Is a Loving God in the Brokenness and Darkness? – Will Berry

Episode 81. 
When you are swamped by tragedy and darkness, when all you are seeing is broken and the worst that society has to offer, what does your faith offer you? For Will Berry, a paramedic for 14 years, his Christian faith provides a loving God, and the presence of light in the situation, perhaps his own God-given skills and ability are the light in the darkness.

This is the first half of my conversation with Will. The second half will be released in two weeks. 

Highlights:
·       Will Berry's religious background – core beliefs and changing denominations

·       The tension between the theoretical understanding of faith and real-world challenges.

·       God is all-powerful; faith bridges the mysterious gaps.

·       Being compassionate and attentive in emergencies. 

·       Handling chaotic situations involving crime, addiction, and mental health.

·       The role of faith in providing light in dark situations – being an instrument of light and hope

Bio:
Will Berry has been in EMS for 14 years.  He currently works as a flight paramedic in North Carolina, but has spent the majority of his career as a paramedic on an ambulance responding to 911 calls in a busy city. He has been a Christian since a young age and is heavily influenced by his faith and spiritual journey. He is married and is the father to two young girls. In addition to working in EMS he has been a whitewater rafting guide, ski patroller, and wilderness guide in the rocky mountains.

Social Media links for Will:
Instagram – @emscast
EMSCast podcast (co-hosted with Ross Orpet)


Social Media links for Méli:
Website – Talking with God Project
LinkedIn – Meli Solomon
Facebook – Meli Solomon


Transcript in Buzzsprout


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The Living Our Beliefs podcast offers a place to learn about other religions and faith practices. When you hear about how observant Christians, Jews and Muslims live their faith, new ideas and questions arise:  Is your way similar or different?  Is there an idea or practice that you want to explore?  Understanding how other people live opens your mind and heart to new people you meet. 

Comments?  Questions? Email  Méli at – info@talkingwithgodproject.org
 

The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org/

Transcript

Will Berry Part One transcript

Is a Loving God in the Brokenness and Darkness?

Meli  [00:00:05]:

Hello, and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Meli Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. To learn more, check out the link in the show notes. When you are swamped by tragedy and darkness, when all you are seeing is broken and the worst that society has to offer, how does your faith support you? For Will Berry, a paramedic for 14 years, his Christian faith provides a loving god and the presence of light in the situation. Perhaps his own God given skills and abilities are that light in the darkness.

Today's episode, number 81, is the first half of my conversation with Will. The second half will be released in 2 weeks. And now, let's begin. Hello, Will. Welcome to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I'm really pleased to have you on today.

Will Berry [00:01:20]:

Oh, thanks for having me.

Meli  [00:01:22]:

I just mentioned that you are a Christian. You are now an Anglican. Were you raised in that?

Will Berry [00:01:31]:

No. I was actually raised in the Episcopal church, which is a really close sibling or cousin to the Anglican church, but I would say the tradition I was raised in felt a little more structured or what some people call, like, high church. You can kinda picture the Catholic church, a lot of, like, vestments, then stained glass, and choir, and organ, and all that kind of stuff.

Meli  [00:01:57]:

So you as an adult made the shift from Episcopal to Anglican church?

Will Berry [00:02:04]:

Correct. Yes.

Meli  [00:02:05]:

And what was it about, the Anglican church that is more attractive or that works for you at this point?

Will Berry [00:02:13]:

Sure. Well, I think that journey kinda started for me in college. So in college, I started attending a Presbyterian church, and I think what drew me to that was just the atmosphere there and the teaching style of the priest or pastor was a little more informal and a little more conversational, which to me was kinda meeting me where I was at that point in my life, which was great. Later in life, just about 2 years ago, we my wife and I made a switch from a Presbyterian tradition to a Anglican tradition, and it's just been a great fit.

Meli  [00:02:49]:

You know, from a Jewish perspective, these 3 seem very, very close to each other, but I can appreciate that for you having been raised within the Christian church and actually engaging with these different churches, it does make a difference. But it sounds like that you and your wife now have found a home that's that's working for you.

Will Berry [00:03:12]:

Yes. Your perspective is I appreciate that. Like, from the outside, it's probably all just, like, very similar flavors of the same thing, which is ultimately true. We try to stay focused on, like, what are our core beliefs and, like, what kinda helps drive us to that? And let's not get lost in the weeds. I think some Christian traditions latch on to one issue or topic, and they really kinda pick that as their hill to die on, and that's kinda not been our approach.

Meli  [00:03:42]:

What would you say is your approach?

Will Berry [00:03:45]:

Honestly, first, where we find community and where we find strong relationship. And then also a close connection there is the core teaching and tenants of that tradition, and if we feel aligned with that. One of the things that we felt passionate about recently is the idea of women in roles of leadership. Some Christian traditions don't believe that women should be in roles of leadership, and that's just not where our personal beliefs align right now. And so we were looking for something that was open to that.

Meli  [00:04:22]:

It is, I know, a huge issue in a lot of the Christian churches, and it's an evolving thing. You know? Right. How how do we see these things? Yeah. We wanted to talk today about how all of this, really, the the core beliefs and your experience with the beliefs as a Christian show up at work. You are a paramedic?

Will Berry [00:04:47]:

Correct. Yes.

Meli  [00:04:48]:

I understand from our earlier conversation that you have shifted from ambulance to, I think, the word you used was flying. Correct.

Will Berry [00:04:58]:

Yes. Not not with a cape.

Meli  [00:05:00]:

Not with a cape. Oh, darn. So for the audience, what does that mean to be a flying paramedic?

Will Berry [00:05:08]:

Yeah. The first distinction I'll draw is the phrase EMT and paramedic get used interchangeably, and they're not. They're actually different levels of education. So I've been a paramedic, which is the higher of the 2, for 12 years. Most of that time is what you would picture, an ambulance in a city responding to people that call 911. In the past 2 ish years, I transitioned to a role that's a flight paramedic. So think about in some areas for their patients, they call a helicopter. They load the patient in the helicopter, and then the helicopter takes the patient to the hospital.

Will Berry [00:05:47]:

So I now staff a helicopter.

Meli  [00:05:50]:

Is that significantly different to be in a helicopter versus an ambulance?

Will Berry [00:05:56]:

The jobs are different. You're still ultimately taking care of patients, but I would say the helicopter role, you kinda take a deep dive into providing really advanced care for one patient. You have one patient in front of you. Sometimes they're very sick, and you have a lot of tools at your disposal to try to provide excellent care for them. When you're on the street as a paramedic on, like, an ambulance, you're getting called to all kinds of weird, odd situations. Sometimes exactly what you're thinking, you're, you know, doing CPR or providing medical care. Sometimes you're just wading into these incredibly complex social situations that you got called into because the public or whomever, they don't know who else to call. They call 911 because that's kinda, like, their last option.

Will Berry [00:06:48]:

And then here you are thrust into this situation, especially I was in a large city, so, like, huge homeless population, very diverse, lots of languages spoken. So you may be there for a pretty simple medical problem, but you're managing all these other really complex and dynamic things all at once. That happens to a degree on the helicopter, but it's just different.

Meli  [00:07:14]:

You're not in the middle of a car crash in in the helicopter. They've already dealt with that, and you are now doing what you can on the way to the hospital, which will provide further care.

Will Berry [00:07:25]:

In a nutshell, yes.

Meli  [00:07:27]:

That's quite a picture. And I I imagine that most of us who were not in the field have images from TV and movies going through our heads. Right? These dramatic scenes. Is that your life on the job?

Will Berry [00:07:43]:

No. Focusing mainly on the ambulance, the 911 ambulance side because that's where I've spent the majority of my career. I have a huge passion there. Most of what you do day in, day out is things that people would be incredibly surprised to learn that that's what paramedics do. So, for example, one story that comes to mind is a lady called because she couldn't get a refill on her blood pressure medicine. So, initially, we're like, this is silly. Why are we here? You know? And this in a busy city, these types of things happen all the time. So then talking to her and engaging with her, she was living in Texas, and her house burned down.

Will Berry [00:08:24]:

And she had nowhere to go, so she loaded up her 2 kids, and she moved to Denver where I was working as a paramedic. She was struggling as a single mom, homeless, no possessions. She was focusing heavily on getting her kids enrolled in school, and so she put her health on the back burner. And then she was waiting in line at a free clinic. But she couldn't get in line early enough because the line formed so early, and she had to get her kids on the bus to school. And so then she runs out of her medicine. Then she finally calls 9 one one, and she was really honest and said, I literally don't know where else to turn. And you're hearing this story, and you almost wanna cry with her.

Will Berry [00:09:08]:

And so it's like, I can take you to the emergency room. That's the best that I am able to do, but let me do that and advocate for you. And so you do that, and you make sure that the nursing staff at the hospital is, like, really attuned to everything you just learned about the patient.

Meli  [00:09:27]:

Wow. That's quite a story of someone being really at the end of their rope and in quite serious, dire even circumstance. But sounds like she was such a a caring mother and really putting her kids in 1st place in terms of her priorities.

Will Berry [00:09:46]:

She was, and I think that that was, you know, one of the things that just on a human level, you're driven to try to help. I kinda picked up a good story, but some of them, you're dealing with the worst people society has to offer, people that have committed crime, you know, up to people that have just murdered somebody, and you have to care for them too. And death and dying is something you see frequently and significant disease and addiction. You're dealing with a lot of people with significant addiction and mental health issues. You're really at the point of friction. Right? Some of these people are living on the street. The reason you're getting called is they're, like, disrupting the normal flow of society, and society is pushing back. Like, woah.

Will Berry [00:10:34]:

I don't I don't like that this person standing in the middle of the street screaming at cars, so I'm gonna call 911. And so you show up, and you're like, well, okay. Here we go. Let's we're gonna figure this out together.

Meli  [00:10:47]:

It sounds very intense, and, you know, I appreciate that not every minute is so intense. But what you just spoke of, Will, that you're facing the worst that society has to offer, I'd like to bring in the role of faith on the job for you. So you have these intense moments. You're thrust into sometimes or maybe many times a very complicated, messy situation. There's urgency. There's death, dying, and brokenness, and maybe some serious mental health breakdown going on, plus a physical medical question, and there you are. So where is your faith in all of this?

Will Berry [00:11:37]:

Certain things that you learn growing up in a faith tradition, they're kind of theoretical. You hear things like, oh, God will protect me or god will keep me safe. There's an element of that that is true that I do believe, but, also, you get in situations as a paramedic where someone's being physical with you. They're trying to harm you. They're trying to punch you. They're trying to get away from you. That's not safe. You can start to think, okay.

Will Berry [00:12:09]:

Well, what do I believe? I have to take a stand. Do I say, okay. God doesn't exist because these things are happening, and I was told that he would prevent these things, or both of these things are true. How do I then reconcile that? And I think that that's kind of the big tension and rub that a lot of people experience. I may make this sound like it's been an easy journey. It's not. But you lean on stories, like, for example, the Moses and Exodus story in the Bible where, like, yeah, God provided a way for them. He led them out of slavery, and they ended up in the promised land.

Will Berry [00:12:49]:

But I'm sure being in the desert for 40 years was not easy. And there were probably things about that that were incredibly hard. There is purpose. There is direction. There is a greater good at play, but that doesn't make some of the immediate points of friction go away. You're very quickly forced to decide, do I believe this or not?

Meli  [00:13:13]:

So option a is god doesn't exist. And I suppose, by extension, I'm just here as a human. I'm gonna have to deal with this mess.

Will Berry [00:13:23]:

Or perhaps he's not powerful because these things are happening.

Meli  [00:13:27]:

And the b option is you said both things are true, and you need to reconcile. And I just wanna clarify, when you say both things, what do you mean by that? What what are the 2 things you're trying to reconcile?

Will Berry [00:13:40]:

Yeah. Good question. I guess what I'm saying is, god is good. He is loving. He is safe, and he is powerful, and there are circumstances daily that are dark, terrible, dangerous. To really boil it down, honestly, like, death and darkness exist, and God and life exist. I felt like I was where those things were hitting each other all the time. And for, I think, a lot of people, they can fall back on these things they've heard their whole life.

Will Berry [00:14:18]:

Like, god is good. He conquered death. Jesus conquered death. He rose from the dead. These are things that are repeated a lot in the Christian tradition. And with without seeing some of that stuff regularly, sometimes I don't think you're forced to really wade into it. Some people are. I don't wanna say being a paramedic is the only way to to wrestle with that.

Meli  [00:14:40]:

Being a paramedic is the way, the truth, and the light?

Will Berry [00:14:45]:

No. It is not.

Meli  [00:14:49]:

Yeah. But this is such an interesting perspective, and I think you're right. I am not a paramedic. I don't work in, and I have never worked in a dangerous job. I've lived in some pretty dicey neighborhoods. When I think about those times, I was not yet following a religious tradition. So now you're causing me to reflect on, well, what was helping me to stay safe in a dicey situation? And, honestly, Will, I just fell back on myself. When I went to college, I moved from a very nice, safe neighborhood to quite a dangerous neighborhood.

Meli  [00:15:33]:

I remember one time I was walking to the subway station, and I was aware that there was some guy walking behind me closer than was comfortable.

Will Berry [00:15:43]:

Sure.

Meli  [00:15:44]:

And I remember going down into the subway station, walking along the platform, and just going out the other exit. Thankfully, he did not then continue following me. That was me falling back on the advice I'd been given from somebody who really knew how to stay safe and my own awareness. What's behind me? What are the sounds? What what's going on in the bigger situation? But what you're talking about, Will, of really having this belief in God and of a loving God that is maybe not all powerful, but quite powerful, and that will keep you safe at some level. It sounds like it does infiltrate your thoughts or maybe your emotions on a daily basis on the job and and maybe elsewhere. Is is that a reasonable statement?

Will Berry [00:16:46]:

Well, one distinction I would make from what you just said is I personally do believe God is all powerful. I think that the element of faith that comes in for me is there's some mystery there because things do happen that an all powerful God could stop, but yet they still happen. And so sometimes I feel like I get glimpses of why or how some of that happens, and sometimes I don't. And so I do fall back on an element of faith, I guess, of do I believe this? And I have to go back to multiple data points and say, like, yes. I do. There are all these other experiences in my life that drive me back to this belief that God is all powerful. I can very much relate to your story. I mean, I think those situations where we do rely on ourselves and our abilities to keep ourselves safe and be vigilant, that's very applicable.

Will Berry [00:17:46]:

And maybe one distinction I would draw is as a paramedic and probably and I would say any first responder, you're seeing it on the aggregate so much that it overwhelms that. You're going to multiple neighborhoods, multiple parts of the city, different socioeconomic classes, and you're seeing this brokenness happen in all of those places. You can have your mental furniture just perfectly arranged for you, but it just starts to break down over time.

Meli  [00:18:18]:

I love this image of mental furniture. I'm not quite sure I'm tracking you in terms of the breaking down, and then I wanna circle back to something else. But tell me more about this mental furniture and the role it's playing.

Will Berry [00:18:34]:

An isolated event is easy to chalk up to an isolated event. Your story of the man potentially following you in the subway, you had that one story, and, obviously, it had an impact on you, and it sticks out to you. But imagine then turning around and having that exact same sensation or experience again and then again. And 10 times in one day, you start to feel like there's a greater darkness or force at play.

Meli  [00:19:08]:

But the fire hose of the darkness, of the troubles and the chaos and the urgency, that's just baked into your job. Isn't it?

Will Berry [00:19:18]:

Yeah. I think it is.

Meli  [00:19:20]:

I feel like we need to make a distinction between you're in a job that has this fire hose of darkness and you call on your Christian faith and the tenets of that faith to keep you steady and moving forward and not falling apart versus now I'm not quite sure what I'm versus.

Will Berry [00:19:43]:

Maybe going with that light and dark analogy, so go with me on this. A lot of people, perhaps their world is predominantly light. They have some good circumstances, or they're able to recognize good circumstances around them. A negative thing or, like, a darkness or, like, something that feels heavy or dark happens as a data point or like a blip on the radar screen. And I think sometimes, in my experience doing this type of work, it feels flip flopped. It feels like all you're living in is the darkness all the time, and you're searching for, like, okay. Well, where where are the good things that are happening? Is society all bad? Is everyone's intention to be evil or negative or to do wrong by their neighbor?

Meli  [00:20:30]:

Right. And I think that this is true in any situation where you are really swamped. I think of war situations. Right? Jews often talk about where was God at Auschwitz. Right? You're in this situation. You really don't have any control aside from your perception and your response to the situation. Right? For some people, that has saved and does save their sanity. I guess this is part of the question is you're swamped by darkness and brokenness.

Meli  [00:21:05]:

You have this one sliver of control, which is your emotional response. In a way, the critical thing is if you're on a faith path, the traditions, the structure, the ritual, the tenets, the scripture, and the community, right, your engagement with the community, provide information and support so that you have light in the moments of darkness.

Will Berry [00:21:35]:

Yeah. And I think maybe one of the ways I've probably undersold it to you a little bit is it's really hard. It's just incredibly difficult. The tendency is to wanna make it sound like it's all figured out and it's all good. Like, yes, this job challenges you in your faith, and seeing these things challenges you in your walk, your journey, your spiritual walk, but it's a constant wrestle. It's a constant process that I still wrestle with all the time and try to figure out. One of the things I've had to tell myself frequently is, well, maybe in the midst of the darkest circumstance, when this circumstance feels like there is no god, whether it be, you know, witnessing death or some tragic thing, and you just think, this is so horrible. My mind always just comes back to this visual of darkness.

Will Berry [00:22:28]:

The one one of the things that I land on sometimes is maybe I am the light in there. Maybe through what I believe in my faith journey and how God has empowered me with skills and heart and ability, maybe I am his instrument of light in this situation. And so, again, going with this visual, if it's pitch black and you shine a flashlight well, if you are that flashlight, it still may feel really, really dark all around you. But you're the one providing the light and the hope. And I don't wanna make it sound like you are high and mighty and God incarnate, but I do believe that god can use anybody in any circumstance for good. You mentioned the attitude you choose and how you respond. Outside of religion, there are studies that have been done psychologically about one person's positive influence in a setting can turn it around, And I think there's something more to that. I think there's something deeply spiritual there.

Will Berry [00:23:35]:

Like, you've kind of invited good back in. You've invited God's presence back into a situation. You're shepherding it. You're the vehicle for it. By loving people and and trying to bring love to a broken situation, you've pushed back against whatever that awful thing is. And I think that that takes a toll. That's not easy. It can take a lot of you, and I think you just have to be really mindful of metering that and refilling your cup, so to speak.

Will Berry [00:24:07]:

There is truth there. I've heard well, this is maybe a trite example, but I've heard veterans talk about, you know, in the midst of a war zone, befriending, like, a dog. And just that dog loves them and doesn't care. It's happy to see you when you come back, and it will eat out of your hand, and and it provides some semblance of just something bright, something unconditionally loving in the midst of something terrible.

Meli  [00:24:35]:

Thanks for listening to the first half of my conversation with Will and to make sure to tune in to the second half in 2 weeks. In the meanwhile, you can check out his work. Links are in the show notes. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. If you'd like to learn more about that project, a link to the website is in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in. Till next time. Bye bye.