We want to take this moment to welcome everyone to Trinity United Church of christ here in. Chicago, illinois. We are a church that believes that we are called to be in the heart of this community, ever seeking the communitys heart. And our motto is that we are unashamedly and unapologetically christian. Dont think that there is any contradiction between rooting yourself in your culture and also celebrating the christ whom we serve. And so were delighted that youre here for our book notes. We had a 1 to 4 worship experience today to. Worship services with a magnet officer and preacher who is to my left. And none other than reverend dr. Raphael warnock, who is raphael warnock, who was the first africanamerican senator from the state of georgia. He has two publications, one being a way out of no way is a memoir of experience from savannah all the way to the senate and a wonderful Childrens Book he read to a small of children immediately following worship service, we recorded that reading that we hope that these young will be able to look back and say they had the first afro in american senator from to read a childrens to them and that book is a wonderful story that shares the experience of dr. As a child all the way up to being in as senator and get ready put your shoes on as theyre ready to get ready to put your shoes in your shoes. All and get ready put your shoes on and get ready. And its some beautiful art, wonderful story. So we are delighted that you are with were going to have a word of prayer and then were going to begin our conversation. We do this book note series. Weve been doing it throughout the pandemic, talking to different authors and having conversation about their work and it exploded here at trinity, where we just thought wed have a few book to watch where it sometimes we get over a thousand people who watch live for the book notes, conversation so lets have a word of prayer and were to begin our conversation. Gracious and most merciful god and who we live, move and have our being, we grateful for this moment and grateful for this time in history. May you empower us that we may be able to link love and justice together in all of the work that do. May your spirit rest. May it rule made, abide that we may continue to walk the path that has been laid for us. We thank we love you and we magnify your name and the people of god who love god may collectively say amen and dr. Warnock. Well, hello, Trinity United Church of christ. Its great to be here with my friend and dear brother, the brother of the reverend dr. Otis moss third, your pastor and someone ive known since we were teenagers at Morehouse College. And its its great to be back here. Welcome to all of the folks who are watching online. I am excited to be here to talk about dr. Mosss latest book, dancing in the darkness. Dancing in the darkness spiritual lessons for thriving through turbulent times. Thats rich. Theres a lot even in the title dancing, the darkness, spiritual lessons for thriving through times. I think that that is something those are lessons that all us could use at a time like this. So im going to start and with the most basic question what motivates you . What drove you to write this particular book to frame in this particular way . You preach every sunday. Also write. But but tell us about the inspiration behind dancing the dark. I appreciate you asking that. I realized several ago that there was truly a spirit chill edge in our country that people are attempting to describe each in a variety of ways, some through social media, others thinking that, hey, if i if, i have enough funds, the market will be able to scratch that itch. But we still that we are spiritually anemic and there is a necessity for us to go back the values that us that allow us to flourish as as human beings and the two main values really flowing in in the book that haunt the book are the values of love justice and dr. Martin Luther King Jr and howard serve as sages. Talking about those values. Yeah, yeah. And so youre driven by that. But tell me a little bit more about, what is it that youre seeing as a pastor on the ground . What are the things you carry in your bones as engage people everyday people as they make their way, their everyday struggles struggles . How has that inspired this preaching in a different way . It the experience of trying to make sense of our trauma, the experience of trying make sense of, the sun going down in many ways for some in this democracy, people are trying to really make sense of what is happening in this world and we have been reaching for that which is physical in order to scratch this itch. But Howard Thurman, dr. King theres so much within the black tradition that speaks how we deal with these issues. We went to Morehouse College and morehouse and i see another morehouse brother who is who was in the audience. They were always told to light a candle. You know, we talked about the candle in the dark and how every morehouse student was told that when you come into the chapel that god places a crown above our heads that we will spend the rest of our lives growing tall enough to wear. And i hope that book teaches people to stretch not that will wear crown but at least youll be taller after ingesting some the values and you do the kind of work at ebenezer where you are calling people to stretch and now as senator you were making demands you are lighting candles. A matter of fact, you are on the the Agricultural Committee and youve done something really interesting. I think the people should know. Well, i do a lot of work on the agriculture committee. Im proud being on that committee. Agriculture is the largest business in georgia and. Weve done many things from helping Georgia Farmers to get their to market when they were dealing with trade barriers. We. 6 billion of debt relief for farmers who are on the margins and is one of the reasons i tolerate politics and. Im an elected official but i, i am not love with politics. Im in love with change and tolerate politics because every now and then youre able to do something amazing. Like 6 billion of debt relief for farmers farmers. And much of this along time, a long time coming. And also this year, we every five years you do something called the farm bill, which interestingly links the concerns of farmers and agribusiness but also Food Security and nutrition programs like ten of temporary aid for needy families. Those programs that that weve used to give people basic security in this country, theyre all part of the farm bill that gets done every five years. So im on committee. I was saying this morning in worship i guess what youre referring to in my sermon, i was referring to the fact that when went to the capitol 2017, i got arrested intentionally, the tradition of Howard Thurman, Martin Luther king junior and Morehouse College. I got arrested. Protest setting what they were getting ready to do in the farm cut knew that needed nutrition. And this year. Six years later i get to write the farm bill so. This so im struck by this idea that you put forward of dancing in the darkness. I want to underscore dancing. Theres no question that theres darkness. And we could talk about that. And you could elaborate that if you care to. But i think we all have a sense of the darkness. Of course, Howard Thurman talks about the luminous darkness, the luminous darkness. So. But you didnt say negotiate darkness, you didnt say how grope your way through. The darkness. You know how not to be afraid of the dark. I got two little kids, but you said dancing in the darkness. Whats at stake in that metaphor of literally dancing in the darkness . What to first bring you to how that that idea came about. It starts in 2008. Our church going through a challenging moment when an individual by the name of senator barack obama was running for president. I had just become pastor here at trinity. And i remember being in ballys at hyde park. I was working and i was on the treadmill and in marlon, i was sitting there on the treadmill doing my warm down and someone taps me on the shoulder. They say hey, rev, is that your church . I look up on the and sean hannity was going off about and i said i got to go and so began walking the gantlet 40 news outlets showed up to our church every single sunday putting in peoples face looking for type of quote because they passed a portion of my predecessors sermon dr. Jeremiah wright jr i was a very good sermon by the way i might add. Absolutely. And they were trying to use that soundbite because many people never been in a black church and dont know anything. The black Church Tradition or preaching. And so that started the gantlet. But then from the gantlet, because of the the news footage and attention, we then started death threats. Dr. Wright, myself and the church and some people here remember that we had to have bomb sniffing dogs show up every single sunday to, make sure that the sanctuary is safe. And so after getting these these letters and i read some of the letters, i should have read some of the letters. Be quite honest. And i want to thank deacon wilford bentley. He said, let me have that. Youre not going read any my mind always racing. And every time i ran up to someone or i was running you know just working out. I was wondering if i saw someone coming my way. Is it is this it . Is this the person from the letter . So one night didnt very much for about a year we heard something in the house and monica tapped me and said, you got go check that out. And i say, yeah, babe, let me go do that. And so i got up and i grabbed my rod and my staff that comforts me. And rod and staff was made in louisville. It was a louisville and i was walking the house looking for where was this noise from what was going on . And then i heard the noise again and noise was coming from my daughters bedroom. And mikayla was about five years old at the time. I go into bedroom and mikayla is in the middle of her room and shes dancing, spinning around, and shes saying, look, daddy, im dancing now. Its 3ami have to preach at trinity and several hours. And so i got that little dad talk, baby you need to go to bed right now. And she says, look, daddy, im dancing and pigtails are hitting and whatnot. And the spirit said, stop, look at her. Shes dancing the darkness, the darkness is around her, but its not in her. When are you going to learn how dance and if that moment i trashed my i was supposed to preach and just started writing notes and i stepped into pulpit on that sunday and i talked about the fact that we must learn how to dance the dark. And when we reclaim our dance, dance of love, that dance of compassion, dance of justice, then we can transform in the words of w. E. B. Dubois, these yet to United States of america and i believe that that is what especially people of african descent have learned to do in america, is that weve how to dance in in the darkness, a country that many times us did not see us or said that we were only 3 5 of a human being, but yet Sojourner Truth says in our thats a dancing, you know, Frederick Douglass when he stands and talks about july 4th thats thats a dancing out to be wells thats dancing these are all of the dance partners of our ancestors that. We must learn how to navigate these moments that we think are dark. But the beautiful thing about darkness is that the sun has forsaken you. It just means that the earth is turned. And if you keep dancing, eventually your morning will become but your your joy will come in the morning because the sun hasnt left. Its there. Its just that the earth decided turn in a different direction. So otis moss as well. Folk listen every sunday. Powerful, dancing in the darkness. And that that darkness. You were literally living through it in the moment. And were inspired by your daughter and then that you you described something going on in country at that time and your church at the center of it but. Then layered on top of that are the episodes of trauma that we all know. Individual right. So the church is going through what its going through, but you still have members who are dealing with whatever they were dealing with in their everyday lives person who just got a scary diagnosis person whos trying understand how to reconcile with their child or the reverse. All of these these concerns and a spirituality. That speaks to both. Yes, yes, both the individual role and the social. That deals with the slavery of and the sin of slavery. Yes, i think that that has been part of the genius, the black church experience at its best. Yes. Not that we always do that. Right, but the the even evangelical and liberationist tendencies both informing and i see both those things standing up in your work. Yes. Which is itself a kind of dance between a kind personal piety and the fight for justice. The struggle in the song i was trying to talk about this morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And its a particular kind of dance. Wouldnt you say youve about living in a post soul world in some of your other public patients and you are somebody in your preaching and in your writing often engages the arts and and tradition. You understand that gospel, soul and jazz and blues and the spirituals all come from the same root, the anguish, ruminations of a subjugated people speaking to god in their own voice. So the dance, if you will, is syncopated, right . Can you Say Something about like its jazz . Like. Like this is is on the is on the upbeat rather than the downbeat . Thats right. Its the beautiful thing. Our our tradition beautiful thing about black spirituality that we the existential but we keep looking at the eschatological. So we are blues and at the same time and the beautiful thing about people who make the claim oh, i just listen to gospel music that gospel music is structured on this pentatonic scale, this african scale. So you cant have gospel music unless you know chords. So in other words, you cant have resurrection. So you have to play the sanctified folks, you cant have gospel music unless you have blues chords. So in order to sing gospel, you got to know the chords. So in other words, you got to the anguish and the pain in order to get to the celebration of resurrection. But in a society we want to cast aside the blue and only want to do resurrection, celebration. And if that had been talking about prosperity preaching, im talking about prosperity preaching. Prosperity preaching is problematic because it is its not christianity. It is capitalism with ecclesiastic garments and and we have witnessed so much of this market centered ness. But our tradition is, like you said, a jazz tradition. I mean, millard is here. Hes doing research on Wynton Marsalis and the blues and whatnot. But but jazz teaches america about democracy before american, what democracy was all about. I mean, the fact that jazz is in new orleans first off, this space, where you have Indigenous People of in america along spanish, along with french and along people of african descent. But dont forget, a good portion of black people in new orleans were free blacks from haiti. So they understood this idea of freedom. And then come and they infect new orleans with that. And so the congo square was the space where on sunday because were so many people who are catholic sunday you had all that they could hear all these different rhythms and all these different rhythms come together and then jazz does something no other music had done in history it takes whats not supposed to together. And they play together. So you have a saxophone that is for the marching band, but then it plays with the piano, which is european classical. Then the piano then plays with a trap drum set, but instead of using a simple european syncopated marching rhythm, it uses a pentatonic and also polyrhythms in the process. Then you have a bass that youre supposed to play with a bow, but somebody says, let me play with my fingers. And then everybody has the right to solo. In other words, i can bring my own cultural narrative to the table bring my own experience to the table and i can solo. But the sax phone never tells the piano, you have to sound like me. And the piano doesnt tell the drum you have to sound like me and bass doesnt tell the piano. You got to sound like me. Everybody gets a chance to sing their song. As you said this morning, in a unique way. And when america learns how to operate a jazz democratic ethic, thats when, in the words of john coltrane, well see a love supreme. All right. Thats good stuff, right . Get the book dancing in the darkness, spiritual lessons for thriving from turbulent times. Good stuff. This dancing in, this music you talk about is also improvizational, yes, the each of the instruments they each play in their own way. But they they go off anywhere theyre variations on a theme. Thats right. So theres a theme and the improvizations are variations on the theme and theres a kind of style and a friendly rivalry sometimes going on and a good jazz musician like a good preacher might have a manuscript, but theyre going to see each time what the spirit is going to bring. It might be a little different each time. How are we doing in in around the question of improvization this moment, the church in particular . I think the church is struggling with because its looking to be a symphony directed by people who not necessarily care for the folks who in the church is a symphony has a director and says play just like me. But when we move to that jazz as narrative, we begin look inwardly, we begin to draw from our tradition. So i would use the example that prosperity minister re in this these, these of its about dollar and thats how you will be set free thats kind of in the way that a director is playing or to say that must be solely individual. We dont talk about stuff that goes on in the world we were going to just about just me myself and i. I mean, theres a phrase called i am blessed and highly favored that people like to nothing wrong with the phrase but the idea that blessing within the breaks framework blessing within the black church was you really can be blessed until other are blessed in the that theres a connectivity to the idea of blessing. But our country is struggling with this on multiple levels so when we add to the curriculum black history the conductors say you cant do that because. That is something that is not patriotic. As some states have said. You cant have ap African American history that had Educational Value which amazing that you can have ap italian history. Ap japane