0:00

Coming up on you need therapy.

0:02

We forget the things that as little

0:05

kids, that we would hear from

0:07

the safe people, the empathetic

0:10

witnesses in our lives. The mister Rogers

0:12

on the TV who says, you make this

0:14

day a special day by just your being

0:16

you, and I like you just the way you are.

0:19

Well, I remember that.

0:20

I hear that, but I'm so tempted to forget it, because

0:22

then I have to be as a big grown up.

0:24

I have to go out in the world. And I forgot what mister Rogers

0:27

told me.

0:28

I started to realize that not being

0:30

an expert isn't a liability, it's

0:32

a real gift.

0:34

If we don't know something about ourselves

0:36

at this point in our life, it's probably because it's

0:38

uncomfortable to know. If you

0:41

can die before you die, then

0:43

you can really live.

0:44

There's a wisdom at death's

0:46

door. I thought I was insane.

0:49

Yeah, and I didn't know what to do because

0:51

there was no Internet. I don't know, man,

0:53

I'm like, I feel like everything is

0:57

hard.

0:59

Hey, y'all, name Kat.

1:00

I'm a human first and a licensed therapist

1:03

second, and right now I'm inviting

1:05

you into conversations that I hope encourage

1:08

you to become more curious and

1:10

less judgmental about yourself, others,

1:13

and the world around you. Welcome

1:15

to You Need Therapy. Hi

1:18

guys, and welcome to a new episode

1:20

of You Need Therapy Podcast. My

1:23

name is Kat I am the host, and

1:25

before we get into today's episode,

1:27

I want to give a quick reminder that although

1:30

I'm a therapist and this podcast

1:32

is called You Need Therapy, it does not

1:34

serve as a replacement or substitute for

1:36

any actual mental health services.

1:39

But we always do hope that it helps you,

1:41

guys, wherever you are along whatever

1:44

journey you are on.

1:46

Now.

1:46

I am I don't

1:49

even know the right word. I want to say

1:51

excited or thrilled, but it doesn't really

1:54

hit the mark. I think it's

1:56

more of I feel lucky, feel

1:58

lucky and grateful to be able

2:00

to share the conversation I'm going to share with

2:02

you today. It was one that

2:05

was interesting and thought provoking and

2:07

healing for me to have as a human being,

2:10

and it was also unexpected

2:12

in that way. So we've been

2:14

talking about deconstruction on here.

2:16

We've been bringing up some themes around that, the

2:19

ability for us to change our minds and

2:21

to use the information that we have

2:23

now to make sense of the world and

2:25

what that means to us. And so this episode

2:28

comes in a timely manner because

2:30

I have a very special guest

2:33

today talking about a very special book

2:35

that he has just written. And his

2:37

name is Jonathan Merritt. If you are

2:40

unfamiliar with him, Jonathan is

2:42

an award winning columnist and commentator

2:44

on politics, spirituality, and culture. And

2:47

he has been a contributing editor for

2:50

the Week and has been featured on

2:52

The New York Times, USSI Today, The Washington

2:55

Post, Atlantic, CNN, like the list goes

2:57

on and on. And he is also

2:59

just a wonderful human. You

3:02

know, there's those certain people that you just

3:04

feel like you can open up to and talk

3:06

to and since their energy

3:09

is safe. That's really how I would describe this person.

3:12

I had never met him before we had this conversation,

3:14

and I am so grateful to have had

3:17

the opportunity to talk to him, because he's

3:19

somebody that if you do get that opportunity,

3:22

you won't forget it.

3:23

He has recently written a.

3:25

Children's book, which I know what

3:27

you're thinking, Catherine, You're talking

3:29

about children's books on here.

3:30

That's interesting.

3:31

It's a children's book that I even said this in the conversation,

3:34

this needs to be the book of the month

3:36

for adult book clubs. I'm not even

3:38

kidding, because even though

3:41

it won't take you very long to read, you

3:43

are going to be given themes and

3:45

ideas and just nuggets to

3:48

really wrestle through in

3:50

this book. And it is a book that I think really

3:52

would have made a difference for

3:55

me in my childhood if there were

3:57

stories like this around me. The book is called

3:59

My gon Goal in Me. It's written

4:01

by Jonathan, like I said, and it's illustrated by

4:04

Joanna Carrillo. And I

4:06

just am so excited for this to be

4:08

out there. I'm so excited for you to hear Jonathan

4:11

and what he has to say.

4:12

And he's a great.

4:13

Follow I told him, and

4:16

I'm going to tell you guys now, Yes, I want

4:18

you to get this book, and I want you to use

4:20

this book as a tool to help yourself and others

4:22

feel more safe and comfortable to be themselves.

4:26

But I also want you, guys

4:28

to feel encouraged to follow Jonathan

4:30

and his writing and his teachings. A

4:32

lot of interesting stuff he has out there and a

4:34

lot of interesting thoughts and conversations

4:37

he has out there that have been helpful

4:39

for me. So his Instagram

4:41

handle is at Jonathan Underscore Merit

4:43

and I will link all that in the show notes.

4:45

I will link away for you to get this book. And

4:48

I hope this conversation is

4:50

as helpful and fruitful for

4:52

y'all as it was for me. And I want to say

4:54

thank you again for Jonathan for allowing

4:56

me to have this conversation with you and

4:59

for doing the work that you do, because it is so

5:01

needed and so special. So

5:03

I'm going to stop doting on Jonathan and

5:06

just introduce you to my conversation with him.

5:08

So here it is.

5:10

Okay, guys, welcome to

5:13

a new episode of You Need Therapy. I

5:15

have my guest here that I just prepped

5:17

you on, Jonathan.

5:19

Welcome, my gosh, thank

5:21

you so much for having me on.

5:23

I'm so excited to get into some of the

5:25

questions that I have for you, but I want to

5:27

start just for my

5:29

information and anybody who's listening.

5:32

Can you give us a background. I

5:34

know you're in New York right now. Yes, you

5:36

told me that you possibly know more people

5:39

in Nashville than you do in New York. But

5:41

I want to know where did you come

5:43

from. I have this idea that you grew up in the Bible

5:45

belt.

5:46

Is that correct?

5:47

You nailed it, okay, exactly.

5:48

I want to hear the cliff

5:50

notes as much as you want to make them cliff notes version

5:53

of your story that has kind of gotten you to

5:55

where you are now in New York.

5:57

So it's been a long, long road. I

5:59

was raised in a super religious

6:01

home. I feel like that's relevant maybe to our discussion

6:04

a fundamentalist Christian evangelical home.

6:06

My dad was a megachurch pastor,

6:08

is a megachurch pastor, a televangelist

6:10

TV preacher. He was president of the Southern

6:13

Baptist Convention. So you can't

6:15

grow up much more evangelical than

6:17

I did. And it was twenty

6:20

twelve, when you know, we all have these

6:22

moments, like I often call them

6:24

like firewood moments. Right, we're an

6:26

axe falls, it just sort of splits things

6:28

in two. And that was the moment that

6:30

I was outed, and I was outed

6:33

by somebody who I thought was a friend

6:35

of mine but proved not to be a friend,

6:38

and it threw my whole life into

6:40

disarray and resulted

6:43

really in moving from the

6:45

Bible Belt from Atlanta to New York City

6:47

where I live now. You know, I've been here

6:49

for ten years. Started out really just as

6:51

a full time writer, a journalist, an

6:53

author, a speaker. Then a

6:56

few years ago I decided I would

6:58

try something kind of new and fun and career. I

7:00

would try writing a children's book. And

7:02

so that's how I got where I am.

7:04

So question your story

7:07

back when you said you were outed? Was

7:09

that an accident? Did that feel malicious?

7:11

Did it? What was that?

7:12

Like?

7:13

Malicious is the word for sure.

7:15

I was serving part time

7:17

on staff with my dad at his church

7:19

doing as a teaching pastor. I was writing

7:22

a lot of articles and books. I had written

7:24

two books. I was under contract to write a third book. So I

7:26

was kind of developing my own voice

7:28

in this world and kind of learning to stand on my own

7:30

two feet. I was twenty nine years old, getting

7:32

ready to turn thirty, and

7:35

a friend who I had met once.

7:37

We'd kind of corresponded, you

7:39

know, via email, and we had become

7:41

friends kind of digitally, but we'd met once

7:43

before. I trusted him with a lot

7:46

of secrets that he knew

7:48

things that other people didn't know, and I

7:51

think he thought that the right thing for him to

7:53

do in that moment was kind of pushed me out

7:55

of the closet, and so he wrote

7:58

an essay at Salon dot com.

8:00

It was a news story, It was at the Washington

8:02

Post, it was at Religion News Service, Christianity

8:05

Today. It just became a

8:07

really a really overwhelming

8:09

experience, something that I

8:12

was totally unprepared for. But I had to figure

8:14

out really quick how to make peace

8:16

with it and how to sort through the rebble.

8:18

So yeah, it was a crazy,

8:21

crazy experience. I mean, anybody who has ever been

8:23

through that I call it. I say it was an act

8:25

of narrative thievery.

8:28

Somebody steals a story

8:30

that is not theirs and then

8:32

chooses to do with that story something

8:35

you would not choose to do, to tell it in

8:37

a way you would not choose.

8:38

To tell it.

8:39

And so in many ways, you

8:41

know, I'm lucky to be alive. There are a

8:43

lot of people that have been in similar situations

8:46

and they're not here. They can't do this interview

8:48

with you because they are no longer alive.

8:50

And so it's a really really

8:52

scary and dangerous thing. But I

8:55

survived it, and it sort of has helped

8:57

me to become who I am in many ways.

9:00

I'm so glad you shared that because when you said

9:02

publicly outed, I'm thinking like

9:05

to your friends and your family,

9:07

like close around you, but you're saying like publicly,

9:11

there are publications, and that's

9:13

how that happened.

9:14

Oh my gosh.

9:15

Yeah, it was not the top ten most

9:17

fun moments of my life.

9:19

Yeah, I would imagine. And so you

9:21

moved to New York after that? Yeah,

9:23

I'm curious for you. Was that

9:25

move to find safety again? Was

9:28

that move to start fresh? Was

9:30

that move because this didn't

9:32

feel like I was accepted in this space anymore?

9:34

Well, the answer is, you know, yes, yes,

9:36

and yes. In some ways. I think for a lot

9:39

of people who grow up in households

9:41

that have a strong sense of kind of familial

9:44

identity, there's almost like

9:46

a gravitational pull, and

9:49

it sort of draws you into that

9:51

family and in such a way that your

9:53

whole identity is wrapped up in the family's

9:55

identity.

9:56

Right.

9:56

It's like who I am is

9:59

only known to me in relation

10:01

to you. In particular,

10:03

I would say my dad was a really strong

10:06

figure for me growing up, and so I

10:08

only knew who I was in relation to who he

10:10

was and in order to differentiate,

10:13

in order to individuate right, I

10:15

needed not just some relational

10:19

space, but I needed geographical

10:21

space. And I knew that really

10:23

well. So for me it was like, I can't move across

10:25

town. I have to go far,

10:28

far away. And I had been in New York. There

10:30

was a friend of mine who had moved here from Atlanta,

10:32

and I said to her. She had three kids, one of whom I

10:34

had special needs, And I said, why would you move to

10:36

New York, New York so hard? You moved from Atlanta,

10:38

where had this big house. And she said, you know,

10:40

there are times in life where there comes a

10:42

whisper, and it's a totally

10:45

legitimate life decision to say no to that whisper.

10:47

But if you do, it will go away and

10:49

it will never come back again. And

10:52

I could begin to hear a whisper

10:54

that had been there since I was a kid when I came

10:56

to this city for the first time, and I fell in love

10:58

with it. And I told my dad, I said I'm going to move there one day.

11:00

I'm going to make it. And he laughed and he said, yeah,

11:02

everybody says I'm going to move to New York and make it. And

11:05

I said, I think that's my whisper, and if I don't

11:07

pay attention to that, it may go away and never come

11:09

again. And so when I landed on September

11:11

thirteenth, I sold everything I had. I rented

11:13

out my house, I sold my car, I packed up what was

11:15

left into a moving van, and

11:18

drove into a neighborhood I'd never heard of

11:20

to live with people i'd never met in an apartment

11:23

I'd never seen. And that was almost

11:25

eleven years ago.

11:26

Which it sounds like, Oh, that's so crazy

11:28

to do that, But at the same time, it

11:30

sounds like it also was a safe experience

11:33

for you to do that too. Like what might be

11:35

crazy, it's for you to stay in the space that you

11:37

are in not being able to do.

11:39

The things that you know that you need to do.

11:41

I'm also curious for you because

11:44

I actually was reading some of

11:46

your writing. I sent one of your articles

11:48

that you posted. I don't know if it was this week.

11:50

It was more recent about sexuality

11:53

in the church, and I

11:55

sent it to actually my sister in law, who works

11:58

in a church nearby the youth

12:00

program, and she was like, Oh my gosh, this

12:02

is the stuff that we need to

12:04

be reading more about and sharing more about. And

12:07

it was about kind of changing your mind. That was

12:09

kind of what I got from it, the themes.

12:11

And so for you, what has that

12:13

been like in spaces because we've been

12:16

on this podcast kind of talking about not

12:18

specifically Christianity, but faith in

12:21

religion as a whole.

12:23

In what it looks like too.

12:25

I like that you're talking about individually and differentiate

12:28

to also identify

12:30

that I get to make sense of this with how

12:32

it works for me, and I get to change

12:34

those things and always get to stay the same. And there

12:36

is some grief and loss in that too, because

12:39

not everybody believes that. And so I'm

12:41

curious for you because it sounds

12:43

like there weren't many people who

12:45

knew your story and your real

12:48

identity until this person outed you.

12:50

Is that true?

12:51

Yeah, that's correct.

12:52

And so when that did come out, what

12:54

was that like for you? In the Bible

12:56

Belt specifically that's the religion

13:00

and that's the Christian community that I know

13:02

because I've grown up here my whole

13:04

life.

13:05

What was that like for you?

13:06

And what was the process for you to not I

13:09

guess the phrase that's coming to mind

13:11

is like throw the baby out with the bathwater kind of

13:13

thing.

13:14

Well, a lot of people do who are placed in

13:16

my situation, because you know,

13:18

the moment that that happens, you

13:20

lose a lot of friends. People

13:22

are just gone. And there

13:24

are people that before that day

13:27

I was friends with them, We texted, we hung

13:29

out, and I have never heard from

13:32

them again. There are opportunities

13:35

that vanish disappear,

13:37

professional opportunities. I had a rising

13:39

career, I was speaking at huge conferences.

13:42

I was speaking in you know, giant

13:44

megachurches one day, and

13:46

then the next day I wasn't getting

13:48

any of those invites. And

13:51

so there is always

13:54

loss when you have one of these like inciting

13:57

incidents and you say, hey,

13:59

the way I really to this community needs to

14:01

change, or the thing that you thought

14:03

I believed or that I was

14:06

isn't exactly right. And anytime

14:09

that happens, people go, yeah, you know what, I'm

14:11

not down for that.

14:11

I'm not okay with that.

14:12

And that's a sort of conservative

14:15

religious impulse right that says

14:18

that the value of community is

14:20

not diversity but sameness, and

14:24

communities that value sameness and

14:26

stringent religious communities

14:28

by the way, on the far right and the far

14:30

left who really value sameness

14:33

and feel threatened by difference, then

14:35

they only know how to respond to difference

14:38

by othering and by separation.

14:41

And so that often is

14:43

what happens. Somebody comes out and

14:45

they're never seen or heard from again themselves

14:48

because they realize that they're not

14:50

safe in these communities. But

14:52

you know, for me, moving to New York was

14:54

such a gift because where

14:57

I lived in the South, there were a lot of

14:59

ways to be Christian, but they were kind of in

15:01

like a little bit of a cluster. There was like a they

15:03

kind of clustered together, and

15:06

none of them really made sense. You were conservative

15:09

Catholic, you were conservative evangelical, or

15:11

you were still a somewhat conservative

15:14

non denominational or mainline Protestant

15:17

regardless. You know, homophobia it

15:19

was like in the water, and so you were going

15:22

to encounter that in religious spaces. You were going

15:24

to encounter misunderstanding and confusion

15:26

in religious spaces. And so when

15:29

I moved to New York, I kind of assumed that was what it

15:31

was going to be like. But you know, New York has infinite

15:33

varieties of everything, and

15:35

I suddenly came into contact

15:38

with all kinds of faith

15:40

communities that were very different. These

15:43

faith communities made space for

15:45

people like me, and when they said come

15:47

as you are or all are welcomed, they meant

15:49

it, meant it, And I think that allowed

15:52

me to really save my faith

15:54

in many ways and not walk away.

15:57

That part feels really important,

15:59

where you just say where they said come as.

16:01

You are or all is welcome and they meant it.

16:03

This might be my bias, so I'm going to call

16:06

that out before I say this, But I

16:08

hear that all the time, and I

16:10

can count on less than one

16:12

hand how many times I

16:15

have actually seen that to

16:17

be carried out the way I understand

16:19

it. And so I'm curious when

16:21

you were living in the

16:24

South, was that something that was

16:26

on your mind where you were like, yeah,

16:28

all are welcome, Like what you just said, like all

16:31

are welcome and everybody's we love everybody,

16:33

but we also behind the scenes know there

16:36

are some contingencies to that.

16:38

Yeah, And well, you know, you walk into the in a

16:40

lot of religious communities, and there is what

16:42

someone says and then there's

16:44

how someone behaves, and those things

16:46

are not always the same.

16:48

Right.

16:48

The therapeutic term or the psychological term

16:50

is cognitive dissonance. We often

16:53

live in this cognitive dissonance, and so

16:55

I will often tell you, oh my gosh,

16:57

I'm so nice and I'm so loyal, and then I'm just like

17:00

crashing people behind their backs, right, and I'm

17:02

living in cognitive dissonance. And the truth,

17:05

the truth is not revealed by what

17:07

I say. The truth is revealed

17:09

by how I act, because the truth

17:12

translates into behavior or

17:14

into action. And a lot of these

17:16

communities, the phraseology is

17:19

they use the language of hospitality.

17:22

The language of hospitality is used,

17:25

but the behavior of

17:27

that community never rises

17:30

to the aspirations of the

17:32

language of hospitality.

17:33

And so they'll say things.

17:34

Like, yeah, all are welcome, and you come, and

17:37

you're welcome to walk in the door. You're

17:39

welcome to write a check to the church, though cash

17:41

it. But then you say something

17:43

like, hey, i'd love to volunteer

17:47

in your preschool ministry, or

17:49

i'd like to join a small group or

17:51

teach, I'd like to go through your membership

17:54

class or help part cars in the morning.

17:57

And you begin to.

17:57

Find that all are not actually

18:00

welcome in the same way, and

18:02

so there are limitations on that

18:04

welcome that are not communicated, right It's

18:07

as if all are welcome needs an

18:09

asterisk at the end with some fine print

18:11

at the bottom, but that's all been sort of left

18:13

out, and you don't really find that

18:15

that fine print until you do

18:18

something that violates it. You reach the

18:20

ends or the limitations of that hospitality.

18:22

And that happens all the time.

18:25

You say, oh, i'd love thank you so much

18:27

for including me and welcoming me. I'd love

18:29

for you to perform my wedding, or

18:31

i'd love for you to baptize my child,

18:34

and you immediately run up against those limitations,

18:36

and then you're given a nice talking to, And

18:39

usually that's when people walk away and they feel duped

18:41

or tricked.

18:42

Yeah, And as you're saying that, I'm thinking about

18:45

there was a couple years ago I

18:47

had this like moment where I felt

18:50

like what are we doing? Like

18:53

I can't keep going to this place that

18:55

I feel like I have to show

18:58

up differently in and

19:00

not even about like the who

19:02

I'm dating or like what.

19:06

I'm doing on the weekend.

19:07

It felt all encompassing,

19:09

like the person that I show up as here

19:13

is not the person I am when I'm at

19:15

home or when I'm with

19:17

people that I feel comfortable with. I think that was something

19:19

that was coming up a lot. It's like, I don't feel like I can really

19:22

ask questions. I don't feel like I can really

19:24

and not even like in a way that's trying to like

19:27

find something out. It's like, no, I'm just curious

19:29

about this. I want to know more about this that

19:32

there wasn't that space. And I've been in those spaces

19:34

in different areas, not just in religious spaces,

19:36

but even like in certain schools or friend

19:38

groups and stuff like that.

19:40

And I had this moment where I was like, what am I doing?

19:42

Like I am trying to fit myself

19:44

into this thing and continue to go on

19:46

with this thing because it's something that has

19:48

given me safety, It's helped me contextualize

19:51

the world. It's given me some kind

19:53

of hope at times. It has given

19:55

me a way to almost like construct

19:57

the world. But it's not fitting

19:59

with how I have learned the world

20:02

to be and what makes really sense to me. So

20:04

I was talking to a therapist at the time and I was

20:06

like, I can't do this anymore, and

20:08

I just wanted to throw it all out. I was like, I

20:11

just think that we're just people floating on

20:13

a rock and blah blah blah blah, and like what's going this whole

20:16

existential kind of faith crisis.

20:19

And through the conversation I had with her

20:21

in multiple conversations, what was so helpful

20:23

and kind of what I'm hearing from you is just

20:25

because it's what you're looking for isn't

20:27

where you are, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

20:31

And that was so helpful

20:33

for me.

20:33

And also she helped me not be

20:36

so judgmental because I

20:38

got that part of me that was like, how dare you not

20:40

think the way I think? Or how dare you

20:42

not be as understanding

20:44

or compassionate or whatever? And she was like,

20:47

everybody's trying to feel safe, and

20:49

that looks different for different people, and it sucks

20:52

sometimes what that looks like. But

20:54

just like you feel threatened right now,

20:57

other people feel threatened. And I think if

20:59

we were having that conversation it would look different.

21:02

All that to say, I want the people

21:04

listening to hear if you resonate

21:06

with any of the stuff, or you're thinking like I

21:09

don't know, like I couldn't do that. If

21:11

something like that happened to me, I'd be done for Or

21:13

maybe that did happen for me, and I

21:16

did throw the baby out with the bathwater.

21:18

It was so helpful to hear somebody say,

21:21

just because it doesn't exist where you are, it does

21:23

not mean it doesn't exist somewhere else. And

21:26

what I'm hearing you are saying

21:28

is it did exist somewhere else for

21:30

me, and it was so

21:32

life giving.

21:40

Here's the thing.

21:41

Part of maturity in life, very

21:43

general statement, is learning to differentiate

21:46

between a thing and

21:48

a version of a thing. So

21:51

a lot of people will say

21:53

they have a bad marriage and they

21:55

get divorced and they say, I'm never getting

21:57

married again, and they've cons

22:00

used a thing with a version of

22:02

you got a really bad version of a thing.

22:05

And there are good versions of a thing as

22:07

well. There are a lot of people who

22:09

they go to a gem and their gem is

22:11

just like a meat locker, right, or they're

22:13

a meatheads and they feel stupid, or they

22:16

have some creepy person who looks at them weird

22:18

and makes them feel weird about their body, and they go, you know what,

22:20

a gem is not for me, and they never go back. Well,

22:22

there are other gems. There are women's gems,

22:24

they are safer gems. There are gyms with different cultures,

22:27

the different types of gems. Because you had

22:30

a bad version of a gem doesn't mean gems

22:32

are bad. And maturity means

22:34

learning to differentiate between what is

22:36

a thing and what is a kind of thing. So a lot

22:39

of people will go into religious communities,

22:41

whether it's Christian or not, and they have

22:43

a bad experience because they experience, you

22:45

know, bigotry or corruption

22:49

or dishonesty, and

22:51

they go. They don't say what

22:53

you should say, which is this is a bad version

22:56

of a thing. They go the thing is bad, and

22:58

they walk away and they can never come back. And I

23:00

can understand that impulse that sometimes

23:03

we overreact because the pain

23:05

is so great we want to protect

23:07

ourselves from experiencing that pain again.

23:10

If you continue to search for

23:12

a good version of the thing, there's a chance

23:15

that you'll encounter another bad version

23:17

of the thing and you'll get hurt again. And you don't want to risk

23:19

that. And so instead of risking that, you

23:22

just say the thing itself is bad

23:24

and you sever yourself off from every

23:27

version of that thing, and you ensure

23:29

that you will.

23:30

Never get hurt again.

23:31

And that's true, but you know what

23:33

you also do is you sever yourself

23:36

from the possibility of the good gifts,

23:39

of a good version of that thing, That there might

23:41

actually be a version of marriage in

23:43

which you're known and loved and accepted,

23:46

and it's a good version. And there may be a gem where

23:48

you can find health and you can find

23:50

what you're really looking for in terms of your own

23:53

rhythms of exercise, and so you

23:56

can find that out there, and those are good gifts. But if you

23:58

cut yourself off from the thing, you'll ever

24:00

find that. And I will tell you in my experience

24:02

here in New York, I have found a very good version

24:04

of the thing. I go to a church here called Good

24:06

Shepherd, New York, and I'm an elder there.

24:09

And we are a church that

24:11

we don't have a statement of faith, we don't police

24:13

people's beliefs. Everybody is

24:16

welcome, no matter what your identity is. And in

24:18

fact, what we say is is we ask you to

24:20

bring your full self, and that the

24:22

full history of your religious experience.

24:25

And a lot of people bring a lot

24:27

of joy from their religious past,

24:29

and a lot of people bring a lot of pain

24:32

from their religious past. And actually we welcome

24:34

both, knowing that there is wisdom in the fullness

24:36

of your experience, whatever it is. Well,

24:39

that's a good version of a thing. But a lot

24:41

of people think about their communities and they go, I've

24:43

gone to a lot of versions of that

24:45

thing in my community, and they've been really, really

24:47

bad. And I would say that there

24:49

are parts of the world and parts of the country

24:52

where there are a higher proportion

24:55

of really bad versions of that

24:57

thing. And so that requires you to do a lot of homework

24:59

on the front to protect yourself so

25:01

that you're not retraumatized. That you

25:03

don't just trust hospitable

25:06

language. The language of hospitality

25:08

is verified before you

25:10

begin to sort of like trust fall into a community

25:13

and risk being heartbroken.

25:16

So there are ways to safeguard against it

25:18

without throwing, as you said, to throw

25:20

the baby out with the bathwater. But it requires

25:23

a certain level of intentionality.

25:25

I think what came up.

25:27

For me as you were saying that is the idea of the

25:29

proportionality bias, where if something

25:31

happens, like the reaction needs to be as

25:33

big, or if something happens, what I

25:35

make up in my head of what that means has to be as

25:37

big, and sometimes it's not proportional.

25:40

And that's uncomfortable and kind

25:42

of weird to sit with, but it sometimes is the truth. And

25:45

so to walk back into

25:47

a space to get a different version of a thing. There

25:49

are ways that you can protect

25:52

yourself and do that safely without

25:54

completely cutting yourself

25:56

off from the experience and taking

25:58

an experience that can be really got away from you.

26:01

So I want to kind of transition a little bit because

26:04

I'm talking to you because you wrote this children's book,

26:06

and I need to just

26:09

say this before I asked

26:11

any questions, because two things surprised

26:13

me about this book. One, I

26:15

cried reading this book, and I

26:18

didn't expect that because I got it in the mail

26:20

and I just was like, Oh, this is so cute. I started

26:22

reading it and I was like, why, why are their tears

26:24

coming out of my eyes?

26:25

This is a children's book that I don't know if that was

26:27

the point.

26:28

I was really surprised by that and also really

26:30

grateful because the reason that I

26:33

got emotional was because this was

26:35

a book that I

26:37

wish existed when I

26:40

was younger. The other

26:43

part is I was surprised that faith

26:45

was part of this book. It wasn't the point of the book,

26:47

but I just was like, oh, that's interesting. And

26:49

I was like sitting with myself, you

26:51

know, wiping my tears after reading

26:54

this, just reflecting on and I was like, wait a

26:56

second, I want to go back to that because

26:58

I didn't expect that to pop

27:00

up there. And so I want you

27:02

to share a little bit about what this book

27:04

means to you, and then I want to talk

27:06

about why it was so important

27:09

and why I felt like it would have been so important for me,

27:11

and also why it was important for you

27:13

to include what you included in here.

27:16

I would love to talk about the

27:18

faith aspect because it surprised a lot

27:20

of reviewers that had ended up in there as well.

27:22

But the book I knew I wanted to write a children's

27:24

book.

27:25

I'd felt this spark, this stirring inside

27:27

of me to write a children's book. And I live

27:29

in this little community, little commune almost

27:31

like community in Manhattan, and we

27:34

do a happy hour every Friday at five point

27:37

thirty. And so one of the happy hour

27:39

coordinators here, whom you know you've interviewed

27:41

on this podcast, Shana Niquist, I

27:44

sort of confessed I said I want to write a children's

27:46

book, and she's like, well, what would you write it?

27:47

About and I'm like, well, I haven't figured that out yet.

27:49

I'm made up my mind, and she goes, why

27:51

don't you write about being a gunkle? And

27:54

it was just like she blew on the

27:56

ember inside of me and it became a

27:58

flame, like yes,

28:01

that's it. And I started working on it

28:03

the very next day. But you know, if you're

28:05

going to write about being a gun cal, well,

28:08

how are you going to write about being a gun call?

28:09

You're going to write what you know.

28:11

It was sort of becoming autobiographical

28:13

because I only know the kind of

28:15

gun call that I am. I didn't

28:18

have a gun call growing up, and

28:20

so I began to write my experiences

28:22

into this and faith is so deeply a part

28:24

of my experience and it has

28:26

been even with these kids. I mean, we have a chapel

28:29

in the middle of this little like a

28:31

close we call it the commune sort of area

28:33

where we live at this old former seminary

28:35

property here, and on Sundays

28:38

we all get together and we go down.

28:39

To the chapel.

28:41

And I wanted to show

28:43

that because what I hoped

28:45

these kids would see is

28:47

that there are going to be people in this world that

28:49

are going to tell you you can either be a person of

28:51

faith or you can be fill in the blank,

28:54

a woman, preacher, a

28:56

person who votes for a certain political

28:59

party, gay. And

29:01

they're going to give you a false

29:03

choice, and that's going

29:05

to be conscripted into you, and you

29:07

are going to think you have to choose. And

29:10

what's going to happen is is you're likely

29:12

going to have to choose the thing you can change

29:14

about who you are. And I did

29:17

not want people to live with that

29:19

false choice, and so I

29:21

really wrote this book. The book is about a guy, a

29:24

kid named Henry. He's struggling to sort

29:26

of fit in and he's

29:28

unique. He's crazy, dress is really

29:30

weird, his socks don't match. He likes

29:32

doing math homework and everybody else hates it, of

29:34

course, and his gunkle comes

29:37

for this visit and they have this fabulous adventure

29:39

together and he sees that

29:42

what makes us different is what makes us beautiful.

29:44

That is our gift to the world. And for

29:46

a lot of children, what makes you different

29:48

is a liability. It's a risk,

29:51

and so you try to hide it and cover it up.

29:53

You try to change it to become like everyone

29:55

else. And what I hope kids who

29:58

read this will come away with is

30:00

is that those things are the most special

30:03

gifts you can give to the world, because that's what makes

30:05

you uniquely you, and we don't need you to become

30:07

like everyone else.

30:08

We need you to embrace who you are.

30:10

I wish I could just clip that what

30:12

you just said and just carry it in my pocket everywhere

30:14

that I go into every conversation I

30:17

have, because being different

30:19

is a liability that really stuck

30:21

out as a child, being different as a liability,

30:23

and I also resonate

30:26

so much with you can either be a person

30:28

of faith or you can be something else.

30:30

I can only same way.

30:32

I can only speak from my experience

30:34

of what I was taught or even what I

30:36

picked up about what I was taught.

30:39

And I've had a lot of conversations

30:41

both with clients, with friends, with people

30:44

in my community around struggling

30:47

to be the right

30:49

kind of person of faith.

30:51

I don't know if that's.

30:51

The right way to phrase it, but to

30:53

be a person of faith, I have to be all

30:56

of these things and check all of these boxes.

30:58

And so my work becomes checking the boxes

31:01

versus being the person of faith.

31:04

And in order to check those boxes, I

31:06

have to find a way to not check these other

31:08

boxes or like make these boxes

31:11

go away or hide these boxes. And

31:14

the phrase like being good, whether

31:17

that's good enough, or being a good girl

31:19

or a good boy comes up a lot in

31:21

these conversations. And when you

31:24

don't fit into what

31:26

is I guess the sameness, going back to what we were talking

31:28

about earlier, When you don't fit into.

31:29

That, it feels like that is that's bad.

31:32

And I'm speaking to this and I'm saying

31:34

this as a cis gendered, white heterosexual

31:37

person. There's so much privilege

31:39

in that where there's boxes that I like could

31:42

check kind of easily. At

31:44

the same time, there are a lot of boxes that

31:47

I was like, ugh, I

31:49

can't check that one, and like, how do I erase

31:52

this? And So I love this book because

31:54

it speaks to everybody. It doesn't

31:56

have to just be about your sexuality

31:58

or how you dress, or where

32:00

you live in, what kind of house you live in, or anything

32:02

like that.

32:03

It can speak to any of those things.

32:05

And if I had a conversation

32:08

because what I think this is, it's it's a conversation

32:10

starter for a lot of people, even adults,

32:13

like I want to bring this to like an adult

32:16

circle or adult book club.

32:18

You know, we have those those I feel like are ramping up everywhere.

32:20

This should be in an adult book club because

32:23

I can have a more fruitful conversation about

32:25

the themes that I've felt popping up in here

32:27

than some of these other four hundred page books

32:30

that I've read recently, and to

32:33

spread the message that being different

32:35

is not a liability. To me at

32:37

this point in my life, it's like duh. But at the

32:39

same time, that message feels really hard,

32:42

and it feels again the word that it's coming up

32:44

is like scary for people, And

32:46

so I guess I'm curious for you when when

32:49

you're having those conversations, or maybe you see the

32:51

discourse online places, what

32:54

would you offer? What would you want to add

32:56

to the conversation when part of that

32:58

conversation is like, but it still

33:00

feels like a liability?

33:02

What would you say to people who

33:04

disagree with that? What

33:12

would you offer?

33:13

What would you want to add to the conversation when

33:15

part of that conversation is like, but

33:18

it still feels like a liability? What

33:20

would you say to people who disagree

33:22

with that?

33:23

I think that you just said something that

33:25

was really interesting that I want to like you

33:27

know, click on which is it feels

33:30

like a liability, and that is true.

33:34

And what can happen is is that we can confuse

33:36

feeling with fact. Oftentimes

33:39

now they're not unrelated,

33:42

by the way, because there's wisdom and knowledge

33:44

in your emotions. You can walk into

33:46

a room and go, this guy feels like a creep.

33:49

Well, that's not a fact. It doesn't make him a creep.

33:51

But maybe you should listen to that that you're picking

33:54

up on something that your emotions are also

33:56

a source of wisdom. I was told when I was growing

33:58

up how you feel doesn't matter, and

34:00

that's not true, right, Your emotions matter,

34:03

but your emotions are not bringing

34:05

you pure fact. And so it's

34:07

true you feel that

34:10

your differences are liabilities.

34:13

And to some extent, that's because the

34:15

world has sort of taught you that.

34:18

There are two things that I think are

34:20

part of growing, not only

34:22

learning but also unlearning.

34:24

And oftentimes you have to unlearn in

34:27

order to learn. So we have to unlearn what

34:29

the world has taught us about difference so that

34:31

we can learn what is true

34:33

about difference. And for a lot of

34:35

people that's just like a bit of a

34:37

mind shift, is like not what is true.

34:40

But what do you need to unlearn that is not true?

34:42

First?

34:43

So what do you do first? What do you do second? Unlearning

34:46

then learning? The other thing that I

34:48

will say is is that and you just said

34:50

this a minute ago, is like, you know, okay,

34:52

the idea that like embracing my difference

34:54

is important. I mean, yeah, at this point where

34:56

we're fully grown adults, we're doing our work.

34:59

We've done our work read the books, right

35:01

duh. On the other hand, so much

35:03

of growth in life is not just about

35:05

learning new things. It's

35:08

about reminding yourself of

35:10

truths that you're so tempted to forget.

35:13

We're tempted to forget

35:16

that what makes us different, makes

35:18

us beautiful, makes us unique,

35:20

makes us special. It's our gift to the world.

35:23

We forget the things that as little

35:25

kids, that we would

35:28

hear from the safe people,

35:30

the empathetic witnesses in our lives,

35:32

the mister Rogers on the TV who says,

35:34

you make this day a special day by

35:37

just your being you, and I like you just the way

35:39

you are.

35:40

Well, I remember that.

35:41

I hear that, but I'm so tempted to forget it

35:43

because then I have to be as a as a big grown

35:45

up. I have to go out in the world, and I forgot what mister

35:47

Rogers told me. So I have to remember

35:50

that. I have to remind myself of that, and

35:52

that's an ongoing and active process. And

35:54

so that's what I wanted to do with this book. And you

35:56

know, even to your point about faith, it's

35:58

why I wanted to make that point out explicit. In fact,

36:00

i'll repeat that that section from memory.

36:03

It says at church the next

36:06

day, my gunkle sings loudly,

36:08

he prays and gives thanks, and he

36:10

does it devoutly. His bright

36:13

colored outfit makes two women stare.

36:15

When we leave, they both snicker,

36:18

but he doesn't care. And there

36:20

are two things that are embedded into that. One

36:23

is a reminder of what I said before,

36:25

that you don't.

36:26

Have to choose.

36:26

People will tell you that you can't

36:28

be a person of faith and fill in

36:30

the blank, and that is false. You

36:32

can hold those two identities together and

36:35

you don't have to choose one just because somebody

36:37

else says you have to. And the second

36:39

is as you hold those identities

36:42

together to embrace the fullness

36:44

of who you are. When you enter into

36:46

certain spaces, you may encounter

36:49

misunderstanding or bigotry.

36:51

You may encounter ridicule, and

36:54

that's okay. Just like the

36:56

character in this book, you can hold your head high.

36:58

You can embrace who you are. You can live your

37:00

life as who you know. You truly are

37:03

deep down in the place where we know things, and

37:05

that's okay. And I hope both of

37:07

those things sort of came through in

37:09

that part of the book.

37:11

Yeah, I have to say this because it's

37:13

not going to leave my brain. You sounded

37:15

just like mister Rogers when you said that.

37:18

Well, I used to watch him a

37:20

lot. In fact, here's a little easter egg,

37:22

and there are a lot of Easter eggs in this book. But if you turn

37:24

to the front page, you'll see my dedication is

37:27

to mister Rogers because I think he really

37:29

saved my life as a kid who felt different.

37:32

He was the one who told me when the

37:34

world was the world wasn't giving

37:36

us stories like this. They weren't giving us models

37:39

like this. You know, the only model I

37:41

had for being a grown up

37:43

gay person was somebody with a heroin needle,

37:45

somebody in a hospital bed dying of AIDS.

37:48

These are the things that in the late

37:50

eighties and in the nineties, these were the images

37:52

we were given. These were the stories that we

37:54

were being told. They weren't stories like this

37:57

of well adjusted individuals who

37:59

were integrated into family units,

38:01

who were valued members of

38:03

these communities. So I wanted to tell

38:05

people a different story. But the only person who

38:08

was telling me a different story was a guy

38:10

named Fred Rogers, who came to

38:12

me a via public television, and

38:14

so I felt it was appropriate

38:17

to dedicate this book to him.

38:19

I wonder if that's part of the emotions

38:21

that came out when I was reading this, because I saw

38:23

that I watched that every single day

38:25

after school, and as you said that,

38:28

I'm thinking, what's so funny

38:30

is our families were

38:33

putting us in front of a TV show and I

38:35

remember watching, like in the basement by myself, and

38:37

we were getting this messaging that like they

38:39

didn't even realize that we were getting And

38:42

if they knew, I don't know if there are certain places

38:44

that would have thought differently, or or

38:46

what have you.

38:47

I'm glad they didn't.

38:48

But that is also so

38:50

important that you just said about the images

38:52

that people used to receive

38:55

and the ideas that people used to receive, Because

38:58

if we are not willing as a siety to

39:01

pay any attention to the

39:04

examples and realness

39:06

and the reality of what that is. Now, that's

39:08

all we're going to have is the people dying

39:10

of aids in hospital beds and what

39:12

you just said, And that.

39:14

Is so limiting.

39:15

And the word that I'm hearing in my head is that sucks.

39:18

Like that we have to keep on using

39:21

old misinformation when there's

39:23

so much new information

39:26

out there that can be so loving

39:28

and kind and helpful. That's

39:31

why we need these kinds of books, also

39:33

why we need I guess I have to

39:35

say this because I am This is one of my fears

39:38

and it has to do with just part

39:40

of where I live too.

39:41

Is my fear is that like what happens

39:44

if these books.

39:44

Aren't allowed in certain places, Like what happens

39:47

if this and I don't even know, I'm not even thinking,

39:49

I guess even public schools, Like what happens

39:52

if these books aren't allowed in

39:54

places that they need.

39:56

To be Well, the risk there

39:58

is that we get stuck. We get

40:00

stuck where we were as children, where

40:04

you maybe didn't have a model for being

40:07

a woman, who had opinions for

40:10

being a woman who had her own

40:12

career in her own right, for being a

40:14

woman who was a leader, for being a

40:16

woman who desired ambitious

40:19

things, for being a woman who maybe doesn't

40:21

want children. And in my case, it's

40:24

being stuck in a world where being

40:27

queer can lead to depression

40:30

and anxiety and suicide, and

40:32

where you feel threatened and you feel misunderstood

40:35

because you don't have any representation

40:38

of yourself in popular

40:40

culture. And so, you know, one

40:43

of the things I'll say about this book. If somebody's

40:45

listening and maybe they're from Nashville and they're going, oh,

40:47

I don't know. The interesting thing about

40:49

the book is it never explains what a gunkle is.

40:52

So I have empowered I've empowered

40:54

parents in this book to have

40:57

a conversation with their kid and however they

40:59

want to have that conversation. That nobody

41:02

in this book is sexualized. Nobody

41:04

in this book has a relationship, I mean, except

41:06

for Henry's parents. This is

41:08

a story about a child learning

41:10

to embrace his difference in a world where

41:12

gunkls happen to exist, which

41:15

is.

41:15

The world where our children live.

41:17

And so it simply is a

41:20

story that shows this

41:22

character interacting in a really

41:24

normal way, and I think these are the kinds

41:26

of stories that we should be telling.

41:28

I'm glad you explained that because maybe people

41:30

who are listening are like, wait, what you

41:33

just said that you're the cisgendered, white heterosexual

41:36

person. What do you mean this book isn't about

41:38

the gunkle being gay.

41:40

I didn't get that at all.

41:41

I got what you just got, and I was like, that's what I

41:43

wish that more people had. Is like, it

41:45

can be anything from how you dress, to what

41:48

you want to be when you grow up, to what you don't

41:50

want to be when you grow up to I

41:52

even think about like the things I liked

41:54

doing after school, like the

41:57

sports I was playing, or the hobbies

41:59

that I picked up up, and I wonder,

42:02

and sometimes I'm like, this.

42:03

Gets me in a cycle that is going.

42:05

To be good for nobody. But I wonder, like

42:07

if I was allowed to be kind

42:10

of like how you're posturing Henry

42:12

to be in this book, if I was allowed to have that

42:14

freedom, what the heck

42:16

would I be doing? Like I'm so interested

42:19

in that, And my fear

42:22

is I don't want our world to kind of be stifled

42:25

in what we are even from

42:27

like when you brought up like a woman having a

42:29

career or doing this, or having kids or not having kids,

42:31

or having an opinion. So

42:33

many opinions and beliefs and things

42:36

were stifled forever, and

42:38

they're just now starting to

42:40

break some of that.

42:42

There's so much magic. I feel like it's lost.

42:44

Yeah, I mean, it's like women were

42:47

allowed to have credit cards in nineteen

42:49

seventy three.

42:50

It's crazy.

42:51

I mean, chew on that for a minute. And by

42:53

the way, there's no guarantee that we'll never go back

42:55

to nineteen seventy three unless we all

42:57

as communities say we want

42:59

to cantinue to create space for people to be who

43:01

they are. And that's important,

43:04

even if you feel threatened, even if you feel

43:06

confused. We want to create

43:08

space for people to be who they are.

43:11

And so that for me is really

43:13

important. You know, when I was growing up, I kind of thought

43:16

we were moving in one direction. Everything

43:18

was just going to become more and more. Racism

43:21

would be a thing of the past, Homophobia would be a

43:23

thing of the past. Eventually, with enough time,

43:25

we'll get there. And what I'm seeing

43:27

now happening in the world is telling

43:30

us that that's not guaranteed that

43:33

progress doesn't always move in a steady

43:35

march in one direction. And so if

43:37

we want people to feel loved and protected

43:40

in society, there has to be ongoing efforts

43:43

not just to make laws, but

43:45

to tell stories. And that

43:48

is important. You know a lot of

43:50

people have written about this, but

43:52

there's a very famous

43:54

quote by a guy named Andrew

43:57

Fletcher, and he says,

44:00

let me make the songs of a nation,

44:02

and I care.

44:03

Not who makes its laws.

44:05

Right.

44:06

The idea is is that the stories

44:08

that we tell and the stories that we sing,

44:11

they shape our world more profoundly

44:13

than just passing a law. Doesn't mean that laws don't

44:15

matter, right, of course, laws matter. I'm

44:17

grateful for this, for Civil Rights Act, and

44:20

for some of the laws that have been passed that protect our

44:22

liberties. But the idea is that we

44:24

are shaped by the songs and the

44:26

stories that we tell. And I

44:28

have long understood that

44:31

the future world that we will create

44:33

is largely a function of the stories we choose

44:36

to tell our children, because those

44:38

stories will weave themselves into

44:40

their DNA, and they will shape the kinds of adults

44:42

they become and the kinds of worlds that they will create

44:44

even after we're long gone. And so

44:47

I take this very seriously. It's

44:49

such a fun thing to write a book,

44:52

but it's also serious business, and

44:54

I made sure to balance both of

44:56

those things at the same time, and I.

44:58

Think you did a really good job.

45:00

One of the last things that I want to say,

45:02

because this I heard this very loudly as

45:04

you were speaking, is this idea

45:06

that somebody's safeness does

45:09

not threaten another person's safeness,

45:12

and it reminds me of I

45:14

don't know what the actual

45:17

I know there's a term for this, but and I

45:20

think it more has to do with like economics,

45:22

but like somebody's gained as an equal somebody's

45:24

loss. I think that

45:26

that pops up a lot where like,

45:28

well, if you're accepted for who

45:31

you are, then what happens to what

45:33

I am? Or if this

45:36

faith or this sect of

45:38

what have you believes this what

45:40

happens to my beliefs? And it

45:43

feels like we're constantly trying

45:45

to protect our own whatever

45:48

it is. But what I've

45:50

am coming to know, and part of that

45:52

is in hearing what you're saying, is

45:54

that there's space for us to

45:56

all kind of feel safe if we

45:59

allow.

45:59

That yeah, you know, So this is the thing.

46:02

Some of this is because we live in a

46:04

capitalistic society and

46:06

a consumeristic society, and so

46:09

we were programmed to

46:11

think of everything as

46:14

a pie, and here's the pie,

46:17

and if you get a piece, that's one less

46:19

piece.

46:20

That's available to me.

46:21

Right, Because we're thinking in terms of goods

46:23

and resources, because that's our whole

46:26

life is built around goods

46:28

and resources and profit and selling

46:31

and buying. Right, And so

46:33

if I take a mug off the shelf, that's

46:35

one less mug that can be bought by the next person.

46:37

Right.

46:39

There's a supply, and we think in terms

46:41

of supply.

46:42

But the problem is is when we start to lay

46:44

those concepts over things that are immaterial

46:48

and are not supply limited.

46:50

So something like liberty making

46:53

a man free does not mean

46:56

that there's less liberty for the woman.

46:59

It isn't a pie, you know, in order

47:01

for the man to have a slice of the pie, there's

47:03

unlimited slices. We can all have

47:05

a slice of the pie. And we have

47:07

to actually begin to own these

47:10

false assumptions about

47:13

the way the world works in order

47:15

to build a world that is reckoning

47:17

with the reality of freedom.

47:20

And there are a lot of people

47:22

out there that say, if I make you free, then somehow

47:24

that's I'm less free. You know, we had this

47:27

as a gay man. I think about this a lot. We

47:29

had this concept with marriage.

47:32

I grew up hearing, well,

47:34

if gay people are allowed to marry,

47:37

somehow it ruins marriage

47:40

for straight people. And

47:43

first of all, straight people have been ruining marriage

47:45

since it was invented, right, So when

47:47

nobody's going to ruin your marriage except you, I

47:51

can't make you a terrible husband.

47:52

You're already that.

47:54

So that is

47:56

sort of a weird idea. But there's an underlying

47:58

concept there that somehow, if

48:01

you have a thing that I have, it's

48:03

going to affect my thing. And

48:05

that's a false belief, of course, you know, like

48:08

they legalize gay marriage and nobody, you

48:10

know, it wasn't like a wave of straight people

48:12

were affected by that. Like straight people

48:14

just kind of their marriages kept working exactly how

48:16

they were working before. So

48:19

there was an exposure of that weird

48:22

that weird concept, that weird idea

48:24

that the whole thing would fall apart if

48:26

you let other people have access

48:29

to it. And I think that's I think

48:31

that's true in a lot of ways, with all

48:33

kinds of liberties. And we're adjudicating

48:35

that right now. And it goes back to stories.

48:38

And by the way, a lot of people know

48:41

that stories matter in this way,

48:43

which is why certain kinds

48:45

of stories, including this one, are

48:48

now met not with embrace and

48:51

celebration, but with fear, with

48:53

resistance, with anger.

48:56

And you know, if you're listening to this and you go,

48:58

gosh, I'm hearing him say this, and I agree with him,

49:00

like, this is the kind of story.

49:01

That needs to exist.

49:02

That's why I say, please go buy my book. And

49:04

that sounds very self serving. It's

49:06

not self serving. Here's what I mean by

49:08

that. In order for people to

49:11

take risks on these kinds of stories so

49:13

that they continue to exist, we have to show

49:16

the decision makers that there's a market

49:18

for them, that we will buy them, that we will

49:20

read them to our children, that we will

49:22

sow them into the fabric of our society.

49:24

And the only way we do that is by supporting

49:27

this kind of storytelling. And so it's

49:29

not enough for us to go, well, that's good,

49:31

that's nice. We have to buy the

49:33

decisions we make. We have to support this kind

49:35

of storytelling because it does matter. It matters

49:38

more than we know.

49:39

Yeah, I want you in kind

49:41

of in closing this out if you could, because

49:43

I felt like this amounts

49:46

a lot to me, and reading

49:48

the article helped me kind of work through some

49:50

things that I had been like just frustrate

49:52

with with myself.

49:53

But the article, I'm blanking on the name

49:55

of it.

49:56

But you just posted it about like

49:58

the theologian that shifted

50:01

his mind on the gay was it

50:03

gay marriage?

50:03

Yeah?

50:04

So I wrote about a

50:06

guy who was sort of for many many

50:08

years, he was a dean at Duke University's

50:10

Divinity School, and he was

50:12

for many years he sort of defended

50:14

the idea that Christianity and

50:17

being gay were incompatible. And

50:19

he's now much older and he

50:21

has changed his mind on that and

50:24

he's sort of come out to say, hey, I was wrong.

50:26

So I wrote about that, and I was writing

50:29

about the way that these conversations have changed.

50:31

And also what the story was really

50:33

about was not just about this one guy changing

50:36

his mind, but about giving us, all

50:38

of us, giving ourselves freedom to change

50:41

our minds.

50:42

Yeah, And I think that is an important

50:44

to anybody that's coming up to me as we

50:46

think about like sharing these stories and buying

50:49

this book and supporting and shifting

50:51

the stories. I will speak for myself

50:53

for a lot of my life, the story

50:55

that I was sharing in the way

50:57

that I would have approached this book or the

51:00

article that you put out was very different

51:02

and for me, in order for me to change my

51:04

mind, I had to also

51:07

wrestle with a lot of feelings around how

51:09

I.

51:10

Used to show up.

51:11

There was some shame there, and there's some guilt there, and there's

51:13

a lot of sadness. And it's so

51:15

helpful when we see people do

51:17

that brave thing that come out and say

51:20

like, oh, I think I was wrong, and

51:22

I think that might have impacted people. And

51:25

I've done some work and I've learned some

51:27

things, and that's not what I know to be

51:29

true anymore. And so I'm going to be brave enough and

51:31

have courage enough to share what I

51:33

believe to be true. I think that's really important,

51:36

and I think that is something along

51:38

with sharing these stories, is opening

51:40

up space for people who are afraid

51:43

to have admitted that maybe the

51:46

stories they are is sharing in their past

51:48

might have not been the best stories

51:50

at times. So I really enjoyed

51:53

that article and I'm so thankful you wrote

51:55

this book for many reasons, but one because that is

51:57

how I found out who you are. And now I

51:59

feel like I'm going to continue to learn from

52:01

a lot of your writing and listening to

52:04

the things you put on social media and out

52:06

in the world.

52:06

So thank you so much, Oh my gosh, thank

52:08

you.

52:09

And I hope people will take away exactly what

52:11

you just said, the idea that like, do

52:14

not be content to believe whatever

52:16

your chosen political party tells

52:18

you you should believe, or whatever

52:20

the church that you happen to attend or be a member

52:23

of.

52:23

Tells you to believe.

52:24

Instead, begin to listen to the wisdom

52:27

that's coming into your life from the

52:29

people that you meet and the people that you love.

52:31

There's a great quote by Frederic Biegner, and

52:34

it says, listen to your life. See it for

52:36

the fathomless mystery. It is

52:38

in the boredom and the pain of

52:40

it no less than in the excitement and

52:43

gladness, Touch, taste,

52:45

smell your way to the holy and

52:47

hidden heart of it. Because in the last analysis,

52:50

all moments are key moments, and

52:53

life itself is grace. So listen

52:55

to your life. This book is an example

52:57

maybe to help people listen a little bit to my life,

53:00

and I hope when they read it that they feel

53:02

touched by it.

53:03

Yeah, I feel like they will. So where

53:05

can they find it and where can they find you?

53:07

Yes, you can find me on Instagram

53:09

Jonathan Merritt, or you can find me on my

53:12

website Jonathan Merrett dot com. You can subscribe

53:14

to my newsletter there, and they

53:16

can buy the book anywhere books are sold. I

53:18

love for people to buy it at Target because hopefully

53:20

then Target will start carrying it in more and more stores.

53:23

If you don't want to buy from Target dot com, you can also

53:25

buy it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble,

53:27

or anywhere that you choose to buy books. But I

53:30

say, buy it for you, your children, your friends'

53:32

children, your step children, your godchildren, your neighbor's

53:35

children, whoever children you have in your life.

53:37

And I thank you for doing it, and hope it's

53:39

a blessing.

53:40

Thank you so much, my gosh, thank you so

53:42

much,