Episode 31: Tasha Layton: Owning All the Feelings at Christmastime
Transcript
Patsy: Hi, I’m Patsy Clairmont, and I’m a Boomer.
Andrew: And I’m Andrew Greer, and I’m a Millennial.
Patsy: And you are listening to Bridges.
Andrew: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations
Patsy: Season Two is brought to you by Food for the Hungry.
Andrew: Meeting the physical and spiritual needs of people all around the world for over 50 years.
Patsy: Andrew, this is Christmas. We are in the season. Now, we might be a teensy bit ahead of the actual day, but all the anticipation begins to grow right now.
Andrew: That’s absolutely right, and it begins with our guest Tasha Layton. She is, really, I like to call her a musician extraordinaire because of all the many various platforms, everything from being a worship leader to being a background vocalist for pop star Katy Perry, to being on American Idol, and now having a really substantial new platform within Christian music with some really substantial hit songs as well as her new Christmas EP called This Is Christmas.
She is a fantastic conversationalist, she is a delightful, lovely woman, and she is someone who has a lot of ups and downs in her story. And I think this only helps to serve the conversation about managing our expectations for the holidays.
Patsy: Her versatility is very impressive, and her vocabulary is absolutely steady with Scripture. I love listening to someone who spends a lot of time in the Word of God because it comes out of them with them hardly even noticing, but it makes an enriching experience for the listener.
Andrew: So join us for this holiday-themed episode with our special guest Tasha Layton.
Patsy: Andrew, one of the things that happens in my family is we all pile in the car and head down the highway because our destination is Frankenmuth, Michigan, where the whole town is about celebrating Christmas. They have the largest Christmas display in the world, that’s how huge it is, and it’s under this roof that you cannot believe goes on and on and on with hundreds of thousands of things that you can purchase and take home with you to decorate.
Andrew: Merry Christmas
Patsy: And one of the things they do in that town is they have built a wooden, red covered bridge, and there’s nothing like red covered bridges when it gets holiday time and the snow piles up and everybody wants their picture taken there. And there’s something about a covered bridge that says safety and that says holiday and invites you to come in and to pass through.
So as I thought about that, I thought for our family, when we get to go there and celebrate in that way, we think, This Is Christmas.
Andrew: I love that title. This Is Christmas is the title of the EP from our guest on this special holiday episode of Bridges, Tasha Layton. That’s your new record.
Tasha: Yes, it is.
Andrew: That’s brilliant. So Patsy, way to go.
Tasha: What an intro, Patsy. That was incredible. I’m literally sitting here in awe of the way you transitioned that, and I’m trying to figure out how to get my husband to take me to Frankenmuth because I am obsessed with Christmas. I decorate early, I love it, but he is from Ohio. I married into it, and there’s nothing I can do about it. He played in the Ohio State marching band, and so to cross the border into Michigan is a big deal.
Patsy: That is a big deal.
Tasha: And so I will have to try to convince him to take me to Frankenmuth for that display.
Andrew: It’s German. It supersedes…
Patsy: The whole town is German. The food is German, all fresh made. It’s absolutely divine.
Andrew: It’s a paradise, holiday paradise. And your new recording is a holiday paradise. We’ve been listening to it. We love it. You are a musician in every right. I think of all the platforms that you’ve been a part of, from being a worship leader to being a touring background vocalist for Katy Perry to being on American Idol, and now really kind of landing your own personal platform with your own songs, becoming a songwriter with your career that’s really taking off in a really beautiful way. And so I love that music has provided a bridge for you throughout your life, into the different seasons of your life.
We want to talk about the holidays. We want to talk about managing our expectations and feelings and all the things about that. But before we do that, I would love for our listeners’ benefit if you would take us into your background and kind of tell us where music started and how that journeyed you through your story.
Tasha: Yeah. Well, my family says I came out of the womb singing. I remember being in the car just singing as loud as I could on the radio, and my mom telling me, “You know, that sounded a little nasal. Maybe you should sing it this way.” I think my mom was my biggest cheerleader but also my first critic.
I grew up singing in the church, and that was sort of where I belonged. I grew up sort of in a poor area, and I think walking into the church for the first time, I felt like I belonged somewhere, whereas I had felt so rejected in some ways before, which made it all the more painful though when I was wounded in church. I went through a lot of church hurt and ended up going on a journey to search out truth because I wasn’t okay. I was isolated and depressed and just hurt.
It was not superficial wound. It was a very deep wound, and my family still doesn’t go to church to this day because of it. That church split from a lot of the drama that happened.
So I went searching. I studied mysticism and Buddhist meditation camp and synagogue and mosque and the whole thing because I thought, You know what? I’ve grown up knowing Jesus through my family and through our church, which has been amazing, but I also need to know this for myself. And so went on a journey and my lowest of low I tried to commit suicide.
I think anybody who knows me now would never think that because I’m the freest person that I know and I have a lot of joy and a lot of hope and positivity. Anyway, but it was at that lowest of low that I realized in all those religions you’re striving and searching, and even in the religious spirit of Christianity, you’re still striving, trying to be good enough and win God’s approval. But in the gospel, the true gospel, Jesus is in pursuit of us. And so that shifted something in my mind and I forced myself to go back to church for a year. I didn’t feel anything. I was still really numb from being depressed and the emotional state I was in, but I thought, You know what? At some point, this has gotta stick because this is all I’ve got.
At the end of about a year of going to that church, the pastor said, “You know, if you want a touch from God, why don’t you come up and the end of service,” and I left three hours later. I was just a sobbing mess, and that was an alter moment in my life and it changed the trajectory of my life.
I went to seminary and, after seminary, ended up in the music industry, like you said, and I’d never thought to do that. It wasn’t in the plan for me. I had literally never thought I would do anything like that. So here we are today.
“Walking into the church for the first time, I felt like I belonged somewhere.”
Patsy: Now, I’m looking at you thinking, How is it possible that someone so young has already been through so much?
Tasha: I’m much older than I look, Patsy. I am. I’m much older than I look.
I got married at 32. I didn’t start having kids till I was 36 or 35 — I don’t know, it’s all a blur. Once you have kids, it’s all a blur. So yeah, I’ll be 40 next year.
Andrew: Look at that. She practices her flattery, don’t worry.
Patsy: Forty is young, but you look so much younger.
Tasha: Maybe by today’s standards, yeah.
Patsy: You need to go home and thank your mother.
Tasha: Okay, I will, I will.
Andrew: When you were seeking out religion and going through all these different experiences, I think seeking is a really beautiful thing. I think sometimes we diminish the search because we think we always need to be in full discovery, like we need to have the full revelation.
Tasha: Yeah, we don’t have to be scared of that.
Andrew: Right. And so you doing that, what did you discover? What was the difference? As you went through these religions, I don’t think that’s everyone’s story, that they come back to Christianity of all things, especially after having what you call church hurt.
Tasha: Well, I think, number one, David says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” I think I had truly tasted and seen God’s goodness before I started my search, and so when I experienced all those other things, I knew two things at the end of that journey. One was that God had been the only one — Jesus had been the only one — to offer me any true power to transform in my life. And the second thing was that he had been the only one to offer any true peace.
There were good things. You know, there is an element of truth in all kinds of lies we believe. There were elements of really wonderful things in the things I sought out, and some things that even felt very biblical, and yet that peace of power and true peace and contentment, I didn’t experience that anywhere else.
Andrew: How did you find your path? Describe the scene. So you are in college, you’re seeking out different religions, and you find yourself wanting to take your own life. What brings you back from the edge of that brink?
Tasha: I think it was an intellectual shift. It wasn’t anything that anybody said or did. I left college and I went down to a former youth pastor’s house in Charleston, South Carolina, to rest and just have them love on me. I was kind of catatonic at that point, not speaking or really doing much of anything, and in that moment, I just realized, Man, I have been trying to strive and reach God and gain his approval, and it was just like grace hit me in the face. And I thought, Wow, Christianity is a kingdom of opposites. To gain your life, you have to lose it. It’s better to give than to receive. The first shall be last; the last shall be first. And our King came as a baby.
Something about that just felt so different, and there was humility in it in a way that I didn’t experience in any other religion, and I thought, I cannot deny the experience that I had with God’s presence before I went on my search. I’ve tried to explain it away. I’ve tried to say it was an emotional high or whatever, but you can’t deny God’s presence when you have those moments with him. It’s true. He is the truth. There’s no your truth, my truth. Oh my gosh, I’m so tired of hearing that. You can edit this out if you want, but it is a lie from the enemy. Jesus is the truth. There’s one truth, and we all need to kind of… We need to get in line. We need to get behind it.
Patsy: One of the things I love that you talk about is the power of story and that all of us have one, which means we all have something to say of value.
“All of us have [a story], which means we all have something to say of value.”
Tasha: Yes, yes, absolutely.
Patsy: The reason I’m so taken with that is I encourage people to get in touch with their own story because I think it puts us on the adventure and path of growth and change and greater transformation.
Tasha: Well, Scripture says, “We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.” And when you make your timeline of your life, you start to see a pattern of God’s faithfulness. Even in the worst of seasons, you can still see his goodness if you look and his miraculous power.
I’d been a Christian my whole life and I had known God and known Scripture and been in church, and yet I still didn’t feel free. I still felt stuck. And I had to go back and look at my story to dig out, Okay, where are the lies? What are the lies I’m believing about God, about myself? And I am literally living through those lenses and seeing my life and other people through those lenses, and God, and I had to go back and dig that stuff up and say, Okay, Holy Spirit. Take me back to those moments.
Since God stands outside of time because he made time, he was there when it happened, but he’s still there. And so I asked Jesus, Okay, where were you in the room when those things happened to me, when that was said to me? How do you feel about it? What do you want to say to me now? And I literally felt the truth move from my head to my heart.
I actually wrote a book called Boundless about that process because I realized I would get done with an event and I would have this line of people coming up and saying, “How did you get from A to Z? So we see the Z and you talk about the A, but what’s the LMNOP?” So that’s why I wrote the book so that I could give them a resource to help people walk through those traumas of their childhood and lies they believed.
So yes, the power of story is everything.
Patsy: When people come to me and want to write a book about their story, I tell them, “Don’t write it so you have a book. What you first want to do is to receive the therapy that’s waiting for you in the midst of your story. So let’s do it first for therapy before we think about ministry.”
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, you’re talking about healthy practices. Even though this was a part of your spiritual journey, I think when we are most whole spiritually, we are practicing things that are also healthy generically, for anybody. And so going back into your story, being aware of your thoughts, your feelings, as part of the connect to the mind to the heart, talk about church hurt.
The reason I want to talk about that is not necessarily to dwell in a painful place of your story but more because a lot of people are talking now about being hurt by the church, whether that is during their growing up experience, or that may even be when they were adults and were bring their family of their own to church and there’s an experience or there’s something that is said or whatever that can be interpreted as church hurt.
Talk about that because you still found your way back, and I think a lot of people don’t and I think a lot of times we take out on the church what really — this is me speaking — is our issues that we need to go back into our story and all that.
Tasha: Yeah. You know, God says in Scripture he’s put eternity in our hearts, and I think when we become a Christian, we have the living God living inside of us. And so we have this sense of how things should be, and I think that’s God-given, and I think people bring that into the church. They bring that idealist view of Christianity as a return to Eden — that’s what we all long for — so we walk in a church and we want it to be like that. We expect perfection or we’re longing for perfection in church when that’s never going to happen this side of heaven.
And so I think there’s a lot of transference going on, like you side. It’s people’s issues that they’ve grown up with some stuff that they haven’t found in their story, as Patsy just said. There are things that people need to go back and look at, and I think they’re transferring that onto the pastor or people in the church.
And you know, what’s interesting is the power of community because it was community that wounded me essentially, and yet it was community that also healed me. Because when I went to this new church, they just loved me. They didn’t judge me for where I was. They didn’t judge me for how I was feeling or the questions I had. They just invited me over to eat after church on Sunday. They just got me a little gift or a card for my birthday. They just hugged me when I walked in the doors. That is everything.
And I think sometimes we miss that in an age of social media where you have this false connection and you think you’re really connected to people but you never see them face-to-face. You’re not in their lives, in their stuff, hugging them, loving them the way that we’re meant to do. And when that happens, healing can come on such a beautiful level, and it did for me.
But what I would say to the people struggling is not to judge the people who seem firm in their faith because I think when I was struggling, I judged the people in church who didn’t seem to have any questions.
Andrew: As if they weren’t enlightened or something?
Tasha: Yeah. And then I think the people in church who were firm in their faith or thought they were judged me for the questions I had. So I think we just need to stop being judge. We like to be the judge, the jury, the prosecutor, the defense. We want to play all the roles, and God is the only judge.
Patsy: I think it’s so interesting that our Lord who has all the answers asks questions, and he started that at the very beginning in Eden when he said, “Where are you?” As if he didn’t know which bush they were hidden behind when he had just planted them. Hello?
So questions lead us to deeper thought and revelation. It can lead us into a greater light of understanding, so I’m very impressed that, as young as you were, you had so many questions and you sought the answer to those.
Tasha: In the book of John, we read the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth, and I think that when you do surrender your path, your story, your desires, your dreams, your hopes, your questions, your doubts, when you do surrender that and give God a shot, he will show up. He says to test him, and I think when you do, you come out firmer on the other side. But man, is it hard in the middle?
People see where I am now, and even I had some events this past weekend, and people were so complimentary, and yet I thought in my head the whole time when I was leaving, I thought, Gosh, they have no idea.
Patsy: The price you paid.
Tasha: The huge hurt in my life and the years of feeling tormented and in agony over God, but he was just breaking new ground and I didn’t know it.
For years, I would be in my car, hitting the steering wheel, crying out, “God, I’m not okay. I don’t even know what I want to do, but I want to serve you.” All the things even with your calling that it comes with a price. And so man, if I had known then what I know about God and how beautifully he orchestrates things, I probably never would’ve doubted.
Andrew: Speaking of journeys, we’re going to come back to talk about your Christmas journey, the new record — This Is Christmas with our special holiday guest of the hour, of the episode, Tasha Layton.
You are…
Patsy: Well, right now I’m Patsy Clairmont.
Andrew: The Boomer. I’m Andrew Greer, the Millennial, and we’ll be back.
Food for the Hungry Sponsorship Message
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The Abide Bible Sponsorship Message
Patsy: “Shout out praises to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with joy. Enter his presence with joyful singing. Acknowledge that the Lord is God. He made us and we belong to him; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.”
That’s Psalms 100, verses 1 and 2, from my own Abide Bible.
When we abide him and his words abide in us, everything changes — our perspective, our attitude. So it anchors my soul when I go to the Word of God. It teaches me better behavior than I’d have otherwise because I can really suffer from a case of the attitude. So this helps to keep me in a better place with a sweeter attitude in a difficult world.
The Abide Bible comes in two different versions. I don’t know if you have a favorite, but there’s a New King James and then there’s the New English translation. It is set up so you can journal, so those of you who love to do notes on the side, this paper is set up to receive those notes. It also gives you insights on the edges of the pages that help us to read the Word in a more meaningful way, to meditate in such a way that it begins to sink into the very depths of our being, to pray the verse so that we get better claim on the truth in it, and then to contemplate so that as we move forward the Word goes with us.
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Tasha Layton singing “O Holy Night”
O holy night, the stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Savior's birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn
Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices
O night divine! O night when Christ was born
Patsy: This is Patsy, and we’re back with our special guest, and I want to know, Tasha, how you celebrate Christmas today now that you’re in a place that feels anchored and full of joy and comfort.
Tasha: Yeah. Well, I can tell you this: I always decorate early. I am one of those people.
Andrew: How early?
Tasha: Okay, so everyone who works in church or who does ministry around the Christmas season and touring season, all of that, if I don’t put it up early, I don’t get a chance to enjoy it because December is so crazy and there’s so much travel. Even if I decorated the week before Christmas, I’m probably spending the same amount of time in front of the tree mid-November. So yes, I am those people.
Andrew: Everyone has permission.
Patsy: How old are you children?
Tasha: 4 and 20 months, so they’re little. I have littles. I’m in the thick of it, y’all. No sleep for me.
Andrew: I mean, talk about that in the case of the holidays then. You’ve got a 4-year-old, a 20-month-old, married, so whole family life, then a whole career life that has especially taken on a new life as you enter into this season. What are you thinking about the holidays?
Tasha: I am hanging on for dear life.
Andrew: Okay. Honesty.
Tasha: There’s no balance. I’m not juggling. All the balls are on the floor. It literally is just hanging on for dear life in the middle of chaos.
You know, as a family, we are trying to put in some systems to help get some patterns in the middle of what seems like a spontaneous life 24/7. It’s just decorating early, trying to have some traditions that we do as a family, even if they look different every year, just to do some things that we always do.
We’ll be going to South Carolina this Christmas because that’s where my family’s from, and so we alternate years between my family and my husband’s family. So this year’s a South Carolina Christmas, and it’s gonna be awesome.
Andrew: It will be, but until it’s awesome, it can be not awesome.
Tasha: It really can be.
Andrew: So I want to talk about managing expectations, which includes our feelings. There’s all kinds of feels around Christmastime, but for each individual person, that is completely different. Some people find themselves maybe in a new marriage and kind of a honeymoon phase, and Christmas can be magical and romantic and all those things. Some people find themselves for the first Christmas maybe without their spouse or without another loved one or having experienced a tragedy, and suddenly, the same Christmas songs, the same Christmas experiences externally have a totally different impact internally.
So how do we go into the season managing our expectations so that, whatever our season looks like, we can actually experience potentially advent, this kind of wanting to embody the idea that God has come to Earth to be in relationship with us?
“There’s all kinds of feels around Christmastime.”
Tasha: Okay, hang with me, the way I’m gonna answer this question.
So Andrew, I am a 3 on the Enneagram.
Andrew: Oh, achiever.
Tasha: My husband thinks I’m a 4, which the 4 is strong with this one, but I tend to stuff my feelings. I’m a get-it-done person, who makes lists and crosses it off and just gets it done, a self-starter, all that. That being said, there’s so many things to do in this season, too, that it’s easy to avoid sadness or anxiety. I just stuff it. And I think the way to go through any season of life but especially Christmas, with the nostalgia that comes with that, both innate and forced upon us, is to be honest with your emotions.
It’s really easy to try and stuff, but I think depression is just your body’s way of saying that something needs to change. So I think leaning into it instead of avoiding it is best, talking about it with other people, because chances are, like you said, Patsy, somebody else might have a similar story, and by sharing your stories, you know you’re not alone.
Andrew: Even your spouse could be experiencing the same thing, but if you’re not talking about it, you don’t know.
Tasha: Yeah, yeah. I think that happens a lot with Keith and me too. And even hearing from God. Sometimes we’ll hear from God separately and come together and go, “Oh, I heard that too. Oh, we’re supposed to move. Oh, we’re supposed to have a baby.”
But I do think being honest with your feelings and connecting yourself with other people. Even could’ve chosen to be alone, but he didn’t. Father, Son, Holy Spirit — three in one, in community. And it’s easy to get in that hole of isolation and depression when you’re feeling that sadness.
I mean, I have lots of friends who are gonna have their first Christmas without their child, first Christmas like you said without their spouse. That’s gonna be really, really hard, and I think just being honest about that is the way through it. Not to avoid it but to walk through it.
And Jesus says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you walk through the fire, you won’t be burned.” He won’t leave you in it alone. It might feel the same, but he’ll never leave you. And there’s something about not being left, not being abandoned in our humanity, that is powerful, both with God and with one another.
Patsy: I think when we know we’re going into this season and we’re carrying with us the weight of grief, it helps if we lower our expectations and we simplify our schedule to the degree we can to help ourselves manage, to do a little self-care in the midst of it all so we don’t get overcome. But I think your idea of talking with others is so important, to say the words out loud so they’re in the light and you have the chance for others to come alongside.
Andrew: It is funny how much we don’t talk, even within our own families. It’s as if we assume everyone’s expectations.
I was even talking with my family, which includes my older brothers and nieces and nephews and my parents. It’s a larger family than it was 20 years ago when I was growing up or when I was a teenager. It can be so expected to not talk about expectations, and we were talking about how tradition, like you were saying with your family, to have some semblance of tradition but that that can evolve and change within the seasons of the life of your family.
Tasha: It has to. When you set yourself to say it has to be this way every single time, you are setting yourself up for failure for those moments that throw you off.
I mean, every year we do a Christmas card. Okay, 2020 was crazy, y’all. I had a newborn. We were in South Carolina a lot with my family. We didn’t do a Christmas card.
Patsy: And it was alright.
Tasha: It was okay.
My dear, sweet friend lost her husband a few years back, and she didn’t put up her tree. She went on a cruise. Good for her. She did what she needed to do.
Andrew: I think it’s important in the holidays that, first, we assess, which you all have talked about this whole episode, knowing your story, being aware of yourself, and then asking, not being afraid to ask. I think I would be like, No, Tasha’s got a family and Keith, and they’re busy. I can’t ask them during the holidays. But ask for what you need. Maybe I need to come over for Christmas because I’m all alone or whatever.
Tasha: Yeah, busy. You just said the word — busy. That is the hot button because you cannot connect if you are too busy. Busyness erodes our memory, and our memory, psychologists say, is the makeup of who we are.
So the Israelites, when they started to be crabby and complain and all that stuff, it was because they weren’t remembering who God was, so they weren’t remembering who they were. They weren’t taking Sabbath to remember who God was and who they were, and so they forgot that God was a cloud by day and a fire by night and provided manna in the desert.
And so busyness erodes our memories. We forget that we put our keys in the refrigerator. We forget that we didn’t bring our kid’s lunch to school or they have one shoe on. It’s when we get so busy, we stop connecting with God and ourselves. We can’t even assess where we are when that busyness takes over our lives.
I feel like I’m constantly battling that right now with a career that is so full-time, and the day we live in, you’ve got to be on it 24/7, and with a family and with a church and with a husband and kids and everything — it’s a lot. And so you have to fight for it because it’s not gonna come easily. And in the day and age we live in, it just overwhelms you, so you have to fight for it.
Patsy: My friend Carol is doing a message this year for her church at Christmastime on “Permission Granted: A Sane and Simple Holiday.” And I was thinking about how often especially women need to give themselves permission to do the sane and the simple thing, and that’s what will put them in a position to know the hope and joy of the holiday.
Tasha: Yeah. You don’t have to bake all your cookies from scratch.
Patsy: Thank you.
Tasha: You can buy a pie from Costco. Some of them are better anyway. It might even be better than your pie, come on.
My thing is garland. You know I have margin in my life that year if I put up the garland on the stairwell, but if I don’t, it’s just the trees. I say trees because it’s multiple because I am that person. I told you I was. I love trees. I love Christmas, oh my gosh. So yes, I do put up two trees. But, if the garland’s up, you know it’s been a good year.
Andrew: You fought for that space and you found it.
Tasha: Yep.
Andrew: Okay, the EP, This Is Christmas, really it’s funny because we’re talking about kind of heavy feelings and people experiencing a lot of lows, not just highs, during the holidays, but your Christmas EP is a lot of fun.
Tasha: Oh my gosh. I love it so much. I know it’s mine and I don’t want to sound pompous in saying that, but it is so fun. I love it. I’ve been listening to it.
Andrew: What I love about that though is that we can have the full range, the full spectrum, within us. That, also, not only the permission to simplify but permission to celebrate. If you are having a tough year, I think if things have kind of gone down and you can’t quite figure out when they’re gonna go back up, maybe take a breather from the downward turn and celebrate.
Tasha: Yeah, have a dance party. That’s what you need to do. Tell Alexa to play dance music.
Andrew: Or Tasha Layton, This Is Christmas.
Tasha: Yeah. But the record is kind of a variety show. It’s got some fun stuff. It has a worshipful song because, as a worship leader, it’s really hard to pick songs during December that are Christmasy and worshipful, and so we wrote one to kind of solve that problem. And then there are songs that kind of hit the nail on the head, so to speak, when it comes to difficult emotions around Christmas but also the hope that comes.
I love writing songs sort of like David writes the Psalms. He is honest about where he is — “My God, where are you? I’m in a pit, blah, blah, blah. My enemies are coming to take my life — but then it’s a “but God, you are the lifter of my head. You are this. You are that.” And so some of the songs are definitely that. They take you there emotionally, but then it turns it around and says, “Okay, but God, and we have this hope.”
So I’m really excited about it. I think people, if they listen all the way through especially, I think it could really serve their soul, so to speak.
Andrew: Well, speaking of dancing, we’re gonna dance right back into the conclusion of this conversation with our guest Tasha Layton, and we’re gonna talk a little more Christmas and a little Katy Perry when we come back.
I’m with my co-host…
Patsy: Patsy Clairmont, the Boomer.
Andrew: And I’m Andrew Greer. We’ll be back.
Patsy: Andrew, I understand, word is out, that you do another podcast with a friend of ours. Tell us about that.
Andrew: Mr. Mark Lowry, who was a guest on this podcast. He’s my co-host for Dinner Conversations with Mark Lowry and Andrew Greer. We have a ton of fun talking about all kinds of topics around the table, and you can find them at dinner-conversations.com.
Do you know something that we both love a lot of, Patsy?
Patsy: What’s that?
Andrew: That’s books.
Patsy: Food
Andrew: That too. But I hear you have a book club.
Patsy: I do have a book club. It’s called Porch Pals Book Club, and you can find out more about the book club by going to patsyclairmont.com.
Food for the Hungry Sponsorship Message
Patsy: Food for the Hungry is giving us a wonderful opportunity. I’m so glad that they have put this program into effect because of the literacy issue around the world, and this is going to help tackle that, plus bring the light of Christ into the lives of children that will be spread throughout the villages and the homes and the hearts of people. I love it. I love it. Tell us more.
Andrew: We have been given the opportunity, through our friends at Food for the Hungry, to purchase Bibles for people in communities around the world. The beauty of these Bibles is that they come ready to read. No matter where these folks are — that may be a community in Bolivia or Cambodia or Haiti or Kenya — all across the world, these Bibles are translated in their native tongue, which we think of being able to procure a Bible anytime we want, either through our technological devices or going to a bookstore, picking one up, or Amazon. It’s not as easily or readily available to other communities that are more rural and more impoverished around the world.
And so, of course, Food for the Hungry has been committed for decades to not only meeting the physical needs of people around the world, and of course, we helped do that through chickens last season. This season we’re getting to complete their mission, and that is meet the spiritual needs through the offering of a Bible.
So go to fh.org/bridges, and for $12, you can purchase a Bible for someone who is waiting to receive it across the world. And don’t forget — your gift is tax deductible.
Andrew: Now that you have this really large and enlarging platform in Christian music, and we know how the evangelical world can go. It can sometimes not want to drop that gavel and judge us for things we’ve been part of in the past or whatever. How does Katy Perry fit into all that and touring with an amazing pop star but also maybe people would not think that was the best choice for a Christian artist?
Tasha: Oh, I got so many emails when I started. So many youth pastors that I’d spoken at their youth group or led worship for youth group, you know, “How could you sing those lyrics and be a Christian?”
All I’ve got to say is I felt grace over it, I felt called to do it, and you cannot season anything if you are salt in the salt shaker. You have got to get out of the church bubble, and there’s no way that I would’ve been around those people otherwise.
It was an incredible experience. I would say, for the most part now, people think it’s a great part of my story. They’re not judging me for it anymore. But at the beginning, yeah, I got some emails, but those were the people who eventually ended up asking me for tickets for shows. So it’s fine now. It’s fine.
“You cannot season anything if you are salt in the salt shaker.”
Andrew: That all got won over.
Well, it has been a delight to have you here today, and it’s been so good as you and Patsy were talking about so many mutual friends between the two of you and even the two of us. Of course, our engineer typically, Jesse Phillips, just spoke so highly of you, Emily. So we feel really honored and joy-filled to have had you be a part of this conversation.
Tasha: The honor is mine.
Patsy: We’re delighted that you were part of this. You had said that you started singing at birth and filled the car full of sound for your mother’s ability to critique you. I opened my mouth singing when I came out, and they all told me to be quiet.
Andrew: To go back in.
Patsy: So I’m glad that you use your gift to bless so many people. And one of the things that I’ve loved that you’ve said is that you have learned to find joy in your own offering, that you can sit and listen to it and feel the pleasure of what God is doing. I love that.
Tasha: Well, he loves it. He loves to hear me sing.
Patsy: Absolutely.
Tasha: When you know how much God loves you, it changes your perspective of yourself, of everyone else. You start smiling at strangers because you know how deep and wide the love of God is.
Patsy: And this, my dear, is Christmas.
Bridges is produced by my co-host, Andrew Greer.
Andrew: And co-produced by my co-host, Patsy Clairmont. Our podcast is recorded by Jesse Phillips.
Patsy: And sometimes my son, Jason Clairmont.
Andrew: At the Arcade in Franklin, Tennessee. Jesse Phillips is also our editor and mixes our show. And our theme music is written by Kyle Buchanan and yours truly, and all of the instruments of the music were played by Kyle Buchanan at Aries Lounge in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Our transcripts are provided by Rachel Worsham. Thanks, Rachel, for all your work
Patsy: If you like what you’ve been listening to, you can help us out by leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to our show.
Andrew: For more information about Patsy, myself, or to read transcripts and to listen to more episodes, go to bridgesshow.com.
Patsy: Catch you next time.