When Faith Falls Apart: Rebuilding a Relationship with God After Addiction (with Father Chad E. Jarnigan)

What happens when faith falls apart in ways sobriety alone cannot fix?

In this episode, a former pastor who found himself disqualified and starting over sits down with Anglican priest and author Father Chad Jarnigan for an honest conversation about losing and rediscovering faith.

This is not a polished, theological discussion. It is a grounded, real exploration of what it looks like when your relationship with God no longer works the way it used to.

Together, they unpack spiritual deconstruction and reconstruction in plain language, especially for those in recovery who feel ashamed, numb, or unsure what they believe anymore. They explore how shame-based religion can distort both your view of God and your view of yourself, and why honesty matters more than certainty when you are trying to rebuild.

The conversation also touches on the healing role of confession, the difference between a faith crisis and a necessary clearing, and why belonging often comes before believing when someone is starting over.

You will also hear practical ways to begin reconnecting, including contemplative practices like silence, breath, gratitude, and simply learning to notice again. Instead of pressure or performance, this episode points toward a slower, more grounded spirituality built on real experience.

For anyone who has ever asked, “Where was God in my suffering?”, this conversation holds that question with care and without easy answers.

If you feel spiritually lost, you are not alone. And you are not out of options.

Download the free guide:
 What Do I Turn To When I Feel Spiritually Lost?
www.valiantliving.com/episode62

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, you don’t have to face it alone.

Valiant Living helps men and their families move from crisis to stability through clinically driven care, community, and hope.

Learn more about our programs at www.valiantliving.com
or call us confidentially at (720) 796-6885 to speak with someone who can help.

Transcript

A Pastor’s Faith Falls Apart

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, today's episode is a personal one for me. And many of you know this, but before Valiant Living, um, I was a pastor, and faith wasn't just something I believed. It really was my identity, it was what I built my life on. And then everything unraveled. And so when I went to rehab, I had to face something I didn't expect. I didn't just need to get sober. I needed to rebuild my relationship with God from the ground up. And it wasn't the version that I preached or not even the version I performed. I needed something real. And if I'm honest, I I don't I didn't really know where to start. And so one of the first people I turned to in that season was Father Chad Darnigan. Chad had been a friend of mine for a long time. Um, he's a priest over at Luminous Parish. Um, he's an author, and more than that, he's someone who walked with me when I was trying to rediscover my faith and spirituality in a very real and honest way. What I love about Chad is he didn't try to fix me, he didn't give me answers necessarily, he just walked with me multiple cups of coffee during that season, just hanging out and talking and exploring what this could be. And so that's what makes this conversation so meaningful. Um, I also want to say this up front. I know this topic can be sensitive. For some of you, conversations about God, church, or faith brings up real wounds and real disappointment, even some trauma. And we want to respect that. And our hope isn't to force anything or push an agenda. It's just simply like no matter where you are in your spiritual journey, whether you feel close to God or far from Him or unsure what you believe at all, that you would find something in this conversation that feels helpful, that feels honest, it feels grounding. So today we talk about what it actually feels like to lose connection, why it happens, and what it looks to begin finding your way back in a real and sustainable way. So if this is something you're walking through right now, we've also created a free resource to go along with this episode called What Do I Turn to When I Feel Spiritually Lost? And you can download all that at ValiantLiving.com/slash episode 62. All right, let's get into it. Dude, I love any time. We've already been talking for like 15 minutes, and I'm like, we should have recorded all this. It's not anything about what we want to talk about. But man, I love being able to sit and talk with you, man. Um yeah, me too. It's always good. It's good. We've been buddies a good a good while now. I people ask me how I know you, and I s and I used to say that I took your job, but that's not actually accurate. You had left your you had left your job, and I came in and filled the the huge gap that you had left. And I just remember um when I came in to work at this church, and you had left to go work at another church, and I was meeting people, so many beautiful, sweet people that a lot of them we're still friends with today. Um, it was almost this vibe of like, Drew, we we like you, but we just really love Chad. We miss Chad. And I was like, instead of it's probably my own insecurity, instead of being like, Well, I'm not gonna compete with Chad, I'd like to be friends with Chad. And so somehow we became buddies. I don't remember. I probably reached out to you and or we ran into each other at Frothy Monkey or something. That's so good, man. Yeah. Yeah, we became buds, wrote some songs together. I've been I've been following your journey, um, and then coming out of rehab myself. I while I was in treatment, I th I thought to myself, I don't have a pastor. Oof. I don't have a spiritual leader.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

We had reconnected, and you were already you know further and I want to hear about your your journey here, but um I had already brought you in to kind of do some things with my staff.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

And it was such a different way, such a beautiful way. You led us through communion around Easter and just different things. I'm like, man, Chad's he's tapped into something here that's different and special, and I longed for it even in my old life. And so when I was in rehab, I was like, I'm gonna call Chad and just see, like, hey, will you journey with me over this next one? Yeah, man, that was such a gift, too. Remember that?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yeah, that was probably one of the most broken places I'd been. But you created, and if I let myself I could get real emotional thinking about this, but you created such a safe place for me to re-engage with my faith.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Um and have really tough questions about God and about the church, and about um, and that you know, rekindled a really uh what I already considered a great friendship, but into a real sacred friendship and relationship. Oh, yeah, that's beautiful. And um, we're sitting here in where Luminous Parish meets, the place where you get to be a priest of this beautiful parish, this beautiful old building.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yeah, it's something.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

It's so cool, man. I love this place. It's it's out in the country. It's so peaceful to drive out here to come to church on Sundays. It's like it's like a almost like making a pilgrimage.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Yeah, like a retreat. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what we appreciated about it too.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Yeah, the place of peace. Anyways, I w I've been wanting, I talked to a lot of guys that come through our program and just in general in recovery who are really wrestling with this faith stuff. Um I was blessed that I had a lot of issues with just the especially the American Evangelical Church. Um I never really went through a phase where I was out on God. I just was I just like, hey, I I it's not working for me. I remember having a conversation with God where I just said, Would it be okay if we start over?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Oh, yeah. Just so good.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

We just hit the reset button and can I try to unlearn as much as I can and relearn and can I look at scriptures through a different light and all that kind of stuff? And God and how just tender his mercy is was like it almost was like that's what I've been waiting on. Um and so it kicked me off on the church. So I so I still have a lot of big feelings around church and spirituality, but I've I'm more connected with God today than I've ever been, I think. And that's not a that's just a a fact. Um still a long way to go. But all that long, long intro to say, welcome, Chad. I'm glad that we're buddies, I'm glad to know you. Um and I'm thankful for the work that you've done um to kind of create environments for people like me to to fall in love with Jesus again.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Thanks for the invitation. I think it's important to have some of these conversations and even when we never feel like experts, yeah, you know, but yeah, to hang out with people who are honest and have been there and still there walking through things, I think is really a beautiful thing. So I look forward to things like this. There's lots of conversations I don't look forward to, but this is this is great.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's funny because even when we started looking into because we were friends before we started um showing up here on Sundays, but when I looked at Luminous, I think one of the the things on the website was trauma informed and I was like, my people. You know, and so one thing about this community is there's a lot of people here that have discovered kind of a new way, and or whether it's Anglicanism or but I would say the large percentage of people here aren't Anglicans by they didn't grow up that way.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Yeah, they're not cradle by any means.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

I was really worried. I don't I didn't want to come into a room full of disgruntled, jaded people who are just so who are who are rallied around what they're pissed about.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah. Yeah. Misery loves company fellowship. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

I didn't find that here. What I found was people who do who did have and do have wounds in pain and trauma, but also have just like found this really beautiful way of following Jesus. That man, we could probably go person by person in the range of beliefs and ideology and just how they grew up is probably it fills the spectrum completely.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Yeah, it's fascinating.

From Touring To The Priesthood

SPEAKER_00 8:31

I can't imagine the conversations you had. Um, but everyone is here, it's almost like a childlike wonder over what we've discovered. Yeah, it's not like we're just we just don't want to be like how we were. Right. It's not that. Yeah. I don't I don't feel that. I'm sure there's some of that, but could you walk us through just a little bit of your story? Because I want to get into just deconstruction and even reconstruction. I know those are buzzwords, I think, in the church, but there's something really important to that, especially with people that are in recovery and addicts. But could you give us a snapshot of your story and kind of how you went from this mega church rock star, singer, CCM, you know, doing the music thing into this really beautiful, simple, contemplative life that you've chosen to live?

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Yeah, usually when you are in ministry, you have an idea that people have an idea of you. And they said, Well, you grew up in the church and all this. And I didn't really um the church that I frequented as a child, I couldn't even tell you what it was. I don't know what denomination it was. It sometimes uh I just remember my mother being mad at me because I didn't want to change out of my Cincinnati Bengals jersey to go to church, you know, or whatever. And so growing up, I didn't really have a foundational kind of capacity for things. So that only came later in life. I was a baseball guy, I played baseball year-round. I played it in the snow in Ohio, and I really wanted to follow a bit of that family trend. Right. And so when I became serious about my faith, I was probably in college. I went to this small school that I was not a great experience. I'm not even gonna give it a shout out, because it was my experience, and then and then I started touring. I started singing, and so and I tried to finish college like after the fact, and then so I was bouncing around on a bus for gosh, 200 dates a year for a couple years, and then came back and finished that. And my whole 20s and 30s was me tug of war. Is this about my creativity, my artistry, or ministry? And that was the constant. And so to be in Nashville was kind of like the best and the worst of those, right? Because it marries the ministry and the art and becomes an industry. And that industry can get really dicey and can do a lot of things in the name of God that has nothing to do with God. And so when I my first church I went to when I moved to town was this Episcopal Church, and it was back in the day, it was the place. It was this loud, uh, kind of celebratory episcopal church that everybody in the industry would go to because they didn't want anything to do with like the type of show in church back then. They wanted to go to a liturgical sacramental.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Because they're doing that on the weekend. I mean, they're touring in on the weekends, and they're like, I just don't want to go to church that feels like what I'm actually doing on a Friday. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah, yeah. So I was a part of that. Yeah. But then I was hired to come on staff at a big church, and then that continued. I was on staff at three large churches before we planted Luminous. And the underneath all of that, and I think we've I've shared this before with you, but I used to go to Wednesday noon Eucharists, you know, while on staff at these big churches, be evangelical churches, and I would go to St. Paul's Episcopal Church in downtown Franklin just to receive the sacraments. And I would sometimes it was like me and the priest, and sometimes it was like me, the priest, and three old ladies. And and I just it was something that I needed as a centering and as a balance to all of the other hype machine that I was a part of.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

And I just had to because you you almost I I've heard you share this before, and it you don't I don't think I've heard you say this, but the way you share it, it's almost like you had to like closet it, like you had to sneak over. Totally. Nobody knew you were going because of like what's wrong with Chad if he's going over to the city.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Well, what's happening or that? You can't do that, you know. And that's those these are so territorial binaries, you know, that we just have to say, you're either this or you're that, it's black or white and dualistic. And that's not, we're more complex than that, you know. That fed me, that gave me a balance and a centering and a meaning and a purpose to go back and do everything else.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

What was the catalyst for you? So you're in these environments, some of the some of the most influential churches that are out there, you know, really like thousands of people. And but then you take the the road less traveled, probably, where it's like you're at the pinnacle of a successful music career, but then also successful in the church industry. And then, you know, and I know some of your story, but when I was at the time when I knew you, it was just like Chad just kind of disappeared, like went off the radar, not relationally, like you're around town and stuff. I think.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

On purpose.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

What what why? What happened?

SPEAKER_01 13:47

I needed to just find some obscurity. You know, we've talked about that a little bit. I felt like it didn't make sense to be on the screen and in the in the in the the noise. I it it was draining me. I but it was also if I were being honest, which is something that we will get to. Honesty is at the core of everything. Yeah. If we're really want to see change and we want to s be healthy people, we have to be honest. And at one point I was on staff doing all of the things, but I didn't believe anything that we were doing. So certainly not uh atheist in the sense of belief, but certainly agnostic. So what we did didn't matter, right? So I believe that there is a God, I believe that there's a higher power, but I don't think that anything that we're doing means anything. And I saw that. So the incongruence of watching the people and the experiencing leadership and then uh the bottom line, increasing the budgets so people could make more money, we could expand our borders bigger, better, flashier, whatever. I it just never made sense to me. Uh it did until it didn't. And then in the middle of that struggle, I think I just had to I wanted to disappear. I just didn't want to be a part of the noise and the routines. I didn't want people calling me and asking me to come to do the next thing or the next conference or the next whatever. I just wanted to kind of fade for a while. And then when I re-emerged from that, it was probably more of the I have something to share from my experience for those who need and want to listen to what I need to share. And it and I realized I felt like I was speaking a different language to the old group. Right. So I was speaking Portuguese all of a sudden, right? But I didn't speak Portuguese before. And now I do, and they just look at me like, yeah, I don't get it. You're in the headline, bro, good for you, and whatever that is. And then they move. And so for me, I just realized that my historical bent was already underneath the surface, and I needed to sit in it and let it continue, pick it up again and let it form me. And that led us to, you know, planting a church and all of those things. But before that, I was still trying to actively participate in those spaces. Right. And I wanted to bring that kind of change to those spaces and like kind of course correct some of it, right? And that was reciprocated and and and supported for a while until it wasn't. Yeah. And then it became combustible. Right. You know, and and when I mentioned being ordained into the Anglican church, the Episcopal Church, like they were like, why would you do such a thing when you're in this environment doing this? Why would you do that? Why don't you just be ordained in this? I'm like, I don't want to be ordained in this. And so I that was a hard, you know, gut check. And but then I knew that it needed to happen so that I could help others find their way through it. So it's almost like trudging through a bit of a wilderness that was overgrown and trying to like use a machete to just kind of like make a path, you know. And that was the Canterbury Trail. That was this historic, beautiful path that the historic church has done and that most evangelicals even came from. They don't know it because we'd like to really erase that history. But it's really important that we do that.

When Ministry Stops Feeling True

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Well, I'm glad you did. I'm glad you and and your wife Jen. I'm glad that you guys had the courage and the you know, the grace to go through what I would imagine would could be a very lonely and sad. I mean, there's a lot of loss there too, a lot of relational loss. Um, but there are so many people, specifically people in recovery, but also, I mean, Luminous, there's, and we won't out them, but there's pastors now active in other churches, big churches, teaching past like that, if they have a weekend off, we'll sneak over and sit in the back and just have a place to you. Because there is that, and we'll talk about this, but there is that congruency part that you you talk about a lot. You've written on this, and I want to talk about that. But my a lot of my implosion, and I would say this to people, and it wouldn't make sense to them, but if they're like, What led you to that place? It was a lack of congruency, it was lack of honesty, and that is so destructive at the soul level when you're having to get up and preach or say or lead one thing, but internally you're like, I don't know that this is true. And it's like core fundamental things to who you are as a human. It's not just like, well, I don't like the this color and you like this. It's like it's no, it's like foundational things. It is that is so destructive at the soul level, and it just rips a human apart on the inside. And over time, at least in my story, it just was not manageable anymore. And so many of us, you know, don't know that there's another path outside of employ like you just stay in it so long until you just can't anymore, and then you start making I started making decisions that were detrimental to my own soul, to people that I loved because it it was an ocean apart, yeah. The the congruency of my soul. You know, and this is a this is a space and a place where people are able to come with their questions. I mean, I know people that attend Luminous right now that I think in other environments they wouldn't even label them a Christ follower. Right. Yeah, because of their questions they have. But here they're like, you know, this is a safe place for them to come. And we're like, yeah, you're welcome here at the table. Um, but I see this a lot specifically in recovery, because people in our context, men will come into recovery, and they've most of them have some sort of experience with the church or religion. And because it was so wounding, or because it told them they were an evil, bad person, and now they've hit rock bottom, and what has been just indoctrinated to them is there's a God who is extremely disappointed in them. Yeah, or maybe there's how could God allow me to go through this stuff? And because there's not a version of God or spirituality that is invitational to them, a lot of people feel like they've got one or two options, which is I have to still somehow reconcile what what I came in with, but mostly people drop it altogether, yeah. And unfortunately, what happens is Jesus, higher power, all of it is dropped with it because in some in most environment in most cases the system or the institution has failed them. They don't have another container for where God can exist outside of it, and so they drop it. There's a question in here somewhere, but I would just reflect on that, that thought, what you've seen in that typically it's shame based, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:30

We have that original sin versus original blessing idea, and there's nothing that we can do to please or appease this creator, uh light universe, like you're a problem to be fixed, right? And we have to get past that. Healthy spirituality says, um, you're beloved, even in the mess. You know, even in your process, the honest place of who you are, you're beloved even in the the darkest, most obsessed place that you have. And the church as a whole and different faith communities do it differently. But if you're in the American evangelical world, you are human humans are the worst right out of the womb, and and we live into that, and then we start acting the worst because we're like, well, I've heard it for so long. Might as well embody this. Of course I did this, and I'm the worst. And uh that but that's not true. And so when we have that reality check of like we have had a distorted image of God for the longest time, and so to heal the image of ourselves, we have to heal the image of God, and that isn't something that happens overnight, and in a lot of spaces, they don't allow for that, you know, they don't foster that. Yeah, and but that's oh, it's so important. So important.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

I tell people all the time, like, you know, Valiant where where I went was such a an amazing place for me to rediscover my relationship with God. And the reason why that happened for me, and I tell this to people who come in, they'll say, Well, is Valiant a Christian Christian facility? Is it a Christian program? I'm like, I don't really know how to answer that because I want to say absolutely yes, but not in the way that you're probably hoping or thinking.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Yeah, which it was yes for me because it was a space that I felt safe enough to explore my spirituality. There's a lot of people there that could help guide me, and I had the freedom to go places to be guided on that. But if it's we're gonna solve all your problems in a with a box with a cute little bow and hand you a bunch of scriptures and cart you to church on Sunday, yeah, and if you're looking for spiritual bypassing, this isn't gonna be the place for you, right? So I'm curious, what do you what do you say to people in recovery, people newly sober, who say, I just I don't know what what to believe anymore.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Well, you have to start with honesty, right? I don't think you start with with belief. Okay. I think for so long you bel you you are told you have to believe. And I think that's just a model that uh has to be dismantled a little bit. Uh belonging comes from honesty, and you can belong before you believe. And belong to a family, belong to a group, or whatever that is, a church, belong before you believe, and that changes things. But you have to start with an honesty, yeah. And that sometimes has to be uh the most difficult thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Yeah, well, even in 12 steps, you know, people come in and I mean 12 steps are anchored in the idea of there's a higher power. Yeah, but I tell people all the time, you know, if you're not ready for that higher power to be God or be Jesus or whatever, it's so it's so cool to me that God is not offended by what you need him to be as a higher power to help you. Like, yeah, he's like, I'll I'll be this table if you need me to be. He's God's just like, I, you know, I think in my version of God, and there is a holiness and a reverence, don't get me wrong, but there's it's there's such a love there, yeah, that that I'm like, man, if for now I need to not be, you know, an old dude with a big white beard and a robe, I need to be something else. Yeah, but that's huge for people in their early recovery, what you're saying. Like, hey, you don't have to believe, but but there is this idea that there's something bigger than you, there's a higher power out there that yeah, and don't rush to the belief, you know, let it let it play.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

And sobriety already tells you the truth. That's true, right? Yeah, so whether you like it or not, it's whether you like it or not. You have been confronted with the truth, and it's an invitation to see what's not working and what hasn't worked. You pretended for so long, but now you know the truth. Yeah. And when that starts happening, then you can begin to rebuild within an honest amount of space and time. Yeah. You know, yeah. And that comes with a lot of pain, and but it's the invitation to pay attention to what feels real right now. Yeah. And what c sometimes that needs to be concrete. Yeah. And it needs to have a face to it, and might might need to have eye color and like a name. Yeah. And that person is whether it's a sponsor or whatever, is helping you to see what is true and real. And then slowly allow yourself the space and the grace to believe again if and it it probably will look different. It needs to look different. It needs to look different.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Yeah. You may have already answered this, and so if it's redundant, but there's just a lot of people who come into recovery and they just feel like they've completely disappointed God. Like almost like I can't face God. I've let him down. There's there's the shame of like what you've done to yourself and people you love, but there's also like, how could God love me after what I've done? How do how do you help people start to detangle some of that stuff?

SPEAKER_01 27:57

I think it still has to come back, and we may have talked about this a little bit, but honesty allows you that belovedness that to be seen as who you are in the worst part, and still be allow yourself to be loved.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

That's right.

Confession As Daily Recalibration

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Be seen, be known. And for everything, and we talk about the confession, our our confession that we pray every Sunday, almost every Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

It's my favorite part.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

It is like, yeah, for the things that we've said, the things that we have left unsaid, for the things that we've done, for the things that we have left undone, that is to one another and for one another, but also for ourselves. What have we said about ourselves? What have we left unsaid? What have we done to ourselves? And what have we left undone for ourselves? Yes. You're right. So to love yourself, to put on that oxygen mask so that you can care for those around you, to be honest in those spaces, we have to have that, you know. In so doing, that will heal the image of ourselves, and by default, will heal the image of God or the the higher power of what we have learned. We're unlearning something, we're unholding, we're laying something down. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Well, it's that, you know, confess your sins to one another so that you can be healed. I forget where that's at in the Bible, but yeah, there's so much power in that. Like what I say it's my favorite part. I've gone decades of being inside church, church leadership, of course, and never and hadn't confessed. Right. Yeah. Especially not publicly, not sitting in a room full of people saying, Yeah, Lord, forgive us for how we've treated our neighbor. Forgive us for like there's there's something so healing in that to like with a group of people say the things that you just said, what we've done, what we've been undone. Like I look forward to that. Yeah. That's the time where I feel like this is my opportunity to just get honest and come clean. And in my mind, there's specific things I'm thinking of. Yeah. You know, we don't we don't necessarily, you know, everyone take a turn and get up and tell your deepest, darkest secret, but in that communal like confession, yeah, I think we're all bringing those things to the table and to each other.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Well, in certain circles or environments, you have a different way of doing that that honestly isn't it it's got its own problems. And you'll know what I'm getting at. Uh you can only rededicate yourself um to something for so many times. And and then how many baptisms will it take? Right, you know, to for it to sink in. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_00 30:57

I'm laughing because that was me. Every youth camp, you get emotionally stirred up, they're playing your favorite song, something's happened, or the cute girl down front, whatever it takes, and all of a sudden you're down there again and you're getting you're rededicating.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

So therefore I'm superstitious enough, yeah, or maybe I'm just a little stitchious, right? Michael Scott. Michael Scott. But what is it about it that just allows us to be honest to say, you know, if you just stop rededicating and stop doing that, yeah, then you can have a rhythm of actually confessing on the regular to say, this is me rededicating. This is me reposturing and fine and reordering my life to the truth of things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

And the truth is, I I need to rededicate daily, honestly. Like, not a big emotional come down front, but every day I need to like that's why we talk about it being it's one day at a time.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Recalibrate, recalibrate, reorder, repurpose all the things. It's a it's a reposturing of ourselves, realignment. Yeah, that is the confession. I mean, the historical kind of way of seeing how we aren't who we should be, and the world is not as it should be. Yeah, we know this, yeah, man, you know, and so what does that look like? Yeah, and that means we have to find some kind of rhythm to adhere to that.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Man, one of my favorite hymns, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. That's the recalibration. Yeah, it's being honest saying, man, I have a tendency to for my ego to get in the driver's seat or whatever it might be. And instead of feeling shame, just saying, God, I'm I'm prone to wonder.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Right. Well, you know, the beautiful part of that song is come thou fount of every blessing. And I have to believe that that's that involves us too. Yeah. Right. So when we break the bread every Sunday and we say this is Christ's body broken for you, I cannot help but believe that to see the congregation as the Christ's body broken.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

And we are sent still in our brokenness to feed and to share peace with everyone we meet. Yeah. And that has to be something that inwardly begins somewhere and then it leads us into some beautiful places, but dark places as well.

Crisis Versus Awakening

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Yeah. Yeah. Well, to that point, is there is there a difference in your mind between like a crisis of faith and an honest awakening of faith? Is there is that I mean, maybe maybe that's nuanced, but is there a difference there?

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Maybe. It feels like um when everything feels like it's collapsing, that has to be when we are tempted to look at our shame or to look at our unworthiness or whatever that is. When when we're in a crisis, like everything, like the the floor is falling from underneath our feet, right? Or the sky is falling. Everything there is everything is just in flux and turbulent, you know. I'm not sure, but I would I think that there's something important to see. Maybe it's not a collapse, maybe it's a clearing. So and that's gonna look different for everybody, and but I think there's something beautiful about seeing it as an opportunity, not a crisis. In the moment, though, there's no way you're gonna be able to see that. That's gonna be a hindsight kind of perspective, I think. But I think that's the big picture we have to get to at some point. The the difference is uh the unearthing of what we're experiencing in real time. So to to have a faith crisis may be identity. So it's maybe not faith at all, maybe it's it's the identity that we have wrapped up ourselves in. And that needs to come awake, you know, to maybe unlearn and unknow so that we relearn and reno. Yeah, you know, and uh yeah, and I think there's a lot of trails that I could take in in talking through that, but that's I think it's really important to the distinction of saying the unearthing of something in in like a crisis mode sometimes reveals an identity that we've been holding on to that has nothing to do with our our faith. Uh it has all to do with our titles and our uh successes or our failures, and and our identities are all tied up in that. You know, it's that true self, false self kind of deal. Yep. Crisis is usually driven in fear, and awakening is more of a hey, this hurts, but I need this to get to the other side or to get through it, right? So coming up this Sunday, I think we're looking at um Psalm 23, it's Good Shepherd Sunday. So we look at, you know, he leads us through the valley, not around it. Yeah, you know, and so I think that there's a difference in in approach sometimes that's helpful.

Deconstruction With Courage And Curiosity

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Well, I love that because I I say all the time, almost for a little bit for for shock effect, but that in my situation, God didn't rescue me, at least not in the way that I was hoping, which is keep me from experiencing pain. Right. Which in most environments I've been in, oh man, if you're experiencing pain, there's something wrong with your level of faith or belief or surrender or whatever. Like let's it's pain avoidant and there's not a tolerance for pain. And so we end up, you know, whether it's the spiritual bypassing, just give it to God, give it, you know, whatever. Um, or we end up, you know, blowing everything up. One of my confessions is when I was working in, you know, the megachurch evangelical environment, and I would hear someone use the word deconstruction, I would just roll my eyes. Yeah. Because normally what that meant was we're leaving your church and we're going somewhere else, and like, oh, here comes another person deconstructing again. Now I've got a much different view of that. I'm I'm still not huge on buzzwords if they provoke you know an emotion that may not be helpful, but this idea that there's just a lot of us that have had to go through a deconstruction, you know, and I'm always asking, well, you know, Matt our mutual friend Matt Smallbone, I think has a line that says something like, If if you deconstruct without reconstruction, it's just vandalism. Or maybe that was your line. I don't know. Someone said it. But I I kind of agree with that, but I do think there's something to okay, if you're gonna if you're gonna rip something down, what are you building it back up with, right? But now after going through my own quote unquote deconstruction, it's a sacred journey. So for the people that are that are listening that are in that boat, how would you how would you guide them through that to where it doesn't just become an angsty, you know, fly in the middle finger to the and maybe it needs it needs to be that for a while. Yeah, but where it deconstruction actually becomes a sacred journey.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

It has to be a sacred journey. It sometimes it takes a lot for us to realize that that's what's happening. Yeah. Because deconstruction can be reactive. And and I would say that some people think, well, don't be so reactive because they think it's a negative. No, uh, this is your body telling you it's fight or flight, you know. And so that undoing or that pushing against something can leave you like at a weird place. And I think it's important to say that instead of it being a hollow reaction, maybe there's a curiosity that's placed in there, and I think with curiosity comes courage. So you're you're it's like with anything, if it's worth the risk, totally, it's going to be hard, and it's going to come with the need for courage. And if you're courageous about something, I think that there's the sacred is attached to that. And it's going to allow you a place of everything that it needs to be. Yeah. Like what's true to you? What is it feeling like in your life? What is life giving to you right now? What and then at the end of the day, this is the Fred Rogers coming out of me. It's what does what reflects love in your life? Or what is reflecting love to you in your life? And if it's if you're full of places and and activities that don't reflect love and care, then that needs to be deconstructed. Yeah. You know, it needs to be, and in in in the reconstruction, only use sustainable sources. Right? Don't use something that's going to break down and that's going to be hype. What do you mean? Like, give some examples.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 40:52

So if you're going to reconstruct, don't use the same material.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Yeah. Right? So that is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Don't just do that again.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

You're just going to rebuild the same thing again.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Yeah, and then eventually it's going to rot. You know, use something that's got some kind of composite, uh, like a different DNA to it. So if you remove something from your life, it can give you space for something to add something. So if you're going to remove something that's like uh just nonsense or heavy dead weight, maybe add a new healthy practice. Yeah. And it could just be something like, and when I so when I say something sustainable, something that's life-giving. Right. Go for if you've done a walk, say you're already doing a walk, and yet you you've become accustomed to the path, your route. Maybe change that path, change that route, have a different environment. You're gonna hear different birds, you're gonna meet different people, or if you're super introverted and the point is to not meet with people, right? Like you go to somewhere more secluded, like do something differently and use the the curiosity that's there to change up because I think that's important that we do that. And that sometimes that means a church, like it's the same rhythm. Go to a different grocery store, go to a different church, find different friends, and do something differently. Yeah, and and you might be surprised, you know, yeah, to what you will find.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Right, right. Well, to that to that point, why do you think so? I see these these guys come into treatment and they find these different modalities mostly more um contemplative yoga, you know, hiking is one of them, but also just meditation, breath work, yeah, this kind of stuff. What do you think that's all about? Why why do you think you know the people get into addiction all of a sudden or recovery, and all of a sudden there's this slowness that happens, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Yeah, it I think it has to be about attuned attunement. Oh yeah. Like you're trying to attune yourself to what is your body saying, you know, what what is it telling you? And I think for the longest time we've kind of just ignored our bodies, right? So one of the big things that I hear these days is mental load, and women uh are susceptible to a different type of mental load, but men have those things as well. And I think men have a different type of mental load that attaches to different things, that we listen to different things and different shadows, different false, different parts of the false self. So women are looking for partners in their mental load. They're saying it's not the mental load is ever going to go away. It's that this is happening. I need your help. So for us, we have to, it's it's a both end. We have to find each other in that place. But in so doing, attunement comes from stillness, quieting ourselves, uh, changing our playlists, something to kind of just say, something has been so loud in our life for so long. That's why I and I believe it, the contemplative life is the way. It allows us to, when there's a time and a place to amp up whatever needs to be, like, I need some energy for this run or this thing. Like, we'll listen to whatever your thing is, whether it's muse or some kind of rock and roll, go for it. Uh Jack White, hello. But there's a time and a place. Right. You have some sometimes you have these moments of you need Seagaros and Oliver Arnold's, the quieting, the the softness of something. Yeah. And it allows you to hear, it allows you to see, allows you to feel. And all of those things, breath breath work, that's very important, you know. Like when you and when you allow yourself that, you know, knowing your breath, knowing your body, and having your hand on your heart and in your gut, like that allows you to be present.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

And that presence is what I think we're trying to get to with any of those practices. Yeah. We're we're trying to navigate hard life, real life, and we're not trying to pretend that it's not hard. Yeah. We're saying this is, and I am. Yeah. And I'm trying to figure out ways to be present through it.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Well, maybe you've already said it, but you, you know, you wrote a book, Learning to Be, and it's a lot on this topic. But why do you think silence, you know, particularly silence, is so important when it comes to like our connection with our higher power? And I'll say while you're thinking, one thing I love, and I'll I'll jokingly say this to people that are from my former life when they ask about luminous or whatever, I'll say that we really suck at transitions. And we actually don't. But what I mean by that is we are not trying, like we just create space for silence and sometimes even awkward pauses. Like my favorite, not my favorite, but one thing I love about what we do is when you guys serve the musicians, communion. There's two or three minutes for us that are sitting out there that we're just doing, we're just watching you guys serve them. And I know that seems small, but like in my former context, we would never let that happen without some sort of video or pad or music. Like, we can't let people feel it's intentional now. A lull. Now we just get to watch you serve our band members, and it's just like we don't care that that's happening. That's the reality of what's happening in that moment. Why are we trying to hide it? So, all that to say there's something really refreshing in that for me. Like, we're not trying to polish everything to where everything, but at the same time, intentionality around silence and being quiet and being still. Why does that matter when it comes to reconnecting with our with our higher power?

SPEAKER_01 47:35

Well, noise is always competing for our attention, whatever that is, you know, it's the noise of the have-to's, the the I got a lot of things to do, and you're you're already in every environment, you are already tempted to be somewhere else. So silence allows us to commune with ourselves, to be in touch with ourselves, but also with with our creator, like with whatever that is for us. And I've quoted this before. It's uh St. John's of the cross and uh Thomas Keating, who's the one who made it more popular and known, but the God's first language is silence, and everything else is a bad translation.

SPEAKER_00 48:23

I love that. Right? I remember you saying that.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Yeah, it it it's it's important to to look at that because I feel like we project ourselves onto other realities, right? So we what we want God to be, we project. We want him to be a type three uh achiever, get right, getting stuff done, right? And so therefore, no time to waste, right? You know, we're burning daylight here, let's go. And but some of the best, most important moments of my life have been slowing down and even stopping, ceasing, sitting in stillness and silence. That isn't passive, it is a doing and allows us to just pay attention. So, in short, the it has to be helping us to pay attention to whatever is our body is telling us or whatever we're hiding from, whatever we're projecting against. Yeah, we have to allow ourselves that space to attune to pay attention. I think that's what the is at the core of it.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

That's really well said. And the I'm hesitant to even ask this question because I don't know if it's even possible to answer without being able to sit down and hear each person's story, but I'll ask it anyway. How how does a person discern whether they need to put it this way? What parts of their old framework do they keep? What do they disregard? What are they meant to get rid of? Like again, that it may be a hundred different versions of this depending on someone's story, but but how do we how do we learn that? How do we learn is this old framework worth saving? Or do we need to chuck it and start over?

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Yeah. Well, it's still well, we started out talking about honesty, and I think it comes down to that. You it it's still don't fake it. If you're having to fake something, then disregard it, like move away from it. And something might need to be reformed or reframed, but the the shape and the bones might be okay, you know. I think that you we have to pay attention to that. What what is the outcome if we just have to dismantle or if we have to like implode, or if we have to just kind of segment parts of it, we can salvage this, salvage that is more about is this going to help us to be honest and a better version of ourselves, or is it going to be just a same thing with a different shirt? You know, because sometimes if it's not if it's not leading us to a deeper understanding of who we are, yeah, it needs to go away. And I don't think that you can salvage that. I think if we can what was the thing that uh Tim Madigan said he spent some time with Fred Rogers, and he would say that after all of my years, I believe this is Fred talking to Tim, there's a loving mystery at the heart of the universe, longing to be explored or longing to be seen and experienced. If anything that we're doing framework-wise, doesn't get us to that place, then it needs to go away. You know? Um I so it's really hard to know the difference between if something needs to be just completely dismantled or just nuanced and kind of reframed and reformed. It's hard to know that. And it might look different for everybody. Yeah. You know.

What To Keep And What To Release

SPEAKER_00 52:26

Yeah. What what about the what about the sadness and grief that people might experience having to let go of this system framework ideology? Even if you, and I'll speak for myself, even if you even when I want to let it go, there's still a grief of what was lost, yeah, um, what used to be.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

You know, I even remember those early days following Jesus when you just would get like quote unquote lost in worship, this emotional experience. It's just I still have fond memories of some of that stuff though.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

Before it became, you know, business as usual. And then pretty soon I was manufacturing it because I knew how to make it happen. But there's a grief that comes with some of the deconstruction or finding a new way of faith. How do you how do you guide people through that stuff?

SPEAKER_01 53:20

Yeah, that grief is real, right? It's we have to give it the space that it so deserves. It's not just losing a belief, it's it's uh losing identities, uh, comforts, certainties. Like we we mourn those kinds of things, and we can feel that, you know. I still feel uh a our identities can be attached to to things and people and movements and ideas, and we grieve the loss of those things when they don't hold water anymore. Totally, you know, and we don't need to move past that quickly. We need to give that as much space as it needs. And I think there's often we attach ourselves and our ideas to God in all of that. Like I thought God should be protecting me from these tensions and this, you know, I shouldn't feel grief, I shouldn't feel this and have experience this uh abrasive reality. Well, no, what if that's the gift, you know, and losing something or losing someone, we grieve it because it meant something, right? And instead of just moving past that and ignoring it and wanting to be happy again, what if we sat in that and said, uh, I hate that this is gone or that version is gone. But and so doing, we can never really move forward if we don't grieve that, you know, whatever that is. Yeah. And but I think it's there's a sobriety check in the midst of the grief. Yes. It's always good for us. Yes, it's good for us to to, you know, it's it's this idea. I have friends, you know, in recovery that are like, I can't hang out with the same people the same way, and I grieve that. I don't I don't want to subject myself to everything revolving around a pint or a drink or whatever the case may be. The it's changed the relationships. Like, well, if those people see you and know you, they grieve the idea of not hanging out with you anymore, right, regardless of what was at the center.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:40

So we have to re-evaluate. And sometimes the hard part is it was just about what we were doing.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

Right? It's just about the thing instead of the actual interaction and the friendships and all of those things that go along with it. It's hard.

SPEAKER_00 55:56

Well, and I want to talk practices too here in a minute and get you know a little more practical with it. But I will say one thing that's been helpful for me, and I'm still not great at it. I'm an infant, I mean, barely learning how to stumble around and walk, um, is to intentionally put myself in places that push up against my default wiring. You know what I mean? Like we just did uh a book study for what was it, six weeks? Yeah, six weeks. I think I was at all of them except for one. I was out of town, maybe something like that. And I intentionally went into it and I said, I'm not, it's probably not what you and Father Heath wanted, but I was like, I'm gonna listen. I've led those before.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:39

And I was a guy driving the conversation. I was like, I'm gonna give myself the gift of I'm gonna actively participate through listening, but I'm just not gonna, I'm not gonna chime in, right? Which I know you well enough to say, next time chime in because we need to hear, you know, we want to hear your thoughts and all that kind of stuff. But for this one, and there was there was just a lot of times where I didn't necessarily find myself disagreeing, but I I had a lot of yeah, buts.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

You know, yeah, yeah, but what about yeah, or and I would leave feeling like oof, that was uncomfy that pushed on some things. Yeah, even the things I agreed with now, yeah. It still was uncomfortable to confront, like it's it's uncomfortable that I actually I agree with that, and something in me almost feels like, am I allowed to agree with that still? Because it's so so on that note. I mean, I and feel free to remark on that if you want to, but you know, what are some practices that help us kind of forge this this new way? Because for me, a lot of them aren't natural practices, yeah.

Small Practices That Build Stability

SPEAKER_01 57:49

You know, well, subjecting ourselves to environments that make us feel uncomfortable, I believe, is a healthy thing. Yeah, even if we align, I think we've just bought into this lie with almost everything that uniformity is the way. And it's not like we can still have unity and not uniformity because many of us have the propensity to say, I will not conform to the norms, right? I get that, and I mean it's really difficult sometimes for me to put on the collar because I'm like when I identify myself as a clergy, that means that someone might have had a horrible experience with a clergy before, and now I'm identifying it with its uniform, right? But I think there's something deeper there. We have to get to the place of uh acknowledging that we're more nuanced and complex than binary systems allow for. So to listen to now, I'm not sure that it's the healthiest thing to subject ourselves to things that we knowingly and adamantly see differently. Sure. Like where we're like listening to commentary from some podcaster that's like the person that gives us all sorts of the heebie jeebies. Sure, sure, sure. Um, but it's it's one thing to go, I can listen to an argument and say, Yeah, I disagree with that, and here's why in my mind, but it didn't, you know, nothing happened because I was sitting with something that I disagreed with. Um, and then when you press through that to get to the practical aspect, I think is where the rubber meets the road, right? So we allow ourselves space to be grateful, that changes things. And practicing gratitude, and that's sometimes that's journaling or or it's just the voice of it, or I do it in my um prayer breath, like prayer breathing, and just I breathe out and I breathe in, I breathe out sometimes uh regrets or things that and thoughts that I wish that I hadn't had. And and and it's not about legalism of that at all. It's actually it's incredibly freeing to just be that honest in those moments. Yeah, but all of those things are kind of connected for me is to to practice gratitude in my breath and allowing like a bit of a confessional rhythm in the middle of that. And then then the when I walk, I I practice noticing. So it and it's different every walk. And I could do a four-mile walk, and I've noticed all of these flowers that I had never seen before.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:51

Is that just a is that just a practice of just being present to what's in front of you?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:55

It has to be, right? Yeah, but then to also not be sometimes music can be a distraction, and sometimes it allows us to be present, you know. So it's like to be to allow ourselves all of those practices, it's gonna look different. But and then we talked about silence, but actually practicing silence, it doesn't mean that you have to do it for an hour or 20 minutes. It could just be two minutes where you know, if you get if you're if you're a rhythm of having to go and be in places, or if you're in that rhythm of the the car, the carpool rhythm, yeah, where you're dropping your kids off, you're picking them up, like get there a little early and don't have anything else going on. Turn off the radio and just sit in silence and just look straight ahead and like whatever. Right. It's like these little practices that allow us to it provides stability for us, I think. You know, that's very practical. Yeah, and we need stability knowing that we can feel the ground beneath our feet and the seat underneath us, knowing that we are held and that we have nothing else to prove right now. Yeah, and this is just a being. There's something really beautiful in that. And and I think in in the middle of that, uh St. John's of the Cross comes to mind again is that God will only be known but through love. And in our stillness and in our practice of that, how do we find things that just help us be reminded of that? Because we may that may not be our default, that may be a stretch to get to. Like just saying that may be we're like, what are you talking about love all of a sudden for? Right. Like, no, it's in the middle of all of it, right? And everything that we do should calibrate us toward having an awareness of that. So whatever it takes, like uh parks and rec, like treat yourself, like whatever that thing is, right? Like treat yourself every so often and allow yourself to have that space.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:02

So good, dude. I think in in that there's just an anchoring, you know, for at least for me, uh everything you just described is so unnatural for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:12

Yeah, sure.

How Trust Actually Grows

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

I mean, I it is for a lot of people, anxiety makes me have I like I have to have sensory. I mean seven on the Enneagram. I got it's always more glutton, gotta have more, more this, more that. There's a podcast going, or there's music, or but to sit in silence. But the truth is when I do discipline myself, practice myself, do it, it I can feel such a tangible even a conversation like this. I mean, there is a there's a rhythm and a slowness to a conversation like this that is more thoughtful. It's why like I it's just hard for me to stomach some small talk as much anymore. It's like I would much rather see a friend in public and just give them a head nod and keep moving and be like, you know, yeah, well I'll I'll see you at the fire pit where we can have a deeper conversation or a more connected and you mentioned attunement. There's like an attunement that happens, and but that's a practice, yeah. Like that's not a natural a natural thing for me to do. Um I wanna I wanna I wanna pivot a little bit, and this is Chad, this is so good, man. Thank you for I'm loving it, for sharing all this stuff. Um I want to talk about trust again. Um because I think one theme that comes up is for a lot a lot of us addicts early in recovery is how do we how do we develop you know a higher power that we can actually trust? Trust for me is so low, man. I I'm learning that more and more every day. Like I have interpersonal trust. I just come with this assumption that everyone has an agenda and everyone is manipulating me and everyone is gonna leave me at some point, and just a matter of when, and if I can perform for them well enough, maybe that I can keep them around, but at the end of the day, they're gonna figure out who I really am and they're gonna leave, whatever. So projecting that on a higher power of like, how do I? And before you answer, one quick thing. I I remember being in in rehab, I actually put this in a song because um I just told God, I don't trust, I've never had to trust you. I don't trust you. Yeah, now it's my own narcissism that feels that makes me like I've gotten myself to where I am. I know God was with me in those things, but everything I've done has been on my mind has been because of my own talent, my own ability, my own work ethic, my own everything. And it's like I don't remember a time where I was like, God, I God, I trust you. Like, heck no. Yeah. So how do we develop a trust with a higher power?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:51

When we've fortified ourselves without the need for trust, um, we've worshipped ourselves, you know. And that's it's a pretty consistent thing that we do in the American society, I think. But I don't believe that we start with theology. You know, like we always talk about well, I want to look at what it really what it what the Bible says or what the thing is or what the doctrine is. I don't think we start there. I I think we start with experience. Then we have to ask bigger questions. Like what is what is my body, what does it feel like in my body to trust someone? Right? And then because the experience isn't an elusive concept of a higher power. It's it's more concrete than that. It's like, how do we trust our spouse or our friends or our children or our parents, you know? And and instead of this all-encompassing have to trust them on everything, what can we trust? Can we trust them to be honest about how they're feeling today? Or, you know, whatever that is, because that will bring some kind of clarity. And I can't help I'm a question guy. Like I ask questions all the time of myself and in spaces. And I realize that that makes people feel uncomfortable sometimes, but I think it's also when we allow when you're talking about trust. I think we have to ask the questions like, when have we felt safe? When have we felt seen? When we have felt heard and known, it's because somebody spent some time like listening and leaning into us. And have made it's really hard to see that from a uh God higher power perspective because if we don't spend time in stillness and silence, interesting, it we're not gonna we're gonna be disconnected.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

So it's almost like that practice precedes the ability to trust. So if we if we don't I I maybe push back on this, this is just what I'm hearing. It's like if I don't first practice stillness with my higher power relationship with higher power, it's almost like I think in some circles, it's like, well, you gotta trust God. It's like, well, what if I don't? Well, then if you don't, maybe it is it doesn't mean a lack of engagement with him, right? Maybe it means more engagement until you get to the place where you're like, oh, you've met me in this place time and time again, and you're comfortable with my questions. And is that I mean, am I?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:49

Yeah, tricky tracking because I also say that we we keep ourselves busy and have a presentation of trust, but we aren't trusting. There's no need to trust when we're singing loudly and doing all the things and showing up and giving our time and our money and all the things, like that's a masking of trust. Like it's easier to do that because it's performative, right? Right. But if if what if what if what if the music fades and all is stripped away, right? Uh and I'm we simply come. Like, what is that? Yeah, and I think that's a really hard place to do. So you do have to have all of these things are connected, right? Stillness allows us to attune, and then all of a sudden we're can I can I trust the stillness? Can I trust the silence? You know, it's like we can't fill it with needless activity, and it's almost like there's a constant white noise happening because it kind of drowns out what we're really trying to get to, and we don't want that, right?

Where God Is In Suffering

SPEAKER_00 1:09:55

You know, right? This is gonna be a tough question to answer, but I I I know you've you've wrestled you've dealt with this a lot, but what about the addicts that say, Where was God in my suffering? Where was God in my addiction when I was at my lowest point? Where was God? How do you help them wrestle with that while not bypassing the real pain and trauma that is there? Wow, yeah, yeah, that could be its own podcast, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:30

It seems that that question carries a lot of things. It carries there's grief in there, um, there's anger, there's um hurt, and I think at the root of it, it's a sense of betrayal because we had an idea that I trusted you. I thought I, you know, I did all the things. Right. I checked all the boxes. I did all the things and checked all the boxes and still, you know. So it's a letting go of a concept of something or someone that probably was faulty to begin with. Like that's hard.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:13

And I think that that's a big part of it, but also it still says that it says more about us than it does about God. And we should sit with that. So that that is that's part of it. And then I would say something like, What if God wasn't absent? What if we were the ones who were absent? We always hear that, like we did this, this, and this, and then God showed up. But what if God was already there and we were the ones not showing up? And then we project it onto God to say, Why does all this bad stuff happen to me? You know? And that's one of the major questions that we get from from people who have gone through something traumatic, whether it's uh, you know, life-altering kind of thing, or a death, or illness, or um, or really gnarly divorce, you know, it's like, well, where was God through all of that? Well, God was right there in the suffering of it all. Rather, you hey, if you did it to yourself, God is still present in that suffering and still loving and still accessible. We may not want to see that because we've projected something onto this God that God's like, that's not me, but go ahead. You know? And I mean, I I feel like, and God doesn't need to be defended in these kinds of situations. It's like God can take our frustrations and our grief and our anger, and and I think, but we have to be honest about it when that happens. That's one of the most beautiful things about faith and the people that I meet with and hang out with, it's like, hey, this isn't about control, it's about presence. It's about it's about us letting go of our control and God saying, uh I'm present in the pain.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:19

Uh, and and you may not be able to see that, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:23

You know, being okay with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:25

Yeah. It's hard. Yeah, I mean, it it is hard. And I think for a lot of us that are have been in recovery for a little while, I think you and have maintained some sort of connection with a higher power. You do get to the point, and I'm I'm speaking now to people who might be listening to this who are really early on, where you develop a gratitude for the pain, appreciation for the addiction. Like, man, those it it turns from anger, how could whatever, to thank you. Yeah. For that was like, I don't know that I I would be where I'm at today if I wouldn't have walked through what I did, although I would never have wanted to put people through that. That I, you know, like I'll never be able to fully with a whole heart say I'm super glad that happened because of the pain it caused other people. But at the same time, and my wife would agree, I don't know how we get here without walking through some sort of major, you know, painful, you know, experience. And I I think there are ways, I'm obviously to have that awakening. There's beauty and there's other things that, but for whatever reason, as humans, a lot of times it just takes it takes pain. Yeah. It takes something painful to sure to get us to to wake up. But you've you've already mentioned this, so I don't want it to be redundant, but I I just want to, if there's anything left to talk about what does healthy reconstruction look like? Like what like on a on a day-to-day basis, as someone, you know, a lot of people that listen to this podcast are very early on in their recovery, and they may not even know, like, I don't even know where to start. I don't know what healthy reconstruction looks like. And again, I want to reiterate what you said earlier. If you're not there yet, you can be patient with yourself. I don't think this is something where you've got to like force yourself, throttle down. I gotta read, you know, you may just be in the grief stage, or I'm just, you know, that's that's I think God is so comfortable with you being there.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:26

Yeah. Well, you've said it. You started it. You have to be more compassionate with yourself. That's where you have to start. Be more compassionate with yourself and with and if you do that with yourselves, you're probably going to be a bit more compassionate with others, you know. Yeah. And and now I think we we're plugged into all of this amplification of all the things. And so we in the middle of all the noise and the chaos, a healthy reconstruction is really starts with being honesty. It doesn't start with certainty. You don't start with like what you can feel and know for sure. It's not that. It's that you have to just be more honest. And yeah, and in doing that, you're more compassionate with yourself, you're eventually become less afraid and a little bit more grounded. And the groundedness comes in practice, right? To me, it's uh how do I what am I doing in my rhythm of my morning that allows me to get up, to be functioning part of society, or whether it's just doing the things that I know I need to do before my kids and my family get out the door for school, right? And sometimes it's just the functioning aspect. But you know, when we do all those little things, we're doing something for someone else. And and in so doing, we're actually doing that for ourselves. So it's both and it's when we serve one another by doing, we're also serving ourselves in our being. And we're not just being utilitarian, we we're actually doing something to serve somebody else. So if I don't make lunch for my youngest kid, that dude's not gonna make lunch on his own. And I've tried that. I love that. And he goes with a with a cheese stick and a little snack pack. I'm like, that's it, bro. And because I have to think, he has to have all these other proteins and things to make him work. Sure. And and all of that allows us, uh, I don't know, man, just to offer ourselves a little bit more grace in the middle of it. Like a healthy faith, in my mind, doesn't shrink your world, it opens it. Like, you know, and so everything's a possibility, everything's an opportunity, and uh it makes us more human and not less. Yeah, we're not robots, and we all know this. Yeah, and when we try to act like that is when we get into really unhealthy rhythms and habits constantly. It's just a matter of time.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:10

What what part and I have a couple more questions. I could I could literally talk, we could talk hours about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:15

Oh, yeah, for sure. People would probably be needing to take some lunch breaks and listen to this.

Why Community Matters In Recovery

SPEAKER_00 1:18:20

There's so much here to, and it's so important. But I I wanted before I let you go, I wanted to just hear what role do you think spiritual community plays in our recovery, our reconstruction? You know, why is it important that we find people to do this with as opposed to just exploring trusting God on our own?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:42

Wow. I've learned more about myself by listening to other people. I see myself in others more often than I don't. And hey, I'm a top five. I like my isolation, I like my insulation, I like the safety of my own energy and knowing when I can spend it and when I can't, and when I don't think I have it. But the funny thing is, when I end up being forced to do something that I'd swore I didn't have the energy for, I magically find it. And and in so doing, it might just be a necessity. But in when we are with others, we are allowing ourselves the opportunity of hearing somebody else's story that we might just be pleasantly surprised by. And I thought, like, I know people that I would say that in a million years we're never gonna be homies. And then I spend some time with them. I'm like, wow, I'm glad I did that. Yeah, and because I learned something about them that was so more beautifully human than I would have ever had an opportunity for. So communities are meant to be safe. And I think in a community like ours, we try to say, hey, this is a community for everyone, wherever you're at, and yet we have had to fight for some of that to actually be real, yeah, not just a um uh an optics. We've had to do some things that have been uncomfortable, but in so doing, we've provided safe spaces for people that haven't had it before. Right, right. That's important, so important, you know, and I would say in so doing, then we have to do that for our sake, but also for the sake of others, you know. And I don't know if it rhythms help us to either sit in something comfortable that we were just used to, or they help us broaden our our scope of understanding. And so something liturgical means in a season you're gonna get something consistent for a while, and then that season changes, or maybe the the focus of the day or the scripture changes, that rhythm helps us change it up and go into a different posture. So it's like in Lent, we don't say hallelujah, right? But in we pick those back up during Easter and we're all about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:20

For like almost every other word feels like it's hallelujah, you know. And it's there for a reason. It allows us to be able to hear each other's voice, allows each other to see each other and be around each other, hear about something that we struggle with and we see it in someone else. Something that we fear and we see it in someone else. So it allows us maybe uh a human component to it all is to be around other humans. It's just a healthy thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:52

It is.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:03

You know, God is a certain God in a certain kind of box with a certain kind of color and a bow and all these things, if you are if that's problematic for you, I would find a place that's not like that. Right. So you're constantly just frustrated, you know. But and I like that's really hard, but community of finding your people is really important, especially today.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:33

And and if you're in recovery, like if you're at a place that doesn't acknowledge those realities, find a place that does, that normalizes this way of living. Now I love that. I I've connected so many people here at our parish with others who are in recovery, yeah, because we just need to see each other, and we're like, and all of a sudden we're like, oh my gosh, yeah, there's over a dozen people that are very, very similar or have very similar stories, yeah, or uh their rock bottoms looked really similar. It's just wild. Yeah, you know, but we need that because it helps us to uh normalize our humanity.

Next Steps And Free Resource

SPEAKER_00 1:23:16

Yeah, totally agree. Well, I I want to let people know that you do have a book. You got a couple books, Alex. But the congruent life is that the congruent life life, yeah. And it's about a lot of this, right? It's about the honesty of, you know. But also I want to let people know that even the the podcast, the the luminous podcast, because we've got a great team of people. You've been really intentional not to build this place on on your personality. Um, I love it when you teach. I love it when Deacon Monica or actually Mother Monica now. Ah, yeah, she does now, yeah. Yep, Father Heath, the whole team, everyone, you know, um different vibes, different perspectives, different whatever. But um I would recommend it for someone who was newer and just exploring what this life of love and spirituality might be. It's very, it's I was gonna say it's different. It's it's not different as much as it's um there, it's so invitational, the teaching here. Like I think it's it is different from what I've experienced. But before I let you go, what would you what would you say to someone who is wanting to maybe take an honest step towards rebuilding a life of faith or spirituality that might be feeling angry, spiritually numb, disenchanted, all the different things. Where do we go from here?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:42

Keep going. Don't fake it. I mean, those are the two things that come to my mind. Keep going might mean you need to change some things, it might mean you need to see things differently, but don't fake it. You know, just be honest, you know, and and then when you're honest, I think that's where the beginning of of some lots of possibilities are. Right. So could be finding your people, could just be, you know, I I I think one of the most honest prayers that we could ever pray. I've heard this said in different iterations, but it's like I think some of the honest prayers is uh starts with, I don't know. And it's Thomas Merton. I don't know where I'm headed, don't know where I'm going. I just don't know. And that's okay. You know, so you're acknowledging that. You're not trying to perform or or uh pretend, you know, you're just being honest. Keep going because you don't know what's around the corner or what's down the field. You know, you're going to find something. Uh I just it feels like love has a way of finding us. And if we just keep going, uh it it can be a beautiful reality.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:07

Well, Chad, man, I'm really grateful for you, not just for being on this podcast, but for the role that you played in my life. You walked with me in a season where I was trying to find my way back, and that really meant more to me than I can put into words. So thank you for your honesty, for your wisdom, and the way you show up for people. And to everyone listening, if this conversation resonated with you in any way, we created something to help you take the next step. It's called What Do I Turn to When I Feel Spiritually Lost? Um, it's a simple practical guide to help you begin reconnecting wherever you are right now. So you can download it for free at Viniant Living.com slash episode 62. Well, thanks for being with us, and we'll see you next time.