Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Darren Calhoun 0:08
But I love this reality of like, what we say and what we've heard and what's been said to us can literally overwhelm us and overtake us and we lose all connection. We lose connection to what gave us joy, we lose connection to what gives us purpose, even though it feels like we're doing the thing that we really love. And it's so easy to mix it up for you know, why am I here on earth with what am I good at? So when I saw that scene, I was like, Oh, this, this will preach this. This will set the captives free through all kinds of theological like frameworks.
Seth Price 1:03
Hey, there, everyone. Welcome back to Can I Say This At Church. I'm glad you're here. Thank you so much for downloading. Today, I brought back somebody that I just love. He does online. I love his work, his voice. And so I brought back Darren Calhoun. Now, I do want to warn you, before we get into here, that we are discussing a movie that came out, and I think probably many people have seen it, but maybe they haven't. But the movie came out. It's a Disney Pixar flick called Soul. Now, I don't like talking about movies if I can't actually talk about the movies. And so I will warn you, there will be spoilers ahead. And that's okay. So if you haven't watched the movie, or if you want to, you might want to skip this one until you do. It's on Disney plus, or I'm sure you can buy it. However, there are a lot of theological things, I think, that run through that movie, as well as a lot of racial undertones in this movie. I had went on Facebook and said, Hey, I want to talk about this. Who should I talk with? And yeah, so this is the result of that. So I really hope you enjoy it. I loved it. I enjoy the conversation. I love riffing with other people about God and faith and in this case movies. So let's go.
(music)
Seth Price 2:48
Darren, what, four or five months ago, I think I finished the transcript of the first time you had joined the show from like three years ago. And at the end, I said we should have you back on. And I'm happy to have you back on. I did not expect it to be on this topic. But I'm happy to make it happen. But Welcome back, man.
Darren Calhoun 3:03
Glad to be here. Good to see you again.
Seth Price 3:06
So it has been like, like two years. So what's new?
Darren Calhoun 3:10
I think two years, yes.
Seth Price 3:11
Why not, time is relative anymore? Right?
Darren Calhoun 3:14
Oh, because it is 2021 now so it technically could be three years depending on how you do the math
Seth Price 3:21
I don't even remember,
Darren Calhoun 3:23
Time is a construct. And we are operating outside of it at this point.
Seth Price 3:28
So what's been new in the nonlinear timeline since the last time that we talked?
Darren Calhoun 3:33
Right. Well, you know, there's a pandemonium outside right now. And that has thrown everything off, but in good ways. Like what I was sharing before we started recording, I have been at home, I already worked from home, but I've been at home kind of building my own little studio setup and watching endless YouTube videos about dream workspace setups. And I've got my little standing desk and my microphone and my camera. And I've taught myself how to produce audio and video. And other than that the band still going we actually have a new song that should by the time this is released, our new song will be out on Spotify and Apple and all that. So look for The Many and song is Where Jesus Was. And I'm still at my church still leading worship, it's been great that even with everything (that is) going on, we've been able to, very quickly, turn on a dime and go online 100% and it's you know, that could still be employed, along with all the other worship leaders. So that's been really good, but it's also been a totally different way of doing church, which I've appreciated, because normally it's it's 52 weeks a year of gotta produce gotta produce got to produce, whereas now it's one once a month for me. And instead I get to spend time exploring and creating and, you know, doing my little projects that have that keep me inspired Yeah, rather than always producing. So I'm feeling good.
Seth Price 5:04
So you, like the many of us, like, well, like when I started this only, I guess I have to learn how to do audio now, like you're forced to like, I guess I'll learn how to do video now, one of these days, I'll figure it out. I actually found a software that was recommended from a guest that I doubt the episode has come out yet, because I don't remember releasing it. But there's a software called Descript, like, like description, but without the tion, and it records the audio and the video. And I could just delete that word “I’m” and it would also edit the video form of fortnight, right? Yeah, that's got like a cost per month that I don't know. I'll figure it out. But one of these days, I'm gonna plug that in there and go, let's see how this works. So yeah, everything I do is always for the first time. And I know a lot of worship and senior ministers and youth ministers are like, Oh, he's young! He's the one that's going to make the online service be a thing. ( Darren laughs) He knows how the internet works.
Darren Calhoun 5:57
We're gonna see such a….I don't know what this is, there's, there's gonna be a lot of awakenings as a result of how many people have been called on in ways that they weren't prepared for, but also had to produce in ways that they didn't necessarily expect. And I think some people are gonna flourish and some people don't be like, “Okay, I'm out two fingers. I'm gone”. So that's gonna be interesting for the church to deal with on the back end of this.
Seth Price 6:23
Yeahs in seminary they told me ministry was “this” you did not say that I had to make a studio and figure out how to…anyway. Anyway, now all the things yeah. Not why I brought you on. So a while ago, on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, I forget when I watch. I watched soul, the new Disney Pixar, Christmas Day. Yeah, yeah, with the family. Which was fun, although I don't think my kids liked it at all. And to be honest, I'm not sure that I liked it at the very end. And then No, I watched it again. And like, I think I do. And so I've watched it a couple times more than a couple times now. And probably spent way too long diving into YouTube videos, and all these it’s just fascinating. But I put on Facebook, I really want to talk about Soul, kind of all the concepts of Soul in the podcast, and I did not expect anybody to comment and my wife is she's like, what is all what is all this is like, I know, I have no idea what's going on here.
But you were volunteered, right? Yeah, that's the word. Yeah. And yeah, I'm excited to do it. So I do want to say, there will most likely be spoilers of the show. I'm not editing them out. So if you haven't watched, so. That's on you.
Darren Calhoun 7:31
All the spoiler alerts.
Seth Price 7:34
Yeah. And maybe there won't be but I'm sure there would have to be.
Darren Calhoun 7:35
So I've been avoiding talking about the spoilers. But it is easier…there's so many layers to it that if you really want the pure experience of seeing it the first time, don't listen, just bookmark this and come back.
Seth Price 7:53
Yeah. And that's fine. Like I bookmark a lot of things that I know that I'm going to watch, and I come back to it later. So the Mandalorian is one of those things, I actually have a folder saved of all of the Mandalorian things I want to read when I'm done. And I have one episode left.
Darren Calhoun 8:08
I haven’t watched my first one yet and I really need to.
Seth Price 8:10
I really enjoyed it. And I've been watching it with my son. And so with COVID and school and everything, it's made it where it's like an episode a month, which is really frustrating when I'm when I would like to learn how it ends when I have 46 minutes left to go and I can’t.
Darren Calhoun 8:26
“This is the way.”
(Seth laughs)
Seth Price 8:32
So what is it about Soul that hits you? What What made you pop it on there like, hey, I want to talk about this, like, what is it that that gets you?
Darren Calhoun 8:42
I mean, I had all the feelings as soon as I watched it. And I watched it with my mom, we have a Christmas tradition of like watching something very fanciful together. It's normally, my previous church would do a big Christmas program, but in 2020, that was not a thing. So I was like, what are we going to do instead? And we picked Soul and we live next door to each other. But we have some contacts. So she came over to, to watch and we were just thrilled with it.
I think for me, the biggest thing is okay, maybe I should just do a list there few things. I hate force ranking anyway. But the the top thing for me was the representation of just seeing people that felt like people I really know in real life on screen in a Disney film. And they weren't these like cookie cutter, fuzzy headed, brown colored people. These were authentic folks with stories and names and personalities and it was in New York. I don't live in New York. I live in Chicago, but I've been into New York several times, and I love it as a place to visit and it felt like real things I saw in New York.
But then there's also the ways that it weaved together these ideas about life and purpose and hereafter, and like they were very specific things that they mentioned in there, we'll get into some of those, that I was like, Oh, this isn't just, oh, we're just gonna make a story. Like it was clear to me that they did some research on a lot of different beliefs and practices. And they inserted them into the movie in a way that honored them rather than the way we see something show up as just like, “here's our faith thing we made up!” it was like, no, this is the real stuff. But it's done in a way that really is aware of itself, as opposed to just being like, “oh, we'll just make it because it's just a storytelling tool”. There's like, no, that's, I've heard that sermon preached in my, in my church.
Seth Price 10:56
Can I lean into the representation because I think that's the first thing that I actually messaged you when I was like, he was kind of one of the things. So as a white guy, I still thoroughly enjoyed the show. And I've struggled to fix on it. So what do you mean by that, contrast it with a different movie? where you're like, yeah, here's where they forced representation and here's why it didn't work. Like why does that work so well in Soul?
Darren Calhoun 11:18
Yeah, I have to think for a second for a similar movie or example. But I think about, and I was raised this way, anytime I see characters, or books, or cartoons, or even the video games I play on my iPhone my whole life I've looked to see are all the characters coded as white? There's a little game I had to play on my phone that is a parody of church. But all the characters are white passing in the game. And these are, you know, it's all a game of people like doing church. But every character is stereotypically white.
And it's just like, huh, like, you've made different hair colors, and you made different genders, but nobody could be anything I live in than white? Um, but I grew up with that my mom, whenever I would get a coloring book or something as a very young kid, I could see the the ways that the characters were drawn in the book, but she was like, Oh, we need to add some color here. And so like we make somebody have curly hair, or we give somebody browner skin or we'd make sure that like if we bought a nativity set and if it looked really, really white, we were going to also buy some paint, and we're going to change that up.
And so I was kind of raised with this awareness of race and the ways that the world kind of defaults to whiteness. And as a kid I thought it was all just so extra why we always have to do this. But as I got older, it was just like, wait, it never ends. It's everywhere. It's pervasive. So when you do see something that makes an attempt, and Disney's made a couple of attempts. The last big one was, and this gets talked about in some of the articles, I didn't read anybody's article about this. So I'm going in with a little bit of a blindness to others opinions. But people immediately bring up how in Princess and The Frog, the first time we have a black Princess, she spends the majority of the movie and somebody even like data percentage number for it, the majority of the movie, she's in an anthropomorphic frog body and we don't get to connect with this princess as a princess. We connect with this princess as the frog. And then at the end, it's like, oh, yeah, this is a human person that we should like be connecting with. And the the critique that many have there is when we tell stories that are supposed to be universal. We either do them with mostly white male figures, or we do them with animals. And then after that, there's like this huge fall off. Even in children's books, there's this huge fall off of characters that are lead protagonists that are anything other than white boys or an animal. So I got way into a vein there. But that's the kind of stuff that is always on my mind.
Seth Price 14:19
So the first time I watched it representation was not the first thing on my mind. Honestly, the music was because I don't really like jazz, and I really was feeling the music of the whole show. And I've also never watched Princess and The Frog like, at all. We were gifted a trip to Disney a few years ago for Christmas. And when we went she was one of the princesses that came and I didn't even know her name. Like I knew the character but I don't even know her name. My girls know who they are. I've never even watched the show.
Darren Calhoun 14:46
Princess Tiana.
Seth Price 14:48
That's right, Tiana. Yeah. But um, yeah, we have her autograph. Yeah, I just haven’t…is it any good? Should I watch it? Like is it worth watching?
Darren Calhoun 14:56
It's not super memorable, but it has its nice points like Disney hasn't had its golden day and in a long time when it comes to like big films.
Seth Price 15:07
It’s not super memorable.
Darren Calhoun 15:10
Yeah, I'm like you know nothing beats Lion King and Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast when it comes to like the golden era Disney film. Yeah, I'm a little biased.
Seth Price 15:22
I want to spend some time on on the music in the show. Because it literally is. First off it's funny. Second off, I didn't know it was Trent Reznor until I read the credits today like I watched. I watched some more of the movie again today. Just different pieces and I didn't realize that Trent Reznor had done the soundtrack which is really impressive. I don't know if you knew that or not. But he scored the thing you know who I'm talking about Nine Inch Nails Trent Reznor.
Darren Calhoun 15:47
Okay. No, I wasn't familiar.
Seth Price 15:50
Do you know who Nine Inch Nails is?
Darren Calhoun 15:51
I do know the name? I couldn't say Oh, they did this song or that song.
Seth Price 15:59
Honestly one of their most famous songs probably is not even famous probably because of them. So you know, that Hurt song from Johnny Cash.
I hurt myself today to see if I still bleed
You know, the song I'm talking about? (Shakes head no) Oh, man, I'm gonna send you some songs. Alright, so we're gonna pivot away from there, but I'm gonna…I'm gonna educate you. I'm gonna send you some songs. Yeah, anyway, doesn't matter.
So I don't know anything about jazz. And honestly, I usually get bored with jazz because I don't know how to play in that way. Like, I'm just not as talented enough as a musician to play. But even from the very beginning it's so comical the way the little Disney Castle comes in and you can hear like, fourth…fifth…eighth grade? I don't know.
Darren Calhoun 16:47
Yes, the elementary kids.
Seth Price 16:50
But I'm curious. So he gets into the zone, which is a concept in there I guess where you can tap into a spiritual world. But how do you feel like music and I guess music in a way like jazz is where it's it's just you just run with it from what I understand, can fit into a spiritual mindset in the way that the film presents it? Like, have you ever been in a place like that? Do you think that's even accurate or thoughts on that whole concept?
Darren Calhoun 17:11
Oh, absolutely. I think it was…it was literal. I've been there. The last time I was reminded of the moment that he said that then place in that place of feeling like you've gone into another place. The last movie that did that, for me, was The Greatest Showman, which the music makes it an amazing movie that never had to be about PT Barnum at all. That's shade. But when I watched that movie, when I watched The Greatest Showman, there's a moment in the movie where somebody is performing and just like the whole room goes silent, right? Even though there's they're in a crowded room and they finish the performance. And there's a moment where before they realize what's going on it's just like, there's just dead silence. And then all of a sudden, the people that have been clapping this whole time, that sound rushes back.
And I remember the first time that I led a song in church, I was probably like, seventh or eighth grade. So you know, you know, a very young teenager, and I led this song. I had never led in church before. I also went to a Catholic Church at the time. And our church was, you know, was African American, it was very “chosen frozen.” Like they didn't clap for stuff. They just kind of sat politely through the service.
Seth Price 18:46
That is my kind of church right there.
Darren Calhoun 18:48
(Laughs)
And when I finished the song, I went over to my friend who was our musician, really talented guy, I went over to him and I was like, “man, how was it? Was it too bad?” And he's like, he just kind of turns and looks at me is like, “you don't hear that.” And I was like, “hear what?” And it was the whole church giving me a standing ovation.
It was completely gone from my awareness because I was just in this moment, singing the song, and then when I finished singing the song I was overcome with my insecurity. And I'm over talking to my friend. He's like, “how do you not hear this”, and I turned around and see like the whole church clapping. And so in the movie when Soul, like talked about going to that place where you're just in another world, I was like, Oh, that's real. That is a thing. And that's one of the things that my pastor, in my United Methodist Church, talks about that this idea of the thin place and this idea of how we can be, it may not necessarily be connected to music, but there's there's times or spaces that we may find in our lives and our spiritual journeys where we feel extra close to God or extra close to the divine or to the universe, however you term that. But it's this idea that's been in various spiritual practices for quite some time. And I was like, oh, y'all got that right, y'all did that. And it was great to see it as a part of this story that connected to so many other things.
Seth Price 20:28
I've had experiences like that singing, never playing, because I'm not a good enough musician to play without thinking about playing. Like getting lost in the way that Joe does. Yeah, I've had times like that singing. And I've had times like that drawing, I like to do art. I remember one time at school in college, like, I lost, like, 18 hours. Like I literally when I stood up, I was like, What? Oh, my God, like, I just didn't even eat. Yeah, and but when I would finish, I was like, I was like, This is good. Shoot, it's tomorrow. What happened? What happened here?
Darren Calhoun 20:58
You know, do that while I'm playing the Sims. But yeah, go ahead.
Seth Price 21:03
This is better not be on your phone. Don't think I didn't miss the I work at a church and I play a game about a church on my phone. Part of me died inside when you said that Darren, part of me died inside. The concept of a soul is a big concept, especially in faith. So I've got multiple thoughts on both the concept of the movie and the soul and maybe curious on your thoughts on this. So like, for me, Joe seems to be, and I wrote it down, like the movie seems to be about a soul that doesn't want to die and about a soul that doesn't want to live and like the juxtaposition of those two things. And I find it almost ecclesiastical. Where they both realize this is all I've got I'm gonna die, this is all I've got. So I might as well live.
And they both come to it, maybe I'm way over thinking that. But what do you think like this soul even is either the way this movie portrays it or just period because that's what I've continued to chew on. Especially those little baby blue souls that are just annoying. In the movie. They just they I mean, I find them annoying, but yeah, where are you at with that?.
Darren Calhoun 22:17
I love them! I thought they're really cute. I want those to become like the next…what's the…minions…I want toys, I want games. I want all the branding and merchandising. Those things are so cute. Especially when they like hell! Hell! Hell!
Seth Price 22:36
(Laughs) He says “h, e, double hockey sticks”. And they're like, “Oh, hell, hell”, right.
Darren Calhoun 22:40
I was like, I mean, and there's that even thinking that makes sense for why they can spell hell. But they're also like little kids. Like, why do you know how to spell you don't even have like a personality?
Seth Price 22:52
They are just conscious beings?
Darren Calhoun 22:55
Yeah. Um, but yeah, so the soul? I think a few things I remember the first time I'll always guess I have a story for everything. I remember the when and this is on a more serious note, my grandmother passed away when I was…gosh, yeah, probably at same time of my life, seven, six or seventh grade, maybe seventh grade. And when she passed away, that was the second time a family member had passed away, the first time it was one of my aunts when I was much, much younger, but this time, I was a little bit more aware. And when she passed, I remember breaking down one day and calling like a random friend of one of my schoolmates. None of my parents were home at the time. And she was also somebody who was a member of my church. And she just said, “well always remember that energy can neither be created nor destroyed”. Like she gave me this very accurate scientific answer. But she was within this frame of faith still saying like your grandmother's not gone, she's gone on but she's not gone.
And that was like the foundation, this quiet little foundation, that just kind of carried me through all kinds of theology, all kinds of church communities and all this other stuff. Also, being somebody who's a little bit of a science geek nerd kind of situation, too. But that idea, I loved the way it was presented in this movie. Because I think churches often don't really help us engage with that, like, they'll threaten us about hell. And they'll threaten us about, you know, eternity but they don't really help us think about this existence and what this all means in a larger context other than getting to Heaven. And so I've, I've always been somebody who's married science and faith together. And that's just been the way the world's made sense to me.
So seeing that portrayed that way, in a way that again, also acknowledges several different lines of thought. I tend to be like having awareness of various traditions, not just Christian orthodox type stuff. But everything from I see the patterns in various belief systems. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, they've hit it in several points. And Jerry, like this representation of, I think the way Jerry describe themselves, was this representation of the multiple dimensions formed in a way that makes sense to you. I was like, Oh, yeah! Yeah, again, God who's infinite and the Alpha and the Omega, that that could very well be like multi dimensional time travel ability, and all this other stuff that we just don't have enough dimensions to understand. I was like, Yeah, I like that. I can appreciate that.
Seth Price 26:07
That line. So I actually wrote that line down, because I found it so clever. And so he says something about
we’re the coming together of all quantized,
and I don't even know what that word means.
Fields of the universe, presented in a way that your prehistoric brain can comprehend. But you can call me Jerry…
which is, I don't know, just fantastic. Yeah, I kind of really enjoyed the concept of the souls, you're going to be really energetic, and you over here, you're going to be a little bit club footed, or I forget the word it was with the gregarious or the, you know, clumsy. I really, really enjoyed the concept. But there is a concept that I've never dealt with in this movie. So the great what is it called? The Great before? Is that what it's called?
Darren Calhoun 26:55
Yeah, the Great Before and the great hereafter, yeah.
Seth Price 26:57
So that's not really talked about in the church, we always talk about where we go after, we talk about what we do now. Nobody seems to ever talk about the before. thoughts on that, like, is there space for that? Where should there be space for that? What should that conversation look like? Because that's what I thought the most of matter of fact, I've begun pivoting to, you know, if I die, I'll go back to probably where I was, before I was. And I was fine, then. And I'll probably also still be fine. And I don't even think that's biblical. That's probably extremely heretical. And I'm fine with that. So, yeah, where is there space in at least our faith for something like the great before? Like, what does that look like with the God that we worship?
Darren Calhoun 27:46
At the moment, I don't have…I don't have a whole lot of answers, per se. But I do have another story. When I was in my abusive church, and if you haven't heard that story, go back to the first podcast. When I was in my abusive church I remember being quite hopeless about change, and about becoming pleasing in God's sight. And that was the impact of the culture that was in, you can never be good enough kind of culture. And I remember getting hopeless, but then coming across that scripture that I had heard before, but it just kind of illuminated, of God pointing out to Abraham, that so as the stars of the sky so shall be your descendants. So for God to point to the star of the sky, a very quantified thing. And say, this is how your descendants will be. To me in that moment, it was, I already knew you, you know, before you were in your mother's womb, I formed you a new you. And also, I put a star in the sky so that at some point, I could point to that star and tell Abraham, hey, that one represents Darren. And Darren is going to be part of your descendants. And so while I don't think that's a literal, like, okay, these souls are the stars or nothing like that.
But what I'm saying is that God, in God's way, had that foresight and that knowledge of of me and my existence and my, and you know, what I would do in the world, and was able to point to that to say, hey, like, this is what's to come, even though it's so far beyond anything that any human could have imagined at the point that it was said. And so to me, that's, that's kind of what that is. It's just like, God knows God understands. I don't think we have a whole lot of specifics. Like in the biblical scriptures or most of the narratives that we have about what is before, but we do talk a lot about what's after. But those moments like that, there are several moments in the Bible like that, that always reminded me, it was like, yeah, there was clearly something important about my life before I existed. And that's usually enough to keep me from like ending it in a lot of ways just to be real transparent.
Seth Price 30:16
Oh my, yeah, yeah, I'm speaking of ending it. So I'm going to pivot off of that, because yeah, why not? So I want to talk about this conveyor belt and the purpose that it serves and go with me because I'm going to ramble for a minute but before I get there, what is the over under that the entrance into the great beyond is just a cosmic bug zapper? Because that's what it appears to be in the movie, you just get close and bzzzt you're done. What's the over under that you think that that's like, that's the that's the pearly gate, just a cosmic bugs after the in the way that it's presented in this movie.
Darren Calhoun 30:51
it does resonate with me on energy, again, is this idea that there's energy that we come from an energy that we return to. Again, I could get real nerdy and talk about how atoms are all synchronized in the universe. And no matter how far apart they are, they're still synchronized.
Seth Price 31:11
I'm just looking for a percentage.
Darren Calhoun 31:14
So it's just one of those things where I'm like, I feel like they in very intentionally kept that opaque. They did not tell us what's there. They never even try to hint at what's there. And they leave it to your imagination. And so you get to fill that in with whatever faith and belief systems you want. And a lot of people were like, well, they didn't tell people about heaven. It was like, well, they could if you wanted it to be. But they left it open and I appreciate it, that space.
Seth Price 31:43
Yeah. So you've seen Coco correct, because you flexed your Disney chops earlier. So in the last few years, both Coco and this movie seemed to specifically deal with the afterlife, just in a different cultural context. But it's not lost on me that in one there is a bridge that bridges you to a different form of existence. And (in) one it's a second life and a second death. And in this one as well it's the same thing. What do you think this bridge is? Either this bridge of what are they flowers? I forget exactly what kind of flowers?
Darren Calhoun 32:21
They are flower petals.
Seth Price 32:23
Yeah, or a bridge that appears to be a guitar neck. (Darren saying…oh!!!!) At least maybe I'm overthinking it. It had like it looked like it had frets on it. Maybe that's just me still reading into the music belt? Well, it looks like that. But it's 30 seconds of it also is really weird to me that he lands with nobody. He backs up to three people, and then all of a sudden there is a city of of souls there. Which is a little bit crazy. But what purpose do you feel like the bridge serves? I guess in either one of these stories, but soul specifically?
Darren Calhoun 32:59
I mean, to me just that the metaphor of the bridge is enough. Like, there's something between here and there. I mean, the Bible does talk about us being asleep you know, before the hereafter comes. The thin place did talk about this connection between there and here and all these other things. Yeah, like it didn't hint at like purgatory or something like that.
And I thought it was very interesting that I could probably venture off into other stuff. But I thought it was very interesting that there were like numbers associated with this, that there was like someone counting and I don't know if you caught that reference. “We haven't had a count go off in a couple centuries”. I was like, was that Jesus? (laughs)
Seth Price 33:54
I didn't think about that. I didn't think
Darren Calhoun 33:57
Because like, there's only so many ways that yeah. Yeah, not that Jesus is the only reincarnation story…or not reincarnation whoops!!! Jesus isn’t the only resurrection story. Um, but But yeah, it was it was an interesting, little throwaway, that it was just like, we'll never know what it meant. Unless, you know, whatever team wrote it wants to divulge that at some point. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. That one I haven't pondered too deeply.
Seth Price 34:29
Yeah. Do you feel like the Jerry's are extremely passive aggressive and everything. The more that I watch it, the more I hear, like a parental tone of “I've asked you 20 times to go away” in there, even the way that they say like “quiet coyote”. And specifically when Jerry comes to say, there's this many What did he say like 100,000 something souls that die every day. That's blah, blah, blah. And that's like 1.6 per second. And he's like, I count everything. I've counted how many times that your blink you just blink five times. Now six. And it's cute that the animated six finger in there when he says six. And then she’s like like, “Oh, that's great. You do the accounting, you go do that, and let us do this'“ and he just leaves, you know, I will do that. And they are like, great, you're doing great. I just find them so sarcastic, and I love that.
I do want to pivot on you'd slipped and said reincarnation, but I've given more thought to that. So when Joe shows up to the You Seminar, or whatever, I can't remember the other word, they imply, Oh, you've been here before? Don't worry about it. Just sit down and watch this for a second. I've caught it a couple times. How do you sit with that? Because for me, it feels almost like if there's a soul being created in this universe, that the personality is me or you has some form of small input in what I am now that I'm here and that it's not entirely so deterministic.
Darren Calhoun 35:54
Well, I hear you on the like, or they sent somebody to become a megalomaniac. I was like, you did you start this movie six years ago. So it couldn't be literally talking about a certain former national leader. But it's so accurate. Right, right? But I was thinking about, rather than seeing it as necessarily, like, this is the deterministic part. I was noticing how there's always this discovery process, right? Like, yes, we give you certain things, just like my Sims, but there's also this part where you have to go and figure your stuff out. And then you have to go into the world not being fully aware of any of this, which, you know, some people might ask at what point was Jesus was fully aware that Jesus was also God? Like, were you born with that knowledge? Were you like, a three year old going, Hey, I'm also God. Like, you know, there's that question we don't have a direct answer to.
I'm more specifically was thinking of how I reacted to the Jerry's was that these Jerry's are his concept of Jerry's. And these Jerry's very specifically talked about humans like, as distinct. I’m like, they made it real clear that what we were seeing what we were experiencing was based on our own perception. And I think about the way that the Old Testament God doesn't remind me a whole lot of the New Testament God unless you do some work to reconcile the two. But it does make sense to me that the people of the Old Testament would see God as more vengeful and vindictive, and angry, and scary. And that the people of the New Testament, after being through a whole bunch of stuff would come to understand the same God in a different light.
And so I feel like the Jerry's were just his perception of God. And he does mention being in church at some point, and the relationship with his mom and so forth. It makes sense that there's some very humanistic qualities that are portrayed in whatever the Jerry's are, whatever this universal like determination, this intelligent design, if you will. It makes sense to me that some of that may be informed by his human perspective. You know, it may be something much bigger and greater if you go on the wings of imagination.
Seth Price 38:51
You referenced at the beginning of the episode that time doesn't exist, or we're warping it or whatever, because of the world that we live in now (COVID time). But time has handled so weirdly, in this movie. So you've got the linear time for Joe, which it appears that he's only been unconscious for a matter of hours by the time him and his cat get back in the wrong bodies. And then also, we've got cats having souls that are also on the escalator on their way to get bug zapped, which is, which is just a funny joke. But that's an entirely separate thing. But I find it weird that the Jerrys say that time doesn't exist there. But then the count hasn't been off for a couple 100 centuries. They need one more minute to work back through finding the spark for 22. But again, time doesn't exist here. You know what I mean? Like it's just, it's just really weird, and obviously times moving somehow, because there's all these different mentors for 22 that stretched out through Copernicus, to Mother Teresa, to Jung having a mental breakdown, which is hilarious. The concept of time I find is just mind bending, like just entirely mind bending. And I don't really have a question for that. I'm more so just curious your thoughts on that because I've seen that you want to get scientific and I'm giving you a reason to. And even in the zone, like time seems to be in real time, but also not in real time. Give me your thoughts there.
Darren Calhoun 40:14
Yeah. So this gets into quantum physics, which I don't have any expertise in. But there's this idea in quantum physics that like, we experience time on that linear plane, just point a to point z. But if you add another dimension, you might be able to get from A to D, without having to go through B, and C. Like if I…we’re on a podcast, but if you were to imagine folding a piece of paper in half, you could connect A to D, without necessarily having to go through C and B on that linear plane. And while all of this exists, at the same time, we who are on this plane can only go A, B, C, D. But if you existed outside of that and were able to manipulate, or control, or be present with this foldable piece of paper then you could be present both A and D at the same time. And if you're still on the on the ABCD spectrum it doesn't make sense because the only way you can experience time is on this continuum. But it's still true even though it doesn't make sense in your context.
And so, for me that concept, that's one theory of how time travel could exist, without like breaking all the other laws of physics or the the ideas we have about how the universe works. And it makes sense to me how, you know, when God says, I'm the Alpha and Omega, that God could be at the beginning and the end, but not have an age, you know? Or how God could have seen a known all of us, but us not see, you know, ourselves and still have authentic freewill, you know, those kind of conflicts that come up if you do the logic behind some of these ideas. So, to me, it makes sense that there's both time and no time.
One of the things that the pandemic is part of how our brains experience time is that we have routines and as we get used to certain things happening, like the sun going up and down, like eating, like, whatever the things of our day are, we start to measure, we start to experience time, according to those things. Ohhh! I could get into several other things. But I try to make this quick. One of the things that I've been noticing, or having conversations about, is the way that cultures embrace time differently. If you are in colder parts of the globe, time is very rigid. And it's very calculated and you don't want to be late to things and so forth. If you go to the equator, time is like this relative thing where it's just like what time is the bus come? Oh, it comes when it comes. How do you have a conversation in the south? Well, you'd have to talk a while and you'd ask how their day is and blah, blah, blah. How do you have a conversation in the north? You get straight to the point.
These ways of engaging and socializing they're very different and how time is appreciated I think comes from the way we experience (time), people near the equator experience more hours of the day than people up north and because of the way the the rotation of the Earth is and the hours of sunlight kind of expand and contract throughout the calendar year. And so what happens is people who grew up with this very widely expanding time, closest to the equator, their time is very, like mushy. Whereas the farther north you get time is a lot more rigid because there's not as much of a difference. And those cultures developed timekeeping based on the the the lunar calendar on that the lunar cycles of the Earth around the sun. Yeah, I think that's the solar calendar, versus people at the equator develop time based on…no I should have looked this up before I got into this part. But people who are near the equator base their time on how many hours of light in the day, which we know changes. Whereas people in the northern and further southern regions develop time based on the seasons of the year, which are a lot more static.
And so you get this kind of two different ways of understanding time, that in our brains, it makes sense that people who have this flexible time also aren't so rigid about timeliness. So it goes to say that, you know, like, there's this I don't know if you ever heard the phrase, but CPT: colored people time? So what black folks say or you know, like, there's all kinds of phrases for it. But like, people of color tend to not be as rigid about time. And it makes sense that we were doing time based on the sun. And folks who didn't have as much sun just had a different idea.
So all that to say, that think time really is something and we're experiencing it, this is my wrap up, we are experiencing it with the pandemic, that when the things that normally marked our days and our weeks, like going to work every day, getting out of the bed having this routine, then all of a sudden, no one is doing it, or many people aren't if you're able to be home and not having to leave as an essential worker. All of a sudden, the things that mark time for you are gone. And that this is why scientists say time seems to fly as you get older because the routines become like even more routine. Like you just do it without thinking. And so for kids every day was a new adventure. Like oh, what am I going to learn what I'm going to see what I'm going to do? And so time just seem to take forever. But as you get older, you know, the routine. Time just zips by cuz it's just a routine. Yeah. So time didn't change our perception changed. And it makes a big difference on us.
Seth Price 46:27
I will say in the middle of that quarantine, so actually, my wife and I had planned Spring Break vacation for the kids when the world shut down. And we were actually supposed to go to Gatlinburg, we're gonna ride some roller coasters, at Dollyworld like here we go, let's let's we rented a cabin in the mountains, we're going to bring the dogs do some fishing in the river, like, no cell phone service it was going to be great. And I remember I didn't shave for like two weeks. And I haven't realized before that like one of the way that I perceive time is like, the first thing I do in the morning is I see how much is there? And like, but when I didn't shave for a few days, like I began, because I also didn't wear my watch, like I genuinely forgot what day it was many days because I was like, well, I used to. Okay, so I don't remember last time I shaved? Was it a Tuesday? It was literally that conversation like I didn't, I didn't. So I totally get it. Like my my rhythms were gone. Everything was shut down. We hadn't left the house. It was cold. It couldn't go anywhere. And I stopped shaving and eventually. That is what broke it for me. Like I knew what time the clock said. And outside of that
Darren Calhoun 47:35
It meant nothing.
Seth Price 47:38
I didn't know was sitting right in front says it's 11. But is it Wednesday? Is it Thursday? Does that matter? Who cares? You know?
Darren Calhoun 47:38
When you’re gonna ask your smart device to tell you exactly when and what day it is…it just doesn’t make sense.
Seth Price 47:42
That’s no fun. So I want to end on a couple things. And we'll see how much time we have. But I want to pivot between joy and obsession because the spark in the in the show is and I think 22 says it like she said like she feels the wind. Like she actually sits down for a minute and he sits down…they sit down? I don't know how to say that?
Darren Calhoun 48:04
They is a good gender term.
Seth Price 48:06
Well, because it's like a different soul in a different man. You know, I mean, so I don't know what that entity is?
Darren Calhoun 48:09
And you know at the beginning it was like this I'm just a projection. I'm not actually this white voiced woman I am whatever sound or voice or body you want to see.
Seth Price 48:18
Yeah. Well, but eventually 22 is sitting down on the steps and fills the wind. And then she ends up saying “I'm jazzing”. Like I don't want to, I don't want to die. Like I'm jazzing. She finds a purpose for life. But then there's this concept in the movie of lost souls where they've taken that joy and that purpose, and they've turned it into an obsession in a way that's entirely unhealthy. And so I think that matters all the more for where we're at in the world and the culture that we live in now, because we have nothing but extra time to either pour in the healthy things, or to take those things and they become unhealthy. And so just kind of wanted your thoughts on on that.
Darren Calhoun 48:59
Yeah, I thought that was another profound and powerful statement that they made with this movie. It was almost like a second movie, because you know we had the first part of discovering yourself and all this other stuff. But we had this whole second half of this really deep reflection about what it means to to be overwhelmed with something. And I think where I relate most of this is is what happens with like addictive behavior, compulsive behavior, where you're doing something, and it feels really important to do it. But it doesn't actually get you anywhere of where you're trying to go.
And I love the way like they showed it as this thing that kind of overwhelms and take selfies but you're still you weigh down in there. And somewhere in there you're rehearsing these things that have been said to you, things been done to you, things that made feel out of your control. And I think I’ll save that part of the movie as a non-spoiler part in here. But I love this reality of like, what we say can earn and what we've heard and what's been said to us can literally overwhelm us and overtake us. And we lose all connection. We lose connection to what gave us joy, we lose connection to what gives us purpose, even though it feels like we're doing the thing that we really love. And it's so easy to mix it up for you know, why am I here on earth with what am I good at?
So when I saw that scene, I was like, oh, this, this will preach! This will set the captives free through all kinds of theological like frameworks! Because I think that it's so true. And Pixar really is intentional about telling certain stories. And they picked that, you know, that wasn't just, oh, here's a happy little moment. They labored over years to create this narrative. And again, I think it does reflect this really important idea that who we are and what we do, I won't even call it an either/or, again, if we're not on this linear perspective of time, and good or bad, or all this stuff, if we just look at what is it doing to us? And what is the fruit of it, if you will, then I think we can see, yeah, you can be called to preach, or you can be gifted at preaching, or you can be an amazing musician in church. But if it's overwhelming you and if it's literally just keeping you enshrined or enmeshed in this and this thing that you don't even look like yourself anymore. Like it is worth asking you a question. Is this really what I'm supposed to do? Is is really important? And for for 22, and for Joe to find that there's something more than just what you're good at. Because 22 knew a lot of stuff.
Seth Price 52:08
Oh, yeah.
Darren Calhoun 52:10
But 22 was like, but the wind and flavor and sound, you know, like these bodily experiences that 22 couldn't have before. It was like, oh, this is what's important to me!
Seth Price 52:22
I'm gonna let you die because you're what you say “your stomach is earthquaking”, and then he's like, I'm gonna go get pizza, because I know that I like pizza. And she's like, “Oh my god, I need this. I need this in my life”. And also pizza rat is there, which is appropriate. Do you know what pizza rat is?
Darren Calhoun 52:37
What is this? Is this from the one of the other universes?
Seth Price 52:41
No, no. So there's a real thing like it was like almost like a conspiracy theory meme thing on the internet four or five years ago, like just Google pizza rat. And it's like an art installation project is what it appears to be where someone trained a rat to literally carry pizza up steps in like a New York apartment complex. And people were like, “are y'all seeing this rat here”? Like it's a thing. So when I saw that flow through, I was like, that is funny. Because if you know about that, like says, Yeah, it's like pizza rats like a pizza rat. That's it's a thing because someone intentionally made it a thing but did it on on like the downlow where they're like, I'm gonna make this I'm gonna put it on the internet. And I'm gonna walk away like Banksy almost like, I'm just gonna walk away.
So that was like, when I saw that I busted out laughing everybody in my family is like, Why are you laughing? Yeah, like just little things like that. But yeah, yeah, those experiences are, yeah, are where the money's at. So I've asked this question of everyone Darren
Darren Calhoun 53:38
Go for it.
Seth Price 53:39
I mean it actually is more appropriate in this episode than it is in most just because of what we talked about. So what, who, is, why, whatever you want to say words for; what is God, or the divine, or whatever you want to say that?
Darren Calhoun 53:53
I just recorded a cover of a song My God is Awesome. I love that God is so profound, and just beyond everything that we could imagine. But still so intimate and present with us.
Again, going back to the movie, that God could be in every part of that movie. God could be like the little, little helicopter seed that falls, God can be that wind, God can be the Jerry's God can you know, God can just be all kinds of places in that. And to me, God is everywhere. Not in like, “Oh, just I see God and everything”, but just like in a really profound, meaningful way God shows up in so many places, that you know, again, internet conspiracies, if all of this is just a thought in God's mind, and we're just like simulating a dream right now. I'm still here for it. Like, that's awesome to me. Um, because also like, I'm, you know, there's a lot that's going on and I'm like, Okay, if we can just all wake up or God wakes up or however this works. See, I'm gonna start like weaving even Steven Universe theories and oh, there's so much that can go into this. But um, but yeah, I see God as this all encompassing, omnipresent, everything and I like that, that's comforting to me that's securing to me.
Seth Price 55:41
Yeah, yeah. So Darren, I'm aware of how hard it is to have a conversation about a Pixar movie on a podcast where we literally don't do a whole bunch of communication ahead of time. But I've enjoyed it. I could talk more, I want to talk about a lot of other things. But I'm going to save some of those because I actually should do some research on some of this stuff ahead of time, because most of this has just been me rambling in the car for an hour back and forth work as I kind of wrestle through some things. And then yes, anyway, so I really appreciate your time tonight. And um, yeah, thank you so much for coming on Darren.
Darren Calhoun 56:16
Thanks for having me. This is great. I love what you're doing. And I love this, Can I Say This At Church, it's soon as I say that name to people they're like, “Oh, I wanna check that out”!
Seth Price 56:26
So I appreciate that. (laughs) I appreciate that.
Seth Price 57:01
So good to have Darren on the show. So very good. And the music that you heard today is from Darren and his friends. It's a band called The Many and you should support their work. I like cried when I heard Again and Again, which is a song that you heard in the podcast, but you will find all of that music in the show notes, as well as links to the playlist on Spotify. And I think there's a counterpart as well that someone else has made on Apple Music for all the music that's ever been on the show.
I hope that you are blessed. Next week, I'm back with Elizabeth Schrader, as we discussed in Mary and Martha and some amazing work that she's put into that and the way that that kind of reframes the gospels I will talk to you soon. I pray that you're blessed. Be well.