Ep. 184 Lore Ferguson Wilbert - An Invitation to Rootedness and Resilence from the Forest Floor

I love to enter the woods find a path and walk with Jesus. It’s a place of life and connection for me. And I know it is for Lore as well. Lore Wilbert spent time reflecting on the forest floor for her latest book The Understory.  In this conversation, Lore and I talk about finding identity and community through change and loss.Laurie talks about learning from nature by observing decay and emergence on the forest floor, seeing death as part of life's cycle. In times of loss, Lore encourages us to feel emotions fully and trust that God is still at work, like nutrients from fallen trees nourishing new growth and that moving forward through change requires accepting the "new normal" and focusing on being present each day rather than clinging to the past. So join us as we find rootedness and resilience from the forest floor.

Lore Ferguson Wilbert is an award winning writer, thinker, learner, and author of the books, The Understory, A Curious Faith and Handle With Care. She has written for She Reads Truth, Christianity Today, and more, as well as her own site, lorewilbert.com. She has a Masters in Spiritual Formation and Leadership and loves to think and write about the intersection of human formation and the gritty stuff of earth. You can find Lore on Instagram @lorewilbert or on her kayak in the Adirondacks. She lives with her husband Nate in upstate New York and their pups, Harper and Rilke. She really has read all the books on her shelves.

Lore's Book:
The Understory

Lore's Recommendations:
I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger
We Were the Lucky Ones

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Living God's Way in an Ungodly World
In a world that makes up its own rules, Christians need to focus on Who rules! The Christ!

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Transcript

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 0:00

I think so much of our disillusionment with the world right now is because we're looking for other people to define who we are to define our places. I'm looking to my president, or my politics, or my pastor, or my neighbor, or a writer I admire or a person aid or person I love to sort of push me into the corner of my identity. And I think the importance of being able to say I'm here, and this is my place, is it's it's almost like a courageous act.

Joshua Johnson: 0:51

Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. We longed to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. Our show is powered by you, the listener. So if you want to support the work that we do get early access to episodes, Episode guides, and more, go to patreon.com/shifting culture to become a monthly patron, so that we can continue in this important work. And don't forget to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast app to be notified when new episodes come out each week. And go leave a rating and review. It's easy, it only takes a second and it helps us find new listeners to the show. Just go to the Show page on the app that you're using right now and hit five stars. Thank you so much. You know what else would help us out? share this podcast with your friends, your family, your network? Tell them how much you enjoy it and let them know that they should be listening as well. If you're new here, welcome. If you want to dig deeper find us on social media at shifting culture podcast where I post video clips and quotes and interact with all of you. Previous guests on the show have included Emily P. Freeman, Sarah Bessie and Jen Pollock. Michel, you can go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Laurie Ferguson Wilbert Laurie Ferguson Wilbert is an award winning writer, thinker, learner and author of the books the understory of curious faith and handle with care she has written for she reads truth, Christianity today and more as well as her own site, Laurie wilbert.com. She has a master's in spiritual formation and leadership and loves to think and write about the intersection of human formation and the gritty stuff of Earth. You can find Laurie on Instagram at Laurie Wilbert, or on her kayak in the Adirondacks. She lives with her husband Nate in upstate New York and, and their pups Harper and Roca. She really has read all the books on her shelves. You know, I love to enter the woods, find a path and walk with Jesus. It is a place of life and connection for me, and I know it is for Laurie as well. Laurie Wilbert spent time reflecting on the forest floor for her latest book the understory. In this conversation, Laurie and I talked about finding identity and community through change and loss. Laurie talks about learning from nature by observing the K and emergence on the forest floor seen death as part of life's cycle. In times of loss Laurie encourages us to feel emotions fully and trust that God is still at work, like nutrients from fallen trees, nourishing new growth, and that moving forward through change requires accepting the new normal and focusing on being present each day rather than clinging to the past. So join us as we find rootedness and resilience from the forest floor. Here is my conversation with Laurie Ferguson Wilbert. Laurie, welcome to shifting culture. Thanks for joining me. We're excited to have you.

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 3:50

Thanks for having me, Josh. Josh. Joshua.

Joshua Johnson: 3:53

Josh was great. I answer to Josh. There's lots of people call me Josh, but

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 3:59

my I have a brother named Josh and I call him Joshua. And yeah, I like it. I prefer it.

Joshua Johnson: 4:06

All right. That's good. Well, Joshua actually has a meaning out there that Josh really means anything. So I like I like Josh's I mean, God saves that, yes, Salvation belongs to the Lord. Yeah, and so that's been a big theme in my life is my name. And who I am and and finding that salvation and Lord, I want to know some can you articulate your story of faith with Jesus? It just a few minutes and how it has grown and shaped over time? Yeah,

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 4:42

I mean, I feel like it's like, which story should I tell? I tell this, this part of the story or this part or this part, but I think overall raised in a pretty, I would say, fundamentalist Christian home, Christian patriarchy, that sort of thing. I did not have a very clear Your idea about Jesus or grace, or sin or any of those things, my idea of God was sort of like the genie in the bottle, like, do good things, rub it three times and, and all the good things will pop out for you. And in my late 20s, that just, you know, wasn't working at all, because it's not meant to work. And so I kind of just walked away from all of it for a time, if not in my body, at least in my mind, I just I was employed by a church at that point, I wasn't getting the answers I wanted, I tend to be a little bit of like a dog with a bone when it comes to questions. And so I kind of just, I would call myself an agnostic for several years and there, and yeah, just didn't felt like this. God couldn't exist this sort of if God was good, God did what we wanted God to do. And that didn't happen so that that wasn't a good guy. And ultimately, that sort of search because I am like a dog with a bone. And I wouldn't let go of that search. And God wouldn't let go of me searching led me to move from New York to Texas. And I heard the gospel of Jesus so clearly articulated the gospel, understanding my sin, understanding, brokenness, understanding, redemption, and grace and goodness, and the faithfulness of God for all generations. It just sort of radically changed my life. From that point on, it's pretty delved into sort of the Neo reformed world at that point. And it kind of just had stars in my eyes about so many things. And we're just like soaking so many things up just learning so many things. And I don't think I was really able to see how so much of that time was just like, sort of building crutches around myself, in some ways. Like, I didn't trust myself, I didn't trust the Holy Spirit inside of me. I didn't, I felt it felt risky to follow Jesus alone. And so I sort of leaned on church and leaned on institutions and leaned on theology and leaned in all these various places. And I would say, in the last probably, eight years, seven, eight years, as we just watched, so many institutions, and so much theology, and just like, things just fall apart. For me, I realized, well, if I'm not oriented around Jesus, if Jesus isn't the center of this, than I'm, this is, I'm a lost cause. And this is just going to be cultural Christianity for me. And I think that has been one of the best things that ever happened to me. Because it's Jesus. Now. It's Jesus alone. And he is the one I worship, and he's the one I want to build my life around and his own I want to emulate. He's the one I want to learn from. And I feel like that's, I feel so like rooted and grounded in God's love. In a way that before it's still felt, even though I didn't believe in the sort of Genie God anymore. I still felt like, well, I have to have good theology, and I have to be part of a good church, and I have to have a good path. I have to have all these things, good politics or whatever. And now I'm just like, No, it's like, I can't at all, it's lost. So that's where I am. Yeah. Well,

Joshua Johnson: 8:36

I think, you know, the last, you know, 568 years, whatever I you know, I call it the great unveiling, or the unveiling, where we're actually putting our hope in, and our hope has been in institutions. It's been in those crutches like you said, these are the crutches that I had. And so I was just reflecting on after digging into your book, the understory, which I love, and it is a balm to my soul. Your writing is beautiful. It's gorgeous. I just I just love, love, love your book. You're welcome. But so this, this unveiling, the reflection that I had, is actually getting to be very empathetic for people that are have fused anger and authorial authoritarianism, and it's like they're trying to hold onto something that they feel is being taken away, that they're losing, and they don't know what else to hold on to. And I'm starting to feel some I'm starting to feel some empathy. Yeah. Before I'm like, okay, just get over it and let's move towards Jesus. Yeah. What is the your relationship with that now, the people and the culture around you, as people are holding on and seeing you Are you saying, Okay, I've let go of some of that. And I'm now just holding on to Jesus, and it makes people a little bit angry. How has that been in your life?

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 10:14

Like, I love that question so much Joshua. Like, it's such an insightful question. And I love so much that you talked about coming to have empathy for them, because that has been. I mean, that really is so much the story of the understory, for me, was having grace for my own story and learning to have grace for the process and the stories of others. So Mary Oliver has this poem where she says, I want to quote the whole thing, but it's like,

Joshua Johnson: 10:43

you could read a Mary Oliver poem, I'm okay with that. I don't

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 10:46

have it in front of me. But basically, the last line of it is things take the time they take. And I think when I, when I look at my own story, I just think like, when I, I have been 70 Different kinds of blind, and I still am, like, there's so much more for me to learn and grow and change. And I think I had this belief that like, because, God, I believed God was unchanging, therefore, I had to be unchanging, I had to be like, you know, as the waves in the sand was shifting around me, I had to somehow be immovable. And I just don't, when I actually read the Bible, that's just, that's not the God I see, I see a God who like, bends toward his people. And I see a God who is like, sometimes changes his mind, about things. And, and so when I, when I begin to see that, and I understand a line made in the image of God, that means I should change and, and morph and grow as well. And therefore, man that just like blows open the expanse of empathy toward everyone around me, like I just have so much empathy for the people who might be what I perceive to be behind me in a specific area, or even the people who I might perceive to be ahead of me, in another area. It's been really interesting in my marriage, my husband, and I are like, not aligned on some pretty big things. And it's just so easy to have empathy for him, and for him to receive his empathy for me, and to learn and grow together. And so I actually think that, like, having my trust in institutions, and the church and people totally broken, putting my trust in Jesus has enabled me to have a more expansive life, and to welcome in those other people, because I don't feel like they're like a threat to my way of life anymore. So why would I not invite them in and have as much empathy as I can manage? Now, that said, there are going to be times where, you know, just because God is love, God also has anger about injustice and wrongdoing. And so it is, I have to learn to hold both empathy for a perspective, while also not like softening against injustice and things like that, like I can be rooted and grounded and the love of God while at the same time caring about the things that I perceive God cares about.

Joshua Johnson: 13:22

Let's go into some of your story. From the understory. Our start, like moving from Dallas area into the Adirondacks back to where a lot of the place that you grew up. What was that process? Like as you I want to actually want to know, because all of this, the understory, of course, you're talking about the forest floor. So this is not Dallas area. analogy, this is what your you're seeing on your window the Adirondacks. This is not what you're seeing out your window in in Dallas, how how it has place, and the place that you were at how has placed shifted changed you and brought you to a different place? What is what is the the place do for you?

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 14:54

That's such an interesting question. There's this beautiful line and in a Wendell Berry poem, to think of a life of man where he talks about being at peace and in place. And I would say that has been for as long as I have known that has been a goal of mine in my life, like I have this sort of constant wonder last constant sort of the salsa for the sense of home and I've never lived in a place longer than four years in my life. And so when I think about the word home or I think about being at peace and in place, it's it's a sort of very hard thing for me to grasp. And so coming back here, well, in some ways it was coming home in other ways it was it was really stripping away any illusions I had, that a place itself can be home. And so much of the book is about the recognition that I am here like, right where my feet are right now is where I am. And whether that's in Dallas, or DC, or Denver or here, other places I've lived like, that is that doesn't have to be home. It just means that's, that's my place for that moment. And I think that has been really transformational for me as well. Because I'm, when I think about it, I'm like, Oh, I'm here. And God is here with me in this place. God is here with me. So while yes, I thrive in a place like the forest where there's, you know, beautiful trees and soft mossy carpet more than I thrive in a place like Dallas, where it's a lot of concrete and suburbs, that doesn't change the fact that like, the God is with me in that place, and I am here. And there's this, this, this other beautiful line, I wish I could remember who says it, but it's, I think I quoted at the end of the book where it talks about going from here, to here to here, instead of from here to there. And I really love that picture of, we don't always have to be moving from point A to point B to point C to point. Like, it's not, that's not what life is, like. That's not what growth is like, it's more just like an acknowledgement of where I am right now. And looking to where I will be tomorrow, knowing that that's not where I'll be for the rest of my life.

Joshua Johnson: 17:12

So what's the the importance of finding here, wherever here is where you are at that present moment, are they the, one of the beautiful things that you write about in your book, as, as the moment where Moses goes up, he sees God, God says, you know, to take off your shoes, this is this is holy ground, this is sacred, this ground is sacred, and this is holy. And you you write a little bit about afterwards that, you know, we take our shoes off to make it holy, every every place that we are, is sacred ground, right. And I I like that image of the foot on the ground, like feeling your place, knowing that you are here. What's the importance of of feeling of like, being present in that place?

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 18:02

I think so much of our disillusionment with the world right now is because we're looking for other people to define who we are, to define our places. I'm looking to my president, or my politics, or my pastor, or my neighbor, or a writer I admire or a person aid or person I love to sort of push me into the corner of my identity. And I think the importance of being able to say I'm here, and this is my place, is it's it's almost like a courageous act, to say, I'm, I'm choosing to not absorb that way of being or that way of thinking, or I'm choosing to not be pushed into the corner, by the beliefs and habits and rhythms, and theology of other people. I'm choosing to, I'm choosing to acknowledge my doubts, right where I am choosing to acknowledge what I love, right where I am choosing to acknowledge what I want, what I don't want. There's this wonderful book by Susan Howe. It's called glittering images. And have you I love

Joshua Johnson: 19:18

her. I've read it. I've read the book. I love it. Yeah, it was assigned in my college English class, we didn't get to it. I read it that summer. And I just fell in love with it.

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 19:27

I met so few people who've read it. So I love that you've read it. Man, I just I love it so much. And I don't want to give too much away to your listeners. But like it's really about facing ourselves as we are and, and not having any illusions about who we are. Because we can't actually heal if we don't bring our whole our whole self to the work of healing and formation. So I just I love the way that she sort of paints a picture and tells a story about that, because I think we can see ourselves in that. If we're if we're willing. We can all do with some acknowledging our glittering images.

Joshua Johnson: 20:12

Yes, yes. And I think that's, I mean, that's a beautiful thing that we're here. We're in place where we're rooted. Wherever we are, even if our life is transient, as you know, as you have lived in many different places as an adult. Your life is transient, but you can be rooted in here and I think as we continue to move throughout our life, we need to find that place and that places for me I mean that identity place can't be somebody else defining identity as to be God saying, You're a beloved child, you're with me, this is my identity. And I think, I think that was what the beautiful thing about the early church for me was, was that their whole identity was found in Jesus that for the first time, in history, there was rich and poor, there were, there were slaves, and they were free. There were all sorts of people coming together, kissing on the cheek hadn't been welcoming, and saying, Our identity is together in Jesus. And as not in all these external things, the world defines us as, have you seen any community? I mean, we you get to this place of looking for a community like that, here now. Have you? Have you started to see any sort of community now like that, where we're finding our identity and him in Jesus and not in these external things? And what does that look like?

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 21:44

I'm gonna get real vulnerable for a minute until you see, we've been here for years this month, actually. And we have not had a church home in four years, because we've been unable to find that. And I do think it exists. I've had tastes of it. I was in a grad school program for several years. And I think I had a taste of that, where, you know, we're coming from all different spaces of life. And yet we are united around Jesus, and it was beautiful. But it's temporary. It was a grad school environment. And it was, I think, you know, in some ways, in some ways, parasocial, because we were coming from all sorts of places. We weren't coming from a central locations. I do think it it. I do think it exists. I do think also. So I do think it exists. I also think as you said, at the beginning of this conversation, we're in a great unveiling. And I think the beauty of being someone who is living through that experience, as you are as well, is that we can hold on to the hope of this really beautiful thing, while also acknowledging like, men, everybody, I mean, it's just the church is going through some havoc right now. And I think that Havoc is good. I think it's, it's revealing some necessary things. And I think it's beautiful, and I have a lot of hope for future generations, but not know, the answer. The short answer is no, I haven't seen it the way that I. So I'm gonna say this, actually. So I've ever really healthy marriage. That when we fight, we have scrambles, where, you know, we're in a really sucky season right now, of our lives, but we've had like a generally healthy marriage. And I think like, oftentimes, people say, like, oh, home is where you can kind of like, be the worst version of yourself. And I always like, held the belief that like, home should be the place where I am the best version of myself, like, the person with whom I live should receive the best of me. And that's not always true, but like, I want it to be true. And so I think even if, if we can make our homes, places where like, we are bearing the fruit of the Spirit, where we are long suffering, where we are confessing like confessional community, I'm confessing to you, I'm angry, I'm confessing to you. I'm sad, I'm confessing to you, I've sinned. I think that can be a really powerful and beautiful place to begin. I wish I saw it in more church churches. But it's where I am right now. And I have to acknowledge that I'm not seeing it where I am. But I have to believe that it exists, either somewhere else today or somewhere in the future.

Joshua Johnson: 24:39

Well, I don't think that things will change unless you what you just said, as you're embodying it at home. Yeah, there that is community. I mean, we're two or more gathered that, too is a community. It's, it is a it's a marriage is community, you are embodying that that's going to start to have an effect on the wider community. It has to start somewhere. And it should start with us. Like yeah,

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 25:06

I love that you say that. So we live in we live right butted up against a river like I'm looking at a river right now. And it's in a solar storm enclave of neighbors, none of them are believers. Totally. Eden's one is like, raving liberal. The other is, I mean, like, they had a, they had a confederate flag hanging on their porch like, like the opposite ends of the spectrum, and wouldn't talk to each other for years so they would have nothing to do with each other. And we moved here right in between them. And last summer, we had a tree fall in front of our house, there was this moment where I was sitting out on our front steps watching the men come remove the tree, and our neighbor from the side and our neighbor from the side both came and joined me on the stairs, that would have never happened five years ago, ever, not in a million years, it would have never happened. I'm not saying that was us. I am saying that I think that, that both of those families know that there's something. I mean, we have pretty candid conversations with them too. But they know that okay, this is a safe, this is sort of a neutral zone. Can Can, we can lay down our arms for a few minutes in this place. And and they can, they can, it's a place of peace, and it's a place of welcome. And we're not going to shy away from those conversations, like we will have those conversations, that confederate flag is no longer hanging on their porch. But it's not a place of of combat. It's not a place of it's on a war zone.

Joshua Johnson: 26:45

Yeah. So as you're you've been looking out your window, and then taking walks and you've been walking the forests and in the trees. What did you start to, to learn as you started to look down and started to reflect on on death and decay and reemergence on the forest floor? There aren't a lot of people that looked down, a lot of people see what's ahead of them. So how did you start to look at the floor? And what can we learn from the forest floor?

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 27:17

I like that you said that a lot of people look ahead of them. Yeah, it's true. We do we often do that. I think it started for me and I started the book out with a story or the tallest tree in New York fell recently, and it's not far from my house. And a friend of mine was the one to find it when it first fell. And so he and I hiked back to it a couple years ago. And I was just really struck by this, like, Queen this like beautiful, beautiful tree that was now laying on her side in this, this old growth forest. And I went home and I started to like, read everything I could about her. And one of the things that a local forestry professors said, was dead, yes, but I prefer to think she's just not vertical anymore. And that idea that like, even in her what we might call death, and it was a dramatic death, like, not a gentle death, not a pretty one. What we might call death was actually just the beginning of a new, no, not even the beginning, it was just part of the lifecycle. It was, it is very, it is a natural disturbance, it is necessary. Some scientists say that a tree fall and natural tree fall in a forest is one of the most necessary events for a forest for the health of the forest. And in the 300 400 years she's going to take to decompose. She's going to provide nutrients and a rich, rich ground for new healthy trees to grow. And I'm just I'm so struck by that. And once I began to think about that, like, I just began to see death everywhere. And instead of become it being this, like very sad thing, it became incredibly hopeful thing. It actually became me like looking ahead and being like, that's exciting. That process is actually really cool. And really exciting. And that's why when you talk about like the unveiling that we're experiencing, I'm like, yeah, we're just not vertical anymore. Like cool. Like, some really cool stuff is about to happen. We get to become some like fungi and like moss, like we get to become the body upon which like some really cool, absolutely necessary things in a forest grow. Like the most integral things in a forest, the things that make a forest, a forest are not actually the trees, it's actually what's happening on the forest floor. Because it couldn't be a healthy forest. Without that stuff. It would just be I mean, you've seen those, like really unhealthy pine plantations, it's like not a healthy forest, because it doesn't have those necessary. It doesn't have that, that death process and decay and decomposition. So we need that to we're not exempt from head just because we loved this.

Joshua Johnson: 30:23

It feels like I mean, you've gone through a lot and like in the middle of your book you're talking about hurts and grief and loss and pain. There's a lot of death right the middle of your of your book is there. And you know looking at the Out the window. And there's looks like there's death underneath all that snow. And he can't see anything growing. He can't see any any life. If people are there, if, because there's a lot of people there right now there's hundreds of people that are there and hurt and grief and loss, whether it be betrayal of the church, whether it be the death of a loved one, broken relationships, whatever it may be, what can you say to them, as you've started to learn from? What is happening when there is death and decay? And is there any hope coming for the people that are in that space right now?

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 31:23

I think the first thing I would say is like, I'm, I'm really sorry, that you're going through this, like it's nothing I can say is going to fix or take away or make the pain go. Again, Mary Oliver things take the time they take, oh, the rest of that poem is things take the time may take how many roads do St. Augustine take before he became St. Augustine? That's the rest of the poem. And I think that, to me is like, yeah, there's some roads you're gonna have to traverse, before you get to be who you want to be. And, and before you can see yourself as as you truly are, as you are loved and seen and cared for by God. And that's just going to take time. I think I would also say, maybe, maybe some of us need to look up, you know, but some of us need to look down and see where your feet are. Andrew Peterson has this beautiful song just came out on the new porters gate album. I think it's Andrew Peterson. And maybe Leslie can't remember their last name. It's called centering prayer, I think. And then the line of it is just be where your feet are. And so I would just say that that would be my encouragement to these friends who are in that space is just be where your feet are. If you're feeling anger, let it rip. You're feeling grief, let it rip if you're feeling just like God cares about those feelings. And God wants to minister to those feelings like he wants to minister healing and hope and goodness to those feelings. And then we can't receive that goodness, if we won't let ourselves feel it. So

Joshua Johnson: 33:10

that's good. How did you learn how to feel?

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 33:13

Oh, my goodness. That's a whole other podcast, Joshua. I am not a big feeler, I am a very by nature. I stuffed all my feelings down. I pretend I think about my feelings rather than feel my feelings. And I use you ask how did you learn to feel? I actually asked God, I said, God, would you help me cry? Would you help me feel anger? Would you help me to not run away from my tears and run away from anger? And the Lord has answered. And I have found like, I have found I have to still remind myself at times, and I feel like tears start to well up. This is good. Don't apologize for that. Feel those tears. Say what you're feeling. Don't say you're think you're feeling this, just say I'm feeling this. And, you know, going back to what I said about community, and my relationship with my husband, I think that that has been incredibly powerful in our relationship for us to be able to say, because we can both kind of run away from feeling it for us to both be able to say I'm angry, I'm frustrated. I'm sad. I'm grieving, whatever. And it's only born good fruit. And my relationships. That's

Joshua Johnson: 34:35

good. I mean, yeah, I don't want to name names. I do do know, people that like tears cob. They're like, I apologize, I'm sorry. I'll be better. And that it's okay. Just be there. be sad, be cry, show your emotion, feel your emotion. And say, be honest, this is where I'm at. And it's okay to be there. You're not broken because of that. And I think that's some times, especially thinkers, writers, they think that, Oh, if I feel my feelings, I'm broken. And I need to get over it. And, and so, I mean, you you've gotten to a place of like, okay, I can feel my feelings. How can people start to move past that and not think that they're broken because they're sad or angry at the moment.

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 35:31

I just kind of want people to just like close their eyes and envision the tallest tree in New York again. And that tall and tallest tree in New York falling in a forest and the thunderous sound it made, it made several sticks of dynamite. That was the sound it made when it fell.

Joshua Johnson: 35:49

So if no one saw that did make it sound, it did make,

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 35:54

oh, um, I think just imagine that for a minute. Just imagine like, okay, if I'm gonna let myself feel I'm gonna, like, make a lot of sound, and I'm gonna fall. And then just remember that forestry professors quote, again, maybe it's just not vertical anymore. So you're just as important and just as essential and just as alive. And just as whole, on your side, as you are standing up. And in some ways, I'm going to argue that you are even more whole and more essential, and more like powerful to the community of trees around you, by having fallen than you were ever in your 400 years of life, standing and being noble among the pines. And so let yourself fall, it's like, let yourself trust that there's still good happening, even though you're not vertical anymore. And I know that's incredible. It's so much easier to say, than to, to do. But I truly think, I truly think that's the way that we become fully formed, whole humans is to fall.

Joshua Johnson: 37:08

So as you fall, we're in this grief where things are taking time. We're letting it take time, what is the what is the emergence look like coming out of that, that death season, and we're now emerging into something new. And, you know, even if you take the church, as the church for halls, it crumbles the institution, there's going to be an emergence of something new, and it's going to be beautiful and different. And but it is going to revolve around Jesus. What does that process look like? And what did you find?

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 37:46

I'll say, this is a slow process. While I was reading the book, I watched the process of decomposition, sped up in a YouTube video. And I was like, Wow, that's amazing. It has, you know, the whole video was like, you know, a minute and a half. And yet it had taken like, two and a half months to get to this, like loamy, soil space. And I just think like, we want the sped up version, you know, we want the vast version. That's just not how things happen. This is not how it happens in nature. And that's not how it we are part of nature. And it's not how it happens with us. And so the emergence, I think, is going to look, I think it's going to look a lot less dramatic, maybe, than we would like for it to look, a little saplings are not very dramatic. They're beautiful, but they're not dramatic. They're not towering pines in a forest. And so I think we need to, if I'm really honest, I think we need to go where the death is. I think that's where that's where emergence is going to happen. So we need to go to the spaces where we perceive the absence of life, and you know, that for some person could be like leaving a megachurch and going to a mainline church, that could mean leaving your comfortable suburban house and moving to an urban place or moving to Gaza, it could mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people. But I think we need to, I think one of the reasons that we're in the space where we are, is because we've chased after things that look like life, just because they're loud, and attractive, and seeker sensitive, and those kinds of things. But I think the real stuff, the real good stuff to come is going to happen where we're seeing a lot of death. That was a real cheerful answer. Sorry. Thanks

Joshua Johnson: 39:44

for that triple answer. I'm just reflecting on my own life. And I know that the the places in my life where I've had the most life is where I ran towards death. You know, my wife and I lived in the Middle East we were we work with Syrian refugees for many years. And I mean, that's that trauma, death, war coming out of it. And we saw so much life it was incredible. But my my question is, in if we're running to death, how can I not get my own sense of self worth and self importance out of the life that I think I'm bringing to death? Oh, that's

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 40:30

so good. I mean, that is really, that's our human like, that's the human paradox, right? You know, we're not Jesus. We are not the Christ. And I don't think that's ever going to be we're we are we believe we are our own gods, we are looking around us for Gods we are we want other people to see us as gods. So the whole work of being human in the world is just being like saying, I am not the case, I am not God, I oriented my life around Jesus. I am not the center of of life. And so I guess my answer to that is I have no idea. Like, I have no idea what it's going to take, you should expect it to come, there is going to be a crushing in your life, that leads you to realize I am not the Christ. I hate thinking that you would experience some of the things that I've experienced in my life like that would break my heart. And yet, like you're going to experience far worse things probably in some ways than I've experienced. And these are all reminders that we are not the center of we are not the one we worship. And I think you know someone I think desert really good job of talking about this. And so I just want to point to his work. And you I think you may have entered interviewed him was Brian zahnd. I just think Brian does such a great job. Just talking through what it looks like to sort of like, turn away from our own selves and turn toward Jesus. And I've learned so much from him around these, these these things. And so I guess my encouragement to your listeners should be, go read Brian's ons work.

Joshua Johnson: 42:12

There you go. Go read Brian's on, listen to my two interviews I've done with him. I love Brian. And he lives about 45 minutes away from from me. But I have never met him in person. I'm really over over the computer, as we've talked on this podcast. But yeah, Brian's fantastic to be able to orient ourselves around Jesus and what that looks like, and moving forward. So if you say to people, how now when we were seeing the unveiling, we're seeing death and decay all around us. We're going through this grief and loss, we're starting to see some little saplings, we have a little bit of emergence, what does like long term then like resilience look like to move move us forward in, in our lives.

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 43:07

So in 400 years tree, one of three is not going to that was the tree that fell is not going to be there any like to the naked eye tree, one or three is not going to be there anymore. But the nutrients that tree wanna three has left behind is going to be there for eternity. Like, she has changed the ecological layout of that forest. And so no matter what she is here, she is there. And aspects of her are there. And so I think I think I just lost what your question was, which is,

Joshua Johnson: 43:46

then moving towards resilience, long term resilience, I

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 43:49

think we need to change our idea of what resilience is, I think we have this idea of resilience that it's like, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and like, go back to what you used to be and try and regain the sense of strength that you used to have or like, rebuild these relationships that you used to have? And I want to say, No, I don't think it's any of those things. I think it's a new thing. And I think it's another new thing, and another new thing, and another new thing, a whole new cellular arrangement, every single day. That is that allows like future generations to build upon us and the death and decay that we might be experiencing right now. And so, I guess I want to say and this might not sound super hopeful, but I'm not sure that I'm not sure that any of us are going to be big trees in our future. I think I think we're in an age when a lot of the big trees have fallen. And some of some of our descendants might see some big trees again, or might become big trees themselves. But I think for us in 2024 resilience is is accepting the unveiling, it is saying this is the new normal, and I'm going to, I'm going to be here in it. And I'm not going to try and get back to yesterday or try to rush towards some sort of future version of myself. I'm just going to, I'm going to be here and what that's looked like for my husband and I in a time where we just haven't had a church and good lord we've tried has just been like not letting go of the grief of that. Not just sort of resigning ourselves to well, this is just where we are Are and, and spoiler alert, moving, like, we're gonna be moving, we don't know where we don't know when but we're putting our house on the market at the end of the month because we deeply need a community of people around us. But in the meantime, it has been saying, this is where we are. And we can trust that God is at work in this place. And that is emergence. That is movement. That is, that is a little bit of looking up from, from sort of the destruction that we're seeing grief that we're seeing around us. So

Joshua Johnson: 46:19

beautiful. And good. Lord, if you could speak to your readers and the people that are going to read your book, which I hope everybody does, because it is beautiful. What do you hope people will get from the understory.

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 46:34

Think permission to I was gonna say permission to just be where they are. And maybe that's the most important thing, permission to be who they are. Andy Crouch has this beautiful statement where he says to flourish is to be magnificently ourselves. And I think my hope, in this book whose message is so much about being here is that people would just be able to be themselves, whether that's their grieving selves, their Republican selves, their reformed selves, or Methodist selves, their single mother selves, their gay selves, like I just, I want people to be who they are. And to be able to receive the love of God for that space in that place, and to trust that God is at work in their lives.

Joshua Johnson: 47:31

Moving forward. That's great. Yeah, I've just a couple of questions I'd like to ask at the end. One is if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you get? Oh,

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 47:43

I literally just yesterday on Instagram said letter to my former self. So you just read it? Yeah, I did. Trust your gut girl. Trust your gut. Emily Freeman has this quote that says, small red flags rarely become smaller, they mostly become bigger. And I've just seen that to be true in my life. And I just wish 99% of the time when I looked around me for what to do. I just wish I would have just like, been still for a minute and checked in with my gut. Because there have been very few times where my gut has has led me, led me wrong. And I've come to think, as someone who is oriented around Jesus, now I've come to think of my gut, my intuition as the voice of the Holy Spirit within me. So trust your gut girl. So

Joshua Johnson: 48:36

good. Anything you've been reading watching lately could recommend?

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 48:40

Oh, we're reading.

Joshua Johnson: 48:44

You don't read much to you.

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 48:45

I read a ton and I read, probably. Gosh, what have I read recently? I'm like, my mind is drawing a blank because I'm probably reading so much. I just Oh, I know what I'm reading. I'm reading. Leif angers. Currently, I'm reading his book, I cheerfully refuse. And I love leaf anger. I think he's the best novelists of our century. And so this book is not doing doing him wrong. I cheerfully refuse. I'm also my husband and I finished. We were the lucky ones. It's a, a world war two mini series on Hulu. We finished that this week. And I thought it was really well done. I don't think I'd seen a miniseries from that perspective of World War Two. And it's it's a dark story, and I think it should be a dark story should be the story that makes us think about the choices that our world makes when it comes to image bearers. You know, we also just watch I don't know if you've seen little drummer girl, which is based off of John lecarre novel, it's a mini series and I really love it. It's also has to do with Israel, and Israelis, but it shows the Palestinian view as well. And I felt we've watched it probably four times. We love it so much. It's such a great miniseries. So well done. But it was really good for us to watch it. I think recently just to remind ourselves of how complex this is, and yet how beautiful humans are. All humans. Yep, that's

Joshua Johnson: 50:37

true. Yeah. All humans all humans deserve to flourish. They deserve a flourishing life, then that's good. Laurie, if you could say, Where would you like to connect people to where? How could they connect with you? Where do you like to point people to people go get your book.

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 50:55

They can get my book. I don't know when this release is, but they can get my book anywhere books are sold. They can connect with me, I mostly hang out on Laurie wilbert.com lorewylbrt.com. And Instagram, at Lori Wilbert. That's really the only social media I'm hanging out on these days.

Joshua Johnson: 51:18

Excellent. Well, go. Yeah, go there, go to Laurie wilbert.com. Sign up for Laurie substack. And get more of her writing because your writing is awesome and beautiful. No matter what, whether it be Chuck's or your emails and your substack it's, it's great. So you would you would not do wrong to to read Laurie's words because they're beautiful. So do that. So Laurie, thank you for this conversation. Thank you that you were able to actually walk into the unveiling with me that you should say that there is death and decay there and that you were able to learn from the forest floor as you've been walking those those things in that even the the fall of the great trees, which are a lot of our institutions, and churches, the will actually bring about some new saplings new growth, the nutrients for the forest floor and we can't have really any good growth unless we have death and decay and some to move through it as well. So thank you. I really really enjoyed our conversation. Thank

Lore Ferguson Wilbert: 52:26

you. Thanks, Joshua.