Amy: I make handmade beaded jewelry and I sell it online. I'm making some money. So that's good. I'm going to a lot of craft shows. My next craft show is in Mount Morris and it's a sasquatch convention. Well, they're calling it a Bigfoot convention.
Jim: Um, okay.
Amy: It should be quite a barrel of laughs. So, I'm making a bunch of Bigfoot jewelry.
Jim: Oh, fun. Fun.
Amy: Yeah. Yeah. Should be good.
Jim: I was just up in the U.P. with my wife and there. We were watching some people doing some wood sculpting of some Bigfoot statues. So, you're an atheist.
Amy: Yep.
Jim: That's a place that we differ in our faith. I'm just wondering if you can share a little bit more about your faith journey and what led you to your position of atheism.
Amy: Sure, sure. I grew up Catholic and then my mom got feminism, so we didn't have to go to church anymore. And I started going to Young Life. I understood that it was nationwide, but at least it was in Ohio. And it was a group of teenagers that got together and went on retreats and so forth and kind of looked into our spiritual journey, talking to Jesus, talking to God. And then when I moved here, they had Campus Life, but Campus Life was more for Christian Reformed kids.
Jim: Oh!
Amy: I don't know. Maybe that was wrong, but I started going to an Episcopal church and I really enjoyed that. And then I tried a Baptist church and a couple evangelical churches. And it was in the evangelical church that I realized this is not my bag because I was sleeping with one of my boyfriends and at a Bible study, he said, ‘by the way, my girlfriend is a temptress. She's made me sleep with her.’ And they tried to exercise me. That was pretty bizarre. And since then, I didn't immediately switch over to atheism. I grew toward it. My husband is what they call an evangelical atheist. He tries to convert everybody to atheism. I tend to think that one's religion is really very personal and spiritual. And you can go to a church, you can celebrate with other people, but for me, it's all right in my heart. And I still believe that Jesus existed, but I don't believe that he was the Son of God. I don't believe that God exists. I think it's a construct that helps us to blame things on somebody else. And when somebody says, ‘Oh, thank God that worked out for me’, I'd rather they said, ‘Oh, I'm so grateful that I was able to do that.’ The other thing is there's no place in the Bible that I can tell where it says love yourself. I've read the Bible and there's no place in it that says love yourself.
Jim: Is that easy for you to share that journey?
Amy: Yeah. I've gotten to where I can really talk about it pretty well. It took me a while. Your bio talks about all the ways you've served your community. How have you served yourself?
Jim: I've been really enriched. God first, family first, community, and all those things kind of weave together. I was really passionate about serving on school board for my kids, you know, to try to influence their environment as they grew up. Because when I was on school board, it was in their elementary years. What I found was I spent a lot of time on school board and not with my kids. I ended up coming off the school board after about five years because of that. So, I could spend more time with my family. But, when I'm around family, it enriches me. My spirituality enriches me. I spend a lot of time in the Bible and in the woods. I like to get lost in the woods. I'm a woodcutter, hiker, camper. I just got back from a week in Utah floating through the canyons. To me, that's where I definitely charge back up is that's God to work in those places. And just always amazed at all the nuances of how all this planet and people tie together. There has to be something else out there that made all this happen and makes all this happen.
Amy: Yeah. I think there is something about the awesome beauty of being in the wilderness, of being in a forest, almost trying to get lost in the woods. There's something about that. That's very spiritual.
Jim: And especially for me, when the signal disappears from your cell phone, that's almost become a spiritual experience. Like, okay, I'm truly disconnected.
Amy: That's true.
Jim: And then the person that owned the company that I retired from got me to study complexity theory as part of my development and really expanded the way that I look at the world and my faith and everything else. He didn't do it from a faith perspective, he's actually an atheist, but that view of the world really influenced and strengthened my faith and complexity theory and how all that science and nature and God weaves together for me. The biggest message out of the Bible is about justice. It's about justice for all people and that's the message that comes out is how are man's interpreted, what to do with that over time. Sometimes we've been led astray, the main message is justice. And to me, that ties right into my political beliefs is our responsibility is to figure that out. Lift up those that need help. Don't be selfish and greedy. When we're blessed with finances or health or wealth or whatever those things are that should be distributed. The Bible tells us to help our neighbors, help the widows and the orphans and do that well. Open your doors to people that need help. And that it really influences my political beliefs as well. Be good stewards. Have you heard of B Corporations?
Amy: B corporations? Uh, that sounds familiar, but I can't tell you what it means.
Jim: Like on the shelf, you'll see a B in a circle on products that are certified to be socially responsible. My last eight years of my employment was to certify our company as a certified B Corp as a food ingredient manufacturer. And, uh, that process really opened my eyes to several things of looking at justice as the word I'm going to use just on how you really look at all of the people that you influence based on the business and that you recognize your impact and that you do what you can to apply justice to that, whether it's environmental justice, social justice. That process moved me off the Republican platform and into the democratic platform. I'm still more centric, especially when you get to national politics. I'll vote for who I think can best lead our country. And I won’t fall down on a spear of I'm a Republican or a Democrat and that's all there is to it.
Amy: Yeah.
Jim: I'm not willing to sacrifice my belief in a person's strengths and that particular person's capability to lead. So that's where I tend to go, especially national politics. I don't like the two-party system at all. I wish we could get rid of that somehow just because I think it's what's causing a lot of the division in our country right now. I'd say I'm an economic conservative. I believe government should be as small as possible while taking care of as many people as possible. I believe we should do what we can to help our neighbors.
Amy: Yes.
Jim: Because as individuals, communities, business, and governments, and that includes the global community sometimes. I'm not an isolationist. I'm more of a globalist, guess, in that manner. And I'm a liberal when it comes to things like respecting individual freedoms, respecting a woman's right to choose. Government should stay out of some things. And I feel really strongly about that. That it's not a place the government should play. Just stay out of it. Let people talk to whoever their counselors are, their faith, whatever their influences are to make those decisions.
Amy: When I look at my politics, I want everybody to be treated equally. That's impossible, but it's a good thing to strive for. I want people to accept other people and to tolerate differences. And that's very difficult as well. But those are the kinds of things I go for. I think bodily autonomy is really important. Men are not told whether they need to get a vasectomy. So why should women be told whether they can get an abortion? It's kind of more like comparing apples and oranges, but it's still real important to me. So, while I consider myself a flaming liberal, I still have some reservations in some things.
Jim: It's fun talking to you and finding a place and these threads where we do think alike. I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Amy: No, I think you’re right.
Jim: I like I thought the same way. And when you use labels, when you start with a label, you feel like you're this far apart, you know, but as soon as you talk, you find out that there's more common threads than there are differences. And it's more the nuances about how you go through life. So that's my takeaway.
Amy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think the thing that I learned about you today that surprised me was that you embrace. Well, that's not the word. You respect other faith systems like the Native American, like the Jain. You respect those systems, and you try to find commonalities, which is very important. That surprised me because I see, and I don't get to know them all, obviously, but I see so many people who claim they're Christian doing things Jesus would have said, no, that's not cool. And something that I'll take away from this experience is just to be more open-minded about Christians. I've had a lot of bad experiences with many. So, to be more open-minded and to try to find the common ground.
Jim: Cool. Very cool.
Amy: Yeah. Yeah.