Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 61: When the Surface Breaks

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Ep. 61: When the Surface Breaks · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word.
• 0:26
  And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. Hello. Hello, everybody. So we are doing a special episode this week.
• 0:38
  I don't like that you're looking at me. I don't wanna look at myself. Here's the deal. We are doing an interview this week with my professor from college. Her name is Cynthia Beach, and she wrote a book called The Surface of Water.
• 0:52
  And we are super excited to have her on. We wanted to come on and do a little bit of an intro so that we're not just jumping straight into an interview. Here's the deal. Okay. Now that we got through the introductions, I can speak again.
• 1:05
  Because for the first time ever, we're doing a Zoom call, and I don't wanna look at myself. I've art I've just gotten used to talking into a microphone, and now I now have to look at myself and speak. No. I just I don't have that capability. It's like chewing gum and walking.
• 1:23
  I can't. You can't chew gum and walk at the same time. I'm kidding. Is that from friends? Is it?
• 1:28
  I don't know. Alright. Dang it. I'm looking. Unfortunately for you all, this Zoom video is not going anywhere.
• 1:36
  You don't get to see us. Nope. And I'm not putting it on TikTok, and I'm not putting it on Instagram. Yeah. We will.
• 1:42
  Probably probably I'll put clips of it on there because I think it's funny. Actually, should take pictures right now. We're so good at social media. Oh, hello. Brie is now TikTok ing, and she's very excited about looking at herself, but only when it's on the phone, not when it's on the computer.
• 2:00
  It's easier when it's
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: on the phone.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: So, anyway, today, we're gonna be talking with my former professor. She was my absolute favorite professor in college. I'm very sorry, again, if any of my other professors happen to be listening, but she just wins. You know, in life, we have favorites. Children, food, music.
• 2:18
  Why did children start that list? Because it's true. Oh, dear. I'm mom and dad's favorite. We know that's not true.
• 2:25
  It's Brandon, and no one can argue. It's because I'm a middle child. But we're super excited to have her on. We're gonna talk about her book. She's also got an upcoming sequel coming out in the near future.
• 2:38
  I don't actually know exactly when, but maybe she'll let us know that. And she's also going to talk a lot about the Church Too movement, which if you're not familiar with it, it's kind of the Me Too movement, but for church trauma, which unfortunately there's a lot of. I would say almost when you think of how many women have been in the Me Too movement, it's almost every woman who's had some kind of harassment or something terrible happened to her. I feel like it's almost the same with church. Yeah.
• 3:11
  Where if you grew up in the church or spent a lot of time in the church, you've noticed some trauma. Yeah. I think, you know, they say when you look behind the curtain at a church, that's when you see all the bad stuff. With church trauma on women, you don't even have to look behind the curtain. You just have to, like, glance around.
• 3:35
  You have to go to a Sunday service Yeah. And sit down. Yep. I'm gonna keep calling her professor Beach because this is what I've called her forever. So if she tells me to call her something else, perhaps I shall.
• 3:45
  But for now She was never my professor, so I can call her anything I like. Oh, good. So professor Beach's book really deals with trauma towards women in church and how deep it goes, how manipulative it can be, and just how prevalent it is. I was really struck by how much trauma was featured, but how it didn't surprise me at all. Like none of it was shocking.
• 4:17
  I was talking to Alyssa about this earlier that it almost is a little bit triggering if you've spent any amount of time in a church or like volunteering at a church. Mhmm. To a lot of things are very familiar. Even the actions of the main character one of the main characters, pastor Goodman, just seeing how he treats women was very almost too familiar. Yeah.
• 4:44
  Yeah. It hits home. For anybody, I think I think anybody really that's been in church for an extended amount of time. It's pretty easy when you hear about these characters, and you'll hear more about them in a few minutes Mhmm. To pick that person out of your brain, and you're like, oh, yep.
• 5:02
  That's who it was. It doesn't even it doesn't take any amount of time to find that person. So we are gonna sign off of just us for now. I'm tired of looking at me. In just a couple of minutes, we will be back.
• 5:18
  Well, not not a couple minutes for you. A couple minutes for us, but pretty much instantaneously for you. My gosh. I have a lot of great news. Looking at yourself.
• 5:28
  But we will be right back with professor Beach, and I'm excited to hear more about her book, more about publishing, and about her experiences in the church. Hooray. I don't like this angle. I don't like one thing about it. I'm so sorry.
• 5:43
  I can see all of my chins. Recording in progress. Hello. Hello. Hi.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Good to see you both.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: So good to see Thank you.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Alyssa, it's been a while.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It's been, I think, little over ten years. Wow. I know.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's incredible. And I haven't had a chance to meet you yet. Is it Brianna?
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: It's Brianna, yeah, but I go by Brie like the cheese.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Nice, Brie. Yeah. Well, I'm excited about today and getting to talk to you guys.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Thank you. We're so excited, too. When you contacted me, I was like, this is perfect. It was right up our alley. Good.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Good. I'm glad.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I know you I think you're headed to Scotland soon. Is that correct?
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I know. I'm totally astounded still. So it happened February round there. We got an invitation and I I'm being invited as an artist in residence and I can't tell you how much that means to me.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, cool.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: So I'll be doing some writing for a church there. Okay. And Dave and I will live in a, it's called a family flat above the Okay. And that will be our home in Dundee for two years, Dundee, Scotland. Wow.
• 7:17
  Yeah, yeah. That's amazing.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Have you ever been there before?
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: In 1989.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: So recently. Yeah,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: So we're warned about the rain and a saying about Scotland is something about summer's in June and the rest of the year is winter apparently, but we're just giddy.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Michigan's probably prepared you for that a little bit.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely right.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Especially over on the West Side.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yep.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll kind of launch right in, but I wanted to introduce you a little bit first so that everybody knows who you are. So this, everyone, this is Cynthia Beach. She was my professor in college, my absolute favorite professor. I always, I have to preface it by saying I'm sorry if anyone else is listening, if all my other professors are listening, but you're definitely my favorite. I think I had you all four years, if not at least three, for sure.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: So Professor Beach wrote an incredible book called The Surface of Water, and we are super excited to dive into it because it talks about the Church Too movement. I mean, not directly, but like talking about that general topic and church abuse, and just, I mean, I remember you writing this when I was in class, like talking through it, so was super cool to see it published. So yeah, talk to us a little bit about the book. What inspired you to write it? Your favorite moments, the characters, kind of that, what made you want to tell this
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: story? Alyssa, that's such a good question. What made me want to write it? So Tolkien has this great notion of what's called a, he called it a compost pile. And a lot of us are used to compost piles where, you know, the banana peel is rotting and gives us good soil in the end, right?
• 9:24
  The end of the So Tolkien had an idea that we take in everything. So my mom and a story I loved as, you know, a six year old, whatever, it's like we imbibe it all and it becomes our compost pile from which we write. So I would say the story was in my compost pile for different reasons. So one aspect of it is shocking. It was shocking to me the day I met the poem Richard Cory.
• 10:00
  And Richard Cory was written by a famous American poet who we've lost track of. You know, we don't know E. A. Robinson and his work, but he won three Pulitzers in his and was enormously famous. So the turn of the century, 1800s to 1900s is when he was alive.
• 10:22
  And Richard Corey was about the town celebrity. So the guy everybody adored and nobody knew, right? That Yeah, he was good looking, he was rich, yeah he had good clothes and one of the lines is hearts would flutter when Richard Corey was around. And in the end of the poem, which I met as a high schooler, and it shocked me out of my naivety that Richard Corey suicides. And I was shocked.
• 11:05
  It was like, I think that ushered me into the complexity of being human, right? So I was sheltered, very sheltered. I grew up so 70s, 80s. And I guess we were allowed to be still at that point. Yeah.
• 11:25
  But I never forgot it. And it felt like that went deep into my compost pile and it was like a sliver in my soul until lo and behold, the question arose one day, what if a mega church pastor was a Richard Corey?
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Mhmm, So interesting.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: And a way I went.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. And how did Trisha's character develop? Because she's our main protagonist, our main female protagonist, where did she come from?
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: She kind of arrived, Alyssa. And I'm actually intimidated by Trish because she's so fierce and very sharp justice orientation and rightfully so. She's earned it. So she grew up in real hardships and severe poverty, lost her mom early on. If Maria and her lovely neighbors hadn't take contrition, what would be her story?
• 12:34
  So Trish always kind of intimidated me because I was this Dennis daughter who got everything, you know, I had my horse and clothes and so forth. And so for me to write about Trish, I was kind of scared, but there's a craft trick to talk to your neighbors, not neighbors, sorry about that, but your characters. Yeah. And I did, I interviewed Trish and asked her, you know, is she okay with me writing about her because of my upbringing compared to hers. And it was almost an issue of who else would write about me?
• 13:20
  Who else? So that gave me freedom to write about her, Alyssa. But yeah.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: That's so cool. I remember I was telling Brie, we did an exercise in class where you would have us kind of like cut out a picture that looked like the hair of the character or the hair, and I remember you talking about doing that with your characters as well.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely. I still have that over my shoulder. You can just see the edge of some corkboard. Oh yeah. And I have a lot of corkboard in my writing room that shows me all those aspects.
• 13:55
  Especially for this novel that took years and years, it gave me consistent images. So
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: yeah. Now, are these characters going to flow through? I know you've got another upcoming project. Are they flowing through to the next book as well?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they are. So I'm writing a sequel and I'm revising it now. I really hope to have it done before Scotland, which comes in about eight weeks. So we'll see, at least to hand it off. Yeah.
• 14:28
  I'm hoping. But that has been a real, just deepening also.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: So
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: the sequel has carried me deeper into research about Church two and many issues like that. I think one phrase that just pierces me is systemic collusion. That is when a group around the perpetrator makes sure that that's what happens, right? And it's chilling, it's a chilling phrase. And so I've been looking at that and how some churches do this, right?
• 15:17
  And what would it look like for someone to be part of the system of collusion?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: That's gotta be a tough perspective to write from.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So it's just, it's been interesting, very interesting to write.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, of Church two movement, talk about a little bit more of the themes in the book seem to revolve a lot around that Church two movement with power and silence and complicity. Can you talk more about that and how that motivated your writing?
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting that Church two is fairly new. So about 2017 is when it, I think became a thing after the Me Too. I started writing my novel in 'eight. So it wasn't so much a thing, but for me, I would say some lived experience. And I would say not so much the church, but Christian businesses and Christian institution where I was.
• 16:27
  So I certainly saw misogyny happening, sexual harassment happening, pay inequity, all of that happening. So again, a little bit of my compost pile, I think showed up in the novel.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm kind of squinting because I feel like I've encountered strange stories and I've had a sense in, know, was this God? Can't tell you. I think so, but that I felt like I've had a front row to some secrets and to some things. So for example, I was up for ten years ago. And so this was in the 90s.
• 17:19
  And one of the committee members, it was a committee of faculty members who, it's called the Tenure and Promotion Committee, and they talk with you about why you should or should not be given tenured.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: And
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: I was given this, I was kind of attacked during it and grilled would be the word I would say about the founding religion that this Christian institution was based on, but left because it was now non denom. But I was grilled by this one faculty member. And now I would say to you, you know, well, why was I grilled and what was the energy behind it? Years later, another faculty member came to me and apologized that he had been silent when that happened. It's strange that it made it feel worse to me, although he was kind to apologize, but it made it feel like this was a real thing that happened to me and it was not okay.
• 18:27
  Right, yeah. Yeah, so I feel like maybe a lightning rod in some ways where the lightning has hit me and then to write about it in different shapes, different forms, has been cathartic and also, again, my compost pile.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Can I ask, were any of the people on that panel women or were they all men?
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't remember now. That's such a good question.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I would be curious.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It would have been a high amount of men. Yeah. Were there any women? I'm trying to think and I just don't remember now.
• 19:07
  Yeah.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: It's always so interesting to see those panels, the authorities.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Christian spaces so often are all men. So you're sitting there kind of phone in the room.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I was on several committees like that where I was the only woman and what that meant for my voice.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: You were one of the only women in our department as well, I think. Is that correct?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right. Yeah.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Which was very impactful to me to have you there. I'm glad. I could
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: relate to.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: But let's talk about so obviously, like, we're talking about institutional harm. We're talking about your own personal experiences.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: How did and we've talked a little bit about this, but how did that seep into specific scenes, specific moments? Can you see any of those that just came right out of your own experience?
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Well, let me think for a minute. This isn't quite an answer to your question, but it's a little parallel. Yeah, and I actually had a hard time with Ronnie Goodman, who is pastor Goodman's wife.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: And I was challenged in an early draft that I was really stereotyping her and unfair. And what I had to get at was some of my own church wounds from two different pastor wives at two different times in my life. And I had to go after that and look at it and do some healing to let Ronnie be a person, right? A complex person. I also talked to a counselor who counseled a lot of what I'm gonna say, it's a Saturday Night Live phrase, church lady.
• 21:06
  Okay, yep. Church lady is someone who becomes very rigid black and white. Yeah. It's like church is her kingdom.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Okay,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: so I met a buddy of mine as a therapist who happens to have a load of church lady that she counsels. And she gave me some insight, you know, on a woman like that. How does that woman become that person and Yeah. So, yeah.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of, and we both went to the same talk, we didn't see each other, but Beth Allison bars I saw you,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: I saw the back of your head.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, you did see that.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I didn't realize it was your head.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: We saw a picture and we were both in it, but to roast hearts. Yes. And I'm wondering if, you know, like had Beth's newest book, which talks, it's specifically about pastor's wives, had that been out at the time, if that would have been like a good resource to talk Very
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: interesting. Yeah. Yeah, the difficulties and challenges of that life and how it can work with someone or their strategies, how they're making their life work. Something that gave me more sympathy with Ronnie was to realize that she came from an alcoholic family. And that was my mom.
• 22:27
  My mom was from a mean alcoholic dad, and it helped me get Ronnie, I think. Yeah. So, yeah. So I think my personal experiences, it's not like two plus two equals four, I think in writing fiction, but they're there and they're in like a ghostly form, I think.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love this whole concept of the compost pile. I've never I don't think I've ever heard that, but I love it. Yes. I do too.
• 22:56
  Yes. Can you talk more about the publication process? I know, like getting into a Christian publisher specifically where you're critiquing the church might be Yes, exactly.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It took me a while, but I concluded that it was was a little bit of asking the publisher to bite the hand that fed
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: them to
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: publish surface. So I'm just kind of pausing because I don't think the story has an ax to grind. I think there's depth and humanity and love and a mix of things. I don't think it's harsh novel. But some would, so a church lady would be very upset with this novel, this story, I think.
• 23:53
  And did publishers hesitate? I might sound too confident when I say this, but I thought I was at a pretty, that I had a pretty good chance to market a book, because I was a writing professor. And that doesn't mean that all writing professors can write, you know? But I was doing the work of writing. I was taking, you know, getting degrees in writing.
• 24:21
  So middle aged, I did an MFA in that. I remember. Yeah, it allowed me to work on my fiction and grow. So I know I was growing as a writer, I was writing professionally also. So I was doing writing and I thought I had a pretty good chance, but I went through years of no, no, no.
• 24:43
  I got a yes finally and the publisher went bankrupt. Oh no. That was like, that was the end, you know, I was devastated. Uh-huh. So it was, yeah, it was long and arduous.
• 24:58
  I wrote it in 'eight, gave up probably about 2018. And then a student needed an internship and I thought, okay, let's have her be a developmental editor for my novel.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: The student said, it's excellent. And that's like got me going again. So I self published in 2020 and got kind feedback. Was really thrilled with what people were saying. And I was, I was 98% happy about it,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: but
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: about 2% of me had really wanted it to be traditionally published. And then lo and behold, I was on my way to Ireland. I was at Chicago O'Hare to do novel research for Irish series I have. And in university emailed me and wondered, can we publish your novel? So a long time, yeah, it just was a dream come true for me.
• 26:02
  And a long time editor who was then a VP there bought it on Amazon myself, read it and invited me. And I just, it's been wonderful. I really loved working with InterVarsity in a team, having a feel of the team. Yeah, it was stabilizing and yeah.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Now, so I have both copies. I have your self published and I have the IVP and I noticed some differences. Did you go through a full new edit process for that?
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So there is three editors who I received their feedback on the same day, it was right the day before spring break, probably 2020 And is hilarious, Writers Digest has blogs and I get their blog electronically and that same day I got their blog and the title was Allow Your Editor to Reshape Your Work, something like that. It was just like, okay, God, I hear Yeah, exactly.
• 27:17
  Right. So I loved it and much of their comments improved the book. Every once in a while I'd say, can't do that. Yeah. Can't change that and here's why.
• 27:33
  But I always felt like it was a very professional exchange and that they listened to me, which meant so much.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's nice.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: So moving forward, are you planning to continue in this space? I know obviously the next one will follow the same characters, but even beyond that, are you planning on staying in kind of this church trauma, church two space? Or are we you said you have an Ireland series?
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah. I've actually wondered about a prequel with Surface. Mhmm. And I feel like that would be painful to write and possibly an important thing to write.
• 28:16
  So we'll see, we'll see about that.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: But I
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: do have historical fiction and I've been in love with Ireland for some time now, Northern Ireland, called Castle Rock. And there is a building from the '7, well, 1789 on the cliff, and it was somebody's private library. It's round and kind of a kind of a classic of Ireland. Yes, just beautiful. But it was also about the great deal of wealth that Britain was drawing from Ireland.
• 28:59
  And the house that was built by this library on the cliff was built the same time as Buckingham Palace and cost probably about three times more than Buckingham And it was the taking of Ireland's wealth by the British. And so it's apparently, again, a story of power, a story of abusing others and taking, right? Yeah. For one's, I don't know.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Do you feel some of the themes? Because it seems like, you know, there is a little bit of that taking theme in surface as well. So those themes are being together.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you sent me the question and it was like, oh my, there's the same themes. Yeah. Absolutely, and gender. Okay. Is part of it and also male violence on male, that's going to be part of my story too.
• 30:05
  So yeah, it's all there. I'm looking forward to reading those. Thank you. I want to complete my sequel far enough to hand it off and then focus while I'm in Scotland for needed research.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: For sure. So you're going to be writing for a church when you're in Scotland. Are you also planning to research and develop for this other Yes,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: yeah. I'll be close to London and Ireland itself, so yeah, I do plan to make use of it best I can.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Oh cool, feel like that's every writer's dream right there.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I didn't even think of that. Wow. Yes.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I I don't know if you were ever able to go on the trip, but I know that because I went and a couple of my friends had gone to Northern Ireland for the writing trip or the literature trip, I guess.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Yes. No, strangely enough, my brother-in-law taught ecology at the school we were at and I got to go on his trip. So I went on a biology trip in Ireland and that was my first time in Ireland.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's when I met what's called the Macedon Temple, which is this little, you know, this huge library on a cliff.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: We're gonna have to go there. Love a library. I love it. Absolutely
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: must. What,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Brie? She loves a cliff. I love a cliff.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it is so beautiful. Yeah.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we went on, we actually went on one of the islands up in Northern Ireland and those cliffs are just incredible. Yes,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: yes they are. Yeah.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Actually, of your pictures scared me because she was right up.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Then there's that.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: There's no barrier. Like the edge.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh no. Well the Masjidin Temple is thought someday it will go over because of inclusion, and it used to be a horse and wagon could go all around the Masjid and Temple, but now the drop off and cliff is right on one edge. Wow. So, yeah. See it now.
• 32:15
  Right, see it now. More reason.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: I don't need a lot of reasons to go to Ireland, but that's a good one. I'd prefer a good pub. Yeah, that too. I'm just going to read this question. In America, the church is facing increased scrutiny, especially around issues with gender and power.
• 32:35
  What do you hope the surface of water contributes to the broader conversation today?
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: I think sometimes we can think like we shouldn't write about gonna go A negative about the church. So something gave me a great deal of freedom to write that, and that was a wonderful, wonderful theologian by the name of Walter Bruggemann. He just died a week and a half ago he was 92 years old. Yeah. He's had a long and beautiful Yeah.
• 33:10
  And I've loved his teaching. And he had two categories that he called testimony and counter testimony. And basically talked about how sometimes in certain denominations or certain churches, testimony can be what's emphasized to the exclusion of counter testimony, and testimony would be something like Psalms one, where if you do this, you will flourish, life will work for you. Counter testimony would be Psalm, let's say 55, which is called the Psalm of Betrayal. I have walked the holy path basically, and this is what has happened to me.
• 33:58
  My friends have betrayed me. So sometimes we can make Christianity sound like if we do it right, we're gonna avoid suffering or life will work for us. God will keep us safe. And counter testimony is go, uh-uh, no, no, no. There's also this in life.
• 34:24
  So I think that let me write about this pastor who cannot deal with his fame, he's become locked inside of it and it's sucking the life out of him. He's become lost. He's our spiritual leader who's become lost. So I've been allowed to write about that because that can happen, right? That can happen, it can happen to any of us.
• 34:54
  And it's counter testimony that this also happens. So that gave me a great deal of freedom. I think something else that gave me freedom to write about something that people could say, you're being critical of the church, is I fervently believe in Shalom between the sexes. And that is a phrase that comes from my husband who I'm fortunate to say is a very wise and loving person because of his own suffering. He was widowed when we met and I feel that's benefited me, can I say that out loud?
• 35:36
  You know, but his suffering has benefited me, he loves me well. And that was a phrase that mattered to him, Shalom between the sexes. So I feel like I'm not someone who has an ax to grind. I love being married, I love my husband. Are there issues of injustice in our world?
• 36:05
  Yes, there are. Are there problems between the genders? Yes, there are. Is there problems in Christian interpretation? Yes, there appears to be, but with the goal of love.
• 36:20
  So I would hope that readers of my novel land at a widening of love by exploring what's difficult for us as humans.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: I think we've experienced that a lot too, because obviously our podcast is pretty critical of a lot of the things in the church that we've seen. And we have faced some backlash for that as well. I can definitely relate to that as that concept of don't be critical because then maybe the rest of the world won't want to come to Jesus, won't want to come to the church. Whereas I think bringing it to the light in things like your book and things like our podcast shows people that we're willing to change and learn. Yes.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think so too. Letting there be light on this sore place, right? Not hiding it to mix my metaphors, but yeah, there's that.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, so looking back on your personal faith journey and throughout writing this book, obviously it was a long process. What changed for you from start to finish?
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: I think early on I was very, I'm now glad that it went through some very rigorous revision. Early on, I had a twin in the story and was called out by one of my MFA profs that I was writing like Charles Dickens. And we want to compliment Dickens, Right. But this was not a compliment.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I had to grow up some and Trish had to grow up some, I think. So I think that was an area of big change. Now a change that InterVarsity challenged me on that I am very relieved that they challenged me was I had a thread of white saviorism with Trish swooping in and solving Kung Tawi's problems. And the challenge there is that white saviorism can take someone's agency away from them, their personal agency. And I'm really glad that Cindy Bunch, the editor challenged me on it.
• 38:50
  And I altered that subplot so that Trish is confounded with white saviorism and has to learn about it and how she's doing it and how to not do it. How not to cross somebody's boundaries and trying to help them, caring, you know, caring about them. So I, yeah, it was amazing to me how something can improve over years. And I felt like it improved and I was pleased to have the chance, you Yeah.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: That actually reminds me of, there's a quote that we talk about a lot, it's from Beth Moore, from a more recent book called Your Jesus is Too American. She does the foreword. Yeah, it's such an interesting book, highly recommend. But in the foreword she says, Where you sit determines what you see, And we reference that a lot because it it like you said with white saviorism, you know, where we sit shows us the world in a specific light. Yes.
• 39:58
  And you have to get those outside perspectives because I don't know what someone else sees.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I love that. I love that quote. Could you say it again, Alyssa?
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So she says, where you sit determines what you see. Yes. I can actually send you the name of that book as well. It's a really interesting book.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Very, yeah, I love it. I love thinking how Tricia is someone who lived in not white privilege, right, in her opening, even though she was white, and sitting next to Pastor Goodman who has had the good life, how immediately we see so much. And there's something in point of view that lets us do that without preaching, but it gives readers an experience of it. And I think that's what is a beautiful power in fiction.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I remember you telling us in class to never start with a message, but to let the message develop as you And I could feel that so much throughout this book.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Good. I'm glad, yeah. Yeah, I don't think I had a message, but I had this fascination of these two characters and what would happen if I set them right next to each other. So in fiction craft, that's called odd couple. Okay.
• 41:25
  And we see it everywhere. So every police drama has the old cop and the newbie, and that's an odd couple. Even, shall I mention Twilight? You know, a vampire and a human, odd couple. It allows us to see so much.
• 41:45
  And that, yeah, that's a beautiful power there. Yeah. To experience it.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: For sure. This is one last question that I didn't write down, but I was just curious as, you know, sort of the end of the book, it leaves you on not a cliffhanger, but it doesn't really resolve, And that may have been because you're headed into another book, but what was behind the decision to kind of like leave it open ended?
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: It's interesting, the beginning and the end was always very clear to me in this story, the middle, you know, I messed around with quite a bit, but the ending was always, and I can't say too much, don't wanna spoil it, right? But yeah, keeping it open ended. I've had readers wonder, does he die? Does he live? And I've heard readers argue, you know, but yeah, I'm not sure why, but it was always that ending.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. For me, I think it left a really strong message in my head. I think sometimes if you do resolve everything, it kind of goes to the back of people's brains and they're like, all right, well, it's all fixed, you know, and it made it kind of stick with me in a different Something to chew on. Yeah, Yeah.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Good. I'm glad. Yeah. That's good to hear.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Well, that's all the questions I have written down for you. Is there anything else that you want to share or you feel important to get out there?
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think we talked through our questions. I don't see anything more that I want to say, but I sure appreciate you two hosting me and your preparation and getting a chance to talk.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so glad. This was so much fun. I'm so glad we did this.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: Good. Hey, there is one thing I would like to say. I'm going to be at Baker Books talking women in the church. And it's a panel discussion with two other authors. So one is Andrew Bauman who wrote Safe Church that just came out through Baker.
• 43:55
  Yep, I got that one. Do you? Oh, good. And then the other author is Doctor. Heather Matthews, who has the book Confronting Sexism in the Church.
• 44:05
  And so one is a scholar, one is a counselor, and I'm a novelist, and I will be talking about this issue. And it's July 8 at 7PM, Baker Books.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, and Baker is in Grand Rapids.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, in Grand Rapids.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, so I would highly recommend it. First of all, Baker's amazing. We love Baker. We love Baker.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, good.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: And to hear all of these people talk is gonna be just incredible. So, yeah, we'll definitely yeah. We're putting it in our calendar right now as we speak. Thank you. Alright.
• 44:38
  Well, it was so, so good to chat with you. We'll have to keep up more often.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Sounds good. Thanks so much.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Yep. Thank you. Bye bye. Goodbye. So we just wanna say a huge thank you to Cynthia Beach for coming on the podcast, for chatting with us for a while.
• 44:54
  We hope you guys enjoyed hearing from her as much as we enjoyed talking to her. Super recommend getting her book. It's called The Surface of Water. You can probably find it everywhere. It's on Amazon.
• 45:05
  You can get it from Baker Book House, which is always my preference. I love Baker. It tells a really interesting and important story, I think, for people in the church and outside of the church. Mhmm. Yeah.
• 45:16
  So I mean, buy it for you. Buy it for your friends. Buy it for your dog. Maybe not. I don't think dogs can read.
• 45:23
  Hey. Watch it. I'm sorry. Recommend following her. I found her on Instagram.
• 45:31
  Her handle is Cynthia Beach author, and I will tag her in our latest post on Instagram and TikTok. So go ahead and follow her there. And just one more time, the event that she was talking about is really gonna be super incredible. It's professor Beach. It's also Andrew Baumann, who wrote Safe Church that we have we are going to review at some point.
• 45:57
  But he did a whole research study on women in the church and what makes them feel safe in the church, why they don't feel safe in the church. So he's gonna be amazing. Also, Heather Matthews is gonna be there. And the title of it is sexism and the church. So that's gonna be the main topic.
• 46:14
  And it is on July eighth of twenty twenty five, if you happen to be listening to this in a different year. Don't show up on July 2026. And it's gonna be at 7PM at Baker Book House, which is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. So if you are available, if you're local, I would highly recommend attending that. Plus, right over by bigger book house, there's this really good Mexican restaurant in La Cantina.
• 46:39
  There is. And we could all meet up there after. Weirdly enough, they have the best pop ever. They have really good pop and really good food. Also true.
• 46:48
  So we are gonna be I'm actually gone next week, so I'm not sure we have to discuss what next week's episode is gonna be. I don't have a preview for you guys yet. I'm abandoning Brie. I'm going to Florida without her. Maybe I'll read a book and we can talk about it.
• 47:06
  Oh, Brie's gonna read, guys. And I mean, what an arc to my story. Right? At the beginning of this podcast 60 something episodes ago, I was illiterate. And now look at me.
• 47:18
  I can read. You can read. And you just interviewed an author. Wow. That's amazing for you.
• 47:23
  Wow. That's amazing for you. Alright. So we will talk to you guys next week. Stay tuned to our social medias.
• 47:31
  Perhaps we'll give a preview of what we're gonna chat about on there. That sounds like something I'll be responsible for. Love you guys. Bye. Love you.
• 47:45
  I'm looking at pictures now. Okay. Bye.