The Importance of Belief

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LZ: My mom converted to Christianity in the UK while we were there as a result of that. She says it wasn't like, Oh, my life would be better if I lived this way. Lz: For her in a lot of ways it was worse but she had a good life too. What do you believe about the future and how does it impact your day-to-day lives today? You talk at the end about how what we believe about the reality of the future can impact our day to day lives today. We don't tend to use these types of words on this podcast, but I always think of the eschatological reality.

Do the stories we tell about ourselves have the power to change us? Our guest today says they can.

To wrap up our season on meaning and purpose, we talk with author Daniel Nayeri. In his award-winning young adult novel, Everything Sad is Untrue, Daniel writes from the perspective of his twelve-year-old self, sharing the story of how he, his sister, and his mother immigrated from Iran to Edmond, Oklahoma, after his mother’s conversion from Islam to Christianity. Although this immigration kept his family out of prison (or worse), life in the U.S. came at a cost, too. Through his storytelling, Daniel also processes what he left behind: his beloved stuffed animal ("Mr. Sheep Sheep"), a life of comfort in Iran, and his larger-than-life father.

In this episode, we explore finding meaning through storytelling, the impact of an active imagination, and how the sustaining hope of the Christian story makes even a refugee camp in the Italian countryside a place of opportunity and joy.