Are You There God? with Krista Tippett

Krista Tippett  

To ask any adult about their spiritual life is like asking them about their sex life. Right? You can’t just ask somebody that question head on.

Sarah Jones  

You have to kind of ease them in– give them a drink first! 

Sarah Jones  00:15

Hi everybody, welcome to America who hurt you the pod where we talk in many voices about politics our trauma, and how we can heal them both. I’m your host, Sarah Jones. And as usual, I’m here with a few co hosts Rashid. 

Rashid  00:30

Yo, what’s good y’all.

Sarah Jones00:31

Nereida. 

Nereida  00:32

Hola everybody.

Sarah Jones00:33

Lorraine. 

Lorraine00:34

Yes. Hello, there.

Sarah Jones  00:36

And Bella. 

Bella00:36

Hi everyone. 

Sarah Jones00:38

And by now, you know, they’re not exactly co hosts. They’re my characters from my one person shows and my movie Sell Buy Date… who live in my head. They also may pop in during interviews with our guests. Now, speaking of today’s guest is the one and only Krista Tippett. She’s a Peabody Award winner, National Humanities medalist and a New York Times best selling author, probably best known for creating and hosting the hugely popular radio show and podcast On Being, which looks at spirituality among other topics. And in this conversation, she blew my mind and really my spirit with her thoughts about the relationship between religion and politics. 

Bella  01:22

Yeah, but that should not be a relationship at all. Like even one nation under God. The God part wasn’t even put in there until the McCarthy era. 

Nereida01:32

Yes, Bella, but politicians using religion for their agenda. That’s different than really being a believer in something bigger.

Rashid  01:39

Real talk. My grandmother she used to take as a church like she would go every day if she could. I know it helped her through a lot. But on the other hand, I was always like, if God is so good, how can we stay broke riding the bus? 

Lorraine01:52

Well, I know faith has helped me survive too. But now with more hatred than ever between the religion sometimes I wonder, where’s the God in any of it? 

Sarah Jones  02:04

I hear you, Lorraine. I hear everybody. And I’m not saying we solved the problem in this conversation. But Krista did help me see a bigger picture, not just religion and politics, but our fuller humanity and ways to still have hope even in these times. My first thought was, oh no, I’m interviewing Krista Tippett. Like it’s one thing to be excited about interviewing the mind behind On Being, but you’re also an interviewer par excellence. That is not fair. Everybody else I interview I can be like I know what I’m doing, with you I’m like, the role of Sarah Jones should be being played by Krista Tippett right now. 

KT  02:54

No, but you know, I’m also somebody who loves a good conversation and when I get to be in conversation with you. I’m in conversation with multitudes.

Sarah Jones03:02

This is true. And I was also laughing because when I listened to you, it you know, really kind of massages a part of my brain that loves words. You know, part of the spirituality in my home is I want to get into spirituality with you, was a kind of worship of words. You know, my father, I remember him, he like memorized a section of something from Wizard of Oz, or something the clinking, clinking, clattering collection of caliginous junk, you know, these are the kinds of things that my father 

KT  03:32

I love that.

Sarah Jones03:33

That was his religion, right was kind of indulging in delicious words. But I mentioned this because, you know, not only do you have On Being, you also have this other kind of being in itself. Poetry Unbound, which is a kind of a family member of the On Being world, I was thinking about this mashup of our lives, right, poetry, and you talk you talk about wholeness in that TED talk you gave in 2023, that, you know, the more I listened to it, the more I returned to the what would I call, I mean, there’s a solace in what you share in that talk, and also in all of your work, and I love the way it has all these different colors. It’s, you know, you’re a spiritual person. I want to talk about kind of the differences between spirituality and religion. And you know, I feel like we’re all you know, imbued with spirit whether we think of it that way or not, not everybody feels that way. And so for me, you represent you contain multitudes you’re the Emma Goldman here but I’m just gonna kind of jump in and ask you first of all in my role as not you but my I’m channeling somebody, I don’t know who this is. But you Krista Tippett, ask your guests about the role that spirituality played in their childhood and I think that’s especially interesting. Why childhood?

KT04:59

Oh, well Childhood because actually to ask any adult about their spiritual life is like asking them about their sex life. Right? It’s not a question. Right? And it’s not you can’t just ask somebody that question head on if you want to get a response.

Sarah Jones05:17

You have to kind of ease them– give them a drink first. 

KT  05:20

Yeah. I mean, it’s a very intimate question. And it’s also a part of us that, however important, it is, is really hard to talk about. I mean, talk about words like words fail. So to ask somebody a question about, you know, tell me about your spiritual life? Or, or even Are you religious, you know, the, a yes, or a no, also doesn’t quite do it. So. But what I found is, interestingly, even though that’s true, if you ask somebody, and I’ve learned, you know, I learned this, like, I stumbled on it. So I learned that if you ask somebody about the spirit, I usually say, like the spiritual background of your childhood. And what I found about that is that all of that inhibition falls away. And you know, even people who would say, No, I’m not religious, I’m atheist, still, the atheist will have an incredible story of formation. It might be of you know, that their mother went to church and their fathers sat in the car, and they wondered why their fathers sat in the car. But there’s always a story of formation, and also, this is a place in us when you ask that childhood question, this is, this is where it just questions reside. It’s very, really soft, it’s searching. I do believe every, I think the word spiritual can be problematic. But I think we’re just talking about interior life, and everybody has one. And I feel like when you ask about this in the childhood, that’s where people go.

Sarah Jones06:43

I love that. This is this is an interesting question, because I wanted to ask it to and one of my friends, Nereida,  is really, I think, kind of torn about this question of spirituality, right? Apparently, there’s some statistic that a large, you know, a growing number of Americans in, you know, 20 to 30% ish, think of themselves as spiritual but not religious. Right. So there’s that, there’s that distinction. It’s almost like it’s uncool, or oh my God, how could you think I would, you know, believe in God, except that I say, oh my God all the time. But other than that, I mean, but and then there’s also, you know, the, the idea that even spirituality itself is fraught or problematic if you’re a you know, a scientist, you must be an atheist. And I’m thinking about Nereida, okay. 

Nereida07:32

Hi, first of all, Krista Tippett, this is amazing. So I just want to say that and I know there might be a stereotype that you know, who listens to NPR, some people who listen to NPR sound like me, thank you very much. But, this idea that, for some of us, it is very complicated, right?

I have relatives, we do worship, you know we grew up in the same communities, and they are not– I don’t even want to say like, they don’t agree with me about certain things. I don’t take ALL of it, but some of it is very beautiful to me, it’s part of who I am. It means more than just political issues for us, it’s like this is our culture. I do take it back to my childhood that some of my comfort comes from, you know, when the rest of the world is going crazy, or everything is terrible. Or in my case, you know, if you have people being, you know, oppressed in your life, then at least the feeling that we know, we are worth the same as everyone else in the eyes of God, right? 

KT  08:21

Yeah, well, just that there was such an important thing that you said about how religion I guess you would call the religious world. I grew up an evangelical, but that’s not how it described itself. It was kind of a mishmash of, you know, charismatic, evangelical tradition. But it was thoroughly apolitical interest for most of the 20th century. Actually, the people like the traditions we think of as evangelical, stayed on principle out of politics, right? totally forgotten this story, right? And so it’s a newish phenomenon that including especially charismatic religion, and these are like, this is a family tree that everybody doesn’t know because 

Nereida09:10

can you explain the charisma because I’m loving it. I’m like maybe I’m charismatic, I feel like I’ve always been.

KT  09:18

So charismatic Christianity in the United States in the last decades, in the same period that evangelicals became politicized, became evangelical became associated with evangelicalism. But charismatic Christianity started in Los Angeles, at the turn of the century with a black pastor ordaining women. While the South was Jim Crow, and they were ordaining women in 1906.

Sarah Jones

Oh, I have goosebumps.

KT

This is 70 years before and globally as that charismatic tradition, for example, went south in the Americas. It became emancipatory and it hit Catholic countries where, where you had this very authoritarian, also colonial, you know, tradition, right. And it wasn’t just that everybody grew up Catholic, the judges were Catholic, the president’s were Catholic.

Sarah Jones 10:22

The water was Catholic.

KT 10:23

 Yeah, the water is Catholic, but charismatic Christianity came in with precisely that emancipatory message, which people heard that way that you, we are all equal in the light in the eyes of God. Everyone has a direct line to the Divine, you don’t need a priest, you don’t need an authority figure. And I think also what this gets out is something that’s important to me that that spiritual but not religious language is very vague. And that reflects an amazing thing, an astonishing thing that’s happened over the last few decades. If you think of our species, across time, across cultures, for until about 10 minutes ago, or 10 seconds ago, in cosmic time, everyone inherited a religious identity, like they inherited the color of their eyes, right. And what I mean by that is it was community and it was songs, and it was text, and it was rituals that we need, we need Rituals. Also, it’s it’s conversation across generations about the ultimate questions. So the spiritual but not religious is this very specific moment in time where that kind of inherited given identity has fallen away. I do think that if we survive this century, right, like, we gotta say that, if we do, there’s going to be some, there’s still going to be have to be some re- See, I don’t know, I don’t think we invent this from scratch. I think the traditions really matter, and they also we human beings, and the institutions, especially I think, like in the 20th century, were not good stewards of these depths. And so, and the forms just don’t make sense anymore. Just like none of our forms make sense anymore. Like school doesn’t make sense anymore. It’s not in the Bible anywhere that churches attend. I am Sunday morning. Right. Right, and actually, the entire institution being structured around church at 10am, Sunday morning for 21st century people becomes very problem. So, again, you know, my message is always it’s complicated.

Sarah Jones 12:43

The whole reason this podcast exists, right? The idea of America, Who Hurt You?, it’s that something might have happened in the past right there. I’m thinking about what’s in the zeitgeist, you know, what happened to you and, and you talk about wholeness. And that implies that we might have to be dealing with a brokenness or a fragmentedness or a fracturedness. When do those, you know, you talk about rupture? When did when do those first tiny ruptures first happened? Maybe they’re not tiny. But you know, talking about trauma, to me, they’re all connected because of what you just, you know, kind of pointed out that soft place of childhood, we can most of us can still access it. We’re lucky. I’m wondering, kid, may I ask the question you always ask your guests. Did spirituality play a role in your childhood? What kind of role?

KT13:32

Yeah, it was very, I grew up in I grew up in a really kind of, you know, Bible Belt, immersive religious world. My grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher. He preached hellfire and brimstone. Wow. But he was, but you know, part of my answer to this question, because my grandfather was very stern. He had a second grade education. He had a beautiful big mind. I was aware of that but he’d never been invited to apply his mind to his Bible that he loved. And so there was a fearfulness in him about asking questions, and I didn’t have that fearfulness. There’s a way in which I feel like my work is me doing things that he couldn’t do. Because I also think he would be nice rolled by, by what unfolded? And that the other thing about him where that question takes me is he was full of contradictions. So he was preaching, honestly, this heaven that was so small that practically nobody was getting in. Methodist weren’t getting it over from there, and, but he was the funniest person I knew. He was loving, and passionate and I actually think even as a child, I picked up on the fact that he was full of all these rules for not falling into sin. And I think he was just a really lusty person who was kind of struggling with himself. And I think that those contradictions, I mean, I love by the way, I just love the title of your podcast, I love this. I love the exploration you’re doing. And I think, you know, when I think of my grandfather, who in our world would fit into certain categories, but what I would also know what I would know is that, yes, he said, he preached these kinds of rules. And also he was a very complicated human being. That I think, has really shaped the way you know how I look out at our country now. And I see people in boxes, and I can never actually confine them to those boxes.

Sarah Jones 15:37

That speaks so much to how you, you know, I look to you as kind of a light that helps me navigate through what can feel like a really I don’t, you know, darkness is a tricky term. But this moment we’re in, it is easy for me to not only want to keep, I want people to stay in those boxes, where it feels like they are trying to, you know, preach authoritarianism or harm me or others I love and it’s like, how to, and I know you’re not advocating for harm, you’re advocating for the opposite. But the way you frame it, I think we are so accustomed in America now to this polarized and often along religious lines. Right. Like you said, there’s been an evolution.

KT16:23

Yeah, I want to say so what you said, when I say not confining them to their boxes, I what I’m seeing is, you know, when I think when I say we can find people to their boxes, right, like, I know, you I know you voted for and then this kind of, you know, very comprehensive assumption that we know a lot about them. Right. But when in fact,

Sarah Jones  16:46

We think we know everything. I’m like got it, done. 

KT  16:49

Right. And so what I’m saying is, I think, knowing that there is not just complexity, but contradiction in all of us. None of us like as this perfectly rational list of things we believe in, do that is, you know, coherent. And so to me, that means that there’s always and I really do believe this. I know, there are some people who are lost to the dark side, but I think for most people, if we could, we’re really good at shouting people down and, and kind of backing them into their corners. Where they actually do get smaller than they are. And I think I think to know that somebody is actually more complicated and contradicts themselves, suggests that there’s a space for us to coax them out into that complexity.

Sarah Jones 17:41

See, I think this kind of nuance, we don’t have time for it right now. Right? When I say we, the collective ADHD of you know, myself included, like this moment of the soundbite and TikTok, and you have this long to decide who someone is. And actually, I think it I wonder what you think about this, but there’s a kind of demand of political purity or just sort of purity? You know, you have to if you are this, then and what you’re talking about is the opposite that actually, every one of us, you know, we’re filled with contradictions, you can’t predict exactly who we’re all going to be based on who we voted for. 

That said, you know there is this question of like you said when people are backed into their corners and the worst of us really can come out. You know, I’m not a historian, but I remember reading about how in the Reagan era, he was a conservative president, and he really helped solidify this partnership, that made the evangelical church synonymous with with these key conservative political goals, like being anti-abortion and anti-queer– they didn’t even address the AIDS crisis. It just feels like a transactional thing that doesn’t feel connected to anything spiritual at all.

KT  19:05

Yeah. And it’s been you know, even when we have these you know, I really these checklists of you know, you associate someone in that religious camp, believing in all the, you know, all these things and, you know, even if just to take one example, inside evangelicalism, Even inside conservative evangelicalism, which is a big, big swath of people, you know, young evangelicals, for example, might be pro life. But they’re probably also ecological activists, right environmental activist. So it just doesn’t line up, right. And then, you know, if we can overcome our very unreasonable desire that people be simple, right? And we can just decide they’re one thing or the other and dismiss them, or call them our friend, then we could say, okay, you know, you believe this one thing that really feels, you know, can even feel harmful to my identity and harmful to our world. And yet, here’s this thing that we are both passionate about, that isn’t good for our world. Can we at least be in conversation or even some kind of partnership around that? And then, then, if you’re in relationship to somebody, and there’s just a general truth, a new possibility opens up.

Sarah Jones 20:12

Right? I think that when there’s a silly sounding expression, that when I’m pointing at you, there are three fingers pointing back at me. And I don’t think we can indict someone else without kind of, you know, a feeling inside a sense of I’m also bad and wrong, or I also have contradictions. And I feel like that drives our politics is just like a mudslinging. You know, I don’t know, if you experience in your work as that I’m especially interested in this lab for the Art of Living idea. Is there a political component? Does the lab for the Art of Living include getting souls to the polls, or getting

KT  20:45

souls to the polls! You know, I have this conversation with somebody the other night, who was telling me that I needed to be totally engaged in, you know, the election, and I, I’m just going to tell you what I what I said to him, I, I’m working on a different timeframe, myself in my work,

Sarah Jones 21:07

You mean you don’t think you save all of humanity and the entire history of the universe in the next couple of months Krista Tippett?

KT21:57

I actually, look, I know, we have a lot of important elections in our world this year. And in our country. I also do not think that one Tuesday in November, is the only day that is going to matter in terms of health as we turn out. And I know that there are a lot of people working on that electoral piece, and I’m kind of working I’m working on and I feel like what you’re doing here, we’re working on, who are we through this and beyond this, whatever happens on that Tuesday. So some of us have to be doing that work? You know, I just want to say also, I think just in terms of what you just said. There’s something that our brains do that is very interesting to me, that we tend to imagine, in the other group, whatever other we’re talking about, an incredible homogeneity, right and so and the other thing that happens through media is we also have a worst case exemplar of the other group. So we make this move, which is just natural. It’s just our creaturely nature, to associate everybody in that group with that one person. Right? We generalize and yet, we all know that if you ask us about our group, our extended circle of friends, the colleagues, we love our family members, our children, our parents. These are people with whom we may often disagree with whom loving them may often mean doing things, because we even though we don’t feel like it, you know, we’d rarely feel perfectly understood or perfectly understanding. And so, you know, and I think one thing that comes up when we have this conversation about how do we get out of our boxes is somebody will say, but you know, there’s real danger. And that’s true, right? This is this conversation you and I are having is not about stepping into danger, it’s also not putting about about thinking everybody should, should be that vulnerable person, right? Like there’s a place to, for some of us to put our bodies between, you know, in front of other bodies. I also want to insist and I know this is true that the number of you know, that we are fixated on we have a river we’ve a big imagination about that worst case exemplar and the people who truly are harmful, right? Toxic, lost? And then there’s a bigger space. There’s a bigger space than we imagine of people who also have some questions who also would be curious, and where there might be a really hard conversation to have, but there’s not enmity, right. So I just want us and I feel like that’s what you’re doing. I want us to step a little bit more boldly into that, towards that and just get curious about it, right?

Sarah Jones 24:03

Yes. All right. I have a friend who is going to do his best to ask his question, but he feels a little awkward. And I’m gonna let that be okay.

Rasheid  24:18

Yeah, what’s good Krista Tippett. First of all, I’m not really that NPR dude you know what I mean, but Sarah Jones introduced me to your work, to your TED Talk. And you was talking about, you know, to me, it seemed really important. Like, we have a negativity bias. You say in that in the talk, and don’t get me wrong, my interactions with cops will prove to you that it’s not in my brain, that danger is real. But at the same time– I ain’t gonna say dude’s name, but a real scary dude and first thing you think when you see this person is oh my God, I’m fired. Me with somebody bringing that energy and they the authority, it is hard to then be like, okay, but still, most of us out here is not that one dude. And, you know, we trying to, like, find some kind of safety inside. That’s what I’m saying. Like, I feel unsafe outside. And I didn’t realize that’s very connected to like, I didn’t have that place to feel safe inside and had that place to feel like okay, but it’s a lot of beautiful things happening out in the world. How do you, how do you help people, not just be doom scrolling? And be like, Yo, this hell is a countdown to hell, you know? I mean,

KT  25:25

I mean, I wish I had the power to stop people from doing scrolling. Right? I mean, this is kind

Rasheid 25:32

I see Sarah Jones put a phone down at like two o’clock in the morning after listening to your texts. So I’m not even gonna lie. So sometimes it’s powerful. You just need somebody to be like, Hey, you don’t got it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

KT  25:40

Well, you know, one thing I just invite people to do to get into this reality that there is this generative narrative, right, that, that there’s the story, there are the bad experiences, and they’re also the million terrible stories that confirm our sense that the world is a terrible place,

Rasheid 26:01

Right? We’re not going to spiritually bypass, like they say, we’re not going to get that happening.

KT  26:03

No, and that’s coming at us all the time. But I feel like if anybody, okay, that’s probably too big a statement, but I feel like most of us, if I just asked you to think about the people, you know, like you in your world, the really normal ordinary interactions that you have in the course of the day. There’s just a lot of goodness, there just is goodness, there. It is not a, you know, a total, it’s, I don’t I yeah, if you’re in the war zone, it’s a total picture of destruction. But even there, right, even in the worst place, I have to tell you, I’ve spent a day last week at SingSing prison with these men, you know, incredible men, incredible human beings. A lot of them been in this place for 10 or 20 years for something they did, or something they actually didn’t do, when they were 17 or 18 years old. I have rarely been in a conversation with a bunch of adult men who were more- who had done more work on themselves internally, who loved each other more. Like who took care of each other. Now, I know that there are a lot of minutes in their day when they’re not sitting in that school, part of the prison, where there are terrible things happening. But I feel like I can, you know, I can be confident even in making a blanket statement like that, that any of us can find a lot of goodness, if we look for it. And then what I’m just saying is let’s, let’s generalize more around that we can generalize around what is awful. Let’s stretch you know, let’s actually not default to our primitive brain which only wants to wants us to focus on threat. Right? And that’s, that’s not easy.

Sarah Jones 28:03

That’s a conscious I was gonna say, right, it’s it’s reps in the gym or in, in the lab, for the art of living. You might have to do your reps in the lab. And I think this idea that we have neuroplasticity, right? That was my I’m like America who hurt you but also, America, how do we heal how who healed you? Who’s healing me? We’re healing each other. And it isn’t this woowoo thing you really can sort of do reps of, I’m going to you know, we hear about gratitude lists or you know, making sure that we have a daily dose of something like what you put into the world. What are some of your suggestions for not all of us, you know, are willing to be proximate as Bryan Stevenson might put it and you know, get to SingSing, but what are the ways that we can engage in community maybe get outside our comfort zones so that we do you feel more empathy for quote unquote, the other? How do you help people? You know, make a beginning, as you say?

KT 38:57

Well, you know, you know, I love the the I love taking questions as friends. Right. And I and I actually think questions really are, you know, they’re kind of spiritual technology they can be we’ve kind of lost we think questions or things to be answered, but I’m talking about questions as ways we expand. So yeah, I mean, you know, Brian Stevens, just saying get proximate, get proximate, they didn’t just know what they needed to get proximate to it first. Right. So, I think I think we’re in a really overwhelming world right now, all of us and there’s a lot that we know about that we are powerless before. That’s the that’s a very new situation right.

Sarah Jones 29:51

How so? Because it’s interesting, you say it’s new for powerless, because I was thinking about-

KT  29:59

What’s new is the intimacy we have with what we’re perilous before. Right? It’s the pictures, the immediate can see it playing. You feel implicated, we are implicated. But we know more about that, but not in a way that actually allows us to touch it. Do you know this phrase, I’m in the military, there’s this phrase moral injury or get out of the military, right? Which is people who get implicated in something, they’ve done something or is or they, you know, they were forced to do something? Or even observe something that that that absolutely, that is abhorrent to them morally, that’s that defies their moral core. And I almost feel like to be alive right now. With everything that we see, and know, and it’s coming out at us constantly injustice and violence in the world that our species is enacting and that our governments are implicated in right? And to feel powerless it’s almost like moral injury is part of the human experience. Now, if you’re paying attention, I’m not going to be able to do anything about a lot of the things that are weighing on me today that are happening in the world. I think for each of us to stand reverently, before the question of what is my work to do, like, what can I see and touch? Where might I be proximate? Really take that, that question almost as a spiritual discipline, right, like as a companion? And also it’s not for a day or a week, right? Take it? 

Sarah Jones 31:36

Right, it’s for just November, right? It’s not just a Tuesday? 

KT31:40

it’s I mean, I would say for a year, I think a question that big, which is really about what is my calling in this time deserves discernment. We’re also like it as you know, we’re impatient, as you say, We want things to be quick, this is deep. And this needs a different kind of attention. So it’s countercultural. So it’s a bold move? Yes.

Sarah Jones 31:58

You’re making me think of, you know, if there’s moral injury, and that is so beautifully put, and I really don’t think any of us escape it, we may think we’re escaping it. But I believe there, I’ve heard it called soul loss, that you lose, you know, sort of this eroding of our souls. There’s also repair there, we can perform a kind of spiritual surgery on one another. I’ve had some of my most profound moments. You know, I live in LA now or back in New York, where I’m from catching a stranger’s eyes on the subway. And instead of looking away or thinking of them as an other, having this incredible tender moment, just locking eyes with someone and having an exchange of spirit. And, you know, I know that sounds naive, you’re not going to stop, you know, brutality and, you know, the Supreme Court doing whatever the hell it is it’s doing, you know, you can always lock eyes with Clarence Thomas, I don’t know if he would want to. The point is, I think we do have access to these moments you’re talking about and when we live in the question, as you say, that beautiful Rekha concept that you bring to us. Yeah, it I think the answer is needing to live in answers shuts us down, living in questions opens us up even in the face of the pain. Yeah.

KT 33:22

We actually waste a lot of time rushing to answers that are too quick, that are not that are not that are not deep enough. And then we walk down paths and we wreck things too quickly. And then we have to walk it back. Right? What you just described on the subway is the power that each of us has to make this phrase, make someone’s day. And equally, it’s really easy for us to break someone’s day. Think about you know, Ocean Vuong had this amazing conversation with him right after the pandemic was breaking, and we didn’t really know it yet. And he talked about how in his Vietnamese household, you know, they learned that you take off your shoes at the door because out of reverence and for the people and the place and he said, you know, what he works out is to try to take the shoes off his voice, so that he can be that presence that he wants to be. So I mean, talk about a spiritual discipline. Wow.

Sarah Jones 34:40

I am committing to taking the shoes off my words. Krista, all I can say is if I could do this with you every day, I would probably be a much healthier person. What do I want to say? And just there’s a part of me the very youngest part of me is so grateful for this soft you know, we live in such a kind of up armored time. So my inner little girl is saying more Krista, please.

KT 34:45

Oh, I feel so honored by this. I just love it. And I love you. And we will keep talking.

Sarah Jones 34:55

We will.

Rasheid 35:00

That got me emotional, locking eyes with strangers on the subway. I’m saying no, don’t try that with no cop. They definitely gon search your bag and break your day.

Bella  35:11

Yeah, I’m an atheist. But I’m also like a Libra with a Scorpio rising. So I’m totally here for like the ritual part and like, culture connecting people. It’s only when it’s like weaponized to like divide and conquer. 

Lorraine35:24

Well, Bella some people are always going to use religion the wrong way for power and control. The point is, no one religion is all good or all bad. And we all have our contradictions.

Nereida35:36

But I mean, it’s still not equal, when some people’s contradictions can destroy our whole democracy. Yes,

Lorraine  35:40

but you did hear Chris’s point. You can disagree with people, but still come together on the things we do agree about.

Sarah Jones 35:54

I think you’re both right. The balance of power in America feels more undemocratic than ever. And yet, it’s also true that Americans share more common ground than we’re taught to believe, even across religious backgrounds. In fact, a recent AP poll found only small variances between Republicans and Democrats on many of our most basic rights. So just imagine if the majority of us took our power back from the most extreme voices that benefit from polarizing us. And what if that could start with reclaiming our higher power, which brings me to this week’s prompt, and stay with me if this all sounds too woowoo. I know many of us don’t believe in a bearded guy in the sky type of God or spirituality. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a connection to an inner life. Like Krista mentioned, I’ve found it can be anything like anything at all, hugging your kids or spending time with your pet, walking in nature, or it could be a song that moves you to tears. Anything that helps you plug into inspiration and a sense of meaning beyond yourself, can give you a spiritual experience. That spirituality can be a resource, almost like a battery that recharges us and reminds us that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. And yes, even bigger than November. So if you’re up for it, I invite you to take a couple of slow deep breaths, put your hand on your heart and ask yourself, have you ever felt a connection to a higher power? Maybe it was swimming in the ocean as a kid or a really great yoga class? Or maybe you grew up with religion and there were beautiful connections that you can still feel. Now ask yourself, How can you imagine that same energy being helpful to you in your current life, maybe even being a source of strength or hope in difficult times? Now, if you’ve never felt a connection to a higher power, or if you’ve had negative experiences in the past with religion or spirituality, how can you start completely fresh? Imagine a whole new spiritual power as a resource for you. What kind of daily practices could you start to plug into some suggestions? Maybe journaling? Deep breathing first thing in the morning for a couple of minutes or hugging a tree? Not one you’re allergic to? Visit us on socials at yes I’m Sarah Jones if you want to share what came up for you with the prompt– and either way, I hope you go get your inner life.

America, Who Hurt You? was created by Sarah Jones and Sell/Buy/Date LLC. Remember to follow, rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. You can keep up with pod and share your prompt responses  at Yes-I’m-Sarah-Jones on Instagram and TikTok. 

America, Who Hurt You? is a collaboration of Foment Productions and The Meteor, made possible by the Pop Culture Collaborative. Our host is me, Sarah Jones, our producer is Kimberly Henry, with editorial support from Phil Surkis. Our executive producers are me and Cindi Leive. Our audio engineer is Shawn Tao Lee. Our Logo was designed by Bianca Alvarez, and our music is by Coma-Media.