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Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative helping Christians to faithfully live out their faith in their work. We recognize most of life is not lived in black and white but rather lived in the gray, lived in the nuance.
You can find more, including complementary spiritual exercises, at www.collaborativeorlando.com/nuance.
If you believe that God really is good, and you believe that God really is powerful, then you would think, well, then I should be good. And then when you when you see things happen, wait a minute, things are things are not good. And when you you feel the devastation of of losing someone or walking through a kid's diagnosis or something, you're like, well, wait a second. I feel like we just violated some sort of contractor. Like, you love me.
Speaker 1:I'm your son. Remember? And I'm following you. Like, I'm I don't understand. Shouldn't this be different?
Speaker 2:Every book has a backstory. And when the subject is faith in crisis, well, the author's journey matters for sure. Well, so today, we continue a conversation that we started last week with Catherine McNeil and Jason Hague, turning our attention from the architecture of their book to the very lives that shaped it. So, you know, here on Nuance, our emphasis is most often how our faith animates our work and our cultural work. But today, we're gonna lean back on this faith side of the equation because belief forms vocation.
Speaker 2:So I think it's important to look at what they are writing about and thinking about so that our faith is is stronger and more mature. So, Catherine, Jason, welcome back.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Kate.
Speaker 3:Great to be here again. Thank you.
Speaker 2:So their book is Mid Faith Crisis, Finding a Path Through Doubt, Disillusionment, and Dead Ends published by InterVarsity Press. If you maybe didn't hear the former episode, hit pause, go and learn more about their book and their theological and and scriptural pastoral approach. So this week, we're gonna get a little more personal. And Catherine and Jason know this is coming, and I appreciate you being willing participants
Speaker 3:You bet.
Speaker 2:To talk about this. Catherine, talk to us about a moment where your faith felt, I don't know, insufficient maybe for what you were going through.
Speaker 3:Well, I can tell you kind of the origin story that I that I write about in this book
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Which one thing that I really appreciated about writing this with Jason is that we had very different faith crises at very different times. And mine unusually happened in my early teen years because when I was 12 years old, I had grown up in a pastor's family and everything very abruptly changed for me when I was around 12 years old. And the church that we had been in, it felt like the only family I had known in my life. They were in every way my extended family. I couldn't recall living anywhere else.
Speaker 3:This was my hometown. The people who had raised me in the culture that I had been formed in decided that our family my my dad was being fired but the best way that they felt to do that was to make sure that we were immediately invisible and then out of town within two weeks.
Speaker 2:Oh, Catherine.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It was, yeah. I'm not gonna get into the grown up, parts of why this happened or, what laws or policies should be in place to do it differently. The impact on me as a 12 year
Speaker 2:old is
Speaker 3:that literally every human that I knew in the world declared me and my family rejectable and unknowable and no one, no one stood in the gap or came to rescue or, or gave me minority report or another version. And I associated, well, I associated these folks with everything, but also with the church. And lest you think I'm exaggerating, I was uninvited from my sixth grade piano recital. So so zealous were they
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3:That we not be seen again after this decision was made. So to say that I have spent a lot of time since then trying to understand what my faith is based in and who and what I can trust if anything in anyone, is an understatement. So that's the origin story that I start unpacking a little bit of in this book.
Speaker 2:Well, I really appreciate you sharing that and my heart goes out to you and I think about my three children. One of my biggest fears in seminary was that my kids, because of my position, might not lean into their faith in the Lord's call in their life. And on top of that, may reject the church, this beautiful, broken, wonderful bride that I love. And and I, you know, I love the snarky old ladies and youthful energy of 24 year old guys that think they know everything. And the men, you know, I love all aspects, but so far so good.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Maybe I'll find out later in their journey. But I I know that that experience is real for many.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Jason, any particular experience in in your walk of faith?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think it's adulthood. Adulting. The you know, I I had a a much different experience and, you know, I was my parents were in ministry and and I did outreaches every summer and I was on the seven hundred club when I was eight. So that was, like,
Speaker 2:my claim to fame. Oh my goodness. We have, you know. Christian movie stars. No.
Speaker 2:Fame here. Famous people.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. Yes.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:So so, yeah, I people are always telling me, oh, man, God's gonna do big things through you and it's gonna be great. Oh, man. You know? And the future was going to be bright, and I was going to just always walk closely with God. And I hit just sort of a series of things.
Speaker 1:I had a son who was diagnosed with a heart condition, another one was diagnosed with severe autism, non speaking autism. And so I had hit all of these things, but I was still holding on, I was still holding on. And then in my early 40s, I lost a dear, dear friend who was like a sister to me to cancer, and that really threw me for a loop that I just wasn't expecting. I think sometimes we think because we've overcome A or B, then we've got it. We've got C.
Speaker 1:We've gone through it all. We've seen it all. And I hadn't I hadn't felt this much. It was like it felt like betrayal almost. You know?
Speaker 1:And and it suddenly all the answers I mean, I even wrote a book previously about unanswered prayer.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But when I hit this particular unanswered prayer, it just felt new, and it was a huge gut punch. And I started to really question, is God here? Is God walking with me for real? Mhmm. And it was a you know?
Speaker 1:And then there were other family crises I don't write about in the book that just compounded it in some very, very personal ways. And and, yeah, it left me wondering, what do I do? I'm suddenly wondering, I'm a pastor. I'm writing a sermon. And while I'm writing the sermon, I'm not sure I believe it.
Speaker 1:What do you do when you hit that? And that's where that's where I found myself.
Speaker 2:I'm curious what each of you would say. What is uniquely difficult about suffering from the faith journey as opposed to health journey, vocational journey?
Speaker 3:I would say that the faith journey encompasses all of those, you know. There's not there's not an aspect of our lives or our identities or our relationships or even our bodies that our faith does not somehow inform. And if you are someone who has turned to God or to Christian community as kind of that bulwark, the anchor in the storm. If you if you lose sight of your anchor, it just feels like the storm is no longer survivable. And so it's the crisis that compounds all of the crisis.
Speaker 3:You may be going through a health crisis, but if that is eroding or creating havoc in your faith, then you have so much more suffering. It's compounding.
Speaker 2:I see that in pastoral visits to the hospital with those that are finding the joy of the Lord in the moment by moment journey of suffering. And it's it's so very different than that visit with someone who is crying out where is God right now? Why am I here? It really, really is a night and day experience. Jason, what about for you?
Speaker 2:How is suffering from your faith different than other ways?
Speaker 1:Well, I I would echo what Catherine said. To me, faith is you know, I see all of life through that lens of of faith. The the particular the hard part is that if you believe that God really is good and you believe that God really is powerful, then and that's and those are, like, your cornerstones, the goodness of God and the power of God, you would think, well Yeah. Then I should be good. And and then when you when you see things happen wait a minute.
Speaker 1:Things are things are not good. And when you you feel the devastation of of losing someone or walking through a kid's diagnosis or something, you're like, well, wait a second. I feel like we just violated some sort of contractor. Like, you love me. I'm your son.
Speaker 1:Remember? Like, and I'm following you. Like, I'm I don't understand. Shouldn't this be different? And I know there can be wings of the church.
Speaker 1:You know, you can look at the prosperity gospel and things that that explicitly try to promote some you know, the opposite idea, but you don't even have to be in those circles to have some of those preconceptions. Like, it shouldn't be this way.
Speaker 2:In the gospels.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yes. Like, there there should be some, like, reason. And if I do good things, then then I should be at a different place. And and I think that to me is the particular trouble.
Speaker 1:If you don't believe that God is good, you're gonna I mean, that's gonna be a big bummer for you, but you won't have that specific problem. If you don't believe that God ever intervenes, you won't have that specific problem. You might be comfortable with the fact that, oh, life is just gonna be misery. And again, that's a whole another set of problems, and I don't I don't want those problems. But this is unique to those who believe that God really is active and God really is good.
Speaker 2:Right. I love what you're saying because I'm a big theology nerd.
Speaker 3:So I have
Speaker 2:behind me. And you see your theology, what you believe really does inform then how your Yeah. Daily faith walk happens. I don't know why. I've never had anger towards God.
Speaker 2:Look, I've had a lot of shortcomings and still do. But that has never been one that's just naturally emerged in me. And it took me a while to realize, okay, somehow in my early formation at Conyers First United Methodist Church East of Atlanta, I internalized grace in a way that I think has kept me from going there in my emotions. Catherine, related to your journey, I'm I'm curious, were there be any big ideas about God or theological doctrines that helped you stay close to him?
Speaker 3:You know, there there and I do write about this throughout the book, but there was a it was a long journey with lots of upheaval. It wasn't you know, one wound and then a quick stay in the spiritual hospital and then I'm fine. It's been a long road. And one thing that I assure people that I am walking alongside now is that I, you know, forty years down the road, I can look back and see a lot of things about God that helped me, but I couldn't necessarily see them at the time. And so, and it's taken, I guess forty years is an exaggeration, but decades, thirty, thirty and What I think about now is how God likens himself as the shepherd that's going and seeking the one that has been lost or abandoned, willing to leave the entire flock and go find that one.
Speaker 3:And as I look back now, I can see that God was coming and finding me and carrying me back on his shoulders. Again, I want to assure the hurting, brokenhearted, desperate, disillusioned listener. I didn't feel like God was carrying me on his shoulders day in and day out. Not at all. But looking back now I can see that God was.
Speaker 3:And I am always, always pulled back. We talked in the previous episode about my love of the seasons and how I survived the terrible Chicago winters because of that thrilling moment when I see spring and new life coming back when we really thought everything was dead. We thought we were all going to, know, despair. But then suddenly, suddenly everything is new and alive again. And I have seen God do that in my life.
Speaker 3:And again, not over the course of hours or days or months or years, we're talking decades in darkness at times, but I have seen new life come from all that is most dead. And I have seen Jesus come and pull me off of the cliff and with the crook of the shepherd's staff and carrying me back on his shoulder. And I I can't unsee that, know. I can't I can't unsee the things that were done to me but I can't unsee the way God has brought me back to life.
Speaker 2:Oh, Catherine. That'll preach. That's beautiful. So I hear the the theological doctrine of providence
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Of his plan, his way of meeting the sin that runs into us in life. I was so moved by my wife when many years ago, she stood up at the mother's preschool luncheon as the guest speaker. And she gave thanks to God for a miscarriage followed by a molar pregnancy, which well, the miscarriage was a molar pregnancy followed by cancer.
Speaker 3:Oh my.
Speaker 2:This is a very very rare situation where a molar pregnancy can lead to uterine cancer and so you have to go right on chemo. And as hard as that journey and that time was, my wife would not ask for it again, imagine. But she can look back and see all the blessings in the way in which God showed up and and just loved on us in a in a powerful way. For our listeners and viewers, Catherine and Jason were so kind to make space on their calendar last fall for this conversation. And we had to move it because my same wonderful beautiful wife had a stroke in October.
Speaker 2:Thanks be to God. She's doing very, very well. The journey has been hard. She's still working quite diligently on her aphasia, which is this condition of getting the words that are there in your brain, but getting them out through the mouth and in her speech. And we're not well, in some ways, can point to God at work already, but we're too close to it.
Speaker 2:We're still in the midst of the darker side of the moon, I think. And I can't wait in, I don't know, twenty twenty seven, eight, nine to be able to look back and go, wow, Lord. Look what you did, not that you caused this, but look what you did because of it. And that that takes it's a journey.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Absolutely. It's journey of a lifetime.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. What would you, Jason, say to someone who might be in a mid faith crisis right now? What have you learned from your life and your experiences that would encourage them right now?
Speaker 1:I think I would say it's okay. It's it's okay to not have the answers right now, you know? It's okay to feel disoriented. You know, God walks with us on this journey. Catherine had mentioned the imagery of the twenty third Psalm, and think it's funny, no matter how advanced, you know, and nuanced we get in our theology, we never outgrow the twenty third psalm.
Speaker 1:And we we come back there time and again. The Lord is our shepherd, and he doesn't just guide us through the easy times. He guides us through the most difficult times. He and his presence is always walking with us. And and I would just encourage people, hey.
Speaker 1:That's that hasn't stopped. That hasn't stopped. Continue on the journey. Keep going. And and not that everything's gonna be resolved, but it probably won't.
Speaker 1:It probably won't. But you're not alone. There's a whole lot of us that have walked this. There's a whole lot of us that are that are still walking this. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so recognize that. Look around and recognize just how many people are are there with you.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Your book encourages me because it asks us to look forward and to mature our faith to adopt new practices or ways of encountering God. So can you point to a new spiritual discipline or way of practicing your faith that you now have because of where you've been?
Speaker 1:I can right away. I think the the practice of lament is a very significant one now. I think back in the day, I was afraid to take something to God. I was afraid to sort of, like, take my anger or my you know, the really hard things. Oh, I couldn't I couldn't dare tell God this thing.
Speaker 1:But then I started reading the Psalms in earnest and seeing
Speaker 2:It's all over the place.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's everywhere. It it it is everywhere through the scriptures. Yeah. Some of God's best friends were those who were willing to be most honest.
Speaker 1:And so I have many times, as things have started to build up, I said, okay. I'm gonna go out, and we're gonna have it out. And I've done that at the beach before. I've done that in a city park. I've just been, like, piling it up.
Speaker 1:Okay, Lord. I'm upset about this. I'm upset you didn't answer this prayer. I'm upset that I thought you were leading me, and this has not turned out the way it is. I'm upset because I feel so distant, and I feel so much pain, and I feel so stuck, and this does not seem like what we agreed upon.
Speaker 1:And it has been a wonderful practice, and I feel like there's so much more grace for me than I thought there was. And and so many times, after I load those things up, it's just like that I realized that was the separation. It was my resentments that I had piled up where the separation that was creating that distance. And so just just being able to tell God how angry I was ends it up just like, okay. Now we can begin now we can begin to commune together and work through some of these things.
Speaker 2:We have an episode actually on lament. If anyone's interested and wants to go back and and find that. Spoke to a wonderful professor at Wheaton that had looked at it scripturally and then and then personally. Jason, I have grown so much on the lament side of things. I have a wonderful colleague here at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando.
Speaker 2:I call him our millennial pastor. And he's so much more than just that. And and but I've I've lift that up because he's so wise. He is far wiser than his years suggest. And in learning about lament from him, I realized that in my family of origin, there wasn't really example of or space for getting it all out.
Speaker 2:You know? It was more of a understanding of, yeah, it's in there, but we're gonna talk about concrete ways to fix and be healthy and and and move forward. And that's what it was. But I've just found the value in sitting in the mess and the in in sitting in the mess until and and don't be so much in a hurry to get to the the fixes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It really is a journey. It's such a cliche, but it really is a journey. And and I think I mean, I've experienced this in my growing up too of, like, you you wanna say the good things. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all, and so that even translates to our prayer life.
Speaker 1:But this is this is a journey, and and it's okay to be where you are, and it's okay to have these. And moreover, God sees all the stuff in our hearts. So the the idea that we can suppress them and hide them is silly in the first place, so you might as well just get them out.
Speaker 2:And if we don't have a full scriptural understanding of who God is, we can tend to think that he is a formal gentleman on a pedestal for whom we must be measured and appropriate. Yeah. And yes, our God is deserving of our awe and our reverence, but he's also is clearly evidenced in the scriptures. One who's in the pit with us and can he can take it.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:He really can. Catherine, what about you?
Speaker 3:I think some of the practices that I've learned on the other side of faith crisis and to help me through faith crisis, because you know, it's not a one time experience, know, we have consolation and desolation, but are some of the more contemplative practices. I too am a pretty heady person. I love to read books and study theology. And so it has been delightful for me to realize that there is ways that I can pray for example, or spend time with God where I'm not just sort of repeating back to God what I believe about God, but instead, allowing my nervous system to be calmed and quieted while also allowing that same practice to put my eyes on God and remember that God is present with me. Even simple things like a breath prayer or praying the prayer of examine where if you or your listeners are familiar, it's
Speaker 2:Oh, we're big fans.
Speaker 3:Okay, good.
Speaker 2:But tell us and not everybody may know.
Speaker 3:Well, in this simplest form, it's an invitation to just invite God to the moment that you're in, to look back at what has been worrisome or troublesome, to look at what needs to be forgiven or repented of and then to look forward at where we're going and just inviting God intentionally to all of these places and asking God to show us where He's been there. And I find that these kinds of practices I think are helpful to people who have had spiritual trauma because they are soothing to our nervous systems. They are not unlike what a therapist or even a physical therapist, might prescribe for us. But they are in the meantime reminding us of God and pointing us to God and reminding us that God's light is shining on our faces and that God's breath is in our lungs. And for me, most, biggest hurdle is to remember what I already know and believe.
Speaker 3:And so it's these gentle practices of self compassion and receiving compassion from God and then remembering that I can have compassion for others.
Speaker 2:And you can have compassion on 12 year old Catherine. Oh, yeah. You can go back and tell her, oh, this sucks. It's gonna get better but not before it gets harder. The the word remember all over the Bible.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness. Yes. I should do a little chat GPT search on how many times is the word remember Yeah. In the scriptures. And I it's there because we don't Exactly.
Speaker 2:It. We're so hard headed.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We repeat those same patterns over and over again in one lifetime and in a thousand lifetimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I've gotten to the point at 49 now where when a bad thing happens in life, not just necessarily faith related, but in a in relationships or work or society or whatever it might be health wise. I've gotten to where I can think, okay, on the other side of this, God's going to have shown up or I will have learned more about myself and about him.
Speaker 2:And for you 25 year olds listening, let me just encourage you. It takes three or four or 10 of these journeys to begin to go, wait a minute. I think I see a pattern here. And you know what? That's why our 80 year olds are wise.
Speaker 2:Right? Mhmm. Mhmm. Why couldn't I have started out with my grandmother's wisdom at 20? Why did I have to go through the walk?
Speaker 2:But that is kind of what we're talking about. Right? Like the the walk of faith and it's shaping, and molding. What would you say I don't know if either of you have children. What would you say to an 18 year old or maybe one of your own children?
Speaker 1:Who yeah. Who's going through a crisis of faith or just in general? Just
Speaker 2:who's 18. Right? It doesn't have to be a good or a bad time, but just this is what to expect in the road ahead.
Speaker 1:I would say you don't have to do this perfectly. You can't do it perfectly. But the more you try to do it alone, probably the more mistakes you're gonna make.
Speaker 2:Very good point. That's great. I just, in the last five years, realized, wait a minute. I want some mentors. And I identified three men.
Speaker 2:Many I mean, I've known them I've known them for the twenty one years I've been here in Orlando. And I thought, I'm pursuing them and I'm gonna make them my mentor and it's been wonderful. And then I think, man, if I had done that twenty years ago, I could have gleaned so much more than I have already.
Speaker 3:Well, also have children, not only children but teenagers. So I talk to them a lot and one thing that I've been saying to them since they were literally babies in my arms is that life is full of suffering. It's full of joy. It's full of conflict. It's full of beauty and God is with us in all of it.
Speaker 3:And just keep looking for God. Keep looking for people who are with you and keep going.
Speaker 2:Keep going. Thank you so very much, Katherine and Jason. I am not of course, I appreciate your time, but I just appreciate your vulnerability and your wisdom.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having us, Kase.
Speaker 2:Appreciate it. Thank you for this book. Friends, go out and get it. Don't go out, I guess. We don't go out with our books.
Speaker 2:Go online and get Mid Faith Crisis, Finding a Path Through Doubt, Disillusionment, and Dead Ends by my guest, Catherine McNeil and Jason Hague. You can learn more about their work, about their other wonderful writings at catherinemcneil.com. That's Catherine with a
Speaker 3:c Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And mcneilwithanie.com and jasonhague.com. Well, friends, please share this episode. Give it to someone and encourage them in their own walk. Share it on your social media. Help us reach even more with the good news of the gospel.
Speaker 2:Thank you for your time being with us. If you'll hop right over to our website, wecolabor.com, give us your email, and we will send you a copy of Zeitgeist, our journal on faith, work, and culture. Many thanks to the Canaparo family for making this episode happen. I'm Kaye Thorpe, and God's blessings on you.