Can I Say This At Church Podcast

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Finding Faith in Honesty with Danielle Kingstrom / Transcript

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.

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Danielle 0:00

I want to find God and everything I read, I want to see that, and I typically do, that other people are just kind of vying for that same existential question we all have that we think we're going to get through discovering something in the Bible anyway, which is why we're supposed to be here and what our goal is supposed to be. So I do it with a Christian lens. I always want to try and whatever I find, go “Look, that's just like what Jesus said”. So that's my default. That's kind of what I grew up with. That's kind of what I've always been comfortable with.

Seth Price 0:52

Everybody, welcome to a special episode of the show. So there's about I don't know 40, the number varies weekly of those of you that have pitched in at a minimum $1 a month on Patreon. And if you haven't yet do that you need to, there's so many different benefits there. So there's a benefit for you to get in the show early. There's another level that gets the unedited version of the show, which is my personal favorite version of the show. There's so much that happens before I say, “welcome to the show”. And there's a lot that happens after and usually I'm recording for all of that. And oftentimes, especially with this episode with Danielle, there is like an entirely new version of stuff that happens after I hit, “all right, we're done with the show”. And then we talk about other things. And that stuff is fantastic. And then the stuff prior is also fantastic. So there are people that have heard me say that, you know, or if you've read the blog that I have on CanISayThisAtChurch.com. There's an episode with Aaron Niequist and with Alexander Shaia, where we talk about things before the show, that's all recorded. But you know, at the $5 level, those people get that version of the show. And then there's this one.

So there's a level and I forget what I've named it, I should probably come up with easier names, where I want to talk with some of the people that are the most engaged with the show. Learn about them, their faith, their story, what makes them tick. And so this will be the first of a handful of episodes like that. And so Daniel Kingstrom is one of those supporters. And so she was, I guess, picked for lack of a better word for the first one to do this version of the show. So I really hope you enjoy it. So we talked about you know, her upbringing. We talked about the shift from evangelicalism to something else we talk about fundamentalism, we talked about the military, we talk about ecology and farming and life and motherhood. We just talked about so many things.

But what I really love is on the tale end, you know, Danielle just brings it home, you know, what do we do? How do we live and she just she just nails it. Hope you enjoy a special episode.

Seth Price 3:29

Danielle!

Danielle 3:29

Hello.

Seth Price 3:30

I'm excited to talk you. Welcome to I guess the first I'm slightly nervous about this the first Patreon version of the show and so A: thank you for your support of the show and B: I've really enjoyed both debating with you and talking with you on Facebook but equally enjoyed both it's it's nice to sometimes disagree with someone on different things but then also agree with them on other things and not call each other Hitler or you know, not call each other something like that.

Danielle 3:59

Not yet anyway though right?

Seth Price 4:04

So tell me about you what makes Danielle…Danielle What is your you know you were born on this day and all the way to today don't go that far back but what makes you?

Danielle 4:15

I was born on a chilly winter night in December? No! I am what makes me me. I'm, well, what makes me busy is that I'm a mom of five. I have five spread out 19,17, almost nine, seven and the half twins. So they're spread out, I have five kids. I homeschool them. Well, I graduated one. I homeschool I live on a farm with my husband. And he's taking over his father's farm fourth generation farm here and we just kind of do our own thing. We live in a bubble and we raise livestock. We cows, we have chickens, we have sheep. My husband manages a hog site. So he is responsible for 13,000 hogs every day. Rain, shine, blizzard whiteout conditions, he's there.

So that is a demanding life that requires me to be at home on guard. So I have to cultivate something from this space in order for I think, for me to kind of branch out and contribute. And so my aim is through writing and podcasting.

Seth Price 5:37

So, couple things. So I don't really comprehend what 13,000 pigs looks like. So if you were to like try to equate that in a metaphor and say, you know, so Seth, you know, one pig equals the space of like a cedar chest. Here's what, however many thousands of pigs equal. Like what is a decent metaphor?

Danielle 5:59

Well if you take your average greenhouse that you see on the side of the road or set up at, you know, your local grocery store during the during spring, and you triple that, and then you double it, and then you double that entire space, that's one barn and that holds 1000 pigs.

Seth Price 6:18

That's big, like, put it into football fields.

Danielle 6:23

Well, I would say our nine oh, my god. Yeah, like I even know how big a football field is really.

Seth Price 6:28

50 yards wide by 100 yards long.

Danielle 6:31

Well, I would say this space of our house runs probably takes up two, then we have a separate site—so three.

Seth Price 6:39

That's a lot of pigs.

Danielle 6:41

Yeah. That's not something that I even like saying that we do, because we're so against it, you know, but it's what his dad does. And in order to take over and do what we want, we have to use this transition. So I mean, yeah, because I mean, we barely even eat pork any more. Let's put it that way

Seth Price 7:01

Yeah, well, I don't eat pork often and if I do it's like when is it maybe maybe Christmas Eve we always have like sausage and French Toast and that's like our family thing. Like go to church come back sausage and French toast.

Danielle 7:15

I like meat. We raise our own animals. So you know we do that route but in order for us to turn this farm into a more ethical and environmentally pragmatic farm, we have to start with that. Yeah, before we transition but yeah, my husband's like moving super hippie green and we envision cannabis and hemp and all of our dreams come true…

Seth Price 7:45

Is that legal or?

Danielle 7:46

Hemp is in cannabis is if you go through all the fun paperwork and I mean we have visions of like converting the farm the barns until like greenhouses and growhouses and capitalize that way.

Seth Price 8:01

Yeah, sounds good.

So I don't know if you're like me. So before, or in preparation, I had time in an airport coming back from Texas to prepare for this. And so I spent some time since we're friends on Facebook, going back in time, just randomly scrolling and letting it in, and then reading that and then doing it again. And so it seems, unless I'm wrong, that your theology has shifted somewhat over the past…I don't know I want to say 10 years because like I went back, like some time. You'd be surprised how many years back flyby when you just fling the iPhone up as fast as as it goes. I'm curious about that because that's really the itch that I always need scratch like the what has changed and why and how you see God?

Danielle 8:45

Yeah, 10 years is about when I would say my deconstructing started and that was right before me and my husband got married. My husband was okay, so growing up my belief was always in a singular God. And I grew up with the Lord's Prayer. I grew up learning to say my prayers we very rarely ever went to church, you know, unless the kid was going to be baptized or we knew someone getting married, basically. And you know, if our friends were doing the church thing, then we got to go do the church thing. When we were sick, a church, we didn't have to go to church.

And as my mom journeyed through her spirituality, she's kind of tagged us along. And whenever she was just self-educating herself on what was out there other than the Bible, or looking at the Bible in different ways, she brought us along, and so I just kind of kept going with that. And then I was lucky in my high school, I was able to actually take different religious classes. I learned about so many different religions and Buddhism and Taoism and Daoism really struck me. We had a very large Monk Community where I went to high school. And so Chinese, Cambodian, Korean, Japanese, all different cultures, all different forms of belief systems and I was just getting drunk on learning from my friends and belief. Because they were eager to talk about it they had families that were more than willing to talk about it.

And I just wanted to just every perspective I could drink up, I was drinking. And so I just kept going forward with that, up until about 10 years ago. I mean, I went through heavy practice with Buddhism. And then I went through about two or three years of Wicca and I learned so much from each but it just wasn't enough for me. I just felt like there's more.

So my husband, I met him, he was very open about his faith. (He) grew up, you know, Lutheran conservative, he was a military dude and love God love country and I wasn't in that area at the time and I kind of was like, just whatever, let's keep our stuffs separate. And he wasn't about that, you know, like one night he's like, will you pray with me and I just went, are you kidding me? You're one of those people? And he was serious and I don't know something about it. I was like, okay. And he prayed over a relationship and I thought, Okay. And then we kind of got tangled up in a really fundamental evangelical circle, mainly because of where I was working.

I worked for this steel company, and everybody went to the same church, and they had daily prayer sessions and weekly Bible studies, while selling steel coils and I was like, is this even legal? You know, I was in such a liberal mindset at the time I was hardcore democrat. My previous relationship before Cory was a hardcore Franken fan and Al Gore and I almost ended my relationship over me voting for Bush that year. So he converted me hardcore liberal, and then enter my husband who was Christian conservative.

My whole work environment is Christian conservative, and I'm like, go Hillary! And they're going…uh uh uh. You know, and so my husband sat me down and shook the liberal out of me, but it wasn't like that. It was what do you even believe he was the first person that asked me what I believed and stood for. And he was also kind of like, invited me into reading the Bible, and familiarizing myself with passages, you know, cause he could say things and I'd be like, man, I supposed to know where that's from?

So I kind of went through this starting of a breakdown, I left the liberalism and I jumped on this conservative Christian bandwagon, and I got caught up in the evangelical circles and, you know, got into this whole division and looking at other people and trying to put myself on a pedestal like, I'm the good Christian. I literally did that to my whole family. I was like, I'm a good Christian should follow suit with me. I know what I'm doing. But then right before my husband deployed, it was like, I was fighting with everybody I didn't want to be in. There was so much drama. My parents were starting to fight. And then a few years later, they ended up getting divorced, but I was caught up in the middle of it trying to do my own relationship.

Then he's deploying and now we're scrambling to get married. And everything happens so fast that it was like this big explosion. That summer my husband deployed and so much shit hit the fan over the next couple of years. And I played around with Ravi Zacharias and Tim Keller.

Seth Price 13:45

Ravi’s voice is seducing though his voices you know, it's like listening to your grandfather like you tell me more. I don't even care what you're telling me just tell me. more.

Danielle 13:55

That beautiful Indian accent on top of it.

Seth Price 14:00

He’s so gentle.

Danielle 14:02

But then after a while I started going “I don't really know what he's saying”. He just felt like he was saying the same thing over and over. Okay, well, he had referenced some other people. So I started looking into them. And so I got to Tim Keller, and then somehow I got to Greg Boyd. Greg Boyd, shook me, wrecked everything I thought because I was like, military wife, proud of my country and my husband, my husband thought for you and your freedom. You know, I took on that mentality. And I read Greg Boyd, and I was like, I was so wrong. And then I do what a lot of people do is I was like, I swung that pendulum so far back that I was like, honey, you just better condemn the military and he's looking at me going, what are you talking about? You know?

Seth Price 14:50

All this while he was gone while he was deployed.

Danielle 14:53

Now. He was back. He was back…when he got back. Okay, so I cheated on him while he was deployed.

Seth Price 15:01

I hope this isn't news when I run it…?

Danielle 15:05

No.

Okay, no, everybody knows I feel like. But that's what happened. And I admitted it within like 40 hours. I couldn't hold it out. He knew something was up. And that's when we really started acting married. And that's when we really started fighting. And that's when we really started digging.

So we just had done a lot of digging. And then my parents got a divorce after that, after he got home. And we were having kids, and we were trying to do our marriage and we were trying to rebuild and that kind of created a big shatter and divide for us with our families, because it brought up his parents divorce. And so we were just doing a lot of digging. And we happened on Greg Boyd, and what that was four years ago, maybe five? And ever since then, we've just been, more so me, I'm just kind of like pulling them along for the ride. And he's like, whatever you say, babe, I trust you, you know, or sometimes he's like, you don't know what you're talking about. But let's look at it again.

But I do the digging and the research and I lay it all out for them. And what do you think? And we talk and you know, and then I go and dig more. So that's what I've been doing. So I'm just thirsty, to keep understanding God and to keep understanding meaning and existence. And

Seth Price 16:24

So why Boyd, which book was it?

Danielle 16:28

Myth of a Christian Nation? Have you read that?

Seth Price 16:32

I've read parts of it, man. So that one is the easier to read version of his larger one. I can't remember the name of the large one either. It's on the bookshelf…no, it's not on this bookshelf. I have too many bookshelves. So yeah, the Warrior God one.

Danielle 16:53

Oh! Cross Vision.

Seth Price 16:56

There it is yet. So there's a larger one that's written with bigger words. And then the Hey, let's redo this. I need nickel.

Danielle 17:01

Yeah, yeah. His God at War and Satan and the Problem of Evil? Yeah. Holy crap. Those are big bucks. They took me forever.

Seth Price 17:11

Yeah. So I remember so I spoke with him for gosh, January of 2018, it's just been over a year. And there was a part I forget even what I asked him and he's like, says stay with me because we had the video and he's like, I can see the juice dripping from your ears. Stay with me. I was like, I can't honestly I want to talk with him again, but I'm scared too. I don't like feeling like the dumbest person in the room. And I don't think he means to he's just brilliant.

Danielle 17:40

He just thinks you're on track with him. So he's just just conversation. You know, this right here. I'm over here. Like, wait, what did you say? Let me write this down.

Seth Price 17:50

Yeah, yeah. Where are you at now then? So if you were ultra Democrat, and I don't know what type of religion to ultra conservative and I would also assume when you said Evangelical GOP, and now, I'm not overly concerned with your politics, although I could probably glean that from your Facebook posts.

I try to make my posts in such a way that people don't quite actually know who I support, which is, is a goal. That's the goal.

Danielle 18:22

That's a good idea.

Seth Price 18:25

Well, I, so one of the things Danielle that I've been struggling with is, and hopefully you'll struggle with this as well. So the more popular the show gets, the more people listen to what I have to say. Which really makes me want to say less, if that makes any sense at all.

Danielle 18:41

Oh yeah. Cause you don’t want to turn them off and make them go man I hate you now.

Seth Price 18:44

I don't like the microphone. I don't want to talk…I'm happy to talk about God and Jesus and say, No, here's where I'm at. But like when it comes to politics, I'm like, listen, here's the thing. Like there's smarter people than me, that have a better....I just tend to vote for the school board here where I live and the rest of this stuff, I don’t know.

Danielle 19:05

You don't want to have to talk about it where you might be compelled to talk about it.

Seth Price 19:11

So, no, I want to talk about it, but I refuse to talk about it. I grew up ultra conservative, and then went to liberty and was you know, gung ho for you know, the Moral Majority. And this, that and the other. And then the further I get away from that, I'm like, oh, man, I don't even recognize the person…that person like, I just, they're both broken. All will shoot all four or five parties are broken in many different ways. And I just find it easier, although slightly more offensive, to talk about God. People get angry a lot faster but at least they don't usually call me a Nazi or something else.

So what what kind of Christian would you call yourself now or is that even the best term? Like what would you say?

Danielle 20:05

Yeah, I mean, I think using the term is easier for a lot of people. So then I don't have to go. Well, you know, I mean, I, I jive with this, and I dig this. I'm mostly Christian, but I'm so open to the teachings of Buddha. And I want to find God and everything I read. I want to see that and I typically do that other people are just kind of vying for that same existential question we all have that we think we're going to get through discovering something in the Bible anyway, which is why we're supposed to be here and what our goal is supposed to be. So I do it with a Christian lens.

I always want to try and whatever I find, go “Look, that's just like what Jesus said”. So that's my default. That's kind of what I grew up with. That's kind of what I've always been comfortable with. But I don't want to make a decision on what heaven or the life after is. I try and focus on what would the Kingdom look like here? And I don't believe in hell and I can't wrap my head around God rejecting anyone. So I guess that would make me a Universalist.

Seth Price 21:16

I agree with you this. So one of my favorite things that I do when people put something on Facebook, or shoot me an email, which happens more and more is I'll just respond, especially with eschatology, and you know, heaven and hell. And I'll say, Yeah, what if I told you they're probably both metaphors? And that's pretty much the way Jesus used them. And then I don't say anything else often I don't even get a response.

But if I do, it's people like “I'm gonna pray for you”. Awesome! Do that! That would be awesome.

So you are writing a book with Matthew Distefano, what is that?

Danielle 22:14

Um, well, right now it's called “naked and known”. And what it is, is kind of our take on the non-expert, not advice, how to be married book. Naked and known” how to have an authentic, vulnerable, marriage or long term relationship. What happened was, he wrote a vulnerable article on his blog. And that really resonated with me. And so I reached out to him and wrote my own piggybacking off of his idea, and he published it for me as a guest piece and then called me and “do you want to write a book”? What‽ Our stories are so similar and I said, are they? And he said, we have a lot of stuff we can that I have a feeling we share. And so we started talking and kind of sharing a lot about what we've gone through with our marriages and really just felt like maybe if our voices spoke out it, I don't know it might help other people who are going through the same shit we are. Can I swear, sorry.

Seth Price 23:28

Yeah.

Danielle 23:30

So that's where we're at. And we're you were using great minds. I mean, it's not just our anecdote, but it is. We really like a conceptual angle of everything we both do. And he's, um, he's a theological scholar. So he wants to, you know, show through the Bible, through Scripture, what we've usually thought about what marriage is and what the roles are and show you what if it looks like this instead? And then how can we show you an anecdotal story from our own marriages to better explain this? And then what did we learn from this? And could it benefit you?

And because we've both been through some pretty what's the word overt controversial instances in our marriage, things that would usually break marriages, would end in divorce, and we've survived them. We've figured maybe we had a little bit of a missing piece to add to the puzzle. So that’s our aim.

Seth Price 24:34

So many people and I don't know what those things are outside of what you said just a few minutes ago, but I know so many people when the world that we live in now people just pull the escape hatch lever. I watched Top Gun the other day, because that's, I like that movie. And the only thing I can think of is so many people just use a bad metaphor, pull the escape hatch and they slam right into the glass and self destruct everything instead of a landing safely in the ocean, because they refuse to deal with a plane that's on fire that you can probably fix if you just settle the freak down. But they just refuse to. And that's more than marriage. I mean, that's friendships, that's politics, that's church. That's all 70,000 billion denominations of all the different churches…

Danielle 25:21

It’s expectation. That's what expectation does to us. We can't deal with uncertainty so we have these constructed expectations of how everything supposed to be and as soon as it gets a little hard, “well we're told we can do this and just get out of here.” So we do it and then we wonder why relationships don't work out and why half of marriages end in divorce because it takes work. The Buddhists say life is suffering well so is marriage-suffering, but find the joy in it.

Seth Price 25:57

Listen up kids marriage is suffering.

Danielle 26:00

It is. But it's worthy suffering

Seth Price 26:04

Another book and this just popped into my head so I don't know if you've read because I saw your stack that you posted the other day of like 20 books and maybe less than that I am curious why were some flipped around are those like for later reveal like you're gonna turn a little Lazy Susan?

Danielle 26:21

Those are the first four books I will be talking about on our podcast, Bookish.

I wasn't gonna show them to you but I was showing you all my cool colorful post it notes.

Seth Price 26:33

That’s a lot of post it notes Yeah, well you should add a book and for all I know it's in one of those reversed ones and if it is you can just wink and since nobody will ever see the video we'll just edit this out like it never happened. There's a book Without Buddha I Couldn't be Christian. I think that's the name of it, by Paul F Knitter.

Danielle 26:53

I don't have that book.

Seth Price 26:55

I think it's Paul F. Knitter. He is like the really smart person chair at Union Theological Seminary, which I feel like is close to you, isn't it?

Danielle 27:06

I don't know. I'm in Minnesota.

Seth Price 27:08

I think it actually is in Minnesota. (Update…it’s not)

Danielle 27:11

I would not be able to verify that.

Seth Price 27:13

I can't, but he's just a scholar on World Religions period,just happens to be Christian. But one of his most famous books is I think it's called Without Buddha I could not be Christian or something similar to that. But you've said enough things that I think you would enjoy it.

Danielle 27:31

Yeah, I probably would. I'm doing two courses right now on like Buddhism in modern psychology. And it flabbergasted me even to see the title of the course and I went, okay, two birds, one stone. Sure.

Seth Price 27:46

So break that apart. What is that? Buddha in modern psychology.

Danielle 27:50

Buddhism in modern psychology? Well, one of the courses is just, it kind of just shows you how the Buddhist thought kind of lines up with, I want to say your best self actualized possibility.

How do I say this? Okay, trying to think of my my course notes here. It's just a basic introduction into like, what's it called the “daca!” “duco?”I don't want even I'm gonna mess this up. Okay.

Seth Price 28:25

I won’t know if you do. I know very little about Buddhism.

Danielle 28:27

Kind of an introduction into like the tenets of Buddhism. And then kind of juxtaposed with what psychological thought. What Freud what Jung, what…what’s another dude's name that I just got into? Oh my gosh, see, I'm screwing this up again, I forget names, and correlating how Buddhist prescription can help with mental clarity, mental health, and self actualization.

And that was such a bonus for me because we're in our book we're writing about needs. You know, when you're talking about needs, you're gonna refer to Maslow's hierarchy. And, you know, Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, has some processes that kind of are in the same sphere of the, what is it like the six essential human needs of certainty, uncertainty and then the physiological needs.

And I don't know, for me, it was just super interesting because I just never really thought about putting Buddhism with psychology in the first place. I'm interested in both big time just because yeah, new stuff challenges my brain. And when you start really digging, like I started digging more in Buddhism, and I started looking more towards Carl Jung and something in Carl young drove me back towards Buddhism and I thought, Well, that was weird.

And then Jordan Peterson references both Buddhism with modern psychology, goes back to Jung, and talks about Buddhist teachings. And so yeah, it for me, I was like, as I'm learning, I'm like, maybe I'm just supposed to be learning this because it's all just interrelated with everything else that I was reading. And it's just interesting.

Seth Price 30:21

Yeah, that's good. With whatever you can say, what is your of the of the first four episodes? I'm assuming you're recording them or you already have recorded them? I don't know….

Danielle 30:31

Couple. Yep. And we still got some more to record on Monday.

Seth Price 30:33

What are you most expectant about when people hear those?

Danielle 30:36

Well, if they're just going to react off of the titles, I think some people are going to react negatively. For instance, on one of our episodes, I'll be discussing Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules For Life.

Seth Price 30:50

I haven’t read that one.

Danielle 30:53

Um, it's interesting. And one of the reasons I'm doing I read his book, I read it last year when it came out. I somehow got…I don't even remember how I discovered Jordan Peterson (it was from a podcast, some other podcast). And I, at first, didn't really like him. I thought he was cocky. And then I saw another video and I was like, Huh, and I think he was like crying in it. And I was like, weird. I didn't even think this guy even had a smile. And then I got interested in his book, and I read it. And then I made my son read it. Well, a few chapters, because it's a big book. And my son's attention span is really little, but he's 17. So I thought there were a couple of key chapters in there that I really liked. And then I started talking about Jordan Peterson. And then I was like, wow, everybody hates him!

Seth Price 31:46

When you said his name the first thing I thought is, well, this is gonna go one way or the other. I don't have much of an opinion on him, on purpose. I have refused to learn much about him.

Danielle 31:55

Yeah, well, and the only reason that I really jive with him is because there was a lot of stuff that he was saying that I was trying to speak to, to through like literally writing this book with Matthew, there was some stuff in his book that I'm like, like he gets it. And I started sharing some of that stuff. And I think I like pissed someone off when he liked it. And I was like, that's Jordan Peterson. He messaged me and he's like, “you really need to learn how to quote people better and put their names down!” And I was like, “you're mad because you like something Peterson said…okay.!” But there is such contempt.

And I get it. I mean I get it. But I think we still have to look for the good in people. And he has a lot of really incredible stuff to offer. And I just kind of want to share that perspective. And if people don't agree with me, cool, too. And I actually think that episode, we're like, contrasting it, Michelle Collins, she's going to be discussing a feminist book, like feminist Psychology.

Seth Price 32:55

At the same time or those are two different episodes?

Danielle 32:56

The same episode.

Seth Price 32:57

So how would that play with Jordan?

Danielle 33:00

I know, right. How would it play?

Seth Price 33:00

I just…you know I do know…

Danielle 33:03

I don't think Jordan would disagree. I don't know what her book is about, but I don't think Jordan would disagree. I think he's, a lot of people I think have said that he's like, anti-feminism, but I don't get that. And I mean, I'm a skeptic when I read people because I'm always looking for like, are you a racist under there; is this patriarchy stuff? I gotta be careful what I'm promoting here. Don't give me any hidden stuff.

And so I did that with Jordan Peterson, you know, like, I'm not going to just fall for this guy and then look like an idiot later. So I've really gone into it with a fine tooth comb. And yeah, he says some stuff that I'm like, “No, that's stupid.” But he says some other things that I think, I don't know, maybe if people heard this from this light, maybe they'd be like, “Oh, he's not so bad.”

I think people want to hate him because he's kind of hard to label. I can’t put him in a box. So in some of his chapters, I think is he writing.., is he pro socialism? You know?

And for me, I'm like, why is everybody socialist? It's just rubbing into me! And I don't know if I like it. I don't know what's going on here! And, like my husband's cousin reached out to me last night and was like, “it's starting to grow on you”. And I'm like, shut up! I'm not going to admit that, you know.

Seth Price 34:23

Is it?

Danielle 34:25

The ideal of it is (in) the same way anarchy appeals to me, and utopian form. Yeah, that's my kingdom.

Seth Price 34:35

That’s fair. Yeah. The part of socialism that appeals to me is and honestly, I hadn't given it much thought until the lady, I can't say her name. And I'm not gonna try the freshman congressman from New York, Alexandria,

Danielle 34:50

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez?

Seth Price 34:52

Yeah. I try to not ever talk politics, but there was the thing that she said in an interview. Let's say it was on CNN, I don't know what it was on, I don't think it was on CNN. And she basically said, you know, like, it's not really morally acceptable for people like (Jeff) Bezos to live the way that they do while some people literally can't afford insulin.

And I can really get behind that, like, I don't care about the rest of it so much. But I also am a very successful banker. I really wrestle with that. Like, there's a part of me that's like, now we should fix this. And another part of me is like, even if we do what's that mean for my career? Because I literally get paid to help people build and accumulate wealth. And I'm damn good at it.

Danielle 35:42

It’s a bit of a moral conundrum I bet, huh?

Seth Price 35:44

I didn't even go to school to do it, and I am good at it. But there's a tension. I just tunnel vision it out, I guess. So I want to ask this so I know your podcast is going to be based on you know, authors and books specifically. So If you could pick one, and they weren't gonna say no. Like you wanted to talk to the author, and I don't know if you will ever do that on your show or not, what would it be?

Danielle 36:09

Which author?

Seth Price 36:10

Yeah, like, if you had a book, you had the title in your hand, you're like, you know, I get a magic “everybody says, yes”. This is the one that I'm talking to. And this is it.

Danielle 36:20

Wow, I've never thought about that. Like, kinda like that. Who, if you could pick anyone who would you have dinner with? And I would never I would never know what to say. If I cried, but she's, she's not alive. Okay, can I not alive or do I have to?

Seth Price 36:38

I'd rather than be alive so it can actually work but that's fine. You could do it that one. That's fine. You just end up having to do two if you do that.

Danielle 36:44

Well, that's true, man I don't know.

Yeah, I do. Michelle Alexander. She wrote The New Jim Crow.

Seth Price 36:58

I don't know her or that book.

Danielle 37:00

She read the news. Have you heard of the documentary 13th that played on Netflix.

Seth Price 37:05

I loved that. I did watch that.

Danielle 37:07

So it was based off of her book, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander.

Seth Price 37:11

So why her?

Danielle 37:13

She’s a strong woman and a strong voice who stood up for injustice and has stood against oppression. And I think I just want to sit in her presence and ask her if she feels like progress is being made.

Seth Price 37:37

That's a good question. Yeah, I don't know that you’ll like the answer. I've asked that question in almost every episode, and almost every time without batting an eye, they all say “Not really”. Yeah. Which is sad. That's sad. Well, it's not sad that they say not really. It's what's sad is they're like, nope, they don't have to think about it. Like that's the easiest question you've asked all day. Nope.

What is one thing that human beings can do today that would be generative in their faith? And I don't even really care what their faith is. What should they focus on intentionally that would be generative in whatever their Walk of Faith is? Be that Christianity, Buddhism, be it you know, whatever it is, be it Islam. What would that one thing be?

Danielle 38:28

To always be generative in their faith…?

Seth Price 38:30

When I say generative, I mean, to have some form of progress to do it better, either for you or for your community.

Danielle 38:39

I would say to just always let the love pour out. Keep it pouring out.

Seth Price 38:44

Would your husband agree?

Danielle 38:48

Yes, all the love.

Seth Price 38:51

I will wrap it up. So Danielle, as people listen to this, and then we know that you have a podcast coming out and you also have a book coming out where do they begin to engage with you?

Danielle 39:04

Well, you can start with bookish.cc and if you log on to that, you can subscribe to find out when we drop and then you can learn how to follow us. Rafael with Quoir, will be setting up all the fun stuff. I believe we're going to start a Facebook group similar to you know what everybody else does with their little podcast groups.

And then you can just look for me on Facebook. I'm not a “tweeter.” I don't do Insta..

Seth Price 39:36

Your “not a tweeter”?

Danielle 39:39

No, no. Look people like Twitter (and) that's fine. I can't keep up with it. It's too much so I can handle Facebook, Danielle Kingstrom on Facebook. And that's it right now. Follow along with choir on Facebook to get updates on when my books ready with Matthew and our podcast drops.

Seth Price 39:59

Good. Well, I appreciate you being here. Appreciate your time because you have a lot going on between a small city worth of livestock. (Laughter both) And then your family.

Danielle 40:13

It’s winter though this is my slow time.

Seth Price 40:18

Really, there's no pigs in the winter.

Danielle 40:20

No, well, he has pigs. I don't deal with the pigs, my son helps me deal, my older son, with the other animals. I'm a gardener, like hardcore. Like, that's my life. That's our food in the winter. So the winter I do as little as possible.

Seth Price 40:35

You're like totally self sustaining. Like you really don't have to run to the grocery store except for just a handful of things.

Danielle 40:42

Yeah, I mean, we have milking cows.

Seth Price 40:46

I don't even know what that looks like. Well, good, I'll give you back your evening. I have no idea what time it is there. But thanks so much for thanks so much for this. I've enjoyed it. I hope you've enjoyed it.

Danielle 40:56

Yeah me too! Thank you, talk to you later. Bye.

Seth Price 41:21

There we go first one in the books. I'm so appreciative of anyone that supports the show in any way. But for a handful you know the 30 or 40 people of you that you know are on Patreon. I am ever thankful and it is my privilege to do this with you. And for a few of you it is an honor to speak with you learn more about you to be deeply personal with you. I would argue to do church with you as we discuss faith in life in community with intention and so teach of you that have done that. Thank you. I can't wait to present more of these types of conversations to you.

The music today is from an artist they had a new album come out this year that have really like a lot. I don't really know what holds me. But there's something in the way that this band incorporates musicality, for lack of a better word. But the music in today's episode was from Mike Main and the Branches. You'll find links to all that in the show notes. And the tracks obviously, is still going to be are still going to be on the Spotify playlist for Can I Say This At Church, that separate feed. If you're not listening to that, and you use Spotify, and that is on you, you need to fix that it is a fantastic playlist. I am biased, but I find each song takes me back to the episodes. And the emotions of that episode is in a way that only music can.

But even if you haven't heard the episodes The songs are from the music is really good. It's eclectic. It's not all of one genre. And so it's been an honor and a privilege to incorporate those artists and go and listen, support them any way you can. I'll talk with you next week, be blessed everybody.