Giving the Talk

            Thank you for all the encouragement and support for my keynote at the Collin College Martin Luther King, Jr. Power Leadership Breakfast. I really appreciate all the comments you made on last week’s blog. It is so wonderful to know that I am not alone in whatever I do, even if I am standing on a stage by myself.  You are with me.

            I reached a point before the talk where it was what it was.  I had put into all I could.  I was ready to let it rest.  I had a good energy around what I was going to say and began the process of working on how to deliver the talk. The last fifteen years when I preach, I write an outline then memorize the outline so I can preach without notes. This is dangerous because I’ve been known to forget what I was going to say and because I can go off script, which I often do. This is good because preaching without notes helps me to connect to the listener.

I see the outline as a guideline. I will insert comments that come to me while I preach. Once I have the outline memorized, I can work on the flow of the message.  How will this all fit together? How well am I communicating what I want to say? Friday I did lots of work memorizing and rehearsing so I would be as prepared as I could be.  No forgetting key points.

            Saturday morning, I was nervous with high energy as I expected.  I was like a horse in the starting gate, ready to go. I was toward the end of the morning program, after the breakfast, proclamations, awarding of scholarships, invitation to give for scholarships, and a wonderful student program.  I was introduced by the President of Collin College and began to speak.  Just a few minutes into the talk, I knew all the preparation and struggle and angst and hard work was worth the effort.  I had reached the point where I knew what I wanted to say and why I wanted to say it. I believed that I was speaking the words I was to speak into that moment.  Any nervousness I felt disappeared.  It was a wonderful powerful moment. 

The Holy Spirit truly did her part. The talk was an invitation to the dance and a loving of the souls gathered.  It was an invitation to deep soul work, which is what racism is. I was willing to shine the light into the darkness, to talk about racism, a topic we are not to discuss in our society. It was a hard talk, because I discussed my own racism and the racism of our society.  I believe our way forward is through conversations with those who are not like us, for whites to ask blacks, “what’s it like to be a black in this society,” for blacks to ask whites, “what’s it like to be white in our society.” Since racism is primarily about power, our way forward is to speak truth to power.  The room was filled with powerful people. We must have a conversation as a society, more than just as individuals.

            The talk was well received.  The audience participated with me in the talk, with head nods or shakes, comments, and encouragements.  When I was done, I got a standing ovation. I am very appreciative of the attentiveness of the audience and their listening to what I had to say.  I received some wonderful comments afterwards that helped me to see I spoke to the mind, heart, and soul.

            The greatest gift to me out of this experience is that I became clear what I am to be doing, my mission at this moment of life – I am to be a lover of soul and inviter to the dance.  I am to do deep soul work and invite others into this soul work.  I am to stand in that tension between light and darkness, love and hate, knowing that light and love will eventually triumph. It is not always comfortable to do this soul work.  Lots of heartache and grief, fear and anger. Lots of standing at the cross and at the empty tomb. This is what Christ did and this is what Christ is calling me to do.  Lord, help me, please.

If you would like a recording of the talk, message me.  I am not going to post it on Facebook at this time.