Dean Winnie Varghese discusses practical spirituality, compassion, and the ripple effects of hope-filled action.
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What difference can one person make? On this episode of Compass: Finding Spirituality in the Everyday, we welcome the Very Reverend Winnie Varghese, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Together with host Ryan Dunn, Winnie explores the surprising power of a single act of kindness—how even the smallest gestures ripple outward to change lives, communities, and maybe even the world.
Winnie shares insights from her upcoming book, "One Single Act: Gestures of Kindness, Compassion, and Courage That Change Us and the World." We uncover the transformative impact of everyday goodness, discuss the power of storytelling in shaping our moral imagination, and dive into spiritual practices that foster hope, mindfulness, and compassion amid today’s overwhelming challenges.
Episode Notes:
Some United Methodist-related resources on kindness and social change:
- Devotional: Get them talking about kindness
- Article: How to keep hope alive
In this episode:
00:00 Stories of kindness with Winnie Varghese
05:42 Family story about church help
07:53 Giving back during difficult times
10:02 Starting a Social Media Kindness Challenge
15:29 Contrasting protest strategies
17:02 Discussing social contracts and power
23:02 Feeling the Power of Faith
25:47 On storytelling without rigid interpretation
27:42 Launching the gift certificate program
30:33 Distractions from faith and community
34:32 Power of storytelling and language
37:32 Podcast outro and subscription reminder
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This episode posted on October 28, 2026
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn [00:00:00]:
What difference can one person make? Kindness is a difference maker, and we're exploring some stories to prove it with Reverend Winnie Varghese on this episode of Compass. This is Compass, finding spirituality in the everyday. My name is Ryan Dunn, and in this episode, I'm joined by the Very Reverend Winnie Varghese, who is Dean of Cathedral of St. John the Divine an Episcopal worship center in New York City. Winnie is a national leader in the Episcopal Church, known for her inspired writing, teaching, and preaching. In November of 2026, her newest book, One Single Act: Gestures of Kindness, Compassion, and Courage That Change Us and the World, will be released. It is a collection of stories that reveal how we can maintain hope and agency when the world's problems feel overwhelming. One Single Act shows us that whether religious or not, Absolutely.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:01]:
Performing these small acts of kindness causes a ripple effect, making waves that positively impact ourselves and the communities we love. If episodes like this are valuable to you, please hit that subscribe button on your podcast listening platform. If you've already done that, then please take the next step and rate and review the Compass Podcast. That really helps other people know what kind of conversations we have and how this podcast helps connect our lives to the spiritual. So thanks much for that. There are a bunch of cool ideas and inspirations in this conversation, including the role of storytelling in moral and social change, the spiritual practices that foster compassion and mindfulness. And of course, like the big kicker, the impact of individual acts of kindness. So let's dive into it.
Ryan Dunn [00:01:56]:
A conversation with Reverend Winnie Varghese on Compass. Reverend Winnie Varghese, thank you so much for joining us on the Compass podcast. It sounds like you're having a good day, but I'd love to know as we start off our conversation today, how goes it with your soul?
Winnie Varghese [00:02:13]:
I am feeling so nourished and taken care of. I just came from a 4-day preaching conference in Minneapolis called Preach, and it was stunning. I don't know what else to say. And then, and we had an outing where we went to the sites of recent deaths in Minneapolis that just rooted us in the moment that we live in, and just beautiful preaching and workshops and community. So I'm feeling very, very fortunate right now.
Ryan Dunn [00:02:43]:
Outstanding. And I introduced you, but we have another guest that's joining us on screen a little bit. Who's in your lap there?
Winnie Varghese [00:02:52]:
Yeah, Cash the dog, he's Cash Is Clay because he was a champion, is a toy poodle. He's 3, and he has decided, because I've been away for a couple of days, that he's sticking close to me today.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:02]:
Oh, wonderful. All right.
Winnie Varghese [00:03:03]:
At least for me.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:04]:
We're honored to have him.
Winnie Varghese [00:03:06]:
Awesome. Yeah. Thank you.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:07]:
Well, the book that you have coming out is One Single Act. That's the title. And it's kind of this tome of positive stories of impact and change, all from kind of singular individualistic acts. A lot of the work that I do outside of this podcast is in the social media area. And I've become aware in that work that so many of the stories that capture our attention today are based in fear or division. They kind of stoke outrage. And so it's such a refreshment for me to read a book like One Single Act that pulls out the goodness of what people are doing. And one thing that was impressed upon me was your ability to remember all these stories.
Ryan Dunn [00:03:59]:
I'd love to know, do you have a practice for noting these things down? How did— how do you keep all these things in mind?
Winnie Varghese [00:04:06]:
That's such a great question. I think like many preachers, right, you kind of, you don't mean to, but you're kind of scanning the environment for illustrations all the time. You're kind of scanning your life for that. And I don't, again, I don't mean to, but I find myself doing it. And so some of these, like thinking about stories that illustrate a complex point, right? Art is just kind of part of what I do. So no, I'm not great at this kind of thing. It took me a while, frankly, to come up with a list of 40. Yeah.
Winnie Varghese [00:04:44]:
It took me a long time. And then also the diocese, this campaign that the diocese did that this book is based on, to try to get everybody for 100 days in our communities to do something or notice something that one person did that kind of, you know, that was a help, you know, was kind in the world around them and to share it. So I don't know how well we did in getting people to share the stories. Yeah. But it was this wonderful reminder to keep looking and keep acting. And so that also got me, like, one, we've got a number of those stories, but it got me thinking about how many moments like that exist in my life, either kind of for me or my family or people I care about. And also, when I might've had it together to be kind as well.
Ryan Dunn [00:05:31]:
In being forced to kind of commit this number of stories out there, were there some that you hadn't really thought about in years and just kind of reoccurred to you?
Winnie Varghese [00:05:42]:
For sure. There's one story that's kind of told in my family, and I say this in the book, that is told differently as the people that are in the story get older, which is another great thing about like, so I don't know what's true anymore completely. The people are just getting, you know, and they're much older now. But it's about this quirky story of help in our family that I had, I think about every once in a while, but I think it just isn't something that stays with me all the time. And so I went back to talk to people to try to get the story again. And that's when I realized it kept moving. Like the story kept shifting, but this fundamental of church help. which is a big deal for— I work in church and we do direct service, and I'm a little bit more of an advocacy person than a help person.
Winnie Varghese [00:06:25]:
Like, how do we at scale do the work?
Ryan Dunn [00:06:27]:
Yeah, right, right.
Winnie Varghese [00:06:28]:
Think about systems.
Ryan Dunn [00:06:29]:
Mass change, yeah.
Winnie Varghese [00:06:30]:
For sure is where I come from, right? That is my heart. But this story, it occurred to me in writing this, in this book, it had not occurred to me in this way before, changed the trajectory of my family. Like one person's church charity impacted the trajectory of my family. And if they had not done that, what would've happened?
Ryan Dunn [00:06:53]:
Hmm.
Winnie Varghese [00:06:53]:
My grandparents and my parents' generation in that side of my family. Um, and that it was very convicting is a word I've been carrying from this preaching conference, convicting to me of why am I so hesitant about direct charity. Everywhere I've ever served has done it. And on both sides of my family, we have received it. So the book put that, made that very clear for me in a way that the process of putting this together, I had not made the connection.
Ryan Dunn [00:07:30]:
In ministry work, they often talk about being seed planters, and often we don't get to see the fruits of the seeds that we plant, right? And sometimes that feels, it's repeated ad nauseam, and it just feels kind of empty, but this is such a good reinforcement of the fact that, you know, you sow goodness into the world and it does bear fruit, even as you may not have noticed.
Winnie Varghese [00:07:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, one of the reasons I agreed to do it, because I, again, like, I, you know, it feels small, like kindness feels small, right? But our lives are kind of made of moments like that, you know? And then we had one of our what project we did when SNAP was ending for that little period last year where there was these long lines, they're just heartbreaking. And we're just giving people, you know, $100, like a little bit of money to get through this week while we try to figure out what's coming up next week. And there's this little girl, little, like 6, you know, 5, standing with her mother and grandmother. And they had all come so they could all get one, like to prove that they existed basically, like to prove their hunger, right? And they had been in line for hours. It was November, end of October, early November. It's cold.
Winnie Varghese [00:08:42]:
They came super early so that they, we, we, we wouldn't run out. Then I, you know, I was talking to them and then I just, I realized this child is cold and her hands were bare. So I was just rubbing her hands, like showing her how, you know, when I was a kid, how I used to warm my hands up. You're talking. It's like, oh, right. Like, that's my humanity, not hers. Yeah. You know, like mine, that I'm, that I see a child who is hungry, that I'm, I'm going to do something about it because I can, I, you know, and That, like, so much of what these little things are is our own restoring ourselves and our own humanity, right?
Ryan Dunn [00:09:15]:
Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the campaign that your diocese is doing. You mentioned that that was kind of the inspiration for writing this book.
Winnie Varghese [00:09:24]:
Yeah, I think where they got this idea was, you know, the first 100 days of a presidency, you know, this, like, the media watched that really carefully. And so there's a new president, there's inauguration. So it was a way, I think, for the— originally it was the diocese saying, hey, let's do 100 days. Let's notice 100 days of us and our power, you know, and our power to do good in the world. And then for some reason it just didn't launch at that time. And then I was coming July 1st of that year to the cathedral and they're like, well, there's another marker. Why don't we do this when the dean comes? And I literally said, my first thought was, that's just not really what I do. Like, you know, direct service happens around me everywhere I am, but that's not really my lane.
Winnie Varghese [00:10:02]:
Like, I'm more a— Like, how do we think about what's going on in the world and the powers and principalities? You know, like that, I'm kind of in that lane. And, you know, and who's good, like what's wrong with doing good, right? So I tentatively on my first day of work here at the cathedral show up and say one single act, you know, like for the next 100 days, let's all try to do a thing and put it on social. The algorithm doesn't really support this, but the reason we do it is all of these great people in our past And in our own lives, this has made sense. So I say it, I don't not believe it, but I definitely think, eh, is this my lane or not, right? Can I really do this? And then, I think we did the best we could and it was very moving. Like, just 'cause we had said it, I couldn't help but walk around the streets of Newark noticing potential for just humanity and kindness. Like, it impacted me immediately, right? Mm-hmm. Like, why am I rushing past that person? Where am I in a hurry to go? Like, what am I doing, right? So it has profoundly impacted my return to this city and this neighborhood. that I'd lived most of my life in.
Winnie Varghese [00:11:05]:
And then when Church Publishing asked me to think about putting it together in a book, I had the same thought of like, I'm not the one. Someone else who really just gets this theology better should do this. I'm not the queen of direct service. But then SNAP happens and we reacted and Gaza happens and we reacted in this kind of all of us give up a meal, like all of us, you know, get it. I'm like, oh, that actually is how we build our sense of, and I use the word power a lot, strength is another way to say it, but our own capacity to make a difference in the world we live in.
Ryan Dunn [00:11:33]:
Mm-hmm.
Winnie Varghese [00:11:34]:
even while we look at these large overarching trends and things to impact. So, I mean, I just feel very grateful for a reminder that it matters what I do.
Ryan Dunn [00:11:44]:
Yeah. Yeah. And that is a powerful reminder for this age in which so many of the issues that we face, or at least that we read about or garner so much of our attention, are systemic. We feel defeated in the face of that. Like, oh, I'm one person.
Winnie Varghese [00:12:00]:
Well,
Ryan Dunn [00:12:01]:
the middle of North Carolina, what can I do in that?
Winnie Varghese [00:12:04]:
Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:12:05]:
You did mention the Jesuits in your book, and part of the, I guess, the Jesuit rule of life is practices of contemplation and awareness that comes through that. I'm wondering, are there practices that you employed that helped you Uh, through this process or even within your own spiritual journey that, that you utilize to kind of help open up your mindfulness to the ways that the divine is working in our everyday?
Winnie Varghese [00:12:39]:
Yeah. You know, Ignatian spirituality, I mean, it's much more complex than this, but really fundamentally, and I think a lot of us in the pandemic, I've heard from a lot of colleagues, we all did the same thing, kind of picked up Ignatius, the Ignatian Rule, because here we are at home. Right. And, and then the irony of it is you're, You're kind of, it's raising your, or the idea is to kind of raise your awareness to where God is in the world. You know, um, and I think we, like someone like me instantly like operationalizes that to what does God want of me? What does God call me to?
Ryan Dunn [00:13:10]:
Right.
Winnie Varghese [00:13:11]:
Question is actually where's God in the world? Right. And the tools towards like, where do you see God in the world? Um, and yeah, that, You know, there's definitely like the very Protestant notion in my mind of like, so what am I doing to help? Like, how am I extending some help? But also just this beautiful way to think about walking around, you know, in our messy cities and suburbs and lawns and, you know, whatever. It's like, where is God in the world? And what, where do I cast my eyes? Hmm. Which also in trying to think of stories to tell was the kind of meditation I was using. And I, you know, quieting the mind is the prayer practice towards, for me, like opening myself to what is true. And the, like the prayer book does that for me. Like morning prayer is kind of our ritual. It's pretty straightforward.
Winnie Varghese [00:14:02]:
You know, there are the words or there's some words somewhere in the communion. But the experience I have is of just feeling very grounded in what actually matters in a world where my phone wakes me up. and has really bad news every morning, right? Or has some really like, um, aggravating news or like energizing news because the algorithm likes the negative, right? Mm-hmm. And if I want to be true, like if I wanna try to be faithful in the day, if I, if I go with that, you know, you kind of, you go out hot, like you go out critical. Um, and you know, and if you, if you can listen for where God is in the world, if you invite it. It's just a different— the other part I'll say is when I, if I'm going to go out with what's in the top of the New York Times on my app, I'm scared of the world personally.
Ryan Dunn [00:14:51]:
Yeah.
Winnie Varghese [00:14:51]:
A little angry and frightened. I also will wonder like, do you agree with me or not? Are you going to arrest me or not? Are you ICE? Like what, you hate me because of the way you— I don't know. Like I can get very caught up in defensiveness. Yeah. You know, kind of where is God in this exquisite world? I remember that, like, I just feel instantly called to, oh, look, those are children. I should be friendly. I should be warm. Oh, look, that person is suffering.
Winnie Varghese [00:15:17]:
Oh, look, there's a line, you know? But I'm aware of my own power to impact the world, to influence the world, to absorb it, to welcome. And for me, at least, I need to remind myself of that.
Ryan Dunn [00:15:29]:
Hmm. In talking about the points of impact and the negativity that we're so accustomed to seeing, sometimes even within the world of working for the positive, we can kind of turn on ourselves in looking for the critical as well. For an example, I was just reading an op-ed that popped to the top of my feed in my morning kind of scroll through contrasting the No Kings rallies with what's happening over in France at this current moment of October of 2026. And the author of this op-ed was saying, well, real change doesn't come when we ask for permission in the ways that the No Kings rallies do, where they file for their permits to meet and that kind of thing. And instead was was saying, well, you know, we have to be confrontational in the way that they are in France. That unsettled me a bit, and I was wrestling with that, and then turned to your book a little bit later on in the day and read about your experience in the witness for Amadou Diallo.
Winnie Varghese [00:16:46]:
Mm-hmm.
Ryan Dunn [00:16:48]:
And would you mind sharing that experience a little bit? Because I feel like it points to a third way in which we maybe look to address systemic change through personal actions that is neither here nor there.
Winnie Varghese [00:17:02]:
Yeah. I mean, to the point about your article, there's an interesting question out there in the world for us to think about, about what the social contract is. And it's different in France and in India and in the UK and in the US and in Canada. It's different, right? And how power is recognized by the powerful, different in different administrations, it's different. So that's, I mean, that's a really complex I think that we should think, we absolutely should think about. And I was in Minneapolis, there's this community-created graveyard, like these white gravestones made of kind of yard sign material with the names of people that have died at the hands of our police or the state or the government, you know, taxpayer-funded in some way. Yeah. And Amadou Diallo's name was on one and oh, like I hadn't, Yeah.
Winnie Varghese [00:17:49]:
Emmett Till was on one. And then of course, these shocking number of deaths in Minneapolis. So anyway, so all that's up. So I just saw the, yeah. So when I was in seminary, I think it was my last year, was the year that Amadou Diallo was shot by the NYPD, by the New York police. 41 shots, I think, went through his body, 41 or 47, crazy number. Yeah. Like this skinny, young African immigrant reaching for his wallet because they are all shouting at him and they shoot.
Winnie Varghese [00:18:22]:
And of course they're never guilty of anything, right? Qualified immunity, I think, is what says that basically if the police have any reason to believe they're supposed to do what they did, that's okay. That's how that works in our country, which is a whole other sermon I can give on qualified immunity. Mm-hmm. Because that comes from Episcopalians during the the, uh, Freedom Rides in, in, in response to a suit filed by Episcopalians who had participated, white and Black men, priests. Um, qualified immunity comes up that if the police think they're doing the right thing, that's all that has to be true. Anyway, fun story to me. Um, but Amadou Diallo is, uh, so he died, he's murdered. The city is up in arms, which is fantastic, frankly.
Winnie Varghese [00:19:04]:
Um, religious community. This is before the internet in the way that we currently have it. This is like '98 and '99, I believe, or '99. Um, So I don't know how I found out, probably through some listserv, that people are going to protest down at One Police Plaza. When back in the day, you could go to the front doors of One Police Plaza. You can't anymore. There's all this security around the police now. And what I saw was that, so Union hadn't, we hadn't organized at Union to go yet.
Winnie Varghese [00:19:29]:
There were signs at Union. There's a lot of activism happening at Union, which was very, it was complicated. And, but I saw a notice that the Episcopal Diocese of New York had a time that they were going. And whatever the communication was said that all these different religious groups had signed up for different times on the half hour or so, so that just around the clock there were religious communities that were there. You could do whatever you wanted. And then some people would sit in front of the— so you could pray or sing, and then you'd sit down in front of the doors and they would arrest everyone that sat in front of the doors. People that didn't want to be arrested should stay away from the doors. And that we're meeting at Trinity Church at this time.
Winnie Varghese [00:20:06]:
So I went, I was a student, so I didn't have a collar on. I remember going, I'd never been to Trinity Church. I'm sure I had never been that far downtown. Like I'd been across to Brooklyn, but I'd never gone that far downtown. And I remember it felt like a cave. Like it was really dark in there. It was really bright outside. I sat in the back, didn't think I'd know anybody.
Winnie Varghese [00:20:25]:
Eventually I see the choir director from our church in Harlem, and I saw a priest that I had seen around town a little bit. But I sit in the back and listen and Person I met later, 'cause I worked at Trinity, Jamie Calloway's up front telling us what to do, giving us direction. We sing a song or something, we stand up and we go out and I'm waiting for people I know and I'm watching all these people walk out. There's a lot of people in the room, which I could not tell from where I was sitting. And I finally, you know, see our choir director, see some people I know. I get in with them and we start to walk and I walk, you know, walk out the stairs onto Broadway, which is where Trinity is. We turn left is my memory. Mm-hmm.
Winnie Varghese [00:21:00]:
And when turning left, I look and it's like literally as far as I could see. And I can't remember, I think we were on the sidewalk. I don't think we blocked the traffic, just black suits, you know, and, you know, Episcopal clergy kind of know black suit, black suit, white collar, right? Black. Mm-hmm. Um, and we walked for a while. I just think I was, I didn't have any idea that there are that many people. So we walk and walk and walk. And then when I turned, I turned at some point and black suits and white collars, and they're still kind of pouring out of the doors of Trinity as I remember it, just far, as far ahead as I could see, as far back as I could see.
Winnie Varghese [00:21:32]:
walking for this man who is, you know, and his family. And I don't know what I thought, there'd be 3 of us. I don't know what I thought would actually be there. It's still like, it's very moving. I remember thinking, oh, this, like, this is what the church is. This is the church I'm proud to be a part of, that I want to be a part of. And I remember we turned the corner and New York is a very establishment, Episcopal Church is kind of part of the establishment historically. This was an Anglican world, you know? Columbia's Anglican, our cathedral is massive, like it's very establishment feeling, especially for me in '99.
Winnie Varghese [00:22:06]:
I'm from Texas and California, like we don't have big stone buildings like this, you know? And we turn this corner and go up, we're walking up onto One Police Plaza and there are the bishops of the Diocese of New York, all 3 of them in purple cassocks, just clapping their hands for their people. as they walk by. So moving, like to put the heft and the dignity of the church behind this family, this man who had lost his life and behind this movement. Just stunning.
Ryan Dunn [00:22:41]:
Yeah. And in that moment, it creates a witness that I think bears change in a way that is more profound than, I don't know, maybe this is getting a little too judgmental, but is more profound in sort of the confrontation or even the destructive.
Winnie Varghese [00:23:02]:
Well, you know what's interesting is that that day, and I don't know what would happen now, I don't know, but I think what stayed with me is the moral power of people of faith. I was not an ordained person. I was in my mid-20s. But the volume of us, and before us were rabbis, and they literally, it was so great while we were waiting for our turn, they stood in a circle and they had this beautiful kippah on and they started to sing really joyously. And then they danced in a circle and then they spread out and sat down and you could feel the moral power of what they had just done as they were being walked away. And so I think for many, claiming our moral power, whether we're religious or not, of a better way, of believing in a better way. There is something in that confrontation. There was a confrontation.
Winnie Varghese [00:23:50]:
I don't know that it would've made the news if it wasn't around the clock for so many days, people being arrested, clogging up the system. That's why it made the news.
Ryan Dunn [00:23:58]:
Mm-hmm.
Winnie Varghese [00:23:58]:
It couldn't be isolated, but it made the news in this really theatrical public way, different than— I mean, the side effect of that violence in France is shopkeepers have lost everything.
Ryan Dunn [00:24:11]:
Right.
Winnie Varghese [00:24:11]:
You know, like small business. So, you know, there's a lot of, you know.
Ryan Dunn [00:24:17]:
Yeah. Well, and that's what I hope to hear is that there is a way to confront and we can confront the systems and yet still be reflective of, well, what we're challenged to be through the Beatitudes, you know, people of peace. And yeah.
Winnie Varghese [00:24:34]:
Yeah. And I'm no great, like, you know, strategist for movements. And I will say, I think from the faith community, one of the reasons, the logic of this book is we are charged to be ourselves all the time. There's not some time where a little bit of violence is the way, if we're not following our crucified and resurrected Savior all the time in our world, we've got it wrong. We don't get to put it down for a while and do something that to ask for forgiveness later. That's not our world. Like, that might be somebody's world, but in our world, we're supposed to live this truth of what we know all the time. And we, I do believe, like, we believe that changes the world.
Ryan Dunn [00:25:17]:
Yeah. In just sharing the stories, there's something powerful that in just letting the story speak for itself. And I did notice it in your writing, like, you did not put the lens of interpretation on for the reader all that often. That it's just kind of like, here's the experience, here's a witness to the fruit, but none of the conclusions are made there. Is that something that was challenging for you along the way, not to kind of interject yourself in there?
Winnie Varghese [00:25:47]:
No, and I definitely, you know, there was definitely some feedback from, you know, our editors, others that like help people with some direction. So some of them have some of that. I'm not a big believer in that. I actually, in my preaching as well, I think Like, I'd say the thing that happened. Um, I think there's a lot more potential in where somebody might connect than if I limit it to, and now, you know, be nice to your dog or whatever. And I think there's a lot, you see it in the Bible too, right? Where like when there's interpretation, it almost always makes the story smaller than it could have been. And so I'm a little inclined to say, I don't know how the Spirit moves, but I feel compelled to tell this story and let that become what it becomes. Yeah.
Ryan Dunn [00:26:24]:
Yeah, all right. Well, I'd love to talk a little bit about the church universal and how you do see, I guess, the church upsetting the systems of separation and disconnect to a degree. Like, how do you witness the church itself, the institution, being a participant in acts of kindness and compassion?
Winnie Varghese [00:26:51]:
The church itself. Yeah. I think it's a challenge for us, right? Because I was at this conference I just came from, someone was talking about how difficult the people in the community they serve find it to hear about. So many of their people experience the church as a harmful place or a distancing place or an alienating place, which isn't my experience, but I respect it. I respect that's true. It makes a lot of sense. It's literally what the polls show us. And so, I guess the SNAP, our SNAP experience might be the one that was the most concrete.
Winnie Varghese [00:27:22]:
And it was surprising to me that as soon as we said, as soon as we heard that food assistance was ending, 1 in 4 New Yorkers receive food assistance. That's a crazy number. That means 1 in 4 families around us don't know how they're going to buy food the next day. Because if you think about how little that assistance is, they would've spent it all in advance of the last day. Like, they would've spent it.
Ryan Dunn [00:27:42]:
Hmm.
Winnie Varghese [00:27:42]:
Assuming new money comes on. this day, right? And so, we start this little program and we just put out a little message saying, hey, if you send us any money, we will turn it around immediately into $100 gift certificates that grocery store that we just give to everybody that comes, right? And if you're willing to stand in line for a $100 grocery store certificate, I'm just going to believe you need it. That's what we're going to do. But we did, you know, if you did have proof that you received SNAP or Medicaid, I think it was even better, easier for us. Um, but what's interesting is, considering how people talk about the church, you would think nobody would get in that. It'd be hard to find people.
Ryan Dunn [00:28:20]:
Yeah.
Winnie Varghese [00:28:21]:
Or do you know this crazy cathedral, like this massive building of stone? Like, would you even come in, like into this alienating space, right? In this religious space for sure, this Christian space. And immediately with no advertising on our part, because we knew there wasn't enough for the whole need of the city, line after line, like the line was long every day and longer and longer. And Money kept coming, interestingly, and not from Christians necessarily. Like, significant amounts of money came. People trusted us with their money to do what we said we were going to do. And we did. We turned it around right away. Almost no overhead because we're already here doing stuff, like a little bit, but not much.
Winnie Varghese [00:28:57]:
So what it showed me is, oh, we still have a lot of trust in the neighborhood, in the communities. We would be wrong. I guess this is a theme in our conversation, to believe the media too much.
Ryan Dunn [00:29:09]:
Hmm.
Winnie Varghese [00:29:10]:
The media, by definition, we pay attention to negative. We struggle with positive. It can almost feel showy or problematic. But if we pay attention to the media, we're irrelevant. We're dying. Nobody trusts us. We've got to be less us to impact anything, right? We got to rent out our— I mean, no one's coming. But my experience was, I said, hey, there's this need so far beyond us.
Winnie Varghese [00:29:33]:
You've never seen me before. I'm new. But if you send us money, we'll get it out the door. And if you come here, we'll get you what you need. And it started to happen the next day, the next day. And it went on until they announced that SNAP was back and the money was coming every day. So that, like, I think we lose the— we, in the same way that we have this moral power in us that we enact when we are generous and kind or notice it, right? Like that we're building something in the world around us and we have it. I think the institutions do too.
Winnie Varghese [00:30:03]:
We still, we have this thing if we would use it. And if I was going to be super Christian, like maybe there's even another agenda out there in causing us to not believe in ourselves.
Ryan Dunn [00:30:12]:
Hmm. Tell me a little bit about that.
Winnie Varghese [00:30:15]:
Well, you know, I have a friend who just wrote a book on the devil, and which is, you know, from the side of the church I come from, we don't spend a lot of time on that, frankly. Um, but they're an early church person. So they work on like historical theology and there's a lot of writing. in historical theology about the devil, about just evil and sin.
Ryan Dunn [00:30:32]:
Yeah.
Winnie Varghese [00:30:33]:
And that there's this embodiment of things that distract us from the good and from God and from our sense of ourselves and our dignity and wholeness in our community. And so in writing about that, it kind of gives us access to, wait, that still happens, doesn't it? And the easy one is that I think everyone in the church knows is that money is a great distraction. Like the pursuit of money and stability and safety can distract us And what might cause us to do things that we don't think are ethically right, or to participate in things that we don't think are ethically right, because how else are we going to survive? That things can distract us from the love of God and from the abundance of the world and our chosenness collectively. And so believing that the church must decline, that we're irrelevant, I mean, one could argue that that sounds a lot like what we've been told historically is not the good news.
Ryan Dunn [00:31:24]:
I think one of the things that can distract us is, in our current context, is political affiliation and the need that we have to sort of, I guess, justify wherever we stand on political issues. And you mentioned in your writings that you've been in ministry with people who would identify as conservative and those who would identify as more progressive. Do the stories that you share some way help to build a bridge between conservative and progressive?
Winnie Varghese [00:31:58]:
Yeah, at one church I served, we had a really active libertarian member. So really, really active, like was there every day. And so, you know, I think the mainline is more liberal than maybe evangelicals, but we're not liberal. I mean, our traditions are not liberal, frankly. That's just the truth of who we are. So I think Frankly, the gospel and connecting to stories of mercy is greater than our partisan politics. It's greater. The demand of the gospel is greater than anything our politics asks of us.
Winnie Varghese [00:32:34]:
And I think the moral foundations of our society need to come from people thinking of things much greater than our partisan politics. Now, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be reflected. You should have candidates that that you believe support your values, and you should vote for them. Democracy requires that. But to be solely defined by what our democracy can bear and what our corporations will pay for, and a 2 or 4-year cycle, we're called to much greater work than that. And so my experience is in churches I've been in that do a lot of direct service, that is not that liberals or conservatives do more of that. Everybody's doing that together. And that tells a different story than our politics tell of us.
Winnie Varghese [00:33:19]:
And I think it's really important to tell that story. So it's not just our position on certain things, but when we go in to help, my experience is that's always a really mixed bag of people. Again, it doesn't mean we don't talk about our politics. And race is a huge factor in our politics that impact our politics and how we think about gender and these really fundamentals of humanity. impact our partisan politics. And we should talk about that. I think foundationally we should talk about that, what the common good is. We should talk about that.
Winnie Varghese [00:33:45]:
And that will often, absolutely often mean that points to a party or a candidate. But I'm going to say that's not my fault. Like, I'm talking about the gospel. And if those gospel values align here or here, like, that's your work to do. That's not mine.
Ryan Dunn [00:34:00]:
Yeah. I think it's tremendously powerful that you're able to base that in story. I had been told on my journey into ministry that as you go through the interview process and they're trying to weigh out your theology and all that, that to always start with story. And I believe that that's what you've done here because people can argue your theology, people can argue your politics, but it's really hard to argue with the experience of a story.
Winnie Varghese [00:34:32]:
What's great, I've never heard that before. That's a great, I mean, that's really good advice. Is it? And I would agree with it, right? A story is, when it's done well, I don't know that AI does this very well. Like when a person, like I think the reason storytelling is so popular, right, is we know how to gather around a fire and hear a story and sing a song. Those are like primal human things. I was just reading about the development of Indian languages and how often it comes back to how we tell a collective story and how that language forms generationally as people with different languages come together and try to tell stories together and how that creates us. Is to tell a story is emotionally connected. You're expressing your capacity to be, frankly, an integrated person.
Winnie Varghese [00:35:18]:
Whereas like me giving you a list of my theological beliefs, I mean, literally AI can do that. I can tell you what is, you know, I can give you a list of something that's very rational. But I think what people are often asking is, what does it mean? That's what they're asking the church. What does it mean? What does it have to do with me? And a story is much more, stories have something to do with all of us, right?
Ryan Dunn [00:35:39]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's what I appreciate so much about what you've offered us is that it is a tremendously theological work. And yet you don't really find yourself having a an argument with it because the, the stories are there and it's just a great way to kind of capture an inspiration for imagination for what could be. Oh,
Winnie Varghese [00:36:02]:
thank you.
Ryan Dunn [00:36:02]:
For folks who are more interested in what you've written, is there a place where people might be able to, to follow along with Reverend Winnie online?
Winnie Varghese [00:36:13]:
Yeah, I have a very not active Substack, which is just my name, Winnie Varghese. I'm working on it. Um, and I'm going to start to share more from, I was waiting for the book to come out. Sure. And then I'm at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. So we have a YouTube and a website, and I'm there almost every Sunday. And we have a fantastic community that we'd love for you to please, you know, take on as you find interesting.
Ryan Dunn [00:36:38]:
Great. Well, thanks again for taking the time for us and for sharing so much of your experience with us.
Winnie Varghese [00:36:43]:
Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Ryan Dunn [00:36:46]:
Thanks for joining us for this rich Thank you so much for joining us for this rich and inspiring conversation on Compass: Finding Spirituality in the Everyday. If you'd like to dig deeper, head over to our website. It's umc.org/compass. And there you're going to find episode notes and more episodes to explore. We've got some episodes on participating in social activism, in spiritual practices, And inspiring stories of change. A big thank you to the team at United Methodist Communications who make this podcast possible. They, of course, produce Compass, which is a biweekly production. I'll be back with you again in 2 weeks' time.
Ryan Dunn [00:37:32]:
Of course, if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to Compass on your favorite podcast listening platform. a big help. We'll talk to you again in 2 weeks. In the meantime, peace.
