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Life After Leaven w/ Tamice Spencer-Helms
As a follow up to her debut book, Faith Unleavened: The Wilderness Between Trayvon Martin & George Floyd, Tamice Spencer-Helms is joined by folx from all walks of life and society to talk about picking up the shattered fragments of a faith we used to know. Life After Leaven is a podcast for those seeking to heal from the damage caused by toxic Christianity and rebuild something new and life giving in its place.
Life After Leaven w/ Tamice Spencer-Helms
Life After Doom with Brian McLaren
As I turned the page on my fourth decade, it was Brian McLaren's voice that echoed wisdom into my evolving understanding of faith. His fresh interpretation of Jesus's teachings, as discussed in "Life After Doom," brought a sense of clarity to the tumult of global crises we face today. Together, we peel back the layers of collective despair that often stifles action, finding instead a call to balanced activism and renewed hope. McLaren's insights challenge us to confront collapses of various kinds, encouraging a shift away from the paralyzing extremes of complacency or despair.
Venturing into the entwined realms of faith, technology, and artificial intelligence, we ponder the legacy we're crafting for future generations. The conversation beckons us to question the pursuit of a machine-like existence as our civilization advances. We wrestle with the theological implications of such a path, considering whether we are mistakenly emulating an omnipotent deity in our technological endeavors. This intricate dance with divinity and intelligence leads us to reflect on our cultural narrative and its impact on the progression of both our spirituality and our society.
Embracing the kaleidoscope of human identity, we celebrate the unity inherent in our shared ancestry. I recount an eye-opening journey through my own genealogical tapestry, revealing the complexities of identity beyond simplistic racial constructs. By honoring the transformative power of understanding our multifaceted natures, we uncover the potential for compassion and kinship in our collective human story. Join us for a profound exploration that transcends self-discovery, inviting us all to find common ground as we navigate the challenges and opportunities of our time.
Life After Leaven is sponsored by Sub:Culture Incorporated, a 501c3 committed to eradicating cultural, social, spiritual, financial, and academic barriers for Black College Students. If you are interested in giving a tax deductible donation toward our work with black college students, you can do that here. Thank you for helping us ensure temporary roadblocks don't become permanent dead ends for students with marginalized identities. You can follow us on Instagram: @subc_incorporated, Facebook: facebook.com/subcultureinco, and Twitter: @subcultureinco1.
Our episodes are written and produced by Tamice Namae Speaks LLC.
Don’t miss out on what Tamice has planned next! Follow her on Instagram and Twitter, or subscribe to her Patreon page.
What's up everybody. Welcome back to this episode of Life. After Levin, I'm your host, tamise, spencer Helms and y'all, I got another one from the chapter called the Naughty List on with me. Today I have Brian McLaren. We'll talk all about what he's done and who he is for me. You know that this particular season is about people who have significantly impacted me now that I'm 40. I feel like I'm walking into life very self-actualized, and so I'm having people on the show that have been a part of that process, and so today we have Brian McLaren. Thank you so much for being here. How you doing.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm so happy to meet you and even happier to find out that I had an influence on you without even knowing it. So I you've made my day already.
Speaker 1:That's so. It's so true. So this, the way that I came to know you at first you were on what what I call the Naughty List, which was the list of books you know as an evangelical, I was told to stay away from that were slippery slope, but every time I saw you or kind of snuck watch something on YouTube. You never seem to have the same responses to people. There was not as much vitriol and there was not as much back and forth. You were just simply laying out some questions for us and there was something about that that was very magnetic.
Speaker 1:So I followed you kind of on my way out of sort of that expression of Christianity and I thank you for for what you're doing for people. I'm really excited to talk to you about your new book. Right, I just finished I actually just finished, do I Stay Christian? When I found out you got a new one coming out. So I'm very excited to talk to you about Life After Doom, which I had the pleasure of having an advanced read, a copy for, and I'm loving it. So could you tell us a little bit about the book and your hopes for the book, and I'll read your bio at the end of the episode.
Speaker 2:Sure, well, yeah, well. To me one way to describe it is back in 2006,. I wrote a book that that really started changing my life, and you and I come from similar background in many ways In the evangelical world. I wrote a book called the Secret Message of Jesus. That really focused me on, instead of looking at Jesus as a solution to an atonement problem or in all the ways you and I were taught to appreciate, jesus were, the primary thing he does is get born and die. And I looked, wanted to look at Jesus for what he said he was about, which was to teach, to teach a message called the kingdom of God. Jesus said you know, I came here to teach and when people tried to pull him into different roles, he would keep coming back to saying I want to teach you about this radical new vision of life called the kingdom of God.
Speaker 2:So I wrote that book and then the next book I wrote was called Everything Must Change. I wanted to take Jesus core message that wasn't about where you go after you die, but how you live while you're alive. I wanted to say how does that message relate to our top global crises? So that book, everything Must Change, was really my attempt to bring the message of Jesus and kind of interface it with contemporary crises, and I I had never really done a deep dive into what our contemporary crises were.
Speaker 2:That came out in 2000. I think it was 2007, might have been 2008. And so here we are, you know, gosh, getting close to 20 years later, and I wanted to go back and revisit what are our global crises, what's changed and what are we going to do about it? So, and what's happened to a lot of people in recent years who really are paying attention to what's going on, and even more those who pay attention to not just individual areas of crisis of which there are many, but they look at the inter integration of those crises, is they're feeling so overwhelmed and they're feeling is there really any? I mean, are we just? Is our chance over? And and I wanted to address that feeling of being overwhelmed because I often feel it too so that's really what's behind the book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it is so timely I mean the way I'm reading it or getting the opportunity to read it right now, in the midst of all that is happening in Gaza and Sudan and what's happening with capitalism in our country.
Speaker 1:In this upcoming election, I just feel like that it's a very appropriate time for a book like this, and I'm really grateful for it. There were a couple of themes that I would love to have you maybe you know tease the audience with. When you talked about that. There were ways, there were different types of collapse. It was like four different types of collapse. Yeah can you talk about that a little bit more in detail?
Speaker 2:Sure. So something I have observed about the, about our brains to me, is that we like all or nothing thinking. In other words, we like to say everything's going to be fine or we're totally screwed and there's no hope. One of the things that those both of those extreme, polarized, dualistic answers, one of the things they do for us is they give us permission to return to our previously scheduled complacency. Right, if everything's going to be fine. People are solving it, technology will solve it, god will solve it, prayer will make it all go away. If we have a solution like that, we can just go back to making money and having fun and watching Netflix, whatever it is we do, or if forget it, it's hopeless, might as well not even try. That also allows us to say well, I can be, I can be selfish, I can be whatever. And so what?
Speaker 2:As I grappled with the data, I didn't want to articulate only two options and I tried to talk about four possibilities, and it's really one of the main contributions of the book. I think it'll be interesting to see how people feel about it. But the four are collapse avoidance, the idea that we can avoid a civilizational collapse. Second is collapse rebirth, where there will be a civilizational collapse because of the way we're living in relation to the earth, in relation to one another, based on race, religion, politics and all the rest. So we could, we may experience a collapse, but we could pick up the pieces and maybe learn something and begin again. That's collapse or birth. Third is collapse survival, which would say some of us could survive a collapse, but what we would have on the other side would not be a new civilization. We would be pushed way, way back to kind of start over again.
Speaker 2:And then forth is collapse, extinction. And you know there's growing numbers of people who feel that our chances of avoiding extinction, based on the things we've already said in motion, are very, very slim. So those are the four scenarios, and what I try to do in the book is not say here's the scenario. What I try to say in the book is I think we're wise to live with honest unknowing about which of these four will unfold. I don't think the future is that easily knowable, but if we can live with that unknowing and realize that all of those four are options and, by the way, collapse avoidance everybody might think that's the good scenario. As you know, in the book I think there are a short term collapse avoidance could be a long term collapse extinction if we don't learn the lessons we need to learn. So I try to help people face those four scenarios.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's absolutely, absolutely wonderful. And it's so interesting to me when I read this because it feels like sociology, it feels like you know, it feels pastoral, it feels theological. I mean, the ability that you have to kind of bring all of those things to bear on what you're just inviting us to consider. It's just, it's a really powerful way to do it. I think, and I think it's gonna be really, really impactful. There are a lot of folks, I think, who are spiritually aimless, if you will. They know what they don't want, right but they haven't really necessarily figured out what they do want and what to make of God. And this is a really, really helpful tool for that.
Speaker 1:And as I'm reading it and thinking through it and some of the other things, like the wisdom of indigenous voices, how we can kind of create new values and beauty that's worth fighting for, to me I feel like you're describing my decolonization process which was a little bit different than deconstruction and it's kind of my I guess, my what do you call it my high horse or my soapbox, because I feel like you know, if people stop at deconstruction they probably will end up spiritually aimless, because, you know, deconstruction that doesn't deal with whiteness leaves your faith uprooted.
Speaker 1:Right, it's not because whiteness isn't rooted in any kind of a place or tradition. And so hearing you talk about all of these avenues and ways to bring these things to bear upon how we craft faith now it just feels like wow, like what he was talking about, decolonization and, to be honest, it feels really amazing to meet you there in the book, right, I feel like for most of my Christian experience, everybody we read was a white and male. Those were the only leaders, those were the only voices that taught us what it meant to do God talk and to follow.
Speaker 3:Jesus.
Speaker 1:And so for you know, for you and you know, I had Pete and Jared on, I'm gonna have Neil Douglas Klotz and I wasn't able to get Dom Cross and Richard Rohr, but those were the white men that came with me because I still was able to find myself in your writing and I really appreciate that. I think this is a book that can translate across what was that process? Like I know, in do I say Christian, you brought up Trayvon, which also felt very personal for me in the Black Lives Matter movement. So what kind of pushed you to that phase?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean we could do a whole podcast series on that, because as a white guy you know middle class upbringing I was very much cocooned in a white, christian, evangelical, conservative world and I hope this is changing. But I think in my generation it was actually we were. Apartheid was so effective and people could be in their little cocoons or bubbles that it was very easy to go through a lot of my life without having all of those assumptions challenged, you know. But a big one for me was I'm old enough that I grew up in a segregated church. I grew up in a church where there were some nice white men in suits, very polite, who if a black person came to the door they would very politely be explained where they could find a black church. Back then they didn't use the word black, they would have said a Negro church, you know, 10 miles away, where they would be more welcome. And my parents thought that was horrible, and my parents I'm just blessed that I had parents that saw things differently. Part of that is because my dad was a missionary kid and he grew up part of his childhood in Angola and part of his childhood in Zambia, and so his life was different and his experience was different, although well, there's another whole subject there. So that was a start for me.
Speaker 2:But when I went through my own faith deconstruction as I was speaking and I started writing on the subject, I was out speaking on the subject and I started to realize that while the Protestant Reformation was going on you know, 15, 18, or whatever it was the same time wasn't very long after 1492. And then I started seeing that the Protestant Reformation was going on at the same time as colonization. And, to bring a too long story short to me, so I was. I had I developed a relationship with a black theologian from Africa named Mabiala Kenzo amazing, brilliant theologian. And once we were in the backseat of a car somebody was driving and we're squeezed in the backseat with some other people and I said to him Kenzo, it seems to me that postmodern is postcolonial. And he said you've got it, you've got it, that's it, you've got it. And that was the night that I had permission to sort of reach the conclusion that you reached a whole lot earlier than I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so powerful to me because I think you know, like I said when I encountered you back, in the early 2000s, being warned of you. It was very much like you had an ability to even honor other people's humanity.
Speaker 1:I mean even to say I got a blessing from an African elder theologian to begin to talk about blackness and whiteness and colonization. I mean just even that process alone, I think, demonstrates how trustworthy I think you are in terms of thought, leadership and theology, because I do see this sort of that elder piece is really standing out to me. I saw a tweet this morning where someone says I can't think of a single place where people honor elders and think about God in terms of creation and being in community.
Speaker 2:And I was kind of like you know which was such a.
Speaker 1:you know it's so symptomatic of the fact that you know, for most people who are doing evangelical Christianity, most of their leadership is an echo chamber of kind of white normativity and theology. But what life after doom does, though, I think, is it takes people who would never pick up a book right by a black theologian or something like that. It kind of brings them in the back way to meet us in the middle to say, hey, these are some things we need to think about in terms of you know, I'm using the term leaven right what is leavening our Christianity? And it's so, so powerful to me. I'm wondering have you had time to think through technology and the role that AI plays like in the future of faith? I mean, I do feel like you know you were in the emerging right, emerging and emergent era, so you've always sort of been on the forefront or on the cusp of what's about to happen. So what are your thoughts about that? What are your thoughts about Gen Z and AI and how that's gonna affect us in the years to come?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I pay attention to this. I listen to people who, I think, know a whole lot more about me than this, but I have to make it clear I'm not an expert, but here's my sense. My sense is, at this juncture in history we need a different kind of intelligence. It's not that we need our existing intelligence to be faster and more powerful. You see, I think our existing intelligence is the problem. Our existing intelligence is based on assumptions about what has ultimate value Very unhealthy assumptions about what money does. I think in many ways, if we survive the mess we're in, in a hundred or a thousand years they'll look back and think for this period of time we had a group of people who became, who were part of a money cult.
Speaker 1:Their sense of what's valuable was totally distorted by this human construction called money, and oh, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on In this show when I feel wisdom or like that was powerful, what you just said, and I like to just take like whole space for what you just said that is powerfully insightful. I just wanna hold space for that Goodness gracious. Okay, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for that. No, well, thanks for that, denise, because that's to me beautiful wisdom in your pastoral leadership in these situations is knowing that at times, yeah, we just need to stop and take a breath and let things settle. So I suppose, well, maybe that's a good place for me to stop and just see where else you'd like to go with it, because if artificial intelligence is really just accelerated combination of data according to the algorithms programmed by people with a set of assumptions, well, maybe here's a good way for me to say it. The great Nigerian philosopher, bio Kamalafe says what if our the way we respond to the crisis is part of the crisis? And that is where it seems to me we need a fresh perspective that that faster machine learning within our current limited frameworks will will make things worse, not better.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, I have a thing that I've been thinking about and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, as it relates. I keep thinking about Genesis three. I've been thinking about Genesis three for like three or four years now, trying to figure out, you know, as an origin story. How is it explaining why we, why we, are this way? Right, and I keep thinking about and hopefully I can draw this thread, but I keep thinking about the ways that God was described, as you know, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and I think about what our culture of values, in terms of the progress and, you know, the acceleration of our intelligence, is, almost as though humans are, you know, seeking to be machines, because they think God is a machine. Right, like you know. Like you know, because you know it's about invulnerability, right?
Speaker 1:at the end of the day and to me it feels like that's what's happening in that garden story is that there's a situation happening where people are misunderstanding what God is like. I mean, it feels like that that serpent story is about a really subtle twist on what God is like. In that God is God is invulnerable.
Speaker 1:God knows all, god is everywhere, god is all powerful and that that desire for God like that and to emulate a God like that is why you're saying is what you're saying. It's the way we respond to. Crisis is a crisis, because what I mean, what are we? You said something like. What did you say? You said a different kind of intelligence, because it has to do with what we value and I think again now, this decolonization right of the whole the great chain of being and everything like. Even if you take God out of this and you put, you know, humanity at the top, it's going to be, you know, western humanity at the top and then, Western men at the top of that, and so I think about okay, so we're measuring everything against either a white God or a white man.
Speaker 1:And and so then we judge what progress is In light of that, but to me it's like we've been here 400 years and we have already blown a hole in the atmosphere. Like you know, there are civilizations that we call underdeveloped, that have been going for centuries right living off the land, living in community, and we call them underdeveloped. You know, we say that they need to progress and we are ruining the planet as we speak. So it does feel to me like you're right, like it has to do with, like will we extract? Right, like when you eat from this tree, when you violate the agency of this tree and take from it instead of sharing, instead of learning, like you know, grasping knowledge instead of receiving it. And I think that there's a way that, like what you're doing, you know this indigenous ways of thinking and these ways of sort of recalibrating how we measure things. I think it's spot on and I feel like that's a similar thing. I feel like, yeah, it seems to me that people are trying to become machines because we hate vulnerability that much.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:I mean what?
Speaker 1:are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Well, I just want to say amen and I just love that you're going back and looking at those Genesis stories. You know, one of the great gifts you and I got from our evangelical background was to take the Bible seriously. One of the great curses we got was to take the Bible literally. I mean, wow yeah, rich, deep, profound text in such a shallow, superficial, literalistic way is a tragedy. But at least we were taught to take these stories seriously because the stories are.
Speaker 2:A rabbi once said to me you know, I don't get you Christians trying to find out the meaning of a text, and I think that's what it says. For us Jews, every biblical text is a bottomless well of meaning. Isn't that great? But just just to play with the Genesis story, you know, one of the blessings of my life is that I was a lit major. I was an English major, so literature has been one of my passions. So I went because of my literary training. Every once in a while I by mistake would read the Bible as literature, which is what it really was. But so for some people this would totally freak them out.
Speaker 2:But if you step back and read the book of Genesis as literature and you look at God not as the God but as a character in a set of stories. The character of God seems to grow through the book of Genesis. Now, to me, just put us, we can put aside stories of does God grow, does God change? I mean, that's a fascinating study and I would encourage anybody to look into process theology. But just looking at it, just looking at it literally, Think of it like this.
Speaker 2:The character named God says at the beginning of the story if you break this, the day you eat of this tree, you will die. That's a little bit like the parent who says if you write on the wall one more time, I'm going to throw you out the window. To her child, you know? Or his child? Well, no, you know, you realize. Well, that was a bit of an excessive threat. So what happened on the day they eat of it? God does not kill them. God actually helps them and makes clothes for them. So God turns out to be better than God promised to be in a certain. If you just look at God as a character and you trace that through, god says I'm going to destroy all human life and just bring out Noah. At the end, god does them and thinks gosh, I'll never do that again. You know, like the character God in this in the book of Genesis is not, is a character who learns and grows. Now people might say, well, that's not as good as our you know vision of God as omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, all that. Well, how about this? Maybe that God model model something for us? We ought to be learning and growing.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, just to fast forward to the end of Genesis, what is God's final solution to the problem of human evil? First God threatens capital punishment. Then God says we'll get rid of everybody and just select Noah. And then God says I'll pick this guy named Abram, not to kill everybody else, but I'll ask Abram and his family and Sarah and their descendants to be blessings to everybody else. So God shifts God's strategy from extermination and violence to the dissemination of blessing. And you get to the end of the book of Genesis and this fascinating character named Joseph not perfect, makes mistakes, but Joseph decides not to get vengeance on his brothers but rather seeks to work for the common good. I mean, that's a pretty cool story when you just look at it as literature and take all of the theological absolutes out of it.
Speaker 1:You know it's funny that you brought up process theology because I was reading Monica Coleman for class and thinking about the way that she frames indigenous theology and like the idea that there's the supreme being, which, by the way, I learned today as we talked about how I just found out which tribe I'm from a native tribe I'm from, by the way, they have a prayer that says all praises to the creator, who created us through thought, who makes impossible things possible.
Speaker 1:Like that's the way they address God. And so thinking about that in conjunction with the sort of this process, theology, I really do feel like that supreme being the way she frames it is, there's a supreme being and then there's a sort of celestial realm and then there are these mythic figures, right, who go through their own apotheosis. But the way that you're describing God in the story is God has an apotheosis experience where God evolves, goes through on a heroic journey and actualizes in the end. I mean that feels to me like so squarely in the framing of what she talks about as sort of a way that the past, the present and the future kind of converge on each other. And then obviously there are the ancestors, Do you? So?
Speaker 1:That's bringing me to this question. I wasn't planning to ask you this, but have you done ancestry work? I mean, I've seen that as kind of a way for folks who are like, yes, okay, I'm recognizing what whiteness is and the damaging effects of whiteness and I'm looking for a way out. And for me I always tell them go on an ancestry journey, go find some roots. Have you entered into that process yet, or what are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have. First, let me just say I am such a huge fan of Monica Coleman. I love her work and I'm so glad you're connected with her. She not only, I think, has such a brilliant mind, but her mode of being as a teacher, her vulnerability, all the rest is, I just think, such a model and so admirable. And yes, I actually have been my wife.
Speaker 2:I think for my birthday present, maybe eight years ago or something, gave me ancestrycom. So I've been using that tool to try to learn about my ancestry, which has been super, super fascinating, and I've managed to trace what. My last name is Scottish. I have a set of Scottish ancestors who go way, way back in Scotland, and as far back as I can go right now is maybe the 1500s, but they're there in Scotland and a lot of people don't realize that Scotland, in a sense they were a set of indigenous people who were colonized by the English. And so suddenly you realize, oh, you know, all of our black, white typology hides the complexity and richness and drama of a much more complex layer of nuanced reality. And then from another set of my ancestors are Irish and of course the Irish were another colonized group of people. And then I have a set of Scottish relatives who were part of the deportation of Scottish people to Northern Ireland, so I have Southern or the Republic of Irish people and Northern Irish people, and then another strain of my ancestors goes to Northern Europe and then all the spreads down through Southern Europe. And then I have ancestors in Italy and I have an ancestor in France in the late 1500s whose name was Mahmood, so he must have been Muslim.
Speaker 2:And so suddenly you find out. I mean, I certainly didn't expect that. So you know what a fascinating thing and to me, what really becomes exciting about this. This is, I think, what Dr Barbara Holmes, a dear friend and colleague, did in her book Race and the Cosmos. She helps us say look our current articulations of race and the myths of whiteness and all the rest, these terrible lies, right. If we keep opening the aperture in space and in time, we see a much bigger story going on, and that's something else that I hope people will get from this book. Life After Doom is this sense that you know, we're not only the part of a bigger story of humanity, but we're part of the bigger story of life and evolution on this planet.
Speaker 1:And yeah, yeah, you know, I keep thinking about it. Someone asked me the other day you know, how are you identifying these days? And I keep saying tongue in cheek, you know I'm wearing a light jacket of Christianity, but I think about it, as they asked me the reasons for that and I keep thinking kind of what you're alluding to. I keep thinking it's because I couldn't stretch it. Like it wouldn't stretch. It was like trying to take trying to like be black, be queer, be non-binary and Christian who reared in white evangelicalism was like trying to fit a, like, you know, a twin sheet on a king-size bed.
Speaker 2:That's what it felt like. No.
Speaker 1:And I needed to do something with the rest of this mattress, right, Like so either God is just this big or there is more to this, and you know it's so beautiful to me. And again, I think what's been beautiful is coming into contact when we were talking about with Race in the Cosmos and Monica Coleman is that womenists have really made me very proud and excited to state that my tradition is the black church tradition, right. That my faith is rooted in Hush Harbor and in a love and an admiration for Jesus, that I can claim that because I found women is on my way out of Christianity, right.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes yes, the women has kind of met me in this place and I'm able to it's like what you're doing with this book I'm just able to bring it all and in fact it feels like bringing it all was the point the whole time, you know, and so it's been really beautiful.
Speaker 1:It's been a really beautiful process and I feel like you are very, very much responsible for that process. I'm indebted to you, I'm grateful for you in the ways that you I mean you lifted up, even just in our conversation, lifted up so many scholars and theologians of color, naturally, and I'm not sure, you know, I know I have a kind of a mix of listeners, but I'm not sure if my white listeners, who are deconstructing, know how powerful and trustworthy that is, and so I'm just so grateful to you. Brian, and you said you had Irish roots and I was like I was like I'm gonna tell him I call him B-Mac behind his back. I call him B-Mac, like you know, I'm like babe B-Mac, so I just really feel like Ken you feel like Ken spiritual Ken to me and I'm so grateful for you.
Speaker 2:I mean, when you say that to me and you think what our history holds, that you could say that and that I could feel that and we could. I mean that is a beautiful thing, isn't it? When we understand we're Ken. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what a profound change and what a victory that is for a broader and bigger way of thinking. I'm honored by that and can I just say finding out that you know my work has helped you. I'm so happy about that. But let me be very, very honest.
Speaker 2:So I'm 60, I'll be 68 in a couple of weeks and so who knows how many years I'll have left right. I'm way closer to the end than the beginning. And you said you're, I think you said you're 40. So you might say you know my work has helped you, but my work will never be finished in my life and so I'm absolutely. I'm as dependent on you as you could.
Speaker 2:You know, any dependence you have me is dwarfed by my dependence on you, for whatever I'm able to give if it has some value to you and you carry that on, and I hope you feel I'm not just saying that, I mean I feel that so deeply and that's part of the thing of we're all Ken too. It's we're all Ken, and you could also say we're all part of one wave. You know the fact that we live at the same time and we're part of a wave that crashes on the shore and new waves have to come. And, yeah, it's pretty cool when we stop seeing each other as competitive units and a capitalistic economy or even in a Marxist struggle for dominance, we step back and we say no, there's something way bigger going on that we get to be part of together.
Speaker 1:Well, my partner is gonna love that. He's their pacifist and their favorite thing to say is like well, somebody has to put the weapon down first. You know, like that's the way they think of it and it feels like that. I mean we have to at some point, we have to risk doing it a different way. So thank you for leading us in that. I'm gonna hit you with the final three.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we ask every guest three questions what are you bringing from the rubble, which the corpus of work? I think we know that, but today, what would you say? And then, what are you binging Right? Is there a show or some music, a drink, it doesn't matter. And what are some words to live by? So, in any order and whenever you're ready, take stab at those questions.
Speaker 2:Okay. So what am I bringing from the rubble? Well, many things, but I suppose there's a verse. There's a verse in the New Testament from the off misunderstood, I think Apostle Paul, where he said neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. And I think with that we could say he's saying all of our religious squabbles and rules and boundary markers, they're not the point, they aren't what really count. He says the only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love. And that idea that the only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love, that is something I bring from the rubble, something I'm binging. Well, I always binge the outdoors, it's what helps me stay sane. But when I'm indoors, my wife and I have been binging K-dramas. I have no idea why. They just feel like a different plot structure unfolding than is so typical of American dramas, that it has felt refreshing. And what's my third? I forgot.
Speaker 1:Some words to live by.
Speaker 2:Some words to live by. Well, maybe those words from Bioakamalafi. What if our way of responding to the crisis is part of the crisis? And what I love about that is the words. What if? Invite us to think and imagine and see? It's not like he's just giving us an idea that we should accept. He's giving us an idea that makes us think.
Speaker 1:Aashay and Aimen. Thank you so much, Brian, for being on the show.
Speaker 2:It's been awesome Been a beautiful experience for me and so happy to meet you Awesome.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening. To paint your money in your heart is donate to Subquatcher Inc Inc. Inc is a path for black students today. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc. You can donate to Subquatcher Inc.
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