Cotton Candy and Revolutionary Rides: The Moth Radio Hour

The Moth - The Moth

This episode of The Moth Radio Hour features powerful true stories of vulnerability, courage, and connection—from a pastor’s humbling Rally Day, to a Harlem dancer reclaiming her joy, and Yemeni girls defying oppression

Key takeaways

• Authenticity heals even in failure

Transcript preview

At the moth, we're using the power of storytelling to connect teachers with their students. Once a student develops their story and voice, they can show up more authentically in the classroom, their relationships, and beyond. Which is why we developed the moth teacher institute, a annual conference that brings together educators who want to use the moth storytelling techniques in their classrooms and communities. The programming features live storytelling, workshops to help find, shape, and tell your own true personal stories. To learn more and apply, visit the moth.org, slash EDU. together to connect through personal stories. The moth has over 500 public events a year where everyday people stand on stage to tell their true stories. In this episode, a bold bike ride in Yemen, shaking a tail feather in Harlem, and our first story by Lutheran pastor from Denver, Nadia Bolesweber. Nadia told this in front of a sold-out crowd of 2,700 at a moth main stage in Oregon, Portland Literary Arts. Here's Nadia, live at the mall. I'm not what you would call the biggest fan of church, which can be awkward since technically I'm a Lutheran pastor. by honestly I was raised in a really very strict conservative Christian church where there was just a whole lot of rules and very little fun and no possibility of actually getting to be my whole self. And so when I felt the call to go to seminary I thought you know what I want is to start a church from scratch. There could be very few rules a whole lot of fun and everyone gets to be themselves. So in two 2008 I founded a congregation called House for All Sinners and Saints. And the amazing thing about being able to start a church from scratch is you don't have to worry about being conventional so you can just make shit up. So if the very first thing you want people to see when they enter in the church is a velvet painting of Elvis, that says Elvis welcomes you to House for All Sinners and Saints, you can do that. And if you don't really want to do a blessing of the animals, but you want to do a blessing of the bicycles, you can do that. And if you want to take over the basement of a bar, a quarterly for an event called Beer and Hymns, you can do that. And we did all those things and that's what started to get the attention of my denomination. And I was so excited to get an email that said, we want to invite you to give the keynote presentation at a pastor's conference. We really want you to share your expertise. The thing you need to know is I didn't graduate college until I was 36. I had never been an expert in anything. And when I went to seminary, I was so old that they called me a second. career student, which I thought was adorable because it implied I had a first career. Which I did not. But the difficult part of starting a church from scratch is that you have to start it from scratch. And so my denomination gave me a little funding to get going, but all they cared about was how many people came and how much money did you bring in. And it started to feel like every Sunday I was my own birthday party and waiting to see who liked me enough to show up. And then I was like, it's not supposed to be about me, it's supposed to be about God, and then I felt worse. And it was rough, like we would have like maybe 50 people on a Sunday, but during the summer, the numbers just start getting really low. And we ended up not getting more than like 35 people on a Sunday during the summer. And so the day before, I was going, I was going, I was going, to keynote that pastor's conference as an expert, I found myself single-handedly trying to get a cotton candy machine in the back of my Honda. And my back was hurting, and the reason is because I had just come from Costco, and I had lifted all these cases of soda, and enough burgers to feed like 80 people, and an industrial bag of Doritos, and I'd put it all in my Honda. When I realized, hey, we've got to try and get people back, I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember, I remember that there's this really quaint tradition in the Lutheran church called Rally Day. Rally Day is when you're trying to get all the families back for the start of Sunday school after everyone's been traveling through the summer. And so you have like a little carnival for the kit. And we didn't have any kids and we didn't have Sunday school, but I was like, fuck it, we're having Rally Day. And so I ended up setting everything up. I made cool flyers. I texted everyone in the congregation. I was so excited to get all these people back to really get a lot of people. So I put the sodas on ice and I put out the napkins in a little lake circle and it was all fancy and I got all the burgers ready. And I put out a collection basket for donations because it costs like hundreds of dollars. all this stuff and it's just easily recoupable with that many people and so I was doing so much work and that I didn't actually go into the worship space until about two minutes before the service was supposed to start and I'm walking up the stairs at this hundred year old church building and I'm so excited to see everyone and I see the sun coming through the stained glass and bouncing off the 26 people who came. 26. 20 fucking 6. And I didn't know what to do. So I didn't know what to do. So I quickly pivoted, turned around, went downstairs like I'd forgotten something. But if I'd forgotten anything it was definitely my goodwill towards humanity. And I went into the women's room and I literally knelt on the peeling linoleum and was like, dear God. I hate all those people who didn't show up so much that I'm having a hard time appreciating the people who did show up. And as you know I have to start a worship service in two minutes. So if you could like, you know, remove this resentment, like rip out my stony little heart and replace it with a human fleshy beating one again, I'd really appreciate that. Amen. So my desperate prayer helped enough for me to get going, get the service going, and then the prayers of the people were beautiful and that helped too because JP prayed, he was glad he got a job after six months of unemployment and Clarice was like I've been off heroin for a year and then someone else was praying for their aunt who had breast cancer and just the realness of that helped as well. And so about 20 people stayed and there was a group of my parishioners who were like grilling up all these burgers that we had for like 80 people and they're like we should just take them down to Triangle Park to like feed some hungry people and then this other group of my parishioners were making cotton candy and handing it to every single car that stopped at the stop sign by the church. They were having a blast. I was busy doing what I called the resentful cleanup where you're trying to mask how disappointed you are and by and I was like hastily trying to get everything cleaned up and one of my person at me he said, Pastor Nautia, are you okay? Now the thing you need to know about Stuart is he has an official role at church as the minister of fabulousness and he's like the church drag queen and the reason is because, um, is because like when we were doing our first stewardship campaign, which is like a fancy church word for fundraising, and Stuart's like, oh I know, we're gonna sell t-shirts and on the front, it's gonna sell t-shirts and on the front it's gonna say, and on the front it's gonna say it's gonna say it's gonna say, it's gonna this shit ain't free. And then on the back it's gonna say so you better tie it bitches if you if you don't have a church drag queen I'm just saying get busy recruiting one but anyway so my back's really hurting. And he looks at his partner Jim and our friend Amy, he goes, Jim, Amy, we're going to pray for Pastor Nautia right now and I thought the hell you are. But sometimes you have to submit to a blessing. I just remember the Colorado sun and his big drag queeny hands warming my black clergy shirt and then praying over me. And it sounds bonkers now, but I swear what happened is it felt like those muscle spasms in my back. back went from being like fists to being like open palms and it like released it was beautiful and I thanked them and then his partner Jim said pastor Nadia would it be nice to have some help cleaning up and I said yeah it really would thank you and a couple seconds later Jim goes well what do you want me to do with this and he held up a completely empty donation basket Now I hated all the people who didn't come and I hated all the people who did come. And I hated all the people who did come. And also I had to get out of there pretty quick because I had a very early flight in the morning because I had to go be an expert at a pastor's conference. It was probably midnight when the resentment and anger and self-loathing left my body enough to fall asleep. And two hours later, I was jolted awake with what I can only describe as a bitch slap from the Holy Spirit. I jolt up in my bed and I go, oh my God, I missed it. Like, I had back pain all day. And then after they prayed for me, I didn't for the rest of the day. And I didn't even notice what a blessing it was for people to pray for their pastor, who usually prays for them. And I didn't notice how amazing it is that hungry people got warm burgers and that all these strangers inexplicably got free cotton candy at the stop sign. And I was so wrapped up in my expectations not being met that I missed everything that did