Lori Walsh: For many of us, living during a pandemic has become an act of courage and an exercise in reevaluation. We're rethinking how we eat, how we love and what we believe to be essential. George Tsakaridis holds a PhD in religion and science. He's a senior lecturer in philosophy and religion at South Dakota State University. He's also an actor and a filmmaker and he recently joined us on In the Moment for our conversation during our future of faith series. Today, we welcome him back to explore the role of religion and spirituality during the pandemic and beyond. Dr. Tsakaridis, welcome back. Thanks for being here.
George Tsakiridis: Thank you for having me, lori.
Lori Walsh: How have you been? Have you been healthy and well? What has changed the most in your life?
George Tsakiridis: Yeah, we've been healthy and well. I'm just at home mostly with my family. And what has changed the most, I guess not having a quiet place to write. That's been the most difficult.
Lori Walsh: That's not nothing.
George Tsakiridis: It's not nothing.
Lori Walsh: And I hear that, just as a quick side note before we get into, I hear that a lot. I was talking to some friends yesterday and everyone has an awareness that they have it better off than they could or than what other people have or that they might have it worse in a few months, but the pain of something is still a very real thing, if you have a problem, if you have something like that, that you're dealing with.
George Tsakiridis: Yes, definitely. And I mean one of the things I want to talk about today is gratitude because I think that's an important virtue in this time, because the fact that I can say a quiet place to write is my biggest concern right now is very minor compared to the concerns many people are facing right now in the world.
Lori Walsh: Well let's talk first about when this all started happening. Churches in general are places where people gather and immediately we saw churches making pretty drastic changes for Christians. This was the season of lent, leading up into Easter and we went through Passover for people who are Jewish, and Ramadan for Muslims. There's a season to this, and we saw people scrambling, we saw some churches across the country resisting making any changes and really everyone reevaluating what is the importance of gathering for worship very specifically. So let's look back first a little bit before we look forward, and talk about how some of those faith families responded in the early days of not knowing what was about to happen.
George Tsakiridis: Yeah, this is a really interesting point and this is something actually I have not heard talked a lot about as far as the timing, because this is kind of a key point in the calendar for those monotheistic religions that you mentioned. And so this upset things in a way that the focus was suddenly shifted and churches were kind of forced, and synagogues and mosques, et cetera, were forced to kind of think on their feet because there was a lot of unknown about what was going on with this pandemic. There still is a lot of unknown to be honest, and so people are kind of adjusting on the fly. But those decisions have kind of health ramifications as well as spiritual ramifications for people in those communities. And so as you said, some resisted and are still resisting and saying, "We're going to meet in person with large groups and God will take care of us."
And there's both a political and a religious, I think, element to those kind of stances, and that's maybe something we could talk about another time, but there's other groups that went instantly to Zoom or online presentations. Many are streaming on YouTube, and people are worshiping at home now while in a community. And so that kind of has pushed an idea to the forefront that had already been kind of stirring in religious traditions over the past 10 or 20 years, in how social media and technology is used in worship. An extreme example would be, in the case of Christianity, the act of communion. Now some congregations are actually having communions virtually, and one might ask if that is undermining the very ritual itself or not. I think we could find examples of that in different religious traditions.
Lori Walsh: Right. And then I heard of a worshiping community where it was a drive up communion. They came and had figured out ways that they felt they could make it as safe as possible. But it was very important for them to receive the Eucharist in person, in the parking lot. I had a situation on Maundy Thursday where a friend came by and I opened up my door later on in the day and there was little package of bread and wine in my front door. And then we had a Zoom call where we all did Maundy Thursday service together, and read some words to sort of help us in that.
So you really saw people figuring out, like you said, thinking on their feet. I want to get more to what you're saying about where things were already headed, because we were already looking at, people who were thinking about technology in new ways, who were dealing with the drop off in church attendance, and now this. Does it solidify how important it is for people to be together or does it push things in the further direction to say, will some people be lost and not come back?
George Tsakiridis: I think that is the key question and actually I want to hold off on getting too deep into that. I'll answer the first part about technology a little bit. I think what has happened with technology it has forced theological divides between, if we're talking about Christianity, between denominations even further, so the issue of communion or Eucharist or Lord's Supper or whatever your denomination would use as their term, and those terms have meanings. For some denominations, it is important that bread and wine is, consecrated, in the Catholic tradition, transubstantiation in the Lutheran tradition, you have this idea of consubstantiation, whereas in other Protestant traditions you have the bread and the wine, which is often grape juice as just a symbol. And so for some traditions, it would be important that they actually pick up that consecrated bread, whereas others might pull bread out of their pantry and use it.
And so that's pushed the theological divide even further just to ask those questions of what is okay and what isn't within those traditions. The use of technology though I think for some congregations, it's much more comfortable to go into Zoom or to go online, because in many ways, worship has become more disjointed anyway because it's become more of a presentation or a show rather than an integrative experience. And so technology pushes that further and further. I mean the fact that we can have churches of 10,000 people, let's say, and where you don't really know anyone else in your church, is a much different experience than it might have been 500 years ago.
Lori Walsh: Is that driven by donations and the more people that you have, the more fundraising you can do and therefore you can keep the lights on? Is that driven with something else where it's just a dynamic leadership team and has drawn more people organically? What do you think is driving some of that, the sort of big mega church kind of mentality?
George Tsakiridis: I think it's both. I don't think it's only driven by money, but I think oftentimes it can be. And if you talk to various pastors about their seminary training and how were you trained to kind of grow your church, you'll hear things that are not savory, let's say. I think that it will focus on economics sometimes, and reaching critical points where you have to have enough money to run a church building just because those become multimillion dollar expenses.
I think that connects back to this time of the pandemic because I think people will start to reevaluate what is necessary and what isn't necessary within a faith community, because of a possibility of let's say a Zoom meeting and we use Zoom very freely now, like we use Kleenex or a name brand. It's become kind of a thing, or Google and that's interesting too, but I think as people experience different types of worship and are forced into their own spirituality, which I'd like to talk about a little bit, I think that will help congregations and communities of faith reevaluate what is necessary within a "live" experience that we hopefully will be back to without waiting too long.
Lori Walsh: What is necessary and what... and for some people, even having the conversation, it's easy to sort of look at a new church, a new fancy mega church, that somebody just built. But for many people in South Dakota, they're dealing with these historic buildings, these buildings that have been around for a hundred years, and the maintenance and the upkeep and the size of them, and maybe they're filling that space with a largely smaller or a greatly reduced congregation or an aging congregation, where some of those conversations about what is necessary and what isn't, can be kind of terrifying because what you're really asking here is, is this building necessary?
George Tsakiridis: Yeah. That's an interesting topic because that's been a discussion that's been ongoing probably for the last 15 to 20 years, at least. Outside of this, as congregations shrink and become older and also various divides that happened between mainline denominations and the Protestant tradition, you have these questions of who owns the building itself and then whether that building can be maintained. And as real estate prices have gone up, that becomes, again, an economic question. I think, in times like this pandemic, in times of stress, it pushes the relevant questions to the forefront. Some of the questions we're dealing with right now aren't new questions. It's just that they've become very urgent and we've had the time to think about them. And I think that's one of those questions you're mentioning.
Lori Walsh: So it can be a time to really strip away the unnecessary and focus on why are we gathering, what are we, I know for me the first time I did a virtual worship service, the first thing I said when I was done, I was like, "Well, if we go back to normal, I'm going in my pyjamas, because that was great." But what really was happening in my mind was the sense that, what has my priority in the past been? Has it been to figure out what I'm wearing? I didn't think it was, but clearly having that taken off my plate freed me up to not worry about lots of things. I was able to focus on the worship in a way that maybe I hadn't in the past. So lots of people are asking those questions like what can we do without, and sometimes that might not be a physical structure. It might just be an attitude or an expectation that we can drop.
George Tsakiridis: Yeah, I think that's an interesting or a key point to say what can we drop, even if it isn't in the actual practice, in our intentions, in our character. I think this is a time where I think people of faith can really focus on building their virtue and their spiritual life in a way that they weren't able to do because of the structures and the expectations. And so if you have those kind of transformative moments where you go, well yeah, what was my intention or my value before this, that now I see differently? You can take that new value into the old setting, quote, old setting, and you've been transformed. Your virtue has been strengthened. And I think there's a few key virtues that go along with that.
Lori Walsh: Keep going. Cause now I want to know what the key virtues are.
George Tsakiridis: I was waiting for you to ask.
Lori Walsh: I was on bated breath there. Yeah.
George Tsakiridis: Yeah. So of course the key virtues, the key virtues I think are, one is gratitude, which I alluded to earlier, and that's tied to just this idea with this pandemic, especially six weeks ago, we didn't really know what this would look like at all, and the fact that history was changing instantly and you could possibly lose everything you had, including your health, suddenly makes you grateful for what you do have. And the fact that, here in South Dakota, I can go to the store and pretty much get everything I want. They finally got toilet paper back a couple of weeks ago. But pretty much everything is here. Whereas if you're in a different part of the country or the world, you might not have access to food the same way you did six months ago. That forces us, I think, to be grateful for the fact that we do have a supply chain that is providing food or that there is these structures that, although under strain now, are holding up.
So I think gratitude is very important. I think another one, and that's tied to it, is humility, to realize that in a time like this we are way less in control of things than we thought we were. Some of the things that we were trying to control as individuals or in communities maybe weren't so important. I think that goes back to that, when there's strain on something, it forces us to see what is important. So I think humility and gratitude, other virtues I think that are also important and always important are kindness and love.
Kindness is an interesting one I think in this time because when you go to the store, the way you interact with other people is much different than it would have been six months ago. And sometimes, when we're under strain, it forces us... We have anxiety, we're scared and it forces us to act cruelly to people in ways that maybe aren't warranted. I think being aware of that also is important, and also to think about people who don't have access to basic needs. How can we help them while still maintaining our own healthy environments? So I think those are the main virtues I would focus on are gratitude, humility, and kindness right now. But there's plenty of other good virtues out there.
Lori Walsh: We're going to take a break here just in a minute and come back with more with George. But what you said about humility really resonates with me, because one of the things I hear in my group of friends when we really take the filter off and we say all the things that are kind of going wrong and our frustrations and our exhaustions, it's a forced humility. In some ways it's like yeah, I guess six weeks ago I thought I could do it all. I thought I could be a parent and a great professional and I could exercise and it turns out I can't do any of those things. I have to do them all at once and all my routines. And so there is a deep sense of what some people have almost approached as a failure or inadequacy that really can be crafted into an awareness of our own humility, and the fact that we never had control over as much as we thought we did.
And now is the time to embrace that and sit in that space and think about what that means in the days ahead. Humility, we don't talk about that very often. We've kind of walked through how things have unfolded and now we're looking into the days ahead as we look at what does normal look like, what do we want normal to look like, that's different and hopefully better or more meaningful than before. And can we start, George, with what you said about people being forced into their own spirituality, cause I want to hear more about what you mean by that phrase.
George Tsakiridis: Sure. And I think that actually follows really well from the idea of humility that we were just talking about. And that sometimes we are not as humble as we should be. We're forced into it by circumstances or people. And when we're forced into that, it forces us to look in the mirror. And I think that's what's happening right now with people's spirituality. Whatever faith tradition they're in or even if they're not in a faith tradition, people are forced to come to terms with the reality of their mortality and their circumstance and the fact that things could just go away in an instant. What becomes important when you don't have the material possessions you once had or the relationships or the status. You're forced to come face to face with your own humanity and face to face with God if you're a person of faith.
And so I think that forces spirituality in a way that we don't often, I shouldn't say often, but don't always get within formal religious traditions. We were talking about buildings and money and just the way that religion has been structured in the modern age. But I think we could find examples if we go back far a way too. It sometimes brings us away from our humanity and from God because we can't focus on what's important. We kind of have these layers of facade that we say, well it's important to look good in church or it's important to have the right, let's say, reputation versus the right character. I think this sort of an event forces us to focus on character and spirituality as a part of that, because you have to look inward instead of looking outward.
Lori Walsh: And this is a moment to where we might have thought we had that didn't apply to us. Right. But the two things that I thought when I didn't have to come to worship was that I don't have to dress up and I don't have to be on time cause I'm always racing and I'm always late. And when I think more deeply about that, I'm like, oh that's reputation. She looks good and she's got it together. She came on time. When in reality, I'm brushing my hair in the car or I'm like, I have no idea. You know, the car's running out of gas. One time I left the car running as I ran into church and came out after church and my keys were in it and it was running. Yeah. I didn't want anybody to know that story. But now I've told it on the air. So humility. I didn't have that together and who knew? And when you say you might have to meet God, we go to church on Sundays but we often don't want to meet God because that's scary. Oh the irony of that. Right?
George Tsakiridis: Yeah, exactly. Events like this force us to look at our beliefs really strongly. And I think that this also ties though to the other side of it, and that is the fact that because many people are meeting virtually for their faith gatherings, you can craft your image in those gatherings however you see fit also, which is also kind of magnifying the issues we have with social media. And so you can wear a dress shirt and tie, in my case, with sweat pants and no one knows I'm wearing sweat pants, because that's what is visible.
And I think that side of it, I think we need to also be aware of to say, what kind of an image are we trying to put out. And is that the real us, too? Because with the concept of humility, I think what's really important is, and I don't think when we're young we think about it this way and maybe many older people don't either. But humility actually takes strength to put yourself in front of someone else as you are, and be honest and kind of bare. It takes a lot of strengths and a lot of courage, and people actually tend to respond well to that I think, especially in the modern world.
But the fear of that is so great. I mean it is very scary to put yourself out in an authentic way. And I think that hopefully out of this, people do realize the authenticity, their authenticity is important to themselves and to others. And I think when you have need, and this pandemic has forced many people to show, I have this need or that need, when you have needs, you tend to drop the facade because there's a burning need that needs to be met immediately, and you don't worry about how you look in front of others because if you're not going to be fed, that food is more important than a socially crafted image. And I hope that we come out of this learning those lessons and bringing them forward. And actually ,the longer this goes on, maybe the easier it will be for us to do that.
Lori Walsh: So I want to talk more about authenticity and why is that important? Why is that so important for yourself, first, and what does it feel like?
George Tsakiridis: Wow, now it's getting psychological. Okay. That's a great question.
Lori Walsh: I know. And I'm kind of regretting inviting you on because you see me a little too clearly and I'm like, let's stop talking. No, but how do you know when you've achieved it? Is it every day you have to go back and say, "Was I authentic today?" Or talk about authenticity and what that really feels like and what it means?
George Tsakiridis: Well, I think you actually touched on something there. When you are authentic, I think you are able to see others more authentically because you're not buying into that lie of the image. I'm not saying I don't do that too. If you go to my IMDB page, I'm an actor. There's certain images I'm going to put up and not others. We're crafting an image. But at the same time, well I should say, why is it important to me? I think that at a very young age, it was instilled upon me that honesty is very important. And I don't know, I think part of it was that upbringing and that emphasis on character. My father emphasized character very strongly to us, my own faith, but also just who I am and how I was formed.
These experiences we have, shape us. I've mentioned this in various settings before, but it ties to the idea of love. It's very important for me to be loved, to be honest. And I think for everybody. But if someone is loving you or accepting you, but they don't really see you, they see some version of you, you as an authentic person or as an introspective person, see that that's all false. They're not accepting you. They're accepting some image of you. And so only through authenticity can you be truly accepted and loved and respected and all these things that we all crave. And so although it's hard, it really is the path to achieving the things we want, I think, as human beings. And so ultimately by being virtuous or emphasizing certain virtues, that actually makes us better human beings and more fulfilled as human beings.
Lori Walsh: One of the things, yesterday on the program, I talked to Deb Soholt, and we talked about what's next, and I said I'm almost afraid not of getting back to normal because I would love it if this virus would disappear from the earth and we wouldn't be threatened with our physical health and all this suffering, but I'm also afraid of going back to normal and everybody just sort of collectively forgetting some of these things, cause we're talking about things more deeply than we did a few months ago.
And on this show we talk about some pretty deep stuff. And now, it just seems like a lot of those layers are peeled away. How do we move forward in this, George, and preserve the gift of this while we continue to suffer? Because that's really hard thing to do. We just want it to be gone. We want it to be over. We want to be better. We want the kids to be back in school or we want the daycare to be open or we want to sleep at night without weird dreams. How do we find that gift in the midst of the suffering in a way that preserves our ongoing thoughtfulness?
George Tsakiridis: Well, I think part of it, and I'm speaking more from personal experience, I mean obviously I'm educated in various ways and that influences my experience, but I just want to say it's from my experience. Because I do care about honesty and justice and fairness and these sorts of things, when we reach a difficult situation like this, we kind of get angry and we're like, this isn't fair. It should be like this. And we keep looking at what it should be instead of what is happening. I think that's a good thing in one sense, because we have an ideal of justice that points us to something better. And I think when something like this happens, we need to kind of just accept what is going on and deal with the reality of it, instead of trying to jump out of it as quickly as we can.
Now I hope that we get out of this very quickly. I hope people are healthy and I hope this doesn't have longterm economic ramifications as it looks like it will, but at the same time, that may be the reality and we have to accept that reality and give up maybe what we expected things to be like. I'm very optimistic as a person. I have goals, I look forward and I think we should do that. It can point us forward, but ignoring the reality doesn't allow us to move forward in a real way. And so I think accepting that... You used the word suffering. That's a tough word to use here, but I think it might be accurate, is accept where we are, accept the fact that we have a chance to be introspective, to be grateful, so that when things do come back, however that looks, and it may look different, that we appreciate it.
That I appreciate the fact that I can go for a walk in the city and see other people and smile and wave. That is a very simple thing that we wouldn't have necessarily thought about six months ago. It's forcing us to appreciate all of the things of life and also correct the things that maybe we were trying to cut corners with. And so I think that brings us back to humility, gratitude. And I'm looking at our faith and what that means to us because in a time like this, the facade of organized religion, and I'm not saying all organized religion is that way, but when it is, when you go to church just to be seen or to show status, that's a worthless in a time like this. That's nothing.
I think true belief and true faith points us to what is important and will pull us away from these things that do corrupt over time and are not lasting. By building our virtue in this difficult time, we're creating something that's lasting. By building our faith, we're creating something that's lasting, and we're letting go of those shiny objects that we always are drawn to.
Lori Walsh: I love that. Come back and talk to us again please. Let's keep this conversation going. I mean that. Say yes now.
George Tsakiridis: I would love to. That would be great.
Lori Walsh: Okay. There. I have to get you to say that on tape. Say yes now.
George Tsakiridis: I'm always happy. You can call me anytime. Happy to be on the air. Love talking with you.
Lori Walsh: The high pressure tactics we're engaged in now. George Tsakaridis, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate your time.
George Tsakiridis: Thank you so much.