Episode Seventeen: The Interview - Jonathan Drummond

It's hard to resist a senior citizen on a mission. In this longer interview, hear how Jonathan visited a church as a guest, was asked to go to Sunday School by the stranger sitting next to him, and how this friendship became the miracle in his life.

Transcript

There was this old,

Rickety Episcopal cathedral in downtown Oklahoma City.

So I went there one Sunday,

And I walk in,

And I walk down the center aisle,

And I get to where I want,

And I turn left and go in four butt spaces,

As I like to call them.

And I almost sit on this lady,

Because she's already there,

Kneeling in an attitude to prayer.

At the end,

She looked at me,

And she goes,

Introduced herself.

I'm Lilia.

I said,

I'm Jonathan.

She goes,

Would you like to come to Sunday school with me?

I am just a pilgrim passing through.

I do feel very much an autonomous creature that was placed onto this orbiting planet we call Earth.

And I don't want to sound too confabulation here.

We're just,

We're autonomous.

But we are made for connection.

And that is the key to life for Jonathan Bremen,

For me.

I was born into a family,

A farm and ranchers,

Fifth generation on the same farm in Oklahoma.

And that really defined my core value of how do I see the world through my eyes outwardly is as this small town Oklahoma person.

Because the things that I learned and the values that I brought into myself were learned there with my mother and father and siblings and,

Like good farm families,

Extended family.

For a long time,

Because of the culture in which I was born,

We were defined as community.

We were the drumming boys.

We were Leslie's boys,

Because we were in the 70s.

There were three kids in junior high that had short hair.

Everybody else had hair to their collars.

And we had this,

The same haircut I'm wearing today,

Buzzed on the side and very short on the top.

And so everyone knew that I was a drumming boy,

Right?

There was no doubt about it that we were the clean cut kids,

Lived on the farm that would come in for school and church and haircuts.

My childhood was not ritualistic,

Strict religious,

Like so many of my evangelical friends had growing up.

I grew up in a very faithful family.

And it's funny how family myth and family story define you as a person,

Right?

So my great-great-grandfather immigrated in the 1880s from Scotland,

And our last name is Scottish,

And came through Ellis Island via St.

Louis into Kansas City and then down to Osage Nation.

So it was before Oklahoma statehood,

And we were in Indian territory,

Is what was known at the time,

And they had trading posts.

And so he ran a trading post.

So he was this man with this obvious Scottish brogue,

I can only now imagine,

After I've been to Scotland.

And he married a German immigrant in St.

Louis on his way westward.

And so here's this large-boned German woman with a German accent married to this slider-boned Scottish man.

And it's a scream to hear the story.

But the Church of Scotland was the Presbyterian Church.

So in due order,

There is the Presbyterian Church on the land that he gifted one block from his trading post,

And his house was the second block away from the trading post.

And he was the first mayor of Hominy,

Oklahoma.

So when it became incorporated as a town.

So we went to church.

We went to church every Sunday.

My grandmother was the church organist.

I sat in the quote pew that was pretty much non-reserved,

But reserved for the Drummonds for generations.

You know,

There was three pews in a row because we were a large family.

And then one set of cousins sat on the other side of the aisle because her mother was also raised in the church.

So she sat on the Powell side of the church.

Isn't that funny?

Small town churches have this.

And you know,

You can almost look with disdain at a Christian to look with disdain at a visitor sitting in your quote pew,

End quote.

My father was not a church attender,

Even though he was baptized,

Born and baptized in that church.

But he,

As I said at his eulogy at his funeral,

Was in God's cathedral every day.

He worked the land.

And he very much felt a part of creation and very much a part of that responsibility of curating and shepherding and being a custodian of the land and that we were just passing through.

It wasn't,

Even though we quote,

May have owned a deed,

That we did not own the land.

The land is beyond us.

My two older brothers were all within three years of each other.

And so we would play on the land and we would just run.

They let us run wild for about a mile in any direction and swim in the creek and build forts on the rocks and the trees.

So I was a really wonderful,

Wonderfully deep and meaningful childhood.

And when you have a large extended family that have babies at young ages,

You know,

My great grandparents were alive when I was born.

And my great grandparents passed away when I was in junior high and high school.

So we attended a lot of funerals in that Presbyterian church.

And we would have this celebration of life afterwards with a lot of food and drink like good Presbyterians.

And those were great memories because the clan would come together.

So we had this sense of enormous community and family and connectedness just by virtue of my family's experience.

I find people who are spiritually aware see the Spirit everywhere.

And if you're not spiritually aware,

You don't see the Spirit.

I had those people who were so important in my life growing up who just kind of were signposts pointing to me.

And so,

You know,

It's not that I have this big aha,

But those feelings that you think about your grandmother and making the little night about having a dream,

Then you learn that she passed away.

It's those sorts of what is that spiritual connection or that resonance in the air,

In the universe that speaks across time and space.

There's something that are connected.

So I've always felt a spiritual connection to other people when I meet them.

And it's the concept I think that they would say out of the Sanskrit word namaste,

You know,

The Spirit in me greets or acknowledges the Spirit in you.

But it's funny how I like to meet people.

So when I was 21 and I was going to medical school,

I was trying to find a church home.

And I would go into church and walk halfway down the aisle,

Literally 10 different churches,

Hang a left about two thirds of the way down,

Go about four spaces in on the traditional pew and sit and see if people would come around me because I wanted to see a sense of community because I really longed for the community that I had in my childhood.

And as I finally walked into this,

And I tried the Rosary and the Methodist,

But there was this old rickety Episcopal cathedral in downtown Oklahoma City.

And I lived four blocks from it or something.

So I went to it one Sunday and I walk in and there's this beautiful marble altar in front of you.

It's just incredibly beautiful.

So I walked down the center aisle and I get to where I want and I turn left and go in four butt spaces as I like to call them.

And I almost sit on this lady because she's already there kneeling in an attitude of prayer.

And I'm like,

Oh,

That little elf I almost stepped on.

And so I joined her.

I put down the kneeler,

Not an Episcopalian,

But I put down the kneeler and I got on my knees and I prayed and had an attitude of prayer.

And we had this lovely worship service.

And at the end,

She looked at me and she goes,

Introduced herself.

I'm Lilia.

I said,

I'm Jonathan.

She goes,

Would you like to come to Sunday school with me?

I was 21.

She was 66 at the time.

Had lunch with her day before yesterday.

She is 98,

Turning 99 October the 12th.

And so Lilia has been my spiritual guide for all of these years from 21 to 53.

So is that a God instance?

Is that a magical experience?

Absolutely.

It was ordained.

I did the same ritual of walking in,

Turning left and sitting.

And you know,

People are always polite.

They're so glad to see you or not.

Some churches are not even talking to you because you're not one of them.

But she took me to her little old lady Sunday school class and we went to lunch together and then we started going on a rotation and it was my turn to host lunch.

I took them to the village in these three older women and me.

And you know,

I was so connected to Lilia Sapper and I still am today.

She's been praying for me to be an Episcopal priest since then.

She is beside herself that I'm completing my masters of divinity,

Even though within the Methodist tradition,

She's still hoping.

But when you meet people who live a life that is so spiritually attuned.

And so when we are talking,

Lilia will break off into spiritual prayer mid-sentence.

So I'm not really sure if she's talking to me or talking to God because she lives in that space,

That little space between the now and the future or the now and the spirit.

And so she's been my guide for all of these years to say,

It's okay.

A year or so into our friendship,

I learned that she had a son who committed suicide when he was in medical school and I was in medical school.

So I kind of supplied that role for her family and I've been a part of the family since.

But she said to me,

Jonathan,

I don't know how people could survive losing a child if they didn't have faith or didn't have a groundedness in some spirituality.

I tell you,

It just broke my heart.

But I also thought,

Yes,

Because I have two children and I would be devastated if one passed away.

But I also know that we're just passing through.

I can tell you a hundred stories about how she has come in at the right time and spoken this word,

This elegant nugget of truth,

Because she's open to the truth.

I think that if something has been instrumental to me and continues to be instrumental in my life,

It's just being aware of the truth of the universe.

And when we talk about faith,

I used to say when I was a younger man,

Because I've been through several different Christian denominations within the Christian faith.

I said to Lilia one day,

I said,

Lilia,

It seems like when I get a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven,

All denominations fall away.

I think I said that to her in,

You know,

96,

Maybe 98,

Somewhere along in there,

25 years ago.

And then my journey,

Because I thought I was called into vocational ministry 30 years ago and I got accepted to med school the same year I was accepted to seminary and I made the decision,

Like a Gideon moment,

That if my sheepskin were dry,

That I was going to go to med school and I went to medical school.

And now that three years ago I started my journey in seminary,

I have changed my story.

And I no longer say when you get a glimpse of heaven,

I say,

When you get a glimpse of the divine,

All religions fall away.

What I really also love about Lilia is it's very rare to meet those people who are straddling both worlds,

That they have feet in this world and they're very here,

But then they have such a strong communion and connection to that other world,

Whatever that is,

That they're kind of their,

Their soul is immersed in it.

And so they're able to speak truths.

They're able to impart knowledge and with great humility,

By the way,

If they're,

If they're doing it the right way,

It's with great humility.

And it's absolutely correct.

Absolutely.

And because there's no pretension.

It is well,

Like my father and his connection to the land,

It wasn't necessarily quote mystical and made for TV way,

But it was de facto.

It was so pragmatic and Lilia's pragmatism being in the world,

In the spiritual world at all times,

While being in the physical world is really not up for debate.

It's just the fact of that's the fact of the matter that she does.

Yeah,

She,

She basically is an agent or an angel of the divine because she knows what to say or what words to say to you and probably to other people that help them glean a truth or realize the truth or take that little nugget and think about it for a few weeks and then have their epiphany.

You know,

That's,

She's the miracle.

She's the angel walking on earth.

And I think that's,

That's incredibly heartening and wonderful to realize that those angels haven't deserted us.

And the thing is,

They come in all sizes,

Shapes and situations.

You know,

I had professors who I know divine truth have nuggets have fallen out of their lips maybe without their knowing,

Right?

Because that's how the spirit speaks to us.

And they will tell a story,

Not trying to make a point a,

But you hear point C,

D,

E and F clearly.

And that is how the divine honors the message,

Right?

And so we see that even in the faith tradition,

I grew up in the Christian church,

You know,

The sermon might be given and 12 people listening heard 12 different stories.

I love having had this experience with Lydia Sapper and it's a long term relationship with that,

Right?

So this is whatever that,

Whatever that word,

Whatever that number is,

30 something years.

But I've had encounters with those angels on a routine basis.

You know,

People,

You,

I was at the wild goose festival last year and I was sitting at the table,

This woman listening to William Barber speak,

Right?

It moved just talking out and then 20 minutes later,

She's disappeared.

She's moved on.

And I had such profound conversation with her and I was like,

Okay,

Well did I really just have that conversation?

But I've had people that have just come in at the right time or music that has played at the right time or the smells coming out of someone's kitchen that bring you back.

I mean,

There's just,

There's so,

We're such complex people that we are connected on so many different levels.

I remember I was dating somebody and she was,

It was,

I said,

Lydia,

She's got so much baggage.

And she said,

Jonathan,

You've got baggage.

You just need to find somebody who likes your baggage.

And I thought,

Wow.

That's the same woman who said,

I was married to Vic for 58 years before he died.

He did not complete me.

You and I have more spiritual connection than my husband did.

I loved him,

But he was not spiritually deep.

And that's okay.

It wasn't judged.

She was not judging her deceased husband.

She was just saying,

You get fed by what the Spirit gives you.

So when I go to get to seminary and you go through that deconstruction,

That is just so phenomenal.

It's a buzzword.

It is so true.

You take everything.

And I tell people,

When I tell people,

I say,

Okay,

It's like I've spent 50 years developing this huge Lego of life.

This is huge,

Constructed,

Orderly because I'm an Enneagram one,

Orderly,

Well-structured,

Well-thought out.

There's a reason for everything that I do in my physical life.

I check the box,

I check the box,

I make the list,

I get it done and I'm pretty darn good at it.

You win accolades and we best little boys in the world want that.

So you get to seminary and I tell people,

I have this constructed Legos and you have your Old Testament Bible course and you realize that most of those things just did not happen.

A lot of those stories just made up,

Just repackaged from a millennia before from another religion.

And it's just so disheartening because you've held them to be truth in the definition of truth being factually correct.

And so that gets very disconcerting.

You start taking your Lego down,

You'll get down to two Legos,

You know,

My two Legos,

Two pieces.

I've said this a couple of times since I started seminary and I'm only three classes away from finishing.

But I say one Lego is that we are wonderfully and fearfully made individual reflections of the divine.

And the second thing I know is there was this donkey riding rabbi 2000 years ago that got some shit right.

And you might pay attention to what he said because that will help you live your life in a loving,

Gracious way.

And so I think it's,

You know,

It would behoove humans to get out of that binary mindset and be able to exist in the gray without being scared.

Because I think in that gray area is where knowledge is,

Where the treasure is.

Oh,

I love that,

That concept of that liminal space,

That space in between is the opportunity for growth and opportunity for understanding.

But it's also,

We talked earlier in this conversation about Lilia Sapper.

She lives in that in between space between physical and spiritual all the time.

And I want to live there.

And,

You know,

My kids will say,

I think you've gotten there sometimes,

Dad.

I'm pretty sure that we catch you there and we draw you back down.

But I'm okay with that,

Too.

I want to live in that space.

I want to be aware that it's okay.

The capacity to love,

The capacity to love beyond your boundary that the world has told you do you have to fit in.

You know,

The capacity to be aware that there is the gray zone,

That there is the spectrum,

That there is the fluid,

Absolutely.

And it's like anybody who bakes,

You know,

You put your ingredients and then it,

You know,

Sometimes what I love,

My cousin has cookbooks and she has lots of photographs because people are fearful as they cook because they start to do it.

And it doesn't look like it's supposed to.

But it does because it's the transitional chemical reactions of the batter before it becomes the cake.

I'm a willing talker,

But my experience I have,

Because I've been benefited so much from learning from people like Lilia to tell me,

You know,

Who I thought was the most loving creature in the world.

And she told me the day that she just,

She was so mad at her husband,

Vic,

She was out in the driveway,

Marching up and down the driveway and praying to God,

Just maybe take him out.

And he was,

She was so mad and God gave her the vision that she just needed to shut herself down and she needed to swallow a little humble pine and that she was contributing to that problem.

And I was like,

She just told me a bad about herself.

And I love that humility to say,

I was wrong and I'm so free to be able to say that,

That God has honored me in my language.

God has honored me when I admit that and I accept humility and gosh,

Darn it.

This has been episode 17 of Bite-Sized Blessings,

The podcast all about the magic and spirit that surrounds us,

If only we open our eyes to it.

And whether you choose to listen to our Bite-Sized offering for that five to 10 minutes of freedom in your day or the longer interviews,

We're so grateful you're here.

I need to thank Jonathan Drummond for sharing his story today,

As well as the creators of the music used.

Rafael Crux,

Winnie the Moo,

Sasha End,

Chilled Music,

Musik Hald,

Kevin MacLeod,

Lilo Sound,

And Alexander Nakarada.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at bite-sized-blessings.

Com.

On the website,

You can find links to other goodies,

Such as other artists,

Change makers and books that I think will lift and inspire you.

Thank you for listening and here's my one request.

Be like Jonathan,

Live the adventure,

Make sacred connections,

Never knowing where they will take you.