Ep. 321 - Leyla King - The Faith, Resistance, and Stories of Generations of Palestinian Christians

In this episode, I sit down with Episcopal priest and author Leyla King to explore her deeply moving memoir Daughters of Palestine. Told through the voices of five generations of Palestinian women, Leyla’s book offers a powerful counter-narrative to the dominant Western framing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through personal and ancestral stories, she sheds light on the lived experience of Palestinian Christians - stories of displacement, resilience, and unshakable faith. We talk about the intersection of identity and belief, the legacy of generational trauma, and the need to name injustice while holding on to hope. Leyla helps us see why understanding history through human stories is crucial, how reconciliation must be rooted in truth and accountability, and how small acts of listening and proximity can disrupt cycles of vengeance. This is a conversation about the power of story, the pain of loss, and the possibility of healing. It invites us not only to see the full humanity of Palestinians but to reflect on how we might live more faithfully in a fractured world.

Leyla K. King is a Palestinian-American Episcopal priest and author. She is a founding member of both Palestinian Anglicans and Clergy Allies (www.palestiniananglicans.org) and The Small Churches Big Impact Collective (smallchurchesbigimpact.org). She writes about her experiences as a Palestinian, a clergywoman and a mother at thankfulpriest.com. Daughters of Palestine is her first book.

Leyla's Book:

Daughters of Palestine

Leyla's Recommendation:

The Skin and Its Girl

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Transcript

Leyla King: 0:00

That's what is happening. That is what is happening to my people right now. They are being tortured and killed and and I know that God knows that suffering because I see it in the Gospels. And the next thing I see in the Gospels is that that doesn't win in the long run in God's world, in the kingdom that doesn't win.

Joshua Johnson: 0:37

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 I'm joined by Leila King, Episcopal priest, storyteller and author of daughters of Palestine, a powerful memoir that unfolds through the voices of five generations of Palestinian women. Layla lets her foremothers speak in their own voice, preserving their strength grief and faith with sacred attention. What emerges is not just a family history, but a deeply human lens into the lived experience of Palestinian Christians, an experience often erased, ignored or misunderstood in the West. In our conversation, Layla and I talk about the interwoven nature of faith and identity and how she was led to uncover, reclaim and embody her heritage. We talk about the illusion that this is a religious conflict in the Holy Land, the reality of generational trauma and the urgent need to distinguish between a political ideology like Zionism and the dignity of Jewish identity. But we also talk about hope. Leila shares why she believes God is intimately present and suffering, how her grandmother's faith carried her through unspeakable loss, and how we, especially those of us far away from the violence, can play a role in breaking cycles of vengeance and choosing a different way we get practical about what it looks like to stay rooted, to listen to stories that challenge us and to build relationships that make reconciliation possible. This episode is a necessary one if we want to be people who live into the justice and mercy of the kingdom of God. So join us as we engage the story of Palestinian Christians. Here is my conversation with Layla King. Layla, welcome to shifting culture. So excited to have you on thanks for joining. Thanks for joining me. Thanks. I'm glad to be here. I'm excited to dig into your story. You have this great book, Daughters of Palestine. I think it's one of my favorite books I've read recently. It's fantastic. I just love the way that you write the story. Framing this book, for some people, you're writing a memoir in five generations through stories of the women in your family, right, going back to your great, great grandmother, and then into your story a little bit. And the way that you write it, you know you're actually telling stories through their perspectives of each women. So you're not telling their story, they're telling their own story, which I think is fantastic. I loved getting into the heart of who they are. So just give me some of your family, your background, who you are, where you're coming from. And yeah, what was it like to write this,

Leyla King: 3:17

as becomes quickly apparent in in the book itself. I spent the summer after my senior, after I graduated from college, I spent it with my grandmother, my Palestinian grandmother, and I went over to her house every morning for about seven or eight weeks every weekday morning. And I had one of those mini cassette tape recorders that were, you know, old technology now, and I just asked her to tell me about her life, and because of who she is or who she was and how she sort of lived in the world, she she was able to not only tell me about her own life, but also about the lives of our shared ancestors, her mother, her grandmother and some of the other family members, sort of in the constellation of those women, and I recorded them and I and I kept them. I kept copious notes. I always knew I wanted to write them down, but the time never came together, and it never really happened in that way, until October 7, 2023, and it was such a devastating few days after that, and then as as the attempted genocide of my people continued to unfold in front of our face, it just felt like it was now or never. And so I finally got around to writing these stories down. It was really important to me to use the first person narrative, especially for my grandmother, stories, because it was, you know, it was they were stories that I heard in her voice, and I wanted to keep that and, yeah, and so Daughters of Palestine was was born, and it gave me a way to talk about the human perspective, right, the the human experience, that is, that was the victim. Of Zionism and colonialism and and the fallout from that, because the the narrative that we get so much in the West is only one perspective, and it it completely obliterates the Palestinian perspective, and particularly the Palestinian Christian perspective. So it was really important for me to be able to tell our story in a way that that people would find accessible, I

Joshua Johnson: 5:25

want to get into like your your journey of your identity and who you are, how you've discovered your own heritage, what was your relationship like as you are, first generation immigrant into the United States, which is a different immigrant experience than a lot of adults that come over and so growing up in the United States, what was your experience like, and how did your Palestinian identity shape you early on? Did it What were you finding there?

Leyla King: 5:59

Though I identify really primarily and almost fully as Palestinian, I'm actually a half Palestinian, quarter Irish, quarter Croatian. So my dad was a very wonderful, great white dude who grew up outside of Chicago, who himself was half Irish and half Croatian. So that you gotta

Joshua Johnson: 6:19

have some great white dudes. Yeah, that's the other

Leyla King: 6:23

part of my identity. I was super my dad passed away in 2016 I was super close to him, but it's really my Palestinian identity that has shaped who I am and who I've become. But I am very white, looking, I would say I'm white passing. People don't know that I'm Palestinian. I didn't even know that I was Palestinian until I was maybe a freshman or sophomore in high school. I tell the story in the book. We watched a video at the end of a unit in like world history in my freshman year of high school or so, and the film was a screening of some sort of film about Anne Frank at the end of the film, the creation of the State of Israel is presented as a kind of redemption for the horrors of Nazi Germany and the concentration camps. And I was, you know, narrative and story is really important to me, and I was entirely sucked into this film, and I just bought that line, hook, line and sinker at the end of the film. And I went to wait for my mom to pick us up, my sis, my older sister and I to pick us up after school. And I was telling my older sister about it, my older sister, who is much more dark skinned than I am, and I think, had a very different experience of childhood. And you know, in the Texas summers where we grew up, she would get almost black in because she would just tan so so darkly. And so her experience of the world must have just been very different from mine. And when I told Zaina about this film, and I said to her, you know, well, in the end, the Jews got their own homeland, isn't that great? And Zainab was just horrified, and she looked at me and she said, Don't you dare tell mom that when she comes to pick us up. And I said, why not? And she explained to me that we were Palestinian, and that was the first time that I ever found out, that I ever knew or had an inkling that I was Palestinian, I hadn't even really heard that word up until that point. And I think because of that, I got deeply interested and invested in what that meant for for my family and for my own identity. And so I think that was really a key moment that then snowballed into being so invested and understanding myself so much as a Palestinian in a way that if I weren't so white looking, maybe it would have been different.

Joshua Johnson: 8:55

How do you think that Palestinian identity has shaped your faith that as you growing up, and you don't really realize it until you're a freshman or sophomore year in high school. You're now, you're an Episcopal priest, you're so your faith has been shaped. But how does your identity and your Palestinian identity shape your

Leyla King: 9:14

faith? Yeah, that's a great question, and it's funny, because while it's true that I never really knew I was Palestinian until I was in high school. My faith is entirely wrapped up in my family, in my Palestinian family, so in a in a way, subconsciously, certainly, you know, those two things are, were have always been inextricably linked. I'm what we call a cradle Episcopalian. I was baptized into the Episcopal Church. I attended the same Episcopal Church throughout my childhood and young adult life. We would go to church with my maternal grandparents. So you know, my Palestinian grandparents, one of my grandmother's sisters, my grandmother's brother, their extended family. 90s. So my faith originates from this line, this ancestral line going back as far back for multiple more generations than we can count. We have been Anglican. And so those two things are entirely wrapped up. I mean, my grandmother's faith is the heart of my own faith, and so much of her faith was shaped by her experiences fleeing Palestine in 1948 you know. And being Palestinian, it has really shaped, really shaped her identity and her faith. And so that has been handed down to me as well, and the more I dug into and really accepted my Palestinian identity, that really strong bond with my grandmother especially, but with my grandfather and my mom too. You know, those things became so much a part and parcel of each other. So I really say that my my ordination as a priest in the church is very much the same thing as as sort of my my vocation as a Palestinian, right? These, my Palestinian ness and my priesthood are entirely bound together in a way that could never be extricated from each other.

Joshua Johnson: 11:16

So as you're you're looking at and you're hearing these stories from your grandmother in back in 2002 and you're recording these stories when she's going back a few generations. Set up a little bit. What was Palestine like before 1948 what was, what's happening? What was the makeup of Palestine? Who were the people that were there?

Leyla King: 12:18

Yeah, that's a great question, and I'm so glad you asked. So the book really starts, because you got to start somewhere, right? The book really starts with my great great grandmother, a woman named Zale, which in Arabic means upset or sorrow. She was named that because she was a girl born into a Palestinian family that wanted a boy, and so her parents named her sorrow, and she Zale was actually Catholic, but she was married into my great great grandfather's family, which was an Anglican family for generations upon generations before that, and that was a little bit unheard of. I mean, it was not common for for people of different faith and faith traditions and backgrounds to intermarry. It wasn't totally random for a Catholic to marry an Anglican. But other than that, you know, the the various faiths and people of a village or a city or neighborhood would live quite peaceably together, I mean, in the same ways that we do here, right? Or people of different faith backgrounds and differences, there might be some tensions, and I'm not saying it was all paradise and perfect, but there was certainly, there was certainly a general understanding among people of all faith traditions. And when I'm talking about faith traditions, primarily Christian, Muslim and Jewish, right? But all those people, all sorts of Christian traditions. So we've talked about Protestants, Catholics, Maronites are Orthodox, right? All sorts of folks were, my great great, great grandparents were lived in a village called chef Amar, which was about 12 miles outside of Haifa. And there would, there would be little neighborhoods of predominantly a predominantly Christian part of the village and a predominantly Muslim and a predominantly Jewish part of the village. But they were all, you know, members of this village. They were all of the same people, and they understood themselves to be the same people, even if they practiced different religions and followed different faith traditions. So you know, for example, if someone got married in the village, it didn't matter if they were married in the Jewish synagogue or the Christian church or wherever the entire village would be invited to celebrate that marriage. If someone died, the entire village went to the funeral. And it doesn't it didn't matter what those faith traditions were. Everyone showed up for each other because they understood themselves to be the same people. And that really carried through up until and and really past 1948 and the creation of Israel, because most of the Zionist Jews who were there and who were part of the violence against Native Palestinians were were sort of imported Jews, right? They were immigrants and immigrants from Europe. So even the Jews. In fact, I was just talking to I was just in New York City not too long ago, and I met a woman who is a Persian Jew, and her grief and frustration and anger around the fact that as a Persian Jew, she is not welcome and she is oppressed by Israel. Real as well was just tangible because, because there's, there's a there's an inherent racism to Zionism that we still see to this day. So I think that's just really important to remember. And may not be something that people know about, but that I think, I hope, comes out clearly in the

Joshua Johnson: 16:00

book. So separate that out for us and help us know the difference. Like Zionism Jewish identity, separate those out with Palestinians there in the country. If you're saying that Zionists, there's inherent racism in there, how does Zionism separate itself out from like Jewishness and Jewish identity as ethnicity.

Leyla King: 16:25

That's another really good question, and I want to say that clearly I'm not Jewish, right? So I think it's important that we also hear Jewish voices on this, because they they can speak with a lot more authority about this than I can. But I really think, and there is scholarship that that backs this up. Zionism as a as a whole movement, as a project, as a theory, is itself anti semitic, by which I mean anti Jewish, because the the whole lie, the Zionism originated in them, that in the 19th century, in Britain, right? And so and the lie of Zionism was that there was a land without a people, for a people without a land, and the people without a land that that tagline for Zionism was talking about, was European Jews, right? Not Jews in general. It was European Jews who understandably wanted a place of belonging, because they had for so long, been ostracized at absolute best and really victimized and oppressed by European Society for much of their time there. So in some ways, they were a people without a land, but the land without a people, that was part of that tagline of Zionism was, of course, the land called Palestine. And of course, that is a lie, because there were people in that land. They were my people. They were living their lives, and, you know, flourishing in their own way. So Zionism relies on stealing that land from those people in order to create this Jewish nation state? And I, I don't know everything about Judaism, but I know this about Judaism, that stealing is not permitted, right? Like this is not a tenant of Judaism. It is a tenant of Judaism is not to go around stealing people's lands, stealing other people's things, and then killing them or bombing them, or, you know, evicting them or starving them to death, right? That is not Judaism. And then, know, like anyone who says that that is part of Jewish identity is themselves deeply anti Jewish at you know, maybe they just don't understand Judaism. But if you get people, and I have, I have good dear friends who are faithful Jews, and they are equally as annoyed and frustrated and furious about what's happening in Gaza right now, because they know that's not what it means to be Jewish, right? Like, that's not, that's not what it means to be a faithful Jew, and the whole project of Zionism that we see Israel doing with such ferocity and such violence and such evil in places like the West Bank and in Gaza is is horrific and is rightly anathema to anyone who considers themselves a faithful Jew. Yeah. I

Joshua Johnson: 19:37

mean, you're telling your story here through women that are been faithful Christians for a long time. When I talk to some some people about Israel, what's happening with Palestine and Gaza and you know, the genocide that's going on, and pushing back on Israel, like calling it like evil, because that part is actually evil. A lot of people have a black and white, like, there is a like, God is on the side of of Israel, and then everybody's trying to wipe them off the map. So anything that they do is good because they they need to be there. It's like, it's just a weird dichotomy, like, it's very black and white, like, yeah, don't see the humanity. There are not just, not just Hamas in in Palestine, yeah, there. There's all sorts of people. There are very faithful Palestinian Christians that are happening, that are living in Palestine at the moment. Moment. What is that mix? Help people know that it's not just say good versus evil or black versus black and white, but there's a there's a mix that is happening there.

Leyla King: 20:50

Yeah. I mean, I think this is part of the reason why I really want people to read this book, because I can, and I will. I can say these words, but until you have a personal narrative to to view them through, it's really hard to understand these concepts. But, you know, I think whenever there is conflict, and there seems to be always conflict in this region and in the Holy Land, which I'll just call it the Holy Land, just to avoid any other language. You know, it's it is always in, at least in the West, it is always viewed and presented as a religious conflict, as this is like Jews versus Muslims and oh, it's always been here in been like that in this part of the world for 1000s of years. I mean, I don't want to curse on your podcast, but, like, I call BS on that, right? That is clearly, clearly BS. This is not a religious conflict. It has never been a religious conflict. Like I said, Jews, Muslims, Christians, they all lived relatively happily alongside of each other, you know, before the early 20th century. So this is purely a political conflict, and it has always been purely a political conflict. And until we understand that, and until that message gets through, there's never going to be an end to it, because people continue to think of this as at heart, a religious conflict when it's not so are there predominantly Muslims in Palestine? Yes, but there are a lot of Christians too. There are a lot of Palestinian Christians, both in the Holy Land and in the diaspora, is Israel predominantly Jewish? Yes, it is set up as a Jewish nation state, and that is part of the problem, right? Because you can't have a real democracy if you are absolutely set on having a majority of one kind of people, whatever, whatever you say, that kind of people is right. But there are Christians, there are Muslims, there are there are Palestinian Jews still living in Israel and who are oppressed. And you know, it's an apartheid state for them too. So, yeah, I think we have to get away from this idea that this is a religious conflict. We have to understand that there are these are human beings that are living and dying and suffering in the Holy Land because of the actions of an oppressive and apartheid state. That's not anti semitic to say, right? That's just the reality on the ground. Those are just the facts. And I think if you read the book, but I think also, if you pay attention to other stories that are out there, and if you are open to finding them on you know, they're online, they're in podcasts like this one, right? There's a great podcast called across the divide that really highlights the stories of Palestinian Christians. There's all sorts of ways to to gather these stories, to to you and hear them so that we begin to understand the impact on real lives that and I'm not saying the State of Israel is evil. I'm saying that the actions of the State of Israel that we have seen for particularly the past 18 months, but for many, many years now too, that those actions, that the actions of Zionism that first created the State of Israel, that those were evil, and now we have a new reality on the ground. Israel isn't going anywhere. You know, we have to sort we have to find a solution. It would not I always say that psychologists today, all the therapists that are that we know to work with today have this phrase that say that says, maybe you've heard it hurt people. Hurt people right that people who are suffering and who have been hurt tend to perpetuate that cycle of hurting people, unless and until the there is someone in that cycle who has the wherewithal and the ability and the capacity to metabolize that pain instead of, you know, working it out on someone else. And I think that idea of hurt people, hurt people is what we see playing out on a massive and really tragic, traumatic scale in the whole. Land, so that you just get this constant cycle of vengeance and desire to hurt someone else because you've been so badly hurt, and until people are willing to break that awful cycle and do the work of reconciliation, then we're just going to be stuck here forever.

Joshua Johnson: 26:01

And I think you just, you said reconciliation is a key thing, and it's, I think a lot of people, when we think of of peace, they think of absence, of of war, right? But there's still, there's still non reconciliation that has happened is still, there's an undercurrent that these cycles of Vengeance will continue unless there is actual reconciliation between people. And

Leyla King: 26:31

that's hard work, right? Like that is, that is super hard work. And you know, I mean, I, I think a lot about my mom, who what my grandmother was four months pregnant with my mother, when they were forcibly evicted and had to flee for their lives in 19 in April of 1948 from Palestine, the impact that that had on my mom and The sort of chain of events that unfolded that really was the catalyst for so much pain in my grandparents lives and in my mom's life, and we know also about generational trauma, right? Like that affected her so much, and it impacts me to this day, right? It still impacts me, and I'm in a much better position than my mother is, to be able to recognize those triggers that I have right, to be able to recognize that this is trauma that was inflicted upon me, and make a choice to be able to Say I'm I'm not gonna perpetuate that violence. It's easier than me, for me than it is for my mother, just because she's closer to it, right? She's a generation closer to it, and it's still really hard for me, but I have a lot of tools at my disposal to be able to do that work, and it's still really hard, and I'm not even living in the Holy Land, right? I'm not even actively being victimized. I'm not being starved to death. So there's it, we can't even talk about doing that really hard work of reconciliation until we get people not being starved to death. And you know, like, that's the first step, before we could even go to the to the rest of it, which is huge in and of itself, we've got to acknowledge that what is happening to Palestinians right now in the West Bank, in Gaza, you know, in Israel proper, in East Jerusalem, like this is wrong. We have to acknowledge that. We have to make it stop, and then we can start thinking about political solutions, bring people to the table who need to be at the table, having those conversations, finding the political solutions, and talk, start talking about reconciliation. We are way, way far away from that still. We're a long ways away. We're a long ways away.

Joshua Johnson: 28:57

But this book that you, that you wrote, is there's a undercurrent of of loss and pain and trauma within the book, on a micro level, especially with the loss of babies, there are a lot of losses of babies, yeah, in this book, it's highly affecting. It's not like for the women in your book and your family, you're they, they're very affected by the loss of their their babies. As we see right now, there are lots of losses of babies. There's lots of losses of life. It's it's just horrendous, how much loss at a micro level, as you were looking at your family and you're thinking about the loss of life, how do you how do we walk through that? How do you stay faithful? How do you live with hope? How do you live with this loss, over and over again?

Leyla King: 29:53

Yeah, I think, right, that's such a great question, because it it is both micro and macro level at the same time, one of the things that I that I feel like is part of the legacy that my grandmother left to me, is this recognition on a really sort of gut level. In my very bones, I can feel it that God shows up in those times of loss in ways that we can never even imagine. And I think my foremothers experienced that. I think it even comes through in the narrative as I tell it. It's not like God shows up in the in the moment and so like it's okay, we don't grieve this loss of life. We're like, you know it they get through it, and it's just they're able to get past it really quickly. I'm not saying that, like, of course, that's not the way it happens, but I think what becomes apparent as we look back on these losses that any of us experience is that we really can see the hand of God walking alongside of us and be and showing up and being present and holding us in these really horrific times. I have a good friend, a good friend, who's a part of the Palestinian diaspora here in the States. She's Muslim, and we text back and forth every once in a while when, particularly when I'm feeling in a depressed place, right, that I can't get out of. And she's always very good, because she always texts me back and says, you just have to pray. Layla, just just keep praying. So she's Muslim, I'm Christian, right? But we share this, this common faith in the power of God to show up, and she constantly reminds me that, that there's a there's a power in that that counteracts that sense of powerlessness when I start to feel despair about What is happening and to these people in in Gaza, for example, I fall back on this image that I have in my heart and mind of God's hands really carrying these children, these people who are suffering. And I just believe. And I wish I could tell you why I believe it. I wish there was some like, logical pathway that I could say like, these are the signs that I have that allow me to believe this and it, and I don't. I don't have that. It is a gut feeling that I just believe wholeheartedly that God carries these people who are suffering and dying, and God grieves over them, and God rages at the injustice of it, as much, probably more so than I do. And I know that as well as I know that my own grandmother, may she rest in peace, is carried in the arms of God and in the love of God right now. So maybe that's not a particularly satisfactory answer. I don't know. I don't know how else to articulate that, but I just know it in my very being, and I think that's what faith is, and it's what my grandmother told you know, that that's what my grandmother gave to me, was, was that faith and and so I'm holding on to that

Joshua Johnson: 33:20

that changes the way that we interact in the world. If you believe that God is with the suffering and holding the suffering and the people that are experiencing injustice, and he's close and closer in those moments, it actually changes the way that we view humanity and the people that are on the margins, and we realize that it's actually not really about politics. It's about the full humanity of every person on earth, and that God is grieving over the horrible acts of violence that are happening in this world today, and yes, whether it be Palestinian or any others that are happening around the world.

Leyla King: 34:02

And this is, this is what it means, I think, to for me, this is what it means to be Christian, because we have this God incarnate, this God made flesh, who experiences firsthand the same exact thing that is happening to Palestinians now, right? He is tortured and killed. And that's what is happening. That is what is happening to my people right now. They are being tortured and killed and and I know that God knows that suffering because I see it in the Gospels. And the next thing I see in the Gospels is that that doesn't win, in the long run, in God's world, in the kingdom, that doesn't win, and God's love is more powerful, and there is redemption. And I don't know what that looks like. Maybe that redemption doesn't happen in our lifetimes. Maybe it doesn't happen for millennia. Maybe it has already happened, and we're not seeing it right, and some and we're living in this like hell that's outside of that. I don't know, I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what the theology is for that, but I know that the gospel truth is that God knows this suffering intimately well, and is present to these people intimately well, and that that sort of evil doesn't get the last word. I

Joshua Johnson: 35:34

think, as we're looking at cycles of vengeance, and you're seeing this happen, hurt people. Hurt people. After the Holocaust, we figure out something, and then we do the same thing too, and other people like, Yeah, but this doesn't, this isn't just Israel and Palestine. This has happened in Eastern Europe. This is happening with Yeah, the Armenians, yeah, yeah, exactly. You could go all over the place, yes. Where? Where people who have suffered a great injustice get some sort of power and then inflict that same thing on other people. Correct? What do you think stops the cycles of vengeance? Is there anything in this world that could stop cycles of vengeance and revenge that happen?

Leyla King: 36:19

I mean, a miracle. I think it, I think it takes a miracle that that doesn't mean that miracles don't happen. I mean, I think we saw this in South Africa, right? Miracles do happen. They take the shape of human beings, who who do the work. They take the shape of human beings and global movements, which I think we're beginning to see now that insist on kingdom values, and I'm talking about, like, real kingdom values. I'm not talking about the the, like, corrupt narrative of Christian evangelicals, you know, and the and Christian nationalism, like, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about real kingdom values, of of justice and and forgiveness, right? I think forgiveness and mercy. There's a lovely Psalm that gets translated differently, and I bad with my, you know, Bible verses, so I won't be able to tell you exactly what song or verse it is, but there's a lovely song that talks about mercy and righteousness, kissing one another, right justice and peace coming together, because you have to have both. And a lot of times we ask for the oppressed peoples to have mercy on those who have harmed them, but we do that without expecting the accountability that has to come alongside of that right. It is going to take people who have been very, very badly harmed. It is going to take some mercy and some forgiveness on their part, but not until we also hold accountable the people who have done the harming, right? And that's on on all sides, right? That means the State of Israel that is inflicting this harm. It means the perpetrators of October 7, right? It means really going back to World War Two, and to, you know, even before, like, we have to unearth, and we have to unpack all of that, and we have to sort of as human beings, as individuals. We have to deal with all of that in both public and and personal ways. I think that takes a miracle, right? That takes a miracle of of God's Holy Spirit, transforming hearts and minds in a way that is gonna be hard, but is not impossible, because we know that with God, not nothing is impossible.

Joshua Johnson: 38:46

Those are big, big conflicts and wars. But there are micro things that we can do every day to start to stop these things, and these little things that that we small individuals can do, add up to something really big, and we think that, hey, it's too big for me to do anything. So what can this small individual do? Yeah,

Leyla King: 39:09

that's a great question. So my other, my other passion and vocation in the church is working with small churches. And I love working with small churches. There is this sort of narrative in the church at large, that in order to be successful and vibrant and healthy, you have to be this, you know, big church with at least 200 people on an average Sunday. And I hate that narrative, because I have found that it's not true, right, that small churches can make huge impacts in the world around them, and I think that's true for us as individuals, too. And it can feel overwhelming. It can feel like, Oh, I I can. My one action can never make an impact, but I promise you, it can, and I will, I'll say a couple of things. One is that I think there needs to be some work of discernment. I am not someone who I'm, someone who gets really, I really don't like New York City, because I feel like there's just way too many people. It's like being in a very large but very crowded elevator, and I I like feel claustrophobic the minute I step into New York City, right? So like me going to protests, not a very good use of my time, because I will just be an anxious disaster the whole time, and not very good use of of this, of stewarding my own gifts. Now, I have some dear friends who show up to protests in very impactful ways, and that is their work, and I'm so glad that they are doing. It, right? So you there has to be some discernment here about what are my gifts, what are the things that I can contribute, that that can give me life? Because if I go to a protest, I'm just going to be burnt out and drained, right? But if I write a book that might make a big impact, and that's going to actually give me life, right? So there has to be some work of discernment on an individual basis about what's going to give me life, what something that's sustainable for me that I can do. So that's one thing I would say. The other thing is that one thing that anyone can do, no matter what your gifts are, are to listen to listen to these stories, read books like Daughters of Palestine. Find people online, you know, in social media to listen to who are telling a different story than the one you have heard. Seek out the silenced voices. Seek out the perspectives that you haven't heard from. Become aware of what the sort of the narrative of Western media and Western perspectives has been for over 75 years. And find a different narrative and listen to that. Pay attention to that. And once you've started to do that, and you start to hear that different story platform, it, make sure that other people are also listening to these stories and spread that, spread that out, right? Be in relationship with people who think differently from you, listen to them and then ask them to listen to you too, right? Those one on one relationships, I think, are the place where real transformation happens. We can sit here and we can have a conversation about the evils of Zionism, or we can talk about, you know, the politics of the Middle East, but it's it's never going to do as much good as me sitting down with someone who doesn't understand, who thinks they know the story, and telling them my story, and having them like, have a little rethink for just a moment, right? That's so impactful, and I really think that's the way miracles happen, is by this, like, one on one, grassroots transformation of individual hearts and minds,

Joshua Johnson: 43:03

that's beautiful. And, you know, your book takes me into your grandmother's living room like I'm sitting there with some tea, and she's telling the stories. You know, I, my wife and I lived in the Middle East for for five years. So we were in Jordan. You know, our first the first home that we had. We had Palestinian landlords in Jordan, and so hearing their story, they didn't have Jordanian citizenship because all sorts of different reasons. The citizenship goes through the father like the son never had the citizenship, and his kids never, even though he's married to a Jordanian, all sorts of different things. Work with Syrian, Syrian Muslim refugees. And so hearing their story had Palestinian Christians on our team as we're working with refugees. And so hearing stories of like the Palestinian Muslims that were my landlords and the the Jordanian Muslims that were my landlords later, and the people, and then Syrian Muslims, Palestinian Christians that were on our team and working with others that were leading churches in those areas, Palestinian Christians, it gave me a broader perspective. And so I had the privilege to sit for five years to listen to stories and share stories of my life and stories of Jesus back and forth. And it was a beautiful time. But we could do that wherever we are, as we could sit and share stories, and we could have some proximity to people here. And the great thing about America, living in America, is that we have a very diverse America. Yeah, we could find people from all over the world.

Leyla King: 44:41

And you know, clearly the question of Palestinian and particularly Palestinian Christians, is most dear to my heart. But you know, I a lot of my job, my pay job, is to go around to these small churches and talk with people and meet people in these small Episcopal churches. A lot of times they're rural, in rural areas, and you'd be surprised. You know, you go to these places, and everyone looks very, very similar. They're all they tend to be all above 50, usually above 60 years of age. They tend to be very white. I mean, obviously there's, there's some differences depending on on unique context, but especially in these rural places, they're all older, they're all white for the most part. And you would look out, you know, you look out from the pulpit and you think, Oh, this is a homogenous community, but they're not. I mean, no community is homogeneous, and I think it's so. Important that we pay attention to other people's stories and we celebrate we understand the diversity among us, and we celebrate that diversity because it humanizes every single person in any context and any community, right? So that Maga Christians and liberal Christians have to sit down together, so that we stop thinking of the other person as some other species separate from us, right? So it's not just about Palestine, it's about understanding the human dignity of every person around us, and being willing and open and vulnerable enough to be in relationship with them and to have their story impact us and to allow our story to impact them. And again, that is risky. You could get hurt. I'm not saying, I'm not saying it's easy, right? You could get hurt doing that. And the question is, are we willing to take those risks with one another, and are we willing to seek out the stories that we don't hear quite as often or that we never get to hear because there's only a certain dominant narrative that is running around.

Joshua Johnson: 47:03

I find it crazy that we are still in our small little tribal groups and that we have fights constantly over maybe it's it's resources. A lot of it is resources, and we think that there's a scarcity of resources in the world, and so I need to get my little group, and we need to fight for what is ours. Is there a way to realize in this world that there is enough for everyone, that we can share and we could be okay?

Leyla King: 47:38

The Christian foundation is the only one I know, right? I was baptized into the as a baby, into this faith. So I can't speak for other faiths. But for me, this is why I'm still here. Is is because it is so important. And when I read the gospels, especially, I mean other parts of Scripture too. But when I read the gospels, what I read there is exactly what you're talking about, a vision of heaven on earth, right? Thy kingdom come a vision of heaven on earth, where individual human beings put the needs and desires of others above their own. If we could get the whole world, each individual person to do that, actually, everyone would have more than enough right, because I'm caring more about what you need, and you are caring more about what I need, and so all of us are going to get what we need, right? And there is, there is going to be that abundance, but we are trapped in this reality, in this sinful, broken reality where there, where the majority of people don't live that way, who haven't taken that to heart, and actually are more concerned about what they want, what they need than they are about anything else or anyone else. And the reason I do what I do is because I, you know, I'm not perfect at it. I, I have, you know, I have my own sins and flaws too, but I, I think we are called to do this work of of spreading the good news, right, of of getting people to see and and participating with God, partnering with God, to transform hearts and minds, to really take up this project of loving others more than you love yourself. And I think it's possible, I mean, maybe it's naive. That is where my faith lies. Is is in thinking that that is is possible,

Joshua Johnson: 49:44

I believe it. I believe it is possible. That's why I do what I do. This is why I'm here. And so I think it is possible, but it is, it is a hard row. It really is hard. You know, Layla, if you could talk to your readers, people pick up daughters of Palestine, which I really hope they do and they read it. What hope do you have for your readers? I think

Leyla King: 50:07

I hope that they see my grandmother. I mean, I honestly think that I hope that they can hear her because she was such. I mean, talk about one individual, person who has made such an impact, and she had no clue. She had absolutely no clue before she died, what an impact she would make. And yet, look where we are now, and she made such an impact on me, and through me, she's, I hope, going to make such a. Huge impact in the world around her. And she's the, you know, she's this woman who was born in Haifa, in Palestine in 1928 you know, like who would have thought. And I hope people find hope in that. I hope people find see her humanity, see our humanity, hear our stories. I hope people find hope in this book and in who she was, and and, and who we are as Palestinians, but also who we are as human beings, not not just Palestinians, right? We are all capable of of participating in this project of Kingdom work in the world, and I hope that comes through in the book. And I hope people take that, take that to heart,

Joshua Johnson: 51:26

amen. I hope so too. Couple quick questions. One, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would

Leyla King: 51:33

you give my 21 year old self? Honestly, I don't have any advice for my 21 year old self, except to say, like, keep going, you know, like it, it's the same advice I give to myself right now. You know, like the project of life, I think, is to keep discerning where we are called to next and doing our best to fulfill that calling and to walk with faith, with God to calls us forward. And that's all, that's all we can do, right? To do our best to do

Joshua Johnson: 52:03

that. That's great. Anything you've been reading or watching lately, you could recommend,

Leyla King: 52:07

I will say, if you're looking for another perspective or another story to about Palestinian Christians in particular, I would suggest a novel. It's not, it's not, it's not. It's fiction called the girl, and it's skin, which is written by a friend of mine, Sarah cipher, and it's a beautiful it's almost like poetry. I mean, it's written as prose, but it's, it's almost like poetry, and it tells a really wonderful sort of magical story. So I'll give a shout out to my friend Sarah, and recommend that.

Joshua Johnson: 52:43

Awesome. I love it. That's good. Well, Daughters of Palestine is available anywhere books are sold, so you go and get Daughters of Palestine, fantastic read. I highly recommend it. Layla highly recommends it, but it's her story, and it's her family story. So of course she does, but it's not excellently written. You're gonna love this book, so go and get it. Is there anywhere else that you would like to point people to? How could they connect with you?

Leyla King: 53:09

Yeah, you can connect with me on my website, thankfulpriest.com you can also get to it just by typing in laylaking.com and, yeah, I would love to connect with folks send me. You can hit that contact button and send me a message, and I'm always happy to talk with friends and fans alike.

Joshua Johnson: 53:27

Well, Layla, I am excited that you are still a thankful priest, even with all the horrors that are happening in this world, that there is still places of gratitude and thanksgiving, that God is with us and with the suffering right now, and the people that are suffering, God is there present with them. Thank you for sharing your story of your family and the story of Palestine, what is happening there, and really our response and how we should live faithfully in the midst of this, to see the full humanity of all people, to know that we're all made in God's image. So Layla, thank you for this.

Leyla King: 54:05

Thank you so much. It's been a great conversation. Thanks. You