Krista Tippett: Making Spiritual Conversations Relatable and Real

Jen: Everyone. Welcome to the show. Delighted you are here. You’re going to be too. By the way, this is a good day to have, like, decided. You’ve got some time for a podcast. We’ve got one of my favorite people on the show today. She’s so special. What’s your name? Do you know Krista? Have you listened to Krista?

Amy: Yeah. On being.

Jen: And like Krista Tippett, by the way. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bury the lead yet.

Amy: But, yes, she speaks about complicated things in a way I can understand them.

Jen: That’s a great summary. I think that’s why she’s so beloved. Why her? I find her the most elegant person she’s got. She’s elegant in thought. If that is an okay thing to say, like just she’s got this clarity in the way that she thinks and perceives and then communicates, which is not always the same thing. So that even though she’s better than we are, just categorically right. I mean, like in all this, I still feel like we can pull up a little chair to her table and feel invited there and safe there, and not like we are so far out of our depth that we don’t know how to keep up with the conversation. She’s a real special leader. Before we move into Krista. Let’s do a little blessing. Release. All right. Because it’s the season. This idea is to make Christmas perfect. Because there’s such a thing as a perfect Christmas tree. And I’ll tell you something right now, I have one in my house. You looked at it. You saw it. I didn’t even do it, I hired it.

Amy: I believe you, and you know what?

Jen: Fine, thanks. I know it.

Amy: I’ll get over it.

Jen: I know how that feels in your heart. And it feels a little bit like that. My heart. But, No, I only have one kid who lives here anymore. The whole thing that we did when we did, everybody who does a thing like Brad and the boys do. I can’t get everybody here. That’s an impossible thing. And so I’m like, maybe I’ll just have, like, a beautiful Christmas living room that looks like it belongs in Dillard’s. It does look like that. Thank you. What’s your feelings on tidy that polished Christmas? And I guess that could go any which way, but let’s just. Let’s keep it in the house. The house realm. Oh, how about that?

Amy: I mean, no one has ever accused the hardness of being tidy and polished in any facet of our lives.

Jen: Those aren’t the adjectives I know.

Amy: Okay. But I do have my house decor down to a science.

Jen: Let’s hear about it. Because I know this. But they don’t know this.

Amy: I don’t know how many years ago. I mean, 15 years ago, I decided I wanted red curtains at Christmas. That’s right. And then I saved my money for years. And then I bought six red panels from Ballards.

Jen: I don’t know what that means.

Amy: It’s like.

Jen: It’s fancy.

Amy: It’s a southern catalog.

Jen: Oh, my gosh, I’m excited for listeners who knew what that meant?

Amy: Yeah. Okay, so I have a catalog. There stuff is quality.

Jen: Okay. Right. So you weren’t messing around with the baby Jesus curtain? No, no, you’re getting.

Amy: Price lined, Pretty red curtain. Yeah, she did it for the living room. Two for the dining room. I already have curtains in my house. No one’s ever accused us of being, like, cutting edge and modern in our decor, either.

Jen: Okay, fine.

Amy: And so I put those up. Yeah. And then I got rid of most of my Christmas tchotchkes. But I have an assortment of nativity sets.

Jen: Yes.

Amy: I put those up. I get two wreaths at Costco. And the tree. Oh, and I do take all the frames I have in the house, like on bookcases and stuff. And I replace all the pictures from past Christmases.

Jen: That is a heavy lift.

Amy: But when Brad and I are working together, not counting the tree because it’s separate, but we can put everything up in an hour and a half. It’s impressive.

Jen: Like even including the curtains.

Amy: That’s nice. Yeah I have it down to a science.

Jen: You store the bins labeled in the garage for bins. You know exactly what to do where they go.

Amy: Yeah. I switch out all my throw pillows on my couch also.

Jen: Oh, same. I do that also. Also, I didn’t know you switch out all your pictures in your picture frames for Christmas pictures. It’s real.

Amy: Cute. Yeah.

Jen: Do you have them, like, in a little folder? Yeah. And they’re just ready to just slot in.

Amy: Yep. A folder with also any Christmas artwork that I really loved from the boys. And I put all of our old Christmas cards that I’ve mailed out. I do one every year.

Jen: Oh. My trees. To me, that feels thorough.

Amy: So that I manage everything else with the holidays in terms of it being perfect. Like, yes, I have those tendencies, but we have it dialed back so far. Like, every gathering is potluck, every gathering is paper plates. Like I do that for all holidays. I host Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve at my house. And it’s whoever comes.

Jen: Bring something in your hand.

Amy: Bring a dish. And, I used to, for our big Christmas Eve to Marley dinner. Like, have the sign up on Evite about telling people what category of thing they needed to bring. Whatever. Now, just bring whatever.

Jen: Okay. You’re just starting to micromanage it. Now, God, if we have six mashed potatoes, then we do.

Amy: Yeah. Delicious.

Jen: Where’s the downside? So I like that. I like that. I want us to take the whole idea of holiday food. And we’re going to talk about that in a different time, too, because that’s a deal that can either be really fun and connective or can be exhausting and infuriating. So, I like that. I also have pare down not that the inside looks like it, but that is actually pared down. I’ve gotten rid of probably four Christmas bands because they started to feel stressful to me. Yeah. I’m like, if the thing is feeling stressful and not joyful, it needs to be evaluated. So for me, it started to feel like work. I’m going to put all this up and then no one’s going to help me. I’m going to have to take it all down too, by myself. It’s everywhere. It’s. And so I’m like, oh, something about this isn’t it’s not sparking the joy that it used to. And so I’ve pared it way, way, way down. Okay. Now listen, let’s move on. 

Amy: We have someone who speaks about complicated, beautiful, mysterious things in an elegant way.

Jen: Let me tell you very briefly about Krista Tippett. If she is new to you. Because get excited if you are about to meet her for the first time. Krista is. She is the Peabody Award winning host and creator of On Being, which is a public radio show; it is the OG. It’s like the OG. It’s what so many podcasts were sort of based off of and tried to emulate, but there is no emulating On Being and Krista Tippett. So she has essentially, over the course of her very like, impressive career, at least for me, redefined what it is on how we talk about spirituality and faith and basically the human experience. And so she’s got a background in both journalism and theology, which is very evident in her work. And she launched On Being You Guys in 2003. So when I say OG, I mean it. We’ve had her in our ears, for some time, and so she just wanted to have a place to host these really honest conversations about what a lot of us consider life’s biggest questions. What does it mean to be human? How do we want to live? So she has interviewed everyone. I honestly think everyone thought leaders, theologians, scientists, artists, everyday people. And she’s really cultivated something special. Just, a space where your curiosity is welcomed and different viewpoints can be held gently and with respect and dignity. It’s like a bygone era of possibility. And I would even go so far as to say quite a bit of social healing and so she was recognized with the National Humanities Medal, and I think she is just one of the most brilliant people in this space that I know. And so I think you’re going to love this conversation. And, I aspire to be even five degrees more like Krista Tippett agreed. So with that, welcome her in.

Krista: Hi. I’m so happy to meet you.

Jen: So let’s say I’m so happy to meet you. Thank you for being on this show. Oh, my gosh.

Krista: I’m thrilled.

Jen: You’re the best. I have wanted to meet you for so long. 

Krista: Oh, that means so much to me. Thank you.

Jen: Come on, Jen, like, be cool. Thank you for your time today. Krista, I am delighted to talk to you. So looking forward to this conversation. So just proud of you. And I respect you so much. And I love your work so much. And you’re just such an incredible pioneer in this space. And so it’s, like, genuinely delightful for me to meet you today and to have you on the show. My people are going to love you so much. I mean, they know you. Of course you’re going to love having you.

Krista: Well I’m speechless. That means a lot.

Jen: Oh, okay. Okay. You know everything. There’s no. So I don’t need to tell you anything. So here we go. Just know that, like, in my show. Yeah, we can say anything. You can say anything. Everything goes. Everything’s on the table. I have a very, like, open and curious community, largely faith based, but not entirely. Most of my, most of my faith people are, just really open minded and interested in the world. And a lot of them have come from conservative spaces but aren’t there still. And so, they love you, and you’ve been a real important leader for all of us. And so off we go. Okay, good. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, gosh. Okay. Krista, Krista Tippett, welcome to the show. I’m so happy to meet you. And then how am I doing on being cool? Like, on a scale of 1 to 10. Like, please rate me.

Krista: I am happy to be here with you.

Jen: You’re just you have, really done groundbreaking and pioneering work in this space. And I’ve been paying attention to you for years and years and years and learning from you, and not just in this genre, but just in life. As a human person who prioritizes curiosity and connection and meaning and, you’re you have built a body of work that is so wildly, impressive and it’s meant so much to so many millions of people. And so it’s really an honor to have you here today genuinely.

Krista: Thank you.

Jen: So, okay, I’ve told my listeners a little bit about you that you, they don’t know you. So I definitely want to hear the story from you about how On Being began. But before we get to that, I would love to turn, what I hear is one of your favorite interview questions back on you, which is let’s start here. What is your religious and spiritual background going like back to your childhood? I would love to hear how faith was presented and modeled to you by your family or people of influence in your life back then, and then kind of rounding it out, what was your understanding of your own relationship with God?

Krista: That’s good. That adding to my understanding of my relationship with God is you know, I think especially because I started my show on public radio, I couldn’t use that language.

Jen: So.

Krista: One of the things that’s interesting about this question, and I think this is true for all of us, is that you would answer it differently in any given month, in any given year. I mean, the facts are that I grew up, Southern Baptist, you know, going to church three times a week. The church was immersive. Church was not just church.

Krista: Church with social life. It was. Yes, it was. It was Wednesday night supper. So, it was, you know, it was where I was constantly told not to have sex. And as a result, right, was talking about sex.

Jen: Always obsessed. Obsessed, yes.

Krista: But I think, you know, my grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher. He was an evangelist. He had a church at different times, but he was also somebody who kind of went around to small country churches and preached the gospel and mowed the lawn and. Right, and did it all. And he had a huge heart and he was in it. I mean, I knew that he was passionate, and yet his preaching was all about the dangers of passion. You know, that’s right. And in some ways, he was the most fun adult of all the adults in my life.

Jen: Interesting.

Krista: Yeah. But when he was in the pulpit, you know, he was so stern and he was incredibly loving. And when he talked about heaven, it was so small it was like oh my God.

Jen: So small.

Krista: And so but here’s the thing. I think my grandfather had incredible integrity. And, you know, he had a great education. And I, I feel and he had a great big mind like he was really, really intelligent. And I think I knew that. And but he’d never been invited to apply his mind or his questions to the Bible, which he loved. And I, I think even as a child, I was aware of all of these contradictions, but I think that I took all of the contradictions. I think all of those contradictions came into my sense of God. And I think, above all, I internalized how he lived rather than how he spoke. So I did have a sense of a lot of universe that’s come. I did have a sense, that of, like really enjoying my grandfather’s mind and I sometimes feel like, when I started the show, sometimes feel like I’m asking the questions he didn’t think he could ask. I feel like he’s kind of over my shoulder at times. Yeah. And I like to think about how he. It’s just, I know you know this because you’re part of this, too. We live in this time when faith is evolving and our traditions are evolving and our experience of this is evolving, we are evolving. And I do like to think about how my grandfather, you know, might have been in this.

Jen: Yeah, I love that. I love that posture toward what might have been possible for him, you know, if he was here now and can continue to evolve and change. And, I mean, I can even take that down one generation to look at my own parents. I also grew up Southern Baptist, exactly like you. My dad was on staff. He went to seminary when I was three. And so from that point on, we were staffers. And I mean, I knew that Wednesday night like the back of my hands. Yeah. And all these critiques, everything that you said is my same experience. But even when I look at my own parents, who are in their 70s, their evolution is. I mean, if you would have told 20 year old Jen, these are going to be some questions your parents ask in, you know, 30 years, I just would have been stunned. And it is. I love that generous posture toward, generation to generation. We kind of do the best we can with what we know. We ask as many questions as we feel like we’re allowed to, and who knows what’s going, what’s coming behind us, like what they’re going to be willing to press on and ask. I’ve got five kids, and they are. They’re 16 to 23, and they’re already asking things that never even occurred to me, like, right, they’re already there and they’re barely out of adolescence. And so I feel if once upon a time because, as you know, Krista, in our world, certainty was rewarded. You know, that was our currency, where curiosity was punished more or less.

Krista: It was scary, right?

Jen: It was scary. Yeah. Did you feel scared? I’m curious if you felt scared when you began to ask your own personal questions. Because I remember feeling like some sort of internal breach. Like, am I. Am I being unfaithful? Like, is it okay that I am asking hard questions of this faith that raised me right? Of the people that mentored me and their positions on the world and on the Bible and on theology. And I just remember having my at some points, I was my own worst enemy.

Krista: I think that I was really aware of how terrified the adults were.

Jen: Interesting. Right?

Krista: So I think I was tuned into that. But, you know, I grew up in a house without a lot of books, without a lot of money. The Bible was our book.

Jen: And, we.

Krista: I actually found in the Bible, reading it for myself directly that it completely honored the questions and honored the anguish. And it was full of things that didn’t make sense or were contradictory. And, and I think for me, that was an opening to not feel that, that I couldn’t hold, you know, that faith had to be an opposition to what didn’t make sense or was contradictory.

Jen: That is amazing that you were able to secure that generous reading of Scripture when you weren’t necessarily in a home that also honored the questions. That was a deep sense of spiritual maturity, like in your own heart and mind, which I can, of course, now see passed out in your life. That this was probably deeply seeded in you from the beginning to be who you are in the world. So I definitely want to get and we’re going to get to your own understanding of God and how that has evolved over the years. But if you would, I’d love to first start with how you began with on being, just arguably it’s it’s kind of it occupies its own set called genuinely Chris. So, like, you don’t really have a there’s not really an equal to it. There isn’t. It’s kind of in its own galaxy that you chart, you set out and charted a new path. And then a bunch of us came behind you in our own different ways. When our own voice in, in our own spaces. But kind of following in your footsteps. So, you know, like most shows that might be considered religious, you were relegated to the less than desirable Sunday morning hour at the beginning, which I’d love to hear you talk about. And I, from the beginning, you’re different than the classic Sunday morning like, churchy religious shows, for sure. Like you were never in lockstep with your sort of ancillary shows next to you. So, I’m curious, how did that differentiation start to get noticed by listeners, as you were you and you begin to open yourself up to conversations about faith and culture through this particular medium. And, and then I’d love to hear, like, when was the moment if there was when you noticed that others were listening, engaging and maybe saying, this is different. This is because she’s building a different space. A different set of listeners, perhaps, are welcomed here that may not be elsewhere. And that people seeking out a certain version of their faith were tuning in. I just love to hear the origins story and then how it sort of captured the imagination of your listening community.

Krista: Well, so I’m going to be really honest with you and say that I was such a guerrilla warrior, or I experienced myself to be such a fighter for so many years. And, now remember, this is pre podcasting, right? You had to have, there were gatekeepers to have right out there and but what I want to say to you is that, even at this stage where I’ve, you know, I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I kind of started, pitching it and piloting it with varying degrees of success. I mean, but not with success, like, really, you know, I was able to, like, turn up at the radio station late at night after I had put my kids to bed, but nobody’s.

Jen: Seeing.

Krista: Me. And, yes, to this day, you know, I don’t expect Jen Hatmaker to be listening to anything or to say those things you say. I still feel like this is an underdog enterprise which I need to get over.

Jen: It is not.

Krista: It’s just it’s true. And, and, you know. So, yes, there was no podcasting. It wasn’t, you know, I love I felt like public radio was a special space, and and public radio has changed also in these years. But it was so what felt important to me is that I, I wanted to, I was I had been a journalist, I had seminary injury. Yeah. I come out in the late 90s when and then was kind of, you know, like just, you know, walking around with this idea, trying to get people to take it seriously. It was a time of the Moral Majority of Christian Coalition. And and we kind of crossed, you know, we move into the 21st century. We have a president in the white House. It’s 911. So there’s all this. Yeah. In the news, often very politicized, often extreme, not actually representing the way most people are experiencing this part of their lives, even if they’re devout religious. And I, I wanted to, but I and so I was, I, I felt like we there has to be a way to represent the complexity of this and also the centrality of it and the fact that it’s as much about questions, maybe more about questions than it is about answers. And there’s so much I don’t even want to use the word diversity, which is too small a word. Right? Like the array of how human, how we walk around with this, what it means in our lives and the ways we practice and the vocabulary we have, and the different ways we pray. And I wanted to I wanted to open a space. I also found that whenever religion was discussed in public, certainly in the news, and, and on public radio. Yes, it was it, it it had the effect of shutting people’s imaginations down. And I wanted to show that you could talk about this, and we could speak about the part of ourselves that we mean when we when we use language of religious or spiritual and, and we could do that with all the complexity and intelligence and the different kinds of religious right that we are applying and delving into in this part of ourselves. And how it really works in lives and not in the news, and also not in really sectarian settings that tended to kind of set the public imagination about this. That was what I hoped to do. In the beginning when I was walking around and I thought, like, I thought the other thing about public radio is I knew that I could have, you know, I could I could do something in-depth and I could have an hour right now, you can just podcast and you can have three hours.

Jen: Yeah.

Krista: That’s not possible. Then. And so I yeah, I, I, I wanted to I, I understood when I started talking about this that people didn’t think it was possible because there weren’t I couldn’t point at other places and say, this is this is what it looks like. This is what it sounds like. So people said, this will be proselytized. This will be exclusionary. We’ll get offended, people, it will be inflammatory. It will make people angry. It will be moralizing. And I know and you know that how so many of us live this part of our lives is none of those things, but we kind of we had to demonstrate it. Right? So I would get around a couple of people, you know, who got it, who said, let’s let’s risk it. Yeah. And it went from there.

Jen: Like, I hear you talk about that now and that level of intelligent dialog kind of couched in human dignity, has found a much stronger foothold, kind of in the center of a lot of spaces. Certainly not all. Let’s be clear that, you know, we largely see a different version of this, in the public sphere. But at the time, like when you when this was your vision, this was different. It was like you had a vision for something that we just weren’t seeing that often. And I can only imagine that the reaction to your sort of dream for the space you were building was mixed. No. I’m projecting, I’m projecting.

Krista: It was mostly hostile.

Jen: It wasn’t nice. Yeah. Did you ever feel like throwing in the towel? Was there a moment at the beginning where it was hard? It was pushing uphill. So hard to create what you wanted that you thought this, this isn’t going to work, or I’m going to have to reverse, or I’m going to have to find another place or way to do this.

Krista: Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Very clearly, my 40th birthday, so I guess so. I was born in 1960 and I had started actually in like 1999, I started, so November 1960, so, so, so kind of through 99 and 2000, I was kind of carrying around this idea and begging and pleading and doing these little local pilots, and I kept being given producers who were nice people, but they really didn’t get it, and they were so worried about the effect that it would have that I work, to be really creative and, and, you know, expansive and bold and I do remember my 40th birthday, which is a little over a year, and I, I was just I knew that day. I knew that it was not going to work, that I wasn’t going to be able to carry it all the way through to what I had hoped it might be. The decision I made that day, I had some poetry with Elka, with me. And the decision I made that day was that even though it wasn’t going to work, it was worth it. And I was going to kind of, you know, walk as far as I could, with my integrity and kind of honoring the vision and the reasons that I’d hoped to do it. And, yeah, maybe you could say that was, that was a leap of faith. Yes. And so all it did was I just kept going. I just kept working. Yes. Yeah.

Jen: Yes. And you did that long enough. And within. In alignment. In integrity without compromise, using your posture, your capacity to peel back layers of really every sort of faith structure. So you didn’t, you didn’t hold back. You didn’t you didn’t prioritize some spaces that weren’t up for reexamination and, you know, protect others, or you kind of went all in, which was bold and, honestly courageous at the time, because any time you began to just gently press on forms and structures that a group of people hold dear, and not that not just that they hold dear, that they 100% considered to be right. Yeah. This is the right way. We have found it. Us, me and us. Me. And we have found the thing that that small bullseye, of rightness inside a faith structure. You’re just going. You’re just basically constantly inviting critique and criticism, and people’s own fears, you know, which were easily projected toward you. The question asker, the, the form pusher, when you would say, this is maybe what religious zealotry gone amok looks like, or this particular space or doctrine or idea, has harm baked into it. This is harmful for humanity or, this requires a second look. And so I’m curious, and you have so much to pull from. I mean, I can’t imagine assessing 20 years of leadership in this space, but if you had to just maybe pick 1 or 2, what were some of the areas, whatever that looks like, it could be an idea. It could be a subculture. Denomination. I’m not sure what you tell me, but what were a couple of the areas where you open them up for evaluation or examination that created the most giant blowback to you, where you just like, whoa. I mean, like, I have to be serious to pick this one up again. Like, this is a tough one. This is a tough crowd.

Krista: You know, the experience I had is that there were people who didn’t get it and weren’t curious.

Jen:

Krista: And weren’t going to listen.

Jen:

Krista: And so it really didn’t matter what we did.

Jen: That’s true.

Krista: Right.

Jen:

Krista: But I did also keep having the experience that, you know, people had certain ideas about how deeply religious people would sound and what they would say, or they had ideas about subjects that would never be part of a show about religion, like physics, you know, or just.

Jen: Sure.

Krista: And I, you know, what I actually found? I really do believe that, that the sensibility that the intentionality with which something is offered shapes, the reaction that comes at it. And what I think I found, like I was beleaguered in my institution. I was beleaguered by, as you say, people who thought they knew how this should be done and it was never going to look like me or sound like me or be about the subject.

Jen:

Krista: But I kept having the experience that people would say, you know, like when we started putting a lot of scientists on the show, and we weren’t talking, you know, some of these scientists were themselves religious people, and some of them weren’t sure. So fascinated by it that they were asking they, in their own way, were pursuing these questions of what it means to be human and how to live and who we are to each other. They are warming and enriching, the way those questions get answered, in theology and practice, they belong as a companion to them.

Jen: That’s right.

Krista: And so what I found more, it was either there were the people who just weren’t going to listen, and they there would be blowback for anything. But there were a lot of people who said, who if we just softened, right. Who would just it would be more, you know, I hadn’t realized you could do this.

Jen: Yes.

Krista: And, it would be a lovely kind of surprise, that that softened, into curiosity and into wanting to hear more.

Jen: Yes. So rewarding, you know, when, when you get to see that happen over and over inside your listening community, people softening to consider their faith in new ways, consider new perspectives, imagining the the level of input that feeds the conversation, and even if not from a traditionally a traditional faith source, is wonderful. This is so wonderful for a collective faith culture to have this posture toward life and one another and God and our sense of humanity on this earth. I, I love that and I love that you hang on to it. You could have shifted even in small degrees. You could have made it a little bit more palatable for a smaller community. And you know the rules. You grew up in them. You know, the language. This is probably your first. It’s your native tongue, like it is mine. You know, I know that I know how to do that, and I know how to speak that. Yeah. And you’re rewarded inside of those structures. And so the fact that you really, you hung on to that is so admirable, Krista, and has created so many powerful and fascinating conversations in your world. And I’m curious again, this is too big of a question. It feels unfair to ask you this, but after 20 years, right, sitting across from some of the smartest, most interesting people on earth, do you have a couple of highlights where you just thought, this is why I do what I do? This exceeded my expectations. Maybe the response to a certain guest was overwhelming or surprised you in some way. I’d love to hear. I mean, it’s a tall order because at this point you’ve spoken to everybody, but personal favorites?

Krista: Well, yeah. And it’s hard. I’m also just somebody who, if you ask me, what’s my favorite movie, I will not be able to think of a single movie I’ve ever seen.

Jen: I know, I know, I know, when people ask me, what’s your favorite book I like? I don’t think I’ve ever read a book. I can’t think of one I can’t think of ever. A single book I’ve ever read in my life. Yeah. And so.

Krista: I often have felt like my favorite interview is the last one I did.

Jen: This thing.

Krista: I love it. You know, I kind of do this Vulcan mind meld with.

Jen: Yes.

Krista: I’m going to interview and I’m, I’m just so steeped in who they are. And yes, me too. You live and I love them. And, but I, you know, recently. Yeah, there are a few that come to mind. I mean, I think it’s important for me to say that, before I give this answer. So it’s really important to me, not, to be interviewing famous people all the time, right? Not. Yes. Not to be interviewing the spiritual gurus. And I, you know, I have gone very light on spiritual authorities just as I’ve gone like on politicians, because usually authorities are a form of politician, and I’m not interested in people who have. I mean, I’m, you know, we need them, but I’m not from here. I don’t want to draw people out who have all the answers and want to address, who are just as at home in their questions.

Jen: That’s good.

Krista: And, so, so I’ve interviewed a lot of people across the years, and those are just, you know, who who are who are not like, you know, let’s say somebody like Walter Brooke and I’m the prophet of the, the theologian of the, of the Hebrew prophets, who is not a household name by any means. But anybody who’s ever gone to seminary has read him, of course. Right. Or interviewing people in other fields who are like, we all know that whatever our field is, whatever our community is, there are these giants who are shaping. Right.

Jen: That’s right.

Krista: And they’re not they they they you know, most of the wise people in the world are not famous. So having said that, I am thinking when you ask that question of people I sat with, you know, recently chicken on had died and Desmond Tutu died. Yes. You know, Desmond Tutu is somebody I wanted to interview for years and years. And, you know, we tried to get the interview and it never happened. And he was on retreat. He was on a spiritual retreat. And I sat with him at this virtual retreat. And, Yeah, I felt there were some people and he was just absolutely this who had all the qualities. I mean, that’s kind of bringing me back to my grandfather. Right? He was a huge personality. Yes. He knew how to be fierce. Right. This man had seen the darkest, you know, the darkest, most, hateful capacities of humanity. And he had, and he had faced that, and he admitted he was pragmatic and he was so loving. Right. And he was so joyful and part of how he lived through all of that and shifted the world was that he never stopped knowing how to laugh. Yeah. To stand before beauty and wonder. You know, he talked about the God he believed in as a god of surprises.

Jen: And yes.

Krista: To me that God has a sense of humor. And the thing about if you hear something from Desmond Tutu about God, you know, you just believe him.

Jen: I believe it right now. You just said, and I’m like, well, that’s true.

Krista: That’s it.

Jen: So now we know that that’s true.

Krista: Yes. You know.

Jen: Yes.

Krista: I think another person, and this is why I said the thing about everybody not being famous because I.

Jen: Miss sure.

Krista: That big name is. But these are also people I sat with. Mary the poet.

Jen: Oh of course. Oh, gosh.

Krista: What I want to say about Mary, all of our math is not, you know, she’s not religious. She was not a religious or spiritual figure. But she was right.

Jen: Yes, I know exactly what you mean.

Krista: The world experiencing the sacred right and turning that into poetry and giving other people an experience of it. But I want to tell you what I loved about being with her as much as I was that she changed folks through the entire I.

Jen: Okay, yes.

Krista: One just, you know, one gift of beauty and wisdom, after the other. Yeah. He took another.

Jen: It’s the best. Just the best.

Krista: And she was wearing her New England Patriots sweatshirt, of course.

Jen: Yes.

Krista: And because, you know, Mary Oliver is somebody who one always imagined her, which was also true of her. Like, you know, she went walking every day in the woods and her notebook and she carried her notebook in front of. Yes. Imagined her being this, kind of a saintly figure. And I, it gets broken open and so good, fully human. You know, I do love the incarnational emphasis of Christianity and, yes, fully incarnate with all the mess that that, that hills, and all the beauty and all the prosperity. So those are, those are some that come to mind right away.

Jen: To amaze, seeing examples of precious human people. You’re so lucky to have sat across from and get to bear witness to the way that they lived in the world and, perceived. Yeah, I mean, just incredible. Absolutely incredible. Because we started kind of the show, I was asking you about your formative faith, kind of your origin story of faith. I’d love to know because, my gosh, the change that you have seen in the zeitgeist in 20 years is profound. In, in every sector really, but certainly around faith, organized religion. What does it look like in culture, how this next generation is coming up very different from the one before them. You’ve just seen it, you’ve watched it in real time and hosted probably a lot of really formative questions around those changes. And so, I have two questions about that. I love to just hear your take on what, the, the and there’s a, there’s a million ways to answer this, but some of the primary things that you have seen shift and change inside safe spaces in general, maybe what it looks like, particularly in sort of Western, the Western version iteration of faith. And then secondly, I’d love to hear you talk about your personal faith and how that has also evolved right alongside, probably parallel to many conversations that you’ve had over the same amount of time and where you kind of find yourself today.

Krista: Yeah. Well that’s big.

Jen: Yes. No, just the two small things. Just just those. Yes.

Krista: It’s been a fascinating, span of decades too. Yes, to be asking these questions, to be following this part of the human enterprise. You know what I’ve seen all this time, and it’s just fully on display now. It’s so many of the forms of all of our disciplines that came out of the 20th century. Like, you know, we can talk about anything, how we do school, how we do it, how we do law, how we do politics and how we do church, right? How we’ve done things. They don’t make sense for who we’re becoming and what we’re learning and how we live and the way our technologies have upended things. So, you know, you may know this about my history. I spent time in divided Berlin when I was in my 20s, which was really formative for me. And, the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died in a Nazi prison. He had this phrase. So in his lifetime, in his context, he saw Christianity be completely co-opted and distorted by, by a terrible ideology, by a government. And he talked about what he called religion. This Christianity that was rising up. And for him, that meant the question of if the institution is ruined by the culture, which again, was a really different, a different kind of ruining than we have. But it feels very resonant to me if the institution is ruined by the culture. What is it that remains like? What is true? And that will absolutely transcend even the complete death of which for him was true of the institution. Then, what will still be alive in the world? And I feel like that’s a way to describe what I’ve seen. Because the institution, for different reasons, sometimes because the institutions have really failed, have failed to be what they what they arose to. Yes. There’s been, you know, we know that there’s people who have been devastated. But a lot of it also is just the forms that don’t make any sense. It’s not in the Bible. The church is at 10:00 on Sunday morning.

Jen: Right. That’s right. That’s right. And I think that’s a pandemic. You know, it was already going to have to be remade. And I think that’s just been accelerated. But what I have seen, you know, I think in the 80s and 90s, it was the beginning of the kind of new age of, this kind of smorgasbord.

Krista: A theologian I really love talked about, spiritual promiscuity. I just.

Jen: Like it.

Krista: I’ll tell you a little bit of that, you know, in my lifetime, I see spiritual searching. A lot of the spiritual searching now and the way young generations are coming about this, that’s having an incredible amount of depth to it.

Jen: Yes.

Krista: Real substance. Real integrity.

Jen: That’s right.

Krista: And to the extent that they are criticizing the institutions, they’re saying, you know, I remember a young man saying to me, like, we’re saying church acts like a church, right?

Jen: That’s good.

Krista: And they, I’m. And so I feel like they really are saying like, what is the heart of this? What is the purpose? They are they are rediscovering is one thing that’s interesting is I think people my age, often, you know, had a lot of baggage and a lot of young people now have been raised by parents who had a lot of baggage, and they didn’t want to pass that baggage on. So they have given them no formation at all. What’s interesting about new generations arising, who’ve had no formation at all is that, they also have no baggage. They’re not rejecting anything they have questioned. Yeah, sure. And Syrian curiosity, they have spiritual lives and they want to give form to that. They are, you know, I want I want to rediscovering isn’t the right word, but they’re like, you know, they want to be of service. They want their lives to be a service. They want to be in community. They understand we need a jewel. And in that they are kind of re-creating, building out. I think those core elements that survive, As for me, you know, the question of my, I don’t know, I just. Well, you know, I, I’ve had so many chapters of my life at this show, I think about my kids are my kids are all grown now. Both of them, But I think, you know, there’s active parenting years. So much of spiritual practice is in that day, right? And collection. And you never know what you’re doing, right?

Jen: Like you do. That’s the jig is up. Like we didn’t understand that. I thought my parents knew everything because they were parents. And then you get there and go, is this the deal? Is this how everybody is like, we’re all just playing at it, you know.

Krista: Pretending? Yeah. I can do one long experiment in humility.

Jen: Yes.

Krista: And, you know, my personal disciplines have, have changed a lot, and I don’t really think of that as finding the right one. I feel like I kind of, you know, there was a time to Compline every night from the from the Anglican prayer book and thought I would always do that. And and there’s been, you know, I’ve gone I do a lot of what I call it contemplative reading and Mary Oliver’s poetry, or when it’s when things Fall Apart, or John O’Donohue books. I have been in and out of having a religious community.

Jen:

Krista: I think that right now I, you know, I don’t have that. I think the biggest, I think the biggest way I would talk about the evolution of mind, I think as I get older this is interesting. You know, you talked a minute ago about the language we speak. I think it will become clearer again that I do have a spiritual homeland. I do have a spiritual mother tongue, and that matters. And, I think they want it growing up with my grandfather and as you said, growing up in that world of where we were always needing looking, hoping for certainty, I actually think, there was not much space for mystery. And that’s right for sure, certain kinds of mystery. But they were contained and they were held within the community. Yes. And I have developed this absolute delight in mystery. And I also believe that mystery is orthodoxy. Right. Like Orthodox, of Christianity, or Judaism. Even with these big monotheistic traditions, we are told that there are things we will not understand in this lifetime. And standing before that with reverence and with humility is part of being devout. And so for me, all of this works together. Now. It all holds together. And it feels like an adventure. And I just get more and more comfortable. With that adventure, not having a lot of,

Jen: Fear finds edges. Yes. Yeah. The edges are soft, and it’s a lovely faith. I find myself in the same place. I have said, basically one way or another, that the older I get, the less I know genuinely, I am less certain of things year by year. If something falls away, there will be something next year that I thought I kind of had the lead on this, that I am going to go, oh no, you know what? I’m not sure. I, I, I put them in a different category now and, and so what remains is so lovely and pure and true and for the rest of it to be mysterious, to be holy in its own way that I can’t necessarily define or quantify is so beautiful. It’s a beautiful faith, and I find comfort in it. Once upon a time. I don’t know if you felt this way, but when I was younger, in the structures that I was raised in, certainty was a comfort that made me feel safe. It was a safety net. Like, at least I’m getting this right. And if I can just hold to the tenets and do the things and do the steps and not have sex, of course,

Krista: Just all came back somehow.

Jen: Yeah. I mean, somehow it all points to sex. I will be secure. I will be secure but you know, that safety began to unravel with maturity and even just exposure, as you were just exposed to the rest of the world and new perspectives and different ideas and different kinds of thinkers and the vast array of ideas in the world. And so now I’m the opposite. I cherish mystery and prioritize it. And I actually, anytime I have an idea that I’m workshops and I feel super, super sure about it, I suspect I’m like Jen, let’s make sure you’re seeing this from every angle. And so I appreciate so much that that’s your posture in the world and that you’ve held room for that all this time. And what you’ve created, liberation for so many people, you’ve given them a sort of permission to ask, to push, to pull, to surrender, to stay open and interested. And that matters. That is a big deal. And that is good work in the world. I want to wrap this up with you, Krista. This whole series on my show is about faith shakers. And so we were really curious to talk to leaders who were hosting spiritual conversations in nontraditional spaces. So kind of like you mentioned earlier, we don’t have any pastors in this series. We don’t have sort of the the traditional spiritual authorities in this series, the ministry leaders, we were looking for people in different places on the margins in some cases, just elsewhere. And so obviously for a million reasons, sorry, that’s a child. That’s a child. I work at home. We want to talk to you. So for you knowing that we consider you a very profound faith shaker, what would you say just off the top of your head, maybe is the biggest shake up that you have had in your own personal faith journey. If you could. Of course, at this stage, there’s a million. There’s a million things that kind of rock you off your perch. But if you pointed to one to say this was a kind of a before and after a moment for me, faith wise.

Krista: So it’s really hard for me to. And I, I know this makes sense to you to separate my faith life from my life. Life.

Jen: Right. I like this, yes.

Krista: So I think it would be a really serious depression I had in my mid to late 30s. Yes. I had gone to seminary. If it started having, I had my, my, I’d become a mother. All of that was good.

Jen: And.

Krista: You know, and depression and so it’s so hard to describe. Well, there’s so many people who’ve been through it now. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s not just not. It’s not just not. No, you know, not having a sense of hope or joy or what those might look like in the future. It’s like not being able to imagine how that ever felt or what that could, that, that could possibly ever happen again. Every you know, the bottom fell out of my understanding. All these things I had told myself about my family and those that I knew growing up. I had to get honest, about who I was and how, how I’d survived and how hard my survival techniques had been on me. And I still, I still, you know, I’m going to work with that all my days.

Jen: Yeah.

Krista: But I so it’s like you know, faith in everything disappears. And I was really actually in the middle of that. I was, I wrote, I read things or, and after I read, you know, it’s like, it’s not that you don’t believe in God anymore. It’s that you just can’t imagine that experience. You can’t imagine believing in anything. I think talking about depression in this way is dangerous because I don’t mean it is a profoundly spiritual experience, but only after the fact. Right. That’s right. You can only mean, I would say I don’t think I would have started this show if I hadn’t gone through my depression. Now, I think the truth that I started telling about my life, I think the way that opened me to ask questions I hadn’t asked before, to open myself to experience in a way I hadn’t before. This is so complicated to talk about, but I. I don’t think I would have done anything. I’ve done so and so. It and so. Yeah. And it’s shattered. Right. I was always about wanting to bring all of this down to earth and needing it to be real and embodied.

Jen: And.

Krista: As messy as life actually is, and that’s how it is. Life actually is. But it really took me to another level with that. And that absolutely forms those questions I ask in the way I ask and what I look for in myself and what I look for in others.

Jen: What a good answer. Thank you for sharing that. I have one last question for you, and I ask all my guests this at the end of every show. This is a question I borrowed from Barbara Brown Taylor, who was one of my favorite people, favorite leaders and thinkers. And you please, by all means, answer this however you want. And sometimes this can be an earnest answer, and sometimes it can be absurd. And we get it all and we love it all. So I know. Yes, yes. Okay, so her question is what’s saving your life right now?

Krista: Yeah. And I knew you were going to ask me to start a charity. You know what’s saving my life right now? Here we are like right now is pretty intense now, right? Yes, it is a lifetime.

Jen: It’s intense.

Krista: My daughter, who’s 28, has moved home with me for a little while. Yes. And at another stage in her development.

Jen: Yes.

Krista: Ma’am. This would have been quite stressful.

Jen: Yes.

Krista: But here we are. After two years in which I was, I led a pretty monastic, solitary existence in my little house in Minnesota through lockdown. And it is an incredible joy to have this my and my daughter home and to be kind of, you know how it is. You know, this parenting adventure is that you just get to know them over and over, right? You totally know them 2 or 4 at six. Not. And it’s the same thing at 28. And so and I’m finding that it’s having her here is, really helping me heal from,

Jen: That’s, that’s this.

Krista: Is some of what I need to heal from, from the last couple of years. I’m having my life right now.

Jen: I love this so much. My oldest, I think I mentioned he’s almost 24. Yeah. And it’s like a new human that I’m learning about the grown up version of him. And it’s so delightful. It’s just so wonderful. I highly recommend Big Kids. I highly recommend it. I wish somebody would have told me when they were to like, just hang on, they’ve turned 24. They have. They pay for their own cell phone. You know, they do.

Krista: I have it, you know, people say to, I always say this to parents of young children. I mean, of course young children are miraculous, right? They are. But people will say to you, go enjoy it while it lasts.

Jen: Oh, gosh.

Krista: I’m like, okay, fine, but something else comes after that.

Jen: Oh, oh, I’m here for the teens I have. I always knew I was going to be a teen mom. That was going to be my zone where I finally started flourishing. And it is true, I love them, I love their curiosity. I think they’re so interesting. You kind of alluded to the next generation earlier. Just saying their approach to faith is just wildly wonderful, and they’re smart and they’re thoughtful and they’re so highly engaged in the world and.

Krista: Ages right now are practically a new species.

Jen: Telling you, I mean, who are these kids?

Krista: Right?

Jen: I mean, I was reading ten Beat, and these kids are like thinking existential thoughts about the world. It is just a new day with this generation, and they’re so impressive to me. And, you know, there’s a lot of ink spilled over. We’re going to wring our hands over these kids. What are we gonna do with these kids? I’m like, we’re going to let him run the world. How? Like, let’s pass the baton. They’re going to take it and they’re going to run. I love that answer. And I’m tickled to know that you are delighting in your daughter, who’s now like a friend at 28. That’s a new dynamic, in your own home in this lonely time of isolation. And, I think that’s wonderful, and I love that so much. I want to thank you times 1 million for coming on the show today, and for sharing just your very elegant way of thinking and believing and existing with me and with my community. And I consider you a mentor, and I have followed your example, and you’ve given me a lot of courage, and you have instructed me just by way of modeling, what it looks like to live as a beautiful faith that is good for all. And loves the world and loves one another. And it doesn’t take itself too seriously. And it holds its hands open and you’ve just been one of the key leaders for me in my own personal evolution of faith. And so I want to thank you personally. And then I just want to thank you collectively for my community, for serving us today. So, keep going. Please say that you’re not quitting or you have more gas in the tank, right. Like, okay. Yeah. Okay. Good. Oh, God. Please stop. Please never stop.

Krista: And I’m glad you are in the world. And I’m so thrilled to be walking alongside you. And I’m glad we’ve actually connected, even though we are two souls.

Jen: Me too. I always am. And 100% forever in your corner. And so any way I can ever, like, serve you or support you or your work, please. I want to be your first phone call. And I mean that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Krista.

Jen: All right, you guys, that’s the inimitable Krista Tippett. There is none like her. And I appreciate her. I appreciate the measured way that she exercises her own leadership and that she stewards her space and the way that she holds conversations and it’s as nurturing and impressive to me as it is, like a standard bearer. And so I hope you enjoyed that since you’re the best, I love it. I know she’s the best and so thanks for being here. Hope this was like one of those little Oasis spots in a busy, crowded, crazy month that just felt like, take a breath. Okay? All right. And more to come between now and the end of the year. You guys, thanks for being here and we’ll see you next week.

 

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Walter Brueggeman

The Prophetic Imagination

Thích Nhât Hanh 

Desmond Tutu

Mary Oliver

I Got Saved By the Beauty of the World