#96: Curt Thompson, MD: Faith and Mental Health
Dr. Curt Thompson is an expert on faith and mental health. Not only does he still meet with clients, he also writes & speaks to groups all over the country. In our conversation, we cover a wide array of topics and dive into the discussion on faith and mental health.
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EP. 96 Curt Thompson
Tony: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the reclamation podcast, where our goals to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life. Today is episode 96 of the podcast. I'm Tony Miltenberger. I get to serve as your host. And today I have the distinct honor of sitting down with a very intelligent man. Curt Thompson, Dr.
Curt is a licensed in psychiatry and he does a tremendous amount of work on anxiety. The faith confessional community. What it means to look like and be overwhelmed and in a dangerous spiral. He talks a lot about how evil does its best work in the middle of good work being done. There's so many good things.
This is one of those conversations that you're going to want to listen to with a pen and paper, because Curt is just full, full, full of wisdom. Also be sure to subscribe. So you don't miss any of our future episodes. Share this episode with a friend who maybe needs to hear it and leave us a rating or review on iTunes.
It really does make a huge difference. Hey, if you haven't checked it out yet, be sure to check out my website, reclamation podcast.com on there. You'll see those show notes and full transcripts. So if you want to go back and look at what Curt said or what I said, the full transcripts are a great place to do that.
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All that'll be done through Instagram and now without any further ado, here's my conversation with Curt Thompson. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited to be here today with Dr. Curt Thompson. Curt, thank you so much for being here today.
Curt: Thank you so much for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be talking with someone who's not that far away from the town.
Where I went to medical school. So it's great. Thank you.
Tony: That's right. Right. State grad and a big Buckeye fan. And we're recording this on the Eve of the national championship game. And so I would love to hear your thoughts, predictions, Ohio state versus Alabama.
Curt: What'd you got. Well, I, you know, I, all I can say is, I mean, it, it, it is true that last Friday's game against Clemson was one for the ages.
Yeah. And my, my hope is that My hope is that, first of all, I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's a violent game. There's no two ways about it. And so I wish we could somehow play football and not, and people not hit each other, but that's for another conversation. But my hope is that that they can the Buckeyes can actually play their best football.
Yeah. That's what I long for it. I mean, and you know, you'd be hard pressed to imagine, like, How they could play any better than they played, you know, on new year's day. But I think that like, if they were to play that well, They they'd be hard pressed to lose anyone. Alabama is you know, they're machine like they're, they're a, they're a good, they're a good team.
They're great program. I really appreciate you know, Nick Saban's humility in the last, I mean, there's the, these last several months, especially with COVID awkward and so on. And it's, you know but I I'm, I will be a prayerful that, you know, people can stay injury-free and that the Buckeyes, you know, score 50.
Tony: It's going to take 50.
I don't promote gambling too much on the podcast, but if I don't know what the over-under is, but I'm tempted to take the over. Yeah.
Curt: Yeah, yeah.
Tony: And so your work. Is, is really kind of an interesting mix of of spirituality and mental health. And so I'm kind of curious how did you get called to this ministry where you're both?
You're, you're a psychologist, right? And a psychiatrist. Yeah. Psychiatrist.
Curt: Right. So we all know,
Tony: how did you get called into this kind of ministry where you're mixing your faith and your medical practice kind of together?
Curt: Well, in some respects, it, you know, there's, there's, there's a longer version of this.
The shorter version being, I, you know, I was in medical school at Wright state and the first two years, it wasn't really sure that I wanted. Even to be in medical school was really kind of conflicted about that. A lot of ambivalence about being there until psychiatry found me, as I told you, I don't, I, I don't feel like I discovered psychiatry.
I felt like it was the other way around it, it found me. And as I, as I also tell people I feel like from the time I was born, there have just been multiple different. Moments in which God has been finding me through multiple different events and people. It's just one continual kind of visitation of God coming to me to find me and in the middle of moments that, you know, feel hard and psychiatry, I would say found me, or God found me in psychiatry and it really kind of brought together.
What for me had always been a bit of a lifelong. Like, I would say nothing short of like, at least intense curiosity about like, why, like, why do I think what I think, why w why do human beings do what we do combined with the interest in neuroscience? And that had several iterations to it. First it was through medical school and then residency and was in practice for about 15 years when the kind of newly emerging field of interpersonal neurobiology came, you know, in, you know, kind of came onto the stage, this, this field of study that looks at lots of different scientific.
Endeavors, lots of different scientific fields that have an interest in, what does it mean? Like what is the mind and how does it function or what does a healthy mind look like? And there are lots of different fields of scientific inquiry that have a stake in that question, but all along, this was all in the context of having, I grew up in an evangelical Quaker tradition in, you know, and you know, so.
In church, as soon as they could get me there. Yeah. In church three times a week growing up had a significant encounter with Jesus when I was about 13 and immediately then was followed by about a 20 year existential crisis. That was kind of like constantly nipping at my heels. And so I think in many respects, I think I found myself at the intersection of psychiatry.
Brain science, what it means to follow Jesus and this way of being able to take what we're learning in the scientific community. And translate that in the language of the gospel, or we might even say the other way around when people ask what I do when I'm, when I'm speaking. I say, I think my job is to preach the gospel in the language of neuroscience.
And so what, what has been so transformative for me, I think is to and it's just been terribly humbling to be in the presence of others who win. We talk about these elements, where when we invite people, for instance, in some of our in some of our, what we call confessional community work that we're doing in our practice, when people are sharing their stories together, and one person's story really evokes things out of another person's story.
And we watch in the context of giving them, you know, new information about how the brain and relationships are working together, how. What I see is the work of the Holy spirit weaving all of these things that are true about the world, not just the physical universe about how our brains work and how relationships work, but also that in the context of the true capital T true story of the gospel.
Yeah. This notion that we were created to create beauty and that we're. Pretty broken in that process, but God never runs out of options. And so is coming to find us, to heal us, to recommission us, to co-labor with him, to become, not just to create, but to become outposts of beauty and goodness in the world and bear witness to the world of the new heaven and earth it's coming.
Tony: I love that. Wow. That's an incredible run, a thousand different ways. I want to go after that, but let's start with confessional communities cause one of the things that I'm very passionate about, and so I'm a Methodist pastor and we have band meetings and it feels very similar. As a matter of fact, I I'm, we're recording this right after my band meeting.
I just confessed. All my sin to another pastor. And we checked in on each other's souls. Yeah. Tell me about the work that you're doing in confessional communities and how you see it changing people's lives. Because I think this is one of the gifts that a lot of us are, are not taking advantage of confessing sin to each other or, or telling our stories is another way to say it.
Yeah.
Curt: I think first of all, I would say a couple of things. One is that. We have if we were living in the, in the, in the year, you know, 1100, we would be, and we were living in, you know, central, France, what is now central France. We would be so socially and culturally immersed in the story of the gospel.
That the whole notion of God being just one part of my life would be confusing to me. I wouldn't even think of the world in that sense. Like I walk outside my door and like, of course, God is in everything. Right. Church is something that I do that I, in which I'm reminded, I'm just, it's a reminder of like, of course everything that I.
Th th things are doing like all day every day. Now I might not be perfect at it. I might not be very good at living in the world that I'm, that that is God's world that I'm living in. But, but that's the assumption that I'm making, but we don't live in that world anymore. We live in a world and will, and to say that like, you know, around 1100, I'm imagining that I'm in the middle.
Yeah. A big story. It's God's story. And I'm somewhere between the resurrection and the Perugia. I'm somewhere between Jesus' first appearance to the disciples after his crucifixion and his next appearance in his fullness. I'm living somewhere in the middle of that. We don't live in that world anymore in which.
We assume that to be the story that we're in. Instead I live in a world in which I think that religion or faith is this one sliver of the pie of my life. And I go to church on Sunday, or I think about praying or whatever, as a way to follow Jesus, perhaps be obedient to God, perhaps. But I don't think of my faith in terms of asking the question in what story do I believe I'm living?
Yeah. And the gospel comes to tell us, like, folks, here's the story that you're living in. And in that sense, the gospel is a lot more about like one big history lesson, as much as it is anything religious per se, and to be a history lesson. It tells me that I am living in this story, that the arc of the gospel from Genesis to Israel, to the profits, to the new Testament we are living in.
This in-between age with one foot in the age, that's passing away and another foot in the age that's coming the new age and the gospel is an invitation for me to continually wake up more and more and more to that real story in which I'm living. And what does it mean then to be confessional, to confess, to confess in our case, when we talk about confessional communities, we're not so much, we are talking about confessing sin, but we're talking more about confessing, the reality of the story that we're living in.
We're talking about telling the whole truth about all of our story in order to put it all out on the table. So it's kind of like. You figure that I carry around with me a jigsaw puzzle that I keep in a box and anytime we're together, I bring out, you know, 20 pieces that are all put together really nicely.
And I put them out there on the table for you to see. And as long as like that, that could be like the, you know, the middle of the puzzle or whatever. And it's, and it's like, know, Oh, that's a, that's a lovely building. Th that's a lovely river, whatever. But like, I got all these other pieces of the puzzle in the box that I don't show you.
Right. But if I were to confess truly my life and it wouldn't just be my sin, it could be lots of things that are true about my life. Things that I feel that I sense that I image that I long for things that I grieve over, but that I don't necessarily tell anybody these things, but those are the things that are in my box.
And I come to this community and I dump all my pieces on the box of the box, onto the table. Dang. But what if everybody else comes and puts their puzzle pieces on the table, you see that like, we're, we're, we're all like still trying to put these puzzle pieces in, but in the middle of this, we are assuming that the work of the Holy spirit.
Who's made, not just each of our individual puzzles, but is helping us to see that each of these individual puzzles is all interlocking with all the others and we're building one big puzzle and I need your help to help my puzzle get put on the table and you need my help to get your puzzle put on the table.
And that does include talking about the parts of my life that I hate the most. Which is where shame comes in. Sure. But it also includes talking about the parts of my life that I've been afraid to say, because they are deep longings that I don't tell anyone anymore. Because the last time I told it was to my dad when I was 12 and he beat the living crap out of me when I did.
And so I learned pretty quickly, like, well, there's just certain things you don't ever tell people because when you do it's dangerous. Yeah. I've got certain things that I'm angry about or certain things that I am disappointed about. We're ashamed of, or sad about, or even things that I'm hopeful for. But I may be a little wary of hope because, you know, last time I hoped last five times, I've hoped really painful things have happened.
And so like hope kind of doesn't have much room for me. What we discover is that in the context of telling our stories and in these confessional communities, which the outside world would say, Oh, that's group therapy, but we explicitly named them as such, because we want the members to know that we are assuming the work of the Holy spirit as being part of what this group is about.
We don't call it church. I mean, there's certain things that we don't do in these groups. We're not. Serving the Eucharist communion. Yeah. We're not preaching. We're not singing hymns of worship. Although if we were to do those three things, we might have church, but all this is to say is that we do believe that this is the work of formation or a form of it that enables people to do what we say in.
John chapter 12 when Jesus and the world would know that you are my disciples, by the way, you love one another. Because at the end of the day, these communities are not just about people coming and, you know, dumping their puzzle pieces out and we fix them on the table or people telling their stories. It is about people learning to love one another, not just.
I don't just go to the group and like, learn how to love and then go home and love the people that are hard to love. I actually learn in these communities how to love people that are hard to love.
Tony: We're practicing in real time.
Curt: That's exactly right. And as that happens, transformation takes place both at a pace and a depth that I'd have to say a few of the places that I've witnessed that takes place in sustainable forms over top.
Tony: So is the, the intent then. And we kind of talked about this a little bit before we hit record super passionate about disciple-making and we talk about intentional relationships like this all the time is then the, is the intent then for the member of the confessional community to then go start their own confessional community.
I mean, I guess I'm kind of I'm trying to draw the connection to Matthew 28 about is, is that in the next step at the, at a level of transformation?
Curt: My, my sense Tony is that it will just give you an example. We have two general. Forms of these groups that we conduct. One is a time limited form for about six to eight months thus far in our, in the work that we do, you know, the, these time-limited groups are kind of a sexist specific.
So men and women, we have other ongoing groups that both men and women are gathering. Hmm. Yeah, which provides its own set.
Tony: I have lots of questions about that, but rabbit hole for another day.
Curt: Yeah. And because it, yeah, it's a beautiful thing. And it's got its own set of challenges, sir. We're currently in, we, we started one in October.
We currently in one with nine men and there is a certain structure to that over the course of about the last 12 or 13 years that I've been doing these particular groups. We encourage and invite. And part of the training is to enable each of these cohorts to continue to meet when they're done. Oh yeah.
We really want them to launch and to continue to engage in the practices that we are trying to train them in over the course of the eight, nine months that they're together. I would say over the last 12 or 13 years, Two of those groups have sustained their tenure. Okay. I've got one of those groups that has now been meeting for probably close to 10 years.
Wow. And that group. Just continues to flourish in ways that is just a bit beyond the pale. It's, it's kind of hard to matter, like what all that they've done together for each other. And, and there are another couple of groups that, that have continued to be kind of off and on sporadically. And I would say that, you know, some of the challenges in those kinds of things yeah.
Is they, it, it, it, it's helpful to have, you know, one or two people that are really going to spearhead this and lead this and, and keep the cohort together. I mean, every group needs a leader of. Some sort in some way, shape or form. So that, that makes it challenging. But I think the other thing mostly is that, I mean, Tony, as you know this is really hard work.
Yeah. You, you know, there it is living life. It is now not a surprise when Jesus says narrow is the gate. And few, there are the past there in to life. You know, you'd think that if life were really so wonderful that everybody would want it in the way that God has designed it to be wanted, but as Saint Paul, so, you know, beautifully writes, if it were that way, we would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
And so You know, we tell people, look, if you're serious about this, you will find that this is the hardest and the most beautiful work you will ever do in your life. But it's, it's hard to do. And, and I think that part of. What is important about what it means to follow Jesus is to have a community who can gather together and on a regular basis, as part of what we confess is to say, this is no easier than it was 10 years ago.
Right. Because even though I may, you know, you know, Monica of sorts, like I may be somewhat more mature. Hopefully you'd have to check with my wife on that than I was 10 years ago. With, you know, it's like, Jesus says, like to him who has been given much, much will be expected. And it's like, you know, every round of growth that we have, it's like Jesus throws a party, celebrating the growth.
And at the party, he says, it's so good that you've done this now. Here's what we're going to do next. And you're like, For crying out loud,
please just give me a go. I can't we be done with this.
Tony: When do I have to stop worrying about sanctification? Right? Like that by the process of becoming more like Christ is just, well, you know, obviously. It just never ends.
Curt: Right. And so I think that, you know, part of what we value in, in, and we, we try to name this you know, w th th you know, the word empathy has gotten a lot of airplay in the last five to seven years in a lot of different circles.
Sure. God's mercy, right? This, this notion that we, I read about so often in the Psalms that his mercies are new every morning. Yeah. And I think. Man. Thank God. It's true because like, I like, I need new mercy because I've got just a new, fresh version of my professional sinful self that is going to encounter.
No the world today. And so that mercy, that new mercy, what I would say that is that the confessional community embodies one way that it embodies those new mercies is we get to that time and space and we're telling some part of our story and I'm thinking. Why am I still telling this part of my story that has been nipping at my heels for, you know, for as long as I can remember.
And of course, part of the temptation is that I'm going to tell you this, Tony, I'm going to tell you this part of my story. And I'm expecting, at some point, you're going to say like, Curt, why can't you just like, get your crap together? Like, like at some point you're going to get tired of listening, right?
At some point you're going to leave the room. And that's when it's really important for us to be able to hear from the other person in the room, from the other people in the room, this is really hard. Let's keep going. This is really difficult. Let's stand up, get back on the path. Nobody leaves the room.
We're all going together and we don't care how long it takes. Yeah.
Tony: That's a beautiful, beautiful illustration. And it reminds me of that bashes in scripture about the mat carriers that sometimes we just can't get to, sometimes we just can't get to Jesus on our own, and we need people to pick up the corner of our mat and lower us into a place that we could never, you know, we could just never get to honor.
Yeah.
Curt: Right. Absolutely. Right on. That's a beautiful, that's beautiful imagery for that. Yeah.
Tony: So one of, one of our mutual friends that eclipses, who introduced me to your work, they sent me a quote that I was hoping you might elaborate on and it feels very appropriate to enter here. It says evil does its best work in the middle of good work being done.
Right. And and, and I think that when we talk about natural connection and I think this is part of what makes it so hard is because evil wants to attack this idea about natural connection. I'm wondering how you see this play out in relationships and, and there's probably somebody who's listening right now who is, is trying.
To do good work in their life. And yet evil just keeps showing up. How do we live in that tension of, of good and evil on both the physical and spiritual kind of plane?
Curt: Yeah, it's great question. My comment really comes out of the first chapters of Genesis. This sense that no evil, isn't so much a thing in and of itself as much as it is.
Taking something that's good and beautiful and bending it, twisting it. Evil has to feast off the beauty of goodness. It doesn't exist on its own accord. And so evil waits for the opportune time to have a conversation in the garden with the woman. Perhaps, as we are told by biblical scholars, that the man is listening, but not doing much.
There's something good that's happening here. They are standing on the precipice naked, unashamed, differentiated, ready to create and to steward. And then when this goodness starts to move evil, enters the parade.
How many times have we imagined doing something. And the first thing that we think is like, Oh, I'm anxious about that. Or how many times as we have experienced our lives as children, we're just kind of minding our own business. And somehow in the course of that creative moment of whatever it is that we're doing, we're playing and we're playing too loudly in the house.
And, you know, our. Not drunk, but alcoholic father does something that really wounds us.
We have all kinds of moments in which shame is an active part of our wounding in the middle of our movement, just toward being people. Yeah. And so. What this then indicates is that evil as, as the new Testament describes evil is like a lion that's lurking. That's looking it's prowling. It's looking right.
It's look it doesn't just like, Oh, here's an opportunity. No, it is targeting is looking for ways to ruin us, to devour us and as such. We recognize that the next, this is why Jesus' first question. His first words in John's gospel chapter one, verse 38. What do you want? He asks of the Baptist's disciples.
What do you want to answer that question? Like. It's not easy for us to answer that question. Like, let's see, what's the right answer to that question. I want to answer it in such a way that I don't get in trouble for, in such a way that I'm asking for the right thing that I'm supposed to be asking for.
Or maybe, maybe, I don't know, because maybe I learned to not know what to want for a whole range of reasons. Without recognizing that Jesus is inviting us into the real story. And he doesn't just come and pronounce and say it with harshness. He invites us, what do you want? You're coming to find me, what do you want?
And so part of what we find to be so helpful in these communities to do is we recognize that there are lots of things that I want that I don't name. Yeah. But when someone else asks me that question, what do you want? Of course, like if I'm a Christian, I'm like, well, wait, I'm not supposed to want, because that's going to be selfish.
That's going to be men. And I start to talk about what I want. I'm not talking about what, you know, other people who are less fortunate to me wants and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, well, wait a minute. We really have to recognize that if I don't first have the experience of being receptive to and drinking in what it means to be loved.
I don't love. I mean, I tell people routinely now that this, you know, it's true, that we don't love very well, but I can only give what I have. Like, I can't give what I don't have and difficulty my biggest, my biggest difficulty from the time and this dates back, not just to me, but like generationally. My biggest difficulty is that I have a hard time receiving.
God's love. I have a hard time receiving this because. To be receptive, to love opens up my memory, right? Because shame, shame is born in States of intimacy and relationships. Wow. And so because we're wounded in the context of relationships and by interchange with God, is relationally going to be based.
That means for him to, for me to allow him to love me means I give him permission to be in all the rooms in my house where all my shame exists. And what I don't realize is that Jesus is already in them for me to join him so that he can then do the reclamation work. Do that reclamation work and regenerate and draw my attention to him while also making me more astutely aware of where evil will want to continue to use that same memory of shame to draw me back into that same room, close up that closet, revisit my old narrative in which I don't believe that God is a God of abundance and generosity, but the God is a God of scarcity.
And then my life is a life of scarcity. And so I've got a clutch in hoard and hang on to things because this is what I do in my professional center state. This is where I do. Like, I'm like, I'm not kidding like that. Like I am a hoarder. I am a clutcher I, you know, I don't, I don't just want to have the Oreos.
I don't want anyone else to have them either. Unless there's plenty to make sure that I have enough for me. And then you can have some, and that's not, I'm actually not really kidding about that. I mean, it's, it's, it's a, it's a real thing, but it's, but it's, but it's symbolic of multiple different domains in my life where not unlike Eve in the garden, who wants to take the fruit rather than it being given.
I want to take and I do. And it's a problem. Which is why I need mercy every morning, every morning.
Tony: Yeah. It's, it's interesting. So one of the theories that God has really laid on my heart in this last season and COVID to me has, has been really interesting in terms of coping skills and evil and goodness.
And it feels a lot to me. I was in the army for a long time. It co COVID feels a lot to me like deployments. And it's like, I would say that COVID is the deployment that America didn't ask for or the world didn't ask for. Wow. And, and there's, there's some really big connections and, and probably the biggest one, the one that God is like really talking to me about is that the impact of prolonged stress in deployments and in COVID turns the cracks in our lives into canyons.
Hmm. And so the coping mechanisms that we would normally have to avoid the rooms where evil shows up are no longer there, because we can't go out. We can't go to a bar past 10 o'clock. We can't, we can't spend money outside of Amazon or the ups, you know, like the things that we would normally do. And I'm just talking about my stuff.
I'm not, you know, like, you know, like these are the like, so But there is a redemptive quality in exploring canyons. And I would even say that the, the racial tension in America is a crack in our community that is now turned into a Canyon that we can give. Thanks and praise for that. Cause we can explore it properly.
I I'm curious, what have you seen as, as COVID in, in mental health and spiritual health continue to, to seemingly become more wary in, in the season of prolonged illness?
Curt: Well, first of all, Tony, I really love that image. The notion of cracks in the canyons. You know, it's interesting. It reminds me of being in medical school and residency.
It reminds me of what would happen if a patient would come in with an abscess and what on the surface of their back or their leg is a certain. Area that is covered clearly or plainly by an infection really only represents.
Volcanic state of affairs underneath the skin where things are actually far worse than what the surface here to allow it to be. And so it's almost like we've, papier-mache made over what appears to be the crack. And once the papier-mache is brought through, like you see the Canyon underneath it. And I, so I love that that picture, that you're, that you're describing.
You know, I I have found a couple of years ago, I read Eugene Peterson's book, run with the horses. It's his take on the prophet, Jeremiah. And I found it to be so compelling that I read it three times in a row. Wow. I first read it. It just, it, it grabbed me by the collar and would not let go. And.
The whole story of Israel's exile. So you, you, you, you, the whole issue of deployment and that's another like, wow, what a powerful, like, helpful metaphor and the, the, the stress of prolonged deployment. And I, you know, I found myself really struck by Petersons. Walking through what it meant for Jeremiah to announce to the people of Israel that trouble was coming and trouble was going to be lasting for a good seven years and that this deployment was going to be prolonged.
And what do you do in that prolonged deployment where you happen to be you build houses? You marry, you have children, you plant gardens, you shoot you, you live out your life as the community of God. And you pray for the peace of the city, this after a 900 mile foot walk across the desert, right to the river beside Babylon.
And so. There is a sense in which I would just say for me personally, I am being continually brought back to this metaphor of exile and noticing that like, that's a powerful theme and image throughout the biblical arc that we now would say that we are foreigners, right. That we are in exile, even now the new heaven, a new earth to appear and that our, and you, you are so right, right.
Like. Like we've, we, we, I live with all this, all these parts of me internally that are in exile, but I'm like doing everything I can to pretend that they're not there. Amen. And on the thing is like, I got all kinds of affluence. And convenience that enabled me to do that. And to your point, COVID has really kind of revealed our internal state of affairs by stripping away all of those coping strategies.
Now, some. They're not just coping strategies. They are things that we need to flourish right. In our people, so on. And so it means that we do have to double down on our intentionality in terms of our connecting with people. Yeah. We have to double down on our willingness to speak even more truly. So what I mean by that is.
Who are going to be the two or three people that I'm going to make sure that I call every week. And I'm just going to get a sense of like, not just how they're doing, but I'm going to get a sense of like, what are we doing to be creative? What are we doing? Who's, who's the person that we've, that we're praying for.
Who's the person that we've written a letter to. Who's the, who's the other person that we've called that we haven't called before. Just to say, I'm thinking of you and I'm praying for you. And I. Want you to know that I know that this is hard, like we're doing this work of giving ourselves away, but not without finding people who are going to give themselves to me.
I can't remember. I can't give what I don't have. And so who are those people with whom I'm going to double down and build a house together? Plant the garden. Have the children. In other words, I'm going to establish myself really in a foreign territory. And like, there were plenty of Israelis, plenty of people, you know, in, in Jerusalem who were like listening to other prophets, like, no, this is like, this is only going to last for a few weeks.
Never can, editor's going to get you like 10 miles out of town. And he's going to decide that this thing doesn't really work for him and he's going to send you all home. And Jeremiah is like, Nope, that ain't happening. We have all kinds of ways in which we would like to say like, Oh no, this is just going to be a short thing.
And I just want to, like, what do I need to do to cope in the short term? Like you just got to get me, like, you know, I can, I can cope for 10 miles and then I'll, I mean, cause this isn't really going to last, but then we find that it is lasting and we are called to live in our communities in these ways that we haven't had a lot of practice doing.
Yeah. But this time actually gives us the opportunity. I think to, as, as you've rightly said, gives us the opportunity to not just be aware that there is a Canyon, but let's say, okay, let us together together. We're going to climb down into it. Anion as it turns out has been here for a long time, 400 years of slavery.
Like it's been here a long time. Yeah. And so it's time for us, not just to be paying attention for instance, to our sisters and brothers of darker skin. But it's also in time for us to be having conversations ourselves among our European American folks about like, how is it that, like it took this past year?
Sure. For us to become awake to something that is 400 years old. So those kinds of pieces, like this is the kind of work. Notice the scriptures as we have them in the Hebrew Bible, the old Testament were largely collected in and around the exile in and around the time after all this stuff happened.
Because when the people were desperate, they needed to have a way to remember their story. And in that exile and the post exilic time that remnant had work to do, to really pay attention to their story in ways that they'd never had by putting it down in parchment. Putting it down in scrolls. And in many respects, I would say this season in which we live gives us an opportunity to allow God to have access to us, perhaps in ways that we've never allowed him to do before.
Tony: So if you, if you were sitting down with someone, who's like, man, I'm ready for that. I'm ready for, for God to have access to me than I've ever had before. What would you say are like the first step in that process? Somebody who's listening to like, yes. I want God to have access to my whole heart and I'm ready to deal with some of these rooms where shame exists or canyons that I've never explored.
I'm ready to go deep into them. What's the first baby step.
Curt: Right. So I, you know, it's Tony, I would, I would say it's two things. First. The first thing I would say is I think it's helpful for us to, to, to remember as Paul Boardman professor of literature at Gordon college, or at least he was when he wrote the book called Genesis, the story we haven't heard.
And in it, he. Tells he, he teaches he, he would, he, he taught the course on Genesis as a literature course, not as a biblical course. And in this book, that was a compilation of the course that he taught. He writes of how God is a God who is serious about partnerships. I wants to partner with human beings, Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Israel, Moses Israel, Jesus.
I do that, which I'm my father is working. I'm also working, we're partnering, we're doing this together. And Boardman points out. He asks this question and I thought like, wow, like this is just amazing. He said, who knows how many other people, God tried to get to go with him to Palestine before Abraham finally said, yes, We don't know because there's no story, but who knows.
And then you go forward to Jesus and yes, we have the stories of him asking Peter and James and John. And they also, you know, they all say, yes, yes, yes. But who knows how many other people he asked? Who said, no, we know there were those who said, Nope, I got to go bury my dad. Nope. I just bought a piece of land, et cetera.
We know that there were people who said no, the rich young ruler. W in Mark's gospel, we read and Jesus looked at him and loved him. He looked at him and loved him. And somehow he missed the look of love, missed it. Like how do you miss that?
Tony: My wife would tell you that I miss it.
Curt: I don't think you would've been that tough for him to admit it. She's like even paid attention. And so what I would say is this. Thank God is looking for partners. He's looking for people to join with him. And I think that God knows that it's hard to convince people to partner in this kind of work.
That's the first thing to know, because God has asked people, Jesus asked people. Like, and like, if Jesus can't get people to do it.
Tony: Then we got no shot or we at least have to double up.
Curt: Exactly my point. So the first thing I would say is we start to ask, we start to ask people and I, so to your listeners, I would say, start with like this who's who are the two people.
If you can't think of two, think of one who are the two people that you would be willing to begin to ask the question, would you be willing for us to begin to meet on a regular basis so that we in the presence of the power of the Holy spirit can begin to tell each other our stories? Yeah. So that God can transform them.
Whether that's reading through scripture, whether that's reading a book, whether whatever that is, can we, we're not just going to gather and talk about the first chapter of the book of James. We're actually going to talk about our lives and we're going to talk about what's beautiful about it and what I long and what my griefs are.
And my, you know, in my professional sinning and all those kinds of things that we do the week, there's going to be no part of my puzzle. It's not on the table. And you may find that there will be people who will think that you have, you know, two heads, there'll be like, there's just, there's no universe in which I would do that.
And then you will find eventually you will find somebody who's like, man, I I've been looking, I've been praying about this. And this is the other thing I would say, like pray, pray, pray, pray, pray. Right. We read in the gospel of Jesus, praying, praying, praying for him before he then decides to pursue his disciples, who they're going to be.
So we pray. And so we ask them, we begin that process. And when you have one or two people that are doing that with you, with your, you know, your, you, you know, your that's like your small Trinity, if you, if you have that, add another person, add another person so that you have an outpost of beauty and goodness that is taking root so that we might do what in John 12, when Jesus says.
And they will know that you're my disciples, by the way, you love one another. That's one thing I would say, you know, there are some, I mean, you know, if you want a way to start, like you can start by like, I mean, there are many pieces, there, there are a number of books that are out there that I think that would be helpful in evoking and inviting us to be curious about an exploratory ever story.
You know, the solo shame, the one that I've written is, is one David Benner the gift of being yourself, it's another powerful book to sh it's it's, you know, it's not a long book, really, really helpful pieces. You know, a number of the things that Eugene Peterson has written there, there are ways to do this, Dan Allander to be told that's another book that he's just really a wonderful piece.
And the last thing I would say, though, Tony, to all this is, you know, we're just remembering Jesus' words again, that no King. Thinks about going to war without thinking about what the cost is going to be. Yeah. Those are Jesus' words. And Jesus had plenty of people who were willing to say, like, I am all over this.
I'm ready to go.
Then to those same people, he in Matthew's gospel in particular time. After time, after time, he began to tell them that they would go to Jerusalem and that he would be crucified, that he would be put to death by the good guy.
And it's like, it's just going right by him.
And I want, except for that one time where Peter says like, Oh no, no, no, no, what I'm going to watch. Right. And you know, so I, you know, one thing in medicine, we, we make sure that if we're going to prescribe a medication to someone, we make sure that they know about what the potential side effects are. No healing, no healing ever happens without side effects.
Yeah. And so it's important for folks to know that this is not going to be easy and there will be side effects. And there, we would say that spiritual formation becoming like Christ is in and of itself a disruptive technology to the way of evil in the world. And you will face resistance. You'll face it from within your own story.
You'll face it from the world outside of you. And at the same time, just bearing in mind that the story of the sower is one in which 75% of the seed goes nowhere. Right. And this is to be an encouragement. Like if Jesus himself is saying, this is the way the world is, and he's saying, but I want you to get on board.
Huh?
Those are good enough numbers for me.
Tony: Yeah, no, that that'll preach, man. I, I love that. That's a, that's a really good place to end our time for today. I know that my listeners are gonna want to hear more about this and more of the work. What's the, what's the best way for them to connect with you on the interwebs.
Curt: So easiest way is through my website, it's curtthompsonmd.com, pretty straightforward.
A couple of things I would say about that. One is if you're, if you're at all interested in the second book, the soul of shame that I wrote, you can download a free chapter and get a sense if that's a purchase that you'd like to make, which I would love for you to make there are also a number of.
In the resources section of the website, there are a number of interactive opportunities to invite you to Engaged with a piece of music or artwork or poetry or other practices that are all intended to help you tell your story more truly. And so those are the things. And then the last thing is that I'm really excited about most of the writing is done.
I'm excited about a new, a new book that's coming out in September and Hope for it to be helpful. The, the, the main theme is really going to be around questions of longing and beauty and community. And what does that have to say and provide for our world as it is today?
Tony: Well, if you're willing, I'd love to have you come back on the podcast and talk about that and get a copy into my hands.
And I'd love to read that. And because this I've got like 12 questions we didn't even get to because it's so rich, it was so deep. I appreciate that. And the gift of your time.
Curt: Well, no, no, no problem, Tony. I would love to do this again. And, you know, and we can you know, lift our glasses to a national championship when the next time we do it, it'll be, it'll be awesome.
Tony: Okay. Last question. I always ask people is an advice question, and I ask you to give yourself one piece of advice and except this time I'm going to take you to a very specific moment. So I'd like for you to give young Curt a piece of advice as he graduates. Med school at Wright state university.
If you could go back and talk to that young man, what's the one thing you would say?
Curt: You're good at this Tony. Oh, well, thank you. I think I would say.
I see how hard you're working.
I see all the things that you're afraid of and that you worry that you're not going to have enough of. Yeah.
And I want to assure you.
Yeah. To have more than what your heart can even imagine. I want to assure you that I want you to look me in the eye and see me telling you this, that even in the story that you occupy, were you so worried that life is just going to leave you in a world of scarcity? That's not the world you're living in.
You're living in my world. You're living in the world. Jesus, where Jesus is a King. I want you to know the joy immeasurable is coming to find you. I just want you to stay with me. This
that's what I want you to know.
Tony: Amen. Amen. Curt, thank you so much for your generous time
Curt: today. Tony it's it has been a real pleasure. It's it's been it's, it's been a real delight and it's been good for my soul. Thanks for having me on,
Tony: I absolutely loved that conversation with Curt. I think he has so much wisdom to bring to the faith community.
I know that it was deeply impactful for me. I really loved the way he talked about distraction versus fixing. And what does that look like? Spirituality and mental health. What an important dialogue for so many of us. Hey, do me a favor. Share this episode on Instagram and tag me with what meant the most to you.
I would love to hear, and I know we'd love to share more and more about how God used this conversation to influence your life. So tag me at TW Milt on Instagram or Twitter, it's a great way to get the word out. It would mean so much to us as always make sure you hit that subscribe button. So you don't miss any of the future episodes.
Follow me on Instagram @TWMilt. We're getting so close to 100. I can't wait to see what God is going to do next. I think there are some amazing things coming down the pike episode 97 will be Alan Arnold about chaos and with 2021 and 2020 right here, we all need a little bit of look at how to handle chaos.
So you're going to love this conversation and I look forward to connecting with you guys next week.
