Sarah Stewart and Michael Adamyk

[00:04] SARAH STEWART: You're good to go.

[00:06] MICHAEL ADAMYK: My name is Sarah Stewart. I am 43 years old. Today is Monday, December 7th, and we are in virtual space that I'm dialing in from Atlanta, Georgia. I'm here today speaking with Michael as part of the One Small Step program. And I am grateful that he's my conversation partner.

[00:30] SARAH STEWART: Hi, Sarah. My name is Michael. I'm 32, and today is Monday, December 7th. And I'm. I'm zooming in, or not zooming, but I'm virtually greeting you from McPherson, Kansas. And again, this is Sarah, and she is my One Small Step conversation partner. Nice to meet you, Sarah.

[00:52] MICHAEL ADAMYK: Nice to meet you, Michael. I did it.

[00:57] SARAH STEWART: Okay.

[01:01] MICHAEL ADAMYK: So I am curious, why, Michael, did you choose and want to do this interview today?

[01:12] SARAH STEWART: Well, I thought about it a lot, and I actually came up with four different reasons. But the biggest reason, I think, is that in the past few years I've become so discouraged by the vitriol and the division and that people just can't seem to have civil conversations when they have differences. And I want to be part of the solution for that, but I don't exactly know how to. And so that was probably the biggest reason is I wanted to learn how to do that. Also, personally, in my family, there is a lot of differences in political views, and we tend to pretty much avoid those discussions all the time. And I think that's okay sometimes. But I would like us to be able to have conversations like that without being afraid of them. And so I wanted to learn how to have a good conversation like that. And also on a personal level, this is something that scares me. And I've decided that doing things that scare me are good for me. So that's partly why I decided to do this as well. What about you, Sarah? What made you decide to do this?

[02:27] MICHAEL ADAMYK: Well, it's interesting some of what you mentioned about the last several years. I moved to Kansas after the last presidential election and felt very drawn to the center of the country. I had never lived there, but I had two sisters to relocate to the Midwest. And I somehow had this conviction that the conversations I would have, the people I would meet, the connections that would build in that part of my life, taking that step were going to be important for making sense of how I felt in the aftermath of, you know, seeing revealed all of the. And the things that, you know, like you said, we often, not just in our families, but in lots of circles sort of skirt those issues. And I have since been drawn to another state through work and employment circumstances. But I very much Miss my friends in Kansas and the kind of civility and sort of ability to engage with difference that I found in my connections there. So that's part of those reasons are interwoven for me. And like you, Michael, in my own family, I find while in my work life, I'm often moving into the terrain of topics that are tricky in my family, we can't talk about those things. And it breaks my heart because I feel like it's some level of depth we can't reach together, which kind of defies the other things that we've weathered as a family. It just feels really weird to be on the surface in that aspect of life. And I love my family, I respect my family. And we are radically different in a lot of different perspectives of, you know, how we should live out our faith in the world. And as a person of faith, I feel like we should have courage and not be afraid. But like you, I often find myself befuddled because despite all of the intentions, the sort of practicality of the practice of having these kinds of conversations with integrity is really. It's not formulaic and it's deeply contextual, and it's very fraught. So I. Yeah, I want to learn, and I'm grateful to get to learn alongside you. So you wrote about yourself, and I would love to learn more. You write, I grew up in a very large family and was homeschooled. I loved homeschooling, and I credited it with my insatiable curiosity. But I was a bit limited in my social interactions. You say my family is very splintered on our opinions, and it's been causing a lot of arguments. I tend to be the peacemaker and hate to see conflict, but have been learning that conflict is often necessary. I was intrigued that you put splintered in quotes, and I'm kind of curious what that means and looks like. I also would love to hear more about what it feels like to be insatiably curious, especially in a context where that curiosity may lead you further away from that center of, you know, what your family foundation was. And I'm also curious about the necessary conflict that you're living with and working with and wondering about.

[06:07] SARAH STEWART: Wow, those are some pretty deep questions. Well, I suppose I put the splintered in quotes because, as I said, we don't necessarily talk about this stuff. The arguments tend to come on social media between a couple of different members of my family. And so there's kind of this background of tension when we're together, but it's not really spoken, and so it's kind of a subtle type of splintering, if that makes sense, I guess. As for the conflict thing, I've tended to be a very avoidant person as far as conflict goes. And I've realized that that's not exactly a good way to handle conflict. And so when I put in there about conflict is necessary, that was kind of my me saying that. Even though I don't like it, I realize it can actually be helpful if it's handled in that proper way. And what was. I forgot. What was the other question you asked?

[07:13] MICHAEL ADAMYK: How it feels to live with this insatiable curiosity. What are contours like, what are costs that you bear for being insatiable?

[07:23] SARAH STEWART: The biggest thing is just that it's hard for me to decide what to go after next, what to learn next. So in college, I had two different majors, another major that I did half of, and then a minor. And then I was also involved in some extracurricular stuff. And pretty much I can pick up and read any book or listen to a podcast about anything. And I'm intrigued by it. And that's. That's really fun to just sit and learn about anything. But it's also kind of frustrating because I feel like there's not enough time to learn everything that I want to learn, I guess. And it has exposed me to a lot of ideas that I wouldn't have considered. And it's a very. It was a very uncomfortable feeling at first, and it often is, even. Even after you've encountered it a lot, is to take stock of what you've believed and say, is this. Is this true? Is this just something I assumed? And what's the evidence for that? And it's. But I think it's a good way to grow.

[08:25] MICHAEL ADAMYK: Has. It. Has. How has your family responded as you've been learning and growing?

[08:33] SARAH STEWART: I often like to talk about big ideas with my family. And I feel like most of the time they don't want to go that deep into big ideas. And so it does get a little bit lonely sometimes. But when I do have those deep conversations, it's really rewarding, which is another reason why I was looking forward to this is because I love having deep conversations with people and getting to know what they're. What they're really like and what drives them.

[09:03] MICHAEL ADAMYK: I love that motivation and also like orientation in the world where you feel connected, what pulls you deeper in, that's. That matters. That's really exciting.

[09:20] SARAH STEWART: Okay, so Sarah's bio is for this mobile military kid. Northern California was the closest thing to home I Left for college in Colorado as a pioneering eldest of six whose politics and religion evolved quickly. A multi decade career in finance eventually yielded to a call to ordained ministry, moving me from D.C. to Connecticut for school, Manhattan to Wichita to Atlanta for work. Fostering communities transformed by love and committed to just and equitable outcomes for all, while rightly ordering us within God's creation are my ministry passions. So I guess first of all, I was. That's a really cool bio. I also have five siblings, so that's. That's something we have in common. Do you feel like you have a home state or a home city? Or are you. Do you feel pretty mobile?

[10:20] MICHAEL ADAMYK: That's a good question. I think home feels like certain kinds of places in creation, like the mountains or the ocean. Those two contexts feel deeply grounding. I mean, I have people in Colorado. I have people in Iowa and Illinois and California. I'm starting to feel like Atlanta is home after 18 months here. I do miss Kansas after being there for two years. The skies, especially sunrises and sunsets, are like nothing else in the Midwest. So I feel rooted in sort of God's planetary world, but regionally, temperamentally. I have to say I'm really surprised that Atlanta feels like such an interesting place to be claiming as my home. Last weekend, I got to go hiking to this particular part of the Appalachian Trail. I don't know what the Appalachian Trail was. When I was a kid, my parents took us to the mountains, the redwood forests in California and the Santa Cruz mountains. We were always up there as a family. And I loved Monterey and Santa Cruz. And just the way you look out and see the ocean and you just feel so small in the grand scheme of the cosmos. And for whatever reason, that feels really reassuring. And maybe it is because we moved so much and there wasn't as many, like, physical muscle memory of, like, we always go to this place. But California, we had that kind of rootedness. So California and the Pacific Northwest, there's parts of that that feel like home. But Georgia, the trees and the mountains have felt so familiar. And especially during the pandemic, having a space to go and be and just feel safe and breathe. I mean, being. There's a reason tree bathing is a thing all around the world. Like, there's something so renewing about just being in that space. So I do feel like faith communities have also afforded me a lot of sense of belonging and rootedness, even when I was moving around. So Colorado was where I went to college and I stayed there for 11 years, and my family actually followed me up there. That's how they moved from California to Colorado. And my sister was really angry because she had to move the middle of high school, but everybody else basically grew up there. And I think Colorado, as far as, like, family home feels, that's where my parents still are, and that's where everybody sort of converges for holidays. So, yeah, I mean, there are pockets of home, but I feel like the faith community that I'm a part of here, the heartbeat of the community, caring for the needs of the world, that very much feels familiar. That is the grounding force of my faith and my orientation in the world. And so that feels like home, too. So it's a different maybe, sense of things than if you grew up all in one place and your multiple generations of your family claimed that place is home. But I also am starting to realize, like, my Native American ancestry had that sense of connectedness and groundedness in creation. And also my people, ironically, were from this part of the territories and were, you know, the Trail of Tears were part of how they made their way toward Oklahoma and the Midwest and later on to California. So it's. It's interesting to sort of be discovering those layers of my connection to place in ways that I wouldn't have known to sought out. I just sort of would discover it as you follow your gut or follow information, that something is drawing you into a path. That is how you're meant to go. Right. So this question, I don't know if it gave you as much pause or thought to consider, but who has been the most influential person in your life? Michael. And what did they teach you? In a way.

[15:05] SARAH STEWART: That was definitely a hard question to think about. I feel like I'm indebted to so many people. I would say, as far as probably the most influential person would be my pastor that I had from about 2000, see 2004, through just a couple years ago. And he and I have fairly similar personalities. And he, as a. As a scrawny middle schooler who was very insecure, he kind of took me under his wing. And we would meet together personally every couple months for lunch. And when I was going through a really difficult time, he was. He kept doing that. And even though he was, you know, the pastor of a church and he had so many different things to do, he always made sure to stay in touch with me. And I think having. I guess, for one thing, not necessarily having a strong male role model in my life before then was important as well as to see that he could be. He wasn't necessarily a Macho man. He was. He was sensitive and he was open to emotions and things like that. And it was also helpful for me to see it's okay to be that way, since I tend to be that way as well. And it's not necessarily a, you know, unmasculine thing to do that. And so he also helped me so much with my spiritual life because I was very, I guess you could say pharisaical, very legalistic before I met him. And he. He helped me to realize that it's. It's about a relationship with God and not. Not about all these. All these rules. And I think that's a. That's a weakness of a lot of conservative churches, is a lot of people have that perception is that it's all about the rules. And that's a. That's definitely a disadvantage of that. And so that was. I would say that he was probably the most influential person. What about for you, Sarah?

[17:23] MICHAEL ADAMYK: Like you, I debated long and hard because I do feel like I've had so many people shape my life. And then I thought also, like, as a. An ordained person, I probably should say Jesus. But I think the question means someone who you've encountered in a physical incarnation, which, you know, Christ is living in all people. But probably my mom, I think, has been the most influential across all different times in my life, but for different reasons. And I think there are many lessons I've been wrestling with that I've learned from her life in terms of, you know, I'm not like a reincarnation of her or the, you know, 2.0 of her life. I'm maybe a differentiated sort of, if you were thinking about, like, negative images, you know, I'm sort of in some ways the inverse of her life. But her spirituality, her faith, her resilience in the face of living through many traumas and unexpected circumstances, and her ability to recognize that you don't. You don't pull yourself up from your bootstraps. We're only ever as strong as the relationships that hold us up and support us and connect us to the wider world. And my mom has. My mom's a real connector. She's always sort of, kind of seeing people and making connections and helping, looking to help people. And I think her life has taught me a lot in those ways and to, you know, sort of keep holding on to your faith, even when you know everything else sort of would crush it out of you. So I respect her a lot, and I think in part, she's one of the reasons I'm here. Because she's someone with whom I want to have a deeper, more nuanced kind of connection with. And sometimes I feel like when we talk about faith, that's sort of like the place she feels the most comfortable and the common ground we share and. But doesn't necessarily deal with tension or paradox in the same ways as I do. So, yeah, I think they. People can teach you things by how they push you to go deeper and in different directions. And I certainly think my mom has done that for me and she's loved me no matter how different I have become from her expression of womanhood and faith and faithfulness. So I am grateful that that connection has been strong. She's taught me you can love people and hang on to them even when you're quite distant from one another. Not just geographically, but in other ways too. So this is the part that I'm probably going to have a harder time with. But, Michael, would you be able to briefly describe in your words, your personal political values?

[20:51] SARAH STEWART: Yeah, that's hard for me too, because I feel like that's still not fully formed as far as my values are concerned. I guess I tend to be. I don't know how to. Probably fairly conservative. Growing up was. We were extremely conservative. And I think through my own learning and my own exploration of ideas, I've become more moderate that way, as well as leaning fairly strongly towards libertarianism. And so that's. That puts me at odds with a lot of fairly conservative friends as well. So as far as I would say, probably economically is where I'm most fully formed. And that would be leaning most towards libertarianism as far as economics goes. But as far as social issues, there's still a lot of. A lot of wrestling and grappling as far as. Especially with faith issues and how that intersects with politics. And so there's still a lot of unknowns there for me. I would say at this point, I'm probably still somewhat conservative socially as well, but I wouldn't feel confident necessarily stating a lot of concrete opinions on things, if that makes sense. How about you?

[22:34] MICHAEL ADAMYK: I feel like my. What I feel is possible through political channels or institutions, modest in kind of how I expect them to be very flawed and often fall short of the aspiration. But my personal, you know, political values would be aligned with what is most, you know, policies that afford dignity to all people, not just some people. Policies that also look to apply justice in ways that are, you know, restorative or. And also more comprehensively. Our justice system is so flawed and falls very short and harms a lot of people. So I feel like, you know, the task is not to sort of expect the institution to save us, but to work within those institutions to try to increase the measure of human dignity and the measure of justice that is possible in human society. I would think my values are more rooted and geared toward faith being a way that each individual person has to grapple with how they see that expressed and how they want to work for that in the world. And I know that differs. And this is, I think, one of the trickier spots in my family of, like, how do we talk about these possible pathways for working for human good, working for human flourishing? And I think I'm more circumspect in what I look for from political institutions. But I don't think we should totally throw in the towel because I have seen too much of people absconding and thinking, well, the system doesn't work and so we're just not going to participate. And that's when those who have more egotistical, narcissistic, maleficent designs to sort of take care of themselves and screw the rest of the world. Those people don't need to be in charge of political systems because then things get hijacked in the wrong way. And so I feel. Yeah, I feel like justice and dignity are kind of my main political values. And even if a policy is flawed, or even if it's not the most efficient, if it's going to increase the possibility for human dignity to be extended to those who have not been able to experience it, I'm willing to give it a shot if that makes sense.

[25:30] SARAH STEWART: Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the issue about not looking too much to politics, because that's probably a big paradigm shift that I've had in the past couple years is that in a lot of conservative churches, they're so, you know, they're so political. And it. It's. I grew up with that, and I was used to that. But then I went to a. When I went to college, I went to a Mennonite brethren college. And they are certainly very different from that. And they tend to be more towards the kind of the. Somewhere between the isolationist and the interventionist type of interaction with politics. And I felt that they went a little bit too far into the not. Not getting involved at all. But I could see the value of when. When faith becomes political, it cheapens it so much and it alienates so many people. And that's. That's not. I mean, that's not who Christ was. He welcomed so many different people. And in fact, the people he was, Hardstone was usually the Pharisees, you know, which could probably be compared to the current religious right in some ways. And just how easy it is to idolize politics and to look for that, to look to that for our salvation. And that's not. It's not where our faith should be. And so I. I definitely resonate with that. That feeling that you. That you brought up, have. Have you kind of encountered that as well.

[27:25] MICHAEL ADAMYK: It's interesting. I feel like the people who push me the hardest to keep grappling with the tensions that maybe we will never resolve are Roman Catholic activists. I had a Mennonite spiritual director in college, and she was a filmmaker, and she made this documentary film about these Roman Catholic nuns who were in prison because they had protest. They had done some acts of protest that involved trespassing near nuclear missile silos. They had taken vials of their own blood and poured it on this nuclear missile silo, which to me was sort of a little bit like, okay, I guess they're living into the spirit of the prophets with these dramatic acts of railing against injustice. But I mean, for them, the issue of life and pro life, like, extended not only to lives that are unborn yet in mother's wombs, but also to the lives that would be decimated by this nuclear warhead should it be used against other human lives. And so that kind of integrity of stance, that courage to say, yeah, this is against the law and we're going to do it anyway because this is part of how we proclaim God's, God's desire that human beings stop killing each other. It was very. It was provocative to me. And there are a lot of Roman Catholics, especially like the Jesuits and the people, Oscar Romero and other people down in Latinx countries that have stood against powers and principalities and done things that were illegal because they were in opposition to the reign of God. And so to me, I do think, like, faith has this edge that is actually fairly political. And as human beings walking around who have to kind of divide our consciousness around, well, my citizenship is an American, and my citizenship, as in the kingdom of God, like these things kind of peacefully coexist and they're never intentional. That's actually not the world in which we live. And I really appreciate these powerful witnesses. And in particular, my mother is Roman Catholic, and I am not. And I have such deep, deep respect for Roman Catholic monastics who have discerned, you know, in sort of this deep interconnection and relationship with God being immersed in the scriptures and in lives of prayer that sometimes lead them to go out into the world and make a bold public stance from their, the place of their faith. So I feel like those folks continue to sort of nudge me in the direction of saying, okay, yeah, if I want to believe that Jesus is the prince of peace, if I want to believe that we are called to be peacemakers and people who work for peace, it means I've got to feel a little bit of heartburn as long as policies that are enacted on my behalf are, you know, killing people. I mean, we could talk about drones, we could talk about, you know, I have family members who are in the military, right. Like, some of the things that they're having to do for their job don't necessarily, if you're going to take a purist approach, they don't necessarily line up with the pro life ethic to which they, you know, will give lip service. And so it's, it's tricky and it's hard, and I don't, I don't think my job is to point fingers at anyone. But here in Atlanta this year during the pandemic, the black lives matter, the protests, the things that were happening in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing, Rayshard Brooks killing here locally, right? Those murders and the subsequent outcry for justice, for the dignity of black lives to really matter in ways they have not yet in this country. Like, all that has landed with some forcefulness in my heart, in my conscience, and it's, you know, pushing me to say, okay, I can't just say, oh, we don't talk about that because that's not. Our faith, isn't political. Right. It's, it's, it's making me have to grapple with what do I do, how do I personally take a stand on this, Whether it's in the pulpit or whether it's in the relationships that I'm building, whether it's in the people that I go out and stand alongside or January 5th is coming, who I vote for in that runoff election. Right. All these things for me are not divorced from my faith. And so, but it doesn't, it doesn't make me, like, feel like I can comfortably arrive at some once and for all, like, position that I can defend and try to convince other people around. It's like this, you know, work out your faith and salvation and fear and trembling kind of thing that is our whole lives long. Which I guess in some ways that's what Jesus was doing, right? As he kept feeling his life bump into empire. And the Roman Empire was not unlike American democracy, you know, Western militarism. Like there's, there's some parallels. So it's, it's from a posture of deep humility and unknowing and, and realizing I'm going to get it wrong and realizing that there are going to people who don't agree with me and I'm still called to be in a relationship with them. So I guess the, the political value that you have to keep coming back to is courage and curiosity and humility because if we don't have those, it's just a war of whose ideas are going to win. Right. Worked out through political institutions. And I don't know. I mean, what's your experience of how this is playing out in Kansas? I haven't been away for a while. That you're moving in. Do people talk about this? Do they wrestle with this?

[33:34] SARAH STEWART: It's hard to say, especially with the pandemic and people not gathering in ways that they used to. And I'm a fairly introverted person and so I didn't necessarily get super involved in a lot of community things as well. It seems to me like for the most part people have these types of discussions on social media and not in person, especially after the lockdown. And I think that's a very, a very poor way to have these discussions because when you don't see someone in front of you, it's so easy to misunderstand what they're saying or to manipulate what they're saying. And then you say things that usually you wouldn't say to someone in person as well. Um, and so in Kansas, I think that. I don't know, I think there's still a lot of a kind of a live and let live type mentality. And so people don't necessarily actively seek out discussions like this unless it's with someone that they know. That's more. It's more just a venting type thing with someone that they know agrees with them. But other than that, I don't know that there's a lot of intention toward, toward these type of discussions. I'd say probably there is going to be more. Now, after such a divisive election season and a difficult year, I think people are realizing that some, some of these things do need to be addressed and talked about, but it probably will take some time.

[35:23] MICHAEL ADAMYK: Yeah. Well, you mentioned the pandemic and I have been wondering and curious about what are ways that maybe you're finding yourself doing things differently or engaging with people Differently, or seeking out connections differently, not just through virtual channels, because that's what we have if we're going to stay safely distanced. But, like, what are the hopes and longings that are emerging? Is live and let live enough? If live and let live means we just let people die of a virus that, you know, I mean, is live and let live gonna motivate us to take a vaccine? Like, what are the. What are the things you're sort of noticing yourself hoping for in this time? As we think about, maybe there is, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel and we will be able to sort of reemerge from our safe havens and be among people again and maybe next year this time.

[36:26] SARAH STEWART: I don't know. I've really struggled a lot with the pandemic because at first I was actually kind of a relief to not. Not feel like I had to go out and do stuff. And I was very, extremely. I was really concerned about. About an illness. I mean, you know, it seemed. It's unprecedented and I don't know, it's is. I've seen. I've had several friends that have had it and some of them were extremely ill. Some of them were not very ill at all. And it's the unpredictability that seems like it's the most frightening. I had a co worker who. Her son had a heart attack and he was hardly sick. He's a teenager and he hardly even felt sick. But they wonder if that was because he had Covid. So it's. I don't know. There's a lot of unknowns. I do. One thing that I am hopeful about is I think that this focus toward telework will be great for the rural communities because it might actually give some of them a way for people to work from these small communities and have a good job. And that's. That's kind of. That's kind of a rabbit trail. But that's something that I actually kind of excited about as a positive. And I tried to look at positive, the silver lining and things. And so that's kind of. That's kind of where I am, I guess. What about looking if you.

[38:18] MICHAEL ADAMYK: I'm sorry to interrupt. I just wanted. I didn't give you guys a good five minute warning, so we just have a few minutes left.

[38:25] SARAH STEWART: Oh, wow.

[38:26] MICHAEL ADAMYK: Quickly. Yeah.

[38:30] SARAH STEWART: What do you think? How do you think we can. We can kind of come together to solve this divide that we have? Do you have anything that you feel strongly about to help us heal these gaps?

[38:53] MICHAEL ADAMYK: You know, I Keep coming back to your line from your bio about being insatiably curious. I think there are so many places where we're open to wondering and learning and growing, and it's a lot harder to write people off if we have some sort of shared humanity, right? And so some of the affinity areas where people want to learn about or engage with a particular topic or thing. I have friends in this time who cooking has been one of those ways that we've forged some new connections. I have friends who will talk about Queen's Gambit and, you know, TV shows and, you know, like, I wonder if some of these more gentle ways into getting to know each other more, you know, honoring the reality that we're all curious people, that we're all wired to grow and to learn, to want, to feel fully alive, if those might hold some possibilities for us to get to know each other and to forge connections that can grow and that can then sort of expand and have elasticity to allow us to approach those harder things gradually, you know, from some kind of baseline that affirms our shared humanity, our shared joy. I think rediscovering joy is something that I've thought a lot about because especially in this time where the pandemic has taken away so much joy from people. I don't know about you, but I have my Christmas tree up already, and I'm not usually already like, well into that, but leaning into joy and ways that we are more, you know, our humanity, we're similar. I think that may give us some ways in that open up possibilities. But I do have concerns that we will kind of use this as a way to be more siloed and more disconnected rather than moving toward each other. So I'm really grateful to get to know you and have a chance to learn more about your story. I feel like this is only a first conversation. I'd love to have more opportunities to learn more about you.

[41:11] SARAH STEWART: Yeah, same with you, Sarah.

[41:13] MICHAEL ADAMYK: Is there anything you feel like you've learned from our time together or are going to carry with you from this conversation?

[41:21] SARAH STEWART: I really love what you said about community and how important you view community, both when you were talking about your mom as well as just what you just now said? And I think it's easy to. I tend to easily get into the kind of the Lone Ranger Christian, which is, you know, the. Oh, you got to do it all on your own. And that's a very dangerous, very dangerous place. And I love how you. You obviously have a love for. For people and for making them feel welcome and loved. And that's a really. That's a really admirable trait. We need more people like that. I really appreciate that.

[42:09] MICHAEL ADAMYK: Thank you.