Ep. 185 - Tony Jones ”The God of Wild Places” pt. 2

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[00:01:04] Welcome to the Deconstructionist podcast. I'm your host, John Williamson, and we are back with part two, the second half of my interview with the good Dr. Tony Jones. Again, super, super excited to have him back on after it had been quite some time.

[00:01:19] Tony is out with a brand new book. We talk all about that and everything that's happened since I think it was about 2016 when we first had him on. But his brand new book is called The God of Wild Places Rediscovering the Divine in the Untamed Outdoors.

[00:01:33] And again, just as a general reminder for those of you that like to stream these episodes from our website, again, as I mentioned last week's podcast, a little mix up confusion on the back end in regards to our domain name and coming up for expiration.

[00:01:52] And we had no idea that it had expired until somebody else grabbed the domain name and some funky sort of Asian website popped up. And so appreciate you guys letting us know. We jumped on that right away. Our website guy, Ryan Battles, who's amazing,

[00:02:10] quickly got us back up and running. So the new domain name is www.ddeconstructionist.org. So the only difference is as opposed to .com, which is what it used to be. It is now .org. So same website, just a slightly tweaked domain name.

[00:02:28] But we're back up and running, hopefully. And again, you can get to our Patreon through there, our merch store, read our blogs and stream all almost 180, I think at the point at the time this comes out, 180 something episodes on there. So check it out. Again, Tony, amazing guest.

[00:02:49] You know, we just had a great time having a conversation as always. So go check out the new book. All the links are in our show notes. And without further ado, I give you Tony freaking Jones. I love that. So talk about we've discussed this this concept before.

[00:03:18] We've had Dr. Alexander Shia on multiple times, and he does regular trips to the Camino in Spain. And so you talk about in your book the concept of the pilgrimage. But also I think you would agree.

[00:03:31] Shia also talks about the fact that you don't necessarily need to travel to Europe to go on a pilgrimage and you talk about your own pilgrimage. So discuss that a little bit. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, I talk about it in the book in two different ways.

[00:03:43] One is we have this property in central Minnesota that my grandfather bought in 1964. That's just this enormous blessing to me. I have a whole chapter on it in there because it's like become my spiritual home.

[00:03:57] And I remember when I was a kid, we'd be like, oh, get in the car. Two hour drive. And that's if there's no traffic. It might be three hours if we hit traffic, you know, and you're sitting in the back

[00:04:08] and bored out of your scope, obviously pre-cellphones or whatever. Oh, no. Yeah, I know. I know. It's like my daughter. Yeah, I'm hoping someday all these cell phones just like self-destruct. And yes, in the final episode of Black Mirror, they all just

[00:04:27] yes, dissolve in our pockets and people freak out. Like, how do I talk to other people? Yeah, I'd be so happy. But the drive now, the drive now, I've really just shifted my mindset on it.

[00:04:41] Like the drive is part of preparing me to leave the city and go out into the country. And it's the same when I go on hunting trips. You know, a lot of times there are much longer drives.

[00:04:51] I don't know, six hours, 12 hours to go hunting out west of Minnesota. And and I've grown to like really enjoy those, enjoy the pilgrimage to knowing that that is the that has always been a part of like shriving us of our sins is the pilgrimage

[00:05:11] is the walk. Right. If you just get dropped off in Santiago and walk into the cathedral, you know, that's nothing. But if you walk 300 kilometers and meet people along the way and talk about what's going on in your life, well, that's what prepares you to enter the cathedral.

[00:05:29] Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. Dr. Shia also he talks about the fact that when he takes people, they have a rule where they can't bring technology with them.

[00:05:39] And so it's like this very clean sort of clutter free, you know, white noise free sort of experience where you are commuting with nature and you're in tune to everything around you between the beginning and when they finally arrive at the final destination.

[00:05:55] I think that's such a huge important thing that we take for granted these days. Oh, yeah, for sure. I take I take people, mostly pastors into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which is a million acre wilderness area in northern Minnesota right on the border with Canada.

[00:06:12] And thankfully, cell phone towers can't reach like 90 percent of it. So, you know, oh, can I bring my phone? It's I don't even have a camera. It's what I take pictures with. I'm like, OK, you can bring your phone, but I don't want to see it.

[00:06:26] Like I don't want to see your phone and I don't use it. I don't I mean, yes, you could I could use a GPS, but I don't. I use a paper map and a compass.

[00:06:37] I'm like retrograding to analog, you know, because that's to me that's what I'm missing.

[00:06:44] And a big part of my book, as you know from having read it, that I think is a part of my spirituality that has just come to the fore in the last few years is I have such a desire to.

[00:07:00] Have how would I even say it to commune with my ancestors? And I don't mean that like this is not like animism or ancestor worship or something like that, but I just really feel like we are so cut

[00:07:14] off from the way that Homo sapiens have lived for one hundred and twenty thousand years. Like our technology has advanced so much, so quickly. And I want to be like, that's not how we got here.

[00:07:31] How we got here was hunting, walking on our feet, paddling canoes, you know, swimming. That's how Homo sapiens became the most invasive species on the planet. Yeah. By doing those things. So I'm just more and more intrigued by those ways of life.

[00:07:54] Well, it made me think about, too, it's like one of the few things that you can do that's the same as what your ancestors did, meaning like, you know, sitting in a car and listening to traffic.

[00:08:05] You know, that's not something that my great, great, great grandfather could identify with, you know, but sitting out in the middle of the woods and just taking in the sounds of nature and just appreciating the beauty of the forest is something that, yeah, they could identify with that.

[00:08:21] Oh, yeah, for sure. And that's exactly what I'm thinking about when I'm out there is I'm trying to think about who these people were that got us to where we are. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them.

[00:08:34] You know, I just, I find, I mean, I'm sure you've got people in your listenership who are against hunting, who are vegetarians or vegans for ethical reasons. I understand that. But I also am like, how do you think we got here? Like we got here by, we're predators.

[00:08:59] We got here by eating meat. And honestly, we got here because we figured out, unlike a lot of other animals, how to cook our meat.

[00:09:07] So it killed a lot of the pathogens in the meat, which meant a lot more of us survived, you know, than other species that are eating pathogenic raw meat. Yeah, we're carnivores. It's just who we are. And I'm less interested in denying that fact.

[00:09:27] I had a student, one of my students text me last week and he was asking about human beings as social creatures. And don't you think that human beings are, we're social because we reflect the Trinity, the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

[00:09:51] And I was like, I mean, yes, but we're really social because that's how we evolved. That's how we survived. Like we tribed up, you know, we clanned up and we figured out how to hunt and gather and protect ourselves.

[00:10:10] And then we brought, then we domesticated wolves and brought dogs into the mix and they could both help us hunt and they could protect us, you know, from other predators who are out to get us at night so we could sleep longer, so our brains would grow bigger.

[00:10:25] And I'm like, I keep searching for the Trinity in all this data about how, why we're communal and I bet it's in there. But maybe also the Trinity is like a theological reflection on our, maybe it's, maybe the chicken followed the egg. You know what I mean? Yeah.

[00:10:43] It's the other way around. So I'm more interested, I guess, in following those threads, like you're saying of who were, if my ancestors sat out in this field, what did they think? What did they see? You know, they did not have AirPods in. Right. Right. Yeah.

[00:11:02] They weren't texting anybody. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they were staring at the same moon, you know, that we are, which is a strange thing to think about. How many people over, you know, centuries have all stared at the same moon, you know?

[00:11:18] But it's also interesting that you mentioned sort of the evolution and the beautiful byproduct is that, you know, guess what? Like being communal and having a sweetheart of a dog, you know, that you talk about in the book, makes life better. It makes it more enjoyable.

[00:11:34] You have someone to share life with. And, you know, there's a reason that the person who sits out in the cabin alone slowly goes crazy. You know, it's like we're meant to be with other people and share this crazy thing called life together with others, you know?

[00:11:52] Yeah, that's for sure true. And I do think, I'm a big dog guy.

[00:11:56] And I do think, you know, we, as I make the point in this book that this unique relationship we have with this other species, I mean, by unique, I mean, it is one of a kind on this planet, this interspecies relationship between human beings and canines.

[00:12:15] It's unlike any other relationship between two species and that, you know, that makes it special and adds to our enjoyment of life. And there's another chapter in the book about, which will probably catch some readers a little bit off guard, but it's about meat and about butchering animals.

[00:12:34] And, you know, when you talk about like finding meaning, I find so much meaning in my eating, which we all do it every day, you know? And we do so much of it. Sadly, we do it so much of it so mindlessly.

[00:12:56] We just jam food in our face while we're driving, you know? We quick grab something because we got to get our kid to practice or to a lesson or we're late to do something or this or that.

[00:13:06] And I think our ancestors were a lot more mindful of their eating. It's funny when my wife went through yoga teacher training, she had to like eat yogically for a week, which meant she was supposed to like chew every bite 30 times or something.

[00:13:26] And if you try, I mean, talk about driving you insane. That would like that might drive somebody insane. I don't think she actually did 30 mastications for every bite of food she took. Right.

[00:13:37] But the point of it is, of course, slow the hell down, pay attention, put your phone down, like look at what you're eating.

[00:13:47] And I'll just submit to you and the listeners, like if you have been a part of harvesting that meat, of shooting that deer or that pheasant or that duck, of doing the butchering, not outsourcing that to somebody you've never met, some anonymous person in a factory, but you've actually got blood on your hands.

[00:14:09] The meaning that adds to meals cannot be overstated for me. For me. It's not for everybody I get it. And it's never easy as I write in the book to like kill your first animal is really challenging for those of us who didn't grow up doing it.

[00:14:27] People who grew up on a farm and chopped chickens heads off, like grandma's like, go get a chicken. It's Sunday, go get a chicken chop.

[00:14:34] You know, people, I know people who are farmers and they're like, oh yeah, I mean, killing animals is like, it's just part of their rhythm of life. But for those of us urbanites, it's not.

[00:14:44] And to get back into it has been a huge transformation of how I live my life day to day.

[00:15:45] Yeah. And I think what's important is you mentioned in the book, you talk about the fact that, you know, hunting for you and I've heard this perspective, by the way, from, from friends of mine as well, who take it very seriously.

[00:15:54] It's, it's not for trophies or for, you know to mount a head on the wall, you know, in your lodge or whatever. It's, it's it's more of a, for lack of better word, a spiritual experience.

[00:16:05] Like you realize what this animal is providing to you as a result of it's, you know, the sacrifice that it's making, you know, it's keeping you alive, literally. Literally. And you know, you're right.

[00:16:19] I mean, there are trophy hunters out there and sadly they're the ones who are probably most active on social media, you know, showing off their big box that they've killed or going to Africa and shooting a bunch of animals whose meat they've killed.

[00:16:34] Or a bunch of animals whose meat they don't consume because you can't even, you know, you fly the head back so you can hang it on your wall. That's, I get it. I mean, I know people like that. That's not the kind of hunting I do.

[00:16:47] The kind of hunting I do is for the love of the hunt to work with in partnership with my dog and to procure food for me and my family.

[00:17:00] I mean, Courtney and I are empty nesters now and our goal is to be, to eat, to have all of our meat be wild game. Wow. That we would not buy meat anymore. And we're not there yet.

[00:17:15] But I know I had a guy on my podcast earlier this year and he and his wife, they eat only wild game. They haven't bought meat in years. And that's like, that's a commitment. That's a lot.

[00:17:30] Cause it's not only a lot of meat you have to procure, but it's a lot of butchering. It's like a lot of freezer space. It's a lot of prep time.

[00:17:39] It's a lot more work than running to the store and buying a steak or buying, you know, I mean, shit, you don't even, you can just buy the rotisserie chicken. You don't even have to cook it anymore. Yeah, that's right. It's all done.

[00:17:53] It's still warm in the plastic when you get home. It's true. It's like, I, you know, I think about that too, where it's not lost on me, where this meat comes from, you know, I've, I've never personally hunted. Um, yeah, I'm not, certainly not against it.

[00:18:07] I have friends who do it. And again, they're all of them consistently, I can say are, are in the same mindset as you are, where they, they use everything. Uh, they don't take it for granted.

[00:18:17] Um, you know, a lot of them will share, you know, so like, I can't eat this entire, you know, buck, but like, I, you know, they'll, they'll give us. Steaks and, and what are they, what do they call it?

[00:18:29] Trail sausage or, you know, just delicious by the way. Oh yeah. So good. So good.

[00:18:35] But yeah, like, you know, my, my brothers and I, you know, we have friends who do hunt and we'll say, Hey, if you, if you get one, you know, like send, send some our way, but, but we know where it comes from.

[00:18:45] It's not, you know, we're not living in a denial here. Um, but yeah, I think, I think that's an important distinction to make.

[00:18:53] And you talk about like, you kind of alluded to this, you talk about the process of butchering and this idea that, um, you, you call it creatureliness creature.

[00:19:04] Hard to say, but, um, but how we kind of engage in our own, like, uh, sort of like self-reflection as a creature when sort of like doing, you know, processing an animal after, after a hunt. Yeah.

[00:19:20] There's, there's a, I mean, there's, there's a part in the book that goes a little deep theologically, but one of the theologians with whom I interact is Rudolph Otto, who was a Lutheran theologian at the beginning of the 20th century.

[00:19:34] And he wrote about creatureliness and that this is how we, when we actually have worshipful experiences and we, because we come in contact with the creatures. With the divine who is so, so incredible.

[00:19:55] So awful, like so full of awe, fills us with so much awe or I, or, or people use the word sublime. We're overwhelmed by who God is because the other side of that coin is we're reminded of our own creatureliness, our own finitude. Right.

[00:20:14] And so that's, that's right. A big part for me, especially in the chapter on death is like coming in touch with my own mortality and my own finitude.

[00:20:25] That I think, I mean, this goes back to like, this is, this is not even really, this is pre-Christian, you know, this is like, uh, uh, Hellenistic stoicism is like pay attention to your own mortality. Remember your own death every day.

[00:20:42] And that will make you live a better life because you'll be, you know, you'll be aware of who you, of where you're going to end up. So you're going to make this life count that much more. Yeah.

[00:20:55] I thought that was, was one of my, uh, one of my more favorite chapters in the book is that entire chapter that you have on the subject of death and talking about how we as humans view death, uh, where you talk about the fact that we inherently fear, fear death, you know, to varying

[00:21:11] degrees, obviously, but that by rehearsing, as you say, rehearsing our own deaths daily, we purge ourselves of that fear. Talk about what you mean by that. Well, that's just, that's like a really ancient axiom for not just in Christianity. It is in Christianity.

[00:21:29] There's this famous, um, phrase like in Greek over the monastery on Mount Athos that says if we die before we die, then we don't die when we die. You know, this kind of thing, which is beautiful and oxymoronic and, um, poetic.

[00:21:49] Um, but, um, even in like, as I already mentioned in like ancient stoicism, there's this idea of memento mori.

[00:22:00] So if you think of, um, you know, when you were a kid and you went to the art museum on a field trip and you saw a painting from the Renaissance, a still life that maybe would have like a couple pheasants hanging and it'd have a flower pot with some flowers in it.

[00:22:16] And then there'd be a skull. And this was the way that this was like, remember you're going to die. It's like the memento mori, remember your mortality.

[00:22:27] And the, the, the, the, the truth behind that being, if you remember your death, if your death is always like in front of you, in your, in your, uh, uh, view, in your view,

[00:22:44] then you will live a better life because you'll treat other people better because you're not immortal and you're going to make the most of every day, you know, this kind of thing.

[00:22:54] So, um, really, I mean, one of the things where the, I think the church has failed as I write in the book is that there was so little talk of death. Nobody wants to talk about it. I get it.

[00:23:11] When you hunt like I do, you are so in touch with death. And frankly, you don't even have to hunt. You can just go take a walk in the woods and you see death.

[00:23:21] Like you see trees that have fallen over and died and out of them, out of a dead tree is growing what, you know, mushrooms and a million little bugs are in there eating.

[00:23:35] And maybe the next little tree is growing up out of the hummus of the decaying dead tree. You know, you, you just, you see a carcass, you see a rib cage of a deer that was taken down by wolves last winter and has been picked clean.

[00:23:53] And you're just like confronted with death all the time. And we, we've so sequestered death in modern life. You know, people die in hospitals and then they put a sheet over them and they get them down to the basement of the hospital.

[00:24:06] And then the funeral director comes over in the hearse, picks up the body, takes it over to the morgue. We don't even have, I mean, unless you're Catholic, most people don't even have any kind of open casket wake or viewing anymore.

[00:24:21] Now it's a lot of times like celebration of life, no body, not even an urn with ashes, like bring balloons and wear tie dye shirts. We're going to celebrate someone's life. We'll have a picture of them upfront. It's like, there's a dead body.

[00:24:34] Let's talk about the dead body. It's so much a part of, of the, of who we are.

[00:24:40] And so, yeah, I just, it's another part of the reason I go outside and I get my hands dirty is because I think it makes me a better human being to be more in touch with death. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:24:56] And as you say, if it's, if it's something that we, we shy away from, of course it's going to be more terrifying and more frightening.

[00:25:05] But if it's part of our everyday conversation and it's something that we can talk about openly and we can see, like, I think what you described is this beautiful way of seeing the rebirth that's happening with the death.

[00:25:18] You know, as you, as you mentioned, a tree falls down and all of a sudden other life springs up from it. It's death and rebirth right there, right in front of your eyes out in nature. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I, it's what I love.

[00:25:32] It's the same thing that I love about being an outdoors person, because being so much more in touch with the seasons and like, you know, we're passing through these seasons all the time.

[00:25:45] And, you know, back in the day, we were, our forebears, even in the Christian church, were so in touch with the seasons that like the liturgical calendar is reflective of the agricultural calendar and the hunting calendar, you know, this kind of thing.

[00:26:01] And it's, it's weird for us urban digital people because we're maybe not as in touch with it other than like, oh, well, we'll have to work from home today because it's a snowstorm and you don't want to drive in it or whatever.

[00:26:16] But obviously we've, you and I've talked a lot about our ancestors. Man, the weather. What, I mean, what affected their lives more than the weather? You know what I mean? So yeah, it's other stuff.

[00:26:29] Like there's a little mention in the book about famine, you know, some of the great dramas of the Bible took place on the, like the stage on which the drama takes place is famine. Yeah.

[00:26:41] Because it's just, it lends itself toward dramatic things happening when people are hungry and they're starting to get a little bit desperate and they don't know where their food's going to come from. And we just don't even know what that's like.

[00:26:52] You know, we just go to the store and it's like, I don't know why there's only 200 types of breakfast cereal to choose from. Couldn't there be 225? You know, this kind of thing. Yeah.

[00:27:02] So, uh, yeah, it's, these are all the things that I personally, having gone through some great kind of personal crisis in my life and got had the opportunity that was forced upon me to reset and say what really matters. What's really important to me.

[00:27:20] And these are the things and that's, you know, back to what you asked at the very beginning. That's why I wrote the book. These are the things that have become really important. Yeah. So I think the great place to sort of end our time together today.

[00:27:35] So what, what is your ultimate hope for this book for, for others who, uh, who pick it up? Well, if they go to Godofwildplaces.com and find the book and buy it, um, I think that, you know, I think that's the best way to go.

[00:27:51] I think that ultimate goal, I mean, I, I hope people like my writing. I hope they think that it's, it's beautifully written. I worked really hard at the writing part of it. I take that part really, really seriously.

[00:28:08] And on the ideas part, on the ideas side, I hope that people find, like in good memoirs, I think even if you didn't live that story yourself, you can find yourself in that story.

[00:28:20] So I hope that people find parts of the book that they find inspirational, maybe challenging, but mainly just that they want to keep reading and, and, um, finding themselves in the story. And then maybe even put the book down and go outside. I love it. I love it.

[00:28:41] So the God of, well, excuse me, the God of Wild Places, Rediscovering the Divine in the Untamed Outdoors. Tony Jones, as always, thank you so much for coming on. The book is amazing and, uh, highly recommend people go out and grab a copy.

[00:28:57] I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about it. And thanks for having me back on. Good to see you again. You too. Tell me what made us think that we could keep others away in the name of some so-called safety.

[00:30:18] True. When will we ever see? Until we're all treated the same, that nobody is actually free. Oh, sure. Oh, you started to pay the way to see because we've driven the other away cause we sold our soul for a little bit of power and control

[00:31:21] and we left a hole and those were called to love I guess they're not enough Oh church, what have we done? But there is hope somewhere to go someone to feed someone to lead someone to call and who are we if not redeemed bringers of peace

[00:32:05] and justice sweet and holy love Oh church, what have we done? Oh church, what have we done? May we sell our souls to be rid of all the power and control May we lose ourselves for those were called to love Oh church, let that be us

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