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Can't bless who you pretend to be or who you compare yourself to he can only bless you and the lane that was created for you You don't need no edge entity you need boundaries
Okay, listen, I have a very serious question for you. This honestly,
Low key. It's probably the most serious question you'll be asked all week. How churchy are you? Like, are you so churchy that you insert church phrases into regular degular conversations? Don't front like you haven't replaced saying okay with a man and quiet as it's kept. I know I'm not the only one that changed the color red to red like the blood of Jesus to add more context to the shade of lipstick I'm looking for. Uh,
Drop me a comment on the socials on the woman involved comment section and tell me how churchy are you? And guess what? To my new girls, not so churchy. Guess what? That's all right. Some of us more churchy than we need to be too much churchy. We'll hold it down for the rest of you. What's more important than being churchy than being full of all of these colloquialisms is having a real authentic relationship with God. It will change the way you see yourself.
Friend
Hey, you. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. Can you believe the level of like adulting people would allow us to step into in this season? It's not right. I was like, they have no idea. They have no idea. I think we're doing a good job fooling them because people really think that we're adults out here.
They do. They do. I mean, you know, you put on a little lip, you pay a bill or two and people be like, oh, she got it together. No, ma'am. She doesn't. She doesn't. But we'll go with it. We'll go with it anyway. Thank you for doing this. Of course. Of course. I was like, Sarah could ask me to fly to the moon. I'd be like, what time? Just know I'll never ask you anywhere that I'm not going with you. You don't want to go to the moon? No, no, no, no. How's your city? Earth.
New York is good. You know, it wants to be summertime, but not quite. You know, we're in a love hate relationship with the weather right now. But are you obsessed? Do you love it there? Will you ever go back to Atlanta?
Probably not. Lower Willow and the Creek don't rise. I love New York. I live right in the middle of Harlem. I can walk to brunch, walk to church, back to brunch. Things are good. It really suits you. It feels like once you move there that like you opened up. I don't know if it's just how expansive the opportunities are there, but I can definitely see a shift between like the person I met and who you are now.
Yeah, I think New York is one of those cities where you get with it or you get left. And I think it just pushes you into that place. But I love it here. And there's so much room to just...
be who you always wanted to be. And so, you know, I think the culmination of all that really pushed me into this place to like test out who I always imagined myself to be, but didn't have the courage to be yet. So I feel like when we talk about like testing out who you want to be testing out what's possible for you, that I have seen you kick the tires of,
on so many different incredible and fruitful things. We're not just like kicking the tires and not being fruitful, but I have not seen anything more powerful than seeing the way that you have been advocating for single mothers as of late. Like, can you tell me, like, obviously when we met, we were both single mothers. So you've seen my story kind of grow and transition. So I know where that passion comes from when you've had that firsthand experience, but you have like really just seen
taken into another level. What happened? You know, yes. So there was a shift that happened when I moved to New York. I was working in church spaces. I worked for a Methodist organization. Then I moved into executive minister role at a church here. And then I took a turn into politics. And it was a very unexpected turn, something that I've always been politically engaged, but never on that side of the veil.
And when I brought together like my church and theological with this political thing, I realized that all of the things that I was able to do as this black single mom from East Atlanta who moved to New York and had all these opportunities, there were some key things that were present in my life that I found was not present in the lives of other black single moms like me. And so I just felt like.
There was this calling to bring all of these lived experiences together to create the current project, which is the organization that I run, to really close the social and economic gap that black single mothers experience when we think about access to jobs, when we think about putting money in their hands to ensure that they can pay for childcare, to go back to school. All of those very practical things that often are barriers.
And it very much was a response to what was happening in the world in 2020, the pandemic, thinking about who was, you know, what was happening in our government. And
needing to respond in real time. Even though we are a secular organization, it is very much sacred work, right? It is a theological work to think about being the hands and feet of Jesus. How do we respond to the needs about this particular demographic in really meaningful ways? And the opportunities just opened up when I switched my intentions to doing that work.
the rest was kind of history. So. Okay. So I want to know, you said that there were some key tools, some key ingredients that you had that you recognize other single mothers didn't have. What were those key ingredients?
So it's one of the things I love to call the community of reliable others. These are the people who are watching the babies while you're at work or while you're in school. They're the ones that's giving you the holy handshake and making sure you got money in your gas tank and all those types of different things. There were these key moments and key ingredients about access that people afforded to me as a single mom because they trusted the call in my life. They trusted that
the stories that I had were worthwhile telling. They trusted that the decisions that I made about my life were the right decisions, right? And they equipped me with access and opportunity. So I think that's one thing. The other key component has been...
The room to mature and grow. I mean, you know my story. You know, when we met, I don't know, gosh, seven, eight years ago, the things that I was talking about and the ways that I was seeing the world has shifted so much. But it's been because people have just given me the grace to like literally test out everything.
what do I feel like who I am this year? You know, what do I feel like I'm really called to lean into? And whether it's politics, whether it's in the church. And I think so many Black single mothers do not get the grace to grow and mature into who God has called them to be.
They are bogged down with these stereotypes, with these expectations to be and perform a certain way. And what I find is that black single mothers are one of the most innovative members of our community. They know how to make a dollar out of 15 cents. They are deeply compassionate and passionate about the world around them. But they often find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place between the narratives that people have for them.
and the things that they have dreamed for themselves. And so being able to lean into that community of reliable others who gave me access and to really lean into the opportunities to really imagine who I could be in the life that I was called to live were two major things that often are missing from the conversation when we think about resourcing this particular demographic. I have never heard community of reliable others before.
And it's a thing. It's a whole thing. It's a thing. It's actually, I can't take credit for a professor in Emory, Dr. Gregory Ellison. That's his term. And I have adopted it. I tell him all the time. I was like, I use your stuff, brother. It's mine. I stole it. It's so funny. We, you know, I moved to L.A. eight years ago when I met my husband and.
And we went back home to Dallas for a little while, for a week. It's the longest. And we had an Airbnb. Usually we stay at my parents' house, but we stayed at an Airbnb for a week. And my husband's like, I never see this side of you. Like, what is this? And I think there's something about being in that community of reliable others. We had something that was broken. I called my friend to wait at the Airbnb. One of my friends offered to keep the kids while we went on a date. Like, there is a sense of security and stability when you know you have that community. And a lot of times we think that in order to support,
If we can't write them and check them, we can't do anything at all. But I hear you saying like people were advocating for me on their level when I was in my process still because they just brought what they could to the moment.
Yeah, no, that's right. You know, part of the way that we think about our work is how do we temporarily alleviate these barriers that get in our way? And oftentimes the barriers are financial. But what we are finding is that what many of the moms that we work with, they really looking for community. They're saying, look, I have the vision.
I want to work. I am in school. I do have the viable business idea, but I literally do not have the excess income to ensure that my child has child care between the hours of six and nine at night, two days a week. Yeah. Right. And so we have said, OK, well, we will alleviate that burden. Right. We will advocate for help you advocate and create the conditions at your workplace where you can.
can say to your boss, these are the things that I need. This is what it's going to take for me to thrive. And this is how I can move this path and move this process forward. I think that's such a critical point, Sarah, is because so much of their approach is about money. You know, as an organization, we're committed to fundraising and doing right by people.
by having a moral budget and raising money and getting that money back into the hands of mothers. But we should also remember how critically important it is for these moms to have community, to have people that they can trust, to have people who can be their sounding board, to have people who believe their story. Yeah. Who believe their story. Yeah, absolutely. No, go ahead. You were in the flow, but I just, I wanted to underscore that.
Yeah, to believe the story, because remember this as as black mothers, there is such a
historical lens that is on our story, on our narrative as Black mothers, right? We can go all the way back to, you know, slavery time where we think about the role of Black mothering in this country and in this world. And even though we have often told our story from our own perspective, we are often told that the story tell is not the right one, right? That it does not fit into whatever mold
or whatever ideal that people have. And we are in a place now where we are uplifting the story of Black women, uplifting the stories of Black mothers, but also thinking about how we begin to shift
Our how we spend our money, how we create policies, how we create theological doctrines that center the truth of the matter. And the truth of matter is that these mothers are deeply committed to their children. They're deeply committed to the communities that they live in. They're the ones that are giving the holy handshakes and making sure the children get fed and making sure they get into school. And they're often doing it with.
very restricted resources, right? And so it is the trusting of that story that we begin to center and reimagine what's possible without thinking about the external lens that often tells us that our stories are invaluable or incorrect.
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There are like 3,000 things I want to ask you now because it's just like boom, just bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb going on. Man, I think when it comes to community and our ability to support specifically black single mothers, that I think part of the reason why we don't show up for our sisters to show up for our cousins, our aunts, our friends is because we think just because this story is common
just because it's one that we've heard before that it somehow makes it easier for someone to navigate because oh your mama had to do it and oh your cousin had to do it and so you'll figure it out too and we remove ourselves from being a part of the solution and I think there is a necessary re-engagement that requires us to say if my sister if my daughter if my cousin if my friend is suffering then this is part of my ability to be an answer to her prayer and I think that
that level of re-engagement, what we see you doing is, could be literally world-changing, like community-changing, culture-changing to really re-engage on a human level with the people in our lives again. Yeah. I mean, that is the longer-term approach to this new school of thought, right? Is that
We are often tied to a struggle narrative, right? Just as you said, if your mama did it, your grandmama did it, your auntie did it, then you being in a place to struggle is a part of the narrative. And what we are challenging is, is that, yeah, there's beauty in the struggle. There's innovation that has come out of struggle, right? But when do we get to a place where we reclaim what is beautiful?
what is innately ours, which is a place of rest, a place of peace, a place of abundance where struggle is a secondary narrative and not the primary one. Right. And a part of our work at the current project is, um,
to think about how do we not only program these things to help Black single moms thrive, but how do we begin to champion for policies that sustain the growth? We often find that we program our way into supporting Black single mothers and women across the diaspora, and we get them to a place of thriving, and then they go back into a world, into a system that is actually not sustained to create, to sustain the thriving, right?
And so then that means how to begin to create policies that, um,
that helps sustain that thriving in really meaningful ways so they are not in this up and down roller coaster situation where they're constantly in this place of thriving then surviving thriving then surviving right how do we kind of create this consistency amongst their lives and then thinking about sarah what are the ripple effects right because in black single mothers who are one of the largest single households in the country in most urban cities
When that community is thriving, then what is the possible income outcome for the rest of the community? Right. What does it mean for our children? What does it mean for our elders? What does it mean for the community at large when you have one of the largest household types in most urban cities in a place of thriving?
Okay, so what are some of the current policies or lack of policies that play a role in that ebb and flow of thriving and surviving? Because I really want to bring awareness to the system that is set up to often keep us from sustainability. And maybe as we highlight those systems, we can empower women in their communities to also begin to do this work as well.
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So you think, for instance, the child tax credit payment that families were getting over the course of 2020 and 2021, when that ended in January of 2022, 3.7 million children were thrust back into poverty.
Right. And so with a child tax credit, typically what happens is when people who qualify for it, they get it as an addition to their tax return. But because of the economy last year, they were sent they were sending it out as individual payments month by month.
So when they stopped that payment, 3.7 million children went back into poverty. And all of the data shows that when working class and poor families have access to monthly cash on a regular basis, that those children are more likely to eat quality foods. They're more likely to not be food insecure. They're more likely to not be facing with housing insecurity, right? And so part of the, one of the things we need to really think about is how do we create policies that use data
that show that these types of ongoing cash assistance programs work. Another example is we think about the very welfare system, right? And when we say welfare, I know that can be like a charged word, but we think about things like TANF and food stamps and childcare subsidies. All of that is a part of the welfare system. And we think about these moms who we like to talk about as Midler moms, these moms who are working, right?
But they make too much money to qualify for something like food stamps, but not enough money to make sure that they can keep food on their table. They're in this really weird, wonky place. And part of the reason is because the policies as they're written often use an antiquated standard for what we consider poverty. A family of four, depending on the city, is in poverty if they make less than $24,000 a year. Mm-hmm.
Now, I live in New York City. Yeah. And when I and I know people who make eighty thousand dollars a year here and it's still not enough. Right. So another policy thing that we should be thinking about as a community is how do we champion for a type of policy that's
that increases that threshold. Instead of saying the poverty threshold for a family of four is 24,000, we may say it's 50,000 or 60,000, right? To give more people longer runway to have access to the type of support that they need.
Okay, so I hate to interrupt all of this good conversation, but I wanted you to know that I want to talk to you too. I want to hear your story. I want to hear your thoughts and opinions. You can send me your application, your video to be a co-host to podcast.
Podcasts at womanevolved.com. Let me know what it is you want to talk about, why it's important to you that you be on the podcast. Maybe you're like, girl, I am not going to be on anybody's podcast. I don't do talking to people. First of all, this is a sign. Overcome yourself. But if not, you can send me an advice question. Podcasts at womanevolved.com. Okay, let's get back to the podcast.
So how do you keep this fire alive? Because there are some people who are like, you know what? I'd love to do this, but it feels like an uphill battle. An antiquated system means that it's been antiquated for a long time and the likelihood of me changing it in my lifetime feels impossible. It takes a certain level of...
perseverance, determination to say that I am really going to put my boots on the ground and I'm going to weather every storm, every policy. I'm going to advocate for this people group. But like, how do you continue to do that when you realize that you're taking on Goliath, you're taking on this system that's so much bigger than you? Two things.
The first I will borrow again from a professor in Atlanta who talks about the three feet around us, right? Is that when we try to take on these huge Goliath of problems that we try to tackle them, you know, in big bites. But what he actually proposes that we only be concerned about the three feet around us, which is basically our arm length, right? Okay.
And the arm length is often the person next to us. Right. And so we think about these three feet around us who are the three feet of influence that we have. That's often an approach that we can take and see what is it that I can do with the three feet around me. But the second part I want to offer is, is that this fire and passion is.
deeply rooted and lived experience. And I think that is the core of advocacy. That is the core of championing for things. That is really the approach that Jesus took is that there was a lived experience that is completely, that is completely mine. And that is tied to my story that drives the work that I do. I often find that our inability to sustain our,
a level of advocacy that really gets things moving is because we're trying to do it out of a place that is disingenuous, right? We're doing it out of a place that
because it looks good on social media or because we think so-and-so is now the cool thing to do. But my experience as a Black single mother who has faced eviction, who has faced food insecurity, when I was in grad school, my daughter and I were living out of my car, moving house to house, and I was still in grad school working three part-time jobs on campus like
All of those things drive the kind of fire and passion to kind of create a world. And if not a world, at least the three feet around me that creates the conditions for black single mothers to live into their dreams. But with but without having to do with so much struggle. Right. And, you know, that is.
The model that I think that, you know, why I often say that even though we are a secular organization, it has a deep theological ideal about religion.
into the truth of our stories and letting the truth of our stories fuel the work that we do, fuel the conversations that we have. Because that's the thing that sustains you is when the money is not coming in and the people not listening to you and the folks telling you that your approach is all wrong. It is the thing that is your own lived experience. When you look up in the morning to see these babies or see these houses or whatever the case may be, that is the thing that will continue to push you beyond
what the world will possibly tell you is not even valuable. It's like I got chills when you were speaking because I think social media and just the way that the culture is set up in general makes us believe that if it's not a big splash, that it didn't do anything. But the truth is that if you...
are going to make a difference, then you do have to be closely connected to it. And I'm just thinking to myself, if you've never been the one person who needed something different, then you don't believe that you can make a difference. But if you've been that one person who's like, listen, I wish that there was just one person who would have done this, one person who would have said this.
then you believe that one person does matter because you were that one person. And it sounds like you're like, listen, if it's just one, thank God that it's been more than one, but it does matter if it's just one person. What do you think you're most proud of that the current project has done so far?
You know, gosh, we're so proud of so many things. You know what I think I'm most proud of? I am most proud of being able to give the moms that we work with new vernacular to how they talk about their stories. I remember when I first moved to New York in 2016, that was the first time that my daughter and I were not on welfare. We had been on welfare her entire life, public assistance, all that stuff.
And so when I moved to New York, I'm happy to be transparent. I was making like $80,000 a year and I was hype. I was like, woo, most money I'd have never made. But the rent was like $2,800 a month. And when you calculate that with the health insurance and the cost of a pack of bacon being $12, $80,000 wasn't exactly what I thought it was. But I raised that because I remember talking to somebody about, you know, my journey as a single mom working in the church and
And I named myself, I was talking to myself, you know, I'm a black single mother. I'm a, you know, I'm a welfare single mother. And I was like, no, you're not. Mm.
No, you're not. But I had been using that narrative for over a decade at that point. It was just a part of my like storytelling was a part of my like DNA because it had been a part of my story for so long. And the reality was I actually didn't qualify for food stamps anymore. And so that technically made me no longer a welfare mother. Right.
And we talk about this in the current project when we're talking about money and finances. We always pause to think about personal narrative and about our stories that we have created for ourselves and what have been told to us. And we take real intentional time about unpacking those narratives, both socially, religiously, culturally, culturally.
And we try to just do a little fact checking. Are the things that you have been telling yourself, are the ways that you're talking about yourself, is that still true? - Yeah. - Right? There are parts of our stories that we are holding onto because it's deeply connected to our family lineage or is deeply connected to someone that we used to love. But sometimes the things that we call ourselves
are just not true anymore. And so the thing that the current project has done that we think is a really innovative approach is making those intentional pauses to get moms to reimagine their stories, reimagine the narrative. And that's something that you can't quantify, but it's great when I talk to moms and they're like, yo, I had never thought about
How long I had been calling myself this and it just was no longer true. Right. And you've given me the tools to reimagine a narrative. And in thinking about how that reimagined narrative now equips them to approach things like finances, like personal relationships, like small business, thinking about going back to school with new eyes to say that, you
If I can reimagine this part of my life, surely I have the capacity to reimagine and dream these other parts of my life that have been sitting dormant for so long. And so that's what I'm most proud about. I can run down the numbers and the fundraising and all that. But giving moms a new narrative, the language to think about their story in a new way is incredible.
is really dope. That's what I'm most proud of. Do you think it's hard for us to like disengage from those stories because we're afraid that we may get back in them? So it's better to just stay in them than to take this step of faith outside of them? You know, I don't know if it's that we are afraid we're going to fall back into them. I think that we have built community around those narratives. Ooh.
Like you think about we have built entire lives around the way that we have seen ourselves and been seen by others. So to detach ourselves from the narrative is not just a matter of a soul thing, but it's a it's a one on one. It's a one on one thing. It's about us.
What are the what are the possibilities of detaching from that narrative? Me may need detaching from particular relationships. Yeah, it made me detaching from places. We work places. We go to church. And so I think there's a real fear. Yeah, I know that was the fear I had was that like, yo, if I can't rely on this narrative anymore, if I can't say that, you know, woe is me and I'm in this.
It's like horrible place. What does that now mean for the relationships I have to people and to institutions? And I think that is often the real fear that we have. But one thing that I know for sure and two for certain is that when we lean into
The possibilities of a new narrative is that on the other side of that is also new relationships, new ways of being, new cities to live in. You know what I mean? Like just new ways of life. And so I think that's it. I think that we're just afraid of what happens.
what we stand to lose when we shift our narratives. But the fact of the matter is we actually have so much more to gain. And maybe that's what you've seen in the last six years of me moving to New York. I was like, oh, snap. Look at me. I'm somebody. I didn't even know I was somebody. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah.
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I'm afraid to ask this question and we may have to edit it because I don't know where it's going to go. But I have to ask the question because I would not be myself if I didn't just lean into the hard things. But I've heard you talk about institutions and religion. And so I want to know what role has theology played as it relates to the narrative that the black single mother possesses about herself? And I don't even know where this is headed, but I know I know.
Let me tell you something. Don't let the Reverend part fool you. This is not the Reverend that you may have grown up listening to. Oh, God, she sips water. Here we go. I'm stressed, y'all. Don't be stressed. The role that the church... Listen. Help, Holy Ghost. Yes, come Holy Spirit. So look, there has been...
long standing theological ideas that have disenfranchised black single mothers or single mothers in general in many churches. And I use church with a capital C here, right? Institutionally. And so I think there are so many things at play that have marginalized this particular group of
because the institutional church is afraid of its own freedom. Black single mothers, single mothers have had to make a choice and they often live into that choice, hail the high water. They often live into the choice by public opinion, often live into the choice despite public support. And the church has often been the place in which
Black single mothers often first find out that what they have done is shameful. It's often the first place that they realize that there is some kind of shame attached to being a single mother. And there's always this blatant just forgetting that Jesus, as we know, was born to this teenage mother. Yeah. Right. This underage teenage mother who also made a choice. Yeah. Right. Right.
And the church has been the place. I remember when I first had my daughter, she was maybe a year or two old. A year or two old. And I remember just feeling this level of shame. Not for my family, not for my friends, because they were the ones that showed her to the baby shower and bought the diapers. But when I brought her to the church, well, we don't think you really should be singing songs.
in the choir anymore until you feel like, you know, until you reconcile this. How am I supposed to reconcile? Right. I got to, it's here now. What do I do? I can't change it. Yeah.
And so what I'll offer up is that maybe not a critique of the church, but where the church has the opportunity to really help do some healing, right? Where we begin to reimagine theology, where we begin to reimagine how that theology is often patriarchal and misogynistic, how the theology is often counterintuitive to the notion of a liberate of Jesus, right? That theology...
positions people to, we think about how critical the church has been and the civil rights movement and like bringing justice to marginalized people. But then we go into the pulpit and tell women that their bodies and the decision that they make for their bodies are sinful. Mm-hmm.
Right. And so it's liberation for some and not liberation for all. And so I think the opportunity is for us to be really intentional about building ministries and building programming that is reimagining theology in really meaningful ways. And I'm keeping it real. I know you are. I know you are. I know you are. I was going to say something crazy. You have to cut all that. No, no, no. But I think that's the opportunity. Right. Is that we.
began to really interrogate. We need to really interrogate what it is that we are reading in scripture and how we are applying it to, and applying it with the lens is that, is the way that I am talking about scripture in relation to this particular group of people, does it give them freedom? Does it free them up to live the lives that they were created to live? And as an institution, am I putting the resources to work to ensure they're thriving? And if the theology and if the church does not do that,
then we're not on the right path. Okay. And I'm going to leave. No, no. Well, here we are. We're here now. Let's start it. If we're going to start it, let's go. Okay. So I think the fear though in teaching a theology of freedom is,
even though we serve a God who's like, I'm going to give you free will. Like God says, here's your freedom. Like here's your freedom. If we teach this freedom, I think we're afraid that people will live without conviction. I don't think we have enough trust in conviction and,
And God's ability to with loving kindness. I drew the like I don't think that we trust God's ability to help a person see what their truth was versus what it is now and to be safe within that truth and to have space to really say, like, listen, it is not my job to police your life. It's not my job to tell you what you should or should not do. If God didn't want to do it, I've I've.
I for sure cannot sign up for this job. And yet I am afraid that me not placing these boundaries and limitations on you will create a version of you that lives without conviction. So I think it, I think, but I want to hear what you say. Like, is this a battle for control and power? I mean, we benefit from the power of the powerless, like what's happening here and let's try. Yeah.
Ooh, you said a word. I was like, I don't know if she's going to turn the corner, but she said it. Control. Yeah. Right? It is a delicate balance. Yeah. Between the notion of free will and like all these things. And I want to be clear that we are talking about in the confines of the institutional church because someone will come in and say, and hear saying, talk about America and the Constitution. Like, right. We're talking about, right.
But again, I think there's an opportunity for us to interrogate this notion of power in the church. Yeah. Interrogate.
Who what is the genesis of this notion of power? Because if we really want to be honest, especially in black and brown churches, this notion of power in the church is a white supremacist idea. Right. We think about the notion of white supremacy and how white supremacy in the Bible was used hand in hand to control people, to control ideologies, control how you showed up in the world, control how you dress, controlled who you did it, you know, the things that you did and who you did it with for the sake of power.
Trying to belittle a particular group of people to bring up the supremacy of another. Right. And so we have to be careful to make sure that when we are trying to create boundaries for how folks show up, that is not rooted in.
white supremacist ideas, right? That we are, that we, that we, and here's the thing. And one of the things I say all the time when I'm, when I'm trying to explain to people the approach that I take when we talk about black single mothers is that we do not trust that they have the capacity and the will and the ability to hear God for themselves and
To make the right decisions. And oftentimes the institutional church doesn't want to relinquish that control because they really haven't done a good enough job in teaching people on how to hear the spirit of the Lord. Okay. Don't start now. Cause like now we could be on here for another hour. Yeah. Go for it.
But I mean, but I'm serious. We saw this in the pandemic, right? In 2020, about how we were having to pivot from in-person church to online. And part of that, we were hearing this from parishioners all the time is who's going to pray for me? Who's going to do this for me? And what it showed is that we have not done a good enough job in teaching people to seek God for themselves.
Right. Where all the power and all the prayer and all of the programming and all of the outreach has been happening from the institution down when Jesus's model was this way. Yeah. His model wasn't this way when it was coming to connecting with people. Right. When he thinks about when he talks about the disciples, he said, listen, you fall.
faithless generation. How many times do I have to teach you and tell you that you have the power and capacity to slay demons, to pray for the sick, to heal the sick, right? And so,
I think part of it is that I think you're absolutely right, that it is a matter of control, that we need to begin to interrogate what is this notion of control and needing to like not let people have a free reign. What is that really about? But it really is an opportunity for us to think about how well of a job we have done in equipping people to seek God for themselves, to hear God for themselves, to resource them in really meaningful ways. Because often the things that we fear, right?
that people will do when we give them free reign is that people are doing that because they lack opportunity, because they lack resources, because they are in a fight or flight every day of their lives.
So what does it mean for the institution to reimagine even its financial resources, its building resources, its real estate resources to alleviate some of that pressure? Take some of the pressure off the pressure cooker. You cook. You know what it is. You put the lid on. Turn it on. Them oxtails be cooking real good. You got to take some of that pressure off before you take the lid off because if you take the lid off before you take the pressure off, what happens? Explosion. Okay. Okay.
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We did good. I think we did good. I couldn't have you on here and not...
At least create space for the fullness of who you are to emerge. I started following you for a reason. I think that I am obviously a product of the church. Like I'm a church girl, like, and yet I also have dealt with being on the other hand of what it means to be one of the people who break the rules, who no longer have a clearly defined space, who we'd rather sit in the back so she doesn't contaminate the others. And yeah,
as I've created woman evolved, one of my goals has been like, come as you are girl, like, listen, bring your raggedy, bring your beautiful, bring your journey. Like, I don't want you to pretend to be anyone. And I've really been burdened to like, really begin to expand that into a girl's version of it. Cause like, what does this look like on a girl level? But I don't want another girl's ministry. That's like, don't have sex before marriage. Like I,
want it to be something that feels real because I think if we do a good job, we won't have to say that your body has value and worth and that you should honor it by being selective over who you engage with. Like, I think if we do it the right way, we're not just giving them this rule book, but we're restoring dignity and purpose and just really honoring like your body and this, you know, all the things that it can do and why it shouldn't just be out
there for anybody. You know what I mean? Like, I think there's an opportunity to make our young girls feel power filled and protective over their power so that their power isn't abused by someone who wants to take advantage of them. And I don't want to just do it because I have a women's ministry. I want to know what I'm going to say to them. And you challenged me to really think about the options and opportunities that I have. Good. I mean, look,
I almost forgot where I was. I think that's good. And I appreciate you taking a pause and thinking about what that looks like. Again, whether you are a little girl or a mother in the church with the right mindset.
with the access to the right information people really do have the capacity to make the right choices for themselves and that's the things that we have to trust we just have to trust that um because to not trust that i think we see we've seen the counter that so many times when we try to like enforce and force and force um and you know you're raising daughters i'm raising a daughter and i when i was i was in i've been in therapy every day for the last four years amen hallelujah jesus every week i should say
And when I realized that, you know, when my daughter and I were having these like teenage angst things around like sex and like honesty and all these things,
And when I realized that I just needed to give her enough information so she could make choices. Yeah. It was a game changer. It was a game changer because me imposing, and this doesn't mean that I'm not like offering wisdom and like being insightful and all these things. But when I took just a small pivot to say, well, look, I want to offer you up. Like it could go this way. It can go this way or this way. This is all the information you need to,
And I the hard part was for me to sit back and just wait for her to make the choice. Yeah. And I'd be like, Lord, let me make it. And nine times out of 10, she did. And then in the one time in the time that she did it, there's the opportunity for correction. There's the opportunity for like, well, let's sit with it a little bit more because of X, Y and Z. And so, you know, I think that you have something through your lived experience.
as raising for raising daughters of being able to see from your own experiences that when you are offered the information we need when we're honest with our girls when we're honest with young women about the realities of life and how that can play out
And when we, especially young girls, when we give them the opportunities to play into these scenarios in safe, comfortable spaces, right? They actually hone the muscle it takes to make hard decisions in real time. And so I think you're onto something, you know? Ashley might be a little too old by the time you get it, but make her an ambassador. We have a mentorship program. Now be quiet, I'll let you go. But I do think...
that when a girl who grows up in church is disempowered or shamed by the church because she broke the rules, that it teaches her a distrust of the church, but also a distrust of herself.
And what I love about what you're saying about laying out the options is that it gives the power back to the girl who will become a woman. And it gives her the opportunity to make the right choice, to make a difficult choice and have to reap the repercussions or consequences connected to that. And then to show up again. And I think one of the things that I am learning in my 30s, honestly, is to trust myself again, to trust my voice, to trust my decisions because the consequences were so rough.
When I made the wrong choice or I made a difficult choice that it made me feel like I don't deserve to choose again. And yet life is a choice every single day. And I want to be able to choose again. So I'm more careful with my choices now. And I think we got to give people the ability to choose again. Yeah. I mean, that reminds me of.
you know jesus he was talking about forgiveness but i think it's also about the ability to choose he said get that fall seven get up eight yeah that's a choice that's a choice he says when you when you fall seven get up eight like that is a choice right and so i think that again there's such an opportunity in this like new this dispensation of where we are about
looking at scripture in this new lens of giving people liberation and freedom, right? And equipping them to do that because that was Jesus' model. He was like, listen, before you was life or death. That's still a choice, right? But I'm going to give you, I'm going to show you the miracles
I'm going to show you the love of Christ. I'm going to show you the possibilities of the kingdom. I'm going to give you everything you need so that you can make an informed decision. And he knew that these decisions that people were making were up against empire. It was up against society. It was up against policy. It was up against poverty. It was up against all of these things. But even Jesus trusted.
that with the right information, with a good community of reliable others, whether that's 12 or 2000, with the resources people needed to thrive, that folks really can make the right decisions for themselves and ultimately the right decisions that create the conditions for the entire community to thrive. And so it's a new way of thinking about it. I don't know if the people ready, but listen,
We here. You know, I will say, though, you know, Jesus told the woman caught in the act of adultery after he really quieted everyone down. He doesn't say, now stick with me so you don't do this again or stay here so that you can just stay in this place where you receive the miracle. But he says, go and
And sin no more. Like go and choose differently than you chose this time. But so many of us get delivered. We barely make it past something and we just stay stuck in the place where we got caught. But I think it's, you know, we call it caught.
in the act of adultery. And I think that it speaks to the fact that we can get stuck and caught in a circumstance where at the end of the day, we got to be willing to get up and go again. So I'm thankful that you got up and you went to New York. I'm thankful that you continue to choose differently and that it gives us permission to choose differently as well. So much respect. I have so many friends that are so much smarter than me. And I just love picking your brain. First of all, thank God.
that I don't have student loans because y'all got them. Y'all paid all of the school things and now I get to just hustle off of your degree and just pick your brain. That's it.
I'm so grateful for who you are in the earth and the work that you're doing. So thank you. Thank you, friend. I really appreciate it. I love the organic growth our relationship has had over the years. Yeah. Staying connected. Well, I love you. I'm here. Love you too, sis. I'm going to talk to you soon. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye.
I tried to tell you this was not going to be the regular conversation that you're used to. At minimum, I hope it was thought-provoking for some of you. I hope that it changes the way that you engage with those around you. My prayer is that I will continue to unearth the truth that God has deposited into my life so that I can share it with others. Alicia, so much love, so much respect. Thank you for joining us.
If the spirit is moving you, if your own relationship with God is trying to put something in your spirit, I hope it's that you will join me in being a co-host. If you want to slide into the inbox and send us a video one to two minutes long telling us why you should co-host with me, you can do that by reaching out to podcast at womanevolved.com. If you're like, listen, I am not one for the co-hosting, but I could use your perspective. You can send us an advice question there as well. I will see you next week.
I'm not going to stop.
I think I love it, love it. Never underestimate the power of attorney. Always bet on tax. Reasonable Doubt. New episodes Thursdays. Streaming only on Hulu. Most deals are barely worth mentioning, but then there's AT&T's best deal on the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 featuring FlexCam with Galaxy AI. You can get in on them when you trade in your eligible smartphone any year, any condition. It's a deal so good, you'll be shouting from
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