[00:00:08] Speaker A: Hi, Collective Table. Welcome to our season nine finale. Throughout this inaugural season with the Oceanside Sanctuary, we have been looking back at some of our favorite episodes and exploring how these guests and their ideas are landing with us today.
So far, we have explored fear, doubt, how to hold diversity, and so much more.
And as this season has come about, much of our discussion has centered around the issues at stake in the 2024 presidential election.
I bring this up because Jason and I recorded this episode on Wednesday, November 6, the day after Election Day. So this episode may feel a little different, and it's a little bit longer than usual, but we sense that we're not alone in how we are feeling.
So we hope that this conversation will offer a sense of solidarity and perhaps some space to process.
And just a quick note, if you have little ears around, this might be an episode to listen to in your headphones or without the kids in the car. We do share some strong language in this episode, as I'm sure you might relate with this week. So just a word of warning as you press play on this episode.
Throughout this conversation, we'll be hearing clips from the wonderful Rabbi Sharon Brouse, who we only interviewed this past May. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, please go check it out.
Thank you for pushing play on this episode. We invite you to sit with us today wherever you're at.
Welcome back, Collective Table Podcast. It's Claire, and I'm here with Jason Coker.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Hi, good morning.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Good morning. When or whenever you are listening to this, and this is our final episode of season nine. Just to give you some context, listeners, you going to be listening to this a little bit later in November, but Jason and I are sitting here the Wednesday morning after Election Day. Last week, I came to Jason and said, hey, we have a podcast deadline coming up. We've said we're going to put out our final episode and these are our options for recording times. And he said, are you sure you want to record the day after the election? The day after the election? And I said, I think it'll give us plenty to talk about.
And here we are coming on. I don't know how much we have to say.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I was exactly afraid of this. Like, I was afraid that we were gonna be recording the morning after the election. And at the time, I think I was feeling. So this was, what, two weeks ago, I think when we scheduled this, and I was feeling moderately pessimistic about the outcome of this election. And I thought, oh, it's going to be really hard that morning to not talk about it, like, to talk about anything else.
And here we are processing a lot of feelings, including a surprise, which I feel like I did everything possible to guard against being surprised, and yet I'm shocked.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: I feel like things are just becoming so clear to me, and it's very disturbing.
I was telling Chris this morning, I am sick of time and time again watching men get to say and do vile things and not just get away with it, but gain power in doing so. That makes me sick to my stomach. And I have seen it in a small scale, and I've been able to remove myself from those situations, in a sense, but for that to be a situation where that is the leader of our nation, I. It's like I can't escape it. I feel it's. It's overwhelming that that's where I'm at this morning. Among. Among other things.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Yeah. No. And as I reflect on, like, why it was that I was not looking forward to recording a podcast episode the morning after the election, I think it was because this entire season, we have very intentionally and idealistically dedicated ourselves to talking about how to, like, heal and move forward in the midst of the division that we're fac racing. And now here I sit feeling like the biggest hypocrite in the world, because that is not what I want to do right now. And, of course, to a certain extent, it would be unhealthy and inappropriate to talk about reconciling with people who are perfectly willing to cause great harm to women, to communities of color, to the LGBTQIA community. It would be incredibly unhealthy to, like, gloss the harm that's being done to those communities, to gloss that over with Christian or religious platitudes about reconciling with the enemy or loving your enemy. So. So here I am being tested, like, by my own beliefs, because I believe those things.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: I resonate a lot with what you're saying. I've been reeling over that this morning. Like, how. How do I do this? I think you can believe those things wholeheartedly. And when it comes down to the practice of it, that is. I mean, it's cliche. That's the challenge.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: So where do you want to go with this? Because that is what this episode was supposed to be about, is supposed to be about the practice of literally and figuratively and liturgically coming together with people who are moving in the opposite direction. Do you still want to do that? Should we still talk about that, or.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Yes, I have. I have some thoughts, maybe different than I proposed them to you before. So this past May, Dana and Chelsea interviewed Rabbi Sharon Brouse. She is a rabbi up in Los Angeles, and she recently wrote a book about this. Exactly. It's called the Amen Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World. And don't we have a broken world, broken hearts, Especially today. But I'm. I'm going to read directly from Sharon' just to give our listeners an idea if they haven't read the book or listened to the episode. What her argument is in this book. She argues that the radical disconnection, isolation and alienation of our time has created fertile soil for extremist social and political movements, fostering a crisis that is not only political, but also spiritual. Fortunately, the very same mechanisms for connection that help us heal as individuals can also help establish the foundation for a more connected and caring society.
Not only do I think this is an excellent way to round out our season and what we have been talking about, but in light of where we are sitting today and where I imagine many of our listeners will be sitting a week and a half from now when they're listening to this episode, I wonder what these ancient practices that Rabbi Brouss brings up might have to say to us. Not that they're going to fix anything or even make us feel better or make us get to that reconciliation, potentially impossible reconciliation, it feels that you're talking about, but I wonder if we can at least sit with it.
[00:07:43] Speaker C: Loneliness and social alienation are really driving a great fracturing in our society. And as the great 20th century political philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote, loneliness and social alienation are essentially preconditions for totalitarianism, that tyrannical regimes and totalitarian regimes cannot take root in a society when people really know their neighbors and really connect with each other meaningfully. And so we have this crisis of spirit, of body and of society. And the idea is that we're kind of disinclined toward connection right now, but we need connection biologically, spiritually, psychologically and socially. And so the amen effect is what happens if precisely at the moment that we are most inclined to pull away from each other. Instead, we incline toward each other.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: So she begins by describing how knowing our neighbors can act as an antidote to this crisis of body and spirit by inclining towards each other and saying amen to each other's experience, like a restitching to this social fabric of sorts.
I go to yoga class every week, and at the end we say Namaste, which means the light in me honors the light in You. And that's easy to say for people who look like you. And I think for people who are of the more, like, progressive mindset, we're, like, very trained, in a sense, to, like, have no issue being like. Of course we're going to say amen to the experiences of the poor and oppressed. But there are some people who. Is it, okay, moral for me to say amen? What does it mean for me to say amen to your experiences?
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I suppose it depends on what you're saying amen to. Right. And even knowing whether or not I can say amen to agree to affirm the concerns of the other person who votes differently than I do, I have to hear it. I have to have to understand it.
And the truth is that, for the most part, I think we don't want to engage in that conversation to begin with. Like, I can professionally sit and listen to people pretty well. And, you know, that could be, like, I could unpack why that is. You know, probably has a fair amount to do with, like, the position that I hold and the title that I have and the fact that in most cases, if I'm sitting and listening to people professionally, I'm in a position of power.
So that's easy. I've learned how to do that, and it's sincere, you know, like, I care about other people. I want to hear, you know, what people are experiencing, how people are suffering, can sympathize. I can empathize, you know, with them, more or less, but I don't know that I can do that same thing with my neighbor who has hung a giant Trump flag on their fence. And to begin with, of course, I don't start out in that conversation in a place of privilege. I start out in a place of real vulnerability because it angers me. And. And if I'm being honest, concerns me that I have neighbors who have giant Trump flags hanging from their flagpole. And so I'm much less likely to say hello to my neighbor because they have a giant Trump flag on their fence or because they're hanging an American flag from their fence, because that flag has come to be a signifier for people who have very, in my opinion, authoritarian leanings. So I think it does drive us more inward, and I think that does contribute to social isolation.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: I want to stay in that social isolation arena. I find it fascinating that there are recent statistics on men specifically, and loneliness. And that's not to say that there aren't other groups of people who do experience deep loneliness, but the rise in loneliness among men, young men specifically. It occurred to me last night I was watching election coverage and they were showing the Trump HQ and the guy covering it noted this is the first time he is seen in a Republican hq, like on election night. He said, there are so many young men here. Usually the demographic is so much older. He was like, it's so young. And he commented on the amount of men there, not just white. And it occurred to me as I heard that the way in which there have also been recent reports there, the New York Times had a huge article about Gen Z men and religion and how officially like Gen Z men are now more religious than women in their age demographic. And it got me thinking about the ways in which people who feel lonely and isolated, they're searching for something and it's clear what they are being drawn to.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: I do think it's fascinating that for the first time ever since we've been paying attention to these sorts of things, that now more women are unaffiliated from religious institutions than men. It always used to be the opposite. And that is my own research is around religious disaffiliation. And that's a shock. That is a massive shift because it used to be that religiously unaffiliated people in the United States were predominantly white men and predominantly either atheist or agnostic. Although it's never been monolithically atheist or agnostic. There's always been a healthy amount of spiritual but not religious folks.
But what's happened with religious disaffiliation is it has become more female with gen zers, like you said. And that is a massive shift. And then of course, like one of the questions that arises in that is, is it because more women are leaving religious spaces or is it because more men are, are returning to religious spaces? And we don't know the answer to that yet. But anecdotally there is evidence, or at least there's, there are indications would be the better word, that it's men returning to religious spaces, especially young men. What we're seeing is this resurgence of Christian nationalism, a return to like sort of traditional gender roles, traditional stay at home moms, the trad wife. That tradwife phenomenon has become really big, not just in evangelicalism. It actually, it bleeds outside of religion in general.
Yeah. So I mean, what do you think? Like you, you're married to a man, you have, you have plenty of male relationships in your life. You like, what have you observed? What do you think is happening with those men who are running towards a social movement that you could argue is defined by authoritarian power, regardless of the consequences. Right. Like, they see that as good.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: I will say I feel like I brag on my husband a lot in this podcast, and then I.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: As well, you should.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Something I have always really admired about him is he has always had very close friendships, male or female. He still makes a really concerted effort to, like, have and keep those friendships. And I. It's not that I don't see that among, like, any other men that I know. I don't see the effort that he puts in among a lot of people, not just men. I just think it's harder for men. And I think there's so much shame around, like, men having friendships. It's like, oh, I can go be friends with a woman or more feminine person, and I'm shamed for it because it's either inappropriate outside of my marriage or makes me appear less masculine. I can go have a close relationship with a friendship with a man. And I'm still accused of not being masculine enough. I'm still shamed for it because men aren't supposed to be vulnerable like that around one another. And to me, I imagine that running, rather than opening yourself to be vulnerable around other people, imagine that running towards these movements and communities where you don't necessarily have to be vulnerable. You're. You're just automatically. I'm doing air quotes here, like, accepted. And given this. This power that. That has to be alluring and kind of like a safety net. That is where I see this problem.
We need to. We need to allow men to have to have friendship.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. I mean, that's interesting. I think, like, I think that's true. I think there definitely are those kinds of stereotypes or cliches that. That inhibit men from having, like, the full range of emotions and attachments and expressions of, like, care for each other that women enjoy. I also think, like, there are other ways that men are socialized to be more isolated in addition to that, because I think that is true. I think that men are. In the United States, men are socialized to be winners. Right. Like, we're highly socialized to be competitive. Right. To the point where, like, I don't know that there are a more powerful set of spiritually formational rituals in the United States than sports. People are far more committed to sports in the United States than they are to any other religion. And I don't mean that as a judgment, but I do think we have been malformed in the United States by an ethic of competition. And that ethic of Competition is deeply attached to one's sense of self worth, to the point where, like, if you can't win literally in a competitive way in some arena, you don't have to win in every arena. But we definitely admire you more if you win in more arenas of competition. Right? And in that sort of fundamental, like, extraordinarily high value for winning, we excuse a great deal of terrible behavior. In fact, within the rules of those games, behavior that would be considered immoral or unethical outside the rules of those games are rewarded.
And then those same sort of rules of competition are extended to business and career and even family life, to the extent that family life gets played out in suburban neighborhoods where your conspicuous displays of wealth affirm that you are a winner.
And I think, like, that narrative, like, I don't think there is one narrative that explains the Trump phenomenon, but if there's a narrative that explains most of it, I think it's that that Trump is perceived to be a winner by those who believe that winning has nothing to do whatsoever with being a moral or ethical person, that all rules of morality and ethics are suspended within the boundaries of the game. And so all that matters is winning. I will say that that is how men are socialized. And I would argue that even now, women aren't really socialized that way in the United States. I think that there's an effort to open those spaces up to women. And I find that in some ways ironic because.
Not that. And I think women should be able to compete in any arena that they want to. I'm as feminist as it gets.
I think I'm pretty feminist. I have three daughters. And so I'm very committed to feminist ideals. But I also think. I don't know how healthy it is for us to take an unhealthy social model of masculinity and then, like, encourage women to fulfill that.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: That's not really feminist.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: That's not feminist at all. I guess my whole point in all this, my argument is that to be a man, especially in the United States, is to be alone. And I don't think it has to be that way. I think some men are better at, like, maybe your husband are better at, like, building connection and maintaining connection.
But the cultural gravity is constantly pulling men into isolation. And partly because the only way to maintain that facade of being a winner is to distance yourself enough that you can maintain the bullshit, because it is bullshit. And so, like, nobody is good at everything, and nobody succeeds in isolation.
Everybody who has ever achieved anything of note has done so because of their web of relationships. But a culture of competition encourages us to instrumentalize all those relationships for our own individual, like, elevation and success and profit and gain. And ultimately, it sabotages all those relationships. And so, like, I think, in a very real sense, like, to be a man is to be alone, which is a lie, I think. Right? Like, I think we've bought into a lie when we allow ourselves to be socialized in that way.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: The illusion of independence.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: I've been thinking a lot about the parable of the Rich fool in Luke 12, where this guy asks Jesus, he says, hey, like, my brother needs to divide our inheritance with me. Please tell him to.
That's not the point, but I find that hilarious.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: This is such a relevant thing to even talk about today. Yeah.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: And Jesus tells him a story about this guy who had a really great harvest season and stores up all of this wealth for himself, and he dies with all of his storehouses full. This man dies alone.
And it's aptly named the parable of the Rich Fool. And I know that we're not necessarily talking about wealth here, we're talking more about wealth in terms of community and friendship and belonging. But I find that incredibly, as you said, relevant. The idea that a person can be so built up, so put on a pedestal. You said, to be a man is to be alone, even if it is alone on a TV screen alone. Like, with a billion. Not a billion, a million Instagram followers, but alone.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: I mean, I think to be MAGA is very much to be connected to, like, a social phenomenon. Like, I wouldn't want to pretend that it doesn't actually connect people to each other in real ways. It does. But, like, this explains why so many people would wear that dumb red hat. You know, it's. It's a vestment.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: And I. And I would say connected in real ways, but are those ways a path to true selfhood, to true unity? I heard Trump's speech last night after he got elected, and he was like, he said, we are going to unify America.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: What's funny is, like, on paper, if you were to read that, you'd be like, oh, that sounds great. I'm sure there's plenty of people who heard that. And they're like, yes, that's wonderful. He. I've said this before on this season. I know the type of unity that he is talking about is not the type of unity, you know, that we are talking about in the Kingdom of God. He's talking about a coercive unity, a homogenous unity. And what is so disturbing and sad to me is this trajectory of lonely people being attracted to a movement like that, being led to believe this illusion of independence will be this balm to their loneliness.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the unity he's talking about is coloniality. It's white supremacy, it's American exceptionalism, It's. It's the eradication of all difference. And in that way it is real. But it's also extraordinarily harmful. And I think that an awful lot of very sincere, very well intentioned maga folks cannot see that and would would be shocked to be told this is harmful. It's going to harm real people, real bodies. It's going to lead to, it's going to lead to people dying.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: It already has.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: It absolutely already has. Yes. Right, so. And of course that's what's going to happen is mostly it's going to be women and people of color and immigrants and queer folks who are going to suffer for this. It's horrific.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: So we're talking about both rituals that can be harmful or helpful. And I think that Rabbi Brouss offers a type of ancient ritual that she tells us about. She talks about it in her book, and this is her describing it to Dana and Chelsea and their interview with her. And I would love for us to give that a listen.
[00:26:01] Speaker C: This ancient text talks about an ancient pilgrimage ritual that used to happen at the Temple mount in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. So Jews used to come from all across the land and also from the Diaspora. And they would make their way to Jerusalem for pilgrimage festivals and they would ascend, ascend the hill that Jerusalem's a city on a hill. And then they would climb the steps of the Temple Mount, the most sacred place in the most sacred city in the world, on the holiest of days. And they would enter through this beautiful old arched entryway and they would turn to the right and circle around the perimeter of the courtyard en masse. Hundreds of thousands of people all at once. They would do one giant circle around the courtyard and then they would exit right where they had come in, except for somebody with a broken heart. And that person would go up to Jerusalem, up the steps, enter the same entryway, but they would turn to the left when everyone else turns to the right. And what would happen is a sacred encounter would occur between the individual with the broken heart and the collective, the community that's going in the opposite direction. When they would see the brokenhearted person, they would look into this person's eye and say to them a very simple question. What happened to you tell me about your heart in Hebrew, malach, what's your story? And this person would answer, saying, my father just died and I'm upside down about it, or my partner just left and I'm totally blindsided, or I just need someone to tell me my kid's gonna be okay. Whatever the pain is that they're holding in their heart, and the folks who are coming from the right will look in their eyes and offer them a blessing. May you be held with love as you navigate this time of darkness. May the one who dwells in this place help you find hope through this challenging chapter ahead. None of the parties to that ritual want to be there. The person who's brokenhearted does not even want to get out of bed, let alone show up in this place with hundreds of thousands of people, all of whom are walking in one direction, and they're literally walking in the other direction, which is what so many of us describe when we're brokenhearted. Right. If it feels like the whole world is moving one way and I'm moving another way. And here we learn. That was actually part of the ancient ritual they had an embodied ritual to help people experience physically what they were feeling spiritually.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Her words. Were she saying, no one wants to be there? That is really hitting for me this morning. And it makes me wonder, what would something like that look like? Have you seen that? Just the idea, metaphorically or physically. She's talking about a physically embodied ritual here.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: So a lot of our, like, just from a religious perspective, like, a lot of our overtly religious rituals seem to be very creedal. Right. And what I mean by that is, like, you know, in more of a high liturgical church, like an Episcopal Church, or even like Presbyterian churches, which aren't like high liturgy, but they're more traditional. There's typically, there are these traditional elements, like the reciting of the creed, or in an Anglican or Episcopal church, like the actual procession and readings of the Gospel, like according to prescribed readings. All of this, and it occurs to me, like, all those, all while they're embodied or often are embodied, they all sort of point towards right belief. Right. They're confessional, as opposed to. What I'm hearing Rabbi Brouss describe is not creedal. The people are not being instructed to express their allegiance to a formulated boundary. Instead, they're being, like, taught to act out compassion.
And, like, I am hard pressed to imagine any overtly religious ritual in a Christian context that does that.
That's, to me, pretty remarkable. I think maybe the closest would be communion. Like, in communion we do, or in the Eucharist or, you know, however it's done in various Christian traditions is the acting out of a kind of sacrificial act on the part of Jesus that we then identify with, which feels more empathetic. It feels like. And especially how we do it, like, in a church like ours, because we do an open communion and we make it all about, like, being there for each other amidst our differences. That feels a little closer. It's not the same thing, but it's at least less creedal. So, no. I don't know. I'm struggling to imagine that in being done in other ways.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Maybe we don't see it in the church anymore.
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: And we have to admit that and sit with it.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: No. Where. Where do we teach people to look each other in the eye and say, what happened to you? I don't know. I can't think of anything.
As she's describing this beautiful ancient ritual that I am loving like, I'm loving the intention behind it. I'm loving, like, the formational part of it. It's hard not to hear, like, people coming from the left and people coming from the right, you know, and then meeting each other and the people coming from the right looking them in the eye and saying, you know, what happened to you that broke your heart? And people from the left describing what happened to them, and then the person from the eye looking from the right looking them in the eye and saying, fuck your feelings.
So, like, I don't want to be naive about a fundamental brokenness in our culture. That fundamental brokenness is that we don't have the capacity to do what this ritual she's describing is actually designed to do, which is to teach people how to empathize and be there for each other. We have utterly failed to do that.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: You're calling out the ways that we have failed to do that in the church. And I. I think so much of our conversation this morning has identified ways in which we are failing to do that in the political sphere, especially at the federal level. I think that the best example I have seen of this has been in. At more. The local level, on the. In, like, grassroots community organizing. Last month, the. This is so niche. The Kansas City tenant union, I think they're called KC Tenants, they went on strike, and it was like the. I don't know if it's still going on, but at the time that reports were coming out about it, it was like the longest tenant strike in union history. And the way I heard about this actually was one of my Favorite comedians. He is from Kansas City, still lives there part time, and he is friends with Tora Ragavier. I think she's the founding director of the KC tenants, and he had her on to talk about this tenant strike that was going on. And what's so funny is, as I was listening to this episode, I had started to think about the episode that you and I are recording today. And I was like, man, I have no business going in that podcast studio and saying anything. I have nothing to say. Because these people, like, they're not even coming at it from a theological perspective, but they have it right there. She told a story even before this specific strike, of going in and organizing a trailer park just outside of Kansas City. And what they do when they're, you know, deciding if they want to organize is they send people out to knock on doors and talk to people. And when they went out to this trailer park to ask people about, I think it was the county wanted to build a jail there. And so it was going to displace everyone who lived there. And so they sent scouts out to knock on doors. And they came back and they said, there are a lot of Trump signs in those yards. I don't know if I want to go talk to those people.
And Tara, who is telling this story, she was saying, you know, we're not going to make you go and knock on those doors, but if you have it in you, like, we have committed to organize people no matter what their beliefs are. And so they organized them. And she said that they found such a diversity in that trailer park of people not just of political opinions, but of race, of background, of religion, of even a little bit of socioeconomic diversity. And what I found so beautiful about the story that she tells is that they all. They all came together and shared suffering. None of these people, when they were. I think they were able to stop the county from building the jail, they were not displaced because they were able to organize together. None of them necessarily, like, changed their political beliefs. They probably went to the polls yesterday and still voted the way they were going to vote before. But she comments on the ways that they were wholly transformed as individuals, as neighbors, as a community. And I think that's what we're getting at here. That's the best example I could find.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: One of the things you're pointing out is how broader political ideologies have a tendency to really tear us apart. But I think those broader ideologies and beliefs tend to obviously separate us because we have differences of opinion about them. But one of the characteristics of those kinds of ideologies is that they're very abstract. And even, like, political platforms by, like, the Democratic Party or the Republican Party tend to be fairly abstract, even though they're trying to express concrete concerns. Right. They kind of represent a larger narrative about, like, your philosophy about government or whatever. But when you drill down into, like, can I afford my rent? Am I or anybody that I love, like, threatened with homelessness? Or are we houseless? You know, when you drill into, like, those very concrete material concerns, then that kind of transcends those broader ideologies. And, you know, you're right. Like, I think we learn these lessons from grassroots organizing. Like, I agree. I think there's a lot of hope when we do that kind of local, relationally driven work, but that's hard.
I don't know that I usually am willing to hear about the hurt or the hardship or the suffering of, you know, somebody who is committed to exactly the opposite moral and ethical ideals than I am. That's. That's the challenge.
Her comment that nobody wants to do this, right? Like, nobody wants to show up for this labor right, is really smart, really on point, because why, if they don't want to, then why do they? Well, because all their family and friends are like, it's the day you do the ritual, right? So everybody gets up and they go and they do it, right? Like, it's like going to church on Sunday. Like, nobody wants to do that either. But some of us do, and we do partly because of who is expecting to see us there and who we'll get to see when we show up there. And then when we do show up there, we're more likely to want to be there and more likely to do it. Like, the social formation of these relationships and these communities and these rituals is incredibly powerful. Like, I'm more likely to want to look my enemies in the eye and ask them what hurt them right now, because I'm here with you, and we're having this conversation than I was an hour and a half ago when I was still laying in bed thinking, you know, this sucks.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Am I gonna get up and go record a podcast?
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Right? Am I gonna get up and go record a podcast? You know, so I texted you, do you still wanna do this? And you were like, y. You still want to do this? And so, like, I guess my point is, I think, like, one of the insights into her example that she's offering is that there is a kind of, like, tide that we're being swept along with by those social commitments, by Those communities we're a part of.
[00:38:46] Speaker A: I like what you said about showing up, because I think that our work set out for us on the other side of this election and its results. Is that showing up and is that identifying that, yes, we have this opportunity in our religious institutions to swim against that current. Now, what are. What are we going to do about. What are we going to do with the time that we have together when we do show up? How are we going to work together and use that time to walk in that opposite direction and look the brokenhearted in the eyes and say, what happened to you?
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Well, and I think for us, like, our commitment is to look a particular group of people in the eye and ask that question. And I think that's one of the tensions of this moment, is like, you know, like this morning, you know, on Facebook, we put out that it's time to grieve this, but that our church, the Oceanside Sanctuary, is going to continue to be a sanctuary for those who are poor, for those who are wounded and those who are oppressed. And I think, you know, that's our conviction about what the Gospel is, you know, from Luke 4 in particular. And that means that we do privilege looking a certain group of people in the eye absolutely to the exclusion of another group.
[00:40:08] Speaker A: It's protecting that space that's making that sanctuary.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: Right. That doesn't necessarily bridge these divides, but it does mean that we are committed to taking particular stands for women, for people of color, for queer people, for people who are poor, people who are homeless. Like, these are the people that we're committed to because that's what we believe the Gospel is about.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: Amen. Our hope is that, like the people in the Gospels, that they are able to witness this looking of this particular. These particular people in the eye and to say, come and see. You say that it is at the exclusion of that group, but the invitation is open.
[00:40:46] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you're right. And I actually, I'm. I'm really glad you ended with that, because sometimes I like it better. Like when in, like, Luke's version of Jesus's Beatitudes, when he doesn't just say, blessed are the poor, he also says, woe to the rich. Right. Like, sometimes that's the energy I lean towards.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: But Luke's Jesus also sat at tables with wealthy people.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: Yes, he did.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: He was having that conversation with the rich fool. Given he was a fool, but he was rich. Jesus was at a table with him. They were having a conversation, and he said, it'll be harder for you to get here than others. But here you are.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: This is why I can't stand Jesus sometimes.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: And we will end on that.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: Thank you for having this conversation and for hosting it, and for being willing to talk about this stuff on today of all days. It's been good.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: Some questions to consider how do you see loneliness and social isolation contributing to extremist movements or ideas in our communities, country and world?
Who or what in your life is focused on connection, support and working together?
How does this push back against the culture of individualism, power struggles and competition?
And finally, what rituals challenge you to look someone in the eye and ask what happened to you?
Thank you to our listeners for being a part of Season nine as the Oceanside Sanctuary and the Collective Table combined.
Season nine may be over, but we have some incredible content coming your way soon, starting with Advent in December and moving into 2025. So don't be a stranger and we will see you soon.
In the meantime, we want you to join the conversation, so leave us a voicemail at 760-722-8522 and let us know what's on your mind. You can also send us an
[email protected] thank you for listening and we hope to hear from you soon.
