Episode 24: Cole Arthur Riley – The Body of Faith

Jared  

You’re listening to Faith for Normal People, the only other God-ordained podcast on the internet.

Pete  

I’m Pete Enns.

Jared  

And I’m Jared Byas.

Intro  

Jared  

Hey, everyone, we hope you’ve had a great summer! As we approach September, we wanted to let you know that for the rest of this season, we’re going to stick to that bi-weekly, alternating rhythm, where there is a show each week, alternating between Bible for Normal People and Faith for Normal People that we’ve had throughout the summer.

Pete  

And you know, folks, thank you so much for all your support and for continuing to listen, we couldn’t do this without you. And on behalf of not just us, but the whole podcast production team, we are really grateful for how you’ve embraced the changes we’ve made: starting Faith for Normal People, and really digging into biblical scholarship on Bible for Normal People. Thank you.

Jared  

Today on Faith for Normal People, it’s just me, Jared. But not just me, actually, because I’m talking about the body of faith with Cole Arthur Riley. Cole is a writer, poet, author of The New York Times bestseller This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us as well as the creator of “Black Liturgies.” So don’t forget to stay tuned at the end of the episode for Quiet Time where Pete and I will reflect on the conversation with Cole. But for now, let’s get into the conversation.

Cole  

“I think sometimes the path to an embodied, emotional, integrated life might be the path away from whatever form of Christianity you find yourself in. If one is willing to contend with the ways that greed and whiteness and supremacy have fed off of the Christian tradition, I think it’s possible to reclaim a Christian formation that is of the body.”

Jared  

Well welcome, Cole, to the podcast. It’s really, really great to have you.

Cole  

It’s good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jared  

Let’s dive right in. I think a lot of our listeners are coming from a tradition where they were told they had to decide between faith or God and their own bodies and their own intuitions. So I wanted to jump in with, what’s your spiritual history with this idea? Did you grow up with that similar tradition? Or was it different? How did you grow up thinking about these concepts?

Cole  

Well, I wasn’t raised in a explicitly religious home, we didn’t grow up going to church or anything like that, or really speaking about God directly, at least not often. There was no prayer or anything like that. But I would say that my house growing up had a kind of spirituality, more so grounded in like, storytelling and myth. We’re big myth people, love to make up stories and tell them to our children. And as well, I think, a reverence for the body. Every morning—I write about this in my book—but every morning, my father, and my sister and I, we had this kind of ritual of bodily care, bodily attunement, like expression of the goodness of our bodies—being little black girls, a little bit of a ritual with our hair as well. So I’d say that, at least initially, early on through adolescence, I had a sense that my body was spiritual in some way, or some kind of spiritual connection to the body. 

I started really, I mean, I did a brief stint going to church when I was young, for like a year, my family went to this strange, small, very white Baptist Church. And that was probably the first time I really heard a kind of religious rhetoric that was about sacrificing one’s body, you know, like, “what will you give? If Jesus gave this on the cross? If they did these horrible things to the Christ, you know, what will you give?” That’s the first time I heard that rhetoric. In college, I, you know, started attending a church regularly and it was much of the same, maybe not as intense, but the sense that our bodies were to be sacrificed, you know, that we are supposed to take up our crosses or what have you. And yeah, it took its toll. I think it took its toll on me, but also, my friends and people I love, to be told that God requires, that God is more interested in how we’re going to sacrifice or disregard our bodies as opposed to how we’re going to embrace them and care for them and nourish them. 

So that reclamation of kind of my original situation with the body and spirituality, that reclamation didn’t happen until much later, probably like five years later, once I had left college and left that particular spiritual space. And here I am, you know, I’ve made a little bit of a living now off of telling people to care for their bodies and that God does, in fact, you know, have everything to do with our embodied kind of mundane activities.

Jared  

What was the logic or what was the reasoning for the transition? You know, you were told these messages, but what was going on in your own head and heart that allowed you to, instead of rejecting that outright, when you started attending these churches, to start to buy into the idea when you were taught from a young age, you were taught to express the goodness of your body. And then that switched. What was compelling to you about the narrative of sacrificing the body?

Cole  

You know, I don’t know if the narrative itself was compelling as much as the kind of allure of belonging. And I think especially when you’re a young person, when you go to college, so much of the kind of like core motivating factors in our decisions has to do with trying to establish some sense of belonging. I mean, we’re terrified without it. And I think people, including myself, will do and say all kinds of things, if it means that they don’t experience some kind of rejection. Not just in terms of disembodiment, but I could say many of the doctrines of the church I attended, you know, there was this, I kind of like, resolved myself to want to believe those things or want to, like, not be so disrupted by those things in order to retain some sense of membership in the community. 

And, you know, in colleges specifically—I mean, churches in general—but there is a kind of predatory nature to the college campus ministry, where you have all these campus ministries and just relying on the work and the labor of students to survive. Like, there’s just no way without all these leadership teams and these young people who are, who feel some sense of their belonging being at stake, without them doing so much of the labor, they just wouldn’t exist. And so I found myself in a ministry that really depended on our labor, depended on the labor of students and even at the expense of our classwork and our family lives and our social lives and everything else, in order to, you know, sustain itself. I found myself in that beast, the beast of campus ministry that just kind of chews kids out or chews young adults out and spits them out after four years, and sends them on their way. But I was willing to endure that if it meant I had friends, you know?

Jared  

Yeah, that sense of belonging is so strong. And also, I don’t know if you experienced this, but I think sometimes the rhetoric is sacrificing for God. But that’s abstract, when practically what it means is you’re sacrificing to the system or to this organization or to this set of leaders. And then it gets, it feels very exploitative when we’re sort of substituting, we’re drawing on this sense that someone would want to sacrifice to God in the abstract, but then the devil’s in the details of like, well, no, what it really means is, we’re just going to kind of exploit free labor so that we can continue to, it almost is a pyramid scheme of labor.

Cole  

Yeah, well put. And, you know, I don’t really talk about this often, but I went into college with an eating disorder that was just completely out of control. At that point, I danced growing up. And anyways, I went into college with that, and to find a place that was also a harbor, a harbor in the worst ways, you know, for a disordered relationship with my body, it kind of made me eat the lie, you know, a little bit. Even if I knew that there was something not completely sincere about what they were asking of us, I was almost willing to submit myself to a little bit of delusion if it meant that I was able to retain this disordered practice because it was so secondary, that the body was so secondary—and part of me loved that. That was intoxicating for someone who had just a terrible relationship with their body. And it was like, oh, obviously, no one was telling me to do these things. It wasn’t explicit, but it’s in the details of “Oh, our our bodies can’t be trusted. Our bodies, you know, are objects of temptation” or whatever. They’re not these like precious, sacred, beautiful things. It was easier for me in some ways, I think, to belong to a community that could care less how much I was eating, could care less if I’d slept.

Jared  

On top of that, I mean, this goes into a gripe I’ve had over the last couple of years. That’s a great example of what happens when we take these “biblical imperatives” and we don’t understand the context in which they were to be applied and then we absolutize them. In my mind, like telling someone who is struggling with an eating disorder that the flesh is bad, that is not the message that needs to be heard. That’s contrary to it. But you know who maybe does need to hear that message? Is the group of white men at the top of that organization who have had a lot of privilege and who haven’t really ever had to deny themselves. You know, and I can say this because I think that perspective is what helped me, is I grew up in a tradition that was you know, body’s bad, all this stuff, but it didn’t affect me negatively because I kind of had a too high a view of myself, but that came from being privileged. Like, that came from a place. And so we don’t really necessarily recognize when Paul is saying these things, maybe it did make sense for Paul, because Paul’s also probably talking to the, you know, while in general, the Jewish people would have been oppressed within that particular culture, he was a part of the privileged class. And he would have been part of the privileged gender. So the message coming from a privileged person in that particular context to other privileged people, yes, a lot of self-denial, we need to maybe make room for other people. That makes sense. But that message is not what needs to be heard by the people who have had all the space taken up by these others or who have other, you know, struggles and oppression. So anyway, that’s my soapbox about that. 

Cole  

Jared  

So you talk about Toni Morrison’s book Beloved, which I love that book. And you mentioned, I think, one of the most famous scenes is, you know, Baby Suggs preaching in the clearing, and one of the main messages she has is to love your flesh. And you mentioned that, and you talked about that as a scene that is a vision of your spirituality. So can you say more about that? What moves you in that particular picture? What does that vision look like for you?

Cole  

Yeah, I mean, my first thought is that it’s intergenerational, which I just think is a beautiful choice. It’s just intentionally and specifically intergenerational. You have this call to the women and then to the fathers, and then to the children. And so it’s this intergenerational expression that Baby Suggs is calling them to. But this kind of holistic portrait, you get this holistic vision of spirituality. You know, children, you know, let your parents or let your moms see you dance, and then the kids dance and so it’s this embodied expression. And then you have the men, let your wives hear you cry, okay, so you have that lament. And then the woman you know, laugh, so you have this emotional attunement in the clearing that Morrison has created. You have this embodied attunement, and it’s integrated into this beautiful intergenerational kind of ritual that allows—that then allows other people, other spheres to participate, in kind of your original call into the clearing. 

So the children, Morrison writes that they all kind of get tangled up in each other and like, the women begin to laugh, or cry, and the men start to dance and the children sit down and weep. And there’s an exchange happening, I think, a really particular and sacred exchange happening intergenerationally between the embodied, and the emotional, and the spiritual. And it’s only once they do this, and they’re kind of collapsed into the clearing and breathing heavily and just kind of like held in the grass, that Baby Suggs, you know, the matriarch, gives her sermon. 

And when I think about the clearing, it’s like, that’s the spirituality I think I’ve been so desperate for but I’ve found it’s so hard to kind of reach—is one that’s embodied, emotional, intergenerational, and also connected to some kind of wisdom tradition, Black wisdom tradition, you know? Baby Suggs’ sermon, Toni Morrison writes very specifically, you know, she’s speaking to someone when she writes that. She says, “Baby Suggs did not tell them to go and sin no more,” you know, that like classic gospel message that you would expect, like no, she called them to kind of awaken, to awaken to truth. And then she leads them down this path of love your flesh, love that neck, stroke it, hold it up, you know, beautiful kind of gospel of the body. And what it means to proclaim yours in a world that is contented to mutilate it and destroy it. I want that, you know? Some days I’m closer to the clearing than others, but it’s always what I’m after.

Jared  

What are some things that keep you from getting to that vision? And I’m thinking like obstacles societally, you know, from others, but also within yourself. Like, what are some of those internalized messages that maybe have kept you from getting to that clearing?

Cole  

Yeah. You know, I think there’s a very kind of practical sense of disconnection from the people who made me. That’s no fault of my own, you know, but just the very calculated stealing of history and stealing of intergenerational memory. That can make it difficult. But in terms of what I have in my control but it feels like I don’t sometimes, I think there’s a, I don’t know, real formation or real training toward a disembodied life, toward a life that’s more about like producing and doing and kind of getting it done, “grind.” I mean in Black communities, there’s this whole rhetoric, this whole world of rhetoric, initially beautiful, now perverted, about you know, black excellence, and “look at how much we’ve accomplished.” And when taken to extremes, I think people really become kind of enslaved in a different way to excellence, to productivity. And I’ve felt that to some extent.

I also have never been great at attuning to my body. I write about this in the book, but I live with chronic pain and chronic illness and I think that embodiment is a particularly difficult ask of people who live lives in disabled bodies, in chronically ill bodies. I think sometimes, myself included, you know, we’re shouting into the void of like, “pay attention to your body, rest,” you know, “listen to your body,” you hear that all the time now. And I think I hadn’t really contended with what I was asking of people in bodies like mine until I came to occupy this body that feels all of these pains and twitches. And so it’s a risk, you know, it’s a risk as a chronically ill person to listen to my body. It’s a risk I have to take, I won’t survive without taking that risk. But I still have to acknowledge that it’s a risk and have to be very careful about when and what I ask of my body.

Jared  

You mentioned briefly, just the intergenerational obstacle. Can you say a little bit more about that just in our culture? I just think it is such a…I don’t know of a lot of people who have been in intentionally intergenerational spaces and regretted that, but usually find it incredibly refreshing and life-giving. And yet, I just feel like there isn’t a lot of space to do that.

Cole  

Yeah, it’s true, there aren’t. I think it’s becoming less and less, you know, frequent. Maybe that’s just in my particular circles and friends of like, having ways to interact with other generations, both in your family and outside of your family. But I feel like it is getting harder. Maybe social media has something to do with it, and the way all of us are kind of algorithm trained to like, only receive people like us. But yeah, it’s difficult. So I married—my husband, he and his family, they have the wildest room of artifacts from their family history. Like one of his great uncles was this like famous painter. It’s like, all these people, they’ve diaries, journals, like weird objects, you know, [Chuckles] and they have them like stored up in kind of their family tree-farm house. 

And it was really like entering that space, I remember very well being in that room for the first time, and I was overcome with this sense of like, jealousy—I should say that my partner is white. And so there was definitely a racial component to the jealousy and grief of like all of this, you know, like all of this that you’ll be able to pass on and that younger generations are going to receive and I started to think really seriously about my own family’s like artifacts and sense of memory, and how much has been stolen from us either by poverty, or by being the lineage of people who were enslaved. I started to really think about that and feel that grief and want to reclaim that. It’s part of the reason why I wrote the book I did, was to kind of reclaim some sense of intergenerational memory because I felt so far from it, like so far from being able to access stories, diaries, you know. So I thought, okay, what can I save? I’ll try to preserve some intergenerational memory and the ways I can through my grandma, through my father. But yeah, it’s difficult. It’s a lot of work.

Jared  

Can we maybe go a little bit further and dig into what’s the value of that? And I think of it from this perspective of, I would say, in my circles there is—I think it’s something that’s taken for granted and not understood in terms of what’s the value. So I have a couple of circles, right? So I go to a Mennonite church where that is extremely important. I mean, I’m right down the street from what’s called the Mennonite Heritage Center, where they’re just putting like, stuff from 300 years ago on display and not only that, but connecting it to now. So I’m part of a community where that’s extremely valuable. And yet I’m also a millennial, and I think a lot of like people I grew up with, and friends and stuff, they kind of eschewed the idea of being connected to this past. It almost felt like a weight, like “Well, I want to get rid of that, I want to move across the country and distance myself from my rootedness and from my family.” And it felt like it wasn’t a gift, it was a burden to slough off. And so I’m kind of caught between these two extremes. And hearing you, it sounds like there’s something to be learned from a group of people who were involuntarily cut off from that, and to learn, like, what’s the value of that. Because I think we are eschewing it to our own peril, but I don’t know yet how to articulate what the value of that is.

Cole  

Mhmm. Yeah, I mean, I have to ask myself and keep asking myself, you know? June Jordan, she’s a beautiful poet, talks about like, there’s like a moral imperative to remember well, and I have to ask myself, you know, who is—you know, we can try to distance ourselves from the memories of our family and those who come before us. But some version of the memory is being retained. Either a cheapened one, a diluted one, an oppressed one. And in our particular country and in our particular society, like I know the risk of not keeping our own memory, of not keeping stories well, in a country that is very content with like, a willful amnesia, they don’t want us to remember, you know, they buried many bodies in unmarked graves and for a reason. 

So I always ask myself, like, yeah, it’s hard work. It’s tiring work to journey backward, and to kind of become some kind of trustee of collective memory. But what is the alternative? The alternative is to let someone else keep our stories for us. And I just can’t trust that someone else. You know, I can’t trust how this country elects its historians, how it chooses its historians, because it’s so rarely voices like mine. And I’ll say something about—so I have friends as well, like you who are just kind of like pick up and go, like, “In order to find myself, I need to leave. I don’t want to be connected to that kind of thing.” I sympathize with that to some degree. But I will say though, the white friends that I have who are like that, I have questions for them. I have questions about what it means that you know, the people who say “Just look forward, don’t look back,” the people—I have questions for white people who say that of like, okay, because what would it cost you to actually look back? And to look back rightly? Like no one wants to be remembered as anything other than the hero. And I think that’s been really hard for whiteness across the board to like, have a memory that is preserved for themselves outside of the hero role. 

And so when confronted for that, I think, on some level, it makes sense that there’s this instinct to run, you know, and want to find yourself someplace else. But yeah, that attunement is absolutely necessary, painful but necessary—and it’s not to say that you’ll be the people that came before you, that you’ll make the same decisions. But, it’s an acknowledgment. Miroslav Volf, he says this line about, you know, the truthfulness of remembering is, you know, part and parcel for the justice of remembering. Like, it’s similar to what June Jordan said, like, if you actually are a person who values justice, then you should have some sense of kind of protectiveness over the truest memory we can kind of conjure collectively. It’s no one person’s responsibility, but we all should kind of feel that shared, that shared load, that shared weight of remembering well.

Jared  

Like—and so what I had to kind of recognize in my early 20s was that, oh, I’m using up all this energy, I have limited energy to put forward to become a better version of me and to try to leave a legacy that’s more positive, and I’m using up most of my energy to convince myself that I’m—that thing I did, that manipulation, that harsh word, that perpetuation of systemic injustice is not that bad. Because the alternative is just my internal voice says that’s about as horrible a thing you could be, and do. I can’t admit that to myself, because it would be crushing. And not only that, my social circles, it would be a lot of judgment and a lot of shame. And to your point, when we started this, I risk being excluded. And so I’m going to put a lot of energy into appearance and bandaids and convincing myself rather than—what if we just rip the bandaid off and start with a real clear view of what’s actually going on. So yeah, I’d be curious if that resonates with you, or if that makes any sense.

Cole  

No, it makes complete sense. And James Baldwin, he calls this out, he called—he’s talking about white people specifically—but he talks about, you know, this resistance that white people will do anything to resist being confronted, and he calls it “with the tyranny of the mirror,” the tyranny with their own mirror, like they can’t bear to kind of truly look at their own faces. I think this extends to most people, whenever we’re a part of a story that has harmed and when we come from people who have harmed, I think it’s true of most of us. But I think about that image a lot and as you were talking, it was like, “Yeah, that failure to want to confront your face.” Really. You know, because what would it cost you to actually confront your face? And to know, yeah, the same blood that runs through my father runs through me on some level, you know, for better and for, for worse, what do I do with that? You know? 

But I think kind of going back to body, of like, even if you refuse to kind of face the tyranny of the mirror, as Baldwin would say, you know, that memory—I’m quite the mystic, so in my opinion, I should say, that memory still dwells in the body. You can’t escape that. So do you want to be knowledgeable about what dwells in the body? What lives in the body? What is the reason why your pulse picks up or your throat tightens in certain—if you want any sense of kind of awareness or intimacy with yourself, your interior world, and with your body, you have to acknowledge that running away to Vail, Colorado for [Laughs] a few years to find yourself isn’t really going to escape what you’re trying to escape.

Jared  

Yeah, the—in some ways the transfer, whether we’re talking about family trauma, or family, you know, patterns of dysfunction, or whatever we want to call it. The transfer has already happened from your DNA and your upbringing, it’s already in your body. And so to run away at 18, you know—as my mom would say often—too little too late. 

Cole  

Jared  

So, yeah, yeah. We’re, yeah. And I think I think that’s exactly right. I appreciate you saying that. It’s that, again, the body keeps the score, feelings and emotions are messengers, and I feel like we spend a lot of time ignoring that. Because I actually, to be honest, I don’t know why, because I don’t relate. I’ve never been good at ignoring those things. But I’ve seen, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen a lot of people—and I think it’s because their bodies were able to do it better in their 20s and 30s, and at some point, the cracks start to show, mental health starts to decline. And it’s like, why is this happening? And it’s like, well, because you’ve been running from trauma or quote, “negative feelings,” or these things that will catch up to you at some point. And then you know, when we face the mirror in a physical or mental decline, it’s a lot harder than if we could face it along the way.

Jared  

If we can, I want to turn our attention to Christianity, because there’s this beautiful vision, you know, that you’ve painted this intergenerational, holistic, non-dual, there’s not a distinction of flesh and spirit, there’s not a distinction of some of these norms that we’ve been told or emotional embodied. It’s this holistic, intergenerational community, awakening to the truth. None of that is language that would have been tied to Christianity for me, as a kid, really. So does Christianity have a place in this vision? What makes that identification difficult for you? What is helpful in that tradition? Sort of, what’s your relationship with the Christian tradition in terms of this vision?

Cole  

Hmmm. I think Christianity can certainly have a place, it can. But it doesn’t need to for everyone. I think sometimes the path to like an embodied, emotional, integrated life might be the path away from whatever form of Christianity you find yourself in. I try to be like, somewhat at peace about that, and not hold it too tightly. But I think to answer your question for me is like, yeah, I think it’s possible. If one is willing to contend with the ways that greed and whiteness and supremacy have fed off of the Christian traditions, if we’re willing to contend with that, I think it’s possible to kind of reclaim a Christian formation that is of the body. I mean, if you look at the, like our texts, you know, our Christian texts, there’s plenty of places, whether or not those stories are told, where you get a portrait of really embodied emotional like well-integrated living, memory based living. I mean, so much of the Bible, I feel like, is just kind of shouting at us to remember well, so all of the things that I’ve find in the clearing, maybe no small reason why I haven’t left Christianity altogether, is because I can find them, I can locate them in a Christian tradition, with some work. 

I mean, you have the stillness in the valley of the shadow of death and I mean, you have the call to lie down by still waters, to lie down. And this table being prepared, you have these beautiful images, you know, in the valley of the shadow of death, like, in the midst of doom, that there would be this beautiful kind of poetic image of one just kind of lying down and resting and tending to their bodies and, and eating. And I find that beautiful, but I haven’t really been taught it very much, you know, apart from just kind of in passing. So I guess it depends on how willing or how willing and how much power we have over the Christian spaces that we occupy to bring some of that in. Maybe not some of it, but bring a lot of it in and resist kind of what you were saying earlier, resist this kind of one size fits all Christian formation that says, “Okay, Paul said this once to this one particular group of people, so everyone, this is your priority formation is now this,” if we can resist that and nuance out I think Christian texts a little bit more, it’s possible, or at least I’m trying. Ask me again in five years.

Jared  

But in our Hebrew Bibles, we even like, what I love about it, if we allow it to be what it is, we get a record of a lot of the foils and mishaps and the problematics of that history in that tradition are still crystallized in the Hebrew Bible. The prophetic texts are not “look at how wonderful we did and look at how amazing we are.” It is like failure after failure after failure, and “remember these things, because that will impact how you show up to the stranger and the neighbor” and I just think that’s a really important point you made that we have this baked into our Hebrew Bible, but only insofar as our tradition will recognize it.

Cole  

Yes, yeah. And to think of the Bible, like it’s not…Like that’s our mirror, that’s our, you know, if we’re in biblical stories, that’s our mirror. It’s not our instruction manual, or it’s not even a history textbook. But the closest thing is a mirror to humanity, to the things that terrify us and also bring us joy and make us complicated humans who were just trying to remember rightly, you know?

Jared  

That reminds me of Kierkegaard. Søren Kierkegaard, 19th century Danish philosopher. But he, one of his big things was how we study the Bible abstractly and that is often a way around the moral imperative, the call that it has, he has this quote, he says, “One who hears the word of God but doesn’t act accordingly is like one who observes his bodily face in a mirror, but turns away and forgets what he looks like.” And so that idea of there is a way to see, to read, to read in community and as part of this tradition, our Bible, in such a way that it doesn’t, it doesn’t judge us, it doesn’t shame us, but it can act as a mirror. We can use it that way, it can be a tool for that if we let it. But only if we let it. There’s also plenty of tools and ways we can read the Bible where it’s a finger pointing outward, rather than a way to see clearly how we’re showing up in the world in a way that betrays our own values and betrays our own, you know, stated goals for our lives and our communities. 

So as we wrap up here, what are some ways that you’ve stepped into this vision in this practice? Like for a lot of people, it’s like, this is wonderful, but there’s this old tape playing in their head, there’s a tape around not having reverence for the body, of sacrificing the body, of “the body is bad.” And so what are some practical steps for how we make our way out of that? Because I’ve found in my experience, just saying, “That’s not good. I shouldn’t do that,” doesn’t actually help. So has there been, you know, practices or a set of beliefs or mantras? Or what are some ways that you found back to the goodness of our body and toward that vision that you talked about?

Cole  

Yeah, a few things come to mind. The easiest like low hanging fruit, if you’re listening is, you know, set alarms on your phone. So literal reminders [Laughs]. So for example, I am a writer so I spend a lot of time writing during the day or just staring at a screen. But I know that I have pretty significant issues with my eyes and so I set an alarm that goes off every 20 minutes while I’m working, that reminds me to look away. There’s like a rule of like, 20-20-20, so it’s like, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds every 20 minutes. Like this is very practical, very easy. And so every 20 minutes that alarm goes off, and it’s not on me, you know? Because if it’s me alone, I’m never going to remember to look away from my screen. I’m going to become engrossed, and disembodied, and probably forget to eat until 5pm. So I set alarms for a lot of things that other people might find just kind of intuitive. I’ve recognized that I have a lot of repair to do that doesn’t give me that luxury. So whether that’s looking away from the screen, whether that’s eating, having a snack, getting up and walking. 

Also, I’m a big fan of like, breath meditation and like breathing practices, some people call them breath prayers. I think they’re like the beautiful, like the most beautiful way to connect with both your interior world in your body and kind of, it’s just a beautiful bridge to have these—I’ll take a phrase, either a need or a fear or a hope, I’ll take a phrase and I’ll breathe in and exhale with while I’m saying that phrase in my head. That’s kind of easy, low hanging fruit practice, I think. Because you can do it for 60 seconds, you can do it for five minutes. And I found it really, really helpful and really grounding and I always end up doing it for longer than I think I am. Like, the momentum to start can be a bit hard. But once you’re doing it, it’s like, “oh, this is actually kind of lovely.” 

I will say like, the biggest thing in terms of like practices or stepping into a different form for your spirituality that’s embodied, that’s intergenerational, that is emotional, you know, is having really good community, like really honest community. I can’t get away with a lot of the shit I was getting away with in my early 20s because I have friends who are just so fiercely loyal to my body. But when I’m prone to neglect it, like they just, they will not have it. It’s not, you know, “how are you?” it’s “when did you last eat?” and having friends like that, and a community that feels that safe, that feels both comfortable enough to ask me, to bring me meals, to tell me to rest I think has been invaluable. It’s like the air you breathe has everything to do…if I was still surrounded by people who were kind of “go go go, produce produce produce” type people, I think my job would be a lot more difficult than it is. But thankfully, I’ve found people, most of them artists, you know? Artists, they go slow [Laughs]. Good artists, I think, they’re not really bothered to try to like, grind out their art and force themselves into this. And I find that so refreshing. It’s given me the slowness and this attunement and just this freedom. So anyways, I think the biggest thing, even more than a practice is like who is around you? And like, what is the air you’re breathing?

Jared

Yeah, that’s a, I think, a beautiful way to end and a very, for me, when you said it, I immediately felt a sense of relief. Like we don’t have to do it alone. Because that’s, it’s a lot to ask, to do all of this, to notice and be aware of our needs, to remember them, to remind ourselves to pull ourselves away, even though we know it, we just don’t want to because we’re stuck in this “grind it out” accomplishment, “I have to get this thing done first.” So having people, other people in our lives and being able to do that for others, I think is a really wonderful way to end, in terms of a vision for that. So, Cole, thank you so much for coming on and for talking openly and vulnerably about your story and about this vision you have for faith. I’m excited to—even ending this conversation just picturing from that first time I read that book, that same scene, and I think it’s going to be something that sticks with me and hopefully our listeners as well. So thank you so much.

Cole  

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jared  

And now for Quiet Time…

Pete  

…with Pete and Jared. 

Pete  

Alright so, Jared, Cole talked about this thing disembodiment, which is a big theme with people leaving the church. You know, struggling to connect with their body and with their emotions after being told their body and their flesh is like sinful and evil. So, why do you think this is such a huge issue for people leaving the church? And was it a big issue for you?

Jared  

It really wasn’t. And there’s a lot of reasons for that, which maybe could be a whole stinking episode at some point. But so, but why is it such a huge issue? I mean, in some ways it seems glaringly obvious that over time, it is harmful to be told that the thing that you are, your body, your flesh is bad, evil, must be suppressed-

Pete  

Right.

Jared  

Gotten rid of. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with it. So if you think that, it- Almost imagine it like this thing that is tethered to you for your whole life, you are told is horrible.

Pete  

Jared  

Right. It’s like, what do we do with that? 

Pete  

Right.

Jared  

It just, it doesn’t, I don’t think it’s sustainable. And so I think that’s why is I think people maybe are on a journey of being healthier about themselves and who they are. 

Pete  

Right, right.

Jared  

And you have to leave that behind. And if you, if you connect that with church, then you would leave church.

Pete  

And I guess the question is like, why would that even be a thing? And I, my guess, just, my guess is, you know, Paul makes the spirit and flesh distinction-

Jared  

Which is very Greek.

Pete  

Which is very Greek. And also, it seems like he’s saying, you know, the flesh, meaning the body—which I mean, we’d have to get into this—but that might not be at all what Paul means, he might be talking about two different epics, two different states of being. There’s an “in Christ” way of living. And then there’s the old way of living, which he calls the flesh. So I guess, maybe, maybe not. But there are different ways of understanding that and not just, like Paul is against “the flesh,” like he doesn’t like sex or beer. 

Pete  

You know, that kind of thing. That’s just, not true.

Jared  

Right.

Jared  

Right. And I think there’s also nuance to this point, because I do think something that is compelling, is finding out a way to acknowledge that things aren’t quite right. 

Pete  

Jared  

Even within our bodies, things aren’t the way we wish they were. And so there is an element, I think of naming that—that’s important. It feels like when it goes to this extreme, maybe it’s that distinction that Brene Brown makes between guilt and shame, our body has imperfections and our body is a piece of garbage or something. Those are different things. 

Pete  

Yeah.

Jared  

But they’re on a spectrum. So I can see the allure of acknowledging, “Ugh, there’s something like I don’t like about this body,” or “There’s something that’s not quite right about how I show up in the world.”

Pete  

Mhmm.

Jared  

And I think that’s good to acknowledge.

Pete  

I think it is too. And it’s, but like you said, it just sort of gets out of hand and even to the extend of, it’s not a very biblical idea, if you want to get down to it. Like material stuff is good, and flesh is good, and bodies are good, and they do good things. And, and you know, why have this hard distinction that just makes people say, “Wait a minute, I can’t live without this thing that you think is all bad.” And, you know.

Jared  

Right. Okay. Well, that is a good segue, because another question I had for you thinking of kind of like our bodies, and there’s things that are wrong, you know, Cole mentioned chronic pain, and that actually affects how she thinks of her spirituality. So my question is, Pete, with your OCD, you’ve talked about it a couple of times on these episodes, and we’ve had a number of listeners talk about how that’s been really helpful for them to hear about that for from you, how has that impacted your own experiences connecting with your faith and church life?

Pete  

I think primarily where it’s sort of helped me is, it’s helped me understand myself and why I respond the way that I do, and not feeling guilty about responding the way that I do. So it’s a lot of just self-knowledge, and-

Jared  

It gives you perspective.

Pete  

It gives me perspective and it, when things are not just so in an order, the way I might like them and just to realize, “Well, this is me responding the way my body and my mind work right now. And I’m fine with that, but not passing-” and just being more relaxed about things, I think, because you know, we always seem to like comfort and control, those are the two things we want. And you don’t always find that in church or faith, [Laughing] or parenting, or husband-ing or whatever. Right? So.

Jared  

Which came first for you within that, with your with your journey on that? Is it, you had to shift your theological perspectives that then allowed you to have that view and that stance of, “Well, it’s just how I am like,” and just accepting that, or was it vice versa, that, you know, in therapy or whatever, like coming to terms with it, then helped you shift your theology and maybe it’s not so neat, maybe it’s a little bit of both?

Pete  

I think it’s a little of both, but probably more the former, because I would not have been ready to hear it in therapy. Had I not already had a view of what I think God is like, or-

Jared  

Right.

Pete  

What the nature of faith is to be able to hear it and that had to happen first. So, and I think it was rigid ways of thinking of faith. They don’t help with OCD at all.

Jared  

Which, well, the irony though, is—because I certainly have some of these tendencies myself—is you think it will because if what you’re searching for is comfort and control-

Pete  

Mhmm.

Jared  

The rigidness does help- It doesn’t “help” quote unquote, but it feels good.

Pete  

It helps for a while-

Jared  

It feels good.

Pete  

-Until, oh, I don’t know, you start noticing existence a little bit. 

Pete & Jared  

Jared  

Until it doesn’t work. 

Pete  

Right but it’s a thing you know, so for me that’s, that’s been helpful. I’m very, you know, I’m looking at my behaviors and I don’t want things always to be the way they are. But, I’m also very content with who I am too. And I don’t feel like when I do something out of it OCD mindset, like I don’t think anybody up there is mad at me.

Jared  

Mhmm.

Pete  

It’s just who I am and I’m trying and it’s the journey that we’re all on and it’s what it is. So… Speaking about being messed up, let’s talk about intergenerational faith [Laughing]. So, do you, do you have any regrets about the faith that you’ve handed to your—I don’t know if that’s really the best way I want to put it, “handed”—but modeled or maybe presented to kids and, what about your kids and how you feel about them now and how they’ve turned out and all that sort of stuff, with respect to faith?

Jared  

As a preface to this the first thing that came to mind when you talk about intergen- Well, whenever Cole- Whenever I was talking with Cole, this is what came to mind—it’s just that I really appreciate the the church that that we go to now, because it is very intentionally intergenerational. And I really appreciate that because in our culture, there’s just not a lot of places for that. There’s there’s not a lot of social situations-

Pete  

And most Mennonite churches are filled with very old people. 

Jared  

Yeah, mostly old people-

Pete  

Who drive slowly. I was behind one of them today trying to get here on time anyway-

Pete & Jared  

Jared  

So that, I think that was Amish. Was it- Was it a buggie? Is that why they were going slow, it was a horse and buggie?

Pete  

No horse and buggie. That’s that’s more Amish. But I think they wore, kindo of, black chrome.

Jared  

Yeah, the black bumper? Mennonites. Anyway. Okay, we’re inside baseball talk here. 

Pete  

Yeah [Laughing]. 

Jared  

No, so I just I think that’s important, because I, whenever she mentioned that—that was the first thing that came to my mind. Because I am grateful that our church is very intentional about being intergenerational and my kids and youth group at a certain grade level get assigned a mentor from some in the congregation who they just meet with hanging out with just so that they have other adults in their life, which I appreciate. But for me, I think the intention for a lot of our listeners of this question for us to talk about might be opposite. I think more listeners will have your experience of some of the regret of how they pass down a faith that they no longer hold true to their kids. I went through a faith transition-

Pete  

Well, the other way too, parents to us.

Jared  

Correct. 

Pete  

That’s an intergenerational- 

Jared  

Yeah. And, and for me, my regrets are kind of the other way around, where I had gone through this faith shift when my kids were young. And so I didn’t pass down, I didn’t pass on really any religious tradition or faith practices in any regimented way. We did some very fun seasonal calendar based liturgical things that I think were really great, but not on like a week to week basis. So if anything goes the other way around, like my kids don’t, they don’t care that much about this stuff. 

Pete  

They don’t have the baggage.

Jared  

They don’t have the baggage, but they also don’t have the like, richness of what-

Pete  

A tradition.

Jared  

A religious life or tradition can bring. 

Pete  

Right.

Jared  

Which, you know, if I have to choose one, I’m going to- I think I chose well. But that’s kind of my regret is like, eh, I think I wish I would have done a little bit more to—because I’m over here, like, I love the church I go to and I’ve worked through all my baggage, and I like being a Christian.

Pete  

Mhmm.

Jared  

Like it, I like it. It adds to my life. And my-

Pete  

Ideally would you like your kids to share the experience that you have, I mean, not necessarily right now but…

Jared  

I think when they get older, what I would want them to have is an appreciation for how faith and spiritual practices can add value to their life. 

Pete  

Right, right. 

Jared  

That’s what I didn’t even have to be Christian.

Pete  

Right. 

Jared  

But some, not just a jaded, modernistic, materialistic worldview.

Pete  

Right. I mean, if you have to choose between the highly regimented Christianity that-

Jared  

Right,

Pete  

Creates baggage, and just “Who knows? Let’s see where it goes.” I think the latter is more authentic, frankly.

Jared  

Yeah. And to be- My final thing is, the question was, you know, “what about pride in how your kids have turned out?” And I think for me, my answer to that is, I’m very proud of who my kids are. And again, for me, who they are and how they express their faith are not separate questions. So I’m proud of my kids. I think they’re great human beings. And so, I mean, that kind of solves that equation for me. But what about you?

Pete  

Well, I think, you know, for me, the I think the regrets I have was all centered on me not being tuned in enough to who I was. And, you know, you come out of your 20s were usually sort of on autopilot for some things, and then you have kids and things sort of happen, and you sort of just revert to older patterns when you raise your kids. And I, a lot of who I am, for better or for worse, and some—not all of it’s bad—but some of it, [Laughs] you know, like, “Okay, we’re going to church, because that’s just what you do.” Right. And that brings order to the week. And that’s a predictable thing. Right. So, I wish I had been more aware of those things. So those are the regrets that I have. And I’m also, I’m very proud of them because they’re all three—I mean, I talked about them at the end of “Curveball,” my last book—that they have authenticity and integrity as human beings. 

Jared  

Mhmm.

Pete  

And I have to think that the god of the multiverse can handle that. 

Jared  

Right.

Pete  

And not like they’re not interested in drawing the same lines that I might have drawn, and that I don’t really draw as much anymore anyway-

Jared  

Right.

Pete  

But that I might have in my 30s. 

Jared  

Right.

Pete  

You know, so…

Jared  

Right, absolutely. 

Pete  

Yeah.

Jared  

Thanks for coming along in this wild journey of Quiet Times with us.

Pete  

Yes. Thanks, folks.

Outro  

Jared  

Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you want to support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One, if you just want to give a little money, go to TheBibleForNormalPeople.com/give.       

Pete  

And, if you want to support us and want a community, classes, and other great resources, go to TheBibleForNormalPeople.com/join.      

Jared  

And lastly, it always goes a long way if you just wanted to rate the podcast, leave a review, and tell others about our show. In addition, you can let us know what you thought about the episode if you email us at info@TheBibleForNormalPeople.com 

Outro  

Thanks for listening to Faith for Normal People! Don’t forget, you can also catch our other show, The Bible for Normal People, in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible for Normal People podcast team: Brittany Prescott, Steven Henning, Wesley Duckworth, Savannah Locke, Tessa Stultz, Danny Wong, Natalie Weyand, Jessica Shao, and Lauren O’Connell.

Jared  

We’re good, right? Yo, yo, yo… Just kidding. I’d never start like that.

Jared  

Yo, yo, yo, it’s your boy Jay-red! Alright….