Unlocking Us with Brené Brown - Brené with Bishop Michael Curry on Love & Hope in Troubling Times

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

The Most Reverend Michael Curry is presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and in this episode, we talk about love. Messy, hard, complicated love. I ask him how we can transcend fear in a scarcity-based culture and what we can learn from those who came before us. We also talk about the church, how to develop beloved community, and the scrappy, gritty work of love that is my definition of faith. Plus, Bishop Curry shares his playlist, with one song that I really didn’t expect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everyone. I'm Brene Brown, and this is Unlocking Us. Today, we're talking to Bishop Michael Curry. He is the presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church. And on this episode, we're going to talk about love. Messy, hard, complicated love. And I don't know about you, but I need to be focusing on love and hope right now. This is such a fear-based, scarcity-based culture that we're in right now, so a little love will go a long way. We're also going to talk about the church, how to build a beloved community, and the scrappy, gritty work of love that is actually my definition of faith. There's great lyrics from Roberta Flack's song, a song that Bishop Curry loves that's on his playlist. And these lyrics, I think, sum up

what we're going to talk about today. She sings, this is my quest to follow that star no matter how hopeless, no matter how far. There's also another song in Bishop Curry's playlist that I did not expect. If you already know Bishop Curry, you'll just love this. And if you've never met him or heard him, you're in for a big treat. I can't wait. Support for this show comes from Macy's. Fall is in full swing, and it's the perfect time to refresh your home and wardrobe for the sweater weather with new finds from Macy's.

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And how are these tools changing the way we use our computers to make stuff, communicate, and plan for the future? In this three-part special series, Decoder is surveying the IT landscape presented by AWS. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so my guest today is Bishop Michael Curry. In the Episcopal Church, we refer to him as the Most Reverend Michael B. Curry. Again, he's the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. He is the first African American to lead the

denomination, which is my denomination, actually, and he was previously bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. Bishop Curry is recognized as one of the most popular preachers in the English language, and you will know that very shortly because this episode's like church. As the descendant of slaves and the son of a civil rights activist, Bishop Michael Curry's life illustrates massive changes in our times. He's a noted advocate for human rights and author of several books, including his latest that just came out called Love is the Way, Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times. Through the prism of his faith, ancestry, and personal journey. Love is the Way shows us how

this country came this far, and more importantly, how it can go and needs to go a lot further. He and his wife, Sharon Curry, have two daughters, Rachel and Elizabeth. They live in North Carolina. Let's get on to church. We're late. Grab the first pew you can find. That would be my dad. That's what he would say to us every Sunday. That's what he would say to us every Sunday. Actually, what he would say to us every Sunday is, get any pew you can find, but make sure you sit on the end because we're going to leave right after communion. We were those people. Okay.

Bishop Curry. So before you thank me for having you on the podcast, I want you to hold any potential gratitude to the podcast. I want you to hold any potential gratitude to the end because I'm going to need you to help me with some stuff during this hour together. Okay. We'll do it together. Okay.

Okay, we'll do it together. So I finished reading your new book, Love is the Way. Oh, okay. Thank you. I shouldn't say thank you. Yeah. I wait. Yeah, you may have to.

I am struggling and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. And I want love to be the way, but I'm wondering if we've been worn down, like we are weary and I'm having a hard time getting to love right now. Am I alone? No. Good Lord, no. No, I mean, we're worn down. I mean, we're not even worn down. I mean, there's been a lot going on, certainly in American culture and society that's worn us down. I mean, on the one hand, you've got the, you know, COVID-19 and the isolation and and separation. I mean, human beings weren't made to be separated from each other. I mean, we weren't made for that. We were made to be together. And even when we're headaches to each other, we're still better off together than we are apart.

And we've been separated. And then whatever better off together than we are apart. And we've been separated. And then whatever anxiety gets added on top of that. I mean, parents have kids in home. Some folk are living, you know, multiple family intergeneration. I mean, think about it. I mean, this is not normal. We've not been living a normal existence for however many months it's been. And then we've been cut off from the things that actually feed us, whether it's, you know, family and extended family, if they're not actually living with us, folk are cut off from religious and faith communities, at least in terms of, you know, being physically present, you know, and the online thing is, you know, people are doing

that, but that's not the same as being in the same room and hearing the singing. And while people had to find, it's like we had to find neural roots to even be in touch with God. And you know, God is spirit and God has been, but somehow God gets mediated through community too. And we've been cut off from that. So I hear you. I mean, that's real. Add that on top of that, not only the pandemic of COVID-19, but the pandemic, as some have said, of 1619, of chattel slavery and white supremacy and all that stuff. And it's just constant shootings and killings. Police, the people who, and again, it's not all cops. I know that. But police-motivated violence that makes human life cheap. And the fact that you have to say Black lives matter because they're not treated as though they do matter.

And that's why it has to be said. And this has been going on forever. And Black folk and brown folk and indigenous folk are weary because they've been crying in the wilderness like John the Baptist for generations, since I was a kid and before that. And now the rest of the country has seen this in isolation from each other. When you add up, that's a heck of a lot of stuff. No wonder we're all tired and kind of on edge and kind of, I mean, you know, you have to kind of remind each other. Remember, we're all kind of, I mean, you know, you have to kind of remind each other, remember, we're all kind of on edge. I mean, I've been in meetings where I've actually had to say, guys, remember, we're like, we really are on edge. All of us. Me too.

So let's be gentle with each other as much as we can. That's, Brene, that's exhausting. We're cut off, not completely, from the very sources that give us life right now. And we're having to find new routes to them and new ways. And so what you're feeling is real. With our politics. Yeah. With our divisions, which are deep. Let no one fool you. I mean, you know. I mean, these divisions are real. And they do stem from past generations and decisions that were made, have been made about how we were going to be. And so it's hard to exist, much less really live right now. But it's not impossible. But it's not impossible.

No. I wrote down something you just said, that God is mediated through community. And you write about that a lot in your book, about the importance of community. And it's funny, I talk about this publicly a lot. It's probably, it's kind of scary when you're in Episcopalian and you're talking to the leader of the leader of the leader of our church. But I always say I go to church for three reasons. To sing with strangers. Yeah. normally would not like or would want to punch in the face and to go to the rail and break bread with people that I need to understand better. Those are the three reasons. I'm sure there should be better theological reasons I go to church, but I never thought about that's where I find God and love. Yeah. You got it. That's awesome.

But it's impossible right now. Okay okay, so I want to go through the new book. So again, the title is Love is the Way, Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times. So I want to read a passage to you from you. Okay. And I want to dig into it with you. The way of love will show us the right thing to do every single time. It is moral and spiritual grounding and a place of rest amidst the chaos that is often part of life. It's how we stay decent in indecent times. Loving is not always easy, but like with muscles, we get stronger both with repetition and as the burden gets heavier and it works. Yeah. We get stronger as the burden gets heavier?

Yeah. Are you sure? Well, I'm not sure theoretically, but I have seen it experientially. I mean, my grandmother is one of my my heroes a heroine um and if she was a character but she wasn't like always a saint believe me but um but i watched her endure a lot of unbearable stuff. I didn't see her bury young children in childbirth early on. I wasn't born yet. But I saw her bury her daughter.

And then in her mid-70s, turn around, and as old folk used to say, rear two more children. And she did and that's an unbearable i mean i've seen her i saw her bear unbearable burdens as the song says and and when i think about how did she do that some of its personality i'm sure there's some of that. Some of it's having lived through enough hard times that you stop and realize there's a gospel song that Aretha used to sing, How I Got Over. she had a hard burden, but she clearly learned something from having gotten over or gotten through somehow some hard times previously. And that learning was a building block that, like I said, this is me projecting back, but I don't think I'm off base that in some way she was learning. How did I get over? I was talking to a rabbi friend of mine who was telling me, he said, one of the things you have to do when you're going through a real hard time is stop and say, okay, when

was the last time I went through a hard time? How did I get through it? And by doing that, it's like it stops you and you realize, wait a minute, I did get through it. It wasn't pretty. And, you know, it may not have been the way I wanted to get through it. It may not been things may not have been solved the way I wanted to. But I got through. I survived. It's kind of like, who's that song? I have survived. I will survive. I will survive. At some point you realize, well, I did survive. I did make it through. And you build on that. That's what I mean by you actually do get stronger. That doesn't mean you don't get weak and fall back. Doesn't mean I mean, none of us are super people.

We are not uber men. We are not super women, super men and wonder women. We aren't. We're normal human beings. But we have the capacity to do super and wonderful things beyond what we can imagine. I just think that some of that just comes with building, God, I'm talking to you now. Now, I don't want to get out of my territory, but building that internal spiritual and emotional muscles for the times when we're going to need them and won't have the strength to do it on our own. But I got to tell you the other thing about grandma, she loved her some God. In fact, it was, I mean, it was a, it was a butt of jokes when I was growing up. I remember my father used to tease her all the time. He said, you know, you talk about the Lord so much,

you would think you live next door. I mean, it was just, I read that. Was that in the book? Yeah, I think that is. And it's true. But what I'm beginning, what I've realized and I'm beginning to realize is that somehow she built on strength of experience, but somehow she was in a partnership with God, in a partnership with the source of real energy and life. And, and then she was in community. I mean, she lived in a kind of different world than we live in. I mean, community was right around to the point they were always in your business. I mean, you know, she kind of grew up in a world where you really did live in community. I mean, that wasn't just a neighborhood or a hood. It was actually a community. So she had three of the sources, community, building on your experiences, and God. Those are the sources of the strength to get over. And I saw that in her. Grandma had a high school education and that was it.

I've seen what you're talking about. I mean, I've seen it. I guess when I say, are you sure? I want to believe that as our burdens get heavier, our love gets stronger. And like, oh my God, reading about your mom and your grandmother were just spiritual experiences for me in this book. Like I can't wait till you talk to you about Dorothy Strayhorn. Like I just cannot dig into Dorothy Strayhorn. Like your mom just is what a, I don't know. I don't know what the good word is for badass, but man, what a fierce woman. Like, yeah, but I, I want to go back to people are going to listen to this and they're going to listen to you explain to us why we're tired.

And I think I have a new understanding just in you saying like we've been cut. Not only are we facing trauma after trauma driven by white supremacy, not only are we facing trauma after trauma driven by COVID, pandemics inside of pandemics, everyone's hard lives just keep going, right? Like people are getting diagnosed with cancer and people are dying and babies are being born. Like, you know, like life is happening in the midst of all this. I feel like people will listen to love being the answer. And in my most cynical moments, I'm one of those people and say, no,

fighting is the answer. No, no, like organizing is the answer, but you don't think fighting and organizing and love are mutually exclusive. No. Oh no, no,

not at all. I mean, the civil rights movement at its best and strongest was motivated by love. It was a fight for justice and equality that was not'm about to say, but used militaristic language to talk about those who engaged in the work of nonviolence, because you are struggling against something, but not against people. You're struggling against systems and ways of being and ways of living and organizing a society that are putting some down and the people who think they're benefiting from it. They're being put down at the same time. So you don't struggle against the people.

You struggle against the system, the issue, whatever it happens to be. You seek to convert the people. You seek to transform not only oppressed, but oppressor as well, because that's the only way we all going to get free. And but use language of fight and struggle to talk about that. Frederick Douglass, those who would seek freedom without agitation and struggle are like those who want crops without plowing up the ground. I mean, the nature of existence is struggle. You get Jesus on the cross. That wasn't the way he didn't ease on down the road. I mean, it was bloody. It was torture. It was horrible. I mean, I don't know how much Jesus, Jesus gave up a whole lot to come here, to come among us. And I don't know that Jesus was on that cross saying, well, it'd be all right by

Sunday. That brother was dying when he hollered, my God, my God, he was help. He was crying. And to watch his mama, watch him die. It was horrible. And, you know, and all the disciples, God bless Mary Magdalene. See, Mary Magdalene was like my grandma. She was going to stay at that cross no matter what, even if she didn't understand what was going on. Peter, I identify with Peter and the brothers. OK, I'm going to stay at a nice safe distance because I don't know what's going down now. I mean, this is some real stuff. And yet something happened. Pilot did not have the last word.

The empire struck back and lost. Brene, I don't know how all that works. I just trust and believe that it does. Is that faith? Yes. Is that what faith is for us? Yes. Yes, that's, you got it.

That's it. Because, you know, when Dr. King, quoting that 19th, I've forgotten the abolitionist name, who said it first, and King kind of made it more pithy so we could remember it, we've been through this battle again and here we are fighting it all over again. Not give up when it's, I mean, I remember the riots of 1965 and 1967 and 68. They were precipitated by police violence. And here we are again. And here we are again. Here we are again. I mean, are again. Here we are again. I mean, but to not give up because that moral arc, it is long.

And I don't know why. I mean, when I see God, I'm going to ask him, why, you know, couldn't you have clips a little bit of our free will and just kind of like done something? You know, how long? But to believe that in the end, justice will. In the end, as some folks say, love wins. To believe that and not have proof of it, just to take the leap is Kierkegaard's leap. And I'm going to trust that even if I can't see it. Yeah, I believe that is, Brene, sometimes that's enough to keep you going, which is why folk need

to go to church and synagogue and mosque. Because see, you need to get the energy to keep believing that. Because like that old Broadway play, our arms are too short to box with God. We can't handle this kind of stuff completely, just solely on our own. We need each other. We need God. We need sources of strength and energy and vitality that come from within us. We need each other. We need God. We need sources of strength and energy and vitality that come from within us. We got something to give, but we need each other to get some of that other energy and strength. And we need the source of life and love itself to infuse and energize us. I remember when I was in seminary, this would have been in the 70s, and it was, well, the energy crisis happened in the early 70s, I guess.

Yeah, 70s. Was it early 70s? It was in that- I think it was the 70s, yeah. Well, there was a Christa Stendahl who taught New Testament at Harvard Divinity School, later became a Lutheran bishop in Sweden. And it was a great New Testament. Harvard Divinity School, later became a Lutheran bishop in Sweden. And he was it was a great New Testament. I mean, he was like the New Testament. I mean, he was the Dalai Lama of New Testament scholars. And he published a little monograph on the Holy Spirit. And he and I don't remember anything else in the monograph except that he said the Holy Spirit is the energy of God to go against the current,

to live as healthily as you can and witness to health and vitality and love. I don't have enough. Michael doesn't have enough. I got some. I'm not diminishing myself. I got some, but I ain't got enough to do it on my own. It takes the energy, the energies of God, what Tuhar Deshanon called the energies of love. And Bible says, God is love. We're talking about the primal energy of everything that is. That energy, being in partnership with that energy, what Dr. King called cosmic partnership, that is how you begin to get over. And that's what my grandma figured out without having to go into one day of a seminary and not reading any theology, but just listen to a preacher talk about the Bible. And loving God like you live next door.

Yes, like you live next door. So let me ask you something. It's really interesting when you talk about spirit and the Holy Spirit. One of the stories that made me laugh so hard in your book, it was so crazy reading your book, to be honest with you, because I fought it. I was resistant when I was reading it. I'm like, love is not the answer. Meanness is the answer. And then you would quote one of my favorite people or my favorite lyrics or my favorite book. And I'm like, love is the answer. It was, you know, your book for me was A Thin Place. Oh, wow. You want to tell people what A Thin Place is?

I don't know how to describe it. But for me, your book was A Thin Place. Like you on the flight when you saw, weren't you on a flight in the book? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, the easiest way to think of A Th thin place is it's those places, those moments, those people, those experiences that don't happen all the time. But those moments when you get a sense that there's no gospel song that says over my head, I hear music in the air.

There must be a God somewhere. Those moments when you sense. Wait a minute. God just touched me. Wait a minute, something beyond me is just happening here. Those moments when, I mean, as Howard Thurman and folk used to talk about, those moments when time is intersected by eternity, when the human is touched by the divine, when God gets real. When God gets real, yes. And it may be just momentary. You know what I mean? I mean, Moses on Mount Sinai with the burning bush,

who knows how long he was on there? Was it two seconds? Hours? Days? The Bible doesn't say. Because it's those moments. It doesn't actually say. And those moments are outside of time a little bit, I think. I don't know that I was in a constant thin place when I was reading all of the pages, but I was reminded as I was reading, I'm a huge follower of bell hooks. Oh, yeah. And she talks about, when she talks about poverty and injustice and white supremacy,

she talks about the problem ultimately being lovelessness. Yeah. And that's why love is the answer, because the problem is lovelessness and when i was reading your book i felt so much connection between like i don't know i just felt i had a thin place moment of this is true but love is really damn hard. Like love is not easy. No, no, it's not. Anybody says it is lying. Yeah, and doesn't get it then. If you think love is like Hallmark cards, it's not, you know.

Okay, so we're talking about the spirit. We're talking about the Holy Spirit. I have to laugh because, okay, so there's two stories I want you to tell us, if you don't mind, because they were, okay, so they're so good. So first of all, your dad, your grandfather, your dad's dad was a Baptist preacher. Is that right? He was a Baptist preacher. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So, but there's a moment when your mom, and this is in the 40s, I think, Dorothy Strayhorn, right?

Yeah. Uh-huh. Your mom, I mean, is at the University of Chicago studying mathematics. Uh-huh. And introduces your dad to the Episcopal Church. Right. Okay. Tell me that story about your dad, your dad's first time in the Episcopal, in the Anglican communion, as it were. It really was. And it was, I don't know the year

because she probably graduated from Chicago and was teaching math at Wilberforce University, an HBCU in Xenia in Ohio, Southern Ohio. And she had become an Episcopalian when she was in Chicago or soon before that, but when she was there, I think. And actually, I see I'm putting all this together after the fact. I never asked them this stuff while they were alive, you know. But anyway, so he they met. He was at the seminary because he was studying at the old Payne Divinity School to become a preacher. And he was Baptist. He was already licensed, but not yet ordained. And so they started dating. She was teaching at the undergrad school and he was at the seminary. And I don't know, at some point he found out that she had become an Episcopalian and he didn't know anything about the Episcopal. I mean, everybody was Baptist that he knew. And so he was apparently curious enough to say, well, I'm going to go to church with you.

So there were like two things going on. Remember, this is like in the late 40s, just after the war. So basically, you're in a white church in southern Ohio, which was really up south at that point. So it was kind of surprising to him. He was in a white church. And I don't know if there were any other blacks there or any other people of color, but it couldn't have been many if there were. And he had never been in a white church or predominantly white room with white people before. That was interesting. But then when it came time for communion, you know, mommy went up to take communion and he had never seen people take communion drinking out of the same cup, out of the common cup, out of the chalice. Because again, in the Baptist tradition, many Protestant and reformed traditions, you have the individual cups when communion Sunday happens. So that's the only way he had seen communion. So he sees my mother go up, who was very unambiguous. And my mother was even darker than I am. And I'm fairly dark. She was darker than I am. So there was no ambiguity about what ethnic group she was with.

She goes up and everybody at the altar rail is white. And, you know, the priest is given the bread where the bread was easy because that was you know everybody gets their own but when it came with a cup he was watching with the cup he said i'm waiting he would tell the story when we were kids we got tired of hearing the story but you know but he would tell the story and it did enlarge every time he told it but it's any preacher story it's gonna get that fish is gonna get so big it'll be Moby Dick before it's over. But so he tells the story. The priest gets there with the chalice and mommy drinks from it. And after her, there were white people and he was waiting to see what happened.

And priest gave, you know, the blood of Christ, cup of salvation or whatever they said in those days. And nothing happened. And that's where he would actually, I mean, that really was the reason he became an Episcopal. And he said, any church where blacks and whites drink from the same cup knows something about the gospel of Jesus that I want to be a part of. And that was a thin moment for him. He never used that language. That's that was a thin place. He saw something of the kingdom or the reign of God, the beloved community in that moment. Now, he later learned that the church didn't live up to that completely all the time, but it was there. The ideal was there. The vision was there. And and he lived for that vision. I mean, even, you know, even to his dying day. I mean, after a stroke and all that kind of stuff, you know, he was still the same character.

And he you know, I mean, again, he when my mother got sick, even I mean, you know, this was, you know, I would have been like not teenage yet, you know, like nine or 10, somewhere thereabouts. She got sick when we were visiting in New York and she was in the hospital for not quite a year, but almost. He would do church on Sunday. And Sunday evening, he would take us to a family in the church and we'd stay there for three days at the Bullock's house. He would drive to New York from Buffalo to New York City was an eight hour drive on the thruway. And then he would be with mommy, you know, and grandma and all of them. And then he would drive back. Sometimes grandma would come with him. And do his church thing from roughly Thursday until Sunday. And then there was a point at which when we was,

he was eventually they were able to bring her to Buffalo. So she was in a nursing home in Buffalo at that point. It was just basically, you know, a feeding tube and, and that kind of stuff. And, but at least she was in Buffalo. So it made it possible, but he, he ran out. I mean, I didn't know this as a kid. He was running out of money because once you get back, once you were in a nursing home, Blue Cross Blue Shield wasn't paying anymore. And so there was a bill every week in the nursing home. So he started working a second job.

So he had a church and then he was working, doing a second job teaching and doing human relations in the city and you know when i again he didn't talk about you know folk in those days didn't talk about and i'm not sure he knew at the time like the song says how i got over but he kept doing the things of faith i think even when he whether he could feel them or not the rituals of. It's like they carry you when you can't carry yourself. And he kept doing that stuff and kept family was around and community was around and, you know, family is a pain in the neck. I mean, you know, but that's, but God love them. Can't do with them. Can't do it out of them, you know, but they were around and there was a community

around and I saw it again in him. And this went on for not quite two years, but almost this whole thing for almost two years. And I know it wore part of him down. There's no question. I mean, I could see when I would have to, it did, it wore down, but he kept going, you know, you keep going. And while he didn't say that it was love of his wife, his children, and ultimately his God that kept him going. And he was not just existing off fumes. He had to have sources of energy. I mean, there's no gospel song says somebody prayed for me. Well, somebody prayed for him. There were folk who prayed for him and kept him going. That's why I say I've seen people live off of love. I've seen it.

Yeah. It's not easy. It's not always pretty. I mean, you know, and at the time you don't know how you're going to get through necessarily, but it can see you through. You know, I said, like I said, I didn't it wasn't a theoretical. You know, I mean, I'm not a theologian. I'm not a I mean, you know, I mean, I do theology. I learned from theologians, but I've just seen it. Brene, we can make it not just on our own. We need each other. We need God. But this kind of love has a power that I can only describe because I've seen it. I can't analyze why.

I just know. Yeah, I think that to me, that's all of the pieces. When I read something that helps me put pieces of my thinking and my experiences together that makes sense, that's what I'm grateful for. And I think for your book, I think believing in love and not rainbow love and ponies, but scrappy, gritty, fighting love. Yes. And believing that will get us to me is that's my definition of faith. Believing that is what faith is to me.

You can't, as a social scientist, I can tell you right now, you're not going to be able to quantify love. But my faith calls me to believe that love is the answer. Again, the gritty fighting justice kind of love. And the other thing that I learned from your book that a couple of things, when your mom got sick, and it's a very traumatic story because y'all were just hanging out and having fun and an ambulance showed up and took her away and you never saw her again until she was back in Buffalo in that nursing home. But it was for you, what I make from the book, so tell me if I'm wrong,

the birth of the understanding of the beloved community because people showed up all over your life because your dad was gone going back. And there were just people who, and they didn't love on you like, oh, poor, these poor kids. They were like, where's your homework? And, you know, like, you know, they, they, they loved, loved you. And so this, you know, I, I, I'm a big, I don't know, fans, the right word follower, maybe of Dr. Bernice King and the work she's doing from her dad's work, from Martin Luther King Jr.'s work and the creation of the beloved community. I left the book thinking my faith and love is actually faith and I cannot do this alone. And those two things pissed me off just to be honest with you, because I want to do

everything alone. And I like to judge people. And I feel hateful right now toward people. Really, I mean, coming to the end of this national convention, the Republican National Convention, I, thinking about Jacob Blake, and I made a commitment to his mom when I saw her speak that every time I said his name, I would say Jacob Blake, father, brother, son, cousin, uncle. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor. That's going to take a lot of love. You quote this movie. It's really interesting. I've never seen the movie. It's called The Hurricane. It's the true story of Reuben the Hurricane Carter, one of the greatest boxers of the century. So there was a quote from the movie that you share in your book that I want to ask you about. The quote is, in the movie, Carter tells Martin, just reading that for the attribution, we must transcend the places that hold us.

Yes. I'm going to ask a big question and it probably doesn't have an answer. I believe one of the things that holds us right now is white supremacy. That holds us? Yes. We're held by this fear of, yeah,

how do we transcend what holds us? Like he transcended his gel cell, like in this movie, by reading and transcending the confines, his physical confines and learning about the world. Like how do we transcend fear? Like I think love and fear, they don't work together well, do they? Yeah, no, they don't. It's real oil and water.

Yeah. So how do we transcend fear right now? I know it's a big question, but it's like. I mean, Carter may have answered. I hadn't thought of that. You know, Denzel Washington plays the character in the movie. It's worth seeing. I'm going to watch it for sure this weekend.

Yeah. It's really, it should be on Netflix or something. He I mean, he was bitter for a long period of time because he really was innocent. I mean, it was one of those unjust incarcerations, but it was he was really smart. He was really very bright. And it was he started reading and he started reading a lot and he realized as he was reading that the forces that incarcerated him and his incarceration there were bigger realities and that if he could tap into those bigger realities if you will i mean he didn't use the god language directly but if he

could transcend if he could that that there was a freedom that was possible, even in the midst of incarceration. I mean, there's an old spiritual, it's, oh, freedom, oh, freedom, oh, freedom over me. And before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free. That was a spiritual song by slaves. Before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and already free. Now I just have to make it a physical, tangible reality by's Walter Brueggemann and it was one of his early books. I'm going way back in time now. Talks about the moment of liberation in the Exodus with Moses and all that stuff. It didn't happen at the Red Sea. That's not when the Exodus happened.

It didn't happen in the plagues of Egypt. It didn't happen when Pharaoh said, you know, y'all get out of here. And the Hebrew slaves got free. It happened when Moses went up Mount Sinai and saw an alternate vision of reality that Pharaoh's static vision of the world of slavery, slaves and masters, was not the only reality, was not the own vision. And Moses saw another vision, what Brueggemann called an alternate possibility to the static gods enslavement of Egypt. When that happened, Moses was free, and it was only a matter of time before the Hebrew slaves would be free.

Okay. I got to stop you here. So I got to stop you because I got to ask a question. I believe that this emancipation happened in the heart and in the mind. It transcended before the actual work of the policy happened. Do you think we're kind of in that moment right now? Do you think we're in a moment where we're like, I feel like we're in a point of no return right now. We have seen what's possible. We have seen what's happening, especially with the police. Now, we got to put the moment of seeing Brueggemann's as an alternative possibility and the actual happening, the actual changes that affect our everyday life. Like what kind of faith and love is it going to take to get us between what's possible and what the just shit work that has to be done to get there. Well, go back to the Bible. What happens in the story?

Moses has this vision of alternate reality. And what does God say to him? Now, don't just sit here and enjoy the vision. He says, now I want you to go back to Egypt and tell old Pharaoh, let my people go. Now, what's going on there is, first of all, you've got Moses, who's a conflicted person. Because remember, he was born a Hebrew, but he grew up a prince of Egypt. Remember, he got adopted by one of the daughters of Pharaoh. So here you got, he's got what W.E. Du Bois called that double consciousness.

He's Black and American. He's Hebrew and Egyptian And he was actually The reason he was on Mount Sinai was because he was running away from that He was actually running away from his identity God was sending him back Into the core of his identity To be a Hebrew again To use the skills that he had learned As an Egyptian prince

He had learned the military arts He had learned the political arts. He had learned the political strategies of the Egyptians. He knew how to negotiate with Pharaoh because when that woman princess took him out of the Nile River and raised him as a prince of Egypt, she taught him all the arts and the skills of the Egyptians. And so he went back and negotiated with Pharaoh. Now, the Bible, it's in biblical language. He goes back and says, let my people go. Well, now there's more to it than just that one sentence, but let my people go. Here's the program. We want to be free. We want you to release all the Hebrews. We want them to have provisions for their journey.

You can imagine there was a whole negotiating package. Farrell says, no. He says, okay, you say, no, I'm going to go back to Montgomery and we're going to have a bus boycott. And then Farrell gets religious and say, well, maybe I'll let y'all go now. And so they relent on the, you see what I mean? The plagues of Egypt were, now I have to admit, they weren't necessarily nonviolent means of protest, but the point is they were means of protest. They were actions that would push Pharaoh in the direction of eventually setting the Hebrews captive free. And the final plague is the night of the Passover. I mean, there are all sorts of plagues, you know, flies come on, folk and, you know, boils on. I mean, all sorts of plagues. That is God negotiating with Pharaoh. And so

Moses had a program that would lead to the freedom of the folk. He went to Pharaoh, offered the program, said, if you do this, we'll leave, we'll be out of your hair. Pharaoh said, no. He said, well, okay, then we go. When the negotiations broke down, this is standard nonviolent negotiating. When the negotiations break down, you have to do something that will precipitate a crisis that will begin to move the structure, the system to move toward the justice that you want in whatever it is you're trying to get. So Moses is negotiating. This is all in the Bible. He's negotiating with Pharaoh back and forth. Pharaoh resisting, another plague comes. Pharaoh resist, another plague comes. Pharaoh resist, another plague comes. Let me tell you what's going on. The NBA may stop in its tracks.

That's negotiating with Farrell. If Major League Baseball stops in its tracks, that's negotiating with Farrell. If the NFL, which I love, I mean, I love sports, but I'm sorry, that's negotiating. And you may see a ripple of failure. Who knows how this is going to unfold, but it's not going to stop. And eventually the night of the Passover is going to happen. It's going to happen when all these forces, social forces come together. And Pharaoh, again, it's interesting, the Bible doesn't name the Pharaoh. We don't know whether it was a Ramseys Pharaoh, which which it does. What does that mean? Why? Because Pharaoh is the structure, the system, the power of the system. And you can put any name in that system and they're going to function like a Pharaoh. And that's why it wasn't personal. I mean, that's the amazing thing. It wasn't about the individual Pharaoh. He wasn't. I mean, he was the amazing thing. It wasn't about the individual Pharaoh. He wasn't the problem.

I mean, he was the problem, but he wasn't the problem. It was the system and the structure that he represented, symbolized, and had control over. And it controlled him. And it wasn't until the night of the Passover that finally it was over. And the next morning, the Hebrew slaves were set free. And that's how social change happens. It doesn't, there's got to be pressure of some sort. It doesn't, I mean, I had a, this is years ago when I was a, I mean, when I was a young bishop, this was 20 years ago. And I had a woman named Susie Miller, who's now died and

gone on to glory, but she was a wonderful coach and really spiritual director as well. And she used to say, and it was true, coaches and people like that used to say this, I don't know if they still do or not, but she said, nothing changes until the pain of remaining the same is perceived as greater than the pain of the change. Oh, God. That's hard. That's hard. I know. I mean, it's like, oh, gosh, can't we find an easier way? Well, sometimes there is an easier way, but systems don't change until remaining the same as perceived. The reason the Montgomery Busco boycott work was not just because of the moral values that the Montgomery Improvement Association was articulating. I mean,

that was part of it. That was a part of it. But it was because business interests saw business getting hurt and the business interest got to the political interest and said, we're going to change this. So it was a combination of moral courage with tangible reality that, look, this is bad for business. That's why I think these sports boycotts really matter right now. Exactly. Exactly. About a year ago, two twin brothers in Wisconsin discovered, kind of by accident, that mini golf might be the perfect spectator sport for the TikTok era. Meanwhile, a YouTuber in Brooklyn found himself less interested in tech YouTube and more interested in making coffee. This month on The Verge Cast, we're telling stories about these people who tried to find new ways to make content, new ways to build businesses around that content, and new ways to make content about those businesses. Our series is called How

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That's anthropic.com slash Claude. God, do you think? I'm just having this weird, like, I am, I'm like, y'all, I can't host this podcast right now because I'm at church. Like, I am listening. I'm at church right now. I'm at church with Bishop Curry, y'all. Y'all are on your own with like this podcast. I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm fixing to start singing. But okay. You know, I think about Moses, you know, and I think about he's got the, what do we call

that thing again, where you can see what's possible? You had a term for it. Is it Brueggemann? The alternative reality? Alternate possibility. Yeah. Alternate possibility. Okay. Yeah. And I've seen that term invoked recently while we're talking about when we're talking about defunding the police. People just don't have the alternative possibility right now, the mind to do it. But when you're telling that story, I have goosebumps

because I'm thinking, okay, we've got our own version of plagues right now. Like, like the coronavirus, the, the, the police brutality is, is a public health pandemic. It is like, it is not a, it's a, it's, you know, we have our own, you know, the virus doesn't discriminate, but Americans do. And you can tell by who's dying and who's being ravaged. So it is the alternative possibility, the spiritual imagination of something different, but then a program in place of accountability. And also to your point about the Montgomery businesses, talking to people where they live, which is money sometimes, right? Yeah, they get that. Then everybody, as I say, everybody comes to Jesus. Everybody gets religion in. I got to ask this question because I keep thinking about your grandmother, about when she asked, I don't know if she asked your dad or your mom, but she asked someone like, how do y'all know when the Holy Spirit gets to church? Because everybody's just real quiet and shuffling around and sitting down and standing up.

Like she's like, nobody's seeing and jumping up. That's right. That was so funny because Episcopalians are so reserved. I know. I know. We used to be God's frozen. We're thawing. But yeah, it's where in those days, I got to tell you, this was before.

I mean, this would have been like 1965, 66, somewhere there about. And the Episcopal Church began to thaw a little bit when they experimented with they they were called trial liturgies at the time, that included a new innovation that was very much resisted called the peace. What? Because up until that time, there was no point in the service where people interacted with people. I mean, maybe the offering, I guess, but I mean, there was no interaction with people. You didn't talk in church. You just said the prayers and that kind of stuff, sang the hymns and you stood up, you sat down and you kneeled. And that was, if there was any talking was when you got out of church. Even when people came in, there was no talking. The churches were quiet and

people said their prayers and nobody, I mean, nobody. So there was no, that's just the way it was. So grandma was actually describing the way the church, this was before, again, the peace kind of broke that down where people started talking to each other, shaking each other's hands and greeting each other at the peace. But before that, she was right. So she used to say, y'all look like zombies walking around. I mean, and she and daddy would go back and forth. Oh, they would. I mean, they used to banter back. That was the sort of standard banter.

It's really funny because I did a talk on Martin Luther King Day last year at Ebenezer Baptist. Bernice King invited me to go and give a talk. And I took my son, who's 15 now, and he had never been to an all-black church. I mean, there was some diversity in there, but he had never been into a Baptist church before. And there were people with tambourines and sequined suits, and people would jump up when the Holy Spirit got them. And I had experienced that many times. But when we got into the cab to go to the Atlanta airport, my son was like, look, if you really want me to go to church and get confirmed, we need to move to this church. That was good.

I understood. And I was like, and so I could see your grandmother thinking, like, I wonder sometimes just between you and me and, you know, the people listening, let me just say what I'm thinking. And then if it's not good, you can tell me it's not right. I've also been to traditionally black churches or Baptist churches and funerals, and I see people wailing and crying and holding each other. And then I go to our church with funerals and mostly the white folks just kind of sit and like, could you like ordain a decree or something from your position where it says we need to move around some more? And like, I wonder if all that reserve gets in our way of, if you're saying we recharge with community,

I wonder if all that reserve means we're not fully charging our spiritual selves on Sunday. Do you know what I'm saying? Sometimes. Sometimes. I am learning that there can be power in the shout and there can be power in the silence. That's true. That's really good. They're really, I mean, it's like the spirit has wings and both, you know what I mean?

Yeah. I have to admit, I'm not somebody given to, I'm my grandmother's child. I know that. So I'm not naturally given to the silence, but boy, God, Brene, I can tell you the times when I get away on retreat and in silence, you know, except for the prayers and slip off to a monastery and just kind of be. I mean, the first day is hell. I think it's like I'm looking can i find a tv or something but then some then there's a point there's a point of turning where there's a you're just present in a different kind of way it's true and i know god's around whether you can feel god or not i don't know i just know

that i'm being present to that moment in a very different way. And there's a, I mean, that's a thin place. Thin. And I've known it. And every once in a while, there are moments when I would just take Aretha's album, Amazing Grace. It's that old one. Well, it was probably I don't know when she did it, in the late 70s. They did it live. Yeah, I got it. Oh, do you have it? Oh, yes. I'll just put that on and play. And it's like, I don't know when she did it in the late 70s. They did it live. Yes, I got it. I got it. There's moments where I'll just put that on and play. And it's like, I don't, I somehow, it's like, I feel like the energy that gave grandma energy infuses me when all I have to do is listen to it.

And I don't know, I have no, there's something about her voice, you know, where she talks a little bit. There's something. I mean, it's almost as though it takes me back to a world that's not really here anymore. That's actually changing. I mean, even in the black church, the reserve has gotten real. It's not completely, not everywhere, but it's just the culture is changing. I mean, that's- The culture's changing, yeah. I mean, I remember, gosh, as a kid, more on my father's side than my mother's side, but more on my father's side of the family, family funerals. I mean, you just knew somebody was going to shout, somebody was going to pass out. And there was going to be a lot of catharsis.

Now, sometimes people would go overboard and you know, okay, she does it every funeral. You know, I mean, there was families know who's going to shout, when they does it every funeral. I mean, families know who's going to shout, when they're going to shout. I mean, all that. But there was something about it that was healthy. I remember getting to seminary and taking pastoral care courses and all that kind of stuff. And I'm like the need to get stuff out. I mean, just to let folk express stuff. Don't hold it. And I said, I'll be doggone. I guess my family did have something right that we used to giggle about and kind of say, oh, Lord, there she goes again. But we are human.

And we do feel stuff. And we hurt. And we hurt. And let me tell you, when I'm in pain, I want to scream. I don't want to numb it because then I carry it forever. Yeah. I mean, I'm way out of my field. But I know that there that just sometimes when you just

get it out, just, I mean, there's some freedom in that, the weeping and the wailing. I mean, I can hear their strength. I can hear them. I don't hear them much anymore. Not as much. I can hear them too. And I can remember for me as a young person for the first time in a black church at a funeral, when I heard the wailing and the weeping and the screaming, for me, it was the first sense of God congruence in my life around grief because it matched what I felt. It wasn't like pull yourself together, gain control, emotional stoicism. I'll tell you why I ask about this. It doesn't seem a random thing from our conversation for me because I think people in pain cause pain. I think people who hurt, hurt people. And we don't know what to do with our pain. And we're so not allowed to express

it or feel it or wail or weep that we end up working it out on other people. And I think that's also part of the great divide and what's happening today. I don't know if it's 25 years of doing this research, but it's like, instead of beer goggles, like we used to talk about when we were in college, I got fear goggles. Like I see when I see people enraged, I see fear and pain. And I'm like, work that out, wail and weep and gnash and fall to your knees, but don't club other people over the head with your pain. It's like, we got to be better at that, right? Yeah, you are so right.

And it's like you do, and being present with each other, I mean, you know, the Bible passage says, bear one another's burdens. I got a feeling some of that is just holding each other's pain, just holding each other so we can, when you got to weep, weep. And we won't run away. No shame, no judgment. No. And when I got to weep, I'll weep. And you hold, I mean, that's community. I mean, that actually is, you know, it's funny when you're talking about funerals.

I think there are a couple of funeral stories. There are in the book. But the one thing that's not in the book, I don't think, I can't remember if I actually wrote it in there or not, but the old time funerals, it's a beyond the normal happening here, even as we're burying, you know, Aunt Callie or whoever it is. And that's a suggestion of transcendence for me. There's also the family dynamics going on in the family, which is always soap operative of itself. That's guaranteed. But then there's this, and I don't know why I just thought of this, but I can smell frying chicken.

The smell of frying chicken somewhere else in the church building. That's just part of the funeral experience. And it's like, that's life. That's life. It's all in there together. You write a lot about food in the book. Yeah, not healthy food. I tried to keep it healthy because I'm- I'm going to give you a solid C minus on keeping it healthy because I was getting so hungry at some point. I was like, okay, grits and all the stuff that it was. I have to tell you this funny story because it's so part of what you talk about, about the love and the sameness that we have. When I was working for AT&T, I guess in my late 20s,

they sent me to Kansas City for a month to do work. And my co-facilitation partner there was a black woman. And we became really good friends. And she said, I'm going to invite you over to my house. And I said, that's great. And she goes, no, it's like you're the first white person I've ever invited to my house. And I said, oh my God, that's so, I'm honored. Thank you. Yeah. She said, I'm going to cook for you too. And I said, oh my gosh, what are you going to cook? She said, I'm going to cook soul food. And I said, oh my God, this is so exciting. Great. So, and we were going to go out that night dancing with a bunch of her friends. And I said, that's so fun this is so exciting. Great. And we were going to go out

that night dancing with a bunch of her friends. And I said, that's so fun. So I get to her house and I'm spending the night. I'm spending the night at her house. It's the first like this. So I got my bag and it was just great because I'd been up in a hotel for a month, which was terrible. And so when I got to her house, she put dinner on the table and I was like, oh, this looks delicious. I thought we were going to do soul food. She goes, this is country ribs and greens. I said, this is Sunday dinner

at my house every Sunday. She goes, what? I was like, she said, what do you mean? I said, this is country ribs and greens made with, I'm assuming you make it with bacon grease because that's what we use out of a Folgers can that we collect it when we fry bacon. She just looked at me and she goes, and your name's Brene. Are you sure you're not black

somewhere? And I said, I'm sure. So when you were writing about food, you wrote this sentence that your family left the South and Jim Crow, the great migration. And you have this sentence that, you know, your family left the South and Jim Crow, the great migration, and you have this sentence that made me laugh that you said, we lived North, but we ate South. Oh, yeah. It really was true. In those days, you could buy grits, but only in Black communities. I mean, now you can get them anywhere in Buffalo. But back then, you just had to go into an ethnic community to get ethnic food. And it was imported from, I don't know where they got it from, but oh, yeah. That was imported, yeah. And now, healthily sold food is the new art.

But it's coming. When we had the family Thanksgiving dinners, and my wife's aunt would always come, and she would always bring the greens. But she transitioned from the ham hocks to smoked turkey. You know, the smoked turkey wings and necks. How'd that go with the family? Everybody adjusted because everybody needs because they want to live, you know?

They want to live. Yeah, they want to live and everybody adjusted. I was reading Grits and Grits and it was like, you know, my grandmother actually coated our fried okra and grits, not cornmeal. So she, she, so our fried okra was cooked in grits. So it was like grits three times a day. You got it in the morning.

You got it with eggs. You got it. Okay. So let me ask. So I want to, I want to two things before we go into, I have like a 10 rapid fire question I want to do with you. But before we do that, I have like a 10 rapid fire question I want to do with you, but before we do that, yes, it'll be fun.

You talk about one of my favorite philosophers and theologians in the book, Howard Thurman. And you talk about his first brush with the divine when he watched Haley's comment. And it was 1910. You write, there were no lights in his town to dim the heavens. He and his mother watched the comet fill the darkness with light as it made its journey across the sky.

Thurman felt terror for a moment. After all, for weeks, everyone had been talking about the possibility of a terrible aftermath of the comet falling from the sky. But his mother was calm, reassuring him that God would keep them safe. Something shifted in Thurman and the fear left him. He felt one with the comet and a sudden awareness and awe of what created and controlled the comet. In reflection, Thurman gave name to his awareness, the givenness of God. The givenness of God, which the human heart by its very nature hungers to connect with. When we succeed, you write, we feel it. He's got the whole world in his hands. In his hands. Yeah. Yeah.

That is so beautiful. And then to make things even more amazing on this page, you write, I'll leave you with the hymn, His Eye is on the Sparrow, made famous today by the singer Lauren Hill. The lyrics you share with us in your book, I sing because I'm happy. I sing because I'm free. For his eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me. You conclude by saying, God's love is everywhere in all things. And that includes you. Yeah, it's true. It's really true. Amazing.

It's Renee, it's really true. And just living life out of that, whether you feel it or not. Whether you feel it or not. Dang it feel it or not. Dang it. That is, that is, say that again. What do you mean whether you feel it or not? Like, are you saying that like really take the mystery of faith leap and just say, I don't feel it right now, but I believe. I believe it. Yeah. Yeah. It was Karen Armstrong in one of her books talks about her struggle with faith and believing.

And she's a historian, theologian, but a historian. So good. Yes. She talked about wrestling with depression herself. And she said the intersection of her faith and all of that. And it's really the spiral staircase is the name of the book. And at some point in the book, she talks about realizing that faith and belief, that belief, that even the word believe is not about assent to a set of propositions. They may be true, but that's not what it means. That it actually, the root of it is in the words, the Latin cordo, heart,

that to believe is not necessarily, first off, to give my mental assent to. To believe it's, cordo is related to cardia, is to give my heart to. Oh, man. And she said that, just that realization that that's the root of the word of credo up to believe it's just i give my heart to i got my doubts i got my fear i got all that stuff's gonna crowd in that's that's. That's life right there.

That's life changing. It really is. You know, and because none of, I mean, I don't know. I mean, although I think about going time travel, it's probably not a good idea because I got a feeling there were viruses and all sorts of things back in other ages that we couldn't handle if we got. Plus, I got a feeling the world really probably stunk a couple centuries ago. I mean, people were not into deodorant. Yeah, no. Yeah. So it's probably not.

We would not survive long, I suspect. But I think you go back and even the stories of people in the Bible and all that kind of stuff. If you start looking at them as people. And how does a normal human being react? People like me, how do I react? And then look back at the biblical description. You actually start to see, wait a minute. I put a stained glass there.

That wasn't a stained glass. Look through the glass. Look through the glass. Oh my God. Oh, I get that reaction. That's the reaction. You know what I mean? That there actually are human emotions and reactions and very human stuff. We've just put stained glass on them and you can't see it through. You can't see through stained glass. You got to take the stained glass away. Look at the real people. I mean, the Moses who tries to get out of going back to Egypt. The Mary Magdalene. I mean, Mary, not Magdalene, the other Mary. The other Mary fussing with Jesus. Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

I mean, you know, she is pissed off. These are real people. Yeah. He said, where you been? You're supposed to be the Lord. You know. Lord it up. Yeah. These are real people. And to realize they

somehow did walk by faith, not by sight. In the end, they gave their hearts and just said, here, take me. Warts and all. That for me is freeing for me. I mean, because I know Michael, you know, and Michael ain't no saint. Michael ain't, you know, I mean, I know when I get mad and I'm a pretty good guy most of the time, but hit me and you'll see, find another side of Michael. You know what I mean? That's right. That's people. people yeah and we can't give up on us we're all we have it's like this we're it yeah bad news that's right all we got okay all right you ready for the uh the the quick 10

oh I'm scared to death okay oh please All right. Number one, fill in the blank. Vulnerability is? Just getting real. Okay. Number two, you're called, you, Bishop Curry, are called to do something really difficult and you have to be really brave, but your fear is real. You can feel it right here in your throat. What's the very first thing you do?

Sit on it. Sit on it. Actually sit on it. Yeah. Yeah. Don't decide to do anything. Just kind of sit on it. Sit a while. Okay. What is something that people often get wrong about you? That I'm wise. No, they don't get that wrong. They know I'm not. Okay. They know that already. I don't believe it, but I'm going to keep going. Number four, last show that you binged and loved. What's something on TV that you've watched that you really loved watching? Oh, well, the Jack Ryan series. Yeah, Jack. I think it's on Amazon Prime, right? Yeah, it's on Amazon. Yeah, yeah. One of your favorite movies. You know what?

I've got a new favorite movie. It's Night Shift with Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish. I mean, I know I was supposed to say a Fellini film. Of course. No, but actually, I love that movie. It's funny. It's pure comedy. But it's also, you know, a guy going back to get his GED and all this awkwardness.

Night school craziness. Yes. Night school. Night school. OK. Yeah. Oh, my God. That.

Yeah. OK. Got it. That's funny that that's your favorite movie. I love that. Tell me a concert you'll never forget. I was in high school. We went to a concert and I can't remember who the headliner was.

I mean, who we actually went to see, but there was a warmup guy doing the warmup. You know how they would have up and comers. I don't remember who the headline, I really don't. Whether it's the OJs or the Temptation. I don't remember. The warmup was Barry Manilow and I've never forgotten. I love Barry Manilow. He came on and like he said, and now we introduced Barry Manilow and I've never forgotten. I love Barry Mandelow. He came on

and he said, and now we introduced Barry Mandelow and everybody said, we came here to see The Temptations or The O'Jays or somebody. Who is this? He tore it up. I mean, people went crazy. They said, we don't

need to see whoever we came here to see. He hadn't gotten big yet. That's awesome. That is awesome. I've never forgotten that. Okay. Favorite meal. And you don't have to be in favorite meal, like in heaven, it has no calories, no carbs,

whatever you want. That would be fried chicken, chitlins, macaroni and cheese. My wife is going to, she's going gonna kill me for saying this in public macaroni and cheese collard greens cooked the old-fashioned way cornbread with some jalapeno in it sweet tea what's for dessert oh some sweet potato pie real sweet potato but the kind we ate the strings you know that that kind yeah oh yeah oh gosh yeah i wish i could meet you for dinner um okay what's on your nightstand um eddie glob's book on james baldwin oh god i'm reading through it now yeah yeah give me a snapshot of an ordinary moment in your life that brings you joy just a single snapshot of a moment that just really

brings you joy oh playing with my grandson when he's on good behavior. When he's not, go back to your mama, go back to your mother. Okay. What's one thing that you're deeply grateful for right now? Oh, you know, I mean, I have to admit, I'm just grateful to be alive. I mean, you know, I mean, at this stage of life, I, you know, I jokingly have said, I will say to my family, but if I dropped dead tomorrow, I'd have nothing to complain about. You know, I jokingly have said, I don't want to say to my family, but if I dropped dead tomorrow, I'd have nothing to complain about. I really wouldn't. I've been blessed and I know it. And in the good, the bad, the ugly, I've been blessed. And just knowing that and getting up the next morning and you keep on going. Keep on going.

Like old folk used to say, woke me up again. He woke me up again. I got to ask you this last question. We've got a playlist. It's got your six most favorite songs. The Impossible Dream by Roberta Flack. That's Life by Frank Sinatra. Glory by Common and John Legend.

If There's a Hell Below by Curtis Mayfield. Mary, Don't You Weep by Aretha Franklin, and then the outlier right here would be Old Town Road, which is also on your list that you gave us. I love that. I love that. And I love the video. It is just the greatest.

It's beyond absurd. It's wonderful. So tell me what this play, in one or two words, tell me what this playlist says about you. Well, there's a fun side. There's just something that's just pure joy. I mean, just pure fun, joy or whatever. There's there's a Mary. Don't you weep. Don't you moan. Tell tell Martha not to moan. Pharaoh's army got drowned. I mean, there's a faith side. I think of, I mean, of a God who's pretty deeply integrated. But that's, I was, you know, for now I was, I grew up in, it was in the book. I had to share that story from Lorraine Hansberry's Raising in the Sun.

Oh, yeah. Where the daughter said, you know, no God and the mother slaps her. And we had this debate with the publishers when we were doing it. They said, you know, she slapped her. Should we include that? Because that sounds like parental abuse. It's in the play. I don't know. It's like it was like 50 years ago. She was an adult. She wasn't a little kid. But, you know, where the mother kind of hits her says, in this house, there is still God or is always God. I kind of grew up in that where just daddy saying to grandma, you talk about the Lord so much, you would think he lived next door. It was like Jesus was next door, was a neighbor, which in a weird kind of way, I think my grandmother had this integration where it wasn't, you know, there wasn't separation of church and state in her, so to speak.

Yeah. But she wasn't saccharine religious. I mean, she wasn't, I mean, she could be goofy. She loved Moms Mabley. And if you listen to Moms Mabley's jokes, I mean, now they would be nothing. But they were borderline, They were on the edge. Cutting edge. Yeah. They would listen to the albums of Moms Maybelline when we were kids. Of course,

when the adults were gone, we listened to them. But grandma loved those things. And she would go out, sneak out in the back and smoke her cigarette. So there was all these just real human things. And yet God is in that mixed. I mean, that's incarnation. That's integration. That's just God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And I got a feeling that list is part of that. There's God in that mix.

But there's just pure human joy and entertainment. I mean, the Frank Sinatra thing is funny because my father loves Sinatra. Frank Sinatra, Don Washington. There were a whole bunch of them that he loved. And, you know, when you're a kid, you really don't want to hear your parents' music. And in 1967, daddy got a new car. This was after mommy had died and he decided, I'm going out and get me a car. And he got a 1967 Chevrolet Caprice

and it had air conditioning in it. Oh my God. It had air conditioning. And we drove from Buffalo to Birmingham and air conditioning. And it had an eight track tape in it. And one of the eight tracks he listened to almost all the way was Frank Sinatra. I did it my way. He loved that song. I did it my way. That's life. Fly me to the moon. I mean, I can hear those songs, and yet there's a part of me that actually, they're in. They're in. They're in here.

Yeah, they're in here. And so that's I just love, I love some of those Sinatra songs now. There are two young guys on YouTube. They're two black kids. They're twins. And they listen to music that they haven't heard before.

Oh my God. I'm obsessed with them. Yeah. Aren't they incredible? Oh my God. They listened to it. Like I watched them watch Bohemian Rhapsody from Queen for the first time. Yes.

The first time they ever heard it. Yeah. It's like a religious experience. It's amazing to watch the two of them. I mean, I love these kids. And you can tell they're not just enjoying it. They're experiencing something. So pure.

It's so pure. It's incredible. I don't know what their names are, but I will go and see do they listen to now. But that playlist, no one's ever asked me that before. When Nancy sent me that, I said, she wants to know what? And so I said, well.

Music is a thin place, right? You know, it is. I have, I'm not flying on airplanes now, so I'm not writing sermons on airplanes, but there are times, there's some music, and I don't know, I mean, I haven't tried to figure out. There's some music that I can write sermons to, and I don't know completely why, but like I've got the soundtrack of the Ten Commandments. Now, part of that, I remember as a kid watching the Ten Commandments, it used to come on like around Easter Sunday. Easter, yeah.

It was Easter, I guess. And grandma used to love to watch it. It would be on ABC, I think. I used to sit down and watch it. My sister and I would watch it with her and all that. So it may hark back to that, but there's something about that. There's a romantic, a 1950s romantic in me that in those movies that were made

in that era, I mean, they're kind of hokey now. They're a little bit hokey when you look at them now. But there's something about the music that says, you know something, everything you see in this world ain't the whole world. There's more to it than what your eye can see. And there is a God.

There is a God. And I think that I have no idea. All I know is, Brene, I have written more sermons on planes with my earphones on listening to stuff like that. I mean, not just that, but stuff like that. As long as it doesn't have too much singing. If there's singing, that interferes. But the music. The sweeping music, the sweepingness of it. Yes. And I get lost and swept up in. I mean, I actually, and I have literally flown for hours and not even paid attention until a flight attendant comes or something. I've flown through terminals, don't even think about it. And you're right, music is a thing. I hadn't thought about that. It's a really thin place for me.

And that's why I'm so glad you shared this with us. And let me tell you that this was one of the greatest 90 minutes of my life talking to you. I'm grateful for you. I love your book. This was so important for me personally. So I'm really thankful for you spending this time with us and with the Unlocking Us community. Thank you. Well, thank you. You have no idea. This was just

extraordinary to talk with you. You have a way. We were just sitting in your family den talking. Well, it feels like it. Maybe that's what we need right now. Yeah. All we're missing is the food, which your wife won't hold to. Oh, no. I'm having salads for lunch. Oh, I've lost weight, which is also good, but I'm going to get some fried chicken at some point. We won't tell anyone. All right. Thank you, Bishop Curry. Thank you, Renee. God bless you. God bless you. I don't know about y'all, but for me, just hope, love, fresh air.

Again, like going to church, singing hymns from Roberta Flack, Frank Sinatra, Curtis Mayfield, Aretha Franklin, a hymn, Old Town Road. Did not see that coming, y'all. Check out his book, Love is the Way, Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times. And if you want a daily dose of love, you can find Bishop Curry on Twitter. He's at at PB underscore Curry. On Instagram, again, at PB underscore Curry. Pbmbcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbmcpbm free. And there's going to be so much music, including these mini mixtapes for all of our guests, which are really fun. You can link to the mixtapes again from brennabrown.com, where you can listen to the episode and link to the music. We also announced that I'm launching a second podcast, Dare to Lead. Between Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead, we're going to cover living,

loving, leading, and parenting. We're going to wrap this up, y'all. And here to lead is going to be real and actionable, things that we can do that are tactical and practical. Thank you, friends. Look for the love. Stay awkward, brave, and kind. And don't give up on people. We're all we have y'all. Unlocking Us is produced by Brene Brown Education and Research Group. The music is by Carrie Rodriguez and Gina Chavez. Get new episodes as soon as they're published by following Unlocking Us on your favorite podcast app. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere and you're making content that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI

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