Episode Nine: The Interview-Maury

Growing up with a mentally ill mother, Maury tells of his connection to God and how that connection saved him as a child. Facing poverty on Chicago's South Side, Maury's inspired belief in his sacred connection to God and Spirit led him to miracle after miracle. Listen to the full interview to find out how.

Please note: This track may include some explicit language.

Transcript

Anybody who tells you people like being on public assistance,

That's just crap.

Most people don't like it.

You got to be real lazy to want to stay on public assistance.

I'm probably so short because I didn't eat as a kid,

Along with the very challenging upbringing of having a bipolar schizophrenic mom.

I think what I better say,

And I've been saying this probably since I was in grade school,

Just call me Maury music.

I kind of define myself in relation to music for some reason,

Even though I should say I define myself in relation to my religion,

But I just think the first thing that comes to mind is music.

Let me try to give you a reason why I say that.

So as a child growing up,

People found me highly unattractive physically.

I can remember in high school a girl saw me laughing.

It might have been middle school.

It was middle school.

Even middle school were like freshmen in high school.

I thought this girl was attractive,

But she wasn't all of that,

As some would say.

I was laughing,

And a friend of mine was with her.

This friend went to my church.

At one point during that brief discussion,

I just was there,

And she said,

Boy,

He sure is ugly.

Like that.

The lady from church,

The friend,

You know,

We're teenagers or whatever,

She says,

Girl,

You should not have said that.

That was wrong.

So the whole idea of music is this.

I couldn't play basketball when I was a child.

I couldn't play football.

I couldn't catch,

But I tried to catch.

A few times I got hit in the eye with a ball and went crying,

Because I was not athletic at all as a young person.

I could ride my bike,

And I was good at working on my bike.

So I learned how to fix bikes like second,

Third,

Fourth grade.

I was pretty mechanical.

And so I found out I could sing.

Stevie Wonder had a song called If You Really Love Me,

Won't You Tell Me.

I think it's from the Songs in the Key of Life album,

Which is one of his most famous albums.

Once I found out I could sing,

It's kind of how I saw myself,

Because it was the thing that got me into,

In essence,

The in crowd,

If there was,

When people found out I could sing.

And then later on in sixth grade,

I found out I was smart,

And where the bullies would normally want to beat me up all the time,

They would say things like,

Don't beat him up,

You're going to hurt his brain,

Because he's a brain.

And so that also kind of got me in more of the in crowd when they found out I was smart,

Which,

I mean,

I knew I wasn't dumb.

I could read very well,

But I had never gotten like a high score on a test at school.

And it was mostly,

I think,

A lot of it,

Because I didn't apply myself and maybe because of my home life.

But in my own mind,

I defined myself through this music because I found out I was pretty good at it.

First question you'll be surprised is,

No,

I was not raised in a very religious household.

My mom,

Who was diagnosed as bipolar,

Schizophrenic,

And depressed,

And she was that way my entire life,

She was put in a mental institution for six months when I was in second grade and for six months when I was in sixth grade.

She did not attend church on a regular basis.

On rare occasions,

She attended the Kingdom Hall,

Which is with Jehovah Witness.

I went with her on rare occasions there.

She also went to the Baptist Church,

Which is how I identified from a kid to high school as a Baptist.

But most how I got introduced to religion is through my grandmother,

Who helped raise my sister and I.

I went to her house on weekends and during the summer.

Because of the bipolar and schizophrenia and depression,

My mother didn't always work because sometimes she was too sick to work.

My sister and I would get home from school.

Mom would be in the bed a lot of times.

A person dealing with depression is in not only sometimes physical pain,

But mental pain.

That person doesn't realize what reality is at times.

A person with bipolar,

In my mom's case,

She had huge bursts of energy at night and sometimes no energy during the day.

But my grandmother said,

If you're going to come over here,

Everybody in this house goes to Sunday school.

If you want to,

You go to church.

At a very young age,

After listening to the Sunday school teachers,

I realized that there was something to this God thing.

When I went to church and was in Sunday school,

I loved the Sunday school lesson.

I couldn't relate to everything that was in it,

Especially given my home life,

But I could relate to enough to the fact that I believed that there was a God.

One summer,

My uncle and I,

In the Baptist church,

We had to come up front and say,

I accept Jesus as the Lord and Savior.

At one point,

My uncle and I were talking,

My step-uncle,

My grandmother kept foster children.

My foster uncle says,

Hey,

Are we going to give our life to Christ this weekend?

I'm like,

If you go first,

I'll go next.

So we're basically little kids who are saying who's going to go up first.

But anyway,

We had to come before the church and say,

Do you believe that Jesus died for our sins and He rose again?

Do you accept Him as your Lord and Savior?

I'm like,

Yeah,

I do.

People had already seen God moving my life through my willingness to review the Sunday school lessons.

The way that worked in the Baptist church is after the Sunday school teacher taught you,

They would then say,

Who wants to review the lesson when we go before the rest of the church?

I would raise my hand and say,

Yeah,

I want to say a few things about the Sunday school lesson.

And I would do that,

And people would say,

Amen,

And they would be so happy,

And I would be happy.

And of course,

That was another way to get attention.

I don't think I did it for the attention because it was sincere.

It was from my heart,

But it was fun.

It was fun.

And my uncle would tease me,

My real uncle,

Not a foster uncle.

He would say,

Yeah,

You're going to grow up to be a preacher.

You're just going to be a little preacher boy.

And I thought about it,

You know,

And I know God started dealing with me on my walks to and from my grandmother's house,

But it would be a long time before I move forward with a lot of that.

I don't know if I answered your question.

So was I in a religious house?

No,

Not really.

Was my grandmother very religious?

She made me go to church,

But she cussed like a sailor and so did my mom.

So I grew up in a house where cursing and a lot of the words they said,

White people aren't allowed to say it's that word that starts with an N.

That was used a lot in my grandmother's house.

And she used it.

I don't know how you would say she used it.

I wouldn't call it a term of endearment,

But she just cursed a lot.

But she was a even though she cursed a lot,

She was a loving,

Caring grandma,

As weird as that sounds.

And there were some other things that went on in that house.

It was dysfunctional in many ways and in other ways not.

She had a lot of really good friends her age that loved me,

That helped me learn how to walk.

I mean,

Work like I worked in people's gardens.

I took out people's trash in the neighborhood.

Everybody in that community knew everybody.

And this is a suburb of Chicago as if it were some small rural town.

Your grandmother sounds like a spitfire.

She was.

You did not play with her.

I can see her one day getting into it with her youngest child.

My grandmother had it was my mom,

Her sister.

Melvin Michael,

Guess,

Or five kids.

But the youngest,

You know how the youngest always kind of gets more their way.

I can remember my grandmother who was the Spitfire one time my uncle was kind of feeling his oats.

In other words,

He's being disrespectful.

And they're outside.

And my uncle has some sticks and my grandmother has a broom.

And he's like,

Come on,

Come on.

And she's like,

No,

You come on.

And he's backing up because she's going to hit him with this broom.

And so,

Yeah,

You didn't really mess with her.

I can remember one time I was in Walgreens as a kid,

Probably second,

Third grade,

And the African-American security guard is following me around in the store as if I were stealing something.

And my grandmother walks up to the security guard and says,

My grandson is not a thief.

He's a good kid.

And if you want to follow somebody,

You should go follow somebody.

So,

Yeah,

It didn't really mess with my my grandmother.

My mother loved music and she would play music on back then.

You know,

They had the 45 record player or you had the larger records and she would just let it.

She put records on and played sadly all hours of the night when I'm trying to sleep.

And I used to hate Marvin Gaye's What's Going On?

Because she would play it over and over and over when I'm trying to sleep.

And so I would think,

What in the heck is this awful what's going on song?

And I later now as an adult,

I've actually referred to Marvin Gaye and sang some of his songs during Black History Month at church.

So now I understand what the big deal is about Marvin Gaye,

Because he was a very.

You could say he was a social justice kind of singer and songwriter,

But I didn't know that as a young person.

Also,

My mom played a lot of Stevie Wonder,

Fifth Dimensions.

She had the radio on all the time because even though she was depressed,

I think it was music.

Playing on the radio and the record player,

I think it gave her a happy feeling sometimes.

And every now and then when she was feeling good,

Not depressed,

She would come out of the room and she would snap her fingers and she would bounce her head and she would sing.

Try to sing.

She could not sing,

But she would try to.

To the to the music that was on the radio.

God is so good.

I mean,

I can tell you story after story.

Some people would see some of the stories I'm going to tell you as negative.

I took him as good because a gentleman who's 80 something by the way recently told me about a book called God Winks.

And I believe really my life has been a series of God Winks moments where he was really showing up and only through time and having a relationship with him.

I realized that that was probably God.

You know,

Actually,

I know it was God because only God could have did it.

I'm going to go back to the first instance.

So I told you that I wasn't raised in a very religious family.

But at one point.

Because we were so poor,

I prayed for a 10 speed bike.

I had a three speed prior,

But this three speed bike was so raggedy,

Even though it was bought new,

It was poor quality.

It wasn't a swan.

It wasn't a huffy.

But I was a child.

Swing bikes and huffy bikes were like Michael Jordan gym shoes.

They were the best of bikes at the time.

I didn't get a bike like that because no one was buying it.

So a 10 speed bike was on sale in the Chicago suburbs for forty nine ninety nine.

Back then,

You looked at the newspaper every weekend.

And so I prayed by faith as probably a fifth or sixth grader for a 10 speed bike.

And I didn't know where the money was coming from because my mother received food stamps and public assistance and over a lifetime,

Probably never made more than six,

Seven hundred dollars in a month over an entire lifetime.

That's about her income.

And so this is partially disability and partially food stamps type income.

And she was on Section eight.

And so I prayed for this 10 speed bike and I got it.

And that's all it took.

I knew that I could pray and God would hear me.

I don't know what would have happened if I never would have had that prayer answered.

But he answered it.

Thank God.

And I tell that story today because that bike,

I turned that bike back in the Chicago area.

Bikes were like cars for some people.

I had a basket.

I had a carrier on the back of this bike.

I had a pillow that sat on it.

And on top of that pillow,

I had a radio that was tied to the bike.

And on the front of the bike,

I had two antennae.

I mean,

Two two mirrors that pointed backwards.

I had a on the back of the bike.

I had a flag,

An orange flag that came up from the back.

I had an air pump hooked to the bike.

So if it broke down,

I could fix a flat.

And on the back of the seat,

I had a bag that carried tools in case it broke down.

And also when I was a kid,

Nunchucks were very popular.

So I carried nunchucks in the same bag on the back of my bike.

This bike got me to and from work when I wound up getting a job before high school.

I got my first job at 13.

That was a God moment because working at that job,

Getting less than minimum wage taught me I learned to work ethic.

So this leads me to another God moment.

So I get introduced to this guy who was what he was Greek.

The gentleman was Greek.

He came from over in some foreign country.

I don't remember exactly where,

But he told me that there's always something to do in the workplace.

I started as a bagger.

And I became a stalker where I stocked groceries.

Then I became a checkout person who are cashier,

Basically.

So I would bring people's groceries up.

And one day I found a wallet in the parking lot full of money.

And I brought that wallet in to my boss and says,

Look what I found.

And that see,

The Holy Spirit told me to bring the money in.

God,

Jesus,

Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit says,

Bring the money.

And I never knew what would happen as a result of this.

Of course,

In my little mind,

I'm like,

Maybe at some point you'll give me that wallet so you can have the money.

But what he said was this was I had favor.

Favor can be more valuable than money.

Favor can be more valuable than money.

And so he says to me,

My own relatives and a lot of his relatives worked at this grocery store.

You know how it is when you have a grocery store that all the Caucasian people move out and now all the foreigners come in and take over the grocery store gas station.

And it was like that.

So they took over this grocery store.

And basically at that point,

I could work any hours I wanted to work.

If I needed to go to church on Sunday,

I could go.

When I went away to college and I came home on break,

I had a job.

And if and anything I needed,

All I had to do was go to him and all his relatives knew me and knew they better not mess with me because I had favor with the boss.

But let me get back to the other question.

Did I see benevolence?

My grandmother kept foster kids and she grew up during the Great Depression.

And no matter how many girlfriends my uncle got pregnant and he broke up with him,

She would give clothes and anything else to those girlfriends and their children.

And my grandmother's house,

And this was probably a thousand foot.

Three bedroom,

Three bedroom,

Four bedroom house that was only probably about 11,

1200 feet back then.

Built in the 60s.

She had a room that was so full of toilet paper,

Paper,

Tiles,

Dish soap,

Clothes that basically anyone coming to their house could shop like they're at the grocery store.

When I came home from school and I got ready to go back to Carbondale,

My car would be so full I didn't even have enough for my suitcases.

It would be full of food and stuff and paper,

Tiles and stuff I got from my grandmother.

So her benevolence,

People knew.

All her foster kids knew if they came to her house,

They could get clothes,

Food.

And she didn't ask for anything.

She just gave it to them because that's what she did.

Of course,

My grandfather wasn't so happy about the messy house.

That's what she did.

And she knew how to find a bargain.

She could find a bargain.

When I was 10 years old,

She took me to get my Social Security card and to open a savings account.

She taught me about savings.

I always had money.

Wasn't a lot.

But I never,

Because of her,

Ever spent all money.

I was never,

Ever broke.

My uncle was probably four or five years older than me,

And he knew that if he ran out of money,

He would come to me and say,

What do you have that I can hold for a little while?

He would come get money from me.

So,

Yes,

She was a giver.

On the other hand,

My mom,

I couldn't even go over my grandmother's house till I went to the grocery store and help people with their groceries and earn money to buy her cigarettes.

At times,

I also had to go earn money to buy food because many months we didn't have enough food to make it a whole month because she would run out of food stamps.

Anybody who tells you people like being on public assistance,

That's just crap.

Most people don't like it.

You've got to be real lazy to want to stay on public assistance.

I'm probably so short because I didn't eat as a kid,

Along with the very challenging upbringing of having a bipolar schizophrenic mom.

I used to call myself the money finder.

I began and I didn't know anything about confessions of faith.

A confession of faith is something like saying that I have favor everywhere I go and everybody who sees or thinks about me likes me.

That's one example.

But there are others where you incorporate scripture,

Where you're doing this confession of faith.

When I was a child,

I can remember on many occasions finding money.

I'm not talking about a dime or a nickel.

I'm talking about twenty dollars,

Ten dollars.

I used to think,

Man,

I wonder if somebody robbed somebody and dropped the money because I would find money.

I can remember being in the office at school.

They called my parent,

My mom,

And says,

Your son's in the office.

He said he found some money.

I had it.

I could find it.

I had it.

Of course,

Probably I was bad.

You shouldn't be walking,

Looking down.

But I got in the habit of walking,

Looking down.

And you know,

It snows in Chicago.

So you need to be watching where you're going.

But because I would find so much money,

I had a habit of looking down.

And literally,

I can remember many occasions I found money.

And yes,

I did want to know who's it was.

But if you find it in the street and there's nobody around,

What can you do?

But it becomes yours.

And I would just tell people,

I found this money and I believe it was God.

He knew we needed that money.

I was just thinking your streets were paved with gold.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Green paper.

Yes.

Yes.

I think that is kind of one of the miracles about your story is just you feel,

Hear,

Understand the Holy Spirit,

And then you act on that.

Eventually.

Yeah.

I mean,

Even the decision about college,

College was interesting.

So my girlfriend's pregnant out of wedlock.

We get married before the baby comes.

And I'm thinking,

Boy,

You have messed up your life,

You know,

And yet God was still moving.

And so the baby had some fluid in this and in her system when she was born.

So she had to stay in Cook County Hospital,

Which everybody probably knows anybody from Chicago knows that's closed now.

But that's where the baby was born.

And I knew I needed to get to college,

Even if we had had this baby.

And I'll give an example.

So.

She's sitting in a hospital school starting soon,

And at the point she was pregnant,

I was like,

Man,

I got to go in the military.

I got to go in the military.

I need extra money.

I tried to go to basic training.

But couldn't get there because it was too late in the season.

I waited too long.

So I found out about something called SMP or ROTC,

ROTC,

Which is a way that people become commissioned officers in the military.

Two weeks before school starts in faith,

Not even having ever been to SIU Carbondale,

Not knowing anybody there.

My grandmother writes me a check.

I think it was for seventy five dollars.

And I and I pay for my own train and I get on the train,

Leave my then wife and new baby sitting in Cook County Hospital.

She was with her mom so her mom could help take care of her.

And I go to Carbondale.

I get to campus and I'm like,

Where am I going to stay?

And they say,

Well,

If school starts in two weeks,

We'll give you a dorm on campus.

And they put me and some other drivers in the dorm and I go to the ROTC academy and they put me in what's called a two week summer program where they train me in all aspects of being of some basic aspects of being a cadet headed toward the path of becoming an officer.

And little did I know,

Nobody else I know who was commissioned in ROTC knows anything about an on campus summer program.

That was God opening that door because most people go to a five or six week basic camp instead of an on campus summer program.

And,

You know,

God provided food.

He provided this place to stay.

And God was telling me,

Get on that train.

Nothing for you in Chicago.

Get on this train,

Go to school.

And God worked it out.

And then God did another thing through ROTC.

They had a five week,

Actually it was a six week advanced camp.

And this is what you do before,

Like a year before you get commissioned as a second lieutenant.

I was supposed to go to Fort Riley,

Kansas.

They were full.

This is how,

I don't think this had ever happened in the history of ROTC and Carbondale.

I wind up at Fort Bragg,

North Carolina.

And as you know,

That's where the airborne rangers are and all the key military.

Not only do I wind up at Fort Bragg,

Where I get some of the best training there ever is,

My battalion commander,

Which is a senior ranking military person over a lot of soldiers,

Was a preacher.

And during this training of six weeks,

I got a chance to go to his church and sing.

And people who saw me marching around and being military like would say things to me like,

I've never heard anything like that in my life.

They had never heard the gospel sang like that.

These folks that,

And the only reason they came to his church is because he was basically our boss.

And during the middle of the week when you're not going through training,

You need something fun to do.

But God even moved during this time.

I can remember,

So a military cadence,

A military cadence is a type of call and response,

A type of communication usually done while you're marching or singing.

And we know in the African-American church,

Because back in the day,

African-Americans were illiterate,

A lot of songs they learned were call and response.

And so I guess that's where the military got it from.

I don't know for sure.

But anyway,

I would sing a cadence called the Army Colors.

And the Army Colors song says,

The Army colors,

The colors I'm wearing to show the world.

And it's just the Army colors,

Colors I read to show the world the blood we shed.

And so we'd be marching around and I'd be leading this cadence where people would repeat back what I'm saying.

And some guy walks up to me after we get to doing this.

And he's like,

Your voice is like,

I can't remember what he said,

But he basically said he felt like crying not because it was bad,

But because it was touching his heart.

The Methodists believe that grace is at work and it's wooing you or pulling you toward God long before you know it.

And I don't know if I were,

You know,

The Methodists think of these grace in three different types,

Provenience and there's two others they talk about.

I just call it grace.

And so,

Yeah,

He's been there and I don't know why I believe.

I almost sometimes figure it's like,

Man,

The alternative was so much worse.

I felt like I needed a God to depend on because there were so many bad things that happened.

And I can remember just like some adults are today,

They'll go to God and say,

God,

Why are you allowing this to happen?

This should not be happening.

You're a great God.

I remember some times like that when I was a kid,

But after I became an adult,

My child life was so bad.

Being an adult was so much better.

I never felt like I gave up on God.

This has been episode nine of Bite Sized Blessings,

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

If only 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'd like to thank the Reverend Rory Clay for sharing his story today,

As well as the creators of the music used.

Sasha End,

Agniesz Fomazia,

Winnie the Moog,

Raphael Crux and Alexander Nakarada.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite Sized Blessings website at bite sized blessings dot com.

And remember that's bite spelled B Y T E.

On the website,

You can find links to other episodes as well as to books and music I think will brighten your day.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Maury and never give up on that higher power that you believe gives breath to this universe.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.