Hello World,

Tonight is the most exciting night in Hollywood! It’s the night that a new class of movie industry professionals will be bestowed with that unmistakeable gold statuette for reaching the zenith of their careers. Yes, you guessed it! It’s Oscar Sunday, and the awards ceremony will be telecast tonight at 7 p.m. EST! 

The Hollywood Reporter, as a part of its Oscar coverage, recently featured an article “Oscar’s First Black Winner Accepted Her Honor in a Segregated ‘No Blacks’ Hotel in L.A” about Hattie McDaniel, the first black person to win an Academy Award 75 years ago.  McDaniel won the Best Supporting Actress Award for portraying Mammy in “Gone With the Wind.” In addition, the magazine also interviewed actress and comedian Mo’Nique as she paid homage to McDaniel by wearing gardenias in her hair as McDaniel did on her Oscar night when she won the Best Supporting Actress Award for the role of Mary in “Precious” in 2010. Unfortunately, Mo’Nique had negative things to say in the article “Mo’Nique: I Was “Blackballed” After Winning My Oscar.” I don’t know all of the politics of Hollywood which was discussed in the piece so I have no opinion about that. But what did capture my attention was Mo’Nique’s mystical relationship with her chosen mentor Hattie McDaniel who died several years before Mo’Nique was even born…Below are just a few snippets from the article in which she describes this relationship…

Do you know I keep a picture of Hattie McDaniel in my closet in an 8-by-10 frame? As I’m looking at her right now, it looks like her smile is shifting. Yes, I’m talking about you, Miss Hattie McDaniel! (Laughs.) What that woman had to endure was criticism from the white community and the black community. She didn’t have options to say, “No, I’m not going to accept that,” because she was an actress. I’m just grateful. I’m appreciative that she endured all of that so that this little girl named Mo’Nique wouldn’t have to.

Spiritually, I’ve gotten an opportunity to meet and talk with her. And I read her life story, which is absolutely amazing — just to see how amazingly talented this woman was, and the mistreatment she received all the way up to her death. This woman gave everything to the business. It help me to put my priorities in order and realize that my family comes first. Because when all of this is over and they say the last “action” and the last “cut,” I want to have my family. When Hattie died, she died alone with a nurse by her side, and no money.

In having my conversations with Hattie McDaniel, you know what she said? “Mo’Nique, my story’s already been told. There needs to be a new story told.” So all I’ll do right now is wink my eye to you over the phone when I say that. (Laughs.)

So I’m sure that some people think it’s weird that Mo’Nique feels like she has met, connected to and is mentored by a dead woman….I’m not one of them because I too have a dead spiritual mentor that I feel like I’ve met, am connected to and am mentored by…My dead spiritual mentor is Catherine Marshall…I believe I first discovered her in 2002 through her book “Something More” Below are 10 Reasons Why I Chose Catherine Marshall as My Spiritual Mentor.

1. Her personal relationship with God was the foundation of her creativity, and she wrote books that sold at least 18 million copies…I have wanted to be a writer since I was six years old, but it wasn’t until I developed a personal relationship with God that I had something to write about…
2. She was spiritually adventurous…She was never satisfied with what she knew about God. Every book she wrote demonstrated that she aspired to know something more…I aspire to be that way…
3. She wrote fiction and non-fiction books…I, too, don’t want to be confined to one genre…
4. She was a pastor’s daughter…I am a pastor’s daughter, a pastor’s granddaughter and a pastor’s niece…
5. She attended Atlanta’s Agnes Scott College where her papers are actually housed…I grew up in Atlanta…And a few years ago as a birthday gift to myself, I spent the day at Agnes Scott reading through her papers…
6. She was a big dreamer…I am big dreamer….
7. She believed in miracles….I believe in miracles…
8. She really wanted to be married…After her first husband died and she lived as a single woman for several years, she wrote her desire to get remarried which she ultimately did…Her testimony inspired me during my single years…
9. She was devoted to her marriage and family life although she was passionate about her writing career…Although I LOVE words, you can’t cuddle up to them at night or laugh with them at the movies, etc…Well, I guess you could, but it’s not the same…you know what I mean….
10. She can’t reject me…Since she died when I was 10 years old, I didn’t have the chance to meet her as an adult…But honestly, I don’t know if I would have had the courage to approach her about mentoring me had she lived long enough to meet me…Thankfully, she wrote so much about her life in her books, I feel like she is personally advising me all of the time through her words…

One last thing: I hesitate to share this but here it goes…I feel like I’ve met her too…I had a dream about her shortly after I started reading her books…I won’t share all of the specifics, but I will say that she told me to look up Ephesians 5:1 “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children.” So as much as I look up to her, she advised that my ultimate guide is God…

So do you think I’m weird? My husband does 🙂 LOL…

Any thoughts?