Hi, welcome to Spiritual Cake where we dive into the different layers of spirituality and how it affects just us, human beings people. My name is Clint Hufft. And with me is Wendy Dahl. And I should say right up front, we are not clergy in the traditional sense. We’re not we’re not masters of divinity. We didn’t go to seminary. We didn’t do any of that kind of stuff. At least. That’s my understanding. When is that true? Yes. However, we did grow up in different environments with different theologies and doctrines. And so we should probably let you the listener let you in on where we’re coming from just as a starting point. So Wendy, I’ll let you go first.
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The Spiritual Cake Podcast begins. Co-hosts Clint Hufft and Wendy Dahl discuss anything and everything connected with the human mystery that is spirituality.
W: Alright, so I come from a very traditional and conservative background where I was raised Mormon, and all throughout, you’ll hear as we progress through This podcast all of the wonderful adventures that I’ve taken throughout spirituality. But just to know that my foundation is very conservative, and that it was, for the most part, they they measure sort of your, I guess your level of involvement or your activity in Mormonism based on your, your activity or your strength in the church is based on activity. And so, my parents were both very active as a child, I was active, we were always going to church every Sunday. And so, but you’ll hear, you know, of my adventures through that, you know, as I’ve progressed into adulthood, and how it shaped me as a person and my family and even my business. And so, but I see spirituality and faith is, part of who I am and it gives me a very firm foundation to be able to approach every day in the way that I do.
C: I think that’s the only In a goal, I mean, I would hope is to just give people something, some kind of a thing that allows them to hopefully enjoy their lives. Okay, so I grew up and also in a very conservative environment, went to a small church, a Lutheran Church. For those of you that know anything about Lutheranism, it was a Missouri Synod church, which I think is even more conservative. And it was also in Orange County. And so when I came of age, in the 60s, there was this clash of societies. In other words, in Orange County, very conservative. They call the John Birch country, I guess he was a real conservative guy. But it was also the 60s and so there was all kinds of social upheaval going on, you know, the Vietnam War and the women’s liberation and civil rights and Woodstock and the Beatles met the Maharishi and, and, you know, marijuana was, you know, definitely not as scary as it was in the 50s, and people were, you know, tuning in and tripping and was that Timothy Leary was, you know, popular and there was all this stuff going on.
And so here I was in this very conservative kind of bubble. But my friends, obviously were like in high school, junior high in high school. And we’re very aware of everything that’s going around because you know, kids are, so it was this great mishmash of liberalism and conservatism of experimentation. Not by me, but just mentally I think, to kind of expand our our thought and so that’s how I was raised, which is awesome. I love the foundation of you know, every day there’s a every Sunday school and learning the stories in the Bible and, and singing songs and the hymns and Vacation Bible School, which was like one of the highlights of my summers every year for two weeks, whether I was attending and we got to do crafts and build arcs out of paper and, or tell stories and everything or when I then became a counselor for that thing. It was just a wonderful environment that I grew up in.
And then when I was 21, yeah, when I was 21. I got into yoga, I saw a Bruce Lee movie. And I don’t think I’ve ever told you this story when I saw a Bruce Lee movie, and there was this one scene and Enter the Dragon where he’s doing his forms or his exercises in his hotel room, and somebody comes like barges in the door. And he right at the moment where he’s mid kick, he sideways and he just turns his body. His leg is rock solid, still perpendicular or parallel to the ground perpendicular from his body. And obviously the guy who came into the doors one of the villains and Bruce Lee just looks at him says Get out. But it was his body control that I was really impressed with. So me and a buddy of mine started going around to different martial arts studios to see If there was anything that fit in order to get that level of physical training and nothing, I didn’t like the aggressiveness of it, I didn’t like that there was inherently a fight involved. At some point, even if you never did fight anybody that was still was the purpose was self defense and etc.
Then I went to a yoga demonstration. And it was like, everything just clicked. So I actually attended that Ashram as it were in Orange County, California for like eight years, and we did meditation and we did you know, the postures and posing and, and then we all talked about stuff. And that was very, very open, intellectually, spiritually, that sort of thing. In fact, at the front altar, if there for want of a better word, there was about 10 different picture frames set up. And one was, well, most of the picture frames are filled with the spiritual icons that you would expect, like, Oh, I’m sure there was a Star of David and Jesus Christ. And, and Buddha and so on. And then there was one that was empty for people who just thought God was too big to put a face on. And that was the vibe that was in that yoga center.
So I had this deep religious, Christian, fundamental upbringing and foundation. And then I went into that and was exposed to all these different ways of thinking and looking at the world. And so I just kind of ran with that, personally, in terms of I read a lot of books. I listened to a lot of people, and I feel great that I have this wide range of input. Does that make sense?
W: Yeah, for sure.
C: So, we were talking Wendy and I were talking about this kind of a deal. And, and it just seemed like there needed to be a conversation needed to be it’s kind of a strong word need but it seems as though this kind of an open conversation with the goal of Understanding as opposed to judging is really, really, really necessary. I think, in today’s society, what do you think?
W: You know, I agree completely. I’ll tell you that, you know, raising children will actually minor, our young adults now and you know, raising them in today’s spiritual ecosystem, so to speak, has been very eye opening and challenging both at the same time. But I also sense that there is a lack of faith in general, right now among the younger generation and so bringing people back to faith based living and having something to believe in beyond themselves, and to decide really what is right for you based on you know, your thoughts and feelings and your observations is highly important.
Plus, I also feel like Like, you know, the structure and confines of religion are beginning to evolve, where in a biblical sense things, things were very I guess traditional, where it was, these were the roles, this is how it happened, you know, and now that is, you know, things of people have evolved and communities have evolved, where I’m watching, you know, both my religion and all, you know, all these different components of churches and how things are done, evolved to keep people you know, close to God and their belief system.
But I like to use this one story in particular, where, so I’m a wedding planner, and one of the most significant moments of my career actually had nothing to do with the wedding itself. But I do love I have all sorts of you know, religions and things. So this particular wedding, they were Hindu, both the bride and groom’s families were Hindu and so the mom gives me this coconut so I have to set this give you the setting. It was dumping rain. Like for the three days before the wedding, it was projected to dump rain on the wedding day and
C:I’m sorry, I’m just obsessing over the coconut. I really back to the coconut.
W: Yeah, so But I have to tell you that you know, it was the forecast for rain was massive. And in our particular wedding was a Saturday morning and it was you know, very expensive resort in Southern California. They invested a lot of money they had, you know, hundreds of people come in from all over the world for this flooding. So this was a big deal. Mom gives me a coconut. She looks at me dead in the eye and in the most gentle way says, “Your God and my God are the same God.” I need you to take this coconut to the highest place in the hotel and offer a prayer to God asking him and these were her words specifically for blue skies, and sunshine and joy. And she says you cannot mention rain, bad weather. Like she’s purposefully stating things in a positive way. So that when I prayed to God, that I was asking for the right things.
I remember going to you know, and I had to take a security person from that this you know, upscale resort along with the catering manager that I worked with. So here we are, going up all these stairs to the highest point of the hotel and we get there, and I’m putting the coconut up higher than I could stand like as high as I could reach, you know, and the gal from the hotels like Okay, let’s go, we’re done. And I was like, No, no, no, we have to pray. And she’s like, really? And I Yeah. So I offered this prayer using those exact words that she had mentioned. And I will tell you, this was the day before that I went up there, and it was still, you know, rainy some and it wasn’t so bad. So the night before it was like, for California, it was pretty big rain.
And then the next morning, so the ceremony was in the morning, like a 10. The next morning, it was blue skies. It was beautiful weather, and it was gorgeous. I mean, it was like we had ordered the weather. And then seriously, about two hours after the ceremony had ended, you know, and when you’re doing a Hindu ceremony, it’s about an hour, hour and a half. And so, after two hours after the ceremony ended, it returned, the same rain that we had the night before, so it was just pouring. And so those are the moments in my life where I see when she said “Your God and my god are the same God” where I start to just open My mind to the goodness of all face. And, you know, we’ll get into this, you know, as we’re, as we’re traveling through our journeys of this podcast of describing how similar things are and how there’s good in so many things.
And so yeah that’s really where I feel, you know, coming back into what what we need as a society and inspiring people to be more faithful and to believe in things beyond themselves. I think that’s a great story for me to share about what, you know, my experiences with faith.
C: I love that story. I love it on for a lot of different reasons. One, I love that it was very moving for you. I love that you did it. I think that was fantastic. You know, but a little background at the yoga Ashram. There was a obviously a Hindu influence there. And I remember his talk specifically, that by the leader that said If you want to stop eating cookies, and all you do is say, no more cookies, no more cookies, no more cookies, then you’re going to be obsessed with cookies, and cookies will come into your life. Like all of a sudden, you will be presented with a lot of cookies that you’ll have to you know, whatever. Because whatever you focus on is what’s going to be drawn to you.
I realized that part of that sounds like The Secret remember that a few years ago where you know you bring things to you. So it makes sense, the way she phrased what she wanted you to say is what she wanted. She didn’t want any, any, any little tiny little bit of what she didn’t want in that prayer. And I think that’s fantastic. I came across a quote about six months ago, maybe a little more. That said, worrying is like praying for what you don’t want.
I just love that now I don’t really understand exactly how the universe works. But if nothing else to focus on the positive and what you do want is just it just feels better,
right?
W: Yeah, absolutely. And isn’t that what we want faith to be? You know, if you’re going to believe in something, why not make it something that brings you a betterment of your reality? Instead of saying on what you don’t want?
C: Are you familiar with the author CS Lewis?
W: Yes. As a child, I loved him as a child, oh my goodness!
C: The Chronicles of Narnia. There were three movies that came out Chronicles of Narnia. Brilliant, I just the movies, I think did a good job. And the books are fantastic. Okay, now, I haven’t read them in a long, long, long time. But in my memory, near I think maybe in the last book, the author sets up this scenario where there’s it takes place in a time where there’s horses and fighting and swords and, you know, things like that. And so there’s, there’s a box that set up and the feeling is that you go into the box, you will meet your God. Right. And so the opposing army, the way they’ve they presented their God was fear. And God was this horrendous creature that had talents and fangs and whatever. And the idea is that it was the fear of God that was supposed to motivate you to do the right thing.
But these soldiers were like, just like shaking in their boots, and you would hear when they would go in one at a time, they’d be screams and whatever, you know, because they were meeting the God that, that they were had manifested in their minds. Whereas the heroes of our story, it was very much CS Lewis did a lot of Christian based analogies in his stories. Anyway, when they walked in, it was peace and joy and comfort. And they walked out with this wonderful smile in their face and feeling great, because that was how they envision their God so that when you said, faith and and that sort of thing, Which is an interesting word. It’s very subjective, but I like I kind of like that concept, but the other one has its validity. Obviously, there’s been a lot of religions that have been based on the fear of God. But I also like the idea of, you know, what do you really want as opposed to what do you not want?
Fascinating. This is so good. And just as a side note, I live in a Jewish neighborhood. My wife is Jewish, but not like, like, she’s Jew-ish. And, and so she didn’t grow up in a synagogue or any of that kind of stuff. But right next to me, is an orthodox family. And the husband is this great guy that we’ve had a lot of conversations with, and they’ve invited us over our house to his house for Saders and Shabbat and stuff. And then like, two houses the other direction is a conservative family. And the dad of that family is a Rabbi, but not at a synagogue. He heads up the Jewish Studies at a at a high school. So and they’ve also invited us over for Saders and Shabbat dinners and things like that. So that’s fascinating to me. And there’s so much love and family based stuff, which is another aspect to what we I would imagine, will be part of our conversations is how I guess the the dogma or the doctrine of whatever we were talking about, or have personally adopted would influence because I’m also a parent would influence the dynamics of the family as well.
W: Yeah, well, I would. So growing up, you know, obviously, I went to church on Sundays, but I also attended a Christian school. It was a private school. And it was just, it was called Carden Christian. And it was, you know, a couple cities over from where I lived. My mom actually taught there she was my fifth grade teacher. If you could imagine having your own mother as your teacher.
C: What was the grades at that school like?
W: They were it was, I believe it was through eighth grade. So kindergarten through eighth grade. And it was a private school. And yes, so ironically, fifth grade was when I started reading those Chronicles of Narnia. But what sets that apart for me from a very young age was yes, there were there were kids that were there that were also Mormon, very few. But by far and wide, like I remember my best friend was Persian. You know, and here’s why. And no kidding here, she was going to a Christian school praying every morning alongside me. And so I believed from a very young age for me personally, I realized that, looking back in hindsight as an adult, I fully understand that, you know, there’s a broad scope of belief systems at work, but even then, I was always very accepting of pretty much everything. Because as a child, I just I saw through any sort of differences, just feeling like, you’re human and I love you. And it didn’t matter to me what they were, as far as a background or where they were coming from like it, I just thought, well, we’re all on the same path. You know how I knew that as a fifth grader, I probably paid attention in my little Sunday school lessons. But, you know, knowing that, you know, we were all children of God, and that it didn’t matter what our differences were that we were all essentially the same.
C: And you’re blessed to have that level of, I guess, openness at that age at that young age. Because I remember that, that the culture that I grew up in is weird, because you can I think it’s a dichotomy where two things can simultaneously exist even though they seem to be the opposite. It was it was loving and you know, your friend was your friend and your family was your family and it was very loving and a lot of hugs and things like that, and yet, there was a deep fear of things that were not like us. You know, I mean, I guess maybe the older generation, my dad had been through the Second World War and the Korean War. And definitely we didn’t know what it was, but definitely PTSD. And there wasn’t any real lengthy conversation about any other faith, other than Well, you know, what they believe, you know, that kind of stuff.
And, and so, I think I was blessed to be put in environments where, you know, I was exposed to I still remember as in grade school when I met my first you. I remember clear as day Harold Khan, and probably fourth grade, and we’re getting ready for the winter break which back then we called it Christmas vacation. And, and I talked to him about Christmas and he says, We don’t do Christmas and I said what? Because that was just like, what are you an alien? What is that? What are you You don’t do what everybody does Christmas. How could you not? Yeah, what kind of horrendous, horrible life are you living? And so he said, No, we do Hanukkah. I said Hanukkah. What’s that? He says, Well, we do eight nights. And immediately any and I said “You could presents?” Oh yeah, every night. What? And that was it that was that was my like introduction to something outside of myself so to speak. And, and that interesting was your friend, do you? I don’t know if you were aware at that age or not, but was your Persian friend, Muslim or Persian Jewish?
W: You know, I have no idea. Yeah, I never even asked and it occurred to me, I suppose it didn’t matter.
C: Yeah, that’s an adult question. Yeah,
But it’s significant when you become an adult. You know, as as you and I are both in the wedding industry. I’m a wedding officiant (non-denominational.) And so you know the variety of cultures and traditions and is just the coolest thing that people want to incorporate because people especially nowadays, you know, with the internet and everything people meet, like, from halfway around the world, and, and, and or they’ll meet, but they come from other parts of the world. And I love that human connection that is just part of being a human being where you fall in love, and you think you actually could live the rest of your life with this person. But then, you know, the discussions with the families and what is the wedding ceremony supposed to be and all that kind of stuff. We live in a very interesting time. And we also have very interesting professions. No doubt.
W: We do. And to add to that, like I do a lot of what they call fusion weddings, where it’s people from two different faiths that both feel compelled to uphold both sides of my faith. So oftentimes, I’ll have a Christian ceremony in a little white church, you know, where I’m teaching the Hindu family how to do what we call a “white dress wedding” and then we reverse it. Either later that day or the next day where we go, and we have the Hindu ceremony, where I’m teaching the non Hindu family how to do a Hindu ceremony, you know, and so but it’s been, to me, I think that’s part of the greatest adventure of my job is being able to see how families come together instead of where, I think, I mean, I had the same thing that you did growing up where I remember it was like this us in them thing where, oh, they’re not Mormon, or they’re not Christian, or they’re not this or they’re not that, you know, I remember that being around me, but I think I just chose naturally to not let it be something that divided me from other people. And so because I took that nature of children of God very seriously, because I thought, Well, isn’t that kind of one of the 10 commandments is love one another? So I never really bought into that but but you know, watching these families embrace each other’s faith. And seeing the things that they do to bring love and community into joining have, essentially to face and knowing that they’re going to be raising children from two very diverse backgrounds, and how that will be done and embraced, I feel like, you know, even over the past 10 years, I’ve seen the evolution of that, where initially it was one or the other, where we would have like, either a white dress ceremony in a church or outside of the church, you know, with one officiant so there was only one ceremony versus having the two where you know, where it’s Hindu and Christian now we’re, we’re doing them both.
C: Well, I’m okay now you just touched on something that is going to lead into a lot of different conversations with different angles, and so they got so that’s a perfect place for us to wrap up this particular episode. And we off to a good start, we’re off to a very good start and listener, as you can tell, it is very much an organic thing and we really, really well We have all of our communication platforms set up, you know, social media and websites and all that kind of thing, we are definitely going to want your input. As a listener, we want you to be an active contributor and, and let us know what you’re curious about, or tell us a story that we can kind of discuss and explore. And all of that is in the future. And I’m very excited that Spiritual Cake is going to become an entity of its own and we get to ride that wave for for a long time. So Wendy, thank you very much for agreeing to go on this journey with me.
W: Oh, it is such a pleasure. It’s actually really exciting to me the concept of this and to bring more you know, good things to people’s lives that they don’t have to be fearful of.
C: There you go. Let’s ride with that. Alright, that’s it for this episode of Spiritual Cake. This is Clinton on behalf of Wendy. We will see you next time.
