The Stand-Up Theologian
James Cary, BBC comedy writer, author and touring stand-up theologian is on a never-ending quest to understand comedy, the Bible, culture and the church.
The Stand-Up Theologian
Reading the Bible without distraction and with mindfulness? w/ Matt Searles
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Matt Searles is an author, songwriter and mindfulness teacher. We're talking about reading the Bible without devotionals or commentaries, and reflecting - and the perspicuity of scripture.
Buy Quiet Paths here. Listen on Spotify here. More info here.
The Bible Overbrew with Matt Searles and Rachel Redeemed is here.
And James wrote an e-book called Psalm Psupplement.
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Find out about my touring show, God the Bible and Everything (in 60 minutes) and get in touch via my website.
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Or email me in gmail now you can see how to spell Wycliffe...
Hello there, welcome to the Stand Up Theologian Podcast. My name is James Carey. I'm the Stand Up Theologian. And how about this for a book title?
SPEAKER_00Some some vaguely mostly helpful, generally not heretical, but sometimes thoughts on John's gospel. That's what a book should be titled. But then in itself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, funny that. Who am I talking to? I'm talking to my friend Matt Searles, and well, so in the back of your Quiet Paths book, there's a very short biologue which says that Matt Searles is an author, songwriter, and mindfulness teacher.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01That's right, we're going to talk about mindfulness eventually via the practice of reading the Bible, what it really means. Sometimes we try to find the text behind the text, the perspicuity of scripture, they call it. That's all to come. Hope you enjoy this one. Here we go. Matt Searles, welcome to the Stand Up Theologian Podcast. Great to be with you. You are the author of several books, including the excellent lion book, God's story, The Bible Explained, which really is brilliant, listeners. A number of devotional books on the Psalms, as well as you're a podcaster and YouTuber. If you want a whole Bible overview, you've got to go to the Bible Overbrew and listen and watch Matt Searles' uh podcast, vodcast. It's just podcasts now, isn't it? There's no distinction between podcasts and vodcasts.
SPEAKER_00I think we just say podcast and assume people will, yeah. And then everyone watches on YouTube anyway.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You're also a songwriter, record producer, and you've now put together another book and I called Quiet Paths. And why have I said put together and not written?
SPEAKER_00I know. Um put together because it is um I've curated that I've I've I've been I've spent all my life longing to curate something. You know, I I curated a sandwich earlier, but um what it is is um a selection of readings. I have that thing where first thing in the morning, open my Bible, you know, get a coffee, open my Bible, and there's too many words, there's too many chapters, there's too much decision. It's sort of Netflix doom scrolling Bible version of what am I going to read this morning? And so uh Quiet Paths is uh is really a collection of daily readings, one short reading for the day with lots of blank space around it. So that's you know, March the second was a bit of Genesis 3. That's what that's what you read. Basically, assuming there'll be people like me who can easily be so distracted or overwhelmed that they open the Bible, it's too much, then shut it again. So just something that says, hey, here's a reading for the day, here's some prayers you might want to pray, just to try and make it really accessible and easy. So it's not got sort of devotional content. Um there's no thought, there's no exegesis, there's no explanation, there's no comment, none of that. Just the passage and some prayers surrounding it.
SPEAKER_01So you could have called it something like Bible raw, Bible unleashed, Bible unpacked, oh no, all those kind of things. So I take it you're not against devotionals because you've written some of those too. In fact, I think you've got another one about the Beatitudes. Uh, am I right?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, Lent Devotional on the Beatitudes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, so that's what yeah, most of I've done probably five uh devotionals of that sort of more typical style where there's a passage set, you read the passage, and then there's 300 words, 400 words or so of devotional comment and perhaps a prayer and a little mini reflection. Um absolutely up for that. Enjoy doing it, enjoy reading them. But I think what I what really kind of pushed me towards this was just trying to read the gospel slowly. Um, I think it was Matthew's gospel, kind of chapters 10, 11, 12, and I just trying to read a little bit at a time and just let it just sort of sit with it, think about it, try not to rush on. And so often actually do you just spend time with God's word, just in that kind of open receptive way, just seeing things, you know, hearing the Lord speak, reflecting, in a way that it sometimes the temptation can be, I sort of right, read the Bible bit, good, quick, that's done. Now read the devotional thing, and now I get to the the thing I need to think about, and I do that, and and the whole thing can be a little bit kind of sausage, um, you know, kind of sausage machine. Just just start, finish, we're done, rather than here's five verses from scripture, just sit with these for a bit in the presence of the Lord. And so it was really something I was starting to do, and basically started put putting together things for myself, various printouts, various bits of audio, and gradually thought, I think, firstly, I would actually much rather hold a book in my hands than various scrappy printouts. So for me, it would be nice. Maybe other people might benefit from something that actually, in a sense, gives them the scriptures and really lets them have that, yeah, that opportunity just to reflect and let the scriptures shine rather than the devotional comment potentially overshadow or or push out the scripture.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So one thing you've done there is you've created the book that you would actually like to read, which I think is an excellent approach to a book. And I think this podcast always has a little bit of an eye to independent creators making stuff, and so it does help. So one of the reasons I wrote Carrie's Almanac is a blog now, which for the last two and a bit years talks about different days within the Christian calendar, is I've always struggled to find a book that does that, particularly from an Anglican faith perspective, as opposed to a Wiccan witch perspective, or a um social sociology perspective, or something like that. So I've got plenty of books over there on my shelf, the seasons and it's it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00You Google seasons, and I've done I've I've done that actually in quiet paths, have tried to reflect the seasons of the year with with what scriptures we've chosen. But you Google seasons and and witchcraft is is is always just a click away.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Even when you look at quarter days and cross-quarter days, so quarter days, the world is the world, the the calendar is typically divided into four, and the first quarter day, well technically is Lady Day on the 25th of March, and then three months later, the midsummer day, which has I think St. John the Baptist's uh day, and then or St. John's Day, and then Michaelmas is the 21st or 29th or something of September. See, I can't even remember it and annoys me. And Christmas is the fourth one, and so and then you have cross-quarter days, and one of them is Candlemass, halfway between Christmas and Lady Day, and and that kind of thing. You start Googling that, you hit you hit witchcraft really quick, don't you? And suddenly you're told, Oh, this is the ancient pre-Christian festival of Sam Hain, and the books I now read from real experts in Anglo-Saxon culture and that kind of stuff, they say, We have no idea about pre-Christian culture, nothing. The confident assertion assertion that this thing or that thing predates Christianity in England has almost never any kind of factual basis at all, which is interesting. And I think it's sort of very secular uh academics who also say stuff like that, or people who've got the chops to get away with it. So that's always really interesting. So I I now do this weekly thing called Carey's Almanac, which is a different day of the year, and and what you've created is a book that is giving you what you want, which is scripture on its own with some reflection, no, not with some ways of thinking about it in terms of liturgy at the start. For each month, there's a different little bit there as a daily liturgy, call to worship, opening prayer, confession, so that you can pray. So this is uh just a way of uh having a daily devotional that is scripture and prayer rather than someone else's interpretation and input. Here's my big question how do you do it? Okay, uh if I was this, I feel like Odysseus with the sirens who needs to be lashed to a mast in order not to reach for a commentary or what someone else has written, or some Bible notes that say, Well, why does it say this and not that? And why is it this and not that? I need to explain this. This verse, this word keeps coming up, and I don't understand why it's this. When it says this word, is that the same as that word? But it's translated in two different ways because they seem quite connected to me. I can't switch it off. I can't switch it off. No, welcome to my brain. So, how do you do it then? Because you've got the I've you know, I've got the book in my hands. Do I have to tie myself to a chair, essentially, with just the book?
SPEAKER_00One of the reasons, actually, that I have done the book, but also there's an audio, which is a podcast, Quiet Paths, just Quiet Paths Podcast, all the all the podcast platforms, where me together with a friend Rachel Redeemed, um, we read it is just it's just the book in audio form. So I read the prayers from the liturgy, she does the reading for the day, um, and then I conclude with the sort of the the concluding parts of the liturgy, takes about eight to ten minutes. If you actually just read start to finish through the book, it would probably take about three to four. So we've hit eight to ten, and we've just put pauses in. And so that what I quite like is first thing in the morning, it's just kind of open my podcast app, it's there at the top, hit play, and so long as I've got nothing else uh around me other than the the mug of coffee, actually, what will happen is I'll be guided through prayers. There will be a at least a minute silence after the reading, there'll be silences here and there, and that helps me, even the blank page around the readings. We've got one reading per page in the book. You could easily have more than that, but just trying to do everything to really really it's to help me do what I want to do, but I'm not very good at. I I think of it a bit like going to the gym. Like you you basically don't need a gym to exercise. People you it is possible people managed it before gyms existed. You could just run to the gym, you could run to the gym, you could run on the spot, you could all sorts of things. But the gym is basically saying it's something you want to do, but it's it's trying to create conditions that will help you do that. And so, I don't know if that's a helpful analogy, but that's that's what I see the book as like. And so for me, the audio all the more so because I'm just listening, and what comes is a prayer, and then some time for reflection, and then there's a reading and then some time for reflection. And assuming I haven't got any other books, I'm not I'm not tempted to read on because often the passage stops not where we expect it to. I've done something which I think might well be illegal. So we'll have to we'll have to check. I think it might be illegal. I sometimes stop the passage before you get the next NIV subheading. Oh wow, that's huge, huge red flag. Whether uh whether or not that means I'm cancelled. Because actually, sometimes there's quite a lot in one of those little pericope, big word for you there. One of those those little sections between the you know the NIV kind of bold subheadings. There can be quite a lot. And so sometimes let's just let's just pause part part way rather than getting all the way to the end and potentially everything sort of closing off and finishing, and maybe just letting something hang. Maybe a phrase of Jesus, Jesus says midway, and we'll just get there and then leave it at that. And what I often find is the very last thing that I've heard or read is what I then think about. And so sometimes just in a f in a sense, I've stopped the passage for people for myself, and hopefully, therefore leaving something interesting um to be thought of rather than the temptation, which is when I've got my Bible open, I just want to read onto the next bit, read onto the next bit. I've probably got some little notes in the margin. There might be, depending on my Bible, there might be little notes saying, Oh, see Luke's gospel where there's a similar parable, and suddenly that kind of churning, busy brain has begun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so really I'm trying to just help myself slow down and go, it's okay to just have the scripture without without commentary, yeah, without explanation, without devotional thought. I may well finish my time and go, I didn't get all of that. That's okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. There's there's an outside chance you will read it again at some point in your life. That's one of the things that I put in some Pathfinder notes. So I've I've knocked out Pathfinder notes for my kids. There's just a huge lack of notes for leaders of 11s to 14s. So I essentially write our own notes for church. But one of the things I say is you don't need to teach the kids everything from this passage because if they're 12, God willing, they will read Joshua chapter 2 again in their lives, and Lord very willing, possibly 30 or 40 times in their lives, actually, uh, if if not five or ten. So there's that sense of rinsing it and the tick box thing which we like, which is I now understand Mark chapter two, so I don't need to read it again. And that is completely antithetical to a way of understanding or experiencing scripture, and although I was going to ask a couple of other questions before we got there, this feels like the right moment to dive into historical experiences of scripture in terms of dwelling in the word. There were things like books of hours and um breviaries and those sorts of things. How have you sort of looked back at that tradition and sort of taken the best from it or just reimagined it for the 20 21st century?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I th I I think it began possibly even during my Anglican ordination training when I spent some time with a a quite a sort of high kind of Catholic sort of Anglican who had a sort of a prayer book with all the readings and prayers, and and there was just something quite kind of just turning to the turning to the page for the day, and there there was everything. There was something that was just quite appealing about that, just taking away that there's that decision fatigue that I mentioned before, a bit like the sort of the Netflix doom scrolling. Um the first half an hour of your morning devotion is choosing what to read for your morning devotion, by which point it it it's time to go. So like trying to find something to watch on Netflix.
SPEAKER_01Your first hour of Netflix is finding what to watch on Netflix.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and and really, I mean, that is a kind of a tradition. I mean, book books of hours were more for the monks with the the set prayers for and readings for different hours of the days. That was less, they were less sort of popular books, but then a breviary was the kind of um the more we're not we're not talking mass production here because we're sort of middle ages still, but it still pretty popular books for sort of lay people with with readings chosen, and just the idea that it's a kind of a one-stop shop, you've got you've got everything. Um each day I'd love to spend some time in adoration of God, I'd love to confess my sins, um, I'd love to hear words of assurance, I'd love to have the opportunity to pray for a whole shed load of things for the day ahead. I'd love to be reminded of God's grace, and I'd love to hear God's word. Can all that happen in one i in one place? And that's that's what some of these breveries and books of hours did back in the day. I mean, back in the day, the I've got a book of books of hours, and that there was some of the illuminated manuscripts we know were often they a lot of time went into them. But the more popular versions were essentially just trying to give you one one book that would would give you what you need. And so that was sort of the in the this is not supposed to be exactly a modern breviary, but the I the vision behind Quiet Pass was thinking if someone's busy, they could just sling this slim book, it's a fairly small format book in their bag, find a bit of time just before work, or they pull into a lay by or somewhere and just open it. There's some prayers, there's a reading. Um, even just even just having your whole Bible with you the whole time can be quite cumbersome if you're sort of out and about, or you're on your phone, which I just find it too easy to be distracted by, you know, I open my phone and before you know it, WhatsApp's open, you know, whatever, and you just t tech is screaming at you for attention.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so to have it all in one book was was very much the goal. Just I again, just the sort of things I want to do, but find it hard to try and make that easier.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I guess we do think when we look back at our spiritual forebeds, we do possibly think, okay, you may have had cholera, but it at least it was easier to pay attention to God's word. And you know, four of your kids might have not made it to adulthood, but you didn't have Instagram reels distracting you from reading uh the scriptures, and those guys really reflected hard. I've just been going back, and uh, it's a revelation to me. William Perkins, I'm reading on the Ten Commandments, and what he's able to help you think of from the first commandment alone, which is short, the first commandments, the Ten Commandments is short, and he fills it out in a way that doesn't feel like a stretch or an interpretation, merely it also means this, it also means that. And so, in one sense, that's a devotional, but it's not really, it is just training your mind to think of what does scripture mean? What how can we dwell on it? And I think going back to uh an earlier question I was hoping to ask you, let's talk about the perspicuity of scripture. Because I think again, with our enlightenment brains, and I often end up hearing myself or writing the phrase, we've been blinded by the enlightenment, we have to understand what we're reading, and if we don't understand it, it drives us crazy. We look at the Bible, think that's hard to understand, and immediately start trying to explain it and understand it, and almost find the text behind the text. So, like what I'm reading is code to get rid of the time wasters, and if I get the key and unlock the code, I'll understand what Mark II is really about. I just keep grabbing Mark II randomly, but it's that doesn't seem right to me. On one level, the the scriptures withstand that level of scrutiny, and they do unlock great treasures the more you time time you spend in them. But it feels to me like we have lost this confidence in scripture itself because if you read scripture itself, it isn't actually that complicated. There are some names that we don't recognise, but the sense of it is not hard, is it?
SPEAKER_00No, and to also depending on where you go, you don't need to go to the hardest place. Um, and so again, that's one of the things that you know has has sort of lain behind choosing the readings for quiet paths, is is trying to choose scriptures that actually aren't the ones that you basically need a theological education before you can you you can start to make progress on. You know, that the the texts that have been debated throughout the history of the church, there are some of those, there are some complex ones. There's a lot that's just quite straightforward and um much more easily accessible. And so one of the things I've tried to do is is choose those texts because it's it's not mastery of Mark's gospel that we're going for. We're actually mastery of any part of scripture. We're never to we're to be mastered by scripture rather than the other way around. And just because there's a verse in there that we find tricky doesn't mean that should sort of become the the the sort of the centre of gravity that pulls all our attention. Often I just I mean I I do this when I teach on the Psalms. People say, Oh, I can't read the Psalms because what about those those nasty imprecatory psalms where you know you call cursing on your enemies and dash their heads against the rocks and that kind of thing? Um, and I just say, Well, let's let's call that about seven of the hundred and fifty. So leave those, study the other 143 for a year or two, yeah, and then come back, and probably but by doing that, you'll actually be better placed to do those hard ones.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But the idea that I can't start unless I can do the hardest one, uh actually just go, yeah, lots of lots of the Bible, we just we don't, it's not, yeah, it's not some code. We can read a passage from the gospels, see Jesus interacting with people, um, and think, what blows my mind about Jesus here? That'd be a great question. Yeah, um, and and it doesn't need more complexity than that. It's funny, I find myself both wanting to hold two things. I believe in um God gifting Bibles teachers to the church. So I do think there is a role for preaching. I do think there's a role for those who have a gift of teaching. Um in one says I I hope I do because I preached twice yesterday. And um I I write books as in. So I do think there's a place for that. That is part of how God has gifted the body. But some people have particular roles to do more teaching, and that can be helpful and beneficial, but the danger is you end up basically saying the Bible can only be interpreted through this, let's call them priestly types of people. Yeah, um, and and and you get into a really dangerous place. Um, and I mean it what's been really interesting with Quiet Paths has already been the response because I've had some people go, I love the fact that it's just the Bible. I've had some people go, I struggled with the fact that it was just the Bible. I read it and then was like searching under every cushion in the house. There must be some devotional comment to go with this somewhere, but I couldn't find it. But in the end I realised, ha, actually I got that impulse got corrected. That's been really helpful.
SPEAKER_01Which is great, because you didn't have to issue a refund, which is good.
SPEAKER_00No, but some people have said, what's this? Where's the devotional comment? I was expecting devotional comment. Next time, please can we have a devotional comment? I've got these readings in my Bible. What's the point of this? So it's really interesting the different responses. Okay. I think just maybe suggesting that there's this kind of and I again I believe in devotional books and I can find it really helpful, particularly first thing in the morning. And yeah, but just realizing that perhaps there's a default mode, which is the thought of listening to scripture on a journey might be unusual. Listening to sermons on a journey. Oh yeah, people do that, maybe. But just realizing, yeah, we can we can listen to scripture, we won't get everything, but that's okay. But yeah, the yeah, the clarity, the perspicuity of scripture that God God speaks to be understood. I I'll be honest, pretty much every time I read the scriptures, and I spent most of my adult life studying the scriptures and teaching them, there'll be things I don't understand, but there'll be things I do understand and hear the Lord speaking and have my heart lifted to him and have my faith challenged and strengthened. And if yeah, if we make understanding, perfect understanding the goal, that that's become, in a sense, something in the way of our communion with God.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I'm I'm with you on the the sort of enlightenment danger that that kind of rational understanding becomes the goal. Yeah, I'll be honest. I you know, I'd slightly like a moratorium on Christians publishing books that have the word unlocking in the title. Or even rediscovering, unless it's something that really has but but you know, when you get books kind of unlocking this particular book of scripture or or rediscovering the Trinity, or I hope that's not a book title. I'm not trying to get anyone in particular, but yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_01No, but that it's it was.
SPEAKER_00But just the idea of what? So no one no one knows who God is until we get this book. No one can read this gospel until Ooh, I'm really cautious about that. Whiff of Gnosticism there, isn't there? Some some vaguely mostly helpful, generally not heretical, but sometimes thoughts on John's gospel. That's what our book should be titled. But they don't sell.
SPEAKER_01Non-heresy on John.
SPEAKER_00Mostly non-heresy on John.
SPEAKER_01To the best of my knowledge, to the best of my limited flawed knowledge, this book is relatively heresy-free. Yeah. No, I I think that's right. The unlocking business is a real concern because I mean, in particular, and I I think most of our friends would agree with us, and so therefore we're we're slightly straw manning here, but there is a sense of the moment a passage of scripture seems to start meaning the opposite of what it appears to mean, I'm always a little bit nervous. So I'm a big fan of typology, and I've probably banged on about it on this podcast before, but actually, typology is using scripture to interpret itself. So when this uses this word is used, or this scene, or this idea, and we've seen it three times before, once in Exodus and twice in Genesis, though those are kind of echoes there which are which we must be alive to. But when somebody uh has other ancient Near Eastern texts and archaeological evidence to demonstrate that King Xerxes in Esther, the whole book is actually about his invasion of Greece, and once you see it in this, Esther makes complete sense. Then it would be in Esther. He didn't, and it isn't, so it's not, so get over it. And I've just been writing about Esther recently. Um, so I'm gonna produce not it's not really devotional, it's sort of a weird commentary type thing called What's So Funny About Esther, particularly working out why is it so funny because it is funny, and one of the reasons it's so funny is because it's not very difficult to understand, just a bog standard surface reading of the story is funny, yeah. But I mean, particularly when Haman's walking into the presence of the emperor to say, This Mordecai guy, I can string him up, right? That's fine. And he is immediately confronted with what should I do to a faithful servant? Oh, I think you should lead him out. Yeah, can you do that for uh Mordecai, please? Yes, yes, sure. So what is it, what is it you wanted, Heyman? Nothing. Um the the dramatic timing and turnaround that is is astonishing. So just reading it out loud, like I always say, the funniest chapter to me in scripture is John chapter 9, the healing of the man born blind. It's it just sounds like an episode of Fraser. If you just it's just people running in and out having misunderstandings and trying to do this and that, and it's just out laugh out loud, funny, if you just read it out loud. You don't need to understand behind it any great complicated historical context or anything like that. But a lot of scripture's not like that, it's uh you know, let's be honest, but yeah, this sense of we need the experts to tell us what it really means rather than just sitting under it. One thing I used to do on the rare occasions that I do preach is try to write out the passage by hand at least, and then write notes on that so that I've just had my own look at the passage before I then start reaching for commentaries and those sorts of things. And we all know that commentaries never tell you about the bits that you really don't understand. Why are there six stone water jars at the uh water interwine? The commentaries don't tell you. I really want to know, and there is there's nothing, and so there are always those very strange things. Hello, this is the mid-episode break in which I wibble on about things that I'm up to or may have referred to already. I've referred to a devotional that I wrote called The Psalm Supplement, and I'm writing another one on Esther, which is not really devotional, as I mentioned. But if you want to keep in touch with all of that stuff, then go over to the Wycliffe Papers, and that's the place where you'll find out what I'm up to, what I've done, what's coming next, what you can buy that I've written that is not available any shops because I can't be bothered to get it into the shops. That's all a bit too much. And I'm actually also going to be focusing on a new project coming up, which is a book and a project called Field Notes from a sitcom writer. I'm writing a sitcom script that is a studio sitcom, and I'm going to attempt to have it read out in front of TV people. And I'm writing a book about the process of it, and there'll be a Kickstarter for that book. So stand by for all of those things. Go on over to the Witcliffe papers to get constantly updated and also get lots of extra jokes, and that's where you can support this podcast, which I would really appreciate. You could become a loyal lollard and then get access to uh Zoom chats as well, bonus content, lots of other things, sneak previews, videos that I make, all that would be much appreciated. Do go and check out Matt Selda's stuff as well. There'll be links in the show notes to the things that he's been up to. You are sensing he's a bit of a self-starting kindred spirit of mine, so it's great to talk to him. And you know what? I think we should get back to it because I'm about to ask him about mindfulness. Yeah, listen on. So, you I'd imagine have been on a bit of a journey in the sense that we have done a lot of the same things and lived in a lot of the same crowds, and we we used to go to the same sort of camps and go to the same sorts of churches, and we've now not exactly deviated from that tradition at all, but the fact is you've reached this stage within your own spiritual life as well, which is kind of running out and you're producing CDs of psalms and those sorts of things. You've sort of gone what what what happened? Why are you following this thing? Because it because it would just be a lot easier to be a vicar, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_00Uh uh yeah, in many ways it would. Uh in many ways it wouldn't. Um I mean, like so many things are multiple explanations. I mean, partly it's just I've had some health struggles. Okay, and so I was uh associate pastor in a church, uh, and then had to pause that when I got unwell. That led me into doing further study, which led me into training roles, but then at that with that came some kind of writing. I I'm sure some of its personality just I I've got that kind of I'll just give something a go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So mu musically, it was when my mum mum died, I wrote a song and based on Psalm 30, which is the psalm I kept on turning to. That got performed at her funeral by uh yeah, a friend and um my sister-in-law, and then someone said, Oh, that was really helpful to reflect on the psalm musically. Have you done any more of those? And I kind of thought, Oh, that and and and really so the music came from there. So so partly it's just kind of seeing what the Lord's laid laid in front of me. I think temperamentally I am not a sort of follower. Um I hope I'm not a kind of a kind of trust. Contrarian. Just a contrarian. Yeah. What I've what I've sought to do generally, it's interesting what you said about writing a book that I I need. That's essentially what I've basically done all my ministry.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That the songs I wrote were songs that just writing them helped me and listening to them helps me. And and with books as well, things that uh have been sort of helping me. I I can't remember who it was, some creative, possibly not even the Christian world, basically said, none of us are so unique, actually, as we think. But the wonderful thing is if you basically make something or create something that sort of works for you, there's a good chance there'll be a bunch of people out there who you know. So don't try and write a book for everybody out there. Yeah, try and write the book that you absolutely need to read because probably worldwide there's enough people like you to make it worth doing. Yeah, and so s it's been sort of a a whole combination of factors of some health up and down things, actually writing in and creating things sort of from the quiet of my own desk, yeah, rather than as a busy vicar with a phone going constantly, has been helpful. As well as I think just a yeah, temperamentally, yeah. Um, just because folks in sort of circles I've grown up in don't tend to do prayer books with liturgies.
SPEAKER_01And also there's that sense of the conservative evangelical world is quite um people think, well, what am I supposed to do here? How do I do this? What do other people do? It is quite conformist, and that's partly because there's a lot of Oxbridge influence, which is that kind of elite credentializing, sound people, all that kind of stuff, which has upsides in terms of being quite a high trust network, it has downsides in terms of covering things up, and there have been some big safeguarding uh issues around that, which have been really truly horrifying. But it is quite a um it is quite its own thing, and therefore, if you are wanting to think, well, can I just produce a CD of psalms that have been set to music? Who some people say, Well, who do I ask to do that? And I think you and I are similar in the sense of, well, I'll just do that. I just like there's there's not one single one part of the process that I can't either do myself or find someone else to do. And so, for example, Quiet Paths, you you've published this book yourself, no one asked you to do it. You gave yourself permission to do it, you figured it out, you had it printed. It's beautiful, it's you know, you've done a terrific job on it, it's nicely set, it's just a beautiful thing, and that so there's an element of not asking permission, and so I'm I'm always heartened to speak to a like-minded person who just says, I'm just gonna do it. I think that's all right, isn't it? And and and people I really respect will tell me if I'm crazy, and I might listen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I'll be honest with with music, I'll be honest, there's quite a bit of pushback initially. The sort of the gatekeepers of the UK evangelical music world were pretty negative about my music and the fact that I was recording it and doing it, and um pretty outright for some.
SPEAKER_01Um what in what sense of like you don't know what you're doing, or other people are doing this, or setting psalms to music, actual words of scripture to music that fueled Puritanism for a century. That sounds good, doesn't it? I can't see a case against that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, was I the right person to do it? I you know, some people say psalms, you know, oh, but you know, what about all the dashing babies on rocks? You don't want psalms? I mean, there was a number of different things. Um, it was interesting, it was just a couple of Americans who um I kind of basically mentioned to who I barely knew um and got some warm responses back. And pretty much that's what tipped me over the edge and thought I'm just gonna do this.
SPEAKER_01Can do Americans, they're gonna do Americans. They're frontier people.
SPEAKER_00Hey, great, you're giving this a go. Love that, brilliant, all the best. And and actually that was that was amazing. Yeah, um, I I do think, particularly musically, I I don't think I'm massively musically gifted. I think what I am is um more prepared than most to give it a go. I I think that's what uh genuinely, I think there's so many people out there who are far more musically gifted, but just probably have had no one give them permission. And I've not, yeah, temperamentally I I haven't felt the need to wait for that in the same way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um I mean it can be it can be, don't get me wrong, can you know it can be frustrating this morning's just being racking my head around why on earth am I trying to publish a book? Like it's just you know, wrangling with Amazon kind of settings and uh fundraising and budgets and typography and thinking, why am I doing this again? Yeah. Um so uh yeah, yeah, been there in that sense, much easier being a Vicar. Um I say that it's not easy being a Vicar, I wouldn't want to. No, it isn't, it isn't it's much easier, like when I worked at a theological college, much easier just being in a set thing with a salary that comes in each month with uh things you're supposed to do rather than a bit of a kind of a more freelance model.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So and I I I think I'm I remember years ago um sitting with actually someone you'll know uh well as well, Ed Drew, um uh children's worker, and he had just preached a sermon and basically said something like, Oh man, I hated that. That was really hard. Um I'm not gonna get exactly right on a misquote, but basically just realizing that something that I quite enjoyed, this guy who I massively respected and still do found hard, but the sort of things he can do, I'm like, oh my goodness, I could never do that. And just realizing we were good friends but gifted differently, and that's okay, yeah, was just transformative and realizing rather than kind of spending all my life worrying about the things I can't do very well, like I think I'll be a terrible vicar, just because for a whole number of reasons, just sort of resilience and all sorts, but I think there's other ways I can particularly serve, and just realizing we are all wired up differently, and that's a wonderful thing. And so some of my friends say, How how can you write books? And I'm like, How can you pastor a church? Yeah, just realizing we're all different, yeah, and Jesus calls us to you know to seek first his kingdom as the people we are in the situations we're in. Yeah, um, for some that means Christian work, for many that means secular work. What it means is different for different people. I think realizing that that I don't need to try to be what I think a a good Christian looks like in my world is actually really liberating.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And it's almost like we're meant to be different, like we're all different parts of one body working together. I mean, they should that's a great analogy. I know it is, yeah, yeah, they should definitely put that in the Bible. Yeah, they should do. Well, let's go one step further then, because you've pushed into something which I would say, from a Christian point of view, I've previously been a little bit skeptical of, and that is the word mindfulness. So in the back of your Quiet Paths book, there's a very short biogue which says that Matt Searles is an author, songwriter, and mindfulness teacher.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Living in I pr I presume that isn't predictive text or the algorithm inserting words that that aren't there.
SPEAKER_00So I just put I just put into AI, write something nice about me. Yeah. And yeah, invented a family and various other things for me. Named my kids.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's right. So tell me tell me about mindfulness because I I would previously have described it. I'll just be honest and say this is this is basically saying it's like praying, but without Jesus. So what's the point? And that's my uncharitable version of mindfulness, which is non-Christians who practice mindfulness, I would say, you should totally think about becoming a Christian because all of the things that you want are real and available through Christ.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, having said that, having lived a bit longer, I also realize there are some things that we've already acknowledged, our own theological uh biblical church tradition does not do well. And mindfulness, reflection, uh shutting up and having a think is not one of them, says the guy with a podcast. So do you want to say, do you want to say a little bit about mindfulness?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, one of the other things I've spent a lot of my time in theological education studying and then teaching. And so part of what I want to do is is to help help Christians engage with things. I will probably read things that I wouldn't, well, I'll definitely read things I wouldn't recommend to everybody because I feel I've along the way got some of the tools to discern and all the rest of it. So some of the theology books on my shelves wouldn't all be ones I'd recommend. So I'm prepared to read more widely and and that that kind of thing, uh partly so I can then work out what's helpful and hopefully sort of serve the church in that way. I'll be honest, mindfulness wasn't so much through that as just something that I just sort of turned to personally. I'd I read a book, The Body Keeps the Score, which is about kind of the embodiment of emotions and trauma, and uh found that really helpful. And then at the at the end it had kind of further resources and it had quite a lot on mindfulness, and I thought, well, okay, I I'm just gonna follow this rabbit trail and see. So started reading this book, Mindfulness by Mark Williams and Danny Penman. As it happens, I think Mark Williams, who is professor of mindfulness at Oxford University, I take it that means he's pretty good at it. Like, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think he's an Anglican lay reader.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_00No, he doesn't shout about that. I think I read that somewhere and it's sort of anyway. Yeah, I was finding this helpful, but having the sort of the theological tools to dissect it and uh and not be led astray. And I thought, well, I'd I'd like to investigate this more, so I yeah, to a course the trainers and mindfulness teacher. What mindfulness is essentially is a kind of a present moment awareness, yeah, a kind of non-judgmental awareness of what's going on right now. The three-minute sort of history of it is um an American psychologist, psychiatrist, something medical, I don't know his exact title. He was teaching up in Massachusetts um medical center, John Cabot Zinn, was doing all this kind of therapy with patients, and thought, hey, all that kind of Eastern stuff that I'm aware of, like breathing um and uh sitting still and a whole load of things. He thought, I wonder if this kind of thing might be helpful for my patients. So he went and studied it for 10 years in quite a scientific way. Right. So a lot of Buddhist practices, he basically analyzed them from a scientific point of view and worked out they work, they have psychological, observable, testable benefits, and really out of that the modern secular mindfulness movement was born, which which has got that largely medical sort of evidence-based side to it, even though it's drawing on practices that have been found within Buddhism. Things like breathing, things like being in the present, not forever ruminating on the past or worrying about the future, things like actually living somewhat small, not having to be the center and the master of all things, but accepting a fairly small place in quite a big universe, not having to be in control all the same, all the all the time, the importance of bodies rather than just being brains on sticks. And as I as I kind of was looking at this list, I was thinking, I think what's being listed here to a large degree is basically a biblical account of what it is to be human, um, biblical anthropology, um, the fact that we are not in control, the fact that we can't change the past nor know the future, all we have access to is the present, the fact that breathing is quite important, maybe you know, we could we could talk about Holy Spirit breath, and that that maybe that link is is harder to make. The embodiment, so much of it is actually just who God has made us as Christians. Um, so what the modern secular mindfulness, so a lot of Christians go mindfulness, oh it's Buddhist. Would I want to become a Buddhist? No, I'm gonna run a mile from that. I totally understand that. I don't want anyone becoming a mudd a Buddhist, not a Christian. I'm a Christian first and foremost. I love Jesus. I want all I do to help me in service of him. But actually, what if some of the things that were being practiced by Buddhists have now been investigated by scientists, John Cabotzin in in America, and then Mark Williams in Oxford, he was actually an Aberistwith um probably at the time, have really done deep scientific, evidence-based study into all these practices and realized they work. Yeah. As a Christian, we can say, well, firstly, they they work, but that's that's fine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but actually what do you mean work? W work for who and in what way?
SPEAKER_00Well, they have psychological, observable psychological benefits.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Great. Um, but a Christian can can say far more than that, actually paying attention to our bodies doesn't just work psychologically, it is how God has made us. And actually, and so what what I'm wanting to do in my own sort of mindfulness practice is is think, do you know what? What if some folks over in the you know, in kind of the far east and sort of within a Buddhist culture, now some of these folks in a secular medical culture are just better at living out some of what it means to be human biblically than some Christians?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I need to be careful not to summarize very complex history too quickly, but interestingly, that Western Christianity has lived through the Enlightenment. Ta-da! There we go. There we go again, ring that bell again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What if Western Christianity has unwittingly been influenced by the Enlightenment more than we thought, such that thinky thinky thinky Christianity, do do do Christianity, um, a slightly kind of hold a tight grip lest we get it wrong, Christianity has has sort of developed. That's not to write off Western Christianity, but just there might be some aspects of biblical um sort of humanity. Our bodies are important, our feelings are important, we can't change the past, control the future, all we can do is be in the present. If some of those might have been sort of turned down in Western Christianity, in part due to enlightenment kind of thinking, which really focuses on the rational and the cognitive. I I think again, I want to be really careful not to summarize complex things. But if you were to kind of if you were to say what sort of Christianity might be produced by a really enlightenment, modern influence society, you'd probably get some of the Christian world that I've grown up in.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And interestingly, that so head over to um some of the Buddhist countries and cultures where that enlightenment hasn't happened and hasn't influenced things as much. Maybe there's some practices there that have sort of continued that were probably there in medieval and whatever society beforehand, but sort of slightly just petered out a little bit. But over in the east, such realizing bodies matter, breath matters, the present moment matters, we're not in control, we're quite small, all these kind of things. Um, that that sort of continued. Sorry, this is a long answer basically saying I think that lots of what goes under the name mindfulness, some of it, by the way, mindfulness is a non-regulated word.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Anybody, and I mean anybody, can call themselves a mindfulness teacher. My dog can advertise on the internet as a mindfulness teacher, and no one can say no, you're not. There is literally no accreditation.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, there are some you know suggested guidelines, but anyone can claim mindfulness, and that's the danger, is that you pick up a book on mindfulness, it could be anything. Yeah, because lots of it might be leading people away from Jesus. Yeah, but I think there's a significant part of what the modern secular mindfulness is all about that is really just what is it to be human and what practices might help us to live in light of what it means to be human? And I think as a Christian, we might say, and these might be helpful to live as humans and even live for Christ. And so I've taught sessions on mindfulness for Christian disciples. If we come to the scriptures with a very busy, busy mind thinking, I am basically a problem solver. Yeah, I am an intellectual problem solver, and then I come to the scriptures. It's what we sort of saw, you know, when you were talking about we just see the the scriptures a problem to be fixed and a code to be solved. But what if actually biblically that isn't really what we are? We are, you know, be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Psalm 131 My heart is not lifted up, I don't concern myself with great things too wonderful for me. I've quite calmed and quietened my soul, like a weaned child with its mother. You hear calmed and quietened my soul, and and people think, oh, that's a bit woo-woo. No, no, that's in the Psalms. Be still before the Lord. Oh, no, no, that that literally that's what Psalm 37 says. But it's maybe in some areas of Christianity, some of these things, embodiment, um, are much less um prominent. And actually, it's by noticing some of these things in the mindfulness tradition that you go, oh, actually, yeah, biblically bodies do matter, and some of the practices they do to help you realize that Christians could do those to the glory of God. Actually, present moment matters, that's profoundly biblical. Do not worry about tomorrow, for each day has enough trouble of its own. That's a live in the present moment thing, but actually, maybe some of the mindfulness people have just worked that out into practice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, and I'm I'm not surprised that you've sort of discovered this because you have been drinking deeply from the psalms for many years, and all of the things that you have been saying just seem rooted in the psalms, and the psalms were the engine of not necessarily the Reformation, but the post-Reformation Puritan movement and those who went off to uh discover um or uh uh colonize America and have that can-do attitude that says, Yeah, sure, produce some records on the psalms, why not? Um, so and I think they they describe life as it is, as we experience it, rather than as we should be aiming for, overly cranked for production, which is what I am, which is what my culture is, which is all about efficiency. All of the efficiency stuff I listen to now, like deep work with Cal Newport and people like that, it's all about do fewer things, do them well, do less, switch off your phone, stop being interrupted. And I guess this takes us back uh to where we started, uh he says, frantically trying to land the plane uh at the end of the podcast, to just read the Bible, what it actually says, his the Lord's Spirit will be with you as you do that, and pay attention to how you feel about it. The question that I often end up asking, and which is actually what we used to talk about on the Cooper and Carey podcast back in the day, was why don't I want to believe this? What's in my way? Why why don't why is this not good news to me when it is clearly good news? I'm particularly asking that uh as I go through the Ten Commandments, I think. And during during Lent, I'm reading out loud Exodus 20 every single day, or at least the Ten Commandments bit, so that I and I'm also reading commentaries and and cheating. But William Perkins has been a huge blessing to me. And actually, I did buy a book about the Ten Commandments for an author I really like who I won't name because I was massively disappointed by the book. And in the end, I thought, oh, there's this Perkins guy, he's an early Elizabethan Puritan, he might be alright. And I feel like I've just had the top of my head lifted off, and a whole load of stuff is just been accessed. So that's really exciting. But yeah, this is biblical language, isn't it? And because we believe in common grace, and I think increasingly this podcast is acknowledging natural law, people outside of the church are not as sinful as they could be, are not as dumb as they could be, and not as foolish as they could be. God is gracious, and so we therefore have much to learn, even though Christ is king, come on in. There is salvation in no one else, but um all non-Christian cultures uh and are not total idiocy uh with no insight, quite quite the opposite. It's interesting, isn't it? How many outsiders in the Bible come in? For example, Moses' uh father-in-law, who is a Midianite, uh is that right, father in law, Jethro? Jethro.
SPEAKER_00So he he gives leadership advice to Moses.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So Moses learns from a pagan leadership, yeah. But Jethro comes to know the Lord.
SPEAKER_01He does, but his his pre his pre-Christian, as it were, understanding of leadership was still sound advice, so it's woven into the story of God's people, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and interestingly, that I I guess it's sometimes it's not that either or. It's not like you know, I think it was a priest of Midian, Jethro. It's not do you either go, yeah, Jethro, you've got it fine, cut sort of cut come do your whole Midian thing, that's fine, or sort of no, everything you know is wrong, you need to become a Christian. Actually, can go, do you know, there's some things here we can take, but Jethro, you need to come to know the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I think when someone pos to go back to mindfulness, if someone posits the question, mindfulness, wait a minute, shouldn't we be kind of learning from Christ? What do you want? Christ or mindfulness? Do you know what? Give me that choice. I'm always going to take Christ, whatever is in the other the other option. Um, but what if it's not a choice? What if mindfulness is more about how we do things, maybe in a smaller, slowed down, more present moment way. Actually, isn't that might that be a biblical way of engaging with Christ? But your question, why do we resist this? Because we're creatures of habit. Um, and this is what the the modern medical folks are discovering in mindfulness that neurons that fire together wire together. That's a common phrase in in the neuropsychological world. That's great. Actually, if we spend enough time on high alert, eventually we will just be primed to see problems to fix everywhere. And we might need to do some quite serious work to get out of that mindset. Um, because actually, sometimes we need that. And so sometimes to realise we've been conditioned in a certain way, we've been conditioned to be busy, busy, wanting to be explained, wanting to get everything. Maybe to do something different, there might be a bit of friction, but that might not be a bad thing.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Well, this conversation has been every bit as brilliant as I thought it would be, and you have done all the heavy lifting in that, so I take very little credit. What I am pleased to say is that Quiet Paths uh is available. We'll put some links in the show notes, but you could grab it as a podcast and listen to it, and uh you can also watch the Bible Overbrew podcast as well, which you will learn an awful lot about the Bible and discover that Matt is extremely well informed and not someone who just sits uh uh navel gazing uh as well. So, best of both worlds here. He's a double threat, triple threat, probably, if you think of a third, he's musical too. So uh Matt Searles, thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00Absolute pleasure with you.
SPEAKER_01Well, that was great fun, wasn't it? Really interesting. Do go and look at the show notes, and there'll be links to what Matt Searles gets up to, not just in his spare time, but in his work time as well. Do explore those options. I think we're done here. Is this how it ends? Yep.