photo by Lara Herscovitch
One of the exercises in CLP is about identifying and clarifying our own personal values. We each identify our top 5 values, writing one each on 5 index cards. Then we have to drop one… and another… until we are forced to choose our number 1, top value. What is your current One right now and why?

Love. Because that’s the foundation of it all.

My approach to life comes based on my understanding of the teachings of Jesus. And Jesus said the corner of it all is love. Love God, love the creator, love creation. If God is love, then what Jesus is saying is, love love. Love the very concept of love.

If we love ourselves and we love each other, if we love the very concept of loving, then everything else just falls into place. I’m not going to mistreat you. I’m going to go out of my way to make sure you have what you need, that you’re able to survive, with the confidence that you’re doing the same. And with the knowledge that that doesn’t really matter; it’s not about what you do, it’s about what I do. How I engage, how I live into the relationship, how I treat others. It all comes back to love.

It’s hard for me to explain, because it’s the core of everything. How do you explain everything, how do you define everything?

I’m going to start preaching here. Think about when Moses was given the orders to go into Egypt and tell Pharaoh, let his people go. As one of his excuses not to go, Moses asked the question “who am I supposed to say sent me?” I’m going in there and talking about watching some heavy stuff done, who am I supposed to say sent me? And the answer is, “tell them I am sent you.” What? Another interpretation is “I will be what I will be.”

To me, that’s the same thing. If God is love, then what we’re talking about is love. And there is no way to define love – we don’t have the words, the vocabulary, the understanding. We can’t define it, we just have to experience it, live into it, be a part of it.

Does that include self-love?

Definitely. We can go back to that greatest commandment, love God with all your everything and love your neighbor as yourself. I think the interpretation of that is the way you love God is by loving your neighbor. And I can’t love my neighbor if I don’t love myself. It’s the same. I see us as one. One part of creation, we’re all a part of this thing. And it’s not just people, it’s all creation, we have to love all of creation. If we accept that everything was created, then that means we have to love everything. We have to treat everything right. Every living thing and everything we’ve created to support those living things.

It’s not easy to do. What’s that adage, you always hurt the ones you love – unintentionally?

It feels reminiscent of Dr. King’s Beloved Community.

Yes, that’s exactly what it is. I believe that is what Jesus was trying to create. His revolutionary method and action was to create beloved community. If I love my enemy, how can they continue to be my enemy? That doesn’t mean I allow them to abuse me, or abuse others. But I love them. And one of the reasons I won’t allow them to abuse me or abuse others is because I love them, and I know that that’s harming their soul. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. [laughing]

It’s not easy. But that’s where we have things like prayer, or meditation. Taking the focus off of you, and putting that focus on a greater force, a greater being, a greater understanding. We shortcut that to “God.” But we can’t define God, so we don’t know what that means. The objective is how can we create a more beloved community.

What is one big, burning leadership question you are wrestling with these days?

I still struggle with how to get people to care. And maybe “care” is not strong enough or precise enough… care enough to act.

I think we’re being pushed that way right now, just because of the way things are going in the world. I think we’re being pushed into an unhealthy form of acting, and I’m afraid it’s going to lead to violence. But there’s still apathy. There’s still a lack of caring, or people don’t care enough to get involved. I don’t know if it’s because folks don’t believe their participation will help, or they don’t have the patience or wherewithal to last through the amount of time it takes change to happen. Or if they can’t handle the defeats that are inherent in fighting for change, fighting against powers. Maybe they don’t know where they fit in. I was just talking to someone this morning who asked me why I never ran for office. I had considered running for alderman at one point, but realized it wasn’t the right place for me.

So I understand. Folks just want to live, they don’t want to get involved and caught up in all that mess. And it is messy.

What do you want people to care about?

About what’s happening in the world. About their surroundings, about each other. There’s a whole lot of people who care about themselves; a whole lot of selfish, self-centered acts, where people are just doing things without considering anybody else. I want people to care enough to be willing to engage in a conversation and get to know something about someone else. Instead of making judgements, I want us to ask questions and listen to answers.

Is it issue-driven for you or are you talking about being a healthy community member?

A healthy community member. My style of community organizing has never been issue-driven. I used to think issue organizing was bad organizing. I don’t think so anymore, but it’s just not the style I choose to engage in. My approach is a step back from issue organizing. We build a strong community so that the community can then identify the issues.

How do you define community?

This is one of my questions too. For me, generally, I think it’s geographic – anybody in a particular place who lives, works or plays there. But it’s also commutable; it’s any group or grouping depending on what’s happening or what we’re talking about. I’m aware that when I talk about it, I need to be clear. Today, I might be talking about black people. Tomorrow it might be business people. But generally, when I’m talking about community, I’m talking about everybody.

And the work is teaching and modeling and providing space for the tools and techniques to build relationships, wherever you go.

What inspires you, gives you hope these days?

That we are learning again how to talk to and listen to each other. And the vehicle for that is story.

It’s very exciting right now that story is becoming so popular. I think it’s the way we’re going to get ourselves out of this mess. To create these mini-opportunities for people to tell, and more importantly for people to hear, others’ stories. Being able to express in words and actions something that’s important. Something that tells me a little bit about you, who you are, where you’re from. Even if that story is untrue, the way you tell it, the reason you chose it, tells me something about you.

We communicate all the time in story. We don’t call it that, we just call it talking. But you run into your friend, ask them how their day is and they answer “oh, I got up and this thing happened…” and suddenly it becomes this shared story, a shared experience. And then we realize we’re very much alike, we’re in this thing together.

I tend to fall asleep listening to the BBC news on NPR. Last week I heard a piece about two groups of people who had been at complete odds, opposite sides, for years. Through a third party, they agreed to have dinner together over a period of time. And they started telling stories to each other, got to know each other. Things like how all their kids played soccer. They didn’t become friends, necessarily, but now they weren’t enemies. Their disagreement was able to be handled in a much more healthy way. Just from sitting down and sharing stories, talking about their lives.

I’ve seen that kind of thing happen quite often. I went to Hartford Seminary in the early 2000’s – I was in the Institute of Congregational Studies. In the summer, a group of folks came in from around the country to study and work. One guy was there was from a very conservative church. The congregation he and I were assigned to was a church that was started explicitly for the LGBT community. They wanted to live into their Christianity but weren’t allowed to at other churches.

Back then, we were far from where we are now. There was a lot of animosity between the church and the LGBTQ+ community – back then the church referred to the entire community as “the gays.” There were a lot of people who were severely damaged by the way the world, and the church, had treated them.

The first thing we did was attend a Friday evening dinner. It was full of people from all ends of the LGBTQ+ spectrum, all variations of the alphabet, it was all there. He had never seen any of it, except maybe on the news. He panicked, went outside, was leaning against a car hyperventilating. We convinced him to come back inside, but he just sat off by himself, very afraid.

The next day, we went to the LGBTQ+ community center, and sat down with a female transgender counselor. And she just told her story. By the end of it, he was bawling. He told her, “you just changed everything I thought about Christianity. I’ve never actually had a conversation with anybody like you. I gotta rethink everything.” It was beautiful.

Every once in a while he pops up on my Facebook feed with something very progressive and affirming. He really did change. And it’s all just from her telling her story.

It’s powerful, it’s how we’re going to change the world, save the world. Save each other.

When did you know you wanted to go into ministry?

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know. Partly it’s the family business, and partly it’s who I am – I’ve always felt called to it. My path to ministry has been very different than what was expected from my upbringing. There was the expectation of a very specific way of ministering that I was unwilling to pursue. I’ve always been a questioner, and that generally wasn’t encouraged. Seminary was the place I was finally encouraged to ask all of those questions.

How did that change things for you?

When I was in first-year seminary, I took the bible courses – Old Testament and New Testament. I forget the details, but there was a point in the class where for a lot of people it’s an intense assault on their beliefs. In most of our church experiences in early life, the Bible is infallible – it is the word of God.

Then in seminary you hear about all this human intervention. Why are there two different versions of the creation story, which one is the right one? Some become very distraught as Jesus becomes a dude. And a dude who was flirting with the woman at the well.

When I heard it all, it was such a relief – I had been thinking that since I was three years old. I knew I could approach the whole thing differently. It didn’t minimize my faith, it made it make sense. It was ok to admit that sometimes we just don’t know why some things happen.

This work of transformational change is hard. Stepping in, stepping up, over time, can be draining – physically, intellectually, emotionally, psychically, spiritually. How do you recharge, restore, take care of yourself, rekindle your fire?

I’m still working on that. Lately I’ve taken to just sitting back and listening to music. I haven’t listened to music in a long time. Now, I’m listening for the stories. I never listened to it in that way before, so I’m going back to hear all these amazing stories. Hip-hop storytellers like The Notorious B.I.G., rock, gospel, jazz, country, classical, funk – just this morning I was moving to P-Funk.

I like to be alone, or in a small group, with some solitude. I don’t need to be away on a mountain to have solitude. But I am looking forward to my retirement plan, a catamaran and island hopping. Either somewhere in the Caribbean or Greek Islands. I’m hoping to get some kind of boat next year. I look forward to time on a boat when I have nothing to do and I can write. Lots of stories and themes that are bouncing around in my head. I can tell it’s almost time.

Right now, my writing is my sermon every week. I tend to write it Saturday night, then Sunday morning I make substantive changes anyway. I’ve been putting together an entire service every week for almost four years. It’s exhausting. I miss weekends.

Last year I joined the Pequonnock Yacht Club. Hanging out with a bunch of crusty old sailors and fishermen has been good. And it’s been challenging, because it’s also full of Make America Great Again hats, and the unintentional racist comment. But the water is so peaceful. It’s vast, powerful, unpredictable, and full of life. And it’s just beautiful.

Have you always been drawn to the water and sailing?

I like beauty in nature. I grew up in Saint Louis; we had lakes, ponds, the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, the Quiver River in southern Missouri. But there, and even when I lived in Florida, my experience of water was always from the banks, like when we fished.

When I moved back to Hartford, to work in insurance, one of the guys I worked with was a sailor. He took me out on his boat out of Westbrook, and I was hooked.

It was an Etchells, a one-design, about 31 or 32 feet. No engine, sleek, fast. It was a beautiful day, the wind was perfect, it was so relaxing. It’s a lot of work, but it was just fun. I started going out every chance I got. I started racing on boats, and when I couldn’t race, I’d work on a race committee, manage the race course. And then it got cold and frostbite season started. They race on the Essex River in the ice-cold water. I only raced that a couple of times, and only on bigger boats. The small ones can flip frequently when they hit ice.

I got hooked, and then I got busy and wasn’t able to do it as much. This year, I think I’ve been out only three times. Which is horrible, so I need to get my own boat.

What type of boat?

I’m torn. I love sailing, and ultimately I want a sailboat. But for now, I think I’ll get a nice powerboat, just to get out and tool around in. I’m not planning any long crossings or anything, I just want to get out on the Sound for a couple hours. And when I get my catamaran, maybe it will be my dinghy.

Introduce us to someone you are/were close with personally (e.g., family, teacher, friend, mentor), who shaped (or shapes) you and how you view leadership and possibility for a better community/world?

There have been a number of people who nudged me, set me on the trajectory I’m on. People who gave me permission to explore, take chances, reach down inside and bring out that stuff that’s been oppressed, pushed down and hidden.

My fifth-grade teacher encouraged my creativity. I remember we had these little plastic toy dinosaurs, and I had a vision of doing a big diorama. Friends brought their toy dinosaurs too, and together we created a big project that she let me lead. I learned to work with a diverse group of people to achieve a goal, allowing everyone’s creativity to contribute. I learned about giving folks freedom, permission to go explore their creativity, try stuff. If it didn’t work, we had 30 more yards of butcher block paper to start over with.

Another person was one of the elders of the church. When I was a teenager, he pulled me aside one Sunday and said, “boy, God’s got something great for you to do, but you’ve got to get out of St. Louis and experience stuff… how are you going to be able to direct people and counsel people on how to live life if you’ve never lived it?” I heard him, and I didn’t know yet how to do it. I was ‘the smart kid,’ but felt like I was discouraged from asking questions.

A third one was my high school drama teacher, who introduced theater to me as a discipline, an art, study, techniques, the practice of it. I fell in love with theater, I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. The smell of grease paint. To be able to tell a story, to create something that engaged people. I moved to New York for theater and did whatever I could get. There weren’t many roles for big black guys, so I learned stage management, lighting design, technical.

Are you working in theater now?

With all my free time? [laughing] Right now, building Baobob Studios is my focus. A couple of writers here are putting together radio plays, so we’ll see where that leads. We’ll probably have an open call, do auditions. If the right play came along, I wouldn’t mind directing. But my plate is full right now.

What do you recommend to us, in each of these categories:
  • Reading – I just got The Inclusive Bible, and am excited to dig into it. It’s the entire Old Testament and New Testament rewritten in gender-neutral language. I’ve also been digging into the Narrative Lectionary, that lifts up the stories all throughout the Bible.
  • Listening – Music. All kinds, and especially the rich stories.
  • Eating – To end the day, a nice, smooth scotch with an ice cube or two. With a piece of milk chocolate.
  • Watching – Sit by the Quinnipiac River and watch the barges pass in and out of New Haven harbor. Or sit on the rocks at Lighthouse Point and watch the birds and boats. Watch people; there isn’t anything on television as exciting as watching people in real life. And live theater; I like seeing the same show multiple times to see the changes. Because they’re people, they’re going to do things differently, try new things.
  • Laughing – Whatever it takes, laugh. Think of the stupidest thing you ever did… and then instead of being embarrassed, laugh at it. Don’t be afraid to laugh, and don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself.
  • Wildcard – Don’t be afraid of the stranger. You can use caution, precaution, but talk to them. Give them a chance. Even if you make judgements, go test them. I can guarantee you that 90% of the time you’ll be wrong.

Interview with The Circle’s Creative Director & Editor, Lara Herscovitch (Cohort 10). To reach Lara directly: thecircle@clpnewhaven.org or Lara@LaraHerscovitch.com

Learn more about RevKev’s Baobab Tree Stories, his ministry at Center Church on the Green, and the Neighborhood Leadership Program

To get in touch with RevKev directly: revkev@baobabtreestudios.tv

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