Episode Fifty-Three: The Interview-Moses Mason

Moses had a plan-a 5-step plan! In this longer episode, hear how a former preacher ends up in law school and how what we think is our path is only one stop along the way. As well-how miracles and magic are all around us.

Transcript

Probably what came close to a miracle in the hospital setting was actually in my first week at the hospital here in Houston,

A young girl,

I think she was in her late teens,

Maybe young women,

Women,

Women,

I should say young girl,

Young woman in her late teens,

The doctors knew she was going to die.

And so my first week,

We're in the ICU praying,

Asking God to help us accept her impending death.

And I'm like,

Girl,

They're walking out of the hospital.

I tell people that for the most part,

Obviously my name,

Moses Mason,

You can't help but when you see me,

That you see an African American man,

Athletic build and very oftentimes a serious demeanor and disposition.

So that's how the facade looks.

But then on the deeper levels,

I'm actually quite introverted.

So at a party,

I'm going to do my best to hold up that wall.

And eventually I'm going to get off the wall and actually start engaging people.

But it's going to take me a little bit.

You might have to give me a drink or two.

Nice spirit to loosen me up.

So I'm going to talk about nature.

I'm an introvert,

But I can start talking once I get into a certain comfortability level.

So obviously I'm a man,

I'm an African American man.

My religion,

I still identify as a Christian,

A member of the Baptist church,

A member of the Baptist faith.

I attend a very liberal Baptist church now,

But being identified as a Baptist is actually pretty important to my identity in that I identify with the priesthood of all believers,

The idea that we're all servants and ministers of God.

I do believe obviously in the Jesus narrative from birth to crucifixion,

Resurrection.

And I believe in the message of Jesus.

I'm a very heady guy.

I love academic dialogue about religion.

I used to love politics until recently and then just current affairs.

So those are the kind of me in a nutshell as a human being.

I will tell you now I'm a law school student entering my third year at South Texas college of law here in Houston.

And so now in addition to my passions for history,

Religion,

Now I love engaging the law,

How does it affect our lives and how does it intersect with those other arenas that I came from?

I was going to ask,

Do you know what kind of law you'd like to practice yet?

I have no clue.

That's one of those things I'm waiting on God to tell me.

I know what I don't want to do.

There'll be no tax law in my future.

I've definitely decided that for sure.

I've done the whole five-year plans,

10 year goals,

Your five-year goals,

Your 20 year goals.

Where do you see yourself?

I've done all that stuff.

And quite frankly,

Again,

It didn't happen the way that I thought it would.

So for the most part,

I am walking by faith,

Not knowing how this adventure is going to end this law school adventure.

But I know that God eventually will put me on the path that I'm supposed to be on.

And if I'm not on that right path,

God has a way of knocking me off of one path and putting me on another one.

That's been my story.

My father at one time was a Baptist minister.

He's no longer.

My grandfather,

His father was a church pastor until his death.

And my uncle,

I got several cousins on that side who were all preachers.

I think my uncle now is the family preacher.

On my mom's side,

My mom was raised in the Baptist church and my grandmother obviously raised her in the Baptist church.

So for the most part being Baptist is definitely part of my DNA.

Unlike my mom's story though,

Where for the first 18 years of her life,

She was raised in one church,

In one faith community.

My mom's story in that faith community is a mixed bag.

And so as a result of that,

We were raised in many different Baptist churches.

We church hopped probably for the,

You know,

My first 18 years of my life,

I went to a variety of little neighborhood,

Black Baptist churches.

It's strange.

I'll tell you,

I was born and raised in the Baptist church,

But that has an asterisk in there because there's no one particular Baptist church during my childhood I could claim membership in.

So yeah,

I grew up in a religious household,

But definitely with a healthy dose of skepticism about religion also.

Well that's kind of fascinating.

Yeah,

It's a,

I'm still trying to make sense of it.

It's been years trying to make sense of it because again,

Being Baptist is still central to my identity.

I like the idea of,

I can have my own personal relationship with God.

I don't need a mediator.

I don't need,

I don't even need a building.

I don't need a pastor.

You know,

I can read the word for myself.

I can interpret the word for myself and live my life consistent with that interpretation,

Always subject to change.

So that's,

That's,

That's part of my DNA.

You know,

What keeps me from being Catholic or Episcopalian or even Presbyterian is I don't want to have to report to anybody.

And in those churches,

I'd be reporting to somebody.

The only people I want to report to is God and the congregation.

And I like that freedom.

I accepted the call to ministry in high school.

I was in the 11th grade.

I'd always felt I would be a pastor.

I've always felt I'd be a minister of sorts.

I had a church ministry future.

I've always felt that as a kid.

So it was 11th grade.

I applied in the middle of my 11th grade year for an internship to Israel.

I got a,

It was a six week,

All expense paid internship to Israel for members of Texas's 18th congressional district.

And I applied for that internship and interviewed for it.

And I remember laying in bed praying and hoping I would get it.

And I remember,

I remember the bed shaking,

But I wasn't shaking.

And this is Houston,

Texas.

We don't have earthquakes here.

So I remember the bed shaking.

I wasn't shaking.

And I remember praying,

Laying in bed saying,

Okay,

God,

If you award me this trip,

I will accept this call and I will accept this,

You know,

This,

This,

This ministry task.

And sure enough,

A couple of days later,

I did get the call that I was accepted to the internship.

And so the summer of my junior year,

I spent it in Israel.

But just before I went to Israel,

I had told my pastor you know,

What had transpired and that I'd be,

You know,

I would like to preach my first sermon when I came back from Israel.

And so I spent all of Israel,

You know,

Obviously seeing the sights of,

You know,

I read about in the Bible.

I spent a lot of time praying.

I also spent a lot of time making sense of my,

Of my reality.

That is my junior year just before all this had transpired.

We had a devastating house fire that that gutted the house that I was born in.

And my mom was born in.

And so this house fire had displaced my family.

So I spent a good part of the Israel trip on one hand,

Seeing the sights and on the other hand,

Trying to make sense of this devastating fire.

And so then I thought that I had resolved it all in my own 16 year old mind or 17 year old mind,

However old I was at the time.

As I came back and preached my first sermon,

When the going gets tough,

You got to keep on going out of Job.

I want to say about a month after preaching that sermon,

A classmate committed suicide.

So whatever I thought I had resolved,

You know,

In the summer of 1994,

You know,

From the house fire,

The call,

The Israel experience,

That suicide just shook my identity,

Sense of self,

Because he was a long term classmate.

We went to middle school together,

High school together,

Very good guy.

And I and the day it committed suicide,

I had some strange things that happened that afternoon on the bus ride home,

On school bus ride home that post suicide,

I understood or I sort of kind of understood what was going on.

That's how my ministry journey sort of kind of began.

Going out of a house fire,

Going to Israel,

Coming back and then being plunged in a have a deal with suicide.

Even in my church,

I belong to a liberal liberal congregation,

So we often talk about the magical God,

Just again,

That God I just described of one who radio turned water into wine,

Raise the dead,

Bed 5000 and that kind of stuff.

And yet I still cling to that,

That that I mean,

If we want to call it magical God,

So but I would not call the things that I've seen,

I've experienced,

I've witnessed magic by any stretch of imagination.

I would call them modern day miracles,

Where I can be led to call a friend,

Just because I just need to call that friend and come to find out that that friend actually needed that phone call right then and right there.

And that has happened on multiple occasions.

I would call that a miracle.

Probably what came close to a miracle in the hospital setting was actually in my first week at the hospital here in Houston.

A young girl,

I think she was in her late teens,

Maybe young,

Young woman,

I should say young girl,

Young woman in her late teens,

The doctors knew she was gonna die.

And so my first week,

We're in the ICU praying,

Asking God to help us accept her impending death.

And the girl ended up walking out of the hospital.

If you asked me about,

Do I let go of miracles?

No,

I don't.

Because that girl,

And usually nine times out of 10,

When doctors say you're gonna die,

You're gonna die,

But she walked out.

I consider it a miracle.

Even last year,

My mom got COVID back in March when no one knew what the hell was going on.

And the paramedics didn't think she had COVID.

But we come to find out later it was COVID once her illness was long enough,

And then she described the after effects of having to regain her strength and energy.

But my mom has every health condition that's in the medical handbooks.

But she didn't go to the hospital,

And she recovered.

And just recently,

She had a hospitalization for a different reason.

And the doctors had tested her for COVID and said,

Well,

Ma'am,

Where did you go?

Because with all your health conditions,

You're supposed to be dead.

I would consider that a miracle.

You know that she didn't die when people were dying left and right in those early days.

Miracles can still happen.

I don't know if they are the instantaneous things that I've seen that I preach about when I do preach in scripture.

But I'm more than willing to say that miracles still happen.

Let me just look different.

The other thing that I've learned through this process of interviewing so many people is that,

And what's so enchanting and lovely about hearing all these stories is every single person has a different idea of what a miracle is or what a miracle looks like.

Here I am starting this podcast with my idea of what a miracle looks like.

And my idea is rarely anyone else's idea.

And so it's been just the learning curve has been steep,

But it's been so worth it.

And it's been so beautiful.

It's been such a beautiful process.

Realizing that so many people consider so many different actions or words or witnessing sacred in this world.

And so it's been really such a gift to me in my heart to hear all these incredible stories.

And like I said,

I just came into it so naive about what miracles look like.

And I have,

I'm hopefully on the path to being set straight.

Oh,

I'm not sure if you,

I'm not sure that would ever happen to be honest with you.

It's always evolving,

You know,

Faith evolves,

Our stories evolve and what we thought we would be,

What we thought we believed,

All that's constantly,

I'm constantly evolving.

So I don't see the path being,

I don't know if I'll ever reach a place where I know for certain it,

You know,

Certain all this,

But it's a journey.

One last question,

Then I'll let you go for my own edification.

When you were,

You said you were young when you initially began the chaplaincy at the hospital.

And did you have any fears or were you ever a little scared about,

You know,

Death and just kind of being around death on a regular basis?

Was it,

Was it scary for you?

I've been around death since I was six years old,

But you know,

My grandmother was in her eighties,

She was 83 when she died.

The first funeral I,

Or wake,

I remember going to was her older brother.

He was the oldest of the crew.

And so I remember going in that way,

You know,

Again,

I'm six.

So I had been comfortable with death and the idea of death.

And a lot of that was because,

You know,

Again,

These are older people that were dying.

I had also gone to being raised in Houston's inner city.

You know,

I had friends,

I had classmates who were shot and killed,

You know,

You went to the wake,

You went to the funeral again,

And there's a rationale behind those.

They were shot and killed.

The suicide is what,

That was the one that kind of stunned me.

But I've been around death since I was a kid.

I went to the hospital the next day after my grandmother's youngest brother died,

My great uncle,

And I saw his dead body laying in the VA hospital.

I'm not afraid of death.

I am afraid of dying.

Now that I'll tell you,

I'm afraid of dying.

But death,

No,

You know,

Death is,

It's a part of life.

You know,

We have one life and it's about what you do with it.

And this life will come to an end.

I know I am afraid of dying as well.

And sometimes this image comes into my mind of me,

You know,

Holding on with my claws and I'm not going to let go.

I can see that.

Thank you so much for listening to episode 53 of Bite Size Blessings,

The podcast all about the magic and spirit that surrounds all of us,

As long as we open our eyes to it.

And whether you choose to listen to our bite sized offerings for that five to 10 minutes of freedom in your day,

Or the longer interviews,

We're grateful you're here.

I need to thank my really generous and very kind guest,

Moses Mason,

For sharing all of his stories with me,

As well as the creators of the music used.

Aloha,

Chilled Music,

Alexander Nakarada,

Music L.

Files,

Horace Hoffman,

And Frank Schroeder.

Without the generous contributions of these artistic creators,

Each episode would be very boring.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite Size Blessings website at bitesizedblessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to other artists,

Music,

Playlists,

And changemakers that'll be sure to rock your world.

You can also find the podcast t-shirt.

Click on the link,

Send me some information,

And the t-shirt is yours.

Thank you for listening,

And here's my one request.

Be like Moses.

Sure you're a preacher,

But what about law school?

Be patient,

Enjoy the process.

You might not know where it's going,

But have faith you'll end up exactly where you're meant to be.

When you get your law degree,

Will we have to call you sir or?

No,

Just still call me Moses.

I'm pretty good with that.

No need to dress up anything,

That kind of stuff.