Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Intro 0:06
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Welcome back to another episode of the Can I Say This At Church podcast, I'm your host, Seth. Today's conversation is going to be fun. I got to speak with a what I would call it a rising voice in in our church, in our culture in our community. Her name is Kaitlin Curtice, she has written a book that I have found heartwarming and comforting, and deeply personal. And so that book is called Glory Happening, Finding the Divine in Everyday Places. What you’ll hear today is a bit of a view in the lens of our culture in our churches today. Kind of the changes and the shifts in how we view and listen to God. And you'll hear a call that if we would just slow down and take time to be president we will find and we will interact with God in a way that we are not expecting; but that will be wholly satisfying and fulfilling. And so here we are. Kaitlin Curtice.
Seth 2:10
Kaitlin, thank you so much for making the time today to come on the Can I Say This At Church podcast, I am excited to have a conversation about your faith, a bit of your history, and all that that goes with today. And so thank you again for making the time to come on.
Kaitlin 2:26
Yeah, thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Seth 2:28
Over the past. I don't know, six, eight months after I read your book I researched a bit more about you and have greatly enjoyed and have benefited from the work that you do. I'm 100% certain that there'll be many that are listening that have never interacted with you are familiar with you. So can you give just a who is Kaitlin Curtice, how would you bring someone up to speed on you.
Kaitlin 2:51
So as far as my writing, I am an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Oklahoma. Which means that I am on the tribal roles of my tribe. And basically, as a child, I always knew that I was Potawatomi but as an adult, I've been kind of coming around to what that means in my culture. And so beginning to learn our language and you know, learn it with my kids and learn our tribes stories and figure out what it really means to be Potawatomi. And so as far as my writing, that's kind of where I'm at now. And so I'm a Christian, and I'm a Native American and navigating those two things together, which isn't as hard as we act like it is, and that's what I want to bring the conversation to is that is possible and just hits at alot of things in our in our nation and our history and everything. And so I'm a mom, and I'm a spouse and a partner, a dog owner. I…yeah, I'm I don't always know how to define right, or explain who I am. Except that, you know, right now, I'm just focusing in on my writing, and the conversation I want to have in the world and in America. That's kind of where I'm at right now. And so yeah, that's, that's a little bit.
Seth 4:11
From hearing that it sounds like there was a time in your life that you were one thing and then there had to have been something that happened a moment of an event. So what was that moment for you that made you want to dig in a bit to your ancestry, to your heritage, to your roots, for lack of a better word? What was that.
Kaitlin 4:30
So a few years ago, our family was out hiking at a site here in Atlanta, there are a lot of trails if you go out of the city a little bit. And there's an area here. And of course, this is so this is originally Muskogee Creek land, those are the tribes that were here. And so if you go to a lot of these, these trails and hiking areas, it'll tell you, you know, this was a Native American site at one time. And so we like to go hiking and just learn about that.
But one day we are hiking, and my youngest son, Isaiah was like one, and I was still nursing him. So I had to stop and feed him and we're in the middle of a trail. And it was awkward. And I was like, I hope no one walks by this is awkward. And instead, we just kept walking. And I was just, you know, holding my baby feeding him and, and all of a sudden, it was like, God just like stopped me in my tracks and said, This is what your ancestors did on the trail of death. This is what the women who came before you did with their babies, and the trail of death is from the Potawatomi, we started in the Great Lakes region of the US, and then we were moved. And so you know, you heard of the Trail of Tears, and our trail was called the Trail of Death.
And so God just, it was this moment where God was like, you know, you've known your are Potawatomi for a long time, but it's time for you to, to really know what that means. And, and it was just like a, you know, just a switch just flipped on. And I knew in that second like that something drastically changed in me. And in that I was faced with this decision to make that I know, in some ways, you can't choose who you are. But in some ways you can't you know, and so I had to decide, you know, for my children do I want them to know more of what it means to be part a lot of me and, and so our two boys, you know, I'm looking at them and, and realizing that and as soon as I got back in the car, I just like wrote it all down. I just started writing because that's how I process things. So and yeah, it just, it just started me on this really intense, hard, beautiful journey. That is where I'm still at today.
Seth 6:30
I've heard you being interviewed on other podcasts and I've heard you speak a little bit and there's a few clips of you on YouTube. I haven't heard anyone asked you this question though…I'm curious how has your reintegration as a Christian into your tribe and your heritage? How has the tribe and the people that have always been there and maybe they are they are not Christian? How have they responded to that?
Kaitlin 6:54
It's been really, really great to reconnect with my tribe, because we moved away from Oklahoma when I was really young. And so I haven't been connected to my actual tribe in a really long time. So now going back there last summer, we drove through that area. So I was able to go to our tribes headquarters and I've published in our we have a newsletter called the Hownikan. And they've published me a few times in that and so it's really cool to to feel connected to a community again, even though I don't know them personally. I don't know a lot of the people of my tribe, I hope to one day, but I'm far from them, you know, but to Yeah, to have their support a lot are Christians in Oklahoma, a lot of Baptists; a lot are maybe Catholic. So you know, a lot of the people in my tribe are also Christians, and some are, but yeah, so so the support from them has been really cool. And just learning our language and having that support as well, at least online through our program and through emails. And any way that I can be connected from far away, has been really encouraging.
Seth 8:00
So your book, it's titled Glory Happening: Finding the Divine in Everyday Places. I've read it twice now, I find it extremely easy to read and also extremely fulfilling because the stories are truthful. They are stories that you hear at church, or that you hear at work, or that you hear at the soccer game. But what was the purpose behind writing it? What is what are you seeking to do?
Kaitlin 8:22
You know, one of the the things that that I believe is one of the most powerful ways to bring people together is through storytelling and story sharing. I think we need more of it in the church, honestly. It's awkward, because you don't know what people are going to say or you don't know how that's going to work in a church service but I honestly think we need more of it.
So yeah, I basically, you know, was at this point where I was becoming more aware of what it means to be a mystic, I guess you could say, learning about the mystic tradition in Christianity, and then also learning about my culture; kind of these two things coming together. And realizing that all of that connects through stories and through my life. And so what I hoped that when people read it is that even if, you know, if you read it, you're not a mom, like I am.
But I hope that people can read those stories and think, “Oh, this reminds me of something that I've been through” or, you know, “this makes me think of something my mom went through” some you know, hat's what storytelling does, right? It's a reflection of us and of others. And it just, it just helps us mirror each other and see each other. And so that's what I hope. And it was really cool it Christmas, my brother in law who's Haitian was reading it. And he just stopped and looked up at me. And he said, I, I can see my own stories in this. And I just started crying. And I was like, this is it. You know, that's exactly what I wanted for this. And it just made me so happy that that was his reaction. After reading just a few pages. That was exactly what I wanted for it.
Seth 9:53
Yeah, I can relate the story that I seem to relate the most with is that story that you talk about you and your husband, then you have to give a message or a talk and your cars busted into. And I've never hiked where he has hiked but I have been provided for in a way that I wasn't expecting when I knew I had a need to no one else needed to know. And, it just is, I connect…I was a server through college and just that happened constantly. And I don't really believe in coincidence. And I connect with that. For some reason I gravitate to that one most often.
So what then is Glory? How do we see glory? And more specifically, how do we slow down to actually be able to see that glory? Because a lot of your stories, there's an intentionality that seems to be an “intentionally”, calm yourself down? Relax a minute. Take a breath. So what is glory? And then how can we seek it?
Kaitlin 10:52
So growing up in the Southern Baptist Church, when you hear the glory of God, you sing hymns with glory, you know. I would always think this, like very majestic, glory is out there, or God is like, shining down glory on us. But I never thought of it as something like, tangible for me to hold or to see. And so one day, I just looked up the definition of the word and it was like, something extremely beautiful.
And I was like, "Well, you know, that can be a lot of things and so I just started realizing, like, Oh, this, this story from my life has a glory in it. And this story, and in the Bible, there are different kinds of glory of God, you know, if you want to get more Biblical, and look, those things up there, like different, you know, Glory can be like a weight where things are really heavy, but you know, God is there; or glory can be like fire where everything is just like, you know, a blaze, and you just know that God is there. And so that's just what started happening.
We were living in this like, tiny apartment, but for some reason, I just, I knew that God was there. And I knew that even in spaces where it was uncomfortable, or we weren't always content or whatever, we were still being invited into these moments of quiet and of glory. And I'm not a person who likes to sit still, I’m actually always moving. And so I'm training myself to do that. Because actually, and the past few years been really challenging, and really good for me to make myself stop and…
Seth 12:24
How have you done that?
Kaitlin 12:28
Well, about a year and a half ago, when Standing Rock was happening in North Dakota, with the pipeline, and all that stuff, I was watching live feeds of this happening constantly. And I realized, after maybe a week or two that my body was starting to, like, shut down on me, like, in the middle of the day, I was just getting exhausted, just completely exhausted. And I realized later that it wasn't a physical problem it was actually an emotional one. My mind and my heart were so tired from processing something so difficult that my body was making me rest.
And that was such a good reminder that a lot of us are probably like that, a lot of us are processing really heavy things, or we're so busy that we don't stop to process anything. And I think sometimes, literally, you just need to like lay on the couch for an hour, and read a book or watch a show, or do something where you make yourself stop; or go outside and go on a walk and just be quiet and see yourself in nature. And those are all things that are hard. And when you have a family, it's hard. And when you're working a full time job, it's hard, you know, it's hard. But I think it's it's necessary if we want to have true rest. Because especially just with how volatile everything is right now, at least in America. I think we need it even more to be able to have hard conversations, we need to be able to rest and find glory.
Seth 13:55
this past Sunday church, and I know there's a lot of churches following the Lectionary. Our pastor preached on the Transfiguration in Mark, and you know, you saw me do this, but you can't tell anybody, you really need to wait until…so have some patience there. But he took it in it in a way that I've never thought of. And then as I was thinking about talking to you today, and reread your book over the weekend, he talked a lot about that there are thin spaces or he believes that there are just thin places, either in yourself in your conscience or on a mountain in Ancient Israel, that you can experience the divine if you will just lean in and allow the thin space to be there. But I think that I don't know, it spoke to me for some reason. It's odd how everything seems to line up at the same time, but I like the idea of thin spaces.
Kaitlin 14:47
Yeah, I do too. And that over the past year or so that's come to have different words for me. I think it's the same idea. But I keep developing different language to use that, you know, like tethering, I call it tethering sometimes, or people call it presence just being present to the moment. One time I remember I was in Sunday school class and we were talking about that and all of a sudden, it hit me like, in the The Chronicles of Narnia, like when that wardrobe, there's literally just—all that’s between them and this magical world is the back of the closet; and that just hit me in that moment. Like, there's just this, this thin veil or this thin wall. And that's like all that all that there is between us in this space that we couldn't, you know, possibly imagine or dream of that; that holds so much for us. Yeah, and I think that's, that's beautiful. And it's constantly there. It's just whether we want to enter into it, you know?
Seth 15:48
Well, it's it's hard because especially I think in our culture in America, we are programmed to be busy but but most importantly, to excel to always win. And you have to drop your pride at least for me, I have to drop your pride and your walls to enter into a into a thin space. What has been the the most interesting or the most surprising thing as you've dug into your heritage that that has surprised you that you've been like…Hmm, I would have never thought that this was true or that really connects? What has been that one thing that that is impacted you?
Kaitlin 16:21
Oh, man, there's so many things. One thing that has been really good for me is, because I grew up thinking the Bible was literal, and these things happened, and it was like this and, you know, I'm just, I don't necessarily believe that anymore. Nobody hate me.
Seth 16:40
Noboyd will hate you, I agree with you.
Kaitlin 16:44
But like I actually was deconstructing, you know, those parts of my faith and realizing that metaphor is actually really beautiful. And this is that the Bible is a historical document. And, just things like that, where I'm like, it's a piece of literature.
When I started learning, like our tribes creation stories, it was just so cool, because there are commonalities between them. So I was able to lay this story I grew up with from the Bible of creation, with our tribes creation story, or the Cherokee creation story; every tribe has their own there.
So there are tons of them, we all have this different idea of how the world was started. But to have these, these layers of metaphor, and these beautiful stories kind of come together, just made my faith so much richer. And it made me so much more excited to teach my children in that like to have them see that culturally, we have these different ideas of who God is. But at the same time, God is so much bigger than all of it, and that just made me realize that the landscape of learning is so huge, and there's so much to dig into. In the Jewish text and the Potawatomi text and the Greek texts, all of these cultural lenses through which we see everything. Even in our Christian faith, there's so much more in the landscape than we realize, and that just makes me really excited to learn and that'll be a lifelong learning that'll never stop.
Seth 18:15
Yeah, yeah. It's funny you use words, that you use the word deconstruct, I've heard you say in the past that we should as opposed to deconstruct we should look as a way to not deconstruct, but decolonize faith. What do you mean by that when you say decolonize?
Kaitlin 18:31
Particularly in the case of indigenous peoples in the US was started by the work of colonizing. The Europeans came and Christians or Catholics they came and said, Hmm, you don't look like a Christian…you don't look like you love God, the way we do, you need to mirror who we are. So we are going to convert you and colonize you and assimilate you; kill you. And so like all of those things coming together, created a colonized Christianity and some people say it's Empire mixed with religion, these things coming together, and it creates that kind of space.
And so what I want to do is, and what I hope other cultures will begin to do and people of color and all of these ways that we've distorted the Gospel to benefit white people, and White Christianity and American Christianity. That we would begin to come back to our own cultures and say that the Jesus of the Gospels doesn't hate my Potawatomi culture or my Potawatomi faith. The God that we worship does not look on Indigenous peoples and say what the Europeans said in the beginning of this nation. And so it consists of a lot of work, but I kind of paired the decolonizing with the deconstruction because I'm breaking down the things I learned as a Baptist.
As I'm doing that I'm realizing that there’s so much about American Christianity that is a colonized religion and is controlling so. So I hope that answers it, I'm still trying to figure that out in my head, how to verbalize—what it means.
But just to know that Jesus accepts who I am, that I don't have to go to church, and break off my Potawatomi part of myself and just go as a white woman into the church and then when I leave that place, or those people that I can be Potawatomi again. That's not how it should be.
Seth 20:44
How do you navigate faith that way and remain any version of an orthodox [christian] because nobody wants to be called a heretic or does orthodoxy even matter?
Kaitlin 20:55
It's hard…it is hard to be part of an institution that has been complicit or silent when it comes to what has happened to Indigenous people. The Indian boarding schools, which a lot of children were taken from their families, the whole idea was “kill the Indian save the man”. Those are run by Christians, those were Christian schools and institutions. Your Indian name was taken, and you were given a Christian name, your hair was cut, your clothes were burned, anything traditional is gone. And you came out as an assimilated American, that was the whole goal.
So it's really hard; for me, it's hard to be a part of the institution sometimes, but that makes it more important to do it because I need to go to church and I need to constantly be asking questions and nitpicking as exhausting as it is we have to do that. Because, you know, African Americans are doing it constantly in their churches and other people of color are doing it constantly, people with disabilities are doing it constantly who are not seen. Women are not seen and are doing it, because we're trying to figure out what it actually means to follow Jesus. And yeah it's so complicated and exhausting but if we don't do it, then we're just gonna keep doing what we've always done and you have to challenge it.
Seth 22:27
Yeah, I agree. I assume, and I'm probably wrong-maybe I'm not, are you familiar with the work of Mark Charles at all?
Kaitlin 22:35
Yeah!
Seth 22:36
So I spoke with him not long ago about this stuff that they don't teach Americans, it doesn't matter what your culture is, just they don't teach you is so horrible. And as I spoke with Mark, I feel unable to even hold a conversation. Because I don't know, the foundational history to even have one when talking about indigenous tribes. Am I wrong in saying that in Indigenous culture, overall, Indigenous Native American cultural role is entirely more matriarchal. Then the culture that we live in now there's more emphasis on motherhood, the divine womanhood, or I'm probably saying it way wrong, is that correct?
Kaitlin 23:16
Well, I can speak for my for the Potawatomi tribe. So I grew up in the same educational system as everyone else. I grew up thinking, I grew up not realizing, that who I am, as a Native American, just like who the people in the history books were. I had a disconnect because even I was taught the cowboys and Indians and the savage, and all the bad stereotypes that you're taught, I was taught this too, and they are ingrained in me all the way through school.
And so it's like, finally, as an adult, being like, I'm a Native American, and I didn't even learn the right things. So I'm learning all of them as an adult now, and I've talked to a lot of other indigenous people who the same thing happens like as adults, they're finally like, realizing all the horrible things they were taught in school.
And so yeah, so anyway, one thing that I'm learning is, and that's important for me, is to speak for, myself and my experience and my tribe. And for people to realize, like, of all the federally recognized tribes in the US how everyone is unique and different. So even when we start to think, oh, okay, so Kaitlin’s a Native American, so this must be how it works. And I have to consistently say, No, this is how my tribe views it. But for the Potawatomi, women are really important. We are the protectors of the water. So everything that happened with Standing Rock, and they talked about women are the water protectors. And there's this idea that you carry your baby in a womb of water, and water is life, and all these different ideas and visuals that there are but literally that’s reflected in nature. And so it's not patriarchy or misogyny, where men have the say over everything and the women are just silent and just do their thing quietly it's not like that. And maybe there some tribes that are or have been, but the more that I learn, I think that there is a dignity that women have that is not had in what has become American society; and in the church this is a huge conversation. Can women lead? That's not even a question.
Seth 25:47
So, as of late, you've had some disagreements, most most notably with Piper and then I saw that that was picked up by a Christian publication, Relevant. And I tend to agree with most of what you say on that specifically, because as I've come to deconstruct what I thought of God, I see God more often in my wife, than I see him in me.
She's entirely more empathetic and loving and caring than I don't think I could learn to be what she just is, naturally. Which seems to be more of the God of the New Testament, as opposed to my version of “do what I said, I'm the dad“ and will pull out the dad voice God of my Old Testament. And I think the church has done a disservice by shelfing the voice of our women. There's no better way to say it. But you spoke about that and Piper took umbrage, and you took umbrage with him, and there was a big beef going on there. So what has been the biggest thing not to rehash all of that, that has been encouraging that came out of all of that, of you calling him out?
Kaitlin 27:00
Yeah, well, so when things like that happen, I really want to turn to people and ask them to respond. Because instead of just me and the other person having a giant argument, and people jumping in and out I would rather have asked a question of society and see what happens.
And that's what I did with that. I tweeted, and I said,
if you're a man, who are the women who shaped your theology,
Basically saying instead of me going to Piper, which, I'm not sure he'd answer me on Twitter, but if I went to him, and you know, tried to ask him, why would you say this or whatever. And, to be fair I grew up with men that that led me as pastors who are just like John Piper, and I love them, and they're wonderful men.
And so my intent was also not to make him a villain, because it's it is an institutional thing that we've created. And even women are a part of it, you know, even women have also continued this cycle in ways. And so I wanted to look at what was happening and say, Okay, this is a problem, in my opinion, what are the thoughts of the men on Twitter.
If you're a Christian man, or not a man, I wanted men just to name the women in their lives, who have affected or taught them or shape their theology. And I thought maybe like, five guys would be like, Oh, my mom, me, you know, or my wife, my, you know, I had a pastor once who was a woman.
But it was just an overwhelming response. And it just, it gave me so much hope for the church, because it made me realize… and it wasn't just mothers or grandmothers, you know, it wasn't just family, but it was literally just naming all these women in in so many different intersections of their lives where they just, it may not even been a long interaction, that just like these moments that shaped these men for the rest of their lives, and shaped their views on God and taught them.
And that gave me so much hope because we have to do it together, like men and women have to be a part of this. It can't just be split, where one gender thinks it'll work and the other doesn't, it has to be together.
And it was amazing how people responded.
Seth 29:32
It was fun to read, I enjoyed it. I heard names, and I saw names that I've never heard of that I've since begun to read. And I think I've come to the conclusion that I am pretty certain are women theologians may be better at this than our men theologians.
It's just there's no textbooks written yet by them. So I'm excited for the church in say, 90 years, it should be fun. I won't get to benefit from that but maybe my grandkids will.
Kaitlin 30:02
You referenced it earlier, your walk. And I'm assuming you're talking about your walk at Sweetwater, one of those pivotal moments; and I saw you do a reading online to that. And one of the things that you said in there is
we cannot forget who came before us if we were to fiercely love those who come after us
as being our children, or people from wherever countries or whoever we are called to love, which is humanity, people that bear God's image.
So with that in mind, and thinking about our church and church as a capital C, what is the one thing that we can do better to engage in our heritage, not just Native American heritage, but any of the heritage’s? What is something that we need to work to do better? To make sure that our church in 90 years or 100 years is not still dealing with? Well, they'll have to still be dealing with some of this baggage, but it's not as angry as it is now.
Kaitlin 30:56
Right. Good question.
I think that we are really scared to be truly vulnerable with each other. I think people, because you can type so many words on social media and never actually see another person, you can lash out on social media and never see the person or know the person. There's something about if you want to intentionally live in community with other people and not just like an individualistic society like America is but communally, even the way that like the church began as a community oriented thing. That's going to require a lot of vulnerability and not just like, this is my experience, but to actually listen to the experiences of others and teach our kids to be able to do that. Boys and girls, you know. Because we, we don't always like to listen really-we like to assume a lot about each other. And that also comes back to storytelling, it comes back to experience. But also, you know, that's the the big conversation right now.
How did this nation really begin? What was slavery? Is it still impacting us? And a lot of times, even indigenous peoples are still left out of the conversation? We're kind of like, Hello, like, the nation began with us.
To be vulnerable in that conversation, and for the privileged white to listen in the church, that would change the institution, eventually. If we began person to person in community, maybe it would ripple out, but there has to be an active work of listening and sharing experience without getting so upset or angry. Everything is just so like heightened and an intense right now that it's hard for me to even imagine that still.
But I have those snippets of interactions on social media, and in person, on Twitter, where people are like, I'm listening, you know, and that's really encouraging for me. And so I think that it's possible. I just think we have to get there.
Seth 33:08
I hope it's possible. And I think we can get there. I'm still hopeful as possible. Well, we're at the end of our time. So Kaitlin, where can people engage with you, interact with with with the work that you're doing and others that are doing it. Where would you point people too for that?
Kaitlin 33:26
So you can I have a website and a blog, it's KaitlinCurtice.com, and also pretty active on Twitter. And that's where a lot of just conversations happen about, you know, all the things that are going on. So that's a good place to find me is on Twitter. And I write a lot for Sojourner. So if there are pieces that people might want to read about, you know, just stuff that's happening in America, I write on Relevant magazine sometimes and Sojourners as well,
Seth 33:57
Thank you so much.
Kaitlin 33:58
Thank you.
Seth 34:09
So in closing, I had a request of Kaitlin. It's a little bit different. And so as you go out, and you get her book, and I highly recommend, again, that you do, you'll see at the end of each of her stories, a prayer that she's written, and it is a way to reflect and so I've asked Kaitlin to read one of those in closing, so take some time. If you're listening to this while you're driving, pull over but find a quiet spot is not long. And enjoy this in closing a quick prayer for each of us today. And tomorrow, and the next.
Kaitlin 34:44
Jesus teach us to redefine our world. May we redefine all the words we once used for our own benefit. And may forgiveness not be for the heathen, but for our own tired selves. May lament, joy, honesty and compassion lead us toward investing in the love you first started when you breathed your first breath. You teach us what it means to redefine our world.
Amen.