Episode 342 - Aimee Byrd, "Finding Hope after Facing Spiritual Abuse"

Welcome to another episode of the "Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick" podcast. We're excited to welcome Aimee Byrd, a renowned author and theologian, to discuss her latest book, "Saving Face: Finding Myself, God, and One Another Outside a Defaced Church." 

Join Michael and Aimee as they dive deep into the pages of her profound work, unpacking themes of vulnerability, spiritual abuse, and the journey toward embracing one's true self. Throughout the episode, Aimee shares her personal experiences with brokenness, healing, and the powerful act of unlearning to find truth and freedom. This conversation invites listeners to rethink their understanding of repentance, the role of women in faith communities, and the transformative power of God's grace. 

Transcript

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Well, today on the Restoring the Soul podcast, I am delighted and I'm honored to have a special guest, Amy Byrd. Hi, Amy. Welcome to Restoring the Soul. Hi, Michael. I am delighted to be here. Thank you. You've written a number of books, but your newest book comes out on April 8th, and I'm going to hold it up. It's called Saving Face. And I have to read the subtitle. I'm not good at remembering subtitles. Yeah, Saving Face. Finding myself, God and one another outside a defaced church. And I paid special attention to the subtitle because it's not finding myself my self, it's finding my space bar self, which is really distinct. And it ties into the whole idea of saving Face. I want to start out with three things. I'm going to just say, these are all the notes I've written in terms. Of I love it. Because you're a theologian, I'm going to use that word that you only hear, like in seminary and nerd circles of prolegomena. So here's my prolegometer, kind of the introduction to our conversation. Number one, Saving Face is a really, really special book. You did something that few people can do where they exegete scripture and they exegete their own story. Frederick Buechner said in his book Telling the Truth a long time ago, he said that the, the Christian pastor, and he was talking about, I think it was Harry Ward Beecher, who was a famous preacher, and, and, and Beechner was telling his story. He got into some trouble back in the late 1800s, maybe early 1900s. And Buechner said that there's only two stories that a preacher can tell, the story of God and their own story. And if they're not somehow blending those two together, that the result will not be the fullness of the gospel and the fullness of the story of God. And I personally, having had a lot of brokenness in my story and my background, and that's kind of how the podcast emerged. I, I, I don't trust people who haven't integrated the story of God with their own story somehow. So you did a masterful job at that. Thank you so much. Dan Allender was one of the endorsers for your book, and he and I were close colleagues at one point when he still lived in Denver. And he trained me back in 1991 and 1992. So I have great respect for him. And when they started the Seattle School, they had this tagline. And I don't, I don't know if it's still in place, but they existed to exegete the text, soul and culture. Oh, that's good. And we really talk about exegesis on those three levels, but I think you just nailed it, giving a result that is just so much bigger than if you had just written a memoir or if you had just written a book of exegeting. So number one, thank you for that. Wow, thanks so much for saying that and noticing that I didn't know quite what I was doing to begin with. It's a lot of blending of genre. So. Yeah, I'm glad that it registered that way for you. Yeah. And I was going to ask you about that, the blending of genre, because you have a preface, no pun intended. Or maybe pun intended, that pre face and then a prelude where you unpack C.S. lewis's novel, my second favorite novel, till we have Faces, the story of Orwell and Psyche, Lewis's retelling of Cupid and Psyche. And then you start into the chapters. And I love books that have sections, not just chapters, but sections, because they help me to organize. Yes, my editor really helped me do that. Good, good. So the, the genres, then you, you, in each chapter you have your journaling that looks like and felt like, and I suspect was real time journaling from those moments, including like sharing about a dream. So the second thing I want to say about your book is that it wasn't just well written and it wasn't just special in the sense of how you combine the exegesis, but it was powerful. It was personally powerful and it deeply moved me. There were moments where I came to tears. There was moments where your writing told stories in such a way where I smiled and where I laughed. But there was profound humility in the book because you did, again, something very unique. Many people have written about their spiritual abuse, their harassment, etc, that's been part of my writing. But then you flipped it over all throughout and you looked at your own brokenness and weakness. And I'll just jump in here. You made the statement in the. In the section on fractured faces and I'm getting ahead of myself. So if it's okay, we'll kind of follow this thread. You said before going through the traumatic disruption in my former church and denomination, I didn't realize how much of my life was a response to the catastrophe of my parents divorce. And so you kind of set the stage for here's this harassment, which was very public in my life. But then what I had to do is I processed all that and grieved. That is I had to Come to terms with the brokenness that I was carrying all throughout my life. So just jump in. Anything you want to respond to and kind of unpack that. Yeah, it kind of goes with what you were saying earlier, too. Like, one of the most disillusioning parts of the spiritual abuse that I went through, and mine was very public, it was happening online, and a lot of the harassment and then I had to go through, you know, I tried to go through the proper church order to address it. So I'm going to presbytery meetings and things like this. One of the most disillusioning parts of the whole thing was to realize how immature the leaders in the church were, because, you know, these are leaders in the church who are calling me horrible names online. Like, you know, you don't have to like my writing. Go ahead and critique it. But, you know, you don't like calling me the great whore of Babylon on a social media outlet where my teenagers at the time could read that about their mother. Right? And it was by a pastor and, you know, shut up and make me a sandwich. And you know, all kinds of really, like, middle school. Yeah, Jezebel, but very middle school, like, behavior. Right? Like that bullying in middle school type of thing. And I thought, oh, my goodness, like, and there were so many of them, and it was horrible. But I thought, you know, when this does go through the church process, clearly this is going to be addressed well, you know, like, a lot of these men were showing that they. They were not in any position spiritually mature wise or emotionally mature wise, any position to be leading churches or being elders in a church, you know, like, they needed to be shepherded themselves. And what I found was even. Even the leaders who were trying to help me, I'm in this odd system as a woman where I don't even get to tell my own story. You know, I don't have a voice. And it has to be from these male leaders, these benevolent male leaders who are now speaking on my behalf. But they also were playing into this whole weird system of power. So what that made me do afterwards, it's easy to say, okay, well, these are the bad guys. This denomination is messed up, and the adjacent ones around it, you know, and I'm the victim here, and then try to heal from that and move on. But it really made me say what attracted me to a church like this, to a denomination like this. How did I not see what was so clearly there? What other hurting people around me did I ignore? You know, like, there were just a lot of big Questions for myself at that time too. And so it started with that, but then I realized, you know, trigger is a overused word. I know it's a buzzword, but, you know, when you. When you go through something so traumatic, your body does. When have I felt this before? You know? And so I started writing some of my own memories from childhood. And I realized I really had to deal with my parents divorce, that I had been spending like my whole adult life reacting to that, trying to be better than them, right? Like picking up my parents unfinished business. And so that a lot of the. Each chapter begins with a storied memory kind of thing. It's not all about my parents divorce. That's just a small part, actually. But to try to get to know, you know, how I developed in my personality and my psyche who I was when I was 10 years old, looking in the mirror and what would I tell that girl now? That kind of thing. Well, one of the things that was so powerful and compelling is that you didn't just do that a little bit, you really laid yourself bare. I mean, there's. It's one thing. So I was a. I was a sex addict and an alcoholic while I was in ministry. And that was 31 years ago. And it's kind of safe for me to tell that story now, but I'm often with groups and speaking or preaching somewhere, and it's. I can almost sense like, people going. And so what about today? You know, how can I trust you in this moment? But you just keep going and going and going with like, pulling back the layers. And I was drawn to that. But. But not to be hyperbolic, but I was like, this is freaking brave to do that. And that's what the gift of the book really is, is that the more you pull back the layers of your story, the more I saw God. And I think that's what Buechner meant by unless you tell those two stories, because there's no need for me to need Jesus. I mean, yes, eternal life, but like, I believe that the gospel is about as much, if not more, what does that mean for me today? The salvation of David, who day after day said, you know, you're my salvation, my rock. So I read the book and I felt a great hunger that was stirred in me to have a deeper knowledge of this Jesus that you talked about, who ultimately, you know, we get to see our own. We need to see our own face more clearly. We get to see other faces more clearly. And ultimately we see that God sees us. Right? And I mean, isn't that what we ultimately long for. You know, we all come out, I start the book saying we all come out looking for a face that's looking at our face and delighting in it. And that's how we know that we're loved. That's how we know that we matter, that there's meaning. To me, uniquely in this world, we can't see our own face. And so we have to look to others to learn about ourselves. And ultimately, though, we are all looking for God's face, beholding our face, delighting in our face. And this is what we truly long for. And I think this is something that we can give one another and that we're called to do that as Christians now. You know the great benediction in

Numbers 6: 11:39

24 through 26, where God has Aaron bless the people by saying the the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, and the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. What does that mean? And is that just something that we're going to get, you know, in the beatific vision when we get to behold God and Jesus Christ in our new bodies on the new heavens and the new earth? Or since this is a benediction given to a congregation of God's people. Is Emmanuel Levinas correct when he says, theology begins in the face of our neighbor and that God descends in the face of our neighbor? And so we can do that for one another in our own benedictions and our blessing others, even with our faces, obviously with our mouths too, and our actions too. But our right brain can read body language and the face quicker than the words coming out of your mouth. Like, I already know how you feel towards me. So I would know when I approach somebody, if we really look at one another past the countenances that we put on and that Persona that we're living all day long and show that person, you know what? It is good that you are here. I am happy that you are here with me in my presence right now. I think that's part of that. I think it's more than part of it. I think it's the majority because so in my book that I just wrote called Sacred Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting Divine Love, it's my own story of I won't use the word deconstruction, but basically reckoning with my abuse and all the questions that come out of that. And there's very few people that are writing about reconstruction. And okay, now that I've named this, what does it mean to move forward? So I tried to clinically and theologically put that path together for people. But the thesis was, to the degree that we've been seen soothed, safe, and ultimately have a secure attachment, that's the degree to which we'll be able to do that with God. And if we don't have that secure attachment, we're going to really struggle. And then, unfortunately, the church is not a place where it makes it safe to wrestle with those broken places with a number of exceptions. So, yeah, I think that that's part of that question that's implicit in your whole book is, you know, why did this have to happen? You know, why this harassment? Why the bullying? And instead of you staying in that victim position and legitimate victim. Because the word victim has. Has a lot of negative connotations today. Through no fault of your own, you were harmed. But rather than staying in that place, you go so far beyond that, and you. You bring those two together so that as I experience the smile, the shine, the countenance of another, that rewires me neurologically to be able to experience that with God. Yes, I. And that's another thing. We've really divorced psychology from theology, and what a shame that is. And that is something I've really noticed, too, as I'm going through this disillusionment with these pastors and leaders and seeing how immature they were, because, you know, I think I'd become convinced through this denomination that truth was a doctrinal matter. Right. And the more that we get this certainty in our theology and precision, that the closer we are to God, you know, that it's objective and that's so dehumanized, and it's only using, like, one part of our. Our brain, and it's missing out on some of the more way more powerful parts. I mean, you even think scripture itself is 70% narrative. And, you know, I love to spend time in the song of Songs, which is allegory, poetry, song, metaphor. So I just think that, you know, we. Why do we live this whole life? Why aren't we just downloaded the right information and, you know, sinless now or get to a certain degree? And I think it's because we really have to be made ready for the truth. You know, I don't think we're ready a lot of the time. And that's something that I think Orwell, until we have faces in that novel, I think C.S. lewis, man, he really took us on a journey with her, her story. And at the end, when she's. Before the Gods with her complaint that she's been writing against them all her whole life and able to have this moment to read her complaint before the gods just naked. That's when she realizes the Persona that she's built and the self righteousness that she's built and how convoluted it was the whole time. And you know, I think that's so powerful because, you know, if we can be honest and look back at, at our stories, I think that that's true of all of us in certain ways. Yes. That we don't have a face. We build. We spend so much of our adult lives building a Persona of who we think we're supposed to be, who we think God wants us to, how we want others to see us, and we start convincing ourselves that's who we are. Yeah. Yeah. As I read the book, it made me think of a quote by James Baldwin who said, love does not let us live behind the masks which hide who we are, but it also doesn't allow us to live within those masks. And so it's the idea that we, that we have the. I'm sorry, that love does not let us live behind the masks that we can't live without, but it also does not let us live within those masks that it. That will push through. And so I want to come back to something you said. You said readiness for truth. Yeah. Unpack that a little bit more. Well, I think God is preparing us for that ultimate blessing of seeing his face in Jesus Christ. And he's giving us our lifetimes to help one another uncover our faces and develop a taste for truth. You know, I know for me, I was attracted to all this quote unquote certainty in the doctrine of my faith because it made me feel secure. You know, it made me feel right with God. It made me feel like there was something I could do, you know, really well, is get this right and show it, teach it to others. And I also think it was a way to try to heal my wound from my parents divorce. You know, one thing I looked back on is that we weren't as connected in the church as we could have been. And that, you know, I learned some, some basics but really didn't get into the meat. So I thought this is the way to go, you know, But I do think that we are being made ready for this reality of truth. And it's so much more glorious than we think. You know, I think of the small box that I had God in, which is just super ridiculous. But it's scary stepping out of that Box. It's scary sharing, you know, humiliating parts of my life. It's scary being 49 years old and saying, I don't have this all together now. You know, like, there's some big questions I have that I don't know the answers to. But there is this other comfort there of Christ with me, you know, and the beauty that he's showing me and the trust is both scary and glorious at the same time. But the humanness of it all is the whole thing. Right. It's not just the parts we get right, but it's our finitude. Yeah. And that makes me think of how so often Christians think that to be spiritual and to grow spiritually is to become less human, when in fact, I think the story of Scripture is that we become more fully human. Like Jesus was fully human in his humanity. You know, you talked about the. The vulnerability and those moments where with God, you would say, you know, I can't do this. But you also write back and forth where you tell stories that are not, quote, about God, where you're a mother, you had two kids, you had a third child, and apparently your mom was very competent as a mother. And you kind of had this picture of how you should be, and you have your. Your baby in your arms and you're exhausted and maybe you had a laundry basket, if I recall, and you're. And finally you just stopped and said, I can't do this. And it's. It strikes me that this is important for you to respond to that. It's not just this life with God where we confess our sin or inadequacy, but it's our everyday momentary life where there's ways that we're stuck being that are counterproductive to our joy. And here you are in that moment of surrender, something really profound happened that. That had big implications for your life with God. Yeah, I feel like that moment was. I was walking past the mirror holding this laundry basket, and I was pregnant with my third child. And I caught a glimpse of my face as I was walking by this mirror. And I saw something that I didn't know was there. And it was that exhaustion, you know, and that I'm in this hustle. And I realized in looking at my own self in that mirror and being honest with what I just saw and like, stopping for a minute and thinking about it, because it was freaky. I was trying to do better than my mom. You know, she had left my dad when I was 15 years old, and we stayed with my dad, and I wasn't going to do that. I was going to be in a good marriage, and I was going to have three kids, too. And I was going to raise them in the church and keep them there and stay with my husband and one big happy family. And I realized when I saw myself that I was doing that, which is twisted, right? And not the reason why you do things in life. And I had to admit my own exhaustion, and I had to stop and think, like, you know, I didn't come from the same background as her. She was reacting to her own trauma and life and upbringing, and I had a different one. And so I can't replace the story that way or just rewrite it. I have to write my story with my kids and my husband. And, you know, I think Frederick Buechner, you mentioned him and his book Telling the Truth. I mean, he really talks about, like, digging out our own secrets. And I think that is so well put because we keep secrets from ourself about even some of our motivations and, you know, in what we're doing. And so that was a secret I dug out about myself. That was a very important one that helped me have more grace towards my mother and towards myself, and definitely lean more on God. Yes. Well, Buechner, I think he was well into his 50s when he wrote the book Telling Secrets. And that's where he unpacked his father's suicide and how, you know, he had not dealt with it till then as a Presbyterian minister and a successful author. And it feels like torture and torment, but it becomes grace as we begin to unpack that. So I want to shift gears a little bit just for the sake of time. Further in the book, you quoted Donald MacLeod and you quoted him saying, I hope that while I still have much to learn, I don't have much to unlearn. And you go on to call unlearning a gift. So can you talk about the difference between learning and unlearning and why it's so important to unlearn? Right. It's funny, because I wrote this book called no Little Women back in the day, and it was all about, like, the resources that are being marketed for women in the church and how fluffy they are and full of theological error. And it was just a call to really take women more seriously and for women to take themselves more seriously theologically in the church. And I quote that in that book as a positive quote, like, you know, let's get this right, so we don't have too much to unlearn at the end of our lives. And now I see it differently now. I see I've had to step back after all this disillusionment and repent. And I think unlearning is so connected to repentance. I don't know how you can repent without unlearning. And, you know, I was in a Presbyterian church too, and it's almost like repentance is like, weaponized against you, like shame. It's connected to shame. And I don't think it was ever supposed to be like that. Right. You know, we talk about it like it's a beautiful thing, but in action, people are so covering up because it's just not safe to be real. It's not safe to repent in our churches, in our marriages, in our families. You know, I know I had a hard time with my children, with repentance, because I was an authority figure over them. And I didn't. You know, I thought I needed to be right. And so unlearning is so freeing. Why keep. Keep it up if it's wrong? And that's what repentance is. It's a letting go of what isn't true, you know, and it's a turning towards goodness and truth. Yeah, I love that. The turning toward goodness and truth, as opposed to the emphasis on what you have valued or where you've been. It's the. It's the. It's. In the prodigal son story. It's, you know, the brother that has been off in wild living and coming back. We think that repentance is rehearsing the speech that he has about, I'm so sorry for all the done thing. And yet it's coming back toward the joy and the embrace. And that. That feels dangerous. Right? It's like. No, it's gotta. It. It can't just be that. I mean, it can't be about the father's open arms and him running. It's like I have to take at least 35% credit for how bad I am. Well, it's vulnerable too. Right? I mean, and. And that's the thing about unlearning. That's the thing about repentance. And. And in the church, I, you know, I saw these leaders just unable to repent at all. And it's because I. They knew it would be weaponized against them, and it. It wasn't really safe for them to. So I just think, what have. What are we doing in our culture with that? You know, back to Emmanuel, loving us. He talks about, you know, when. When we really get to the naked face, when we get behind that countenance to the person's naked face. Yeah. They are vulnerable and. And we have an opportunity to liquidate them in a sense. And so he talks about how the other's face awakens ours with the awakening, the commandment, thou shalt not kill. And I believe on the other side of that is it's awakening us to see Christ in them and to love them in a very active way. So. But it's vulnerable and we know that and we just run from it. We cover it. Yeah, yeah. Just like Adam and Eve cover themselves with fig leaves. Yeah. So one of the most vulnerable things you did throughout the book as well was to talk about this style of relating, of being a good girl. And the good girl is the metaphor for the performer, the face that looks like you're a good Christian. And following all that with this belief that beneath that there's something that wouldn't be accepted and loved. So it sounds like as we talk about unlearning, that that's one of the things that you had to, and probably still are. If you're like me. I always include. I still am unlearn was this good girl. And you said, the. The good me is never angry at God because she's not real. God loves the real me. And so back, we're tying together several things, but repentance is saying, hey, there's this good me that I'm presenting to the world that's not the real me. And God loves the real me. So talk about that distinction between the real us and the faces that we present that are masks or self protective. Yeah. Like we're presenting this Persona of ourselves that we think we're supposed to be. And I was saying earlier that we convince ourselves that we are. But I think there comes a time in our life, and I know, like Carl Jung really talks about the midlife transition in this kind of way to where we begin to notice our shadow self, as he calls it. And poet Robert Bly talks about it as kind of the. The big black bag that we carry behind us on our backs. And in that we put all the messages of what isn't good about us. And so then we aren't that anymore. You know, we repress that about ourselves. And these aren't all bad things. It might be sensitivity even, you know, and so now we don't do that. You know, for me, I think one of the things was my. I felt like my relationship with God as a child and a teenager was more mystical. And as I began to get more theologically Vigorous. I came to the realization that was wrong, that, you know, that's all bad stuff, you know, I shouldn't be that way. Stuff it in the bag, quick, quick, and don't go back, just carry it on your back and, you know, so I think a lot of it too, in opening up the bag though, and in that chapter where I talk about the good me, I was harmed badly, but I need to look at the ways that I've harmed others as well and what would bring me to do that kind of thing, you know. And so I talk about a way I harmed a dear friend of mine. And in telling that memory, I realized, like, that was the good me. That whole time I was being so self righteous, you know, at my friend in a suffering marriage and I wrote her this horrible shaming letter for leaving her husband and I had no clue what was going on in her life, you know, but both of our moms left, so I thought she knew better and this kind of thing. And I was being the good me the whole time. But now when I was looking back on the memory, I'm thinking there was nothing good about the insensitivity that I had for my dear friend. And it put a huge, huge wedge in our relationship. She needed a friend and I gave her the good me. And so I think that story memory can really help with that as well. But we need to integrate these parts of us into our lives and even something like sinfulness. I'm not saying, oh, we need to embrace sin by any means, we don't want to sin. But I think you get to a point in your life where you realize, okay, it's not just like, I repent, I do these steps of spiritual growth and now I don't have to deal with that anymore. No, we still have to deal with that stuff. So we can put it in the bag. But we're ignoring something that's very much affecting our actions still. So we need to have that before ourselves and before God, I think, at all times so that we can have a better relationship and understanding. What information is this giving me about myself? Why do I do this? Why do I think this way? Or what is it? There's real work to do with those parts of ourselves than just acting like we can say a prayer of repentance or whatever and banish it from our lives and move on. Yeah, yeah. So as you write in the book and as you're talking now, this way of, of, of living in God with this bedrock foundation that his face shines upon us and you know, you read that, the. The numbers prayer. And this morning I actually wrote that out in a big fat. I love Sharpies. And I wrote it on a single page, eight and a half by 11. So it's really big because I. I've never actually memorized that. Which, as an ordained minister, probably I would get. But. But I circled all the words of blessing in there, and it's not just his face shine, but gracious and peace. And I can't remember the others, but it's like, here's this sentence or two sentences that is just loaded, loaded. The generosity of God. And it was just so beautiful. And I. And I was like, I've got to memorize this. The same way that if somebody says, hey, here's this great movie that you have to see, it's like, of course I'm going to see that, because I trust that friend. And like you, I had heard that. That verse 10,000 times, you know, at the end of church services. Right. How many times have we heard that? Yeah. And I think I really saw it this morning. So I want to move toward wrapping up. And there's two things that were my favorite sentences or stories. And the first. And this relates to. Since we talked about the good. The good me in quotes, the real you. And I'm a psychotherapist, so, you know, forgive me for doing an interpretation, but you wrote at the beginning about. Spin, Amy, spin. Yeah, yeah. Exclamation point. And that's when I teared up as a dad. My kids are now 22 and 27, but remembering back to when they were little. And then it took me back to. Not a sit and spin, but to my. To my Big Wheel. Yeah. And it touched the little boy in me about the. You know, the father saying over you, spin, Amy, spin. And so on the other side of that good girl, there's this girl that's just free. And it felt like in the book, you were just unleashed and free to bring those two parts together. Wow, that feels so good to hear. Because, you know, I think I was discovering that while writing it. Yeah. And that's the cool thing, too, about doing the storied memories. Like, that was one of my first memories. My first memory. And we had an assignment in psychology class to write your first memory. And, you know, it's supposedly supposed to have something to do with your personality. Yeah. And that's what mine was. My grandmother visiting. And I think I was barely. I don't think I was three yet, because we hadn't moved yet. We were still in Our townhouse. And she brought a sit and spin. And I just went to town on that thing. And you know, a neat thing in writing that memory was. I didn't realize part of my memory was seeing my grandmother's face delighting in me as I was doing that. Yeah. And my grandfather, you know, and just really getting a kick out of how I was enjoying the gift that they gave me. And spin, spin, spin. And so when I wrote it, I thought, that's kind of a silly first memory. But then when I wrote spin e me spin, I was like, yeah, this does tell me something about my personality that I remember this. Yeah. And their delight and enjoyment over you wasn't because you were exegeting Greek and Hebrew words or parsing the grammar. Nor was it, as you tell in another sad story of your mom and dad before they're divorced and they're beautiful, singing in your dad's folk music. And then while your mom washed dishes. And it was a beautiful thing, but then you were in the kitchen washing dishes and you were suddenly alone. So it's not even the delight is not because you're washing dishes or cooking meals. It's just because you're this child and you have joy. And that's so beautiful. So this has never happened before with a book I've read for a podcast. But I won't say this is a prophetic word, but I had a vision as I was reading the book. No way for you. And what I saw was a forest. I grew up on the outer edge of urban Cleveland on a four lane highway. And we had this very strange yard. It was like a bowling alley. It was 800ft deep and on both sides it was lined with pine trees. It wasn't a forest. It was very urban, suburban. And there were probably 40 pine trees. And we would climb in them and I built a tree for it. So I'm reading your book and I had this picture of a forest of pine, pine trees. And it's maybe like 20 acres. And in the middle of the forest, these boys. And it was very clear that they were not mature boys. They were, they were boys. And they take some old scraps of wood and some nails and a hammer and they build a tree house. It's not very high up in the middle of this forest. And it's. It's really kind of ramshackle. And they put a big sign on the outside of the tree house, this kind of fort that says no girls allowed. And kind of that kid writing, you know, like you see on the little Rascals or something like that. And then they're in this fort, and they start to call this the palace of the kingdom. This is where God dwells, and this is our place. And there are no girls allowed. And then God shows up, and he's kind of hovering over this forest. And the words spin, Amy, spin are there, and you're on your sit and spin kind of on the outer edges of the forest. You know, you've been relegated. And as you spin with the joy on your face, this forest goes from 20 acres to 40 acres to 100 acres. And it just expands because of your spinning. Whoa. And that's why I said this book was really special. And so with all of the harassment and the bullying that you've gone through, you know, if we like to quote probably flippantly and patronizingly, a lot of times in Genesis, the what God, what, what? What was intended for evil will be used for good. But here we are in Lent, and we're looking at Good Friday and Holy Saturday and the resurrection. And your story in Saving Face is really a resurrection story. And as. As you live in the freedom of not having to be the good girl, and as you live just in this place of I'm going to piss some people off, and there's people that are going to be insecure, and as the no girls allowed sign is on that, that ramshackle thing that is being called the kingdom of God, that as you spin, the kingdom actually expands around the outer edges to the place that are desperate for the kind of courage that you have to integrate your story with the story of God and just the. Just the winsomeness of your experience of God. It's really, really beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that with me, because, I mean, there's tons of insecurity going through this kind of stuff and liminality without having that certainty that I thought I had before. So, I mean, that is something that I'm now going to remind myself, this vision that you had and to keep spinning. Well, my friend Paul Young, who wrote the book the Shack, which is obviously in many circles controversial, but it's profoundly impacted me, as has my friendship with Paul. He once said that God doesn't save us so that he can use us. He saves us so he can make us whole, and then he invites us to play. And I love that idea that life in the spirit, life in God as a follower of Jesus, is not meant to be burdensome, but to be playful in terms of being connected to our truest self. So I'm glad that somehow that encourages you. All right, last thing toward the end of the book, there's the theme all throughout of looking for a new church home and disappointment and struggle and exhaustion. And a friend says to you, why don't you try the mainline church? And, you know, my heart raced there because I'm Episcopalian and have found a real home there. I went back to my Catholic roots at one point, and that wasn't exactly a fit. So I was going to say, let's see where this goes. And you go to the Methodist church and the pastor is a woman, but she's on maternity leave. And you're there for, I think, a couple of weeks. But she came back from maternity leave and there was a celebration, and her name is Katie, I think. And she delivered her sermon from behind the pulpit with her newborn baby, a son, attached to her chest. I'm assuming it was in a Baby Bjorn or a sling or something like that, but oh, my gosh, what a compelling picture. So tell me what that was like for you. And to me, it almost felt like. Not that the word vindication is necessary, but God just smiling at you. Well, like one more final smile in the book. Well, thanks. Yeah. So we went to this Methodist church that's just right down the road. And Katie was on maternity leave, we found out. And one of the first things I noticed, you know, I shot up this prayer. Christ, I've been looking for you in your church. You know, just please show me yourself. And he was all over the place that day, like, showing up in the liturgy. You know, I was told in the Presbyterian circles that the Methodists have lost the gospel. You know, they don't share the gospel anymore. And it was all over the place. And there was a woman preacher that day as a stand in. And, you know, I. All of this harassment towards me is because I'm a woman who was writing books and having some influence with my writing. And I critiqued the movement of quote, unquote, biblical manhood and womanhood and this whole theology of what's called complementarianism, which is like benevolent male leadership. And so women preaching is just. Was just like anathema, okay, you're going to hell. And I knew that wasn't the case, but it was still, you know, you're so vilified with it. So we heard this beautiful sermon, and then we hear that the pastor's on maternity leave for three months. And I thought, well, a, this church is functioning so well without the preacher here, without the pastor. Clearly, it. It isn't Based on a big hierarchy. She's empowered others. And this is more every member ministry happening around here. And I loved that. Secondly, I wanted to meet this pastor then, you know, and see what it's like when she's there. So, yeah, she had a little two year old, and then this newborn, and she's just coming back from maternity leave, and I walk in and she's got the baby strapped to her chest. And I'm thinking, you know, I wonder when she's gonna get that baby off of her so she can get to work, you know, and she does the children's church time and she's bouncing little, little Wilbur while she's talking about Jesus, weeping, you know, and then she gets up to deliver the sermon. And I sat there and watched a woman deliver a sermon with a baby attached to her chest the entire time. I was in awe because the message was so different. And, you know, and one big. One big criticism of egalitarian churches is that they say, yeah, sure, women can do what men can do, but do it like us, you know, like, there's nothing special about your femininity in the job. Just act like a man. And here she comes up, and I just felt like, you know, all these preachers that I've watched where their wives are watching the kids, or their wives are getting the kids out of the way, you know, so they can do this important job of preaching. And I saw something very, very different in this picture. And it's almost like, you know, she told all those guys, like, hold my beer. You know what I mean? Like, never mind, I'll hold it myself. And she showed motherhood and preaching together. And I thought about all the women who have, over time, like, served in the cotton fields with babies tied to them, you know, and all the work women have done with babies their whole lives. But this was even different than that, because this was choice. She didn't have to do it, you know, she just did it. And it was powerful. Really powerful. Wow. Thanks for. Thanks for reflecting back on that. The reason why it was so powerful to me. Well, first, let me say this. Those who think that women's femininity doesn't matter and that they just should preach like a man, or they would preach like a man. Men cannot reveal the tenderness of God, which is what women can bring exponentially. More so. And the world today is not hungry for doctrine. They are hungry for tenderness. The world desperately needs tenderness. And that's why women are far more prophetic today in the kinds of roles that are pastoral and theological. Than men. I'll just stop there. But what I thought of when I. When I read that story, and it was another one that brought tears to my eyes, I. Every morning I pray Psalm 131. My eyes are not haughty. My heart is not proud. I don't concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed myself. I've quieted my ambitions. I'm like a weaned child with its mother. Like a weaned child, I am content. And my goodness, what a powerful picture of the weaned child. That three month old may not have been weaned, but content. They're right there. While mom is living in this beautiful vocation of just being who she is and not pretending, quote, that she had to go to work. So it's almost as if the men that caused you harm, and in my addictions, I have caused harm to women in the past. The antidote to that is to be calm and to quiet our ambitions, all of our strategies, all of our certainty, and then to be content with just who we are and what your book just nails with calling us to have a face and to look into our own faces, the faces of others and the face of God is to be content with that. Because that's when we're loved. In that place of contentment, not needing to be any more or any less. I can tell you're in the right vocation, because I feel like I'm in. I've just been through a really good therapy session in this interview with my own work. Yeah, Well, I feel like I was in a therapy session as I read your book. So that's why it's so powerful. And we need more authors like you. We need more women who are willing to be themselves and to. To speak out what's true. I've not yet read Beth Elson Barr's newest book about becoming a pastor's wife. But, you know, the big surprise, quote, no surprise, is that it's women who are much for the part perpetuating a lot of the subordination of women. Oh, yeah? Yes. And she gets into that in a good portion of her book as well. I mean, to me, that's the height of patriarchy. One more question. Sure. Okay. And this was just a little curiosity I had, and I don't know if it's the therapist to me, but one of the things you did through your writing, I called it the Jim Gaffigan moment. Have you seen Jim Gaffigan? Where he's talking and then there's this alter ego voice where it's like this little old lady in the audience that goes, I can't believe you just said that. So the first time I saw it was you were talking about dream interpretation. And one of the things that you journaled was your own dream. And then you put in parentheses after you said, you know, kind of qualifying that, you know, it's not canon, it's not sacred scripture or dream interpretation. And you said something like, you know, this is. This is not definable. Yeah. And. And then you put in parentheses, should I say that twice? And then there was another part, and I think there were multiple ones, where you wrote in italics in a kind of parenthesis. Did I really just say that? Like what you just said? So there was this process. And what I'm wondering is. And I think this would be very, very hopeful for people listening, because here you are, you've written books, you're a theologian, you're brilliant, and yet you're questioning yourself. And there's a kind of. It wasn't quite scrutinizing, but it was being cautious. And that was so hopeful to me. Like, oh, you can have this core conviction and then kind of wonder and put it out there. Like, do I really want to say that that's part of this journey of having a face? It is. And it's interesting that you picked up on that. I didn't think of it as a Jim Gaffkin thing or that I was even doing a thing, but, you know, I think one. One thing that coming out of such abuse is hearing those voices, your accusers, all the time. Like, as I'm writing, I know what my accusers are going to say and think, and to get past that is really hard. And then you have your own voice that's saying things as well, which I really want to be in conversation with. So, yeah, in this book, my writing style is different, and I've loosened up a lot. I wanted it to be more contemplative. I wanted it to be more. A little bit more stream of conscious, and I wanted to be more creative with my writing. And so, you know, that. That just got in there. Yeah. Well, Amy Bird, thank you. You didn't just do the work of creating this book, saving Face, which was a labor of love, but you've also done your own work, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, psychologically. And I have great admiration for you, and I'm a big fan. So thank you for taking the time today to talk. Oh, thank you so much for having me on, Michael. It was a real pleasure talking with.