Soul Boom - Is Society Losing Its Soul? Nadia Bolz-Weber on Faith, Outrage, and Redemption

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

Lutheran pastor and best-selling author Nadia Bolz-Weber joins Rainn Wilson to discuss why modern life feels so disconnected and overwhelming. They explore the paradoxes of faith, the crisis of community in America, and how the pursuit of comfort and convenience might be eroding our humanity. Nadia shares her radical insights on grace, forgiveness, and why she still believes in organized religion despite its flaws. Plus, they dive into the spiritual consequences of the algorithm-driven world we live in and why true healing requires something greater than ourselves. Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor, New York Times best-selling author, and the founder of House for All Sinners and Saints, a progressive church in Denver. Known for her unfiltered, no-nonsense approach to theology, she speaks and writes about faith, grace, addiction, and the power of community with raw honesty and humor. More Nadia: Substack: https://thecorners.substack.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/sarcasticlutheran Website: https://www.nadiabolz-weber.com/ MERCH OUT NOW! https://soulboom.com/store God-Shaped Hole Mug: https://bit.ly/GodShapedHoleMug Sign up for our newsletter! https://soulboom.substack.com SUBSCRIBE to Soul Boom!! https://bit.ly/Subscribe2SoulBoom Watch our Clips: https://bit.ly/SoulBoomCLIPS Watch WISDOM DUMP: https://bit.ly/WISDOMDUMP Follow us! Instagram: http://instagram.com/soulboom TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@soulboom Sponsor Soul Boom: [e-mail] Work with Soul Boom: [e-mail] Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: [e-mail] Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Companion Arts Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Voicing Change Media Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to soul. I want to start with this one. Why the fuck are you a Lutheran pastor? I'm just an unconvicted felon. I was raised fundamentalist Christian. Did a whole bunch of wika and goddess stuff for which I'm really grateful. I needed to come back to my original symbol system. Lutheran theology is based in paradox.

It felt accurate. It didn't feel aspirational. The point of gravity in Lutheran theology is, grace. We need a power greater than ourselves to restore us to sanity. That's grace. Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast. Nadia, you give me hope for the entirety of Christianity. That's a heavy burden.

It's a cross to bear. So to speak. We're both in recovery. We're both people of faith. And there is something really powerful about community. Community is something that we have really fucked up in America these days. And people are, you know, as we know, for the last 20, 30 years, like, you know, I'm spiritually open and curious and agnostic. but I could never be a part of an organized religion

and this kind of like a rejection of faith and religion and services and quote unquote organized religion, which I completely understand. Totally. 100% relatable. That's not without cause. Exactly. Yeah.

But, you know, and I talk about this in Soul Boom, what have we lost by losing that? And this is an example. Yes. Because churches have been doing this for hundreds of years, you gather with your neighbors and you sing and you do a barn raising and you go to a wedding and to a funeral and to a birth. That's right. And you sing at a wedding and a funeral and a birth together, shoulder to shoulder.

And this isn't just an American thing. This is a worldwide thing. People all over the world since the dawn of human history have been gathering shoulder to shoulder to sing, to mourn, to praise, to greet. to grieve, to lift their voices in community, it is about as human a thing as possible. One of the things that has really helped me in the last two years is thinking as much as I can anthropologically, meaning thinking what are human beings,

how have we lived for most of the time of our species? What are we wired to do? What's innate about humanity that we have, because of comfort and convenience, now don't even have access to that. So one of those things is for sure community. And before the Enlightenment, community, really, in a way, belief can be the basis of belonging in a lot of ways in religious communities.

And so since the Enlightenment, you know, what people believe has just fractured into a million different things. We have so many possibilities. And there's this what I call tyranny of choice right now. We never really had to choose quite so many things, human beings. You didn't even often have to choose to be married, much less. Here's every possible career on the planet. It's your choice.

You better choose right. Here are all the majors you could choose. Here's a dating app, and it has one and a half million people on it. And it's your choice, right? Here are all the belief systems in the world. You have to choose the one that works for you. And on one hand, we let go of, you know, we're sort of been released from some of the other kinds of tyranny in terms of controlling human behavior that happens and the way that certain

groups exert dominance over other groups. Like arranged marriages or you will believe in the church of your forefathers or else or you're disowned. That's right. So that's a different kind of tyranny. Exactly. But now we're faced with our own, you know. And I think the byproduct of that is anxiety in a lot of ways.

because how do you know if you're choosing right when there are so many possibilities? I mean, I find myself, I walked the Camino de Santiago two and a half years ago, and I'm doing it again and starting in April. Can you tell folks who don't know what that is? Yeah, the Camino de Santiago is a thousand-year-old pilgrimage from St. Jean-Pede Port in France, and then you cross the Pyrenees and you walk 500 miles to Santiago de Compostela. You carry traditionally everything for the pilgrimage on your back. Now, you stay in albergays, which are like little hostels.

It's not like through hiking where you have to have a tent or whatever. Yeah. But you just have one change of clothes, your toiletries, your water bottle. Everything is just stripped down to just the essentials. On some level, it's interesting because when new pilgrims are on their first commino, they overpack almost always. And they always say you pack your fears. So the extra things you think you're going to need that you don't, which are just weight.

that you're carrying for 500 miles on your back have to do with being afraid of not having it, which is different than needing it, right? So there's a way in which being stripped down to these essentials where you're just a human animal walking through the land and carrying what you need on your back and waiting until you find a place to eat and eating and then continuing to walk and finding a place to sleep. You're doing that for week after week after week. and I found myself being the least neurotic I had ever been in my life.

Wow. I was. There was relief from anxiety when you're kind of like, this is what I got. Exactly. It was so simple. And I suppose there's a little store in a town

if you needed to go buy another toothbrush or a band-aid or something. Yeah. And I just, part of it was being outside that long. Like I'm indoorsy, so it's like a new thing for me to spend that much time outside.

You love the great indoors? I do love the great. And I was blissed out. I was blessed out. I saw these videos I made for Eric. I'd show him like the sunrise. Boyfriend. Yeah.

Sorry. Yeah. My beloved. And I watched a couple of them the other day. I saw him stone as fuck in these videos. Like, oh my God. It's so beautiful. I'm so grateful.

I just want to pray. It's so, you know, like I, and it really was just. Well, not to mention the amount of anxiety. reduction that just walking gives you. That's it.

You know, again and again, psychologists, wachologists, spiritualologists, humans, you talk anthropologically. We have been walking and migrating for 100,000 years. And there's something, and it literally works in the brain where the two halves of the brain are speaking to each other with each, you know, bipedal motion. God's pharmacology up in our brain. You know, it's releasing these things we need. Right.

You talked about the tyranny of choice. That's great. Anthropologically, what do we need in terms of community and what are we lacking today? We need belonging and we need feelings of safety and we need to eat food made out of food and we need to be outside and move our bodies. I actually think the things that we think are so great about how we live now, look, we have like cars and we have these homes that have HVAC systems and we had like all of these things that were like incredible we're talking about comfort and convenience and I think that comfort and convenience have probably cost us more than

we realize those are ways to also be alienated so now I'm not seeing the shopkeeper because I'm at I'm ordering everything on Amazon I'm not do you know I'm not having to chop wood with other people or for other people so we can heat our homes because I just flip on the thing and I pay my bill. Like there's a million ways that comfort and convenience are what alienates us from other people and that alienation is a disease. You know, I mean, it's making us sick. So we really weren't supposed to live like this, I think. I mean, I love it. Don't get me wrong. Give me a, give me a fucking duvet and a Starbucks and I'm so happy. And like, I, I usually find any form of physical discomfort to be a crisis, personally. Like, I'm not wired to be a long-suffering person. But I've been thinking, I've been trying to access

more compassion for myself and for other people right now. And for me, it comes from that kind of thinking by going, oh, maybe when, because normally the human brain is wired to be able to think, am I safe? Like, am I safe and can I survive? And am I safe and can I survive constantly, right? So you're like, like, you need to be. Which are the things that kept us alive? Alive.

It worked for eons. You need to know if there's a woolly mammoth coming for you. You need to know if those berries. That kind of anxiety is great for self-preservation. That's right. Exactly. Are those berries dinner or poison? Like there's a way, this awareness. It's like, I always think of those movies.

where they're in a submarine and there's this like sonar thing going. Yeah. And then it's waiting for a beep, right? So our brains are doing that constantly. Is that a threat? Is this going to hurt me? Is this going to satiate my hunger? All of that.

And so because our lives are filled with so much comfort and convenience, our brains didn't stop doing that. They still do it. So the byproduct of comfort and convenience, like I don't know that we're meant to have downtime, really. I mean, in that sense, I think because of that, we, it just is neuroses. So now it's like, instead of going, I need to be aware if there's a woolly mammoth, I'm like, why didn't anybody like the selfie I just posted?

Now I feel unsafe and I feel unloved and I don't have any, you know what I mean? I don't have belonging. Exactly. Can I add something to comfort and convenience? Yeah, yeah. Distraction. Oh, yeah. Because I don't like to be still and I don't like to just be with myself and be in my thoughts.

So guess what? I can pick up my microcomputer. Everyone can pick up their micro pants computer, play a game and check a text and take a photo and listen to Spotify. Any song you could ever talk about the tyranny of choice, Spotify is like, I can literally listen to anything that's ever been recorded. And I listen to the same six things. You do? Yeah, I do. I have like six playlists and I just go, oh, I think maybe this one.

And death shall come to thee no more. That's very good. I know that there is a Spotify, Sacred Heart playlist. Okay, I'm sorry. I do have a Spotify playlist of Sacred Heart. I do. I was trying to not admit it. I do.

Yes. And sometimes I practice in my car. Anyway, I think the distraction thing comes from the fact that are we supposed to have that much downtime. Like, because we don't, all of the safety and comfort and convenience is just standard in our lives and doesn't take much effort from us. We have all this unfilled space in a sense. And what do we do with it? Worry. That's, I mean, we worry about stuff because our brain has to stay busy or our brain has to stay busy through distraction. If I'm feeling neurotic, I have to remind myself, nothing's wrong.

I'm like with me. Yeah. I don't need a new healer. I don't need an energy healer. I don't need a new supplement. I don't need a fucking skin care regimen. Like capitalism will provide you a million answers for a million dollars, right? Yeah.

To say, oh, this will fix it. This is going to fix you. Nothing's going to fix the fact that I live in this capitalist society, which is unnatural. And so there's a, my brain creates this byproduct of neuroses. And it doesn't mean something's wrong. It doesn't mean that I can pay to have that fixed. But I can have compassion for the fact that, oh, that's just there because we live in this kind of fucked up society. And everybody has a baseline of that, you know?

And that's okay. It doesn't mean something's wrong. It was one of the things I... It's a different kind of suffering, isn't it? It is. It's, we're not suffering because we're starving. We're suffering because we're suffering because we're. were glutted and distracted and then racked with anxiety.

But that, I've never thought about that. That requires a new kind of compassion, you know, for young people that are so lost and suicidal. And for a culture that's off the rails that's kind of like us versus them and creating enemies everywhere and not banding together. it's like, oh, it's, it's, it's Amazon's fault. It's Spotify's fault. Not really, but you know what I mean?

Yeah. It's my fault. I fucking ordered paper towels from Amazon the other day. Do you know what I'm saying? Like that was, that's not, Jack Bezos didn't make me do that. I have what, I have plantar fasciitis. Oh, yeah. Because from being.

It's the sexiest sounding disease. Are you kidding me? It sounds like an invasive fungus. It's a terrible name. Yes. Plantar fasciitis. It sounds like fascist, by the way. But I immediately was like, oh, what do you need for it?

And there's all these articles. And like, here's a link on Amazon. I was like, buy now, buy now. I got like foot inserts, calf exerciser. Think stretcher. Gung, cung, cung. Of course. I'm in a modicum of pain and I may not be able to play my weekly tennis game.

Kung, gung, go, bye, bye, bye. I'll tell you another one. And you can diagnose me. Okay. I'm going to make a confession. You have a podcast about confessions. People. Yeah, people. What's it called again? The confessional with Nadia Boltsaber. People would come on and tell me the worst thing they ever did. And then I let their story kind of breathe. And I tried to really have a space of curiosity about it and compassion. And then I would listen to our conversation four or five times. Then I'd write a blessing for them that I'd record at the end. Oh, that's beautiful. I need a

blessing for this. It's not quite a confession. Well, it is a little bit. Okay. I bought my first first nice watch. Oh yeah. It's IWC like nice watch that I'd always love this brand. Yeah. It's not a super expensive watch. It's a expensive watch, but it's not one of these $50,000 watches, right? But then I met the watch guy and he's like, I'm a Rolex dealer. I can hook you up with the Rolex's. And then I was watching videos on YouTube about IWC, like how to wind them and care for them and a little about their history. So all of a sudden in my algorithm, I'm getting all these luxury watch videos. And I started going down a rabbit hole of luxury watch videos. And then Rolex videos, because I'm thinking in the back of my head, like, oh, he can hook me up with,

because they're hard to get your hands on a new one. There's like waiting lists. It's complicated. And then I was like kind of lusting for, ooh, that submariner looks nice. Maybe I don't just need this one. I should have a watch collection. Maybe I need to buy, you know, all these, all these, that should fix things, right? Yeah, probably.

I'm in the algorithm, right? And this is part of comfort, convenience, and distraction. Yeah. These algorithms, I'm a slave to the algorithms. You know, an algorithm can very much own me, you know. That's why I had to take social media off my phone because I could just stare at Instagram for hours every day and look at raccoons eating furniture all day long. But there's an algorithm. It's capitalism.

It's consumerism. And it's that ancient human impulse of like, if I stockpile enough dried berries and deer jerky in my cave, I'll be safe. So I want to accrue things. There's so many things going on. And like I'm supposedly a little bit evolved in that I meditate and I wrote a book on spirituality. I'm just as much of a fuck up as anyone. But it got me and it took me. took me down the rabbit hole, write me a blessing.

What would you say? How do you address that? It's humbling. And I mean, first I would say, of course you did. Like the whole thing is set up for you to do that. You're one guy and it's a whole machine, you know? So to have a little compassion for like it's a multi-billion dollar deal and it's what St. Paul would call powers and principalities, you know, working the machine.

And you're one guy, you know. So I guess I have compassion for it. And also I understand the seduction of it. And also there's this moment where you kind of snap out of it. And you go like, oh, none of that's real. None of it's real. You know, I mean, you said there's like a waiting list for the watches. And the first thing I thought was, oh, yeah, there used to be one of those for

cabbage patch dolls. That was the first thing in my mind. Who the fuck cares about cash? No one care. It used to be very, very real in 1993 or whenever. And when it was, it was still also not real. It's just manufactured. It's just all make-believe.

It's a trance, you know, where I'm in a trance as well. Okay, here's my confession. I was on Antarctica on a very nice boat in this trip to Antarctica. And once in a lifetime, very few people on the planet get to do this. This is like, it's an extraordinary honor if you get to be there. right? And I opened Instagram. And there was another writer in my kind of, you know, genre, who I know, who ended up getting on a podcast that I had wanted to get invited onto. And I went down this thing of like jealousy, envy, self-pity. And for, I mean, like you said, to me,

enlightenment just means maybe you don't spend as much time in the trance. that's all. I don't think it's a trans avoidance technique. It's not trans free. No, it's not. I just, I got into the trance of the not real shit. Yeah.

And feeling bad about all these things. And then thankfully, it didn't last long. And I snapped out of it and I'm like, girl, you're in Antarctica. Like, what are you talking about?

Like, if you posted something on Instagram, that's like, I'm in Antarctica. There'd be another spiritual speaker writer. Like, oh, I always wanted to go. Why wasn't I invited on the trip?

So to me, spirituality isn't like at some point I will become so sanctified that I will never fall for the lies anymore. That I won't enter the trance. Jesus was tempted, right, in the desert? Tell us about that. I don't know. I'm not very biblical. It was 40 days of being, it says he was with the wild beasts and the angels like we're serving him or something like that. And it was like this throwaway line.

And I'm like, hold on, go back. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not even a few more sentences about that. Like, would it kill you? Yeah. Few details, you know. But the devil was like, you could have all of this. Look at this tent that if you could have everything in front.

If you just. You could have all the Rolexes. All the Rolexes. You could have all the trips to Antarctica. You can get invited on all the podcast. Oprah. All of it. You could have all of it.

if you just sort of declare loyalty to the trance and say the trance is real. And Jesus was like, yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not real. He's just quoting scripture back at the devil. I love that because the devil always starts his temptations with the word if. If you really are the son of God, then, why don't you do all this? Like if you are beloved, then why do you feel neurotic? Like something must be wrong. There's always this if-then proposition constantly in the trance.

And out of the trance, there's no if-then propositions. Out of it, it's always because, because, because, therefore. It's interesting because that's kind of how the internet works because people will say things like, they won't say climate change isn't real. They'll say, could it be? that climate change is just a liberal hoax by scientists that want to increase government regulation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They just pose it as a question.

I don't know. Maybe it is. Let's look at some things. So these seeds of doubt are planted in questions. In questions, that's right. It's very important. Oh, maybe it is conspiracy. In Soul Boom, sorry to plug my own book.

In Soul Boom, I talk a lot about universalities between religious faiths because we always talk about what's different in religions and we rarely talk about what brings religions together. But this idea, you're calling it the trance. In Hinduism, it's called Maya or Buddhism, you know, illusion. The parallel that's brought up, the parable rather that's brought up is you're walking down a path. It's dusk. You see a snake in front of you.

You're immediately anxious, right? You're like, oh, no, the snake is going to bite me. And then you get a step closer and it was just a rope lying there in the path. And that's how the trance works. So this world of illusion. And becoming awakened is, and you talked about this, is like you're not in this trance as long. You see the rope much quicker, right?

You see the fact that me owning a Rolex in addition to this perfectly fine and nice above average watch is not going to bring me any more satisfaction. The idea of being content is radical. It's a radical notion to be content when you're in the machine, right? When you're in the capitalist machine and all of that to say, oh, I actually have enough shoes. I have enough. I'm content with what I have. I'm not looking for more.

One of the beautiful things about my relationship with my beloved with Eric, one of the huge gifts is I didn't know that I had the capacity for contentment. I thought maybe I was just somebody who never could, right? I've been driven my whole life. I've been entrepreneurial. I've been like next big project, you know, all in. I didn't know I even could have the capacity for contentment, but I'm content in my relationship. There's nothing more. It's not a fixer-upper.

It's as-is and beautiful, and the imperfections of it are totally okay. And I don't know. I just, I feel well-loved. I don't need to be loved better than I am in my relationship. So it's a gift to know that I could even get there. I didn't know. That's an ancient spiritual truism across every faith tradition, too, which is like, what if you have everything you need right now?

Totally. I know. What if you just have, what if it's all there for you? I know. Just right now. I know. And you've really, I mean, the number of people in my lives who just, and they're usually fairly successful people well off who are constantly like, well, I found a new psychic

and this new energy healer. And now I'm doing Reiki and now I'm doing, you know, always looking for. for the thing that, and I'm like, but what if like, ayahuasca trip. Yeah, oh yeah, micro dosing. That's the big thing now. So what if you have what you need? I mean, even our brains can develop, can like produce oxytocin.

They can produce endorphins and dopamine, you know, all of this stuff that's available to us to help calm us and to help us have a sense of well-being is sort of innately wired. by the creator into our bodies. And rather than do the things that sort of release them that are just very human things, we think some made up thing we have to pay for is going to be it. Yeah. Off of that, I'm thinking about the work you do as a Lutheran pastor in women's prisons. You've also started a church back in the day called All Saints and Sinners.

House for All Senders and Saints. Whatever. Yeah, same difference. Isn't it house for wild animals and angels? Yeah, beasts and wild beasts and angels. Beasts and angels. And we're all saints and sinners, right? Why the fuck are you a Lutheran pastor?

Like everyone, you know, who's kind of like involved in spirituality discussions and whatnot, mostly is just content to be spiritual but not religious and say, hey, we just need to learn to love each other better. And I'm going to have this schmort. mortgage board of like this roomy quote and this quote from the Bible and this Eckhart Tolly podcast and this makes me feel better and makes my life feel better. But you're decided to join a specific organized Protestant branch that has a long history and you are in an organized, you are a member of an organized religion. You're not only a member. Like you're part of the clergy of an

organized religion. I have a bishop. You have a bishop above you and you have a congregation below you. Yeah. Yeah. It's not cool. It's, I mean, it's the most uncool thing in the world. And for me, too, as a member of a religion, I have a card that's a Baha'i card. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a number. I've got a behind number. 0113356 is my behind number. So uncool. That's very, to be a member. You know what I mean? And like to go vote. But tell me why. There's so many things to say. Why, why, why? I guess. I think when people say they're spiritual but not religious, what I think they mean is, and you and I have very similar takes on this. When I was reading your book, I was like, yes, yes. I think it means that they've curated

a set of beliefs and practices that give them a sense of well-being. And that's beautiful. There is nothing wrong with that. I think that's what they mean. If I was doing that, I know which ones I'd skip over if I was filling up my plate from the buffet. I would skip anything that decentered my ego. I would skip anything that had to do with forgiving people, for sure. There are things on the buffet that I'd be like, yeah, I don't like that one. And I would never put it on my plate. And those happen to be.

Things that have to be hard work, helping others sacrificing of your own time and comfort. Giving away my money. I'm not going to pick that up. I'm going to just like, oh, I'm going to convene. conveniently leave these things off the buffet. Giving away 10% of my income is not something. I'd skip that one. Yeah.

But all of the things I just named that I would skip are the things that transform me spiritually. Those are the things that actually bring the goods. And so that's why I'm on a particular path and not at the buffet so much. Now, why Lutheranism is because I had been sober. and in a 12-step program for a few years when I discovered Lutheranism. I was raised fundamentalist Christian, left Christianity for 10 years, did a whole bunch of Wicca and goddess stuff for which I'm really grateful,

really healing for me. I needed to come back to my original symbol system, the one that formed me. It's like in my DNA. It's inescapable for me. And so when I discovered... There's a mythology there. Totally. Yeah.

Yeah, and, you know, it is a recent idea in human history that you can choose your simple system. It forms you in a way that's cellular almost. When I discovered Lutheran theology, it aligned perfectly with what I had experienced in 12-step work. Because Lutheran theology is based in paradox. And so instead of like certainties in a sense. and it allows, like, I have it tattooed in Latin on my wrist, similustis at Picatur, simultaneously sinner and saint. It's not either or, it's both.

Holding these two things in tension all the time about ourselves and other people was very helpful for me because it felt accurate. It didn't feel aspirational. The point of gravity in Lutheran theology is grace. So each sort of theological system has a center point that's its point of gravity. It might be discipleship. It might be prayer or something like that. For Lutherans, it's grace, which is this idea, if you're using 12-step language that God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves, that we need a power greater than ourselves to restore us to sanity.

That's grace. That's not self-purpulsion. That's not self-will. That's saying, I have to tap into something that's not me in order to be healed. So it aligned really well with what I'd already experienced to be true with myself and with the world. And so, and I really fell in love with liturgy. I liked that it had been, like, liturgy has its own integrity. I don't even know what liturgy is. I don't know what that word means.

There's a pattern for the worship service that has always been followed, certain words that have always been said. it's like if you go to a Catholic Mass, that's a liturgy. First they start with the invocation, and then they'll do a prayer, and then a hymn, and then they'll do the curie, you know, this old, old song of mercy, of God's mercy. And so there's a structure to it in certain words that go way, way, way, way back. And the Eucharist is a liturgy. So the liturgy, I liked that it had its own integrity to it.

It didn't need mine in order to be efficacious. I could just enter this thing, say the words, do the actions that had its own integrity. It worked upon me in ways like water on a rock. I didn't have to be the thing with integrity in order for this to work. I love liturgy. So, I mean, I was sort of- But then you became a pastor. I did.

So what's step two? So step one is, I get it. You're drawn to the mythology, the liturgy. It makes sense. It connects with your 12-step recovery. But then you want to take a leadership position and a kind of interpretive position. Yeah, nobody looked like me in Lutheran churches. My friends were not showing up to these churches at all.

And I felt like I had to kind of culturally commute from who I was to who the church was. I couldn't really have my humor. I left out parts of my story that would make people uncomfortable, had to clean up my language, maybe clean up how I dressed and not show, you know, there's all these ways that I was like, that's exhausting. And so I wasn't even in seminary yet. I was just had gone back to church and was finishing my degree in religion. I was in my 30s.

And a member of my AA meeting, my home group, who at this time I was doing stand-up because I couldn't afford therapy and so it was just cheaper. He was another stand-up and went to my home group and really beloved by our community. But sadly, we watched him sort of lose his battle with mental illness. And PJ died by suicide. And when he died, all my friends, all our friends just kind of looked at me and they were like, well, you can do the funeral, right? Not because I was more spiritual. I was just literally the only person who went to church in the whole group. And so they're like, well, you can do it. And because you did stand up, you were used to being in front of a microphone and talking to people. Yeah, and we did it at the comedy works. So it was at the comedy club. And I'm up there.

And my ex-husband was a Lutheran pastor, and he helped with the service as well. And I was up there doing the eulogy. And I look out. And it's all of these comics and queers and recovering alcoholics and academics and and I just thought they have no I do not have a container for this grief they don't have language they don't have rituals nothing like they need a pastor and then I was like oh shit I think maybe that's supposed to be me it was you felt a calling yeah but like also there's just nothing about me that screams Lutheran pastor so it felt a little weird but I felt I wanted to be a pastor to my people. And so I went to seminary and I ended up starting a church house for all sinners and saints. And it was a bunch of people who don't look like they belong in a church.

You know, it was my dad described it as sort of like high church at the Star Wars cantina, like that kind of vibe. Exactly. But high church liturgy. Yeah. Yeah. It was my great joy. And I served it for 11 years. And then now I do have a bishop. I was doing a Christian. Krista Tippett's On Being like 10 years ago. And we did it live in front of an audience. And somebody in the Q&A was like, so like you seem like you're kind of, you're very independent and maybe have an issue with authority and kind of do your own thing and stuff. And I go, yeah, okay, fair.

And he goes, but you have a bishop, right? You're like under a system of authority. And I go, yeah. And he goes, hey, tell us how you navigate that. And I'm like, are you kidding? I'm why we have bishops. Like literally someone. someone like me should probably have a bishop.

Somebody should be watching over my shoulder and going, is she still on the yellow brick road, you know, or has she taken these people into a field of poppies? Charismatic spiritual leaders can be very effective communicators and unbelievably dangerous to other people. I like that I'm in a system that has oversight, you know? We have to do... Containment. Absolutely. We have to do a psych evaluation.

You have... You know what I mean? It's not just free reign. But there's got to be some things about the Lutheran church that bug you. I mean, there's some things about the Baha'i faith that bug me. And I think that's okay, isn't it? And I think a lot of people feel like I could never be a part of an organized religion because I have, I love 97% of it, but there's 3% of it I don't love.

So I could never be a, but don't we do that all the time? Yeah. You're married to, you're married to someone. I love 97% of my wife, Holiday Reinhorn. And there's 3% that. Yeah. What are you going to do? Like, keep.

Keep your purity and your ideals. Yeah. And like, what about our job? What percentage of your job do you love? Are you going to quit your job because you only love, you know, 83% of what you do? Right. Like, so there's a, there's kind of a disconnect there.

That religion needs to be 100% I'm on board, but everything else in life is a lesser percentage. I don't relate to the Lutheran church culturally at all. So I spend more time in the Episcopal church, very Midwestern mainstream, predominantly, not exclusively. There are a lot of immigrant Lutheran churches and whatnot. It's pretty white, right? It's the whitest denomination in the country.

So it's just, and it's an immigrant church historically. So it was brought over by Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, German, Danish Lutherans. And so it retained a lot of that ethnic identity. I'm not ethnically Lutheran, you know. I just happened to be theologically Lutherans. And so I don't always, I mean, I don't like walk into Lutheran churches and go, oh, yeah, I'm really comfortable here. Mm-hmm. Still.

You know, when you're talking about finding that calling, like you're doing this eulogy for your dead, beloved stand-up comedy friend and people are hurting and you are giving them words of solace and meaning and kind of a focus, a way to kind of like channel. their grief. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes of all time, Fred Bukner, who said the place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. Your deep gladness, being in a microphone, speaking to people, being of service to them, making them laugh, but making them feel. And where the world's deep hunger, they needed those words of solace and hope and inspiration. Yeah. I would amend it for myself in the fact that it's also my deep hunger. I'm obsessed with compassion and grace and forgiveness, but not because I have such an abundance of them that it overflows and I can offer it to people who need it. Sure. Because you struggle with

it. It's because I'm desperate for it. And I know I need it. And so for whatever reason, all of my preaching and my, like when I was in my parish, they said, um, we, we love, having a preacher who's clearly preaching to herself and letting us over hear it. And that's kind of all I've ever done is tried to dig in and go, what is it I'm struggling with for real? And how can I write about that or preach about that in a way that I can bring in things that more reliable narrators than myself in order to find hope that's not just like vapid optimism, you know? When I asked you, you know, what was in your heart to speak about these days, you talked about grace and forgiveness and compassion. I think culturally we talk about forgiveness. A lot of we,

we know what forgiveness means. We're not very good at practicing it. And I want to dig into that issue of how to forgive and how forgiveness works. But a word we don't hear much, especially non-Protestants, let's say, is grace. And I love that word grace, but what's the difference between grace and forgiveness? We'll dig into forgiveness, but what is grace? Does grace teach us about forgiveness? What is it exactly? I think grace allows us to have a posture in which forgiveness is possible. But to me, grace, the definition I have is grace is like, it's the freight train that delivers into, my life all of the most beautiful and unearnable things. Like I got a hold of a baby yesterday and a few months ago I ate a perfect peach and the sun comes up every day. And like really, all of the

most beautiful things in my life are unearnable. And I still get to have them. And because of grace. It's beautiful. Right. To me, grace happens when we lower our expectations of ourselves and life and other people, which sounds depressing in our culture, but I think it is kind of the key to contentment and to be free of resentment and things like that to go, I'm not going to hold people to some standard that's not really a human standard. I think idealism can be really harmful, actually. It sounds good. on the surface, like inspiring, but I've never seen it really pan out when human beings were involved because we disappoint each other, you know? We, we break our promises, we say harsh

things, we do self-centered things and try to pawn them off as something else, you know, we're not honest, like, that's super just human. I have to push back on that a little bit. The civil rights movement was an idealistic movement. Flawed? Have we fixed racism? no fucking way. Yeah. But it was born out of an ideology like, hey, we can all come together, black, white, you know, people of faith, people not of faith. And we can enact laws and we can build bridges.

And we can resist when we need to resist. So to me, grace is to go, let's look at the good that came from it and not do this thing that's very popular right now and go, yeah, but you understand that women weren't allowed to be in in leadership in the way that men were in the civil rights movement. You know that, right? Like there's this instinct that people have to say, yeah, but what about all of these other things? And so to me, grace is to say, yeah, what aboutism?

Grace is to go, it's okay to celebrate the good things that have happened. And that's not the same as ignoring the things that weren't perfect. Because if we allow for the things that aren't perfect and we don't expect it to really be anything other than that, it allows us to have an appreciation for what is in a more robust way and to see the good in a more robust way. There's a brilliant book called Low Anthropology that David Zoll wrote that I commend to people. It's all about this to say, like, what is our, what is our view of human beings and who we are innately and what we're capable of? Because when it's maybe a touch too high, a touch too optimistic, what happens is, I think it really

can lead to despair and it can lead to really harsh criticism of people instead of grace and acceptance. Whereas if we just ratchet it down a little and go, oh yeah, people can be awful to each other. We do have this innate thing that is both beautiful but also deeply flawed. It allows us to be surprised and pleased by smaller things and it allows us to let people, like to not have to be so harsh when people make mistakes to have compassion for each other when we fall short. It doesn't mean you ignore the effects of someone falling short. But there's a sort of performative cruelty right now in terms of people making mistakes or having said the wrong thing or whatever. Right. That I find really insufferable. Wow. And that leads right

to forgiveness. Again, a universality in all religiously. just faith traditions, this idea of forgiveness, one to one. You commit a crime against me or against my family or against my culture and I, there's maybe a certain measure of repentance. Maybe there's not. How does it, how does it work? I ask this because I notice lack of forgiveness. I notice unforgiveness tearing people's lives apart and causing incredible misery. It's that old, that old joke that's, you know. Swallowing poison. Yeah. Hoping the other guy dies. Yeah. Resentment is swallowing poison and hoping the other person dies. But I've seen it tear family members apart. I've seen it give people cancers. How do we find that, that grace one to one?

I think when people are resistant to forgive somebody who's caused them harm, it's because it feels like it's perilously close to saying that what you did was okay. And if what you did was not okay, why in the world would I go down the path to say it was, right? So that's understandable that people resist because I think we conflate it. But to me, it's saying, actually, what you did is so not okay, I refuse to be connected to. it anymore. That's forgiveness. I describe it as like bolt cutters because as long as if you've caused me harm in some way or even an institution has caught me, whatever it is, has hurt me and wounded me in some way, done something wrong. When I am in that state, like you said, of unforgiveness, we're still connected. It's like an umbilical cord and your shit has a chance, a risk of

entering infiltrating my heart and I don't want that and because it was yours to begin with so forgiveness to me is saying I'm not going to be connected to it anymore because I want to be free so it's not really so much saying what you did was okay or I'm going to pretend it wasn't as bad as it was it the worse it is the more important it is for I don't want to be infected by it Does someone need to apologize in order to be forgiven? Could you have someone who hurt you and Eric or you and your family or something like that? And they feel kind of justified and can you forgive them if they don't show any kind of reticence or remorse? If you're talking to me as like a spiritual teacher, I'd be like, no.

If you're talking to me as Nadia Boltsweber, I'm like, fuck yeah, they got to apologize. Are you kidding? So because here's why, we're so, I am so attached to the story. I mean, I'm dealing with a couple of resentments right now that are really hard for me to let go off. And I don't mean to interrupt, but this is such a part of 12-step recovery. I know. It's like resentments are the number one offender, and we have to kind of get those resentments out because otherwise we'll drink them away or smoke them away or use them away.

Yeah, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous calls resentments the dubious luxury of ordinary men, but alcoholics can't afford them. Yeah. I get very, very committed to the story I'm telling, right? Yeah. Here's the story. And I'm kind of a master rhetorician. So I could tell you the story about the resentments I have right now.

And I swear at the end, you would be like, oh my God. Exactly. What an asshole. You should never talk to them again. Yeah. Correct. Why? Because I'm a good storyteller.

Okay. I'm very convincing. Now, what happens is when I tell the story over and, and over and I get that reaction, that becomes further evidence to me that the story's true. It's not, but to me, you know, hey, you had the same reaction, so therefore I'm justified in this resentment and the story is true. It's actually not the same as it being true. Your friends are contractually obligated to be outraged when you're hurt, right? If they are outraged from the story you tell, it doesn't mean your story's right. It just means your friend's doing a good job, right?

That's not the same thing. So I get so into the story that I tell that I'm like, okay, just the way I'm wired, it is true. If this person came and they saw what their lines were in the script that I'm telling, and they said all those lines just as I've said them and say, I know that I did this, and this is how it affected you, and here's why it was wrong. and I'm so sorry, genuinely, absolutely no problem. I would forgive them. I don't hang on after that. What are the odds that somebody's going to tell the exact same story about a grievance as I tell? Almost zero. I mean, there are people out there who have my name on a script, that my name on a story

that they're telling about what I did and how it was wrong and how it hurt them. And I don't even know. And if somebody asked me about the situation, what's the likelihood I would tell the exact same story that they do? Almost zero. So if what we're wanting is for people to suddenly step into our psyche and tell the exact same story in order to give forgiveness, we're going to be holding on to stuff for a long time. And I say that as somebody who struggles deeply with us. But I also want to be free from this. So the only freedom I've found is in a process that we go through. calling writing inventory where you go, what did this person do to me? And that feels pretty good

to write down. But then you have to go, oh, well, what part of it did it hurt in me? Like, what did affect my ability to make money or my esteem in other people's eyes or whatever? And then, like, what part did it hurt? And that feels less good. And then the final thing is, where was I selfish or self-seeking? Where wasn't I honest? Or I was like afraid. What part did I play in it? And that's the worst part, and that's the part, the more that's in that fourth column, the more vehement I am about how they're totally at fault. There's a relationship between these two things. Because the shame of, because if somebody did something that hurt me, and let's say they're like, their part was 90% and my part was like 10%, that 10% is the fuel for the resentment. I think their 90 is.

But for whatever reason, the way I'm wired, my 10% is the shame. And when I'm honest about it, it does free me from that engine that's driving it. And it just tamps it way down. I just care way less. Why are we wrestling with this so much, not just in terms of like people getting canceled,

but just political tribes, division, us versus them, lack of kind of building bridges and bonds and healing culturally. We seem to really be struggling with this in a way that maybe we weren't as much 20 or 30 years ago. Well, there's more money to be had from us being the way we are now. So the algorithmic overlords have really, really done this stuff. I've talked a lot about outrage clicks. It's the number one way to get you to click is outrage. Yeah, because there's a little dope.

dopamine bump from it, you know? What happens is then the more... But there are things to be outraged about. Of course, of course. So there's great injustice and there's economic disparity and climate and there's political bamboozlement going on right and left. But my friend Dave Zoll who wrote that book, Low Anthropology, he says, the internet's just like real life, but with all the forgiveness vacuumed out of it. I love that.

Yeah. We know how badly humans can treat each other online. And I met Monica Lewinsky a few years ago, and she was patient zero for internet cruelty. And I asked her, I mean, she has decades of people being horrible to her about her, right? And I go, honey, how often has it happen like face to face? She goes, I can count on one hand. It's all been on message boards, editorial. memorials, online, Twitter, you name it.

Yeah. Yeah. We're not meant to be communicating with each other and about each other like that. Yeah. We're meant to be like this, human being, human relationships are this. And I'm less likely to be shitty to you in this way because we're, when we're, our brains do something when we're with another person. We're tapped in.

We are connected. And I'm not going to access that shitty part of my. and then just go into the other room and watch sports, right? We have to kind of work things out. And we can have that connection to have the compassion when we're in each other's presence in a way we just don't online. And it's super icky. I mean, I get called some pretty interesting stuff on the Internet.

You know, somebody bought my name as a URL just to write shit about what a heretic I am. So it's, but I think if you was in the room with me, he would probably. wouldn't be like that. I just represent something to him that he despises. But I think if we were in the same room, we could find something to love in each other, you know? You do a lot of social justice work, and that intersection between faith and social justice is a big theme in the work that you do. How do you see this intersection of faith and social justice playing out and compassion and grace being kind of driving forces in the work that you do? I don't.

I would never describe myself as someone who does social justice work. Like, I know those people, and I feel like that's not what I do, but I am a volunteer chaplain in the women's prison, so I'm there once or twice a week. And the reason I'm there is not, it's not like, I really hate the term those less fortunate than ourselves. It's like this blend of paternalism and benevolence that I find distasteful, and it's not accurate. And pity is different than compassion. Exactly. So it's like pity the pitiable. Yeah, no. People we pity. Yes. It's arrogant. Yeah. But in this case, I think it's like,

you know, I was talking about like the trance and the machine that we're in. And it, it feels like a sacred act of defiance against the machine to go into the women's prison as a pastor, just from a place of love and compassion. So I think it's almost an act of defiance that I do it. And also I just love the women. And I've learned a lot about our culture, our society in there. And it's made me not believe in free will probably at all going in because. Zwinks.

That's a big reach. I know. Well, because. That sounds all of a sudden you got all Sam Harris and Brian Green. I mean, I guess like when I think of people who are real proponents of the idea of free will, it feels like usually pretty highly educated, privileged people who believe that they're there because of the choices they made. And so I guess being, I just had never, even in all my darkest days, you know, I wasn't

around. There's an underclass in our society that we warehouse. That's how I see it. And so all of these women, their moms were teenagers when they had them. They were teenagers when they had kids. They're undereducated, never had dental care, weren't nourished well as children, one or both of their parents, drug addicts, alcoholics, a lot of them in a foster care system. Every single thing. Unbelievable sexual and physical and emotional abuse.

Okay. So that's what they're starting with. So that's the basis that they have. And all our society cares about is you made a bad choice. Right. Our society doesn't seem to care about all of the choices societies need to not have any kind of infrastructure support for people who are living like this. And so, do-

It's the old analogy, my friend Jamie, who's black, uses where, you know, people don't want to look at the fact that, you know, it's a baseball game. And some people are born on first base. Some people are born on second. Some people are born on third. Some people are starting at home and have a backpack of all this stuff that's holding them back. Yeah.

And we're like to the people with the backpack, it was like, well, why don't you run faster and shed that backpack and join the guy on third day. Yeah, join me over at third base. Like, what's your problem? That's exactly right. So there's a deep profound lack of compassion, number one. Absolutely. But keep going.

And I just, the whole system is so pernicious in the, it's sentencing in the treatment of people inside, the mental health issues in presence that are untreated. Anyway, it's just, I've, for whatever reason, I, it, If somebody is, I don't have a ton of like pastoral compassion for people who are just neurotic and think they're in crisis, but they're not. You know, I have very little for that. I'm fine with the murderers. Like the murderers I have so much compassion for because I know their whole stories. You know what I mean?

And I don't know. I genuinely love these women and serving Eucharist and preaching inside this place feels like just one. tiny little push against the machine, you know? My buddy Richard Roar, who's like one of my teachers, he said, he's amazing. He's great. He said anybody who's really ever, ever received any kind of mercy is never again in a position of deciding who the deserving poor are. You know?

I'm just an unconvicted felon. I think that's part of why it's not hard for me. Because a few of my gals are, you know, they're in for vehicular homicide, drunk driving. And like, it's just by chance that I didn't kill someone when I was driving intoxicated. I'm not a better person than they are, you know? They're by the grace of God, go I. Nadia, I really thank you for changing your entire L.A. trip around to be able to come visit us here in the studio and have this conversation. and I admire you so much.

Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm so grateful you're having the kind of conversations that you're having. I think they're really important. Thank you. The Soul Boom Podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.