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You're Not Broken. You Were Taught Harmful Theology! · You're Not Too Much

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I mean, my entire academic career is based around this idea of,
0:03
like, fighting against spirituality being, like, this harmless
0:07
panacea of, like, it won't hurt you.
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I kind of grew up watching seeing my LGBT friends struggling with
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mental health issues, with suicide. Certainty is the
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enemy of any faith and belief system. Because you want to leave open
0:22
curiosity and room to grow someone else believing or living
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differently from you does not mean you get to be a fucking asshole. All right,
0:29
here we go. I'm going to pretend I'm pushing record, because that feels right. Okay,
0:33
pressing record. Boop. Hi, everybody.
0:37
I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different Not Broken,
0:41
which is our podcast on exactly that. That there are a lot of
0:44
people in this world walking around feeling broken, and the reality is you're just different,
0:48
and that's fine. You know this. If you're here, you know this. I'm
0:52
Jewish, and everybody who's listening hears me say that, like, 700
0:56
times an episode. So, hi, guys. Surprise. I'm Jewish. The reason
1:00
that I'm bringing that up, though, is that I'm not, like. I don't like to
1:04
use the term good Jew and bad Jew, because I think that's
1:07
not a judgment that anybody gets to make, even me, about myself. But I will
1:11
say I eat a lot of bacon and I'm not exactly observant,
1:14
but, like, the fundamentals of it, the things that I learned in Sunday school as
1:18
a kid, like, those kind of stick with me. I did the whole
1:21
bat mitzvah process and actually really enjoyed it. I can still read Hebrew
1:25
if. If you want me to. Don't want me to. It's been a long time.
1:29
But anyway, the point being is that definitely born Jewish,
1:33
also, bizarrely, is the word we're looking for. Raised in an
1:36
evangelical cult. That's another episode for another day. But I do
1:40
have this very bizarre intersection of faith in my background. And by the
1:44
way, I was Jewish the whole time, so it's just very confusing.
1:47
Anyway, the reason I bring that up is I sit in this weird
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place between not exactly being
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agnostic, not exactly being involved in any particular
1:59
faith, believing that faith is important for a lot of people
2:03
to a certain extent, needing to believe that there is
2:06
some plan, that somebody is up to something, and that this
2:10
is not all chaos because I will just become despondent and not get out of
2:14
bed. Which sounds kind of nice, but anyway, so it's a
2:18
thing that comes up regularly of, like, how do we navigate
2:21
this world as people who have a kind of very typical millennial aversion
2:25
to all things structured, all things that
2:29
were impressed upon us by boomers, but also
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kind of a draw to the comfort that that could potentially provide
2:36
regardless whether we have found that place for ourselves or
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not. So I'm very excited to have
2:44
somebody who I absolutely adore, Libby Alders, with
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us here today. Libby is a
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pastoral chaplain, you tell me.
2:55
So I am working on becoming a fee based pastoral counselor
2:59
in North Carolina, which I will explain later. Sounds
3:03
very like ah, it's not as as it sounds, but my
3:07
background, I'm an ordained reverend, so technically I do have the
3:10
fancy reverend title which is real fun to throw out. But I have an
3:14
ordained reverend with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which is an
3:17
oxymoron if you know anything about Baptist history. Like we throw down and create
3:21
a new denomination every Sunday. It's our thing. Occasionally a new country
3:25
too, but that's like a whole other podcast
3:29
entirely like anyways, so that's a little bit of a background
3:32
and I have training in what we call clinical pastoral education. So what
3:36
a lot of people don't know is in the US chaplains are in
3:40
every major like especially trauma centers in your major research
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hospitals like typically funded through Medicaid, Medicare, but they're part of
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and I think still even a J code requirement. So they're like
3:51
essential staff. So I am trained to kind of work in a variety of
3:54
settings meeting people where they're at on like oh no, you're having a
3:58
big life event Q existential crisis. Well it's not really convenient to
4:02
have in the middle of an er, but guess what, you're going to have it.
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So that's kind of my background and specialty is working with people in it
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was very inconvenient, but it's going to happen anyway in life
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situations kind of asking those big existential questions
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or learning like hey, what's some of that like computer programming running in the
4:20
back of my brain of like maybe that childhood
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religious experience I had is more formative than I thought and it's, it's
4:27
running some systems in the background. So I work with people to help them kind
4:30
of unpack what's going on. Is it helpful? Is it kind of a
4:34
harmful theology running in the background? Anyways, that's my long
4:38
spiel is I am ordained Reverend, working on becoming
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a fee based pastoral counselor and working on my board certification
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to become a clinical chaplain. So you're based out of North
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Carolina? Yes. How many
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other women or non binary
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people are there in your field in North Carolina? I actually know the
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answer to this Because I checked. But now it'll look like a really
5:03
horrible subject matter. Actually. No,
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just guess a really low number. Like, especially
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on the binary, like the non binary folks.
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If we're over 50, I would be shocked. I
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like, I would probably, like, fall. Out of the ones who are actually
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credentialed and can provide supervision in your field. It's
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like five. Yeah, that's what I was like. I was being very generous with the
5:30
50, because I'm thinking some of my friends who are like, in that gray area
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of like, yeah, I can operate. I'm like, can you?
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Okay, Let me take it a step further, though. How many
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people who have your
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perspective on religion, but
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also like, religion's place in trauma,
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how many of those do you think exist in your
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community and. Or your state? So I'm gonna. I'm
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gonna kind of define the community as a little bit of the profession. Cause it's
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such a tiny profession that we. We cling to each other. Like, Fred,
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I don't care what time zone you're in, but as far as I'm thinking of
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some of my friends who are chaplain researchers, things like that, I can
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personally think of about 40 people I've connected with, and I'm. I'm
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talking globally. Like, 40 people who really want
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to explore a deep dive, this intersection of
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trauma and religion, and particularly explore some of the negative impact.
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So you'll find a lot of people. Pet peeve of mine. And we
6:32
can go into it later. Like it. By pet peeve, I mean my entire
6:36
academic career is based around this idea of, like, fighting
6:39
against spirituality being like, this harmless panacea
6:43
of, like, it won't hurt you. Try a little bit of this.
6:47
And I'm like, no. Spirituality and religion can be incredibly
6:51
dangerous and harmful. So I jokingly call myself the
6:54
Sith Lord of resilience. Because I'm just like, no, you don't need to be resilient.
6:58
Sometimes you just need to crash all the way out. But as far as sharing
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that perspective, maybe 40 people in the globe in North Carolina.
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It's like me and one of my besties, and we're just like,
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trauma bonding. White knuckling it
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through. Yeah.
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It'S weekly brag time. Hi,
7:20
I'm Stacy, and my brag is. That
7:24
I made dinner for my kids. Which I haven't done in a
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million, billion years, with a recipe I never tried before
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and techniques I never tried before, and they all thought it was
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delicious. So it feels good to know I still got it.
7:40
If you want to leave us A note, you can do
7:42
it@differentnotbrokenpodcast.com
7:46
voicemail. Leave a message of the cool thing that you did. Leave your first
7:50
name last. Initial the cool thing that you did, and
7:54
we might feature you on a later episode.
7:59
You know, we have a very large queer, non binary
8:03
following or listener base. We also have, just in general,
8:07
obviously, people who come to listen because they feel
8:10
like they have never fit in anywhere. And a lot of that
8:14
is not a lot of that. But I think a very common theme is
8:18
people who grew up in very faith based communities who
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realize they, for whatever reason, are not accepted within that community,
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but really liked the aspect of community that they have now lost.
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And I know you do a lot of work in that and also helping people
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find their way back to faith in a way that is safe and
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welcoming to them. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about kind of
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how you ended up there and what
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the, let's say, the safe intersection between faith
8:50
and identity is. So just to provide a little bit of context,
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the church I was a part of, I think I'm either the fourth or fifth
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generation in my family to be a member of this church. And
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so. And a lot of people, when they hear Baptist and American, they
9:04
kind of immediately go to righteous gemstones. Which one? An amazing
9:08
TV show too. Way more accurate than it.
9:12
People realize, like, I can't watch it in chunks because it like, rigs
9:16
out a trauma response. But I preface that by saying, like,
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the Baptist church and tradition has a lot of rich diversity.
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And unfortunately, the more progressive kind of LGBTQ side and
9:27
friendly side of it is smaller. But my tradition
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kind of sat in the moderate, especially the early 2000s. So I grew up
9:34
in a church that was way more liturgical. Like, we didn't have like
9:38
the shows, the fancy lights and mega church
9:41
vibes. It was much more like, you'd walk in and almost think it was United
9:45
Methodist because we have the similar vestments. We follow a
9:48
liturgical calendar, which is not usual for Baptist. But also you'd walk in
9:52
and there'd be women. Like, women were all on staff. We had
9:56
female deaconesses, which was since the 40s. And so I just kind of
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grew up seeing women in leadership. One of the areas where they weren't as
10:03
progressive was on the LGBT community. So there was a lot of, you know,
10:07
I apologize for listeners. I don't mean to be traumatic, but like, for the next
10:10
two seconds, I might say trigger word. There was a lot of accept people with
10:14
grace. So that's a very strong Code word for don't bring
10:17
your full self, and that's being polite. There was a lot of hate in that
10:21
phrase, and I want to honor it. Okay, so trigger part done for listeners,
10:24
hopefully. So growing up, I saw a lot of examples of acceptance of, like,
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you know, we'd coordinate with the black Protestant churches in town for joint
10:32
worship. We would do a lot of learning about black history. Like, we had
10:35
pastors who were very intentional, like, teach us Latin from the pulpit.
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So a little bit different style, but that instilled in me kind
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of this, no, be welcoming. Like, every little thing in my faith
10:47
tradition is hospitality and, like, disruptive
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hospitality. So because people think it's cute and fluffy, like, be
10:54
nice and be open. Like, no. You can disrupt whole systems by refusing
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to block people out and open up hospitality.
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So I grew up with that mindset of, like, I don't care who you are,
11:04
how you got here. You are on the planet, and I am fortunate enough to
11:07
encounter you. What a blessing to me. So I somehow
11:11
missed the hate gay people part. Like, I don't know.
11:15
I grew up with family members who have been recently diagnosed autistic,
11:18
but by the rest of us were like, this is not a surprise. We lived
11:22
with you. Like, but with that, we also faced a lot of seeing
11:26
people not know how to deal with those individual family members. So I got a
11:29
preview of how mean the church could be through that neurodivergence hate a little
11:33
bit. And then I was like, no, I don't want to be that. So I'm
11:36
not going to apply that kind of hate to gay people because I've got a
11:39
little bit of that empathy developing of, like, oh, I saw y' all do that
11:41
to some family. That's not cool. So I ended up deciding to go to college
11:45
because I had a friend die by suicide when I was really young. And the
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church response for me was very open and accepting. There was no
11:52
condemnation. It was understanding that, like, death by suicide is.
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It is mental health concern is not a morality issue.
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There is no sin involved. Like, this is very much. This was a person in
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need. And we did not meet that. Like, our church was like, how can we
12:06
build community and mental health? The rest of the churches by hometown were like,
12:11
nope, lots of condemnation and judgment. And so I kind
12:15
of grew up watching, seeing my LGBT friends struggling with mental
12:19
health issues with suicide. So kind of seeing that intersection of neurodivergence,
12:22
LGBT suicide, and the church response was
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failing. So I got mad about it was like, yeah, try not to cuss
12:29
I've been working with the military, so, like, the language is real strong. Oh, say
12:33
whatever you want. Okay. I was like, I don't know if this is an F
12:37
bomb friendly podcast, but I've been like, oh, yeah, no. We regularly have the
12:40
explicit rating. Go for it. Okay. So thank you.
12:44
Okay. Like, the Chaplet episode's gonna have the most F bombs. Which I'm like,
12:48
that's probably gonna be great. Like, as it should be. Like,
12:51
honestly, if we don't have a counter. And like, at the
12:55
end of the episode, it was like 16F bombs. Like,
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oh, yeah, we need a chaplain counter.
13:03
This is the chaplain. How many
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so far? So far, four.
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So. But girl, I remember in high school getting really like, I was
13:16
pissed because I was seeing, like, all these opportunities for my church to live
13:20
in to this radical hospitality they preach. And they would do it really
13:24
well with certain sectors and then others. It was like, what the hell?
13:28
Like, I missed Jesus did not stutter. Like, I missed this part. And I got
13:32
mad in high school to the point where I, like, took Latin instead of French
13:35
because I wanted to go translate the original text. And then I was like,
13:39
well, I gotta learn Greek. And then I found out in university,
13:43
you know, the main school I wanted to go to, I didn't get in. So
13:45
went to my fallback school, which was Campbell University, to study
13:49
religion, philosophy and business. Because I was like,
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okay, I'm gonna get money. I'm gonna figure out how to create a safe
13:57
haven. And also, like, where the hell is the shitty theology coming
14:00
from? Like, it's bad. Like, I'm missing the part where you say this
14:04
Harry Potter spell and you're magically saved for eternity without doing any good
14:08
work. Like, I feel like we had a whole reformation about that. And then the
14:12
Baptist, like, forgot, which makes me mad because I'm
14:15
like, we've. We've discussed this before.
14:19
This has come up. This has come up repeatedly.
14:23
Again. Pretty sure, like, the Anabaptist helped start the
14:27
US because of this. That is a very overgeneralization, but
14:31
not totally inaccurate. Anyways, so went to college, started deep diving studying,
14:34
started encountering more. And Campbell is a more conservative Baptist college. So that's when
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I decided discovering the Righteous Gemst Baptist. And I was like, I
14:42
didn't. I feel like I grew up in an alternate dimension. Like, did I get
14:45
the Tardis and, like, land in a whole new world? I don't understand what's happening.
14:49
And studied a Campbell and I had a great campus minister
14:53
who was a woman and she was like, you need to go to a divinity
14:55
program. So to become a chaplain you have to have a master degree. And
14:59
it's really cool because it's called a Master of Divinity, which is a real fun
15:03
degree to throw around. Like I sound like a Jedi. It's great.
15:07
And so picked Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt is one of the top
15:10
progressive and more forward thinking, interfaith and
15:13
interdenominational divinity schools. So I go from tiny Baptist College
15:17
in North Carolina to Vanderbilt Nashville, and I've got classmates who are
15:21
Sunni Muslim imams. I've got a female medical student,
15:25
LGBT students from across that population, which was
15:29
a huge blessing. And they had a lot of grace and patience with me because
15:32
I was coming from Southern Virginia, like had not
15:35
been to a drag show. And they quickly remedied that, thankfully. It was
15:39
amazing. Like, this is awesome. And so to kind of give you the
15:43
vibe, I went from tiny small Baptist college to Vanderbilt, where the Dean
15:46
would buy a keg on Friday and then tell everyone about the latest drag show
15:50
that'd be offered downtown. So very different vibes, but that just showed me
15:54
even more how important community is, especially for people trying to understand,
15:57
like, who they are, where they're at, what different community these offer. Then I
16:01
had every intention to become a professor of theology and teach people because again, I
16:05
was seeing the shitty theology and I was like, haha, I'll start failing people with
16:08
it and maybe we could correct it. Yeah, that didn't work because
16:12
then they were like, well, Ph.D. is six years. And I was like, that sounds
16:15
miserable. Ended up going on
16:20
a date with a really cute army dude because I was like, I'm about to
16:23
go in the middle of nowhere. I'm gonna date this guy with a really cute
16:25
ass and like, have some fun before my denomination ships me into rural
16:29
America. Well, that turned into a decade later,
16:33
we've got two dogs at a house. And like I kept him, like, he's pretty
16:36
awesome. But he is now retired from the US Army Special Forces.
16:40
So to give you vibes of the communities I sit in. Conservative
16:44
Baptist, moderate Baptist, Vanderbilt, LGBT
16:47
keggers, and then Special Forces. So
16:54
it's been a while. Okay, but where I need to know. I need to know
16:57
where the special forces drag show intersection is.
17:00
It is a lot stronger than you think it is. First of all,
17:05
let's get that straight. 2. And this is something I found really interesting,
17:09
especially for this. I, like we mentioned it earlier, like being your authentic self at
17:13
the intersection of faith. It's kind of wild to watch
17:16
the levels that my LGBT friends have to go to mask
17:20
and protect their identity in public and then watch the same level
17:24
done by my military friends. And then also there's LGBT in the
17:27
military. So I have seen and I don't want to out people, but
17:31
you'd be surprised at how many are in the military. I, I think a lot
17:34
of people would be, you know, we call it big army or like conventional forces
17:38
and special forces. So both of those have a larger population that
17:42
you'd think. And so sitting in those areas, I just really
17:45
saw like people were suffering and they still are. That's why I want to start
17:49
my business and fee based pastoral counseling because one like, why charge a fee? Well,
17:53
if you pay me, I have more freedom and I don't have to like listen
17:56
to my crazy denomination on some stuff. I love them, but like
18:00
need some freedom. But also to the intersection, especially
18:03
in like North Carolina military. But then I'm an hour away from
18:07
Raleigh, Durham, two hour, two to three hours from Charlotte, North Carolina, which
18:10
has made the news, kind of reminded people like, oh, North Carolina is very purple.
18:15
In all those intersections. You're seeing people really struggle with a term we use in
18:18
the chaplaincy field of moral injury. So it's this, these deep
18:22
betrayals of some core beliefs. You're not able to be your authentic self and
18:25
you will turn and like you will love your teammates in the military, but you
18:29
know, you can't be yourself 100% around them or for military
18:33
spouses. They will sit there and have dreams of careers
18:37
and they want to find an authentic faith community, but they're more
18:40
progressive and they keep getting assigned to military installations where
18:44
some of those religious traditions aren't available to spouses and to try
18:48
to build a career. And you can't do it when you're moving every two to
18:51
three years. Or in the case of the like the special operations community, you don't
18:54
move as much. But your spouse is gone six months out the year for
18:58
a decade. So you just build a routine. So that's kind of, to
19:02
answer your question, that's where I really found myself landing was like I just found
19:06
myself with like six different but sub
19:09
overlapping Venn diagrams of communities. And moral injury is
19:13
like one of the things tying them together. And people don't know how to figure
19:16
out what they believe. And they figure it out when trauma hits and the
19:20
value gets violated. So then they don't even have a positive
19:24
experience of their belief. They're just like, oh no, I believed in this thing. And
19:27
a person I really love just, like, completely undercut me by accident
19:31
because people don't know how to navigate anymore. So that's a super long
19:34
winded answer. So welcome to having a podcast with Chaplin.
19:39
So what's funny is I know nobody who's listening to this has ever heard this
19:42
before, but my dad was a psychiatrist, and he
19:46
always had a pastoral counselor who worked out of
19:50
his office. I don't think it was the same one. And mind you, he was
19:53
a Jewish psychiatrist, but he always
19:57
had a pastoral counselor who worked in his office because there was always a need
20:01
for it. But also, he used to say all the time. Because he, you know,
20:04
he did a lot of presentations, he presented a lot of papers. He was. He
20:07
was an academic for a long time. And so in theory,
20:11
he was a great speaker and he would get asked to speak a lot. But
20:14
he used to tell me all the time, never get up to
20:18
speak after a pastor.
20:21
That's very true. Don't stand a chance. No, it's
20:25
fucking civil if you follow us. He was like, nobody's
20:29
gonna listen to you. They just had the show. You are not the show.
20:37
This is the chaplain counter. How many
20:40
fucks so far? Now we're up to five fucks.
20:44
He picked up on it because, like, for context, the. The master of divinity
20:48
degree I did was, like, 84 credit hours. So, like, more than
20:51
most PhDs, right. I think at least 25 of those
20:55
credit hours were communication courses, preaching courses
20:59
publicly. So people don't realize is we're like a secret weapon for public
21:02
speaking. We're not sure. We're not terse people, though. So you got to build that
21:05
in presenting and, like, talking awkward, taboo subjects in front of people.
21:09
I'm like, we're literally trained to call people out for bad behavior and then be
21:13
like, hey, pay your tithe. Like, that's a really hard thing to
21:17
do, by the way of, like, y' all been foolish,
21:21
you know, to treat people nicely. Don't hate on the gays. Also, give me your
21:24
10% tithe. Like, thanks for listening. So, like,
21:28
us starting a substack with through subscription. Like, we're like, oh, yeah,
21:32
this is way easier to do. Yeah,
21:36
I'm just like, I apologize to all other professions that follow us at
21:39
conferences because, like, we have histories of how we get in the field.
21:44
We're not very boring people. Like, and chaplains and
21:47
pastors are different. I'll throw that out there. So, like, chaplains were typically more
21:50
pluralistic minded. I joke that the best chaplains are the worst
21:54
pastors. Like, I'm a Baptist reverend, but, like, I have strong
21:58
opinions on bourbon and judge people if they are, like, over
22:02
30 and still drinking Jack Daniels. I'm like, no, do better. Like,
22:05
you treat yourself well.
22:09
That's the distinction you make of what people are too old for.
22:13
Like, can you tell a deal with military where you could tell,
22:17
like, the rake and pay grade? And I'm like, I see Jack Daniels in the
22:20
cart. And I'm like, okay, I'm too old to hang out with you. Like,
22:24
I won't understand 90 things that come out of your mouth, which is fine, but
22:27
it's late. It's a good point. Jack Daniels in the cart is the
22:31
equivalent to 6, 7. I have no idea what that means. Oh, my God. It's.
22:35
I mean, the accuracy. But, yeah. And, you know, if I see.
22:38
If I see, like, McClellan, I'm like, okay, you are a person of taste
22:42
and sophistication. But then I'm. You have
22:46
stripes. Come, come, come hang out. You are at least an ea.
22:50
Excellent. Like, you can remember the
22:53
Internet when it made angry noises at you and screeched. Excellent
22:57
lit. You will catch my Dragon Ball Z references. Thank you. Okay. I'm like,
23:01
I'd be sorry. One piece is not the goat of anime. That's going to be
23:05
a hot take. That probably angers half your listeners, but I said it.
23:09
Yeah. So chaplains are just kind of like, we're all about being with people where
23:12
they're at. Pastors, understandably, are operating within their religious
23:15
traditions, so they're going to be much more focused on traditional rituals,
23:19
traditional processes, building their churches.
23:23
That sounds miserable to me. So I was like, n. I want to go hang
23:26
out with people who are super traumatized. Like, hi, I'm going to
23:29
meet you in the er and they, you know, you may be having the worst
23:33
day of your life, and that's fine. I'm here to walk with you through it.
23:35
Let's figure it out. So. So jumping off from that, I know you
23:39
do a ton of work in trauma space. I also imagine, like, trauma
23:43
work with you is probably really funny, and that sounds great.
23:46
So you sit at this fascinating intersection
23:50
of really, like, every aspect of people's lives. But I know you focus heavily on
23:54
trauma, and that might be kind of germane to your field.
23:57
Let's say somebody is looking for your services.
24:01
My suspicion is that they don't even know they're looking for your services
24:05
because they probably don't know that somebody like you exists. Who is it
24:09
that you outside of? Let's say an environment that you,
24:13
you get paid to make rounds in the hospital where you're going to interact with
24:15
a whole lot of people who ends up in front of you who
24:19
could benefit from what you do outside of those
24:23
acutely traumatic moments. Because that's really what you're folk you're kind of
24:27
transitioning toward. Right, right. So because like I started in that
24:30
trauma, like trauma ER, hospital sphere, the last
24:34
eight years have been more research. So like
24:38
hanging out with military, doing fieldwork, media where they're at
24:42
there. But if you're, if you're looking for somebody with my expertise, at least
24:45
how I'm building it up because I, I really have to build at the grassroots
24:49
level up. But I'm figuring it out as we go. But what I've been doing
24:52
lately is really partnering with social workers and mental
24:56
health master level providers. Not so much
24:59
psychiatry and psychology. There, there's a weird vibe. You know,
25:03
your dad was probably much the exception on this, which
25:06
rockstar and ballerina. But like psychiatrists and chaplains will
25:10
butt heads a lot. And it was weird to me because I like actually was
25:13
assigned to a psych team and they were like, ah, you're gonna
25:17
convert people like God? I hope not. My faith kind of sucks. Like,
25:23
like my nickname in divinity school was the D Evangelist. Like I'm like, you sure
25:27
you want to join my faith? Like it's expensive, you'll get annoyed, you get yelled
25:30
at. I mean there's cool people, but anyways, so if you try to find someone
25:34
like me, I go through like word of mouth. So like my fee based pastoral
25:37
counseling, I want to start up. I'm going to have to go through some local
25:41
therapists. I know some military chaplains, I know friends and family kind of build up
25:45
and do referral based because unfortunately if you're searching for
25:48
me in North Carolina, you're gonna have to use the term fee based
25:52
pastoral counselor, which is one like horrible
25:56
marketing. But it's like legal issues. So we have to make sure that
26:00
people know we're not like a licensure. We're going to be a certification
26:04
where I have different specialties. But even then the language is very much going
26:07
to sound evangelical. So for a lot of my ex vangelicals and my LGBTQ
26:11
folks, I understand like you may not even know how to find me.
26:15
So what I tell people is if you're wanting to kind of unpack, like you
26:18
say you grew up evangelical LGBT and now you're like,
26:22
I got a lot of self hate and I don't know where it's coming from.
26:24
And maybe I got some of that really harmful theology right out of the
26:28
back of my head, like, excel refusing to close on your computer,
26:32
that I would tell people, like, if you already have a therapist, see if they
26:35
know of a chaplain that they really trust. And so the
26:39
therapist could kind of find us because we do exist and a lot of us
26:42
partner with existing therapy offices. But that's the unfortunate part. Like,
26:46
if you're Googling, it's going to be really hard to find us. For me, I'm
26:49
trying to build up LinkedIn webpage that's going to have some more
26:53
subversive language to hint at people, have a safe space. Like, but,
26:56
you know, I'm also straight. So I was like, I don't know if I'm an
26:59
ally, but I'm trying. Like, that's up for the LGBT folks to decide.
27:05
What do you want the people who should find you to know? I would want
27:08
to tell them that I have no goal
27:12
or objective for you to find a specific
27:16
faith. Like, I have zero desire to guide you to any specific
27:19
endpoint. My goal is to help you figure that out and plot
27:23
your own course, but also be like, ah, stay away from this theology.
27:26
It's quicksand and it's bad. That's really what I want to get at, is like,
27:29
this is a space for you to wander. There's grace to make
27:32
mistakes. I have no agenda to make you Christian. And in fact, I'm going to
27:36
be like, why? Like, you can. I'm just going to be like, why? But as
27:40
if you want to become Buddhist. I got some great Buddhist chaplain friends. Like, let
27:43
me hook you up with some resources, you know? So I kind of think of
27:47
myself as the ultimate referral hub of like, let me
27:50
vet and give you some safe resources and referrals. Whatever you're
27:54
looking at, I don't even care. You want to go join the humanist local group
27:57
at your college, but you don't even know the words to search for. I'll help
28:00
you out and I'll connect you to a humanist chaplet. So that's my vibe. I'm
28:04
here to walk with people to help them figure out where they want to go,
28:07
and they're going to set the pace. I'm just providing a little bit of
28:10
bumper plate, said the bowling lade. Is there
28:14
a faith for everybody who. Wants one for me? And
28:18
this is where, like, I can already hear my Unitarian Universalist and
28:21
Humanist friends being like, join us, Libby. Join the Dark side. I think
28:25
there's a belief system for it, everyone. And I really want to
28:29
open and welcome and acknowledge our agnostic and humanist and
28:32
atheist friends because, like, that is a 100% valid
28:36
approach to life. And I want them to build their meaning
28:39
and purpose and belief set in such a way that supports them
28:43
and helps them build a life and doesn't leave them in this angry, traumatized place
28:47
where they think every person of faith is going to hate them. And then I
28:50
also want to look at my people's face and be like, no, stop it. Like
28:54
that whole, oh God, I hate the phrase there's no atheist in foxholes. I'm like,
28:57
no, it's a stupid phrase. Like, I, if I faced war, would probably
29:01
become atheist real quick because it's traumatizing. So I, I
29:05
would tell people there are healthy ways for you to have a belief system.
29:08
What might be healthy for you may not be healthy to someone else. And I
29:12
kind of expound on that a little bit. The last eight years or so, I've
29:14
been working in research with the military for something called Total
29:18
Force Fitness. It's not the best naming convention in the world. I didn't create
29:21
it, I inherited it. But spiritual fitness was the domain I worked in.
29:25
And the idea for that is you help people one, figure out what they believe.
29:30
Two, understand that it's totally healthy for those
29:33
beliefs to change throughout your life. Like, belief is not
29:37
certainty. Like, I tell people, if I could have one thing on my head stone,
29:40
it would be belief does not equal certainty. I would argue certainty
29:44
is the enemy of any faith or belief system because you want to leave
29:48
open curiosity and room to grow. And then three,
29:51
someone else believing or living differently from you does not mean you get to be
29:55
a fucking asshole. Like, no.
29:59
This is the chaplain fuck counter. How many
30:03
fucks? So far, we've now reached seven chaplain
30:06
fucks. So spiritually fit people understand and you can debate, you can
30:10
disagree and then turn around and you can still be good friends or interactions these
30:14
people in society. So there's kind of the three main pins of like, do you
30:17
even know what you believe? And I'll tell you right now, most people don't. Two,
30:21
do you understand that it's healthy for it to change with your faith? Like, if
30:25
you grew up evangelical and then you become wicked, which is a
30:28
strong pipeline. One, highly recommend it. Two, it is totally
30:32
healthy for you to do this. Like, let's get you in with some vetted
30:35
resources so we can avoid the, the red pill, pink pill,
30:39
because they do show up as well. For all faith traditions, we all got our
30:42
versions of those. Like, how can I safely get you to
30:46
what's your next destination? Essentially I'm like a stupidist, but a cool
30:50
one. A flight attendant. Sorry, 1950 term coming out. My bad.
30:54
One thing I really think is people need to be more intentional on kind of
30:57
building their own meeting systems and kind of getting the reps in on their own
31:01
spirituality. Because there's some research, I think it's by Dr.
31:04
Crystal Parks, where she looks at meaning and purpose and the trauma cycle, the
31:08
reciprocal model. It's really good work. But there was like a little
31:11
nugget where she cited and I need to go find it. But it's like that
31:15
citation you see, and then you're like, I should highlight it. And then your ADHD
31:18
kicks in and you don't highlight it. And a decade later you're like, what the
31:21
fuck is that citation? So it's that one for people listening.
31:25
But she talks about how for the average person in America,
31:28
especially after the age of 12, you really don't get any
31:32
formative belief building processes. Like the rituals disappear.
31:36
You're not actively attending your religious traditions as much. And you
31:40
think about it, a lot of religious traditions have some sort of like age of
31:43
reason. Welcome to puberty. Oh boy, hold on a bit.
31:47
But once people hit those, they quit actively developing. And with the
31:51
drop off of participating in church in America, which I think is a.
31:54
The church deserved it. I'm like, my pastor friends are like, why do people not
31:58
come? And I'm like, because you're dicks. Like, you hate
32:02
on gay people. And then wonder why people don't show up in your church. You
32:05
want women to not have equal rights and then you want wonder why people will
32:08
come to your church. Also, like Jesus would be very confused, not welcomed
32:12
in your church because spoiler alert, Jesus was brown. Like.
32:17
A brown immigrant. Like also
32:21
with the king tried to kill him. So it's like, feels a little
32:25
relevant. I don't. Yeah, so sorry, hold on, let me take. Let me take
32:28
that and count one for my team. A brown Jewish immigrant.
32:32
Yes. Probably illegal. Anyway. Continue. Oh yeah, it's
32:36
also like insert sidebar nativity scenes that have the
32:39
wise men showing up with the shepherds. Pissed me off. Because it's not how it
32:43
works. Like to the point where my husband does not let me comment.
32:47
When we're driving along and seeing the Tiffany displays and he's like, I know the
32:50
wise men weren't there. Don't comment. I'm like it's wrong. I mean, they also put
32:54
them up in December, so there's that continuing like. He'S a spring
32:57
baby. But yeah. Oh, people don't want to come to church because they hate. Yeah,
33:00
yeah. So when you don't have community where you can
33:04
explore and develop, like I grew up in a tradition that was more
33:08
moderate, progressive. They, like I explained earlier, they, they're still learning some
33:11
things, you know, good job, you're getting there, little guys. But
33:15
I had a community where growing up, if I attended a, like a
33:19
class, the pastor would be like, okay, like you're picking up on this one belief
33:23
that it gonna work. Here's the Greek. Keep exploring this
33:26
belief of, but find it in a way that, that lines up a little bit
33:29
better. But if you don't have those communities where you can grow, be weird,
33:33
you know, do the spiritual version of trying a new haircut
33:37
or clothing style. Like how you express your
33:41
beliefs because that's other pieces. People don't know what they believe then they don't even
33:44
know how to express it. So I'm like, are you really anti
33:47
abortion or have you not even thought about it? Because you're just parroting
33:51
things. But then in the moment, in a crisis, and I think this is why
33:54
you have that dissonance, what I call the white woman dissidence, essentially of like when
33:58
you're in the situation, oh, you're now thinking about it and
34:01
you're like, oh, wait a minute, I'm going to die if I don't
34:05
get this service or I will not have the money to provide for my other
34:08
two children if I do not get this medical care. Like, you're
34:12
having that room to explore that and we don't have those. Whereas I grew
34:16
up with a youth group that was like, okay, we're going to talk about this.
34:19
Like birth control is medicine, abortion is health care. And we
34:23
had the space to explore and be like, just because, like, if you don't want
34:26
one, okay, cool, don't block other people. Like, again
34:30
that learning, how do you interact with people who believe differently? Okay, well
34:33
if you don't want to do something, don't do it.
34:37
Like, you don't need to go and tell other people not to. But we don't
34:40
have those options now. And it kind of sounds like a cute little fuzzy problem,
34:44
but in the military in particular, like I was running into, we're having
34:47
like 38 year old people, male and female,
34:52
brilliant at their work, absolutely brilliant. Dealing with a high
34:55
stress situation, incredibly traumatic experiences, doing Some
34:59
work, it's gonna have ramifications for them. You know, they're navigating really
35:03
difficult things. And particularly I kept trying not to get in the special
35:06
operations world for research. And I like the new universe was like, haha, screw you,
35:10
you're going right back in. And I'm like, I want to teach theology in college
35:14
students. And they're like, go research special tactics
35:17
airmen. And I'm like, deity, what the fuck are you doing?
35:21
Oh. And then I learned there's not a lot of difference between the 18 year
35:24
old college student and a 38 year old special tactics airman when
35:28
it comes to having developed their spirituality or their belief
35:31
system. Because in America, nobody after at that age, anybody
35:35
after 12 hasn't really done it. But then you have somebody who's 38,
35:39
they've come out of a battle, they've had to do things and they have no
35:43
way to process it. And they're basically running a 12 year old's ethical
35:46
program on a 38 year old war fighter problem. And
35:50
you're like, oh no. And like, that's not fair to them, that's not fair to
35:53
anybody in the system. And we're not equipping, you know, it's not just a military
35:56
problem. You're going to have your doctor in the ER facing Covid,
36:00
you know, not like operating off of.
36:04
The last time I really thought about this kind of stuff, I was maybe
36:08
14. It's a huge disservice we're doing across the board.
36:12
And then when people are like, while working out in therapy, I love therapy.
36:15
Therapy is great, but we don't have spaces where people
36:19
can just exist without a diagnostic label. And we're losing
36:22
third spaces in our country as well. So you can't exist without pay to
36:26
play in our country. You don't have safe spaces to make mistakes. Try out your
36:30
new spiritual hairstyle, you know, whatever. And then you
36:33
don't have spaces to grow and develop. So you're
36:37
just like, you've got 45 year old problems on a 12 year
36:41
old's ethical system. And there's nothing wrong with the 12 year old's ethical system system.
36:44
It's great for a 12 year old developmentally, good job. But it's not
36:48
going to fly for things I faced in combat or things I faced
36:51
providing in Covid or I grew up hating lgbt. And then
36:55
I noticed the only people that took care of me during COVID were my LGBT
36:59
neighbors because my church did not step up. Like now what do I
37:03
do with the hospitality? I was taught would come from my faith. Tradition
37:06
has come from those that have my faith. Tradition has labeled the
37:10
enemy. It's almost weird. Like, we got a parable about that. The faith
37:13
tradition, you know, I won't go there. Not like the Good Samaritan parables.
37:17
Just hang it out. It's almost like there's some hypocrisy
37:21
layered in there somewhere. Maybe a teeny, tiny bit of it.
37:25
Shock. The female reverend who drinks bourbon rants about it
37:29
anyways. But only good
37:32
bourbon. I am snobbish, and that is not kind of me.
37:36
My hospitality and faith does not extend to your bourbon choices.
37:40
And it doesn't. And I don't think it has to. If you're 22
37:44
and still learning and have no money, it's fine. Get Jack Daniels. Put a
37:48
lot of Coke in it. Like Coca Cola, not the other Coke. Let me clarify.
37:53
On that unimaginably perfect note, Libby. If people want to find
37:57
you, where can they find you? Ah, so currently, the best way to find me
38:01
is going to be on my LinkedIn page, because I'm still in the process of
38:03
setting up my LLCs. But if you want to find me in which is Elizabeth
38:07
Libby Alders, feel free to message me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty responsive. I have
38:10
no life. I'm kind of always like that. Tells you I'm not cool. I'm like,
38:14
check out my link. Awesome. It was lovely,
38:18
lovely to speak with you and I thank you so, so much for
38:22
spending this time and telling us about what you do and have a great day,
38:25
everybody. Thanks for stopping by and love you. Mean it.
38:30
This is the chaplain counter. How many
38:33
fucks so far? We had 11 fucks in total.
38:41
We'll start actually doing this the legit way so that Neil has
38:45
the intros that he needs or supposedly he needs. Who knows?
38:49
It might be fun to just throw people into a podcast episode with no
38:53
context whatsoever. Anyways, I forgot
38:56
how to do my job. Give me a second, I'll get there. God damn
39:00
it. That's definitely gonna end up as the blurb at the end of
39:04
an episode. Need to remember that.
39:07
Okay.