we want to take this moment to welcome everyone to trinity united church of christ here in. chicago, illinois. we are a church that believes that we are called to be in the heart of this community, ever seeking the community's heart. and our motto is that we are unashamedly and unapologetically christian. don't think that there is any contradiction between rooting yourself in your culture and also celebrating the christ whom we serve. and so we're delighted that you're here for our book notes. we had a 1 to 4 worship experience today to. worship services with a magnet officer and preacher who is to my left. and none other than reverend dr. raphael warnock, who is raphael warnock, who was the first african-american senator from the state of georgia. he has two publications, one being a way out of no way is a memoir of experience from savannah all the way to the senate and a wonderful children's book he read to a small of children immediately following worship service, we recorded that reading that we hope that these young will be able to look back and say they had the first afro in american senator from to read a children's to them and that book is a wonderful story that shares the experience of dr. as a child all the way up to being in as senator and get ready put your shoes on as they're ready to get ready to put your shoes in your shoes. all and get ready put your shoes on and get ready. and it's some beautiful art, wonderful story. so we are delighted that you are with we're going to have a word of prayer and then we're going to begin our conversation. we do this book note series. we've been doing it throughout the pandemic, talking to different authors and having conversation about their work and it exploded here at trinity, where we just thought we'd have a few book to watch where it sometimes we get over a thousand people who watch live for the book notes, conversation so let's have a word of prayer and we're to begin our conversation. gracious and most merciful god and who we live, move and have our being, we grateful for this moment and grateful for this time in history. may you empower us that we may be able to link love and justice together in all of the work that do. may your spirit rest. may it rule made, abide that we may continue to walk the path that has been laid for us. we thank we love you and we magnify your name and the people of god who love god may collectively say amen and dr. warnock. well, hello, trinity united church of christ. it's great to be here with my friend and dear brother, the brother of the reverend dr. otis moss third, your pastor and someone i've known since we were teenagers at morehouse college. and it's it's great to be back here. welcome to all of the folks who are watching online. i am excited to be here to talk about dr. moss's latest book, dancing in the darkness. dancing in the darkness spiritual lessons for thriving through turbulent times. that's rich. there's a lot even in the title dancing, the darkness, spiritual lessons for thriving through times. i think that that is something those are lessons that all us could use at a time like this. so i'm going to start and with the most basic question what motivates you? what drove you to write this particular book to frame in this particular way? you preach every sunday. also write. but but tell us about the inspiration behind dancing the dark. i appreciate you asking that. i realized several ago that there was truly a spirit chill edge in our country that people are attempting to describe each in a variety of ways, some through social media, others thinking that, hey, if i if, i have enough funds, the market will be able to scratch that itch. but we still that we are spiritually anemic and there is a necessity for us to go back the values that us that allow us to flourish as as human beings and the two main values really flowing in in the book that haunt the book are the values of love justice and dr. martin luther king jr and howard serve as sages. talking about those values. yeah, yeah. and so you're driven by that. but tell me a little bit more about, what is it that you're seeing as a pastor on the ground? what are the things you carry in your bones as engage people everyday people as they make their way, their everyday struggles struggles? how has that inspired this preaching in a different way? it the experience of trying to make sense of our trauma, the experience of trying make sense of, the sun going down in many ways for some in this democracy, people are trying to really make sense of what is happening in this world and we have been reaching for that which is physical in order to scratch this itch. but howard thurman, dr. king there's so much within the black tradition that speaks how we deal with these issues. we went to morehouse college and morehouse and i see another morehouse brother who is who was in the audience. they were always told to light a candle. you know, we talked about the candle in the dark and how every morehouse student was told that when you come into the chapel that god places a crown above our heads that we will spend the rest of our lives growing tall enough to wear. and i hope that book teaches people to stretch not that will wear crown but at least you'll be taller after ingesting some the values and you do the kind of work at ebenezer where you are calling people to stretch and now as senator you were making demands you are lighting candles. a matter of fact, you are on the the agricultural committee and you've done something really interesting. i think the people should know. well, i do a lot of work on the agriculture committee. i'm proud being on that committee. agriculture is the largest business in georgia and. we've done many things from helping georgia farmers to get their to market when they were dealing with trade barriers. we. $6 billion of debt relief for farmers who are on the margins and is one of the reasons i tolerate politics and. i'm an elected official but i, i am not love with politics. i'm in love with change and tolerate politics because every now and then you're able to do something amazing. like $6 billion of debt relief for farmers farmers. and much of this along time, a long time coming. and also this year, we every five years you do something called the farm bill, which interestingly links the concerns of farmers and agribusiness but also food security and nutrition programs like ten of temporary aid for needy families. those programs that that we've used to give people basic security in this country, they're all part of the farm bill that gets done every five years. so i'm on committee. i was saying this morning in worship i guess what you're referring to in my sermon, i was referring to the fact that when went to the capitol 2017, i got arrested intentionally, the tradition of howard thurman, martin luther king junior and morehouse college. i got arrested. protest setting what they were getting ready to do in the farm cut knew that needed nutrition. and this year. six years later i get to write the farm bill so. this so i'm struck by this idea that you put forward of dancing in the darkness. i want to underscore dancing. there's no question that there's darkness. and we could talk about that. and you could elaborate that if you care to. but i think we all have a sense of the darkness. of course, howard thurman talks about the luminous darkness, the luminous darkness. so. but you didn't say negotiate darkness, you didn't say how grope your way through. the darkness. you know how not to be afraid of the dark. i got two little kids, but you said dancing in the darkness. what's at stake in that metaphor of literally dancing in the darkness? what to first bring you to how that that idea came about. it starts in 2008. our church going through a challenging moment when an individual by the name of senator barack obama was running for president. i had just become pastor here at trinity. and i remember being in bally's at hyde park. i was working and i was on the treadmill and in marlon, i was sitting there on the treadmill doing my warm down and someone taps me on the shoulder. they say hey, rev, is that your church? i look up on the and sean hannity was going off about and i said i got to go and so began walking the gantlet 40 news outlets showed up to our church every single sunday putting in people's face looking for type of quote because they passed a portion of my predecessors sermon dr. jeremiah wright jr i was a very good sermon by the way i might add. absolutely. and they were trying to use that soundbite because many people never been in a black church and don't know anything. the black church tradition or preaching. and so that started the gantlet. but then from the gantlet, because of the the news footage and attention, we then started death threats. dr. wright, myself and the church and some people here remember that we had to have bomb sniffing dogs show up every single sunday to, make sure that the sanctuary is safe. and so after getting these these letters and i read some of the letters, i should have read some of the letters. be quite honest. and i want to thank deacon wilford bentley. he said, let me have that. you're not going read any my mind always racing. and every time i ran up to someone or i was running you know just working out. i was wondering if i saw someone coming my way. is it is this it? is this the person from the letter? so one night didn't very much for about a year we heard something in the house and monica tapped me and said, you got go check that out. and i say, yeah, babe, let me go do that. and so i got up and i grabbed my rod and my staff that comforts me. and rod and staff was made in louisville. it was a louisville and i was walking the house looking for where was this noise from what was going on? and then i heard the noise again and noise was coming from my daughter's bedroom. and mikayla was about five years old at the time. i go into bedroom and mikayla is in the middle of her room and she's dancing, spinning around, and she's saying, look, daddy, i'm dancing now. it's 3ami have to preach at trinity and several hours. and so i got that little dad talk, baby you need to go to bed right now. and she says, look, daddy, i'm dancing and pigtails are hitting and whatnot. and the spirit said, stop, look at her. she's dancing the darkness, the darkness is around her, but it's not in her. when are you going to learn how dance and if that moment i trashed my i was supposed to preach and just started writing notes and i stepped into pulpit on that sunday and i talked about the fact that we must learn how to dance the dark. and when we reclaim our dance, dance of love, that dance of compassion, dance of justice, then we can transform in the words of w.e.b. dubois, these yet to united states of america and i believe that that is what especially people of african descent have learned to do in america, is that we've how to dance in in the darkness, a country that many times us did not see us or said that we were only 3/5 of a human being, but yet sojourner truth says in our that's a dancing, you know, frederick douglass when he stands and talks about july 4th that's that's a dancing out to be wells that's dancing these are all of the dance partners of our ancestors that. we must learn how to navigate these moments that we think are dark. but the beautiful thing about darkness is that the sun has forsaken you. it just means that the earth is turned. and if you keep dancing, eventually your morning will become but your your joy will come in the morning because the sun hasn't left. it's there. it's just that the earth decided turn in a different direction. so otis moss as well. folk listen every sunday. powerful, dancing in the darkness. and that that darkness. you were literally living through it in the moment. and were inspired by your daughter and then that you you described something going on in country at that time and your church at the center of it but. then layered on top of that are the episodes of trauma that we all know. individual right. so the church is going through what it's going through, but you still have members who are dealing with whatever they were dealing with in their everyday lives person who just got a scary diagnosis person who's trying understand how to reconcile with their child or the reverse. all of these these concerns and a spirituality. that speaks to both. yes, yes, both the individual role and the social. that deals with the slavery of and the sin of slavery. yes, i think that that has been part of the genius, the black church experience at its best. yes. not that we always do that. right, but the the even evangelical and liberationist tendencies both informing and i see both those things standing up in your work. yes. which is itself a kind of dance between a kind personal piety and the fight for justice. the struggle in the song i was trying to talk about this morning. yeah, yeah, yeah. and it's a particular kind of dance. wouldn't you say you've about living in a post soul world in some of your other public patients and you are somebody in your preaching and in your writing often engages the arts and and tradition. you understand that gospel, soul and jazz and blues and the spirituals all come from the same root, the anguish, ruminations of a subjugated people speaking to god in their own voice. so the dance, if you will, is syncopated, right? can you say something about like it's jazz? like. like this is is on the is on the upbeat rather than the downbeat? that's right. it's the beautiful thing. our our tradition beautiful thing about black spirituality that we the existential but we keep looking at the eschatological. so we are blues and at the same time and the beautiful thing about people who make the claim oh, i just listen to gospel music that gospel music is structured on this pentatonic scale, this african scale. so you can't have gospel music unless you know chords. so in other words, you can't have resurrection. so you have to play the sanctified folks, you can't have gospel music unless you have blues chords. so in order to sing gospel, you got to know the chords. so in other words, you got to the anguish and the pain in order to get to the celebration of resurrection. but in a society we want to cast aside the blue and only want to do resurrection, celebration. and if that had been talking about prosperity preaching, i'm talking about prosperity preaching. prosperity preaching is problematic because it is it's not christianity. it is capitalism with ecclesiastic garments and and we have witnessed so much of this market centered ness. but our tradition is, like you said, a jazz tradition. i mean, millard is here. he's doing research on wynton marsalis and the blues and whatnot. but but jazz teaches america about democracy before american, what democracy was all about. i mean, the fact that jazz is in new orleans first off, this space, where you have indigenous people of in america along spanish, along with french and along people of african descent. but don't forget, a good portion of black people in new orleans were free blacks from haiti. so they understood this idea of freedom. and then come and they infect new orleans with that. and so the congo square was the space where on sunday because were so many people who are catholic sunday you had all that they could hear all these different rhythms and all these different rhythms come together and then jazz does something no other music had done in history it takes what's not supposed to together. and they play together. so you have a saxophone that is for the marching band, but then it plays with the piano, which is european classical. then the piano then plays with a trap drum set, but instead of using a simple european syncopated marching rhythm, it uses a pentatonic and also polyrhythms in the process. then you have a bass that you're supposed to play with a bow, but somebody says, let me play with my fingers. and then everybody has the right to solo. in other words, i can bring my own cultural narrative to the table bring my own experience to the table and i can solo. but the sax phone never tells the piano, you have to sound like me. and the piano doesn't tell the drum you have to sound like me and bass doesn't tell the piano. you got to sound like me. everybody gets a chance to sing their song. as you said this morning, in a unique way. and when america learns how to operate a jazz democratic ethic, that's when, in the words of john coltrane, we'll see a love supreme. all right. that's good stuff, right? get the book dancing in the darkness, spiritual lessons for thriving from turbulent times. good stuff. this dancing in, this music you talk about is also improvizational, yes, the each of the instruments they each play in their own way. but they they go off anywhere they're variations on a theme. that's right. so there's a theme and the improvizations are variations on the theme and there's a kind of style and a friendly rivalry sometimes going on and a good jazz musician like a good preacher might have a manuscript, but they're going to see each time what the spirit is going to bring. it might be a little different each time. how are we doing in in around the question of improvization this moment, the church in particular? i think the church is struggling with because it's looking to be a symphony directed by people who not necessarily care for the folks who in the church is a symphony has a director and says play just like me. but when we move to that jazz as narrative, we begin look inwardly, we begin to draw from our tradition. so i would use the example that prosperity minister re in this these, these of it's about dollar and that's how you will be set free that's kind of in the way that a director is playing or to say that must be solely individual. we don't talk about stuff that goes on in the world we were going to just about just me myself and i. i mean, there's a phrase called i am blessed and highly favored that people like to nothing wrong with the phrase but the idea that blessing within the breaks framework blessing within the black church was you really can be blessed until other are blessed in the that there's a connectivity to the idea of blessing. but our country is struggling with this on multiple levels so when we add to the curriculum black history the conductors say you can't do that because. that is something that is not patriotic. as some states have said. you can't have ap african american history that had educational value which amazing that you can have ap italian history. ap japanese history ap french history. but there is no education or value to labor and genius that helped build this country. that's problematic. anybody who says that needs an education? absolutely. absolutely. but yeah, this this idea of improvization struck by that because we're on the other side of a pan. well, we're still going through a pandemic and the church is being forced to rethink how it presents all familiar themes. tell me about love and justice. in the book you talk a lot about love and justice and you insist that we have to have them both. you can't have one without the other. so the first chapter is linking love and justice, which are two important values, values that we need not only personally also in the civic arena. if we would make our policies rooted in love and justice we would have different policies. so in america we have this sentimental love, you know, love without justice is sentimentality. justice without love becomes legalism or brutality but when you marry love and justice, they walk down the aisle and they eventually have two children. one name, liberation, other name transformation when they get together. but imagine when we think through policies on love and justice, that's what the poor people's campaign was about. that is what the the pulpit of ebenezer has been about linked in love and justice. you can't disengage. and that is what the minister of jesus was about meaning i redeem you this idea of redemption over retribution then we have a retribution system when it comes to in-car isolation not a redemption system, not a development system, not an education system. we have a pure punishment, vengeance, love and justice linked together raises the question what will our society be and what do we leave for children who've not been born. what are the spiritual drag that we need to slay in this moment? you talk about that in the book, cynicism the idea that i have no power, that i'm not able to change what is going on in the world. this chapter on slaying dragons and another chapter that i deal with called reworking your origin stories that talks about the fact that you've got to know your origin. and i use these i'm a comic book person i'm a comic book geek. i admit it. i admitted that the reason we love heroes, the reason we love these stories, it's marvel. or whether reading about storm or luke cage or whatever it may be. we love these stories of these, but no hero can. be a hero or a hero until they know their origin story and they make a decision they make a decision whether on which path that they're going to flow and the way in which we slay our dragon is is we come to embrace who we are. as you said this morning, we must know we are we must know who god is. we must know what god has done. as you said, your sermon this morning and the same thing goes us individually. when you know who you are and you make that decision, i'll give you a prime a more personal example. i've told the story many times over and over again about the suicide of. my sister, my sister, daphne was she's the brilliant person in our family. and she was a graduate of spelman college also a graduate of kent state university. she taught students who were who had learning differences and were challenged in their growth and development. and she's the one that introduced me to zora neale hurston and james baldwin and those my those are my children's stories that she would read those stories to me for years. i was afraid of that story. i didn't want to share that story. nor could i say anything i'd say, oh yeah, my sister had a terminal illness or something of that nature. but the moment that i reworked my origin story that i realized that i had a brilliant, wonderful sister who, had a mental illness, who had given me an incredible and could speak about it. shame. i found out that there was a community of people who had the same experience and we were empowered in sharing that story. america has a problem sharing the truth of, its history, the moment we can share, the truth of our history is the moment we work, our origin story and we can see better in the future. but as long as we hide and shame can't teach black history, can't teach indigenous history, can't talk about this, then we will continue down the same path that is destructive in this nation. wonderful. i'm deeply moved, by the way, in which you link your own story, your own pain, connect to daphne and what she provides. that beautiful soul sickness and illness and something i talk about a lot. and try to push forward as a pastor. you know, i council members of my church and. one on one members came to me and she was really wrestling with depression i said i'm praying about it, pastor. i said, well, we've got pray, but i also need you to come with me and get some other help and we're going to pray with the doctors. yes. because if you had if if you if you had a heart condition. or you know or something, we we we pray and and we tell you, go to the doctor. right. we would treat heart or the liver or whatever it is, like an organ. well, the brain is an organ. um, the brain is an organ. and so sometimes i'm counseling, sometimes a medication is important a chemical imbalance is a chemical. doesn't matter with organ, it is chemical imbalance. and then there's a spirituality undergirding that. but i'm also moving a move, by the way, in which you're connecting that piece, the individual piece, to larger american family story. and you're right, all families and we this as pastors, all families have a complicated story. yours to write. and the story is always more complicated than the picture we present. you coming the aisle on sunday morning exactly 20 minutes after worship starts so people can your beautiful family everything is intact red bottomed shoes place the children look so perfect and well-behaved and we know the truth because they're in our sunday and our children's church. yeah, we know all about little angels. and if you really want to know the real family's story, you got to go to the family. come on, come on. and you'll get some it. but not in the first 15 minutes or even the first hour. just wait you got to wait. sometimes tell a few people have had communion. that's right. that's right right. and then you'll get some piece of the family story and what help. but at the end of the day, you know, after somebody's got cussed out or. what do we do, all hug each other. i love family. i'll see ya next year. maybe it's just my family. you don't get to pick your family, your families, your family. they're complicated it, but it's still your family and totally the american family's story. like the rest of our family's stories. that's right. is. but we are all we go? that's right. and i mean i mean i mean i mean if of all we ready to say that to me we all we got where are we going? where are we going? and i mean at on a larger scale, beyond just our country, we are all we got an if spirituality didn't help us to deal with that. then what in the world are we? but part of what we've got to do is something else you tell us in the book we've got a conflict, the chaos. yeah, yeah. consecrate the chaos that that that's very provocative right. then that make you to come closer and i want to hear to to tell us about consecrating the you know that that particular chapter has has received kind of an interesting buzz from a lot of people when they ask about this consecrating consecrating chaos. i really love that chapter. and looking at the idea that spiritually we will experience chaos. you can't get rid of it, it's going to happen. and for those who who operate out of more of a scientific and and secular framework, chaos is, a part of the cosmos you can't get rid chaos but you can consecrated you can name it and you can employ it for your particular so so how do we how we concentrate consecrate create chaos. anyone who sails knows how to deal with chaos because a sailor. i'm not talking about the motorboat. boats and the google yachts that i'm about people who sail. in other words, they have to harness the wind and deal with the waves and undertow at the same time, they have to build a boat that a rudder and a keel to balance. but then they also have have a sail that catches wind they can't control which way the wind is going to go. they can move the sail to catch the wind. and here's the beautiful thing about people who sail. they can never sail in a straight line they have to tack left and right, left and right to get to their destination and one of the things that i think that black people have done is that we have built the spiritual sails boats, whether you're talking about abolition or the jim crow period, but black lives matter. they built a digital sail in order deal with the chaos that was happening in our community in order to consecrated and to educate people at a higher level. and we have to teach this that chaos is going to come and we cannot live from the pulpit and say just name it in clay it in the chaos will disappear chaos is going to be a part question is how will we it and we have power. i keep thinking about i love stories i traffic in stories i frederick douglass i mean frederick is the man that's the bad brother. monica says she just loves picture. she thinks he's so handsome. she's like a back in. the day i would have been looking at frederick, you know. he's handsome. he's handsome. he's happy. you know, he's the most photographed human being in the 19th century because he understood the technology that we know taking but but but frederick douglass did something fascinating to me is that he is in the chaos of enslavement he was you can read you're not supposed to read when he was living in baltimore, maryland, he used to keep pieces bread in his back pocket. and when he would come, an irish young man, you know, someone, ten or 12, he said, i'll give you some bread if you tell me that word. and so he taught himself how to read by passing bread. then another experience of this chaos with frederick douglass is when he is beaten by an overseer and he runs away, he runs into the woods, but he encounters a prophet slash priest slash medicine man who then tells him that, you know, you know, a child of god. i'm going give you some right here. you wear this over on the left side and you go back and you tell that overseer you are a child of god and you went back and told him he beat them for hours and said, i'm a child of god don't you ever beat me again? which an incredible thing for this enslaved african to say that i am a human being. and he continues on with moments every time that there was a moment of chaos. he i'm going to employ for my good if there is something that explodes gnashing ailey i'm going to use it to community create the suffering of my people and douglass was a genius at dealing with issues of chaos and the black struggle over and over again, chaotic moments. and yet we come up with these times to be able to demonstrate how we can operate at a different level in this nation. that's the black tradition. the black church its best, but black spirituality, meaning we got to go to church. there's just some stuff that's in us that we can share with the world. if we are willing to drink from these reservoirs. beautiful. so and going back to your earlier metaphor, and i saw reverend wood his head, he fails believe that now we had a preacher right here who sells he's got a lot of faith. so. that left, back, right can't go on a straight line attack. left, right. can you tell the congress we got attacked? left, right. in order to overcome gridlock, order to move forward. all right. so, so you you also talked about your origin stories. and i'm remembering that in the book, you give a shout out to auburn avenue, sydney, auburn avenue. that's sweet. auburn in atlanta, georgia, where ebenezer baptist church sits. tut tell us about almond avenue, an origin stories and consider creating chaos what you are the child of the beauty and the power of auburn avenue that that that before before you not only dr. and daddy king but william holmes. john wesley dobbs alonzo herndon. now these names may not mean anything and i deal with these traffic in these names and stories in the book. but let me give you an example. i learned this from from my father. if want to understand the power of auburn with this particular story imagine with me dr. king age 12 steps out of his house he steps out of his home and on one side of his home, on the side of the street where his home is, middle class homes, doctors lawyers, business owners. but on the other side, gunshot homes, know shotgun houses, shotgun houses on the other side, you have people who are domestics, people who are struggling. then he turns and, begins to walk to ebenezer baptist church before gets to ebenezer. but on sweet auburn, he has to pass by the harbinger funeral home, which was owned by a black woman. the only funeral home owned by a black woman in in the of georgia at the time. so he was seeing someone breaking the ceiling of patriarchy before. he got to church then has to pass by or who go by. maybe the atlanta daily world, which was the only daily black newspaper that lifted up lynching, but also lifted the power of hbcu's. then he passed by w.e.b. that's word radio, a black radio station where was lifting up not only churches, but was giving the news that was happening across city. then he passes by the atlanta life insurance company and he and the atlanta with the alonzo herndon. and this insurance company was the insurance company that the funding that alonzo herndon received from this was bailing people of jail during the freedom movement. then he passes by the ame church with mother bethel. mother bethel. but to bethel, where bishop henry mcneill turner was at one time pastor bishop henry mcneill before james cone said, black theology. he said, god is black before anybody else was even saying it. so he had this black theological framework and then he would pass by the alexander life insurance company, which was the company that ended up cars in montgomery when they had the montgomery boycott. they were doing carpooling. so the city of montgomery said, we're going to stop these black folk from even driving together. and they would pull black people over and if you had more than one person in your car, you were trying to act like a taxi service. we will take you in and, arrest you and place you in jail. well, it was alexander insurance company, tim alexander, morehouse, graduate who ends up insuring all of the station wagons in montgomery along with church busses. but he couldn't get insurance in the united states. he had to fly to england, to the lloyds of london to get insurance to insure all of cars. so black folk had before there was uber in alabama. and then he would pass by wheat street baptist church, where william holmes borders was a pastor, and william holmes borders was six foot five graduate of morehouse also, and had this booming voice. william holmes borders would many times close his message with poetry and poem you've all heard because reverend jesse has remixed this poem. it's called i am somebody. i somebody and langston hughes. i am a great poet. i'm an aviator in bessie strong. i'm a musician in. duke ellington. i am somebody i'm an activist and out to be wells and at 12 years old, could you imagine a dr. king in the of a white street before he even goes to his own church and holmes borders was also played jesus in the atlanta city passion play. so as a child old he saw a six foot five black jesus with a deep voice. so he already had the framing. then he goes to his own church, hear his father preach, then decides to get on a trolley that would take him to morehouse, but he had to get in the back of the trolley because of segregation. and my father says it this way. he says oh, his body went in the back, but his mind was in the front because he had so much some body mass in spirit, then he arrives on the campus of morehouse college and a person by the name of dr. benjamin elijah mays becomes his mentor before. you get to boston and crosier you got to stop by auburn avenue and see all of this quote somebody miss because his origins story was reworked from the origin story of white supremacy see to the idea of black resilience. and that was the brilliance of what auburn avenue has given to generate an after generation. and you are the son of that tradition, being a senator, the first african-american senator from the state of georgia, because of the work of those great on auburn avenue. thank you. i feel like dancing in the darkness. let's hear from my friend, brother of a preacher. this brother's got too gifts. the reverend dr. otis moss, the third. and let's give it up for. our senator. none other than reverend dr. raphael warnock. as a in the darkness. now we have some questions, i believe, that are coming from the audience or online. yes. so if you are still working on some questions, please, you this is a table that will start with the first question right. this question is coming. kelly. kelly, most people find fear, darkness. but from reading your book, it appears that you find power in darkness. how did you develop confidence to navigate what you see? mm you know, that's a wonderful question, kelly. is that. growing up in my family. i learned from my mother and from my father the power of of darkness, meaning that you don't need to fear it. it's something that happens. the beautiful thing that the reason that we are able to see in this moment is that sight is based on electromagnet shock waves, what we consider to be the light. and what's fascinating is that human beings, we have limited sight that there are other creatures that god has created are able to see in the dark. and this is what helped me when i was a child one time i was scared of the dark and my dad, he just said, well, whatever's in the is in the dark, too. and i say, and i thought it, i said, that's true. so the stuff i see in the light is in the dark. also. and, and i held to that idea that that he shared with me years ago. but the thing is, we develop our power in the dark. we were formed in. we have to spin nine months in the dark before we can come into the light. god to consecrate the darkness and bring something out of. it is in those moments when we are quiet, silent and recognize that we have to depend on else. then our sight. anyone can handle. when you can see it. but when you in a moment where you can't see it can't hear it and you just have to trust is when you deepen faith and that's the call is for us is to on to such values hold on to these spiritual ideas that deepen our faith, even though we can't it even, you know, we don't know when it's going to happen. and believe that that's something that we all must learn, is to be able to how how to handle the darkness. thank you. next question is from ari. how do you build a movement of kind of love, kindness and unity at a time when people at the highest rung of power are trying to sow. mm. that's great. and i think that it's really important to recognize pastor warnock did such a beautiful job when he talked about every valley being exalted and every mountain being brought low. he said that's good news. said that's good news for some, but some these the people who are high up don't want to come down. we have to that the real power is not with those who think they have power. the real power is rooted in in the people. the real is those who deeply believe in values of love and of justice, compassion and reciprocity. that's where the power is. when history is written, we will not lift up those who had whole lot of stocks, bonds. we will lift the names of those who deep in their heart, held on to particular values. they held on to these. and those are the ones history recognizes over time. so there are more of us. there are those at the top. there are more people who are deeply committed to change than there are one or two people who want to hold on to an old way of doing things. and the moment that we recognize how power we have transformed in comes. i love the way that nelson mandela said it. he said, the moment you realize powerful you are is when systems begin. shake where. think you know next. question is from laliga. this is for warnock. she's asking for those that feel that church and state should be separate or struggle with politics being discussed in the pulpit. being a senator or a pastor. how do you find peace in two callings. i am a strong proponent of the separation of church and state. that is that is a part of our democratic that i now i don't just it i'm a strong proponent of it. i don't i don't i don't want to live a theocracy. yeah. yeah. i am i'm a christian and a christian preacher. but i don't want to live in a theocracy, not a islamic one, a jewish one or a christian one. yeah. and i want to you know, luther has this idea, martin luther, about about the right kingdom and the left kingdom. i don't, i don't want to see the state encroach. on the church. i'm and i don't want to see the church encroaching in a kind of religious triumphalism over civil society who say, well then so then at the same time, i don't embrace the idea that politics doesn't belong in the pulpit. mm. come on. because what does politics? there's a very simple definition of politics. wherever maude and wherever three or more people are gathered there you have. because you've got to navigate and negotiate interests. in fact, we have a two people together, sometimes between and wife in politics, but we have a people together. you definitely got politics. so here's you got to understand. i bring the values. of my faith. come on to my work in the senate. and i said this this the night i was elected, this last runoff. and i've said it time and time again that i believe that democracy is the political enactment of a spiritual idea. this notion that each of us has within ourselves, a spark of the divine that we were created in imago day, the image of god. and if we created in the image of god, then we ought to have a say in direction of our country and our destiny. it. and even if you're not given to that kind of religious language, i said that name. that's fine. our tent is big. simply put it this way. we each have value. and if we all. we have value, we ought to have a voice and a way to have a voice is to a vote. so the values that i try frame every public policy issue are the values are resonant and resident in all of the great faith traditions and in the souls of people of moral courage who claim no particular faith tradition at all. love, justice, compassion, empathy. that's what i bring to the senate. and so whether issue is the expanded child tax, which we passed, we only did it for six months. i'm trying get us to extend it because it would child poverty in our country. 40 to 50% of the issue is climate. or the issue is. how do we hold at bay bad actors on the global scale while at the same time not giving in to militarism? as dr. king described as one of the triplet evils? i'm always going to try to put these issues in a moral frame. i think there's no of transactional politicians in dc or anywhere else. there's no shortage transactional politicians. and so if i was going to be another transactional politician, there's no need me doing this. there was no need. there was there'd be no reason for ebenezer church to give its pastor the space to. do this as it graciously has. if i was just going to show as another transactional politician what i'm striving for in tradition of king and thurmond and ella baker and fannie lou hamer is to be transformed. but i'm. i see very clearly the danger. of christian. even and a kind of triumphalism some and a. impulse to push your own the particularities and nuances of your faith tradition and inscribe in law. we're living through the scary side of that right now and. it's the reason why i'm pro-choice in it's all the religious. is the religious people who say the most hateful things to me because i'm pro-choice. i mean they they they have tried to show up really create all kinds of having that was the effort. it didn't work. like they must not know whatever it is they they tried. i mean. but they tried it. you're about trolling. my church went it them attacking us on social media, attacking all of our platforms, calling me a false prophet, hypocrite. and i think trying to stir up the members in the process. but they don't understand whoever these are, is and the sunday after sunday. but i'm clear out about this. the question on the issue of choice is whose decision is it? whose decision is it? right. and i happen to think that a patient's is too small and cramped a space for a woman, her doctor and the united states government. i think that's too many people in the room room. but if you value life as i do it to me that you'd be concerned about the criminal rates of maternal mortality in country, particularly in a state, georgia, and the fact that black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to die than white women, that they're much more to die even when they have the same insurance and income. now, that's something a government do something about. that's why our government ought to stay in his lane and do the work. the government does and let the church do. the church does. thank you. the question comes from robert. this question is for pastor moss in chapter three, redirecting your rage? you speak on joseph graves and you're called to pastor in tribute turbulent times. what you say to young people who are constantly losing friends. and how do at at a high rate? what you say to the young people. the and the trauma we experience collectively as a. is a national and community. that we have to place as a priority if we are to see significant change in the city we share the story and i'm thankful to the tonda graves for allowing me to share the story of joseph, who was just a beloved young man here at trinity, and many remember how painful that moment was. and i want to say thank you to. many of the brothers who work with our rites of passage that some of you may not know, i share some of it in the book that had some some folks who were ready to take, quote, unquote, justice into their own hands. and if it had not been for the men who worked with our men, we would have had multiple tragedies in this church and we would have had multiple funerals or we would have talking to multiple young through plexiglas. so i'm just for for the men and and work that that they did. but let me use the city of chicago as an example we people who are willing to place this as a priority in the city and we use the wrong language. we keep saying public and we should be saying public health. because when you say public safety, you are only responding and putting more money in the hands of. police officers, police have their role. but if you say public health, then all of a sudden i need to deploy. and social workers, i need to have restorative justice programs in the public schools. we need to the entire approach and we need to see every child as valued and valuable that we should mourn, collect civilly instead of mourning just in a community aspect of this is just what happens over. and so i would say to every young person that that we have are in the moment where we can change the way this city does business to reverse some of the issues around gun violence. number one is we shouldn't be works with a live free program. we believe that you've got to have interrupters. number two, we need to make sure that we an office gun violence prevention at least by $250 million. we already fund the police by a ton, clubs, $1,000,000,000, but just an office of gun violence. and then that that would mean people who are deployed in our neighborhood. do you know that we can predict who will be shot within a radius of something. like 50, 50 feet to 100 feet in terms of where someone lives based on one young person is shot. they already have predictive models in terms of who the person will be. it's like it's a disease. but guess what the center of disease control in atlanta cannot use those models because there was a law was passed specifically by the gun lobby to say that you cannot follow that kind of predictive because it will affect gun sales. so we have to have a completely different approach. this is about public health and about human flourishing. and we need to demand every alderman, need to demand every mayor, demand every commissioner, demand every person who runs for congress to say that they have a position on public health. it's enough to put some more toward policing because they are responders. we want prevention and prevention is always cheaper than respond. if you want to spend money, then let's begin to put money toward prevention right. 50 interrupters can do more than 500 police. let me say it again. 50 interop speakers can do more than 500 police officers because their job is to prevention. 50 social workers can do more than 500 police officers because their job is prevention. police officers are. and we keep sending money to respond and we're not doing the work on prevention. let me let me give you another example that. richmond, california took a response position. i believe it was probably about 15, 17 years ago. they took a response proposition. they began to hire brothers, used to be in the life to do the interruption. within six years, they had dropped the gun violence rate. by 70% because they took prevention as a priority and not response. they gave every brother a job. they sure did. and they paid them a living wage with insurance. i mean, they could also, you know take care of their families. they had insurance. and so that's that's the model that we have. we keep electing people and we keep allowing lobbies to deter what the policy is going to be in chicago. we know how to fix this, we just need to have people with enough political courage to step forward, to be able to do the work that we need done. this next question is from deirdre online. the question is for reverend warnock. what what is the scripture you call when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death on capitol hill among among those who who call on the name of jesus, do not step in his footsteps. i call the rest of that verse. i will fear no. thou art with me. and i keep walking through the valley. that's all you can do. and i know that i wouldn't be there without prayers of the righteous and my experience has taught me that with every assignment comes equipped that you, if it is indeed a divine assignment, if it is a divine assignment with assignment, will come the necessary equipment, both the things you need and, the people you need surrounding you and so this work is has been it's hard work and it requires a lot of me. i ran for three years straight now finally have a six year term. i clearly went after this job. my name's on the ballot five times for the same doggone job, but i. i am amazed the resources and the support that has shown up. i didn't go running after. i was asked three times to run for the united states senate and i said yes. after the third time and it felt like it was the right time and i didn't. what that would look like. i didn't know that a month or so after i announced we find ourselves in the midst of a strange virus. and i. on january 30th and in mid-march the world shut down. how do you campaign in those circumstances, we know how to do anything. we don't even know how to do church. and i was trying to figure out how to campaign. first time i'd ever run for public office in the middle of covid 19 pandemic. but what that did was it brought into sharp focus issues that i've been addressing before i ran for the senate, like inequity in our health care system, because while everybody was impacted by covid 19, we saw reince in the midst of the the things that we with chronic illness and all of these issues access to health care, we saw black and brown and poor people dying at a disproportionate rate and so the pandemic brought sharp focus things that i've been fighting for for years trying to get georgia to expand, for example. that happened in march. and then a couple of months after that, we were wrestling with covid 19. we saw the emergence and the tragic. covid 16, 19. george floyd, a black man yet dying again with a knee on his neck. it wasn't the time we'd all seen that on tv because i remember a few years ago i came here to preach one sunday and you had whole service responding to the killing of eric garner. and i preached about that that sunday and he he to choked to death on the new city street and i wondered why there wasn't the kind of outpour of concern that i would expected in the wake of that. george floyd when the first time but something i think about being in the midst of a pandemic. all of us holed up in our homes. nowhere to go. i think it was harder for the country to turn away and we've been sitting there in our houses for a couple of months already, frustrated. and then the whole country, this human tragedy, unfold unfold and you couldn't turn. and as a of that, we saw a multiracial coalition of conscience pour out into american streets masked up to protect. from one pandemic while waging war against another pandemic. and in the midst of of that i was running for the united states. the pastor, ebenezer church. and then weeks after that presiding over the funeral of john lewis, our great hero. and so i have felt called to this work. and it's the reason i do it every single day. and. i am deeply honored to do it. and while i am, i enjoy the work i'm doing for me, the senate is just a it's the senate is another tool, but my project is the same that it's always been dancing and encouraging others to dance in the darkness. and i'm inspired to be here. i tell more of the story, by the way, in book a way out of no way. which is my memoir came out amazon dot com i'm just a kid. you got it. thank. this next question is from eli, who from for pastor moss, many black outlets generate revenue by focusing the blackness, focusing on the darkness of hate toward our communities. how do we explore possible without fearing the darkness limitations. there is a need and a necessity for us to learn how to us the resiliency and the brilliance that that's i find so beautiful about our history and our stories. i that we must learn how to traffic in our own stories and be able to share our own stories. and when begin to share our own stories. we recognize the beauty of those stories. there's this tendency to think that our our story is only one type of story. it's one way. oh, it's it's so. no, it's absolutely utterly brilliant and magnificent and incredible there even that study, black people to try and figure out how in the world did you all do this? because the literal brilliance as, as dr. raphael warnock said, he people give us the blues and then we start singing the blues you know, we have this capacity to be able be so incredibly resilient that comes from our spirituality. and when i say spirituality, i'm talking denomination. i'm not talking someone's was i'm talking that there are particular inherent values that we recognize, that we are all gifts of the sacred, that we all have the spark of the divine. we have the imprint of god, the fingerprints of the creator on on us. and we to begin to traffic those stories. and guess what? it does not begin by picking up your phone. let me find a good black story. sometimes you got to go and do something. is called read a book. not only read a book, you've got to listen to. the stories of elders. i was asked the question. i was at georgetown university for a book signing and one of our former interns, mahogany thompson, asked this question about stories. and how do you know these stories? i said, well, one, i had the opportunity to hear the stories of my mother, hear the stories of my father and i listen to him. number one. number two is our household, filled with books and all of these fascinating stories that were in these books. and then number three, finding alternative media. for example, the cleveland and post was a black newspaper that had to highlight that was one of their jobs and was a name by the name of john john bustamante owned the paper who was one of the funders of jesse jackson's campaign in 1984. he said responsibility was that he wanted to put stories in the mind of black people that allowed them to fly. that's all he wanted to do. he said he wanted a child to pick up the newspaper not just look at some pictures, but hear of triumph. he stories of power hears stories, beauty and have people sit at the kitchen table and begin to repeat those. i'm a preacher, dr. raphael warnock is a preacher. we tell stories. we tell stories about. this brother named jesus. and when you got the right story, it will change world. if you listen to someone else's story, you always beholden to them. it's like this. if you operate under the that someone else wrote, you will be a character in their movie. but if you write your own script. you to be the star and the hero at the same time. so let's start right our own stories. he does that, by the way in odysseus dream. if you haven't that film, you need to see it. it's a great film. this question is for both of you. this question from donna online. how do we prepare the next generation to be ready to carry the mantle? love and justice justice. it begins with with with where we're ended up. we've got to keep telling the story. one of the most tragic lines, i think, in scripture can be found in the book of judges. i believe the second chapter where says and it says that then joshua died and those in joshua's generation died they were gathered up to their ancestors and the next line is tragic says and there arose a generation that knew not the lord nor the work which the lord had done for israel. i'm struck by that. they've gone through the exodus. they sojourn through the wilderness. they've settled into the land of promise. and joshua, who takes them into the land of promise, he and his peers are now gone. and i think about that that demoss and i were talking earlier about the fact that that we are moving within few years where. folks who remember the movement there will come a time when all the folks who lived through the movement are gone. that's not what was tragic. that's that's the circle of. what was tragic was there emerged a whole generation that didn't know way. they didn't know the god who moses met on the side of the mountain who said, go and tell pharaoh to let my people go. nor the work which god had done for. so we've got to pass our stories, on to our children and we've got to tell those stories time and time again. and that's what this brother trying to do and is doing effectively, not only in his book, dancing in the darkness, but he does it every sunday after after sunday and. we are trying to find creative ways. do it. i just got through reading to the children in the sunday school pieces from my children's book. i just released a children's last week, put your shoes on and get ready and it's it's i'm as excited about that book. anything i've ever read, written, anything i've ever written because it's it's what try to do is put it where small kids can it and we've got to doing that. and think what what happens you're a parent. let me encourage some parent listening or some pastor who's listening. the job of teenagers teenagers. is to be unimpressed with you. and that either and to act like they're listening even when they might be caught short listening or listening and, they don't even know they're listening. some things are taught. most things are caught. that's right? that's right. most things caught. all of us have been. those in the back, the church pastors talking have rolling your eyes. pastor. have been your your your your dad or your mom. but he caught it. he caught the help it. and he's doing the same thing is that he doing it? i got hit. so be encouraged. you got. you got hit by us. we get hit by it. he's like anyone caught. it is hit. you in the head. i want to add to what saying because the radical quality of when you read to the children today you were doing work of teaching them love and justice because you were giving them a story they could repeat. you were giving them images that looked like them so they could repeat the story. and they had images that look them and then they go home and say, mom, when you read that story, the senator read to me, can you read it to me? and then it repeats over and and then over time that story becomes embedded in. you. and that's what we want to do. we want embed some things in our children and the danger is there are corporations that are trying to embed some things in our and so that we to be radical activists who are actively working embed these stories of beauty and resiliency and love and justice and reciprocity respect and grace mercy in our. it's not just dragging them to church and say sitting here it's also going home. and when you pray with your children, i mean, is it some real as praying over a meal that's embedding a story that's embedding a ritual in them. i'll never forget the story was told by samuel berry mckinney. he was, the pastor at mt. zion church in seattle, and he was in augusta, georgia. we were serving in augusta. and he talked about the fact what changed one of the same moments. it changed his life he was, you know, being a teen, doing teens. do i go listen to mom and dad, yada, yada, yada, yada. and he had done something incredibly to to his parents. and, you know he was on punishment in all that. but he saw that his parents door was open and he heard some noise in the room and he was peeking, thought maybe his parents were fighting or something. a peeks into the room and he sees his father and mother on their knees praying out loud for him. he said the image of his parents calling his name before changed his life. he said from that moment on, he said, no, i still messed up. he said, but something embedded in me forever. that there's power when your child hears and power when your child sees. and he said, i wanted to do the same for my children, that they see me on my knees praying for them. if we embed these stories, we will see children that will embrace these ideals. thank you. the last question comes from winston who's nine? who's here? his his question is for dr. warnock. he enjoyed your book. put your shoes on and get. so what was like being sworn in by vice president kamala harris? winston, can you stand? well, you all right, winston. thank you for your question. it was amazing. and i'm deeply honored and. i'm deeply honored by your question. there i was being sworn in by the vice president of the united states. think about that history in that picture and reverend mall moss points out that i'm the first black senator from state of georgia elected, by the way, the same time, george, in one fell swoop, elected his first african-american senator and his first jewish senator in one fell swoop. i think that's that's a good reason to rejoice. but i love it when i go to places. and they said georgia's first black senator and i just want to be careful that we don't say it in way that suggests that georgia is a lagging indicator, because i'm only number 11 in the whole history of the country right. i'm number 11. think about that in the whole history of the republic. i am. number 11. when barack was in the senate, he was the only one that. that's how rare black senator has been in the history of our country. so think about that history. here i am being in first black senator from georgia, only the 11 in the whole history of the country by first black person, the first woman and the first asian person vice president, sworn at the same being sworn in by her. so it was amazing. and i was there standing and you can go back. we're all c-span. so there's some footage on c-span. i shouldn't say this because now folks are going to go look for it's only. i was sworn in and i wanted my children there. chloe is six and caleb is four and and lately caleb has obsessed with karate. yeah. so i come the aisle of the chamber. so there are two. you get sworn in twice. once on the floor of the senate. and actually nobody standing there with but some other senators, because we're the only ones who can be on the floor other than stare and. then there's really a ceremonial swearing in the old senate chamber vice there. your family can be there. my children and i come the aisle. this is a high an incredible moment. and i say, hello, madam vice president. and she's so sweet, kind. and she leans over and she hi to chloe and she says, hey to caleb and caleb tries to karate kick vice president up. his c-span. i've seen a. thank god the secret service their peace and then attack a four year old. she was so kind and it's really quite a moment. so i don't that my son was all that impressed. he didn't know he'll. understand it better. bye bye. bye. well, we want to thank for being with us today for this conversation for our book notes. we want to thank c-span for being us today and broadcasting. and we are going to have the book signing in the back. you want to give the announcements. for reference of that. yes. yes. hello before you exit this lovely lovely sanctuary, we do have a bit of protocol for of our lovely guests joining, us that i am member, our protocol i want to get this right. so i'm going to read it from my phone. we are asking everyone access out of the east door for the book signing the atrium that it will be in. sales will still be in montgomery hall. so we were not doing any sales while service and book notes was going on but we are asking that once your books are signed to, exit through the west door, no one will be able to come through atrium west doors. all right. we thank you for cooperating this lovely effort, and we will look forward to getting those signed. thank