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The Distillery podcast explores what motivates the work of Christian scholars and why it matters for theology and ministry.
Shari 00:00
What could happen if we learn to tell our own stories and to tell them fully and authentically. In today's interview, you'll hear from Amy Butler about a collection of essays that make up her new book titled "Beautiful and Terrible Things". Pastor Amy Butler served for five years, as the senior minister and first woman at the helm of the Riverside Church in the city of New York. Her professional ministry career began as the director of a homeless shelter for women in New Orleans. She later served in multiple congregations, often as the first woman to do so. In her career, she seeks to build communities of radical witness in the institutional church. Amy is currently leading Community Church of Honolulu, as Intentional Interim Senior Minister. It's such a joy to have a chance to talk about your book, "Beautiful and Terrible Things". And the book is a collection of essays, organized around stories about people, in your relationships with them. And it's a delight to read about the way that you've been shaped by those relationships. So, Amy, I'm wondering if you can get us started by choosing one of those stories and kind of introducing us to your book by way of telling one of these stories.
Amy 01:13
Sure, thanks for asking. I, you know, I started out writing in about 2005, you know, about conversations I had or experiences I had that began to shape me as a person of faith and as a person in the world. And I, I experienced God through other people and through community. And so it seemed like the right way to organize this book was, you know, how have relationships, both positively and negatively impacted me and shaped my spiritual journey. And so that's the way that the book is organized. And the hope is that, and I hope this, I hope this in my ministry, I have this in the book, and in my life, that if we tell the truth about our lives, we can cross bridges to one another, that may not be crossed otherwise. So, I tell a lot of stories in the book that are hard. And one of them is about my friend, Todd Underwood, who is the owner of United Gun Group, which is the online gun platform that sold George Zimmerman's gun was used to murder Trayvon Martin and Todd reached out to me after I'd read an article about him and mentioned him in a sermon. And I, I tell in the book, the story of having my first conversation with him, which really rocked me on my moorings because I was so prepared to hate his guts and disagree with everything that he said...
Shari 02:56
Yeah, you would not join him in his endeavor to sell guns.
Amy 03:00
Never, ever, ever. We have opposite views about everything. And...
Shari 03:05
So, how did the two of you have come to know each other?
Amy 03:08
So, he wanted to speak to me that day, he reached out to me want to say to me that day, and I didn't...I wanted to act more important than that. So I had my secretary column, which is kind of embarrassing, but also, like, you know, when you're a woman leader, you have to sort of do things like that. And you need a strategy for that. Yeah. Yeah. And so we planned a time to talk on the phone, and I was in a car I was driving, and, you know, I picked up the call, and I could hear his children in the background. And we started talking about our children and our similar experiences in parenting, and you know, what he turned out to be just like a normal person, like a regular person.
Shari 03:54
Yeah, in a polarized society, that's, that is so rare. One of the phrases that stood out to me when I was reading your book was you called relationships, the complicated and common space between us and I think your relationship with Todd probably has a lot of those two things complicated and common space.
Amy 04:15
Yes. And, you know, for those of us who lead or are involved in churches, we know what it's like being in a community of people, but honestly, that's what it's like to be human in a world.
Shari 04:30
Which takes a lot of courage and vulnerability.
Amy 04:34
Yes, it does.
Shari 04:36
Well, speaking of vulnerability, you share a number of stories that are very deeply personal. I assume they're vulnerable. And I think we'll talk about a few of them, but I'm curious to hear you talk a little bit more...in one of the early essays about a woman named Chloe and how your encounter with her transformed a lot of the assumptions that you had as someone who had been formally trained to enter ministry, and I'm curious if you'd be willing to share Chloe's story, and some of the ways that she had such a deep impact on you?
Amy 05:14
You know, I think that was one of the most formative experiences of my life. And my editor loves the story the most. I still can feel a lot of the emotions when I think about it, or talk about it. And and that's striking to me, because this happened about 20 years ago. I was running a homeless shelter for women in the city of New Orleans. it was my first out of seminary job. I was so green. And, you know, I was a Baptist in the south, and I was trying to, you know, prove myself as a pastor in a man's man's profession. And I inherited this, like little teeny job running the 6-bed, homeless shelter in the back of a big huge Gospel Mission. And my first day of work, I met a 15 year old prostitute from the neighborhood named Chloe, who became a friend of mine, and who taught me a lot about what faith was, and a whole world that I had not been exposed to. So she, you know, was a drug user and prostitute and had come from a really, really terrible family background, lived on the streets, most of her life and,you know, was exposed to things that I never had experienced in my Evangelical, little childhood. And I had to really confront in my relationship with Chloe, like the pain of unjust systems, and the way that they come down so hard on the vulnerable and break them. And hold that alongside what I learned as a child, you know, you, you just accept Jesus as your Savior, and everything goes on, and it's fine. And that didn't work for Chloe. It didn't solve the drug addiction and the prostitution and the unjust systems. And this story transformed my way of looking at what the gospel is in the world and how my faith is lived out. It's not transactional, like, I accept Jesus as my Savior, and everything is better. It's hard and gritty, and painful, and full of opportunities to lose hope. But my hope in telling the story is that Chloe's life will never be forgotten, because she sure taught me a lot about my faith.
Shari 07:56
Yeah, can you share with our listeners, what happened to Chloe?
Amy 08:02
Sure, Chloe went in and out of the shelter as I was the director there, and I tell the story in the book one day of coming to work, and finding a crime scene near the steps of my office. And I found that the night before Chloe had been trying to escape some situation of violence and tried to climb over the fence to safety in the shelter, and was beaten to death. And they found her body near the front of my office. And, I can still, you know, picture the scene with a crime tape in the blood and that was just such a moment of breaking old ways of thinking about how God works in the world. And thinking to myself, you know, you cannot tell me that this woman wasn't loved by God. You know, it's that that's unacceptable to me. And it helped me to know God in a different way.
Shari 09:07
Yeah. Like the words you chose hard, gritty and painful. Absolutely capture that kind of experience. Thank you for sharing that.
Amy 09:19
Sure.
Shari 09:21
So, it also resonates with what you've chosen to call your book, which is "Beautiful and Terrible Things", which is a quote from Frederick Buechner's writing. Can you share the larger quote for us? And a little bit about how that connects with you?
Amy 09:38
Sure. Some of us are familiar with this quote, "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." And, it's a quote that I have in my office and have held very close because my journey of life this far, as many of ours, has been full of times when I was really, really afraid. And early on in the writing process...by the way, this is a very difficult writing process. It took me six years to have the book land in its current state. And I, I struggled like what what is the title going to be? What is what is this about? And I was talking with a very dear friend one day and she said, "You know, it's about beautiful and terrible things. That's it. That's the title, Beautiful and Terrible Things." And that has been the one anchor all along this writing process that I've held on to because that phrase, thank you, Frederick Buechner. Like, sums up what my experience of being human is. Totally beautiful, breathtaking moments and some of the hardest, most terrifying experiences.
Shari 10:56
Yeah. And the imperative that he offers, don't be afraid is a challenging one, in light of that.
Amy 11:03
It's the only way to go ahead, to go forward. And I think in writing this book, my hope was, and my suspicion, is that I'm not the only one who would say that. I hope there are other people out there who, who can say, you know, my life is beautiful and terrible, too.
Shari 11:21
Yeah, well, as an audience of one, I can tell you that many of the stories resonated so deeply. The danger of spiritual memoir, of course, is people are going to feel like they know you so intimately, because I think your stories will touch deeply on other people's hearts. Several of the stories that that you chose to write about share your experiences in the church, which are varied. And a number of them, I think you said, you've, you've worked in churches for 20- some years. And one of the conclusions you draw is the danger of equating the church with God. And I'm curious if you'd be willing to share a couple of your...the church experiences that you've identified, to give us a window into that conclusion that you draw?
Amy 12:06
Sure. I tell a story at the beginning of the book about a man named Howard, who I he was so dear to me...
Shari 12:15
...Is Howard the man you met for lunch at Blimpy?
Amy 12:15
(Shari and Amy crosstalk) Yes, yeah.
Shari 12:19
Which was one of my favorite restaurants growing up, I have to say.
Unknown Speaker 12:24
(Shari and Amy laughing)
Amy 12:24
He was, he was 86 years old and he was the chair of deacons at my first church that I was ever a senior pastor at Calvary. And I tried to show in that chapter, how very green I was, and just, you know, I was just kind of seminary and I knew, I had, you know, all these plans for how we're going to get a new website and update the church. And he was, you know, had been a member of the church for over 50 years, and I had moved from New Orleans and so he called me the "New Orleans Flash", and he, he would, over the course of our relationship, you know, pull me aside and tell me to slow down or tell me I'd hurt his feelings, or tell me as being ridiculous. And the gift of, you know, him, extending friendship to...I was 32 years old...his pastor, was, I hope is, can be held up as one of the ways in which church and other human communities can help us find our way toward each other when there's such a vast difference between us. But I also tell a lot of stories of of pain and conflict in the church. And I've had a continuous process...it wasn't wasn't just a one time learning experience, but a continual learning and relearning that the church is not the same as God. And anything that we do to equate the two is gonna lead us to a great amount of disappointment. Churches are human institutions are made up with human beings who have their various foibles. And that it's really, really hard not to expect the higher level of behavior from people who claim to be gathering because they're following God. So one of the things someone asked me about after the book was, how do you hold together this tension of the church has been such a painful place for you. And also, there have been people like Howard, and there's been, you know, the way my church healed my life after my divorce. I mean, there have been these moments of just beauty and expressions of what the church can be in its best and they're just held intention in the book. And my guess and hope is that anyone else who spent their time at church would would recognize both of these things.
Shari 15:13
Yeah. Yeah, I think the humanity people encounter is one of the primary reasons that people get disenchanted with the church, but it's also one of the primary reasons people might find themselves in the church.
Amy 15:25
Yes. And don't you long for communities where we can be our real selves?
Shari 15:32
I hear this theme Amy. And, and so many of the theories you've, you've shared, Howard being one example of someone in his case, there was a generational difference between you and like a life experience gap. But with you and Chloe, there was a socio-economic and life experience gap and, and you feel feels to me, like you feel compelled to reach across these gaps. And I'm wondering if you have your finger on that motivation for you?
Amy 16:05
That is such a good question. It reminds me of, you know, I grew up in a very conservative evangelical, sort of cut and dried, I knew I was going to marry a pastor, and, you know, I could make casseroles and do all the things and very conservative. And, I remember my first time ever attending a Maundy Thursday service, and hearing the pastor talk about Jesus washing the disciples feet, and giving them the the one thing he wanted them to do, to, to love each other. And that's a shift, that was a moment of great shift for me where my theological lens began to shift. And to me, if we're not reaching across those divides, and trying our best to build relationships, then we're missing like the core of what Jesus came to teach us. When I look at the stories in Scripture about him, I see him crossing all those divides, and refusing to be hemmed in by the rules of society that were hurting people. And I, I want to do that with my life. And as I have, I've discovered some of the most wonderful people who I would have missed otherwise.
Shari 17:30
Well, one of the more recent and more poignant and I would say more painful stories that you share is your experience when you had gone back to DC after a season away, and you were pastoring, a church there, and you talk about your experience of the January 6 2021. And in the story is told, with some despair about it, and I'm curious if wondering if you could share that story, give some context about the banners you were hanging and what that day was like for you?
Amy 18:07
Yes, I, this, this story is so emblematic of my experience with faith. I just feel like I wander into these situations by accident. And then I end up looking at the breathtaking dissonance right in front of me and wondering where to proceed. We had had this crisis in in DC, leading up to the end of that year, in 2020, about all of our Black Lives Matter, banners being torn down from churches in a neighborhood. And you've seen film footage of Asbury United Methodist Church banner being burned, and so on and so forth. And that was happening to us as well at National City. And so, a very good friend of ours, yours and mine, suggested you know, just...why don't you print some banners and hang them up really, really high up at the top of the stairs, between the, between the columns, like big Smithsonian banners, and people won't be able to reach them.? And so that's what we did the week before Christmas, we designed...
Unknown Speaker 19:17
(Shari and Amy crosstalk)
Shari 19:17
...Seems so glaringly simple, like the pragmatic approach, right?
Amy 19:21
Right. Didn't even think of it. And, and the banner company was... we had gotten into this argument because I really wanted them up for January 1st,, and they were people were on vacation, and they couldn't get them up until the earliest would be 7:30am January 6th.. And, so we sent out a press release that I was out there, and there were all these film cameras, and the church is located on Thomas Circle. So they're for hotels surrounding the church and very, very close to the National Mall and the White House. And as the banners are going up, all these people were streaming on the streets at 7:30 in the morning in DC, and they were people going to a rally. So, we had heard that there is going to be a Make America Great rally, again, Make America Great Again rally. And so there were a lot of people headed toward that rally. And the story I tell is a story about a conversation I had with a man from Oklahoma, who is there to protest. And he was confused by our hanging of the banners and did did I think that he didn't like black people. And he had never seen a woman pastor before. And it was a very uncomfortable conversation for me, and I didn't feel safe. And, in the end, I hope what comes across in that story is that this man, Henry, like, crossed a border that I was unwilling to cross. And he like walked up those steps and talk to me and had a whole conversation with me. And, you know, we all know what happened later that day. And it was deeply tragic. And I never heard from Henry again. But that conversation was another yet another example for me of God inviting me into uncomfortable relational experiences that helped me understand God.
Shari 21:25
Yeah, the phrase you just use "breathtaking dissonance" is really striking for that story? This person with whom you had very little agreement? Who did say that he did something and crossing that divide that you want to see in the world?
Amy 21:46
Yes. And lest anyone think that I'm so virtuous, like, I don't like any of this stuff, I don't find it comfortable. And I and in those moments, I think to myself, you know, I always think that Jesus had the worst marketing campaign ever, "Take up your cross and follow me". Yeah. Like, it's terrible. And I wonder a lot if, if what authentic faith is, is being willing to stay in those moments of discomfort until we find a tiny place..a plan that we can share?
Shari 22:33
Yeah, I'm, I'm curious what, what kind of encouragement you would give to other folks, this is, this is really hard what you're describing, I don't think it comes naturally to most people. So what what kind of encouragement would you offer?
Amy 22:51
Well, I think, you know, knowing what, who you are and what you believe, and why is like A - number one. You know, I, I enter into conversations with Henry and Howard and Todd and so many of the people who I tell stories about, from a standpoint of understanding that Jesus's message in the world is about healing and hope and justice and loving God and loving our neighbor...and that is it. I will also say that people should know, be prepared to be surprised. Like, these are people just like, like you and me. They're not like the monsters that we make them out to be. They have families and they have pain, and they have doubts, and just like we do, and... And third, please don't give up. Like none of these conversations have been like Amy sits down and has a conversation with Todd and Todd says, "Oh, guns are wrong. I'm gonna start being an anti- gun advocate." That's not how it went down.
Shari 24:07
No, neither do you join the NRA from what I...yeah.
Amy 24:12
It's, it's just this messy, like, we're going to be in this together. Because we share this planet, and we have to make it better for those who come after us. And, to me that's deeply grounded in in my own faith. And those are three things I would keep in mind as, as you're heading into these conversations. Everybody has them though, like Thanksgiving dinner. Come on.
Shari 24:36
I would love to ask you to read your closing paragraph from your book. Do you have your manuscript handy?
Amy 24:45
I do. It''ll take me a minute to bring it up.
Shari 24:49
"From which love is not built a bridge," page 198.
Amy 24:55
Got it. Okay. If we find ourselves at a shore from which love has not built a bridge, perhaps here is where we teach one another to swim. Together we can make our way through rough waters. And together we can reach the other side...transformed.
Shari 25:13
You've been listening to "The Distillery" at Princeton Theological Seminary. Interviews are conducted by me, Shari Oosting. Our editorial and production staff include Armand Banks, LaDonna, Damon, Renai Ellison and Madeline Polhill. Like what you're hearing, subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Even better share an episode with a friend. "The Distillery" is a production of Continuing Education at Princeton Theological Seminary. Thanks for listening. As we said before, you share very vulnerable and personal stories and one of those is the story of of your divorce. Can you tell us a little bit about that story?
Amy 25:49
The divorce chapter is called "Suitcases" and the framework in which it's told is a family vacation and sort of telling the story of the aftermath of the severing of an almost 20-year marriage. One of the things people have really questioned me about is, you know, is this book a tell-all? The book is not a tell-all. I chose certain things to put in and certain things to leave out for, for certain reasons. But I included that story and how my children and I rebuilt relationship and life after that, because it illustrated, I hope, the way a faith community can come around you and support you in one of the hardest times of your life. Like I did not expect to get divorced. I never met a pastor who was divorced before. I already was woman pastor, like it just seemed really unfair. It has shown me what community can do because my church with whom I had been through painful conflict leading up to this, you know, just loved my family back to life. I hoped that by then we had been on a journey of transformation long enough to understand what gospel community looks like. But I didn't know. And as it turns out, one of the most beautiful conversations I've ever had was when I called the chair of the pastoral relations committee and told her what was going on. And she immediately responded, "Whatever you do, do not quit." It was a lesson for me to show up with copious amounts of grace and whenever I can.
Shari 27:46
That's really powerful. Is there any other part of that story you wanted to share? I have a lingering curiosity about when you talked about packing your suitcases, you're on your way to Hawaii, which is where you grew up. I'm curious if if there's a part of the way that you understand your own story is also kind of wed with your, your heritage as a Hawaiian.
Amy 28:11
Thank you so much for asking me that question. Yes, the answer is yes. And ironically, I have landed back at home and pastoring, a church here in Hawaii and helping care for my parents who are dealing with aging issues. And, it's like coming full circle. And when we were discussing what would be on the cover of the book, the editors at Random House, were like, you know, we need a botanical. And I said okay, I live in Hawaii. And so it has to be a Hawaiian flower. And so there were like hibiscuses thrown my way, etc, etc. And finally I said no, what needs to be on the cover is this flower called an "ohi a lehua," which is a bright, red, beautiful bloom that blossomed from the first plant that emerges after the destruction of a lava flow. So, when the land is covered with molten lava, eventually it starts coming back to life. And the first plant that always comes up is this really tough, gritty, ugly shrub called the "ohi a lehua", and then these beautiful bright, red, stunning breathtaking blossoms.
Shari 29:29
I love that! Thank you so much for sharing that. A beautiful note to end on, Amy. Thank you so much for talking with me today. You've been listening to The Distillery at Princeton Theological Seminary. Interviews are conducted by me Shari Oosting. Our editorial and production staff include Armand Bnks, LaDonna, Damon, Renai Ellison, and Madeline Polhill. Like what you're hearing, subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Even better, share an episode with a friend. The Distillery is a production of Continuing Education at Princeton Theological Seminary. Thanks for listening.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai