Asking Better Questions: The Pursuit of Truth with Dr. Suse McBay

0:01 Welcome to the Wayne Watson Podcast, where Grammy nominee and multiple Dove award-winning artist Wayne Watson engages in lively conversation with remarkable people from every walk of life. Artists to healthcare professionals, athletes and leaders to everyday believers whose stories reflect the power of faith at work in the world. Join us as we go beyond the spotlight and into the heart of what it means to live with purpose and conviction, diving into real conversations about the moments that shape us, the faith that sustains us, and the God who inspires it all. Now, here's your host, Wayne Watson.

0:42 Hello, thanks for joining me again. I hope you've enjoyed the first three episodes of the podcast. And this episode, I have with me a very dear friend whom I met when we were on staff at the Dr. Suse McBay. We became good friends. She and her husband have since moved back to England, and she is teaching at a school in Oxford. And I think you'll enjoy this conversation, a little fly-on-the-wall conversation between two friends. She has brilliant insights. She's amazing and entertaining. I think you'll enjoy it. I hope you do. Here's my guest.

1:27 Okay. Well, tell me what's going on with you. You've got your coffee. Tea. Is that tea or coffee? Oh, you've changed. I have changed. I'm sorry, Wayne. Yeah, it is. It's a Roy Boston Earl Grey tea, so we do it with caffeine. Okay. Well, it is so good to talk to you. You're my favorite British citizen. Woo-hoo! Don't tell James. That I know personally. You're the only one I know personally. Anyway, you're still my favorite British citizen. You have dual citizenship here in the States and in the UK, correct? No, you didn't. But you came here and you married a Texan.

2:08 I didn't go there. I had married a Texan, and then I went there. Oh, okay. I didn't know if you met him or not. Yes. I met him in the UK, and then moved out to the States after that, and I was on a green card. I was eligible for citizenship, but it seemed like a bit of a faff. You know, money, administration, fill out some paperwork, do a whole thing. I never did. And I had to abandon my residency when I moved back. I got an email saying, giving the official notification of my abandonment of my lawful permanent residence. Oh, wow. That's a little harsh. That could be a little nicer about it.

2:50 But hey, nothing is not resilient. And you've been back in the UK now for how long? Three, two years? Two years. Two years. Wow. Years and three months. I remember meeting you when I was having discussions about going on staff at St. Martin's Episcopal. We were wearing masks at the time. When? It was spring of 21, probably. And you came in, and you told me later, I'll remind you what you told me. I think you know what you told me, though. You came in, you had your mask on, and you introduced yourself, and I said, oh, good morning, Susan.

3:33 And you said, no, it's Suse. Oh, Suzy. No, it's not Suzy, it's Suse. So, it was immortalized in a Seinfeld episode, a Suse. You know, she's not a Suse. You are a Suse, and you choose to be a Suse. And you told me later, after that initial meeting, that you had decided you weren't going to like me. I tend not to decide that I'm not going to like somebody in advance. That's a little unfair. But I was, in terms of bias and anticipated destination, I was anticipating disliking you.

4:13 And look what happened. Yeah, I mean, I think- You became very good friends. ... to how likable you are, that you managed to kind of claw your way back, not only out of my bad books, but into my good books. Well, you know, there are lots of things we could talk about. Neither one of us are applying our trade at St. Martin's anymore. You are at Oxford. Tell us, for those of my listeners, the six of them, tell them what it's like to live in England today. You're not experiencing the airport chaos that we are at this point, I hope.

4:58 I don't know if you're traveling, the airports here are nuts because it's spring break. I guess I'm dating myself of this broadcast, but it's spring break, and our lovely politicians can't agree on some things, so the government is shut down, and travelers are stuck, and there's a lot going on there. It's quite different over here. We don't have that with the airports. I will say life in Oxford, England, if of the six listeners, they do know Houston, they should try and imagine everything Houston is, and then go for the opposite. What are the opposites between Houston and Oxford?

5:40 Very much not designed for cars, but the pace is a lot slower. Oh, yeah. Much, much slower. People aren't as friendly, not because they're mean, it's just culturally different, so they're not as extroverted, put it that way. This was your home. You grew up in Oxford. Did, I did. And now teaching at what specific- I teach at Wycliffe Hall, which technically speaking is a permanent private hall of the University of Oxford, which practically speaking is like a very small college with a denominational affiliation.

6:25 So, what are you teaching this term? Well, I'm on break, so I'm not teaching anything, but I have been teaching further studies in Old Testament, so we've been looking at Proverbs, and Ruth, and the Psalms, Samuel, Joshua Judges, that kind of thing. I've been teaching second-year Greek for fun. Yeah, it hasn't been too bad, actually. I've also been giving a lot of draft feedback on assignments. So, before they submit their essays for our Introduction to Old Testament course, they're entitled to one round of feedback on their draft.

7:05 And so, I've had to wade through over 40 assignments. Wow. And try and get some kind of useful feedback and constructive advice. When you were coming up in Oxford, did you ever, did you think forward into your adult years, did you ever imagine that you would be living there again and that you would be teaching at Wycliffe Hall at Oxford? Well, I think it's safe to say that nothing in my life is what I thought it was going to be. Oh, yeah? At least at all. I mean, I didn't think I'd get into Oxford. When I initially applied to Oxford, I thought it would be funny to turn them down, because I grew up on the side of Oxford.

7:48 That is so consistent with who I know you to be. You would just love saying, thanks, but no thanks. Correct. I lived on the side of the city that, you know, my parents didn't go to college. Lots of, there's quite a big town and gown split in Oxford. It goes all the way back to when the university was founded, where Oxford was just sort of, the university was imposed upon the townsfolk of Oxford. In the 1355, there was a famous Saint Scholastica's Day riot, which led into a big town and gown brawl, and over 60 academics died. The result of that included an annual fine that was paid by the mayor to the university, and that fine only ceased in the 1860s, I want to say, so it went on for 500 years.

8:41 Wow. So, it's very, very much entrenched. But yes, I was going to turn them down, but I went, and I did not expect to be where I am today. Well, a lot's happened in 500 years. We have a big celebration coming up this July. How do you celebrate July 4th there in the UK? We cannot for former colonies. I mean, they're not of interest to us. I know, I know. I would think by now you'd be over it a little bit, but you're still a little bitter. My husband and I actually met over July 4th in 2012.

9:24 So, I think it's really lovely that everybody is celebrating the day that we fell in love. And what's your daily, Stephen is your husband, and is he still studying for his doctorate? What is he doing these days? Tell me about Stephen. Tell us about him, what he's doing these days. So, yeah, he is finishing his PhD, but I reject that he writes about Paul, and I write about everything else, or teach about everything else. Okay. So, yeah. What have you experienced as a woman, a very well-educated woman in ministry through your years, both in the UK and here?

10:05 You see, okay, I'm a bit of a strange personality in that regard. I know plenty of women who have had overt, you shouldn't do that because you're a woman type thing. That actually never came my way. I think because I have grew up with brothers, I think people know, oh, she's not going to, she'll bite back. So, they've never tried it. That said, I do think there's the softer dynamics of, you know, people might not say overtly try and undermine you, but there may be subtle ways in which that's done, and kind of the differences in expectations of what a woman minister is.

10:47 So, things like, there's an expectation that I'm going to be very soft and cuddly. I have my moments when, you know that, but I'm not soft and cuddly. Let me, you're multifaceted. That's one of the things I like about you is you don't take any guff from anyone, and you're strong. I went to the office, my office when I was at St. Martin's, and the receptionist said, you have a package. So, I went, and they gave me this box, and I opened it. I didn't, it didn't have a name on it as to who it was from, and I opened it up, and this little guy was in there.

11:27 So, I just remember one of our meetings, we, I think you were leading the discussion, and everyone had to identify with a Winnie the Pooh character, right? And I think you stuck me with this. With Eeyore. I don't remember what your character was. I don't know if I have a character. See, that's, that's, that's kind of bailing out. Now, you can't, you can't assign. I do, I do reluctantly agree that this is my character. It's got a big nose. I have a new Eeyore, one of my new colleagues, I think, is your successor. Oh, really? Yes, I do, but in a different category of, or different genre of analogy, I, I was listening to a podcast recently, and it was an interview with Andy Samberg, and I realized that my colleague John is very much like Andy Samberg.

12:24 They give, because in the podcast, they were describing him as a sort of America's younger brother, and I, and that dawned on me, I was like, yes, that's John! Like, he gives strong, like, younger brother vibes. Wow. I went in on Monday, and I said, I said to John, I said, hey John, John, John, I know who your, you know, SNL actor is. He's like, who's that? I said, it's Andy Samberg, and he looked at me, big smile, like, yes! Like, I'm totally that, I'm actually a younger brother. So, it was great. As he said, well, who are you? And I looked at him, I said, well, clearly I'm Tina Fey. Yeah, I could see that. So, within half an hour, he had printed off a picture of Andy Samberg and Tina Fey that are currently on both of our doors, so.

13:07 Well, I mean, to me, compared to Tina Fey, I mean, she's, that's pretty high praise, I would think. I mean, I was self-proclaimed. I don't know that she has a PhD, but yeah, you know, nobody's perfect. But I remember when you were here at St. Martin's, we started a service that our rector and one of the other staff priest named Riverway, because that was a street that ran right through the heart of the St. Martin's. It still is. And I remember we had, on the communion table, we wrote out elements in the service on little teeny tiny slips of paper, and you and Jane and I sat there and tried to order the service.

13:52 We did. And in that service, there were certain things that had to be in there. We were, this is a non-negotiable. But one of the things we put in the service early on, we had a coffee break in the middle. You remember that? We tried. Didn't last long, but we tried. It was a nice idea. Noble, terrible cause. We were so coffee forward, and we would have some worship and some scripture reading. I'm not sure where the coffee break came. When did it happen? But I've got to say, the thing is, Wayne, and I've realized this even more so on returning to the UK, and looking back at my time in the States, I wish I'd been more aware of it then also, is just how different contexts and cultures are.

14:41 And even with the most sort of noble and best of intentions, things don't necessarily work that you want to work. And it's not through anybody's fault, it's just through how attuned we are to different cultures and kind of what's going on within them, what people's hopes and aspirations and expectations are. The Church of England, but I'm seeing it in reverse. So, yeah. We've been visiting some other churches since. I'm working on some other things as well. And it's difficult. Let me ask you, is it difficult for you to go to church as a parishioner and worship and receive?

15:27 Is that difficult? Is it impossible? Good question. It varies in degrees of difficulty. I don't think as much necessarily about experience. I think what I'm discovering more and more is that I really have less worry about particular forms of worship, particular styles of music, liturgy, no liturgy, formality and formality like that. It's personal preference to a large degree.

16:07 What I look for is that sort of sense where the insides match the outsides. But what I really look for is that sort of, these people really live this. They really love this. And it's not just words that they have learned to say. And that can be problematic for me. And bad sermons, bad preaching always just, that's a challenge. And it's not so much, if you have a different view of the gospel and you preach the text of integrity, I can cope with that. It's just when I sense that you are reading into a passage what you want to get out of it, that's where I struggle.

16:49 You know, years ago, a translation of the Bible came out and it was called the Life Application Bible. And I probably have one. And you probably have one. I don't know the scholarly depths of Scripture or history or teaching that you do. But I had a little problem with a Bible that was basically, whether it was intended to be used this way or not, what I found people doing was, well, that's all well and good, but what does that mean to me? How does that apply to me? Rather than what you're saying, here's what it is. Here's not your opinion of it. Here is what it says. Here is what it teaches. And, of course, everything's open to interpretation these days according to whatever you want it to be.

17:34 And here in the States, I don't know how it is there, but here in the States, the news media, you can know what they're going to say by what channel you choose to watch. And, you know, back in my day, there were journalists who would say, there was one guy named Walter Cronkite. He was the most famous CBS newsman, and he would end every broadcast with, and that's the way it is. And I remember thinking later, it wasn't how he thought it was. It wasn't his interpretation of how it was. That was how it is. I can't buy it, actually, because I think that's a product of modernism. So the Enlightenment had us fooled into thinking that we know how everything is.

18:15 But actually, that's all a product of a very specific way of thought. And I agree with you that today, there's a sort of hyperbole and polarization, and depending on which channel you're on, you get a very different take and interpretation. But I think it's actually a bit more complex than that, because we are in a more global world. We have far more diversity of voices, the actual work of wisdom, the work to really discern what is going on. We have a complexity of cultures and values that are all competing as well. So I don't think that we come from an objective past, and we're now in this kind of confused present.

18:58 I think the present is confused, but I don't think the past was really all that we think it was. Do you find, as someone who's gone as far as the education system allows in PhD study and things like that, do you find it difficult to not try to conclude that, oh, I've got my hands around this? I know what this is. Or do you find in your personal life that there's still room for mystery? I think I know the answer to this. Mystery and what in the world is going on? No. Most people I know who have a good PhD have learned through doing their PhD just how little they know.

19:41 But actually, I wrote about 100,000 words on two verses of Mark's gospel and a bunch of passages from a Jewish text that nobody's ever going to read. And if I can write that much on just this portion, how much more is there to know? So I think it can lead to almost a crippling ignorance. There is just so much to know. How on earth could I comprehend that? Find good articles, find good books, find good resources, learn about stuff. But of course, that doesn't make me an expert. It doesn't make me a trained expert. So when I recently went to my doctor with her, this is what I think is going on.

20:25 He's like, well, yeah, but I was like, I recognize he's the medical expert. My PhD is not the kind that, I'm a doctor, but I'm not the kind that can help people get sick. I'm quite happy to listen to what he says and to kind of go with that. But so there is a balance there that kind of, I have these research skills, but it's really easy for me to misuse them and still get to their own conclusions because I don't know other disciplines. I know my discipline, but that doesn't mean I know how psychology works, psychiatry works, medicine, geology, whatever other ology you come up with. We watch some medical dramas on TV occasionally, and I'm always fascinated by what they know.

21:12 I mean, the depths of what they know. It's interesting to me that you say the more you learn, the more you realize how much more there is to learn. And on the opposite end of that spectrum, I saw a clip yesterday, and a narrator was asking young adults what country we were liberated from in the revolution, and they did not know. They thought it was Europe. And they also were asked what country is the Panama Canal in, and they did not know. And they asked where was the Vietnam War fought, and they did not know.

21:53 And so, on the other end of the—I'm wondering, what in the world is going on? What are— See, and this is—I've actually just—I literally today have just finished a blog post on this kind of topic. But there's—I noticed it—the reason I speak of it is when we first went back, we noticed the phenomenon of sort of new slang of people saying 100 percent. Like, I'm 100 percent faithful. I'm definitely faithful. And I don't know about the U.S., but here, that's part of the sort of everyday language. I have a student, oh, did you like that cake? Oh, yeah, 100 percent. And it's kind of cute on the one hand, but it does sort of—it speaks to the zeitgeist in some ways, that there's this sort of absolutism and confidence in what we think we know and the opinions that we hold, that this is the way it is.

22:52 And Steve and I had a really funny interaction with a stranger at Heathrow Airport last Christmas. We were on our way to Prague, and it was about two elevators that were next to each other, 20 people queuing up for one, nobody queuing up for the other. And it's kind of—the signage was a bit confusing about where they—you know, whether they go to the same place or not. And we'd asked the attendant where to go, and she'd said to use the elevators. So we were headed for the one, but then we looked, and we realized that everybody's queuing up for the other one, and we're not sure what to do. And this middle-aged guy's like, no, no, no, no, that one doesn't go to the same place, 100 percent, 100 percent, there's not going to happen, 100 percent. So we thought we'd try it anyway.

23:34 Turns out it goes to exactly the same place. For the rest of our holiday, you know, it was a great diffuser in moments of marital tension, when somebody comes in confidently, and then we'll just say to each other, so you sure about that? Like, 100 percent sure about that? Because we do, we talk in these ways where we are so confident about things and yet so completely wrong. I don't know. I'm less confident about a lot of things than I used to be, and I'm okay with that. I just don't have the energy to be that assured about much of anything anymore. One of the things, one of the messages we heard, we were talking about going to church, different churches, it's difficult for me.

24:18 It's difficult for me to listen to music and to worship through it, especially when I consider it to be not that great. If I consider it to not have much energy or, I mean, I don't go with the repetitive thing because some of the grades were repetitive. The hallelujah chorus is somewhat repetitive, so I can't go there. But it's difficult sometimes to go to church and worship without being a critic, and I guess that's just part of the occupational hazard that both of us have experienced at times, and I'm just trying to empty myself of that.

25:01 I think the value for me about coming back to the UK was, well, American churches by and large are very well-resourced. Even the ones that think they aren't comparatively are very well-resourced to any average church over here, and so it's much easier for me to go into a church that I know has very little but is doing the best with what it has to accept that, and then it's like, well, I don't care if the salmon's half-baked or they're not quite sure what they're doing, or the music's bad, or whatever else it is, because this is the best they are able to bring.

25:43 The challenge comes in when you get to that level of professionalization and resource that you want to see it done well, and balancing that with our own humanity is a tricky enterprise. Yeah, it's not straightforward. You said sometimes it's difficult to listen to sermons or to even have a conversation with someone if your perception of that person is different from the reality of that person. How do you separate those two? I can come into an encounter in a conversation, in a meeting, and again, not proud of it, but I can immediately conclude, like you concluded that you aren't going to like me, but I can immediately conclude something about that person based on what, and really, that's my problem.

26:34 That's not their problem, and I struggle with that, but how do you disassociate yourself from the perception, from the truth of someone? Well, I think first, knowing that my perception of things and their reality are two different entities is a really helpful one. I have a friend, actually, he died in December, his name was Michael, and he would talk about the fact of the situation, or the person, or whatever, and the story we tell ourselves about them. Like, why somebody does what they do, I have absolutely no idea. I don't know why Wade invited me onto his podcast. I don't know why Wickham decided to hire me.

27:16 I'm not inside anybody's mind, and I've given up trying to be a mind reader, so I think when we start to kind of be aware that I might have this thought about why somebody's asking me to do something, or why somebody's saying what they're saying, or behaving the way they're behaving, but actually, that's not necessarily what's going on. Let's give it some time and see what happens. That's just a really helpful thing to know about. On the flip side of that, I think one of the things that I've come to realise, a lot of times when I meet somebody, I might have my preconceptions about them, and then I get to know them, and I discover they're not who I thought they were, they are, and even better, or whatever else, and it kind of all goes very smoothly.

28:00 But there are times where you meet somebody, and they kind of get under your skin, you know? Obviously, Wayne, this has never happened to you. It feels personal, and I think I probably would emphasise the word feels. Again, this is still a story I'm telling myself, but clearly, the story is coming from somewhere a bit deeper within me, so I think for me, in those moments, it is about treating myself a bit like a toddler, or a teenager, I'm not sure which, and can I, okay, let's go and sit down, let's take a beat, let's breathe.

28:40 What are you feeling? Who does it remind you of? I remember reading a book by a neurologist, and she talked about feelings as predictions, and so kind of the way that we're raised, the experiences we've had in early life and young adulthood have trained our brains to see blessing and threat in different places. If somebody says a certain thing or acts in a certain way, I'm more predisposed to feel safe around them, to trust them, conversely, if they act in a different way, then the opposite is true, and so if I'm aware that actually my feelings, and even my quite intense feelings, are at best predictions based on past experience, that gives me a little bit of a window to explore why is that, is that still true?

29:42 What was your upbringing like that would have formed some of these things you're talking about, some of these opinions about people, how you respond to people? Well, like I said earlier, there's the class divide and the education divide in Oxford, so if you have a certain accent, for example, I'm more inclined to make certain assumptions about you, and you're probably more likely to make certain assumptions and about me, if it's an English accent. I mean, I grew up in a family of three older brothers, so I know my predictions are less clear when it's women, because I'm used to boy talk, I'm used to boy conflict, I know how that works.

30:33 I don't know how sisters interact, I've never had one. There are things about my childhood that were particularly hard about my family and upbringing, and have left their mark in painful ways, and so there's that whole thing as well, but it's also a Christian family. For me, sometimes I can get a bit suspicious around Christian talk and superficial niceness, I think perhaps that's part of where that comes from, is that it's a bit of a doublespeak to me. I have to see people do the right thing before I really believe what they say. We've all been fooled by that kind of talk.

31:15 I grew up in a very small town, and my dad was a World War II Navy veteran, he actually spent time in your country, and we kind of blindly followed TV preachers and some of different denominations, and they just sounded so sure of themselves, and eventually a lot of them weren't so sure of themselves, and it really broke my dad's heart. It really hurt him that they were not doing what they were saying, but we've all been fooled by that, so I don't know that that's unhealthy to have a little bit of a check when something comes down the pipe, because I think we're instructed in the Scripture to be wise, but talking about the perceptions of people with accents, first of all, when you were preaching at St. Martin's, I almost needed closed captions.

32:10 I requested from the tech staff, can we put closed captions up on there? Because, I mean, it was so fascinating, and I just really wondered, do you guys really talk that way in private, or are you just doing that to make it feel inferior? It's worse. It's worse. 100%, Wayne, 100%. Oh, my gosh. Is the racial issue as intense in the UK as you perceived it to be here in the United States? It's not as intense, but that's because America is more intense than Britain in more or less every way.

32:50 We care about things like tea and queues, and talking about the weather, we don't get intense about other things. The English people like to pretend they don't exist and sweep them under the carpet. So, I wouldn't say it's as intense. Well, England is a class-based country, and whilst the... I mean, I saw this thing on Instagram, one of those history accounts showing photos from the past. It's a picture from the 1920s, and you've got two or three middle-class, upper-class boys dressed in tails and, you know, carrying a little briefcase or something.

33:30 And then you had three working-class boys in sort of much more run-down, runabout clothing. And you can just, you know, just very, very, very different. It was very visible, the class difference. I don't think the class difference is quite as visible today, but accents still give it away. I mean, this is more than race, but I mean, if it's... Well, my point is, if it's there with just... with class, how much more so when you have people who have a different skin color? Obviously, a lot of the things that we embraced over the last 100 years came from England. The last time we were in London, we took a rock-and-roll tour.

34:13 We took a walking rock-and-roll tour. And I didn't know that it would be that interesting to me, although I'm very fascinated by history of all kinds. One of my favorite podcasts I listen to now is called The Rest is History by Tom Holland and Dominic, and they go back into all kinds of things. But we did a walking tour of... a music tour in London, and we stood there, and they pointed up, that's where Reg Dwight, Elton John, and Bernie Taupin first met. That's where Keith Richards and Mick Jagger first met. And I just find that fascinating. It was like being in... going to Israel, and I thought, well, it'll be interesting. I love history, but to walk in places that this actually happened, I just found it fascinating to be there.

34:58 But a lot of the influence came. I wish we could just chill a little more. One of the things I love about the UK is it is just a little more stiff-upper-lip, and... I think there's also... it's interesting kind of in terms of social currency. I remember when Steve and I first moved to Texas, and he was calling out the plumber. And to me, it sounded like they were arguing. But they were just flashing out the work, right? That's just what was going on. And the other example would be, whatever I think of, is medical bills, because having lived with the NHS, I've never had to pay a medical bill other than a prescription.

35:39 And so when I would go to a doctor in Houston, you get given some kind of surgery fee at the clinic, you pay it, and then I would get a thing through the post a few weeks later saying, this is your bill. The American culture seems to be sort of innately set up for a more adversarial system. But in the UK, there's a sense of social kindness is that much more important. You don't have to mean it, but it's important to do it. And the politeness of letting the car in, and letting the person cut you in in traffic. That happens here. You don't have to force your way.

36:20 People will do it. You give a little hand gesture. If you don't get the hand gesture, you might feel a little bit annoyed. Just a little, oh, thanks. That's it. That's it. You better give me the little thank you wave, or something in me next time is going to, I didn't get the thank you wave. Steve tells me that part of it is about island culture. Because people on an island, there's nowhere to go, right? I have to live with you. There's no alternative, right? There's nowhere for me to go. So yeah, from that context, and because the UK is a much older people that are here, have been here for centuries, largely speaking.

37:00 And so we've learned to kind of negotiate what it means to live in cross quarters with one another. Right. But in Texas, in the States, hey, well, I'm just going to head up over there. Interesting. That's fascinating. So, I mean, there are some differences, and I do find it much less stressful from that point of being here. I've been back in the UK, but I don't see it as simply a case of, well, there's more character and virtue here, and there's less over there or whatever else. There's these sort of cultural contextual factors that... I wish sometimes that we could just get there and just say, it's just different.

37:41 It's okay. And the racial element here, we're in the middle of rodeo season here in Houston, which is one of the biggest things that happens during the year, three weeks of Houston Life Talks from Rodeo. And Saturday night, they had to close down early because a fight broke out. I think this whole tension over perception of what you might be like because your skin is this color or because you talk this way, or you came from there, especially right now with the tensions of war. I just want to go up to people sometime to say, whether you're black or Middle Eastern or...

38:22 Just give me a chance to love you. Give me a chance to be your friend and to treat you in a Christ-like manner. Don't write me off, and I will try to write you off. Give me a chance. My son is three races mixed up, and I have never learned more about God or about racial lack of choice. I had no choice. You had no choice. This reminds me of a book I've been reading by a woman named Gwen Adshead, and she's a forensic psychiatrist. Forensic psychiatrist works with the criminals when they are in prison or in a security hospital.

39:04 She's worked in Broadmoor, which is a very famous high security mental hospital here in the UK. She's consulted all over the country and all kinds of stuff. And she wrote this book called The Devil You Know. There's about 12 different chapters of different clients she's worked with, slightly anonymized to respect patient confidentiality, exploring people who have committed the worst of crimes, truly horrific crimes. And for me reading it, it has been a lesson in what it is to see the human in another.

39:48 If you can actually read about somebody who's been a murderer, who's committed murder, who's abused a child, who has done truly horrific things for which they deserve punishment, they deserve to go through the justice system. But if you can still see them as human, then understand that they are not evil people per se. They may have done evil things. Mm-hmm. If we can grasp that, then how much more can we... If that's the extreme, then that should encourage us to so much more of a more compassionate and kinder way of living with those who haven't done these kinds of things.

40:30 But it was just... Don't you find it a more content, peaceful way to live to not be so judgmental toward people like that, but to read about them and understand them and realize that grace is not only at the depth we understand it, but if... And you know you, and I know me, and I know what people think of you and what people might assume they know about me, but I know this, and I've been spared many things, but I do know this. If the grace of God reaches into this heart that can be dark and off the rails, where does it stop? Is there a limit to God's grace?

41:10 Is there someone He cannot reach? Of course, they did bad things, and there are consequences. I don't want what I deserve. I know what I deserve. What we seem to miss out on this kind of conversation is that, actually, the person who seems so different from me, whichever characteristic I might pick out of or part of their history that I might point to as a point of difference, they are me. I am them. I've not murdered anybody, but I've certainly felt murderous at moments in my life. You know, God's grace extends to them because they are different.

41:51 God's grace extends to them, and I am like them. I may not have had everything that they've had. I may not have done the things that they've done, but the stories, the things that have taken them there, the pain, the suffering, there is so much that we have in common. There is so much that we share, and I think part of the reason we kind of go, I don't want to talk to those people. I don't want to engage with that group of people is because, ultimately, we're scared of facing ourselves. I don't want to face the murderous about me. I don't want to face the shameful. I don't want to face the socially unacceptable parts of my heart and life.

42:35 I agree with you. Like, God's grace extends to me is really quite alarming if you knew what went on inside of me. Yeah. Wow. You delivered a lecture on the subject of when God goes silent, and we've all gone through times like that. Talk about when God goes silent. What led you to write and speak to that issue? Okay. It's personal and it's academic. I think I had one relative and two friends die within the space of about six years when I was just out of high school, in my 20s.

43:21 It took all of those three tragedies to happen to actually break through my very hardened exterior of, wow, I know who God is, and this is who God is, so I can make sense of all of that. A little bit more of a mature understanding of, this doesn't make sense, and this is tragic and awful. It was a few years later when I had a breakdown when I was training for ordination. It was just this sense of the way in which I've come to know the world, the way in which I've made sense of God, my vocation, who I am, my feelings, my desires, my wants, my needs. The whole thing is not what I thought it was.

44:05 I remember people talk about when you have a nightmare and you wake up and you realize it was a nightmare and it didn't happen and you feel that relief. For me at the time, it felt like the opposite. It felt like my life was a dream and I'd woken up and my life had just become a nightmare. It happened so violently, really. I mean, it felt violent. I was doing this self-reflection form that you have to do with your training for ordination and it asks hard questions, asks you to look inside, asks you to reflect on your strengths, weaknesses, areas for growth.

44:47 I just started crying that day and it never really stopped. And in all of that, it was a sense of, well, how can God have allowed all of this to happen? I mean, I've lived in this sort of happy, relatively blissful ignorance. And actually, there is a lot of pain, trauma, damage, conflict. If you're talking about the article I think you're talking about, I wrote in that, it talked about being plunged in darkness, complete darkness, and then being no light at the end of the tunnel.

45:36 People would always talk about life at the end of the tunnel or that sense of hope or future. At the time, it didn't feel like that. I mean, my teenage years have been fairly light in terms of teenage angst and that time, I had a really, really strong desire to self-harm at the age of 26, 27. And I didn't know where that came from. I couldn't make sense of what was happening to me, what I was seeing when my eyes were closed, the fear and anxiety that I was experiencing. I suddenly couldn't be around people for more than about an hour before needing to kind of retreat off to my apartment.

46:22 And so it was just this, how could God let all of that happen? And there I was in this dark place and my old means of prayer and connection with God didn't cut it. And it was this sense of like, well, God, if you say you love me, I'm saying that's not true, but your love feels like hate in this moment. If this is love, I don't know if I actually want it, because it feels like you've cast me away from your presence.

47:03 I think what I came to see at the end, not the end, not that it ended, but at moments of light coming in, as dawn kind of came through, was not that actually God had cast me away from his presence, but rather God had moved from my sort of happy but denial-filled life into the much more real areas of pain and distress. And as I went into it and felt completely lost to a large degree in that storm, came to find that actually, no, he's out here too.

47:48 I was never alone, but when it is that intense, you're not aware of what's going on around you because it's survival. Well, you obviously came through that. Do you think it's a little naive for us all to think that we're all going to come through it, or some of us get to the end with still that same chaos and some of that? Again, I'm asking you the question. I have my own feelings about it. I think it's a little naive to expect that every conflict and every bit of chaos is going to resolve, and we're going to get to see it. And I don't know, I'm not sure that's true. Yeah, there are lots of things in my life that have seen light, but I remember there was one specific conflict, a specific situation, where I had somebody who'd been in such scenarios before say, it'll take a year or two, it'll get better.

48:41 And that never happened. I remember someone saying about the U2 song, I still haven't found what I'm looking for. Well, modern evangelicals will go, well, yes, you have. We found Jesus. Well, I mean, that's the start of a journey. That's not the end of a journey. Exactly. And I think what God in his grace has shown me is where light and life and peace and hope can come. It is through facing things and holding on and trusting and learning to let go and surrendering and all the hard stuff that we don't really want to do.

49:24 But then it's, you know, God always means the cheese, right? Never stays in the same place, and the next time it's different. But what we learned at that point is not that, oh, it's going to all be better, and there's a bow put on top of it. But rather, I know that there is one who has faced death and come through the other side. And I know that I might not see life in the way that I want to see life in this life, but I am learning more and more to trust that I will in the next. And I think that's one of the ways we really misread the Bible, is that we come to it expecting a band-aid or a sort of sugar-filled drink to kind of send us back into the world feeling happy and joyous and free in this very superficial way.

50:17 Whereas actually what the New Testament often says is, you know, life is really hard, following God is really hard, but how do I hope because eventually, you know, the ultimate story is that good will win over evil? And there's so many stories and so many characters in Scripture that did not see the promised land, that's obviously the first one. I mean, that's what the whole book of Revelation is about. Yeah. The book of Revelation, you know, too many people read it as this sort of prediction for the future, but really it's a message to people who are seeing other believers die because of their faith or go back to worshipping old Gods in the ways of the empire and not holding fast.

51:01 And so Revelation is like, here's a glimpse into the great beyond of how it all will, you know, turn out, which is evil will be defeated and there will be a new heaven on earth. Yeah. But that's not what lots of people want to hear. Do you find that the students that you're addressing are hungry or some of them just not sure what they want to do and this is a rest stop on the way to what they want to do? Are there convictions? Are they strong in their convictions? Yeah, I mean, the large number of who I teach are training for ordination. So some are coming back from other careers realizing they don't want to.

51:45 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there is, you know, with them, as you'd expect, there's a degree of confidence and certainty, but like, otherwise, why would you change your life and go work for the church? I'd like to shake it out of them sometimes because I like to think I was out of the church. Well, I've always heard, I've heard from a lot of people that pastors would tell other pastors, if you can do anything else, do it. Have you found good barbecue? Yes. Where? In Obsted. Give them applause. There's a place called Burnout Barbecue that is run by, I think, three guys who have been on a big road trip in the States and wanted to bring a good American barbecue back and they have.

52:27 It's very good. The only thing is their Texas plate has pork on it, and as any good Texan knows, barbecue is beef. It's brisket. But there is brisket available. It's just not called Texas barbecue. Favorite royal? The Corgis. The Corgis? The Queen's dogs? Yeah. Did they stay on or did they travel into eternity with her? No, somebody took them, but Corgis are much more interesting. Than any of the royals. You're a dog lover. Yeah, you're a dog lover. Well, it's equal measures love of dogs and disdain for the monarchy, really.

53:10 Okay. Well, I just want to tell you, I missed having you guys here. I'm so thankful that you're there teaching young minds and some more adult minds full of mush the truth of the Scripture, because I don't think you can ever discount learning and wisdom, and we use so little of this to get there. And whatever is there, we can use to further people's sometimes innocent understanding of who God is and who He wants to be to them. So, thank you. Good to talk to you. My pleasure, Wayne. Very nice to talk to you, too.

53:51 Thanks for listening to The Wayne Watson Podcast, where stories of faith, purpose, and everyday life meet and continue to uplift hearts around the world. Be sure to follow, leave us a review, and share this episode with a friend. To learn more about Wayne's music, ministry, and upcoming projects, visit Waynewatson.com. Every journey of faith begins with a story, and every heart finds its rhythm in the Lord. Until next time, go well, and may you keep walking in step with His song flowing through you.