← The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 441: Disciples of the Internet - How to Reclaim Wonder, Stillness, and True Refuge | John Eldredge, Wild at Heart
00:55:30
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- [00:01]
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- [01:04]
Ginny Urich
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Urich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And you're never gonna believe who is here. I can hardly believe it. John Eldridge, welcome.
- [01:16]
John Eldredge
Oh, Ginny, it's a delight to be with you.
- [01:19]
Ginny Urich
John, you have written these, I mean, wildly impactful books. A lot of what you talk about, how to deal with nature and getting into creation and getting outside and how it's so healing for us. And you have a new book that's coming out. It'll be out by the time this podcast goes live. It's book number 17, Experience Jesus, really finding refuge, strength and wonder through everyday encounters with God. I've read several of your books. I have get your life back. I have resilient restoring your weary soul in these turbulent times. You have so much going on. There's three podcasts through Wild at Heart. You've got one, your wife has one, your sons have one, and you have these different events that people can go to. At what point did you become so influential in helping people with their walk with God, with getting outside, with slowing down? What spurred you on to be that person?
- [02:13]
John Eldredge
You know, I think as a young therapist, so we go back almost 30 years, sitting in an office trying to help people with childhood trauma or marriage issues, a lot of parenting issues, I really began to become curious of what heals the human Soul. What do people need? And if you look into that very much, you pretty quickly find practices like nature and play and. And stillness and beauty, you know? And I'm like, really? Because I love all that stuff like that that is in my wheelhouse. That's what I go do personally. And I knew it was restorative. And then, of course, all the new research starts pouring in and going, yeah, yeah, no, this is actually really important. And raising three boys, I think, was a big piece of this. How do we shape all that energy into really productive manhood? And so it was outdoors and it was play, and it was the adventure and stuff. So this is pretty deep in my DNA.
- [03:21]
Ginny Urich
I wonder if you could have imagined back when you started writing books that deal with all of these different topics, if you could have imagined how bad it's gotten. I don't even know if that's the right way to put it.
- [03:33]
John Eldredge
No, no. It's heartbreaking because I thought it was bad when we were practicing in a private practice 30 years ago. Oh, my gosh. Right. Because no one had an iPhone back then, Jenny.
- [03:45]
Ginny Urich
Right.
- [03:46]
John Eldredge
The Internet was just new. Right. So, yeah, I. And again, I think it's helpful for folks to know it's not that you've done something wrong, everybody. It's that you were born into a cultural context that is just really hard on human hearts and human souls.
- [04:06]
Ginny Urich
So you talk about this in experience. Jesus. Really? You call us disciples of the Internet. Disciples of the Internet. Tell us what you mean by that.
- [04:16]
John Eldredge
Well, you can't avoid this, I mean, anywhere in the world. Right. If you've got a smartphone, if you are plugged in in any way, you have literally learned. You have been conditioned by the Internet process, by Internet life. You want to figure something out. Okay, good. New programs for children with adhd. Okay. You get on, you know, kind of thing. Well, Google answers you with 3 million results in less than one second. Over time, that conditions the soul to a sort of immediate response. Life and expectation, which the saints of ages past would have been horrified at that. Like, learning to linger, learning to be still, learning to listen is really important for human souls. But we've all. We've just been. It's like baked into us now, you know, the erosion of our attention span and how the Internet's changed our brain structure. But I think the thing that really concerns me most is this thing that was happening to me. So I get online. I'm a health and wellness guy. Okay, so, like, okay, how much B12 should I be taking? You know, and so you get online, you look it up, you get a YouTube video on, okay, here's a leading neuroscientist talking about, you know, this much B12 and kind of thing. But the thing is, okay, so then the metrics know who you are. The next day you get on, and here's six videos on B12. And it's a new expert telling you the opposite, right? Oh, this is. Everybody's normal, you know, you get in and you go, okay, what's the best place to put our money? And you get one financial expert. And then the next day somebody else says, no, no, no, that's terrible. I was literally trying to exercise my lower back. So I looked up exercises for the lower back. And then a week later, I'm watching this other expert, he's going, the way you're exercising is in your back. So what this has done is it's made us all really skeptical and it's made it really hard to simply believe, right?
- [06:21]
Ginny Urich
Yes. Because you think it's going to help your back, but then it's hurting your back and it's very confusing. You wrote this. I thought this was really insightful. Discipleship to the Internet has shaped your soul. To expect immediate answers to your question, give you a deep suspicion to all forms of mystery, fuel your addiction that the practical is the real stuff of life, while eroding your confidence that you can know anything for certain because yesterday's facts are savagely overturned. We are all worn out from this. We are operating in this world, but there's no life in it. And you talked about COVID That Covid was similar. You wrote you couldn't even whisper a diverse opinion on vaccines or masks or quarantine without explosive reactions. Threats of job loss, expulsion from school, even imprisonment. And so that that split families and churches. So we are disciples of the Internet. One of the other core principles you talk about and experience, Jesus, really is the eradication of mystery.
- [07:18]
Unknown
Why does that matter?
- [07:20]
John Eldredge
Oh, we are so left brain. We're just so left brain, it's just been baked into us, right? We're pragmat. Show me the latest research. Break it down for me. This is just the way we do life now. Whether it's health and wellness for kids or proper family rhythms or investments or, you know, this is how we operate. It's very left brain. Well, the left brain hates mystery. It literally will destroy it if it can, because it just, it threatens it. But mystery, come on. Like, explain falling in love. Explain why you love the ocean. Explain why your kids make you laugh. That's not left brain stuff, folks.
- [08:06]
Ginny Urich
I say explain how does a caterpillar that has legs and walks turns into something that flies and has a proboscis and knows where Mexico is. So we always talk about with the monarch, I mean, there is a mystery there.
- [08:20]
John Eldredge
Thank you. That's perfect, right? And children are natural. They're little mystics. Like, they get it, they get the wonder, they get the joy. But as adults, by the time we get to adulthood, man, that has just been hammered out of us. And the hatred of mystery again. You know, our fathers and mothers of ages past would have said, no, no, mystery is a good thing. Mystery is part of life. I mean, how is a baby formed in a mother's womb? It's a fabulous miracle. It's amazing. What are you talking about? Like personality and creativity. So that to allow these things back into our lives requires opening up the child heart again in setting down some of the suspicion and the cynicism and the unbelief and allowing. Yeah, you allow a little bit of mystery, allow a little bit of wonder back in your life.
- [09:21]
Ginny Urich
We have gone on this trip. I've gone twice with one of my daughters and then my whole family went. This past year we went to Moab, Utah, and we did this five day rafting trip down the Green river. And you're on a raft for five days and you camp out along the side and you have these guides and they make your meals and it's just really a wonderful thing. And your phone doesn't work. And so it's just that, you know, it's like you don't even experience it anymore. Like, who is ever away from their phone completely for five days. And one of the things you really notice is that you wonder because questions come up or people are talking about this, that, or the other thing when normally you could look it up immediately, whatever the answer is.
- [09:58]
John Eldredge
Yep.
- [09:58]
Ginny Urich
And you just can't. Yeah, just like, oh, I. I wonder.
- [10:01]
John Eldredge
Yeah.
- [10:01]
Ginny Urich
And that's all you have?
- [10:02]
John Eldredge
Yes.
- [10:03]
Ginny Urich
And it's a big thing we've lost.
- [10:05]
John Eldredge
Yes. And okay, this is a fascinating thing. I was doing an interview with a woman, a beautiful lady who has a podcast. She is blind. And she told me that she can tell when she's talking to someone. Just in her relational life, you know, in her private life. She says she can tell when someone has picked up their phone.
- [10:28]
Ginny Urich
Wow.
- [10:29]
John Eldredge
Right. Because instinctively, a certain amount of their presence goes away. You're gone, man. You are out of the room. You're right. I thought that was so beautiful. Because again, Intuitively, we know all this. We know all this. And then if you want to explore a life with God, if you want to experience love, comfort, assurance, this Internet discipleship is in the way.
- [11:08]
Ginny Urich
It's in the way is in the way. It's taking us the wrong direction. Every time you pick up your phone, you wrote. Every time you pick up your phone, turn on the news, get online, or simply step out into the world, a host of competing narratives rushes to seize your attention. The battle right now is for your attention, folks. And then you had written in get your life back that Americans consume about 10 hours of media a day, over 100,000 words and 34 gigabytes. It was really interesting just to have those numbers, because growing up, our first computer had four gigabytes, like the whole computer or four or six. It was like an everybody got one, you know, and then you to put your game on or whatever. And then if you went over, then everybody was mad. Like, you are taking up too much space on the computer. So to say that we're consuming 34 gigabytes per on a daily basis, you say, this is a blistering pace of life. We've been sucked into this pace of life. Nobody is enjoying it. And then you started to talk about how, you know, when you've sort of breached that capacity. You talk about, like, you kind of are not wanting to spend time with people. You're nervous to open your email. You don't want to be asked of anything. What are some of the signals for you when you know that you've sort of reentered into that blistering pace of life?
- [12:29]
John Eldredge
Well, for one thing, I start running on sugar and caffeine, right? I mean, come on, let's be honest. We start leaning into, I need another cup of coffee. Let me go get a latte. Ooh, I think I need a little more dark chocolate. Right. I was just aware of why, as a health and wellness guy, why am I needing this? Well, I'm trying to keep up a blistering pace. I think the thing that made me the saddest was I call it the flinch. It's when the text comes in from your friend and they just say, hey, have you got time for a call? Or, hey, can I drop by? And there'd be the flinch of like, ah, I got nothing, man. I got no room for you. I don't have time for this. And that made me sad. I saw the flinch from even people. Like, I love, like, this is a text from someone I care about. But if they're asking anything of me, you know, and now we're in the grandparents stage. And so it's, hey, mom and dad, can you pick up carpool? Hey, mom and dad, can you, you know.
- [13:30]
Ginny Urich
Yeah, yeah, all of it. I totally relate. Can we drop her off right now?
- [13:36]
John Eldredge
Yes. And if something in me is like, I'm irritated at you for asking that, oh, I don't want to be that kind of person.
- [13:47]
Ginny Urich
Yeah. And you talked about a several of them to watch out for. Your daily walk. You wrote, my daily walk is a good benchmark because it's simple, accessible, and tells me whether or not I'm living realistically. Actually, it was part of the daily routine of geniuses. I love that. Reading for pleasure has become a good sign for me too. Sometimes you just abandon it completely. But I thought this was really sad. And this is out of get your life back. Everyone I talk to says they feel busier than ever. My musician friends aren't playing much anymore. My gardening friends don't have time to plant. I currently have eight books I've started to read and haven't made it past the first chapter in any of them. What's the answer?
- [14:28]
John Eldredge
Well, there's another way to live. There is another way to live, and it's not that radical, folks. So we're not asking people like, you know, throw away your cell phone and move to Moab and live in the desert. And, you know, yeah, there's a way to do this. There really is. There are some really simple choices you can make. And it's interesting you brought up the walk with the dogs thing. So I was noticing that recently that we have two golden retrievers, and taking them on a walk is a really huge decompression for me. I can let go of the day. I can process. But more importantly, I'm outside and I'm happy. You know, recently, I'm like, how do I make this walk shorter? The dogs know the routine. They know the loop. I'm like, how can I make this shorter? I'm like, john, what sort of madness has seized you that you're trying to cut your. Your walk with a dog short? Like, okay, so there are simple, simple things we can do. Here's 2. Don't check your phone first thing in the morning. People just make a discipline. You're going to give yourself human space. You're going to say, 20 minutes. I'm not going to check my phone. First thing, I'm going to get up, I'm going to make a cup of coffee. I'm going to look out the window. I'm going to say my prayers. I'm going to notice, just simply notice the weather. Is it sunny? Is it raining? You just be a human being because once you pick up that little computer, you are in the matrix. And here's the mayday text. You know, we need you to call immediately. This project's late. Here's the email that oh whoops, you know, know you forgot to pay your bill and we're, you know, and then other thing, I'd say I'm shocked at the number of people that take their phone to bed with them and they're scrolling and I know some of it's funny, you know, they're watching reels and you know, silly things and stuff. But don't do that guys. For one thing, you know the whole blue light technology thing, you don't want to be looking at screens before you try and go to sleep. But you're also creating a little bit of sacred space in your life. Where's your sacred space? Where is the quiet, the beauty? Put on some music, talk to your housemates, play with your kids. Chuck the ball for the dog.
- [16:49]
Ginny Urich
Yeah, those two things would really make a huge difference. Hey there.
- [16:53]
Unknown
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- [20:45]
Ginny Urich
And you talk about, you know, that the things that you really love are getting pushed out. The musicians are not playing. The gardeners are not planting. You even wrote this. There are withering effects. Like, I used to be funnier. I mean, it's true. Like, maybe we used to have better personalities, but we just, you know, we're withering. And so there's just a lot of reminders in here that this matters quite a bit. You talked about a book you really love, Horn of the Hunter. Tell us about that.
- [21:12]
John Eldredge
Oh, my gosh. Because this book was written in the 40s, and to hear him describe. So he's going on one of the old African safaris. And you don't have to be a hunter to enjoy this. You have to be into nature and the human soul to enjoy it. And he talks about what it used to take to fly from New York to Tanzania. It was like six flights. You know, you go to. You go to London and you go to Paris. And then you sort of think. And he talks about. He talks about waking up his first morning in the bush and the sounds and the lions roaring and the birds. And he's like, my soul is somewhere between Europe and Nairobi. And I just love the. The admission. And this was 50 years ago, everybody, right? 60 years ago. So it's a helpful. It's like a canary in a coal mine kind of thing, because you're reading this narrative of a way slower pace of life. And then I'm putting it up against my current life and going, ruh, Ro. I don't want. I don't want to be that person.
- [22:27]
Ginny Urich
It's such insight into how things were.
- [22:29]
John Eldredge
Yes.
- [22:30]
Ginny Urich
And some people may not have that insight at all. We talk about that a lot. Like, what if you have a child? So the average amount of time a child is outside is four to seven minutes a day, but they're on screens for four to seven hours. So this is like this wild imbalance. So how do you know what you don't know? And it's really good to have those insights into ways that people used to live, especially if you didn't live at that time, which we didn't. So here's a really interesting thing. You definitely talk so much about getting outside. I mean, I'm like, these books are so right up my alley. That's why my mom bought me Resilient because, you know, just. It's got these trees on the front, restoring Your weary soul in these turbulent times. There's so much crossover here. But everybody talks about getting outside is like the Phaeton sides and the grounding and all of these different scientific things you talk about. And no one else has talked about this. You talk about beauty. Tell us why that matters.
- [23:27]
John Eldredge
I don't get this. How could people not like, beauty heals, folks. Beauty heals the soul. It heals the soul. And here's where I first began to discover this. First, as a young therapist, I would notice. I get home, you know, you sit with a day of clients and you hear, you know, hard things, you're fried. And I notice, what does it take to recover for me? And I would try television. Like, you know, some of my favorite shows. I'd try sports. I'd try, you know, online. None of it worked. Only getting outside or beautiful music. I would turn on beautiful choral music in the house. And in seven minutes, I am in a completely different frame of mind. Like, I'm okay. I'm well. And so then the really big one was going through a couple of huge tragedies. Losing my best friend to cancer. We were dear friends for 43 years. When you are in profound grief, content doesn't help. You don't even want people to talk to you. Like, you're just so hurt and mad. The only thing that works is beauty. This is why we bring flowers. Everybody kind of does it intuitively. I don't know what to say, but here's some beauty, right? I don't know what to do, but here's some beauty. You know, here's a lovely card. Here's a. Because beauty assuages the soul, beauty assures you that everything's going to be good again. Beauty is almost the promise of Eden breaking into your world. So I'm going to embarrass you right now. You have a lovely countenance and a really sweet smile and just engaging with your countenance. I feel better.
- [25:19]
Ginny Urich
So nice. Thank you.
- [25:21]
John Eldredge
There is baby research on this. If you show babies the faces of women who are not their mothers and who they don't even know, their whole body relaxes and their heart rate goes down. Beauty heals. It assures. It calms. It brings sustenance. Yeah. So folks like this would be another thing. You know, you get off your screens a little bit, but you replace it with beauty. Get beauty in your life. Hang pretty things in your home, listen to pretty music, plant flowers, you know, buy flowers. Like, yes, it works.
- [25:59]
Ginny Urich
No one's talking about this, John. No one's talking about this part of it. They're talking about all these other things, but they're not talking about this part of it. Beauty is one of the richest graces God has provided to heal our souls and absorb his goodness. Beauty sings us songs of abundance. Oh, that's good, because it's true. It's true. If you're gonna play inside with kids, they're gonna fight over the one doll. If you go outside, there's 1,000 sticks that they can choose from. There's so much. There's so much goldenrod. There's so many birds. I mean, that is huge. Beauty. Okay, can I read? I just thought, oh, my goodness, I put it down that I had to read it. Here we go. Beauty is all around us in the shimmering shadows. Sunlight creates through the foliage. The intricate pattern and color of tree bark. Stop and look. Touch it. The way sunlight falls on your kitchen table in the morning. The grain of wood. Songbirds in your neighborhood fabric. Candlelight. The infinitely creative patterns of frost. The frost on the stalks of dry grasses this morning looked like tiny gladiolas made of glass or the calligraphy of fairies. Water in almost any form. Water on a blade of grass. Water drops on leaves. Leaves themselves, Their shape, texture, the lace like patterns running through them. A field of grass, especially as the wind plays through it. Fields of corn, wheat, any crop. The stars, the moon in all its phases. Rain, washed streets in the city at night. Drops of water on your windshield. Human faces are infinitely beautiful. And I have not even mentioned flowers, vases, music, fine art, and the beautiful things we use to decorate our homes. Whoa. What a writer. What a writer.
- [27:50]
John Eldredge
Thank you. I'm enjoying that myself. Okay, so let me add another little to do thing as you get outside, as you take your walk, or for me. So I work in an office, like many people. I have a staff. And so I've got HR issues and all that. I will just stop and walk outside and do laps around the building. Now I'm in a parking lot. I'm waking laps around that. But what I'll do is I will stop and touch things and smell things. So, like, break open the eucalyptus leaves, folks, and smell it. Break open the juniper and smell it. If there's a puddle on the ground, I get down and put my hands in it. I play in the puddle. The tactile engagement with beauty. It's very, very grounding in your body. I'm a deep, deep believer in God, and I think that his love and his comfort, his assurance is coming to us through the very Things we love. You go, oh, I love the ocean. Yeah. You know why? Because he's romancing you through it. Oh, not me. I. You know, I love Moab. I love the desert. Yeah. You know why? Because his spirit is wooing you through it like God is speaking to us through the beauty. And one of the things. I'm just so grateful we did this as a family. We would point this out to our kids as they were growing up and I get it, folks, come on. Your teenagers don't care about this, but they're noticing. They're paying attention. And now beauty is huge for all of our sons, their wives, their homes, their lives. They seek it out. Now they're taking their kids out into beauty. So even if it looks like your kids are going, yeah, yeah, the lessons are being learned. They are. Stay with it, everybody.
- [29:55]
Ginny Urich
Don't give up what a legacy you're passing down. Because then you can see, then it translates into the lives of your grandkids. You wrote it's the little things that build a beautiful life. And then you wrote about the statistic. The average person now spends 93% of their life indoors, which means if you live to be a hundred, you will have spent 93 of those years in a little compartment and only seven outside in the dazzling living world. This includes childhood. How does a child be a child when they only venture outside a few months of their entire childhood? This is a catastrophe. The final nail in the coffin for the human soul. So you talk about the rescue of our soul takes place through our engagement with the real world. You touch on this, this is big. Restoration versus relief. We're choosing the wrong one. Explain that.
- [30:48]
John Eldredge
Yes. Okay, so look that you come home at the end of the day, you're fried and you know, is traffic, carpool, work, you know, too much, meetings, you're on zoom, too long, all that. Okay, what do you do to care for your soul? What do you do to care for your humanity? Well, most of us reach for relief. It's a bag of potato chips, you know, it's two hours of Netflix. It's that third glass of wine. You shouldn't have it, you know, we reach for relief. But the thing is, relief does not restore the soul. It's a short term hit. It's a quick fix. It doesn't last 30 minutes. Right? You're still fried. It's just now, you know, now you're fried. And also you're too high on sugar. But restoration, that's what we're after. You seek things that actually restore the Soul. So, David, in that very famous Psalm 23, you make me lie down in green pastures. You lead me beside quiet waters. You restore my soul. That's different than a bag of potato chips. He is experiencing restoration, and so I. Everybody, let's just put this out there. You can choose relief or restoration. You want restoration, I assure you. Choose it. Move towards it. Make it your go to.
- [32:16]
Ginny Urich
I love this sentence. Touch nature. That's it. That's right there. Touch nature. I'm serious. Every day. Your soul needs to engage creation. Get outside every day. Technology, where most people live their lives is draining. Nature is healing. So reduce the one and increase the other. Encounter weather whenever you can. Don't hide from it. Experience it. So good. So good. I mean, the crossover here is so mighty and wonderful. All right, you use the word mystic, and you'd kind of. You're combining this with childhood and the mystics and, you know, just the wonder. But you wrote you were kind of. I don't know if nervous is the right word. You wrote you were kind of like in a Christian book. Do I or do I not use the word mystic? Why was there a dilemma? And why did you end up doing it?
- [33:04]
John Eldredge
Oh, I. Jenny, I wanted to title the book Ordinary Mystics because I wanted to intrigue people into this other way of. Of approaching things. But I just knew people would freak out. You know, what does that mean? And, well, that's. Woo, woo. And this, you know, John's gone off the rails. And what I mean by this. So two things. First off, children are little mystics. We just talked about it. You know, you get the Caterpillar project and you, you know, you can even buy the chrysalis. You know, you can do that. Get it shipped to your house, guys. And everybody watches and sees the, you know, the butterfly emerge. They're not asking you to prove it. Prove it. Show me the latest research. I want to see. You know, they are caught up in the enchantment of. Okay, you read them Narnia. You read them Treasure Island. You read them Huck Finn. Like they're not asking you. Prove it to me. I don't believe it. You know, is this true or false? They're caught up in the wonder of it. Well, that is how you engage God and the fullness of his kingdom. The presence of God surrounds you. Everybody. You know, My son. Oh, my son was really pushing back on this the other day, and I said, look, even if you don't believe, doesn't go away. You are surrounded by the kingdom of God every day. So in the Christian tradition there is a legacy of what were called the Christian mystics. Now they didn't call themselves that by the way, they were labeled that later. But the label was not derisive, it was respect. It meant a holy one, a saint, somebody who knows God. And so if you read their lives one, first off, they sound like children when you read their stuff because all the wonders back and the open heart and the gratitude and they love nature. By the way, I am inviting people out of a left brain way of approaching faith and experiencing God into something that comes much more from the heart because God has a huge heart and he gave you one and he wants to engage with you heart to heart. Oh, become a little mystic.
- [35:27]
Ginny Urich
Yeah, yeah. Childlike curiosity.
- [35:31]
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- [36:55]
Ginny Urich
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- [38:25]
John Eldredge
Yeah, that's good. It's a place you feel safe. It's. It's actually a way of making the world smaller for a moment. It's a place of solace, actually. It's a reduction of stimulus. They need that. They need to go into a quiet little cubby and maybe they'll read or maybe they'll play or maybe they'll, you know, listen to something. But primarily it's a safe place. I feel emotionally safe here. It's a reduction in stimulus and it is the assurance of protection. And why this is so important as adults is you still need this. You still need a place that you go where you feel emotionally safe. Where your stimulus is down, the world is shut out and you are in a smaller space that feels protected. You still need this as an adult. Well, this is what the old saints would call their prayer closet. This is the shelter of God. This is the practice getting prayer back into your life and not the quick, you know, three second prayers, you're racing out the door. But, but creating space to literally linger in what will become for you? We call it the shelter of God. This to be are surrounded by the presence of God. You will feel protected, you will feel safe. The stimulus comes down. You will feel loved. This is Psalm 91, everybody, right? The Lord is my refuge and my fortress.
- [40:06]
Ginny Urich
And what you say is we're looking for in the wrong spots. The developed world, with all its comforts, resources and technologies, has lulled us into thinking that our safety is found in where we live, in public services, in our medical coverage and retirement plans. But we're especially convinced that knowing the right facts and techniques will secure our lives. And I see that. I see that with all the hacking. Do you have your red light? Are you doing cold plunges? You know, do you have your mouth tape? Do you. Are you. Are you widening your nostrils? I talked to this lady. I mean, and I think the things are worthwhile. Yeah, it's good to learn about. But like, I am not kidding, John. She had these probes up. They were up her nose, and then she had this, like, helmet thing on, and the probes were like, red light. And the red light was going up her nose, and it was supposed to be getting red light to her brain. And these are the things that we're doing these days. It's like this rat race to try and like, biohack everything. Yes. And I thought, well, would it still work? Like, what if you laid in the grass and you looked up at the clouds like how people used to do and try. Is that an elephant? You know, that looks like an alligator? You probably will be getting red light up your nose and I guess apparently going to your brain.
- [41:23]
John Eldredge
Yeah.
- [41:24]
Ginny Urich
But I feel like as a society, we're grasping onto these things to try and find comfort and security, even though they're good things. Yeah, but so much.
- [41:36]
John Eldredge
Yeah, it. Yes. In. I'm a health and wellness guy and I respect those practices. And I've got, you know, James Nestor's book on breathing right here. Yeah, I've got it, too.
- [41:50]
Ginny Urich
And I think it's good. It's good to breathe through your nose and all the nitric oxide, it just feels like a scramble. And I guess. And maybe because. And maybe people have always been like this. I don't know. But when I was growing up as a kid, like, no one had a red light therapy box. So it's just interesting because you say we're scrambling. We're scrambling to make sure we know it all. We have the latest science, we have the irrefutable data, and then tomorrow it's different. Anyway, yeah, yeah.
- [42:17]
John Eldredge
So what I want to. What I want to ask people is, and how's that going? How is that really bringing you the care of the soul? Is that really healing your trauma? These are okay. These are. You know, it's important to eat well. You get your sleep. But God rigged the world so that it would not work without him. You can't live trying to get the Internet to give you every biohack fix to fix your life. Like, it doesn't work. There is a whole different way. And by the way, it's free.
- [42:58]
Ginny Urich
And you did talk about that. You were like, you find the light outside. And I mean, really, all of it, God made in some shape or form. And so it's almost like we're trying to bypass that and, like, get it artificially.
- [43:12]
John Eldredge
Yes.
- [43:13]
Ginny Urich
I've got so many notes here, I can't quite find it. But it was something along those lines. It's like we're trying to artificially do these things that are already available to us through what God created.
- [43:24]
John Eldredge
Yes. Yeah. Take the extreme example of the really hardcore preppers, you know, and they've got, you know, 16 cases of tuna fish. And, you know, they're gonna. You know, and I just asked them, okay, so the world collapses, and you're sitting there eating your tuna fish. And then what? Like, that's not a life, people. That. That. That joy. Isn't that happiness in that, like, it is a paranoid way of trying to secure life. Now, the Old Testament prophets would have called that idolatry, the creation of false gods, things that we worship. And here's the other thing. You will become what you adore. You will become what you adore. And so if you are absolutely fascinated, you know, and glued to sports, you will end up becoming kind of like that. You'll be sort of pumped and amped and competitive and, you know, always comparing and kind of thing. Well, the lovely thing is the Psalms have this phrase. They look to him, Jesus, and it says, and their faces became radiant. Okay, here's another way of describing it. To be a human being is to be half of a being. The soul is created for union with God. You can't. He's a vine. You're a branch. You are meant to live in union with him. And so all the spiritual practices that you've heard people talk about, you know, well, I do silence. I do. I go to church. You know, we do that. We do this app. You know, we've lost. The purpose of that. The purpose of the spiritual practices is to restore your union with God, because that's life, folks, and healing. And he'll. He'll heal your trauma. He'll tell you what to do with your life.
- [45:23]
Ginny Urich
Like, you've got all that experience, you've worked with all these people and written all of these books. So instead of. We have to think about not being disciples of the Internet and in changing that in our lives. Because you're relating this to even the rise in anxiety, you're relating it to all of these things that we are struggling with as human beings. And just the intensity. I'm watching the climbing rates of anxiety among children and adults. And as a therapist, this all seems to be the tip of the iceberg you talk about. In the last 30 years, anxiety has risen 50%. Humanity is feeling the intensity of the hour. And there's just a lot that's going on there. And so I love that wording. I love the wording. Disciples of the Internet and just really thinking about it in terms of what it's taken from us and what changes we can make. One of the main texts in Experience Jesus really is Psalm 91. He will cover you with his feathers, which is actually a really fascinating thing to see. I didn't see it until I was about 40 when I saw chicks go under the wings of a. Of a mother, hence, and you don't even know they're there. There could be six under there. You don't even know. You have no idea that they ran up underneath there. It's actually a miraculous thing to see. Why did you pick Psalm 91? I mean, we're talking about this time that we're living in with just high rates of anxiety, hyper vigilance, worry, addiction. Why Psalm 91 as one of the basis texts for Experience Jesus, really?
- [46:49]
John Eldredge
Well, because I, I think that refuge, physical, emotional, spiritual refuge is the primary need right now. And if we can teach people to find refuge in the shelter of God, in His love, in his presence, we can heal a lot of this other stuff, right? The anxiety is a symptom, it's not the root. The root is not feeling safe. So if we can address that for people and teach them the old practices of taking refuge in God, practicing the presence of God. Because here's a. This is a really helpful thing, folks. Being safe and feeling safe are not the same thing. Just because you don't feel safe right now may not be true. And that's really hopeful, right? You may be safe in the care of God right now. And so even coming back into the safety of truth, right? You are loved, you are seen. You're not alone. You will never be forsaken. If we can rest in these things, you take refuge in God. It's lovely by the way, the hens and the wings thing. Okay, so my son has a farm. Yeah, they have barn cats. And it was really, really freezing one night out there. I mean it was like sub zero. And we go out to check on all the animals, make sure everybody's okay. And we can't find the younger kittens. They were about six months old. Oh my gosh, the kittens are gone. They're going to freeze out there kind of thing. Jenny. All of a sudden these two little kitten heads poke out from under the hen's wings.
- [48:33]
Ginny Urich
That's the coolest thing ever.
- [48:35]
John Eldredge
They had taken refuge under the chicken's wings, the hen's wings. So the chicks are in there and the kittens are in there and everybody's snug and warm. It was the sweetest image of a kind of comfort and safety that I think Jesus wants to offer every human soul.
- [48:56]
Ginny Urich
And what a picture. I think that's the whole thing. It's like God gave us so many of his principles in, in real life scenarios like that where then, you know, I've always talked about like when it says in Deuteronomy like teach your children when you rise up and lie down and walk. By the way, I don't really think you can do that unless you go outside.
- [49:16]
John Eldredge
Yes.
- [49:16]
Ginny Urich
Or it's sort of forced. But when you go outside it's very natural because as soon as something like that happens, that's a natural way to talk about Psalm 91 or when the monarch hatches. That's a natural way to talk about that. You are a new creature in Christ and the old is gone and the new has come. And so I love this. I love when you talk about it. It's like we're so left brained but we need to have that wonder creep in because the wonder it portrays so many of God's principles. And it's interesting, this is why I say so many of these books. They go together so you just buy a whole stack of them and you're going to love them. You're talking about and get your life back. You wrote things like this. Honestly, I think most people live their daily lives along a spectrum from slightly rattled to completely fried. As their normal state of being. People are desperately seeking the feeling of carefree. I think all our dissociative patterns are signs of it. The video games, the virtual reality craze, the chemicals we use to feel unburdened. Millions of people are feeling massively overburdened and looking for some way to lighten their heavy emotional load. So when you read Psalm 91, it covers all of it. It covers all the things. Those who live in the shelter of the most high will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty, the carefree, the rest. He alone is my refuge, my place of safety. He is my God. I trust him. He will rescue you from every trap and protect you from deadly disease. He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night, of the arrows, of the day, of the disease that stalks in darkness, of the disaster that strikes at midday. Though a thousand may fall at your side and 10,000 on your left side, these evils will not touch you. If you make the Lord your refuge, no evil will conquer you, no plague will come near your home. He will order his angels to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up with their hands. You won't even strike your foot against a stone. It's all there. It's all there.
- [51:15]
John Eldredge
Yes.
- [51:15]
Ginny Urich
And instead I feel like we're on a rat race trying to provide this for ourselves.
- [51:19]
John Eldredge
That's really well put.
- [51:21]
Ginny Urich
We're trying to make sure that even though these people are falling in that people, those people, that we're going to be okay.
- [51:27]
John Eldredge
Yeah.
- [51:27]
Ginny Urich
And I feel like this is what God says he will do for us if we live in the shelter of the most high. What a book. What a book. John, number 17. Nailed it.
- [51:39]
John Eldredge
Thank you, Jenny.
- [51:40]
Ginny Urich
That's experience. Jesus really finding refuge, strength, and wonder through everyday encounters with God. You also talk about this Pause app, and it's really helping kids. Can you talk to us about that?
- [51:52]
John Eldredge
This is a really beautiful story. So before the pandemic was even a thing, one month before COVID changed the world and sent anxiety and hostility and politics and everything through the roof, we released a. It's a very simple mindfulness app. It's called the Pause. The one minute Pause. It's free Apple on Android. You can get it in the App Store. The one minute Pause and what it teaches people to do is twice a day you just stop, and it's beautiful music in the background. And I guide you through. First off, we're just releasing everything. I just go, God, I just give you everything. I give you the news, I give you the day, I give you the pressures, I give you my fears and what has become really fun about this is the number of stories we're getting and letters from moms who use this with their kids because it's so century and it brings the chaos in the room down. Teachers are using it in their classrooms to just get wonk. I mean, the chaos just drops out the bottom because everybody gets quiet. They listen to this beautiful music. Simple prayer, very simple. And it is so centering that I wanted your moms to know about that and your families to know about it because it's super helpful with kids.
- [53:15]
Ginny Urich
Yeah. And you talk about in your books, the one minute pause. Jesus, I give everyone and everything to you. You'll be surprised what a minute can do for you. And so you can try the app. You can buy more at wild@heart.org There are three podcasts you could listen to. Wild at Heart, captivated with your wife Stacy, and one's called and Sons with Sam and Blaine. Well, cool. The three podcasts there you have events for men, women, multi day retreats. There's videos, there's all sorts of things that you can find there. 17 books. And we're very aligned, I think, with the. With the spiritual piece of nature and God's creation and how important that is for all of us and especially, especially, especially with our children. John, this has been such an honor. I have over 400 episodes on the podcast. Anyway, most of the time nobody knows who the people are. You know, I've read their books and I'm excited to talk with people. I don't know who that is, but everybody knew who you were. And so it was a real. I was really excited, especially to tell my mom that you were coming on because she was so excited since she'd picked your book for book club and she'd gotten me one of your books as a gift. And so this is just an honor in honor of a lifetime. We always end our show with the same question. And the question is, what is a favorite memory from your childhood? That was outside.
- [54:28]
John Eldredge
Oh, gosh. So my grandfather, because I grew up in la, folks, I grew up in the suburbs, I grew up in strip malls and all that stuff. My grandfather was a cattle rancher and I would spend my summers on his farm and he had a catfish pond that we would go, we dig worms. And I love that part. Digging worms is so fun. We dig worms, put them in the red Folgers coffee can, you know, and we go catch catfish in the catfish pond. And I am a fisherman to this day, and I am teaching my grandsons and daughters how to fish.
- [55:07]
Ginny Urich
And there's your stillness. Yeah, there's your stillness. Your stillness. Your moment to just be. Wow. Oh, I love that. I love that. It just. It's just. It fits so perfectly with this conversation. John, thank you so much for being here.
- [55:21]
John Eldredge
Oh. I feel like I found a long lost kin somehow. You're a cousin Twice.
- [55:28]
Ginny Urich
I feel the same way. I feel the same way.
- [55:30]
John Eldredge
Yes.
- [55:31]
Ginny Urich
I mean, I already knew it. I've actually known it for a long time. You just didn't know that I felt that way. So really, really honored, and I really appreciate your time and huge congrats on your new book.
- [55:44]
John Eldredge
Thanks. So.