Joshua Minden: 0:06

Hello, my name is Joshua Minden and welcome to Episode 1 of Stories and Other Things Holy, I'm so thankful you've chosen to spend this time with us and to join us as we encounter stories and let them do what they do best—connect us, challenge us and remind us what it means to be human. The focus of our time together is stories, so first we'll gather around and hear a story masterfully told by our principal storyteller, dr Terry Nelson Johnson. Then Terry and I will sit down together and reflect on our experience of the story, what stirs up in us and what that might reveal about who we are and how we move through the world. This week, Terry tells a story about how a transformative insight became a visceral experience that not only transformed a vacation but his very prayer life. Terry also shows us in an unexpected way how sharing our story can be its own healing experience. So let's dive in to our inaugural episode of Stories and Other Things Holy.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 1:22

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I feel like sometimes stories come to me right when I need them. You know that sounds a little hokey, that new agey when the student is ready, the teacher appears. But there's a reason that those things are repeated all the time. There must be some kernel of truth in them, and I think that's true for me in stories. When my soul is ready, a particular story appears, and that's the case with this story for sure.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 1:50

I'm preparing to go do a back roads travel trip with my wife for our like 41st wedding anniversary. Count them 41. And I've been wanting to do backroads travel for about 10 years. It's a very high end. You know older people adventure thing that you pay a lot of money for to get sheets that have certain thread counts and then you get like really good food and then they send you out hiking for a little bit. It can be as short as like three miles, whatever, or biking. So I want to be in shape and somebody suggested listening to podcasts while I'm doing it, whatever. So I'm not good at that.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 2:29

I find a podcast, I'm listening to it and at some point the dude and God bless me and I usually try to refer to people and give them acknowledgement, but I forget who it's from. Anyway, he says in the course of the podcast what's the first thing you do upon exiting utero the womb? And I don't know if you remember when I was in high school, the big thing was go to parties, you know, and then they would come up with a word game and then it was like this trick and eventually everybody got it, but the last three people that weren't getting it, the people doing the trick, had to do it, so obviously that, like the, the, the kindergartner would come in and go like, oh, I was always like in the last three people. Thus I was in the blue group. So when he said what's the first thing, I immediately got anxious. I'm like, oh God, and I tried a couple of things in my head and he paused long enough to let those of us who were feeling anxiety realize like we have no idea. So you know, it was like seven seconds and I just let him know, like I give up.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 3:33

Well, what? And he says you inhale. It's the first thing you do. Ex utero, no, inhale, no future. Utero, no, inhale, no future. And then he says do any of us have the temerity to imagine that our first inhale is coterminous with God's exhale on our behalf, Not just sort of theoretically, not cosmically, but intimately, personally, literally. The only reason we are able to inhale is because God exhales to us. Into him, he blew the breath of life. Something about it just completely captured my imagination, Makes me emotional.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 4:21

Just thinking about it Invites me to be emotional, and I don't apologize for becoming emotional. He talks a little more and then he says and what's the last thing we do when we're still incarnate? You know, I was in the blue group, but there's a pattern here. So I'm like all right, I got you now, and so I answered a little more quickly. We exhale for the last time, and then he goes on to say is it possible that your last exhale is coterminous with God inhaling you, which means my whole life is suspended between one breath of God.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 5:02

And then I got to go hike and bike in this crazy beautiful main, and the whole time I was hiking I just wanted to be by myself and I kept thinking I am one breath of God, as is everything around me. I don't know how I was gifted with it, but it just transformed my whole backroads travel. I don't know. It's just a total mystery to me. I'm so grateful to be reminded and it's so significant to me that retelling the story makes it real for me again, like this minute, this minute. So I heard it a year ago and now I'm weeping because I told the story and you heard it. Stories and Other Things Holy. Bless us, Oh Lord, and these your gifts which we are about to receive, from your goodness, through Christ our Lord, amen,

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 6:23

Tha t's quite goodness, bounty, gifts which we are about to receive from your goodness through christ, our lord amen, amen and bounty and bounty.

Joshua Minden: 6:19

Goodness, bounty solving it's quite an anniversary indeed I have to imagine that, that um, that, that new energy, that new maybe freedom that you describe. After having heard that, and that shift in you probably came with you into that trip.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 6:44

Absolutely, it did.

Joshua Minden: 6:47

And, like you said, every time you retell that story there's kind of a reliving.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 6:52

Yeah.

Joshua Minden: 6:58

In that case it's not a story story but it does something like a story like. In our last conversation we talked about the difference between someone like articulating a bunch of ideas, like what's a homily without a story? Right, there's so much potency and substance in a story, but here this podcast or this person being interviewed is there's so much potency and substance in a story, but here this podcast or this person being interviewed is, you know, like conveying an idea, but he did it in a way that still connected to something visceral. That's a thing we haven't explored much yet, but I'm excited to at some point. Is the other things that are holy in the name of this podcast, stories and other things only?

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 7:37

Yeah.

Joshua Minden: 7:38

I love that this idea like immediately took you into a visceral place like a story can, like a story often does.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 7:48

Yeah.

Joshua Minden: 7:49

And facilitated a similar kind of renewal.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 7:54

That is fascinating. I haven't thought about it from that angle. Originating the experience was an idea, but the idea immediately became a story, absolutely Because of my experience of receiving the idea. And then it's told as a story, not merely as an idea, you know.

Joshua Minden: 8:12

Oh yeah.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 8:14

So one of the ways I talk about it is is god is an experience, not merely an idea, and somebody challenged me on it. Um, who loved ideas?

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 8:25

yeah and I and and caught me short a little bit, um, because I don't want to. You know, I talk about the cranium and the visceral parts, as though the visceral parts are like where it all happens. But it's a dance, it's a dialogue between the two. And then just to touch on that piece that came at the end of that story and then that you picked up on is, for me, the miracle and the power of retelling a story. So it's a relatively recent story in my sort of portfolio or repertoire, a year-old story as opposed to 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40-year-old stories. So it's a rookie, but still it was a year ago that it happened and in retelling it I might as well have been listening to the podcast and had that moment of like everything. It just ushered me into Cairo's time, something about what's the first thing you do, you inhale. Is it possible that you're the only?

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 9:42

reason you breathe is because it's offered to you as a gift. Oh, and then what's the last thing you do? You exhale. Is it possible that your last exhale is cotermas, with God inhaling you? So for years I've been feeling guilt, feeling awkward about attempting to pray, associated with my breathing, which everyone, all the spiritually people, tell me, is so central, like, whatever, I don't get it, I'm not good at it, I'm just going to breathe, and then this happens. And then I go for a week in nature and it just informs, infuses, like I was conscious of so many of my breaths and I would just stop and breathe and I thought of myself as suspended between one breath of God and it was tender, like I felt held by God in my breath.

Joshua Minden: 10:45

All of the images coming to my mind are scriptural. It's a place I like to spend a lot of time in, as you know, and in the story you kind of paraphrase that second creation narrative where God fashions the first person out of the earth and breathes into him, blew into him the breath of life. I just love this idea that there's something. I love this visceralness, this incarnate reality. It seems like an interesting juxtaposition because, like everything is a gift.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 11:31

There you go.

Joshua Minden: 11:34

And not just a gift like an inanimate object. You gave me this several months ago as a token, but that breath isn't a token, it's the very life of God.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 11:51

Yeah, you know you've seen me do the eighth grade confirmation retreat a number of times and I've done it a number of number of times I can't imagine I think I might be in the team picture for the dude who has done the most eighth period retreats in some various basement confirmation retreats. But you know that what my question on that retreat is. So you can't confirm nothing. If that's true, then what's being confirmed to confirmation? And one of my answers is everything's a gift. The question is, is this whole thing an accident or a gift? That's right. And then I passionately make a ploy for like, oh, it's a gift, and this story has some of that in it for me of like I theoretically believe that the whole thing's a gift. Like I theoretically believe that the whole thing's a gift. And when I heard this notion of what's the first thing that you do, you inhale, that inhale is the fruits of the gift of oxygen, which is the gift of God.

Joshua Minden: 13:07

But this idea of like that. God's breath, god's very life is in me and if I just stop, god has all the time in the world. God is all the time in the world. That's good. There's no place to run, there's no place to go, there's no place to hide yeah, nor do we need to, because he's not here to hurt us or harm us or punish us. He's here to love us.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 13:24

Yeah, because he's not here to hurt us or harm us or punish us. He's here to love us. Yeah, that's exactly the same place. I went with this and it was two pieces. One was Dame Julian of Norwich's All Should Be Well. All Should Be Well, all Manner of Things Should Be Well.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 13:43

I've always loved that and I didn't have access to the second half of it for most of my life. I just fell in love with that piece and it was very familiar and it was on a bunch of cards. All should be well, all should be well, all manner of things should be well. Second half is for there is a force of love moving through the universe that holds us fast and will never let us go. That's why all should be well, because you're held in one breath of God. And then the other language piece and notion was that image of a dad in my case a dad standing and having his kid on the counter in my case the counter of the dad, in my case a dad standing and having his kid on the counter in my case the counter of the kitchen or on the deck of a pool and the kid is that classic 11 to 13 months, and you're trying to get the kid to jump to you. You're like, come on. And then what do you say? Like I gotcha. And then what do you say? Like I gotcha, I gotcha.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 14:47

And this idea of my being held by a breath of God invited me to feel like viscerally, oh God has me in God's breath, in one of God's breath, god has me, yeah, so it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, man, and I knew all that, I studied that, I preached that, and then I heard this idea. And then I'm like whoa, I thought I understood it, but now I'm standing under it. You know that sort of like oh, I understood it, but no, be humble enough to stand underneath an idea that you think you have. Like, oh yeah, I got that one. I heard that one before. I didn't hear it like this. I didn't hear it like exhale, inhale, exhale, god, boom, wow. I should make all things new, even ideas that you think you're familiar with and you think you know, and you think you're a smarty pants, little theologian dude. Like no Humility.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 15:59

It's another thing about this experience. It's like it invited me to just be humble, like, oh, wow, I've always wanted to have breath, be a prayer. Never has been. And look at me now walking around Acadia National Park with this idea just pulsing through my entire being. And you know, we will very shortly, maybe right now, say Bless us, o Lord, for these thy gifts which we are currently receiving. And what if we thought our breath? The fundamental gift, the gift, the gift that allows us to animate all of this, to figure out where the cameras are working and why the microphone's drooping and blah, blah. Bless us, oh lord, for this thy gift, this oxygen which you reside in and we take in and it renews us, and then we exhale, and it's just so simple, so complex, so so beautiful, so overwhelming, so mysterious. What's the first thing you do Inhale? What's the last thing you do Exhale? Yeah, bless us, o Lord.

Joshua Minden: 17:29

And these your gifts.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 17:31

Which we are currently receiving.

Joshua Minden: 17:37

Your great breath.

Terry Nelson-Johnson: 17:40

From thy bounty.

Joshua Minden: 17:41

Through Christ our Lord, amen, amen. We are so glad you joined us for this episode of Stories and Other Things Holy. We encourage you to not let the conversation stop here, but to reflect on the story Terry told throughout your week and see what stirs up in you. We would love to share a written reflection with you, along with some prompts we lovingly call Gracercises. You can access these on our website, storiesandotherthingsholycom. There, you can also sign up for our newsletter. With the newsletter, you'll receive a weekly email with links to that week's episode, as well as the reflection and the prompts that go with that week's story. This allows you to have the fullest experience of the podcast. We also encourage you to share Stories and Other Things Holy with your friends, loved ones and chosen families. From both Terry and myself, thank you for joining us for Stories and Other Things Holy. Thank you.