The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Second Acts

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

In this hour, stories of do-overs, golden years, and new takes. One-more-chance—at work, in love, through art. This episode is hosted by Moth Senior Curatorial Producer, Suzanne Rust. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media.Storytellers:Jamal Joseph is tasked with putting on a play in prison. After not working for almost 2 decades, Neerja Kapoor takes on an unexpected job.Craig Mangum and his girlfriend have more in common than anticipated. Rhonda Sternberg describes dating "while old."After losing her father, Blessing Omakwu has a crisis of faith. 

From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Suzanne Rust. The second act in a person's life is when things start to get juicy. It's when the plot thickens and the stakes are raised. It's where we start to learn what a person is really made juicy. It's when the plot thickens and the stakes are raised. It's where we start to learn what a person is really made of. It's also often the part where we watch a person grow, adapt, and come into something new. I personally love second acts. Even third and fourth acts, I've had a few myself, because they remind us that there's

always another way of thinking, being, or doing. Theater defines second acts. And no one knows this better than our first teller, Jamal Joseph. He told this story at Aaron Davis Hall in Harlem. Here's Jamal, live with them all. Welcome to the big top. Except it wasn't a three-ring circus. It was Leavenworth Federal Prison.

So named because the main building in the prison had a big dome, like the Capitol Building in Washington. Here I was, handcuffed, shackled, in line with a bunch of other federal prisoners that had just been marched up the steps that was lined with guards on either side, carrying M16 rifles. either side carrying m16 rifles and a lot of them were marine and army veterans which means they knew how to shoot greeted by a captain that said gentlemen welcome to federal prison Leavenworth let me give you a quick tour of the facilities. If you look out and you see

that gray building out yonder in the back, that's the prison hole. You fuck up once, that's your first stop. And if you look out yonder to the right and you see that white building, that's the prison infirmary. You fuck up two times, that's your next stop. And trust me when I say on the other side of that 60 foot tall gun tower wall is the prison cemetery. Need I say more gentlemen, have a good day. I'm in my 20s, serving a 12 and a half year sentence. I'd been to prison before, I went the first time at 16 as a member of a case known as the New York Panther 21.

Facing 300 plus years. But after spending a year in prison and then another year on trial, York Panther 21, facing 300 plus years. But after spending a year in prison and then another year on trial, we were acquitted of all charges. This time, 12 and a half years, being convicted of being an accessory after the fact. That was hiding our people who were on the run for the FBI. I mean, if I come to your house and say,

hey, can I crash here? I'm locked out of my apartment and you let me sleep on the couch, that's fine. But I say, hey, can I crash here? I just robbed a bank. You actually get 12 and a half years, half of what I'm facing. I go out to the big yard the next day

and I kind of take in the geography at prison. I mean, I'd done time before on Rikers Island but this was the big top. And the geography is such, the sections of the prison known as courts or courtyards. There's the black courtyard, it had the black guerrilla family and some of the other gangs. There's the white courtyard, they had bikers, kidnappers, the Aryan Brotherhood, and the most dangerous court of all was like MA, the Mexican Mafia. These are guys who if they had a beef with you,

would take you out in the middle of the prison. A lot of them were doing life and 20 more years for killing a guy. I mean, they would kind of stab you right in the middle of the mess hall and wait for the guards to come and say, go ahead, put the cuffs on, homie. Give me another 20 years, you want my license too?

Ha ha ha. So as I'm sitting there, an elegant older prisoner named Mr. Cody comes up, I'm reading a book and he says, Youngblood, you was down with them Black Panthers and things when you were out there. Well, that was kind of common knowledge and I said, yes, sir.

And he stands back and kind of runs his fingers down his press prison suit. He made a prison uniform look like a tuxedo. He was cool. He said, and you did that karate and stuff when you were out there. I was like, how did he know that? Like, this is pre Facebook, pre Instagram.

But it's true. I had learned karate in the Panthers. I was a young black belt. And I said, yes, sir. And he said, hmm. He said, you did them plays and things on the outside. I was like, damn, how did he know that? I had done some stuff in the black arts movement. And I said, yes, sir. And he said, hmm. And just walked away

I'm wondering if I'm in trouble Because there's something in prison or no matter what you think you are in terms of race creed color religion called the convict code Don't steal from another prisoner. Don't rat on another prisoner do your own time In the same way we have 50,000 laws to interpret 10 commandments, there's all kinds of ways that you could violate the code. Did I violate the code? Is that not cool? The next day I'm back in the same spot reading the book and I look up and Mr. Cody's there with the two biggest black guys in prison. They were like NFL linebackers except they had bullet wounds and knife wounds. They looked like

death had struck them with a stick. That was their nickname, Death and Struck. Youngblood bought them plays and things you did on the outside. Black History Month is coming up in about eight weeks. I want you to do something. I done worked it out with the warden and he walks away. I go to the prison library because I could tell this was not a friendly request. He was cool, but he was serious. There's one black play.

There's only two plays in the library, Romeo and Juliet and Raisin and the Sun. I come back to Mr. Cody. I don't think we can do this play, Mr. Cody, because Raisin and the Sun, it's a great black play, but they're women characters. In fact, there's a woman, a matriarch, trying to keep her family together. He hits that press suit and he looks out on the yard and he says don't even worry about it young blood. Pick out four or five dudes. We'll put a dress on him. No I don't think that's the answer. I go back and I write a play, my first play. Mr. Cody gives me my cast. Yeah it's death and struck. They don't know how to act so I do an improv and then freeze the improv and then we're gonna de-instruct it. Deconstruct what just

happened. Death, struck, that was great. Yeah I had to look up they were that big. Death, struck, that was great. Death, you told struck you didn't like him? You're gonna stab him 18 times? Struck, you came right back and said I'll grab a dumbbell and bash your brains in until your brains are oozing out your nose? That was great, I was in the moment guys, I believed you. That's called dialogue. When two actors talk that's dialogue. When that one actor is talking like I'm kind of rambling that's called a monologue. Repeat after me, dialogue, monologue. I'm

not dialoguing. I'm gonna kill him for real. Oh no, stop guys, breathe. Take a breath. Let's go back to our opening exercise. Breathe, you're a tree. Come on, put your hands up. Breathe, you're a tree. At that moment, the two most notorious leaders of La Eme come into the rehearsal, Tito and Rafael. They had eight murders, just in Leavenworth. Forget the streets, forget other prisons. They come in diesel from the WayPile, tats all over their body, not just tattoos.

Nina the Pensioner and the Santa Maria to low riders in one arm. A list of names, what are those names? Everybody I kissed or killed, it's the same to me. And they're sitting down like they're angry and we all have the same thing. La Eme has left their court. Who are they here to kill? I have butterflies in my stomach. I'm nervous and I look out my eye every now and then at Tito and he looks upset. Death and struck? No, we have to play it cool. They're into it. Jamal look I'm a tree. I'm swaying. I'm a palm tree. After about 10 minutes Tito gets up, pulls me to the side, looks me to the eye and he says there's no secrets

in the big top homie and I need you to listen to me good. That guy, that guy you're working with, that fucking guy. Homie, he's not feeling his character. Tito, why don't you get in and try? He's great. As he was gang banging, he was doing Shakespeare in high school. Rafael gets in. I go back and I said said let me rewrite the play. It's the black and

brown black history month play. The guys from the white court see us go off every day. This doesn't bode well because prison is about divide and conquer. The gang wars and the violence works for the administration to keep control. The baddest guy in their crew is a white guy from Alabama named Rebel. Reb. Reb was a black belt, 220 pounds of muscle, knock you out with one punch one kick. Reb comes up to rehearsal. He comes back his guys surround him. Reb, you up there with the blacks and Latinos? Reb said, yep. He said, well, Reb, what are they doing? Reb said, a play.

Reb, what did you do about it? He was a bad dude. He could handle it alone. Reb said, well, they give me a part. We started to have our own courtyard. I'd bring out pages. The guys would share who they were. What separated them before in terms of gangs, violence, race, the guys were there. Oh and

they were giving me hell. I'm not feeling my character here Jamal, we need rewrites. Other people are coming up to me. There's a lot of artists in prison. You'd walk by prison cells and people would had taught themselves to paint. You'd walk by different cells. People would have taught themselves to paint You'd walk by different cells people were playing horn trumpet saxophone People started coming up. Why am I not in the play? I? Can play the saxophone before I knew it I had a band Why am I not in the play? Look at all these portraits that I've you know done again and again of different convicts in different poses before I knew it I had a set designer there was one problem

though the audience in prison is brutal Brittany talk about critics the local church came in with a gospel choir. They weren't that good, but they didn't deserve all that. In the middle of it, the pastor said, you know, you just disrespected Jesus. We're leaving. So did my guys get used to it? Oh, I had to break up a lot of fights. You said, what?

No, come on. you're an actor. Eight weeks later we're doing our play. 1500 guys come out to see their peers. I'm nervous. It's my first play. Most of them it's the first time acting. The curtain goes up. It's called Parole by Death.

It's about a young guy on death row and an older guy is trying to keep his spirits up hoping that he will get an appeal and he doesn't and The guys are acting their hearts out and The appears in the audience are like Mike. Oh you were acting out, huh? Once you act like you're gonna pay me back them cigarettes you owe me? But 10 minutes into the play, an amazing thing happens. They still are yelling at the stage, but it's in context of what's going on.

Don't trust him, he's shady, I told you. By the end of it, we come out to take a bow and their peers, 1,500 men, most of them doing at least 25 years, some 50, a lot doing life, stood up and gave their peers a standing ovation. We had to tear down the stage that same night the place was empty the stage was empty I remember coming into the prison I was like art of creative arts you know I was down with the last poet Sonia Sanchez especially Gil Scott Heron he had this great poem the revolution would not be televised would not be televised yeah Gil if the revolution would not be televised, the insurrection is not no damn two act drama.

But the next day I'm walking back from the prison yard and they had left the auditorium gates open. The doors. This is a phenomenon that does not happen in prison. There's no unlocked unguarded doors, yet the auditorium was open. And I stepped through the door. Now I'm out of bounds. I could go to the hole for this. You're not supposed to be in an unauthorized area. But I'm standing at the back of the auditorium

and I can hear the laughter. I can see the drama. I can hear the people applauding. And one by one, all of the men who were involved in the production came in and we were all standing there. The band, the set designers, the actors. My friend Booby who was doing the spotlight but he missed all of his cues

because he had drank some prison wine. Booby, over here, yeah, yeah, okay, now. And my friend Sufi said, it's true. They say you always return to the scene of the crime. One of my other actors, Malik, said, when are we doing the next play, Jamal? I don't know. I haven't written one. It's what damn man write it. And in that moment I thought about guilt. The revolution will not be televised. No, it's true. But maybe I get to write a few of the commercials. And I went to myself and started writing.

The beginning of a new perspective on life. Art is powerful and a powerful tool for social change. In the weeks that we did the play, and in the years that I stayed there, and the other plays we did, prison violence was reduced by about 75 percent. And those courtyards started to shrink and the common ground for art for men looking into each other's eyes

became the new normal. That's the power of art. Thank you. applause That was Jamal Joseph. Jamal joined the Black Panther Party at age 15, and at 16 was arrested in a case known as the New York Panther 21. He was released on bail after a year and became one of the youngest leaders and spokespersons for the party.

Through the Panthers, Jamal learned that art can be redemption and transformation. Jamal spent nine years in prison. While there, he earned two college degrees and founded a theater company. In keeping with our theme of second acts, Jamal has been a professor of film at Columbia University for 25 years and he has been nominated for an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Grammy for his work as a writer, director, and producer. To see a photo of Jamal, go to them all. To see a photo of Jamal, go to themoth.org. Sometimes an opportunity for a second act can present itself in an unexpected place and catch us off guard. But in a good way. Which is just what happened to our next teller, Nirja Kapoor.

She shared this story at a slam in Chicago where we partner with public radio station WBEZ. Here's Nirja, live with them all. A few years ago I was plotting my mother-in-law's assassinations and my husband said to me, Nirja, I think you need a new hobby. She had come to live with us because my father-in-law had passed on and my husband is the only child. In the beginning both of us were on our best behavior but later as time went on she let it be known that I am no good. As we went along my children are very young at the time and I wanted to keep it very

civilized so I started looking keep it very civilized. So I started looking for distractions in my environment. I took yoga class. I was in a room full of toned everything. I quit. I also deep cleaned behind the fridge for inner peace. And I watched every video on how to get a flat stomach in five minutes.

None of that saved me from my torturous thoughts. I remember that I started internalizing. I should have just gone to a nice lady with a soothing voice and a prescription pad. I remember when my son was leaving for college, I didn't feel bad for one hot second, but because I had a huge relief, I felt that he would be spared of all the drama at home. I started disconnecting with my friends because I didn't want to pretend.

I didn't want to lie when they asked me how I was doing. But I had this one persistent friend. And she said that, Nirja, you need to get out of the house. You need to be out for a few hours. And I resisted. I said, oh, I still have a middle schooler at home. And I was very scared, actually. I didn't want to go back to work after 18 years. I was extremely nervous.

And she works at one of the big hardware stores. So she said she's spoken to the store manager, and I should be there at 8 a.m. That evening, I had a huge argument with my husband. And I felt very sad, a little extra sad, because I was having my second glass of wine. So... I didn't want to look like super weepy in front of my kids.

So I went to the basement bathroom and in the middle of the night I saw, you know, I found myself on the floor. My knees were grazed in bloody. It's made of some weird stone tile. Don't ask me about it. And the first thing I asked myself, Nirja, is this why you went to college? I'm Indian, that, not the feathers. That is why the academy focus.

And then I felt extremely ashamed of myself. I thought of my daughter, how she used to be when she was little, head to toe, glittery, sparkly, discur, fact, everything. And I made a resolve that I'm going to go tomorrow She was a little head to toe glittery, sparkly, discur, fact, everything. And I made a resolve that I'm going to go tomorrow for the interview. I'm going to make my own money.

I'm going to show them, the mother and the son. So I reached the next day for my interview, and they hired me. And they said, you're seasonal. If you do a decent job, we'll retain you. I remember that my first week, my mentor acknowledged me only once. Retail is brutal. And they don't expect you to be there for a long time, maybe a few weeks, a few months. Especially for me, because they didn't understand why someone would come to work for $11 an hour in a BMW.

I worked... I tried to work really hard. I stumbled. And I remember there was a battery lawnmower in front of us. And I tried to look very intelligent and inquisitive and I asked my colleague that hey Gary where does the gas go in that? Really I was very very clueless and within three years I was awarded the best customer service award in the company and in the district. Lil' bit, yeah, bragging.

Thank you. And I was happy, but the only two things that stayed with me was that I had learned to live fearlessly because I had lost all my confidence. I remember when I used to make reservations in restaurants, I used to give my husband's name. Now, and the other thing, my heart is full. Thank you. That was Neerja Kapoor. Neerja lives in Illinois and still works at that hardware store.

She boasts that she can give expert advice on how to get any yard looking as lush as a golf course. When I asked her about her current relationship with her husband, she said that their life is calm and functional, and things with her mother-in-law are cordial but still strained. Nirja is grateful to have made that move to start working. She said, sometimes you need life to jolt you out of your mundane existence so you can become the shining star you were meant to be. To see some photos of Nirja, go to themoth.org.

photos of Mirja go to themoth.org. In a moment confessions and hot dates. That's next on the Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour, and I'm your host, Suzanne Rust. In this hour, we're sharing stories about second acts and the courage that it sometimes takes to make them happen. Craig Magnum told this at a slam in New York, where WNYC is a media partner of the MA. Here's Craig.

Sarah rode into my life, literally on the back of a Razor scooter. And it was covered in pictures of the guys who lived in the dorm next to me. It was our freshman year, and this was her way of seducing the guys next door. And I thought, wow, this girl is a freak, and I love her. And we became quick friends after that.

You see, we were freshmen at Brigham Young University, a Mormon-owned university. And we prided ourselves living in what we call the Book of Mormon Belt. It's the Mormon equivalent of the Bible belt which incorporates Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona. But we were from the East and so we saw the world differently and to prove that we went on our first date to a meeting of the BYU Vegetarian Club sponsored by the BYU Democrat Society and if you know Mormonism you know what

a rare breed of human shows up at that meeting. And our minds just clicked. She was the person I could throw a joke to, she'd throw it right back to me. And she wore this perfume that drove me crazy. It was Versace's Bright Crystal in case there are any fans out there. But I knew by this point that I was attracted to men.

But my very orthodox Mormon upbringing had hardly provided the opportunity to experiment on that theory, and thus I just thought I was falling into what everyone else around me described as love. But there was a clock looming over our relationship because at the end of my freshman year, I knew I, like all good Mormon boys, would go on my Book of Mormon musical two-year journey. And that's exactly what I did. I ended up being sent to Bolivia and Peru. But right before I left, Sarah and I promised

that we would write one another, and that our correspondence would become epic, like John and Abigail Adams. And we actually took to signing our letters, love, John, love, Abigail. Now, being a Mormon missionary I'll tell you is a very lonely experience you spend the first three months in silence because you don't speak the language

and to be able to come home to a letter from someone meant the world and Sarah would write me these 25 35 front and back pages lathered in Versace bright crystal. And as I would smell the page, I would be taken out of the Bolivian countryside with its open trench sewer system, and I would just be transported back home where I was happy. Those two years flow by and I returned. And I remember sitting down for our first date after this long, long period so far apart and knowing that I could not be for her what we had planned on me being. And

I was disappointed in myself, but too embarrassed to tell her. So I came up with a plan that I would essentially make her dislike me so much that she would break up with me instead of me breaking up with her. So one night at a party I pretended to be interested in one of her friends and as we were driving home she said, what was that? What is going on? And I had no answer. I said, what?

I threw it back on her. I made her feel like she was going crazy because I was too much of a coward to say what was actually happening. She was about to drop me off, you know our relationship now in pieces in front of me. She said to me, Craig I'm only gonna ask you this once. She said, are you gay? And I replied, no. She said, no? What the f*** is that? She kept driving and she drove and drove until she had parked in the parking lot of a brightly lit Mormon temple. And there, for the first time in my life, I came out to someone and I told her how embarrassed I was, how I felt like I had led her on for two years thinking I would come back and be this thing that she thought I would be and I wasn't.

I told her how I felt like I was losing my faith and I could point to this Mormon temple and say, I'm losing everything that means to me. She listened to me, she cried with me, she was so kind to me. In the next weeks, we didn't really talk much but after about a month when during which we say we emotionally broke up she re-emerged as a friend and

she introduced me to my first gay friends. She in a way shepherded me out of the closet and into a life that was fulfilling for me. And I will always be grateful to her for that. I thought I would never be able to repay Sarah. And then almost 10 years after she first helped me out, she called me on the phone and told me she had just started to date her first girlfriend and needed some advice. Thank you.

Craig Magnum is a writer living in Los Angeles whose work focuses on the intersection of the LGBTQ plus and Mormon experience. He's currently working on his memoir about three generations of gay Mormon uncles that preceded him. And while Craig no longer considers himself a believer, he says that Mormonism will always be the culture he was raised in and there will always be a connection. And yes, Craig is occasionally in touch with Sarah and said that asking for her approval to air the story was a fun excuse to reach out. Sarah is happily settled in Salt Lake City with her longtime partner and is a proud mama to a dog and a cat. As we get older, second acts can feel a little more daunting at times.

Thankfully, life-changing moments don't have an expiration date. Rhonda Sternberg shared this at a slam in New York City. Here's Rhonda. It was two vaccines and one booster into the COVID epidemic and New York City was finally opening up and I find myself in person in my dentist chair for a routine cleaning, routine. This was something not heard of all through COVID. She comes in and looks at me and says, oh my God, Rhonda, you're all in black and I'm going to get white powder all over you.

And then she says, but it doesn't matter. You don't have a hot date after this, right? And how did she know I didn't have a hot date? The truth is, I did have a hot date. So I said to her, well, I do have a hot date. And she said, you have a hot date? And I said, yes, I do. And why did she think that? And I'm thinking to

myself, had she asked it any other time, she would have been right. But I really did have a hot date. And it was because I'm old. And old people are grandmas. They don't have hot dates. But then she recovered and I heard her saying to her assistant, Junie, get Rhonda a lot more towels and make sure she looks gorgeous when she leaves. She has somewhere to go. And I felt better. So I leave and I go meet my hot date

on West 72nd Street at the Emerald Inn. And he had already ordered us wine. And it was really nice, and the waitress comes and looks at us and says, you two are such a cute couple. Now the thing was, we were holding hands while old, and therefore we are a very cute couple. So I say to Charlie, you know, we're holding hands while old, and he said, yeah,

you're right, but you know what? So what? Does it matter that they think that we're old and cute? Why not bring it on? And I said, you know, you're right, let's do it. So we decide to play it out. And we walked down the street holding hands all the time. We sometimes are swinging our arms. We kiss on the street. People say, aw. Or they tell us we're adorable. And it's really a lot of fun. So now I don't mind being so old and having people think we're cute.

It's been two years now, and we haven't heard that many adorables and olds and, you know, cutes and all that. And so we were wondering whether the endorphins got lost. However, we were in a restaurant just like a couple of months ago and we ordered a lot of food. We were very hungry. We ate it fast and the waiter came up to us and looked at it and he said, good job you guys you ate all your food. And we started to laugh and we said well well, we're guests, we're still doing it.

And then Charlie said to me, it reminded him of a meeting with a colleague many years ago where the colleague's wife had called and the colleague, he heard the colleague say on the phone, oh, Chris, Papa is so proud of you, you made poopy in the potty, good job. And so now we tease each other about good job all the time. Charlie and I met about two years ago. Our first date was on Memorial Day of 2021.

All week it was COVID. All we could do was walk the streets. So we walked for hours and hours and hours and talked. And we really liked each other. And he tells me that he knew we were right for each other the minute he saw me come up the stairs we had met at the Second Avenue subway stop because I figured it was kind of in the middle of where we both lived and I really liked him too but it clinched it on the second date because he called me up and said

are you busy on Friday? I'd really like to take another walk with you. And I said, well, I can't because I'm having a colonoscopy. And he said, OK. And then he called back an hour later and said, you're having a colonoscopy? Don't you need somebody to pick you up? And I thought, there we go. And I thought that was so romantic.

And I picked him up after his colonoscopy a month later. And a few months later, he was in the ER with me all night when I broke some ribs. And then he held my hand all night until I fell asleep. And I figured, this is it, we're together. Long story short, we're getting married in a few months. Thank you, thank you. So the real hot date is the long-term relationship and the commitment to going deeper in a love. Thank you.

That was Rhonda Sternberg. Over 50 years ago, Rhonda moved from Chicago and became a New Yorker, specifically an Upper West Sider. She's 77 now. She's a psychoanalyst who also teaches college in the city and she's currently writing a play about seniors living their best lives. Rhonda said she was actually touched when she heard people making those comments of, oh, because she said it felt like they were forming a bond. They were

happy for her and she was enjoying sharing her experience. A fun fact, Rhonda and her hot date Charlie got married last March. Rhonda said in an email, my favorite thing about getting older is liking the person I turned out to be. I wish I would have known that life is a short journey and that the time to do what we want to do is now. Yes, Rhonda! To see a photo of Rhonda and Charlie, go to themoth.org. When we return, a final story about second takes on faith, when The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX.

You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Suzanne Rust. Our final story is told by Blessing Omaku. She shared it at our annual fundraiser, which we call the Moth Ball, to an audience of eager listeners against the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline. Here's Blessing live of the Manhattan skyline. Here's blessing live at the Mothball. When I was six years old my family moved to Nigeria. My

parents had come to America in the first place to study at Christian universities but they always had this dream to start a church together and so they moved to Abuja Nigeria and started that church. Growing up, that church became the center of my existence and our collective existence as a family. Weekdays were spent hanging around the church offices. Weekends were spent practicing in the choir, going for weddings, going for funerals and church picnics. In many ways, the people I saw week after week

became more family to me than my blood relatives. Sometimes, though, I resented the church. I resented the fact that we lived in modesty with extra income going back to the church. Most of all, I resented having to share my father with the church. See, my father was my hero and my very best friend. He made me believe that anything I wanted to do or be was possible.

Once I went to my father and told him that I had decided I was going to be a global music star. And so my father bought me a keyboard and he said, if you learn to read music and play this then I'll help you. Another time I went to him and announced that I was going to run a hair salon. See I had seen one for sale in our neighborhood and I was very convinced that I could run it after fifth grade every day. My father sat with me, wrote a business plan and said let's talk through this and he allowed me come to the conclusion that perhaps between doing my homework and other activities

like seeing my friends I might not have the time to do this just yet. But most of all, my father taught me about the Bible. As often as he could, and no matter how busy he was, my father would sit down with me and teach me about the Bible. He would pray for me. I went to my father when I had questions about the Bible. I was probably in the seventh or eighth grade when I wrote in the margins of my Bible, God, why don't you like women?

See, I couldn't understand when I read some scenes why women were not counted in genealogies or scenes or named. My father explained to me that this had more to do with the history and context in which the Bible was written, but God really did love women, so I took him at his word. My father would often assign Bible scriptures to us to memorize whenever he went on work trips. We used the time when he was away to memorize those and he always said, by the time you're done memorizing those scriptures, I'll be back home. But there was one trip that began to take longer than usual. This wasn't a work trip. My father had began to experience these debilitating headaches and he had come back to America

with my mother to run some tests. I was about 13 years old when I got a call from him saying that the doctors had discovered a tumor the size of a golf ball in his brain. I remember not being worried at all when I got that phone call. See, my father told me two things. Thing one, he said, blessing blessing I'm going to be okay. And my father had always kept his word to me. Thing two, he said God would heal me. And my father had raised me to believe that God kept his promises. And so I spent the time when my father,

my mother were away, reading the Bible, memorizing every single scripture I could find on healing and God's promises. Eventually my father came home and for a while it seemed like he was okay, but slowly his health began to decline. He began to lose his sight, his speech, his coherence, his cognitive abilities. We still were not worried because God was going to do a miracle. One night we were in our home when relatives and people from my father's village descended on our home. I

had never met most of these people before. They stood around my mother and screamed at her. They were screaming the language of my father's tribe, a language he had never taught his American-born children. My aunt, sister, and I sat on a staircase eavesdropping. There was a church member translating from my mom, who also comes from a different tribe than my father. We were able to make out that my mother was either

being accused of not doing enough to keep my father alive or actively trying to kill him through juju. My mother had spent the past two years traveling around the world with my father, seeking chemotherapy, radiation, alternative treatments. And when the doctors said that there was nothing more that they could do, my mother spent sometimes hours and days at a stretch in the church praying and fasting. She fasted her body into half its size. As they screamed at her, my aunt looked at me, shook her head, and said, I wish you were a boy. See, if you were a boy as her parents' first child, you

would have been able to intervene. Anger welled up within me. It was the first time in my 15 years I had ever been made conscious that my being female accorded me fewer rights. It was the last time my father was ever in our home. The next day these relatives took my father away. A few months later when I heard knocking on my door around midnight, I knew. My mother walked into my room, sat on my bed and blurted, they said your daddy is dead. Within less than an hour our home was filled with church members and relatives from my mother's side of the family. There was wailing and screaming and crying. Someone somewhere was threatening to throw herself in the gutter. It felt like a movie. My

theatrics were different though. No tears, no words. I went to my room, took my Bible, opened it up to Genesis chapter 1, and I began to tear it page by page, chapter by chapter, scripture by scripture. See if this book was true, my father could not lie. My father would not die. The only premise that made sense to me was that this book had to be a lie. I had made my way through the Old Testament ripping the Bible into shreds when a friend of mine who had heard the news walked in and stopped me. when a friend of mine who had heard the news walked in and stopped me. I tried to bury my faith the day that we buried my father, but here's the thing.

My father never left a will, he never left any instructions for a life without him, he never left any notes about funeral arrangements. The only inheritance my father left me was his faith. The only guidance he left me was the Bible. But in the months following his death, I found that my mother was being subjected to all kinds of conversations. See, there was all this talk in the church about the impropriety of a woman leading the church. It seemed natural to me that my mother would take over leading the church. They had built it together in every sense of the word. But people pointed to Bible scriptures and they said this is sacrilege, this is

improper, and so on and so forth. Eventually the board of the church ordained my mother lead minister and when they did, many of our church members left. In many ways the church broke my heart in those moments. But perhaps you can say I left the church too. I came back to America for college, went to law school, began a career in public policy and global development. I also found that my views about gender and womanhood were really evolving from the views of the church that I had grown up in. I was walking through the New York Public Library one day when I came across a

book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans. And in that book she chronicled an experiment she had taken as a blogger to take what the Bible says about women literally for a year and see what kinds of conclusions that leads to. Her book showed the ways that we often have to read the Bible in context and that when we read the Bible literally it leads to really absurd conclusions and we do that all the time. Rachel's work opened me up to a whole new world. I began to find women writers, women who were writing about the intersection of faith and feminism. I found womanist theologians, feminist theologians. These writers brought me the light. They showed me an entire new way of being. They made me feel less alone.

They helped me find my voice. One day, sitting in a coffee shop, I decided to start typing out a blog series called My Troubles with God. See, I had been running a blog where I wrote about gender, popular culture, and more. But I had never written about religion. As I began to type out that blog, documenting my experiences, reclaiming my faith, and my

conviction that the Bible supports gender equality, I worried, what will people say? How will the small but faithful community I've built respond to me challenging conventional wisdom about God and gender? I wrote it anyway, and I hit send. In the weeks that followed there are many women who reached out to me and said for the first time they were seeing it was possible to be both faithful and feminist. There were also people who wrote me really long emails and called my work blasphemous. There were times

when the criticism hurt especially when it came from family members and people I loved. But a few months after I first released this blog series, I found out that the Nigerian Senate had refused to pass a bill called the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill. And they had refused to pass this bill on the grounds of religion. Senators who were both Muslim and read from the Quran and the Bible, and they said this bill goes against everything that our faiths spell out. In reading that the tweets, in marching with activists and in seeing the impact of this bill, I was reminded why this work was important.

And so I've continued to write, to speak, to think and to strategize about the intersection of faith and gender equality. Sometimes I wonder what kinds of conversations I would have with my father if he were alive today. I think we would disagree on a lot of scriptures. I think he would welcome the disagreement, and I know that he would be proud. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was Blessing Omaku. She's a social impact strategist and self-proclaimed women's equality evangelist.

She serves on the board of directors of the Perlman Performing Arts Center and is also the host of the podcast, Our Bibles, Ourselves. I asked Blessing what message she'd like to share with her father. She said, I would like him to know how grateful I am for showing me what love looks like and for being one of the purest reflections of God in my life. To see a photo of Blessing, head to themoth.org. If any of these stories have inspired you to share one of your own, head on over to The Moth's pitch line at themoth.org where you can leave a two minute version of your

story. We listen to all of your pitches, we really do, and you might find yourself on The Moth one day. That's it for this episode. I want to thank our storytellers for letting us into their lives and to all of you for taking the time to listen. And that's the story from The Moth. This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Suzanne Rust, who also hosted the show.

Co-producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer, Emily Couch. The stories were directed by Jodie Powell and Larry Rosen. Additional Grand Slam coaching by Kate Tellers. The rest of the Moths leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin-Giness, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Marina Cluchet, Leanne Gulley, Brandon Grant, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Casa. Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour are from Michael Hedges, Jim Pepper, Daniel Ho, and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.