Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
333. If the Ocean Has a Soul with Marine Biologist Rachel G. Jordan
Marine biologist Rachel G. Jordan explores the intersection of faith and science through her experiences studying ocean life. Her book "If the Ocean has a Soul: A Marine Biologist's Pursuit of Truth through Deep Waters of Faith and Science" reveals profound spiritual insights discovered in underwater ecosystems while challenging readers to embrace both scientific curiosity and deep faith.
• Biodiversity in marine ecosystems demonstrates how differences strengthen communities rather than divide them.
• Faith and science both seek answers to "why" questions, driven by wonder and curiosity.
• Topics like evolution and climate change aren't salvation issues, but can become unnecessary barriers to faith.
• Rachel's research on sea anemones taught her gratitude for all living things and their capacity to praise God.
• Every creature, even seemingly annoying ones like mosquitoes, has a unique way of praising its Creator.
• The kingdom of God may include incredible biodiversity - past, present, and future creatures all praising together.
Join me at Heartlift Central on Substack, where we'll continue this conversation with Rachel G. Jordan about her beautiful book "If the Ocean has a Soul."
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As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages in all kinds of stages through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prodded me and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet untapped source of potential and purpose sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme. Here on today's Heartlift. I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal and a cup of something really delicious. Invite you to grab a pen, a journal and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world, one heart at a time. Heartlifters, I want you to imagine alongside of me and Rachel G Jordan, author of If the Ocean has Soul, a marine biologist's pursuit of truth through deep waters of faith and science. In this stunning book, rachel recounts fascinating aquatic phenomena, alongside the sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic stories of animals she has known. We are going to lose ourselves in the shadows of an underwater labyrinth, we're going to hear spiritual wisdom from a great grandmother coral the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, and we're going to fall in love with Porky, the pudgy porcupine fish greeting visitors at the Windjammer shipwreck. I'm so excited to bring this conversation to our table today.
Speaker 1:I am fresh off of a beautiful vacation at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This year we were in Kitty Hawk, north Carolina, and we discovered some interesting sea creatures, one particularly called the upside down jellyfish, who we got to spend quite a bit of time with, as my son-in-law, jose, scooped a couple up and we put them in a bucket, and little Elena Rose and Ava Grace and I. We got to touch them and learn all about them, as I did a deep dive research, novice research, and we also found out about sea lice S-C-A-L-I-C-E. Now my husband and I have been going to the Outer Banks for over four decades and I have never heard of sea lice. Decades and I have never heard of sea lice. So it is with great curiosity that I bring this conversation with marine biologist Rachel Jordan to us today.
Speaker 1:And I want to dedicate this podcast episode to my other son-in-law, aaron, because Aaron just loves the ocean, he loves animals and we have had some fun introducing octopuses, one of his favorite creatures, to little baby June. So, aaron, this episode is for you. Okay, heartlifters, are you ready to learn and explore the depths of the ocean and find some beautiful correlation between science and faith? Please welcome Rachel to the show. Heartlifters, I could talk to Rachel Jordan for hours. I'm going to let you in on this conversation. Welcome, rachel. I had to hit record, even though I really just wanted to keep you all to myself, but I'm going to share.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're so sweet, I'm going to share Welcome. Thank you. It's such a treat to be here with you today.
Speaker 1:I'm just so happy to have you here. This book, oh my gosh. For those of you on YouTube or Instagram, I mean, I'm obsessed with this cover, me too.
Speaker 2:The ocean, the cover designer and illustrator Julie Chen and Jago Silbert.
Speaker 1:they did such a phenomenal job and all through the book there are just like I love. I just love it A marine biologist's pursuit of truth through deep waters of faith and science. Did you write that or was that a team effort?
Speaker 2:The main title If the Ocean has a Soul. That is what I came up with before we went to submit the manuscript. The subtitle is significantly different than what I began with and it's so much stronger. So that was primarily my publisher's doing was that bit especially the pursuit of truth. My editor was like we need that phrase in there because it appears in the book so many times. That really is the core of what the book is doing is pursuing truth and deep waters of faith and science.
Speaker 1:I mean, both are just, they're just so perfect because the waters between faith and science seemingly I see I said the word between and I honestly swim in the ocean of faith and science now, and especially neuroscience. So I am swimming in a whole new ocean, as we talked a little bit about before. We hit record when you were encouraging me to just be the transformed human being that I am, Because when my children were little, the culture that we were swimming in was really taboo about speaking about evolution or Darwin you know, any other options besides creationism and so it's one of the reasons I really did want you here, as I shared with you that I now have these five little grandbabies, three and under, who are looking to me, and I am obsessed and am so in love and swimming in so much joy. But I want to be an intelligently informed Nona and Grandma. I want to be able to have intelligent, faithful, intelligent conversations with them about anything, so that you know I don't just avoid it from fear, and so that's why you're so important to us.
Speaker 1:The other reason I wanted you here is because I'm obsessed with the ocean. I live so near, I live near the beautiful Atlantic Ocean and the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Hatteras, and just, oh, so much do I love the ocean. So how did this book come to be? How did it come to be? I'm so curious be.
Speaker 2:How did it come to be? I'm so curious. Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise to me. Honestly, I didn't at first set out to write a book. I had a bit of a massive life pivot. I'd spent the majority of my adulthood chasing after coral reefs as a marine biologist and God had really blessed that pursuit and after working for the National Park Service for several years and having done a lot of other really fun, exciting, challenging jobs. So exciting.
Speaker 1:I'm like I love your life.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. God's been very, very good to me. Very, very sweet, all the surprises along the way. But after doing that for a number of years, he sort of surprised me and directed me inland. I ended up marrying a man from the Midwest, and I am currently in a landlocked state. That's so crazy, and at first I didn't really know what to do with all the time I had, because there wasn't exactly a marine biology job available in the Midwest, and so I had also established and this was thanks to my husband's generosity I had reached a point of near burnout with my job prior to us getting married and so when we settled here.
Speaker 2:He suggested that I take about six months off and settle into life. I had uprooted, I'd moved to a different state, I had quit my job, I'd left all my friends. I needed some new friends in this community. It was a massive transition and we'd gotten married. So there was so much to adjust to. And he very generously, wisely, said just take some time and get to know people, figure out your life here, get used to me and we'll just go from there.
Speaker 2:And a couple months into that six-month period of time, I decided that I wanted to write a roughly 20-page devotional for my friends about marine biology stories and what God had taught me through those stories. And so I sat down one day at my computer and I was planning about a page for each story. There were going to be 20 stories, 20 pages total. I wrote the first story and it was about it was somewhere between six to eight pages long and I couldn't shorten it. It would have ruined the story and I sort of took a deep breath and was like all right, I'll write the next one.
Speaker 1:And so 259 pages later.
Speaker 2:Yes, 304 pages, I believe to be exact. After about the third or fourth story I recognized oh, this is not a 20-page devotional. This will be probably a book and it's amazing because God has just blessed it. I didn't have this grand plan for it, but as the book sort of unfolded and I just sort of said yes to the next step and came to a point where I was thinking about self-publishing or pursuing traditional publishing and sort of said yes to the next step and came to a point where I was thinking about self-publishing or pursuing traditional publishing and sort of debating between the options, and I figured you know prayerfully, did some research and figured I might as well try traditional publishing because maybe God has something planned that I don't know about.
Speaker 2:I'll just give it a go. Yeah, and if it doesn't work out, the you know self-publishing will still be there for me. And then he has just blessed every single step.
Speaker 1:So it was his intentional plan for you.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it very much feels that way. It's been wild because in my marine science career I feel as if every single opportunity I tried for I had to sort of break down these doors, like it was so hard to get to the next step. Constantly, just my whole career it was challenge after challenge after challenge and rejection after rejection and then, still pursuing things, despite the rejections, and finally having success for a moment, and then another ejection.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That was the story.
Speaker 1:Is it competitive? I'm guessing Is it a competitive market?
Speaker 2:Extremely competitive. It's really oversaturated. There's a lot of extremely qualified, passionate marine biologists. Unfortunately, there's not very many jobs that pay enough that can actually support your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So it's oversaturated in that sense. Yeah, it's very, very tricky and I come from a place of privilege that I was able to pursue things despite that difficulty and I worked really hard and I got a bit lucky. God bless that path. But comparatively with book things, I love this. Not that it's been easy, but it's felt as if I knock on a door and it's just sort of swung open for me.
Speaker 1:That is such a lovely feeling.
Speaker 2:It's so lovely.
Speaker 1:It's so lovely, let's just sit in that for a minute.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Let's just swim in that for a minute like a sea turtle. Yes, I love sea turtles.
Speaker 2:They're so, so cute.
Speaker 1:So cute. I want to see them hatch.
Speaker 2:I'm dying to yeah, and even the giant like clunky ones like the loggerhead sea turtles. Their faces are very squared. They are, they're just, these big clunkers, and some of them them are so ancient that they have algae growing on their shells. They just look sage, sage, but they're so cute, even while looking wise. They're incredible creatures.
Speaker 1:So how has this transition been? I'm so curious. Did you like to write as a child? Does writing come easy? And where did you just happen to have an idea to write a 20-page devotional for your friends? Did they ask you? Was it invitational or did you just have like a little inner? I just think I want to sit down and put on paper my experiences, my sage wisdom on all these beautiful creatures and corals and things that I have been able to witness.
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I was always very naturally gifted in writing and reading literature, english. Those were my subjects in school, and I actually really, really struggled with science. This is a topic that I discuss in one of the chapters in my book.
Speaker 2:I tell a little bit about my story and it's so ironic because God did initially, with marine biology, call me to do the skills, to develop skills. That were my weaknesses and I very much left, was sort of forced to leave behind. You know, literature, writing, languages, the things that I was naturally very good at, that I did enjoy, but I wasn't passionate about. I was passionate about science, which is the thing I was bad at.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating though it's you know, in his weakness he made you strong. In your weakness, he made you strong. Yeah, or just how God works. Sometimes I've never, ever entered a job that I felt qualified for. It's always like and then, when I feel really, really good at it and I'm like rocking it, he's like I love you now, yeah, a little humility.
Speaker 1:Yeah, humility, dependence, interdependence. It's been an interesting and I just invite heart lifters, as we're talking, you know, to consider their journey and hear what you know, hear what Rachel is saying, that you know, sometimes it is an area that perhaps we don't have a proclivity for right or an acumen. We would say you might be good at it but not the best at it, and I just think it's I love, that's why I love story. There's so much strength in your story and it invites us to like open our hands again right and go. I don't know like you're going to take me a marine biologist and landlock me. This is very curious, you know. It's just your curiosity is showing which, to me, is what we all need to embrace in order to really move into what God has for us.
Speaker 2:So thank you for there's this incredible quote read it by EW Tozer, which has been a source of encouragement for me when I have felt like God is calling me to do something that feels a little bit insane, like to keep pursuing something despite a rejection, to keep studying science in school when I'm really struggling with it, or to keep applying for jobs when I'm not getting any wins there. And then, when I have the wins, to leave it all behind and come inland as a marine biologist.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:There's this quote that I've come back to that, I feel, really just sums it all up. He writes how completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none, and I feel like that's just so beautiful, because God is unlimited, he's limitless. There is nothing that he cannot do for me, for you, and I have observed in my own life that when I am struggling with anxiety about my future, or fear of I don't know what's coming next, or God, you're asking me to do this thing and it makes no sense.
Speaker 2:No sense, it seems totally irrational. What are you doing In those moments, as you were alluding to? It's forced me to rely on him, in a completely different capacity than I think I would have a tendency to if I could rely on myself.
Speaker 2:It's forced me to depend on him in a completely different way, which has caused me to grow an intimacy with him. I know him better because I've seen him prove himself trustworthy so many times when it was nonsensical, when it was beyond my own reach, when it was outside of my ability. And that is just the part of this story that he's written in my own life that I feel so excited to share it with people, because I while, yes, I have worked extremely hard, god did this for me. This was not me working it all out for my own good. This is his doing, and I want to make sure that people know that, because he's just been so kind and the encouragement that he can create streams in the wasteland he can create life where there previously was none.
Speaker 2:I'm in a landlocked state right now, inland as a marine biologist, and God has created a way for me to regularly, daily, have conversations with people, to form connections and relationships with people like you to dig into marine biology. I am functionally getting to do active science communication as a marine biologist while praising God from an inland state which is phenomenal God's not limited, it's marvelous.
Speaker 1:It's really, really awe-inspiring, encouraging in this season of my own life. I'm in such a huge transition, so it just makes me, it reinvigorates my faith to ask, to trust, to seek right and say what's next, what's next? And so I just love this because it's an expansion of your capacity, right, an enlargement of your capacity to be able now to share almost what a decade of marine biologist work. You're 30, so a decade of work. Uh, now putting it down on paper. Uh, is this your first book?
Speaker 2:I forgot to ask you this is yes, this is so, here you are your first book with tindall refresh.
Speaker 1:Come on, it just doesn't. It just doesn't happen this way. So it is so awe-inspiring. What I really want to know from your marine biologist side is what does the ocean because I love the ocean what does the ocean specifically reveal about God? I have my own ideas, but I really want to know what you have to say so I can teach my grandchildren?
Speaker 2:That is a fantastic question. The book Read the book. Do read the book because I go a lot more in depth and intended in the book about all the different things that the ocean can reveal about God's character.
Speaker 2:I feel like one of the more obvious ones that Just about anybody can think of if they've seen the ocean and they know God is his creativity, even his sense of humor, and his delight in the bizarre and the mundane and the extra a scientist within the talking about this niche of god's creative character, that creativity begets biodiversity.
Speaker 2:So biodiversity and science is the measure of the number of different living things within an environment okay so the more of different kinds of things you have within a space, the more biodiverse that place is, and so biodiversity one of my favorite things about it. It strengthens ecosystems.
Speaker 2:Oh do tell, do tell. This is good on land too, but in the ocean we see that ecosystems that have greater diversity are better able to withstand disturbances like hurricanes or anthropogenic impacts or just changes in their environment like increasing ocean temperatures. They're better able to withstand those changes and to recover from them when they're more biodiverse, and I feel like that one. You know we're talking about this one aspect of God's character, of yielding creation creativity that has massive implications for biodiversity. We recognize that God created this principle of biodiversity that strengthens ecosystems, that communities are stronger when they have differences. And then we can apply that principle of biodiversity to our own human communities, to churches, to our friend groups, to our families. When we think and act and view things differently from one another, there can be unity, there can be a neighborhood building effect of an ecological community, there can be relationships and network and all sorts of interpersonal intersection there and it can strengthen our whole being and our ability to praise God when we have that diversity.
Speaker 2:So one single thing creativity and it has all sorts of implications for the scientific viewpoint of our ecosystems, but then that has implications for our theological perspective. How we interact with each other and that is the part that's so exciting to me is like you can look at creation and identify, you know, ask yourself and prayerfully ask God. Okay, what is this teaching me about God's character? And then what does that teach me about the world?
Speaker 1:And what does it teach me?
Speaker 2:about humans in the world. And what does it teach me about the world? And what does it teach me about humans in the world and what does it teach me about myself in the relationships with other people and what does it teach me about myself in relation to God? And those layers are where the real work of understanding God's character and creation like the rubber really meets the road in the most beautiful way. There's so much revelation there and there's so much.
Speaker 1:I am trying so hard to not interrupt you and trying to not shout amen and hallelujah and glory to god and all of the things, because I mean my mind is just exploding. Like I love the words under the words. I love to take a word all the way down and all the words to the side and all this that you're saying to us about biodiversity and how, if a marine community because we're specifically talking about that doesn't have that, it's less prone or more prone to danger and more prone to extinction, probably more prone to not having a meaningful marine life.
Speaker 2:I'm going to put it in that you mentioned extinctions.
Speaker 2:Extinctions limit biodiversity. You know, biodiversity is the measure of the number of different kinds of things. So when there's an extinction there's one less kind, there's one less species to contribute to that ecosystem. So that's partly why extinctions are a big deal. That's just one reason. It's because their contribution to the environment no longer exists. There's even things called functional extinctions, where a living thing might still exist, there might be a couple of them left, but the role that they played in their ecosystem, the special thing that they contributed, it's so weakened that its function is extinct, it no longer serves its role, so that will really preach yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So in that sense, you don't need the biodiversity. No, you go you.
Speaker 2:Preach yeah, yeah. So in that sense, you really do need the biodiversity. No, you hop back in. Oh, so you mentioned extinction and I was like there's a big one.
Speaker 1:I'm so happy that I did, because when we, the Americas, this new show that just swept our nation, probably the world, because it will sweep the world, it'll be put on a streaming station, I'm sure, or if it isn't already. But I mean, my husband and I were just glued. I couldn't wait until Sunday evenings. You know, it was like when I was a child and I couldn't wait to watch Batman, you know, because TV was only a few things back then. But you know, we have all these channels with like useless information. And so the Americas, it was just like useless information. And so the Americas, it was just. I'm not sure you know how a marine biologist would have measured it or what you might think of it, but I just remember. I don't remember what creature it was, but I remember going. Why does he matter? He or she like, why? Why? One of them was these crabs, these little crabs that just are like. They multiply, multiply, multiply, multiply, multiply, and then they go oh, I can't remember what country, I'll try to fill that in but then they get to the ocean, if they get there, and they have millions of like little babies, and then they die. And so you're just, I just remember saying many little babies, and then they die.
Speaker 1:And so I just remember saying many, many times watching the program, because they went to some really extreme places and caught never seen, type like a little ant. I remember going why does that ant like? It looks like, oh, they bite, they're fiery, and I felt like why do we need that? Why was that even on the ark? Why do we need that? Why was that even on the ark? Like, but you're telling us I mean it's really speaking to 1 Corinthians, 10, is it? Or 13,? Whichever one says, we're the body and we need a nose and an eye and an ear and a finger and a baby toe. And you know it's speaking so largely and loudly to the impact of just everything on everything else.
Speaker 2:Is that? A fair statement. Yeah, absolutely, there is definitely a massive interconnectedness between us and. Every aspect of creation, and you mentioned too. You asked the question. You know, what is this contributing Like? What is the purpose of this particular creature? I don't get it. I've been there with you. The creature that I feel that way about the most would be mosquitoes yes, it was just to me. And flies yeah me when I. This is just my opinion.
Speaker 1:Talk to us about mosquitoes.
Speaker 2:Mosquitoes are just the worst they are. I did my graduate school in Australia and over there they call mosquitoes mozzies, and so in my head they're always mozzies, because that word sounds like the sound that they make to me. Oh, mozzies, like they're just horrible little creatures and for the longest time I must be tasty.
Speaker 1:I'm very tasty.
Speaker 2:Dozens of bites.
Speaker 1:You're fair. You're fair skinned, like me, right? I don't know if that's it. I think my blood must run a little sweet. I don't know, but they left me.
Speaker 2:I'm a magnet and I would. I'd be so uncomfortable with all my itching that I would be praying like god. Why did you make these creatures out to us? And it's funny to think about that now. Uh, thankfully I don't live in a place with as many mosquitoes lucky you I might move there um? Yes, there's no water. Yes, unfortunately, but the thing that I've realized since then with other creatures that I do feel applies to mosquitoes and these ants that you mentioned, the fiery ants.
Speaker 1:The fiery ants.
Speaker 2:And these bizarre little crabs that breed like crazy and all sorts of other weird organisms Like a horror movie, Like ooh that breed like crazy and all sorts of other weird, like a horror movie, like, oh, the thing that they all contribute, even if, even if their ecological function isn't clear to us, or even if their contribution to our own lives is one of annoyance and frustration or pain, even yes, the thing that they all contribute is praise to God. Every single living thing is praising God with its existence.
Speaker 2:They all have a unique I believe, a unique capacity to praise God in their own right, and even mosquitoes. I was not expecting you to say that, the intricacy of how they're made, like if you look at just the physics involved and how they stick their little straw nose in India and suck blood out and like just the way that they work, the way these weird aspects of creation work, they all have a capacity to praise God and he designed them that way. He does.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna feel really bad when I praise him. Swatch a mosquito. Sorry you're over there praising god, but you're annoying me a whole lot, so I will say I work, I get it occasionally struggle with it.
Speaker 2:Something that helps, I find, is your own safety concerns. Mosquitoes can carry diseases and all sorts of things like that.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But when you reach a point and this is something that I so a little bit of a backstory From my undergraduate degree I did stress hormone research on aggregate C anemones and as part of this research I had to extract the stress hormone from C anemones, which the most effective way to do that at the put them in a.
Speaker 2:This is gory, I'm sorry, but put them in a blender and then extract the hormone from the anemone smoothie that you'd have to afterwards it? Uh, this was. This was what I did for a whole semester. Wow, this was this research. Uh, blending up, see, anemones. I had a permit, I was working under an advisor, I was working with a research student, all legal.
Speaker 2:It was a really cool project but I, as an animal lover even though these are invertebrates and people tend to think them quite lowly creatures I had a really hard time mentally and emotionally with sacrificing these sea anemones for this research project I was doing and the lead up to our first day in the lab where we were blending these anemones, I was really seeking God with some kind of a resolution.
Speaker 1:It's a bit ethical, isn't it, Lord like?
Speaker 2:what? Yeah, it felt there was a wrongness to it.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure many would say there is. I have no doubt there could be definitely arguments towards that.
Speaker 2:Yep yes, and other people would be like girl, what are you even talking?
Speaker 1:about the anemone, yeah, on button on the blender.
Speaker 2:It's an enemy. They're clones. They can multiply very easily. They're all the same genetic individual, like whole thing anyways. Um, I was prayerfully seeking the Lord about this and he prompted me to recognize that I could be thankful for the sacrifice of these two anemones and I could thank the anemones for that sacrifice.
Speaker 1:For teaching and training right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this recognition that God has put me in a position to steward his creation and to help orchestrate the praises of that creation, to lift up their voices and to join in with my own voice praising God. It's a form of ministry, and so, as I went to the lab that day, I started just thanking God for these amazing little creatures, for these sea anemones.
Speaker 1:I'll never look at one the same.
Speaker 2:But just praising him for them, for their existence, and marveling at their beauty. My perspective of that entire research project, because I had this deep gratitude in my heart for what had been lost in order for that knowledge to be gained. And it has affected every interaction related to suffering and death that I've had with the marine environment ever since. It's been incredibly sweet Even now. You know, occasionally I'll discover some animal here on the farm.
Speaker 2:A bird will hit the window and it will break its neck and die and I will have to take care of its little body, and the thing that comforts me is my ability to thank God for that life and recognize its beauty even in death, and that God is. He has an ability to restore all things and he does that creature even more than I ever could. And so, um, as we're talking about the, the idea of these creatures and their different modes of praising god, even something as seemingly insignificant or frustrating as a mosquito, it has a capacity to praise god, but there also might be times.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is called for would they cause malaria or were they, yes, cause?
Speaker 2:exactly right, and in that case, if there's any kind of struggle in your mind, just praise god for that creature that is. That is a a very good default way to approach it.
Speaker 1:I have to ask what the outcome yeah, what was the outcome of understanding a CNM and these stress hormones? What was the? I'm just going to ask it for my own curiosity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. It was really interesting. So we had extracted this hormone and we then had live healthy sea anemones in these little Tupperware containers that we would squirt that extracted hormone onto, and then we were monitoring the behavior, the physical behavior, of those sea anemones in response to that hormone. And this is where it gets wild. They had all different behavioral responses, but as you upped the dosage of this stress hormone, the responses were more dramatic. And on the highest dosage of the stress hormone we had multiple anemones detaching themselves from the bottom of the Tupperware, which they can do Normally. They're sessile organisms. They latch down and they settle there and they generally stay there to move around a lot.
Speaker 2:But, they would let go with their little foot of the bottom and they would roll their bodies as far away as they could get.
Speaker 1:They were stressed.
Speaker 2:They were really stressed and this is the wild part, it's communication. So what I was putting in the water, that stress hormone, it was a chemical signal from other sea anemones saying I am freaking out. And I put that message in the water and the anemone that was reacting is receiving the message of my fellow sea anemones are freaking out. Something is really wrong. I better get out of here. Oh, that is so fascinating.
Speaker 1:Well, that really really speaks though because of our brain like in humans. Right, I need your brain and you need my brain. And so that who even knew a CNM had a stress?
Speaker 2:hormone and they don't have brains. This is the wild part they don't have brains. They're little invertebrates and you don't think of them as having feelings per se. But I strongly believe, based on my research and experience and the reading that I've done, that all living things on some level have feeling. It's just that their version of that feeling might be different than how we experience it.
Speaker 2:I think that's amazing cool research coming out relatively recently on plants and their ability to self-recognize, mechanically and chemically, that they are being cut down or they are losing, or they are in danger like they change their, their, like chemistry the cellular level. Yeah, yes, and how they invest things and even some plants like the. The mechanics of their bodies change depending on what they experience externally, physically.
Speaker 1:I staked a dahlia last year and then found out it was fully grown and I staked it and realized it killed it. You have to stake it while you're planting. You know, or do a circular thing, but I was, you know, hadn't done it before I did not know that, yeah, and so it just I am planting dahlias this year, so I hadn't done it before.
Speaker 2:I did not know that. Yeah, and so it just, I am planting dahlias this year, so I will make sure to stake them.
Speaker 1:While you're planting, you know, so that the roots then can grow around it and don't use metal, because I mean don't use wood, because it causes little critters, and it's just fascinating. So I totally verify that that has to be truth. I just think it's incredible that the sea anemones were sensing the word would be sensing right, communicating like we do. You write this. We should regard one another leniently and favorably. Well, when I read that I really almost started to cry. We should regard one another the word leniently, like the positioning of that adverb, and favorably, kindly offering a hand.
Speaker 1:Just because we have different perspectives doesn't mean we can't help each other. In a time of strong divisiveness, how can we have more healthy disagreements? I was pretty shocked by this sentence, this question, and would not have associated that with something a marine biologist would have written in a book called If the Ocean had a Soul. So where did that question come in your time as a marine biologist and why did you bring that to the table? Because I think it's incredibly important and a definite part of the conversation I wanted to have today.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when I was wrapping up my undergraduate degree, I had finished the San enemy project and was getting ready to walk at graduation I went to a party that was being thrown by some people at my church. I'd grown up in this church, I knew all these people very well, they knew me very well and we were celebrating at this party. I think it was somebody's birthday and I was asked what some of my key things that I'd learned were. I believe was the question and I, on the tail end of this degree, feeling really passionate and feeling like I was in a safe space, mentioned climate change relatively reticent to talk about this topic publicly now because it is such a hot topic issue for so many people.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that at the time and that conversation really hurt me because I was hearing something that I thought I was yeah. I was like freshly 21, I think I was, yeah, I was like freshly 21, I think, and I was attacked, which is really sad that that happened, but they were afraid the people.
Speaker 1:I was talking with were really afraid, correct?
Speaker 2:Exactly and I didn't know what to do with it at the time. I just felt really hurt. No-transcript. We can be so intent on trying to be understood that we forget to be understanding and we forget to love each other and what that actually looks like practically, and we can lose sight of the fact that unity can exist even when we think differently on something yes. Science is not a salvation issue.
Speaker 1:No, okay, stay more a salvation issue?
Speaker 2:no, okay, stay more. Change is not a salvation issue. It is not a make or break in anything. Evolution, fossils, dinosaurs, um all these topics that get people riled up, potentially politics. These in and of themselves not salvation issues, but they are evangelism issues, which is why we talk about them they can be potential roadblocks for people in accessing the faith.
Speaker 2:And to go back for a moment the reason why I say they're not salvation issues is not to say that they don't matter. They do, they absolutely matter, and I encourage everybody to know what you believe and why and do some exploring, pin down what you think is true. It's okay if you change your mind later on as you get more information. Process what you can prayerfully with the Lord, but they're not salvation issues because Jesus, jesus is the way, truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through him.
Speaker 2:And if we start to say something like you cannot believe in evolution and be a Christian. We say something like you must believe X, y and Z about climate change, or you must vote for a particular political party to be a Christian. If we begin saying any of those things we are effectively adding to the gospel. We are saying it's not just Jesus, it is Jesus and this other thing, and that is not biblical.
Speaker 2:It's not true, and that, unfortunately, is the thing that I have seen over and over again in my conversations with my non-Christian scientist friends. Yeah, many of them have already been exposed to the gospel, but the gospel they were exposed to was Jesus plus some other thing. Yeah, so, they rejected it. Yeah thing, yeah, they rejected it, yeah, and so it feels, when I am talking with them, as if they are they have been exposed to christianity in a really painful way.
Speaker 2:Yes, a defensive argumentative yeah chewed up by it and spit out like right I almost was yeah, I'm so sorry there hasn't really been any resolution on that. The beauty of the story that I tell about this party that I went to and this horrible conversation that I had is that it has made me really sensitive to these things and it's something that has helped me to better love my fellow scientists and Christians who are asking these really hard, scary questions.
Speaker 1:We need to be asking the questions. So I think we need to be. I already said this I want to be intellectually curious, I want to be spiritually curious. I want to have a qualified answer, answer to those who have been put in my care. And I think to shut down conversations that could be invitational is where we have gone wrong. I do.
Speaker 1:I think to not be curious, even intellectually, does not change my foundation of my relationship with Christ. It doesn't. I know whose I am. I know who I am. Now I didn't know that as securely when my children were being homeschooled. You know, there was just a shutdown. I mean, I was curious, I've always been curious, so I didn't do that. I'm like, okay, let's go to the library and get 55 books on dinosaurs and let's contact the creation, let's just talk about it. I don't really know how to tell you about the Ice Age, but I would like to have qualified answers and I am definitely someone who wants to have lots of different people around me. I love to be invitational and have invigorating conversation. You know pregnant conversations you might say.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so all right, so now that you have walked that journey, go back to that for me, to that conversation. What would you say now that might help us? You know, have that conversation if someone brings up something like climate change or evolution or just one of those topics?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, to go back to the part from the book that you quoted, the choosing to regard each other leniently, charitably, lending a helping hand, that concept, that is how I'm very blessed in this way. That's how my parents raised me. There wasn't condemnation for my questions.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you that.
Speaker 2:And so that's partly why I was so caught off guard when I experienced different treatment from other people who were in a sort of spiritual leadership in my life. But yet I'm glad, as I said, I'm glad that that happened, because it's changed my own approach to hard conversations, to these challenging topics with other people. And I think my note is that if you have experienced something like that, where you have been hurt by a conversation or someone did not regard you leniently and charitably, god will meet you in that place. He will and he will show you himself. He can comfort you and guide you and he can offer you a way to, and he can offer you a way to forgiveness. He has offered you a way to forgiveness through Jesus.
Speaker 2:And when we it's hard, because I wish I could say like oh, it's easy, oh it's not easy.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think it's easy to talk outside of your bubble. These are bubbles. They're very inclusive bubbles. That's how I look back at my life anyway, and I just think I was in a very inclusive bubble. Although had such a heart for the world and really tried to give that to my children. To ask questions, I'm far more like let's just ask more invitational questions and not shut down things.
Speaker 2:That's it right there.
Speaker 1:Right, it's just agree to disagree and go, wow, I just you know. I remember being trained for pageants, right? And hours and hours of interview training and one of the wisest things that I ever learned in that was if I was asked a question I didn't know the answer, instead of looking like a deer in the headlights to just go, what a great question. I tell you what. Come back to me in a day and I will be able to give you an intelligent response. As for right now, I have no idea and I don't want to pretend like I do. Right, it's a beautiful answer and it's honest. It's so honest.
Speaker 1:I have no idea about climate change. I have not read the books. I wouldn't even begin to tell you, but there is a lot of evidence going on. You know, my winters aren't as harsh my summer, you know, it's like just kind of. You know, I don't know, but I don't, you know, and especially politically, that's just how I'm handling it. I'm like, if you want to come to the table, I'm not an expert. I can talk to you a lot about neuroscience and the brain and trauma, but I don't know. But I love you and if we can agree to disagree, then let's continue on developing some symbiosis. Is that a symbiotic relationship?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah, a mutually beneficial relationship where both parties receive something from the other that gives them an advantage in the world.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I have to ask you faith and science, you write, run into some of the same issues. This is kind of what we're talking about. Both are conducted by flawed human beings capable of making notoriously large mistakes, right? So once again, just I really want to leave with a foundational understanding, an expanded way to come to the table.
Speaker 1:You know, like my little three-year-old, the other day my daughter was reading through a Christmas book about the manger. She just pulled it out, you know, and just the little girl, you know, elena, pulled it out and she was like she saw Jesus in the manger, right, and she said to her mama you know what is this? And this is the manger. Well, why? Like, right now, at three years old, every other word out of her mouth is why? And she's got this tone why? And my daughter's like, if she says it one more time, and I'm like, well, yeah, you did too, darling, because you just said yes. And so you know, when someone says why, to me I want to be able to go. What a great question, you know, like, let's explore, let's talk about it is that's just what you're saying, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, basically, and and also like invite yourself to ask why you don't have to have it all figured out. I'm asking you why today be able to arrive at the answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's why you're here.
Speaker 2:The ways that we can promote wonder too, like wonder at. God and wonder at his creation, Start asking the question why? Why is the sky blue? I love it. I did some research and looked it up but like why is the sky blue?
Speaker 1:I just asked that today. That's so funny.
Speaker 2:Why do the birds blue? I just asked that today. That's so funny. Why do the birds sing Same and why do? Oh my goodness, why do manta rays leap out of the water?
Speaker 1:I don't know. Will you please tell me, because that was on the Americas. They just basically jump out of the water. Tell me why. I want to know why. I was just going to ask you. I actually don't know. Oh, okay, I don't know, I'll tell you what. That's a very good question and I will do some research and get back to you tomorrow. I'm waiting. I really want to know.
Speaker 2:I will add it into this and that is one of the attributes of science that I love is it's driven by this desire to understand how things work, the way that they work like, how things are the way they are. And then faith, by extension, helps us answer the why, why things are the way they are, why things are headed the way that they're heading, why we're here. All those things faith answers, but science oftentimes studies the how, but it's still motivated by the question of why. We're just curious, we want to know. And that's again the point where faith and science intersect so beautifully, and it's partly why I love talking about it.
Speaker 1:And I love talking to you. How do you imagine this? I am going to close, but I really wanted to know how you would answer. How do you imagine the kingdom of God, like the activities and the ecology? How do you like? In five sentences or less. No, I'm kidding, I love that.
Speaker 2:Isn't it? I wrote a whole chapter in the book on how we can potentially try to understand the kingdom of heaven from both an ecological and theological perspective. That chapter is called the Promised Garden City. I envision what God's remade kingdom will look like. I think it will be a lot like planet Earth right now, but without chaos or anxiety, destruction, suffering, despair. None of those things will be present. There will be so much diversity, so much diversity every tribe, tongue, nation, creature, organism can't both those around now and those that are long extinct and those that have perhaps not yet even evolved all of it. I think it'll all be there, everything that was ever a glimmer in god's eye. They are praising him and that's maybe the part I'm most excited for is to like I would love to go scuba diving in the river that flows from the throne of God, with the trees, the tree of life, growing on either side of that river.
Speaker 2:you know, eat that fruit and be with God, and then go scuba diving in this river and see the corals and the old coral friends that I've I loved and have since lost, like I. That is what I long for. Look at your face.
Speaker 1:It's so full of joy and intimacy, Like you have such an intimate relationship with corals and the marine life because you've lived with them and you've been with them and I just that. That's just so beautiful. Okay, I don't want to interrupt this little beautiful moment, but I did want to ask you. There's a chapter in the book I'm going to get I don't know if I'm going to get chastised Chapter two I am such a beachcomber.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you are.
Speaker 1:What's your favorite part?
Speaker 2:of beachcombing.
Speaker 1:The shells.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Any particular favorite A moon shell. You find a particular kind of shell and you're just like a moon shell.
Speaker 1:A moon shell From the Hatteras. They come pretty much from the Outer Banks, it's what? 221 miles, I think, little inlet, little skinny island, and the moonshells are more downed, like Rodanthe far tip, okay, and they're very rare and they're in community though, so if you find one, you're typically going to find a bunch of them, and they're the most beautiful. One is completely white and like see-through trends, and I have handfuls.
Speaker 2:So look it up.
Speaker 1:But I know, gorgeous, like gorgeous just tiny and you've got a really nice. So when I get one I'm like oh, and then the other would be the sand dollar, because on the Atlantic coast, where I am there, they're not. They don't come there very much. So I one time found a whole one, but you say the bothers of beachcombing, so I was a little nervous about the word bothers. I do bless them. When I take them away I say thank you, you're a gift of the sea, have you?
Speaker 2:been able to read that chapter yet? Not yet.
Speaker 1:I will, I promise. Okay, I think you will approve, because when I talk, about the bothers of beach climbing.
Speaker 2:I talk about the difficult things that you have to go through to get to the beach. So, in my experience, the West coast, which is the coast that I grew up visiting, I West- Coast, which is the coast that I grew up visiting. I was born there. The waves wash ashore these giant collections of driftwood and sometimes to get down to the water you have to clamber over the driftwood and you can get splinters and scrapes and potentially twist an ankle, and sometimes you find bizarre critters living in there. But it's this idea.
Speaker 2:The concept for that chapter is sometimes we have to do work to get to the joyous ocean. Sometimes we have to go through the motions of doing these hard things, of learning the hard information to get to a point of understanding. So that's the metaphor of the chapter. It's mostly talking about that driftwood barrier.
Speaker 1:I'll be reading it tonight. Beachcombing is delightful, it is so fun to do, it's my favorite and sadly I've had so much skin cancer. So I'm hoping that the new heaven and the new earth, I won't have any problems with sunburn, so I can just beachcomb and not have to worry that I will get burned, even though I'm covered from head to toe, the sun's still the sun and, depending on climate change, it seems hotter than ever. So you know, I'll just end on that note.
Speaker 2:I mean, the sun is hot, nobody's going to argue with that.
Speaker 1:So hot, so hot. Thank you. Oh, I really sincerely think we have to have another conversation, because we have just really just skimmed the surface of your knowledge, wisdom, nice pun, I know. Thank you From writer to writer.
Speaker 2:Thank you, this has been such a sweet conversation so sweet it's been an honor to chat with you. Thank you for all your thoughtful questions.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh, you are a treasure. You are a little moonshell to me, and so I will be really. Oh, my goodness, that's so true. You're just. I've been, I've just been anticipating our meeting for so long because when I got your book, and it's just, I, yeah, it's a treasure. So thank you for the work that you're doing in your landlocked phase of life and I pray that there is so much more to come from you and your wisdom. We need your voice, rachel. We need your voice. Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for lending your stories. Why not?
Speaker 1:Oh stop, this is so good. I love you already. Heartlifters, we have gone long, but what a beautiful, beautiful conversation. It just gave me an exhale. Please join me over at heartlift central on substack where we will continue this conversation with rachel g Jordan and her incredibly beautiful, luscious book If the Ocean has a Soul. Until next time.
