Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture invites you into transformative conversations at the intersection of faith, culture, justice, and the way of Jesus. Each episode, host Joshua Johnson engages guests who challenge conventional thinking and inspire fresh perspectives for embodying faith in today's complex world. If you're curious about how cultural shifts impact your faith journey and passionate about living purposefully, join us as we explore deeper ways to follow Jesus in everyday life.
Subscribe now and shift your perspective.
Shifting Culture
Ep. 359 Sara Billups Returns - Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics
Sara Billups returns to Shifting Culture to talk about her new book Nervous Systems: Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics. Together we explore the anxiety running through our lives, our churches, and our culture and what it means to find peace that’s deeper than control. Sara shares how Ignatian spirituality and the practice of “holy indifference” can help us let go, stay present, and love well in a restless world. We talk about caregiving, community, mental health, and how the embodied way of Jesus leads us toward healing, trust, and wholeness.
Sara Billups is a Seattle-based writer and cultural commentator whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Christianity Today, Aspen Ideas, and others. Sara writes Bitter Scroll, a monthly Substack letter and co-hosts the podcast That’s the Spirit. She earned a Doctor of Ministry in the Sacred Art of Writing at the Peterson Center for the Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary.
Sara works to help wavering Christians remain steadfast through cultural storms and continues to hope for the flourishing of the Church amid deep political and cultural division in America.
Her first book, Orphaned Believers, follows the journey of a generation raised in the 80s and 90s of evangelicalism reckoning with the tradition that raised them and searching for a new way to participate in the story of God. Her second book, Nervous Systems, will be released November 4, 2025, from Baker Books.
Sara's Book:
Sara's Recommendations:
Slow Horses
Semi Permanent by Molly Parden
Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com
Go to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.
Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTube
Consider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link below
Contact me to advertise: jjohnson@shiftingculturepodcast.com
Catch On Fire PodcastsThis channel does a deep dive into the scriptures so as to teach what it means to be...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Jesus knew He would be crucified like he knew that he was being crucified in an empire. He knew that many people would be murdered or would feel lost, but he still said, do not worry. He still said, Father, Your will be done. And that is indifference. And to me, that is the perfect companion towards work that I think we're called to do, towards service and care for the least of these. You know, to me, it feels like personal work that we can do to then strengthen us to do outward work. Hello and
Joshua Johnson: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, we live in an anxious age. The weight of the world sits in our bodies, our minds racing, our hearts tightening, our spirits restless. In her new book, nervous system spiritual practices to calm anxiety in your body, the church and politics, Sarah Billups helps us name that restlessness and discover a gentler way today, Sarah returns to shifting culture to talk about Holy indifference, caregiving, the anxiety that runs through our churches and our systems, and how practices like the contemplative practices of Ignatius can help us live with presence and peace. We explore what it means to let go of control, to find God in our bodies and to live with trust even when everything around us feels uncertain. So join us for a conversation that moves towards ease of soul. Here's my conversation with Sarah Phillips, Sarah, welcome back to shifting culture. So excited to have you back on thanks.
Sara Billups:It's so good to be here. I can't believe it's been a couple of years.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, it's been, like three years. It's been a long time, and I've been really looking forward to this, because I don't know, but I actually like you, and it
Unknown:was feelings are mutual. Thanks. And so I've been looking forward
Joshua Johnson:to this. I was like, hey, it's nice to have Sarah back on. I've been following your work from afar as you've been working on nervous systems, and seeing what you've been doing as you've been going through your doctoral program, as you are writing. How has this shaped? I know you worked on it through your doctoral program. Yeah? Why nervous systems? Why anxiety? Why is this something that you wanted to tackle? Yeah?
Sara Billups:I mean, I I started, you're right. I started writing this book in my demon program. That's Doctor of Ministry. My kids love saying mom has a demon. They think that's hilarious. It never gets old. I did a program at the Peterson Center for Christian imagination at Western and got a demon in the sacred art of writing. And so I began to think about various topics in that program. I was thinking about the idea of holiness, and that really just means being set apart. But I wasn't getting any lift. I had a lot of false starts, but I really started writing in those years about being in the sandwich generation, about caregiving, about my own kind of changing body at midlife, thinking about wellness culture. So really, I just started writing a lot about my own experience in my own body and in the body of my parents with anxiety. So that became sort of a mildly literary way to begin the exploration. But then, as the world continued to have many twists and turns how it's been, it's been such a hard time to be alive, I began to regardless, I began to realize how there are systemic anxieties, there are church anxieties, there is such a palpable anxiety in our politics, more than ever, more than when nervous systems came out a few years ago, so began to kind of map this idea of this book called nervous systems, about sort of collective and individual anxiety, and here we are.
Joshua Johnson:So where did it move for you, like maybe the first time, or the beginning, from the individual feeling anxiety in my body and then recognizing that we have communal anxiety, systemic anxiety in our systems. Yeah.
Sara Billups:I mean, I think that, I think that the first link was church, because, you know, I mean, again, with that first book, Joshua, so many people that I know and love and that everybody around me knows and loves are having a complicated relationship with church, if they identify as a Christian, I just saw more and more brokenness and people leaving. So the first kind of thread from my own experience to collective anxiety was really through church, my own church story, and then just thinking about the intense splintering and division within American Christianity that has now become quite politicized more than ever. And so I began to kind of write a little bit about my own experience going to the same church for 21 years, and then also looking around a little bit more broadly. I
Joshua Johnson:guess you walk through a little bit in your introduction at the end, you basically said, When Jesus says, Do not worry. Basically, you say, hey. I My anxiety is still there, but God is with me and his presence, and I'm able to be present where you're holding your anxiety today, in your body.
Sara Billups:Yeah, spoiler alert. The end of the the big reveal was in the first chapter. Oh gosh, yeah. I think that that, that verse My whole life has has played, has kind of plagued me, if I'm honest, the idea of not where I under. I have heard many sermons. I understand there is nuanced context in the original language around what Jesus may mean by. Do not worry. I under. I understand some of those things without being a scholar, but the truth is the sort of simplicity, and if you imagine Jesus saying those words, and the complexity of feeling up being a person in an anxious body like that, tension became this central pain point, and it really has been since I was a kid. I mean, my dad was anxious. I was worried over, I'm sure my mom was pregnant. I'm sure I was worried over as a baby. I mean, some of us just come from families where anxiety is just very, very present and just genetically I was thought a little bit about epigenetics and my dad's side and my Jewishness and, you know, so I think it's always been there. And something pretty profound happened, which really is where the book leads, is I have this experience of, like a lot of people understanding contemplative practices. And then also, I did this nine month Ignatian retreat, the ignition, spiritual exercises, which ended up being, in a way that still surprises me, a kind of huge, huge moment where I began to understand my anxiety a little bit differently. Something really did shift. So the way that it is now. I mean, I'll answer that in two ways, like one, I'm bringing a book into the world, and that is immensely freaky, because talk about, I mean, anxiety is typically rooted in wanting to have control and not having it. And so you work for like, three years in the basement on something, and then wonder how it may or may not be received. That's a very tender place. So I think I probably have, like, Project anxiety right now, but in a broader sense, I do feel like I think about it a little bit differently, and that's really because of this idea of Ignatian indifference, or holy indifference, which I talk about in the book, this idea of whatever the binary might be, a long life or a short one. Ignatius says fame or disgrace, health or sickness, whatever, whatever is on the left hand or the right hand. Is there a way to only have the ability to choose the things that glorify God, to want those things to receive them, whatever they may be? And so that concept that I write about, I think about every day, multiple times a day. I think about that all the time. So today, my anxiety feels different in that light, a little bit lessened, or I have, like, a broader perspective, like a bigger story around it, I guess,
Joshua Johnson:like in this conversation right now, you have probably things that are on your mind, of caregiving, you figuring out what's going on with your family. You got a book release coming out like so you're in the middle of that what's going on. So it's work, and there seems to be probably around you all things that you can worry about, that are out of your control, that you can't control in this conversation at the moment. So for people wondering, how do we you be present in something like this, in this conversation, and not worry about what you can't control at the moment, but be here with me, with the audience, and actually, yeah, be present in it.
Sara Billups:Gosh, I love that question. I was thinking about that this morning a little bit. So in the so the book is called spiritual practices to calm anxiety and the body. Church and politics, one of the first things, and I'm answering this first one about the body, since that's very much what we're talking about in our mind, is really this idea of understanding embodiment differently. I mean, I think that as a woman that is on Instagram and like understands wellness culture and thinks a lot about those dynamics, like the idea I have in my mind, or have had for many years, of the embodied person is maybe somebody doing a forest bath. Maybe they're wearing like a linen, like tunic, you know what I mean, like? Maybe they're like, barefoot. But the way that I am, my own disposition, the way many of us are practically trying to, like, put dinner on the table and shower and dress and and function and live life when things are busy or crazy, that feels very impractical. So the the idea of embodiment and practicing that versus the reality of my life became began to make me think, what is this really about? How can I understand it differently? And so I began to do different things. I began to walk. There's a long loop around the place where I live. It's like a 45 minute loop. I just like two things. One, I began to move my body in a way that was not because I was trying to exercise or I was just trying to, like, move and get out of my head. So this morning, I moved my body before we talked. I stretched, which I know sounds very. Very like middle aged lady, but seriously, like, I just stretched my stretched out for 10 minutes, and it was awesome. And then I listened to music. Like, I think that in the mornings, specifically, I mean, we're talking at 1030 I used to think I'm going to pray, I'm going to get it done, I'm going to check the box, I'm going to have quiet time. It's just so much less anxious. Now I listen to music. I put on, like, rain background. I just notice things. I just might sit and try to sense God's love or a sense of God's presence. I just let it be really open and take a fear out of it. There's no sense of driving accomplishment. I just try to really be in touch with myself and just look around a little bit more. So that answer is not necessarily specific, but it's actually, it's actually very much changed how I think about what that means to be practically embodied in a very kind of busy season. I suppose,
Joshua Johnson:when I think about anxiety, I think about worry, but I also meld it together with fear. Is fear and anxiety? Are they cousins? How do they work together? And what is maybe the difference between fear and anxiety and like, what
Sara Billups:is? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think that, I think maybe it's a bit of a chicken and an egg thing, Joshua, I don't really know, but I think that they both trigger similar reactions in our nervous systems and in our body. There's this kind of need to kind of clench down, or to be defensive, or to have our feathers ruffled, because we're really sensing to say, this kind of primal idea of danger, right? I mean, an anxiety response. Anxiety is not something it's something we all have. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's a fight or flight thing. It's like a cave person thing, where we want to make sure that we're protected and safe. So that impulse is something that I think is healthy and protective, but I think that fear is a feeling against something we might specifically understand or be able to identify, whereas anxiety can be this general sense of dread, it can be very existential, at least it is for me. I mean, sometimes we can worry about our job security or a test, something that's practical, but for a lot of us, I think it can be a little bit more fuzzy and harder to kind of pin down, kind of like trying to pin down a cloud, like my friend Cameron says, so I think that's, that's kind of a little bit of the difference, or how I think about
Joshua Johnson:it, yeah, I think dread is, is a helpful
Unknown:word. Like it feels
Joshua Johnson:like, it feels like there's a lot of dread, right? There's a dread here, in our in our families, there's a dread in the church, there's a dread in politics. There's dread in our country, and this dread, we have to figure out a way to live in it where it doesn't control us and move us. And for you, what you said that was really helpful, right? Is getting to Holy indifference. So that means that these spiritual exercises were really helpful for you. What made you move towards the spiritual exercises to say that, I want to engage this. I want to do this. What was it about the Ignatius spirituality, or spiritual
Sara Billups:totally. Yeah. I mean, you know, so So Grace, in about 2015 the church I've gone to forever, along with a lot of churches in that time, became really interested in contemplative practices. We'd always been pretty liturgical. Back then, we were Presbyterians. Now we're Anglicans, but that's a whole other story. But, but we'd been, you know, interested in contemplative things. Around 2014 a woman named Debbie tackey Smith came to our congregation as our spiritual formation director. I had never heard of things like lettuce Divina or listening prayer in the same she just really introduced things in a way that felt warm and safe. And, you know, like a lot of evangelicals, I was raised thinking that Catholic practices are probably questionable, and maybe Catholics aren't Christians. You know, it's not news to many of us listening, I'm sure. So I just hadn't really understood that there was such a depth of thinking about how to meet God in different ways. And so I began to, you know, go through to go to direction we did, kind of things that, I mean, I'm an Enneagram for I have a lot of feeling like, if you, if you're a person that has a lot of imagination, you're probably a anxious, but the flip side of that means that you probably have some creativity, or where you can, like, in prayer, visualize things. So meeting with Debbie, we did all kinds of cool stuff, like we would do this room of the heart prayer, which, again, Joshua is like a Gen X or cynical person. That sounded very like suspicious to me, but it was such a beautiful experience where she would say, visualize where God might be meeting you. What does that room look like? What are you saying to Jesus in that room? It's it was very impactful. So I had been kind of curious about going a little bit deeper for years. Around 2018 some folks from Grace started a spiritual direction, kind of house called Soul care Seattle, where people can come for half day retreats and or direction. Every year they lead a circle of folks in the Ignatian exercises. I knew about this. Avoided it for years because I knew it was kind of a big deal, a big commitment. The exercises you know. SP, there's, it's considered a retreat. And so historically, people would go away for 30 days to some kind of monastic setting and experience this really intense series of prayers and contemplations. And I, of course, as a person living in America with a job and kids, that's not possible for most of us, so they have a modified version at soul care. So I went through a nine month version of the retreats called the 19th annotation, where I would pray for an hour or so a morning for nine months and then meet with my director once a week. So I avoided it because I thought, what if I'm not going to be able to do it well, or what if I'm not perfect about it? I mean, the truth is, it was remarkably powerful and cool, and sometimes it was half an hour, and that's, that's real life, you know?
Joshua Johnson:So just take me through some of these exercises that you think were helpful for you to walk you through that. What are
Sara Billups:they? Yeah, I mean, the there's four different kind of chapters. You kind of go through so many interesting exercises. The first is really around creation, and you consider your own life and your own family. There's a whole hell unit, which sounds pretty freaky, where you just really think about the idea of desolations and what life might be like without God. You kind of move through the story. The exercises ended around Easter, around the resurrection, so it moves towards this kind of triumph and end. And so during that time, there's a lot of time for journaling, there's a lot of time for prayer. There's a whole kind of pattern that you follow of for listening prayer, which starts by silence, by sensing God's love. Maybe you contemplate a verse. There's various other readings Ignatius introduces that you spend time with. There's, let's see, I'm trying to think of a couple of examples. There's this exercise about the kind of gross or unguarded soul that was really interesting, and I'm trying to remember how to say it. Well, it's the idea that the soul is prone to sin, but Ignatius argues that scruples are people that are trying to kind of maintain some sort of purity or sort of resistance, may actually be more prone to it, like this idea of the delicate soul is where the enemy of the soul, as he says, may strike. So there's interesting kind of contemplations around this idea of desolation and consolation God being close or or not. And then, even if you feel like you're in a sense of a season of consolation where God's close being on guard for sort of the delicate soul, as Ignatius says, to be struck. There's a lot of interesting experiences around language and sort of an older way of saying things, an older kind of nomen culture. The goal, of course, is just that the soul would find moderation not too delicate or gross in that example. So it was a lot of really getting myself familiar with a different kind of language, a different way of thinking about the soul and understanding it. So that's just just a little bit.
Joshua Johnson:So where do you think that the church has felt anxiety? Where does anxiety seep in to the church? I mean, I see fear driven things through evangelicalism pretty easily. Like, like, it's all about fear, and fear drives most things. But what, what have you seen as anxiety, like, church anxiety? Yeah.
Sara Billups:I mean, I think about how with the congregational or denominational level, that splintering that is happening is continuing to happen. I mean, again, even now with an Anglicanism this week, lots of headlines. It's just sort of non stop. These things are so often. I think anxiety response is how we feel about them. And I think about various hot button issues. I think about, I don't know gender and sexuality, about covid and masks, whatever kind of the cultural issue is of the day, there's just a clear kind of river of anxiety, under all of that that I think silos us and prevents us from kind of reaching across different and so I don't know, I think there's also just a lot more cynicism and distrust. And I get it. If I was a person that hadn't found myself in a congregation I've experienced to be healthy, and I see this with so many friends, I would have so much sort of like cynicism, distrust tiptoeing into a church, if I was trying to consider what that might be like, or if I would look at the headlines, and if I would see how the language of nationalism has just kind of melted into the language of evangelicalism, I would think, I don't want much to do with that. I don't understand it feels like power, and a lot of isms are being propped up, as opposed to service of people that are the most in need of it. So I think there's just a lot of rightful cynicism, and so I think that we've just like doubled down on this need to declare ideological conformity and believing the same things, and it's really caused a lot of anxiety. So I think that then, if you're not going to church, it's just easier to stay home, if you see how the media portrays it, at least. But I have found to be I have found it to be true that there are wonderful exceptions, and that gives me at least a little bit of hope. There's always exceptions. There's always a couple exceptions. Don't make the headlines. It's not like they don't make the headlines. Yeah, it's not like church volunteers that community garden with immigrants and refugees. It's like, nope, not an interest, not a clickbaity one. I
Joshua Johnson:was having a conversation with my wife. I mean, we're we were talking about, oh, all the mess within, you know, church leadership and all of this. And I said, there are really good churches, and there are really good people, and there are people that are faithfully following the way of Jesus, and it gives me hope. But it does seem like there is something within the system that produces a lot of this anxiety. Even if they're trying to be faithful, they move towards a faithfulness, towards a faithfulness towards anxiety, and not a faithfulness towards Jesus, just because it's in the system, it's part of what they were raised in. And go, Oh, that looks that's faithful to it. That's right. How do we recognize some of that?
Sara Billups:You know, there's this way in which I think we're set to be uncomfortable in the right way. There's a way in which I can tell, I can discern within me that I am being called to something uncomfortable. But I know that there's a goodness there, that the way of Jesus requires that, and that that, to me, is just a pretty natural filter. If I go to a church for a little while, it doesn't take if I visit a church, it doesn't take long to sort of sense. Who's that like? I still believe that it is possible that the church is one of the bright spots in our country, where we can meet across difference. And this is the thing I mean, in the last few years since I wrote orphaned believers, I feel like if I say something online where I'm saying Jesus says love everybody, it means that I must hate people, or it's just there is so little room for for nuance. There is so little room. But if I say something that I think is a basic, true Christian tenant, that is uncomfortable, and I think that means there's something good there. So I think I just, I'm trying to move towards basic true good things, kind of like Whole Foods or vitamins, things that we know to be true and good, and if I can see that there is a pull towards that, that culturally, there's some kind of confusion. I know there's usually something really, really good there. You know, it was kind of floaty, but that's the best I can verbalize.
Joshua Johnson:It is a little floaty. And for some people raised in evangelical churches and have said you can't trust your feelings. You can't trust what you actually feel like. You can't be embodied like this anxiety, like, so how can we trust our emotions? Like, I know is there? Like, can we
Sara Billups:Yeah, I think that there's a I think a lot of people, when they are anxious, think that we we lead with our head. And so if our body's feeling something, it's not to be trusted. And of course, that gets into, you know, some Gnosticism stuff. There's also the idea of, you know, purity culture, and we're told that we need to kind of resist desire or resist things that are fulfilling or carnal. There's a carnality that's sometimes brought up when we think about the body. And so I think that however Jesus was embodied, we are embodied creatures. Our spirit and soul and body are very much entwined. And I think there's a really healthy way to pay attention to those things. I think that that's usually right. I think that something else that's been important to me is discernment and being able to take time, for example, in the exercises, if I felt like, oh, maybe God said something, I just hold it lightly and loosely and I pray about it. I might talk to trusted friends about it. I think it's the same way with the body. If my body is sensing something is wrong here, or this does feel like a thing where Jesus is moving, I take time and I step back and I say, God, I'm sensing this. Is this really what I feel like you're trying to say, like, I just think that that's where wisdom and maturity as Christians and bringing in other people to pray with us, discern with us, walk with us, is a way to kind of test what we may be feeling, to make sure that we acknowledge feelings, but then give them time to kind of either set or to kind of dissipate, I guess.
Joshua Johnson:I mean, let's, like move into that a little bit. And you know, for some we have mental health issues where we we need some help and help in others. And so sometimes we have to move in a different direction. Sometimes what's happening in the body is something that needs to be dealt with. And sometimes doctors are, like, dismissive of what you feel in the body and think that something else, and I don't know, like, how do we distinguish and help people, you know, with with mental health stuff, and then trusting our bodies and knowing what is going on.
Sara Billups:I mean, one way I can answer that is as a parent, you know, because I have an anxious kid, I write about that a little bit that was interesting to to think about how to do well, I try to write about my experience parenting a kid that's anxious. But my son in sixth grade was diagnosed with OCD, specifically moral OCD, sort of scrupulosity. It wouldn't people might think of OCD as being more like light light fixtures going on and off, or people washing their hands a lot. But for some kids, it's a or for some people, it's more about ruminations and interior thoughts. And so the first thing that we did was like, take him seriously and believe him. This applies to your question, because it applies to friends and it applies to how we think about ourselves. We also were gentle with ourselves, trying to understand how to love him well, and we were gentle with him, but we felt a sense of chaos, confusion and like we were out of control of of our life in a little while. For a little while there, there was just, I remember one day where I just, like, we had gotten him to school, and we knew something was really wrong. He was really not himself, and I just was, went in the kitchen Joshua. I just, like, sat on the floor, and I just thought, something is wrong and I need help. I called my friend. I said, I don't know what to do. Please. You know she she was, she had a kid with something similar going on. She was really encouraging, but quickly it became clear that we needed to seek some kind of more support. And so we did, you know, we found a therapist that has been amazing, and we began to have language to understand. Because the other thing I would say is that it is so easy to feel like you're the only one or that, especially with certain anxiety or disorders or OCD or some thoughts just seem so wild or like so like singular that clearly, no, it's I feel like it's easy to kind of be singled out, or feel like run around. And so being able to then have language to explain to our kid and explain to ourselves, oh, this is what's going on. And there are many people who experienced this was like a whole like paradigm shift. At that point, we really were able to see a way forward. So I think that taking it seriously, being kind and also trying to understand that there, I don't know that I've come across a person that has not had some kind of something going on, or there has not been a community around them, if they've looked a little bit for them, experiences something similar.
Joshua Johnson:It's almost counterintuitive. In our culture of saying we have to that's part of the control, like what, what I need to do here is I need to control the outcome. I need to do the right thing. And it's all on me. It's on my shoulders. Part of what Jesus was talking about, and do not worry, I believe, is that he's talking to a communal culture, which a community. He's talking to a community, not just individuals totally and how do we shed some of that individualism and control, like it's all on me, and there is community. You said there is community. If we look for it, it's right there. It's right around us.
Sara Billups:And that's in that is in health, what the church could be or should be. And sometimes, I think, is that to do that, to move towards community, means a couple of things. It means a lot of shame can come up, a lot of embarrassment. We are really good at managing image, and that can be like a pretty crushing, scary thing, because that is really at its root. Talking about it with people, is about acceptance, or will I be seen differently? Will my kid or my family be seen differently? Be seen differently? Will I be judged? So the vulnerability of that is a big deal, but I'm convinced that that is a way forward. The other thing, the second thing, is that it could be the news could be held in hands of a bad actor, or if someone that doesn't know what to do, or if somebody with a lot of assumptions about whatever the situation is. I mean, look, growing up in evangelicalism, a lot of us were told that therapy, for example, if we're just still talking about that for a minute, is not for us. Or, like, maybe if something's really, really bad, we can go, maybe you go to a Christian counselor. But like, you know, even till today, like my dad. We just a couple weeks ago had a big discussion about this, and he said, I mean, he needs people. He has chosen a life where he has not sought kind of help for his own anxiety, where he has friends but not really like that. And so now as his kid, I'm kind of receiving or hearing a lot of those messages and telling him, like, you need to be able to talk to someone else about these things. And so I think that if early in life, we have the support systems around us that we can build up, it really is a deposit into kind of our future. And if we think about being parents, how we may or may not rely on our kids, and it feels like a really difficult thing to do. And I guess this is the other thing, if I've ever reached out towards community and known that, if it is true that if the church carries each other, if there are seasons of doubt, we carry each other, if, like the communion line, there are saints before and after us, and we're a part of this family of faith, like, if Jesus is actually working within communities, then I may feel embarrassed, I may feel shame, I may I may feel like I did not find the right person that can hold this but eventually, like where the trajectory is towards community and health and healing and that we're all collectively holding each other in these seasons.
Joshua Johnson:I mean, that's the choice that we have as a collective as a whole. If I'm thinking about my country at the moment, I have a choice of holding our anxieties together and. Doubling down on our fear and mistrust of each other, or I can hold a space where we are in this together, and we can move towards each other like those are two things I could hold, and I get to choose what I hold. And we all, as people in this crazy country right now, get to choose,
Sara Billups:yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about the the idea of the slippery slope, as you're saying. This, the idea that if we are, if our hands are open, if we do move towards each other across difference, that means that we have to hold difference of opinions. We have to we have to talk about these issues where, oh, if she believes women should be in leadership or preaches, that means, must mean she's a step away from losing her faith or from not being Orthodox, it is so easy. We just want to divide each other because we want to feel safe and like we're okay. So the idea of moving from a posture like that towards one of wells, not fences, you know, this idea that the church can be a place where we're not trying to lock people in, to kind of keep them fenced in because we're scared that they might get out and and fall off a cliff. But the idea that instead of the anxiety response that Jesus draws us to this well of life and goodness, that there's something there and we can relax, I think, is really difficult, especially for a lot of us that were raised in an evangelical church like I was, you know, but I think that we want to shepherd people to Jesus, rather than worrying about keeping them within a boundary. I think if Jesus is true and good, then there's a real rest that can come there. And that's something that I've been trying to practice in my own life in the last couple years. I think one
Joshua Johnson:of the ways that you said you could practice this and to hold things open is holy indifference. And can you explain it for people, because indifference, to me, feels like I'm just checking out. Yeah, totally can feel like I'm checking out. So what is holy indifference, and how is that helpful for
Sara Billups:us? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's that. So there's, I think of the hymn it is well with my soul, I think of Jesus saying Your will be done in the Lord's Prayer in the garden is a perfect example of indifference. Or I love st Teresa of Lesotho's morning offering where she says to accept the joys and sorrows of this passing life. It's this idea that I think that people confuse indifference with checking out because they don't understand. I think that it is this essential tool towards us doing the work of justice, of service, the idea of coming to letting the it's coming to the posture, the ability of saying, God, do what you want to do, whatever that means, even if the outcome feels difficult or hard, is something that's really difficult. But I do think that Jesus knew He would be crucified like he knew that he was being crucified in an empire. He knew that many people would be murdered or would feel lost, but he still said, do not worry. He still said, Father, Your will be done. And that is indifference. And to me, that is the perfect companion towards work that I think we're called do toward to do towards service and care for the least of these. You know, to me, it feels like personal work that we can do to then strengthen us to do outward work.
Joshua Johnson:Let's move towards a practical example to figure out what holy indifference looks like in caregiving. I'll just give you an example for from my life. You know, my mother in law lived with us up until she passed away about a year and a half ago, and you know, at the end, she was, you know, she's not eating, she's, you know, losing weight. She's doing these things. What happens, especially with my wife, is the primary caregiver there to her mother is, hey, she my wife is scared that she's going to lose her mom, and she wants to hold on, right? So she wants to hold on, and she wants to control this situation, because we don't want to lose her, like we want her around. And we see that something can actually help in situations where really, like, the only thing that you could do is be with and be present, and we could let go is holy indifferent? How is that possible? Because this is the most personal, hardest thing. It's so
Sara Billups:hard, gosh. I mean, I talk about this in the book, but I understand some of those dynamics so much personally in this own season in my life. I mean, if, if holy indifference is essentially this spiritual posture of letting go, of saying that I can be open and receive whatever you whatever you do, God, whatever the outcome is. Then there are these actual, real life, difficult situations like you just described, where you love a person so much that you don't want to let them go. But sometimes you sense that it's more about like, more about you or what you need. I think about situations where maybe a loved one is is towards the end of life, and my dad right now is very much in in the end stages of advanced cancer. And I think about how there's often family member that might say, you've got to keep, you've got to keep fighting or like, don't let using language like you've let, don't let go. But really that's often more about the person than it is about the actual patient, than the loved one. And so I think that indifference frees us to kind of notice our own, our own need, to hold on, you know, and then lets us focus more on what the person we love really needs. And so my my dad right now, just specific, just a couple weeks ago. You know, he's been through maybe eight different treatments from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that's not curable. His numbers kind of come down when he's in an immunotherapy, and then they go up again when it stops working. So he's at the point now where, I mean, eight or nine treatments in his body is just kind of done. And so he has to decide, I mean, Joshua, we have, like, an oncologist appointment next week where I think we're going to have the conversation, because the palliative care piece has kind of been coming up, but I think that we're going to have the conversation where they'll say, Tom, we can keep trying, but your body is shutting down, and you need to make a decision about what to do. And like the idea of being at that point with this person that that you love, like this person that you've been with and that has raised you, and then you're in this position of caring for them, and then they say to you, and my dad has said this other times, what do you think I should do? It's like, I just want to love you through whatever, whatever you want to do. Dad, like indifference lets me do that, instead of telling him what my, like, my my own self, would say, which is, please don't leave. I don't want to let you go. I love you. I can't it. Just it frees me to focus on him and what he needs and how to have him have the best final months of his life. Oh, gosh, but it's so hard. It's so hard. It
Joshua Johnson:is so hard. It is hard on the patient. I mean, it was like, I know my mother in law, wanted to hold on as much as possible. She didn't want to let go, until she finally said to my wife, I'm ready. Yeah, I think I'm ready. And you know, that was a few days before she went, and that was not like it was the holding on, and it was a few days earlier, like I could tell, like she was holding on to something, and I felt like I was I was here. I could picture as she's laying in the bed, and I said to I said, Mitzi, I will take care of Meredith. I'll take care of your grandson. I'll take care of freeing like i You don't have to worry anymore. I will take care of it. It's not on you. I will do it. I mean, and that was, that was
Sara Billups:kind of bodily reaction news. I just felt like myself relaxing hearing you say your mother in law, my gosh, yeah, it's a profound gift.
Joshua Johnson:It felt like that was a shift, and that was a change. It was like, Okay, there's something I could actually let go. I can release. That's so good. Yeah. I mean, I mean, we're talking about very precious moments in family, but this is what if we just go into our everyday lives? And the way we do it is, how do we give permission to people to be able to see holy indifference in their life, and to be able to let go and to say, Okay, it's not actually all on me and my shoulders, because really, we're all just like anxiety balls. We're all scared. We're all just little kids scared. In this world.
Sara Billups:It's such a it's such a relief. I mean, this is so here's, I think it starts by noticing it comes up all the time. I'd say every day. There's another kind of tiny moment for me to practice indifference. But here's a, here's a practical one that is very different than what we were just talking about with end of life and caregiving. So like we're talking right now because I'm bringing this book into the world, and as an author, that's a pretty wild you know, again, I mentioned, like, I'm just kind of, you write something and then you have to talk about it all the time. Authors are typically introverts, but the idea that whatever happens with this book, if it sells like hotcakes, if it doesn't sell any copy, like whatever happens, like letting go of the emotion of that, of the pride of it, just believing that the process of writing it was meaningful and worthwhile, and the outcome of how it performs is not attached to Like, the worth of the book, and that God can do what he wants to do with this book has been, I mean, that is just to be honest. The the weird part is that writing this book and then talking about indifference and then trying to bring it into the world, there have been many times where that's felt really challenging to me. So I'm practically thinking about it in kind of a meta way right now. It's kind of a funny, a funny twist. But I've been, I had a talk with drew my husband last night about this very thing, and I said, I have, I just have to let it, let it be. I have to let it go. And I can sense that I'm trying to, like, hold on for control. Maybe if I pitch another op ed, or maybe if I ask somebody for, like, it's just a lot of striving and a lot of a lot of anxiety when really there's this call to just let it be, and then I can sense a certain rest, so then I kind of turn towards that posture. So that's been like a daily practical thing lately.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, well well done. And keep keep it up, keep going, because this is God's asking you to be in it. You know, one, one name that. Comes up a few times in your book that you got a lot out of is Nick Cave and joy, finding joy in suffering and in that what, what did you learn through this process there from Nick Cave, voice that we can learn from man.
Sara Billups:So he has, he has this, this sort of, it's not a substack. He has something called the Red Hand files. I think many listeners would have come across it. It's just a series of folks that write in questions that he'll answer. And, you know, I'm a Gen Xer. I kind of knew about his band the birthday party for a long time when I was growing up, and I knew that he sang that song on the Harry Potter soundtrack, where they sing, where they were Harry and Hermione dance at the end, about the kids on the train. Like I, I just had sort of known a little bit about him, but when I learned a little bit more about his life, how he has lost two sons, has had immense, incredible grief. In the worst way, you think about losing a parent, which is incredibly painful, but there is, in this way, a natural order. You imagine that in many cases, your parent will pass, but the fact that in two on two occasions, Nick Cave has lost a child, the way that he writes about that his creative expression as a person that appreciates esthetics and beauty and noticing the way that he expresses that, and the way that he talks about how it is precisely that joy and suffering are the same side, are opposite sides of the same coin, and that's a fully experienced life. We have to understand something about suffering. He talks about it with a fearlessness that I think is incredibly inspiring, and also the way that he talks about there was a Christa Tippett interview that I write about in the book that was just very profound, where he talks about experiencing God and a cathedral and holiness. He talks about, prophetically, talks about faith in the church in a way that I think a lot of us could learn from, even though I don't know that he would call himself a Christian, so I've just been very he feels like a prophetic voice right now, in a very unexpected way. Are you a fan?
Joshua Johnson:By the way, I am a fan of Nick Cave. Nick fan and Nick Cave. I think, I think it's important to actually find some prophetic voices in the midst of, you know, our our world now, that actually can point us to a place of hope and say there is joy in suffering, like we could find the joy that even though our world is full of suffering. We need to find those prophetic voices. I want to know here now, as we get closer to the end, is where we started. At the beginning is that you still hold anxiety in your body. Our systems hold anxiety. Our political systems hold anxiety. What is going to help us and what helps you knowing that, hey, there's presence with us. Yep, that's right, what helps us at the end,
Sara Billups:a couple of things come to mind. The first, and this isn't something that I write about explicitly, but something that I have thought about in the months since writing the book, is how the the idea, looking at politics in the church, that things may continue to fall apart, like there comes a point where you sort of control doesn't feel like that great. If anxiety is typically a response to want to be in control and to not be uncertain. Like there's this way in which certainty becomes less plausible and less possible, and maybe even not the point. And I think that that is something I'm trying to understand more. But I I think that if my posture is set on wanting to feel okay and not feel a sense of fear, because the world feels very difficult right now, and I'm, you know, obviously, a middle aged, white lady in Seattle, like, what do I mean? I am not a person that is, that is typically, like, really on the front line, not I'm not an ice agent is not knocking at my door, you know? I mean, I'm saying this as a person that has relative safety, I cannot imagine. But I just do have to wonder if my if our postures can be less on why? So why we need to be certain and more about the great, longer, bigger story of Jesus, that the goodness and reconciliation in the end, that it's to come. I mean, if I'm going to believe this wild story, if I'm going to believe that it's all true, I have to believe that it's moving towards Redemption at the end, all the sad things will be untrue, and all things will be made well. And so even if that's not something that I can see or experience in my lifetime, even then it's, it's not about me, it's about this. It's about the story of the church and the story that Jesus is doing to redeem the world. And so there is, there is like a quiet comfort in that, how we apply that theoretical to like our daily our daily anxiety, or the daily headlines. I mean, today, as we're talking the truce in the Middle East, the peace in the Middle East seems less likely. There's been another conflict, right? Or, you know, something silly, the mariners lost the sixth game, and they're probably going to be out tonight, but we're. Hoping.
Joshua Johnson:I'm so hoping. How that applies daily is where my anxiety happens right now is the mariners have given me lots of anxiety.
Sara Billups:When people listen, they'll know the outcome. Who knows, but how that translates daily to me has to come back to noticing the thought and at that moment being able to tell myself, God, I'm going to almost do this exposure, like I'm not in control, and I that's okay. Like, do what you want to do with the book. Do what you want to do with this next appointment for my dad. Like, I believe you're good and that you're here and present, and that's the best I can do. And that actually is that is profoundly different than how I was thinking a few years
Joshua Johnson:ago. Well, what you just said here is that you notice a thought. I think when we can notice thoughts, we can notice our emotions. We can notice things. It feels like they're actually on the outside of us, that we could let them pass and be okay. There they become smaller. Oh my gosh. That is such a huge gift to people, to actually realizing that your emotions are an emotion that's right, that you could see and let pass, and they don't define you. They're not all of who you are, but it feels like it sometimes, right? So that is huge. How do you How did you get to a place where you could notice that and let him pass? Yeah.
Sara Billups:I mean, I'm a person that has a lot of, like, my mind body connection is pretty strong. And so, you know, I talk about in the book about health anxiety, which is kind of like my dad's flavor of anxiety that I feel like was passed, but the baton was passed to me. And so if somebody is has a headache, my head usually starts to hurt. I can really just sort of like a sponge, take that on. And so I began to think about, and I, you know, in therapy, talked about how my mind has these kind of well dug trenches, so the second a sensation may come in the body, like the then the the mind just kind of shoots down like a river down this, this is what's wrong. And then the anxiety, the adrenaline comes. But I've just learn to, kind of, in my mind, take a beat, like, literally one second. Sometimes I can't, sometimes the adrenaline comes and rushes before, but I can, more than ever, take a minute and say, Hey, I think that you're reacting to this because of anxiety or because of fear. Just like you don't have to go down that well worn sort of stream of worry, like, just like, stand by the bank for a minute just to keep going with this river exercise. Notice, notice, a couple of leaves, let the thought go, like, down the river, not to be too floaty. But really, like, I It's been very, very helpful. And so slowly this, like, river, becomes more of a stream, and then it kind of dries up, and it's just the long, slow work. And so I think at this point it's more like a bubbling Brook and less like a raging river, but it's certainly not. This is too much. We're going too far, but
Joshua Johnson:it's good. Well, Sarah, if you could talk to your readers, what hope do you have for nervous systems? Yeah,
Sara Billups:I hope that even if, even if a reader, I know we're all anxious about certain things in our life, but not all of us would talk about leading with anxiety, you know. But I would hope that even if people are not in a season of anxiety, that anybody can see the anxiety in someone they love or just in the system. Right now, we're all swimming in the same waters, and I would hope that people could begin to think about practices like non anxious presence. I talk about Benedictine vows of fidelity and stability. I hope that we could look together at some of these more ancient practices that feel very relevant for today, and begin to kind of build a toolbox that we may be able to reference back to in seasons of our life when we need them as caregivers, or as our own bodies change in age, or As the world continues to do what it'll do.
Joshua Johnson:Sarah, do you have any, any, anything you've been reading or watching lately you could recommend?
Sara Billups:Yeah, oh gosh, what a fun question. I've been reading so many things that I can't think about them right now, because it's like, when you go into a CD store or, like, an album, you're like, What are you listening to? But I can, I can tell you something that I'm watching and something that I'm listening to, because the brothers like 18 books. So I am so excited about the next season of slow horses, because Gary Oldman is like the best ever, and we think he's the most amazing actor. So the first two seasons are out, and I think the third came out this week, which means I have to subscribe to whatever five, right? I've seen them all five is it? Is it, is it out? So I need to re subscribe to, is it Apple TV? It's apple. So what I do is, like, many of us subscribe because it's out, and then I stop. So I'm so excited, I don't It's like Gary Oldman, like, just like the wink of an eye or the turn of a head, just like the littlest thing. I think he's the best actor of our time. I'm obsessed. So I love that show. And then the other what I'm listening to, there's a singer called Molly pardon who is on Porter's gate and has done a lot of really cool, kind of modern hymns, but she has a new EP called Polaris that I'm basically only playing on repeat constantly every day. That's how I get pretty stuck on stuff, but it's kind of ethereal. So I. Totally recommend the smally part in EP.
Joshua Johnson:That's wonderful. Thank you. Nervous systems out everywhere. November 4, wherever you get your books, you could go get your books. Is there anywhere you'd like to point people to to get the book specifically, and how could they connect with
Sara Billups:you? Yeah, yeah. There's my friends, Sean and Miley. Have a little bookstore in Lancaster PA called nooks. They're doing a special partnership for the book where you order it. They give you 20% off, and you supported a wonderful local bookstore. So just go to nooks and email them, and they'll set you up. Other than that, wherever you like to get books. And then I'm on sub stack at bitter scroll Instagram. Sarah Billups,
Joshua Johnson:perfect. Well, Sarah, thank you for this conversation. Thanks for for going deep into our anxieties, both personal and corporate and family anxieties, and knowing that, hey, Jesus could be present with us in the midst of them, and thank you for walking us through some practices, and especially the practice of holy indifference, of keeping our hands open to whatever God has for us in this moment that he can do it, and hey, we are not in control of everything, and that we could let go of our control and our control issues. And so thank you, Sarah, it
Sara Billups:was a fantastic thank you. Thank you for making it so easy. It's such a pleasure to talk to you. I just hope I read another book so I can do this again someday.
Joshua Johnson:Well, you don't have to write another book. You can just come on anytime you want to. That sounds
Unknown:better. You.
