
at all. That was like the first thing. I feel
like I should have a deeper answer for that. I
will say, the concept of having something that you could
(12:53):
change about the world in a snap, it's probably not
something that I would ask for or really identify with.
I think life as a human and life on this
earth as we know it is full of a lot
of beautiful things, and it's also full of a lot
of really horrible things too, and heartbreaking things. And I
(13:15):
don't know, I don't know what the butterfly effect is of,
Like you snap your fingers and you change this thing,
then how does that affect all the other things? But
if I was going to say a more serious one,
you know, my one thing would probably be white supremacy.
That that would be the one thing I would want
(13:35):
to change because I think inside. I feel like in
white supremacy is purity, culture, is homophobia, is transphobia, is
so many things like that is ableism, you know, like
all of that stems from the roots of white supremacy
(13:58):
to me, So that would probably be my one serious
thing outside of being able to eat as many donuts
as I wanted without having to worry about my blood sugar. Okay,
(14:21):
somebody said I want to hear more spoken word. Well,
I have a poem here that I'm going to share.
It's technically not spoken word, but since it's poetry, I'm
going to share it. Anyways. I actually saw this as
a comment on IG and was like, I too want
to hear more spoken word, so I'll read you this poem.
This poem is a contrapuntal poem and shout out to
(14:47):
the homie Tawny Powell, who was doing a writing workshop
a few years ago here in Atlanta. And if you're
not familiar with the form of contrapuntal, it's basically like,
you have a poem that I do remember exactly how
many lines it is, but the lines you sort of
take two opposing ideas and you write one poem about
(15:10):
the one idea and then you write another stanza about
the other opposing idea, and then you link these two
stanzas together line for line. So normally a contrapuntal poem
would be best experienced on a page where you could
actually see it, but we will try it here where
you can hear it. So I really didn't have a
(15:33):
title for this poem, but the theme we were writing
from was actually around the same time of year that
this episode is being released. So we were writing this
poem during the fall. It was leading into sort of
Thanksgiving holiday time, and so the concept that we were
supposed to explore was in the one stanza explore the
(15:56):
idea of feast and in the other stanza explore the
idea of famine. And then you take the lines and
sort of intertwine them. So you read the one stanza,
you read the second stance, and then your third stanza
is the two stanzas combined line for line. So we
come to the table full of dads, smoke turkey and
(16:16):
mom's cornbread dressing, yams and greens. Say grace, say what
you are thankful for, and when it is your turn,
say a scripture and pray. No one has already said
Jesus wept. Little kids, eat first? Who will fix grandma's plate?
Did you fix your man's plate? Did she fix your
man's plate? Eat? Drink, be merry, be full, watch football,
(16:40):
fix a to go plate to remember them by. Can
skeleton thin relationships still hold hands? Love can still be
very hungry at a family dinner where the table is full,
Deserts don't have nothing on the parched way we communicate.
We have left each other wanting, with the gnawing sound
of malnourished marriages. When a mentality of poverty teaches you
(17:03):
to parent, you raise your babies to believe they should
only accept the scraps they are given. They should only
want leftovers somebody else has already chewed through. Besides, filling
your belly will only leave you empty anyway, Welcome to
the table. Can skeleton thin relationships still hold hands full
(17:24):
of Dad's smoked turkey, Love can still be very hungry
and Mom's cornbread, dressing, yams and greens. At a family dinner,
say grace, say what you are thankful for, where the
table is full, and when it is your turn. Deserts
don't have nothing on the parched way we communicate. Say
a scripture, we have left each other wanting and pray.
(17:45):
No one has already said Jesus wept with a gnawing
sound of malnourished marriages. Little kids eat first. When a
mentality of poverty teaches you to parent, who will fix
grandma's plate? You raise your babies? Did you fix man's plate?
To believe they should only accept the scraps they are given?
Did she fix your man's plate? They should only want
(18:07):
the leftovers? Eat, drink, be merry, be full, watch football
somebody else has already chewed through. Fix a to go
plate to remember them by. Besides, filling your belly will
only leave you empty anyway. Okay, Question six, what is
your creative process like these days? What genres or art
(18:30):
forms are you prioritizing? Mmm. I'm gonna be honest and
say that the last two years have been really difficult
for me, and there was a long period of time
where I wasn't writing at all. So a part of
my writing process and creative process has been returning to writing.
(18:55):
I don't know if any of you have ever been
through something so hard that even doing the creative thing
that you loved is painful to return to. That's kind
of what my writing process has been like. So I
feel like I had to slowly find my way back
to the page. And I'll say a larger part of
(19:15):
my process that's been really helpful is reading. I feel
like I've always been a reader. And I know, if
you're a writer listening, you always hear the advice about
you always hear the advice about reading, and then you're like, yikeuse,
I'm so tired of hearing it. But I know that
it's true. I know that when you read well that
you write better. Like I know that's true even if
you read a book that's not great, that will still
(19:37):
help you be a better writer. But when it literally
comes to the time that I actually physically sit down
to write, I don't normally read during those times, and
my initial return to try and write again, I picked
two or three books, Like right now I'm reading Black
women Writers at work. I'm reading through Julia Cameron's The
(20:03):
Artist's Way, and I'm reading through Trisha Hershey's Rests Resistance,
And I'm also reading through are Eric Thomas's Here for It,
as well as de Marius Hills. I think it's I'm
going to get the name of her book wrong, so
I'll look it up to try to make sure I
get it right for y'all. But I'm reading one of
(20:23):
Demarus Hill's poetry books which has been really really good,
so pretty much when I started, you know, wanting like
actually having the feeling where I wanted to write, Oh
here it is. The book of hers that I'm reading
is called A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing. That's
(20:46):
the poetry book by Demarus Hill that I'm reading. And
I want to give a shout out to the Watering Hole,
which is a poetry retreat that I went on last year.
And I went there last year almost feeling like, oh
my gosh, I'm going to this poetry retreat and I'm
struggling to even write. But I think being in an
environment where you're just sort of writing on the spot
(21:07):
for a week really kind of helped me get back
in the groove. So at first I couldn't write. I
would just read and then I would have to like
go do something else. And then I got to where
I could read for a certain amount of time, and
then I could write for like ten minutes, and then
I work my way up to where I could write
sometimes thirty minutes sometimes an hour. I don't think I've
(21:29):
written longer than an hour at a time still, So
I think that's a little bit of sort of an
example of kind of where my writing processes. There's there
used to be a lot of music and jazz and stuff,
and there's really been a lot more reading other work
and then taking time sort of read poems. I'm still
(21:51):
working on out loud. I am working on a few
other things that are not poetry. So some of that
is like trying to watch other genres of things, Like
I'm working on a project with some other creative folks
that's a musical, so having to study a bit more
the form of the musical and know a little bit
(22:15):
more about that. The other part of the question is
what genres or art forms are you prioritizing. Oh. One
other thing I'll say about my creative process, though, is
I'm also doing a bit of events because I am
the chapter host for Creative Mornings Atlanta. So I think collaboration,
I would say, is a much bigger part of my
(22:35):
creative process than it used to be. I used to
be very much a loan creator. Like I'm writing a poem,
I'm writing a poem in my office by myself. If
I'm working on it for a client or something, maybe
I send it over to them, maybe they give their feedback,
but it's not really like we're collaborating on the project.
(22:56):
And so I think in this season of time, I
have opened myself up to be in and more collaborative environments,
which I think is really really helpful because first of all,
then it's not all on you to make the writing
or whatever. I mean, typically what I'm doing mostly is writing,
but even in the case of working on events and
curating environments and things like that, it's not all on me.
(23:18):
I actually have other folks whose expertise and talents and
gifts that I can lean on as well. So I
think collaboration is a much bigger part of my creative
process now. And what genres or art forms am I prioritizing.
I think I'm still prioritizing poetry in two ways, in
writing poetry and in getting ready for stage as well,
(23:41):
I am prioritizing storytelling in some ways. In some ways,
it's dishonest for me to say that I accidentally became
a storyteller, because that really isn't true. I came from
a family of storytellers who may not tell stories professionally,
but I come from a family of people who gon
sit down and tell you a story that's just the truth.
But as far as like telling stories on stage that
(24:03):
happened to me accidentally, you know, I for a long time,
especially because I was performing sort of god word poetry
that would be done in sort of a church environment,
so I wasn't doing sets of poems. I would just
I would walk up, I would do my poem, they
would go back to doing music. So it took me
some years to learn how to build how to build
(24:26):
a poetry set, and how would I get from one
poem to the next poem. So that's really what made
me I feel become an accidental stage storyteller. So I've
been participating in the Moth in Atlanta, which has been
a really great sharpening ground on how to tell a
story on a theme, how to mine the stories in
(24:48):
your life and think about that. So I feel like
that's definitely like a genre or art form that I'm
working in right now, and the form of the essay.
I really love essays. My last book, How to Fix
a Broken Record, was mostly like short, kind of punchy essays,
and when I was working on that book, I really
felt like I was beginning to find my voice and
(25:09):
beginning to find the form of poetry that I like.
So I am very very beginnings of working on my
next book idea. This will be potentially the first book
that I will be putting out there that will not
be under Christian Publishing, which is wild to think but
also really fun, really fun to think about that. So
(25:34):
I've just been sort of writing some beginning essays for that,
and really, you know, essays is really same storytelling muscle,
but now how you represent that story in a way
that someone could read it and get a similar vibe
from it as if they were hearing me or watching
me on stage. So yeah, those are my answers there.
(25:56):
Most memorable meal at a restaurant Okay, I have to
say the meal that I had from my birthday at
gun Show, which is Kevin Gillespie's restaurant here in Atlanta,
And if you're a Top Chef fan, Kevin Gillespie was
definitely a cast member of Top Chef and one of
(26:18):
the few Southern chefs that was there, so I really
enjoyed getting to have a meal there at his restaurant
gun Show, because I wanted to go there for a
long time. So Matt took me there for my birthday,
which was great and my other favorite meal that I've had.
But I have to make sure I get it right.
(26:40):
It was a collective of chefs here in Atlanta, and
maybe they weren't all from Atlanta. I don't think they
were all from Atlanta if I think about it, right,
But it was a Sunday supper and it was all
black chefs, and it was inspired by Chef Edna Lewis,
(27:01):
who if y'all have been listening to this podcast or
watching other things that I've written, you know that I
love Edna Lewis very much and just think that she's
like so amazing. So oh, I got it now, Okay.
So there's a collective of chefs here in Atlanta called
Stolen Goods, and so Stolen Goods as a collective, did
(27:24):
a Sunday supper meal that was a tribute to Edna Lewis.
So some of the dishes were kind of inspired by
these things that Edna Lewis put in her various books.
And if you're not familiar with Chef Edna Lewis, she
was what many people consider to be one of the
fore mothers of southern cuisine and soul food cuisine as well.
(27:46):
So it was just gorgeous food, I mean field peas
and fried chicken. And the one thing that's very central
to chef Edna Lewis's work is that she really believed
in and farm to table before it was even referred
to as farm to table. She believed in cooking with seasonal,
(28:07):
seasonal foods and figuring out ways you can sort of
be more mindful of that. And so that Sunday supper
meal was probably one of my last and best, most
memorable meals. And last question, oh what is my ideal sandwich?
And let me tell y'all something. I I'm sure that
(28:28):
I've mentioned this here on the podcast, but I am
a big fan of sandwiches. Like, if somebody were to
be like, you know, you have an opportunity to have
a last meal, what would your last meal be? For me?
It would probably be a sandwich. Probably a sandwich the
closest to a HOGI that I could get. So my
(28:49):
ideal sandwich is definitely that like Hogy style, amazing kind
of soft bread. I like sliced swine on my sandwich.
Love a good preshudo salami, whatever kind of sliced kind
of Italian Deli meats that can be there. Really want
(29:13):
to participate in that. Love a crisp iceberg lettuce. I
feel like you really cannot play games with romayne or
any of those other other things or arugula. You really
don't want to be playing those games on my sandwich.
Love a tomato, big shout out if it's summertime and
(29:36):
you're actually getting like tomatoes in season where you're getting
heirloom tomatoes. Love that and a sandwich. Sometimes I really
get involved in like a good banana pepper on there
that can give you that kind of crisp but a
little bit of spice. Sometimes I just love a good
pickle also. But I feel like I'm generally like what
(30:00):
would fall in the category of an Italian grinder sandwich
is really it's really where it is for me. Like
I really feel like, can I tell y'all something funny?
I really feel like if I could be myself but
in another metaverse where I had like a different job
and I was just doing like different things, I still
think in that other metaverse, I would still be a writer,
(30:21):
but maybe it wouldn't show up as poetry. Maybe I
would be like a sandwich blogger and I would just
blog about all these different sandwiches that I got to eat.
That's like a side dream life for me, that I
just go around the country eating sandwiches and reviewing them
and getting to taste all the best sandwiches in America
and then eventually in the world, just being generally a
(30:45):
sandwich girl world traveler. That's still a dream of mine. Anyways,
thank y'all for asking such great questions, and I will
see y'all back here on the podcast next week. Her
(31:11):
with Amina Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Solography
Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network
in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget
to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.
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