Category Archives: Church

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Greenleaf Recap Season 2 Episode 11: Changing Season…

Hello World,

When I was in high school, I wanted to take part in a debutante cotillion and wear an antebellum-like white dress, but I didn’t know how to get involved in a community that hosted these types of functions back then. But that’s not Zora and Sophia’s problem as you will find out if you keep reading my “Greenleaf Recap Season 2 Episode 11.”

Blame It…

Although the Greenleaf girls have always been accepted as debutantes in the St. Josephine Society, this year the Greenleaf girls have been omitted from the invitation list even as Grace’s self-defense killing of her uncle Mac, Man of the Year in Memphis, is front page news. Although Grace gave the goods to journalist boyfriend Darius, she is now worried that the story killed her daughter’s and niece’s chance to be debutantes. “It’s all because of me” she says once Sophia announces the bad news at breakfast. Lady Mae, however, wants to put the blame on Jacinta Butler, president of the St. Josephine Society. “There must be a mistake,” she says before promising to fix the blunder. Curiously, she asks Marisol the maid to retrieve a wooden box with a gun in it. Lady Mae is such a character!

Lady Mae takes the gun directly to Jacinta, who apparently is an art and artifact collector. Once Jacinta appraises the gun, which Lady Mae found at the Greenleaf home after they moved into the estate, Lady Mae asks her about why her granddaughters were not invited to the cotillion this year. So the implicit message in this exchange is, “You better let my granddaughters in this shindig or somebody’s ’bout to get shot.” Jacinta is surprised about Lady Mae’s question as she never received nominations for the girls from Lady Mae and furthermore, First Lady Tasha Skanks, board secretary, was responsible for forwarding the nominations to her. That’s all Lady Mae needs to hear! Now, she can lay the blame at the feet of Tasha, her husband’s arch nemesis!

Speaking of Skanks, the Metro Memphis Council of Churches is meeting at Triumph. Bishop, Jacob and Grace attend despite their drama with Skanks. While there, Jacob announces that his church is named “The Real Church of Memphis,” a church without walls through which he will be ministering to the homeless and helpless. Also, at the meeting, a Father Alvarado tells the ministers about a local 16-year-old who attempted to kill himself by asphyxiation as he sat in a running car in a garage. “He thought God couldn’t love him because he was gay.” After Father Alvarado’s speech, Basie says, “We’ve got to do something about this” and encourages the ministers to address homosexuality and homophobia in the church.

Bishop and Jacob seem to be kind of “meh” about Basie’s pronouncement with Bishop stating that you can’t “sound off too loudly about anything other than the cross.” Grace, however, is pleased that Basie wants the ministers to address this issue and feels she may have wrongly discounted the man. She likely thinks ministers are to blame for what the 16-year-old thought.

Eat the Cake, Anna Mae…

Although Carlton is at another church, Gethsemane Baptist Church (where Rochelle Cross used to be a member…hmmm…), Charity still considers the banished gay choir director a friend. She reaches out to him so that he can help her compose a song that she needs to turn into Jabari, and she hopes he can comfort her since Kevin is still MIA. Carlton is glad to to hear from his friend, but first he asks her why he is just now hearing from her after all of this time. “You really hurt my feelings. You’re too busy for me until need something from me,” he tells her. Folks do tend to get all sweet when they want something, particularly when they have ignored you. She explains to him that since they’ve last communicated, she and Kevin have gotten a divorce. “There’s so much I couldn’t talk about, especially with you.”

Charity has found a real empathetic confidante in Carlton. For the first time since before her miscarriage, she mentions Nathan’s twin sister Eden Brook. “We never had a chance to grieve our little girl.” Charity says she feels like her daughter, who she still thinks about every day, is a “out there like a kite, floating.”

In another part of Calvary, the mysterious Miss Cross is cloistered in Bishop’s office and serves the man of God a slice of pineapple upside down cake. He raves about the taste and she tells him the tantalizing taste is because she used young pineapples. “The old ones get all watery and sour.” Say what? As if on cue, Lady Mae, who seems to be an older version of Miss Cross walks in, to see her holy hubby hovering over the cake with the Miss Cross hovering over him as she sits on his desk! He introduces his wife to Miss Cross and tells her she made the cake. She is not happy about that at all. Y’all know homemade cake is a tool in Lady Mae’s arsenal! Remember when she served grapefruit pound cake to Aaron?!Although Miss Cross is a huge donor, Lady Mae loses a bit of her trademark decorum and storms out. “Enjoy your cake, Bishop.”

Rochelle Cross is not the only one on Lady Mae’s list. She confronts Tasha about why her granddaughters weren’t included on the invitation list for the cotillion. Tasha checks into the dilemma but not before checking Lady Mae about approaching her like she is less than a First Lady. “I may not be on the pages of ‘Southern Decor’ magazine, but I will be, and you will never be again.” She says this after Lady Mae notices artwork by an artist that she appreciates hanging on Tasha’s wall. Tasha tells her she got a painting by the artist after seeing his artwork in Lady Mae’s home as it was featured in the magazine before. Lady Mae discovers that she sent in the nominations for her granddaughters to the wrong e-mail address. Lady Mae is rightfully embarrassed by her blunder.

Meanwhile, Grace meets with Basie. “You’re more than I thought,” she tells him. She wants more insight into the man as he surprised her with his call to address homosexuality and homophobia in the black church. Like Zacchaeus, the tax collector in the Bible or George Jefferson on “The Jeffersons” in the ’80s or Deacon Ernest Frye on “Amen” in the ’90s (Both George and Deacon Frye were portrayed by Sherman Hemsley), he explains that he is bold and brash because of his short stature. “I’m a little fellow” with a “big, troublesome mouth,” and the only entity big enough to handle Basie was and is Jesus, he says.

Isaiah and Zora meet up in her bedroom. With Childish Gambino crooning “Redbone” in the background (I know the song is a hit, but me no likey), the gospel version of Chris Brown and Zora canoodle on her bed. He tells her,”Let’s do it.” (A tip from Ms. Jackie: If you describe sex as “doing it,” you’re too young or immature to do it.) I guess Isaiah hasn’t come across the verse that says, “Flee fornication.” And since Zora is feeling down after not being invited to the cotillion, her defenses aren’t the only things that go down. If that chile comes up preggers…

Nicety…

Maybe as a result of being humbled by the fact that she is to blame for the cotillion blunder or the fact that she remembered that Miss Cross comes with a lot of cash, she asks Bishop to invite Miss Cross over for dinner with the family. “I feel terrible about the way I behaved at church,” she says to Miss Cross in that nicety (nice and nasty) way that we love. She invites Miss Cross to tell the Greenleafs about herself. Rochelle explains that she was once a member at Greater Redeemer. (I guess that was after she was a member at Gethsemane Baptist Church which she mentioned last week.)  “I had breast cancer. It’s in remission, but I didn’t think I was going to pull through.” Apparently, the pastor of the church didn’t support her through her sickness and she left that church. I agree. That is one of the main duties of a shepherd – to see about the sick. My father has always been excellent about seeing members of our church when they are sick. I wonder how large churches handle it when members are sick. Does the main pastor visit them or are other leaders responsible for that duty?

While the adults are around the dinner table, Sophia and Zora catch up in Sophia’s quarters. Sophia had no idea that Zora and Isaiah have gotten back together and not only that. “We did it,” Zora tells her cousin. “You had sex?” Sophia exclaims. Zora describes the deed as “weird” and “different.” Okaaay.

Speaking of adjectives, Rochelle describes Basie Skanks as “off” when the diminutive dynamo and or deceiver comes up in conversation back at dinner. Grace says she appreciates his “firm stand” against homophobia. Lady Mae asks why does anyone “need to have a conversation about these things.”

But it also comes up in conversation that Jacinta Butler is a client of Miss Cross, and she volunteers to fix the situation so that the girls will be included in this year’s cotillion. Once Lady Mae receives notification that the girls have been invited after all, she tells Grace! (Random fact: Did you know that Lynn Whitfield, who portrays Lady Mae, also has a daughter named Grace, and Grace, starred as Faith Evans in the Tupac biopic that came out earlier this summer?) Anywho, Grace is glad the debutante debacle  is behind them but does tell her mother that Rochelle seems a little shady to her. Lady Mae agrees but shuts it down for now. “We’ll fight that fight when it comes.” And in another nicety move, Lady Mae sends all of the artwork by the artist (I think the name was Mikalene) that Tasha admired to a gallery. “It’s time for a change.” In other words, if Tasha can afford artwork by the artist, then it’s time for Lady Mae to upgrade.

Speaking of upgrade, Charity seems she wants to upgrade her relationship with Jabari from friends to lovers as she kisses him in the final scene! Everything is nice between the two right now, but will they be doing “the nasty?”

Check out a snippet from “Changing Season” below…

Thank you sooo much for reading my Greenleaf Recap, Season 2 Episode 11 and my other recaps so far.
If you would like to keep up with OWN’s “Greenleaf,” and my recaps, please click on this link to subscribe to my blog 🙂!

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Greenleaf Mid-Season Premiere Recap, Season 2 Episode 10: Call Not Complete…

Hello World,

Whew! Part 2 of the Mid-Season Premiere packed a wallop, didn’t it? I won’t dillydally anymore. Let’s just dive into this OWN’s “Greenleaf”  Mid-Season Premiere Recap, Season 2 Episode 10!

Call Me Maybe…

This episode begins and ends with a call. Lady Mae calls her estranged sister Mavis to invite her to their brother Mac’s memorial service of sorts to be held on Moss Lake at sunset on Saturday. Mavis doesn’t answer the call so Lady Mae must leave this information in her sister’s voicemail. In addition to describing the logistics of the service, she tells her sister that this may be a new beginning for everyone. Mavis may or may not call her sister back.

Grace and Darius seem to be moving right along with their new relationship as she sleeps over at his place although they don’t sleep in the same bed. I should hope not, Pastor. Although she is the associate pastor of Calvary, Grace does opt to skip Sunday morning service. Darius tells Grace that he is considering a job offer in New York, particularly since they agreed that he won’t write about Grace even though her murdering the Man of the Year is the hottest story in town.  In every episode since Season 2 began, Grace seems to be drifting farther and farther away from her calling to preach. Was she really called in the first place? Maybe…(Aside: Her bruises healed fast, right?)

Jacob believes he has been called to preach outside on his land to people without the burden of a building. He tells the small gathering, “I asked God what should I do?” particularly since he has no money. He says the Lord said to him, “You know what to do.” “He told me to feed my word to my sheep.” So Jacob preaches a word and then hands out food to the people with his supportive wife and beautiful children at his side. Of course, Jacob’s open-air preaching does not go unnoticed by the other Greenleafs across the street. Lady Mae tells Jacob. “The two of you didn’t learn anything from your season with Basie.” (Where is Basie, pray tell?) Bishop is plainspoken with his criticism, telling his son he is following in Basie’s footsteps all the way to hell! If you can’t say, “Amen,” say “Ouch!”

Sophia seems to be fulfilling her calling at the children’s church as she demonstrates the permanence of God’s love with a candle atop a cupcake that won’t blow out no matter how many times you blow on it. The children squeal in delight! Oh to be a child again when all was solved with a cupcake and a candle!

Although Charity is the baby of the Greenleaf siblings, she is definitely grown as her ex-husband has vanished like a ghost! It looks like Kevin told her that he is gone for good in that note from last night’s episode! Lady Mae asks Charity to get in touch with Kevin and find out what’s going on with him. She calls him and leaves a message. “It’s the person who you called your best friend.”

Like her cousin, Zora has a calling of sorts as she helps her father set up a website in the style of a Go Fund Me page where they solicit donations to support the ministry. Despite her support of her father, she hasn’t completely left Basie and the Triumph church behind. Sophia and her boyfriend Roberto along with Zora and one of Roberto’s friends go bowling. Obviously, Sophia and Roberto hope his friend can lure Zora away from Isaiah but Zora doesn’t seem to be feeling Roberto’s friend as she gives him the bland face the entire time they interact at the bowling alley.

Your Body’s Callin’…

Bishop asks his bride out to lunch and tells her, “What a pleasure it it to have you as  partner this life.” How sweet! Lady Mae agrees to have lunch her holy hubby who is planning a seven-part series “From the Pit to the Palace.” I wonder who was in the pit and who is now in the palace…Anywho, he is considering turning the series into a book. But his plans to have an intimate lunch with Lady Mae are shelved when a major donor, a Ms. Rochelle Cross (LeToya Luckett) wants to have lunch with Bishop and his wife. He asks his wife if she doesn’t mind a “threesome.” Lady Mae opts to bow out of the lunch as she is not feeling up to meeting someone new but encourages her husband to meet with the woman without her if the woman’s check has cleared the bank.

Charity approaches Aaron about hiring a private investigator to find Kevin. Before Aaron obliges though, he leaves yet another message on Kevin’s voicemail telling him that Charity is looking for him and lets him know that if he wants to remain hidden, he doesn’t have to tell anyone where Kevin has found himself. Where do you think Kevin has gone?

Obviously Bishop has not met this mysterious Ms. Cross before and automatically notices her leopard booties and bare legs. I love her pixie cut! I’m not sure why Ms. Cross made such a sizable donation to Calvary but apparently she was once a member of a Gethsemane Baptist Church. Is that the name of the church that Bishop burned down where Basie’s father the caretaker apparently died? Remember Bishop didn’t think the caretaker had a son. He remembered that the caretaker had a daughter…Could she be the caretaker’s daughter and ready to get revenge? As a major donor to the church, Bishop offers her a membership in the Bishop’s roundtable which comes with access to the church jet apparently…Okay…But Ms. Cross says the only access to a roundtable that she needs is the roundtable where she and Bishop are meeting. I guess that mean’s she wants private access to the man. With that, Bishop takes out his handkerchief and wipes moist droplets of sweat from his face. “Check please,” are his final words.

Instead of meeting in a restaurant, Grace and Charity take a trip over to the parsonage to have dinner with their brother and his wife Kerissa. Although Grace missed church on Sunday, she heard that her brother is forming a church across the street. Although it is not a building, the most important part of a church, the bodies, are making his endeavor hard to ignore. In addition, the three Greenleaf siblings haven’t spent time together apart from their parents in a while and they need to catch up with each other.

Almost immediately, Jacob and Kerissa ask Charity about Kevin and why did the two of them break up. For the first time since Kevin and Charity’s marriage began to deteriorate, Charity admits the exact reason why. “Kevin is gay,” she says before she starts laughing. What a weird reaction. And then Jacob starts laughing. But at the same time, I understand. Sometimes, a situation is so painful and startling that you just have to laugh or you will cry. She also explains that Kevin doesn’t want to be gay and maybe that is why he has disappeared.

Now that the ice has been broken, Grace can get into the ultimate reason why she wanted to meet with her brother. “I want to get a sense of how committed you are to this street corner preaching.” She further explains, “it was a crazy idea when Basie had it.” Obviously, Jacob and Kerissa are offended. Kerissa says, “Do you think you are only person who God talks to?” But then Grace offers to let Jacob have her job as associate pastor and challenges him to be there for the family since Bishop is sick. “You cannot desert the family.” “Like you did,” Kerissa responds. “Somebody is needed to manage things,” Grace continues.  Jacob says he likes the freedom of not having to worry about raising money for upholstery and paint, etc. Grace tells them she is thinking about moving to New York since her views don’t seem to fit in with the church’s views. Please, she just wants to be with her new man.

Call Him Up…

When Bishop returns to the estate, he finds Lady Mae in their red living room. She tells him, “I’m waiting for the Lord to guide me to the right scripture for Saturday.”

As Grace and Charity come into the family home, she calls out Grace for her hypocrisy as she was gone for 20 years until recently. “You want to accuse Jacob of deserting the family?”  She continues, “We put in our time so it’s your turn now.”

Zora and her father take a look at his website and discover that donors have contributed roughly $3,100 to the ministry. Jacob wants to use the money to buy food for the people, and Zora tells her father she is proud of him. But Kerissa suggests the money be used to create a building fund and does not seem as committed to Jacob’s ministry calling as she did at the beginning of the episode. “Not unless the Lord wants me to build,” he says. It seems that Jacob is content to have a simple ministry but maybe Kerissa feels that his outreach should be a stepping stone to a larger ministry like the one across the street…

Later, Aaron approaches Lady Mae in her office and tell her that he must leave Calvary. She tries to convince him to say. In the end, she accepts his resignation. “Would you give your father my fondest regards.” I’m guessing the only way that Kevin will come back is if Aaron goes.

Grace decides to tell the whole story of what happened in her fight with Mac to Darius and says he can write about it he chooses to do so. Darius has something to tell her as well. He is not taking the job in New York.  To me, if you are called to do something, you must be willing to make sacrifices for the calling. Obviously, at least for right now, Grace and Darius are called to be together. They kiss…And just maybe Grace is still called to Calvary although she needs to call Jesus and get some direction from Him and Him alone…

In the final scene, the family meets on a rock in the middle of a creek (not a lake) for their memorial service for Mac. Surprisingly, Grace shows up and even releases a tear as Mac’s ashes are released into the water. Mavis doesn’t show up though and it doesn’t seem like she even acknowledged her sister’s message. More will be revealed I know…

Thank you sooo much for reading my Greenleaf Mid-Season Premiere Recap, Season 2 Episode 10 and my other recaps so far.

If you would like to keep up with OWN’s “Greenleaf,” and my recaps, please click on this link to subscribe to my blog 🙂!

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

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Greenleaf Mid-Season Premiere Recap, Season 2 Episode 9: The Bear…

Hello World,

Clutch your Bibles to your bosoms, the Greenleafs courtesy of OWN are back! (This Greenleaf recap is brought to you by the letter “B.”)

Bad Boys…

The episode begins right where the Mid-Season Finale ended with Grace and her Uncle Mac on the glass-littered floor of his apartment. She’s coughing and he’s writhing as blood spews from his jugular. She summons enough strength to get the upper hand and croaks out, “Tell me where my daughter is!” Mac pleads with his niece to call for help, but she refuses to comply unless he answers her. By the time she finally understands that he is saying, “I don’t know,” Mac dies right there on the floor, but not before his final two words are: “I’m sorry.”

Only then does Grace call 911 and explains to the police that Mac slammed her in the wall and tried to choke her. She tell them that she thought he had her daughter, and they tell her the bottle that was used to fatally wound Mac bears her fingerprints.  Mac, the bad boy we all love to hate, leaves in a body bag while Grace goes to the hospital.

It’s the morning after for Aaron and Kevin who are no longer just boys kickin’ it. Aaron is fast asleep in bed while Kevin sits up in bed next to him, contemplating what they’ve done. He hears his son Nathan crying on the baby monitor and leaves Aaron to tend to his son in the nursery.

Meanwhile, at the hospital, like an episode of “COPS,” pictures of Grace and all the wounds covering her body are taken. Grace asks a detective, “Am I under arrest?” He replies, “No, pastor, you are free to go.” Bishop and Lady Mae worry in the waiting area hoping to see Grace soon. While they wait, Lady Mae begins to reminisce about her deceased brother, but Bishop nips that in the bud. “Our daughter nearly died tonight so pardon me if I ask to be excused from hearing some fond memory of the man who tried to kill her.” When Grace finally appears, Lady Mae says, “I’m so relieved that you are alive. I know it was self defense.” In a rare moment of affection for her daughter, Lady Mae tells Grace that she loves her and Grace tearfully responds with, “I love you, Mama.”

Back at the Greenleaf estate, Grace finds her own daughter asleep on a sofa. Once she awakens her, she is stunned to discover that Mac had nothing to do with Sofia’s whereabouts. She had been with Zora at a recording studio all along. While Sofia is glad to see her mother alive, she doesn’t hesitate to call her out on her bad behavior, pointing out that Grace went to Mac’s home after she promised that she was done with her vigilante justice.

Finally free from the grip of Bad Boy/Pastor Basie Skanks, Jacob and Kerissa hatch a plan to get back in the good graces of Bishop since they now own the property where Triumph 2 was going to be built.

Buck the System…

Charity has bucked the system by being the happiest divorcée ever it seems. She totally skipped over the mourning period of the death of her marriage and is kee keeing it up with Jabari in his Nashville recording studio. Wearing a black and white striped, tight dress, she is elated that a girls group is singing one of her songs in front of them. When Kevin calls, she tells him that she is happy they can be friends. Kevin seems to agree with her, at least verbally, but a tear drops from his eye and slides down his face at the same time. I’m not sure if he misses Charity or feels guilty about his night with Aaron or a bit of both.

Grace goes back to her office at the church in an effort hold her head high and not appear to be hiding away due to guilt. Darius, whose call she did not answer the night before, is waiting on her in her office. They discuss her ordeal as they proceed to the sanctuary of the church. Grace has to convince the police that she did not go to Mac’s house with malicious intent. Good luck with that. Darius, who is not a religious man, bucks the system and asks the pastor has she prayed about it. “It might be a good time to toss one up,” he says. They embrace in front of the altar.

Bearing good news, Jacob meets with the Bishop in his office and tell him what happened with Basie and the fact that he now owns the property across the way from Calvary. Bishop calls Basie a “diminutive demon!” LOL. Jacob suggests with Basie and Triumph out of the picture, he and his father can be co-pastors of Calvary and use the land however the two of them see fit. Bishop bucks the system and shuts his son down yet again. “I don’t need a co-pastor anymore than I need a cane to walk with.” Y’all know the Bishop has Parkinson’s disease, right?

While Aaron and Kevin may have shared a bed, Kevin has bucked the system, avoiding Aaron by leaving the Greenleaf estate too early to have contact with him and avoiding his calls as well. Aaron leaves a message on his voicemail, hoping to hear back from Kevin at some point.

Cousins Sofia and Zora discuss the incident in which Isaiah confronted Zora about expressing an opinion about his music and how he came off like he wanted to throw some blows with his girlfriend as a result. “You shouldn’t see him again,” Sofia tells Zora. At first Zora bucks, but then says, “I’ll dump him but you have to help me find a new bae.”

Although Kevin put the brakes on Aaron, the Greenleaf counsel still has business to conduct. He tells Grace how to buck the system before an interview she has with the police. He instructs her to tell the police that she only picked up the bottle because she was afraid she was going to die and after that, she remembers nothing.

But for the Grace of God…

Despite following Aaron’s direction, Grace is worried that she could go down for killing her uncle. She makes her father promise that he will do all he can to hold on to Sofia as she is worried that Sofia’s father, Ray, will try to get her to come with him since she may be off to jail. Bishop tells her that she is not going to jail. Grace responds, “I wish I had your faith.”

At Calvary, Kevin busts into a Fortitude for Families meeting and yells, “I screwed up!” He continues, telling the people gathered in the room that “it’s all a lie. All of you are lying to yourself.” He was trying to remain in God’s good graces by attending these meetings but obviously feels betrayed that the meetings did not help him at all.

Grace seeks the grace of God as well as she finally kneels in front of the sanctuary’s altar and says, “I’m so sorry. I tried to do the right thing. You know my heart. Don’t take my daughter away.”

Back at the Greenleaf estate, Charity comes back in a hurry after Kevin tells her what happened with Grace. When she goes into Nathan’s nursery to check on her son, she finds a note from Kevin that is so painful she begins to cry. What did that note say?!!! I guess we will find out tomorrow!

While Lady Mae is glad that her daughter is the one who survived the death match with Mac, she admits to her husband that she is still grieving for Mac. She also and finally admits that his abusive behavior may have been something he learned from their father. “Maybe Mac became the way he was by watching Daddy do what he did to me.” So yes, Lady Mae was molested like her daughter Faith was molested. But for the Grace of God, her life could have ended the same way her daughter’s ended.  For some reason, Lady Mae was able to continue living while daughter Faith chose to take her own life.

While Grace is her bedroom, Aaron comes to tell her some good news. “The prosecutor’s office is not going to pursue charges against you,” Aaron says before hugging her. Grace doesn’t quite believe him but then he says, “Sometimes the bear gets you and sometimes you get the bear.”

With that, Grace runs outside to take the good news in, sho nuff evidence of God’s grace, on the lake which is where Faith drowned. While she is there, somehow, mysteriously, she hears the voice of Mac. “You know how many times I prayed not to go to jail? Hundreds.”

Hmmmm….Is Mac really dead? Maybe not although I’m not sure how. In my interview with GregAlan Williams, who portrays Mac McCready, last week, he told me, “As to whether he [Mac] will live or die, I will say this to you: every goodbye ain’t gone.”

I can’t wait till tomorrow night!!! Check out a video preview below…

Thank you sooo much for reading my Greenleaf Mid-Season Premiere Recap, Season 2 Episode 9 and my other recaps so far.

If you would like to keep up with OWN’s “Greenleaf,” and my recaps, please click on this link to subscribe to my blog 🙂!

Any thoughts?