Uncovered: Life Beyond
Join the conversations of Rebecca and Naomi, two ex-Amish Mennonite women who jumped the proverbial fence in their younger years and later experienced college as first-gen, non-traditional students. They discuss pursuing formal education while raising a family, navigating the hidden curriculum of academia, and other dimensions of reimagining a life beyond high-demand religion. Send your questions to uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com.
Uncovered: Life Beyond
49. Cheesy Potatoes and Collaboration: Turning Religious Roots into Real-World Impact
This episode is a call to reframe our past experiences in high-demand religious communities (especially those of Anabaptist origin) as preparation for meaningful action in our world today. Hosts Naomi and Rebecca explore the significance of core beliefs over outward symbols, advocating for a reclaiming of personal values and the potential for community engagement.
• The incongruity of Christian nationalism and historic Anabaptist beliefs
• Recalling the positive qualities of Plain communities
• How resources from past experiences can be relevant in our lives today
• The tremendous power of nonviolent resistance in social change
• Deploying our communal networks and mutual aid in precarious times
• The significance of empathy and kindness in human connections
Links to Sources and Resources
"The Success of Nonviolent Civil Resistance" by Erica Chenoweth
Chapter 9 The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control: An Interface
The Sword and Trumpet Bookstore
Janna Hunter-Bowman on Anabaptist Nonresistance
Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
Historical Context of Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
Danielle Bayard Jackson on building community
Thanks for listening! Connect with us via
- Facebook: Uncovered: Life Beyond
- Instagram: @uncoveredlifebeyond
- Email: uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2171591
Subscribe (for free) to Uncovered: Life Beyond on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts so you'll never miss an episode!
What topics at the intersection of education, high-demand religion, career, parenting, and emotional intelligence are of interest to you? Help us plan future episodes by taking this quick listener survey. We appreciate your input very much!
This is.
Speaker 2:Rebecca, and this is Naomi. We're 40-something moms and first cousins who know what it's like to veer off the path assigned to us.
Speaker 1:We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college and career, as we questioned our faith traditions while exploring new identities and ways of seeing the world.
Speaker 2:Without any maps for either of us to follow. We've had to figure things out as we go and appreciate that detours and dead ends are essential to the path Along the way, we've uncovered a few insights we want to share with fellow travelers.
Speaker 1:We want to talk about the questions we didn't know who to ask and the options we didn't know we had.
Speaker 2:So, whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking things up, we are here to cheer you on and assure you that the best is yet to come. Welcome to Uncovered Life Beyond. Hello everyone, Welcome back to Uncovered Life Beyond. This is Naomi and this is Rebecca.
Speaker 1:So after our conversation last week we kind of realized we had more to say, didn't we? Yeah, yeah. So we ended the conversation with the question do we know who we are? Do Anabaptists know who they even are? And maybe, specifically after those of us who have left the conservative part of it, do we know who we are when we don't have the outward symbols? Like, sometimes I think we kind of get lost in that the outward symbols defined so much about who we are. We knew who went to what church based on how we dressed, and sometimes I think it's really easy to get lost when you don't have that.
Speaker 2:I agree and I think that so often, or at least in my experience, that was seen as being the real plain people. And yet, when we look back at some of those core beliefs that made the Anabaptist, anabaptist had very little to do with that. It had nothing to do with that. It was much more about religious belief and faith being a matter of an individual's conscience, not something that's imposed by an outside authority. We were talking a lot about pacifism or non-resistance to violence, and more of those really central ideas that so often seem lost from a lot of expressions of Anabaptism today.
Speaker 2:And while many of us who have left the tradition look back and lament what we see as the loss of some of the best parts, it occurred to me that there are still elements of that tradition that we have that can be resources for us, even as we move beyond the tradition, resources that can allow us to make really valuable contributions to whatever community we find ourselves in today.
Speaker 2:And as I was thinking about this more, I thought you know we need to talk about this, and especially when there are many of us who have left not just a plain Anabaptist setting but any kind of a high-demand religion and we may have missed out on educational opportunities, we might have missed out on all kinds of pop culture, and while those losses are real, I think at times like these it can be really valuable to think about what we do have and make the most of the resources and the skills and the knowledge that we do have, because while we weren't getting that formal education or making those career advancements or whatever it might be, we were learning something and we were gaining a certain kind of experience and I think it can be very hopeful to take stock of those and think about those contributions that folks who have made this shift very likely can contribute.
Speaker 1:I agree, and I think sometimes leaving or making changes holds a lot of tension, and you know this analogy of when you are broken. It gives you a time and a space to pick up the pieces you want and put them back together, and I think perhaps some of us might find ourselves kind of in that space. We don't really know who we identify with, but there's pieces that are certainly important and valuable and it's created who we are, and I think giving yourself space to do this type of thing is redemptive and it allows you to tap into those skills that we do have. There's been times where I felt I had more in common with the trad wives that we kind of roll our eyes about than I want to have. It is still good and valuable skills, and I think there's skills that we have that go beyond just work. There's skills in the way we learn how to think about things and how we learn to organize, and I think it's exciting that we can bring that to the table.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and one of the things that distinguishes us from trad wives is maybe that we are using them for progressive causes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it's annoying. No one pays me for what I know, it seems.
Speaker 2:But anyway, that's okay.
Speaker 2:So nonviolence was something that we had talked about a lot, and I think that's a distinctive feature of Anabaptist movements, and every few years I teach a class on writing a social action. We study grassroots social movements, social justice movements, including the civil rights movement, and nonviolence has been such an important piece of so many of those successful movements. And in fact, scholars like Erica Chenoweth and I'll link to her TED Talk in the show notes talk about how nonviolent social movements have a better success rate at bringing broad changes to countries than violent uprisings do. They're not always successful, but they have a greater chance of being successful, and so I think there's a lot of power, potential for power, in nonviolent work that we do, especially in a country that essentially sees violence as a good, as something to entertain us and as something that holds power.
Speaker 2:Well, it holds power and it's therefore justified yeah, it doesn't matter who gets in its way. And, to that end, a book that I would recommend anyone who's interested in thinking about these kinds of things and thinking about being active in any kind of community organizing, the rhetoric of agitation and control is one that has been really helpful for me in understanding kind of the different layers of it, how you gradually build power. It maps out both how movements advance and then also the kinds of responses that they typically run into from the powers that be, and it just gives a helpful frame of reference for thinking about these kinds of things, and I will link to one of the chapters that happened to be a free PDF online and recommend it for anybody who's interested in something like that. For all our background in Anabaptism and non-resistance, so few of us have any experience in using it to really bring about change in the world today, and I think there's a lot of untapped potential there.
Speaker 1:Well, and when you think about the work of Jesus on earth, I mean that epitomizes the work of a non-resistant leader and I always kind of chuckle. I was ranting to Matt about this the other evening. Every so often you'll see, you know, usually on my feet at some preacher trying to prove that Jesus was not wimpy. I mean he turned over the you know tables in the temple and I'm like he was turning over your tables. You're right. And since when do we think non-resistance is wimpy Like that? They have to argue that the way Jesus lived his life here on earth wasn't wimpy. To me is always such a puzzle.
Speaker 2:Well, if you're looking for reasons to exercise power and brute force, kind of tracks.
Speaker 1:Well, and I always want to ask the question when I see that what table specifically are you thinking need to be turned over, please?
Speaker 2:please, please, ask that the next time you see that and then report back to us. Oh yeah, I would love to see the response.
Speaker 1:It makes no sense in my brain. I don't understand it. The fear, the literal fear that it feels like so many hold, and particularly white men hold, when it comes to being seen as compassionate, humble, holding empathy, and they connect that to wimpy, I just I don't understand. And I think today there are a lot of what seems like loud voices, and there's some in the Anabaptist circles that would say, or at least present the idea, that to them non-resistance is just simply refusing to go to war or maybe take legal action against a person. I think that is a big. Maybe it really would depend how much money is at stake, trust me on this one. But they would see that more as their spiritual stance but not a political one. And I'm always kind of concerned when I see these same people pro-gun. I'm like, do you know what that means when you hold that?
Speaker 2:What if we, instead of calling them guns, just talked about handheld killing machines? Right, right, how might that change the conversation?
Speaker 1:And it never makes sense to me when it's Anabaptist voices that are pushing this. But yeah, many of these people do not. Many of these leaders seem to not feel that in any way should non-resistance be a political stance. In fact, I'm always again puzzled by the argument that, well, we can't expect the government to operate according to our values. And that gets said when ICE comes along and takes away immigration and does violence there. But at the same time, they're the first to get in line at the voting booth when it comes to quote putting prayer back into schools or anti-abortion or what have you. They're the first ones there. They're the first ones arguing that we need a Christian nation. You can't have it both ways. Like you pick a side, like I really don't care what side you pick here, but you need to pick a side. At least be consistent, right, and if anyone is interested, the sword andet. And I think we had this distributed back at Shady Grove back in the day, didn't we?
Speaker 2:I don't remember it, but it's possible.
Speaker 1:Maybe it was something I would have been introduced to here in Ohio. But I mean a quick peek at their website and I recognize some of the names there. But a quick peek at their website and I recognize some of the names there, but a quick peek at the website and the books they sell I thought was kind of concerning A lot of Calvinist influence which to me Calvinist is kind of problematic.
Speaker 2:Well, it blows my mind because I just remember growing up we were adamantly not Calvinist, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, calvinist to me is really problematic, but there's like Christianity and wokeness, how the social justice movement is hijacking the gospel and the way to stop it. And this is Owen Strachan Actually, I think it's pronounced Stratton Owen- Stratton Okay, I'm not familiar with that name.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure that's how it's pronounced, the title sounds provocative.
Speaker 1:Right like like this is what we're introducing or promoting, and why social justice is not biblical justice, an urgent appeal to fellow Christians in a time of social crisis. And that author is Scott David Allen I don't know that name, but as you kind of leaf through that, there's a lot of Calvinist influence and I'm just really kind of curious about that.
Speaker 2:Well, and those names are also associated with Christian nationalism Exactly, and I don't know how we reconcile that with Anabaptist faith. I don't have the exact words, but the idea is that they are holding true and resisting change and yet they are promoting Protestant teachings that run contrary to poor historic beliefs. Right, and it's just. It's so interesting to me that the ones claiming to be those traditionalists, claiming to save Anabaptists from falling into doctrinal error, are the ones who are actively stepping away from historic beliefs and embracing Protestant, calvinist, christian nationalist ideas.
Speaker 1:And I think we should be very clear. So Anabaptist mission efforts started way back in the day as service efforts. So the goal here was to meet people's basic needs, and this was long before it became a thing about church planting and recruiting new members. The Anabaptists knew how to see a need and meet it, and quietly see a need and meet it, or at least become involved within the need. And it concerns me. I feel like today there's this narrative and this is not exclusive to Anabaptist churches but there's this narrative that the important work gets done on the mission field or you need to give to organizations and they'll give it back to the community, or you know you need to give to organizations and they'll give it back to the community and they'll, you know, ensure that it gets given to the correct people, so that you know funds aren't wasted, when, in reality, when you look at church budgets, it is frightening how little money gets put back into the community.
Speaker 2:It's incredibly inefficient. The system is incredibly inefficient.
Speaker 1:It's incredibly inefficient. The system is incredibly inefficient. Have flashy and have power and have status is going to be far more important than it is to sit with the homeless person or to help the immigrant get to the doctor. I think we might maybe run into some of that, and I just always think about how amazing it would be when or if we would have churches who applaud members, who invest within the community, who develop those relationships, who the congregation knows that if there's a doctor bill that needs to get paid, all they need to do is contact the church office and they'll figure it out. That to me would be like such an amazing form of community, but it seems like most churches do the exact opposite. In fact, if you know of a church that does this, let me know.
Speaker 2:Right, and there's a message that, instead of advocating for justice, we should just fall in line. There's this trust in the power structures of the world patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, right All without maybe not explicitly, maybe, but maybe not explicitly recognized as being ordained of God and therefore need to be respected and enforced, by violence if necessary. And so, and these are, even if, say, a traditional Anabaptist church is not teaching that specifically, those are the ideas that are present in some of those names we were talking about just a minute ago, and I think this is very real for a lot of other churches too, outside the Anabaptist circles.
Speaker 1:And you know this is a little bit of a bunny trail and we can delete it if we need to, but I think it is fascinating to think about the many ways or the many forms of violence that were part of our heritage. The violence and brutality of the crucifixion is glorified.
Speaker 1:The discipline is violent, the way many people experience their spankings and discipline as children. That's violent Within the congregation if someone errs Within the congregation. If someone errs, excommunicating them and just throwing them out of the home sometimes is an act of violence. So I think in some ways I wonder how much of that has made us we don't cringe when we see violence happening than in other areas. We're cozying up to it.
Speaker 2:It seems almost normal, I agree, many from this background who may or may not still identify as Mennonite or Anabaptist or Amish, but who are asking questions about some of these assumptions right and some of these stances on justice issues and are pushing back against them in very real ways you know it's funny against them in very real ways, you know it's funny Sometimes.
Speaker 1:I think the conservative Anabaptists who leave might have the most trauma to work through and get some of the. They often get a bad rap. I mean, I think when you leave the Amish it's like, well, you know, that's an Amish, because there's a certain sense of novelty there. Those who grew up with a liberal, mennonite background tend to have a little less trauma. From what I've observed, mm. Hmm, there is no one who knows how to deconstruct and honestly navigate issues like a conservative Anabaptist person and I am so excited about the conversations that are happening around this of Gothard, of Piper, of all those influences that we had and I think when you go through that experience, all of a sudden your value changes. You can then more easily see yourself in other people, which I think offers dignity.
Speaker 2:Are you saying like we see what we have in common with others?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I think, with you know, coming out of a high demand religious setting, there's often been a lot of emphasis put on being special and being unique, on being set apart. Set apart the elect all that. And when you deconstruct from that and suddenly you realize, oh, I'm nothing special, I'm just like everybody else, and that's very freeing, even as it is disorienting. But, yeah, it allows us to connect with people around us with a degree of authenticity that you cannot have when you're maintaining this facade of perfection. Right, I think what really distinguishes these emerging voices is that they really do care about human suffering in our communities and defending the dignity of all people, and they see the value of diversity, equity and inclusion. And, whether they identify as Anabaptist or not, or even as Christian or not, they are really embodying the values that, well, I thought we were brought up with, but the ones that I thought we were supposed to embrace but seem to be falling by the wayside.
Speaker 1:I also see this group of people very intentionally trying to separate themselves from toxic power structures that exist in a way that seems to further consolidate power, which again reminds me so much of why the Anabaptist group started in the first place. They were concerned about the power the Catholic and the Lutheran church held and they didn't want to support those types of power structures. They believed in separation of church and state, and to me that is so exciting, like it energizes me. But I think there's also sometimes the sense of feeling disempowered and this sense of not knowing how to be part of the solution. It's one thing to criticize, but it's another thing to be like okay, so, so how do we fix this?
Speaker 2:Right, and they might already be exhausted from doing work behind the scenes or just from surviving. I think there's a lot of us that are between work and taking care of families and maybe going to school and whatever else. There's just not a lot of bandwidth left over, and folks in this situation, like I mentioned earlier, might feel unqualified because they don't have formal education or they don't have much of a background in social movements or being really involved in volunteering in the community. So many of us, especially those of us socialized as girls and women in high demand, religious settings are conditioned to self-doubt, right? We're taught to not trust ourselves. We're taught not to take initiative, to hold ourselves back and let others take the lead, and so when we have all that baggage hanging on to us, it can be hard to know where to even start. You know like, even if we are philosophically making these shifts, it can be hard to know how do we live them out. I saw a really inspiring example of one of these voices this is not someone I know personally, but I came across her post on Facebook who is calling Anabaptists to this nonviolent tradition, and she is talking about it in the context of the political climate today and her closing line is over the years, anabaptists have often been absorbed into the fog of nationalisms rather than finding clarity and courage to exercise nonconformity. How are often people who want to hold onto their hate and still feel like good people? But kindness and justice don't work that way.
Speaker 2:Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr, the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice, who prefers a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice. So this is a quote from Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr's letter from a Birmingham jail. This is something he wrote in 1963. He had gone to Birmingham, alabama, to lead a desegregation campaign. There had been, I believe it was, like a group of eight clergymen white clergymen who had written an open letter basically telling him to stand down. And he's sitting there in jail after being arrested for the peaceful protest. And he responds to them and I think these words.
Speaker 2:It's about six pages long. It's pretty lengthy, so I won't read the whole thing, but there was a passage that I think speaks so clearly to what we're talking about here and is relevant for our time. He says there was a time when the church was very powerful and the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. He goes on to talk about the time of the Roman Colosseum and the kind of martyrdom that early Christians experienced. He goes on to say things are different now.
Speaker 2:So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silence and even vocal sanction of things as they are. But the judgment of? Consoled by the church's silence and even vocal sanction of things as they are. But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it loses its authenticity, forfeits the loyalty of millions and is dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust. Boy, those are heavy words.
Speaker 1:And to be true, I mean, that's where deconstruction started. For me, that disgust he talks about that's where deconstruction starts, and I am always surprised when the church seems puzzled or confused by this and control and in books like that that talk about the potential power of organized social movements, and in a nonviolent way.
Speaker 2:Two factors really stand out to me as things that we have many of us from these kinds of backgrounds have that can be really really empowering, and one of those is social networks. Local to national, we have a collection of close and loose ties and social media has really facilitated this so that someone that we might not know very well, but we have run into them on social media enough to have a frame of reference, really could allow us to work together and leverage that connection at some point down the road. We also have a deep cultural understanding of mutual aid and reciprocity. Like we've grown up with work days, we've grown up with this kind of thing where the community gets together and everybody pitches in, or at least I did. I don't know. I guess plain churches still do these kinds of things. I hope they do.
Speaker 2:It's one of the best parts of the culture, but I think that's a real, that's a very special gift in the context of American hyper individualism.
Speaker 2:It's something that we what we've been brought up in all our lives we just well like a flock of birds, a flock of crows.
Speaker 2:You know, nobody's actually leading that flock, but somehow it moves together Right. And there's some of that same element, I think, here, when we, from little on up, are familiar with these kinds of community efforts. And this is even without mentioning all the practical skills that many of us learned growing up, potatoes and frugal living, knowing how to grow a garden or animals for food, how to preserve food, sowing and just so many more skills that so many of us grew up with. And maybe, if you're like me, there've been times when I've hesitated talking about those things because I don't want to be associated with a trad wife image. But, as we said before, these are really useful skills and, given the events of the past couple of weeks, with programs being cut, programs that our people are dependent on for survival, it is not unreasonable to expect that we're going to be seeing a mushrooming of needs and impoverishment in our communities unlike anything we've seen before, and I think these skills and these abilities can be more important than ever.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I think we often forget and this is kind of going back to the social networks those of us in the Amish Mennonite culture have many ways of knowing who your great aunt's cousin is, and there's family connections that run really deep too, and so I think sometimes we feel like we have lost so much of the networking that oftentimes leaders talk about, when in actuality, just the fact that we know who our cousins are, who their cousins are, provides such a deep social network, and I think it's really important.
Speaker 1:So I think, when we talk about feeling disempowered or empowered, something I have found really helpful is letting go of the Messiah complex or charity model of giving and instead try to engage with people from a sense of solidarity.
Speaker 1:And there's a real sense of freedom and I think it's more than just a sense, like it's an act of freedom of not needing to worry about being the quote good witness or feeling the pressure to ensure that their salvation is sealed, that their salvation is sealed, or having to invite them to church.
Speaker 1:There's such a freedom in just simply being a part of the people, a part of humans, a part of the community, and when you develop those relationships and can let go of that sense of right or wrong, of good or bad, of heaven or hell. It allows you to simply show up and be, and the one thing you can count on with humans is there's going to always be needs, there's always going to be places and times where connection is going to be important, and I am more convinced now than ever that doing it because that's who I want to be, and doing it because of the ways I benefit from it even allows you to show up in a much more real and authentic way than it does if you're coming from a place of needing to save them.
Speaker 2:I think that's so true, and I think about one of the ways I see you do this is when you are working with someone who is a refugee or an immigrant, you'll talk about my friend. You don't talk about them as a project, you talk about them as a friend, and I think that really goes a long way toward making it meaningful for you and meaningful for them, and I think that's what we're talking about here. So we came up with a list of some of the qualities that we think folks, coming out of maybe a conservative or high demand or conservative Anabaptist context, carry with them. And it's not that they you know that we exclusively have this but it's just, I think, qualities that can be really helpful at a time like this, a time in history like this, that we need to recognize as resources, as gifts, as something to offer those around us. And the first one I have here is that we know the value of showing up for causes that don't necessarily benefit us personally.
Speaker 2:We've probably been socialized to do this kind of thing our whole lives, and so, you know, under that are things like we understand that alleviating human suffering is a good in and of itself. We see the value of small acts of generosity and care. It doesn't have to be a big flashy. The results don't have to be big and flashy for us to see them as valuable, and we know how to notice a need and just pitch in without being asked. And we don't need public validation to motivate us, and I think these all are essential. If we're doing any kind of volunteering in the community, any kind of thing, we've got to have our values driving this and not some kind of external reward, and I think this is something that many of us have.
Speaker 1:I so agree and I think so often. When I see work being done that gets publicized on social media, I think about how easily that becomes a PR campaign and even a recognition of the quote good works we do. And if we can shift that and realize that our loyalty to what we do lies within the core values and not the flashy figurehead or the charismatic leader or the social recognition. And we all know we've been taught this that appearances don't tell the whole story.
Speaker 2:Well, and by the time we've deconstructed, we know this on an even deeper level.
Speaker 1:It's so true. It's so true, and we know that what you see on Sunday morning or social media doesn't tell us very much at all about someone else's life during the week. And we are skeptical enough to no longer be intimidated by the smoke and mirrors of someone that wants to pose as this authority in all things. In fact, at this point, not only are we not intimidated by that, we can see through it Right.
Speaker 2:So another quality that many of us have and, as you pointed out, this is especially unique to Amish culture in many ways and this is this refusal to judge the situations and motivations of people at a distance, willing to get the benefit of the doubt. I had to stop and think for a minute because, on one hand, my Amish grandfather is the first person who came to mind, but I couldn't say exactly why, and it might seem counterintuitive because those of us who were raised with the Mennonite name looked on them, you know, looked on the Amish as being the real old-fashioned ones. What do you think's going on here?
Speaker 1:You know, I think oftentimes the Amish know that they don't know all things, they are disconnected from the outside world, and they then in turn, I think, develop a sense of curiosity that oftentimes gets lost within the Beachy and Mennonite groups. And that's not to say no one gets judged Right, let's be clear, I think, yeah, to be fair, judgment happens within the community, but Amish tend not to judge those outside the community in the same ways that I see Beachy and Mennonite people judging. I think it goes back to this whole. The Amish faith is built on the hope of salvation and they hold that very gently and very humbly. And again, again.
Speaker 2:This is, you know, we're looking at it through a very positive lens at the moment right.
Speaker 1:Right, right and different groups are going to talk about it differently.
Speaker 1:But, I remember my. I have Amish relatives that still talk about the hope of salvation. I have Amish friends that talk about the hope of salvation. I have Amish friends that talk about the hope of salvation and I think it's quite beautiful when they speak about it, because it's this humility. It's a humility but it's also part of almost embracing the journey. Yeah, we haven't arrived, we're not there. Yeah, it's continuing. To me, it acknowledges the continuing process where oftentimes, beachy and Mennonite people will have this certainty of salvation and it is a fist clenched assurance. And when you've arrived, when you've achieved, when you've you've, when all that's left to do is save the rest of the world with your knowledge, there's nothing to be curious about.
Speaker 2:Isn't that also kind of evangelical fundamentalist?
Speaker 1:influence? I think it is.
Speaker 2:Because I think both our parents would have, both our sets of parents would have been adamant about having the assurance of salvation. That was really really important to them and they saw as distinctive from the Amish who only had a hope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's this story that I've heard many times, and every time I hear it I just kind of smile and I nod and I'm like, yeah, that's it. This Amish guy was asked by an outsider are you a Christian? And he shook his head a little bit, he smiled and he said I think you should go ask my neighbor. Yeah, yeah, To me that is something I can identify with Right Right.
Speaker 2:So I think, to the extent that we can tap into that, that's something that we can take with us as we go into our communities and bring a sense of curiosity with us as we engage with people around us. Similarly, and maybe even a part of that, is that when we've been part of a distinctive subculture and also maybe experienced leaving it and reestablishing our lives in another context, that has given us more cross-cultural experience than many Americans have had, and with that comes experience and knowledge of differences. We learn not to assume. The rest of the world thinks like us which is, I think, is what we were just talking a minute ago and many of us also benefit from the adaptability of speaking more than one language.
Speaker 1:And I think that's huge. I think being able to speak more than one language kind of changes the way your brain functions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and allows you to see, allows you to think in more. I think it makes us more aware of how we are thinking about things you know and how we're talking about them. Kind of relatedly is this idea of code switching and this is something that really comes more from African American scholarship on using the language of our home and then maybe when we go to school, we learn a different dialect same language, right, but different dialect, different way of speaking. And the idea of code switching is that one doesn't have to supplant the other. You don't have to choose one or the other. You can have both of them as a resource and you can choose which you want to use when. And I think that ability to code switch is something, is a valuable resource that we carry with us and it can allow us to connect our networks right, networks from our background with networks from our current day. It allows us to make exponentially more connections with other people.
Speaker 1:And I think this is important especially for those of us who have deconverted, because during the peak of my deconversion there was some language I just simply could not use, and there's still language that I sometimes steer away from, but at the same time, there's times where that language is beneficial. Sometimes some of the Christianese language is a way to connect and I think you can use that without manipulating. It's simply a way of connecting. It's the language they understand and so, personally, that's been something that I've been thinking a lot about is, in many ways, it is another language and it's a language I know and it's okay to use it when it's needed and when it allows us to build and connect with other networks.
Speaker 2:And this is something that you have done so well with Amazon wishlists every holiday season. You know of people in need and you'll give them an alias and then invite your friends on Facebook to pitch in and you know, this is actually, I think, really fun.
Speaker 1:It's really neat and even if you have a single mom, I've had moms who were their husbands moved out. They had to get new apartments because they can't afford housing. They were basically left with nothing. You have, you have kids who need beds, and it's such a fun way to build connections, to build communities, to be part of something that's way bigger than I am. There's no way I on my own could do what these Amazon wish lists allow us to do collectively.
Speaker 2:That's so wonderful and such a beautiful thing to do, and I think I really respect the way that you well respect their identity. You make them human by telling us about their situations right, while still protecting their identity. Not only are your friends who are pitching in, offering a service, but you are also giving them that opportunity that they wouldn't have had otherwise.
Speaker 2:I think, that's such a wonderful power of connection and you know, we know people who have very practical skills, like construction skills or folks who know how to fix a taillight on a car. Maybe somebody needs help winterizing their home. Is there someone in our network that we know who would be willing to help them out if they just don't know when we are able to make those connections, I think that can be so enriching and everyone benefits from it.
Speaker 1:I think the way that you have talked to your kids about these issues is so valuable and so exciting, because you've actively created an awareness with your kids about the differences that people might be experiencing. Right, I think you need to tell us about Liberty, about the differences that people might be experiencing Right. I think you need to tell us about Liberty.
Speaker 2:Well, there was this. This is just one small example, but it's a concrete one. She had a friend who had really come through some difficult things and had really had to grow up to too soon, and she had a coat that was this really heavy fur coat, but it was clearly secondhand and had the lining was torn, and Liberty said, hey, I'll take that home and my mom will mend it. And of course I was glad to. And later on I got to meet the friend who was just such a delightful, delightful person and I was so proud that she saw a need. And we know 14 year olds I think she was 14 at the time they tend not to see things laying around the house, but she noticed that and that really makes me proud.
Speaker 1:She noticed that and and her first I love, I love the fact that her first thought wasn't we need to buy her a new coat, but rather wait, my mom knows how to fix that. I mean that, that's so. I think that's so beautiful, it's so empowering, it's it's it's not shaming the torn coat, it's just simply saying wait, we know how to fix that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I found that my children, through their school, have really been an important point of connection right in the community. I mean, that's an obvious thing. I think a lot of us experience that. But we happen to live close to the middle school and the high school, and last year more than this year. But we had a lot of kids at our house after school and I took a lot of joy in being intentional about creating a place that's safe. Our house is not big, we don't have fancy toys, electronics and all that, but it was a place they could come and know they were safe and you know, and you fed them waffles, waffles and popcorn, lots of popcorn and cookies, all the things. But the thing is like, you know, we had kids. She has friends in her friend group, a whole range of backgrounds, and there are some with a lot of needs, some who, well, their identity puts them at high risk right now, and then also kids from very privileged backgrounds and some of those kids were the loneliest kids.
Speaker 2:And I think of her, one friend who I'd often give a ride home at the end of the evening and she would just sit in the car and talk and I could tell she just didn't want to go back in the house and she finally did, and I just think that's something to be aware of.
Speaker 2:Also, I've talked with my son about what would happen if he is with his friends of color and law enforcement comes around. You know, and in the past we've talked about it's been in terms of the cops, but I've made him aware that he has a level of privilege and that he needs to be aware of that and use it to protect his friends if the situation arises. Be aware of that and use it to protect his friends If, if, if the situation arises and and we've talked about not speaking without an attorney present we've talked about all those things and, and more recently we've been talking about what happens if immigration shows up. They've been spotted not too far from our area here and I want him to know what to do and how to protect his friends If that becomes an issue.
Speaker 1:You are such a wise mom like seriously.
Speaker 2:It's the least I mean. I wish it could be so much more, but it's it's one thing we can do.
Speaker 1:Right, you know, I think sometimes, whether it is ice, whether it is a nosy neighbor, whomever it is, I think the way we show up for other people is so important. I think about a professor I had. It was a ethics class and he was talking about Huck Finn and the way he rescued the slave.
Speaker 2:He rescued the slave and the tension that was there in do I follow the rules or do I follow my own values, and this was in the context of slavery and the fugitive slave law. Right Right when he would have been, it would have been illegal to not report a runaway slave and to give him a ride, like didn't he get on his? Oh yeah, huck, finn had a raft and he had a raft.
Speaker 2:And he, yeah, and he left the slave on the raft and yeah, jim rode with him down the yes and this was was it back in 2016?
Speaker 1:have I been in school that long? Was it in 2016, when there was that first mess with immigration? Like I think it was in that timeframe? I have been in school a long time, my goodness, because not soon. Like soon after having this conversation, he starts talking about the illegals and how that's a problem and we need to do something about that. And there were, like I don't know, 25 kids in this room and or in this class, and obviously not all white, and so I remember raising my hand and I'm saying so. Let's be clear here. I appreciate the Huck Finn story and understand the tension that was involved there, and you and I both agree he did the right thing. I said today we have undocumented people who also deserve safety. We have undocumented people who also have needs. I said I don't understand why we applaud Huck Finn but we, in turn, would report them. I said can you help me understand how we get here? Well, he kind of pointed out that I was calling them undocumented instead of illegal and went down that little road.
Speaker 1:Oh, don't get me started on that. And at one point he said, so you would not report somebody. And I like snorted, I'm like there is no way I would report an undocumented friend, an undocumented human. Why would I? I don't know how that's different. I don't know, I don't either, and I think we need to get really honest with what our values are. Just because it's a law or a rule doesn't mean we have to follow this.
Speaker 2:I mean, and especially for those of us it doesn't mean, it's moral.
Speaker 1:Right, and for those of us that grew up conservative Anabaptists, if there's one thing we know how to do, it's we know how to break rules.
Speaker 2:And we know how to get around the rules. We know how to do this.
Speaker 1:And I don't understand why we feel like this is a law we have to follow.
Speaker 2:Not when the welfare of human beings is at stake. Like that's just.
Speaker 1:Also when people were legal yesterday, but now today they're not.
Speaker 2:I mean when or when they have appealed for asylum as refugees. No, they don't have documents, but they have gone through the process and let me just be really.
Speaker 1:Let me be really clear here. It's none of my business, right? It's none of my business whether they're here legally or not. None of my business and people. We don't ask this question. You do not ask someone their status If they want to share it with you, that's another conversation. You do not have any business asking someone this.
Speaker 2:Yes gets said might serve or reach out or connect with someone in our community who may be or not in a situation like that or might be lonely, as we know there's. So many are right the loneliness epidemic is something we hear about all the time. Just inviting someone for a meal, inviting them into our home it might be a holiday, it might just be a weeknight and inviting them into our life, even when our house isn't perfect or even when we don't have a fancy meal, is really where that authentic connection can happen and it can be so meaningful for everyone, for everyone involved. You know, and I also like to dream big. I like your dreams Because I, for a long time, have had a dream of developing a housing cooperative, especially for families of young children, and there are a million and one different ways that something like this could happen.
Speaker 2:I can't make it happen by myself and I keep thinking that at some point I'll have enough time to write the grants or do the research to figure out how to make this happen. You know how can I buy a cheap old building and have it renovated into some kind of housing cooperative, right? I don't know. But I can dream and you know, I don't know where these kinds of resources that we're talking about here can take us. Maybe it'll just stay small and in our communities, but who knows, maybe one day we can do something on a much larger scale too, and I know you've got your own ideas about creative housing solutions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the tiny house communities always kind of intrigue me, like I think it is such a fabulous way to build community and it's such a neat way to provide housing but offer a sense of of support and community. And I think it would be so cool to have, like you know, five acres and you have your chickens and you have your gardens, and I think you would have to have a section of them where you Airbnb, just so that you can make money as well to help fund everything.
Speaker 1:Because I thought about you know, I don't think I would want to do it as a nonprofit. I've decided I don't want that for many reasons but allowing people to not just pay rent but build equity in their house so that in time they can sell their part of it, take the equity and go buy something larger and let the next person have a turn. But I think there's so many creative ways we can do this and I think about it. You know, there's some of us that are rattling around in big houses with more space than we really need and it breaks my heart when I think about people who are desperate for housing and I think we can do more and I think we should do more.
Speaker 2:I mean, we have this, you know housing shortage nationwide, at least affordable shortage. No, let me rephrase that we have a shortage of affordable housing. There's not a housing shortage. In Manhattan, New York City, there are more empty luxury apartments than homeless people on the street. We don't have a housing shortage. We have affordable housing shortage. Because? Well, because why? You know? I think it can feel silly to dream big, but I think it's also important to remember that the world as we know it is not the only way to be. I mean, look at what happened in March of 2020 and how quickly we figured out how to change things really, really fast, and I think that is such a reminder that, no matter how unchangeable the world can seem at one time, things can change very quickly, and whether it's for the good or bad. I hope we're there to do the kind of thing that may or may not make a difference, but that we can look back on with pride and know that how we were involved, what we did, was true to our values.
Speaker 1:And I think that right there is like the crux of it all thinking about our values and aligning ourselves with that. In closing, I follow a Reverend, benjamin Kremer I think it's pronounced Kremer, c-r-e-m-e-r, and today he had a post he wrote salvation belongs to God, not to us. Woe to us who think we are the ones who know better than God about who should be included in God's work of salvation. We are actually living in a time where some Christians see mercy as offensive, empathy as a sin, and diversity, equity and inclusion as a threat. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness. Isaiah 520.
Speaker 1:And there was one of the comments that really kind of grabbed my attention and I liked the way it was worded. He wrote Jonathan wrote I have always said that the holy books, the Bible, the Quran, whatever, are just claims. They are not evidence. They are just claims. The evidence comes from the words, actions and deeds of the followers of that faith. Whether fair or not, unbelievers see the nature of God in the evidence of those claims, through the words, actions and deeds of the followers. If Christians act with hate, that is how the biblical God is viewed and you know, this isn't just America who's watching. The whole world is watching and paying attention to how we are doing.
Speaker 2:And to how well we are living up to this national reputation of protecting human rights.
Speaker 1:And if this is the best that Christians can do, I think we're screwed.
Speaker 2:So it's up to us, the defectors, to go out.
Speaker 1:And make a difference and be different.
Speaker 2:And be different.
Speaker 1:Like what are the values that we say we hold? What are the values we claim?
Speaker 2:Like what are the values that we say we hold, what are the values we claim? We don't have to have a religious identity to live those out and I think that's a really hopeful thing. And I think many of us, wherever we fall on the religious identification spectrum I don't know spectrum's not even complex enough but, like, wherever we fall in our faith identity, we can connect on these values.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, and.
Speaker 2:I think that's what matters and I think, at a time when many of us might feel anger and frustration and despair, that's important to me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for spending time with us today. The resources and materials we've mentioned are linked in the show notes and on Facebook at Uncovered Life Beyond.
Speaker 2:What are your thoughts about college and recovery from high demand religion? We know you have your own questions and experiences and we want to talk about the topics that matter to you. Share them with us at uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom. That's uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed today's show and found value in it, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app. This helps others find the show While you're there. Subscribe to our podcast so you never miss an episode.
Speaker 2:Until next time stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward. Thank you.
