with Marla Taviano

Stephanie Drury: Hello and welcome to the Deconstruction Workers Podcast. I'm Stephanie Drury and this podcast is just something where I have people come on one at a time and I ask them what was your process for deconstructing your faith or whatever belief system you were raised with. Because it's a it's super terrifying and I had no one to talk to about it when I was going through it first very early on. So yeah, that's That's all the information you're really going to get because that's all theirs. I met this person named Marla Taviano on threads. she commented on something a couple weeks ago and I'm like, please come on my podcast. And I I then I happen to look into your background. You've done a few books and your story seems super interesting. So I'm so glad that you said yes and that you're here to talk with me today. I'm so glad you asked me. This is this is gonna be fun. We've already had fun before we even pressed record. I know. We're like talking about cats being expensive to the point where, you know, they might just need to go home over the Rainbow Bridge. No, I can't do it. I can I'll I will give all my money to them. I know. Start a GoFundMe and four one K and everything. Okay, you're in the middle of a storm. You're in, I want to say South Carolina. Yes, Columbia, South Carolina. And I think the storm has passed. so I think we're good. Or my lights were flickering for a while and the thunder was really loud, but I think I think we're good. We're in the clear. I grew up in Arkansas and Texas and now I'm in Seattle and we don't have thunderstorms out here and I actually really miss them. wow. Yeah, I would miss them. I just don't have them. Like you might hear thunder. once every few years in the summer. my goodness. And it's always like startling. But I don't know what it is about the weather and pattern. But I'm like, what the hell? No one ever told me that that was like just a thing relegated to the East Coast in the South. Okay. I I never knew that. I'm fifty years old and I didn't know that. I love thunderstorms. I lived in Ohio for thirty nine years, Cambodia for five, and now South Carolina for six. And I always tell people, they ask me if I miss the snow. I have not missed the snow for one second since I moved away on January third, twenty fifteen. And w it's actually snowed here a couple of times, but I I've had thunderstorms in all the places that I've lived. So I didn't even I mean, even in Cambodia. So that didn't occur to me that there's a a state or a coast or an a region that doesn't get thunderstorms. No one talks about it. And Obviously there are no tornadoes out here. I don't miss those 'cause in Texas I was like right in the middle of Tornado Valley. My husband's from San Francisco. He's like, we have earthquakes out here. It's so fun. They're like a ride. And I'm like, maybe that's just because you grew up with them. Because I was kinda like that with tornadoes. I'm like, big deal, but you have to go down to the cellar for a while. We had tornadoes yeah, in Ohio and there are tornado warnings here. So w we have kind of like a it's not really a basement. There aren't really basements here. but yeah, it's I I'm not not a fan of of tornadoes. They they I mean, my first earthquake, I had I had to go on Paxel after that. That was insane. We have them here. Like our our house will shake and the first time it happened to me I didn't know. We did not feel them. I did feel them in Cambodia. but in yeah, South Carolina, we've been here six years and I probably felt seven or eight of them. And they just like they didn't know this about your chair just starts shaking. Like it is it's really it's yeah, it was a new thing for me. Okay, we're both learning things. Yeah. Yeah, this is so great. It's like science hour. We're deconstructing the weather. I'm just gonna go ahead and dive in. I have the same list of questions that I ask everybody and they're on my website, deconstruction workers com. and I put it under the liturgy tab 'cause, you know, just like a little rundown. But when you mentioned Cambodia, I was like, were you over there for a missions-oriented situation? So that's just where my brain goes to. So okay, first question. what belief systems did you grow up with? I grew up as a white conservative evangelical Christian. And I always tell people, I called myself a Christian. That's what we called ourselves Christian. I and like the right kind of Christian, the real Christians. I didn't have any labels or anything. I did go the church I went to for most of my life was a Grace Brethren church, but I didn't really know I still to this day don't really know what that means. I think it's kind of like Grace Brethren like non denominational? 'Cause I think we might have gone to a couple of those. I think it's pretty much non denominational Baptisty kind of thing. So yeah, it wasn't until a lot, lot later in life when I was getting ready to leave all those labels behind that I realized that I that I had them. So that's how I would describe it now. Very white, very conservative, very evangelical, non denominational, which is kind of a joke to me because I I don't know if they're trying what they're trying to do. They're are they trying to hide stuff, are they trying to like appeal to bigger groups of people? Are they I don't know, I'm not sure. Yeah, exactly. Jay Briggs is a guest I had on last episode, and she was saying that that's code, like the non-denominational, and like saying, we welcome everybody is all like this kind of crazy code to be like, do you actually though? Like you can say we welcome you to get you in the door, but yeah, it's bait and switch. And it was pretty brilliant the way she laid that out. But okay. So at what point in your life do you remember starting the first question, your belief system? Okay. So Backing all the way up, like I hear a lot of people say, I always questioned my beliefs when I was growing up. I always like I I pushed back against different things, and I thought, man, I wish I would have done that. And then I'm slowly realizing that I did do that, but I thought that that was the devil trying to plant doubts in my mind. So anytime I did question something, anytime something didn't make sense. I just kind of doubled down on what I believed because I was so convinced that it was right and that other people, like the outsiders or the enemy, or the devil, were trying to get me to doubt. So I I just pushed that aside. my first I I used to think that my first thing was like around 2009 when I read a book called The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, where he said. I was sitting at the pool with this book and he said that if your gospel isn't good news to an AIDS orphan in Uganda, then it's not good news. Like there's a hole in your gospel. And I was like, wait, what? Because I really loved people and I wanted I but I just thought salvation was the the most important thing. Not not feeding the poor, not whatever the the the Democrats wanted to do, but actual salvation. And then looking back through my journals, I've been reading back through them. I'm trying to write a memoir. And I realized that in around 2007, I started having some big questions about the end times. So I I thought that I I knew, I mean, I read all the left behind books and I had all these ideas. And then I did some Bible study, about more Bible study. I can't remember all the details, but I started questioning. Wait. Some of these things aren't actually in the Bible. So where did I get this? And then realizing I got it from some people who kind of formulated these ideas. And that started to just put some cracks in things where I thought, you know what, I better make sure that all of the things I believe are actually in the Bible. And I had read the Bible from cover to cover many, many times. I had done Bible studies, I'd written Bible studies, I'd written books, Christian books. So I'm a Bible minor from college. So yeah, I I knew a lot, but I wanted to make sure that I knew, which peeking to the end of my story, that's what led me out, is a deeper study of what the Bible actually does say. Exactly. Cause fact checking it, you're like, my God, the Bible says this shit. W and and yet we overlook that. And how's that square with yeah. I'm so curious about your Bible minor, but I'm gonna stay on track here. Okay. how is the process for you internally and also relationally? And how did like how did other people react when you started to question all of this? God. Not well. I had always been very vocal about my beliefs. I would get into arguments on my blog. I had a blog that I started in 2005, and I was writing almost every day. And I would get into arguments with atheists and other people, and I always had all these answers and I was not backing down. then I wrote books for wives, how help like to help them be good wives, submissive wives to their husbands. I did that in 2006 and seven, eight, nine, I have four books out. Wow. And so I was really well-versed, well-practised in saying out loud what I believe. And once I started to be on the internet, I had a platform for that. So I did my deconstructing very much publicly, online, out loud. And looking back, I don't know, I mean, there's no one right way to do it. And I wouldn't change anything, I don't think, now because what would be the point? but the hardest thing that happened to me is my sister disowned me. in twenty seventeen because she and her husband because of the things that I was posting and it was causing her a lot of cognitive dissonance. She was very insecure in a lot of things and needed that like certainty. And I was now raising all these questions, all these doubts, saying all these things like, you know what? What I think the nativity story is didn't really happen. She's like, How do you know it didn't happen that way? And it just everywhere I could poke, I I started out very nervous about it and then I just got really brave. Rachel Held Evans is the one who I credit for changing my whole entire life because she wrote a book. It's called Faith Unraveled Now, but it was called Evolving in Monkey Town. I was afraid to read that at first because everything I knew about her, she was very, very much like me. And if she's gonna question this and change her mind about things, I was scared that she would be able to convince me as well. And I finally decided, hey. If she is wrong, then let's prove her wrong. If she's right, you are in trouble. And you need to figure out what you're gonna do about it. And she was right, and I was in trouble. And so I I also say that I feel like I was lucky. I had a long time. I could do this really slowly. I mean, this is like 2009, 10, 11, 12. This is pre-Trump, pre-George Floyd, pre-Cr. COVID pre like all the things that just slam into people and make like jolt them awake and make them figure things out more quickly. I I feel like I had a lot longer to do that. But like I I always say, I call it a luxury, but it was a luxury because of my white Christian privilege. Like I could I could afford to take this slowly. because I wasn't Black and getting my rights taken away. I wasn't queer and getting my rights taken away. I wasn't Muslim and getting my rights taken away. So I could go slowly. And really none of us have that luxury if we're expanding this to to all the people that are currently being harmed by systems that we are upholding by the things that we believe. Completely. man, I'm sorry about your sister. That's that's really tough. But yeah, that's that's happened in my family with parents and stuff. So yeah. it's just such a devastating side effect because that's part of what keeps you in the system. Because they I always knew inherently that if I called something out that I was disposable. yeah. And I it didn't really stop me from being mouthy. Like I would tell my parents my dad's my dad was with us my parents were with the ministry called the Navigators. And my dad is yeah. I I was like, she'll probably know who they were. and my dad's an ordained Southern Baptist minister. And I would tell I would tell them, like, I'm gonna tell everyone what you're really like behind closed doors. And they would say, You're you're going to destroy our ministry. wow. And You know, it was just like the them's fighting words and I'd say I'm going to talk about what goes on behind closed doors over here and they'd say, if you do that, the state will take you away from us and you'll go live with another family that's even worse. So it was just like this was coded from when I was really little. Wow. And I just knew like if I if I really if I changed beliefs, I'd be out the door. And so there's like a crazy grief in that with someone who's an abusive essentially figure in your life while they're a family member. but they and yet they uphold these really horrible systems in Jesus' name. It's like the that's the worst part. You know, it's like if you weren't a Christian, I could kind of or didn't say that you subscribe to any kind of beautiful moral reckoning or yeah, then it that might be one thing. So anyway, it's just so convoluted that the only thing I know to do is to talk about Talk about just the process a little bit with other people. So that the other people out there going through this, no, they're not alone. so that kind of leads into were there any emotions that were that you were punished for displaying when you were growing up? I'm gonna say no. I am I'm still digging deep back into that, but it's funny that you said that you were mouthy because I have a little book. I have it right here. I I wrote this little book of poems. It's called Mouth. A little book of cheeky poems. And the the poem in the front, the title poem, My Mouth, my dad gave me that nickname back when I was in high school and barely even cussed. I'm so tickled that I'm finally growing into it. So I also had a reputation, weirdly, for being this good Christian girl, but also I I did have a mouth on me, not in the cussing kind of way, but in the, hold up, wait a second. I don't think that that's right or whatever. But to my parents' credit, they they were wonderful and they are wonderful. I have a lot of issues now with what I think are their toxic Christian beliefs. But they were really the the loving kind of people with the messed up beliefs. Like we're seeing so much hate today. Like my My dad drove a school bus around the neighborhood to pick up kids, like poor kids to to take them to church. And then he taught children's church. He'd give money away. He's all like all the neighbor kids love my parents because their parents sucked. Like so that's always been my family and they never disowned me, even though our beliefs are like opposite ends of the spectrum now. So so yeah, I I really don't think that they that they told me I couldn't do a certain thing. Like there weren't secrets. My parents were never hiding anything, like that they were abusing us or doing anything bad to us or whatever. And I even have a poem in one of my books like as a credit to them, my dad in particular. Even though they say they believe like in complementarianism with the the wife being subservient to the husband, as a girl, I was the oldest of four, and I could do whatever I wanted. Like I did sports, I bailed hay, I was doing the lawnmower, I'm doing like I I would sometimes dress in boys' clothes. Like I did I was a tomboy, athletic, and that was never ever once said to me, to my like recollection. That you need to be more ladylike, or you girls can't do this, or I was co-valedictorian of my high school class. So I did like I could do and be whatever I wanted, and my gender did not get in the way. And I've since had some talks, like in the last few years with my parents, to try to explain to them why complementarianism is this dangerous theology, because I've said to them, Listen, mom and dad, like dad is Awesome. He is this servant leader. He's washing the dishes. He's taking care of you. He like he's amazing. So of course you're gonna submit to him because he's like bending over backward for you. Because he's submitting to her, like however Paul said to do. Yes. In my marriage, that didn't work because my husband was not like my dad. Like that was my biggest error was not marrying someone like my dad. Like I think maybe I didn't. realize how many men out there weren't like my dad. Yeah, sure. You didn't have the example. Yeah. And so I they did. They came kind of around to my way of thinking. I don't know what they would say now, but I'm like, listen, you you say you're all for complementarianism. Your marriage is egalitarian. Like it just flat out is. It just is. and mom just submits to dad when she because she feels safe doing it and he'll take care of her and Anyway, so that's a tangent. But I yeah. I was allowed, I think, pretty much to do and say and think and feel whatever I wanted. And I had I will say this. I found this book at Goodwill. My thing my thing, like my niche is buying old books that I used to read or my parents used to read or that I wrote. and then disse reading them, dissecting them, pairing them with art and showing people like w how we got to where we are now with Christian nationalism, with the patriarchy, with racism. And I found this book called Something About Your Child's Temperament by Beverly LaHaye. And Tim and Beverly LaHaye are okay. I'm reading this book right now called The Unhappy Gaze by Tim LaHaye, but but this is the temperament How do I not know about this book? Okay, it's It is the trashiest book I've ever read in my life. Anyway, so the temperaments, there's phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric, and melancholy. These are the four temperaments. I knew these words when I was like four. Like I knew what these words meant. And I knew that I was melancholy, choleric. And I knew that those were the bad ones. Like sanguine and phlegmatic are the happy kids that get along with everybody and are obedient. And melancholy and choleric are rebellious, they're moody, and so I knew that, but it's true. I am that. So now I I am embrace that. But yeah, I so I definitely had emotions and they were recognized and acknowledged, but I was allowed to have them. So Huh. And and yet there was some kind of messaging that you did get that that made it through. Like these are not good. Yeah. Jesus y for sure. Phlegmatic you know, you need to be phlegmatic and sanguine. Yeah. That's what you need to do. To this day I hate those words. I don't see them very often, but when I do, it just takes me back to like, no. So I mean that totally segues into my next question. What outcomes were you told you might get in the long term if you didn't meet the rules or expectations? Did anything it doesn't sound like they overtly gave you this messaging, but that you might have like inferred something. Yeah, I I think I was really internally motivated. Like I just myself, I I wanted to be good. I wanted t to please God. I wanted to be the best Christian that I could be. I wanted to be holy. So I did a lot on my own of just obeying the rules, even when people weren't watching me. So I Like I said, I didn't really cuss. My I would go to parties sometimes. My friends would be smoking and drinking. And I'm like, no, no, I don't, I'm not gonna do that. one of the guys on my track team in high school couldn't believe that I'd never drunk alcohol, and he like bet me five dollars that I would drink alcohol before I graduated from high school. I didn't drink alcohol until I was 34. So I never got my five dollars from Jeff, but he he owes me. So I just I don't know what it was. I I just wanted to be good. And again, that weird thing where I was mouthy too, but yet good. So I I don't I don't know. But I don't remember like I wasn't really afraid of hell. I was really convinced like I'm I'm definitely on the right path. Maybe it was a like a self righteous I'm I'm really good. I know I'm good. 'Cause I remember my sister being worried and I had a couple of friends who were worried they would just get saved over and over and over again, like just keep praying the prayer of salvation just in case. And I didn't feel the need to do that. I had a lot of certainty. and so Yeah, I just Yeah, same. I don't know if that's an oldest sister thing where we're just like maybe we're safe. We're marked safe. Yeah. We're superior. We're Yeah, we we do everything right. So man. so what are some messy things that you have become aware of that you feel you're able to now face just with less fear or with more clarity maybe? Or you're able to say, that's messy and I can I can deal with it. Yeah, I think for a long time I was still trying to hold on to the Bible and it being right. And so as my views changed, I would just try to find other verses in the Bible that would help support my new views because I didn't like the idea of not having this answer for that. And I don't know if I would say it's the messiness, but something at some point I finally just decided this isn't even worth it to me to try to hold on to this and to try to fit everything into the Bible anymore. I I just don't care. Like I'm gonna choose my neighbor, I'm gonna choose love. My first book in the new series of books, like after I left Christianity or left evangelical Christianity, is called Unbelieve. And the the title poem there is about if loving people, like if becoming a heretic is what I have to do to love people fully and completely, then that's a sacrifice that I'm willing to make. so I think maybe I I just kind of sidestepped some of the messy where I was like, yeah, I can't make this fit anymore. It doesn't fit. I need a different, like different guidelines for this. Like so my new guidelines are really just. love and wholeness. Like is this is this loving? And not in the love the sin or hate the sin kind of way. Not sometimes Christian love feels like hate kind of way, but like really loving. Is this helping this person be more who they are, become more whole? And so so yeah, I was able to just it's so freeing when you don't have to figure out, wait, it was what that person does is that okay? Like can they st still be a member of the church and do that thing or love that person or be in this situation? if I did have to pick one issue, this was the final, final, final thing for me as they slowly started like falling, would be abortion. for so long I was like, I get this, I get why people are pro choice, but I just can't, I can't wrap my mind around the idea of a a little fetus that's looks like a baby and then now it's gone because you decided you didn't want it. so that one is probably the still the messiest one for me, but now I like I've woken up to the the control that everyone just wants to control women's bodies in in every single way, and that they don't actually care about life. Otherwise their bumper stickers wouldn't say guns, God, whatever. They they wouldn't worship guns and worship war and worship violence and hate welfare queens or hate food stamps or hate any government assistance, but yet somehow we're if we're supposed to believe that they care about like six week old fetuses. Like that's just there's no none of that makes any kind of sense to me. So so for me, i I'm one hundred percent pro choice. The woman can decide what she does with her own body. And I have three daughters. They're twenty five, twenty four, and twenty. And we just I mean, I won't go into all personal stuff, but we we've talked had a lot of talks about it's just really kind of unfair how that like biology works and how much the women like how much is on them for for everything and that men have like what feels like no responsibility of of any kind and yet want to make all the all the laws and the rules and that just does not that's doesn't sit well with me. So good. Yeah. It's good that they can see you giving that example. When you mentioned twenty seventeen, the rift with your sister, I was I was just wondering, did it have anything did the the the election, did Trump catalyze any of that for you? just see the discrepancy between people who claim to be Christians and voting f the way that they do? it did. It did a little bit, but I had already been getting pretty vocal about things when same sex marriage was ratified in in twenty fifteen and I was like, good, I'm I'm glad. Or we I mentioned I was in Cambodia, we started out kind of as missionaries in in twenty fifteen, but I'd already like deconstructed a lot of things. And by the time we were done there, I wasn't even going to church. But we had these bamboo libraries that we started out in villages and the concept was great. Like we employed local teens to run these libraries and kids could come and get books. Both in the Cambodian language and in English and and learn all this stuff. But we made this decision, we're not gonna proselytize, like we're not gonna tell them about Jesus here. This is gonna be just you come, you can come in and learn English, you can read, you can hang out. This is not a Bible thing, it's not a missionary thing. And that really upset my sister and her husband that I would and I tried to explain, would you want how dare you not force your beliefs on these people? Okay. And this is the thing that I ran up against, not just with them, with so many people. And I would say things like try to give these analogies. If you took your kid to story time at the library, would you want a Muslim teacher telling them that they like that they had to follow Allah? And would you and They couldn't wrap their minds around that. They're no, of course not, because that's not the truth. We have the truth. So that whole truth, not truth, that I believed for so long, and the Christian supremacy of it all, where the rules don't apply to us because we have the one true belief system. So of course we want everyone to to know it. so yeah, the so there are a lot of things, but but Trump definitely escalated that. And I I'm thankful for that actually. I I have a poem thanking Trump because he did bring to light so much. I mean, to just see all the things that he did that like a couple years before, these Christians would have like, absolutely not. And you know, if Barack Obama did one out of the five thousand things that Trump did, they would have They would have been outraged. And so then he did. He exposed the hypocrisy. He exposed what was really in the hearts of of so many people. So I'm glad for that. I mean, do I want to be where we are now, where it's like hell on earth in this country? No. but we need an overhaul of some kind. So we'll see what's gonna happen next. Yeah. I I To your point about being grateful for Trump or anything, you know, for a horrible regime. I I've been thinking about how this stuff has existed all along. We just it was behind the veil and now the veil's been lifted. Yeah. and so I'm grateful for him for making it so obscenely obvious that we couldn't look away anymore. Or the people who can were able to see, that's not a big deal to you. Okay, thank you for that information about who you are and what you stand for. So I'm I'm with you on these things that are so horrible can end up being a hashtag blessing, I guess. I I tell my kids so my kids are twenty one and twenty four and I we grew up with them in church a little bit and then about 10 years ago we just couldn't do it anymore. And it was just really, really not what I just realized, okay, the kids don't like it. They don't feel safe there for whatever reason. I have to respect this. And so anyway, I still like to observe things like Easter. And I always tell them, I'm like, Easter is is a metaphor. Like all these holidays are metaphors, you know, they're based on pagan. tradition, you know, but and and that's not for nothing. Like it's because these are myths are deep truths that are always true. But the these deeper stories and and Easter represents like even out of the darkest times something really beautiful can happen. Mm-hmm. So that's you know my Easter thing that I just say to the kids 'cause they'll say things to me, they're like, You're still a Christian. You're so you're such a fucking Christian. You know, they'll say something like that to me. Cussing with my kids is like my favorite thing. Yeah, yeah. No, and they don't like it. They don't like when I cuss. It's pretty funny. They're just like Yeah. Yeah, my kids it it's funny to me because they were all raised for a little while at least on Bible stories and all this stuff. but I will sometimes forget, especially my my youngest, he's twenty. That she does not remember any of that. So I'll make some kind of reference to some kind of Bible story or something. And they look at me like, We we don't know what you're talking about. And at first it takes me off guard and then I'm like, good, you don't know what I'm telling you. Yeah. And they don't know hymns. They don't know Christmas song, you know. And I'm like Not at all. There's something about that that makes me a little bit sad, just because that was so much of my it's like a Tradition probably more than anything. And then like you said, it's like, thank God, they weren't part of the conditioning, but that's not really a threat. But Yeah. you mentioned online that this is what you responded to me on threads with. something about how you were leading a church and they told you to go quietly and not tell your kids the real reason. yeah. Is it okay if I ask you about that? Because absolutely. And I'm I'm glad because I'm trying to do this Substack series. So I'm going back through all my old like 65 journals to write a memoir about my marriage that that fell apart. and seeing all these other like side stories, and I'm like, I didn't write about that at the time because it was kind of messy. Let's write about that now. I'm just very, very much in my digging up. Dirt from the past era and bringing things to light. So Freedom Church is the name of this church. It was in CM Rape Cambodia. And they have it started in the UK and they have branches everywhere. But I think there are only two in North America, and one of them is actually in Raleigh, North Carolina, which is where my brother and sister in law live. We're going there this weekend. Not to Freedom Church, but to Raleigh. and And these are the ones, is this the sister? wait, it was your brother. It's my brother, yeah. Yeah. So he did not defil me. so long story short, we started going to this church. I'm seeing in my journal these red flags from the very beginning, but I didn't either I didn't pick up on them or I ignored them. my kids, we had just been like fired from another ministry unfairly. Fired? Well, yeah. You must done something awesome in order to get fired from of this. This was this was our offense. We lost confidence in our director. This is this is what happened to us at the church too. So basically we saw injustice, we spoke up, and that didn't go over very well. and I don't want to be the kind of person that's like Nothing is ever my fault and I'm good and I did this and like nothing. I don't tell that about you. I don't think anyone is gonna jump to that conclusion. So that that like that is the the truth. So we go to this church and they tell the pastor says takes me and my now ex-husband out to dinner. He got a vision from God that we're gonna have this outreach to the poor and my family is gonna lead it. We had just been fired from this outreach ministry to the poor. We didn't know what we're gonna do now in Cambodia, and this feels kind of Perfect, right? That we're gonna do. Long story short is that he was a businessman who was running his church like a business, and there's this hierarchy of these high ministries you could be in. The poor ministry was a really low one. We couldn't get people to volunteer very easily because they wanted to climb the ladder to the better ministries. I started pointing things out. They tell us that they should not have hired us because they thought since we were foreigners like them, they're Belgian, we're American. They thought that we would be on the same like wavelength and we clearly weren't. So at first they said they want us to step back and do like this six-month training program where we could make sure we were on the same page. We pushed back against that. So they let us go. So then they tell us, don't we're leading this ministry. Our kids are like full-time volunteers in this ministry. They want our kids to stay. They want us to go away. And they want us to tell not to tell our kids what happened. They want us to tell our kids. That we decided that we didn't want to do this anymore. Like the such complete bullshit. And our kids, this is a thing where I I do have some regrets that they were so they gave their little lives for to fight human trafficking, to do like to church, like all of this stuff. And I for free that they could have could have just been kids. But we talked We have been talking about this kind of stuff as a family on mission doing all these things for their whole lives. There's no way in hell that they're we're not gonna tell them this. Like it just was not a thing. Anyway, I don't know if you know DL Mayfield. Yeah. Okay so they're our good friends. Yes. So love them so much. They made me I can't reach it, but it's this little keychain that says Marla is listening to the devil. Because that's what the pastor told the all the people at the church, which is they said that's why we left. Because Marla is listening to the devil. And there are actually a few of them that did come to talk to us that felt they're like we we think something's up here. Like we don't under this doesn't track with how we think about you. And we're in another culture, the different language. It's like just a big huge mess. but yeah we left. So we take this to the like the board, the UK, whatever, and what they basically did. is just smoothed everything over. We told the pastor we wanted to meet with him again, and he's like, we're gonna deal with this internally. Like internally. They're gonna deal with firing us internally by the Matilla business. And yeah. And so I'm writing about this on my Substack right now. I've done like seven parts of it because it's this big I'm just trying to show people here are the red flags, here's where I ignored them, here's what happened, here's what they said, here's the spiritual abuse, here's this. But I I Googled Freedom Church just to see their website and the f all these things that came up. Freedom Church is a cult. They do this. Like it's been banned in these these universities in the UK because they prey on these young people. And and I'm like, okay, so it's not just me. Like this is the whole system. Then someone sent me a DM because she saw it and she went to Freedom Church Raleigh. So now we have someone in the actual US who left because she said it was a cult. So I don't know how deep I'll go into searching all this out because I don't really care. And there are a lot of other things. Like I'm I have to read, I have to finish reading Tim Lhay's Unhappy Gaze so I can report on that. But that's that's my thing, going like just deep into these things that I either used to believe or I was a part of, which gives me kind of authority about it because new people that will come, because I'm starting to get a lot of new people who don't know my story and I don't share my story in every post. So there's like some missing context. Like some people thought that I was sharing James Dobson's words as if I believed them. And so I'm I'm trying to navigate that right now. But yeah, it's it's it's just a lot of it's it's a lot of stuff that I can like I I just have a lot of material and people sometimes think, Well, you're just you just don't like Christians or you just don't like the I'm like, listen, you don't understand. I this was me. I was this was me. I read James Dobson. I read Left Behind. I read Tim LaHaye's book, The Act of Marriage about having sex. So my cousins and I would grab that and like read you know, we're like seven. And we would all read it under the covers and If they had any if that motherfucker had any idea was so scandalous. And his book, The Unhappy Gays, I swear he just wrote it so that he could sell all his other books. He keeps referencing he keeps referencing all of them in here. I'm like, this is a cute sales pitch where you are turning all the Christians against every gay person so that you can sell your books and have your empire, which is what Dobson also did. It's a Fucking nightmare. I have to tell you just a little bit of my Dobson journey. so 1991, I was 16. You were 16, 15. my parents sent me to Manitou Springs, Colorado for a week. This place called Summit Ministries. this guy named David Noble led it. And my parents are like, This is an inoculation against humanism. It will tell you the truth about, you know, politics and Why being a Republican is good, whatever. and it was cool. It was like this old hotel that they yeah, it was like a cult, honestly looking back. But I mean it was fun because there's all these people from California. I'd never met anyone from California, you know, like people from all over the place. And it was ninety one and it was it was kind of amazing. James Dobson's son, Ryan, was there, who was just a few years older than me. So we would we became friends. I ended up borrowing my friends. This is a Tangent. I bought I borrowed his car and totaled it. And it was a car we were supposed to drive back to Arkansas in. So my dad had to come all the way from Arkansas and like pick us up. And that was like a fun random distraction from what was going on there because I remember like every morning they would show us slides of like drag queens and like this is bad and just you know, like talking about Satan and Ted Bundy. We watched Ted Bundy's like final interview in prison. Dobson. Was that Dobson that was interviewing him? So Then, like leading up at to the end of the week, Doctor Dobson is going to use all of us kids as his audience for his book Life on the Edge, the video series. no, no, no. So we're I will s I will have people like reach out and be like, I saw you in the audience of this thing. We're like watching it as a joke. Yeah. They're like, they closed up on you and I haven't seen it. But they're they tell me that I'm wearing like this frat sweatshirt because I had a crush on this guy named Rob and he gave me his sweatshirt. Anyway, they're like, Why are you wearing Greek letters? But I'm like, I was 16, okay. and I'm like looking at Dr. Thompson, I'm like taking him very seriously. But I just yeah, his wife Shirley, you know, she was like standing around constantly and I got a photo with him and my parents put it in the ministry newsletter and they're so excited and Stephanie's never gonna be a liberal, yay. I shook Jerry Falwell's hand when I was a kid. That's He baptized my mom. Jerry Falwell did? And like that's I think that was the my that's my origin story. I think it's when it all began. he's royalty and my poor nieces all go to liberty. And the last words my sister in law said to my brother ten years ago was control your wife. You know, she's the one who sends her daughters to liberty. Like this was at the family reunion. We haven't been invited back to the family reunion. my god. Because I was talking about the stuff online and they didn't like it, you know. So it's just so interesting how that's the definition of a cult is that they will cut you off if you don't play by the rules. So Yeah, yeah. It keeps people in line. It really does. And I'm grateful that we were able to say, Yeah, we're just not doing this anymore. I don't know what it's gonna look like without you and My life, but I just you're making me physically ill. Like I realized I was like physically ill around them. My body's like screaming to get my attention because I wasn't listening to my intuition. Yeah. Did you have any of that? Did you have physical symptoms? That's one of the things I'm trying to figure out now more in my marriage than anything else. I'm reading like I'm reading so much shit. I just finished Sacred Marriage by Gary Ew. Gary Thomas. Okay, so I read that, I have my books here. This this book, From Blushing Bride to Wedded Wife, is the book I wrote in two thousand six. And then Is That All He Thinks About? How to Enjoy Great Sex with Your Husband. I quoted Gary Thomas probably three or four times in in my books because and now as I'm rereading this, and I read the updated edition and I didn't realize it was updated in twenty fifteen. The one I read was from two thousand. I don't think I had the stomach to go back and read the 2000 one also, but it's still shit in 2015. Like he didn't change any of his views on anything. So his tagline is what if marriage is to make us holy, like not happy? And so what I realized is when you are in a marriage with the person who is most likely a covert narcissist, and is treating he's treating you like shit and you are unhappy and you're trying your best to be a good wife. Then you look at this unhappiness as God is making me more holy. Like that's just how it is. So that's what I don't know, Gary's whole deal, but this man is not like I I would love to talk to his wife like for real. but on and on and on, the whole book is just marriage is hard, it's difficult, it's this. And the whole point of marriage is to make you holier. And the worse your marriage is. Well, great for you because you're gonna be even holier. I'm convinced he talks a lot about monks being spiritual and people don't think that people who are married can be as spiritual. I think he wanted to be a monk, but he also wanted to have sex. And so he's trying to make it like look, you can still be spiritual when you're married. You just have to work really, really, really, really hard. And look, you could even be more spiritual. So that was my whole marriage was trying so hard. That's why I wrote those books to help women, sure. My marriage sucked if I was being honest. And I am honest a lot in the book because like just like I'm honest now You don't want to have sex with your husband. It's right there in the title. You're trying to hype yourself up and you know other women are like this too. Exactly. So I yeah. I forget why what we were saying, like what made me How did it go over your book? sorry, I'm I'm nothing but tangible. I'm unmedic unmedicated on HD on everything. The books that I wrote, you mean? Yes, yeah. Okay, so they're they're literally just they're funny. Like I Gary Thomas's book is boring as hell. Like he is such a boring person. My books are not boring. Even now, see all these little notes in there. I regret them. Yeah. So they're they're complete shit theology, but they are funny and they're good stories and and whatever. But I was just trying to make my not so great marriage mesh with like holiness whatever and I thought maybe I wanted to be a writer. Like that's that's what I want to do with my life. So why not just I could write about my marriage, then I could also help me be a better wife and I can pursue my dream of writing, which that's what Gary and I have in common. Like he wants he just wanted to be a writer. So I feel like he didn't really care about his marriage, but he's gonna write about it because then he can do his writing dream. But then also blah blah blah. I don't know. I can't speak for Gary Thomas. but They went over fine because I was telling women, this is on us. Like we have to just be a better wife. Don't worry about what your husband's doing. Be a better wife. Be a better wife. I had a man want to buy me flowers because his wife read this book. That's the warning sign, ladies. If you're writing a book and the husband wants to buy you flowers, then you're not team woman. Like you are pick me, a pick me girl for the patriarchy. It's what I was. Yeah. And like in your defense, like you were just doing what you what you knew. And you were trying to make the best of it. You're so you're writing propaganda for the enemy without knowing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. did your husband I'm just curious, did he take it as a slight that it was like implied that you didn't really want to sleep with him? Or was he more like, yay, my wife's a writer? Here's okay, I didn't even look at it that way. Like it was not a it wasn't even a I don't want to sleep with my husband. I it was for me, I had three like a a five year when this book came out in 2007, my kids were six, four, and one. So I have three little kids. My husband is under the impression that the wife. Does every single thing around the house, does every single thing for every child, and writes and does her work and does whatever. So I mine was more, I am exhausted. Like just absolutely exhausted. And as I'm going through my journals now and seeing our pattern, the pattern is he says something hurtful or borderline or abusive to me. I cry. I forgive him. We have sex. He does it again over like and at the end then I'm like a reward cycle. He gets a treat. Did you know about it? No, no. I didn't know till four months after he left. I'm so sorry. But I have heard so many women say, like when their husbands cheated and left, like we hadn't had sex in two years, and we ha that was not mm my story. That we were it was the whole entire time. Like so and toward the end, I was even initiating sex and he was is like, no, I'm tired or I'm or turning it down or whatever. And so yeah. So I'm writing about a lot of this stuff right now. But so yes, it wasn't even I wasn't one of those I sh I should not say those women. Women who do not want to have sex with their husbands For whatever reason. I mean, there's all kinds of reasons. And there were times when I didn't want to or I was too tired. But there were times when I really did want to, and we did, and I thought it was fine. And so it was more of yeah, I don't know. That's that's what I'm trying to explore right now. Seeing what I wrote, what I put in my journal, and then trying to go back into my mind and being like, was I even this reliable narrator? Like even now, because I have, I'll give you one quick story of. I wrote in this book about our honeymoon night. I was a virgin on our on our wedding night. And sex hurt like so bad. And I got sick that night. I had a fever and threw up the next morning. So all of this stuff is happening. I have found this notepad that I wrote in the that that night and said this has been the like the best night of my entire life. Bullshit. It was not it was horrible. I know it was. I even wrote about it in this book. And for some reason, was I trying to convince myself of that? Like it's supposed to be like that. Was I thinking if someone sees this sometime like I don't know. So that's what I'm trying to figure out what is real, what really happened, what and I don't know details about him and the cheating. I don't know very much at all. I'm just trying to figure out myself and these red flags. I have letters that we wrote when we were dating. The red flags are all through like it was from the very beginning. I thought it was more of a recent thing. Anyway, so I'm learning all kinds of shit about my self and not necessarily for a future relationship. I am still recovering like six years later. I do not know. Yeah. Yeah. I be alone. I know. It's not such a relief. Yeah. I know there are women who their husbands are true partners. They make their lives easier. Like I the idea of a husband making my life easier is so foreign to me. I don't I don't understand what that what that means. so I need about ten more years, I think, and then maybe twenty or no, that's wonderful though, that you are okay with being alone. I I I always I love hearing from people. Yeah. I I've I've always been misdiagnosed as an extrovert 'cause I I really love same. Talking to people. I love it, but then I need to be alone for a while. Like I need to recharge. But anyway, I just I love when I hear from people who leave a relationship and that they are like they are finding out how much they really just love journaling and doing stuff on their own and not being partnered and they're not seeking something else because it it just feels so freaking healthy. to finally like give yourself that respect as you can have your own company. You know, you can enjoy your own company, you can hang out with yourself. Like that's not something we were taught. We were kind of conditioned to want to be partnered. Like even not even out of Christianity. It's like love songs. Yeah. Like I was pilled by the Princess Bride. You know, and whatever the yeah, just lore. So I I it makes me so happy to hear people be like, I it's really nice to just When when I was a kid, I used to play board games by myself with my imaginary friend person. Like I preferred to play person than anyone else. And it's funny because I was I was just thinking about person recently and I was like, you know what? I think person was non-binary because I don't clearly I don't remember thinking that person was a he or a she. And so back in the the eighties I have a non-binary friend. But yeah, even like every maybe not every single night since he left, not at the beginning when I was like shocked and sad and scared. But every night that I go up to my room, I watch a a r show on my laptop. Like I'm giddy. Sometimes I'll just clap my hands with how excited I am to get into my bed by myself. And I don't see it like going away anytime soon. No, like for years, like this is when the kids were really little. David and I would wake up. And d David's a good guy. I really yeah, lucked out anyway. but but will wake up and he'll say, I can't wait for this day to be over. I'm like, me neither, because we love like watching our show, you know. Let's get back to ground zero. This is all I want to do is just be in bed reading and watching stuff. That's I'm constantly thinking about it. Everything in my life is orchestrated around when can I next go back to bed? shout out to David. I don't really know him that well, but I was in this writing group with DL and Crispin and David was in there and I remember him saying That that his wife Stephanie was online and so I went and looked. I'm like, I follow her. Yeah. So That's so crazy. I love that you know him. Okay, I didn't even tell him the name of who I was meeting with, but he'll be so excited. I I love that group. I think I've only like it was recent and then I missed it. I think I only did one, like I think I only went to it once. So I don't remember if we you I mean, I think we might have interacted a little bit, but that's so cool. Yeah, I'm all for the good husbands. I know quite a few of them. Well the thing about him is because he's a Baptist preacher's kid too. And so he was raised in the lore, but he he also got an MDiv or MCS from Regent up in Vancouver. And he said that's when they actually were deconstructionist up there. it's more of an Anglican situation, but he was introduced to stuff that made so much sense to him and he's yeah and Luckily we met when we were both kind of deconstructing. We were still really young, but he the thing about David that makes him good is that he's willing to listen. He's he doesn't have macho-ness, he doesn't have like his ego isn't tied to I am the husband or anything. Like he and what's funny to me, being from Texas, I'm so triggered by sports, like you know, how football ruled the mood of a town, you know, and then and then my You know, my dad and my brother would like yell, my brother would break furniture if there's team like you know, like there's like all this trauma kind of tied to it. And David David is so into sports but y he tries to hide it. Like he he does like his fantasy team. His fantasy teams are called the romping kittens. And I can't remember the other one. Because that was his name for Lolly when she was learning to crawl. She was like a romping kitten. You know, like he Yeah. And and he'll like he'll watch it, but then he if I come into the room, he'll change a channel and he doesn't want to burden me with his force. So anyway, I just love that there's no match in this tied to it. And so I just think that if when people ask me they're like, Well, what do want from men? I'm like, I want them to freaking feel like women have a voice and not automatically give more attention to a guy just because it's a guy talking. Yeah. But I also understand that because I do it. Yeah. You know, it's just like seeing all my internalized patriarchy w if I catch myself paying more attention. well guy said this. Yeah. I just noticed myself doing it. And I'm really grateful that I can at least see it at this point. And I'm like, what else do I have in me that's so gross and dark that is That's what I'm digging up right now. It's not pretty, but I'm telling you, it is so healing and so fun. And I'm making all this art and people are telling me how healing it it's like I don't know. It's I I love my life right now. I love it. Yeah. I'm so glad to hear that. That's my God. No, people don't go around saying that. And it's just so good to hear someone say it. And I can tell you mean it. I mean people say it, but yeah, I'm like, I'm susp I'm suspicious. You know, the more they try to like create this Instagram presence or something, I'm like, I don't know about that one. No, I gave up on an Instagram presence. Like anyway, we could that's a whole other thing. But I I literally take poems or words from old books and I'm cutting them up and putting them on illustrations of vintage kids' books that I find at Goodwill. And I'm cutting it out, laminating them, posting them. I d this is the stuff that I did when I was a kid. Like not quite like this, but I'm cutting and gluing. I don't my kids can draw, I cannot draw, I can write things and I can cut and glue. That's the the end of it. Just this weekend, I I sent out art to like 30 people. And it's Veggie Tales talking to Jesus because they weren't allowed to do that. They weren't allowed to vegetales. And I I'm like, what is this life? And I I I do need some more money. Like that's the one thing I will say. But there it is true that s money can't buy some things. Like I see people who are making all this money. I'm like, you know what I want to do? I wanna sit right here and watch reruns of Shits Creek or The Office or whatever and cut up my little things, my Veggie Tales books. Like that's That's I'm not kidding you. That's exactly the only thing that I want to do. And I know it's true because it's not nobody else wants to do it. I mean, maybe there are some people who want to do it, but when I've like, I don't know, just found this thing that that I just I wanna do. It's exactly what I wanna do. I can't think of anything else that I would rather do than than what I'm doing. So I think that's kind of happiness. When you don't want to be anywhere else doing anything else. Yes. Yes. And you're like and you're paying money to do it and you're spending your time to do it because that's what a a return you get on it. You know, it's you know, people go to their job and they're like, Well I'm doing this 'cause I'm getting paid. But when you're like Yeah. Going out and finding the materials. I mean, it just sounds really cathartic and like playful, like healing for like in your child situation. I started it on accident in twenty twenty three and I haven't stopped. Like I I do it almost every single day. it's fun. Yeah. No, I love the pictures that you post a bit. so my next the last question, the last boring question. I have I have a I have a boring official section and then I have the basic bitch section. So that's fun. Here's the last official question. How can we, you know, the Royal We, your friends and community support you and what makes you feel cared for and safe? I mean, I love it when people read my books. Obviously when you write something that's not my old books, don't read those unless you are going to make fun of them or make like cut them up for some kind of art. reading my books, yeah. And then keep the Do it, seriously. I've bought a bunch of them. I have I six I have seven copies up there of Is That All He Thinks About that I've gotten like from Butterworld books. Like if I'm Buying books to cut up for my art and then I need like five dollars more to get free shipping, I'll buy a copy of my old book, like just to get it out of like get it out of the world. and I buy Dobson's books and make art. I'm John Piper, Tim LaHaye, whoever. Okay, so people can look at my art and laugh at it and find healing in it. Like that, that really does it for me. Like I I get some complaints and people that are kind of irritated about it. And I'm like, listen, you could just go on by. Like, this is not for you. This piece of art, like specifically, four people have just told me you healed something in me, or I cried when I read this. You are telling me that this is dumb or you don't like it or it's heretical, then go away. Like that that's you don't just go somewhere different. so yes, w when people engage, I think, with with my words and my thoughts, I I love humor. I love being able to bring healing. So that kind of thing is yeah, that's what does it for me. That's easy enough. We can be healed by looking what you create. okay. So here are my basic miss bitch questions to kind of bring it back up after my I I take people through the CD underbelly of their trauma sweet. So I I've I've I have a theory that Everyone in North America has a specific relationship with Taco Bell. they have a a strong feeling about it in some sort of direction. And so I like to ask about that and also ask if you participate in the Taco Bell culture. What is your order? Okay. I need to I need to preface this by telling you, and you know this, but I'm gonna tell the listeners that I thanked you for sending me these questions ahead of time because you were you gave me those tough questions and I didn't those I've answered those a million times and I can do it off the like top of my head, no big deal. Ask me about deconstruction, divorce, whatever. But it anytime someone wants to ask me something like what's your Taco Bell order? Or what's your favorite song? My mind goes like it's like I've never heard a Taco Bell. I've never heard a song I like. I cannot for the life of me. I read like 200 books a year. People are like, what's a book you just read? I d I have no idea. Like, I don't even know. So thank you for that because these were premeditated. I thought about this for a minute. And I will tell you that I I gave you my 1992 Taco Bell order because I don't eat there a ton these days, but this just is very nostalgic. Mexican pizza, chicken soft taco, bean burrito. That's what I used to get when I would go to Taco Bell. with my friends, those three things, and I can still I can taste it like right now. Like I'm salivating. I can taste every right part of that. And you Yes, I miss Yeah. Yeah. Well they changed the order like the seven layer burrito. You they change the mid they keep changing the middle bullshit. Yeah. Satan's attacking my mic stand. no. Spiritual warfare. Doesn't want me talking to you. Satan used to attack me before every time I would speak to women about their marriages, and I was sure that that's what it was until I realized I read somewhere that covert narcissists will sabotage you before you have a speaking event. So my totally will. So my husband doing all these things, I'm like, that's the devil. He wants me to fight with my husband because I'm getting ready to tell women how to be good wives. maybe your husband doesn't like that you go then. Preach to crowds of women. anyway, that's that's not about Taco Bell. We're the fun part. I know, right? No, it's fun for me to talk shit about me next husbands though, so that's another fun section. Okay, let's see. Yeah, I went I went to Taco Bell just recently. 'cause like I I discovered it in ninety two. like you, I wanna say, and it's all I thought about and like there being burritos like still is like my favorite fast food, so but like the last time I went, I'm like this I remember when these things were 39 cents and now they're four fifty, you know. Like then I just turned into a boomer. are you a coffee drinker? And what is your standard coffee order? I am, and I want to be one of those people that can drink black coffee, and nope, I've tried it, can't do it. I I'm gonna say cinnamon dolce latte. Cinnamon I just love, but I also like pumpkin, I like pistachio, I like anything that's like Got some kind of flavor. I like things that are like unexpectedly spicy. What I don't like, I don't like chocolate coffee. I'll do white chocolate, but I don't like mocha in my coffee. So that's the one thing I don't really like. My oldest is a she was a barista for a while. She's a coffee connoisseur. She loves things with lavender, sage. So I'm always trying new things. but I think my most comforting thing would be. a cinnamon something latte. It's like we have the the same taste buds. Except I will I do like mochus. But everything you said, like pistachio and all that. Yeah. So into that. okay do you ever look at your screen time or would you rather just not know? I do not look at my screen time. I realize what I do sometimes look at. I have a bad like charging cord right now, I think. And so I keep having to put my battery like on the saver mode or whatever. And every time I switch it over to like the where it's saving energy or something, it says, You've used more battery today than you normally do. Like it tells me every day. I'm like, wait, do I use more every single day? Or is it just my battery? Or yeah, but the screen time, it's I am the most like the biggest block of time that I'm not on my phone is is an hour at at any given time or in the middle of the night. and it's usually more like 30 minutes because I'll I'll write for 30 minutes and check my phone. I'll do something for 30 minutes, check my phone. So I I mean I'm addicted. I I know this. And in my defense, a lot of what I do for my life is on my phone. So what are you gonna do? Exactly. Yeah, with with the po I can't get the report to turn off in my phone. I just can't. I've tried, maybe every week for a while. I was trying. I'm like, this is not my business. Don't tell me what my screen time is. I don't want to know. Shut up. Yeah. You're part of the system. You made me addicted, so don't make me feel guilty for it. what is your favorite movie? Okay. I did a little research for this one because I have a story behind it. Avengers Endgame is I'm gonna say is is my favorite movie. Because when we lived in Cambodia from twenty fifteen to twenty twenty, we went to Avengers Age of Ultrine, like our whole family. in the movie theater in in 2015 and movies were two dollars like and they came out before they came out in the in the US. So everybody's all excited about these movies and we would get to see them a couple days early for two dollars. And because we were missionaries for a while, we didn't have a lot of money. So this is cheap. If we liked the movie, we would go again. Like we went to Black Panther three times. so in the time we lived in Cambodia, we saw 13 Marvel movies. and some of them two times and some of them three times. You saw some of them in Thailand. And so that has just been like this this family thing. There's nothing else that I did and now my ex is out of the picture, but me and my girls and I, like Spider-Man's coming up at the end of this month, and we will the four of us will go to Spider Man together. and we just watch the other three, like with Tom Holland before so it's a I don't I'm not great at pop culture and mm music and like I'm just kind of behind or I don't care. but that's one thing that I have done with my kids, this this whole thing. So you're talking about traditions, being sad that you don't have these certain traditions. I don't do holidays very well, but I do Marvel movies. So that final one with all the people that we had grown to love over those five years, like we saw that I think three times in the in the theater. But it was like Everything just came together and it's this happy slash sad ending and so it's pretty special to me. That is like it's because for so many years after the kids, you know, reached a certain age, I'm like, they they don't like automatically like the movies that we like anymore, you know, used to be able to put them in front of anything and so finally in their twenties we're we're coming back around to where we'll I'll watch Skill More Girls Together. Or our son bought us tickets to Obsession the other night, like and it was like the ten thirty showing and we're like, Girl, we're gonna do it for you, but what were you thinking? Like, but anyway, he's like, This is the best movie ever seen and I'm like, Okay, you know, like I can't believe that there's something you would you wanna imbibe culture with us again? Okay, I'm gonna take your I will not do that. It's scary. I didn't I wouldn't have my kids saw it seven times. I have a I have a kid that saw it seven times and not at two dollar prices, but like at she has it. We have the move the free movie thing, not free, but it's like twenty dollars a month, and you can go to as many movies as you want. That's what he has, and he keeps fucking seeing obsession. So do I need to pray for you, Sricky Nicky? What's going on? man. Whoa. Okay, what is your favorite album? Okay, again, I'm gonna be nostalgic. Pump by Aerosmith from nineteen eighty nine. my god. I have every single song memorized to this day. I really don't think wait, is that the right album? I can't, I'm gonna I can't do it like I have to I'm I'm not sure. But I I realized that some of the lyrics in my head were not correct. And this was during a time when I was not supposed to listen to this kind of music. So I had a cassette tape and I had my Walkman and my parents didn't know that I was listening. Here's there's the stuff I listen to. Sinead O'Connor, MC Hammer, Aerosmith, like this random, I don't know who influenced my musical tastes, but nothing made any sense. I think I was just, what are people listening to? I w Yeah, exactly. Yeah. My homeschool best friend, Hannah, had to hide her DJ DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Kids tape in her purse. Because that was the one place her parents wouldn't look. And I'm like, You're so lucky your parents won't look in your purse, might well look at my You know, the song the it was like a single. Parents just don't understand. She's like and I'm like, yeah, we don't want your parents to see that you have that. You will get deported. Yeah. Yeah, that's bad. Bad news. what do you have a favorite Beatles song? I do. It's I Wanna Hold Your Hand. I don't know what it is. It's just like it the the melody of it. I really like Beatles songs. My friend Rebecca and I went through this period in high school. So I don't we listen to a bunch of songs. I think that her I don't know if her parents liked them or what, but we're listening to like Journey, Chicago, The Beatles. And this is in the nineties, and these songs are from like way before then. So I don't know. but I remember listening to that. And we played Hey Jude in my marching band, so I also I l I really like that one too. Our our son's name is Judah. Our son's name is Judah. And he goes he goes by Jude now, but We're the only ones that still call him Judah, but that was always kinda like I'd sing that to him when he was a little baby. I I really freaking love Hey Jude. Yeah. I think Let It Be is my favorite. Yeah. Because I I've I have this I wanna say complicated I don't have a complicated relationship with Mother Mary, but I do have a relationship with her. And that song just really took on new meaning to me after it came as part of my deconstruction, just meeting a mother figure and And it was it was really beautiful and unexpected to to have that encounter. And David sh she came to him as well. And it's it's truly what the song says. She does she is like just just let it play out and it's gonna be fine. There's you're gonna see the answer and the reason for it. So just be patient. I know, I know, it gives me chills. But I love I love the song The Word like Rubber Soul is probably my favorite Beatles album and I love the word of that. But we I remember we played it at Linary, which is the Navigators Headquarters in Colorado Springs. my gosh. Where I worked the summer of ninety three for free. Although we could raise funds because of missions work, whatever. But we would play rubber soul while we're cleaning up until all the conferen the Christian conference people complained about the help playing their satanic music. Yeah, satanic music. The Beatles. Yeah. Yeah. Gotta watch out for them. Okay. Last question. is there something specific in a movie or a show that makes you laugh so hard that you like can't breathe and it's never gotten less funny for you? Okay, so all the Marvel movies, there's a whole bunch in there, but I couldn't really think of one off the top of my head that w that was sticking with me. And I just watched The Proposal recently. I love that movie. It's like some kind of comfort movie for me. I just love like they're they work at this publisher, like I love anyway, it's ridiculous. But I I always laugh when she's like climbing down the ladder to get into like to go to where he lives. Yeah. And she's like, I can't swim. I told you I can't swim. And he's like, hence the boat. And I just laugh every time, even though it's probably not that funny anymore. But the same with sitcoms, like when I'm making my art and I'll re watch Shits Creek Ted Lasso, The Office Gilmore Girls. There are certain parts where I know it's coming and I'm like I know it's coming. I'm not gonna laugh as much this time because I've seen it 20 times and I just crack up. Like I can't it's there's something in me. And I don't know if it's it's probably not that funny. It's probably just that I've thought it was so funny every time and then it's I don't know. But yeah. I love to laugh. I love love to laugh. I think it's what got me through my childhood and yours probably. You know, I I really looking back, I'm like, I think this was kind of like a specific little coping mechanism. kind of a gift that I received. I just kinda end up laughing at things. And David to it's so weird to David. He's like, you know that this part is coming and you're gonna laugh just as hard as if you've never heard it before. Exactly. Even harder, I think. Yeah. So I s I put this in with my questions to see if there's anyone else out there like me and and I'm finding people who are. So Yeah. I love it. Well, thank you so much for talking with me. It's been so incredible to have found you the way I did. You replied to a threat and I'd followed you for a while, but then like the way you responded to me and the find out that you've done that Zoom thing with David is so amazing. So Yeah. I can't wait to tell him that I talked to you today. Yay. This was so fun. Thank you so much.