Adam Williams (00:05:19): That sounds like a fantastic doorway to a story, which actually I wanted to ask you about your upbringing anyway. Because I am curious what led you to this, what ultimately has become a life of faith, decades of service through church, and I'm curious about the impact your family had on that. Was it a matter of growing up in a family that raised you with certain beliefs, took you to church every week or however often. What was the influence or maybe even the nudge in the direction of seminary from them?

 

Mike Orrill (00:06:00): Well, so I come from a family of six kids. So four of us were born within five years, so my poor mom, two of my siblings came along much later. So we were a family that did go to church every week and it was important to my family. I always knew it was important to my family. I can't say that it was that important to me. It wasn't like I was anti-church or anything like that.

 

It's just was something my family did and so I went along because I had to. And I can't say that I had any real leanings toward that at all. And though my family went to church every week... I wouldn't call my family a religious family. We just went to church, it's kind of what families back in the '50s and '60s in my neck of the woods did. And so they were completely surprised when I told them that I was going to go to seminary.

 

Adam Williams (00:07:12): Really.

 

Mike Orrill (00:07:12): It was a total shock and not necessarily for my dad, he was pleased. My mom was like, "Really? You want to do that?" And my brother thought I was a dork and my sisters I'm not sure what they thought about all that, but it was not in my plans by any stretch of the imagination. I think what began to change was a chance meeting from my sister to what is now her husband.

 

And he came from a very religious family and this was in the middle of the Jesus movement of the late '60s, early '70s, the Charismatic Renewal. So the speaking in tongues and the spirit led services and the enthusiastic emotional type services, which was a far cry from my Presbyterian upbringing.

 

(00:08:17): And so she had met this gentleman and they became extremely influential in my life. And I remember in a previous conversation you and I had, you had asked me about defining moments and really a defining moment. And I call it merely my biggest defining moment in my life is when my sister asked me, "Hey, would you go with me to my boyfriend's house, his parents have a little house church that they run." And I didn't really want to go. My mother looked at me and she said, "You should go, it might do some good."

 

Adam Williams (00:08:57): What did she see going on in your life that she-

 

Mike Orrill (00:09:00): I was a handful as a kid. I was a handful as a kid. I was a very angry... and don't ask me why that because I don't know the answer to that. But I was a very angry kid getting into trouble quite a lot. And so she said, "You should just go, it might do you some good." So I went.

 

Adam Williams (00:09:22): How old were you then?

 

Mike Orrill (00:09:24): I was 16.

 

Adam Williams (00:09:25): Was your sister an older sister?

 

Mike Orrill (00:09:26): She was two years older than me.

 

Adam Williams (00:09:28): Okay.

 

Mike Orrill (00:09:30): So I went to this little house church prayer meeting kind of thing, and for whatever reason something grabbed a hold of me. And faith became I guess you would say it became sort of the central driver of my life was faith in God. And I can truly say that really has shaped that night... it was a moment from one moment to the next, from one day to the next.

 

Not everybody has those experiences and it's not necessary, but for me it was, it just from one moment to the next. Church wasn't that important to it became very important. Faith wasn't that important to it became very important.

 

Adam Williams (00:10:18): It sounds like there were several years between that defining moment. And when you actually decided to go from a corporate life to seminary and change and commit further to that path. Was it a matter of, "Okay, it's important to me, I'm 16." I assume you finish high school.

 

Sounds like you went studied business went on into young adult life, that's several years, had you just assumed, "Okay, it's important to me, but this is my path." What changed it then from that path to say, "You know what, I want to take another big step here into seminary."

 

Mike Orrill (00:10:57): And that will probably be my second biggest defining moment.

 

Adam Williams (00:11:01): All right, we're on it.

 

Mike Orrill (00:11:02): We are, we are on it. So as a teenager, I think a lot of teenagers who have what some would call conversion experiences. I was pretty passionate and fanatical, and I'm using that word because I really was. Stopping people on the beach asking them if they want to be saved, that kind of thing. So I was very passionate, it was part of my life.

 

But then after I graduated from high school, went to college at the suggestion of my dad, he said, "Well, why don't you major in business?" Because I wasn't sure really what I wanted to do, he said, "Why don't you just major in business? It's kind of a good all around thing to major in."

 

So I said, "Okay." So I majored in business, focused on marketing, was my thing. Got out of school, took my first job in Chicago and then in Birmingham, Alabama, which is probably where the Huntsville thing comes in eventually somewhere along the way.

 

(00:12:05): But I did live in Alabama for a while and it was wild. My wife and I were in Alabama, we started working at a little church as youth directors, and I realized I really like doing this. I like working with kids in this setting. I did not like the corporate world at all, it just was not for me. And so one day I said to her, I said, my wife's name is Bev, I said, "Bev, I really think I want to go to seminary. I want to go back to school." And at that time my only real thought was to get my masters in Christian education and work with youth.

 

(00:12:49): So we started that process in the early '80s and went to seminary. And while I was in seminary I said, "It's only another year to go to get my masters of divinity, so I can be a pastor, a full fledged pastor." And so that's what I did. So there was a period of years in there when I was working in the business world and I just wasn't happy doing it. It just wasn't for me.

 

I think I remember telling my wife, I said, "I really want to do something that has real eternal consequences." Just something really, really important that would have lasting impact in somebody's life. And working in the marketing field that I was working in was not that.

 

Adam Williams (00:13:33): I've not heard that phrase before and that sounds pretty powerful to me, eternal consequences. Was that terminology, that phrase from somewhere in your religious experience or just your expression of it?

 

Mike Orrill (00:13:50): Just my expression and that's even changed, how I understand that has changed. As a young 20 year old, 21 year old, 22 year old and coming out of a very conservative evangelical setting that I became a Christian in, my idea of that was heaven and hell. That was my focus of my religious faith was very standard evangelical stuff.

 

Get people saved so they get into heaven, get out of hell. I do not think that way any longer at all. And so what I mean now by that eternal consequences, it just has lasting impact on somebody's life. Ever since starting church and then even after retiring from church and working now with public health, I've really been drawn towards working with people in ways that are deeply impactful.

 

(00:14:55): At least I hope they are deeply impactful to them as they are to me. And so I've just always been drawn to... Well, Jon and I were talking just before the show, I've been drawn to working with those who are homeless, those who are addicted, those just who are struggling in lots of different ways. And that's what I mean now by working in something that has eternal consequences or lasting impact. I don't even think I'd use that term anymore eternal consequences. I just mean that has just really lasting impact for somebody.

 

Adam Williams (00:15:39): Right. Right. If I'm doing all the math here right getting in the ballpark. I'm thinking that when you became a pastor, again, I said at the top that you were a pastor for around 35 years. And you actually retired from that role, that chapter in your life several years ago. And have engaged in other community work, which you'd mentioned you're about to retire from. My math on this puts you in your mid 20s when you became a pastor, is that sound right?

 

Mike Orrill (00:16:10): Let's see, I would've been probably 25.

 

Adam Williams (00:16:16): Okay. So now that I am middle-aged myself and have at least lived enough life to understand our evolution to some extent as individuals, as we learn, as we accrue some sort of hopefully wisdom. Given the fact I'm a parent and I hope I'm sharing worthwhile things with my sons. I'm thinking when I was 25 I was very far from being a pastor in my behaviors and activities.

 

What wisdom would I have had to share with someone who is a member in the church that is maybe 40, 50, 60, 70 coming to me with real life? You're talking about lasting things, they lived things that at 25 we haven't. You were 25 starting off as a pastor. How did that process go? How did you handle those moments? I would have to assume it was tons of learning and humility involved.

 

Mike Orrill (00:17:22): I'm just laughing because I think I was a lot smarter than I really was, but I was 25. I was really dumb. I think the thing that really helped me out a lot is that I worked with kids mostly my first five years as a pastor.

 

Adam Williams (00:17:42): That was a good path, possibly.

 

Mike Orrill (00:17:44): Well, and that's kind of standard. It's not an unusual path. You start working as a youth minister then you work... So I work as a volunteer youth minister, my wife and I. Then I work as an intern youth minister, then I work as a paid youth minister.

 

And then you move on up to when you finally become a senior pastor like I became. So I didn't have a whole lot of wisdom to offer somebody who was 30, 40, 50, 60 years old. I have to just say how grateful I am because whatever wisdom I have I've learned from the encounters with both youth and older folks.

 

(00:18:30): Gosh, here's a great example. I think in my very first church, so I'm in my 20s. I'm on the church softball team. And we're just having a lot of fun as playing softball with other churches in the region. When one of our teammates, probably only three or four years older than I am, gets cancer and I'm with him on his death bed.

 

And I'm apologizing to him because I had been avoiding him, because I was so hurt by his death. I didn't even know how to handle it. It was my very first death as a pastor and he was in a coma, at least we thought he was. And I'm sharing with him. I'm just telling him I love him, that he's been a good friend. And I'm apologizing that I had been avoiding because I was just scared, and seeing a tear come out of his eye thinking that he was in a coma.

 

(00:19:39): And learning from that in that kind of situation, I always tell people now, "Talk to them. You don't know if they can hear you or not, but it's very possible that they can and so say what you need to say." So those are the kind of lessons that I learned from young people or people my age. I'm so grateful to that because any wisdom I do have... it does not come naturally to me as my dad would say. His favorite saying of me was, "Quit acting like a horse's ass." That was more typical of my young years.

 

Adam Williams (00:20:29): I think it's a fantastic reminder that what we are talking about with people who choose this life is you also are human, you also are fallible. You also are learning all along the way that it doesn't... Even when you feel there's a defining moment that someone might refer to as a calling this clarity of your path, that does not mean lightning strikes and you are imbued with this immense wisdom that doesn't have to be earned. You're still going through life and learning as we go here.

 

(00:21:07): So I think that's part of the fascinating thing for me in your experience, because there would be development of you as a pastor that at the same time there is of you as a human, like all of us. I think that people want clarity. They want answers when they go to their pastor, their wanting answers. And what you're sharing I think that's amazing, that first story there is showing your fallibility. Your willingness to say, "Wow, I wasn't perfect and I learned." And I think it sounds like that man's tear was his capacity to express some love and forgiveness back for what you were saying.

 

Mike Orrill (00:21:48): I think if I had any strength as a pastor it was that I was very transparent about my own fallibility, my own flaws, my own doubts. I think you remember what I told you when we met last week. I think one of the first things I said is I always hated that people looked at me as an expert. And I don't even know what that means when you start talking about spirituality what's an expert? I get a little frightened when I meet somebody who thinks they're an expert, especially in the realm of spiritual matters.

 

(00:22:34): I'm not by any stretch. I think the thing that people most appreciated about me, at least this is what they said was that I was very authentic about my doubts. And again, I speak in stories I think you know that. And so I'm thinking back to when I went on a sabbatical this is 2012, so I was here in Salida. And I was pretty close to a nervous breakdown and both my wife and our elders at the church said, "You just really need to take some time." And so they graciously gave me three months just to take off and just do whatever I needed to do. I think I went 7,000 miles that summer.

 

Adam Williams (00:23:32): Wow.

 

Mike Orrill (00:23:33): What do they say trying to find myself kind of thing. But anyway when I got back to the church and then I had my first Sunday in the pulpit back from my sabbatical, I just shared with them, "This is what was going on in my life. I was angry." Right before I left I had just buried a young person again. I said I was grieving from all the deaths that I had been a part of. My wife and I were struggling with our own relationship. I was burned out.

 

I started talking in those terms on my first Sunday back. And what was so amazing to me was I can't even count the number of people came up afterwards and said, "Oh my gosh, I felt the same way. I have felt that way before. I have felt suicidal at times. I have felt depressed and anxious."

 

(00:24:29): And that was another bit of wisdom I learned to realize, "Oh yeah, we're all on this journey and it's kind of pretty tough sometimes to be on this journey." And it gave them freedom. I had lots of counseling sessions in the weeks and months after that, where people now felt even more comfortable saying, "Can I say this to you?" Well, I said, "Absolutely. You can say that to me. No judgment here on my part because you've heard my story."

 

Adam Williams (00:25:07): That to me is the value of sharing in general. My path or tool for this is the podcast. This is why I think sharing vulnerably and openly trusting how it's going to be received is a point of connection rather than just putting ourselves out there raw for some sort of criticism.

 

Those things that of course are natural that people fear, are nervous about. I gravitate toward people who are transparent and who are willing to share themselves. And a lot of times that really includes or even focuses on flaws. Because there's also the sense of redemption or resilience or whatever might be relevant to that story, and how there's also light shining at the end of that.

 

Mike Orrill (00:25:57): Your word redemption is really a good word. And I'm not talking any kind of high and mighty type of redemption. I'm just talking human redemption. I love stories, you know that, we tell stories. I'm part of the We Are Chaffee storytelling thing. Stories of the most powerful thing I think there are. And I have never, ever in my life had a bad experience when either I or somebody else when we share our story with each other, it's always been a moment of redemption. It's always been a moment of... I don't know what to what it is, it's just a moment of humanness really.

 

(00:26:42): And as I've gotten older and know that I hopefully still have a lot of years left, but I have less years in front of me now than I do behind me and I don't want to waste it. And I feel like a lot of our conversations can be wasted if we just stay floating around on the surface all the time. But if we can allow ourselves to tell each other's story and hear each other's stories, I have always found that to be the most redemptive, powerful, transformative moments of my life and hopefully of the person's life that we're sharing with.

 

Adam Williams (00:27:24): I feel like our stories and how we share them like that, it cultivates a sense of trust and rapport, maybe even empathy and compassion. Those are these threads that run through so much of what we do here on the podcast because we're sharing with each other.

 

Mike Orrill (00:27:42): Right. Right.

 

Adam Williams (00:27:43): And that's also why I share so much from my seat rather than treat this like an interview. I never or close to never use the word interview in talking about this podcast. I talk about conversations and the reason being that I want it to be something that we both are sharing in, and it's not just one person on the hot seat.

 

And that when you and I can create a connection and a sense of trust and understanding with each other, that hopefully what that does is help listeners to feel that as well. But it also models perhaps how to listen with empathy without that judgment.

 

You describe that when members of the church would come to you for counseling, obviously there's already a trust established there, but that sounds like in a way a breakthrough moment. That sermon you gave when you returned from sabbatical, I think it sounds like they saw you in a little bit deeper, brighter light.

 

Mike Orrill (00:28:41): People tend to put ministers on pedestals sometimes.

 

Adam Williams (00:28:45): Sure.

 

Mike Orrill (00:28:46): And even though I really tried to avoid people doing that with me, and I made enough mistakes that probably most wouldn't put me on a pedestal, but some did. Some would try to put me on a pedestal. And so when they would come for counseling they would kind of expect me to know the answers to their problems.

 

Adam Williams (00:29:09): It goes back to that clarity, that sense of they want clear answers, they treat you as the expert, "Tell we what to do."

 

Mike Orrill (00:29:18): I think they probably quickly realized that I didn't have all the answers. But what actually helped them find the answers for themselves is just the process of communicating back and forth. They would tell me whatever was going on in their life. And when it was appropriate, I might share a little of myself that had some connections with whatever it is they were going through.

 

And somewhere in the midst of that... I was taught well in seminary don't give advice, because advice is cheap and advice is dangerous. Because even when somebody comes in and talks to me I'm only hearing just a little bit of the story, I'm not hearing everything.

 

(00:30:02): And so to give advice is pretty presumptuous to say, "I have what you need." But in the midst of the conversation and sharing again our stories. And you and I did this last week, when we were having coffee together it was like, "Oh, this is kind of fun." We're having good conversation here about things that are important to us. And in the midst of that, I know I did anyway, I started pondering then other things. I drove home from that conversation pondering other things in my mind that were brought up. And I hope that may have happened with you as well. And in the midst of that I think that's where people find their own answers.

 

Adam Williams (00:30:47): Mike, what that brings to mind for me is something that I've learned from a spiritual teacher that I have had in recent years. And that is to not fade, fight or fix. We have a tendency when people come to us, maybe that's a best friend, a partner, spouse, whoever it is. And so often, and it might be out of our own discomfort with having to sit and just listen patiently.

 

But we I think have a tendency to want to either fade, fight or fix. We want to either reduce or minimize what they're saying. We want to go ahead and give them the solution as if we know. Like you suggested there to give advice suggests you have the answers without even knowing the whole picture. I don't know your thoughts on that, if you're familiar with that phrasing.

 

Mike Orrill (00:31:34): I hadn't heard it, but I love it. I really do. I love it. And is exactly I think the kind of temptation that I as a pastor and I think anybody really when you're talking with somebody who's going through something, we face that. We minimize it saying, "Oh, it will get better." Maybe it won't get better, or fight like I disagree with you. Well, it's not appropriate to disagree, this is their story. And then the other is to fix.

 

And that's really for me and that's still today the temptation to fix the problem, and oftentimes people really don't need that. I do think people have within themselves the ability to find their answers if they can find the support that they need. And you know how people always say, "Well, what good does talking about it make?" Well, talking about it I think does a lot of good because in the midst of somebody sharing their story they're creating some clarity in their mind.

 

(00:32:42): And so I love this. I love that I'm going to try to remember fade, fight or fix, and to avoid those and just the idea of, "Let me listen." I wanted to be always throughout my pastoral career and I want to be now in whatever the remainder of my life will be, I want to be a safe place for people to be able to come to and share their stories. And to know that they will be appreciated for their story, celebrated for their story, accepted for their story.

 

Adam Williams (00:33:19): Believed.

 

Mike Orrill (00:33:20): Believed.

 

Adam Williams (00:33:20): They just want to be heard and seen. I think that validates their existence in that story, without saying anything is simply that you're willing to sit and listen. Because we all when we're going through these things, maybe we feel so aggrieved, so angry or maybe confused and uncertain, "Are my thoughts is this true? Is this clear?"

 

By simply listening we validate that person's existence in their story. I think it's what we're lacking actually as community, as society when it comes to many of the major differences we have across our society is that we're not willing to listen with empathy and compassion and just say, "I believe you."

 

Instead we immediately dismiss and say, "Well, you must have done something wrong, that's why the police officer chased, that's why they shot." Whatever the incident, "You must have done something wrong, that's why your boss yelled at you."

 

Mike Orrill (00:34:20): Yep.

 

Adam Williams (00:34:21): We're not there to support them. And sometimes that support only looks like I'm actively listening and letting you get it off your chest and be heard.

 

Mike Orrill (00:34:29): Before Chaffee County Public Health opened their mobile clinic back in May, we did a series of interviews around town both here in Salida and up in Buena Vista, just asking people, "Well, would you use such a clinic? What would you need?" And of course, I did a lot of interviews with those who are experiencing homelessness. And you know what the biggest answer that they had was that they needed?

 

Adam Williams (00:35:03): What?

 

Mike Orrill (00:35:04): They said, "Nobody ever listens to us at all. We're invisible and we just want somebody to pay attention to our lives."

 

Adam Williams (00:35:12): I think it's amazing that they said that because when you think of a mobile health clinic, I would think, "Oh, I have a cold. I need someone to check me out. Give me some Tylenol," whatever. You think of those what we might look at as more physical, that's more emotional.

 

Mike Orrill (00:35:30): Yeah. I think the people first hear when they hear clinic is medical. And we do some medical things, but we spend more time... Matter of fact, we just had the clinic yesterday and we talked about this among our staff and I said, "Man, I've just been spending a lot of time today just listening to the stories."

 

And these folks their lives are a little chaotic at the moment. But just the idea that somebody listened to them, they'll tell you right up front how grateful they are that somebody paid attention to them finally and that's all that they want.

 

Adam Williams (00:36:18): I got a chance to hear as much when we invited the two public health nurses who operate that clinic. Tonya Wait and Abigail Smedley, they were guests previously right on this podcast and we had such a great conversation.

 

Mike Orrill (00:36:33): They loved it.

 

Adam Williams (00:36:34): They shared as much that people really just they need to feel I think heard and cared for. Mike, I want to take us in another direction here sort of. You had mentioned doubts earlier and that's a really key subject area that when I think of faith, I think of doubt.

 

To me they sort of function as opposite sides in a sense of the same coin, but they just go hand in hand. And so I'm curious about your thoughts on doubt in faith, maybe yours since you've been so willing to share transparently about yourself, but also just in general as it relates to faith.

 

Mike Orrill (00:37:18): I heard a little saying once it's a little kind of a cutesy saying, but it has a lot of meaning behind it for me, that doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. And I have never been a person where faith came easily, never.

 

I've never believed in God easily. Never believed in Jesus as the Son of God easily. Never believed in an afterlife easily. Never believed that everything will work out okay easily. I am a poster child for doubt. And when I earlier had said people had expressed when I retired, one of the things they appreciated me about me most was my transparency. Well, a lot of that transparency had to do about doubt.

 

(00:38:20): And that's not changed to this very moment right here sitting in this chair. I have lots of doubts about faith. And there would've been a time when I would've thought that made me a bad person, but I now find it... And so I was the kind of person that had to live with certainty. Well, I had to have answers to everything early on.

 

And so that's probably one of my biggest transformations over the years is I can live with ambiguity now and it's okay, this won't be popular among some of my more conservative religious friends. But I think that religion as it's currently practiced in our society and that includes the Christian faith, that includes Jewish, Muslim, whatever, I think a lot of that's all human construct. The ways we put words to what's something going on inside of us, and so I'm really okay with doubting the human construct.

 

(00:39:40): And that's pretty freeing for me. I don't have to live within my own Presbyterian denominational doctrines. I don't have to live within anybody else's doctrine. I am free to pursue my own spirituality. I'm still very much part of the church. It's part of my life, will always be part of my life, it's important. But it's also important to me to be able to express my doubts and say, "I'm not sure I buy that preacher." I'm not preaching anymore and I can say that, "I'm not sure I buy that."

 

(00:40:20): And if I would ever preach again I'd hope somebody would say, "I'm not sure I buy that Mike." And I'd say, "That's cool. That's all right with me. Tell me what's going on. Tell me what you're thinking." So I think doubts is really important. And I think the moment we become really certain, whether it be matters of faith or politics or whatever, when we become really certain, maybe that's when we begin...

 

You kind of hinted at it earlier, that's when we begin to have our conflicts with each other because we've stopped listening. Not only because we've stopped listening, but we've also become certained in our not listening. And so I celebrate people's doubts, I think that's our growing edge, that's where we'll learn.

 

Adam Williams (00:41:11): There are so many things you just said there that could lead us down different paths and things that spark energy and excitement and resonance for me. The idea of knowing, "knowing," especially as I think we're seeing you mentioned that can be in reference to faith, it can be to politics.

 

We are seeing that now more than I remember at any point, and at least in my lifetime throughout the country and the way we're all acting in what I have felt like anyway is a very anxiety inducing chaos. In large part I think it's because there is blind knowing.

 

It's based I think and rooted in a lot of absence of fact. It's rooted in some ignorance. It's just knowing, not questioning, not having doubt. I don't know if there's anything more human for us to have then uncertainty. And an awful lot in the world sure makes it seem like we should know, we should be certain.

 

(00:42:21): Just like you were describing you were comfortable only in certainty and you felt like you weren't allowed the room for doubts in your faith. I assume you're talking about it in a much younger time. And that somewhere along the way there was evolution to what you just described so wonderfully as being a poster child for doubt. And I'm curious what was that transition for you?

 

Because I don't imagine there was just one point, but there was how would you describe that movement from the need for certainty... Oh, you said bad person, "I thought I was a bad person if I had doubts." How did you get to where you are now as someone who embraces doubt and understands the freedom of it?

 

Mike Orrill (00:43:09): Well, you're right there's no one moment where that transformation began it's many moments. Gosh, a lot of those moments would come out of tragedy let's say.

 

So as a pastor as you imagine I interacted a lot with people who were getting divorced, or people who had had sudden deaths in their families. Sometimes those deaths were natural. Sometimes they're absolutely just horrible, tragic deaths. I think interacting with people in those situations had a lot to do with me letting go of my need for certainty.

 

(00:43:57): Because when you're interacting with folks in those kind of situations everything is up for grabs for them in that. Everything has been dislocated for them. And so I was brought into a lot of dislocations. So that's a big part of it. Teaching, I love teaching. But in the midst of teaching and the interaction of student and teacher where they thought I was the teacher and, again, that I would have the answers.

 

And I would say, "Well, I'm not sure I do have the answers. Let's talk about where are you coming from." I think those kind of interactions begin to do change my need for certainty. I read a lot. In my younger years I was involved as I said earlier in the charismatic Jesus movement, there was a lot of emotion in that.

 

(00:44:54): And I left that movement after a few years because I needed a little more scholarly approach to faith. And so I just did a lot of reading, just all kinds of reading from all kinds of people and I go, "Oh, wow, that's really different viewpoint than I had had." If there was a moment maybe or a period of short moments, seminary would've been eye opening.

 

Because it was a very liberal, what would've been called by some very liberal seminary. And so the professors, of course, highly educated started saying, "Well, here's a way to look at this. Here's a way to look at this." This passage really comes out of this situation, might mean this, that blew my mind.

 

So that probably was the start of it. But it's really mostly just the interaction of pastoral interactions with people where I realized that I don't know, certainty... I don't know if this is true or not, but I wonder if the need for certainty in my own case and maybe in the cases of others is just this fear.

 

Adam Williams (00:46:09): I think we're talking about comfort, what we perceive as a need for comfort or the discomfort if we are not in control.

 

Mike Orrill (00:46:18): Well, I think all those fit together, the need to control. And if you're not in control and if you're living with ambiguity you're not in control. I think my need for certainty... I had a nun tell me earlier, many, many years ago, she says, "Mike, you have a really strong need to be perfect, to be right and to be controlled don't you?"

 

And rather than be offended, I was going, "Yeah, you are absolutely right. You are right, I do have that need." So that's another transformative moment. But I think we do want to control things and I think we're afraid. And boy, I don't know my take on the world today is that we have a lot of fear, there just seems like there's just a lot of fear.

 

Adam Williams (00:47:01): It's being stoked.

 

Mike Orrill (00:47:03): And the fear is being stoked in a lot of different ways, and I don't know what the answer is. Well, I kind of do. I feel I do kind of know. It's learning how to love one another in the midst of our differences, in the midst of our uncertainties. I'm kind of rambling now, but I think for me my need for certainty was a need to be in control and just a fearfulness that I had in me.

 

Adam Williams (00:47:34): I think that's incredibly common. It's common not even just as it relates to faith, of course. Whatever the human thing is, this is something that we all face at some point if we even are fortunate enough to recognize it, and recognize it's something that we can work on or make any sort of change about. Well, let me give some context here by the way.

 

And maybe for listeners besides for you Mike, my experience and just where I stand in with regard to faith. My experience was from probably the first Sunday after I was born until I was 18, I was forced to go to church one to two times a week. I revolted, which in my house meant nothing until I was 18 and able to actually take action against being forced. So my opinion I felt was unheard. My questions in church were unwanted.

 

(00:48:34): I questioned the very core of all of it in Sunday school classes and so on. And I would be met with these awkward smiles and blank stares and no answers, there was no openness too. So I appreciate the things that you're sharing, that transparency in those things in such a way.

 

I'm a good nearly 30 years removed from when I stopped going to church myself, that said I don't consider myself to be someone who lacks spirituality, who lacks a sense of a bigger picture, who lacks good. I'm trying to raise my sons with the same sorts of good compassion, love, empathy, patience, kindness, how we handle ourselves with others in the same way that to me if you removed some of these boundaries that are put around certain faiths or denominations, if you just saw those descriptions on paper we're the same.

 

(00:49:44): It occurred to me that maybe that context is of use in our conversation for you and I as well as for listeners. And I now want to ask about the other side of that coin. We've talked deeply enough about doubt, but on faith then I'm curious what it is that you have come to understand of faith maybe in general and for yourself, what it means? How do you define it?

 

Mike Orrill (00:50:15): Someone once told me when we were talking about faith, you said most people think faith is believing unbelievable things, like a set of doctrines or set of theological assertions. I don't think so. For me, I think faith is more of this relationship. And so we're going to come back to stories. But I think faith is relationship and relationships are give and take.

 

So relationships have ups and downs, faith has ups and downs. Relationships has some certainties and some ambiguities. Faith has that as well. So for me, that's really what it comes down to is the relationship that you and I would have with each other when we're together. Talking about whatever it is we're talking about, going through whatever it is we're going through. I say that about you in this moment.

 

My wife when we're going through our days and our weeks with my kids or grandkids. So faith is more of a sense of for me belief that this relationship is important enough to hang in there with.

 

Adam Williams (00:51:40): Okay.

 

Mike Orrill (00:51:41): Does that make any sense at all? And in the midst of that it's going to be messy, but it's worth keeping. It's worth keeping the relationship, it's worth keeping a faith group together. It's worth keeping the country together. It's worth keeping a family together. It's messy, but it's worth it. And maybe that's where faith kind of [inaudible 00:52:14].

 

Adam Williams (00:52:13): I think we're talking about an abstract thing. And if we go back to what we were saying about people's perception that they need certainty, what we're talking about here with faith is a very abstract difficult to grasp concept. And that might also explain then that when there is a feeling that one needs certainty, they gravitate to whoever will provide that.

 

You were advised don't give advice, be there to listen and allow people to sit in that conversation and come to their own answers. Someone who maybe goes to a more conservative approach they might be looking for a pastor who says X, Y, Z, these are your answers. And then we remove what I would say is truly faith.

 

Mike Orrill (00:53:04): Right. My daughter, when she first graduated from college, took a job as a teacher down in Cortez. She called me, she said, "Daddy, I want to go to a church somewhere, but how do I know which one to go to?" I said, "Well, choose one that's healthy." And she said, "Well, what does that look like?" I said, "It's the one that allows you to ask your questions and be who you are, be where you are without fear of judgment."

 

Adam Williams (00:53:32): Or fear of more of your questions

 

Mike Orrill (00:53:35): And the way you described it, I've heard that story a lot from people who once upon a time went to a religious kind of setting. It doesn't have to be necessarily Christian, it could be whatever, it could be Jewish, it could be Muslim or whatever. But they were in their setting and they asked their questions and they got this blank look or worse, kind of a slap on the hand, "Don't you ever ask those kind of questions."

 

So maybe faith is trust, maybe faith is trust in this person in front of me and the relationships. So my wife and I our relationship is sometimes messy, but I do trust that the relationship is important. So I'm going to stay there and stick with it even in the messy times, even when we may not feel certain about each other, or about the world or about our lives or whatever. The one thing that's solid is we trust. We trust.

 

Adam Williams (00:54:39): I hope that this, what I'm about to say, Mike, sounds like a positive as opposed to calling out your doubts or something here. You have a lifetime now of this faith in all its evolution, the doubts and transparency and all these things of that process. But as I ask you about faith, a man who is a pastor for 35 years and had a number of other years in the church working with youth.

 

I ask you a simple and incredibly complicated question, what is faith? And you're trying to put it into words. And I say that with positivity and appreciation because what that shows me is it's all an evolution and it doesn't stop, there's not a definition that we eventually arrive at like a destination, does that sound fair?

 

Mike Orrill (00:55:37): It's very fair. And I think for me that's the healthiest way to approach life is... Again, is not to put this boundary around me and say, "Okay, this is what I believe now and forever. Amen." That's just not reality to me. 20 years from now if I got another 20 years in me, I'm going to think differently about...

 

We would have this same conversation 20 years from now, probably going to be a very different kind of conversation and I think that's okay. I really do think that's okay. But I think that's a very hard place for a lot of people to be in today's world because people do want somebody...

 

I had a person tell me just the other day this person said, "I went to a church the other day and the pastor was talking about love and that we need to be compassionate toward people and to be loving, and it just sounded so wishy-washy. I just wanted him to tell me what it is I'm supposed to believe and that's all I wanted to know."

 

(00:56:46): And I go, "Wow." And that's not uncommon, it's really not an uncommon thing, it's just not me anymore. I find it really unhealthy. But again, I don't want to be judging of somebody in that space, if that's what somebody needs at this moment in their life, okay.

 

Adam Williams (00:57:09): They are in their evolution.

 

Mike Orrill (00:57:09): They're where they are in their evolution. And I love the word evolution, I really do. I love the word transformation.

 

Adam Williams (00:57:18): Mike I want to ask about... I explained for context where I was coming from in my experience with religion, it was from what I would describe as a fairly strict household. Again, I would say, "I don't like church. I don't want to go." Even as a teenager, "Well, you're going." And part of what over the years because I've spent decades trying to untangle in my mind and heart what it is I believe, where does that come from?

 

What is it that rubbed me wrong about that experience? And one of the key ones, especially now in this time and place has to do with inclusion versus exclusion. And I feel like what we see from my perspective in an awful lot of the more conservative forms of I'll say Christianity, it really is all religion, but I'll say Christianity simply because that's the largest.

 

(00:58:15): It's not even one aspect when you count all the denominations and perspectives within it, but it's the largest piece of religion, organized religion in our country and what I grew up around. So my experience with that and perception of that is, yes, we're about love. Love thy neighbor unless your neighbor is gay or unless they're this or they're that.

 

Because as we've said the preacher, the Bible, the certainty, the rules you were given said, "Nope, love thy neighbor – unless." I don't know how to square that. And I think that you have expressed here a broader view and one that is more accepting and loving and inclusive. I just want to hear your thoughts and perspective on my rambling thoughts and question there.