July 15, 2025 • 50 mins
Brian McLaren returns to Shifting Culture to explore his new speculative novel The Last Voyage - a prophetic work of fiction set in a world unraveling from ecological collapse, authoritarianism, and cultural despair. But this isn't a story of resignation. It's a call to imagine differently. We talk about the role of art as prophetic witness, how fiction can shape moral imagination, and why we must move beyond systems built on extraction and scarcity. Brian unpacks the concept of polycrisis, the dangers of authoritarian momentum, and the urgent need for new ways of thinking, living, and organizing - rooted in interdependence and care. We also dive into generational shifts, character dynamics, and what it looks like to resist old paradigms by becoming a different kind of presence in the world.
Brian McLaren is a bestselling author, internationally acclaimed speaker and outspoken advocate for 'a new kind of Christianity'. Named one of Time magazine's 25 most influential Evangelical Christians, McLaren was a pastor for over 20 years. He is a frequent guest on radio and television programmes, and an in-demand blogger on faith and public policy (brianmclaren.net). @brianmclaren
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Episode Transcript
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Brian McLaren (00:00):
Letting the shift happen in ourselves. Even before
(00:04):
we do anything, we just become adifferent kind of presence in
the world. One way to say it, wewithhold our enthusiasm for
this, for the destructive paththat's a step in the right
direction. You Joshua,
Joshua Johnson (00:30):
hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, so what
happens when we dare to imaginea different future, one not
defined by despair or dominance,but by interdependence,
resistance and a stubborn kindof hope? Well, Brian McLaren
(00:53):
returns to shifting culture totalk about his new speculative
novel, The last voyage, aprophetic parable set in the
near future marked bypolycrisis, ecological collapse
and rising authoritarianism, wetalk about why fiction matters
now more than ever, how art canserve as prophetic witness, and
what it looks like to imaginenew ways of living, beyond
(01:14):
capitalism, beyond extraction,beyond isolation, we get into
generational shifts, thetemptation of Mars colonization,
the power of community and whatit means to redefine safety,
abundance and progress in aworld unraveling at the seams.
So join us and resistresignation lean into a more
expansive imagination to becomebefore doing something new. Here
(01:39):
is my conversation with Brian.
McLaren, Brian, welcome back tothe shifting culture. Excited to
have you back on thanks forjoining me. So good to be back
with you. Thanks. Yeah. Wetalked last time about life
after Doom and the last voyage.
Your new novel is the first partof a trilogy. Seems to be a
(02:01):
narrative look and view of a lotof the topics and the ethos that
you have unpacked in life afterDoom. Why is speculative fiction
for you? Why is this the nextstep? First,
Brian McLaren (02:13):
I should say I just found out. I'm so happy. I
hope you don't mind me sayingthis, but I just found out
yesterday that life after Doomwon a nautilus award just was
announced yesterday, so so thatwas very encouraging, but I'm
aware that non fiction reachesonly a certain number of people,
(02:34):
and I also feel that in writingthat book, by putting the word
doom In the title, it made thewords life after almost
invisible. If I could do itagain on the cover. I had had
life in really big terms, andthen in really big letters, and
then after in big letters, andthen doom in small letters, just
(02:55):
because it tends to suck the airout of the room. But before I
started writing life after Doom,I had actually started this
science fiction trilogy back inI actually started back in 2016
and it was my way of trying toimagine a future and then trying
(03:18):
to imagine a better future. Inother words, in 2016 I felt that
the short term future was scary,and of course, I think it's
that's proven true, but I thinkwe have to, in the midst of the
scariest times, try to imaginewhat good could emerge. So
that's that's been the process.
It's been a kind of self therapyand a constructive work of
(03:42):
imagination.
Joshua Johnson (03:45):
Yes, that's good, but you also, you also
call this a prophetic parable.
And before we dive into a lot ofthe themes and the things that
we find in the book, I want toknow the the role of arts and
fiction as prophetic? What isthe prophetic role of art and
fiction, and how can that changethe directory of our lives? Yes,
Brian McLaren (04:09):
well, let's start with that word prophetic. You
know, a lot of people thinkprophetic means predicting the
future, and of course, it doesmean that to some people. When I
use that term, I'm not thinkingabout predicting the future like
that of someone receiving adivine revelation of what the
future is. I do not think thefuture is knowable. I do not
(04:30):
think the future is determined.
I think that. But I do thinkwhat people want to do is try to
imagine where things now areheading, and that helps them to
plan ahead and and sometimes ithelps them be passive. It helps
them. It gives them permissionto say, Well, I think this is
going to happen. There's nothingI can do about it. Or I think
(04:50):
everything's going to be fine.
No need to worry. But I thinkthere's another way of thinking
about the future that says,Well, if this scenario happens,
here's how I want. To show up.
If this scenario happens, here'show I want to show up. And I
think that kind of scenario,thinking that really was the
basis of life after Doom, led tome working on this particular
scenario in the last voyage. Sowhen I say prophetic, I believe
(05:13):
we're dealing with two things,warning, warnings about what
could be ahead, and imaginingsafe landings, imagining ways
through, imagining better thingsthat could come when the current
status quo and the current ordercollapses.
Joshua Johnson (05:34):
Is there a work of fiction, or is there a movie
that did that for you, that was,was interesting, that was
prophetic in your own life.
Brian McLaren (05:44):
Yeah. Well, you know, my my theological
background, looking back, I lookat things in the Bible, like the
book of Daniel and the book ofRevelation as prophetic, not in
the sense of foretelling thefuture, but helping people try
to imagine and giving themgreater not foresight, as
certain vision of what willhappen, but insight into what we
(06:07):
should do in the present. And Iremember the first work of
science fiction that did thatfor me was the original Planet
of the Apes. And like many, manyother people who have seen the
movie, this is going to be aspoiler alert in that final
scene when they come upon theStatue of Liberty. And then you
(06:29):
have to look at the entire storyin a different way. I remember
that feeling that came over melike it worked. It got me to
imagine a different future. Andof course, Planet of the Apes
was really a movie about racismand and so. And back in the 60s
and 70s, when we were in themiddle of and coming to the end
(06:53):
of the Civil Rights Movement,having that kind of imaginative
baptism was a very important andpowerful thing. But I love so
much science fiction. Oh, mygoodness, I Yeah, I'm a true sci
fi fan.
Joshua Johnson (07:06):
It's good. Well, that's what sci fi can do. It
could help us imagine a future,and it could actually then scare
us into what's happening hereand now. And if we go on this
trajectory, if we go on onepath, it's going to be doom and
gloom, but we can actually thereis some hope in the midst of it.
You know, as you unfold yourbook and your novels, it starts
(07:29):
out it looks like a oligarchsare ruling the world. They're
controlling governments, they'recontrolling media, they're they
got their pulse everywhere thethe earth is on life support.
It's not doing very well. Whatare you trying to say as this
story, this fictional story thatyou have, is unfolding, what
(07:51):
does it look like? What does theEarth look like in the moment?
You
Brian McLaren (07:55):
know, the term that people are using to talk
about our current moment is apoly crisis, meaning a
combination of crises where eachone makes the others harder to
solve. So most people know aboutclimate change, of course,
underneath climate change is thebigger crisis of ecological
overshoot, the idea that we'resucking more from the earth than
(08:17):
the Earth can replenish, andwe're pumping out more toxins
and waste into the earth, andthe earth can detoxify. And
whenever that happens, everygeneration inherits a poorer,
less healthy Earth, a poorer,sicker earth than their parents
inherited. So we're already on acertain trajectory, and it will
require a major turnaround rightto change that trajectory. But
(08:41):
another dimension of the polycrisis is that the power to to
bring about that turnaround,which we might call democracy,
is being corrupted and subvertedby a group of people. I mean,
when I wrote, when I startedwriting the last voyage in 2016
(09:04):
I couldn't have written a scriptthat would put the richest man
in the world hanging out in theWhite House with an American
president. Nobody would havebelieved that. And here we are
and throwing Heil Hitler salutesand all the rest. So the picture
I'm trying to create is this,the powers that are taking us in
a certain direction are sostrong that it's going to take
(09:27):
degrees of power andcoordination to to stand up to
them that most people don't yetimagine being necessary, but
it's going to take, you know,there are Certain people here in
this country talking aboutnational strikes and the like,
but that's still somewhatfringe. But I think no people
are if, unless people understandhow much power and wealth is
(09:51):
aligned right now to take usdown this road of
authoritarianism, environmentalexploitation, exploitation of
the poor. Yeah. It's we willcreate the future we don't want
by not expecting it, which
Joshua Johnson (10:07):
is, can be a very scary thing, and we could
get caught up in the fear of it,or we can actually move into a
different direction, yes, and wecan live a different way, and we
could counteract that. But Ithink there's even the with
masses of people. We have somesome people saying, hey, there
may be a national protest, orthere's there's things. It feels
(10:30):
like power is so concentrated atthe moment that it feels like we
can't do anything, but we can dosome things. There can be some
hope in the midst of it. Whatare some things that we could
stand up to? How can wecounteract the massive power
that's going to fewer and fewer
Brian McLaren (10:51):
people? Well, I think we all should become
students of authoritarianism. Iffolks are interested, I have a
little ebook on my on my websitethat summarizes my research and
authoritarianism over recentyears. It's just called
authoritarianism coming to asociety near you, and people in
the United States where I live,have to remember, this is not
(11:12):
just a US problem. There'sversions of this that have been
going on. And obviously Russia,but in po in Poland, they've
been having their struggles.
Hungary, obviously, the nationof India is just as we're having
a kind of Christian nationalism.
There's a Hindu nationalismgrowing there. So I think we
have to become students ofauthoritarianism. And what that
(11:32):
will help us do is become itwill help us conserve our energy
so that it can be pooled andpoured out in the most effective
ways possible, because one ofthe techniques of
authoritarianism is to barrageus with so much misinformation
that we become exhausted tryingto figure out what the truth is,
(11:54):
or to barrage us with so manythreats of wrongdoing that we
just think, How Can we keeptrack of them all? And that
feeling of being under assaultis intentional. It's how
authoritarians work whereverthey go. So there's this need. I
was just talking to someone overthe weekend who said he's he's
decided that there's about twominutes of news to hear every
(12:16):
day, and the rest of it iseither the rehashing or giving
more and more examples of thesame stories, and so he said
he's trying to devote less ofhis time to consuming news so he
can spend more of his time firstbeing a good human being and
discerning where are the bestways to to focus his energy. Let
(12:38):
me just say one other thing thatI think we can do now. Well, let
me say two things. One is beinggood human beings. One of the
ways that authoritarian regimeswork is by dividing societies.
The division of a society is notan accident. It's the strategy.
It's the point. And when asociety is divided, everyone who
(12:59):
joins the authoritarian movementis being unfaithful to the the
authoritarian when they're kindto their neighbors, they should
look at their neighbors withdisdain and disgust. So anytime
that we can achieve kindness,even to people who are being
told to hate us because we'renot part of the regime. I think
(13:21):
we're, that's a victory. We're,we're keeping some human chords
of human kindness. That's superimportant. I don't expect that
to lead to civil discussion andcoming to agreement anytime
soon, but it is. It's notnothing to stay human with each
other, right? And then the otherthing is, the worse things get,
the more obvious it becomes thatwe can't go back to the old
(13:43):
normal, and when that happens,we have to start imagining a new
normal that's worth strugglingfor. And really, when i be i
didn't have these words for butwhen I began writing the last
voyage, I was trying, I wasstruggling to imagine a new
normal.
Joshua Johnson (14:01):
So introduce us, then to the crew of the Ark
that's going to should go toMars. Who are these people? And
just frame the the story for usthat you're writing.
Brian McLaren (14:14):
Great. So I should start by saying I do not
think Mars colonization is afeasible option. Visits to Mars
may be feasible, although eventhat is far more fraught. People
should remember, just because abillionaire makes promises he's
going to do it doesn't mean thebillionaire is actually very
well informed about thedifficulties of it. And I just
(14:39):
want to say this to get it outof the way, this is fiction,
right? This is fiction. It's notadvocacy and and almost all
science fiction is based on awhole bunch of consensual
illusions, and one of them isthat Mars is a habitable place,
so. But this story takes placein the in the 2050s late 2050s
(14:59):
where. So our current trajectorycontinues. And a couple of
billionaires, I call them rogueoligarchs, because they're
oligarchs. They truly arebillionaires, but they they are
not trying to use their powerfor their own advantage and for
the advantage of their fellowoligarchs. But they turn on the
(15:20):
they decide we've got to thinkabout not only humanity, but the
ecosystem of the earth and thelife that has evolved over for
over 8 billion years here onEarth, and I guess four and a
half billion of life. And sothese two characters, one is
named Thurman, and the other isnamed Ekaterina, one American,
(15:41):
one Russian, joined forces totry to establish a long term
colony on Mars as an assurancecolony, meaning they think
things are going to get so badon the earth that they that they
need to not only preserve humanbeings, but they need to
preserve other forms of life bycreating a Big gene bank and so
on. So that's the that's thestory. And they send about a
(16:06):
dozen voyages of 20 to 25 peopleeach, and and they plan to send
many, many more. But things getworse. Suddenly, on Earth and on
Mars, the leaders of thisventure that's called macopro
Mars colonization project, findout that the people on Mars have
been keeping a secret from them,which is that things are very,
(16:29):
very bad there. And this sensethat things are going badly on
Earth, things are going badly onMars, forces these two oligarchs
to say we have to take somedesperate measures and send one
final voyage that we hope canaddress the mess that we've
made.
Joshua Johnson (16:49):
That's great.
Now we're have this finalvoyage. There you have this crew
that they're going to addressthem the mess that we made. One
of the things that I can see isthat the the oligarchs that are
not the rogue oligarchs thatyou're talking about, but
they're creating systems wherethere's there feels like there's
scarcity. It's all about power,wealth accumulation. It's all
(17:12):
about control. Yes, and you're,you're contrasting that a little
bit with some more of anabundance cooperation. Yes,
share, sharing with one toanother, interdependence. How?
Why is that? Why is that abetter way to move into a new
direction of interdependence,sharing, that we don't have the
(17:34):
scarcity, wealth accumulationmindset?
Brian McLaren (17:38):
Yes, I believe I quoted, this fellow in life
after Doom. There's a Europeanphilosopher named Slavoj slavo
Zizek. And Zizek says, And hemay be quoting someone else in
this, but he says it is easierto imagine the end of humanity
than the end of capitalism. Andand that provocative statement
(18:03):
suggests to what a degree ourvery sense of our identity and
existence has been completelyfused with a certain kind of
economics, and that economics isbased on exploitation of the
earth and on exploitation ofcheap labor, and in our
(18:23):
exploitation of the Earth, thekind of magic substance we
discovered was fossil fuels,which is this, for people who
haven't thought about this. Imean, when you realize that
fossil fuels represents theconcentrated energy of uncounted
trillions of living things, fromone celled animals to trees to
(18:43):
forest to dinosaurs to, youknow, this incredible repository
of wealth that we stumbled intoand have been able to do amazing
things. It really is an amazingsubstance. And when we start
thinking about how we addressthe problems we've created with
fossil fuels, we bring to theproblem a set of assumptions and
(19:07):
a way of thinking that wedeveloped because we had fossil
fuels. So the challenge ofimagining a way of life that
isn't based on things likeeconomic growth even to imagine,
and this is one of the funthings about this, this writing
project for me here, you have agroup of scientists who end up
on Mars and they don't havemoney, and they don't need
(19:28):
money, and maybe it takes asituation like that to help us
imagine, could we build a viablesociety without money? What
would happen if we organizeourselves in ways that trend,
that financial transactions werenot the basis of our existence,
but rather our ability tonurture the earth. So to come
(19:51):
back to that word you used, sothat there's abundance, human
beings could live a differentway, but it's very hard for us
to imagine it.
Joshua Johnson (19:59):
What are some of the. The inter dynamics, the
character dynamics within thiscrew that push up against this
different way, that push againstit, that are really a struggle
for them. Well,
Brian McLaren (20:13):
this is going to be a trilogy, so the first book
is coming out, and the firstbook is dominated by a tense and
loving relationship between afather and daughter who are both
on the crew. And the father is acharacter named Colfax, who's a
scientist and an ecologist andand brilliant and kind of
(20:33):
arrogant and narcissistic, andhe knows it, but can't seem to
do anything about it, and hisdaughter has rebelled against
his science and dogmatism bybecoming, at first quite
religious, and then actuallybecoming a scholar of religion
and ethics and so on. And theyend up on this final voyage, and
(20:58):
her services are very, veryimportant because of the nature
of the breakdown that'shappening in the Mars community,
so that the dynamic between thisfather and daughter, who love
each other, who are connected toeach other, who are part of each
other's lives, but who see theworld so differently, this is a
big part of the of the story.
And underneath that, I thinkthere are two things, two other
(21:20):
kind of dynamics that wereimportant for me to work with in
the writing of this novel. Oneis the father's a man, the
daughter is a woman. And the thesense that arrogant, powerful,
narcissistic men have made theworld that we live in, and that
(21:41):
if, if we cannot trust them,they have been socialized to
make this kind of world. And sosuddenly we need, we need to
hear the voices of non white andnon male people, is a big deal.
And then secondly, the fact thatthere's a generational struggle
here that some generations areshaped by assumptions that are
(22:04):
no longer true for youngergenerations.
Joshua Johnson (22:09):
But you're also, not only do you have this these
characters in the middle of thebook, but you're also dedicating
this book to the next generationthat you're saying that what we
need to do is is pass on adifferent way of life and a
different way of living into thenext generation. So what does
(22:29):
that look like to see thingsmove differently from generation
to generation into a morepositive route? How can older
generations help youngergenerations. How can younger
generations help oldergenerations? Yes,
Brian McLaren (22:45):
let me just say, you know, I was 24 years as a
pastor, and with all mytheological background, this
struggle between generationshelped me see a passage in the
New Testament in a differentway. There's a passage. It's
seen as a it's it's stark anddisturbing language, but
suddenly maybe it makes a littlemore sense to me, where Jesus
says, Unless you hate yourfather and mother, you can't
(23:10):
follow me. It's weird. And thenhe says, don't think I've come
to bring peace but a sword. Andthen he has this little set of
statements. He says, I've cometo turn a father against his
son, a mother against herdaughter in law. And what's
interesting is, I'm sorry I saidthat backwards. To set a son
(23:31):
against his father, a daughterin law against her mother in
law, he sets it up as agenerational struggle, and he is
setting the younger generationto be in conflict with the older
generation. Now when I put thosetwo together, what I realize is
that in history, sometimes wereach points where if people
carry on the traditions of theirparents, they carry on evil, and
(23:56):
they have to have the courage tosay it's time to put that behind
us. We can see that in thiscountry, and we haven't fully
done it when we say we have ahistory of white supremacy,
slavery, apartheid in the UnitedStates and in many other
countries in the world. We have,for all of us with any European
ancestry, we have a history ofcolonization and imperialism. So
(24:21):
that generational shift, Ithink, is a really, really big
thing. And what it what it meansis there are moments when
members of the older generationsay, I think my kids are smarter
than me for this moment. Inother words, I do not want to
force them to keep the thinggoing that I tried to create.
(24:44):
It's funny. Bob Dylan capturedit, you know, in the times they
are changing, if don't stand inthe hallway, if you can't lend a
hand for the times they'rechanging, don't be in the way if
you can't help,
Joshua Johnson (24:58):
wow. We need to help you. Other. And you know,
in the midst of your novel,there's lots of despair, right
on the Mars base, there's somesuicides, there's cyanide,
jewelry that people are carryingthe earth is just on life
support. It's not doing verywell. But for some reason, in
the midst of of the story, youhave a stubborn hope that there
(25:21):
is a better way and a new waypossible. What what carries you
along? What carries you in themidst of all of this, the
despair and this struggle? Yeah,what is the stubborn hope within
you?
Brian McLaren (25:36):
Maybe there are a couple different ways I could
try to explain it, Joshua, butone way would be to draw from
the contemplative tradition,which is a big part of my life
in the Christian faith. Butpeople in all different
traditions, religious and nonreligious, there is a
contemplative tradition, and thecontemplative tradition
expresses this in differentways, but they invite us on a
(25:59):
path of dissent. And what theymean by dissent is that we all
inherit a set of assumptionsabout how the world works, and
when we begin to question thatthat's the only way, or the best
way, or even a sustainable wayfor the world to work. It's not
easy. People sometimes call itdeconstruction, right? But it's
the story of the Buddha. TheBuddha grows up in privilege and
(26:22):
luxury in a palace, and then hesneaks out and sees the world in
its suffering. And he doesn'twant to flee back to the palace.
He wants to try to to havesolidarity with the suffering
he's experienced in the world,and say, What can we do about
it? And my sense is that when wego through that path of dissent,
(26:44):
there's a kind of bottom. Somepeople call it a dark night of
the soul, but there's since I'mfacing things about the
inherited set of values andassumptions I've defended my
whole life, we become then opento seeing something new. And one
way to describe that path ofdissent in my own experience, is
to say, I think I start wherelife is all about me, and then
(27:08):
life is all about my group. Lifeis all about my us, and then I
say, Well, no, life is all abouthumanity as a whole. Well,
there's no humanity if there areno bees and trees and flowers,
humanity is about life, and thenI say, I am not about me. I'm
not about humanity. I am aboutlife. When that happens, it
(27:31):
feels to me like something in mecomes alive. It's not easy
getting there, but there doesfeel when I'm about life and
life isn't about me, that's agood place to be.
Joshua Johnson (27:44):
Yeah, before you wrote in the great spiritual
migration, that we probably needto move from a place of a system
of beliefs into a way of livingand a new way of living. And it
feels like that, that was it.
But it also feels like on theark, there's all this post
fundamentalist belief, theyrejecting fundamentalism, and
they have this new way ofliving. What are you trying to
(28:08):
What are you trying to portrayin this new way of living?
Brian McLaren (28:14):
Well, if we start it's just the image of a vessel
going through space that has 10humans and a lot of live
animals, and then a gene bank ofplants and animals so that,
hopefully, they can be developedon another planet, the image of
human beings whose job is notjust to save themselves or to
(28:37):
bring back wealth to Earth Forbut saying, No, we're about the
survival of life. This shift,the irony of this, you know, for
people with knowledge of theBible, for example, is it sounds
like the book of Genesis in thesense that we're saying human
beings are created to tend thegarden. We're not tended. We're
(28:58):
not just to be about humangrandeur, but to be about the
well being of life as a whole.
But the struggle in the book isfiguring out or realizing how
much of the old ways we bringalong with us and and I think
that's one of the things. Youknow, it takes a lot of hours to
read a novel. I don't know,depending how fast people read?
(29:19):
810, 12 hours to read a novel,sometimes more if it's a longer
novel. But if I'm going to makethat kind of investment, and I
come out of it with a way ofseeing the world differently,
that, to me, is, is that's whenfiction does what it really can
do. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (29:38):
it really does, and I think it's there. So what
characters are, are helping usthen embody this, this way of
life. Introduce me to you. Yougot Colfax and his daughter, but
introduced me to to anothercharacter that helps us sure see
a new way.
Brian McLaren (29:56):
Well, you know, when I first started writing the
book, I'd written a tree.
Trilogy, a fictional trilogy,over 20 years ago, and I hadn't
really written fiction since,and my agent said to me, when
she said, How's it going? Isaid, it was going well. She
said, Do you love yourcharacters yet? And I thought,
what a beautiful thing to say,because there's something that
(30:17):
happens when you your charactersbecome real enough in your
imagination you love them. And acharacter that I really had a
soft place in my heart for is ayoung woman named Gabriella
Mercedes Corona who grows up inGuatemala and becomes, as a
young girl, infatuated withfrogs because there's a frog
(30:38):
that's going extinct inGuatemala, and that leads her on
a lifelong, you know, life ofscience and and and interest in
ecology and preservation, andthen wants to learn about
genetics. And I think she as asshe developed as a character, I
just could picture a young girlwho that love carries her
(30:59):
through, through life.
Joshua Johnson (31:03):
What kind of research were you doing for this
book? What changed in you as youwere researching ecology, and
you know, all things, what? Whatwould sustain life? What are
these new ways of living? What?
What resonated with you? Whatchanged you as you were
researching for the novel?
Brian McLaren (31:19):
Oh, man, what a great question. Joshua, let me
mention two things. The secondone, I risk being quite nerdy,
but that's okay, nerdy is good.
The first thing that you know,in my research for life after
Doom, I and which I was doingthat research while working on
this book, I came to see howeverything is about energy
(31:39):
exchange, like what we calllife, is about energy exchange,
receiving energy using energy,giving energy, creating energy,
which is sort of an amazingthing to think about. I mean, in
the ultimate cosmic sense,energy is neither created or nor
destroyed, but we, we all addcertain kind of energy, creative
(32:01):
energy, for example, the energyof love, into the world. So
thinking about life as energyexchange, you have to think
about that when you're imagininga Mars colony. Because in Mars,
we don't there. First of all,there's not magnetic there's
there are no magnetic poles inMars, which means there's no
(32:22):
protection from radiation. Justthat is pretty mind boggling to
think about. But yourrelationship to the sun is
different because you're, youknow, 50 plus million miles
away, farther away than theEarth. So that was one thing
that it just makes me feel howlucky we are to have this
(32:43):
relationship with the sun thatrequires an atmosphere, that
requires radiation protectionfrom our the magnetic nature of
our planet, it just makes youfeel, man, we are lucky to be
here. We shouldn't take this forgranted. Second, second thing,
while I was doing the research,I started reading a Japanese
(33:03):
economist named koji karatani,who has offered a radical
reinterpretation of Marxism andcapitalism in a larger
understanding of how economicsworks and what that has been so
helpful for me, because I feellike he has helped me try to
imagine ways we could live inthe future that are not within
(33:26):
the constraints of capitalismand Marxism, which, when you
think about it, are industrial,colonial, industrial and
colonial Economic systems, andwe have to imagine something
post industrial and postcolonial.
Joshua Johnson (33:44):
So take me into my my neighborhood, my community
that I'm living in now. I'mliving in this, this capitalist
system at the moment. But whatif I want to say we're going to
do something different in myneighborhood? Yeah, we're going
to live a different way. We'regoing to be interdependent in my
community. What do you think wecan do as neighbors, community
(34:08):
members, people inneighborhoods, that we can start
some of this, this journey. Now,
Brian McLaren (34:15):
you know, one of the interesting things about our
current system, our currenteconomic and political systems
is that they suck us out ofneighborhoods. No offense
against Coca Cola. But so if Idrink a coke or some other
carbonated sugar, high sugarbeverage, right? Coca Cola, and
I make a deal, I'm going to givethem money, and they're going to
(34:36):
give me a tasty, sweet liquid todrink. Now, that liquid might
cause me, my teeth to fall out,and it might cause me to develop
diabetes, because I get anaddiction to sugar, but Coca
Cola doesn't have to pay forthat. They just make money. In
fact, the more of it they sellme, the more money they make,
and the worse off I am, and theworse off my community is,
(34:59):
because. They need a hospitalthat can handle diabetes and and
so on and so when you realizethat our current system means
that we keep making deals withthese other entities, political
parties, corporations that makeus not care about our neighbors,
and one of the changes I thinkwe're going to may need to make
(35:22):
as we go forward, is exactlywhat your question assumes. At
some point we're going to haveto rediscover ourselves as a
community. Wendell Berry, thegreat American thinker and
writer and poet, oh my goodness,novelist, Wendell Berry said he
defined a community as a groupof families who are bound
together by their mutualdependence on the same
(35:44):
environment. It's a greatdefinition. It's so we're
dependent on each other, andwe're dependent on the earth,
and that scale of life is is abig deal. I think that those
kinds of communities that willthat can come together locally,
will share two things, first,the sense that we're all part of
a system that we don't think issustainable, and we no longer
(36:09):
believe in we don't think it'sthe solution, and so we're not
going to think we can solve thisproblem, but we can start to
live the way People ought tolive a little more, never
perfectly, but a little moreyear by year. That's what I hope
can happen.
Joshua Johnson (36:27):
I think one of the the big values in American
culture is security and safety.
And they're, you know, now, inthis new political regime that
we have now, they believesecurity and safety is going to
be accomplished in a certainway. Is keeping some people out,
is supporting a bunch of people.
It is, is drilling for more oil.
So we have more money, we havemore power, we have more wealth,
(36:51):
and we could hoard things forourselves. What is true security
and safety? How can we redefinesecurity and safety so that we
can say, Yes, it is a value, butwe're not going to accomplish it
through what we're seeing now.
We may accomplish it throughsomething
Brian McLaren (37:10):
else that's that's a great way to say it,
because security and safety areimportant values. You know, they
super important values. If I goback to that idea of a dissent
from thinking as part of thegroup think of the economic and
political systems and socialsystems we're part of, and we go
through a path of dissent, Ithink, when we hit bottom and
(37:33):
begin to see the world we've hadso much purged out of us through
disappointment, disillusionment,false promises and so on, that
we start to imagine somethingdifferent. I think we start to
get that feeling I am not justabout me, and I'm not just about
us, I'm about life and and thatlife goes beyond human beings.
(37:59):
It's what one of my favoritethinkers and theologians,
Father, Thomas Berry of the 20thcentury, said, he said we need a
mutually enhancing human Earthrelationship. And this is the
vision that I think is trying tobe born in us, a new
(38:19):
relationship with each other, ofcourse, but I have a feeling we
can't get the relationship weneed with each other without it
also being with the earth.
Joshua Johnson (38:28):
I agree. I think we need that, and it needs to be
with the earth, and we need tomake sure we have some
connection. So if you do, if youcould just give your book to and
magically have world leadersaround the world Read, read your
book. What would you like themto act on from some of the
(38:49):
themes in your book? So maybethe next climate summit or
something where they cometogether and say, we may have to
do something different in thisworld. What do you what do you
hope that they would act on.
Brian McLaren (39:00):
You know, the real leadership I think we need
now is a kind of moral you usedthe word prophetic earlier. It's
a prophetic leadership in thesense that it involves morality
and imagination. And I think ifleaders, here's something we
almost never hear from leaders,I think our system is messed up,
(39:21):
and we need to start thinkingthis way and this way and this
way. I think there are problemsin the way we think, and I don't
see, I don't see a solutionworking with our current way of
thinking. The only solution Isee is that we have a change in
our thinking. Now, if apolitical leader would say that
he everybody would make fun ofthem and attack them or her, I
Unknown (39:42):
would find that the most refreshing exciting thing
Brian McLaren (39:45):
exactly, they would be attacked, but they get
attacked anyway, and what theywould do is they would infuse
into the society a thought thatthe society almost never allows,
that our current ways ofthinking are a problem, our
current values. Our problem, andit could happen, you know, like
you say, you and I would feelgood if a leader said that, at
(40:07):
least there are two of us, and Ibet a lot of folks listening
would feel the same way.
Joshua Johnson (40:11):
Yes, I That would be so great if we could
say, okay, the way that we arethinking, our systems thinking,
is off. It is wrong. And then weneed to move a different
direction. We we need to behonest about our situation, our
current situation. We have to wecannot heal from anything. We
can't move forward unless wename the thing. And so we have
(40:33):
to name it. And so I don't knowhow we do that when in a world
that you have said, we're we'redivided, we're polarized, and
people are trying to to make usthis way. And people say, Oh,
you, you're naming something,but you have an agenda behind
it, and it's bias. It's notreal. And so how do we, how do
(40:57):
we truly name the problem and itbeing, and people could see it
with their eyes.
Brian McLaren (41:03):
Well, going back to your word prophetic, Joshua,
Prophets often show up years ordecades or centuries before
people are really ready to heartheir message. But it has to be
said for generations. But youknow what's, what's? The thing
that was it Winston Churchill,who said about America,
Americans always do the rightthing after they've exhausted
(41:25):
all other options, you know. Butwe, we it gets a root in our in
our imagination. So the I thinkone thing we have to do is to
say we've got to be patientabout this. The shift doesn't
happen in one election cycle,you know, but it's so
interesting here we're havingthis conversation. You host a
(41:47):
podcast called shifting culture,and I write books, and we're
both doing it in the only way weknow how we're putting ideas out
for people in the mostaccessible ways we can, in hopes
that something strikes a chordwith them and they become part
of the shift. The dear,wonderful Buddhist leader and
(42:08):
teacher, Johanna Macy called ita great turning. And others,
David courten and others havepicked up this idea a great
turning. And maybe naively, someof us thought it could be this
gradual turning, like turning abig ship. It may be more like
running a ground but then havingto salvage something off the
(42:30):
sinking ship. But one way oranother, I think we all will
have the chance to invest in inthat shift, shifting culture.
Joshua Johnson (42:41):
And I really believe that we need prophetic
voices. We need to have prophetsname what is happening and and
through the arts, through novelslike yours, through through
stories, through movies, throughart, I think the artists need to
stand up at the moment and speakso that we can help shift
(43:04):
something and really say, Hey,this is the problem, and we need
to move a different direction.
Brian McLaren (43:10):
And the daunting thing about that is that it is
so radical and so far reaching,the shift that the culture shift
that we need. The exciting thingis, there's work for everybody
to do. We need people in thesciences to do this work. We
need people in education and inhealthcare and in politics and
God knows, in religion, to beinvolved in this work. So
(43:33):
there's work for everybody todo, and simply letting the shift
happen in ourselves, even beforewe do anything, we just become a
different kind of presence inthe world. One way to set we
withhold our enthusiasm forthis, for the destructive path
that's a step in the rightdirection.
Joshua Johnson (43:53):
It is, it is it is, if you can so now speak to
your readers. People are goingto pick up the last voyage, and
they're gonna be so excitedabout it, they're gonna then
pick up the second book and thenthird book, and they want to
make sure that they're gonnafinish this, this trilogy. But
the people who pick up thisbook, what hope do you have for
your readers? What would youlike them to get?
Brian McLaren (44:13):
Well, you know, I just got an email from someone
who's was sent an advanced copyof the book, and it was very
moving. She said, I was in ashe's on the board of a
nonprofit organization. She saidI was in a board meeting, very
difficult board meeting. We hadto let some people go. And she
says, as I was sitting there,the thought that came to my mind
(44:35):
is, what would Eve, one of thecharacters in the book? What
would she do at a time likethis? And and then she said, now
I got home and I'm sitting on mymy back deck having a drink and
looking out in the forest andhearing all the birds singing.
And I thought of another one ofyour characters who loves birds
and would appreciate that. Andshe said, I just felt like the
(44:56):
characters got into my brain andhave. Become part of me. And
what I would hope is that wewould allow something new to
become part of us, some newperspectives. Yeah, to get to
get, like a healthy virus intous that could bring about some
(45:17):
change
Joshua Johnson (45:18):
that's so good.
What an incredible email toreceive that like that is the
hope, I think, for every authorto say the characters are now a
part of me like that. That's ahuge compliment to be able to
write something, even if oneperson was able to say that is
fantastic. Brian, I want somerecommendations from you. So
(45:40):
anything that you've beenreading or watching lately, you
could recommend for us.
Brian McLaren (45:46):
So I mentioned this fascinating Japanese
economist, Koji, K, O, J, I,karatani, K, A, R, A, T, a n, I,
I wouldn't expect people to histhe book that deals with this
that has been so helpful to me,is called a very modest title,
the structure of world history.
But if people go online, theycan see some wonderful summaries
of the book on YouTube and otherplaces. So I if people are
(46:09):
curious, that's a fun thing toexplore. Tell you something else
people might be interested in. Imentioned Thomas Berry, this
great thinker of the 20thcentury, there's something
called Coursera, where you cantake a free course. You can take
a free course in in ThomasBerry's thought, and it's so
well prepared. It's so welldone. So people could check out
(46:32):
that free course on Coursera. Ifpeople are interested in what
science fiction books I've lovedlately, I just read a science
fiction book I absolutely lovecalled children of time. Really
fascinating. It takes you into adifferent world, where you see
things in a way that you hadn'tseen them before. It helps you
think about evolution and helpsyou think about species and life
(46:56):
and so on in a different way.
And of course, another superrelevant science fiction novel
is ministry for the future,which is Kim Stanley Robinson's
brilliant book about imaginingthe climate crisis unfolding. So
(47:16):
those would be a few
Joshua Johnson (47:18):
Excellent, great recommendations. Well, the last
voyage will be out. Anywhere youget your books, you could go and
get the last voyage, which Ireally do hope people go and
read this great novel that youhave written. Is there anywhere
else that you would like topoint people to?
Brian McLaren (47:35):
Well, if people are interested, I have a podcast
that's called learning how tosee connected with the Center
for action contemplation. Theycould look up learning how to
see. And my website has a lot ofother information, of things I'm
involved with. We mentionedauthoritarianism, and I have a
little summary of my ownresearch available on my
website. Brian mclaren.net,great.
Joshua Johnson (47:57):
Well, go check out learning how to see. It's
something that I do listen toevery episode, and I enjoy it. I
love it, so that's fantastic.
Check out Brian's website. Brianoften in your books and your
writing, you end with some sortof a benediction or a blessing.
Is there something that you cansay to the audience as a as a
benediction? Or I would love todo that.
Brian McLaren (48:21):
I suppose. I'd start by saying, may we all have
the courage to face all thereality that we can bear, to
welcome all the reality we canbear, and that will make way for
visions of a better reality andbetter future, and may our
hearts all be open to thosepossibilities that we could
(48:43):
never see if we didn't gothrough the pain of facing our
current reality.
Joshua Johnson (48:49):
Amen. Well, thank you, Brian, this is a
fantastic conversation. Really,really enjoyed talking to you,
so
Brian McLaren (48:53):
thank you. I really enjoyed it with you.
Thank you. You.
Letting the shift happen in ourselves. Even before
(00:04):
we do anything, we just become adifferent kind of presence in
the world. One way to say it, wewithhold our enthusiasm for
this, for the destructive paththat's a step in the right
direction. You Joshua,
Joshua Johnson (00:30):
hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, so what
happens when we dare to imaginea different future, one not
defined by despair or dominance,but by interdependence,
resistance and a stubborn kindof hope? Well, Brian McLaren
(00:53):
returns to shifting culture totalk about his new speculative
novel, The last voyage, aprophetic parable set in the
near future marked bypolycrisis, ecological collapse
and rising authoritarianism, wetalk about why fiction matters
now more than ever, how art canserve as prophetic witness, and
what it looks like to imaginenew ways of living, beyond
(01:14):
capitalism, beyond extraction,beyond isolation, we get into
generational shifts, thetemptation of Mars colonization,
the power of community and whatit means to redefine safety,
abundance and progress in aworld unraveling at the seams.
So join us and resistresignation lean into a more
expansive imagination to becomebefore doing something new. Here
(01:39):
is my conversation with Brian.
McLaren, Brian, welcome back tothe shifting culture. Excited to
have you back on thanks forjoining me. So good to be back
with you. Thanks. Yeah. Wetalked last time about life
after Doom and the last voyage.
Your new novel is the first partof a trilogy. Seems to be a
(02:01):
narrative look and view of a lotof the topics and the ethos that
you have unpacked in life afterDoom. Why is speculative fiction
for you? Why is this the nextstep? First,
Brian McLaren (02:13):
I should say I just found out. I'm so happy. I
hope you don't mind me sayingthis, but I just found out
yesterday that life after Doomwon a nautilus award just was
announced yesterday, so so thatwas very encouraging, but I'm
aware that non fiction reachesonly a certain number of people,
(02:34):
and I also feel that in writingthat book, by putting the word
doom In the title, it made thewords life after almost
invisible. If I could do itagain on the cover. I had had
life in really big terms, andthen in really big letters, and
then after in big letters, andthen doom in small letters, just
(02:55):
because it tends to suck the airout of the room. But before I
started writing life after Doom,I had actually started this
science fiction trilogy back inI actually started back in 2016
and it was my way of trying toimagine a future and then trying
(03:18):
to imagine a better future. Inother words, in 2016 I felt that
the short term future was scary,and of course, I think it's
that's proven true, but I thinkwe have to, in the midst of the
scariest times, try to imaginewhat good could emerge. So
that's that's been the process.
It's been a kind of self therapyand a constructive work of
(03:42):
imagination.
Joshua Johnson (03:45):
Yes, that's good, but you also, you also
call this a prophetic parable.
And before we dive into a lot ofthe themes and the things that
we find in the book, I want toknow the the role of arts and
fiction as prophetic? What isthe prophetic role of art and
fiction, and how can that changethe directory of our lives? Yes,
Brian McLaren (04:09):
well, let's start with that word prophetic. You
know, a lot of people thinkprophetic means predicting the
future, and of course, it doesmean that to some people. When I
use that term, I'm not thinkingabout predicting the future like
that of someone receiving adivine revelation of what the
future is. I do not think thefuture is knowable. I do not
(04:30):
think the future is determined.
I think that. But I do thinkwhat people want to do is try to
imagine where things now areheading, and that helps them to
plan ahead and and sometimes ithelps them be passive. It helps
them. It gives them permissionto say, Well, I think this is
going to happen. There's nothingI can do about it. Or I think
(04:50):
everything's going to be fine.
No need to worry. But I thinkthere's another way of thinking
about the future that says,Well, if this scenario happens,
here's how I want. To show up.
If this scenario happens, here'show I want to show up. And I
think that kind of scenario,thinking that really was the
basis of life after Doom, led tome working on this particular
scenario in the last voyage. Sowhen I say prophetic, I believe
(05:13):
we're dealing with two things,warning, warnings about what
could be ahead, and imaginingsafe landings, imagining ways
through, imagining better thingsthat could come when the current
status quo and the current ordercollapses.
Joshua Johnson (05:34):
Is there a work of fiction, or is there a movie
that did that for you, that was,was interesting, that was
prophetic in your own life.
Brian McLaren (05:44):
Yeah. Well, you know, my my theological
background, looking back, I lookat things in the Bible, like the
book of Daniel and the book ofRevelation as prophetic, not in
the sense of foretelling thefuture, but helping people try
to imagine and giving themgreater not foresight, as
certain vision of what willhappen, but insight into what we
(06:07):
should do in the present. And Iremember the first work of
science fiction that did thatfor me was the original Planet
of the Apes. And like many, manyother people who have seen the
movie, this is going to be aspoiler alert in that final
scene when they come upon theStatue of Liberty. And then you
(06:29):
have to look at the entire storyin a different way. I remember
that feeling that came over melike it worked. It got me to
imagine a different future. Andof course, Planet of the Apes
was really a movie about racismand and so. And back in the 60s
and 70s, when we were in themiddle of and coming to the end
(06:53):
of the Civil Rights Movement,having that kind of imaginative
baptism was a very important andpowerful thing. But I love so
much science fiction. Oh, mygoodness, I Yeah, I'm a true sci
fi fan.
Joshua Johnson (07:06):
It's good. Well, that's what sci fi can do. It
could help us imagine a future,and it could actually then scare
us into what's happening hereand now. And if we go on this
trajectory, if we go on onepath, it's going to be doom and
gloom, but we can actually thereis some hope in the midst of it.
You know, as you unfold yourbook and your novels, it starts
(07:29):
out it looks like a oligarchsare ruling the world. They're
controlling governments, they'recontrolling media, they're they
got their pulse everywhere thethe earth is on life support.
It's not doing very well. Whatare you trying to say as this
story, this fictional story thatyou have, is unfolding, what
(07:51):
does it look like? What does theEarth look like in the moment?
You
Brian McLaren (07:55):
know, the term that people are using to talk
about our current moment is apoly crisis, meaning a
combination of crises where eachone makes the others harder to
solve. So most people know aboutclimate change, of course,
underneath climate change is thebigger crisis of ecological
overshoot, the idea that we'resucking more from the earth than
(08:17):
the Earth can replenish, andwe're pumping out more toxins
and waste into the earth, andthe earth can detoxify. And
whenever that happens, everygeneration inherits a poorer,
less healthy Earth, a poorer,sicker earth than their parents
inherited. So we're already on acertain trajectory, and it will
require a major turnaround rightto change that trajectory. But
(08:41):
another dimension of the polycrisis is that the power to to
bring about that turnaround,which we might call democracy,
is being corrupted and subvertedby a group of people. I mean,
when I wrote, when I startedwriting the last voyage in 2016
(09:04):
I couldn't have written a scriptthat would put the richest man
in the world hanging out in theWhite House with an American
president. Nobody would havebelieved that. And here we are
and throwing Heil Hitler salutesand all the rest. So the picture
I'm trying to create is this,the powers that are taking us in
a certain direction are sostrong that it's going to take
(09:27):
degrees of power andcoordination to to stand up to
them that most people don't yetimagine being necessary, but
it's going to take, you know,there are Certain people here in
this country talking aboutnational strikes and the like,
but that's still somewhatfringe. But I think no people
are if, unless people understandhow much power and wealth is
(09:51):
aligned right now to take usdown this road of
authoritarianism, environmentalexploitation, exploitation of
the poor. Yeah. It's we willcreate the future we don't want
by not expecting it, which
Joshua Johnson (10:07):
is, can be a very scary thing, and we could
get caught up in the fear of it,or we can actually move into a
different direction, yes, and wecan live a different way, and we
could counteract that. But Ithink there's even the with
masses of people. We have somesome people saying, hey, there
may be a national protest, orthere's there's things. It feels
(10:30):
like power is so concentrated atthe moment that it feels like we
can't do anything, but we can dosome things. There can be some
hope in the midst of it. Whatare some things that we could
stand up to? How can wecounteract the massive power
that's going to fewer and fewer
Brian McLaren (10:51):
people? Well, I think we all should become
students of authoritarianism. Iffolks are interested, I have a
little ebook on my on my websitethat summarizes my research and
authoritarianism over recentyears. It's just called
authoritarianism coming to asociety near you, and people in
the United States where I live,have to remember, this is not
(11:12):
just a US problem. There'sversions of this that have been
going on. And obviously Russia,but in po in Poland, they've
been having their struggles.
Hungary, obviously, the nationof India is just as we're having
a kind of Christian nationalism.
There's a Hindu nationalismgrowing there. So I think we
have to become students ofauthoritarianism. And what that
(11:32):
will help us do is become itwill help us conserve our energy
so that it can be pooled andpoured out in the most effective
ways possible, because one ofthe techniques of
authoritarianism is to barrageus with so much misinformation
that we become exhausted tryingto figure out what the truth is,
(11:54):
or to barrage us with so manythreats of wrongdoing that we
just think, How Can we keeptrack of them all? And that
feeling of being under assaultis intentional. It's how
authoritarians work whereverthey go. So there's this need. I
was just talking to someone overthe weekend who said he's he's
decided that there's about twominutes of news to hear every
(12:16):
day, and the rest of it iseither the rehashing or giving
more and more examples of thesame stories, and so he said
he's trying to devote less ofhis time to consuming news so he
can spend more of his time firstbeing a good human being and
discerning where are the bestways to to focus his energy. Let
(12:38):
me just say one other thing thatI think we can do now. Well, let
me say two things. One is beinggood human beings. One of the
ways that authoritarian regimeswork is by dividing societies.
The division of a society is notan accident. It's the strategy.
It's the point. And when asociety is divided, everyone who
(12:59):
joins the authoritarian movementis being unfaithful to the the
authoritarian when they're kindto their neighbors, they should
look at their neighbors withdisdain and disgust. So anytime
that we can achieve kindness,even to people who are being
told to hate us because we'renot part of the regime. I think
(13:21):
we're, that's a victory. We're,we're keeping some human chords
of human kindness. That's superimportant. I don't expect that
to lead to civil discussion andcoming to agreement anytime
soon, but it is. It's notnothing to stay human with each
other, right? And then the otherthing is, the worse things get,
the more obvious it becomes thatwe can't go back to the old
(13:43):
normal, and when that happens,we have to start imagining a new
normal that's worth strugglingfor. And really, when i be i
didn't have these words for butwhen I began writing the last
voyage, I was trying, I wasstruggling to imagine a new
normal.
Joshua Johnson (14:01):
So introduce us, then to the crew of the Ark
that's going to should go toMars. Who are these people? And
just frame the the story for usthat you're writing.
Brian McLaren (14:14):
Great. So I should start by saying I do not
think Mars colonization is afeasible option. Visits to Mars
may be feasible, although eventhat is far more fraught. People
should remember, just because abillionaire makes promises he's
going to do it doesn't mean thebillionaire is actually very
well informed about thedifficulties of it. And I just
(14:39):
want to say this to get it outof the way, this is fiction,
right? This is fiction. It's notadvocacy and and almost all
science fiction is based on awhole bunch of consensual
illusions, and one of them isthat Mars is a habitable place,
so. But this story takes placein the in the 2050s late 2050s
(14:59):
where. So our current trajectorycontinues. And a couple of
billionaires, I call them rogueoligarchs, because they're
oligarchs. They truly arebillionaires, but they they are
not trying to use their powerfor their own advantage and for
the advantage of their fellowoligarchs. But they turn on the
(15:20):
they decide we've got to thinkabout not only humanity, but the
ecosystem of the earth and thelife that has evolved over for
over 8 billion years here onEarth, and I guess four and a
half billion of life. And sothese two characters, one is
named Thurman, and the other isnamed Ekaterina, one American,
(15:41):
one Russian, joined forces totry to establish a long term
colony on Mars as an assurancecolony, meaning they think
things are going to get so badon the earth that they that they
need to not only preserve humanbeings, but they need to
preserve other forms of life bycreating a Big gene bank and so
on. So that's the that's thestory. And they send about a
(16:06):
dozen voyages of 20 to 25 peopleeach, and and they plan to send
many, many more. But things getworse. Suddenly, on Earth and on
Mars, the leaders of thisventure that's called macopro
Mars colonization project, findout that the people on Mars have
been keeping a secret from them,which is that things are very,
(16:29):
very bad there. And this sensethat things are going badly on
Earth, things are going badly onMars, forces these two oligarchs
to say we have to take somedesperate measures and send one
final voyage that we hope canaddress the mess that we've
made.
Joshua Johnson (16:49):
That's great.
Now we're have this finalvoyage. There you have this crew
that they're going to addressthem the mess that we made. One
of the things that I can see isthat the the oligarchs that are
not the rogue oligarchs thatyou're talking about, but
they're creating systems wherethere's there feels like there's
scarcity. It's all about power,wealth accumulation. It's all
(17:12):
about control. Yes, and you're,you're contrasting that a little
bit with some more of anabundance cooperation. Yes,
share, sharing with one toanother, interdependence. How?
Why is that? Why is that abetter way to move into a new
direction of interdependence,sharing, that we don't have the
(17:34):
scarcity, wealth accumulationmindset?
Brian McLaren (17:38):
Yes, I believe I quoted, this fellow in life
after Doom. There's a Europeanphilosopher named Slavoj slavo
Zizek. And Zizek says, And hemay be quoting someone else in
this, but he says it is easierto imagine the end of humanity
than the end of capitalism. Andand that provocative statement
(18:03):
suggests to what a degree ourvery sense of our identity and
existence has been completelyfused with a certain kind of
economics, and that economics isbased on exploitation of the
earth and on exploitation ofcheap labor, and in our
(18:23):
exploitation of the Earth, thekind of magic substance we
discovered was fossil fuels,which is this, for people who
haven't thought about this. Imean, when you realize that
fossil fuels represents theconcentrated energy of uncounted
trillions of living things, fromone celled animals to trees to
(18:43):
forest to dinosaurs to, youknow, this incredible repository
of wealth that we stumbled intoand have been able to do amazing
things. It really is an amazingsubstance. And when we start
thinking about how we addressthe problems we've created with
fossil fuels, we bring to theproblem a set of assumptions and
(19:07):
a way of thinking that wedeveloped because we had fossil
fuels. So the challenge ofimagining a way of life that
isn't based on things likeeconomic growth even to imagine,
and this is one of the funthings about this, this writing
project for me here, you have agroup of scientists who end up
on Mars and they don't havemoney, and they don't need
(19:28):
money, and maybe it takes asituation like that to help us
imagine, could we build a viablesociety without money? What
would happen if we organizeourselves in ways that trend,
that financial transactions werenot the basis of our existence,
but rather our ability tonurture the earth. So to come
(19:51):
back to that word you used, sothat there's abundance, human
beings could live a differentway, but it's very hard for us
to imagine it.
Joshua Johnson (19:59):
What are some of the. The inter dynamics, the
character dynamics within thiscrew that push up against this
different way, that push againstit, that are really a struggle
for them. Well,
Brian McLaren (20:13):
this is going to be a trilogy, so the first book
is coming out, and the firstbook is dominated by a tense and
loving relationship between afather and daughter who are both
on the crew. And the father is acharacter named Colfax, who's a
scientist and an ecologist andand brilliant and kind of
(20:33):
arrogant and narcissistic, andhe knows it, but can't seem to
do anything about it, and hisdaughter has rebelled against
his science and dogmatism bybecoming, at first quite
religious, and then actuallybecoming a scholar of religion
and ethics and so on. And theyend up on this final voyage, and
(20:58):
her services are very, veryimportant because of the nature
of the breakdown that'shappening in the Mars community,
so that the dynamic between thisfather and daughter, who love
each other, who are connected toeach other, who are part of each
other's lives, but who see theworld so differently, this is a
big part of the of the story.
And underneath that, I thinkthere are two things, two other
(21:20):
kind of dynamics that wereimportant for me to work with in
the writing of this novel. Oneis the father's a man, the
daughter is a woman. And the thesense that arrogant, powerful,
narcissistic men have made theworld that we live in, and that
(21:41):
if, if we cannot trust them,they have been socialized to
make this kind of world. And sosuddenly we need, we need to
hear the voices of non white andnon male people, is a big deal.
And then secondly, the fact thatthere's a generational struggle
here that some generations areshaped by assumptions that are
(22:04):
no longer true for youngergenerations.
Joshua Johnson (22:09):
But you're also, not only do you have this these
characters in the middle of thebook, but you're also dedicating
this book to the next generationthat you're saying that what we
need to do is is pass on adifferent way of life and a
different way of living into thenext generation. So what does
(22:29):
that look like to see thingsmove differently from generation
to generation into a morepositive route? How can older
generations help youngergenerations. How can younger
generations help oldergenerations? Yes,
Brian McLaren (22:45):
let me just say, you know, I was 24 years as a
pastor, and with all mytheological background, this
struggle between generationshelped me see a passage in the
New Testament in a differentway. There's a passage. It's
seen as a it's it's stark anddisturbing language, but
suddenly maybe it makes a littlemore sense to me, where Jesus
says, Unless you hate yourfather and mother, you can't
(23:10):
follow me. It's weird. And thenhe says, don't think I've come
to bring peace but a sword. Andthen he has this little set of
statements. He says, I've cometo turn a father against his
son, a mother against herdaughter in law. And what's
interesting is, I'm sorry I saidthat backwards. To set a son
(23:31):
against his father, a daughterin law against her mother in
law, he sets it up as agenerational struggle, and he is
setting the younger generationto be in conflict with the older
generation. Now when I put thosetwo together, what I realize is
that in history, sometimes wereach points where if people
carry on the traditions of theirparents, they carry on evil, and
(23:56):
they have to have the courage tosay it's time to put that behind
us. We can see that in thiscountry, and we haven't fully
done it when we say we have ahistory of white supremacy,
slavery, apartheid in the UnitedStates and in many other
countries in the world. We have,for all of us with any European
ancestry, we have a history ofcolonization and imperialism. So
(24:21):
that generational shift, Ithink, is a really, really big
thing. And what it what it meansis there are moments when
members of the older generationsay, I think my kids are smarter
than me for this moment. Inother words, I do not want to
force them to keep the thinggoing that I tried to create.
(24:44):
It's funny. Bob Dylan capturedit, you know, in the times they
are changing, if don't stand inthe hallway, if you can't lend a
hand for the times they'rechanging, don't be in the way if
you can't help,
Joshua Johnson (24:58):
wow. We need to help you. Other. And you know,
in the midst of your novel,there's lots of despair, right
on the Mars base, there's somesuicides, there's cyanide,
jewelry that people are carryingthe earth is just on life
support. It's not doing verywell. But for some reason, in
the midst of of the story, youhave a stubborn hope that there
(25:21):
is a better way and a new waypossible. What what carries you
along? What carries you in themidst of all of this, the
despair and this struggle? Yeah,what is the stubborn hope within
you?
Brian McLaren (25:36):
Maybe there are a couple different ways I could
try to explain it, Joshua, butone way would be to draw from
the contemplative tradition,which is a big part of my life
in the Christian faith. Butpeople in all different
traditions, religious and nonreligious, there is a
contemplative tradition, and thecontemplative tradition
expresses this in differentways, but they invite us on a
(25:59):
path of dissent. And what theymean by dissent is that we all
inherit a set of assumptionsabout how the world works, and
when we begin to question thatthat's the only way, or the best
way, or even a sustainable wayfor the world to work. It's not
easy. People sometimes call itdeconstruction, right? But it's
the story of the Buddha. TheBuddha grows up in privilege and
(26:22):
luxury in a palace, and then hesneaks out and sees the world in
its suffering. And he doesn'twant to flee back to the palace.
He wants to try to to havesolidarity with the suffering
he's experienced in the world,and say, What can we do about
it? And my sense is that when wego through that path of dissent,
(26:44):
there's a kind of bottom. Somepeople call it a dark night of
the soul, but there's since I'mfacing things about the
inherited set of values andassumptions I've defended my
whole life, we become then opento seeing something new. And one
way to describe that path ofdissent in my own experience, is
to say, I think I start wherelife is all about me, and then
(27:08):
life is all about my group. Lifeis all about my us, and then I
say, Well, no, life is all abouthumanity as a whole. Well,
there's no humanity if there areno bees and trees and flowers,
humanity is about life, and thenI say, I am not about me. I'm
not about humanity. I am aboutlife. When that happens, it
(27:31):
feels to me like something in mecomes alive. It's not easy
getting there, but there doesfeel when I'm about life and
life isn't about me, that's agood place to be.
Joshua Johnson (27:44):
Yeah, before you wrote in the great spiritual
migration, that we probably needto move from a place of a system
of beliefs into a way of livingand a new way of living. And it
feels like that, that was it.
But it also feels like on theark, there's all this post
fundamentalist belief, theyrejecting fundamentalism, and
they have this new way ofliving. What are you trying to
(28:08):
What are you trying to portrayin this new way of living?
Brian McLaren (28:14):
Well, if we start it's just the image of a vessel
going through space that has 10humans and a lot of live
animals, and then a gene bank ofplants and animals so that,
hopefully, they can be developedon another planet, the image of
human beings whose job is notjust to save themselves or to
(28:37):
bring back wealth to Earth Forbut saying, No, we're about the
survival of life. This shift,the irony of this, you know, for
people with knowledge of theBible, for example, is it sounds
like the book of Genesis in thesense that we're saying human
beings are created to tend thegarden. We're not tended. We're
(28:58):
not just to be about humangrandeur, but to be about the
well being of life as a whole.
But the struggle in the book isfiguring out or realizing how
much of the old ways we bringalong with us and and I think
that's one of the things. Youknow, it takes a lot of hours to
read a novel. I don't know,depending how fast people read?
(29:19):
810, 12 hours to read a novel,sometimes more if it's a longer
novel. But if I'm going to makethat kind of investment, and I
come out of it with a way ofseeing the world differently,
that, to me, is, is that's whenfiction does what it really can
do. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (29:38):
it really does, and I think it's there. So what
characters are, are helping usthen embody this, this way of
life. Introduce me to you. Yougot Colfax and his daughter, but
introduced me to to anothercharacter that helps us sure see
a new way.
Brian McLaren (29:56):
Well, you know, when I first started writing the
book, I'd written a tree.
Trilogy, a fictional trilogy,over 20 years ago, and I hadn't
really written fiction since,and my agent said to me, when
she said, How's it going? Isaid, it was going well. She
said, Do you love yourcharacters yet? And I thought,
what a beautiful thing to say,because there's something that
(30:17):
happens when you your charactersbecome real enough in your
imagination you love them. And acharacter that I really had a
soft place in my heart for is ayoung woman named Gabriella
Mercedes Corona who grows up inGuatemala and becomes, as a
young girl, infatuated withfrogs because there's a frog
(30:38):
that's going extinct inGuatemala, and that leads her on
a lifelong, you know, life ofscience and and and interest in
ecology and preservation, andthen wants to learn about
genetics. And I think she as asshe developed as a character, I
just could picture a young girlwho that love carries her
(30:59):
through, through life.
Joshua Johnson (31:03):
What kind of research were you doing for this
book? What changed in you as youwere researching ecology, and
you know, all things, what? Whatwould sustain life? What are
these new ways of living? What?
What resonated with you? Whatchanged you as you were
researching for the novel?
Brian McLaren (31:19):
Oh, man, what a great question. Joshua, let me
mention two things. The secondone, I risk being quite nerdy,
but that's okay, nerdy is good.
The first thing that you know,in my research for life after
Doom, I and which I was doingthat research while working on
this book, I came to see howeverything is about energy
(31:39):
exchange, like what we calllife, is about energy exchange,
receiving energy using energy,giving energy, creating energy,
which is sort of an amazingthing to think about. I mean, in
the ultimate cosmic sense,energy is neither created or nor
destroyed, but we, we all addcertain kind of energy, creative
(32:01):
energy, for example, the energyof love, into the world. So
thinking about life as energyexchange, you have to think
about that when you're imagininga Mars colony. Because in Mars,
we don't there. First of all,there's not magnetic there's
there are no magnetic poles inMars, which means there's no
(32:22):
protection from radiation. Justthat is pretty mind boggling to
think about. But yourrelationship to the sun is
different because you're, youknow, 50 plus million miles
away, farther away than theEarth. So that was one thing
that it just makes me feel howlucky we are to have this
(32:43):
relationship with the sun thatrequires an atmosphere, that
requires radiation protectionfrom our the magnetic nature of
our planet, it just makes youfeel, man, we are lucky to be
here. We shouldn't take this forgranted. Second, second thing,
while I was doing the research,I started reading a Japanese
(33:03):
economist named koji karatani,who has offered a radical
reinterpretation of Marxism andcapitalism in a larger
understanding of how economicsworks and what that has been so
helpful for me, because I feellike he has helped me try to
imagine ways we could live inthe future that are not within
(33:26):
the constraints of capitalismand Marxism, which, when you
think about it, are industrial,colonial, industrial and
colonial Economic systems, andwe have to imagine something
post industrial and postcolonial.
Joshua Johnson (33:44):
So take me into my my neighborhood, my community
that I'm living in now. I'mliving in this, this capitalist
system at the moment. But whatif I want to say we're going to
do something different in myneighborhood? Yeah, we're going
to live a different way. We'regoing to be interdependent in my
community. What do you think wecan do as neighbors, community
(34:08):
members, people inneighborhoods, that we can start
some of this, this journey. Now,
Brian McLaren (34:15):
you know, one of the interesting things about our
current system, our currenteconomic and political systems
is that they suck us out ofneighborhoods. No offense
against Coca Cola. But so if Idrink a coke or some other
carbonated sugar, high sugarbeverage, right? Coca Cola, and
I make a deal, I'm going to givethem money, and they're going to
(34:36):
give me a tasty, sweet liquid todrink. Now, that liquid might
cause me, my teeth to fall out,and it might cause me to develop
diabetes, because I get anaddiction to sugar, but Coca
Cola doesn't have to pay forthat. They just make money. In
fact, the more of it they sellme, the more money they make,
and the worse off I am, and theworse off my community is,
(34:59):
because. They need a hospitalthat can handle diabetes and and
so on and so when you realizethat our current system means
that we keep making deals withthese other entities, political
parties, corporations that makeus not care about our neighbors,
and one of the changes I thinkwe're going to may need to make
(35:22):
as we go forward, is exactlywhat your question assumes. At
some point we're going to haveto rediscover ourselves as a
community. Wendell Berry, thegreat American thinker and
writer and poet, oh my goodness,novelist, Wendell Berry said he
defined a community as a groupof families who are bound
together by their mutualdependence on the same
(35:44):
environment. It's a greatdefinition. It's so we're
dependent on each other, andwe're dependent on the earth,
and that scale of life is is abig deal. I think that those
kinds of communities that willthat can come together locally,
will share two things, first,the sense that we're all part of
a system that we don't think issustainable, and we no longer
(36:09):
believe in we don't think it'sthe solution, and so we're not
going to think we can solve thisproblem, but we can start to
live the way People ought tolive a little more, never
perfectly, but a little moreyear by year. That's what I hope
can happen.
Joshua Johnson (36:27):
I think one of the the big values in American
culture is security and safety.
And they're, you know, now, inthis new political regime that
we have now, they believesecurity and safety is going to
be accomplished in a certainway. Is keeping some people out,
is supporting a bunch of people.
It is, is drilling for more oil.
So we have more money, we havemore power, we have more wealth,
(36:51):
and we could hoard things forourselves. What is true security
and safety? How can we redefinesecurity and safety so that we
can say, Yes, it is a value, butwe're not going to accomplish it
through what we're seeing now.
We may accomplish it throughsomething
Brian McLaren (37:10):
else that's that's a great way to say it,
because security and safety areimportant values. You know, they
super important values. If I goback to that idea of a dissent
from thinking as part of thegroup think of the economic and
political systems and socialsystems we're part of, and we go
through a path of dissent, Ithink, when we hit bottom and
(37:33):
begin to see the world we've hadso much purged out of us through
disappointment, disillusionment,false promises and so on, that
we start to imagine somethingdifferent. I think we start to
get that feeling I am not justabout me, and I'm not just about
us, I'm about life and and thatlife goes beyond human beings.
(37:59):
It's what one of my favoritethinkers and theologians,
Father, Thomas Berry of the 20thcentury, said, he said we need a
mutually enhancing human Earthrelationship. And this is the
vision that I think is trying tobe born in us, a new
(38:19):
relationship with each other, ofcourse, but I have a feeling we
can't get the relationship weneed with each other without it
also being with the earth.
Joshua Johnson (38:28):
I agree. I think we need that, and it needs to be
with the earth, and we need tomake sure we have some
connection. So if you do, if youcould just give your book to and
magically have world leadersaround the world Read, read your
book. What would you like themto act on from some of the
(38:49):
themes in your book? So maybethe next climate summit or
something where they cometogether and say, we may have to
do something different in thisworld. What do you what do you
hope that they would act on.
Brian McLaren (39:00):
You know, the real leadership I think we need
now is a kind of moral you usedthe word prophetic earlier. It's
a prophetic leadership in thesense that it involves morality
and imagination. And I think ifleaders, here's something we
almost never hear from leaders,I think our system is messed up,
(39:21):
and we need to start thinkingthis way and this way and this
way. I think there are problemsin the way we think, and I don't
see, I don't see a solutionworking with our current way of
thinking. The only solution Isee is that we have a change in
our thinking. Now, if apolitical leader would say that
he everybody would make fun ofthem and attack them or her, I
Unknown (39:42):
would find that the most refreshing exciting thing
Brian McLaren (39:45):
exactly, they would be attacked, but they get
attacked anyway, and what theywould do is they would infuse
into the society a thought thatthe society almost never allows,
that our current ways ofthinking are a problem, our
current values. Our problem, andit could happen, you know, like
you say, you and I would feelgood if a leader said that, at
(40:07):
least there are two of us, and Ibet a lot of folks listening
would feel the same way.
Joshua Johnson (40:11):
Yes, I That would be so great if we could
say, okay, the way that we arethinking, our systems thinking,
is off. It is wrong. And then weneed to move a different
direction. We we need to behonest about our situation, our
current situation. We have to wecannot heal from anything. We
can't move forward unless wename the thing. And so we have
(40:33):
to name it. And so I don't knowhow we do that when in a world
that you have said, we're we'redivided, we're polarized, and
people are trying to to make usthis way. And people say, Oh,
you, you're naming something,but you have an agenda behind
it, and it's bias. It's notreal. And so how do we, how do
(40:57):
we truly name the problem and itbeing, and people could see it
with their eyes.
Brian McLaren (41:03):
Well, going back to your word prophetic, Joshua,
Prophets often show up years ordecades or centuries before
people are really ready to heartheir message. But it has to be
said for generations. But youknow what's, what's? The thing
that was it Winston Churchill,who said about America,
Americans always do the rightthing after they've exhausted
(41:25):
all other options, you know. Butwe, we it gets a root in our in
our imagination. So the I thinkone thing we have to do is to
say we've got to be patientabout this. The shift doesn't
happen in one election cycle,you know, but it's so
interesting here we're havingthis conversation. You host a
(41:47):
podcast called shifting culture,and I write books, and we're
both doing it in the only way weknow how we're putting ideas out
for people in the mostaccessible ways we can, in hopes
that something strikes a chordwith them and they become part
of the shift. The dear,wonderful Buddhist leader and
(42:08):
teacher, Johanna Macy called ita great turning. And others,
David courten and others havepicked up this idea a great
turning. And maybe naively, someof us thought it could be this
gradual turning, like turning abig ship. It may be more like
running a ground but then havingto salvage something off the
(42:30):
sinking ship. But one way oranother, I think we all will
have the chance to invest in inthat shift, shifting culture.
Joshua Johnson (42:41):
And I really believe that we need prophetic
voices. We need to have prophetsname what is happening and and
through the arts, through novelslike yours, through through
stories, through movies, throughart, I think the artists need to
stand up at the moment and speakso that we can help shift
(43:04):
something and really say, Hey,this is the problem, and we need
to move a different direction.
Brian McLaren (43:10):
And the daunting thing about that is that it is
so radical and so far reaching,the shift that the culture shift
that we need. The exciting thingis, there's work for everybody
to do. We need people in thesciences to do this work. We
need people in education and inhealthcare and in politics and
God knows, in religion, to beinvolved in this work. So
(43:33):
there's work for everybody todo, and simply letting the shift
happen in ourselves, even beforewe do anything, we just become a
different kind of presence inthe world. One way to set we
withhold our enthusiasm forthis, for the destructive path
that's a step in the rightdirection.
Joshua Johnson (43:53):
It is, it is it is, if you can so now speak to
your readers. People are goingto pick up the last voyage, and
they're gonna be so excitedabout it, they're gonna then
pick up the second book and thenthird book, and they want to
make sure that they're gonnafinish this, this trilogy. But
the people who pick up thisbook, what hope do you have for
your readers? What would youlike them to get?
Brian McLaren (44:13):
Well, you know, I just got an email from someone
who's was sent an advanced copyof the book, and it was very
moving. She said, I was in ashe's on the board of a
nonprofit organization. She saidI was in a board meeting, very
difficult board meeting. We hadto let some people go. And she
says, as I was sitting there,the thought that came to my mind
(44:35):
is, what would Eve, one of thecharacters in the book? What
would she do at a time likethis? And and then she said, now
I got home and I'm sitting on mymy back deck having a drink and
looking out in the forest andhearing all the birds singing.
And I thought of another one ofyour characters who loves birds
and would appreciate that. Andshe said, I just felt like the
(44:56):
characters got into my brain andhave. Become part of me. And
what I would hope is that wewould allow something new to
become part of us, some newperspectives. Yeah, to get to
get, like a healthy virus intous that could bring about some
(45:17):
change
Joshua Johnson (45:18):
that's so good.
What an incredible email toreceive that like that is the
hope, I think, for every authorto say the characters are now a
part of me like that. That's ahuge compliment to be able to
write something, even if oneperson was able to say that is
fantastic. Brian, I want somerecommendations from you. So
(45:40):
anything that you've beenreading or watching lately, you
could recommend for us.
Brian McLaren (45:46):
So I mentioned this fascinating Japanese
economist, Koji, K, O, J, I,karatani, K, A, R, A, T, a n, I,
I wouldn't expect people to histhe book that deals with this
that has been so helpful to me,is called a very modest title,
the structure of world history.
But if people go online, theycan see some wonderful summaries
of the book on YouTube and otherplaces. So I if people are
(46:09):
curious, that's a fun thing toexplore. Tell you something else
people might be interested in. Imentioned Thomas Berry, this
great thinker of the 20thcentury, there's something
called Coursera, where you cantake a free course. You can take
a free course in in ThomasBerry's thought, and it's so
well prepared. It's so welldone. So people could check out
(46:32):
that free course on Coursera. Ifpeople are interested in what
science fiction books I've lovedlately, I just read a science
fiction book I absolutely lovecalled children of time. Really
fascinating. It takes you into adifferent world, where you see
things in a way that you hadn'tseen them before. It helps you
think about evolution and helpsyou think about species and life
(46:56):
and so on in a different way.
And of course, another superrelevant science fiction novel
is ministry for the future,which is Kim Stanley Robinson's
brilliant book about imaginingthe climate crisis unfolding. So
(47:16):
those would be a few
Joshua Johnson (47:18):
Excellent, great recommendations. Well, the last
voyage will be out. Anywhere youget your books, you could go and
get the last voyage, which Ireally do hope people go and
read this great novel that youhave written. Is there anywhere
else that you would like topoint people to?
Brian McLaren (47:35):
Well, if people are interested, I have a podcast
that's called learning how tosee connected with the Center
for action contemplation. Theycould look up learning how to
see. And my website has a lot ofother information, of things I'm
involved with. We mentionedauthoritarianism, and I have a
little summary of my ownresearch available on my
website. Brian mclaren.net,great.
Joshua Johnson (47:57):
Well, go check out learning how to see. It's
something that I do listen toevery episode, and I enjoy it. I
love it, so that's fantastic.
Check out Brian's website. Brianoften in your books and your
writing, you end with some sortof a benediction or a blessing.
Is there something that you cansay to the audience as a as a
benediction? Or I would love todo that.
Brian McLaren (48:21):
I suppose. I'd start by saying, may we all have
the courage to face all thereality that we can bear, to
welcome all the reality we canbear, and that will make way for
visions of a better reality andbetter future, and may our
hearts all be open to thosepossibilities that we could
(48:43):
never see if we didn't gothrough the pain of facing our
current reality.
Joshua Johnson (48:49):
Amen. Well, thank you, Brian, this is a
fantastic conversation. Really,really enjoyed talking to you,
so
Brian McLaren (48:53):
thank you. I really enjoyed it with you.
Thank you. You.
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