Ep. 407 James K.A. Smith - Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark

When you finally shut out all the noise, your awareness and attention is available to realize

you have always been beloved of God, that God has always been in you and you are in God.

And it's a recognition of what is already the case.

Hello and welcome to the Shifting Culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture

we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus.

I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. No, we live in a moment obsessed with certainty. Everyone is

trying to figure everything out. What's true? What's right? How to fix the world? We assume that if

we just have the right knowledge, the right answers, we could finally make sense of things.

But what if knowledge isn't the thing that saves us? In this episode, I talk with philosopher

and author James Kay Smith about his new book, Make Your Home in this Luminous Dark. We explore

the limits of certainty, the wisdom of the Christian mystics, and why silent solitude and

unknowing might actually be a path into deeper truth and a connection to the divine so that we know

that we are beloved. And when we know that we are beloved, that changes everything.

Jamie shares how a season of depression and spiritual disorientation force him to confront

something difficult that you can't think your way out of every problem. And that realization

opened him up to poetry, art, contemplation, and the ancient spiritual tradition that teaches us

had a sit in the dark long enough to discover wonder. This conversation is about letting go of control,

learning to pay attention again, and discovering the deep truth at the center of the Christian life

that we are already loved. So join us. Here is my conversation with James Kay Smith.

Jamie, welcome to Shifting Culture. So excited to have you on. Thanks for joining me.

Oh, it's great to be with you. Thanks so much.

This is a crazy world that we live in today. It feels like truth is elusive. We're trying to

figure out what it looks like and we can't really grasp a hold of it. Do you think that in this

crazy world where we can't really figure it out? Is it knowledge that can really save us? Can we

figure it out and master it to get the right knowledge to solve our problems?

I think that's our temptation. We imagine that we can think ourselves out of this mess. And I mean,

of course, I understand we should be rightly unsettled by misinformation and disinformation

and all of the ways that people try to hoodwink us and deceive us. And yet there is another sense

in which I think this quest to solve everything with more knowledge, more conceptual mastery,

I think is kind of doomed to disappointment. And in some way, maybe I could put it this way.

I think we can idolize knowledge, actually. We can actually turn knowing into an idol in which we

now rest all of our confidence that we can figure it out. And I think that's because what we want

with knowledge is control. So we're faced with all kinds of unsettling uncertainties. And we

don't know what to think or who to believe or what to know. And so we just want to feel secure

and we want to feel safe. And we think that knowing the right answers gives us control over this

situation. And I just think I think that's doomed to disappointment. I think we need to

approach uncertainty differently. We're going to move into your new book, Make Your Home and

this Luminous Dark. So we're into mysticism and what it looks like to go into silence and solitude

and figure out how to sit in the dark and then come back out into wonder. But you weren't

always at this place of like being really inspired by the by the mystics to move to this. You

as a philosopher and somebody knowledge and certainty was really key for you. So just tell me a

little bit of your story as a philosopher. What did philosophy? What was it for you? And what were

you trying to do in your life? Trying to master even philosophy? Yeah, it's interesting. My path

into my training and profession as a philosopher are fairly inseparable actually from my path into

religion and Christianity. So I was a kind of relatively late convert to Christian faith. And

shortly after kind of sensed this calling, if you will, to philosophy. And in many ways,

I think I pursued both of them as ways of securing the truth. I think in both cases, I was looking

for a security that came from dogmatic clarity. And so insofar as I was interested in philosophy,

I was interested in getting the answers, figuring it out, knowing the truth, and winning the argument.

I would also say it was part of the story. There was the the the brash young man who for whom

every has just a hammer and everyone else is a nail. And this desire to kind of win the argument.

I now look back at my younger self and say, I was clearly after something other than truth,

I was looking for security or belonging or something like that. And in that sense, philosophy,

the reason I got into philosophy, I think, was something other than wisdom, you might say.

What philosophy is supposed to be perennially classically, it is the pursuit of wisdom.

But I think for me, and I think this is not uncommon for many, especially young professional

philosophers, is less about wisdom and it's more about winning. And it's about winning the argument.

And it's about showing that you're the smartest person in the room or however that plays out. And

what's kind of sad and ironic is I probably approached Christianity in exactly the same way. And

I imagine that being a person of faith meant I had the secret, I had the corner on the truth,

and the question is, would I be able to convince and persuade everybody else? And I hit rocky shores

in both of these ventures, I would say. Where did the rocky shores come in to play? How did

you brush up against the fact that maybe what you were trying to do was really a cloak to what

was underneath the actual things you were perceiving? I mean, for me, it was honestly a season of

really debilitating depression. I found myself in my early and to mid-40s, just kind of

plunged into a cloud of despair that I, in a way, I couldn't recognize myself, but I also

kind of was alienating everybody around me. And it was just becoming so corrosive to my soul

and experience. And the two things that happened were my wife, not so gently, propelled me into

counseling, and for our sake. And at the same time, she gave me a copy of St. John of the Cross's

Dark Knight of the Soul. And I still was not in a place at that time to realize how these two

things were converged. But I would say my experience of my own depression, I think it's maybe a little

bit like the way some people experience confronting their own addiction, which is you realize you're

up against something that you can't think your way out of. And that's really sort of an affront

to a professional thinker. And in many ways, I think when I first went to counseling and therapy,

I thought, oh, I'm going to go here and somebody's going to teach me the answers. And then I'm

going to have this knowledge and understanding, and I'm going to get a hold of it. And I realized,

no, actually, this therapeutic adventure was an adventure of letting go of realizing you

can't think your way out of this. And it was very humbling in that regard. But it was also sort

of a portal to something else. So I think I came up against an unplumable depth, which I experienced

in despair, that was ironically paradoxically a catalyst for me to kind of realize the limits of

philosophy as I knew it, but also maybe open me up to really finally thinking about what wisdom was

as opposed to what knowledge was. I mean, that's interesting. The times in my life where I've tried

to figure things out where I don't know what's going on. I'm pursuing either a therapist or

you know, a spiritual director. A lot of it, I tried to think my way out of it. And I know the

right things, like I just know the right things, but it just doesn't work because I'm thinking,

how did you start to move from a place of, oh, it was, it's not really about thinking or way out

of it, especially for a professional thinker. Like that's not an easy thing to do. Like, where did

that come in? No, you're asking exactly the right question. I mean, I think there are kind of

multiple factors here. The one, I would say, is in the therapeutic journey, I realized that

we weren't trying to solve a puzzle. We were re-narrating a story. And in that sense,

part of the work, the soul work that was happening therapeutically was actually getting me to confront

a bunch of things that I had kind of buried and locked down in a basement. And therefore,

I had never adequately narrated into my own identity. So I started to realize that in some ways,

the therapeutic journey was a re-narration. It was a, it was restorative because it was

restoring who I thought I was. And so in that sense, it was, it opened me up to realizing the

significance of the imagination and not just the intellect. So to move into that space, and by the

way, it turns out philosophers also have a lot of things to say about imagination if you're kind of

attuned and you start listening to it. So that, that starts unpacking something for me.

The other thing that happened is, and I talk about this a little bit in, in make your home in

this luminous dark, I started reading poetry again. And I remember reading just being like,

stopped in my tracks in a bookstore, reading a poem by Franz Wright, who's, who's no longer with us.

But somehow the poet in their kind of playful and paradoxical use of language that wasn't

didactic in syllogisms, you know, somehow that language both broke open reality for me and

pierced me to the marrow and managed it to unlock something of my own pain, my own desires,

my own hunger, my own hopes. And I think this, this convergence then of the restoring of the

imagination that was happening therapeutically is started to be complemented by things I was

experiencing in poetry and literature and the arts. And so, and this, it's the imagination I think

that was tying those things together.

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So opening up the imagination, the arts and poetry, what do I get from your book is that

you didn't just jump straight into the mysticism, but contemporary arts and poetry really helped

bridge yourself to that. How did that help? How did the centuries help move you to the place

of getting into the mysticism? Thank you for recognizing. This is an important part of my experience

and kind of the argument of the book, if you will. Yeah, it's right. It's not, you know, I wasn't

captivated by the Italian masters or something, you know, it wasn't like devotional art that was

sort of doing something for me. It was in many ways the difficulty and perplexity and captivation

of contemporary arts, poetry, film, painting, sculpture. And I think what was going on is in these

forms of contemporary artistic expression. I was meeting a kind of difficulty that was sort of

intellectually impenetrable, but imaginatively evocative. Like somehow, I don't know if I'll do

a good job of describing this, but there was, there was, there, you know, you'd be in a gallery

and there would be this, you know, what we would call maybe a very abstract piece of art. You

know, it wasn't representing anything. It wasn't picturing anything. It wasn't a, you know, a picture

of a father and a son and you're like weeping in front. It was more like, it would be this

painting of just like dark black grooves and streaks on a painting and somehow it had both

a lure and violence about it. And there's, there's something like it would just grab hold of

me and pull me in. And I would find that I would, I would be before it, puzzle, perplexed, curious,

wondering, fascinated, unable to sort of say, what does this mean? And yet I was engaged in the

experience of being pulled out of myself in a way. So I guess what I'm trying to say is it's

precisely the difficulty and perplexity and a lure and paradox of contemporary art. To me,

that was like this exercise, for me, the professional thinker, so to speak, it was this exercise

in intellectual failure. And that was a good thing. It was a, it was a good thing to be invited into

an encounter where I was, it wasn't a problem to solve, it wasn't something I would, I was going

to walk away and say, it means X. But I was held by it. And in some ways, I was able to be quiet

and still in these encounters. And that itself also turned out to be a kind of spiritual plowing

of the soul in a way that I think was, was making me available. I don't, does that, does that make sense?

That makes sense. I think it's also moving then from the familiar of something where you don't have

to be encountered there or contemplates anything because it's so familiar into the unfamiliar.

And we live in a, a world where we're encountered by the familiar constantly. And it just doesn't

hit us. Yes. How do people then like move into the unfamiliar? How do we help ourselves and

counter the, the mystery, the unfamiliar of things so that we could sit with the unknowing?

By the way, I think that's a really good insight you make that, that's true. In some ways,

it was finding a thrill in the unfamiliar rather than the secure comfort of the familiar.

And, and it strikes me in, when you describe it that way, it strikes me that our world governed by

algorithms keeps wanting me to experience things that I know what to do with. If you like this,

you'll love this. And because it's just a continuity, whereas what we're talking about is getting

pulled into things is like, I don't know what to do with this. How do we get to that place? One is,

I don't want to discount the importance of community here. I think, I think, I do think there's a

dynamic of putting yourself in conversations and community and relationships and networks,

where you are going to be pulled into opportunities to be encountered by things that are

surprising to you, unsettling to you that are not familiar. And, and it's probably not likely that

we can do that on our own. We need help. Do you know what I mean? Like I, I'm, I'm always the artists

and poets and novelists that I love. I listen to what they love because I wonder what are they

going to introduce me to? The other thing though is, this is where I think there's a, there's a

bit of a dance and dialectic between these two things because I think in some ways to feel

comfortable with the unfamiliar, you have to increasingly feel centered in a kind of understanding

of yourself that is able to endure risk. So, so, you know, I wonder, I, this is where I wonder if

there isn't just a bit of back and forth between on the one hand. In my case, it was this kind of

therapeutic journey to start where I start realizing, oh, despite everything I am loved, despite

everything I am loved. And in a way, once that story seat down into my deepest bones,

now it comes with an ability to take the risk of enjoying not being in control. That's what we

want to get to, right? In some ways, to, to, to get to a place where you are comfortable with

discomfort, where, where you realize that this experience of being upended and challenged and

encountered by the unfamiliar is actually doing a kind of work in you that you, you can't even

know yet. It's, it's, there's a tilling of your soul soil that's happening there. And I think

incrementally, little tastes, practice, and finding that, like letting it be its own reward,

not instrumentalizing these things, just saying, oh, this is, this is something good to do. You

know, I, I don't know how tangible we want to get, but somehow, you know, I kids, I have grandchildren

now, but when our kids were young, our family just became a family where whenever we're in a new

town or a new place, we go to the art museum. And we just wander. And you just, you may, I do

think there's something about creating habits and rhythms and patterns in your life, where you're

just like, no, I'm going to put myself into uncomfortable places. And you're just like, this is

what we do. And that I think incubates possibility. You started to encounter the mystics, my sir,

Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avala. And you're reading these things. Who are these

mystics that, that think that getting into the dark and the mystery is a portal into you, something

beautiful and true. Yeah, it's very interesting. So maybe for listeners for whom these are just

unfamiliar characters. It's interesting. A lot of these voices, St. Teresa of Avala,

myster Eckhart, the cloud of unknowing, which is this amazing anonymous work from the 1300s.

It's interesting. They're sort of like late middle ages early modernity dynamics. You know,

some of these folks are writing at the same time that the Protestant Reformation is happening

and unfolding and things like that. And in many ways are kind of a response to that.

It's a very heavy way of thinking about faith and the, and the mystics are like, let's consider

other options here. What I found, and again, I, you know, I'm, I'm both, I'm encountering the

mystics for the sake of my own soulwork. But I can't pretend I'm not a philosopher. And so I get

philosophically curious about the mystics. And what the mystics are interested in, it seems to me

across the board is, and they have experiences to go along with this. They're saying there is a way

of experiencing the profound depth and plenitude and infinity and fullness and transcendence of God

that actually alludes and transcends all of our theological categories and concepts. This,

this is why the mystics got themselves in trouble sometimes too. I find that also philosophically

fascinating. Do you know what I mean? Like there's, there's a way in which they're saying there

is a kind of awareness, understanding, intuition. It's hard to know what words to use here that,

is other than the usual register that we think of knowledge, you know, true or false, A or B,

this or that, you know, this, this kind of binary register of our usual instrumental reason and

thinking and the way we make our way in the world. That, there's nothing wrong. I mean, that flies

and it makes podcasts, technology work. But what they would say is that's actually a more

elementary mode or level of thinking about God. And so, myster Eckhart, for example, famously says,

you know, what you need to consider, what you need to risk is praying to God to rid you of God.

And you're like, what is, but what he's saying is it's almost like you have to kind of hear it

and scare quotes. It's like, you know, there, there is a God head beyond the little box God that you

carry in your head and that you believe in and that who's, who's been good to you. But there's,

it's like up and in, you know, there's, there's something more to that. And I have found it fascinating.

And then, you know, St. Teresa of Avala really made the work of, of perfect love,

cashing out fear. And when we have fear, and I think a lot of, a lot of things, we want to

control. We want certainties. So we could eliminate fear. And we believe that knowledge,

certitude is going to get rid of fear, right? You know, I've lived in the Middle East. I came back

to the United States. And you think of the Middle East when you're surrounded by war and like

destruction and things, the people would be fearful constantly. And it's not the same

as when I came back to the United States. And everybody was afraid. Like there was fear everywhere.

It was weird. It was a strange thing. Even though those horrors hardly ever reach our soil.

Exactly. What a paradox. It's so weird. So I think if we move into what my Sir Eckhart said

is like, pray to God to get rid of God, you're actually moving into a place of a deeper level of

finding that this perfect love. Yes. And I find myself, if I'm in the middle of silence,

and I'm saying perfect love or love, speak to me. That gets at something deeper for me than

my conception of God. So how do you think that what they were trying to do like silence and

solitude and moving deeper into silence gets rid of our conceptions into a deeper thing of

the mystery of God. So yeah, what I talk about in the book, and you know, this is me just trying

to distill what I think is the common wisdom across these voices is don't think of mysticism

as defined by the ecstatic experience. It sometimes was part of the package, but I just don't

think it's actually definitive. I try to talk about mysticism as a path and therefore a path

journeying and practice. And the way I see this mystical wisdom is you retreat into solitude

in order to find stillness and silence. And in that stillness and silence, actually one of the

things that happens is your world is turned upside down. This is the darkness, right? You go

through this deeply de-centering and upending experience, but that turns out to be the portal

to wonder. And that's kind of the path you keep walking. I think to your question, I think what

the mystics commonly attest to is well, first of all, the reason you're looking for solitude and

silence is not to hide from the world. It is, though, to diminish the distractions

so that our attention has new focus. So what you're going for, the reason to retreat into solitude

is it's not individualistic, it's not escapism, it's saying it's getting to a place where the

incessant distractions that fritter away our attention to what is deepest, you know, we spend

our attention on the superficial. We ought to capitalize on that attention and giving it to the

profound depths of the soul. So that's kind of what you're hoping for is to get to that place.

And then the silence piece is really interesting, right? This is why it's a it's a contemplative

tradition. You know, the mystics talk about like how to breathe and how to position your body and

what a word that might just help you kind of get to this centered place. And what happens in the

silence is it seems like I think this is the most powerful way to articulate what the mystics say.

You don't achieve some new union with God. What happens is when you finally shut out all the

noise, your awareness and attention is available to realize you have always been beloved of God.

That God has always been in you and you are in God and it's a recognition of what is already

the case and that to hear that deep, deep profound assurance of being beloved. This is why perfect

love casts out fear. You have to resist what Saint Teresa calls it, all the little reptiles that

are sitting around the interior castle trying to drag you away from attending to this deep, deep

groove. I love this image. You're trying to shut down that noise and those competing voices to

attend to this whisper that is always telling you you are loved, you are loved, you are loved,

and I think that's where the fearlessness comes from. And I think this is why it does. It takes

practice to kind of, well, the other thing I'll say, I think Teresa, for example,

would say the other thing, we're trying to wean ourselves. Sometimes they use this metaphor

being the weaned child. We're trying to wean ourselves from needing all of the other attention

that we get from performing. That to me, I think that's been the real game changer for me in

middle life is realizing to be liberated from this sense that I have to earn and perform

and compete for the attention of everybody else so that I can feel worthy, so that I can feel

love. Teresa saying, first of all, that is doomed to disappointment. Attention is a credibly fickle,

whereas if I can get to this place where I realize that I'm actually loved by the creator of the

calm cosmos everywhere, always unconditionally, now I don't have to I'm weaned from the need to

have your approval or you like my post or your attention. And I mean, that I guess that's what I'm

kind of hoping for is is to live that way. We could all live that way like that. What a world

that would be. And what's what's beautiful? I hope I'm not jumping ahead on the conversation

you want to have, but what's beautiful is both Teresa and John are the cross then and actually

so does the cod of unknowing and brother Lawrence. They all emphasize that this is not

some sort of spiritual self-absorption because once you are centered by this deep profound truth that

you can't sort of prove or demonstrate or articulate, you actually it spills over in compassion

because now I don't need to win your approval. I can just be present to you in your need. And I

start to see you the way I am realizing God always sees me and it spills over into this deep

compassion so that the retreat to solitude is not an aversion to other people. It's actually

unlocking and unleashing us to truly be present and care for other people. And again, I think that's

that would change a lot of the ways that we are with one another in our contemporary environment.

Where we now we all feel like I need to be everybody needs to see that I know what I'm supposed to

know or I need to win this argument in this space so that I can feel secure and confident or that

these people will like me. It's like, no, let's let go of all of that. Well, I'll give you an

example. So for the church community that I'm a part of, we're called Nava, which means bring

home and make beautiful. And we talk about being beloved children of God all the time. So every time

we gather, we're talking about we are the beloved, but beautiful. Sometimes just speaking that out

isn't enough. Like people don't they go, okay, I know this intellectually that I am beloved,

but I don't know it deep into my bones. I don't it's not like filling me. So for even a community

like this, that's a great step in the right direction that we're speaking the truth over people

that you are beloved. What is that next step for the community of people to get to the

knowing deep in our bones, belovedness that fills us and not just it's here intellectually.

Right. Because the irony is you can't

didactically instruct people about their belovedness. It's the same way when we were saying earlier,

you can't think your way out of this insecurity and fear. You can't be instructed into you can't

think your way into belovedness, which is kind of an interesting thing, right? I mean,

what the mystics testify to is that in cultivating rhythms and practices and rituals of

solitude and silence and contemplative listening and not just listening to somebody else tell me

this, but but really just dwelling in the silence and getting used to the discomfort of the

silence so that you can eventually start to hear what God is saying back to you. I think every

the irony is that your congregation to live this out also needs to cultivate these personal

practice. You know, I I haven't thought of it this way before, but I can't contemplate for you.

Now, in some ways, my contemplation is for you, right? Because because my insofar as my

contemplation centers me in this truth of my belovedness, it is empowering and enabling me to

be available to you. And you know, Teresa says very concretely when you are hungry, when you are

cold, when you are when you are in need. So there's there's this interesting kind of dialectical

relationship between the things that we need to cultivate personally for the sake of our

community to live out that belovedness and compassion. I do, although I'm and I would be intrigued

to hear what you got. I'm sure you are already thinking about this and doing this. It strikes me to

that exercises of collaboration and shared experiences of discomfort aren't a bad strategy either.

And I can think of that in two ways. Like, for example, I would love it if churches and congregations

thought about arts circles where where you just come together and you experience weird movies or,

you know, funky contemporary music or whatever it might be. And it's just like, let's be uncomfortable

together. That's a great little, you know, it's just an incremental practice. But I also, I just

wouldn't discount to wedding contemplative prayer with works of mercy in which we are pulled out

to serve shoulder to shoulder those who are in profound need and vulnerable. And in a sense,

that too cultivates our sense of awareness. And there's a kind of spiritual solidarity,

I think, that happens in that. I mean, we could get to that. I mean, you kind of end your book

with that. Like that's like, what does it look like? As we move from all of this,

getting into the dark, going back into attention and wonder, that actually then

and live it into us to live in such a way that that love is expressed through us for the sake of

the world. And it confronts hate and fascism. Exactly. All the things that we are trying to

to fight at the moment, like, yes, exactly. Great. So what then? How is that fight different

if it is then love expressed in mercy instead of like trying to win the argument? That's great.

And I would honestly love to hear how you guys experience this in your community too. Because,

yeah, this is what this is what's where I try to land. And again, I think this is where the mystics

land. Part of what I'm trying to address is I think some people might have a kind of

bumper sticker impression of mysticism as seclusion. Do you know what I mean? Like a retreat

from the world and it would feel like the opposite, for example, of activism.

But of course, we have these rich Christian streams of prayer and labor, contemplation and action.

And what I'm trying to suggest is that the action for the sake of justice and solidarity and

community and love and mercy is best nourished by deep contemplative practices that center us all

in our belovedness and a assurance of that that we can't ever quite articulate. And that will make

our action, activism, labor and advocacy look different because we're not doing it to win.

We're not doing it out of an insecurity to show that we know what the right views are. Do you know

there's just a weird funky dynamic that can happen where sometimes we get so lost in our action

and activism because actually we are still trying to perform to be loved. And I think it's that

mode of action is doomed to be unsustainable and disappointment. Whereas if we talk about

a kind of action and labor and work of mercy that comes out of our own centeredness, first we also

don't have any illusions that we're in charge or that we are the great accomplishers in this regard.

We are in some ways we're trying to get caught up in what the spirit is doing in the world.

But it also means we can be kind of fearless because we're not dependent on how people view

our virtue in public or something like that. And I just think that's a very, there's something

deeply liberating about that. I mean that's one of the reasons, one of the many reasons why I love

Jesus is that he is this that he you know he moves from contemplation into action but it's non-violent

action of love. But it is so like messy for people and disruptive for the world and it just encounters

all of the evil that is there without the violence that we think that it takes to confront it.

Yes. And so he's rooted in this contemplative place to be able to do this. I mean he is also

the son of God but he is human. Yes. How does Jesus show us? Like what helps us?

And this I think you've captured it. I think this is why Howard Thurman is also one of the most

important voices in this mystical and contemplative tradition that Jesus is the Jesus of the

disinherited and what do we see in Jesus? He steals away to prayer right and and he is he attends to

a quiet and solitude and prayerfulness that cultivates a kind of availability to then upend the

tables and challenge people in the temple and to reach out compassionately to the sick and the

exactly that that kind of centered action that is growing out of a deep love which therefore

doesn't have to be a form of winning or dominating. In some ways you are you're not participating in

the culture wars even as you're fighting against the fruit of the culture wars because you're not

you're not playing that game. It's not a contest of power and domination. It's a it's a presence

of witness and solidarity where you're also you realize I mean I think at the heart of mystical

and contemplative spirituality is it has to be the picture of sort of the open hand. Do you know what

I mean because so so much of what the mystics are inviting us to in solitude and silence is letting go

just constantly. My star card always talks about what he calls glassenheit. This this letting go

this letting be and so you open your hands and you you give up control and you you let go of your

need to cling to approval and performance. You open your hands and you let go but the open hand

is also how you receive the gift of your belovedness and what's really interesting for the mystics

this is this is true in Saint Teresa in Saint John of the cross even our capacity for contemplation

is a gift. It's not it's not something we are doing what you're trying to do is you're getting to

this place where you are so stripped of your own self confidence that you are if there's a kind

of nakedness and bearness and an openness and a vulnerability and an open-handedness that to

then receive the gift of being able to contemplate and once you know then your everything is open-handed

gift now that's how we also act in the world right it's just it's it's it's it's what Walter

Brugamon called the liturgy of abundance right I don't have to cling to what scares the cosmos

is teeming with God's abundance and now I go out collaborating sharing working with those open

hands all of this it helps the world but it also I think is going to help retrain our ability to be

attentive and to pay attention in this world we have we're in an an attention economy where

everything's fine for our attention constantly we have reports of film students not being able to

sit through to our movie it's just right it's not just it's not novels it's not like you know more

in peace they can't sit through to our movie and so this seems to be a way to start to retrain

our ability to pay attention so for people that are in this spot where we've lost the ability

to pay attention for a while water steps to get us to this process to be able to pay attention

yeah and and you know I I want to you know we can express exasperation but I I have

deep sympathy and empathy for those young people in the film class because we made that fricking

world do you know what I mean we we bequeathed to them that world and they got raised in it and so

it's not their fault in some ways I think you're right I think some ways attention is like a muscle

and so I think we can work our way up you know you don't start bench pressing 300 pounds

well we're never been stressing 300 pounds but you don't you don't start with the heavy weights

you you know you know you do shorter reps with lower weights and I think there's something about

that in terms of reclaiming our attention it's interesting when you read the mystics and also

if you just read in sort of contemplative literature more widely I mean I will say part of what

interests me about the mystical tradition is the way that there are kind of really interesting

convergences between Jewish mysticism Christian mysticism Islamic mysticism and then Eastern

traditions a particularly Buddhist traditions and I'm not I'm not evacuating the differences

between them but it's there's interesting kind of overlap about something deeply human and

something deeply divine here and all of them when you get down to the nitty gritty they're like you

don't start with a minute or two you know like like don't don't think you're going to sit down

and have 30 minutes of quiet rep meditation nobody does that I think one way I I would love to see

is if in our communal gatherings we actually gave space and time for people to practice silence

a little bit you know and it's I don't know enough about your true I come out of the Protestant

tradition it's always so freaking noisy do you know I mean like just like incessant chatter we cannot

have silence and and I try to do this in classrooms too you know so to create collective spaces where

we just practice a kind of awkward refocusing of our attention and you let everybody feel comfortable

with the discomfort and you just sort of start building that muscle there is something to you

know there's something deeply incarnate and embodied about all of this you know like you listen to

the cloud of unknowing and he's like listen to your breath and when you exhale just restrict it a

little bit and it's it's really really interesting how you just kind of come back into your body

as this incarnate creature and I think to honor that is also a resistance to the evisceration of

our embodiment by kind of digitized environments and things so small steps maybe is is the the way to

start that's great well this book make your home in this luminous dark is fantastic what would your

hope be for this book and for your readers oh yeah thanks I I mean I would love it if folks

found in the book an encouragement to venture into a discovery of their own belovedness and if they

found I would love it to if they if they found the arts experience of art reframe for them in such

a way that the arts are like a spiritual portal and path into what turns out to be really really

significant spiritual disciplines and practices I think that's that's the imagination piece of it so

I hope the book will be a sort of fellow pilgrims encouragement in that regard yeah yeah I think

it'll be great a couple quick questions here at the end for you Jamie one if you go back to your

21-year-old self what advice would you give honestly I would want to sit him down and say

probably two things it's not your fault and you are loved if if he could have known that

he would have saved himself and a lot of other people pain if I ever get the chance to talk to him

that'll be what I say that's good or you could have Robin William some goodwill hunting say it's

not totally a picturing that as I say it I'm weaving I'm weaving yes absolutely that's great anything

you've been reading or watching lately you could recommend oh interesting I am watching this

fascinating series this is kind of deep cut I don't know if folks are familiar with the streaming

service movie but there is a series on there called Mussolini Sun of the Century yeah I've heard

such great things oh stounding aesthetically politically artistic I mean it is just an incredible

adventure in seeing history I think really through this like charge spiritual lens in many ways

and yet it feels so disconcertingly contemporary I just can't say enough about it I have to find

some excuse to write about it amazing awesome I'm excited I've heard so many good things about it

I need to I need to really go to time I need to spend some money on movie and go check it out

there's a 30-day free trial so you could start that way yeah there you go well there's one can

I don't know if you have a couple minutes for one last question that I wanted to ask you that I

didn't get to but for you I what does philosophy look like now as opposed to what it looked like

before yeah I think I mean I still it's interesting I I having come through this journey now in sort

of mid-career middle life I'm like just so jazzed by philosophy again I feel like I'm a student

again but I think it's because I'm realizing oh philosophy isn't just about winning the argument

it's about this venture in wisdom and it's about how to live and and I think I'm I'm

newly fascinated by philosophy that seems impenetrable to me I'm I'm I'm just I'm hugely absorbed

by a Hegel right now 19th century German philosopher who's who's notoriously opaque and difficult

but somehow like those art experiences I'm just finding if I can spend time with him

the he repays a sort of wisdom that actually pays off for my students like how should we be living

right now and so I'm I'm really energized by philosophy in that way again amazing that's so good

well make your home in this luminous star could be available March 24th anywhere books are sold

it's a fantastic book and I think if people can can get it can read it and then start to to live

these practices and go on this journey and we're gonna get to a much better world so that we could

actually let go of the certainty we could surrender to God that we could actually encounter fear

but then the perfect love that then drives out that fear and we say no longer and we just like be

absorbed with the love of God and it would be fantastic it would be good Jamie anywhere that you'd

like to point people to how could they connect with you or what you're doing oh I'm at jamesk

smith.com and if you go there you could find I have a sub stack I'm on a bit of a tour nothing

in Kansas City but right now but if I might be in neighborhoods where some of your listeners are

so would love to meet readers thanks so much for for your close reading of it and really grasping

the book I appreciate it yeah it was a fantastic conversation so thank you so much it was it was

deep I know a lot of people probably got a lot out of it so thank you so much thanks Joshua

thanks for listening to this episode of shifting culture this show was edited and produced by

me Joshua Johnson at shifting culture productions if you're enjoying the conversations consider supporting

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