The Grunt and Groan

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

You're listening to the Sage Hill podcast with Dr. Chip Dodd. Sage Hill is a social impact organization that helps people see who they're made to be so they can do what they're made to do. Hey, Chip. Hey, Stephen. Here we are, another podcast. I know. I Cruising right along. Yeah. It's great. Hey. We How's your day going? My day's going okay. I've had a good day. Good week. Good week. Yeah. Good good few weeks. Good few weeks. Yeah. Yeah. I came back from Africa a few weeks ago and, really I'm not even sure what I thought about my Africa trip, but it it I'm still trying to figure out what happened Uh-huh. For me and and the talks I was giving there and stuff. But but the break away from work, like, the the really, the break away from my compulsive rhythm of life. Yeah. And then I got sick coming back. I got a some kind of flu virus, African flu bug. I think it was Ebola. I think I survived. I think I'm fine. Oh, okay. Your whole family. We hit the whole family. You are genetically superior. We kinda kept me yeah. No. We're not. Heather may be, but the rest of us are. But we got hit with this flu bug, which kinda kept me down another week, which really threw me threw me off my game. But the the grace in that for me Did it scare you? It didn't scare me. Off your game. It scared you. It kinda frustrated me. Yeah. But then I realized, like, oh my gosh. Like, I'm not like, three weeks was enough to detox me right now. Your body just jerked three or four times. I should try to move into yeah. You know, and so it's like I'm still kind of in my hopefully, it will be a long term rhythm, but certainly it's a new rhythm of of a little slower, a little more thoughtful, you know, kind of pace, which is nice. It's really nice. So I'm having a great week. It's Friday. I'm not overworked. We We've started having this yoga instructor come to our house twice a week. Oh, geez. That is awesome. Yeah. Her name's Melissa. Uh-huh. She's really nice. Yeah. And she's got this yoga kind of Zen feng shui kind of thing going on. Like she's always calm? Like our dog, when she walks in the backyard, because we get outside in the backyard Uh-huh. And then I get out there. And the dog, who usually goes crazy and barks at everybody, just walks up and kinda sits and looks at Melissa. Like she really has a Piece of whatever. Well, maybe a practice calmness, like a stillness, you know? Yeah. My my

yoga instructor, runs a place called Grey Bear. Yeah. And I don't have a yoga instructor, but he's this guy that's helped me for years with some body work and because because my my Yeah. That's not a great question. Story about me right now. I wanna tell you something. I wanna tell you about this piece. You come right back to Okay. But he has this place called I'm easily distracted. Well, he'll come back. I will come. I'll bring you back to yoga instructor. Okay. He said he was doing yoga poses and he had a it's like a squirrel influx out at Gray Bear. And he was telling me the story about I love Howard had to do product placements on the stage. He was doing this yoga pose. He looked up and saw these squirrels that had gotten into his buildings, were eating wires and just threatening to burn the place down, grabs his shotgun, kills the squirrel, has a dog that runs after him. And then he comes back and goes into his peaceful yoga pose. So, you know, so it was he was laughing about that the whole yoga thing is about staying in that place.

Yeah. Until the squirrels hit your wires. Or the dog tries to bite. I mean, come on, man. Okay, go ahead. Well, anyway, so Melissa comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Heather and I go out there and do our our geriatric yoga. That's what I think. She'd be kind to kinda show us some geriatric yoga. Yeah. And because you're so old. Well, you're more fit than I am. Let's put it that way. So it's not really about age. It's more about lifestyle. Maybe a little stiff. But just changing my schedule, right, like creating a little more space in my morning a couple days a week Yeah. Has really helped me hold on to a more generous, present mindset, you know, that I that I found being gone from my compulsivity for three weeks. Yeah. You know, and so it's been really nice.

So you're not in charge anymore? I've not thought of it that way, but, yeah, I don't feel much in charge right now. I don't feel too worried about it right now. Now, you know, it's still the middle of the month. Mortgage is due at the beginning of the month. So I might get a little anxious towards the end of the month. But Yeah. But you're talking about reduction of compulsivity, having to be in control, so running from the wolves or rats or towards whatever you said it. Having a tiger by the tail. That's what you've said. I've said two tigers by the stem. I've said you have tiger by the ears and you're looking at its face if you let go. You know? Yeah. But it feels like somehow coming back from that trip, I was able to let go of the tiger, which is great. Yeah. It is great too. I hope I don't find it again, though. I may.

And I'll see Season every season. Season out there. Probably. Yeah. Probably. But I've also noticed in that, like, this, maybe more openness to to be playful, to be relaxed, to be present, and be really more creative. I've been a lot more creative in the last few weeks and work on some projects with you and things, so it's good to be back in the podcast studio to kind of get some creativity out and have fun and play. You know, when I was there, I was I was doing some teaching around, what does it mean to to live wholeheartedly? What does it mean to have resilience? What does it mean to to push on into life? And even in some of the environments that people are in, or living in Somalia, they're living in, you know, working with refugees who are child soldiers in Uganda. I mean, just really rough work. Yeah. You know? So it's really hard to keep heart when you're facing so much despair, you know? Yeah. And I could see some people getting burned out, like going through burnout. Yeah. And one of the one of the topics that kept coming up, it was something you introduced to me, was about this grunt and the groan. Yeah. The grunt of self will, the grunt of will power, the of try hard and keep going no matter what, as opposed to this groan. And you tell this you highlight it so well in the David and Goliath story. Yeah. And so would you talk about that a little bit, like the difference? Yes.

If you don't mind, just as you brought that up, the the the how vital the grown has to be, the more we know how life really is outside of what we want it to be. Mhmm. Because as a young woman that I've been very dear friend of of me and Sonya's, and, and she, was just back from The Philippines. And she she and another woman, Haray, started a not for profit, attempting to work in the slave trade, in, Angeles, Philippines. And her stories, are unbelievable and overwhelming, just like you just described Mhmm. Somalia. And she's talked about how she doesn't know where to put it all. And she and the feeding of the survivors shame of leaving after a certain number of months and months and months there, it just when she left, nothing had changed, and the world was still happening like it was happening before she got there. Yeah. And the change I gave all this and it didn't make any difference for me. Yeah. And then yet they're still there and all these people, these children that I care about are still suffering under horrific manipulation and unconscionable people using them. Yeah. And most of the people doing so, well, they're foreigners who are coming into The Philippines to abuse these people. So, and, and we, if all we have is the grunt, by grunt, you know, you're talking about, you said self will and pushing and seeing something horrific and, you know, Desire. Screaming something needs to be done about it and so we we we create all these programs and we appropriately do invest all of this energy and put in all of this money and still, you know, the old story, the all those starfish fishes, so to speak, wash wash up on the beach and and most of them are gonna die. But there's that child that's running them back and forth into the ocean, carrying one or two at a time. And an old man comes up and says, I don't know why it has to be an old man, but just, you know, it's somebody we think of as, you know, wise and yet hopeless. And he says, he says, Terrible. Well, you know, he says to to the child, that's not gonna do any good. And, the child says it's gonna do good for this one and puts it back in the ocean and then goes and gets another one. So the child rebels, against hopelessness and but is still not able to integrate wisdom into the hope. And this young woman is back from The Philippines, and her hope is just shattered because of all of the starfish she sees dying, do you know, and that will die. And even the idea of, well, she blessed or helped this one or that one, it's still she's having to face death, destruction, darkness, and despair all around her. And where does a person put that? Because the grunt is worthless in the face of that. And I think a face of that that reality, that that a person has to work really hard to avoid. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

I've opened my eyes to see the way things really are. If I have any conscience at all, I'm gonna do something about it. And and we'll be overwhelmed at the same time. And I will not be able to feed it. And if we're not good at groaning and and actually knowing how to pour it out, I think we I don't think, I think we have to run from helping, because none of us is ever gonna help enough to stop what is happening around us. Even in our own worlds, our own lives, you know, there's not enough money. Right. There aren't enough rocks. Not enough time. Yeah. Not enough energy. There's not enough. Yeah. Yeah. So we we can though at least do this. We talk a lot about King David in the Old Testament as someone we admire and respect, and yet we raise our children or perform in our lives in so many ways that we try to appear unaffected or we try to keep life from getting to us. We talk about admiring David who's called a man after a person after God's own heart, and that means that he lived between one and 10. He lived how he was created. Living fully. He made great confession. He never could get rid of his conscience. He never could stay away from how he was created in relationships. So Psalm 139, how I'm knit together to to Psalm one who lives with God to where have you gone God to I'm so full of jubilation. I can't stand living with my own clothes on, dancing in front of the ark, remember? And then wondering, you know, him just

Same guy in the time of year when kings go to war, he took a nap on his couch. Absolutely. And then helped kill a man. So this was a guy called a man after God's own heart. But what David was great at doing was the groan of living between one and ten. He could groan about sadness, and he could groan about, jubilation. In other words, he was speaking out his heart in all of its facets versus Goliath who was a giant, who could step on people, who could keep life from affecting him, who could hide behind his face, who could talk big from the context of being able to defeat everything around him. I mean, he had a tiger by the tail, so to speak. So we talk about King David, and yet we do everything we can to keep from facing our groan, and we raise ourselves and others to be grunters. We're Goliath. Yeah, we raise Goliath but talk about King David instead of stepping into our own lives and going ahead and facing it hurts.

And sometimes it's it's so wonderful, we wish we could die right there. Sometimes no one will notice when we're doing our best. Exactly. When we're doing well, no one sees it. Yes. Yeah. It's quiet. Yes. And there there aren't enough hands to take all the starfish back into the ocean. I don't have answers for it. I've got tons of questions, and yet, you know, you were talking about wondering not too long ago if something you'd really invested in was worth doing because the zeros weren't adding up. Right. Because zeros add up to zero. Yeah. And I said that there's, you know, something to you about look at the starfish. And and just kinda woke you up a little bit Yeah. From what you told me. Reminded me of what really what I care about. What you were doing, yeah. And so yeah. And then this young woman that Sonya and I are talking to, we'll spend time with her helping her grown because at the at the very young age of 23, she has seen voluntarily, that which we wish none of us would ever have to see, but she's she's gone to war without a captain or a general around her. Right. You know, just a young woman who cared. Now she doesn't know where to put God. Do you know the name of that? Yeah. Yeah. So,

I think that's that's the scary part too, right, for a lot of us is that we we grow up in a in a family, in an environment, in a belief system that we really feel like oftentimes we have God figured out, we have life figured out, and the right principles and precepts and orders and rules to follow, and we we turn mystery into law. Right? Like, this is how life's supposed to be done. And I guess if we're fortunate enough to step out in our own passions, that will get blown up in our faces. Yes, and so it's not that God goes away, but if we're gonna talk about King David and use him as an example, then we need to be writing our own Psalms, because if we step into life like he did, we better be good at groaning and we better be good at groaning to God because I absolutely believe that God is present with us. And I know that when I don't see, feel, or experience that presence, the groan is there. Even if the groan is the protest of me and my Psalms, so to speak, saying, Where did you go? Right. Because that's right out of the mouth of David, Where did you go? I thought you would be here. Where did you go? That's part of the groaning, instead of just grunting our way through it, which is a way of hiding our need and also hiding our joy, right? Yeah.

Do you agree with that? I do agree with that. I'm reminded of probably my favorite novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Oh, you like that? I love that book, yeah. I love the passion of a father to to not stop, to get his son to the coast. Yes. Like, just to Yes. In the midst of absolute Hopelessness. Mhmm. And the son kept asking the father, do do you do we are we the good guys? Do we carry the flame? Yeah. And and it was like the son needed the dad's reassurance that Mhmm. That is this is worth it, that there's something bigger than what I'm seeing in front of me. You know? But there there's a scene in there where the son's falling asleep and the dad's got this cough and pretty, you know, McCarthy's, I think, strongly hinting at this dad's gonna die. Yes. Right? Mhmm. And the dad lets God have it. You know? Mhmm. And it it to me, it's this beautiful human experience of hope and and despair and the groan of life, you know, and, and that they're on this mountaintop in East Tennessee, and, you know, he's just bringing all that he has in his soul about his son and his wife that's no longer living and the state of the world, and he just can't stop wanting it to be different and can't stop moving towards getting a son home, into a new home. So, yeah, when you're talking and thinking about that's the passion of that, the groan of that, that's so much different than the the grunt of of struggle,

which is needed. Yes. Right? It's add the groan to the grunt. See, this is not about not grunting. We're made to grunt, to be to step into that, to actually, you know, fight for control. Yep. I mean, I get that. Yeah. But, hope, is a groan more than a grunt. Do you know? I do know. And and and and frankly, since we've stepped into this too, hope's not enough. If God isn't present, hope is a fool's errand, honestly. In fact, and to me, it's a confirmation that God is To lunacy. Because I'm a prisoner of hope. Yeah. It won't go away. Mhmm. I think so often, I'll interrupt you, but I think so often, we want to argue and defend religion with apologetics. This is my soapbox. Yeah. Because we don't really want to face the grown in us and and the depth of the grown in us that we want to make faith and spirituality a religious ideal instead of a human experience. A living, breathing, human experience.

Right. That really puts us in relationship with God. Yeah. And and not facing the the when the experience of we don't experience God's presence, but that God is. Yeah. Not just the groan of where did you go, but the groan of I'm so thrilled that you're here. Yeah. That you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Often, there's not even bookings right there at the same time. Yeah. But what you're describing is also the way so many, if we can get the formula together Yep. Then we can x God out and talk a lot about God. Make ourselves feel really comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we do that in psychology. We do the same thing. It's not a religion problem. Psychology does the same thing. Yeah. You know? And and talk about how to get control of life. Yeah. Let's let's get really good at at meditation so I don't have to ever face my life kind of thing. Mhmm. Meditation and mindfulness are awesome techniques, but they don't take the place of Living. Living. Technique. You said it. Technique. We can turn anything. We can turn eight feelings, the spiritual root system, into technique and not a living experience. Yeah. You know? Mhmm. So I just that story about the groan and the grunt has really struck me, and, I hope it encourages other people too to to find the things in their life that they are groaning in because the groan, as you said, is a testimony to their hope. Yes. You know, and that they've gotten in touch with their hope when they've gotten in touch with their groan. Yes. And I think so often we misconstrue hope to be

this relief of struggle. Yes. Oh, I hope maybe wish to get to this Oh, it's the beginning of fear. Yeah. It is. It's real. And God you know, we talk about we did a podcast about we're we're created to live between one and ten, which is the great loss, the great success, the great grief, the great celebration. Just live. And we and that's a scary proposition if it's we we have to fall over towards one Right. Degree. But the alternative is to squeeze our lives into five and five, which is sort of like living between two the space between two connecting hotel rooms. You know those Yeah. Live between the walls. Live between the walls. Mhmm. And, God doesn't live between the walls. God can find us between the walls, but that doesn't leave any room for God. God's in the wide open spaces. God's already in the wide open spaces where we're called as we're created to live. Mhmm. I don't have to like it, but I may have to face it. I love that. What's in there? Yeah. Alright. Thank you, Chip. Hey, thank you, Steve.