foreign [Music] podcast with my friend Dr Kurt Thompson my friend pepper Sweeney we are here to discover and explore what it means to be truly known hey Kurt oh my word hey pep so uh if if you are tuning in today and you didn't hear last week's episode um first of all you missed a lot go back listen to it now but secondly we were uh it was it was so much information and it was going so well and Kurt had just told this amazing story and I knew that there were more things that we wanted to talk about in this episode and so um we decided to stop and make this a two-part episode and so yeah um just towards the um end of uh episode one or part one of this two-part episode Kirk you were sharing a story about um what had actually happened last week in one of the confessional communities and and in that story it became so apparent that it's not just what happens to us as individuals in the room but it's what happens to everyone in the room and it's so apparent that the spirit of God is moving in the room and there are things going on that um are not necessarily of this world uh right in those rooms or or or they or they are of this world and meaning meaning they are of the spiritual realm right that in our kind of modernist way of thinking about the world we've just kind of like oh that's spiritual that's not the real world right well right that's not the material world it's something other and it's experiences like this where we we see very clearly that that like the very thing that we realized in Genesis chapter 2 that you know and he breathed the breath of life into the into man's body and my man became a living be like we are Spirit bodies that we we are the points of contact we're the kingdom of God and the kingdom and and the kingdom of of the Earth come together it's not surprising that when Beauty and goodness is happening in the room and in that story people the the people of the community were coming to the aid of one of their own uh that the kingdom of darkness is going to want to push back and is going to want to make everybody anxious until somebody else in the room says something's going on here and I'm feeling it like right now in my chest like I don't know what's going on I don't know what this is about but like I'm just feeling really heavy really I'm feeling the darkness right that that that is like oh my gosh this is not just about what's happening for one of our members this is happening to the community as a whole right and this is where the body of Jesus is in the best sense of the word at war with the kingdom of darkness and when we name things when I to to that second member right when we start to connect how her how that person's story is connected to the other person's story this is not unlike what Jesus is doing when he's naming demons he's naming things in the Gospels and they're like no no no no no no no no no yeah and because when we name things we tame things and this is Genesis this is the second sentence of the Bible that God Was Not Afraid of the chaos of the deep he hovered covered and he spoke and brought order and purpose and dude I like I just again that room like in a period of about two and a half to three minutes Courtney my colleague just says I just want to observe what's happened in the room and everybody pauses and looks like dang something has happened here in the room and I think this is you know when all this this brings us you know we've said that we're taking things out of our imagination into a state of incarnation we're we're naming what's happening in the room between me and others and as a community and we're naming the contagion of emotion that is taking place where the spirit of God is wrestling with the other with other Spirits in that Realm and as we make things explicit we are doing this work essentially of like when we when we talk about part of the role of formation of these conventional communities is to enable us to become bilingual multilingual that we are both naming the things that are happening about our stories about our memory what what's taking place in in you know in my family in my marriage my friends my and we are also naming what's happening in the room in the language of the in the language of faith in the language of scripture that these are principalities and powers and we are appealing to texts in these moments when we say this is what Paul meant when Paul says that we're wrestling we don't wrestle against flesh and blood we're not wrestling against each other we're wrestling against things that are not that easy to sense an image and feel because most the time they are embedded in the parts of our stories that we never talk about but the more we talk about our stories the more truly we say these things and the more you talk about your story makes me realize about those places that I'm not talking about and that's that all starts coming up and it's geez that's what's happening that's what's happening yeah that's exactly what's happening and it's like it's like you know you you get you get your you know you're you're Frozen or your cold piece of food or whatever out of the out of the refrigerator and you put it on a pot on the stove and you slowly turn up the heat you turn up the heat and things start to move about right and now you start to you start to do things with something because you bring heat to that moment you are naming things you're naming something it activates something within me things that I didn't know I didn't know and then you start naming it yeah dude and that and that becomes the place where you know like like for instance when people like when they when they're naming their grief and as as they name their grief that they have like historically stayed away from but they start to name it and then it activates something in somebody else about somebody else's grief and before you know it three or four people are naming their griefs and they are not only sharing with the person who's first talked but the collective grief of the whole space enlarges and the spirit of the room enters and when people sense that they are not alone in their grief and maybe they're sensing it for the very first time in their life they discover an Awakening that like there's this healing that takes place because the spirit of God and then what do you do you say oh this is what this is what it was like in John 11. what are you talking about when Jesus first has a conversation with Martha who comes to him and says if you had been here my brother would not have died and he and he takes her editors at her word and he says yes but like even and she but even now you could do something like I know and he says I'm the resurrection he says I know I know in the age to come she enters into a theological dialogue with him she's she's having a hard time staying with her grief she starts to talk about the resurrection and so forth she goes and finds her sister Martha I don't know we don't know Martha can't tolerate that story can't tolerate the she goes and finds her sister and says the master is calling for you and at this emotion we say like look everybody in the room Jesus is calling for your grief he's been calling for it and what's happening in the room is that each of you is the body of Jesus as a member of the body of Jesus you or Jesus calling for the grief of somebody else and when Mary comes with her friends and she says the same thing that Martha does if you'd only been here and then she just returns to her weeping she's not there to have a theological conversation she's not there to debate this she's not there to have a conversation she is there with all with the only thing that she has which is her grief and then dude like you see what happened like it's when when Jesus he sees her and her friends he was moved in his spirit and then he says where have you lame him and they say come and see and then Jesus weeps right John 11 35. it's when their grief is fully in the room without theological debate without distraction without denial without I'm just going to be like I'm gonna that's when he acts and this is what happens in the room all the time Jesus acts when our grief comes into the room when we name these things which is exactly what happened and but we now we can incorporate a text we name the text and now like we can see that like oh my gosh like what's just happened in the room this is the spirit of God moving this is John 11 being made manifest in a room in Arlington Virginia in 2023 and so this is this is just one example of the number of different ways in which we can incorporate texts which are becoming multilingual in which we are beginning to master this material of becoming professional human beings and we're practicing practicing we we will do this forever imperfectly and Jesus he's not worried about being perfect he's not that's not his concern his concern is that along the way the more Liberation we sense the less we are being imprisoned by our shame and our fear we become people of Greater wisdom we are people who produce fruit as Jesus says in John's gospel fruit that will last it's the fruit of the spirit all that we know about that it is becoming people of The Sermon on the Mount and we then become people who are more likely to look for options to create that beauty is waiting in those moments where heretofore we've just seen them as problems that need to be solved not just because it's happening in the room I now imagine taking this moment with me in into my into my classroom as a teacher into my work as an attorney into my work as a contractor into my in my family in my marriage all these things this is the work of the spirit transforming Us in this space that we may be agents of transformation in that way we learn to love the work we become people of Greater integration and we're not spending time judging our lack of progress it's in this way that we discover in embodied experiences what the purpose and the work of the confessional Community really is and uh this is the the the the the time that this takes in this middle area this you know this in the Middle Passage this this this place between the beginning and the end of a confessional Community um these things can happen in a period of you know a few sessions these it may take several weeks several months to happen um but over the course of time as we continue to Faithfully return to that space with the friends that are in that space uh we discover that it is Beauty and goodness that starts to emerge from places that heretofore wheat may never even been aware of that we're there but certainly often spaces that we never could have imagined it could come from wow and and is it as you are you able to as you have you know been involved with several of these confessional communities if you've LED several of them now um are you able to recognize the phases as as the group is going through them like like is it predictable um at this point for you well you know as I tell people you know for some people like there are some people who are in the third phase in the very first session like they're jumping in they're not wasting any time now they might not be aware that that's what they're doing right or that's what they do but you will see that there will be some people who move in these phases more quickly than others uh but and and you know pep here's here's the other interesting thing that we'll see is that and this you know for our listeners who are considering entering into one of these uh there may be uh you know I might I might bring a lot of my story Into the third phase and then I'm in a conversation ins and I discover oh there's a part of my story that I had been sitting on for as long as we have been in this group and I am not ready to haul that thing into the room and I'm I'm actually quite open about a lot of things sure uh and so there may be parts of us also that enter into the phases at different Paces if you will I think what's important uh again it's not so important that well we got to get everybody into the third phase what is important is that we are able to honestly just name where we actually happen to be again without condemnation but what's really beautiful is that in in having a sense of what these phases are and being able to name them and being able to say oh here's where I am we can then say well tell me about that tell me more about the part of you that you are aware of that is worried right about taking the next step and let's as one one of the one of the I love what my uh colleague Courtney Morrison which she one of the one of the uh things one of the uh tactics that she uses it's just so beautiful and and by the way like I uh she I I say like you know she's so she's a licensed clinical social worker LCSW okay so I think you should add two other letters at the end of your letters and I should LCSW comma p n she's like I don't know let's let's piano so like I think you're a Psychotherapy Ninja because that's exactly what she is she's a PN and but one of the questions that she when people are like anxious you can tell that like I don't want to know and then she'll say well let's what if we talk about talking about it let's talk about what you imagine it would be like for you to talk about we don't have to even name the thing yet yeah but let's what do you let's name what are you worries gonna happen well I'm worried that people are gonna oh which people right it'd be and before you know it uh people have begun the process of naming the thing they've begun the process of getting fully into the pool because they have uh put their feet in the pool and they're now standing on the steps that go down to the pool and they're like I'm not sure I want to get into the poll step down I'm not I'm really not sure I want to get into the pool step you know right yeah yeah you you you uh taught me that um uh and I've recently uh the the idea of someone that was it's close that I'm close to I knew was afraid to talk about something and and um that was very helpful yeah yeah okay yeah yeah I'm glad we split this episode in two dude man I'm telling you like confessional communities dude like it's it is it is like I I I've said this to Tim Mackey I I said that the the you know our our friend at the Bible project I said like when we talk about the scriptures being or they are ancient ancient Jewish yeah yeah ancient sorry ancient Jewish well God human ancient Jewish Messianic meditative wisdom literature that is in that is written with the expressed purpose of being read in this cyclical back and forth meditative way we go we just it's it's not just one linear Arc like and like I think see I think that I think the growth for me should just be a Straight Arrow linear Mark I'm growing and then I grow and then I grow and then I grow like why do I have to go back and cover territory I thought I'd already covered like five years ago why did I thought that I had really grown with patience grown with all the things and then something happens and my adult child does something and I feel like I'm 10 years old like why am I go why are we going back there right and what's so what's so beautiful is that that's actually the way the scriptures are written and intended to be eaten in this cyclical meditative way that continually takes us back because Jesus the Holy Trinity is so serious about being so thorough like no stone being left and turned but there are certain things that I'm not ready to look at yet that are still in my past and we get a little further down the road and what do you know somebody says something in the confessional community and there I am I'm 14 years old again like I'm 60 and 14 years old I thought we'd covered that territory and we're back at it and like no but this is what it means to the text and the confessional Community are mirrored images of each other this is what the body of G we are intended to grow in the very same way that the text was written and intended to be read like dude it's just mind-blowing to me yeah and the Tim Mackie that you're refer to I don't know if you said is is uh with the Bible project yeah and that's something we talk about quite often here um we have an artistic offering today that I am um I'm really excited about um because I have a relationship with this particular piece of art uh that you introduced me to um and it was the um I would I would say it was probably the first time that I intentionally sat in front of a piece of art like this and had an emotional experience and so um this this uh art piece that we're talking about today is rothko's number 61 and Kurt I'd love if you uh would like to talk about it a little bit and I've got it up on my screen here right now yeah um yeah yeah yeah and as we as we're recording I'm looking to my left on the wall and uh I see the print here um Mark rothko uh an American artist who became well known at in his work with abstract pieces but also especially these large canvases that would have two or three sometimes four bands of color that you might see from a distance and you're wondering like what like it's just okay like three bands of color like like my my six-year-old could do that and you you know I had an encounter my first encounter with it was many many years ago in in the National Gallery sitting with one of these pieces and and then eventually encountering in particular number 61. um because uh you have this sense of like a first glance you're like it's just a piece of it's just color that's all it is which is a lot of like what we look at our life it's just fill in the blank or it's only and it's this like it doesn't easily make sense because I'm looking for something to make sense but if you're willing to be with it and allow it to be with you my experience was that after a period of time probably sat with it for about 30 or 40 minutes after a period of time and it probably took 10 to 15 minutes I became aware that it was not just three bands of color these were layer upon layer upon layer of color and I'm color deficient as it is so it's not easy for me to see stuff in the first place and then you and and I I it just starts to evoke in me things and I'm like how like What's Happening Here and I had I remember telling you guys this that I had this odd experience of feeling like I was being seen by the painting and like I'm not I'm not this is I'm not trying to make this sound weird but I mean like this felt sense that like I'm ha like they were like the painting and I are having some relationship with each other in which part things I'm feeling are being evoked uh and and I I just I I just know that it was one of the first encounters I had with this notion that beauty uh you know when I when I see uh you know a Rembrandt's night watch the scene is set it's all very clear I know what it means it's very like we all yeah and so like all my defenses are up I can like when I sit with a with a piece like Roth goes number 61 like I like I can't Marshal my defenses because I don't know what it is I'm defending against yeah yeah I you know I I had when like I said when I when we we did this practice and I sat in front of it for about 30 minutes I think um and uh my eyes started to well up you know I got I was very very emotional and I I didn't understand it I didn't you know but um and um I've I've since done a little bit of research and it's not uncommon for people to sit in front of rothko in particular um and and cry and have an emotional response to it and um I want to ask you Kurt have you ever been to uh the rothko room Phillips the Phillips collection yes yes yeah so yeah so um on October 26th you and I are going to be together dude we're gonna be doing and Amy's gonna be with us we're gonna be doing a live yeah uh recording of the podcast to you all right all you listeners are invited Mark the date we don't have a sign up for it yet but Mark the date um for this as well as the center for being known conference which will be uh the the the Friday the following day the 20th 27th right the connections conference yep so the 26th I would love to go to either either this rock because because this room is is spectacular I mean it's just you know it's yeah yeah what let's do it in the morning and then we'll then we'll go cry in the podcast [Laughter] oh too much yeah so we do have also an application for this uh this week and um we want you to think about uh how do how does what we have explored revealed parts of your story that you've become more curious about and whose other stories do you long to know more about so take some time this week and think about those two questions and it's very simple to um just again on your computer and look up rothko number 61 and um and you can without even going to the art museum you can have an experience with it yeah Kurt yeah bud man I love you dude thank you for thank you for today and I can't wait for next week yeah and um those of you who are watching on YouTube uh stick around because Amy's coming on hey guys okay good to see you good to see you soon it's like a floating head I can't it does oh camouflage oh yes I know wow I tried really hard yeah I just need to get a camouflage well you were you were you were pretty effective because I just yeah I think you know that you know those artificial backgrounds you can have I just thought right I just thought like oh my gosh it's so good it's just her her face and her glass and her hair I can see I but I couldn't say anything else can you hear that generator no oh my gosh thank goodness okay so talk about it I mean I mean even even even the sound is camouflaged yes so talk about naming what's in the room so you know you guys are talking and I can they're doing construction outside of my building as they always are as they always are the challenges have already come but I'm sure another one will come but I can hear someone trying to start a generator huh and I can hear the person like pulling the thing pulling I'm like you're gonna flood it pulling the thing I'm praying I hope it doesn't start they were just successful in getting it started oh well that's that's fabulous okay it's so good um so good okay so a couple of things that stood out to me were okay and we talked about this last week but or the part one yeah um that we come into the phases yeah and I think you said as much like we can go if even if we're in phase three we can go back to phase one very in like two minutes yep yeah and but the idea that we come into the room thinking that there's there are problems to be solved and then we get to the point where we are loving the work and can't imagine like not doing the work like there's not an end to this there's this is life all right and then the fact that we are all works of art and so what we're doing in these rooms and not even in these rooms because we're doing it in relationship with there are um official confessional communities but then with even with our friends it's a confessional community yeah but we have one right here we have one right yeah in this the three of us we do there is a way to do this yes right absolutely and we're chipping away and finding the art that yeah is there it yeah I was I was struck by a couple of things that you said or talked about in the in the uh first episode for part one yeah where one thing where you're talking about the person that that comes in and is automatically thinking how am I going to get out you know kind of like wins is it how long do I have to do I remember when when we were at a church out in California and they started a new new community groups right they started new community groups and uh they were calling them life groups I didn't want to join because I'm like I am not signing up for life I mean it's just not where my head was yeah can we name him something else like I call them month groups yeah right um but the other thing that you talked about just a little bit was this idea of presence when people don't realize their presence I used to have um I I will say because I'm the youngest in my family um and uh we were pretty fortunate I was been pretty fortunate and there weren't I I didn't go to a lot of funerals in my life because you know um but now I'm spending myself I'm spending a little more time in funerals the last few years a lot of people have passed people are close people and um I used to have when I the occasion when I did have funerals when I was younger I had a lot of anxiety about because um you know the way that the that that receiving line um and I get in that line and I think what what am I going to say you know in the first you know like I know these people on this end of the line I don't even know the peop some of the people on the front of the line in the family and and you know it I would get anxious and be like why would I like what can I even say that will be any comfort or anything that's not been said 600 times before I get up there yep but I do realize now that just being present yeah just being present is part of the healing process it's part of the process and and um and well and we might we might say it isn't just part of the process it is the fundamental yeah it is the fundamental element that courses throughout the entire process it's the hard deck on which everything else for healing in life is built and and knowing that now has made that like um that experience even for me as a person that's offering has made it I don't have any anxiety coming in anymore I'm just like I'm here this is why I'm here and yeah right and you're present so you're doing yeah yeah yeah yeah and you know what's really beautiful pep is that when when you come into that space and you are uh present and you are like aware that you are present and that that's mostly what you're there to be yeah the one who receives your presence they know it they sense it face core right they say like because when somebody else comes and they're anxious because they're trying to find something to say or to do or to whatever like they also know that they're like look I don't need to yeah and so it's such a beautiful thing because and like what you're doing like you are being the second sentence of the Bible hmm hovering attuned completely at ease within yourself present with the chaos and simply at the ready to speak in order to bring order and purpose but it all begins with your hovering hovering attuned to attentive presence yeah okay I have two other things um one okay the idea that when someone that we can start where we are like if we're afraid and then if we say well I'm afraid people are going to be mad at me and then it's like well Okay who in this room and so being in a confessional Community if that comes up sometimes we'll say well like everybody I'm afraid everyone's gonna be annoyed and then the facilitator will say everyone equally because it's very rare that it's everyone equally and it's and it's on not only on the fear side like if you're if you say I'm feeling very supported and I feel the care and it's like right and there's so much power and vulnerability in saying right right the person right right well this this gets like we it gets the other side so you're like you're pointing out something else too one of the other questions that we will we will frequently ask is um from whom do you want something right now from whom do you want something and the amount of Courage that it takes for someone to say oh I I just witnessed this this past week too there was a particular person who turned to I've mentioned her Courtney in terms of her in particular p.m and said I'd really yeah sorry PN I would really love I'd love to hear from you because when you crazy how vulnerable that is like right you could to ask for this or but let alone and it's even one thing to ask something from Courtney or from me who are kind of like the parents in the room yeah it's even it takes even more to look across the room and especially if it's a dude if it's a guy who's asking for something from a woman that's when it's like all the you know having to do with all the things that we don't like is this is this okay because of you know we we've talked about this that sex is in the room like it's in the room like the whole notion like when when when men and women are in the room this sense of Attraction and longing and connection and so forth that we that that that we that we are still waiting to have happen from the first from the first from our first parents Adam and Eve like to say yes I would love because when when she speaks when he speaks to me I I feel I feel I really feel protected you know [Music] you know John when you when you talk to me I I I I I I feel like I hear I feel like I hear something I wanted to hear from my dad that I never heard and and what and of course at first glance you know John might feel like oh my gosh now I gotta delivery like you've already been doing it right that's why she's feeling it right and Sarah's just now making it explicit and so like so John's like oh my gosh like that's so cool I'm actually doing something for someone by being by being whatever like and these are like that's something that like we don't experience in individual therapies like I don't I never hear that I'm like doing something for my therapist yeah but part of my healing depends upon my being aware that I'm actually a conduit of healing which is part of this is what the body of Jesus is doing it's not just that we can bring healing to others but that when I am vulnerable that I become a conduit of healing the in and of itself becomes healing for me foreign okay I want to tell one story I know we yeah yeah yeah it was good okay so this is like in the moment so the three of us we do this work together we are a mini confessional community so before we when I I interrupted you guys I interrupted the recording yeah so before I got there I had to think okay at what point do I interrupt I want to interrupt at a time where we can split I have to think through the schedule the podcast schedule and then I have to think is this just the stupidest idea ever being interrupting the notion of interrupting yeah yeah you're right yeah pepper and I were talking about that later yeah but uh lame idea about it no about what no whether or not it was the stupidest idea ever and we decided if we decided no it wasn't it might be close but it was it wasn't the stupidest but the thing the beautiful thing is that I thought okay even if I were to interrupt you guys and it'd be like no we're just gonna keep racing through this and do it in one episode it was like I thought I can tolerate whatever like yeah like and it's like then that is where when we have those experiences then we it just Builds on Builds on Builds on this is am I making sense no totally and it's like oh my gosh it's in the room and there would have been a time that I would have never interrupted I would have been like we'll just figure it out yeah I think you're just trying to put off doing the artistic offering I know I'm like that worked side benefit no I I think I I I'm so grateful that you said that because it is it it is an example of uh kind of it tells a story about our corporate relationship it is a story I mean you're telling your experience but it is a story that is about our Community yeah for sure and that's just beautiful and I would love for our listeners to hear this because and this is the thing you know we before we enter into these you know communities like we don't have these experiences we and so we don't have the practice so we don't have the confidence yet to believe that what you just said can happen can happen we don't you're gonna have to work into it yeah yeah it's gonna feel risky yep it is right because the gate is narrow the path is narrow right it's hard it's hard it's Risky Business it is hard to do but it is the right kind of hard it is the life-giving part yeah yep yep all right folks yeah man so good to be with you guys yeah for sure really great alrighty all right until next time until next time [Music] yeah cast is percent myself Amy Chella audio production and editing is by Keaton Simons video production and editing is done by Mark Gould if you'd like to connect with us you can find us on social media at being known pod if you like this podcast tell a friend if you love this podcast tell everyone you know and please like rate and review wherever you listen be well be now