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Do You Think Mary Ever Yelled At Jesus? · Not Right Now

• 0:00
  And also we kind of had this witchy feeling of like, we're women, ergo, we are allowed to do what we want because we are oppressed by the church de facto, so I'm not taking you to church.
• 0:09
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this. We'll be talking about/crashing out over topics like- "Mom, what's a coup?" during morning carpool.
• 0:24
  Air quality alerts, and yes, you do have to wear deodorant. It's not an advice show. It's a you're not alone, and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kinda show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches.
• 0:36
  And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important Not Important. You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website NotRightNow.show..show.
• 0:47
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• 0:55
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• 1:00
  [upbeat music] All right, I've got a little housekeeping to do before we get into today's convo, uh, because there is a lot going on in, [laughs] in the broader world and in our world right now, and I wanna make sure you are being told about it.
• 1:22
  First, my other show, The Most Important Question, is in the middle of a series I'm genuinely excited about, where I sit down with candidates endorsed by our friends at Run For Something and who are running for state and local offices.
• 1:35
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• 1:44
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• 1:56
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• 2:06
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• 2:18
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• 2:26
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• 2:42
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• 2:52
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• 3:01
  In our What Can I Do weekly newsletter, we are highlighting some key Pride-related actions in the app for this month, and always, frankly. And now I have been so excited to announce this.
• 3:14
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• 3:23
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• 3:37
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• 3:46
  And finally, on the Not Right Now side of things, if you missed our most recent episode about being the hangout house, please go back and listen.
• 3:53
  Good news since then, Claire has decided she wants nothing to do with being the hangout house.
• 3:57
  So we're doing a bonus episode soon where we answer all of your end of the school year, summer transition-related questions, so please send them on in to questions@notrightnow.show.
• 4:07
  Again, all the links are always in your show notes. All right. Welcome to Not Right Now, something we forget to say all the time. I'm Quinn.
• 4:15
  I'm apparently wearing a shirt that's the same color as the background, so that's fantastic. We have a guest today. She's awesome. Her name is Megan Murphy-Gill.
• 4:23
  She's a Chicago-based Episcopal priest, former hospital chaplain. She's a mom and the author of the book The Sacred Life of Bread: Uncovering the Mystery of an Ordinary Loaf, which is just fantastic.
• 4:35
  Megan's writing on food and spirituality and culture has appeared in The New York Times, in Chicago Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Vice, New York Magazine, Modern Farmer, the Chicago Tribune, the Utne Reader, uh, National Catholic Reporter, and many more.
• 4:50
  I'm not gonna read them all here. We had just such a wonderful conversation. This one definitely could have gone on longer if I didn't have to deal with my kids. [laughs] Not right now.
• 4:59
  You can keep up with Megan's work at her very occasional Substack called God Talk, which is a delight, uh, and it's in the link in our show notes. Please enjoy this conversation with Megan.
• 5:09
  [upbeat music] I was looking back for, like, a photo of his last day of kindergarten, and there's all these pictures of him hugging James and holding hands and laying together. So last night I...
• 5:20
  Paul's had a big growth spurt, and James is really short, and Paul's really tall, and I said, "Hug each other so I can see the difference," and the best I could get was that Paul gi- gently touched James on the shoulder for a second, and that was it.
• 5:32
  [laughs] That was all I got. That's where we- Yeah... uh, and it, and like my kids- Mm-hmm... are pretty close, but it's still just, like, I, I'm not here, I, you know.
• 5:39
  I told my wife, like, I saw some quotes like, "Never forget, you know, your children didn't choose to be born, and they didn't choose their parents." I was like, "I don't care. You're welcome." Yeah. I'm just-
• 5:50
  That's right... sorry. You want them to be decent people 'cause yeah- Yes... I mean, I always... Anytime Albie acts like that, I just think, "I know that they're not gonna do that in the real world." Yeah.
• 5:59
  "They're just getting it all out with me."Yeah, I don't- But I hope, yes, I hope they're not doing that outside of our house. Right. Yeah.
• 6:08
  I get, I mean, when en- when they're all not here, I'm good at giving myself that talk, and then there's other times where I'm like, if you all... Like, I was telling Quinn last night, I gave James a challenge.
• 6:17
  I was like, "You, can you talk to us without asking us for something ever?" 'Cause it's just constant, and I'm like, I want you to see me as a human.
• 6:24
  I know that's, like, not, that's actually probably kind of, like, outrageous to expect. But, like, it, it har- I'm like, how do people have a good attitude about this all the time?
• 6:34
  'Cause I'm feeling bad about my attitude right now, so. S- Clare, I think this is, like, the best idea you've ever had, genuinely. I've put it in our show notes. Megan, do you know what the Bechdel Test is? I do, yes.
• 6:45
  Okay. Yep, so my wife is a screenwriter, so constantly wrestling with that. But I think this is the parenting Bechdel test. Can your child speak to you for a whole day without asking for something? Yeah.
• 6:56
  How about an hour? Like, an hour. Or a fucking hour, or, like, one morning before the school bus. A day I wouldn't discuss. Right.
• 7:01
  Or even, I feel like with Albie is sometimes they f- forget to ask things, and then just expect things to happen for them. Mm-hmm. Like, they get up.
• 7:08
  I watch them get up this, our, we live in a condo, and it's reversed, and the bedrooms are downstairs.
• 7:12
  And I was sitting on the couch having my coffee, looking at my phone, and they come up the stairs and they said, "Morning, Mama," and they went and sat at the kitchen island, and just sat there. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, yep.
• 7:23
  And I was like, "What are you doing?" Food. Uh-huh. Food goes here. Yeah.
• 7:27
  Well, your job is to make sure that they don't end up, and Andrew's job, not just you obviously, but they don't end up like my dad, who I to- I, Quinn, I forgot if I told you this or not, but on Memorial Day weekend, I'll try to condense this story.
• 7:41
  But everything is fucked with my family, and I ended up having to host Memorial Day at my parents' house.
• 7:48
  And I'm doing all this cooking, and my dad, who only grilled the burgers, looked at an onion unchopped on the counter at his house and said, "No onion?"
• 7:57
  M- not, "Can you slice this onion," or- That is some trademark Boomer shit. Yeah. And so [laughs] Mm-hmm. I dunno.
• 8:06
  And they forgot a chair for me, so Paul was sitting on my mom's walker at the table, and I was getting mad about it. And then Paul was enjoying the walker, which made me mad.
• 8:15
  And so yeah, at the very least say, "Can I please have some onion?" You know, instead of just sitting at the counter expecting the- Do you mind chopping that, please? Yeah. Yeah, something. It's so easy. Oh my- Simple.
• 8:24
  No, but- No. Oh. Would you chop that? [sighs] No. How did you respond? I said... Oh, you know what I did? I did a sarcastic apology. Yeah. But he doesn't get it, 'cause he d- he go, you know, that's just the way he is.
• 8:38
  Yeah. So I was like, "I'm so sorry, I didn't think of that." And then he was like, "It's okay." And then I wanted to be like, "I wasn't really apologizing, it is you who should apologize," but.
• 8:45
  [laughs] I do that to James sometimes too. "Oh, I'm sorry, I hope you have a better mom next time," and so. And I wonder why he, like, you know, isn't coming to me with, like, fun, sweet stories and things like that.
• 8:58
  Mm-hmm. Megan, how's your May-cember going? Welcome to the show. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. It's great. I don't feel like I ever get to complain about my kid.
• 9:06
  My Sem- my May-cember is weird because, uh, I've been in this job that has been really, like, all-encompassing for the last two years. And so Andrew has really taken the lead on a lot of parenting stuff. Mm.
• 9:19
  Which means I find out a th- about things kinda too late. In some ways it's been great, 'cause I'm like, "That's your problem now, it's not mine." But as it's, as things are winding down, I am, I've been kind of absent.
• 9:32
  I'm gonna be honest, I've been a little bit of an absentee parent. But I'm actually winding down at my job. My last Sunday is this Sunday, and so that has been kinda taking over.
• 9:42
  I'm trying to think of what Albie has had. I mean, we've... Someone told me, "Your kid is really scheduled." And I thought all kids were really scheduled. Yeah. Does that person have kids? They do.
• 9:53
  I don't know what they're doing with their life. But I don't know, we have, like, choristers. So Albie's a chorister at the cathedral, which is, it's, that is a all, uh, that is an all-involved thing.
• 10:02
  It's three days a week. Wow. And they're not really done until June. I'm sorry, I'm rambling, 'cause I was trying to think of what is my May-cember. My May-cember is very self-involved. I'm just winding down my stuff.
• 10:12
  Good. Tell Quinn about your job, what your gig was, and tell our, our To Be listeners what you're working on.
• 10:17
  So I am an interim rector, which means I am the priest who comes in between what's called a settled or a called rector. So, like, the priest of a church is, at an Episcopal church, is called by, it's called the vestry.
• 10:32
  They're not appointed, they are, basically apply and go through a job process, and the church themselves hires them.
• 10:38
  So when one rector leaves, there's this process that not all churches do, but most, I think everyone should do it, but problem is it's a little bit expensive.
• 10:47
  So the person who comes in kind of cleans up old processes, does a lot of, like, organizational development work with them, helps them to do some self-reflecting.
• 10:58
  I've got, like, a number of tools I use to see, like, where were we? Where are we now? Where do we wanna be? And my job, th- for this particular one, has been really looking at, like, just administration stuff.
• 11:11
  So it's been all-encompassing with administration. There was no administration. Oh, geez. So a lot of admin, huh? A lot of admin, yeah. Yeah. Do you enjoy the admin stuff? I do. I mean, I, that's weird.
• 11:25
  That's a hard question. I think I'm good at it, which makes it easy. People need it.
• 11:29
  So it's, I mean- Quinn, I don't know if you guys had this going on in Virginia or if you're following at all, but in Chicago, and I know Megan, you're not obviously Catholic, but in Chicago a lot of the parishes have been dwindling.
• 11:39
  Well, I'm a Catholic through and through till the day I die. Yeah. Well, the, yeah, that's, you know, in your bones. But they've been combining parishes in Chicago because they've been having these dwindling populations.
• 11:49
  But they don't have any kind of expert to come along and make the, you know, to let these communities learn how to correspond together. Mm.
• 11:56
  And sometimes you'll have people who speak literally different languages, you know, have complete- Right. Yeah. And then, but it's on them-To make this happen.
• 12:03
  And as someone who does a little bit of freelancing in the consulting world, you're like, "If these were businesses, the person in charge would be making so much money doing this-" Oh my God...
• 12:11
  type of organizational change. Yeah. But otherwise- America's entire economy is propped up by those kinda guys. Yeah.
• 12:16
  I mean, I actually been thinking maybe that's, I chose the wrong life because I could be making a lot more money. I mean, I read all their books, like, that's what I do, so. Yeah. Yeah.
• 12:25
  So a- what have you, do you have to then listen to the old folks who are like, "Well, we didn't used to do it like this," or, "I'm mad that the priest, you know, whatever, has an accent that's hard to understand," or, you know, I mean, those are things I think of from parishioners.
• 12:40
  But yeah, do you get, do you have to handle those sort of things? No, it's so interesting. It's, they're different. Um, it's different but the same.
• 12:46
  I think people in the Episcopal Church would love to be having, have priests with accents they didn't understand. Mm. We're a very white church. Yeah, so that's more... Let's see.
• 12:55
  The things I have dealt with was, it is a lot of, "Well, the previous rector didn't do it that way." And- Yeah. Yeah. That's right, but your next rector might. And my job here- Okay...
• 13:05
  is to set things up for success for your next rector, so. I, today is day one as president of the board of my children's club swim team, which I swam for- Mm... about 100 years ago.
• 13:18
  And the previous board was a little negligent and- Mm. Yes. I am similarly, "This is the way it's gonna go now. Here's how we're gonna get stuff done."
• 13:28
  Yeah, and the majority of my work the past two years has basically been shoring up a negligent board. We call it a vestry.
• 13:35
  And I wouldn't call them negligent, I just don't think anyone ever taught them how they're supposed to function in a church. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 13:42
  And I mean, and then so I of course come at it with a lot of theological and, you know, inspirational and spirit-led stuff. This is your job.
• 13:50
  This is how you remain accountabil- accountable, and this is how you maintain a democratic process in a church. And, you know, they elect you, and so you have these responsibilities. And that's really...
• 14:01
  It's just so funny 'cause I think about most people who go to seminary don't ever think, this is what they're gonna... I mean, frankly, I think it's what you need to do to have a suc- a successful thriving parish.
• 14:13
  But most people think, "I'm just gonna be a really good pastoral caregiver, and I'm gonna preach really good sermons, and I'm gonna have beautiful liturgy." My wife and I talked about that with her writing.
• 14:22
  You always think it's about doing the work, right? But often you have to work on the business or the parish or whatever it might be because otherwise there's no, again, administration or functionality to the whole thing.
• 14:33
  But that should let you actually do a better job with the work, right? Yeah. And that's ultimately, that's what I...
• 14:41
  This is so in the weeds and so nerdy about my job, but doing the interim work I specifically is so that the next person can do those things. Sure. Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
• 14:50
  You can actually be, work on preaching, and can work on good pastoral caregiving, and actually do the work that a priest is supposed to be doing.
• 14:59
  Well, Megan, the priest at, I don't know if you followed this, I forget if we talked about this, but the priest at our kids' parish lost his job because he had a little secret fund, and he was funneling a lot of the money from the parish into the fund.
• 15:12
  And it's really disappointing, and also even more disappointing is that [laughs] we're like, "Could be worse. Catholic priest-" Yeah, could be worse... could be worse." Yeah. And I don't even know what to say.
• 15:23
  And it was, I mean, Paul, my s- my kid, didn't, he wasn't thinking about it that much, but it was kind of ironic 'cause this all came up right before the kids' confirmation.
• 15:32
  And for their school and church, they had to go to church every week.
• 15:37
  In addition to the weekly mass that they have at school, they had to also go to Sunday mass and present a signed bulletin to sh- to prove that they actually went.
• 15:45
  And I was like, if I were a kid, I would be wondering why do I have to follow these rules if the priests are not following the rules?
• 15:52
  But it didn't occur to Paul to put that all together and, you know, he just kept his eye on the prize. But pretty damn depressing and I don't... And someone told me about the new priest who's coming in and- Yes...
• 16:01
  the bar is pretty low, but also no one's rushing to fill the void, so I have no, no input. But, uh, yeah. Yeah, that's being in the Catholic Church, you absolutely have no input. Yeah.
• 16:10
  You're just gonna get, you're, it's gonna get assigned. Yes.
• 16:14
  And it's kinda sad 'cause my dad is a cradle Catholic, and we'll get into this, but he's given a lot to the parish, and he was pretty disenchanted, I think, when he realized that, like, when they had to combine parishes, like, all that money, no one...
• 16:27
  That you don't get anything for that. Which not like he thought he would, but I think he thought that maybe the buy-in would, you know, result in something. And- Yeah...
• 16:35
  and I feel, it was a combination of feeling bad for him and also a tiny bit of schadenfreude, you know, as a boomer man being like, "Aw, you can't just pay for things and expect it to turn out the right way."
• 16:45
  But- Yeah... anyway, circling way far back to introduce Megan and Quinn.
• 16:50
  So Megan, I think originally we got in touch because you were editing at the time at US Catholic Magazine, which is a way more progressive magazine than it sounds like it should be, at least to me.
• 17:00
  When you first came to me and you were, you had me write something about, I think, what to do when you encounter doubt, I wanna say, and is that, does that sound familiar to you?
• 17:10
  We also had kids at the same time, and so our kids went to the same daycare as well. So we came up as witches talking about God together. Does that, is that- Yeah... does that ring true to you or have a different memory?
• 17:20
  The, the story that I remember assigning to you was about sex ed for kids. Oh, yeah. That was a nice one. Yes, and I loved doing that story.
• 17:28
  That was the story I learned that our pediatrician is the bomb 'cause I interviewed him about talking to kids about sex, and he said it starts with consent. And he- Right...
• 17:38
  'cause he would say, like, when the kids are old enough, he would say, "I'm gonna look at your privates now, and it's okay 'cause I'm your doctor and your parents are here."
• 17:46
  And then he talked also about how often kids would come out to him, and he referred to that as an honor. And I have goosebumps right now. I was like, "God, he's great. He's really a great person."
• 17:55
  And Quinn, he's the same doctor who was the boys' baseball coach who wouldn't give James the game ball when James thought he deserved it, and I was like, "Good coach too." Oh, God. Fuck yeah. Yeah.
• 18:06
  Um-But, but it was a really fun piece to work on.
• 18:09
  And I talked to our friend Elizabeth, also one of your sisters in theology, and she talked about how, you know, the, talking with the body is a sacred thing and it's a beautiful thing and, you know, and it was...
• 18:20
  I really appreciated that assignment, 'cause you would think, again, Catholic, you know, prudish, you know, repressed, and that, you know, those things are all, have their own place.
• 18:29
  But I was happy to get to explore that and look at the ways that we can, like, you don't have to lock yourself up necessarily, so.
• 18:35
  And then I did another piece for you about should you force your kid to go to church, and I made the mistake of looking at the comments at that. But people did not agree with how I felt about it.
• 18:44
  That magazine, we would get the most insane comments on everything. It was back during, you know, when we had c- conversations about whether or not we needed to have comments on our articles.
• 18:53
  Because of the art- the magazine was called US Catholic, even though it had been, had a long history of being a progressive Catholic magazine, it, it just invited the worst. Yeah. As anything with, with God does.
• 19:04
  Like, I had never learned before that, like, people hate that some girls are altar servers, and I was a girl altar server. Yeah.
• 19:10
  My, my dad is still proud of how well I did the incense, 'cause not everyone can do the incense. It's true. No, there's a rhythm to it, for sure. Yeah.
• 19:18
  So Megan, tell Quinn and p- you know, everyone listening a little bit about your journey from, into being a priest, you know, and to US Catholic and your, how you came to make a career out of faith.
• 19:29
  Make a career out of faith. [laughs] It is als- I've never framed it that way. That's so interesting. Let's see. So I grew up as a Roman Catholic, as an Irish Catholic from the Northeast. Mm-hmm.
• 19:39
  I'm the first to go to college in my family, so like, really working class Irish Catholics.
• 19:44
  My parents divorced, and my mom was a single parent, and we didn't really go to church, but, like, being an Irish Catholic was just, like, part of who I was, my, part of my identity.
• 19:54
  You know, I did all my sacraments on time, although I, you talk- people now talk about their kids getting confirmed in eighth grade, but for me, it was when we were juniors in high school, which was probably important for my own development and where I ended up going.
• 20:07
  Even though we didn't go to church, every time we went, I loved it. Mm-hmm. I loved the music. I loved the theater of it. I loved thinking about what we were doing and saying.
• 20:17
  I, I used to read a lot of books in high school on just spirituality and faith, and even astrology, just kind of this more mystical stuff has always really intrigued me.
• 20:27
  And then when I was in college, I remember going to a Catholic church when I was feeling pretty lonely, like at Easter. College felt very lonely to me because nobody in my family had been before- Mm-hmm...
• 20:41
  and felt like I was navigating things that everyone seemed to understand that I didn't understand.
• 20:45
  By the time I was a senior, I started to go to a, like, the student church, the student Catholic church in my college, and, 'cause my roommate was a Catholic, and she's, "You should just come with us."
• 20:54
  And I'd gotten interested in that because at the same time I was studying political science and political theory, and I just had this moment where I thought social justice, social j- social tradition.
• 21:06
  These things kinda clicked for me, and I wanted to explore more of that. I had never intended to become a priest. That just hadn't ima- entered my imagination as something possible.
• 21:16
  It wasn't that I ever thought that a woman shouldn't be able to be a priest. I just... I even remember say- answering people when they asked me, "Well, why don't you become a priest?"
• 21:26
  I said, "Well, I don't have a calling to be that. That's not for me." There was a brief period where I thought I would enter a convent or become a nun, but one of the cool nuns, you know- Mm-hmm, yeah...
• 21:34
  who aren't in habits, yeah. Um, 'cause that seemed really intriguing to me, but I always say I just really like boys [laughs] s- too much. [laughs] Yeah. So that wasn't for me.
• 21:43
  I ended up getting a job as a campus minister at UIC for a short period of time, and through that, that, the priest there said, "I really think you should go to school- Mm... and study theology." So I did.
• 21:55
  I went to the same school as the Pope, went to seminary, same seminary as the Pope, CTU in Chicago, Catholic Theological Union, and I thought that I was going to be an academic.
• 22:08
  This is also shortly after the sex abuse clergy- class sex abuse scandal broke.
• 22:14
  And I thought, "Okay, I should study theology, and I should come back and teach in the seminary and be part of the process of helping to form better priests."
• 22:24
  And I got really into theology of priesthood and theology of orders and all of that sort of thing, and I was the only woman in those classes. Jesus.
• 22:33
  I thought I was going to do a PhD, and then I was offered this job at US Catholic.
• 22:37
  When I was at that magazine as an editor, that is also when two things happened by the end of 2012, and that was Affordable Care Act passed, and the bishops, the US- the Catholic bishops acted like complete assholes about this pro- this project that these women who I'd interviewed, these nuns had been working on for Affordable C- Care, affordable healthcare for decades, and they had been really part of this process to make that happen.
• 23:02
  And then the bishops, these male bishops could just waltz in and say, "We don't support this because abortion." Yeah. Ugh. And I just got really disenchanted with that.
• 23:13
  There was also a proce- it was a, it's, for me, it's always process is why I think I'm a good interim, is there was a change in the liturg- I don't know if you're still a Catholic.
• 23:20
  So there was a change in the translation of the liturgy from the Latin to the English, and the process by which that happened was horrible. Mm.
• 23:27
  There had been, like, people working on new translations for dec- for a decade, and then, uh, the powers that be decided, "No, we want literal translations." Mm-hmm. That's why your liturgy sucks now. Sorry.
• 23:38
  I think it sucks. It does suck. No, it does suck.
• 23:40
  [laughs] And the reason they wanted literal translations is they wanted to be able to use English to translate from, from the Latin, not from Latin to Chinese, but Latin to English to Chinese.
• 23:50
  Anyway, and I just thought, "Oh, this is a church that if this is the process for everything, and it's n- this is never gonna change." Mm.
• 23:58
  And so even though I did become the managing editor of that magazine, at that point I'd stopped going to a Catholic church. And then I started going, and I spent actually three years away. I didn't do anything.
• 24:09
  Then Albie was born, and by the time Albie was a few months old, I realized that I just wanted a community-My friend one time described it as, "It's nice to go to church because you can teach your kids how to get along with people who aren't their family or friends."
• 24:26
  Mm. And I thought, "I want that for my kid." Also, they had free [laughs] childcare on Sunday. Yeah. Sure. [laughs] So I thought, "You know what, Andrew?
• 24:36
  We can go and put Albie in the nursery, and we can just sit quietly- Yeah... for an hour." That's not weird. And you're an adult. I'll believe anything for that. And have some coffee right afterward. Yeah. Yeah.
• 24:44
  So I was like, "This is great. We're gonna do this." And my friend, I had been to his ordination at this church. He was also a former Roman, became an Episcopal priest. And I started...
• 24:56
  Some people might say it's a mystical experience at his ordination. I- maybe it was, like, a deeply psychological thing happening to me, is that I wept- Mm... at his ordination from a place that was...
• 25:08
  I mean, I ugly cried. I was like- Mm... "What is happening to me? What- Right... what is going on?"
• 25:12
  I looked at my friend Steve, who was with me, and I was, like, hiding my face 'cause I felt so ug- I felt so ugly and weird that I was crying so deeply. Anyway, I s- we went there, and we were like, "Yeah, this is nice.
• 25:25
  We're just gonna be, like, twice-a-month people." Mm-hmm. And I'm never gonna become an Episcopalian. Mm-hmm. I'm a Catholic, and my family's Irish.
• 25:34
  And this is, you know, Episcopalians are descended from Church of England. So yeah, that was the stupidest thing I ever said. That's a... I am jealous of that kind of s- like, spiritual, deep cry, actually.
• 25:46
  Like, have you ever had that kind of experience since then? No. Also, I mean, I wouldn't say I l- it wasn't great. I didn't know it was happening to me. Mm-hmm. I mean- Well-... I'm not particularly...
• 25:57
  I always say that I'm an expressive person, but I'm not the most in touch with what I'm feeling at the time. Sure. So.
• 26:03
  Y- I think it's very interesting 'cause you are a feminist and a modern person and a progressive person, and also make room for these sort of encounters with faith, with- which I, like...
• 26:12
  I don't know, it's, like, important to ta- I think it's always important to ta- to shine a light on progressive people of faith, basically. Mm.
• 26:18
  Just to show that, uh, the, uh, you know, Southern evangelists don't own this shit, you know? But, um- They're a blip in history. Quinn, what was your, uh, faith r- like, upbringing? Did you do...
• 26:28
  You guys are Ca- like, Irish Catholic too, right? Did you do any of the sacraments? Loaded question, loaded answer. Family was Irish Catholic, grew up in Jersey. Parents
• 26:37
  both walked away from the church at some point long before me.
• 26:40
  My dad went to a Catholic private high school in Jersey but, you know, was annoying and questioned everything all the time, and then was a religious studies major at his liberal arts college.
• 26:51
  They went and lived in Israel during the Yom Kippur War, and all these different things, but in a very sort of academic atheist way. My mom's parents kept going, and occasionally I would go with them.
• 27:02
  But, I mean, m- m- my religion was baseball and girls, basically. But I was always encouraged, my siblings and I were always encouraged, house is just filled with books of read about it all, learn about it all. Wow.
• 27:16
  This is, you know, the Western sort of, you know, for a lot of folks, at least in the '90s and such, was, like, especially growing up in Virginia, it was so much just church on Sundays and whatever else happens.
• 27:26
  And they were like, "That's not necessarily the way the faith works throughout the rest of the world- Right... by any extent."
• 27:33
  And they were like, "We don't really care if you end up deciding you believe in something or many things or whatever it is, as long as you don't use it to push it on anybody or use it to hurt anybody," 'cause a lot of people throughout history have done that.
• 27:43
  Right. And that's not awesome. They're like, "But there are, you know, a fundamental set of values to extract from basically most of them, you know, whether you believe rocks are sacred or a guy on a cross."
• 27:55
  And those were pretty [laughs] those were beaten into us, which I appreciate. You know, sort of a- Mm-hmm... fundamental principle level.
• 28:01
  And then I ended up, of course, going to the same liberal arts school and majoring in religious studies and focusing on- Wow...
• 28:07
  religious warfare and all these different things, and traveled, and I lived in the Middle East, and- Wow... all of the different things. So I am probably about as atheist as a person can get- [laughs]...
• 28:17
  without being a militant monster about it. Again, not gonna push that on anybody either. But I do believe we have an enormous hole where those communities used to be, certainly. Mm-hmm.
• 28:27
  I do believe that has provided folks with a lot of, like you said, formalized but also an inadvertent community with folks, like you said, that aren't necessarily your family or friends outside of that direct application of it once a week or home- Yeah...
• 28:41
  or whatever, or holidays. But obviously, you know, it's, it's got its issues as well, certainly. You know, I think everybody should see Spotlight, for example- Yeah... you know, to understand where we are.
• 28:50
  But everything is. There's, every institution is imperfect, and we've burned most of them down at this point. But to me, you know, it really comes down to, and how I'm raising my kids is, same thing. Mm-hmm.
• 29:00
  It's, "Hey, man, your friends believe whatever they believe. That's wonderful for them. That's wonderful for their family.
• 29:04
  That's, if they get community from it, and comfort, and education, and a set of morals that's not just a hobby, that's, you know- Mm-hmm... a big thing in the rest of our work, is your principles can't just be part-time.
• 29:16
  Sure. You know, can't be a hobby. You have to apply them, or else it's a hobby. Then I don't care, great. But it's a complicated one, but not necessarily always so complicated for me, I guess.
• 29:27
  Does that- Did you get confirmed, Quinn? Oh, God no. No. My parents, like- Oh, really? My parents never took us. My- Oh... if I wanted to go with my grandma, who gave me a St.
• 29:35
  Christopher's medal, which you would appreciate, I immediately lost, um- Oh. [laughs] So- Right, right... just about as I want, she was just, like, well, like, fucking perfect. [laughs] Way to go. Well, St.
• 29:46
  Christopher doesn't show you where to go. He just helps you faith. No, but I mean, the lesson is there, though. I mean, obviously. Yeah. It was amazing. She was like, "Chef's kiss. Well done."
• 29:55
  No, I'd go with them sometimes, but also, you know, went with other friends to stuff and this and that.
• 29:59
  But again, like, we had the kids in the New Age, heavy fundamentalist stuff, doing the praying just outside the school, the public high school boundaries when the
• 30:10
  church, if you wanna call it that, opened across the street, and trying to radicalize other kids. And we also had, you know, the youth groups that could be, again, very supportive- Right...
• 30:18
  but maybe didn't want, you know, your gay brother to come, and- Right... so we saw a lot of flavors of all of that. So I appreciated, again, that my parents were also like, "Here's also the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
• 30:29
  Maybe read that." Oh. "Super cool." My gosh. Um- 'Cause I'm jealous of thatAgain, tho- they weren't pushed on us. They, but they were like- Yeah... the questions and the answers are here. This is where.
• 30:38
  And they were like, "Most people read them literally. Uh, suggest not doing that." Again, there's lessons to be found, but, uh- Yeah... that, that is my history.
• 30:46
  Quinn, did you guys have, did your family give you any pressure about baptizing the kids, or everyone was hands off by that point? No. My grandparents were long gone. They knew how we felt about it.
• 30:55
  Yeah, there was n- a- again, it always came back to be a good human, you know? Mm-hmm. Which you can get the reading from any of these things, or you don't have to. Mm-hmm.
• 31:02
  But if that's where you find it and apply it, great. They'll call us on that every time. Mm-hmm.
• 31:07
  We're in an interesting place, 'cause my dad is a cradle Catholic, the kind that I think it's probably easy to be when you're sort of like a boomer man. And again- Oh, yeah...
• 31:15
  everyone sort of served up to you, and I've had different issues with his faith over my life, 'cause it was,
• 31:22
  for a long time I just thought of church as a thing you have to go to, and not enjoy or think about, or anything like that. It's something to endure, and something imposed upon you.
• 31:32
  But I had, I really enjoyed my Catholic school, and then I ended up going to Georgetown, not 'cause it was Catholic, that, the, or the Jesuit-ness of it was sort of incidental.
• 31:41
  But then once I got to college, I finally was s- like, going to mass and being spoken to, you know? And not just being spoken at by, you know.
• 31:51
  And that, or not just clocking, like waiting for, I don't know, Megan, when was the last time you went to a Catholic mass? But you always get those milestones when you're like, "Oh yeah, finally, communion.
• 31:59
  That means we're like, in the home stretch," you know? Mm-hmm. Um- I feel that way every Sunday we celebrate mass. [laughs] Yeah. You're, yeah.
• 32:05
  Or like when the homily is long and you're like, "Goddammit, who is doing, like, why is the priest think, like we wanna hear this?"
• 32:10
  But I finally heard them speaking to us, and then once I had Paul, I kinda was in the same spot as you, where we lived in Edgewater, not far from where, I mean, we went to the same daycare, our kids did.
• 32:22
  And we kinda walked into a church, and there were, I mean, talking about third spaces, there was, I, it was just so revelatory to sit and be quiet, and he was looking at the stained glass, and then everyone's looking at him so kindly.
• 32:37
  So I wouldn't say that lured me into a new level of faith, but I saw that there is like a, and I know that's not uncommon at all, that kids send people back to the church.
• 32:44
  But it's been interesting to filter that obligation of my dad o- like, through to the kids, because that's still there in some part, and it's weird to put it on someone else.
• 32:53
  But also, I don't expect my s- my kids to believe the same way that my dad did. And also as a woman, too, is very...
• 33:02
  So someone, part of the reason this conversation all came up is that someone on Evil Witches said, "You've never talked about why you're Catholic and do your kids go to Catholic school, and who pays for it?"
• 33:10
  Which I thought was kinda like a touchy question, but sort of pertinent as well. Mm-hmm. And my dad pays for it, 'cause it is that important to him. Yeah.
• 33:18
  And he offered to pay for Paul's to go to Catholic high school as well, but Paul wants to go to pub- the public high school, and my dad, to his credit, not making it a big deal.
• 33:28
  But he was, when Paul was at the start of confirmation, and those who are listening who don't know what confirmation is, Megan, would you say it's appropriate to kind of equate confirmation with a bar mitzvah-ish at the age range, sort of, and sort of saying, "I'm committing to this faith"?
• 33:43
  I mean, sort of. It's kind of a weird sacrament. Some people believe that it really happens at a baptism, and we should only be baptizing adults.
• 33:49
  I always consider it more of like a reaffirmation of baptismal vows, especially if you've done that as a baby. So it's, it is more associated when, with having the capacity to say, "Yes, I want to do this.
• 34:00
  This is a part of what I- Mm... I'm doing." I mean, 'cause I haven't studied Judaism, but I, that's my understanding. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I- A little bit. I don't know. I actually don't know.
• 34:09
  I don't, I wouldn't, I don't feel comfortable saying, "Yes, it's the same," 'cause I don't know enough about Judaism. Yeah. No, I wouldn't say it's ex- yeah, I wouldn't, but I equate it-ish.
• 34:16
  So I mean, just d- I was asking Paul early in the process, "Do you like this? Do you like getting confirmed?" You know, and he said, "Not really."
• 34:25
  And part of it was that he and his friends were talking about how much it sucked that they had to, you know, do these retreats and go to mass and whatever.
• 34:32
  And on the one hand we're like, "Yeah, it does suck," 'cause I was there. I remember what it's like. It sucks.
• 34:36
  But also it was annoying that as a parent you're like, I sh- you know, Quinn, it's sort of like the schlepping around. Yeah. You're like, "I'm enabling all of this. We're driving you.
• 34:44
  We, this is all part of your faith formation." But I checked in with him again at the end of the, you know, right before he actually got confirmed, and I said, "Do you feel the same way?" And he said, "No.
• 34:54
  I, like, I, I get it now." And I was like, "Okay." He, he didn't wanna go into it deeply, and I wasn't gonna stir it up in him.
• 35:00
  But I told him, Steve and I were s- we were getting kind of annoyed, 'cause he and his friend were being so flippant about, "Once I, once we do this I'm never going back to church, and I'm just in it for the money."
• 35:10
  I don't know what money they thought they were gonna get for confirmation. I'm not sure where they got that information from.
• 35:14
  And Steve and I had the sit-down with him, being like, "Listen, we know it's not fun for you to do all this, and we'll allow a certain amount of shit talk, up to a point.
• 35:23
  But also, there is something bigger at play here." And it was weird to sort of try to articulate. There's, this is a family tradition. Mm.
• 35:30
  And not necessarily saying, like, this is about belief, but this is about a culture that you're a part of and your fa- like, and your deal, sort of like the deal you make to be part of the family, basically.
• 35:39
  And then you can go on and make the kind of choices you wanna make later in life.
• 35:43
  But, and maybe you'll even marry a Catholic person, and then you guys will be so excited, 'cause you'll be able to dig out your confirmation, you know,
• 35:50
  certificate and all that kinda shit and, you know, trundle on down the path.
• 35:54
  But yeah, it was a weird conversation to have, but I'm glad that we did, 'cause sort of going back to the stories for US Catholic, these kind of stories are, always involve some sort of discomfort, and, and probing things that you don't have the answer to, which was not fun.
• 36:07
  But I'm like, I guess that's part of the gig. That's what faith, that's why you call it faith and not facts, right? I was thinking about the idea that Quinn had this, had all these books around to answer questions.
• 36:18
  But I think that most people don't have that. Mm. Like, I mean, I definitely didn't have any, anything to, like, explore, like, what it meant to be a human in this world- Mm-hmm... in my immediate home.
• 36:30
  And I think it's at its best that when we give, when kids get some kind of a religious education, like when religious education is doing... what it should be doing. It's- Yeah...
• 36:41
  should really be about how to be a human in this world. Yeah. And how to live in this world as a human being with other human beings, and not just with other human beings, but with the entire created world.
• 36:50
  Just how to be a person. It seems to me that there's just- I mean, I think that some of that has shifted to school.
• 36:57
  I mean, I just think about with social emotional learning that's part of the curriculum that Albie has at school, and I'm like, wow. It's- that's a lot to put on teachers. Yeah. Yes, it is.
• 37:08
  I did a story for you also on social emotional learning and how that fits in with Catholic teaching, I remember.
• 37:12
  I believe that was maybe the story where I talked to some guy who told me that putting kids in time out was child abuse.
• 37:19
  That was unrelated, but that I- [laughs] That really stuck with me, 'cause I had just, I probably put him in time out earlier that day, and I bristled at the idea that time out was child abuse.
• 37:27
  But- I mean, I was abused my entire childhood. I remember standing in a corner with my nose in the corner, next to my sister. Oh. What did you guys do? Laugh. That was the point. Like, my dad was- [laughs] Oh...
• 37:41
  put us in a corner together, and at first it was very annoying, and then it became funny. So, so Albie's singing with the, in this choir at the cathedral.
• 37:49
  Are they, is, are they also getting, like, a religious education at the same- Yeah... you know, are you- so what does that look like for them? Yeah.
• 37:56
  So I mean, formation for kids is such a, I mean, I will, I think I told you this earlier on the phone, like, I'm not an expert in children's formation.
• 38:03
  In fact, every time I've get, gotten hired, people are like, "Oh, we can make the woman in charge of formation for kids," and I'm like, "That's not my deal."
• 38:11
  But I also do think it's incredibly important, and part of h- why we ended up where we are now as a family, with me being a priest, is because a lot of the questions and the way Albie was asking, and the way Albie was being.
• 38:23
  And it became really clear to me that giving this kid some formation opportunities was gonna be really important. The thing with c- the choir, it's a very kind of old-fashioned way to do formation for kids.
• 38:36
  It's comes out of actually English choir schools. Mm. So it is pretty old-fashioned. But the choir master, the organist director, whatever of it, is really good about, has really high expectations of those kids.
• 38:48
  They sing music that is hard for me to sing as an adult. They learn parts that are just, they learn, they're getting a music education alongside of the, of the theological stuff.
• 38:57
  And so he'll pause and he'll ask questions, "What do you think this means?" And
• 39:02
  a lot of the singing with the cathedral is, a lot of it is liturgical, and so that allows what I think is important about going to church, is when a liturgy is done well and done, I would say, I don't like to say in the right way, but when it's done well, like the liturgy and attending itself is a formation opportunity.
• 39:22
  Mm. You get this chance to wonder and listen and think about things. It's not just questions and answers. I think so much in American culture especially, we think of formation as, what's the answer to this?
• 39:34
  What happens to us after we die, right? Yeah. And I think there's just more to formation than that.
• 39:40
  There's more, I mean, to, when Albie gets to sing, they have this little community with their fellow choristers, and I remember once some- one time someone describing, like, when you sing in a choir, you're breathing together.
• 39:53
  Mm. And I thought, that's great. I mean, Albie's not having those thoughts. They're having those experiences, and to me that feels like really good formation. Yeah.
• 40:02
  That's a really nice way of putting it, and I mean, I was, you know, while I was thinking about the church thing and the confirmation, like Paul was bitching about it, and I was thinking, I wanted to be like, there's no...
• 40:13
  Most of the time it sucks for kids. Sometimes it is fun or maybe they have a nice time, but it's, you know, you're being... John Mulaney had a bit about how being a Catholic kid, people would be like, "What'd they do?
• 40:23
  What'd they make you do?" And he's like, "Well, my parents made me do everything. I didn't decide any part of my life." So you know.
• 40:29
  And I was like, I, I don't imagine there's, like, a ton of formations for kids that are, like, super fun that the kids... Maybe there are. Maybe there's different religions or it depends on the kid.
• 40:36
  But the, where the kid's like, "Yes, I can't wait to go and learn about God and probe and think," and things like that. But maybe that's just us.
• 40:45
  That said, I do think that there are, like, questions that kids ask, and that even we ask as adults, that are really hard to explore because especially as adults we would say there's actually not a correct answer to what happens to us after we die.
• 40:59
  I mean- No... the church would say we go to heaven, right? But what's heaven? And I just always think every answer just makes you have more questions. Mm-hmm. But kids don't think like that.
• 41:10
  At least this is in the experience of all the kids that I have experienced in church. They don't think like that. They're not like, "I wonder."
• 41:15
  So there's this program in the Episcopal Church called Godly Play, and it's a very Montessori-based approach to doing s- school formation, and it's for the youngest kids. And to me, I just feel like it's so reversed.
• 41:25
  It really should be for the oldest kids. Mm. So you do this telling of a parable, and you bring out this special box, and it's a gold box because parables are a gift, da, da, da.
• 41:34
  It's all this kind of silliness to me, although people love it. It's very Montessori.
• 41:39
  And you tell the story and you have these little characters, and you show the story happening of this parable that Jesus said, and then you don't ever say, "This is what this means." You say, "I wonder."
• 41:50
  So there's the parable of the, the farmer throwing the seeds, and you're like, "I wonder what his name was." Mm. "I wonder what kind of seeds they were."
• 41:58
  And it's great, but then you end up with all these kids who can't answer questions about the tradition that they're a part of. Mm.
• 42:05
  And I love those questions, but I think that those are the [laughs] questions that we should be asking kids in confirmation.
• 42:11
  At that point, they should be able to say, "Well, yeah, we do this thing when I have the Eucharist, it's this."
• 42:15
  I just am not, I don't shy away from having kind of pat answers for younger kids, knowing that the stuff is gonna open up later on. Yeah. That's, I mean, it's sort of analogous to the sex ed stuff a little bit. Right.
• 42:27
  I mean, where at certain ages and stages, you have very, you give them little bits of information, and then they get older and you are giving them way bigger...
• 42:36
  Quinn, I mean this is, again, well, it's about sex kind of, but I was telling, I did one of my little talks with Paul 'cause no one else was in the house, and he's gonna start high school next year, and the high school has-And a daycare for the kids who are moms who go...
• 42:49
  You know, and I also remember being that age and suddenly meeting kids who were way more sophisticated than me, and by which I mean talking, basically.
• 42:57
  And I told him, I was like, "You're gonna be around kids who are a lot more mature than you. And just so you know, I'm here to, you, for you to talk about it."
• 43:05
  And I'm sure he's whatever, and I'm sure he won't talk to me about it, but, you know, he's gonna go to school with Jewish kids for the first time.
• 43:10
  I think he has one Jewish kid in his class, but, you know, I don't think he knows hardcore atheists. I remember how sh- how shocked they were. There was a kid, a show on PBS when they were kids called Kindergarten.
• 43:21
  It was just, like, a documentary series about kindergarten. I think it might be on Ma- on Max. If anyone's listening, it's a good watch to watch with your kids. Not a guilt-free kinda watch, but it was just...
• 43:30
  And it was Christmastime, and they're talking to all these kids about Santa, and there's this, like, one Jewish kid, and he's, even though he's five, he just gives off this, like, 60-year-old man vibe.
• 43:40
  [laughs] And he just is, like, shaking his head, being, "There's no Santa." And my kids were so offended and shocked- [laughs]... that that would happen.
• 43:47
  But I'm like, "Yeah, that's gonna be your life soon, is like, you're gonna be around all these people who are gonna push back against you, but in a good way. That's important." But- Right...
• 43:54
  we'll see if he listened at all. I don't know. Quinn, do you ever feel ever, like, hint of whatever you consider spirituality, like, when does that strike you? If it's not God, if it's something, you know, do your...
• 44:07
  Are the... When are the moments that you feel connected to whatever we're part of right now? Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It depends, you know? People helping people- Mm-hmm... is, is pretty profound and feels...
• 44:21
  It's not rare, even though we all feel that way. There's a really compelling and frustrating actionable survey out there that our friends at Covering Climate Now did.
• 44:31
  It's a society of journalists, climate journalists around the world. And it's a study, it's called the 89% Problem, whatever.
• 44:37
  Basically, 89% of people believe that climate change is a huge problem, but that no one else cares about it but them. Mm-hmm.
• 44:44
  But if 89% of people feel that way, turns out most of us feel that way, we're just not connected in that way. And so a lot of what we're doing is trying to help people see that and feel that, participate in that.
• 44:53
  But I think there's really something there. It's very empowering to people. It's very empowering to see and take part of, whatever it might be.
• 44:59
  But I also think, just like you said, kids discovering the world, and, or what is it, the, uh, is it the Kruger effect?
• 45:04
  What is that called, where you, you learn a little bit and think you know everything, and then the more you learn, you realize you know nothing, and then you start the hard process. Mm-hmm.
• 45:10
  And I feel like that's kids reading any sort of books, right? They're like, "Oh, I got the answer. It's ha ha." You got the, the, your foot in the door.
• 45:17
  But now you're fucked, 'cause now you're gonna find out everything you don't know, you know? I remember- That's right... my oldest kid going... [laughs] My wife always calls.
• 45:24
  She's, "Oh, I get where all the white guy confidence comes from," now that she has two of them that she made.
• 45:29
  [laughs] You know, the oldest one going, you know, we were at soccer practice, whatever you wanna call it, when they were five or something. We're on the car ride home.
• 45:36
  He's still strapped in a car seat, and he's like, "I think I got soccer now." And we're like, "Cool, what's that mean? You're into it?" He's, "No, I think I'm, like, I'm good. I'm ready." I'm like, "Ready for what?"
• 45:45
  [laughs] He's, "I'm, I've got soccer down." I was like, "Do you know..." Like, my, my team I lived over there is Liverpool, and long story, their whole ethos is you'll never walk alone. That's profound- Mm-hmm...
• 45:56
  if you actually apply it equally. And I remember saying to him, "You know, Liverpool guys, they practice every day." And he's like, "Why? I don't... What are you talking about?"
• 46:04
  I was like, "Because the more you do something, the more you find out you don't know about it or how far you have to go."
• 46:10
  I was like, and that is incredibly frustrating, and hopefully at some point becomes a self-awareness that is lovely. But- Yeah... you know, when you're a kid, it's gnarly. You know?
• 46:20
  It's gnarly, but I, hopefully it is beautiful, and that's, you know, part of the reason I feel like teachers should make a million dollars baseline is- Totally... you know, the best ones who- Yeah...
• 46:29
  who have the support to do that are constantly seeking to- Mm-hmm...
• 46:32
  help kids do that as much as they can, you know, giving them books that challenge them or make them question things or introduce them to worlds and people that they just never would otherwise encounter. So I don't know.
• 46:43
  I guess that's my long answer to it. Yeah. You know, in the sort of where do you go after you die, I don't know if it's the unknown or purely atheist biological thing or, you know, the Judaism side of it.
• 46:52
  It's like, I, the certainty is, like, you're here for the next few minutes- Right... and so we're gonna use the time that we got here. Right.
• 47:00
  There's not a lot else that's concrete and promised, so I'm trying to help them. Though it drives my children crazy half the time. They're just like, "Can you, can we stop..." Like, what is the Hamilton quote?
• 47:09
  Writing like you're running out of time. They're like, "It's enough- Yeah... with the hugs. I have to go to class." So. [laughs] You know, my kid has started doing this.
• 47:18
  This sounds like I'm bragging here, but it is actually a very sweet thing. Albie is in sixth grade, and they're finishing sixth grade. And Claire knows my husband, Andrew. Andrew's really tall, 6'5". Mm-hmm.
• 47:30
  And Albie is not yet as tall as I am, and they're just waiting, 'cause they feel so- Wait, how tall are you? I'm 5'4". [laughs] Oh, okay. So they're like- Yeah... "What's it gonna be?" When is this coming for me?
• 47:41
  I'm gonna be tall, right? Oh. I'm gonna be tall. And we're like, "We don't know." [laughs] Don't know. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Also, you have- No Gary V... no control over it. No control over it. Best wishes. Yeah.
• 47:51
  I actually offer them every morning, they go, "I'm tired." And like, "Do you want some coffee?" And they're like, "No, I'm trying to grow tall." [laughs] But- That's so funny...
• 47:57
  but this, the, the thing I was gonna say is that they're still such a little kid, and I know- Mm... it's gonna change.
• 48:05
  I know it's ch- we're just on the cusp because they're just getting, they're becoming really sassy and all- Mm... the things the, the boys do. Albie is a s- their name's Albert, you know, they're- Yeah.
• 48:14
  But they identify as non-binary, so I did ask if I could say that, and Albie said yes. Okay. So, um- All right. Go Albie.
• 48:20
  They, uh, they, uh, they've, they told me, like earlier this week, they're like, "Do you know that for a hug to count, you have to hug for 15 seconds?" And I was like, "I don't think that's true.
• 48:28
  What does, what does count mean? You mean, like, you have to count for it to count?" And they're like- Mm-hmm... "No, we have to hug for 15 seconds." Oh my God.
• 48:35
  So you've been giving me a hug every morning for 15 seconds. Oh, hold onto that shit- Oh, imagine... as long as you can, man. You know what, when was the last time- So sweet...
• 48:42
  I got a hug from my kids that involved both arms? I don't, like, I have to make them, I'm, like, I get this real quick, one of these. Yeah. And I, yeah. Oh, I'm such a dick about it.
• 48:52
  I'm just, they give me, like, the pat in the morning, and I'm like, "Start over. Don't care. Does, that doesn't count."No. I got to work them. There is something about having an only child too.
• 49:01
  I mean, I think there's a little bit of that going on, but- Sure. Sure... I don't know. I hope it lasts. I don't think it will. I know it won't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get it, though.
• 49:09
  I mean, I more call Paul like a little baby. I'm like, "You little baby." I mean, he's taller than me now, but he's st- you know, because I can, and I... He's here. But I- Yeah.
• 49:18
  But it was interesting that, that you mentioned astrology, Megan, 'cause I was like, I always, I do... There is something about the solstice, like the winter and summer solstice that like gets to me, and- Yeah...
• 49:27
  and a lot of it might just be being, like a bug crawling on the planet where you're like... I don't know, but there's something very n- deep to me about the longest and shortest day of the year, and- Yeah...
• 49:37
  and that does something to me. And then, it's funny, last...
• 49:39
  And I still have this on my desk even though it's summertime, it's almost summertime now, but we, at the kids' school, there's lessons and carols, which is like- Oh, yeah...
• 49:46
  not mass, but kind of is, and it's like a lot of- Wait. You do it at this, the, during this season? During the Christmas sea- yeah. Oh. During the- Christmas season. Yeah. Yeah.
• 49:55
  I was like, who does, no one does lessons and carols now. But that's a- No. Yeah, I know. But I saved it- Okay... 'cause I, there was a song, a meditation about Mary, and it was about from her perspective.
• 50:05
  I'm gonna, I might get choked up. I'm gonna try not to. Mm-hmm. But it was, like, about her fear and just the terror and not knowing what to do, and wanting some guidance, and who am I, and what is happening to me.
• 50:17
  And I was like, boy, you don't see that ever. You never see the human side of Mary. You only see the, you know, the Madonna version of her, who is just perfect. Come to my church, you'll get a whole different... Yeah.
• 50:28
  Yeah. See, I talk about Mary all the time. Yeah. Yeah? I talk about Mary all the time. Yeah. Yeah. For different reasons than you usually hear, you know, you know, virgin and pure mother, or whatever. Yeah.
• 50:38
  I never, I don't get into that. I love Mary. I think Mary is the model for all of us. At least the, for Christians, she's the model for all of us, which is the, like- Do you think she ever yelled at Jesus?
• 50:48
  The one who took on a big adventure. What? Do you think she ever yelled at Jesus? For sure. There's an incredible book. Sorry. There's no other place to, to interject this.
• 50:59
  It's called Lamb, and it's the story of Biff, Jesus' childhood best friend. [laughs] And it is a novel. Yeah. And it is profound, but also- I'm gonna write this down... so, it is so funny.
• 51:11
  It's probably, God, I don't know, 25 years old. Lamb, the story of Biff, Jesus' childhood best friend. It's fantastic.
• 51:19
  And it's him as the third wheel with Mary, and like all the things, and Jesus going through, like when Biff starts sleeping with girls and Jesus is like, "Oh, man, what is this? What's, what are we dealing with?"
• 51:30
  It's great. But yeah, there's m- many faces to Mary, certainly.
• 51:35
  This is, again, I know we're s- we're switching between Episcopalian and Cath- Roman Catholic, but I am curious, did either of you guys read the encyclical from the Pope about AI that came out this week? No.
• 51:45
  My husband read it. I have not read it yet. Yeah. What did Andrew say about it? Andrew said he thought it was interesting and good, but that's all I got from him. Okay. Yeah. I was, I sent it off to my friend Lily too.
• 51:56
  I was like, "Did you read it?" And she says, "That's on my docket for the weekend," and I'm waiting for her to tell me what to make of it. Quinn, did you read it? I have not had a chance.
• 52:03
  My children don't let me do anything. I'm solo parenting this week, so it's- I, the most I've read is just the headlines about it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know I love this pope.
• 52:11
  There's, he can, he can, I hope he doesn't let me down, 'cause, you know, he's our White Sox pope, so you know. Yeah.
• 52:16
  But also our, like, if, you know, the Trump administration doesn't like this pope, I'm like, well, then he's awesome and I'm ride or die for him.
• 52:22
  And, but I feel- It helps that the White Sox are playing their asses off for the first time in a while, to be honest. Well- You can see the link a little bit. Yeah. Okay. What is that, what is the Jesus in the paintings?
• 52:31
  Is he doing that? There's like a, whatever. But they, I once, Steve and I, before kids, we were in Vatican City.
• 52:38
  I took him on a trip around Italy, and we went to the Vatican, and we were looking around and we were really crabby, I remember, 'cause they were so touristy, and we were like dithering about what to do, where to go home, if we should go, and we saw this line starting to form in St.
• 52:53
  Peter's Basilica, the square, and we kinda just got in line 'cause whatever else was going. And someone gave us these passes, and we ended up seeing Vespers in the basilica that the Pope said.
• 53:05
  And it was St-, it was Benedict, which is sort of a flop pope, honestly. Yeah. Like, like he's the least popular one in our lifetime.
• 53:11
  But because we saw him in person and he had a beautiful speaking voice, I have a soft spot in my heart for Benedict even though, again, no one likes him, and he's the German pope, the possible had to be, you know, Nazi, work with Nazi youth Pope.
• 53:26
  But you know, but it was cute 'cause Steve was wondering if it, whether it'd be sacrilegious to take pictures of the Pope in the basilica, and then all these little nuns had their cameras out, just little shutterbugs.
• 53:36
  Yeah. And I was like, if they can do it, then we can do it, for sure. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I think you, you get time off of purgatory for having an audience with the Pope. I still think that's actually a teaching.
• 53:44
  Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. Good for you. All right. Very nice. Yeah. I- It's a Caddyshack quote, so I get you got that going for you. You know.
• 53:52
  [laughs] It'll be interesting with Paul, 'cause he's gonna be a free, you know, with, part, I liked sending the kids to Catholic school in that it, we sort of like offloaded their religious training, and I- Mm-hmm...
• 54:04
  my, my friend, I have another friend, Megan, and our kids did confirmation together, and we didn't go to their masses with them, 'cause we were like, we already were confirmed.
• 54:11
  And also we kind of had this witchy feeling of we're not, we're women, ergo, we are allowed to do whatever the fuck we want because we are oppressed by the church de facto, so I'm not fucking taking you to church.
• 54:21
  You can take yourself to church. You're like every, you're like all the priests worst, like you're like who they're shaking their hands going, "Ah, just get the parents to come." Yeah. No.
• 54:30
  I'll, you can have my child, but not me. And, but, yeah.
• 54:33
  And I think he thinks he's completely off the hook, but I sort of told him, "You might wanna go with your Da- like, with your", my, we call my d- my dad Dziadzia, which is Polish for Grandpa.
• 54:41
  "You might need to go to church with Dziadzia." And that's, so my mom is very ill. Not very ill. She's, I don't know what the word is. Memory wiped, let's say. And- Yeah...
• 54:49
  and I'm happy that my dad has church now, you know? I'm glad he has that at least some sort of something for him, and I hope that Paul will go with him and be a part of that, you know?
• 54:59
  'Cause it is, there are parts of mass always, even like when there's the worst, most mundane homily, when you shake hands, you know? I love that part of church. Or when you-Just pray for whoever your intentions are.
• 55:12
  Like, that's a good part, you know, and, uh, and I hope he carries something like that with him. I don't know. We'll see how that goes, but- Mm-hmm... I don't know.
• 55:19
  That's part of it when you do the shaking hands is the passing of the peace, and then the idea, liter- I mean, the intention in the liturgy, talking about it being formational is that is about reconciling yourself to your neighbor before you go to communion.
• 55:33
  Yeah. Yeah. It's about reconciliation. And I mean, frankly, like, how much stuff do we ha- I mean, I don't wanna...
• 55:38
  I, again, I am not interested in being an apologist for church, but I will just speak from my own experience.
• 55:44
  And even from my experience of meeting with, I meet with a lot of parents of young kids who are like, "I'd like to make my way back to this, but this was my experience in the past and I don't want that."
• 55:56
  I can't change that past experience for anybody, but what I can say that what I hope
• 56:01
  the thing that the, that I can offer, or at least the way I do things is like, and church, and not just me, but like what church and liturgy and a church community can offer is not even just like a place to go do good things in the world, and not just a place to be in community with each other.
• 56:16
  Mm-hmm. But a place to like encounter stories of this happening throughout human history. And so like a connection to the past as well as a connection to the future. Mm.
• 56:26
  I mean, I get a little, you know, in my head about it, but like that to me ultimately is why I keep showing up per- I mean, personally, it's why I keep showing up. I don't always like it.
• 56:36
  Like I said, sometimes I'm like, "Oh God, I just gotta get to communion 'cause it's almost over," and I'm the one saying the sermon. [laughs] You know? Like, ah. We, we hear that. Mm. Yeah.
• 56:45
  I mean, I tell people I'm usually pretty open about this. I don't think my bishop will listen to this, and she won't care anyway, but, really I personally consider myself pretty agnostic, but faithfully agnostic. Mm-hmm.
• 56:56
  I just don't know. I, for me, it's just the most honest way to be, and what else could I do? I love all of the traditional parts of it, and I love it when something just clicks and goes, oh yeah.
• 57:06
  And I like it when something makes no sense to me or does not matter to me, and you see it really click for somebody else. Mm.
• 57:13
  And someone else has made some kind of meaning out of something, or sought, found something they were seeking, and it's just, it's like a real gift to be a part of it- Hmm... for, for other people.
• 57:25
  Even when I'm like, "Okay, now I gotta go home and pick up the kid from school. Bye." You know? Yeah. Yeah. The mystery of faith.
• 57:33
  [laughs] By the way- You know, I actually do more of that tanty stuff in the Episcopal Church than I ever encountered, because again, I was done with the Epi- the Catholic Church by 2012, but I do a lot more of that kinda old timey stuff.
• 57:45
  When you tell people, like when they meet you and you tell them that you're a priest, do you get a lot of people either telling you, like being like, "Convince me," like for, you know, make or coming at you and being like, "That's bullshit"?
• 57:56
  Mm. Like, how often do you have to be, do you feel defensive about what you do? I was thinking about the last time I, I... So I'm taking a pottery class right now, and which has been just amazing.
• 58:08
  I'm ready to quit everything and just become a potter. I'm enjoying it so much.
• 58:11
  And they wanted us to say what we do, and I was like, "Oh, I hate this question," 'cause I always think, do I just say I run a small nonprofit? Mm. Or do I say that I'm a priest? Not, not, not correct.
• 58:20
  It's not not correct. It's just not completely forthcoming. Mm-hmm. And then for some reason I just decided, you know, a bunch of artists said, "I'm an Episcopal priest." And the, and everyone was like...
• 58:31
  I think there's a lot, I'm obviously the oldest woman in this class too. I thought I was gonna be around all these middle-aged women, but it- Yeah... turns out a bunch of young- I thought you'd be the youngest one there.
• 58:39
  Yeah. Well, okay. So many young people. [laughs] And I think most of them are like, "We don't know what that is."
• 58:45
  And then the woman next to me asked me, and she was asking kind of a lot of around questions, like, well, I...
• 58:52
  And then ev- everyone, often what I encounter is, "Well, I used to go to a church, but I don't do it anymore because of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Mm-hmm.
• 58:59
  So, uh, a friend of mine before I got ordained told me that when I wear my collar, it just becomes a big projection screen for people. Mm. Mm. And it is very true. It is actually, it's funny.
• 59:12
  I have a lot of stories about showing up in a collar where I was like, forgot that I had it on. Mm. And the way people respond to me is always interesting. I've gotten, "Is that a costume?" [laughs] Mm.
• 59:22
  And that was around Halloween, and I was like, "No, it's actually my job. I forgot to take it off." [laughs] Yeah.
• 59:26
  There's a pride parade at the kids' school, and, uh, the last week of May or first week of June, and I came straight from work and I was in my collar, and the looks I got were like...
• 59:38
  It doesn't, I had a, I had a gay pride shirt on with the collar- Sure...
• 59:41
  'cause I had to go do something else for, uh, for work, and I was like, "Yeah, I'm not wearing this collar again, [laughs] especially to a pride parade," uh, like at the school. Yeah. Yeah.
• 59:51
  People bring all this stuff to it. Yeah. That's very powerful though, too. That would've been very cool. I, for me, I, when my brother got married to a man, and obviously they didn't get married in the church, but like
• 1:00:02
  my dad, one of them, it was right before COVID that they had their wedding celebration, and my dad was so happy and- Mm...
• 1:00:09
  having so much fun, and I, and he talked about, like, I heard him working it out in real time as this, 'cause when my brother first came out, my dad was very Catholic. He blamed himself.
• 1:00:21
  He kinda thought maybe, I think he maybe thought there was still time to undo it, you know, or whatever. And then over time he was like, "Why is it anybody's business what anyone does?" And I was like, "Right on."
• 1:00:32
  And that was like kind of just the very fact that he could make a tiny change like that, or not a tiny change, a huge change, but just that made me
• 1:00:41
  very happy for him that he could open his mind a little bit like that and, and let that in, and not like my brother has any kind of, you know, faith tradition of his own that I...
• 1:00:49
  Actually, what's kind of funny is that his husband- He got married in my church [laughs] Yeah. We affirmed. Married him. Well, his husband is called, is in the Sisters of Indulgence. Do you know that group?
• 1:00:58
  It's a, they dress up like nuns, basically. Yeah. Nuns in drag. I have heard of them. Yeah. So I am kinda married into the faith, just, you know, in a slightly fun house mirror kind of way. But, uh, yeah.
• 1:01:10
  I mean, that's what we do. That's what all priests are doing every Sunday anyway. That's what I say. Yeah. When we do the liturgy, we're put- we're in drag.How many collars do you have?
• 1:01:17
  [laughs] How many collars do I have? Yeah. Do you have, like, seasonal holiday options? More than one? Yeah. [laughs] This is like such a weird question. It's not a weird question, it's a great question, but I'm like...
• 1:01:27
  It's just, I, like, it's called Clericool. It's made in Italy. It attaches to a shirt. I have probably four full collars, and I actually prefer to wear what's called a tab collar.
• 1:01:37
  So when you see someone with a little square- Mm... it's a tab collar, and you just slide it into a shirt. It's more comfortable. Oh. But that looks very, like, Roman Catholic, but I still wear it. I don't know.
• 1:01:47
  I probably have eight or nine. I keep them in my car. I keep them in between- That's great... [laughs] yeah... it's like water bottles, just in case you're never- Yeah. If you're- Sure. It's like under the backseat.
• 1:01:57
  You're like, "That'll do. Haven't washed it in a while- Right... but we'll take it." That's right. Did you and Andrew, remind me, did you guys, you guys didn't have a Catholic wedding, I presume, in the church?
• 1:02:07
  So Andrew's dad is a Methodist minister- Oh, okay... retired. And Andrew grew up as a pastor's kid. And- Sure... when I, we got married 20 years ago next, next week- Oh, happy anniversary... after next week. Thank you.
• 1:02:20
  We decided to have his dad do the wedding, and I never got a dispensation. Hmm. I just, I guess I've always been a little like, "I don't care." Uh-huh. "Yeah, you have your rules. I just gonna do what I wanna do."
• 1:02:30
  Yeah, always never got a dispensation, and we were married, yeah, by his dad, outside. Not a Catholic wedding. Oh, wow. Okay. Scandal. Scandalo. Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:38
  I know I'm old when I went to a wedding last year, and we went to California, and it was in wine country. And we take on the shuttle, you know how weddings are, like, it's such a song and dance.
• 1:02:47
  And we get there, and it's beautiful. And the ceremony took less time than it took to sit down. And I, and I knew I was old when I was like, "That's it? Not a reading, not a poem, not anything?" Yeah.
• 1:03:00
  And, but, you know, whatever, like, good luck to them. But I was like, come on, give us, let me sit down. Give some ceremony to this. Like, yeah. We, I was proud of ours. A little. We had ceremony.
• 1:03:08
  We had two readings, and the whole thing still clocked in at 17 minutes. Wow. It was- All right... but people are like, "We're crying. This is really great."
• 1:03:15
  I was like, "Every word's gotta count here, guys, because we gotta get to- Yeah. No... having a good time." A big party. Yeah.
• 1:03:21
  We, we got married in the, not, and I think it was a Protestant church at Northwestern Campus, and I should remember the name of it right now.
• 1:03:27
  But we were gonna get married in the 1950s church, but the Shield Center, and- Right... but it was under construction, which you didn't realize until after the- That's Catholic. Shield Center is Catholic. Yeah.
• 1:03:38
  So but we ended up going to the other church across the street, 'cause the Shield Center was under construction, which we didn't know about until we sent the invitations out. My mom handled that well.
• 1:03:47
  I'm sure that was when she had her first stroke.
• 1:03:49
  And but honestly, the church, the non-Catholic church was much more attractive than the Shield Center, which was very, like, drop ceiling, you know, sh- carpet, all carpeted, you know.
• 1:03:57
  So this, yeah- I wonder if it was an Episcopal church. God, I have to look up Northwestern Church.
• 1:04:03
  My, my parents used to always call it the, the, where the king and queen of Evanston live, which is Northwestern Church building. I'll have to figure it out.
• 1:04:09
  I should know this, 'cause it's where I got married, but it's not what it is. But it's the one on the lake, the religious buildings. I'll figure this out.
• 1:04:15
  But I was just curious, because one thing that Catholics do that I think is kind of cool or a good idea anyway is the, there's a thing called Pre-Cana. Mm-hmm. Quinn, do you know what that is? Not sure I do. Okay.
• 1:04:27
  It's kinda like mandatory marriage counseling basically that you have to do before. Mm-hmm. Oh, wait, here we go. I got married in the Garrett Evangel- Seminary.
• 1:04:35
  The, yeah, Garrett Theological Seminary, which is a very beautiful ca- like cast- castle looking building.
• 1:04:40
  Yeah, it's like marriage counseling, but it's one day, and it's group, [laughs] which is very weird, because you are sitting with all these people at a table that you've never met before.
• 1:04:51
  And it was downtown Chicago, so a lot of young, you know, urbanite people. And then
• 1:04:58
  I think 90% of the people in the room were doing what we were doing, which is like, our parents want us to do it, and this is very important. And, like, people leading the discussion
• 1:05:07
  kinda seemed normal, and then they started saying some bullshit about how they wished they had more kids and that they hadn't used birth control to keep, have a small family. And we're like, "Shut the fuck up."
• 1:05:16
  And then at one point, they send you off.
• 1:05:20
  And again, this is horrifying and also kind of cool, where they're like, basically, now you have to go talk about sex amongst yourselves and what that means, what that's gonna mean for you.
• 1:05:30
  And we were in a big conference room, and they're like, "Go find a spot," basically. There's no private area, and so s- Steve did not like that at all.
• 1:05:40
  I certainly wasn't a big fan of it, but he really was resistant for some reason, like- Were there parameters to, or, like, discussion starters besides- Kind, yeah... go talk about sex?
• 1:05:50
  Kinda like, talk about what this means to you- Expectations... expectations- Mm... values.
• 1:05:56
  All I remember is that it was deeply uncomfortable for Steve, and I get the, and I was like, oh, the, this is good, this is important.
• 1:06:04
  The discomfort of this is gonna be something that we, like, may have to, like, encounter.
• 1:06:10
  And so I, but if you talk to any Catholic, like, young people who've gotten married, like, they all have good stories about Pre-Cana. Megan, you know the Justin Kaufman and Julie Coe. Oh, yeah.
• 1:06:19
  I believe theirs was led by a couple who they were both little people who were in a huge fight, and they were leading Pre-Cana- Nice... at the same time.
• 1:06:28
  And it's very memorable to me, like, 'cause how could that not stick in your mind?
• 1:06:32
  Just, like, having to, you know, just go through this bizarre experience already as it is, and then this couple's leading it, and they're, they obviously hate each other, and you have to listen to them.
• 1:06:43
  And then- Right... you know. Tell you about the bonds of marriage. Mm-hmm. Yes. One more enter into and it can never, and never undo. You're never getting out, ever, ever. I told [laughs]
• 1:06:52
  my dad, so my mom, again, she's in this bad place right, right where she's either yelling at him or kinda not talking to him. And I told him, [laughs] I was sort of kidding, sort of not.
• 1:07:01
  I was like, "You should have an affair, or you should divorce her." Then he said, "I made this vow." And I was like, "All right, I guess. I mean, I suppose if you..."
• 1:07:09
  You know, he takes it pretty seriously, so he will go to heaven- Mm...
• 1:07:12
  that's for sure, and he will see his grandchildren there, 'cause they are, we force them to be Catholic, but- [laughs] Megan, when were you a hospital chaplain, Megan?
• 1:07:20
  Were you, was that when Albie, were you a mom when you were also working as a chaplain? Hmm.2020. Oh my God. So what was that like?
• 1:07:30
  Did you have any kind of process from going to the hospital and going home and putting on your mom hat and, like- Yeah... how you got your head right for that? Yeah.
• 1:07:38
  Well, I started, so I had to do an internship in order to prepare for priest to be ordained. And I started in January 2020, and it was already just a wild experience.
• 1:07:49
  So I did mine at Rush, which is also the infectious disease center in the region. Mm. And it was... I, I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing. Mm-hmm. I also love medical things. Mm.
• 1:08:01
  Being in a hospital was really interesting and wild and kind of exciting for me. I mean, including trips to the morgue and being with... I don't know, I was fine with all of it. Mm.
• 1:08:10
  And but, and then 20- then pandemic hit.
• 1:08:14
  So I would say the way I transitioned back, and even now, it, to me it feels very similar, although I'm doing different things, is that my, I live in Edgewater, you know, and Rush is like a 35 to 40-minute drive, depending traffic.
• 1:08:26
  So the drive was a time for me to ponder and decompress and think about things. I did also experience a lot of very hard things in the hospital that made me feel,
• 1:08:37
  I mean, I experienced them as a mom, like I experienced a mom witness her college son's death. Mm. And that was really hard, and I remember coming home and crying a lot.
• 1:08:46
  But I just, the way I pa- I mean, it did make me just think about just life in general. Mm-hmm. I mean, it did prepare me to be a better priest and be a better at accompanying people through hard things. Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:59
  But and it also taught me a lot, I'm already good at com- compartmentalizing, but it made me just to be more aware of when I need to do those things. Mm. So even Andrew doesn't know all the things that
• 1:09:11
  I did and saw at- Wow... at the hospital, just because- Yeah... I think they would be really hard for him to hear. Mm.
• 1:09:19
  My sister-in-law, who's one of the most wonderful people and extremely empathetic, in fact, both my sisters-in-law is mental health professionals.
• 1:09:26
  She's a social worker and did hospice care for a long time when her kids were very little, and I just used to think, "How do you not come home and drink?" And of course, she's 1000% better human than I am.
• 1:09:37
  She's like, "It's the most wonderful thing," and I was just like- Hospice care is amazing. It's, it's incredible I mean- It's incredible... and hospice nurses are the best. They're so good. Yeah.
• 1:09:45
  And I think it takes a certain kind of person who has a certain dif- like, ability to self-differentiate, and to know that what they're doing is really important, and to be really present in it, and also it's not their story.
• 1:09:58
  Mm. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. That's incredible. Mm-hmm. So Paul's graduating on Saturday, so I gotta go get my nails painted because it's about me. So I gotta get my, myself ready before we go back into the church.
• 1:10:11
  His gown is hanging in the shower to, to steam and everything like that. But Megan, I'm so glad we could talk. I could do this all day, Megan, for sure.
• 1:10:18
  I, well, I'm so grateful for you and my friends who are, like, I asked Elizabeth Block, my, our other theologian friend, I was like, "Why do you do this?" You know, 'cause she's also a feminist.
• 1:10:27
  She talks a lot about trans identity and things like that at SLU where she teaches, and she says, "I'm here to make good trouble." Yeah.
• 1:10:32
  And I think about that a lot and, you know, 'cause it would be very easy to turn your back on all the shady systems, and so I'm grateful for people like you, especially moms, really important.
• 1:10:42
  I mean, I, it's not even to necessarily say we're gonna send our kids to heaven or whatever, but just to show you can contain a lot of hard things all at once, and those hard things are worth thinking about.
• 1:10:52
  So I'm glad you're out there. Well, thank you. Oh, yeah. This was really helpful for me, too, articulating why I'm still doing these things, so thanks for having me.
• 1:11:00
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