Soul Clothes is an engraved and personal invitation to enter into a literary as well as personal relationship with the deeply insightful and profoundly expressive perspectives of one of God’s own trombones. As you encounter these soul-stirring pieces, the poetry, prose and personality of Regina Diane Jemison is likely to rub up on a curious and compassionate place within you, a place of stark reality drenched in divine hope. Imagine a John Coltrane solo, with words instead of tenor sax.

That’s in part because Regina D. Jemison believes her life mission is to empower and prepare people to be their divine self at all times and under any and all circumstances. Needless to say, with such a seemingly impossible purpose, she relies on God in new ways every day. It was something she has been taught and led to do all her life.

As a young adult Christian, Regina began to get in touch with her vast spiritual gifts, which included her voice and vision for the divine possibilities of Black people in general, and the Black church in particular. She was anointed a Deacon in the Detroit Lutheran Coalition, itself an urban representative of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In that role and many other spiritual accountabilities, she has been blessed to study under and provide sustenance and pastoral care for many eminent pastors, preachers and teachers of theological praxis. She serves the Spirit of the Living God through a multi-denominational ministry of service that finds its expression on national, local and individual levels.

The power and destiny of Spirit has molded all of the above – and more – into a powerful and cultural female voice of joy, outrage, love, anger, faith, challenge, surrender, healing and hope. A searing and incisive voice when it comes to the injustices God’s people suffer on every level, because of “isms” of every kind. A sacred voice that cries out in the wilderness. A compassionate voice that cries out to Jesus. A hopeful voice that speaks of new life from old traditions. A wise voice that speaks of the laws of the universe. A faithful voice that speaks of a faithful God.

Those who have ears to hear, listen to what the Master of the universe is pouring through this blessed and highly favored lover and gift-bearer of written and spoken word, Regina Diane Jemison.

–The Rev. Stephen G. Marsh