Episode 04: Jason Gray: A Three-Part Harmony
Transcript
Patsy: Hi, I’m Patsy Clairmont, and I’m a Boomer.
Andrew: I’m Andrew Greer, and I’m a Millennial.
Patsy: And you’re listening to Bridges.
Andrew: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations
Patsy: Our guest today, Jason Gray, I first heard him in a concert that was close by my house. I really didn’t know him yet. I’d heard his name, but I hadn’t been introduced to his music, and the first thing that grabbed me was his personal lyrics and then his charming disposition, his personality. There’s something about him that’s so endearing, and I think it’s his spirit of kindness that comes forth and I really love that. He also has such humility. And he talks about his struggle when he was young and into his adult life with a stutter that totally disappears when he sings. Isn’t that amazing?
Andrew: It is amazing. His ability to communicate even in spite of some of his vulnerabilities, which I think is a good example for all of us. Often, what we find to be one of our weaknesses turns out to be a part of our story of strength. And part of his story over the past year has been this collection of small records called EPs, just three or four or five songs per record. We talk a lot about the first in this series of records, which was called Order. Interestingly enough, the second one came out right around when the shutdown was happening in the country because of COVID, and that was called Disorder.
I asked Jason, “Do you have some pipeline to either God or the government?” I’m super confused.
Patsy: Are you a prophet?
Andrew: Yeah, exactly. And now, he is releasing the final part of that trilogy called Reorder.
Patsy: And we certainly need to do some of that in our life. Be aware — you’re about to be charmed. And here we go. Come on, Jason.
Patsy: We always talk about a bridge. You’re going to be surprised at this one.
Andrew: Okay, I’m ready.
Patsy: Because while we have referred to the London Bridge before, we haven’t referred to it in quite this way. Did you know that it was built in 1831?
Andrew: No.
Patsy: About the same time you were born.
Andrew: Yeah, right. You not long after.
Patsy: I think that’s before. It was built in 1831, so it makes you wonder is it safe to cross it. But don’t trouble yourself with that because it was dismantled in 1967 and, of all things, shipped across the ocean and put back together with sturdier material and is incased in a bridge that goes over Lake Havasu in Arizona.
Andrew: You pronounced that very nice.
Patsy: I don’t know if that’s right or not, but it’s what I just said. And so, after all that, we have London Bridge right here in our very own country. I think that’s kinda cool.
Andrew: It is cool. What else is cool is that we have Jason Gray here right in our very studio.
Jason: It’s not as cool as that fact. That’s pretty amazing. I’m pretty blown away by that.
Andrew: We’re about to release some facts, unleash them, about you that are indeed cool.
Patsy: Well, in the restructuring of this bridge, Jason has some things to say about restructuring a life.
Andrew: That’s right. In fact, Jason — I want to mention this as we get started — the title of your latest EP actually is Order, Disorder, Reorder. And of course, this is Volume 1 of several where you’re talking about some restructuring, some sturdying that has happened in your life, just even over the past year or two.
Jason: Yeah, absolutely. It’s kinda like this. Here’s the flyover view of the idea of it, and I should also explain to people at the top here that I do have a speech handicap. I’m a stutterer, so I want you to know that at the top so that you’re not worried about me or afraid that Andrew and Patsy are intimidating me or something like that. It’s just what I do. Hopefully, it’s endearing.
Andrew: Or think it’s part of your schtick.
Jason: Right, exactly. Weird thing about that is I usually have to introduce that idea at the top of the night. And I do that because stuttering, like so many other things in our lives, is kind of a nasty little trick that I play on myself in that it happens the most when I least want it to happen. Until I tell people about it, I’m afraid of it happening because they’re not going to have a context, they’re going to laugh, and it’s going to make them awkward.
Andrew: Are they going to be uncomfortable?
Jason: Then, once I can tell people about it, it doesn’t happen as much. So very often I tell people at the top of the night I’ve got a speech handicap, like I did here on the podcast, and then it goes away for the rest of the night, and they’re like, “Are you making that up?”
Andrew: And I don’t want to interrupt too soon, but I do also, for any listeners that may not be familiar with Jason Gray, which there are very few and they’re very few and far between, but you are one of the, I would call, premier singer-songwriters in Christian music at this point in time, partially because of the content of what you release and how you do relate so personally with people through music and the medium of music. So most of us know your music, but it is good when you say “at the top of the night, I let them know.” You’re talking about literally in concert and putting people at ease from the top of the night.
Though I want you to talk about the Order, Disorder, but isn’t it interesting about how music gives a language even for those of us who have speech impediments or things that would seem like that would go hand-in-hand in being troubling with communicating a song. Indeed, that’s not true, right?
Jason: Yeah, I can sing, but I can’t talk, which means I could go around singing everything, but I think that might be more awkward than the actual speech impediment.
Andrew: Try us.
Jason: I was just listening to another podcast and the guy was talking about… He’s an intellectual. He’s a lecturer, so he’s not an artist-y kind of guy where you might expect to hear this, but as an intellectual, lecturer, psychologist guy, he was talking about the value of music and about how you can embed so much meaning in music and communicate something in a three-and-a-half minute song that might take a four-hour lecture. I felt very validated in that.
There is something mysterious about music, like how much truth it can hold and how much nuance it can hold. The songs that I like the most and the ones that I’m most interested in writing are the songs that you can hear over and over and over and they keep unfolding new layers of meaning, and they kind of work on you, you know.
I’ve discovered in my own music listening, like when I buy a record, if I love it at first, I burn through it pretty quick.
Andrew: It’s gonna wear off.
Jason: And if I’m like, I’m not sure how I feel about this one, some of them… The only two CDs, back when we were buying CDs, that I ever pawned off at a pawn shop — like I never do that. I’m always like, I’ll find something in here I like. But there were two particular CDs that I got and I’m like, I’m never going to like this. I’m going to pawn it off. I pawn it off. I ended up re-buying them later, and they became two of my all-time favorite records.
I have this experience with music that maybe I don’t immediately latch on to, if I stick with it, those end up being the most potent songs in terms of how they speak with me. And this is going to make me sound like an older person and stuff like that…
Patsy: Is there something wrong?
Jason: No, no, no, no. But I mean I want to say it concerns me, but that might not be the right language. I’ll say that the way that I was accustomed to listening to music provided the opportunity for me to discover those kinds of songs and for them to do their work on me, because you’d buy a record, and I had enough money to buy a record that month and so that’s going to be the record. A great example is Coldplay’s Viva la Vida. I bought that record, I popped it in, and I was like, I do not like this record, but you know what? It’s my record for the month.
Andrew: That’s all you got.
Jason: It stays in my CD player, so I kept playing it, and now it’s like one of my all-time favorite records. I love that record. And I’ve found that with the new modes of listening to music through streaming and all that kind of stuff, since everything is always available, there’s not enough constraints to create the possibility for me to discover the magic of a song or a record the way that the more constrained ways of listening lend itself to.
Patsy: I have found that to be true as well. I love to sit with the words, and I love to replay and replay so it goes nice and deep and I don’t forget. And I don’t feel like I have that same opportunity. Now, I find myself going on to the next thing, and nothing ends up being that great value to my life.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: Andrew, I’m so excited that one of our sponsors is Food for the Hungry because I like people who are feeding people. I say let’s get to the basic need that a person has, and let’s build up from there. And when you feed a child, you feed their brain, you feed their disposition, you feed their ability to have strength to do the hard work that oftentimes is involved, even if it’s just their studies. If the synapses aren’t snapping, it’s gonna really be tough, so Food for the Hungry’s got the right idea, and they’re talking chickens.
Andrew: That’s right, Patsy. Bawk-bawk-bawk. You can give a family a chicken or a pair of chickens to help them find the nutrition they need on a daily basis, as well as these chickens are producing eggs all the time. We know that, right? We have friends and neighbors who have chickens now here in the States, and they provide those eggs, which then can be sold at market. So a chicken is this warehouse of opportunity for a family. Now, get this: You can provide one chicken for a family in need for $14. That’s it. That’s the chicken. That chicken lives for eight to 10 years and provides those daily eggs. It’s incredible. You can provide a pair of chickens, because we know chickens multiply fast, to help that family on an even deeper level for $28.
Patsy: Yes. I love the idea you can double the blessing for just $28, and this goes to countries like Bolivia, Peru, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and the Dominican Republic. So it’s a wide reach, and it’s something that God spoke to us about and that is giving to the poor and offering something that will help their life. Let’s feed the hungry.
Andrew: Go to fh.org/bridges to provide some chickens for families in need today.
Patsy: And every chicken you purchase for our friends across the world, it becomes an entry into our first ever Bridges giveaway.
Andrew: That’s right. One winner and a guest will receive roundtrip airfare, one night’s lodging, and ground transportation for a getaway in our hometown, Patsy, of Franklin, Tennessee. Plus, we’ll take you to dinner and interview you on a special episode of Bridges.
Patsy: The winner will be drawn on March 31, 2021, so get your chicken before then.
Jason: I’ve had to develop a new music-listening ethic in order to make sure that I…
Patsy: Tell me about it. I need it.
Jason: A lot of it is based on the way that I used to listen to music, so I’ll download a whole record and I’ll make sure that I don’t skip over it on to the next thing and I’ll play it all the way through. I’ll play it in the sequential order.
Andrew: The way it was track listed, yeah.
Jason: I’ll do that as a discipline. Here’s an interesting thing: One of my sons, who’s 23, for the longest time, he decided he wasn’t going to listen to music on his phone, and so he had a CD player in his car and he had a record player in his room, and that was going to be where he listened to music. And he did that because he wanted to create a dedicated listening environment. He did that all on his own, and I was so proud of him that he wanted to do that.
Andrew: And him being of the generation that has learned to consume music on various devices and song by song. I don’t want to take it back to the topic in a false way, but I wonder if that was his own way of placing order and structure into what can seem like disorder. I’m not trying to turn it back around. It’s not a complaint.
Music will always be embedded in our lives. It’s one of the mediums that is so unique and so special. I believe that it’s a spiritual thing on its very base level, but I think the way we consume many things these days has a lot of disorder or disarray to it. And it sounds like what your son was doing; it sounds like what you continue to try to exercise a discipline around even just the act of listening to music and consuming that is with some order.
Jason: Intentionality. I think it’s related to the spiritual discipline of practicing being present. So years ago, I remember hearing Sting on Oprah and she was interviewing him and he was talking about having a yogic connection to things. And the word yogic is related to this other word, which means religious connection to things. I feel like the Holy Spirit prompted me that I can do things to have more connection to things in my life, and so I began to do things like I developed my coffee-making routine, which was pour over. I’d grind the beans, and I just decided rather than having a very convenient…
Andrew: Speedy.
Jason: Instead, I want to be connected to the whole process of it, so I’m gonna grind my beans, I’m gonna boil the water, I’m going to pour it over, I’m going to spend the time, and it just made that cup of coffee so much more meaningful and delicious. And it kinda became a meditation each morning and in the act of being that connected to the process. It enhanced my prayer life. I would oftentimes be in prayer while I’m doing that.
Any act of intentionally making yourself present will affect all other areas of your life I think. I did that with my coffee. I decided to do it with my shaving routine. I had an electric razor, and then I thought, You know what? I’m going to buy a razor like my grandpa had, and I’m going to be connected to my shaving routine as a way of being kinda connected to my fathers before me. I’m kind of a meaning junkie though.
Patsy: I was working on some Christmas items, and I think I just dated our podcast with Christmas, didn’t I? What happened was I needed scissors and I went in and I intentionally chose to use my mother’s scissors because that made me feel some connection that she had a part in this moment even though she’s been gone for many years, and that was dear to my heart.
Andrew: Whether we recognize it or not, and that comes back to choosing to be present or not, we are deeply connected to one another. That is a fact — one that we can often distract ourselves from because our connections provide a lot of risk as well. The more connected we are to each other, to someone else, the more opportunity there is for pain, for hurt, for disappointment, as well as for…
Patsy: Joy.
Andrew: Beautiful levels, deep levels, yes, of joy and meaning. So how have you found connections to be not so great?
“The more connected we are to each other, to someone else, the more opportunity there is for pain, for hurt, for disappointment, as well as for beautiful levels, deep levels of joy and meaning.”
Patsy: No names.
Andrew: Or make a list.
Jason: It can be easier to be kinda blissed out and be tuned out, and I think a lot of the time we choose that. It seems like that’s a self-preservation, self-protected mode, and that’s not actually going to lead to happiness.
I was doing a concert this weekend, and it was a lady who has a heart for orphans, and so she started up a ministry that advocates for adopting orphans. And they’ve adopted three special needs kids. Anyway, I was talking with the audience about how we get it in our head that the thing to do is to pursue happiness, but when you pursue happiness, you can be filled with anxiety because happiness is a very vulnerable thing to pursue. It’s vulnerable to changes in the economy, the way someone close to you treats you, or whatever it might be. If your pursuit is happiness, you’re probably going to end up being miserable because you’re just trying to protect this fragile little thing of happiness that that’s all you want in the world. But if you pursue something else like meaning, happiness waits for you in that, and meaning’s very durable. It’s almost indestructible. If you pursue meaning or, well, if you pursue Jesus, who is truth and meaning, happiness waits for you in that.
Choosing to be present to the world and its pains and suffering, yeah, you’re going to feel all that, but it’s still the best route to happiness. Does that make sense? Am I making sense in all that?
Patsy: Oh, you absolutely are.
Jason: Which actually — oh, here it comes. This actually legitimately ties in to the answer I was supposed to give, what, like a half an hour ago?
In my life, whenever I’ve gone through great difficulty or pain, my mind was always tempted to go to one of three places. It would go to either, Oh no, I’ve done something wrong and God is angry with me, and that’s why this is happening. Or, He doesn’t care about my life. Or, He doesn’t exist. So that’s where my mind would always be tempted to go, and it never made anything better. It only made me more miserable if I allowed my mind to go there.
And then I got new language. Have you ever had this happen where you hear the right words at the right time, and all of a sudden, it kind of burns away the fog and you get clarity and like, Oh, I didn’t think of it that way before, but of course. That’s what happened to me when I heard these words: I’m being transformed when I’m moving along the spectrum from order into disorder into reorder. I’m being transformed when I’m being moved along the spectrum from order into disorder into reorder.
Order, of course, is where things are going the way we think they ought to be going.
Andrew: Control kind of?
Jason: Yeah. And order’s what we should be working toward, where we take everything that we’ve learned so far and then we put it to use to create order in our lives. That is perfect, that’s what we should do, but the danger with prolonged seasons of order is that our thinking can harden and we can become self-righteous and complacent and we don’t learn anything new, because then we create order and we’re trying to protect order from anything from the outside. But what we don’t know is more important than what we know.
So prolonged order means we stop learning anything new, but don’t worry because chaos is always lurking around the corner. And that comes in the form of a health scare or a relationship breaks down or job loss or a failure or whatever it looks like in your life. It turns your world upside down, and it reminds us that we weren’t as in control as we thought we were and our answers were not as sufficient as we thought they were. And it makes us desperate enough that I think we become receptive to encountering the Lord in a new way, and then that’s the beginning of reorder.
And I think we’ve all gone through this, where you go through something extremely painful and there’s upheaval, but then you come out the other side more whole — stronger, wiser, less judgmental, more humble, kinder, all those things.
“The danger with prolonged seasons of order is that our thinking can harden and we can become self-righteous and complacent and we don’t learn anything new.”
Andrew: In a deeper way, what it sounds like, too, is this from order — control, keeping everything as is — to like you said, the inevitable crash of chaos, which just comes in the form of life circumstances into reorder. It actually sounds like a pathway into surrender as well. Even as I’m just listening to you talk, I can see the posture of even like a human body going from this very upright position to a more relaxed position in its own way. True order and true meaning is this posture of true humility, which produces surrender, which we know from a spiritual level also produces the most power in that position and posture of surrender because, at that point from a spiritual perspective, it is God at work through us. Our partnership is now one of being kind of this receptacle, this receiver, and this vessel rather than… I don’t know. I feel like a lot of times that because I can do so much with my own merit, my own ability, that I’m actually shoulder to shoulder with God. You know what I mean? Like we’re going to partner on this together. And in fact, when life does have its scares and its punches, that’s when I realize, no, we’re not shoulder to shoulder at all because now I’m flat on my face.
Bridges Sponsorship Message
Patsy: “Where would I be if I did not believe I would experience the Lord’s favor in the land of the living? Rely on the Lord! Be strong and confident! Rely on the Lord!” Those are the last two verses of Psalm 27 from the Abide Bible. It is a new bible that has been in my home now for several months, so I’ve had time to work with it and it to work inside of me. It offers beautiful, old art that is associated with verses, so it helps it to become a bigger picture in our mind and our retention is improved. It has places for us to journal on the side as we read. It also has instructions on how to pray this Scripture, how to meditate on it, how to contemplate it so we can sit and soak in God’s Word and allow it to dwell richly within us.
Andrew: What I love about the Abide Bible is that it’s invitational, not just informational. It’s inviting us not to just exercise the Word of God in our head but to really invite it to dwell in our hearts, which to me reminds me of John 15:4: “Abide in me and I in you.” So you can order your copy of the Abide Bible today at bridgesshow.com/abide.
Andrew: Patsy, I hear that you have a book club.
Patsy: I do. Books are what God used to help heal me, so it delights me to offer that service to others, that they could sign up, anybody. All y’alls, come on in. We want you to join in the book club, and we will read ourselves silly and sane. We’ll have different selections, one every month with a bonus. You can check it out: patsyclairmont.com. And also on that page, you’ll see that I do cheerleading for people. I coach them in helping them stir up their creativity to tell their story. But here’s what I know: You’re into a different kind of storytelling, and you’ve been set up to win awards for what you’ve done.
Andrew: I love music, and I have new record out called Tune My Heart, and it includes some of my really close friends, some of your friends, like Sandra McCracken and Cindy Morgan and Buddy Greene. And you can find that record anywhere you stream or download, or at andrew-greer.com. You know what else, Patsy?
Patsy: What?
Andrew: I’ve got another podcast. It’s not my favorite podcast, but if you like listening to Bridges, then you might like listening to and viewing Dinner Conversations with our pal Mark Lowry and myself. You can find it on Apple Podcasts or Amazon Prime, or simply go to dinner-conversations.com.
Patsy: I think when we have long seasons of everything going our way, we can build a theology out of that that is really while we’re thinking it’s foundational and other people really need to up the ante and have more faith like we do. Then real life hits us in the harder forms, and suddenly, the crumbling in our bridges starts to show that that was an old foundation and the materials gave way because we need to sure it up with something that’s going to hold, that’s going to take us through. It is where I’ve had my best theological lessons laid down in my soul is when I’m in the trenches and the hard places.
Andrew: Patsy and I’ve talked about how our sanity is dependent upon this element of order, of finding true order and true meaning.
Patsy: Before you came, he and I were discussing it, and I said if I had ever been arrested on anything, it would be disorderly conduct for the way that I maintain my closet or the drawers in the kitchen or whatever. So we all need order, and I believe that from the beginning God established rhythms with order and gave them to us as a gift, as a gift for us to learn to trust Him in the seasons.
“From the beginning, God established rhythms with order and gave them to us as a gift, as a gift for us to learn to trust Him in the seasons.”
Jason: What I’m hoping to do with this record and with a lot of my music is to… You talked about being relaxed. Well, I just know for me, when I’ve gone through hardship, there’s just this anxiety and there’s this no, no, no, no, this can’t be happening in my spirit. So when the storms of life would hit in the past, very often I would be cowering in the corner feeling like a victim and feeling sorry for myself. But recognizing the gift of disorder as well — order is a gift, but disorder is a gift too. As you were saying, I’ve learned the most important things in seasons of disorder where my hardened thinking got broken up enough where I could learn something new.
I hope to write songs that will help people be able to relax in that moment so they can not lose their mind and be teachable. And so like me now, honestly, when the storms of life hit now, I’m like, Oh wow, everything’s falling apart again. I must be in disorder, which means I’m about to learn something new that’s gonna change my life and that years from now I will look back and say, That was rough, but I don’t think I’d change anything if I could.
Andrew: Well, and generationally speaking, don’t we stack those lessons up so that… I’m looking over here to my right to you, Patsy. Don’t we stack those lessons up so that there is more foundation of true order. I know we continue to learn if we’re open to it, but is there more of this kind of assuredness about or flexibility with life that, yeah, this is the way it goes. Order, disorder, reorder.
Patsy: I want to back up just a little bit from that and talk about the fact that you were saying we don’t learn anything new. But we’re an information society, so we’re always stockpiling. What we’re not doing a great deal of, I think, is processing, is giving ourself time and space to really assimilate what that means for us. And so getting a little bit away from where you were at but trying to stay in the same arena is just the need to have enough order to be still in the presence of fresh truth so it becomes ours and we don’t try to give away cheap information that we haven’t first allowed to be a part of our life.
Jason: Yeah, that’s good. Speaking about the music listening thing, and there’s a part of me that’s tempted to bemoan the state of music listening now. I don’t want to fall into that trap, and recognize the former way of consuming things like music that was order, that’s all been busted up now and it seems kinda chaotic. But if I trust, then I know it’s going to lead to a new form that will become the new order. And all of my current order now is yesterday’s reorder.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Jason: And so the lyric of the song is “Order, disorder, reorder, over and over and over,” and I just understand that to be the way that God makes us new.
Well, I think of the Apostle Paul is a pretty great order, disorder, reorder story, right. He was very established. He knew what he knew and was a student of Scripture, and that’s all great, but his thinking got hardened and he couldn’t recognize truth that was right in front of him until Jesus himself knocked him on his back. And then this is all so new and so opposite of what he thought was true that his old way of seeing things is rendered as useless as being blind. And then he has to be taken to Ananias on a street called Straight. I’m going to think of him as kind of like a mentor maybe and spends time with Ananias, who prays with him, and then the scales fall from his eyes. And then Saul looks out on the world with new vision and a new way of seeing as the Apostle Paul.
Patsy: Great story, great example.
Andrew: It’s also an example to me, or it helps keep my mind open to this. Someone once in another country expressed to me her description of God was one of a wild frontier. And I when I hear people’s stories, from ancient stories like the Apostle Paul to stories today, and see how people’s lives move from chaos into order and maybe are hit again with chaos and into a new order, it sure does open my eyes to just how vast and big and beautiful God must be to be able to be unchangeable and yet to be in the midst of every detail and able to work out every detail into order, into something that what I believe is for our good and for His Glory, meaning that He continues to be revealed as who He truly is through the circumstances of our life that become good, the hard places.
I just think about that when I hear the stories. I’m like, gosh, even my little boxes about God continue to be expanded through being in relationship with people and seeing their lives move through these passages of order, disorder, reorder.
Patsy: I don’t think there’s anything scarier for a parent than to have a child going through serious health issues where you feel you have no control and you can’t change what’s happening; you have to see what the unfolding of the plan is. Can you talk about that from your perspective?
Jason: Are you referring to my son who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia last year? Yeah, that was scary and painful, and there are a lot of layers to it. I went through a pretty dramatic divorce, and that has complicated… Well, it was a divorce that I didn’t want. Of course, I made my contribution to the problem. But there was so much about that that is so painful that it’s hard to give like a flyover, but I’ll just leave it at that, just incredibly painful. One of the after effects, too, was it complicated my relationships with my sons, but I’d say especially with Jacob. So that’s another layer on the whole thing that is very painful for me at least.
But yeah, he was diagnosed with cancer and went through chemo. After the first round of chemo, it knocked his immunity out so that he got a very common virus and it almost took his life. It happened really quick, and it ended up him being on life support and being intubated and this two-week ordeal of them trying to battle the virus externally. That was so painful. I flew out there, and to see him so ravaged by all of that and to feel so helpless to really be able to do anything.
But he made it through that, and he made it through the remainder of his treatments, and he’s out the other side now, and the word they’re using is cure. So he’s cured. He did well.
Patsy: Wow. Order, disorder, reorder in a very divine kind of way.
Jason: I don’t think this is speaking out of school. I want to be respectful to everyone involved. I do know that he had struggled with depression. He talked about how he always assumed that he would die young and was just kind of ready for that just most of his life, and this experience, he said, made him realize, You know what, actually, I think I want to live. I don’t think I’m ready to die. So I’m glad for him for that, that that led him to that place. You’d never wish that on anybody, but you know, there are treasures to be found in those dark places and we can be grateful for that.
Patsy: I had a son on life support, adult son that was in induced coma for 21 days, so I do understand the feeling of a parent’s heart to see a situation where you can’t change a thing about it. You just have to wait for the outcome, and it puts you in a very humble and vulnerable and hurting kind of place.
Jason: There’s that quote — I can’t remember who it is — but they say to have children is to… What’s the quote?
Patsy: Let your heart walk outside your body.
Jason: Your heart’s walking around out in the world. I definitely had that experience seeing him in the hospital room just so ravaged. And you don’t want to cry in front of him either. But yeah, it was difficult and painful.
Patsy: Thank you for sharing that. I know it’s a very tender place. Even though it’s passed, it’s very current in the memory bank because our memories come up with our emotions and we can’t help but feel once again some of those feelings we had in that place. So thank you for sharing that.
Jason: I’ll share one thing that might be helpful for anyone who’s tuning in, like things I wish I would’ve heard. I’ll say this. In regards to my divorce and a lot of the things that have happened as a result of that, I’m angry with God. I’m still angry with God. I was just having a conversation with Him about it on my way here. I don’t know that I trust Him again yet. I do in some ways, but I’d never prayed harder for anything in my life. And when that didn’t go the way that I hoped and trusted it would, I don’t know. I haven’t completely recovered from that. And I’m angry with Him.
Well, are you allowed to be angry with God? Is that arrogant? Is it theologically accurate? All those things. And just realizing that that’s just not helpful. Those aren’t the right questions. And that really was driven home with me when one of my sons… It seemed clear that he was angry, that he had some anger, and it was this thing between us whenever we were in the room with each other. I could feel it there, but for whatever reason, he wasn’t bringing his anger to me. Maybe because he felt like it wasn’t appropriate or that I wouldn’t receive it well, or he was trying to be compassionate to me or whatever it is. For whatever reason, he could’t bring his anger, so he was polite and all these things, but I could feel it there all the time and he just wouldn’t talk with me about it until the day that he did. And then when he did, he really let me have it. He cussed me out, and he said all kinds of things that were hard and hurtful and maybe not even altogether fair. But I was like, Oh, thank God. He’s bringing me his heart again. I’ve got my boy back.
And that’s the thing. You want people to bring their heart to you, you know. And then in that moment, I remembered what my mentor had taught me. He said, “In those moments, don’t waste those moments with being defensive or demanding accuracy or being distracted about if it’s true or not. None of that matters. What matters is the person’s bringing their heart, and the most loving thing you can say to a person in that moment is ‘Tell me more. Tell me more.’” And so I had the presence of mind to remember that, and we had a wonderful healing conversation. It’s good now. It’s better.
And I have to think that’s how our Heavenly Father feels toward us too, that He wants us, above all, to…
Andrew: Tell me more.
Jason: I don’t think He’s concerned with us bringing our properly attuned theology and all the accuracy. I think He just wants us to bring our hearts because He desires intimacy. So anyway, I’m not exactly sure how that relates, but it came into my mind with what you were asking me.
Patsy: It relates right to my heart. Thank you very much for that.
Andrew: I don’t have children, but I have a good friend who has children, now adult children, and she said that she had heard from one of her friends whose adult daughter was beginning to have some really difficult conversations with her. My friend’s friend, who is the mother, was asking her counselor, “I want to be receptive. I want to be open. I don’t want to criticize. I don’t want to judge. I don’t want to try to fix. I just want to be there for my daughter and let her know she has a place to express herself.” And the counselor suggested when you have the hardest conversation, which was coming up. There was kind of a concerted conversation coming. The counselor recommended that she respond in one of two ways only for that conversation, and that would be with these two words: either “wow” or “bummer.” That was it.
It was kind of humorous, but the point was that you really are tuning in to them. There’s nothing that they can say that would elicit a response that would direct them down another path or that would say, Your conversation’s not welcome here, your thoughts are completely… Whatever you are thinking bring them to the table. This table has been set for this conversation.
And I believe that with my whole heart, that on a spiritual level, on a grander scale, which is actually the most intimate scale, that we are invited. And it’s not just an invitation, that the relationship is there available to us to express ourselves wherever we are and in whatever way, whatever shape we find ourselves in.
I think you share beautifully. I think you share from a really humble and vulnerable spot. We, of course, have gotten to share the stage, the three of us, one time, and it was a beautiful night. Jenny Owens was a part of that night, you remember, and you all fighting over your disabilities, whether blindness or stuttering was…
Jason: She kind of wins. Blindness wins.
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, you know, she can’t drive a car, but anyway. Well, she can drive a car. I’ll give her that. But we’re grateful to have you here speaking into the lives of us and to people around us, so thank you and thank you for the way you do that with music.
Jason: Thank you. And I just have to…I’m distracted. Did you say Ginny Owens can drive a car? Is that what you said?
Andrew: Uh, yeah. I mean she has.
Patsy: She claims she can.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve been in a parking lot with her, a deserted parking lot, and allowed that to…
Jason: Wow, that’s amazing. That’s a fun fact.
Patsy: Well, that takes a lot of vulnerability.
Jason: That’s true, right.
Patsy: On both sides.
Andrew: Yes, it does. Take her for a spin sometime. It’s fun.
Patsy: My husband often felt like that. He was in a vulnerable place when I’m behind the wheel, and I’m seeing.
Jason: Patsy, I just have to say I am blown away that I get to sit here with you. Your books were in my home for many years, and I’m a big fan.
Andrew: It’s okay. You don’t have to…
Jason: Of course, you know I’m a big fan, Andrew. Your books weren’t in my home, so sorry about that.
Patsy: That was very kind, very generous. Thank you.
Jason: It’s just a ball to get to hang out with you, so thank you. And I’m a Gen Xer, by the way. So Boomer, Millennial.
Andrew: Only by two or three years. I’m an old Millennial.
Jason: Gen Xer. I’m a young Gen Xer.
Andrew: I felt like a Gen Xer until they named Millennials and then they said my birthday was in it. I owned it.
Patsy: Well, I love the term Boomer because it’s got that oomph in there.
Jason: It’s cooler than our names. It’s true.
Patsy: I think sometimes the Lord shows up to speak to our spirits as well as to our audience, and I can certainly say that was true today. So for the gift of that, for being a voice, I thank you. London Bridges aren’t falling down here because they’re sured up, and we have found yet other ways that we can traverse waters that can sometimes be rugged and harsh and unexpected.
Jason Gray singing “Order, Disorder, Reorder”
Andrew: Well, we have had today as our guest Mr. Jason Gray. He is one of the most critically acclaimed singer-songwriters in Christian music today, and his new EP is titled Order, Disorder, Reorder, and that is also the title of this song.
I thought everything was as it should be
I believed that it was all up to me
As if I was in control
Then I lost everything I thought that I knew
I couldn't see that You were leading me to
Something beautiful
Order, disorder, reorder
Over and over
Order, disorder, reorder
Over and over
It wouldn't be the way I choose
But this is how You make me new
So here I am, I'm all in
Though it feels like falling
That's what it takes for You to break through
Order, disorder, reorder
Over and over and over
I thought the storm would never come to an end
I begged You again and again
To send a miracle
But the storm was the way You broke my heart open wide
To get to what was hidden inside
And call it beautiful
Order, disorder, reorder
Over and over and over
So here I am, I'm all in
Though it feels like falling
If that's what it takes for You to break through
Give me the faith when I'm afraid to say
Here I go, I'm ready
I know You won't forget me
You'll give me the grace to find a way through
Order, disorder, reorder
Over and over and over
I don't really wanna change
If I'm telling You the truth
But like it or not, Your love won't stop
Till it makes me new
So give me all that You got
From the bottom to top
Till I look like You
Order, disorder, reorder
Over and over
Order, disorder, reorder
Over and over
It wouldn't be the way I choose
But this is how You make me new
So here I am, I'm all in
Though it feels like falling
If that's what it takes for You to break through
Give me the faith when I'm afraid to say
Here I go, I'm ready I know
You won't forget me
Give me the grace to find a way through
Order, disorder, reorder
Over and over and over
Patsy: You’ve been listening to Bridges, and I’m Patsy Clairmont, the Boomer.
Andrew: And I’m Andrew Greer, the Millennial. Tune in next time to Bridges: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations.
Patsy: Bridges is co-produced by Andrew Greer and myself, Patsy Clairmont.
Andrew: And our podcast is recorded and mixed by Jesse Phillips at the Arcade in Franklin, Tennessee.
Patsy: Remember, don’t forget to leave us a rating, a review, or a comment. It all helps our little show get going.
Andrew: To find out more about my co-host Patsy Clairmont or myself, Andrew Greer, or to read transcripts of our show, simply go to bridgesshow.com.