Speaker 1: Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and The Black Effect.
Speaker 2: Okay, y'all, I feel like I know her. She probably
Speaker 2: gets this all the time as do I, and I
Speaker 2: actually love it. I think the pandemic helps us to
Speaker 2: get some new siblings, aunties, cousins, you know, and so
Speaker 2: I feel like Candace would be a fun cousin like girl.
Speaker 2: I can't wait for her to come by. She's my
Speaker 2: favorite cousin at Thanksgiving, New Year's, Christmas, Fourth of July.
Speaker 2: This is my cut up buddy, all right. I admire
Speaker 2: her so much. She's a theologian essay as columnist baker y'all, Yes,
Speaker 2: she can bake, she can cook, and an educ who
Speaker 2: has written for Essence, Glamour, The Grio, The rout Ye,
Speaker 2: Shonda Love Network, and about black women shared experiences of faith, healing, empowerment.
Speaker 2: Please welcome. I'm going to say the full name Candice
Speaker 2: Marie Benbo. Thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2: Listen, there's so much to talk about. Yes, and I
Speaker 2: look at a lot of things that you share. I
Speaker 2: have to go to columns that you've written because so
Speaker 2: much of what you say challenge me in a good way.
Speaker 2: It makes me go to my own Bible and look
Speaker 2: things up. And I know you have probably shaken a
Speaker 2: few tables of even people that we admire and esteem
Speaker 2: in various sectors of secular religion. And you have no
Speaker 2: fear of challenging. Not that you're trying to be you
Speaker 2: know some people, I think it's a spirit you just
Speaker 2: be going to be difficult and challenging. No, it's like, oh, y'all,
Speaker 2: I went to school for this. I kind of discovered now,
Speaker 2: this is different than what we've been taught, or this
Speaker 2: has been different than what we've just been regurgitating. And
Speaker 2: that's why I'm so excited to have you here today
Speaker 2: to speak on all things baking, women's empowerment, your fitness journey.
Speaker 3: I'm trying. I am trying.
Speaker 2: I mean, congratulations, thank you on everything.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: How you feeling today?
Speaker 3: I could's it's really interesting because this is ah I
Speaker 3: tell people I have officially entered my grief baking season.
Speaker 3: So the fall gets a bit harder for me because
Speaker 3: when my mom passed and my grandmothers, it's been a
Speaker 3: year since she's been becoming an ancestor and I have
Speaker 3: baked to get through that. And so like I tell
Speaker 3: my friends, I was like, I'm making Apple Cier donuts
Speaker 3: today and they were like, we'll be over by six.
Speaker 3: So it's it is a very today. I feel good,
Speaker 3: like it's one of those moments where years removed from
Speaker 3: losing my mom, I am I know how to navigate
Speaker 3: these moments in ways that I really didn't have it
Speaker 3: at the beginning of our journey, of my grief journey.
Speaker 3: So it's a it's a good day. It's a good day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell me again when you lost your mom or
Speaker 2: once she transition.
Speaker 3: November the fourteen, twenty fifteen, So it's coming up on eight.
Speaker 2: Years, and I know you'll you probably slap somebody or
Speaker 2: will be near slaping somebody if they tell you, ma'am,
Speaker 2: it's been eight years, get over it. What do you say?
Speaker 3: You know? I heard that like a year after my
Speaker 3: mom passed that like, oh it's been a year. Like
Speaker 3: it's some things that you should be able to do
Speaker 3: by now. And I tell people because I just had
Speaker 3: I just had someone reach out to me and she
Speaker 3: was like, help me to understand when it gets easier,
Speaker 3: because I hear people say that it gets easier with time,
Speaker 3: And I told her, I was like, I don't necessarily
Speaker 3: think that that's true. I think that with time we
Speaker 3: learn how to adjust in the moments. Like I tell
Speaker 3: people all the time, like I lost my mama, I
Speaker 3: didn't lose an apen, right, So like when when you
Speaker 3: lose anyone who has a significant play to significant role
Speaker 3: in your life, that's a huge adjustment. So there are
Speaker 3: moments where I can think of my mama and laugh
Speaker 3: and going about my day. I are moments where I
Speaker 3: just like, my mama is really gone, and then it's
Speaker 3: a sobering And then there are days where it can
Speaker 3: be so heavy that the only thing I did was
Speaker 3: get up take a shower, and I got right back
Speaker 3: in bed, and it's stilts as heavy as it did
Speaker 3: the day that she passed. But I've learned how now,
Speaker 3: thanks to therapy and thanks to you, and thanks to
Speaker 3: just friends and reading and learning more about different grief journeys,
Speaker 3: I've learned how to navigate those moments differently. So it's
Speaker 3: not it's never I would never say that it gets easier.
Speaker 3: I just think that we learn with time how to
Speaker 3: navigate each kind of moment that grief is.
Speaker 2: Numbering, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you say that were you
Speaker 2: taught how to grieve loss? Like did you go through? Like, okay,
Speaker 2: there are nine steps. I've learned there are nine steps,
Speaker 2: and people say there are seven steps? Who are five steps?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Do you feel like you grieve lost properly?
Speaker 2: Or is there still stuff you're learning about grief?
Speaker 3: So I would say I didn't go through when I
Speaker 3: first lost my mom. I didn't really, I don't on
Speaker 3: the west stage I was in. I just knew everything
Speaker 3: fell apart and there was really no way for me
Speaker 3: to make sense of it, Like nothing made sense. She's
Speaker 3: a she was a single mom. I'm an only child,
Speaker 3: so like in a blink of an eye, my whole
Speaker 3: immediate family was gone, right, So like it was like,
Speaker 3: how do you make sense of that? And so she
Speaker 3: passed in November. In January, I knew that I had
Speaker 3: to go to therapy. So I started therapy that January,
Speaker 3: and my therapist just she just walked with me like
Speaker 3: she was just like, you know, they're gonna be days
Speaker 3: where I mean, we talked about all of the different stages, agreed,
Speaker 3: and she was like, there're gonna be days where those
Speaker 3: are gonna be interchangeable for you. But one thing that
Speaker 3: she she said and I share with people, is that
Speaker 3: I never let anyone else's journey become mine. So, you know,
Speaker 3: there was one of the things that I learned from
Speaker 3: me was the only way that I could grieve wrong,
Speaker 3: And I say that in air I put that in
Speaker 3: air quotes. The only way that I could grieve wrong
Speaker 3: was to not honor that I was grieving right, Like
Speaker 3: if the moment that I was like, oh, I'm fine,
Speaker 3: Like this is no like, I had to I had
Speaker 3: to be very honest. I had to be really honest
Speaker 3: about the way that things it undid me and my
Speaker 3: own undoing. Yeah, I had to build myself. I had
Speaker 3: to be built back up right. And so I think
Speaker 3: when you are going through a particular moment of just
Speaker 3: profound sadness, profound loss, you don't really know right what's right,
Speaker 3: like you you just you don't know and and and
Speaker 3: you will make mistakes. There are things that I did
Speaker 3: and in the midst of grieving that I looked back
Speaker 3: and I'm like, yeah, I was out of my mind.
Speaker 3: But I also had to give myself the grace of like, girl,
Speaker 3: you had lost your mama like you so and when
Speaker 3: you lost your mama, you lost your mind like you
Speaker 3: didn't know, and so you've got I've had to learn
Speaker 3: to give myself an abundance of grace and just say,
Speaker 3: you've never been there before. You didn't know what what
Speaker 3: that meant, you didn't know what to expect. But you're
Speaker 3: here now, and what can you take from that to
Speaker 3: apply to the times where it's going to get heavy again?
Speaker 2: So so good. Thank you for sharing. And I allowed
Speaker 2: space for when folks come on the podcast to talk
Speaker 2: about grief loss, you know their journey because the foundation
Speaker 2: of this podcast is about mental health, although we talk
Speaker 2: about a myriad of things, So thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2: If I may share, I lost my dad in December
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty, and I'm noticing the fall brings feelings
Speaker 2: of missing because his birthday is November thirteen, so the
Speaker 2: fall makes me think of my dad. And literally a
Speaker 2: couple of days ago, I shared with someone I said,
Speaker 2: I missed my daddy this morning, so I began to
Speaker 2: just listen to some of his favorite songs that I
Speaker 2: knew that he liked, just so I wouldn't like thank
Speaker 2: you know, you know, just have a although I allow,
Speaker 2: I don't want to. I don't want to allow myself.
Speaker 2: I don't want to fall into a depression, right because
Speaker 2: I am aware of what happens around this time of year. First,
Speaker 2: because people already deal with the seasonal effective disorder, that
Speaker 2: seasonal depression. Right, So you couple that with if you
Speaker 2: ever went through seasonal depression, imagine coupling that with the
Speaker 2: loss of your mom, even though it has been eight years.
Speaker 2: So what you shared someone definitely is going to.
Speaker 3: Be thankful for it.
Speaker 2: I know I am. And you shared that your mom's
Speaker 2: single mom, only child, and you share that the morning
Speaker 2: experience that it helped you share certain restrictions of faith
Speaker 2: and you embraced alternative spirituality.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Can you share.
Speaker 3: Because you know?
Speaker 4: For me, I'm like, now, what listen, listen, listen. It
Speaker 4: was so funny because I would be very honest.
Speaker 3: There are two reasons why church when in the immediacy
Speaker 3: of my mom's passing, why church couldn't be space for me.
Speaker 3: The first reason was because I grew up in church
Speaker 3: and I did not have a memory of church that
Speaker 3: did not include my mother. So I was already and
Speaker 3: this included going when I was in college, when I
Speaker 3: was in grad school, even when I was living in
Speaker 3: Jersey before my mom passed, I would go to when
Speaker 3: I was on my way to church, and when she
Speaker 3: was on her white church, we were calling each other,
Speaker 3: so it I never had a I didn't have a
Speaker 3: memory of church that didn't include her. So when I
Speaker 3: was going to church, it hurt. It was heavy right then.
Speaker 3: I The other reason why was because I had I
Speaker 3: was really tired of hearing trite cliches that really didn't
Speaker 3: help me. So when my for.
Speaker 2: Example, give us an example of what you feel, I
Speaker 2: hope it's not funyu, which I'm gonna.
Speaker 3: Tell you too that I was like, what the hit?
Speaker 3: So this lady came to my house, you know, that
Speaker 3: week before the funeral, when when everybody's dropping off chicken
Speaker 3: and pound cakes. She said she was because my mom
Speaker 3: passed unexpectedly. Sof she she.
Speaker 2: Did not have an illness, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: She actually had an asthma attack and she passed in
Speaker 3: her sleep, so it was unexpected. So this lady came
Speaker 3: to my house and she said, you know, I asked
Speaker 3: the Lord why he took Debby, and he told me
Speaker 3: he took dead because Satan knowed his time is winding up,
Speaker 3: and everybody just looked at and I was like, I said, well,
Speaker 3: why do you have to take my mom if Satan?
Speaker 3: If it was Satan's problem, And so my uncle was like,
Speaker 3: well you will you know what she meant? I said, no,
Speaker 3: I don't know, doesn't make any sense. And so then
Speaker 3: another person came and said to me. This was when
Speaker 3: I was really like, okay, I can't. My mom and
Speaker 3: my dad were not married, and this was a particular
Speaker 3: pastor that my mother was was really close to in
Speaker 3: the city, well respected, and I thought that he was
Speaker 3: just coming to give condolences. And he gave condolences and
Speaker 3: moved me to the side, and he asked me. He said,
Speaker 3: if I knew if my mama ever repented, And I said, well,
Speaker 3: repentant for what? And he began to tell the story.
Speaker 3: And my college I actually talked about a little bit
Speaker 3: in the book, but my college sweet mate Janelle was
Speaker 3: right there and he began to tell the story about
Speaker 3: how my mom and I already knew the story that
Speaker 3: my mom went to stand up in front of the
Speaker 3: church and apologized when she was pregnant, and so here
Speaker 3: it is my mama had just died. We were at
Speaker 3: home in my mama's house, like we were in my
Speaker 3: mama's house, and this man that she had such a
Speaker 3: profound respect for was essentially asking me, did my mama
Speaker 3: make sure that she repented before she died so she
Speaker 3: didn't end up going to Hell? And I'm like, I
Speaker 3: cannot be anywhere where there are where anybody's preaching at
Speaker 3: this point, because it's just it's gonna make me mad.
Speaker 3: And then there was a moment where it was months later,
Speaker 3: I was not doing well and a former one of
Speaker 3: my one of my former pastors, reached out to me,
Speaker 3: and I thought that it was going to be a
Speaker 3: good conversation, and he said to me, he was like,
Speaker 3: you gotta figure out this grief thing because too many
Speaker 3: women are looking at you and you're not teaching them
Speaker 3: how to grieve well. And you don't want your mama
Speaker 3: to look down and wonder if she didn't do right
Speaker 3: in the ways that she taught you. Can it? Yeah,
Speaker 3: At that moment, I remember I got off the phone
Speaker 3: with him. I pulled on my phone and I deactivated
Speaker 3: all of my social media accounts because I was just dad,
Speaker 3: and I was like, I can't be in church anytime soon.
Speaker 3: But what's funny is I was like, I can't be
Speaker 3: in church, but I can't be I cannot not be
Speaker 3: a part of a faith community like that was it was.
Speaker 3: It was that like it's that church girl. Like I
Speaker 3: was like, you can't forsake it's simply at the Saints.
Speaker 3: It might not be church, but it's going to be something.
Speaker 3: And so I joined a Buddhist prayer community and I'm
Speaker 3: met with them weekly and I read my Bible. I
Speaker 3: have a playlist of YouTube sermons the Bishop ge Patterson.
Speaker 3: I listened to them come on Me like I listened
Speaker 3: to them for a year and a half and and
Speaker 3: I'm I'm was born missionary Baptist. So I love aligned him.
Speaker 3: So I had a I had a playlist of lined him. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I just I dug deeper into I dug deeper into
Speaker 3: the ways that I was feeling my mother around me,
Speaker 3: and I'll never forget. I went to see one of
Speaker 3: one of my mentors, Pastor Anthony Bennett, in Connecticut, and
Speaker 3: I told him, I was like, I'm so sad. I
Speaker 3: was like I can't even pray, Like I was like,
Speaker 3: because there was this moment where I was just like,
Speaker 3: what is happening? Like this is this is do heavy?
Speaker 3: And I was like I can't even pray. And I
Speaker 3: told him, I was like, I open my mouth and
Speaker 3: i want to say something, but I'm so mad at
Speaker 3: God because I just don't think this is fair. And
Speaker 3: I'll never forget what he said to me. He said,
Speaker 3: every time you.
Speaker 2: Cry, you praying, candashs, you're helping somebody because even you
Speaker 2: saying I was mad at God, you didn't get struck
Speaker 2: down by lightning.
Speaker 3: At all at all.
Speaker 2: And we have been taught to don't question God, accept
Speaker 2: what God allows. Yeah, I can accept it after I've done,
Speaker 2: after I've cried about it, after I've grieved it.
Speaker 3: But in the month, in the moment, you can't. And
Speaker 3: I remember he told me. He said, when you get
Speaker 3: out of bed, he said, your posture is a prayer.
Speaker 3: He said, So when you are getting out of your
Speaker 3: bed and you're sad and your your shoulders are hunched over,
Speaker 3: he was like, you are already signaling to God that
Speaker 3: you need help. He said, So if you don't have
Speaker 3: words this season, it's okay. He was like, because everything
Speaker 3: that you are doing signals that you need God. To
Speaker 3: help you now. And I hung to that because I
Speaker 3: so there are several things I knew that it didn't
Speaker 3: matter what I what I did, it didn't matter how
Speaker 3: I constructed faith for me. Coming out of this moment,
Speaker 3: I knew I was always going to go back to church,
Speaker 3: and church was going to be included in it because
Speaker 3: church was dear to me and my mama. Right like
Speaker 3: it is like to this day when I go back
Speaker 3: to my family church, my home church, Saint Stephen, which
Speaker 3: is where Saint Stephen Missionary Baptist Church in Winston Salem,
Speaker 3: they tell the story of how I was in the
Speaker 3: fellowship hall as a little girl telling other kids to
Speaker 3: be quiet and like telling everybody what to do. And
Speaker 3: somebody said, whose child is that? And they said, that's
Speaker 3: Helen benbo granddaughter and you better leave her alone. And
Speaker 3: they said, well leave alone then. So like they tell
Speaker 3: these stories of me and church like I am not
Speaker 3: who I am without church, like standing up and reading
Speaker 3: the announcements like I like, yeah, I knew I was
Speaker 3: gonna go back one day, but I needed to be
Speaker 3: healed and I needed to be whole, and I needed
Speaker 3: to parse through what I had been told from what
Speaker 3: I knew to be true, and I think that that
Speaker 3: is more a lot of us the journey that can
Speaker 3: hurt because whether it takes whether we go on that
Speaker 3: journey through loss or whether we go on it because
Speaker 3: we just got a lot of questions and we need
Speaker 3: to be able to answer them. It takes a minute
Speaker 3: to adjust from the reality of all of these things
Speaker 3: that I heard, and I believe that they were God's
Speaker 3: voice because the people that I love and the people
Speaker 3: that I in my saying it that that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 3: reflect who I knew God to be. To me, that's
Speaker 3: a hard moment, and it takes a lot for you
Speaker 3: to go to get to a point where you are
Speaker 3: where you are comfortable in saying this is the relationship
Speaker 3: that I have with God. It is deep, it is strong,
Speaker 3: It fouls strong those wills that found it and grounded me.
Speaker 3: But it's also my own right. That was the journey
Speaker 3: that I took after Mama passed.
Speaker 2: M h wow. My grandmother would tell me, baby, they mean, well,
Speaker 2: so when you were telling me about the person that
Speaker 2: told you something about Satan knew his time was up right,
Speaker 2: and the other person saying, you know what she meant
Speaker 2: and you're like, no, I don't know what she meant,
Speaker 2: but she got that from somewhere, Like so much of
Speaker 2: what we say is passed down a generational and some
Speaker 2: of them and it's meant to sue to make us
Speaker 2: feel better, you know, and or or the other person.
Speaker 2: I know exactly. I've had family members that have had
Speaker 2: children out of wedlocks and they had to go down
Speaker 2: to the front of the church and apologize and repent
Speaker 2: or be or you couldn't sing in the choir no more,
Speaker 2: you had to. And then get this, when the baby
Speaker 2: is christened, the baby's father cannot stand up at the
Speaker 2: altar with the baby, mama and family because they were unmarried.
Speaker 3: Well see, at least they got at least they got
Speaker 3: a Christian because there are still several churches back at home,
Speaker 3: and one that my mom was at at the time
Speaker 3: that if you are not married, they don't even allow
Speaker 3: you to dedicate the baby. I don't think I got
Speaker 3: blessed when I was born because my mama would.
Speaker 2: Not look at you.
Speaker 3: Because my mama would not she was like, I'm not,
Speaker 3: she said, and I'll never forget. She told me that
Speaker 3: she was like to stand in front of people. She said,
Speaker 3: first of all, I don't know what they're doing in
Speaker 3: their house, and I ain't gonna And she said so,
Speaker 3: and to stand in front of them would say that
Speaker 3: you are a mistake, and I'll never forget. She was like,
Speaker 3: the devil can't give life. So if I had, if
Speaker 3: I had you, if I was pregnant with you, then
Speaker 3: the only person that, the only being that could give
Speaker 3: me you was the source of life. And I was God,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna. I was not gonna do that. And
Speaker 3: so I held that even as I was raised in church,
Speaker 3: where I heard some stuff like you know, like I
Speaker 3: was basically I grew up here in Simon's my whole
Speaker 3: life that told me that I should be better than
Speaker 3: my mom because my mama, my mama had me, and
Speaker 3: she wasn't pregnant. I mean, she wasn't married. I grew
Speaker 3: up with a mom who very much raised me with
Speaker 3: this very kind of feminist outlook and defiance when it
Speaker 3: came to that. But then she would also say crazy
Speaker 3: stuff that I heard, and I'd be like, no, Mama,
Speaker 3: where you where do you get that from?
Speaker 2: We get that fast.
Speaker 3: It was only years later, like a couple of years
Speaker 3: before she passed, Like when I was in seminary and
Speaker 3: we would talk about things and I would say, like,
Speaker 3: why would you say stuff like? Why did you say
Speaker 3: stuff like? And she was like, I was raising a
Speaker 3: girl by myself in the nineties. I was gonna say
Speaker 3: wherever I needed to say that kept your legs closed
Speaker 3: and you and you out of trouble. And so it
Speaker 3: was in those moments too, where I've learned to give
Speaker 3: grace because and I'm gonna say this very quickly because
Speaker 3: this adds to context. So the day before my mom
Speaker 3: passed was the terrorist attacks in London, and she and
Speaker 3: I were talking because I was scrolling Facebook and I
Speaker 3: was seeing all these people say God did this to
Speaker 3: get our attention, and I was like, people are dying
Speaker 3: and God didn't need to do this to get our attention.
Speaker 3: And my mama told me to stop. She said, because
Speaker 3: people are doing the best that they can, and they
Speaker 3: are giving what they have been taught and there they
Speaker 3: are being as as kind and as gracious as they
Speaker 3: possibly can be. And she said, and one day they're
Speaker 3: going to say these same things to you. I will.
Speaker 3: I'm getting chills thinking about it. She said, one day
Speaker 3: they're gonna say these very same things to you. I
Speaker 3: didn't think that the next day that the one day
Speaker 3: was going to but I had to learn. I don't
Speaker 3: think and I will, and I don't believe that people
Speaker 3: are malicious, right, like even that pastor who asked that. Now,
Speaker 3: while I believe that it was rooted as some sexism
Speaker 3: and some patriarchy, I don't believe that he did not
Speaker 3: respect them and love my mother. I do believe that
Speaker 3: we can hold to some very rigid and unloving interpretations
Speaker 3: of scripture and religious culture that will make the very
Speaker 3: people that we love and respect enemies when they shouldn't be. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And so I don't think that when I was, when
Speaker 3: I was growing up in church, that everybody who made
Speaker 3: me feel bad for my parents being who they were
Speaker 3: meant to. And now I think that that's part of
Speaker 3: the work that I know that I have been called
Speaker 3: to do, is because even if you didn't mean to
Speaker 3: make me feel bad, you did. And so how do
Speaker 3: we heal those horns? And then how do we also
Speaker 3: ensure that they never happen again? And the only way
Speaker 3: that we can ensure that they never happen again is
Speaker 3: to have some very hard and honest conversations, one about scripture,
Speaker 3: one about how we frame our relationship with God, to
Speaker 3: how that relationship then impacts our relationships with ourselves and
Speaker 3: with the people around us. That's the only way that
Speaker 3: we ensure that there are not people who who walk
Speaker 3: out of church or who walk out of encounters of
Speaker 3: people that should have been caring and loving and say
Speaker 3: I don't want to do this no more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so what I'm hearing you say is a
Speaker 2: lot of church hurt that's been inflicted. It's been out
Speaker 2: of ignorance. Yeah, and not that you said. I heard
Speaker 2: you even say. It's not that I don't think he
Speaker 2: didn't love a mom, which leads me to believe in
Speaker 2: that ignorance. Did he have a good heart but just
Speaker 2: said some things out of ignorance, or like you said,
Speaker 2: he hasn't studied or maybe have. It's kind of like
Speaker 2: we can also say things when we haven't traveled a
Speaker 2: lot in the world and allow other differences cultures, beliefs,
Speaker 2: races and everything set among people. And like man, so
Speaker 2: and so has a good heart no matter what you know,
Speaker 2: if you don't believe, but they have a great heart.
Speaker 2: And the thing is we want everybody to be peaceable,
Speaker 2: be loving, and embrace the differences. But it's we got it, Like,
Speaker 2: come on and stop being ignorant because people are being hurt.
Speaker 2: You were hurt. You mentioned your book. I've been following
Speaker 2: you so long. I remember when you were writing the book.
Speaker 2: You get in the first cofee the release date of
Speaker 2: the book and just the launch of that book. And y'all,
Speaker 2: this is the book, and I'm going to give you
Speaker 2: the full title. It is called read Lip Theology. The
Speaker 2: Church Girls who've considered tithening to the beauty supply store
Speaker 2: when Sunday morning isn't enough. And you've mentioned a couple
Speaker 2: reasons why you would rather tie to the beauty supply
Speaker 2: store and did. And indeed, yeah, and I was going
Speaker 2: to share how you know, you write about the experiences
Speaker 2: in your heart as a black woman in faith, So
Speaker 2: you're sharing all these experiences, any beautiful experiences that you've
Speaker 2: had from the before your mom passed or even after
Speaker 2: your mom passed, regarding how you were able to get back,
Speaker 2: meaning so you had you literally you took a break
Speaker 2: from actually attending church understandably, so right, and anything that
Speaker 2: you discovered beautiful before then or after who.
Speaker 3: I tell people, I have this imagery of when So
Speaker 3: one day I was in my house and I was
Speaker 3: I was just crying. I feel my fand out and
Speaker 3: I was like, God, I just need you to hold
Speaker 3: my hand, like I just I just need you to
Speaker 3: hold my hand. And I tell people all the time,
Speaker 3: I like, we we have a God who grieves and
Speaker 3: mourns with us and who does not always rush to
Speaker 3: give us these explanations that other people do, but who
Speaker 3: holds our hand and lets us know that that we
Speaker 3: are not alone. And that for me was the peace
Speaker 3: that I needed to move back into the space of
Speaker 3: of saying I needed to be a member somewhere like
Speaker 3: it's it's so it's also funny too. And I think
Speaker 3: that that we we don't recognize, particularly for single black
Speaker 3: women who are raising church, just how much church creates
Speaker 3: a sense of normalcy for black women who aren't married,
Speaker 3: because folks get folks. If you don't if they don't
Speaker 3: see you on Sunday, if they don't see you throughout
Speaker 3: the week, then ain't on something going on. If you
Speaker 3: have this kind of regimen right, you were able to
Speaker 3: know that something was wrong with my mom because my
Speaker 3: mother goes to to she goes to church, or seven
Speaker 3: she goes to the seven forty five. She went to
Speaker 3: the seven forty five service at her church. She was
Speaker 3: always home by six, so when nobody heard from her
Speaker 3: after six o'clock, we knew something was wrong because she
Speaker 3: at home get every every Saturday by six to go
Speaker 3: to church. So, particularly for me as a young black woman,
Speaker 3: even though I'm very I was still connected to my
Speaker 3: pastor in New Jersey, even after I took a sabbatical,
Speaker 3: which was which was important to me to tell him
Speaker 3: that I needed to take a breakthrough. And he was
Speaker 3: very supportive and was like, well, and his wife and
Speaker 3: him they treated me like they're one of their kids.
Speaker 3: And they were like, well, you ain't got to come
Speaker 3: to church, but you're gonna come over here and eat,
Speaker 3: like we still need to lay out. That's right. But
Speaker 3: there was a moment where I was like I need
Speaker 3: to when I moved here to Atlanta, I was like
Speaker 3: I need to be a member of a church, like
Speaker 3: I need to be a part of a congregation. And
Speaker 3: I'll never forget like going in there, going back in church.
Speaker 3: The first time that I was able to go in
Speaker 3: there and enjoy service and not feel heavy because my
Speaker 3: mama wasn't there, and that I could remember, like I
Speaker 3: there's there was a there was one part where I
Speaker 3: didn't know that it was youth Sunday that I was
Speaker 3: going and that the kids were ushering, and I remember
Speaker 3: when I was a youth usher and I just smiled
Speaker 3: the whole service because I was just happy that there
Speaker 3: were like parents who still took that kids to church
Speaker 3: and let them usher, because you know, that don't be
Speaker 3: happening all the time, so right, And so it was
Speaker 3: for me that I wasn't just I didn't just find
Speaker 3: a safe space. I had found room to be back
Speaker 3: a part of a legacy that meant so much to
Speaker 3: me and mean so much to me that I mean
Speaker 3: now I will say I asked to be a part
Speaker 3: of the and I hope they listening too, because I
Speaker 3: did have to be a part of the hospitality ministry.
Speaker 3: And what happened like I went old enough and I
Speaker 3: told her. I was like, I can't cook. I promise
Speaker 3: I can cook, And she was like, okay, well we're
Speaker 3: gonna call you. They never did.
Speaker 2: What's what's the age minimum positant?
Speaker 3: I tell you, everybody over there, look at least over seventy.
Speaker 3: And I feel like that is not I feel like
Speaker 3: that is not a good strategy, and it is not.
Speaker 2: I was listen, I was reading church announcement, seasoning chicken,
Speaker 2: serving chicken. I was a teenager, I was young.
Speaker 3: See y'all was coaching Baptist that whole space that is
Speaker 3: like all black women's territory, and like I.
Speaker 2: Can see that my grandmother was missionary Baptist. My granny
Speaker 2: was missionary Baptist, and I loved. I hate How do
Speaker 2: I say this. I don't want to offend a trigger nobody.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: The green beans at the repass or the cabbage at
Speaker 2: the repas.
Speaker 3: Listen great like I know to this day. So my
Speaker 3: all of my family is coming for Thanksgiving because I cooked. Yes,
Speaker 3: so my cousin literally said, can we have funeral green beans?
Speaker 3: I know exactly what he meant. And they're so good.
Speaker 2: They are so good. I don't know why, and they
Speaker 2: probably we would they would be unacceptable elsewhere possibly, but
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's something about that fellowship haul at
Speaker 2: the church, and they serve you and they got them
Speaker 2: gloves on their hands. They serve you with that.
Speaker 3: My kitchen my kitchen at my townhouse. My friends named
Speaker 3: it the Fellowship Haul, and I have a table, and
Speaker 3: I particularly bought this table because they had a church
Speaker 3: pew with it. So like they call they call my
Speaker 3: kitchen in the Fellowship Hall, and it makes me so
Speaker 3: happy because and this is this is another part of
Speaker 3: what it means to heal. My friends come here now
Speaker 3: to sleep, eat and just do whatever they want to do.
Speaker 3: Whereas there was a season on my life where they
Speaker 3: had to literally come and check on me because I
Speaker 3: was that sad and things were that heavy. So like
Speaker 3: they were like, we just came to lay eyes on you, right,
Speaker 3: we need to make sure that you were okay. Now
Speaker 3: they come and they like they literally give me their
Speaker 3: list off all the stuff they want me to cook
Speaker 3: before they get here. I love it. And it's just
Speaker 3: it's such a it's such a beauty. I would say
Speaker 3: this for anybody who is grieving, for anybody who is
Speaker 3: going through loss. When you talk about beauty and finding it,
Speaker 3: there's something very beautiful about being able to reflect on
Speaker 3: the journey, right, like there was to be able to
Speaker 3: be in a moment where I remember when friends were
Speaker 3: coming and just holding my hand because I had been
Speaker 3: crying for weeks. So now they're like, so you you
Speaker 3: didn't make no macaroni and cheese. I asked you a
Speaker 3: week ago. You ain't got none, you know, Like so
Speaker 3: so that like you will, there will be moments where
Speaker 3: I and I this was the mantra for me, because
Speaker 3: that life could still be beautiful. That like, even though
Speaker 3: colors so dull to me after my die, even though
Speaker 3: there was just like there was just something different about life,
Speaker 3: it could still be a beautiful life. And so I remember,
Speaker 3: I want to say so. I moved to Atlanta October
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty and I moved into my townhouse in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, and I remember praying to God and
Speaker 3: I said, God, I want something to make me have
Speaker 3: a state of awe every day, like I want to
Speaker 3: for all of the deep wells of grief that I knew,
Speaker 3: I want to know deep wells of joy. And I
Speaker 3: mean I prayed that, I pray that come on, And
Speaker 3: I said, for as sad as I was, I know
Speaker 3: I can be that. Come on, Yeah, I know I
Speaker 3: can be that happy, and there would be I can't.
Speaker 3: I can't tell you when it will happen for you
Speaker 3: but I do know that there would be a moment
Speaker 3: that you look back and you will experience something that
Speaker 3: makes you feel as happy that in a way that
Speaker 3: you never thought was possible before, and you will say,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna hold on to that, like I want to
Speaker 3: feel that as much as I possibly can. And that's
Speaker 3: the moment that you realize, Okay, I can do this
Speaker 3: thing called life like I can. I can. I can
Speaker 3: live without this person in this particular iteration of my
Speaker 3: life and I can be happy like that was that
Speaker 3: was it for me? Like that was when I yes,
Speaker 3: it can be beautiful?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, wow, thank you for sharing. I promise you.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: You have just freed someone or have You're giving them
Speaker 2: permission to feel everything. You're giving them even permission if
Speaker 2: they literally, like you said, taking a sabbatical to those
Speaker 2: places that aren't so safe for you right now, or
Speaker 2: taking a sabbatical period because it means rest, and that
Speaker 2: sabbatical means first of all, folks supposed to be taking
Speaker 2: sabbaticals like every seven years now, way life set up,
Speaker 2: I might do one every year, but I'm.
Speaker 3: Doing everything, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Okay, So thank you so so much because there's a
Speaker 2: lot going on, and y'all, I forgot to also add
Speaker 2: in her resume she was the church girl Beyonce song
Speaker 2: church Girl, you were the church Girl advocate. They they
Speaker 2: she does these carousels where you can swipe on her
Speaker 2: Instagram posts and you can, honey, could put some of
Speaker 2: y'all's favorite ministers to shade as it relates to her
Speaker 2: thoughts on church Girl, just as it relates to lost,
Speaker 2: just as it relates to faith, as it even relates
Speaker 2: to respectably. We know things are going on between Israel
Speaker 2: and Palestine, and so thank you for that because I've
Speaker 2: had to read and really, because I'll be honest, how
Speaker 2: much of things have gone on. And we said, oh, well,
Speaker 2: that's all the way over over there that don't have
Speaker 2: nothing to do with us. Now, I'll read the news
Speaker 2: about I'll be vigilant and pray. But we got to
Speaker 2: do more than that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and part of it too, is
Speaker 3: that you know, very briefly, like this is what's happening
Speaker 3: in the Middle East right now, is also very very
Speaker 3: much grounded in religion, and so we have to One
Speaker 3: of the things that I tell people is that there
Speaker 3: is a way for us to grieve what is happening
Speaker 3: and be empathetic to the light of everyone, while also
Speaker 3: recognizing how some of the ways that our national and
Speaker 3: cultural beliefs get twisted tied up with religion that can
Speaker 3: make people who should not be our enemies our enemies.
Speaker 3: So that is that that's one of the things that
Speaker 3: as a theologian, is important to me that we think
Speaker 3: through is how like, wait a minute, how do we
Speaker 3: separate what we've been taught from what actually is? Like
Speaker 3: how do you how do you create room? And I
Speaker 3: think you said it earlier of just like what does
Speaker 3: it mean to be exposed? Like I had friends as
Speaker 3: a little girl. It was important from it was important
Speaker 3: to my mother, and not all of my friends were Christian.
Speaker 3: I remembered having friends who were Jewish and who were Muslim,
Speaker 3: and I had friends who didn't believe and like and
Speaker 3: I have friends who were Buddhists, and that I was
Speaker 3: exposed to all of these very different religions as a
Speaker 3: little girl and experiences as a little girl because my
Speaker 3: mother's friends were diverse, and I remember she was always
Speaker 3: telling like, you can believe what you believe, and other
Speaker 3: people can believe it too. Can believe what they want
Speaker 3: to believe. But just because they believe differently than you
Speaker 3: does not mean that they're evil. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: they're wrong, and it doesn't mean that you're right. This
Speaker 3: is what we believe in this house, and this is
Speaker 3: what we believe in this family. And so what I
Speaker 3: hope is that even even in a moment like this
Speaker 3: that is so charged and so painful, is that we
Speaker 3: can also assess and say, what am I doing in
Speaker 3: my life that is either working towards or working against
Speaker 3: people who are not like me to feel included, people
Speaker 3: who I don't believe like me, to feel loved and
Speaker 3: to feel accepted. If you are not working towards inclusion
Speaker 3: and acceptance, then we really got to think about are
Speaker 3: we showing Christ's love? Like? Are we showing what it
Speaker 3: means to be good humans? Even if even that's and
Speaker 3: that's before faith, like, am I a good human being? Right?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: And that that's a that's an important space because even
Speaker 3: if you don't know what's happening around the world, somebody
Speaker 3: besides you was going through something. Yes, we all are,
Speaker 3: we all are. So how do we how do we
Speaker 3: create space that is inclusive and it's empathetic and that
Speaker 3: is what everyone needs.
Speaker 2: Well, can this thank you so much? I need there
Speaker 2: to be a part two, Yes, because there is more
Speaker 2: that I can just glean from you and just listen,
Speaker 2: you know, because it's amazing. Some of my podcasts it
Speaker 2: could be questioned after question and then sometimes it's just
Speaker 2: like I promise you, I kid you not. I had
Speaker 2: a feeling I was like, let this be Candice, this podcast,
Speaker 2: thank you, and it really is your podcast. Today, I
Speaker 2: wanted to make mention of something that we don't just
Speaker 2: speak on this, but I want to make mention of
Speaker 2: something that I saw you do in the past. You
Speaker 2: did a campaign to help provide black women housing grants
Speaker 2: because we are more likely to be behind on rent
Speaker 2: than white men and five times more likely to be
Speaker 2: going through the eviction process than anyone else. And so
Speaker 2: I wanted to bring acknowledgment to that.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: So y'all follow her. Do you have an ongoing link
Speaker 2: for that where people can just here or is that
Speaker 2: or is there just do you just do that at
Speaker 2: a few periods of time throughout the.
Speaker 3: So we give them four times a year. I have
Speaker 3: an ongoing link. It's actually on my right, igbi and
Speaker 3: my ig bio Okay, because what happened was that we
Speaker 3: had we had about the first time we opened it,
Speaker 3: we had two thousand women to ask for help. And
Speaker 3: each time that we've done it, we've had a system.
Speaker 3: More sisters asked than any you know, any time. And
Speaker 3: so at the summer, I think we ended up with
Speaker 3: like five thousand applications and it just really goes to
Speaker 3: it was really heartbreaking because we had more applications that
Speaker 3: we have funding. But it goes to the heart of
Speaker 3: what so many women are going through, so many people
Speaker 3: are going through. I Will also says we already hit
Speaker 3: holiday season, yes, you know, and I that's a hard
Speaker 3: time for a lot of people. And one of the
Speaker 3: things that my mom taught me and I've learned how
Speaker 3: to do this more was she would help during she
Speaker 3: would give to campaigns and stuff during the holidays, but
Speaker 3: she would always save to do more in January and February.
Speaker 3: I'm like, why are you doing that? She was like,
Speaker 3: because some people will do all that they can do
Speaker 3: to make it through Christmas and they won't have enough
Speaker 3: for January and February. Yep. And so she wanted to
Speaker 3: and as a mama who think a mama who was
Speaker 3: doing it by herself. She knew what that was like,
Speaker 3: so she would do that. And I've done it too,
Speaker 3: And I tell people all the time if you can
Speaker 3: think about the top of the year for people, because
Speaker 3: a lot of people get a lot of help during
Speaker 3: the holiday season and then need a lot more at
Speaker 3: the top of the year. But yeah, you can go
Speaker 3: to my bio the link of my bio and it's
Speaker 3: there and it's available.
Speaker 2: Yes, y'all. Her Instagram page is simply it's Candace Benbo
Speaker 2: okay b E n Bow. Or you can go to
Speaker 2: her website Candacebimbo dot com. Click the link that says
Speaker 2: home sweet home, all right, and it will tell you
Speaker 2: all about what we are talking about. So where you
Speaker 2: feel like you can give people, well, I don't have
Speaker 2: thousands to give, baby, ten dollars, one hundred dollars, five
Speaker 2: hundred dollars will definitely help to go towards somebody's rent.
Speaker 2: And y'all please look out for Candace. There are times
Speaker 2: where major publications call on her to give commentary or
Speaker 2: do a column. It's just not faith, y'all. She tore
Speaker 2: people to snither rings you know, regarding Meghan the Stallion
Speaker 2: and tourn Okay, okay, she did not play about Beyonce
Speaker 2: when it came to the Renaissance tour, when it came
Speaker 2: to Church Girl, Okay, you gave me language.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2: During that period of man, when it comes to certain
Speaker 2: family and friends and they're being torn apart in the media,
Speaker 2: sometimes I can go inward. Or when it comes to
Speaker 2: things that are going right on right now with the war,
Speaker 2: it's like I don't have language, but thank you Candice
Speaker 2: for helping to give us language. And I be wanting
Speaker 2: to repulse and I'd be like, okay, but I know
Speaker 2: these ain't my word. But you know I can always
Speaker 2: get credit. But what you just give us language and
Speaker 2: you give us the kind of and your boldness helps me, say,
Speaker 2: strengthens me, makes me be a little more bold because
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna be fully transparent. You know, we were
Speaker 2: brought up in the time of even of artists development
Speaker 2: and being an artist. Yes, you can stand there certain things.
Speaker 2: You can have your causes, but lots of times we
Speaker 2: just keep quiet, not because we don't have anything to say,
Speaker 2: not because we're heartless, but it's gonna take us unlearning
Speaker 2: and getting out of the fear of what will happen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, because it is. We've been sometimes, we've been
Speaker 2: told people don't only care about your music. You ain't
Speaker 2: a politician, all right, you know what I mean? So
Speaker 2: thank you for getting so many get out to speak
Speaker 2: for me language.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think too. I'll say this quickly. It's
Speaker 3: for some of us to do. It's for some of
Speaker 3: us to take the hits and do the conversation. It's
Speaker 3: like there are I think often about the relationship between
Speaker 3: activists and entertainers during the civil rights move the civil
Speaker 3: rights and the Black power movements, like that they were
Speaker 3: the ones who sustained artists helped to sustain and support
Speaker 3: activists as activists stood on the front lines because we knew,
Speaker 3: because they knew what it took.
Speaker 2: Knew Aretha exactly exactly, exactly look at me calling first name,
Speaker 2: Did you hear me?
Speaker 3: Exactly?
Speaker 2: We talked about the great Mahelia Jackson and correctly, doctor
Speaker 2: Martin U.
Speaker 3: The truth is that we knew and we always know
Speaker 3: that our artists, some of our our celebrities and athletes
Speaker 3: cannot make the statements that a lot of us can,
Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean that they don't stand with us,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't mean that they don't stand by us.
Speaker 3: But it does mean that those of us who can
Speaker 3: stand and speak freely should stand and should.
Speaker 2: Got it all right, can Marie? Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: It's been an absolute joy. When I tell you are
Speaker 2: welcome any time to checking in. I live in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if you knew that, but I
Speaker 2: think we might have said it. I've been in there
Speaker 2: since twenty eighteen, end of eighteen.
Speaker 3: Okay, well you well let me know when you want
Speaker 3: me to cook, because I'm cooking.
Speaker 2: I'm the person that's gonna say I'll I'll bring the ice,
Speaker 2: I'll crush it. I'll even crush it and make sure
Speaker 2: it's crushed wherever you want to cook. All right, thank
Speaker 2: you foreverything.
Speaker 3: This was the highlight for me. So I needed I
Speaker 3: actually needed it today. So this is a highlight for me.
Speaker 3: Sold my aunt, my uncle Dean, and my uncle Derek,
Speaker 3: my mother. It went and they told church that so
Speaker 3: we was a part to testimony service. One of my
Speaker 3: and he was like, Canda, it's gonna be talking to
Speaker 3: Michelle Williams from uh from the Destined child she's gonna
Speaker 3: be talking about. So we're gonna let y'all know. I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's gonna be on TV. Well, we're
Speaker 3: gonna let y'all know when it's coming. So my cousin
Speaker 3: come on. My cousin called me and she was like,
Speaker 3: why was you a church announcement? I was like, girl,
Speaker 3: that's that's your auncle too. So he was your uncle
Speaker 3: the same day.
Speaker 2: He became Man, we love you, cad that.
Speaker 3: Thank y'all.
Speaker 2: We'll see you.
Speaker 3: Again, all right, all right by.
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