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Contemplify
Amy Leach on Becoming Salt of the Universe
00:54:01
"I was recently giving a sermon and found myself spontaneously quoting from Amy Leach's singular and surprising new book. I expect many readers will find their own lives troubled (in the Biblical sense) and enlightened by her fresh perceptions. She...
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- [00:06]
A
Welcome to Contemplify, where we seek to kindle the examined life for contemplatives of the world. I'm your host, Paul Swanson. Today I am in conversation with Amy Leach. Amy Leach grew up in Texas, lives in Montana, and earned her MFA from the Nonfiction Writing program at the University of Iowa. Her work has appeared in the Best American Essays, the Best American Science and Nature Writing, and numerous other publications, perhaps even other Best Americans. She is a recipient of numerous awards, including a Pushcart Prize. Amy Leach is the author of the Everybody Things that Are and her most recent work, which is the focus of our conversation, the Salts of the Praise Songs and and Improvisations. Amy and I talk about leaving the tradition you were raised in, music that stirs the soul, being over churched salty pickles, and so much more. As always, you can visit contemplified.com for the show notes on this episode and learn more about Amy by reading her books. Now join me in raising my glass to my guest today, Amy Leach. The right to meet you across the screen. And one way I always like to begin is just by asking the guest, what is the context and location I'm finding you in today? Where are you? What's the condition of the world as we connect here online?
- [01:42]
B
Well, if it had been the last several days, I would have said the rain, it raineth every day, but the sun came out. But nevertheless, my dog and I are in our basement so that he doesn't bark at everything he sees out of the windows. Sorry, we're in Montana. We're in Bozeman, Montana.
- [02:00]
A
That's great. What's your dog's name?
- [02:03]
B
His name is Coco and he's a violently friendly dog, but only if you're inside the house. If you're outside the house, you're his mortal neighbor. But if you come in, they'll lick you to death.
- [02:19]
A
That sounds like Coco and I might or might not get along. I like that. As I was sharing just a little bit earlier, one of the focuses of this podcast conversation Contemplify is kindling the examined life for contemplatives in the world. And I'm curious for you, Amy, when you hear the word contemplative, how does that moniker relate to you or your work, if you think it does at all?
- [02:49]
B
Well, I was just reading an interview with Marilyn Robinson. She was telling people to live as if the world were addressed to you, to live as if everything means something to you. Personally, I don't feel like I do that in my non writing life very well, but When I'm writing, I do feel like I'm trying to figure out what things mean to me. My favorite books, I feel like model that Melville contemplates and celebrates all of these different personalities, celebrates what it means to go out into the open ocean as opposed to saying staying close to the safety of the shore. And I feel like contemplation is very related to questions versus answers where my favorite books also ask me huge and maybe unanswerable questions that I then go and think and think and think and think and think about. I feel like questions are like windows. Like you never know what might go past your window. When you ask a question. You never know what might go past. Whereas answers are kind of like curtains or shades and close the windows. So I don't know. That's some of my thoughts.
- [04:26]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I love that imagery of that. I was literally writing to a friend today that one of the things I appreciate about her work was that she's a beacon of light as the world continues to close their shutters. I think that's that metaphor of a contemplative of one who is looking through these windows and trying to keep the shades open to see clearly out is a wonderful image.
- [04:56]
B
And you can't control what goes past your window. It might be nothing. It might be a moose. It might be the jogger who jogs by at 9:32 every morning. It might be one of those dastardly neighbors in high heeled red shoes that my dog hates.
- [05:20]
A
That's public enemy number one for Coco. You had mentioned some of your favorite books. And a question I would love to ask you is if someone were going to teach a class on the formation of Amy Leach, what would be the three mandatory works? It could be readings, art, places. But what would be the three mandatory works that formed you? That would definitely be on that syllabus.
- [05:52]
B
That's a wonderful question. I guess I would have to now and forever put Ralph Waldo Emerson on there because I remember the moment in front of an open window when I took his collection of essays off my mother's shelf. She kept all of her literature books when she was a literature major in college and I was 12 and I read Self Reliance and I had such an epiphany. I mean, the rest of that essay is Think for yourself. And that resonated deeply with me then and it still resonates with me. And I attribute, I feel like a lot of my insistence on that mantra, think for yourself too, to him. And I would have to put Emily Dickinson on there. So this latest book, the Salt of the Universe, is kind of my memoir. Although for somebody with such a bad memory, it's funny to have written a memoir. But I say that. So I grew up Seventh Day Adventist, and Ellen White was the prophet who was assigned to me. But I say that as soon as I could, I exchanged her for Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson. And it's funny that Ellen White actually was the prophet who. She's kind of the prophet of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. And she prohibited the reading of fiction. And so I was teaching at this elevenist college where I was not supposed to teach fiction. And so I did not teach the novels I normally would have. And I taught Emily Dickinson. And that's where I made the exchange of Ellen White, who I feel like had more of a restrictive mindset, to Emily Dickinson, who maybe, like I was talking about earlier, like a window, like a question, is completely open to experience. She blew my mind, as did Emerson. And maybe the third person I would put on there is John Denver because he provided the soundtrack for our trips around the country. So I grew up in a fundamentalist church in a little town who was all. It was mostly Adventist. But I would have to say that my upbringing was the opposite of provincial for many reasons. For, like, I got to read Emerson, I got to read Charlotte Bronte, I got to read Whitman, I got to read the Bible. The Bible is a huge, gigantic book. But also my parents. My father was a great preacher. I mean, still is. And he would preach every summer at what are called camp meetings around the country. We would go from, like, we saw, I grew up in Texas, and we would go. We would just get in the car for about two months and drive around the country. And my parents would take me to all kinds of cultural stuff and historical things, and we got to see beautiful scenery. And we would go from Florida to Maine to Oregon to Los Angeles and back to Texas. And the whole time we were listening to John Denver.
- [09:27]
A
I love that. Is there a particular John Denver song that sticks out as your quintessential favorite John Denver road trip song?
- [09:39]
B
Well, there's. There's the song. He was coming home to a place he'd never been before. Now, I can't remember the title, but that's kind of how I felt when I moved to Montana, that I was coming home to a place I'd never been before, because we moved here without ever having been here. And then here we are at home.
- [10:03]
A
Wow. There's something in the water in Montana. Or like that. Allures writers that I admire and artists that I admire because there seems to be a vortex that seems to bring you all there. I don't know if it's the wide open space or the beauty, but there's a beacon there that you. That is drawing a lot of artists I. I look to. So I hope to get up there one of these days soon. It's been too long.
- [10:30]
B
Where are you?
- [10:32]
A
I'm in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
- [10:34]
B
Oh, that must be beautiful.
- [10:37]
A
It is beautiful. I love. I love the desert. I'm born. I was born and raised in Minnesota, so I got the lakes and trees, like waters in my veins, but the desert is another home. So I feel very torn between very different landscapes. But both speak to me deeply and in that kind of spirit of speaking. How many languages do you speak?
- [11:12]
B
None. Fluently, then?
- [11:15]
A
Fluently, no.
- [11:16]
B
I don't feel like I even speak English fluently. I'm not really. It does not come easily to me at all. English doesn't come easily. I feel like. Well, like I say in my book, I feel like English is my second language because music is my first. So I remember one time, and I.
- [11:39]
A
Felt.
- [11:41]
B
Such embarrassment over this for years, but I was giving a reading at Reed College and somebody asked me, well, what have you been thinking about recently? And I just stood there blankly for about a minute and I could think of nothing. And for years later, it occurred to me all that really goes through my head is little tunes, tunes, tunes, tuning tunes, tunes, tunes, tunes. So words, words don't come to me easily, even in English. But I love English and I love Spanish. I learned Spanish when I lived in Paraguay and Peru in 1970. I mean, sorry, 97, 98. I have studied French, Russian and a bit of biblical Greek.
- [12:33]
A
It's a good canon of languages there. I feel like folks I know who know multiple languages often undercut their ability to speak in multiple because they know how difficult language is. And I love that you include music in that as well.
- [12:53]
B
Yes.
- [12:55]
A
Which of those languages do you feel is kind of your sweet spot for expressing kind of the movements of your own soul? Do you feel like there's one particular language that is the best vehicle for that?
- [13:16]
B
I mean, I wish I spoke Russian. I was just learning Russian when my kids were babies on Duolingo, when I would lie there and try to wait for them to go to sleep with. With the intention of 10 years in the future being able to read. I'm sorry, what's his name? Dostoevsky.
- [13:38]
A
Yeah.
- [13:39]
B
But then I lost my streak. So I wish I knew Russian. Spanish. When I was learning Spanish, what I noticed was that I was more confident than I am in English. Not that I had any more or I mean, I had way, way, way less ability. But I don't know, something about the language just made me a louder person. Speaking Spanish. I would speak more loudly, but I guess I would have to say English. I've never tried to write really in any of the other languages. What I like about English is, I mean, how words remind me of other words. So, for example, well, I don't know if this is, I guess this has to do with several languages, but I was reading about Friday and the goddess of Friday, and it has to do with the word for freedom, which came from the word free jazz, which reminded me of Ornette Coleman's invention, free jazz. And anyway, I just love how when you have lived with the language long enough, words just remind you of other words and lead you kind of like jazz or riffing or improvisation. Words lead you to other words.
- [15:06]
A
I can see that in your writing. Like, I feel like there's this lyrical freedom and playfulness where it does. Like, one thing leads to the next and it's, it's the journey of discovery for me as a reader to follow that along in these beautiful pathways. And you do that wonderfully in your latest book, the Salt of the Universe. Praise songs and improvisations. It's funny, it's wise, it's poetic. And yet I struggled to explain in bite sight snippets to anybody who asked me what I was reading. Like, because my own introspective thoughts would get into it. And so like, your story would play with my story. And so when everyone asked me what I was reading and I would tell them, I'm loving this book, the Salt of the Universe, and then I would try to explain it, there's kind of like the meta things that I could explain your story of departure from the Adventist tradition and discovery and deepening into the poetic tradition and expansion all these different ways, but nothing ever felt like I was saying it clearly enough. So I'm curious, when somebody asks you, how do you describe the salt of the universe in a way that you feel like is packaged enough for somebody to receive and enticing to get the full throttle of the joy of this book?
- [16:37]
B
Oh no, I feel exactly like you. I'm terrible at explaining myself. I mean, if I tried to explain it, it wouldn't be very coherent or package sized. I mean, I can say that it is sort of a memoir of my experience with fundamentalism and kind of the way I exited from fundamentalism. But it also has a lot to do with music. I mean, I can tell you a little bit about the genesis of the book. I mean, I've always been very anti authoritarian. I mean, probably annoyingly so. And so my first two books were a lot about animals and plants, and I find them very anti authoritarian. Like, I think somewhere I was talking to somebody about how animals confuse religion and music confuses science. So I've always been drawn to things that are confusers. I remember in college somebody called me the Tower of Babel because I was confusing. But in this book I feel like I'm taking on that anti authoritarian in a more direct way. And I had written largely based on research in my first two books and I, I thought, oh, I want to do something different. So my friend said, when I asked her what should I write next, she said, why don't you just write? And I found that the more I wrote when I was just writing, I was writing a lot about religion and I was writing a lot about music. And then it sort of all started coalescing into this account of my experience, which I had been bottling up for about 20 years. And it was kind of exhilarating and kind of frightening to write this book. And I don't know if this like, to your question, I don't know if this explains what the book is, but I remember telling somebody else that it felt like writing. It felt like I was going down a river and I knew that the Niagara Falls were coming and I was going to go over the falls. And I was just kind of intimidated and in terror when I wasn't being exhilarated by actually being able to, as Emerson, advise, speak for yourself, think for yourself. But then I saw there's this film festival called the Banff Film Festival. I don't know if it comes to Albuquerque.
- [19:16]
A
Yeah, it's a great film festival.
- [19:18]
B
It's a great compilation of different outdoor wonders, people who climb and kayak and bike. And there was this film a couple Januarys ago about Nuria Newman, I think her name is. She's a French kayaker and what she does is kayak over waterfalls for the fun of it. And so kind of like I had said at the beginning, what is contemplation? Live as if the world is addressed to you? Well, I feel like I had sort of sent the universe this problem, this question, like, ah, I feel like I'm writing a book that feels like I'm gonna get a go over waterfall and the universe sent me this film of this woman who relishes going over waterfalls. So anyway, I don't know if that gives you any clear of an idea of what the book is about, but it is kind of an account of what it meant to me to write it. It was much more personal than my first two books.
- [20:29]
A
I think that's a wonderful way of. I can imagine, as you know, reflecting this book, approaching the waterfall and just the vulnerability of talking about leaving a tradition, not only because of your own personal experience of going through that, because there's, I'm sure, loved ones and folks you still know who are a part of that tradition and cherish that tradition. And I thought you did it with such. Like you said, you were definitely thinking for yourself. And there's a playfulness in it that allows there, as the reader, for some distance to engage in and also recognize, like, what traditions am I a part of? What traditions have I had to. To shed in my own journey before I either threw over waterfalls or waterfalls pounding on me? And that I found to be such an enticing way of. Of looking over your journey? Because as with anyone's life, there's all the emotions are present, but it never felt like you were leading with anger over the past. And so as a reader, I could feel the work you had done paddling before the waterfall to not let one emotion be the one driving the way. How would you describe your relationship to the Seventh Day Adventist tradition now? Like, this is a journey of you leaving that tradition. How would you describe where you're at it, where you're at with that tradition now?
- [22:12]
B
Yes, well, I would say very entangled still. Also, I feel like my book was kind of my way of thinking for myself and figuring out what I thought and articulating that. Like, I mean, I guess what tripped it off was an authoritarian event that I can't speak of because it's not my story. But also feeling my mortality and having young children and wanting to model for them, thinking for myself and my mortality means that I have to say what I have to say before I die. Marilynne Robinson, in a book, says, I am too old to mince words. But I think any of us could say I am too mortal to mince words. So my relationship with the Adventist Church is, I would say now that I've kind of got this bee out of my bonnet, pretty affectionate. And I'm really grateful for the vegetarianism. I'll always be grateful for that. And so are the chickens and cows and pigs and grateful for. And this is kind of I don't know if it's ironic or counterintuitive, but I mean, I'm kind of grateful for the authoritarianism because it made me work out my relationship with authority. Whereas I feel like more, more subtle forms of authority might just, I don't know, keep you shackled for longer. Whereas if authority overplays its hand, like it's just so obvious you have to succumb or defy it. And so I feel like that process of working out my relationship with authority has put me in good stead for other forms of authority for the rest of my life. Like if you can, if you can think for yourself, then you're, then you're stronger ever afterwards and braver. Does that make sense?
- [24:42]
A
100%. Well said. That's great. And one thing that there's a lot here around leaving a tradition, but there's also this alluring to different traditions. There's music and also poetry, these traditions that you're being allured deeper into. How do you describe that sense of allurement to these artistic traditions calling you in similar or different ways?
- [25:14]
B
Yes, that feels like a really seminal question for what I was trying to do. I feel like, I mean, one thing I was trying to do was make a case for people who don't fit in. Another thing I was trying to do is make a case for art. Art kind of as righteousness. I don't feel like that's always pointed to in art. But Jesus has that parable where he talks about the servant who invested his talents rather than bearing the talents. And I like interpreting that kind of literally as investing your talents. And I feel like John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk and Nina Simone. I mean, these are wonderful exemplars of righteousness according to that parable. John Milton, Walt Whitman, crazy fiddlers.
- [26:17]
A
Yeah.
- [26:18]
B
So I do feel like I'm very attracted to art. And I, I remember and this feels like such a simple kind of tale, but I remember we were at our next door neighbors 10 thanksgivings ago and we all went around and said what we were thankful for. And what occurred to me to be thankful for was all the time that writers like Emily Dickinson and musicians like Bhag, all the time they have put into their art. I have benefited so much. My life is so much richer for all of that time and work and sometimes difficulty and torment and frustration and loneliness, but that those artists, oh, I bless them, I bless them, I thank God for them. So that's definitely an attraction and allurement of art. And I just love how they made me think new thoughts, surprising thoughts, and lead me to look out the window more and look out and go out, go out of the house, leave the house. I feel like leaving the Adventist church was in some ways leaving, kind of leaving a little house and going out into. Into Mountaineer.
- [27:44]
A
That's a great image. And I appreciate that sense of gratitude for the work that art that artists put into their craft. And you mentioned Bach, and I was just thinking, I recently learned the conditions of his life and what he was creating within those conditions. It's unimaginable that he had the fortitude and dedication and discipline to keep creating such magnificent pieces of art that are standing the test of time as he's trying to raise all these children and do his regular job. Yeah, it's bananas.
- [28:22]
B
And what else. What else were the conditions?
- [28:26]
A
Like his. His regular work. And like, there wasn't like he was receiving huge fanfare or checks and royalties for what he was doing. It was this coming out of this, at least in my understanding, what I had heard recently with this innate sense of this is his to do in the world. It was his way of responding to how the world was addressing him. And I find that incredibly inspiring. Of course, he's in my mind, a genius of great magnitude, but he still showed up to do the work. And like, how. What is our work to do? Each of us in our little piece to play. And this is why I love. Like, I still love the metaphor of. Of the. The mystical body of Christ. Like, everyone's just doing their. Their little pinky thing or their. Their nostril or their earlobe, whatever it may be. But like, the beauty of the smallness creates something wonderful when we're all connected like that.
- [29:24]
B
Yeah. Oh, I just had this tangent. I was gonna say, along with the parts of the body in my book, I talk about John Milton's Areopagitica, which was making a case for the freedom of the press. And I talk about that book has elbows, which made space for other books like Emerson and, well, Whitman. So he was. Maybe John Milton was elbows.
- [29:48]
A
And he was the elbows.
- [29:50]
B
And I'm a. I'm a nostril hair.
- [29:57]
A
Still very important. Right.
- [30:02]
B
I love what you were saying about Bach. And I read that I guess towards the end of his life, people dismissed him as too antiquated.
- [30:11]
A
Yes.
- [30:12]
B
That would have been hurtful to hear. But now nobody says that about him. You just have to wait.
- [30:18]
A
Yes.
- [30:19]
B
And then you're no longer too antiquated.
- [30:22]
A
And you're no longer too antiquated. And you're no longer hung up on what anyone else thinks and you're not around to hear it anymore. To continue the line around music, you know, there's musical references woven throughout your book. From my hometown, hero of Prince. I grew up in a small town that turned into a suburb called Chanhassen. And Paisley palace is in that town. Yeah, it was very cool. And then to someone that I didn't know, Harry T. Berlay. I don't know if I'm even saying his name right. I want to know what it feels like for you to listen to music. Like, how do you experience listening to music? And I wonder that because for me, music is still like a full body experience. Like, there's albums that like an artist that nestle into my soul and they. They set up a little campfire and they don't leave. And so I can just feel their music reverberating through my entire being. And I know that's not true for everybody, but I get this sense that there's like music is vital to your. Your own sense of flourishing, your own daily embodiment. So I'm just curious, how does it feel for you to listen to music? What does that experience like for you?
- [31:45]
B
Yeah, it is vital and full body and life saving. And it's mysterious. I mean, it's another thing that's very hard to explain. I mean, like, I talk about like so often and he's from up in your neck of the woods too. Bob Dylan, right?
- [32:08]
A
Yes, yeah, sort of.
- [32:10]
B
But I. So often I'll be listening to somebody else's album and there's one song that strikes me and I'll listen to it on repeat for days and days and days. And then finally, finally I get curious. My curiosity doesn't always kick in for a while. That's a flaw. But I'll finally look it up. And it's a song by Bob Dylan. And that's happened over and over and over. So there's something sort of magical and mystical and mysterious about why one melody will strike you more than others. Or why one melody has such a long lifespan. Like Green Sleeves or Turlock. I think his name is Turlock. Oh, Carolyn. This blind Irish harpist wrote so many beautiful melodies. But why one melody strikes you so much more than another melody is a mystery that I can't explain. On the note of Music Saves Lives Last night it was getting late, and then my children remembered that they had homework. And then we all tried to sit there at the table and do our homework. And it turned Kind of bloody and violent. And there was.
- [33:37]
A
I know that feeling.
- [33:41]
B
And kind of miserable. And I got so tired that I went in and laid face down on my bed in my winter coat and I was just comatose and my son came in and put one of his AirPods in my ear and. And for 15 minutes we listened to this classical violin piece. I still don't know what it was because once my curiosity kicked in, it was too late. It was gone. But we listened to this beautiful song and it saved. I mean, this beautiful piece of music. And it was so exquisite and reminded me that there's not just homework and bickering, there's also a soul.
- [34:32]
A
I love that. There's moments like that that I feel like turn the edge on a day or remind me to take myself less seriously or whatever I think is the important mission of the day. Since you invoked the name of Bob Dylan, I. I can't tell you how many times something is happening or. I read an article. I just read an article about someone had sent me around Guru Culture within traditions. And the line that came to me was, don't follow leaders and watch your park in meters from a Dylan song. And how there's these phrases from Dylan that I feel like emerge from the recesses of my mind or the. The back 40 of my mind that show up when I need them as just these, like, as shorthand for truths or emotions that kind of. I'm trying to express. But he's already done so here. He got there first and has given me a little. A little shortcut key. And I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful for lyrics and also for musicality that. That is wordless, that can carry me through something that I can't speak about. So why would I think that lyrics could add anything to it as well?
- [36:03]
B
Yeah.
- [36:06]
A
There'S kind of the way my mind works in a conversation like this. There's so much we could talk about. I've underlined so many different sections of this book. There's so many wonderful quotes, but this is so dear to my heart. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I can never say his name correctly. Hopefully that's close enough. But you include what he talks about, meetings in the Gulag and how that's the best part about being the Gulag, is there's no meetings. And I am a person who despises meetings. I feel like they often get in the way of. Of the real work or of real connection. And then you bring in Crazy Horse and the examples that Crazy Horse speaks To about this and even some scripture from Isaiah. How do you feel about meetings? What is your sense of relationship to being in meetings?
- [37:05]
B
Oh, I hate meetings. Yeah. So I was kind of. Yeah. So here's this funny quote. It's from the. The translation, the message by Eugene Peterson, and it's from Isaiah. And God says, monthly conferences, weekly Sabbath, special meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings. I can't stand one more meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them. You warned me, me out, God and Sol and Crazy Horse are sympatical and I would have to include me and now you in that. But I mean, the thing is, because I went to all those camp meetings and because I grew up in church and because my father was a pastor, although I loved his sermons, truly, I went to and I counted them up. One time I was in an airplane when I was trying to justify the writing of this book to myself, like, oh, no, I can't write this book. But I was counting up how many sermons I've probably heard. And I came up with at least 5,000, because I've probably been to at least 5,000 church services. And I'm also a church pianist. I have been for 20 years at Lutheran Methodist and now a biracial church. And I have to say, many times the services are uplifting. But through, I have really logged my time. I truly, truly have put in my time. And I say in my introduction, you may have heard of the unchurched, but I am the overchurched. And so now I feel like it's my turn to say something too.
- [38:58]
A
Well said. Yes, I could probably fall into that category of the over church. I think about one of my favorite Wendell Berry lines is where he talks about church being his favorite place to let his mind wander. I could appreciate that.
- [39:19]
B
I have spent many hours gazing out the window at again, the windows, mountains and stray cats wandering by.
- [39:33]
A
Yes, after each chapter of your book, there's an index of words or phrases. And you kind of like drop in to another layer of the significance of what those words or phrases are. And those are words or phrases that were found within the chapter. I love that because I feel like I got to burrow in a little bit deeper to each chapter from that index. What can you tell me as a reader, your own intention behind and purpose of creating that index after each chapter?
- [40:11]
B
Yeah, maybe I could read just a couple.
- [40:16]
A
Please.
- [40:19]
B
So I'll take a phrase that I had used in a chapter and then kind of play with it further. And for a long time I was trying to figure out what My term for this was in my first two books it was glossary, but this time, and I don't say this in the book, but I would term them riffs. Okay, so I'm riffing on phrases or terms. So here's a few. Nobody going off on tangents. Shakespeare said, the wiser, the waywarder in this world you will have trouble. Which is a phrase from Jesus. And I say, I wonder what Jesus would have said to people who visit the moon. I hear there's trouble too there. And so to Jesus's statement, I would add, on the moon, you will have trouble. Our transience is our tragedy. I'm halfway through my stint as a person and am discovering that age is as heritable as youth. Our transience is our tragedy. My children were born like 15 minutes ago and already they're saying things like, I have my doubts about leprechauns. Our transience is our tragedy. The days are like dominoes, baby. Our transience is our tragedy. So hop to it. I just want to be a sheep. Ba ba ba ba, which was a song that we sang in youth group. And I make fun of because sheep are so stupid. I don't want to be just like a sheep. But now I undermine myself or I subvert myself. And I say in many ways, I do want to be a sheep. I want to be non violent. I want to eat grasses and legumes and I want to possess a stylish appearance. So that might be a good example of kind of what I was trying to do is. I mean, I do have kind of a subversive temperament, but I don't want to set my own dogma up and become my own dogmatist. So part of what I was doing with these rifts is kind of to subvert myself and overturn any authority that I might have and to kind of question myself and also to have a heck, a lot of a heck a lot of fun. I mean, those were kind of the sections of my first two books that I had the most fun with were the glossaries at the end of the books. And so actually I kind of told you the genesis of this book. But another way of putting it is I kind of also started this book as I thought, oh, it would be fun to just write a glossary. Like not write the paragraphs and beginnings and endings. I would just write the glossary. And so I kind of was starting, excuse me, out writing entries. But then they were. Then they coalesced into essays and then. But so anyway, I retained some of Those fragments and little lyrics and little riffs and everything. I know it's a little odd, but kind of putting them between essays was. I felt like a little bit of comic relief, or trying to be.
- [43:34]
A
Yeah, I thought it worked beautifully. I think it speaks to the musicality of the book, too, where there are these improvised riffs that go on afterwards that bring you back to some of the themes of the chapter, or even, like, some of these. Something that felt small in the chapter, but then you see the roots or the. The larger life in the riff later on. I found that just to be so delightful. Helped me pick up pieces along the way.
- [44:03]
B
Yeah, good. I'm glad there was that thread.
- [44:06]
A
Yeah, that was a beautiful, beautiful. And that makes. I'm excited to go back and read your. Your previous work. I love those kinds of things. There's so much that we could talk about. And time is, of course, something that is not unlimited. So as a way to cover some ground, there's. I like to play this little game. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I'm going to mention a few things from your book, and I invite you to say whether you think it's overrated or underrated for kindling the Examined Life. Does that make sense or enough sense?
- [44:48]
B
I think so.
- [44:49]
A
Okay, so first thing. Salty pickles. Overrated or underrated? Rekindling the Examined Life.
- [44:59]
B
Salty pickles. So if you don't mind, I feel like I write better than I talk, but can I read the two? Is it epigrams or epigraphs that you use in front of the book? I never remember.
- [45:17]
A
Is it epitaph?
- [45:18]
B
Maybe eprifen.
- [45:24]
A
You're right. You're right. Yes.
- [45:28]
B
Epitaph might go on a grave. I'm not sure you're right.
- [45:31]
A
I think you might be right.
- [45:32]
B
Little quotes at the front of the book are, salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? That's from Jesus. M lng White says, do not eat largely of salt. Give up bottled pickles. So salty pickles were forbidden originally in the tradition I grew up in. But they are underrated. The saltier the better, the spicier the better. Salt is good.
- [46:07]
A
I'm with you. That's great. Okay, next one. Overrated or underrated? For kindling the Examined Life. Emily Dickinson saying, the only commandment I ever obeyed. Consider the lilies.
- [46:21]
B
Yeah, that is another epigraph for the second section. So Jesus says, consider the lilies, and Emily Dickinson says, consider the lilies. The only commandment I Ever obeyed. And I. I resonate with that. When we talk about obeying the commandments, we think about not stealing or not lying. But here is a commandment. Consider the lilies. Go follow that commandment.
- [46:57]
A
I love that. That one stopped me in my tracks. That was so beautiful. Okay, our next one. Overrated or underrated for kindling the exam in life. The supposed obsession that Jesuits have with Adventists.
- [47:16]
B
Oh, yes. So when I was in high school, my Bible teacher, whenever helicopters flew over our school. No kidding. Told us it was the Jesuits surveilling us, which was pretty paranoid. Pretty paranoid I would have to say. But what I say in my book is that the obsession probably went the other way. We were probably far, far, far, far more obsessed with Jesuits than they were with us.
- [47:52]
A
I got a big kick out of that one. That was fantastic. All right, two more hanging out with people with oomph like Jesus did. Is that overrated or underrated for killing the examine life?
- [48:08]
B
Oh, underrated. I mean, my goodness, Jesus. I mean, who knows what the angels and God, the Father and the Holy Spirit are like, But I don't know, can they compare with Peter and John and Andrew? I mean, these people were so. They had so much oomph and so much humanness and such vitality and such energy. And I remember hearing a sermon once that Jesus chose his disciples because they weren't educated. But my idea is that he chose his disciples because they had so much vitality. Yeah, they were headlong. They were impetuous.
- [48:58]
A
I love that. I love that. Okay, our last one for overrated or underrated babies who remind you of Walt Whitman?
- [49:11]
B
Oh, underrated. That was my dear friend Mindy's little baby, Lou. And what is it that Walt Whitman says you should. What is it composed we should look at? I'm sorry, if you don't mind, I'll just try to find this quote from Walt Whitman because it's so great and I wouldn't, I wouldn't paraphrase it very well. Oh, Walt Whitman said, let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. And I remember going on a walk with my friend Mindy and her two month old baby, Lou, and she just looked up at the sky and my friend said she likes distance. And I said she reminded me of Walt Whitman. Looking up at a million universes, cool and composed, not intimidated.
- [50:12]
A
May we all be like that. I think that image is so striking. Yes. You know, I can't say it enough. Your book, the Salty Universe was a joy to read. Soul stirring. I've recommended to many folks. I've had two people recommend it to me, not knowing that I'd already I had already read it, which is, I think a sign that I'm in the hanging out with the right folks. What's next for you? Do I know? Obviously you're sharing this book. Do you have other things that are alluring you forward right now? What. What might potentially be the next project on the horizon?
- [50:47]
B
That's a wonderful question. Whatever's luring me forward, I don't know what it is. I was complaining to my mother this morning on the phone. She's in Texas, and I said I don't know what I'm writing now. It just feels like I'm at sea. I'm just making all these fruitless attempts. And she and my husband both told me that that's always the way it is when I start a book and I just forget that because I can only remember back about three days. So whatever it is, I don't know what it is, but I will just keep going.
- [51:25]
A
Yeah, I like that. It'll find you when it needs you, right? I always like to close my conversations here by asking the question to keep ourselves embodied in light. If you had to pair this conversation with a drink, what would be your drink of choice and why?
- [51:44]
B
I would a hard apple cider because it's my favorite drink.
- [51:53]
A
I love it. Hopefully someday we can clink a glass of hard apple cider and talk about poetry and traditions and all that animates us to look up at the sky. This has been just a joy to be in conversation with you. I recommend that everyone pick up a copy of the Salt of the Universe and get lost in the story and the poetics, the humor. It's an amazing way that you weave all these threads together and carry readers along with you and never feeling heavy handed but a deep invitation to look at our own lives. So thank you so much for this time and for this book. Amy.
- [52:35]
B
Thank you Paul. What an honor and a joy to get to talk with you. Thank you so much.
- [52:42]
A
My pleasure.
- [52:45]
B
Foreign.
- [52:49]
A
Thank you for listening to this slow cooked episode of Contemplify. May its delights spark, wonder and may any sour patches be sweetened by their folly. Head over to contemplify.com to find the show notes for this episode. Sign up for the monthly Contemplify Non Required Reading list and also the weekly Contemplation to Practice Lo Fi and Hushed. If you are enjoying Contemplify, rate and review it on your podcast player. The Internet tells me this helps spread the contemplative cheer. The theme song for Contemplify is called Langside by Charles Ends and Darren Hoveus. Fellas, thanks as always and of course I am looking forward to bringing you more musings and more conversations with contemplatives kindling the examined life in the world. Until then, be well.
- [54:02]
B
Sam.