ASM040 Ask Rob Bell

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hey friends science mike here show's going to be a little different this week as you can tell by the lack of a snazzy intro um i've had a motorcycle accident i've got a concussion expected to be back on my feet pretty quickly and i saw some specialists today who indicate that i've actually traumatized my brain stem as part of the accident and i'm gonna have some symptoms longer than i expected and it's no big deal or anything but it means for a few weeks i'm very limited in the amount of time i can look at computers and limited in the amount of time i can read and those are critical parts of being science mic using the computer to write and to record podcasts and reading so that i give you guys great answers to your questions but i didn't want to keep having dead air and missing episodes i know this is part of your weekly rhythm frankly i enjoy spending my weeks with you probably more than you enjoy spending time with me and uh so i had a crazy idea i called up my friend rob bell who's going to host this week's show i sent him some faith and life questions i know it's ask science mike but we talk about science faith in life and rob knows a lot about science he knows even more about faith and about life and he's agreed to guest host this week's program next week we'll probably have a live edition of the show depending on whether i'm able to pull that off or not in a live environment and then the following week we'll either have another guest host or i'll be back on the show i want to thank everyone who's heard about this and sent me notes of encouragement i really appreciate it i am doing okay i do have some concentration issues some verbal issues i get little verbal tics and stutters my reading comprehension is quite bad i actually took a test today and i've gone from the high 90th percentile in reading comprehension to the 10th so i laugh so that i don't cry but this week is going to be a great show i haven't heard it but i know rob's amazing and for those of you who don't know rob bell he's a multi-new york times best-selling author he wrote love wins he wrote velvet elvis uh he wrote what we talk when we talk about god he's got a very popular podcast called the robcast he's been on tour with oprah i can't imagine there's more than a handful of people have heard of me and haven't heard of rob so without further ado i'm gonna hand the reins over to rob for an episode of ask science mike that i've never heard hey greg roll that theme song

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hi friends and welcome to ask science mike this is rob bell science mike called me a few days ago and he said rob hit my head bonked my melon on a motorbike accident and i need to know if you'll do my ask science mike podcast of course i said yes because i love that science mic [Music] so you all signed much questions and we're going to get to those in a minute but i figured first i should tell you some science mic stories does that sound good uh because i first met mike this would have been may of 2012 he came to an event i was doing in california and he raised his hand and he said i'm an atheist and i have some questions for you and then he proceeded to ask me a number of questions in front of the group and i remember thinking hey this dude is smart but b what struck me was his heart he was hungry and and searching for a meal it was like he was thirsty and he was not gonna give up until he found some water i was really struck with this is a fascinating human being because there is extraordinary intellectual horsepower here but it's melded to this giant expansive heart that is so hungry for meaning and transcendence and soul and we became friends after that and i would interact with him and i was consistently struck with his ability to take the complex and make it accessible to normal people like you and i and i would think to myself it's not just that he knows a lot he's able to articulate it in such a clear way it's a really extraordinary thing he can do it's not just the intellect it's not just the heart it's it's even the way that he communicates it it's funny because i did this a litter just podcast with him and we were sound checking and he had a headphones on and he was talking to the mic and he kept saying man i love the sound of my voice through a mic i just love the sound in my voice and headphones and we were laughing and we were all like yeah it's because you have a great voice it's not just that he has a great voice for communicating it's it's the alchemy of everything that you and i know to be science mike that i would keep thinking he really has some a gift here so one time we were at a party this would have been a year after i met him we were at a party in uh denver and um i'm on the couch he's sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace and people are doing that thing that they do at parties when they're in talking in groups of like two or three and i remember thinking i'm gonna try something here and uh so i said science mike i had some question like tell me what's happening in my brain when i i think it was sing or learn or hear something interesting and he launched into one of his explanations which are riveting as you know and what was so fascinating is the whole room every other conversation stopped it's like everybody just went and zoned right in and listened and you could tell people who didn't know who he is i could watch people's faces like who the who is this dude who is this interesting and then i asked him a second question and asked him a third question and i remember thinking this man has an extraordinary gift i can't imagine how many people he's going to be able to help if he pursues this if he throws himself into it if he goes for it there's no ceiling on what could happen with this extraordinary gift that this person has i literally let me see my phone i actually have a picture that i took that night of him sitting there in front of the fireplace talking because i remember thinking don't forget this moment because years from now who knows where he's going to end up so to be doing this podcast with you all and to have just watched his voice grow watch him own his uh path yeah i feel like i got in a front row seat to watch something really really really beautiful and uh so the chance to get to talk to you all and to have just watched this thing from the very beginning it's just a really moving thing for me so you all are sending some questions and i'm going to uh go after them and let's see what happens [Music] so uh first question hi science mike i honestly doubt you will ever see this but needed to voice it anyway which is really interesting this is from melissa alyssa science mike did see it and he read it and he sent it to me so he did see it so here's the thing alyssa writes you talk a lot about doubting but not so much what to do when you've lost your faith altogether as i know you have she says i've been deconstructing my faith for years trying to come up with a form of god i could live with it still reflected the bible in some way but my emotional baggage from past spiritual abuse has proved too much and i just don't feel like i can justify believing in jesus in being part of this tradition anymore so i've been crying for days mourning the loss of the god who meant so much to me and then she asks for advice on how do you find community where do you meet other non-religious people so first off alyssa i i can feel like in your question like a lifetime there's a weight there and so let me just say this everything you articulate in your email is totally normal totally normal i can't tell you how many people i have sat with who have expressed the exact same things and how many of the things you talk about in your email i know exactly what you're talking about from personal experience so a couple thoughts first we are not abused or wronged by institutions it's impossible for the church to hurt somebody or betray somebody or abuse somebody people hurt people so when somebody says they're angry with the church which you didn't say in your email but when you hear somebody say something like they're angry with the church or they're angry with the government or they're angry with that business that fired them that's impossible you cannot be angry with an institution an arrangement or an organization or a corporation you can only be angry with people so people hurt people and sometimes we get stuck because we are thinking about the wrong in terms of an amorphous faceless organization and the problem is you can't forgive a faceless organization and so that's why we get stuck in bitterness so first off i i assume you know this from from your question you're going to need to forgive the people who abused you and to forgive them you're gonna need to name it um spiritual abuse is awful and i can't imagine what you've been through but you're gonna have to name all of the wrong because you can't forgive that which hasn't been named and articulated and forgiveness is a process it doesn't mean you condone what they did by the way i just did a whole series of podcasts about this because one of the things i've learned over the years is that so many of us have somebody that we need to forgive but we haven't realized it so we're just sort of carrying it everywhere we go you're going to need to forgive all of those people and to forgive them by name for what they did and that may mean dragging up exactly what they did but often what happens is we take intellectual conceptions and they get muddled up with interrelational wounds and then it all just feels like a giant hairball and so we have an intellectual conception of god that no longer works but it's so intricately tied in with people who deeply disappointed and let us down that it all just feels like the same thing so one of the things first to do is you got to separate it there are some people who hurt you we're going to need to begin to forgive them and that might take a while forgiveness is a process if you wake up in two days and you're a little less angry than you were then we celebrate that when it comes to forgiveness you celebrate movement wherever you find it secondly then you forgive them so that the cruelty of others or the ignorance or others or the abuse of others will not rob you of your joy will not rob you of wonder and awe of great music and great food of oceans and mountains and a walk in the woods of gratitude for this extraordinary gift of life because alyssa you're breathing and you're here on this rock hurtling through space 67 000 miles an hour this whole thing is a gift this whole you're breathing you just received another gift of breath you have another day here there is this extraordinary opportunity all of us have to experience everything there is in this thing that we call life and when we fail when we don't forgive we're allowing others to rob us of the joy of this gift so forgiveness isn't just about setting them free and find out that it's you forgiveness isn't just about moving on forgiveness is about you being fully alive right now which leads me to the part about god secondly it's totally normal that you would leave a particular conception of god behind that is an absolutely healthy and sometimes necessary part of growing maturity and faith and evolving consciousness totally normal so the form of god that you had doesn't work anymore so leave it behind not a big deal honestly not a big deal now i know it appears like a big deal probably because for many of us our conceptions of god are so deeply tied into our tribe to maybe family extended family professors mentors friends roommates lovers whatever it is oftentimes our conceptions of god are so deeply tied in with our relationships in the tribe that handed us that conception of god but here's the problem with using the phrase non-religious i've met lots of people who are like i don't go to church anymore that's ridiculous i meet on sundays at a pub with my friends and we talk about our lives and what matters and we do it every sunday and it's the best thing ever well that is that is replacing one ritual with another it's beautiful but you have a deep innate human longing for meaning hope and transcendence so often what happens is people have a bad religious experience and then say well then i just need to leave the whole religious thing but it will come up under a different name because you will intuitively search for a new path and you will want community and you want some bread and wine and some good music and someone to walk with you through sorrow and someone to share in your joy and so it's totally normal that this conception of god needs to be left behind and you will need to grieve that and so what you've demonstrated already in your email is you realize this greeting is like the death of a phase of your life but the new thing can't come until you grieve and let go of the old thing that's how it works so stay on the path and be brutally honest about all of your emotions drag it all up because what you will discover is such an amazing big wide beautiful world as you move forward now a bit about jesus jesus comes to teach us compassion grace integrity to give us courage to help us stand with the poor the oppressed and the marginalized jesus didn't hurt you some of his followers did and to forgive them it's really important not to confuse compassion grace courage fidelity with the downtrodden integrity with those who hurt you because jesus invites you to be a part of something new happening in the world the cross is actually an act of solidarity jesus joins us in the absence of god it's the presence in the absence and so i i would just want to make sure that you weren't throwing out the whole thing when there in fact may be something in there that is still inviting you to be a part of the new thing happening in the world this tradition is rooted in the healing grace and love of the divine this tradition is rooted in a group of people who believe that you can forgive others and you can extend this forgiving love to the world that you can stand with those who need your energy time resources love and compassion this tradition is rooted in the great mystery that we're all loved that we're all sons and daughters that we're all part of the same family and that there's hope for us and there's hope for our world and i doubt that you want to leave that but are there a lot of things within that that got sort of mixed in there that need to be left behind yep and it's absolutely totally normal and then you got a question about friends here's the thing you make friends with whoever helps you wake up you make friends with whoever helps you be you the true alyssa you make friends where you find the life who helps you wake up to this extraordinary gift of your life and what you will discover is that you will find friends in all sorts of interesting places so think about it like an adventure like a discovery like a hunt you're grieving but you're also beginning this extraordinary interesting search and hunt and that is something to enjoy [Music] another question here this is anna and anna says she just stumbled on the podcast a few weeks ago and she's been devouring the episodes and it speaks volumes to her soul i love it um she was raised in a very conservative home grew up with a narrow view of faith she's cringed at the idea of calling myself a christian for a while but one of the most freeing things she's heard and it's really starting to unpack is that the bible is actually a library of books more than one finite and divinely authored one oh i'm so glad mike has been talking about that yes anna it's a library of funky books written on three different continents by 40 authors over a 1400 year period of time it's a book been written by people so she's asking how do you believe in what you do about the bible approach it learn from it and be inspired by it um great question great great question okay first off um the bible was written by real people in real places at real times sometimes people the question they keep asking the bible is is it true or do they believe it but sometimes what you need in order to reboot things is to change the categories so set aside the idea of believing or not believing it or is it true or not for now and ask new questions with new categories so here's one example and here's one driving thing that will absolutely light up how you read the bible and that's this when you read it simply ask why did people write this down why what was interesting about this story this poem this rant this letter why did people find the need to write this down and then why did it endure that question alone will take you so many interesting places so here's an example there's a story in the bible about jonah being swallowed by a whale now the assyrians were brutal neighbors of the israelites they made their life a living hell they persecuted them i mean rape and pillage the assyrians were absolutely brutal to the israelites the story of jonah and the wales about a man named jonah has told to go share redeeming redemptive love with the assyrians now the uh capital of assyria was nineveh so when the man jonah is told go to nineveh and share with them this redeeming message and jonah goes the opposite direction what often happens and probably if you heard the story growing up is you're like see jonah ran away from god and disobeyed but i guarantee you the audience would have cheered jonah on the original audience of the jonah and the whale story would have been like that's my boy jonah no way am i going to nineveh nineveh was like the death star you know what i mean so when you read the story i guarantee you the crowd was cheering jonah on because he went the other direction they would have had tremendous solidarity with jonah because what jonah is supposed to go to the enemy no way those people have made our life miserable so the story is about a man named jonah who goes the opposite direction and finally realizes i probably should go back to them so the story about jonah it's easy to get distracted by the whole swallowed by a whale thing but the story of jonah and the whale raises this question for its original audience can you move on from the past can you forgive the assyrians can you heal from those wounds and not just heal from the wounds and forgive your persecutor and oppressor but can you then move towards your greatest enemy in love see this was a story that would have spoken to an entire nation this story would have spoken to all israelites and would have said i know that the assyrians have made your life a living hell can you be big enough to forgive and then move toward them in love so when people make it about the whale and argue about whether or not somebody got swallowed by a whale actually the literalism there and people insisting that if it says he got swallowed by will and i got swallowed by well and there's no way you can challenge that the taking it literally and making that the point of the story you have people telling you you have to believe it exactly like it says it happened is actually a distraction from the much more penetrating personal questions the story asks which are can you forgive your worst persecutor and move towards them in love do you see how you read the story can be it can go from just a oh my word i have to believe this fantasy stuff to whoa now that is a story that is very old and very fresh correct the question of can we move on from the past and can we forgive our worst tormentors so when you read the story of joan and the whale the question is what was going on where was nineveh the capital of assyria why do we know about the assyrians oh now this becomes a much much more interesting story and at the end of course jonah is bitter about all that god has done for the assyrians so what is the storyteller doing right there the storyteller is saying to the israelites you have to move to a higher stage of consciousness in which you can acknowledge that your god moves in other people that other people have favor as well you think you're so special i'm telling you this god has favor for everyone it's a story of expanding consciousness and evolving awareness now questions then what's going on in this story what was the world like what's the story unfolding here you begin with the human and you work your way to the divine you begin with the human in these stories and you ask yourself is there something else going on here's an example noah and the flood when people say do you believe that there was a flood of course there were lots of floods there were lots of floods in the ancient world and in the area of the ancient world where the story of noah and the flood comes from there were lots of floods flash floods so you're out with your family you're working your plot of land and all of a sudden a wall of water comes through and washes everything you know away that's what actually happened to people and remember you've never been up in a plane you have no google satellite images you've probably only been a couple miles from your house your entire life so the noaa and the flood story those people who experienced those flash floods all they knew was all of a sudden water came out of nowhere and washed everything away can you see in a much earlier time in human history can you see why people would try to figure out why this happened to this day we do this we try to figure out why stuff happens and you can see why people would have begin to attribute divine causation to these stories you can see how people began to say well someone must be angry with me because a giant wall of water wiping everything away would tend to feel like anger correct so you can see why people had their gods and goddesses and they just drew the conclusion somebody somewhere is clearly angry with us so a number of stories came out of that time in that place that were flood stories and in those flood stories people were searching for meaning and explanations just like we do now for why things happen the way they do and one of the explanations was obviously we have not been living right and the gods are angry with us so in the ancient flood stories generally at the end the god destroys everybody because the god is in judgment of how people have been living the noah story though starts like the other flood stories but then it ends with this god saying i'm never going to do that again because my intention essentially is to bless you whoa now here's a really interesting thing this was a new idea in human history because at that time the what the gods do is they punish you this story was about a god whose intention is not to destroy and punish you but to bless you and make peace with you this was a new idea in evolving human consciousness the bible is a library of books that reflect evolving human consciousness so when people think oh all that primitive old testament stuff wait wait wait wait these stories were incredibly progressive for their day if you read it in the context of where and when it happened all of the sudden it becomes extraordinarily interesting and progressive and enlightening because people are being met in their world on their terms and their metaphors but then invited to take a step forward so you do that with this book you simply ask what was going on at the time where were people living what was happening with government what was happening with politics what was happening with armies what was happening with resources what kind of genre is this what's the human story unfolding here and this book will come to life in extraordinary ways another question hey science mike and then this person asks a frequent way i have been trying to get a few of my baptist friends to see the value in other religions and spiritual teachings is by showing them that powerful spiritual experiences are universal in all faiths and even with people of no faith at all what i keep running into is their idea that because of those experiences being of other belief systems and they must not be from god because why would god act in religions that aren't ours am i asking them too much to be that open-minded and if so how can i help them see the common ground of all belief systems great great great question um okay first off let's just take that phrase i have been trying to get a few of my baptist friends here's the thing you can't take people where they don't want to go your baptist friends might not want to go where you have gone they might not want to understand what you understand you can't take people where they don't want to go so the brutal reality is that it works for some people where they're at everything nice and neat black and white all the categories sorted for some people the thing that they're in it just works for them and what happens is you you you don't see it like that anymore so here's the thing when you see you can't unsee and when you taste you can't untaste so once the genie is out of the bottle you can't stuff it back in so when you grow in your awareness the danger is that your growing awareness would work against their awareness so what happens sometimes is we have tasted something we have tasted a bigger wider more expansive view and we are liberated we have been set free are you with me we cannot go back to that narrow fundamentalist crazy backwards thing we can't do it and so what happens is we go around trying to convince everybody to see what we've seen but until they have seen it as well you may actually be working your growing awareness may be working against their growing awareness so sometimes you have to not have conversations because all you're going to do is get you more frustrated and they're going to be more confused and the last thing your enlightenment is going to appear to them to be is enlightenment that's actually why jesus talked about throwing pearls before swine pearls are good things he was essentially saying be careful about throwing good things in front of people that may become negatives so let me just say that up front my friend who has baptist friends your friends might not be ready now secondly there's always a chance that your friends are hungry and that you have honest intellectual exchanges where people are actually intelligently discussing things and listening to each other and you're actually having the kind of give and take that happens in really healthy friendships if that's the case and if they're actually saying to you what do you mean friend of us baptists the scripture the la the bible is a library of books about how god is bigger than any one religion i assume that's very straightforward but the bible is a book about a god who is always bigger than whatever human beings cooked up to describe that god so right away early in the bible abraham who you know abraham had many sons me sons and father abraham and i am one of them and so are you abraham is the founder he's the center of the jewish story as it as it sort of explodes into the world and so we're told abraham abraham is the one who's going to the nation's going to come out of him it's going to bless the whole world abraham abraham and then what happens melchizedek comes up out of nowhere and he's a high priest of god what what right away in the opening chapters of the bible somebody shows up out of nowhere who happens to be the high priest of god and abraham honors him so you have to understand again and again by the way in the old testament who's the messiah in the old testament oh yeah cyrus the king of the persians the pagan king cyrus the word the prophet uses to describe it says god calls cyrus my messiah yeah exactly what does paul say when he's on acts 17 the god in whom we live and move and have our being is he talking to jewish people there no is he talking to christians there no who's he talking to greek philosophers when the apostle paul has a chance to talk to greek philosophers he does not mention jesus he does not mention the disciples what does he say the god in whom we live and move and have our being and he quotes their philosophers so the bible is a library of books about the divine being who transcends whatever human conceptions we've cooked up to understand and articulate and form boundaries around this divine being so one more thought when your baptist friends don't believe that god would act in religions beyond them they aren't being true to their own tradition when your baptist friends do not believe that god works anywhere in humanity but among them in their religion they aren't being true to their own tradition you are the traditional one because the tradition the tradition is this awareness the divine will always transcend whatever conceptions and categories and systems we have created i mean think about the jesus stories every time in jesus culture the establishment says these people are in these people are out these people are on god's side these people aren't what does jesus do says no actually the people who think they're in are actually out the people who everybody's decided are out are actually in every system that gets created to demarcate who's in and who's out jesus essentially sides with the out people this book is a book about radical inclusion this scripture is about the movement of the divine being the earth is the lord's and everything in it over and over and over again from the psalms to early in genesis all the way through to revelation the whole thing endlessly announces that whatever you've cooked up the divine is at work in it through it and beyond it [Music] one more hi science mike i love the show it's always been a great way to start off monday morning my question is what do you think worldwide reaction would really be if we became aware of intelligent alien life in these three scenarios what a great question intelligent alien life then the person says what if there was a clear sign of life um what if aliens show up and land on the white house lawn or um what if the government revealed that they'd actually been in contact with aliens for years but didn't think the public is ready for that knowledge so here's the questions a person asked would there be panic and mayhem would it bring humanity together with the general public care what do you think the spiritual repercussions would be and lastly is this something you would want to see played out in your lifetime oh you you science mike people are awesome what a great question first off i was at a party just recently with the head of all rockets at jpl jet propulsion labs so this man is in charge of everything that we put into space and he said and he's been around forever and he's just sort of a legend in the science community and he said oh rob not he's in his what mid 70s he said probably not my lifetime he says but in years we'll discover life on other planets he's like i'm confident of that it will happen oh yeah and then he continued drinking his wine like it was totally normal not great okay so um here's what i think first it would be exactly like it is now that's what i think it would be exactly like it is now um so here's what i mean first off personally i'd love it how absolutely awesome would that be it would reaffirm what i already know about the diversity and depth and surprise of the universe i mean science what could be more awesome than all of the things science is teaching us about this big beautiful exotic heartbreaking exhaust i mean amazing world by the way the earth is 71 percent covered in water 95 of that water is totally unexplored so think about every octopus manta ray shark whale every weird sea creature we have ever discovered we discovered in the five percent of water that we have explored so when people say like oh man we've all we've just i mean human beings we've discovered really we haven't even gotten started on the ocean and that's on this planet so my assumption is that human history will continue to be this mind-blowing trip where we are learning about endless diversity and depth and it just we just never come to the end of it so aliens oh my goodness how fantastic would that be so how would people react they would react exactly like they do now to everything some people would be threatened and honestly uh if you're talking about spirituality or faith for some people their entire thing would fall apart because jesus came to the earth to save so what about saving like for some people the whole salvation narrative would completely fall apart so they'd be threatened some would simply analyze it would become an intellectual exercise what does this mean they would simply cite data some would capitalize so some would be threatened someone analyzed some would capitalize can you imagine the t-shirts some would just think okay how can we make money on this some would deny it just like people are denying climate change right now some people would just simply deny it they would say ah it's just a cgi right it's a holographic technology and then some would see it as even more evidence for the diversity and depth and surprise of the universe it would just bring even more joy unless of course the aliens completely destroyed us but um some would just see it as the most fascinating thing ever and then what would happen is there would be a new normal everybody would freak out it would have all sorts of press it would have endless endless endless commentary and discussion and then it would become the new normal it would become just how we see things and i would add historically imagine imagine around the time of kepler in galileo when when the first scientist said that the earth isn't the center of the universe i mean imagine when people really began to process that the earth is not the center of the universe and then we're actually a random ball of debris rotating something much much bigger than us rotating around the sun which is actually the center you have instances in human history where people the earth is not flat it's round where discoveries of similar magnitude absolutely blew people's minds and some people fought it and some people were generally the people on the front edge were the innovators and and the people who discovered were often persecuted and beaten for these new ideas and then at some point it became [Music] normal it just became how things are so if this were to happen the first question to ask would be once we get through this what's the new normal man what a great question [Music] this person says i have a question about selflessness love and christianity i'm a licensed professional counselor who has grown up in the church my whole life i've been exposed to many different kinds of nominations and noticed that regardless of the christian denomination everyone tends to put an emphasis on selflessness and sacrifice when it comes to love and then the person says that this clashes with her counseling psychology background she was taught about healthy boundaries learning to say no taking care of ourselves not losing ourselves in another person or act and not to be doormats how do you combine these two ideas in my own life i have found this to be an issue my marriage i'm a very selfless person i love to help others even at my own expense this has led me to have a hard time saying no or putting boundaries in place with my husband because i always think this would be the loving christian and selfless thing to do even if it hurts me when i began incorporating the word no and setting healthy boundaries with my husband he got angry and asked how can you not want to do this for me if you are a christian god's love is selfless and what you're doing is telling me you are not willing to do this for me this made me question my beliefs okay i'm gonna stop there because i'm getting cranked up um so can these two ideas exist how do you maintain a loving and selfless love for someone while taking care of yourself great question first off sharing about your marriage like this uh thank you i can feel your pain i can also feel your intelligence and your desire to sort this out and i totally know what you're talking about there is this notion of a spineless jesus who comes to save the world who is just a doormat for everybody and then to be a follower of jesus is just to serve serve serve serve just love just let people push you around just you know turn the other cheek which is a total abuse of that passage just whatever it is just take it and just keep giving giving giving giving and you end up as uh and lamont says you end up as a flight attendant to the world so i have seen this in action good hearted beautiful people who just end up like flight attendants to the world so first off what helps me is to think about when you get on an airplane after they tell you how to use the seat belt they show you this oxygen mask that comes down from the ceiling that you put on and they always say put the mask on yourself before you help anybody else first i want to talk about airplane masks then i want to talk about binaries and then i want to talk about your husband first airplane masks everything you need to know is found in that simple gesture you put the mask on yourself first and you understand this from your counseling background you take care of yourself and you start with yourself you love your neighbor as yourself which means you love yourself first you take care of yourself you do what you need to be healthy and full of life you cannot give a gift you don't have you cannot allow the love and life within you to spill over into the world if it is not present in you and overflowing from within you and lots of religious people were not taught how to take care of themselves and so they're trying to give a gift that they do not possess you cannot give something you don't have which i know my good sister is asking this question you already understand that so uh start with yourself and your boundaries as you already know are incredibly important you can be an ocean of compassion and be very clear about your boundaries there's that great line where someone asked jesus tell my teacher to divide the inheritance he's like who appointed me judge between the two of you you can be compassion incarnate and say to somebody who appointed me to do that it's not my job secondly binaries i want to talk about the difference between binaries and then non-dual tension the question you're asking is how do you balance is it this one or is it this one how do you balance and the answer is there is a tension there between your boundaries and care for yourself and how you give to the world and in your question you basically have articulated some of these ways that i give myself are violating myself you my sister you know you know listen to your true self there is a christ wisdom that you possess it is not the wisdom of the people around you it is not cultural messages it is not what your husband has told you it is your true self it's like a radar and it knows you know when you have violated yourself trust that trust that health often brings division and conflict when somebody begins to be healthy it often brings conflict so perhaps it's helpful to think about it less as a binary is it take care of myself or is it give to others and more as a fluid tension that you live within think about it less as an either or and more as a tension or you could think about it as a an energetic cycle in which you move from caring for yourself to giving for others to caring for yourself think about it like an energetic cycle and just ask yourself where am i in the cycle oh i'm exhausted i need to care for myself oh tank's full let's give and then second or third dear lord do i want to speak with your husband um him saying you should do this because you're a christian is so un you already know this it's so unhealthy and it's so manipulative and it's so wrong and it's so toxic and it's so crazy i can't even stand it i'm assuming that you already know this but it's so devastating for the space between you when someone says how can you not want to do this for me if you are a christian there is so much unhealth in that sentence you do not want to do this because it violates your sense of self and central to being a christian is being a fully alive person with an integrated self pursuing your true self with boundaries there are just so many layers there but i would simply say this pursuing health and pursuing your true self may bring all sorts of conflict and that is the reality that very few people talk about think about the child of an alcoholic and all the siblings and the spouse of the alcoholic just play a role and then finally that one kid says i am not going to prop up this sick system anymore dad's an alcoholic i'm not going to pretend he's not and what does it do the system cannot handle it it either needs to woo the kid back into silence or it has to boot them and ostracize them and condemn them but what the system can't do is continue on like that so with your husband a firm loving kind articulation of who you are what you can do what you can't do and then your refusal to be manipulated by religious language that is a distorted understanding of what it means to be a christian and a deeply toxic understanding of what it means for the two of you to have an energetic space between you where you give and take in a healthy rhythm of sacrificial love and let's assume that your husband will come with you on this journey into greater and greater health but i feel your heartbeat in this question i feel the pain it's less a binary than it is a fluid tension that you move among you do not have to be a flight attendant to the world you place that mask on yourself you got all the oxygen you need so that you can help those around you i am cheering you on grace and peace [Music]