The Weight
The Weight
"Deep Sea. Deeper Faith." with Rachel Jordan
Show Notes:
Seeing the wonder of God’s creation in the world around us can expand our imagination, give us a hopeful perspective during difficult times, and help us find moments of joy in the mundanity of life. Today’s guest joins Eddie and Chris in a delightful, hope-filled conversation about the wonder of the ocean and its creatures. What can the ocean tell us about the character of God?
Rachel Jordan is a professional marine biologist who earned her B.S. in Ecology at Seattle Pacific University and her M.S. in Marine Biology & Ecology at James Cook University in Australia. She also has a Certification in Biblical Studies from Bodenseehof Bible School in Germany. Her book, If the Ocean Has a Soul, will release on June 3, 2025, and is available for preorder now.
If you want to experience wonder this summer, whether you’re traveling to the beach or the mountains, visiting an amusement park, or just staying home, take a few minutes each day to focus on one small thing in the natural world and appreciate it for how it is beautifully and wonderfully made. We humans are not just called to tend and keep. We are also called to serve and protect the world around us.
Resources:
Learn more about Rachel here.
Follow Rachel on Instagram.
Preorder If the Ocean Has a Soul through Tyndale, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Bookshop
Subscribe to Rachel’s newsletter here.
Hi, I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly:I'm Chris mcalilly. Welcome to The Weight. Today we're talking to Rachel Jordan. She's a professional marine biologist, and she's written a book called "If the
Ocean Has a Soul:A Marine Biologist's Pursuit of Truth through Deep Waters of Faith and Science." And today we're talking to her about her work.
Eddie Rester:Yeah, as we had the conversation about her work in creation and wonder and the integration of her faith and science, there's a quote that came to mind. We didn't get a chance to talk about it, but Saint Irenaeus, back in the third century, said "The initial step for a soul to come to knowledge of God is contemplation of nature." And I think Rachel really gets that and sees that and leads us into a deeper understanding of how being a part of the created order can really awaken us to God's work around us.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, we talk about what it was like for her as a little girl, to go--a girl that grew up in Idaho--to go with her family to the west coast, the Pacific Ocean, and to explore tidal pools and some of the wonder and the imagination and the mystery of that that she experienced as a young girl. What's unique about her is she's extended that curiosity and that wonder of childhood through her professional life and her vocational life, and you can hear what it has done for her. Cultivating wonder for her also has been a practice that has cultivated hope, as she has discovered that the ocean is not just filled with scientific discoveries, she said it's also filled with God's presence. And you're gonna hear that in the conversation, the hope that she has because of that embodied experience. What's the takeaway for you, Eddie?
Eddie Rester:So many different things. I mean, one of the things we talked about is how easy it is to pit science and faith against each other, and just her conversation about how she lives that out, and how she lives it in such a way that she piques the curiosity sometimes of people who aren't believers, but who are curious enough about her and her work and her faith to actually ask her questions about how she sees things. And I think there was a lesson there for us, sometimes, as followers of Jesus. Can we allow space for people to be curious and engage in deep conversation with us? And that was important to me. What about you?
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, I mean, so there are several people that have written about the importance of us reconsidering our relationship with the created world. One is Pope Francis and a work that he wrote recently about climate crisis and cultural exhaustion and ecological collapse. And she's kind of echoing some of the themes that emerge out of that, that if we're going to have a different relationship with the created world, it's going to come by seeing the world differently, and she just has a way of doing it, through prayer and worship that really open up her. I would describe it as just an enchanted way of viewing creation that leads her to have this moral imagination for the way in which we should be engaged with different dimensions of what is under the sea, and it just leads to this deep sense of love and and hope for her, that the God who created the world, even if we were to destroy it, could recreate it. It's a powerful view, and I think it will be helpful for you, whether you're working in a, you know, an organizational context, or you're in a school context, or you're in a season in your family where you're experiencing difficult things. She's just going to give you a reminder to engage the habits of wonder and delight that will lead to hope, no matter what is breaking down for you.
Eddie Rester:And speaking of breaking down, deep in the episode, I throw you under the bus.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, you did.
Eddie Rester:I just, I throw you under the bus.
Chris McAlilly:You do.
Eddie Rester:And I want to, I want to apologize.
Chris McAlilly:Thank you for that.
Eddie Rester:I think that you are capable of doing the thing that said that you weren't capable of doing. And so as you listen today, when you get to that, just know that I've just apologized to Chris for that.
Chris McAlilly:I fully accept for your apology, and I also think you were actually right. I don't think that I would like to do the thing.
Eddie Rester:There you go.
Chris McAlilly:There you go.
Eddie Rester:Well, thanks for listening. Chris won't do that thing. I will do that thing. Share this with somebody. We know you're going to enjoy it. We hope... I don't know, come back next week. That's what I'm trying to say.
Chris McAlilly:That's what you're trying to say. It's okay.[INTRO] Leadership today demands more than technical expertise. It requires deep wisdom to navigate the complexity of a turbulent world, courage to reimagine broken systems, and unwarranted hope to inspire durable change.
Eddie Rester:As Christ-centered leaders in churches, nonprofits, the academy, and the marketplace, we all carry the weight of cultivating communities that reflect God's kingdom in a fragmented world.
Chris McAlilly:But this weight wasn't meant to be carried alone. The Christian tradition offers us centuries of wisdom if we have the humility to listen and learn from diverse voices.
Eddie Rester:That's why The Weight exists: to create space for the conversations that challenge our assumptions, deepen our thinking, and renew our spiritual imagination.
Chris McAlilly:Faithful leadership in our time requires both conviction and curiosity, rootedness in tradition, and responsiveness to a changing world.
Eddie Rester:So whether you're leading a congregation, raising a family, teaching students, running a nonprofit, or bringing faith into your business, join us as we explore the depth and richness of Christ-centered leadership today. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]
Chris McAlilly:We're here today with Jordan. Jordan, oh Lord have mercy. I'm going to try that again.
Eddie Rester:Rachel Jordan. Usually it's me making these mistakes, but it's Chris McAlilly making mistakes.
Chris McAlilly:I know, I know. That's so funny.
Rachel Jordan:We're getting it all out of the way early.
Chris McAlilly:I know. Here we go. I'll try that again. We're Yeah, here we go. I'll try again.
Eddie Rester:Rachel, thank you for being with us today. We're not stopping. You didn't stop for here today with Rachel Jordan. Thank you so much for being with us on the podcast.
Rachel Jordan:Oh, thanks so much for having me, you guys. I'm really excited for our conversation today.
Chris McAlilly:The title of your book is, "If the Ocean Has a Soul," and it's beautiful and provocative. I love the title, and I wondered if you would maybe just start by telling us a little bit about what that means to you, what the question means to you, if the ocean did have a soul? Is it a metaphor? Is it a mystery? Like, is it theology? Kind of, how are you using that idea?
Rachel Jordan:Yeah, that's an excellent question. I intentionally wanted the title to have sort of an open-ended, rhetorical, mysterious feel to it. If the ocean has a soul, then you fill in the blank. And the book, all in all, the way all the different stories fit together, the theology, it's my personal answer to that sort of question, if you will. So for me, as a professional marine biologist, as someone who loves Jesus, I study theology in my free time, the ocean is a place where I get personal, intimate time with the Lord, being out in his creation, getting to see his character made evident through everything he's made. And so the soul of the ocean, for me, quite simply is just this aspect of getting to spend time with God. And what does that look like? Those are the stories that I tell in the book. So the title is my way of trying to summarize the feeling I have of being at the ocean, getting that time with the Lord, and the implications that that has for my life, and I believe, for the rest of creation as well.
Chris McAlilly:I love that, thank you.
Eddie Rester:Tell us, yeah, tell us a little bit about you, how you developed that love for the ocean, when that really started for you, and maybe just a couple stories to go along with that.
Rachel Jordan:Yeah, totally. So my love for the ocean began around the same time as my love for Jesus. I was raised in a household with Jesus-loving parents and ocean-loving parents. We lived in Lund in the state of Idaho, but every year or so we would take a family trip, drive out to the West Coast, Washington, Oregon, sort of the the wild, chaotic ocean, lots of cliffs and rocky ledges, really good tide pooling. So when the ocean tide goes out, it leaves these suspended pools of water that are filled with critters. So barnacles, crabs, sometimes a jellyfish, sea anemones. And you can poke around in these tide pools and discover amazing creatures. And so while I was growing up, getting exposed to the Bible and having these conversations with my parents, I was also occasionally getting exposure to the ocean, and I talk about these tide pools being sort of these windows into the larger ocean. I remember as a kid, staring at crabs scuttling around and poking these sticky green sea anemones and thinking to myself, if all this cool stuff is right here in this little pool, what other really neat things are out there in the big ocean? And I remember, I was just talking with my dad about this, and he he was saying, "No, I'm impressed that you were already asking those sorts of questions as a kid." And I was like, "Well, you probably were aware of it." It's just that it was more of like, "Hey, Dad, like, what lives out there?" So I was just really curious. I was one of those kids that always asked "why." I wanted to know why things worked the way they did, why things are the way they are, and the ocean, that is one of those vast, largely still unexplored things that begs a lot of questions, and so that's what began my love for it. And my faith has developed similarly, of my relationship with God becoming more and more personal as I grew up, and finally reaching a point where I started engaging really intentionally with a lot of the questions that come with a developing, growing faith. And it's really cool in hindsight to think about how my relationship with God and my fascination with the ocean have traveled parallel paths. And it wasn't until really I sat down to think about my stories from my career and what it had taught me about the character of God, that I realized just how much intersection there was, that faith in science has for my whole life been a huge part of my story. And it's so neat to now get to have a voice in those conversations that people who are operating at the intersection of faith and science, they've been having for years. Chris, you mentioned a little bit ago, Pope Francis, and one of the amazing books he's written, "On Care For Our Common Home." I think it's called "Laudato Si',""Laudato Si'," and that book was very transformative for me. It gave me words to describe some of the thoughts that I have when I read things like the Genesis creation account and God's call for humankind to care for creation in the Garden of Eden. And, you know, the visions that we see in Revelation of what heaven will be like, all those different things. So I love that this book, it gets to be kind of my little contribution to the faith and science realm. And I love that. I'm really excited to be getting to have these conversations.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, it's so cool.
Eddie Rester:And it's an important conversation, the faith and science conversation, because so often faith and science get pitted against one another, and we need those voices that say it's all a part of the, I think, the good work of God. Francis Collins is one of my heroes.
Rachel Jordan:Yes.
Eddie Rester:I'm sure you've read his book from years ago.
Rachel Jordan:His book was recommended to me by an ecology professor in undergrad, and I was really struggling at the time with questions about how faith and science could coexist, and a lot of what I was learning in my biology courses, any chemistry and everything, it was sort of rubbing up against some of the things that I'd been taught in church. And so I had some big questions. I didn't really know where to go, and one of my professors, who loved the Lord, introduced me to Francis Collins' work, "The Language of God," and that book, in turn, sent me on this pursuit. You know, what other resources are out there? And so, yes, I am so amazed by Francis Collins, what he's achieved, not just as a geneticist, but also as sort of one of the front runners in faith and science conversations. He's a force of nature.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, his book came out in the mid 2000s, I think is when it came out. And he was involved...
Eddie Rester:It might have been earlier.
Chris McAlilly:It may have been earlier.
Eddie Rester:Early 2000s, yeah, early 2000s. It's been around a bit.
Chris McAlilly:And he was involved in the Human Genome Project. He was a devout Christian. And he makes this case that faith in science can not only coexist, but they can be allies in important conversations. They're compatible with one another, that science shouldn't be threatened by God, that science actually enhances it. And I think what I hear in you is first, this kind of childlike wonder of that you experience when you would go, being a kid in Idaho and going and tide pooling, which I want to hear more about, because we don't tide pool in the American South. I don't know anything about that.
Eddie Rester:You don't know. You don't. You can't do that.
Chris McAlilly:You can't tide pool down here, but, yeah, I guess I hear childlike wonder. That's one of the things I hear. And then I also hear this sense that when you engage with the ocean, when you're physically in the ocean, you know, you're diving in the ocean, or you're doing some of your work that's biologically based, or you're looking at kind of the biodiversity that you see there that is enhanced by this framework that you have, that comes from your faith, that would say that all of this is created by God, all of this is sacred. This is a place where I can have personal, intimate connection with the One who created it all. And I wonder, if you know, you know, for somebody who's maybe thinking about these things like, how would you say that your scientific work is deepened and not diminished by experiencing the ocean as a sacred place?
Rachel Jordan:Oh, yeah, that is there's a lot to unpack there, so the wonder definitely contributes to that. I have for most of my career, worked alongside scientists who are not Christians. There's a lot of Christians in science. I've met a lot of Christian marine biologists, but I meet far more and befriend far more scientists who do not get, know where to love God. And those conversations, for me are actually the really big... That's where a lot of my really big aha moments have come from. Those are some of my favorite conversations I've ever had, because when you have a relationship with someone who thinks differently than you, and you trust that the conversation is going to be respectful and loving and that it's safe, that the relationship's still going to stand regardless of any disagreement you might have, people open up and they ask you really hard questions.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, I think maybe, I think a lot of people And so I've gotten some really beautiful pushback and just curiosity and getting the experience of watching non Christians make connections about the natural world, and would think about people doing biological, marine biology work what it might mean that I, with my relationship with God, might never quite think of it that way. And you asked specifically about what the experience of this, the wonder of getting to be in the marine environment, of scuba diving, or of just being out doing field work, what that contributes, if I understand the question correctly, what that sort of contributes to my faith, and how my faith integrates with that? from a scientific perspective, maybe what might be different is you see it from this lens of faith, with this kind of deeper spiritual lens. And I just wondered how that deepened and maybe didn't diminish your scientific work specifically.
Rachel Jordan:Yeah, that's totally the case. And I think the reason why I mentioned conversations with people who don't know God, is that is where I notice it most. It's one thing for me to be out diving and, you know, I'm interacting with reef animals, and I'm praying during the dive, or I'm humming worship music while I'm treating a diseased coral, or, you know, whatever it might be. And, you know, my dive buddy next to me can hear me humming, and they're sort of like, "What's she doing?" There's interactions like that, but the more meaningful ones are when we're top side on the boat afterwards, or when we're having a debrief from our field day, or we're just cooking dinner because we're out in the field and we're living out there, or maybe camping, or whatever it might be. But you're you're working, you're interacting together, you're swimming alongside each other. You're doing life together in a professional way, but it becomes really personal, and the work that I have gotten to be part of has at times, been very emotional. I've been at the front, I call it the front row of ecological collapse, where coral reefs are dying at my fingertips, and I've been working on a team to try to prevent that from happening, and failing to prevent that from happening. And so the conversations that I have with those coworkers are a lot of the time centered around grief and hardship and labor and loss, and the difference between the way they broach those conversations and the way I come at them is I have hope. I have hope that even if and when an ecological collapse happens, when hundreds of thousands of animals die, are dying or suffering in front of my eyes, I know that is not the end of the story. I know that God is actively creating. I know that he intentionally made and loves every single thing. And that through the work that Jesus did, through his life, his death, his resurrection and his return, he is actively working to restore all things to himself, and that I, as his child, as part of his creation, as having been invited to contribute a little bit to this gigantic cosmic story that he's writing. I get to witness this. I get to witness this remaking of creation. And so there is, for me, an honor in getting to minister to creation even while it's suffering, and getting to participate in it even when things are horrific and not going the way I want them to, because I know that that's not the end, that God still is who he says he is. He still loves everything, me included, and that if my heart is breaking, how much more is his? But again, that's not the end. And so the conversations I have with scientists who like me, their hearts are breaking. We might be doing really hard work. We might be feeling really discouraged. We can honestly come together and process those things. But the difference is that I can offer them a hope that might not initially make scientific sense, but they can recognize through my attitude, my character, the way that I'm living my life, that I am living as if this is true, that this, this is real to me, and my relationship with God is personal, so they are seeing that lived out in a very practical way. And, yeah, it's been really sweet. It's been deeply, deeply connecting for me with those friendships that I've developed in the field
Chris McAlilly:I love that. I know Eddie...
Rachel Jordan:Did that get out your question?
Chris McAlilly:Oh, it's so great. No, it's perfect.
Eddie Rester:It's fantastic.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah. And I know Eddie wants to jump into a question. The scripture that was coming to mind as you were
speaking is Romans 8:"We know that all of creation has been groaning as if it were in childbirth," you know, right up to the present moment, the sense of creation itself groaning. You know, I think one of the things I hear is you have this framework from your faith that provides a moral imagination that would allow for an ecological collapse to occur without that leading you to a place of despair. And so hope is something that you can offer to those who may be with you, but who may not share your spiritual or theological commitments. But you actually have a resource within this conversation of, how do we create a culture that would care for and then ultimately heal these dimensions of creation that may be in crisis or collapse, and so that's just massive. And I'm grateful for the way that you articulate it, and you articulate it very, very well. I'm gonna let Eddie jump in.
Eddie Rester:One of the joys I get every spring is I get to go talk to a group at the Honors College at Ole Miss just about creation care from the Christian perspective.
Rachel Jordan:Oh, neat!
Eddie Rester:And one of the things that, as we engage, is Yeah, I am still figuring that out. that so many Christians are never talked to about that
Rachel Jordan:I think it depends on the person and sort Yeah. responsibility, that that is part of that. We're part of creation, just like everything else is, and that creation is of where they're at and their familiarity with the Bible as a being redeemed. And, you know, we talked a little about the Genesis words "dominion" and"stewardship" and those kinds of things. How do you help other followers of Jesus begin to open, maybe, their imaginations or their willingness to see that it's not just that well, it doesn't matter. If it dies, it dies; if it lives, it lives, but that we have have a part in that. How do you have that conversation? whole. Because if they're familiar with the Bible, then you can reference, you know, let's look at Genesis. Let's look at Revelation, and how do those mirror each other? And looking specifically at how integration, the integration of creation in both of those books, let's talk about that a little bit. Why is there a sort of ecology described in heaven, in Revelation, after things are restored? Why does God say specifically, in, I believe it's Revelation 21, "See, I am making all things new." He doesn't say he's making all new things. He says, "I'm making all things new." And so that, in and of itself, like that is restoration. It's the idea of taking something that has a story, something that you know existed and then was broken, and then recreating it, not by starting over, but by taking old pieces and integrating them together so beautifully, so much beyond what they were originally designed to be, that the end result, the restored version, is in many ways more beautiful transformed for having been broken and restored than how it was in its original state. And so that is a conversation that I draw from a lot is, okay, let's compare Genesis and Revelation and the ecology that we see represented in the biblical story. But another thing, too, which this is the angle I tend to take more often, especially when people aren't necessarily as familiar with the Bible, is asking, okay, what was the first mission God gave to humankind? Like, what was the very first thing he told us to do? And he told us in Genesis to serve and protect the created world. He put Adam and Eve in the garden to tend and to keep it. And certain things, of course, get lost in translation, and that's partly why it's so fun to dig into the original Hebrew that it was written in and discover alternative meanings. I was recently talking with a friend who is a native speaker. Her first language is different than mine, and we were discussing how certain words can have double meanings in other languages. How in English, you know, we have certain words that have double meanings and and there can be so much allegory, so much metaphor, so much feeling about things packed into a single word, and so much of that is informed by your culture. And so looking at the words "to tend and to keep," there's alternate translations for that. And my very favorite one is "to serve and protect," because I feel like that's a little more practical. Like that is something that all of us can understand. "To tend and to keep" feels a little abstract to my brain, but some people translate it as "to till and to keep." And then I think about, you know, gardening or agriculture. You know, you're tilling the soil, you're stirring it up, exposing it to oxygen, but there's a level of care that goes into that. And to serve and protect that, those are attributes that don't just apply to soil or agriculture or gardening. Those are attributes that apply to every aspect of creation. And so what does it look like for us as Christians to serve and protect creation? Well, that is an extension of God's love to us. If God loves us, we are filled with his love, and then when we are filled, we have this out flowing into the world, to pour out onto it. And so serving and protecting creation, it's the first thing God called us to do, and in many ways, I believe it's also kind of the last. And it's not done out of... You know, when we look at Revelation, when we look at what it willl be like to be forever in the intimate presence of God, it's not all singing in a choir or just, you know, lavishing praise on God. That is certainly, I think, a part of it. Like we will be praising But there's different modes of praise than him.
Eddie Rester:Right. just singing or just complimenting or just standing in awe. There are modes of praise that lead to action, of doing things, of activity, and it's just as possible for a pastor to be praising God by sharing teaching from the pulpit as it is for a gardener digging in the soil to be praising God through their work, and be sort of relishing that time with him as they work in the world that he created. It is as much so as for me as a scuba diver, you know, praying on a dive while I'm interacting with the amazing underwater creatures as I'm you know, waving hello to a reef shark, or catching sight of a stingray skirting across the sandy bottom, or watching Christmas tree worms, these sort of double antennaed, fuzzy creatures that poke their heads out of corals, like little pipe cleaners, just marveling at those things. There's the element of praise to that of, oh my goodness, look at these amazing things God made, and what then am I to do to honor him in my interaction with these other elements of creation? And how can I serve and protect them?
Chris McAlilly:I think that's just the difference, is that, you know one of your heroes that that I've seen is CS Lewis, and he talks about--he's not the only one--but he talks about the way in which we view the world in a disenchanted way, and that leads us to treat the natural world as just merely there, merely matter, or to be instrumentalized or used for our purposes. And I think worship and prayer is a way to re-enchant the world. And that re-enchantment is a part of a moral language. It's part of a moral imagination, because then it leads to what you said at the end. It leads to "What then shall I do?" You know, which is a question of kind of, what is our moral responsibility? I've again, jumped in front of Eddie,
Eddie Rester:No, no, no. I'm just, I'm sitting here thinking so I'm... about one of the ways that I talk about what you're talking about, is we look at the song. We look at how many places that creation is brought up throughout scripture. I mean, over and over. You know, whether it's in Ecclesiastes or Psalms or Proverbs or Jesus talking about parts of creation, it's over and over and over. And one of the students one time said,"I wonder if that's because God needs us to grow our wonder, if that's why it keeps getting repeated." And I said, I think that's exactly it. And you really point to the power of wonder. You've already mentioned it a little bit, and I wonder--I wonder.
Chris McAlilly:Do you wonder?
Eddie Rester:I'd love, I'd love for you to talk a little bit about, what's the power of wonder? Why do we need that? And it may be, you know, like Chris, Chris is never going diving. He's not that kind of guy. He's not brave enough, I don't think, to go under the water.
Rachel Jordan:Well, hey. That's okay. It's not for everybody.
Chris McAlilly:Wow, that's a shot across the bow.
Eddie Rester:I know. Well, you know, I'm trying to get it... So
Chris McAlilly:What do you have Eddie, under your belt? You have a URA?
Eddie Rester:I am, I'm a novice, but I'm a certified diver. Been down a few times here and there.
Chris McAlilly:Look a there.
Eddie Rester:Yeah.
Chris McAlilly:Well, I'm glad that you were able to tell us all about that.
Eddie Rester:My favorite moment was the sea turtle like went scurrying by me in the in the current. It was fantastic. Anyway, but how can we maintain that sense of wonder? What's the power of it and how can we maintain it? I guess is where I'm going with it. I'll stop and let you talk.
Rachel Jordan:Well, the power is what wonder points you towards. You know, when you're marveling at something, what is the extension of that? What does it point you towards? I think it tends to point us towards God, towards praising him. And what was the second part of it?
Eddie Rester:And how do you maintain that? How do you...
Rachel Jordan:Yeah, I think practice. So if you're struggling to be filled with wonder, that's something you can cultivate. That's something that you can learn to do. And I think it gets easier the more you do it. The same way learning an instrument or a language or learning to dive, you do it long enough, often enough, it sort of becomes second nature, and then you find yourself just wondering at, you know, earthworms crawling across the sidewalk. And it's just marvelous. It's totally possible to cultivate that. But I think starting at the point of, you know, pick something. Pick something, anything. It could be a leaf. It could be the way light reflects off the surface of water, but pick something in creation, the way your mom smiles at you, or the sound of a bird in a tree on your lunch break. Pick something and ask yourself, and you can do it prayerfully. You can invite God into the conversation. I'd encourage that. But ask yourself, "What does this thing, isolated it on its own, what does this thing teach me about the character of God?" Like, if this exists, what is the implication? And the reason why I think that cultivates wonder is because it helps us recognize what is real in front of us, helps us be more observant of our surroundings, which in turn, helps us to be more observant of people and recognizing their role in creation and our own role in creation, but it also just helps us to appreciate the details. character, I think it says his eternal power and divine nature, those are made evident through creation, so much so that all men are without excuse. And that verse, I think, is why wonder is such a powerful tool. When we take time to admire the things that God's made, we become more acquainted with his character in new ways. It also, I think, like I said, with practice, you know, it gets easier, but in some ways it gets more challenging because you start to observe things that reveal things about God's character that maybe aren't as comfortable to process, that are maybe upsetting to have to work through. Something like, I talk briefly in the book, I talk about how I was on a disease intervention dive. I was actively applying medicine to diseased corals, trying to save their lives, and I noticed that there were these bearded fireworms. They're these long, about a foot long, worms that look far more like fuzzy caterpillars, very, lots of bright plumage, very fuzzy. You sort of just want to reach out and pet one, but you don't want to do that, because they will sting you and it will hurt, and that's why they're called fireworms. But these fireworms were feasting, just gorging themselves on the diseased tissue of the sick corals. And it brought up all these questions in my mind, because my habit of, you know, engaging in things with wonder. Wow, like, look at this fireworm. It's amazing, and it's eating the coral. And what does this tell me about the character of God? I don't know. Like, does this mean... You know, God is feeding the fireworm via the life of, the suffering of another animal. What am I to do with that information? That invites a whole lot of other questions. And I spend a good chunk of the book, "If the Ocean Has a Soul" I think we have to take a lot of those questions back to him in talking through those questions that I had. And I don't have a conversation. But that is one of the places that wonder can land single pat answer for it, but I do think that God invites us to us up, is just asking these really, frankly deep, ask those questions, to talk with him about it. And I know existential questions about who God is and why he allows, why he that he makes himself known through suffering, as much as he created the world to operate in the ways that he does.
Eddie Rester:Yeah.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah. What I hear about wonde, I just want to make sure to say this, because it's something that I makes himself known through restoration, and that he loves and feeds every living thing. We see that a lot in Psalms. You know, God feeds the lions. He provides food for the ravens in think is really important, that you're drawing out, that I their nests. You know, we're talking about carnivores and hadn't really thought about before in this particular way. I scavengers. They eat too, and so when there's suffering involved think of wonder as like astonishment. I think of it as in that, how do we integrate that with what we know to be true about God's character? my daughter learning to do a cartwheel, and she's amazed that she can do the cartwheel. And it's like, you know, that kind of wonder. But really, what I hear you talking about is wonder as a form of deep and sustained attention, that would be kind of the way I would articulate it, you know, just like really deep over the long period of time, so that you're not just seeing the flashy, beautiful bits, but you're also seeing the totality of what's there, including the suffering.
Rachel Jordan:Yeah.
Chris McAlilly:You know, including the way in which ecosystems are born, they grow, they live, they die, they decay, they decline, they collapse, and they die. And in the midst of all of that, there is a groaning, there is pain, and there's also...
Rachel Jordan:Lamentation.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah, there's lamentation. There's grief No cell phones in the ocean. Definitely. within that, within an ecosystem. And also, you know, death doesn't necessarily, and decay doesn't necessarily mean the end. There are things that are feasting on decay, and you Eddie may take his cell phone down there. But I assume that's know that plays a role, even if you can't see the full picture. You know, it's like wonder leads you in this deep, sustained, attentive way to attend to what's there. And it's a way to, in some ways, like, I don't know, mirror the form of love that God is offering to creation at all times. You know, there's a way in which we can engage in that same kind of loving attention. And I just think it's just so hard to do. It's just... It seems like the benefit of the ocean is you don't have your cell phone down there, you know? I mean, Eddie may take his. part of the benefit, right? Like, you're underwater and you don't have your phone, right?
Rachel Jordan:Yeah. You know, that could be part of it. It's funny, because, you know, it depends on the person. I've had coworkers many times say, like,"Oh, if only we could listen to music down here. It would just pass this time so much quicker." And you've got to keep in mind, you know, like, this is coming from those of us who diving, for us, it's work. We're doing four to five dives, sometimes more a day, and it's labor. You're focused on what you're doing. You're not looking around going like, wow, look at that cool fish. I'm gonna follow it for, you know, 100 yards. Like, you don't have time to do that. You're at work. It's a little bit like being in a really dangerous, watery cubicle, but it's amazing, and as I mentioned in the book, like part of my struggle with my job, working for the National Park Service was just cultivating that sense of wonder, of remembering to look up from my work and appreciate the world around me, because it is remarkable. It is amazing. I
Chris McAlilly:And isn't that something... mean, look at those fish. They're schooling together in purple tangs. Like, I don't see them very often, and there's so many of them. Like, there's all sorts of things to marvel at.
Rachel Jordan:It's still, you can get lost in the mundane. Any job, any work you do, you could just get lost in fixating on it and forgetting to look around and smell the roses.
Chris McAlilly:That's the translation in part, to me, because I don't work under the sea. I do have my cell phone, but I can also get lost in the mundane and live in alattened, technocratic world, and I can forget to cultivate a sense of wonder, you know, curiosity and stewardship and all of those things are things that I think translate regardless of whether you're working as a marine biologist or pastor, a teacher, you know, a parent. We all need wonder to stay kind of rooted and grounded in a world that feels very fragile.
Eddie Rester:When you talked about lamentation, I thought about the book of Lamentation, which is, you know, pouring out of just grief and pain and wormwood and gall is a part of it. But then in the very middle of the book, the author talks about, "but God's mercies are new every morning," and it's a reflection on just the created rhythm. There's darkness and there's light and there's darkness and there's light. There's nightfall and there's morning. And just as you talk about finding ways to meditate on just what you see around you, I think that that's one of the scriptures that comes to mind. I haven't thought of it in that regard before right now, that it's really a reflection on what God gives to us in creation, even in painful and difficult moments. So...
Rachel Jordan:That's reall cool. Can I just... Real quick. So you talked about the light and
Eddie Rester:No, go ahead. Go ahead. the dark and both, you know, metaphorically, but also to take it literally for a minute, if we're talking about like the light and dark of day, the night, back and forth and this cycle God created. And we're thinking about it metaphorically while we talk about this, what comes between the light and the dark and the dark and the light? You know, we're talking sunrises and sunsets, and those are amazing moments to wonder. To just stop and gaze at the sky. And looking at sunrises, sunsets over the ocean is one of my favorite things, because you get that reflective effect of the light off of the water. It's a full scale scene, and sometimes you even get some afterglow back behind you. If you're ever watching a really good sunset, sunrise, make sure to look back over your shoulder, because there might be some really cool pink stuff happening in those clouds. But I think those transition periods, especially in life, when we're moving from a light season into a dark season, that can be a really challenging adjustment. And sunsets, for me, are an encouragement of God can create beauty in those transition periods. You know the night sky, he can create such marvelous things there. So as we talk about laments, grief, loss, you know these harder seasons, and also the brighter ones, where it's daytime and the birds are singing again, and all these wonderful things. God makes himself known in so many different ways. I think sometimes we just have to pay attention a little more. Yeah. But even at night, as you mentioned, there's so many marvelous things that are happening on beaches and in the water, in the world around us, if we can stop long enough in the darkness to pay attention, to extend that metaphor just a little bit more. I wonder. We've got a couple more minutes. What other practices do you have to kind of keep yourself grounded and open to wonder as a scientist and a Christian? And I ask that because we've got a lot of folks listening who, their job isn't scientist. They're not getting to dive four or five times a day, but they do have this kind of, this is what they do every day. And what I find is so many people lack the habits that help them kind of remain open to God's wonder and God's future and God's hope. So what you what are your practices? If you don't mind sharing?
Rachel Jordan:Oh, yeah, that's a good question. These are personal so I don't know that this will translate in a way that's practically helpful for people, but some of the things that I do that really helped me are--just as a note, like, I'm just generally an anxious person. Anxiety has been, unfortunately, a big part of my story, and the thing that has helped me the most is just going outside and sitting down in the grass, being able to feel the ground beneath my feet, getting my toes in the dirt. There's just something about that that helps. And then just paying attention. I feel like some of this connects to practices of mindfulness, but for me, it's arisen really organically in my life, where, even if I'm inside, just stopping what I'm doing and closing my eyes and and holding still. And I always start with sounds. How many? How many sounds can I pick out? Like, let's just focus on three. Like, can I find three sounds? You know, if I'm doing it here in my house. Can I listen and find three sounds and think about where they're coming from, what they are. Okay Now, can I think about three feelings? Okay, I could feel the carpet under my foot. I can feel the way my back is pressed up against the hardwood of this chair, or the feeling of a pen in my fingertips. Okay, now what... Let me go through the senses. What can I smell? That tends to be a really hard one for me, because if you don't have, like, a sweetly aromaed drink next to you, or you're not, you know, eating something, it could be hard to pick up the smell, but still trying to. I can smell the grass that just got freshly mowed outside, or I can smell, you know, kind of like the mustiness of the room, or the stack of books over there, or whatever it might be, even if it's just a little imaginative. And going with, you know, taste. Sometimes it helps to just have a cup of water next to you, and you just take a sip, and you think about how it tastes. And then the last step is opening my eyes and keeping it very simple, so that you don't get overwhelmed, but just picking a couple things that you see, and that practice of just observing, just observing with all my senses, kind of in isolation these different things, it puts me back where I am in the physical space, but also sort of repositions my heart of where I am in orientation to everything else, in orientation to creation. And once I've done that, I find that it's so much easier to pray even through big feelings, or to process with God what's happening, or what it is he might be trying to teach me, if I'm reading the Bible or if I'm talking with him. So that that sensory practice is a tool that's worked really well for me, just to refocus and reorient my place in creation and also cope with anxiety in a healthy way. And another thing that I really like to do is just, just getting outside, going for walks, you know, looking for critters. The location where I live right now, it's springtime, and so we have a lot of wild rabbits that are hippity hopping around my driveway, in the yard, and I love watching them. I read, oh, that's another thing I love doing. I love reading. But specifically, the kind of reading that I think could be really helpful for engaging with wonder is reading fiction, reading novels, because it triggers your imagination in a whole other way. And so I read just a couple years back,"Watership Down" by, I believe, Richard Adams. And if you don't know that book, it's a novel all about bunnies, and that sounds so silly, but I'm telling you, this book had some of the best examples of leadership through hardship that I have ever heard of. I learned so much practically from that book, through how these rabbits, through how the main character rabbit worked with his peers to lead them and keep them safe and deal with all these challenges. It's a really good book. I think reading fiction, being outside, observing nature, and then just being mindful of your senses and what you can learn about God through those things, that would be my answer.
Chris McAlilly:Yeah. So we're recording this conversation at the end of April. It will come out, I would assume, in the next few weeks, as we're entering into the late spring, early summer time frame. A lot of people will be going on vacation. Maybe you're taking time to go to the beach, maybe go diving, climb a mountain, you know, or be out in your yard gardening, or, you know, you can observe the bunnies. All of these things are ways of reconnecting you to the world that God has made. And you know, the thing, I think that's unique about you, Rachel, is it's just your sustained attention. It's, you know, all of us have access to the same senses, but you have developed this habit and cultivated this vocation that allows you to stay with it long enough to see things that other people don't see. So we're grateful to you for writing the book and taking the time to talk with us and to kind of help us see the world the way you do. I do think it's incredibly helpful, and you're such a hopeful person. I can just tell that this hasn't just cultivated wonder for you, but it really has cultivated hope for your work. And I hope that the conversation today really helps sustain somebody else as they're trying to do the kind of care of whatever culture or creative endeavor or creation itself that that they're being asked to serve and protect, to tend and to care for. So thank you so much. Thanks for being with us.
Rachel Jordan:Thank you for having me. This has been such a sweet conversation.
Eddie Rester:Well, sometime we'll compare. You can teach me more about diving. Where to go for diving. I'd love to hear some of that sometime. But thank you for being with us.
Rachel Jordan:Oh, I would love to hear some of your dive experiences.
Eddie Rester:I have almost none. I have like, five, six, yeah.
Rachel Jordan:But I mean, those are some of, like, your early dives. Those are some of the ones that you will never forget. You know, because it's novel, and the wonder is there. It's a little easier to tap into when there's some novelty. So I'm excited for you. That's wonderful.
Eddie Rester:Thank you, Rachel. Have a great afternoon.
Rachel Jordan:Yeah, you too.
Eddie Rester:[OUTRO[ Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.
Chris McAlilly:If you would like to support this work financially, or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]