The musical Hamilton has taken the world by storm. On Episode #132 of the allmomdoes Podcast Julie Lyles Carr talks with Kevin Cloud about the spiritual issues you can find woven through the musical. There are some powerful insights for all of us on the themes of forgiveness and redemption. Whether you’ve seen it or not, we think you are going to get a lot out of this episode.
Listen to “allmomdoes Podcast #132 – Kevin Cloud – God & Hamilton” on Spreaker.
On This Episode:
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- Kevin Cloud
- God and Hamilton: Spiritual Themes from the Life of Alexander Hamilton and the Broadway Musical He Inspired
- Hamilton The Musical
- Disney+
- “God can redeem any story for his purposes in a lot of unique ways.”
- “I do think part of why the story connects with people as it is the story of redemption”
- Rebecca’s blog about her experience seeing it for the first time.
I Never Cared About Hamilton Until it came to Disney+. Here’s what I thought.
Transcription:
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:00:00] Today on the allmomdoes Podcast . It is a musical and a film that has swept the nation, you know, I feel like even with all the there’s stuff going on in our world, I’m sure you’ve probably heard about a little bitty musical that came out on that is giving them a lot of people who didn’t have an opportunity to see the musical in person, the chance to get to experience it right in their own living rooms.
I’m so excited today to welcome Kevin Cloud, because he is someone who’s taken a deep dive into this whole story into this phenomenon and has some great thoughts for us. Kevin, thanks so much for being with me. Yeah.
Kevin Cloud: [00:00:34] So happy to be here with you.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:00:36] Tell my listeners where you live, what the family looks like, what you guys like to do, all the stuff.
Kevin Cloud: [00:00:41] Yeah. So I’m out of Kansas city and I have four sons. I have a two high school kids and middle school kid and a elementary school child. And so our family is really busy. It’s a lot of chaos. Our kids play sports, my wife and I are musicians. So we’re, we do a lot of music stuff. We do a lot of sports stuff and I’m honestly just trying to hang on for dear life a lot of days with, with four kids and four pretty active kids.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:01:06] I was looking at your bio and I thought this was a really interesting collision of skillsets because you have an undergrad in fine arts and music theory. And then you went on to get your M div in theology. How did that come about? How did that collision what some people might think are toward sort of, to not disparate, but not exactly aligned things that you typically see in an educational history. How did that happen to be.
Kevin Cloud: [00:01:30] Yeah. So I’ve always been a creative person. I’ve always loved music. I play a bunch of different instruments and music has always been a passion of mine.
And when I got school early college really involved with his church and kind of fell in love with the church and ministry, but was already kind of on track with this music degree. And, but the further I got into this church community, the more I thought, man, maybe I want to go do ministry. So I actually graduated with a music degree and then went to go work as a college pastor at this church.
And then from there began a career as a church planner and planted about four different churches in the Kansas city area. And about halfway through that journey, I probably was working as a pastor for about five years. Before I felt like, man, I really need to get some theological training and did a MDiv through Nazarene Theological Seminary here in Kansas city.
And so, yeah, it is an interest mix of degrees. Uh, but it’s just kind of the intersection live at with creativity and faith. And certainly this book that I’ve written and the workshops that I do now try to bring the lessons from that intersection to other people as well.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:02:27] Speak to me just a little bit about, you know, back in the day, right? The hub of a lot of creative expression, a lot of artistry was the church that you can see be seen expressed and the cathedrals and some of the great symphony music that we know of that a lot of times artists were commissioned by the church to create phenomenal art and you know, we’re in an era now, Kevin, that that’s not exactly always the case or people don’t know that kind of history.
So bring us up to speed a little bit about the place that the arts played in the early church. I’m not talking for century, but pretty soon thereafter things get started getting cranked up as creativity is an expression of, of God’s creativity. And why do you think that began to wane after a while?
Kevin Cloud: [00:03:09] Yeah, no, you you’re exactly right.
That, that much of the great art that’s been produced in the history of the world has come out of the church. It’s been faithful people or people that were commissioned by the church. And a lot of that really stems back to this, this central idea that God is a creative. God and we’re made in his image and that we are called to be a creative people.
And I think, um, I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the way, the church really has lost that. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with creative people who don’t feel valued by the church who don’t feel like they have a place at the church who don’t feel like the church, um, honors the workers, or sees the importance in the creative work that they’re doing.
I work now at a place called The Culture House, which is a, a faith based arts conservatory program. So we do, yeah. Theater dance, music and film. Um, for kids, we do different kind of programs for them. And we also have a professional division. Um, but my boss, the guy who started the culture house, he has this saying where, where he talks about how so many people in his world that he’s done ministry with and invested in are creative people who almost feel like they have to choose between a life of faith or a life of creativity. And that the church just doesn’t honor that intersection and that they haven’t been able to find a place in the church as artists and as creative people. And I think it’s a tragedy. I think honestly, the church has really failed many of these artists and many of these creative people by not casting vision for them and saying to them, Hey, when you’re doing good creative work, Uh, whether it’s a musical or a painting or a movie or anything.
I mean, anytime you’re creating new or doing Holy and spiritual work.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:04:37] I love that. And you’re so right. And when we do have creativity, a lot of times within our faith communities, it’s almost like we require it to be super on the nose in terms of the way that it expresses the gospel or expresses God’s creativity.
There has to be this very, very specific line to make it show up as a faith peace. And it also feels like because I have myself, I’m a creative and then I birthed a bunch of creatives. And sometimes the kinds of, in my case, my kids dance, I have two that are professional dancers and what’s expected of them if they try to go share their art is something that is what kind of one form. It’s something of, sort of a one note. And why do you think we hesitate at times to embrace some of the fuller context of what the arts can really bring.
Kevin Cloud: [00:05:25] Yeah, I think we just lack imagination when it comes to creative act and how it can impact people’s lives.
So at the culture, I was one of our flagship performances is called The Underground and it tells the story of the underground railroad and the role that the church played in helping free slaves. And it’s this powerful presentation and it’s this, it’s a, it’s a masterpiece. It’s absolutely beautiful. We, we, we played at the Kaufman, which is the main stage in Kansas City every year.
And oftentimes we’ll have pastors though, that will, when they’re asking about the presentation, they’ll say, well, now when does the gospel presentation happened? Or when do you specifically talk about God and how God played a major part of this and, and you’re right they want it to be on the nose.
They want it to be something that is, um, You know, Emily Dickinson has a great line in one of her poems called tell us slants. And the idea is that, you know, story has this power to get into us and to move us and transform us, not by saying the exact line that is trying to say, but by telling it slant, by coming around the back end by, by telling it a way that that maybe.
Gets us emotionally, or that gets us, um, not intellectually, but a different ways. And, um, I don’t know. I don’t know why it is that the church has gotten to the point where we’ve equate art with now Christian art, where it’s gotta be yeah. Painting of Jesus, or it’s gotta be, you know, Jesus holding a lamb or something.
Um, because I, I believe that anytime we create something that’s good and true and beautiful. That it’s, that it’s deeply spiritual and that it’s a Holy act and that it can be used by God as I go around and teach these workshops again, I’ve heard countless stories of people at an art gallery, looking at a painting that doesn’t have anything to do with God or Christianity per se, but that God used to speak to them and really unlock some things in their lives and in their hearts.
And that’s, that’s the power of the creative act.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:07:08] Right. And, you know, I think often about how Christ would tell it slant, right? I mean, that was the purpose of his storytelling with his parables and those kinds of things, because he would help lichen a concept of God, a creative aspect of God in a way that wasn’t exactly on the nose to the point that sometimes his disciples would pull them away and go, okay, now what?
Yeah. Connect the dots for us.. And so I think we don’t have to shy away from that.
Kevin Cloud: [00:07:32] Yeah, that’s exactly right. I mean, his parables are a great example of that, of these random stories that seem like they have no spiritual connection at all, but then it just takes a little bit of looking to see the deep, spiritual truth that you can find in there.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:07:44] Right? Well, we are in the midst of really something that’s quite fascinating when it comes to the arts in general, in this country. And as you and I speak, we are still mid-pandemic. That means that Broadway is shuttered right now. That means that many movie theaters are closed. In the middle of this one of the most innovative cultural pieces that we’ve seen in a long time, that was expressed through live theater for many years came to the screens and our houses and has set the cables of fire. And that is Hamilton. And you have done a dive into all the artistry of Hamilton. And as you say, these opportunities that may be that Hamilton even has something to say to us, telling it on this land, when it comes to looking at the lives of this.
In particular, this one founding father and where you see aspects of God and the telling of his life story. So start me back at the beginning. When did you first become aware of Hamilton and what sort of began to get you very passionate about taking a deeper dive into it?
Kevin Cloud: [00:08:49] Yeah. So, you know, when Hamilton came out, I heard about it.
I knew about it becoming kind of a phenomenon and I’d read these reviews where people were just going on and on about how they’ve never seen anything like it it’s the most brilliant thing they’ve ever seen. And I remember initially thinking it can’t be that good, like it’s a musical right? Like I’m sure it’s good. I’m sure it’s great. But it can’t be, it can’t be that good. So my wife and I had a trip scheduled to New York and, you know, tickets were outrageous, so we weren’t going to be able to see it, but we kept checking online just to see if they may be released a new block or at least, you know, some sometimes shows will release last minute tickets.
And we just got fortunate to where they released kind of a block of seats in the upper upper level when we were going to be in New York. And so we snagged to two tickets very quickly. This probably would have been 2016, 2015, somewhere around there. And so again, I went into the show, I’d listened to some of the music and was familiar with it and had read all these reviews.
But again, went in thinking like really, really excited, but thinking it can’t be that good. And two hours and 40 minutes later, I just left the theater in this stunned silence. I mean, it was the most brilliant, uh, not only musical, but the most brilliant piece of art I’d ever experienced. The songwriting, the storytelling, the choreography, the lighting just every single aspect of it was absolute genius. And, but I left the theater, not only thinking what an amazing piece of art, but I left the theate also having experienced a profound sense of the presence of God. And in my book, I talk about how that theater because a thin place for me. You know, the thing place comes from Celtic spirituality and the ideas that the heavens and earth are not far away and separate, you know, heaven isn’t way out in outer space somewhere.
It’s it’s right here among us. But there’s this veil that separates it where we can’t see it, but there are times where that veil becomes very thin and we experienced the presence of God in profound ways. And I think that’s what Hamilton became for me. It became this place that ushered me into so many important truths about God and about the spiritual life and about the gospel, um, and, and impacted, me in, in really, really powerful ways, ways that continue to resonate with me today.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:10:50] And I want to, I’m sure many of our listeners know no, but I want to give them just this little moment to catch them up. If you haven’t heard of Hamilton, or if you have not seen the musical, this interview is still for you. Hang with us, but Hamilton is,the unpacking and a musical theater venue and a musical theater communication mode of the story of Alexander Hamilton, who was one of the founding fathers of this country, became the secretary of the treasury and set up a lot of our economic system. Now there’s that piece of his CV of his resume, but he also was quite a, you know, just one of these characters in history who his life was replete with tons of drama and a lot of crises and a lot of questions. He wrote prolifically. He wrote constantly. And so there is a whole lot about his life that we’re able to go back and take a look and also be able to get a real taste and feel of the times simply because he did right so much, he never became a president.
He never became a vice president, but he is someone who’s influence we still feel to this day. In our country in the way in which it was developed. So, Kevin, what were some things for you because those who have seen the musical are aware that yes, it engages, there is some reference to scripture. There is certainly conversation about if God’s hand is on something, what God’s intent is. We also see Hamilton go through a crisis of faith where he feels like I’ve, I’ve asked God to get me out of some situations in some moral dilemmas and that hasn’t happened. So I’m going to take my faith back into my own hands and try to write my way out of some of the corners that I have gotten myself into.
But where did you encounter what you felt like was God’s presence as you were watching the unveiling of the story?
Kevin Cloud: [00:12:33] Yeah, there, there are so many moments that I could point to. And the way I structure my book is each chapter is a different spiritual theme that I think is at the center of Hamilton’s life that comes through the musical.
And, you know, it was interesting because it was not only seeing the musical that unearthed some of these themes, but after I saw the musical. I went and I read everything I could about Alexander Hamilton’s life. I wrote read the Chernow biography that the musical was based on and then read everything else that I could about his life and about the funding fathers and just was really struck by first of all, that Hamilton was a man of faith and that uh, that he had a deep relationship with God that when he was younger, he would write hymns. And these hymns are these beautiful expressions of his, his experience with God. He came to America and went to King’s college and would have gone to chapel every day and would have gone to church twice on Sundays.
And his roommates talked about the fervency of his prayers. Um, when he’s on his deathbed, uh, he’s shot and killed by Aaron Burr, the sitting vice president in a duel of honor. And when he’s on his death bed, he’s calling for priests and pastors to come read him his last rights. And he’s begging on the, the mercies of Christ.
And, and he’s telling Eliza over and over again, as he’s dying, he’s saying, remember, Eliza, you are a Christian. Remember Eliza, you are a Christian. And so these faith moments, the more I read about them, I realized we’re really at the center of his life and in the musical, gosh, there are so many of them. Um, one of them that really sticks out to me is a moment of forgiveness where Alexander Hamilton, uh, becomes the secretary of treasury.
So he’s basically the second, most powerful man in the, in the early U S government. And, uh, but he’s, he commits this affair with a woman by the name of Maria Reynolds. And this affair becomes very public, Alexander actually confesses to it publicly. He writes an article into it because he’s being accused of some other things politically, and he needs to set the record straight that he hasn’t done anything illegal. He isn’t, he isn’t doing anything politically, but he’s, he is having an affair with this woman. And so his family is devastated. Eliza, as you can imagine, is humiliated. And so, so angry. Eliza, his wife actually goes and burns all of the love letters that she’s written to him.
Um, you know, you can imagine those being Alexander’s most treasured possession. These, these letters that his wife has written to him over the years, much of their marriage was spent apart from one another. She’s burning these love letters. And, and, but, but, but Alexander was into is trying to reconcile with his wife and he’s trying to rebuild his marriage and going to really some great lengths to, to do that.
They buy land North of the city and yeah instead of Alexander working in the city and getting a place down there and kind of staying the week. Um, he’ll ride his horse miles eight, seven, eight, nine miles every day back and forth is to try to rebuild this trust with his wife, Eliza and eventually Eliza, who is another remarkable woman, sh her, her, her heart eventually softens.
And I think because she walked deeply with God, she had a very, very profound faith and gets to a point where she forgives her husband. And when that happens, the chorus sings out forgiveness. Can you imagine? And it is one of the most powerful moments in the entire musical. When you’re in the theater, you can literally feel the atmosphere change because that moment on that stage, it confronts our lives.
It challenges our lives. It makes us ask the question. Will I be a person who forgives, will I follow this example, that Eliza is setting well, I forgive those who have hurt me, who have betrayed me and who I’m struggling to forgive. And that’s one example. There are, the musical is filled with those kinds of moments that confront our lives, challenge our lives and inspire us to become more than we are.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:15:56] Absolutely. You know, I find it interesting because I think at times, particularly as people of faith, we want to cast a narrative around the founding fathers. When we take a look at the intersection of faith and their lives. And I feel like sometimes we want to really we sanitize their stories or we want to elevate their faith to a point where it sounds like they were a lot of people wandering around all the time in Christian t-shirts wearing, you know, only Christian garb and they were only listening or speaking this, that and the other.
And yet what I find to be compelling, Kevin is that when we look at the life of Hamilton, for example, there’s a lot about it. That reminds me of King David and King. David did not live a sanitized life in any way, shape or form. Why do you think sometimes we take real people in their lives and in order to try to see God in their lives, we seem to do one of two things.
We either decide that they weren’t good people, Christians at all, because they had mess ups in their lives. Or we tend to want to try to polish them to a place where they feel almost not relatable. So how can we do a better job when we look at the lives, particularly of some of the founding fathers and not cast them in a narrative, that’s not true to the challenges they may have had in their lives crises of faith that they may have had.
And yet at the same time, also see there that these were people who did have a faith portion to their lives, that they were people who leaned heavily into God.
Kevin Cloud: [00:17:22] Yeah, that’s a, that’s a really great question and a great insight about, just about human nature in general. And I think it is really true when you look at King David and we do, we sanitize them. We want to turn them into this, you know, a man after God’s own heart, that this was such a great man. And yet you look at the things he did where he commits adultery and then has the husband murdered because he wants to kind of hide what has happened and just this despicable behavior that would send people to prison in this day and age.
Um, You know, there’s a, there’s another chapter of my book, where I talk about the idea of center insight and how every one of us it’s it’s from a Martin Luther quote, where he says that we are simultaneously center in sight. And that both are true of all of us all the time. And when we come to accept that about ourselves, I think one thing it does, first of all, is it helps us to be more kind with ourselves.
And when we come face to face with the reality that we are sinners, there’s not this sense of. Um, Oh my gosh. How could that possibly have happened? Or how could I have possibly made a mistake? How could I have allowed this to, you know, the sin of my life? It’s like, well, of course it happens. It happens to all of us every single day.
That’s part of human nature is none of us are perfect and we want to be Holy. We want to pursue God, but none of us ever do that perfectly. And the more that we can, um, accept that I think the more kind we can be to ourselves, but as far as this idea of projecting that perfection on to, on to others, people like the founding fathers, I do think that part of that comes from this longing that we have to be perfect.
And so if we can’t, if we can’t attain that in our lives, right. We want to hope it or pretend or imagine that other people have been able to do it in their lives. And so we do scrub out the, the dirty stuff out of people’s lives to have models, or to have examples of people that we can look up to. And that we can say, well, maybe someday I can attain that.
I do that’s part of why this show is so powerful, is that. Uh, Lin Manuel Miranda has a quote where he says there are no saints in this, in this story. And the idea that every single person in this story has really great things about them, but also some horrible things about him. I mean, George Washington is a great example of this great, brilliant leader, maybe no other man could have done what he did in leading the American revolution and building our government and just accomplished so much and was absolutely a remarkable human being. And yet he owned slaves. And was a part of this system. And, and even as he became president in a lot of ways, really lack the courage to take the challenge head on.
And, and those founding fathers, what they did is they kind of punted the conversation, a few generations down the road, and they said, well, this is too hard to deal with now. And so we’re just going to put a moratorium on this conversation for, for a number of years. And so they just didn’t handle it the way they could have when it was happening.
And it really led in a lot of ways to the civil war. Right. However many years later. And so every one of these characters in the story of Hamilton, especially had some incredible things happen. As some huge successes were remarkable men, but also had some huge failures and some huge character flaws that makes really for great drama.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:20:08] I heard a quote and I’m going to butcher it, but it was with Lin Manuel Miranda, who is both the writer of the musical. And also. For several years was the person who starred as Hamilton, the seminal character in the musical, and the quote goes something along the lines of that this is, this is a piece of work about extremely imperfect people who did not create a perfect society in many ways created an imperfect society.
And yet it was with the kind of aspirations for what could be. And we have to look at it through that filter. And if we don’t, we’re going to find ourselves disappointed when we discover certain other things about their lives. And we could miss the moment about what it can speak into our today. If we expect these particular people in history to have conducted their lives perfectly, they had some very egregious things that they did.
And yet the notion of people being governed by the people was a high enough ideal that we have to accept their flaws. And at the same time, understand what they were striving for. I, my husband and I were fortunate enough to be able to see it in the theater as well. I love that now in a way that if someone had not been able to afford to go or wasn’t able to get tickets or hadn’t been able to travel, or it didn’t come through their community as part of the traveling tour with Hamilton, there’s now this opportunity that everybody can see it. Everybody can have access, which feels extremely democratic to me. I love that. But one of the things that I found so compelling and loved, and one of the places that I felt like I really experienced that beautiful place where you see God show up through a piece of really profound art is in the cast and the most of the major characters I think all of the major characters are people of color, people of minority, and to see it recast in that way, I think was so incredibly powerful. How did that hit you?
Kevin Cloud: [00:21:54] Yeah, I thought it was a brilliant decision and I thought it was a timely decision.
Um, you know, there’s a, there’s a video clip, Phillip assu who played Eliza Hamilton showed up. I think she’s like a two or three year old, a little Asian girl. That’s watching Hamilton the movie and she sees Philippa Soo up on the screen and she just says, Look, look that’s me. That’s me. That’s me though.
But put out a tweet saying like this idea of representation is so important where people of color conceit folks like them up on the stage and imagine themselves up there and have all kinds of new possibilities come up. Um, Diggs who was Jefferson in the original Hamilton cast? He had a great quote where he said, man, if I, he grew up in Oakland and he said, if I would’ve seen hamilton is a young kid in Oakland. And I would have seen actors of color playing Washington Hamilton Jefferson. He said, I think a lot of things that I never would have thought were possible could have become possible for me. And it just shows how important representation is. And I think in a lot of ways, it also brings texture and context to the story where you have this story that’s obviously about a bunch of old white men who, who did own slaves and who did horrible things to people of color. And then you’re changing that narrative around and bringing people of color into those roles. And it just brings texture. It brings the conversation to the forefront in some really important ways.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:23:10] To me. And again, Kevin, I’m speaking as a white woman so I realized that my ability to speak into this with a certain level of veracity is, you know, I, I, I want to be really careful from what I say and never minimize what people have walked through in terms of their history. For me, I received it in a sense that knowing that some of these men had these failures in terms of both their personal moral stances at times. And also in the fact that they were slave owners, I saw it as a story if you will, of redemption to see a story carried forward and then executed and carried out by a cast of people of color, I thought was a really powerful moment where it made me realize how God can redeem any story for his purposes in a lot of unique ways.
And the redemptive qualities of the story of Hamilton are quite profound. Of course. The central character who really plays that redemptive role is the woman who was his wife, Eliza, um, her, she was, you know, a set of which he was at a large family group. Actually, she was one of several siblings, but the, the focus of the musical is really focused on she and her two sisters, because they were the Belles of the ball if you will, back in the day. And yet the grit that she shows, the loyalty, she shows the things that initially when you’re introduced to her character, you might think that she’s not as strong as her sister Angelica or she’s not quite as putting her foot out there as their sister Peggy. And yet we discover over time that the kind of strength she has is the kind of strength that carries her for another half century after Alexander Hamilton dies and her devotion to carrying his legacy forward. What are some of the things that you see in Eliza’s life that are very profound to you in what can happen when somebody has that kind of strength, sometimes the kind of strength that we don’t, or we are not quick to celebrate.
Kevin Cloud: [00:25:02] Yeah. And you’re exactly right about her life and her and her legacy. I mean, one of my favorite things was researching for this book was learning about Eliza Hamilton and her life and her faith and her legacy. And I do think part of why the story connects with people as it is the story of redemption. I mean, there’s so much heartache and tragedy and drama in it, but at the end, it is a story of redemption.
And it’s actually the last chapter of my book, where I talk about, um, so Alexander Hamilton grows up in the Caribbean. He’s a poor kid and his father abandoned their family when alexander’s around the age of five and around the age of 20, well, his mother dies. And so at a very young age, he’s this poor orphan kid without any real future possibilities.
Um, he makes it to America by a very strange set of circumstances. Basically what happens is, uh, hurricane Dennis devestates the Island that he’s living in and he writes, it’s a letter to a family member about this hurricane and publishes it. And his businessman read the letter and they see this obvious intellectual potential in this young author.
And so they raise money to send Alexander Hamilton to America to get his education. So that’s how he gets here. But then he meets Eliza and they fall in love and they get married. And actually, I was just watching this movie last night and there’s the scene where they they’ve just gotten married. And Alexander is explaining to Eliza his family history.
He’s talking about how he lost both of his parents and Eliza played by Philippa Soo. There’s this beautiful moment of empathy on her face. As you see her sharing the hurt and the burden of, of being an orphan. And that was really a hurt that Hamilton carried throughout his entire life. I mean, you see him struggling in his letters with insecurities.
Um, not feeling like he measures up some of the other founding fathers because of their family heritage compared to compared to his own. And so you see this, this idea of being an orphan, being a, a hurt that he carries around and then Eliza kind of carries with him. Then after Alexander dies, he’s he’s shot and killed.
And like you said, Eliza lives for 50 years beyond him. But after he dies a few years later, Eliza feels this call from God to build an orphanage. And she, with a handful of women build the first public orphanage in New York City. And it’s how the musical ends is Eliza singing about the orphanage and it’s her proudest accomplishment.
And she sings that every orphan that she, that she raises that. And she was intimately involved with every aspect of, of raising these kids and this orphanage. And she says that in every single kid that she works with, that she sees Alexander’s eyes. And I love this idea that this broken part of Alexander’s life, that he was an orphan and the pain that, that caused for him, that she takes that pain.
She takes that brokenness, and then she does something good with it. She redeems it and brings redemption to this painful part of his story and brings a lot of goodness to all these kids. I mean, to be an orphan in New York city in that time in that city would have been, you would have had awful circumstances.
Um, you would have had very few options for a good life. And yet now this orphanage is giving you a safe place to stay, where you’re cared for, where your love and, and that organization actually still exists today under the name Graham Windham, and this organization continues to serve families in need in New York city.
And it really is a beautiful picture of Eliza’s faith, um, of her faithfulness to God, and this call that God put on her life. And it’s one example of many from her life of her redeeming, um, Alexander’s life and redeeming his legacy as well.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:28:07] Absolutely Kevin, you’re a dad of four, four boys, and you’ve got an age range going on elementary up to high school level.
How have you decided as a family to manage your children, perhaps doing this film? And I know that this is a deeply personal topic for a lot of parents. People have to make their own call and. People need to know that, you know, this is not, like I said, a sanitized story, founding father. It is the history of Alexander Hamilton grappling with his doubts and faith and having some deep failures, some deep moral failures.
There is some language in the film. So how do you handle that when it comes to your own kids and what you are allowing them to experience through the arts?
Kevin Cloud: [00:28:47] Yeah, I think you’re right. I think it’s a, it’s a deeply personal decision that each parent has to wrestle through. And the last thing that I want to do and not the last thing I would encourage other people to do is make any kind of judgment on, on what decisions parents make.
I mean, I know some parents that are completely on the spectrum of. I would never let my kids see the show unless they were 16. I mean, it’s even a PG 13 movie, but even, you know, 16, 17, 18, all the way down to, Hey, you don’t let them see it it’s a great story. I tend to fall more, not surprisingly men. I wrote a book about it, about the spiritual themes and how, how beautiful the story does.
I fall more on the side of, I think that the truth and the impact of this story so far outweighs some of the difficult parts of it, you know, the language or the contents is far overshadowed by the truth and the power and the spiritual poignancy of this story. And so we we’ve let our kids watch it. And again, we’ve had really great conversations with them about this story and about how God can use it to inspire us, to make an impact.
I heard a great story. I travel the country and I teach workshops and preach about my book, but also about creativity and faith and yeah. I taught one workshop where there was a seventh grade girl that was telling me a story. Her parents had let her see Napleton on the stage. And she was deciding whether or not to run for student council.
And at the last second, she almost pulled out and decided I’m not going to do it. She was afraid of getting up in front of her peers and giving a speech. She was afraid of possibly losing and the humiliation that would, that that would be involved with. But then she remembered the story of Hamilton. And she told herself, you know what, I’m not gonna throw away my shot.
And she ended up running for student council and she won the election and was on student council. And it was so cool to hear this girl tell this story. And for me to remind her, you know, what, if every time you’re faced with fear or insecurity or doubt every time, time, if you tell yourself, I am not going to throw away my shot, I’m going to step into that fear and step into that insecurity and not let it paralyze me.
It will absolutely change the course of your life. And that all happened because some parents decided, you know what? Yeah, there’s some languages, there’s some course material, but I think the overall themes of this story are more important than a few cuss words or some course material. And I think that’s one example of many of how this story is, is radically changing and transforming people’s lives.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:30:52] Absolutely. And of course supporting parents in whatever decision they make, but our family very much hinged like yours. Kevin, we have had phenomenal conversations and our youngers have seen it as well. And, uh, I just think that it’s a great jumping off spot for so many themes and so many great conversations when it comes to the genesis of this country, along with the faith component that we, the founding fathers grapple with and struggle with.
And the things that they based, this notion of democracy on. So I feel you very much, you know, it’s interesting that you said that at first you were thinking, I’m not sure if this one that I want to see or not. And I’ve got that. I’ve got that similar thing where if something really takes off, I’m like, I don’t know everybody thinks it’s amazing. We have a great blog post up that I want to direct our listeners to on allmomdoes.com and that comes from Rebecca our content coordinator because she drug her feet and was like, I’m not sure if I want to see this or not. So you’ll have to go over there and check out her blog post, where she talks about when she saw Hamilton for the first time when it came to film and what her response was. It’s pretty funny. So Kevin, the book is called God and Hamilton spiritual themes from the life of Alexander Hamilton and the Broadway musical. He inspired and listeners to be sure and go to the show notes that Rebecca puts together each and every week, because we’ll have all kinds of links and more information.
For you on Kevin and where you can find out about all the good things he’s doing. Also remember to text the word podcast, text the word podcast to 89419 that’s podcast to 89419, where you’ll be getting updates on the podcast and be sure and check out. allmomdoes.com as the blog posts site and also on the socials. allmomdoes. Love to connect with you. I’m Julie Lyles Carr on all the places social, particularly Instagram. I tend to hang out there quite a bit. A big thank you to Rebecca, our content coordinator and Donna, she is in charge of production. She gets this out each and every week. I can’t wait to see you next week on the allmomdoes Podcast.
