Latest / Future Christian / Spirituality for the 21st Century Rationalist: A Conversation with Alexander Lang

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Spirituality for the 21st Century Rationalist: A Conversation with Alexander Lang · Future Christian

0:05
>> Paul: Um, welcome to the Future Christian
0:07
podcast, your source for insights and
0:09
ideas on how to lead your church into the 21st
0:12
century.
0:15
At the Future Christian podcast, we talk to
0:18
pastors, authors, and other faith leaders for helpful
0:21
advice and practical wisdom to help you and your
0:24
community of faith walk boldly into the future.
0:27
Now here's your host, Loren Richman Junior.
0:34
>> Loren: Welcome to the Future Christian podcast.
0:37
Today, Martha Tatarnic again welcomes Alexander Lang
0:40
to the show. Martha had a great episode with him
0:43
back in season 14. We'll put a link in the show
0:46
notes. Alex is a former PCUSA
0:49
pastor who worked in church ministry for 20
0:52
years. He has since left the
0:54
church to pursue a technology business that is
0:57
designed to help people form meaningful
0:59
relationships. Alexs interests
1:02
include independent film, electronic music,
1:05
and deep conversation with people who question,
1:08
doubt and want to dig into the
1:11
most complex issues we face as humans.
1:14
When hes not working on books, podcasts, or
1:17
the restorative faith movement, Alex enjoys spending
1:20
time with his wife and two sons. One
1:23
more thing. Please take a moment to leave a review on
1:25
whatever podcast app youre listening on and share this
1:28
episode with a friend. Thanks and enjoy
1:31
the episode.
1:39
>> Martha Tatarnic: Welcome to the future Christian podcast. I
1:42
am your guest host, Martha Tatarnic, and I'm
1:45
so pleased to be joined by
1:48
the Reverend Alexander Lange for a
1:51
return conversation on the Future
1:53
Christian podcast. Welcome, Alex. It is
1:56
great to talk to you again.
1:58
>> Alexander Lang: Thank you for having me on again. It's wonderful.
2:01
This is a great podcast.
2:03
>> Martha Tatarnic: Well, thank you. Um, now, the last time that
2:06
we spoke, it was a couple of months ago, and
2:09
you had written an article that went
2:12
viral on, um,
2:15
why you decided to leave
2:18
congregational pastoral ministry. So I think
2:21
that was like the end of the summer of 2023
2:24
that you left your post
2:27
as lead pastor at the church
2:30
where you were serving and wrote an article that
2:32
hundreds of thousands of us read.
2:35
And, uh, we talked about that
2:38
article and, uh, all of the
2:40
thought that went into that decision.
2:44
Um, can we just start by checking in
2:47
about how the last five or six
2:49
months have been going since you stepped out of that
2:52
role?
2:54
>> Alexander Lang: Brian yeah, I've been doing well. I haven't been going
2:56
through, like, withdrawal symptoms or anything like that for not being in a
2:59
church. And I actually,
3:02
to be perfectly honest with you, um, I haven't been to
3:05
church for a long time. I went to church for the first time on Christmas
3:08
Eve, uh, because my sons were part of the
3:10
service. And so it was really nice to be there
3:13
because, uh, I realized that
3:16
I didn't have to stress about the details of what was
3:19
going on and I thought to myself, oh, this is why people actually
3:22
like going to church. Cause you can just kind of,
3:25
like, take it all in and enjoy it. And I didn't have to worry
3:27
about, you know, uh, whether or not
3:31
everything was going to come off properly. So it was a really
3:34
very enjoyable experience to go back and
3:37
to see my sons and to just be part of a service again.
3:39
>> Martha Tatarnic: Well, I think that that probably says a number of things about
3:42
your personality that are probably all, um,
3:45
pretty commendable, because I'm not sure that
3:48
everybody who is a former
3:51
pastor would be able to just sit back and
3:54
relax and not stress about the details or be
3:57
super judgmental or whatever. So, good for
4:00
you. I'm glad. It was an enjoyable
4:03
experience.
4:04
>> Alexander Lang: It was a good time.
4:07
>> Martha Tatarnic: I'm kind of wondering, stepping outside
4:10
of, um, that leadership role in the
4:12
church now for a number of months, it
4:15
must change your perspective on
4:18
what the life of the church is all about
4:21
right now in the year 2024.
4:24
It must be a different vantage point to
4:27
consider the present and the future of
4:30
the church when you're not mired in
4:33
the day to day details like, what has that been
4:36
like?
4:37
>> Alexander Lang: Yeah, you know, it's. I've actually in
4:40
being away, because I think I couldn't have appreciated this
4:43
while I was in the midst of it.
4:45
But what I see now, having
4:48
come away from it, is that one of the largest
4:51
dearths to my everyday life is actually not
4:54
being around that community in the church that I
4:57
was there with week in and week out, and I
5:00
see friends and everything, but I'm mostly,
5:02
you know, I'm doing my own things and I'm spending time by
5:05
myself. And I thought to myself at one point, I was like, oh, this
5:08
is how a lot of people live, where they don't
5:11
have access to a large community of people
5:14
that they see all the time. And,
5:18
you know, to me, it kind of led
5:20
to a takeaway, which is that
5:23
there's this feeling that you, like, I realized,
5:26
wow, not being in close proximity to those
5:29
folks makes me feel
5:32
like I'm missing something, which I don't
5:35
think if I hadn't been there, I would have known I was missing. So if you've never been there,
5:38
you don't know what you're missing. But I do see it
5:41
as now that I'm kind of. And, you know, we
5:43
talked about this, the institutional church is dying.
5:46
And so what I realize is that this type of
5:49
community will not exist the same way in our
5:52
society because there's no substitute. And so
5:55
that's very scary to me, because what I realize
5:57
is that if there's no place where
6:00
people go and know that they can regularly gather
6:03
together, I think that's going to have a huge impact on
6:06
our well being, our mental well being and our sense of
6:09
loneliness. I think it's only going to cause the loneliness
6:12
epidemic to increase, unfortunately. So those are kind of some of
6:15
the takeaways that I've seen from just being away right now
6:18
and realizing, oh, gosh, that that has an impact on me.
6:21
And I've only been away for five months. I can't imagine how
6:23
other people are living.
6:26
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, that is fascinating.
6:28
Um, and really,
6:32
I think, puts the finger on an important
6:35
pulse because I
6:37
really don't have any experience of
6:41
living apart from being part of
6:43
a community like the church.
6:46
And I, um, think that insight
6:49
that if you've never been part of it,
6:52
you don't know what you're missing
6:55
is really important. I mean, we live
6:57
in this hyper engaged world that
7:01
is nonetheless so very lonely.
7:03
>> Alexander Lang: Um, isn't that a paradox, that we kind
7:06
of exist in this place that's so hyper connected like
7:09
you're saying? And yet at the same time, loneliness is
7:12
at the greatest. Uh, you know, statistically it's the
7:15
highest it's ever been, at least in, uh, you
7:18
know, industrialized nations. I think it says a
7:20
lot about kind of where we are as a.
7:23
As a society, that we need those
7:26
structures as much as people have rejected them. We really
7:29
need them. And, uh, we're just
7:32
seeing kind of, I think, the outlet of where it
7:35
goes when we don't have those things at the ready and
7:38
people aren't utilizing them in the way that they used to and kind of what
7:40
happens with that. So it's sad to me, and
7:44
I'm hoping that there'll be some other places where people
7:47
will gather, but only time will tell with
7:49
that.
7:50
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, I mean, I think that there are a number of
7:53
other significant deficits that are very
7:56
much connected to that and, um,
7:59
that provide for the well being of society as a whole.
8:02
Whether we're talking about charitable giving, whether we're talking
8:04
about charitable giving of
8:07
time and talent, money,
8:10
um, sort of so many of
8:13
the pieces that fill in the social safety net,
8:16
they're very connected to that, uh,
8:18
uh, that faith community
8:21
gathering. Very connected.
8:24
Anyway, not to take, uh, us down
8:26
tangents before we get to the. The
8:29
real topic for today, but I find
8:32
that insight really, um,
8:35
important. So, thank you, Alex.
8:39
Um, so, yeah, we're, we're
8:41
here today, um, to
8:44
check in for sure, but primarily
8:47
to talk about this beautiful book that
8:50
is called restored of
8:52
spirituality for the 21st
8:55
century rationalist. I'm just going to
8:57
say at the outset that I read this,
9:00
um, on the Christmas break, and it is
9:03
just chock full of
9:07
amazingly, uh, accessible
9:09
scientific insight, but also just
9:12
like so many
9:14
powerful stories. Uh, it's a real
9:17
page turner, and I highly commend it to
9:20
our listeners. I'm excited to get into some
9:23
of the meat with you today,
9:25
Alex, um, as we delve into it. So why don't we
9:28
start by you sharing a little bit about
9:31
what motivated you to write this book.
9:35
>> Alexander Lang: Yeah. So I've always consider
9:38
myself a spiritual person. I mean, it's part of the reason
9:41
why I became a pastor. But
9:44
what became clear to me, the longer I remained in the
9:46
church is that spirituality is
9:49
kind of a catch all term. You know, it's very
9:52
amorphous. Everybody has their own idea
9:55
of what spirituality means and what it doesn't. And so,
9:58
depending on your religion, on how you were raised,
10:00
your experiences of the world, that
10:03
word spirituality is going to mean different things to different people.
10:06
So the question I set out to answer was,
10:09
what exactly is happening when humans
10:12
claim to have a spiritual experience?
10:15
So, yes, I think these spiritual experiences,
10:18
they all happen in different contexts and under different
10:20
circumstances. But is there a unifying
10:23
factor that we could point to and say,
10:26
fundamentally, this is the thing that we're all
10:29
experiencing? So this is what I kind of
10:32
set out to explore in the book. This is kind of what I. This is
10:35
why it's. This is where I started. This is my starting point.
10:38
>> Martha Tatarnic: That was, like, your instigating question. That was
10:40
what you personally wanted to answer.
10:43
>> Alexander Lang: Yeah, absolutely.
10:44
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay. Okay. So that takes us right
10:47
into, um, I
10:49
think, kind of a central,
10:53
uh, offering of the book, which
10:55
is a story about
10:58
Edgar Mitchell and the, uh,
11:01
naming of the overview effect. And
11:04
that ultimately becomes the way that you define
11:06
spirituality throughout the book. So maybe you
11:09
can get into Edgar
11:11
and the overview effect so
11:14
that we have a sense of how you're defining
11:17
that.
11:18
>> Alexander Lang: Sure. It's an amazing story, actually,
11:21
and m. I read it a number of years ago,
11:23
but Edgar Mitchell, he was an
11:26
astronaut who was part of the Apollo 14 space
11:28
mission. And like all of the Apollo space missions, there
11:31
are actually three astronauts on board. So, uh, he
11:34
was together with Alan Shepard and Stuart Russa.
11:37
Only two of them got to go down and actually walk on the moon.
11:40
Uh, and Edgar Mitchell was one of those. The other
11:43
one had to stay up and kind of wait for them to
11:46
do their mission. And come back. But after they performed
11:49
their mission, they were kind of on their way home.
11:52
And what's interesting is that because they're
11:55
kind of shooting through space. The sun,
11:58
it can bake one side of the
12:01
spacecraft, uh, if it stays in
12:04
one place. So they rotate the craft. They call it barbecue
12:06
mode. So it rotates in such a way that
12:09
one side doesn't get too hot. And so
12:12
because these guys had finished their job, they had essentially done what they
12:15
had come there to do. They could just sit back and relax.
12:18
And what would happen is, as the spacecraft
12:21
would rotate, you could look out the window, and it
12:23
would reveal this beautiful panorama
12:27
of the earth, the moon,
12:30
the stars of the Milky Way galaxy.
12:33
And these three men, they all
12:36
sat, and they watched this for hours. They would just kind of come and they would
12:39
see it go. And eventually, you know, Alan Shepard and
12:42
Stuart Russo, they retreated into other activities. But
12:45
Edgar Mitchell, he was transfixed
12:48
by the scene. And he would see the
12:51
earth, and he would think of his brother, who was down in
12:54
Vietnam flying bombing missions, and he
12:57
himself had actually flown m bombing missions in the korean
12:59
war. And so it was this kind
13:02
of cognitive dissonance that was happening in his mind. He was looking at the
13:05
earth, and it looks so peaceful, right?
13:08
And yet at the same time, he knew on the surface it was
13:11
extraordinarily violent. And so what
13:14
happened was, as he was kind of going through back and forth, like, the
13:16
peaceful look of the earth from space, the violence on
13:19
the surface, something happened to him.
13:22
And Mitchell, he had this moment where he
13:25
realized that everything he believed that was
13:28
true about the world, he realized he was wrong
13:30
about. So Mitchell had been an avowed atheist
13:33
for. For quite some time, most of his life,
13:35
actually. And he had adopted a wholly scientific
13:38
view of the world, and he dismissed religion as being
13:41
outdated, archaic. And that's because,
13:44
to him, science was very predictable. The universe was very
13:47
predictable. I mean, how did he get to space? He got to space because,
13:50
right, like, science shot him there. Math
13:52
got him there, and that's why he was able to come home
13:55
safely. But when he looked out that window, he realized
13:58
that there was something very deficient in his
14:01
perspective. And so he felt something that he had never
14:04
felt before. And as he looked at the earth, moon,
14:07
and stars, they no longer felt like they were these
14:10
separate, distinct bodies that were floating in the middle of
14:13
space. He wasn't an observer of these bodies, but
14:15
rather they were part of him. He felt connected to
14:18
them. And he used this really interesting. He said. He
14:21
said it felt like his flesh and bones
14:24
disappeared. And there were no boundaries between
14:27
his body and the celestial bodies.
14:30
And so he was living as though in that moment
14:33
he experienced life with no distinctions at all.
14:35
Everything was one. And so
14:38
Mitchell described, uh, this event. He called it an ecstasy of
14:41
unity. And in that moment, he ends up abandoning his
14:44
atheism. And he didn't, I
14:47
don't think he ever said he believed in a God, but he
14:49
definitely believed that there was a
14:52
force that was more
14:55
powerful than any religion or scientific principle
14:57
had ever described that kind of created or is responsible
15:00
for the universe. And he was the first person to kind
15:03
of come back and talk about this. He dedicated his life to it. And
15:06
this experience became known
15:09
as the overview effect because it was actually,
15:12
he's not the only person to have this. A number
15:15
of, ah, astronauts had experienced
15:17
this. And, um, it's the idea, the reason
15:20
why it's called the overview effect is because when you
15:23
get an overview of the earth, like, you gain this
15:26
perspective that you could never have when you're here
15:29
on the surface of the planet. And almost every
15:32
astronaut who has been through this, they talk about how
15:35
it fundamentally changes their understanding of
15:38
existence. So after I read this story,
15:41
I asked myself a question. What exactly
15:44
is happening when these astronauts experience the
15:47
overview effect? What does Edgar Mitchell mean by the
15:49
ecstasy of unity? And so even though Mitchell was an
15:52
atheist, to me, I read that and I was like, it sounds
15:55
like he's talking about the way mystics
15:58
describe their spiritual experiences. Like, if you
16:01
read those spiritual experiences, you're like, oh, my gosh. It's like
16:04
he's talking about the same thing. And so
16:06
for, they say, like, uh, if you
16:09
read, like Meister Eckhart
16:12
or, um, any of these other mystics, they'll talk about how
16:15
their body melts away and the
16:17
membrane that separates them from the rest of the world
16:20
effectively disappears and everything becomes
16:23
one. So I began to wonder
16:26
if m this atheist, who is completely separated from any
16:29
religious identity can have an experience like, this
16:32
is his experience somehow at the
16:35
core of spirituality for everyone,
16:38
right? So that's kind of where
16:41
it all started, was with that story.
16:43
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay. All right, so that's the overview effect.
16:46
I'm curious. Like, you talk about it
16:49
fundamentally shifting his
16:52
understanding of the world. Like, was there also
16:55
a shift in action, a shift
16:57
in kind of how he lived his life?
17:00
>> Alexander Lang: How he lived his life? Absolutely. So he came back
17:03
and, um,
17:06
he basically would go around the country from this point
17:09
forward. And everything he did with his life was he had
17:12
pictures he had taken from space and he would tell people
17:14
about this event, like, he would tell people what
17:17
happened, and he became so
17:20
well known for this. Um,
17:23
and he really was fighting against war. And he's like, he says, we don't
17:26
need to fight anymore. And people, when they would hear this,
17:29
what happened was, uh, he talked
17:32
about that. Basically, they believed that if everybody could get
17:35
into space, then we would get rid of all war,
17:38
all suffering, all poverty. It would all go away,
17:41
because we would all understand how we're all connected
17:43
to each other, and we would see no need to
17:46
have these divisive fights. So for him, it
17:49
really did change his life, and he really
17:52
believed. I mean, it's frankly, very
17:54
christian the way that he talks about it. Uh, it's the
17:57
way jesus describes the kingdom is
18:00
exactly what he's talking about. But he doesn't use any of that language. But
18:03
that's the experience that it forced on or that it caused him to see the world
18:06
that way.
18:07
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate that, that
18:10
piece of it, because it isn't merely
18:13
about individuals having
18:16
a cool experience or a reorientation
18:19
of our minds and our souls.
18:22
It's fundamentally a response to
18:25
the biggest questions
18:28
and concerns of our human
18:31
race. Right. It's a response
18:34
to poverty. It's a response to global warming.
18:37
It's a response to war.
18:40
Um, yeah.
18:44
>> Alexander Lang: Uh, and I think this is why spirituality, for
18:47
me, has always been about.
18:50
I think I always related to that as kind of the central core
18:53
of what spirituality is, is the relation to the other
18:57
feeling that we are connected to each other. And
19:00
I know that a lot of people don't define spirituality that way, but for
19:03
me, that has always been the key component of
19:06
every spiritual experience I've had. And so
19:09
that's why when I read this, it felt to me like, oh, my
19:12
gosh, this is wonderful. Because it allows you to put into
19:14
practice teachings like, you know, we have these
19:17
teachings from Jesus that really press us
19:20
to live in such a way that we're
19:23
divesting up ourselves and living for the
19:26
benefit of everyone else. We're thinking of community all the
19:29
time, but you can't really do that unless you feel
19:32
this connection. And that's why spirituality like this
19:35
becomes so critically important, I think.
19:37
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
19:39
Absolutely. Okay. I want to talk about
19:42
the title spirituality for the 21st
19:45
century rationalist. I was, uh,
19:48
saying before we began recording that I had somebody
19:51
in my office earlier today, and I really
19:54
had to convince him not to walk out with the book
19:57
because, um, I said he could borrow
20:00
it after we did the interview. But he
20:03
saw that title and just felt like,
20:06
okay, is a book for me. I'm a 21st
20:08
century rationalist. Um, as I
20:11
mentioned at the outset, there's some really
20:14
high level analysis about
20:17
what science currently teaches us about
20:19
evolution, about life in this universe, about the
20:22
start of life in this universe, about the possibility
20:25
of other intelligent life in this universe,
20:28
about consciousness. Um, I
20:31
think that, uh, as writers,
20:35
we start with writing what
20:38
we need to read ourselves. And you
20:41
kind of said that you started with a question that you wanted to
20:44
explore. But we really hope
20:46
that also we're, um,
20:49
writing something that others need to read as
20:52
well. So I'm
20:54
wondering, um, what
20:57
your experience has been, especially in
21:00
pastoral ministry in the past. Uh, what
21:02
your experience has been of that spiritual need of
21:05
the 21st century. 21st century
21:08
rationalist. Why is the book
21:11
needed for them?
21:14
>> Alexander Lang: Yeah, so, I mean, you like me,
21:16
um, I came of age in the 1980s and
21:19
1990s, and I vividly
21:22
remember how much I enjoyed my science classes. So I
21:25
love learning about earth science and DNA and cells and
21:28
evolution. And even though, like you, I
21:31
didn't pursue science as a profession, um,
21:34
it's always been the basis of my understanding of reality.
21:37
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah.
21:38
>> Alexander Lang: And so the scientific method, I don't know about you, but for me, the
21:41
scientific method is like a critical part of my thinking, which is
21:43
the idea is that you approach everything with kind
21:46
of a skeptical mind, and you require proof for your
21:49
assertions. And I think for millennials and the
21:52
generations after us, uh, this is a pretty common
21:55
way to think because of our education. Um,
21:58
and so this mentality, it really is associated with
22:01
modern rationalism, which means that the older
22:04
ways of explaining how the world functions, like we find
22:07
in a religious text, uh, they're often called into
22:09
question. So, for example, and a simple one would be, we
22:12
know today that the reason why someone gets sick is not because there's
22:15
an evil spirit or demon possessing them.
22:18
It's because they have a bacterial or viral infection. The, uh,
22:21
reason why someone has a seizure,
22:24
uh, is not because Satan wants to
22:27
throw them on a fire and kill them, but because they
22:29
have something genetic going on with their brains that cause electrical
22:32
activity to cross, uh, to hemispheres. And
22:35
so when we see this, I think a lot
22:38
of younger people, because we know these
22:41
things, and we're very fortunate, you think about the world we
22:44
live in, everything we know. Well,
22:47
when they learn all this stuff in school, and then they're exposed
22:50
to religious explanations for how the world functions,
22:53
it kind of feels super antiquated and out of
22:56
date. Right? And so they just take the sickness
22:59
thing. If they're like, the biblical
23:02
explanation for sickness is so off base.
23:05
Like, if they're sitting there and looking at that, they're like, well, how can we trust the rest of
23:08
it? They were so wrong about that, and now
23:11
we know what it is. So you have two choices. Like, this
23:13
is the modern rationalist is faced with two choices. You
23:16
can embrace religion and just toss out all the
23:19
stuff that doesn't work for you. Or rather than
23:22
attempt to mesh these two worlds together,
23:25
they simply stick with their scientific view and
23:28
ignore the religious and assume it's just irrelevant. Right.
23:31
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah.
23:31
>> Alexander Lang: So those are kind of like your two options, I think, that most people
23:34
have, so. But yet, at the same time,
23:37
here's the interesting thing, right? In spite of
23:40
being scientifically minded, many of those same
23:42
people who reject religion completely,
23:45
they still feel a certain spiritual connection to the
23:48
world around them. And they know
23:51
that exploring that connection, they kind of know it intuitively. If they
23:54
explore that connection, that it's going to lead to
23:57
a more meaningful and, um, fulfilling existence.
24:00
But the problem is, they've already rejected religion. And
24:03
without religion, where do they start that spiritual journey? So
24:06
there's this tension that exists where
24:08
people, they feel like they don't want to let go of
24:11
those rational sentiments to embrace their
24:14
spirituality, but they also know intuitively that there's
24:17
something more to life than what rationalism
24:20
offers. So they find themselves in this really
24:23
odd space where they feel like there's really nothing
24:26
for them. And that's why I wrote the book,
24:28
because I think whether you're inside or outside of religion,
24:31
um, I think a lot of people today need a
24:34
middle path to spirituality. And no one,
24:37
I don't, in my reading, no one's really provided
24:40
that in light of newer scientific discovery,
24:43
like where we are today. And that's a big reason why I thought this
24:46
was important for where we are today.
24:48
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. I can just share
24:51
anecdotally. I remember
24:54
very clearly being around the age
24:56
of 17, maybe 16
24:59
or 17, and I had already
25:02
felt pretty clearly that, uh, I
25:05
was called to be a priest in the church.
25:08
So I was on that track. But I
25:11
was also
25:14
really having to come to
25:16
terms with the inherited
25:19
faith that I had.
25:22
Um, in light of, you know,
25:25
the questions that were raised
25:27
by my ongoing education, and
25:31
in a lot of ways, those. Those questions
25:34
and doubts and wonderings
25:37
never stopped. You know, like, they.
25:40
They continued throughout,
25:42
uh, well, you know.
25:44
>> Alexander Lang: How did you deal with that tension? I'm interested to know, like,
25:47
how you would deal with it.
25:48
>> Martha Tatarnic: So I. I feel like
25:51
a really important point for
25:53
me on that path came
25:56
when somebody passed along to me a couple of
25:59
books that were written by
26:02
an anglican priest,
26:04
um, who basically
26:07
outlined every single doubt and
26:09
question that I had and
26:12
made it clear that not
26:15
only was this not a, uh,
26:19
reason for being excluded from the life of
26:22
faith, but that there were ways
26:25
of rationally and
26:28
spiritually sorting through these questions.
26:31
Um, because I think that you
26:34
can start to wonder whether, okay,
26:38
is there really room for me in this life of
26:40
faith if these are the
26:43
things that I believe
26:46
to be true, if these are the doubts and
26:49
questions that I have, if I'm calling into
26:51
question, like you
26:54
said, things that seem to be on the pages of the Bible,
26:57
um, just creating
27:00
that space, I think, within our
27:03
tradition, for starters, and then
27:06
that invitation for people
27:09
who think the faith isn't for them
27:12
to know that, um,
27:18
we're a faith
27:20
that certainly makes room for inquiring
27:23
and discerning hearts, uh, and
27:26
rational minds. And it isn't one
27:29
or the other. I think that's exceptionally
27:32
important.
27:34
>> Alexander Lang: Yeah. And I think the nice
27:37
thing about where we
27:40
are today is that we're kind of in a place where you have to do
27:43
that, you know, before you could kind of fudge it, you could
27:45
get away with it a little bit and say, you
27:48
know, I think that. I think it was a time and
27:51
a place where you could just say, well, you just have to believe. And I think
27:54
today we're in a place where that explanation doesn't
27:57
work as well anymore, because I think if you just say, just believe
28:00
it, I think a lot of people say, no, thanks. So
28:03
I do think it's incumbent upon us as
28:06
faith leaders to say, okay, no, you're
28:09
right. We need to show you how
28:12
this can work for you, where you have every right to walk
28:15
away, because it's not. Because there's a lot of reasons to walk
28:18
away. So I think we have to make the case why it's worth them
28:20
sticking around, personally.
28:23
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, I think
28:26
that a, uh, big part of the offering of your
28:28
book is in making that case for why
28:31
it's worth it to stick around, why there's
28:34
room at the table for,
28:37
uh, the rational mind. Um, but then
28:41
I would say, I don't know, is it like half of the
28:43
book, uh, is devoted
28:46
then, to spiritual
28:48
practices, um, that
28:51
take kind of this
28:54
worldview, um,
28:57
and then help people on that path to
29:00
the overview effect, that path towards
29:03
spiritual connection. You have a number of
29:05
practices that you outline,
29:08
um, you talk about breaths, about
29:11
prayer, about ritual, about
29:14
connection, and about beauty.
29:17
Now, obviously, beauty is pretty important
29:20
because it made it into the title. So I want to talk about that
29:22
separately. But maybe you could
29:25
talk about prayer. Um, because I
29:28
found that chapter to be challenging. I also found it
29:31
to be reassuring. Prayer does matter. It does
29:34
affect change. What else would you want
29:37
people to consider about the practice of prayer?
29:42
>> Alexander Lang: So in order to kind of really dive into
29:45
my perspective on prayer, I think, uh,
29:48
it would be helpful for us just to take a moment to
29:51
establish my view of how God operates in the universe,
29:54
because that matters for this. So
29:57
my understanding of God falls along the lines of what's called
29:59
pantheism, which essentially means that God is the
30:02
universe. And so I spend a lot of time in the book
30:05
fleshing out why I feel this perspective on God. It's consistent
30:08
with Judaism and our scientific understanding of the
30:11
world. But let's just for the sake of argument, let's just assume I'm right
30:14
about that. Right. Just for the sake of me
30:16
talking about this. So if God is the
30:19
universe, what that
30:21
suggests is that God is not a
30:24
conscious entity that exists beyond the bounds of
30:27
space and time. Rather, we are literally
30:29
living inside of God. And since
30:32
all matter is God, then you and I and
30:35
every other human on the planet, literally everything is part
30:38
of God. Now, this is a fundamentally different way
30:41
of, like, understanding what God is. And it has consequences for
30:44
how we think about prayer. Because normally
30:47
the way christians and other theists pray is
30:50
that their prayer is designed to deliver a message to God,
30:53
right? So we pray, and we
30:56
send the message with the hopes of inspiring God to act on our
30:58
behalf. So, for example, and I'm sure
31:01
you've done this as a pastor, I certainly have
31:04
too. But if someone has cancer,
31:06
I might pray that God would intervene to heal the
31:09
cancer. But if my perspective on God
31:12
is being the universe is
31:14
correct, what that means is God is already present
31:17
in that person. God can't reach in because God is the
31:20
cancer cell. And that's a hugely
31:23
different way of kind of thinking about God than the way I think
31:26
we normally or traditionally would think about it. So what this
31:29
means is we kind of have to abandon the
31:32
traditional approach to prayer in favor of,
31:35
uh, uh, maybe a differing perspective on how we
31:37
pray. So I basically argue
31:40
that there's two functions to prayer,
31:43
and as you said, it really does matter.
31:45
Um, and so the first function is what I call overview
31:48
effect prayer, which is
31:51
where you pray with
31:53
the desire to experience the overview
31:56
effect that was spoken about by Edgar Mitchell. That
31:59
ecstasy of unity. So I use an example in
32:02
the book of this that I think it really drives it
32:05
home, which has to do with, like, Malcolm X. So
32:08
if you know anything about Malcolm X here in the United States,
32:10
he very much hated white people for good reason, because,
32:13
you know, white, uh, people had
32:17
perpetrated, uh, violence against black Americans, lynch
32:20
black Americans. I mean, it was. It was very horrible
32:22
time that he came up in the, uh, racism was very
32:25
posted here in the United States. And so he
32:28
really was against Martin Luther King Junior. He didn't
32:31
believe in what Martin Luther King Junior was trying to do.
32:34
He felt that nonviolence was a very,
32:36
uh, was not the right approach, that ultimately it wasn't
32:39
going to achieve what they wanted. So this is where he
32:42
stood. And then he went on his pilgrimage to Mecca.
32:45
And while he was there, he encountered
32:48
white Muslims who treated him as an
32:50
equal. And this was. He had never experienced this
32:53
before in his life. And they prayed together, side
32:56
by side, and he spoke about how
32:59
this spiritual experience of unconditional love,
33:02
it completely reoriented his entire way of thinking around
33:05
the issue of race and prejudice. And he kind of had
33:08
this. He didn't say it this way because he wouldn't have used this
33:11
language, but he had an overview effect moment where he caught a
33:13
glimpse of how we're all connected to each other,
33:16
and he caught this glimpse of
33:19
how the barriers that separate
33:22
us are man made. And so when he returned to the United States, he
33:25
actually said he wanted to work alongside Martin Luther King Junior,
33:28
because now he saw that
33:30
this nonviolence was a viable path forward, and
33:33
he felt it was the only sensible solution. So, imma stop there.
33:36
That's the first kind of part of prayer. Like, that's
33:39
the first point of prayer, but it's the
33:42
idea that prayer can allow
33:45
us, under the right circumstances, to have this overview effect
33:48
moment. So I just didn't know if you wanted to talk about that further
33:50
or, um, if you wanted me to go on to the second one.
33:53
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, why don't you share the second one?
33:55
>> Alexander Lang: Okay. Um, so the second one. The
33:58
second part is what I refer to as
34:01
imaginative prayer, and
34:03
it's basically designed so we can achieve a specific
34:06
vision for our lives. And the basic
34:08
idea behind this is that there's evidence to
34:11
suggest scientifically that when humans
34:14
believe deeply in something beyond themselves,
34:17
it can transform not just our thinking, but also
34:20
our biology. So a good example of
34:22
this, uh, that I use in the book is actually
34:25
from the New Testament. So, uh, most people are
34:28
familiar with the story of the woman suffering from the twelve year
34:31
hemorrhage, right. Which we would, you know,
34:34
today, if that story happened, we would say, oh,
34:37
she has menorahia, which is basically
34:40
continuous menstruation, which sounds awful. I'm
34:43
a man and I, and I, and I have no idea what it's like and it just
34:45
sounds awful to me. So this woman is really suffering.
34:48
So she's out in the middle of the crowd. She has
34:51
been suffering for so long that she sees Jesus and she thinks to
34:54
herself, almost in the form of a prayer, if I but touch his
34:57
clothes, I will be made well. So
35:00
she reaches out, she touches, barely touches his cloak,
35:03
and immediately her ailment is
35:05
healed. And when Jesus becomes aware of this,
35:08
he turns around, he says, who toucheth my clothes? And she kneels
35:11
before him. And Jesus says something
35:14
that's always been very puzzling to me. He says,
35:17
daughter, your faith has made you
35:20
well. Now, I distinctly
35:23
remember the first time I read this, my confusion around this,
35:26
because you would think that Jesus would say,
35:28
daughter, I have made you well,
35:31
because Jesus is the one doing the healing, right?
35:34
>> Martha Tatarnic: Mhm.
35:34
>> Alexander Lang: But he doesn't say that. He doesn't say, I made you well. He says, your faith,
35:37
your faith has made you well.
35:40
And so in a sense, he's essentially saying
35:43
you're the cause of your own healing. You're the one that did it.
35:45
Now why would he do that? Why would he give her the credit?
35:49
Well, we know that humans have this incredible
35:52
ability to heal themselves, and, and
35:54
we know this today scientifically because of drug studies.
35:57
So, clinical tests of new drugs, you always have what's
36:00
known as a placebo group, right? And the placebo group,
36:03
they are given a substance of no medicinal value. So
36:06
it's a sugar pill or it's colored, you know, uh, if it's
36:09
a drip, it's colored to look like whatever it is everybody else is being
36:12
given, but what's. And they want to make sure that the medicine
36:15
is having more than a random effect. But
36:18
sometimes the people in the placebo group, they
36:20
get better. They're not taking the drug, but their
36:23
brain thinks they are, and they end up cured of the
36:26
ailment. So the placebo effect, it reveals two
36:29
important secrets about human beings. The first is that
36:32
the brain is one of the greatest healers we possess, for
36:35
sure. But two, if we want to unlock the
36:38
healing power of our mind, we require
36:40
something tangible on which to focus our
36:43
belief. And so if you look at both examples, uh, like
36:46
the drug study, the person given the placebo
36:49
believes so strongly in the healing power of that drug,
36:52
that their mind cures the body of the ailment. In the example
36:55
of the woman suffering from menorrhagia, the focus of her
36:58
belief is on Jesus. She believes so strongly that Jesus can
37:01
heal her that when she touches his
37:03
clothes, her body makes that healing a reality.
37:06
And Jesus appears, I mean, from this story, he
37:09
appears to be aware of the
37:12
relationship between belief and healing, which is why he gives credit to
37:15
the woman saying, your faith has healed you. Now, why does that
37:17
matter? Like, what? I've taken all this time to explain this to you. Why does it
37:20
matter? Well, my starting premise is that God
37:23
is the universe, and therefore God in a
37:26
sense, cannot intervene to heal you. Right. But
37:29
I don't want people to dismiss the idea that prayer can heal. It
37:32
absolutely can heal you. Like, prayer is
37:35
such a powerful tool, a spiritual tool
37:38
that we possess, but the way it heals
37:41
is by enhancing our belief, which in turn
37:44
changes our minds, which then impacts our
37:46
biology. So these are the two kind of,
37:50
I would say the two ways that prayer can go. I
37:53
define prayer as, uh, overview effect prayer
37:56
and imaginative prayer. And this is
37:58
all built into the way that I kind of come out of the science
38:02
of how we look at God in the book.
38:05
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, I mean, I guess, um,
38:08
I would have some different
38:10
understandings of prayer from you,
38:13
but I would see those
38:16
two versions of prayer as
38:18
actually being quite fundamentally
38:21
connected to one another. Um,
38:24
and I would probably argue that
38:27
the piece around imaginative prayer is not
38:30
just about tapping into the power of one's
38:33
own mind, but really about tapping
38:35
into the power of
38:38
the self as part of this
38:41
wider life and,
38:44
um, incredibly relational
38:46
universe. Right. It isn't
38:49
just that I heal myself, it's
38:52
that I'm part
38:55
of a, ah, life and a power
38:58
and ah,
39:02
a relationship that
39:04
is far bigger than just
39:07
me.
39:08
>> Alexander Lang: Oh, yeah. And they're not mutually exclusive at all. You know,
39:11
I'm giving you kind of like the two sides of them and.
39:14
But you're absolutely right, they do weave together in a
39:17
beautiful way. Having an experience of the
39:20
overview effect via prayer is going to enhance,
39:23
I think, one's ability to go through imaginative prayer and
39:25
enhance your belief in the world around you.
39:28
So, um, I would agree completely. I think you're right on
39:31
target with that. And, uh, I think that those two,
39:34
and in the book, I do take time to talk about how those two things weave
39:37
together and how important they are with each other.
39:40
>> Martha Tatarnic: Hm. Okay. So,
39:42
um, as
39:45
I was reading your book, I just
39:48
kept coming back to
39:50
this tremendously
39:53
relational universe. I mean, that is built
39:56
into the science that is built into the stories that you
39:59
share, and it is built into the spiritual
40:01
practices that you offer. It's kind of all based
40:04
on this premise of a tremendously
40:07
relational universe. Um, that
40:10
overview effect is about that
40:12
melting away of boundaries and that sense of
40:15
unity with the
40:18
universe, with everything around us. Um,
40:23
I was thinking about some of
40:26
the writing that I've done around,
40:28
um, our relationship with food
40:31
and our bodies, and my fundamental
40:34
argument that if we want health in
40:37
our bodies, and if we want health in our
40:40
relationship with food, we have to come back to this,
40:43
the relational nature of both our bodies
40:46
and the food that we put into our bodies.
40:49
Um, in my most
40:52
recent book, uh, talking about why
40:55
the church matters, I kind
40:58
of, like, fundamentally landed on
41:01
this quest or on,
41:03
um, this conclusion
41:07
that the church bears witness
41:10
to how connected we really
41:12
are to one another. I mean,
41:15
because I was writing during the pandemic, I
41:18
reflected on how we're actually infected
41:21
with one another. There's
41:24
no way of living
41:27
in this universe without
41:29
sharing water
41:31
molecules and air molecules and
41:34
food and, uh,
41:36
ecosystems and germs and
41:38
bacteria across all of our bodies. Right.
41:41
Like we're infected with one another.
41:44
Um, so my question for you is,
41:47
I was feeling like, as I was reading the
41:50
book, that there might be
41:53
other, um, spiritual practices
41:56
that are connected to that
41:59
relational reality as well, that might
42:02
be built out from the ones that you offer. And I'm
42:05
thinking specifically pieces around
42:08
loving service, around servant
42:10
ministry. Um, I wonder about the
42:13
place of sacrifice. I wonder about love.
42:16
Um, you touch on love in the book, but can you just
42:19
say a little bit more about
42:22
that servant, uh, ministry,
42:24
about sacrifice, and about love
42:27
in spiritual practice?
42:30
>> Alexander Lang: Yeah, I mean, I think
42:33
that what I've found to be true during my time as a pastor, and
42:36
I'm sure you would agree with this, is that
42:38
when I spend my time serving and sacrificing
42:42
for other people, there's an emptying of myself
42:45
that I do with that. Right. So it's, you know, if you're in the
42:47
right place, you know, uh, in your mind, body,
42:50
soul, you're kind of.
42:53
You're emptying a portion of who you are to be there for
42:56
that person. And I'm doing that for the
42:58
benefit of people because, uh, I don't want to
43:01
focus on my needs. I want to focus on the needs of this
43:04
other person. And so this
43:07
emptying can place me in a position where I'm more
43:10
likely to experience a connection with the
43:13
humanity of this other person. I don't
43:16
know about you, but often when I'm in a place of service, I
43:18
really take a moment and I say, okay, I want to see
43:21
the world through their eyes. Because oftentimes when
43:24
you're dealing with people who, who you're serving,
43:27
they're in kind of a tough place, you know, sometimes, you
43:30
know, where whatever's happened to them, they're struggling.
43:33
And so I want to make sure that I go into it because I assume,
43:36
you know, if they're rude to me, I don't want to be reactive.
43:39
If they're, if they're not, if, you know, if they're not
43:42
working with the program of whatever we're doing, I want to make sure
43:45
that I'm understanding of that. And so I
43:47
always try to put myself into their situation and say, okay,
43:50
what's going on here? And, like, I'll give you an example. When I, when
43:53
I work with, you know, unhoused people, uh,
43:56
people who are struggling, you know, with, with their
43:59
daily provisions, I often think to myself,
44:02
if I was dealing with pangs of hunger all day,
44:05
you know, how would that make me feel? Right? Hm. Like,
44:08
how would I go? And usually what that does is it slows me
44:10
down. And I can, and I really try to, like, connect.
44:13
And in, and sometimes in that connection, there is
44:16
this really beautiful experience where
44:19
sometimes if they're in the right moment too,
44:23
there's a connection that happens. And I remember there was a guy who
44:26
I worked with one time, and,
44:28
uh, he would come to this shelter
44:31
with his mother, and
44:34
he had been really mentally wounded in
44:37
Vietnam, and so he struggled a lot with just kind of
44:40
doing day to day tasks. But I remember
44:43
when we would sit down and we would talk, he
44:46
actually said to me one time, he's like, it's really nice for
44:49
the first time in a long time, to have a friend.
44:53
And I don't know if I would have considered him a friend
44:56
myself, but I made sure to talk to him every
44:58
single week and give him,
45:01
to be there with him, to be invested in who he
45:04
was. And no matter how, uh,
45:07
uh, tough he could be, I wanted to be there for him. And
45:10
so I would say that I. The
45:12
thinness in the book, I talk about the shell that we
45:15
have on, uh, our bodies. And the thicker that shell
45:18
is, the more we're an island separated from everybody
45:20
else. The thinner that shell, the closer we get.
45:23
And I really agree with you, and I think it's a great
45:26
question that you pose, is, does service,
45:29
does giving, does loving other people, does that
45:32
thin the shell 100% it does. I
45:35
really believe that those actions are
45:38
fundamental to us thinning the shell.
45:40
So, um. And I would love to hear stories about when that's happened for
45:43
you, to be perfectly honest.
45:45
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. I mean, when it's happened for me, and when it's
45:48
happened for a lot of the people that I
45:50
serve with in ministry. Right. Like it is. One of
45:53
the great privileges of being a,
45:56
uh, leader in a church is that you do get to
45:59
be around a lot of people with thin shells.
46:02
Like. Like, they have just. They've
46:04
walked the walk of
46:07
being people of generosity and service. Like,
46:10
we have a daily breakfast program here at St. Georges,
46:13
and I think it's actually pretty hard to go into
46:16
that breakfast program and
46:19
serve people without having your shell
46:22
thin get thinner, because
46:25
you spend any time at all talking
46:28
to people who live in such different
46:31
circumstances from the ones that we just
46:34
take for granted, and you start talking to
46:37
them and realize they
46:40
have wisdom and insight and love and faith
46:43
and lives of prayer.
46:47
Um, and friendship that
46:51
I recognize. I recognize all those things. I
46:54
recognize our shared humanity. I recognize
46:58
that, um,
47:02
how many particular accidents
47:06
or fortunes
47:09
have me in one place and them in another
47:12
place. Right. Um. I, uh,
47:15
think it's hard to not walk
47:18
away from those experiences
47:21
without a sense of just how
47:23
fundamentally connected to one another we
47:26
are.
47:28
>> Alexander Lang: I would agree with that. Uh, I think that you're bringing up kind
47:31
of an
47:33
interesting aspect of how
47:37
service is
47:39
fundamental to kind of what we're called to do. I think
47:42
particularly in the christian faith. I mean, a lot of. Across a lot of religions,
47:45
it's important, but in Christianity, I mean, Jesus really calls us
47:48
to do it. And I think that there's this idea that the reason
47:51
why you do it is just so that if somebody's hungry,
47:54
you just want them to eat. Right. But there's something much deeper to it
47:57
than that. And the more you engage in that, the more
48:00
you realize, oh, he's not just asking us to do that, to
48:03
serve a purpose like that. He wants, obviously,
48:06
us to make sure that everybody has enough, but
48:09
that there's something fundamentally spiritual about just
48:12
the practice of that. And I think that you
48:15
highlighted that so well in what you said.
48:18
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. Thanks, Alex.
48:20
Um, now, I think
48:22
that you must have gone through
48:26
some different iterations of what the title for this
48:28
book could have been, but you landed on
48:31
restorative beauty, and that was one of the things
48:34
that stuck out from our previous
48:36
conversation. I think we kind of began our
48:38
interview, um, five months ago,
48:42
talking about beauty as
48:44
a really important part of
48:47
our spiritual lives and our sense of
48:50
relationship with God. M
48:53
so can you flesh out for us
48:55
how you see beauty as a spiritual
48:58
practice?
48:59
>> Alexander Lang: Absolutely. Well, within the book,
49:02
you named all the different practices that I talk about in
49:05
there. Um, and those are
49:08
all very well documented. In fact,
49:11
probably better documented than what I even provide in the
49:13
book, uh, depending on what you want to read.
49:16
But, uh, beauty is a spiritual practice that I think is
49:19
less well known. Uh, and
49:21
Islam actually, I think is one of the. So Islam is very
49:24
interesting in the sense that it promotes a belief that beauty is a
49:27
way to experience the divine. It's in a lot of different, uh,
49:30
religions, particularly the abrahamic religions. Um,
49:33
so I'm certainly not the first to discuss it, but I do think that my
49:36
approach is unique to this. And so
49:39
there's four types of beauty I talk about in the book, which is
49:42
natural, uh, beauty, aesthetic beauty,
49:45
revealed beauty, and transcendent beauty. Now, of course,
49:48
natural beauty, that's the one everybody knows they're pretty familiar
49:51
with. You see a beautiful landscape
49:54
and, um, they very much feel
49:57
the. You feel the presence of God
49:59
reflected in that beauty. I think everybody on some level has
50:03
probably experienced that one way or another. But I
50:05
spend a good bit of time in the book talking about how
50:08
our understanding of beauty is a
50:11
critical component of the degree to which beauty can
50:14
facilitate an overview, effect moment in our lives.
50:17
So I kind of talk about how when I was young,
50:20
my understanding of beauty was actually very narrow.
50:23
So I talked about how, for me, beauty as a
50:26
teenager in my early twenties was actually confined to
50:29
human features. Uh, and that was so if
50:32
you were going to say something was beautiful, that was a person,
50:34
I never applied it to anything else in my life.
50:37
But then I met my wife, and she really
50:40
expanded my understanding of what could be categorized as
50:43
beautiful. And, uh, for me, she did this, of
50:46
course, with art, and she started teaching me
50:48
about various, uh, artists and what it
50:51
takes to make their work beautiful. And
50:54
I know it might seem strange to say this, uh, because some people are
50:57
probably like, are you serious? But, uh, I never
51:00
considered artwork to be beautiful. Up, um, to that
51:03
point, beauty was a word that for me,
51:06
it was only for people. And once. But once you
51:09
started instructing me on art and showing me all the details of
51:12
how it all worked together, like, that's where it just
51:14
expanded my whole. It was like, it's like you open this door and
51:17
you realize, like, oh, I've had blinders on this whole time,
51:20
and you start to see beauty everywhere. And,
51:23
uh, this is when I realized that the human appreciation of
51:26
beauty, it requires an investment of
51:29
time that's not unlike other spiritual practices.
51:32
So the investors, I don't think we often think of
51:35
it that way. We're just like. I think for some people, it's like,
51:37
well, you just either like beauty or you don't. Or you have a certain
51:40
sense of beauty. I actually don't think that's true. I
51:43
think, uh, when you invest it,
51:46
actually, it opens more and more doors
51:49
to what you see as beautiful. So I talk about revealed beauty in
51:52
the book, which is when you peel back layers of
51:55
mystery in the universe. And
51:58
it's kind of like, as you learn more about the world we
52:00
inhabit, you start making these connections. And the
52:03
more knowledge that you learn about the
52:06
world, about the inherent beauty of the
52:09
world, you start to have these overview effect
52:12
moments from these connections, uh, that you
52:15
seek. So it's like, by studying science
52:18
and learning about the world, you're learning about the
52:20
divine. So it's kind of like, I
52:23
know they all, they're often pitted against each other. But isn't it
52:26
interesting that if we assume that
52:29
the traditional stance is God created the universe,
52:32
I say God is the universe. So, for me, the more I learn about
52:35
the universe, the more I'm fundamentally learning about
52:38
God at every step along the way.
52:41
Um, and so then the most profound form of beauty
52:44
is what I call transcendent beauty, uh, which
52:47
occurs when all the other forms of beauty, so
52:50
natural, aesthetic and revealed, and they come together
52:52
to generate an overview effect, moment it.
52:55
And what I argue in the book is
52:57
that, uh, of all the spiritual practices I
53:00
outline, beauty is the most accessible.
53:04
M because in many
53:07
ways, I think that it can
53:10
be hard to learn to take time to meditate, and
53:13
it can be hard to take time to pray. The rituals can
53:16
be hard for people. And even connection right now is really
53:19
challenging. But you can't.
53:22
But anybody can take time to appreciate
53:24
beauty if they simply are willing to invest just a
53:27
little bit in looking past the world that they see in front
53:30
of them. Like, if you can just see a little bit more, see
53:33
those details, it can change the way you are.
53:36
But I think that one of the things,
53:38
um, that I really try to emphasize at the end
53:41
is that even if it's
53:44
whatever spiritual practice it is,
53:47
the most important aspect for a rich spiritual life is
53:50
the ability to be surprised. I cannot
53:53
emphasize that enough. So you have to be open to
53:55
new experiences and knowledge that could
53:58
upend your current framework.
54:00
Um, and I say that at the end of the book. I say, you know,
54:03
if you're not open to change, then no matter how
54:06
faithfully you engage these spiritual practices,
54:09
they're ultimately going to be ineffective. And I, and
54:12
I don't know if you've seen it, but I see people, there's a lot of people who are very
54:15
scared to learn new things. You know, um, they
54:18
just, they know what they know. They don't want to learn anything else.
54:21
And that's limitation to your ability
54:24
to be surprised. Spiritual like, to
54:27
me, the, and what I've noticed is
54:30
those overview effect moments occur when I
54:33
am least expecting it. And if, but if I think
54:36
that, uh, but if I'm in a place where I'm like, well, I know everything,
54:38
and, you know, nobody can teach me anything else,
54:41
well, those moments, I think, pass me by. You have to
54:44
be vulnerable to say, I don't know everything,
54:47
uh, and maybe I'm going to learn something new, and I'm okay with
54:50
that. Even if it changes everything that I've thought before, I'm
54:52
okay with learning that. And so
54:55
when you focus your technique, I think the
54:58
biggest thing that I can say is when you focus your technique, whatever it is
55:01
you're doing, uh, over hundreds of hours, which is
55:04
kind of like what you have to do, you kind of have to, like, even if you're staring at beauty
55:07
for hundreds of hours, whatever it is you're doing, you're
55:10
preparing your mind, body and spirit for when that
55:12
opportunity comes, where the overview
55:15
effect presents itself. And if you do that, you can take
55:18
advantage of it, but you have to be open to
55:21
surprise. And I think that's, uh, fundamentally
55:24
when you're talking about something like beauty, once you start to see
55:27
beauty in the world, that is going to acclimate you to be open to
55:30
surprise, because beauty is found everywhere. And when you find
55:33
beauty in a place where you least expect it, that's one of the
55:35
most spiritually important moments. Like,
55:38
those moments are, stick with me
55:41
forever when that happens. So I don't know how you feel
55:44
about that idea, but, um,
55:47
yeah, I.
55:47
>> Martha Tatarnic: Mean, I really love those connecting threads
55:51
between beauty and
55:54
vulnerability and
55:56
learning and surprise. Like, I think
55:59
that those pieces are really
56:02
intertwined. And I guess I would
56:04
say, too, like, from my experience,
56:07
I would say that openness
56:10
to beauty, for me, has been tied
56:13
not just to that investment of time,
56:16
but it's been very connected to relationship
56:19
as well. I am much better able
56:22
to see beauty in surprising places when
56:25
other people share with me where they see
56:28
beauty. Cause
56:31
maybe I just hadn't seen
56:33
that. I missed it. I didn't look at
56:36
the world in that way. And then when they describe
56:39
it to me, it's like, oh, like I missed
56:42
that. But now I see it. Right?
56:44
Like, uh, I think that that
56:47
is so much a part of that beauty
56:50
journey in my experience, too.
56:52
>> Alexander Lang: I would agree. I mean, it's like when my wife kind of sat.
56:55
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, like, you're wet.
56:56
>> Alexander Lang: She should.
56:56
>> Martha Tatarnic: Exactly.
56:57
>> Alexander Lang: You know, and I think we. But, yeah, but to
57:00
that point of surprise. Yeah. You have to be open to somebody sitting there and
57:03
saying, have you ever looked at it this way? And you
57:06
saying, no, I haven't. Uh, as opposed to dismissing it and
57:09
saying, well, that's good for you, whatever. And you move
57:12
on, like, to, again, that's putting yourself in
57:14
their eyes and saying, wow, why is this beautiful to you?
57:17
And then once you see it, oh, it can change your world.
57:20
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. And that's that vulnerability again. That's
57:23
that, like, willingness to not be
57:26
a finished ah product. Like it's.
57:29
>> Alexander Lang: Yeah, yeah.
57:30
>> Martha Tatarnic: It's really important. Okay, well, thank
57:32
you, um, for that
57:35
breakdown of, I think, as you say, sort
57:38
of the most unique part of your offering
57:41
in this book. We're going to take a break and
57:44
then we're going to come back with some rapid fire questions
57:47
to wrap up.
57:51
Welcome back to the Future Christian podcast
57:54
and our, uh, closing rapid fire questions.
57:57
Now, because, Alex, you have
57:59
previously been on the podcast, you don't get
58:02
the routine rapid fire questions.
58:05
You get some specially designed rapid fire
58:08
questions, and I'm going to answer them as
58:10
well. But we are going to have to,
58:13
um, I feel like each of these
58:16
questions could lead into its own
58:19
podcast, so we're both going to have to keep each other in
58:22
check and, uh, try to answer
58:25
the questions succinctly. And I'm saying that for myself
58:28
too, because each one of these, uh,
58:30
things, like I said, I could personally talk
58:33
about at length. Okay,
58:36
ready?
58:36
>> Alexander Lang: Yep.
58:37
>> Martha Tatarnic: You're set?
58:37
>> Alexander Lang: Yep.
58:38
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay. So what is a recent experience
58:41
of beauty in a movie or a tv show
58:44
that you have seen?
58:46
>> Alexander Lang: For me, the movie would have to be the elephant whisperers.
58:49
It's a short documentary. It actually won the Academy
58:52
Award for that in 22, I believe.
58:55
And, oh, uh, it's a beautiful film, uh, about
58:58
basically people who take care of elephants. Uh,
59:01
and, uh, it's really wonderful. And I would say tv
59:04
show, hands down, it's gotta be peaky blinders. I know
59:07
people will disagree with that just because they will
59:10
probably see it as being violent. I think it is such a
59:12
beautiful, beautiful show. Uh,
59:15
uh, and I can't recommend it enough.
59:19
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay, well, I'm gonna cheat on answering this
59:22
question because I'm gonna say a book instead of
59:25
movie or tv show, because I just don't have
59:27
anything particularly awesome to
59:30
offer in terms of what I've been watching lately.
59:33
A lot of guilty pleasures, not a lot of beauty.
59:37
But, uh, I read, uh, recently
59:40
a book by Jacqueline Hartman called I who
59:43
have never known men. And it's a
59:45
Sci-Fi book about,
59:48
uh, a group of women who find themselves in,
59:51
uh, just extraordinarily
59:55
challenging and disempowering
59:58
circumstances. And, uh, it's
1:00:00
told from the vantage point of this person
1:00:03
who finds pretty incredible
1:00:06
ways of, uh,
1:00:10
centering her humanity in these
1:00:13
just awful circumstances. So,
1:00:15
um, that's a experience, um,
1:00:18
of beauty lately.
1:00:21
Okay. A recent experience of beauty in
1:00:24
music.
1:00:25
>> Alexander Lang: Um, well, if you talk about surprise, uh, it would have to
1:00:28
be Taylor Swift. Uh.
1:00:30
>> Martha Tatarnic: Oh, my gosh. Bring it on. Tell me
1:00:33
about Taylor Swift.
1:00:34
>> Alexander Lang: So my son loves her and, uh,
1:00:37
plays her all the time. I had never really known much about
1:00:40
her, um, but, man, he plays it.
1:00:43
And the more I, you know, I started to get into her music and then I started
1:00:46
kind of looking at who she was as a person and the things she's
1:00:49
been through. And I'm like, wow, this, uh. Yeah, I
1:00:52
gotta give credit where credit's due. And I love her music and her
1:00:54
shows. They are beautiful. They are very, very well
1:00:57
done. And so, uh, I'm definitely a
1:01:00
fan now. And I was open to surprise. I wasn't closed
1:01:03
off to that. And, uh, I'm so glad I wasn't because she is such a
1:01:06
talented, talented musician
1:01:09
and songwriter.
1:01:10
>> Martha Tatarnic: I mean, just an incredible songwriter. I'm such a
1:01:12
swiftie. Um, so I totally co
1:01:15
sign that. But I'm also going to mention two albums
1:01:18
from 2023 that I've been spending a lot of time with
1:01:21
lately. Sufie Ann Stevens.
1:01:24
Uh, just incredible,
1:01:26
um, album, the
1:01:29
javelin. And, uh, then this really
1:01:32
quirky artist named
1:01:35
Chappelle Rowan, um, who just
1:01:37
writes in this
1:01:40
singular voice and, uh,
1:01:43
doesn't sound like anybody else, and really
1:01:46
fun and kind of challenging
1:01:49
lyrics. And, uh, lots of people
1:01:52
would not consider her music beautiful, but it
1:01:54
absolutely, um, just like the
1:01:57
singularity of it makes me,
1:02:00
ah, filled with intrigue and delight.
1:02:03
So those are two albums I've
1:02:06
been enjoying lately. Okay. And finally,
1:02:09
a recent experience of beauty in
1:02:12
relationship.
1:02:14
>> Alexander Lang: Yes. So right before I left
1:02:17
my position, we hired a youth
1:02:19
pastor. So there had been some transition. And
1:02:22
this was a young woman. She's ordained
1:02:25
pastor in the Presbyterian church, USA. She, uh, was in my youth
1:02:28
group growing up, and so she, uh,
1:02:31
was hired and brought in, uh, like two
1:02:34
weeks before I ended my time at the church.
1:02:37
And, um, it's been beautiful
1:02:40
because my whole family lights up when they get to spend
1:02:42
time with her. Uh, and it's been such
1:02:45
a wonderful thing to reconnect with her after all these
1:02:48
years of her going to college and
1:02:50
seminary and then coming out. And she is a
1:02:53
remarkable pastor. Uh, so that's
1:02:56
been probably one of the most recent beautiful experiences
1:02:59
and relationships that I've had, and it's been a great
1:03:02
thing.
1:03:03
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay. Yeah. And, uh, I'll just share
1:03:06
that. We're a couple of days away from
1:03:09
celebration, ah, of new ministry here at our church.
1:03:12
We've welcomed a new priest and kind, uh, of a
1:03:15
different complement of how we're doing ministry.
1:03:18
And, uh, it's
1:03:20
absolutely kind, um,
1:03:23
of outrageous to me the way
1:03:25
that people pour themselves
1:03:28
so generously into planning this
1:03:30
celebration of a meal
1:03:33
and worship and people just
1:03:36
stepping up so generously to
1:03:39
make it a beautiful occasion and
1:03:42
a beautiful welcome. And
1:03:45
I find it amazing when all of these
1:03:48
people offer these gifts that I don't
1:03:51
have and do it
1:03:53
with such
1:03:55
generosity. Uh, and then to see
1:03:58
how all of that comes together for, uh,
1:04:01
pretty profound celebration.
1:04:03
>> Alexander Lang: That's really neat. It sounds wonderful.
1:04:05
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah.
1:04:06
>> Alexander Lang: Yeah.
1:04:06
>> Martha Tatarnic: Well, it kind of brings it full circle back to, I
1:04:09
think, um, what you said at the beginning,
1:04:12
which is like, my gosh, the experience
1:04:15
of being in a community of faith is sort
1:04:18
of hard to replicate in any other
1:04:21
way other than, um, what this
1:04:24
is. It's quite a privilege.
1:04:27
>> Alexander Lang: Absolutely it is. Well, thank you for having me on the
1:04:29
show.
1:04:31
>> Martha Tatarnic: Thank you for joining us again. Thank you
1:04:34
for this conversation. Um, we will
1:04:36
include in the show notes a link to
1:04:39
your book. Is there anything else that you'd like to share about where people can
1:04:42
find you?
1:04:43
>> Alexander Lang: Yeah. So if you go to restorativefaith.org, comma,
1:04:46
you can read more about the book there. Uh, there's
1:04:49
links to it. And, um, like you, I
1:04:52
continue to write monthly on, uh, my blog
1:04:54
and talk about, you know, all kinds of religious ideas
1:04:58
that are floating out in the ether. So
1:05:00
I, uh, look forward to hopefully having future conversations with
1:05:03
you.
1:05:04
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, I hope so, too. Um, we always end
1:05:07
our podcast with a word of peace. So,
1:05:10
Alex, may God's peace be with you.
1:05:12
>> Alexander Lang: And also with you.
1:05:15
>> Paul: Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian podcast.
1:05:18
To learn more about Loren or the podcast,
1:05:21
visit future dash christian.com.
1:05:24
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