# Hope Podcast: Featuring Marty Matinage, MDiv Candidate March 03, 2025 In this episode of the Hope Podcast, first-year Marty Martinage explains how storytelling, representation, and even silly stickers can help guide us to hope. Harvard Divinity School ยท Hope Podcast: Featuring Marty Matinage, MDiv Candidate MICHAEL FUHRMAN: Welcome to the Hope Podcast, a podcast hosted by the Harvard Divinity School Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, where we talk to HDS students about their spiritual lives, what hope means to them, and how they work to cultivate it daily. My name is Michael Fuhrman, one of the chaplain interns at HDS this year. Today, I sat down with first year MDiv candidate, Marty Martinage. Well, Marty, thank you so much for joining me today in the studio. We are so happy to have you on the podcast. And usually, we just let you begin by introducing yourself to us and telling us a little bit about your spiritual autobiography. MARTY MARTINAGE: Yeah. I'm Marty Martinage. You can make your guesses about where that first name comes from. And I use they/them pronouns. I'm a first year MDiv. And I keep having conversations with people where I'm like, oh, the one big reason that I'm at Div school. And then every time I have that conversation, I give a different big reason. So I have a running list of 18 at this point. And I think a lot of them are kind of building up over time. One of the things I always bring up is this sleepaway camp that I grew up going to. It's a United Church of Christ associated camp up in Maine. And I was born and raised outside of DC, but my mom grew up going to this camp, and then she was a counselor when she was old enough. And my grandmother was a dean at the camp for a really long time. And there's this long-standing family history at this camp. And I showed a childhood interest in going to sleepaway camp. It was going to be pilgrim lodge. It was pilgrim lodge or nothing. And there was kind of a joke on staff-- I'm on the staff now-- that kids who had bad camper experiences make the best staffers. And I wouldn't say I had a bad camper experience, but I'm very aware that I was a weird kid and the second that popularity systems start hitting in middle school age was not the best time. But now, on the other side of it, I have found an immense sense of purpose in just existing the way I am in front of campers. I think-- I had this pastor growing up who I don't know what her identities were, but she had a short haircut and a butchy vibe. And I remember being, like, she's so cool. I want to be like her. And the summer before my senior year of undergrad, I just happened to be the staff member who was running worship for the campers a lot more frequently than I had in previous summers. And every once in a while, something would trickle back to me where it was like, hey, a kid in my cabin lit up when you said your pronouns, or a kid in my cabin has been talking about you. And I had a moment where I was like, oh my god, I'm the butch pastor for these little children. And I think I have always felt a lot of pressure about what are you going to do with your one wild and precious life? I'm like, I have to do as much good as I possibly can. And I was an English major and I loved writing my little papers about stories. And I think that there is a lot of divinity in storytelling. But I was, like, I'm not going to change the world to the extent I feel I need to by writing my little papers about Anna Karenina, which is fully just self-critique thing, I think, because there are people in my life, who I love, who are academics. Where I'm like, you are changing the world by writing your little papers about Anna Karenina. Just not me though. But with these campers, I was just existing in a Christian spiritual leadership role. Frankly looking the way I do and being the way I am, and just being a pretty openly and joyfully queer person in Christian spaces felt like, oh, I can have days where all I do is just exist joyfully around these children, and it does something to make the world suck a little bit less. So that experience was really formative for the sort of, oh, maybe ministry is where I'm trying to go. But in terms of my own spiritual development, I was explaining this to a friend the other day, I've been very consistent on being a fan of Jesus Christ. I have always felt very strongly that I was raised Christian by happenstance. My parents happened to be New Englanders from Christian, New Englander families. I've felt varying levels of attachment to the theological doctrines or whatever. Also, the UCC is very light on doctrines. So I was just church is a place that I go and people talk about stuff. There is no creed that I'm reciting, which I have sometimes wished that I had a structure to deconstruct. And I just don't. So I'm just like fishing around. And every once in a while, I catch something and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's something I believe. We can keep that one. We don't have to throw that one back into the pond. And so when I was in high school, I was very, like, I think Jesus is really cool. I think that-- I feel very called to try to make the world a better place. I feel a focus on community and solidarity with the oppressed. And a little bit of socialism is a great model for that. So regardless of what I believe in terms of an ontological belief system, I was just, like, I can rock with this guy. But as I got older and was spending more time working at this nature-based camp and just existing as a person, I became a very team God is everything, everywhere all the time. So I definitely identify a form of belief in some higher power as something that I now have. But it really is in the form of this. I was a confirmation mentor for a girl in my church my freshman year of undergrad. And I remember having this conversation with her where she was asking me, do you think you have to-- because this whole time I've been very, like, I think that different faith systems are all really solid ways to engage with the world. I don't think one is inherently better than another. And she was like, but do you think you need to have a faith to live a full life? I pretty quickly I feel like there is a horseshoe effect thing where the extremely religiously devout and the extremely scientific among us are actually very, very, very close to each other. Because I think ultimately, they're both groups of people who are really passionate about trying to understand this thing that by its nature, will never be fully understandable. And I think-- I don't know, I was an English major. But I feel like the best scientists and the best theologians are the ones who view the not knowing as an intrinsic, valuable part of their work. And I don't think there's that big a difference in what changes in how you live your life. If you are kind of in a very traditional faith system, where your higher power is a pretty clearly defined and delineated God figure, or maybe you're doing deep space research. Both of those things, I think, cultivate this fundamental humility about how much bigger the world is than we are. And I think especially at that time, that was the big key for me. And then more recently in undergrad, I took this class on Tolstoy that I think anyone who knows me, who is listening to this is now immediately rolling their eyes, because they know the rest of this story. But I'm in this class on Tolstoy. And the first day of class, the professor was up in the front of the room, and he goes, hey, let me give you this quote to give you a taste of who this guy was. And the full quote, if I'm remembering it correctly is no, this world is not a joke. It's not some vale of ordeal only on the way to a better and more perfect world. But one of those more perfect worlds that we not only can but must make better and more joyful for those who live in it with us and those who will come after us. And I have the first, "no, this world is not a joke" part tattooed on my arm in Russian. And being at HDS, I think I've realized that-- I heard that idea and I was like, oh, yeah, that's the thing I believe that I didn't have a name or a framework for. And I think I knew coming in that was part of the framework that I was kind of existing in. And the longer I've been here, the more I feel like it really is this central point where when it comes down to it, everything that matters is the stuff that we do in this world. MICHAEL FUHRMAN: And I want to highlight something that I see as a consistent thread through the different spiritual vignettes that you've given us where especially as you note, sort of recognizing your own existence and representation as a joyful queer Christian, especially in that summer camp, and seeing those younger students look up to you, or starting to hear that trickle down through those webs of communication. The way you talk about storytelling, I think, is really related to the way that you talk about representation as well too, that even to see someone be present in a space in a certain way inherently means that there was a story that existed that allowed that person to be in this space in a certain way, and to hear that tied in with the Tol story of this isn't a joke. The things that I'm doing, the life that I'm living is the life I want to live. And that's a story that's inherently being told through your own existence and the spaces that you choose to inhabit, that I think, really uplifts all of the theological surroundings that you've given us in this autobiography. So I just want to thank you for that. And as someone who works with children as well myself, just to applaud you for continuing to help them find freedom in themselves, which is, I think, really the ultimate task of educators and people who work with young people. MARTY MARTINAGE: Yeah. I think working at this camp, especially where we have kids starting around third grade and all the way up to kids who have just graduated from high school, you get to see this really beautiful arc in growing up, where it's like kids who are too young to have fully started to understand how to in-group and outgroup people. I mean, it starts early. But that hasn't really solidified yet with the littlest ones. And in so many cases, you see it come, and you see it peak around like freshman year of high school has been where I see it. And then they go back at the end of their time in high school, and they're so focused on caring for the whole community again. I think we're born knowing how to love each other and care for each other. And we live in a world that tries to make us unlearn that. And I think we do. And then the return to that is the job of the rest of our lifetimes. And I think you get to see that moment of, oh, I need to start doing this happening right at the tail end of the age groups I work with. MICHAEL FUHRMAN: Yeah. Well, Marty, we consider the container of this podcast to be this idea of hope and whatever it means to each individual. And I think in the context of what you've shared or in an additional context, we would love to know, what does hope mean to you, if it means anything, and maybe how you define it as well. MARTY MARTINAGE: Yeah. I think I relate to hope as a very outward-facing experience, emotion. I grew up listening to a lot of this band, The Avett Brothers. They were my mom's favorite band, so they were playing all the time when I was little. And there's a song that has a line, "It's OK if you finally stop caring. Just don't go and tell someone that does." And I think that that's how I try to exist in the world in relation to hope. I really believe that doomerism is not the solution to the world, and that trying to maintain hope is really important as a political tool and just a community building tool. But also, I frankly feel hopeless and angry a lot of the time right now. And I think that we often view performance and performativity as something that is completely negative. And I do think that it is important to have a genuine, deep-seated intention to act or engage with the world in a certain way. But I think that oftentimes, there's a loss in translation between the way we instinctually act in the world and what we have this deep intention to be like. And I think sometimes intentional performance can be a way to close that gap, at least for the sake of the communities you're in. I can't phrase this in a way that I like. Sorry. MICHAEL FUHRMAN: No. I'm thinking you uplift the word "performance." And it reminds me the author, Ross Gay, whose Book of Delights emphasizes this idea that just look closely and you can find something that's worth your joy in each day. That oftentimes can feel either like a performance, or I think, another word that comes up for people in that context, is this idea of labor, almost the labor of-- I like how you use the language of maybe listening to your instinctual self and acknowledging that instinctual self. But deciding, maybe in a way, to work, labor, or perform a different intention that I think you're relating to hope in a certain way. This idea of an intention towards a disposition that maybe you want to define a little bit more for us. MARTY MARTINAGE: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think it is very easy to say, I have all these intentions of being hopeful and I just don't feel like doing-- like, I cannot find the energy to do this right now. And I think there are always times where I think that is a completely real and understandable and not a shameful response to the world around us. I think we all get to have our I'm going to be hopeless and mopey days. That is a part of being human and a part of allowing ourselves and the people in our communities to exist as their full selves. But as a sort of aspirational way of being in the world, I really like the word "labor" to talk about it, where you can choose to work towards a specific practice or way of engaging with people that communicates a sort of hope. I was thinking a lot as I was walking over here today about stickers because I don't have as many rituals as I would like to have in my life. And that is kind of a constant thing of, oh, I wish I had more rituals, and then I feel bad about not having rituals and then I don't. That doesn't help me totally do rituals anymore. But I've noticed that since moving to Cambridge, I've paid a lot of attention to the various stickers on various street signs. And I mean, I'm a big believer in noticing change, just as I think it connects you with the world in a good way. And I think gives you a little-- I think it's a tool for contextualizing your body and space. But in the vein of hope, I think there are specific stickers that I can think of where just it always makes me smile. If you're walking towards Schwartz Hall from Gorham Street/Road. There's this light post that has a sticker and it's holographic and it's these two poodles looking at each other. And I love that sticker and I think about it frequently. And I think every time I see it, I'm just like, oh, someone is out there who made this sticker and put it on this light post. And now I'm delighted every time I walk by it. And I think in the past couple of weeks, it's been really comforting, in a way, to see new sets of stickers proliferating in my neighborhood. Gave me a really strong sense of hope when someone started putting up a bunch of stickers in support of trans kids in the neighborhood, and that person wasn't me because I would never vandalize public property. But if I were to do so, it might be stickers in support of trans kids. And so I think knowing that somewhere in my neighborhood, there is someone who is doing this thing just gives me a strong sense of hope. And I really, really love this idea of Winnicott's, which I know everything I know about D.W. Winnicott from Alison Bechdel's memoir about her mom. So I might be-- it's been filtered through a couple of things. But he has this idea that there is no such thing as a baby. And the way I've always interpreted that is that if you see a living baby, there is inherently the presence of something else because when we are babies, we can't clothe ourselves. We can't feed ourselves. We need support. So if you see a living, breathing baby, it implies that there is a caregiver somewhere. And I think that idea feels like a metaphor for how I feel about hope, where, I think, I don't know if I'm the baby or the caretaker, or the child psychologist witnessing. But I think hope is something you get unintentionally if you have a practice of noticing. I think that there are always things to be noticed that induce hope in us. MICHAEL FUHRMAN: And I think what you point to as well, when you speak on the noticing of change and to use the sticker sort of analogy specifically, I hate to double down on my own reference here. But I see, again, you seeing something, noticing something in place, and then building the story that shapes its presence the same way that you start to view yourself being at this space in summer camp, being a representation for something for these kids as well too. Part of what I see you doing in your definition of hope is acknowledging the effort and the idea and the personhood behind the change in representation that we see in the world, even in the form of stickers. We have people who are representatives that tell their own living story. But we also have these incremental, small holographic poodles that also show us-- whether somebody decided to put that there simply out of an act of vandalism, they chose something that was inherently goofy. And obviously, just kind of cute and silly. And I think your acknowledgment and the fact that there was a person who came by and did this in the same way to the narrative of the human baby, saying there is somebody who is behind this other person that is taking care of it and is helping it rely on the world that it's living in. It's a acknowledgment of the inherent personhood and the change of all the things that are going around us, which I think is important, especially as towards the political concept of hope to help people feel less isolated in even those isolating moments as well, too. MARTY MARTINAGE: Yeah, I think that is my understanding-- like the storytelling is very connected to my understanding of God, as it's come into tentative existence over the past year or so. During my senior year of undergrad, there was just this ever increasing set of connections between me and other people in my community. My Russian professor's daughter, had been a camper at the camp where I work and all of this stuff. And I think I just I got to a point where I was, like, I don't need to continue calling this coincidence. I can choose to make meaning out of it. And I think storytelling is of that same genre of looking at the world, where if you're reading a lot of stories, whether or not they're novels or people's diaries or having a conversation with someone, I think there is this game you can always be playing of connect the dots between you and the people around you. And I think that is also a source of-- I think the fact that those connections exist is my understanding of the divine. And I think that when you are paying attention to those things, it fundamentally reduces the loneliness of the world. And I think that hope is the opposite of loneliness. MICHAEL FUHRMAN: Yeah, thank you for that. You've shared so much with us already in regards to different authors or thinkers that you look up to. But we always love to ask if there's any practice, or we've already sort of griped about the entrenchment of ritual being something we wish we had, but never know quite how to cultivate. But if there's anything in your life that you feel helps you maintain this labor, as we've called it, or this sort of disposition towards hope. MARTY MARTINAGE: Yeah. My senior year of high school, the laptop I still use, I bought using money from an essay contest about optimism. And the essay I wrote was about Emily Dickinson. And I have always been very team like Emily Dickinson is simultaneously a poet of death and hope. And I think hope is the thing with feathers. But she also has a poem I dreaded that first Robin, so that I had to do a presentation on in high school. So I know it fairly well. But I think I love that poem. I would recommend it to people. And I also feel a lot of hope in the idea of laypeople as ministers, the idea that each of us are equally capable of invoking or evoking, bringing the divine into existence in each other's lives. Yeah, mostly I think people should read more Tolstoy. That's my secret hot take. MICHAEL FUHRMAN: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for sitting down today, Marty. I've really enjoyed getting to hear all your thoughts and hear your story, and know that our listeners will appreciate all the time and effort you've spent to bring yourself here with us today. So thank you so much. MARTY MARTINAGE: It was really nice to think about hope for so much time. MICHAEL FUHRMAN: Well, thanks for joining us. MARTY MARTINAGE: Thanks. MICHAEL FUHRMAN: That is a wrap. MARTY MARTINAGE: Yay. \[BIRDS CHIRPING\] See also:- [ Student Activities and Interviews ](/discover-stories-about/student-activities-and-interviews)