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  1. "Self-honesty" - Matthew Garnier Terry McMullen 1:04:12

My guest, Matt, recently published a comedic memoir about religious upbringing, “Swept Up: Lessons From the End Times” (https://amzn.to/3I2rqB2). The book includes “tales (and lessons) from church, home-schooling, and a few strange years at a major evangelical university.”

This background helps explain his value of “self-honesty, because as Matt put it, he was raised to rely on certainty to guide him through life. From a very young age he was taught about God, heaven, hell, and the other various religious doctrines of Christianity. For a kid like Matt, who from a young age tried to question and understand things, this made life really difficult. He found himself in a constant state of anxiety and stress, worried that any wrong move might lead to his eternal damnation.

Worse yet, as he tried to make sense of it all he found himself with more questions than answers. How could everyone be so certain about this God and these rules we are supposed to follow? Would God really send me to hell if I don’t follow all the rules exactly? Why aren’t we allowed to acknowledge there are some things we just don’t know for sure?

I really enjoyed this discussion with Matt, because so much centered around the question of: what do I do in the face of uncertainty? If I am not sure there is a God, I am not sure what the meaning of life is, and I am not sure if there is a universal moral code to follow–then what do I do? Matt and I tried to work through this and make sense of how we live day to day with all of this uncertainty.

We also spent a good bit of the discussion trying to empathize with those who do completely submit to the concept of God. We even put ourselves in the shoes of a parent or devout follower who feels they do know for sure that God is real and has given us directions to follow. If you truly believe that, what is the right way to live, the right way to raise your children, the right way to talk about God with others?

This was a really fun, engaging, and thought provoking conversation and I thank Matt a lot for opening up so much and sharing his journey.

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Terry McMullen Podcast Host

I spent much of my career trying to consult companies on how to better achieve their goals. I was a Finance major, a Harvard Business School graduate, and a business strategist. I've always been curious and I've always loved trying to solve problems. It was a really good fit for a while, but then life happened.

Within the span of a couple of years I had a son, my sister tragically passed away, and my wife became severely ill with Multiple Sclerosis. All of a sudden everything I thought I knew about life didn't seem to make sense anymore. I needed to raise my son and teach him how to be a good person but I realized I didn't even know what it meant to be a good person, let alone know how to teach him to be one. I also realized that I wasn't capable of being the person my wife needed me to be to help care for her. Simply put, I wasn't good enough.