Talitha: Hi, my name is Talitha. I am 81 years old. I am from Kentwood.
Brad: My name is Brad. I am 46 years old. I am from Holland, Michigan. Where and how did you grow up? What did your childhood look like?
Talitha: I'm a Kansas girl. We moved to Missouri just before I was eight years old and lived there then all the rest of my life until I got married. And my childhood was, I'm going to say, idyllic. And the reason I use that word is because I hear stories often of people who have very rocky childhoods. And I don't have that experience. I had a mom and a dad, and I had one brother, a younger brother. And we just grew up kind of what I call just a normal family, no traumas, basically a loving family.
Brad: I grew up similar in some ways in that I had a mom and a dad, a nuclear family, and a little brother. I was not the victim of abuse or a lot of other things, but I grew up in a very religious household. I was homeschooled. It was a very legalistic, I would kind of almost describe it as a cult-like, a level of legalism that I grew up with. And it took me well into my 20s to kind of like leave that. I got married young to my wife, whom I'm still married to. I felt loved by my parents, but at the same time, there were a lot of things that were quite challenging.
Talitha: Can I ask you about your homeschooling experience?
Brad: The type of homeschooling that we were raised in, the college system was evil and was going to steal your soul. So, I never went to college for that reason. And yeah, my education was not on par with others in the school system. And it forced me to have to learn and that love of learning, but also that hunger for learning is something that is probably a long reaction to, or coping skill, that I developed because to this day, I'm still an avid reader and learner.
Talitha: First time I read your bio; you said something about spiritual deconstruction. I have never heard of that. What is that?
Brad: I can say that I was raised with a certain set of beliefs that were given to me from the church and my parents and the way I was raised. And I claimed those beliefs as my own and were quite passionate about the things that I believed in. Passionate enough to go into ministry and to later plant a church that I pastored. But I also asked a lot of deep questions. And throughout the process, I have deconstructed these beliefs and these things that I used to believe and instead ask myself, what do I now believe instead or in the place of that? So, it started for me from the very beginning with deconstructing some of the earliest, most legalistic types of teachings that I was raised in. And then it kind of morphed eventually as I was in ministry into asking bigger and bigger questions until I found that the container of the Christian church or the Christian faith no longer fits within my beliefs and where I was at. That's the best way I could describe what deconstruction was like for me. I also had a question about, you mentioned that you're serving as a co-pastor of a small denominational congregation. What type of church and congregation and how long have you been co-pastor there?
Talitha: It's Christian Denomination, Community of Christ. It is very different from the kind of church that you described. There are no rigid belief system. It's a non-credo. So, it's very open and encourages questioning, community-based in the sense that being together in a community but also outreaching to other people involved in mission and so forth. We have nine enduring principles that kind of guide us, basic belief in God, Jesus Christ.
Brad: Could you briefly describe your personal political values?
Talitha: First of all, I have to say I'm not registered as anything. I'm not Democrat. I'm not Republican. I'm not Independent. But I do have strong beliefs in fairness, justice, peace, morality, moral values, the common good. I've often said I get really tired of hearing politicians say, well, when I'm president or senator or whatever office it is, I'm going to do this. There's a limit to what a single person can do. I would rather have them say, look, I cannot promise you anything. What I can tell you is these are my values. This is what I think is important. These are the things I value. And this is what I would like to work towards. I guess that's kind of where my political values stand right now. So, what are yours?
Brad: Well, I would say that for me, a lot of the issues that I value are things that have to do with the lack of access to what I would consider essential human needs; housing, healthcare, employment, fair and livable wage, cost of living that doesn't squeeze out people at the bottom. Most of my passions politically tend to align themselves with people who are struggling. Every human being has and deserves access to good healthcare. And that's a value that I don't see reflected enough politically.
Talitha: I would agree with all of those issues.
Brad: In your bio, you mentioned that you lost your oldest child in 2008. Can you tell me what it was like to lose an adult child, to have a child pass before you? If you feel comfortable talking about it?
Talitha: I'm okay talking about it. I mean, it's a reality. And what I've told myself over and over again, you're not the first person and you're not the last person who's gone through that. Our son Joel and his family were living in Northern Wyoming at the time. They had moved there for her job. His job was any place. I mean, he was working on computers. He could do it anywhere. She was a surgical tech. But they lived a little ways from the town. And so, he was driving the kids back and forth to school. And they had a head on collision with another car. Our two granddaughters came out of it okay, but he was trapped in the car for a long-time hanging upside down. But he survived that, his spleen was crushed. He was eventually airlifted to Billings, Montana. I was in Grand Rapids at the time. My husband and I flew out, but we got delayed in Minneapolis, so we did not get there before he passed away. All the way out, it was very quiet. But I kept thinking, okay, I was preparing myself for a long haul of recovery. I was not preparing myself for his death. So, when we got there and found out that he had passed, I was in shock. But as time went on, you know, people talk about, well, the other person was at fault. The other person, you know, ran into him. The other person did this. The other person did this. I kept thinking, you do not know. None of us know what actually happened. The girls didn't have a clue what had happened. So, I just had to accept it and say, okay, we go on from here. And this is not the first time that somebody has lost a child. And it won't be the last time that somebody has lost a child. We celebrate his birthday, and we celebrate his higher birthday, his movement to another level.
Brad: Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing all that. I know that's probably a very raw subject, even so after these years. I can't relate to the feeling of losing a child. So, I'm appreciative of you sharing what that process has been like for you and wish you and your family hope and healing as you move forward. I think it's lovely that you celebrate him and keep his memory alive in that way by celebrating birthdays and things like that. Talitha, what will you take from this experience today?
Talitha: Joy. It has been a real joy to meet you and to hear your story, Brad. You know, as you were talking about your spiritual deconstruction journey, and there are so many people who struggle with those kinds of issues. And my heart goes out to them. I've never had to struggle with that. But you've done it. You've worked through it. You're still working through it. And so, I appreciate your vulnerability in answering that question because that was the very first thing that I thought I really want to know what this was like for him. So, thank you for sharing that.
Brad: Yeah, thanks. I think I will take from this experience just the richness of being able to discover more about you and the way that you think. It's so easy to look at someone and to think you have an idea of who they are and what they're about. And upon my first reading of your bio, the fact that I saw that you were a co-pastor and I don't think I put together that you had pastored for as long as you had. So, I don't have as many conversations with pastors these days. So, it's refreshing for me to hear someone like you with the rich history that you've had in life to be able to say that you're still wrestling through these kind of questions. So, I appreciate the openness that you had to this conversation and the things that you shared as well.
Talitha: Thank you.