Understanding Principles - Better Living

Rev. Sherri James is my guest. She is a mother, spiritual teacher, author and minister with a deep commitment to live practice. For the past nine years, she has been the Senior Minister of Understanding Principles for Better Living in Inglewood, California (“Up Church”). Her work is grounded in daily practices that quietly transform a life over time. She teaches spiritual principles the way they are actually lived – through disruption, repetition, patience and trust. She is also a wealth coach, a financial professional and founder of the Sherri James Company.  Sherri is an avid student of ancient wisdom. She helps bring people closer to their lifelong goals.

Sherri is the daughter of a radical Mom (for the time) who is a thinker and a seeker. She insisted on Sherri being a thinker. Her mother - a single mother of three, is an active member of Understanding Principles now, but when Sherri was 13, her mother stopped going to church and told Sherri that what those people were telling her was not the Truth but was rhetoric. This influenced Sherri. Her mother empowered her to choose spirituality but reject the parts that didn't work. She exposed Sherri to Tony Robbins and Les Brown. She knew about Rev. Johnnie Coleman and knew that Della Reese was ordained by Johnnie Coleman.

Sherri felt the message of Della Reese was the message for the 21st Century. You could learn a spirituality that was embracing a faith and which embraced other traditions. Sherri attended the Johnnie Coleman Institute. This was deeply appealing to Sherri. 

In the Summer of 1998, Sherri attended the Panorama of Truth with the intention of seeing Johnnie Coleman, but Mary Tumpkin was the guest speaker that day. And Sherri's life has never been the same. Sherri was a Rev. Mary "groupie". Sherri got grounded in L.A. and was routed there. Rev. Della told Sherri that she had prayed about an Assistant Minister, and God told her it was Sherri.

Sherri wrote a children's book based on the Bible story of Elijah and the widow with the oil. Reading that story led her to write on it every day. She came to understand the agency of prayer. Sherri wrote a book with Mark Allen in 2009 called "The Money Poems". The book gives the reader the opportunity to rewrite your money story.

Sherri's prayer journals changed her life. In October 2010, she took a job. As an entrepreneur, her identity was crushed by taking a job she hated. She was failing in a sales job at the time when Sherri became Assistant Minister at UP Church. She used the power of affirmations to help her improve her sales and build spiritual momentum. She got promoted several times and ended up with an expense account, and an office. This changed her life.

A teenage niece had a baby and needed help. Sherri became his mother when he was 14 months old. Her gestation period was one week. Rev. Della threw a party and Sherri came in late to find out that Della had turned over the church to her. Rev. Sherri had no village to help her raise him. He is now 12 1/2 years old. She has taken him with her while she does her ministry. He is gifted and becoming a young man of whom Rev. Sherri is proud.

Rev. Sherri came to "Celebrating Our Soul" ("COS") in 2022 because her peers were going. It was a rich, warm and inviting experience. She was a Master Class presenter in 2024. In 2026, Rev. Sherri said yes to coming on the Planning Team in 2026. She found the conference valuable for her to be in community with other New Thought organizations. It deepened her spiritual experience in New Thought.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

You're listening to mystic magic, explore your spirit to understand our lives. I'm so listening for your host. I'm an ordained minister who embraces all things. I've pastored a few spiritual communities, written a few books, performed in various media. I write, produce, and perform. I am a visioning facilitator, a diversity, equity, and inclusion facilitator. And with Mystic Magic, we explore amazing guests to find out what the divine reveals through us and how we may benefit from this magnificence. Stay tuned. This is Mystic Magic, exploring our spirit to understand our lives. Hey, hey, Mystic Magic Podcast fans. We are in for such a treat today because today my guest is Reverend Sherry James. She's a proud mother, a spiritual teacher, author, and minister with a deep commitment to live practice. For the past nine years, she's been the senior minister of understanding principles for Better Living Church, Up Church, in Englewood, California. Her work is grounded in daily practices that quietly transform a life over time. She teaches spiritual principles the way they're actually lived, through disruption, repetition, patience, and trust. And she is also a wealth coach, financial professional, and founder of the Sherry James Company. Sherry is an avid student of ancient wisdom. She draws on her decades of experience as an author, spiritual leader, entrepreneur, financial professional, minister, and mom to help bring people closer to their lifelong goals. So welcome to Mystic Magic, Reverend Sherry.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah, so I know stuff about you, and then I'm discovering stuff about you. So let's get into it. Sure. How did you become an avid student of ancient wisdom?

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Sure. I was very fortunate to be the daughter of a very uh radical and radical for the time period that she was in, radical mom, and she was a thinker, and she insisted on me being a thinker. Um, she never made it to New Thought. Now she's an active part of understanding principles now, but she never made it all the way to New Thought or even knew that term. But she was a seeker. And when we were in Texas, you know, growing up in Houston, all you did on Sundays is you went to church. And when I was 13, my mom did something radical. She decided not to go to church anymore. And she just, you know, said, you know, what those people are telling you down there is just not true. And I, you know, that was just to give you a sense of the of the how serious that is, that you know, there was nothing open on Sundays except churches. Um, they had what were called blue laws, so even grocery stores were not open, certain things couldn't be sold on Sunday. Um, the the restaurants opened in the afternoon after church let out. So it was very much a culture of not going to church. So there was no such thing as staying home, not in the world that I lived in. And here was this woman, um, single mother of three, who was like, Yeah, I'm not going there. And that really influenced me. Um, there was a part of me that felt like church matter or something mattered, something about it mattered. I couldn't put my finger on it. But the beauty is that because she was so adamant, she was like, I can read, I know rhetoric. What they're telling you the text says, that's not what it says. And they're saying that's something about women because they just want women to be second-class citizens. And so it it empowered me to choose spirituality but reject the parts that didn't work. Okay, good. And um, and then she exposed me. She exposed me to Tony Robbins, she exposed me to Les Brown. Uh, somehow she knew that she knew who uh Dr. Johnny Coleman was. And when I started attending Delaware Church, somehow she knew that um Dela Reese had been ordained by Johnny Coleman. So, you know, she did a big part of getting me to where I am.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Well, uh I'm presuming since you are the senior minister of Up Church, that you also had a relationship with Dela Reese.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah, that was an interesting relationship because I I always say there were there were two types of people that were at the church. There were the people who were the Dela Watchers, you know, they wanted to come see what the angel was doing. Um but I was there for the teaching. This this message I felt was the the message for the 21st century, that you could go to church and you didn't have to put your brain in the trunk in order to sit in the in you know in the in the congregation. You could learn a spirituality that was embracing of faith. You could learn a spirituality that was embracing of other traditions. So while I may not practice Islam, I don't believe that people in Islam are going to hell. Uh, I may not practice, you know, uh Judaism, but I don't believe that they're Christ killers or whatever, the the stuff that I've been taught growing up. So that was deeply, deeply appealing to me. And so I immediately got into the teacher training program. I went to study at the Johnny Coleman Institute, and um, and I just got on this path. And probably the biggest thing that made a difference was uh summer 1998, I went to Panorama of Truth in Chicago, Illinois. And um, I was going, and this was gonna be a big thing because I had just pledged aka and the boole was immediately following Panorama. And so I'm like, oh, we're about to have a whole party in Chicago. And wouldn't you know it? I got to the Sunday service ready to, you know, just be thrilled by Reverend Dr. Johnny Coleman, and someone whose name I don't know got on the platform and said, the Reverend Dr. Johnny Coleman will be speaking before the Alpha Kappa Alpha, whatever the gospel brunch is. And I was like, Are you kidding me? Like, and it was like the distance, like we were at um, we were off of Michigan Avenue, and it the other where we needed to get to to get to Johnny was McCormick Place. It wasn't gonna happen, like it was too late. And so they said the sermon today will be delivered by the Reverend Dr. Mary Ann Tumpkin. And I'm like, I don't know, Mary, I don't know, Tumpkin. I'm irritated, like irritated. And she got up there and I'm grumpy, you know, because I I I paid for Boulet, so I should be at Boole. Um, I had no idea Johnny would be at Boole. I would have gone there. And um, and Reverend Mary opened her mouth, and my life has never been the same. Like I was just, I was like, oh um, who is this woman? And so I said teacher, and I started traveling around with her, and that people would call me a Reverend Mary Groupie, and I was like, that's fine. That's not a bad thing, that's not a bad thing. Um, and then uh and I even toyed with with relocating to Miami. Like I was like, I'm gonna go study with this woman. Um, but as life would have it, I I got grounded in LA for different reasons where I couldn't travel as much anymore, and so I was rooted there. And in that time frame, the two assistant ministers that we have moved on for different reasons to like the next level in their career. And Reverend Della approached me and said, you know, I prayed about an assistant minister and God told me you. And I was like, Oh, okay. I was like, sure. And when I tell you I had no idea what I was saying yes to, like, no idea what I was saying yes to, because I knew what an assistant was in the entertainment industry, which was the world that I was working in and living in. So I was like, you know, I get you coffee, I bring you the trades. I don't know what the trades are for ministry, but I bring you the trades. Um and I keep you up on the gossip, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Assistant minister, not assistant to minister.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Right, right, right, right. I had no idea. I mean, I like I understood as I did understand that it was the assistant minister, but I I had no concept of like what an assistant minister does, and then it didn't help that Reverend Della Style was she didn't tell me. It was like, make it up. You're the assistant minister, may you make up what to do.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

And I'm like, Yeah, I get it. I I had a similar experience, but I wanted to talk about uh you as an entrepreneur, yeah. What aspect of your life uh brings you into being an entrepreneur and what kind of business is that?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Sure. So when I was 15, I went to a camp uh offered by the Rotary Club in uh Houston, Texas, which is where I'm from. And I I didn't know any of this. I just I it was a camp. I applied, I got in, I went, and the guy said, Um, does anybody know what an entrepreneur is? And nobody can really answer. And he said, Well, can anybody spell it? Well, I was coming. So I spelled it correctly. And um, and then he goes on, and just that explanation of you know, people who solve problems, people who make life better for other people, um, people who write their own ticket, like that just resonated with me. And it was like I was hooked. I was absolutely hooked. And so it's just it's a part of who I am. Um, I I believe that, you know, part of sitting in this role as senior minister, um, you know, whereas maybe other senior ministers kind of, you know, um are chafed by the administrative part of church or the business part of church, um, that's the part that I dive into. Like, let's get into these numbers, let's figure this out. Um, those are that's the part that I really enjoy. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

And that's part of part of the culture of Upchurch because I I think uh Della was very much about prosperity.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Yes, 100%. And outside of being a minister, I am a financial professional. So I am a licensed California insurance agent. Okay. Um, so I work with retirees, I help them to um basically take what they have earned or saved, not earned, what they have saved and set aside and stretch it across the rest of their lifetime. Um, and I have a particular heart for women in but uh in particular, one because we outlive men. Uh, and often when it's our turn to receive the caregiving, there's no one around to do the caregiving, uh, which means that we often have to, you know, pay for some type of support. Um and it means and then we're often the ones that come out of the workforce to take care of parents, um, which then cuts, uh-huh, which then cuts into the amount of money that we put aside because oftentimes in those years where we have come out of the workforce to caregive, um, not only are we not contributing to our um, you know, 401k or 457B or whatever your plan is, but now um, you know, you're you're coming, you're long lagging behind in skills. So then when you go back into the workforce, you're not necessarily going back in at the same salary rate. You may have to take a haircut as far as like your pay. Um, and all those things are just a recipe for disaster. Um, the other thing is, and this is something I've just learned just you know, being in the in this industry, is the tax code is written for married couples. And and when I learned it, I was like, I might need to get an arranged marriage because and it I'm I'm joking, but I'm also half serious because what happens is that in the tax in the in the tax code, the way your money is taxed in when you're in the what I call the working class, um, you just have more money that you can shelter as a married couple rather than as a single person. Well, if women are outliving men, once they're widowed, they're back in that single tax filer bracket. And so the same money just doesn't go as far. So I have a heart for helping women to um make smart decisions. Um, you can't beat Uncle Sam, but you can make some smart decisions to get around Uncle Sam. Um, so that's some of the work that I do.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Wow, I need to have a conversation with you about that kind of stuff. Yes, and no, outside of the financial professional world, you've been writing. You got a book called The Hair Paradox?

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So um I love writing. I'm a journaler, I journal every day. Um, it is the way that I learned to pray. So when I first became a spiritual teacher, I just didn't feel comfortable with my voice. And so praying out loud just felt like, you know, like I didn't like it. But I I I stumbled across a book from Catherine Ponder called The Prospering Power of Love. And in this book, she writes about writing to the angel in the other person, in another person that you may be having trouble with. And I um I started doing that, and and I was at the time I was going through my uh a divorce from my first husband, and I started to write to the angel, or I I would use the term Christ, angel really wasn't my term. I would write to the Christ in him, you know, just really trying to reach a state of peace. And then it occurred to me, you need to write to the Christ in yourself, and that practice turned into these daily letters to God. Um, they became really, really just a phenomenal um healing force in my life, and and I came to see them as my daily conversation with God where I would just sit down and write out the letters. Now, what's interesting is I never looked back. I only just wrote forwards. I just had these piles and piles of journals that I never went back through. And probably around 2005, 2006, I had the idea that these might make a good book to help somebody because it had been so instrumental in my life. And for the first time, I actually went back and transcribed the journals. And what blew my mind more than anything else was how many things had come to pass. That experience really taught me that every prayer is answered, that prayers have what I call gestation periods, meaning that a gestation period might be two weeks, um, another one might be two years, another one might be two decades, right? But every prayer has a time period that it goes through before it's fully a part of your lived experience. And the other thing that really blew my mind was just that there were prayers that I had prayed that I forgot about. I just I just didn't think about them. You know, uh in the moment that it was pressing and it was what I desired, but then life happened, another fire popped up, something else caught my attention and I moved on. And I I found that there were many times that I was actually walking in the results of something that I had prayed about that I just didn't remember. And so um the prayer paradox comes out of that experience. Um, the stories, all of the stories in the book are true, like literally true. Um, but I fictionalized it with a character named Tracy to you know kind of tease that out and illustrate these principles. Um and one last thing about that. The other thing that blew my mind about the prayer journals and the the um what happened with them was the level of detail. So there were things that came to pass exactly as I had written them. And that was mind-blowing to me because it really taught me one, it was like I was writing my life into expression, but it also taught me that spirit is into the details, and and it was it was painstaking detail as if it was like, okay, this is the color that you want, this part of the picture, okay, this is the texture that you want, this part of it. Like it was that level of uh exactitude uh that I experienced.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

So when you've been writing, you did you write other books? I did, I do, I have tell us tell us just the titles of the other books.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah, yeah. So I have a uh a youth book uh called Elisha and the Widow with the Oil. Um, and and that really grew out of wanting to have uh brown faces that our children can look at for these Bible stories. Um, Elisha with the Widow with the Oil is actually also my favorite story uh from the Bible. Um I I got turned on to it by Reverend Mary, and when I was in my kind of dark night of the soul, uh I read that story every day, and my challenge to myself was to find something new in the story. Um and living with that story for you know six months at least, um, writing on it every day and challenging challenging myself to find something new, what I really began to see was the agency that this woman had. Um, I started to understand that she was not the destitute, it was nothing that says she was destitute, she was broke. But broke doesn't mean destitute, and broke doesn't mean that you're like, oh law, she's the you know, forgotten child. No, she maybe she made some bad financial decisions. Well, I've been there, you know. So it helped me to start to see her as a whole person. So I wrote this story, Elisha and the Widow with the oil, um, mirroring the the story for for young children.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

And then I also wrote a book, um, the I want to stop with that one and just I love that story too, and I've done you know, some some material off of that in terms of my sermons and stuff. So um, I'm glad you're offering that to children. Um and you know, you can talk about faith, but she's like the evidence of faith.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

She is the evidence. My my my biggest insight from her was that she too was a disciple or a uh a prophetess of Elisha. Um we think of her as just the wife of the prophet, but she models for us the uh the way a true student would, and she executes to the letter, and no one executes to the letter unless they've been a student. Yeah, and and so it's just really breathing life into her. I'm I'm interested in that in terms of scripture, breathing life into the women because they are often flat on the page and sometimes hidden and they're on the page, and so I'm interested in breathing life into these characters that are um you know that really have been overlooked for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Okay, I'm I'm seeing spiritual cinema next.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yes, yes, yes, yes. You know, that's the the background is uh is um the background is is in movies, and um, and I do well that that's where that's the what my master's degree is in.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

So yeah, we'll we'll we'll talk we'll talk offline about that too, because that that's been that's been uh in my mind as is part of my finale. So um uh other other titles you want to share with the audience?

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Yes, um, I wrote a book uh in 2009 called The Money Poems. And this book, again, same kind of format as the prayer paradox, where there is a story and then there's the principle outside of the story. Um, and so these were poems. I was working with an artist, uh Mark Allen Felton, uh, his stage name is Panther, and we were good friends and we were students uh of Della and he's from Chicago, students of Johnny. And um it really just started sitting down one day and riffing, and out comes these seven poems, and and and one for each day of the week. And uh, and then when we after we wrote them, we started talking about okay, how do we utilize them? And we built this story that was kind of an amalgamation of both of our lives, um, that introduced the the poems and how they uh could be used through this you know fictionalized family that often pulls from you know my life and his life as if it were a mashup. And um, and the this book has has had an incredible life. Um the uh Unity Church of Flint uh actually uses it as an ongoing book study. Um and and I I went to um to sit in on it because this book was written in it was written in 2009. It was republished in 2017. It was written in 2009. And so I went and just sitting with them, and this is like, you know, almost two decades later, like, wow, like this, like it, this life that this thing has, that like it keeps finding a new audience. Um, but it's a great abundance system to help reprogram the mind to write new tapes uh on um to write new tapes on uh your money story.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah. So listen, I know that you have been in the new thought movement for quite a while, and I imagine that you have like some type of elevator pitch in terms of telling people what new thought is.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Um but here's my question. Um, and this is the central question for mystic magic. Can you think of a mystical moment that changed your life?

SPEAKER_01 23:01

It would have to be my prayer journals. The um so uh I in 2010, so being an entrepreneur, um it is I can the job is like a cuss word. And in 2010.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

I'm not gonna work for nobody else.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Just listen. In 2010, this is this was two years after the housing bubble, the industry had gone through a um a restructuring with like the the writer strike and and the actor strike. I mean, it was just a mess. And so the two things that I was doing, real estate investing and working in entertainment, had ground to a halt. And I I had tenants, but I had a tenant that stopped paying. And um, which taught me the value of multi-unit properties versus single family homes, because if you don't have the cash flow, if they stop paying, where are you gonna get the money from? So it was just that's what I call my dark night of the soul. It was the worst. This is when I was reading The Widow with the Oil. Because I'm like, the creditors are at the door, and I don't have two sons, but they coming to take whatever looks like two sons. And so I broke down in uh October 2020, 2010 and got a job. And I my a friend of mine was working at a call center, which raised uh a nonprofit call center. So we raised money for Habitat for Humanity, uh, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, organizations like that. And I took the job and I was so like it was an identity crusher type thing, right? Because my identity was I'm this entrepreneur, but this entrepreneur had failed. And so I was working this job, hated it, like hated it, didn't talk to anybody because I don't, it was like you're not my peer group, and I and I don't want to become friends with y'all in case I accidentally start become a worker.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Like I'm just like I'm not gonna invest my time in you, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Right. And so um, you know, the thing with that makes an entrepreneur is sales, right? Every you're in sales, um, because you're selling whatever it is that you're trying to get someone to invest in or buy or whatever. I'm failing at this job. This sales job, I'm failing at. And so before they fire me, they bring me in to just kind of have a little conversation. I'm like, okay, all right, see if they can salvage me. And so at this point, I am a uh uh Reverend Della has asked me to be her assistant minister just to give a timeline. So I've got these principles. I'm like, okay. And what we diagnose was what's happening is that when someone would tell me no to a pitch or a request for money, it would sink my energy. So that by the end of the shift, I'm like emotionally like on the floor. And so what we diagnose is that I gotta get my recovery time better behind the nose. And I was like, okay, that makes sense. Well, I know something I can do, I know affirmations, I know the power of affirmations. And so I have these yellow legal pads, I would bring one in per shift, and in and I'm on an auto dialer, and in between calls, I would write out affirmations. Uh there's an affirmation at the end of Seed Money in Action, one of my favorite, favorite books. Um, just it's phenomenal. I recorded it on my phone because again, these are not my friends. So on my on my break, my lunch break, I would go sit in my car because I ain't playing with these people. They're not gonna be, you're not gonna turn me into a worker. And I would go sit in my car and listen to this affirmation just over and over and over again. And when the break was over, I would go back, sit at the dialer, and write out affirmations. And what happened was that it helped my energy to just stay even. So you could tell me no, but I wouldn't sink emotionally, I would stay even. Um what happened that I didn't realize was happening was that I was building spiritual momentum. And about six months into this job, which I had really taken just to stop the financial hemorrhaging, is that I got promoted. And then I got promoted again. And inside of a year, I'm sitting in a corporate office with an expense plan, uh expense account, corporate profit sharing, a door with a lock. And the way that my trajectory went, I became less and less reliant on the legal pads because um it's just timing, like the way the calls that I got assigned, I got bigger and bigger accounts, you know, so I just didn't have time to do the affirmations the way that I had been doing. So when I'm moving into my office, I find these yellow legal pads, and I'm like, oh, I remember this. This is when I was about to get fired. And I go back through and I read them. And one of them says, uh, you know, people love to give me their credit card because we're doing credit card sales on the phone. Um, I'm the number one caller in this call center. Like that became true. Um, I'm promoted through the ranks very quickly. Um, the guy who trained me, who uh, you know, was there, we were sitting down one day just talking about, you know, chopping it up. And he says to me, Sherry, I have never seen anybody move this fast of this company. Like, it's my mystical experience has been married to my writing, and I am confident and convinced that anything I put on paper is coming to pass. The only thing I don't have control over is how fast it happens or when it happens.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Well, great. I know that um you have had quite um a rich experience as a career person in that you know that you're a mother now, and I know that's fairly recent in the scope of things. How did that change things for you?

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Sure, sure. Uh it turned everything upside down, so I became a tell you another story. So February 2015, or a little bit before I go and I go home, my uncle has made transition and I'm officiating the funeral. And my niece, who's a teenager, has had a baby and is not doing very well with this kid. And so when I see him, I pick him up, I pray over him, and I just let it go and I come back to LA. And then in January, my family says, Hey, you know, we need you to help. And I said, Okay, sure. And so at this time.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

So help meant write a check?

SPEAKER_01 29:29

No, help meant, help meant take him. Okay, okay, so I knew that part, and I was like, sure, absolutely. What about if I say, no, I'm not gonna watch this kid sink or or fail or whatever. So um, so I know he's coming in February, that was February 6th, and all of a sudden, so February 6th, I had there was a baby, like he was 14 months, right? There's a baby who can't talk, like, you know, there was no like getting ready. The my gestation period was like a week. Okay, you know, well, most people get nine months, I got a week. And a week later, February 15th, Reverend Dello threw a party, and she never told me when she planned to retire. She threw a party on February 15th. I was late getting there because I was locking up the church. And when I walk in, everybody's like, Congratulations, congratulations. I'm like, for what? She passed the tour, the church to you, and I'm like, really? She didn't want to tell nobody that this is what was gonna happen. And so inside of a month, least of all you. Yes, it was completely upside down, and so um, you know, I had gone to seminary, I had already done that, and I finished my practicum. I had not yet been ordained, the the ordination didn't happen until 2017. So I was still in the middle of my practicum when all this happened. Um, and I was like, okay, and I got this infamous, and I am when I tell you, Celeste, at the end of days, and I'm like, I'm teaching Bible class, and and and and then the the corner starts smelling, and I'm like, okay, hold on, y'all. Let me go change this type of my book, just the poop. You know, and he went everywhere with me because I didn't I didn't have a village, I didn't have I didn't have any of that because this was, you know, like all of my friends' kids are were like middle school or high school, like they were just older. So, and then so then now I'm the old mama going to the school, to the to the nursing school with the um, you know, with the uh uh the little 20-somethings with the and I'm like, oh, this is just not a good look. And so um it was it's been it's been a whole journey to like build a village. Like I get why people have children together because now you can there was nobody to squat with. So he went to conferences with me. He was always around grown-ups. Um, we were at an INTA conference, and I'm up speaking. I don't have no babysitter with me. I can't, at that point, I couldn't afford a babysitter, couldn't afford to leave him. And so he's at INTA with me. And while I'm taught speaking, Celeste, he is running up and down the aisle. So I'm like, oh my God.

unknown 32:07

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Wow. So, so yeah, so it's been a it's been a journey. But he's 12 and a half now. He is gifted, he's talented, he knows who he is, and uh and he knows the power of his words, and I'm extraordinarily proud of the young man that he has become.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Well, the first time I saw him was at Celebrating Our Soul in 2024. Yes, and that is what I want us to talk about next before we leave this conversation. Celebrating our souls um, you know, started back in 2022 for the public, started for me in 2020, but you know, um, this is the third one that's biannual, and you've been, and now you're part of the planning team. And what made you first want to come as an audience member and then want to become part of the visionary team?

SPEAKER_01 33:07

So great question. Um, so the first one, I don't even know if I really understood what was happening. The um, but I had um people who were in my peer group who were going, and so that's what really made me decide to you know to go. Um, and so I I was a participant in 22 and then a masterclass presenter in 24, and um uh Reverend Jerry reached out and asked if I would become a part of the planning team, and I thought, I got so much on my plate. Wow. Yeah, I gotta, but you know, they said if you want something done, give it to a busy person because they know how to figure it out. And so I said yes, and I said yes to to just um contribute. I think that uh gatherings like this are important. I believe that spiritual community is important, and I I really I believe that new thought, I just I feel like we are the spirituality for the 21st century. I believe that the you know, this, you know, where science is going, uh we're at the place that we can regrow limbs, uh, we're at the place where scientifically there's no reason that we need to exit the body short of getting hit by a bus. Um the the ability to clone, the ability to travel to other parts of the galaxy. Um I feel like that's like it's the perfect time to be a part of a spirituality that doesn't think that that's the work of some evil force or you know, but just understands that that it's an expansion in the mind of spirit. It's an expansion in the mind of the I am. Um, and so I, you know, I'm I am committed to seeing us nurture that next generation, you know, that comes through and encouraging them to pick this up.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Well that sounds like part of your like master plan, but specifically in terms of celebrating our soul, yeah. Um and and it's produced by people of African descent new thought group. So this is um this is something that has only happened in like this this decade, and it's kind of new, and so what prompted you to come to the first one?

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Uh again, people in my peer group going.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Um, but there was something and then when you experienced it.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Sure. So when I experienced it, there were it was it was such a rich and warm and inviting experience. Um you know, so being in the UFBL, I have a version of that experience already.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Universal Foundation for Better Living.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Right, exactly. So whereas um maybe others in other organizations, they may be in settings that are more mixed. But in our organization, so I I wasn't fulfilling that need, and I think that that's an important need, which is we're in we're in mixed company, um, and I have a lived experience that people that I'm worshiping with can't relate to. I don't have that experience. But I think for me, it was valuable to meet other people in New Thought that were not a part of UFBL, and to be in community with people from centers of spiritual living, to be in community with people from divine science or unity or an independent organization, I think that that is um powerful. I think that it deepens my own personal experience in New Thought. Um, I think that it's a central part of it and why it's um why it's important.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Well, I just want you to know that um even though uh we haven't spent like personal time together, um, your vibration is one that is always fascinating, and that you know, your your warmth is is palpable, and uh your leadership and clarity is evident. And so I appreciate all that you do for yourself and for the planet.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I say the same for you. You're right. I haven't had a chance to really, really hang out with you, but I appreciate every interaction that we have had, and it has been uh wonderful, and I'm I'm grateful to just be a part of this and to be a part of this experience.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Yes, this is Mystic Magic, thank you. Exploring our spirit to understand our lives. Thank you for tuning in today. Be sure to check out our show notes for more information about today's episode. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and all of your favorite podcast venues. This is Mystic Magic. Exploring our spirit to understand our lives.