Episode Twenty: The Byte - Rev. Kathy Beasley

There's this one story,

Any time our family gets together,

She revels in the story.

She told me to go into the room and like part my hair out and separate it and put it in like a couple of ponytails.

Well,

I was watching American Bandstand and the Jackson 5 just happened to be on American Bandstand.

And so they were rocking an Afro and I'm about five years too late because I didn't get a chance to really rock the fur.

So I picked out my hair into this gigantic Afro.

And I'm like dancing in the mirror,

Singing in the hairbrush,

You know,

Dancing around with Michael,

Doing the spins and the turns.

And I just happened to turn in such a way that I saw my sister's face in the mirror and she was mortified.

Like,

Oh my God,

How am I getting the hair undone from that?

Because I mean,

It was wider than I was wide.

I was like,

Oh my God,

How am I getting the hair undone?

Hi there,

I'm Reverend Kathy Beasley and I am the senior minister for the Central Florida Center for Spiritual Living.

I describe myself as an organizational transformer.

Yeah,

I just fix things that people don't know are broken or I'll point in directions that people didn't know that something could move.

So do you fix people's interiors,

Their interior cells as well?

No,

They have to do that.

I'm kind of like the interior decorator.

I show up and I suggest things.

I bring paint color swatches.

Like do you want farmhouse chic?

Are we going for New York industrial?

So I show up with suggestions and they get a chance to really do the work on a spiritual level.

What a great description.

I kind of love it.

I think we need more of you in the world.

I don't know.

You gotta be careful what you're asking for because any more than one of me in any one place at a time,

There gonna have to be some warning labels attached to that experience.

My wife got gravely ill and had to have several surgeries.

And it was scary because of course who plans for that?

And so that was not a part of the care plan,

But that was what happened.

And I found myself sitting in an emergency room in Los Angeles,

Which I live in Florida.

And while I'm sitting there juggling,

How do I talk to our family about this?

How do I explain,

Oh my God,

I was supposed to go back to work later on this week.

Things like that.

And while I was sitting in that room in the midst of this swirl of emotion,

At the opposite end of the room for me was a gentleman sitting by himself.

It looked like he was either praying or having a very robust conversation with himself.

And I just felt compelled to literally step out of my own circumstance and go and sit next to him.

And we're the only two people in this big room.

And after I sat there for a minute,

I turned to him and I said,

My name is Kathy.

And he said,

Well,

I'm praying and I'm praying the rosary in Aramaic.

And I was like the language of Jesus.

And he said,

Oh,

You know this?

I said,

Not really.

I know about it.

And he said,

Are you familiar with the rosary?

And I said,

Yes.

He said,

I'm gonna pray in an Aramaic 10 times,

10 times.

And so we sat there praying.

And the thing that united us was we had a family member who was going through a very traumatic point in their lives.

And after I got done praying,

I thanked him for the opportunity to just kind of be in his energy.

And he told me a little bit about where he was from.

He was baptized in the Jordan River.

But just to sit in the midst of where I felt like I had nothing,

But it was more than enough to offer another person.

And that felt like a miracle to me.

I made it back to my end of the room and I sat there for a few minutes.

The surgeon came in and said that she's out of surgery and out of the woods for the moment.

And I'm like,

Well,

That was your one job because I told you to bring her back to me.

But being able to step outside of everything I was thinking and feeling and to sit with another human being,

That's a miracle to me.

Today,

She is thriving,

She's healthy,

She's well.

She's here with me in Florida.

And in general,

Life is good.

So it really has been this trajectory and existing in the company of the miraculous.

And I have an appreciation for it because I could still remember the journey,

Remember the feelings,

Remember what the silence sounded like.

And today,

I mean,

I hear something rattling outside of my office because I know that's like her out there putting a Christmas tree together,

Like wrapping presents on the down low,

Just things like that.

And I think about how grateful I am for that moment of noisy chaos in my life.

And that for me,

That's one of the greatest miracles I can say that I have witnessed with my own eyes.

That's so beautiful because I think some people,

Maybe more jaded or cynical people would have looked at a man in the corner muttering and talking to himself and would have thought,

Oh,

There's just another mentally ill homeless person.

Or,

Oh,

That person looks crazy,

I'm not going near them.

So I find that I'm not going near them.

So I find it really astonishing that you were pulled in the other direction and you went toward rather than shying away from an encounter.

And that's so beautiful.

That's true because when I look back on it,

I never gave it a second thought.

I just saw,

It's almost like that for a moment,

You can see the soul of a person,

Can see what a person needs over who you think they are or they are not.

And it was just a flicker,

But something inside of me said,

Get up now and go pray.

This is what you do for a living.

And I don't know,

There I go,

Down to pray with the stranger,

Praying the rosary in Aramaic.

I was like,

Oh,

And I didn't realize I knew the rosary.

I'd heard it,

I've probably written a paper about it,

But I had no idea that I knew it from memory until that moment that I needed it.

It was quite curious.

I didn't go into a Catholic church for the first time until I was in college.

And I went to church with my roommate and she said,

I'm Catholic.

And I was like,

Do I have to wear a dress?

And do I have to put on some pantyhose?

I just wanna interject here that I'm glad that pantyhose almost don't exist anymore because I was a child when I was a child and my mom would make me dress up.

I had to wear pantyhose,

Which I thought were the biggest abomination I had ever experienced.

And I literally didn't understand them.

They made no sense.

They made my skin look this weird brown color that didn't match the rest of my body.

It was so strange.

I'm so glad they're gone.

And they were certainly not complimentary to the outfit.

So yeah.

And the fact that you could run them without ever leaving the house,

I was just like,

Okay,

Who invented this fragile torment?

Here's the other question.

Wasn't it so hot and humid and you had to put on pantyhose?

Yeah,

I had to put on pantyhose and I had shoulder length hair.

When you get your hair pressed in the south,

That's an experience because the humidity,

Which is nothing but moisture in the air,

Will cause your once straightened hair to begin to puff out a little bit and it would take an entirely different shape.

Pressing your hair is with the hot iron.

Is that right?

Hot iron and some sort of emollient,

Some sort of an oil base,

Referred to it affectionately as grease.

And so you would use that to press and straighten and curl your hair.

I mean,

And I had a lot of hair.

And so that was a Saturday ordeal.

Yep,

I love my sister dearly because she had the task of washing,

Pressing,

Curling my hair.

And I was not always the most cooperative child in that process.

There's this one story.

Anytime our family gets together,

She revels in the story.

She told me to go into the room and part my hair out and separate it and put in a couple of ponytails.

Well,

I was watching American Bandstand and the Jackson 5 just happened to be on American Bandstand.

And so they were rocking an Afro and I was about five years too late because I didn't get a chance to really rock the fur.

So I picked out my hair into this gigantic Afro and I'm dancing in the mirror,

Singing in the hairbrush,

Dancing around with Michael,

Doing the spins and the turns.

And I just happened to turn in such a way that I saw my sister's face in the mirror and she was mortified.

Like,

Oh my God,

How am I gonna get the hair undone from that?

Because I mean,

It was wider than I was wide.

And so needless to say,

She had to wash it again in order to get it in a way that was malleable.

And I never had the task of being able to go and part my hair out myself.

She always did it for me because I could not be trusted with the television and the hairbrush.

Thanks for listening to the end of season two,

Episode 20 of Bite Sized Blessings.

I'd like to express my gratitude to everyone who's made it this far and has listened to all 20 episodes.

Thank you to my friends in the world for supporting the show and for making it this far.

Thank you to the world for supporting me.

I'd also like to thank the Reverend Kathy Beasley for sharing her story today and also the creators of the music used.

Raphael Crux,

Kevin MacLeod,

Chilled Music,

Music L.

Files,

Sasha End,

And Alexander Nakarata.

For complete attribution,

Makers,

New and cool music,

And intriguing books I think will lift and inspire your spirit.

Thank you for listening,

And here's my one request.

Be like Reverend Kathy and see all the miracles that surround you.

Smooth jazz music playing.

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You.