April 11, 2024 • 39 mins
Join us in a profound celebration of wisdom as we sit down with Randy Woodley, a beacon of knowledge in sustainable living and indigenous justice. Alongside his partner Edith, Randy has woven a remarkable narrative of life, merging the threads of his indigenous heritage with his Christian faith. As we honor the tapestry of experiences that have shaped him, from overcoming a challenging childhood to his impactful role in spiritual education, Randy's journey is not only inspiring but a profound lesson in resilience and the power of transformation.
Venture with us as we navigate the complexities of community through the lens of Randy Woodley's teachings and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's insights on authentic relationships. As Randy discusses the shifts in Christianity, moving away from rigid doctrines to a practice rooted in authenticity and well-being, we uncover the delicate dance of redefining faith identity. Together, we probe the distortions of Western Christianity and reevaluate what it means to walk the Jesus Road in our modern world, embracing harmony and restoration beyond the boundaries of traditional labels.
Wrap up your listening experience with a call to reconnect with our sacred Earth, guided by Randy's latest publications that challenge the destructive dualism of Western thought. We confront the harsh realities of how this ideology has affected global Indigenous cultures and delve into the complexities of missions and evangelism amidst white supremacy. Randy leaves us with an invigorating sense of respect for Indigenous wisdom and a charge to steward the land with the honor it deserves. His parting gift is a wealth of resources, from his website to his podcast "Piecing It All Together," for those eager to continue this enlightening journey.
Life After Leaven is sponsored by Sub:Culture Incorporated, a 501c3 committed to eradicating cultural, social, spiritual, financial, and academic barriers for Black College Students. If you are interested in giving a tax deductible donation toward our work with black college students, you can do that here. Thank you for helping us ensure temporary roadblocks don't become permanent dead ends for students with marginalized identities. You can follow us on Instagram: @subc_incorporated, Facebook: facebook.com/subcultureinco, and Twitter: @subcultureinco1.
Our episodes are written and produced by Tamice Namae Speaks LLC.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up everyone, welcome back to this episode of
Life After Eleven.
I'm your host, timmy SpencerHelms, and very, very excited to
have Randy Woodley here tospeak with us.
Hello, welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hi, and I should probably say happy birthday,
thank you and congratulations onyour book.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
I really do.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm just a farmer, yeah, mostly.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Just a farmer who's had a profound impact on lots of
folks, and so I would love foryou to just kind of share with
people what you've done, likekind of your corpus of like the
things that you've written andthings like that, what you and
Edith are doing right now withElohei, and then we'll jump into
the questions.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, so I'm glad you mentioned Edith.
We partner in just abouteverything we do, so we're both
co-sustainers of EloheiIndigenous Center for Earth
Justice and Elohei Farming Seeds, and we do that out of
conviction, I guess you wouldsay, of trying to create a model
(01:11):
of how to live better with theland.
And then we have a.
This is place is also a placeof teaching, so it's a teaching
center, learning center, and wehave schools and all of that.
I was in academia for 15 years.
I'm now a distinguishedprofessor of faith and culture,
(01:34):
emeritus at George Fox Seminaryor Portland Seminary, george Fox
University, so those days arebehind me.
Now I'm doing most of theteaching setting around a
campfire or on the porch in themornings or something like that,
as people come, which is muchmore my style.
Let's see, we've been on thisjourney a long time.
(01:57):
We've got a few books, came outwith three in 2022 and two
chapters, so that was like asort of a stellar swan song year
for me, if you will.
Yeah, so that was fun.
And Edith and I are actuallywriting another book right now.
We're actually editing thefinal draft of it, which is
(02:21):
called Journey to Elohei, whichis sort of our story and all the
values, our Indigenous values,we picked up along the way.
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I remember hearing the story when I came to visit,
so I'll share how I met you andhow I came to just learn from
you.
The book that I was going totalk about is the Book you Wrote
in 2012, the Shalom and theCommunity of Creation, because
that was the book that had themost profound impact on me,
seeing as that 2012 was the yearthat Trayvon Martin was killed,
(02:52):
and that was a profound momentfor me in terms of my
experiences in evangelicalism,with realizing that there was
something had been added to whatI had been given in terms of
what truth and faith looked like, and so I had to go on a
journey of sort of understandingthat whiteness had infiltrated
what it meant to extract that.
(03:14):
But by the time I met you, itwas 2018.
2017 or 2018, I came out therewith Brandy Miller and Erna, and
there was a Justice Conferencewe did, and I just remember
sitting across from you andsaying I don't even care about
hell anymore, I just needtheology that will get me out of
(03:36):
bed in the morning.
I had been so depressed becauseof all of the police brutality
that had happened from Trayvonup until that point, and so just
some of the things that youpointed out to me about Shalom,
about the things that I waslearning from you in the garden,
as I'm learning how to dothings, was just so profound and
(03:57):
really in a lot of ways I dobelieve, saved me.
I was in a really, really badway at that time, pregnant with
my daughter, and just felt likeI kind of came back to life
during that trip and I think itwas so.
I just I'm forever grateful toyou for that.
But could you tell us aboutyour early life and how it
shaped your views, particularlyyour understanding of the world,
(04:20):
before you entered into likeevangelical spaces?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, well, that was all very kind of you say.
I'm sure we're just one, onesmall influence, but thank you
so much for for saying thatanyway.
And yeah, I think I grew up ina pretty rough place.
Hell, it was a very multiethnic, multi racial,
multicultural surroundings placecalled Willow Run, michigan,
(04:47):
new Detroit, and you know, Ireally had an experience with
Jesus at age I think it was 1010.
And, and then by 12 years oldthat sort of went away, but it
was a real thing, and then Iwandered, you know, for a long
(05:10):
time and then at age 19, youknow, come back and start
walking on the Jesus Road again.
So that was a, you know, anearly influence on my life and a
later influence on my life, andI kind of like that.
(05:33):
I was always walking this sortof path between indigeneity and
whiteness, right, so so thosetwo worlds.
And so it took me a long timeto sort of sort all that out.
I became what I call for twoyears in Alaska a missionary
(05:54):
oppressor to indigenous people,and now I walked away from that
saying I've got to learn to dothings differently.
And so that's when I decided togo get a master divinity at
what was then called EasternBaptist Theological Seminary but
now called Palmer and and thatwas really helpful Went through
some tragedies there as well.
(06:15):
Came a single dad and then cameout to Oklahoma and to real
Indian country, living inAnadarko, oklahoma, and met my
wife and, as they say, the restis history.
So we've been on this pathtogether now for almost 34 years
(06:35):
.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So yeah, so there's something that you wrote that I
wanted to read and then I'd loveto talk about it, and it's on
page 98 of the book and it saystraditional Native American
education is designed to producefundamental cooperation among
the group, group cohesion,sharing of knowledge and
resources, respect for thosewith more experience, respect
(06:57):
for the community, respect fordiversity, a Fundamental sense
of relatedness and a sense ofhumility.
And I remember hearing just eventhe way that I experienced I
wouldn't even, I wouldn't evencall what I experienced a lo hey
when we came out there atconference, but I never.
When I read this passage andwhat I experienced when I was
(07:19):
out there was such a differentframe On even the way that I had
done.
Christian gatherings, christianconferences, to sit around in a
store Is sit around in a circleto tell our stories, to share
gifts from our people Back andforth, was just such an amazing
experience for me.
And I guess my question is whenyou talk, when you think about
an indigenous wisdom and theways that that kind of confronts
(07:43):
or pushes up againstEvangelicalism, what do you
think is the way forward interms of us learning how to
really throw off some of thatIndividualism and enter in more
of to a shalom type of space.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, so that that cooperation from the group is
really important, but it's hardto hard to get to if people
don't have those values right.
So you got to be around peoplewho do those.
Part of that is just ouroriginal values that all our
people's come from.
As indigenous people, you knowwe had to survive and and even
(08:18):
learn to thrive and to do thatit takes everybody doing their
part.
So selfishness and greed andthat sort of thing would be like
the worst thing a person couldbe accused, right.
So so for us, like we learnedsort of living in different
native communities, the realvalue of that relying on one
(08:40):
another and and and I think it'ssort of all within us, but it
takes a lot of humility and andthat whole part about elders
also is Realizing that as youngpeople, you know, maybe we know
a lot but haven't seen it asmuch, and so relying on the
wisdom of some of our elders,yeah, it's, it's a it's a
(09:04):
difficult space, like one of thethings we see when we see White
people try to form communities.
They sort of all live togetherand which kind of makes doesn't
make a lot of sense.
It does economically maybe, butsomehow they never seemed to
last.
It's sort of like like our oldCherokee way was every family
(09:26):
had their own fire, right.
For, yeah, you, you want to gohome to your own privacy at some
point, and egos get in the way,and you know like.
And then rules are set down andit's sort of like you know,
there's some mechanics to it,but it can't be mechanical.
So, yeah, I, it's all a grandexperiment, right?
(09:53):
I read a book in seminary and Iit was a life together by
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and I.
There was a quote in that thatjust really made me mad.
I just I, I really hated it andI was like it took me about,
you know, like 15 years for itto really sink in.
And and the quote was somethinglike as soon as we interject
(10:15):
our own ideas of what acommunity should be, we've
ruined the community.
Oh, in other words, it has tobe done organically and it has
to be done almost without agenda, and that that frees it up for
creator to sort of guide andlead and people to make mistakes
and and go.
(10:36):
Okay, well, we tried that, butthat didn't work.
Let's do this and and so, yeah,that, that sense of you know,
oneness, that that we, we had tohave it's in our DNA.
You know, we just have to.
We have to find it again.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I guess I have two questions I'm trying to think of
which one to ask first what youtalk about.
You know every family has theirown fire.
I'm wondering how do you, howdo we think about?
Okay, I'll ask this one firstwhen do you see the Jesus road
going?
So I know that let me talk alittle bit about my listeners
(11:15):
are very much people who haveI've I've been kind of staying
close to the, the sinking shipto make sure that every last
person that is leaving you knowToxic Christianity, that they at
least have a ride out of there.
So I feel like I'm still inconversation with folks who are
just beginning to ask some ofthese questions, just beginning
to realize that something is off, and so I guess my question
(11:38):
would be the theology that haschanged for so many of us.
I think we're struggling withthe meaning of Jesus.
What does it?
We know what it used to mean tofollow Jesus and essentially
you know you confess Jesus asLord and you follow Jesus, and
then you, you don't go to helland you know you try to do good
things and make more Christians,like that was essentially life.
(11:59):
But when you think about theJesus way, the Jesus road, where
is this all going?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah.
So I was really fortunate tocome across some people early on
in my experience and it sort ofcreated a theology inside me
that was really different thanmost of the people around me at
least, and that was, you know,like I.
I, really early in myexperience, I Realized that, you
(12:30):
know, the doctrine of originalsin was, was something that was
made up to basically keep peopleafraid, as was the doctrine of
hell, as was the idea that Godhas foreknowledge and knows
everything that's gonna happenand God has all power and can
just Reach down and changesomething if God wants to do
(12:52):
that.
You know, all of those kinds ofthings were, were sort of I
lost early on, and so I was anearly heretic.
I guess you'd say, but but thenwhat does it mean then?
That to have a creator who is,in my estimation, the most
vulnerable being who exists,that's how I understand God to
(13:14):
be, and Certainly that's thelife that Jesus lived, and so of
complete vulnerability, so, so,like what that's, that's, you
know, a creator I can follow.
That's, and that's where I canlearn to be the most human being
that I can be.
To be Vulnerable is to be human, and to be human is to be
(13:38):
spiritual and so to Walk in myown spirituality as a human
being, not trying to be more,not trying to be God or be
perfect or be any of that kindstuff, but learn from my
mistakes and just keep, you know, getting up and walking forward
.
That's sort of been myexperience, and then I've
(14:02):
watched Sort of as the layers ofthe onion skin of Christianity
or peel back In the last 20years and to see that, yeah,
things are changing.
There's a great change coming.
It's already taking place.
We have generations of people inthe last several generations
(14:22):
who who are not happy at allWith the paradigm that was
handed down to them.
They're looking for community,they're looking authenticity,
they're looking to do good inthe world, and those are the
exact things that creator wantsus to be doing.
You know our, our foundationalPersonhood, who we are as human
beings on this earth, is tobasically tin the garden, to
(14:47):
take care of the earth and totake care to bring about harmony
when it gets disrupted, andthat that can mean, you know,
like things like you know,feeding people or growing food
and Taking making sure peopleclean water, missing, murdered,
indigenous women, black livesmatter.
(15:09):
You know all of these differentthings that are trying to
restore harmony in the world.
That's our job as human beings.
That's our fundamental purpose.
We don't have to do it, but itmakes us more human to do it.
It makes us more Of who we weremeant to be.
I see Generations coming intothat awareness, leaving
(15:32):
Christianity behind.
So my wife and I haven't calledourselves Christians for I
don't know, 12, 15 years, andwe're okay with that, because we
practice our traditions.
We're still, you know, involvedin our native spirituality, but
we also understand Jesus to beinvolved in that, and so we
(15:52):
follow Jesus through our own,our own ways.
I Reminded a group I wasspeaking at in Orange County a
couple weeks ago.
Jesus never became a Christianindeed and and, and I don't
think he actually wanted tostart a religion, and If he did,
it would look nothing likeWestern Christianity.
(16:13):
So I think we're pretty safe bylike leaving Christianity
behind.
But Creators example, to us atleast, is to follow Jesus, and
that means to understand whathis purpose was, which you know.
It's kind of like that, thatmovie, princess bride you ever
(16:34):
see that?
Speaker 1 (16:36):
My partner has seen it.
I haven't seen it, but I'veheard a lot of people talk about
it.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Okay, and me, go my toy.
It says to the, to this otherguy, you know, because it keeps
using a particular word.
You know, you keep using thatword, but I don't think that
word means what you think itmeans.
You know, and that's what Ithink.
When we're talking about Jesusin the church, I don't think
we're talking about you know thesame thing.
I don't think we know what thatreally means.
If we understand Jesus, andthat's what I tried to lay out
(17:01):
in shalom in the Community ofcreation, his mission was to
actually Make us more human, bethere for those who are more
marginalized and who are more,you know, desperate and who are
more, you know, disenfranchisedand and who have less to eat.
(17:21):
And that's what shalom is allabout, and that shalom is not
just something that the ancientHebrews did, it's something that
all peoples have been given,those original instructions.
So that that puts us on prettysafe ground when we say we just
want to be Human beings, thebest human beings we can be it's
(17:43):
just.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
It's going so yeah, I mean, I I'm hearing this and it
feels sweet to my spirit and Iremember the first time hearing
that and just feeling washed,because there was something to
Feeling like I was stuck in areligion that I really felt was
killing me, killing my sense ofidentity, my sense of self, my
(18:07):
sense of purpose in the world.
And I think about kind of thethings that you're bringing up
about the Jesus way, and eventhinking about Hebrew and how
the Concept of mending the worldof the to Kunalom and this idea
it's very similar and what itdid for me and what I hope it
does for those who are listening, was it at least gave me the
(18:29):
permission to think outside ofWestern Christianity for the
first time, because I, theperson that I am, am in love
with and following Jesus was.
He was a Jew, so I obviouslyneed to go especially back to
like what context was he broughtup in?
What would he been a beenexpecting from people based in
(18:50):
his context, based in the waythey did religion, and then, on
this end, you know, having doneevangelicalism and finding my
way into indigenous wisdomCreated a path for me to come
back to my own Africanspirituality and that has been.
I Don't even think I have words, but but the amount of native
people who have helpedfacilitate my own Reconciliation
(19:14):
to land and body started.
It started at you and eat hisfarm.
But this process of coming backto myself, you know I Write a
view.
I quote you in the chapter thattalks about my me leaving abuse.
I was in an abusive marriageduring that time.
I was even out there and therewas something about going back
(19:35):
to like, well, jesus theNazarene like he's gotta be
grounded, he's gotta be rootedin whatever was indigenous to
him, and then over here like,wait, so there are Western ways
of thinking and indigenous waysof thinking and you just are not
.
People don't tell you, youdon't know.
So then it was like all thethings that were starting to
bother me and starting to kindof I was having dissonance when
(19:58):
I got there and hearing, oh,you're having dissonance because
that's not the way, like that'snot the way that we hold
spirituality, we don't hold itin binary, we don't hold it in
Western ways of thinking.
And I'm hoping, if you wouldn'tmind, for those who are not
familiar with it, kind of thedichotomies there or the
differences there could you talka little bit about.
(20:19):
You mentioned in the beginningof the episode how indigenous
wisdom was bumping againstwhiteness.
Can you talk a little bit about, comparatively, what you mean
by that?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, so even though you may know or not know Native
Americans and the listenersaround them and go, well, they
dress like us and they drivecars like us and they have
houses like us.
But actually indigenous peoplein America and other places have
(20:51):
very different worldview, andthat worldview is everything.
We don't know that we're bornwith a particular worldview
until we begin to sort of bumpup against people who have a
different worldview.
And it's not just culture, it'smuch deeper than culture.
Culture is sort of thecollective artifacts in a
community that you can tangiblysee whereas and how they
(21:14):
practice them.
But worldview is really likehow you think about those things
, like your feelings about them,how they relate to your life
and all those kinds of things.
And so we've been given aparticular worldview, a Western
worldview that took between2,500 years and 3,000 years to
(21:34):
sort of develop from ancientGreece and without going into a
whole lot of detail.
But basically we've bought intosomething called Platonic
dualism and that Platonicdualism creates those binary
choices and creates a sort of aprivilege for the ethereal world
, those things that are of themind or the soul or whatever,
(21:59):
and the physical world.
And so the physical world isseen as less, and so our bodies
and the earth and all creationand those things are seen as
like less important, right?
Well, that's an actual break inreality when we understand,
through our Western worldview,we're not looking at the world
as a real world, we're lookingat it as a false dichotomy.
(22:20):
And so for Indigenous people,we haven't been affected as much
by that Western worldview we'reall affected by it, but not as
much and so been able to obtainthat sort of holistic view and,
as in other Indigenous peoplesaround the world, holistic view
of looking at life and sayingit's all important, the physical
(22:43):
is spiritual, et cetera, andnot have that dualistic break.
And so that dualism is sort ofthe foundational fallacy for
everything else that comes about, such as hierarchies like
racial hierarchies and genderhierarchies and all those kinds
of things.
It's the foundation for whitesupremacy, it's the foundation
(23:08):
for what we call extrinsiccategorization, having to break
everything down into such detail, false categories, and then
living out of those categoriesas if they're reality, the whole
of reality which they are.
It's all of these kinds ofthings.
The whole idea of why we're nottaking care of the Earth comes
(23:28):
out of this dualism, because wethink the Earth is not as
spiritual as everything else,and so, yeah, all of those
things come out of Westerndualism.
I'm gonna plug a couple ofbooks now, if I can.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
That was my next question.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
I just wanna talk about the three books that I did
in 2022.
So the first one was calledBecoming Rooted 100 Days I have
it right here 100 Days ofReconnecting with Sacred Earth,
and it's basically 100 vignettes, short vignettes of how to sort
(24:06):
of walk in this way right.
The second book is which is theone I thought of when we were
talking is called IndigenousTheology in the Western
worldview, and that's when Ireally break this stuff down and
talk about the differencebetween an Indigenous worldview
and that and sort of like whoIndigenous people have been, who
we are and sort of what's whythe Western worldview, aka the
(24:33):
white male Western worldview,has sort of destroyed the world
that we're living in right now.
And then the last book iscalled Mission and the Culture
Other, and that's really foranybody who wants to understand
what mission is all about.
I'm a misciologist, I've been amissionary and I've been the
(24:53):
victim of those things as well,and so this is basically trying
to help people understand howthe American modern mission that
we hold near and dear in allour organizations and
denominations and everything, isreally a project of white
supremacy, and so I go throughthat and talk about that and
talk about what is our role then, as human beings?
(25:16):
About sharing with others andthings like that.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Oh, my goodness, you have to answer the question for
me now.
I'm a suspense.
I mean, I will get the book Ihave becoming rooted in the
other one, but what is theanswer?
I mean, what do we do when wethink about evangelism and
missions?
I mean, I think that'ssomething people are wondering
about, like how do we thinkabout that?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah.
So we have to realize first andat the end of the book I say
this is not a like fix it book,right?
This is like to understand howdeep the problem is, but why
it's a project of Western whitesupremacy and why and part of
the history and part of theresults.
(25:56):
And so I'm really reticent togive a like an answer, because I
think we have to really setwith the problem for a long time
first, and that's the reallypoint of the book.
So I'm not going to give youthe answer.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Oh man, sounds about right.
So OK, I have one more.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
We're going to answer those answers ourselves, right?
I don't want to give you theanswer.
I don't need to read the booknow because I got the answer.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
That's right and I'll include it in the links and
everything.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, my answer is not the sum all correct answer
for everyone either, so this ismy own experience.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
I do find, though, that those of us who, especially
as I, think about being blackAmerican and thinking about you,
know the complicated historythat we have with this place, I
do feel like part of the wayforward for us is reconnecting
with mother earth, with ourmother, and I had my friend
(26:54):
Sarah the first time I eventhought about that.
We were in a conference, andshe said hey, I'm hearing a song
and my mother's mother tongue.
I want to teach it to you.
But I also feel like you shouldknow that the trees are saying
they remember, and because wewere in a particular part of
Virginia, that would have been.
(27:14):
People would have been lynchedthere, and you are welcome to
visit this.
She said I just feel like youneed to know that the trees
remember.
And then she sang this song andit was this beautiful moment of
kind of realizing like the wayforward for me, in terms of
being free from whiteevangelicalism and being
grounded, was like completelyfacilitated by the fact that I
(27:36):
was in conversations with nativebelievers.
And so I will.
I just don't know how toExpress the, the gratitude, and
I think you and Sarah quints aresome of my favorite people to
teach me about the way forward,because it isn't Programmatic,
it's not scripted, it's reallyToday, be present to today.
(28:00):
And then we found out we wereliving on her land, which was
even more amazing, so we stewardit differently, knowing that
it's her people's land.
So okay, so then I'll ask youthis you've been involved in in
activism, so what are thechanges that you've seen?
And you know, what do you hopeto see at this point?
Obviously, this is my 40, 40birthday Season, so I've been
(28:24):
thinking about in my age, likeI'm not old, but in my age, like
I really am now thinking, whatcan I craft for the generation
behind me?
Most of my thinking is aboutwhen folks will land.
Will there be robust theologyfor them to work with once this
system of evangelicalism spitsthem out?
(28:45):
And so I'm constantly thinkingabout the next generation, the
next generation.
What have you seen that makesyou hopeful about your work, and
, and what do you still hope tosee in the generation coming
behind you?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah.
So I Think the there's a couplethings that make me hopeful.
One is the thing I alreadymentioned about the, the last
couple generations rejecting theparadigm of you know that was
handed to them.
When you reject a paradigm,you're basically saying we're
gonna change everything.
Now, that's what my generationdid back in the 60s and early
(29:21):
70s.
You know they rejected thestuff and there were some good
things that came out of it, youknow, like women's movement, the
ending of the Vietnam War,earth Day, you know some things
like that, but they basically mygeneration eventually sold out
and Then came the dot-comgeneration and everybody wanted
(29:44):
to get rich.
So we'll we're yet to see wherethis generation will end up.
But the kind of activism thatI've been seeing, I'm real
hopeful about.
You know I'm it wasn't thatlong ago and it seems like a
long time, but that the Occupymovement was going on right and
(30:05):
and that was a real Beacon-hoekbecause it went worldwide, and
so we have to connect.
One of the things that that theUnited States does is it really
doesn't broadcast what's goingon with world protests or what's
what's happening.
I guess you know, go to likeplaces like democracy now or
(30:27):
Other alternative radio andtelevision to find out what's
going on.
But we need to connect.
We need to connect with thosepeople in Latin America and in
Africa and other places who aremaking a difference and learn
from them.
And.
But the bottom line, though, isis what you know the heroes of
the civil rights found out isthat if you want to make a
(30:49):
difference, you got to take awaythe dollar.
Mm-hmm, I think maybe we needto relearn that lesson.
Corporate America is runningthings.
Corporate America is ruiningour earth.
It's ruined our politicalsystem.
You know all of these things,and so the only way corporate
America will ever listen toanyone is when they start losing
(31:11):
money.
Open that we can sort ofreorganize around those
principles.
So the thing of follow thedollar right.
Indeed that's how you make.
That's how you make changeindeed, wow.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Well, that's a really good note to end on I.
The last question I ask everyguest that's on the podcast is
what are you bringing from therubble?
So the rubble of all the thingsyou had to work through, all
the things that had to collapseFor you to be where you are now.
Was there anything worthkeeping from that time?
The second question is what areyou binging so like, is there a
(31:50):
TV show or an album or a seriesthat you're really interested
in right now?
And then, lastly, our words tolive by.
And so, whenever you're ready,I'd love to have you answer
those three what are youbringing, what are you binging
and what are some words to liveby?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, I, like as I talked about, I converted early
to some different ideas and so Ididn't have a lot of the
baggage you know that I know alot of my friends had, but I did
have some and I had a realexperience with the one I called
upon, who was Jesus, beingdelivered from drugs and looking
(32:29):
at his life and going well,that's a good life to emulate,
you know, and to stay in contactwith the spirit.
You know Jesus, and so I bringthat with me.
I don't ever feel like therewas a time when I doubted my
faith, and that's different thana lot of people.
I never had that sort of thing.
(32:50):
I was like this was real.
It's still real.
I still feel the realness ofeverything that happens, and
sometimes more than others.
But, you know, and so I'mbringing that with me, I'm
bringing, you know.
I guess we just say I'mbringing Jesus with me, right?
But, Christianity really didn'toffer me a whole lot.
So what am I bingeing, oh mygosh.
(33:16):
So a couple of things are goingon.
One is we just finishedyesterday a two year, because
during COVID you're like whatcan we watch?
Because we're going to be shutup for a long time right,
exactly.
So we're looking for a seriesthat had like eight, nine
seasons and I'm on called theBlacklist, that had like 23
(33:39):
episodes each, right.
So we did that for two yearsand just finished it yesterday.
I a couple other things.
I've been playing my guitaragain and messing around, doing
some singing.
I've been writing some moviescripts and I'm really excited
about that's probably one I'mmost excited about and I just
(34:02):
was a finalist and one of thebig screenplay contest and that
was the Santa BarbaraInternational Film Contest.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Wow, oh, goodness Wow .
Speaker 2 (34:16):
And so I'm wanting my movies, of course, to be made.
I found a band the other day Iliked and I thought I discovered
them, and then I come to findout everybody else knew about
them.
They were called the Luminers,my daughter's.
Like dad, I went to a concertfive years ago and I didn't know
if it was going to be anotherone.
(34:36):
Yeah, so just having a goodtime, we're enjoying the last
season of Reservation Dogs.
They keep putting these Indianshows on and then taking them
off, like Alaska Daily, whichwas a great show about missing
and murdered indigenous womenand Rutherford Falls and now
Reservation Dogs and they give aflash and I guess they feel
(34:58):
like, well, we've done the thingfor Native Americans.
Now we can be over with thatright.
So, we're enjoying those whilethey last, yeah, and then the
last thing, you know, there's, Ithink one of the last things in
the black list that was said issort of, I think, rings true,
(35:19):
and something like it's betterto live in risk than to not risk
and live, you know, and so thatthat's probably something like
words that I live by and havelived by for a long time, and
maybe the other one is throughone of our old Cherokee prophets
(35:39):
, redbird Smith, and he said youknow, my religion doesn't teach
me about what to do abouttomorrow, only what to do today.
So we're living for today andthat's, I guess that's my
religion, if you will.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much for thisbirthday present and for being
on the show, and I willdefinitely make sure that I link
all of the books and all of thewriting and where can people
find you if they want to followyou or hear more about what
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Yeah, so I got a couple websites.
We got Randy Woodleycom forspeaking and things.
We got a la hayorg, e L O, h EH, that or so, a la hayorg.
But between those two we alsohave a podcast called piecing it
all together P E A C I N G, notP E, p, I, e P, whatever that
(36:33):
is.
So, yeah, so we're all over.
Just put my name in.
It comes up in places likeyou'll read good and you'll read
bad, you know so thank you somuch for being on the show.
Thank you for listening.
To Pick your Money In yourHeart is.
Don't Need To Subquatch yourInk and clear the path for black
(36:58):
students today.
What's up everyone, welcome back to this episode of
Life After Eleven.
I'm your host, timmy SpencerHelms, and very, very excited to
have Randy Woodley here tospeak with us.
Hello, welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hi, and I should probably say happy birthday,
thank you and congratulations onyour book.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
I really do.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm just a farmer, yeah, mostly.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Just a farmer who's had a profound impact on lots of
folks, and so I would love foryou to just kind of share with
people what you've done, likekind of your corpus of like the
things that you've written andthings like that, what you and
Edith are doing right now withElohei, and then we'll jump into
the questions.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, so I'm glad you mentioned Edith.
We partner in just abouteverything we do, so we're both
co-sustainers of EloheiIndigenous Center for Earth
Justice and Elohei Farming Seeds, and we do that out of
conviction, I guess you wouldsay, of trying to create a model
(01:11):
of how to live better with theland.
And then we have a.
This is place is also a placeof teaching, so it's a teaching
center, learning center, and wehave schools and all of that.
I was in academia for 15 years.
I'm now a distinguishedprofessor of faith and culture,
(01:34):
emeritus at George Fox Seminaryor Portland Seminary, george Fox
University, so those days arebehind me.
Now I'm doing most of theteaching setting around a
campfire or on the porch in themornings or something like that,
as people come, which is muchmore my style.
Let's see, we've been on thisjourney a long time.
(01:57):
We've got a few books, came outwith three in 2022 and two
chapters, so that was like asort of a stellar swan song year
for me, if you will.
Yeah, so that was fun.
And Edith and I are actuallywriting another book right now.
We're actually editing thefinal draft of it, which is
(02:21):
called Journey to Elohei, whichis sort of our story and all the
values, our Indigenous values,we picked up along the way.
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I remember hearing the story when I came to visit,
so I'll share how I met you andhow I came to just learn from
you.
The book that I was going totalk about is the Book you Wrote
in 2012, the Shalom and theCommunity of Creation, because
that was the book that had themost profound impact on me,
seeing as that 2012 was the yearthat Trayvon Martin was killed,
(02:52):
and that was a profound momentfor me in terms of my
experiences in evangelicalism,with realizing that there was
something had been added to whatI had been given in terms of
what truth and faith looked like, and so I had to go on a
journey of sort of understandingthat whiteness had infiltrated
what it meant to extract that.
(03:14):
But by the time I met you, itwas 2018.
2017 or 2018, I came out therewith Brandy Miller and Erna, and
there was a Justice Conferencewe did, and I just remember
sitting across from you andsaying I don't even care about
hell anymore, I just needtheology that will get me out of
(03:36):
bed in the morning.
I had been so depressed becauseof all of the police brutality
that had happened from Trayvonup until that point, and so just
some of the things that youpointed out to me about Shalom,
about the things that I waslearning from you in the garden,
as I'm learning how to dothings, was just so profound and
(03:57):
really in a lot of ways I dobelieve, saved me.
I was in a really, really badway at that time, pregnant with
my daughter, and just felt likeI kind of came back to life
during that trip and I think itwas so.
I just I'm forever grateful toyou for that.
But could you tell us aboutyour early life and how it
shaped your views, particularlyyour understanding of the world,
(04:20):
before you entered into likeevangelical spaces?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, well, that was all very kind of you say.
I'm sure we're just one, onesmall influence, but thank you
so much for for saying thatanyway.
And yeah, I think I grew up ina pretty rough place.
Hell, it was a very multiethnic, multi racial,
multicultural surroundings placecalled Willow Run, michigan,
(04:47):
new Detroit, and you know, Ireally had an experience with
Jesus at age I think it was 1010.
And, and then by 12 years oldthat sort of went away, but it
was a real thing, and then Iwandered, you know, for a long
(05:10):
time and then at age 19, youknow, come back and start
walking on the Jesus Road again.
So that was a, you know, anearly influence on my life and a
later influence on my life, andI kind of like that.
(05:33):
I was always walking this sortof path between indigeneity and
whiteness, right, so so thosetwo worlds.
And so it took me a long timeto sort of sort all that out.
I became what I call for twoyears in Alaska a missionary
(05:54):
oppressor to indigenous people,and now I walked away from that
saying I've got to learn to dothings differently.
And so that's when I decided togo get a master divinity at
what was then called EasternBaptist Theological Seminary but
now called Palmer and and thatwas really helpful Went through
some tragedies there as well.
(06:15):
Came a single dad and then cameout to Oklahoma and to real
Indian country, living inAnadarko, oklahoma, and met my
wife and, as they say, the restis history.
So we've been on this pathtogether now for almost 34 years
(06:35):
.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So yeah, so there's something that you wrote that I
wanted to read and then I'd loveto talk about it, and it's on
page 98 of the book and it saystraditional Native American
education is designed to producefundamental cooperation among
the group, group cohesion,sharing of knowledge and
resources, respect for thosewith more experience, respect
(06:57):
for the community, respect fordiversity, a Fundamental sense
of relatedness and a sense ofhumility.
And I remember hearing just eventhe way that I experienced I
wouldn't even, I wouldn't evencall what I experienced a lo hey
when we came out there atconference, but I never.
When I read this passage andwhat I experienced when I was
(07:19):
out there was such a differentframe On even the way that I had
done.
Christian gatherings, christianconferences, to sit around in a
store Is sit around in a circleto tell our stories, to share
gifts from our people Back andforth, was just such an amazing
experience for me.
And I guess my question is whenyou talk, when you think about
an indigenous wisdom and theways that that kind of confronts
(07:43):
or pushes up againstEvangelicalism, what do you
think is the way forward interms of us learning how to
really throw off some of thatIndividualism and enter in more
of to a shalom type of space.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, so that that cooperation from the group is
really important, but it's hardto hard to get to if people
don't have those values right.
So you got to be around peoplewho do those.
Part of that is just ouroriginal values that all our
people's come from.
As indigenous people, you knowwe had to survive and and even
(08:18):
learn to thrive and to do thatit takes everybody doing their
part.
So selfishness and greed andthat sort of thing would be like
the worst thing a person couldbe accused, right.
So so for us, like we learnedsort of living in different
native communities, the realvalue of that relying on one
(08:40):
another and and and I think it'ssort of all within us, but it
takes a lot of humility and andthat whole part about elders
also is Realizing that as youngpeople, you know, maybe we know
a lot but haven't seen it asmuch, and so relying on the
wisdom of some of our elders,yeah, it's, it's a it's a
(09:04):
difficult space, like one of thethings we see when we see White
people try to form communities.
They sort of all live togetherand which kind of makes doesn't
make a lot of sense.
It does economically maybe, butsomehow they never seemed to
last.
It's sort of like like our oldCherokee way was every family
(09:26):
had their own fire, right.
For, yeah, you, you want to gohome to your own privacy at some
point, and egos get in the way,and you know like.
And then rules are set down andit's sort of like you know,
there's some mechanics to it,but it can't be mechanical.
So, yeah, I, it's all a grandexperiment, right?
(09:53):
I read a book in seminary and Iit was a life together by
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and I.
There was a quote in that thatjust really made me mad.
I just I, I really hated it andI was like it took me about,
you know, like 15 years for itto really sink in.
And and the quote was somethinglike as soon as we interject
(10:15):
our own ideas of what acommunity should be, we've
ruined the community.
Oh, in other words, it has tobe done organically and it has
to be done almost without agenda, and that that frees it up for
creator to sort of guide andlead and people to make mistakes
and and go.
(10:36):
Okay, well, we tried that, butthat didn't work.
Let's do this and and so, yeah,that, that sense of you know,
oneness, that that we, we had tohave it's in our DNA.
You know, we just have to.
We have to find it again.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I guess I have two questions I'm trying to think of
which one to ask first what youtalk about.
You know every family has theirown fire.
I'm wondering how do you, howdo we think about?
Okay, I'll ask this one firstwhen do you see the Jesus road
going?
So I know that let me talk alittle bit about my listeners
(11:15):
are very much people who haveI've I've been kind of staying
close to the, the sinking shipto make sure that every last
person that is leaving you knowToxic Christianity, that they at
least have a ride out of there.
So I feel like I'm still inconversation with folks who are
just beginning to ask some ofthese questions, just beginning
to realize that something is off, and so I guess my question
(11:38):
would be the theology that haschanged for so many of us.
I think we're struggling withthe meaning of Jesus.
What does it?
We know what it used to mean tofollow Jesus and essentially
you know you confess Jesus asLord and you follow Jesus, and
then you, you don't go to helland you know you try to do good
things and make more Christians,like that was essentially life.
(11:59):
But when you think about theJesus way, the Jesus road, where
is this all going?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah.
So I was really fortunate tocome across some people early on
in my experience and it sort ofcreated a theology inside me
that was really different thanmost of the people around me at
least, and that was, you know,like I.
I, really early in myexperience, I Realized that, you
(12:30):
know, the doctrine of originalsin was, was something that was
made up to basically keep peopleafraid, as was the doctrine of
hell, as was the idea that Godhas foreknowledge and knows
everything that's gonna happenand God has all power and can
just Reach down and changesomething if God wants to do
(12:52):
that.
You know, all of those kinds ofthings were, were sort of I
lost early on, and so I was anearly heretic.
I guess you'd say, but but thenwhat does it mean then?
That to have a creator who is,in my estimation, the most
vulnerable being who exists,that's how I understand God to
(13:14):
be, and Certainly that's thelife that Jesus lived, and so of
complete vulnerability, so, so,like what that's, that's, you
know, a creator I can follow.
That's, and that's where I canlearn to be the most human being
that I can be.
To be Vulnerable is to be human, and to be human is to be
(13:38):
spiritual and so to Walk in myown spirituality as a human
being, not trying to be more,not trying to be God or be
perfect or be any of that kindstuff, but learn from my
mistakes and just keep, you know, getting up and walking forward
.
That's sort of been myexperience, and then I've
(14:02):
watched Sort of as the layers ofthe onion skin of Christianity
or peel back In the last 20years and to see that, yeah,
things are changing.
There's a great change coming.
It's already taking place.
We have generations of people inthe last several generations
(14:22):
who who are not happy at allWith the paradigm that was
handed down to them.
They're looking for community,they're looking authenticity,
they're looking to do good inthe world, and those are the
exact things that creator wantsus to be doing.
You know our, our foundationalPersonhood, who we are as human
beings on this earth, is tobasically tin the garden, to
(14:47):
take care of the earth and totake care to bring about harmony
when it gets disrupted, andthat that can mean, you know,
like things like you know,feeding people or growing food
and Taking making sure peopleclean water, missing, murdered,
indigenous women, black livesmatter.
(15:09):
You know all of these differentthings that are trying to
restore harmony in the world.
That's our job as human beings.
That's our fundamental purpose.
We don't have to do it, but itmakes us more human to do it.
It makes us more Of who we weremeant to be.
I see Generations coming intothat awareness, leaving
(15:32):
Christianity behind.
So my wife and I haven't calledourselves Christians for I
don't know, 12, 15 years, andwe're okay with that, because we
practice our traditions.
We're still, you know, involvedin our native spirituality, but
we also understand Jesus to beinvolved in that, and so we
(15:52):
follow Jesus through our own,our own ways.
I Reminded a group I wasspeaking at in Orange County a
couple weeks ago.
Jesus never became a Christianindeed and and, and I don't
think he actually wanted tostart a religion, and If he did,
it would look nothing likeWestern Christianity.
(16:13):
So I think we're pretty safe bylike leaving Christianity
behind.
But Creators example, to us atleast, is to follow Jesus, and
that means to understand whathis purpose was, which you know.
It's kind of like that, thatmovie, princess bride you ever
(16:34):
see that?
Speaker 1 (16:36):
My partner has seen it.
I haven't seen it, but I'veheard a lot of people talk about
it.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Okay, and me, go my toy.
It says to the, to this otherguy, you know, because it keeps
using a particular word.
You know, you keep using thatword, but I don't think that
word means what you think itmeans.
You know, and that's what Ithink.
When we're talking about Jesusin the church, I don't think
we're talking about you know thesame thing.
I don't think we know what thatreally means.
If we understand Jesus, andthat's what I tried to lay out
(17:01):
in shalom in the Community ofcreation, his mission was to
actually Make us more human, bethere for those who are more
marginalized and who are more,you know, desperate and who are
more, you know, disenfranchisedand and who have less to eat.
(17:21):
And that's what shalom is allabout, and that shalom is not
just something that the ancientHebrews did, it's something that
all peoples have been given,those original instructions.
So that that puts us on prettysafe ground when we say we just
want to be Human beings, thebest human beings we can be it's
(17:43):
just.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
It's going so yeah, I mean, I I'm hearing this and it
feels sweet to my spirit and Iremember the first time hearing
that and just feeling washed,because there was something to
Feeling like I was stuck in areligion that I really felt was
killing me, killing my sense ofidentity, my sense of self, my
(18:07):
sense of purpose in the world.
And I think about kind of thethings that you're bringing up
about the Jesus way, and eventhinking about Hebrew and how
the Concept of mending the worldof the to Kunalom and this idea
it's very similar and what itdid for me and what I hope it
does for those who are listening, was it at least gave me the
(18:29):
permission to think outside ofWestern Christianity for the
first time, because I, theperson that I am, am in love
with and following Jesus was.
He was a Jew, so I obviouslyneed to go especially back to
like what context was he broughtup in?
What would he been a beenexpecting from people based in
(18:50):
his context, based in the waythey did religion, and then, on
this end, you know, having doneevangelicalism and finding my
way into indigenous wisdomCreated a path for me to come
back to my own Africanspirituality and that has been.
I Don't even think I have words, but but the amount of native
people who have helpedfacilitate my own Reconciliation
(19:14):
to land and body started.
It started at you and eat hisfarm.
But this process of coming backto myself, you know I Write a
view.
I quote you in the chapter thattalks about my me leaving abuse.
I was in an abusive marriageduring that time.
I was even out there and therewas something about going back
(19:35):
to like, well, jesus theNazarene like he's gotta be
grounded, he's gotta be rootedin whatever was indigenous to
him, and then over here like,wait, so there are Western ways
of thinking and indigenous waysof thinking and you just are not
.
People don't tell you, youdon't know.
So then it was like all thethings that were starting to
bother me and starting to kindof I was having dissonance when
(19:58):
I got there and hearing, oh,you're having dissonance because
that's not the way, like that'snot the way that we hold
spirituality, we don't hold itin binary, we don't hold it in
Western ways of thinking.
And I'm hoping, if you wouldn'tmind, for those who are not
familiar with it, kind of thedichotomies there or the
differences there could you talka little bit about.
(20:19):
You mentioned in the beginningof the episode how indigenous
wisdom was bumping againstwhiteness.
Can you talk a little bit about, comparatively, what you mean
by that?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, so even though you may know or not know Native
Americans and the listenersaround them and go, well, they
dress like us and they drivecars like us and they have
houses like us.
But actually indigenous peoplein America and other places have
(20:51):
very different worldview, andthat worldview is everything.
We don't know that we're bornwith a particular worldview
until we begin to sort of bumpup against people who have a
different worldview.
And it's not just culture, it'smuch deeper than culture.
Culture is sort of thecollective artifacts in a
community that you can tangiblysee whereas and how they
(21:14):
practice them.
But worldview is really likehow you think about those things
, like your feelings about them,how they relate to your life
and all those kinds of things.
And so we've been given aparticular worldview, a Western
worldview that took between2,500 years and 3,000 years to
(21:34):
sort of develop from ancientGreece and without going into a
whole lot of detail.
But basically we've bought intosomething called Platonic
dualism and that Platonicdualism creates those binary
choices and creates a sort of aprivilege for the ethereal world
, those things that are of themind or the soul or whatever,
(21:59):
and the physical world.
And so the physical world isseen as less, and so our bodies
and the earth and all creationand those things are seen as
like less important, right?
Well, that's an actual break inreality when we understand,
through our Western worldview,we're not looking at the world
as a real world, we're lookingat it as a false dichotomy.
(22:20):
And so for Indigenous people,we haven't been affected as much
by that Western worldview we'reall affected by it, but not as
much and so been able to obtainthat sort of holistic view and,
as in other Indigenous peoplesaround the world, holistic view
of looking at life and sayingit's all important, the physical
(22:43):
is spiritual, et cetera, andnot have that dualistic break.
And so that dualism is sort ofthe foundational fallacy for
everything else that comes about, such as hierarchies like
racial hierarchies and genderhierarchies and all those kinds
of things.
It's the foundation for whitesupremacy, it's the foundation
(23:08):
for what we call extrinsiccategorization, having to break
everything down into such detail, false categories, and then
living out of those categoriesas if they're reality, the whole
of reality which they are.
It's all of these kinds ofthings.
The whole idea of why we're nottaking care of the Earth comes
(23:28):
out of this dualism, because wethink the Earth is not as
spiritual as everything else,and so, yeah, all of those
things come out of Westerndualism.
I'm gonna plug a couple ofbooks now, if I can.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
That was my next question.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
I just wanna talk about the three books that I did
in 2022.
So the first one was calledBecoming Rooted 100 Days I have
it right here 100 Days ofReconnecting with Sacred Earth,
and it's basically 100 vignettes, short vignettes of how to sort
(24:06):
of walk in this way right.
The second book is which is theone I thought of when we were
talking is called IndigenousTheology in the Western
worldview, and that's when Ireally break this stuff down and
talk about the differencebetween an Indigenous worldview
and that and sort of like whoIndigenous people have been, who
we are and sort of what's whythe Western worldview, aka the
(24:33):
white male Western worldview,has sort of destroyed the world
that we're living in right now.
And then the last book iscalled Mission and the Culture
Other, and that's really foranybody who wants to understand
what mission is all about.
I'm a misciologist, I've been amissionary and I've been the
(24:53):
victim of those things as well,and so this is basically trying
to help people understand howthe American modern mission that
we hold near and dear in allour organizations and
denominations and everything, isreally a project of white
supremacy, and so I go throughthat and talk about that and
talk about what is our role then, as human beings?
(25:16):
About sharing with others andthings like that.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Oh, my goodness, you have to answer the question for
me now.
I'm a suspense.
I mean, I will get the book Ihave becoming rooted in the
other one, but what is theanswer?
I mean, what do we do when wethink about evangelism and
missions?
I mean, I think that'ssomething people are wondering
about, like how do we thinkabout that?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah.
So we have to realize first andat the end of the book I say
this is not a like fix it book,right?
This is like to understand howdeep the problem is, but why
it's a project of Western whitesupremacy and why and part of
the history and part of theresults.
(25:56):
And so I'm really reticent togive a like an answer, because I
think we have to really setwith the problem for a long time
first, and that's the reallypoint of the book.
So I'm not going to give youthe answer.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Oh man, sounds about right.
So OK, I have one more.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
We're going to answer those answers ourselves, right?
I don't want to give you theanswer.
I don't need to read the booknow because I got the answer.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
That's right and I'll include it in the links and
everything.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, my answer is not the sum all correct answer
for everyone either, so this ismy own experience.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
I do find, though, that those of us who, especially
as I, think about being blackAmerican and thinking about you,
know the complicated historythat we have with this place, I
do feel like part of the wayforward for us is reconnecting
with mother earth, with ourmother, and I had my friend
(26:54):
Sarah the first time I eventhought about that.
We were in a conference, andshe said hey, I'm hearing a song
and my mother's mother tongue.
I want to teach it to you.
But I also feel like you shouldknow that the trees are saying
they remember, and because wewere in a particular part of
Virginia, that would have been.
(27:14):
People would have been lynchedthere, and you are welcome to
visit this.
She said I just feel like youneed to know that the trees
remember.
And then she sang this song andit was this beautiful moment of
kind of realizing like the wayforward for me, in terms of
being free from whiteevangelicalism and being
grounded, was like completelyfacilitated by the fact that I
(27:36):
was in conversations with nativebelievers.
And so I will.
I just don't know how toExpress the, the gratitude, and
I think you and Sarah quints aresome of my favorite people to
teach me about the way forward,because it isn't Programmatic,
it's not scripted, it's reallyToday, be present to today.
(28:00):
And then we found out we wereliving on her land, which was
even more amazing, so we stewardit differently, knowing that
it's her people's land.
So okay, so then I'll ask youthis you've been involved in in
activism, so what are thechanges that you've seen?
And you know, what do you hopeto see at this point?
Obviously, this is my 40, 40birthday Season, so I've been
(28:24):
thinking about in my age, likeI'm not old, but in my age, like
I really am now thinking, whatcan I craft for the generation
behind me?
Most of my thinking is aboutwhen folks will land.
Will there be robust theologyfor them to work with once this
system of evangelicalism spitsthem out?
(28:45):
And so I'm constantly thinkingabout the next generation, the
next generation.
What have you seen that makesyou hopeful about your work, and
, and what do you still hope tosee in the generation coming
behind you?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah.
So I Think the there's a couplethings that make me hopeful.
One is the thing I alreadymentioned about the, the last
couple generations rejecting theparadigm of you know that was
handed to them.
When you reject a paradigm,you're basically saying we're
gonna change everything.
Now, that's what my generationdid back in the 60s and early
(29:21):
70s.
You know they rejected thestuff and there were some good
things that came out of it, youknow, like women's movement, the
ending of the Vietnam War,earth Day, you know some things
like that, but they basically mygeneration eventually sold out
and Then came the dot-comgeneration and everybody wanted
(29:44):
to get rich.
So we'll we're yet to see wherethis generation will end up.
But the kind of activism thatI've been seeing, I'm real
hopeful about.
You know I'm it wasn't thatlong ago and it seems like a
long time, but that the Occupymovement was going on right and
(30:05):
and that was a real Beacon-hoekbecause it went worldwide, and
so we have to connect.
One of the things that that theUnited States does is it really
doesn't broadcast what's goingon with world protests or what's
what's happening.
I guess you know, go to likeplaces like democracy now or
(30:27):
Other alternative radio andtelevision to find out what's
going on.
But we need to connect.
We need to connect with thosepeople in Latin America and in
Africa and other places who aremaking a difference and learn
from them.
And.
But the bottom line, though, isis what you know the heroes of
the civil rights found out isthat if you want to make a
(30:49):
difference, you got to take awaythe dollar.
Mm-hmm, I think maybe we needto relearn that lesson.
Corporate America is runningthings.
Corporate America is ruiningour earth.
It's ruined our politicalsystem.
You know all of these things,and so the only way corporate
America will ever listen toanyone is when they start losing
(31:11):
money.
Open that we can sort ofreorganize around those
principles.
So the thing of follow thedollar right.
Indeed that's how you make.
That's how you make changeindeed, wow.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Well, that's a really good note to end on I.
The last question I ask everyguest that's on the podcast is
what are you bringing from therubble?
So the rubble of all the thingsyou had to work through, all
the things that had to collapseFor you to be where you are now.
Was there anything worthkeeping from that time?
The second question is what areyou binging so like, is there a
(31:50):
TV show or an album or a seriesthat you're really interested
in right now?
And then, lastly, our words tolive by.
And so, whenever you're ready,I'd love to have you answer
those three what are youbringing, what are you binging
and what are some words to liveby?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, I, like as I talked about, I converted early
to some different ideas and so Ididn't have a lot of the
baggage you know that I know alot of my friends had, but I did
have some and I had a realexperience with the one I called
upon, who was Jesus, beingdelivered from drugs and looking
(32:29):
at his life and going well,that's a good life to emulate,
you know, and to stay in contactwith the spirit.
You know Jesus, and so I bringthat with me.
I don't ever feel like therewas a time when I doubted my
faith, and that's different thana lot of people.
I never had that sort of thing.
(32:50):
I was like this was real.
It's still real.
I still feel the realness ofeverything that happens, and
sometimes more than others.
But, you know, and so I'mbringing that with me, I'm
bringing, you know.
I guess we just say I'mbringing Jesus with me, right?
But, Christianity really didn'toffer me a whole lot.
So what am I bingeing, oh mygosh.
(33:16):
So a couple of things are goingon.
One is we just finishedyesterday a two year, because
during COVID you're like whatcan we watch?
Because we're going to be shutup for a long time right,
exactly.
So we're looking for a seriesthat had like eight, nine
seasons and I'm on called theBlacklist, that had like 23
(33:39):
episodes each, right.
So we did that for two yearsand just finished it yesterday.
I a couple other things.
I've been playing my guitaragain and messing around, doing
some singing.
I've been writing some moviescripts and I'm really excited
about that's probably one I'mmost excited about and I just
(34:02):
was a finalist and one of thebig screenplay contest and that
was the Santa BarbaraInternational Film Contest.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Wow, oh, goodness Wow .
Speaker 2 (34:16):
And so I'm wanting my movies, of course, to be made.
I found a band the other day Iliked and I thought I discovered
them, and then I come to findout everybody else knew about
them.
They were called the Luminers,my daughter's.
Like dad, I went to a concertfive years ago and I didn't know
if it was going to be anotherone.
(34:36):
Yeah, so just having a goodtime, we're enjoying the last
season of Reservation Dogs.
They keep putting these Indianshows on and then taking them
off, like Alaska Daily, whichwas a great show about missing
and murdered indigenous womenand Rutherford Falls and now
Reservation Dogs and they give aflash and I guess they feel
(34:58):
like, well, we've done the thingfor Native Americans.
Now we can be over with thatright.
So, we're enjoying those whilethey last, yeah, and then the
last thing, you know, there's, Ithink one of the last things in
the black list that was said issort of, I think, rings true,
(35:19):
and something like it's betterto live in risk than to not risk
and live, you know, and so thatthat's probably something like
words that I live by and havelived by for a long time, and
maybe the other one is throughone of our old Cherokee prophets
(35:39):
, redbird Smith, and he said youknow, my religion doesn't teach
me about what to do abouttomorrow, only what to do today.
So we're living for today andthat's, I guess that's my
religion, if you will.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much for thisbirthday present and for being
on the show, and I willdefinitely make sure that I link
all of the books and all of thewriting and where can people
find you if they want to followyou or hear more about what
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Yeah, so I got a couple websites.
We got Randy Woodleycom forspeaking and things.
We got a la hayorg, e L O, h EH, that or so, a la hayorg.
But between those two we alsohave a podcast called piecing it
all together P E A C I N G, notP E, p, I, e P, whatever that
(36:33):
is.
So, yeah, so we're all over.
Just put my name in.
It comes up in places likeyou'll read good and you'll read
bad, you know so thank you somuch for being on the show.
Thank you for listening.
To Pick your Money In yourHeart is.
Don't Need To Subquatch yourInk and clear the path for black
(36:58):
students today.
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