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Greenleaf Recap Season 1 Episode 6: Good Morning, Calvary

grace

Hello World,

Yes, I am writing recaps for each episode of “Greenleaf” for this first season at least and yes, I know I missed last week’s episode. But I have a great reason why I was unable to do so last week. I was getting my hair done and the appointment ran late. Yes, that late…smh…

Anywhow, I swear Oprah, her team of “Greenleaf” writers and OWN are determined to unearth every issue that has ever happened at somebody’s church throughout these not-so United States (right now, anyway). You will see what I mean…

Sisters of Tamar (not Tamar Braxton although she was named after the biblical Tamar I’m sure)…

This episode begins with a meeting of a sexual abuse survivors group that Grace formed. During this meeting, a woman named Stacy shares how her life seemed doomed from the moment she was born as her father felt he couldn’t afford another child. After her parents divorced, her mother began dating a man who became a father figure and began sexually abusing her. When Stacy’s husband comes to get her after the meeting is over, his aggressive tone suggests that although Stacy may no longer be abused by mother’s boyfriend, her husband has taken his place.

Jacob’s Ladder…

When you think of a ladder, you typically think about using it to climb higher, but if you’re already high, you can use a ladder to go lower even if you would rather not do so. That is the position that Jacob finds himself in during this episode. After Kerissa reveals that Jacob was getting it on with Alexa, Bishop Greenleaf’s assistant, in last week’s episode, the Bishop is now ready to deliver his punishment. Jacob will be relieved of all of his ministerial duties for 90 days.  Oh, by the way, the Bishop has fired Alexa as well. Jacob accuses his father as using his infidelity as a reason to make GiGi (Grace), obviously his favorite, a preaching pastor rather than just a pastor on the Calvary staff.

When the Bishop tells his wife Lady Mae that Jacob is on punishment, she says that Jacob is only human and it’s not like the Bishop hasn’t been human before. Was she insinuating that the Bishop has cheated on Lady Mae before? Could be….But I’m not sure at the moment. Like Jacob, Lady Mae is afraid that this is the Bishop’s chance to get Grace in the pulpit as he obviously wants.

The Bishop wastes no time in approaching Grace about preaching to the 4,000 people that come to Calvary’s Memphis location the following Sunday as he will be preaching in Calvary’s Birmingham location. Apparently, they have churches in Birmingham, Alabama; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Knoxville Tennessee. She says so, but then he commands, “You’re going to do it.”

When Lady Mae realizes that Bishop has convinced Grace to preach on Sunday, she goes to see her daughter privately and asks that she does not use her sermon as a “switch to punish us publicly.” I wonder why Lady Mae is so threatened by her daughter’s presence. I’m thinking she is uneasy with how much influence Grace has over her father and the fact that Gigi tells the truth whether or not church folk approve…

Trapped in the Closet…

Charity Greenleaf continues to clash with Greenleaf choir director Nigel so much so that she complains to her husband. I’m surprised that Kevin is able to tear himself away from his phone, as he obsessively peruses various gay dating sites, long enough to give her advice, but he does.  He suggests that he simply fire Nigel and find a suitable replacement. When she takes his advice, she is overwhelmed by the number of applicants. Kevin suggests that she treat the process like dating and simply and quickly subtract the applicants she knows she is not interested in and interview the remaining applicants. He should know since it seems he may be dating someone and not his wife in the near future. She bonds with one applicant so much that after they sing an impromptu rendition of “Jesus Be a Fence Around Me” (Jesus be a fence around your husband because he is going to get out…), she offers him the job during the interview. However, before he accepts her offer, he tells her he is openly gay and will be bringing his partner to church. Charity doesn’t mind his candor she says and he accepts her offer.

However, once Kevin learns of Charity’s selection, he does not approve as the choir director’s openness with his sexuality demonstrates how closeted he is…

Swing Out Sister…

With his sister poised to be hottest new preacher pastor at Greenleaf, Jacob realizes that he must have a plan B to secure his position. He meets some sort of business executive who could potentially guarantee that Calvary becomes a televised ministry. I’m surprised that as big as it is, the church is not already televised but maybe I’m missing something…Anywho, Jacob invites the business executive, whom he has bonded with over fantasy football, to the Greenleaf estate so the business executive and his wife can spend some time with Jacob and his wife. Well, the wife starts throwing herself at Jacob while her husband makes a play for Kerissa. When the evening is over, the flirty couple invites Jacob and Kerissa to enjoy their hot tub in a cabin as a foursome. Yes, they swing like that…

Once they leave, Jacob asks Kerissa if she is down for what this couple is proposing. She answers, “Who knows what your stock is going to be once [Grace] closes that Bible on Sunday?” Kerissa is such a team player! And Jacob appreciates her willingness to be on his team so much so that he tries to start something with his wife (hey Alexa is gone), but she is not trying to do that…In other words, Kerissa is willing to get down with another man for her husband but not actually with her husband…That’s deep and even Jacob realizes that…

So on the night that they are supposed to get together with The Swingers (since I don’t know their name) with Kerissa in a strappy little purple number, Jacob decides that he longer wants to meet them. He tells Kerissa he doesn’t want another man touching his wife and says, “You’re mine.” And just like that, Kerissa happily dissolves in her husband’s arms…Great scene!

Sermons on Demand…

As Gigi never wanted to preach a sermon in the first place, she is stumped about what what she will say on Sunday. Zora, Jacob’s daughter, says when her father doesn’t know what to say, he buys a sermon online and reads it in front of the church. Gigi doesn’t believe her and decides to google buying sermons. To her surprise, she finds a site where she can download a sermon on demand for a small fee of course. But before she can continue to think about her sermon, she gets word that Stacy was beaten up by her husband and needs a place for her and her daughters to stay for a while. When she cannot find a suitable location, she puts them up at a hotel. She is surprised to discover that Stacy doesn’t intend on staying away from her husband forever as she wants her daughters to have a father as she didn’t have one. Still Grace continues to hope that Stacy will have the strength to be able to stay away from him anyway.

At church on Sunday, Lady Mae, who is happy to see Jacob and his wife smiling and happy together, tells him that Grace will not be able to get the upper hand although she is preaching. She says, “Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God and believe in me.” So that is a Bible verse: John 14:1 and refers to Jesus, but it seems that Lady Mae was referring to herself…So obviously, she has got a scheme planned. Her husband may be the head, but she is the neck which is how she was able to get Deaconess Connie Sykes back on as the head of the deacon board in this episode after the new head of the deacon board would not approve of the purchase of a new plane that the Bishop plans to buy…

So when Grace gets up in the pulpit, she begins to preach what seems to be a rather innocuous sermon she bought based on Matthew 6:28, but when she sees Stacy, donning sunglasses, sitting next to her abusive husband in the pews, she backs away from the New Testament and heads back to the Old Testament with Job 3:26.

I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

Yes, Lady Mae has every reason to be scared of her daughter Grace which is why the Bishop met with Grace’s favorite aunt Mavis. He believes she can tell him why Grace really came back to town, but instead of answering his question, she tells him he already knows the answer to her question…What happens at night is always revealed in the morning….my words not her words…Good Morning, Calvary…

Check out Aunt Mavis and Bishop Greenleaf discussing Grace below…

I cannot wait until next week…

Any thoughts?

 

 

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Greenleaf Recap Season 1 Episode 4: Behind Closed Doors

bishop black lives matter

Hello World,

My new favorite family megachurch drama Greenleaf (is there another family megachurch drama?) on OWN did not fail to disappoint in this fourth episode!

Black Lives Matter vs. Back The Blue…

The writers of this episode obviously drew from the ongoing war being waged between the Black Lives Matter movement and the boys in blue. In the opening scene, Deputy Mayor Baldwin Leonard comes to see Calvary Fellowship World Ministries’ Bishop James Greenleaf privately in his office to ask for his public support of Officer David Nelson, a Memphis police officer who mistakenly shot an unarmed black teenager Kenny Collins to death. The deputy mayor’s initiative is called “Back the Blue.” Bishop Greenleaf is obviously conflicted about lending his support to such a controversial matter but becomes convinced when the deputy mayor tells him that he will be able to get the rights to additional land to build a pool and community center when the church’s original attempt to acquire the land was halted. Bishop Greenleaf remarks that another pastor in town doesn’t have a pool! After the meeting, Bishop Greenleaf wastes no time in telling his daughter Grace that he would like to meet with Officer Nelson. Grace is surprised by his sudden change of heart in meeting the officer when he had previously shown no interest in meeting with Officer Nelson when she originally approached him about it. I’m not sure if Grace truly knows her father, but the good Bishop always seems to have an ulterior motive for whatever he does…

A Marriage of Convenience…

Inspired by the love story of the two deacons at Calvary Fellowship, Kerissa feels like her marriage is dead and drags Jacob into counseling although he told he doesn’t want to go. When the counselor asks Jacob why he is there when his body language and silence show that he doesn’t want to be, he replies, “She would have made my life a living hell if I didn’t come.” I hate to say this since I love the fact that Kerissa is rocking a short natural do. But she looks more like his stiff, suited up older sister than his wife. Anywho, Kerissa admits that she knows her husband is a serial cheater and that he  knows that she knows and that he doesn’t seem to care. Jacob doesn’t say anything when the counselor asks him about Kerissa’s statements and she rightly assumes his lack of a denial confirms Kerissa is right. In another counseling session, rather than try to coax her husband into speaking, she chides him and says, “It’s like being married to a six year old” which further emasculates Jacob whom already feels like Kerissa run things…

However, in the next scene, when Jacob, who is wearing a crucifix chain, is laid up with his white and more feminine mistress Alexa, Bishop’s assistant, he cannot stop talking and seems like he doesn’t want to leave. In fact, Alexa has to tell him to go home.

Bishop James Greenleaf vs. Lady Mae Greenleaf…

When the Bishop tells his wife that he is going to offer his public support of Officer Nelson, she is shocked which shocked me because she seems just as much of an opportunist as the Bishop seems to be. He tells her that she should be objective and see both sides of the situation. She counters that the deacon board will not be pleased that he made such a controversial decision without consulting them to which he replies, “The deacon board doesn’t run the church, God does.” And Lady Mae shuts him down with these words. “You’re not in the mood to listen to Him either.” Game. Set. Match.  (Incidentally, my mom is named May and is also a First Lady!)

Another face-off about Officer David Nelson happens when Grace tells her daughter Sophia she cannot attend a Black Lives Matter rally in support of Kenny Collins the slain teenager. Then Sophia tells her mother to “shut my door, please” in an indignant tone that would have gotten me slapped across the room had I used it with my mother as a teenager.

Lost Faith…

Speaking of Grace, she learns just how lost her sister was before she committed suicide. Noah Kendall, the leader of the security team for Greenleafs and Grace’s teenage boyfriend, tells her that a random man who had been lurking around the Greenleaf estate left a flash drive with something on it that she needs to see. When she inserts the flash drive on her computer, she is stunned by photographs of her deceased sister in her underwear in all kinds of poses and caught in sexual acts. She calls the random man and offers him $5,000, what he requested, to meet with her to discuss the photographs and prevent them from being exposed. He agrees to meet with her, and she meets him in the woods.  When Grace asks the man why her sister allowed these photographs to be taken, he replies that she “would do anything to get high.” The man, who looks like a jittery junkie himself, also tells Grace that if you looked in Faith’s eyes, “nothing was there.” He then runs off with $500 rather than than the $5,000 as that is all the money Grace would give to him.

A Life for a Life…

Obviously still grieving the loss of her daughter Faith, Lady Mae looks through a photo album and stares at photographs of her daughter when she was an innocent little girl. Charity interrupts her reminiscing to tell her some good news. She tells her she is pregnant to which Lady Mae responds with, “That’s wonderful” and hugs her daughter. However, she continues to look at a photograph of Faith held behind Charity’s back as she hugs her. It seems that Charity’s baby may be a welcomed replacement for her dead daughter.

Don’t Mess With the Deacons…

When the Bishop’s plan to invite the city’s police officers to come to a church service as a way to publicly demonstrate his support finally gets back to the deacons, they are properly incensed! Deaconess Connie Sykes, backed up by the rest of the deacons, confronts the Bishop in a conference room. She explains to him that the deacons are supposed to operate in a system of “checks and balances.” Then she says, “You seem to be only interested in the checks.” She called it right! Finally, she says that if he goes through with the service, she and the rest of the deacons will be forced to walk out of the service in a public demonstration of their lack of support for the boys in blue.

Smells Like Teen Spirit…

Zora, Jacob and Kerissa’s undercover druggie daughter, convinces her cousin Sophia to defy her mother and go to the Black Lives Matter rally anyway. While there, they are spotted by the Bishop who seems to have attended the rally to get a better understanding of all of the issues surrounding the unarmed teenager being shot and killed by Officer Nelson. The bishop promptly takes his granddaughters back home where he promises he will not tell their parents on them. In a tender moment that made me miss my grandparents, he hugs them tight to him and they respond in kind.

Touch My Body…

Although Jacob is almost completely mute in the counseling sessions, it seems that he is listening because he is learning to process his feelings. He tells his mistress about an incident at Macy’s where he was followed around by a security guard and simultaneously ogled by a sales associate. The incident makes me feel like he is simply a body and the fact that his mistress seems to be content just sexing him without fighting to be with him further solidifies his belief that he is a body being merely used, he explains to her. So when Kerissa says they can stop going to counseling because he isn’t into it, he asserts himself and says that he will continue to go. Good for him…We are all cray cray in some ways…

Back the Blue Goes to Church…

Bishop tells his church essentially that all lives matter as he invites members of the church to support members of the Memphis Police Department many of which including Officer Nelson are in the audience in the Sunday church service. Charity leads the choir in singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” but Deaconess Sykes follows through on her threat as she leads the deacons in marching right out of the church in the midst of the hoopla!

Out of the blue, Bishop Greenleaf tells the deputy mayor in another closed door meeting in his office after the church service that he doesn’t want the land after all. Instead he tells the deputy mayor that the city needs to better control the police department. “Kill fewer of our children,” he says.

Meanwhile, Grace helps another pastor in the church get an office. I don’t know what it means, but since it was among  the final scenes of the episode, I’m sure more will be revealed in future episodes…

I can’t wait to see what happens next week!

So how did you like my Greenleaf recap?

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Reflections on Being a PK (Preacher’s Kid) on Father’s Day…

meanddad resized

Hello World,

So I’m a Daddy’s Girl, but the older I’ve gotten, I’ve realized I’m also a Mama’s Girl. That being said since it is Father’s Day, I will focus on being the former. What has defined my relationship with my father is the fact that my dad is the Rev. Dr. Denzil D. Holness, pastor of Central Christian Church in Southwest Atlanta since I was six years old! And incidentally, my grandfather, my mother’s father, was a pastor and so is her brother, my uncle!

Growing up with a devout preacher of God, my father, and a daughter of a preacher, my mother, was wonderful and challenging at the same time…First of all, my brothers and I always felt loved and cherished by our parents. They encouraged each of us to become kind and empathetic people. They encouraged each of us to pursue our dreams. And most of all, they encouraged each of us to have personal relationships with God…

But, they had a TON of rules…And sometimes I found creative (read: I lied) ways to get around these rules…Maybe that is because they are churchy AND Jamaican! (Because I’ve never met an older Jamaican that didn’t believe in law and order…)

My father made it clear once I started high school that I could not go to dances even though all of my friends went to dances…I felt like Ariel, the preacher’s daughter in the original “Footloose.” Remember dancing and rock music were forbidden by the city council in their small town Bomont? So when I was in the tenth grade (if I am remembering correctly), I devised a scheme to go to my high school’s homecoming dance. As I was on the drill team and often got back from football games very late, I decided to tell my father that he didn’t have to pick me up from school until very late after a football game. I figured by the time he picked me up, I would have had at least an hour or so at the dance in the gym.

Imagine my surprise when as I was sitting with my all-time favorite crush, a handsome football player, on the bleachers, giggling like a lovesick girl that I was and what not, and the heavy doors of the gym suddenly swing open…A figure, illuminated by the light in the hallway, stood and surveyed the room. I felt like I was in a movie then because everything seemed to slow down. The figure wore a trench coat and his pajamas showed underneath. At once, I realized it was my father and he walked right up to me as if he had been magically bestowed with infrared vision. I was caught. If I could have passed out I would have as I became nearly mute with embarrassment. I HATED being a preacher’s daughter that night…

I found ways to date without my parents knowing as well. Although I was allowed to date when I was 16 years old, I didn’t always want my parents to know about every single date. So I claimed I joined a club at high school and we met on Wednesdays evenings after school. I figured that since my parents went to Bible Study at church on Wednesday evenings, they wouldn’t pay as much attention to what was going with this new club I joined, and I was right. So after school on Wednesdays, one guy in particular would pick me up from school and we would hang out throughout College Park where I grew up. He came all the way from the Dec (Decatur)to see me which seemed very far away at the time…Incidentally, he was a preacher’s kid too..Those were the days…I now know what the verse “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come…” (Ecclesiastes 2:1)  means…Back then, in spite of the high school drama I occasionally experienced, every day felt like a new adventure…

My dad when he was much younger...

My dad when he was a younger pastor…

Aside from the rules, I often found myself in situations that have to be unique to preachers’ kids….

I had my first kiss in front of the church during Vacation Bible School the summer before eighth grade…The boy I kissed lived across the street from the church. After we smooched that summer night, of course we became boyfriend & girlfriend…LOL…So after church on Sundays, when everyone was socializing in the parking lot, I would slip away to cross the street to visit my new boyfriend’s house…I figured no one knew what was going on with me because they were all yapping which is what happens for at least a half of an hour after church is over…But one Sunday, as I was getting ready to cross the street to come back to the church grounds, I saw my father waiting on the corner…to this day, I don’t know who could have told him where I was…But that was the last time I went across the street after church to visit my boyfriend…

When I was even younger, I was always getting into fights – usually because of my mouth because I’m articulate like that and folk couldn’t take my verbal beatdowns. The trouble was though is that my verbal prowess didn’t translate into physical prowess so I got beat up a lot. Instead of taking my side in these fights, my father invited the people that I fought with over to our home. He would then give a mini-sermon about being a peace maker…It was worse than being beat up…You know I got joined (talked about) in the neighborhood…

I could go on and on…

And now that I’m an adult,  in spite of all of the rules and embarrassment, I wouldn’t change a thing about being a preacher’s kid aka a PK or a pastor’s daughter…It has made me who I am today 🙂

Happy Father’s Day to ALL fathers particularly those who are pastors and a very Happy Father’s Day to the Rev. Dr. Denzil D. Holness and my father-in-law 🙂

Any thoughts?