Latest / The Rochelle Christiane Podcast / 273. What If Church Is About Connection, Not Belief? A Conversation with Robert Forman

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273. What If Church Is About Connection, Not Belief? A Conversation with Robert Forman · The Rochelle Christiane Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Rochelle Christian Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rochelle, your host.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here to help you come back to your body, take charge of your emotions, and live life on your terms.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a space for raw, real conversations about what it means to trust yourself, lean into your power, and create a life that feels aligned and alive.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: We'll explore human design, astrology, and other tools to help you understand your unique energy.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: More importantly, though, we're going to talk about what it means to actually live and embody these aspects.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So each week, I'm going to share stories, lessons, guidance to help you navigate life's challenges and really own your magic.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're ready to step up, take control, and show up as the most authentic version of you, let's begin.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode of the podcast.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, I think you can hear my son in the background.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I did not close my door and now I'm rethinking that.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: But today's episode is with Robert Foreman, who is an author, speaker, and spiritual counselor.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: He devoted his life to exploring the silent mystical reality that surrounds and interpenetrates us and the religious rituals that have blossomed from it.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So a writer, popular public speaker, and spiritual counselor, he has shared his insight in Sweden, Iran, Finland, Israel, England, and across the US.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: He spent two decades as a university professor of comparative religion, authored 12 books and over 40 academic articles, and played a key role in the influential Katz Forman debates on mysticism, earning an honorary doctorate from Sweden's Lund University.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I might have mispronounced that university, but this conversation was fascinating.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: His newest book, Christianity Reimagined, is what we focus on.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about the idea of unhooking from outdated narratives, sort of redefining what Christianity means for us, getting into community through a church, what that looks like.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because Christian mysticism, right?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Bringing the mysticism back into Christianity is deeply spiritual, right?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: These experiences that we have, and Robert talks about what that means, but these experiences that we have that open us up and are just like pure love.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody has a different name for it, right?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was doing a little bit of research on the seven year cycles, you know, there is this age range between about 28 and 35, where we kind of go back to religion.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: We become religion curious, maybe spiritual curious, spiritual curiosity, right?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we're exploring what that means.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, 33 is the year of um is the Christ year, right?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think there is this natural pull, depending on what cycle of life that you're in.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that a lot of us feel that there's something bigger out there, whether we feel it or we want to believe it, or it makes things easier, or we find comfort in it, whatever it is.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that, and by the way, I love the space where spirituality and science meet, because I think we're proving more and more that like energy is real, like there is something tangible and logical that we can make sense of when we speak about spirituality.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But really unhooking again from these narratives.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And even as we were having this conversation, I was noticing my mind was very much hooked into the Catholic part of Christianity.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's such a small sect of Christianity, right?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe it's a big sect of Christianity, but it's just a small part of Christianity.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't define Christianity.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we were having this conversation, and I was trying to sort of reconcile my knowing of Christianity with the type of Christianity he was speaking to.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, obviously you hear the conversation and in where it went.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it was actually really beautiful.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so as you're listening to this conversation, come with an open mind.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: We are not trying to convince anyone of anything, right?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're not um, yeah, I think just using discernment and listening with an open mind.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And again, curiosity.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think curiosity is the answer to everything.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it is really part of my mission and purpose when it comes to this podcast is approach every guest, every conversation, every everything with a mind of curiosity.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we don't have that, then I think we're just fixed.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And coming from this double Leo and Taurus, super fixed energy, I really live by opening myself up to curiosity, poking holes, asking questions.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that really comes through in this episode.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I just think Robert had so it was just a fascinating conversation.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that you enjoy it, that you gain something from it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you're feeling any sort of way listening to this, maybe asking yourself why, um, what your narrative is, what your beliefs are that maybe you didn't question.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, with the astrology and everything lately, that's a massive theme is really questioning the things that we blindly believe and why we're questioning them and why we believe them in the first place.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, Robert talks about religion being so interwoven into sort of everything that we do.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times we just subconsciously believe things.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know why we believe them.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: We just have, we just believe them because they've always been, right?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it takes a certain level of courage almost to question all of those beliefs, right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, use discernment, trust yourself.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I again think this conversation was amazing.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So share it with a friend if it resonates.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, follow the podcast, uh, go connect with Robert.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you need to know is down below.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Grab the book, uh, Christianity Reimagined.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm definitely going to fully read this book because I think the conversation was fascinating.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can find me on Instagram at reshevel.christian, R-O-C-H-E-L-L-E dot-C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N-E.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: TikTok is the same.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And again, all the ways that you can connect with Robert are down below.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Website, email, and grab the book.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I will talk to you on the other side.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, welcome to the podcast.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Today I have Robert Foreman, who is the author of Christianity Reimagined, a mystical approach for doubters and the dubious.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we were just talking offline a little bit.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: He asked me about myself, and I was like, where do I even start?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Which is always the question I'm going to throw back to you.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: But um, this idea of Christianity reimagined, it's a little blurry, but if you put it maybe in the middle, you can be able to see it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, better.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little blurry now, but yeah.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a nice cover.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, this idea of, you know, I shared a little bit about my background with Catholicism and kind of feeling that, you know, I guess the like bad, like I'm bad kind of energy with it.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of us are at this point in life where we are looking for something, right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe not quite sure what it is.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was really what appealed to me about what you talk about, um, and just the idea of, yeah, like Christianity re reimagined, because I've heard this theme coming up a lot about people kind of moving back towards Christianity, but maybe trying to define it for them and what it means.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I think there's been so much misconceptions about, you know, the Bible and what the message is.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm sure we'll get into it.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: But to start, um, throwing the floor back to you, I would love to just know your background and anything that you want to share as far as like kind of how you got into this and what your experience was with Christianity.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, and I guess what brought you to this whole idea of like reimagining it and what that means to you.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Jeez, why don't you ask me a little question, a small question?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Starting big.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh background.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was actually born and raised Jewish.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I fell away from Judaism when I was about 20, 22.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: I took up meditation.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was in the spirituality movement and played a role in the spirituality movement, organized a bunch of people.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I became a professor of comparative religions.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: That was my professional life, much of my professional life.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh after I retired from being a teacher, I became a hospital chaplain.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I organ I was a spiritual organizer, forming something called the Forge Institute, and then I became a hospital chaplain, which I did for some years, about a decade.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Then how I got into Christianity.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um remember, I I I've been practicing I've been practicing meditation now for 50-some years, and so I was not interested in, in fact, I thought Christianity was really off.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I didn't like it.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought there was a lot of claims in Christianity that struck me as silly and dubious, and I had all kinds of questions, you know.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Really, a God that created everything in six days and killed off all the dinosaurs and salvation by somebody dying.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: It just the whole thing just struck me as crazy.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: But a friend took me to a church, and um at the time my life was I wasn't doing particularly well.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was I'd broken up for my wife since reconciled.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I didn't have a job.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was hoping I'd get a chaplaincy job, but there was nothing in the wind.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um anyway, so a friend took me to a Christian church and I was thinking grumpy thoughts, you know.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, this is crazy.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, blah, blah, blah, and um while I was there, I'm not quite sure why.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was certainly not sure then, but I'm not quite sure why.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I began to weep, just ball, you know.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that didn't mean I started to believe it, but I was like, there was something very deeply emotional going on.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went back to church the following week.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Cried again.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Went back to church the following week, and for eight and a half years of Sundays, I cried every single Sunday in church.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was like remarkable.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever was going on was really powerful.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And yet I never bought into the system, I never bought the way of thinking about things, I never bought into you know the claims that I was hearing.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, so there I was having all these experiences, but not buying the language, which meant that I had a huge challenge in front of me, which was figuring out what on earth was going on, such that I I was being so emotionally affected, but didn't buy into the system, which I think in retrospect turns out to be a really interesting place to be, because I see the value of being in a community and and going to church and hearing about the infinite over and over again, but not having to buy the belief system.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I find myself found myself uh sort of recreating the thing in my own way and understand that my background is uh mystical.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: I uh you know, my meditation life and also my academic life, I've been thinking about and experiencing the mystical for all of my adult life.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So when I go to Christianity, I start having these experiences.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I tend to think about it as a mystical pathway.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Christianity is a mystical pathway.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And to understand what that is, and I'll ask I'll ask you and your listeners, I'll ask you one question.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever had an experience in which you're sort of going along and all of a sudden you you have one of these deep experiences in which you are are no longer anxious and you're no longer afraid, and just you're sort of wide open suddenly.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Have you had such an experience?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can like feel the feeling when you talk about it.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, beautiful.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Most people have.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that feeling, that experience, I think, serves as a kind of common experiential ground to not only people that go to Christian services, but also all across the religions.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so the way I look at Christianity is I think Christianity is a religion that is talking about those experiences, talking about the mystical, talking about this new way to be in the world with one another, and a new way to be in the world, connecting with whatever it is that we sense when we have those experiences.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that Christianity is a very old language to talk about these kinds of experiences.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: All right, that's enough of me.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we, you know, it's like, where do we where do we go with that?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's my orientation.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I like that you talk about that kind of experience versus, you know, maybe like the languaging and things like that, because I also resonate with, you know, I went to church for a couple years.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was like I didn't, yeah, I didn't necessarily, I was still trying to figure out where I stood on religion.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: I had just had my son, I had just gotten divorced, I was a new single mom of like two, and I was kind of like trying to figure my life out.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And like so you're you're grown up at this point.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: This was about eight years ago.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, because I had left the church when I was like 16, my dad was like, you can go back or not.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's completely up to you.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, nope, I'm done.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I never really went back until like it just started, yeah.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew, but I always knew there was something beyond like what we could see.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I knew that like you said, you described that feeling.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was something like, yeah, I could experience and feel, but I didn't necessarily have like a place to put it, you know, or a box to put it in, sort of.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember too, like every time I would go to church, I I just felt it, like being in the energy and the space.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I could never quite understand what that was.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I always would tell people, like, I don't necessarily believe in like religion, but I know what I feel when I go.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really powerful.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever that means, I don't know.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I guess like it's it's interesting too to like to hear you speak to, you know, like meditation, having that practice and where you began with Judaism and things like that, and then coming to, you know, what you define as Christianity and having these experiences, because I feel like a lot of people maybe are pushed away from Christianity because it feels like having an experience of your own outside of maybe what the priest is telling you, right?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like the priest has the experience, you don't, you just listen.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think that's a lot of people's experiences where it's like if I have a mystical experience or magical experience, then it's almost like, and maybe it's like the witch wound, right?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Where we're kind of like labeled as like being a little crazy and not quite, you know, in the experience of it.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that's interesting to me is that uh if if you listen to the priest, then the only place that you can have these experiences is in church, being a good little girl, a good little boy.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh most of the time when I talk to people, when I ask people, I always ask when I give a talk about this book, I always ask people, have you ever had these experiences?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: You've ever had one where you're, you know, these non-anxious moments, these moments of sort of particular presence.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: And almost always the experiences don't happen in a church, they happen when people are walking in the woods, they happen when people are looking at the sunset at the beach, they happen when they're when you're talking to a dear friend, and all of a sudden your conversation kind of drops down.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my first my first spiritual experience happened when I was driving a sports car way too fast, and it was just glorious.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it only lasted for, I don't know, five, seven seconds, if that.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: But it was one of those times where it's like, whoa, what's that?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I had no no language for it.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was probably 19, 20.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had no language for it, I had no idea what it was, and yet it I I knew there was something there, and I knew that that that um I wanted more of it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's really all I knew.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think most of your listeners, most of the people I talk to have had experiences like this, and again, most of them don't happen in church, but sometimes, you know, sometimes I've walked in and I had a friend named um Brian who uh had an experience like mine, which is you walk into a church sometimes, you open those big doors, you walk into church, and the air, it's almost like you feel the air go kind of whoosh, whoosh, you know.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's something calming about being in that space.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's something present in that space.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it these things often happen in a church.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Not only Catholic churches, by the way.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: I go to an episcopal church, um and they're wonderful when they happen.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're just they're just important because they're a kind of sign of what it is to be deeply connected.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: What we're stumbling across when we have these non-anxious moments, we're stumbling.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's like our chest opens up.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're just sort of oh you sort of become connected to something larger than yourself, and in that sense, there's something I don't want to use the word divine, but there's something deeply spiritual about those moments.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, as you were describing your uh driving too fast in a sports car.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I feel like one of the experiences I've had like that was I was on a jet ski in the middle of a lake going really fast too.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just like this complete freeing feeling, yeah, of like not being weighed down by the stresses or finances or you know, like kind of like life.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're just you know, in nature, you're connected.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, when you're having I don't know if everybody I don't know if everybody can see you, but what I'm seeing is as you said that your eyes got wide and you moved your head from side to side, and it was like you were sort of there, you could almost be in that moment and you're communicating what it is because it is like our eyes open wide, it is like we're sort of looking around big and yeah, beautiful.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, I interrupted you.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, you're fine.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, because it's I just that feeling, I remember that feeling so vividly of just being like free in a way that you're not in everyday life.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's right, so powerful.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and I do think we're chasing that a lot, right?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I think about you know all the work that I'm doing spiritually now, it's like kind of you know, coming back to that.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's like the space that we want to live in.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if that's possible to live in that all the time.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I think having that experience and tapping into that, it really I think reminds you or grounds you into like the possibilities of what's there, you know.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't kind of what we see every day and hear every day and the noise and all that kind of stuff, right?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: There is this space that's actually so beautiful.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I couldn't I couldn't agree more.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: As for living in it all the time, I think it is possible, but that's we don't need to go there.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that's what Christianity is talking about, and I think you know, my sense of it is Jesus of Nazareth was having experiences just like that.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's here's a guy that probably was living in it all the time, and so that when the tradition describes Jesus and what happened and what people felt around him, he was uh obviously a charismatic dude.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: When you know, when the tradition describes that, they're describing us when we're in those times, they're describing you when you're on that jet ski, you're connected, you're wide open.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now he calls God Abba, which means father in a kind of a sweet way, you know.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: So when I'm in those times, I do feel like there's this sense of something large and warm and loving around me.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, the word Abba is a perfectly lovely word to describe it.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, where I struggle with Christianity, and and this is something I definitely want you to know, I struggle with Christianity because the language that Christianity uses, and better still, the language Christianity inherited from a long series of other religions, described the spiritual place, if you will, this the spiritual reality as like a human being.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that Christianity describes a spiritual reality as if it's a guy, a man.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now that being a man or a woman, I think it's both are equally wrong.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's describing it as a person means that Christianity starts drawing human-like implications about this.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, God leads leads the Israelites through the Red Sea.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: God uh leads the army and and you know uh uh destroys Jericho.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um God has a son, you know, it's like God has a will, God expresses ethics, and all of these pieces are very human-like.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's where Christianity is uh it gets wrong, gets it wrong from my point of view.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: That what Jesus was experiencing was simply being connected and loving with people, and the idea that the divine is giving commands gets us all weird, gets us going in all weird directions.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's for me, that's where I struggle with Christianity when it starts talking like that.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus having these experiences, Jesus being on uh, Jesus on a jet ski, I love it, you know, having Jesus on a jet ski, having the experience of complete presence.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the that's exactly what the man was going through, and that's exactly what we go through.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're talking about these experiences that we have, it's sort of like Christ consciousness, or like this is Jesus.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is is there um I don't know if definition is the right word I'm looking for, but like what is that to you?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know the word ineffable, right?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um I want to say here, I'll describe what it is to me.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: One of my clearest experiences of this was uh I was in Colorado and I was driving through the mountains in central Colorado, and all of a sudden the world kind of looked different to me.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so I pulled my car over and I got out of the car and I started looking around.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And as I looked around, there were mountains over there and a stream over here and cattle over there, and I began to realize that there was something like a cloud everywhere.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a cloud, but it was something sort of cloud-like, like a very, very, very light cloud, but it was it was a reality.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I had the sense that that cloud-like reality was everywhere.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I looked over there, it was around the mountains, it was it was around the cattle, and then I realized not only was it around the mountains and the cattle, but it ran through the cattle, it ran through the mountains, and then I realized, well, of course, it runs through me as well.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I was feeling a sense of connection to some greater reality than I generally knew, than I generally felt.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that experience stayed with me for several days.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, it was, you know, to drive in that, to live in that, to encounter people in that.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's something so bloody loving about the world.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say, if you want me to name it, I would say uh Paul Tillich, uh, a scholar, a theologian of Christianity, describes it as the ground of being.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's as good a term as any as I know for it.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: The ground of being, the mystical reality.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in another book, I've called it the vastness, which I feels like it kind of catches it for me.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: But the ground of being is a kind of common term for it.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I that's how I talk about it.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And notice I'm saying ground of being or vastness, there's no particular personality to these terms.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're just it's just a reality that you sort of join up with.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that I think is what Christianity is really pointing to.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: Even though the language is awkward and and very person-oriented, that I think is what Christi is what Jesus was pointing to, and I think it's what we're pointing to.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: So is that a good enough term?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we'll have to.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I haven't read like the full Bible, like cover to cover, but I definitely I've read the New Testament before.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I just like everything that has to do with like Jesus in there has always just kind of called to me a little bit more than a lot of the other parts of it, you know.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I like that, yeah.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've always seen it as sort of that the energy of it, you know, of just like who he was and what he stood for, I feel like was the lesson versus like the whole thing being like an absolute truth, you know?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think that we but uh good for you.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think let me let me also add one thing to that.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I and after my I started having these experiences of weeping, I got to I got curious.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, am I the only one that has these experiences without believing?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I started asking around, I asked a few ministers, do you know anybody that has these experiences but doesn't believe?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out there's a ton of us, there's so many of us.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and these are people that are you know that have their experiences but don't buy the traditional way to think about these things.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I call us, and now I'm gonna call you, a mystic on the margins.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're a mystic in that you have these experiences, but you're on the margins in that you don't buy the sort of standard way to think and talk about this stuff.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I interviewed lots of these people, and one of the things I learned from my mystics on them, I probably interviewed uh 60-ish people, all of whom were having these experiences.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And these interviews were long, like an hour and a half each.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like I kind of got to know these folks.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I heard, I would always ask about Jesus, and and I heard a distinction between um well what we can call pre-Easter Jesus and post-Easter Jesus.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very good way to think about it.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Pre-Easter Jesus is all the words that he taught, all the parables, you know, what he did, what he said to folks, what he was doing.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Post-Easter Jesus is all the story that came out about what happened to him after he died, and and what people said, and did he reappear?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like all that stuff.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I I don't buy post-Easter Jesus.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: None of my people were really interested in post-Easter Jesus, but all of us buy, all of us are really uh grateful for his teaching, as you know, in his pre-Easter teaching.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: He's an amazing ethical teacher, he's an amazing teacher of spiritual reality, you know.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the way he talked about the two main commandments being love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy might.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: What a beautiful thought, you know.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Love this reality, love the ground of being, be it be in its thrall with all of you, all of your heart.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then with that, the second half is and love your neighbors yourself, which is like that makes it practical.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this man is brilliant, it's just a brilliant teacher, you know.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I really appreciate what he was, who he was, but the stories of his death and his resurrection and then reappearance, and it's like that doesn't work for me.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just put it that way.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: That and it doesn't work for my other for the people that I interviewed.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody was buying the whole the whole post-Easter Jesus story.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: I have, I don't know if you can see it.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: I have this tattoo here.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's the only like religious one I have, but it's John 15, 12, exactly what you just said.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, love your neighbor like you love yourself.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's like one of the things that really stood out to me, like of the things that he talked about, right?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's just like, I mean, I just feel like it is just so much about love, right?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: If it's just like love, I don't know, love everyone.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I love that teaching of it, but yeah, just when you talk about like pre and post-Easter Jesus, um, you know, I definitely, I definitely understand.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like there's almost um, and maybe I'm just having a hard time like reconciling like Christianity with this more spiritual side to it, because I think that it's just not talked about when you and you know, this is coming from my like Catholic, you know, upbringing, but because I feel like it wasn't really talked about in church, right?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like Christianity wasn't this really mystical experience.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I think reconciling the two is like maybe a little bit harder in my brain.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: But like when you talk about like the post-Esor Jesus, like him, whether or not he actually did resurrect from the dead, but like that almost like magical, if it if it was true, let's just for argument's sake, like if it was true, is it almost the fact that something magical or mystical or like super spiritual like that could happen is hard for people to wrap their brains around.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like again, assuming that it was an actual story that happened.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, let me tell you what my mystics on the margins talked about.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the one the ones who talk about his resurrection, none of them talk about it as like this this magical thing, but A few people said, you know, different people have different spiritual skills.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Some people, like Yuri Geller, was supposed to be able to bend middle.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's an interesting but very unusual spiritual skill.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, such a Saibaba was was said was supposed to be able to manifest ashes just by going, you know, boo, and ashes would fall out of his hand.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's an unusual spiritual skill.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Some spiritual people are said to be able to levitate, you know.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: So there's lots of different spiritual skills.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Very few people have these skills, but some people seem to have unusual skills.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: So perhaps Jesus had the ability to make himself visible after he died.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: If so, good for him.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's that's a good skill.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, then there's also the near-death experiences, and we all know lots of stories of near-death.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: When I was a chaplain and I heard such stories, you know, we hear lots of stories of near-death experiences.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so what those experiences say is that even after you die, there's still something very present.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: So who knows?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm perfectly willing to say perhaps those things happened, or some of them happened.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I sub I doubt that it was nearly as flashy as all that, you know, that the stories that happened were no doubt, you know, made more dramatic and made more exciting.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: But perhaps something happened.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: But whether or not it happened, it's it's it's not the critical matter for me.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if it happened, good for him.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: But if it didn't happen, that's fine.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because the experience of being connected with the ground of being is what counts for me.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: The experience of being wide open and loving and loving my neighbor, that's what counts for me.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so I, you know, also I must say in my life, I am not nearly as preoccupied with death as probably people were back in 00 BC.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think death doesn't play such a huge role in my life, and for most people that I know, death does not play a huge role.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not so worried about, oh, I want to conquer death and I never want to die, da-da-da-da.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's I want to live a good life.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: I want to live connected with myself and connected with the world around me and connected with you.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's more important to me.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when I think about heaven, I there's nothing in me that says there's a heaven and clouds and angels and da-da-da.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, perhaps people live a little longer, perhaps people live after they die.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's that would be lovely.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not the critical matter.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: The critical matter is what kind of a life do I live now?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of life do you live?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Can you connect with people?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Can you connect with yourself?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that for me is is where it counts.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: That for me is what's really important.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: I that's something I always said, you know, when I was younger, kind of breaking away from, you know, the real, you know, the Catholic Church was I always felt like I knew that I was a good person and I knew that I cared and was compassionate with people.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I don't, I know like what's at my core.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard for me to go in, you know, weekly and feel like I'm a bad person because I, you know, at the time when I was younger, you know, confused, rebellious, I would drink, you know, um, you know, before I was 21 and stuff like that.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Or like sex before marriage, where it was like, oh my gosh, I'm such a bad person because of this, you know.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that, yeah, a lot of people hold on to that.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: But like you said, I think the most important thing is like, can I be present with who I'm with?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even, you know, I would say parenting is like one of the most spiritual things you can do.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's like we have 10,000 things that we want to do, but it's like, can I actually be present with my child that wants my attention right now?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, instead of like getting lost in social media or editing a podcast or like all these other things, right?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Can it's like, can I actually be present with the people that I'm with?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And can I like let me say one let me let me say one thing on this score?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many varieties of Christianity.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: You must know this.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Catholicism is one of them.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Catholicism is probably the fiercest in terms of making people feel forgive me, shitty about who they are.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I go to uh a relatively liberal Episcopal Church, and I also sometimes go to a relatively liberal uh UCC, uh United Church of Christ.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: What's the official name for that?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Not UCC.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I forget.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'll think of it in a second.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: But the churches that I go to, and I'm sure they're in Chicago.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: You're in Chicago?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm in uh north of Dallas.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Chicago?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Dallas.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I had you in Chicago.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's uh I don't know what you have available to you, but there are churches that are not telling you you're damned.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: There are churches that are really open to, hey, let's think out loud together, let's explore together, let's let's open ourselves up.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: I love going to church because there's no priest that I've ever heard.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm in Western Massachusetts, a relatively liberal area, but no priest that I've ever heard preach is telling me anything but you know, you can you can open your life up a little more.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: No priest is telling me that I'm a bad person.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: I've never heard that.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I've never heard a priest tell me that you I have to believe what they believe in order to be okay.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: The Catholic system is the most uh controlling of all of them that I know.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you a funny story, and this is it's hardly funny.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I when I would teach um college, I generally had about two to four hundred students a term.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh hang on, let me think.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's not that's that's too many.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: About my classes tended to fill up to 50, and then I would teach maybe four classes in a term.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I had roughly 200 students.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: Generally, I would say to students, you know, like tell me a little about yourself, blah, blah, blah.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: How many people went to Catholic high school?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Half the hands would go up.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: This was in New York City.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I would then say, Okay, how many of you still go to a church?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: All the hands would come down.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was like whatever that's going on in those Catholic schools was not working for folks, it was not healthy.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, that I I think the people that I know that still go that go to a Catholic church go to it because it's comfortable and it's what they know.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't think it's it's really um opening people in the way that I think a church can and should be opening people up.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I know it's I know it's hard because you, you know, you've only got the churches that are around you, but yeah, honestly, yeah, I'd recommend you're looking at some other church.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, and I went to when I went back to church, it was a non-denominational church, and I actually really like that the pastor would say, you know, you read the Bible, don't trust fully what I say.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is my interpretation of it, you know, and I really like that he said that.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there was just one point that I was kind of like, oh, I don't know, um, which kind of was what turned me away from the church.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I will have to like look into that.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's funny, my dad's my dad is the one that's Catholic.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: My mom wasn't really religious at all.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: She converted when they got married.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: But my dad has been going to the Catholic Church every single Sunday for, you know, I'm almost 40.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: So at least, you know, fit however long, you know, he's been going, um, probably since his childhood.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was like last year or the year before.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this is kind of like a twofold story.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I won't get into the side story.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so he had this like experience that is kind of like what you were talking about.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody came up to him that his mom passed away.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she was maybe in her like 50s.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it was quite a while ago.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: And she gave him this necklace.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she was young.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she was.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: She had leukemia.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but she had given him this necklace and she was like, I can't remember what um, like apostle or or what was on it, but she she was like, if you ask it or if you pray to this, the whoever was on the necklace, um, just make sure you go and tithe at the church and and you know, your your wish or your prayer will be granted or and whatever.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: But he had said he had never in his entire life used, he had never prayed to the with the necklace.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: He had never used it, but my daughter was going through a hard time.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: So he sat with the necklace and he prayed that my daughter would make it through and she would, you know, find her way.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like crying as he was telling me this.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we were on vacation, and I guess he had done that, and then he went to like a sauna or something or jacuzzi.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this woman sat down next to him who he said looked like his mother and was like, you know, you should go tithe at the church.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so he had this like experience that completely, I mean, he was like sobbing.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: And like after all of this, we're talking about it.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Yeah, you know, he goes, I've gone to church every Sunday in my entire life.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, But I don't I don't know that I'm like religious.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I believe it.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: I just go just in case.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, it just kind of made me laugh.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you've committed so much of your life to this to an off chance, yeah, to like just oops, maybe you know, hopefully if it's you know, there is a God, I will go to heaven.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but yeah, I think that experience with him was just so powerful that maybe it changed his perspective.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: And but it was just in, but that that to me, like you said, it didn't happen in the church, right?
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was more of like this sort of spiritual, mystical, unexplainable experience that wasn't given to him by like a priest or the actual building, you know.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was something and that's quite common.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's quite common.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, I want to give your I want to give your dad a a possibility here, and that is even when somebody goes to church and they say, I don't know why go, but it's like maybe there's a chance it'll help.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's something very quiet that's actually going on for a guy like that, that he's sensing something.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: He walks into a church and there's a kind of calmness to the church, he feels himself sort of wide open, he feels connected to the people sitting around him.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's more to it than just I just go on the off chance.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, I've I uh again, the Catholic Church is not my world, but you know, I have been in Catholic churches and I see these people saying these prayers, and even if they don't buy them, to say them all together, to say them repeatedly, week after week, it's very beautiful.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they're they're experiencing some sense of calm, some sense of wide openness.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I wanna I I want to give him the possibility of a little more depth than just like on the off chance that this might help.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my dad's very intuitive, right?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: He is very um, yeah, I guess like intuitive is the best word.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: He really senses people and it's there, there's definitely something there, you know.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that my spiritual journey, um, I don't know that he resonates with it, but there's something in it that he feels because we've had just these kind of little conversations about, you know, like my beliefs and things like that.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I know it's definitely there.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, I think um, like maybe it's something comforting, maybe he does go and maybe he connects with his mom because that was kind of her space was the Catholic Church and whatever it is, it's definitely something.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: When I interviewed people that uh I called mystics on the margins, my main question was, Oh, what's that like?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: I would, you know, people would say, you know, I experienced Jesus, or I go to church and I have a blah blah blah experience.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I would always, always, always say, Oh, what's that like?
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me more about that.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: I bet if you said that to your dad a few times, you know, like he says, Yeah, I go to church, I'm not sure.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: You, you know, you might want to ask him, Well, what's it like for you when you what happens, you know, when you when you go to church, or when he's listening to you and he's and you know he's kind of connecting, you might want to say to him, you know, dad, I can kind of sense that you're connecting to this here.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: What what's what's going on for you?
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about I bet you'd have a really good conversation about that.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're I I believe I believe that for sure.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: These so um the mystics on the margin that you, you know, this group that's sort of you know in the same um, I guess, belief system or structure ideals that you have, are these people that have been, I don't want to say like religious trauma, but like people that have been turned away from the church for various reasons, or most of them?
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: So like so when they come to you and you're kind of exploring this, you're connecting.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm trying to think of the question I want to ask with this.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how what is their experience?
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then we'll get to your question.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I found people that go to church.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Virtually all of them fell away from the church when they were, well, you're you were 16, you know, most virtually all of them fell away at that age.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the same age I fell away from Judaism, you know, 15, 20, like that.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and for whatever reason, they found themselves wanting to go back.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: Generally, people go back because they kind of miss having a community.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: That seems to be common.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: But something would often happen to people when they would go back to church and they would sense these people, you know, they would sense something in the church, or they would, you know, talk to a sane minister or whatnot.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: And there'd be something in there, but these are not people that would buy it.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they wouldn't buy that Jesus was born of a virgin or that he was resurrected, or they wouldn't buy the whole notion of sin and salvation, these old-fashioned notions.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so they would, but they were getting something from the church.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I was talking to folks about.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: That so it's not like they came to me and I was sort of opening up a door for them.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was simply saying, Why do you go?
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what is it about that you go?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now, do you remember what your question was?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: That was what I wanted to clarify.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, I I kind of think that answered it a little bit because I was wondering if they were people who have just been like so turned away from the church and then like how they kind of reconcile, like coming back into the church and like kind of forming this new relationship with Christianity from a space of maybe not, you know, like you said, maybe not believing, you know, that Jesus was the son of a virgin and you know, all those kind of like biblical stories.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that makes sense.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so so you're f these people that you've met have been in a church community like setting, they're there.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them I I found them all in a church setting.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because the question I was asking the ministers is do you know anybody that comes to church and has really interesting spiritual experiences but doesn't believe?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: That was the question I was asking people.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: And those were those were the people that I was finding.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll tell you, Rochelle, have I got your name right?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Rochelle, that's how you pronounce it.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um one of the things I've discovered, much to my surprise, is that most people who go to church are in this boat.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: Most people who go to church do not believe the bulk of the stories.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, most people go because there's something there for them, they they sense it, but you know, people just kind of ignore the question of resurrection, you know.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like one of my people said, resurrection.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't believe anything as weird as what's resurrection.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like that.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: So most of the people that I've talked to are kind of standard in a way that we don't know.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Most people are very thoughtful.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, most people that go to churches, and then it turns out that something like 40 to 60 percent of America have experiences like what you and I were talking about in the very beginning.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, your Jetsi experience.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: Most people have had experiences like that.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: Few people, however, can connect those experiences to what they're hearing in the church, and that's what I've been trying to do in this book, Christianity Reimagined.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: I've been trying to say, wait a minute, guys, you're all having these experiences, and this is what Christianity is talking about.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, let's let's connect the dots here.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that some people can you know can hear me and actually connect the dots because Christianity becomes really interesting if you're not too swayed by the craziness and the priest telling you you have to be blah, blah, blah, and telling you you're a bad person or a sinner, most people would really profit from it if we if we weren't getting that crazy mis, you know, that crazy uh superiority, misogynist stuff that so much of Christianity is laced with.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think if people can recognize that it's talking about the most joyous and meaningful times in our lives.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: What a beautiful thing.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's talking about that with one another and to be in community where people are actually having these experiences and recognizing they're having these experiences.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's where Christianity really can fly.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: But the way it is right now, it's it's it's too far away.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope the more people can hear a different way to think about Christianity.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, reading my book would be nice, but I I I hope people can recognize that there's there's an element of Christianity that's talking about the most valuable, the deepest experiences of our lives.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what Jesus was about, and that's what the the religion was originally about.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I say it needs to be Christianity reimagined.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the Christianity we know, but it's to reimagine Christianity as this rich mystical pathway is a really wonderful option.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I find myself, when I go to church, I really enjoy it, you know, and it doesn't bother me at all.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: The language is hard.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: I have to translate it, you know.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: I hear, you know, the Lord be with you, and I have to go, what exactly are we saying there?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, or I hear, you know, I believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy, and I say, really?
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: What's that?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: What's it what's that like?
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: What are we saying there?
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I I, you know, to some extent, it's an interesting challenge for us to kind of reinterpret this stuff, but it's that's worth doing, you know, Christianity is talking about something very beautiful.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I'm yeah, I'm lecturing here.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I love it.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think like anytime I've heard, you know, the term like Christian mysticism or anything like that in the past, I definitely like perked my ears up, right?
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, huh, that's interesting.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I personally need to unhook Catholicism in Christianity, right?
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like in the sense that you're talking about it in like my experience with the church.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, have you found, you know, as you've been having these interviews and talking to people and sort of time out there, time out there one second.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just say bravo to you for recognizing that that's a challenge, that that's your challenge.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: To unhook all that you heard with Catholicism from the religion as a whole is really going to really serve you well in the long run.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm sorry, I interrupted.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I I agree.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um, no, I guess my question was gonna be so as as you're like having these interviews and meeting these people and kind of um having your own definition, I guess, of it, have you encountered a lot of maybe pushback from you know, whether they're pastors, ministers, or anything, as you're like having like asking these questions and being curious?
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Strangely enough, uh, I've shared this book with one, two, three, four, five or six ministers.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: And every single one of them said, Oh wow, you're really onto something here.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Every single one has said, um, especially the second half of the book where I'm kind of rethinking Christianity.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, every single single one has said, you know, like I think what you're doing is really helpful.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, ministers have been helping me get it get the word out.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I gave a talk in Woods Hole not too long ago to a to a church, and the guy organized another talk for me so that you know he more people could hear.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the the short answer is no, I've not received pushback.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I also have been in the world long enough to know that what will happen is if it in the beginning, people go, oh, this is interesting.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and in the beginning, if people disagree, they'll ignore you.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you actually start to get some sway, if you start to get a larger crowd, then they'll tell you how wrong you are.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: So right now I'm in the oh, we don't care about this guy, so we'll ignore him.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: So if there are ministers, if there are ministers in that boat, right now I'm still pretty safe.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, if it goes the way I sort of hope it goes and expect it to go, eventually I'll start getting criticized, and eventually maybe I'll be a martyr.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe somebody will shoot me.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you rub people wrong, I believe that there is some truth to what you're saying, right?
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's a reason people are reactive and responsive to things, and I think that, yeah, if we're yeah, I mean, that's true.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I also recognize that uh, you know, as a guy that used to teach religions, I recognize how deep this stuff runs.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: When you are in a religion, it really is how you think about the world and it's everything that you understand to be true.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: So when you start to challenge that, and some people will see what I'm saying is challenging, when you start to challenge that, you will, you know, people are scared, they're scared to lose that whole their whole way of thinking about things.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: So sure.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if the word really gets out about this book, I mean the book just came out, so it's um still early in the days.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, I can imagine people will start to get upset with me.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I would fully expect if if the word really gets out right now, I'm safe, you know.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I'm unknown enough.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, yeah.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I I mean, and you're so right about that.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even someone like me who left the church at 16, there's still those narratives that I like subconsciously believe, right?
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was just what you saw or what you heard, right?
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, yeah, again, like still like unhooking from that, but but witnessing that it's and it was ground into your head and it was the way you thought about things, and yeah, yeah.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it's interesting.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up go ahead.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, I was just saying, I grew up in the Middle East, right?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so Islam was, I mean, it's it's such a part of the culture, you know.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like in America, I know we have like different religions and things like that, but in the Middle East, it is like it is everything.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so just seeing how it's interwoven and you know, place like that.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, just like culturally and heritage and generationally, like those things are passed on, whether we're kind of consciously aware of it or not.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: But that was that's what it was.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, the last point, like just to like kind of double click on something that you had said earlier that I feel like is really resonant to like whether you want to call it the new age, but just like people seeking right now too.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there's a big part of uh, you know, you talked about like going a lot, a lot of people go to church, you know, for comfort and also for community.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that a lot of people right now are very feeling very isolated and seeking this connection and community, right?
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like with one another.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I like that you kind of mentioned that because even when I went back to church, that was sort of part of it.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was a newly single mom and I just wanted support outside of like my family unit, you know.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would go to church and just kind of like make connections with people and see other people.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: My kids would get to play with other kids.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I do really um, I think that piece is really important.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I would hope that, you know, I mean, I I don't currently go to church, but it's something that's kind of been coming up more and more lately, which was also a reason why I wanted to talk to you.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I would hope that people would seek that out and not be deterred by the like institution of, you know, whatever that would push them away from.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the institution can get in your way.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the institution of Catholicism got in your way.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of traumatic for you.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, but you've you know, you're looking around for some other church that is not quite so heavy-handed, you know, it's like you could find it.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what religion gives you, and to some extent it's like Jesus' two commands, um, you know, it gives you the sense of the infinite, something vertical, if you will, and it gives you the sense of a community, something horizontal.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it's you know, it's it's both and and I think people to go back what Christianity can be is it can be a very loving community when it works, you know.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I like the people in my church.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh none of them are my best friends, but a lot of them are my friends, you know.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I like going to church and seeing these people and singing with folks and you know, doing little projects with people, and you know, it's it's nice to be part of a community.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: I it's it's it improves my life, you know, it improves our lives to have something like that.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: And as a single mom, you know, you could go to church, I'm sure you could go to church and take your kids and for two hours they'll be at church school.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, so yeah, you know, it could it it really can help.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I'll give you a quick a quick view about uh three years ago I had a shoulder operation on a shoulder replacement.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um man, the church was really loving, you know.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you need food?
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'll bring you dinner, you know.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it was where else, you know, where else has it happened?
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's it is a very, very sweet thing to have that kind of support.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: And as a single mom, I think triply so, you know, to have people that are around and can help.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, but you know, you have if you're gonna do that, you really do need to get your head clear about what this is about.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is about experiences like you had on that on the Jet Sea.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's about those experiences that Christianity is talking about it, and the challenge will be for you to hear it.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're they're gonna be saying Jesus saves, and you want to go, well, wait a minute, that's not quite the way I think about it.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think about it as Jesus is standing for that kind of salvation.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's not it's not that I'm going to get it through him, but rather he and I are both going to get something kind of similar.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_01: And in that sense, I think to hear words of Jesus can be incredibly helpful.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: And to hear his talk can be incredibly wise.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: This guy was really good.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I find myself, you know, really enjoying his words.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you go, if you find yourself going to a church, and I do recommend it, if you find yourself going to a church down there, you know, to be able to find one in which they're not going to be cramming a particular way to think down your throat that really invite you to think this through on your own and to think through what the ground of being is, and yeah.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for some and and try some out.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: My I think that's great.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: My last question for you is um, so uh do you still meditate?
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are you still in that world?
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: And also uh, like what is your opinion or thoughts on prayer?
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: And is it like the same thing?
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh prayer is not quite the same thing as meditation.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I continue to meditate.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I've been meditating now for 50 god knows how many years, 50 some years.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's just part of my life.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I I'll never stop.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just like I get up in the morning and I sit up in bed and I meditate.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's that's my schedule.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um in prayer, prayer is somewhat different than meditation, than the way I do meditation.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: In prayer, you're actually um looking for a response.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: Meditation, you meditate uh the way we talk about it, I do transcendent meditation.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: The way we talk about it is you sit down to meditate and you say, Here goes nothing.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have a goal in meditation, you don't have anything you're trying to get in meditation, you're simply allowing yourself to be present.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here, I'm gonna be here for the next 20 minutes or half an hour, and that's great.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like that's all there is to it.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: I have no goals in prayer.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: You're looking for a kind of response.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when I say prayer, I don't mean the oh Lord, give won't you give me a Mercedes?
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mean that.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm I'm not saying that we're looking for something specific like that, but you're kind of looking for something in response.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and that's different, and the attitude is different.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's not you're not just being present, you're being present plus looking for a kind of response from the world.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: And in that sense, I think it's a little different.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some people think, by the way, I uh you know, in my working on this book, somebody said prayer for for when you're when you're young, prayer is like a long distance wire uh to a butler, and you're looking for the butler to give you stuff.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, God, I could use an extra 50 bucks.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like and that you know that's not that's not the way prayer can work.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, like when I pray, it's like I hope the world goes better.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: I hope we don't fall apart, you know.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: I hope some of this some of this split that we've experienced in our country gets resolved.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a way of expressing my deepest longings, and I think in that sense it's beautiful.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, when I used to pray with people in the hospital, and I and I did every time I saw them, it was like, may we be able to handle what we know we can't.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: May we be able to survive the unsurvivable.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's a beautiful thought, you know.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it's different than meditation.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_01: In meditation, you you have no specifics you're looking for, but at least that's the way I do it.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: You'll have to uh send me some resources for transcendental meditation because this like that literally keeps coming up for me, and I feel like I'm going down like this rabbit hole on the internet trying to find like.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: an answer to it.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: It feels so elusive.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: An answer to that.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like what is it?
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: TM is taught one-on-one.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's being taught person to person.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's around.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll see if I can send you a uh I'll see if I can send you, you know, like here's the national organization.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: Ask them where your closest teachers are you close to Dallas?
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: I am close to Dallas.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I got this actually.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: I found this book.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: I oh you I don't know if you can read it.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like Strength and Stillness, the power of transcendental meditation.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: But like I got um Bob Roth.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh Bob Roth.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I got, you know, maybe like three quarters of the way in and and then or not three quarters, like maybe halfway through.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it was still like, well, you have to find somebody to like so I was like what's the Yeah the book is not going to give it to you.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: Alas the book will do it.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you what if you come here I I have a good teacher up here.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah come here and stay here and we'll get you we'll we'll get you all taught up.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:56
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah it's but it's definitely been something that's been orbiting me.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you had mentioned it and I'm like I just keep perking up when people talk about it.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: Cause I'm like it's definitely something that wants to come into my life.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just figuring out how to like let it in.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: But um but just just so that I hear it you're close to Dallas.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're close to Austin.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: Dallas.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see if there's a TM Center in Dallas.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: I bet there is one.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: Probably yeah and then yeah I have something I want to say go ahead.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're fine.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well I want to say to you good for you for doing this.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: My hat is off my hat is off because you're pursuing your own growth you're pursuing your own understanding and you're doing it with energy and you're also allowing people to enter into that path with you.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: And there's few enough of us that are taking the lead in doing something like this.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: So my hat is off to you for the courage to put yourself out there and do this.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you're a good interviewer so it makes it really a joy to sort of do this with you.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh thank you so much.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and thank you for what you're doing.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read the book because this is really fascinating to me and you know I love your curiosity right and in and showing up in in church settings and and um being open to it and using discernment but also asking the questions.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's um really admirable you know because I think not a lot of people have the discernment or even I guess the the courage to ask a hard question in a place that maybe you might receive pushback.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: So oh thank you yeah thank you.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to contact me or if anybody wants to contact me the book is called Christianity Reimagine and my email is Robert that's my first name Robert at Christianityreimagine.org.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm more than happy to hear from folks and thank you for doing this and thank you for doing what you do on a on a regular basis.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: So of course and thank you and I'll have everything linked in the show notes so anybody listening can just go click it and then YouTube I'm going to put a picture of the book so they can visualize it as well.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_00: So all right wonderful thank you so much.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_01: All right thank you and uh live long and prosper as we say in the in the trekky world