0:00

We all get it. Sometimes the

0:03

news can really wear you down.

0:06

That's why WildCard, a new podcast

0:08

from NPR, feels like a solution.

0:11

It's an interview show that gives a special

0:13

deck of cards to a whole bunch of

0:15

fascinating guests all in the hopes

0:17

of sorting out what makes life meaningful. It's

0:20

part game show, part existential

0:23

deep dive, and

0:25

part party game. WildCard

0:28

comes out every Thursday from NPR.

0:30

Listen to it wherever you get

0:32

your podcasts. If

0:35

you could distill all of your work and all

0:37

of your study down, what do we learn about

0:39

American Christian tradition in the last

0:41

hundred years? They exhaust themselves

0:44

believing that they have to do it on their

0:46

own and that God is

0:48

only obsessed with winners. We

0:50

just love winners. It's like

0:52

you have to be positive, think positive,

0:55

perform a certain emotional mastery. That's as

0:57

a result of the rise of psychology

0:59

in the last hundred years, but

1:01

we've taken it in a very American way and made it

1:04

kind of a way of

1:06

separating the winners from the

1:08

losers. The winners emotionally equinanimous.

1:11

The winners. Jesus loved the winners and only

1:13

hung out with the winners. It was a

1:15

weird. Oh wait a minute. It's the exact

1:17

opposite. Hey

1:21

there. It's me, Rainn Wilson, and I

1:23

want to dig into the human experience.

1:25

I want to have conversations about a

1:27

spiritual revolution. Let's get deep

1:29

with our favorite thinkers, friends, and

1:31

entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy.

1:35

Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast. Bowler

1:43

or Bowler? Bowler. Right

1:46

down the middle. Wow. Yeah,

1:48

that's what I have to work with. That's, uh,

1:50

this interview is going to be right down

1:52

the middle. Okay, Bowler. I said Bowler downstairs.

1:54

I was okay with that. Sorry.

1:58

Well, that was for kind of you to. introduced

2:00

me I really put my best foot forward to talking

2:04

about defecating on a marathon yeah

2:07

that's always a good that's

2:09

a good conversation starter speaking

2:14

of defecating in your

2:17

pants during marathons you have

2:19

a great quote you

2:26

do and I'm gonna go there my motto

2:29

is life is so beautiful life is so

2:31

hard if you ever have ruined some perfectly

2:33

good small talk at a party with your

2:35

honesty we're already friends soul

2:39

sister we did

2:42

that downstairs we were meeting Rich Roll

2:44

and you were talking about we

2:46

were talking about how do you

2:48

get during a marathon well I

2:51

tried to compliment

2:54

mutual friend Alexis who

2:56

is a marathon

2:58

runner and has a beautiful memoir about

3:01

parenting herself and then trying

3:03

to overcome mental health limitations

3:06

and just amazing person but mostly I was

3:08

so caught up in her ability to transcend

3:10

her own ability to run while

3:13

possibly having to pee yourself

3:15

I was so blown away by that

3:17

maybe I have too many limitations that's

3:20

determination I want

3:22

like a cat poster with her face and

3:25

just the ability to go and a little pool of

3:27

urine kind of drawn

3:29

in down below and we feel free

3:31

to pee yourself during this pod and

3:34

and spent a

3:36

sit in it for an hour and

3:38

a half I will insist on

3:40

it that's great it's determination that's right

3:43

character building tell

3:45

me about ruining perfectly good small

3:47

talk with your honesty and being

3:50

friends with that how

3:52

does that work for you it's not it's

3:54

not an easy combination because I'm also

3:56

very sensitive and desperately want the other

3:58

person to Have a possibly

4:01

lingering good memory of me h

4:03

me had I can't seem to

4:05

stop myself from answering the question

4:07

how are you with Well. Just

4:11

fresh from this yeah, or.

4:14

Prepping for my call and ask appeared so

4:16

I'm actually really worried about what they'll find

4:18

you. Know spring in it. I

4:21

read years your your books. Which

4:23

one is you read. I read.

4:26

No cure for being human.

4:28

Oh. Please. And

4:30

I thought it was wonderful

4:32

and profound and moving and

4:34

sad and delightful. And

4:36

I thank you for it. And.

4:40

But. I did want to talk about

4:42

the Big See an Canada. Canada.

4:45

Yes, that is the

4:47

third Chappaquiddick we know. Doc

4:50

was Cornyn Nothing can

4:52

have cancer. People were

4:54

talking about cancer. Here you

4:56

are at thirty five

4:58

you are diagnosed with colon

5:01

cancer and stage for not

5:03

agree Prognosis: Ah, you

5:05

have. Been. Thriving! God

5:08

bless you and thank

5:10

you Lord Com and.

5:13

It's not often that one gets

5:15

to talk to a theologian. That's

5:18

been at Death's door and has

5:20

come back to talk about it,

5:23

so I just love to hear

5:25

that particular perspective. Ah, Mean.

5:27

Is never a great time to

5:29

get cancer. Most tragedy visit see

5:31

with a horrible surprise and like

5:33

an avalanche but in my case.

5:36

I. Had. Just kind of stuck

5:38

the landing on my life. I like

5:41

finally had a baby after years of

5:43

infertility. Than. I paid into a

5:45

system and now I finally got to live

5:47

in them. Loveliness? Or that. Cel.

5:50

Dream Job! During. Baby.

5:53

Me: My school sweetheart Like everything

5:55

was actually Instagram mobile. wow

5:58

for a moment wow And

6:00

I got some stomach pain and I just

6:03

really couldn't get anyone to listen to me.

6:05

And so I already, so I was really

6:07

vigilant about health and I thought something's gotta,

6:10

like this has got to be wrong and fixable.

6:13

So I went to see everybody all

6:15

the time, but I was just constantly

6:17

turned down for. You have

6:20

acid reflux or something. I mean,

6:22

I was sent out of the ER with

6:24

Pepto-Bismol at one point. I just kept saying,

6:26

there's something wrong. It hurts

6:28

so much that I double over and sometimes throw up

6:31

in my hands like this is genuinely unbearable.

6:35

And so then by the time I yelled

6:40

at a doctor and refused to leave the room

6:42

until they did a scan because I had finally

6:44

just decided that no one was ever going to

6:47

take me seriously. We

6:51

sort of conclude it was probably just like a wonky

6:53

gallbladder and I did

6:55

what I always wanted to do, which is I went back

6:57

to work and I was reading something interesting. And

6:59

then I got a phone call that said

7:01

it was stage four cancer and that

7:04

I would have to go to the hospital right away, which

7:07

meant that I at the university,

7:09

I was

7:11

in this like lovely dress I'd just been teaching

7:13

in. And I was, I could

7:16

feel right away that a life I loved was over.

7:20

And so I called

7:22

my family who were all far away and

7:25

I walked down

7:27

and across the quad and into the hospital to

7:29

start a very different life. And

7:32

that was really kind of the end of

7:35

a set of very lovely,

7:37

well-earned delusions that

7:39

I had about myself

7:42

as being a really hard worker who's

7:45

just going to manage to overcome all

7:47

obstacles. And that in

7:49

the end that I would get the life that I deserve. And

7:52

that was, I just wanted to be an anaconda. I

7:55

was like, good God, let me be a historian.

8:00

which already felt like it was just a realization

8:02

of a lot of dreams. And

8:05

then that was it. It was

8:07

like a real stripping down of everything right away. Like

8:10

the dress is gone, they put a port

8:12

in, you can't wear anything that

8:15

doesn't have to be, you know, washed for

8:17

blood or saline. I

8:20

started immunotherapy and chemotherapy.

8:23

And the assumption was that it would, it would never

8:25

end, that I would do this forever

8:27

and forever wasn't very long. And

8:29

so that was the fall. And I remember thinking,

8:33

Oh, I guess like, but this, this

8:36

is the last fall and everything

8:38

was so fucking lovely.

8:41

It was just so beautiful. Everything was

8:43

beautiful. Everyone was beautiful.

8:46

It was so, um, I was so grateful

8:48

suddenly to be alive and I felt so loved,

8:51

just really loved. I left

8:53

out very loved by God, even though

8:55

it was so mad, felt really

8:57

loved by like nurses and friends.

8:59

And because my office

9:02

was very inconveniently close to the hospital, I

9:04

was like constantly in these like gross states

9:06

of partial address and a professor would come by

9:08

to like put anointing oil on

9:11

my head and like pray for me. And like their hands

9:13

on my head. I just felt so

9:15

carried by love and prayer and

9:18

I was so hurt. I

9:20

was just so hurt that I'd like put all of this into

9:23

everything. And that it wasn't going to be, it was

9:27

just like, if I'd, if I'd been able to,

9:29

if I'd known I would have done it so

9:31

different. I just, I wouldn't have,

9:34

I would just, I wouldn't have let it hurt so

9:36

much getting there. You

9:42

said you felt loved by God, even though

9:44

at that point you had really been given

9:46

a death sentence and you were angry at

9:49

God. Can you unpack

9:51

that a little bit? Well,

9:53

I guess it's, it was very

9:55

weird. I felt, I've

9:58

never had an experience like that before. for or

10:01

since but it I

10:03

really and I understand it I

10:06

understood it then and now

10:09

as being this very strange thing

10:11

that God does which is that

10:15

God loves the broken heart and

10:18

it doesn't always happen because it is just

10:20

like a gift it's

10:23

just kind of handed to you sometimes

10:25

but you feel like

10:28

you're in this little bubble and maybe

10:30

you can kind of tell like your

10:32

feet should scrape the ground but they just don't quite

10:35

and I felt really

10:37

carried through how horrible I genuinely

10:40

knew it was I mean intellectually

10:42

I was like on point fighting

10:45

with doctors I

10:48

was about to go bankrupt and bankrupt my

10:50

family because

10:53

the number one cause of bankruptcy

10:56

in America is this health care bills

11:00

and we let the worst

11:02

thing that ever happens to people be

11:04

the second and the third and the fourth worst thing that

11:06

ever happens to them I asked a

11:09

number of other like people who are actually

11:11

theologians and experts and

11:13

Christian ethics

11:15

and tradition and I was just

11:17

like hey this is unusual right like

11:20

I feel a kind of lovely

11:24

wholeness that

11:26

I shouldn't feel and I know it and

11:29

I feel really weirdly loved very

11:32

specifically by God and they're

11:34

like oh yeah yeah yeah they gave me

11:37

like eight different versions

11:39

of moments and people

11:41

spiritual biographies like mystics

11:44

and others are like yeah it's this

11:46

person called it like the sweetness other

11:48

people called it this but like I

11:51

was like but

11:53

will it go away because I'm

11:55

really needed and I'm mmm barely

12:00

getting by with what's happening.

12:03

They're like, oh, it'll definitely go away. So

12:06

the sweetness goes away. It's just...

12:09

But isn't that kind of where your work is right

12:11

now is to hold on to

12:13

the to that sweetness and to share

12:15

that? I mean these the

12:18

other the other books, the Have

12:21

a Beautiful Terrible Day, the new thing

12:23

you got going on, the lives we

12:25

actually have 100 Blessings for

12:27

Imperfect Days, Devotions

12:30

for a Life of Imperfection,

12:32

etc. Is that sharing that

12:34

sweetness? I love that term.

12:37

There are gonna be so many moments where we don't

12:39

get to have the spiritual feelings that we wish or

12:41

the feelings from other people that we wish we could

12:43

have, but I do want people to know

12:45

that they're

12:47

going to be there in these little

12:50

glimmers. They are. It's just

12:52

one of the only... Like I... Because I

12:54

was like an expert in God's promises, God's

12:56

promises of, you know, I said didn't... endless.

12:59

That's prosperity gospel stuff. Yeah,

13:01

I did hundreds of interviews with televangelists

13:03

of people promising that God's going to

13:05

give them certain things and it was

13:07

either money or health or... But often

13:10

like a spiritual person

13:12

is going to feel it. Another TV show. We

13:16

can do a laying on him. I like to have you

13:18

breathing. We can do laying on him. Let's keep

13:21

it out. Now that's great. Yeah. Yeah.

13:23

Preciate God. But

13:25

so I'm seeing... Oh, I

13:28

got the new Apple show. You call. And

13:31

I'm very reluctant to promise people anything

13:34

because I have to know... I

13:36

really have to know that it's not... Falls

13:38

into the vast rubric of spiritual bullshit,

13:41

but I do genuinely believe

13:44

that God has

13:47

a very special category for all those

13:49

who are suffering and that

13:51

there's a whole category of like

13:53

really small acts of mercy

13:56

and effort that we can participate in. And that's

13:58

why I'm obsessed with like little tiny... steps

14:00

that people can have in their day.

14:03

But it's a feeling like you don't want to just be

14:05

stuck in a loop, that maybe it could be a

14:08

spiral and maybe there's just these small acts

14:10

of progress where you can get somewhere, especially

14:13

when it feels impossible. Other

14:15

people, fine. They can climb the ladder.

14:17

But for all those of us who are like, gosh.

14:19

What did you get better at? Gratitude,

14:23

connecting with people. I'm really

14:25

good at noticing what's in a day. I'll

14:28

regularly pray like, God, just help

14:31

me see things as they really are and help

14:33

me be in this day. And

14:37

so I could be having the most garbage.

14:40

I'm sorry to jump in on that, but I

14:43

just had a deja vu because

14:45

Jeff Kober, a meditation teacher and

14:48

Vedic spiritual journeyer, he

14:51

said the exact same thing

14:53

from the Vedas, which is like, I

14:56

want to see reality as it is,

14:59

not my thoughts or my feelings about

15:01

reality. And as a prayer,

15:03

like, please let me see reality as

15:05

it is. Two

15:07

very different traditions leading to the same thing.

15:10

Please continue. I like that. Yeah.

15:13

There's a yielding there that's

15:16

hard, normal.

15:18

But what's that like? How

15:21

does that manifest itself? Well, like I'm thinking

15:24

of a day that was especially gross and

15:26

I'm in a basement in the

15:28

basement of a hospital far

15:30

away. It's incredibly expensive.

15:34

I'm going to have to do it for

15:36

what feels like

15:38

forever. And I'm alone because

15:41

I always had to travel by myself and

15:43

I'm always overwhelmed and I'm tired

15:46

of doctors. But

15:48

I was like, God, just let's do this. Whatever

15:50

this is, just let's do this. And

15:56

the blood work guy comes

15:58

in and it was such a creepy. small room

16:00

and I was like, hey, what are we doing

16:02

here? And it's like,

16:05

wouldn't it be weird if while you're taking my blood, it's

16:07

actually like, this is your thing. Like,

16:09

this is what you really want. Like

16:12

you're a vampire. And when I go, you'll

16:14

use it for your own purposes. And

16:16

he looked at me just with such

16:19

at first, I thought kind of like

16:21

banal horror that this was gonna have

16:23

to be part of his day. And then he leaned

16:25

over, he takes my arm as he like

16:27

preps my inner elbow. And then he

16:30

just starts to caress it again.

16:32

And it got in a way that suggested

16:34

that he was... Dracula

16:38

or... That he was like, it's so

16:40

weird that you would think that. He

16:43

pretended to be a vampire for the next

16:45

45 minutes. And in every

16:47

subsequent appointment, and he was like, goodbye.

16:50

And then I left him in

16:52

a part of mostly shadowed reopen.

16:55

He was just a

16:57

big, scary looking dude. And I...

17:00

Please send him a silk cape as

17:02

a gift. Just

17:05

please. A

17:08

nice routine finish. That

17:11

is something I can do. I can

17:13

live in the day I have, especially if

17:15

it's bad, I can settle in. But settling

17:17

in was what took practice. So then

17:19

you got this experimental therapy

17:22

or you got in for

17:24

it was quite a struggle to get it and then

17:27

and you got it and... It was horrible. Yeah. It

17:31

was. It was horrible because clinical trials are

17:33

horrible. And everyone says you're so

17:35

lucky and you feel lucky. But then because they

17:37

said you're lucky, you actually don't really know some

17:39

of the fine print, which is that you're no

17:41

longer in the hands of a doctor. You're

17:44

in the hands of an experiment. So you

17:46

have a scientist. And

17:48

that even if something's bad for you, they might not even

17:50

tell you that. You might just have

17:52

to run the paces, getting

17:55

drugs or being part of processes that might

17:57

be good for the future. But they're not...

18:00

necessarily good for you but you'll feel that

18:19

had I looked at other clinical trials offering

18:21

the same drug in other hospitals I

18:24

might not have had to have my

18:26

organs brought to toxicity level as they

18:28

tested chemotherapies so it

18:31

was a mixed bag is what

18:33

I will say I had one

18:35

drug that was a gorgeous drug called

18:37

ketruta that I responded so well for

18:39

it too and I that drug absolutely

18:41

saved my life and was incredible and

18:44

also all the other things

18:46

they did in the process

18:48

of having their trial protocols

18:50

were so unbelievably awful my

18:52

body and it was

18:56

I was in so much pain all the time and

18:58

it was unnecessary pain I could have only had the

19:00

immunotherapy I didn't have to have the other stuff

19:02

right Wow so it was I had to

19:04

run the gauntlet in order to get the drug and

19:07

then and I felt very

19:09

confused at the time because I said lucky every

19:11

step of the way it was only looking back

19:13

and I was like lucky and

19:16

tortured at the same time yeah it

19:18

was a complicated gratitude Wow

19:21

Wow that's rich hey

19:28

everybody it's me rain today I want

19:30

to let you in on something that

19:32

has frankly it's transformed my daily dog

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walks into epic spiritual

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adventures Hoka footwear

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imagine me picture me if you will

19:43

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19:46

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19:48

landscape it's like every

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19:53

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they were conceived of in the mountains I

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don't know what that means, but I'm sure

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footwear is all about enhanced cushioning

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and support for a super smooth

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my soul. Boom. Head

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over to hoka.com. That's hoka.com.

20:21

Hoka. Fly human. Can

20:31

you just do something for me because you're really

20:33

smart, you're a professor and

20:36

a Christian. Can you explain

20:38

Christians to me? Oh sure. Yeah.

20:41

Yeah. Um, revelatory religion.

20:45

So one guy's cooler than other people,

20:47

Jesus. Okay. Um,

20:50

interrupts time and space to show us the fullness

20:52

of God. Uh, inconveniently, not

20:55

enough information over time. So we do a

20:57

lot of filling in the blanks over

21:00

the last 2000 years. Yeah. Um,

21:02

so like, what does it mean that God had his son,

21:05

but it's still God. Doctrine

21:07

of the Trinity takes us a couple of years to hammer that out.

21:09

Are you on board with the whole Trinity thing? Like you're 100%.

21:12

Yeah. I like the whole thing. Yeah.

21:15

So that's really more like a, that's a Catholic thing

21:17

that the hardcore Trinity is a little more. I

21:20

mean, any revelatory faith is a bit of an

21:22

obstacle course. Like they kind of give you stuff

21:24

that it's like, well, we can't, we're not, it's

21:26

a doctrine we can't move. See, I ever

21:28

got to get over it, but these

21:30

are the ones you can't get around. And

21:32

that includes tricky ones. Virgin

21:36

birth. Virgin birth. That's

21:38

a lot. That's just a lot.

21:40

Resurrection. Resurrection is a

21:42

biggie. Miracles. And

21:45

we can, his miracles. Sure. Yeah.

21:48

Miracles in general. I studied, uh, miracle rallies for

21:50

a lot of my research. What's

21:52

a miracle rally? Like when people expect. Is

21:55

it like a monster truck rally? It's actually

21:57

similar. It has a similar. Those

22:00

who are so on. A noise in the middle.

22:02

On some be believe, injured or

22:04

disappointed I'm it is. It's when

22:07

people are getting to the same

22:09

room or place, usually with a

22:11

spiritual person they admire and are

22:13

really hoping that they'll be. Healed

22:16

in a pretty concrete way is as

22:18

a Benny Hinn laying hands kind of

22:20

thing that are nothing right? Yeah, And

22:22

is a long Christian tradition of

22:25

healing, but they Healing Miracle Rally

22:27

is. Is more like a very

22:29

intense immediate his to view of young

22:31

how bad for his act so keep

22:34

going on oh yeah blaming of christian

22:36

christianity you it's got some and of

22:38

others on holy ghost try and god.

22:41

Yeah of don't leave him. But.

22:43

I live on yeah, I agree on

22:45

it sounds yeah. I revel into a

22:48

religions were it's like I'm. God

22:50

shows up in a particular time and

22:52

place and with a baby in than

22:54

an adult. That's one of the strangest

22:56

parts. Of. Belief.

23:00

Is like. How. Did this moment

23:02

act as a keys to what you

23:04

think about the character of God and

23:06

that I think is if people don't

23:08

think that's weird. I

23:11

don't think they're paying a lot. Of attention. How do

23:13

you overcome all the weirdness? I.

23:15

Have a lot of young people these days

23:17

or less. like oh to where'd. It

23:20

is a lot. Ah, I really.

23:22

Both my parents became christians later

23:24

in life, and they're both unbelievably

23:26

smart people and I loved watching

23:28

them. Except

23:31

Christianity for very different reasons, but

23:33

mostly just that. They. They.

23:35

Liked being serious. They put it

23:37

inside of a worldview that came

23:39

out really lovely and so when

23:41

I thought about Christianity as an

23:44

optical course, I was like out.

23:46

And if I wanted be a person of

23:48

faith, I gotta run the

23:50

course and see how I land on

23:52

all of these. and I work now

23:54

as a professor teaching Christian history added

23:56

to very schools. I get to teach

23:59

these a door. do good. And

24:01

especially North American Christian history

24:04

and especially over the last century or

24:06

so, right? That's exactly it. Yeah. Yeah.

24:08

And I do find that when I get stuck on something,

24:11

I can actually walk down a hallway

24:13

and be like, Hey, what are we

24:15

doing about love? Like, is

24:17

there something particularly Christian about how we think

24:20

about love or is love like a universalizing

24:23

like, so it's just fun to be

24:26

worried about things. What does God think

24:28

about self-esteem? Is that like a modern

24:30

therapeutic language? Or like, what do we

24:32

really mean by that? Like these get

24:35

to be my lunch breaks. And because

24:37

I'm aggressively nosy,

24:40

and I don't mind worrying about things, I'm

24:42

not entirely sure I have the right answer to

24:44

then it's, it's, it's ended up just

24:46

being, I think of being Christian as

24:49

being a worldview. It's

24:52

my, it's my like peering

24:54

through the keyhole of that faith. And

24:57

it's also a transformation of

24:59

the heart. It's how I know how to

25:01

love myself or anyone

25:03

else. So that's kind of the

25:06

main reason, I suppose. So like all podcasters,

25:09

I was asking that question because I

25:11

really wanted to just give my own

25:13

personal opinion. Sorry,

25:16

sorry, sorry. I should have made it shorter.

25:19

So it was, we'll cut it down and

25:21

edit it. Don't worry. But here's

25:24

the deal with me when I was thinking

25:26

about Christianity, because I've with the, we

25:29

were talking about Russell Moore earlier, and

25:31

with the advent of my book, I

25:34

got to do a lot of Christian podcasts and

25:36

conversations and churches and stuff like that. And as

25:38

a Baha'i, have I been to church? Of course

25:40

I have. Have I have tons of Christian friends?

25:43

Yes. You know, I love

25:45

so much about Christianity and it's

25:47

when you say Christianity, that's a

25:50

tough umbrella too, right?

25:52

2000 denominations. That's right. And

25:54

as a brand, we're doing great. Everyone's like,

25:56

oh, Christians, you know, I feel so

25:58

accepted by them. God, there's one

26:00

of those around. Yeah, a little branding work maybe.

26:02

But part of it is in the triune

26:05

God and the Father, Son, Holy Ghost because here's

26:08

the problem with Christians. From

26:12

my perspective is because

26:15

Jesus is thought of

26:17

as the Son of God, although he never referred

26:19

to himself as the Son of God, because

26:22

he's thought of as the Son of

26:24

God, he is then

26:27

God-made flesh and

26:30

all of his amazing works and

26:32

his example are like,

26:35

we don't have to do it. He's the Son of God.

26:37

Well, he's the Son of God. Of course he went

26:39

and washed the feet of prostitutes. And of course he went

26:42

around and fed the poor and healed

26:44

the sick and was with the lowly

26:46

and the outcast and the broken people

26:48

and giving of his heart and soul

26:51

and saving them, saving

26:53

them not just saving their souls, but

26:55

saving their feet and saving their bellies

26:57

and making their lives better. So there's

26:59

kind of a disconnect with like, well,

27:01

that was Jesus because he's

27:03

Jesus. So I don't really need to

27:06

do all that Jesus stuff. Now that being said, of

27:08

course, there are countless examples

27:10

of Christians that live in

27:12

Jesus's example, but that's

27:15

where I would put my finger on

27:17

it. So if Jesus was a little

27:19

less God and just a tad more

27:21

man, like on the dial, you'd be

27:23

like, I could do that too. I

27:26

couldn't just believe in him and thereby

27:28

be saved. I could actually,

27:30

as you know, faith without works is dead.

27:32

I could actually ascribe to

27:34

that and do some more works. What do you

27:37

think? There are a few

27:40

different ways that we think about how

27:43

Jesus saves and how and what

27:46

that means and whether

27:48

him being God makes

27:50

alienates him from our

27:53

ability to feel like we need to participate

27:55

in the same kind of saving too. So

27:57

how much work does Jesus just need to

27:59

do by himself? and how much are we supposed

28:01

to be. And this sounds too like

28:03

it gets to your like, we don't

28:05

need a special spiritual class above

28:07

other. We just all need

28:09

to participate in this general work

28:11

of salvation, right? I find

28:14

it comforting that there's at least four useful...

28:17

The theological umbrella that this falls

28:19

under is atonement theory. Like

28:21

what does it mean to... How much does

28:23

Jesus need to save and how much do we just need to do

28:25

the work also? There's a whole

28:27

thing, atonement theory. And

28:29

like there's about four very good versions

28:32

of atonement theory. Can you take

28:35

like a webinar on atonement theory? This

28:37

is one of the like... I think this is one

28:39

of the fun things about like the... I mean sometimes

28:41

I frame it like an obstacle course, but

28:43

what I really like about teaching

28:46

Christian history is... I do think of

28:48

it like chess. Like if you push

28:50

one thing forward, like your piece, like you

28:52

know, you put a rook forward on, gosh

28:55

it feels like Jesus' anthropology is too high.

28:57

What does that do to our anthropology?

29:00

And then you get to be like, okay, well now you got

29:02

to move your pawn two spaces. And

29:04

so when I think of that, I think, well, there's

29:07

a lot of really long Christian

29:09

tradition about Jesus'

29:12

moral example and how

29:16

Him being like us is actually more formative in

29:18

a Christian tradition than Him being not like us.

29:21

Ways in which Him being not like us

29:24

inspires and motivates acts that

29:28

are so uncommon

29:30

for how we

29:34

know how to be human that we need Him to

29:36

be different than us. Like for example, leper

29:39

colonies or inventing hospitals or

29:42

like all the other things that Christians have been

29:44

great at. They

29:46

needed something so absurdly not human

29:49

in order to inspire us into the

29:51

very granular work of like intense,

29:55

gross, gritty service. I

29:57

like your atonement challenge. I would say that's a great question.

30:00

there's a few different versions

30:02

that would be closer to what you would like that there's

30:04

long Christian traditions for. That's very well said.

30:06

Yeah, I know that that's a long conversation

30:09

is salvation

30:12

through deeds or salvation through belief. You

30:14

know, Arthur Brooks has had a column

30:16

come out recently that was

30:19

very much of like faith

30:21

is its belief

30:23

feeling in action and what in what measure and

30:26

that's kind of like the chess game but you

30:28

can kind of like it's like

30:30

a mixing board you know with all the different dials

30:32

on it and like how much is

30:35

belief in here how

30:37

much is feeling in here and in your

30:39

gut and how much is what you do

30:42

in different faith traditions kind of like yeah

30:44

parcel that out what do you think? Yeah,

30:47

I like those grids like I love for

30:49

example John Leslie has

30:51

like the Wesleyan we have this thing called

30:53

the Wesleyan quadrilateral which is like four four

30:55

ways that you can tell if something is probably

30:58

true and we go

31:00

and I always forget the fourth.

31:02

Okay, but it's like one

31:05

is scripture one is

31:07

tradition because I'm an expert in

31:09

Christian tradition then you know I like that one

31:12

experience and then the fourth

31:14

is? Yeah, and

31:16

that one is tricky but number

31:18

four is when I definitely

31:22

struggle with trying to

31:25

be smart professionally it's like every time

31:27

I suck at something the comment section

31:29

is always like it's obviously this and

31:31

later I'll be like oh I

31:34

know. Here's what we can do on a podcast right there

31:37

watch this. Scripture,

31:43

tradition, reason, and

31:45

experience. Reason. Dang it. Of

31:48

course. Of course it's reason.

31:52

Classic bowler that she would

31:54

forget reason. No, that's not

31:56

true. So how let's let's back it up a little bit. I

31:58

want to get into your story a little bit.

32:01

How did you come to be who

32:04

you are through the prairies of

32:07

Canada that brought you to the

32:09

halls of Duke? And then we'll

32:11

get to part two of your

32:13

story after part one. Yes.

32:16

It's riveting installments like this, but... It's

32:20

a quadrilateral. I agree. This

32:22

is part one of the bowler quadrilateral.

32:24

It has to do with the Canadian

32:26

prairies. Well, I was born in London,

32:29

England, not London, Ontario. Not Ontario,

32:31

okay. Where my parents were students

32:35

and then

32:37

they got jobs in the middle of

32:39

Canada. So I grew up in Manitoba

32:41

right in the dead center where the

32:43

best kind of people

32:46

live around. To be

32:48

honest, in the middle of the city there's an enormous garbage hill

32:50

and we sled on it in the winter and

32:52

I think about it all the time. Wait a minute. Manitoba,

32:56

what city? Winnipeg. So in Winnipeg, in the

32:59

center of town is a giant garbage hill

33:01

that gets encrusted in ice and

33:04

snow and the kids sled down the garbage hill in

33:06

the center of town. Yes, we do. And

33:08

when rich people buy a home, we always

33:10

have to talk about whether the home they

33:12

bought is up or down wind from the

33:14

landfill because it's still in use. It's

33:17

still in use. They haven't found a better place

33:19

to dispose of the Canadian garbage? This

33:21

was part of my... The Canadian

33:24

tired... My dad's rabid anti-recycling feelings

33:27

where he's like, we got this huge landfill. I was

33:29

like, Jerry, you bring that argument up one more time.

33:32

But yeah, it is actually my favorite city because

33:34

it's full of lovely people with so much shrugging

33:36

about like, well, no one said we were fancy.

33:38

We just said we were cool. And I

33:41

believe it. It's a delight.

33:43

And I grew up right

33:46

outside of the University of Manitoba, which

33:48

every time the school year started, I'd

33:50

walk outside my backyard and it was

33:52

ranked with the smell of manure. And

33:55

that was because it's also largely an

33:57

agricultural school and they're testing...

34:01

I would turn to my professor parents and

34:03

be like, ah, the learning has begun. And

34:07

I- I didn't know you had to test

34:09

manures, but I'm learning so much from you today. Someone's

34:12

gone too. I learned from watching- Why

34:15

not the Canadians? Why not? I

34:19

guess what I loved about watching them-

34:22

With manure here we haven't tested yet.

34:24

What are we going to do? Call

34:26

Manitoba, stat. I hope they put it

34:29

on a drive. Hey, how's it going? You

34:31

want us to test out for you? They

34:33

will. They want to. I

34:38

loved watching them be university

34:40

professors as public servants. They went

34:43

in- Nice. As genuinely believing they

34:45

were going to hit the lower

34:47

middle class hard and stay there.

34:50

And we were going to live in our crappy bungalow

34:52

with a frequent mold problem. And

34:55

there was going to be something absolutely

34:57

undignified about the whole thing. That we

34:59

would live inside of basically a moldy

35:01

library. But that there

35:04

was going to be something really shockingly pure

35:06

about just ideas for their own sake. And

35:09

living inside of that was

35:12

exactly how I fell in love with. Ideas,

35:15

faith, other people's weirdness,

35:18

the desire to know things for no reason, and

35:20

the unconquerable

35:23

unpopularness of early childhood. Of

35:26

early adulthood as well. That's

35:28

fantastic. And what did they teach? My

35:31

dad taught history. An enormous surprise to my

35:33

mom is a musician. Okay.

35:36

And taught music as well? Yep. She

35:38

has a PhD in music. She sang

35:41

for Prince Charles. She wanted a weird

35:43

avant-garde performance with two-story paper mache. Oh,

35:45

and we talked about this. Your mom was a Baha'i for

35:47

a week and a half. Yeah, a really sexy dude

35:50

was like, hey. The sexy Baha'i dude

35:52

was like, hey, kumbaya, come on. He's a

35:54

guy got a dude to get you into

35:56

a more universalizing faith. Yeah. She

35:58

was like, all right. I love that idea. Yeah of.

36:02

A university professor as being a

36:05

some kind of public servant. Because

36:07

right now and contemporary America a

36:09

you know in these elitist ivory

36:11

castles of colleges as they're painted

36:14

and the. Is absurd.

36:16

You know indoctrination that happens

36:18

in these, you know, ultra

36:20

liberal woke institutions? You know

36:23

university professors are being painted

36:25

as like the problem, not

36:27

the solution were. As for

36:29

aeons, they were the solution

36:31

to brings a manatee closer

36:33

to good and closer to

36:35

it's maximum realization of it's

36:38

own potential. And I love

36:40

that idea of because I've

36:42

encountered. Professors. That.

36:45

Worst Servants Just like I

36:47

have encountered. I'll be at

36:49

rarely Christians who are Christians

36:51

and servants in emulation of

36:54

Christ and the emulation of.

36:57

Of of teaching Enlightening, you

36:59

know through. Thought. And

37:01

falling in love with ideas and debate?

37:04

That sad that's exciting. I've always thought

37:06

have done this sort of petty romantics in the

37:08

best way they fall in love with. Books

37:11

and. Ideas and the hope

37:13

that somewhere out there is a salon.

37:16

Environment as waiting for their

37:18

opinions about Derrida. But.

37:21

It was part of i'm. Kind

37:23

of a nice feeling that my

37:25

dad was a tragic hero in

37:27

an academic story and wins. Like

37:29

most professors, they're really just aren't

37:31

enough jobs. and when they publish

37:33

things, they will write a book

37:35

for ten years for an audience

37:37

and it's a great book of

37:39

two hundred people. Yams will go

37:41

on to an endless feeling that

37:43

their vocation. Which

37:45

can align with students will never

37:48

reach beyond. I'm a

37:50

very small classroom and for abysmal

37:52

pay sell. For a while he

37:54

was teaching at tend to for

37:56

institutions. Over. The course of

37:58

went like just driving back and

38:00

forth between yet each on for

38:02

the or two thousand dollars a

38:04

class and I watched him go

38:06

from being a kind of mighty

38:08

mind to being unbearably depressed. Wouldn't.

38:10

Come out of the basement was.

38:14

Devastated by the idea that nothing was

38:17

ever going to get better. And

38:19

he wasn't wrong. Athena Story play million

38:22

times when million friends. And. There's

38:24

some there's such, or a love, a line

38:26

to be useful and then an inability to

38:28

have anyone to serve. It.

38:31

Erodes your ability to know what your

38:33

for. And. So. I.

38:37

When I was like very. Over.

38:40

Eager. To take up

38:42

the mantle of being a professor

38:44

and like living in to my

38:46

dad carrying my dad dream I

38:48

went. Just gang busters

38:50

into. Wanting to. To.

38:52

Like. Be. The full

38:54

realization of my parents hope so I

38:57

went nuts and my twenties being the

38:59

most ambitious. A little prayer

39:01

a girl would ever buried I tried.

39:03

I was like desperate to get into

39:05

because it's very difficult to get into

39:07

American schools. It's always at me we

39:09

didn't have the money so everything I

39:12

was beg borrow and steal job and

39:14

so I got it out for all

39:16

of my twenties. Adding that ridiculous injuries

39:18

and losses the my arm for coup

39:20

year argue verbal he dictate my entire

39:22

dissertation in my parents' basement hottest. The

39:24

out is hop and was at the

39:26

garbage Hill has hit specific socialise with.

39:29

A was it was the fact that I. I.

39:31

Had loose in. I'm a lot people have

39:33

joint laxity but what happened was that was

39:36

so much hunting and so much writing that

39:38

was really a temporary paralysis said in a

39:40

no one could we shall We just didn't

39:42

have the money or that to fix. Most

39:44

of that stuff only gets fixed by insane

39:46

amount of. Off. Copay?

39:48

Yeah, yeah, for his uncle's therapy

39:50

in massage and alternative healings and

39:52

knelt stuff like that. The Chronicler:

39:55

I'm so sorry. And and I

39:57

lost. I. Lost everything. so

39:59

just. So I just

40:01

like, I kind of tried

40:04

to get to the top of a mountain, found

40:07

it almost impossible to get there. When

40:09

I was giving a tour to my parents at the Duke

40:11

University campus for the first time my dad leaned

40:14

over and put a heavy hand on my shoulder and

40:16

with a bright smile was like, if you ever leave

40:18

a place like this, I'll kill you. And

40:21

it was- It

40:23

was the shining- It was- Castle on

40:25

the hill, literally. I was finally there. Yeah. The

40:28

fact that it's fancy. The University is quarried

40:30

from the same stone. I mean- Wow.

40:34

I mean, yeah. It was everything anyone had hoped

40:36

for and I had paid a lot

40:39

to get there. But the problem is I

40:42

was so desperate to do it that

40:45

I overpaid. I

40:47

was- By

40:49

the time I realized that my life was

40:52

going to be quite limited, I was horrified

40:54

to realize that I had

40:57

poured everything into a dream

40:59

that might not ever

41:01

have been meant for me. That it was mostly just about

41:04

trying to combat my dad's despair and

41:06

that it cost me

41:08

so much in the process

41:11

that I didn't even really know how to start

41:14

counting what was for me or what was for

41:16

anyone else. It's astonishing how much we have in

41:18

common because- and I do

41:20

feel like so much of when you

41:23

start to pull the thread on someone's

41:25

life story, it's so much of- especially

41:28

folks that are successful in

41:30

their careers, it's in reaction

41:32

or response to parents. Either

41:35

proving something to them or

41:38

following in their footsteps or having

41:40

to do with some kind of

41:42

trauma because my dad, the same

41:44

thing, failed artist. Not failed academician,

41:47

failed artist. Failed

41:49

is a strong word. He

41:52

lacked the self-esteem

41:55

and will and resolve

41:59

to try and get- his paintings out

42:02

there and to take them

42:04

to galleries to try and you know get

42:06

a book agent for his crazy science fiction

42:08

books he was writing. So he

42:10

was in our version

42:12

of the basement which is our you

42:15

know converted garage you know writing and

42:17

painting and and these paintings are stacking

42:19

up like so many

42:21

pizza boxes in the corner. And so

42:24

for me who had the same impulse

42:26

to be an actor, to be an

42:28

artist, to tell stories,

42:31

I saw that. I saw the image

42:33

of my father feeling

42:35

so limited by his possibilities and and I

42:37

did the same thing. I undertook the same

42:40

thing. I want to go to a best

42:42

acting school and scrimp and save and get

42:44

scholarships and go to NYU and do theater

42:46

and train and work with the very best

42:48

teachers and scrap and and climb

42:51

and dig and you know I I

42:53

paid price too. I paid mental health

42:55

price. I paid some physical health price

42:57

and addiction price and

43:00

workaholism price and

43:02

um but I'm doing great now

43:04

but what

43:06

are you talking to? They're not even listening.

43:08

My producers are like checking their twitter

43:12

um but

43:14

anyways so yeah

43:17

so life journey in

43:19

response to parental trauma.

43:21

Yeah a feeling

43:23

that somebody's failures are

43:27

sitting somewhere in a drawer or

43:29

in a stacked paintings

43:31

in a garage are and

43:33

if we you know and if you could just if I

43:36

could just I still feel

43:38

so um I'm

43:41

so I'm so moved always by

43:44

people whose ideas that

43:46

are beautiful ones don't

43:48

find the home that they

43:50

need to to tell the person the story that needs to

43:53

be told that they are good that their

43:55

creativity is valuable yeah that like that

43:57

art is never for nothing that he's young. How

44:00

do you serve your students? I mean this is

44:02

part of why I love I

44:04

love theological education I love divinity

44:07

schools. I love universities. Love it. Interesting. I just

44:09

love it. I think there's a lot of people watching

44:11

right now going gone You

44:14

get a lot of people it's the Mostly

44:17

when people are in theological education It's in

44:19

for their master's program or doctoral work and what

44:21

you get by the time you get they've

44:23

they've had a bachelor's So they've had

44:25

some time to be like I like this I don't like this and

44:28

then they're just like spiritually hungry

44:30

emotionally interesting nuance

44:32

hard workers who either

44:35

come to us because They're

44:38

at that lovely early stage where

44:40

they want space to pursue just the questions

44:42

or they've had another career And they're like

44:44

I need a framework to explain the experiences

44:46

that have had so

44:49

I can always assume that I'm going

44:51

to be surprised by something in the room and And

44:54

that's I mean, it's the joy podcasting and

44:56

it's the joy teaching is like there's a

44:58

shape to it And there's a magic

45:00

that will always happen and then you get

45:02

to you get to be there I'm

45:05

gonna re-ask the same question that how specific you

45:07

love it. That's great. How do you how

45:09

do you serve them? By pummeling them

45:11

with impossible questions and berating them into

45:13

a view. That's mostly my own No,

45:16

I know that that's not true, but I

45:18

do pummeling them with unanswerable questions seems I

45:21

think it's the same thing that I got it growing

45:23

up, which is the

45:25

presentation of an argument like this beautiful

45:28

chess game in which there's an elegance

45:30

to ideas that 200

45:32

people always already had a great

45:35

framework for and introducing them to yes.

45:37

What an interesting observation. This is very

45:39

much like Yeah, and then

45:41

kind of scaffolding People

45:44

and really working people myself

45:46

included out of condescension Is

45:49

most of our ideas I'm gonna

45:51

say all of them are not new and

45:54

when you're introduced to There's

45:56

some Wonderful EP Sanders

45:58

who's a biblical scholar who talked about

46:00

the enormous condescension of

46:03

posteriority. To say the second you look back,

46:05

you're like, of course. And so

46:07

I think most of the work I get to do is being like, none

46:10

of this had to happen this way. Like

46:13

we're all evolving into something. And

46:15

so don't talk

46:17

about history like an inevitability. Things

46:20

can be new. And also most of what you

46:22

think is new is unbelievably dumb and old. I'm

46:25

like, let's get into that. So

46:27

I get to do that in the context of American religion,

46:29

but I get to do that with the history of spiritual

46:32

ideas, which is my favorite. Before

46:35

we go on to the next angle of

46:37

the quadrilateral equation, what

46:40

do you love about North

46:44

American Christianity over the last

46:46

century? Yeah. Well,

46:49

it's fascinating to me. And most

46:51

of it is... You're the one who taught me the

46:53

difference between a Protestant...

46:55

No, not a Protestant. A Pentecostal and

46:57

an Evangelical. A Pentecostal and an

46:59

Evangelical. I never even knew there

47:02

was a difference there. I think also you

47:04

were like, I'm just trying to get a snack. And

47:06

I was like, hey, look.

47:09

FYI. I remember

47:12

doing a lot of unnecessary monologuing.

47:16

Well, I

47:18

think what's especially fun for me is

47:21

growing up Canadian, most

47:23

of the religious phenomenon that I

47:26

saw was strange,

47:29

but familiar, that feeling.

47:32

Where I remember watching

47:34

ideas land in Canada that had never

47:37

existed there before, like an

47:40

obsession with creationism, for example, or the

47:42

idea that this earth can only be

47:44

6,000 years old. I

47:46

remember being like, that hasn't

47:48

been hard for you. And

47:51

then I get a minute to kind of

47:53

look at which magazines became popular and which ideas

47:55

and where. And so you kind of get into like...

47:58

So the idea that American religion... and it's familiar and strange

48:00

has been fun because I feel like I get to sort

48:02

of crash land as a Martian

48:05

and be very interested and kind

48:07

of confused. And so most of

48:09

the stuff that I ended up studying are I kind

48:11

of think of as like the most

48:13

American American religions. So Americans

48:16

obsession with the idea that they're bootstrapping

48:19

all the time, that they're constantly picking

48:21

themselves up and reinventing themselves, that they

48:23

are entirely self-created, that they're rabid individualists,

48:25

like all that is very

48:28

not Canadian. And so it's

48:30

been almost easier for me

48:32

to be like take out the notepad, get

48:35

in there. I love the idea of

48:37

you a Canadian from the prairies and

48:39

from the garbage heap mountain coming into

48:41

America and observing this whole

48:44

strange world. You fit

48:46

right in because you look like a

48:49

cheery Baptist, but if you could distill

48:52

all of your work and all of your study

48:54

down, what do we learn about American Christian tradition

48:56

in the last hundred years? They

48:59

exhaust themselves believing that they

49:01

have to do it on their own and

49:03

that God is only obsessed with winners.

49:08

We just love winners and

49:10

we've accidentally

49:13

overlaid most of the best parts of

49:15

being a human with so much standards

49:20

from – I'm

49:24

trying to think of a nicer way of saying like I

49:27

guess like psychological performance, like you have to

49:31

be positive, think positive, perform

49:34

a certain emotional mastery. That's as a result of

49:36

the rise of psychology in the last hundred years,

49:39

but we've taken it in a very American way and made

49:41

it kind of a way of separating

49:43

the winners from the losers. The

49:45

winners, emotionally equinanimous.

49:48

The winner – Well, Jesus loved the winners and only hung

49:50

out with the winners. It was a – Oh,

49:52

wait a minute. It's the exact opposite. It was

49:54

a huge focus for him. He

49:57

had like the winner's circle. And

50:00

the other I guess is show

50:03

and tell. Americans have a distinct

50:05

kind of spiritual show and tell. They always

50:07

want everything good about them to be visible.

50:10

They have a really hard time with truths

50:13

that aren't immediately evidence

50:16

of something. And

50:19

really just like a stepping stool to get them somewhere else.

50:23

Like heaven or prosperity? I mean, yeah.

50:27

Heaven is a good, is like ultimately sure,

50:29

but like mostly they want. It's

50:31

like they don't think, like every time I

50:33

say, oh,

50:35

I mean like if you're a Christian it might actually sort of

50:39

ruin your life in some kind of pretty concrete

50:41

way. They're like, what? I'm

50:43

sorry. It's not going to make my life

50:45

demonstrably better. And like, oh, I mean probably

50:48

not. You might be

50:51

desperately inconvenienced by service and

50:53

other people's pain. You might

50:55

find yourself more

50:57

or less ambitious or changing your

51:00

definition of what that means. You

51:02

might find that some things that people

51:04

don't think of as virtues like

51:07

humility or I wish

51:10

sarcasm was a virtue, but are

51:13

actually like. Blessed are

51:15

the sarcastic. For they shall inherit

51:17

the earth. They'll inherit the

51:20

best one later. They'll inherit the internet. Yeah,

51:22

they will. One

51:28

thing I want to do is

51:30

give a big gigantic thank you

51:33

and a big gigantic shout out

51:35

to one of our principal sponsors,

51:37

the Fetser Institute. You know, this

51:39

is a time where mental health

51:41

is a growing concern and Fetser's

51:43

insights into the role that spiritual

51:45

solutions can play in addressing mental

51:47

health issues, social problems, et cetera.

51:49

It isn't just timely. It's essential.

51:51

They offer hope for what so

51:54

many of us are seeking. You

51:56

really should check them out. I

51:58

love these people. at

52:00

fetsur.org. You

52:09

have this death sentence and before

52:11

we get to the recovery and

52:13

the turn like what was

52:15

it like facing your mortality? I was

52:18

mad at old people a lot like really

52:20

resentful. I feel like how

52:23

so. Well I work because they're

52:25

like yeah and playing pickleball or

52:27

talking about their retirement accounts. Yeah.

52:29

I work in a geriatric profession

52:32

so almost everyone that I worked with

52:34

was also 70 plus. So much

52:36

must be nice came out of my

52:38

mouth. So there's a lot of

52:41

bristling at other people's. Cluelessness.

52:44

Deep unfairness of the world and like

52:46

just being able to say that was

52:49

a joy. Just shit talking old people

52:51

became important to me. For your

52:53

mental health. It did and they were

52:55

wonderful about it and kind

52:58

of became some of my most trusted

53:00

people to say because they'd because

53:03

actually they'd lost kids.

53:06

They'd lived a life. They knew I

53:08

mean some of the most perfect things came

53:10

out of the mouth of like older

53:13

colleagues who said things like I was like look

53:15

I'm just trying to I said look I just

53:17

because you feel this panic of trying to ab-

53:21

freight what is left with all

53:23

of the meaning all the experience it's you go

53:25

really bucket listy and I

53:27

was I asked a colleague I was like

53:29

look I'm not just trying

53:32

to bargain but like I'd really if I could just get

53:34

to 50 and then I could I could

53:36

launch my kid I could I could just

53:38

I could I could finally get everything done

53:40

and he was like oh the Kate comes

53:43

undone. He's

53:48

right. Like you

53:50

have this feeling like you're always knitting a

53:52

sweater and then someone pulls a thread then

53:54

you're just not wearing a sweater anymore and

53:56

that is the idea that

53:58

progress is always is available to you,

54:00

like that is just one of the lovely delusions

54:03

that we have. So acting

54:05

without the promise of progress is probably

54:07

one of the most

54:09

incredible things that I see people do. How

54:12

do we just, how do

54:14

we try even knowing that it might

54:17

come apart? I

54:19

think it takes incredible courage. I

54:22

have a dear friend who

54:25

had his wife, who

54:27

was becoming his ex-wife and his

54:29

daughter both got

54:32

brain tumors. The

54:35

wife then turned ex-wife, passed away.

54:38

The daughter had

54:41

it excised and is recovering and

54:43

doing great, but that

54:45

action turned him against God. I

54:47

mean he literally was like, fuck

54:50

you. If there's a

54:52

God, this is a cruel fucking God. Fuck you,

54:54

I don't want anything to do with you. How

54:58

would you address that

55:01

response, which I'm sure

55:04

part of you wrestled with

55:06

to some degree? It's

55:09

certainly around, I mean that

55:11

response is so real and

55:13

so appropriate

55:17

and it's the big

55:20

theodicy, right? Like how do we live

55:22

confronted with the fact that evil

55:25

isn't just like dictator far away, it's

55:27

the evil that comes to our doorstep and

55:29

robs us, robs us in daylight. That

55:34

ability, that anger, I

55:36

have so much respect for. Most

55:41

of my anger was directed toward platitudes, most

55:43

of my career now is directed toward the

55:45

rage I have about platitudes. So

55:48

dismantling the things that make it even more

55:50

painful for someone like that, where it's

55:54

supposed to be worth it or

55:56

he learned lessons or God's making

55:58

angels, it's just are, the

56:00

suffering are mired in bullshit.

56:03

So yes, when someone

56:05

says, very understandable, it

56:08

is a very relatable. I also

56:11

think it's different to be the

56:13

sufferer and to be the one

56:15

who is standing there having to live

56:18

after and the the

56:20

sufferer and the caregiver are in often on

56:22

very different planets and so I think I

56:25

saw some of that anger and the people

56:27

in my life that I

56:29

didn't experience because I was right I

56:31

felt I hadn't really thought about that I

56:33

felt like I was being brought into that

56:37

was just having to learn a different story where

56:39

it was some of your caregivers

56:41

struggle more than you did as

56:43

the as the sufferer they did

56:45

yeah and like and then just

56:47

differently I mean really differently and like

56:52

I tried to have this conversation with my dad right now

56:55

about that topic it was like I was

56:58

sitting on the floor leaving games with me and I had

57:00

his hand on my head and I was

57:02

like dad did you think like what

57:05

why did this happen to my daughter like what could I

57:08

he's like oh man I was he's like I was

57:10

so angry I just I thought like man if there's

57:12

a like God just take

57:14

it away from her and give it to me and I

57:16

was like God that's like a

57:18

really lovely thing to

57:20

say and he's like well but

57:23

then I think about how Mozart died in his 20s and I

57:26

was like well and I could tell you as

57:30

if he's weighing these two thoughts with

57:32

both hands and I was like maybe

57:34

maybe we could just go back to loving each other in silence for

57:36

a while and when someone gets

57:38

to a place of like God

57:42

fuck you this is what

57:44

they're also saying I think is um this

57:47

is truly unbearable and like how

57:49

am I supposed to live my whole life this way

57:52

so whereas

57:55

I was so desperate

57:57

and sad trying to figure out how to say goodbye

58:00

especially to my son

58:03

and also feeling

58:05

like what I was trying to do was learn the story

58:09

that it might be okay

58:12

spiritually in a big story about how

58:14

God draws all things to God's self

58:16

and makes the world beautiful but

58:20

it's not going to be okay for me in the

58:22

way that I hoped and like living with that like

58:26

still had some kind of like there

58:28

was just a lot of love there I

58:31

think dying is weird and I think as

58:33

you're dying there's some strange comforts there that

58:35

are not the same ones that are afforded

58:37

to those who are watching you watching you

58:39

die. Yeah that that's a

58:41

great way of encapsulating it. What did you

58:44

learn about our healthcare system? The

58:47

rich will live and the poor will

58:49

die unless you didn't

58:51

Jesus said that right?

58:55

Can you say that? It's a Christian nation. Oh I

58:57

think I

59:00

again I think it was the

59:02

opposite okay go ahead. He said

59:04

that. I love him. He loves

59:08

winners. What else? It's

59:10

wonderful that it moves faster than

59:12

other nationalized

59:15

healthcare systems. American systems can move very

59:17

quickly. You can have a thought and

59:19

get an MRI on Friday which is

59:21

incredible. You don't have to wait three months.

59:24

You don't but there will be no quarterback.

59:26

You're the only quarterback. I've

59:28

been in charge and I'm still entirely

59:30

in charge. I took myself off chemo

59:32

based on my own research and made

59:34

every doctor upset and turns out I

59:36

was 100% right. I was just

59:39

in a trial protocol where they were never gonna say that to

59:41

me. So the

59:43

fact that I was quarterbacking things that were

59:45

so out of my pay grade and

59:49

I've kept myself alive so as much as

59:51

I think the system kept me

59:53

alive I kept myself alive. Trying

59:55

to just find the side doors

59:57

that would get me back to any

1:00:00

kind of, anyone who's on a

1:00:02

super highway, and especially

1:00:04

if you have a cancer or

1:00:06

any kind of diagnosis that has an

1:00:08

established protocol, it's actually a really great

1:00:11

system. It's just any side

1:00:13

road, it will be a bumpy road.

1:00:17

All the while people will be telling you that

1:00:19

it's so much worse in Canada. I was

1:00:21

like, actually, it'd be fine. Those

1:00:24

drugs are available in Canada too. It's okay,

1:00:26

it'll be okay. It would have been okay. In

1:00:31

the Baha'i faith, there's this

1:00:33

concept about tests and

1:00:36

difficulties, and that

1:00:38

tests and difficulties are sent

1:00:40

to us as a bounty.

1:00:45

And we're even asked in

1:00:47

some really prayers

1:00:50

that make me outraged to

1:00:53

be grateful for our tests, and

1:00:55

thank you God for this test,

1:00:57

and that that's really the highest

1:00:59

point of spiritual enlightenment

1:01:02

is to be just so

1:01:04

grateful for the

1:01:06

vicissitudes because they grow

1:01:08

our souls, and the

1:01:10

whole purpose of this life from the Baha'i

1:01:12

mythology is a little different than Christian, but

1:01:15

it's similar in a lot of ways too,

1:01:17

is we are in these

1:01:20

fleshy soul-growing machines for 70, 80, 90 years

1:01:22

if we're lucky, and

1:01:26

those divine qualities that we've

1:01:29

been speaking about, humility and

1:01:31

patience, kindness, love, we're

1:01:36

taking those with us, but it's the

1:01:38

tests that really grow

1:01:40

those qualities, and

1:01:42

it's like going to the gym. When

1:01:44

you're doing this with weights, you're literally

1:01:46

ripping up the fibers of the muscle

1:01:49

so it regrows stronger and bigger. You

1:01:52

can tell I do a lot of work around

1:01:54

that. I felt it was hard to

1:01:56

almost listen because I was odd. Yeah,

1:02:00

and odd. So

1:02:04

in this construct, you

1:02:07

know, you've gone to hell and back again, you're

1:02:10

in remission, you're in recovery,

1:02:13

you're doing great, you're teaching,

1:02:15

you're momming, you're wiping, you're

1:02:17

traveling, you're uplifting,

1:02:19

podcasting, best-sellering

1:02:22

right and left, bringing

1:02:25

your wisdom, strength, experience, light

1:02:27

that you gained going through

1:02:29

this. But is

1:02:34

that a bunch of bullshit really? Yeah. Like

1:02:36

is it like? I love this question so much. Yeah. This

1:02:39

I think is one of the most interesting questions

1:02:41

we get to ask ourselves. Oh goody. I

1:02:44

do. I asked a good question. Well

1:02:46

I- See that? Cartic?

1:02:49

You see? See, I can do it.

1:02:51

Okay. I think I

1:02:53

really agree with half of what you said. Which

1:02:57

is there is an uncommon,

1:03:01

unduplicatable wisdom that comes from

1:03:03

suffering. We're

1:03:05

just really trying to take the terrible things that

1:03:08

happened to us and metabolize

1:03:10

it into something

1:03:13

that can be still beautiful and

1:03:15

then maybe more beautiful. Like

1:03:17

I was talking to a mom the

1:03:19

other day who lost both her

1:03:21

sons and she said, oh my gosh,

1:03:24

she was so lovely. She

1:03:26

said, well it's hard because everywhere I go

1:03:28

there's a reminder or it's a birthday or

1:03:31

it's a- I met somebody else's grandkids baby

1:03:33

shower or- and she said, everywhere

1:03:36

I- and then every memory I reach for there's like

1:03:38

a little tear. You know I can

1:03:40

just tell it's like tearing at my heart. So

1:03:42

it will just- it will have to regrow.

1:03:46

And like I loved the idea that

1:03:48

it's like regrowing into a different shape.

1:03:51

And every little micro-tear is

1:03:53

also a way because of what she's

1:03:55

doing and the way she's trying to

1:03:57

be in the world can grow- still

1:04:00

into something beautiful. It

1:04:02

won't be better. It will

1:04:04

never be as good as her having her son.

1:04:07

And like this is the

1:04:09

strange way in which it

1:04:11

is, I think it's very bad

1:04:13

math. It's very bad math

1:04:16

to say suffering

1:04:18

plus anything equals

1:04:21

virtue. Because

1:04:23

there's no math there. We

1:04:26

can't say true things about

1:04:29

loss, about things that can never be

1:04:31

recovered and say that it was, we

1:04:34

can't say worth it. We just can't use

1:04:36

any additive words. But what we can say, I

1:04:38

think, is that there is a, there

1:04:41

can be a shocking

1:04:43

beauty and a progress

1:04:46

that happens in our own souls

1:04:49

as a result in which we do say, I don't

1:04:53

know if I'd ever say thank you. But

1:04:55

I would say, God, you

1:04:57

are showing me so many things. But

1:05:00

if I could go back, I would absolutely

1:05:03

give every bit of it up and

1:05:06

be a lovely, medium delusional

1:05:08

historian. With

1:05:11

a kid having an intact abdomen and

1:05:13

a great prognosis. Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:15

Yeah. I will never say,

1:05:18

but that's why I love when people say

1:05:20

things like, I always collect versions of this

1:05:22

that I really, I'm like, that's it. And

1:05:25

so I heard too this last year, I really liked. Okay.

1:05:28

Beth Moore, who's a wonderful

1:05:31

spiritual teacher, Baptist,

1:05:33

she said, God, if

1:05:37

my prayer is just like, God,

1:05:40

it was not worth it, but

1:05:42

could you make it matter? That's

1:05:46

a great iteration of a

1:05:48

bad math. And the other one.

1:05:50

That's a kind of a prayer, isn't it? I really liked

1:05:52

it. The other one I really liked

1:05:54

was Rabbi Steve Leader. And he said, well,

1:05:57

if you're going to go through hell, just don't.

1:06:00

leave empty handed. And

1:06:02

I liked that too. But these

1:06:04

are all non-linear ways of

1:06:06

saying we

1:06:09

can genuinely become more beautiful and more

1:06:11

human after suffering. But

1:06:14

you will then have to

1:06:16

live with what remains. I

1:06:19

like it. That's why I made my own t-shirt that

1:06:22

said what doesn't kill you, we'll try again tomorrow. And

1:06:26

I wear it at like colonoscopy kind

1:06:28

of like situations or cancer runs. Colonoscopy

1:06:32

conventions. Yeah, is everyone having

1:06:34

their schmoozer together? What is

1:06:36

have a beautiful terrible day? I mean,

1:06:39

I've seen it, but tell us about it. Well, I just I've

1:06:42

suffered and I want others to suffer. And

1:06:44

this is my small contribution to

1:06:47

mankind. We

1:06:49

live in such a toxic positivity,

1:06:51

aggressive optimism, everything always

1:06:54

has to be lovely. We're really

1:06:56

crowding everybody onto the good vibes section

1:06:59

of the emotional spectrum. And

1:07:01

I just think it'd be nice if we could

1:07:03

say something like a little truer, and maybe

1:07:05

something a little more emotionally dynamic.

1:07:08

So, you know, it

1:07:10

can't always be a wonderful day, may

1:07:12

it be like a beautiful, terrible

1:07:14

day. We can find those little

1:07:16

glimmers in the midst, and also

1:07:18

just know like, all

1:07:21

these small acts are us trying

1:07:23

to inoculate ourselves against despair, which

1:07:26

is just right there. But the

1:07:28

second you say I'm living with what

1:07:31

I can't solve, then everyone's

1:07:33

positive. They're just going to go right back

1:07:35

into nihilism, fear, despair. No, no, no, no,

1:07:38

we don't have to do that. We don't

1:07:40

have to say everything is possible. We don't

1:07:42

have to say nothing is possible. We

1:07:44

can get more into a what is

1:07:47

possible today. Have

1:07:50

a beautiful, terrible day. I

1:07:52

love it. Kate, this has been such

1:07:54

a profound pleasure getting to know you.

1:07:57

And I have to say that you are You're

1:08:00

my absolute favorite texter. You

1:08:03

are so good at texting. If

1:08:05

anyone out there watching can

1:08:08

get a hold of Kate and get

1:08:10

her number somehow and start

1:08:12

a text thread, it will

1:08:14

enlighten and invigorate and cajole.

1:08:17

It's so good. I only have two, what

1:08:20

I'm hoping our spiritual gifts is compliments

1:08:22

and sarcasm. So that's my medium. Thank

1:08:24

you. The one we have going with

1:08:27

Joel McHale, you sent a picture today

1:08:29

of Sound

1:08:31

Bath Healing Practitioner Training Workshop. Training,

1:08:33

yeah. They're not ready yet. They

1:08:36

can't ring those bells. They can't...

1:08:38

They have to get trained in like the

1:08:40

gong, gong, gong. I want

1:08:42

them to be... Start the larger bell

1:08:45

first and then go to the smaller bells

1:08:47

because it's going to vibrate more. Ah,

1:08:49

okay. Let me write

1:08:51

that down. Sound Bath Practitioner Workshop only

1:08:54

in Los Angeles. For there. Yeah, I'm

1:08:57

going to a sound bath tomorrow and I'm going

1:08:59

to ask on the beach because waves are not

1:09:01

soothing enough. They need to just... We

1:09:04

need an additive component. They're doing sound bath

1:09:06

on the beach? I'm going to be

1:09:08

like, what? What was that? Is it done by

1:09:10

LAX? Is it going to have the roar of planes

1:09:12

going over? I've never done it before. This

1:09:15

was such an honor and a delight

1:09:17

and I hope it's the first of

1:09:19

many conversations because you're really amazing. I

1:09:21

like you so much. This was so fun. I had

1:09:23

so many questions for you. Let's

1:09:26

disagree again. I love

1:09:28

it. I'm going to come five

1:09:30

more things that we almost agree on but

1:09:32

we feel devastatingly separated by. I

1:09:35

love that. Let's live in that

1:09:37

liminal space. Thank you. My

1:09:39

pleasure. You're listening

1:09:41

to Soulpool.

1:09:51

Thank you. Check

1:10:00

out Waking Up's incredible arsenal of mindfulness

1:10:02

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1:10:05

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