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Theology of the Body
with Christopher West
How might our bodies be an icon of the divine?
Might it be possible, that by becoming more embodied--more at home in our skin and sinews--that we might become more divine?
Theology of the Body is a revolutionary way of looking at our bodies, our sexuality, and our longings. Christopher West, founder of the Theology of the Body Institute, bestselling author, and serious Bruce Springsteen fan - is the leading teacher on the topic.
Today we’ll explore how our existential longings (one might call it our spiritual wanderlust??) intersect with our erotic longings, and how to interpret where they’re leading us.
To learn more about Christopher and his work, visit www.tobinstitute.org.
00;00;07;03 - 00;00;31;14
Kelly Deutsch
Welcome to Spiritual Wanderlust, where we explore our interior life in search of the sacred. Many of us will travel the whole world to find ourselves but here will follow those longings within to our spiritual and emotional landscapes. In each episode, we'll talk with inspiring guests, contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, neuropsychologists and mystics with a blend.
00;00;31;14 - 00;00;35;27
Kelly Deutsch
Of ancient wisdom and modern science, along with a healthy dash of mischief.
00;00;36;10 - 00;00;43;14
Kelly Deutsch
Will deep dove into divine intimacy and what it means to behold. I'm your host, Kelly Deutsch.
00;00;54;26 - 00;01;15;02
Kelly Deutsch
Hi, everyone. Welcome to Spiritual Wanderlust. My name is Kelly Deutsch, and today I'm joined by Christopher West, who is a teacher and bestselling author on Theology of the Body. Now, if you've heard of Theology The Body and you're in the U.S., you likely have Christopher to thank for it. If you haven't heard of it, you're in for a treat.
00;01;15;13 - 00;01;40;20
Kelly Deutsch
It's a whole new way of speaking about the meaning of sexuality. Our longings and how our very bodies reveal the divine. And speaking of, I feel like that's how our paths intersected from the beginning was really talking about that that deep longing that we all have. And I don't know, perhaps some of us have it more acutely or just experience it more acutely.
00;01;41;11 - 00;02;00;09
Kelly Deutsch
And that's been such a delight for me personally, being able to discover that that longing has its roots in the divine. And how many of the mystics talk about that. And I'm curious if you would like to share a little bit of your story first, how you encounter that ache and how that also intertwined with perhaps the contemplative past.
00;02;00;29 - 00;02;27;00
Christopher West
Yeah, those are great questions. We could go on for hours and hours. I usually encourage my students if they're having trouble getting in touch with what I call the ache, the longing. I encourage them to look back on the things from their childhood that that they loved A favorite song, a favorite place in nature, a favorite tree that they climbed.
00;02;27;01 - 00;02;55;03
Christopher West
A favorite meal that they had a pet. Pets, remarkably, get us in touch with our deepest longings. And a lot of us, myself included, have a lot of wounds around those things. Because we have these longings, they get awakened, and then rarely do they get satisfyingly fulfilled. And so we're left in pain. We're left disillusioned. We're left disappointed.
00;02;55;20 - 00;03;21;18
Christopher West
But as I look back at my own life, there were certain definite moments where I was like, Oh, man, what is this inside of me? And one of the ones I often tell the story is I was eight years old. I was lying in my bed, and Bruce Springsteen comes on the radio. This is the seventies, and he was singing his seventies anthem, Born to Run.
00;03;22;23 - 00;03;51;12
Christopher West
And this this song, Kelly has been like a prophet. Sea of my whole life. No one, he wants to get to this place and he's run and run and run and to get there. And he wants to get there with the girl named Wendy. Little did I know. 17 years later, I would marry a girl named Wendy. I mean, yeah, it's crazy.
00;03;51;12 - 00;04;22;23
Christopher West
And at one point, he says to Wendy in the song, he says, Sun Girl, I don't know when we're going to get to that place where we really want to go. And we'll walk in the sun. Hey, what an image. And then he says, But till then, tramps like us, baby. We were born to run. At this point, he cracks open his rib cage and he lets this cosmic cry come out of his heart.
00;04;22;23 - 00;04;58;05
Christopher West
And if you'll permit me, it it went something like this. Whoa. Hmm. Whoa, whoa. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm lying in my bed again. I'm eight years old, and and something ginormous just rumbles through me. It's like the ceiling split open in my bedroom. I'm staring into the mystery of the universe. And God falls out of the sky.
00;04;59;05 - 00;05;39;28
Christopher West
I didn't know what the heck had happened to me, but I did know this. Whatever Springsteen wanted, I wanted it to. And one of the tragedies of my my upbringing, one of the sad aspects of being raised in the Catholic Church in the seventies and eighties was nobody and I mean, nobody connected the dots for me between that ache that got awakened in my heart listening to Springsteen or the ache that got awakened in my heart when after a few years of waning, like literally since kindergarten, I was waiting, waiting, waiting to sit next to Stacy Reed.
00;05;40;20 - 00;05;54;18
Christopher West
And finally the nuns rearranged the classroom so that Stacy Reed was right beside me. And if if the window was open in the back of the classroom and the breeze came in just right, I could smell her hair.
00;05;56;25 - 00;05;58;29
Kelly Deutsch
I really hope Stacy Reed is listening to this.
00;06;01;23 - 00;06;38;00
Christopher West
And these things, these experiences would awaken this aching me. But but nobody connected the dots with that ache. And what I was learning in religion class, which I could summarize with one word, boring. I've come up with this metaphor. I say I was raised on what you might call the starvation diet version of of religion. And then my religion as a young person and a teenager, was what I call the fast food version, which is the secular culture's promise of immediate gratification for my hunger.
00;06;38;21 - 00;07;00;09
Christopher West
And I always say to religious folk, I say, do not lie to me. The fast food tastes really good going down, especially if you're somebody like me who's really hungry Really? If the two choices for my hunger, if the only two choices are starvation on the one hand and fast food on the other, I don't care what I learned growing up.
00;07;00;28 - 00;07;30;04
Christopher West
You know, fast food is bad. Don't don't eat it. Don't do it. The thou shalt not only last so long and then the hunger gets to be so overwhelming that you don't care anymore. And you you grasp it, whatever you can grasp it to try to satisfy that hunger. And it does taste good going down but you know, to go with the metaphor, the analogy, if fast food becomes your steady diet, eventually the grease and the sodium, so to speak, is going to catch up with you.
00;07;30;05 - 00;07;33;01
Christopher West
And that's kind of a picture of me in my college years.
00;07;35;03 - 00;07;42;05
Christopher West
But the ache never went away. The ache never went away. It just compelled me to keep searching for something more.
00;07;42;19 - 00;07;43;21
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. And I feel like I'm.
00;07;43;21 - 00;07;44;08
Christopher West
Still on this.
00;07;44;08 - 00;08;06;24
Kelly Deutsch
Search of so many people, you know, especially followers here who grew up in some form of religion that just didn't didn't connect with that spark, that ache. That's something that they encountered. And I love that, you know, your first memory that you share about that, it has to do with beauty, because I think that's something that's so easily awakes awakens that within us.
00;08;07;03 - 00;08;24;22
Kelly Deutsch
And I'm so convinced that we're living in an age of beauty that for so long, the church religion has tried like true truth, truth and like shoving it down our throats. And while truth is important, its beauty just has a way of sneaking in the back door Yeah.
00;08;25;09 - 00;08;45;20
Christopher West
Totally agreed. I would. I love the way you said it, and I totally agree. We're in an age where put it this way, if we don't realize that it's all about beauty, there's no there's no future for for religion. And I say, you know, you said there's been this emphasis on kind of shoving the truth down our throats.
00;08;46;02 - 00;09;33;14
Christopher West
Truth and beauty go together. And when we separate them, we end up scorning the truth. And I say haunting the beauty. And great truth is beautiful. When truth is presented in a dry, doctrinaire, boring way. We rightly rebelled against it because the heart is made for the beauty of the truth. And then we go chasing after beauty. But when we divorce beauty from the truth, when we get truth phobic, because truth has been presented in a dry, doctrinaire, oppressive, even tyrannical way, we rightly rebelled against that.
00;09;34;08 - 00;10;02;17
Christopher West
But when we go in search of beauty, separated from the truth, we end up we end up pawning the beauty. And by that I mean zooming in on its very superficial understanding of beauty for a based kind of gratification. And both are both are destructive of our humanity. How do we rediscover the splendor, the beauty of the truth and and the truth of beauty?
00;10;02;20 - 00;10;03;26
Christopher West
They got they got to go together.
00;10;04;01 - 00;10;25;24
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it makes me think of neurobiology and left brain. Right brain. Like, if you're just left brain, you know, that's very analytical and straightforward. I want to be efficient and all of that. And it focuses on those facts and details and all of that. And right brain is much more open to mystery and paradox and being in the present moment and relationship and how much those two need each other need to be together.
00;10;25;24 - 00;10;53;18
Kelly Deutsch
And yeah, it's fascinating, though, for me how how that more right brains approach that's open to mystery is often what prompts us to look into some of these areas like the contemplative life and to deep dove into beauty or to ask the big questions. And that's what so many people struggle with is, hey, I ask these questions, but you know, these pat answers just aren't there for me.
00;10;54;00 - 00;11;25;07
Christopher West
Yes. You had asked me to connect some of my early experiences with getting in touch with that ache, with the contemplative life And I remember hearing a definition of prayer that just really resonated like the most beautiful chime of a glorious bell. Like, yes, yes. It's this. That prayer is nothing but becoming a longing for God. Mm hmm.
00;11;25;25 - 00;11;52;03
Christopher West
Becoming a longing for God. That's connecting the dots, right? Love it. Nobody taught me that. Growing up in Catholic schools in the seventies and eighties, prayer was prayer was where you put this pious mask on and tried to pretend everything's fine and good and and and, you know, say something rote and do it, you know, all that. I have nothing against rote prayer as far as it goes.
00;11;52;03 - 00;12;18;24
Christopher West
But if if we if you stay there, you're stifled. I'll never forget an experience I had. I was on a retreat this was 15 years ago or more. I was married about ten years at the time, and my wife and I were going through some really difficult growing pains. And I had this beautiful, mystical monsignor on this retreat who was leading me.
00;12;19;14 - 00;12;38;22
Christopher West
He was gosh, now he's in his nineties. So he was we would have been in his mid-seventies at the time. And he said he knew my wife well as well. And he said, Christopher the solution to the problems in your marriage is you need to learn how to pray. And I was like, Okay, what do you mean? What do you mean?
00;12;38;22 - 00;13;00;15
Christopher West
He said, Prayer, as St Augustine says, is an exercise of desire, and we need to get you in touch with your deepest desires. Christopher, you don't know how to pray because you're not in touch with your deep desires. And I thought to myself, Well, I kind of am in touch with my deep desires, but okay, I'm just going to follow along.
00;13;00;15 - 00;13;22;26
Christopher West
Whatever he says, I'm going to give you some exercises on this retreat to get you in touch with your deepest desires. And he says, You have to promise me one thing that you will not censor anything that gets stirred up in your heart as you go through these exercises. And I said, Okay, I had no idea, Kelly, what I was in store for over the next few days.
00;13;23;08 - 00;14;04;25
Christopher West
Over the next few hours, actually, I just started going through these exercises, getting me in touch with my desires. And sure enough, stuff started to well up from childhood unfulfilled desires. I was talking about pets earlier, and my parents got rid of my beloved dog when I was nine years old because it shat on the carpets. And this was like the biggest, I think was the biggest trauma of my childhood was just I come home from school one day and this dog I loved that would I'd be walking down the alley behind my house and I'd hear the dog barking and running out and its line would run out and would always do these backflips, you
00;14;04;25 - 00;14;33;00
Christopher West
know, because it was so happy to see me. And one day I come home for school and a dog doesn't come come running, come running out to greet me. And I find out my parents just got rid of the dog, like, gone and this this wound is coming up on this retreat and then other wounds of girls. I asked out that that said, no, we're unfulfilled yearnings and with all this unfulfilled yearning came rage.
00;14;34;01 - 00;15;05;01
Christopher West
And I mean, rage at God. And the monsignor had said, don't censor whatever comes up. So I said, okay, here we go. I'm just going to let what's coming up come out. And it it erupted like a volcano. And I remember saying, God, I get it. Why people hate you. I get it. Why people are atheists. You give us all these desires and we don't know what the hell to do with them.
00;15;05;09 - 00;15;36;13
Christopher West
And then you just seemingly leave us in this place of ache that we can't satisfy. I'm like, what the is that? Who do you think you are? I mean, it just came bubbling out. And with it, with that came a lot of, as they say, Catholic guilt, right? That I was saying all these things said God. And so I called up the priest in my Catholic guilt and I said I said, I got to go to confession right away.
00;15;37;06 - 00;16;01;11
Christopher West
And he said, Okay, come on over. And I said, you know, bless me, Father. It's been 3 hours since my last confession and I told him exactly what I said to God without the beeps as I related you. And I'm Kelly, I'll never forget what he said. And it changed my life. Changed my life. He said good prayer.
00;16;03;13 - 00;16;28;29
Christopher West
And I was like, excuse me. I thought he was going to say a good confession, but he said he's a good player. He said, that prayer, you're learning how to pray. You're getting in touch with your deepest desire to get naked before God. He says, you don't have to pray that you got naked before God. You have to pray that you're excuse me, you don't have to confess that you got naked before God.
00;16;29;07 - 00;17;03;27
Christopher West
He said, you have to confess that you haven't been naked before. God, you've been wearing these pious masks. When you go to pray, he says, now you're getting real. That's prayer. It changed my life. That was 15 years ago, and I'd say I've been on an ever deepening. You know, there peaks and valleys in all of it. But but if you look at the general curve, you go deeper, you go higher, you go more into the mystery room the transcendent mystery behind it all.
00;17;03;27 - 00;17;46;09
Christopher West
And you realize my ache is my connection with that transcendent mystery What I grew up thinking from my starvation diet approach to religion, I thought the ache was the enemy of religion. I thought the ache was the enemy that I had to squash or crush. No, no, no. It's my connection. Another favorite saying this comes from Pope Benedict, the 16th he says he says that burning ache in the heart of the human being is like a signature inscribed with fire by God himself That's my experience.
00;17;46;09 - 00;17;53;15
Christopher West
That's my connection. I find I find transcendence. I find the mystery in the ache. Mm hmm.
00;17;54;20 - 00;18;18;15
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. I'm struck, too, by that nakedness before God. Like, I love how John of the Cross talks about that because it's such a radical poverty where we have to let go of all that we think that we want or that we are or all that we're attached to, all that we think piety looks like, or holiness or being a good person or whatever term you want to use.
00;18;19;16 - 00;18;21;01
Kelly Deutsch
Oh, man. Letting go.
00;18;22;14 - 00;18;57;02
Christopher West
Yeah. John of the cross calls it denuding where we we are. We are stripped and we are we are staring at our poverty. And one of the great illuminations for me and my journey has been realizing that that poverty, that emptiness, that yearning, that ache has a name. It's called Eros. Yes. A Holy Eros. Discover ring. That was absolutely transformative for me.
00;18;58;12 - 00;19;29;02
Christopher West
I like to say that God gave us Eros erotic longing if you will. He gave us Eros to be like the the fuel of a rocket that has the the power to launch us to the transcendent Mr. Free behind it all. Sadly, you know, in our in our broken world, those rocket engines tend to be inverted and we go seeking the pleasures of this world to try to satisfy what what I would describe as an ache for the infinite.
00;19;30;07 - 00;19;59;20
Christopher West
And so I've come up with this little way of putting it. I say we have three choices with Eros. We will either become a stoic, repressed, repressed repress, an addict who aims the desire for the infinite at finite pleasures. And here I offer maybe a mystical definition or theological definition of of addiction rather than a psychological one. I would put it this way.
00;19;59;20 - 00;20;28;14
Christopher West
I would say we become addicted inasmuch as we aim our desire for infinite joy at finite pleasure. We go and we get that finite pleasure and it does give us some semblance of satisfaction or we wouldn't go there. But there's the principle of diminishing returns, right? We need more of the same to get the same satisfaction. So we go and we get more, and then we're left empty.
00;20;28;14 - 00;20;49;09
Christopher West
And then we go and we get more and we're left empty. We going to get more. That's addiction. Right? So we're either going to be with Eros, that yearning for the infinite. We're either going to be a stoic, an addict, or an aspiring mystic where we learn how to open it up right to the transcendent mystery. And that reminds me of something.
00;20;49;10 - 00;21;06;24
Christopher West
Hold on one sec. Sure. Pull something out of my my bag here. My daughter Beth, she's 17, and she's heard me talk this way before. And she drew this picture of these three choices. I hold it up for you here.
00;21;07;03 - 00;21;08;11
Kelly Deutsch
Oh, wow.
00;21;10;04 - 00;21;27;10
Christopher West
Yeah. So here, here's the stoic, repressed, repressed. Just hold it all back. Here's the addict. The addict opens it up, but aims it at the finite, whereas the aspiring mystic opens it up and aims it at the infinite. Oh, my.
00;21;27;10 - 00;21;36;21
Kelly Deutsch
Gosh. And I love that position. There is such a, like, embodied oh, gosh. Just opening, which helps me. Let's see.
00;21;37;05 - 00;22;04;14
Christopher West
And Saint Augustine says this guy is closer to the truth. Than this guy. You know, he says those who are lost in their passions are less lost than those who have lost their passions. Mm hmm. It makes sense because the first thing we got to get in touch with is that cry of the heart. This guy's this guy's not in touch with it.
00;22;05;05 - 00;22;15;27
Christopher West
This guy's in touch with it. He's just aiming it in the wrong direction. Right? So we need to learn how to become a longing for God. That's contemplative prayer.
00;22;16;23 - 00;22;17;18
Kelly Deutsch
That's juicy.
00;22;18;10 - 00;22;21;19
Christopher West
It is juicy. It's full of all kinds of mystical nectar.
00;22;22;02 - 00;22;30;01
Kelly Deutsch
And love it what would you say is your favorite way to pray presently? Like, what does prayer time look like for you?
00;22;30;04 - 00;23;06;07
Christopher West
Well, my daily routine is I will do some I'll begin with some form of spiritual reading. I'm reading a book right now so I can grab it I always begin with my spiritual reading. Sorry for the delay from I'm reading this book right now, which I would highly recommend called The Relevance of the Stars by Lorenzo Albacete. He was a professor of mine and a mentor to me over 20 years in my life.
00;23;06;25 - 00;23;36;08
Christopher West
He died in 2014. But this is a collection that just came out of of miscellaneous writings of his and what he means when he says the relevance of the stars. He I'll never forget this scene and this will bring me back around to my daily prayer. But he said I'm sitting in his classroom this was 25 years ago and he told us a story that he got from a poem by Garcia Lorca.
00;23;37;03 - 00;24;02;16
Christopher West
And the poem is called something like the the the story of the adventures of a snail or something I forget the exact title and the snail is going through the woods asking frogs and other creatures the meaning of life and eventually the snail comes upon this colony of ants, and the ants are beating mercifully, mercilessly. One of their own.
00;24;03;16 - 00;24;39;04
Christopher West
And the snail says, What's going on? What's going on in the ant? Who's being beaten? Says, I've seen the stars I've seen the stars. And then you get the back story that this ant had stepped out of line. You know, the worker ants, they're all about production. This worker ant had stepped out of lined line and climbed a tall tree and for the first time gazed at a million bright eyes, staring back at it and was filled with absolute wonder at the transcendent mystery of the universe.
00;24;39;23 - 00;25;03;21
Christopher West
And this aren't very happily and excitedly comes back down the tree to tell all his other ants, to tell all the other ants. I've seen the stars like seeing the stars and the worker ants just beat up this ant mercilessly because he had stepped out of line. And Alvin said a visitor uses this as as a way of cracking open.
00;25;04;14 - 00;25;46;26
Christopher West
The society we live in today, which it's all about production. It's all about do this produce, produce, produce. And we've lost sight of the stars. We've lost sight of of the contemplative, all in wonder at the transcendent mystery behind the universe. And one of the things that our visitor used to say that has just stayed with me for years, he says religion is either the reasonable quest for the satisfaction of the deepest longings of the heart, or it is a dangerous divisive, harmful waste of time and can I get an amen?
00;25;46;29 - 00;25;47;17
Kelly Deutsch
Amen.
00;25;50;05 - 00;26;17;22
Christopher West
That's it. That's what it is. So, yeah, spiritual reading, all all that to say spiritual reading is how I start my daily prayer then I go into reading of the scriptures and then it's just quiet listening, quiet listening. What's going on in my heart? What got stirred in the readings? What got stirred in in something's going on in my family.
00;26;17;22 - 00;26;55;11
Christopher West
Something going on in my work. I had a I'll share this interesting experience I've been watching a lot of Elvis documentaries lately, and I'm fascinated by the history of the 20th century and particularly the sexual revolution, because the sexual revolution was when the culture went from this to this. That's what happened, right, with 100 years ago. It was scandalous if you saw a woman's ankle right?
00;26;56;03 - 00;27;20;11
Christopher West
We don't want to return to that with this. That was that was that prudish, fearful, stoic approach to things. It's not healthy. It's what caused the explosion. But we aimed it sadly. We aimed it in the wrong direction. My my work, the work that I do is I want to help people who are stuck here, not to go here, but to go here.
00;27;21;10 - 00;27;55;10
Christopher West
And I want to help people who are stuck here to go here as well. And I study I love studying those forces that were at work in unleashing the passion of the sexual revolution. And Elvis is one of them. And and so I've been watching these documentaries about Elvis and if I were to write a book about Elvis, it would be called Elvis and the release of Passions or Elvis and the release of the Cultures, Passions or something.
00;27;55;25 - 00;28;36;06
Christopher West
People went crazy for Elvis. Yeah, crazy for Elvis. And he was he was the first one who in fact, in one of these documentaries, one of these documentaries, one of the people interviewed said something like, Elvis just had the courage to let come out of his body. What most people at the time were just bottling up. And Springsteen gave this commentary in one of the documentaries I watched about how when Elvis opened up his passions, it's what inspired Springsteen.
00;28;36;06 - 00;29;02;22
Christopher West
So Springsteen then inspired me. So I'm kind of like Elvis grandson. Here. Yeah, again, again, my, my. When I aimed my passions this way, it just caused a lot of pain and misery. It brought in immediate gratification, right? That's why I call it fast food. But but I want to help. What? Elvis awakened in the culture. I want to help it to go that direction.
00;29;03;01 - 00;29;33;19
Christopher West
And so I was watching this documentary a couple of nights ago. All of this is to answer the question about my prayer life. And and Elvis. Elvis went into a lot of debauchery, and this documentary kind of unfolded some of that, you know, the sexual liaisons backstage every night. And it became it became really destructive, I mean, until his death.
00;29;35;12 - 00;30;03;06
Christopher West
Isn't it interesting? All these people we idolize and and they become such rock stars either literally the rock star like Elvis or whoever is famous that we idolize, how often they're that that leads to destruction. And Elvis is a great example of that. And so I was really disturbed in my heart. This is a couple of days ago, having watched this documentary about I have a great admiration for Elvis.
00;30;03;06 - 00;30;26;03
Christopher West
I love his art. I love the way he he used his body on stage. He conducted he conducted the whole orchestra behind him with his body, like the you know, a conductor will use his little wand. But Elvis is one was his whole body. Right. And he was a hunk of the burning love. Right. But it led to debauchery.
00;30;26;03 - 00;30;46;14
Christopher West
It led to destruction in so many lives. And so I'm sitting with this in my prayer time. This is just two days ago. And and I kind of took my own advice, which was just be in touch with your heart, what's really going on in your heart. And I said, okay, Lord, this is what's really going on in my heart.
00;30;46;14 - 00;31;14;07
Christopher West
I am I am really confused and disturbed by the debauchery in Elvis's life when I admire this guy so much for the gift of his art. And I heard these words that, yeah, Elvis may have been the king, but but I'm the king of kings and what people are really looking for. Elvis unleashed this passion through his body.
00;31;14;14 - 00;31;55;03
Christopher West
And here I'm just sharing from my own Christian perspective that that the body that we're really looking for, that unleashes unleashes our passions, I would say, as a Christian, is the body of Christ. Christ talked about the power that went out from his body. Power went out from his body. I mean, you watch these concerts with Elvis from Hawaii, like the Aloha concert in 1973, and he's singing You Give Me Fever and he and he, he moves his shoulder in this wave of passion, gets unleashed throughout the crowd and you hear the women just screaming, their passions are getting awakened.
00;31;55;26 - 00;32;25;15
Christopher West
But I would say if they aim their passion back at Elvis, that's going to lead to an addiction and destruction. But there's one greater than Elvis here now I would say, right, there's the king Elvis but then there's the King of Kings I would say the Christ, the mystery, the transcendent mystery we're all looking for took flesh and through that body he when he moves his body, it awakens our passions.
00;32;26;03 - 00;32;49;00
Christopher West
And here's a body that we can aim our passions at that doesn't lead to debauchery and destruction. It leads to mystical union, leads to the ecstasy of Saint Teresa, of Avila. It leads to the the excesses of Saint John, of the Cross and all the others. We can name so I would say I came to understand the gospel better by studying Elvis.
00;32;50;10 - 00;33;13;08
Christopher West
And that's that's like taking taking. Remember those Plato machines? You put the Plato in it and you squeeze it out and it come out in another shape. Like I put the Elvis Plato in the in the contemplative prayer machine, and it comes out as praise of God, of God. That's what happened. Like I hope that makes some sense.
00;33;13;08 - 00;33;21;09
Christopher West
I don't know if I sound like a nutcase or not, but that's a little that's a little window into the prayer life of Christopher West. How about that? You go hmm.
00;33;21;21 - 00;33;27;08
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. It's amazing the different things that can be an entry point. Yes, it's.
00;33;27;17 - 00;33;30;01
Christopher West
Everything. Anything can be an entry point.
00;33;30;06 - 00;33;46;16
Kelly Deutsch
And that's what I love about Christianity. You know, I feel like in our tradition, growing up Catholic, we might just call that sacramental anti or the incarnation. I've heard a lot of people calling that pantheism I'm like a God in all things and all things in God, which I think is a great way or great shorthand for it.
00;33;46;25 - 00;34;08;23
Kelly Deutsch
But it's such a beautiful thing that unfortunately I think a lot of fundamentalist forms of Christianity and even other religions miss out on that embodied reality of of all of creation and how each of those are portals not just, you know, you don't just need an icon to pray with as, you know, something to open you into the infinite or, you know, your prayer beads or whatever it is.
00;34;08;23 - 00;34;18;28
Kelly Deutsch
It's like, oh, man, and so many people know that and intuit that just get out in nature. And it's like, oh my gosh, your whole soul burst open and oh yeah.
00;34;19;10 - 00;34;56;12
Christopher West
Our nation is real. Kelly, if it's real, if the transcendent mystery behind everything, what in the Greek language they call the logos right the logic behind everything, the meaning behind everything, the purpose behind everything. If that logos, if that transcendent mystery and purpose really took flesh, really entered this physical world, then there are traces of the logos in everything, in every piece in the bottom of your cup of coffee.
00;34;56;23 - 00;35;22;20
Christopher West
If you Albacete I used to say, what is it that awakens your heart? Pressed into it, pressed the whole way into it, and you'll find the logos what what excites you? What makes you interested? What makes you awake? What makes you alive? You know, I know Elvis was of interest to me, and I kept pressing in. I kept pressing in.
00;35;22;29 - 00;35;47;28
Christopher West
And what did I discover? The logos. That's what I discovered. The logos in the flesh. That's what I discovered. Hmm. What excites you? What delights you? Is is it carpentry? Is it gardening? Is it are you like a connoisseur of fine wine or good beer or good coffee? Do you love music? Do you love film? Do you love a hike in nature?
00;35;48;16 - 00;36;14;14
Christopher West
Well, hike the whole way in. Get to the bottom of that beer. Press into why you loved that movie and it made you cry. Whatever it is, you're going to find the logos and that in that encounter of of of the logos in everything as you said, in the Catholic tradition, we call that sacrament mentality. And what was the word you used?
00;36;14;16 - 00;36;29;27
Christopher West
Pantheism God in and everything to be distinguished from pantheism which is everything is God right? I like that word. Pantheism God in everything yeah. That's a sacramental polity, right?
00;36;30;03 - 00;36;43;23
Kelly Deutsch
And I think that's really what everybody I hear a lot of people talking about the universal Christ, and that really is the logos, right? The second person of the Trinity, if you will, the, the meaning that existed before the name Jesus was stuck on him.
00;36;43;23 - 00;37;10;20
Christopher West
But the universal Christ is redundant if you know who Christ is, at least if Christ is who He claimed to be. And the universal Christ is redundant. And the fact that we have to add that qualifier on to it demonstrates that we've lost sight of who Christ really is, at least who He claimed to be. He claimed to be the transcendent mystery.
00;37;11;06 - 00;37;13;09
Christopher West
He claimed to be the logos.
00;37;13;13 - 00;37;14;10
Kelly Deutsch
Which is mind blowing.
00;37;15;02 - 00;37;42;12
Christopher West
If it's if it's real, if it's real, it changes everything. It means we don't have to. I mean, religion is often in the general sense of the word. Religion is often thought to be fleeing or issuing the flesh to reach the transcendent. Well, it's the logo. If Christ is the logos and he really took flesh, well, that reverses the whole thing.
00;37;42;12 - 00;37;57;27
Christopher West
It's God's coming in our direction. We don't have to escape the body to reach God. God took on a body to reach us. And if we're trying to divorce ourselves from our bodies, we are running away from the logos in the flesh.
00;37;58;01 - 00;38;14;14
Kelly Deutsch
Who's always been here, you know, that's such. Yeah, such a lovely thing. And I it's I know that's what so many people intuit, and that's one of the reasons why we leave behind sometimes those more rigid forms of religion that some people were raised in.
00;38;14;27 - 00;38;15;27
Christopher West
Their family.
00;38;16;01 - 00;38;27;07
Kelly Deutsch
I find God at the bottom of my beard, you know, and I found God. I mean, my gosh, how many people have you spoken with that, you know, in some, like, profound sexual encounter? I've had this, like.
00;38;27;25 - 00;39;04;00
Christopher West
Profound experience with the transcendent mystery. Yeah. Yeah. If we're if we really enter in to what the Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians five, that's exactly what he says, that sex, the sexual embrace is meant to be an encounter with what he calls the mega mystery. Oh, I wish they had told me that in Catholic schools. Right. I wish they had connected the dots between the mega mystery and what I was experiencing when Stacy Reed finally sat next to me.
00;39;04;22 - 00;39;26;22
Christopher West
Instead, I went to porn. Yeah, right. I took my hunger, my arrows. I took it to the fast food I maybe I would have been spared a hell of a lot of trouble and heartache if if if the nuns in grade school had been more like Teresa Vavilov. Mm yeah, I know.
00;39;26;22 - 00;39;47;26
Kelly Deutsch
I can think of when I was studying in Rome. Unfortunately, there's still plenty of celibate, whether priests or religious, who who live from the head up and aren't really in touch with their body. But I remember there was this one sister that I studied, Westerners, Franciscan. Her name was wherever. And Eva was just so profoundly in her body.
00;39;48;04 - 00;40;06;14
Kelly Deutsch
It was just so beautiful to be in her presence. I was just like, Sorry, we need more of you in the world. And I'm curious who sticks out to you in life that just gives that profound sense of being settled in their own skin, inhabiting their body?
00;40;07;03 - 00;40;17;00
Christopher West
Yes. Yes. Well, since we're talking about nuns, the one who comes to mind is do you remember Sister Wendy the art crew.
00;40;17;01 - 00;40;17;16
Kelly Deutsch
Yes.
00;40;17;28 - 00;40;41;16
Christopher West
Who was on PBS years ago. Mm hmm. I love this nun. And she is what I would call in the words of Jesus. She was one of the wise virgins. Right. This is a very important distinction. Jesus says there are wise virgins and their unwise virgins and the unwise virgins have no oil for their lands. Right. Their hearts are cold.
00;40;41;26 - 00;41;06;00
Christopher West
Their hearts are burnt out. And then there are the wise virgins who have plenty of oil for their lamps. Their hearts are on fire. And it sounds like this woman you knew was one of those. Well, well, Sister Wendy was one of those for me. I was in my, I don't know, early twenties. I'm channel surfing. This is the early nineties I'm channel surfing.
00;41;06;29 - 00;41;36;27
Christopher West
I had never seen her before. There she is an awful habit. She had these kind of buckteeth and and she standing what caught my eye, what she standing in front of a female nude painting and she says the first words I hear out of her mouth, she's zooming in on this woman's pubic area. And she says, she says, look at the beautiful, beautiful part of her pubic hair and I thought, whoa, she's been none.
00;41;36;27 - 00;41;45;04
Christopher West
What? This is a different version of a Catholic nun than I've ever encountered in my life. And it's.
00;41;45;04 - 00;41;45;25
Kelly Deutsch
Amazing.
00;41;46;03 - 00;42;14;21
Christopher West
I became a fan of Sister Wendy, and I would watch Sister Wendy, and I learned so much from Sister Wendy. She was totally at peace with the naked body. She was totally at peace in her own body. She and she she exuded that and she she shared the meg, a mystery that's revealed through the human body. And I remember this interview with Sister Wendy.
00;42;14;21 - 00;42;51;27
Christopher West
In fact, I show it to my students. It is, again, probably mid nineties that it was filmed where the interviewer, I forget his name but everybody would recognize him if you watched, you know, network news in the nineties. He said, who are you who are you, a consecrated virgin to tell us about the meaning of the body and sexuality and and she says so beautifully she says, well, I believe in God, you know, and God is the creator of the naked, beautiful body.
00;42;53;00 - 00;43;24;11
Christopher West
If I'm in touch with God, I'm in touch with how beautiful the naked body is is liberation. Liberation you know, and not in a pornographic way, not in a salacious way. She says nudity in art is meant to convey the transcendent Mr. Reed. This is very different from pornography, which is something base. This lets you to the heights so beautiful so free, so healing.
00;43;25;16 - 00;43;39;24
Kelly Deutsch
It's I mean, it's so funny when you say that how common sense it is, but also how radical it is for so many of us like, oh my gosh, how come I never learn this ever, you know? And it's taking us so much longer.
00;43;41;04 - 00;43;51;00
Christopher West
We think there are only two choices, right? Repress it or indulge in a pornographic version of things. There's another way. There's another way.
00;43;51;09 - 00;44;09;03
Kelly Deutsch
I know. And I feel like that's really what I want to dedicate my life to, is really being able to share this beautiful heart at the core of Christianity and really at the core of every religion that has this mystical center of like, hey, we're called to divine union, you know, like.
00;44;10;18 - 00;44;45;01
Christopher West
Yeah, yeah. And here, you know, when the psalmist says, the Lord is my shepherd, there's nothing I shall want. It is not the erasing of the want, right? It's the super abundant fulfillment of the want, right? And here I think we do need to make some distinctions that there are some religions, either the kind of repressive brand of Christianity or some Eastern religions that think that the solution to the eight is to try to erase it.
00;44;46;00 - 00;45;29;23
Christopher West
The Christian proposal, authentic Christianity is very different it's not in a racing of the ache. It's an opening of the egg to a super abundant fulfillment x z beyond our wildest imaginings. What the mystics stammering to put a language to it would say it's it's nuptial union with love eternal. And that reminds me of a great story of a modern mystic, a Carmelite nun who was was giving a lecture to an audience and she was trying to put into words her experience of of union with eternal love.
00;45;31;00 - 00;46;01;17
Christopher West
And an agnostic psychologist comes up to her after the talk and she and he says to her you are sick what you really want is sex but you're disguising your desire for sex with all this ridiculous talk about union with God. And she responded very clearly, very firmly. She said, oh, no, I beg to differ. What the world really wants is union with God.
00;46;02;06 - 00;46;37;21
Christopher West
But it's disguising that desire with all this ridiculous sex who was great if there is no transcendent mystery, well, then the agnostic psychologist was right. But if there is a transcendent mystery and that transcendent mystery has come down to our level to bring us up into the transcendent mystery of infinite bliss, Well, then that Carmelite nun was right, and we all have to decide where we stand.
00;46;37;21 - 00;47;01;26
Christopher West
You know, we can't. There's no point shoving that down somebody's throat. We all have to go on our own journey into the ache and be honest about what's the shape of the ache. Let's be honest about that. Is is there's put it this way, if there is something in this world, in this world that can satisfy that ache, some body, please let me know.
00;47;03;00 - 00;47;26;12
Christopher West
Because I've tried everything and I've gotten to the point of of trying to be more honest with myself and saying I think there's something here in my experience that nothing in this world can satisfy. Yeah. And C.S. Lewis says, if that's the case, then it only makes sense that we're made for a transcendent world. Yeah.
00;47;26;27 - 00;47;41;02
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, like, I love how there are so many of these, well, portals, if you will, but really, you could call them small as sacraments. That's exactly what sex is, right? I mean, that's what it's like here.
00;47;41;16 - 00;47;46;27
Christopher West
But not only in the Catholic tradition. It's not only small is right.
00;47;47;18 - 00;47;48;17
Kelly Deutsch
It is the sacrament.
00;47;49;08 - 00;48;01;15
Christopher West
Married marriage is the union of the two becoming one. Flesh is a sacrament in the Catholic Church. Mm. Oh, that should open a nice mate. Maybe it's not all about repression after all. Yeah.
00;48;01;16 - 00;48;04;21
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, it's just such a shame that this is such a well-kept secret.
00;48;04;21 - 00;48;39;14
Christopher West
But no, I know the mega mystery. Nobody knows and when we don't know the mega mystery of our sexuality and we don't know how to to open our sexuality in this way, we do an either this or this. And both of these take us in the direction of what I call the mega misery of sexuality. Yeah. But there's also hope here, and my own life is kind of this trajectory I was raised on that starvation approach repress, repress, repress.
00;48;39;25 - 00;49;03;14
Christopher West
I spent years in the fast food approach. Indulge, indulge, indulge. But that led me to a place of so much pain and dysfunction in my life that I cried out and said, there's got to be more. And I kept looking and I discovered this teaching by this crazy Polish guy known to the world as John Paul, a second called The Theology of the Body.
00;49;04;07 - 00;49;26;00
Christopher West
And I learned from him that Christianity is not a starvation diet. It's an invitation to a wedding feast, a wedding feast that corresponds to the hunger man if that's real, then I think the world wants to know about it. And I think I have the best job in the world. I just get to tell hungry people that there's a banquet.
00;49;26;13 - 00;49;28;06
Christopher West
Mm mm mm.
00;49;28;23 - 00;49;31;24
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of people are hungry for that.
00;49;33;08 - 00;50;04;05
Christopher West
Starved. We're starved. Yeah. And the classic parable here to illustrate this point is the prodigal son. Right. What? What caused the prodigal son to leave the father's house? His hunger, his passion? What caused him to come back? The very same thing. And then there's this older brother who was not in touch with his passion. And being in the father's house to him was just about following all the rules.
00;50;05;14 - 00;50;38;07
Christopher West
And the tragedy. The tragedy. We have to remember the parable. It says, Jesus addressed this parable to the Pharisees the parable is not so much about the son who left and came back. All is well that ends well, right? The parable is about the older brother who refused to enter the party. He refused to enter the celebration because he had reduced living in the father's house to following a bunch of rules.
00;50;39;07 - 00;51;11;15
Christopher West
The father says, Everything I have is yours. Won't you come celebrate? He didn't enter the party. That's the tragedy. Yeah. I think the whole culture is is, you know, the culture of the sexual revolution. Is the the son who leaves the father's house but gets to the bottom of the barrel and eventually returns. Right. I think we're close to the bottom of the barrel, and I think we're going to see a mass return.
00;51;12;04 - 00;51;34;26
Christopher West
But this is where you're exactly right, Kelly. We're not going to return to to truth shoved down our throat as a list of rules. We're only going to return if people can witness to the beauty of the truth, the truth that sets us free, the truth that there is a banquet that corresponds to the hunger. And we don't have to eat the food of the pigs.
00;51;35;21 - 00;51;43;00
Christopher West
Our father has a banquet, a celebration ready for us if we would trust in his love. Mm hmm.
00;51;45;12 - 00;51;55;19
Kelly Deutsch
One question that occurs to me, I know we're almost talking an hour here, but one thing that I'd love to hear your thoughts on is when people.
00;51;55;19 - 00;51;56;07
Christopher West
Are.
00;51;57;13 - 00;52;14;25
Kelly Deutsch
So acutely aware that they're disembodied, you know, like, sometimes, I mean, incredibly so like, I can't sense things in my body What do you recommend to people? Whether it's an embodied practice or anything else.
00;52;15;02 - 00;52;16;05
Christopher West
You help to.
00;52;16;05 - 00;52;18;12
Kelly Deutsch
Help us feel more settled in our own skin.
00;52;19;21 - 00;52;28;17
Christopher West
It's a great question. Kelly, thank you for posing it. This is one of my favorite interviews I've ever done, by the way. That's great.
00;52;32;02 - 00;52;40;07
Christopher West
I'm reminded of what Teresa of Avila said. She said, If you want to learn how to pray, get in touch with your senses.
00;52;42;18 - 00;53;14;18
Christopher West
And I would say there is certainly a time in your life where your senses were alive. Was it the fragrance of a flower? Was it the deliciousness of a favorite dessert? Was it a piece of music? Was it a hike on a mountain or a desert? Trail? There was a time in your life. Was it salt air at the ocean?
00;53;15;08 - 00;53;44;04
Christopher West
There was a time in your life where your senses were alive. I would say, and this would be in the spirit of Saint Ignatius repetition. Great. Return to that. Go repeat that. Go to the ocean and breathe in the salt air and and let yourself feel it and smell it in Taste it on your tongue. Treat yourself to.
00;53;44;05 - 00;54;12;09
Christopher West
To good food. Treat yourself to good music. Treat yourself to good art. In my life, art and nature are the things that awaken me more than anything. And we can, in a kind of guilt, trippy way, think those are luxuries. They're not luxuries. They are necessities for us to be fully alive.
00;54;14;15 - 00;54;52;13
Christopher West
What was a movie that moved you as a child? Go watch that movie again. What was your fate? These are assignments, actually, I give to my students. I told my students What was your first favorite song? And I say, Go listen to it again. And the students come back to me and they report true to mystical encounters by revisiting favorite songs from their childhood, favorite movies from their childhood when when art comes alive in our lives, it's a sign of the movement of the spirit, no doubt in my mind.
00;54;52;21 - 00;54;53;19
Christopher West
Mm hmm.
00;54;53;26 - 00;55;08;06
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. I was going to say it's easy to want to try to I'm sure you've done this as well. If you had a profound experience in prayer and you try to recreate the circumstances, like, okay, I'm sitting like this. I was reading this book and doing the thing. Okay, now ready? Go. Your turn. God, you.
00;55;09;12 - 00;55;09;17
Christopher West
Do.
00;55;09;17 - 00;55;33;27
Kelly Deutsch
That thing that you did again, you know, and but it is amazing. How, when we open ourselves to the mystery, I especially like you were saying in arts and in nature, I just find wonder such a perfect shortcut to contemplation because it steps you of all words. Like you're not thinking through things, you're not analyzing a text, you're not like trying to remember your mantra you know, it's just like.
00;55;39;03 - 00;56;01;13
Christopher West
In the stillness. The encounter happens in the stillness. And I, I, I'm reminded of an analogy I once heard which illustrates your very point about how we try to recreate the experience. And we can do that to a certain point. And we're meant to get ourselves in the right disposition. But eventually we at the end the final analysis, we can't grasp at the experience.
00;56;01;20 - 00;56;18;01
Christopher West
It's a given. It's something that's given as a gift. We can only receive it as a gift. And here's the analogy. I think it's helped me tremendously. It's a surfing analogy. If you want to go surfing, you have to get the surfboard. You have to put it on your car. You have to drive to the beach. You have to get your wetsuit on.
00;56;18;05 - 00;56;58;19
Christopher West
You have to paddle out into the waves. You have to be there. But the wave is not in your control or you have to wait for the wave to come. And sometimes you wait and you wait and you wait. And you wait. And all the mystics talk about this. They say that that the mystery behind it all allows the waiting in order to stretch our longing so that we have the capacity to see, to receive the infinity, that the mystery wants to share with us, you know, when the wave comes.
00;56;58;20 - 00;57;19;28
Christopher West
Wait, wait, wait, wait for it. Wait when it comes. Ride that sucker the whole way to shore. Mm hmm. But getting it. Getting in the disposition. You know, your favorite movie, your favorite song, whatever. That that gets us in the place. That gets us in the disposition of wonder, as you said. Kelly Mm hmm.
00;57;20;02 - 00;57;44;04
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. I'm going to say, I use that surfing analogy and spiritual wanderlust. Like, I love that analogy. And I don't. And that's one of the reasons why I do recommend any of these things. Like what connects you to the divine? What makes you feel grounded or alive? Because I think so. Many times we want to just stick with the method, you know, like, okay, just focus on my breath or I'm going to pray my rosary or I'm going to do the mantra or whatever it is.
00;57;44;12 - 00;57;48;24
Kelly Deutsch
But it's like the method isn't the point. The method just helps you get on the surfboard.
00;57;49;09 - 00;58;16;14
Christopher West
Use the method only inasmuch as it helps you ride the wave. If you cling to the method there's the danger that you're going to miss the wave. Yeah. And that's that's a that's a that's what I was trying to say earlier about rote prayers. And, you know, the way prayer was taught to me in Catholic school, the method got confused with the end, with the goal.
00;58;16;14 - 00;58;43;21
Christopher West
And when you, when you when you're only taught the method and you're not taught how that method is meant, to lead you to the goal, then, you know, as a Catholic something, the beads of the rosary is not the end goal. That's a means to enter contemplation. Right. And and I remember John Paul the second saying, if if you're praying the rosary and not entering into contemplation, then you're you're it's a dead prayer.
00;58;43;21 - 00;59;15;14
Christopher West
It's like a soul separated from the body, separated from the soul. It just becomes an outward mechanism. And there's the danger. He even said he said there's a danger that we'll hear the reply of Christ that you thought your prayers would be heard by the multiplication of words, right? No, we he's he says, use the method of praying the rosary to get you to contemplation but once you get into contemplation, it's fine to leave the method behind.
00;59;16;08 - 00;59;25;29
Christopher West
Right. Once you're in zero gravity, the rocket boosters fall away. Right? Right. You're there. Don't cling to the rocket boosters.
00;59;26;03 - 00;59;46;16
Kelly Deutsch
Right. Right. Exactly. And that's I think the other danger is that when we cling to those things, it it gives us this nice little ego boost like is such a good holy person. Look at me praying. Oh, cool. And pious like this. Look how wonderfully silent I am and able to pay attention to my breath, you know, whatever it is.
00;59;47;10 - 01;00;23;06
Christopher West
And that Ferris circle hypocrisy and self-righteousness is what Christ was most directly harsh about, right? That's what you know, he describes such people as whitewashed tombs. Yeah. Being on the outside, but but inside, they're full of dead men's bones and all kinds of filth. Yeah, it's it's a danger. It's a spiritual pride is a real danger. Yeah. Let us really be let us rather be just in touch with our poverty and say, Lord, I don't know how to pray.
01;00;23;06 - 01;00;24;10
Christopher West
Teach me how to pray.
01;00;24;20 - 01;00;39;19
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. My favorite image for the ego is the drunk uncle on the couch. Like, sometimes his head pops off the pillow and says really obnoxious things, but, I mean, you can't really get rid of him because he's family, but like, sometimes you just got to be like, oh, that's that's just our drunk.
01;00;39;19 - 01;00;40;24
Christopher West
That's my uncle. Yeah.
01;00;40;29 - 01;00;43;12
Kelly Deutsch
I don't worry about him.
01;00;43;29 - 01;01;16;25
Christopher West
Kelly, I want to say something to your listeners. Sure. About your book. Oh, when you had me, you gave me an advanced copy of your book to read. And when I read it, I thought, this is a sister of mine. This woman is in touch with the terrain of the human heart. And I just want to say to everybody out there right now, if you have yet to read Kelly's book about spiritual wanderlust, please treat yourself, take it up and give it a read it.
01;01;16;25 - 01;01;26;07
Christopher West
It will it helped me. Kelly. I felt I felt less alone in the world when I read your book. And I'm so grateful to you for that.
01;01;26;18 - 01;01;39;09
Kelly Deutsch
Thank you. That's very gracious. Of you. Now, before we close, is there anything that you would like to share either about yourself, what you do, or even where people can find out more about you?
01;01;41;01 - 01;02;08;29
Christopher West
Yeah, I, I would, I would invite people to consider as kind of a companion to spiritual wanderlust. My version of that book, which is called Fill These Hearts, God Sex and the Universal Longing and the whole book is really about these three options. Where do we take the ache? What do we do with it? If you're new to to my work, that would be a great place to start.
01;02;10;17 - 01;02;36;14
Christopher West
And I even quite kind of consider that the prequel to my book, which is called Theology of the Body for Beginners, the beginner's title, makes it sound like, Oh, that's a good place to start. But Fill These Hearts is the prequel to the Beginners book. My wife and I do a podcast called The Christopher West Show. You can get that wherever, podcasts, wherever you listen to your podcasts.
01;02;36;14 - 01;02;54;02
Christopher West
That would be something to check out. Or you can just go to theology, the body dot com and check out the website of the theology, The Body Institute, of which I'm the president and you can learn about the courses we offer online and in-person. And yeah, it's just a place to start exploring.
01;02;54;17 - 01;03;07;28
Kelly Deutsch
Awesome. Well, I so appreciate you sharing some of your, your own passion and your own Eros and longing. And I feel also a kindred spirit being able to connect in such ways. So I appreciate you sharing those.
01;03;08;11 - 01;03;10;05
Christopher West
Well, it's been my pleasure. Truly.
01;03;10;13 - 01;03;21;27
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Wonderful. Well, thank you everyone else for joining us and for listening in. We hope you'll definitely check out Christopher's work. He has some really beautiful things to share. So thank you all.
01;03;22;10 - 01;03;23;02
Christopher West
Thanks, everybody.