Episode Fifty-One: The Interview-Carla Cain

They started talking about their son.

Well,

The dad starts telling me that he and his son were in the pickup,

They were farmers,

And they were driving on a gravel road,

And they were t-boned by another truck.

It was t-boned on the side of his son.

And during the course of this accident happening,

He said he saw this big,

Huge giant that was standing between his son and this truck that had t-boned them.

So I read the questions once,

And then I was like,

No,

I'm not gonna think about them.

I'm gonna just really be spontaneous because that is probably,

That first question is probably the most difficult question I've ever been asked.

It's a really,

Really challenging question because as pastors,

We're taught,

I'm sure you learned this in seminary,

Mind,

Body,

Spirit.

That's who we are as individuals,

Mind,

Body,

And spirit.

And we design worship for mind,

Body,

And spirit,

But we're also learning and growing.

And I think that's the most important part of who I am.

Yes,

I'm mind,

Body,

And spirit,

But I'm learning and growing like we were talking about before.

That's the essence of who I am.

That's why I feel like my purpose is to activate.

And I activate in myself because the theory is the more you see in yourself,

The more you can see in others.

So the more I can activate in me,

I feel like the better pastor I am,

The better person,

And all of that is if I can activate in myself other things.

I'm not,

Certainly not a savant,

But I am a ICU kind of human being,

But everybody's on their own journey,

Right?

My journey's my journey,

Your journey's your journey.

Dee's is Dee's,

Larry's is Larry's,

And that's the gift,

Is that we're all on different places on our journeys,

And there's such a spectrum.

And so I like to be on the spectrum where,

As a human being,

I am constantly moving.

I was in the corporate world,

And I had this sexy job that everybody wanted.

So I was doing corporate international human resources.

So I was traveling the world and meeting people and going to great places,

And I had amazing experiences,

And I hold the people that I met near and dear to me because it really was an awesome experience.

But after having done that for several years,

Like almost seven or eight years,

I did that.

Long hours,

Weary from the travel,

I went to my boss and said,

You know,

Let's start looking for something else for me to do because I'm burnt out.

About a year later,

She moved me into this position.

It was called a global,

So I still had a global job,

But the travel was less,

But it was called mindsets and behaviors.

Any large manufacturing company has a production system,

And it's about how to be more efficient.

How do you be more efficient through your processes and your procedures?

But the company I worked for said,

Yes,

We're gonna look at the efficiency of our products and processes and procedures,

But we're also gonna look at the people aspects of it.

And that's what I was in charge of,

Mindsets and behaviors was the people aspects of being efficient.

The essence was our behavior's not random.

We behave the way we behave for a reason.

And if we can overcome how we think about something,

Move away from we've always done it this way,

Or this is the best way,

So I'm doing this mindsets and behaviors things,

And I'm thinking,

Man,

This is a corporate spirituality.

And the whole time I'm frustrated with corporate America,

Because I feel like this mindsets and behaviors thing is a deal,

But it's costly,

And so companies don't like to spend a lot of money.

Going through that and learning all of that and how to teach leaders how to lead from their heart instead of their head led me to seminary.

Do you ever get nervous about giving a sermon?

You know what?

I suck as a preacher.

What?

So maybe suck isn't the right word,

But preaching is hard.

Preaching is really hard.

If you want to get down to the layer and so it's hard on many aspects.

I don't use a lot of words.

You know,

I'm more of a listener than a wordy person.

So preaching has words.

And so preaching is just hard.

It asks you to draw on the depths of who you are so that you can be effective when people are listening to you.

I hate the part where you have to stand up in front of people and have them all stare at you.

Really?

Oh my God.

I hate it so much it makes you want to throw up.

And so for my internship,

One of my learning curves was to become comfortable being up in front of people.

However,

My internship,

The first,

I would say two thirds of it was pre-COVID.

Then the last third was when COVID hit.

The only time I had to get up was at the Unitarian church here in Santa Fe.

I thought I was going to throw up,

Cry,

Or have a heart attack.

Cause I had arrhythmia the entire time that I was up on that stage.

I couldn't breathe.

I gave my sermon and I had so many beautiful,

Lovely people come up to me afterwards and they said,

This was wonderful.

This was amazing.

Thank you so much.

But slow down.

Cause I was like,

Da da da da da da da da da da da da da.

I'm like,

The faster I say this,

The faster I will be able to go away and not have them look at me.

They were like,

Take a breath,

Slow down,

It's going to be okay.

But no,

I hate being up in front of people.

I don't mind getting up in front of people,

But the process that you went through in writing a sermon is,

That's hard too.

Who's your audience?

What's going to resonate with them?

What needs to be said?

What shouldn't be said?

You know,

It's like.

I feel like all things should be said as long as it's coming from a place of integrity and humanity.

And you know,

It's the listener's problem.

If they don't like it.

Because I feel like sometimes we censor ourselves so much that maybe the message or the gift or the blessing that we are supposed to give to a group or an audience or someone never gets sent.

You know,

I think people are afraid of using their voice these days.

And you know,

It's like integrity,

Authenticity,

Making sure that it's a blessing for people.

Those are all really essential and important.

I feel like so many people are self-censoring because you get attacked these days,

You know.

You get attacked by everyone.

Or if someone in the congregation doesn't like what you're saying,

They'll make a huge stink and you could lose your job.

When in fact they hired you.

And so maybe the message that you're giving is something that they need to sit on,

You know,

Hear deeply,

Meditate on,

And then decide instead of reacting.

No,

I think you're right on.

When I was doing church consulting,

So most of my consulting practice was conflict.

And there would be,

I did so many churches and it's just fascinating.

And this is before,

This is before and while I'm at Idyllith.

So I would hear the conflict between the pastor and the congregation and a lot of the comments were,

We don't wanna hear a political message.

We don't wanna hear about this or that.

We just wanna hear that we're loved.

I heard that story so many times.

And I would have to say,

Well,

You know,

The Bible is filled with politics.

Politics is written all over that.

Conflict is all over that.

You know,

It's not partisan in the Bible,

But it is political.

And they're like,

We didn't come here.

We get it all week long.

We don't wanna come to church and hear about the politics.

I think what's interesting about the fact that you said,

They say we wanna hear that we're loved.

To me,

I think that word,

The meaning has lost its potency.

That word has become,

Especially in relationship with spirit or God,

You know,

I think the more appropriate word is beloved.

People need to hear that they are beloved because that's more intimate.

It's a more intimate way of being in relationship with spirit or God.

And it's way more potent than just you're loved.

To me,

That's a hallmark card.

That is,

It's a consumerist fantasy of what relationship should be like between two people.

It's lost its meaning for me,

But beloved,

Beloved is the real word.

And when you're really in intimate contact with God or intimate relationship with God,

And you are beloved,

Then you are able to be more open to that mystery.

You're able to be more open and inclusive of others,

Such as those people who don't want to deal or engage with the LGBTQ population.

You know,

I think when you're beloved,

All barriers to the others that you consider unworthy or strangers hopefully wash away.

I'm very naive though.

And I hope these things happen,

But that's just my thoughts.

Oh,

I think beloved is an awesome term.

And I think it's a better term than loved because I believe that in church,

You should belong.

And you know,

I hear this all the time,

Especially in UCC churches,

Because my denomination is United Church of Christ,

Is that all are welcome,

No matter where you are on life's journey,

You are welcome here.

And I was like,

Don't tell me I'm welcome,

Tell me I belong.

You know,

Welcome is,

You know,

You're sort of on the surface.

You're here,

You're there,

But if you belong,

You have skin in the game.

If you belong,

There's an attachment there.

And so I love the word beloved and belonging.

I'm not a biblical scholar,

But if I think about the Bible,

There are,

You know,

The Psalms talk about love,

But Jesus wasn't just all this hunky dory,

I love you,

I love you,

Love you.

Jesus challenged us,

And Jesus asked us to raise our consciousness so that we could be beloved and belong.

But yeah,

People wanna sit nice and comfortable in the pews,

And I don't think that's what it's about.

I believe I'm here to activate and to change these things so that people aren't just comfortable,

Because comfortable is not learning a growth.

Comfortable is not being fully human in my mind.

Comfortable is not getting turned over in your hospital bed so that you get bed sores.

That's right.

Well,

I grew up in a small town,

And I grew up in a small town,

And I grew up in a small town,

And I grew up in a small town,

And I grew up in a small town,

Population maybe 1200 people,

And we were members of the Methodist church,

And we went,

You know,

Almost every Sunday.

You know,

I went to Sunday school,

But I wouldn't say it was religious,

It was more of an expectation,

It was more of the community of that church,

And back then it felt,

Especially growing up in a small community,

It seemed like the larger community bled over into church,

In that the community people,

You know,

They operated in the community,

They were responsible for the success of this small community but then everybody did go to church,

And it was more of an expectation,

It was more of a,

You know,

That became a social rather than a religious experience for us.

It was what we did as a family,

We just went to church,

We sat in the pews,

We went home and we didn't talk about it.

We'd come home from church,

And mom would have prepared something before we left for church,

And then we'd sit around and have a big meal right after church,

But we didn't talk about church.

A friend of mine is in the process of trying to determine whether she gets out of a 27-year relationship,

And the reason she's thinking about getting out of this 27-year relationship is because her parents have died,

She retired,

And all of a sudden she's opened up and is like,

Oh my gosh,

I'm ready to live,

I'm ready to explore,

And I can't do it with this relationship,

So I'm a new person,

My partner's not a new person,

And I need to grow and thrive,

And I think about that in context with my own learning and growth,

Which has been more incremental,

More step by step by step,

It's the peeling of the onion,

It's the slow process of learning and reprogramming and growing,

And so then I see somebody who's had this epiphany and broken open,

And I'm like,

Huh,

I wonder why there are so many different approaches to this.

I think for me,

The things that change me,

That I think are miracles is that I have the privilege of hearing sacred moments from people like you.

You get to hear the sacred moments,

And so I get to learn from other people,

And that opens me up,

So not only my friend who's potentially leaving this 27-year relationship,

I was doing some consulting at a church,

And it was a conservative church,

And I would never show my cards and what I believed or anything,

But I was sitting in a room with this couple,

They were older,

And this was not related to anything I asked them,

This was not related to anything to do with the church conflict that was going on,

But they told me the story of,

They started talking about their son,

And I said,

Well,

Tell me about your son.

Well,

The dad starts telling me that he and his son were in the pickup,

They were farmers,

And they were driving on a gravel road,

And they were t-boned by another truck out on this gravel road,

And it was t-boned on the side of his son,

And during the course of this accident happening,

He said he saw this big,

Huge giant that was standing between his son and this truck that had t-boned them,

And that big,

Huge guy,

He described his arms this big and his legs this big,

And he was just a monster of a human being,

And it was real,

It was so real,

And he said,

If that person hadn't protected my son,

He would have been dead,

Because the whole passenger side of the truck was pushed to the middle of the truck.

So his son ended up with a leg injury,

But the emergency vehicles arrived,

And the dad said to the emergency workers,

Where's that guy?

And they're like,

What guy?

And they said,

There's no guy here.

And so I get to hear stories like that,

And that changes me,

Because I would never have thought,

I mean,

This was a particularly religious,

God-fearing couple,

But yet they could see this spirit protecting their son.

So between my friend,

Who was having an epiphany,

And this spirit that protects,

I haven't had any experiences like that,

But I get to hear them,

And I think that's the gift.

["The worry who is having an epiphany and this spirit that protects.

I haven't had any experiences like that,

But I get to hear them and I think that's the gift.

["The Were you just sitting in that room with your jaw dropped while they're telling you this story?

Totally.

I have preached about this story before,

And what does it take for us to see the spirit?

What does it take for us to have that experience?

And do you have to see it,

Or is it always there protecting you?

In that moment,

Yes,

Their son lived,

But also the father was gifted this,

The vision of what saved his son,

And that's something that will change your life forever.

Forever.

Forever.

I think these experiences changed me.

I think that's the privilege of hearing stories like that.

This wasn't something that they went out and shared with other people,

But being open to,

Yeah,

Hearing sacred stories,

What you're doing,

You get to hear the sacred stories.

And I think the miracle for me is realizing in my life,

At the very,

Not the end,

But later in life,

Realizing the gifts that I have.

And then I get to hear those stories.

Yeah,

I think the spirit is always with me.

The spirit is always there,

And the spirit is wild and crazy,

And she is the spirit.

And I think that the spirit is always there,

And the spirit is always there,

And the spirit is always there,

And she is amazing.

I don't get to see her.

I don't see,

See,

See,

Physically see her.

Maybe I get to hear these stories so that someday when it happens,

I will see.

["A Thank you so much for listening to Episode 51 of Bite-Sized Blessing.

The podcast all about the magic and spirit that surrounds us.

If only we open our eyes to it.

I need to thank my amazing guest today,

Carla Kane,

For sharing her stories with me,

As well as the creators of the music used.

Agnese Valmaggia,

Winnie the Moog,

Brian Holt's music,

Frank Schroeder,

Chilled Music,

And Alexander Nakarada.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at bite.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to other artists,

Books,

And music I think will lift and inspire you.

I can't believe we've gotten to Episode 51,

But here we are.

Thanks to all of those who've journeyed along the way and made it this far.

Thank you for listening,

And here's my one request.

Be like Carla,

No matter how you define those stories that are all around you,

Whether it's magic or music,

The stars up in the night sky,

Spirit,

God,

Or energy,

No matter how those stories manifest in your life,

Remember and understand that those stories are all around us and inside us.

And possibly,

Quite possibly,

If you're still enough,

You listen deeply enough.

You might just get a glimpse of what makes this universe and every single creature inside of it alive.