Episode 334 - Michael John Cusick & James Bryan Smith Discuss Sacred Attachment

Welcome to another episode of Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick. Today we're diving into a meaningful conversation on spiritual formation, brokenness, and divine love with our dear friend and ally, James Bryan Smith. 

In this episode, Michael shares deeply from his own journey of overcoming personal brokenness, including abuse, addiction, deception, and betrayal, to find wholeness through a closer walk with God. He opens up about the stark contrast between his troubled home life and the nurturing he found in visits to a cloistered Carmelite nunnery during his childhood—moments that profoundly shaped his spiritual outlook.

Join us as we explore attachment theory, the impact of early emotional bonds, and how our image of God is shaped by our life experiences. Michael & Jim shed light on how recognizing and addressing our deepest wounds can lead to a secure and loving relationship with God, free from the cycle of striving and spiritual exhaustion. Moreover, they discuss the critical role of being seen, soothed, safe, and secure in our spiritual development.

They also delve into the false narratives that sustain evil: the lies that we can't trust God and that it's up to us because God won't come through. Michael and Jim's insights provide a refreshing perspective on recognizing our wretchedness not as a condemnation but as an opportunity to receive God's grace and love more fully.

Transcript

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Well, today's guest for a Things above conversation is Michael J. Cusick. Michael's the CEO and founder of Restoring the Soul, an intensive counseling ministry in Denver, Colorado. He's a licensed professional counselor, spiritual director, and former assistant professor of counseling at Colorado Christian University. Michael's the author of Surfing for God, and his articles have appeared in places such as Relevant Magazine, Huffington Post, and Red Letter Christians. He and his wife Julianne have two grown children and live in Littleton, Colorado, not far from where I grew up. Michael has a brand new book out titled Sacred Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love. And it's excellent. And I got him to be on the podcast. Michael, welcome back to the Things above podcast. It's always a delight to talk with you, Jim. Thank you. Well, we are brothers from another mother. We have become close friends, soul friends. And I love what you do. You've been on this podcast before, but today I am excited. I can't wait to talk about your new book, because I read it, it feels like a year ago, and it's finally out. And I'm going to start with a question, the same question I ask pretty much every author that comes on this podcast. And that is, why did you write this book? I wrote this book because I needed it in my own life. And the book has really evolved and flowed out of my own story, where every, every chapter is, including my own story and narrative as well, as well as composites of people that I've worked with over the years in various capacities. But every chapter flows out of part of my own journey of facing and telling the truth about my own brokenness in my life, which included abuse and addiction and lying and deception and betrayal and lots of, lots of personal suffering as a result of the suffering that I've caused others and how we. How we live life with God in a way where we can become whole people. Where I'm writing basically about how I have moved toward wholeness in my own life with the emphasis on moving toward wholeness as opposed to, you know, I am a completely whole person. Because that's what heaven is for. Exactly. Exactly. Well, you know, your question or your answer to the question is true of. I mean, I answer it the same way when anybody asks me why I write. And I think it was Frederick Buechner said, we write for ourselves, really. I mean, we write the stuff that's meaningful for us. It's a part of our journey. And I think the reason your book resonated so well with me was because it's. It is your story, and it's so authentic and it feels like this guy knows what he's talking about. And so many great stories. You actually opened the book with an amazing story about a visit to a nunnery that had a big impact on your life. I love that. But can you tell our listeners about that story? My aunt, my aunt Ann, who was my father's middle sister, my dad was the youngest of seven Irish Catholics and I was the youngest of five Irish Catholic kids in an alcoholic family. And I was 4 years old and went to Carmel of the Holy Family, which is where that aunt was a cloistered Carmelite nun. And for those that don't know, the Carmelites are the same order that Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross and Therese of Lesoux as well as countless others. That's the Holy Order that they belong to. And the Carmelites cloistered themselves away from the world usually behind a wall. And inside of that wall was a monastery. And they could not have contact with the public. And they lived behind what was called a grill. And that grill, not unlike your grill in your backyard, were bars that were crosshatched. And we would visit on, you know, monthly or sometimes several times a year, my aunt and the seven of us would traipse over there. And as I kind of played on the floor with my next older sibling, my sister, and one day as the adults were talking, my brother got this harebrained idea, as he always was getting to lift me up and put me into this cabinet in the corner of the room. And you have to understand that there was a counter, but in the middle of that counter was this big cross hatched grill, these bars. And on one side sat the nuns. And they could put their fingers or hands through this grill, but. But they couldn't have any other contact. They couldn't hug, they couldn't come out. And on the other side were the visitors in what was called the parlor. And in this cabinet that my brother lifted me up and put me into, there was a lazy Susan that would spin around and the nuns could pass food back and forth and sometimes gifts. And my brother closed the doors to this cabinet and spun me around and spun me around and I was terrified. I never have liked spinning. I've never liked rides at the amusement park. And I get nauseous very easy. So I remember this very acutely. I'm terrified I'm going to throw up and not knowing if I'm going to get in trouble. And suddenly the doors opened and thought my brother would be there to take me Out. And it was sister Ann and 15 or 16 other cloistered nuns on the other side. And I'm on the wrong side of the grill, if you will. And what happened, rather than the bishop or a priest or even the pope walk in with his nose down on the end, his glasses down on the end of his nose, like a. Like an English schoolmaster that was deeply disappointed with me because I really thought I was in trouble. Sister Anne embraced me and squeezed me and ran her fingers through my hair. And the other nuns came along and probably pinched my cheeks and oohed and odd. And I had to check once whether this actually happened because it felt too good to be true. But on the wrong side of the grill, these nuns pushed some chairs out of the way, and they began to sing and dance ring around the Rosie with me. And that moment became a template for my entire life and really for my spiritual journey. And that is that whether through my own fault or someone else's, I find myself spinning and disoriented and not feeling very good and. And. And. And that something's really wrong and I'm going to get in trouble. And then the spinning stops, and there's this question and even an expectation about what's going to happen. But then there's a surprise. And out of that disorientation, there's what Walter Brueggemann called a reorientation. And I was embraced by love. And it was this moment during the very same time when at home, there was alcoholism, there was a lot of dysfunction, and an uncle was sexually abusing me during that time. And so that story contrasts what was happening with the trauma, the abuse and the brokenness, and that moment of being embraced by love. And the phrase that's all throughout the book is, love has you, love has you. And it was in that moment, despite all the trauma, despite all my addictions, that somewhere deep inside, there was this deep sense that love had me. And when I was writing the book, I actually called up one of the few living nuns, Sister Bernadette, and I got her on the phone and I said, did this really happen? She said, oh, yeah. I actually used to do that with my nieces and nephews from time to time. So the whole idea of the cloister, I guess, was a relative thing, depending on who could lift you up and whether you could fit into the grill or not. I love that story on so many levels. I mean, you even write. You write this in the book. Looking back, I can interpret my whole life through that Carmel moment. That's A big statement to interpret your whole life through it. Say more about that. Well, first of all, let me tell on myself. You introduced me as a therapist and spiritual director and CEO and all that. And this has actually happened at your conference a couple times where I'm teaching. And people will come up and say, gee, I'm curious. Where did you get your spiritual direction training? And I've never actually had formal training. I didn't go to Loyola, or I didn't go to the School of Kingdom Living or even Friends and get a certificate in formation. But I started going to this monastery as a young boy and interacted deeply with the nuns. And even in high school, I started taking some of the literature that was in the lobby with the beads that they made and started reading a book on prayer by Thomas Merton in high school. And that was even before I was a Christian. So something was lodged deep inside of me. And then I, you know, I was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic tradition. It's just always been inside of me, and I've. I've picked it up along the way. And so I was deeply formed, not just in that moment, but in many of the journeys going over there. And then after I did become a Christian, the nuns would invite me from time to time to play guitar when the grill was no longer there and the public could access the nuns. And, you know, in the, in the old days, centuries ago, they would not even have a grill between the visitors and the nuns, but in the, in the chapel or where the, The Mass was celebrated, the nuns would be behind a grill there, singing. So, you know, even in the Sound of Music, they're not Carmelites, but the nuns are behind this grill. And the, you know, the beautiful voices are echoing. And so it was really a big part of my formation, and it immersed me into something that I call it mysticism in my bones, where I've always. I've always found a home in that liturgical, mystical, reverent tradition around liturgy. And of course, I've gone in and out of different traditions, but the thing that, that, that most represented the rest of my journey was this. This idea of, again, I'll quote Walter Brueggemann in his book the Psalms, he has a couple of books on the Psalms where he introduces this, that. That we're living life one moment and. And we're oriented and everything's going okay. And then boom, something happens. Grief, loss, pain, failure, suffering, sickness, you know, dark night of the soul, internally malaise, depression, and we're disoriented, We're. We're in the dark, we're spinning, and then there's reorientation. And Brueggeman builds the point that this was the teaching of Jesus, this was the life of Jesus. And I like to call this the rhythm of the kingdom, that this is a pattern that goes around and around and around. And it's God's way of inviting us again and again and again in those places of disorientation to reconsider new narratives, as you would say, a new way of doing life. And it's really a time where our imagination begins to flourish. A couple of other words for the same pattern. Richard Rohr calls it order, disorder, reorder. My pastor, Larry Renaud at a former church called it thrive, dive, revive. So whatever language people want to borrow there, if we have that. If we have that orientation, it can be really helpful to realize that we're not regressing or backsliding. We're sometimes in a growth spurt, where sometimes in a way where just like a. A person who enters puberty and, you know, their. Their head is bigger than the rest of their body or their legs are longer. We. We're in an unfamiliar space, what. What we often call a liminal space. And it's in that space where there's always something new being birthed. There's always new life coming forth. There's always resurrection that happens after the. The crucifixion, if you will. Yeah. And James Loder would talk about the void. We enter into the void, and then we're reorienting. Right. To use that language. And it sounds like the experience that you had was, as you put it, love had you in that moment. That powerful experience that got into your bones was. Okay, there is something else. On the surface, my family experience is traumatic. But somewhere, love has me. And I want to just segue into attachment theory because your book really deals. It's called Sacred Attachment. Right. You're dealing with that. But let's do just a quick little primer or Introduction to Attachment Theory, which I'll say what I think it is, and then you tell me where I'm wrong. How about that? You bet. Okay. My understanding is it's a psychological framework that basically looks at the importance of our early emotional bonds between infants, children, and their caregivers. And it centers on these four key words that's in your book a lot. Seen, safe, seen, soothed, safe, and secure. S. Words that makes it easy to remember. But am I close with that? If not, what is attachment theory? Yeah, well, that's a really Good start and thanks for linking it to those four S's of scene. Soothe. Safe, Secure. I always try to differentiate between what's often popular on social media and podcasts between attachment style and attachment as a need. Attachment style is how we show up in the world to get our needs for closeness, connection and intimacy met. And of course there's secure attachment. Psychologists say that about 60% of people in America have a secure attachment. Most therapists will tell you that it's more like 60% that don't have a secure attachment. Especially people born as digital natives who have grown up with social media. And this may sound like a harsh thing, but with parents who are preoccupied with social media and not able to attend to or attune to their, to their kids in the way that they might have in a previous generation. And that's not to say that previous generations didn't wrestle with things whether it was, you know, coming back from the war and building a life because there was no perfect golden age. But that attachment style is secure attachment. And then people speak of avoidant attachment, anxious attachment, or ambivalent attachment, where there's a mixture of both. And I won't go into detail on those unless you want me to. Then there's the attachment need. And that's a God given process that from birth onward. And in many ways it's actually prenatal as well. But from infancy, all through life, from womb to tomb, it's a need to be connected to others so that our brain and our nervous system can regulate and organize itself. And in the case of the infant, the infant is vulnerable and dependent and that infant comes into the world. And Kurt Thompson taught me this, that only about 50 to 60% of the neurons in that infant's brain are online. And there's about 50 billion neurons in a child's brain, maybe more in adulthood. But those imagine, you know, firing up your laptop and only half the screen comes on and there's a little window that comes up saying only half the hard drive is working. And how the rest of those neurons come online is through the attunement of the parent or caregiver, and especially eye contact. So the first of the four S's of seeing is that as the caregiver makes eye contact and anybody who's been a parent of a newborn or held a newborn, you know, all you want to do is look at their face. Nobody stares at the infant's feet and says, oh, what? You know, what, what cute little feet. We might say that and make up, you know, nicknames for their little piggies or something like that. But as the adult makes eye contact over and over and over again and therefore attunes, you can imagine bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing times millions and billions, where over, especially in the first four years, those neurons come online and that infant and toddler and preschooler begins to be able to regulate themselves, to regulate their nervous system so that when stress, distress, physical pain is there, number one, in the presence of another being engaged with or cared for by a person who is attuned to them to meet their needs, they can go ah. And exhale and feel peace and calm. And then as they are regulating, they're able to organize themselves in the world. Their executive functioning aspects of their left brain can come online because that regulation is both a function of the whole central nervous system and the right brain, which is where there's the capacity for receptivity, for attachment, for a lot of our emotion. And as that's there and we begin to regulate, then we can show up in the world and have a sense of efficacy and self empowerment and agency versus being victims to the external world. Psychologists have called that for a long time an internal locus of control versus an external. The external is the world acts on me and I have very little power in. An internal locus of control is I can make choices and show up and act upon the world. And there's a cause and effect and good things happen as a result of that. So obviously there's huge implications of this in spiritual formation. And the thesis of my book is to the degree that we did or did not have a healthy attachment, to the degree that we were seen soothed safe and secure, we'll never go any farther than that in relationship with God. So it transfers right on to that. Yes, it transfers on to God. And some people will say, well, what if I have an intimate relationship with God, but I struggle with other people? I'd say that's fine because, you know, there's no two people that are alike. And. And some people will need to find that sense of security and safety and being known with God first and oftentimes in solitude and silence and through reading and contemplation. And other people will need to do that in the context of people on the horizontal level, their closest relationships, friendships, etc. More often than not, we start on the horizontal level with people and then that transfers over to God. You know, again, Kurt Thompson says in Anatomy of the Soul that God inherits all the same neural networks that are at play in our closest relationships. The way that our buttons get pushed, the ways that we get activated, the way that we deal with the restlessness inside of us and how that affects our spouse or partner, if we're in a significant relationship, our siblings, our family of origin, our friends and co workers. Yeah. Well, I can imagine someone listening right now, maybe thinking about their own experience, and maybe their parents were distant or judgmental or preoccupied somehow. Many people, I mean, our parents are human beings, right? Even the best of them. They're living in their own brokenness and so forth. But I imagine some listeners may be thinking, okay, so, Michael, if my early experiences weren't great, I didn't feel seen or soothed or safe and secure. Am I hopeless? I mean, or is there hope for. Oh, there is. There is so much hope, you know, and the whole reason I wrote this book, Jim, is, as you well know, is I have a master's in counseling psychology, a master's in biblical counseling, and I've been a licensed professional counselor. I'm a certified clinical trauma professional. But my passion is. Is not healing trauma or, you know, 20 years ago, helping people overcome sex addiction. That's a lot of what I've done, and that's important. But my passion is to help people heal their image of God and to experience the depths of his love so that we can live securely attached and then overflow into the world to make the kingdom of God more real. That's. That's my passion. You know, I talk about brokenness in people's lives because it's an excuse to talk about who God really is as he's revealed in Jesus. So there's so much hope, you know, in Jesus first sermon, his public sermon. In Luke chapter four, he's quoting Isaiah 61, where he says, the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me. He's anointed me to preach good news to the poor. And then in. In Luke, we don't see these words, but it's suggested by many scholars

that he actually read all of Isaiah 60: 20:53

1. He has sent me to bind up broken hearts, to set captives free, to exchange beauty for ashes, and oil, of gladness, for mourning and praise for lament. So there is so much hope, and that that hope begins by telling the truth. You know, anybody listening to this podcast that's been around Christianity or the church a while will know John 8, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. For so long, my life was getting more and more of the truth, which I defined exclusively as the Bible and scripture. If I get more of that inside of me, then I'll be free from my sex addiction and my porn addiction and my drinking and alcohol abuse, my food issues. Just need more truth, need more sermons. And yet inclusive in truth is my truth. What's my truth? Well, my truth is I was a profoundly broken, shame covered, internally anxious person living with a mask. And that mask was that that my life was all together and that I was a funny relational person. And I'm somebody likable and I'm going to get you to like me if you don't like me. But inside there was this person that hated himself and this person that was traumatized and. And so again, what I've written in the book and so much of what we do here at Restoring the Soul comes out of my journey and our journey for each of us. And you know, the hope is that we can be in that truth, we can be present to that truth, we can tell the truth about ourselves inside and our story because we are welcomed and because we have permission to be broken. And that God revealed in Jesus loves to inhabit that which is unfavorable, that which is full of failure and weakness and vulnerability and pain and brokenness and darkness. And you know as well as anybody that wherever there's pain and suffering and tragedy, that that's where God is. That's where he especially is, where he loves to make himself known. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love you. Write in chapter two about being stuck in the gap between believing and knowing. And of course this was important for me as I was creating a curriculum for Christ likeness and went with 100 people over a four year period and heard their stories and so many people would say things to me like, well yeah,

I've heard that God loves me. Right? John 3: 23:31

16. For God so loved the world. And I know that's true somewhere. I mean like I'm supposed to believe that, but I don't truly know it. I don't really experience it. And that was huge for me. And that's essentially why I wrote the Good and Beautiful God Was. That book was not a part of the curriculum and it ended up being, I think, the most important part. But over time, like I didn't see, but when I saw that I went, oh yeah, so talk a little bit about the gap. Because that gap between, like I should know this about, I've heard that God loves me, but I don't really experience it. How do we bridge that gap? Well, let's start with a Dallas Willer quote, because no conversation between you and I would be without Referencing Dallas, I don't know if he has written this anywhere, but in a conversation that I had with him in 2007, he said that most Christians are caught between brokenness and ceaseless striving. But is there another way? And that's the question that Christians are asking. You know, I'm either broken, struggling with xyz, and that might be something minor but frustrating and, you know, ongoing, or could be something major like an addiction or like an inability to ever feel anything other than anger, anxiety, depression. Could be a compulsion. It could be a broken relationship that just isn't what we want, so we're stuck with that. Or I'm trying hard and I'm striving and I'm doing more for God in hopes that I'll somehow find the key that opens the door and I walk through that door into this life of abundance that I want. And Dallas's question, is there another way? This book is really me answering that question. Here's the way. Here's the way to not either strive or be stuck in your brokenness. And in that chapter on this gap, I named it the Delta. In science, engineering, and medicine, the Greek letter, the triangle delta represents the space or the gap between the goal and the outcome. This idea of the gap is a delta, and it's this void. Yet delta has another meaning. If we think of the delta of a river, and if you think of the Mississippi, where the fresh, brackish water begins to flow into the salt water, and in that space of two very different things, something new grows, something comes together. So back to your question about the hope is that when we. When we start to tell the truth about our own story and bring that to the truth of who God is, that he looks like Jesus, that he's full of compassion and mercy and welcome and embrace and knows us so intimately, like David talks about in Psalm 139, that before word is on our tongue, he knows it completely, completely. That God doesn't have frustration, he doesn't have disappointment, he doesn't have exasperation. And there's definitely no sense of, you know. Well, by now, I thought you'd figure this out, Michael. I can't believe that after, you know, X amount of years and all the Bible study and education that you can't do better. That's not the God that looks like Jesus. And so we. We must come with a sense of hope in our hearts that there could be something more than this and really be honest with God. Like I was at one point where I was so desperately Exhausted. And the subtitle of the book, Sacred Attachment, is Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting Divine Love. But I was so exhausted and tired of this striving or falling into my brokenness again that I prayed to God one day. I said, if this is all there is to Christianity, I don't know if I want to be a Christian. And I was terrified when I prayed that. But I. I kind of heard God inside saying, yes, thank you, because there is more. And I want to get into all of that stuff and, and. And transform it and bring healing and bring integration and wholeness. And I didn't have a lot of those words back then, but I. But I just knew that there was more. And that prayer and others like it began to lead to small changes. And then those small changes would lead to a conversation or a therapist who had an answer that was more than just prescriptive. Do more. More than just cognitive gymnastics, but a path where I could really be changed from the inside out. Man. And the book does that so well. It tells it. You know, I even wrote one in my endorsement as I was reading the book, I was over and over just feeling like it was giving me hope and encouragement. And it's profound. What you do. One of my favorite things about what you do in the book and in chapter three, you do this remarkable. I'm going to call it flipping. You flip something that we normally think this, but let's flip it to this. And the example in chapter three is to think about our sin not as, first and foremost, something bad about us. That's the go to. My sin is something I'm going to right away say, well, this is the bad thing about me. But you flip it to say it's actually an example of your longing and the needs, those four S's. Yes. And you even go so far as to say even our addictions are examples of longings. And I imagine you've seen this over and over in counseling, where people come to you with, here's the brokenness, here's the sin, here's the thing. And what you see, I'm guessing, and explain this to what you see is their longing and their need. You even say that sins just mishandled pain. Yeah. That's such an incredible insight. Yeah. And Jim, I believe that with all my heart. And I've not yet gotten to the point yet where I can say that. And there's not the doctrine police in the back of my head saying, but you know, that's heresy, because the focal point is not us, it's not about us. It's not about our pain. It's about the glory of God. Well, the glory of God is in our pain. Jurgen Boltman said that the glory of God is the crucified Christ. And so I believe that's entirely true, because if there was a God that I was going to create, I would think that he could rise himself from the dead. I would think that he could create the world by blinking his eyes. I would think that he could make Mount Everest or chocolate or wine, coffee, sex. But no one would ever imagine a God that would express his longing for intimacy and his longing for connection. And as Philip Yancy says, God just loves company. God wants company. And no one would ever imagine a creator, Almighty God, that would reveal himself most particularly and powerfully by being stripped naked and dying for the world to redeem it. And so, you know, God's glory is in pain. And there's actually a kind of beauty in our pain when we surrender it. And I guess I've kind of become known for that idea of flipping things, because I think that we need new eyes to see. I said when I wrote this book that I wanted to give people a new lens to see God, a new lens to see themselves. And in that, to reimagine a way of relating to God and doing life with God that was compelling and fresh and full of. Full of possibility and life and joy. And, you know, for 44 years, as I've followed Jesus, the people that talk a lot about sin and put the emphasis on that are not people that I've experienced as having a lot of joy and vitality and freedom. And they're not generally people that I'm drawn to. And further, when we understand that sin is how we mishandle our pain, if we can get to the source of that pain, which is our wounds, the ways that we also mishandle our weakness, our vulnerability and limitation, and withhold that and only let people love us for who we think they want us to be. We can never be loved for who we actually are. When we don't enter into the warfare and the lies and the accusations that have come against us. And then when we don't acknowledge that our souls are inclusive of our body. And therefore, there's another W that I talk about in regard to what fuels our sin, and that's our wiring, our nervous system that when we're not regulated because of that secure attachment that we talked about at the beginning of this podcast. And, you know, if someone is dysregulated in their nervous system, it's going to be really hard for them to know the peace that passes all understanding, or it's going to be really hard for them

to be still and know that he is God, as Psalm 46: 32:52

10 tells us. So, you know, our spirituality will only extend as far as our embodied self is able to show up with what's there and then to find peace in the midst of that, as opposed to have some kind of intellectual idea about peace. And if we rehearse that enough, then we'll feel joy and abundance and all of that good stuff. Well, I want to circle back to those W's in a minute, but in chapter four, which you write about evil, and I think it's crucial that you talk about that. But again, you kind of do a flip on us because you write in that chapter about two core lies, or I would say false narratives, and you say that evil is actually sustained by these two lies. The first is you can't trust God, and the second is it's up to you, because God won't come through. And boy, I've. I've thought those felt those. I've seen those in so many people's lives that I've worked with in formation. It's. So say more about those two. You can't trust God, and it's up to you, because God won't come through those two. Those two lies. Well, apart from grace, which God is flooding into the world at all moments wherever he is present, and God is everywhere apart from his grace there. Those two lies make the world go round. And it's important to say at the outset that they are lies. They are false narratives that are a result of the serpent in the Genesis story, in chapter three, deceiving Adam and Eve. So this has always been something curious to me, right? So Adam and Eve sinned, and we talk a lot about that, but we don't talk a lot about the deception. And this raises a number of interesting theological and philosophical questions about, like, are we culpable in light of the fact that we were deceived? You know, if somebody. I won't try to come up with an analogy for right now, but we pay attention to that deception, that there was intentionality behind the serpent, that the serpent wanted to draw Adam and Eve away from being able to trust, from being able to rest in a state of dependency, that someone was there for them, that someone, this God that walked with them in the cool of the day, that he would reliably and predictably, if you will, attune to them now back to the scene Sooths. Safe, secure. For a minute in a parentheses to the degree that we're seeing, soothe, Safe, secure between 0 and 4 years old is the degree to which we will trust that attachment. That secure attachment is the foundation for all trust. And so the serpent was coming against a secure attachment. And there's something in the minds that we can imagine of Adam and Eve. Maybe we aren't so secure. Maybe love doesn't have us. Maybe God's not who he said he is. It was Oswald Chambers that said, all sin is rooted in the suspicion that God is not good. And that's the accusation that evil brought to Adam and Eve in the garden over and over again. You can't trust him. You can't trust him. And then the suggestion, but you know who you can trust? Yourself. You're pretty thoughtful after all. I mean, you named all the animals Adam and Eve. You know, you've been looking at that apple and you actually know all the Latin names of all the plants in the garden. And of course, I'm using my imagination here and they start to get the idea that, yeah, we, we are pretty good at taking care of ourselves. So if we can't trust love and we can be loving to one another, then I think we'll be okay. And so that lie, of course, led to death. And let me just say this because toward the end of healing our image of God and being able to feel seen, soothe, safe, secure. I've often struggled with more as a younger Christian than now. But how can I trust God to love me and take care of me if he punished Adam and Eve by kicking them out of the garden and condemning them to death? And that's a narrative that I've heard so much, right? So that they ate from the fruit and so they were going to die. And it's not that God killed them or God gave them a death row punishment. It's akin to Adam and Eve were in ICU on life support because they were no longer attached to and securely resting in love. They signed themselves out of the hospital against medical advice. That's what this idea of having this death sentence upon them death was the natural consequence of pulling the plug from the ventilator and walking out of the hospital. And what happened when God sent them out of the garden, many have suggested, is that in that sinful state, they could go and eat from the tree of life and presumably live forever in that sinful state. And so he sent them away from the tree of life A to set them up for grace, so that they would actually need God again. And through the brokenness of the world and the detachment from God, that they would cry out for God beautifully. He shows up and he makes garments for them. And he says. He doesn't say this in the text, but again, my imagination, God's saying, you know, you think fig leaves are going to take away that shame? First of all, that shame is a lie from the serpent as well as from this story that you think you can take care of yourselves and you really can't. So I'm going to replace those fig leaves with garments that will keep you warm, garments that will clothe what you believe is shame and allow you to function in a world until you come back to me. And so what's really helpful in spiritual formation and in the therapy work we do is to uncover those lies. And then the final thing I'd say and, you know, interrupt me, but we can't just cognitively and intellectually re narrate the story. We have to embody that. We have to feel the lie in our body, which is shame and anxiety. I'm alone. Feeling of dread. And then we have to re. Embody what it means that love has us. We need to have that experience of being seen and known in community and by God, and to be soothed in community and by God and to feel safe with God and others so that we can ultimately develop a secure attachment. And this happens over time, but it does happen. Yeah, that's. Oh, man, that's good. That's a great telling of the fall and the, you know, being cast out of the garden. It's leaving. We leave the hospital. That's good. But, you know, Crosby, Stills and Nash had it right. We've got to get ourselves back to the garden. Yes. You know, I knew you'd like. If I can quote an old rock song. Yeah. From so far, one of my favorite albums of all time. But thanks be to Jesus, he reversed the fall. There we go. So let me. Let me just say that song is from Woodstock, which I think that song was written in 1971 or two. And how interesting that secular rock and rollers, their. Their word for get ourselves Back to the Garden is going to this event that there was no social media for Woodstock at Yasgur's farm up in New York. And it just spread like wildfire in underground newspapers and people started talking and on radio shows and, you know, thousands and thousands of people. It's rumored that there were a hundred thousand people there at one point. And they sat through the rain. Why? Because there Was worship going on. There was someone on a stage that people were drawn to, how their artistry and their creativity affected their hearts. And it lifted them up into something bigger than their own life. And there were a hundred thousand people connected in this hippie movement that led to the Jesus movement of community. I mean, everybody will talk about, oh, yeah, the people and the relationships. And then the other part that was going on were drugs and free sex, which also brought a. A counterfeit. And it's important to say counterfeit version of transcendence and union. And so that. That song, you know, to exegete the song is we're all. We're all wanting to get back to the garden. And when I eat compulsively and when I numb myself watching Netflix and when I'm buying stuff that I can't afford and shouldn't online, you know, as an impulse thing, I'm trying to get back to the garden. Wow, I'm so glad I brought that up because it was just kind of a throw off, funny thing because you and I joke a lot and I thought, oh, yeah, Crosby still stands. But wow, that's a deep exegesis and great points. That's why I love music. Yeah. There's so much to it. Well, my guest today is Michael J. Cusick, and we're talking about his book Sacred Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love. It's a fantastic book. Let's talk. You have this chapter titled Turning, and you have this amazing sentence I want you to dig into a little bit. You write, I realized that until I understood that God loved me in my brokenness, I could not become whole. Say more about that. I realized that until I understood that God loved me in my brokenness, I could not become whole. Yeah, I used to maybe say something like, God loved me despite my brokenness. And in the same chapter, I quote St. Ambrose, where there is in the Catholic Church, you know, going back to the 6th century, the Ambrosian rite was a way that they would start the worship service and there was a prayer where the priest would pray, God, thank you, that you use even our sins to show us your goodness. And the implication is that God loves our sin. Now, boom, there's the controversial thing where you lost listeners or I lost readers. But this idea that God loves me in my brokenness is that it's my brokenness. It's my sin that sets up my need for God, my brokenness. And my sin is my poverty. Because sin is no thing. It's nothing. It's just my movement Away from God and mistrusting love as I mishandle my pain. And God doesn't, like, love the guy that I should be. This is Brennan Manning's words, right? That he doesn't love the guy I should be or the guy I will be. He loves the guy that I am. And if I never change, if I never take another step closer to Jesus, that God loves that person. You know, we're talking on January 13th, and so just a couple weeks out from the New Year, and I just thought, I am so tired of this idea of resolutions and say, this year I'm going to be better. And maybe it's because I just turned 60, but it's like I just don't want to have to change. And I've got a thousand ways that I want to change and actually a couple things where my heart is intending on this. But. But what if on New Year's Eve, we sat around in a community and just looked at one another and said, you know, you're good. I think you can skip the resolutions this year. What if I, in my mind's eye, in the eyes of my heart, I just pictured Jesus over me going, you know, Michael, I think this year you're good. No resolutions. You know, you don't have to try to get off the naughty list. There's something so freeing about that. No improvement needed, no stretching, striving. And there's something about that, then that makes me actually want to surrender more and open my heart to love and become more integrated and whole and learn how to be still and to rest. But even New Year's resolutions have this sense of, I'm going to make something happen this year as opposed to, I'm going to turn my attention and my energy to the inside and somehow allow myself to be formed in a way that I can't do myself. That is so good. That is so good. Well, I do want to come back to the five W's because you mentioned them earlier, and we don't have a ton of time to unpack all five. But those five W's write about wretchedness, weakness, woundedness, warfare, and wiring. Tell us why you think these five W's are so important to understand in the spiritual journey. Well, I do think that there's great value in understanding our inner world. You know, that's the gift of spiritual direction and mysticism and spiritual formation. Everything that you write and teach about is that it actually allows us to bring our story and our narrative up against the narrative of God. And so understanding our brokenness through these five W's becomes a way of not just understanding the chronology and the way that our dots of our story connect together through events and experiences, but how that's formed the inside parts of us. And as I've given this framework to people directly and indirectly, it helps them to have compassion toward themselves, and it helps them to take the emphasis off of sin and what they're doing wrong and perhaps how bad they are. And it helps them to say, oh, I'm broken and I need a savior who's a soul surgeon to put me back together. And I'll just talk about one W, if I may, because I alluded to the others already. I used to have the first W as wickedness, But Eugene Peterson said that our words get tired. And so we need words that are fresh and new, that will allow people that are on the outside to get on the inside, and that can revitalize people that are on the inside of faith. And so I replaced the word wicked because people would react to that and think that that's Hitler and bin Laden and. And I replaced it with the word wretched. And I had somebody say to me, well, that's not a lot better. But. But just for a moment, everybody think about Amazing Grace. Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that what saved a wretch like me Yeah, I used to sing that song in church. I'd be standing there. I love the melody. I've heard it with bagpipes. You know, there's so many secular people that have recorded that song. So I looked up the word wretch. What exactly is a wretch? I'm one. I know that because I'm terrible and look at my life, and it says vile or despicable. A wretch is somebody who's vile and despicable. But if you go further back in the etymology, Dickens spoke of a wretch in borrowing from Old English, as a child who was standing on a corner, either begging or selling matches or pencils. A wretch is someone who's impoverished or more powerfully, someone who's in exile, someone who's away from home. And there have been a number of authors, including my dear friend Ian Cron, whose new book, the fix about the 12 steps, unpacks the idea that the word salvation actually means coming home. We certainly see that in the story of the prodigal son, right, where the son who went off and was spending all of his father's money and the inheritance on wild living, that his salvation was in coming home. And so a wretch if we think about, I'm not bad, but I'm impoverished. My credit card is maxed out, my checking account is in the red, my piggy bank is empty, my pockets are empty, and I've got no game. God, all I can bring is myself. That reflects Isaiah 55, where the prophet says, you who are thirsty, you who have no money, come buy wine and milk and bread, the richest of fare. And it's this very curious picture where in God's economy, we can only buy when we realize we're bankrupt, when we realize we're impoverished. And this is the spirit behind this word wretch. And so I like to help people think about sinfulness, as will you sin because you're impoverished. And you're just trying to spend money on what is not bread when it's actually not money. Teresa of Lesoux said that our singular capacity for God is our poverty. And not just economic poverty, but our spiritual poverty. Because it's, you know, just after Christmas, we all heard the Little Drummer Boy. I have no gift to bring parumpa pum pum, except me and this little silly drum. I remember in kindergarten, I was in the Little Drummer Boy play, and I had a Maxwell House coffee can with a plastic lid on it, and that was my drum. And, you know, at the end of the day, that's all I've got. God's not impressed with my credentials or the books that I write or, you know, with how helpful I have been. God just wants my heart. Sometimes that feels like an empty coffee can that still smells like coffee. And he's actually pretty impressed by that because it's me. It's so good. That is so good. Michael, the book is amazing, and you are a dear friend, and you are also a frequent flyer at the Apprentice gathering. And you will be speaking, giving a plenary talk at The Apprentice gathering 2025 and teaching some workshops. And we are, my goodness, we are nearing being sold out already. There's only maybe a hundred or so spots left. And it's January, so it's not. It's in the last week of September, 2025. So anybody listening, do sign up because the spots are going fast. Michael, I enjoy. You go ahead. Can we talk about the lineup there so that we can get. I know 100 people to sign up now, for my listeners, they'd love to know that, yeah, it's me, but it's also Kurt Thompson, author of Soul of Shame, Anatomy, the Soul, Soul of Desire and the Deepest Place. Allison Cook, Andy Colber, Ian Cron, Anybody else that's a keynote speaker, as well as all the workshop leaders. I think you got the five, the. Fab Five, the Integration of Mental Health and spiritual formation. Yes. I'm so excited about this group of people. And Andy is going to be on the podcast soon. Allison, I think is even next up on Things above, so listeners will get to hear from them. But, yeah, it's an incredible lineup of people and great teachers. The workshops are amazing. So I'm so grateful for you being a part of it. And, man, this conversation has been great. So many. I was sitting there trying to write these great quotes, things you were saying, and I couldn't keep up with all of it. But I'm going to go back and listen to this podcast and skip the parts where I talk, but get to some of these great things you said, these incredible nuggets of truth and wisdom and my goodness. Michael, I love you, friend, and I can't wait to see you face to face. Oh, Jim, I love you, too. Thank you for being a great friend. Thank you for being a champion of this book. And you wrote a beautiful, lengthy endorsement that really moved me. So I'm just. I'm happy to talk with you anytime. And this has been an especially enriching conversation for me. Well, it is. It's an amazing book. Again, folks, be sure and go get this book, Sacred Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love by Michael J. Cusick. And we will. I'm sure we'll have you back on again because you have been a frequent flyer and will continue to be. But, Michael, thanks for being with us today.