SPEAKER_01: 0:00

I wanted to give a personal thank you to our good friend and show sponsor, Kathy L. Wall State Farm Agency. We have known Kathy for more than 15 years, and there is no person we trust more when it comes to insurance than Kathy L. Wall. Kathy is always available to help you find the right insurance for your family needs, whether it's covering your home, auto, or providing a life insurance policy tailored to the unique needs of families in Highland Park. My family trusts Kathy with our insurance, and we hope you will too. Please visit KathyLwall.com to learn more and let her know that Martha from the Bubble Lounge sent you. Welcome to the Bubble Lounge. I'm Martha Jackson, and today we have Chris Garrata, Head Rector of St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church. Chris, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02: 0:50

Love being back, Martha.

SPEAKER_01: 0:52

So we have done this episode's, this is our fourth year in a row to do a Christmas episode, which I could not believe, but I looked back and I got confirmation. I am so excited to have you here again.

SPEAKER_02: 1:02

Thank you. It's a it's really nice for you to invite me back. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06

Well, we are here to talk about the Christmas season once again. However, I wanted to start off with talking about you for just a minute. I know you're a very humble man. You are also the head rector of St. Michael's and All Angels, one of the biggest Episcopal churches in the country. Can you share your journey of how you got here?

SPEAKER_02: 1:25

I will start by saying that I did, I was not a kid who wanted to be a priest. I went to church. My parents took me and I was active, acolyte. I sang in the choir as a kid. Um, and I enjoyed going. And then in college, stayed connected, you know, as some do. But I went off to grad school. I didn't want to do this. I had no design at all. And when my wife and I got engaged, we were young, we decided we wanted to raise our children outside of the Catholic Church. And so we went looking around and found the Episcopal Church, really liked it, decided we wanted to join. And while we were doing classes to join, one of the priests asked if I had ever considered ordination. And I, no, no, thank you. And so he encouraged me to consider going through what was a spiritual gifts assessment. And it was for young people for 20 to 24. And at the time, Nicole was living in Birmingham. And so I said I had the week free. And I said, okay, we can do it. So I went through this spiritual gifts assessment at the end. The priest who were leading the assessment said they thought I should be a priest. That was very nice, but I didn't want to be. And so I said, no, thank you. The bishop called me a few weeks later and invited me to come in, which, you know, for a Catholic boy was like, sure, of course, I'll come to the bishop. And so he sat down and he said, These priests think you're supposed to be a priest. And I said, That's really nice, but I don't want to be. And he said, Well, you don't always get what you want. And I thought, uh, I thought I did. I was pretty sure I did. And he proceeded to just what he really did is he turned and he got his Bible off his desk and he started reading the book of Jonah. And he said, Jonah was called and Jonah didn't want to do what God wanted. And so Jonah ran away. And the call chased him and finally cut up with him. And he said, You're called to do this, and you can say no and you can run. The call will chase you. And at some point you're going to have to say yes. And so you might as well save yourself the trouble. And that was kind of his pitch. And I had to wrestle with that for a little bit. And thankfully, Nicole was super supportive. Um, but I ultimately said yes and had to pivot and drop a program I was in, and I mean all that sort of stuff. And so, fast forward, I got to Dallas because I was probably dumb enough to think that I could run a large system. And so I was in a search prior to coming to Dallas that was a pretty big church, and I was selected there, and that kind of put me on the radar of the big churches like St. Michael. And a few years later, they recruited me to come here. And so it was a surprise. But I do think actually a pretty good fit because I'm not like most of the priests I know. Most of the priests I know, you know, they're contemplative and they're thoughtful and they're poets and they're introverted and all the things I'm not. And so I needed a place where I could actually be me. And I think I fit here.

SPEAKER_01: 4:24

Oh my gosh, that is such a good story. And I can't believe we have never gone through this before. Because I actually used to work at St. Michael's. I used to joke that I volunteered so much. I volunteered myself into a job. I was the webmaster. I saw several rectors during my time there. And you are right. You are like no other. You are completely different than the rest.

SPEAKER_02: 4:45

Odd, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 4:47

You are a little odd, but that's why I like you so much.

SPEAKER_02: 4:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 4:50

Like you just do such a good job of connecting with the people. You've been on the show so many times. You've provided so much comfort and just, you know, information to help people through really difficult times. And I just appreciate all that you do.

SPEAKER_02: 5:05

Well, your platform is a privilege because it does allow us to connect.

SPEAKER_01: 5:08

Well, like I said, this is our fourth year to do a Christmas episode. We've covered a lot of different things. And today we're going to take kind of a different, diff, different uh approach on things.

SPEAKER_02: 5:19

Great. I'm in.

SPEAKER_01: 5:21

Well, Chris, I have to tell you, as a mom, it is really hard during the holiday seasons. We've talked about some of this before, having a college student coming back in town, having a high schooler, everyone's going through exams, and we're all trying to get into the Christmas spirit. And sometimes it can be really hard for a lot of us.

SPEAKER_02: 5:39

I think that's so true. We often speak about Advent and Christmas. And yet our culture says Christmas has already begun. And in fact, maybe is almost over because I go out in the stores right now and it's like they've swept it for Christmas. It's gone. And for us in the church, Christmas actually begins on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That is the season. And so I do think that if we can kind of get ourselves in the mindset of preparing for then Christmas Day, maybe those preparations don't feel so heavy. But all of us, I think, understand. I mean, I've got a you know, college student coming home, I've got high schooler and exams. So it does feel very rushed and very busy when you have to also prepare for what you hope is going to be this wonderful, joyous, and happy experience. And what is kind of the joke you see in almost every Christmas movie? All of that expectation of joy and happiness ends up being massive big family arguments and conflicts, and people yell at each other. And that is unfortunately the reality for a lot of people because we put so much stress on ourselves to do so much when actually the season is pretty simple. I mean, the season really is about responding to God's presence, responding to God's call on your life. And in a sense, you don't really have to do anything to prepare for that. You simply have to be courageous enough to say yes.

SPEAKER_01: 7:09

Well, how do we look for those moments? Because I feel like we get really caught up in the big moments and kind of the commercial aspect of the whole season. How do we look for those special moments?

SPEAKER_02: 7:20

Well, I think the awareness that the world is really good at getting us to think we're supposed to be a certain kind of person or to expect that life will be a certain kind of way, or that we have to purchase certain things in order to show that we love, when really all of those things can be very nice and inherently nothing wrong with them. But when they actually become the point, the objective, then we've missed the story. And the story is pretty simple. God is in the world, God breaks through in a remarkable way, that is Christmas. And through the birth of Jesus, we have this presence of God in the world that is true and it is tangible. And God is trying to break through to each of us understanding God's voice, even just hearing God, takes practice. It's not something that we can, most of us, I should say, can do naturally. That's part of what churches are for. That's part of what communities are for. When we study, when we pray, when we sing together, when we talk through complex ideas, we're actually tuning ourselves to God's frequency over time. And as we tune ourselves to that frequency, we will better be able to hear what God is actually calling to us.

SPEAKER_01: 8:45

Right, right. Well, a lot of people are going through tough times right now. I know, especially in our community. Christmas will look a little differently this year for a lot of people. How do we make room? How does faith make room for grief, loneliness, exhaustion during this joyful season?

unknown: 9:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 9:04

It's such a good question because I do think that so many people are carrying heavy weights right now. Um, whether they're worried about family members or loved ones, whether they're worried about themselves, perhaps they got a bad diagnosis, they've lost their job, they're worried they may lose something terribly important. We, of course, know that the economy around us is uncertain, and all of that can collapse into a huge amount of weight. I do think that the key idea about how to approach Christmas is really how to approach faith in general, and that is you are not alone. A lot of people have received this idea that somehow faith is fully individual. And many groups uh actually reinforce this idea because they speak uh explicitly about your relationship to God. And when they beat that drum again and again, we can get into our minds and into our spirits that it's just us. It's just us and God. And so when we have these weights to carry, it's just us. When actually the ideal of faith is that we are never alone, we are never having to carry the weight on our own. God is there, yes, but God acts through other people. And so our communities of faith are really the ones who can lift us up. And when we feel like the weight is too heavy, they can help us carry it. When we do not feel the joy, I mean, gosh, how often do we just not feel the joy? Others can remind us that God's presence and God's joy is there. We may not feel it, but it doesn't mean that the joy is absent. And we can have our perspectives shifted because of the relationships we have with other people, such that perhaps behind that corner we can find some joy that helps us to bear our weight with a little more lightness.

SPEAKER_01: 11:05

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SPEAKER_00: 11:30

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SPEAKER_01: 11:52

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SPEAKER_02: 13:18

Talk about difficult parenting. Um, they really are an incredible example to us of how God can speak. Yes. And then maybe hopefully we can respond. I do know that in so many moments we recognize Mary and Joseph, and often Joseph very secondary. You know, Mary is venerated in many traditions. Her willingness to say yes to God seemed miraculous. I mean, almost inhuman. Um, we hold her up as an example of faith, but it's it's almost too difficult. It's too unattainable. Because here in the story, what we have is this young girl who is told she's going to become pregnant and remain a virgin. She is not married, which essentially means she could be executed. And she essentially says yes to all of that. I don't know about you, but that's a level of commitment that I don't know that I could actually achieve. Like, you know, ideally, sure. But practically, I don't know about that. Joseph, however, feels a bit more attainable because here's Joseph, all for all we know, a relatively nice person. He is probably properly preparing to marry Mary, but finds out she's pregnant, and what one of the gospels says is respectfully, he was going to just separate from her. He wasn't going to get her in trouble, didn't want her to be stoned, didn't want any none of that stuff, but also no longer the right person to marry. And then the angel comes and says, Don't be afraid of this. This is actually meant to be that God has made this happen, and really God needs you to do what you can do to support Mary. In that moment, Joseph could have said no. I mean, reasonably, he could have declined to respond to this vision, this dream, this angel who appeared to him. And yet he said yes. He looked at Mary and the situation that was really quite difficult and could have undermined his entire status, which could have put them both under threat. And yet he had the courage to say yes. I find that feels a bit more realistic to me. I mean, I know personally, whenever I feel like I'm being nudged by God, you know, kind of poked to do something a little better or to be just a bit kinder, that those are the moments when I can actually say yes. If there's something that is too far, then it's difficult to close that gap. But if it's just a little sidestep into something kinder, nicer, more compassionate, more sympathetic, that I can actually respond to. And it feels like, I mean, Joseph was asked to do a lot more than that, but at least there seems to be an example there that I feel like I could model for myself. And actually, there was an experience I had a few weeks ago that completely modeled that sort of nudge to be nicer. So I was leaving the office, and our offices are right there off Douglas Avenue next to the church. And as I'm coming up to Douglas to turn left to go into Preston Center for my meeting, I'm looking across the street, and directly across the street, in the street, is this tiny little white dog that is booking it down the street. I mean, running like its job and dragging a leash behind it. And so it looks like someone just let the dog go. Right. And so I kind of wait for a second to see a person. I expect a person to be running behind this dog trying to catch it. Nobody's coming. Oh no. Well, there's a construction site on the church. Construction workers are watching this dog as it runs down the street, people across the street on the sidewalk watching this dog as it runs across down the street. And it goes running through an intersection. Two cars have to stop, slam on their brakes not to hit this little white dog, and nobody is pursuing the dog. And so I just said, Oh my gosh, nobody's taking care of this dog. So I turn left real quickly and I start following this dog who has not paused a second and is running down an alley. So I'm driving down the alley, it turns through a couple buildings, it goes through multiple parking lots, it goes to run across Sherry and cars again slam on their brakes not to hit this little dog, pulls into one of the bank parking lots, and I curve around to go in the parking lot too and realize that the parking lot dead ends. And I can't connect to wherever this dog may have run. And then in the bushes, I see that the dog's leash has gotten caught.

SPEAKER_01: 17:48

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02: 17:49

And so I just stop the car in the middle of the drive, hop out, undo the leash from the bush, and now I've got control of this dog, except the leash is like wet. Oh no. And it's muddy and it's dirty. And I'm looking down at this dog that is dirty. And I'm looking around thinking, is there anyone else who could take this dog? I mean, I'm not, I'm I'm not the biggest dog person in the world. I have a dog, I like my dog, but I'm not that like animal welfare person. Um and I had a moment where I thought, if I just tie the leash back to this bush, like someone will find this dog and take care of this dog. And I'm looking around and I said, no, I need to take care of this dog. And so I pick the dog, this dirty dog, and I think to myself, I'm gonna put you in my car. Do not jump all over my car. And so I put the dog down on the floor of the passenger seat and it immediately just lays down. It's exhausted. So take it to a vet. The vet scans for the chip. The chip is not coming up in their system. And so I ask, you know, can I just leave the dog with you until you figure this out? No, we cannot take a dog if we don't know the shot records. And I was like, Are you kidding me? Now I'm like 20 minutes late from my meeting and I'm getting impatient. And she's trying to figure out the chip. It will not load. And second time, I have this moment where I think, if I just walk out of this vet's office and leave the dog in the lobby, they're gonna take care of the dog, right? No, I should not do that. I should take care of this dog. And so I leave my number and I say, call me when you figure this out, put the dog back in the car, go to a second vet. They scan the chip, they're able to call the manufacturer, find out who the owner is. It takes like 10 minutes. I have totally missed the meeting at this point. I've texted with the person I'm trying to meet, and of course, they were very kind. And they wrote back and said, I love dogs. You take all the time you need. We can reschedule. And I'm thinking, you're better than I am. And so I'm standing in the second vet's office. They finally connect with the owner and they said the dog had been reported missing 10 days earlier.

SPEAKER_01: 19:48

My goodness.

SPEAKER_02: 19:49

This little eight pound white dog had been roaming around North Dallas for 10 days. The owner had come from Phoenix or somewhere like that. That and come to visit friends in Preston Hollow and the dog escaped. And so 10 days, this dog had been out on the street. No wonder it was so dirty and the leash was so dirty. And how in the world it got caught on a bush four minutes after I started chasing it when for what 10 days it never did? I have no idea how this dog survived with coyotes and everything else out there, but it did. And the owner was only five minutes away and came and got the dog. I tailed, I tell you that story because twice. There were moments where I thought, I don't have to do what is the extra thing. And yet I felt that nudge, like, just do the good thing. And I'm glad I did. But that I perceive that as being that kind of goodness. I mean, I do not believe that God was like really, really invested in this dog. But I do think that by investing myself in a life of faith, I have become better. And whereas 20 years ago, I may not have even followed the dog to begin with. Now I'm doing extra things to take care of the dog, which by the way, probably most nice people would have done anyway. But I don't know that I would have. Well, I will now because I think I have become better, kinder, more patient. And I don't attribute that to me as much as I attribute that to my investment in a life of faith, in a community of faith that has continued to nudge me in a direction of growth.

SPEAKER_01: 21:37

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SPEAKER_02: 22:41

It's the kind of story that I think reflects the first Christmas where you have these normal people who responded to an extraordinary experience. And because they responded and they said yes, the ripples that have continued for 2,000 years now come to us. And in a, you know, to try not to be too dramatic, in a very similar way, each of us is actually called into a life that is probably not our design, that is likely not what we thought we would be doing, or even perhaps what we would hope to do. And yet being called into that life is ultimately purposeful for us. It gives us that really healthy spiritual mental life. And if we can say yes, if we've got the courage to in those very small ways to say yes over time, we will end up becoming a very different person in the future than we are today. And I think that will be only to our benefit.

SPEAKER_01: 23:43

Well, I just would love to see us get back to just being kind to each other and doing things like what you just described. I love that so much. Um, I just I feel like we've kind of gotten away from it. It's too easy to keep driving and not deal with a certain certain situation. And um, I would like to see us get back to that part and uh be more kind to each other.

SPEAKER_02: 24:06

I think kindness is underrated. I think we put a high value on more maybe dynamic or interesting or complicated ways of being, but kindness is actually simple and the foundation for all of the other good ways that we can be. I often like to say that anyone can say anything that they need to say. Anyone can relate to anyone else as however they need to relate to, and they can always be kind. And I think that if we just took a little bit of the effort that it takes to always put ourselves in a place of kindness, then as you say, the world would be so much better. I mean, it kind of it's like that old joke, you know, well, do you want to like go? I wish for world peace. Well, yes, world peace. And I think that we could actually get there if we were kind. I had a professor once say that no conflict in the world ever began because there was too much love. And so if we just choose a bit more, that loving stance, if we consider others and are just patient enough to be kind, I think we solve a ton of our problems.

SPEAKER_01: 25:23

Well, how do you think we can get back to that? Because I mean, just today I had an interesting post on my Instagram account, and usually nothing gets controversial and something got just a little bit ugly with two people that weren't agreeing on something. And I had to respond with, I need you to take this conversation elsewhere because this isn't the place. I'm like a very neighborly, you know, positive uh Instagram account. And I don't, this is just doesn't belong here. Like, how can we get back there?

SPEAKER_02: 25:56

Getting back to kindness is nothing more than choice. Yeah. I think a lot of times we make it so much harder than it actually is. We choose how we act. Now, obviously, choices over time become habits. And for a lot of people, those habits are not intentionally chosen. But I do think that to make a shift, we have to be intentional about our choices and the way that we speak and the words that we use and how we consider other people. And unfortunately, I think that when we are given opportunities with very low accountability, we will often give ourselves permission to be less kind. And that's just another version of saying when you've got anonymous comment threads on social media accounts and other places online, the worst of people come out because there is essentially no accountability.

SPEAKER_00: 26:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 26:52

When you have to look at someone in the face and you have to acknowledge their humanity, it is so much harder to be unkind. Now, there are some people who achieve unkindness in person. But I do think that for most of us, when you're actually looking at another human, you think twice about saying something that is ugly. And you can also see in their eyes that they do not have everything together, that their life is not 100% easy, that they are likely carrying a heavy weight just like you. And that common humanity, that common ground really guides us to a place where I do think compassion leads to kindness.

SPEAKER_01: 27:38

Right. Seeing it face to face. I think you're so right, you know, eye to eye and seeing the compassion in their eyes and what's going on with them definitely makes a difference versus this whole online world that we're in now.

SPEAKER_02: 27:50

What's sort of like I see in my office, people will send emails when they're attempting to build relationships. And I've always said texting and emailing, that is a technical gift. If you need to say, meet me at a certain place at a certain time, you know, or maybe you give someone bullets or a spreadsheet, great, that's fine. If you're trying to build a relationship, try not to make it digital. Try to make it in person. Use the digital to set up a time when you can actually invest yourself in person in a relationship, and that's going to pay off in the long run.

SPEAKER_01: 28:23

I think that's really wonderful advice because there's been plenty of times that I've gotten caught up in the current times and just emailed or texted, and it ended up kind of ruining the relationship. Just like as far as you miss tones and inflections and all the things. So I think that's really good advice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:42

The nonverbals are incredibly important. And you can't really share compassion with someone over an email.

SPEAKER_01: 28:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 28:51

And you lose the opportunity to build that relationship over time. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 28:56

Well, Chris, as always, this has been such a pleasure. I really appreciate you sharing everything that you've shared with us. I know it's going to help a lot of people during this holiday season.

SPEAKER_02: 29:04

Holidays aren't always easy, but I do think there is always hope, and you are never alone. And so if that helps you bear a little bit of a lighter weight this season, then I think it's all worth it.

SPEAKER_01: 29:15

Absolutely. Well, that's been another episode of the Bubble Lounge. I'm Martha Jackson, and I will see you next time.