7. Cody Deese: The Pastor This Moment Has Been Waiting For

🎙️ 7. Cody Deese (Spiritual Collective Pastor) The Pastor This Moment Has Been Waiting For

In this urgent and culturally relevant episode of The Sacred Slope, Alexis Rice is joined by Cody Deese @codydeese - pastor of the Vining’s Lake spiritual collective @viningslake and author of Discovering Your Internal Universe: The Unexpected Good News About Anxiety, Panic, and Fear.

At a time when Christianity is increasingly entangled with political power and nationalist ideology, this conversation explores what it means to follow the teachings of Jesus in a moment defined by division, fear, & institutional mistrust. Alexis & Cody examine the historical dangers of religion merging with empire and why Christian nationalism represents a political ideology rather than a theological one.

The episode also moves into deeply personal territory, addressing anxiety, religious trauma, & the long arc of healing - intellectually, neurologically, emotionally, & somatically. Together, they explore how both love & suffering can become catalysts for transformation, & why many people are simultaneously deconstructing faith, national identity, inherited narratives about power- & ending up with a faith that is more beautiful & expansive than ever before.

✨ Ep Themes

• Christianity and power in modern America
• Revelation as social and spiritual critique
• Faith deconstruction beyond doctrine
• Anxiety, trauma, and body-based healing
• Community as a stabilizing force in cultural disruption
• Hope and moral agency in destabilizing historical moments

🕊️ The episode concludes with a spoken benediction from Pastor Cody for listeners navigating political anxiety, church trauma, spiritual isolation, or moral fatigue - offering language of dignity, compassion, and collective responsibility.

📚 Resources & Voices Mentioned
• Discovering Your Internal Universe: The Unexpected Good News About Anxiety, Panic, and Fear by Cody Deese, Forward by Rob Bell @realrobbell: https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802885401/discovering-your-internal-universe/
• Vining’s Lake Spiritual Collective: https://www.viningslake.org
• Richard Rohr Podcast: Another Name for Everything https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/another-name-for-every-thing-with-richard-rohr/id1452609613
• Pete Enns: @peteenns
• The Bible for Normal People: @thebiblefornormalpeople
• Cory Booker: @corybooker

Transcript

Cody Deese (00:00)
I'm grateful to live here. I love America. The danger is not loving America. The danger is believing God loves America more than any other nation. That's idolatry. and Christian nationalism is not Christianity plus patriotism. It is a political ideology of white supremacy, fear and greed with the logo of Jesus attached to it. And a part of what is happening in Revelation with John is

Alexis Rice (00:07)
Amen.

Cody Deese (00:26)
that word revelation is the English translation, but it's apocalypse, which is the word which literally means unveiling. So it's like the writers just pulling the curtain back going, I want you to see Jesus for who he actually was. And then I want you to see the empire for who it actually is. And I also want you to see how religion gets in bed with empire and how dangerous that relationship actually is. and so

part of why that book is so amazing, and I know that does sound kind of funny, like, kids, let's read Revelation during this time, right? a part of the reason that book is so dangerous is because it's giving us permission to also see through this Christian nationalism, see through this merging of the world's largest religion American empire. And here's why the empire loves evangelicals and Christianity. It's why Trump loves evangelicals. We see it.

We saw it the day he held up the Bible in that square. I mean, if there was ever an image we've been given of Christian nationalism, if there was ever an image that half the world could not see through, John of Patmos would be like, how can you not see this? Like this man is holding the Bible Trump doesn't care about Christianity. Trump doesn't care about evangelicals.

Trump doesn't care about the church. Trump cares about Trump. Most of us know that by now. Empire cares about empire. Empire cares about self-preservation. Empire cares about power, control, and supremacy. And empire will use whatever empire needs to use to maintain and bolster that control. And so it's really convenient to merge Christianity and the American empire.

because what it does is it disguises the injustice. It baptizes it, right? And the most dangerous evils are the ones convinced they are righteous. That's the most dangerous evil. And what it does is maneuvers itself underneath this name of Jesus and it disguises itself. that's not anything new. mean, hate will often disguise itself as love. War will often disguise itself as just.

cruelty will disguise itself as strength, domination will disguise itself as leadership, idolatry will disguise itself as devotion, right? But what John is helping us see and what I think a part of our task is right now as people who care about human flourishing, I'm even eliminating Christians, it's expectations for those labeling themselves but human beings who care about universal human flourishing, I think a part of our task.

is to keep pulling the curtain back right now and showing the world how this movement that's been labeled MAGA is using religion for its own benefit. And I want to say to everyone that even may be little bit confused by that, just because it has the name of Christ doesn't mean it is the way of Christ. And I believe that is the call for us in this moment.

is to wake up and realize there are lots of things that are labeled Christian that do not, when held up, actually correlate at all to the path and teachings of Jesus at an elementary level on the Sermon on the Mount. Is that a sermon? I think I just gave a sermon, but like that's how I'm

Alexis Rice (03:58)
Welcome to the Sacred Slope, where the slippery slope meets sacred ground. I'm Alexis Rice. And today we're going to talk with Cody Deese. This episode is for religious or not, who feels the anxiety of this moment. We talk about fear, power, religious trauma, and why Christian nationalism isn't just a church issue. It affects all of us.

Cody Deese is a pastor a really amazing church that is a collective outside of Atlanta.

He's also the author of this amazing book that was really helpful and healing for me. It's called Discovering Your Internal Universe, The Unexpected Good News About Anxiety, Panic, and Fear. The foreword's by Rob Bell. And I just wanted to read a little about what Rob said about this book.

in this book about anxiety, which is about a thousand things, chief among them being human and discovering how good it is.

And I wanted to give you a little bit of a sample of the 213. And it says, faith and belief are often used interchangeably in the biblical narrative. The next time you run across these words, try inserting the word trust instead of belief or faith and see how it reads. All these words imply uncertainty.

You only use the word trust when uncertainty is present. if you were certain, you wouldn't need trust. So it is with anxiety. Anxiety and faith are not oxymorons. On the surface, they may seem incompatible, but they both belong in their proper place. Anxiety has its role. Faith has its role. One is not the enemy of the other. You can live simultaneously with anxiety and trust. Both can be and need to be active at the same time.

You can have an anxious faith. You need an anxious faith. Faith is not the absence of anxiety. It's trust in the presence of anxiety.

When I talk about the practice of trust, I'm talking about something you unconsciously do every day. The moment you get out of in the morning and take your first step, you are practicing trust.

Every time you get dressed and walk out the door, you are practicing trust. When you choose to engage with other humans, you are practicing trust. It's tempting to live your life isolated inside your own internal universe, but it takes an act of trust to step outside yourself and engage in the world around you.

I can't wait for you to hear this conversation. It's a little bit long because there were so many amazing nuggets. So you might need to listen to it break it up with a couple of commutes or a run. But ⁓ it's so worth We're going to talk about how one of his clips went viral after Cory Booker tweeted it. about nationalism and having family and close friends that are in MAGA.

and how so many of us are struggling with that right now. And we're going to talk about his book, discovering your internal universe. It's so helpful when you've ever struggled with anxiety, with panic, with fear, with any spiritual trauma. And we're going to talk about the hope that we both have, that we both feel, and that so many people I have talked to.

who are living in this moment seeing the atrocities and seeing more and more people finally wake up to the fact that maybe this is not the world that we want to live in. And maybe there is a world that is more beautiful and kinder and more focused on loving our neighbors. let's dive into our conversation with Cody Dease.

Alexis Rice (08:02)
Welcome back to the Sacred Slope, friends. Today, I'm joined by Cody Dease. Hi, Cody.

Cody Deese (08:08)
Hello, hello, how are you?

Alexis Rice (08:10)
I'm great. Thank you for being here today.

Cody Deese (08:12)
my God, thank you for having me and shout out to your name. I just looked at it. Sacred slope. That's fantastic. As opposed to the slippery slope.

Alexis Rice (08:21)
where the slippery slope meets sacred ground. Yeah. I like you already. That's why I wanted to interview you. Well, I'd love to tell our audience all around the world about you. Cody is a pastor

Cody Deese (08:24)
Beautiful. Beautiful. I mean, I like you already.

Love it.

Alexis Rice (08:38)
the reason I wanted to talk to Cody today is because there is a specific kind of ache that a lot of us are carrying right now. It's this ache of when you love Jesus, like you actually really love Jesus, but you're watching Christianity get used as permission to dehumanize. And you're sitting there and you're thinking, am I the only one reading the gospels? Because, you know, if our faith is producing cruelty,

and it's producing contempt and it's producing certainty that your neighbors don't deserve dignity, that's not the fruit of the spirit. There's something else. And so Cody is one of those pastors. He's willing to say that out he's the lead pastor of Vining's Lake outside of Atlanta, an ever evolving spiritual collective and the author of

Discovering Your Internal Universe, the Unexpected Good News About Anxiety, Panic, and Fear. I am especially excited about this because I have had a lifelong battle with anxiety, it's turned into a lifelong acceptance of anxiety as well. And this was deeply healing. So I want to thank you for putting this out into the world.

Cody Deese (09:46)
Yeah, awesome. I'm glad able to get a copy and read First book, so I had all the first book jitters with it's deeply personal, but I was like, yeah, no, that's the one. Like, let's start here. So we're going to get there and we can simultaneously do both our inner work and then calling out the injustice out there. But I was like, no, no, let's have this conversation about anxiety, you are a human and you're breathing, chances are you know a little something about it.

Alexis Rice (10:11)
Absolutely. Cody grew up in the South inside a deeply Christian world, preaching his first sermon at 16 from his dad's pulpit. Yet his faith didn't collapse when he started asking harder questions. It deepened, it softened, it widened. And in this conversation, we're going to be talking about two things that feel inseparable at the moment. So the internal universe, anxiety, fear, panic, healing, and what the body carries, and the external universe of Christian nationalism, fractured relationships.

and how we keep loving our neighbors when it feels like everything is on fire. So Pastor Cody, Cody, I'm so grateful that you're here and welcome to the Sacred Slope.

Cody Deese (10:50)
my god, that sounds like a good time and what an easy conversation. So I'm so glad everybody's joining us. This is going to be fantastic.

Alexis Rice (10:57)
Let's talk about some, you know, light TV, you know. I'd love to start with a little bit about your upbringing just to orient people. What was the world that formed you? What did your faith look like growing up?

Cody Deese (11:00)
That's right. That's right.

Yep, I grew up evangelical. My father was a Southern Baptist pastor. I was born in a little town called Lake City, Florida. He wasn't Methodist. He was Southern Baptist, but it felt like Methodist because you know anything about like the Methodist world, they move quite frequently and that's the way it was for us. So we lived in North Florida.

We lived in a little town called Webb, Alabama. We lived in a little town called Blakely, Georgia, then moved to a place called Johnson City, Tennessee. And then I went off to school in North Carolina for a while and have been in Atlanta now for, I don't know, 25 years, 26 years. But my dad was a suit wearing, King James preaching.

Baptist pastor very much so involved in things like the Tennessee Baptist pastors world all that kind of stuff so I grew up kind of just entrenched in that world of Evangelical what most would call fundamentalism

And when I got old enough, I went off to a very conservative fundamentalist Bible college in Hendersonville, North Carolina. And then from there, I finished my undergrad at Liberty University, the Liberty where Jerry Falwell led the moral majority, which was, mean, when you ask about my upbringing, like that's kind of that's the message I kept hearing. Right. It was just like this idea of truth is

Alexis Rice (12:21)
The Liberty. Okay.

Cody Deese (12:36)
placed by relativism and sexual immoralities being normalized and families are eroded and faith is being pushed to the margins. it was kind of this big warning, right, that America was on, this is for you, a slippery slope. And ⁓ they were sounding the alarm. I mean, they were just like, hey, ⁓ we are headed down a path that we can't return from. And then, of course, you add in all the apocalyptic stuff with that, the Book of Revelation, all that.

That's my world. So the fact that I'm like somewhat sane, I'm sitting here and still involved in some level with the church, honestly, ⁓ it shocks me every day. but, but, here we are because, well, there are many reasons, but I'm still compelled by the teachings of Jesus. And in the midst of all of it, somehow, many of us, including you, many of us have found our way because there was

some beauty in there, right? And not everything they handed me was awful. So I want to be very clear about that. ⁓ one of things I love is having conversations with people about what, ⁓ integration looks like and what a, ⁓ integrated human looks like. And a part of the conversation of maturity and growth and how we're evolving is, you know, we don't have to throw everything out. We don't have to turn our nose to it and be like, God, it was all awful. Now hear me. They are layers of trauma and layers of

Alexis Rice (13:35)
Yes.

Right.

Cody Deese (14:03)
grief and layers of theology that was so incredibly toxic. But there was also some beautiful ⁓ truths that I was handed growing up. Discipline, responsibility, conviction, all these things I don't just leave behind. I look back and I try to include all the healthy elements, right, and then let go of all the unhealthy elements.

And I think that's where the wisdom is. But also in light of where we're at right now in this moment, it is quite disorienting when you look at how I grew up. So I grew up with the moral majority, with people being concerned that America was on a slippery slope. And looking out now, I realized the very one sounding the alarm for that became the architects of that very decay, right? The same people who taught me integrity,

now seem to cheer what they once condemned. And that's where I think a lot of us are right now. I think a lot of folks that grew up evangelical are experiencing some serious cognitive dissonance because we're watching people who said integrity mattered, truth matters, and then we're watching them somehow completely embrace and rally behind and defend the very things they

Alexis Rice (15:12)
Yep.

Cody Deese (15:26)
warned us was coming, lying, cheating, abusing, deceiving, mocking, exploiting. they're not only embracing it, but many of them are proud of it and thrilled about it and see it as strength. And so, yeah, there's a massive, massive upheaval that's happening in the nation right now on many levels, like spiritually,

Alexis Rice (15:49)
Yeah.

Cody Deese (15:51)
This is why we use words like deconstruction because there are a lot of us going, what is happening? it leads to this question, was anything I was told true? And that's a question worth following.

Alexis Rice (15:58)
and

Ooh, chills already. We just started. reading your book so many Everybody, if you're near the Atlanta area, you'd be so lucky to get to go to Cody's Church. If I'm in the Atlanta area, I'm definitely coming by.

Cody Deese (16:11)
one.

please, come on. Yes,

we got a good group. really amazing humans that go there. I mean, it's been its own journey too, but man, the people that are there right now, they displace so much maturity and wisdom and I miss them. I miss them when we're not able to especially in times like this. And I know there's a lot of people that are just, know, rightfully so, just walking away like, yeah, I'm good. I'm done.

I understand that you got to protect yourself, honor yourself. Sometimes it's the healthiest thing you can do. where I'm at, I've just been very fortunate to be able to have a collective, a community, that I get to be with because it's important for me to gather with other humans, in like a real physical tactile way, especially in light of what's happening right now. Cause we, even if we don't do anything, we just gather on Sundays going, ⁓ did you guys see that this week? Did you hear that?

Because I just want to make sure I'm not like actually losing my mind because I mean, it's upside down. And to have a base note at least once a week, like just like a base of truth that you're not losing your mind actually. This is reality. But what we're experiencing right now is chaos. It's chaos. So

Let's embrace each other in the midst of it. I love them. So yeah, I mean, if you're like around come join us. I mean, the more of us, the more we enjoy having lunch together and drinks together and somehow trying to maintain our joy in the midst of this They can take a lot, but...

Alexis Rice (17:48)
Hmm.

Cody Deese (17:50)
We have to be careful not to give them everything. And a part of that is, yep, nope, we're still gonna laugh. We're gonna enjoy this life that we've been given. yeah, shout out to all of our friends at Vining's Lake. I love them so much.

Alexis Rice (18:03)
One of the things that was really cool recently is that you gave this amazing, as all of your I've ever seen One of them caught the eye of Cory Booker and he amplified you.

you were speaking with moral clarity as a Christian pastor,

What has been the impact that that message has made so far outside your immediate community? And even in our Christian communities, what kind of hope as we talk about what is being birthed

after this moment in our history in this country.

Cody Deese (20:22)
mean, in direct relation to that video, response has been amazing, actually. it's Cory Booker, was Roland Martin. I mean, there were several that initiated what I would say. A part of the reason that I think that it went viral, and there's been a couple of videos go viral, is here's what it's telling me. There is a demand. a large group of people that

want to hear this. there's a resonance with a whole group of people that are like, yes, why aren't more people talking like this? are we quiet? Where are the pastors in this moment? And for me, that's a bit of a wake up call. I mean, have had within the last year, so many new people come through our spiritual collective.

room is filled with people well, some of them are walking away from their churches, not because they didn't love it. I mean, these are people that gave their flesh and blood, their money, helped build a lot of the spaces they're in. Some of them are coming from mega churches around Atlanta. what they're telling me. They're telling me, I loved that space,

Our pastor refuses to speak on any of the current issues right now. It's not that they're pro Trump. They're just not saying anything to which my response is, well, then that's complicity. by not speaking. are speaking. People are listening. And this moment right now, I think has a lot of people realizing that, we all have voices, we all have energy, we all have resources, we all have platforms. Now's the time to use it.

And so we're seeing an uptick in so many people, so many emails, so many DMs, conversations of people that are like, yes, how do we navigate this? What does this look like for us right now? And of course there's the hate in the critics. I don't give much energy to them. They're always out there. I will tell you, that's

Alexis Rice (22:05)
Half of them are Russian bots anyway. Yeah.

Cody Deese (22:08)
That's right. It appears that way.

will tell you, I think what's happening right now is an unveiling, if you will. I really, really, really lean in, I have recently, just to the book of Revelation and that whole idea of the Revelation apocalypse. mean, was, you talk about hell, but I mean, the end of the world scenarios growing up evangelical were just atrocious. mean, I had, didn't, I say I walked around not only with a hell anxiety, afterlife anxiety, but also apocalyptic anxiety.

Alexis Rice (22:34)
Yeah, we were left behind kids.

Cody Deese (22:36)
That's right. That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

mean, and this is no joke Tim LaHaze left behind was a textbook in the Bible college that I went to my first year of college. That is no joke. A textbook, a fictional story was a textbook. So that'll tell you a little bit about what was ingrained within me. But, you know, as you get older and you start studying the book, you realize, my God, actually, this book is profound in many ways. And if there is a book for America right now, it is the book of Revelation.

Alexis Rice (23:04)
Interesting.

Cody Deese (23:05)
Not

Alexis Rice (23:05)
What do

Cody Deese (23:06)
not because of like, oh my God, it's the end of the world. And Trump's the antichrist. I mean, I meet so many progressives, like he's the antichrist. the Bible says the antichrist, the beast, the first beast was struck in the ear and he was shot in the ear and all these connections. And I'm just like, my God, have we not grown? Have we not learned anything from the toxic apocalyptic visions we were handed growing up?

because if we're not careful, we're going to be at the very reflection of the thing that we walked away from. that book, we have slaughtered that apocalyptic literature. I mean slaughtered it. And there's so much depth and so much wisdom and so much imagery and so much poetry and language that we're given to make sense.

of what it's like to live inside of an empire right now, because that's what the writer is writing about. he's trying to give language to how challenging it is to live as a follower of Jesus, a follower of the way of love inside of an empire that keeps demanding allegiance. And this is where Christian nationalism comes into play. Christian nationalism is not Christianity plus patriotism.

It's not that. That's what a lot of people think. Well, what's wrong with Christian nationalism? It's Christianity plus patriotism. Don't you love America? Let me say this. The danger is not loving America. I love America. I do love America. I'm grateful I'm here. I wouldn't even be able to have these conversations. And I don't know how long these conversations are going to be able to happen. I just got shadow banned on TikTok for the first time since the new owners came in. censorship and suppression is starting to happen. That's a part of the authoritarian movement. But

Alexis Rice (24:35)
Mm-hmm.

Cody Deese (24:53)
I'm grateful to live here. I love America. The danger is not loving America. The danger is believing God loves America more than any other nation. That's idolatry. and Christian nationalism is not Christianity plus patriotism. It is a political ideology of white supremacy, fear and greed with the logo of Jesus attached to it. And a part of what is happening in Revelation with John is

Alexis Rice (25:00)
Amen.

Cody Deese (25:20)
that word revelation is the English translation, but it's apocalypse, which is the word which literally means unveiling. So it's like the writers just pulling the curtain back going, I want you to see Jesus for who he actually was. And then I want you to see the empire for who it actually is. And I also want you to see how religion gets in bed with empire and how dangerous that relationship actually is. And, and so

part of why that book is so amazing, and I know that does sound kind of funny, like, kids, let's read Revelation during this time, right? a part of the reason that book is so dangerous is because it's giving us permission to also see through this Christian nationalism, see through this merging of the world's largest religion and the American empire. And here's why the empire loves evangelicals and Christianity. It's why Trump loves evangelicals. We see it.

We saw it the day he held up the Bible in that square. I mean, if there was ever an image we've been given of Christian nationalism, if there was ever an image that half the world could not see through, John of Patmos would be like, how can you not see this? Like this man is holding the Bible and what he is doing is he is, Trump doesn't care about Christianity. Trump doesn't care about evangelicals.

Trump doesn't care about the church. Trump cares about Trump. Most of us know that by now. ⁓ Empire cares about empire. Empire cares about self-preservation. Empire cares about power, control, and supremacy. And empire will use whatever empire needs to use to maintain and bolster that control. And so it's really convenient to merge Christianity and the American empire.

because what it does is it disguises the injustice. It baptizes it, right? And the most dangerous evils are the ones convinced they are righteous. That's the most dangerous evil. And what it does is it maneuvers itself underneath this name of Jesus and it disguises itself. And so that's not anything new. mean, hate will often disguise itself as love. War will often disguise itself as just.

cruelty will disguise itself as strength, domination will disguise itself as leadership, idolatry will disguise itself as devotion, right? But what John is helping us see and what I think a part of our task is right now as people who care about human flourishing, I'm even eliminating Christians, it's expectations for those labeling themselves Christians, but human beings who care about universal human flourishing, I think it's a part of our task.

is to keep pulling the curtain back right now and showing the world how this movement that's been labeled MAGA is using religion for its own benefit. And I want to say to everyone that even may be little bit confused by that, just because it has the name of Christ doesn't mean it is the way of Christ. And I believe that is the call for us in this moment.

is to wake up and realize there are lots of things that are labeled Christian that do not, when held up, actually correlate at all to the path and teachings of Jesus at an elementary level on the Sermon on the Mount. Is that a sermon? I think I just gave a sermon, but like that's how I'm

Alexis Rice (28:58)
We

Cody Deese (28:58)
Yeah.

Alexis Rice (28:58)
this

sermon right now. so important. You know, what I was thinking about is midterms are coming up this year. I think that a lot of progressives who are in government, senators, House members, governors, strategists on the progressive side, even moderates, libertarians, often

are really freaked out to talk about anything Christian ⁓ media also, just really afraid to touch it with a 10 foot pole. And I find it funny because the government on the democratic side, like most of them are Christians. We like don't even know that. And I really think that it's important in this moment for them to be listening to pastors like you.

Cody Deese (29:29)
Thank

Alexis Rice (29:36)
I heard a story recently about a pastor she was meeting with somebody that was campaign strategy and she said, well, how, you know, could I help? And they were like, well, what are we going to do with the Christian pastor?

Cody Deese (29:48)
Hmm, yeah, yeah.

Alexis Rice (29:50)
if you were able to talk to people who are right now planning for what kind of advice would you give to people who are really upset about what's happening in our country?

Cody Deese (30:02)
I think with leadership in general, I would say I'm very hopeful, actually.

And I would say to those leaders, like I'm seeing people like James Tallarico in Texas, very hopeful by what I'm seeing because that's a guy in my opinion, and I a lot of great people running right now or soon to be running, but that's a guy is able to see how impactful we've been talking about actually is, right? and I think you're seeing more and more of that, right? So I think part of the reason Cory and I can't put words in his mouth, but part of the reason he leaned in and actually,

Alexis Rice (30:11)
Yes.

Cody Deese (30:34)
retweeted or whatever, is because I think more more politicians are starting to realize, as we just talked about with Revelation John, this merging and how powerful of a merger it actually is. Now, the trick is, is we have to be careful that the message of Jesus isn't co-opted by any political party, right? So you hold that loose, but also you continue to expose and call out the way it is being used and abused by MAGA and this Trump movement.

Alexis Rice (30:42)
Yes.

Cody Deese (31:01)
And I think more more politicians are starting to wake up and realize that. And that's actually given me a lot of hope. I love it. I love that they're speaking to that. And they're calling it out for what it is because part of the reason I say it's important to expose it is because it goes back to what Richard Rohr says. He says, you cannot heal what you do not the only way we're going to be able to actually heal this nation, our country, acknowledging what our history is and then what we are.

right now in the moment, we have to shed through the lies. The truth has to come to the surface so we can just acknowledge it and begin this process of actually healing. so I would say to every political leader, lean in, lean in to the voices on the spiritual landscape because it's not just happening in all these other areas of, influence.

What we're experiencing right now on the spiritual landscape is also a group of people who are not only deconstructing their faith, that's just one part of it, but they are deconstructing American exceptionalism. They are deconstructing US history. I mean, I always love that people are like, oh, deconstruction, that's a dangerous thing, you know, know, it's like a slippery slope. And I'm like, friend,

That's only one, spiritual deconstruction is one very small part of it. Like, rethinking theology. Not really a big deal, hang with me, but also kind of like one small part. We're now at a place where we're going, wait a minute, you told us that God was angry and was going to send us to eternal conscious torment, but you are also the same people who handed us a US history textbook in school.

and told us the Puritans came over here and they were really good Christian people and this is a Christian So we're rethinking the entire thing going, hold on, what about manifest destiny? Is that a thing? And this is why you see the MAGA movement right now, they're taking any kind of writing about slavery. It's like, whatever you look.

Alexis Rice (33:05)
Yeah.

Cody Deese (33:06)
We

because we can just ignore that it happened then it would just go away. And then of course, they played the victim, turn it around like, well, it's just reverse racism. Not really a thing. Not really a thing. Prejudice might be a thing. But, friend, when you talk about systemic power, it's just not a thing. And and that's what abusers and authoritarians love to do is flip the victim mentality, right? Like, well, we're the persecuted ones. And I'm just saying to every politician out there heads up.

There is a birthing within the spiritual landscape right now, and it's a whole group of people. And I speak from experience, this is why it's giving me hope. They are feeling the building at our church. I've got direct messages, more emails for the first time in my life that I could ever actually respond to of people that are saying, hey, I have been rethinking everything. And the US history I was handed actually wasn't even the real history that

actually it works its way through every area of influence, media, politics, all of it. And so I would say to them to be hopeful because there's a whole group of people that are waking up right now. Now to the voters in general, I would just say they want you to feel disempowered. Exhaustion is their way

of actually getting you to feel this word, despair. They want you to feel like there's nothing you can do. Well, there's just nothing we can do. here's the phrase, it is what it is. No, actually, you have more power than you realize. I have more power than I realize. We have more power than we realize. And I think we're gonna have to start reclaiming a little bit of our own agency and power in this moment.

Alexis Rice (34:37)
Yes.

Yes.

Cody Deese (34:45)
and realizing get to choose what we buy. We get to choose who's in office. We get to decide that that's the beauty of democracy. And so we fight hard for democracy for that reason, but I want to empower our people. This isn't a lost cause. This isn't a moment of hopelessness. This is a moment where we are being reminded that we get to shape it. We get to shape the future. and I.

Also would add, I love the generation coming behind me. We have a student pastor at our church and he's a fantastic human. His name is Garrett. And Garrett spends time with our middle schoolers and high schoolers. And I get to sit with him often, but like, how's it going? And he was like, man, these guys and girls are levels above where we were, levels above already at their age.

And it's just bringing me so much joy. So I do my best to spend as much time as I can with, those who are now, I mean, at my age, 20 years younger than me, 30 years younger than me, and watching their stage of consciousness already versus how it's taken me 44 years to arrive at some of these ideas.

Yeah, maybe you need to get your head out of the news and start hanging out with some 20 year olds, some 15 year olds, some 12 year olds and just hear them out, like hear them out. I'm not saying it's automatic. We get to bend the universe toward justice. is our responsibility, but I am also saying that I am very hopeful.

about what is coming behind us as well.

Alexis Rice (36:22)
I'd like to ask you about something that a lot of us who were raised in, especially evangelical spaces or conservative spaces, Christian spaces,

are really struggling with, have been for the last decade, but like really right now is having family that are in MAGA Christianity still, despite everything, despite all the conversations, just no movement, right? ⁓ And it's so painful. It is so painful. Like you said earlier, these were the people who raised us to, love thy neighbor.

God is love, servant leadership, everybody's valued equally, all this stuff. And then we just were so disoriented. So I'd like to play a clip of you that you've been recently talking about having family and close friends in MAGA Christianity right now and speaking to that pain.

I think people who don't have this in their family and close friend circles, like don't understand that you don't get to just demonize a whole group of humans over here. And this is your family, these are your people. And it's just a really different experience for those of us who have like either mixed families or mixed communities

Cody Deese (39:52)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (39:58)
how do you suggest as a pastor that we process the pain of loving people and continuing to love people who deep, still in MAGA Christianity? And can you help us with some practical wisdom?

Cody Deese (40:14)
Yes, get a therapist. Bye.

Alexis Rice (40:18)
HAAAAAA I endorse that. LOLOLOL

Cody Deese (40:23)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. mean, it's, my God, yeah. Well, you just named it, but it's, there are layers to this, right? So we could do a whole podcast just on this honestly to do it justice, you probably need a couple hours because there are layers on layers on layers on layers on layers. So let me just whittle it down. Here's three separate thoughts. First, there is no one set way to deal with this. All right. I start there because I know maybe some of your listeners,

And I have experienced this already of people within our own collective that have MAGA parents or MAGA spouse. And that gets complicated. Do we divorce? Do we leave? We don't see eye to eye on anything. And then some are navigating parents or heard a lot of this too, they no longer trust the Saturday night sleepovers where they drop the kids off.

at the grandparents house because the grandparents have Fox News playing 24 hours a day and is indoctrinating the kids. So it's a whole thing and it's messy, right? So I just start here to say, is a case by case situation. It is. I can't paint with a broad brush and say, here's what everyone is supposed to do, right? I have heard from some people and I know this to be true.

Some are at a place where they need to put up boundaries and distance to protect themselves. Period. So I have heard of some people who even hearing you talk or ask that question and talk about this would say, navigate complex relationships with MAGA. I'm not navigating anything. I don't sit at table with fascists. Period. And I want to say, I actually understand that it was James Baldwin or it's attributed to James Baldwin. He said,

I love this, we can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist. Now, I just pause there to say, I don't think anyone should be asked to share a table with someone who denies their right to exist. And I don't care if that someone is a mom. I don't care if it's a grandmother, if it's a father or a spouse.

You don't need to feel obligated to sit at a table or in a family gathering beside someone who is denying your very right to exist. So I want to honor that and just say sometimes one thing you can do and a lot of people have is use the boundaries you've been given to say in a loving but firm way,

I want a relationship with you, if you do, I want a relationship with you, but we're not going to continue to have this conversation over and over and over again. And so I want to be with you and if you want to be with me, then I need you to honor this boundary. And I've worked through that personally. I mean, ⁓ you know, I went eight years, my dad and I didn't talk to each other for eight years. We've walked through it with my in-laws, my wife's side of the parents.

There was a time where we had to put up boundaries and, they honored that. did like a three month thing, a little less than eight years, three months. but we aren't, they honored it. And we were like, we're not going to continue to have these conversations over and over. We told you where we are. We know where you are. If our minds change, we'll let you know. But, but if we continue to come over and this is happening again and again, then at that point, you're it's like sending a partner back to their marriage that is abusing them going, look,

The Bible says no divorce. Get out of here. Like if your partner is abusing you, get out. That's step one, right? So I just want to honor people that are in those scenarios, right? Because everybody's situation is different. it's really hard to tell someone who's walking into an abusive scenario, hey, just stick it out or try to reconcile or work it out. No,

some levels that's spiritual malpractice from a pastor to say that. And would say maybe you need to start there. And now that gets tricky too. So, that's why I'm saying there's layers to it, right? Because, let's just use this as a hypothetical because there is another side to this, right? So, this is why it's nuanced. So, if you choose to not be around particular individuals because they are denying your right to exist, well, then it leads to other questions. Are you never going to leave your house? Because

You could walk out into the real world and somebody is wearing a symbol that denies your right to exist, right? So there's another side to it. There's layers to all of this because you don't want to live an isolated life where you're unable in a level of maturity to walk outside your house and oppose anyone who sees anything different than you, right? Like you don't want that. You want to be liberated. We all want to be liberated, right? So that's the hope here. So there are layers to it, but

I say to you, is situational. Protect your own energies. Take an energetic audit. I would ask it this way. When you leave their house, how long does it take for you to recover? Because for my wife and I, we would leave and we found for every hour we spent, it would take 24 hours to recover. And I mean, recover on a physical level.

be it we feel sick, be it exhaustion, be it anxiety. And I realize, this isn't, creating distance isn't selfish. That's actually stewardship of the energies we've been given. So protect yourself. Yes. And creating distance is an act of protection. That's what it is. So you're only pushing them away because you don't want to be hurt, right?

So you push them out. Or also, and I know some people that do this, they create the distance almost as an act or a response of the repercussions of their actions, right? Which I actually agree with. mean, most therapists would tell you, yeah, that's how you, sometimes you can leverage boundaries in that way. So if you're gonna support an administration that denies my right to exist or is harming other people with injustice, then there are repercussions to that vote. And here's the repercussion. The second thing I would say,

And that's just one person, but remember, one, three. Second one I would say is, and this is where I'm at, disrupt the narrative. That's my thing, disrupt the narrative. And here's what I mean. Most of these people that you talk to, including my own family, would all agree on this idea that their spouse, their partner, their kids, whoever it is that's blindly

MAGA movement and they will use things like it feels cultish. You've heard that right? Like it feels like they're in a cult or like they're in a trance. What is it? what we know. usually not always, but usually those individuals constantly have some type of right wing media going at all times. So be it Newsmax, be it whatever it is, Fox News is a big one.

in both sides of my family. And so anyone that watches Fox News, they know what the message is. You know what the narrative is, right? Those people are dangerous. Stay away from them. Immigrants are out to kill you. Leftist liberals, Democrats are trying to destroy America and take us away from God. And they want to take Christ out of Christmas. I mean, you know,

Alexis Rice (47:19)
Mm-hmm.

Cody Deese (47:46)
All of it. Whatever you want to name it. Well, here's what's amazing about disrupting the narrative.

They are fed this and it becomes a worldview, right? So they are embracing a right-wing worldview. And then when I enter or you enter into that universe called MAGA, very presence is disrupting the Fox narrative. Because Fox tells you...

You're dangerous. Be careful. They're unchristian. They're trying to destroy America. Anyone who challenges MAGA, that's who they are. But then you show up and you create cognitive dissonance in the minds of your parents because they're going, wait a minute. I know him. I raised him. I know her. I raised her. And what's really trippy is when they see

That you are in that world, that everything Fox said is dangerous, but check it out, you're thriving. Like, life is good. Life is great. Turns out, I did slide off the slope, on another slope, and I need you to know something about the other slope.

It's amazing. There are pink skies. The sunsets are far more gorgeous over here than that slope that I was on. my god, so much love and freedom and belonging. Because part of the reason they can't break out, and there are many reasons people say it's cult-like, this comes back to belonging. This comes back to ideologies.

that could never allow them to admit they're you walk in, your very presence is distorting the media caricature that they have been handed. And that's how change happens, by the way. You can't argue with them. Like, I know some people are like,

Load me up, I wanna boxing match with policies and theology and I will run circles around my parents. Well, that's called arrogance and that's not gonna get you anywhere. You out argue, you can't scream louder than Trump screaming right now, you can't. So how do you do it? You show up, you keep showing up.

over time, over time, I have found that it can begin to soften even the hardest of hearts. So don't negate showing up every time you choose to go to the family gathering. Just remember, your very presence is saying, hey, I know what you were told about me, but you know me and I'm not that. So what does that mean? That means it might be time to rethink

all of the toxic garbage that you are being handed. Now, I'll give you the last one right here.

Here's a truth.

that I never wanted to see that I'm coming to see.

I made excuses for years of why my evangelical family supported Trump. And when I say support him, I mean signs in the yards attending rallies supporting him. I made excuses for years. I was like, well, it's the economy. I mean, I kind of understand why they voted him. Quit making it a big deal, Cody. It's just like it's the economy. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, he's a shrewd businessman.

I heard the comments, well I didn't vote for a pastor, I voted for a president. Or those that are like, I just learned to compartmentalize. I don't agree with everything he does, but he's a lesser of two evils, right? You've heard it all, like all of these. And I gotta be honest, I made excuses for them because I didn't want it to be true what I'm seeing. But it's one thing to vote for that one time. It's another thing to vote for that two times.

But when you vote for it three times in a row, here's what that is telling me. Many, not all, many support him. because he mirrors back the very behaviors they already excuse in themselves.

It's a defense of the part of themselves they've long wanted permission to keep. And I know we don't want to see that, but misogyny, racism, and insatiable hunger for power, sexual sin without accountability, I am coming to see they justify him because they're justifying themselves. And that is a realization that's really, really difficult to stomach.

Alexis Rice (51:55)
Hmm.

Cody Deese (52:17)
but I will go back to this truth.

If we can't name that, we can't heal that. So, we have to hold all of those. And in some way, maybe what all of this is, is all of the stuff, goes back to this book that I wrote, all of the stuff that I had buried within me as an individual is true for the nation.

The nation as one body has buried history, has buried slavery, has buried so many atrocious things and we want to just move on without any therapy at all. We want to pretend it never happened. And maybe what is coming out of this movement is maybe

We are watching it surface for the first time. It's no coincidence that Trump is the president in a time when we have cameras in our pockets. It's no coincidence because this is the moment of what I call the great exposure. It's not that it hasn't been going on. It's been buried within this nation for, since its origins.

It's just for the first time we are in a culture where we are actually seeing it. And this is why my heart goes out. why people are frustrated that white people are just waking up because two white individuals were killed. I get it. I get it. Where were you when George Floyd, where were you when Breonna Taylor? I get those conversations. My God, half of our spiritual collective are brown and black individuals, people of color.

And I hear them and I want to say to them publicly, thank you for giving people like me grace. Thank you. That's not an easy task. Thank you for giving space for people like me to wake up. And what I want to say is there are many people waking up and it's sad it takes white individuals to be killed for people to wake up. Nevertheless, we are here and many people are waking up and maybe just maybe that's what is.

being birthed out of this moment. And it's difficult to see, isn't it? My God, I wish it wasn't happening. I want to turn my head, but that's called privilege. And so I lean in, I lean in, and I look at it for what it is. And check it out, I get to work. I get to work both individually

Alexis Rice (54:38)
Yeah.

yes.

Cody Deese (54:55)
and collectively as a nation. So we got to start healing our racial wounds. We got to start healing everything that was within us that we've been denying that we didn't want to see. Carl Jung calls it the shadow. We need to do some national shadow work. I mean, going into the depths of our unconscious and opening the doors of all the things we didn't want to see. And also, need to keep doing my own personal work because it's easy for me to point out the misogyny and racism in Trump and MAGA people.

But I have found that can be a convenient way to ignore my own racism and misogyny. So we simultaneously do our work internally, individually, and we hold people accountable for the injustice of their own actions as well. And this is the integrated path forward, I believe.

Alexis Rice (55:51)
of people, as we both know, have left church spaces, let's say, a decade ago, when that really started, the dam started breaking. But I notice now a decade on that a lot of people are longing for that church space. But they're afraid to go into the same space that they were in because that was harmful.

And so it's really cool to go into a space like you just described. And even for practical reasons, one example is I have this tiny little church now and I broke my foot and I drove myself to urgent care and I told my Reverend that and she looked at me like, are you serious? Why didn't you call us? Why didn't you call church? And I grew up in a mega church, means I

there wasn't anyone to really call in that. I was like, I'm supposed to call up my reverend or some church people and they take me to the hospital just because they care about me. That's what I think a lot of people are missing right now when we've completely left church And so I'm starting to see some people take some baby steps back into maybe there are some church spaces out there.

Cody Deese (56:41)
Right.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Alexis Rice (57:02)
And trying to highlight some of those pastors that are just doing incredible work like you.

Cody Deese (57:06)
I love that. Yeah, I think that's wise. you know, church isn't for everybody. And some people, healthiest thing they can do is just not go at all for a while or not at all ever. But for others, you know, I mean, I think for years for me, it was just like I complained and complained and complained about what was rightfully so. And then at some point I was like, well, what if we dare to become what we dreamed it could be? And that's what we're just an experiment. Like, I mean, we're we've got all kinds of issues ourselves, but we're an experiment and we're

trying to actually put legs to a dream that, my God, what if church, a spiritual collective could actually, what if we had like real conversations about what's happening in our world right now? And what if it was structured in a way that was actually filled with people who had been wounded and hurt by the church so they had all the alarms in all the right places to know, okay, this is a healthier version of what I was handed. And so, yeah,

We're asking questions and we're exploring and we're trying to figure it out, but why not do it together? And honestly, if we're gonna live in America right now in this chaos, I don't wanna do that alone. I need some people, I need some humans to hug me, go have a drink with, and just to make sure that we're all okay. We're good, we're gonna get through this. not just gonna survive it.

Alexis Rice (58:02)
Yeah.

Cody Deese (58:14)
We're gonna penetrate the injustice actually gonna hopefully begin to make some change on a local level. And that's one of the things I love too. This is our little town, we're in Mableton, Smyrna, Vining's like right here. And I'm like, yeah, this is our space. So this is where we start. This is where we'll do our work and we'll change this area right here. Like we'll jump in and like be fully present and universal human flourishing can look like.

that's where it larger thing will change, but it's going to start right here at the local level, which is why you hear politicians all the time talking about, you know, got to go out and vote, like on a local level, because they know what they're talking about. We all want to sit around and wait, like, well, presidential election will be here or the midterms. I'm like, yeah, but we just had one last November. That matters. City council. Yeah, that matters. So let's get in that conversation. That's how we have to begin to structure and change

Alexis Rice (58:48)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

a couple of questions our listeners about your church. So your church is open and affirming, correct? Yeah.

Cody Deese (59:09)
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As

in everyone's welcome and not everyone's welcome until you get in the side and you find out you can't be baptized because your sexuality or you can't serve because of sexuality But we'll take your money. You know what I'm talking about? Like, no, no, no. We have had so many LGBTQIA plus individuals show up on our front doorstep battered and bruised and broken and cut and wounded from other churches. A lot of mega churches around our area that are just like everyone's welcome here only to find when they get in the inside. They're not. And so it's important for us to

to be as clear as we can with our policies. a part of that for us is we are as clear as possible on our website, like, welcome here to serve at any capacity, board, leadership roles, music, speaking, whatever.

Alexis Rice (59:37)
Yes.

Awesome. If there are people that are not in the Atlanta area that are curious in going to a church and they want to make sure it's open and affirming, how does that work? Can you help people understand?

Cody Deese (59:57)
Yeah, that's good question. I mean,

there's ways to look on the website and just tell. And if it's ambiguous, I would say stay away. If you have questions after reviewing someone's website, it's probably because these people are trained in that. You know what mean? Like these pastors, they know how to navigate it. And so a lot of these folks that are designing websites, they word it and craft it in such a way that it can be very deceptive. But it's also easy to just pick up the phone and call them and just ask whoever answers. Just like can you send me your actively enforced policies when it comes to LGBTQIA?

And usually their jaw would drop because they're like, what are you talking about policies? And they'll we don't really have policies around them. Like, OK, that's all you need to know because their default policy is their actively enforced policy. And so you start asking questions like, are divorced people allowed to serve here? Are women allowed in leadership roles? All those questions. But also, there's a great organization, ChurchClarity. ChurchClarity.org, I believe it is. I think they're still cooking, but they used to back in the day have a whole.

metric where you could go to you could punch in a church name into the search engine and it would pop up and tell you if they're Affirming not affirming all that kind of stuff. So yeah

Alexis Rice (1:00:56)
Excellent. we're going to talk about your the internal universe and your story of anxiety. I really want to go...

the heart of this, and I want to name something personally, I've struggled with lifelong anxiety, I didn't have language for it as a kid similar to you. Like I was just labeled too sensitive or too intense, too hard on myself. know, people just say like, don't be so sensitive. Don't be so intense. Don't be so hard on yourself. okay. Sure. After 43 years, I'm sure I'm just going to flip a switch. And so then that produces quite some shame if you're trying to just

work on that yourself. So I wasn't given tools and resources as a kid in the 80s and the 90s. It's, know, a lot of our parents' generation didn't go to therapy. They still don't believe in going to therapy. And then if you're in Christian spaces, a lot of times there's these messages that you're not being Christian enough if you're struggling with this, right? That maybe you don't have enough faith in God, And so it produces like an unbelievable amount of shame.

Cody Deese (1:01:34)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (1:01:53)
So that's why I'm exceptionally excited to talk to you about this as a pastor, as a human, as a man, as a white man in the South to talk this deeply and this openly, I think is really changing a lot and hearts If we had more people who are trying to set the world in the chaos, if we had more of those men sit down and do this deep inner work, I wonder what the world would look like right now.

Cody Deese (1:02:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I've had anxiety since my earliest memories. I did not always know that like you. There wasn't really a lot of language, as you said, growing up in, you know, I was born in 81. this wasn't even really the conversation back then. And so I didn't know what I was experiencing. I had no idea what it was until I turned 40. I was 40 years old when a therapist said to me for the first time, Cody, what you're describing is a panic disorder.

And the moment he said it, intuitively knew that he was right. it started unraveling all kinds of conversations about, this makes total sense. This makes total sense of what I was experiencing, what I was experiencing in those moments of utter terror and confusion. And I write in the book only about one form, but there were many, many more.

that I didn't get to, mean, some of my earliest experiences was sitting in a classroom and experiencing a moment of, and the only language I had when someone asked me about it was dizziness. But just utter freak out, jump, run out of a classroom, teacher running down the hallway, like what's wrong with you? And it's funny because that question has haunted me for years. Even growing up when you don't know what's wrong with you, but you know what is this? Is this normal? Is this a part of what it means to be

and you're running out of a classroom and you're trying to give language is something that you can't explain. And there are some things, know, your hands are sweaty, your heart's beating, but it was a moment of disorientation and derealization. Like, what is this? And then at 40, when someone sits in front of you and says, that's a panic disorder, all of a sudden you're like, my God, of course it was. And I wish, I could go back.

and help that kid because if that kid knew just a little just a little glimmer of what anxiety was.

Alexis Rice (1:03:56)
Hmm. Yeah.

Cody Deese (1:04:04)
It actually would have toned down the anxiety pretty significantly because part of the problem with being anxious as a kid or having a panic disorder as a kid is when you don't know you have it, it creates more anxiety and panic because you don't know what it is, right? So it elevates it and then you can get into a mode where it just continually continually happens. And I want to acknowledge the form that I write about in this book. And I write about it intentionally because I think everybody has different forms because when you talk about anxiety or panic disorder, ⁓ some people are like, yeah, I have it.

Alexis Rice (1:04:07)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Right.

Cody Deese (1:04:33)
Well, tell me how it manifest, right? So for me, my first experience outside of that first grade classroom was in the middle of a football game, which are right out in the book. And I was being chased by these big Alabama boys. was like a running back. was very short, small little guy. And somewhere in the midst of that play, I fell down on my knees and started having a retching episode or gagging, which if you've ever had any kind of a flu bug and your stomach is empty, you know what that is. It's a very terrifying experience.

Alexis Rice (1:04:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Cody Deese (1:05:02)
And I just brushed it off, thought, okay, nothing but whatever. That was weird. Maybe I'm sick. It's all good. But then it showed up again in the next practice and again in the next practice. And then it started expanding. It went from practices to school plays. It went from school plays to dentist visits. And then it began to kind of show up at the very moments I couldn't afford for it to show up. Giving a speech in class, a report.

I couldn't do it because I would just go in at this moment where I was just continually having a retching episode. And I thought, we visited so many doctors, my parents, I tried to explain it to them and they were like, okay, well, let's go get your blood work done. And so they would take me to the family practitioner, took blood work and then the blood works just like, yep, he's good. He's a healthy boy. And cause that's the thing about anxiety, anxiety doesn't show up, right? Like you can't see it's invisible. it was maddening.

over time, I visited a few doctors as I got older and one of them said, I think it's a form of Tourette's. think you have Tourette's. And it started just invading every area of my life. Normal day-to-day conversations. I gave my first sermon at 16. Standing up giving sermons, would interrupt. And as you can imagine, starts to wear on you over time. And eventually you start wondering, hey, is this going to put me in my room locked up?

unable to move, not function like a human being out in the world contributing to some point in that process, an acupuncturist, because I tried everything. By the way, we write about it in the book. I tried everything I could, not even knowing what it was. still tried everything. visited an acupuncturist. She was putting all those like needles in me. I don't know if you've ever had it done. You ever had it done?

Alexis Rice (1:06:46)
I'm open to it. done everything else. I've done CBT, I've done therapy, I've done the things. But I'm open to acupuncture if you say that helpful to you.

Cody Deese (1:06:52)
Yeah.

Well,

in some ways it was. She put all these needles in me and then she just nonchalantly asked me this question because I was telling her about these retching episodes and what I was having and she said, have you ever had a choking incident? Like as a kid. And I was like, no, I don't think so. And she just walked out the door and then they put these needles in you and they're like, okay, well just rest and, you know, try to relax. And the moment she walked out to the door to ask me that question, like a movie playing in front of me,

right from the depths of my unconscious was this image of me that actually happened that I had pushed so far into the depths of my unconscious that I'd forgotten about it. It was the first time in my life I was like, my God, I did have a choking incident. And it happened when I was nine years old and I was at a sitter's house and got into some butterscotch candy and it got stuck.

And I don't remember all the details of that night. I was nine. I know it was in the evening. I was looking out a window. I was standing at her kitchen sink, but I do know that it got so bad that I remember the experience of getting lightheaded thinking, my God, this might be it. And I remember, remember even when I look back sitting in the acupuncturist office, I even at that moment started laughing a little bit going, God, how.

anticlimactic would that have been to die at nine from butterscotch candy? You know what mean? Like not exactly the hero moment that you want. Like how do you go? He's like choking on Werther's freaking original. You know what I mean? so I, just started sitting there watching this film in front of me. Like, Oh my God, I did have that moment. And eventually what happened is I started dry heaving in that moment and the candy came out and it literally like saved me. And it was a very traumatic moment.

Alexis Rice (1:08:25)
⁓ horrible.

Cody Deese (1:08:40)
never entered my collective consciousness until that moment. And that's when I realized, it's time to get to work. Like, because there's something inside of this. You're not just experiencing this anxiety in this form for no some stuff deep within you that needs to be looked at. there's an old Cherokee proverb that I love. It says, if you listen to your body when it whispers, you won't have to hear it scream.

And, and for me, that's how I see anxiety. ⁓ it is now not something that I have to, exterminate or eliminate. For me, I have come to see anxiety as almost like a flare gun going off in the night sky or a message on the dashboard that's blinking. it's the language of the soul. It is how the unconscious unconscious speaks.

Alexis Rice (1:09:08)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow.

Cody Deese (1:09:32)
there are many ways to learn that, right? you can look at your dreams. that's a door into the unconscious. There are many ways in many ways in your tears, your emotions, imagination, all of it. These are all access pathways into the unconscious, but anxiety is one of those. ⁓ languages that the body speaks that the soul speaks. And the question is not, is it speaking? The question I think is like, are we listening?

Alexis Rice (1:09:51)
Mmm.

Cody Deese (1:09:58)
Are we listening? And when you start having retching episodes as a 35 year old man and you can't function in life, you better believe it gets your attention. And so I'm like, okay, I'm here. I hear you. Obviously something happened at nine. Perhaps I need to go back there. And where do I start? And I always tell people start with the therapist. If you can afford one, start there.

Alexis Rice (1:10:18)
Mm-hmm.

Cody Deese (1:10:25)
So disclaimer, I'm not a therapist. I'm a pastor. And it's important for me to say that because have been a lot of pastors that have posed as therapists and they've done a lot of damage doing so. So I just want to be very clear. I'm not a therapist. I'm a pastor and I don't write this as some kind of prescription. I wrote this as a description of what I walked through and maybe in some way it can be a help to those that are walking through it themselves. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (1:10:53)
Yeah, that's very helpful because you're right. mean, I've had and I have spiritual directors, reverends therapists for different things. Right. So you're right. It is so important to start with the professional. I've had psychiatrists, too, for medications, for SSRIs. I mean, all these different things. And yeah, if you just go to a church ask a pastor who is untrained in these things, just like you said,

Everybody serves different purposes for mental health. Yeah. All right. So it's OK. I ask you to read a couple pages in the book? OK. it's a let's see. So I'd like to ask you about the Hell House that you wrote about at 9. ⁓

Cody Deese (1:11:21)
Definitely.

Yeah, please. Let's go.

Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Alexis Rice (1:11:38)
This

is so important because you talk about anxiety, like some of it is some of us it's just gonna be wired. But then there are experiences, childhood experiences that when you're in therapy, you go back to and you go, ⁓ this is part of the reason that, you know, that I can trace back to why I'm having chronic anxiety about certain things. And I feel like I heard that from you when you talked about this hell house. And for people who,

Cody Deese (1:11:44)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (1:12:06)
don't know what a hell house is. Can you just like, why don't we just, why don't, before we read this, like, can you just talk about like, how prevalent is this? Because I had not grown up with hell houses in California. That doesn't mean there aren't any here, but like, I think that was the step too far. Yeah. Can you just tell us a little bit about, is it prevalent or was it just your area?

Cody Deese (1:12:28)
Yeah.

well, I'll say a couple of things first. hell, like the, were called like judgment houses, is what they're called. So they come around like around Halloween. so like in the church I grew up in, like we didn't, they didn't celebrate Halloween. I don't know what world you grew up in, but we didn't celebrate Halloween. ⁓ they did. did you really? No, we didn't, we didn't do that. It was like the devil's day or whatever. So, ⁓ we did like, ⁓ we did like trunk or treats Do you know what I'm talking about? Like in the church parking lot. Okay. Well, yeah.

Alexis Rice (1:12:43)
We celebrated Halloween, yeah.

Nope.

Cody Deese (1:12:54)
It's like their version of, know, we got to do something for Halloween. Otherwise these kids are going to go out in the neighborhood and get candy and start sinning. You know what I mean? And so it was like, okay, we've got to figure out, we've got to offer some alternative, like a Christian alternative, right? And so they started, and I don't know when it started. I have no idea the history of this, but they started these judgment houses. And at least in the South where I lived, they were everywhere.

Alexis Rice (1:13:03)
Okay, I'm sorry.

Cody Deese (1:13:20)
So if your church had enough money, it was usually like middle, like mid-sized mega churches, because you had to have some money to kind of pull them off. But if your church had the resources to do it, they would do it. And it's almost like a haunted house. Like you've been to a haunted house, you walk through these different rooms and the scenes. It's like that, but just tack on like a Christian version. And so you have a tour guide and he takes you around.

And there's usually like the one I grew up in, there was a car accident and there's beer bottles laying around and there are two teenagers and one goes to heaven, one goes to hell. So you go to the scene in heaven, you go to the scene in hell, and then you come out through the judgment room and they ask you, you know, if this were to happen to you, would you go to heaven when you die? by the time I was nine, these things were just getting in their groove. Like, I mean, they were like really becoming popular at the moment.

And I would imagine if you Googled it, there's probably plenty of places that still do them today. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (1:14:10)
Wild, nine years old. You probably weren't allowed to watch PG-13 movies with a little bit of cussing, but they throw you in a hellhouse at nine.

Cody Deese (1:14:11)
yeah.

right. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. We couldn't watch. That's right.

Yes, that's right. That's right. Yeah, we couldn't watch the Smurfs, but we were allowed to go through hell. And then we were also allowed to read stories in the Bible about how God, you know, killed ⁓ genocide, a whole bunch of people. And, yeah, that's a part of it. That's a part of what you have to unlearn and work through and figure out why was that allowed? It was really interesting because when you slap on the logo of God or Jesus or say it's the Bible, then

all of a sudden violence wasn't the problem. And vice versa though, on the other side, it could just be something to disagree with, but they're like, well, it wasn't Christian. So yeah, yeah, yeah, that was the whole thing for sure.

Alexis Rice (1:14:57)
Yeah, when I learned from, I think the Bible for Normal People, when they talked about Noah's Ark is not a children's story. And I was like, it is not. That is correct. And I did not raise my kids, my little kids, with the Noah's Ark story. Because it's a terrifying story. And it's not for kids. just because there's animals. So they can learn about it later. All you mind reading page

Cody Deese (1:15:03)
Yeah.

Right.

Yep, that's right.

My religious upbringing forbade Halloween. Church dramas were my only occasion for costumes. I once doned a white t-shirt over shoulder pads, attached a few cotton balls, and sang, all we like sheep have gone astray. We didn't celebrate the Devil's Day. Instead, my people created fall festivals, trunk or treats and judgment houses. For those unfamiliar, a judgment house is the Christian version of a haunted house.

They are similar in that both have darkness, terror, and demons, but the Judgment House dramatizes the afterlife. I'm not sure when they began, but by the time I reached nine, they were just finding their groove. On Friday evening, our family loaded up our Black Fort Taurus for a night out in the neighboring city of Dothan.

Our nearby church hosted the only judgment house in town. Like waiting for a ride at Disney World, we stood in line with the rest of the city for a guide to come and whisk us away. Judgment houses are typically made up of several scenes spread out across the church property. This specific tour focused on two teenagers and ended in two different destinations. Our group was ushered in single file around the back parking lot to the first scene.

We stood behind caution tape as we approached what appeared to be a car accident. Two police cars, a flipped over pickup truck, scattered debris, and an ambulance made this scene convincing. The beer bottle strewn across the pavement informed me of the cause of the accident.

Two bodies lay lifeless on the asphalt. Efforts of resuscitation failed. First responders announced the time of death and slowly raised a white sheet over the cold bodies. Having fun yet? Off to the next scene we go. We were guided into a room enamelled with glistening satin sheets, singing angels in a fog machine that gave the illusion we were walking on clouds.

In the center of the room sat a gold chair shrouded and Cherubim The two teenagers lay prostrate before the throne. Beside them stood an elongated table which held what appeared to be a giant family Bible. This was the book of life, the book that held every name of those making it into heaven. It must have been slimmer than it first appeared because one of the teens' names were not found. Right there at God's feet, she pleaded for mercy but heard,

I never knew you go away from me." Bursting through the doors appeared a demon in black tights who dragged the teen away. She shrieked, "'Forgive me!' But it was too late. God was preoccupied. He was busy calling out the names of everyone in our group. Yes, you read that right. God had all our names. I froze. How did He know our names? One by one, I listened as He called every name in our group. He then asked,

Are your names written in the Book of Life? I nearly dropped dead right there in the throne room. From there, we descended into the church basement. With each step, the stairway grew dimmer and the temps got warmer. There was no fire, red tights, devil, demons, horns, pitchforks or cages, just sheer darkness.

I waved the palm of my hand in front of my face but saw nothing. Suddenly a piercing shrill filled the room. I'm talking next level octaves that are only reached by small kids at the neighborhood pool. Standing in the middle of hell, my nine-year-old self went into a full-blown panic attack. I began to have a retching episode in hell. I lunged into the darkness and shouted, Mom! She called back. I'm right here, baby.

I followed the sound of her voice until I felt the comfort of her touch. I grabbed her waist so tight that Satan himself couldn't have prided us apart. She pulled me close to her heart.

I knew she knew it was all too much for me to comprehend. I ascended from hell that day, soaked in sweat and tears. These are my earliest memories of the afterlife. Hell made an indelible mark on my psyche before I hit double digits.

Alexis Rice (1:19:32)
I'm so sorry to ask you to relive that trauma by reading that. But the reason I wanted to ask you to read that is because this is actually something that you're so incredibly good at is for people who really resonate with this. As a pastor now, could you just help them deconstruct that a little bit? Why you're OK and...

Cody Deese (1:19:36)
Yeah.

Alexis Rice (1:19:54)
just any thoughts for people that feel like, yeah, that's in me.

Cody Deese (1:19:59)
Yeah, well, here's what I would say. I had to go back to revisit my nine-year-old self. I'm go back to him. And now some call this,

inner child work, whatever language you want to use for it. rational brain used to turn its nose up at it. Like I don't have time to do like magical, mythical, inner child work type stuff. Like I need real healing. And what I realized from the choking incident and beginning to explore the layers, right? so the unconscious spoke to me.

I began to recognize that story as a nine-year-old and so I had to get to work. And what I found when I went inside of me were many, many moments in my upbringing that needed, and you can use whatever language you want, needed healing, needed re-parenting, needed me, the older me, to step into that moment. what I would encourage every single person that has walked through some sense of religious trauma. Find out when that religious trauma happened.

And as you are, if you are able, in all the ways that you've evolved and all the ways that you have back to that moment. And here's what I would say. I didn't say anything to my wouldn't have believed me anyways. If my nine-year-old version saw my 44-year-old version, he would have wrote me off as some probably like raging leftist, you know, the people that evangelicals warned them to stay away from.

Alexis Rice (1:21:16)
Totally.

Cody Deese (1:21:20)
So he wouldn't believe me anyways. And I could have walked through the theological reasons and why he didn't have to worry about a hell because as we understand it today, it's actually not even in the scriptures at all. And we could have walked through all of the words of Gehenna. We could have walked through all that, right? Hades, we could have walked through the parables that Jesus shares and we could have tried to like work through that, but it wouldn't have mattered because he wouldn't believe that. He didn't need a new story.

He didn't need a better explanation. He didn't even need better theology in that moment. What he needed was what I needed, I realized at 44, is I needed him. And what we both needed was love. I think, if anything, I would go back to my nine-year-old and simply just hug him. That's it. Just hug him. And by the hug, I would...

be attempting to display the very thing that I don't think he understood in that moment, which is the truth that the Johanan community told us in the writings that I believe is the apex of every metaphor we give to God. And that is God is love. That's it. I believe the culmination of all the fingers pointing to the moon.

is culminated in that statement, God is I would attempt to incarnate, display, embody that for anybody who's walked through some sense of religious trauma. And then, of course, after that, you can begin to work through like theologically what that looks like. But I think a lot of post-evangelicals have deconstructed intellectually

But I think one of the things that we're learning is you can't just deconstruct intellectually. You're going to have to go back and do some somatic work, like actual body level work. Because as we know, our minds weren't just present at nine, our bodies were there too. And we walk through this on a bodily level and we need to start healing some of those toxic ideas that our bodies stored in its system.

as an act of protection, right? So when this story popped up on our radar, I was like, oh my God, just like the story retching. I remembered it, but I also had placed it and locked it in the basement of my unconscious because I was like, whatever we do, don't visit that again, because that was terrifying. And a part of the healing work is realizing, okay, now I'm safe because I walked through this theologically.

I know where I'm at when it comes to the My understanding of God is far more expansive, far more loving, far more liberating, far more free. And now that I'm am capable of

going into the unconscious, finding that door called hell that I'm terrified about and popping the door open and I did and when I opened it I realized my god there's a whole world in here that needs to be rethought and needs to be hugged and needs to be healed and and a part of that for me was just coming to the realization that much of the evangelical world that I grew up in they were built on the foundation of fear.

⁓ And in any religion that uses the power of fear hasn't experienced the power of love. That is a fact. That is a fact.

Alexis Rice (1:24:40)
Oof.

Cody Deese (1:24:42)
and part of the reason evangelical fundamentalists keep leveraging things like hell. It's not even that many of them actually believe in it. I think they actually don't believe in it for many reasons, one of which is that they actually believed in it. They wouldn't even be living the lives they're living because they would be so terrified about what is to come. They would be in a full blown panic attack themselves and or out on the streets screaming and begging people. But the other part of it too is I think they intuitively know

Also, by the way, they would never have babies because that would be the worst possible thing you could actually do. If you really wanted to save the world, you wouldn't go to China to try to save them. You would just stop creating other humans because every time you create a human, you are risking their soul to be placed in eternal conscious torment. You know what I'm saying? So math adds up. Like it just doesn't add up. what I began to realize is, my gosh, I have...

Alexis Rice (1:25:25)
Mm-hmm.

Cody Deese (1:25:32)
opened a door and been able to see and the foundation of much of the religion I was handed was built on fear. And a part of that is because it works. It just works. We know that. Politicians know that. Donald Trump knows that. MAGA knows that. This is a part of why he ran on Make America Great Again. What is that? What is Make America Great Again? Hear that word, great and again. That is someone who recognized

Alexis Rice (1:25:46)
Yeah.

Cody Deese (1:25:59)
that there was a group of people who are terrified about how the world is becoming more complex, how the world is becoming more uncertain. And he steps into the scene and he says, what if I could take you back? What if I could take you back to the days where it was a bit more simple? What if I could take you back to the days where there was a bit more certainty and less complexity?

What if I could take you back there? Nostalgia is a hell of a drug and he recognized that like, yeah, we can just step right back into that world. And what did he do? He did not ask them to grow through their fear. He amplified their fear. He actually affirmed their fear. said, yeah, immigrants are dangerous. They're raping people, killing people, and we must do everything we can to keep them out of our country.

hear what he's doing, he's playing on that fear, he knows. And then he shows up with the illusion of strength and he says, come with me, come with me, I got you, I'll protect you. And I am convinced that many, many evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians, they actually knew exactly what they're doing, but the cost, which was their integrity, they were willing to give up because they bought into his illusion of strength that maybe he could protect us from a future.

that was far too uncertain and too complex for them to handle in the moment. And so I say that to say politicians know how to leverage fear. They know it's lucrative. The church knows how to leverage fear. That's part of the reason there are these massive mega churches because they continue to dangle this idea that guess what? Everybody's gonna die. Everybody's gonna die. And they know they have the upper hand. And so then they create the narrative, but here's the thing. There is a heaven and there is a hell and you will go to one of the other and

Alexis Rice (1:27:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yep, yep, yep.

Cody Deese (1:27:49)
If you don't want to go to hell, guess what? We have the solution, right? This is a business model. We have the solution. We can keep you out of hell. And it worked. It worked for years. This is why there are many pastors in America who have more money than they know what to do with right now, because turns out you'll give more than 10 % if you actually think it can keep you from eternal conscious torment. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (1:28:14)
Mmm.

Cody Deese (1:28:16)
And so I grew up in a world where they told me the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I say in the book, actually, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of anxiety. And there is a significant difference between having a sacred reverence for the divine and being terrified of God. And I grew up in a world where I was terrified of God. God was not safe. And I'm now at a place where I not only don't believe in hell, I believe the very idea of hell is blasphemy to a just

Alexis Rice (1:28:24)
the hole.

Cody Deese (1:28:44)
loving God. And it's time that we not only deconstruct that idea, but it's also time that we keep providing spaces for people that are walking away from a religion that is leveraging fear and terrorizing people in the name of their God. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (1:29:08)
⁓ amen. You know, one of the things that I appreciate so much that you just mentioned is that

not believing in hell is not a deal breaker to not be a Christian. so many of us were raised with gatekeepers in front of us that said, well, if you don't believe in eternal conscious torment of hell, guess you're out. Guess you don't get to have this relationship with Jesus. won't deconstruct all now, but what I'm.

Cody Deese (1:29:19)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (1:29:36)
hoping that listeners also hear from you and many pastors that I've had on is that the eternal conscious torment is only one school of thought. There's plenty of Bible scholars on the sacred slope. Dr. Aaron Higashi just put out serving up scripture in Jennifer Bashaw. Brian Recker did a book called Hell Bent. I have an episode on that. So if you're interested in deconstructing more or find a trusted pastor like Cody,

who can help you with the theology, but also you're talking about the body part of it. I think people who completely walked away from church spaces and said, I don't believe anymore, whether or not you end up back in a church space, I think that that healing would actually really make a difference for people. So I want to thank you for going into that.

we're gonna talk a little bit about journey. in your story, you're honest that you've tried a lot, right? Like CBT, therapy, prayer, SSRIs, gummies, psychedelics, different paths that people consider.

when they really want relief. And just to be clear to everybody listening and watching, we're not prescribing anything. Everyone should work with their doctors and professionals. But I want to honor your honesty and thank you for sharing everything that you went through. And so I'm curious about, were there any ⁓ surprising breakthroughs that you didn't expect to help you?

Cody Deese (1:30:57)
Yeah, there was, I mean, all of them played a role, right? So it's not that some of them worked, some of them didn't work. actually all of them worked at some level to help me arrive at where I've arrived at. And they all played different roles. mean, to this day, I still, take SSRIs, every night. And, and a part of I mentioned that in the book, just because there's so much pill shaming, ⁓ even from like, well-intended progressives.

Alexis Rice (1:31:12)
Same. Yep.

Cody Deese (1:31:21)
kind of turn their nose up, like you need to take a holistic path. And I'm like, you need to get out of my face. You know what I mean? Like, because a, cause a part of it is just like, like they would openly shame you for it, but that's kind of the line, right? It's like a passive aggressive shaming. here's what I say to people all the time. Of course I'm aware that medication like SSRIs are not actually like their ideas, like it's just a cover up. It's just like a bandaid. And I'm like, yeah, because here's what you need to know.

if you ever find yourself in a place where anxiety is so high and so, and I'm going to use this word disabling, ⁓ you need everything you can get to even muster the capability to actually get to the root cause of your anxiety. And so, there's something to say about the fact that SSRIs are not a bandaid like covering up the wound. it's actually, the very

medication we need to actually be able to deal with the wounds itself. And necessary things. Now, all that said, I've tried it all. One of the things that I have learned about that whole process cure, and I want to use that phrase openly. You can read the book and figure out what I mean by that, but cure, if there is such a thing to anxiety.

I came to realization might very well be inside the anxiety, right? for me, was, I was conditioned to believe anxiety was this monster trying to kill us. Most people in America probably at some level have been raised to see anxiety that way. It's something you are to get rid of.

It is a problem. That's why there's so many books written about it. And so I was conditioned to believe that like, okay, this is how I understand anxiety is. And what I realized is maybe anxiety isn't the monster that we think it is. as we've already said on this podcast, maybe it's here to actually tell us something. And so that's when, I, after trying these things, I realized, my gosh, all of them play a different role. And even psychedelics, some people are talking about this for some, it's still kind of taboo, but

I went out to Seattle and a high dose of psilocybin with a trusted guide. And I will tell you, up my unconscious in ways that I don't know that I ever could have visited on my own. And a part of that was walking through that door and using the imagination, but walking through that door.

these drugs gave me the ability to see some things that I was unable to see. Now, I preface all that to say that was the very moment that this book was written. It was during a psychedelic experience that I realized, my God, there's a whole universe within us. And people have different language for it, call it the soul, the psyche, the unconscious, subconscious, spirit, heart, gut, mind, whatever you want to call it. is a world in here and I've never visited because I live in the Western world.

And I grew up evangelical and as far as I knew, it stopped right here. You know I'm saying? Like it was like, like you, the only world was the one above your shoulders. And what psilocybin did is it introduced me to a whole new world. there's actually a body in here and I can visit it and it's got all these layers. so they all worked at some level, but here's what I concluded.

Alexis Rice (1:34:13)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Cody Deese (1:34:40)
There is no quick fix here. We live in a pill popping society. We want everything fixed right now. Like we don't know how to live with pain. So we're just like, my God, this is uncomfortable. Fix it now. And what I will tell you is we have to be careful not to use these modalities, even psychedelics, as a way to, and you can use this phrase, embrace spiritual bypassing. Like it's gonna fix everything. Like you just go down to Costa Rica, sit with a guide, get some ayahuasca, throw your guts up, and then you're gonna come back and be radically changed.

Alexis Rice (1:35:01)
Yep. Yep.

Cody Deese (1:35:08)
it's actually not how it works at all. I don't think that's a really healthy use of those modalities at all. the truth is, healing is an inside job and it doesn't work from the outside in, it works from the inside out. And that's the realization I came through through all these medications. they were all helpful in their own way. they also helped me realize there's no one savior here. this is.

This is a slow work and it's gonna take some time. And you didn't accumulate all those traumatic events just to walk away after a four hour session with medication in the same way that you can't walk into a therapist office be like, we've got an hour, I paid you $150, I expect to walk out of here completely healed, right? That's not how it works. ⁓ It takes some time.

Alexis Rice (1:35:54)
Right? Right?

Yeah.

So this is and it says, anxiety has transformed me. Anxiety is transforming me. How? Anxiety did what a thousand retreats never could.

break my heart into a million little pieces, which leads me to ask, can anything that works for our own human flourishing be all that bad? How can something so painful be so transforming? Do we only change when the pain of not changing pushes us into the anxiety of changing? Richard Rohr writes it this way, two universal paths of transformation have been available to every human being God has created, great love and great suffering.

These are offered to all. They level the playing fields of all the world religions. Only love and suffering are strong enough to break down our usual ego defenses, crush our dualistic thinking, and open us to mystery. my experience, they like nothing else exert the mysterious chemistry that can transmute us from a fear-based life into a love-based life.

I call this the push-pull factor. Throughout my life, I have at times felt pulled or drawn or compelled into a newer version of myself. Be it a new idea, perspective, possibility, or awareness, something or someone pulled me into a new understanding. I saw something I had never seen before and it challenged me. I experienced something I had never experienced before and it stretched me. My hope is that the very words and stories in this book have opened your eyes to a possibility, more beautiful,

than you once imagined. You could call this great love. Few things have contributed to my personal transformation more than love. have had the honor to serve a little spiritual collective outside of Atlanta called Vinings Lake. I am daily inspired by their pursuit beauty, truth and goodness. It's no stretch to say encountering them weekly is key to my own continual transformation. These are people who have decided.

They want their contribution toward a new world to exceed their criticism of the current world.

Cody Deese (1:38:08)
Hmm. Who wrote that? That's amazing. No, that's probably right. Yes. You're probably right. I love it. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Thanks for reading that. yeah, great suffering and great love. mean, hats off to Richard Roar for those great ideas. I mean, he's been such a legend in a lot of us that have been rethinking our faith, but yeah.

Alexis Rice (1:38:11)
I don't know, but it's so good. think this guy named Rob Bell. wait, no, no, it's Cody. It's Cody. Rob will be very proud.

Cody Deese (1:38:35)
I mean, these painful moments, even the moment we're walking through right now as a nation, ⁓ the chaos, the upheaval, the pain. And I don't see this as a silver lining as much as a hope that maybe something new can emerge from all this. And in my experience with growing up,

has been sometimes it's some of the most painful moments that push us. But also my experience with a community that has opened the door to love. And I don't mean just like my notions and so many of our notions of love, like the romantic flower love, all of that's lovely. I've been married 20, I gotta get this right, 23 years.

My lovely wife, an amazing human. I joke around with her all the time because I am like, yeah, you're in on all this. Like you've been to the other side, you know it. You came back to guide poor little me because you knew I would just fumble around. But I say that to say has opened the door to love for me in a way that I never knew growing up. And I had very loving parents, but I never experienced this kind of love.

And I think we all have to be careful because what happens is we begin to attach to the person thinking it's them. And then they leave us and we can't recover because we equated that love with that specific person when maybe the reality is they just opened a door for us to experience a love that is profound in many ways.

my experience is that it's been both those. It's been the pain and suffering of living with a panic disorder and also the joy of living in a community and with a human that keeps insisting and showing that love is here, love is present. And both those have transformed me on ways I've

never experienced before. So yeah, I'm grateful for that. I look for both even in America right now. I look for both. I see the pain. I see the heartache. I see the suffering, but I also see the see what's happening in Minneapolis. the compassion of a mom who lost her 37 year old son, parents.

of Alex Pretti I heard their cry. was like, he was a good man, right? Yeah, I see all that. And so I hold both those and both I believe are transforming us as a nation, as a culture. And I think the question is, what is it transforming us into? And to me, that's the exciting part. That's the thrill of it is like, what is being birthed out of this chaos right now?

And who knows? Who actually knows? But I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that it's something that is a bit more loving, inclusive, and liberating and free than anything we've experienced before. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (1:41:22)
Hmm.

Me too. A friend of mine who's Buddhist talks about the lotus flower, which is so incredibly beautiful. I spent time in Southeast Asia and lotus flowers are everywhere. if you go to a cemetery, we have crosses a lot, but they have lotus flowers. And he talked about beauty of the lotus flower comes only through the mud. And it's just such a beautiful feeling of like, yeah, we're in the mud right now, but we can make something beautiful out of this together.

Cody Deese (1:41:46)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

That's right.

That's right. That's right.

Alexis Rice (1:41:55)
Right?

Pastor Cody, there are a lot of people who are listening or watching who haven't been prayed over in a long time. And I was wondering if you could offer up a prayer for them.

Cody Deese (1:42:08)
Yeah, how about this instead of like a close your eyes prayer? We do this a lot around Vinings you call it a benediction, but this will be a send off. For all of your listeners, may you refuse to be bent by fear, silenced by any gaslighting, or intimidated by

Alexis Rice (1:42:11)
Yep.

Yeah.

Cody Deese (1:42:31)
supremacy around us. May you speak boldly, protect the vulnerable with your very presence, and let compassion be your weapon of creative resistance. May you recognize the humanity in others as you call out injustice. Holding accountability without dehumanizing, refusing to mimic the cruelty you confront.

And may the fire of your activism burn bright, unwavering, unmasked, and unapologetic as you and I keep disrupting the empire and usher in dignity, mercy, love in a new world as Jesus said. May his kingdom come on earth in America as it is in heaven.

Amen.

Alexis Rice (1:43:30)
Amen. Cody Dease, thanks for leaving it all on the field today.

Cody Deese (1:43:35)
Yeah, no, thank you.

Where do we go? What is this like two and a half hours?

Alexis Rice (1:43:40)
We're close. All right, one final question. What do you like to do for fun?

Cody Deese (1:43:41)
I love it. What a joy to talk to you. Thank you. Yes.

Okay. Two things. I run every day. I run every day, but Saturday and Sunday. I run 15 miles. I'm not bragging here, although I can't, it is kind of a flex because I can still do it at 44. I run 15 miles one day a week and I run six miles every other day. So I absolutely love it. And it's really good for anxiety, by the way, like get out and move your body. So walking, running, whatever. So I do that. And then I am a golfer too. Like I love it. Sunshine, beer in hand.

Alexis Rice (1:44:03)
I love it!

Cody Deese (1:44:15)
good company, just hitting a white ball, like all the frustration, just like getting up there and just, my God, that's a fun, fun experience. So yeah, those are two things. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Alexis Rice (1:44:24)
Amazing. Cody, thanks for being on the sacred slope today.

Alexis Rice (1:44:28)
Thank you for joining us today on The Sacred Slope. If you'd like to nominate a pastor, priest, or clergy member anywhere in the world, send me an email at Alexis @ thesacredslope.com. Music by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin, and Sean Spence. May the fruit of the spirit guide you this week. I'm Alexis Rice. Go in peace, friends.