Beloved Welcome

to united states of grace

Welcome to United States of Grace and my free newsletter/blog/rant: dispatches from the heart of america +

Beloved,

 Can I tell you a secret? You are the very first to sign up. Maybe you found me at my twitter handle @lennyaduncan or this NPR article recently. Maybe you read Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the whitest Denomination in U.S.

Maybe you found me on Pastor Nadia’s new podcast.

The only thing that matters is that you matter. You are here. And I have a surprise for you.  I am honored by you following whatever thread that brought you into my life and my work, but I have an invitation. A gift. 

Would you like to go deeper into community with me over the next year and a half? I am launching my new work, my new book, my new labor for the world United States of Grace.

It is a memoir. It’s a historical power analysis of my attempts at liberation in my own life over the last 30 years. It’s a mess. It’s complicated. Like my love for america. * 

It’s a love ballad to america. 

Setting aside our leaders, our systems, what america is at its core, is this. Its people gathered in circles of mutual love and giving. It is glorious, it is rare, and as a Black queer man I can only write of my love for a Republic I have never been a citizen of. I write as an outsider. 

So, I write in United States Of Grace about the worst things that ever happened to me: encountering the prison industrial complex, almost being lynched as 13 year old homeless child, and other periods that most would use as the most damning evidence against who we are as a people. I use it as evidence of the hidden well spring of life and grace hidden in the hearts and communities of all of us. 

You see, beloved, I use you as proof that mercy is real. So, I need your help. 

Invite friends to this community. You will get early access to the new website for all my content, preorders, launch team, zoom sessions with just us as a community, and other ways to connect. I hope you join me. 

In the name of the Parent, the Rebel, and the Spirit +

The Rev. Lenny Duncan 

*Capitalization intentional