Episode One: The Interview-Dee

In this longer interview, Dee details how her early childhood and her Mother's example set the stage for Dee and her view of how to be a blessing in the world. Her miracle was her Mother-hear how a childhood incident shaped Dee and how she relates to her community and her work in this world.

Transcript

My mother taught me there's always something to share. Always make your heart more open because that's just what God does. God comes in and helps us to open our heart more to people. And that is its own reward quite often. I am fiercely determined. I am, I feel like I am so attuned to my sense of purpose to be a blessing to humanity that nothing will get in the way of that. I believe in a very intentional universe. I have studied a variety of concepts of the sacred and I feel like we all gathered a little right and I believe that we all bear within our beings and our core selves the essence of the divine and I am determined to stay grounded in that so I can be guided and when I'm guided by that even though it may not be comfortable it feels right and it feels relational that's even a better word it feels relational I feel like like I'm connected with a higher order of things if that makes any sense and it delights me. It delights me. I can't imagine not having a sense of the sacred. Even as my theology has changed and grown over the years I still feel a strong essence of what is greater than me operating through me as me and that is very sustaining. It's interesting because I mean I just think about visits again because my mind like the sacred operates at a totally different higher level you know so you have to get into the right mindset kind of like have the right attitude or the right relation with it to then work with that energy which is so divine. Well I was born into United Methodism basically christened and everything United Methodist I will baptize really I guess it would be more so but we use the word christened. My parents were not married my father bless his heart he was an apostolic holiness preacher. Daddy actually has a very interesting path not to get off on him but I'll just say he he had a wife and eight kids and he walked out on them unfortunately. This was before I was born and the thing about it is when I have talked to my siblings about that their report was we were glad when he left because he was just so mean and so daddy and my mother got together and I was produced and basically my mother was so happy to have me and I've heard the stories over the years about how glad she was you know even not being able to count on him she was just glad she was having this baby and she had me she was so happy and my mother was very overprotective and you know from what I recall we were always in church. From the time I was five years old to about 11 my mother went seeking she just felt like um UMC wasn't that UMC anyway wasn't giving her what she needed and so she went to various other churches. And so behind you my father was not a consistent presence in my life when I was small so there were times when you know I would see him and he picked me up on weekends and sometimes he missed times and all that but whenever daddy was preaching I was never with him and that that's kind of the structure of being you know so so-called outside child you don't get to be included in everything and even though he had left his wife and he would take me and drop me off to his kids home and stuff like that they had kids that were my age because they were older and so I grew up you know off and on playing with my nieces and nephews and you know that seemed more like cousins and only heard him actually preach once as an adult because I chose to go on my own but my mother would take me to these Pentecostal churches and I think what she was looking for was more emotional engagement and so I was raised with that influence. We studied with Jehovah's Witnesses for about six months took me to visit a Seventh-day Adventist church she was just trying to figure out what kind of scratch church itch I think and then we came back to the United Methodist Church when I was about 11 and then from that point I think it was more consistent. I remember going to a W. E. B. Grant tent meeting and oh god they were talking about Armageddon and the end times and playing really loud music to where you it almost felt like the horses were galloping on top of the tent you know it just scared me to death and so I grew up with the combination of all these different things and what you know initially it was just very like daunting like oh my god what do I believe because as a child when you're more concrete and you're understanding you think like I got to pick something but as I continued to grow I learned oh my god everybody thinks they're right oh and it's just interesting and so then as an adult it was still somewhat confusing and you know I ended up bless my heart getting married to a man who was so much like my father that I realized like I still have some work to do and so I continued to do personal work and what I discovered is as a child that mentality that I have to pick something was limited to childlike thinking as an adult I am very open and I consider myself multi-faith in that I respect all pro social faiths and so when I chose to join the unity church after I read their their beliefs and their tenants and how they develop it just felt right I'm like I can have my own subjective belief system and I can also be really open to respect other people's belief systems and that felt right to me so what I learned in childhood in my upbringing is that a lot of people are intense about a lot of things and what it boils down to is how are you going to choose to live your life without projecting anything onto anyone else what do you count as sacred and how can you live into that it's so rich and it's paying off now because I see the world very differently I don't have religious stuff to break off of me when you know I've talked to some of my friends who've been in denominations all their lives which is great and you know for them you know there's been a lot of stability there and then for others who've been in certain denominations all their lives they were like yeah I never quite agreed with this and this and this and so they had a lot of wounding to outgrow and so I thought wow I got to experience an assortment of people and to learn that you know they're just people there's people trying to figure stuff out much like the people who wrote the bible I'm just trying to figure it out it's not that they're right they're right for them but they're not right for the rest of humanity and so then I began to respect that journey early on in my walk I was very evangelical very very evangelical and so there were certain details that mattered more and what I found is that over the years as I developed this different view of God I went I mean I really went from God on the throne with the scepter in his hand with the living creatures around him you know God with the long beard to God as an energetic source leading each of us on the planet to our highest good and when I say that I want to qualify that by saying the stuff quote unquote of God for me is in every human being but there are structures of power that prevent people from living that out and I have to say that as a person who is part of the new thought camp you know if you will because sometimes we can get so into you know love and light that we forget about structural injustice and my heart is tethered to the reality of that as a black woman a black lesbian I ain't gonna let that go I'm not gonna drink Kool-Aid and act like that doesn't exist okay I don't I don't get the privilege of being privileged in this lifetime at least and so that does not escape me and I will be an influence for good in any way that I can regarding that so I say that with that qualifier we must do better especially those of us who believe so much love and so much light we have to look for the structural injustice and be a blessing to other people or else they're not going to experience the same love and light we claim to experience I tend to see God as being very operative every day all day so when you ask me for specific incidences it's hard for me to kind of wrap my brain around because I just tend to not think of it the same but I will say this and this is hard for me to say too because if I look at the blessings in my life like recently I have a mentor a woman I asked to be a mentor about three maybe four years ago an African-American woman who was absolutely beautiful her name is Reverend Kathy Beasley she is ordained in the Unity Church and also in Christian Science actually and is quite amazing I mean sorry divine science and so I was hired by her to be her director of operations at the Central Florida Center for Spiritual Living and it amazes me how things come around and you know I'm doing my you know I just do what I do and sometimes I don't I'm usually trying to think of the bigger picture and the subjective picture in life and sometimes I just get surprised you know one day I was speaking and I was like oh my god like I have two aunts that I both love I love them both dearly I have one aunt who's very evangelical and one aunt who did her own you know research of various you know religious cultures and she landed in divine science and which is now the Center for Spiritual Living and so it's so interesting how over the years she would suggest a book here you know or send me a tape or a CD and how through my whole walk I went from evangelicalism to this place of new thought where I'm like this is just my personal natural evolution when I look at that I and that's been relatively recently I thought oh my god like I could not have built this path if I tried because I wasn't on this track I was on a very evangelical track I was very concerned about being right and helping other people be right get it together get right or get left we used to say and laugh about it you know the whole left behind thing which is completely no longer funny so when I look at this pandemic and how awful it's been it's just been completely awful for so many people for me to to interview finding out about that position and then interviewing for it not having planned or known or you know it's just the way that things came together and for me to get to serve such a sweet group of people and they're just really deep and smart and like man they're just cool people that I would get to be included in that in the way that I am and just get to be in community with them and love them for me it is the stuff of God believing personally that God is both internal and transcendent there are things that we will never know about the divine and learning that's okay that's part of the surprise of living and so for me to get hired and to be able to have that as a second job and as a delightful you know responsibility and to be included in the community the way that I am I mean while people God bless them are losing their jobs I gained a second job and so to me that's God and so because of that I took that very seriously and I thought like who can I bless because everybody ain't doing all right and so I've been able out of the overflow that I've been given to help some folks and that means a lot to me because growing up I feel like because of the situation that I was in you know being the child of a single mother we were always on the receiving end of you know of whatever and there just seemed to never be you know enough my mom had her own struggles and so for me to be in a position where okay I get to be the one that gets you know to be the blesser that's just the rent you pay for being on the planet to share and my mother even taught me in the little that we that we had be benevolent be benevolent anyway God will always give it back to you don't worry about it and I remember in my younger years I worried about it I'm like you're giving stuff like you know there are things that didn't even make sense and my mother always instilled in me you got to open your heart wide honey you open your heart wide. I was probably in the second grade there was a little kid bless his heart like me in my class and he lived with his family in the neighborhood and I remember my mother telling me you know their family is struggling right now and we lived in a two-bedroom apartment it was decent and I had my bedroom and everything and I mostly slept with my mom I was just you know mama's baby all up under her and so I had my bedroom with all my stuff but you know it's really rarely in there and so she said you know their family is having a hard time and she said I need to I need us to give them you know the stuff in your room and I'm like what you know and I'm an only child nonetheless no matter how benevolent she taught me to be I was in second grade and so I'm like yeah that didn't go well and I was like why so she was like they just they needed and you know they got somebody coming over you know to check and make sure that they have it and she explained it to me as you would a child and so that day we went over to their home which was about four or five blocks away we walked there and I remember going into that home and I remember looking on the floor and there was like a bunch of sand on the floor and it was a house that wasn't the greatest house I remember them having a pit bull I remember sitting down and playing with the dog I remember there being a lot of kids all different ages and Nicholas I think was the youngest and I remember looking around meeting his mom and as I sat there and took it all in I remember thinking oh I get it and later on I grew to understand it was a DCF thing a Department of Children and Families thing like they needed to have he need everybody in the home needed to have an adequate space to sleep in and it needed to be set up to where it was appropriate so that the kids wouldn't get removed from the home when I experienced that it's like okay I went from being frustrated about my stuff being given away to I'm with my mom all the time there's enough to share and she bought me a whole new bedroom suit anyway I mean it just happened in time so it wasn't even a big deal but it set the groundwork for me to consider there is no shortage of resources in the world we just have to look at some things differently and what did it matter to me anyway outside of being young and and I don't want to stay selfish but just not knowing better just being at that place of maturity where I couldn't see beyond my own experience I had a certain perspective and then when I went and I spent time that perspective changed because now I was connected with the people and now I understood because something happened because I was there in their environment relating with them and so I think for me I could give you so many examples of my mother's benevolence and how she sowed seeds of care in me that for me when I think of God or experiences that's what I think of how was I set up to think about other individuals even in a place of being quote unquote disadvantaged my mother taught me there's always something to share always make your heart more open because that's just what God does God comes in and helps us to open our heart more to people and that is its own reward quite often you taught me how to be a decent human being oh my god I've worked with many people over the years probably thousands at this point who were given everything except their parents souls I'm like god I got her soul you know she imprinted upon me the importance of being a good human and so for that I can look back redemptively having worked through the hurtful stuff and go golly I'm so grateful for her and has she lived again she died the semester before I graduated from undergrad and I say if she had lived a few more years because as I matured and became more capable of talking about my feelings from an adult perspective I could have had the advantage of asking her questions and getting clarity and getting her on a different level and I think that would have resolved a lot of things but it didn't work out that way so it is what it is but I can definitely say as a 46 year old person at this point I think everybody is doing the best they can that maybe I'm sure there's some that aren't whatever I'm not talking about them I don't know them but everybody's doing the best they can and the main person I'm responsible for is me how am I going to take what's been given to me how am I going to open my heart wider how am I going to become able to see the people that I have held to task about stuff even in my heart how can I let them off the hook and go damn they're all right they're just trying to figure out God too just like all the people who wrote the Bible just like all those people I engaged with when I was little just like my father just like my mother people are just trying to figure shit out like lighten up and I think that's the lesson of my life lighten up and just love people. Sounds like and also listening to you about your mother it sounds like she really modeled for you how to be a blessing and that that is that is such a powerful powerful gifts and you know some of the people I interview might call that powerful magic that is it's a gift she bequeathed that to you it's you know you can it's not tangible out there you can't grab it but you make that gift tangible in the world which is where the power is yes and to me that's the essence of God absolutely that's thank you so much for telling me about that because I've been reflecting on just listening to your path and you know you're talking about your aunt sending you these books or these tapes or CDs and it really does sound like your path was carefully stewarded to get you to the place where you are now which again is another form of you know witnessing spirit or God in someone's life when you're in the middle of it you don't realize it's happening you just are taking the book you're taking the CD and then you are having that time to reflect on it but still it's I'm listening to you and that's what I see you know the other thing that I was reflecting on which isn't really pretty is I find it very interesting that your father left his original family and then you know met your mother and now here you are and even in that I see something divinely ordained divinely created all that whole situation it's terrible that he left his original family but now because of that we have you which I find a lot of grace and beauty in that thank you for saying that yeah for years I and I didn't talk with my sibling I didn't talk with my siblings about this because you know my brain you just don't do that I will say this I really struggled with you know had he been you know had my father done the spiritual things that he should have been doing you know I wouldn't even be here like you know what I mean and I was so angry and hurt about that because I'm like Holly I just played out you know how could you just walk away and leave them and you know that whole thing and you know and then you know show up in my life and not be that present at times and just just the chaos that that creates for children and I felt so bad I just felt so bad that even in spite of his inconsistency what I the stories that I heard about him and my experience with him was that the person he was I still got the best of him but even something good that God loves can come out of infidelity and in spite of the infidelity I don't have to pay for that my whole life and I don't know what that I didn't know what it meant at the time I didn't know what it would look like I just knew that somehow I felt loved by God and that story matched with my experience and that was enough at the time to bring me some relief from from that that weight of guilt for just existing I'm so grateful to have worked through the issues that I had to work through because they were mine they're all mine you pray when you study when you meditate when you do whatever it is that you feel that you need to be doing that allows you to develop new neurological pathways to greater truths and you're able to receive whatever the divine is downloading or uploading however you want to call it to you you can make some shifts in your life to where you don't have to pay for other people's indiscretions but over the course of my life when I think about it people have always you know kind of told me I was sweet and what I attribute that to personally really is the soil that initiated my life I have my mother I mean she had her ups and downs when my mom smothered me with love and kisses and hugs and just oh just teaching me how to open my heart wide you know I had grandparents who were just wonderful we went over to their home frequently they were with them walking distance you know like I said already teaching me how to be benevolent that was my safe place I had great aunts and a great uncle who were just amazing and loving and wise and smart just smart people and warm people and so when I think about my personality you know I've often thought like golly like there are some rough edges that I surely I'm trying my best to deal with had I not had that kind of upbringing where people were really warm and really present I don't know how you know when I think of it as a therapist like psychologically like where would I have gone you know like how would I have how would I have developed if I wouldn't have had people who were very anchoring because even as people that I love my elders died I always look for strong anchors it's the thing that made me ask my mentor Reverend Kathy would you please mentor me because I saw something in her a lot of stuff in her that I felt like I needed that I didn't have the therapists that have been my therapists that have worked with me over years at different times in my life I'm like god I need to be grounded in the goodness because the world will take that from you the world is a hot mess in many ways and it will suffer goodness right out of your soul if you are not tethered to to goodness and for me you know I will say that goodness that sweetness that other people have sown into me that's the stuff of God for me absolutely it's it's sometimes you don't even know you're being blessed when you're being blessed by someone you find it out later often than not exactly more often than not I mean I have so many volumes of people that I reflect on that I'm like oh I have this like them and I have this like this one and I'm like god thank you for role models if I had to nutshell it I will say that I mean I've had an ex telling me like you're just sweet so I get to be that now for other people and that that is thrilling. This has been episode one 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 offering for that five to ten minutes in your day that you have free or the full interview we're grateful that you're here I need to thank Dee Terrell for sharing her story today as well as the creators of the music used Sasha End, Raphael Crux and Alexander Nakarada for the complete attribution please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at BiteSizedBlessings. Com and remember that's bite spelled B-Y-T-E on the website you can find links to other episodes as well as the books and music I think will brighten your day thank you for listening and here's my one request be like Dee and go be a blessing in the world. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.