Melody doesn't know if she believes in God, But she know's she's going to hell for even thinking it.

In this episode, she opens up about growing up in a strict evangelical world and how that upbringing planted both deep convictions and deep doubts. She and Curt explore the tension of searching for truth while still carrying the values ingrained from childhood.

They also dig into how political events can shake long-held beliefs, creating moments of crisis that force a re examination of faith.

Melody shares candid reflections on identity, doubt, and the weight of cultural expectations around belief.

More than just a conversation about religion, this episode highlights the struggle of reconciling past and present, the role of community, and the shared human search for meaning in a world full of competing perspectives.

Welcome to the Sole Proprietor Podcast.

I'm Kirk Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week, we dive into the ethical questions that keep entrepreneurs awake at night.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

Oh, Melody, this is fun.

I've been looking forward to today for a while.

Me, too.

Maybe.

I promise it won't hurt much.

Okay.

But I. I wouldn't want it to be easy.

Yeah, I don't like easy.

You know.

Yeah.

Today's gonna be exciting because I know you, Melody, quite well.

I would say about as well as any acquaintance beyond, you know, plus, and I certainly would put you far outside of the acquaintance circle as I guess what I'd say into the.

More of the heart area.

Thank you, Kurt.

Yeah, well.

But today we're gonna find out how little I know about you.

I think we're going to uncover some.

Some things that go back into your history, your spiritual journey, which I think is an important, very important part of the Sole Proprietor podcast.

You know, we've talked previously about how important our spiritual journey is in our entrepreneurial ventures, but today I kind of want to just stay away from entrepreneurialism in order to lay the background of who you are personally.

And to me, that's synonymous with.

You are spiritually.

Yeah, I guess it is.

It's funny, I get a little bit.

Not queasy, but I get a little bit uncomfortable when you say who I am spiritually, because I'm like, who am I spiritually?

I think that's the fun part, is that people who have arrived.

A ribbon.

A ribbon.

I like it.

People who have arrived to their spiritual person.

I actually think that that's a really dangerous place to be because then you go along these presuppositions that may.

Anyway, in my spiritual journey, one of the things I discovered is that if you're not in it for the journey part, you're probably going to be pretty disappointed to find out there's just so much more out there.

Yeah.

I don't know when you'll discover it, but it's going to be a big bummer when you find out what you passed up.

So.

Yeah, so I'm.

I actually am very comfortable with that.

And I know it makes you a little queasy, nervous, and I think that's good because it'll be something to grapple with.

But just to get into it, Melody, when we were talking, just you and me before, you had talked the line that you said, and you've said this before, to Me too.

Is I'm an atheist.

No.

Never.

Nope.

I've never said atheist or agnostic.

What is the word?

I'll tell you exactly what I said.

I said I may not believe in God, but I'm definitely going to hell for it.

I.

Okay.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

So it's more like I may not believe in God.

And I think I'm definitely going to hell for that because it kind of explains the duality of my thoughts.

Part of me wishes we could just edit that out, but I actually.

But no, I actually think it's better to leave it in because this is.

This is going to be the complexity of the conversation.

Kurt having his old frame as we're discovering sort of the reality of your spirituality in life.

So the last part's.

The important part for, I think this first part of the conversation is that you definitely think you're going to hell for it.

Tell me a little bit about the.

Because that forces us to go back to the beginning.

And what is it that's ingrained in you and how did it get ingrained in you in your early belief in God?

Yeah, well, I mean, I grew up in the church where, whatever, there were many in the church.

It was a lot of churches.

So my parents were both born again Christians, I think my mom.

My dad had absolutely no religion in his life ever when he was growing up.

And my mom was raised a Catholic, but like, I wouldn't say a practicing Catholic.

And so.

But they did.

My mom did have an aunt who was very, very much charismatically Christian, born again.

And somehow she was able to, I wanna say, lure them into.

Into faith.

But.

Okay, okay.

I probably shouldn't, but I already did.

But to bring them to Christ, as they would say, or something like that.

And.

But I think they've always been seekers when I look at them.

They've always really looked for a feeling when it comes to.

I shouldn't say that they have always.

My perception is that they've always looked to feel something, whether it's through the music ministries that they've done or, you know, the kinds of churches that we ended up at.

And so I was brought up on a stage early in life, literally and baptized.

And my parents said, God, take her to be a missionary in this world.

Something like that.

And it was.

My memories of being in church are always very much charismatic memories.

And the people being in a church where we would speak in tongues or the music was very inspiring.

And it was never like gentle music.

It was always very exciting.

And there'd Be a rock band and, you know, that kind of thing.

Because it was about energy, about charismaticness.

I keep going back to that word.

I know.

Yeah.

No, I mean, we've spoken in the past, and I think that when I get my chance to talk about my upbringing, obviously this is a very big divergence from what I, you know, what I would have experienced.

When you talk about your parents being seekers, there's a couple different ways to interpret it.

I just want to make sure I'm not misinterpreting it.

Did it feel like they were always looking for the new thing that would hit them, or were they kind of the ones I found it shut everything else out and just seek after this one thing.

I'm just trying to get a feel for that.

Well, there's definitely been times where they.

They have backslidden in their journey, as, you know, evangelicals would say.

And they now are so different than what I grew up with.

In many ways.

They just actually came out of.

They had been.

They had a recovery church that they were running with another couple for the last couple of years.

So, like, helping people who are in recovery, that's, like, deep work that they were doing.

They've always been drawn to that level of service of, like, helping the people who struggle the most, essentially, which is also kind of where they brought me.

But through the churches, it's always been through God.

Like, something about through God.

Was that the question you asked?

So seeking, maybe purpose, seeking, that feeling that I keep talking about.

That's my perception, though.

Sure.

And I'm not sure if they were seeking.

They weren't like.

It wasn't like they were on a wise journey of seeking knowledge necessarily.

They were seeking knowledge through the Bible and, you know, Protestant evangelical faith.

Like, once they got that thing, besides the backslides, once they got there, that's where they've come back to over and over again.

Okay, so they weren't jumping between Buddhism and Islam and Christianity.

It was.

They were seeking within the vein that they had found, and they were seeking maybe, like, purpose within.

I.

Like, I can follow that.

Yeah.

And I think an important point as someone listening to this is that I'm taking away that your parents had big hearts.

Yeah, they were.

I'm not getting a feel yet for how rigid or strict they were.

My God, they were so strict when I was young.

Ask my brother.

He had a different life than.

Than I did.

He's 15 years younger than me, but you know how it is.

Yeah.

So, Kurt, I'll tell you, as Nate.

Bargathy says he's the comedian.

He says, my parents were the most.

Christian when I was.

Yes.

Literally.

We shared the same life.

Here's how Christian they were.

They convinced our neighbors, some of our neighbors, that trick or treating was evil.

And then nobody that year was allowed to go trick or treating of a certain group of people.

And then we eventually were allowed to go trick or treating again.

And those poor kids didn't get to go back to trick or treating because my parents had done a good job of convincing them that.

Okay, so.

Yeah, so your parents were good people.

They were obviously very convicted.

They were also, you know, big hearted.

But they might have been really persuasive as well.

It sounds like, oh, my God.

Yes.

And also no secular music.

Oh, tell me about that.

I missed all of the music of the 80s, which is why I love singing it in karaoke.

I've kind of been obsessed with the 80s.

No, watching it was great.

It was really happy, fun times.

I listened to a lot of Christian music and I don't regret that.

I mean, it was nice.

Nice music.

And then no movies, really.

We watched a lot of vintage films from the 50s and 60s and like Disney classics from the 70s, but it wasn't like we weren't watching TV except at our.

We were watching it at our neighbor's house.

We would watch wrestling and other things, but we were not allowed to do.

That, so we couldn't watch tv.

But the one you chose was wrestling.

I didn't see.

I had a lot of boys around me, so.

Yeah, wwf, Kurt.

Yeah, wwf.

Sorry.

Yeah.

So there was a lot of rigidness, but it was.

The way I describe it is I would feel like we are in a.

They.

They were very convincing of me as well.

We were on a path and I was just following the path in back of them, kind of.

They were leading the way.

And then suddenly there would be a turn in the path, like a sharp turn, and I would keep going straight.

And they're like, no, no, we're going this way now and then.

And that's kind of how my whole childhood felt.

Different churches, different groups of people.

The cult church that I. Yeah, I do want to.

I'm getting to that part because that's going to be so fascinating.

And there's some points of parallel I want to point out there too, but I want to talk about the rigidity first, because when we do talk about my story, my story is one of pretty high rigidity.

Yeah.

And I'm curious, was your families, or let's call it your parents, Rigidity that was bestowed upon you.

Was that rigidity because if I stray, I will lose my eternal reward?

Or was it more of I just need everyone to see that I am the best at being a Christian or.

There's lots of motivators for it.

But I'm just curious, was it more of a doctrinal thing or a pride thing or what?

I think it was a mix of both.

My parents were really young when they had me, so there was that part.

But also, I don't know if, you know, a lot of born again Christians, they tend to be at their most Christian at the point of being born again.

And there is a lot of we've got to tell everybody in the world and save them.

Like, that's the whole purpose.

And so there was a lot of that.

Like, we went and we did like street preaching.

I remember doing that with my parents.

I wasn't preaching, but my dad was.

What do they call it?

Like, we.

We'd hand out tracks, which were these little comic books that I liked to read as a child, which is also why I'll never play Dungeons and Dragons because I'll.

I'll go to hell for that as well.

Oh, it was in a track.

I read it, read it in the track.

And the thing is, that track is that is the inspired word of God, so.

Sure is.

Right.

But it's like, you know, it was during the most influential years of my life.

You know, I'm learning a lot from my parents.

Everything comes from them.

And so it really is interesting.

I think they're.

They're good people and they also have made a lot of mistakes and brought us on that journey.

They dragged us through it, so.

And it does sound like coming out of your mouth right now just to verify this, is that you don't believe that.

Or maybe I should say you do believe that they are genuinely good people who had your best interests at heart.

Well, I don't know.

I feel like they had.

I don't know.

I mean, I'm Gen X.

And I think the thing people say about Gen X a lot is that we raised ourselves in a way, right?

Like we were playing with our neighbors and come back at dark.

Like, all that stuff is very true.

I think my parents were on a greater mission to save the world, like through one soul at a time.

And this has kind of been the way it is of like.

But our kids are fine.

Like, they're already safe, so we don't need to worry as much about them.

Okay.

That's how it felt to Me.

And as I look back, that's how it feels.

I look at some of my friends who had very normal, I would call it more normal upbringings.

Like, I think of the way you raise your kids in your faith.

I'm so, like, inspired by that.

I did not have that kind of upbringing.

It was not consistent, if that makes sense.

Can you speak a little bit more to that?

I think it's interesting because when we talk about business, I know we're not talking about business, but when we talk about all of that stuff, a lot of my greatest struggles come from my inner struggles that stem from faith, which is why we're having this conversation.

And things that got inserted into me at a very young age.

It's really hard to break free from that.

So that's why I say very gently, like, I'm exploring the idea that I might not believe in God.

This whole thing, Like, I'm exploring the idea.

I do think there's something.

There's.

There definitely is, but I don't know what that is.

And I don't know if it's my Christian faith.

I don't know what I believe in.

I'm like a baby.

And also I still though, believe all the bad parts of it.

I still believe.

Yeah.

It gets ingrained in you because it's so ingrained.

Yeah.

As a child, you know that my choices have consequences.

And some of these consequences, like touching a hot stove, for example, I'm not gonna be able to talk my way out of that.

And if I touch the hot stove, this is gonna happen.

And so even the idea of exploring, I get that those ingrained feelings are like, okay, well, you're gonna touch the hot stove, so enjoy hell.

Pretty much, yeah.

Yeah.

So I. I'm with you on that.

I wanna get to the cult part, but I. I am sorry, I have to ask one of the questions.

Between us, it's between our.

This chasm here.

If you could go back and talk to 8 year old Melody and you could sit her down and just say, hey, look, I need to impart something on you right now.

You know, this is the one that's being ingrained at 8 years old, previously 8 years old, probably it's being ingrained, but I think 8 and on is where it really starts to firm up.

Oh, yeah.

What might you say to her to either?

Like, not even just advice, but, like, I know.

You know what I mean?

Like, what would you say?

I know exactly what I could say because it's understanding that I can trust myself.

I have spent many Years of my life feeling that I couldn't trust myself.

That even when my gut, my deep down gut, that inner wisdom that I do have was telling me something outside of what I was hearing from everywhere else, I would tend to not trust the internal and trust the external voices instead.

And I wish that that had not happened.

That's so interesting.

I bet she would have listened.

I'm curious what that would have done because, I mean, think about that.

Think about that you're a little kid and your older adult self comes to you and tells you something above all else that anyone ever tells you.

Like, gosh, like my adult self came and told me this is the most important thing I gotta do.

What do you suppose your life would look different right now if you had had that experience?

I don't even know.

Sometimes I think about that.

I had a lot of bad experiences when I was in childhood, you know, and it wasn't just wasn't stemming from the hands of my parents necessarily.

But when you're somebody who's trying to save all souls, you end up around a lot of people who are troubled.

And so it's put me in places where either I was taken advantage of or I was told things that weren't true, that I believed way longer than I told should have believed.

And I think it would have changed my confidence level.

It would have maybe, but I don't know.

I don't know if I don't like how I've turned out.

I'm definitely frustrated a lot by how I think at times, but I. I don't know what that would have changed in me.

I just think I would have had a greater internal confidence than.

And that's been my greatest adult struggle, is finding a way to just not just listen to loud voices around me.

But trust me, there's so much we.

Could go through there.

I think that.

Let's put more of this puzzle together.

Let's talk more about that right hand turn into the cult.

What happened?

What happened there?

Yeah, so, I mean, this is all from my perspective, but I have talked to my dad about it and my mom at times, but.

And I don't even know why we ended up going to that church.

I just know that we did.

And then very quickly we were very, very involved in this church and it was an evangelical church.

But the reason why I know that it's a cult church because there was a charismatic leadership and then you were spending a lot more time at the church and they were dictating your life a lot more as time went on your money went to the church.

But then I think the main thing, and this is hard because Kurt, I know your background too, and I, I wonder how that's, this description is going to play into what you are going to talk about.

But like the main thing for me is that when you stop, when you decide to leave, not even stop believing in the religion, when you decide to leave, you are literally cast out.

You are no longer allowed to talk to anybody.

They're not allowed to talk to you.

Shunned.

Shunned is the word.

We were shunned.

We were evil.

And to go from having your whole world immersed in this thing that was like everything to suddenly being in a world where it was without that after being in it for about three or four years.

I asked my dad recently like I was talking about that and he said, you know, I knew it was time because I took you to one of the things they wanted us to go.

And I forget what they call it, but like minister on the streets basically.

And my dad had taken me and I remember this in my head.

I remember going with him to this place, some city maybe an hour or two away, and he got in really big trouble for bringing me there.

I'm not sure why he didn't go into that either, but he just was like, if I can't be with my family and I have to give all my time.

And my mom was kind of already like, okay, I'm out.

Like, she already knew, she didn't want to be a part of it.

But he kind of was like, no, we're still doing this.

And then when they made that decision to leave, I don't even know how they talked to us about it.

I just know that it was one of the most painful experiences of my life.

Well, just to kind of bring some common threads together.

I think that when people find out in my discussion that I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons, we're just trying to put an emphasis on the fact that the church believes in Jesus Christ and not this old agey prophet of Mormon as our savior.

But anyway, I think many people would classify what I'm in as a cult, even though I wouldn't actually.

But I do think that a lot of the bite model, if you've, if you're familiar with that, I know that the church does fit a lot of that.

However, I've always felt the freedom.

No, I guess I wouldn't say I've always felt the freedom.

I currently do feel the freedom that I could take it or leave it, and my life would change, but not disintegrate.

And I think that that's where.

That's where cult gets really scary.

Is that, like, I'm not here because I want to be.

I'm here because if I leave the.

That's not an option that can keep my life.

You lose everything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that part of the bite model, essentially, is, for me, I don't classify as a cult.

The point I want to get across here, though, is that I don't think that's always been the case.

And I understand what you're saying, and I think that that is a really important thing that I learned about in my marriage and in my relationships, is that if you don't have the freedom to leave your marriage, the question is, are you really in your marriage?

Yeah.

And I think that your faith.

That could apply to.

And in your friendships, it could apply to.

Although friendships probably have a little bit less.

Well, no, I guess every friendship could be different.

The point is, is that it's that ability to say, I could leave anytime I want to be here.

I think that that's just a really important key.

And so you keep using the word culture, and I'm going with you on that.

I don't know what.

Oh, I'll tell you, the other reason why I know it's a cult is because it has a support group, at least one on Facebook that I'm a member of, with thousands of people in it.

So.

And that could be the case for many things.

But the stories that I've read there, definitely, they're not great.

So.

Yeah.

And I think you've gone to great lengths to not say the name of the organization, which is.

I think that's probably a good thing.

I don't think people would really know it either, though.

It's not one of.

It's not one of, like, the popular cults.

It's just like a normal, normal, average cult.

It's an average.

You know, you're running the mill cold.

Yeah.

So let's talk a little bit, then about kind of what it was like to come out of it, because you said.

You said that your dad knew it was time.

What did that look like?

And did you guys lose everything?

And what was that like?

We did.

I mean, they lost all their friends.

I lost pretty much all of my closest friends at the time, except the.

Ones that watched wwf.

You still.

Well, I still.

I grew up in, like.

What are they called?

A housing development, so I had Friends outside of the church.

But a lot of those people had come into the.

Like my parents.

Again, they're.

They're really good at convincing people.

And.

And so they were able to bring a lot of people in my neighborhood, even to the church, but they were not.

The neighborhood people weren't as engaged.

And so I didn't lose everybody in my life.

It wasn't like we lived on a compound and we were all dressed the same way or anything like that.

Yeah.

But there was a huge emptiness after that.

I mean, church had been.

If you go from having church all the time to having no church, that's like a big deal.

That would be huge also.

Like, what do we believe if somebody's not telling us, you know, in a church what to believe as the kid version of myself.

Right.

And so I remember my parents taking us to different churches, churches to try to find another one that could fit for them.

And we ended up at a church that we stayed at for a long time and my parents still go to it years later.

And it's very much what I would call a neutral kind of church.

I guess I would say, like, it's not non denominational.

It's non denominational.

Yes.

And it's more focused on people and it's gentler.

It's gen.

It's ch.

It's.

I call the one that, that I would attend now I go to a congregational church sometimes and I call that Jesus Light because it's very like, you know, come as you are, you are welcome here kind of thing.

The other church, college church, I was just at the church that was the one we were at long term.

And I was just there for a memorial.

But like, that's my church family, if I think about.

Because that's where I was during my adolescent.

I did youth group, young life, all of that kind of stuff.

And it really transformed me.

But I didn't really fully ever feel like I was spiritually worthy or like, I. I don't know.

I never felt like what I saw other people feeling when it came to the confidence of knowing that they had a relationship with God and that in Jesus.

Okay, I need to go just a tiny bit back.

Your parents went in search of another church.

Yeah.

One of the common threads I've seen as people leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is that many people become atheist immediately.

I was the most Christian.

I was the hardest core spiritual.

And now I'm disillusioned.

Now everything's been taken away.

Now this bad thing has happened.

The knee Jerk reaction, which is very surprising, didn't take place here.

Obviously their first.

It seems like their first instinct was we go from this church to searching for another one where I feel like either a long sabbatical would be more common, but actually the most common, I would think, or that I've experienced is none at all.

Can you tell me a little bit about maybe were you even part of that decision making process?

Did you consider your own feelings in that?

No, I don't feel like I really.

I think my parents might have said we didn't have to do.

But I also don't remember having the choice of where we were, you know, but it was a lot gentler.

It wasn't like it had been at the other churches.

And I will say one of the interesting things and one of the reasons we might have ended up there is because I went to Christian school for five of my years growing up or five of my grades, like first to fifth grade maybe, and it was at the basement of that church.

So I think that might be like a place where they were familiar.

That church did a lot in the community, helped a lot of people.

It still does.

So I have a lot of respect for that church.

But church aside, Melanie, like, it's community.

God is not doing what I need in this cult.

And I'm going to keep using that term only because I'm trying to like, really frame.

I'm here and I'm solid and God is good and God will do anything I want.

And then all of a sudden, like, you know what?

This isn't what I thought it was.

I'm going to turn typically, as in throwing out the bathwater, out goes God.

But it doesn't seem like that happened.

But I think also you have to think about relational dynamics.

So that was the thing that connects them and keeps them going.

Right.

Like I said, my dad didn't grow up with any religion in his family.

No spirituality.

He was definitely atheist.

His whole family was.

And it was generational pain and trauma, like all throughout.

And I think God is a.

Is like the thing that binds them together as well.

So the God.

The God was like that mortar that.

Yeah.

Just knew that.

So we put the.

Yeah.

Tell me, when you started getting to sort of make your own decisions and kind of moved out of the house, what was your God approach, you know, on your own?

Well, it's not that I've ever wanted to not believe.

I think it's.

It would be really easy if I just didn't believe in or want to believe.

I always Felt like I was faking something.

Even throughout high school, junior high, all my youth groups, I just wanted to feel what I saw my parents feeling and what I saw other people feeling.

I wanted to feel that thing.

And also, I felt completely unworthy of whatever it was that they were feeling.

And so I felt like a fraud.

But I also have a. I mean, I'm.

I'm a good person.

I know that I did a lot of things, you know, I did Young life youth group.

I was always involved in ministries, and I still continue to be, even though I don't know what I believe in.

I think the good things about religion and community and church and all of that.

There's so many good things about it.

But when I went off on my own, I didn't really have a mooring.

Mostly, I was scared of disappointing people.

I would never have come out.

Even still, I could not come out and say, I'm an atheist or I'm agnostic.

That feels so scary to me because it sounds so definitive, and I don't like to make decisions, so.

Well, there might be something that we need to talk about there too, but that's cool.

So when you say you have no mooring, you kind of just.

You had, what, the pattern that you'd already developed.

And when you went off on your own, it was like, I'm gonna keep doing this for now.

I want to believe in this thing.

But, you know, I moved to Morocco when I was 19 or 20.

I was traveling around the world when I was pretty young.

I knew that I wanted the world to me, was magical, and I wanted to know it.

And Morocco is a Muslim country.

I didn't know anything about Muslims at the time, and now I understand that just like there are Sunday Christians, there are Friday Muslims, a lot of them.

And so I learned a lot.

My first husband was technically Muslim, but it wasn't like he was praying all the time or doing all the things.

It's just so much a part of a.

It's a cultural thing.

Just like in Israel, people are culturally Israeli, and it's so much a part of everything.

But it doesn't mean that they're religious in the, you know, Judaism, that they're religious.

The most.

Jewish.

Yeah.

Hasidic versus Orthodox versus, You know, in name only.

Maybe it can be.

Yeah.

So I lived.

I was a nanny for a Jewish theater company that was kosher.

So I lived kosher for a year one time, and that taught me a lot too.

But they did not.

They did the ceremony of it, but it wasn't like a deep seated belief system that I could see.

Yeah, well, that's the thing that's interesting about religion, spirituality, all of these things, is people can be really culturally, from what I've experienced in that space, because it's so much a part of their communities, their families, but it doesn't mean it is necessarily their belief system.

That's so fascinating.

You know, we need to do a podcast about that because you're getting me to ask a lot of questions about some experiences I've had in my life.

And I got to be careful not to deviate here.

But that is fascinating that someone would live a life they don't believe in order to culturally enjoy.

But you know what?

Isn't that what a cult is?

But yeah, but also, I think it's not that they don't.

They don't even think about it.

It's been their whole life.

Like in Morocco, there's a call to prayer five times a day.

Everybody.

It's just so much a part of everything.

Everybody does Ramadan, whether they, you know, and they kind of just believe in God, I think, maybe.

But also they practice Ramadan, but it's a cultural dynamic, a part of their heritage.

So what would happen in Morocco if the call to prayer came and you were talking to someone.

Nothing.

And you just kept talking to them.

That's pretty much life every day.

The people.

Yeah, the people who wanted to pray would pray.

Some people would go to the mosque.

You know how Christians go to church on Sunday or Saturday if they're Catholic or whatever.

They go on Fridays.

They would go to the mosque.

Yeah.

You're basically given these opportunities to constantly sort of say where you're at on it.

Like, yeah, I'm gonna do all this stuff.

But like this whole call to prayer thing, you're gonna obviously say, I am just not that I'm not that Muslim.

Yeah, kind of.

But I don't think they think about it like that.

It's my looking as an observer and living with people who were Muslim.

That's what I was seeing.

So that's why I call them Friday Muslims, because sometimes they would go to the mosque on Friday, sometimes they don't go at all.

But, you know, it's all.

People have all different things.

But we don't have that cultural thing in America.

We don't have a cultural call to prayer.

You know, not a thread like that.

Like a thread.

Yeah.

We have so many different things here, so it's such a different experience for us.

But here's what I know I grew up in a housing development.

Community was very important there.

Right.

You just.

There's no choice.

You're surrounded by people.

Church surrounded by people.

It's all about community.

And now I am a community builder.

Like, this has been such an ingrained part of my life.

I look at my parents.

They're always building a new community.

They bought an inn for six years and they were building their.

In community.

They have the, you know, recovery church.

They had their recovery community.

So there's always different things that I've gotten from my parents.

I still have those things in me.

One of the things I think is a little too difficult for my.

My husband and my kids is that I also inherited from my parents that thing of I have to help the people who are in most in need.

So that brings a lot of chaos into our life.

My husband does not have that same way of living.

And so he's adapted and he's a healthy boundary for me.

But like, there have been plenty of times when I have been like, but they need me at the while kind of being like, you guys are okay.

You're fine.

These people need me, you know?

Yeah.

And it can cause a lot of resentment if you're not careful.

And it's important for me to make sure that I'm.

That I'm paying attention to the people who matter most.

And it's also important that we don't.

This will be another great podcast.

I think that we don't serve people selfishly.

Meaning.

Yes.

Like, I need you to be dependent upon me in order for me to have any self worth.

And I don't think.

And it's interesting because I overthink this a lot.

But what I think it is is I'm not a fair weather friend.

I am the opposite of that.

I am somebody who is gonna be the most important person that you'll have when you're going through your worst time.

And then you won't see me a lot after that because I'm like, you're fine now.

Like, everything's cool.

I got another service project.

I gotta go.

Hop on.

But it's not.

But it's like my heart.

I feel for people.

And it serves me too.

Of course.

Course.

But that's not why I do it.

I can't stand.

Well, it's not why you do it consciously, Melody, but we got to get into that another time.

I want to talk about that more.

So I'm looking at the clock here.

Yeah, I know.

And I cannot go any further without talking to you about your Crisis of faith.

You know, you've talked a lot about the doubts that you had all along the way.

You've talked a lot about.

You're like, I'm not sure when this was or that I, you know, this is dictated to me.

And now, without using the A words, either one of them.

Now it's, I don't think I believe in God, or I'm not sure if I believe in God.

I think that's the one, but I'm definitely going to hell for it.

Tell me a little bit about your conclusion and how you got there, because obviously, it's a journey and you're not concluding, but you are definitely at a place right now that I think probably there's some pressure buildup.

There's more space right now.

Like, I'm giving myself the space to say that, and it feels scary to even say that out loud.

I can tell you I can pinpoint when it really became clear to me.

And this is gonna be.

Maybe I'll just say it.

When the first election happened, I've always had respect for evangelicals and Christians, even though I might not agree with all the things I've had, respect that at least they 100% follow their value, their moral beliefs.

Right?

And when Trump was elected, for me, that was the thing.

I know that's so weird that it would be a political thing.

That was the thing that really did it for me.

That made me think, because I saw a lot of people who had taught me to believe, you know, all of the whole point of evangelical world is like, you can't get a divorce because God doesn't want divorces.

God doesn't want all of these, like, values that had been instilled in me.

Don't lie, don't cheat, don't, you know, treat people with respect, be good to people.

No offense, guys, but I don't see any one of those values in Donald Trump.

And.

But you see the weight of the evangelical community being thrown full force behind you.

Not.

Not only that, the friends who are in as well.

And it's been very, very hard for me to figure out how.

What it did for me is they taught me my value system, the evangelical faith.

What do I even believe in if that's not true?

Like, in a way, I don't even know if I'm explaining it right, but.

I actually am following you really well right now.

Okay, maybe a little bit.

It's some projection of my own that we'll get into another time.

But if I could repeat back, I just want to make sure.

I'm hearing something.

I'm hearing you say you taught me my values.

Yeah, I follow these values.

And then some weird ripple happened to where this became acceptable.

Yes, and not just acceptable, but you are chanting a name.

You are pushing for something that the.

Antithesis of the values you taught me.

And every time I ask you about it, which now I am totally projecting, Please, right now.

And every time I ask you mom and dad, about this incongruency, your response is, well, look at the other side or, yeah, you'll shift.

And then I say, but, but listen, I still have these questions.

And then the answer comes back, which is still a deflectment in my opinion, is, you know what?

Every leader is going to have flaws, and he certainly does have his flaws.

But as a leader, we need this.

As a country.

God wants us to have this.

This is God's will.

He's a baby Christian.

I've heard all of the things, Kurt.

Yeah, but one of the other ones that I heard that I think is also kind of an important one is, yeah, look in the Bible.

Look at the leaders that were very good leaders who were not godly men.

And I say to myself, if God cannot figure out how to lead with a godly man and he can't get him to the top, is he all power?

Like, okay, now we just moved into my questions.

No, no, but, but that's where I'm trying to figure out.

Is that where you're at?

A hundred percent where I'm at.

And that's why I keep having deep conversations with people who think very differently than me on this.

Because I want to understand.

All I want.

I just want to understand, because who am I?

Like the fact that I would have, like practically a mental breakdown over.

Was I just gaslit for the past 40 something years of my life?

Yeah, that's craziness.

So it's way more complicated than that.

But that was the thing that kind of broke it for me.

I'm very much an ethical human.

Like, I believe in certain things that kind of align still with the religious beliefs.

As you have gone through and are going through this struggle, what is it that makes you think that maybe there is a God and that you haven't been gaslit?

Well, nature is a big one for me.

I spend a lot of time in the summer being, like, outside and sleeping outside and being under the stars and listening to nature and just seeing how beautiful the world works.

There's so much destruction and pain and all sorts of suffering in this world.

Nature is beautiful.

Like it just works.

It's the fireflies.

How magical.

I mean, that light that emanates from fireflies in my back field or all of the stars in the sky.

Like, there's too many things that are amazing and mysterious that make me believe that it's just not about only us.

And I think I would say, like, also the goodness of people.

I don't know that that's.

But I want to believe that good people, whether they're Christians, Muslims, whatever, we're trying to do good in the world, and they're doing it in the name of God.

Like, that means something to me.

I want it to mean something.

Yeah.

What is it for you, Kurt?

For me, it's.

I look at the complexity of people and the complexity of the world and nature.

Is it for me as well?

I just feel like the odds of a can of Alphabet soup.

My dad said this to me.

Yeah, soup.

And you throw it out into a straight line.

Will it land in alphabetical order?

And how many times do you have to do that before it doesn't or before it does?

Yeah.

And for me, I just know that there's some driving force and we'll get into it when we talk about my upbringing, sort of my religious struggle.

But, Melody, as of right now, I think that you and I are kind of kindred spirits.

And knowing that there is a power there.

Yeah.

But for some reason, it feels like as hard as I seek and search, this power does.

Want is comfortable being unknown.

Yeah, I don't like that.

Yeah, I don't either.

And I.

And I certainly think that a lot of our listeners who are very religious and have like a specific doctrines that they follow and maybe a religious sect that they're in, I think that that's a really hard thing to say to other people because I don't want it to trivialize what other people believe.

Yes.

What I can't do is trivialize the fact that there are people who believe differently than you.

If I'm talking to the listener who says, but I found it.

Yeah, but there's people who believe differently than you who are true seekers.

And I don't trivialize them either.

And I find people who are truly trying to do good, be good, find good, seek and knock all the things the Bible says to do.

And I do believe there's some.

Someone there, but I don't believe he's a good marketer.

I don't believe that he is.

If we're playing a game of hide and seek, if I say if it's a seeking you shall find me.

I don't think he wants to be found as easily or simply as people say.

So is that why I struggle with marketing?

Because I didn't learn it from the Lord properly?

Yeah.

Can I say also one thing?

If somebody's listening to this and they are super set in their faith, I just want to say, please do not come to me and tell me why I should believe differently.

It's very triggering to be proselytized.

What is that word?

Processed?

Yes.

And because I've been there and I've been the person who was doing that in the past.

Right.

So I just love having conversations like this with anybody, though.

Like, I don't mind just having open conversations like this.

It's amazing and very freeing and I appreciate you.

I appreciate you.

Melody, thank you so much for your time today.

I am very much looking forward to our next conversation where we can dig in a little bit more on maybe the other side of our podcast.

Coin here.

Yeah.

And going to be an absolute blast.

But this has been very eye openening and mind openening for me, so thank you.

Thank you, Kurt Sa.