March 8, 2023 • 54 mins
Welcome back to the Crown & Anchor, Greyhounds! In this episode Christian and Brett have a conversation with Diana Butler Bass.
Diana Butler Bass is an independent scholar with a specialty in American ecclesiastical history who writes on American religion and culture. She is the author of eleven books, many of which have won research or writing awards.
As an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most sought-after commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality, Dr. Butler Bass' work has appeared in many prominent publications and media outlets including: The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Atlantic, USA Today, Huffington Post, NPR, TIME, the Rolling Stone, and honestly, pretty much everywhere else too.
We have been fans of Dr. Bass' work for years, and were excited to learn that she was a fellow Ted Lasso fan when we read a Ted Lasso essay she published in her online newsletter, The Cottage. In this particular reflection she wrote about how her favorite character in Ted Lasso is the "Believe Sign," which is linked in the show notes on our website.
We chatted about hope, belief, community, found family, and whether it's possible to tape our beliefs back together after they are ripped apart. The conversation doesn't get too "churchy," but we do go deep on the inherent spirituality that manifests in a community with a shared meaning and purpose. It's a wonderful conversation, and we hope y'all enjoy the episode!
More extensive show notes can be found on our website: http://www.tedlassopod.com/diana-butler-bass-believe-sign-ted-lasso
Richmond Til We Die is an episode-by-episode conversation about the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso, where we explore the characters, their relationships to each other, and how they're able to make us laugh until we can hardly breathe one moment and then feel with the deepest parts of our hearts the next. When you're here, you're a greyhound.
Diana Butler Bass is an independent scholar with a specialty in American ecclesiastical history who writes on American religion and culture. She is the author of eleven books, many of which have won research or writing awards.
As an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most sought-after commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality, Dr. Butler Bass' work has appeared in many prominent publications and media outlets including: The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Atlantic, USA Today, Huffington Post, NPR, TIME, the Rolling Stone, and honestly, pretty much everywhere else too.
We have been fans of Dr. Bass' work for years, and were excited to learn that she was a fellow Ted Lasso fan when we read a Ted Lasso essay she published in her online newsletter, The Cottage. In this particular reflection she wrote about how her favorite character in Ted Lasso is the "Believe Sign," which is linked in the show notes on our website.
We chatted about hope, belief, community, found family, and whether it's possible to tape our beliefs back together after they are ripped apart. The conversation doesn't get too "churchy," but we do go deep on the inherent spirituality that manifests in a community with a shared meaning and purpose. It's a wonderful conversation, and we hope y'all enjoy the episode!
More extensive show notes can be found on our website: http://www.tedlassopod.com/diana-butler-bass-believe-sign-ted-lasso
Richmond Til We Die is an episode-by-episode conversation about the Apple TV+ show Ted Lasso, where we explore the characters, their relationships to each other, and how they're able to make us laugh until we can hardly breathe one moment and then feel with the deepest parts of our hearts the next. When you're here, you're a greyhound.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome back to the crown on anclGreyhounds. This is Richmond Till We Die,
a conversation about the Apple TV Plusshow ted Lasso, where we explore
the characters, their relationships to eachother, and how they're able to make
us laugh until we can hardly breatheone moment and then feel with the deepest
parts of our hearts the next.I'm Brett and my co host Christian and
(00:31):
I are so excited to welcome doctorDiana Butler Bass for a conversation on this
special bonus episode. Diana Butler Bassis an independent scholar who writes on American
religion and culture. She is theauthor of eleven books, many of which
have won research or writing awards.Diana Butler Bass earned a PhD in Religious
Studies from Duke University in nineteen ninetyone, with an emphasis on American ecclesiastical
(00:55):
history, meaning she studies the historyof the church in America. As an
award winning author, popular speaker,inspiring preacher, and one of America's most
trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality, Diana Butler Bass has been sought out
for contributions from many prominent publications andmedia outlets including The New York Times,
The Washington Post, CNN, TheAtlantic, USA Today, Huffington Post,
(01:19):
Readers, Digest, Christian Century,and Sojourners. Her work has also appeared
an outlets such as CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, Fox, Time,
Newsweek, The Rolling Stone, andmultiple global news outlets. She has
written everywhere. Each of us onthe Richmond Till We Die team has appreciated
her work for years, and wewere excited when we read a ted Lasso
(01:42):
essay that she published in her onlinenewsletter called The Cottage. In this particular
reflection, she wrote about how herfavorite character in ted Lasso is the Believe
Sign, and if you haven't readit, you should definitely pause the podcast
right now and go check it out. The link to the essay is in
the episode description. This conversation isdeep and rich and so much fun.
(02:04):
We talk about hope and belief,community, found family, and the ways
that we try to put hope orbelief back together once it's been torn apart.
And I think it's a great wayfor us to wrap up our conversations
about season two as we look aheadto season three and so Greyhounds, everybody
give a warm Welcome to doctor DianaButler Bess who thanks for being with us,
(02:30):
Doctor Bess, Well, thank youfor having me. I'm excited about
this. This is a little bitof a different experience for us because now
that we've been at this for abouta year, a lot of the folks
that we interact with have been tedLasso fans for a while and have been
enthusiastic for a long time, andso it was fun to see you discover
the show via Twitter and so like. At this point, as the show
(02:53):
has been out for a couple ofyears. What finally brought you in and
what kept you in once you startedwatching. Well, it's, you know,
kind of funny because I was introducedto the show through Twitter. You
know. I started noticing that alot of people who follow me would be
talking about this thing called ted Lasso, and I had no idea what they
(03:13):
were talking about. But then Idiscovered it was on Apple TV. And
I'm kind of a cheap skate andso putting on all these different streaming services,
I just thought, oh, I'mgoing to skip it. I don't
need another streaming service and more distractionto my life. But my daughter,
who's twenty four and started watching it, and she is both a huge football
(03:38):
fan, she's a Tottenham Spurs fans, and she also loves Mumford and Sons,
and so she started talking about thisshow and she said, Mom and
Dad, you gotta watch it.You gotta watch it. So finally we
just sort of gave in, andby the end of the first episode I
was completely one of her. SoI wound up watching the two seasons basically
(04:05):
in like four days. That's apretty quick pas what's the last show?
What's the last show you binged?Before you binged to the last? Though?
Like, are you a binger ingeneral or was this out of character?
I am kind of a binger,but most of my binges have to
do with murder, so so Ikind of had moved during the pandemic to
(04:29):
sort of those darker shows, lotsof thrillers things like that. And my
husband is like, oh my gosh, don't are you watching another murder show.
You are just such a stereotype.And so so it was good to
binge something that I had nothing todo with blood and gore. It sounds
(04:49):
like you and our co host Marissawould be, you know, kindred spirits
in that respect, because every nightfrom about you know, ten pm until
we follow sleep it is. It'ssome murder show, typically a British or
Australian like cereal like murder type ofshow. And yeah it's um, you
know, it's great stuff to fallasleep too. Yeah, that's what it
(05:11):
would have been for me. Thatwould I think the fall was probably the
last thing I've banished before Ted lastnight. Have you done some of the
more quirky ones like Agatha Raisin andthings like that that are like BBC shows?
And no, I haven't. I'llhave to do that. I recommend
that one. That's one that Ido enjoy watching alongside her, though those
aren't really my bag. So sinceyou made this transition for murder shows to
(05:32):
a less murdery show, at whatpoint did you know, like, oh,
I am totally here for Ted Lassoand I am not going to be
able to stop watching the show.Well, I have to confess it made
me happy crazy, That's just thatwas what kind of got it. I
kind of felt sorry for Ted,you know, just seeing the outsider nous
(05:56):
and you know, here's this guywho's who has been brought into the situation
where he's clearly over his head,So I had all this sort of kind
of mom sympathy I think, towardshim. But then I did I just
after I watched the first episode ortwo, it made me happy, and
I thought, well, that's akind of an odd feeling after the last
(06:16):
couple of years of everything we've beenthrough. So I liked the I like
the way it made me felt andfeel, and so I just kind of
kept with it and found myself goingmore and more towards that direction, you
know, just rooting for these charactersand in effect kind of rooting for myself
(06:38):
by rooting for them. You lovedthis so much, and you were so
invested in it that you then wroteabout it right after you had watched the
show, and you took the approachof talking about the Beliefs sign as a
character, which was fascinating, andthat got me thinking, and then like
going back through the show and thinkingabout where the belief sign shows up and
(07:00):
how people interact with it, andhow even it's like unleashed, I guess,
as a tool for action. Andso what I realized was it's not
always positive. Like there are timeswhere Isaac brings the crew around and everybody
touches the sign. Ted obviously putsit up to elicit positive reactions from people,
(07:23):
but I'm interested in getting your thoughtsand feelings on some of the ways
in which the belief sign is utilizedat moments of doubt and weakness and vulnerability.
So we can take them all atonce, or we can walk through
them. But there's the scene whereTed is talking to Nat and Beard and
he's frantically searching his house for abelief sign, and you hear is like
(07:46):
footsteps go upstairs and downstairs, andNate's like as he does all the time,
and it's like, oh yeah,he's got these things stashed all over
the place and he grasped for ina moment of desperation. You have Roy
by himself in the locker room kindof moment of acquiescence, like acquiescing to
belief and gently touching the sign.And then you have Ted commedially speculatively pointing
(08:09):
to the sign after he and Jamietalked to Roy, and Ted's kind of
confused as to the advice that Roygave Jamie and just like, believe sign,
I don't know by and gets outof the room. What are your
like feelings or reflections on belief whenit's not simply something that we like hold
on to and that powers us rightaway. I actually love the way that
(08:30):
the belief sign is used throughout thewhole show, And at first it kind
of fits with, in effect,the thing that roped me in. You
know, it's like, oh,this show is positive, and these people
are nice characters, and they havevalues that you don't typically see on television
shows, and so I liked allof that, and having that belief sign
(08:54):
there just seemed like, wow,you know, here's a TV show that
cares about something I care about,you know, since I study theology and
church history. So first it justkind of seems like a sort of a
positive signal, almost like an iconor a Bible verse poster kind of hanging
in the back. But then yourealize that the belief sign is functioning to
(09:22):
raise all kinds of questions about whodo we believe, what do we believe?
Is belief more than just kind ofa feel good slogan or is it
almost like a challenge or what's itdoing there? And it is in those
(09:43):
moments that you mentioned. There arelots of interesting moments where people touch the
sign or people specifically point to thesign, or people reference the sign,
but sometimes the sign is simply inthe frame of the shot. Yeah,
I went back and I watched Wewatched a whole bunch of the series this
(10:03):
week, knowing how it's going tobe on with you guys, and it
was striking to me how often thecameraman takes the choice of backing up to
have that sign in just the picturewhen there's no reference to the sign at
all, but it's just behind thecharacters. And it's not accidental, you
(10:24):
know, there are no accidents inthose kinds of visual framings. So it's
it's often there when it's not eventhere as it were, And so that
means it's important, and that meansit's actually part of the narrative of the
whole show, and that the questionsit raises and sort of the angularity that
(10:48):
it creates at different moments, Ithink are intentional and key to the writers
getting their points us and also Ithink to help us understand some of the
deeper dilemmas about you know, maybeoptimism and difficult times about who we are,
(11:11):
you know, what is worthy ofbelieving. All all these kinds of
issues get raised well, I lovethat you direct our attention to even just
the visual aspects and the representation ofthe sign, because you're right, like,
thinking back, there are so manytimes where there's a speech or there's
just a scene playing out, andlike it's just right there. And due
to the very hand crafted feeling ofthis show, the nature of the show,
(11:35):
we have to believe that nothing isaccidental enough. The belief sign is
there, it has meaning, andso I just love that you you point
us there and then you talk aboutlike how it's complicated, and Ted himself
even complicates it a little bit.I think when in the in the final
episode of season one, the Hopethat Kills You, he they tell Ted,
you know, it's the hope thatkills you, and he kind of
(11:56):
riffs off that quote and he saysat one point that I believe in hope
and I believe in belief. Andso how do you make a distinction in
those areas between hope and belief oris there a distinction or how are they
related? I guess to you,Yeah, I think that one of the
major themes of the first season isthe nature of belief. And the scene
(12:18):
that Christian points out with Ted runningall over the house looking for the belief
sign. It is sort of acrystallization of that question about belief. And
the way that I can explain thisis years ago when I was in a
really difficult place. I think Iwas probably in my thirties, and I
(12:41):
was having a lot of trouble withdepression and anxiety, which is another reason
I actually love this show. I'vehad anxiety trouble, with anxiety attacks through
my whole life, and so anyway, I was having all this trouble with
these aspects of mental wellness, andI got a little Celtic cross that I
(13:03):
used to wear and I would holdit anytime I was like having an anxiety
attack. And some of the worstanxiety attacks I had this is a terrible
thing for my life, or whenI was in church, or when I
was at airports, and so beinga person who travels to speak in churches,
(13:24):
it became quite difficult to manage myown life. It's rather like a
soccer coach, you know, notbeing having an anxiety attacks on the field.
And so this little cross that Iwore around my neck, it,
you know, frequently I would youwould see me playing with it, or
i'd hold it when there was alot of turbulence and airplanes. So I
(13:46):
was going through an airport one time, and I was feeling very nervous,
and I reached up and to lookfor the cross, and it had fallen
off. It was just gone.I have no idea. It's somewhere in
that whatever airport that was, Ithink it was Dallas, And so I
had to get on a plane withoutthe cross. And when I saw that
scene with Ted running around the houselooking for the belief sign, it was
(14:09):
like me running around the airport lookingfor my cross. There was something,
there was something about it that Ihad to have that token and I had
to be able to see it andfeel it and touch it, and if
I didn't, then there was someabsence of In my case, it's some
absence of comfort, some absence oftrust, perhaps an absence of belief,
(14:31):
because I couldn't. The thing nolonger head shape. And so I think
that for Ted in that scene,what happens is it reveals that the belief
sign is a little bit like that. Right. It's become almost like a
little bit of an idol, asit were, that it has to be
present in order for belief to bepresent, and so that franticness of that
(14:56):
search is like oh oh, andthen it's like, oh, I found
it. And then you get thesort of moment where they say, oh
it's you know, it's in hisbathroom sign. So it's the first in
his bathroom mirror, and it's thefirst thing he sees when he wakes up
in the morning, and and thatbecomes It means that belief in effect in
(15:18):
that first season is a little bitmore. It becomes almost like a talisman.
It becomes almost like magic rather thanreal belief. It's almost like it
becomes the way I guess I've seenit play out in real life outside of
the show, is belief becomes aword or a concept that's used to kind
of like that can be used tostrong arm people into certainty, as opposed
(15:43):
to what you're talking about, whichis like belief as a transformational practice.
You've written a book about gratefulness askind of a similar transformational practice. I
guess do you think there's an overlapbetween those two ideas, Like when we
actively cultivate a posture of gratitude,then something else is going on as well.
(16:10):
Yes, I actually think that weuse a lot of things in our
culture. This kind of way isthat we turn what are truly rich practices
that make our lives deeper and betterand in effect more complex, we often
turn those things into these kinds ofmagic mantras. And so if you just
(16:32):
say you believe enough, if youjust say hope enough, I mean,
that was like the whole problem andthe irony in some ways of the Obama
presidency. I loved President Obama,but in effect he became that hope sign.
Yeah, And what was I thinkhappening the whole time he was president
was there was this sort of ironyabout hope is so much more than a
(16:56):
sign. And so that's true forgratitude. And I have written a book
called Grateful. You know, somepeople literally think that if you just say
thank you, thank you, thankyou, thank you, thank you,
that in effect, that that mantrawill change all the bad situations in your
life. But the reality of gratitudeis you really have to practice it,
(17:19):
and that that that practice has tochange you. I love how you bring
up again the physical and the visualnature of the sign. And I love
that scene where Ted runs and likegrabs the belief sign and shows it to
Nate especially because it was right afterNate says something to Ted like it's impossible.
But in your essay that we mentionedearlier, you talked about the connective
tissue that is between these ideas ofbelief and belove, and you brought in
(17:45):
some of the work of the latescholar Marcus Borg, And in the closing
paragraphs you talk about how the showexplores the theme of belief through the relationships
between the characters and this sort ofaspirational nature of what belief can mean when
it's in that context of a relationshipbetween people. So what are some of
your favorite instances in the show wherebelieve functions that way. I think it's
(18:07):
it's helpful to sort of clear theoryof the error a little bit about what
the word believe means. And soin my essay, one of the things
that I talk about is to quoteMarcus Borg, and he makes the point
that believe is not just simply asort of a word where we have to,
you know, press into I'm goingto believe this thing and I'm going
(18:30):
to make it true, or I'mgoing to believe something that's impossible to believe,
which sometimes it seems like that's whatthey're saying, I think on Ted
Lasso, But the actual root ofthe word believe is related to the word
belove, and so believe also meansthe things that we trust, or the
things that we're devoted to, orthe things that we love that we hold
(18:52):
in that kind of esteem. Andso in that sense, belief isn't just
sort of coming up some sort ofemotional ability to be able to embrace what
is impossible. Um, you know, I'm going to believe ten impossible things
before breakfast sort of thing and puttingour our whole, you know, kind
(19:15):
of intellectual life aside and say,Okay, I'm going to believe in this
fairytale or what have you. Butbut that believe actually takes takes work.
And so we're talking about that visav practice, you know, a couple
of minutes ago. So I thinkthat what happens with Ted is that sometimes
(19:36):
when he's talking to other people aboutbelief, he's he's learning that about believing
himself, you know, because becausethe interesting threat, of course, is
that through the whole that his lifeis falling apart. I mean, he
may have believed that he and hiswife are going to be together forever or
he may have believed that he wasa great spouse or that he was the
(19:59):
best father that was ever created,but the truth of the matter was is
that something happened there where no amountof belief about the situation regarding his marriage
was going to save it. Andso I think that's why we start getting
this kind of level of desperation withthe Belief sign. It's a little like
me running through the airport looking formy Celtic cross because somehow, if I
(20:23):
just hold onto this thing, it'sgoing to fix everything. And so I
think what's happening in the show isthat the whole nature of belief is actually
changing as we're going through it,and that Ted himself is growing visa v
belief. A quick follow up onthat, we talked a few times already
(20:45):
about how Ted runs to grab thelittle sticky note that says believe, and
Nate is present for that, sohe you know, this is another demonstration
of how important this idea, thistalisman, as you called it, how
important it is to Ted. Soit makes it all that much more sad
and poignant when Nate makes the decisionto rip the sign and leave it on
Ted's desk at the end of seasontwo, do you think can this perspective
(21:07):
of believe that you've shared or articulated, do you think that that can be
mended after being broken or betrayed?And what might that look like generally?
Well, that's the feeling that youknow, I was left with at the
end of the second season. It'slike, oh my gosh, you know,
where do you go from here?And that this thread stretches through both
seasons I think is really um,you know, compelling, because it isn't
(21:30):
just that you know, Ted atthe end says, I believe, I
believe, you know, I believein hope. So there's that I believe
in belief piece. I often amthinking about the scene where they lift the
curse and there's you know, they'rethey're standing around and they're putting all of
(21:51):
this stuff in the garbage that they'regoing to burn, and it reminded me,
actually, are so many friends ofmine who were like evangelical back and
college. You know, you wouldtake something that you loved and you would
burn it as a way of sortof showing that you really had this particular
kind of new faith, and that'swhat it was. It was remarkably by
(22:15):
Britney Spear CDs. That's right.It was a rocket usually rocket roll records
when I was in college. Butyou took something that you loved and you
put it on the fire, andit was sort of a way of proving
your allegiance. And it's somewhere inthe course of that episode that Ted actually
says that he is, by naturea believer, and so I think in
(22:37):
the first season, you know,he's acting out of that a lot,
his nature as a believer. Butthen by the time you get the end
of the first season, you're kindof questioning, We'll wait a second,
what kind of believer are you?And I as I think the whole thing
with a desperation with the talisman ofthe Sign is a little bit of Ted's
(22:59):
faiths starting to fall apart, justas some of the people around him seem
to be. You know, theystart to believe in themselves a little bit
more, and maybe they're believing inthe community, and they're believing in the
team, and they're believing that thingscan happen that they didn't know could happen.
And so Ted is beginning to,I think, question his belief and
(23:22):
the end of the second season,I don't think can't be separated from the
first episode in the second season,and I love it. It's really kind
of funny and painful. You knowthat they've had whatever it is, six
or seven ties and they haven't wona game yet, and so it looks
like they might actually be able tofinally win this game. And Nate's first
(23:48):
first really words in the second seasonart isn't okay if I pray? And
then Ted turns to Nate and says, well, to which God and in
which language? Which? Which?Is a great question? And then of
course, you know, the doggets killed, so four earl. You
(24:11):
know, it goes down with itwith Danny's kick, And I think the
first time I watched it, Iwas just so horrified, like, oh
my god, that dog is gonnaget killed, that I didn't stop and
really think about it. But youknow, so much contemporary sort of snarky
literature, dog is a stand infor God, and so in effect,
(24:36):
what happens in the first episode isGod dies, and I just went,
oh my gosh, it's about thedeath of God. It's about the death
of one kind of belief. Andthat's exactly what happens in the second season.
Is that that particular really optimistic talismankind of belief that actually dies,
(24:57):
that dies in the second season.Yeah, and there's I think that's why
a lot of people struggle with thesecond season. They don't really like it
as much, because it is reallyis cheerful at all. We tend to
agree, right, but because it'sabout the death. I think it's about
the death of dog. Yeah,you know. And so so you ask
(25:22):
about the sign, it's like,well, after faith dies, after belief
dies, where do you go fromthere? Right? And so I'm sort
of hanging on the edge of myseat because I'm not sure where the writers
will go with that, except theonly possibility is an entirely different kind of
belief. There's this dance that's goingon, and it's one that like you're
(25:51):
particularly well suited to comments about becauseyou have all of this work that you've
done in church history, but you'reable to apply what you've studied to the
press and kind of look towards thefuture and look at like trends in religion
and spirituality. And so in seasontwo, like you have this death of
belief, this death of God.But then at the same time, like
(26:11):
the dance is happening in some sacredspaces, and also a negotiation of what
is a sacred space and whatnot.Is the euro shop is the kebab shop
a sacred space? But then wedo go into the church for the funeral,
We do go into an actual churchbuilding in beard after dark. And
what I noticed is that like whenpeople go into those spaces, nobody's comfortable,
(26:36):
like because they don't have the rightthings to wear, because they haven't
been there for a long time,Like maybe something has happened that makes them
uncomfortable in those spaces, and yettransformation still happens in those spaces. So
what is it about like old buildings, churches, places that have been used
for worship that can be transformational evenif we have a lot of walls up
(26:59):
around institutional worship. I think that'sa really great question because they are awkward,
and there's a way of reading alot into that, and I think
that, you know, that's thekind of thing that I love to do
since it's my work. But there'sanother way of just saying that they're uncomfortable
because they're English. Oh you know, the truth of it is is that
(27:22):
the Church of England has been indecline for a really long time, and
the English are particularly awkward when itcomes to religion in the twenty first century.
And so it's interesting to me that, you know, they're just these
are people who have lived inside ofa society for a really few decades,
even a couple of generations now thatis mostly post religious. And so,
(27:45):
I mean, so Ted comes inwith this kind of awkward Kansas, a
shock talisman, magic hopefulness kind ofthing, and he runs into all of
these really cynical post religious English peoplewho don't even know how to act in
a church, and a matter offact, they wind up just Rick rolling
a funeral and gloriously and it's wonderful. And you know, I like theologically,
(28:11):
I think the Holy Spirit actually showsup right in that moment. So
I think the awkwardness is right aroundthat. You know, it's like,
well, what do we postmodern,post religious people do with categories around belief
and categories around dog? You know, as it were, So you know,
what do you do about categories arounddog when you can't even, you
(28:33):
know, really in public in Englandsay the word God? Yeah, I
mean that that's that's problematic. Andso it's interesting that church becomes I think
in the show, you know,it's such a physical space of awkwardness.
So with Beard, he goes inthe church, he does have some sort
of experience there, even though hefeels really awkward about it, right,
(28:56):
he knows what to do. Yeah, yeah, he prays, he you
know, he knows where to sit. Um. You know, he clearly
thinks it's pretty, you know,and it's also a place of safety in
certain regards vis a vis raining,and it's awful outside and all this sort
of stuff. So so I thinkthat that is some of the good of
(29:18):
church. But then once he's there, what's really funny is that the church
is really just sort of a youknow, it's a gateway to a club,
and so so I think that there'sa I looked at that scene over
and over and over again. Ithink that's really interesting. You know,
It's like there's church in this reallyconventional way, but then there's also something
(29:44):
else, a different kind of community, a different kind of music, a
different kind of way of reconnecting,a different sort of relational space in the
basement, as it were. Andso so I kind of wondered, you
know, where is that just kindof a riff when saying what happens upstairs
is bad and what is downstairs isthe real thing? Or is it just
(30:07):
kind of an amusing way to thisguy's a club, you know. So
I don't know how deep. Idon't know how deep it was, but
it certainly is provocative. It sortof ties into your book Freeing Jesus.
In that book you write about bothwhy and how so many people who have
(30:30):
left organized religion behind they still holdon to their faith. So, you
know the challenge of like distilling anentire book and all of your work down
to one thought, but like,what is an interesting reality or trend you
discovered about that interplay between organized religionand spirituality while you were working on that
book. Yeah, it's fun totalk to you all because I mean,
(30:52):
I have written a lot over thelast decade about shifts around spirituality, shifts
around theology, you know, howpeople can possibly have a life of faith.
But in some ways I think thatthe work that I did in a
book called Christianity After Religion is sortof most relevant to Ted Lasso. And
(31:17):
the reason why I think it's themost relevant work is because there's a whole,
the whole middle section of Christianity afterReligion is about the nature of belief.
And the brief story about that bookis the point that I make regarding
believe. And I think this iswhy I get so excited about the Sign,
(31:37):
is that in the old world,the world of that conventional church,
you know, the Church of England, the church that everybody is so uncomfortable
in in the second season, thatold world used to say something like,
believe these things, and you area Christian, you know, believe this
creed and then you are a partof this community. You're a member here,
(31:59):
you can count. And in Christianityafter Religion, one of the things
that I point out is that belonging, being part of a community, being
accepted comes first in the twenty firstcentury, and belief flows out of community.
(32:22):
So instead of believing first and thenbeing a member of a church,
what I think has happened in Westernculture, and this includes England and the
United States and pretty much anywhere whereChristianity used to be really strong like this,
is that what we now move towardsis finding spaces where we're accepted,
(32:43):
spaces where we can be ourselves,spaces where we find friends. And so
Higgins makes the comment in the Christmasepisode that along the way, we have
the family we're born into, andwe have the family we make, and
in effect, in the twenty firstcentury, it's the families we make that
become the locus of what we believeto be true about the nature of the
(33:08):
universe. And so I think thatthat's what's happening in this you know,
the belief sign just hanging there islike there's the belief of the old world
that said, you know, justbelieve these kinds of things, you're going
to be accepted. Believe this andyour life will be perfect. Believe this
and you're going to go to heaven. But all of that falls apart,
(33:29):
and instead what is what is happeningis that there's this community that is being
formed, a community of people whoknow what it means to believe in themselves,
who know what knows what it meansto believe in one another, and
who know what it means to believein a sort of a you know,
a common passion or a common hopefor the world, in this case winning
(33:52):
you know, a game. Andso it's out of that community, I
think that new dimensions of belief arebeing born, and that the sign is
actually shifting its meaning. And somaybe maybe Nathan, I mean Nathan,
he's so mad about it, butmaybe that sign needs to be ripped up
at the end of the second season. Maybe that's like we hear people now
(34:15):
talk about how they're deconstructing their faith. Maybe the ripping of the belief sign
is about someone just saying, youknow, no, this just doesn't this
just doesn't work right, and sothey're in effect, you know, deconstructing
belief. But but I think thatin Nates in case, he's also you
(34:37):
know, sort of doing it asan act of violence against the community that
he feels has betrayed him. Yeah, so it's it's really incredible. I'm
an interesting kind of tie into whatyou're talking about about a space where people
belong is really like in soccer community, football community, and we do see
there's kind of that spiritual imagery whenthe guy from the pub are allowed into
(35:01):
the soccer stadium, like when it'sclosed and they get in and they almost
sat like they have this religious spiritualexperience there, like frolicking in the grass,
and it reminds me of the PortlandTimbers, the soccer team there,
their supporters, the Timbers Army.They have this mantra that is, if
you want to be Timbers Army,you are. And so it's like you're
saying the first you know, ideally, like the first statement that's being made
(35:24):
is you belong here. And thenfrom there you learn the songs, you
learn the ethos, you get,as soccer parlance would say, like stuck
in. And that's probably why alot of times people consider their supporters group
in football like their church community,because it's functioning like you're saying, come
(35:45):
be and then let's figure out howto be together. Yeah. Yeah,
And there are a couple lots ofdifferent places in the show that function in
that way. The pitch functions inthat way. Yes, I hadn't thought
about that scene where the three guysgo up on the field and it's just
like completely joyous and uh. Andit's in that joy that you know clearly
(36:07):
something is happening to them. That'sthat's pretty exciting. And so but the
pub is that way, yes,um, pastor may yeah, And so
that's a space where people are makingcommunity and where um levels of belief and
hope and all those things are changing. And the other thing is the therapist's
(36:29):
office. M Yeah, I thinkthe therapist's office and the and all the
comfort that people have in the therapistoffice versus the uncomfortableness in the church,
Yeah, is pretty interesting. Andin the juxtaposition, I guess of like
Ted, the person who would probablybe most comfortable in the church, being
totally uncomfortable in the therapist's office,like just can't even for a while.
(36:52):
Yeah, And that's the I'm stillsort of playing with this this boy idea
about the death of God in thesecond season. And what I think is
fascinating is that when Nathan says,is it okay if I pray? And
Ted says, well, it dependson what God and in what language?
(37:13):
And I thought, I thought,what a weird thing to say, Why
does he say that? But thenyou meet the therapist later in that question
later in that episode, and she'sa she's a black woman, and she
speaks a different language to everyone whocomes into her office. She speaks Spanish,
to Danny, she speaks French.And it's like, oh my gosh,
(37:35):
you know, so which God?And I have tons of friends who
are who are black women, whoare theologians, and so they're always arguing
that, you know, God shouldbe seen as a as a black woman.
And so you get this black womanwho comes into the scene and what
is she doing? But she's speakingdifferent languages and it's like, oh,
my gosh, are they really seriously? Could could anybody who's a writer or
(38:00):
have any idea that? And shebecomes a godlike figure. Yeah, you
know, she sits above the pitchand she watches and and it's like,
oh, I wonder if they're tryingto do something with that, you know,
make that point that somehow her officeand that relationship is becoming so the
(38:22):
location the new location for where beliefis being redefined. Yeah, because we
see characters like Colin whose renewed beliefin himself, you know, that self
confidence, to put another way,like allows his relationships to improve with other
people too and his relationship with himself, both which are both of which are
(38:42):
very important things to do. Andso yeah, I think I think you're
onto something there. Definitely. Iwant to go back a little bit to
the points you were making about communityand how belief functions in that way,
and you know what you were talkingabout christian and how your found family something
that Higgins mentions, you know,that's that's a big, a big part
of season two and a big partof our culture in the twenty first century.
(39:02):
How that helps define and shape yourbeliefs. You have an essay titled
how to Heal Our Divides and whichyou talk a little bit on the subject
title Healing Divides. I'm curious abouttwo things. One is like, obviously
how unifying ted Lasso has been andwhy do you think that's the case.
And then maybe also comment on how, you know, as we find these
families and we forge these beliefs,like how we can avoid becoming too cliquish
(39:27):
or then becoming exclusive in a differentway. Yeah, well, you know,
I think that ted Lasso, youknow, first of all, is
I think that on the simplest levelis that we all want something that's happy
right now. Yeah, and thatjust having a space to breathe. And
then also, you know, maybethere is some magic in a sense that
(39:50):
the belief sign does perform because everybodyis so not just only exhausted and angry
all the time, but cynicism isis really sort of just very strong across
our whole culture, and the ideathat somebody can walk into a room and
hang up a believe sign and beperfectly sincere about it. Is like we're
(40:13):
rooting for him, and does thatmean that there's something there that we're really
all rooting for in ourselves? Youknow, maybe we all want to move
past the sort of the the influencerculture and the egoism of you know,
celebrity, and the sort of thenastiness of all of the division, and
(40:34):
so that the just the gentle suggestionthat there's something helpful and something sort of
Kansas yea all of us, youknow, is refreshing, you know,
I think in the twenty first century. And so in a sense, I
think there's that we move towards thosepieces of our own soul where we know
(40:58):
we've been empty. So we findsomething in that longing and all of a
sudden you look across the table andit's other people there who like this too
and who are seeing these short falls. So I think that that's really very
powerful. And the second piece ofyour question, I don't really kind of
(41:19):
I mean, this is just throwthe way you phrase it, and just
kind of occurred to me while wewere here together. Is that maybe another
part of the show that people findcompelling is that the community that's being created
on ted Lasso is really a communityof outsiders and a community of people who
(41:39):
are incredibly diverse. And so youhave everybody feels like they're not loved.
Everybody feels like, you know,their parents treat them poorly, except maybe
maybe Keily. I mean I thinkthere's probably she seems fairly self assured in
certain ways that prepared everybody else.And everybody has these you know, sort
(42:00):
of secrets that they feel like,you know, I have disconnected them from
other human beings. And so everyone'slike an outsider. And then you get
the team and look at what youknow. They're from all over the place.
You know that. I mean there'sno there's no real common language,
there's no real common culture, there'sno common experience. I mean, they're
(42:22):
all this incredibly diverse group. Um. And so the question is how do
you become How do you make communitywith outsiders? And how do you make
community among people who don't fundamentally sharealmost anything except this except this game.
But Ted doesn't share the game.He doesn't know anything about the game,
(42:43):
and he comes in he has tobe the be in charge. So so
I love these questions. You know, how do you make community from these
disparate elements, and maybe that's thequestion we're all asking right now. Yeah,
And in the essay how to Healour Divides, you talk about we
need to heal our divides so thatwe can heal ourselves, and I typically
(43:07):
like apply those things the other wayaround. So, Okay, I need
to get right so that I canwhatever, I love other people better,
or stop beeping with people or justlike be I guess content in the spaces
that I'm in, which has beenhard because kind of as a philosophical minority,
like I just think differently than alot of people in the spaces that
(43:30):
I operate, and so I thinknow late late pandemic, it's been like,
Okay, we have to get throughthis so I can get right,
so I can be better with people. But you've sort of like flipped that
or maybe it's cyclical, but ina society that's trying to be spiritual but
that doesn't operate with organized religion asa bedrock. Can you think of places
(43:52):
outside of the examples we see inted Lasso where people can go to find
this I guess like unification communally andthen personal healing. I don't think we
have a whole lot. And Ithink that that's why a show like this
actually has so much energy behind it, is that people are looking at that
(44:14):
and thinking, gosh, I wishI was part of a community like that
in some ways. One of theepisodes that I found myself most envious was
the Christmas episode when everybody is sittingaround table essentially, you know, and
from you know, the perspective whichI do my work. I literally saw
that as Eucharist, you know,It's like the Lord's Supper, like this
(44:37):
amazing welcome communion where everyone's sitting aroundthe table passing food that creates bonds of
love, even deeper bonds of loveand welcome and hospitality and all that kind
of thing. And so I thinkthat right now we're really at a lap
of spaces like that, And isit our fault? I don't know.
(45:00):
I certainly see the places in myown heart where I'm quick to judge and
not necessarily quite as curious as Ishould be, you know, about other
about other people. Is you know, when an opportunity to be in community
presents itself, I think, well, do I want to be there as
it's safe, you know? Ordo I want to be there why I
(45:22):
can't hang around with Republicans, Ohmy gosh, you know, or what
if that person says something on Twitterand they get canceled, will I get
canceled because I've seen hanging around withthem? And so literally, we have
an entire culture that's built on divisionand judgment, and yet I think that
all of us really want the table, and so the table doesn't exist right
(45:43):
now. Yeah. One of theone of the places of division in the
Tlasso community is, you know,should Apple release entire seasons at once or
should they do like the weekly thing? And my argument for them releasing episodes
week by week was that it wasreally fun to have a week where,
like the ted Lasso community would comeonline on Twitter and sort of like bond
(46:07):
over this one thing in a waythat's different from auto shows. Like I
remember people going online to talk aboutGame of Thrones, but it was really
to like complain about it for aweek, and so like with ted Lasso,
it was to sort of like soakin it, I guess for a
week. So like maybe te Lassois functioning as one of those you know,
spaces where people can hang out together. I guess. I don't know,
(46:29):
but we'll see, we'll see whatyour thoughts are. Maybe after you
watch season three, if you chooseto like watch the Trickle, or if
you wait to binge the whole thingagain. Oh I will. I will
watch the Trickle this next time becauseI want to be part of the conversation,
you know. And I really,you know, I think they are
trying to say stuff about all ofthese things. Yeah, you know,
(46:51):
about community, about what it meansto really make family, about how we
can come back together, what healingis, you know, our longings to
believe in something that is meaningful andbeautiful and gives us a deep sense of
purpose in the universe. You know. I think sometimes one of the funnier
(47:13):
scenes, I don't remember exactly whereit was, but Ted and Rebecca are
talking and he said, oh gosh, you're looking at me the way someone
looked at me when I was wearinga red hat and walked into a planned
parent a road Facebook app and walkedto a planet Farrenhoad beating. And I
thought to myself, you know,isn't that us all right now? You
(47:34):
know? We always feel like,oh my gosh, what am I going
to say here? I'm going towear the wrong thing, and I'm going
to walk into a room and everyone'sgoing to reject me. And yet Ted
Lasso is moving the other direction andsaying, no, you're going to walk
into this room and you're going tofeel rejected, but believe us. We're
going to make something here and you'regoing to find what you can trust,
(47:57):
which you can be devoted to,and what you cat what and who you
beloved by being together. And that'sa that's powerful. I wish all churches
when I go there, um maybejust in their basements. Even We're going
to wrap up with a couple ofquick hitter questions that we have. Music
(48:17):
is so much a part of TedLasso. Do you have a favorite musical
moment from the show so far,a song that showed up that you really
loved or thought was used particularly poignantly. You know, that's not really kind
of my strong suit, because Ithink that I just don't know enough about
music to say that. I dolike the way that music makes me feel
(48:44):
through the show, and I thinkthat I get I guess the thing that
I really like is I like itwhen Rebecca sings. You know, she's
such a challenged Yeah, she's sotalented that's what she does for a living,
you know, lest end singer inshows, and so when she surprised
everyone with the karaoke, you know, was amazing. And then I think
(49:07):
also just the the warmth and thekind of nostalgic moment of the Christmas scene
where they're standing in the street singing, and so so those are things that
I really like, you know,when music takes me to a place of
unity or are I think memory?Yeah, and I can imagine myself there,
(49:28):
and so that's where I like music. But again, my daughter's huge
Mumford and Son's fan, and myhusband is always saying, oh, that's
the perfect use of that song andthat scene, and it's like, well,
honey, what are they saying.You know, that's why you have
to watch the showing community. Sothat's right, that's right to each other.
(49:49):
Well, you're definitely not alone inyour love for Hannah Wattingham's vocal.
And I think the two things thatalways blow people's mind is that yes,
it's really her singing. That's alwayslike the first question I see people like,
that's a frequent google about the show, and then they find out that
she's actually not singing at like onehundred percent of her full like ability,
because she she doesn't believe that likea random football manager should be able to
(50:10):
sing like west End level talent.So it's funny that she's like even that
is like her, like only eightypercent of her you know, her actual
performance. So that's people always geta little bit wowed by that. And
then of course you fall down therabbit hole of shaky west End you know,
illegal camera, you know, copyrightinfringement, but you get to hear
(50:30):
her sing these amazing songs, Soyeah, she's wonderful. In season two,
there are a lot of liturgical andlike high church jokes. Did you
have a favorite one? Oh gosh, I just I you know, I
think the thing that I love themost was they're just all the riffs around
the funeral and everybody sort of stumblingaround in Anglicanism. And what I loved
(50:54):
about that is that everybody who comesinto an Anglican church stumbles around and Anglicanism
and we always like even Anglicans,and so there was a sort of lovely
like okay, Vicar of Dibley kindof awkwardness thing that was going on in
(51:14):
that whole scene and talking when thepriesssing, you know, please be quiet,
and so yeah, I just Ijust kind of laughed at the whole
the whole thing in a nice way, you know. I didn't feel like,
yes, I had to correct theirliturgy, although I do know Anglicans
who would do that. That's right, And I always think the Church of
(51:39):
England would be so much better offif it recognized how much more it's sort
of like a Monty Python sketch thanit is like a really sort of you
know, serious institution, you know. And so so I think Ted Lasso
moves in the Monty Python sketch directionwith the Church of England and it just
(52:00):
works perfectly, which lands us ina perfect place. Because Hannah Wattingham played
Lady of the Lake in the Broadwayand West End Predictions of Spam a lot,
so you know it, all theenergy just continues to cycle around and
to be amazing. Well, thankyou so much for your time today.
This was a particular pleasure for usto get to visit about some of your
work that we have enjoyed and foundmeaningful, and yeah, to hear all
(52:23):
of your thoughts. You have nowgiven us a lot to think about as
continue to rewatch to Lasso season twoand we'll look forward to getting to watch
it via Twitter with you. Seasonthree. Well, I can't wait,
and you know you can trust thatI'm gonna be looking at you know how
you put belief back together once you'vetorn it apart. So it's like,
(52:45):
why don't you gone through the deconstruction? Is there anything on the other side?
And also, you know what aboutthe death of dog? No,
can you actually have belief after thedog dies? So this is why we
have to put our trust in agreyhound who has revealed at the end of
the second season. Yes, that'sright, the puppy is here. Yeah,
(53:06):
that's right. Well, thank youso much again, take care,
Thank you guys, and that isour show. We hope you enjoyed our
discussion with Diana Butler Bass. Youcan check out the show notes for links
to her social media accounts, herwritings, her website, her newsletter,
(53:28):
and all the other cool stuff we'vetalked about in this episode. We'll be
back soon with more ted Lasso conversations, but you can keep the conversation going
with us on Twitter and Instagram.Our handle on both is at ted Lasso
Pod. This episode of Richmond TillWe Die is brought to you by Gin
and Kerosene Productions. It was producedby my pal Christian and myself. If
(53:49):
you enjoy this podcast, we humblyask that you head over to Apple Podcasts
or Spotify and leave us a fivestar rating or review. It helps us
out and it helps other people findand hear the show. All right,
I'm Brett signing off for Christian andDiana Butler Bass. Thanks for listening.
Until next time, Cheers gone,
Welcome back to the crown on anclGreyhounds. This is Richmond Till We Die,
a conversation about the Apple TV Plusshow ted Lasso, where we explore
the characters, their relationships to eachother, and how they're able to make
us laugh until we can hardly breatheone moment and then feel with the deepest
parts of our hearts the next.I'm Brett and my co host Christian and
(00:31):
I are so excited to welcome doctorDiana Butler Bass for a conversation on this
special bonus episode. Diana Butler Bassis an independent scholar who writes on American
religion and culture. She is theauthor of eleven books, many of which
have won research or writing awards.Diana Butler Bass earned a PhD in Religious
Studies from Duke University in nineteen ninetyone, with an emphasis on American ecclesiastical
(00:55):
history, meaning she studies the historyof the church in America. As an
award winning author, popular speaker,inspiring preacher, and one of America's most
trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality, Diana Butler Bass has been sought out
for contributions from many prominent publications andmedia outlets including The New York Times,
The Washington Post, CNN, TheAtlantic, USA Today, Huffington Post,
(01:19):
Readers, Digest, Christian Century,and Sojourners. Her work has also appeared
an outlets such as CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, Fox, Time,
Newsweek, The Rolling Stone, andmultiple global news outlets. She has
written everywhere. Each of us onthe Richmond Till We Die team has appreciated
her work for years, and wewere excited when we read a ted Lasso
(01:42):
essay that she published in her onlinenewsletter called The Cottage. In this particular
reflection, she wrote about how herfavorite character in ted Lasso is the Believe
Sign, and if you haven't readit, you should definitely pause the podcast
right now and go check it out. The link to the essay is in
the episode description. This conversation isdeep and rich and so much fun.
(02:04):
We talk about hope and belief,community, found family, and the ways
that we try to put hope orbelief back together once it's been torn apart.
And I think it's a great wayfor us to wrap up our conversations
about season two as we look aheadto season three and so Greyhounds, everybody
give a warm Welcome to doctor DianaButler Bess who thanks for being with us,
(02:30):
Doctor Bess, Well, thank youfor having me. I'm excited about
this. This is a little bitof a different experience for us because now
that we've been at this for abouta year, a lot of the folks
that we interact with have been tedLasso fans for a while and have been
enthusiastic for a long time, andso it was fun to see you discover
the show via Twitter and so like. At this point, as the show
(02:53):
has been out for a couple ofyears. What finally brought you in and
what kept you in once you startedwatching. Well, it's, you know,
kind of funny because I was introducedto the show through Twitter. You
know. I started noticing that alot of people who follow me would be
talking about this thing called ted Lasso, and I had no idea what they
(03:13):
were talking about. But then Idiscovered it was on Apple TV. And
I'm kind of a cheap skate andso putting on all these different streaming services,
I just thought, oh, I'mgoing to skip it. I don't
need another streaming service and more distractionto my life. But my daughter,
who's twenty four and started watching it, and she is both a huge football
(03:38):
fan, she's a Tottenham Spurs fans, and she also loves Mumford and Sons,
and so she started talking about thisshow and she said, Mom and
Dad, you gotta watch it.You gotta watch it. So finally we
just sort of gave in, andby the end of the first episode I
was completely one of her. SoI wound up watching the two seasons basically
(04:05):
in like four days. That's apretty quick pas what's the last show?
What's the last show you binged?Before you binged to the last? Though?
Like, are you a binger ingeneral or was this out of character?
I am kind of a binger,but most of my binges have to
do with murder, so so Ikind of had moved during the pandemic to
(04:29):
sort of those darker shows, lotsof thrillers things like that. And my
husband is like, oh my gosh, don't are you watching another murder show.
You are just such a stereotype.And so so it was good to
binge something that I had nothing todo with blood and gore. It sounds
(04:49):
like you and our co host Marissawould be, you know, kindred spirits
in that respect, because every nightfrom about you know, ten pm until
we follow sleep it is. It'ssome murder show, typically a British or
Australian like cereal like murder type ofshow. And yeah it's um, you
know, it's great stuff to fallasleep too. Yeah, that's what it
(05:11):
would have been for me. Thatwould I think the fall was probably the
last thing I've banished before Ted lastnight. Have you done some of the
more quirky ones like Agatha Raisin andthings like that that are like BBC shows?
And no, I haven't. I'llhave to do that. I recommend
that one. That's one that Ido enjoy watching alongside her, though those
aren't really my bag. So sinceyou made this transition for murder shows to
(05:32):
a less murdery show, at whatpoint did you know, like, oh,
I am totally here for Ted Lassoand I am not going to be
able to stop watching the show.Well, I have to confess it made
me happy crazy, That's just thatwas what kind of got it. I
kind of felt sorry for Ted,you know, just seeing the outsider nous
(05:56):
and you know, here's this guywho's who has been brought into the situation
where he's clearly over his head,So I had all this sort of kind
of mom sympathy I think, towardshim. But then I did I just
after I watched the first episode ortwo, it made me happy, and
I thought, well, that's akind of an odd feeling after the last
(06:16):
couple of years of everything we've beenthrough. So I liked the I like
the way it made me felt andfeel, and so I just kind of
kept with it and found myself goingmore and more towards that direction, you
know, just rooting for these charactersand in effect kind of rooting for myself
(06:38):
by rooting for them. You lovedthis so much, and you were so
invested in it that you then wroteabout it right after you had watched the
show, and you took the approachof talking about the Beliefs sign as a
character, which was fascinating, andthat got me thinking, and then like
going back through the show and thinkingabout where the belief sign shows up and
(07:00):
how people interact with it, andhow even it's like unleashed, I guess,
as a tool for action. Andso what I realized was it's not
always positive. Like there are timeswhere Isaac brings the crew around and everybody
touches the sign. Ted obviously putsit up to elicit positive reactions from people,
(07:23):
but I'm interested in getting your thoughtsand feelings on some of the ways
in which the belief sign is utilizedat moments of doubt and weakness and vulnerability.
So we can take them all atonce, or we can walk through
them. But there's the scene whereTed is talking to Nat and Beard and
he's frantically searching his house for abelief sign, and you hear is like
(07:46):
footsteps go upstairs and downstairs, andNate's like as he does all the time,
and it's like, oh yeah,he's got these things stashed all over
the place and he grasped for ina moment of desperation. You have Roy
by himself in the locker room kindof moment of acquiescence, like acquiescing to
belief and gently touching the sign.And then you have Ted commedially speculatively pointing
(08:09):
to the sign after he and Jamietalked to Roy, and Ted's kind of
confused as to the advice that Roygave Jamie and just like, believe sign,
I don't know by and gets outof the room. What are your
like feelings or reflections on belief whenit's not simply something that we like hold
on to and that powers us rightaway. I actually love the way that
(08:30):
the belief sign is used throughout thewhole show, And at first it kind
of fits with, in effect,the thing that roped me in. You
know, it's like, oh,this show is positive, and these people
are nice characters, and they havevalues that you don't typically see on television
shows, and so I liked allof that, and having that belief sign
(08:54):
there just seemed like, wow,you know, here's a TV show that
cares about something I care about,you know, since I study theology and
church history. So first it justkind of seems like a sort of a
positive signal, almost like an iconor a Bible verse poster kind of hanging
in the back. But then yourealize that the belief sign is functioning to
(09:22):
raise all kinds of questions about whodo we believe, what do we believe?
Is belief more than just kind ofa feel good slogan or is it
almost like a challenge or what's itdoing there? And it is in those
(09:43):
moments that you mentioned. There arelots of interesting moments where people touch the
sign or people specifically point to thesign, or people reference the sign,
but sometimes the sign is simply inthe frame of the shot. Yeah,
I went back and I watched Wewatched a whole bunch of the series this
(10:03):
week, knowing how it's going tobe on with you guys, and it
was striking to me how often thecameraman takes the choice of backing up to
have that sign in just the picturewhen there's no reference to the sign at
all, but it's just behind thecharacters. And it's not accidental, you
(10:24):
know, there are no accidents inthose kinds of visual framings. So it's
it's often there when it's not eventhere as it were, And so that
means it's important, and that meansit's actually part of the narrative of the
whole show, and that the questionsit raises and sort of the angularity that
(10:48):
it creates at different moments, Ithink are intentional and key to the writers
getting their points us and also Ithink to help us understand some of the
deeper dilemmas about you know, maybeoptimism and difficult times about who we are,
(11:11):
you know, what is worthy ofbelieving. All all these kinds of
issues get raised well, I lovethat you direct our attention to even just
the visual aspects and the representation ofthe sign, because you're right, like,
thinking back, there are so manytimes where there's a speech or there's
just a scene playing out, andlike it's just right there. And due
to the very hand crafted feeling ofthis show, the nature of the show,
(11:35):
we have to believe that nothing isaccidental enough. The belief sign is
there, it has meaning, andso I just love that you you point
us there and then you talk aboutlike how it's complicated, and Ted himself
even complicates it a little bit.I think when in the in the final
episode of season one, the Hopethat Kills You, he they tell Ted,
you know, it's the hope thatkills you, and he kind of
(11:56):
riffs off that quote and he saysat one point that I believe in hope
and I believe in belief. Andso how do you make a distinction in
those areas between hope and belief oris there a distinction or how are they
related? I guess to you,Yeah, I think that one of the
major themes of the first season isthe nature of belief. And the scene
(12:18):
that Christian points out with Ted runningall over the house looking for the belief
sign. It is sort of acrystallization of that question about belief. And
the way that I can explain thisis years ago when I was in a
really difficult place. I think Iwas probably in my thirties, and I
(12:41):
was having a lot of trouble withdepression and anxiety, which is another reason
I actually love this show. I'vehad anxiety trouble, with anxiety attacks through
my whole life, and so anyway, I was having all this trouble with
these aspects of mental wellness, andI got a little Celtic cross that I
(13:03):
used to wear and I would holdit anytime I was like having an anxiety
attack. And some of the worstanxiety attacks I had this is a terrible
thing for my life, or whenI was in church, or when I
was at airports, and so beinga person who travels to speak in churches,
(13:24):
it became quite difficult to manage myown life. It's rather like a
soccer coach, you know, notbeing having an anxiety attacks on the field.
And so this little cross that Iwore around my neck, it,
you know, frequently I would youwould see me playing with it, or
i'd hold it when there was alot of turbulence and airplanes. So I
(13:46):
was going through an airport one time, and I was feeling very nervous,
and I reached up and to lookfor the cross, and it had fallen
off. It was just gone.I have no idea. It's somewhere in
that whatever airport that was, Ithink it was Dallas, And so I
had to get on a plane withoutthe cross. And when I saw that
scene with Ted running around the houselooking for the belief sign, it was
(14:09):
like me running around the airport lookingfor my cross. There was something,
there was something about it that Ihad to have that token and I had
to be able to see it andfeel it and touch it, and if
I didn't, then there was someabsence of In my case, it's some
absence of comfort, some absence oftrust, perhaps an absence of belief,
(14:31):
because I couldn't. The thing nolonger head shape. And so I think
that for Ted in that scene,what happens is it reveals that the belief
sign is a little bit like that. Right. It's become almost like a
little bit of an idol, asit were, that it has to be
present in order for belief to bepresent, and so that franticness of that
(14:56):
search is like oh oh, andthen it's like, oh, I found
it. And then you get thesort of moment where they say, oh
it's you know, it's in hisbathroom sign. So it's the first in
his bathroom mirror, and it's thefirst thing he sees when he wakes up
in the morning, and and thatbecomes It means that belief in effect in
(15:18):
that first season is a little bitmore. It becomes almost like a talisman.
It becomes almost like magic rather thanreal belief. It's almost like it
becomes the way I guess I've seenit play out in real life outside of
the show, is belief becomes aword or a concept that's used to kind
of like that can be used tostrong arm people into certainty, as opposed
(15:43):
to what you're talking about, whichis like belief as a transformational practice.
You've written a book about gratefulness askind of a similar transformational practice. I
guess do you think there's an overlapbetween those two ideas, Like when we
actively cultivate a posture of gratitude,then something else is going on as well.
(16:10):
Yes, I actually think that weuse a lot of things in our
culture. This kind of way isthat we turn what are truly rich practices
that make our lives deeper and betterand in effect more complex, we often
turn those things into these kinds ofmagic mantras. And so if you just
(16:32):
say you believe enough, if youjust say hope enough, I mean,
that was like the whole problem andthe irony in some ways of the Obama
presidency. I loved President Obama,but in effect he became that hope sign.
Yeah, And what was I thinkhappening the whole time he was president
was there was this sort of ironyabout hope is so much more than a
(16:56):
sign. And so that's true forgratitude. And I have written a book
called Grateful. You know, somepeople literally think that if you just say
thank you, thank you, thankyou, thank you, thank you,
that in effect, that that mantrawill change all the bad situations in your
life. But the reality of gratitudeis you really have to practice it,
(17:19):
and that that that practice has tochange you. I love how you bring
up again the physical and the visualnature of the sign. And I love
that scene where Ted runs and likegrabs the belief sign and shows it to
Nate especially because it was right afterNate says something to Ted like it's impossible.
But in your essay that we mentionedearlier, you talked about the connective
tissue that is between these ideas ofbelief and belove, and you brought in
(17:45):
some of the work of the latescholar Marcus Borg, And in the closing
paragraphs you talk about how the showexplores the theme of belief through the relationships
between the characters and this sort ofaspirational nature of what belief can mean when
it's in that context of a relationshipbetween people. So what are some of
your favorite instances in the show wherebelieve functions that way. I think it's
(18:07):
it's helpful to sort of clear theoryof the error a little bit about what
the word believe means. And soin my essay, one of the things
that I talk about is to quoteMarcus Borg, and he makes the point
that believe is not just simply asort of a word where we have to,
you know, press into I'm goingto believe this thing and I'm going
(18:30):
to make it true, or I'mgoing to believe something that's impossible to believe,
which sometimes it seems like that's whatthey're saying, I think on Ted
Lasso, But the actual root ofthe word believe is related to the word
belove, and so believe also meansthe things that we trust, or the
things that we're devoted to, orthe things that we love that we hold
(18:52):
in that kind of esteem. Andso in that sense, belief isn't just
sort of coming up some sort ofemotional ability to be able to embrace what
is impossible. Um, you know, I'm going to believe ten impossible things
before breakfast sort of thing and puttingour our whole, you know, kind
(19:15):
of intellectual life aside and say,Okay, I'm going to believe in this
fairytale or what have you. Butbut that believe actually takes takes work.
And so we're talking about that visav practice, you know, a couple
of minutes ago. So I thinkthat what happens with Ted is that sometimes
(19:36):
when he's talking to other people aboutbelief, he's he's learning that about believing
himself, you know, because becausethe interesting threat, of course, is
that through the whole that his lifeis falling apart. I mean, he
may have believed that he and hiswife are going to be together forever or
he may have believed that he wasa great spouse or that he was the
(19:59):
best father that was ever created,but the truth of the matter was is
that something happened there where no amountof belief about the situation regarding his marriage
was going to save it. Andso I think that's why we start getting
this kind of level of desperation withthe Belief sign. It's a little like
me running through the airport looking formy Celtic cross because somehow, if I
(20:23):
just hold onto this thing, it'sgoing to fix everything. And so I
think what's happening in the show isthat the whole nature of belief is actually
changing as we're going through it,and that Ted himself is growing visa v
belief. A quick follow up onthat, we talked a few times already
(20:45):
about how Ted runs to grab thelittle sticky note that says believe, and
Nate is present for that, sohe you know, this is another demonstration
of how important this idea, thistalisman, as you called it, how
important it is to Ted. Soit makes it all that much more sad
and poignant when Nate makes the decisionto rip the sign and leave it on
Ted's desk at the end of seasontwo, do you think can this perspective
(21:07):
of believe that you've shared or articulated, do you think that that can be
mended after being broken or betrayed?And what might that look like generally?
Well, that's the feeling that youknow, I was left with at the
end of the second season. It'slike, oh my gosh, you know,
where do you go from here?And that this thread stretches through both
seasons I think is really um,you know, compelling, because it isn't
(21:30):
just that you know, Ted atthe end says, I believe, I
believe, you know, I believein hope. So there's that I believe
in belief piece. I often amthinking about the scene where they lift the
curse and there's you know, they'rethey're standing around and they're putting all of
(21:51):
this stuff in the garbage that they'regoing to burn, and it reminded me,
actually, are so many friends ofmine who were like evangelical back and
college. You know, you wouldtake something that you loved and you would
burn it as a way of sortof showing that you really had this particular
kind of new faith, and that'swhat it was. It was remarkably by
(22:15):
Britney Spear CDs. That's right.It was a rocket usually rocket roll records
when I was in college. Butyou took something that you loved and you
put it on the fire, andit was sort of a way of proving
your allegiance. And it's somewhere inthe course of that episode that Ted actually
says that he is, by naturea believer, and so I think in
(22:37):
the first season, you know,he's acting out of that a lot,
his nature as a believer. Butthen by the time you get the end
of the first season, you're kindof questioning, We'll wait a second,
what kind of believer are you?And I as I think the whole thing
with a desperation with the talisman ofthe Sign is a little bit of Ted's
(22:59):
faiths starting to fall apart, justas some of the people around him seem
to be. You know, theystart to believe in themselves a little bit
more, and maybe they're believing inthe community, and they're believing in the
team, and they're believing that thingscan happen that they didn't know could happen.
And so Ted is beginning to,I think, question his belief and
(23:22):
the end of the second season,I don't think can't be separated from the
first episode in the second season,and I love it. It's really kind
of funny and painful. You knowthat they've had whatever it is, six
or seven ties and they haven't wona game yet, and so it looks
like they might actually be able tofinally win this game. And Nate's first
(23:48):
first really words in the second seasonart isn't okay if I pray? And
then Ted turns to Nate and says, well, to which God and in
which language? Which? Which?Is a great question? And then of
course, you know, the doggets killed, so four earl. You
(24:11):
know, it goes down with itwith Danny's kick, And I think the
first time I watched it, Iwas just so horrified, like, oh
my god, that dog is gonnaget killed, that I didn't stop and
really think about it. But youknow, so much contemporary sort of snarky
literature, dog is a stand infor God, and so in effect,
(24:36):
what happens in the first episode isGod dies, and I just went,
oh my gosh, it's about thedeath of God. It's about the death
of one kind of belief. Andthat's exactly what happens in the second season.
Is that that particular really optimistic talismankind of belief that actually dies,
(24:57):
that dies in the second season.Yeah, and there's I think that's why
a lot of people struggle with thesecond season. They don't really like it
as much, because it is reallyis cheerful at all. We tend to
agree, right, but because it'sabout the death. I think it's about
the death of dog. Yeah,you know. And so so you ask
(25:22):
about the sign, it's like,well, after faith dies, after belief
dies, where do you go fromthere? Right? And so I'm sort
of hanging on the edge of myseat because I'm not sure where the writers
will go with that, except theonly possibility is an entirely different kind of
belief. There's this dance that's goingon, and it's one that like you're
(25:51):
particularly well suited to comments about becauseyou have all of this work that you've
done in church history, but you'reable to apply what you've studied to the
press and kind of look towards thefuture and look at like trends in religion
and spirituality. And so in seasontwo, like you have this death of
belief, this death of God.But then at the same time, like
(26:11):
the dance is happening in some sacredspaces, and also a negotiation of what
is a sacred space and whatnot.Is the euro shop is the kebab shop
a sacred space? But then wedo go into the church for the funeral,
We do go into an actual churchbuilding in beard after dark. And
what I noticed is that like whenpeople go into those spaces, nobody's comfortable,
(26:36):
like because they don't have the rightthings to wear, because they haven't
been there for a long time,Like maybe something has happened that makes them
uncomfortable in those spaces, and yettransformation still happens in those spaces. So
what is it about like old buildings, churches, places that have been used
for worship that can be transformational evenif we have a lot of walls up
(26:59):
around institutional worship. I think that'sa really great question because they are awkward,
and there's a way of reading alot into that, and I think
that, you know, that's thekind of thing that I love to do
since it's my work. But there'sanother way of just saying that they're uncomfortable
because they're English. Oh you know, the truth of it is is that
(27:22):
the Church of England has been indecline for a really long time, and
the English are particularly awkward when itcomes to religion in the twenty first century.
And so it's interesting to me that, you know, they're just these
are people who have lived inside ofa society for a really few decades,
even a couple of generations now thatis mostly post religious. And so,
(27:45):
I mean, so Ted comes inwith this kind of awkward Kansas, a
shock talisman, magic hopefulness kind ofthing, and he runs into all of
these really cynical post religious English peoplewho don't even know how to act in
a church, and a matter offact, they wind up just Rick rolling
a funeral and gloriously and it's wonderful. And you know, I like theologically,
(28:11):
I think the Holy Spirit actually showsup right in that moment. So
I think the awkwardness is right aroundthat. You know, it's like,
well, what do we postmodern,post religious people do with categories around belief
and categories around dog? You know, as it were, So you know,
what do you do about categories arounddog when you can't even, you
(28:33):
know, really in public in Englandsay the word God? Yeah, I
mean that that's that's problematic. Andso it's interesting that church becomes I think
in the show, you know,it's such a physical space of awkwardness.
So with Beard, he goes inthe church, he does have some sort
of experience there, even though hefeels really awkward about it, right,
(28:56):
he knows what to do. Yeah, yeah, he prays, he you
know, he knows where to sit. Um. You know, he clearly
thinks it's pretty, you know,and it's also a place of safety in
certain regards vis a vis raining,and it's awful outside and all this sort
of stuff. So so I thinkthat that is some of the good of
(29:18):
church. But then once he's there, what's really funny is that the church
is really just sort of a youknow, it's a gateway to a club,
and so so I think that there'sa I looked at that scene over
and over and over again. Ithink that's really interesting. You know,
It's like there's church in this reallyconventional way, but then there's also something
(29:44):
else, a different kind of community, a different kind of music, a
different kind of way of reconnecting,a different sort of relational space in the
basement, as it were. Andso so I kind of wondered, you
know, where is that just kindof a riff when saying what happens upstairs
is bad and what is downstairs isthe real thing? Or is it just
(30:07):
kind of an amusing way to thisguy's a club, you know. So
I don't know how deep. Idon't know how deep it was, but
it certainly is provocative. It sortof ties into your book Freeing Jesus.
In that book you write about bothwhy and how so many people who have
(30:30):
left organized religion behind they still holdon to their faith. So, you
know the challenge of like distilling anentire book and all of your work down
to one thought, but like,what is an interesting reality or trend you
discovered about that interplay between organized religionand spirituality while you were working on that
book. Yeah, it's fun totalk to you all because I mean,
(30:52):
I have written a lot over thelast decade about shifts around spirituality, shifts
around theology, you know, howpeople can possibly have a life of faith.
But in some ways I think thatthe work that I did in a
book called Christianity After Religion is sortof most relevant to Ted Lasso. And
(31:17):
the reason why I think it's themost relevant work is because there's a whole,
the whole middle section of Christianity afterReligion is about the nature of belief.
And the brief story about that bookis the point that I make regarding
believe. And I think this iswhy I get so excited about the Sign,
(31:37):
is that in the old world,the world of that conventional church,
you know, the Church of England, the church that everybody is so uncomfortable
in in the second season, thatold world used to say something like,
believe these things, and you area Christian, you know, believe this
creed and then you are a partof this community. You're a member here,
(31:59):
you can count. And in Christianityafter Religion, one of the things
that I point out is that belonging, being part of a community, being
accepted comes first in the twenty firstcentury, and belief flows out of community.
(32:22):
So instead of believing first and thenbeing a member of a church,
what I think has happened in Westernculture, and this includes England and the
United States and pretty much anywhere whereChristianity used to be really strong like this,
is that what we now move towardsis finding spaces where we're accepted,
(32:43):
spaces where we can be ourselves,spaces where we find friends. And so
Higgins makes the comment in the Christmasepisode that along the way, we have
the family we're born into, andwe have the family we make, and
in effect, in the twenty firstcentury, it's the families we make that
become the locus of what we believeto be true about the nature of the
(33:08):
universe. And so I think thatthat's what's happening in this you know,
the belief sign just hanging there islike there's the belief of the old world
that said, you know, justbelieve these kinds of things, you're going
to be accepted. Believe this andyour life will be perfect. Believe this
and you're going to go to heaven. But all of that falls apart,
(33:29):
and instead what is what is happeningis that there's this community that is being
formed, a community of people whoknow what it means to believe in themselves,
who know what knows what it meansto believe in one another, and
who know what it means to believein a sort of a you know,
a common passion or a common hopefor the world, in this case winning
(33:52):
you know, a game. Andso it's out of that community, I
think that new dimensions of belief arebeing born, and that the sign is
actually shifting its meaning. And somaybe maybe Nathan, I mean Nathan,
he's so mad about it, butmaybe that sign needs to be ripped up
at the end of the second season. Maybe that's like we hear people now
(34:15):
talk about how they're deconstructing their faith. Maybe the ripping of the belief sign
is about someone just saying, youknow, no, this just doesn't this
just doesn't work right, and sothey're in effect, you know, deconstructing
belief. But but I think thatin Nates in case, he's also you
(34:37):
know, sort of doing it asan act of violence against the community that
he feels has betrayed him. Yeah, so it's it's really incredible. I'm
an interesting kind of tie into whatyou're talking about about a space where people
belong is really like in soccer community, football community, and we do see
there's kind of that spiritual imagery whenthe guy from the pub are allowed into
(35:01):
the soccer stadium, like when it'sclosed and they get in and they almost
sat like they have this religious spiritualexperience there, like frolicking in the grass,
and it reminds me of the PortlandTimbers, the soccer team there,
their supporters, the Timbers Army.They have this mantra that is, if
you want to be Timbers Army,you are. And so it's like you're
saying the first you know, ideally, like the first statement that's being made
(35:24):
is you belong here. And thenfrom there you learn the songs, you
learn the ethos, you get,as soccer parlance would say, like stuck
in. And that's probably why alot of times people consider their supporters group
in football like their church community,because it's functioning like you're saying, come
(35:45):
be and then let's figure out howto be together. Yeah. Yeah,
And there are a couple lots ofdifferent places in the show that function in
that way. The pitch functions inthat way. Yes, I hadn't thought
about that scene where the three guysgo up on the field and it's just
like completely joyous and uh. Andit's in that joy that you know clearly
(36:07):
something is happening to them. That'sthat's pretty exciting. And so but the
pub is that way, yes,um, pastor may yeah, And so
that's a space where people are makingcommunity and where um levels of belief and
hope and all those things are changing. And the other thing is the therapist's
(36:29):
office. M Yeah, I thinkthe therapist's office and the and all the
comfort that people have in the therapistoffice versus the uncomfortableness in the church,
Yeah, is pretty interesting. Andin the juxtaposition, I guess of like
Ted, the person who would probablybe most comfortable in the church, being
totally uncomfortable in the therapist's office,like just can't even for a while.
(36:52):
Yeah, And that's the I'm stillsort of playing with this this boy idea
about the death of God in thesecond season. And what I think is
fascinating is that when Nathan says,is it okay if I pray? And
Ted says, well, it dependson what God and in what language?
(37:13):
And I thought, I thought,what a weird thing to say, Why
does he say that? But thenyou meet the therapist later in that question
later in that episode, and she'sa she's a black woman, and she
speaks a different language to everyone whocomes into her office. She speaks Spanish,
to Danny, she speaks French.And it's like, oh my gosh,
(37:35):
you know, so which God?And I have tons of friends who
are who are black women, whoare theologians, and so they're always arguing
that, you know, God shouldbe seen as a as a black woman.
And so you get this black womanwho comes into the scene and what
is she doing? But she's speakingdifferent languages and it's like, oh,
my gosh, are they really seriously? Could could anybody who's a writer or
(38:00):
have any idea that? And shebecomes a godlike figure. Yeah, you
know, she sits above the pitchand she watches and and it's like,
oh, I wonder if they're tryingto do something with that, you know,
make that point that somehow her officeand that relationship is becoming so the
(38:22):
location the new location for where beliefis being redefined. Yeah, because we
see characters like Colin whose renewed beliefin himself, you know, that self
confidence, to put another way,like allows his relationships to improve with other
people too and his relationship with himself, both which are both of which are
(38:42):
very important things to do. Andso yeah, I think I think you're
onto something there. Definitely. Iwant to go back a little bit to
the points you were making about communityand how belief functions in that way,
and you know what you were talkingabout christian and how your found family something
that Higgins mentions, you know,that's that's a big, a big part
of season two and a big partof our culture in the twenty first century.
(39:02):
How that helps define and shape yourbeliefs. You have an essay titled
how to Heal Our Divides and whichyou talk a little bit on the subject
title Healing Divides. I'm curious abouttwo things. One is like, obviously
how unifying ted Lasso has been andwhy do you think that's the case.
And then maybe also comment on how, you know, as we find these
families and we forge these beliefs,like how we can avoid becoming too cliquish
(39:27):
or then becoming exclusive in a differentway. Yeah, well, you know,
I think that ted Lasso, youknow, first of all, is
I think that on the simplest levelis that we all want something that's happy
right now. Yeah, and thatjust having a space to breathe. And
then also, you know, maybethere is some magic in a sense that
(39:50):
the belief sign does perform because everybodyis so not just only exhausted and angry
all the time, but cynicism isis really sort of just very strong across
our whole culture, and the ideathat somebody can walk into a room and
hang up a believe sign and beperfectly sincere about it. Is like we're
(40:13):
rooting for him, and does thatmean that there's something there that we're really
all rooting for in ourselves? Youknow, maybe we all want to move
past the sort of the the influencerculture and the egoism of you know,
celebrity, and the sort of thenastiness of all of the division, and
(40:34):
so that the just the gentle suggestionthat there's something helpful and something sort of
Kansas yea all of us, youknow, is refreshing, you know,
I think in the twenty first century. And so in a sense, I
think there's that we move towards thosepieces of our own soul where we know
(40:58):
we've been empty. So we findsomething in that longing and all of a
sudden you look across the table andit's other people there who like this too
and who are seeing these short falls. So I think that that's really very
powerful. And the second piece ofyour question, I don't really kind of
(41:19):
I mean, this is just throwthe way you phrase it, and just
kind of occurred to me while wewere here together. Is that maybe another
part of the show that people findcompelling is that the community that's being created
on ted Lasso is really a communityof outsiders and a community of people who
(41:39):
are incredibly diverse. And so youhave everybody feels like they're not loved.
Everybody feels like, you know,their parents treat them poorly, except maybe
maybe Keily. I mean I thinkthere's probably she seems fairly self assured in
certain ways that prepared everybody else.And everybody has these you know, sort
(42:00):
of secrets that they feel like,you know, I have disconnected them from
other human beings. And so everyone'slike an outsider. And then you get
the team and look at what youknow. They're from all over the place.
You know that. I mean there'sno there's no real common language,
there's no real common culture, there'sno common experience. I mean, they're
(42:22):
all this incredibly diverse group. Um. And so the question is how do
you become How do you make communitywith outsiders? And how do you make
community among people who don't fundamentally sharealmost anything except this except this game.
But Ted doesn't share the game.He doesn't know anything about the game,
(42:43):
and he comes in he has tobe the be in charge. So so
I love these questions. You know, how do you make community from these
disparate elements, and maybe that's thequestion we're all asking right now. Yeah,
And in the essay how to Healour Divides, you talk about we
need to heal our divides so thatwe can heal ourselves, and I typically
(43:07):
like apply those things the other wayaround. So, Okay, I need
to get right so that I canwhatever, I love other people better,
or stop beeping with people or justlike be I guess content in the spaces
that I'm in, which has beenhard because kind of as a philosophical minority,
like I just think differently than alot of people in the spaces that
(43:30):
I operate, and so I thinknow late late pandemic, it's been like,
Okay, we have to get throughthis so I can get right,
so I can be better with people. But you've sort of like flipped that
or maybe it's cyclical, but ina society that's trying to be spiritual but
that doesn't operate with organized religion asa bedrock. Can you think of places
(43:52):
outside of the examples we see inted Lasso where people can go to find
this I guess like unification communally andthen personal healing. I don't think we
have a whole lot. And Ithink that that's why a show like this
actually has so much energy behind it, is that people are looking at that
(44:14):
and thinking, gosh, I wishI was part of a community like that
in some ways. One of theepisodes that I found myself most envious was
the Christmas episode when everybody is sittingaround table essentially, you know, and
from you know, the perspective whichI do my work. I literally saw
that as Eucharist, you know,It's like the Lord's Supper, like this
(44:37):
amazing welcome communion where everyone's sitting aroundthe table passing food that creates bonds of
love, even deeper bonds of loveand welcome and hospitality and all that kind
of thing. And so I thinkthat right now we're really at a lap
of spaces like that, And isit our fault? I don't know.
(45:00):
I certainly see the places in myown heart where I'm quick to judge and
not necessarily quite as curious as Ishould be, you know, about other
about other people. Is you know, when an opportunity to be in community
presents itself, I think, well, do I want to be there as
it's safe, you know? Ordo I want to be there why I
(45:22):
can't hang around with Republicans, Ohmy gosh, you know, or what
if that person says something on Twitterand they get canceled, will I get
canceled because I've seen hanging around withthem? And so literally, we have
an entire culture that's built on divisionand judgment, and yet I think that
all of us really want the table, and so the table doesn't exist right
(45:43):
now. Yeah. One of theone of the places of division in the
Tlasso community is, you know,should Apple release entire seasons at once or
should they do like the weekly thing? And my argument for them releasing episodes
week by week was that it wasreally fun to have a week where,
like the ted Lasso community would comeonline on Twitter and sort of like bond
(46:07):
over this one thing in a waythat's different from auto shows. Like I
remember people going online to talk aboutGame of Thrones, but it was really
to like complain about it for aweek, and so like with ted Lasso,
it was to sort of like soakin it, I guess for a
week. So like maybe te Lassois functioning as one of those you know,
spaces where people can hang out together. I guess. I don't know,
(46:29):
but we'll see, we'll see whatyour thoughts are. Maybe after you
watch season three, if you chooseto like watch the Trickle, or if
you wait to binge the whole thingagain. Oh I will. I will
watch the Trickle this next time becauseI want to be part of the conversation,
you know. And I really,you know, I think they are
trying to say stuff about all ofthese things. Yeah, you know,
(46:51):
about community, about what it meansto really make family, about how we
can come back together, what healingis, you know, our longings to
believe in something that is meaningful andbeautiful and gives us a deep sense of
purpose in the universe. You know. I think sometimes one of the funnier
(47:13):
scenes, I don't remember exactly whereit was, but Ted and Rebecca are
talking and he said, oh gosh, you're looking at me the way someone
looked at me when I was wearinga red hat and walked into a planned
parent a road Facebook app and walkedto a planet Farrenhoad beating. And I
thought to myself, you know,isn't that us all right now? You
(47:34):
know? We always feel like,oh my gosh, what am I going
to say here? I'm going towear the wrong thing, and I'm going
to walk into a room and everyone'sgoing to reject me. And yet Ted
Lasso is moving the other direction andsaying, no, you're going to walk
into this room and you're going tofeel rejected, but believe us. We're
going to make something here and you'regoing to find what you can trust,
(47:57):
which you can be devoted to,and what you cat what and who you
beloved by being together. And that'sa that's powerful. I wish all churches
when I go there, um maybejust in their basements. Even We're going
to wrap up with a couple ofquick hitter questions that we have. Music
(48:17):
is so much a part of TedLasso. Do you have a favorite musical
moment from the show so far,a song that showed up that you really
loved or thought was used particularly poignantly. You know, that's not really kind
of my strong suit, because Ithink that I just don't know enough about
music to say that. I dolike the way that music makes me feel
(48:44):
through the show, and I thinkthat I get I guess the thing that
I really like is I like itwhen Rebecca sings. You know, she's
such a challenged Yeah, she's sotalented that's what she does for a living,
you know, lest end singer inshows, and so when she surprised
everyone with the karaoke, you know, was amazing. And then I think
(49:07):
also just the the warmth and thekind of nostalgic moment of the Christmas scene
where they're standing in the street singing, and so so those are things that
I really like, you know,when music takes me to a place of
unity or are I think memory?Yeah, and I can imagine myself there,
(49:28):
and so that's where I like music. But again, my daughter's huge
Mumford and Son's fan, and myhusband is always saying, oh, that's
the perfect use of that song andthat scene, and it's like, well,
honey, what are they saying.You know, that's why you have
to watch the showing community. Sothat's right, that's right to each other.
(49:49):
Well, you're definitely not alone inyour love for Hannah Wattingham's vocal.
And I think the two things thatalways blow people's mind is that yes,
it's really her singing. That's alwayslike the first question I see people like,
that's a frequent google about the show, and then they find out that
she's actually not singing at like onehundred percent of her full like ability,
because she she doesn't believe that likea random football manager should be able to
(50:10):
sing like west End level talent.So it's funny that she's like even that
is like her, like only eightypercent of her you know, her actual
performance. So that's people always geta little bit wowed by that. And
then of course you fall down therabbit hole of shaky west End you know,
illegal camera, you know, copyrightinfringement, but you get to hear
(50:30):
her sing these amazing songs, Soyeah, she's wonderful. In season two,
there are a lot of liturgical andlike high church jokes. Did you
have a favorite one? Oh gosh, I just I you know, I
think the thing that I love themost was they're just all the riffs around
the funeral and everybody sort of stumblingaround in Anglicanism. And what I loved
(50:54):
about that is that everybody who comesinto an Anglican church stumbles around and Anglicanism
and we always like even Anglicans,and so there was a sort of lovely
like okay, Vicar of Dibley kindof awkwardness thing that was going on in
(51:14):
that whole scene and talking when thepriesssing, you know, please be quiet,
and so yeah, I just Ijust kind of laughed at the whole
the whole thing in a nice way, you know. I didn't feel like,
yes, I had to correct theirliturgy, although I do know Anglicans
who would do that. That's right, And I always think the Church of
(51:39):
England would be so much better offif it recognized how much more it's sort
of like a Monty Python sketch thanit is like a really sort of you
know, serious institution, you know. And so so I think Ted Lasso
moves in the Monty Python sketch directionwith the Church of England and it just
(52:00):
works perfectly, which lands us ina perfect place. Because Hannah Wattingham played
Lady of the Lake in the Broadwayand West End Predictions of Spam a lot,
so you know it, all theenergy just continues to cycle around and
to be amazing. Well, thankyou so much for your time today.
This was a particular pleasure for usto get to visit about some of your
work that we have enjoyed and foundmeaningful, and yeah, to hear all
(52:23):
of your thoughts. You have nowgiven us a lot to think about as
continue to rewatch to Lasso season twoand we'll look forward to getting to watch
it via Twitter with you. Seasonthree. Well, I can't wait,
and you know you can trust thatI'm gonna be looking at you know how
you put belief back together once you'vetorn it apart. So it's like,
(52:45):
why don't you gone through the deconstruction? Is there anything on the other side?
And also, you know what aboutthe death of dog? No,
can you actually have belief after thedog dies? So this is why we
have to put our trust in agreyhound who has revealed at the end of
the second season. Yes, that'sright, the puppy is here. Yeah,
(53:06):
that's right. Well, thank youso much again, take care,
Thank you guys, and that isour show. We hope you enjoyed our
discussion with Diana Butler Bass. Youcan check out the show notes for links
to her social media accounts, herwritings, her website, her newsletter,
(53:28):
and all the other cool stuff we'vetalked about in this episode. We'll be
back soon with more ted Lasso conversations, but you can keep the conversation going
with us on Twitter and Instagram.Our handle on both is at ted Lasso
Pod. This episode of Richmond TillWe Die is brought to you by Gin
and Kerosene Productions. It was producedby my pal Christian and myself. If
(53:49):
you enjoy this podcast, we humblyask that you head over to Apple Podcasts
or Spotify and leave us a fivestar rating or review. It helps us
out and it helps other people findand hear the show. All right,
I'm Brett signing off for Christian andDiana Butler Bass. Thanks for listening.
Until next time, Cheers gone,
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