Join us in an enlightening conversation with Karyn, a former member of a fundamentalist community and now a devoted teacher of spirituality and community at a senior center. Discover her transformative journey, her exploration of world religions, and her impactful work in building understanding and unity across diverse spiritual traditions. Dive into this episode for a story of personal growth and community connection.

For business owners or business leaders, And specifically grandmothers who are focused epic community builders And karen this interview was exactly that one of one of the people that I know reached out to me and said hey I listened to your episode You have to talk to my mom And,

of course, I, I spent some time, you know, listening to him, talking to him about why you'd be the perfect guest and I was like, yep, I have to talk to your mom and you and I have had a couple of conversations now and I'm very excited to, to share you and your story with our audience for a couple of quick highlights, just so they know what they're in for, you have studied divinity and you are currently in your retirement job.

Karyn: Sure. So from age 12 to age 31, I was in a fundamentalist Christian community, that was very limited , in that, associating with others outside the group was not encouraged. And, visiting other spiritual communities was also not encouraged. And so when I was in my early thirties, I was an older than average.

Lucas Root: Hold on. So that that sounds a lot to me like a cult

Karyn: Some people would label it such,

Karyn: I do not.

Lucas Root: It's when the young people who are part of Amish communities, leave the community and go out into the world for at least a year to experience the world and then to decide whether or not they want to stay Amish and come back.

moving from community into cult, because I want, I want any, any community member, any friend, any person who I consider family, whether they're blood or not, I want them to continually reaffirm their own choice to be part of the community that that I consider to be my community.

And especially if your family members are all part of the group, you know, the grief about, you know, losing those valuable connections with your family is huge. And what really assisted me to.

Lucas Root: But, by the way, I think the same is true of being an American. I, I think that we should, we should culturally choose to travel to South America and to travel to Africa and to travel to India. Like, that should be a core approach to who we are. And those of us who say, I have no interest in traveling, like, that even, to me, is verging on a, a cult mentality.

uh, People in other parts of the world are our family, you know, that all humanity, , is related.

And

when you. And when you get that, when you recognize that, there's no fear about traveling, into areas that you have no idea what to expect and, you know, foreign language and foreign, practices it's just becomes beautiful because everybody you meet is so lovely and there's no fear of, you know,

Karyn: sure,

Lucas Root: Which, which means all of us are related at least through that one specific couple 5, 000 years ago.

Well, there's a second school of thought, right? And I happen to belong to that second school of thought, but I'm not asking for judgment here. And the second school of thought is That the world was invented more like 5 billion years ago. And even in that second school of thought, we actually have scientific evidence.

Karyn: Hmm

Lucas Root: Whether you like it or not, we are all related.

Karyn: I am part of your second, school of thought about that. I, I agree with that and

Lucas Root: But both schools of thought agree on that one thing. Either we were descendant from one couple 5, 000 years ago, or we were descendant from a different one woman 300, 000 years ago. It doesn't matter. In both cases, one woman. We are all related. Sorry. Thank you.

Karyn: Yeah, no need to apologize. That was perfect. That was beautiful. So, back to my story

And it was very exciting for me. It felt like, Back in kindergarten, you know, when you feel so excited about learning and playing and meeting new people and School

Lucas Root: is new. Every day is something new. I love

Karyn: yes, yes and Networking making new friends also being mentored by my professors which many of them became very instrumental in my success And the inspiration to actually believe that I could become a college teacher because initially I had a small goal.

And that was like part of my spiritual awakening to embrace, , what was really in my heart, , what I really loved and what I really loved was people and community building and being instrumental in helping them find, , what's in their heart and what they love. And that was, a big part of my teaching when I was teaching study skills and critical thinking was encouraging them to reflect back when they were children.

From just English comp to study skills critical thinking, reading improvement, reading was a huge, aspect of my growth because I was an avid reader and I wanted to read, everything that, well respected scholars had to say about the different world religions and about,

um,

Lucas Root: reading that. I

Karyn: and if that's what you really, really love, why aren't you pursuing that?

And so I did a, an assessment of all of my graduate level courses and, and recognized that I had enough. to teach in another area as a community college instructor. So I put out, I sent out a query letter and I got a very nice response, but it wasn't very promising. And then I went back in kind of oogling over the titles to see which one I would really love teaching.

Teach this course anymore. So they needed an instructor immediately. And so I met with the Dean At McDonald's and had a conversation and the next day I'm teaching that course And so that's how you know, the heavens opened up and said you want ice cream and cake here you go

Lucas Root: Here it is.

Karyn: then it just blossomed from there And

Lucas Root: I

Karyn: it was just so incredible how teaching those courses opened the world to these students.

Their current belief system and sharing what they know about, the aspects of religion, because this course was philosophy of religion. So all the different aspects of, of our different religious

Lucas Root: would take that.

Karyn: It was so amazing.

Lucas Root: Yeah. I would take that. That'd be so much fun.

So Eastern religion sequence, Western religion sequence. And again, most of these students knew nothing outside of how they were raised in, in Christian groups. And Got exposed to what are Buddhists, , like they would say to me Why is the Buddha fat, you know? because that's all they knew they would go to a Chinese restaurant and see the fat bellied Buddha and Wondered, , what is that all about?

And, and then in my classes also, they would have a homework assignment to visit two different non-Christian worship services. Not to be subjected to any kind of proselytization. There's no fear about it.

Lucas Root: Yeah.

Karyn: Yeah, you're going in as an investigator and an observer. do you see, smell, hear, taste, touch?

How do these people interact

together?

Lucas Root: similar? How is it different? Oh,

What did you not know about these people? And to encourage a relaxed feeling about exposing yourself to these other groups, to find out for yourself. what they teach. And actually my own daughter took all of my religion classes and she was also

Lucas Root: cool.

Karyn: raised in a, closed community and told negative things about other groups and she decided on her own that she wanted to go to a different worship service every Sunday.

All of them, preach being good to your fellow man, being good to your neighbor, being hospitable, helping those in need, , telling the truth, not taking something that doesn't belong to you treating others with respect, like all of them across the board encourage that and, people need to know that for themselves.

Like I was initially afraid of them because of 9 11 and now I understand what they believe. And. Could have a conversation with them and, you know, have things that I could ask them. And, and that's really the goal of these courses is to expand. Like we talked at the beginning of this interview to the outside world and to not be afraid of people who have a different.

Lucas Root: Yeah. Before you go on, so we've done a couple of episodes that were sort of focused on religion. Those of you who are listening and want to hear more about religion, obviously look up Karyn but also episode four with Peter Lafter we talked about Quakerism and we talked about the concept of yeah, I loved it.

It was so much fun the concept of leadership in quakerism is that leadership is in the moment and the person who has access to Spirit in the moment has the authority to lead Um in in service to that spirit, which was an amazing conversation. So peter laughter and then Also I think it was episode 14 with Isis and Drea.

So go take a look, listen to one of those if you're inspired by this. Karen, thank you. That was awesome. Continue with your story, because, Cake and Ice Cream was, was core in your, I love, I love it. I mean, like, you have a signpost that, that shows when you took a pivot on your road, like a hard left turn.

And, and it was wonderful. , you went from, , whatever your life was to, to moving into paradise. And, now you actually live in a version of that paradise. And I, I want to hear us get to that too.

It has now closed, but it had been in operation for well over 100 years. And what's beautiful about the experience I had at Merrillhurst is that it was an interfaith program. So even though it was a Catholic university and my two major professors who ran the program, the divinity program were Catholic, they never tried to proselytize anybody in the group.

Lucas Root: the, I do like the UU people.

Karyn: Yeah, I love them too. I attended with them for a while. And so this program was a hefty master's degree. So it was four years instead of two.

And

Lucas Root: That is a hefty master's degree.

Karyn: yes, yes. And so I was

teaching,

Lucas Root: I would have a problem studying all the world religions for four years. would be

And so we had no exams. It was, writing these 40 page papers for every course, which were. Exegetical papers, which means a very strict format of analysis and taking, like a scripture word by word and going back to what did this word originally mean to this group of people back in ancient times.

Lucas Root: hmm.

I traveled to southern India. I spent some time at Oneness University, which is, Oneness University which is an international school. So, in this first experience, I was the only American. And I was with, , there were 26 students in this group, a huge number from Mexico, a huge number from Italy some women from Finland.

My training was done. I got to travel around Chennai. And made friends with rickshaw drivers and they would take me to some cool places and became like my personal tour guides and,

Lucas Root: Yeah.

Karyn: And it was just so

lovely,

Lucas Root: to get a local, right?

Karyn: you know, but, but like we were talking about at the beginning of this interview about how we're all related and I made friends with this wonderful rickshaw driver.

Lucas Root: Isn't that lovely?

Lucas Root: but welcomed.

Karyn: Absolutely. Absolutely. So much hospitality in India, in Southern India, they have like these big malls that are, you know, like America malls. But when you go inside their shops, they want you to sit down and they want to bring you tea and cookies and they want to know where you're from. And, you know, they're very hospitable.

Lucas Root: oh, that's fun.

Lucas Root: Mm

, comfortable practicing these other traditions at the same time, you know, that there wasn't a conflict. And he went to Japan and he, he spent time in a Japanese Zen Buddhist monastery and had an enlightenment experience. And then he went to the Sufis and he became a whirling dervish and he went to the Muslims and, he had this.

Folks, like I went five summers in a row to the Lakota and witnessed their sun dance. And, , they welcomed me and loved

me. So, you know, to be able to share that in the classroom. firsthand experiences of witnessing the love that they have for their children and for community and cooking together.

it was just,

Lucas Root: a Lakota sweat lodge.

Karyn: Numerous times,

numerous names

Lucas Root: that is an intense experience.

Karyn: Totally,

Lucas Root: You didn't tell me about this before.

Karyn: no, and yeah, I mean, it was, you know, I,

I got some,

Lucas Root: know, a Lakota lodge is a very spiritual and intense experience.

Karyn: the first time I went into the sweat lodge, it was by personal request because it was kind of an off day and they have two lodges.

Lucas Root: requested or, or they

specifically

And, you know, they pour water on the stones and they're chanting, they're singing in their native tongue. And I had an experience that first time where I was told that my mother, would pass in six months. And I had the, I had the silent scream in the towel and, but I was also told this will be a very special time for you both.

You know, to have that preparation and the love of that community,, like being white and entering into a native community and you know, they welcome all races, yellow, black, red, and white, and we're all brothers and sisters.

Lucas Root: It's true.

Karyn: And so, you know, I feel

so blessed.

Lucas Root: while you were in India and, and feeling the impact of being brothers and sisters.

I think second or third group time that I went, you know, , larger groups of like 400 people and, Asian people are very excitable and they don't want to miss out on anything. And so they run and they want to get first in line because, , they don't want to miss out on, , the, the joy and the spiritual.

, energy's there and, it's very different from our coat culture. We're taught to hold back. We're taught to, be polite and, early on in this course that I was in this 30 day course, I was feeling annoyed, , you have a little bit of jet lag too, and you're adjusting to the heat and.

Lucas Root: there. And you're tired. Yep.

Karyn: it's, , it's like being in a sauna. You go outside and you, your body just melts. And, so I was feeling a little irritable at the Asians who were,

Lucas Root: speed running.

Karyn: Full speed running and , want to get on the bus first and I had gotten up because they would take us back and forth from the campuses , on a bus.

And , you could stand holding the, the pole as long as you got on, it was fine. So I'd had this experience of feeling really annoyed at these Asian people. And all of a sudden this sweet Asian man, like saw me carrying all my, my backpack and my goods for the day. And, he stood up and he gave me his seat and I just, tears came and I felt so much love and.

All day long. This is like evening, you're going back and you're tired and you're hot and you're, you have all your bags and, and this lovely Asian woman saw, you know, my load and she just reached up and grabbed my bags and took them, , I'm just going to remove, , the weight off of you and you're hot.

Please help me,, dissolve this, whatever it is, , and immediately it would happen. And there were so many people who had miraculous experiences of being healed from serious illnesses and serious obstacles and, it was just totally, incredible, all the things that happened.

And then I can share one other thing with one of my last experiences. I was, , on a limited budget and flying coach. And when you travel to India, it's 22 hours in several different airports and, and,

Karyn: I was praying like two days prior, like, know, please help me get upgraded or like, thank you for the upgrade.

And then three times I got upgraded into first class so that, , you could lay down, you could sleep, you're being offered food, you know, throughout the trip. And so I felt like enormously blessed, , and part of it is saying yes. You know, saying yes and not, worrying about the, the expense and knowing that the divine provides and that's what happened for me.

I was provided for in beautiful ways and so grateful for these experiences.

Karyn: So two years ago, I, had this clarity that, I. Was to live in Hawaii where, you know, the, the weather is

more,

Lucas Root: nobody hates to hear that, by the way.

And so I went to the Big Island, actually two years ago, almost to the day, it was December 13th that I went there with just,

Lucas Root: A couple days ago,

Karyn: Just two suitcases. I had only my clothing.

I had a one way ticket and I didn't know where, where I was going to live. But I knew it would be provided. I knew it would open up and it did.

I stayed in a few Airbnbs and I met these lovely people who offered to rent me a room. And so I, I, Stayed with them,

Lucas Root: how lovely.

And, because they had this potluck for all the people that didn't have family on Christmas. And so I met them and Had immediate connections and love, like they were happy. I was there. We started, , hanging out and playing board games. And I felt immediately like I was loved, welcomed and, , had friends that, , would help me if I needed something.

So I was looking for, An opportunity because I'm, I'm also Kundalini yoga teacher and I wanted to teach at the senior center. And so again, I was like immediately welcomed. They already had a number of yoga teachers and they said, well, what else do you teach? And I said, writing, and they were very excited.

I was stunned at their youthfulness, even though, , they're in their 70s and some were in their early 80s.

Lucas Root: hmm.

Karyn: Incredible stories. Incredible writers. And then the same folks were excited that I was there teaching writing and keep signing up every time they, they want to take it again and again and again.

And so I have the same,

Lucas Root: We're becoming your loyal fans.

Karyn: yes, and then new folks joining because they would tell people. , I'm taking this class and, , it's, it's really fun and I'm writing, , stories for my, my family, my children, so I can preserve my life history for my children. And so I taught the creative writing course the first time around, and then they said, Oh, if you want to teach another class.

Lucas Root: Mm hmm. You're

Karyn: So we covered the Vikings, the Druids, the Celts, the Egyptians.

And, oh, it was just so much fun. I feel like I'm like being stretched just with this joy of being able to learn myself. Like we're, we're journeying together in this investigation and study.

Lucas Root: I love it. Okay. I, I could talk about this all day,

but unfortunately

Karyn: I know.

Lucas Root: you do know we have,

Karyn: Yeah.

Lucas Root: we, we do have to let our listeners go.

Karyn: Okay.

World, world religion studies course. How do they find you? What's the one best way for them to reach out?

Karyn: They are more than welcome to email me. My email is my name, Karen Chambers, all lowercase, 598 at gmail. com. I love getting emails and I'm happy to answer any questions and any of the information I have. I'm also on Facebook, Karen Chambers. Karen with a Y, Karen with a Y, and I'm living in Hawaii, and so, yeah, I would, I would welcome friend requests and communication there.

Lucas Root: Yeah. Especially if you're in Hawaii and you want to learn about world religions from somebody amazing. Second question. is, this is a curved ball. It's a good thing you're sitting down.

Karyn: Okay.

Karyn: Hmm.

Lucas Root: Making you think on your feet here.

Karyn: What is the one mode of spiritual practice that was instrumental in, Expediting your path

Lucas Root: Oh. Oh, I love that. We have models to draw from, right? So, Siddhartha, go into the forest and meditate for 40 days. And, , Jesus, go into the desert and meditate for 40 days. iT's, it's fun to learn from the models, but of course, your lived experience is unique to you. So, what is it for you?

And it's more of a, a heart based technology. that, , aligns all of your chakras and, totally like increases the energy in your crown and makes miracles happen.

Lucas Root: Hmm.

Karyn: You know, it's like, it's like

Reiki.

Lucas Root: from yeah how is this different from the Christian Lay on Hands or the Jewish Lay on Hands? I

Karyn: not, it's the same.

Karyn: Diksha is Sanskrit.

Lucas Root: Mhm.

Karyn: And so Diksha means initiation.

Lucas Root: Mhm.

Karyn: And so it's an initiation that a student receives from a master that has its own intelligence. It has its own Ability.

Lucas Root: it's different from a lay on hands. See a lay on hands isn't necessarily about passing something on, it's about affecting the moment.

Karyn: Ah,

Lucas Root: Oh, I love it.

Karyn: our hands have chakras and our hands can transmit light and you're, you become an empty vessel and you focus on blessing the person that you're in the presence of , and giving them the initiation.

Lucas Root: Yeah. Oh, I love it. Hmm. I can't wait to get one from you.

Karyn: Yeah. Yeah.

Lucas Root: oh, thank you. Third question. Do you have any parting thoughts? Hmm.

Karyn: Don't be afraid to. explore and investigate. Some people are afraid they're going to lose their faith and that, , it could be disastrous. And it's actually the opposite. To investigate, to go, go as an observer to the Sikhs, the Buddhists, the, The Muslims, the Jewish people, even like it's so incredibly beautiful and out of all the places that I've gone stepped in not knowing anybody.

Lucas Root: Because we're all family.

Karyn: because we're all family.

Lucas Root: I love it. What a what an amazing core message, Karen. Thank you. Thank you I appreciate you being here.

Karyn: It is a blessing for me. Thank you very much.

Lucas Root: Yeah

Narrator: Thanks for joining us this week on Elements of Community.

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