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Hi, it s Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread.
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Today, I m joined by the wonderful Jedediah Jenkins, author of the just-released Mother Nature.
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Hi, it s Elise Lunen, host of Pulling the Thread.
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On this show, we pull apart the web in which we all live to understand who we are and why we re here.
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Pulling the Thread is about big questions.
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Why we do what we do, how we can understand our own experiences within a larger spiritual and historical context,
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the ways in which we might begin to understand ourselves and each other better, and what s required to heal ourselves and our world.
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I ll be joined in conversation by luminaries and wise elders, those who have laid tracks in their work and lives to help us bring meaning and understanding to a world that often feels chaotic and overwhelming.
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My hope is that these conversations spark moments of resonance and plant tiny seeds of awareness so that we might all collectively learn and grow.
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Nature, the universe, speaks in metaphor, and one of its truest things is paradox, is holding two things that are both true at once.
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Like, I remember laying in bed, I was probably 12.
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And before I go to bed, I m thinking about the universe because my brain suddenly works.
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And I m like, how can space be infinite?
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Infinity makes no sense to my mind.
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So then I m imagining space, expand, expand, expand.
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And then I hit a wall, which is the edge of space.
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And then I go, OK, so let s say space isn t infinite.
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Well, if you get to the edge of space, to the wall, what s on the other side of the wall?
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There has to be something on the other side of the wall.
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There can t be nothing.
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And so I remember thinking in that moment, those two scenarios are both impossible, but then also finiteness is impossible because there must be something on the other side of the wall.
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And I remember laying there being like, oh, I actually think the computer brain that we have is not designed to understand the wholeness of reality.
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We re stuck in a partial understanding.
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It s likely fate that Jedediah Jenkins is a writer, a New York Times bestseller at that.
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After all, his parents sold more than 12 million books in the early years of their writing careers, when they were still married and a duo.
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They wrote a series of books about walking, yep, walking, across America.
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In Jedediah s latest book, Mother Nature, he retraces their journey by car with his mother riding shotgun.
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He suggested this trip to his mom because he wanted to see the world through her eyes, to understand who she is by accessing who she was, and also because of a chasm that keeps them apart.
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See, Jedediah is gay, while his mother believes ardently that homosexuality is a sin and a choice.
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Mother Nature is a beautiful and tender love story between a mother and a son that revolves around one of Jedediah s foundational beliefs, that he cannot excommunicate his mother, even if she might not come to his eventual marriage to a man.
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Okay, let s get to our conversation.
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It s so nice to finally meet you.
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I feel like we must have friends in common, but we ve never somehow crossed paths.
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I know.
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I m in a cute little cabin.
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And I was in Silver Lake for eight and a half years, which I loved.
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But I lived with my best friends.
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And I m like, I ve never lived alone.
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And sooner or later, I m going to catch a husband.
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And then I might not live alone again.
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So let me try this.
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Where is your husband?
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Is he close?
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I don t know where my husband is.
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I feel that he s close.
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I feel ready for him, but I don t know if he s ready for me.
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I don t know where he is.
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He might be in the jungles of DRC, but we ll find out.
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But wherever he is, he s cosmically looking for me too.
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Or maybe I already know him.
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Who knows?
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I know with books that you put them to bed.
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Well, maybe you only put this book to bed recently, but since you re more established, I just published my first book.
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So it s a long, as you know, a long lead up.
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I don t think people realize the gap between you when you send a book into production and when it actually…
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lands in people s hands.
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And sometimes things change or can change dramatically in the time.
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But maybe your book, in some ways, was the final invitation.
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It feels like maybe you re that much closer to calling him in.
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Oh, I think you re totally right.
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So this book is like,
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those who haven t read it yet it s about my complicated relationship with my mother and like one of the key points or moments of the book is this riff my mom has because she s conservative and religious like jesus is coming any minute vibes and so
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She just cannot accept same sex relationships.
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So all that to say, a big turning point in the book is like when I confront her about, will you come to my gay wedding when it happens?
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It s not due anytime soon, but what if it is?
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And are you going to come?
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And I don t want to assume you re not going to come if you ve actually changed your mind over the years, over the 20 years I ve been out.
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And it was a big point of, I guess, closure or just like turning a page for me.
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in that experience with her that it made me feel like a big boy, like an adult.
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There was an incredible paragraph at the end about
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belonging and acceptance and sort of where we culturally are.
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But what s so beautiful about the book is it s a rare quality, I think, people who can really hold someone close while looking at them or giving granting them a full humanity, and not sanitizing the parts that are painful.
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And that s very rare to read something like that, that is so loving.
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So venerating so accepting while not minimizing your own pain because so many of us have really nuanced complex relationships with our parents and if we could actually breathe into it and own it and Recognize the ways in which it was amazing and the ways in which it wasn t we would be so much closer.
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I think to I
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accepting our parents.
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There s something that happens in our culture that s like to criticize is to negate.
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We really struggle with that, I think, that ambivalence.
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But I thought it was very moving.
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And I thought it was interesting that your father, who sort of only figures on the margins of the page, and seems like he figures more in the margins of your life, is like, I will walk you down the aisle, which is very beautiful.
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And your mom doesn t think she can actually be there, but she s your emergency contact.
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What I tried to grasp or what I tried to just look closely at was this paradox of tensions that is a loving relationship with a parent who is painful.
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And I think the framework of it being a conservative religious and a gay son is almost like an easy one.
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because there s like so many heterosexual, cisgender kids that didn t become the doctor that they wanted or didn t marry the person that they wanted or didn t stay in town.
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And there s all these like tiny earthquakes and tiny death by a thousand cuts that comes from the relationship we have with our parents or siblings or whatever it is that is so difficult to grasp.
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And our brains are so addicted to the binary of just like good, evil,
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You know, painful, painful, joyful.
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And it s like, especially if family is anything, it s a teacher.
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And it s that like, if you can t figure out how to exercise the muscle of holding something in that tension, you will lose at life.
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You will lose important relationships.
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You will lose key opportunities for love and growth and you ll lose family members.
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Before I wrote this book, my relationship with my mom is very public.
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I like think she s the funniest person in the world.
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So I like post her on the internet a lot and people know her beliefs because I ve written about them in previous books.
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So people were always like, how do you do it?
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Like you and your mom are so sweet together.
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How do you do this?
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And that was really a big impetus for this book was me being asked that a lot and me not knowing the answer.
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I don t know how I do it.
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I don t know what it is, but it deserves a book-length look.
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My hope is that people who feel conflicted, confused about their relationship with their parents, that it just makes them realize that they re
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not alone in that confusion and that you can love somebody unconditionally.
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And you can have really strong boundaries.
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And sometimes people shouldn t be in a relationship with their parents.
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That s very real.
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Yeah.
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Yes, and it s interesting to me that your mom has her strong beliefs, this focus on the word of scripture, or that it s the word of God, not something that s been translated and mistranslated and interpreted over time.
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A scripture that has evolved to move past things that we just don t accept anymore, right?
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There s a lot of slavery.
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There s tons of stuff that we re like, these are not our moral values anymore.
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We don t believe in this.
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And it s interesting how she still holds this.
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And I don t know, I ve never experienced you two together.
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But it seems to me like there s no one she would rather spend time with.
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Like there s this seemed like a full body embrace.
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And this lingering question of, I don t know if my mom will come to my wedding, which then, just for context so people understand, it s maybe not as much about the day, but about will she accept the fact that I am married to a man and children, and will she be part of our family, or will I see her on the side?
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Yeah.
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But the fact that you didn t know, to me, feels like she isn t at least hammering you
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on the daily with rejection.
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I mean, it sounds like you ve had a fair amount of religious trauma.
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But it s interesting that it s still a question, even though you ve spent so much time with her.
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Yeah.
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So that it s not so forward in your relationship.
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Well, that s the difference.
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And my friend, I was just talking about a trip I d gone on with my mom.
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And we d driven around the European Alps.
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And it was so fun.
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My gay friend who has no relationship with his mother, he goes, you re so lucky that your mom has redeemable qualities.
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And I was like, because like, I don t agree with her politics or her religion.
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but she s so fun and kind and optimistic and joyful and adventurous and silly and loving.
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And this was what I learned is that she leads with love and like her righteousness and certainty is in the backseat.
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It s in the car, but it s not driving.
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And some people their righteousness and certainty is driving.
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fully driving and you can t even be in the room with them because they re like so grumpy that you don t agree with their worldview or that you re a disappointment or that you re an abomination.
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And I don t know.
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I think my mom would love me no matter how mean-spirited I was, but I m also really fun and I don t like confrontation.
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You know, I m her son.
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I m not like
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fall in line or get the fuck out of here.
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Like I don t move through the world like that.
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I would say up to like four or five years ago, about once a week I would get a forwarded email or like a text of an article that s like something to think about.
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This guy, he lived the homosexual lifestyle for 10 years and then he went to a prayer vigil and got
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saved and now he s married to a woman with three kids.
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Something to think about, you know, like she would just like throw it out there.
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And it would happen so much.
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I was like, mom, I will never believe this.
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You are not allowed to send this to me.
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Anything like this ever again.
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And I had to really draw a boundary.
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And she was, well, sorry, in the reply email.
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And she didn t again.
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I mean, I think maybe in five years she sent one.
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Like just trying, you know, like a velociraptor testing the electric fence.
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I shouldn t laugh.
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I mean, but you ve clearly done so much work around this that it feels – reading it, you felt on the page hopeful, but yet not sort of triggered, which is amazing to be at a place of relative equanimity.
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I was just listening to this podcast with Father Richard Rohr, and just thinking about people whose certainty is in the front seat.
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He said, the opposite of faith
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is not doubt, the opposite of faith is certitude.
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Oh, beautiful.
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That s great.
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Yeah.
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I love that man.
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I mean, right?
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I stalk him on podcasts.
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I don t have access to him, but I beg his people.
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It was on a podcast called The Sacred Speaks.
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Is it recent or old?
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It just came out maybe a couple of days ago.
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And this host is interested in a lot of the same people that I am.
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He s a Jungian therapist, but he s very interested in that conversation, which is my favorite conversation.
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I want to listen to that today.
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Yeah, you ll enjoy it.
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But that certitude or that certainty is quite impossible.
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I want to read to you from your book, if you don t mind, at the end, where you write, I ve noticed a general sentiment of discourse online.
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That lack of total acceptance is total rejection.
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The thought goes like this.
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If your family says they love you, but they can t accept your sexuality, they aren t allowed to say they love you.
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They don t love all of you, therefore they don t love you.
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You have to draw a boundary and say that s not acceptable and remove them from your life.
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And then you go on and say that you cannot excommunicate.
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I thought that was so beautiful and so true and so binary, right?
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This is beyond
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you know, son-mother relationships.
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This is beyond sexuality and gender.
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It s politics.
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It s our whole world, right?
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You are fully with me or you are inherently against me.
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And where do you think that that came from?
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Do you think this is just who we are as humans?
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It feels like it s becoming more and more entrenched as identity becomes so, so primary in our culture.
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Well, I interviewed Richard Rohr once and I asked him.
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It was unbelievable.
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I mean, I ve been to a couple of his like little conference things.
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I mean, in Santa Fe, like what a dream.
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And he said that culture moves in exhales and inhales and the pendulum swings.
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And he was like, there s times of unity and there s times of atomization.
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And so like at one point there was like,
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one newscaster, Walter Cronkite, we re Americans, blah, blah, blah.
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I mean, this is like a very white centric world, but that s how it was.
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There was like three channels.
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And then now we re like responding to that.
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The pendulum is swinging.
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And now the particularities of your identity down to the very minutiae are who you are.
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And we re like all separating.
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And he believes society moves like this.
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And it s so interesting because I was thinking about this
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I remember feeling it during Black Lives Matter and now I very much feel it in the Israeli Gaza war of fall in line, total acceptance, or you are on the side of evil, and all means necessary.
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to achieve our goal, like burn down Target, burn down the police station, burn down Gaza, burn down colonialism, burn down, which is so interesting.
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It s so human.
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And it s so funny because I have this inclination as a politically progressive person that like left of center is more humane and more human and more caring about the little guy.
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But it s so interesting to see how
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The message of Jesus, and the message of Gandhi, and the message of the Sufi mystics, and the message of eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, all these incredibly stereotypical, stupid things to say, that those things were villainized by the left as ideologically lazy or naive.
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And it s just so interesting, I just see it as like,
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The idea of loving your enemy and seeing their humanity as opposed to turning red eyed and seeing them as something that must be destroyed is so basic primal and yet we just do it.
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It s in our DNA.
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It s what we love to do is create an enemy, rally around
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stopping that enemy, and thinking that our rally is deeply righteous.
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And it feels so good to be in a team that is righteously angry and moving.
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It feels so good.
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And it is deeply scary.
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I m Rachel Martin.
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After hosting Morning Edition for years, I know that the news can wear you down.
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So we made a new podcast called Wildcard, where a special deck of cards and a whole bunch of fascinating guests help us sort out what makes life meaningful.
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It s part game show, part existential deep dive, and it is seriously fun.
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Join me on Wildcard, wherever you get your podcasts, only from NPR.
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I m right with you feeling unmoored and yeah, very shaken by this moment of
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time, but also, yeah, in the sense of I thought we all agreed on some basic ideas.
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But yes, I think the wielding of righteousness is terrifying.
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The projection of shadow onto other people is terrifying.
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Well, it s so funny because we know this, like, we ve known it since, like, all these books about totalitarianism and fascism and da-da-da-da, like, step one is dehumanizing your enemy and calling them animals.
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That is the most obvious step one of, like, you re about to commit an atrocity.
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And that s all, that s all that I ve seen happen in the last four years is whether it s our president or whether it s a movement or whether it s one side of this and that, they just are calling the other side animals.
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I m like, wow, has anyone read one book?
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I don t think so.
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Well, and it s interesting, though, too, because we are animals.
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True.
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But do you know Spiral Dynamics?
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Oh, my god.
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Let me be clear.
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I ve listened to three podcasts about it.
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It s a very, like, white man who listens to podcasts.
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Like, oh, my god.
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Spiral Dynamics changed my life.
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I ve listened to three podcasts.
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I m with you.
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I m not an expert.
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But I love it.
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And I m trying to find the right conversation partner for a podcast about it.
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And it was interesting this week feeling so unmoored.
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I was like, wait, I need to stabilize myself in some sort of worldview to understand what s happening.
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And spiral dynamics, to me, feels like the closest example of the need to push to the next level as we see green just go wild.
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And the recognition that all of these tiers, all of these levels of the spiral have a tremendous amount of value and that they re all present in all of us and across the world in different amounts and potencies, but that to deny any of them
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is a fallacy.
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For people who aren t listening, I m gonna just, should I just tell people the basic levels?
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I ll do it really fast, but so that they understand what we re talking about.
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So beige is started 100,000 years ago, it s instinctive, it s living off the land, it s the basic need for food, water, sex, shelter, then emerge from this level, purple, which is spiritual, magical, this idea that
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And what you re saying is, as you achieve the first level and you reach a harmony there, you move to the next level.
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Or a disharmony.
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I think that it s like you get to the edge of beige and you re like, there s something more or this is not it.
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And so then purple comes, which is this idea that this animistic, magical world where a cow dies because God s mad.
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But these themes are still present, right?
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This is religion, the observance of rites, a passage, seasonal cycles.
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They all have their beautiful
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moments, and then from there becomes red, which is the egocentric.
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You start to see the formation of the ego 10,000 years ago.
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It s full of threats and predators.
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I m just reading from this sort of primary document, wanting to be I, me, dominant, fear-based, conquers, outfoxes, stands tall.
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But this is like the formation of
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the beginning of a different type of culture.
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Then we move into blue, judicial, religion, organization, hierarchy, government, checks and balances.
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From there we get into orange, which is
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sort of the advent, this is 300 years ago, rationalism, the desire to dominate the environment.
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We get medicine, we get science, we also get a ton of consumerism.
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From there we get green, which is this communitarian, egalitarian, every story counts, every person counts, no life has greater value, we re all sharing this planet.
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There s lots of beauty in green, but then it starts to deny the validity of the other levels and or their existence in other parts of the world.
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And so you get green saying like, screw consumerism.
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It s like, well, don t you enjoy your house?
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Do you like the electrical?
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Are you happy to have an ambulance?
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It s self-righteous.
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And we re trying to get to the next tier.
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which is yellow, that s not beyond binaries, but is a little bit more adaptive, practical, holding all sides, cognizant of the whole.
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Anyway, that s spiral dynamics.
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I love that I m trying to teach spiral dynamics in this moment.
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But it is, we re there.
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Yeah.
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All right, tell us more about it.
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No, I mean, I don t know more than you.
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I just love when someone systematizes what s going on, and you see that we re all just part of this giant abacus machine.
2
SPEAKER_00
I love thinking of Maslow s hierarchy of needs as well, just where are you if you re freaked out about your rent and feeding your kids, you re not
2
SPEAKER_00
meditating and watching clips of Ram Dass because you re like, I don t have time for that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, I don t need self actualization right now.
2
SPEAKER_00
I need food.
2
SPEAKER_00
The way we all fit into this life.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_01
Apparently, there were friends, Claire Graves and Abraham Maslow.
2
SPEAKER_01
So this is supposed to be the animation of Maslow.
2
SPEAKER_00
I can imagine that their theories were
2
SPEAKER_00
improved by sitting around with a cocktail.
2
SPEAKER_00
My friends and I often talk about, because I m obsessed with the concept of like, what are your primary
2
SPEAKER_00
subterranean motivations.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, what are we doing this for?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, are you working for 10 years at this corporate job and you re getting stocks and you re doing this and you ve got this for what?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, are you going to die here?
2
SPEAKER_00
Or do you want to start your own thing?
2
SPEAKER_00
Are you like happy in this push situation?
2
SPEAKER_00
Because living in Los Angeles, I m sure Brentwood is exactly the same as it is over here, is there is a very interesting overlay.
2
SPEAKER_00
And maybe this is how it is in every city.
2
SPEAKER_00
where keeping up with the Joneses is such a wild experience in LA, especially when you re younger.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, LA might be the only city I know of where you can be 25 and your friend is living in a $4 million house they got from TikTok money, and you re a barista and can barely make your rent, but you re best friends and you hang out all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s just like this really weird experience where it s just like the schism, like my friend group,
2
SPEAKER_00
Some of them have millions of dollars and some of them have $30,000 and that s it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, and that s how it s been for years.
2
SPEAKER_00
And all that to say, some people start to really get claustrophobic in their own life.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they re like, how do I make more money?
2
SPEAKER_00
How do I make more money?
2
SPEAKER_00
How do I, especially as you approach 40, which by the way, fiscal responsibility, I believe in that.
2
SPEAKER_00
You should figure out a way to be safe with your life and like have some backups.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I have really realized that I do not care about having tons of money.
2
SPEAKER_00
I do not care.
2
SPEAKER_00
I care about having a cute house, a small house, and maybe another small house like in the mountains, but a shack, you know, and I m on Zillow, they re $150,000.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I might have to go to Home Depot and fix them, but how fun.
2
SPEAKER_00
And my dream scenario is to be sitting around a fire with my friends, drinking Mezcal, and talking about spiral dynamics.
2
SPEAKER_00
That is like when I think about what I m doing on this planet, it s that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And every single thing I ve ever written, every book, every blog, every anything, comes from those conversations.
2
SPEAKER_00
Every thought I ve ever had is,
2
SPEAKER_00
bubbling up and becoming crystallized in those conversations, and that s the moment I m always trying to get back to.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that life is not for everybody, but that is truly my life goal, is to do that and make my life to where I can do that until I m dead.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we talk about that a lot with my friends, of like, you re anxious in your job, you re trying to get this, you re trying to do that and make more money or whatever, but for what?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, where are you going?
2
SPEAKER_00
Aspen?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Is that where you want to be?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like with those people?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_00
Where are you headed?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, on Life Creep, you know, I m very conscious of that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And my parents were both very poor growing up.
2
SPEAKER_01
And my dad was a doctor in small town Montana.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so
2
SPEAKER_01
They had a nice life, but have always lived dramatically within their means in a way that sort of drove me crazy at times, you know?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, is the Three Connection flight day really worth saving $100?
2
SPEAKER_01
Or do we really all have to sleep in the same hotel room?
2
SPEAKER_01
We do.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it hasn t given them full peace.
2
SPEAKER_01
My mom has her own irrational anxiety about money and fear of becoming a bag lady.
2
SPEAKER_01
But they have a fair amount of peace.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I live in a tiny house.
2
SPEAKER_01
And yes, I live in a very nice neighborhood, but similar to you.
2
SPEAKER_01
My wants are not endless.
2
SPEAKER_01
I am at the end of my once and I don t want a life that s so big and unbounded that I am on putting myself on a treadmill on an upward incline and don t know how to get off or scale down or live in a smaller way.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s interesting thinking about your parents too and their origin story.
3
SPEAKER_00
I had never heard of the sensation that they walked across America.
3
SPEAKER_00
But talk about this sort of rambling adventure.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s very different.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s so difficult to parse out the influence of parents and how that affects your entire worldview.
3
SPEAKER_01
But both of my parents in their 20s and early 30s walked across America for five years and became writers and wrote books about it and traveled and were
3
SPEAKER_01
And my whole life, my parents have been writers.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I ve never seen my parents go to work.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I lived on a farm, so my dad would go like feed the cows, but he s like there.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, my parents divorced when I was young, but when I was there, like they re around.
3
SPEAKER_01
And because they had such an alternative and strange life that I saw that model of just like,
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, do this, then that, and then you go and get this degree, and then you go work in the big building, and then this happens.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, I saw the unconventional life as normal.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I also saw, and I think this also created a certain scarcity mentality in me or something.
3
SPEAKER_01
My parents were very popular and famous in the early 80s and then their divorce and the chaos that followed like crashed and burned their stars.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I grew up where the book deals dried up, the money dried up, the divorce was sad.
3
SPEAKER_01
I grew up like where we couldn t fly on a plane.
3
SPEAKER_01
We slept in the same hotel room.
3
SPEAKER_01
Every trip was a road trip, like only camping.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like we didn t even stay in hotels.
3
SPEAKER_01
We had like the world s shittiest pop-up trailer.
3
SPEAKER_01
And there was that tinge of the fall of Rome where it used to be so different.
3
SPEAKER_01
We used to be flown first class in a car waiting, a car service.
3
SPEAKER_01
There was that sense of tragedy in it all, which I barely perceived, but now with hindsight, I did perceive, but it made me think that the gravy train can end, so don t live above your means.
3
SPEAKER_01
That was very much in my psyche, which,
3
SPEAKER_01
I carry into my adulthood very much.
3
SPEAKER_01
I love having enough money to eat out at restaurants whenever I want.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if something s cute on Facebook Marketplace, I get it.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I do not have the like, ooh, I need a Tesla.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t feel that thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m just like, no, no, I don t want any debt.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because also as a writer, you know this, you get paid in chunks that are very spread out.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you don t know when you ll be paid again.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, really, and where you re going to find the next thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you might get a chunk of money that s cute.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you re like, wow, this is a lot of money in my checking account.
3
SPEAKER_01
But then you re like, is this the last money I ll ever make?
3
SPEAKER_01
Do I have to live on this for a decade or for six months?
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it creates this scary thing about it.
3
SPEAKER_01
That is the life of a freelance or the life of a creative or the life of an artist.
3
SPEAKER_01
So there s a lot of us out there.
3
SPEAKER_01
But
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_01
It is so interesting how your parents influence everything even outside of what they meant to influence.
3
SPEAKER_00
Another way in which makes you sort of an outsider insider or between two worlds or present to multiple realities that I think is needed and essential in our culture right now where when we are sort of defining ourselves by
3
SPEAKER_00
the static emblematic ideas and not even as much as like at the same time everyone s like everything s mutable, everything s variable.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s so interesting how we are in one way is pushing past boundaries and binaries and then at the same time like how do I nail down my identity
3
SPEAKER_00
with as many studs as possible so that I can own this corner or speak from the authority of this particular identity.
3
SPEAKER_00
So interesting, this like the mutability and then also the fixedness that I think we re experiencing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think that is what I m trying to do in this book is just paint a picture of it like nature
3
SPEAKER_01
The universe speaks in metaphor, and one of its truest things is paradox, is holding two things that are both true at once.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, I remember laying in bed, I was probably 12.
3
SPEAKER_01
And before I go to bed, I m thinking about the universe because my brain suddenly works.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, how can space be infinite?
3
SPEAKER_01
infinity makes no sense to my mind.
3
SPEAKER_01
So then I m imagining space, expand, expand, expand, and then I hit a wall, which is the edge of space.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I go, okay, so let s say space isn t infinite.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, if you get to the edge of space to the wall, what s on the other side of the wall?
3
SPEAKER_01
There has to be something on the other side of the wall.
3
SPEAKER_01
There can t be nothing.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I remember thinking in that moment,
3
SPEAKER_01
Those two scenarios are both impossible.
3
SPEAKER_01
But then also finiteness is impossible because there must be something on the other side of the wall.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I remember laying there being like, oh, I actually think the computer brain that we have is not designed to understand the wholeness of reality.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re stuck in a partial understanding.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And my little 12-year-old right now is like, oh,
3
SPEAKER_01
Okay, I guess I ll never know.
3
SPEAKER_01
Whatever, maybe we do know.
3
SPEAKER_01
But that to me was this first taste of a thing that keeps being reaffirmed by the metaphor universe of like, yo, this is my fundamental lesson is that like, you got to understand that you will have to hold things in attention.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s how you move through life.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then also the tension of being simultaneously another paradox, but both part and whole.
3
SPEAKER_00
And this is, you know, Wilbur again, but this like Jed s a whole person, and you re part of a family structure.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the way that we look for those alliances to create a whole intact system.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know, it s interesting, like the together apartness of life and longing.
3
SPEAKER_01
The metaphor never ends.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like, one side says, the only thing that matters is inhaling.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the other side says, the only thing that matters is exhaling.
3
SPEAKER_01
Even when you walk, each step you re falling in one direction.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then you take the next step to fall in the other direction.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you just step in one direction, you fall fucking over.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like everything is telling us the truth and yet we can t get it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I understand everyone s desire, too, for simplicity and certainty, again, and those types of answers.
3
SPEAKER_00
And one thing, you know, to take it back to your mom for a second, the way that we project onto our parents.
3
SPEAKER_00
some sort of ideal.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t even know if it s an archetype, but there s that moment where you ve arrived and you return.
3
SPEAKER_00
I thought you wrote about that beautifully too, like how the arrival is so anticipated.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then as soon as you re there, you re like, let s get home.
3
SPEAKER_00
Let s go.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, let s get out of here.
3
SPEAKER_00
That moment when you turn on the beach, I ve been there where you re like, all right,
3
SPEAKER_00
We re done going, let s get back as fast as possible.
3
SPEAKER_00
But where you talk, you re in the car, and you re like, say more.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I take a moment to interrogate my expectations.
3
SPEAKER_00
What do I want from her?
3
SPEAKER_00
I want understanding.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want to see that she has grown wise and poetic from life.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want her to analyze and reflect.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you write about the generational differences that we ve all been taught to unpack every moment and look for the moral of the story.
3
SPEAKER_00
But what do you want besides, obviously, acceptance?
3
SPEAKER_00
Although, what would that do?
3
SPEAKER_00
Maybe this is an inane question, but your mom and her beliefs, and you write about that too, I think really beautifully, like how you don t want her to lose her belief.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like how destabilizing that would be.
3
SPEAKER_00
How would you feel if she said, oh yeah, my belief system is wrong, I m wrong.
3
SPEAKER_01
I became a writer truly because I fell in love with C.S.
3
SPEAKER_01
Lewis when I first started reading.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the way he writes and the way he makes an argument was just so compelling to me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And one of the things that I realized he did in his writing is he would always imagine the alternative
3
SPEAKER_01
And he would walk through what that would be like if that happened.
3
SPEAKER_01
So like, if you re saying like, why is there pain in the world?
3
SPEAKER_01
Why is there suffering?
3
SPEAKER_01
And then it s like, okay, well, let s imagine there isn t.
3
SPEAKER_01
What are we talking about?
3
SPEAKER_01
And he would walk through that like thought experiment and you realize the absurdity of the alternative or you realize how great it is, whatever it is.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was just this idea of like imagining the scenario
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think about like, wow, if my mom at 75 just said, the Bible isn t real, I ve been lied to.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was written by men to control women, whatever.
3
SPEAKER_01
I would be so thrown.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I mean, it took me all of my 30s to deconstruct just a childhood of that, you know?
3
SPEAKER_01
And deconstruct and rebuild a worldview that makes me feel safe.
3
SPEAKER_01
I forget, I think I write about it in this book about how existential crises are for the young and middle
4
SPEAKER_01
age because you can deconstruct and then you ve got time to build a new house.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if you re like having an existential meltdown in your 70s, now granted people are living longer and I hope my mom lives to be 140, but I don t know, like I m fine.
4
SPEAKER_01
You like fall asleep with a smile on your face because Jesus has got your back like I m down.
4
SPEAKER_01
I ll be fine.
4
SPEAKER_01
To think of her weak and not feeling like God s got her back.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t like that.
4
SPEAKER_01
It would make me sad.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I mean, you know, there are alternatives.
4
SPEAKER_01
I know lots of people who love Jesus and love gay marriage.
4
SPEAKER_01
Lots.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
So is it a majority at this point, would you say?
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s a good question.
4
SPEAKER_01
I bet you it is a majority of millennials and Gen Z. Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Who would identify as Christian, but they re like, it s fine to be gay.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m so intrigued by generational blind spots.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, I bet you my grandparents were not down with interracial marriage.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, they never said that.
4
SPEAKER_01
But like, when you look at the polling, like in the 60s and 50s, it was not cute.
4
SPEAKER_01
They were like, that shouldn t happen.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, and then all of a sudden, by the time millennials get around, we don t even think about it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, at all.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s just like,
4
SPEAKER_01
we, Gen X, whatever, we were raised in this like different scenario where all of a sudden that conversation is like not something people are fighting about anymore.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think about what is the blind spot when we re 70 and the young whippersnappers are doing something and we re like, that s wrong.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they re like, you are so stuck in the past.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
My theory is it s going to be
4
SPEAKER_01
I think that the young Jen Alpha and below are going to date and have romantic relationships with AI, like in the movie, Her, which I love that movie.
4
SPEAKER_01
I am convinced that that s coming.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we will be like, you re not allowed to do that.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s not a real human or a real relationship.
4
SPEAKER_01
And not in my house.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re not dating a robot, I m sorry.
4
SPEAKER_01
That is not a real person.
4
SPEAKER_01
You can t have real emotions.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we re gonna be so in knots about it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the young people are gonna be like, I m in love, I m sorry, you can t stop me.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, we ll finally be talking about like, what is consciousness?
4
SPEAKER_00
What, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I feel like people already are having relationships with AI.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we move past so many binaries without really clocking them in our culture.
4
SPEAKER_00
And looking at sort of, I guess you would call it progress, but evolution and it is interesting to think about
4
SPEAKER_00
where our blind spot or cultural shadows are in this moment in time.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because they do exist.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, 1000%.
4
SPEAKER_00
Part of it I see is like this part of the denial of death, part of the denial of quote, unquote, darkness, and this clinging to purity, a different kind of purity, perfectionism, righteousness, where it s like,
4
SPEAKER_00
I harm no one.
4
SPEAKER_00
Are you kidding?
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, my existence here is a dream.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like, well, do you use technology?
4
SPEAKER_00
Who mined those crystals?
4
SPEAKER_00
This unwillingness to look at all the death and despair on our planet that drives our lives and
4
SPEAKER_00
That s sort of, I think, one of the big cultural hypocrisies.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s very painful to look at.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m not saying that we can spend our lives examining, but we see the trails of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
We can go there.
4
SPEAKER_00
We can look at our supply chains.
4
SPEAKER_00
We can look at
4
SPEAKER_00
what s happening in Armenia, or Syria, or, you know, all these parts of the world.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I don t know, I just I come back to this place of feeling like I know a lot of people died so that I could live.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I know a lot of people suffered for the advantages that you and I have today and the creature comforts of life in America.
4
SPEAKER_00
I know that.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I think a lot of us want to disown all of that and project it onto other people and sidestep the cycle of life, which is hard.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s hard.
4
SPEAKER_00
But you can t abdicate that.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s so true.
4
SPEAKER_00
we each have our own piece of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then there s the big cultural part of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it s staying in the fire, unfortunately, when it s so much easier and feel so much better, as you said, to get into our righteous rage and say, like, it s your fault.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you re the villain.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if you weren t doing that, then this over here wouldn t happen.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I really feel like the
4
SPEAKER_01
moral test of a human growing towards enlightenment.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s back to Richard Rohr, like the full circle conversation is order, disorder, reorder, the stages of enlightenment.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I think order is conservative, like old time religion.
4
SPEAKER_01
Disorder is liberal, progressive, fuck that, fuck the man, let s burn this place to the ground.
4
SPEAKER_01
and start over and then reorder is everything belongs and each thing has its place in moderation and the dance between the two is what makes anything possible.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s trying to like go through those stages of life and you can t skip a step.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think the theme of this episode of your podcast is go listen to everything Richard Rohr.
4
SPEAKER_00
In a nutshell, how do you think about your faith?
4
SPEAKER_00
It seems if you have Richard Rohr, you have some version, and if you re into spiral dynamics, there s some container for you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Who else do you read and look to?
4
SPEAKER_00
Who s shaping your perspective?
4
SPEAKER_01
I would say the four horsemen of my mind are Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, Thomas Merton, and James Baldwin.
4
SPEAKER_00
Mm.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there s probably like 10 horsemen, but the open spirituality of Mary Oliver, where she can just like look at a decomposing lizard and just like love it.
4
SPEAKER_01
That is where I want to be.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m just obsessed.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then this, the moral clarity and like agrarian, whatever Wendell Berry is, I just like die for him.
4
SPEAKER_01
I love clear thinking and I love a reverence for just this experiment of being alive that these people have.
4
SPEAKER_01
I would say my spiritual experience is just curiosity.
4
SPEAKER_01
I am so down for whatever is real.
4
SPEAKER_01
I am so down.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t care what it is.
4
SPEAKER_01
If the Left Behind series is true and we are gonna get raptured at any minute, oh my God, great, I m ready.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I m ready to be left behind.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m like, okay, well, I didn t follow that absolutely batshit
4
SPEAKER_01
story, how could I be expected to?
4
SPEAKER_01
It s batshit.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so if I m left behind, I shouldn t go there anyway.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to go there.
4
SPEAKER_01
That sounds terrible.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I ll just be here and burn, whatever.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s like I m very down for whatever is true.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I love it, to be raptured.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, congrats on another beautiful book.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m so happy.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re so happy about the book?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s like you said, the runway is so long.
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Like I turned this in a year ago and I got my first copy of it in late February, like the reader s copy.
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And my friends were reading it and they were like, oh my God, this is going to change lives.
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I m so like, oh my God, my mom, I don t know.
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And they re like, when can I give it to my mom?
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And I m like, November.
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That is so long from now.
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Like we re going to be different people in November.
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So it s finally here.
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I m thrilled.
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Well, anything that opens up the wedge between mothers and mothering, that opens that aperture a little bit to let everyone tell the truth about their lives in the most loving way.
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I mean, that s one of my...
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passions as a mom and having a mom who was complicated and not complicated in so many ways, but I wrote a New York Times op-ed earlier this year when my book came out about the ambivalence of motherhood and how loving your children and loving mothering
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are often synonymous in our culture and that we don t really allow our moms any space to have their own feelings about their lives.
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That somehow, particularly I think for girls, whatever you do impugns the choices that your own mother made and or is a reflection either of what she wants you to carry forward or a disavowal of everything that she gave you.
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I don t know.
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It is the most primary relationship for so many of us
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but to not really be able to air it and talk about it.
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And in some ways, like, your book, to me, read as when I was talking about holding your mom close and looking at her, it s like you almost are able to depersonalize her beliefs.
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I know that they re so strongly held, but it just didn t seem in any way to color her love for you.
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I don t know.
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The more we can air these relationships out and make them as multivariate
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it as they are, I think the more healing there is for all of us.
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Oh my god.
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I wish I could print what you just said on the back of this book before it comes out.
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Too late.
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Oh well, hopefully they listen to this podcast.
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That was exactly what I m trying to get at and I could have never said it better.
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I love Jedediah s Mind and it s really a beautiful book and about so much more than sexuality and religious fundamentalism.
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It s about adventure and love and wanting to see the world through other people s eyes, including those who don t have the same beliefs.
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It s also about aging and watching the evolution or the change in people that are formative in the creation of our own lives and our own identities and watching them change and begin to let go a bit more of the physical.
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I think it s hard.
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It s not something that I want to think about or look at with my own parents.
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And so the book is also a really beautiful study in aging.
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And there s this one part where he writes, the erosion of dreams seems to be a feature of aging.
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When you re young, you think maybe I m good at ping pong or graphic design.
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I ve never tried.
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Maybe my future husband is a doctor or firefighter.
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I haven t met him yet.
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Maybe I ll be famous.
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Maybe I ll be a teacher.
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I haven t opened many doors, but what if the best, loveliest thing is behind the next one?
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There s a chance, right?
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And I think that there was something so moving about him undertaking this journey that his mom did with his dad so long ago.
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to see how the landscape has changed, to see how she s changed, and in some ways, the ways in which she hasn t changed at all.
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And so it s also very much a testament to time, love, and how we all move through the world and are changed for it and by it.
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If you liked today s episode, please rate and review and tell a friend.
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You can find show notes and full transcripts of the episodes at EliseLuhnen.com.
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While there, please sign up for my sub stack.
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I send a short note every Wednesday about topics that are aligned with this show and a deeper dive most Sundays.
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Or follow me on Instagram at EliseLuhnen.
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And finally, if you haven t already, please consider picking up a copy of my New York Times bestselling book, On Our Best Behavior, The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be Good, available wherever you get your books.
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It s an exploration of how women have been conditioned for goodness, men for power, and all the ways we ve been programmed to police ourselves and each other according to these cultural ideas of what it is to be a good woman.
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I d also like to give a huge thank you to my sponsors who make this show possible.
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Please support them the way they support this podcast.
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This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studio.
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If you enjoyed this episode, please listen, rate, review, and follow Pulling the Thread.
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Available now for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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I want to give a shout out to Phil Svitek, Lauren Legrasso, Mary-Kate McDonough, Ali Brockman, and the entire Cadence 13 team for producing these episodes, and to Valero Duval for my key art.
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Take care of yourselves.
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I ll see you next time.