Hyphenated Life
Hyphenated Life
The Origin Story
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Andrew & David introduce this new podcast. This is the beginning of an exploration of the intersection between the sacred and the secular that allow us to become more fully alive.
So this is our first ever technically podcast of this brand new podcast, episode zero. And so on today's episode, we would like to just introduce ourselves, talk about what , uh, our listeners that if they're not there yet, they will be out there what they can expect from hyphenated life. I think I interrupted you when you were saying hyphenated life. That is actually the name of the podcast. It is the name of the podcast. Hyphen , I wonder what that means. What do you think people think that means? I think people would be intrigued by it, but not fully know what that means. That's my guess. That'd be kind of my hope as well. That it's intriguing enough. Leading enough, to get someone to say, Hey, I want to know how I can live the high life. Ooh , Highlife . You know, how do you spell that with a Y? Definitely. Nice. Yeah . Like H Y hyphen hyphen, L I F E L Y F a . I don't know . Yeah . I'm not sure about that. We'll figure that out. We'll do a listeners . Paul first, first podcast after episode zero, the origin story. Yes. Maybe we should enter
Speaker 2These ourselves . Let's do it. Start there.
Speaker 1Welcome to hyphenated life. We invite you to join us on this journey to explore the connection of the sacred and the secular that inspires us to become more fully alive.
Speaker 2Uh, what is your name?
Speaker 1My name is David longed year . Yes. Let me do it is French. If you have heard French spoken, you might recognize that there's an apostrophe in my name. No hyphen though. Um, I work here at pine street church in Boulder, Colorado as the director of worship and the arts and executive administrator in catcher of all things. Um, and I've been here in Boulder for about 14 years, or I moved to Boulder 14 years ago. I've been in the area that long and started working here at pine street church about eight years ago. Cool. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Uh, well , um, my name is Andrew Andrew Dardy , which is mostly Irish. I think , uh, there are like a hundred different surnames of Dardy in the United States. I've that starts
Speaker 3With the, Oh God. Oh, Dougherty family in Northern Ireland. So I've not gotten into ancestry all that much, but kind of curious about it. I'm the senior pastor here at pine street church in beautiful downtown Boulder, Colorado, which is where , uh , we're recording this podcast today in the basement of the church. So that's pretty cool. Yeah. Um, I've been here for about two and a half years , uh, as the pastor and we have been talking about doing a podcast for quite a long time. Like, I don't know, like a year and a half at least. Yeah. And so it's pretty exciting to get to this point to , uh, be , uh, bringing this to life and hyphenated life. Uh, so a lot of our conversations that have led us to this moment on at staff meetings or staff lunches has really been about blasting dualities and boundaries of things like either or black , white left. Right. Um, his life is more nuanced and complex than just, you know, dual categories for things. So I think that really reflects my sense of spirituality and theology. Um, sort of nondual as my hero, Richard Rohr talks about , uh , nondual spirituality. So that's some of the premise, but I think what's really cool. Or what we, I think will be cool about this podcast is for people who are spiritually searching or hungry or , um, you know, wanting community in a different way, this, this would be for you, especially for topics with , as we've said at the intersection of spirituality and culture, but we really want to do that through different lenses. And some of those lenses could be faith or music or art or politics. Um, but generally just , uh , adventurous conversation as we like to say.
Speaker 1Yeah, we found, you know, as people who put together a worship service once a week, as people who , uh, go out to lunch and have a beer and whiskey on a Saturday afternoon, you know, we found , um, where we like to live is in that hyphen space that, that hyphen between the dualities , um, one in particular, I think we always, we always come back around to is this division and culture of sacred and secular and, and that just wouldn't stop coming up. Um, you know, there's a quote by Madeline Lingle. Uh, there is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred and that's almost our sort of spiritual mantra. I think of this hyphenated life podcasts . We want to live in that world where there is not a wall between those two ideas that everything is bridged together and it , and it comes out in, you know, human expressions of faith in art and music and film and in, you know, discourse and conversation. And we found ourselves really, you know, that that's where we like to live. That's where we feel fully alive, which I think is another idea that, that, you know, we kind of espouse around here how to be, how to be the most fully alive version of yourself and the breaking down of those, those barriers is where we find ourselves being most fully alive and, and, and truly in my experience with others , um, that I witness others being most fully alive. And yeah , I think you might have a quote about fully alive newness or something along those lines.
Speaker 3Funny, like the quotes we really have come back to in thinking about this podcast and the premise of it , uh, that's really well said by the way, just the breakdown of what that, what that means. Um, and that's one of the deepest messages of what , um, you know, Christians and theologians call the incarnation, which is, you know , basically just a certain theological word for God become flesh. And one of those ideas is kind of deeply embedded in Christian mysticism , uh, with the idea of what it means to be a fully alive human being , uh , Saint Irenaeus , uh, father of the early church once said that , uh , the glory of God is a human being fully alive. Uh , and I think that motivates me and makes me excited and I'm inspired by what it means to be a human being in this world. Um, and again, one of the deepest messages of , um, of Christianity is that idea of how do we become fully alive human beings? Um, so yeah, I think the, I love that Madeline lingo quote, we , we have definitely revisited that over and over because we do believe if people are made in the image of God, the spark of the divine is in everybody. And we often talk about how do we set that free? And I know as a pastor sometimes , um, I've, you know, beyond been on airplanes when someone says that wonderful, wonderful question that strikes fear in all in all of us is what do you do, right? Uh, and not every time do I say that, Hey, I'm a pastor, because what happens is that sometimes people start to treat you differently. I've found which I really don't like that at all. I just like, I'm just a human I'm just Andrew, you know? Um, so I love this idea of how do we be fully human and yet , um , be people who are spiritual beings too , who have this appetite and longing for finding meaning and , uh, being inspired and learning to inspire others. And that's what we hope this podcast will do too , is to inspire you the listener , uh, and to inspire, to inspire others.
Speaker 1Yeah. So I know we've found inspiration in our relationship, our camaraderie and friendship over the past two and a half years. Um, and certainly been, been witness to that, that fully alive spark as, as our friendship is , has grown. Um, what about your background before we ever met? What kind of, what are some things, how did you get here?
Speaker 3That's a great question. Um, I, I grew up in Tennessee sort of, I'd say a son of the South or a child of the church and church to me growing up was not , um, something that , uh, manifests in the same way today. So in a lot of ways, I outgrew kind of the old parameters and theologies and , um, sort of this exclusionary perspective about Christianity or spirituality that , uh, that was, that became a little dull to me, became something I didn't feel like it was really who I was. And so along the way , um, with some degrees in religion and theology, I was really working out my own stuff like , um , would describe it as a journey of discovery to discover my true herself and to discover that God wasn't as small and narrow and exclusionary as what I had been taught growing up. So a lot of this deconstruction stuff that goes on for a lot of people , uh, as deconstructing the things so that you can construct something , um, more life giving and more true to who you are. So a lot of my own , um, I think Soren, Kierkegaard has written that , you know, all theology is autobiography in some sense, it's a kind of an autopsy of the self. And I think that becoming a minister was my way of working, working that out in a lot of ways of , uh, discovering truly that the image of the divine is in everybody, it's in me and it's in you. And we have the chance to really set that free for each other. And that really opened up all new vistas of possibility and thinking about God and thinking about myself and what does it mean to love God and love myself and love other people. Um, I think I've done that through my academic journey and certainly have done it in my vocational life and deciding to, you know, pursue , um, and be a pastor. So that's, but at the same time, I'm not just that. I think that's part of the beauty of, of the hyphenated life idea is that we're all kind of hybrids were hybrids of, of race or hybrids of religion, ethnicity, nationality , uh, Pentecostal, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist stubby , where all of these multiple identities , um , in community with one another. And so we're multiple identities individually, too . I'm , I'm a father. I'm not just a pastor, I'm a father, I'm a friend. Uh, I'm a son. Um,
Speaker 1Uh , so yeah, that's how I see some of my own journey kind of connecting with, with where we're at , what brought this podcast about, and certainly , uh , our friendship and collegiality and having that together has been amazing thing. So it's fun to be able to work with your friends. Yeah , there's, there's a lot of life power in that. And I remember the first song that the pine street church band here ever played. My, I think it was my first Sunday is what is , um, I can tell that we are going to be friends. We're going to be friends, white stripes, white stripes. Yes, yes. Jack not beginning. Yeah. Yeah. And it kind of that song is written from the perspective of a child, you know, who children have uncanny knack to be able to see through that hyphen and , and not, and not live their life with those walls in place. Um, so that's part of the , the story of our journeys is, you know, trying to rekindle rediscover what, at one point in our lives, whether it was really, really young or how maybe, maybe you haven't lost that. And that's awesome. But , um, to , to really, to live into that as much as possible,
Speaker 2[inaudible] ,
Speaker 1I , I , uh, my background is in music. My classroom days in college and grad school were spent in practice rooms and rehearsal studios. And , um, I was into that. I was singing opera and , um, doing that whole path. And , um, I remember vividly at my , uh, at my sort of exit exam at my final graduate exam, comprehensive exams with my graduate panel of three professors and , uh, sat down and they informed me, you did pass your exams. And that was, you know, hallelujah, that was wonderful. And then they said, so what , what are you going to do next? And I kind of was like , uh, is that, that's the next question here? I was like, okay . Uh, I guess I'll probably try to get into a young artist program with an opera company. And , um, one of the professors said, have you ever thought about working for a church? And I said , I said, no, I have not ever thought about working for a church and I wasn't offended, but definitely surprised a bit taken aback and, and, you know, sort of in unison, all three of them said, yeah, I could really see you fitting in that, in that realm. I think your approach to music and clearly where you're coming from is a , you know, definitely a love of the spiritual experience of music. You know, that's the kind of music do you love to be a part of creating and be a part of listening to. And that was the first kind of cog in the, in the old, the old mind here that kind of was put in place. It was like, huh, I never thought of that. And that was a long time ago now that was over 10 years ago. And , uh, cause one thing that came on was your experience of transcendence. Like you've talked about transcendence at a concert and connect like the intersection of, of spirituality and music for you is really deep in your bones. And I've loved the way you've talked about that. Um, so that's where I was at in my head when you were, yeah, I think I left off musically working for a church as a musician. You live the life of I'm a church musician as opposed to I'm a musician and I played music or perform music in a church , um, communally with, with, you know, congregation members singing along. We do presentational elements , uh, all a prelude postlude Anthem, musical meditation kind of ideas. Um, but you get a lot of, a lot of pushback from a lot of professional church musicians or professional church people, pastoral people , uh, certain types of music are not allowed in church. Therefore putting that wall down pretty hardcore of there's a difference between secular music and sacred music and they're not allowed to mix. They do not belong together. And I raised my hand. I'm not because I'm feeling the power of the Holy spirit, move me as we sing a Michael W. Smith song. Uh , but which we don't really ever do that by the way, just for the record notice. Yeah . Um , I raised my hand and say why, and , um, because my musical , uh, transcendent experiences have come from all over and I don't think that it's anyone's right or place to say that one is appropriate in one place and another is not in another place. And , uh, we have here in the pine street church music program before you even came along and since you've come along, it's been cultivated , uh, to a whole other level. Um, we started not in protest , but , uh, it's sort of putting a exclamation point on our feelings about the difference between sacred and secular music. We started a project called a good Friday musical meditation , um, here at here at the church here at pine street church in Boulder , um, for the history that we could discover from the oldest standing members, they had never had a good Friday service. And , uh, we wanted to do a special music presentation in the Easter time, Easter tide season, Holy week. So what we did is we decided to take an , some sort of culturally iconic album , uh, of the secular that's in quotations world. So in something that had not ever been identified as a religious piece of music and perform it in its entirety with narration, framing it in a spiritual context , uh, and that was , uh , you know, growing up loving , uh, progressive rock music and concept albums, pink Floyd, and , uh, bands like King Crimson and yes, and Genesis when Peter Gabriel was the lead singer and, you know, things like that , uh, bands like that, I've, I've , uh, I've really come to value the , the storytelling ability of a concept album. And for me, that value came out in its spiritual impact on me. So we started this project seven years ago , um, and we've done six albums to date we've covered ranging from Radiohead to Stevie wonder. So , uh, our first official hyphenated life podcasts will be recorded next week. And our guests I'll let Andrew introduce our guests for next week.
Speaker 3So along those lines and good Friday music, good Friday night, musical meditation is my favorite event of the year here at pine street church in Boulder. It's just this wonderful, beautiful mashup and intersection of , of, as David has already said, just , uh, albums with, as you've said, artistic and cultural significance. Uh, but it's been a joy to be able to be part of this, to be able to write some meditations that connect spiritual themes and all of these albums. And so it's a , it's a total happy maker for me. Uh , but we are so delighted that our first guest on hyphenated life is going to be an author. His name is Robert Hudson. He spent 34 years as a book editor at Zondervan Harper Collins publishing, and he's written a book called the monks record player, the monks record player in basically in the book he talks about , um , Bob Dylan's influence on a famous Trappist monk named Thomas Merton who spent most of his life at the Abbey of [inaudible] , uh, in Kentucky. And so it talks about how Merton really influenced Dylan in from the level of mysticism, but it talks about how Bob Dylan's love songs really , uh , impacted , um, Thomas Merton. So really looking forward to that conversation with , uh, with Robert Hudson , uh, on our, on our first episode and that connects with our good Friday musical meditation , uh, just so happens. We're doing a Bob Dylan album this year. It's a really cool connection there. Yeah , definitely. So
Speaker 1That this sort of, what is hyphenated life? What is hyphenated life is I've been making my dog's voice at home. Ask questions. Favorite voices. Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, the hyphen in hyphenated life is exactly that it's, it's that, that moment that, you know, may not be in a church, maybe it's in the wilderness at the top of a mountain peak or at the bottom of a mountain looking up or over a Vista or, you know, it at the red rocks, amphitheater watching , um, the old Crow medicine show play your favorite song and the wind blows perfectly, and the moon rises above and everyone is singing along. And, and there is that moment. That is the hyphen, right? That's like, what's this difference between sacred and secular. There, there is no difference, you know, and for , and a lot of what we'll focus on is that that hyphen between sacred and secular , um, you know, so that's kind of where my mind goes with it. Um, and there are certainly other examples, but that's kind of, that's, that's the core type of experience. Um, and obviously, you know, podcasts aren't, aren't aren't vehicles for transcendent experience necessarily, at least I haven't discovered that comedy podcasts definitely make me belly laugh sometimes, which can be a form of transcendent experience. Possibly. We hope to be laughing a fair amount here. It's not going to be a sit down and take notes and you'll be quizzed at the end of the podcast on everything that you've learned kind of situation. I was kind of hoping for that. Well, it's hard to, when it can't get the scan trons out, our scan-tron grading machine is broken. So yeah, I think that's why we decided not to do tests after the podcast. Um , but maybe, I don't know if we ever get that repaired. Well, we'll readdress this kid to know . Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know if you like for you, what , what is , what is hyphenated life? What is living a hyphenated life? What is, you know, ideas that, that, that you see you get about that ?
Speaker 3I think for me, it's just living in the, in between, and I can't remember which movie it was. I want to say it was city slickers. When , uh, the question was asked , Billy crystal was asking the cowboy , um , I might be totally making this up, but somehow my memory memory, this is how it works. Uh, but saying, how are you doing? You know, that's a common question. How are you doing? And, and the cowboy says, Oh, I'm just living through the dash. And then what does that? And so when you think about a tombstone, for instance, you think about the birth, the birth year and the death year of the person and an in between is that dash. And that's where life is lived in between the dreaming and the coming true or in between the year you were born in the year, you will die and it will happen a newsflash, but living in that in, and I think that's where life is lived too . It's not a living at extremes and we are so obviously polarized in our culture right now, maybe at peak polarization in a lot of ways, politically and otherwise that even theologically. Um , and so how do we find common ground and find the in between where it's not just either or, or , uh, you know, recently is like, I , I, I tuned to words like always and never, when is something always and never, I'm not totally sure about that. I think some, the truth is somewhere in between. And so finding that, and it just so happens that we're passionate about for me, spirituality and culture , uh , whether you go to church or don't go to church, whether your church is in the mountains or wherever that might be , uh, there are sacred alters in the world everywhere. Thank you, Barbara Brown Taylor. And , uh, how do we notice that and name that, and it's not that God is everything that's pantheism, but God is in everything. And I love , um, I love what this , um, this priest and poet , uh , Gerald Manley Hopkins, you know, once wrote that the world is charged with the grander of God. And I think that makes us want to, as we use Mary Oliver last year to , um, to pay attention and to notice beauty, when you find it and to tell others about it, be a star , uh , pay attention, be astonished and tell others about it. And I felt like this podcast is sort of capturing some of that. And it just so happens. It's , uh , again at that hyphen place of the intersection of spirituality and culture, and to do that, to have someone like yourself, that's so passionate about music and so articulate about where you find meaning in your life. Um, uh, but to really, and to interview folks, we'll be interviewing a lot of people on this podcast, which we're so fortunate to have, and starting with Bob Hudson , uh, and talking about Dylan and Merton . I mean, how , how many podcasts can you listen to where you can , um, talk passionately about Bob Dylan and Thomas Merton , uh , and , and really lift that up as a, as a great example of living in the hyphen, living through the dash, living in
Speaker 2Space between [inaudible] . Yeah. You should probably just, should we both say goodbye or, yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah . Until next time. I'm Andrew I'm David,
Speaker 3Thank you for joining us. And we look forward to meeting you at the summit .
Speaker 2This is in between. Here we go. The origin story, here we go. Episode zero. Thanks for listening. The best is the best is yet to be, that was weird.