098 – Life Lessons Learned from Literal Deconstruction

Cody Johnston 1:21
Hey everyone, welcome to the reckless pursuit. My name is Cody. Hey, my name is Elaine and this is episode 98.

Elaine Johnston 1:27
Yes 98

Cody Johnston 1:29
It’s so hard to keep track because our house is complete disarray. We’re recording this right now you’re probably hearing a hum and an echo and maybe a dog tapping around. Because we are sitting on a bench we brought in from the front porch on our bare wooden floors to record this episode.

Unknown Speaker 1:46
Like know for just like the sub floor.

Cody Johnston 1:49
Yes, there’s just sub floor in our house right now all throughout it. And there are dehumidifiers running in the background. We actually did turn off like 15 different blowers. I can actually turn one on There’s one right here next to us. We had to turn these things off just to be able to record for this very short second time. Yes for this very short episode because they make so much noise. So guys, what are we even going to be talking about today? And what are we doing? Life has been so crazy. Yeah.

Elaine Johnston 2:18
So I think this episode, we should just talk about that life update maybe our word for the year and just kind of like where we’re at where we want this show to go in the next month or so and like picking back up after vacation and what that looks like,

Cody Johnston 2:32
Oh, yeah, and also, hey, it’s 2020 guys, we’re in a new year we started off a new year, literally deconstructing not even failure. This is the literal deconstruction here, guys. So before we get into that, just a couple of really, really quick things. nomads that group is just blowing up, it is blossoming. If you are listening, and you’re not currently a part of nomads stop what you’re doing. Pause this or keep listening, whatever if you’re listening on headphones, and just go and click That link and asked to be a part because we want to have you over there to keep this conversation going that is the best place to keep the conversation from this show moving forward so yes go enjoy nomads and also just a quick thing this last week I was supposed to have an episode of itinerate come out I’m taking a one episode break we will be back right at it not this Thursday but the next Thursday because guys to be really honest, I’ve been ripping trim and flooring and felt layer and drying out floors for the past for a while now so we’ve been at it like non stop trying to get the house back in order and I have not had the eight hours I need to sit down and study and research and record and edit and all that I was

Elaine Johnston 3:46
gonna say it took 10 hours just to rip it all up.

Cody Johnston 3:49
So so and that’s not including all the other stuff we’ve already been doing and have

Elaine Johnston 3:53
it done yet.

Cody Johnston 3:54
Yes. Yeah, watch come and yeah, without I guess any other delays. Let’s get right into today’s very brief episode on updates about what’s going on what the future holds. And especially, I guess how this parallels over with faith during all of this madness Here comes. Alright, so we’re literally deconstructing everything right now in our house. We’re having to fix drywall around the bottom of the house. We’re ripping up flooring, paint jobs, new paint, we’re having to sand sub floor. We’re sitting in this Echo, we roomed with dehumidifiers running in the background. And you when you post something really interesting, I’m just going to give you a second to just kind of share what you were seeing through all of this.

Elaine Johnston 4:40
Yeah, so To be honest, I was not excited about this new year because if you listen to last week’s episode, we kind of talked about how we came home from our vacation in New York City three days before Christmas to find out there’s a flood in our house. And that’s been crazy, which explains why we’re wrapping up for putting in new floors and so we barely made it through Christmas dinner and a couple of days after that before the new year our fridge and freezer went out on us and so we lost all the groceries and it’s been very stressful

Cody Johnston 5:13
Not to mention almost destroying the garbage disposal

Elaine Johnston 5:15
yeah I almost just destroyed the garbage disposal because not one but two shot glasses were in there. We have like a little espresso machine next to the sink we should maybe we should move that around. But yeah, so I had obliterated a shot glass and almost broke the garbage

Unknown Speaker 5:33
it up and he wouldn’t have the

Elaine Johnston 5:35
same time that our groceries went bad so it’s just been very stressful. And honestly like I’m the more I guess like positive person. I always try to look at the bright side of things up until New Year’s Eve. It just kind of got to me I just went to bed at 1030 did not care about the new year just was very stressed out a lot of anxiety, very tired hormonal, just like Super emotional, everything was just horrible like the first at least my mindset. And the first day of the new year I cried because I just like cannot handle it. Our house has been a mess. And just, it’s been crazy. But a couple of days ago, we were ripping up the flooring in our living room and I just kind of sat back and watch because the day before we had painted a wall, a different color and we were ripping at floor and I just kind of realized like, we are having to tear up flooring, repaint walls, fix the fridge, all this stuff, everything was broken, everything was destroyed. But then I realized like that’s a lot like our spiritual lives. We were literally deconstructing our house but it parallels to our spiritual journey and how sometimes you have to rip out old floors, old foundations, you have to tear out walls to put new ones and you have to take out it old ideas that are no longer life giving no longer give you joy it to put new ones in. And it just I feel like I had a complete 180 in my mindset of like okay so I can see the beauty and this is it’s okay if you have to destroy things to put new beautiful things and

Cody Johnston 7:19
well and I just kinda want to add a little bit to that it’s messy one right like so we have hundreds of nails cuz we had hardwood floors, really nice floors and we had to rip them up. And the worst part about it is to whenever we’re in the process of what we’re about to rip them up, it doesn’t really look that bad. If you see before photos once the water got out of here once they ran the first round of dehumidification everything minus a little bit of like kind of a wavy look to it if you look at it and direct light the floors actually looked like they were normal. And there was a couple of times the light and I looked at him for a second. Do we really have to rip this up? Is it really that bad? Like it doesn’t smell moldy in here like nothing seems to be the problem but then why We started and I kind of just started in a corner just to see what it was going to be like and we ripped it up and underside was black and it was just disgusting and the floor was still wet after three days of D humidifying after drying it out with vacuums and rags and like soaking up all this water and we thought that it had treated they treated from the underside of the house and on top and we thought that it was dry and we take up this floor and it’s just full of water and it’s separating apart and like it is just pulling apart the layers are just falling to pieces. And like the sub floor below is still wet all the felt paper which is like this black lining you lay under hardwood floor is just wet and damp and dripping. And the wall around the edge was just soft and caving in and it’s just nasty and I’m just like just disgusting. It’s It reeks of like mildew like you know if you take a really hot shower and shut the door for a long time that steam just builds up in there you do that over years, you know how bathroom structure can get that musky smell. It had that going bad like it was Gross. And I realized like, Oh man, this looks beautiful on the top. But something got up underneath this and is causing problems and so many times that parallel so well, to our faith, we sit here and we’re like man, you know this isn’t so bad because you’re just looking at it right you look at it from the surface level this isn’t so bad like, things are fine here at this church things are fine with the way I’ve used this things are fine with the way I view other people or the way I view God or the way I view politics or the way even just my philosophical stances on life. These are fine, it’s all fine because you’re looking at just the way it was. And when you laid it down was probably very beautiful to you it fit the need you had at the time. You know, like this hardwood floor it fit the need we had at the time when we laid it, it worked. We got a great price on it. When we purchased it, it did well for what we were doing. But as we started to grow, we realized how easy it scratched how having a dog who had a dog Doppler who’s laying right here behind us right now praying that these machines would just finally get turned off, and he had some sound sleep. He, he gets in there and it just becomes so apparent how easy it scratches and how much it shows dirt and how easy it smudges because it has like a glossy finish to it. And it’s like, wow, this is not serving its purpose anymore. We’ve already invested so much into it, how do we like we’re not going to tear it up and try to put more money into it like we can’t do that. Well then all of a sudden we have this leak and water gets up underneath and starts rotting it literally rotting it molding and filtering it and separating it from the bottom up and we dry it up and we try to do damage control. And it looks okay. But then when we finally get the ball and we’re like, no, we’re gonna have to do something about this. You tear it up and you realize just how gross it is. That’s faith. That is our relationship. There are things that when we lay it down, it serves its purpose well and there’s nothing wrong with that. But over time, we adopt other philosophies, we adopt other people’s opinions, we adopt other views on life we adopt. Other scenarios happen that kind of change and we We try to do damage control. But over time you kind of go Wait, if you take a minute to kind of pry up the boards and look up underneath, you realize just how messed up it is that it’s all got to go. And sometimes you’ve got to start over and tear it back to where the damage stopped and rebuild. And that is literally deconstruction. That is the entire premise of what deconstruction is.

Elaine Johnston 11:23
So as we’re talking about all of that, I feel like this is a good transition into our words for the year. And I’ll just go ahead and share my word. My Word is spiritual. And I’ve only had one other word for the year and that was back in 2014. And it was the word protocol which set the stage for my blog and ultimately, my podcast, and that were just really stuck with me. And then shortly after that, Cody and I got together so I kind of just piggybacked off of his word. I was like, well, we’re, we’re married, where a unit will just be our work. For each year, which, again served its purpose, it was fine. But this year, well, I guess the last Sunday in 2019, I kinda was like, Hey, I kind of want my own word this year, I really want something that I can pick up and then I can utilize and I just feel like it’s time for me to focus on a word that specifically speaks to me. That doesn’t mean I can’t also have Cody’s where that doesn’t mean that I can’t also reflect on that, but I just wanted something that was for me specifically, and where God was leading me. And so we hadn’t gone to church and a couple months. And so we were like, Hey, we want to end 2019 by going to church and start 2020 just with that fresh mindset of being around like minded people and just being in the presence of God, whatever that looks like,

Cody Johnston 12:51
which I have issue with that phrasing. Yeah.

Elaine Johnston 12:55
But I think they know what I mean, though. Like you. You’re in God’s presence. All the time, but specifically wanting to be in a church setting for the end of the year and slash the beginning of the new year. And as I was just sitting there in worship, I was praying, I was like, okay, God, like I really want to work for this year, I really want something that’s specific to me, and that you will show yourself to me specifically through this, and just the word spiritual came up, and I was like, okay, that’s kind of weird. Like, we talk about spirituality all the time, which is kind of funny, because there’s this lyric and one of Weezer song, and it says, I’m spiritual, been our religious. I’m a Libra that matters. And I don’t know why that lyric just always sticks out to me. But specifically, the first half of I’m spiritual, not religious. And as we’ve been doing this podcast, deconstructing going into all of that, I’ve kind of realized like, I want to be more spiritual and less religious. I want to talk more into that. And I think which is kind of the premise of how I started seeing us ripping up floors and putting in new parts of our walls and stuff as a deconstruction process that paralleled and so for me, my word is spirituality or spiritual, and just tapping into what that looks like for this year, whether that be faith, energy, relationships, just seeing the presence of God and just everything that encompasses that specifically for 2020.

Cody Johnston 14:25
Yeah, and so with me, I don’t know if I’ve talked about this last year on the show or not, but God has dealt with me for the past 10 years, or so, has dealt with me every single year. He gives me a word and I typically, I know it’s a word from God specifically, because I know people get well how do you know it’s word from God. It always comes to me completely spontaneously. It’s not something I premeditate any premeditated word I get that I try to fit in the box. Never. I just don’t have the right feeling about it in my gut. And I was sitting here on the 31st and things were just going through Crazy I was I laid down it was kind of early still in the night and I was like, You know what, God, I have not taken any time to just kind of pray and figure out like what you’re going to deal with me this next year because God deals for me in one year seasons, he always gives me a word for that year. You know, last year my word was permeate the year before that it was cultivated in like, it always kind of reveals itself to me throughout the year. What that means. Well, I was laying there, I was like, God, I am tired, and I really need to worry. I gotta be honest, like, charge for me. Like I wanted to go to church to just to kind of like to kind of go, we have a family member who’s going I kind of want to just hang out with them and go, and churches. It wasn’t one of those things where I was like, ooh, I need to go to church. I didn’t really get anything out of it as a matter of fact that the teacher which the church that we visit frequently, the lead pastor is a fantastic teacher. He’s very thorough in his teaching. I don’t always agree with his teaching, but he’s thorough in it. And he has a lot of research put into it. He does a good job of eloquently pulling together different views. philosophies and he does a very good job of explaining history on that. Well, he was talking about the magia. And like, the origins of the magic and like the significance they have, if you guys listen to itinerate my other show, link in the description, by the way, in the show notes. And so if you listen to itinerate at all, you know, like I just did an episode on the head shy for Christmas. That was my, my first of my to Christmas episode. So I did that in the beginning of December. And so like everything he was saying, I literally knew the next thing he was gonna be saying, and so it was kind of fun, I guess. But like, I didn’t get anything major out of it. I didn’t get much how to wash I got much I enjoy taking communion. We did take me I hadn’t taken communion in a little while. So that was enjoyable. And I felt like I got a bit of benefit out of that. But I don’t really get my time alone to pray to God and stuff in church. And so I was sitting there the 31st at 1030 at night, and Elaine was already asleep and I was laying there I was like okay, God, I need a word. And I’m literally laying there’s lights off with my eyes closed. I’m like I could fall asleep any minute but I’m going to lay here until Get that word because you always give it to me on the 31st. Without fail. You’ve done this for years and years and years. So anyway, I’m laying there 1030 lanes already asleep, and I’m just like, God, I can fall asleep any minute here, but I’m going to do my best to stay awake. Whatever it takes to get this word from you, like I have every other year like my circumstances are going to dictate that. And as soon as I got through praying, it’s like God knew that my attention span was low and I was tired. Because the word expansive, a year of expansiveness, like blessed into my brain, so I hopped up a lane like, heard me get out of bed and saw like ran over there. Like I gotta write a note down real quick. So I wrote it down. I misspelled it because I was super tired. had to go back and fix it the next day, but I wrote it in my notepad on my phone. I’m like, okay, that’s my word. I literally just went to sleeping and think another thing about it. I woke up the next day thinking like, ooh, space, I don’t know what expansive means. It reminds me of like, Interstellar, I don’t know. Anyway, so it was a weird word it kind of had no other like connotation had been talking about that word and you were

Elaine Johnston 17:58
like, all your words are weird quote. Weird. Words though. Yeah, they say you don’t really have in your vocabulary normally.

Cody Johnston 18:03
Yeah, that’s kind of fair. I mean, like, I don’t use the word permeate, like ever. And that was last year’s word. But anyway, so as I was going on, I actually was posting on Facebook, someone had asked like, Oh, well, what’s your word for the year? You know, like, anyone have like a word for the year? My actually God does deal with me and words like this. And I went and took a screenshot of my words like, dang, this is actually really good. When I think of expansive I think of like growing, I think of like, oh, a widening of something like there’s more room. That’s what I think of expansive. And that’s one of the definitions of expansive, having a capacity or tendency to expand that is one of the definitions, but the other definitions really got to me. And one of them is characterized by high spirits generosity, or a readiness to talk being open and I was like, Man, that is literally what like this podcast premise is is high like showing people that they can live in a higher place of living closer to God showing, being generous with people and a readiness to talk and being open. That’s literally like what I want to strive to be in life. I was like, wow, okay, that’s powerful. And the second one got me even more. And it says characterized by richness, abundance or magnificence. And even that was like, wow, okay, so on a personal level, like, I want that like, you know, financially, we have goals, all these other goals. And even more so just in being satisfied. That was one of my big things, which I started pushing for in late 2019 was just having more gratitude practices, and we just talked about that with Tracy like, on last week’s episode of like, just sitting there it’s like, wow, God, I have exactly what I need right now in this moment. Yes, our refrigerators out that I have the money to go grab food tonight. We have some groceries and dry good groceries in there, even if it’s just ramen. I created for lunch one night because we don’t have much else. In the way of storing stuff right now, so even if it’s just that, like we have that, we have the ability to go, you know what, we can go and buy this, we can go and buy food we can eat the food we have. And that’s just it’s a beautiful thing. And I realized, like, I have exactly what I need, we may not have floors, but we have a dry house this day, our bedroom is fine. We have exactly what we need right now in this moment. And so I just really spoke to me in that and then even going through this process of literal deconstruction, the parallels is helping me to be more open. It’s helping me to be more vocal. It’s someone had posted on Facebook just the other day, of course, you know, all the new year stuff is floating around everywhere right now. And they had asked like, what is something that you would pursue if you were not afraid of how people would react to you, or what think of you and I really thought about it for a long, hard while and I kind of realized there’s not really anything because this whole season, this whole process that we have been In all of this that we are going through right now with the podcast and all of the backlash we’ve received from so many people, it’s literally taken away a lot of that fear I have. And I’ve just realized, like, I want to be more vocal and all of that, but that stuff we’re already doing. And I see an expansiveness, in that coming, expansion of that coming, but this whole thing has just been a huge learning experience.

Elaine Johnston 21:24
And to me, the beautiful thing about just Cody specifically like the unity that we have, like in our marriage, I see expansive and spiritual coming together like expanding spirituality expanding what the spiritual realm of things looks like expanding my understanding of God’s nature, my expanding the nature of people on a spiritual level. And I just, I just love the beauty of the of that coming together.

Cody Johnston 21:53
Yeah. So with all that, guys, we’re going to go ahead and wrap this episode up. I know it’s a short one. And that’s honestly, we haven’t ton still to do. And so we’re trying to get back on track where we can we can get back in here our whole studio space right now is just toast everything’s unplugged everything’s, we’re like running on bare bones right now. But with that being said, we want to wish everyone an amazing 2020 we are praying and sending positivity or way we want just your spirituality or your faith, your lives to flourish and we want to be a part of your conversation. We came out of the holiday season which is always bittersweet. There’s so much good but there’s always so much hard. And now here we are on the other end of that in a new year. So we want to hear from you. We want to know what just 2020 What do you have on the books for 2020? What are you hoping for in 2020? What was your word for the year we would love to hear from you. Of course you can find us in nomads the links to nomads are in the show notes below and also anywhere. You can find us through email or all of our social media From the reckless pursuit.com of course my other show itinerate will be releasing a new episode, like I said, which will one episode break on that and we’ll be back at it on I don’t know the exact date off the top of my head, but it’s not this Thursday. But next Thursday, Andy lane has an episode of first show the prodigal daughter coming out, which is a more intimate recap of some of this stuff we’ve been going through. And she’ll be diving into that. So be sure and go and find her wherever you’re listening to this podcast, as well. And finally, if you haven’t done so, so far, go down there and click that review button. Leave an honest review. It helps us to know what you guys love, how to improve and especially helps those passing by to get a feel for this show without having to trust the host. Yes, we love you. And as always be brave, be bold and be reckless. We’ll talk soon