The Jim Wallis Interview: What Abe Lincoln, C.S. Lewis, Narnia and Puddleglum can teach us about the Common Good

Click the cover of the book to visit its Amazon page.

THE COMMON GOOD. When is the last time you heard that phrase? Perhaps it came from a memorable high school teacher, a beloved mentor in your profession, or a wise aunt who taught you a lot about life. Now, best-selling author and social-justice activist Jim Wallis is barnstorming the country trying to rescue that phrase from the cob webs of nostalgia.

This idea is so powerful, Wallis argues, that it may hold the key to finally resolving the political and cultural wars that have brought America and the rest of the world to a standstill.

In today’s interview with ReadThespirit Editor David Crumm (below), Jim Wallis talks about how this idea suddenly resurfaced in his own life—during a retreat in a remote forest where he says he could almost feel the great Lion Aslan from C.S. Lewis’s Narnia novels walking at his side. This is part of the inspiring story that Wallis tells in his new book: On God’s Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned about Serving the Common Good.

All this week in the OurValues column, sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker will explore the practical implications of the Common Good in today’s political, cultural and global crises. If you order a copy of Jim’s book (click the book cover, above, to visit its Amazon page), you will find that this interview and Baker’s OurValues series cover the book’s two major parts: Part 1, Inspiring the Common Good, and Part 2, Practices for the Common Good.

Here is David Crumm’s interview with Jim Wallis …

OUR INTERVIEW WITH JIM WALLIS ABOUT
‘ON GOD’S SIDE’ & REDISCOVERING THE COMMON GOOD

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural inscribed inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

DAVID: Your book makes an eloquent Christian case for rediscovering the Common Good; you show how this concept flows upwards to us from the roots of Christianity in Jesus’s teachings. You explain how C.S. Lewis’s Aslan the Lion reminds you of this truth. However, before you introduce readers to Aslan, you introduce Abraham Lincoln. You quote, at length, from his Second Inaugural. The Common Good is a deeply religious idea, you argue—but, first, you point out that it’s also an American civic ideal as articulated by Lincoln and enshrined in Washington DC. Why did you decide to start with Lincoln?

Detail of the inscription of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

JIM: Readers actually meet Lincoln right on the book’s cover. That cover is a lovely photo of the Lincoln Memorial at night. It’s my favorite of all the monuments in Washington—and I love the Second Inaugural. When I was tutoring inner-city kids and trying to help them learn to read, I sometimes would take them to the Lincoln Memorial and ask them to sound out word-for-word the Second Inaugural, especially: “With malice toward none, with charity for all …” In his final years, Lincoln was working so hard to bring the nation back together that he was no longer interested in simply identifying who was right and who was wrong.

There is so much in the Second Inaugural that we should study today. He actually talks about how Americans on both sides of the Civil War “read the same Bible and pray to the same God.” Then, he points out that “the prayers of both could not be answered.” What Lincoln is describing here is conflict resolution. In the real world, we do resolve most of our human conflicts without resorting to violence. We resolve conflicts—large and small—in a peaceful way every day. War really is a failure, Lincoln is saying.

THE COMMON GOOD: AN OLD IDEA FORGOTTEN TODAY

DAVID: This is a good point to ask a practical question on behalf of our regular readers: If we already own some of your other books—why buy this one? And I think you’ve just touched on that unique, central theme of this new book. Right after quoting Lincoln in the book, you argue: “Lincoln had it right. The biggest problem with religion is that people, groups, institutions, nations, and all of our human sides sometimes try to bring God onto our side. When people and groups are sure they are right, they want to confidently say that God agrees with them. … The much harder task, and the more important one, is to ask how to be on God’s side, as Lincoln is suggesting.”

Jim Wallis, courtesy of the publisher.

JIM: This is really the first time I’ve focused a book on the common good, which is such an old idea and yet is almost forgotten today. In our various traditions, the common good really is a powerful notion that we are all accountable for each other. If we can restore that sense of the common good, we can move forward. In the book’s subtitle I say that politicians don’t learn about serving the common good anymore. Now that I am touring the country and talking about this book with readers, I actually wish I could go back and make that subtitle even stronger: Now, I’d say “Politics is the Enemy of the Common Good.”

DAVID: In the new book, you’re also saying something quite provocative about the nature of your own Christian faith. You’re saying that Christianity is not about each person grabbing a ticket to heaven. More than that, you argue that the purpose of religion is not to prove that we’re right and then to impose our slate of pre-determined values on others. You write that Jesus’s “better way of life wasn’t meant to benefit just Christians, but everybody else, too.” Am I fairly summarizing this?

JIM: Yes, you’re doing well in explaining it. We are called for the sake of other people, not just ourselves. That’s the point of the whole thing. We live in a pluralistic society—religiously and politically—so I’m asking: How do we evoke our faith in a context that is democratic? The whole idea is that we cannot lead by control, by imposing our control on others. But we can lead others by example, by lifting up the values we can all hold for our common good. This is a servant posture, not a posture of campaigning to impose our will on everyone. Dr. Martin Luther King never said: I get to win because I’m a Christian. He never said that. He said: We have to win the debate about the common good. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were not just good for blacks or for Baptists. These laws were a part of restoring and protecting the common good. King understood that.

THE COMMON GOOD IN CHRISTIANITY AND NARNIA

DAVID: In the second chapter of your book, you shift from Lincoln and your critique of the sorry state of American politics to the heart of your own faith—Christianity. You put it bluntly: Christians disagree about the main message of Christianity. You write: “If Jesus is mostly a private figure for our individual lives, our faith will be primarily personal and not much engaged in the societies in which we live. If Jesus just provides us a pathway to heaven, we won’t be much concerned with what happens on this earth. Or if we create a Jesus mostly in our own image, he won’t be very useful to ‘others’ who are unlike us.” Then, you add a crucial “But”!

You continue: “But if Jesus came because ‘God so loved the world,’ he will be a different Jesus for us. … If Jesus came to create a new community and not just save people, then that community’s collective life in the world will be of crucial importance. And if we as individuals are so drawn to Jesus that we want to learn the ways he would have us live, he becomes the Living Teacher who walks among us. All of which brings me to a lion.”

That’s how you introduce the section on Aslan. So, Jim, tell us about your encounter with Aslan the Lion.

JIM: I devote a whole chapter to that story. I began the sabbatical I took to write this new book by taking a retreat with a monastic community overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I’ve always loved Lewis’s stuff; I own all of his books. I’ve read the Chronicles of Narnia to our boys. We’ve seen the movie versions. I’ve been very familiar with the stories for years. But, there in this isolated retreat, I found some old copies of the Narnia novels in a little library they had organized for guests. I pulled out The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first Narnia novel, and decided I would re-read just that one.

DAVID: In describing this dramatic new encounter with Narnia, you write: “Sometimes I felt like Aslan was walking beside me, up and down the coastal hills to the sea, teaching me again what it means to be a Narnian. The lion helped inspire my hope to write a biblical and theological defense of the common good, something that has been almost lost in an age of selfishness.”

JIM: As you know, I didn’t stop with the first novel. In my retreat, I wound up going through all the novels. Aslan struck me as the archtypical leader for the common good in Narnia, particularly for the most vulnerable creatures. What is so very important is the ongoing personal relationship that Aslan has with many of Lewis’s main characters—the children who travel to Narnia and also some of the creatures from Narnia. They could walk along side him. They could reflect with Aslan about their own decisions and challenges and choices.

Sometimes, walking among the redwoods and along the ocean on that retreat, I did feel that Aslan was walking along side me. This really got me thinking about the image of Jesus as the loving teacher who walks among us in an ongoing way—rather than Jesus as a remote Savior who many traditionalists like to describe as having gone off to Heaven to prepare a place for us. I don’t want to sound overly judgmental in describing two extreme images of Jesus like this. What I’m trying to explain is how important I think it is to realize that Jesus is a living teacher who walks among us, reminding us of the common good we need to restore and protect in this world.

THE HOPE OF C.S. LEWIS’S PUDDLEGLUM
AND ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU

Puddleglum in C.S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair.

DAVID: That’s Aslan’s message and purpose in Narnia. Yes, I think Narnia fans will understand your point here, right away. But you go an important step further—because the truth is that we can’t all go off on intense retreats all the time and feel Aslan walking with us in a paradise landscape. You point to one of my own favorite characters in Narnia—the “marsh-wiggle” known as Puddleglum who appears in The Silver Chair. When I was growing up in the early 1960s, my father’s hardback copy of The Silver Chair was the first Narnia novel I ever read—and I loved this strange half-amphibian-half-human sort of figure. He lives in the marshes and can easily blend into the green landscape.

You actually quote nearly as much of Puddleglum in your new book as you do of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural.

JIM: Yes, the real question is: When we return from these intense periods, like the one I experienced on the retreat, how you keep believing in things even on days you don’t feel it? How do we keep the vision of the common good in front of us?

DAVID: For readers who don’t know Narnia—or have forgotten Puddleglum—the young heroes of the Narnian stories encounter him way out in a remote part of the C.S. Lewis landscape. Then, in the Narnia novel called The Silver Chair, they wind up trapped in a deadly underworld kingdom where they are completely locked away from real life up on the surface of the world. The deadly temptation is to forget about Narnia, to doubt that Narnia even exists and to turn away from Aslan’s vision for Narnia. But, in the midst of this terrible darkness and temptation, Puddleglum does something absolutely heroic, right?

JIM: I quote Puddleglum on the first page of that chapter and then again in the heart of the chapter. My question is: How do we keep believing in things, even on days when we don’t feel like it? Or on days when our belief may be fading? Well, Puddlegum is a great model for us. He courageously declares: “I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.”

I have to say: Thank you for asking me about this portion of the book. In all the interviews I’ve done so far about the new book, the interviewers just ask about politics, Washington, Barack Obama and the common good. Reporters seem to have a very narrow political focus on this book. But the truth is that writing the chapter on Lewis, the Lion and Puddleglum was the one I enjoyed the most. You know, the only real piece of art in my house is of a South African lion. It’s a beautiful piece of art I got years ago and this big lion has eyes that seem to be watching you wherever you stand—much as I imagine Aslan looking into our souls.

DAVID: As a reader, I found this book inspiring and full of fresh perspectives. Did you intend this book to be hopeful? Do you feel hopeful?

JIM: One of my mentors, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, helped me to see the difference between optimism and hope. Optimism is about how you look at things today, your mood at the moment and your assessment of the latest news. Optimism is about your immediate response to how things are going and your personality plays a big part in that. But, hope is not a feeling or a mood. Hope is a decision that you make because of a thing called faith, whatever faith may mean to you. Hope is really a decision that people like Arcbhishop Tutu make that shaped his whole life and the world, as well. Many years ago, he decided that there was going to be a free South Africa—long before anyone could imagine how that could happen. He made his decision to hope for a free South Africa—and he bet his life on it. Am I hopeful about our future? Yes, I am, and I’m betting my life on that hope, too.

Care to read more about Jim Wallis,
‘On God’s Side’ and the Common Good?

VISIT OUR VALUES FOR MORE: This interview focuses mainly on Part 1 of Jim Wallis’s new On God’s Side, called Inspiring the Common Good. In this week’s OurValues series, sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker looks at the book’s Part 2, Practices for the Common Good.

OTHER LINCOLN LINKS: 2013 is packed with 150th-anniversary milestones from Lincoln’s life. Here is a convenient Index to many of our most popular Lincoln-themed stories this year.

(Originally published at www.ReadTheSpirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, interfaith news and cross-cultural issues.)

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Tags: Abraham Lincoln • Children • Families • Film • Our Changing Culture • Peacemakers

ReadTheSpirit Shaker Village Gathering: A new collaborative future (check out these dozen voices and fresh ideas)

FIFTY authors, activists and online pioneers met for four days in historic Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, building new collaborative relationships to meet our rapidly changing spiritual and cultural challenges. Today, we share a dozen voices from what we are calling The Shaker Village Gathering, a meeting of minds and hearts that already is producing a host of collaborative projects that will unfold over the coming year.

THE SHAKER VILLAGE GATHERING:
WELCOMING A SEASON OF GRATITUDE

What kind of new collaborative projects are coming?
Just read these dozen voices below! And, stay tuned to ReadTheSpirit for more news in coming months! To spark your imagination, here are just two of the many projects discussed at The Shaker Village Gathering:

The Michigan State University School of Journalism anti-bullying project, which already is earning rave reviews and honors nationwide, is expanding to launch a new series of guidebooks for cultural competence. That widely collaborative series is just starting with 100 Questions and Answers about Indian Americans, which also is available in a Kindle edition.

Another project unveiled at The Shaker Village Gathering was Season of Gratitude, a program developed by the InterFaith Leadership Council (IFLC) of Metropolitan Detroit for use across Michigan—and as a model the IFLC now is offering to any community nationwide. Click here or on the Season of Gratitude logo, at right, to find the IFLC guidelines for participation in this national effort to promote healthy, diverse communities in November. That’s the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s declaration of America’s first nationwide Thanksgiving. If your group decides to participate, email ReadTheSpirit@gmail.com and we will include you in our own Season of Gratitude coverage in coming months. This is a rare, wide-open invitation to get your community excited about hospitality, thankfulness and diversity—and to shine a national spotlight on your community at the same time.

THE SHAKER VILLAGE GATHERING:
HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

GRATITUDE was at the core of the Shaker Village Gathering, writes environmental activist and Quaker author Eileen Flanagan, whose full message is below. Church consultant Martin Davis used his message, included below, to describe the most powerful force transforming communities today: “a revolutionary sense of relationships.”

A CONNECTIVE COLUMNIST: Themes of gratitude, relationships, hospitality and welcoming of diversity were waves that flowed through these four days at Shaker Village. A newspaper columnist for a rural region in the Midwest, Henry Passenger, already has published a column telling his audience that he felt greatly encouraged by the diversity of men and women he encountered in this nationwide gathering. Henry’s immediate public response to his home audience is an encouraging sign that programs like Season of Gratitude may find welcoming communities even in rural areas of the U.S. Henry isn’t merely a writer blasting his message to the world. He is a key connective figure between this national network of writers and activists—and grassroots readers. Henry’s connective work is just one example of a historic shift in the way we all, as humans, are sharing information and shaping the world today.

‘A CIRCULAR MODEL’: Another Shaker Village participant was Mary Ann Brussat, cofounder with her husband Frederic, of the influential online magazine Spirituality & Practice. Mary Ann’s full message is below, but here’s a taste of what she has to say: We are “shifting from a top-down model of experts/journalists giving out information to the ‘general public’ to a circular model where content emerges from collaborative efforts, not just among writers but also among writers and readers. For this to happen, however, there has to be more sharing of expertise and interests. People who are out in the field working with various audiences on a day-to-day basis need ways to get the word out about what they are doing. Portal websites like ReadTheSpirit and Spirituality & Practice can connect them to a larger audience through links and articles about their work.”

GET INVOLVED: There’s so much more that readers and writers—people just like you and your friends—can do! Start by reading these dozen voices …

Voices of Shaker Village Gathering

PEACEMAKER, AUTHOR DANIEL BUTTRY:
‘Collaboraion … is Key’

Dan is one of the world’s leading peacemakers. He circles the globe, training groups in conflict transformation, nonviolence and peace-building. ReadTheSpirit has published three of his books. Dan writes:

COLLABORATION was a key goal of our gathering—and that was certainly what stood out in my experience. I had met less than a quarter of the people gathered there. So many new people with connections, skills, insights, and rich stories to exchange!

At the gathering we had dynamic discussion circles, but for me the richest discussions spun off those at the breaks, meals and follow-up circles. I was able to help some folks think through and process their projects and even their personal journeys related to those projects. I was also given some direct assistance on some of the work I am doing, but even more to be stretched to think of new ways that my own work could be magnified by developing ReadTheSpirit initiatives. Some of the collaboration will be through ReadTheSpirit’s community network, and some will be beyond ReadTheSpirit in direct connections I am making with others. I deeply appreciate the kind of catalyzing work we were able to undertake in the Shaker Village Gathering.

WRITER, ONLINE PIONEER MARY ANN BRUSSAT:
‘A Circular Model’

Shaker Village table set in Center Family dwelling Pleasant Hill Kentucky. (The photos with today's story are by David Crumm, released for public sharing as long as they carry a credit to David Crumm of www.ReadTheSpirit.com)

Shaker Village table set in Center Family dwelling at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. (The photos with today’s story are by David Crumm, released for public sharing as long as they carry a credit to David Crumm of www.ReadTheSpirit.com)

Mary Ann is an author, journalist and cofounder with her husband Frederic of the online magazine Spirituality & Practice.

AN EXPLOSION: In his “Influential Marketing Blog” in 2009, Rohit Bhargava predicted that “in just a few years we will reach a point where all the information on the Internet will double every 72 hours.” This explosion of information creates an enormous challenge for those of us whose primary way of connecting with people is through online content. How do we reach our audience when there is just so much content available?

The expansion of the Internet also makes it extremely difficult for the consumer of information to wade through it all. How do we know what’s authentic, reliable, and worth our time? How do we decide which YouTube videos to watch, which blogs to read, and which websites to visit regularly?

A FLOW OR A TRAFFIC JAM? Consider these realities that further complicate the flow of information online: People today are crazy busy; our needs to be informed and inspired are competing with our needs to be effective at work, present to our friends and families, and useful in our communities. Elders, a huge percentage of the population, are often isolated geographically from family and friends and not yet savvy on using social media to stay connected.

In addition, a great deal of what you see on the Internet is not sourced. You might see a beautiful quote on a webpage or a viral meme on Facebook, but it is often attributed only to a name (and not always the right one). Anyone can hang up a shingle on the Internet offering all kinds of religious or spiritual “advice” but it can be difficult to tell what tradition or philosophy they are drawing from. This Internet free-for-all might be fine if everybody accepted that what is posted online is personal opinion. But many people are turning to the web excepting to discover authoritative, time-honored information. And not all religious and spiritual information is of that quality.

This is why it is important for the standards and practices of religious journalism—authority, balance, accuracy, fairness—be continued by those creating content for the Internet. That’s why such practices as citing sources, checking for context when quoting, and gathering information from those truly knowledgeable in a field need to be passed on to new generations of writers, bloggers, and social media users. The seasoned religion writers and the journalism teachers and students in our conversations at Shaker Village gave me hope that the professionalism of generations of newspaper and magazine religion writers could transfer successfully to the web.

Even if everything on the Internet were sourced and credited, however, there would still be a lot of it! That’s why at our website, SpiritualityAndPractice.com, we consider ourselves to be “recommenders” of resources and “curators” of content. Our editors draw on their expertise not to create new content as much as to organize and prioritize the content we have.

NEW IDEAS FOR CONTENT CURATION: At Shaker Village, we learned how key word search and Search Engine Optimization could help us increase traffic to our web offerings. But I realized that key word search in particular would be helpful in making curation decisions. We should be curating content on topics that people are searching for. We can use digital tools to find out how best to respond to the needs of our world. We can use these tools to listen to readers. We no longer have to rely upon an editor’s hunches about what’s trending or what’s important.

The paradigm is shifting from a top-down model of experts/journalists giving out information to the “general public” to a circular model where content emerges from collaborative efforts, not just among writers but also among writers and readers. For this to happen, however, there has to be more sharing of expertise and interests. People who are out in the field working with various audiences on a day-to-day basis need ways to get the word out about what they are doing. Portal websites like ReadTheSpirit and SpiritualityAndPractice can connect them to a larger audience through links and articles about their work.

At the same time, the websites get some additional boots on the ground to help them understand what’s happening. At Shaker Village, I was excited to learn about research projects, outreach programs, and grassroots organizations that are making a difference. The next step is to find a way to keep up with what everybody is doing! Our Shaker Village Gathering was just a small sampling of those working in religion and spirituality outside the traditional channels of the institutional churches and religious organizations. How do we keep up? Because if we can’t keep up, the wider public won’t be able to either.

THE NEED FOR PRACTICAL CONTENT: Finally, a recurring theme in our Shaker Village conversations was the need for practical content, or what in religious and spiritual circles are called “spiritual practices.” In the mass of information on the Internet, what often rises to the surface are those succinct articles that offer concrete advice on “what to say to a sick friend” or “what to do at a Protestant funeral.” Galleries and lists of “Bests” are also popular.

This does not mean, I think, that those creating and curating religious and spiritual content need to get into the old battle waged at countless newspapers and magazine between the “news” section and the “lifestyle” section. It does mean that all content, whether news or practices, must relate to where people are living and what they are doing. Because, to be realistic about it, they just don’t have time for anything else.

Author, Journalism Educator Joe Grimm:
Turning the Lens 180 Degrees

Joe is known to journalists nationwide as the Ask the Recruiter columnist. At the MSU School of Journalism, he helped to produce The New Bullying. In 2013, his team is producing a series of cultural-competency guidebooks.

MAGIC: If you bring the right people together in the right setting, magic happens. You can count on it, even though you don’t know what form the magic will take. You just have to make a leap of faith.

The Shaker Village Gathering was shoehorned between teaching and finals for my students at Michigan State University School of Journalism. It was a time for grading and grappling with deadlines. Earlier in the week, one class had launched, 100 Questions and Answers About Indian Americans. A joint venture of the Michigan State University School of Journalism and ReadTheSpirit, this is the first in a series of guides to cultural competence. Two weeks later, I was to put on a conference of my own. But I just knew … I had to be in the circle at Shaker Village.

In my everyday world, I can be a blockhead. I can close my mind and shut off contrary ideas. This retreat shattered that. My personal block was this: People at the university who heard of the cultural competence series suggested it might merit funding. I was immediately torn between attraction and knee-jerk resistance. One of the university’s top priorities for bridging cultures is with incoming international students, especially from China. But I thought the series could not be used that way. Too narrow. Too specific. Not according to my grand plan. This new ReadTheSpirit Books series of guides should increase Americans’ competence with other cultures, religions, races and ethnicities. A guide for Chinese students, orienting them to American culture, was not in keeping with that goal, I thought.

I asked the circle at Shaker Village what I should do. In less than one sentence—in a phrase, really—Stuart Matlins untangled things. Matlins is founder, editor-in-chief and publisher of Jewish Lights Publishing and SkyLight Paths Publishing. He made the light come on! He said that what was needed here was a “complementary guide.”

A 180-DEGREE TURN: Of course! Turn the lens around. Make a 180-degree turn. Use the cultural competence prescription to explain Americans to others! This would serve a need and be true to the mission. By the end of the day, Stuart’s two words had inspired six pages of my new proposal for exactly that kind of project. Thank you, Stuart. And thanks to the entire circle for creating the magic I needed.

Environmental Activist, Author Eileen Flanagan:
‘The Whole World is a Bridge’

Eileen’s award-winning book, The Wisdom to Know the Difference, has been endorsed by the Dalai Lama. Read our interview with Eileen here. A major focus of her work is eco-justice, which you can read about at her website.

GRATITUDE: My overwhelming feeling coming out of the ReadTheSpirit gathering in Kentucky is gratitude. I feel grateful to have connected face to face with people whom I had only previously met online or over the phone. I feel grateful to have met brand new friends, some whom I’m confident I’ll collaborate with in the future and others whom I hope to see more than just on Facebook, where we are already finding each other. I feel grateful to have received encouragement for a current writing project just when it was needed and to be able to encourage others in their work.

I also feel grateful for the 100 species of birds at Shaker Village, which were so much nicer to wake up to than the sound of Philadelphia buses. I had been feeling the need to reconnect with nature, so this weekend was well timed in many ways.

The only regret I have from the gathering is that I didn’t get to speak to everyone personally or hear everyone’s voice in the large group. Our meetings seemed a microcosm of the problem Mary Ann Brussat raised about the Internet having so much content that there is not enough time to read all of it. That dilemma got me thinking about how we create space for all voices, not just in a gathering like ours, but also in the publishing world that we are all trying to navigate and transform.

I also carry away specific memories:
Discovering that Dan Buttry and I share dear mutual friends and a connection to Africa. Reflecting on discussions of gender with Megan McFeely, associate producer of Global Spirit on PBS. She blogs for the Huffington Post about her own spiritual journey following the inner Path of Sufism. Saving a quote from Rebbe Nachman of Breslov: “The whole world is a bridge. The important thing is to not be afraid.” Pondering the question, “How do you have a relationship with someone if you don’t know what causes them pain?” Acting on David Crumm’s thesis: “There is no transformative movement that has evolved without a pattern of travel and visitation.”

I’ve already mentioned that last insight to people in my activist community and have been thinking about how to apply it there as well as with the people from our circle. If there is one overriding takeaway for me, I guess it is that relationships are both easier and more difficult to maintain in the age of the Internet but that knowing each other has never been more important.

Journalist, Peace Activist Mary Liepold:
Gathering Around Tree of Life

Mary is Editor in Chief for Peace X Peace, an international organization that strengthens and connects women’s voices in 120 countries.

“Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum.
“You came along and everything started to hum.”

Frank Sinatra sang it, and Tony Bennett too. It popped into my head during my quiet time this morning because my husband Al and I just spent several humming, buzzing days at Shaker Village in Kentucky, with other friends of David Crumm’s burgeoning ReadTheSpirit enterprises. The Shaker Village logo is a stylized tree of life—although its outsized apples also suggest the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis. The Shaker anthem Simple Gifts, with its bowing, bending, and turning, would suggest something more like a willow, or the gorgeous weeping cherries we saw here in DC earlier this spring. Of the making of meaning there is no end, but the plums are mine. You know who you are!

At most, this national gathering was a minute subsection of the vast tree of life. Still, it was more than I could find time to explore. I came home eager to reach out to the people David gathered who I didn’t manage to connect with, and Googling like mad to learn more about the ones I met. Because I went with my husband Al, we connected happily with a few of the other couples, including Ben and Judith Pratt and Paul and Jan Chaffee. Because Al is Jewish, we connected briefly with the other Jews there—publisher Stuart Matlins, Dr. Joe Lewis and Bobbie Lewis, and Rabbi Bob Alper―and enjoyed tapping into the Roots of the tree of life with the Sabbath prayers and blessings Joe led. And because Al loves movies, even more than I do, we shared several meals with film “curator” Ed McNulty, and I just extended my Netflix queue by at least 20 titles! (Thanks, Ed!)

CURATOR: The term curator, in the sense of someone who reaches into the great buzz and hum of the culture to lift up the best, is one of the plums I brought home from the gathering. My prize take-away from the “smart room” at large, as distinct from the people in it, was being reminded once again that it’s all about compassionate community. Yes, God, by whatever name, is at the center, but if the human relationships don’t work the divine ones probably won’t either. And because so many people have been hurt by or in their congregations, and all the rest of us have been hurt by life one way or another, healing is job one for most congregations and associations. Stuart described an extensive survey of church leaders and seminary professors who identified Bill W. and Dr. Bob, founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, as the most important spiritual leaders of the 20^th century. Yes, of course! We bond across boundaries because of our afflictions.

SEEKING OUT OTHERS: If I’d gone to the meeting alone I might have found the other Catholics (or was I the only one?) and spent at least a few minutes with the very attractive Muslims, Eide Alawan and Kabir Helminski. I’m a peace person, so I’d have sought out the rather luminous Dan Buttry. I’d have spent more time with the other women, including Eileen Flanagan (who’s married to a Catholic and whose new book I can’t wait to read), Megan McFeely, and Megan Crumm, Heather Jose (a specialist in healing), and Mary Ann Brussat, who put the term curator out on the floor and who, with her husband Frederic, has devoted decades to cultural/spiritual curation. We might even have mounted a bit of an uprising. One of the thorns on this local branch of the great tree, as David acknowledged, is that the group didn’t fully represent the diversity RTS aims for. As a feminist too tamed by couplehood to be adequately uppity when the occasion demands, I was grateful for Megan McFeely’s occasional instigation. (Thank you, dear heart. Stay beautiful, vulnerable, and brave.)

It wasn’t perfect. We’re not perfect. I’m grateful to David and the RTS family. And I agree with Frank, Tony, and composers Coleman and Leigh: “It’s a real good bet the best is yet to come.”

Translator, Publisher Joe Lewis:
‘Could We Handle the Success?’

Joe’s writing has ranged from computer manuals to poetry to translation; his professional roles include establishing an independent publishing house, the Singlish Publication Society.

ONLINE VOICES: Joe is one of a number of voices from the Shaker Village Gathering already posting outward reflections via social media, blogs or newspapers. He posted his reflections at the blog within his publishing house website. Like many participants, his thoughts traveled in yet another direction—thinking about the Shakers themselves. They were hugely successful, he writes in his column, then they vanished. He asks: “Could we handle the success?”

Journalist, Food Writer Bobbie Lewis:
‘Connections to Faith, Family, Culture’

Bobbie a writer, editor and consultant. Her website is www.write4results.com; her current recipe blog is: www.bobbiesbestrecipes.wordpress.com.

The minute we drove into Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill I felt a sense of serenity and order. That’s exactly what the Shakers were trying to achieve through their communal social structure, architecture, furniture design and all other aspects of their society. ReadTheSpirit could hardly have chosen a more appropriate place for a retreat examining the current status and future of interfaith efforts to improve life in our home cities, the United States and the world.

I felt a bit like a gate crasher in the group, which included people who have done—and are doing—remarkable things. I’ve been interested in interfaith work for many years, possibly as a by-product of being the only Jewish girl in my class throughout elementary school. Since retiring last summer from full-time work, I have been able to spend more time on volunteer efforts, including serving on the board of WISDOM (Women’s Interfaith Solutions for Dialogue and Outreach in Metropolitan Detroit). But these meager efforts pale by comparison to what most of the conference participants have done: writing, publishing, teaching, founding and leading organizations that are doing important things. I was humbled (in true Shaker tradition) to be among them and to learn from them.

PLAN AHEAD FOR THE 2014 NAIN CONFERENCE: I recently joined the planning committee for the 2014 North American Interfaith Network conference, which will be in Detroit in 2014. Several other committee members were at the Shaker Village gathering, and it was helpful to me to get to know them better. Some of those from other states are also active in NAIN, so I look forward to reconnecting with them at this year’s conference in Toronto and next year’s in Detroit. (Plan ahead for the 2013 and 2014 conferences by visiting the NAIN site.)

COMING SOON—FEED THE SPIRIT: The most exciting part of the weekend for me was being asked to work with ReadTheSpirit on developing a new web portal, Feed The Spirit, that will focus on food and its connection to faith, family and culture. So many of the recipes we enjoy come with wonderful stories attached: about the person who gave us the recipe, or the holiday it’s connected to, or a trip we took when we first enjoyed it. I’m hoping the people I met on the weekend will join me in this exploration.

Author, Cancer Thriver Heather Jose:
Compassion for those with invisible challenges

Heather Jose is known for her work in changing the way cancer patients think about their journey. She is one of the writer-activists who sparked the trend toward describing these men and women as “cancer thrivers.” She runs Go Beyond Treatment seminars.

ONLINE VOICES: Many conversations at the Shaker Village Gathering centered on Compassion, Kindness, Civility and Welcoming. As she mulled these themes, Heather Jose returned home and posted her newest weekly column on remembering the millions of men and women whose health challenges are largely unknown, invisible or unpredictable.

WRITER, PASTOR MARGARET PASSENGER:
Living in a Time of Transformational Chaos

Margaret is an educator, writer and retired United Methodist pastor. Her writing and teaching focuses on the spiritual stories of women both in the Bible and in contemporary life.

Gleanings from Pleasant Hill: 1. Energy, optimism, hope. 2. More comfort, less anxiety about living and working in this time of transformational chaos. 3. Experiencing Shaker Village, KY (like Green Lake, WI) as a “thin place” on our Creator’s beautiful earth.

And, 4. The gathering, in my mind’s eye, was a pebble in a pond, the rings expanding from central Kentucky to southeast Michigan (including East Lansing), Akron, Vermont, New York City, the greater D.C. area, North Carolina, Atlanta, and west to California—any place we call home (and I don’t know the home bases all of us). How far the rings will expand in the future I do not know, but opportunities and possibilities abound. The gathering was a time of reaching beyond where we’ve been to a wider place of inclusion and understanding.

EDITOR, COLUMNIST HENRY PASSENGER:
Enlarging the Circle of Connections

Henry is a long-time copy editor, working for many years in daily newspapers.

ONLINE VOICES: Henry’s efforts since Shaker Village are summarized at the top of this story. His audience is rural Tuscola County in Michigan’s Thumb. You can read his column on the Shaker Village Gathering at the Tuscola Today website.

AUTHOR, CAREGIVING ACTIVIST BENJAMIN PRATT:
‘Tis the Gift to Think of Others’

Benjamin is a columnists at ReadTheSpirit and at the website for the Day1 radio network. He travels widely to speak, convene workshops and to learn from other caregivers. He has been part of the ReadTheSpirit team since our founding in 2007.

QUESTION: What happens when a virtual community finally meets face to face?

Answer: Simple Gifts, sharing openly, honestly ’til “true simplicity is gained.” Our ReadTheSpirit community—editors, publishers, writers, advocates, colleagues from other online interfaith spiritual and cultural organizations, educators, technical wizards—finally came out of virtual obscurity and lived face to face for several days in Shaker Village, KY. We celebrated the “gift to be simple” to “find ourselves in the place just right…the valley of love and delight.” We sang the ol’ Shaker song written by Elder Joseph Brackett in 1848, but more importantly, we lived it. We gathered as Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Sufis, Christians—the religious and spiritual—forging the bricks to build community for the future. We experienced, as Brackett’s song reveals,

‘Tis a gift to have friends and a true friend to be,
‘Tis the gift to think of others not to only think of “me”,
And when we hear what others really think and really feel,
Then we’ll all live together with a love that is real.

Journalist, Consultant Martin Davis:
A Revolution in Relationships

Marty is a journalist and consultant known nationally to religious leaders grappling with congregational development and new media.

The notion of “building community” has long been at the center of the world’s religions—both major and minor. It does not surprise, therefore, that from new communities within established bodies that revolutionary changes emerge. One of what will become many such communities was on display in Kentucky this past weekend as David Crumm and John Hile brought together individuals working on dynamic new communities in the American world of faith.

More than people looking for new ways to do “church” or “interfaith”—though both were well represented—people in this group are changing the fundamental relationship structure upon which faith rests. Sometimes with, and sometimes without, the traditional overarching structures that are today’s faith communities and leaders.

As one who fits in the category of a “None” (people who self-identify on surveys as “spiritual but not religious” or who check “none of the above” when asked which faith tradition they belong to), the revolution I observed was how far the members of this group have grown beyond the question of how will religion survive? How will faith survive?

‘A NEW STAGE OF AWARENESS’: Whether they are motivated by frustration with these questions, disenchantment with traditional faith traditions, or have reached a new stage of awareness of community in their existing work, these individuals have let go of “growth models” and “theological concerns” in favor of joining with those committed to framing faith around the concept of shared values.

What does this look like?

A Jewish publisher who has connected the notion of religious “hospitality”—being welcoming and understanding of those outside your community—to larger global issues around civil society. For example, how does one act at a funeral when the deceased’s tradition is not your own?
Collectors of “resources” for spiritual people who want new ways of living that connect with selected elements of faith traditions and connect with others via new technologies.
People who are joining concern for the tens of millions of Americans who find themselves in the role of caregiver and, because of these responsibilities, disconnected from their established communities of support.
People pushing women’s issues to the next stage of incarnation.
Artists using humor and music to connect peoples separated by theology and politics in their lives.
And ReadTheSpirit staff who are leveraging technology to produce the information and materials these (above) people are generating in innovative and customized ways that not only meet needs, but generate revenue for those who produce the work and allow them to continue their work.

RELATIONSHIPS: Underlying all of this work is a revolutionary sense of relationships each person demonstrates. Relationships based not only upon the ideas of friendship, the suffering servant, or civility, but most important upon a radical notion of hospitality that rightly begins with a willingness to lay aside their own preconceptions about which groups and people are “genuine” and listen deeply to the needs being expressed by those around them.

It is this radical hospitality that both defines, and drives, every person in the room. As is appropriate, this radical hospitality was on display not only in the work of those attending, but among the individuals themselves.

My own off-hand comment during a discussion about mental illness, caregiving, and the challenges this disease has imposed upon my own family led to quiet moments of support outside the main meeting hall. Expressions of concern, stories of shared struggles, and extraordinary offers to help emerged. These expressions, one could say, are timeless and central to the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim worlds. But as studies have shown repeatedly, many people in faith communities receive these expressions of help with strings that tie them to judgments or a desire to “fix” whatever problem is faced.

WITHOUT STRINGS: Both the work of the people in the room, and the relationships that were joined, came without strings. Only a willingness to enter a relationship and work together to hear what those thirsting for an understanding of their relationship to the divine are genuinely asking for.

The revolution in relationship on display this weekend is no doubt based in ancient practice and faith expression. But then, most every revolution in relationship (Martin Luther and Erasmus, the Shakers, and Martin Luther King, to name but a few) was likewise begun.

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Categories: Great With Groups • Natural World • Peacemaking

Tags: Our Changing Culture • Peacemakers • Pilgrimage • Spiritual Season • Spirituality Online • Why We Love America

The Love and Salt interview: Why letter writing still builds friendship and unlocks our spiritual vision

Click the cover to visit it's Amazon page.

Click the cover to visit this book’s Amazon page.

Christianity was founded on letters. St. Paul’s letters carried the faith into the world years before the four Gospels were published. Much later, America was founded on letters, which is why John Adams is associated with the current National Card and Letter-Writing Month. In the civil rights struggle, a letter from a Birmingham jail 50 years ago ignited a national movement for justice. (Read more about the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous letter in a second story, today.)

Recently, two American women—one who lives in Illinois and one in Virginia—published a collection of their letters, spanning three years and some tumultuous changes in their lives. Their project is a unique window into the spiritual lives of American women—wives, mothers and professionals in their 30s. While American women are the greatest consumers of spiritually themed media—books, magazines and websites—they usually find publishers offering them a heavy diet of older male voices. Instead, Amy Andrews and Jessica Mesman Griffith wrote their own inspirational Christian classic from scratch.

At ReadTheSpirit, we are not alone in praising Love & Salt. Gregory Wolfe, founder of Image magazine and a leading talent in American spiritual letters, described the book this way: “There are a lot of good books about the spiritual life out there, but one of their drawbacks is that they tend to organize experience into categories and abstractions and steps. … What if a book about God was something more like a conversation between two thoughtful people recording the messy vicissitudes of everyday life, including marriage and children, circling around important topics without schematizing them, sharing what they observe and read and care about? That’s precisely what we get in Love and Salt.”

TODAY, rather than tell you more about Love and Salt, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm talks with Amy and Jessica. Much as they do in their letters, they are able to share personal insights into what makes their three-year journey both unique—and universal.

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW ON ‘LOVE & SALT’
WITH AMY ANDREWS & JESSICA MESMAN GRIFFITH

DAVID: Fans of TV series and movies about women will be surprised to learn that your letters rarely mention shopping; your letters contain a lot about relationships, but not about sex; and your letters spend a lot of time focused on something that is rarely mentioned in Hollywood—your spiritual lives. What’s remarkable is that you two chose that theme and stuck to it for three years.

Amy Andrews, photo courtesy of the publisher.

AMY: The basic premise was that we were going to write letters, telling each other stories about the state of our souls—stories about how we came to that place in our lives, each day.

JESSICA: We certainly didn’t set out to write a book! Honestly, I’m shocked by this book every time I re-read it. We were just two people who started this conversation through letters. The providential nature of what we tried to do is shown in how important our friendship would become. We were serious about writing letters as we started out, but we had no idea what our friendship ultimately would mean to us—or how much our growing faith would mean to us.

We were surprised that that, all of a sudden, what we were doing in writing and mailing these letters became a really important part of our lives. Eventually, these letters became something we had to do to survive. You can see in our early letters that we were wondering about our faith, pondering some theological ideas—then, as time passed, we began living out our faith. I’m still blown away by how this story unfolded. I lived through it. I wrote half the letters. But it’s as though the book wrote itself through all we experienced together.

DAVID: We won’t include spoilers to this interview, but I can say that your phrase—“all we experienced together”—includes intense heartbreak at one point in the overall story.

Before we talk further about what happened, I’m sure lots of readers are going to want to follow your example. So, let’s explain how you did this: You two met in a writing workshop and you both were interested in the Catholic Church. Jessica already was Catholic; Amy was going through the process to officially become a Catholic. Jessica, you agreed to be Amy’s sponsor as she formally joined the church. As part of your dual journeys both into writing and into the church, you decided to write these letters back and forth starting in Lent 2005.

What were the first steps? Did you go out and purchase stationery? Were you interested in fountain pens? Old-fashioned typewriters?

LOVE AND SALT:
‘THE CONVERSATION WAS THE PRIMARY THING’

AMY: We never used email. These letters were either typed or handwritten and the majority of them were handwritten.

DAVID: Typed? I’ve been a journalist long enough that I actually started out using a typewriter like the drawing on the cover of your book.

AMY: No. We typed them on the computer, then printed them out before mailing them. But, we didn’t even want these letters to stay resident on our computers. Often, I got rid of the computer copies after they were printed. We wanted these to be physical letters, and we still have big boxes of them.

I was never enamored of beautiful stationery or special pens or anything like that. This was a big commitment to write so regularly to each other, so we needed to approach this like a workhorse. The conversation was the primary thing. I would grab whatever I could to write my next letter. I sent a few cards here and there but I often wrote on legal pads. Once, Jess wrote to me in crayon on some used construction paper, because she was sitting in her car and that’s all she could find.

JESSICA: I usually wrote on legal pads, too, because I had a stack of them in my office. When I started with this, I was a development officer at Notre Dame. I served as a ghost writer for the president in thanking various people who supported Notre Dame, and I wrote those letters first on legal pads.

So, it was natural for me to write to Amy that same way. Just reach for the legal pad. We agreed that this wasn’t a precious project. We didn’t choose special paper or fountain pens. We were so focused on the letters themselves that sometimes, yes, I did write on trash I had at hand.

At one point, my daughter was very young and had trouble getting to sleep, so like a lot of parents we would use the trick of driving her around until she would fall asleep. This was particularly true at naptime. One time I did that and was just sitting in the car, letting her sleep, and I found this old piece of construction paper. I didn’t have a legal pad handy, so that’s what I used for the next letter. And, no, even though there is an old-fashioned typewriter on the cover of the book, neither of us used one.

LOVE AND SALT:
INFLUENCE OF C.S. LEWIS AND THE INKLINGS

DAVID: Any of our readers who love Christian classics, including C.S. Lewis and the Inklings, will find kindred spirits in the two of you. Your book is a treasure trove of recommendations that you make to each other about terrific literary voices—mostly Christian writers. People will close your book with a wonderful reading list in hand from the books you two share. Here’s my question: Were you surprised to find the Inklings such an inspiration? I can’t imagine a more crusty bunch of older male academics. The Inklings were an honest to goodness “old boys club.” Yet, you two love these writers.

AMY: I grew up in an agnostic/atheist family, although my whole family now is Christian of some variety. One of the very important influences in my family was when my father started reading C.S. Lewis. I was then a senior in high school and he was reading Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. Then I became philosophically interested in C.S. Lewis, too. In college, I read tons of C.S. Lewis. I was interested in him as a thinker, then became enamored of all the Inklings. There was something so beautiful in these people coming together to talk about these ideas. These were Oxford dons who also wrote novels and children’s books for real people—not for other Oxford dons. They weren’t focused on small scholarship—they were focused on big ideas. I’ve referred to our exchange of letters as our own Oxford pub.

Jessica Mesman Griffith courtesy of the publisher.

JESSICA: Yes, the Inklings are huge for us. They’re like role models. We want to be in that Oxford pub, talking about God and life and death and heaven and miracles. We crave that kind of serious intellectual engagement with faith that we see in the Inklings—and we also see their deep friendships. That was very appealing to us.

DAVID: I’m curious Amy, because you teach math now at Northwestern University, whether Lewis’s very logical style appealed to you. He has been both praised and criticized for the logic he tries to lay out in his Christian apologetics.

AMY: Interesting you would ask that. When I was in college, that’s exactly what I wanted: logic. I started out as an English major and then I began to study science and math and I wanted things to be rational. So, I would say, I used to love Lewis. But now I’m much more of a Tolkien fan. One of my favorite Tolkien pieces is his essay, On Fairy Stories. He essentially says: Ultimately what is true about life comes to us in story form.

DAVID: Yes, it’s a popular piece. As he reaches the end of that essay, he argues that the Christian message is such a vast, cosmic truth that the finite human mind is incapable of grasping the entire truth. So, we receive it in the form of stories. However, Tolkien says: “This story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.”

JESSICA: The Inklings were a mystical bunch. I enjoy the novels of Charles Williams and, among the Inklings, Williams was really out there. Just the other day, I was re-reading a portion of his Descent into Hell. Now, I’m not saying that I totally agree with everything Williams wrote, but he has a lot of interesting ideas. One of the ideas he writes about, and we see in the other Inklings as well, is this idea of bearing each other’s burdens. They were exploring a much deeper idea here of spiritually committing to help bear each other’s burdens. This idea appeals to me, because Amy and I don’t live in the same part of the country. So, how is it possible that we can try to bear each other’s spiritual and emotional burdens?

LOVE AND SALT:
CHOOSING TO FOLLOW IN THE STEPS OF RUTH AND NAOMI

DAVID: You also draw a lot from the Bible, including the central theme that runs through the entire book: “Where you go—I will go.” That’s the timeless line that comes to us from the first chapter of the book of Ruth. I mention this because, among the millions of small groups that meet coast to coast, many of them are “Bible studies” and the participants like to touch on biblical themes. Readers certainly will find that in many forms throughout this book. I could envision a really wonderful small-group series in which people would agree to read sections of your book, each week, and then prepare to begin writing letters as they complete the series. So, let’s talk for just a moment about Ruth and Naomi. You stumbled upon this passage of the Bible at the very beginning of your friendship and it has become an important touchstone throughout your friendship.

AMY: I’m very slow to say that anything is providential. But, it’s hard not to view our discovery of Ruth and Naomi at the beginning of our friendship as anything other than providence. We were walking around New York and talking. We wanted to find something to read together, so we stepped into a bookstore and we wound up with this story.

JESSICA: It was a gift. I don’t talk that way very often, but this was a gift—in some strange way we happened upon that story in that store full of books. We were walking around Manhattan and just enjoying talking with each other. We were not setting out to read the Bible together. But we were in this bookstore in Greenwich Village and she just happened to reach onto a shelf where there was a Bible. And, we just happened to end up with Ruth and Naomi.

It was only later that we even realized that reading scripture aloud is a traditional form of praying. We were just captivated by the story of Ruth and Naomi. We liked the idea of making a vow to each other as friends. The idea of one woman committing to a friendship with another woman is a very powerful idea. Then, as we went through this friendship—and encountered tragedy together—we would remember that day in the bookstore and it gave us a noble way of thinking about our friendship.

LOVE AND SALT:
‘WHERE THE REAL STORY BEGINS’

DAVID: I have to urge readers who have enjoyed this interview—and who click over to Amazon and buy a copy—to commit to reading the first third of the book. It starts slow. Your first letters are good reading, but those opening pages aren’t what would inspire someone to call a friend and start a discussion group about this book. It’s when you reach the middle of this book that you really see the larger power of this whole story. And, no spoilers here, but I have to say:

One of the big influences on my life is my late grandmother, Mabel Yunker, a towering figure of a churchwoman in northern Indiana. She had a saying that it took me well into my 50s to understand: “Pray when you don’t need it—so when you need it, you don’t have to pray.” I’d say that’s a central truth in your book.

AMY: I’ll be interested to see what Jessica has to say about this, because she lost her mother when she was 13 and grief has been a reality for her throughout her life. But for me, grief wasn’t so real. I had an awareness of mortality, but it was theoretical for me. As we started this friendship and these letters, it was a beautiful experience for us—but it was beautiful in a poetic, abstract way. We only realized later that we were doing all of this long before we understood the depth and the power of this practice. We didn’t know how much we would need this.

JESSICA: Yes, I appreciate your saying that to readers, David, because you have to follow this story and trust that the real story will begin for you, as a reader, where it truly began for us. Think of the opening portion of the book as our training for what would come later.

DAVID: And that’s a perfect set up, Jessica, for the final question: So, what comes later for you two in 2013 and beyond?

AMY: Well, I’m 42 and, yes, we have been writing letters ever since. But there are gaps in our letters now. Having small children around the house makes it harder to produce every day. Then, there was a nine-month period where we wound up living in the same place and it didn’t make as much sense to write letters. Will there be another volume of letters? Who knows. We had no intention of creating a book in the first place. So, I could say with fear and trembling: Yes, there might be another book of letters.

JESSICA: I’m 36 and I am a writer, and this is a weird position for me as a writer to be known for my letters. We wrote these letters without any intention of turning them into a book. That came later. But, as a writer, I don’t want us to become known as just “The Letter Writing Ladies.” I’m more interested in sharing our story and letting other people take inspiration and perhaps start writing themselves. We would love it if other people were moved to take up their pens, too.

Click on the book cover above to order a copy of Love & Salt.

(Read more about the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous letter in a second story, today.)

(This interview was originally published in www.ReadTheSpirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, values and cross-cultural issues.)

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Categories: Author Interviews • Bible • Caregiving • Great With Groups

Tags: Families • Lent • Our Changing Culture • Prayer

‘Distilled Spirits’: The untold story of how Alcoholics Anonymous became an all-American spiritual movement

Click the Cover to visit the book’s Amazon page.

Don Lattin is one of America’s most important chroniclers of untold stories that are shaping our religious culture. A veteran journalist based in San Francisco, his previous books have thrown open windows into one mysterious spiritual movement after another. Earlier, we highly recommended his book, The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America. That book told the strange story of how four of the most important spiritual voices of the late 20th century passed through a powerful and painful convergence at Harvard.

Don steps back a couple of decades in his new book: Distilled Spirits. In today’s wide-ranging interview with ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm, Don talks about how this new book finally reveals the connections between three major figures: Bill Wilson, Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard. The result of their creative collision, among other things, shaped one of the most important grassroots spiritual movements in American history: Alcoholics Anonymous.

THE DON LATTIN INTERVIEW:
ON ‘DISTILLED SPIRITS,’
BILL WILSON, ALDOUS HUXLEY and GERALD HEARD

DAVID: Let’s begin by explaining why your book is a “must read.” When I first saw your new book, I wondered: Why would general readers want to learn about these three fairly obscure guys? Now, having thoroughly enjoyed your book, the answer is obvious to me: You’re telling an untold story about Alcoholics Anonymous and the subsequent host of 12-step groups that touch millions of men and women every day. From its founding in the 1930s, AA really represents a huge change in American religious life, right?

DON: It’s one of the most important spiritual movements of the 20^th century and I’m not alone in that assessment. Aldous Huxley called Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson the greatest social architect of the 20^th century. That’s high praise, indeed, coming from someone like Huxley! Wilson is important not just because he founded AA and helped millions of people that way. His work also is important because his ideas inspired what sociologists of religion call the small-group movement.

DAVID: A huge number of our ReadTheSpirit readers are involved in small groups. From 12-step groups to Sunday school circles to library book clubs, from men’s breakfasts to women’s groups there are millions of these circles.

DON: That’s right and scholars who study these movements tell us that what came out of the 1930s shaped today’s widespread interest in small groups—some of which meet in people’s homes, some of which meet in churches or synagogues, meditation groups, some affiliated with religion and some not. After all of the research for this new book, I have to agree: Bill Wilson was a genius.

DAVID: There is a long-running debate about whether AA and 12-step programs are “religious” or “spiritual” or “secular.” Your book is fascinating because you look at the interconnections between a huge host of people in the first third of the 20^th century. We encounter World War I, Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Woolf, the strange histories of a number of famous drugs, Hindu immigrants and the Vedanta Society. This true story is one strange ride. I’ve been writing in this field for decades—and I discovered lots of things in this book that I never knew! For example, I’ve written about Bill Wilson over the years, but I never new that he read William James. In other words, he was studying one of the founding figures in trying to understand spiritual movements.

DON: Bill Wilson wasn’t just reading William James. He was reading William James the day after he had an important revelation at an asylum for alcoholics in New York. That’s where he had these visions and formative ideas about starting Alcoholics Anonymous. So, Bill Wilson was reading William James, we know, at the exact moment when he was more open to new ideas that at any other time in his life. A friend had given him a copy of James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience and Bill Wilson read it cover to cover. James is a very important influence on the development of Alcoholics Anonymous.

DAVID: The famous phrase—“Higher Power,” the god of your own understanding—is popularized through AA. It sounds so simple, yet it was a revolutionary idea. For two millennia, Christians liked to beat themselves bloody over fine distinctions about the nature of God. Here was permission to envision your own version of God.

DON: Yes, that’s one reason Wilson and Huxley and Heard are so important. They influenced each other and laid the foundation for this revolutionary idea of what today people like to describe as the spiritual-but-not-religious movement. Today in AA, the Higher Power is defined in many, many different ways. There are even people who take a secular view of this. GOD could be defined as Group Of Drunks, the community itself. But these early thinkers who influenced each other—Huxley, Heard and Wilson—they definitely had a serious interest in studying the mystical and divine.

ALDOUS HUXLEY: THE VAST SCOPE
OF HIS REAL ‘BRAVE NEW WORLD’

DAVID: So let’s turn to Huxley for a moment. If our readers know anything about him, they probably recall the guy who wrote Brave New World, which they were forced to read in high school. But Huxley was so much more! He came from a very famous family. He was a journalist, a poet, a screenwriter, a broadcaster. He was a pacifist and an early proponent of using drugs to alter consciousness. He was British but also lived in the U.S. and helped to bring Asian religious traditions, specifically Hinduism, to America.

So, my question to you is: What conclusion did you reach after all your research into Huxley’s life? Was he a serious scholar—or a restless amateur? Did he know what he was talking about?

DON: Really, we should think of Huxley as one of the last great polymaths. This was a long line of brilliant thinkers who were interested in everything. They studied science. They studied religion. They studied other disciplines. In the modern age of increasing specialization, it’s hard to appreciate that they were interested in studying everything. They were finding connections between different disciplines that, today, people aren’t as well equipped to find.

Huxley was part of the Lost Generation that was so deeply influenced by World War I. In Huxley’s early writings as a young novelist, he focused on satire and had no interest in religion or spirituality or philosophy. It really wasn’t until Huxley met Gerald Heard in 1929 that he developed this interest in religion and spiritual disciplines that would consume him later in life. One reason that Heard is so important to this story is that he got Huxley interested in these realms. In 1945, Huxley published The Perennial Philosophy, a book that was so important in helping people to look for common spiritual truths. In my book about Huston Smith and the Harvard connections—we see that it was Heard’s influence on Huxley that led to Huxley’s strong influence on Smith and later generations.

DAVID: That influence continues to this day. We recently featured a new interview with the very popular Catholic author Richard Rohr, whose writings reach back to The Perennial Philosophy.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS AND HIGHER POWER:
‘THESE PEOPLE ARE DESPERATE TO SAVE THEIR LIVES’

DAVID: Some religious people scoff at the idea of “spiritual but not religious”—and the notion that we can feel free to describe our own version of God, our own Higher Power. Yet, this idea is very serious stuff for millions of men and women, right?

DON: People who come into Alcoholics Anonymous don’t have a lot of time to worry about the fine points of theology. They don’t want doctrinal distinctions. These people are desperate to save their lives. They need something that works—and they need it now. Wilson called it “a faith that works.”

I called this book Distilled Spirits for a number of reasons—one is a reference to a letter from Carl Jung to Bill Wilson in which Jung pointed out that the Latin word for alcohol is spiritus. Jung wrote: “You use the same word for the highest religious experience as for the most depraving poison.”

DAVID: In your book, you call spirits “double-edged swords.”

DON: What’s so interesting to me is that a lot of people who hit bottom with addiction or alcoholism realize that this really is a spiritual thirst in their lives—trying to fill up an emptiness in themselves. Some people call it a “God-sized hole in the heart.” The spiritual aspect of this is very, very important, but you’re right—it’s not about doctrine or dogma. It’s really about your own powerful, personal spiritual experiences. And it doesn’t matter if you’re Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or part of no religious belief system at all.

HOLLYWOOD AS MELTING POT:
NO COINCIDENCE THAT FAITH & FILM OFTEN OVERLAP

DAVID: At ReadTheSpirit, these days, we regularly review important television debuts—and we’re now the publishing house of faith-and-film writer Edward McNulty. Your book makes it clear that Hollywood has been a spiritual melting pot since its origins. Your book includes brief appearances by Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo and others. Heard and Huxley were part of that melting pot, right?

DON: Yes. And, actually, I’ve thought of doing a book called Holy Hollywood about the whole history of spirituality in Hollywood. Lawrence Wright’s new book is called Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief. He has a chapter in his book about this general theme of religious movements in the movie industry.

The main thing to realize is: These connections go back a very long way. From its earliest history, Hollywood attracted a lot of creative people with lots of money—people who were famous for challenging the prevailing notions of their day. A major Vedanta center was set up in Hollywood in the 1920s. We might think of this as a missionary movement within Hinduism and of course Huxley and Heard were very interested in exploring Vedanta. A lot of the spirituality we think of as “Sixties Spirituality” really dates back to the 1920s. Another way to say it is: The 1920s were a lot like the 1960s in many was.

DAVID: You’re mentioning the Asian connections that certainly were a big part of the inquiries Huxley and Heard were undertaking in California. But this movement also connects with America’s distinctive positive-thinking and self-help movements as well, right?

DON: Yes, there are a lot of similarities and cross overs. One place these lines all connect is William James. In a way, all of these movements we’re talking about are very American approaches to religion—very utilitarian. Give me a religion that works. That’s what I want as an American. Today, many people say: I want personal growth from my spirituality. It’s a very consumerist mentality and it connects with all the ways people market spirituality in America. In my earlier book, Following Our Bliss, I give a lot of examples of the ways that ‘60s notions of therapeutic, utilitarian and consumerist spirituality have come to define a lot of religion today. You see this influence in lots of churches today.

DON LATTIN: ‘DISTILLED SPIRITS’ AS A PERSONAL JOURNEY

DAVID: Finally, we should explain to readers of this interview that Distilled Spirits also is a personal story. Perhaps readers may have sensed, already, from the tone of your comments that you understand all of this from a first-hand perspective. Woven into the fascinating historical stories you give us here, you reveal that you were addicted to drugs and alcohol for many years. This book also is about your own journey into 12-step culture.

So, let me ask: I’ve known you as a colleague in journalism for many years. How did you come to this difficult decision of including yourself in the book? Traditional journalism avoids the word: “I.”

DON: This book actually didn’t start with me in the pages. The idea was really to write a prequel to The Harvard Psychedelic Club. These three guys who readers will meet in the pages of Distilled Spirits are the ones who created a situation that allowed Huston Smith, Timothy Leary, Ram Das and Andrew Weil, much later, to collide in the way they did at Harvard.

Because this new book is published by the University of California Press, there were early readers who provided their reactions. One of the scholars who read my proposal said: “This is interesting but why is Don Lattin interested in these particular people? Why do they matter to this day?”

Well, the answer is: I understand their importance because I’m one of the people helped by what they started so long ago. Of course, I do make it clear to readers: I didn’t know these three guys: Huxley, Heard and Wilson. I didn’t meet these guys. They were really my grandfather’s generation.

But the decision to weave my story into the book really allows readers to see clearly why their lives and ideas are still so important today. Many people’s lives depend on what they started.

ENJOY MORE OF DON LATTIN …

ReadTheSpirit recommends all of Don’s earlier books, which are both compelling to read—and reveal surprising corners of America’s spiritual heritage.

SPIRITUAL STATE OF THE MILLENNIUM: Don and co-author Richard Cimino look at emerging trends—from “mix-and-match” forms of religion to the rise of women’s voices in leadership in Shopping for Faith: American Religion in the New Millennium

THE DARK SIDE: American religious history is full of tragedies, as well as triumphs. Don tells the story of a tragic offshoot from mainline religion in Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge

PRODUCTIVE COLLISION OF FOUR LIVES: In today’s interview, above, we already have recommended The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America

THE POWER OF THAT ‘SIXTIES’ VIBE: From Esalen through New Age to Dharma Kids, Don traces the ties that still bind us in the quest we like to call Following Our Bliss: How the Spiritual Ideals of the Sixties Shape Our Lives Today

DON LATTIN ONLINE …

Don’s Internet hub is his professional website: http://www.DonLattin.com But, you’ll mainly want to seek out his newest online project—a blog for Spirituality & Health that he simply calls Spiritual Search.

(This interview originally was published at http://www.ReadTheSpirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, values and cross-cultural diversity.)

Comments: (4)

Categories: Author Interviews • Caregiving • Great With Groups

Tags: 12 Steps • Asia • Film • Hindu • Our Changing Culture

PBS Independent Lens shows us ‘The House I Live In,’ an indictment of America’s ‘war on drugs’

REVIEW By ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm

How to tune in “The House I Live In”: The national debut of this new documentary by Eugene Jarecki (who earlier gave us the provocative Why We Fight) is Monday April 8, 2013. Dates and times vary on PBS stations. PBS’s Independent Lens website provides film clips and links to search for TV listings in your area.)

Our review …

PBS brings us an eye-popping look at our nation’s disastrous War on Drugs in a nearly two-hour documentary called, The House I Live In. You may ask: Given that drug crimes are everywhere we look in movies and TV series, these days, why watch even more television about the problem? The answer: Because a growing number of religious leaders and human rights activists are questioning the U.S. policy on throwing huge numbers of people into prison for nonviolent drug offenses—especially when a disproportionate number of those people are African-American.

The House I Live In is a superb choice for discussion groups and for anyone concerned about these issues. The documentary is packed with interviews at all levels of American law enforcement: We meet convicted felons; we meet cops and judges who lock them away; we meet officials in Washington D.C; we meet parents and children affected by this system.

Together, these stories underline the startling facts that filmmaker Eugene Jarecki wants to hammer home. We know that these are his core messages because he occasionally pauses the movie to print these findings on the screen, including:

Since 1971, the War on Drugs has cost over $1 trillion and resulted in more than 45 million arrests. During that time, illegal drug use has remained unchanged.
With only 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States holds 25 percent of its prisoners. Over 500,000 are incarcerated for nonviolent drug crimes.
Today, 2.7 million children in America have a parent behind bars. These children are more likely to be incarcerated during their lifetime than other children.

At several points in the documentary, we hear from David Simon, the journalist who now is famous for writing the award-winning TV series about the war on drugs, The Wire. He tells viewers, in part: We are the jailing-est country on the planet! Beyond Saudi Arabia, China and Russia! Nobody jails their population at the rate that we do—and yet drugs are purer than every before, they are more available, there are younger and younger kids who are willing to sell them. It would be one thing if it were draconian and it worked; but it’s draconian and it doesn’t work.

So, contact friends, invite your small group, or simply view this film to open your own thinking on these issues!

Originally posted at www.ReadTheSpirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Comments: (2)

Categories: Great With Groups • Movies and TV

Tags: Civil Rights • Film • Our Changing Culture • Television

The Heather Jose Interview: Learning to thrive—not just survive—in life’s toughest struggles

Heather Jose

HEATHER JOSE is passionate about helping millions of Americans with crises like cancer—because she’s been through such a life-and-death struggle herself. Today, she is a nationally known writer, speaker and workshop leader focusing on three groups: cancer patients (helping them play an active role in their cancer treatment), medical professionals (helping them to engage with patients in new ways)—and caregivers (helping them to plan for their own well-being even as they aid others).

TODAY, Heather Jose talks with ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm in our weekly author interview about her new memoir, Every Day We Are Killing Cancer. At the end of today’s interview, you’ll find several ways you can connect with Heather’s ongoing work.

OUR INTERVIEW WITH HEATHER JOSE,
AUTHOR OF ‘EVERY DAY WE ARE KILLING CANCER’

DAVID: Your title, Every Day We Are Killing Cancer, is dramatic! Tell us how that defined your approach to recovery.

HEATHER: Those words really describe the mindset that empowered me throughout this long journey. I was able to take the driver’s seat in my own recovery—and those words also signaled to medical professionals and caregivers that this was our purpose. Some people have told me they are turned off by the word “killing.” Hey, I’m a peaceful person, too, but I think it’s OK to say we’re killing cancer cells. (laughs) After all, that’s what chemo and radiation are intended to do.

I still remember my doctor initially telling me to go home and get ready to “start killing cancer.” I took that instruction to heart and I didn’t want anyone around me to step back from the challenge we faced together.

DAVID: You actually printed these words on a sign, right?

HEATHER: Yes, I tell that story in my book. I made this little sign that said, Every Day We Are Killing Cancer, then my daughter Sydney who was very young at the time decorated it with some of her scribbles. I had the sign at home and I took it with me when I went back to the hospital for treatments. I wanted anyone stepping through my doorway to know—that’s our attitude here.

HEATHER JOSE: A NATIONWIDE MESSAGE

CLICK THE COVER to learn more about the book and order a copy, if you wish.

DAVID: Years later, you’ve now crisscrossed the country as a speaker and you also write about these issues in both weekly columns as well as your new book. At the core of your message, you’re still telling people: Attitude matters! You say that a person needs to take charge of his or her life. Why is that so important?

HEATHER: Number 1—no one is invested in you as much as you are yourself. Number 2—you have the ability to make the deepest impact in the most ways. Your doctor can help with medicine. Your husband can make a great meal for you. But, ultimately, you’re the one making most of the decisions throughout each day—so you have to be invested. You have to take charge.

DAVID: OK, that’s an inspiring idea. But you’ve also become a leading advocate for caregivers—the millions of Americans who care for others with conditions like cancer or the disabilities of old age or other health crises. So, how do you balance those two goals: Taking charge of your own care—and actively working with caregivers?

HEATHER: The goal is to identify what you’re good at—then, as the captain of your wellness team, focus on those areas in which you are talented and have energy. Once you understand what you can do, you can supplement that with caregivers who are strong in areas where you’re weak. This isn’t a cookie cutter approach for everyone. You have to start by weighing your strengths and your energy—then find caregivers to do the rest. Sometimes, you’ll be surprised by what caregivers can do, if you carefully organize your team.

HEATHER JOSE: IDEAS FOR ORGANIZING CAREGIVERS

DAVID: Your book explains how you did this. Then, your weekly WeAreCaregivers columns give lots of additional tips. But give our audience a couple of examples. Here’s the common situation: A major catastrophe strikes and friends will say, “If you need anything, just call me.” Or, they cook something and show up at the door with a dish in their hands. Neither of those responses is bad—but you say those are just first steps. What do you suggest, when people start offering to help?

HEATHER: First, I need to say: It’s natural that you get a lot of general offers from friends and family. That’s a good thing. People want to help—but, they don’t know what to do yet. That’s why you need to organize. As you’re putting together your caregiving team, it’s your responsibility to tell people what you really need.

One thing you need is accountability. In my case, I needed people in my life who would hold me to a certain standard, have expectations for me. We all get a little complacent and it can be easy to fall into the role of a victim. But with caregivers there to encourage you to participate in daily life and activities that are beneficial for killing cancer, you are much better off.

Here’s another example of how we organized caregivers: At one point in my treatment, we had a three-hour round trip each day for radiation. My husband was working. I didn’t have the energy to drive myself. So, our church let us pass around a sign-up sheet for a transportation schedule. We actually passed it through the pews, inviting people to sign up to make the drive with me. That was a big help and people were happy to do that.

Another example: People wanted to make food for us. But, in my case, my diet was carefully planned. Instead, people provided gift certificates for food. That allowed us to use those options when we really needed them. It gave us choices. We got some pizza coupons, which were wonderful. I couldn’t eat pizza, but my husband loves pizza and he got tired of my diet. So, sometimes, it was great to have an easy dinner with my food for me—and a takeout pizza for my husband. People usually wouldn’t think of this unless you talk it over with friends and family and suggest the idea.

DAVID: Through those years of recovery, you did an amazing job. And you share lots of ideas in your book and your weekly columns. However, you also point out that not all volunteers are up to the task, right?

HEATHER: Yes, you need to be honest with yourself about which caregivers are helping you—and which could be draining you. For example, some people just can’t avoid telling you lots of stories of other people who had cancer, including stories about people who died of cancer. Stories like that really dragged me down. That’s just one example, but it is true: Some people who might volunteer to help are more needy than you are. You can actually wind up draining yourself that way. So, I say: It may sound harsh, but you’ve got to be selfish enough to organize your circle of caregivers to welcome those people who actually will strengthen you.

HEATHER JOSE: CARING FOR THE CAREGIVERS

CLICK the logo to visit WeAreCaregivers.

DAVID: We should explain more about this term “caregivers.” National reports tell us that about one in three American households includes a caregiver. There are millions of men and women doing this work on a daily basis. From your perspective, can you explain the term?

HEATHER: A caregiver is anyone who is providing regular, necessary care for a person who is going through a disease or is challenged by a disability, so this ranges from aiding people with cancer to taking care of a disabled adult son or daughter. One thing we do know about caregivers: Their lives are busy! They’re juggling jobs and family duties and their caregiving tasks. These are normal people—people you meet everyday—who are doing an extraordinary amount of work to help others.

DAVID: One of your major campaigns right now is spreading the word coast to coast that caregivers need more help, right?

HEATHER: That’s right. And the first thing caregivers need is to take care of themselves as well as their loved ones. Here’s the challenge they face: Their time is at a premium. They need to consciously plan how they are going to take care of themselves. How are they going to eat well, exercise, pray or somehow quiet their minds? They can’t refresh themselves if they don’t consciously plan for this.

DAVID: You’ve got lots of suggestions about this. So do other writers who sometimes appear in the WeAreCaregivers website that you host. Dr. Benjamin Pratt wrote a whole book on it, Guide for Caregivers. But let’s give our audience, in this interview, an example: You advise people to keep a personalized list of quick refreshers. You actually tell them to organize the list by the minimum amount of time these activities require—5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes and so on.

HEATHER: Everyone is different. Everyone has a different list, but the idea is to keep adding to your list of things you’d love to do if you just had 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes. That may sound unworkable. But stop and think about this. For me, if I have just 5 minutes, that’s enough time for me go outside and sit in the sun for those minutes. I love that. Or, I can take a walk through my garden and see if I can find any new blossoms. If I have 10 minutes, I can put together a fast, healthy lunch so I’m not grabbing something at a drive-through window. Those are on my list, but you’ll want to make your own list.

If you’ve got a list, then you’ve got a plan for how to use those brief breaks as they arise in your day. If you don’t think about using those short breaks, then you waste them. This idea is about finding activities that give you some joy and replenish your spirits—and making sure they can fit into your day.

HEATHER JOSE: TURNING SURVIVORS INTO THRIVERS

DAVID: You urge people to take a positive approach toward these challenges. In fact, you’re one of the key people trying to change our everyday language from “cancer survivor” to “cancer thriver.” Why are you campaigning for that change?

HEATHER: This is important because your mind can do amazing things. I’m not alone in saying this. Recently, Deepak Chopra was making this same point on one of the network talk shows. Simply changing the way we talk about things can make a big difference.

Here’s an example: I’ve heard people say, “Oh no! This new chemo drug is so painful and it makes me feel so horrible. I hate it.”

That’s a natural reaction, because some of those chemo treatments are horrible. But we could take a different approach and say: “OK, this new treatment may feel terrible, but this is a very powerful drug and it’s really going to kill some cancer cells! I’m ready!”

Those are two ways of responding to the situation. One drags you down; one keeps you in charge of your recovery. Becoming a cancer thriver depends on lots of those small choices we make everyday in our lives.

Another idea? Stop reading all of those labels that detail side effects. Sure, it’s good that we are informed about possible complications. You may want to have someone you trust read the side effects for you. But, here’s the problem: Just reading about them can manifest these problems. A label may say: Can cause cramps in hands. Then, one day, your hand aches and you start thinking: Oh no! I’ve got a side effect! I’m sure of it! Maybe you just strained your hand or you’ve got arthritis.

We become cancer thrivers through making a lot of small choices in our attitudes each day.

HEATHER JOSE: A COMPASSIONATE IDEA
(THAT CAN HELP CHURCHES GROW)

TRY ORGANIZING AN EVENT TO HELP CAREGIVERS: In this photo, sailors from the submarine USS Bremerton volunteered for a public-service day, performing maintenance on three dozen wheelchairs brought in for service by members of the community. Photo by US Navy Chief Electronics Technician John Westbay, released for public use.

DAVID: Faith played a big role in your recovery. You talk a lot about physical fitness, diet and medical options—but you also encourage people to explore spiritual resources, as well. I know that your own community church has been a big help in your recovery. What advice can you share for reaching out to congregations?

HEATHER: First, you need to share with people what’s going on so they can help you. If you want people to pray for you, share honestly and be specific. When I was in the midst of this, my husband and I would tell people about specific tests coming up or other steps in my treatment—so they could pray with us about these milestones.

From the moment I was first diagnosed, our Sunday School group became a core group in my recovery. Sometimes close friends would even come over to our home and pray with us before a particularly big test or treatment or procedure.

I talk a lot more about this in my book, in my columns and in talks I give to groups that are interested in hearing about the spiritual part of this.

DAVID: Unfortunately, studies show that most churches really aren’t well equipped to help people—even though congregational leaders may think they’re good at it.

HEATHER: There’s a lot to discuss about how congregations can respond. We can talk about programs. We can talk about how individuals respond to your condition.

For example, some church people respond by saying: “God’s will be done.” That’s something I come across a lot in Christian groups. And I understand the background of that kind of prayer, but it may not be helpful to people who have just received a diagnosis. That kind of response could signal to people: Just sit back and do nothing—and that’s not a helpful message. I’ve come to believe that we want to form a partnership with God: I’ll do my part as a cancer thriver; and God, I’m asking, will you do your part.

The Bible can help. I know that I loved hearing verses of the Bible that tell us things like: “Have the faith of a mustard seed …” or “Faith can move mountains.”

DAVID: This actually is a wonderful area for churches to explore, because it can lead to church growth—partly through the re-activation of members who have fallen away. We’ve seen this happen in congregations that take caregiving seriously. The problem is that most pastors and lay leaders have never stopped to think about how many caregivers are right there in the community—but have fallen away from active involvement.

HEATHER: You’re right. This is a really big issue that hasn’t been addressed in most churches. First, caregivers do tend to fall away on Sundays. They can’t find anyone to relieve them of their duties on Sundays, so they can’t come to church. Over time, we forget about them. We need to start honest conversations about how many people in our communities are caregivers. If you do that, you’ll be surprised! A simple idea like organizing some rotating respite care to help free caregivers on Sundays—that alone can grow your community. And, there’s so much more you can do. You need to start by asking the caregivers in your community what they actually need.

This is a big, untapped area for congregations. Sure, we all start by praying for people with illnesses or other problems in their lives—but too many people stop there. The result is that we’re abandoning a big portion of our community.

HEATHER JOSE: GET A FREE HEALING AGREEMENT

Click the image to visit the Healing Agreement page.

DAVID: In your book, you explain that you summarize your mindset in a one-page “Healing Agreement.” When you give talks and lead workshops, you give participants a copy of this agreement. And now, you’re giving it to people free online—to download and print out for themselves. Can you explain this idea?

HEATHER: Sure. The Healing Agreement came about because we realized that not everyone is an extrovert. Not everyone is ready to charge forward and clearly tell people what they intend to do. It’s tough talking with doctors and health-care providers for some of us.

The Healing Agreement opens up an ongoing conversation between health-care providers and patients—to communicate about what is helpful and what isn’t helpful. We want to empower patients to take a leading role in their own care. And, medical professionals also are better served if they know what’s going on with you as a patient. If you don’t make a commitment like this, there’s a temptation to become passive when you’re receiving treatments. Or you may just focus on the steps for the current medical procedure and never talk to your health-care providers about what you should be doing all the days you’re not in the health-care facility.

DAVID: Where do you see all of this going?

HEATHER: I’m not arguing that we need to spend a lot more money or suddenly find more time. I’m focused on using the tools we already have as individuals to make a better healing environment for everyone. Health care providers can work much more effectively if they train themselves in interacting better with patients. And, if you’re someone with an illness or disability, you need to realize that daily choices you make—often small choices—can have a big impact on the rest of your life.

LEARN MORE FROM HEATHER JOSE …

GET A COPY OF HER BOOK: Click on the book cover above to learn more about Every Day We Are Killing Cancer. The book page allows you to read the Preface by best-selling nutrition author David Grotto, you can see the book’s Table of Contents—and more. To help support Heather’s work, please consider buying a copy of the book.

ENJOY HER (FREE) WEEKLY COLUMNS FOR CAREGIVERS: Every week, Heather hosts the new www.WeAreCaregivers.com column—dedicated to freely sharing ideas to help caregivers improve their lives.

FOR CANCER THRIVERS: Heather also writes a quarterly column for Breast Cancer Wellness Magazine.

SCHEDULE A TALK OR WORKSHOP: Heather travels coast to coast, speaking to three kinds of groups: Medical professionals, people whose lives have been affected by cancer and caregivers. She has provided everything from keynote addresses at major conferences—to workshops and classes that count as continuing-education credits. (If you’re interested in scheduling an event, email us at ReadTheSpirit@gmail.com.)

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Categories: Author Interviews • Caregiving • Great With Groups

Tags: Church Growth • Families • Health • Science

The Rob Bell Interview: Sorting fact from fiction in the debut of ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About God’

Rob Bell by Daley Hake, courtesy HarperCollins.

ON THE DAY ‘TIME’ magazine named Rob Bell one of the 100 most influential people in the world—ranking him with Warren Buffett, President Obama and Duchess Kate Middleton—a big red target splashed across his forehead.

Journalists swarmed, rolling out the C-word (controversial). “Christian” writers had a field day, incensed that he was the only Protestant on the list (New York Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan also made the 100). However, the acid that furious “Christian” commentators tried to throw in Rob’s face never came within 100 miles of his new home. And, here is the first fact today: Rob does, indeed, turn the other cheek. He doesn’t even glance at online commentaries about him.

ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm has interviewed Rob many times—dating back to Rob’s first releases in the mega-popular Nooma movie series. Upon the release of Rob’s new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, Rob sat down for a lengthy telephone interview sorting fact from fiction.

INTERVIEW WITH ROB BELL

DAVID: People call you lots of things these days! I’m sure you’ve heard names used by fans and foes. Tell us how you describe yourself. A writer? An activist? A preacher? What?

ROB: I will always be writing. I finished this new book and there are three or four other books already in the works. Then, I do a lot of pastoring—specifically with friends and with people I have come to know who are in tight spots and need someone to talk with about things they can’t discuss with other people. So, I am a pastor in that way to a lot of people.

DAVID: OK, when you say pastor, are you on staff at a church now?

ROB: No. I do slip into a few places to hear good preaching. I don’t pastor a church—but we do have an extraordinary circle of friends who live in this area and we do have unique and special gatherings, sometimes over a meal.

DAVID: Let me push you further on this point, because it’s one of the most confusing questions for many journalists—and your critics have a field day with it. Let me cite probably the most prominent critic: the noted historian of American religion Martin Marty. I’ve known Marty professionally for many years and I know that he bats out his columns almost as stream of consciousness. In December, Marty fired off an infamous column, slamming you for going off on your own.

Here are Marty’s final lines, warning you about straying too far from the institutional church: “The inherited forms, though in need of revision, in any case often speak with an authenticity that demands some patience, while the quickly formulated and celebrity-endorsed versions may go as they came. One hopes Rob Bell sticks with some promising inventions long enough for him and us to see that while ‘Love wins’—‘new’ is less likely to.”

ROB: First, I don’t know Martin Marty. I haven’t read him. I’ve never met him. And, I doubt that he knows much about me. We each have our path and our calling. I certainly try to keep wise people around me—and to walk with them through what we’re sensing and feeling as we make decisions. Every day, I do my best to give my best to the world. So, for Martin Marty to make some random judgments about me and send them out into the world in a column like that—well, the main thing I need to explain is: It’s 100 percent irrelevant to me.

DAVID: I’ve known you and your family for years, Rob, and I know that’s not a pose. It’s a fact: You read widely in books by scholars and literary lights of your choosing—but you don’t read 99 percent of the stuff written about you online. Still, let me press you on this because what Marty is asking is a legitimate question. Are you a pastor? For a lot of Americans, a “pastor” looks like a man or woman heading a church.

ROB: OK, you are raising a great point. But why not ask that question of Billy Graham? We think of him as a pastor, don’t we?

DAVID: Sure, that’s a good model to raise. Plus, in his heyday Billy Graham, like you, was a very popular moviemaker. Now, people think of Graham as a friend to presidents and an evangelist in huge arenas. But, in his prime, Graham used every form of media available to him—including making lots of movies. I know, from past interviews, that you aren’t claiming to be the next Billy Graham, though. So, again, the question: Give us a title for your work now?

ROB: I’m a pastor. I describe myself as a pastor who makes things—whether it’s creating experiences or books or new things that will be available to people in the future. I’m a pastor and I create things and I will keep creating new things: the next thing and the next thing after that. If I am able to complete some of the things I’m working on now, these will be beautiful things that will help people.

I have learned the hard way that I simply cannot pay attention to people like Martin Marty writing some random column about me without knowing anything about my work or me. I can say this: I don’t know him; he doesn’t know me. I’m just a pastor who goes about my work creating things to help people.

ROB BELL FACT or FICTION:
KICKED OUT OF MARS HILL FOR DENYING HELL?

Rob Bell talks to an international gathering of thousands of pastors at Mars Hill church in Michigan. Photo by David Crumm.

DAVID: This line of questioning is relevant to your new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, because the central message of the book is: “We’re in the midst of a massive rethink, a movement is gaining momentum, a moment in history is in the making: there is a growing sense among a growing number of people that when it comes to God, we’re at the end of one era and the start of another, an entire mode of understanding and talking about God dying as something new is being birthed.”

Sorting fact from fiction in the popular conception of your work—that’s really a part of what this new book is all about. Shedding the old, confusing, unhelpful myths. This new book isn’t autobiographical about your journey to the West Coast, but it certainly is about how confusing the old language is in describing your new work.

This leads me to ask about the troubling legacy of that big New Yorker magazine profile by Kalefa Sanneh. If readers look for the profile online, they won’t find it—it’s only available to New Yorker subscribers—but the summary the New Yorker has posted says: “Bell’s life can look like a cautionary tale: his desire to question the doctrine of Hell led to his departure from the church he built.”

Fact or fiction?

ROB: First, I want to say that Kalefa is an amazing writer and I thoroughly enjoyed the time I got to spend with him. I’m a fan of his work. I think he wrote a great piece. But, there was a misquote of Kristen that caused distress.

DAVID: Right. And this actually took a lot of us who’ve known your work for years by surprise. Frankly, I would have guessed you’d have touched off the biggest firestorm by becoming inclusive of gay Christians, but the biggest controversy actually erupted over a different issue. It was touched off by a claim you made in your 2012 book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. You dared to write that non-Christians won’t burn in the fires of Hell. A lot of things hit all at once: TIME magazine appeared in April 2012 with the 100 list, seeming to snub all other Protestant leaders; Love Wins debuted a couple of months later. Your critics were out for blood.

You already had planned to move West. Then, in November, the New Yorker profile appeared with the quote that you say Kalefa presented in the wrong way to readers. In that quote, your wife Kristen said that after Love Wins debuted: “There was a cost. And part of the cost was, we couldn’t keep doing what we were doing at Mars Hill.” I’ve researched the flow of news stories after that and this got boiled down to: Rob Bell was kicked out of Mars Hill for denying Hell. That version now shows up a lot of places online. Martin Marty furthered that myth in his December column.

ROB: If people think that I had to leave Mars Hill because of the response to Love Wins—that is just categorically not true. I left Mars Hill because of a sense of calling to come to California to work on these new projects here.

In fact, Mars Hill could not have been more supportive! Mars Hill was amazing! They had multiple book-launch parties for that book. They were incredible. I assume that there were some people at Mars Hill who weren’t happy about that book, but there were always people leaving and coming—that’s what Mars Hill always has been. People come and people go. It’s that kind of ministry.

DAVID: Well, I checked further and I think the best evidence is that Mars Hill still credits as the “Founding Pastor and Pastor Emeritus.” They’re still proud of you. So, the story of you being forced out—which is the way the story is told in a lot of places online—is fiction.

ROB: Mars Hill was great. Mars Hill’s leadership was great. They couldn’t have been better. Why did I move to California? Because I had a chance to produce a new kind of television show that still is progressing along fabulously.

ROB BELL: WAS HIS TV SHOW CANCELLED?

Michael Emerson walks along the shore in the LOST series, co-created by writer and executive producer Carlton Cuse. Photo by ABC.

DAVID: Some online stories correctly explain your TV productions—and some have mixed up the details. It’s easy to get this incorrect version: Rob Bell moved to Hollywood to produce a TV show that flopped. So, let’s sort it out for readers?

ROB: I have been involved in two television projects. The first one is still progressing, as I said. But, since I was coming out here to work with Carlton Cuse from the TV series LOST on one production—we also produced scripts for a series based on a novel that I wrote but never published. The novel and the TV series have the title Stronger. It would be a dramatic series about a main character named Tom Stronger with some spiritual themes in it—but we wrote it as a regular TV series with plots and actors and so on. The ABC network bought it, like they buy all sorts of things, and we did some work on it last year—then it was not green lighted to air as a network pilot. Like all sorts of TV projects out here, it’s floating along over there on hold.

But I didn’t move to California to write and produce Stronger. I moved out here to work with Carlton on a different TV show—one we’re still working on.

DAVID: Lots of writers have tried to describe this main TV project as a kind of TV talk show about religion, spirituality and values. From what you’ve told me, I’m envisioning a next-generation Bill Moyers—like the landmark series he did with Joseph Campbell or that superb series Bill did on Genesis.

ROB: Well, I do see this project as winding up something like Bill Moyers. But, if we succeed, it will be a new kind of TV: Think of it as Bill Moyers meets Ellen meets Colbert meets a TED conference meets an AA meeting. Throw all those into a blender and push the button! (laughs) You’ve got to admit: That would be new—right?

DAVID: Yes. If you can pull it off.

ROB: That’s the point. It’s hard work. It would be a real game changer. That was worth the chance we took in moving to California. Think about this: In our culture right now, when people gather for Thanksgiving dinner two topics will get everybody talking: politics and religion. But, on television right now, you can only find one of those topics discussed all the time—politics. Religion is different. Sure, there’s a lot of religion on television, but there is virtually no intelligent discussion of religion on the major networks. Carlton and I still are working on that idea. That’s the idea—the real vision—that led me from Mars Hill to California.

We need television that explores questions about what really motivates people in our world today: Why do we get out of bed every day? What gives us hope? What motivates us? Where do we find our hopes? These are religious and spiritual questions. This is well worth the move West.

ROB BELL: HOW SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT GOD?

CLICK THE COVER to visit the book’s Amazon page.

DAVID: OK, now we’ve come full circle and it’s clear where your new book falls in the overall arc of your work. Those questions you just listed? Those are the questions that, as a journalist covering religion, I’ve always told readers are the really essential spiritual questions of our era. You can debate the fine points of theology all you want, but what truly matters? You just listed the questions.

ROB: When I think of people reading this kind of book—or looking for the kind of television I’m trying to produce—I see a huge variety of faces. So many snapshots flash through my brain of people I’ve met everywhere I’ve traveled. What they understand—and what we too easily can forget in churches—is that people are interested in spirituality and religion because they already have sensed the sacred around them. They feel something when a child is born, or they hear an amazing piece of music, or they volunteer to help others and experience a common source of love and community. They experience these things, then they go seeking more of it—and they may walk in the door of a church—but in too many cases, they don’t find what they already know is the sacred part of life within the church. So, they walk back out the door.

DAVID: I know from many years of religion reporting that rabbis often make this point. I’ve talked with a number of Jewish leaders about prayer and personal signs that God is with us—and they will talk about feeling God. Often, they will list the same kinds of examples you’ve just listed. Evangelical preachers tend to give the impression that God is much more tangible in a “close personal relationship.” Your book actually begins with Jacob thousands of years ago in the Bible waking up in the wilderness and reporting: “Surely God was in this place, and I—I wasn’t aware of it.”

ROB: That’s why I don’t start this new book with dogma and doctrine. I start with the experiences of real people. I’ve learned a lot from Richard Rohr. The great power I find in his writing is that he often puts into words things that I’ve already experienced but haven’t been able to describe. In this new book, like Rohr, I start with experiences. Have you ever had this feeling? This new book really is about the fragility of the human experience. We are soul and bone. We are capable of greatness and we have the capacity to be prophetic. We may have experiences in life that open our hearts as wide as the ocean. But—we also have the capacity to be very small, petty and negative.

DAVID: In a way, you’re trying to restart people’s hearts in this new book. You’re trying to expand our religious imagination. That’s why the whole first section of your book is about the head-scratching, eye-popping, gee-whiz wonders that science is revealing about God’s creation, the universe. Here’s a passage: “It’s all—let’s use a very specific word here—miraculous. You, me, love, quarks, sex, chocolate, the speed of light—it’s all miraculous, and it always has been. When people argue for the existence of a supernatural God who is somewhere else and reaches in on occasion to do a miracle or two, they’re skipping over the very world that surrounds us and courses through our veins and lights up the sky right here, right now. We live in a very, very weird universe.”

One could describe this book as: A Psalmist meets Douglas Adams.

ROB: I’m trying to alert people to the full range of human experiences in which we find God. We find God in the full spectrum of human emotion from joy to tragedy from triumph to heartache. God is found in all of this. As a pastor, I’ve found that many people have been taught to believe that God is only in good things. Then, this leaves people with lots of questions when bad things happen. But across the fullness of Jewish and Christian traditions, we learn that God is in both the valleys and the mountaintops. For a lot of folks, organized religion becomes this system that provides a weekly God hit. Like my friend Peter Rollins, I believe that God is much bigger than the weekly God hit most churches give people.

ROB BELL: ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?

DAVID: We just featured an interview with Peter Rollins. And I know that he describes himself as a Christian, but not like a lot of other people use the word “Christian.” So, let me ask that question of you. It’s obvious in reading your new book that you write as a Christian, but some of your evangelical foes want to question this point. Are you a Christian?

ROB: Yes. As a Christian I am part of an ancient tradition that overflows with wisdom and insight about what it means to be human—and to experience, to know and to live with God and each other. I’m trying to introduce people to this tradition because it’s beautiful and it brings all sorts of life to people who really need it. I’ve always believed that what I am doing is helping people today to tap into this ancient tradition.

DAVID: A lot of your critics get hung up on points that you’re now taking in stride in your writing and other forms of teaching. Your foes don’t like it that you welcome gay Christians. Popular culture seems to be swinging your way this year. I’ve lost track of how many executives in top American companies and how many Republicans have now gone on record as supporting civil rights for gay Americans. But your critics seem to be stuck on other points as well. We should point out that this new book is fully supportive of women’s leadership in the church, right?

ROB: The world is better when people are treated equally. A lot of women remain in religious traditions that won’t free them to serve in leadership. I say: We are standing in their way and we shouldn’t be. Women can lead us. They have led us. This has always been obvious to me. In the book, I tell the story of a woman with two master’s degrees who is sitting in her church when she hears the preacher tell the congregation that God doesn’t want women in leadership. Think about that! And it happens all the time. It’s so obvious to me that women should equally share in leadership.

DAVID: Same question on religion and science. You write that the two should go together hand in hand on our spiritual journey. A lot of your critics are still hung up on thinking that it’s got to be: Science vs. Religion.

ROB: Science can give us back our sense of wonder and awe. It was Annie Dillard who told us that a cathedral and a physics lab are both places where we hear God saying: Hello! When I hear scientists talk about their research today, I can’t help but feel awe. If we are people of faith who really believe in God as Creator, then this world ought to be a primary place of wonder.

DAVID: Well, last question: I didn’t forget your initial comment about other books in the works. Can you give us a preview?

ROB: My wife and I are writing a book about marriage and that’s been an incredible experience. I will say this: She has lots of wisdom! We’re both thrilled with the content we’re putting together for that book. So, you will see a book from us on marriage.

And, as you just pointed out, I’m fascinated with science and physical space. I’ve read a lot about architecture and the ways physical space affects our spirits. This is a discipline that’s been undervalued for far too long in the West. I want to help people keep finding new ways that our world can be a more life-giving place.

Originally published at www.ReadTheSpirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

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Categories: Author Interviews • Great With Groups • Movies and TV

Tags: Rob Bell • Television

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