Unpacked In Santa Cruz
"Unpacked in Santa Cruz" is a homegrown podcast hosted by Michael Howard that dives into the lives, stories, and salty moments of people who call this coastal community home—or have been shaped by it in some way. Whether it's a deep conversation with local surfers opening up about mental health, or a peek behind the curtain of someone who started a one-of-a-kind food spot right here in town, every episode brings something real.
You’ll hear from folks who found healing behind the lens, built businesses from scratch, or chased massive waves thanks to a lifetime spent around our local waters. These aren’t just interviews—they’re conversations that reflect the heart and soul of Santa Cruz. Raw, reflective, and rooted in community, Unpacked in Santa Cruz brings local voices to the surface.
Unpacked In Santa Cruz
EPISODE 16: Lori Corry: Navigating Grief, Faith, and Love Through Friendship
Have you ever sat down in the salon chair and found yourself pouring out your life story? That's the kind of bond Lori Corry and I share, a connection that transcends decades and haircuts. In my latest Unpacked and Naked Podcast episode, Laurie, a cherished friend and confidant, joins me to unravel the beautiful complexities of long-standing friendships. We share laughter and near tears as we acknowledge the small moments that often create the most significant impact, like shared meals and a welcoming home, shaping the unbreakable bonds we cherish.
The tapestry of life is not just woven in moments of joy but also through the trials we face. Lori and I take a hard look at grief, faith, and the pursuit of love, discussing how the myth of independence gives way to the strength found in our interdependencies. As a hairdresser and pastor, I've had the unique opportunity to foster intimate connections that often serve as a backdrop for emotional work and spiritual reflection. This episode is an exploration of the roles that these relationships play in our identities and the balance of accepting both the good and bad in life for a healthier existence.
Lastly, we wrap up with a celebration of the joys of acceptance, laughter, and affection. It's a discussion that touches on the very core of human experience, from the peculiar paradox of loving our predatory pets to the way we embrace the complexities of life, including the beautiful, the difficult, and sometimes, the unseemly. So, join Lori and me as we navigate the rich tapestry of life's experiences, finding humor and love in every thread.
Welcome to the Unpacked and Naked Podcast. My name is Michael Howard. In front of me I have sitting Laurie Corey. You've heard from Daniel Corey here for a couple hours and two previous podcasts, but I get to experience the joy of sitting in front of my friend and us having a conversation that she's very nervous about. But just so you know everybody who sits in front of one of these mics and once this red light goes on, I'm barely getting comfortable with it. So rest there, it is, she's there, so you can tell that she is here. Let me adjust the mics a little bit here so as we don't sound too weird. Oh, I turned myself way up too much. Hey, daniel, can we have some more Topo Chico's?
Speaker 2:And I have a cold, so it's going to sound coldy.
Speaker 1:It's going to sound like Laurie.
Speaker 1:Hey, hey, you've been watching this and you're a little nervous about this, but I really want to start with first of all expressing to the audience that who I have in front of me is the other half and really the binding of the glue, of the components, and I admire this woman so much and she has just been a total blessing to me in my life.
Speaker 1:And as we're moving into the podcast a little bit further, as you're beginning to understand a little bit more about me as a person, after general stories, who I have sitting in front of me is another one of my tethers, and what she wouldn't necessarily aspire to or think that she is, what she doesn't know, what I'm always constantly having to rehearse with her every time I come down here, is what an absolute blessing that she has been and whether it's in church circles or wherever else, we have these friendships and people find themselves in categories as they get older.
Speaker 1:I think it's pretty fair to say you feel like a house mom, like that. There hasn't been a whole lot to you as a person or whatever else, and I am actually staring at one of the most important people that has been in my life, that the way that you have nurtured your space, the comfort that we walk into. You know, the hundreds of meals at this point, the comings and goings, all the little things that usually make great components to friendships. That's one thing. But see, the thing that's unique about you is that you're a tether to me and that I've been very untethered at times, but I have always had you to come home to a home that isn't necessarily mine per se, but it's a home I get to visit and it's a place where I get to be myself.
Speaker 1:And so you know, with all of that and it's loading up, and we're both trying not to shed a few tears- here, because there's so many memories, so many things in the dynamic of our friendship and what I find happens in life is generally the bigger personality or the person who's a little bit more outgoing or maybe has a business presence kind of ends up carrying the stage a little bit more. But in reality, all the deficits that you have felt as a person, all these things that have kind of tormented you in the 30-some odd years that I've known you you know meeting, of course, because I did your hair Like that's nuts you know that gets weird for me to think about all the people I've encountered. Easy to talk about these fascinating people in technology that have shaped the world. The most important thing about you is you shape my world, who you are as a person, how you've behaved, how you've put up with my thrashing around with church. You know not to dive too much into personal stories that we've just walked through a lot of stuff together and just been there for each other and so, laurie, welcome, thank you. You know I know those seem like really big shoes, but they're your shoes, you're not wearing somebody else's shoes, and so thank you for letting me do this, thank you for letting me put you in front of a microphone and feel the torture of this moment, but I think it's really, really important for people to understand that we need people and this is one of the people that I've needed. I still need.
Speaker 1:You know, I found a little window to come surf down here at Santa Barbara and, you know, go to RenCon. I had a son who forecasted exactly when the waves were going to show up. I had a nice three hour window of fun. But, more importantly, this road trip as I've made how many road trips have I made here by myself? Thousands Right, just coming down just because they needed to get away. You are my away space and the comfort that I get to imagine and have be fulfilled more than I could have imagined, that I get to come to here every time that Kim and I have enjoyed in friendship. All those kinds of things are very important. On top of all the sports, all the funny stories, you know all my sons running around without shirts on. You know, for Jordan at soccer games, you know just the goofy thing that the Howards are relationship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're a really big relationship, so let's let's, for the audience, just rehearse a little bit about how we met. Like I said, I actually don't really remember you showing up in my chair, you know.
Speaker 2:But what an intimate chair to enter, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So what was that like for you? I mean because I know that, with a lot of you know, as I progressed, having having a clientele as long as I have, for the people that have stuck with me, like it's an endurance run. It's been a marathon, you know, because I am a heavy person to be around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because someone sits in your chair and you become very intimate. I'm looking at a mirror and you're looking at me and it's a co-creation that you're doing and you're the kind of hairdresser slash therapist. That kind of brought me to a very scary point like, oh God, he sees me, oh man, that's, and I took it kind of seriously, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I tried to be honest with you because you were kind of serious and it was crazy. It was a crazy. I've never had an experience like that with another person doing hair, face or skin. Who wants them?
Speaker 1:I mean, you're an esthetician. So like you, contrast the moments that you've had where you're really trying to provide a lot of peace and tranquility and beauty. You know, whereas me I'm like a bull in a china shop with some with low self-esteem, you know, and just like I don't want you to hear that way.
Speaker 2:You know, just like no, this is how we're going to do it and fuck you and yourself.
Speaker 1:It's going to be the narcissist that I kind of pretended like I was, because I just didn't want to deal with women and their things, you know. I just had the things that I did and you know it was a bit of a persona back then the hair guy was.
Speaker 2:But what I really you know, as I was doing hair, when I realized, wow, I got two hours of, you know, a captured audience and we were both bringing personas to each other and then over time, hopefully some of it eroded and then over years you get to the heart of someone, or closer to the heart.
Speaker 1:So I remember you being pregnant with Jordan and is she 28?
Speaker 2:this year. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know I think I started doing your hair right before then, and so you know 29 years of you sitting and us grinding through things, and so I really want to stay in the hair thing, because this is an aspect that my audience really hasn't heard from a client, a friend, about what getting your hair done was like. I want to hear about the emotional torture when you pulled up in the car on 41st Avenue. You're just like, oh fuck.
Speaker 2:What's going to happen? What is he going to do to me?
Speaker 1:And it wasn't about hair, although it never was. But you know, clearly I had had to be good at what I did and I, you know, tried to keep you very fashionable during the time. Yeah, that I was doing your hair and you know the great irony of this moment is the one time you haven't asked me to cut your hair and I actually brought my shit.
Speaker 2:But I was waiting for an opportunity. I was like oh God, do I have any scissors here? Yeah, and I'm, I love it, man, yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyway, what was that? Like you know, pulling up and intimidating. Yeah, so what was intimidating about it?
Speaker 2:I think it's intimidating for a woman or I'll speak from my eye statements. It was intimidating for me to go to someone and say how can you make me look better? Okay, because that's why a woman has her hair done, or that's why I had my hair done to try to look better, not to accept where I was, but to be better. And that's been like a story of you know a young woman's life. I don't think I would sit in your chair today and try to be better. I think I would just try to.
Speaker 1:Maintain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe just enjoy the process of being taken care of. But those early days were like do you, can you accept me? Can you make me better? Can we help each other? It was very narcissistic in a way. With love, but with a lot of need. That wasn't with unsaid, maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm. This is going to end up being a really safe space to talk about this, you know, cause it's us and and I can really get into the dynamic a little bit of of what it's like to have a new client show up and and all the things that are going on, the all the dynamics, Uh, you, but you know, whenever I'm approaching a new client, I'm always wondering what's coming in.
Speaker 1:You know who you know I'm looking at, who recommended them to come to me. Knowing my personality, you know what I've done over the years. You know for those of you who you wouldn't know this, but I was notorious for pixies. I mean you, you at the figure-.
Speaker 1:I've brought the pixie since I was like four, so yeah, yeah well, but you know, for the most part, during that phase when I was really getting back into hair, you know, every, almost every new client had a friend of theirs that got their haircut dynamically short and it was funny because it became this, this, this thing. I know why they showed up. You know they're wondering whether they can wear it. Not only could they wear it, but they were wearing it when they walked out the door. I mean, I had ponytails out the door on the weekly.
Speaker 1:I mean I was. I was at least 10, if not a dozen, for about two years a week of people coming in with long hair Gals, you know, leaving with you know a pixie that was super cute at the time a known writer. Thank you very much for getting my career going.
Speaker 2:But where you were then, Santa Cruz was not known for innovative hair. It was long frost and tip, you know. So, yeah, you were innovative. I trusted you because I was like something great is going to happen here, yeah, yeah so you know it was.
Speaker 1:those were dynamic times. You know it certainly made my investments in hair with the big shops that I was either GM of or owned and you know, have, you know, tried to do every angle of the business without becoming famous. I guess that was really the only next step and a couple of times that I had those opportunities I declined them very fast, mostly because of the lifestyle choices that came with that. They just didn't match. You know who I was as a person, being married with kids, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:It just was not a space I wanted to be in, you know certainly spent some time in LA and just saw all the really basically it's just sexual pressure.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like.
Speaker 1:I don't need to add more of that dynamic into what's already walking in the door which leads me to this kind of weird reality that you know the psychodynamic that goes on.
Speaker 1:You know, when a new client walks in, it's pretty weird because you don't know why people are there. And one of the funniest things to me is how little women acknowledge how much they want to be flirted with. How they want to be flirted with. There's a reason they're coming to a male hairdresser. It's pretty simple. You know they want a good looking guy to do the thing that a woman would do. You know it was when I intellectually wrapped myself around what was happening in the shop, because I was always around great hairdressers. You know it's like, well, why'd they choose me? You know, then I have to look at the mirror.
Speaker 2:Did you rise to that occasion then?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know well, you have to change that dynamic in some way. And certainly when I was younger, there was a lot more girls coming to see if they could, you know, turn you on, make nice with the handsome married guy. You know there's all these weird dynamics that go on in that and you know me having an intellect that I do seeing all the psychology of it.
Speaker 1:You know I utilize that as best as I can and you know, very early on I just really realized that. You know I wanted to be someone where people came with that and left with something else.
Speaker 2:Love that.
Speaker 1:You know, and I really had to purpose myself to. You know, I'm one of the rare hairdressers that really turned that into a ministry, so to speak, and so you know whether I was in well, especially in church circles, when you know other pastors or other leaders are. Well, what do you do? Well, I actually do hair. You know, I'm actually in the field, I'm outside of these walls actually seeing what, how people are interpreting things, and you know there are a lot of things over the course of my business, I think Lather being the kind of final straw of seeing all the dynamic that goes on.
Speaker 1:And for those of you who don't know, lather was a 16-chair shop that I was a GM of. I put together all the manuals, set up the business model and was really trying to move into the business side of the business, not the hair side of the business. But there was a dynamic that surfaced there and this is what where all of my fears got validated, which was very strange. You know we had Boyd there. Boyd was, you know, pretty much the guy. You know he was the highlight, he was, he was the anchor of the shop. But there were three of us men that were all good looking all funny, all smart, all uncommitted relationships, and what was weird is that our clients were entirely interchangeable. So now we're just down to personality, because we did the same kind of hair, the same kind of looks, maybe a little bit different way, but we're not different hairdressers Like it was not about hair anymore.
Speaker 1:So I'm sitting there staring at the personalities you know watch, watching One of the guys flirts a little bit more, but he's a goofy flirt. The other guy's this aloof kind of cool guy, and then the girls that are attracted to that. And then I'm seeing oh, the girls that are coming to me are attracted to this steady, straight guy who's married but still gives them attention.
Speaker 1:And it's the kind of attention that they want. Just, you know, because I always kept the needle just on this side, but I'm operating that space, so that's a given. You know that this kind of flirty environment that salons become, you know, when you have a lot of straight males. You know dealing with a lot of beautiful women from a town where all the beautiful people are coming to get their hair done.
Speaker 1:Like we had 35 hairdressers. That's no small amount. So seeing that dynamic happen, and what broke my heart is the amount of church ladies that I saw with one particular hairdresser. That was a notorious titty-tatcher.
Speaker 2:I love that term.
Speaker 1:You know, like he was always a Oops not even an oops, yeah, the backhand grays and realizing oh, this is their fling that they come to once every four or five weeks, pay extra for it and just, and it was-.
Speaker 2:Although you can't know that, they were okay with it.
Speaker 1:They kept showing up.
Speaker 2:And it he was probably careful. It was just one touch each time.
Speaker 1:I don't know, this guy was notorious. Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, tt. He was slaying chicks on the on the, just slaying. You know, I don't know how many marriages got lost in that chair, wow.
Speaker 1:But you know people, people we know, you know, sitting there and I'm just like, oh my gosh, like you. Oh, I don't like that. You know. A couple of ladies I confronted. I'm like, look Seriously, like, oh, he doesn't mean anything by it. I'm like, oh, but you do, you know, like they don't talk to me anymore. I'm like, oh, but you do. You know you're sitting here, your husband's at home. I know exactly what's going on and like, wow, you know. So a lot of distance in my heart. After that, you know, I just like you know, there's just a lot of distrust entered the room from that point on, and so that was a really weird dynamic to encounter.
Speaker 1:Not that I certainly don't believe that most women are doing that, but it was weird to see it in play every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and Although the liberal woman in me says, let him get it, oh, yeah, now you know, whatever, go home. And yeah, yeah, go home, be a little better.
Speaker 1:Go wind yourself up. Yeah, exactly, and head home and then take it out on your husband.
Speaker 2:Say this is what I like. I found out, this is what I like. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, let's segue a little bit away from that unless we get stuck in the trap of titties and touching and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you. This is going south.
Speaker 1:But you know, as far as intimidation goes, because I really want to sit with that a little, bit you know there's the dynamic of sitting in a chair, you know, really wanting to feel better about yourself.
Speaker 1:You know I make jokes about this, but there's a real truth to that. I mean, my real job is to allow someone to look in the mirror in the morning. It's a very simple prospect, you know, is what I'm doing bringing joy to that moment that nobody feels joy about. And so, on the psychological side, or spiritual side, the other intimidation prospect, you know that my chair was called the chair, or you go and do the chair. And it wasn't about hair, you know, it was about, you know, unpacking, about encountering things that people were struggling with, spots in their life that they really felt stuck and really having the two hours one-to-one with a pastor to unpack those things, and how hard those things are. I mean, I mean almost every time. I mean not to uncover you, but you know you're crying in my chair most times.
Speaker 2:I was always surprised by what could happen in a chair, in a hair chair. I never really made the connection that you were pastoring as you were cutting. It was very natural, very integrated into your style. But yeah, shit got done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And so you know, looking back on those years, you know the dynamics changed a lot because the relationships are a lot more mature now.
Speaker 2:I'm doing far less of that now, just because you know it's just changed and it's old stories.
Speaker 1:Now you know, but you know for me. I know that the way that I looked at doing hair was in that realm of like. I don't want to be in the insanity of people's low self-esteem.
Speaker 2:I love that. So how can I turn this around a little bit into?
Speaker 1:something that's actually a benefit to humanity.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And my clients. I think there's anything I kind of weigh in on. You know, it wasn't about the hair, it was about the moment and just being able to feel better as a human and have a good hairdo when you walked out.
Speaker 2:It was very avant-garde though it was, you were possibly. Well, you know, you sent Daniel to somebody and I think that guy sang over him as he's cut his hair, but like that was really a Naha moment for us. But then going to you and it being not just about a haircut or a color, I think that was very sly and very you, because that was really what you wanted to do. Was you wanted to have a communication, have a relationship versus a interaction?
Speaker 1:a transaction. Yeah, yeah, you know, you know me enough to know I hate that transactional space. It's very. It just feels yuck into me that this money exchange. But really, that's not really what happened you know, and everything takes a different way, but but yeah, I think you still do this in your life.
Speaker 2:Even if you're not doing hair, if you're out on a walk, if you're interacting with someone in a restaurant, you're still super relational. Yeah, I think that is beautiful and I didn't recognize it when I first was knowing you. You know, I was just like, oh God, I'm uncomfortable, he's asking, or he's not even asking, but he's getting to the heart of something. But now that I see you I'm like wow, that's a beautiful trait, beautiful desire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is where you feed into this, you know, is that the things that you know you came to over the course of you know the decade and a half or so that I was doing your hair. You know the experience, you know of being together. You know sharpening each other the way that we can, in the same way you feel warmly about that. This is that you know that we get to come down here and live in that experience.
Speaker 2:Still sharpen each other and just get to be. Or soften each other, maybe these days? Yeah, probably. Yes, that's mostly what it is.
Speaker 1:I don't need to be any sharper, that's the previous podcast anyway I was talking about the ditch that I realized that I've done for the last 32 years my marriage and what to do about that who knows? But we're all learning right now. You know, let's segue a little bit into church and your experience with church so for the listeners just kind of getting an idea from your perspective. You know when you met me at the coastlands and what that experience was like ICU's and all that kind of stuff what's the first thing that kind of sticks out.
Speaker 2:I get very nervous thinking about those early days of my faith journey because it was probably honest and real to me then. But I sit here now and I kind of cringe at the simplicity of my understanding of the divine. It wasn't even that, it was just, it was simple faith. But it was friendly, loved meeting people, loved relationships. You know, that's my drug.
Speaker 2:I answered a question on a shadow work thing I was doing the other day and was asked, what are you most proud of in your life? And I was like oh God, I think the relationships I have with my kids, with my partner, with friends. So I think church was relational for me, mostly with people, and then God was like an add-on. Yeah, yeah, so I mean all cringing aside.
Speaker 1:You know, we were talking about this a little bit last night as we always talk about this in some way, shape or form whenever we're down, not whenever we're down, but whenever we've driven down.
Speaker 2:I'm down, I'm really down.
Speaker 1:You know I'm at this spot, as you know, not in a defensive way but in a very practical way of, like you know, actually those are really good times to me. Not that it was all good, not that we were right. You know we were talking about this. You know we were talking. You know really about what this generation has to face because they don't have church, they don't have friendship groups the way that they had, they didn't have marriage seminars to go to, right or wrong information, like they didn't have the things available. Even though there's so much more content, it's so individual. Now that you know at least one of the points I'm really trying to get you know just by sharing my stories. The way I have been is, like you know, I'm an interdependent person. You know it is interdependency that makes us strong. This idea that a strong, independent person, that's absolutely like almost nonsense to me. In one way, though, I do understand that I do aspire to be living in independence of the things that I've gotten from interdependence right.
Speaker 1:You know to be the whole person that I can be, but there is a real conflict in looking back because you know I don't know if you suffer from this Do you feel dumb Because of those experiences and not recognizing maybe some of the deficits? You know we're. You know, daniel and I can talk about this and like, hey, you know currently you were calling this out a long time ago. Calling it out, not calling it out At least we still had relationship is kind of the way that I look at it. You know, what an institution is doing wrong doesn't change the dynamic that still was happening.
Speaker 1:You know it might have changed the way that it landed had we focused institutionally on some of the things that are now obvious, right, and I can look back and go. That was stupid as though because I knew people who didn't know were stupid. You know is just they were utilizing their experience the way that they knew, how. I don't have a whole lot of judgment that way, but I do want to focus on this a little bit with you because it feels to me like you feel stupid with it.
Speaker 2:Well, if I really sit with it, it's probably just more. It was the infancy of my faith journey and so, like when you think back of yourself as a kid, you're like, oh gosh, what a, what a simple 10 I was. But if I am honest, maybe I can give it a little more grace and say you know, my time with Christianity was okay until it wasn't until and it's not like I grew out of it and got smart. I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that kind of the promises the tenants didn't really work for me.
Speaker 1:So describe that a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Like you know I don't know, I'm thinking of scripture like he shall wipe away every tear. It's like, no, there's a lot of grief that cannot be wiped away and that can't be lifted.
Speaker 1:So does the use of that kind of stuff feel like a bit of a betrayal to itself in a way? You know, because it you know, I don't know how far we want to deep dive on this particular concept, but the allowing of an idea that there is a God who does wipe away our tears, that will make a peaceful situation, that will bring hope, that does have grace.
Speaker 2:Does it happen eventually, Like we don't get to experience it in the now? Because that wasn't really experiencing it in the now.
Speaker 1:Gotcha yeah. So in retrospect, for you, as it pertains to church, the promises almost felt like a curse, because in the moments, when shit really hit the fan, when things were good.
Speaker 2:God is good. When my brother put a gun in his mouth, it all falls down.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you're like, okay, what is helpful? Yeah, yeah, and it was only love of people that held me. It was no words, it was no scripture, it was no prayer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just the presence of others being willing to be around you in that time of grief.
Speaker 2:It's in the dirt sit scraping your skin, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, let's, and you can say no to this, you know, totally okay. Can we talk about grief?
Speaker 2:I think I am.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, you open the door so.
Speaker 2:Because that's like a pivotal point for me where I really kind of chose another path and some people may say, oh, you know that was weak, whatever God was there, but it was just a like an eye-opener of maybe there's a different way to go through this world. To approach these concepts that were deferring supposedly but the concept itself wasn't really living in the space that you're in and the people weren't helpful, particular people that adhered to certain Christian dogma.
Speaker 1:Dogma yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so let's, this is a big macro concept.
Speaker 1:I haven't talked about in the podcast yet, but it is certainly something I want to dive into. It is grief as a principle. You know the realities of grief. Grief is the great filter, grief is the clarifier. Grief is the perspective. Grief is the reality of where we will eventually land. Grief cannot be avoided, it can only be walked through. There's nothing like grief to put things in perspective. What grief allows for is alarming.
Speaker 1:Grief is this thing that until you're in it, you don't know what it is, but then you're there and then you see all of what things are. And so grief is this filter that is introduced to us. It's always by these moments, right, that are mostly tragic, and then, all of a sudden, you become exposed to these other principles in life that you weren't aware of. And then so in the sake of this conversation, we're looking back at church or whatever understandings that we were trying to get from the Bible that get minimized in the dogma. If God is God, then God is the God of that book. It's God, it's pre-book. God is God, and God wants to meet us in our grief.
Speaker 1:That is also revelation. He wants to meet us in that space of like things just are now, and I see them for what they are in my grief. And that's a very, very hard thing to face because it gets thrown at you. It's like here you go, here's shit all over you and everywhere you look there's nothing but shit and you didn't realize how much shit was in your life. And because of the nature of how it comes with us, it's just thrown at us and we're not ready for it. So it throws us into a process. We accept that process or we fight that process, only creating more grief in your life, only more of the principle coming at you, or it takes away some of the coverings on your soul and on your being that aren't really doing you any good.
Speaker 2:To me it was. I just took off a few coats that didn't really fit me anymore, and it felt better and better the more I removed in my grief.
Speaker 1:So maybe coats like ways that you were comforted before things that guarded you from the elements. You realize well, these things don't guard you from anything.
Speaker 2:They're not real. Yeah, they're not real.
Speaker 1:And so when that grief hits you and you're looking around and, boy, what is any of this?
Speaker 2:that we're calling life.
Speaker 2:Whereas the life in the life you know, not necessarily right after that moment with your brother, but in the process that you're in the middle of, how do you see grief having shaped you to this point right now, as best as you can explain it now, All I know is I've come to thank my brother for that because it offered me a different door to walk through and I think it's a more spacious door, a more loving door, a more real door for me, and I choose to believe that whatever the afterlife is for my brother is his peace and I don't have to stain his experience with all sorts of words and labels and it'll be. You know, he's better off, he's in heaven. All that. It doesn't work so hard to put into words how his grief or how that grief through that helped me, but it has.
Speaker 1:I mean, I could see that it has.
Speaker 2:I've known each other a long time and I don't know if you know this story, but I think it's interesting how the whole world grieves with you. But we heard about my brother's suicide. We were on a trip. We drive home to this house and as we enter we hear water and we walk back towards our bedroom and the ceiling had caved in on our house and was in pipes first and it was leaking and it was like the sky was crying you know it was like a house can't hold, and it was so beautiful in a way to me that I wasn't alone in this, you know so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, this is good. I know it doesn't feel fun in the moment.
Speaker 2:But I tend to go here when I talk about my faith changing and I just hope I'm giving it the beauty that it deserves, because it isn't like I'm pissed at God, like he didn't show up for me or she didn't show up for me, it's just my outlook changed and God became better and more and different and not at all what I thought, and uncontainable, unrestrainable and just let it be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So we have something in common here and I'm not really trying to switch gears, but it's going to seem a little bit, maybe different. So, richard War, love him.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm Really spoke to the process of turning God from like judgy into lovey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just kind of diffused the judgment and the dogma for us, and I feel very similarly about his writings, his understandings of the scripture. He's been a very safe container for me, right, because I'm still very much Christian, if that's even possible, because this is where I'm at. I don't necessarily call myself a Christian.
Speaker 2:I definitely don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but mine lives in an intellectual sense that. I think, the one Christian was Christ. Christ was a Jew Kind of this is my unique definition, my weird piece of tap-aware right, yes, right of like you know, in the understanding that I have about God, as best as I can as a human, you know, and believing that Jesus was God, not a prophet.
Speaker 1:Yet I believe there have been lots of prophets you know I'm not as alarmed by other religions or their interpretation of trying to understand God. You know, learning to live in this space of universality in a way that's not really what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Why not? Is it dangerous?
Speaker 1:No, it's because it's not being authentic. That's the reality. You know, is that for me, as if we're going to use religion as a container? Right? You know, it's what I shared with you before.
Speaker 1:You know, I've been listening to imams, you know, from the Muslim tradition and really, you know, trying to grapple with the realities of you know why this family, you know the Jews and the Muslims are fighting, why we are involving ourselves in this fight as Christians, makes no sense to me, you know, on a physical sense, especially on in a spiritual way, when we're all brothers and sisters. My feminist language is not as good as yours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's a big part of my instruction, yeah yeah, and I guess my point in that is that you know I'm a one God, one love person. You know that anything good is from God, so if it's good it is God, because goodness flows from God. You know, I've certainly thrown out many of my notions of the devil as a being. I think in a more thorough understanding of scripture, especially as pertains to the Old Testament, the devil is a spirit, it is not a being. It is in our nature in some way to accuse and to feel accused, and so, even with the narrative we get from Job, it was the accusation that came before God. It was not a being, the accusation was against God. Nobody likes you. Whatever that narrative is, I don't necessarily believe that Job existed, but clearly the storytellers are trying to tell us about the nature of God and the nature of us and the nature of things we don't understand.
Speaker 2:And which is? It's a mixed bag.
Speaker 1:It's a very mixed bag, but the accusation's coming and it even comes at God. The accusation oftentimes comes from us to God of you don't like me. You're not protecting me. You're not, and that's what lives in the narrative of Job, which I love and I'm very impassioned about, but have really not spoken about this yet and don't want to just yet, because it'll take hours and hours to really unpack Job. It is something that I had to get close to because Kim's illness. Why do good people suffer?
Speaker 2:Because suffering's part of life. Yeah, well God is not just all good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well it's Because all of creation is equally dark and light.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I love this. We have a dog floating around here. Love them, but nature's nasty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Animals are fricking cruel. Like cats would kill us if they were bigger. Yeah, yeah, like they put up with us because we give them food, like that's the only reason they're around. So I don't like cats. I'll go on the record for not liking cats and that's all a joke. To say this is not funny that we allow a predator in our house and call it a pet and the spiritual realities of our nonsense and our numbness to what nature really is. That thing is going about and killing whatever it can, whatever it's allowed to do. That Dogs are a little bit dopey and a little bit more amenable to humanity but they're all from wolves, Our dogs.
Speaker 2:our puppy killed two chickens before I could even look. He was a puppy like 10 pounds.
Speaker 1:An innocent puppy, that's a killer.
Speaker 2:So that's the non-duality that Richard. Rohr introduced to my psyche which really resonated. God is not just good and devil's not just bad. The whole experience of our lives here is a beautiful mess of both, and the easier we can accept that and welcome the good and the bad, the healthier we are.
Speaker 1:So let me acknowledge something, because the Christians listening right now their butt just puckered, and because I really wanna dive into this as much as we can and then wrap a bow on it, Because I think we're really sitting in a space that's very conflictive for all of us. I've watched you over the course of the last few years just live in that conflict and be okay with it. So when I say you have no idea how much I've learned from you, it's learning to watch you in that conflict and accept it and just not even try to have an answer for it.
Speaker 1:I'm like, okay, there's a way to be. There's really not an answer here, but there will be answers that present themselves. When I'm patient, I don't have to be anything but patient in this process.
Speaker 1:I have to give that time, have that time taken from me right in my patients. Either way, it's gonna happen the way it happens. Living in that portion of acceptance A little bit to my point earlier the container that is Christianity, learning to reinterpret that, learning to accept that many of the notions that were in our dogma led to judgment of a lot of people that we love. When I think about the damage I have done, as that guy doing that hair, for all the beautiful people that have sat in my chair, not just the people that signed up for Christianity, it's the words without intent that destroyed something I was trying to build in love and because of a dogma, because of an institution that really, to me, has even nothing to do with Christianity now it has nothing to do with the message in the gospels, has nothing to do with Jesus Christ, who, okay great, I believe he was God.
Speaker 1:Don't care whether you do or not. I'm not trying to convert anybody. There's a reality for me that, having had a relationship with God through Jesus, which is what I have, but realizing the natures of religion to help humanity, have containers to exist in, systems to harmonize, to organize, to create identity, to allow people space to be, as we're in this moment of vapid individualism.
Speaker 2:This is your idealized version of the church right.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just-.
Speaker 2:For Christianity.
Speaker 1:It is an idealized version of living, in a way, living in the conflict of now, which we talked a little bit last night about my real fear for this generation that, unfortunately, because something as simple as marriage and not that I think marriage is anything really other than two people committed to being with one another and that happens no matter what, but realizing that even without marriage you know as, even in its stupidest form, or signing a contract or say we're in love when you don't know how to be in love and what that's gonna mean 10 years, 20 years down the road.
Speaker 1:But, as I was expressing last night, it's so hard to watch our kids struggle through questions we never had to ask because we were married. There's moments in all of our marriage, marriages where, like, the prospect of divorce never came up because it'd be a bigger pain to ask them what you're dealing with. But because the question finally like hits you in the face but you're married, so you deal with it. Because you don't wanna get divorced Like I'm just talking about that as a simple prospect of safety not being bound to somebody, not any other cultural implications of marriage, not, you shouldn't get divorced, none of those things.
Speaker 2:And is your concern then for this next generation, that they don't have any semblance of a container in which to you know?
Speaker 1:To be, you know, alone. You know that's the concern is that the isolation that you and I feel from our old containers, our old ways of thinking, our old patterns of being able to go and be somewhere and belong in some way, and you know you can pull back on stuff you don't agree with and, you know, keep your thoughts to yourself and be a good little citizen. You know the safe space that you know. However much damage came from those things, the benefit, you know, still to me far outweighs the damage, which not everybody gets to say.
Speaker 2:That I totally understand that Because I feel much more comfortable in all spaces now than I used to when I considered myself a Christian. Now I can go with any kind of people and not feel like I'm, you know, being dangerous. Yeah yeah, you know there's just a like hey, people are people, I don't have to be concerned myself with what they believe. They don't have to concern themselves with what I believe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess not trying to argue with you what I'm trying to argue. The point that is of concern to me, not just for this generation, it's for humanity. That's coming out of something that was so we had, what was to compare it to, you know, and what was what? Well, what was existed a particular way and how it existed, yeah, it needed to change. That's good, you know. It should change, it should progress, it should evolve.
Speaker 1:Yes those things are true and it didn't. Okay, that's a mistake. We can collect ourselves, but we have tools that we received in those moments. It's those tools that were gotten by us collecting each other, good or bad that allowed us to see, you know where to put them in our own tool chests to use. So we have a. We're not always having a search for tools, you know, a lot of times they're in that box already and it's really hard. You know this is not an easy. You know there's no real answer to that.
Speaker 1:I'm just expressing my well, it's easy for us because we had something to do. It didn't go right, so we can go. Well, that wasn't good, so I'm doing this other thing, but I still have all the tools from that to operate, from you know, and those tools.
Speaker 2:Give me an example of a tool that's.
Speaker 1:Well, a tool is what's happening right now. I have this relationship because of church. You and I exist in this paradigm right now.
Speaker 2:Because that was the soil. We've left that soil, yeah but we. I have yeah, and the relationship continues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right Because, but that was the soil that allowed the space.
Speaker 2:So is that entity worth idolizing.
Speaker 1:Well, the the so. So, rather than asking the rhetorical question that size, that that side cause I, you and I agree about those things? No, of course not. Institutions, not what. What we're moving towards, you know, ideally we're moving towards God or a more loving culture, you know. However, however you want to want to wrap the bow on that, you know that that there is love. Pursue it. Do it how you will. If you're pursuing love chances are in some, in my worldview you're pursuing God.
Speaker 2:If you're pursuing love in some way.
Speaker 1:More along the lines of this feeling of alone, that that we felt with everybody as a young person alone, trying to figure out alone, or just with each other, with your partner. It's more alone, you know, and that is even you know, it's, it's.
Speaker 2:You see the need for community.
Speaker 1:I do and, and, and. That's the you know, that's the irony, you know, when I was here last few months ago, of of me having that little laugh of like you don't need any of this. Why are you going to Waco? Like like, like what is this? Are you just pacifying, daniel? You know, because you and I are very connected at this thing, like I, I probably have a deeper need than you do for community. You're more of a. I'm a happy introvert, you're a happy introvert.
Speaker 2:Give me books. I'm an unhappy extrovert. Michael Howard, the unhappy extrovert, not used that board.
Speaker 1:That's fucking hilarious, but just this reality, that that that I, you know, because of my depression, I don't know how to feel about a lot of things, and when I have people around me to allow me to know my lane, you know so so on the on the psycho emotional side it's always been a gauge and that was part of that blueprint that I was talking about. You know, learning out of that, how much urgency was sitting behind that you know, learning to get out of the urgent behavior that's associated with the depression you know, so, you know, Daniel was asking me, you know, as you heard in the last podcast, you know, but like, how are you seeing your depression?
Speaker 1:Well, shit, I'm seeing it now. I didn't used to see it, it just came at me, you know. So I can feel it coming at me in the morning if I don't wake up to it. So you know, if I see something coming, you know, I got tools now to go up. Nope, nope, not today.
Speaker 2:Beautiful.
Speaker 1:Good for me. Lots of tools. Here we go when they get my toolbox at at church. You know, lots of extra credit those tools still work. They still work. Yeah, they still work dynamically. Do they work at church? No, because people are looking for a different set of tools than the one I got, you know, and that may be because I was in the cracks and crevices, you know, not utilizing the tools that were everybody was using in the dogma and all that kind of stuff yeah.
Speaker 1:And my relationship with God is very intimate, you know, because of the suffering that Kim and I have encountered with her illness, with the experiences that we've had in my life. You know levels of abuse that I took from grandma all that you know all that really really heavy, heavy stuff, Hard things Hard things, losing houses, all that you know those are hard things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it's. You know. I guess you know not to pat myself on the back in any way, but this reality of the solid person that you're seeing in front of you, that's really always been solid in my own way, even in like, in my most broken phases I'm probably more solid than, which probably alarms people at how established I can be when shit gets really, really bad, scares the crap out of people.
Speaker 2:it should.
Speaker 1:Just hope I don't aim it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Don't aim my solidness at you, because I'm in touch with God in those moments. So suffering is just a part of my vocabulary, part of my life. It's what I do. I mean, I get my greatest joy outside of family, at Jiu Jitsu. So if you don't think I like to suffer, yeah, you're fooled, because it's an hour and a half of rigorous suffering where you're trying not to die.
Speaker 2:So what a gift. You found that yeah. And my psychopathy in that like that's psychopathic behavior, but it is. It's meeting your shadow self.
Speaker 1:It's the most in touch. I've felt Like this is horrible. Why am I doing this? I'm doing this. I am doing this Like this is horrible and I love it. I love how horrific this is. I am overcoming death. I am overcoming someone trying to break my arm, break my foot, all that kind of stuff. It's dirty but it's crippling.
Speaker 1:It's like I said before, I got two broken fingers right now that I'm not telling Kim about Hopefully she's not listening to this podcast but just learning to adapt. Like I don't need to share my suffering, she does not need to dump my fingers or broken right now it does not matter, it's not relevant to what's going on, because is it going to stop me from going to jujitsu? No, I'm going to tape those fingers tight and I'm going to keep the fight up Again, tools that I learned through suffering at church, spiritual, metaphorical, physical. Now this is deeply physical world in jujitsu where it just is all suffering and overcoming suffering.
Speaker 2:Who said this line? It may have been Richard Rorson, but I think what we're trying to do, you and I, is we're trying to forgive reality for what it is. Oh, wow, it's not me saying that, that's okay.
Speaker 1:But let's close this out with more of your thoughts on that Forgiving reality for what it is, because I really do want to for the audience understand the context of where this conversation is. We are sitting in luxury while the world is in a spot right now where, if you're not thinking it might end. There's all that Christian dogma of is this the end? Not that this is what I think about, but we're eating steak.
Speaker 2:Living our best lives have left their homes and their lives and their people behind dead.
Speaker 1:Yes, that there isn't a single Palestinian anywhere in the world right now that does not have dozens of family members that they've lost. Grief, grief, grief, boom. So in the face of that.
Speaker 2:For what, too? For what Right?
Speaker 1:Let's not get lost in the political quagmire. The realities, though, of what you just shared, that say it again.
Speaker 2:Forgiving reality for what it is.
Speaker 1:For what it is Like. What does that mean to you?
Speaker 2:now. It means having a more expansive view of what God might be, what the world might be, what people might be, what I might be or not be. It's like a beautiful acceptance of the good, the bad and the ugly, and it's different than how I used to be, so I'm welcoming it Beautiful.
Speaker 1:Well, I love you.
Speaker 2:I love you, Michael. Thanks for forcing me to the mic.
Speaker 1:I didn't exactly force it, I just pulled your hair a little bit.
Speaker 2:I think I pulled the underarm hair too.
Speaker 1:We didn't talk about butt stuff or anything like that. It's so great that we didn't talk about shitting or erectile dysfunction. All right, people.
Speaker 2:I love you, take care.
Speaker 1:You say you like the weather, you have. You have Come on over here.
Speaker 2:You have Good afternoon, everybody, hi.