Episode 68 - Meet the New Hosts

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welcome to the liturgist podcast

everybody

i'm michael gunger aka vishnu das and i

am so glad to be here with you

this season is going to be amazing we're

going to talk about all the juiciest

stuff

sex and fundamentalism and mysticism

and science art and faith and all of

that

but we have a special surprise for you

for this first

episode we're going to introduce a

couple of new co-hosts

for the season science mike and i have

been scheming for a long time to try to

figure out how to get more voices

involved in these discussions and we're

pretty excited

about these co-hosts for this season so

i'm thinking maybe we could get like a

full-on

radio voice science mic intro here

william matthews is known around the

world

as a singer-songwriter and popular

recording artist

who for the past decade has extensively

toured across the globe

william is an artist and an activist

working on issues of social justice

climate and race you've probably heard

william on episodes before like black

and white racism in america

the other show and enemies which was

recorded live

in los angeles it's our pleasure to

introduce william to you

as a host of the liturgist podcast for

season four

yeah that's good all right here's

william so william matthews

vishnu das or whatever you're calling

yourself these days will you let us

in to the vault of william matthews ha

ha the vault

what do you want to know five on an

enneagram i know about

volts i am a whole universe on the

inside

i am an interior world where did you

come from where what's your

i was born in detroit michigan to a very

loving family mother father

i have two sisters and i was

born and raised i feel like in church

my father was an associate pastor when i

was young and my mother was a choir

director and those

truthfully some of my earliest memories

uh was being in church several times a

week

required rehearsal prior practice you

know civil service midweek service

testimonial service baptism service so

i felt like i grew up in a very small

nuclear family but also a very broad

expansive

uh family because our church family was

extremely close

and many of the church family my parents

had were childhood friends too it felt

like their childhood friends were aunts

and uncles and

i felt like i just had this really

beautiful expression of

black community and love and

togetherness

you know my dad used to before he met my

mother he used to have a drug problem

and so he would constantly mentor uh

kids from teen challenge

and so i remember growing up and we'd

always have like people around the house

and homeless guys and people that were

getting off drugs and my dad would uh

you know take him in or he'd pick up

strangers off the highway and you know

talk to him about jesus

and you know whatever they needed you

know help them find a shelter so when i

think of

who i am i think of that environment i

think of

the love from those environments and the

people who

love me and that and my family and my

grandmother and sunday dinners with my

grandmother and all of our family

did your faith always fit did you have

any moments

where you started questioning or was

there any sort of transitions

from your the simple childhood faith

that you lived into where you are today

yeah um i feel like i always inherited

a bit of a faith that allowed for

questioning

my dad was uh is he's very much an

idealist but he was also

he loved to be skeptical and questioning

things and so as a kid

what he would do with me and my siblings

was he would always say

if you can give me a better argument you

can change my mind

so he kind of taught us to like present

a case so i remember talking myself out

of spankings

as a kid didn't always work but

sometimes it did i'd be like listen dad

this is what happened that kid on the

playground he hit me first

so that i had him you know like i was

always talking myself out of

something you know we were very strong

in our faith

but my dad he had a ministry degree

so he he studied theology i just

remember there was tons of books always

and so he was always reading and you

know evolving his views so

i feel like i got that kind of template

and model so growing up

faith for me i always saw it even though

we were part of this denomination church

of god

i always saw faith as an evolving thing

or something that can be changed or new

information comes in and you

readjust and you uh maybe reaffirm some

things but then you

renew other things and so

i would say there were moments in time

where just throughout my own

walk with jesus i began to think of

things outside the box i think because i

was given that framework

and so i remember going to my mother

once and talking to her and saying mom

what if

genesis isn't literal and maybe what if

you know god was just using this

language to try i mean i'm probably 14

just thinking these things like what if

he was just reaching the people where

they were at and

this was the language they understood

and you know and i remember having those

open conversations with my mom and she

would kind of push back like well you

know

maybe it is literally and i'll go

actually and i

we would you know talk about those

things and then there was

that moment where i realized that the

denomination i grew up in was too small

and it was too

closed in and i said i need to go to a

different church

and i mean when you're going to you know

your parents church

like in the denomination that you were

born and raised in that's the only

church you've ever gone to

um that's a big deal so when i was 14 i

started going to a catholic parish

so i started going to a catholic parish

every sunday night for

about three and a half years and while i

was still going to my parents church but

still very much i was going to

confirmation classes and we were doing

like catholic youth conventions and

i mean i didn't i never did the

eucharist thing i was too religious

couldn't do the wine

but uh outside of that like i really

partook of

these different i don't know expressions

of the body of christ

and even saw my faith in different ways

because of my interaction

with these different ways of viewing so

fast forward you know i start going to

ministry school and i start

doing music christian music uh started

songwriting with different artists

and then started releasing my own stuff

and i think

probably the greatest deconstruction

pill was doing christian music because

you know

you're traveling and you're on top of

the world you're playing at the biggest

churches and

you know you're you're doing the tours

and you know people know who you are and

and you start to just see how empty it

all is or how

repetitive and kind of vain it all is

and nothing kills christianity like

christian music

that's weirdly true it really is like

it's

it's like everything you thought in your

head like i grew up singing in choirs

and

uh you know i always like i want to be a

music artist and

you know was writing songs and taught

myself how to play guitar

never had a vocal teacher or guitar

teacher just taught myself and then you

get there

and you're like wait this is it like

this is wait this is the greatest

representation of god's body on the

earth

oh man this is this is not gonna go well

and it's not even to like diss on like

other people

as much as it is just the whole system

of it all like just doesn't work

and so for me i started really

questioning everything

to be black in white evangelicalism is

its own deconstruction pill like after

several years of doing that i started to

see a lot of the racism i started to see

a lot of the the culture that supports

patriarchy

and how like my female friends were not

treated the same

as you know particularly in the

christian music industry like you had to

be and i know me and lisa talked about

this you know the feeling of for her of

like

people won't address her and they want

to you know they address you and

i would see that and i would see the way

everything is viewed through

the man being the covering and just all

these uh

social things as well as theological

things that i just began to after a

while of like watching this theology

play out

i just began to wrestle with him i

started to

read outside of my

scope again again this is something my

dad taught me like i started reading and

i started um

listening to podcasts and i started um

talking to people who were different

than me

to ultimately realize a lot of the

things that i had believed and the

things that i thought theologically

about who jesus was

who i am in that or who the world is was

way more gray and it wasn't as black and

white is that scary

it was absolutely scary because when you

grow up

thinking you're in and they're out then

it's so safe you feel oh yeah i know my

salvation is secure i know

for some people salvation was always i'm

not sure for me i never questioned my

salvation again because i grew up in

church so i'm like i'm saved i'm in the

in crowd

you know like we go to church all the

time or i pray or i worship and you know

i don't

do those things that those people are

doing i think the moment

i started to realize the world was

bigger than my denomination the world

was bigger than my scope

i think i felt afraid

and i felt like where would i fit

this is all i'd ever known doing

christian music on top of it like oh

this is all i've ever known

the world feels way too scary

did you ever question instead of your

salvation

the entire idea of salvation yeah

absolutely

i mean just reading the gospels alone

i think would do that like how is jesus

forgiving sins before the cross

you know i would see examples of that

and going wait i thought he had to die

and there had to be blood

for jesus to forgive my sins but he

seems to be forgiving sins before that

happened well

it's because he's god well i thought he

was human and then you know you start

like pulling at that thread a little bit

and then

you start realizing oh like this is way

more complex than i i thought and

and actually these are recounts of

things that were said you know maybe 80

years before

and and you start really scrutinizing

uh the text you start and rightfully so

it deserves to be scrutinized and

criticized and um

pushed and challenged and i started to

think of salvation

as way more broad and cosmic than

extremely individual though i know it's

very particular it can be

i started thinking of salvation as the

move towards wholeness

or the the rebirth of all things i can

say that now and feel okay but

you know saying that five years ago that

would have been heresy

you can't see the salvation like that

and you can't see it as

god in and through creation you know

working to redeem

us whatever that us is and

and there is no in and out in that way

like we're all part of this

thing and it's all grace and it's all

sacred

what is the evangelical answer for that

i i don't

i remember knowing that when i was like

the old testament people that would die

they didn't all have to go to hell there

was some lupus they went to abraham's

book

the bosom and then they had the

opportunity there

to decide once jesus actually uh they

fulfilled the covenant

to which they were a part of right

it was an old covenant yeah and so those

who were faithful to it

uh ritualistically and were faithful

followers of

jehovah went to abraham's bosom

and then once which is this this like a

a

giant boob well the

nurse the literally the image of

nurturing

uh

it was not specifically defined but it

is a distinct

locality from heaven and then

once it's got a sign that says abraham's

bosom out

and then once jesus came

and uh offered

substitution for the awful sin of

humanity

then the people in abraham's bosom

basically

they went from like the sky lounge the

virgin sky lounge before you got on a

flight

to the actual flight so then then they

went to heaven

so that's why you would you would see

abraham or moses in heaven of course

because they were brought into the new

covenant now

sophisticated evangelicals would say

that

heaven is non-temporal and since it's

non-temporal it's arrow of time if it

hasn't it doesn't align with the earth's

arrow of time and so everyone who dies

in the old or new covenant arrives in

god's glory simultaneously

i think like just listening to that i

remember all that and going

oh that was so weird but we bought in i

enjoy it i think it's fascinating i

think it's wonderful

there's a lot of neurons that are in my

skull just retaining that

no i don't know what day it is but i

remember

like the specific doctrines around

abraham's bosom

okay here's what we do the three of us

and whoever else we can find

we start an ironic worship man called

abraham's bustle

michael could be the boob imagine like a

t-shirt with with boobs on it like man

boobs

painted on it just says abraham blizzard

man boobs aren't sexy though speak for

yourself

abraham

milky way

all right so you start having questions

this one i first met so i i first met

you at a

christian music retreat while i was

basically an atheist at that point i

think

yeah and you're kind of rude too

was that because i was at a christian

music thing that's what i apologize

now but i was like what the hell am i

doing here

so i kind of wrote you off when i first

met you it's fine my apologies they all

do

um and then it wasn't

i mean i hung out with you a little bit

and i was like i like this guy or he's a

christian musician you know

i gotta keep a fence up to some level

uh and then i had a drink with you oh

yeah and we started talking about

universalism or something yeah we didn't

and i was like

oh you're a heretic

suddenly i'm more interested

i became cool at that moment you're like

who's this like oh who's the heretic

mind you right you even espouse anything

remotely c.s lewis george mcdonald

madeleine l'engle and you're like

you're a heretic right and those it's so

bizarre but

i was always i loved fantasy and i've

always loved

those authors particularly madeline

engel's been my favorite and so

i loved how she boldly questioned hell

actually she said she didn't believe in

it

and i remember reading that when i was

like 16 and walking on water and thought

whoa there might not be a hell what

like that blew my circuits because the

gospel i'd always been given was i

remember church banners

saying heaven or hell you decide yeah oh

yeah

oh yeah like that was like a phase in

the 90s i think where everybody was like

it's the choice this is the only choice

that matters you decide right now

that still exists yeah it does let's

let's see

banners not both i've seen billboards on

highways

in the youth room that said heaven or

hell

you decide i never saw that because like

a lot of people are like you know what

yeah hell

exactly when we were kids we used to do

you know for halloween because halloween

was the devil's party so we would do a

party at the church

uh yeah the uh

harvest festivals or halloween nights i

think we called it hallelujah night

and uh they tried to do the heaven

health thing where upstairs where the

sanctuary was was heaven and it was

looked like heaven and angels and then

downstairs was hell and it looked like

torture and punishment

and so all the kids wanted to go to hell

though because it was way more fun

seriously like all the kids like if you

did something bad upstairs they would

send you downstairs it was like super

weird but all the kids wanted to be

downstairs

i would imagine so yeah it's like white

curtains and

enya are playing exactly in defense of

my church

there was pizza in heaven so i never

went to hell

i just stayed in heaven that was a smart

movie

it's just funny that we don't associate

gluttony with sin

no exactly right so they're just still

doing the same thing that halloween's

doing as a holiday just

i don't know throwing jesus on and

feeling good about themselves but

i felt like i was open to that idea and

it probably wasn't until about

truthfully and it might shock people so

let me come out the universal closet

here

i have probably not embraced hell since

about 2007.

and most people are well

i've been like hell really really

i don't know about that but uh at least

yeah most people pretty much my entire

time i was doing christian music i never

really believed in hell

but uh my friends knew that i never

really hit it

but i also didn't talk about it publicly

so but now i'm on the literature's

podcast so i can say that

2007 man yeah like in 2007 i was like

yeah i don't i don't think that's

helpful i was perceived preaching heaven

and hell in 2000

really oh my gosh yes oh man

wow i think that's what i've i started

like reading more like c.s lewis

madeline

angle george mcdonald particularly his

unspoken sermons and really just

started seeing there were other ways of

viewing that and people who

loved god and loved loved the bible but

also

i don't know saw reality very

differently greg boyd

also helped me think through some of

that as well back in 2009

with the open theism yeah i love open

theism open theism um

i think as an idealist i always love

possibilities

so the idea of god being one of

possibilities was

i thought very intriguing at least for

me uh

and he wrote a book called god of the

possible which is about open theism

i like the open part of open theism

a short episode of the liturgist podcast

might run what

30 45 minutes 45 is probably a short

episode

long episodes can run 90 minutes two

hours

sometimes we do multi-part episodes that

will be

four or five hours in total and when we

dig into a topic

with that much depth this is the kind of

email we get

i wish you would have gone deeper into

that topic you

are a nerdy bunch hungry to go deeper

than we can

even in a long form podcast so we've

decided to try something completely

new and that's long form in-depth

video courses we just got done producing

the first two

and man they are dense i actually think

at some point

our camera people had a hard time

focusing on shooting the film

because they got distracted by all the

information in the course

so these are really dense but the good

news is you can watch them over and over

and they're easy because unlike our

liturgist gatherings

we come to you these courses happen

right in your living room so the first

course we've done

is on meditation how to start a

meditative practice

or how to deepen a meditative practice

if you're already person

who meditates and our second course is

on navigating deconstruction

and faith transitions using the

enneagram

and i think i'm really proud of both of

these courses

and i think you'll enjoy them so if

you'd like to learn more

go to shop.theliturgist.com to see what

michael and i have been cooking up

in online video courses

so i i think just to clarify i actually

don't know what i think about any of

that stuff as much anymore i don't

really think about universalism anymore

uh or really i would say i'm more

fellaini a christian type of

universalism not just

uh yeah not quite even unitarian

universalism but um

which is a distinction so i don't have

to think about it anymore i just don't

care

that's that that is the energy of our

era

yeah like so that there's a i think

there's a lot of people listening for

whom

this is like a big sort of existential

struggle where am i on these theological

issues

but for a large part of our audience and

for a huge swath of america

it's almost like the portland effect you

know what i mean like

portland seattle they're not like

wrestling

with theism versus atheist yeah yeah

they're like that's a

really dumb conversation i'm not

interested in yeah you know what i mean

it's like if someone came i was like so

where like do you prefer

like sunflowers or roses

and you're just like i mean i guess

they're both nice yeah

not really in the flowers yeah and

that's so i think that like

you you are actually embodying the major

spiritual movement of our era

interesting which is like there's some

things that work for me

but yeah i hold them loosely i just i

just don't care that much

yeah i think i was tired of getting in

the existential crisis of just viewing

the text

through a transactional lens and through

a legal lens like

paul says this and this like you know

and viewing it like i'm trying to like

i don't know get something uh like or

find a loophole

in a legal system like and i feel like

so much theology is doing that it's like

well we've got to hold this intention

because this is a and i'm okay with

tension and paradox and

at some point you just kind of have to

go what actually matters

and what matters i really believe this

is love and

how you are in the present and who you

love and how you love them and

that is the image of god and that is the

face of christ and

i just care about ultimate reality and

what is right in front of me and that

you know i think about the other things

sometimes but i don't let them consume

my

like energy and emotions and live in an

anxious space of

you know like a god who's towering down

over me like making sure i don't

not believe the wrong thing you know i i

think it's pointless and i think

love is the only thing that's credible

and matters and i think the mystics

taught that too

consistently over i think jesus taught

that so i just want to do anothers as

they would have do unto me

and i think that sums up the law on the

prophets pretty pretty greatly

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liturgists it's funny you said i just

care about

ultimate reality and what's right in

front of me

well i was like well that's a pretty

good spectrum that includes

all things your your self-professed

focus there

is between the most encompassing and

universal

ideas as well as like the tension of

daily living

why are they different things i don't

think they are

i think that how we shift our focus

and i may be speaking too meditatively

but if if we

think about what's right in front of me

or if i try to think of

like universal or ultimate reality those

create pretty different

patterns uh in the brain would you say

that that's the tension then or at least

i like to think that those are our

wrestles

with the universality and the

particularity of everything i think

if you imagine that one is a circle

ultimate reality in terms of our

attention not in terms of

the structure of things but one ultimate

reality the other was right in front of

us

i think the practice of mysticism is

pushing those two circles together in an

ever more overlapping venn diagram yeah

i think that's the journey those moments

where you just like see

that your venn diagram is just a circle

yeah

i think that's the journey i've been on

after going through

phases of being in christian music and

being in ministry and in church and

as the son of a pastor as well as i mean

my parents have gone through church

splits i've i've seen the best and worst

of it all

and a people and i think um i always

keep coming back to love

and i keep coming back to i don't know

and it's a mystery and

i would like to know so that's why i

love having these conversations

and dialoguing but you mentioned that

being black in the christian music

industry

is its own deconstruction pill

what does that look like as a lived

experience um

so i think anytime you're out of your

cultural element that uh

i can be physically present and you know

this as a five right like how you can be

physically present but kind of be

somewhere else

i felt like being black in those

circles and mostly white circles was

like i was there but i wasn't really

there i felt like there were jokes i

wasn't in on there was

a way of life that i didn't fully live

there was even from like a musical taste

perspective right so when you get in the

worship world

uh particularly when i was doing

christian worship music you know

everyone reveres certain people as like

these people defined worship music and

only these people

you know and praise god for those people

right but

martin smith is not the only thing that

ever happened to christian music

you know and i love martin he's i met

him he's a really sweet man

um but it was like i grew up on

richard smallwood and john p key and

edward hawkins and like kirk franklin

and like people who in my mind were

doing worship music that mattered too

and so i would be in those circles and i

felt like things that i had

known and loved or aspects of theology

or

like music it's not worship music

william it's the gospel of music that's

gospel music yeah well yeah

exactly so even that delineation and

clarification

was always so bizarre to me and it was

like this is worship

because it has to have this path white

people worship yeah white people worship

seriously like

white people worshiping white jesus like

it kind of all like and it's

like if your culture is your culture i i

don't even hate it i just thought

man this is so limited and the

limitations of that and i think being

black just

i was always hitting those limitations

so i remember i would write a song

and you know and pitch it and they would

go well this you know if you want this

song to

to really be worshipful it can't have

this reggae influence in it

because you know it needs to reach the

most amount of people

well it's

yeah because you know white people don't

want to worship to

reggae music you know like just stuff

like it's funny because i listen to bob

marley but you know we can't

you know it was all these weird lines

and uh

ways of perceiving the world and other

people that i just found

so limiting and and wasn't inclusive to

what i had grown up in the black church

and when i grown up

around my culture and so yeah i think

being black in that space is a political

act

first and foremost and what happens is

slowly you have to value what those

people value

in order to even remotely have intimacy

and connection

and so then what happens is you start to

assimilate and you begin to

uh take on characteristics that aren't

even fully your own

because you're just trying to relate you

know

and you want to belong and so it's funny

how

i felt like i i looked up after several

years and went

i'm white this is wait what

like it's funny because my mother kept

saying she goes you need to come she

i need to come back to the black side

not even because

it just was that feeling of she like

watched me and my parents felt like they

watched me kind of slip away a little

bit and like

you feel really detached from where you

come from you've moved a little too

over here and you you can have both and

i feel like

my parents were always that that my

family was always that check

my aunts and uncles like they're always

a little bit when i go see them you know

once or twice a year it was always like

there was that reminder to me like hey

you come from something

that isn't that and that's not the most

important thing in the world and their

systems and structures are not the most

important thing in the world

you have a legacy and a tradition like

my grandfather was a minister and a

missionary

and was very well known across the

country and places that

people that i hang out with would never

know and my father was a minister

and you know my aunts and uncles are

ministers and i have my own legacy and

tradition

coming from a black church but because

the black church is not valued no one

ever asked me those questions or no one

ever cared if it ever came up

yeah and then obviously just overt and

indiscreet

elements of racism just you know

comments they would value me maybe

particularly but not my culture and not

where i came from

um i was like i could go to this church

but none of my family could go to this

church

you know they're too detroit for this

you know or they're too like

it it just wasn't fully the same jesus

in a lot of ways so some ways yeah but

in a lot of ways no

so that is its own deconstruction pill

because then you have to start going

okay who's the actual jesus if i if i am

to be a christ follower

to some level who is the actual jesus

and what was what is what is white jesus

and

what meaning and i use that phrase i

even i use that phrase a lot but i only

use it not to mock people but to say

there is a way of viewing jesus that

isn't based on the actual jesus

that is built on white supremacy and is

built on like a colonized mind of of

assimilation and saying you need to

believe this in order to be saved and

you need to believe these cultural

values in order to be saved

and and i thoroughly not reject those

things can love white people

can love white evangelicals and

thoroughly reject white jesus

and say no why jesus looks a lot like

white people he doesn't look like the

actual jesus

and and even having to learn to discern

that and differentiate that was part of

my spiritual deconstruction

so what about the future what what are

you wanting to do with your work why are

you wanting to be part of the liturgist

i mean you said you don't care about

some of the theological

nitty-gritty of things but you obviously

care enough to still

write music that has to do with god uh

to have conversations

with the liturgists what what is it that

keeps you

interested in faith in

conversations about ultimate issues

what what is it in you that keeps keeps

you moving towards that

so let me maybe clarify that i don't

care statement

it's not that i don't i think yeah no i

don't care

that's true but i know i know what

matters to other people that i care

about

i know it matters to for for some people

in order

in the way that they see the world and

so then on that level it matters to me

is it my deepest concern when i lay in

bed at night anymore no

did i rightly interpret that scripture

or else i'm like i'm not

no i don't live there but i know for

some people it is and so i think

theology still matters

i think um i think a lot of our problems

that are happening in front of us are

theological problems

i think we've done theologically

theology so poorly

that we haven't given people a love for

the other

and i think that's why it still matters

on

a relational level we're all in this

together

so we got to start talking to each other

and start talking to

the issues that matter to each of us so

i'll sit down and have the nuance

theology conversation

if that matters for you i'm excited to

continue to do music i think god matters

whatever that is for anyone or not

i think it matters i keep singing about

it because i still think it's important

i don't and i don't sing about it in the

ways that i used to five years ago even

and that's changed

so i see god as the ever-evolving

dialogue so i'm continuing the dialogue

through music i have no desire to sing

music about sex i i think i wish i did

like i don't

i don't want to sing baby baby baby baby

you know like i don't want to sing yo

booty so juicy like i'm listening to the

new chris brown song and it's about

a juicy booty and i know i don't want to

sing those songs

even if the booty is juicy i don't want

to sing that song you know

so i think of me as an artist i go what

do you want to sing about like i don't

know if the booty is juicy

a little gold bond powder will fix that

right now

that's no problem

very much yeah i i don't want to sing

about that

i don't know i think and it's funny

because i think no one's thinking about

god in an interesting way anyway so i go

well i think about god in very

interesting ways let's

think about the you sing about god in

very interesting ways michael so

thank you

the look on his face the smugness

the fun smugness oh that was great

um yeah i don't i think that matters um

so i'm a big gunger fan for that reason

because i think you guys have always

sung about god in interesting ways

that's why i was like fangirling when i

first met you because i was like oh my

god

it's michael gunger and he's hero i'm a

friend of god

and that was a jerk to you and i

apologize it's okay again

it's okay israel made up for it he was

sweet to me

no you were fine but i get it but i also

and i told you this thing i go that song

changed the way people viewed their

relationship with god it took them out

of an obedience

mindset with how they relate to god to a

friendship mindset

that was a step forward for people's

spiritual evolution it really was

even in the black church i feel like i

saw that like this the notion of god

being your friend like that wasn't

super strong i mean it was there but it

wasn't as pronounced and i think that

song made it like a central theme

for a lot of people and that that's why

theology matters and that's why

songs matter and i don't know you've

been that for a lot of people so

i know you don't care or don't whatever

but that's kind of what makes it great

is because you being open to that

thought process

is what's led you on your journey but

also has helped

millions of other people around the

world view god in a different way

well thank you for saying that cue up

friend of god greg

yeah and then you have you have this guy

over here dub science mike who

simply allows people to think

through what they believe and why they

believe it and

i don't know like when i listen to your

ass signings my live podcast and going

oh wow i've never wow yeah and

permission to do that is rare and you i

think that's why people love you as well

too is because you give that permission

yeah so i'm excited for the future we're

making new music i've got a new record

coming out in a couple months so i'm

excited about that it's called cosmos

with a k

and uh four years in the making y'all so

it's time so

was the cut uh that we put on the black

and white episode is that on cosmos

because people still ask about that

track

every week to this day where can i get

it where can i get it and and finally

it's coming out

yeah yeah the song's called you and me

featuring uh

amanda cook and tripoli and myself and

uh

it's one of my favorite tracks on the

record so yeah that's what that song was

all righty william we love you thanks

for being part of this with us

exciting thanks for having me

there we go that's william matthews

we're so excited to have him

as one of the hosts for season four and

i'm so excited about

our new band abraham's bosom

you know if you stick around to the end

of the podcast by the way you might be

able to hear the end of that

the whole of that ridiculous song that i

couldn't

restrain myself from making my apologies

for its absurdity and irreverence

sorry not sorry up next we've got

hillary mcbride who unfortunately wasn't

able to be in the same room

with us on this one but we piped her in

via the internet and

we're excited for you to get to know her

a little bit better

but first a little word about what the

letter just is up to with science mike

did you know that the liturgists aren't

a podcast

i know that sounds strange because after

all you're listening to the

liturgist podcast which is definitely a

podcast but the liturgists

is not a podcast the liturgists produce

the liturgist podcast which may lead you

to ask a question

who are the liturgists and uh well

surprisingly enough the answer is you

you are the liturgists all the people

who participate

in this work of making room at the table

for

all who are hungry and that's actually

my favorite part

about not only this podcast but

everything i

do with the liturgists is that i'm just

one of you and recently we've

started to cultivate more intentional

community around that

and one of the ways we've done that is

through our patreon channel

some people choose to subscribe to this

podcast on patreon and they get some

stuff

in return for that they get a second

podcast called the luminous conversation

that comes out even when the liturgist

podcast is not on the air or in the off

season

they get weekly meditations and they get

community events only

open to people who subscribe on patreon

and all that's important and great but

by subscribing they actually make the

liturgist podcast possible

this program is incredibly time

consuming to produce and requires real

resources like

financial resources and we don't have to

rely on advertisers or big donors

or uh weird creepy people who pressure

us not to be truthful on the program

because instead we have all of you so if

you've never been

involved in our patreon community would

you consider like a dollar a month or

five dollars a month

towards this program and participating

in our community because our patrons

form

the backbone of a community that michael

gunger and i are not only

actively involved in but rely on to

interpret

what's going on in the world and frankly

to not

feel so lonely i love spending time

with our patrons and that's something

that

happens frequently so if you'd like to

learn more just go to the liturgists.com

podcast and then find the patreon button

and see what we're all about

hillary mcbride is a phd candidate at

ubc

and a registered clinical counselor in

private practice in vancouver

her clinical work includes complex and

acute mental illness

and supporting adults towards well-being

while her areas of clinical specialty

focus

include trauma perinatal mental health

spirituality and mental health

and women's relationship with their

bodies feminist

and experiential approaches to therapy

interpersonal neurobiology

attachment work existentialism sex

sexuality

and gender she's been heard as a guest

on the shame and spiritual trauma

episodes of the liturgist podcast

and we're excited to introduce hillary

to you

as a season 4 host of the liturgist

podcast

tell us a little bit about your

childhood and your early experiences

specifically in regards to faith

religion i think i

the more that i become aware of what

christianity has looked like for lots of

people in the states i realized how

different my experience was growing up

in the church that even though i grew up

in a baptist church

and have parents who identify as

christians and

was engaged in church community quite

heavily

i realized how how liberal in a way it

really was

my mom led worship

both my parents are therapists um and

and therapy was allowed mental health

was something that could be talked about

um my dad is a feminist

um and so really grew up in a baptist

church but

feels different qualitatively than some

of the ways that people define

their baptist experiences in the states

the story of faith that i was given was

that god is good

and loves you and that we need to help

other people as an

expression of that and

and so that was um that was a big part

of my

identity growing up and i remember

actually

i was thinking about this recently i

remember

being like a a young earth creationist

when i was what like

nine or something like that right like

before i had the ability to think

critically about the world and

science and we just kind of gifted this

narrative and

not specifically was told like this is

what you need to believe but i remember

just being a kid and taking that bible

really literally

and hoping really hoping that i would be

in high school one day and there would

be a biology class

where someone would talk about evolution

and i would stand up and then i would

get the chance to say that's

just a theory and i could walk out in

defense of my faith

i thought that would be a really cool

really cool experience

oh that didn't happen um

and i didn't have to humiliate myself in

that way because i

don't believe any younger so

but i remember hearing in church growing

up that there was this woman who did

that in her high school and thinking

wow that is so incredible and when i

look back on that now i think about

really the the part about that that

appeals to me

is the idea of taking a stand for

something and

the idea of wanting to feel like i could

resist a little bit i think i have a

little bit of a resistor or an advocate

in me and so that was that was

experience of faith growing up for me

and although as a family and as a

community we took scripture

seriously there was also so much room to

be

human and play and

interact with things in ways that were

real

i think some of my painful moments

um with faith came from my experience

of moments of intense distress

psychological

suffering so my

stories that i developed in eating

disorder probably

symptoms showed up around like 13 but

what we know about the emergence of

eating disorders is that

the stay just that long before that long

before things actually show up and so

that was crippling um and led to

just massive amounts of distress

internally and in my family

um for me there was a lot of secrecy and

shame and hiding things and lying about

things and then

kind of co-occurring depression and

anxiety and even some psychotic symptoms

so wondering how to make sense of my

experiences of suffering

in light of the things that i believed

about healing

and prayer and faith

were really challenging for me and i

think probably one of the most hurtful

moments

that i had as somebody who is both

identifying as a christian and

struggling with mental health issues was

when someone was saying like how could

you keep doing what you're doing if you

really believed what you believed

and the experience of being kind of i

mean all of the messages that's

um all the messages that are

communicated in that about

like choosing to keep doing what i was

doing as if there was a choice at that

point

and the believing things that i believed

should be enough

to to not

continue to choose what i was choosing

there's just so much misunderstanding

but

i think why that's hurtful for me is i

just felt so misunderstood in my

community of faith

and felt like there wasn't room to talk

about that and even in my family

um i think when people are really scared

they say things

out of fear to try and make the thing

that's scary go away

and so i understand those things

differently now but

the comments anyway but looking back

there was

really this massive kind of chasm in my

life of feeling like i believed that god

could heal

and and would be present and engaged in

my life but i was experiencing so much

distress and wanting to not even be

alive

so that was really hard for me to

reconcile

yeah it made me want to shut down and

not have conversations about where

i was at or what i believed for fear of

being further scrutinized

instead there's just so much hiding and

withdrawal and shame

and removing yourself from your

relationships and your existence

and so that i think further increased

that experience for me of wanting to

withdraw

and really has given me a deep sense of

of longing to have more

compassionate dialogues more

safety for people in faith communities

of any kind

to talk about their experiences of

suffering without feeling like it means

that there's something wrong about them

something wrong with them or that

they're broken and that they can't be

fixed or that their

beliefs about the world aren't real just

because they're also hurting

so was there a turning point with the

relationship between that suffering in

your faith

how did it not just turn into a thing

that made you resent

your faith in your spirituality how did

the story evolve to where you are now

yeah it's easier to look back and say

that there's a linear

trajectory but i think that most of us

know that when we live something

that that there are a series

of small steps that help us arrive at

where we are at

now and i think to say that there were

massive turning points

um road to damascus moments i would say

that that's

not doesn't really resonate with me and

how i think about my life but rather i

think about this gradual broadening of

my understanding of who god is

and the broadening made room for me to

situate myself within that while still

carrying a sense of belief and knowing

that i was still

experiencing suffering and struggle

and so the broadening may there be

more room to interact with god while

also seeing that the stories that i'd

learned about god and the church

might have been restrictive in some ways

i mean i could say that differently i

could say they were restrictive

and and now finding myself identifying

more as a christian mystic

i see i see god as being bigger than god

our constructs of god are limiting of

who god really is

and so moving into a space of wonder and

mystery and awe

of the things that are bigger than us

then are bigger than

the way i can construct them within my

own mind or within my community has

allowed me to situate myself

in a narrative of relationship with god

which has transcended the fear of the

people who said hurtful things to me

and i don't think of that as being

something that happened

in a moment i think of that as being

something that i built and continue to

work towards that there's actually this

kind of ever expanding

sense of of god and my relationship and

my understanding with god and what that

means

in my life and then i think the

the other ways we could look at it kind

of like a um

an hourglass or a two-sided funnel but

there's also a

so there's a broadening that happens but

there's also a narrowing that's happened

for

me in my life back down to the things

that i think really matter

um and those things being like a verse

from scripture that's always been really

important to me was james 1 27

that the religion that our god our

father finds pure and faultless is to

take care of the

widows and the orphans and thinking

about what that actually means in our

life like if

if i take that literally like then

that's a religion that i can get behind

and that's an understanding of god that

i can

engage in in my life and so both a

broadening

and understanding of who god is but also

this narrowing down to the things that i

feel like are most basic which are

loving the people in front of me and

trying to be a person who goes to the

margins

and says you matter too

and learn how to do that for myself and

so wanting to have these ever expanding

um cognitive emotional kind of

mystical experiences but then also

wanting to find ways to to do the things

that i think

matter most um and that's helped me

move forward in spite of

in spite of some of those hurtful

experiences that i had and to really

kind of construct

a version of christianity that feels

both both faithful to the essence of

what it

was when it started but also something

that takes me on a journey of wonder and

mystery

and love

one thing i encounter a lot is people

sending messages saying how do i have

this kind of um

brilliant moment that you had on the

beach right they're looking for this one

moment

that will in their exodus or their

odyssey or their exile or however

they're feeling

um about their their place on their

their faith transition or their journey

of faith

and um having done some

significant study into mystical

experiences

those kind of sudden faith transitions

are exceedingly rare

um and i i always feel a little saddened

because um what i want to tell the

person is

maybe just craving this sudden tectonic

shift

uh it will actually hold you back on

your journey

yeah and instead of being present to

what happens um

every day and being uh

you know patient will will pay bigger

dividends like i hear kind of in your

account

but but what i've noticed um even in

people who have these kind of sudden

tectonic shifts uh yeah i had this this

this blinding light on a beach road to

damascus experience

following two and a half years of

intense study

deconstruction a year of intensive daily

meditative practice

you know what i mean there was that that

uh

that cake was in the oven for a long

time yeah

um and i just hope people

attach to and find resonance with

uh this slow broadening

and this slow narrowing

um there's such a

authenticity to that kind of faith

because it has it has taken root

in your life like day after day

after day it's been shaped by your

experiences

as opposed to your life

almost just being shaped by the faith

experiences can happen with a mystical

experience

yeah well i want to go back to something

you were saying about

these people and i mean

in a way mike you really holding a

beacon of hope for them that things can

happen that are outside of their

understanding and

how people um might experience jealousy

or frustration or longing or

grief that they haven't experienced

something like that but i think

as a therapist in particular someone

who's acquainted or with

or sits with people's pain i hear the

pain that's

underneath that longing which is when am

i gonna get out of this experiences of

when am i going to get out of this place

of not knowing when am i going to get

out of the place of fear and suffering

and aloneness

and the hope and the um

taking that mystical experience or that

miraculous encounter as

a really as a metaphor for the ending of

their pain

and the hope that there could be an end

and so i think of that as being symbolic

that really what people are often saying

when they say is how do i have that or

can

i have that is like will my pain end

will there be a place where i move to

knowing

out of a place of not knowing that has

been hard for me and has made it

difficult for me to be in a community

and to know what ways forward

and i think that there is there's

actually something very rich about

instead of longing for the

exit route to learn

how to be okay in the not knowing

to learn how to stay in a place of not

knowing and feel like there could

actually be wonder and discovery

and joy and growth in that place

i think that we often we often want to

move to a place of certainty

when something feels chaotic inside and

i was having a conversation with someone

about that this week about

how the appeal of evangelical

versions of christianity is especially

kind of calvinist versions of

christianity that there is so much

certainty that's offered to people

here's here's what we know and here's

what you can believe and here's capital

t

truth and how good that can feel when

something feels messy and not known on

the inside

but how that doesn't actually get rid of

the not knowing that happens in life

how that doesn't being told that this is

the way to do things doesn't take away

suffering and doesn't take away pain it

doesn't take away

the mystery and the angst that we feel

that

death will come and we will lose people

we love and someone we say

i care about you two won't say that back

to us

and that there is something so beautiful

about learning to be

friendly with our suffering and with our

not knowing

so hillary one of the common threads

among our listeners is that

many of us have gone through transition

of some sort in our lives spiritually

and a lot of times that sort

of change comes with a lot of pain

and one of the things we're super

excited about

in having you part of this season with

us

is what you bring to the table as a

therapist

and as somebody who can

help us process things emotionally could

you tell us a little bit more about how

you got into therapy and in your line of

work

both my parents are therapists and and i

worked really hard to not become a

therapist

i actually tried to do lots of things

besides become a therapist

and so i often feel like i really i own

this role as mine and not something that

just kind of happened to me because

my parents also did it but um there was

a bunch of other things that i was gonna

do with my future

um be an athlete and i had took a

scholarship

to play violin at university and was

studying performance violin that was

actually my

preferred career at that point and i had

been playing violin since i was four and

it was a really big part of my identity

and my dad actually also taught

and and did did some work in

collaboration with

the school of midwifery at the

university near where i grew up where he

was a faculty member and

we always had midwives around and

stories about

birth and breastfeeding and he was an

advocate for breastfeeding the return

of breastfeeding into kind of the

normative postpartum experience

in in bc and canada and and so that

for whatever reason has always been part

of our dinner table conversation talking

about midwifery and birth

and women's bodies in that way as being

powerful

and strong and and so i decided i was

going to go have an adventure where i

could really encounter that and

immerse myself in kind of the messy

strength that stands as kind of

antithetical to the way that i was

conceptualizing my own life and my own

body so

i found a woman who ran a birth

house in the northern philippines

this was i think it was 2006 when we

were talking to each other

and like she didn't have internet there

was no electricity at that point so we

were writing some letters and some

emails back and forth

and hopped on a plane and went and

actually lived with her in the northern

philippines

and helped with delivering babies and

doing prenatal care and education for

women in

villages who were living with

tuberculosis

and trying to educate and provide

information in such a way that it would

be empowering for these people

um so that they could have healthy

babies because there was no hospital

around

women didn't really have a choice but to

birth on their own

in the village without any support or

come to the birth house

and and get a little bit of support from

us and so

helped with the delivering lots of

babies there and i remember this one

really transformative moment for me

where we had been up all night with a

woman who was laboring

and i think the the electricity in the

house at that point was in and out and

so there was

there was laboring by candlelight she

looks at me

right before transition right when

things are about to get the most intense

and someone's starting to move

into the final stages of labor and she

said to me

i can't do this i think i'm gonna die

and there was this terror in her eyes

the sense of overwhelm and

complete exhaustion

and fear and not in this kind of

histrionic

and dramatic way but looking very

directly at me and

saying from this piece inside of her

she didn't think she could do this

and the birth happened and it went

beautifully and she was fine

and there was a lot of support and

coaching and journeying with her through

that difficult experience to remind her

that she could do the hard things

and i remember after she turned to me

and said i can do anything now

and there was something about that

experience of

of being with someone who is in a moment

of feeling alone and overwhelmed and

terrified

and walking the story out with her

together

the together piece to the point where

she can say

i have the capacity within myself to do

anything

now that i've been through this so i

came home from the philippines after

traveling around a little bit more on my

own

and and really kind of spending some

time figuring out what it was like for

me to not be

a violinist to not um work on being

perfect

not have things being controlled and

known

and came home and applied to the school

of midwifery thinking like this is what

i'm gonna do

i'm gonna be a midwife this is all that

i want i'm obsessed with birth i just

love it

and i didn't get in and i was totally

devastated and felt like

well i thought that i knew what i wanted

and if i don't get in what does that

mean and

you know in kind of like a very young

way

feeling like my world was over and

figured well

i'll just kind of um i'll go back to

school but instead of

playing violin i'll take psych classes

and i'll study psychology

and i love that part of the story that

it was my backup plan

that helped me figure out what i was

really in love with it was the not

getting the thing that i thought that i

wanted that actually helped me see

that there was something so uh rich

for me in another area so i often tell

that to people when i'm working with

them like

i didn't get what i wanted and and you

sit across from me every day and you see

how much i love what i do

and how alive i feel when i get to do

this work

and and this was my this was my like

i'll do this in the meantime plan

so so started doing psych classes and

realized

oh the thing that i really loved about

delivering babies and being with

pregnant women and

new moms was the experience of doing

hard things

with them so that they could

access um strength within themselves

to get through all of the the madness

and the craziness and the wildness of

becoming a mom and having a baby and

birth and it was those moments of

journeying alongside someone

and trusting that they could do

something and that they would do

something and that together

they could they could access a sense of

support and then not aloneness

that would get them through and that to

me is my framework for counseling that's

to me is my way of understanding what i

do as a therapist

is believing that a person is good

believing that a person can do hard

things but that we were never meant to

do hard things alone

and that when we are resourced with

support and

connection and somebody who says hey why

don't we try this

and i think this might work and i'm here

with you and i'm not going to drop you

and we're going to do the whole thing

from beginning to end

together you don't have to worry about

being alone or being rejected

that there is that is the place where

transformation and growth and new life

can happen

so that's the way that i operate in my

in my counseling framework

is to be kind of like a midwife of the

mind or a midwife of the heart i

sometimes

say to trust that people can do hard

things and that

we're more likely to be successful in

those things if we do them together with

someone who isn't afraid

of looking at pain or the messiness of

life

that's hilary mcbride well season four

ladies and gentlemen

i know mike and i are stoked and honored

to work alongside william matthews and

hilary mcbride

with all of you the liturgists we are

humbled inspired

and grateful to have friends like you

on the journey with us thanks so much

for joining us today make sure to

subscribe to this podcast if you don't

do that already

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we'd like to thank our patrons on

patreon greg nordin for his work in

audio production

cory pig for project management and

tyler chester

for music scoring and production your

hosts are michael gunger

hillary mcbride william matthews and me

mike mccarth or as you know me science

mike

thanks for listening everybody

oh did you think i forgot rest assured

my friend

i did not

are you ready

i feel so welcome

in this place here in the warmth of

your sweet embraces

but if you don't mind

while we wait i have a question

about this

what are we doing

what exactly are we waiting for

we're waiting for the lord's homes

ah

right hand

left hand

right

don't sit down

right

you