The journey of life offers a cornucopia of experiences, a spectrum that many times swells our hearts with joy and grace. But some events and times can cast a dark shadow over our spirit. We are in the midst of difficult times now. Reverend Otis Moss, a longtime and revered religious leader in Cleveland, Ohio, says “We must never cease to count our blessings, renew our faith, and unite with the positive forces of goodwill — continue to move onward and upward despite the fierce headwinds.”
The headwinds he speaks of are the challenges African Americans are facing: an uprise in discrimination and racism, the banning of books, the whitewashing of Black history and disallowing Black history to even be taught, increased profiling, the re-gerrymandering of districts to shut out Black voters, the push to return to segregation, the shutting down of DEI departments. The list reads like the former days of the Civil Rights Movement when our country struggled with the concept of equal rights for people of color. These are headwinds Reverend Moss is all too familiar with.
Reverend Moss worked closely with Martin Luther King, Jr. during the years when the US witnessed marches for the right to vote, civil rights, desegregation, labor and housing rights, and more. Upheaval occurred across the country; Blacks were targeted for discrimination, attacked, and sometimes killed. Yet, they persevered. Reverend Moss was there working to attain not only the rights due all humans, but to uplift spirits, give courage, and counsel to remain strong in the face of betrayal, disappointments, and trauma — and to never forget.
“Young people need to know their history. They need to know what past generations went through and accomplished. We had great mentors. We sought to understand our history and to commit ourselves to a higher calling so that we might be able to function to serve and hopefully to pass on something of value to our children and our children’s children.”
“Serving” is an important aspect of Reverend Moss’s internal framework. Growing up on a farm in Georgia, his mother passed when he was young, leaving his father to raise five children as a single parent. At age sixteen, when his father died in a car accident, those kids had to plan their way in life. But their father had laid a strong foundation, a solid moral and spiritual foundation upon which to continue building.
How that manifested for Reverend Moss is interesting. “I became conscious of a ministry calling, believe it or not, at the old age of four years old but I didn’t tell anybody. I kept it to myself until I was seventeen. I needed to share it with somebody and was guided to a senior pastor in my hometown of LaGrange, Georgia.”
He recounts how that senior pastor gave him some of the best advice to follow for the rest of his life. “A call to ministry is a call to preparation. You must think of four years of college, three years of seminary, at a minimum. Again, a call to ministry is a call to preparation. Preparation is the basis of ministry.” That advice has guided him ever since and it’s something he’s passed on to those he’s licensed and ordained to the ministry.
Reverend Moss has also sought to share that with those he counsels as they deal with everyday life and work. He has found that many of the people he’s had the responsibility and privilege to counsel and dialogue with have not sought the path of ministry. They’re trying to find their way in life or are just seeking advice, sometimes wanting encouragement. Some of them have gone on to be doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, and remarkable parents.
“What a tremendous experience and opportunity it is to sit with a group of young people or a young person, and share with them, laugh with them, be with them. And then some years later, see that person become a wise parent, an excellent leader, or an entrepreneurial and successful person. Some of them turn out to be the most remarkable individuals you could ever meet. And that’s great. It’s a great blessing and a marvelous fulfilling moment in your life.”
He considers it a sacred thing and a high honor for someone to have enough confidence and trust in him when asking him to provide a recommendation or reference. He has also had the opportunity to work with those who are incarcerated. “Some of the greatest people in history have had a prison record, like the apostle Paul, Nelson Mandela, Representative John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr., Senator and pastor Raphael Warnock.”
Reverend Moss firmly believes that you can’t harm another without harming yourself, nor can you help others without helping yourself. You grow in the process. “Our society has to be taught, nourished, and led into embracing all of the children of God. And, realizing what greatness we are embracing in that, we could be embracing the person who will save our own lives or the lives of our children and their children. That is the way the moral order is structured. And to lift one individual is to help save the world — and we save ourselves in the process.”
All of this is tied to what Reverend Moss calls “our moral responsibility” and that the mission for each of us is to leave whatever we touch better than we found it — something we have to work hard at reclaiming in today’s divisive climate. “We like to talk about the power of God as opposed to the love of God and the power that grows out of love, the power of love. And we seem to resist the embrace of the theology that God is love. And that theology in a sense, will direct sociology and psychology just as in our economics and politics.”
In all that Reverend Moss has experienced and lived through, he has continued to support and encourage people of all ages to stand up and face the tailwinds and headwinds of life. He counsels everyone to take life’s experiences and learn from them, to doubly recommit their efforts to go forward no matter the obstacles, fear, and sometimes starless nights. “That’s the time we walk, if we have a candle, by candlelight. And if we don’t have a candle, and the stars are not out and the moon cannot be seen, walk by faith, walk humbly with God.”
“We each have an inner light, constantly illuminating, and renewing and giving light and hope and direction. We’ll make it through, not because it’s easy, right? Not because it’s not dangerous, but because it is the right thing, the urgent thing, and the thing that we have been called to do.”
As a mentor and role model, Reverend Moss, as he turns 89 this month, continues to talk about preparation and dedication. “Out of this, if anchored in love, will come liberation. And that preparation and dedication experience and liberation, anchored in love, will always lead to some form of reconciliation —and that’s our life’s mission.”
