WEBVTT
00:01.229 --> 00:02.329
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, John here.
00:02.870 --> 00:12.114
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into the episodes we have coming over the next several months, I wanted to take a little time and talk directly to you about the future of the deconstructionist.
00:12.974 --> 00:16.116
[SPEAKER_00]: And I suppose the easiest way to say it is just a sad.
00:16.656 --> 00:23.059
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of this year, after a little more than 10 years, the deconstructionist podcast will be coming to an end.
00:23.799 --> 00:26.440
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I want to immediately clarify what I mean by that.
00:26.640 --> 00:27.741
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not done today.
00:28.301 --> 00:35.845
[SPEAKER_00]: We still have some really wonderful conversations coming over the next few months and there will absolutely be a proper goodbye when we get to the end.
00:36.265 --> 00:38.046
[SPEAKER_00]: So this isn't the final episode.
00:38.746 --> 00:43.608
[SPEAKER_00]: This is really just me letting you know where things are headed and more importantly what comes next.
00:44.389 --> 00:46.630
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I've been thinking about this for quite a while.
00:47.658 --> 00:53.901
[SPEAKER_00]: When Adam and I started the podcast in my basement back in late 2015, we really had no idea what we were doing.
00:54.541 --> 01:01.984
[SPEAKER_00]: Podcasting was a very different landscape then, and there were only a handful of shows having the kinds of conversations that we wanted to have.
01:02.704 --> 01:14.329
[SPEAKER_00]: Conversations about faith, doubt, theology, certainty, church, identity, and what happens when the framework you inherited no longer seems big enough for the questions you're asking.
01:15.367 --> 01:18.168
[SPEAKER_00]: And from the very beginning, one thing was really important to us.
01:18.969 --> 01:21.210
[SPEAKER_00]: We never wanted the podcast to be about us.
01:21.970 --> 01:25.172
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't interested in positioning ourselves as gurus.
01:25.872 --> 01:29.934
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't theologians arriving with a new system that everybody needed to adopt.
01:30.714 --> 01:36.337
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't want to replace one set of unquestionable answers with another set of unquestionable answers.
01:37.203 --> 01:47.090
[SPEAKER_00]: We wanted to curate conversations with people whose ideas we found interesting, challenging or helpful in our own journeys, and then invite you into those conversations with us.
01:48.011 --> 01:48.772
[SPEAKER_00]: That was really it.
01:49.732 --> 01:53.175
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where one of the unofficial mantras of this show came from.
01:53.875 --> 01:58.379
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to agree with everything someone says to agree with something they say.
01:59.239 --> 02:02.202
[SPEAKER_00]: And that idea has always been incredibly important to me.
02:03.123 --> 02:10.348
[SPEAKER_00]: because one of the habits many of us inherited from fundamentalism was this tendency to divide people into categories.
02:11.109 --> 02:14.712
[SPEAKER_00]: Say for dangerous, right or wrong, Orthodox or heretical.
02:15.652 --> 02:21.477
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone was either somebody you could trust completely or somebody you shouldn't listen to at all.
02:22.358 --> 02:23.979
[SPEAKER_00]: And we wanted to push against that.
02:24.799 --> 02:28.963
[SPEAKER_00]: You might listen to a guest on the show and disagree with 40% of what they say.
02:29.743 --> 02:30.324
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's fine.
02:31.237 --> 02:34.319
[SPEAKER_00]: You might disagree with 90%, that's also fine.
02:35.419 --> 02:39.921
[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe somewhere inside that other 10% is an idea that makes you stop.
02:40.942 --> 02:44.744
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it gives you language for something you hadn't been able to articulate.
02:45.744 --> 02:47.645
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it challenges and assumption.
02:48.386 --> 02:51.007
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it sends you down a rabbit hole of your own research.
02:51.987 --> 02:54.889
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it becomes something you wrestle with for the next six months.
02:56.162 --> 03:01.404
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you listen to somebody and decide, nope, this person just isn't for me, that's okay too.
03:02.484 --> 03:04.485
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll have somebody completely different next week.
03:05.505 --> 03:06.745
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was always the point.
03:07.726 --> 03:09.886
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't trying to tell people what to think.
03:10.627 --> 03:20.750
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully, we were encouraging people to keep thinking, to ask questions, to read, to research, to challenge us, to challenge our guests, to challenge themselves.
03:21.882 --> 03:27.350
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe most importantly, to become a little more comfortable with not having everything neatly resolved.
03:28.732 --> 03:31.816
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that we've accomplished some of that over the past 10 years.
03:32.747 --> 03:35.990
[SPEAKER_00]: because we've covered an extraordinary amount of ground together.
03:36.611 --> 03:51.624
[SPEAKER_00]: We've talked about the Bible, Hell, Atonement, Sexuality, Church History, mysticism, politics, science, doubt, grief, spirituality, justice, fundamentalism, and a thousand things somewhere in between.
03:52.725 --> 03:59.607
[SPEAKER_00]: And after 10 years, I've increasingly found myself feeling like we've said much of what I wanted this particular show to say.
04:00.567 --> 04:01.207
[SPEAKER_00]: Not everything.
04:02.447 --> 04:09.729
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think you ever finish asking questions about these things, but enough that I've started to feel something shifting creatively.
04:10.609 --> 04:13.349
[SPEAKER_00]: The world around these conversations has changed too.
04:14.590 --> 04:18.071
[SPEAKER_00]: When we started, there were only a few podcasts doing this kind of work.
04:20.955 --> 04:22.556
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not inherently a bad thing.
04:23.216 --> 04:28.620
[SPEAKER_00]: In many ways, it's evidence of just how many people are questioning the systems and assumptions they inherited.
04:29.540 --> 04:34.003
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also don't necessarily connect with every approach the deconstruction world has taken.
04:35.044 --> 04:39.387
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I think we've created some of the exact patterns we were trying to escape.
04:40.387 --> 04:47.592
[SPEAKER_00]: We've always been a culture that loves experts, heroes, celebrity pastors, people with the answers.
04:48.772 --> 04:55.976
[SPEAKER_00]: And occasionally I look at parts of the deconstruction space and wonder whether we've simply changed the old experts for new ones.
04:56.857 --> 04:58.678
[SPEAKER_00]: The old certainty for a new certainty.
04:59.439 --> 05:02.701
[SPEAKER_00]: The old fundamentalism for slightly different fundamentalism.
05:03.721 --> 05:06.483
[SPEAKER_00]: Different conclusions, same architecture.
05:07.563 --> 05:09.905
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think that's particularly healthy either.
05:10.865 --> 05:15.348
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want anybody listening to this podcast because they believe I have the answers.
05:16.049 --> 05:16.429
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't.
05:19.548 --> 05:28.897
[SPEAKER_00]: And if there's anything 10 years of doing this show has convinced me of, it's probably that anyone who claims to have all of this figured out should make us a little nervous.
05:30.078 --> 05:34.322
[SPEAKER_00]: There are also parts of this ecosystem that have become incredibly commercialized.
05:35.363 --> 05:38.146
[SPEAKER_00]: That's inevitable to some degree, people need to make a living.
05:38.926 --> 05:40.408
[SPEAKER_00]: Producing media costs money.
05:41.665 --> 05:49.932
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a difference between supporting thoughtful work and turning people's uncertainty, pain, or spiritual disorientation into a product.
05:50.872 --> 05:53.254
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always wanted to be careful about that distinction.
05:54.315 --> 06:09.347
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the point was never to create another tribe around the deconstructionists, the point was to create a space where ideas could collide, where curiosity could survive certainty, where you could hear something uncomfortable without immediately deciding whether it belonged
06:11.554 --> 06:14.396
[SPEAKER_00]: and where you could ultimately decide for yourself what you thought.
06:15.757 --> 06:25.825
[SPEAKER_00]: So after 10 years, rather than trying to keep the deconstruction is going simply because it's been successful or because it's familiar, I think I'd rather let it be what it was.
06:26.946 --> 06:34.011
[SPEAKER_00]: A conversation that mattered deeply to me for a particular season of my life, and hopefully one that mattered to some of you too.
06:35.243 --> 06:41.710
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the part I'm really excited about, because ending this show isn't me stepping away from these kinds of conversations.
06:42.751 --> 06:45.734
[SPEAKER_00]: And a strange way, I think I'm actually expanding them.
06:46.815 --> 06:51.880
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the last couple of years, I found myself increasingly fascinated by a much bigger question.
06:52.901 --> 06:58.627
[SPEAKER_00]: Not simply, what happens when your beliefs change, but what happens when your life changes?
06:59.738 --> 07:06.463
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens when somebody experiences a moment that divides their entire existence into before and after?
07:06.483 --> 07:21.074
[SPEAKER_00]: The diagnosis, a discovery, an accident, a loss, a survival story, a war, an expedition, a crime, a scientific breakthrough, an act of extraordinary courage.
07:22.335 --> 07:28.139
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes these moments happen to us, sometimes we choose them, sometimes they're
07:29.644 --> 07:30.865
[SPEAKER_00]: sometimes they're devastating.
07:31.766 --> 07:34.027
[SPEAKER_00]: But afterward, something is different.
07:35.148 --> 07:40.612
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've become fascinated not only by what happened, but by the person who emerged from it.
07:41.672 --> 07:42.313
[SPEAKER_00]: What changed?
07:43.033 --> 07:45.815
[SPEAKER_00]: What mattered afterward that hadn't mattered before?
07:46.876 --> 07:47.877
[SPEAKER_00]: What stopped mattering?
07:48.717 --> 07:50.338
[SPEAKER_00]: What did they learn about themselves?
07:50.719 --> 07:51.619
[SPEAKER_00]: What did they lose?
07:52.280 --> 07:53.320
[SPEAKER_00]: What did they discover?
07:54.201 --> 07:55.542
[SPEAKER_00]: Who did they become?
07:56.672 --> 08:00.255
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the idea behind the new podcast I've been quietly building.
08:01.175 --> 08:02.616
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called Who We Become.
08:04.037 --> 08:08.901
[SPEAKER_00]: The tagline is, every life has a before, every life has an after.
08:10.022 --> 08:17.127
[SPEAKER_00]: In each episode, I'm going to sit down with someone who has experienced one of those extraordinary moments and talk about both sides of it.
08:17.847 --> 08:21.270
[SPEAKER_00]: The event itself and everything that came afterward.
08:22.207 --> 08:26.650
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of ways, this feels like the natural evolution of the deconstructionists.
08:27.470 --> 08:36.055
[SPEAKER_00]: Because underneath all the theology and doubt and church conversations we've had over the years, I think we've really been talking about transformation all along.
08:36.916 --> 08:45.781
[SPEAKER_00]: But the stories we inherit, the stories that fall apart, the stories we rewrite, and the people we become in the process.
08:46.662 --> 08:49.884
[SPEAKER_00]: Who we become simply opens that question up much wider?
08:50.770 --> 08:58.695
[SPEAKER_00]: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theology, into the full, weird, devastating, beautiful range of human experience.
08:59.735 --> 09:03.437
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm incredibly excited about the conversations we're already lining up.
09:04.298 --> 09:06.239
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be telling you much more about that soon.
09:06.879 --> 09:11.422
[SPEAKER_00]: For now, if you'd like to follow along from the very beginning, I'd love to have you.
09:12.303 --> 09:15.885
[SPEAKER_00]: I've set up a website at this is whowebecome.com.
09:16.727 --> 09:18.128
[SPEAKER_00]: You can join the mailing list there?
09:18.628 --> 09:19.689
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we have a mailing list.
09:20.209 --> 09:22.310
[SPEAKER_00]: And you'll be the first to know when the trailer drops.
09:22.930 --> 09:26.332
[SPEAKER_00]: When the first guests are announced and when the show officially launches.
09:27.273 --> 09:30.795
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you've been listening to the deconstruction as for years, thank you.
09:31.495 --> 09:32.796
[SPEAKER_00]: I really hope you'll come with me.
09:33.756 --> 09:35.757
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, we're not saying goodbye yet.
09:36.058 --> 09:37.518
[SPEAKER_00]: We still have several months together.
09:38.099 --> 09:39.639
[SPEAKER_00]: There are more conversations coming.
09:40.400 --> 09:45.423
[SPEAKER_00]: There are people I've wanted to talk to for a long time that I'm finally getting the chance to sit down with.
09:46.308 --> 09:52.869
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we reach the end of the year, we'll take some time to properly look back at what this strange little podcast became.
09:53.770 --> 09:57.551
[SPEAKER_00]: After Adam and I sat down to my basement with microphones 10 years ago.
09:58.751 --> 10:03.692
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also don't want to make some dramatic declaration that the deconstructionists will never exist again.
10:04.592 --> 10:06.953
[SPEAKER_00]: The archive is staying exactly where it is.
10:07.853 --> 10:11.094
[SPEAKER_00]: I want people to continue discovering these conversations years from now.
10:11.894 --> 10:12.374
[SPEAKER_00]: Then who knows?
10:13.393 --> 10:20.044
[SPEAKER_00]: If something happens down the road that I really feel needs to be discussed here, maybe I'll dust off the feed and we'll talk about it.
10:20.906 --> 10:23.650
[SPEAKER_00]: I've learned not to make absolute statements about the future.
10:24.532 --> 10:27.277
[SPEAKER_00]: That feels appropriately on-brand for this show.
10:28.510 --> 10:31.891
[SPEAKER_00]: But the weekly journey we've been on together is approaching its conclusion.
10:32.591 --> 10:33.711
[SPEAKER_00]: And another one is beginning.
10:34.511 --> 10:36.852
[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll say the proper goodbye when the time comes.
10:37.452 --> 10:40.173
[SPEAKER_00]: For now, I just wanted you to hear it from me first.
10:41.033 --> 10:41.913
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening.
10:42.693 --> 10:43.734
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for questioning.
10:44.494 --> 10:45.594
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for disagreeing.
10:46.314 --> 10:47.154
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for thinking.
10:48.115 --> 10:52.156
[SPEAKER_00]: And thank you for giving us 10 years to have these conversations with you.
10:52.916 --> 10:53.956
[SPEAKER_00]: They're still more to come.
10:54.756 --> 10:57.857
[SPEAKER_00]: And after that, we'll see who we become.
00:01.229 --> 00:02.329
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, John here.
00:02.870 --> 00:12.114
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into the episodes we have coming over the next several months, I wanted to take a little time and talk directly to you about the future of the deconstructionist.
00:12.974 --> 00:16.116
[SPEAKER_00]: And I suppose the easiest way to say it is just a sad.
00:16.656 --> 00:23.059
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of this year, after a little more than 10 years, the deconstructionist podcast will be coming to an end.
00:23.799 --> 00:26.440
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I want to immediately clarify what I mean by that.
00:26.640 --> 00:27.741
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not done today.
00:28.301 --> 00:35.845
[SPEAKER_00]: We still have some really wonderful conversations coming over the next few months and there will absolutely be a proper goodbye when we get to the end.
00:36.265 --> 00:38.046
[SPEAKER_00]: So this isn't the final episode.
00:38.746 --> 00:43.608
[SPEAKER_00]: This is really just me letting you know where things are headed and more importantly what comes next.
00:44.389 --> 00:46.630
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I've been thinking about this for quite a while.
00:47.658 --> 00:53.901
[SPEAKER_00]: When Adam and I started the podcast in my basement back in late 2015, we really had no idea what we were doing.
00:54.541 --> 01:01.984
[SPEAKER_00]: Podcasting was a very different landscape then, and there were only a handful of shows having the kinds of conversations that we wanted to have.
01:02.704 --> 01:14.329
[SPEAKER_00]: Conversations about faith, doubt, theology, certainty, church, identity, and what happens when the framework you inherited no longer seems big enough for the questions you're asking.
01:15.367 --> 01:18.168
[SPEAKER_00]: And from the very beginning, one thing was really important to us.
01:18.969 --> 01:21.210
[SPEAKER_00]: We never wanted the podcast to be about us.
01:21.970 --> 01:25.172
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't interested in positioning ourselves as gurus.
01:25.872 --> 01:29.934
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't theologians arriving with a new system that everybody needed to adopt.
01:30.714 --> 01:36.337
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't want to replace one set of unquestionable answers with another set of unquestionable answers.
01:37.203 --> 01:47.090
[SPEAKER_00]: We wanted to curate conversations with people whose ideas we found interesting, challenging or helpful in our own journeys, and then invite you into those conversations with us.
01:48.011 --> 01:48.772
[SPEAKER_00]: That was really it.
01:49.732 --> 01:53.175
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where one of the unofficial mantras of this show came from.
01:53.875 --> 01:58.379
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to agree with everything someone says to agree with something they say.
01:59.239 --> 02:02.202
[SPEAKER_00]: And that idea has always been incredibly important to me.
02:03.123 --> 02:10.348
[SPEAKER_00]: because one of the habits many of us inherited from fundamentalism was this tendency to divide people into categories.
02:11.109 --> 02:14.712
[SPEAKER_00]: Say for dangerous, right or wrong, Orthodox or heretical.
02:15.652 --> 02:21.477
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone was either somebody you could trust completely or somebody you shouldn't listen to at all.
02:22.358 --> 02:23.979
[SPEAKER_00]: And we wanted to push against that.
02:24.799 --> 02:28.963
[SPEAKER_00]: You might listen to a guest on the show and disagree with 40% of what they say.
02:29.743 --> 02:30.324
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's fine.
02:31.237 --> 02:34.319
[SPEAKER_00]: You might disagree with 90%, that's also fine.
02:35.419 --> 02:39.921
[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe somewhere inside that other 10% is an idea that makes you stop.
02:40.942 --> 02:44.744
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it gives you language for something you hadn't been able to articulate.
02:45.744 --> 02:47.645
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it challenges and assumption.
02:48.386 --> 02:51.007
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it sends you down a rabbit hole of your own research.
02:51.987 --> 02:54.889
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it becomes something you wrestle with for the next six months.
02:56.162 --> 03:01.404
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you listen to somebody and decide, nope, this person just isn't for me, that's okay too.
03:02.484 --> 03:04.485
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll have somebody completely different next week.
03:05.505 --> 03:06.745
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was always the point.
03:07.726 --> 03:09.886
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't trying to tell people what to think.
03:10.627 --> 03:20.750
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully, we were encouraging people to keep thinking, to ask questions, to read, to research, to challenge us, to challenge our guests, to challenge themselves.
03:21.882 --> 03:27.350
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe most importantly, to become a little more comfortable with not having everything neatly resolved.
03:28.732 --> 03:31.816
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that we've accomplished some of that over the past 10 years.
03:32.747 --> 03:35.990
[SPEAKER_00]: because we've covered an extraordinary amount of ground together.
03:36.611 --> 03:51.624
[SPEAKER_00]: We've talked about the Bible, Hell, Atonement, Sexuality, Church History, mysticism, politics, science, doubt, grief, spirituality, justice, fundamentalism, and a thousand things somewhere in between.
03:52.725 --> 03:59.607
[SPEAKER_00]: And after 10 years, I've increasingly found myself feeling like we've said much of what I wanted this particular show to say.
04:00.567 --> 04:01.207
[SPEAKER_00]: Not everything.
04:02.447 --> 04:09.729
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think you ever finish asking questions about these things, but enough that I've started to feel something shifting creatively.
04:10.609 --> 04:13.349
[SPEAKER_00]: The world around these conversations has changed too.
04:14.590 --> 04:18.071
[SPEAKER_00]: When we started, there were only a few podcasts doing this kind of work.
04:20.955 --> 04:22.556
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not inherently a bad thing.
04:23.216 --> 04:28.620
[SPEAKER_00]: In many ways, it's evidence of just how many people are questioning the systems and assumptions they inherited.
04:29.540 --> 04:34.003
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also don't necessarily connect with every approach the deconstruction world has taken.
04:35.044 --> 04:39.387
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I think we've created some of the exact patterns we were trying to escape.
04:40.387 --> 04:47.592
[SPEAKER_00]: We've always been a culture that loves experts, heroes, celebrity pastors, people with the answers.
04:48.772 --> 04:55.976
[SPEAKER_00]: And occasionally I look at parts of the deconstruction space and wonder whether we've simply changed the old experts for new ones.
04:56.857 --> 04:58.678
[SPEAKER_00]: The old certainty for a new certainty.
04:59.439 --> 05:02.701
[SPEAKER_00]: The old fundamentalism for slightly different fundamentalism.
05:03.721 --> 05:06.483
[SPEAKER_00]: Different conclusions, same architecture.
05:07.563 --> 05:09.905
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think that's particularly healthy either.
05:10.865 --> 05:15.348
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want anybody listening to this podcast because they believe I have the answers.
05:16.049 --> 05:16.429
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't.
05:19.548 --> 05:28.897
[SPEAKER_00]: And if there's anything 10 years of doing this show has convinced me of, it's probably that anyone who claims to have all of this figured out should make us a little nervous.
05:30.078 --> 05:34.322
[SPEAKER_00]: There are also parts of this ecosystem that have become incredibly commercialized.
05:35.363 --> 05:38.146
[SPEAKER_00]: That's inevitable to some degree, people need to make a living.
05:38.926 --> 05:40.408
[SPEAKER_00]: Producing media costs money.
05:41.665 --> 05:49.932
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a difference between supporting thoughtful work and turning people's uncertainty, pain, or spiritual disorientation into a product.
05:50.872 --> 05:53.254
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always wanted to be careful about that distinction.
05:54.315 --> 06:09.347
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the point was never to create another tribe around the deconstructionists, the point was to create a space where ideas could collide, where curiosity could survive certainty, where you could hear something uncomfortable without immediately deciding whether it belonged
06:11.554 --> 06:14.396
[SPEAKER_00]: and where you could ultimately decide for yourself what you thought.
06:15.757 --> 06:25.825
[SPEAKER_00]: So after 10 years, rather than trying to keep the deconstruction is going simply because it's been successful or because it's familiar, I think I'd rather let it be what it was.
06:26.946 --> 06:34.011
[SPEAKER_00]: A conversation that mattered deeply to me for a particular season of my life, and hopefully one that mattered to some of you too.
06:35.243 --> 06:41.710
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the part I'm really excited about, because ending this show isn't me stepping away from these kinds of conversations.
06:42.751 --> 06:45.734
[SPEAKER_00]: And a strange way, I think I'm actually expanding them.
06:46.815 --> 06:51.880
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the last couple of years, I found myself increasingly fascinated by a much bigger question.
06:52.901 --> 06:58.627
[SPEAKER_00]: Not simply, what happens when your beliefs change, but what happens when your life changes?
06:59.738 --> 07:06.463
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens when somebody experiences a moment that divides their entire existence into before and after?
07:06.483 --> 07:21.074
[SPEAKER_00]: The diagnosis, a discovery, an accident, a loss, a survival story, a war, an expedition, a crime, a scientific breakthrough, an act of extraordinary courage.
07:22.335 --> 07:28.139
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes these moments happen to us, sometimes we choose them, sometimes they're
07:29.644 --> 07:30.865
[SPEAKER_00]: sometimes they're devastating.
07:31.766 --> 07:34.027
[SPEAKER_00]: But afterward, something is different.
07:35.148 --> 07:40.612
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've become fascinated not only by what happened, but by the person who emerged from it.
07:41.672 --> 07:42.313
[SPEAKER_00]: What changed?
07:43.033 --> 07:45.815
[SPEAKER_00]: What mattered afterward that hadn't mattered before?
07:46.876 --> 07:47.877
[SPEAKER_00]: What stopped mattering?
07:48.717 --> 07:50.338
[SPEAKER_00]: What did they learn about themselves?
07:50.719 --> 07:51.619
[SPEAKER_00]: What did they lose?
07:52.280 --> 07:53.320
[SPEAKER_00]: What did they discover?
07:54.201 --> 07:55.542
[SPEAKER_00]: Who did they become?
07:56.672 --> 08:00.255
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the idea behind the new podcast I've been quietly building.
08:01.175 --> 08:02.616
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called Who We Become.
08:04.037 --> 08:08.901
[SPEAKER_00]: The tagline is, every life has a before, every life has an after.
08:10.022 --> 08:17.127
[SPEAKER_00]: In each episode, I'm going to sit down with someone who has experienced one of those extraordinary moments and talk about both sides of it.
08:17.847 --> 08:21.270
[SPEAKER_00]: The event itself and everything that came afterward.
08:22.207 --> 08:26.650
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of ways, this feels like the natural evolution of the deconstructionists.
08:27.470 --> 08:36.055
[SPEAKER_00]: Because underneath all the theology and doubt and church conversations we've had over the years, I think we've really been talking about transformation all along.
08:36.916 --> 08:45.781
[SPEAKER_00]: But the stories we inherit, the stories that fall apart, the stories we rewrite, and the people we become in the process.
08:46.662 --> 08:49.884
[SPEAKER_00]: Who we become simply opens that question up much wider?
08:50.770 --> 08:58.695
[SPEAKER_00]: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theology, into the full, weird, devastating, beautiful range of human experience.
08:59.735 --> 09:03.437
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm incredibly excited about the conversations we're already lining up.
09:04.298 --> 09:06.239
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be telling you much more about that soon.
09:06.879 --> 09:11.422
[SPEAKER_00]: For now, if you'd like to follow along from the very beginning, I'd love to have you.
09:12.303 --> 09:15.885
[SPEAKER_00]: I've set up a website at this is whowebecome.com.
09:16.727 --> 09:18.128
[SPEAKER_00]: You can join the mailing list there?
09:18.628 --> 09:19.689
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we have a mailing list.
09:20.209 --> 09:22.310
[SPEAKER_00]: And you'll be the first to know when the trailer drops.
09:22.930 --> 09:26.332
[SPEAKER_00]: When the first guests are announced and when the show officially launches.
09:27.273 --> 09:30.795
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you've been listening to the deconstruction as for years, thank you.
09:31.495 --> 09:32.796
[SPEAKER_00]: I really hope you'll come with me.
09:33.756 --> 09:35.757
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, we're not saying goodbye yet.
09:36.058 --> 09:37.518
[SPEAKER_00]: We still have several months together.
09:38.099 --> 09:39.639
[SPEAKER_00]: There are more conversations coming.
09:40.400 --> 09:45.423
[SPEAKER_00]: There are people I've wanted to talk to for a long time that I'm finally getting the chance to sit down with.
09:46.308 --> 09:52.869
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we reach the end of the year, we'll take some time to properly look back at what this strange little podcast became.
09:53.770 --> 09:57.551
[SPEAKER_00]: After Adam and I sat down to my basement with microphones 10 years ago.
09:58.751 --> 10:03.692
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also don't want to make some dramatic declaration that the deconstructionists will never exist again.
10:04.592 --> 10:06.953
[SPEAKER_00]: The archive is staying exactly where it is.
10:07.853 --> 10:11.094
[SPEAKER_00]: I want people to continue discovering these conversations years from now.
10:11.894 --> 10:12.374
[SPEAKER_00]: Then who knows?
10:13.393 --> 10:20.044
[SPEAKER_00]: If something happens down the road that I really feel needs to be discussed here, maybe I'll dust off the feed and we'll talk about it.
10:20.906 --> 10:23.650
[SPEAKER_00]: I've learned not to make absolute statements about the future.
10:24.532 --> 10:27.277
[SPEAKER_00]: That feels appropriately on-brand for this show.
10:28.510 --> 10:31.891
[SPEAKER_00]: But the weekly journey we've been on together is approaching its conclusion.
10:32.591 --> 10:33.711
[SPEAKER_00]: And another one is beginning.
10:34.511 --> 10:36.852
[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll say the proper goodbye when the time comes.
10:37.452 --> 10:40.173
[SPEAKER_00]: For now, I just wanted you to hear it from me first.
10:41.033 --> 10:41.913
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening.
10:42.693 --> 10:43.734
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for questioning.
10:44.494 --> 10:45.594
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for disagreeing.
10:46.314 --> 10:47.154
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for thinking.
10:48.115 --> 10:52.156
[SPEAKER_00]: And thank you for giving us 10 years to have these conversations with you.
10:52.916 --> 10:53.956
[SPEAKER_00]: They're still more to come.
10:54.756 --> 10:57.857
[SPEAKER_00]: And after that, we'll see who we become.
