Let's Talk About Alexander John Shaia
I’ve been on a journey for a while now, sitting beneath the teaching of a brilliant man named Alexander John Shaia. I talk about him a lot because not only has he been my “boss” for the last 6 months (I’m his ‘Social Media Wizard’), but because for about 2-3 years before that he has been …
A friend.
A mentor.
A guide.
… Who has helped me come to some profound insights regarding myself, my faith, and the story of Jesus – the story that I love so, so much.
I could never explain all of what he’s taught me in a short post. Not only would a short post like this not do it justice, but (to be a bit vulnerable with you) I’m at a place where although I sense the impact his work has made on my life … I’m still trying to find the words to describe it so that I can tell the story in a somewhat coherent way.
And I think that’s OK, right?
Because isn’t that what life is? Isn’t it a series of changes and obstacles and joys and arrivals and learning how to come to grips with it all … with all the new discoveries and new ideas and new concepts that help us grow and evolve into the people we have been created to be?
I think so.
Anyways, so … Alexander John has a profound way of understanding the Gospels and I’ve been captivated by it ever since I first heard him on Rob Bell’s podcast back in 2017-ish when I was driving to work early one morning wondering where my life was headed.
No exaggeration.
My wife and I had moved from NJ to NC to get plugged into Elevation Church (yes, the megachurch) because we sensed God calling us to a change. Elevation had been a huge help to us in our attempt at planting a church and they seemed to be putting a culture into the universe that we wanted to be a part of … that we couldn’t’ imagine NOT being a part of. And so the “plan” was to move to NC, to start attending a local campus, to get plugged into their internship program, and to eventually be on staff with them in some way, shape, or form.
It was a goal.
It was a dream.
It’s what we honestly believed “God wanted” for our lives.
BUT.
Then life happened and I found myself in this horrifying place where my very Evangelical faith of 30+ years was 1000% unraveling at an alarming rate as my mind was flooded with questions about heaven and hell and the cross and Jesus and salvation and the Bible and sin and demons and … so many things.
I remember sitting in bumper to bumper traffic that morning driving to my job at an Apple Store that was 90 minutes from my house (yes, 90 minutes to work AND 90 minutes home); I was sitting in traffic shortly after leaving my wife and infant daughter at home for another day, another day where I would surely miss more “firsts” …
More first steps.
More first words.
More first playdates.
… I remember being on the verge of tears and really mad because I felt like I followed “God’s call” to leave NJ and head to NC and now that we had arrived and settled in our new home nothing was as I thought it would be.
Elevation Church was no longer in the cards (a choice we made).
I was ¾ of the way through a doctoral program that was supposed to set me up for a “career” in the church.
I wasn’t even going to church.
I had no desire to go to church.
YET.
I still loved God.
I still loved the Bible.
I still loved Jesus.
… What an absolute train wreck of a mess - instead of being in the paradise I envisioned, I felt like I was navigating an obstacle course consisting of the 7 levels of hell.
I hated the Apple Store I was working in.
I despised the drive to work.
I loathed the traffic.
I hated missing so much of my daughter’s life.
I hated … everything.
As I fought back the tears that I shed on almost every drive to work and stared into yet another endless sea of taillights, I scrolled back through some of Rob Bell’s old podcasts (hoping to find something to distract myself from the tears) and landed on his very first conversation that he recorded with Alexander John Shaia back in 2015 … and I was hooked.
I listened to the podcast on my way to work, then bits of it on my lunchbreak, and then more on my ride home. And then I started listening to other podcast episodes that Alexander John had been on and … I don’t know. I can’t really describe it, but something in me whispered, “this is important.”
Fast forward a bit (hold on, we’re gonna move fast) …
And then in 2018 I met Alexander John at the Wild Goose Festival in Hot Springs, NC where he presented much of the same material he shared on Rob’s podcast.
And then I read his book.
And then we connected on Facebook.
And then I invited him onto my podcast.
And then we started chatting through Facebook Messenger.
And then we became friends.
And then another podcast episode.
And then we had breakfast at the airport the morning I was flying up to NY to defend my doctoral dissertation (we were both flying out of the same airport to 2 different destinations, all by “chance” … of course).
And then I asked him to teach me - I didn’t just want to know WHAT he knew, but WHO he knew … the Source of his wisdom.
And then he invited me to be on his staff to handle his social media.
And then he invited me to play an intricate part in the course he’s teaching with The Shift Network.
Now? Since that day in the car when I was fighting back tears wondering if deconstruction was going to tank my life and my future … since that day, a lot has changed. Back in August 2021 I ended up quitting my job at Apple (after 11 years) and now find myself embracing some sort of light at the end of that long, exhausting tunnel I felt trapped in. I don’t really know what the light is or where it will take me, but it’s exciting – the joyful and radiant light of the future seems bright and warm and full of goodness.
I’m at a place where …
I get to work from home every day.
I get to see my wife and daughter all the time.
I get to work on my podcast every day.
I get to interview amazing people every week.
I get to write.
I get to read.
I get to work with Alexander John every day.
I get to (literally) have him mentor and guide me in my own spiritual journey as I host the What If Project and try to present our community with helpful tools for their own journey.
I don’t know how else to describe it other than it feels as if I’m stepping foot into a peaceful and joyful space where although life at times feels out of control and full of unknowns … there’s a still assurance inside that says “this is right, this is good, and you’re finding your way.”
And so what is this work I’ve become so enamored with? What has Alexander John taught me that is so profound and life-changing, that drew me in back in the car that morning while sitting in rush hour traffic?
Phew. Lots of people ask me this.
How much time do you have? And how much patience do you have to listen to me ramble as I try to process a million different thoughts? HA!
What’s most important to know is that his work focuses on the 4 Gospels and instead of seeing them as “biographies of Jesus” or as “historical accounts of Jesus”, he sees them as letters of sorts that were each written to answer or respond to a specific question.
They are the stories of Jesus, yes. 100%.
BUT.
They are the stories of Jesus that were …
Written by a particular person.
Who was writing to a particular community.
That was wrestling through a particular question.
Yes.
Each Gospel is written to address a question that the particular community was wrestling with and the story of Jesus was crafted (by the writer) in such a way that it would provide a clear and inspiring answer to the question.
4 questions.
Asked by 4 different communities.
Answered in 4 different letters, all containing various stories and words of Jesus.
He talks about how a lightbulb went on when he was sitting in a class at Notre Dame back in the 70’s being taught by Joseph Campbell where Joseph was talking about the “hero’s journey” or the “great story” that is wired into the deepest part of every human being and the stories that we tell – stories in our holy texts, our movies, our books, etc.
Every human, he says, goes through seasons of their life where they …
ONE: Hear a summons or a call to change.
TWO: Navigate through obstacles.
THREE: Receive a gift / wisdom.
FOUR: Return to the community to live out and share the gift they received.
Joseph talks about how this story or journey doesn’t just belong to any single tradition or any single culture, but is a process or a path or a journey that every human intuitively knows and walks, and is (therefore) embedded into the stories that matter most to us.
And so Alexander John began to wonder – if these 4 pieces of the hero’s journey are wired into the very fibers of our being … do they somehow tie into the 4 Gospels? 4 pieces of the journey and 4 Gospels – coincidence … or something more? Could this be at least part of the reason why these great stories have endured the test of time? Because the heart of them matters so deeply to us?
Research began to become available revealing that in the early centuries of Christianity, the reading cycle for the Gospels wasn’t the order of “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John” (as we know the Gospels today), but “Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke” … and the more Alexander John began to dive into the research and study the communities these letters were written to (his background is in both psychology and anthropology), the more he began to see parallels arising.
Matthew was written to a group of people who were living in the wake of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. With the very center of the universe nothing more than a pile of rubble, they were quite literally staring a summons to change square in the eyes.
Mark was written to a group of Jewish Christians who Emperor Nero had blamed for the fire that destroyed Rome and so he sent his soldiers to the streets to hunt these Jewish Christians down, execute them in the arena with the wild beasts, and use their leaders as human torches – they were forced to navigate through unimaginable obstacles, turmoil, and pain.
John was written to a group of Christians in Ephesus who had once known the great and radiant joy of unity. In 40/50 CE they were known as an open community or an open table where everyone regardless of gender, wealth, age, culture, etc. was welcome to come and be. 50 years later, however, the patriarchy had re-established itself and that radiant light of unity was all but snuffed out and so they were looking to re-open themselves to that beautiful gift of unity and oneness that had once defined them.
And Luke was written to a group of Jewish Christians who were tossed out of the Jewish faith. In the wake of the Temple’s destruction, and the massacre of the Jewish priests, those leaders left were trying to figure out how to move Judaism forward with no Temple and no priests, and they decided that the first thing they needed to do was cast out any sect of Judaism that believed the Messiah had already come. And since the Jewish Christians believed that Jesus was their Messiah, they were one of the first to go – they found themselves out on their own, working to express their lives and their faith in a way that served themselves and others … all the while the temptation to be resentful bubbled beneath the surface of their hearts.
These 4 Gospels, Alexander John says, represent the 4 stages of the hero’s journey and can (therefore) be guides for us as we travel through the various legs of the journey throughout the course of our lives. In other words, the stories of Jesus that we find in Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke are visible stories that we can see and read with our eyes that reflect the deeper inward reality of the inner journey that we all wrestle through on a daily basis as we (for example) …
Move from NJ to NC because we sense the summons to a life change.
Sit in traffic every morning as we navigate the obstacles of a life not turning out at all like we planned.
Listen to a podcast and connect with a teacher who lights a spark of joy inside as he shows us things about ourselves and our own journey and our faith that we never could have imagined.
Feel a deep desire to take what we’re learning and what we’ve come to see and share it with our community.
Yeah.
And so I guess Alexander John’s work hooked me in the car that morning because he was speaking about the stories that matter the most to me, the stories of Jesus – the stories I’ve (literally) given my life to study.
In all honesty …
The Old Testament doesn’t bring my heart to life (although I have a deep admiration for it).
The letters of Paul give me a headache (he’s all over the place sometimes, isn’t he?!).
The other Epistles sometimes seem to be quite agenda driven.
Revelation … gives me nightmares.
BUT.
The stories of Jesus? I can sit with them for hours, they do something to me. They awaken my imagination, they poke at my wonder, they light a radiant joy in me and bring me hope no matter how stormy the seas of my life feel.
Some people find this same hope in …
Pagan rituals.
Buddhist practices.
Hinduism.
The Torah.
New Age practices.
Spirit work.
Lord of the Rings.
Harry Potter.
… And that’s cool. The stories that bring my heart to life are the stories of Jesus and the stories that bring other people’s hearts to life might be things I’m super unfamiliar with.
And that’s OK.
It’s ALL OK.
All the stories are welcome.
Yes – ALL of them.
Why?
Because my story (Jesus and the Gospels) isn’t necessarily THE story just as the stories from Paganism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. aren’t necessarily THE story. They are stories, yes. They contain wisdom, yes. They contain light and joy and radiance, yes. They contain truth, yes.
BUT.
They merely point to the larger story, the larger truth … the larger journey that we are all on.
The story of Jesus is MY story, it’s the one (to borrow Barbara Brown Taylor’s words) “I come home to at night” regardless of how much I explore during the day. I firmly believe that “God” or “the Divine” or “the Breath of God” or whatever is most and best represented in the person of Jesus. BUT. That doesn’t mean it needs to be your story, it doesn’t mean it needs to be the story that you most align with.
I can hold my truth without negating yours.
Yeah?
And so whatever stories you identify with and whatever stories most bring your heart to life – I welcome you to the table. That’s what the What If Project is, really – it’s a giant table … maybe like the one they had once imagined in Ephesus all those years ago? Everyone is welcome to this table to eat and feast and drink and share.
Share, mind you – NOT argue.
Arguing about whose story is right and whose story is wrong and whose story is Truth … that used to be my obsession. Nowadays, though? Eh. I find those conversations so incredibly boring. Instead, I’d rather you come to the table and talk to me about the stories that matter the most to you and tell me why they matter to you so that we can (together) talk about this great hero’s / heroine’s journey that we are all on and encourage each other to take another step.
… And that, my friends – that’s what Alexander John has taught me and that’s why I talk about it all the time.
I don’t fully have the words yet and as you can tell from this post, I’m still processing. But it’s changing me, it’s stretching me, it’s making more into the likeness of The Christ, and I’m forever grateful.
Much love,
- Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE / MY BOOK