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Let's Talk Faith and Justice is a podcast hosted by Boston Laferté, a current JD/JID and MDiv student, and Lyndon Sayers, co-pastor of Lutheran Church of the Cross in Victoria and a spiritual care provider with UVic Multifaith.
The podcast explores topics of faith through the lens of justice, and topics of justice through the lens of faith. Both the hosts and guests bring their own unique life experiences and faith journeys to explore how the sometimes-conflicting worlds of faith and justice can intersect in deep and life-giving ways.
It is with deep respect and gratitude that Let's Talk Faith and Justice is recorded and produced on unceded lək̓ʷəŋən territories that include Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.
Boston 0:13
Welcome back after a very long hiatus to Let's Talk Faith and Justice. My name is Boston. My pronouns are he/him, and I'm one of the co-hosts.
Lyndon Sayers 0:25
My name is Lyndon, pronouns he,/him, the other co-host. Today we welcome the Reverend Leyla King, author of "Daughters of Palestine: A Memoir in Five Generations", a reverend and also an Episcopal priest in Texas. So welcome Leyla. It's a pleasure to have you on the show.
Leyla King 0:43
Thank you so much. I'm really pleased and honored to be here.
Lyndon Sayers 0:53
Wow. What a timely topic for your book to be coming out when it isand I know you've probably done other shows here, but it's just mesmerizing to have your family story and your personal story mixed together in this memoir format. Maybe it'd be interesting to hear a bit about how this book came to be.
Leyla King 1:21
Yeah, I loved sharing this story. So the summer after I graduated from college, I had a job teaching lined up in the fall, but I had a summer in front of me, just open and free to do with as I wished and I sort of came late, later in life, to my own understanding of myself and my identity as a Palestinian American. I didn't really grasp who I was until I was maybe a freshman or sophomore in high school. So once I learned that and began to claim that identity, by the time I was then graduating from college, you know, eight years on, it had become a really important part of how I understood myself. And so when I knew I was going to have this summer opening up in front of me, I asked my grandmother, who I was very close to, if we could spend some time together that summer, and she said she would be glad to. And so I bought one of those mini cassette tape recorders, because it was back in the early 2000s and that's what we had. And I went over to her house every day for like, six or eight weeks every morning, and I asked her to tell me about her life. And because she as in her own words as she says, she has always been a retainer. She always listened to the stories that her mother and her grandmother told her, she not only knew her own history and her own narratives, but she knew the narratives of our ancestors and our foremothers particularly well, in addition. And so I spent those weeks recording her voice and hearing her stories and carrying those with me. And I always thought I would want to write them down. I always knew that that was coming, but I was young, and you know, the adult life began. And you know, once adult life begins, it's sort of hard to find the space and time to do those things. And then, of course, October 7th, 2023 happened, and the immediate, you know, hugely disproportionate response that Israel made and continues to make against my people in Palestine, in Gaza especially, but in the West Bank as well and in other places, felt really spurred me on to finally tell these stories. It felt like a sort of kairos moment. It felt like the ordained time to do that. And so I luckily, had had a friend earlier in my life who happened to be a librarian, and so he was able to digitize the old little mini cassette tapes, and so I had access to my grandmother's voice, and I just would press PLAY and type. And the result of that is this book that has been really carried within my body for two decades, and finally has sort of come to fruition in this book. And I feel really honored to have been the conduit of that. And it does feel like a real privilege and a real, I mean I put it right up there with my own ordination as a priest. I mean, I was ordained to tell these stories as well, and I take that ordination very seriously. And I hope that these stories help people understand the pain of my people in a way that the Palestinian story has not been told before now. So yeah, that's the context for all of this.
Lyndon Sayers 5:37
Yeah, how providential that you had those extensive conversations recorded with your grandmother, and I don't think that's unusual, that the project comes to fruition sometime later, but that you had the wherewithal to do that. That's amazing. And so does thinking about that context, then, certainly the story hits differently coming out now where there's just this barrage of either news stories or propaganda or both. And one sense was reading your "Memoir in Five Generations" that really humanizes things, and just hearing about forced displacement and the colonial project of boarding schools, of church run schools, how is both giving some of the women in your family a leg up in life, but in a complicated way.
Leyla King 6:43
Yeah, that's definitely a part of this book and this memoir and my family's history. You know, my great grandmother, this is all coming via my grandmother, right? But my great grandmother once said that when the British came after World War II, and Palestine became a British mandate, that they thought the Brits were angels, because it was such a shift from after World War I, I mean. It was such a shift from Ottoman rule, which was, by that time, was a really poor Empire, and Palestinians really suffered under Ottoman rule. Not that they didn't suffer at all under British rule, but the British brought medicine and education and, you know, modern technology in a way that Palestine and Palestinians had not experienced before. So we, in our privileged place in modern times, can look back and rightly condemn colonialism for the racist project that it is, and at the same time hold intention that there were some real, wondrous good things that came of that time period and from that place. And that, I think, reflects what we know of humanity and history in general, right? Nothing is ever uncomplicated. Human beings are messy and human experiences are messy, and we can both condemn colonialism and give thanks for certain gifts that it it did bring.
Boston 8:42
That is interesting to hear. I read through your memoir. So I guess just a little bit about myself. I'm Metis, which is an indigenous nation from the prairies here on in Canada. And while I read through especially your chapters at the end of the memoir, your experience of sort of coming into your Palestinian identity was almost exactly my own coming into my Metis identity. And I feel like there's often sort of comparisons made between indigenous peoples in Canada and the US and Palestinians. It's just interesting to hear sort of that, that recognition of, it's not, I mean, it's not a fully developed thought, but it's just, you know, in Canada, the residential schools are something that are, you know, really remembered as a great evil. And, you know, we do not see positivity in it. And then to hear this other perspective from elsewhere in the world.
Leyla King 10:05
Yeah. And I think it's a real apt analogy, the one between native folk in the Americas and Palestinians. There's so much overlap there, and it's not a complete overlap. And I think that you've just hit on one of those places where it doesn't completely overlap, in part because, unlike the Native Americans. The Palestinians were already being oppressed. They were just being oppressed by a different group, right? So, I mean, by the time the British Mandate came to being, they were coming off of centuries, if not millennia, of being ruled by other peoples, right? So, whereas I think for native folk in the Americas, that element is different, right? So it's not like native folk were, were receiving some sort of colonialist or oppressive agenda from some other people, and then white folk came and Europeans came and like changed. They were living these really free lives with their own systems and under their own rule and their own sort of political and religious systems, and then they were just wiped out, right? So, I mean, and I'm sorry I'm not laughing about it. It's just such a ridiculous I mean, the whole this whole project of colonialism is so ridiculous that I often find myself laughing about it, because it just seems wild to us now. And from my family, you also have to remember that my family was in a particularly privileged situation, even within those systems of oppression, precisely because they were Christian and Anglican. So they had access to white British power in a way that a lot of other Palestinians didn't necessarily, and that is also part of our story, right? Like there's a reason why Christians were more able and had better access to leave than a lot of Muslims did, and so that also complicates all of this, right?
Lyndon Sayers 12:50
Yeah, yeah. I think it's it's good to think of that as in terms of complexity and spectrum. And often these things are presented in such a flat or 2D story lines and just the barrage of news. And anytime you've got the fullness of a family story, it changes things. And I know your story reminded me a bit, I've got my grandparents were, were born in Canada and the US, but my great-grandparents immigrated from Syria and parts of Lebanon and so thinking about, I think they were from Muslim backgrounds, but enculturated as Christians as the generations came on in North Dakota and southern Saskatchewan. But there were these, like enclaves of Arab farmers, and there's cookbooks and stuff documenting some of that. So I hear some of that. I think, when you think about stories as they're unfolding today, that you know, some of us are only a few generations removed from some of those people who were undergoing horrific things now. So I think things like narrative, a mix, as you said, you include some storytelling, but based on stories your grandmother and others have have shared, how does that kind of narrative storytelling help with maybe pushing back against some of the invisibility of Palestinian stories as we know too well right now with the current administration in the US and beyond, really, in Canada too, that when we try to platform Palestinian voices, inevitably there's pushback.
Leyla King 15:09
Yeah, I really believe in the power of good storytelling, and that's certainly been my own experience, but it is experience that is based actually on what we read in the gospels and on Jesus's insistence on using parables and using storytelling precisely because they subvert these tracks, these emotional grooves that people often find themselves in without thinking, right? Those sorts of knee jerk reactions, those gut instincts that are bred in us over time, but we don't recognize them as part of the systems in which we've grown up with, right? So this is what we're talking about when we talk about, like, systemic racism, right? We may not be choosing consciously to participate in systemic racism, but it's just bred in us, and Jesus knew that too, which is why I think he chooses parables so often and so frequently in the gospels, because there's a way in which good storytelling gets around those knee jerk reactions, those inward defensiveness that we don't even recognize or that we're not even self aware of. So that is really my aim with this book as well, and it's also my aim whenever I go and speak to audiences or churches. It's really through this lens of storytelling. Because if I go out there and say "Free Palestine" or "From the river to the sea", or even "I'm pro Palestinian", right? There's all sorts of meanings that have been accrued to that language that I am not interested in and I'm not a proponent for right, like, obviously I'm pro Palestinian, but I never go around saying I'm pro Palestinian, right, because other people respond to that in ways that I have no control over. So what I would, what I much would rather do, and what I try to do, is to tell these stories so that people are engaged in what's going to happen next. And when we are able to tell those stories, and when people are able to then receive them, then we can begin having a conversation about, well, what does this mean? A lot of people don't even know the history of the past 100 years in the place that we now call Israel and the occupied territories, right? They don't know, even though there are people, I mean, my mother was in utero in my grandmother's womb during the Nakba as they were fleeing from their home in absolute terror and fear. And my mother's, you know, thankfully, still alive today and doing very well. But it's not like this is ancient history, and people often think, "Oh, this is a religious conflict that goes back millennia." Like, no, it's not. It is a political conflict that was born 100 years ago, right? Maybe a little more, depending on when you sort of mark the beginning of Zionism, the movement of Zionism. So I think if you try and speak about that history, people turn off, or those defenses come up because they hear words like Zionism or Palestinian. I mean even just the word Palestinian itself I think can sometimes trigger those defenses in people. But if you give them a story and a good story and a plot line to follow and something that is real and true. In my case, in this book's case, it is actually factually real and true. But you know, like in the parable, sometimes it doesn't have to be factually real, so long as it is humanly true. And all of a sudden, people are much more willing to pay attention and to listen, not only with their ears, but with their hearts. And that, I think, is where transformation really has the potential for happening. So that's why I think storytelling is so important.
Lyndon Sayers 20:01
And you mentioned that you've had an opportunity to talk to church groups and other groups. Do people invite you? Do you hold symposiums at your own church or other community places?
Leyla King 20:15
I haven't been quite as brave as that, to like, hold my own symposium. I am always, you know, my priesthood and my Palestinian-ness, for lack of a better word, have always been intricately interwoven, one in the same thing and so it is part of my vocation, as I understand it, my my divine calling to do this work, and I am always happy to receive invitations from churches or any other organization and to come and tell these stories and just be present with people. A lot of people don't realize that there are Palestinian Christians living in the States right now. That there are Palestinian Christian clergy people, right? Just my presence in some of these places is really shocking and eye opening to a number of people who have just not... they have the materials in front of them, but they haven't been able to, like put them together in a way that makes them understand that we're talking about real people when we when we talk about the people being starved to death in Gaza and bombed death. When we're talking about the people who are being beaten and killed and abducted and held in prison without any reason in the West Bank or in Israel proper, right? Like we're not just talking about statistics. Every one of these people has a history and a story as rich and nuanced and beautiful as my own family's story, as you know, Boston's lovely family story that we've we've heard a little bit of right of yours Lyndon and the generations that have come before you, and because of the Zionist narrative that we in the West have sort of grown up on and sort of drunk the Kool Aid of without even realizing it, because the horrors that we see coming out of Gaza are so immense, it's easy to get lost in those statistics and lost in the political propaganda that we have been fed, and forget that each one of these precious human beings are human beings themselves too, right? Have names, have histories, have families and and I hope that my book helps us to remember that so that they become, like you said, Lyndon, the full human beings that they are and that they matter, and their lives matter, all of our lives matter.
Lyndon Sayers 23:24
Well, thinking also about kind of liberation theology, like what you're saying, you're writing this in memoir format, but your book has the effect of kind of getting people to realize there's a diversity of religious backgrounds, including Christians that often get forgotten, Palestinian Christians, and how you're talking about Jesus parables of kind of cutting through when we talk about things directly, and people have those knee jerk reactions, there's an openness to a kind of liberation theology to say, "hey, this theology of love and grace with this kind of interesting identity and storytelling, is available for Palestinians." Andeven just saying that out loud, is already a, I don't know, a step towards a different kind of reality or possibility that often doesn't feel like it's being spoken aloud.
Leyla King 24:31
Yeah, thank you for bringing up liberation theology. I think it's important to contextualize Palestinian struggle for dignity and justice in our own homeland within the context of liberation theology, because it very much fits there. And like I say that wholeheartedly, and there are a number of. Palestinian Liberation theologians who speak to this. And I think liberation theology it becomes particularly fascinating when it is applied to the case of Palestinians, because, of course, the whole source for liberation theology comes from this beautiful Exodus story that we get in the Hebrew Bible in the Old Testament, right, depending on how you want to name that, where the Israelites are delivered by God from slavery in Egypt and spend 40 years in the wilderness and then enter into the Promised Land. But of course, as our scriptures tell that story, it is told only from the perspective of the Israelites, and so what we miss is what happens to the people who were already living in the Promised Land when the Israelites entered it and when God, quote, unquote, gave it to them. But of course, of course, that's the perspective that we get in Exodus and in our scriptures, because those stories were told by a specific set of people. So of course, they believed that God was entirely on their side, and we again, because we have the privilege of speaking from many 1000s of years later, we can look back at that and say that is a story that is formational about who we are as people of faith, and we can take that, that story and the truth of that story to remind ourselves of God's power to liberate all people. And we can also realize that God was also with the parasites, and the Amok mites, or whoever it was that was living in the quote, unquote, Promised Land, right? Like God was their God too, even then, even though the way the perspectives that our scriptures are written makes it sound like God was not, but we know we we can see the broader picture here, and we know God's love for all of creation. And so I think we really get that when we talk about liberation theology as it is applied to the Palestinian struggle for freedom. It even complicates that narrative in, I think, a really freeing way, right? Because it reminds us to always look for the stories that aren't told, and to always pay attention to the voices that are silenced. And if we can do that, then maybe we have a chance of stopping this, this cycle of violence and perpetuating this cycle of trauma over and over and over again, because when we finally learn to listen for the silenced voices and the people not being heard, then we have a hope of joining God in this project of creating the kingdom of God on earth.
Boston 28:31
That's amazing. Thank you. I guess I had a question. Looking back at your memoir, you've already touched a few times on sort of what you hope the book can be or can do, but I'm curious so like you've already spoken about even your presence as a Palestinian American priest in the Episcopal Church can sometimes be a bit of like a whoa moment for people in the church. I'm curious how do you hope that people in the Episcopal Church and beyond can use your book once it's released?
Leyla King 29:24
Yeah, that's a great question Boston. And I will also say that as much as my Palestinian identity and my priestly identity in the interior of myself are entirely the same, right, are entirely one in the same. In my experience of the reality in which we live, those two aspects of my identity are almost always now caught in this very painful tension, because among all the sort of main line. more progressive liberal denominations in the West, particularly in the in in the United States, the Episcopal Church is the absolute worst when it comes to Palestine. We have been experiencing these horrors in Gaza especially, but again, also in the West Bank, for 18 months now, right? And our bishops have remained absolutely silent. I mean, just absolutely silent. And that has been, I guess, absolutely silent at best, like some some of the things I have heard, either publicly or privately from bishops, gets even worse than absolute silence and that has caused a real problem, personal problem for me, because my identity is so wrapped up in both these things, both my Palestinians and my priesthood, but my own church consistently and continuously, fails to see me, fails to hear me. And often, I would say, actively silences me. It becomes really painful. And it's, it's a constant, I mean, at this point, it's just a constant pain that I have learned to live with. So it's, it's really, really problematic. And what I'm hoping the book will do is to, you know, I hope, I hope bishops will pick it up, because of the way the Episcopal Church is structured and our polity, it has to take, there has to be. I wish it were all grassroots, right, but I also love the structure of our Episcopal Church. And so the reality is that we have to have some good moral leadership from our bishops, and until we get that lay folk and clergy will not feel empowered to do the actions and speak up and advocate and listen for the silenced Palestinian people. So I really hope that bishops will pick up this book and read it and begin to understand how painful it is, not just for me, but for Palestinians in their churches, because there are lots of us, and much more broadly, Arabs and Middle Easterners who are Episcopalians. In the Episcopal Church today. There's a fair number of us, and our church does not see us, and never has, we really do not count. And that is a really, really difficult place for me to be in as a priest of the church, to say, "My Church does not even acknowledge the existence of my people, and, in fact, actively does harm to us". It sucks, like, I'll be honest, it sucks. And if there are, you know, folks from other denominations, and like the Lutherans, God love, the Lutherans, y'all are fantastic, right? The the Lutherans in the Episcopal Church. I mean, sorry, the Lutherans in the United States have a much better track record. And I just wish that some of those Lutheran bishops would give our bishops a call and be like, "Hey, can you please get with the program here?" So we'll see.
Lyndon Sayers 33:36
I mean, we're often highly critical of our own bishops as well. But some some of it is being in relationship. We do have some bishops who are in relationship with Palestinian Christians, yes, and with Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the holy land. So having those direct contacts and visits that didn't just start recently, but have been for a long time. There's Lutheran Hospital in Jerusalem like things like this offer the kind of insights you're talking about with your own storytelling. Is that, hey, those are our friends and our colleagues,
Leyla King 34:19
Yes. And you know, the Episcopal Church has all those same relationships. I mean, we have a quite a large and quite an important and significant diocese of Jerusalem that covers that whole region, not just obviously, not just Jerusalem, not just Palestine, but I think, incorporate Syria and Lebanon and some other and Jordan as well. But for reasons that I think have to do again with, in part, Episcopal polity, which puts more emphasis on the Episcopacy than even Lutherans do, and in part, because the Episcopal Church has not grappled in any way at all, I was gonna say, in any serious way, but actually has not grappled at all with the Christian Zionism deeply embedded in our system, and is completely unaware of it. Those two things, I think, work against the Episcopal Church in a way that they haven't for whatever reason in the Lutheran church. So for example, you will hear Episcopal bishops in the states talk a lot about the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and the archbishop Sam Naum, but it's always about the archbishop, even when bishops go on pilgrimages there, it's like all they hear, even though they might be hearing from lay folk, they might be hearing from other clergy, all they take home with them, somehow is this, like surface level. And what they definitely don't hear is that we're not just talking about Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land. There are Palestinian Christians in every single Diocese of the Episcopal Church. Bishops do not have to go to the Holy Land to talk to Palestinian Christians. They should go to their own churches and hear from the Palestinian Christians in their own churches. And that's the piece of it that I think is really painful and missing from the conversation in the Episcopal Church, in a way that I think is really not in the Lutheran tradition that I have seen in some of the varied ways that I've interacted with you lovely, lovely Lutheran people. And honestly, if I didn't love my job so much and the Liturgy of the Episcopal Church so much, I think I would have jumped ship to the Lutherans a decade ago because y'all, just have such a much better track record on all of this.
Lyndon Sayers 36:50
Well, we're in full communion with our churches so full table fellowship. And you never know what's possible.
Leyla King 37:00
Yeah, exactly. But, you know, the other thing is, too my Anglicanism is, I mean, it's not just that my palestinianness and my priesthood or my Christian faith are wrapped up together. I mean, it's very much the Anglican tradition that is part of who I am as a Palestinian, as becomes very clear and in the book. And so it would be really hard, I think, to leave that despite, despite the immense pain that this church causes me over and over and over again.
Lyndon Sayers 37:31
It sounds like the Episcopal Church needs you. And your prophetic, not easy role to be a prophet, but glad to see the kind of support that air admins and others are giving you the platform, a book like this and the copy we got, this advanced reading copy, remind us when, when is the book out?
Leyla King 37:56
The book is out on July 8th. But you can pre order now, and please do if you pre order now and want to join my launch team, you can get some additional perks. So to find out more about that information, you can go to thankfulpriest.com or also leylaking.com. Either one will take you there and you can learn more about it and pre order yourcopy.
Lyndon Sayers 38:19
That's great. And you always hear from authors, the more pre orders, the more confidence the publisher has to give it that extra boost.
Leyla King 38:30
Definitely. Thank you. Yes.
Lyndon Sayers 38:34
I mean, this is exactly the kind of thing that we want colleagues to be having to have a book come out with on a major platform, and to get this recognition, especially at the time we're in right now, where to say some of these things out loud, comes with immediate critique often, but I think your memoir format as you've described, kind of cuts through some of the reactions that we're used to. So we're not just trading memes on social media.
Leyla King 39:11
Right. And I think, you know, my real hope is that it will open up spaces for some real conversation, and that goes deeper, right? And that creates relationship. For me as a pastor, I understand deeply the importance of relationship. Again, I think that's what we see in the gospels, and through the model that we have in Jesus, right? It's, forming relationship and telling stories. And those two things are, what bring transformation, and it is slow work, and it is hard work, but it is, I think it's the only way forward. I really believe that, and I have a lot of hope still, that it will lead to good fruit and to a way forward that gets us ever closer to that kingdom of God.
Lyndon Sayers 40:05
All right. Well, it could be a good note to to wrap up on.
Leyla King 40:11
Yeah. The one other thing I would say is that it there's some real hardship, and there are some real suffering in the book, in my own life right now, as we've talked about, and certainly in the lives of Palestinians in the Holy Land, as we speak, obviously. And I have come to understand that our greatest power against such evil, against such suffering, our greatest power is in insisting on joy and insisting on hope and , you know, I think God is with us, and I continue to believe that, and to find in the midst of all of these horrors, this real confidence in God's strength and God's providence for all of us and I hope that these stories don't leave people feeling despair, but rather that they are reminders of our resilience and that our insistence on joy and love and hope in the face of all these horrors is actually the best kind of rebellion against them and the best kind of resistance.
Lyndon Sayers 41:33
Excellent. Well, thank you. Thank you Leyla, and encourage everyone to get a copy of "Daughters of Palestine: Memoir In Five Generations" available for pre order.
Leyla King 41:44
Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure to have this conversation with y'all.
Boston 41:49
Thank you so much.
Lyndon Sayers 41:51
And we say a few thank yous to CFUV for hosting the podcast. Thank you to Eerdmans for publishing this book and for the BC Synod, for hosting us inclusive Christians at UVic and Lutheran Church of the cross in Victoria, BC.
Boston 42:10
And thank you to the listeners. And thank you once again, Leyla. It's a real honor to be able to read this early and get to talk with you and hear your story.
Leyla King 42:21
It's been a real pleasure. Thank you both.