Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 295 David Zahl Returns - The Urgency of Grace for a Worn-Out World
Today, we’re getting into the raw, unvarnished terrain of human longing - that aching space where despair meets unexpected grace. I’m excited to welcome back David Zahl on the podcast. He isn't here to offer another self-help platitude, but to explore something far more profound: how we find relief in a world that constantly demands more, faster, better. Imagine grace not as a churchy concept, but as a radical interruption - a surprising breath of fresh air in a culture suffocating on its own expectations. We'll talk about play, productivity, regret, and those moments when God whispers, "You are more than your achievements." This conversation is a map for the weary, a compass for those feeling crushed by life's relentless pressures. We'll explore how grace shows up in unexpected places - through music, through suffering, through the simple act of truly listening. If you've ever felt overwhelmed, stuck, or like you're perpetually running on an endless treadmill, this conversation is your permission to breathe. To rest. To receive. So join us as we figure out what it means to be human in a world that rarely slows down.
David Zahl is the founder and director of Mockingbird Ministries, editor-in-chief of the Mockingbird website (www.mbird.com), and co-host of both The Mockingcast and The Brothers Zahl podcasts. He and his family live in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he also serves on the staff of Christ Episcopal Church. Zahl is the author of Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What To Do About It and Low Anthropology: The Unlikely Key to a Gracious View of Others (and Yourself). His next book, The Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace for a Worn-Out World comes out in April 2025 from Brazos Press. His writing has been featured in The Washington Post, Christianity Today, and The Guardian, among other venues.
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Evangelism in an Age of Despair
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Joshua Johnson: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 long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, today we're getting into the raw, unvarnished terrain of human longing, that aching space where despair meets unexpected grace. I'm excited to welcome back. David Saul to the podcast. He isn't here to offer another self help platitude, but to explore something far more profound, how we find relief in a world that constantly demands more faster, better. Imagine grace not as a churchy concept, but as a radical interruption, a surprising breath of fresh air in a culture suffocating on his own expectations. We'll talk about play, productivity, regret and those moments when God whispers, you are more than your achievements. This conversation is a map for the weary, a compass for those feeling crushed by life's relentless pressures. We'll explore how Grace shows up in unexpected places, through music, through suffering, through the simple act of truly listening. If you've ever felt overwhelmed, stuck or like you're perpetually running on an endless treadmill, this conversation is your permission to breathe, to rest, to receive so join us as we figure out what it means to be human in a world that rarely slows down, is my conversation with David zaul. David, welcome back to shifting culture. Really excited to have you back on so thanks for joining me again. Oh, it's such a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Joshua. I'm excited to get into some relief. We need some relief in this world, don't we, and some grace. Are we just talking about anti acids? What are we talking about? About relief? I
David Zahl:know that's the after some of the original some of the response to the title. I think of the good title, but it does sound like headaches, possibly laxatives, you know? But I I just, I think relief is big enough of a theme to include all of this. But yes, who I think of? I think of Advil all the time, because I'm a guy who gets headaches, but yep, really, if we're into it, we are into
Joshua Johnson:it. I think you know, the urgency of grace for a worn out world is your subtitle. If I think of Azal family crest, it would be grace, like there's this grace family crest, right? My My wife, was at Trinity when your dad was was there as a dean, and he was known, he was known as the grace guy, and she talks to me about the grace that your dad constantly talked about. So it feels like Grace is a as is all family crest. What is grace for you? Because there's a lot of understanding or misunderstanding. People think different things about grace. When you think about grace, what are you thinking about?
David Zahl:Well, right now, probably because I've just written this book, I think about relief. I think it's sort of the the extent to which I find relief in my faith is usually the extent to which God's grace is present. It's not meant as a substitute for Jesus in any way, but I think relief, that's one of the reasons I use the word relief in the title oversight of grace. But as yeah, as you mentioned, there's so many different ways to define grace. It means something very different, you know, to a Roman Catholic, than it does to a Baptist. But it also means something different when you're talking about like a dancer as opposed to, you know, a prayer you say before dinner. The ways that I describe grace as there's a there's a bunch of different like, when I was a youth minister, unmerited favor was a big description for grace. And I still like it. I think it's I like, I kind of like unwarranted generosity as well. I think of grace as a surprising and positive interruption, or you might just say, an interrupting surprise of a positive nature. There's all sorts of ways to talk about it. Non contingent. Compassionate alliance is another good one, one way love. I like to go around and collect these phrases. So I'm happy with the word grace being somewhat elastic, and yet, as if there's no relief involved, then I'm wondering if we've wandered off the reservation of grace.
Joshua Johnson:So then what is relief? Let's go talk about what, what kind of relief are we looking for? This world is heavy at the moment, like we feel like it's it's heavy, and we're seeking relief in all sorts of different things that provide very simple releases, but are not lasting effects, like we it's not a lasting relief. So what are you trying to get at? What kind of relief are we seeking again?
David Zahl:Relief is a big word too, like Grace. It's a great. Word, I think it can do a lot of work for us. For that reason, I think, you know, a lot of relief most immediately is usually the feeling of some kind of pressure being removed. That is what it most directly. If you go to the dictionary, that's what relief tends to have to do with but there's a little bit more more to relief than that, like I talk about when I was in fourth grade, Hurricane Hugo hit the town where we lived in, and, like, destroyed everything in Charleston, South Carolina, and we didn't have school for, you know, a month and all and no water and all that stuff. And then the government coordinated relief efforts. And those were not just meant to remove pressure. They were meant to deliver to sort of help. Relief was was was money, was contractors with chainsaws, that was relief. So I think of relief as a kind of a helping removal of pressure that can also have a kind of, there's a gratuity to it. As far as what I'm looking for relief from, I mean, just, I try to start the book on the ground level of the fact that, you know, just just being a person in the world. But for me, being a middle aged guy, dad in, you know, coastal America, I spend my life looking for relief, and just as much as other people do, um, there's I'm facing, you know, escalating financial demands, professional demands, relational demands. My kids are needing me more and in different ways. I want to keep my marriage in a good place, and that, as everyone says, Oh, that requires work, or at least requires attention and effort. There's so much to just demand relief from. There's, there is. Yes, we want relief from the headlines. We want relief from bad news. We want relief from mortgage payments. We want relief from chronic illness. We want relief from guilt and rejection. I think everyone that I know is craving relief of some kind. It just sort of depends on what kind or what's acute in their life, and it might be not as acute as in other places, but I still see myself and my peers spending a lot of our waking hours looking for a release valve, a way to to Yeah, to relax your shoulders a little bit. So about a year and a half ago, I sat down on the couch to watch something with my wife, and earlier that day, my mother in law fell, hit her head and was sent into the hospital, and about five months later, she passed away, and you know, it was a direct probably because of the fall. And so my wife was looking for some relief that night to watch something, and earlier that day, I saw you post that the Saint of second chances is just a grace filled movie, like, if you think about grace, you're gonna, you're gonna see it in this movie. So I put on the Saint of second chances, and we started to watch it, and, man, she got mad at me. She's like, baseball like, Why do you think I want to watch a baseball movie? Like, she, you know, she's, she's going through something. Her mom just had this big old fall. It was she, she was seeking something when we're in a place of, like, acute pain and we want some relief oftentimes, like I misconstrue the situation, I tried to show some grace, but it wasn't the exact same grace that she needed at that moment. It wasn't a relief that she she needed. How do we not just give grace to ourself, but how do we see what others need and what kind of relief is needed at the moment? Yes, I think, I mean, because a good movie could be a distraction, is that always relief? I don't know it could. It can also turn into something that's challenging. It's a question of discernment that is going to vary from person to person. I would imagine that those we love, there are probably more cases of you knowing the right thing than there are cases of you not knowing the right thing, just knowing you know what, what she really you know, if I know my wife, I know that when the kids have run her ragged, or when she's under the gun, about a bunch of different things, she needs alone time, and that's relief for her. And that's not, that's not a rejection of of me. That's simply where she recharges. She's a bit more introverted. There have been times when we both need relief at the same time, and that can be a challenge. That's just what relationships are about, I guess. So I yeah, I think there's a real discernment. I mean, as a Christian, I believe the Holy Spirit can direct our movements in various ways and give us good ideas or bad ideas. I think, when in doubt, Grace does not look like control. And when our attempt, when a person is suffering and our attempt is to fix, monitor, scrutinize. Eyes, lecture, etc, that is almost never received as Grace. So I can sort of, I can cut or relief. I can almost tell you more what it doesn't look like, but what it's going to look like to someone in that moment is going to be different for everyone.
Joshua Johnson:That is interesting. I think what we tend to do, if we go into a community, go, Hey, there's a lot of broken things in this community, we want to go in and fix it. Even if we're a part of this community like this community is broken, I want to fix it, but oftentimes that doesn't bring about the relief that is needed or the healing that is needed the moment. What do you think helps rather than going in to fix is there a different posture as we go into a place.
David Zahl:Yeah, I think that you go into listen and to attend, rather than with an agenda. Any kind of agenda is almost always perceived as a judgment from by people. If you show up and you're just there, that is the beginning. That's a huge, huge step that a lot of people don't take. What often happens is, as you mentioned, we need to feel like we're being useful, and maybe that's married to maybe we really want to be useful, but that we get in our own way of providing relief, because we're almost like telling people what they need, rather than allowing them to tell us not, that people always know what they need in our zeal to help our neighbors and help them with the with the burdens they're carrying, sometimes we can add add to those in ways that are pernicious but also unintentional. Those sometimes can be avoided if we were just to keep our mouth shut for just Just five more minutes before we started acting you know,
Joshua Johnson:I agree. It would be nice to keep our mouth shut for just a little while so we could we could listen. I really want to dive deep into one of these chapters that you have, and I want to do it through the lens of you and what you resonate with. Like this is the thing that I need relief from. I'll just name the chapters so that we could say, Hey, these are the types of things that you're talking about in your book. So relief from deserving, from regret, from rejection, from control, from guilt, from status anxiety, from keeping up, from productivity and from captivity and death. Which one, as you were writing this book, is something go, oh, that's me. This is the place that I really need relief from. Oh,
David Zahl:gosh. Well, those are, I mean, on one level, all of them, I would say, rejection is a little less potent for me right now than it was when I was 19, you know. And you know, the one that sticks out to me and the two that really are middle aged ones. But because I'm again, I'm 45 I think regret is a huge thing that people in middle age struggle with, whether that be, you know, weird at your stage where you're seeing some of your peers do astronomically well in sort of worldly standards, and, and you're seeing some peers have their lives blow up and fall apart. And, and you're, you're struck with all these decisions about, did I make the right decision? Have I? Have I? Did I do something wrong with my child that they're turning out this way and not that way? So regret is something that is pretty close to the bone for me. I mean, keeping up is another one that that's one that sort of sounds like it's, oh, what do you mean keeping up? Well, the feeling of needed to continually be producing and staying busy and getting faster and faster and not fall behind is a huge one. But regret, I think, is the most emotionally immediate one for me.
Joshua Johnson:All right. So then you say that the relief from regret is forgiveness. So then as you look back and you look at some of the regrets that you have, how have you found forgiveness? And especially, how have you forgiven yourself? Well,
David Zahl:that's the incredible question. I think, okay, there's a lot of different ways to do that. The regrets that plague me are, you know, broken relationships, generally speaking, and that be friendships, or, you know, someone I dated that I didn't treat that well, or the things that you get reminded of at vulnerable moments where you're where you know the cutting remark that you made, or the bridge that you burned, and I can think of about five off The top of my head, I have a tendency to narrative re narrativize Those incidents. So see, I had a falling out with with a friend 10 years ago, just hypothetically, I have a tendency, my personally, to re narrativize that as being I was terrible, and I was categorically awful to this person, and I have no patience for myself and the barring a direct act of God, there's no forgiveness for me. There are a couple different ways that forgiveness can work out. I tell the story of going to approach someone about with a regret, with something that I said that was very alienating and hurtful. And asking for forgiveness, making amends. That's, that's what they call it in recovery programs. And that could be a very powerful way. I think another way, though, is to also, God gives us pictures that are sort of God's eye view of being like, actually, you weren't only acting out of self interest. There was fear. There was you were actually a pretty good guy, and remember, you forgot, you've you've edited out of the situation about 15 different factors that were also going on. And here are some other pictures. I was someone sent me a video of some of myself with my children at a time when that I remember as being very difficult and strained, because one of the kids was going through a very hard phase, you know, having to do therapy and interventions with this child, and I remember it as being nothing but negative or just stressful beyond belief, and a wish that I had caught it earlier, and someone sent me a video recently of us around that stage, and we were had smiles on our faces. The child in question looked happy as can be, and I had remembered the pain without remembering the beauty, and that what I saw in that was actually that God was present in my life at a time when I'd sort of written him out of the equation in my own regret, because regret becomes a narrative. So those are heavy things to talk about, but I find that grace, usually, that God is for looks at us not with condemning eyes, but with forgiving eyes. Is which is, which takes into account the whole truth of the thing for me, that I'm drawn to that aspect of the faith because I carry the everyone who carries the burden of the past. And that that for me, these are, these are tiny things. I mean, there are people in the world who've hit someone with their car, you know, or have, or have committed some genuine crime, and struggle with a huge weight of guilt or just regret and so, but those are some of the ways re contextualizing, making amends and seeing a kind of a God's eye view that there are ways in which God was at work through what I view is only a negative thing, and that God did something good. And the truth is, the child I'm thinking about right now is doing amazing. And you know, I almost I had to be reminded of the trial, because now I'm focused on a different
Joshua Johnson:child. How do people help in that sense, how do people come around so that you could see what was really happening, the stuff that you've edited out, the things to remind you of the goodness of God in those moments. It helps if
David Zahl:you have some relationship with a spouse, with a pastor, with a friend that you can be honest about. You know, this is something that I really wish I'd there's nothing more alienating to me in my life Joshua, than when I ask people what their biggest regrets are in life, and they say, I don't have any like that is to me, I just can't relate like we're on a different planet. So most of the friends I would gravitate towards would be people that do have a strong sense of like, you know, yeah, you know, you you could have done that one better when I'm here. I love you, and that's what that's that's the relief of confession, but also the relief of friendship and the release of grace in the midst of something bad. So you, you cultivate relationships if you possibly can, or God brings people into your life. But in this case, I was sent a one of those, one of those videos on Facebook about this was happening six years ago, or something like that. You know, those little they're often, they can be a gut punch sometimes. But this was just a random person unsolicited did this, and for me, that was the hand of God saying this thing, this thing that's weighing on you. You don't quite see it as clearly as you think you
Joshua Johnson:do. It's just beautiful to have some of those moments to actually re contextualize and say, Oh, maybe I have it a little bit wrong. And there was some goodness in there, I think, when you're talking about keeping up and productivity and just getting you know the thing, and making sure that you're keeping up in this fast paced world, it feels like we're unmoored. It feels like we're destabilized because we can't keep up. It's so fast. Where have you found the ability to to have some roots, to get some fruitedness and identity belonging, to know where you stand, so that this feeling of I can never keep up can be pushed aside to know okay I am okay, right where I am. Yeah,
David Zahl:I That's a great question. The acceleration of modern life is, it drives us, makes us crazy, and I think it, it is not a recipe for spiritual well being, and the ways in which I've found resonance in my life. That's because that's what I talk about as sort of resonance, being part of what we're we're a rest. It's not so much in slowing down as experiencing great art. Art. I think art can be a way that sort of you feel encapsulated, that you feel gripped by, that sort of stops you in your tracks, you know. And anyone who's listened to a great song or seen in a beautiful painting or just the sunrise or, you know, they know what it's like to be like grabbed by something that's a rootedness, you know. I know this is maybe a hackneyed answer, but I'm just gonna say it. My Church is a wonderful church, and it's a liturgical church, and we follow the sort of slow, deliberate rhythms of the Book of Common Prayer. And that I find in that language, I don't I it was maybe a period of time in my life where I found it boring. Now I found it to be an anchor, and that it creates space, it opens up space. Relationships is probably it would be another term for it, but for me, I honestly have to say like, this is why I'm so drawn to music. In a lot of ways, it's why I'm so drawn and I'm a huge music fan. It's why I'm always interested in great stories, to get to be absorbed by a story. People know what that's like, and they know that that is immune from keeping up. You don't want to speed through a story that's really good. You actually feel like enclosed by it in a very beautiful way. I don't know if children have helped me. You know, people sometimes say children are so in the moment, and they help you sort of be present where you are. It's like, I don't know most of my kid like, I love my kids so much, and they teach me so much. But there are many times where I just they're on a treadmill that I find myself now on, or I'm trying to, they're the source of the acceleration that I need to kind of ground myself from and outdoors. The outdoors is a big part of this. Awe is that's the that's one of the buzzwords today, but it's a really, anytime you're in the presence of awe or the God in that larger sense, you you, you were, you stop. So acts. Chapter Two, early church, the very first church, talk about awe and wonder. I mean, awe is there right from the beginning. People, I think, often think, okay, these are the basic things that they're the church was doing at that time, but they always skip over awe and wonder. And I think that, you know, as we bring back the awe of God and the beauty of this world and the awe of creation, it brings me into a place of I'm here, and this is just amazing. God is incredible. It just brings me back into this place of awe that helps me personally all the time. So it's not just a buzzword today. It was a buzzword 2000 years ago, I'm all I'm here for it. I want more awe, more awe in my life. That's
Joshua Johnson:right, you talked about music and story that were real, that really helped you get resonance and rest to stop from always having to keep up. Can you remember or a song lately that has helped you do that, that you had to stop and let the song wash over to you.
David Zahl:So Robbie Robertson died about a year ago that he was the chief songwriter for the band. He has two or three different solo albums that I absolutely adore. But for some reason, his very first solo album, which was you two, is on it, and Peter Gabriel's on it, and St Lawrence, same producers, he was kind of a left field, almost synthy record. He's got a song called Fallen Angel, which is about the death of the guy in the band. And it, it gets underneath. It scratches where I itch. I guess I can't hear it enough. That's That song is so beautiful, and it's otherworldly. There is awe to it, but there's also an emotional content, an emotional key that it's in, that can take me out of whatever pettiness is occupying my mind. So and the band also have a song called Acadian driftwood, which has become a favorite, where they trade verses and stuff in The Last Waltz. There's a version that didn't actually make it in the movie, but I find that to be an immaculate piece of songwriting, but I sometimes to pull over and listen to it, but that's where my I've been listening to a lot of Robbie Robertson recently.
Joshua Johnson:I know that there's a lot of times when this is what I need. Music does something to us. It does something to your brain. It actually fills your brain in ways that other things don't. And so music is really important, especially in the healing process and the rest process for us, one of the things you write in your book, there you have a whole chapter around play as providing some relief. I think this is a very underserved notion, and especially in the Christian tradition, we don't talk about play or the theology of play very often at all. I've been trying to, like, find people to talk about the theology you play so I could interview them for my podcast. And I I'm having a hard time finding people to talk about that. Why is play important? How does it provide some. Relief for us?
David Zahl:Well, most of what we undertake in a world of kind of acceleration and demand and pressure is we the things we spend our time doing are always in order to get something to produce a result. And you know, this is how childhood has goes for more and more kids. Is it the extracurriculars you're involved with half you have to further you in some way. They have to contribute to your growth. They have to get you into the next school. And anything else might, might be, might be nice, but it's not going to be prioritized. There's no delight. Is not a category that we really valorize as a culture. And so I think that as as I was a person very involved in youth ministry for a long time, but also in college ministry. And I see it in myself that the pressure to always be producing that I'm only worth I'm only valued to the extent that I have accomplished X, Y and Z in my my day. That's, that's, that's, that's a psychology or a mentality that I glom onto very naturally, as a, as a, as a sinner, or just as a, as Dave. I don't know exactly what it is, but I know that relief in the midst of that often feels like play. And by play I mean something that's undertaken purely for its own sake. So that could be pickleball, that could be just reading that I'm not, I'm not reading to to to improve myself. I'm reading because I actually am enjoying the book that I'm reading at that moment. But most forms of play that I find to be, you know, healing are the are, you know, involve other people. I think most play, we do play on our own, but most play is done in a sort of a transformative what they call the magic circle. You know, step onto the volleyball court and find and it's okay to spike the ball. If you did that on the street, people would say, No, thank you. So there's a freedom to play. It's, it's, it's, it's activity that's unhooked from some intended result, or climbing of a ladder. And I think it's deeply in line with the way of Jesus. I think not only in his exaltation of children who all they really do is play. The way Jesus operated, at least from my reading of Scripture, is not as this incredibly calculated chessboard of moves from, you know, a to b, and as few steps as possible, I feel like he was doing what was in front of him, and he freed people to exercise their God given gifts, and which I a lot of to be motivated by delight in the things we do, rather than earning or approval. Those are always the things you're going to do better anyway. Think
Joshua Johnson:about your work and think about what you do to produce like you're producing every day. You're trying to have deadlines, meet deadlines and get content out there in the world to help people out. How would a reorientation of productivity into a place of play help you in creativity and producing something? Does that help you to say that there is sort of a play that is happening even in my work?
David Zahl:Absolutely, I think that the task of the creative person, and I think it's just a spiritual person, is to figure out where the life, the pul, the blood, is, the where your pulse is actually taking you. And if you're producing the content that you think people want you to produce, and you're following some sort of a script, you may do it well for a while, but ultimately it will become an enormous burden to you. That's why being a writer, being a podcaster, you have to somewhat follow where your heart is taking you and what interests you, because that will always be more interesting to other people. I have to figure out in the work I do with Mockingbird, or the work I do with writing some of this play stuff was like that was very interesting to me personally, so I wanted to pursue it, and it had borne all sorts of fruit in my own life. So I was genuinely interested in it, rather than what it could do for me. And I think that shows a lot of people have who've read the book like that chapter. It can be exhausting, though, because you have to pay attention again to yourself and to what's that, what's actually capturing your interest, as opposed to what you think should capture interest, or should capture your time. You have to figure out what is, what's my heart actually responding to and to trust that somehow God is in that process, and then you'll build from there, rather than some intended result that usually isn't going to happen anyway. How
Joshua Johnson:do you navigate that? How do you figure out, oh, this is underneath the the goal that I have, like this is where I want to move towards. This is my desire. How do you figure out your desire underneath the false desires of the world that's on top of your true desire,
David Zahl:all the pressure, all the should, all the law? Well, it usually involves talking it out or writing it out. Sometimes some of us, you know, I'm a. Kind of person that sort of finds out what I think when I'm when I write it down, it's a matter of attention. And you know, I'm also I'm a person who's had great friends and a few therapists in my life who've helped me, helped me get back in touch with my inner child, or just my animated what it's animating me at times when I've gotten lost, it's not always clear. One of the great things about play is that is there's freedom to it. You can make mistakes. It's it. The stakes are low. When it comes to play, it's not life and death. And so I guess I find it's a matter, it's always a matter of paying attention to so like, if I if I'm telling stories of grace in the book, and there's a lot of stories, a lot of illustrations, talking in my own life, talking about other people's lives, talking about, you know, music and and movies and books and things like that, and even theology, it's got to be something that hits my heartstrings. It can't be something that I think people need. The first criterion is whether it speaks to me, and then, then it's, then you get to the intellectual side of well, does it make sense? Does it fit? Is it too complicated, all of those things? But if it's moving the needle inside my spirit, then I can, I can. That's I'll begin with that. But there are times, especially as Christians, I think we were brought up with so much in our head about what's right and proper and appropriate and glorifying to God and what isn't, and that can become an inner game of tennis that can be very stifling to people. And I think that most of my favorite artists, Christian or not, have have been able to cut through that to something truer, and that's usually where the interesting things are happening. So it could be that, you know, so and so is doing a podcast about, you know, submarines. I don't care about submarines, but they care about submarines, and all of a sudden I can't get enough of submarines. It was like in college, you someone told me that originally, like, don't take a subject, find the professors that you resonate with, and then then take whatever classes they offer. And that was great rule of thumb, which I think translates into the same thing, like a writer, oh, he's writing about, you know, architecture in 16th century Spain. I'll go along. We'll see how it goes. You know,
Joshua Johnson:that's interesting, not just for artists, and to say, hey, once we dive deep into the annals of what our desire and our wants are, we're going to actually produce something that is that is true and honest, and people are going to resonate with that. I think that it helps in all of our communal relationships, the relationships and community. Because if we're constantly moving in a space where I'm going to just give people what I think they want, no real connection takes place because we don't hear our true selves in community. How have you found that communal aspect of diving into who you are and revealing yourself to be healing in community and to be more connecting.
David Zahl:Well, I really do think it's true that the more personal, the more specific you go, the more personal you go, the more universal your it becomes. I remember hearing the essays Leslie Jamieson wrote tells all of her writing students is like, get specific. And you think that the more specific you go, the more you're going to exclude people. But you find, if you get specifics about the things that that really that occupy you, it it actually it like burrows down to a bedrock somehow that resonates into the hearts of other people. I see this most profoundly at our church when a sermon is given in which some sort of real pain is talked about, mentioned on Earth, described, forgiven. You know that people will come up to you and say, how were you in our bedroom last night? You know, and you think I wasn't. I gave a very specific example. Had nothing to do with you, yet somehow you we are now closer as a community, and we're pulling in the same direction. There's a, I think, a faulty, it's not totally false, but a faulty notion that in order to foster community, you have to speak to people as though they are a group. But I think, but actually, I think it's the opposite. You speak as though you're speaking to single people. And all those single people sort of realize that the truth, same truth, applies to them, or that the same description fits them. So there are a couple points in the book Joshua where I was hesitant to be like, Oh, this is a little too personal, like, I'm I'm talking too specifically about Peter Gabriel for like, two pages here, or I'm telling a whole I'm okay.
Joshua Johnson:I I assigned to an eighth grade language arts class. I assigned a Peter Gabriel song to them, and I say, I want you to continue the story. Like, okay, eighth graders, I was having them listen to Peter Gabriel. And do an essay on him. So
David Zahl:he's unbelievable to me. Yeah, yeah. I just just follow the strands and to see. I knew that if I could get us some emotional truth, it would, it would, it would exceed whatever my own experience was. So those are the risks I took. I took more risks like that in this book. It's a shorter book than other books I've written, but I there's more of there's probably more of myself in it, because I knew that for it to grace is such an important message, such an important reality, such important force in the world. If I tried to come up with formulas or talk about how Grace has impacted other people, rather than the way that I've seen it impact both myself and the examples in which I have seen myself, I knew it wasn't going to translate. And so, yeah, it's it's a it's an amazing thing to think that the more specific you get, the more something will resonate. But it allows people more space, more more entry, I guess. Where
Joshua Johnson:do you think you would be in your life without grace? I
David Zahl:don't know. I mean, that's a really hard question. So I wrote the book because I need grace like it's not, it's not, it's not a abstract or epidemic academic question. You know, I'm not a criminal. I haven't but I have a very, very active inner critic and a very, very loud accuser. Lots of people have that, I think, but the voice of accusation that sort of I was saddled with by nature of my DNA and my upbringing, is just pretty booming, and I think it I have gravitated toward to the message of God's grace because I need it. Depression is often anger turned inward. That's not all depression is, but that's part of what depression is. And I think that it's no wonder that that's been the thing that I've personally struggled with the most in my life. It's like accusation that has nowhere to go except for internally, and there's no solution. There's no off ramp for it. I found that grace to be the wonderful, enlivening word. It's hope for those of us who cannot seem to always extend grace to ourselves like that, that's I imagine there are some people in the world who just seem to be pretty much okay with themselves and aren't second guessing things, or aren't maybe handled with a bunch of regrets from the past. I'm not one of them, so I had to write from my own experience, and what I find of the most urgent value in the Christian faith is grace. There's so many wonderful aspects, dimensions to our faith, but the world I look out and see is one as a pressure cooker, and it's also what I experienced inside. So the the possibility, what did Marco Michael Gerson said, to stake your life on the rumor of grace, like that's something worth staking your life on, that there's more than just more condemnation or judgment out there, that there is a love which exceeds the bounds of sympathy and affinity and and has can can interrupt the various cycles in which we find ourselves, in the captivities. I
Joshua Johnson:think a lot of people have a hard time receiving grace that they go I know about grace. I could intellectually assent to grace and get the knowledge, but I don't know how to get it within my body. I can't do it. How can we open our hands up and receive grace and embody it? So it's an embodied experience and not just say something we know about. It's
David Zahl:like the one of the most important things in life is to figure out how to receive because, I mean, I believe what we receive from God is of paramount importance. It's not what we bring to God. You know, we we're much more comfortable bringing the casserole to the grieving person than to be the one receiving the casserole ourselves. We want to sequester we're ashamed of our grief. We're too sad. We don't want people to see the insides of our house. Receiving love is the is kind of like the greatest skill, or it's like the is the greatest gift is to be able to receive a gift. I think suffering has a way of teaching us how to do that. I think God is in the business of, kind of breaking down our walls so that that you know, if you're in a community, you bring the casserole because you know that you're going to be on the receiving end before too long. But I don't know if there's a necessarily, a how to I just want to say that if you're the sort of person that says, I have a lot, I have a really hard time, I have an easy time celebrating other people, but I have a really hard time receiving presents. Or my idea of Hell is someone throwing a birthday party in my honor. I want to suggest that you might have a spiritual problem, and that's like, that's an uncomfortable thing for especially in a world where we're kind of trained and socialized to think, well, that, you know, we want to be serving others and we want to be other centered. And I think that that's of course we do. But if you've built up walls that are so high you can't receive love when it comes your way, you're in trouble. And that's a spit. Again, urgent. If there's an urgency to grace, just try being married to someone who cannot receive love. Those those marriages end. That's what that's the answer. But of course, life, often, in God, I think, is in the business of sort of breaking through our resistance to the gifts he has to give us.
Joshua Johnson:How is this shaped? A little bit about your thinking of second half of life, stuff, as you've transit, you're transitioning into the second half of life. And I, you know, I'm in this same place that you're at. How has that shifted changed? And you're thinking about the way that you present in the world, the way that you show up in the world. Well, I like,
David Zahl:I do. I do appreciate the sort of first half of life, second half of life, or first, third, second, third, third, third. Because most of the chapter that I'm in in life, which is middle age, and middle, middle, the middle part of middle age is about striving, is about earning, is about establishing, or you've sort of established, but now it's now, it's time for you to really sort of get to the peak, to the next job. And I think that you have to find the secret at the top of the mountain is that there's no secret up at the top of the mountain. You know, it's you have to find something else to live for. And that is the stage in which I think second half of life is really being of service, other people, passing things on, learning how to not not only that, there's something beyond earning. There's things that are much more important in life than than you're going to ever get at the top of a ladder. But in fact, that life is sort of actually about climbing is descending ladders. You know, that's the pattern of God towards, you know, weakness to in yourself, in the world, being a service of the poor, etc. It's almost like we spend our first half of life trying to earn our way to a healthy feeling about ourselves, and then once we get we get to the place where we finally realize that that's impossible and that we need the if we're going to receive very healthy if we're going to get a healthy image of ourselves or good feeling about ourselves in the world, it needs to be something we receive. And so grace, I think, is paramount in that like, if you don't have a conception of grace, because another thing that happens, you know, after the first or second half of life is that a lot of people are nowhere near where they thought they'd be, or where they wish they should be, or where they think they should be, and there's forgiveness there too, or there's you don't want to become a bitter person. The whole thing is bathed in grace from start to finish. I'm again. I'm writing the book to myself, not just for other people, because I find it so seductive to think that there's nothing good in the world outside of what I can take or build for myself. This book is a mammoth rejoinder to that. It says, No, the best thing that all the best things in life are going to be the things you receive from God, and that means there's hope for you, no matter what your circumstances, and a reason to keep breathing. I mean, I really think Joshua that the key spiritual condition of our age is not really self righteousness or even privilege, it's despair. I think people feel like there's nothing worth living for. And I think grace, the grace of God, means that there's always a surprise around the corner. The way you think things are going to end the way they do are not the same. I know
Joshua Johnson:you just read evangelism in the age of despair by Andrew roots as well, and I recommend that. I think if you read both of them together, the big relief and then Andrew's notebook, I think would be a great one two punch to really help us actually receive some grace in the constellation of Christ in this despairing, weary world that we're living in today. So if you actually then talk to your readers, and I know you wrote a lot of this for yourself, but if you talk to your readers, what hope do you have for them? I
David Zahl:think Grace is such an important thing that I it's I'm not inventing anything new here, and there's no new discoveries about the grace of God. It's just a way to repackage and re translate. I think that the we always are in need of fresh images and fresh language for the gospel and for the good news of about God and how God actually relates to us. That's what this book is meant to do. It's not really meant to relitigate a bunch of Christian arguments, or things like that. It really is like, Hey, this is the best thing there is, and this is what we have to offer the a world that is like basically being crushed under the weight of its own demands and and dysfunctions and just the weight of death. This is this is Grace. This is what Christianity has to offer the world. And I wanted a user friendly give to anyone something that didn't presume too much knowledge of Christianity, but was faithful to the, you know, the primary sources, yeah, something I could use in my own work. I work at a church part time, and I. I find I'm always the basics are, are not basic, and we're in need of if the spiritual conditions are what I perceive them to be. I think that I'm not alone in needing This message brought home in in fresh and sometimes, what do you call it? Diagonal, kind of sideways, orthogonal manner, and that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to write something that was that was compiling a lot of the best wisdom I've come across in a way that people could hear
Joshua Johnson:that's a fantastic book. And I want people to go and get it and then hand it out, because I think, though the world needs this relief that needs grace and urgently needs it today. So it's fantastic. I'd love to hear a couple of recommendations from you, anything you've been reading or watching lately you could recommend. And just as you know, bringing it back, we ended up watching the saints of second chances, and we loved it. It was fantastic. It's such a beautiful documentary full of grace. So I do appreciate your your recommendations. So can you give me a couple of them? Oh my
David Zahl:gosh. Well, for people who are interested in in how Christianity works in the modern world, I think that that book by Andrew root, evangelism in an age of despair is phenomenal. The the book that I that I've found to be deeply helpful, and it draws on a lot of Christian ideas, but not the guy, there were others, not a Christian. The book meditations for mortals, by Oliver Berkman. He it is probably, it runs a little more parallel to the my last book called Low anthropology. And he's, he's someone I've gotten to know a little bit, but I think that the book itself is an enormously compassionate take on the demands. And there's, it is, there's a lot of grace. It's, it's, we're almost like the rumor of grace is, through that book, I found it to be really helpful and cool stuff I've watched recently when I was I don't remember if I if, have people seen that the documentary daughters? Have I did? I mentioned that last time I was on
Joshua Johnson:here. Oh, you didn't. I don't think it was out yet last time. Okay, that
David Zahl:is a very, very it's about Daddy daughter dances in prison, in maximum security prisons. And that has stuck with me as a very, very powerful picture of what grace looks like, uh, grace towards the kids, grace towards the men, and it just will leave you in a pile on the floor. Yeah, I'm trying to think, if there's anything like that's blowing my mind as we speak, I was watching severance, but that that's just interesting and kind of labyrinthine. I don't know if it, it's one of those things that completely remains to be seen, whether or not it's actually going to work or be pulled off. You know, we could all look back and be like, Oh, that was a mistake, you know, kind of like lost or something. That's
Joshua Johnson:all right? The journey, though, is, is fun. It is, I am enjoying the journey of severance, and so it's
David Zahl:absorbing, right? We're talking about being absorbed by a story. You're kind of sitting there really enjoying it, I think, for folks who want more devotional music, John Guerra. John and Valerie Guerra are two musicians in Austin, Texas. Used to be in Chicago, but John has a new record coming out called Jesus. Just called Jesus his the first single is called I see the birds, and that has been giving me life. It's really him just interacting with the words, direct words of Christ, in a way that's not hokey in the slightest. It's full of all the kind of vulnerability and drilling down that we've talked about in this podcast. I could not recommend that higher. So those are some thoughts. Well,
Joshua Johnson:check it out. It's good. Thank you, Dave for this conversation, and thank you for this book, and thank you for wrestling with the places where you need grace in your own life, so that you could give us a gift of grace that we could receive because we urgently need it in this moment. Really enjoy talking to you. Love our conversation. So thank you so much. Thank you, Joshua, thanks for having me.
Unknown:You.
