(gentle music) - Welcome back to Nomad Podcast. I'm Tim Nash, and this is Anna Robinson. - Hello everybody, hi Tim. - Hi Anna, how are you? - I'm all right, thank you. Yeah, I'm good. Enjoying the sunny spring weather. - The last Nomad episode you contributed to was the sort of devotional special with Salina, but obviously I didn't have an opportunity then to ask what you'd been up to. - Salina, what have you been up to? - Well, something I've done that's a bit different, and you, I haven't done for about 10 years, is I've been clubbing. - I don't know why that might be laugh. (laughing) - Well, you know, Jim and I met, you know, through house music and we went on a mission trip to Ibiza, that's a whole other story, and that's how we kind of got connected. - That's a whole never-know-my episode, I think. - I know, that's such a fun story, yeah, 'cause Jim used to be a house DJ. And about 10 minutes up the road is Paul Thichowen, and they have the Eco Park, which is the homeland of tropical pressure, which is a festival, has world music and stuff, and that my daughter has been to, and I keep meaning to go to, but some reason I've never managed to go along. They have club nights once a month, but they're early, it starts at 7.30, and they go until one. - That's still late. (laughing) - Yeah, but it's not what we used to do, you know, where they really only get a kick-sit at about, like one in the morning, and then off we go. So there was a DJ playing that Jim was familiar with, jam supernova. - Yeah, she's on six music. - Yeah, so she was playing, so Jim said, "I wish I could get tickets," and it turns out Beth, also, my eldest daughter, had tickets. - Yeah, I bet she loved that going clubbing with her parents. - Exactly, I was like, oh, it's just awkward. No, she was happy, so we went in with her, and she was with her friends, obviously, and we were hanging out. It was just brilliant night. I mean, I love clubbing, and I love dancing. I love house music, and it was just brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and such a great crowd there, 'cause you have, you know, the whole age range, and it's so, it's cool, so it's so chill. Everyone's, it's just such a nice chilled atmosphere. It was just the funnest evening. The only challenge was I couldn't stop dancing, and I've got a knee injury on my left knee. (laughing) And the floor was concrete, 'cause it's like a barn, and so I'd just been jumping around for like hours, and then, oh my word, I knew it actually halfway through, as I could feel my knees swelling. (laughing) I thought, I couldn't stop though, Tim. Middle age clubbing. Not good, but it was worth it. But yeah, first two weeks afterwards, I was basically icing my knees every day. (laughing) So it's like, count the cost, but it was brilliant. Can you sort of lose yourself in the music, in that kind of transcendence, or what? 100%, yeah, absolutely. And that was kind of the point, all those years ago, when we went on this trip, when we drove out to Ibiza, that was kind of the story, even back in our evangelical days, was that that's how we connected to God, through dancing, and the music, and that kind of experience with other people. So yeah, just dressed up in different theology. Yeah, so that's fun. I feel like a good, that felt like an exciting thing to do. I hopefully would do more of it, but I'm definitely gonna do more chair dancing next time. The last half of now, we went up onto the balcony, and just sat on the stool and watched, and sort of did some sort of head bobbing. (laughing) That's about as close as I get to dancing. To save my knee. (laughing) Oh, I don't know. I need to find a physio who can help sort me out, so that I can do more of that. Oh, some different shoes. I don't know, any listeners have got any advice on what I can do, so help me still be able to jump up and down for four hours, and not have sore knees. That's a great story, I love it. Have you been up to anything exciting? Yeah, we're fresh back from a trip to the Isle of Sky in Scotland. Oh, beautiful. As you know, each month in the Nash household, we kind of have a different theme as a way of exploring spiritual practices. So when holiday times come around, we tend to sort of shape the holiday around a theme. So last summer, we explored pilgrimage, and combined a holiday to Northumberland with us in Cuffbitt pilgrimage. And this Easter, we've been exploring Oramwanda, and so we combined that with a trip to Sky. That was amazing. Like mountains are my new thing. Honestly, like I'm sure I've seen mountains before, but there was just something about the Scottish mountains that just absolutely blew me away, like driving through Glencoe and onto Sky. I don't know what it was. Yeah, they just really affected me in the mountains. Like people talk about seeing mountains and wanting to conquer them. It didn't have that effect on me at all. Like it felt closer to sort of wanting to submit to them. If you're not like almost kind of bow before them, they just felt like these really kind of sacred things. They're like majestic, aren't they? Really majestic, yeah. I'm far too old and creaky to climb out of these days. Maybe that's it. I'll take a cable car if there's toilets and a cafe at the top. Do you know what I mean? That's my kind of limit. It's not real, that's so real. I get that. But there's something sort of, I don't know what it was, quite sort of freeing about standing before something that is so big and so old that your life is just kind of a tiny flicker. I think it's all that kind of history making nonsense I grew up with, you know? And like mountains don't care about whether or not we're going to change the world. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's very grounding, isn't it? Very kind of perspective. It's grounding, that's what it is. Yeah, there's kind of a healthy insignificance, I think, that really grounds you. But everywhere we went on sky, we were just blown away by extraordinary natural wonders. Like I saw 170 million year old dinosaur footprints on a beach. Oh wow. It's just too much to take in. Yeah, that's just-- Again, you just kind of think, who am I on this planet? That I'm standing next to 170 million year old footprint? Yeah. And that was like a positive, hopeful experience. Yeah, definitely. It just sort of gave me instant perspective on all the kind of trivial concerns in my life. You know, you just think the world's a lot bigger. There's a lot more going on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's great. But Scotland has a very different relationship with health and safety to England, I soon discovered. Oh, really? Yeah, we went to see this one rock formation. Yeah. And there was a sign saying, you know, there's a pathway up to the top. Just be aware of fallen rocks. There was a pathway, a pathway for mountain goats. There's no fence at all. It's just you. This very narrow, wet, slippery path. And like a hundred meter drop of the edge. We gave up halfway. And when we got home, I checked online. People fall off there and have to get airlifted away. You know what I mean? It's just like it's nuts. Well, where did-- who would advise you to go up that route? It's just like a tourist destination. There's loads of people there. Oh, right. That is the tourist path that takes you up to the top. But I was kind of expecting it to be-- neatly kind of concreted with hand rails. And it's just none of that at all. Yeah. Wow. That is scary. But there's an awesome few days. I really, really enjoyed it. Oh, brilliant. Oh, lovely. Anyway, let's talk about this episode. You may recall last year, we hosted a conversation between Anglican Priest, Charles Goddard, and the former chair of the Inclusive Mosque Initiative, Halima Hussein. I'd read Charles' book, A Generous Faith, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And in it, he mentioned he had done into Faith work with Halima. So I thought, this is a brilliant opportunity to set up a conversation between a Christian and a Muslim and see what points of connection there are, what points of difference, what they could learn from each other's faith journey. And it was a beautiful conversation. And I was recently in contact with Charles again. He mentioned he's got a new book out exploring spirit. I haven't had a chance to read it yet. But he's looking at a kind of inclusive open-hearted spirituality that draws from Christian mysticism and is in conversation with global spiritual tradition. So it sounds very nomad-y. I'll put a link to both those books in the show notes. Anyway, we got talking about the possibility of another conversation episode, but with a third guest from a different tradition. So the conversation you're about to hear is with Charles Goddard, who is a Christian and an Anglican Priest. Halima Hussein, who is a Muslim, and involved in the Inclusive Mosque Initiative and Natasha Chawler, who is a Hindu, and a PhD candidate at Oxford Researching Indian Environmental Thought and Ecopolosophy. But before we listen in on that fascinating conversation, here, beloved listener, is all your essential blurb. Conversations like the one you're about to hear do cost money. We actually used a recording studio in London for this one. So we had a quiet space to record. And obviously that costs plus all the kind of run of the Mill podcast hosting fees. And maintaining the nomad website is surprisingly expensive. That's actually the single most expensive overhead that we have. And we maintain that so that we can give you things like the listener map, which is a free service to help you connect with other listeners on a similar journey. We've got a recommended books page on there. We've got a blog with loads of listener stories and do get in touch if you have a story that you want to share. And of course, the therapy network, which is 40 plus fully qualified registered therapists all faith aware, ready to support you. If you want to help with those costs, you can make a small monthly donation through patreon.com/nomadpodcast. Or if you want to make a one-off donation, you can do that at the nomad website nomadpodcast.co.uk. If you make a regular donation, you'll gain access to a whole host of bonus episodes. I check this morning. We've now got 277 bonus episodes. Wow, that's amazing. some boving and. Anna, some involving me and Nick, and some involving me and my wife, Hannah. Anna's monthly contemplations are on my mind right now because no match resident musician, John Bilbra, aka Wilderthorn, has produced some new intro music for it, hasn't it, which is delightful? - Oh, it's lovely. It was very beautiful. - Yeah. - Did you feel like it kind of captured your contemplations? That's obviously what we were aiming for. - Yeah, it was quite moving, listening to it, 'cause I know John is so good at what he does. And he's obviously listening. - When I've lived into contemplation, so yeah, it felt really, it felt like a beautiful, you know when people can put into music, like poets can put things into words, it's lovely. It's a lovely way into that quiet space. I think it's gonna be really good. - Did you spot the sound of running water in it? - I don't know, I haven't listened to it once. - Listen to it carefully, because that is the sound that you recorded, like your local stream. Yeah, I sent that over to him. And so he tried to sort of base the music around the idea of nature, connection, and in particular the kind of running water. - I love that continuity. - Yeah. - Yeah, my little stream in the lug and woods. - There's whispering that John might be pondering a new nomad intro theme. - Oh. - Yeah, David produced the current one back in 2018, which feels to me like it's kind of coming to the end of its life. At the time, it really kind of captured the feel of nomad, but don't feel like it does anymore. I felt that for a while now. So John's sort of having a think about a new nomad intro theme. - Gosh, that's a big move, Tim. I wonder how the listeners will feel about that. - Yeah, it's a big shift, isn't it? I mean, we've only had three pieces of music. The first, obviously, when the podcast started in 2009. That kind of felt sort of quite confident. You know, the start of a journey, we're confident, we're gonna sort out all the churches problems. (laughing) Then we kind of plunged into a deconstruction and David really kind of captured that sense of wandering in a desert, no real sense of direction, a bit of a kind of a weary sort of feeling to it. But now I feel like it's more heads up looking around, notes in the beauty, curiosity, meaning in the landscape. You know, I wanna capture that sort of feeling a bit more, you know. So we'll see what John comes up with. - Yeah, I look forward to seeing what John creates. Brilliant. - If you wanna access the bonus episodes, but money is tight, no need for an explanation. Just say the word, and I'll give you a linked access to all that. You can email me at
[email protected] or contact me through our social channels. Nomads, open access feed is made possible by our Patreon supporters on the co-op and sustainers here. So a huge thank you to them. They're the ones that help make nomad a more inclusive space. Anna, have you got anything coming up that you wanna mention? - Yeah, I'm running a retreat with Thomas Orde, the theologian that's been on nomad a number of times in June, between the seventh and ninth of June, at Laund Abbey, which I've never hosted a retreat app for. And I'm really excited, beautiful space. And yeah, it would be great to get some more listeners coming along to that. I've still have a number of places. And the kind of vision behind this retreat was to kind of gather a slightly, no, not a huge, but a sort of larger number, a kind of community kind of vibes at the Abbey, but connection with other people on this journey of rethinking, reimagining, face shifting, letting go. And pondering the concept of our concept of God, and of course, Tom has written many, many books, his inclusive theologian. And yeah, just really wrapping new ideas around the concept of God. He's also brought out a film, which we're gonna be showing at the retreat, on nature connection. He's an advent, I didn't know this about Tom. He's an adventurer, like properly, would head off for days into the wilderness. A proper wilderness, opposed to me wandering down to the woods, which is still a form of wilderness, but this is like an America trekking out there and sleeping under the stars, that thing, which is great. So yeah, we're gonna show that, and that's a point of connection with Tom and I, is this, you know, finally the divine in nature, and sort of, yeah, that's, it's really, it's gonna be really great. I'm really looking forward to it. It would be great to have some more listeners come along to that. Yeah. - How can people find out more about that and get tickets? - Well, if you go to my website, livelightdwelldeep.org, and go to the retreats page, all the details are on there, yeah, and then get in contact with me. You book through me, and I have a faith shift group starting in May as well, which there's spaces on. They always sort of, it's funny, my faith shift groups, I run that three a year at the moment, and, you know, I've got a few people booked on there, but they're just such positive, life-affirming spaces. And actually, this conversation we're hearing today reminds me a bit of that, because you just, you basically are able to have conversations with other people on the journey with different experiences, different backgrounds, and but finding points of connection, and points of difference. It's just very enriching and positive. So if you would like that in a held online space that's life-affirming, then get in touch as well. Be great to have you there. - Great stuff. And that, beloved listener, is all your essential blurb. So the idea behind these conversation episodes is to give over the Nomad platform entirely to the guests. So it's their conversation. It goes where they want. I'm not interviewing them, so I'm not shaping the conversation with my questions. And the Nomad hosts don't throw their two cents in after the conversation. We just kind of let the conversation be what it is. Having said that, it was so good. Feel like I need to say a little something, but you first, Annie, you've listened to it. What was kind of one thing that stood out for you? - Ooh, it's hard to say one thing, really. I loved that they gathered around this concept and theme of rivers. I thought that was a really lovely way of weaving in their different experiences. I think what they've stood out to me is getting to listen to people's stories and journeys and their connection to their kind of inherited faith or faith that they've learned through family connections and then owning it, their struggles with it perhaps, but then kind of finding their way with it. I've noticed myself included. A lot of us in this space are much more open to other religions. You know, that kind of wanting to learn from other wisdom traditions, other religions. And getting to hear people's personal connections and stories with their own journeys is such a gift because we understand things through that kind of story, telling, and I feel like I've learned a great deal. But the alchemy between the three of them chatting and the wisdom that each of them share, I've listened to it a couple of times and it's very, very rich. And in lightning, I learn a lot through listening to them. How about you? - Yeah, one thing that struck me was that this isn't just a conversation about finding common ground. I mean, there were beautiful points of connection like the discovery that they all had alters at home, which I thought was really nice. But there were moments where they are coming from different places. They're even using words at times to mean different things. And yet there's a real generosity in how they stayed with each other, I thought. Like the whole conversation from beginning to end, it's kind of a living sign of hope for me, like three people from very different backgrounds. I mean, religious, gender, sexuality, economic, social, educational differences, real differences. And yet they listen so deeply and so carefully to each other. Celebrating similarities, acknowledging and honoring differences, wanting to learn from each other. I just kind of thought of the world and he's anything right now. It's conversations like this. I find it really, really moving. - Yeah. - That interfaith connection, because obviously, even in their own journeys, they have experiences of interfaith connection through friends and family. It's just really interesting. And interesting to hear people from other faith traditions on their own shifting journey and how that has evolved and changed for them, is very affirming for those of us who are in this space. And as I say, they love the analogy of the river. I mean, I love John O'Donnell here as many of us do. And that wonderful line he has, I want to live as a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding. So that idea of, we're unfolding and our life, spirituality and our faith journeys and that's being really positive and very real. So yeah, it's very life affirming and affirming for all of us who are kind of seeking and searching out that deeper meaning and sense of connection, but also kind of having to sift through and let go of some of the old stuff that actually, we realize isn't that helpful to us anymore. Yeah. Like I said, we won't be back at the end. So we'll bid you farewell now. All being well, I'll be back in two weeks with another interview episode, but as I've taken a bit of time off recently, I can't tell you with any confidence exactly who that will be, but it will be with someone. But for now, sit back and enjoy a fascinating conversation between Giles, Halima and Natasha. (gentle music) - Well, hi, Natasha, hi, Halima. I love you to see you both. I'm Giles. And we just thought we might start by explaining a little bit about why we're talking about rivers because the theme of today's conversation is going to be rivers and spirituality in different spiritual traditions, but also in our own lives. And so it's great to have Natasha, your Hindu and Halima, your Muslim and I'm a Christian. So should we start with where your river began, maybe Natasha, you can tell us where your river began? - Thanks, Jov. I was born in England and went to a church of England school in Leicester and I was born into a Hindu family. And so I had these kind of two traditions that I was very much part of for most of my,
childhood. But really, neither of them had any real force in my life until I left school until I left home really. And it was when I was working that I didn't really feel like I was English or British and I didn't really feel Indian. I felt like I didn't really know who I was. So it was when I was about 22 or 23 where I just didn't know who I was anymore. I really didn't and it was at that point I started asking questions of well what's my faith and what's my background and who am I and really asking those questions that at school I never got the answers to. And in the temples that we used to go to it was all in Hindi and we didn't know Hindi. We had only ever learnt English. So I didn't really understand what was being said there either. And when you grow up in a Christian school and then you see say the deities in the Hindu temple and there's a I don't know there's an elephant headed God. So well at least Jesus is a human being like why do I need to worship an elephant and it didn't really make much sense in my mind at that time. So it was then at about 23 24 that I really started asking these questions and funny enough I was at a party and the president of the youth wing of a Chimemi Mission and Chimemi Mission is an organization that talks about the scriptures but in English so I could understand. So that Wednesday they were holding a philosophy class which was everyone's evening and I went and I walked in and the lady there was in a yellow sorry and I just saw my god I'm in the wrong place and how do I leave this now but she'd started the press so I couldn't leave so I sat there for that hour and a half but funny enough all of the questions that I had been asking what's the purpose why are we doing what we're doing what does that actually mean she was answering and I was like this is too good to be true. So I used to go back to that study class every Wednesday I didn't say a word but I just listened and this because someone was actually speaking to me in a way that I could understand and explaining the things that no one had ever explained so it was there that my fifth journey really began and after about a year of that I went to India for two years and I stayed in an ashram and I sat down the basic basic scriptures and I lived that life and that's where it really began for me to much later on in my. That's a really good story and just remind you about the significance of the yellow sorry. So she was a Indian monk and none. So you thought oh this is a bit serious. Oh yeah and not only that it was just would I be able to understand this would I be able to take it seriously yeah it was it was more than. Did it feel like you were kind of coming home in a way? It felt like I was coming home in terms of the things that I've been asking and questioning and wanting answers and I would ask my dad you know why is Hanuman a monkey and why do we pray to him and why does that happen and you know all of these really simple questions and he was like because he didn't have an answer because he'd never been taught or explained and it's I think the older generations the faith is passed on and okay that's just what we do but in our generation it's like well why tell me why I have no problem doing it but I need to understand and she was giving those answers but not in just a believe me because I'm saying it because I'm wearing yellow and I have authority but in a well think about it pull the covers back and let's see where this is coming from and what it means and why and that's what I was hooked it was like oh my god this is making sense to me so that's what started the the inquiry it's brilliant it's a wonderful story Halima where did you all river begin? Natasha thank you so much for sharing that I found it really moving and in some way similar to sort of my journey I grew up in the UK like in London in a predominantly Muslim family and I suppose for me like Islam or this idea of what we may have called like British Islam was very much kind of the world in which I was brought up in so my mum had converted to Islam a lot of our friends and neighbours were either like some what a parent had converted so there was this idea of like choosing Islam as a religion and I suppose I grew up in the sense of I was in a Muslim family through the choice of at least one parent and so religion was sort of offered to me as this thing that was rational and appealed to both sort of heart and mind but in a way obviously I was in that Muslim family because that's what I was born into and so it was only when I was older that I also started sort of looking for answers to questions about things like why aren't women leading prayers and why aren't LGBT people included in the kind of mainstream Muslim spaces and I also attended a class I went to a class in Oxford on a Tuesday night and met an organizer kind of a scholar who talked about basically looking kind of beyond the kind of massive canon of Muslim literature and the massive canon of say the sayings of the prophet which are like there are thousands and thousands I think millions of sayings of the prophet and really thinking about interpreting the Quran from the Quran itself so just using the idea of using the book of the Muslim faith so the Quran and using reason and so he would ask us questions like you know there are hadiths that say there are more women in hell than there are men and he would say does not make any sense to you when there are more men in prison than there are women like that doesn't make sense and he would say what does the Quran say in the Quran really appealed to like a sense of like justice of God's justice of God's love and so it was really similar experience of like finding all of these answers that were always there but I just never had teachers that could uncover it in the way that this person could and I was hooked to I lived in London at the time but we would be my brother would drive to Oxford every Tuesday and sort of sit there hooked being like okay what's the next thing we get to kind of unlearn and re-learn again so yeah thank you for sharing that story it was really really powerful and what happened next what happened after he'd gone to the philosophy classes yeah so after I'd gone to this class I was at university at the time and I was actually studying philosophy and theology so religion was very much my bag I was mainly studying Christian and Judaism but yeah after those lessons and that kind of experience I then wanted to go and look into my faith again so not the faith that maybe I grew up in which was we're still open and vast and had space for me to grow in but something that was I think uniquely mine and was looking at things from a kind of a feminist perspective from an inclusive perspective and so I came across organizations and people like Amalowadude who was leading women's prayers at the time and kind of found all of this literature and all of this activism that was so compelling and so soothing to me but there weren't spaces that existed to appreciate that kind of faith tradition within Islam and so I kind of found myself feeling like I'd found this kind of dual I'd found this special inclusive interpretation of Islam but I didn't have anywhere to practice it and so that was a kind of a period of quite a bit of loneliness for me feeling like this is the majesty and beauty and justice of God and the religion that I've been brought up in but not finding spaces in which I could have those kind of difficult and critical conversations so actually it became quite painful and quite lonely. I'm remembering our previous conversation and how we found quite a lot of points of contact in our stories even though we came from very different backgrounds and I'm sure we're kind of finding the same again today but yeah now I was thinking of it in terms of rivers where my river began I think my initial river was a very English river through the countryside because I grew up in the countryside in Sussex and went to an Anglican church and it was all kind of proper but then when I was about 15 or 16 I got engaged for kind of more evangelical Christianity only Trinity Brompton was it was pre-alpha but it was already very kind of powerful and I went away for a house party with some friends from school it was a private school it was all very comfortable and gave my life to Jesus and was brought into the kind of evangelical world partly because I was lonely I think at the time I was a I was kind of misfit teenager and I thought I'd found the community that I wanted and I was very excited by the worship it was that very charismatic worship but it didn't take long for me to realise that it certainly wasn't acceptable to be gay and it also wasn't acceptable really to ask many questions you were more being given answers so I kind of fell out with all of that quite quickly it was about a year and a half a couple of years I was also studied theology but as an atheist I went to Cambridge and did theology as an atheist to disprove it all because I was kind of cross about it all but a bit like you'd nut usher after that I felt I kind of I moved to London in the 80s and kind of lived a life of a London gay man it was the AIDS crisis so there was a lot of community going on you know as well as a lot of death as you can imagine but it felt a bit empty like you were saying and my friend who I'd been at school with another friend he was living in a flat above a church in Soho called St. Anne's and he said to me one day he said 'Jaz I think you should stop coming back to church I think it might do you good' he could see that I was swirling around a bit in this male strong and I did and I went back to this little tiny church in Dean Street in Soho with about 15 people and did Vicar there was very welcoming and inclusive called Fred although we didn't know that that was what he was at the time he was just being welcoming we didn't know the word inclusive but he was and I've kind of never left really because it was that sense of 'yeah you're you're here'
as part of a community, but also your here as a group of explorers, sort of swimming through a lake, not knowing quite where we're going, but everyone exploring together. And so, yeah, I'm just kind of carried on in that way. So it's been about for all of us. Has it been about finding a community as well as a place where we can ask questions? For me, it was never really community because I always had friends. I didn't feel that I didn't have community, but I didn't feel like I was rooted in anything. Like, it just felt empty. I just left university and I was, like, you could tick off all of the boxes for success for that age. There was nothing wrong inherently. Like, I would go out and everyone would be drinking obviously. And I would be like, are you happy? Are you happy? And everyone's like, yes, of course I'm happy. I was like, really? You're happy. I just couldn't find it. And I couldn't find anyone who was truly actually just fulfilled and happy. And that search just went on and on until I walked into that class and these answers were coming. And then it was like, oh, okay. So it wasn't really about community, but it was actually, if I think deeper, what I was living was very empty, was very superficial, was very, because everyone else was doing it, not because it had any meaning to it. And so I think, yeah, you're right, actually, that it was missing some sort of community, but in a different sense. You wanted to do a deep dive into the water, so to speak. Was that similar for you? It's really interesting, I think, this idea of, like, fulfillment. And I think for me, like that river of faith has always felt quite full. I've never really felt that God, or the divine wasn't present in my life, but I've only really fully felt that in community with others. And so I was content with my religious tradition, kind of from home and from family. I then sort of found something that was, I suppose, this kind of tributary, this sort of, yeah, this kind of direction that took me somewhere else, but what was missing was the community in that. And so it was only when I found, I suppose, that shared experience of faith and of inclusive faith that I really felt like I had that fulfillment, or maybe that feeling of, I don't know, being full. So what am I a really key experience for me was praying behind a woman. So I prayed behind a woman called Armino, where dude, and I talk about this in our previous podcast with NoMad. And it was such a fantastic experience. But after that, this woman went, she went back to America and that community kind of ceased for me. And I was constantly looking for that community again. And it was only when I got involved in the inclusive mosque initiative that I got to kind of reconnect with a group of people and got to kind of pray together. And I was really lucky to be able to lead prayers with this group and lead prayers as a woman in the Islamic faith with, you know, disabled people, people on the margins, queer people. And for me, that was when I felt fully like included, like internally, and externally, that coming together of both of my kind of external and my internal life. Yeah, what about you, Jarls? I think for me, it was very much about, yeah, finding kindred spirits. And, I mean, certainly in my late 20s, I mean, I was quite embarrassed about going to church because it was very, very uncle at the time. And so it wasn't something I really talked about. But it did feel that I kind of fitted there. And I think I wasn't aware really of the depths that were going to open up because I don't think I'd really picked up, although I studied theology, I've kind of studied it on a kind of quite superficial level. I don't think I'd picked up kind of how rich the spiritual traditions are and how much would open up the more I, and, you know, now, today, I mean, the more I engage with it, all the more I decided to get becomes and the deeper in the ritual it is. So it's been a whole kind of process of discovery, but it's been a discovery alongside other people and learning, you know, sitting at the feet of the spiritual guides from before as well. And that's, it's such an extraordinary kind of, the traditions are also rich. Actually, maybe we should talk about that. How rivers inspire us within our spiritual traditions because we specifically chose a Hindu attasha because of all the kind of obvious things, but maybe you should tell people because I'm sure not everyone understands that. In Hinduism, there are so many ways to look at the river. Firstly, just to put out there that there's lots of different schools of Hindu thought and the school that you're established in will look at things in different ways. So if it's a diva, like a oneness, it will look at reality and these things in a different way, whereas if it's a school of duality, then it will see difference. That's just to put it out there that you can look at these things in lots of different ways, and there's lots of different levels. But in the popular way of looking at Hinduism, all of nature is terrified. So, will they fire rivers, will they fire trees, will they fire the sky, the sun, all of it is a dayification. And it's not to say God is in that. It's to say that it's a manifestation of something bigger. And so when you see it, you're not just seeing the sun, you're seeing, look, that divine power is in everything. And so the rivers are portrayed as goddesses and there's seven rivers in India and all of them have a different kind of symbolism behind them. So, for example, the river gunga, she symbolises knowledge. And when you take a dip in her, that knowledge, that knowledge of the reality, that knowledge of God, whatever you want to call that entity, will purify and will unite with it and it will purify whatever's not real or not in line with that. So, she represents that kind of knowledge, that knowledge of reality and that coming together of that. The Yamanariva is related to Krishna and Krishna is the God of love. And so it's all about bathing in this supreme power that is love at the end of the day. So they all have this kind of symbolism about them. There is another river that's no longer there today. It's called the River Saraswati. This is one of the rivers that's talked about in some of the old scriptures. You can see the riverbed still there, but the river doesn't flow anymore. And Saraswati also represents knowledge and she represents a spiritual knowledge and knowing of who you are. And so there's this kind of theological way of dayifying and they symbolise something, but it's always kind of a mirror to say, "Okay, if I am worshipping Saraswati, what does that actually mean? I'm looking at this and now we've got a picture of it, a form of Saraswati and as a goddess. What does she hold? What does she represent? So let's take a for example. She sits on a swan and in Indian culture the swan represents a entity that can discern, it can take water out of milk, it can discern the truth from the not truth. She's sitting on a Padma flower, a lotus. The lotus can grow in the dirtiest and dirtiest of waters and still grow and still be beautiful. She's holding a vina which is culture which is music, which is all of these beautiful things in life. She's holding the Vedas as scriptures, knowledge wisdom. She's holding the prayer beads to constantly remember. So when now you look at that picture of Saraswati, you're inviting those, you're remembering it, you're bringing it into yourself and wanting to be like that. So wanting to learn the scripture, wanting to be able to, no matter where we are in whatever yucky situation to still be able to hold pure thoughts and good thoughts and be good. So there's a symbolism in all of these things. That's on that level, on another level, rivers and water in general. They purify, they clean, they nourish, we can't have anything without water, nothing grows without water. And so that kind of idea that she's a mother, she's always giving constantly. That's also really embedded in the culture. So there are lots of different ways that Hinduism as a whole looks at rivers and deifies them and it's to remember on a deeper level who we are and where we're from, to try and buy a bit. And then the practice is, so when we're doing puja or taking a dip in the gunga to purify, it's that practice of actually doing it. It becomes an embodied practice rather than, oh, I've read about that in a book, that's nice, but but now you're doing it and you're purifying and you're in it and so there's lots of different ways to think about how to be rich, isn't it? We could just let you talk Natasha, I think. That was a make that so beautiful. Wow. Yeah, so rivers and water for me as a person coming from the Muslim tradition. There are two stories that really resonate with me. The first one is the story of Hagar or Harja in the Muslim tradition, who is essentially, I suppose, the mistress of Abraham or Ibrahim as he's known in the Muslim tradition. So, Hagar is left in, I mean, what we consider to be kind of modern day, Saudi Arabia or in Makkah, according to the Muslim tradition, and she is left behind with Ishmael, and she has no water, she has no food, and so she runs between two hills, and those hills are called Sufah and Mara, and she runs seven times between these hills.
looking for help, seeking divine aid, seeking some kind of help for her and her baby, and Ishmael then kicks the ground with his foot and the spring of water like gushes out of the desert of this kind of barren land, and this is called the water of Zumsum or the well of Zumsum, and even though this is technically a pre-Islamic story within the Islamic tradition it's referenced in the scriptures and even today when people go to hodge on their annual pilgrimage they will run from suffer and marijuana reminding themselves of the story of this woman and we often talk about areas of black woman, of a woman of color running between these two hills looking for sustenance, looking for water, and the irony to this story is if you go on hodge and I've been on hodge, women are not allowed to run between the hills, so only men are allowed to run and women aren't because I don't know it's improper or it's imodest when I went on a hodge I was like I will run between these hills and you know what Natasha said about like embodied practice, I mean this is literally embodying this like struggle that we know so many people have in their search for water and for clean water and so we've got goosebumps as I say it, it was such a beautiful experience for me to do that but again the irony of the Saudi kind of regime is that you know there is no you have no access to anything natural in that space it's completely the floor is covered in marble, your indoors so you can't even see sand or desert it's completely a kind of a man-made infrastructure now so it's kind of the irony of that tradition really? yeah we're so divorced aren't we from what's going on and you think about it in Christianity as well because I mean obviously the key river within Christianity is the River Jordan which is where Jesus was baptized at the beginning of his ministry by John according to the synoptic gospels and the River Jordan is you know we all know now it's a geopolitical nightmare but water and rivers and things they've lived the symbolism of it all is really powerful within Christianity John's gospel particularly talks a lot about the water of life and there's a great encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well and John's gospel and she asks for the water of well she doesn't he tells her that she can have the water of life and she decides she wants it and it changes her life and there's a really powerful image at the end of the book a revelation of the river through the city of God there is a river running through the city of God who's I can't remember the river makes glad the people of God and there are 12 trees growing on each side and the trees of the fruits of all the nations of course because we're both Islam and Christianity originated you know it's very dry part of the world of water is absolutely key isn't it so so yeah and we mix and at the Eucharist in the sacrament of Holy Communion we mix water and wine just before whether there was a consecration by the mixing of this water and this wine where we share Christ divinity who shares our humanity so it's all there and there it's it's just amazing really I love it and baptism now is you know the entry point for Christianity so yes lots about water and rivers and things and Charles do you have an experience of those rivers as a as a Christian oh it tells of how it relates to me I mean I often use the image of river when I'm talking to people I often encourage people to get into the river and for a lot of time I thought we were kind of floating along in it but now I think we are the river so I think we have to get in the river to be part of it and we become the river so you know the more we engage with spirituality the more we become the river and you know rivers made up millions of molecules and we're all molecules in it flowing to who knows where so that's an image I use quite often and how do you stay in relationship with your river so whether that's the real river or faith as we're speaking about it oh that's a good question I think it's practice it's practice it's doing things it's turning up it's it's like I've just said really it's getting into the river so it's like getting up in the morning and you know going to morning prayer that we do every day or at the moment I'm fasting for Ramadan so at the moment he's getting up very early in the morning and having breakfast I've actually been reading the Quran I've finished it but it was a really good experience to read the whole of the Quran during Ramadan so it's having it's giving yourself that time so the thing I'm discovering recently is that praying is it used to kind of feel like a bit of a burden but now I'm trying to reframe it in my head so that it becomes you know a pleasure rather than thinking you have to do it's like actually I want to do this I want to spend my time you know in silence and speaking and trying to engage with the divine with God yeah it's very much about kind of going along and doing things and I mean I've mentioned the community a couple of times I think being part of the community of St John's is great because we're full of you know there are lots of people there who are kind of inquiring but they're also very grounded and very loving and very open so and the reading until I read a lot right a bit so yeah I guess it's it's all of that and then it's just putting it all into action as well I mean we do a lot of work on climate change a lot of work on inclusion of LGBT people so it's trying to live out the faith that we think undergirds us yeah I love that living out the faith that underpins it or it's a living practice whatever you hear me my how do you keep to your river yeah it's a really hard question to answer because I'm sort of feeling less connected to community I have a five-year-old who keeps me busy and actually I would say maybe it's it's through her and she also goes she goes to a Catholic school and our home is I suppose Muslim and we say Hindu as well because my both myself and my husband are kind of maternal traditions are from a Hindu perspective as well but at night together we sort of pray together and she does her prayer from school and it's so beautiful it's god our father I've come to say thank you for your love today thank you for my family and all the friends you give to me guard me in the dark of night and in the morning send your light and she's so proud when she reads it when she says it at night and I teach her the opening chapter of the grand every night as she says mommy you do your prayer now now she reads it with me because she's has this sense of shared faith with me as well and that's really powerful because kind of I suppose in some way indoctrinating the next generation or teaching the next generation but it's just really wonderful to see through the kind of eyes of a child like what your conception of god is and how that will shape the way you go out into the world how you connect to yourself and to others and that's been something that's constantly kind of refreshing and renewing my interactions with the divine and with my own faith and I think for me on a personal level music is really integral to kind of my faith tradition now so I really enjoy koali which is devotional music it's mainly in or the Persian and Punjabi which I don't really speak so like connecting to that poetry in song and feeling that real connection in music and in singing and in I suppose kind of declaring your your love for the divine and I suppose for your fellow human being that's that's really powerful for me and I think koali this kind of devotional music is also very critical of the status quo and of injustice if there's lots of lines in this kind of poetry and music that talks about you know a person who goes to the mosque or goes to the munder but they've never visited their own heart and so this idea of kind of reconnecting back to the body and to that kind of internal journey is really relevant to me at the moment that's beautiful I love those devotional humans where especially the Sufis where they're literally saying at that point of time you can go to the temple you can go to the mosque you can do all of these things but until that internal transformation has happened it doesn't matter you can do all of these rituals but have you really connected with what we're talking but my daily discipline and practice and what keeps me rooted I guess is daily prayer and yoga practice coming back into an embodied physical and breath practice but also even in my PhD work I'm constantly looking at texts and scriptures and just even thinking about them and critically writing about them just keeps me involved in that but I have to remember that the university won't lead to self-realisation that's it doesn't happen at university it's it's a great practice but it's outside it's how we behave all of the time with the portal the receptionist or everybody how we behave with the elements with everything and it's remembering that so going on walks in nature and just being present towards there I live at the moment near Regents Park and just seeing it in the different seasons and in the different times and it's beautiful and that to me brings me back into that practice just a daily walk and being present towards around I think those things body mind all of it comes back into center.
Do you go to temple as well? I don't in London and I've never really been a temple goer. I will go if my parents are going in there, they've asked me to go. But I have like a little altar in my home, so I don't really feel a connection to any particular temple. I like the Chimé mission because for my kind of personality it explains everything, it breaks it down. It's not just a worship, it's not just a puja practice. It's, well, what does this scripture say? What does it mean? What we say, does it make sense? And it's really mulling it. So I go to that, but Manda or a temple, I have one at home. Natasha, could you tell us more about what's on your kind of altar? It's actually quite diverse, if you'd like. So I'm a Cindy Hindu. After partition, all of the Hindus that lived in Sindh, had to leave and that became Pakistan. And even before partition, Sindh is a kind of melting pot. So you've got Punjab, which is right next to it. You've got the Arab world, which is quite, it was like a melting pot. So there's a place in India where I go to whenever I get a chance to. It's in Chennai, which is Dan South. And it's called the Sindhi Sufi Darum. And when you walk in there, everyone is there. Jesus is there, Virgin Mary is there, Muhammad is there, the Sufi Saints are there. All of the Hindu pantheon is there. And it's just like that's home. And that's a little bit like my altar table that everybody is there. It's just a place that I can go. And again, it's the symbolism. It's like, what did that person represent? Or what does that deity represent? And then when I go there and I sit, I try and think about those things and try and vibe them and try and just remember. And it's that remembrance. And it's that morning practice. And it's just everyone is there. They've got a family. That's pretty. It's funny because as you were speaking, I was thinking, oh dear, another point of connection. I love this. Mine is really similar. Mine is like, I've got like versus from the Quran on there, as you might expect, with this beautiful picture of a woman reading the Quran, which is just lovely. I just like, it's just aesthetically stunning. Yeah, I've got the Virgin Mary. I've got a Buddha statue. I think bits of my travels. Yeah, everyone is there. That's actually really beautiful. I want to gels, do you have a similar picture? You could be describing mine. It's extraordinary. So in our hall, we have a table in the hall. And we cut it our interface table. So we've got Ganesh. We've got the Buddha. We've got Moralissa Ram. We've got a little tiny, tiny Quran, which is written, and do a very, very small writing. We've got the hand of Fatima. We've got some Francis. We've got some Jewish figures. We've got Manora, the Seven Branch Candlestick. We've got all sorts of things. We try to have a bit from all the religious traditions we can find. And yeah, we call it our interface table, and there it is, just in the hall. We go past it and stop. And say something before we go out occasionally. So yes, it's the universality of it, which is wonderful, I think. Do you think there's something about a physical space, of manifesting our internal beliefs that is, I suppose, linked to the way that you said nature, the tusha, is like everything in nature that reflects the divine. I wonder if that's why it's so important to have these physical spaces in which these beautiful figures or bits of text, a bit like people say, when you go to the river, you experience something, you. Yeah, I just wonder if there's something about that pool towards the space or an altar. I mean, there isn't. With the Christianity, there isn't really a tradition of having a personal tour in a senior house. But this one's just emerged over the years that me and Sharon have put together. So I think it is interesting that we've kind of felt drawn to have this really set of symbols of, you know, "Gar-Share Humanity". I mean, Sharon's Muslim and I'm Christian, so we've already kind of got that built in, and maybe we wanted to reflect that. But I think, actually, thinking that I had this multi-phase altar before he kind of turned up. So, yeah, I think there is something possibly quite profound going on. Yeah. I think for me, it's about just remembering. And it's so easy to get caught up in everything else. But that's the anchor. That, like, brings me back. And it's there. I'll always go there in the morning and the evening, but it's whenever. Whenever something is good or bad, that's a place of. To just go and be and remember and remember. Yeah. Especially in the world that we live in that can just be so overbearing and so easy to get distracted and to do our way in that remembering every day, coming back to it. So before your interfaith work, what surprised you when you first encountered a river very different from your own and has another tradition's way of flowing, clarified something about your own? I mean, it's really interesting because I grew up in a sort of a mixed faith household, though, primarily, it was a Muslim household, but there was a sense that there was different parts open to everyone and very much your faith journey was a choice that you made very much on an individual level, despite where you might have found yourself. I've always loved Guy Eaton's quote. He's a well-known kind of convert to Islam. There's written a lot around the Sufi tradition and he says that Islam is his son while all the others are stars, but stars are sons to other people and they are all parts to God. And so I think I very much have. Maybe as a young person thought Islam is the only way and was very absolute in my belief and only people who believed in one God could go to heaven and that was sort of my absolute understanding of the world. But I think very quickly that was unpacked maybe in my early and late teens. And so for me, other rivers are just places to. I mean, my hope is that they mingle, that they connect. I've always felt enriched by other traditions. We sort of have a joke in my house that I believe in everything, and my partner who's agnostic believes in nothing. And, you know, I feel very at home in a Guadwara, in a Mandeir, in a mosque, in a church. It might be unfamiliar, but I think very quickly I feel myself connected to that remembrance that I think we've talked about together as being so important that maybe outside things feel fragmented, things feel scary. The world can feel scary, but coming and learning about other people's traditions and also being in physical spaces where those traditions manifest has always been such a joy to me. Like, I love to be in a new space of faith to learn something new, to experience something new. And it's not new, is it? It's something really old that actually I'm connecting to. So, yeah, more mixing, more rivers. Every time I learn about a new kind of spiritual path, I'm like, wow, I didn't know this. I want to know more, so for me it's, you know, my cup overflows when I get that opportunity. I was brought up in the English education system, and so I thought that all the other religions were inferior to Christianity and the English was the top nation. Basically, when I was, that was what we were told. So, it's been an absolute revelation to me, you know, the more I've got engaged in other traditions, the more I learn like, you know, what I've learned today has been brilliant. Because it's, as you say, Helen, we're really this incredible richness of all these traditions and right the way around the world and the more we can kind of draw upon them, the more it benefits us, but also, you know, that changes the world. We're in the middle of a ghastly situation, the middle east, not in so much of that as kind of justified, you know, you hear about the way the Christians are talking. You can't really conserve your Christians and talking about Israel and Palestine at the moment, so it absolutely kind of, you know, makes blood freeze. Because it's based on such a caricature and such kind of deep misunderstanding of what's going on really. That actually your studying will have been drawn to go on you and he's such a hero in so many different ways. And, you know, Ibn Arabi is another hero of mine, and of course there's Rumi, and I mean, there was hundreds like Spend all day naming people. Again, it's, you know, the more you get into the river, the more you discover. I went to a church of England school and all of my friends growing up were Christian, and I never felt in my friendship groups that there was any difference. I mean, when we went to Cathedral every morning and I felt, okay, I'm not part of this, but I'm here. But I never really felt that kind of difference. And when I think back, I think there was kind of an underlying way, but it was actually about 10 years ago, maybe less, maybe about eight years ago. So I grew up in a tradition where there's a kind of idea that there's something that goes beyond the body, the mind that intellect. And when you take away all of those things, it's still there. So for example, when you're two, you're there. You're four, you had a four-year body. When you're 16, you've got a 16-year body. Now you've got this body. When you're 90, you have a 90-year body. That body has changed, but you were there in all of those places. Right? So who are you? The same with the mind. Sometimes the mind is happy. Sometimes it's sad. Sometimes it's excited. Sometimes it's depressed. But I'm there in the happiness, and I'm there in the sadness. I'm there in the excitement. So who am I? I'm not the body. I'm not the mind. The same with the intellect. I can say something, like something personal I used to eat meat. Now I'm a vegan. And they're quite intellectual decisions. Like there's a reason I'm doing it.
doing that. I was there as the meaty toer and I'm there as the vegan. So who am I? There's something but behind that. And I always thought that like religions and belief systems would just that an intellectual belief system or an emotional something you've been given. But say I changed, say I went from and I went to a Christian school and I went to I was born into Hindu fans to say I changed my mind and I don't want to be Hindu anymore and I thought I'd be Christian. But I'm still there. So who am I? So I thought everyone believed that and then I went into a tutorial one day with an Oxford professor and I said this and he's like, that's a very Hindu thought. And I was like, really? Not everyone believes that. Are you sure? He was like, yes. Not everyone believes that was. And that was like, okay, coming into contact with something that I had always felt, okay, find those differences. Of course there are, but at the essential level were the same. And that was the first time that I'd ever realized actually looking back. Maybe people didn't see me as a thing. And maybe that's why the priest was a bit more like, "Offish with me." But I saw that was his love. But then having said that every time I interact with people who are on a real spiritual path, there doesn't feel like there's that difference. I feel like organized religion makes that difference and we need to have that separation. But when we go past that, I've grown so much from other traditions. I went to an indigenous ceremony in November. And this was in Columbia. And on that table, there was all of the animism things that they were doing, but there was also the Virgin Mary. There was a confluence of so many different ideas and things. And but the thing that was being pointed to was the same. So I think you should learn from everything and everyone and speed. So if we come back to this kind of metaphor of the river, we think about maybe justice and who has access to water because rivers aren't just spiritual. Who has access to water and who is pushed downstream? So we had a sermon about this actually on Sunday because the story on Sunday was about the woman at the well. So Georgie, my colleague preached and she said that 770 million people in the world don't have access to clean water at the moment, which is a pretty horrifying statistic. And she talked about a village in Ethiopia that she went to where the girls don't get much education because it's always the women's job to go and get the water. And the well was so far away that they didn't get back until after school had finished and they were desperate to have a well in their village so that the girls could be educated. So yeah, I mean shocking really. And there are so many stories on that, but just the way that rivers have become objects of political dispute or just the way the rivers have been abused is deeply distressing. I think about the ganja, but I'm sure you can say more about that than I can in Sasha. It's such a revered river. In so many texts and so many songs it's goddess Ganga. She flows down from Lord Shiva's matted locks and she's flowing from a very tiny source in the Himalayas and then she gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and she flows to the plains and nourishes all of the people and you look at the state of it and you think we sing and rever this river and it's polluted and it's maybe one of the most polluted rivers in the world. I've been writing and thinking about this for a while and one thing I've understood that reverence doesn't equal responsibility. You can rever something, you can worship something and you can still destroy it and we're seeing that around the world. The theological part and the cosmic part and the it's reminding us of what this thing is, the nourishment, the beauty, the like if you go and sit next to a pure river, a clean river, you just walk by that. It changes the energy, it changes things but what we're doing to it is so different and I think that comes from not really a theological space. I think that comes from a political space in a place of people wanting power and knowing that it's such a and needed resource and we fight over that and then we dam it and we try and control nature and we try just we don't take care of it in the way it should be but I think that's more of a political thing. Maybe I don't have any answers to this but maybe it's when we reconnect with the land, the water bodies, all of it, all of the elements nature really reconnect with it and see what it is. Then maybe we wouldn't treat it so badly or pollute it in such ways that we're doing because it all comes down when when you step back it's about power and it's about profit and we're sacrificing these life-giving entities for profit and power. At the end of it if we wrote long term when they're polluted, when they're not taken care of, we're the ones that suffer. Human beings won't be able to survive. The rivers might dry out, they might die because I mean some of the gungers considered dead but they'll come back. We won't be able to come back from this. I have no answers. I'm thinking about all the issues around water in the UK at the moment and the reason that so many rivers have polluted and we get raw sewage going into the sea is because I mean it's directly connected to the privatisation of the water companies isn't it? So taking water out of the publisher and ownership and into private ownership which the conservative dream was that it would all make things much better and what it's meant is that the water companies loaded up the dead. So there's spending far more money repaying the debt and the debt's being used to fund hedge funds investments which means that the water companies aren't repairing things and so you've got in this terrible terrible mess and it's because it's been privatised. I mean I'm not saying the water you know it was perfect before but it wouldn't be as bad as it is now so it's a classic parable but it's exactly about the individualisation of our culture isn't it? And water is a shared resource and it was made a private one. When I think about sort of I think for any Muslim when we think about rivers and justice we can't help but reflect on the story of Imam Hussein who was the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad who stood up against in sort of like I think six, eighties kind of around that time stood up against a tyrant, the caliph at the time and he and his 72 followers were denied access to the Euphrates River so we're denied access to water for over three days and then were massacred without any just cause and I think that story of sort of like of despots and of profit and of injustice and that link to the river it just reverberates through time and there is a saying so this happened in a place called Khorabala and we say every day is a sureer every land is Khorabala this is saying that Muslims especially Muslims from a shea perspective will say because this injustice is constantly repeated in history and like you say Natasha it's like what is the answer or is the answer except community ownership of these resources and removing power from the hands of the few but yeah how we get there and how we like democratise who has access to water and our resources is really difficult. Well can we talk about climate change as well? Yes, absolutely. Because we know the glaciers are shrinking aren't they in the Himalayas and you know there's a risk that those great rivers which flow down through Bangladesh and through India you know we'll come to an end or the flow will be so drastically reduced that there just won't be enough water coming down and that's a direct result of climate change and climate change is a direct result of greed and it's a direct result of the way that capitalism has worked and it's a direct result of the personal private desire for profit and the fact that you know as you say Natasha we're not just not doing anything about it because there's such a disconnect from nature. I mean it's sin isn't it in its biggest sense it's structural sin and you know we need to name it as that if we can name it then we might be better at trying to reverse it. And I think that's the key if we can see it for what it is you can start to reverse it. So not saying oh we need this because it's always been like that the structure is too powerful well it's structural sin and if we want to look to the future and if we want to actually make things better or if we want to make a change we need to name it for what it is and then start from there and maybe it is this disconnection from the elements from nature from each other from from the source from whatever you want to call it but it's a disconnect and there are powers that play that want us to be disconnected from ourselves from each other from all of these things. And I think that's where faith comes in and that's where practice comes in and that's where the bridge between okay this is what scripture is saying well this is what the faith tradition says well this is how am I practicing it how am I connecting how am I you know seeing love everywhere or being in this place and embodying that and then I can take responsibility and say well all of right my actions say something what am I doing and then it comes back to well it's so easy to get distracted and to forget it's the remembrance it's the remembrance and coming back to that but to name it to see it for what it is I think that's the first and Natasha do you think there's a connection between that kind of naming that individual sense of connection and I suppose greater activism in terms of standing up against kind of climate change or organizing collective organizing do you think there's a connection there yeah I think like one person can't do
everything, it needs to be a change of collective consciousness to see what we're doing. And to kind of wake up from this greed and selfishness and individuality that we've been born into almost, and it's that awakening, all that, just trying to see things as they are and then saying, "Actually, it doesn't need to be like that." And coming together as community and coming together as a people that want to change and want to see things as they are and want to make these changes, then it's a collective change, a collective consciousness. And what's the book, the tipping point? It doesn't take everybody, it just takes 10% to see things and start changing it. And Jars, thinking about sort of organising, is there ways in which your kind of expression is, of who you are as a Christian, is linked to that? Definitely. I mean, I'm chair of something called Faith for the Climate, in fact, that's how we first met. Wasn't it, Natasha, that you spoke at one of our webinars, which was a wonderful webinar. It was a round duar, wasn't it? I was really grateful to you. But that was an example of what we do at Faith for the Climate, because we try to find and emphasise the ways in which different spiritual traditions have a responsibility to care for the climate. And there's also a lot of work going on individually in different churches and mosques and temples and goodwires. There's lots of really good work going on around the place. And we try to maximise that by bringing Faith traditions together. So for example, there was a mass lobby of Parliament last year and we organised kind of Faith Presence there. And you know, people came from all over the country to lobby their MPs. There was a big national emergency briefing about the climate that was pulled together recently. There's a film coming out quite soon about that. And again, we're hoping that Faith traditions will show that in their mosques or in their temples or their churches, because I think, you know, now more than ever, it's crucial that people of Faith speak out on this. So wrapping up, I think, we've talked about rivers and how we've experienced rivers at the beginning of our faith journeys, the journeys we've taken with other traditions, thinking about access to water into the rivers. Where is the river taking you now? What's the next steps? We can't really have this whole conversation without mentioning Herocletus, I think, who famously said, well, he's at it in Greek and this is non-inclusive language, but he said, and he said, no man ever steps in the same river twice. For it's not the same river and it's not the same man, which resonated very much with what you were saying about your story, but you know, it's still me. There's still me there. So I'm excited to see whether river is taking me. I was talking to somebody last week and he said to me, he said, are you still changing? And I said, yes, I am still changing all the time. You know, the thing is just, I think, because I'm so old now, he thought I got stuck in my waist. And I said, no, I am still changing all the time. In fact, it feels as though the older I get, the more I'm changing and the more I'm learning and the more I'm growing. And so the answer is, I don't know where I'm going, and I don't know whether river is taking me, but I know that it's taking me to the sea. And I do have that sense when we talk about getting into the river and I do sometimes, I have this sense that it is taking me into this kind of great unknown unconscious, great, not a male strom, but just, yeah, the ocean. But I'm quite looking forward to that, really. It's flowing into the unknown, but openly. Well, that's, you know, there are moments of fear. It can be scary at times and you know, I'm very scared in all sorts of ways, but somehow being grounded helps you to move on. I have recently, in the last few years, come to realise that there is only uncertainty. If I think back five or six years to what I'm doing now, I would never have even thought that this is what I'd be doing now. And I think I've learnt to get excited by uncertainty that we don't know. And if we can be present enough to this moment, what's meant to be will be. Halima, when we came in, you said, so right people, right time, right place, it's perfect as for this moment. And I feel like that's a beautiful way to live because then you're always in the right time in the right place for what is needed. And if we're open to that rather than having to be certain about what's going to happen because we don't have that. Like that's the one thing we don't have. And it's that kind of what we're always trying to control is the things we can't control. We were having a discussion the other day about we want peace, we want predictability, and there was two other peace. We try and make everything predictable, right? So we try and control things and we try and anti-age and live longer and do all of these things. But the only predictable thing is is that we're all going to get old and die. That's predictability, but we don't like that predictability. So we try and change it. So I think the uncertainty of just allowing life to be and being present to it fully, that's part of the practicing of faith, I think. And yeah, I think that's what we have to say about this subject. It's incredibly profound, I think. This idea that uncertainty is what we have in front of us, just like the river, like this ever flowing river that we don't know what it's going to be. And I thank you for sharing that. That's really useful because I've been feeling so disheartened with where things are going, I think globally, especially. It's really difficult to stay hopeful. And I suppose to remind myself that I do trust myself and my fellow human being. And actually it's the actions and actors of very few that are driving the harm that we're seeing. And so I'm trying to stay connected to hope. And I suppose it really is about hope in uncertain times and of feeling connected to the people around me, even sort of like of our aunt to our ancestors, and to the remarkable stories of resilience that we know they have laid the foundations for. And so yeah, I'm trying to be hopeful and constantly reminded by others and interactions with others that is absolutely what is in front of me, but it's hard to stay connected to that. Well, hope is revolutionary. I mean hope is kind of cultural without hope, nothing changes. So I'm glad you're staying connected. Natasha, what you said about who am I? I think that should be of hope. It was beautiful. Actually, that comes from a scriptural practice of, well, who am I? Not this, nitty nitty, not this, not the body, the body changes all the time, but who am I? I was there in all of those different bodies. Not the mind that changes all the time, but who am I? I was there in all of those different changes. Not the intellect, lots of different intellectual beliefs, completely always changing, but who am I? I was there within all of those different things. And that's the thing, not this, not this, who am I? Who am I? Oh, beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Well, you're both amazing. So thank you very much. No, thank you. Thank you. (soft music)
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