Byron Martin and Thais Carter

00:02 My name is Byron Martin. I am 32 years old. Today is March 3rd 2019. We are in Valparaiso Indiana and my relationship to my conversation partner today is that we're great friends and work colleagues, and we know each other for about 5 plus years now.

00:29 Oh.

00:32 The Real Madrid I don't add extra letters are prawns. Okay right now.

00:47 My name is Byron Martin. I am 32 years old today is May 3rd 2019. We are in Valparaiso Indiana and my relationship to my conversation partners that we are friends and work colleagues and we known each other for about 5 years. I am 35 years old today's date is May 3rd 2019 and we are in Valparaiso Indiana and my relationship to my conversation partner is that we are friends and colleagues and we've known each other for just over 5 years.

01:20 So Byron, I want to start with you kind of painting the picture of the home that you grew up in. Who's there? What does it sound? Like? What does it smell like paint the picture home where I grew up is Chris Wallace in Mesquite, Texas. So to understand Mesquite you have to understand that it is a town named after a tree is named after the Mesquite tree and that has some influence into the space in which you can imagine but it's on the east side of Dallas is to suburb and to situate the home that I grew up in y'all have to know that my parents were that were the first black people to move into this subdivision in 1986. And so they moved into this home literally three or four months before I was born and so it's

02:20 The home I've always known it's my dad who is a East Texas native and that's deep east, Texas from a small town called Douglassville, Texas and my mom who is from Oak lift part of Dallas Oak Cliff Dallas and so super inner city and they created to act like to joke with two perfect suburbanite kids because you're getting somebody from from the super countries of my for the super city lights that you know, so now I made it together. I was I was like, it was a perfect home is always interesting Rain-X on my dad was the head and my mom were both kind of disciplinary ins in certain ways, but it was always from this.

03:20 Price of babe. This is the way you do things and it's done so that it's appropriate and so that it doesn't harm anybody else and that's you know, where was my dad was electrician high-voltage electricity for so many years until I retired and then my mom was a teacher for 20 some odd years until she just retired also the house with my older brother. We are 15 months apart. He we are young and yang we are literally as different as you can imagine not only in appearance, but also in you know, my personality, he's I'm 6-1 300 pounds and he's 5859, you know, maybe a hundred and ninety nine hundred and you know, maybe maybe him 200 like, you know, so, you know

04:20 Darker skin he's lighter skin. You know, what is a we we are definitely yin and yang and in reality. It's so that that was kind of our house. It was the four of us and I think we grew up in a space that was enough Full Of Love full of clarity. Like there was there was very little mixing of words in my house. It just wasn't the way we experience it and I mean full over full of Faith like we were we were the church babies like I grew up at the at the church that you don't want me to still do, you know where to serve at himself, you know, that was also, you know, very clear. I remember I can see it very clearly. We had this little like a wood carving type sign above our dinner-table the said

05:19 God is the welcome guest and every meal the invisible partner in this house and something of that sort of thing and it was like there but not just really intrusive but definitely always part of using the word Clarity is really interesting. Do you feel that having like that amount of clarity about kind of expectations for you and your brother and kind of clarity about the role of faith and literally have God's Presence at the table and in your home and your life. Do you feel like that Clarity with something that you were able to kind of carry with you as you were growing up or do you feel like that Clarity with something that you found yourself pushing back against like well, there's nothing that can be that cut and dry. Oh, no, I was the constant push back against anything that said this is the way this is

06:19 And there's like no. No, there's more to it than that. It's not that simple. I found Clarity being I found clear to you very problematic in my life. And I think it was it was it was for some reason why I look so I wasn't but I had asthma really bad growing up. And so there were times where like you're on a breathing treatment and you can't hear anything else but this nebulizer going all you do is think right like if you sleep or it doesn't make sense. Why are we doing this? Like, why did why does it why would we operate in this manner? And so it was like one of those spaces where like you're constantly thinking why everybody is going around about the other day.

07:11 So I was I was pushed back against anything that was presented as cut-and-dry and I think it definitely caused my parents from grief. I apologize so much for the grief I caused but I was I was Decatur said why all the time and because I said so was never good enough of an answer for me and it's why I always wished back but I was always that always the one that was inquisitive about say, okay. So you said you just hit this. So why did he say this? Where was that even come from? So is your kind of a young person looking head of layer more complexity into the way that you understand your faith and what kind of theology that's being moved out and your family and your home Church. What were the resources that you kind of went to or the people that you went to to help him defend the the complexity of how you understood your face? Like, where did you go? What did you read? Who did you talk to and kind of who was with you in that work?

08:11 Yeah, no I'm saying I could swear I have to understand like I grew up in the Church of Christ which is part of the restoration movement. There are three kind of branches of dance. We have the Disciples of Christ Christian church in Church Churches of Christ that kind of exist. We the ones we believe very strongly believe in acapella worship styles that men are supposed to be in leadership. We also would also go get a space that was very very clear and kind of pronounced or how things are supposed to be baptism is essential for salvation. And so it was very it was very clear cut-and-dry was gave me a lot of pushback against and can ask questions.

08:59 Is so I found myself as I grew up. I supposed to even use group of church. Like I think my maybe my first

09:09 Discussion that I remember with my dad that was like kind of sort of like religious bending was

09:17 Was on the concept of my great-grandmother not being a quarter Court member of the church because she was in some other denomination and was that me and I remember like my dad's like Walt

09:32 Okay, how do you answer a nine-year-old when you laid out this clear? Theological view who you're going to hell, right. And so, you know, they have a great grandmother. It's a really tough conversation with other people to some questions to like how we thinking about this is even as a family. So I rode my dad not even to this day like we have these conversations about church in about life. So he's my grandfather was probably one of the best ones he was he was at another church same type of things but another church there and in Dallas and he was told he just so wide like he was so wise and so whenever I go hang out, you know, they were five grand kids like typically the other for a go to my grandmother.

10:32 Maybe run around the streets eating McDonald's have a good time. I'll be hanging out with my grandfather at his church office. Like just like pulling books off the shelf and he would give me things like he would buy things and so I had tons of like these books that I'm just you know dive into is a you know, early team preteen and that was that was kind of just trying to figure out a man. What is this thing we're talking about and then I will sit in spaces where people are talking. So I'd love to just go and be as slaves were like, he's really really old people are talking and they're having this conversation. I just hang out. I found a best way to get a good free meal typically and then it was you know, you you heard things you learn things because you were just, you know here in OB been around for awhile. Talk for a while. Once you were out of your parents house. Did you have a strong sense of how you wanted to?

11:32 Who cannot continue to practice face with there ever a time where you felt like you needed to kind of step away from it or how did your faith kind of mature as you matured been an evolution of my understanding of what it means to be my face. I went to school that was in the same Christian Heritage, but it was considered more liberal Abilene Christian University was considered one of the liberal CLC dental schools. We were quite Pepperdine. We weren't quite Pepperdine out of Malibu, but we're still considered a holy war but you know, the lipscomb's then the Hardings write the faulkners over like fairly Conservative. Then you hit Okay, Oklahoma Christian in Abilene Christian University. We're very

12:32 Kind of moderate liberal and then once you made it out to the West Coast by Pepperdine, you're like in Malibu like what what day they overlooked the clear the living and all this Grandeur what's happening?

12:46 And I think it was there that I'd kinda encountered mentors that were willing to sit in the struggle with me while I figured out what this thing called Faith was it was that I met so, you know some some folks like dr. Jerry Taylor and and Steven Moore and tire Bryce and Russ Kirby and these folks were able to I just sit in like let me ask questions and we would live life together and community in such a way that it reflected more of what I thought Faith was talking about then what I previously experienced and it was that you know life together kind of feel that help me start to think about things a little bit differently answer to take about faith in my babe little bit differently. I think it's bared I encountered I think some of the major thinkers on Facebook that's where you know, I got a Baja for and I got her, you know, some of the

13:46 Philosophers and theologians like that. I'm there was also helpful right to expand my thinking but I think it was also there that I practice for the first time my face right? It's when okay, Mom dad's not here you're in spaces where you're on your own you're having not only to practice your own character, but you're having a practice what you believe in and how you're going to allow that to exist how that's going to shape you how it's going to shape the name that you have any spaces. How is your faith going to shape the love that you give and how you experience that was was really in those spaces in that time spent there. Nothing that has been a continuous evolution.

14:33 Probably the further I get away from home The more I've been able to encounter what it means to be a person of Faith because I truly believe it's required more faith to be that far away. What are the things that just in terms of language on faith that I've always been really interesting and especially when I was growing up is that I had friends who were catholic but they would say hello William, I'm culturally Catholic, you know, we don't really go to church or friends who were Jewish and the Quality Inn on culturally Jewish synagogue isn't really like a thing and that I think there are ways in which for people coming out of Evangelical traditions and then thinking about can of the the way that for I think like the black church in particular there's this connection to history around

15:33 Like the rights and these other pieces where it's not just like oh, well, this is the denomination. I apart of the suspicions of a part of but you're actually kind of like swept into this like bigger story about the way that you know, whether it's talking about like Martin Luther King jr. But like other kind of like people who can live with in the black church tradition were part of making change and just as the centerpiece of a spiritual story and so I wonder how you know as your kind of going through this time at Abilene Christian and talking about being community and then how faith has become kind of required more faith to kind of do at the further away that you get from home. How is thinking about both the denominational tradition that you're coming out of but kind of this broader kind of like history and culture that is also so tied in with faith how has that been part of your story and how you can understand your work?

16:32 I think that's a great question. I got the guts. That's the section where I've that's where valve has been really helpful is in recognizing that I am definitely more. I'm more tired to a storical narrative that has included faith in anything anything else and it's also been the spacecraft struggled with faith. The most is with that historical narrative, right like so how can somebody that caused me this much pain? It caused my people are my ancestors and you know, like I was talking about my great-grandmother who I knew he was born in 1900 right like so I know what she live through chat and how can I fix a cause that type of pain also believe in the same God that we believe in if I'm right like that's been a historical struggle for me. You know, I'm packing that I think about us

17:32 Helpful in that because I become very very comfortable saying is not the same God.

17:38 Write the history of the people who like the guy that I think is coming out of the tradition of people that been historically oppressed especially in this country is is a connection to God disease where people are and and lives through the tradition of bringing people through that that pain bring them through that that oppression in some substantial and sustaining way and I think that's that's that's where I'm existing now like yeah, I know the guy that ripped out by what you do, but how you how is how that fruit is demonstrated? I think it's the same thing.

18:24 I think it's also been interesting like being black in America.

18:32 Forces you to have to know God right? Like you have to know God whatever you call him, but you have to know that.

18:45 Am believing in core believed in the concept of a Fallen World Right light so you can just no God like you got to know that the guy in there that like my world had to fall right because this couldn't have been the way there any guy that believes in love put something in process, right? You couldn't start spending this ball in this way in Bisbee what happened? So there had to be a guy to have to be a fall which means that there has to be a level of Salvation in the love of Grace that we have to exist with as well love or forgiveness. Well, it's one of the things that I remember finding really jarring a couple years ago when I was reading too easy Coates between the world and me and he talks and a very I think like Stark terms about his own lack of faith, and there's like this anger towards the black church and there's a piece and it where he

19:45 Paraphrases like, you know, the by-and-by is a hustle and that it's been this thing where it's allowed black people say like, oh, well, you know my glory than heaven and like I'm going to forgive here because like I've got this piece and he talks about wanting wanting Justice now to want to hear and remember that Jim Michael Eric Dyson that came out with a book later and it was like one of those things about kind of contrasting the hope that can come out of a faith tradition and whether or not that that hope is more helpful or like hurting progress. That's why I wonder like when you're engaging with like especially I think we kind of the more can a contemporary struggle for black civil rights in this country. How do you see kind of like the facepiece? I love we said about like to be black in America, you have to believe in God and the broader God narrative how would you know when you're engaging with students then when you're engaging with no other people in our community, how does faith and of help that and do are you sick?

20:45 Set it to the people were like no like faith is making it okay to not demand Justice now Crocs, right? And that's the only place where I get to sit sometimes is in this space where there's some Faith or at least I am to Faith action. Yeah. Is that you are who you serving with that then and call those things out. I think the truth of the matter is there are some Faith communities are quote on quote Faith communities. They're doing some irreparable harm, especially in the black community because they have turned Faith until her so they have turned it into that the Hallelujah by and by right like you you'll see it on the other side.

21:42 Traverse is saying no the call of of Christ is to reconcile people now by the call is like to do something now, right like Christ and die and then later on. Hey, you know, there's some salvation like he died in the now and so I think the presence of of that the presence of that is important that means there's some things that we need to be doing right now to reconcile our communities. I think the call for justice in the work he was doing is a Now call so I have issues and I've done this very publicly I call out and I question Faith communities that aren't speaking to the in justices of this time doing that and if they're not in the process of doing that I question their viability as sources and places where people encounter Faith encounter God because

22:41 Cuz I wonder how can God live in a space that is okay with people being mistreated cuz that's not that's not that's not the God I serve right? Like that's not that's not the guy that said when I sing can I look at nature and I think about how nature even works right? Like like, you know, the foxes have holes, you know, the birds have nests in trees to existing right? He's in the process of giving Every Creature what they need right now to exist in survive and I'm not saying there's not some visceral, you know, circular Dynamic but like he gives these creatures everything they need to survive right now. You think he's not going to do that to his most prized creation that's backwards. And so people that buy into that to me seems like they stop reading the Bible at some point. They stopped in countering the continued revelation of who God is and what he causes people to be in the space.

23:47 Homework

23:53 Yeah, I think the major example that comes to mind is.

24:02 Did there's probably too so 1 is it was extremely formative for me was a time spent and a monastic community in Sarita Texas called live shimea and I went there first with one of my mentors. Dr. Taylor and we spent a week in silence. It was a silent Retreats when a week in silence and I think that was the first space where I actually encountered nature in a real way and was able to actually see guys creation working versus being in the hustle and bustle and it was so quiet and it was like, oh I can actually hear its hold that shape to me in some really really powerful and amazing ways. I didn't know if possible but I think

24:50 Coming out of that at that time that we had together there in silence or things that we end up doing was the church. I was working as the associate minister at a church at that time. And one of these there myself in a group we ended up just leaving and starting a home Church experience there while we're in Abilene and that home Church experience was literally Baja pit was life together. I'm talking about, you know, their communal lunches we used to have on Fridays and where people would be. All right, if I bring something we'd eat together and enjoy them the time of worship on Sundays and just existing they are the babies that were born, you know, what your families and at the whole Community celebrating there was a richness of that the ability to come in and just give somebody came with a need it wasn't a bureaucratic process. It was like can we do something about it? Let's do it. It was a way.

25:50 Give living and expressing the love of Christ in a way that I hadn't experienced before and so I then became skeptical and and it's like critic of I guess what we were coin as a fundamentalist and more structured and traditional Church structures with people that paid more for a building and they paid into building the community people that were more concerned about. You know, how the parking lot looking how those things were existence.

26:31 They spend more time on a web site then they you know for the church then they spent, you know, webbing the community together sewing people into a collective relationship together. I start to become really really skeptical of those those Arenas in so I became really hard to go and sit in churches and became really hard to go and listen to preachers that weren't talking about affecting change in the community that only had this internal view it became harder to give tithes and offerings to spaces that I didn't have at least a clear of view about how they were using that money in the community. All those things became increasingly difficult. And I think it was because I became aware of how people were literally in some ways robbing the community of effective change my can of Alpo then I realize all it's not just one denominations ton of them. They're doing it.

27:31 Not just one religion. There are a ton of them where they've devolved into these spaces formed and you know bonhoeffer's life together and you know that you know, our family was part of a community that could have came out of reading life together together and I think that in some ways one of the things that has been really special about like our friendship is if I think there is this, depreciation for a face that pulls you into vulnerability and like a different depth of relationship, but I think it's also unique because you find so few people who are both appreciative and black and see that is something worth seeking out. And so I wonder

28:18 Like how do like knowing that can be circumstances of Life make it hard to ever create something quite like that again. How do you find Opportunities to have like bring some of that Bonhoeffer anise to the way that I think so much of our life and Balbo and I think lots of other spaces like Valpo where there's such an intense focus on the individual and individual fan like nuclear families expression of like faith and worship and individual expressions of faith and worship. Like, how can we like build that life together? Peace in a more kind of dynamic way for four more people?

29:02 That is the million-dollar question that I've spent five years trying to think about what habits develop a level of trust with people because most folks there were encountering specially into space in Valpo. I've been hurt. Yeah, so sweet diffidently and that pain is is one of those things that causes of schism in any potential bodies that are able to happen whether it's a different side of an issue where people just been really gritty and muddy and nasty about or whether it's something else so that pain and that distrust has really caused. I think it might be a danger to even being able to create that. I think one of the things that

29:59 We have to get back in the business of doing is spending time together by like so I think that is one of the difference this might be a regional difference. Like I don't want to say it was easy as what we did in Texas, but they people Mosey and you know sometime like sometimes you just might have the weather does the bright lights. No, literally and I agree. I think that that does play an interesting scenario is Emoji, like people you don't go on walks together you spend time on the porch and outside and things of that nature that they don't feed into that trust if you did to that level, so I think that's one of the things and then I think one of these got to do is slow down and realize that everything we need to be a healthy and effective Community is here and buy into that.

30:58 I think that one of the things that I like best about the positions that we find ourselves in professional ear occasionally speaking is that we do get to work with young people and I think helping have these conversations with the people that we have the privilege of mentoring and being part of their formation is like hopefully planting seeds for people who value community and vulnerability and are willing to do the work to create that trust. How does your faith motivate your work but I wouldn't do this work cuz it wouldn't it wouldn't make sense right? Don't pay enough.

31:40 It doesn't it doesn't it? Doesn't it? Doesn't it? Doesn't it doesn't it does not come with some of those some of those benefits that we would look for here or on Earth. And so I think faith is a huge part of that because I always have to take some time and I and I try to do this how to recalibrate what I coined what I call success so that I can do the work and I have to recalibrate you knows no success isn't the newest car is not all this money is not being it's not known this for being broke either but my face like it's not there wouldn't be the same value in this work.

32:35 I think that the second piece them that motivates it is that our students come here and in a space with a longing right? I don't like their knowing that there is something stronger and better and that is supposed to happen and they're supposed to get it from this space is supposed to have some type of relationship when they leave, Valparaiso University that was really equips them for the world and they're supposed to make these long-lasting relationships and most times were asking. Okay, how do we do this? Like what is supposed to be this linking glue that puts us together, right? And when I get to do I think day in day out to either underrepresented students on campus or even our majority students on campus. He's like not even in a loud way. I think just like in a subtle whisper I get to say

33:29 It's because we believe right like that's that's what that's what's best Igloo. Right? We believe everything else. We'll figure that out. Yeah, we'll figure that out. We'll figure out the republican-democrat stuff. We'll figure out the the liberal conservative stuff. We'll figure all that out. Right if we can come to the table and say hey we believe and also come with this.

33:58 Faith driven humility that at the end of that we believe we also say and I love you if you don't and I think that's typically was what's missing that we haven't driven our humility to say.

34:16 I love you. If you don't that, you know, if it's just that I might be wrong. I could I could have this whole face thing messed up, but I might be wrong right by Humanity could holistically have gotten in the way and maybe this whole Christian thing isn't the way I don't think so, but I could be wrong and because I can encounter you with that humility, right? I don't beat you over the head. I love you in spite of what is that? It's a strange Paradox of and Christianity in particular where it's this idea that like it is the very center is the cord is the foundation for all of these other things and yet even in the way is that it is like that foundational piece. The part of what that face causes to is a willingness, like love people who don't have as their Center defining piece and then I think that's sometimes where we get messed up.

35:12 I am always thankful to be and Community with you by Aaron. I feel like I'm really glad that we have to do this the other question. I feel like you know, I feel like we get deep but then like we never like we like Evan flow. In fact The Comedy of the conversation that we so yeah. Thank you. Thank you.