Poetry & Presence

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

This podcast is brought to you by Sage Hill, a social impact organization. Our mission is to help people be who they're made to be so that they can do what they're made to do. Find more resources to live fully, love deeply, and lead well at sagehillresources.com. Hey. This is Stephen James. Thanks for listening to the Sage Hill podcast. I'm really excited today. I'm not really excited. I'm happy. I don't know how excited I am. But I got Dane Anthony in the studio today. Hey, Dane. Hey, Stephen. It's great to be here. Yeah. Y'all if you're if you're listening and you've been around the Sage Hill world for probably any time at all, you've seen Dane's name or you've read something he's wrote or maybe you've been fortunate enough to be in a group with him or Sage Hill training, that we did before COVID. It's been an important part of the work we've done here for the last seven years. And, I realized a few weeks ago, and I was kinda planning upcoming podcast. Dane's never been on the podcast. Here we are. Here we are. Which and and I think I have Maggie coming on soon I heard that. Also, which could be unpredictable as it does work. Absolutely. But thanks for being here. Thank you. I think, what I wanna do is just talk and hang out. And, I've known you since 1991.

I was wondering what the year was. Yeah. 1991, which is a long time ago. Mhmm. That was when I started college at Belmont. Mhmm. And you, were the Baptist Student Union minister at Belmont. Yes. That was like eight lifetimes ago. Eight lifetimes ago. And you were nice. I never went I went to the Baptist what was it was it called? The barn? The barn? The barn. Yes. I went to the barn once because there was a girl I liked that I wanted to go see at the barn. But that was the only time I ever went there. But you're always so nice to me. Thank you. And, and then fast forward a few years later Could could I back in here? Yeah. Yeah. My first memory of you was I I would leave my office because the soccer team played on campus right across the parking lot from the the barn, and I would watch about half the game, and it was usually the game that you were on that end of the field Yeah. In goal. And that's how I got to know you. There you go. That was a big presence. I used a lot of cuss words. You did.

What about yeah. I realized one day after a game that the president of the school loved to stand behind the goal and watch the game, doctor Trout. And I was mortified because I I was a very angry goalkeeper who yelled a lot and cussed a lot. And he he did not not bother him at all. He told me later that that was fine. And then fast forward, and our wives worked together at Daystar. Mhmm. I think it would be the next time. They shared an office. They shared an yeah. It was a closet. They shared closets at Daystar. Heather was a counselor and Maggie did fundraising. Mhmm. And they were in a closet together. They would share this closet right when Heather was finishing graduate school and out of graduate school. And then when how what was the next time our paths crossed?

I was trying to start a men's group. Okay. It was after the experience of my with my stepson, and, was trying to find work. I left Belmont, what ended up being temporarily. And I came to you with some brochures. Yeah. You were I didn't know it at the time because you couldn't tell me. Yeah. Like, a week away from leaving fellowship. Yeah. And you were trying to start a group. Yes. And about three weeks later, you called me and said, I don't have enough to start a group. And I said, I don't either. And you said, well, I've never facilitated a group with somebody else, but you wanna see how it goes? And that was, this fall would be thirteen years. Yeah. Yeah. So we started facilitating men's groups thirteen years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Mhmm. That's a long time ago. It was. Yeah. And you just mentioned, like, eight live so what have been the eight lives of the last thirteen years that you have? Well, I started at Belmont as the university minister.

Spent about ten years doing that. I then became an associate dean of students for about nine years, and then was away because of this family situation for about two semesters, and then was asked to come back and teach in the College of Theology. So I taught, entry level religion courses, like general education courses, and at the end became Director of the field education, kind of, what would you call it, internship for religion majors. That was in the end. And in the midst of that, I was, being trained to be a spiritual director. I was being trained by Parker Palmer, some people might know him, for a circle of trust retreat process. I was beginning a spiritual direction practice, doing retreats, teaching full time, leading at one point, you and I were doing five groups a week. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot. I was thinking about that the other day. That was pretty insane. And, like Or ambitious. I needed to step into work, and I really needed to rebuild our finances Yeah. To what we'd experienced. Yeah. And and here we are. Yeah. And then,

so now you spend your time, you've just bought a piece of land. Correct. Oh, no. It's not a farm. It's a rough piece of land. We we are, timber farmers. Are you are you sawing the trees yourself? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Alright. Some and and splitting. Yeah. So you spend a little bit of your time at your timber farm, which is hilarious. It's your holler. It's a holler. Yeah. And then you spend time doing some groups at Sage Hill. Mhmm. And then you do spiritual direction. Mhmm. Like, do soul print. Right? Which is your organization to soul print. A lot of premarital counseling. A lot of premarital counseling. Lot of transition counseling. A lot of helping people discern. Discernment work. Discernment work. Mhmm. And you have this cool house on the back of your beside behind your house here in town called the Shelter, which is kinda famous now. Like, it's a place that people know of. Right. It's awesome. What happens there? And what is it?

Well, it's, it's my office. It's in the back corner of our yard in my garden. And, that's where I meet people individually and couples for premarital counseling. It's this beautiful little two fifty square foot space that's clad in eastern cedar. Inside, it's just this really peaceful space in which we show up together, God shows up, in ways that are really, really sacred. It's just a beautiful peaceful space. Most of the time when people walk in for the first time, they take about one or two steps in and stop and get really quiet. And I think it's lit the palpable sense of peacefulness and spaciousness in it, I don't know. It's it's a really, really beautiful spot. And you're a master gardener. Yes. Like, that's like a real designation that you actually have that. Right. It's that if people are entering through, like, this thing you've just eaten, you've created. Yeah. Very intentional. Yeah. Yeah. Man. Yeah. That's kinda how you spend your time. But I've also one of the things I've learned about you is you're always learning and becoming and, like, reiterating and deepening and thinking and becoming again and flexing and, like so I'll be curious to know and what would love to be just have a conversation about what you're learning now. Like, what's life been teaching you? How have your, experiences recently shaped you? How how has your perspective of the world changed,

in different ways? And Yeah. It's a great question. I'm a pretty avid reader, and I'm usually in the middle of four to six books at a time of varying things. I was, excuse me, kinda taking a a glance at the the books that were on side tables or bedside or desk or whatever. And, I'm reading an anthology of, mindful poetry right now. I used poetry a lot. Anthology of Mindful Poetry. Yeah. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful volume. I began a seasonal poetry evening, called Illuminating the Path, Poetry as a Guiding Companion. We're doing once a season online. That's been really nice. Just finished a book by, John Philip Newell, who's a Scottish You said John Philip. I'm thinking John Philip Sousa. I did not know he wrote a book.

He may have, but I haven't read it. And he was the warden of, the eye Island Of Iona off the West Coast Of Scotland, which is a very deep Celtic spiritual place, like a holy place. They would call it a thin place, where the boundary between the imagined world and the the real world, as we would call it, is very thin. Which one do we live in? Like, I think sometimes we live in the imagined world. It's not the real world. Yeah. So I just finished that. It was called Sacred Earth and Sacred Soul, I believe. So it was basically a chronological exploration of Celtic wisdom teachers over time, way back to the third century to to current time. It was really fascinating. I have found an Irish novelist that I really, really like. I'm just starting the third one of his that I've read named Niall Williams. You'd you'd love it, Stephen. I love it. It's amazing. Yeah. He's like a good good guy. Really, really great fiction, just gripping his his, embrace of a language and and be just really beautiful.

The weather never changes in Ireland, so they have to have good language to describe things. Yes. One of the books is called History of Rain. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. It's the relationship with rain, over time. And so I think part of what I'm recognizing I'm in my early sixties now, which is so weird to say. But I'm also really embracing the wisdom that's coming with that. And, this phrase that I think I mentioned to you in a group a while back has been really meaningful for my own life and work, and this happened a little bit pre COVID. It was just kind of a revelation one day that we can't unknow our story, but we can begin to unlearn the ways that we've been in relationship with it in order to learn a new way to be in relationship with it. Because we're always in relationship with it. And how we are intentionally, thoughtfully, attentively, being aware of how that story is speaking to us and how we choose to be in relationship. So a lot of it has been around exploring choice Yeah. Or what choices we have available to us. And the other piece of the work that's showing up, probably because of the absence of it in in my early life, is the the power of kindness. And that my experience of people in deep spiritual conversations is that God is always coming to us in kindness and compassion and care. And we are often really willing to offer that to other people, but very, very rarely for ourselves. Most of my work is with men, and I think we're probably, the least willing to offer that to ourselves. And beginning to move people into, or toward, a turn to kindness, away from judgment and criticism, has been a really powerful experience. John Eldridge uses this phrase of benevolent detachment, and I've begun to kind of frame my own sense of what that not just what that could be or looks like, but what it really feels like to take one step back when the only creature on the planet that can step away from ourselves and see ourselves, and moving back into a space that is in Presence. And that's my working name for God these days. It's capital P Presence and how we inhabit that space outside of judgment, criticism, and change. Always is, always will be. Yes, always is. Always available to us. And stepping back into that place has really changed me in the last couple of years in ways that, I really feel different Mhmm. As I move through the world and in relationship and conversation. And, my work with Parker Palmer and the circle of trust work, he's a Quaker elder and brings a lot of Quaker sensibility to that work. And some of the the language or guidelines that we use in that retreat work is that the work is always by invitation and never by demand. Yeah. And so what does it look like? I think part of the work that we've been asked to explore as we've been trained in this is what does it look like to inhabit these principles and practices, as we call them. What does it look like to live by invitation and not demand? And frame questions that are invitational, not demanding Yeah. Or be in space with people and not take up all the oxygen Yeah. But be present. He has this beautiful image of being with someone like you and I are today, in a really thoughtful, intentional conversation, and me as the listener holding a basin of water for you to see yourself as clearly as possible. To hold it really still. My work is to hold it really still, which means I need to be letting go of my agendas and my pace for this and all my wonderful insight that would change your life if, you know, if I could say it. Yeah. That may not be necessary here. It might not be helpful. It might not helpful. It might not get in the way. Might get in the way. Exactly. Yeah. So I've been doing a lot of thinking about,

so you say that and it elicits this in me, like, about calling. I've been studying calling and purpose and meaning and writing a lot about that and thinking through what that means. And I've the last couple weeks have stumbled in this idea that I do think we're invited and pulled into a bigger story than we can imagine. Mhmm. Right? And it's not a it's not about our drives. It's not about our ambition. There's something pulling us into this big story. And most of the calling we experience in our life, just because so much what you're saying is, am I available to just notice the moment and what the moment's asking of me? Yeah. As opposed to try to get my agenda or get it through or get my checklist done or maximize the time. It's like, what's this moment asking of me? Exactly. And how do I participate in a moment of presence? So like that, your word for God these days is presence, capital p. How do I participate in the presence, that's already happening? How do I show up in it? I don't have to make it happen. It's already there. Mhmm. Right? And there's room for me in there. Mhmm. You know? And Ed and I were talking about it on a walk the other night, and just kinda looking around and wondering together, like, what's what's right now asking of us? Yeah. That's a great question. Just walking the dog. Mhmm. That's what that's what it's asking. Mhmm. Just to be attentive to each other and to leave space for each other in a conversation, which she's better at than I am, you know. And I'm better at filling it than she is. So and even when there's space, sometimes she doesn't fill it, and I will. Right? But but that's it's really interesting. Like, I like what you're saying, but the the attending to what's there and,

But really living into the invitation of the present moment that literally, this is all we have right now between you and I in this conversation. This is all that exists right now. Other things are happening in other places, but we're here. My spiritual director likes to ask, can you be here now and be somewhere else later? I love that because it's not shaming. It's an invitation. Yeah. Sometimes I can. Yes. And sometimes I say not now. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're all oriented I think we're made to be present. And because we're eternal creatures, we're also made to be historic, like, in the past or part of the past, and we're made to lean into so it's not there yet. Mhmm. Right? Mhmm. Does that does that make sense? Absolutely. Okay. But in this present, I think we all have an orientation towards either the past or the future. Mhmm. Right? I'm very future oriented. What would you say you are? I'm past. Okay. Yeah. That's why we do so well again. That's why we say we're both pulling I just figured it out. Yeah. There we go. There it is. I do think there's something in that though. Right? Of learning to to trust your rhythms are good and my rhythms are good. And and they are they actually, when you when working together because it's true in my marriage too. Heather's very past oriented. Not so much she's a historian, but that she there's meaning, and there's there's connect she's always looking at the connections that are there, and that there aren't there, and how does she make more connection to those things. And I'm always thinking about, like, how do we create something new and do something new. But when we do when we're pulling on that together, that does create more presence and more more both and Mhmm. In there. I would say Maggie's probably,

more of a present future. Oh, I think totally. Yeah. Possibilities. Yeah. Possibilities. What if? What if? Yeah. Next thing. Mhmm. Yeah. And it's always good. Like, there's always the good Mhmm. And as a past oriented person, trusting you, trusting Maggie, trusting future people that that we actually cover a whole lot more ground in space. And sometimes we're just dreaming. We don't need to do anything. We just need to get the idea out there so it can go away. Right? Yeah. So how how is soon it's about poetry. Let's go back. Because poetry is something you and I both love and care about and think it's important. I think I would want to know what you think about this and add on to it. I think one of the most important things about poetry is the stuff I make up between the lines. Mhmm. Because the poem doesn't say nearly as much ever what a poem means. A good poem. Right? Mhmm. I'm filling in all this space and story and, what what like, questions or bringing questions to a poem. Even, like, what does this mean? Like, what's this poem mean? Like, what's it trying to say to me? Or what's it what's the author trying to say? But, like, there's so much that happens between spaces in the poem. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah.

So I think part of the way that we could think about it, or we've been taught to think about it, is to try to imagine what the poet meant by it. But the poet is having, as I began to write poetry, recognizing that it's a moment in time that's captured in a particular experience from a particular perspective. But a really good poem is also open enough that anyone can find their way in their own story and experience into it, and that often when I'm quote, unquote, working a poem with people, and I'll read it, and I'll ask them to read it, their pacing's different, their pronunciation, their the tonation of voice recognition. Which is a practice I've adopted. It's like, I'll read it, have someone else read it, have another person read it. So we could hear it in another voice. Yeah. Yeah. It's really powerful,

because I can only hear hear my own. Yeah. And that, I I don't sense that poets want us to analyze their poems, and poems are meant to be read out loud so that we can feel the experience of the vibration of our voice or the the vibration of our inner ear when someone else is offering that to us, that's opened something up for us. Emily Dickinson has this great little poem called Tell the Truth, But Tell it Slant. Mhmm. And I think that's what poetry does for us. It helps us come in the side door, the back window, rather than right through the front door, like a really directive statement. And it opens possibility. That's what I really like about it. What's a poem? Let's do one. It's totally unscripted. Let's what's it? Do you have your little poetry device called your telephone? Well, this, I will.

I'll actually read one of mine. This is, I had a poem published online Oh, that's great. During COVID. What you're getting these days, getting published online is like actually getting published. It used to be like you could only get publishers in print, and now you get published then you could self publish online. But now, like, there's, like, whole things, platforms of, like Mhmm. Yeah. So this is called, Right Here. Okay. This is a a poem about presence. Okay. Oh, perfect. Right Here. Stop moving. Stand in one place. This place. Breathe slowly in and out. Repeat. Repeat again. Let your shoulders sink and relax. Unclench your jaw. Slowly close your eyes. Listen for your heartbeat. Really listen. Feel it pulse in your fingertips. Lessen expectations. Underdo all your efforts. Requisition the time for your soul to catch up. Lean into the wind, feel it like a tree, and test the ground. Learn to trust the resilience. It would be treason to move quickly, left or right, from this place. It is alright to be exactly what you are, who you are, where you are, right here, right now.

Dude. That's so good. I like it. Okay. So what stood out to me this is several things. That's a long poem. Wow. I wanted it to stop. Like, it was it felt like so what came up at me as I'm hearing that is, like, almost every sentence was a meditation. Mhmm. Right? To, like, stop and consider and think about and, like, requisition the time for your soul. It's like, god, it's so good. It would be treason. It's like, I wanna stop and sit in that. And then you would keep going on. And I was like so sad, but that's like that's at the same time, it's like that's what happens in the presence. Like the minute I'm in it, it's moving me through forward To the next moment. To the next moment. That's genius. I don't even know if you meant the time to say

with that. Actually, I was contacted by a yoga instructor in Australia because she read it all. That's a cool sentence. I've never been contacted by a yoga instructor ever, let alone one in Australia. And she wanted to use this poem as part of a, yoga teacher meditation practice guide. Yeah. Of course, she did. It's like This is genius. Absolutely. Beautiful. So good. I was really honored by that. Stop. I'm gonna read it now. That's good. Stop moving. Stand in one place, this place. Breathe slowly, in then out. Repeat. Repeat again. Let your shoulders sink and relax. Unclench your draw. Slowly close your eyes. Listen for your heartbeat. Really listen. Feel it pulse in your fingertips. Lessen expectations. Undo all your efforts. Requisition the time for your soul to catch up. Lean in to the wind. Feel it like a tree and test the ground. Learn to trust the resilience. It would be treason to move quickly, left or right, from this place. It is alright to be exactly what you are, who you are, where you are right here, right now. Dang. Oh, I love to hear you read it. I just wanna sit with this. And that's what good poetry does. Like, it it there's so much. And your poetry is so soulful and spiritual, and

that's so good. I've had a I've written a few poems that have a little humor to them, but but I'm always working something out in a poem. I'm processing a moment. I'm processing a question or a feeling or experience. And I've I've never been a journaler, like an active journaler. I do when I go away on retreat, but on a daily basis, I've never been able to keep that practice active in a way that I, didn't feel like it was a duty. But I recognize that over time that poetry is my form of Of journaling. Yep. I love how you start with, like, these imperatives. Stop moving. These are all imperatives in most places. Right? Stand in one place. Breathe slowly. Repeat. Repeat again. Let your shoulders sink. Unclench your jaw. When you I can't unclench my jaw, by the way. That is a I carry carry a lot of tension in my jaw. This is so this might be one of the best things you've written. Thank you. It's so good.

Well, I'll send you some more. Yes. Send some more. That's so, you know, you know, one of the things, like, you hear it in a different voice, we talk about it, it starts meaning something more, people start bringing their story to it. Mhmm. And I I think the way you facilitate that is so helpful. I think when I try it myself, it it I my own agenda start showing up for me to find the meaning Mhmm. And me to make sense of it or me to make it useful as opposed to, like, when somebody else says something that surprises me, you know, if you're doing, like, this circle work. It's really cool. Mhmm. And I think often I'll and this is part of the training that that I've had with Parker is, to invite it's actually a kind of a form of lectio divina Yeah. That we use in scripture, but to use that with a poem to invite people to speak into the space, the circle, the space, the conversation, a word or a phrase from a poem that kind of rises upon the page. And sometimes it literally might just be a word, like lesson. Yeah. Gah. I could I could sit with that because of that the scarcity mindset I grew up with. There always needs to be more. Like, underdo all your movements. That's so counter to certainly masculine masculine culture, contemporary culture is, like, overdue.

Do more. Yeah. More is always more. Right? Yeah. Yeah. My mantra for this year is, do less, be more. There you go. And I've got this you know about the monk manual? No. Oh, man. So I Sounds like I need to. Yeah. It's cool. So it's a it's a daily it's a journal day timer thing, but it's a non productivity journal or day timer. It's a presence journal. So you, this is a long way. They're decent. You have look at your month and you kinda lay out your daily rhythm in your month, then you have a personal check-in, like how your relationships, your physical life, your spiritual life, your work vocation, personal growth play, and then what's one change I can make in the next month that will make the biggest impact in my life? And you think about that, and you come back what's one question I'd like to answer this month? Right? And then you reflect at the end of the month on that month. And then it it has that same rhythm each week of what's going on this week, what are your intentions for the week, any big things that you need to do. I I was really happy. I only had one thing I needed to do I had to do this week. Personal growth, commitments for the week, like one a space for like one thing. Relationship growth, something I'm looking forward to this week, like three things. And then you have reflect, Right? At the end of the week. And then you have the same rhythm every day. As you prepare, you do in the life and you reflect. But my theme for the year is do less be more, and I write that every day. Wow. And That's a good practice. Well, but and so when I wrote down my schedule for the day, that doesn't look like do less. Right? Yeah. You know, it was, like, literally 7AM to six something PM, there's something on my calendar today. You know? But the phrase, do less be more, like, is my is there a way I could even be in these meetings and not be about doing, but about Be more. Trusting being more is actually the thing that these meetings are asking me. Because there's a lot of administrative meetings today. It wasn't I had one meeting where my job was to guide or shape or, you know, like facilitate movement. But today it was like, what am I grateful for today? I wrote trusting the process, you know. And it was like and then even the what am I looking forward to? Some days it'll stop me and I have to, like, think about what am I looking forward to today? Like, what's the Yeah. The thing, you know? And then to come back tonight, and reflect or sometimes I'll do it the morning when I'm sit down to do the next thing. Like, I'll reflect, like, what were the highlights? How was my best win? I felt unrest win. One way I can improve tomorrow. But it's all about creating presence, in your life. It's been it's been awesome. I'm on my third quarter of Monk Manuals now. And Heather's doing it. It's really great. I'll get you one of these. I'll look into it. But it goes to, like, some of that idea of, like, busyness and the part of our our heroic American mindset is, like, accomplish, save, subdue, conquer. Like, that's that's part of our myth and the mythology that we live in and the psychology that we live in. And there's a lot of good that's come in that. And Mhmm. There's also, like, it's robbed our souls of a lot of, like, essentialness of of, like, the agrarian rhythms. Right. Right? Not the industrial rhythms. Seasonal rhythms. Seasonal rhythms and that kind of stuff. So it's so I don't know how I got off on that. Like, the presence and the you know? There's this great little story that I might have heard this from Parker.

Back in colonial days, this Englishman shows up on the Western shores of Africa, and he hires three or four porters to get him within seven days to this inland destination. And he's really pushing them. And about the third day, they sit down under a tree, put all his stuff down, and they refuse to move. And he said, we gotta go. We gotta go. And they said, you need to go. Go. We're we we need to stay here. And he said, why do you need to stay here? He said, because we need to wait for our souls to catch up with us. Oh. It was like But they knew that. Yeah. I know that feeling. Understand. Yeah. I know that like, man, what a This is about pushing through, pushing through. Caught up with you. Yeah. Thanks, Dane. Yeah. That was good. Yeah.

This podcast is brought to you by Sage Hill, a social impact organization. Our mission is to help people be who they're made to be so that they can do what they're made to do. Find more resources to live fully, love deeply, and lead well at sagehillresources.com.