Season 2 | Episode 70 | Bono, Anxiety, and the Physical Embodiment of Truth with Dr. David Taylor

Lance, what up? What's going on, dude?

What is the life right now, bro?

We are on a Friday headed into the weekend, but we wanted to do another quick intro to our upcoming episode.

Yeah, I thought it'd be fun to— number one, this is— I love the episode, like the moment before the episode starts. Keeps people excited, you know.

Can you feel their, um, anticipation coming through the microphone?

Yeah, they're like, oh, something's happening today.

Yeah, so share why you, especially on this podcast, you thought is important.

Well, number one, we love David Taylor. Um, he is a, um, he's an RT therapist and doesn't know it yet.

Uh, that is true.

I think I—

this is a great episode for people that like to integrate their faith with, um, therapy. Um, so we wanted to kind of set this episode up for those of you that are excited about integrating faith with therapy. Um, this is a great, um, kind of thoughtful way. Um, as you listen to, you know, David Taylor, you'll notice that— I don't know how you got this guy He's pretty amazing. Like, what do you— like, it was a great episode, don't you think?

I just, you know, David Taylor, as you'll find out soon, is a theologian and professor at Fuller Seminary who lives in Texas.

Yeah.

And, um, he— I just— he's done some amazing work, which we'll get into in the episode. But I just, you know, I'm like, I'll just send him an email. And he responded and said, awesome, sounds great. And I, you know, I was intrigued by his, his, his previous work and the work he's doing now. And what really caught my attention was a workshop he was leading using the Psalms to help adolescents access their emotions.

Yeah.

And, um, his book Body of Praise, it really is about embodied worship. And he talks a lot about training to be a dancer and getting in your body. And I thought, as therapists, we're always Terry's always trying to tell us to get up, right? And move our body. And it's hard for a lot of us, not so much for you. So I wanted to just, you know, have him on to talk through some things. And unfortunately we could only go about an hour 'cause of you and I's schedules. But I could sit down with him easily for 3 hours and just pick his brain on all the intersection of things that were coming up.

So good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is a great episode. We definitely want to recommend— I don't think we actually got to name the books that well. You just mentioned Body of Praise. The other one is Open and Unafraid, a book, uh, How the Psalms as a Guide to Life. Such great books.

He's got some other great ones too.

I really—

on Instagram he's been posting a lot of his, um, prayers from his book Prayers for the Pilgrimage, and I found that to be like really helpful too. And the book is accompanied by paintings from his wife, so it's pretty—

dude, homeboy is awesome.

Yeah, I love this guy.

And yeah, oh, there you go.

I saw on his Instagram story today he's reading a book that you and I are both reading and in love with, and I was like, whoa. Yeah, Liturgies of the Wild by Martin Shaw, Myths That Make Us. I am Sometimes I'll plow through books. This is the book that I like, I leave on a coffee table and I pick up and read when I want to sit and savor it and just take it in. Because you can't rush through this book. You gotta sit, you gotta, you gotta— the book is like shaping me. So, uh, there's a lot of, um, connections in terms of interest with David Taylor. So yeah, excited to have him on, and he doesn't know it yet, but I'm gonna invite myself down to his, uh, his homestead maybe someday in Texas so I can meet him in person.

Yeah, and we're actually recording on his birthday today.

Oh yeah, happy birthday, David!

Happy birthday!

Or Dr. Taylor, although—

Dr. Taylor, I know we're so informal with this established Regent Seminary, like, you know, he's, he's brilliant, so, um, but he's just one of those guys, you He's an awesome guy. You're gonna love it.

And you know, like I said, and you had said earlier, if you're really into integration, this is gonna be awesome. And we could have gone way deeper with it and we will in another episode. And if that's not your jam, or you know, you're an RT therapist who isn't, wouldn't consider themselves a Christian or practicing a particular faith, I think there's a lot to learn from it. As well.

So I mean, we get to talk about Bono, Eugene Peterson. I mean, come on, bro, it's a good episode. But you know, if that ain't your shtick, if that ain't your, you know, your, your flow flow, it's all good. You don't have to listen to this episode.

Well, episode 70, tune in, people.

Enjoy.

Take care. See you, Lance.

Cheers.

Lance, how's it going today, dude?

I am so stoked today.

Episode 70, can you believe it?

Nope, I thought we'd make it to 10.

I'm pretty sure Terry and Sharon thought we started a podcast that we'd be done about 5, but we're cruising along.

Good idea, boys.

Yeah, totally. Um, all right, we're gonna skip our normal announcements because we have a special guest on today. Totally. And you and I have done a lot of research on him, so I feel a little overwhelmed in the proper introduction, but I would say he came under my radar about 10 years ago with the documentary that he was the director of, um, between Bono and Eugene Peterson. And you and I love Eugene Peterson. As former pastors, we read everything, and then I'd say in the last few years, just been following him on Instagram and appreciate the prayers he posts, especially when life is difficult, and the prayer each day seems to be appropriate. I love his book reviews. In fact, last week I was showing the book review by— is it Susanna Clarke? Purity. I was showing that review to my wife and daughter and some other people because they were interested in that book. So I'm like, this is a perfect book review.

And it's like, uh, it's a full body experience.

Yeah. And then he lives in Texas, and I feel like he's homesteading a little bit on the land, hands in the dirt. You and I, you know, our favorite mentor at Fuller was Dr. Ray Anderson, or one of them. Yeah, and he talks about— remember in his book how his father told him to put his hands in the soil and to take care of the soil, you know, it'll take care of you. And so I don't know, I had that very earthy stuff. So it's also a professor, um, at Fuller Seminary. Um, actually I should say the title, Associate Professor of Theology and Culture, author of Body of Praise, Open and Afraid, and other books. And I'm going to try out another introduction. Yo vivo en Guatemala 25 años pasado. Yo estudio español en la ciudad antigua para 3 meses. Okay, that's all I got of my Spanish. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. David Taylor.

That was good.

I just want you to know I am laughing With lots of love in my heart. Um, hey, you know what this podcast episode should be called? It should be called the Septuagint episode because it's 70, right? The Septuagint was the Greek version of the Bible, uh, that was written in the, uh, intertestamental period. It was written allegedly by 70, uh, by 70 you know, authors. So this is the 70th episode. I like it. This is the Septuagint episode. All right, that's a, that's a deep cut.

Hey, you just gave me my title. I love it.

Oh good, it's nice to be with you guys. Thank you.

Yeah, we appreciate it. I think, I don't know, we were like, where do we want to start? So we're just going to start with Bono and Eugene Peterson. And, you know, we've, we've watched the documentary many times. Yeah. And, you know, I see what I see on the screen, but I just, I guess I'm wondering if there is a story that you're able to share that was really impactful for you in filming, in your experience with both those guys or one of those guys in particular.

Yeah, um, I mean, I've written about the whole experience in various places, so if you just Google, you know, the thing, there'll be a number of like interviews or conversations just to explain maybe how it all came about. But to answer your question, I mean, this would come as no surprise to people that knew Eugene and Jan. They were very modest, unassuming, in the wonderful sense of the term, simple people. They were not complicated. They were not sophisticated. They were not impressed with themselves. And I mean, I think you see this in the biography that Wyn Collier wrote about him, that things were not always easy in their marriage. And there's like a little glimpse of this in the time together. I had him as a professor when I was at Regent College in the '90s. So I got to know him and Jan a bit during those years, but certainly in their home space, they were just very sweet and kind and simple and delightful. And they were just as excited for Bono to come to their home as we were, you know, to meet him. And, uh, so that was just really kind of sweet to see. And then similarly, or maybe conversely, it was interesting to see how how gentle and kind and unassuming Bono himself was when he came into their home. In a way, he felt, at least as I perceived him, a little bit self-conscious. And I think he tried to make himself as small as the house itself. Like, he did not seek to enlarge or amplify his personality in any way. I would say a couple of things that really have stayed with me to this day. There were, uh, a friend of mine, uh, was the, the film director, and he brought a— there's— it was a crew of 5 guys that came to film it, uh, wonderful, immensely talented guys. And when Bono came, when he first arrived, he greeted Eugene and Jan first and then said hi to me, said hi to my wife, Phaedra, and then introduced himself to all 5 of the film crew. Well, what impressed me was at the end of the 3 hours that we spent together— well, at least that he was there— when he said goodbye to everybody, he remembered all the guys' names. And I thought, that's impressive. I have a hard time remembering people's names even after I've learned them multiple times. But I thought, oh, that's the mark of somebody who really cares about each individual person. And, uh, and he's a gift giver. And so when he came, he gave Eugene and Jan a copy of Seamus Heaney's poems. He's a very famous Irish poet. It's just like all these little things that you, that you observe and you think to yourself, oh, these are all signs of the kind of person he is at all times. And this is probably why he has been faithfully married to his wife for, what, over 40 years? And while he has retained his friendships with the other bandmates, because there's an integrity to him, there's a trueness to his character. And I mean, the only other thing I'll say, I've said this before, and I feel a little bit self-conscious maybe saying it, but I don't think he would mind terribly much. But this, it was filmed in the spring of 2000— 2015, and then it released the spring of 2016. And then that was the year that U2 did their Joshua Tree, um, I don't know, not reunion tour, but like, you know, their whatever, their 40-year— Josh, it would be 40 years, right, that since they released the Joshua Tree in '86? I think that's what it was, right? So they're, they're They're doing Joshua Tree Redux or something like that.

Yeah.

And I went to their performance of it in Houston and had a chance to hang out with him afterwards. And we chatted about a number of things. And then at one point he asked me, in a kind of funny little cheeky Way, do you want to know why I asked you, David, whether I could have 1 hour with Jan and Eugene before I got on camera with you when I was at their home in Lakeside, Montana in April of 2015? I said, I would love to know, because that was the condition that he would have 1 hour.

Yeah.

Eugene and Jan before he was on camera. I was, of course, very happy for him to have that time. I didn't know why until a year later. And he said, "Well, every once in a while, I do feel a need to confess my sins. And I felt that they were the kind of people that I could do that with safely." And I thought, that's wonderful. I'm really, really glad to hear that that was something you wanted to do. And there's something that you had a chance to do. And again, just, he's such an unusual human being, right? And he's very powerful and famous and popular. There's a sense in which he has figured out a way to stay grounded. And that is something that I find very impressive.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's a good— that's a beautiful story. Kind of gives me chills there hearing that.

Yeah. I mean, speaking of therapy, you know, you guys are therapists. I was going to say my connection to the world of therapy is that I started my first therapy session was in the spring of 1993. And I had known a few people, not many, because counseling therapy was still, I think, something that a lot of folks in my circles felt embarrassed or ashamed or like, you know, only really, really truly broken, messed up people need therapy, not normally broken people. But I had read this novel by a British author named Susan Howitt called Glittering Images.

Oh, yes.

And, um, and, uh, and it— reading a work of fiction changed my mind and really my sort of heart, um, from being resistant to it to being sort of desperate to be able to disclose or to just, you know, fully disclose things that were buried deep inside to somebody else. And so that was the beginning of sort of a, a journey of counseling/therapy. And, and I'm grateful for the gift of a novelist to help sort of shift me, um, to imagine that this was not undesirable but— or improbable, but fully desirable and good. So artists, we thank God for them.

Here's my own— here's my own confession. I have read the Starbridge series That one in particular, the 7 books, I've read them 12 times. That's a lot. Just in a sequential order over the last, I don't know, 28 years.

Wow.

And on every reading, I learn something new and something changes.

Wow. That's amazing.

I believe it was a professor at Fuller I'm blanking on his name. I think he required, um, The Absolute Truth. Is that the one?

Okay, I think the third one, because it's literally Images, Glamorous Powers.

No, there you go. He required it reading in a class at Fuller, and now I kind of know why after.

So, you know, I don't think— I have thought to myself that I would love to assign that, but because it has so much intimate scenes. I don't think I can do that. Like, unfortunately, I understand the reasons why, but I think it would, yes, not be well received. But I wish I could because it is so powerful.

It's the clear look at the struggles that people face and people in ministry and pastoral callings and, you know, the beautiful interactions between a spiritual director and a this pastor. And, you know, you referenced Wynn Collier's book on Eugene, and, you know, I— for some reason that was really helpful for me to read, to realize, you know, his own marriage, you know, they had their own struggles. Yeah, it gave me permission to be like, oh, that's okay, like, marriage can have its difficulties and struggles. And, you know, and there was— to kind of peel that layer back with was— I don't know, yeah, I even liked Eugene even more, I think, after reading that.

Yeah, go for it.

Which, which, you know, I think one of the things that I've really dug about getting into, you know, you, David— I'm, I'm late on the scene, for the record, of the amazingness of DT. Um, uh, he, uh, Rhett got me into you just about probably like, was it about 6 months ago last year? You're sending me these like crazy Instagrams of this guy. You're like, dude, you gotta get into David, we gotta get him, this guy is so amazing. Um, so, so I'm like, oh, I gotta— okay, I'll read them because Red always has good recommendations. But I really do appreciate your, um, the vulnerability that you bring to life, um, and the way that you, you, you offer us a new view of like how to use our bodies, like understanding the importance of embodiment. And I think this other element of, um, you know, how, how, how to engage like truthfully with life, you know. I think that's something that this, you know, this— I think there's probably a lot of through lines that you bring out, um, and it is like using the, the way, or, um, also just, you know, this just being, being real Um, and I was really touched even just thinking about like this season for you. It's such a crazy season that we're in now. Um, happy early birthday, by the way.

Wait, how do you know it's my birthday?

I read your books, bro.

Oh, okay, okay, okay, okay.

April 17th, right?

It is, it is April 17th. I'm very excited. Uh, my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I told her I wanted some crepe myrtles, maybe an oak tree, and some stones that I could— we could, you know, lay because we have these 21 acres. Um, so yeah, that's what we'll be doing together as a family for my birthday. It's planting.

I love it.

But yeah, I was kind of leaning into this whole idea of like the, um, from, from a therapeutic perspective about how, you know, this idea in and around confession, being real open, um, and, and finding our humanity again um, whether it's with our, you know, you know, inviting our full, our full bodies into it, or, or even just joining in the corporate nature. And I was curious for you, you know, um, try and put together this, this, like, what do you think is like the, like, to help our brothers and sisters, you know? I think about like what, what helps people to, to lean into that more, you know? I mean, you get this invitation from Eugene to, you know, just read the Psalms, one, you know, two, you know, three. Um, but I'm curious, what are the things— you're so approachable.

Um, yeah, I mean, let's see, I'll say two things to that. I don't think I was raised in the family where appearances mattered in a dysfunctional way. I think my father has always been real with me. And so I think close to home, I've had an example of somebody like a male figure, which I think is pretty powerful for folks like myself to see somebody close in, be at ease admitting failure and asking for forgiveness. So I think that was very powerful for me as a child and a teenager. But I think my personality type has wanted to be perceived as capable, as somebody who can achieve things, who is productive, who is impressive. I always did relatively well in school. I was always relatively liked in school. And then all of that, if you're not careful, it does start sort of creating this facade of somebody who is not only capable one time, but indefinitely and perennially and always capable, who is a leader and therefore trustworthy, and you can look up to him and these kinds of things into college. And so it was with the reading of Susan Howells' novel that I, yeah, sort of felt that permission not to have my act together all the time, not to be embarrassed embarrassed or ashamed because I didn't have my act together all the time. And then it was in my 20s, I think it, I think it was in seminary, possibly one of Eugene Peterson's classes, that I read Frederick Buechner, who's the—

so good—

yeah, pastor novelist. And he has that trilogy of memoirs that he writes about his childhood and youth and how Yeah, things were very broken and very dark in his own family, especially with his father. And I think there was something about how it was that Buechner narrated his life that gave me again, an imagination for being in the world in a certain way where that kind of vulnerability was a strength, not a deficit or a— weakness or, you know, some kind of deficit that others would take advantage of, and therefore you should protect yourself at all costs. But that there was a true inner strength, and from that inner strength, outer strength, you know, could then flow. And I remember, I remember Buechner saying in one of his books how by the age of 8 years old, every preacher would have a lifetime supply of stories to tell if you were honest enough. Yeah. And that has stayed with me. And I think that has actually always informed my preaching, that I've always wanted to be able to preach. Not— obviously there's always the risk of being exhibitionist or telling stories that are, you know, yeah, uh, TMI, too much information. Yeah. Um, so you have to be wise and careful and prudent, but to I think Buechner has served as a model for me as a preacher to be able to help people see how the grace of God shows up in my own sort of mixed story, stories that don't always land well, where I find myself wanting to tell stories where I'm not the hero in the story, because I feel like it is helpful for me to see how others Buechner and others beyond him, to see how grace shows up in the hardest or the darkest places. Because then that gives me hope to be able to perceive how my own life, a great failure, a great sin, or great whatever, that the grace of God can show up, um, in non-spectacular, non-dramatic, uh, ways, but very real ways. And so I've wanted to model that in my preaching, and I think I've tried to model that somewhat. In my writing, not like somewhat like I'm hiding, but like you just have to kind of figure out what that looks like in writing and then in social media to be able to be a source of hope for people who do live these lives of quiet desperation. So I think, yeah, it's accumulation, but probably like the through line is having a few people in my immediate worlds and then having others like Beacon Air. And I would say Eugene is not not somebody who self-disclosed readily. And I wondered about that when I was in seminary in conversation with him, and he never answered me that question. Like, why don't you share more of those stories? And it was over time that I maybe cobbled together some sense in which his childhood growing up in a sort of an extreme sensationalist Pentecostal kind of culture, church culture, where everything was on display, caused him to maybe overcorrect and to want to err on the side of not being that kind of person. But I think the memoir was certainly the place where I guess he gave Wyn Collier permission to tell those stories there at the end of the life. So all this to say, yeah, a combination of close people, people a little bit further, and then, you know, fictional, um, yeah, sources that have helped me.

That, that's great. I, to, you know, going with Buchner, I always think about, you know, that sermon of his from, uh, Lady Lodge, um, where he talks about being a steward of your pain. I think, um, this, this thing, and this is something that for us as restoration therapists we highly value, is how we can be stewards of pain. That, um, the things that have been dealt to us, the things that have damaged us, like, that, that, um, there, there's still a hope within that. Um, so, um, yeah, it's so great. I really appreciate, um, just the way that you bring it out throughout your works. I mean, it's so wonderful. Um, yeah, yeah.

One of the things I was interested in, and if people are wondering why I was trying to speak Spanish, it's because you were born in Guatemala City.

It was.

And if, you know, as I kind of get a sense of some of the stuff I read, I mean, you've pastored in, you know, Canada and Germany and Mexico and pastored in Austin, and you've, you've have spanned the gamut of theological, um, ministries. I can't think of the right word at the moment, but like Episcopalian and vineyard, all the colors of the rainbow. Yeah, all of it. And I guess I was wondering, I'm like, when you look back at that, was that a really intentional move on your part, or is that just kind of how life happened? And that is, you know, obviously all that has come together to inform the work you do, but I was wondering if that was something that just kind of Yeah, led, happened to do, or you were very thoughtful like, I want to do these things and move in these directions and try all this out?

Yeah, I mean, I would say it's a combination of maybe personality, like maybe I'm wired to want to enjoy sort of different spaces, different ecclesial homes, theological spaces. I would say probably my parents inculcating in us— I have two sisters— a love for the global church, sort of an expansive love for the body of Christ throughout space and time. The fact that I was raised a third culture kid meant that I was at home and not at home everywhere I found myself. And then my parents put me and my sisters in an Austrian school. So it was like another layer of differentness, otherness, in a wonderful way. So, you know, we spoke English at home, Spanish with friends and church, and then German at school. And so from a very early age, like the little software that's running in my head is that belonging in multiple spaces is completely normal and completely desirable. Like, it was really a formative and life-giving experience for me to be in multiple spaces. So then when I moved to the States when I was 13, well, it was a shock to the system. It was North Shore, Chicago. It was a very different world. But eventually in high school, I realized, oh, I think I would love to be a diplomat because then I could go back into that world and be somebody that was living an amphibious life going from one thing to the other. That was not in the cards for me. God had other, you know, purposes for me. But I think still, you know, to this time, I find that I do have a calling and like an intrinsic joy to diplomatically shuttle between different spaces. So, you know, from pastor world to artist world, from academic world to church world, from Christian to non-Christian, and, you know, across the denominational spectrum And I think that did govern a lot of how I conceived of my work as a pastor. I sort of had this philosophy of ministry that if there was one way in which I could partner with somebody else in the name of Jesus, you know, on behalf of the grace of God, in service of the kingdom of God, I'm game. I don't have to agree, you know, about everything. I don't have to like everything necessarily, but if there's one way in which we could partner in Jesus' name, then I'm willing to do that because we live in a world that is so fractured and, uh, harried and, you know, chaotic on account of the comprehensive systemic, you know, effects of sin that I figure good could come from us doing something together. So I think professionally, vocationally, personally, I am wired but also called to do that kind of work.

So great.

That also prepares you for your doctoral dissertation, huh, to know German? And, uh, yeah, it does.

It did. I did. I took my exams in German. It was translating Bonhoeffer, actually, and I was like, oh yes!

Oh, you lucky dog.

So it I mean, I had to refresh myself because it's been quite a long time since I, you know, read, but it was a lot of fun. So yeah, it was fun.

That's amazing. So something that popped up, it could have been like a month ago, maybe 2 months ago. I saw on your Instagram this workshop, Emotional Vitality of Teens Using Psalms.

Yeah.

And I was thinking about that and also just your work, Body of Praise and stuff. And I guess I was curious, I was talking to Lance about it, you know, you know, because we try to live these embodied experiences to help people move out of their pain into their truth, to move from the old self to the new self. Yeah, right. And I guess I just wanted you to speak into that, like what you were doing at this workshop, especially around this idea of emotions and using the Psalms, because I think it's really important for the work that we are trying to do as therapists.

Yeah, so let's see, how did this thing come up? Let me see, somebody invited me to do this. Oh, oh, that's what it was. So I'm part of Anglican Church of North America. So I'm part of an Anglican Communion. And one of the ministries in sort of the national Anglican Communion is geared towards children and youth, uh, so, so, you know, high school all the way down to babies. And so they reached out to me and said, hey, look, we have these gatherings, I don't know, once a quarter or something like that. Would you be interested in sharing anything, right? And I know you do things on the Psalms, so maybe you could do something. I said, okay, um, sure, let me think about it. So I thought about it, and, and I teach regularly in our children's ministry and in our church. So I preach and I celebrate the Eucharist. I do those things, but I also serve in the children's ministry. I love it. I love kids. I think they're amazing. And it just gives me no end of joy to work in the children's ministry. And I often think to myself, because my day job is teaching theology to adults, I often wonder, well, how would I teach some of these things to kids? And not dumbing it down, but transposing it into a different key. And, um, I have had in the back burner of my mind some kind of curriculum that would invite children to experience, you know, the goodness of the Psalms when it comes to emotional health, emotional intelligence, emotional vitality, emotional maturity, whatever you want you want to call it. And so I pitched that to them and I said, look, what I'm going to do is I'm going to do a presentation where I'm going to pitch this idea of a, like, an 8-week curriculum on emotional vitality of children and youth through the Psalms. And so I had anger and, and, and sadness and jealousy and thanksgiving and happiness and so a few others. And then I had a sample lesson on anxiety. So the anxiety is an emotion. And what I tell my students in my class, which I'm teaching it right now, Spiritual Formation Through the Psalms, is that the well-being, the health, the vitality that the Psalms would invite us into is a holistic thing. So it's not a cognitive, mainly, thing. We're not thinking thoughts and then we heal. It's like it's inviting our whole selves. And so in this curriculum, I ended up focusing on elementary age kids because I realized teenagers have maybe specific needs that I would sort of think different things in service of that demographic. But I sort of imagined a lesson plan that involved things that they would do, let's say, on a Sunday morning, but also things that children and their parents would be invited to do all week along, because as I tell my, my students in this class, that studying the Psalms is like studying basketball or snowboarding or ballroom dancing. It's not something you read in a book or watch on the YouTube. It's something that you inhabit, right, your whole self. And you have to practice, practice, practice. So I told— it was a bunch of people that were like children's ministers of one kind or another, and I said, look, the only way that this curriculum could succeed is if this curriculum invited kids and their parents, because it has to be an all-hands-on- exact thing. You can't just tell the kids, here's the good news about being emotionally healthy when it comes to your anxieties, but your parents are emotionally stunted human beings and they don't know what to do with themselves. They don't know how to help this 8-year-old kid who comes home and says, hey, look, I should feel free to tell you when I'm anxious, and I'm feeling anxious and I'm having an explosive emotional moment. I need you to be regulated enough to receive me. And so I was sort of pitching this, you know, comprehensive curriculum that would involve a holistic formation because there's no way that, you know, 30 minutes or 45 minutes on a Sunday morning would result in much benefit when it comes to, like, say, anxiety. So how could this be like an 8-week, all-week, but also ultimately I had sort of this idea of an intergenerational curriculum. Because I, I think, man, I don't want kids to be the only emotionally healthy humans going to church. Like, you got to get everybody in on it. And so it was a lot of fun to dream up. It just so happened that somebody on the call works for David C. Cook, the publisher, and then she reached out and said, hey, could some of our staff meet with you over Zoom? And like you said, wouldn't it be fun if this existed? Well, we'd like to ask that question. What would it take for it to exist. But the long and short of it, sort of for our purposes here, was that I sort of imagined this curriculum that would involve things that we think, things that we say, things that we allow ourselves to feel, and things that we do, and things that we do relationally, so that there would be a sense in which I have learned things. I've learned about how I should think about anxiety and how the Psalms might help me to bring my anxious feelings before God Almighty and before others and, you know, to be honest with my own self. But what would it look like for Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday for me to have aids or instruments, you know, exercises that would help me to, like, practice my scales, like on a piano, and I'm just going to do them over and over and over. But I'm going to do them with others because ultimately emotional health and the Psalms are a team sport. So what would it look like? Now obviously you get into the details of like, if my parents aren't Christians, or if one of my— if my parents are divorced, you know, you get into the weeds and it gets more complicated. But in principle, if the body of Christ is the family of God, then children are never on their own. They would have surrogate spiritual aunts and uncles and grandpas and grandmas who are in on this. Now it's, it's a life project, obviously. But you could see this as sort of a season of formation that then sets into motion things that become part of the culture of a church, that it becomes completely normal for somebody to cry in public, whether you're a 5-year-old, a 15-year-old, a 25, or a 55-year-old, and nobody ever needs permission or feels the need to apologize, which is, of course, very instinctual for our culture, is for us to apologize everything.

Cry.

But crying is like God-given. And I, I don't write about in my book because I ran out of real estate. So I ended up doing research after the book, and I ended up preaching a sermon on like, how do we think about crying, uh, as a biological gift, like physiological gift, a social gift, an emotional gift, a spiritual gift. That is a gift that God gives to us for our health and wholeness and vitality. So I didn't get to do that in the book, but I, I imagined it sort of as something to be part of this curriculum. So that's a little bit of, of everything there, but maybe that gets fodder on the table.

Now I see Lance and I's heads are spinning. So like, like in a good way, like this idea, especially when you said practice, practice, practice. I guess what I was wondering What does that look like? How am I thinking of the work you did, let's just say on anxiety, how am I to go out and practice that embodiment during the week? What is like, what practically does that look like?

Well, okay, just off the top of my head, because I haven't fully realized this as a, let's say a curriculum or a spiritual formation, you know, uh, program as it were. But what I would probably say is that I would, I would say there, like, for my children, I have an 8-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter. And it was, it was, I don't know if it's ironic or providential, but the week before I I did this presentation, this workshop, my son was struggling. He had very, very big feelings and he got really mad at me, like the kind of mad where it's like you're beside yourself. You're so mad and you don't know how to turn it off. And I thought to myself, well, I guess here we go. Let's see if I actually believe what I'm about to preach. Come on, try it out.

The first time.

And just because it was pushing my own buttons. You know, and my own sort of dysfunctional ways of dealing with things. And I just wanted to shut it down with a strong word. I thought, dadgummit, I can't because I would lack integrity like 5 days from now when I do this workshop. So God is watching, uh, but also my son is watching and he knows I preach. He sometimes hears me preach. He knows I teach people about God. So, well, I gotta do it. So He started throwing things, which he doesn't ever really do. He started throwing things in his room. So I thought to myself, okay, what does he need from me? And obviously, whatever he experiences from me, that is projecting onto his idea of God. So he needs space to be able to feel his feelings without, you know, an immediate judgment or direction. So I mean, this is nothing new to you guys. But so I just, I validated his feelings. And I know that obviously underneath this is this anxiety of am I good enough? Am I going to be loved? Because it's complicated by the fact that he's adopted. So there's sort of the, you know, the struggle of every adopted child. And unfortunately, in our case, his birth parents don't want to have relationship with him. And I know I have other friends who have adopted kids. Their birth parents do, are involved. And that's such a wonderful, beautiful thing. And it's just a sorrow for my wife and me that he doesn't have that. So I, I know he's old enough, obviously we talk about adoption, we make it very normal, but I know it's an underlying current. Am I, am I going to be loved? Am I, you know, safe? So I wanted him to be able to vent and to say all the things, even if there are mean things directed towards me, and not take them personally. Okay, now I'm gonna sort of skip the tracks and say, what would I recommend to a parent? Um, I would say it's a combination of making sure there is a space for your child to say, uh, I am anxious, without needing to say the words I am anxious, or to be anxious and explosive, or whatever that looks like, right? A space for somebody to feel the feelings, because there are no wrong feelings are just feelings. Now, then what we do beyond those, you know, that's, I guess, where spiritual formation comes in. And so I would want to help my son know that he can be fully himself with me because God wants him to be that way. So our— the Lord is our shepherd, and he— and I want my son to experience the Lord as a shepherd who takes care of him. Now, I would probably, after sort of the immediate aftermath of all the feelings, you know, we can process them in a way that is specific to him. But I think what I would tell parents is maybe somewhere in the bedroom or somewhere in the house, you have some of these texts from the Psalms. And again, like maybe it's just, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." And that's it. Like just for him to be able to every day and every night look somewhere on the wall and to be able to see with his eyes and then to maybe process with his mind, "The Lord is my shepherd." I would also think that there is a specific benefit, and I know Curt Thompson writes about this in some of his writing, just saying it out loud. Because when you say it out loud, it's helping to rewrite the code that's in your brain that's kind of running.

Come on.

An invisible, you know, sort of software that says, I'm actually not going to be okay, and the Lord is not my shepherd. He won't take care of me, so I have to take care of myself. Um, so I think there'd be benefit to saying it out loud. That could be at bedtime, that could be in the morning. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Just say that prayer. And then like a third sort of part of this exercise is that you would hear somebody else say it to you, you know. The Lord is your shepherd. He wants to take care of you. I want to be a part of how you experience the Lord's shepherdship.

That's my experience.

Right.

And then, and then probably some other kind of tool sort of in the toolbox so that when you find yourself like all kinds of obviously grades of anxiety, low-grade to high-grade, if it's a low-grade anxiety, that you have some spiritual practice or technique or whatever you want to call it to be able to say, okay, I'm starting to feel anxious. God made my body good, and part of the gift of this body is to help regulate me through breathing, right? Nothing that you guys don't know, but breathing is not a weird thing, it's a very normal thing. So I'm going to start breathing. So how would you help kids just practice breathing as a normal, not a weird thing? I'm not messed up. So therefore I have to have breathing techniques, but breathing is just a really good thing. Breathing, is it walking, is it sitting, whatever other things your body needs to do, is it being outside? Because obviously creation is a very regulating—

oh yeah—

thing, um, by God's good design. Because I'm a biological organism, I am intrinsically connected to creation. So creation has the capacity through the elements and through creatures to regulate me. So what, what kind of bodily thing could you do? For some— for me, it is going for a walk. So early on in our marriage, my wife really needed me to tell her in the moment all the right things, and I became very exasperated with that because I felt incapable of in the moment telling her. And if so, she felt unloved and I felt unseen. So it just kept spinning around, and eventually I learned enough me enough to tell her. And then she learned me enough to know that it was okay. I was like, just give me 5 minutes, 10 minutes to go for a walk. I'm just gonna walk down the block and back. Because I just need to like, cool the system down. And then I will come back. And so I think for kids with anxiety, it's like, what's helpful to you? Is it— you want to run? You want to play? You want to bounce on the trampoline? You want to just sit? But something with your body in addition to like breathing, in addition to like thinking and saying out loud these kinds of things, in addition to hearing me, hearing with your ears the voice of somebody who is a primary caregiver in your life, who is representing God to you. All these things obviously are multi-sensory, and over time would hopefully not prevent you from being anxious, but when you're anxious, to handle it in life-giving ways in real time.

Dude, could we have, um, like talked about restoration therapy without talking about restoration therapy right there? I mean, we got mindfulness, we got unloved.

Yeah, saying it out loud. Practice, practice, practice.

Sometimes it's not too high, so we need off-ramps.

Hey, I believe it, brothers. I don't always do it, but I believe it.

Oh, oh, you too? That's why we have to confess.

That's why we need community. Yeah, that's true. Hey, that's true.

Yeah. Oh yeah, Lance and I were just looking at each other like, boom, boom. Yes, it's, um, you know, I'm keeping an eye on the clock. I'm aware of time.

It's okay, I'm fine. You guys keep going.

I think we'll go to like noon because I, you know, I'm gonna hop into a therapy session.

But, uh, yeah, we're, we're hot, we're hot on the, on the healing pathways today.

Yeah. Lance, what do you— any, any questions or thoughts? I mean, there's so much there, and I, you know, we'll obviously have to have him back on at some point if he lets us.

But, uh, yeah, seriously, you know, what do you— I, I think, you know, I think what we're seeing here is some healthy ways to think about integration in a therapeutic, um, methodology. I think if you are listening to what David's saying here, um, is what we're discovering is, um, there, there, this stuff that we're doing in our therapeutic world, um, when it comes to like naming our pain, saying it aloud, um, saying the truth and, and how we're going to act differently, walking into the new self where we're rehumanized. I think, um, what, what we're, what we're hearing from David and what you see throughout all this work is it, it pairs so well, um, for helping us to step into the fullness of who God's calling us to be as we try and move towards the way. Um, and I think for, for some of us, like, we struggle, like, how do I make RT work? Like, what, what, how does it marry with, um, um, faith, um, what does it look like? And I think David just modeled that over and over again on what— how restoration therapy works really well, um, from a faith perspective. Um, yeah, you know, I wish we had a little bit more time today, but, um, I think I'm really just gelled up.

I—

we gotta— I don't know, we gotta get— we gotta get the DT out here and and do some fun work with him. So I want to see, I want to see, I want to like video of him in the classroom, you know, as he's, you know, I, yeah, yeah, I don't sit still.

Um, I teach a lot online, but every once in a while I get to teach in person, and I try to get my students doing things. I, I'll just say like maybe a couple things. I'm teaching a class right now on the Psalms, and the first at week 1 is to read the whole Psalter, the whole book of Psalms, if not in one sitting, you know, as much as possible, you know, in a handful of sittings, and then write a reflection on it. And I'm not surprised, but it is always, um, something that catches my attention how many students who have not been raised in a tradition who have had any sort of regular usage of the Psalms are either taken aback or slightly upset by how visceral the language is.

Yeah.

By how raw, you know, it is and how seemingly irreverent it is. And like, can we really say that? Can we say that to God? Can we say it in prayer? Can we say it in corporate worship? And the answer in this course is yes. And obviously, you know, wisely, with great care. But it is something that I am hopeful that by the end of this course, not only are these— all this landscape, right, the psychological landscape, not just the spiritual of the Psalms, becomes normal. But the goal of the course for me, like, what's my pedagogical goal? Goal. I don't really want you to know a lot of stuff because you can do that with my Old Testament scholar who teaches on the Psalms. But I'm wanting to give you an entire packet of resources that then you can turn around and ready to wear it within your own community or congregation. Because I don't want this, what we're talking about here, to be, uh, uh, special and abnormal. I want it to be completely normal, but it does require more like a long-term recultivation of a community's sort of habits and instincts and what it perceives to be, you know, a regular way of being a Christian in the world. So my hope, you know, over the years— oh, you know, I'll tell you this. I know we're running out of time. I have a student who lives, I think, somewhere in Southern California. Her name is Michelle, and she took my Psalms class, uh, 3 years ago. But she wrote me a month or so ago, and she left this long voicemail message because one of the assignments I give to them is to— is they have to work with Psalm 149 from beginning to end. They get tired of it about midway through, and I just keep telling them, hang in there. But sort of three-fourths of the way of Psalm 149, you get this imprecatory curse language, pretty, you know, harsh language. And students at first recoil, they're like, they don't like it because it's just like, wait, why is it showing up in all this hallelujah Julia's stuff. But by the end of it, you know, they've spent 10 weeks in Psalm 149 specifically, and they have to memorize it and recite it to me over Zoom. And a lot of people have not memorized anything since they were 8 years old in Awana or whatever it was that they did. And she writes me 3 years later and she's like, look, I just want you to know that while I was frustrated with Psalm 149 for for so much of class. Eventually I figured out what you were trying to do, and I'm so glad you forced us to memorize it because it has been such a regulating help to me while I go on my runs. And I, I, I live in a community, you know, where what's going on politically is just fracturing and creating all kinds of terrible relational communal things to happen, and I find myself overwhelmed. So on my run I stop in this one place by a tree that overlooks a cemetery, and I say out loud Psalm 149 just to remind myself of what is really true about, you know, how God would have this world turn out. And so it's just really encouraging to me to— like, I don't get that very often, but for somebody who was forced to memorize, 3 years later she still, God bless her, remembered. And now sort of a, like, a psychological spiritual aid to help her kind of stay you know, in a healthy place.

So great. I mean, it's literally the instrument of learning the scale. Like, once you know the scale on the piano or the guitar, whatever it may be, right, you know exactly where to go. And what you're doing is you're doing the scales of the heart right there, is, um, helping them to learn how to self-regulate. And that, for us, I think, is, is a huge goal, man. So good. Ah, can we have more time with David?

We, we really appreciate you coming on. And, you know, I live in Texas, Lance is in Southern California. We're doing a lot of stuff with the RT community, so don't be surprised if we hit you up, if we hit you up for some, um, some, um, some type of collaboration.

That'd be great.

Yeah, I would love it.

Yeah.

Hey, sign me up.

Thanks for taking the time, and we Well, everyone who's listening knows the drill. We'll have all the show notes on Spotify and Apple and our Substack and YouTube. We'll all go out with all the links to the different things and books we've talked about, all the different links for David and his work and his website. And so if you want to connect with him, you can check him out online. It's good to follow on Instagram if you're on Instagram. So check that out. Dave, thanks for our— I'm getting really informal here. Dr. Taylor.

No, no, no, no, please call me David.

Thank you, thank you for taking the time today. Really appreciate it.

Absolutely, my pleasure.

God bless you.

Yeah, take care.