Ep. 320 David Gate - Rebellion of Care

What does it look like to resist empire without becoming empire? Poet and essayist David Gate joins the podcast to explore how care, friendship, and creative truth-telling can become acts of rebellion in a world shaped by power, productivity, and isolation. In this conversation, we talk about why individualism is a dead end, how to build communities that last, and why Jesus’ refusal to grasp power remains a countercultural model worth following. David shares the heart behind his new book Rebellion of Care, the role of art in subversion, and why the life we already have, if we live it with intention, can become the site of radical transformation. If you’re hungry for a faith that’s grounded, generous, and deeply human, this episode offers both vision and invitation.

David Gate grew up in London before making his way to Belfast, Northern Ireland and Jacksonville, Florida. He now lives in the ancient Appalachian mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, where he writes, mills flour, and tends to a one-acre homestead with his partner and children.

David's Book:

Rebellion of Care

David's Recommendation:

We Tell Ourselves Stories

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Transcript

David Gate: 0:00

I do think like that is the way to avoid becoming Empire yourself, is to stay so true to your values and so true to your perception of the world that you are not blinded by the ability to shape the world into your image, but instead you you you let it go, and you die when it's your time to die, and you embrace that. Hello

Joshua Johnson: 0:35

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, what if rebellion didn't look like rage but like tenderness? What if our most subversive acts weren't marches or manifestos, but small, consistent choices to show up, to love, to share and to stay? In this episode, I'm joined by David gate, poet, essayist and author of rebellion of care. David's work doesn't just critique the systems that dehumanize us. It imagines something more. It calls us into a quiet radical resistance built not on power or control, but on presence, friendship and generosity. We talk about the loneliness epidemic and how showing up for your friends might just be one of the most revolutionary things that you can do. We explore the trap of individualism, the unsustainable pace of hustle culture, and why dependency, so often seen as weakness, is actually holy. David unpacks how care becomes rebellion, how art speaks truth, and why Jesus's refusal to seize power is the kind of leadership the world is desperate for. This is a conversation about letting go of the need to win, about building new ways of living that are rooted in compassion rather than control. It's about becoming people who embody the values we claim to believe, not just in theory, but in our kitchens, our neighborhoods, our shared tools, our friendships, whether you're tired of institutions that don't deliver searching for a better way to build community, or just wondering what it means to live a faithful life in a fractured world, join us. Here is my conversation with David gate. David, welcome to shifting culture. So excited to have you on. Thanks for joining me.

David Gate: 2:21

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Great to be here. I

Joshua Johnson: 2:24

love your poetry and your new book. Rebellion of care is, I think, fascinating for me, because when I when I think of rebellion and revolutions, I think of scrappy underdogs taking power and then deciding to become the institutions themselves and and then subjugating other people. How did you figure out like rebellion of care was a common theme, something that you cared about and you wanted to express to the world

David Gate: 2:54

after spending a lot of time online, very, I think, accurately criticizing religion and politics and things I saw wrong with the world. I wanted to concentrate this point in my life on what are we building. You know, what do I see replacing various power structures in the world? Because we depend on them, and I do think hierarchies are somewhat inevitable. But what are we actually doing? What can we actually build? How can we actually think about doing things differently? What kind of world are we imagining? And it really takes a vivid imagination to get there, because the world we live in just seems so unavoidable that I think the work of I think in this book, like the work of the poetry, really is to settle into us in a different form than just simply analysis or critique or discussion, you know, finding art forms that can expand our minds and hearts. So that's was really I was hoping to achieve.

Joshua Johnson: 3:54

As you grew up north London, you said you spent a few years in Belfast, you lived in Florida. You're now living in Asheville, North Carolina. You've lived in pretty diverse places, but places where you may be confronted with what the world is trying to give you, even with London and Belfast, Florida, North Carolina, are there any common themes that you see this is the world is set up in a certain way that is fighting against us humans.

David Gate: 4:28

Well, what if I'm really starting to get a little political and to really hone in, I think it's the system we live in, is the capitalist system, which is the same in London and Florida and Belfast and North Carolina, and the expectations of that system, how it demands our lives and our bodies and our time in order to function and really only rewards those that seem to be. The meanest or the most competitive, or the ones that work 100 hours a week, and it's it's only willing to reward what I would say is a moderately decent life to a very, very few individuals, yet demands the rest of us heed to it and bow to it and serve it. And so that tinkles my my religious history, and thinking about idolatry, and thinking about that this is just isn't the way the world was meant to be, and how and how we're made to be. And really, we have all the resources to make it a different way. It doesn't have to be like this. And so, yeah, I think that's consistent in all the places I've lived. And I think, you know, it's the story of Western culture

Joshua Johnson: 5:47

really well, we have, we have capitalism. You know, Western Christianity is as taken a lot of that upon themselves and decided to follow a lot of institution and power and hierarchy rather than embody the ways of Jesus and the good news that he brought, which is a different system, a different power structure, than we find here in the West, even in the in the church today. Yeah, what are some of the things that fascinate you and that draw you to Jesus as somebody to show us a better way to live in this

David Gate: 6:28

world in terms of the direction I've taken in regards to my religious ideas, my political ideas, my ideas about community and Sharing and care, the way I approach art and creativity all really stem from what I learned about Jesus and understood Jesus to be. So I just went far down that road. You know, it is like people will say, oh, Jesus was, you know, loving and good and kind and compassionate, but like you, if you just keep going with that that leads you direct into direct confrontation with everything that is not gentle and kind and generous and and gracious. And I just kept following that, that path into confrontation, and continue to and I think that's the way of the cross, you might say, or the narrow road. I think if you are a person that is captivated by the teachings of Jesus and the life of Jesus, then I think this is the road for you, if

Joshua Johnson: 7:36

it is kindness and care in the midst of our friendships, our relationships, our community, in the midst of us being grounded to the earth to be with the land, in the midst of figuring out how we could cooperate and share together. What is this care and kindness and why is it so subversive to the crazy capitalist world that we live in.

David Gate: 8:00

I think everything about this culture wants us to feel like an individual. So everything is geared towards our own personal well being, success, particularly success, and so everything is shaped that way. So particularly, you take something that seems unrelated to that, but like the reliance on in America, on cars, is all about us being able to go wherever we want to go, whenever we want to go, and that I am totally reliant. And the first thing you do when you're a teenager in America is you get your driver's license, and then you go and you'd be free. And there's like, there's a lot of good about that, but it actually we've set up our cities and our entire nation to not value busses and trains and public transport. And so you get the fruit of that, which is that if you cannot afford a car, or you cannot afford to fill it up every week, or the monstrous insurance, then you are at an absolutely chronic disadvantage in American life, because the entire you know, you can't get your kids to school, you can't get to work, you can't get to the store. There's no walkable neighborhoods you can count on, you know, most cities you can count on one hand. So it's simple things like that make me feel like everything is geared towards us as individuals, and so then, like the rise of technology is just the rise of social media has just reinforced that continually, that we are to purchase our way to happiness where, where we need to buy the best products. Feel more satisfied from social media, become the better influencer, get more followers, get more likes, you know, present our life to the world in a certain way. And so all of this is just actually isolates us. And so we have this, I think, a gift of the internet and the gift of social media in being that we are able now to connect. Act more freely and more quickly than we ever have in the history of the human race, and yet we feel more alone. And so it really is this drive to isolation which makes us weaker, makes us more depressed, and that means we have less energy then all that goes into our work and our jobs, and nothing's left for our lives and nothing's left for our communities, and so we have to kind of resist. This is why care is, you know, to actually properly care for yourself and that, and then to care for others is, is really a resistance to the way things are, especially to care for others, to actually spend time being in committed relationships, being there for one another, sharing, you know, not everybody owning a lawnmower and a drill and a saw. You share these things like, there's no, there's no reason for us all to own everything. But it takes a little time. It takes relationships. It takes grace, forgiveness, when they don't bring back your chainsaw, when you lend it to them, and you know, like it, it takes relationships and that energy, we have so little energy for relationships and other people that it is crushing us. Dependency

Joshua Johnson: 11:14

is really difficult in a independent type nation that America is that values the the independence of the the individual, that we can do everything and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and press through and do hard things by ourselves, the rugged individual. How have you found a community to to fight against that, to resist that? That's it's one of the most difficult things, I think, to resist in America, it's just really, really hard. Everything is flowing one way of independence and individualism. So what does that look like for you? How do we do

David Gate: 11:52

this? I think I'm speaking particularly to men, but I think this applies to women too. Is you have to be able to be seen to be weak, and if you're not willing to be seen to be weak and not, you know, self actualizing in every part of your life, if you're not willing to do that to be perceived that way, then you will never get over the your own individualism. You know, you'll the only way you'll ever accept help is that absolute breaking point, or beyond breaking point, when you're absolutely blown up your life and and that's what we see. That's the pattern we see, particularly in men, you know, of not asking for help, not reaching out, not being willing to be seen, to be weak and small and able to not provide for themselves and families and so forth. And so I think really, that is the first step, because emotionally, then everything comes from that. So once you're able to become somewhat comfortable with being perceived as being weak or small or insufficient, then you can actually proceed in a way where you're not embarrassed, ashamed, hiding your dependence on others. And once you do that, you then realize the extent that you can actually help other people. Because I think there is a lot of compassion in this world. I think there's a lot of people do want to help other people, but often we don't know what's going on in their lives. Often, you know, we don't want to patronize them, we don't want to belittle them, we don't want to make them feel weak or small or or insignificant. And so we, we tend to stay out where we could offer help and and I think really, once those barriers are down, emotionally to like, we accept our place in the world as, you know, fragile, finite beings who don't have it all together, all of us are just winging it all of no one knows what's what they're doing. And, you know, and hopefully, my hope, is that people don't wait until they're in their 50s, 60s and 70s to work that out, and we can maybe work it out a little earlier. And and that really is humility, like it is what it is. It's accepting the finite nature of our lives. And once you do that, then that's the doorway, then, I think, to actually living a life of care for yourself and for others.

Joshua Johnson: 14:14

Today, we live in an anti institutional age. We live in an age where institutions are are breaking and falling and saying that they actually aren't caring for us the way that we want them to. Yeah, and so we're, we're tearing things down. It's, I think it's an age of breaking. But what, what I love about what you're trying to do is that we have a breaking like we want to rebel and kind of break the system of of what's going on now. But then there is this building aspect, and part, which hopefully we're going to get to at some point, is like, is there going to be a better way forward? Is there a place in the in the building aspect of what's next? Is that institution and anti institution maybe come together in a different in a different way, or a new way, where we may need some, some large, you know, operations to help us what? How does, how do you see that fitting going forward?

David Gate: 15:20

I think institutions are inevitable. I think we need them. We build them. We have too much power hunger in our very beings to not do that. We also have too we have too much will to shape the world like we want to shape the world. We want to make it better. And so I think institutions are somewhat inevitable, so I don't, and I think that's human nature. I think most people generally want to be led. You know, as well, decision making is hard and takes a lot of energy. Consensus is difficult to get all that stuff. So I think they are inevitable. So I'm not really working towards like, oh, I want the entire human civilization to be without hierarchy or institution. I think that's impossible, but I do want us to approach that in a different way, and the way to approach that is to see it as more finite and as more transient, and that these things are meant to change, and they're meant to change, you know, within a generation. You know, when I think about America and I think about the Constitution, drew up that document within years that working out, no, we didn't hear it quite right. We need to make some amendments, and we need to, but when, why do we stop amending? You know, like, like, when life changes and technology changes and and values change, and our understanding and our knowledge increases so much like so our knowledge and our understanding of race and of history and and all this has vastly improved. And yet we have not, we have not changed the Constitution with any more amendments, however long, you know. And so every institution needs to stay changing, and then when it starts to fail, we let it die. And we don't just, like keep going because, you know, this is how we've always done it, or we don't just keep going because, oh, it still does a lot of good, you know, like, you can let things fail and let the need rise up new things and and I think if we get in technology, it's called, like, planned obsolescence, right? Like it's, it's like, get getting rid of, like, your old tech for new tech, like they plan it. Whereas, you know, that's not good from a from a capitalist standpoint. But I do think of a certain planned obsolescence in our in power structures is a really good thing. We need to think that anytime we institute any kind of power or power structure, that this will not last forever and that it will die and it will change and it will not fit future generations, and future generations should have total permission to start again and use whatever composters fallen from the ground, from from the thing that used to grow, to grow something new, and to talk about that from the beginning, and to talk about, you know, this is, this is the right thing for now, and when it's not the right thing anymore, we'll do something different. So that's kind of how I want us to approach it, whatever we're organizing in a different in a different way.

Joshua Johnson: 19:05

I think, particularly, I think some people of faith have a hard time with change, saying that God is is constant and the same, right? And so if he's the same, we should always just be the same. How do you help people like uncover and unveil what, what does change look like, and why is change good to move us into better directions? I mean, there's, there's constant change in the Bible. I know that, but I mean, some people are like, okay, God's constant and the same. I should we should stay the same and we should never change, or we could go back to what was better.

David Gate: 19:46

Yeah, you know, yeah. I mean, there's so many biblical stories about not returning and, you know, you go somewhere new. One book that is on my mind because the author recently died, is a book called praying the Psalms by by uh Walter Brueggemann. And he sadly died last week, and that was the very first Walter Brueggemann book I read, and it is about the process of harmony, disruption and return and and really that happens, not just in people groups, but in relationships as well. There's harmony, there's disruption, and then some kind of restoration, or some kind of return, or some kind of moving on, you know, like, you know, death and new life is a kind of resurrection, is a kind of return. So thinking about those pro. Successes, and seeing how that's in the Psalms, just constantly, Psalms of harmony, sums of praise, songs of disruption, and I don't know where I am, and you know, like, what's going on, and why have you forsaken me? And and then songs and psalms of return. And that's really the story of Scripture, and it's actually the story of human civilization and our individuals and human rights. Like, if you have, I've been, I've been with my partner for 25 years this year, and so, like, it's that's constantly happening, harmony, disruption, return, right? And that's just the nature of relationships and and I think if we can help people understand that that is just the nature of all things, and why we don't like that isn't I don't think, I think emotionally is not a god's the same, so we must be the same, as much as I'm afraid of death and I'm afraid of Death and I'm afraid of the great change that's coming, you know, the the final transformation, you know, one more, one more transformation that's just around the corner. And because we are afraid of that one transformation, or that one transformation happening to the people around us, then we kind of cling so tightly onto the thing we have now, or the thing we used to have that we thought was the best. And so, yeah, a lot of that is, again, I'm coming back to letting go, letting go of our God, like obsessions with ourselves, and accepting our place as a part of nature and caught this life, yeah, part

Joshua Johnson: 22:21

of this, what you've given to the world. And I think who we are, we're we're creative beings. And this is where we're meant to to create some art and beauty and and hopefully, you know, a lot of people are creating destruction and and we want to resist that, to create some beauty. One of the things that I know you did, you know, in 2021, as you started this, this project, he didn't know it was a project. It was something like, Hey, I'm just gonna throw up a poem a week on Instagram and see what happens. It turned into a place of rebellion, of care, and it turned into a place of resistance. This is, oh, this is a common theme that I'm talking about, but I don't think it started there. So for I just want to know about the nature of art, and is it, is art true art? Is it generally subversive? Is it something that is showing us what is underneath the the pile of crap that we live in? Like, what like? What is this nature of arts, and how did it start to unveil itself through your poetry?

David Gate: 23:26

I mean, art is a very broad and sometimes nebulous thing that people can you know, people have different philosophies on art. My My philosophy is really truth based. So I What compels me artistically to write and create is not so much to make a pretty thing, though I do like pretty things, but but to tell the truth like that's what's the compelling thing, I have to find ways of getting what's inside out and in conversation doesn't always do that, and I have to find things, things that I can make and that can last, whether that be a poem or a picture or an essay or a book that marks certain moments in time, certain expressions of truth and Again, that changes over your life, but that's the creative impulse for me, is to say something that's true, and to to my perspective, and everyone's perspective is a unique one, and that the world cannot have enough art, because the world cannot have enough expression of of truth, and you don't have to kind of come up with the entire truth in every single piece of work you do, but it has to express something that is true. And I think when it is something that is true, that's what resonates, that's what connects us through art. That's when, you know, I can look at Roth goes, paintings and and I just see these endless windows and doors that he's painting over and over again and, and it makes me think about thresholds, and it makes me think about what's on the other side. And it makes me think about everything I've been through already, all the windows I've looked through, and then I've gone to the other side and, and here I am again. And you know, this one's red, the last one was blue, and like, it's, it's over and over again. And that's what that art does for me. It it resonates something true. And so that's what I'm trying to do in my work all the time, is just to express what I see is true in the forms that I've been given and the forms. I've found the forms that I'm good at, the ones that the best. Grab what I'm willing to, you know, wanting to put into the world and just do my best with it. And then you learn, as a artist, how to grow in that, how to become more diligent in that. You learn your craft. You learn how to shape things better. You learn about form. You learn about what works. You learn the rules, then you learn how to break the rules, and you know, all that stuff is just artistic discipline. At that point,

Joshua Johnson: 26:06

the discipline is an importance. I find it fascinating for you as you look back on your work after a year of posting and find a common theme. I mean, it was the my wife and I just finished up about a year of in a creative cohort where we're creating pieces and sharing them with each other and getting feedback and all that. And one of the last exercises was to look back on everything you created and see what actually popped up the common themes. And it was fascinating that there was a common theme in there. I mean, mine was about breaking cycles of of revenge and violence, of, you know, of generational cycles and cycles of subjugation. You know, my wife's was really about the care, care for marginalized and the and the vulnerable. I find that important to know, like, what is really underneath the thing? What do I care about and what do I value that was the value for me is now I could actually see, oh, that may be something that I could bring to the world, because I've actually done this creative work. How did you you move from just posting, what do you think is true, to actually seeing a type of common theme in your work, and wanting it to bring that into the

David Gate: 27:26

world. I think it was a real shift over time, probably over a 20 year period. So from when I was a late teenager, early 20s, white man, boy with opinions, right? And so you just, you just, it's opinion based. And I've still got opinions, got lots of them, but over time, I realized that my opinions are nowhere near as important as my values. And my values then begin to really shape the opinion so you then you're not reacting to everything that's going on in the world. Then you're not reacting to, you know you're not turning left and right, and you're not having all these contradictory opinions so much as you know they've they then things begin to make sense when you begin to understand your own value system. Now, for for individuals, most of our value systems are inherited from whatever religious upbringing, every family upbringing, cultural upbringing, we have, and I think as an individual then, but you have to look at that and think, Well, I have to decide, because not everything I was given was good, maybe a lot of it was but, like, not everything I was given was good, so then I have to decide, what is it that I'm going to value? And, you know, and people, particularly Christians, don't like doing that, because they feel like I've been handed this Bible, and I have to then conform my life to this Bible. But I began to realize in my 30s that, like, you can justify basically anything you want to do through the Bible. So rather than, like, go down that road that so many people I know, and I think I went down this road as well, of like, well, what does the original Greek say? What was the intention of the author? What was that, you know, like, we get into a very theological, you know, really get into hermeneutics, you know, really trying to pass out, what's the Bible really trying to say? And I would find that all these people that were did, that were still just doing, was still just really, just justifying their own cultural values, right? Like, so I realized, Oh, that's not the game. The game is to, is to choose, is to look at that Bible and say, What do I want to choose? And to certainly be open to, like, oh, I might be wrong. Or like, there might be, there's, there's nuance, there's complexity, there's things like that. But like, really, to say, Oh, I'm going to choose what I what I value, these verses that speak to me, these, these are the psalms that speak to me most. I'm going to go in that direction. And for me, that really was the the words and life of Jesus. And to have that, you know, it was the Gospels, basically, particularly the sermon on the mount and the Beatitudes. And, you know, from a teaching standpoint, is that I decided to prioritize that and then see everything that Paul writes through the lens of what Jesus said, rather than the other way around. And and once I kind of began to do that, it was like, yeah, these are my values. Like, this is, this is what I value. This is how I want to be in the world. And like so for me, writing poetry, moving away from writing theology or writing opinion pieces, writing those kind of essays where I was being very fair and reasonable and trying to, you know, like making argument. Some counter arguments, and moving away from all of that into, Oh, I'm gonna talk like Jesus did, which is more mysteriously than anyone likes, and, you know, like and just be. Just avoid like. I avoid doctrines in my work. I avoid statements of belief in my work. Statements of value are all over my work, like so my values are all over my work, but my statements of beliefs and doctrines, you know, I think you'd be difficult to to really piece together, you know, what I believe theologically from my work, and that's very intentional. I do not want to do that. I don't want to be in theological spaces. I want to be in creative spaces, and for people who have open minds and open hearts, and that's who I'm talking to, have no time really for doctrinal arguments

Joshua Johnson: 31:29

as we move forward in like a values based community, is there a poem or something that you have written that spoke to you and unveil some of your some of your values in in your work. Yeah,

David Gate: 31:45

this is one of my I'm gonna read this one. It's one of my most popular ones as the title of one of the chapters, and it's called, friendship will save us. And so there's a whole chapter in this book about friendship, and I really put the emphasis on the when we're building communities, it doesn't begin with the family unit. It begins with our chosen friendships. You know, the the family unit is really just where we learn how to be good friends, like how we learn commitment, how we learn forgiveness, but really, those things have to translate into friendships, otherwise we just have a slightly healthy family unit, and that's useless to the world, yeah. Like we really need to have good friendships like that is what will save us. That was what will bind us. That was what will get us through. So this is, this is the poem, friendship will save us. Friendship is what will save us. So fall deeply in love with your friends, date them, woo them, pursue them. Mark your anniversaries, celebrate your victories. Take care of their names when they're not in the room. Create a space for them where all truths are tender. For intimacy doesn't have to be reserved for romance, and crushes do not belong only to lovers, so don't hide it when you find a bona fide ride or die.

Joshua Johnson: 33:10

I think friendship is so key. How do we do this? And if we in this loneliness epidemic that we have where we don't know how to be friends, or we think that, you know, hey, we have more so called friends on social media than we ever have before, but we don't actually have your ride or die. You don't have those people that will actually save us. How do we be vulnerable and be in relationship with others?

David Gate: 33:39

I think it's really difficult. I think friendships always difficult, but I think particularly now it's, I think COVID peeled back many of the layers of friendships and stripped us back and really forced us into isolation, and it's been very difficult for people to break that spell. I I do think it is possible, and not just possible, absolutely necessary. And people don't like this, but you have to be the friend that you want to see in the world, and even if that means you get rejected and like, you know, and if we're talking in in terms of Christian responses, like, that's the way of Jesus. You know, you you, you act how you feel, like human beings should act in the world, even if it means rejection. So you put yourself out there. You help others, you know. And yes, is that like painful and costly where you don't get the same return back from those friendships? But guess what? That's just a capitalist way of looking at relationships. Looking at relationships, like the transactional like, I help you, you help me. I help you this much. You help me that much. You know, like I hate, I hate watching friends online, like Venmo each other for like, coffee and stuff like that. I might just buy each other coffee like, just, you know, like, can I get it if your friends broke or whatever? Like, I mean, that I'm not saying that every time you Venmo someone for coffee, that's bad. I'm just saying, like, we should, we should. We can't be in transactional relationships, right? So we can't, we can't be in relationships where we think of and like, I mean, obviously we can't be in truly one way relationships either, like, when people are not giving you anything back and they're just taking, taking, taking, like, that's not healthy either. But no, I think like it, you have to understand that if you're gonna venture this brave new world in the in our COVID, isolated technological terms, that you. You're going to have to give and not get everything back that you've given, and that's okay, and that's how relationships are built and formed. That's how trust is built and formed. The other thing I think is really important, and I think it's a huge problem in my generation, is flakiness and so not showing up canceling. Like we all joke about it. Oh, we love it when people cancel. And, you know, like, we all love it, you know, to have another evening at home, you know, doing the exact same thing we did yesterday, watching streaming shows and eating ice cream. And, you know, like having a wine at six o'clock. And you know, like, we all like that, and we all feel like we need it, and I get it, but like, you have to show up your friends. You have to turn up for their gigs. You have to go to their you know, shows. You have to, when they say, let's grab a coffee. You grab a coffee. You know, you commit. Like, once you've we're just so willing to flake, I think, and and that hurts. And so that would be an, I think, number one thing you could turn around tomorrow is just don't flake. Just when, when you say you're going to meet someone, just show up and meet them. Like showing up is so much of life like, you know, you show up for your friends, you show up for your art, you show up for the things you value. You show up for your community. Like, if you can just keep showing up, you don't even have to be good at any of this and be good at Friendship. You have to be good at art. You don't have to be good at community building. But if you keep showing up, it will get built and it will happen, right? So, like, that is the number one you you just got to show up. You can't be

Joshua Johnson: 37:19

flaky. This is the hardest thing in America, is show up for each other, but when we do, we feel so much better than if we just stayed home and we watched a streaming show, which I love, streaming shows, so I want to actually just talk about a streaming show right now and talk about andor. I was listening to Tony Gilroy, who created andor wrote it, one of the things that he says he thinks that one of his through lines and of values in all of his work that he has done is the importance and value of community and how community will actually help transform us, and this is what we need. I know you wrote, you have a great subset article on andor. I just, I love that article, and I love what you say about what what this rebellion actually is, and how it actually takes all of us, how, what do we see in andor, this weird Star Wars without lightsabers, type of of show that can is just resonant with all of our lives at the moment. What do we what do we start to learn? Give, give me some andor love

David Gate: 38:30

and or season one was incredibly coagulating for my book, and I had started, I I'd watched season one, I think it came out in 22 and so I had watched it, and I was already writing, like, in that direction. And then after I got the book deal, and I knew, like, Oh, this is actually happening, like, I went and re watched it now, you know, because I think my kids hadn't seen it. And so we sat down and we watched it together. And so I watched it through the second time, and it emotionally just where, you know, we were. I think this was 2023, and so like, you know, there's an election coming up, and you know, it's like just the moments we were finding ourselves in. I just found it so resonant for both the time we're in and for my work, in particular about forming rebellion. And so that was when really, I started to think, oh, I need to lean into the rebellion aspect of this, and it not just be about, you know, like, because I think so I write about care a lot. I write about friendship a lot. I write about looking after yourself, a lot, you know, looking after your body, looking after your mind, your spiritual life. Like, all those things can lean wellness, right? Like, so all those things can lean towards a certain just look after yourself, you know you're you've got this, you know you're that kind of way of being in the world. And I didn't want to do that. I wanted to really lean into the into rebellion and community and and how to marry those things together. So and or was incredibly formative. One of the chapters is named after a line from the from the show. There's at least one actual line from andor that I put in the last poem of the books in there. And so and I was listening to the soundtrack as I was writing some of that stuff. And so hugely important. I think andor as a show is an absolute miracle. Like to have this Disney produced Star Wars show that is so willing to get into the difficult a nature of building and forming rebellions against Empire is it's just. Is amazing. It is so well written. The characters are so well formed. It it's, I don't think you need to know anything about Star Wars to enjoy it, like if you just like good TV. The writing and acting and direction is so good, you know, especially if you have any kind of politics that leans towards the rebellious rather than the Empire, like I I think it will all resonate for you. But if you do have a little bit of Star Wars in you, and you do like a little star wars, then it's just a dream come true. It's like, it's like everything that I ever wanted, you know, and I've adored it. And then season two, which just came out after I finished the Bucha, you know, and it's as good as good as season one, and that they, they wrapped it up so perfectly, and very emotional, very inspiring, you know? And then, you know, we record, I don't know when this podcast being released, but we're recording this the first week of June, and there's the response in LA that's happening now to protest towards ice. And you're just seeing the same thing, seeing these armed guards turning up, you know, these the military showing up to protests and sparking violence in order to justify further violence. And we live in, we live on Gorman like that's where, where we are, and that's what we're seeing. It's, it's perfectly at this moment. So I found it very, very informative and inspiring. It

Joshua Johnson: 42:08

is. So how do we do that then? So there were, as we stand up, as we rebel against the Empire. So even now, as saying, hey, these these ICE raids that are just going to take people away without due process at all, which is part of what's supposed to be. Part of our value system in America, is that people have some due process. So we're rebelling against something that we think is incredibly unjust and shouldn't happen, rebelling against the Empire. How do we do that without becoming Empire ourselves. I think that's this is, I think this is the the nature of rebellion is it becomes Empire at times. Can we stop becoming the Empire ourselves?

David Gate: 42:53

Yeah, I do think the only way to do that is to let go of power once you've got it. And which I, I think, for me, is one of the most compelling things about Jesus, Christ. And so, you know, once he had formed an absolute horde of people following around, he just realized that this isn't good, and started shedding followers, left, right and center, saying things that would frustrate them and annoy them and confound them. And then even when he enters Jerusalem, you know, and it's make way, and it's, you know, palm leaves, and it's riding on a donkey, he's making this massive political statement, you know, and he's kind of coalesced a movement at that point, like, even if he wasn't meaning to, like, there's this moment where he could really ratchet it up politically, and what he does is spends that week saying the most difficult things that he says, and just absolutely shedding followers until he's left alone. He has become so dangerous that even his friends deny it. And so I do think like that is the way to avoid becoming Empire yourself, is to stay so true to your values and so true to your perception of world that you are not blinded by the ability to shape the world into your image, but instead you, you, you let it go, and you die when it's your time to die, and you embrace that, and you, you move over when it's your turn to move over. And I think you have to model that and display that for other people, and not try and control it, not thinking, well, if I move over, someone worse will take over. You know, like if I move over, it won't be as good. If I if I move over, then the things that I've instituted will fall and die. Everything falls and dies like it. You have to be able to willing, to let it go. And do I think that's going to happen? Like, say, if you know, like the rebellions in this country, you know, I say we get a populist left wing movement that takes over the powers of government? Do I think it's going to take that road of letting go? Probably not. That's the history of the human race. But I think the good people will, I think the bravest of us will and will leave a more powerful legacy because of it. And you know, going back to Star Wars, going back to the the original Star Wars and new hope. And you know, Obi Wan realizing that he's gonna become more powerful than Vader can ever imagine, by displaying to Luke that what you do is you give up your life and and so he just gives up in the fight and gives up in the fight and just dies. And therefore becomes more powerful, inspiring both Luke and Leia, which the first time in. Luke and era together in their lives and displays this way of giving up, which then Luke then models later on in very controversial movie. Which I love that movie, The Last Jedi. But like I know it's

Unknown: 45:55

very I love the last Jedi. Yes, I know it is, but I love the last, and

David Gate: 45:59

I like the way he comes through his own path to that same conclusion that Obi Wan comes to, that the way to model it to Ray is to lose his own life and and to disappear into the force. And that's all any of us can do. So the way you avoid becoming an empire, the way you know, the way you avoid becoming the thing you hate is to disappear into the force

Joshua Johnson: 46:22

that is so hard. I pray that we can get there, and we can actually embody these ways of Jesus and Obi Wan Kenobi in in our lives. And you know, figured this, this thing out. David, if you could talk to, you know, people pick up rebellion of care. This book. Read your poetry. What hope do you have for for your work and the people who read it?

David Gate: 46:45

My real hope with with the person who picks up this book, is that they see that a rebellion of care is is right there and present in their in the very lives they have now. So it's not that you have to radically change your life. It's not that you have to suddenly become someone different, adopt some new principles, you know, like that. Really, almost everyone who picks up this book will have principles of love and care and compassion already, you know, and will believe that art changes things and friendship changes things. These are not like new ideas, particularly as such. And so what I was hoping this book does is that it really inspires you, that this life is within your hands already. It is the life you already have. Is what you already value. You just need to become radicalized into the life you already have, and not just let it passively slip you by, but like to actually live truly to what you already believe.

Joshua Johnson: 47:44

Good couple real quick questions at the end. One, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would

David Gate: 47:49

you give? I would keep writing. Don't stop writing and keep sharing. It like so I've always written. I didn't ever stop writing, but I did stop sharing. I did stop because I didn't get all of the external affirmation that I needed to bolster my confidence. I think I would really encourage my 21 year old self to like you don't need the external validation. You just need to keep sharing, and eventually you'll find your people. You'll eventually find people who appreciate your voice and your voice resonates with them, but the only way to do that is to keep putting it out and being and risk looking weak and small and useless and not very good at writing. Because, guess what, you're not very good at writing, and so we're like, that's that's okay, that's just part of the process. Yeah,

Joshua Johnson: 48:45

great. Anything you've been reading or watching lately, you could recommend. I'm

David Gate: 48:48

currently reading book called we tell ourselves stories, which is a book by Alyssa Wilkinson, who is a film critic for the New York Times, but she has written this book about Joan Didion, and about Joan Didion, particularly Joan Didion's relationship with Hollywood, because she was a screenwriter herself. She lived in hot she lived in LA and the LA area, and was part of that world and but was also a film critic herself. And so her relationship with that and the relationship with Hollywood and power. What I love about Joan Didion, and Joan Didion was someone I really lent on for these essays, is she's just, she just told the truth. So she wasn't really an analyst and she wasn't really a commenter, as much as she just she observed and she told the truth that she saw it, and that was most powerful about her writing. And so that's what I have tried. I've tried more and more to adopt into my own writings just to tell the truth or how I see the world, and let that be the power, rather than like trying to convince someone or something. There's not really much convincing going on in Joan Didion's work and so, so I love this book. This book is, is phenomenal. I really enjoying it. So

Joshua Johnson: 50:10

I loved we tell ourselves stories. It's good. I was able to interview Alyssa about it on the podcast, and it's fantastic book. It was really good. I'm a fan. Yeah, good recommendation, yeah. Good recommendation, yeah. A rebellion of care should be available anywhere books are sold and go and yeah, get it is there anywhere particularly you'd love to point people to to be able to get it, or how could they connect with you?

David Gate: 50:37

Yes. So if you're going to buy the book, I would love it if you bought. From your local indie bookstore. I That's how I that's how I drive. I'm not really an Amazon guy. If you're not from the Empire, well, I mean, like, you know, I'd rather you buy it than not, but I would rather you spend the extra dollar, or whatever it is to get it from your local bookstore. If you want a signed copy, or you don't have a local bookstore that you want to support, you can support you can support my local bookstore, which is called malaprops in Asheville, North Carolina, and they have signed copies. And you can order one of those signed copies online, and if you pre order, it comes with a print, yeah. And then I'm just online, David gate poet.com if you want to buy any of my prints or stickers. I went on Instagram at David gate poet and my sub stack, which I'm really devoting a lot of time and energy into writing something I think good and worthwhile every week. I'm really giving it my all to write in these trying times every week and give people something to cling to and something to hopefully inspire and challenge and all of that stuff. So that's you can find me in sub stack

Joshua Johnson: 51:44

too. Excellent. Well, David, thank you. I love this conversation. It was such a joy to connect and to have this conversation with you. And I'd love to finish and end this conversation with a poem. If you have one more in. Yeah, yes, I do. It would be great for you to read a poem as we head out from our conversation.

David Gate: 52:06

Okay, so this is really a poem about what I was talking about, that you find the rebellion of care in your own life, okay, and in the very smallness and ordinariness of your own life. And this is called the font this kitchen sink, the font of my home, where bread pans soak and milk bottles swirl, where we wash paint pots and brushes in the aftermath of craft, where salad leaves rinse to be rid of bugs and soil, where I clean The abrasions of my working hands and all the blood from the little cuts of constant use in repetition and never ending chore, I come to these sacred waters daily to baptize the entirety of my holy life. Beautiful. Thank

Joshua Johnson: 52:59

you. Thank you. What a great conversation. Loved it. So thank you, David, thank

David Gate: 53:03

you so much. You.