What Is Your Personal Religion?

Clint  0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to the spiritual cake podcast where we talk about anything and everything that has to do with that side of humanity, the thing we called the spiritual side. It’s a little bit more than just the material side or the intellectual side or the emotional side. It’s the spiritual side. My name is Clint hufft. And with me is Wendy Dahl. Wendy,

Wendy  0:21

Hello. Hello.

Clint  0:26

Now for those of you that are joining us for the very first time, please understand that neither Wendy nor I are ordained clergy. We are not. We are not certified in anything that would be considered theological. Well, I’m not are you?

Wendy

No.

Clint  0:42

Yeah. Okay. Wendy comes from a Mormon background. I was raised in the Lutheran Church, and then we’re both in the event industry and that has exposed us to a myriad of philosophies and cultures and theologies, and I also went on my own journey where I studied Eastern philosophies and things like that. Alright, so we’ve been having great conversations, as you know, if you’re not trying to defend a position. You know how they say don’t talk about politics or religion? Mm hmm. And I think it’s because people kind of dig their feet in the sand before the conversation even begins. And I’ve also thought that it’s threatening. That’s why people get so emotional about it, is because you’re threatening their position. And if they identify with it, if their ego is attached to whatever that position is, then it’s just going to be a rough, rough situation. But that leads me to what I want to talk about today. And before we hit the record button, you had gotten a book and you were talking about the different types of books and how, if they’re in an exploratory process, then it’s more attractive. Well, I can say to me, it’s more attractive as opposed to the definitive This is the way it is. This is the one true… I have a little tough time with that. You know what I mean?

Wendy  2:04

I do.

Clint  2:05

Well, I’ve often said that I think that there are as many religions as there are people on the face of the earth. And so if you don’t mind, I’d like to flesh that out a little bit. Let me back up a little bit. I grew up in the church, and then, when I was 19, I stopped going to church and, and then I processed some things, and I went back. I don’t forget every reason why I went back, but I’m then I’m with the youth group that I grew up in and used to run. And then somebody says, Well, what do you believe in now? And I said, Well, I still believe in Christ, but I believe in a universal Christ. Then I kind of explained what that meant to me. So what I’m thinking is, we have talked, I think, in episode number one, about how our own personal spiritual journey, how you get to a certain point where you question things, and then you kind of have to figure things out. In terms of what works for you as an individual, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to ask you that question. But I’m going to phrase it a different way. What is Wendy’s religion?

Wendy  3:15

What a great question. Because I believe you are correct as far as religions being different for different people, actually, the kids and I talked about this quite a bit. We’re Mormon, but we realized within more Mormonism or in fact, any sort of religion, that there’s varying degrees of how people interpret it, how they perceive it, how they apply it into their lives, and we all fall on a spectrum of differences of opinion even within the same religion. And this comes up a lot in conversation we’re talking about right now. We cannot meet you In our churches, and so we’re doing spiritual learning online, we’re doing it among our families. And so it’s modified a bit. For instance, we were just talking about how different it is in my household when we have these spiritual conversations, that we don’t have to get dressed up for it as if we’re going to church. We don’t have to have any sort of formality that says this is how I would present myself in front of God. It’s just us talking about spiritual things where, when they go to their dad’s house, it’s you must be in your Sunday best and everything as if you were going to church to do this sort of spiritual conversation. I always come back to the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, where where some people interpret things based on what is said and they take it line by line word for word, meaning that you’re going to be a certain way in order to worship or that you’re going to worship a certain way where the spirit of the law is, aren’t you glad we’re talking about spiritual things? And we’re growing in a spiritual way, that it doesn’t matter what we’re wearing. It matters that we’re having the conversation, and that we’re uplifting each other. And so obviously, I’m a Mormon. I would say I’m probably one of the more conservative types, but sort of in a moderate way. I guess.

I know that just sounds like a total dichotomy, doesn’t it?

Clint  5:43

So you’re hedging your bets. It sort of sounds like to me it’s kind of like you’re playing two sides of the coin.

Wendy  5:47

Well, yes. And no, I mean, I would say conservative in the ways of, I still go to church. I still believe in the ideology. I believe in it. You know what they teach. And I believe in the Book of Mormon, the Bible. I believe all of the things, but the moderate side of me comes from the spirit of the lot where I feel like the people that are fundamentally to the nines Mormon, they call them Peter priesthood or Mary Mormons, where they’re the people that follow everything to the team.

Clint  6:23

I love. I love that

Wendy  6:25

you have all the Mormons and so but they’re the people that are the letter of the law that are extreme In my opinion, because, to me, the moderation comes from the spirit of the law. The kids have even noticed a difference between the sort of teachings that we get locally versus, every year bi-annually they do a general conference where we are taught by the leaders of the church and all of their topics in their talks, lend to the spiritual side of the law, where it’s who Are you becoming How are you becoming that person, these are the things that you need to be versus it being here’s the step by step system of repentance, or here’s the step by step system of the word of wisdom, it could just be when you repent, this is what needs to happen as far as the end result. So for me, that’s where I get the whole conservative side because I do believe in all the ideology, but the moderate side for me is because I’m not taking things to the nth degree and applying things so precisely that it takes over my life. And often when people ask me about what kind of Mormon am I cuz I’m sure people get that question across the board of whatever religion they are. I liken it to Judaism, and how you have Orthodox Jews that unscrew their lightbulbs and they don’t drive their cars. And like their Sabbath day has a letter of the law that they still follow. Where in any other form of Judaism and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but like conservative Jews and reformed Jews don’t necessarily unscrew their light bulbs and do all those things. And so it’s the same thing in Mormonism, as I’m sure it is in most other religions.

Does that answer your question?

Clint  8:28

Well, no, but it is very enlightening. The question was, what is your personal religion? And I think what you did was lay the groundwork for how you are constructing your personal religion. And so I’m willing to accept that when, willing to accept it like I’m Mr. bossy pants. But what’s interesting is, I think I’ve told you about one of the other podcasts that I host and produce and it’s called the Jew Next Door. And my next door neighbor is an Orthodox Jew. A really nice guy. And we have conversations similar to what you and I talked about, except for obviously, it’s my curiosity on why do you do this? And why do you do that? And what I’ve learned, and I love this, my personal journey includes these conversations as often as I can have them. What do you believe? What is it? I’m really curious about that? Because my underlying premise is anything is possible. When we’re talking about things beyond us, that we’ve acknowledged, we’re limited by our human minds, and so anything is possible. At some point down the road, you and I will talk about some of the other idiosyncrasies of the Mormon process or the Mormon faith or the Mormon rituals. But what he said is fascinating, because it is very restrictive, but he loves it. He loves it because the way he embraces it, as a spiritual path is He doesn’t think of it in regards to restrictions or rules or things like that. He thinks of it as another way that he can honor the Almighty. That’s how we refer to God. He calls it the Almighty. Right. And, that’s what I think is the key ingredient is that if whatever you’re doing, connects you with that feeling of joy that comes with your interaction with the Divine or God or the Almighty, then I think you’re on the right path. And that’s just my interpretation of it. I think it’s important to have a structure of instruction. To begin the process. We talked about meditation in a previous episode, and how there’s a lot of different ways to meditate, but you have to have something that kind of gets you going. If I’m going to teach you how to play basketball. Then there’s there’s a step by step process right and you talk about anything else you want to learn there is at the beginning a step by step process, so you understand the structure of it. And then there’s a world class, I mean, like the best of the best musician, Wynton Marsalis. He’s a trumpet player. And he has won Grammy Awards in both the classical format and also the jazz format. And he said something that really struck me. He said, you have to learn the fundamentals. Before you can really improvise, you have to be rock solid in the fundamentals and the structure of music before you can start improvising like they do in jazz. Right. And I thought that’s true for everything. Yeah, I mean, you can make up stuff and you can try to do it, but is it really going to be the thing? Like if I can pick up a baseball, it doesn’t mean I know how to play baseball. But I think that when we talk about spiritual practice, There is a lot of validity and a real necessity for a beginning process. But then once you’ve kind of locked into that, then we can’t help it. We’re human beings and we start to morph. You know what I mean? We start to, the way anything would. And it’s really difficult for me to not criticize other people, and whatever they do, and believe in. I can suspect that some people are doing things out of fear. Some people are doing things out of anger, but I don’t really know for sure exactly what their internal process is and so that’s where I have to say we’re all on our own path. Which brings me back to what is Wendy’s religion?

Wendy  12:58

Honestly I feel like I addressed your question. Well, okay, Mormon, but I am. While I’m conservative, I’m also moderate. And so that’s where I feel like, I don’t know how else to answer your question. Yeah,

Clint  13:13

I know, because I’m not asking you the right question. That’s my fault. I really do believe that. I think the right question is everything. So what I’m curious about is within the way that you look at, Hmm, maybe I should provide an example of my own process. So when people say, Are you Christian, just to give an answer, I’ll say yes. But in my head, I’m thinking, I’m a lot more than what I would think defines a typical Christian. Because there are some people who say, if you don’t behave in this way, and you don’t behave in that way, and you don’t believe this specific thing, you are not a real Christian. And so I realized that that’s a little scary, because I’m being judged and excluded. And, on a very primal level, that’s scary for most human beings. But, the reality is, is that I am a lot more flexible than that, because I don’t want to put human restrictions on God. And, I remember, there was one war that we were in decades ago. And a military commander said something, one of the press asked him something about God or whatever, depending because the people that we were in conflict with their general religion was something else. And he made the statement that I thought, Oh, dude, you need to have more talks with your PR person. Because he said, Well, I think my god is greater than their God.

And I thought I Oh, come on now. Come on. Now. If you’re trying To resolve a conflict, what are you doing? And then there’s another guy that I know, that really embraced the Christian faith. And he started to speak. And, he was in a movie, Christian based movie and that kind of stuff. And he actually recounted to me a conversation that he had with someone who was from Islam. We call that Muslim. And so he literally said to this guy, oh, my God died for me. What did your God do?

And I thought, you don’t have enough education. You don’t realize what you just did. And he said to me, that the guy that he was talking to started to shake and tremble, and his face was so full of anger. And I said, I didn’t say this out loud to him, but I said, You’re lucky you’re still alive. Because many people have been killed for saying stuff like that. Right? And that doesn’t justify the killing. What that means Is that, I think, as we build our own religions, we take into consideration all the input that we have from everybody we’ve come into contact with and all the things that we’ve learned or studied or heard or whatever. And we construct something that kind of fits us. Like for instance, I leave a lot of things just open. I think that everything is possible. I think that reincarnation is possible. Now, as I’m listing these things, please understand, I really haven’t wrapped my mind around it. But I think reincarnation is possible. I think that our consciousness moving to some other place is possible. I think that our consciousness moving to a completely different realm is possible. And I think it is possible that we are just an accident of chemistry. And it’s possible that when our body stops working, and our mind shuts down, that that’s that. That scares me. I’d rather that didn’t happen. I really, truly believe that our Consciousness does move on. But I don’t have definitive proof of that. It’s only what I choose to believe. So that’s just kind of scratching the surface. But does it make sense? The way I’ve explained it to you?

Wendy  17:12

It does. And now I understand how you want me to answer the question, not how you want me to answer the question, but the answer that you were looking for. Okay.

So you asked me what my religion is. And so I think the best way to answer that would be, I am Mormon, foundationally. But I believe in so many other things, I believe in the possibilities and in the goodness of many things. Like you were talking about reincarnation, I always tease about that, and I do believe that the consciousness does go on. I mean, if we all talk about the hereafter, that is exactly what that is, is where your consciousness goes somewhere else. It leaves your body. My daughter and I talk often about the frequencies and things and energy and all of the scientific sort of elements that are surround us, and how to draw upon those powers and draw upon those gifts. And so if you were to ask a Mormon, what they thought about that they’d tell you, you were crazy. But we look at it like, well, isn’t every element on this earth from God? And why wouldn’t he put things here for us that could serve us in ways that we don’t understand? And, so I understand what you’re saying. So I would say that how about open minded Mormon because as I do weddings with people from other cultures, I see all of the good in them, and I see all of the similarities in them and to a point it is Makes me feel sad that people continue through their lives with their minds close to everything else without even realizing how similar they are to others. And so I would say that from doing my job as a wedding planner and working with multicultural events, and learning about all of the different religions and all of the different things that people have done rituals that they’ve done for centuries, how there’s truth in them.

Clint  19:36

Well, truth is an interesting word, isn’t it? I think truth is subjective.

Wendy  19:40

Well, sure, just like goodness and faith and all the other things that we talk about, it’s all subjective. And for me, I see the the goodness and the truth in these things. work to me they feel good and true.

Clint  19:57

Okay, good. I understand because that’s like an emotional feeling. I have a feeling this is another episode. But true is such an interesting word. Because it’s almost one of those things that doesn’t have a definite definition. Because it’s so interpretive. That whole thing of, he said, she said, or there’s your side of the story, there’s my side of the story, then there’s the actual story, your truth, my truth, and then the actual truth, which I think most people think of it in terms of factual stuff, what actually happened, you know what I mean? But oh, my gosh, this is juicy stuff. You know why, and I hope that this is true for everybody who listens, is because we want it to be non threatening, even if it’s contrary to what you have accepted as your own personal doctrine, for want of a better word, that it’s not threatening. That we’re not trying to change anybody’s mind. In fact, what we’re trying to do is, hopefully, everybody shares their mind, so that we have this wonderful big buffet of things to consider.

Does that make sense?

Wendy  21:14

Yes. And it’s also making room for it ideas and other things. You know, just because I believe in truth and other religions and other things doesn’t mean that I’m not Mormon, or that I’m less of one. Or I feel like there are certain people that would feel threatened by that would be like, no, if you believe anything different than what they talk about at church, then then you’re wrong, and you’re bad. Or I feel like why would you limit yourself to just one set of thought, or one way of thinking, why wouldn’t you think that there’s possibility and many other things, and why would it be that I don’t know for me The whole framework of limitation on thought and belief doesn’t resonate with me where I feel like foundationally I can be Mormon. Yeah, I can also believe that there’s other things that are good.

Clint  22:15

I think what we are addressing is whether it matters and everybody has their own parameters for what matters. Everybody has their own criteria for what matters. If people have attached whether or not there is a hereafter or whether or not the quality of that Hereafter is attached to specific behaviors or beliefs, then I completely understand how they would shut the door on anything other than that. And a lot of those people would want you to adopt their way of thinking because they think it leads to something great, and it avoids something horrible. Talking about heaven and hell, or something beyond that. So I would like to as we’ve run out of time for this episode, but I would like to push forward into this way of contemplating all these different ideas, because I really keep going back to my next door neighbor. He has never at any point said anything that pushes me away or denigrates anything that that I believe. All he does is embrace and find great joy in what he does. In fact, most of us think that in the Old Testament, Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the 10 commandments, right. But my next door neighbor says, just so you know, there’s 613 or 631 actual commandments, and he says they’re broken into three categories. What did he say? I forget the first But it’s like, we do this because it has this outcome. And we do this because it has this outcome. But these other things we do just because God asked us to do it. And it’s just another way for us to connect to God, because that’s his underlying motivation was, how can I help? How can I more deeply connect to the almighty? And if that’s his motivation for doing these things, then? I mean, there are things that in the Mormon religion, there are things that they do. They’re in the Christian as well, some of the Protestant and the Catholic, there are things that they do, and the spirit is like you said, then the spirit underneath it is so joyful. I would love to like explore each one of those things. Does that make sense?

Wendy  24:54

It does and and I believe that that’s really foundationally what what I’m looking for. And when it comes to spirituality is how can I more deeply connect with God? And is He in more places than just one, in a more theologies than just one? Yeah, you know the questions.

Clint  25:14

I’m glad you said the word theologies. Could you say just one place is one I’m thinking to see MTD. Where is he? Tahiti?

Wendy  25:21

Where’s God? If you’re from Tahiti, that’s probably what you believe. That’s why I’m saying like, is God in nature? Is God in science? Is God in religion? Is God in your family? Is God in your heart? These are all the questions that I think people need to just step back and think, why maybe God’s everywhere and for me, he’s in one place, really is cutting me off from all the other babies that God represents, or comes into existence. And that’s really where I feel like the juice of this conversation comes from exactly that.

Clint  26:00

This is so much fun. I’m so excited for future episodes because oh, there’s so much to chew on. This is great. I’m really excited. I just, I would love to find out why people do what they do. And I’ll share some of the things that Well, I’ve already shared. What my next door neighbor Chaim, the underlying motivation for what he does and it’s so filled with joy, that I think it’d be cool if we started looking at other things that certain religions do just part of their rituals, and figure out what is the reason for it? And then, and then just go from there. Is that cool? Are you cool with that?

Wendy

I’m so cool with that. So excited.

Clint  26:41

Alright, everybody, there you go. That’s what this is. It’s an exploration and we, for you to connect with us. Wendy knows a lot more about this kind of stuff than I do. Wendy, how can they get in touch with us?

Wendy  26:52

The easiest way is to go to spiritualcake.com you can send us an email and join the conversation. You can reply to any One of our posts in the blog where we post our recent episodes, or you can click one of the social icon buttons and connect with us on Instagram and Facebook.

Clint  27:11

Why don’t see why No. Oh, there you go. Thank you everybody for being a part of this joyful journey. And we really look forward to hearing from you and listen if you want to, you can find us in the Apple Store. And wherever else you listen to podcasts and click on the subscribe button. That way anytime we post a new episode and we do one every week, then it’ll automatically come into your world. And if you’d like to leave us a review, that would be great. And if you’d like to share it with somebody and let them know to kind of join the conversation, that would be fantastic. Alright, that’s it for this episode of the spiritual cake podcast. This is Clint and on behalf of Wendy, we will see you next time.