Episode 404: Brian Zahnd, "Why Heaven Has Gone Missing from the Church"

There are at least three wrong ways to write about heaven, and Brian Zahnd spent his new book carefully avoiding all of them — too sentimental, too sensational, too escapist to bother caring about the world right in front of us.

In this conversation, Brian and Michael talk about why heaven isn't a far-off destination but a realm woven through the space between every atom of this one, and why love and wonder might be the most reliable hints we get of its nearness. Brian shares the mystical moment in Rocky Mountain National Park that reshaped his understanding of the incarnation and makes the case that a faith stripped of transcendence eventually collapses into mere politics — however well-intentioned.

They also talk about pilgrimage, the discipline of praying written prayers, and why so many people are having real spiritual experiences with no idea where it's safe to talk about them.

Brian Zahnd is a pastor of forty-four years and author of Unseen Existences: Of Heaven, Earth, and the Divine Mystery in All Things.

Find Brian Zahnd online here.

Transcript

Introduction to Heaven and Pilgrimage

Michael John Cusick 0:00

Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Restoring the Soul. I think we just crossed the 400 mark, and with that crossing of special guest today, welcome back to the Restoring the Soul podcast, Brian Zahn. Thank you, Michael. Thank you for having me back. It's good to be with you. You have a wonderful new book out called Unseen Existences of Heaven, Earth, and the Divine Mystery in All Things. I got an advanced copy and uh I had the privilege of reviewing it. And I had to work hard because the book was about so much. It wasn't just about one thing, it was about many things that then crystallized about halfway through into this one thing. So it's a book about heaven. And as I wrote in my endorsement, one of the things that you did so skillfully was you in you you eschewed, you avoided all of the sentimental pathways that one could go down in writing about heaven at all. So well done with that. Thank you.

Brian Zahnd 1:02

Yeah, there's there's there's at least three bad paths you can take if we talk about heaven. And I think it's part of why people have been reticent to talk seriously about heaven, at least in more serious theological circles. You mentioned the um sentimental path, there's the sensationalist path, you know, those are those my 30 minutes in heaven and I saw the streets of gold books, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's the escapist heaven that is that paves the way for people to have no concern or even disdain for the well-being of this planet and others around us. And so I I didn't want to do any of that stuff. So Yeah.

Michael John Cusick 1:48

Kind of the left behind mentality. Right. Exactly. Yeah. You know, I I like to drop this quote every time I can because uh most people are shocked when they hear it. But and who knows, we may have to edit this out. But regarding the left behind literature, which of course made both of those authors very, very wealthy, twenty-five million copies, last I knew. Eugene Peterson was asked to comment it on it years ago, and he said that it was Christian pornography.

Brian Zahnd 2:16

Yeah. You know what? I think I do remember him saying that. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's a that's quite a that packs a punch, and I think it's accurate.

Michael John Cusick 2:26

Yeah, yeah. That that it that it awakens an appetite for something, but it it's not actually rooted in a kind of relational uh mysterium tremendum that calls us to a place of humility, as you talked about in the book. Here's where I want to start. Uh we we talked about this ever so briefly in the podcast that we did around your book, When the World's On Fire. You are a pilgrim, and the theme of this book is pilgrimage, and heaven is pilgrimage, uh, our life is pilgrimage toward

The Nature of Pilgrimage

Michael John Cusick 2:55

heaven. But Brian, a week from Friday, I'm going back to St. Cuthbert's way for the third time, and I'm hiking uh the the hundred kilometers from outside of Edinburgh. We'll start in Melrose all the way down to Prairie. We'll probably just talk about this for the whole time then.

Brian Zahnd 3:10

We should. We should. Because haven't you done St. Cuthbert's multiple times? I've done it the entire thing, starting in Melrose, like you're talking about, twice. And then last year we were there with St. Stephen's University leading students. We didn't do it all, we didn't have time to do it all, but we did sections, and then Perry and I would teach on it, and then we spent a couple of nights on Linda's farm. But oh, I love that. I love that. So the the book, the original title for the book was Paths of Unseen Existences, which it comes from I'm gonna go ahead and read the epigraph. It comes from um Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road. There's a line that says, You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides, I believe you are latent with unseen existences. You are so dear to me. So my title all through the writing process was Paths of Unseen Existences. Uh the publisher wanted to make it more pithy, and I think maybe rightly so, they just shortened it down to unseen existences. But then you do lose, at least in the title, which you've already alluded to, that there's a couple of themes that I eventually want to bring together. That is, yes, there is this other realm, this unseen world, this spiritual world that the Bible often calls heaven or the heavens, uh, but we can also understand our own life as a pilgrimage of the soul toward our true telos of union with God in heaven. So, yeah, you're you're exactly right. There's there's those two themes that then I try to bring together. So, but yes, pilgrimage. So I I Michael, I think of my uh my pilgrim self is my best self. Yeah. And uh, you know, we've walked Saint we've walked uh St. Cuthbert's three times, we've walked Camino de Santiago four times, done some other things here and there, but uh yeah. I mean at any given moment, you know, I'm happy to do all that I'm doing, but at any given moment I'd probably rather be on a walking pilgrimage somewhere.

Michael John Cusick 5:12

Yeah. Well, so because this is so related, we won't just make this a you know a commercial for the Camino or St. Cuthbert's, but what is it about those spaces and the process for you of getting away and you know being in beauty and slowing down? What is it about that that draws you so deeply?

Brian Zahnd 5:32

Well, I mean, you hit on a couple things right there. It is beauty, it is slowing down, and it is the blessed simplicity that at least for a period of time, your life is reduced to having really no other task than getting up in the morning and walk, whatever, 10, 12, 13, 14 miles. I mean, life becomes simple, it becomes slow, you don't move any faster than foot speed, you're outside the entire time, because you know,

Defining Heaven

Brian Zahnd 6:00

we are we're more and more, it seems like, confined, you know, to these artificial spaces of, you know, walls and roofs and all of that. I mean, we need shelter, I understand that, but if we're not careful, we can just like live all of our life uh indoors. And so to be most of the day outdoors, doing something very simple, especially as if it has some kind of spiritual intent. I mean, you're you're walking St. Cuthbert's way, this uh what was he, a seventh-century uh British saint involved in evangelizing the British Isles, or if it's, you know, the Camino de Santiago, it's it has all kinds of spiritual implications. I think that just so good for our soul. And what's interesting, you know, pilgrimage goes back to the medieval period. And the idea was that the pilgrim, the objective was to reach the cathedral where the relics of the saint, you know, are contained and they could be revered and all of that sort of thing. Uh that it that isn't hardly what impels anybody for pilgrimage today. I mean, if I if I, for example, want to, you know, be near the relics of St. James in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, I can be there in 24 hours from now. I don't have to walk 500 miles to get there. Uh so in modern pilgrimage, uh though it's a cliche, it's really true, the journey becomes the point. Yes. The point is not to just get to the the cathedral. The the point is the journey. That that and of course this podcast is named, you know, what, restoring the soul. I mean, that's the perfect language. When I'm on pilgrimage, I am very aware of my soul being restored.

Michael John Cusick 7:55

I love all that. You alluded to this, but uh the simplicity of it to me when people say, Why do I do this and why would I go back a third time? I recently had somebody go, like, ooh, why would you go back again, even a second time? It's it's one place of my life where my life is about one thing. Yeah. And you know, Psalm 27, 4, that one thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek, and suddenly that all kind of comes before me. And it's not like there's not mental distractions and that I have to slow down and be intentional, but it's like there's so few spaces where we can just do and be in that one thing kind of space. Right.

Brian Zahnd 8:30

I have a question for you. It has nothing to do with anything spiritual. On your first time, did you have did you ever lose the trail at any point? Yes. Yes. I did too. It's not marked well. It's not marked well. And doing it the second time, you can avoid that because you kind of remember, okay, yeah, here's where I went wrong. I'm not going to do that. But yeah, it's not marked that well.

Heaven as a Spiritual Realm

Brian Zahnd 8:52

I you just made me feel better about myself. Yeah. And that was actually part of the Trevor Burrus, I've talked to several people that have made mistakes on that.

Michael John Cusick 9:00

Yeah. You look for that little cross uh on the circle, and that gets you there. Well, that's so cool. Let me let me come back to this idea of heaven. And will you define heaven? Because I I remember years ago reading Dallas Willard's um Divine Conspiracy, and he talks about the Lord's Prayer and where we all say our Father who art in heaven. He translated that as Dear Father, always near us, and then gave like half a chapter on the fact that heaven is as much here in some sense as it is up there and out there, and therefore the subtitle of your book of Heaven, Earth, and Mystery. Yes.

Brian Zahnd 9:39

Well, exactly. Um first of all, um in the Lord's Prayer, if you're going to translate it literally, it wouldn't be our Father who art in heaven. It'd be our Father who is in the heavens, which has a different field to the heavens. There's the heavens and then there's the earth. And we don't just mean the sky or the stellar heavens. What is intended there is this other realm, this other world of unseen existences. Paul uses the language, while we look not at things that are seen, that is material, but things that are unseen. For that which is seen is temporal, that which is unseen is eternal. Um the Hebrews, the ancient Hebrews, through their scriptures, through revelation, we would say, I think, uh, knew of this other world that is the realm of God and angels and other attendant beings. Um the the Greek philosophers, especially Plato, what through what they called reason, they decided that such a world must exist. And they have some very complex but very sound philosophical reasons for how they get there. But they say this temporal world must be somehow sustained by an eternal, non-temporal realm. Plato used the language of, you know, the forms that it would be in the in the realm of the perfect forms, but that correlates with what we think of as heaven. So I I say it this way: heaven is not, you know, out there somewhere. You go out to Neptune, take a right, you can't miss it. It's not that. It's it's right here. It's right here. So, you know, in the scriptures we read and maybe in a kind of surprisingly frequent occurrence of angels appearing. Well, it isn't like angels are traveling vast distances, and you know, they're no, they're they're

The Weight of Glory

Brian Zahnd 11:47

here. But almost never are we aware of them, but they're here. And so another way of thinking of it is i you know, astrophysicists can tell us that the universe that we know began 13.8 billion years ago, and that there was a moment when all of the matter of the universe was compressed to a singularity. This would have been a very, very heavy particle. Yes, very heavy. You know, all of the all of the matter in the universe compressed to a singularity, and then it began to expand rapidly. We call this the Big Bang. So that even though, like I'm sitting at this table, and it feels to me very solid, and yet most of it is still space. I mean, if you get down to the subatomic level, you know, there's the space between the particles takes up more than all of the matter. And I sometimes think of the space between particles of matter as the heavens. I I I mean I love that. I don't I didn't write that because I'm not confident enough quite to say that. But what I am trying to help people think of is not heaven out there somewhere, removed, remote, distant, but right here in a realm that we don't see uh through empirical means, the the senses, but that we can be aware of spiritually and can interact with in all kinds of ways.

Michael John Cusick 13:20

That's I mean, so it's profound, and I want to go think about all that, but I think it's a brilliant and beautiful metaphor that heaven is the space uh of everything that we don't see and that we can't enter into with physical eyes, but only with spiritual eyes, as you know, as Paul talks about the eyes of the heart that we see. I also want to come back to, as you talked about the you know, everything compressed into one singularity. It makes me think about how the word glory, uh I remember from studying years and years ago, that Hebrew word havod, it has more to do with weight than a bright, a bright light. Right. So the glory is all contained there, and then in whatever proliferation or explosion or big bang is there, it's like the glory is released into the universe. Uh but somehow it pre-existed that that moment. We're all we're speculating, of course.

Brian Zahnd 14:13

But another another way of though of thinking about this, this kovod, weighty, substantive, we are conditioned to think that if the heavens exist, they are certain they're they're ephemeral, they're wispy, they are ghost-like, and that this is what's solid and real, where in fact the thought of Scripture is the reverse. Because this is temporal. This will eventually fade away. It's the it's the heavenly realm that is eternal, that is, that is more enduring and substantive. C.S. Lewis

The Importance of Heaven in Faith

Brian Zahnd 14:48

touches on this a lot. Yeah. And they show, you know, he has his famous sermon, The Weight of Glory, but he also has in the Great Divorce, if if you know this one, the the people that are they take a bus trip from hell to heaven. But when they get there, uh they find out that they're like ghosts, that heaven is real and substantial, and they can't really walk on the grass because it hurts their feet. Yeah. You know, and and everything there is far more solid than they are. Yeah.

Michael John Cusick 15:18

That, in and of itself, you know, the the I don't know if it was in your text that you wrote or if it was in one of the uh IVP publishers write-ups, but they used the word a couple times about compelling and how you're trying to create a compelling vision. And that is a compelling vision when you talk about heaven being more full of substance than what we know here. That's like, of course we'd all want more substance. That's what our soul is looking for. That's the idea of the pilgrimage.

Brian Zahnd 15:46

Yes, yes, exactly. So I mean somewhere early in the book I say something like heaven has gone missing. Because there were so many bad ideas about heaven, sensationalist, escapist, sentimental, that people became maybe embarrassed and said, Well, we're not going to do that. We we believe in a good, earthy faith that speaks of justice and speaks of restoration here, and we want we want a faith that is not just in the sweet by and by pie in the sky when I die, sort of thing. And I agree with all of that, but that can be overdone. Yes. Because i i if if we remove heaven from our theological cosmology, we almost render Christian theology incoherent. It's it's such a dominant theme, it's so presumed, so much is built upon that, that I wanted to maybe model a way of talking soberly and seriously about heaven, because also it is, by the way, our blessed hope. I mean, it is it is what sustains our hope, and it has for, you know, 2,000 years for Christians. So I wanted to recover that. Because I think I think the damage that was done by left behind, late great planet Earth, all of this wacky eschatology is that people then didn't want to talk about anything like heaven. And so I'm trying to recover that.

Michael John Cusick 17:18

Yeah.

Brian Zahnd 17:18

Or at least I'm I'm not trying, I'm trying to do my part. I'm trying to make my little contribution. Okay.

Michael John Cusick 17:23

So Yeah, no, I I hear you. And every every com contribution matters, but you used the word overcorrection in the book, too, I think, that there was an overcorrection. And I love how you talked about um in I think it was about a third of the way into the book, you actually talked a little bit about hermeneutics, about how um oh I'm trying to trying to recall the passage, how basically empiricism, you know, the the the hermeneutics and understanding scripture really became about empirical

Transcendence and Modernity

Michael John Cusick 17:55

uh textual criticism, and that the mystery just so slowly slipped out. And when we get to that place where we're about restoration, which I'm all about, the restoration of the earth and Revelation 21 of uh God bringing heaven to earth, uh everything changing from those unhealthy senses, we can be left, and I I I said this as we prayed before this podcast started, we're left without a person and we're left without a place. We just have nicer Christian ethics, and it's like we've removed the guts from it. So it as as I read the book, it felt like heaven is part of the guts that we need to have of the faith.

Brian Zahnd 18:40

At one point in the book, I think early on, it's it's one of my favorite sentences in the book that some people picked up and others maybe haven't. But I say Christianity without transcendence degenerates into politics. Yes. And I I I'll I'll be forthcoming here. I'm really critiquing a little bit of the Christian left, Christian progressive, who I'm very sympathetic with, and sometimes they claim me as one of their own, but I don't I'm not sure if I am or not. But so all of the well-intended desire to uh set things right, be about justice, um love your neighbor in some sort of tangible way. I'm all for that. I think in my own way I engage in that and I do that. But if you lose any kind of serious talk about heaven, all you're gonna end up with is politics. That's it. And I I I don't want to do that. Um if we're praying, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, well, it presumes that we actually believe there is a heaven where things are right. And that is somehow that is that is what we are trying to move toward. We're trying to see uh a union of earth with heaven, but that there already is a realm where things are restored, where things are right, where things are healed. And so we want to we want to move into fuller participation with that world here and now. But we have to believe that world exists.

Michael John Cusick 20:23

Yes, yeah, and to to believe it and to understand it uh as correctly as possible. So along the lines of what you talked about about the the the subtle critique of the left, you wrote to have a compelling message in the 21st century, the church must speak confidently, confidently, if humbly, about the reality of the spiritual world. And that's what you're talking about is the transcendence. Um I think everybody listening knows the word transcendence, but it feels like the world is desperate for transcendence and searching for it and yet missing it everywhere.

Brian Zahnd 21:00

Yeah, I mean, this is the aftermath of modernity, which really begins with the Enlightenment with uh a deep fascination with science, which by the way, I just want to everybody hear me. I don't know of any major peer-reviewed scientific theory that is any threat to my faith at all. I'm I'm all for it. I mean, I'm gonna watch all of the science documentaries. I like reading books on astrophysics, I love all of that stuff. Um but what the my one realm of pushback is when science has said everything it can about the phenomenon of being, there is still more to be said. And we became so fascinated with our ability, beginning in the 17th century, to explore the world around us empirically. That is, through the amplification of human senses. What we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, all of that. That that we put on we be we put we put on blood. And we became almost oblivious to this other world. Um and we begin to think that there maybe no other world exists. So and that is completely detrimental to Christian faith. And there again, but but you but so so if if empiricism says repeatedly that there can be no other world than the material world, that the material world is the only world there is, I think uh most people are intimidated to try to push back on that, but in their soul they feel the emptiness of it. I mean, if all there is is matter, then not then not much really matters. It's it's hard to come up with any meaning if all there is is atoms, you know, having random associations. Um

The Search for Meaning Beyond Modernity

Brian Zahnd 22:55

so people you're you're exactly right. People sense that there is some other world and there is some other realm. And so if they can't I mean they'll they'll at least lean into it in fiction and fantasy, yeah. But if they begin to turn to religion, they want to turn to people who actually believe in another world. Not just people that that have a political message with a little with a few Bible verses thrown in. They want you know, they want to believe that there is a God, that that there that there is another realm, that death is not the end. They want to believe all of that. And so I think some of the church is missing a golden opportunity where souls so weary of the thinness of modernity are aching for something more, and they show up in our churches and we give them practical sermons. They don't want a practical sermon. I mean, if if all if all you're looking for is practical tips on how to live a better life, they're everywhere. That's not hard to find. The church has a unique message about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and its profound implications, and more people are hungry for that than I think we know.

Michael John Cusick 24:15

I think so too. So I've I've followed and listened to your preaching for a while. I've read your books, you know, I I know uh Brad Jersik and other people who you're you're very close with, best friends with. And as I've as I've watched you from a distance, I've really, really resonated with your theology, the way that you commingle so many different denominations and and approaches, and I'd love for you to comment on that about how you've kind of come to that place because you wrote a book about that as well. But um describe through your pastoral work over decades now, and I I think you've been in the ministry for 40 plus

The Role of Love and Wonder in Spiritual Experience

Michael John Cusick 24:56

years, right?

Brian Zahnd 24:56

44 years, yeah.

Michael John Cusick 24:58

At one church, by the way, ladies and gentlemen. Which is I mean, that's like David Letterman in the Ed Sullivan Theater for 35 years. Uh it's longer than that. Yeah, it is. So if if Jesus birth, death, death, and resurrection, you know, um Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. That's the the mystery of faith that I proclaim every Sunday at my church. Yeah. And if if heaven is more than just where I go when we die, try to put words for maybe the listener who is either deconstructed and saying, well, I listened to Kusick because I kind of like some of his thinking, or if they're not even a believer and never have been, what is this blessed hope that is on the other side of the belief of Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again? Because what I think as a therapist, people's hearts are hungry for experience, not just a thought to latch on to that I believe this, but believing in terms of actually having a living encounter with this reality.

Brian Zahnd 26:04

Maybe a place to begin would be with love. Ah. So I would ask someone if they're married or, you know, whatever, do you do you love your spouse? Do you love your children? Yes. I said, well, do you think that that can all be explained by material means, by the process of evolution, by hormones? All that's involved. You know, the hormones are involved, and there is, you know, uh the survival of a species is benefited when we care for our young, all that sort of stuff. I'm not denying any of that. But do you think that's all we mean when we talk about love? That it's just evolutionary advantageous? Is it just genetic? Is it just hormones, or is there something deeper? I think almost all people, not all people, but almost all unless people are like definitely committed to philosophical materialism, will say, no, I I I believe that that altruistic love actually exists. All right. I'm talking about the world where that comes from, the world where that is sustained. God is that, God is love. And love may be the strongest hint that you can encounter on a regular basis that there is another world. Another hint would be wonder, and I talk about that maybe a little bit more in the book. There are these moments when often in nature, but there's other moments too, but often in nature where we have this experience of awe, of kind of this of being overwhelmed but also with filled with joy. Why? What why do we have this experience of bliss? Where is that coming from? I think I think you are brushing up against, you're catching a glimpse of heaven through maybe something in nature that is beautiful. Uh, you live out there by the mountain, so I'm a little bit jealous. Yeah. Um when I'm in the mountains, I I experience that on a regular basis. And I, you know, I tell a story in in this book about having kind of a mystical experience in Rocky Mountain National Park. Yeah. Where I was just over the the the moment was so beautiful. It it literally took my breath away. That's not a cliche. I gasped and I prayed. I said, God, I I I want to spend my life filled with this kind of wonder. I don't want to lose this. It was, it was just, it was a, I don't know, it was more of a prayer of gratitude than anything, I guess. I wasn't expecting an answer. I wasn't, I, I wasn't expecting a reply, you know. I just said, God, I want to sp I want to live my life filled with wonder. But immediately there was this impression, not of not an audible voice. This it didn't come from the realm of the material. So my my eardrums were not vibrating. But in that other part of me, that spiritual part of me, instantly there was this, this is the greatest wonder of all. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. I just I wasn't expecting that, wasn't looking for it. It was a response, but that became um that became life-altering. And so I started just leaning into that. And I would just meditate on it, I would think about it. Not to write sermons, not to do anything, but just you know the logos of God, the wisdom, the knowledge, the love, the telos, the all that God is joined

Spiritual Experiences and the Quest for Connection

Brian Zahnd 29:54

us, became one of us, fully human. To this day, it's like what a mysterious wonder that endlessly fascinates me. I I've kind of veered away maybe a little bit from your original question, but love and wonder and these sorts of things. And and Michael, I have learned that if you're having a conversation with someone and they trust you as a therapist, you'll understand about this. They don't think you're trying to, you know, manipulate them, you're not trying to use them, you're not trying to get something from them, you're not conjoling them to join something, you're just an honest soul having a conversation. If they can sense that from you and you ask most people, have you ever had a spiritual experience? Most people will say yes and they can tell it to you. And they they like to tell it if they know it's okay. So much of our world is so secular that people are hesitant. They're afraid that they're going to be maybe dismissed or laughed at. So I mean people are walking around all around us who have had spiritual experiences, and they're actually they would like to be able to maybe talk about it. They would like someone to listen to them, but they're not sure where they can find those people. And and their initial inclination will not be church, unfortunately, because there they feel like, okay, they're going to try to get me to join something, do something, believe something. Um, so what I'm saying is the the problem of um a disenchanted world is maybe less of a problem than we think. It's a construct that's all around us that suppresses things, but we human beings are still spiritual beings, and they have these yearnings, these longings, and these experiences. And if we can figure out how to maybe uh have conversations around it, I think it could be very fruitful.

Michael John Cusick 31:51

Yeah. Gosh, my mind's going in so many different directions, Brian. First of all, the artists, the writers, the painters, the the Spielbergs, the secular movie people, they're the ones that are oftentimes giving us language to uh to to put what And they're not afraid of spiritual themes, are they? That's right. No, yeah. I mean, Spielberg's in the news a lot lately. Look at look at what he did with E.T. and what Lucas did with Star Wars, and that was all deeply spiritual. I love I love the the story in the book and what you just came back to about Rocky Mountain National Park, because what I'm hearing is that that that ineffable moment was contained in the reality of the logos and in all of who God is and what he what he was at the beginning and and is now forever. And I think that there are people that have absolutely zero belief in God, maybe no interest in God, that are, as you said, constantly having those moments and wanting somebody to just ask them a question and that kind of thing.

Brian Zahnd 32:54

Well, the and then and the word God, I mean god, you know, out of the German uh God, it's a container that can be filled with so many wrong ideas. Right. That uh oftentimes when someone identifies to me they're an atheist, I'll say, well, tell me more about this God in whom you do not believe, which is which is an odd question, but you know what? They can tell you. Yeah. Tell me more about the God in whom you do not believe. And they tell me, and I almost always can say, Yeah, I don't believe any of that either. I don't believe in that God, but I still believe in God.

Michael John Cusick 33:30

Aaron Ross Powell What do you want to talk about right now? Let's say we've got five minutes left. What is it that you'd want people to know about this book or about the topics that we're talking about that feel important and close to your pastoral heart?

Exploring the Concept of Heaven and Angels

Brian Zahnd 33:45

What I would say is that something probably has been missing for a lot of people that pertains to the idea of heaven. I have a very interesting chapter, if I say so myself, the last chapter, chapter 10, in the company of angels, which, well, Buen Camino is like the I it I didn't give it a chapter number, but you're right, it is a chapter. I just called it conclusion, but yeah. Yeah, the the lax actual last chapter is called In the Company of Angels. And I I talk about angels, and I give this very I don't want the word uh very provocative idea. I'm not endorsing it. I'm not saying I don't, I'm just I don't know. But I I don't want to give it uh to people right now, but uh this a 20th century Russian Orthodox uh theologian, philosopher, Sergius Bogolkov, talks about guardian angels as our Platonic self, the the heavenly friend that we are trying to ultimately become. And I put that in the book not to endorse it. I'm not saying I believe that. In fact, I I tell people, but I'm not saying I don't. I just I don't know. But I think it's a way to open people up to thinking a little more creatively about the reality of this other world and what the implications of that might be. I I do think it the book will not bore people. Right. No? No. I mean, look at me being all so confident and everything, but I still I I feel good about it. I think it will not I think people will find it interesting, hopefully helpful, but I think they'll certainly find it interesting.

Michael John Cusick 35:34

Yeah, and and you're just like you're an extraordinary preacher and communicator, you're an exceptional writer, and it's filled with anybody who knows you. Uh I think there was a comfortably numb quote from Pink Floyd. Yeah you know, I was surprised there weren't more Bob Dylan quotes with your I'm I'm trying to tamp that down.

Brian Zahnd 35:54

Although, although there were there are lines in there that I just steal. And I if I don't do the whole verse with a rhyme, you won't you won't catch it. Yeah. It's sort of a game I play, and the hardcore Dylan people out there will oh, I see what he did there.

Michael John Cusick 36:06

That's great. So here's here's where I'd like to end. I want to do a shout out for your prayer school. And it's really not a school, it's a three-hour uh program. Three and a half hour, yeah. Three three and a half hours. I did a version of it that I downloaded through, I think through your church. We're gonna put all that information on the website. Um, you know, I grew up Catholic and had a return to the liturgical tradition probably for the last 15 years. And um

The Transformative Power of Prayer

Michael John Cusick 36:36

uh the prayer school that I did with you, I have now written several iterations of what you started, and I finally have something that is comfortable with me that takes about 20 minutes. And there are days when I don't have words or I don't I don't want to pray, and I just sit down and I read through the liturgy. And uh, as I I want you to comment on in a moment, there's scripture, um, but there's also historic prayers, uh, like the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, and it has really been wonderful. And so the question is how does one go from either having an unhealthy view of heaven or overcorrecting where they've lost the transcendence? Pastorally, what do you say to people to say, here's how you begin to live that out and somehow tie in the prayer school? How's that for an assignment?

Brian Zahnd 37:29

Well, of course, of course, prayer is trafficking in this other world. And that's what we I mean, we wouldn't bother to pray if we didn't believe that somehow, instantly, my words are being heard by the being that sustains all that is and inhabits the realm called heaven. So we are we are when we pray, we're suddenly trafficking in this other world. Well, I in a prayer school. I've done I've done 105 prayer schools. I just did the 105th and Edmunded in Canada maybe two weeks ago. Wow. But here, I'll give you some news. Uh you know, I haven't hardly anybody knows about this. This is my um prayer school. This is my little notebook. I just started that on uh what Friday? I love it. I I have a contract with uh Simon and Schuster. They came to me, and they are interested, they want me to turn prayer school into a book. Oh, wow so you know I can do 105 prayer schools. I don't know if I can do 105 more. And plus, you know, I mean, there's travel and it's it's all so eventually you just you create a book and the books can go wherever they go. And uh so prayer school is in the process of becoming a book um pretty quick. I mean my deadline with Simon and Schuster is December 15th, but I've set a deadline of September 10th, so that's an aggressive deadline, but hopefully you'll meet it. But so fairly soon, um prayer book will be in a book form now. So that's that's news. I haven't said that on any podcasts or anything yet.

Michael John Cusick 39:08

I love that. Um when I first heard of it, I thought, let me just forgive me in advance. I thought that's the dumbest thing I ever heard because it's just reading words and it's not really prayer, which was which was my reaction to the Catholicism of my childhood and an overcorrection. And the reading words actually allows me to have more connection with God and then to feel a spaciousness outside of that time of reading the words that I would say for the first time in my life since doing your prayer school, I actually think I have a prayer life. That makes me so happy. Yeah, I've been a Christian forty some years and I'm finally like I have a prayer life.

Brian Zahnd 39:49

Aaron Powell I hear this all the time, by the way. So, you know, this is this is how I know that there is an appetite for this.

Michael John Cusick 39:56

So what's the information for the prayer school specifically if people want to uh learn more about that or take it?

Brian Zahnd 40:02

Uh well the next the next prayer school I will be doing will be in St. Joseph. It's not even it's not even posted yet, but I I'll say it now. This will happen, and I maybe will this will prompt me to tell them to get it up so people can sign up for it, will be in St. Joseph, Missouri at Word of Life Church October 30 and 31. Okay. But the the big news is that it's gonna be in book form. Yeah, it's gonna be out, you know, it's gonna be at least a year. Maybe the end of next year it'll be out, maybe.

Michael John Cusick 40:35

Hopefully. Oh, congratulations on that. That's wonderful. Brian Zahn, thank you for the conversation. Thank you for the book. I'm gonna hold it up, Unseen Existences.

Brian Zahnd 40:44

And and show the back because thank you for right there. Michael John Kuzik, right there.

Michael John Cusick 40:52

Yeah, very, very lovely endorsement. You named heaven as our true home. That was that was the big thing that that struck me. Well, thank you for writing it. Thank you for all that you're doing. It's always great to talk with you. Thank you. So we've wrapped up another episode of Restoring the Soul. We want you to know that Restoring the Soul is so much more than a podcast. In fact, the heart of what we have done for nearly 20 years is intensive counseling. When you can't wait months or years to get out of the rut you're in, our intensive counseling programs in Colorado allow you to experience deep change in half day blocks over two weeks. To learn more, visit restoring the soul.com. That's restoring the soul.com