Good Life Project - Jen Hatmaker | A Wild Faith

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

Jen Hatmaker grew up in the church, surrounded by family and community, eventually rising up to become a central figure. But, over the years, she became increasingly uncomfortable with not so much the core tenets and teachings, but rather the trapping and limitations of the institution. She struggled with what she saw as a stifling of power, expression and contribution in the context of women, the exclusion of LGBTQ+ and gender-fluid or nonconforming people and more. So, she did something she knew would leave her labeled a pariah and outcast by many. Still, it was the thing she couldn’t not do.Jen had no idea what was next, or even if faith, or any approach to organized religion would play a role in her life, let alone her vocation. But, over time, she came back to those same core tenets, but in a way that felt far more expansive, equitable and inclusive, and build a new community that welcomed all into more of what she described as a “wild faith.” She’s since written numerous books, including NY Times bestsellers For the Love and Of Mess and Moxie. She hosts the For the Love Podcast, speaks and created the Jen Hatmaker Book Club where, in her words, she “nerds out every month with thousands of women who believe good books are everything and stories still matter.” And she leaders an online community of millions of women. Her latest book, Simple and Free: 7 Experiments Against Excess (https://amzn.to/2PdDFSL), is a fascinating take on excess, bundled with a series of experiments that invite us to explore what happens when we strip down key parts of life to their essentials.You can find Jen Hatmaker at:Website : https://jenhatmaker.com/Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/jenhatmaker/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sparketypes/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, my guest today, Jen Hatmaker, she grew up in the church, surrounded by family and community, eventually rising up to become a central figure. But over the years, she became increasingly uncomfortable with not so much the core tenets or teachings, but rather the trappings and limitations of the institution. And she struggled with what she saw as a stifling of power and expression and contribution and inclusion in the context of women and the exclusion of LGBTQ plus community and gender fluid or non-conforming people and more. And she did something she knew would leave her labeled a pariah and an outcast by many. Still, it was the thing she

couldn't not do. She left the church, and Jen had no idea what was next, or even if faith or any approach to organized religion would play a role in her life, let alone her vocation from that moment forward. But over time, she came back to those same core tenets that just never let go, but in a way that felt more expansive and equitable and inclusive and built a new community that welcomed all. She has since written numerous books, including New York Times bestsellers, For the Love and Of Mess and Moxie. She hosts the For the Love podcast, speaks and created the Jen Hatmaker Book Club, where in her words, she nerds out every month with thousands of women who believe good books are everything

and stories still matter. And she leads an online community of millions of women. And her latest book, Simple and Free, is this fascinating take on excess, bundled with a series of experiments that really invite us to explore what happens when we strip down the key parts of life to their essentials. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him.

We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. I know I want to take a little bit of a step back in time and kind of work our way back to the present. Texas person in your blood and also really grew up in the church, but in a very different way than you have come to know the practice, the community now in a very much more conservative evangelical approach where it sounds like it wasn't really a choice for you. This was just the life that you knew from the earliest days. Yeah. I think my story, you could swap out a handful of the details, and it's fairly common that a lot of us were

raised in a certain spiritual construct, whatever that is, you can fill in the blank. For me, it was pretty traditional, conservative, Southern Baptist culture. That was really all I ever knew growing up. That was my one and only spiritual context. And so I thought it was the whole world. I just assumed this is the thing for everyone. This is what we're all experiencing. This is what we're all believing. This is, these are our ideologies. This is how we're all voting and have an outside perspective to challenge it. And so hopefully my story is not unusual that as we grow, we learn and we change and we press hard on some of the forms. I hope that's not unusual. I hope that we are constantly willing spiritually to evolve and ask hard questions of things that were just handed to us a certain way that we really never

examined personally. And that's been my experience. And so, yeah, my faith has wildly expanded since I was a kid and I'm happy for it. I'm glad for it. It's profoundly more beautiful than it ever was. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I've been fortunate to have a lot of conversations with people who've grown up in different traditions and then hit this moment, sort of a point of inflection where there's something happening inside of them. There's like a voice that starts to emerge that kind of says, okay, so this is everything I know. This is the culture to which I belong to, you know, not just the family, but the bigger community. And yet there's something inside of me that says it's not working for me anymore. And maybe it's also not the way that I want to carry myself forward and contribute to the world. But I've heard you

say a lot of spiritual communities, especially they hold out belonging as a weapon. I think there's this through line for a lot of people of faith who grew up really in any context that was largely rigid, that placed a really high premium on certainty, on things being very clear, being very right, being very, this is the one way, this is the interpretation, this is the doctrine. And that runs the gamut, frankly, across a lot of denominations and kind of spiritual traditions. But what I noticed, because you asked if I started realizing that faith wasn't working for me in the same way that maybe it had originally. In my story, what I started noticing was that faith wasn't working for other people. I noticed that faith was no longer working for very specific groups of people,

the ones who were othered, who were incredibly excluded based on sexual orientation. I had never seen racism that was baked into my particular branch of the tree. I started noticing how deeply it left out the doubters and the cynics and how it managed abuse and trauma in ways that sort of actually compounded suffering. And so it was really an eyeball on my community that I started saying, wait a minute, if my doctrines, unexamined at the time, are no longer producing life, which I believe. I believe that is the outcome of a vibrant faith, is life abundant. And so if I'm seeing the opposite, either this whole thing is fake, it's just a big lie, or we might be getting it wrong. This might be human error. And so for me,

that was the front door into asking new questions that I had never asked and did not know that we were allowed to ask, frankly. from didactic, interactive questioning to transmission. This is what it is. This is the interpretation. This is the translation. And we accept it without question and live by it. And it sounds like you got to a point where you're sort of like, well, the outcome that I thought this was supposed to be about is not the outcome that feels right to me. So even though questioning isn't built into my tradition, it's something I need to start right to me. So even though questioning isn't built into my tradition, it's something I need to start doing on an entirely different level. That's right. And that felt very disorienting at first. And so I always identify with people who feel unmoored as they began their own spiritual discovery as an adult, pressing on some things that were perhaps assumed, or frankly,

also tenets that most for most of us, our parents still hold our communities of origin still hold our even our denomination or faith tradition, if we're still involved, still holds. And so that's that'll rattle your cages. It's lonely. And you're not even sure if you can trust your own spiritual curiosity. You don't know if that is a signal of a lack of faith. What is this signifying? Because the community will tell you pretty quickly that that is frowned upon, that exploring certain theology interpretations, and then definitely coming to a different conclusion. To your point earlier, the price of admission there is generally belonging,

that that is what gets revoked. You are no longer a good standing member of the community. You have colored outside the lines, and that's what you'll have to forfeit is favor and inclusion in your faith community. And that's painful. believing that this is a core part of my identity, my reason for being, this is in my DNA. It's yes, I'm breaking my relationship with all of those to whom I want to belong. But at the same time, I'm breaking my relationship with my own identity to which I have sought to belong for my entire life. So it's almost like you're shattering things on two levels there. Yeah, it's true. And it does feel that way, especially initially. But I will also say it doesn't stay that way. What I discovered is that in the places that I forfeited belonging, I found it elsewhere.

And so it's not just an abyss. I discovered a different faith community. I didn't know it was out there. I'd never been a different faith community. I didn't know it was out there. I'd never been a part of it. I hadn't seen it. I wasn't, I hadn't sat at their feet to listen or learn yet. But one that is much more marked by spiritual curiosity. And it's not as fragile, to be honest with you.

It doesn't get so, it's not terrified questions or cynicism. It is willing to say, I'm wrong. I was wrong. I've changed my mind. I'm not sure. And so my introduction to that faith community was just like the lights came back on in the house. Just a joy, a delight. It's so much less punitive. And so it's out there. I think there's all kinds of spiritual seekers and learners and listeners out there, but there is kind of a moment where you've left one and you haven't quite found the other. It's a little bit of a lonely road. Yeah. I mean, was that the circumstance for you that you actually made the decision to opt out of one first before you stepped into or found that other one? Oh, yeah, I knew what I was doing. And I've been around a long time. And having experienced such favor from the kind of center of the evangelical Christian lady bullseye, that's a thing. I watched many people. I know, it's very predictable path. I know, I knew what the cost would be for me. It hinged really upon my re-examination of the doctrines

around the LGBTQ community. And, um, and then ultimately my conclusions on that. And I had, I changed my mind. And so I knew I a hundred percent knew going in, this is a deal breaker, but I was at that point where I knew I was either going to be able to hang on to my career as I knew it and where I had built it, or I was going to get my integrity, but I didn't get both. I had to pick one or the other. One of them had to go. And I picked my integrity so that I, at the end of the day, was operating out of my own personal conviction, out of a sense of this is right and this is good. And I have not regretted it one half of one second. Yeah. I mean, when you're in that in-between space where, and I'm really curious about this

because of the fact that you clearly closed the door on one before you knew what was coming next. Yeah. When you're in the in-between window, is there anything inside of you that says, not just, I need to figure out a different way to step into faith, but is this entirely not right for me? Is my future completely uninvolved in this at all? I had no idea. I had no idea. I had no idea. It was such an interesting, strange turn of events to have

been so deeply the same person that I've always been trustworthy, faithful, good, you know, a good leader. And then to have every bit of my character thrown into question, all my credibility thrown into question, any sense of authority that I had secured out the door. So strange, such a weird world to be canceled like that just overnight. And so yeah, there was a minute, I didn't know where I'd land. I didn't know if who would have me. I didn't know where I belonged to somebody who, because again, my experience was pretty homogenous. I had grown up within the same constructs that I built as adult ministry. And so I just didn't have a lot of divergent experiences to pull from. I didn't know what else was out there. And so I thought, well, maybe this is it for me. Maybe this is when I become a librarian. I don't know. I'm not sure what this is going to mean for my career, but I knew what it was going to mean for my faith. And that mattered most.

Yeah. I mean, as you step into that place as well, it's sort of, and I know you've spoken about this, you've written about this. It's also, it sounds like to no small extent, rediscovering your role as a woman in the world. Because who you couldn't be, who you could be, what was appropriate, what was inappropriate was largely prescribed for you. Oh, absolutely. it was inappropriate. It was largely prescribed for you. Not you individually, but this is the role of those who identify as women in the world. So it's sort of like that becomes a part of your exploration at the same time. It's like, okay, so how do I grapple with that? Yeah. It was an intersection of a lot of crises, identity crises, gender being one of them. I definitely grew up in a patriarchal spiritual environment. There were no women in charge. There were no women preachers. There were no women in authority. That was just a given.

This wasn't even something we discussed. It wasn't even something we pushed back on. It was just understood to be the way things are because Bible. And so stepping into my own spiritual authority too, took a lot of chutzpah to imagine that what God says about me is real and that what he has called me to is true. And it's not a man's, specifically a white man's endorsement that I require. And thus, what a wonderful time to be alive as a spiritual leader outside the steeples, because you can build your own space right now. You know, you can build your own community. You can lead out of integrity without the risk of constant censure from power, from patriarchy. And frankly, that's just how it's always worked. I mean, I am very suspect of organized religion, very. There are two out of 100 that I feel like are not riddled and problematic. And so it's just our church, like it or not, has been built on a power hierarchy.

And it's difficult to extrapolate what's good, true and real out of the system. And so not a fan, not a fan, not a huge subscriber. I love my little church here. It's weird, small and ratchet. But like, I'm not going to your weird mega church. I'm not doing it. I'm not going to sign off on your what is certainly your toxic work culture behind the curtain.

I've seen too much. I'm a pastor's daughter. I was a pastor's wife for 26 years. And I've been in my own ministry, I know too much. And so I'm much more interested now in more of a wild faith, something that's a little bit more wilderness based, something that prioritizes curiosity and belonging that excites me. That feels real that, that and Jesus are the only two things that have held me here. The Jesus part,

I just couldn't get away from. I just couldn't do it. That guy, that's the thing. And so that has held me fast where a large, enormous portion of the rest of it has fallen away. Yeah. Mayday, mayday.

We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot if we need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. So when you decide to step into this new form of expression and identity and belonging and create something new, when you kind of make the decision to say, okay, I'm not going to be a librarian, I'm not going to do one of these, but this actually really still does matter to me, but I need to do it profoundly differently. How do you decide what shape that takes?

I give myself permission super early on to not know, to get it wrong, to kind of be sloppy, to lead with questions instead of answers and see what happened. And just to kind of leave the results, full of like angst and question marks. And so I lived it out loud, just in the public eye, which was both good and hard. There was an upside to that and a downside to that. But I don't know how else to be. It was too much of a scourge on my conscience to only do that privately and refuse to bring that forward publicly until I had it all nailed it, dialed it. I couldn't do it. I couldn't look in the mirror anymore. I couldn't keep going. And so I just knew I was going to have to do the messy work of it all in the public eye just in order to go to bed at night.

Yeah. But along the way, I mean, by doing that, on the one hand, yes, you're exposed. But on the other hand, you're also, you're modeling the very vulnerability and curiosity and questioning and openness that is now becoming sort of like the central part of you. And also it sounds like is a central ethos in what you want to create moving forward. So it's sort of like people can look at you and say, okay, so maybe she's stumbling. Maybe I don't agree with this one particular thing, but she's living in a way that feels in some way integrity, even if she's making mistakes and doesn't have

the answers. And maybe I can do that too. I hope so. I hope that's what people have seen. And I also hope I've certainly tried to model apologies because I've gotten a bunch of stuff wrong. It's just inevitable. I mean, if you're going to get it wrong, whether it's private or public and mine just happened to be public. And so I've gotten several things really wrong. And I've also tried to immediately come in, own it, correct it, apologize where apologies were needed, and do better. And so I think that's the best I can do. I mean, short of just playing it safe, which I know how to do that, too. That's my first language.

I mean, I could say all the right things from now until the day I'm dead. I would never get in trouble again. I would never ruffle any feathers. I would never be at odds with the community. I know how to do that. I know that script. But it wasn't imaginative enough for me. It wasn't exciting enough.

It's just not worth a life. The script was not worth my whole life. And so the risk here is worth the reward for me to have something that feels a faith that feels vibrant and alive and good feels like the good part of good news. I'm just going to go ahead and assume that when Jesus said good news, he meant it. And that good actually means good. It's not some complicated word that we can't discern. Good is good. So it was worth it. It's worth it. And I hope that's what the community has learned from me is that they've had permission to both ask, press, get it wrong and make it right. Yeah. I mean, which really turns the whole notion of faith on its head in a lot of different ways.

You know, what's interesting to me also is that I am i contrast what you're doing sort of like what i think a number of people are sort of like coming at different traditions in um in this with this lens of openness curiosity let's figure this out together maybe i'm right maybe i'm wrong in a way that you know a couple thousand years ago when buddhism started to emerge in more eastern theology and philosophy that was always a fundamental part of it. It was like, hey, here are some ideas that I think will help us feel better, but kick the tires. Don't believe me. I'm a person. And I think this will help. But if it doesn't, don't do it. And if you can question it and figure out a better construct, awesome, bring it on.

Yeah. I love that. And frankly, that was also the Jewish tradition. The Jewish tradition was lively debate and interesting discussion and that the scriptures were a starting place, not an ending place. And it was really a co-opting of the original traditions, the original text, honestly, that turned what was really wonderful and mysterious and creative and able to evolve into essentially a rule book, just a list of standards to check. That's sort of, in my opinion, largely a big Western influence too. I mean, we can see the Western fingerprint on that ethos for sure. And so that's so boring. That is so boring. It is so exhausting. It is so defeating. It's impossible. It leaves so many people out. And so I just refuse to believe that faith is a template,

I just won't do it. I won't do it. And so it's fun. Now, now, anything's possible, right? Like, I'm able to be a learner. Again, I don't always have to be the expert. I am able to say, I don't know, tell me, tell me why you think that. Tell me your experience. What's your understanding? It's so much more interesting. And then for me, it's so much more alive. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because if the goal is alive, that's one thing. The goal for so many, at least I think they feel or we've been taught that the goal is not necessarily that feeling, but the goal is certainty. The goal is security. The goal is, you know, like I know what's coming next to the extent I can devote myself to the delusion that that's true. And I think so often that is why so many traditions say, here are the rules. When this happens, this is what you do.

Like, this is how you relate to each other. Like these are the rules so When this happens, this is what you do. This is how you relate to each other. These are the rules so that even if there's a wild world spinning outside of us where we can't control the circumstances, at least we know the rules. At least we know what to do when X happens, we do Y. And we want that. So many people want just that baseline level. I used to love that. That used to be very comforting to me when I was younger. And I'm kind of a, I can be a real black and white thinker. And I can I have a real right and wrong lever. So those I was an I was a natural fit for the community. I mean, I was set up for success. And I did, I succeeded. And, and those, those were comforting to me that no matter what, I can figure out how to get on the right side of this. But to your point, the wild spinning world right outside the door of the we've got it right team just constantly challenged the constructs because if it isn't working out in the wild spinning world, if put into practice, it does not deliver the good fruit that it said it would, it is worth reexamining, right? That is

ours to say, it's our turn. It's our generation's turn and every generation has done it. This is not weird and it is not new. Every generation has a turn to say, I'm going to pull up to the table. I'm going to ask, what are we getting right? And what are we getting wrong? What can we learn? What else is out there? What are other possibilities? That's good work. It's not bad work. But to me, that is not indicative of an anemic faith, but a very robust one, a strong faith. That to me is a mark of strength. Yeah. And it's really interesting also the way you frame that. I think a lot of times when we look at faith traditions with really strong rules, like very binary based traditions, there's actually some fascinating research, academic research that shows that on the whole, folks who are committed to those traditions

are happier than those who are not. And I think a lot of times people have pointed to the teachings as the source, well, because they know what to say. There's less uncertainty, but I wonder if we've got it wrong. I often wonder if the real reason that we see that in the literature is because there's a sense of belonging. It's more about the beloved community than the actual, the fact that we get to know, we have the rule book. And so even if we don't know the answers, at least we know we're not alone in that space. I often think that's the bigger thing. Yeah. It's a good theory because it is true that when you begin to ask questions of the tenants, it's disruptive. It is disruptive to the community, to your space

in it, to how you relate to one another. And so that is more disruptive even than the question on the table. So I think you're onto something there and that's always been what's mattered. And that's why I so dearly wish that as modern day Christians, we could find a way to make more room for the curiosity. I wish we could find a way to make more room where we could say you get to belong no matter what. That is not in jeopardy. So inside this community, how can we grow together? How can we learn together? How can we disagree? How can we do that still in love and in connection? It's very possible. Very possible. It's not impossible. But we have just, I think we're just afraid. We've seen too many people do the walk of shame away from the community and we don't want it to happen to us. And so sometimes we

double down as our own worst enforcers on the rules of engagement. And gosh, I would just love, I'd love to see us find a different way. Yeah. But I mean, it sounds like you're also, that's a big part of what you're doing. So when you decide to step out and say, okay, I'm going to create my own house. I'm going to create a place for a new type of community to come. It's a community that instead of based around saying, we all believe these 10 things and we will not stray from those 10 things, it's a community based on, no, actually the tie that binds us in no small part is we love questioning and we're all comfortable in this space of openness and inclusivity and questioning and sitting in the

space of, I don't know. And it's interesting to see that that can be sort of like an ethos that draws people into the community as well. It can. And the ethos can be, we love each other. That can be the ethos. We love each other. And so inside of that, there's safety. There's felt safety and that we will protect the bond of love and connection, you know, with our lives. And so then there's a freedom in that to not run the traps so precisely, just in order to maintain your own, your own space at the table, then you guys kind of get to be more of a human person with all the mess of it all the suffering and the loss, the questions, the failures, just the stuff that makes up a human life. And so, yeah, I'm interested in that. I'm interested

in that community for sure. Yeah. And then you brought up the word perfection also. And I think that has been such a weight on so many of us. And I feel like it's always been there, but I feel like really in the last generation or so, it has become this dominant heaviness where we feel that there's a standard that is nearly impossible to ever meet. And yet we hold ourselves to it and we hold others to it and we flagellate ourselves. And then we shun others when all of a sudden we can't be that person. It's impossible. It's silly. It's silly. And who would want to be a part of that? Why is that attractive? Who would want to join a community where failure is punished, where questions are punished, where different opinions

are punished? What a nightmare. I mean, plenty of us have been on the receiving end of that behavior of that treatment inside places that were supposedly spiritually safe. And so I'm just not doing it. I'm not doing it. I'm 46. I don't have to do that anymore. I don't need it. I don't, I don't require that to thrive. There is so much spiritual flourishing outside of the structures and systems. And so now that I know that not just by observing, but by experiencing, I'm fully free. Like I do not, I feel no obligation to adhere anymore to the rules that we made up, the ideas that we made up, the power structures that we made up, none at all. And so I find other ways to have spiritual accountability in my life,

not just willy nilly out there, just free range. I have plenty of men and women of full integrity in my life who love God and who are living like beautiful, faithful lives. They are my community and we have constant permission to speak into one another's lives. Like, well, knock, knock, you are getting this wrong or you are headed in a way way that I just want a wonder, can we have a conversation around it? These are my concerns. And that's happened plenty of times. I've dished it out and I've taken it. And I'm grateful for that too. And so that I think there's this terrible fake idea out there that any believer who meanders outside of the structures, who dares to pitch a stake out in the wilderness of faith, they just have an aversion to holiness. They just have an aversion to accountability.

They are rejecting standards at all. And that's not my experience in the slightest. Rather, some of the most tender, spiritually sensitive and responsive people I have ever met are out there in the wilderness doing it a little bit differently. They're deeply faithful. They're deeply committed to practices that help us love God and love people. And so that's just simply a caricature. It's a fear tactic used to keep people away from it. I'm just telling you, if they can just dehumanize the people who have walked away from the structures that are predicated on misogyny, on racism, on homophobia, and on patriarchy,

then we can keep more of them in place, in place. And so I'm very, very happy to have that, my rear view mirror. Yeah. It's so interesting how much of society is built around the ultimate goal of order. Yeah. We see that in education also. Fundamentally, the education system in this country is not built around learning or growth. It's built around order, maintaining order, teach the minimum necessary. And not that teachers, teachers are amazing people who really, really want to do incredible work, but the bigger superstructures early on, a lot of it was built around, okay, so how do we create institutions where we can control what's going on as much as humanly possible? And it's really fun to see a lot of these models being broken,

whether it's education, like you were saying, we're in this fertile window right now where everybody is questioning everything and we have technology that we can access and tools that let us imagine things that just weren't even possible a decade ago and then do it. It's really powerful. Yeah, absolutely. It's so exciting. Yeah. And I love the idea of just being able to create something that invites everyone.

A chunk of years back, I was hanging out in San Francisco, and I remember walking into Glad Memorial Church there one day. A friend of mine was singing. And it's this amazing place which exists in a part of the city where there's a lot of homeless population, a lot of drug use, people from all walks of life, and the doors are completely open. There are homeless people hanging out on the steps. They're in the pews. Every person that you could ever imagine is in there, dressed however they want to dress being however they need to be in that moment in time. And there would like, there would be a celebrity here and then like sitting next to a person, you know, who you would normally never see them with. And it was this beautiful experience

because nobody was questioning whether anybody had the right to be there. Yeah. It was just a space where everyone kind of knew like, this is home. And the feeling, I was raised Jewish, but hanging out in that space, I'm like, this feels good to me too. It's good. Yeah. I love that. Again, I go back to my metric, which is, is it good news? I mean, it's pretty simple. That's a pretty lowbrow way to approach life. But it's also pretty easy to answer and pretty easy to observe. So most of us know when we're in the presence of good news, and it feels good to everybody, not just the people at the top, not just the ones who have the approval, they've got the preset list of advantages that puts them kind of the top of the food chain.

But if it's good news for the poor, you know, as the prophets were found fond of saying, if it's good news for the marginalized, if it's good news for the orphan, if it is good news for the refugee, now we're cooking with gas, right? Now we're in the right zip code. Yeah. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun on January 24th. We'll be right back. is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's

the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. And I mean, as you step into this and you start to reimagine this in the context of your own life and the community that you want to be in service of, you're also growing a family. You end up with five kids who are then looking to you to sort of say, okay, so what's the right way to be in the world? And as a parent, we all know it doesn't matter what you say.

Right, right. They see what we do for sure. Yeah, I have no idea. They're going to grow up and they'll tell me how I got it wrong. That I am certain of. I'm waiting on that. You start the therapy fund when they're three. I already have it.

You just keep contributing to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I already have it. Can you imagine what a weird life my kids have? And so and they also were coming of age during my own spiritual D and reconstruction. So what a weird thing to observe, to have started in one way, gone through this messy middle, come out in a different place, they've seen it all. And so, again, I draw comfort from the fact that they are whole human people, that they have a soul, that they each have a mind. They each have

their own experiences that come to the table and this is theirs to work out. It isn't mine. This idea that parents can perfectly package a faith system and hand it to their kids who will receive it with joy and delight is not true. We know better. We know better. We look at the packages we've been handed. We've reformulated the thing. And so I now know this is theirs. Their faith journey is their faith journey. And it's going to look like it's going to look and it's in some ways can be wildly different for mine already is in some cases. And it always was going to be. So for me, there's a, there's a relief in laying down whatever I thought was ever going to be control here. Cause that is a thing that we're handed it, especially, you know, do this, this, this,

and this, and then you end up with good, happy kids who go to church. You know, that's, I was, I bought that hook, hook, line and seeker. I mean, it's just not true. It's not true. And so to your earlier point, it is a wild spinning world out there, and our kids are a part of it. And so we'll see where they land. I'm going to watch with hopefully courage and not a sense of trying to wrench the steering wheel back and watch and see what God does with their lives. It's going to look different than mine.

Yeah. It's really interesting to sort of like be in that position, right? When you zoom the lens out, I'm assigned to NARD at the end of the day also. So I'm always looking at the research and the studies on patterns. You know, one of the other big patterns that's happened really over the last decade, two decades is there's been a large scale departure from organized religion, all organized religion across the board. You know, they call them the nuns, the people who say, well, I'm spiritual, but I'm not affiliated.

Totally. Part of my curiosity is around that is I do believe that we as human beings need to believe in something. There needs to be some sort of ethos by which we interact with the world. And my curiosity is like, what will people move to? Is it just going to be scattered, a whole bunch of different things? Is there going to be something new that emerges? Because again, we kind of need to believe in something and we need to be a part of something. And I'm so fascinated. What's that going to look like five years from now, 10 years from now? It's going to be interesting with just the sheer volume of spiritual input and leadership we all have access to now. Once upon a time, you had whoever was in your town.

That's what you had. You had whoever your mom and dad were listening to. That's who you had. At this point, our exposure to leaders and thinkers, it's endless. I read all that research too. I'm also data-driven in much of what I do and how I can understand culture and my community right now better. And it is interesting to read up on the nuns, which is the fastest growing demographic of them all by a mile. But to also find when you dig under a couple of the layers of the data there, with that particular demographic, they're not necessarily disinterested in Jesus. That piece, there's something about Jesus that remains trustworthy, that feels fascinating, that's sort of spiritually rebellious. I mean, I mean, he was subversive.

And that continues to resonate. So it's going to be interesting to see which, if it's just a walk away entirely, or if it's a bit of a, if Jesus gets to come on the journey, but the trappings are what have to change or shift, as they've done in numerous generations. Again, this is not new. We don't love change, and it feels like a threat.

And there's the possibility that we're going to have to admit we were wrong about something. We hate that too. But change throughout the people of God is ubiquitous. So I don't think we need to fear it. I don't think we need to fear it. I think we go, where's the life? Where's the love? If we can count on that,

well, let's follow the winds and see where they go. But as you can imagine, that is not a very hot take inside the structures. Yeah, but I mean, it's interesting because it brings up another really, I think, interesting phenomenon right now, which is cancel culture and room to grow. Because what we're talking about is you've got to hold space for growth. There's got to be room for somebody to say, oh, I got that wrong, or I want a question, or I need to go into the

wilderness for a while and figure out what this looks like to me. And maybe things that I did and said in my past, I now completely don't associate with. But at the same time, we're in this really fascinating moment in culture. Cancel culture wasn't a term five years ago. And now with technology, I think it's become a term, it's become so much more pervasive and it eliminates this notion of room to grow and also redemption. Like, okay, so I really screwed up and maybe I hurt people along the way. What can I do to make it right? With cancel culture, those two things are off the table.

Room to grow and redemption are just gone. It's challenging and there's not an easy solution here. There's an inherent reward for the pile on something about that strikes a human nature, darkness that we share that we've had for a long time, which is, let's gang up on somebody and watch them fail. Let's punish them together. Let's put them in the lion's ring. And again, that's not a new impulse, but the internet makes it different. The internet makes the scope of it different. How many people have individual and easy and absolutely perfect and free access to any other person at any given time? You know, there is no, the barriers that used to keep us somewhat safe, somewhat ensconced in our real life communities are non-existent. So now the repercussions of being canceled are just so, so never ending. But one thing that I can also say about this impulse, and I've been, I've both been a part of it. I've resisted it. And I've been

on the receiving end of it. So I feel like I've done it all here. I've got some pylons I wish I could take back that I joined that lack all nuance, lack relationship, lack knowledge of the scenario. It's just, it's almost a lose-lose game. But I can say as somebody who's been in the hot seat of being canceled, honestly, there's one way it looks on the surface, which is sensationalized. It's clickbait. It's gossip. It is everyone enjoying a laugh at somebody else's expense or enjoying a sense of superiority

for kicking them out of the space. There's this public facing. And then there's the reality of it, which is in real life, you get to carry on like a human person. Like Brenda from Cincinnati, who said something to me on Twitter, that's inconsequential to me, that does not affect my real life. That doesn't even count doesn't register. And so I think what is incumbent on us is just to carry on. When I've told people who have lots of people in the spotlight have called me. And over the last few years saying, I have something I need to say publicly and I'm scared.

And I know how it's going to go. And you already did it. You live, you're not dead. What can you tell me? And among some like logistical suggestions that I always give on managing a backlash, I also always just say, keep living. Keep being the good person you are. Keep loving people in the way that you're doing. Keep being generous and giving in the places that you are giving. Keep being faithful in the ways you are being faithful. Just keep going. Keep being who you are. The mob can't take that away from you. They cannot. They cannot take away your capacity to be exactly who you are, a good human being in the world. And so just keep going.

And here's the thing. It will recede. Tomorrow, it's going to be somebody else in the hot seat. It's boring. It's repetitive. But it's how it works. And so build your own credibility. We have the opportunity to have longevity, which is a really good response to a two-week

pile on because it was fun on the internet. I mean, there's a really interesting tie-in with actually your new book with this as well. New slash old slash new, right? Yeah, that's it. So Simple and Free, which originally came out of sort of like this experiment called Seven back about a decade ago and now dramatically expanded. What's so interesting, and we'll talk about sort of like what that experiment is a bit, but in the bigger context, you're like, okay, so I did this the first time a decade ago, right? I

put this out into the world. And granted, like your world at that point was way smaller and way less public than it is now. So a decade later, you're like, there was value in this experiment. Let me actually, let me put it out again, but it needs profound updating because it's a decade later. And you made this really interesting choice, which is instead of saying, well, let me just erase all this stuff that I said and believe that I no longer said and believe back then you left it in and sort of like decided to annotate the book and say like, this is how I feel differently now. And this is why, which was a really interesting choice. Yeah, it was. My editor was like, don't do it. How can I talk you out of this? And I was

like, you know, I have the opportunity right now, not just to put some important content back out into the world, but it has only become more salient in the last 10 years. Care of the earth, conservation, climate change, waste, how we spend, all of that has internet technology and media and its effect on us. Everything has become more intense, not less. And so there is absolutely a still really robust place for the entire conversation in the public square. But at the same time, I said, I have a secondary opportunity here to model what it looks like to grow and evolve as a human so that I can show people in real time who come to Simple and Free as a new reader, having not known me or read the original offerings a decade

ago. And I bracketed all my annotations and just said, okay, 2010 Gen, here is something that you did not understand about the word that you just used. Here is something you didn't understand about the entire last three paragraphs of how you perceived the world. This is what you're going to find out. This is what you're going to learn. This is what you're going to discover. This is not anything you would ever say anymore, or you walked this back differently and, and left it all in there. And so you will be able to see the places where

I have grown in the last 10 years. And I think that's a good example. So yes, it's messy. It's messy. It's messy to read. And it's humbling. But it's also good. I hope that 10 years from now, I could come back and annotate it again and be like, okay, look, 2021, Jen, here is something you did not understand about what you wrote that year. I hope that we're constantly learning and we're not afraid of it, that we're not afraid of growth. We're not afraid to be wrong. We're not afraid to just say, I wish I had that back. We're not afraid to admit it. Gosh, that's a good community right there. That is a community where possibility is endless, where safety and belonging are protected. We would be such more interesting

humans, I think, if we were not constantly afraid of rejection and failure. Yeah. Among all of the things when you're going through this, and it had to have been so fascinating for you too, because it's kind of like, oh, this is how I was a decade ago, which I'm sure some of it you remembered, some of it was felt, but some of it I would imagine like, oh, I felt that, I believe that, I said that? Yeah. Yeah. It was like putting on an old sweatshirt that you've outgrown. And parts of it, I just realized, and I wrote this whole ending about how deeply my worldview has shifted in 10 years because I wrote the original project from inside the belly of the beast. And so that was still when my perspectives were largely unchallenged. My experiences were still kind of one note and I was earnest. I was earnest. I meant it. I meant it at the time and

lots of it stands. A lot of that content is evergreen, which is why I'm putting it back out into the world because Cause this is, if anything more important now that we examine our habits as consumers and what does restraint look like? What does less look like instead of constantly more, we have to care about this stuff. And so that evergreen content, I still stand by, but yeah, the other stuff, um, I realized, gosh, I meant every word of this. Um, and so I hope that gives people permission that you can be as sincere as possible right now and still give yourself permission to press on some of the forms and see what happens. Yeah. I mean, just assume you're going to get some of it wrong all the time. You are. That's kind of the way I walk through life. And I'm like, I am ready to try something,

fall on my face. And if I need to apologize or change what I say or believe. Right. We're getting stuff wrong right now. I expect to have to do it. And I I need to apologize or change what I say or believe. Right. We're getting stuff wrong right now. I expect to have to do it. And I may suffer for it along the way, but it is what it is. Absolutely the same. At the end of the day, at least it's a life of growth, right? The seven things that you talk about here, the big idea in the book is fundamentally, it's sort of like, look at these seven areas of excess that we tend to all default to. They're universal.

Without even thinking about it. And then take each one of them and for a window of time, really, really, really constrain yourself and see how that feels. That's the experiment. Of those seven things. So it was food, it was clothing, it was spending, media, possessions,

waste and stress, right? That's it. Is there one where you have seen, because you've been working with this, you know, over a decade now. And granted, you know, it was a big thing back then, but I'm sure this has been a common thing with so much of the way you related to people. Of those seven things, is there one that you feel tends to really not only dominate people's

struggles, but also constrain them in a way that they're not even aware of more than others. I can tell you what has been the case for me as I re-examine how these have played out for a decade, what stuck, what didn't, what really inspired permanent changes and what's a struggle. And I'll tell you what's a struggle where I still feel not just owned by it, but even more so than originally is media and technology. It's just, by it, but even more so than originally, is media and technology.

It's just, I mean, if you can even think of media and technology 10 years ago, how much it has changed in a decade. What is now available to, we didn't have Uber back then. You know, we didn't, there was no Instagram. It has grown exponentially in 10 years. And so that was a hard chapter to revisit. And be like, oh, damn it. Oh, we are not doing better here. In some ways, we're doing worse. And so that one, I feel like the tail is wagging the dog more than the other categories. And I think a lot of my

friends would say that's true, too. A lot of us feel a little bit out of control on media and technology screen usage and really unsure how to unplug the machine. That one's still hard. Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense, especially because the technology that we relate to on a daily basis, I mean, literally billions of dollars are being spent to, and brilliant minds to figure out how to make it as unputdownable as humanly possible. That's right. That's exactly right. Works with all the circuitry in your brain that says, do not stop, do not stop, do not stop. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We're playing against a stacked deck here. Yeah. But it's, it's, I mean, it's so interesting to me also in that in a weird way, you know, it's like somebody who, um, if you're addicted to alcohol, like, you know, like there, there is somebody can say, okay, so if you're able to do it, if you can eliminate it from your life, you can live a beautiful full life without it. If you have a same relationship with food, it's profoundly different because you can't

just say no more food, you know, I'm done. And in a really weird way, I wonder if we're taking this binary take on media and social media, and particularly these days and saying like evil, evil, addictive, addictive, when what I see, especially with younger generation is that it's not just a source of information and relation, but it's become the primary place where certain communities and people gather. And if you're not there, you're effectively outcast from community. You lose your sense of belonging. So when we tell people to pull away from it, we're effectively saying outcast yourself, choose to no longer belong. It's really, it's so much more gray area

and so much more complicated, I think. Couldn't agree more. And I don't have a binary opinion of social media. Social media and technology has wildly changed my life for the better in tons of ways. It's where my career is located. That's how I built my own community. It's how my kids are connected. Frankly, it's how I'm connected to several different communities. And so this is not an all or nothing here. This is not a yes or a no, an all or a none. But there is a place for restraint in this conversation. What does that look like? Because in some ways, it is not a substitution for life.

For life in the grass, in the air, with human bodies, it's not the same. We need both. We need both. And so I'm still asking the same questions. I was asking a decade ago, how do I thread this needle well for myself, for my kids? How do we enjoy all the vibrancy that social media and media technology have to offer us while not sacrificing real life here with real people? It's a good question and one worth asking.

Yeah, I think we're all right in there with you. Feels like a good place for us to bring it home also. So the name of this is Good Life Project. If I offer up the phrase to you to live a good life, what comes up? Oh man, gosh, I've learned a lot about that in the last eight months. I really, really have in new ways.

For me, so much of what I have and do can fall away. It can. I love it. I love my work. I love all of it. I love my community. I love being a leader. I love what I put my hands to. But if it all went away, for me, the good life is a deeply lived life with my people, my family, my extended family, my best friends. That's the chief source of my joy. And it's enough for me. It really is. I've learned, I have had to learn this year, what is enough. And some of the things that I used to hold dear, I don't have anymore. I don't have marriage anymore. I don't have a spouse anymore. That's been a portion of my entire adult life. And so I've been asking what's a good life and I have it. I have it. And it is located in my relationships with the people that I love and who love me. And that to me is my number one priority by a thousand miles. Everything else

is deeply, deeply lower on the list. And I feel so lucky. I'm the luckiest girl in the world. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life?

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