The Nuanced Life: When Faith Meets Family

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Faith and Dating

  • Faith and Parenting

  • Our Relationships with Church

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EPISODE RESOURCES

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth Silvers [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:00:09] You're listening to The Nuanced Life, a Pantsuit Politics production.  

[00:00:13] Music Interlude.  

Beth Silvers [00:00:29] Hello, we're so glad that you're joining us today. We always like here at Pantsuit Politics to mix things up in the summer, and we know that almost every dynamic in life is important when we think about politics. So, this summer, on Fridays, we are bringing back a short run of The Nuanced Life, a podcast about our listeners' lives, what you're celebrating, what you're working through and what you're commemorating. And today, we're going to focus on faith and questions about how faith shows up in our partnerships, parenting and habits. And if you would like to go back and hear previous episodes, we will link for you in the show notes, the podcast that we used to make regularly up until 2020. Next up, we are going to talk about faith and dating.  

[00:01:10] Music Interlude.  

[00:01:20] So a real impetus for us to bring back a limited series of The Nuanced Life is how often, especially when we are out with listeners in the world, we hear follow-ups to questions that people ask us or commemorations that they send in. And that happened with Emily. Emily was listening to an episode of The Nuanced Life from years ago, and she heard us answering a question from a listener who was looking to date and wondering how important it should be that people she date share her specific faith. And Emily heard from us that we were both pretty open minded about that. And Sarah, you specifically said in that episode thinking about your husband, if he were on a dating app, he would not have listed his faith affiliation as part of his dating app profile. And that got Emily thinking that perhaps what she now calls her rigid Christian boy checklist was a little confining, a little limiting in who she was meeting.  

[00:02:21] And so, she loosened up on her requirements. And after some interesting Hinge and Bumble dates, she met Kyle, and they realized as they got to know each other, that they did actually have similar backgrounds and approaches to faith, even though Kyle had not advertised it as part of putting himself out into the dating pool. They got married in August 2022. They have found an approach to faith that they are really both very happy with. It is in the Episcopal Church, which I know makes you happy as well, Sarah. And they're just so happy and we're so happy for them. And it is so wonderful to hear that something we said years ago had this kind of tangible impact on how someone approached dating. Because if you would ask me, do you two, Sarah and Beth, have anything valuable to say to people about dating in the modern era? I would have said, no, in fact, we do not.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:03:17] Yeah. That was always so fascinating to me, is that people would ask us on The Nuanced Life about dating. I'm like, guys, I have been with the same man since I was 19 years old. I will I will offer up what I can, but I can't imagine it's much. But I think sometimes the best, ideas and perspectives around dating come from married people that just see it differently, that are on the different side of a relationship. You can get a lot of relationship insight from people who are in a completely different phase of that relationship, and I think that that's a big part of that.  

Beth Silvers [00:03:49] So we thought we would take a second to talk a little bit more about how we approach faith as between us and our partners. Sarah, I did not meet Chad in college, but I did meet him near the end of law school, and I did not ask me any questions about him, period. I met him, I felt instantly like this is my person. I felt really dumb about that, but it was clear to me just something about his energy and his presence made me know that this was going to be my guy, so I just didn't ask him a lot of questions. We got to know each other and we came to understand each other better. He has always been pretty private about his perspective on faith. He does not enjoy going to church.  

[00:04:38] He goes with me occasionally, especially if one of our daughters is doing something special, or if it's a holiday or whatever. But Sunday to Sunday he goes to the grocery store, I take the kids to church. We all come back home and talk about our experiences and it works great for us. So, I was never in that sort of Christian boy checklist mindset as Emily discusses it. My faith traditions have always been expansive enough to make room for that, which I think is probably an unusual experience for people who grew up in Baptist churches like I did. But it's worked out for me to not have that be part of any set of criteria and to honestly not really have a set of criteria to just be around a person and think like, oh, we somehow match.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:05:24] Well, it's really funny. Faith, I guess, played kind of a big role. And Nicholas and I getting together one because we're college students. And what do college students love to talk about? Religion, politics, the big stuff. That was my favorite part about college. This is a great story. The very first thing that Nicholas ever said to me was in the Transylvania cafeteria. I was having a conversation deep, very, I'm sure, over the top conversation about religion with a fraternity brother of his who was Catholic. And I was still very devout evangelical at the time, and we were debating God knows what. Pun intended. And Nicola said, I really hate people who have pseudo intellectual conversations. What a jerk.  

[00:06:15] And he just kind of rolled her eyes at our conversation. But I think there is something about the fact that that's kind of how we started talking to each other. Or maybe that was like the formulation around which our beginning communications started, because I vividly remember a conversation with Nicholas about his growing up in church, and him realizing he has no memory of this conversation-- important side note. Him realizing that these people that he went to church with, it didn't really matter if he agreed with them or not, but that they were invested in him and that they loved him and they supported him. It makes me tear up. Because I think I came to that realization about church, too, that the theology and my agreement or disagreement on the theology with everyone around me was way less important than just being around those people. And so, I look back at that. We had that conversation, and that's where I really started to see him differently.  

[00:07:10] Because at the time I was super religious. And he went to an evangelical church with me, which I look back now and think, man, you really had it hard for me because I can't believe that you stepped into this big megachurch with me and went and did the praise music, which is so not his style as a [inaudible] Episcopal. And then I think we didn't go to church for a long, long time in our 20s. I kind of deconstructed before that's what we called it. And then when we had kids and moved back to Paducah, I said, "Hey, I think we should go to church again." He was like, "Well, that's fine with me. I like to be an Episcopal. I liked going to an Episcopal church every Sunday. Let's go back." And so, we did. And even though you can take the girl out of the Baptist church, but you can't really take the Baptist church on the girl. I'm like, the most Evangelical Episcopal you've ever met.  

[00:07:58] And I'm still sort of wrapped up in the theology more than he is. And I don't think we have big, deep conversations about faith all the time, but we do go to church every Sunday. And I look back and I can see sort of the threads that we were having the same conversation over the past two decades that we've been together, even when we've been at really, really different places and thought about things very, very differently-- which we still do. And that's just so valuable to me and important. And that's what I always wanted particularly for my kids to see, is just that it was an ongoing conversation. That it wasn't this thing that was set in stone that we'd all decided on. That there were places and entry points and exit points all along this journey that we could take together.  

Beth Silvers [00:08:49] Something I admired about Chad from the beginning as I was getting to know him, is that he had more clarity about what he wanted in life than anyone I had ever met. He knew it was important to him. He knew what was not important to him, and he did not use the language of church or religion to express it. But he has always been really clear about the importance of helping people who are in need. The importance of taking care of what you have. Loyalty and honesty. And there are just so many ways in which, especially now I hear him as a dad explaining things to our kids, I think this is a very values-based message that is totally consistent with what we say at church. He's just using different words to say it, and I think that's a real gift to our kids. I think that that will make their sense of faith and values more expansive than anything I could have taught in another way. And so, I've never had a second of concern about us having different expressions of the values that we share, because I think we both are clear on what those values are and how we want them to show up in the way that we live our lives.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:10:09] Do you think there's like a gendered component about the fact that you're taking your girls to church and he's staying home? Because I can tell you right now, my dad lived with us and he didn't go to church and it set off a whole line of, why do we go to church? Why do I have to go to church? So, I think if Nicholas was staying home every Sunday, I would be having that battle every Sunday.  

Beth Silvers [00:10:28] I think it would be different if we had sons. No question. And I'm pretty flexible with my girls about whether they go. They mostly want to go. And if there is a Sunday when Ellen especially says, "I really don't want to today," then my response is always, "Okay, well then how are you going to take care of your heart today?" Because we go to church to sharpen the saw. They go to a seven habits school and sharpen the saws. One of the seven habits, so that's a nice shorthand. But I'll say, "It's not going to be sitting on an iPad." And so, some Sundays she will say, like, "I think I want to go to the grocery store with dad." Or "We'll go outside and play." Or "I'll go to golf with him or something." And she has done something that is spiritual in its way for her, that gives her connected time with him, and that's fine with me. So, I am not rigid about it at all.  

[00:11:16] Now, I do observe and have talked to some of my friends about this, that I'm one of a number of moms who comes to church with the kids and the dad is either coming, but not into it or not coming with them. And all of us have sort of the same vibe about that, which is a lot about church has changed since we were kids. We knew when we were getting married that this was going to be a dynamic in the relationship. We respect where our partners come out on it. They respect us for coming. It's not like we're having a fight all the time.  

[00:11:53] Why are you taking the kids to church? Church is dumb. I'm not coming home and having Chad undermine what we've done. He's very supportive, and he happily goes to church events with us and mingles with church friends. So, it's not like this entirely separate sphere. It just feels like a choice about how to spend that block of Sunday morning time. And I think that's different than if there was like an animosity about it or some simmering tension at work. And that probably transitions well to the message that we received from Ann.  

[00:12:27] Music Interlude.  

[00:12:38] We have such a fine question from Ann, who describes herself as a grandma, who's just interested in what parents in our age group are doing in terms of religious practices with our kids, and how what we do in our homes is the same or different from how we grew up.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:12:52] Yeah. I didn't expect for there to be so much overlap between how we think about this with our partners and how we think about it with our kids, but there's a lot of overlap for us because I articulate something similar. Like, I tell our boys, we go to church because it's important to take time to say what does it mean to be a good person? What do I want my life to be? What is important to me? What are my priorities? And church is a good, ritualistic way to do that. Like, it's just built into our routine. And we don't just go to church on Sundays. We go to church on Wednesday nights. We have youth group on Sunday afternoons. Like, my kids go to our church for Boy Scouts on Monday. They're at the church building a lot. And I think probably what I haven't clearly articulated to them enough is we go together because there is something in the gathering as a family and a congregation that is important to us as well. And I really want you to feel and see that.  

[00:13:57] I mean, my parents left their church and came to our church so that they now go to church with us as well. And they see their grandparents participate in the congregation, and their dad cooks breakfasts for vergers. And we see all those different intertwining aspects of the congregational life. I think that's what's shifted for me. I wrote about this when we started taking our kids to church, that I wanted them to just learn the language of church, just to have that comfort. To not feel intimidated by the building and the people within it, which that's a church problem. People shouldn't feel intimidated to come to church. But here we are, and we've built some processes and some buildings and lots of things that make it intimidating. And I never wanted them to be intimidated by the Bible or any conversations about religion and faith. I just wanted them to have comfort. If they choose not to do it, fine, but I wanted them to have the option. And it felt easier to me for my perspective to opt out than to opt in as an adult. And so, I thought, I'll take them to church- my kids.  

[00:15:02] I had this idea of, like, I was just going to take my kids to church on Sunday and we would leave and not really get to know anybody. I wasn't going to volunteer for a bunch of stuff. We were just going to show up. We were going to listen to the sermon. We were going to go to children's church or whatever the case it is. And we were going to peace out. Well, it did not end up like that. All our friends go to church. We're at church all the time. We're doing things outside of the service. It really found its way into our lives. And I'm happy about that. I love our faith family. I love our congregation. And it's not always easy. It's hard. There are struggles. There are stresses. It's not all rainbows and butterflies being in a church congregation, but I'm really glad that my kids have that experience. And I don't really have one answer to Ann's question because it's changed over time. It's shifted when they were younger. It's different based on the youth ministers we've had over time. It's sort of an ever-evolving thing.  

Beth Silvers [00:16:02] Do you do faith practices at home regularly? Like, do you all pray before meals or at bedtime or things like that?  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:16:09] Yes, we do pray before meals. And we've recently adopted the Catholic prayer before meals because Nicholas was like, hey, I think that this is a sticking point, deciding who's going to pray and what we want to say. And so, we stole a page from our best friends, the Farrells, who are Catholic. And I don't think you can really steal a prayer. But now we say the, "Bless us, O Lord, and these gifts we're about to receive through thy bounty, through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen," before every meal now. And it's really streamlined things, which again, I don't know if that's a word you should want with a prayer. But we do that and we do Lenten practices and we do advent practices, and they're not always the same every year. But I really do try to do additional things at home. What about you guys?  

Beth Silvers [00:16:53] I would say that we are more about reflective practices, so we don't pray together at home. Except that Ellen sometimes likes to pray at night. Or if she's upset about something, sometimes she'll say, "Can we say a prayer about this?" And I love to do that with her. And sometimes she and I will sit down and write a prayer together as kind of a way to work through something that's going on. But she is definitely more inclined to prayer than Jane is. Jane learned at church camp about an app that sends her a daily Bible verse, and she loves that and has gotten really connected to it. I think my approach overall has been sort of how can each of us find our way around our spirituality? I like going to church with the girls. I also truly like going by myself. Like the Sundays that they don't go with me, I really enjoy just going alone and having that time to kind of quietly reflect, as you said, on what kind of person I want to be in the world and what kind of connection do I have with things that are bigger than me.  

[00:17:57] So it's less important to me for us to kind of have that experience as a family every Sunday, because I think we are good at as a family-- we've talked on the show before about how we do High Low Buffalo about the day when we have dinner together. And here's the other thing. We all work from home. Chad works from home. I work from home. We are all here together pretty much all the time. We are there when the kids get on the bus, we are there and the kids get off the bus. We take them to all of their practices. So we just have so much time with them. We have a luxury of time that we did not have when I was working outside of our house. And through that they initiate so many questions that involve faith. And I really have a chance to one on one be with them to answer those questions.  

[00:18:52] And that is, to me, the expression of faith in our home that I am most comfortable with at this point in my life. I think that they get the ritual through our church, and we attend the more ritualistic church than the one I grew up in. So, I go to a Disciples of Christ church. We take communion every Sunday. When I was growing up, communion was like a once a quarter kind of situation. And so, there is more ritual kind of built into their faith that way. And that's enough for me right now. I have wanted to have a really light touch with them about religion, and I think I'm doing that, and I love how it's playing out for our family right now.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:19:32] You know what's interesting? Is I really don't think a lot about it with regards to their faith. What I value about church is that there are other adults for them to think about and talk about that with. I just think it's really hard to work out your faith with your parents. I just think that's a hard thing. They can watch you, but my biggest lessons and insights and understanding about faith was always through outside sources, was always through youth ministers or Sunday school teachers or books or music. It was always so individualized. And I think that's a journey I just never-- for all the things I like to control as a mom, and there are many, I think I just always knew I can't do anything about that. There's just so little I can say. I can articulate it, I can set the stage, but there's just so in your own heart and mind that that happens.  

[00:20:27] For me, with church, when I think about so often with them-- and let me again say, it's hard. Getting out the door to go to church is freaking stressful every Sunday, and that's partially because I have set my own standards about church clothes. I think The Nuanced Life is where we first had that conversation many, many years ago that I have church clothes standards. I do not allow tennis shoes. I do not allow jeans. I do not allow shorts. And all shirts must have a collar. So that creates stress. Let's be honest, I've made that rule and it's stressful to enforce it. But there's part of that that's-- and my kids are acolytes, which they moan and complain about. And there's lots of aspects of church that are hard. And I think that's what I value about it. I want them to see we show up. There's an aspect of duty. We don't always want to do it, but it is our responsibility to the other people there that we show up and we participate in the community, in the congregation.  

[00:21:21] It's almost separate from faith to me in this weird way. Like, the congregation has become its own thing and its own-- it's our community, really. And so, it's become separate from faith and spirituality to me in a weird way, individually and how I see it through for my kids. It really is like its own these are just our people, and showing up for your people means treating sacred spaces in a sacred way. It means acknowledging that it might be more important to somebody else, but that matters than it is to you. Like, yeah, it doesn't bother you that you get up and go to the bathroom 50 times during the service, but it really riles up miss Betty and Miss Betty matters too. And so, we're going to respect that Miss Betty wants us to keep our butts in the pews and not disrupt the service a million times. Just stuff like that. I don't find a lot of other places that I get to teach my kids this stuff besides church.  

Beth Silvers [00:22:13] So, I also am constantly in pursuit of other adults who will love my kids, because I do think that is one of the most valuable gifts I can give them. And they have close relationships with my family, despite us not living in the same area. It is also important to me that there are adults down the street that they will ask them question that they wouldn't ask me. And so, I really feel that sense of "Who are our people?" I feel more with my neighbors than with my church congregation. I love my church congregation, but that sort of who are you going to go to if things have really hit the fan for you, or you're confused, or you just want somebody to give it to you straight? That's our neighbors. And we have a ritual with that family. We do Sunday dinner every week with our neighbors. And it really does promote, like, here's where we talk about things together, and here's where we lift each other up and support each other. And here's where we figure out what matters to us.  

[00:23:15] At church there are wonderful adults who I think do really help all of us figure out our own spirituality. And so, that's kind of my primary goal in terms of Sunday morning church attendance. The rest of our involvement with church, and there is a lot, is about service to the community. And I feel like our church is in some ways uniquely well suited to teach my children and to remind me to figure out, like, what do I have to offer and how may I offer that? And how does that connect to my larger sense of purpose and place and community in the world? And I'm really thrilled that they have that opportunity to get that through our church.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:24:02] Yeah. That's so wrapped up. Again, our Boy Scout troop is based in our church. Our church is like the host. I don't know the proper Boy Scout term. And so, it's like every time we're going to Boy Scouts and we're having these conversations about our priorities and our ideas and service, it's also at our church where we're having similar conversations and it's just really important to me. And it's something that both Nicholas and I grew up with. I mean, we both grew up in churches of different denominations, obviously, but it felt like there were these adults rooting for you. It felt like, yeah, you didn't always want to go. It just was that simple. Sometimes you didn't want to go and your mom made you go anyway, or your dad made you go anyway, because that's what we do. Because I think there are parts of life-- and this isn't just an idea, I think this is wrapped up in my faith that there are hard parts of life where you just do the thing.  

[00:25:02] You say the prayer even if you think it won't get anywhere. You go to church even if you don't want to. You stay in relationship with people even when you just want to curl up in a ball. And I think it's like it's all wrapped up together for me now. The practices, the congregations, the rituals, the spirituality, the theology, the faith itself, it's just becoming integrated in a way. And I'm really grateful to my children because they got me back to that place. Just trying to create a space for them, taking them back to church for them really became something for me. I think this happens a lot with parenting. We're like parenting ourselves when we're parenting them. And I'm just I'm so grateful for that. And it really means a lot to me. My church means a lot to me. Our weekly rituals mean a lot to me. Being there with my boys even when I'm mad because they didn't put on the shirt I told them to or whatever. It is what I would describe as the presence of God. Not some bearded guy in the sky, but that connection, that energy, all of those pieces form the picture of something bigger than myself that does inform so much of my life.  

[00:26:27] Music Interlude.  

Beth Silvers [00:26:37] To your Ann's question about how what we do now differs from our childhood. I attend a different denomination than I grew up in. My parents were the music minister and the pianist and deeply involved in the church. I grew up in a church that had Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night services. My church only has a Sunday morning service. My church growing up was not doing a lot of community ministry, and that is the primary identity of the church that I attend now, I would say. We talk about it being a servant church. So pretty much everything is different. And there was never a question about whether I was going to church ever. It was just that that is what we did, and I think that was valuable. I don't regret any of that. I look back with a lot of fondness and gratitude on the experience that I had growing up in church.  

[00:27:30] And I also took a really long break from church. Someone asked me recently, like, how would you feel if your kids go off to college and stop going to church? And I said, I don't think I'd feel any kind of way about it. I think I expect that in some senses. I think everybody has to have their own journey here. And I also recognized every time you and I allude to faith, or religion, church, Christianity, whatever it is, we have a lot of people very unhappy with us about that because they have had harmful experiences, or because I just don't believe any of it and think it's all like hocus pocus, bananas, waste of time, a burden on society because of the tax exemption. Like, we get it all. We get it all when we talk about this stuff. And that is okay. I can totally respect that.  

[00:28:21] I think that's part of what has informed me, taking a really light touch with my kids, because I recognize there are so many different ways to be and to have a sense of purpose and to have an ethical code for yourself, and a sense of what it means to be purposeful and to have integrity in the world. There are so many different places and ways to find that sense of these are my people, this is my community. So, I keep an open mind about all of that in terms of what it might look like for their futures, in terms of what Chad's version of all of that is. And for me, there is little as grounding as going every Sunday and taking communion and saying the Lord's Prayer and having a sense that I am participating in things that people all over the world have been doing for thousands of years. That is the anchor that I personally find comforting and inspiring at this point in my life.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:29:24] Well, and I think the biggest difference when I look back between how I grew up and now is there's just a lot less Bible in the Episcopal Church. I mean, we read scriptures, which is my favorite part of the liturgy, but we're just reading them in the bulletin. We're not like holding a Bible in our hands. I can't remember the last time I opened a Bible and read it. And I think that part probably held the most hurt and trauma for my experiences in the Baptist church, so I was sort of happy to leave it behind. But as I get older, I'm trying to think more carefully and not blame the Bible for things that weren't its vaults, and to read it and think about it more carefully with the help of some theologians, some influencers.  

[00:30:10] I'm not the only one. I saw Marky Mark on Ash Wednesday everywhere. Savannah Guthrie is out there writing a new book about her faith. I think we might be experiencing a little bit of re-examination or a resurgence or just people saying, hey, I found a different path forward. I found a different way to interact with this. It doesn't have to look one way. And I'm grateful for that. I think there's something really, like you said, sort of important. And that people have been doing this for thousands of years. And, yes, it has led to violence and oppression.  

Beth Silvers [00:30:42] Abuse. 

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:30:44] All kinds of harm. But so has everything in human existence: marriage, parenting. Just the beating of a human heart is a gamble. You know what I mean? And so, I think that it is interesting that there seems to be more apps and more conversation and more books written in places you don't expect at always about faith and spirituality and church. And I'm here for it. I'm here for anything new that can be said about something we've been talking about for thousands of years, and any new rituals or new way to do church, or new way to be together in congregation that doesn't call itself a church or doesn't have anything to do with Jesus. I'm not picky.  

[00:31:26] I don't hold closely whether my kids go to church, but I do want my children to be in community in their adult life. And I don't really care what they call it, and I don't really care how they do it, but I don't want them leaving work and going back to their homes and that's the end of their day. I don't. I don't want that for them. I want more for them. And I don't care what they call it. I don't care how they do it, but I do want them to live in community with other people. And I guess that's what I'm trying to teach them when I take them to church every Sunday.  

Beth Silvers [00:31:56] It's very funny that you mention the Bible, because that is the place that I still am kind of like I'm not sure that we're all square here. And I teach our kids program for elementary school, older elementary school kids once a month, mostly because the lovely, generous woman who has been teaching it for years was just like, "I need someone else to jump in here and give me a break." And so, I thought, I will do this for Miss Clara. Whilst she gives me my materials every week, she hand-writes them on a sheet of paper. It's really an endearing thing. And she gives me little bags with the craft parts and she plans everything. I just have to show up and do it. Well, she gives me my part for my most recent lesson, and it is kicking off a new unit all about the Bible. What is the Bible? Who wrote it? What does it mean to us? And I looked at Miss Clara's beautiful handwriting on this sheet of paper and thought, I don't want to do this, but I said I would do it.  

[00:33:07] And so, I sat down with this group of kids, and I heard myself talking and just realized how much I remember from my childhood, because my church was very Bible-based, I can still say the books of the Old Testament in order. I can find just about anything in the Bible. I listened to myself telling them about some of the writing in the Bible is a song and some of it is poetry and some of it's to recount something. And Matthew, Mark, Luke and John didn't tell us the same things in different ways. And so, I have retained more of that than I could have imagined. But it was also kind of great to hear how differently I hold it all now. I think I didn't realize that I had made some progress around that until I was forced into that. Not forced, until I accepted the responsibility of doing that.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:33:58] I just want to say there's more room in life to be forced to do things. It's okay, everybody. That's a great word.  

Beth Silvers [00:34:03] Until I was in that situation, I didn't realize that I had made some progress around my feelings about what the Bible means to me and what it represents, and what role I wanted to have in my life. I'm still working that out. When I saw Ann's question, I immediately thought about should we be reading Bible stories and stuff at home? And I thought, I will not be doing that. Like, that is not where I am. But discussing what we heard at church is something that we do every Sunday and I'm comfortable with, and I think that that is having bigger impacts on me than I realized before.  

Sarah Stewart Holland [00:34:38] Listen, you should have a working knowledge of the Bible, just like you should have a working knowledge of Shakespeare, because you might play trivia at some point in your life, and you will be invaluable to your team members if you can recite the books of the Old Testament. I'm just saying. Just pragmatically, it's a useful thing to know. It comes up more often than you think. And so that's what I kind of tell my kids. And several of us who have come from other denominations into the Episcopal Church are like, hey, y'all got to teach our kids about the Bible? Like, we want them to win trivia every once a while about. No, I'm just kidding. But it's a piece of our culture. It's still a huge piece of our culture. And there are beautiful parts of it, and there are terrible parts of it.  

[00:35:20] And it's so silly that I'm going to say this, but I thought the best thing created by the internet recently that I read that I thought, yes, that is going to break things wide open for me when I think about the Bible or if I want to interact with the Bible some more recently, is that great tweet that was, like, if you want to talk about interpreting biblical texts, think about how you would explain in 200 years the difference between a booty call and a butt dial, because they are the same words and they're very different things. And I thought that is the smartest thing I have read in months. How true is that? How do we need to just hold that? Like, I have that beautiful world map that Tracy put off one of our executive producers gave us, and I'm reading it while I brush my teeth. I hung it up in my bathroom.  

[00:36:07] And it's just like whole entire dynasties, pieces of human history that stretch for twice as long as the United States has even thought about existing, that I've never heard of, never read anything about, never seen the words. And it's so mind expanding in the best possible way to remember that. And I think we shrunk the Bible down. We wanted to be able to wrap our arms around it. We wanted to be able to read it in ways that we could really easily understand. And it is a text that resists easy understanding at every turn. And the more you can make your peace with that, I think the more you can just approach it as the ever-wise Rachel Held Evans tried to teach us in one of her books, which is it's just questions. It's not a biography textbook. It's not a political treatise. It's just a book of questions. And I'm trying to make my peace with that in my old age.  

Beth Silvers [00:37:10] And I love our friend Vanessa Alton's approach to turning any text into a sacred one by bringing good questions to it. Because I think you're right, it is important to take time to think about who we want to be in the world and finding your way to that, whether it has anything to do with a higher power or a faith community or not, is, for me, both life giving and an essential component to just getting through the hard stuff that life throws your way, and also to really feeling the amazing stuff that life throws your way to appreciating it more. So, I'm really grateful to Emily and Anne for engaging with us on this topic. To all of you for joining us today. We will be back with you on Tuesday for a new episode of Pantsuit Politics, and we'll do some more Nuanced Life here on Friday. Thanks, as always, for being with us. And everybody, have the best weekend available to you.  

[00:38:00] Music Interlude 

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  

Beth: Alise Napp is our Managing Director. Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.  

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Emily Helen Olson. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. Genny Francis. Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen. The Munene Family.  

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

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