Hiiiii Dancers! Now that I have a lil more free time, I’m introducing another slice of pie to this here Substack. Namely, short-form interviews with cool people I know who have deep thoughts you might want to swim around in or who are making groovy stuff you might want to know about. Yay! I’ll keep them all under 25 minutes — promise — because I myself like my podcast-type-things short and sweet.
In this! First! Episode! I talk a newish friend, Joshua Swenson, who has written a pilot script (actually, MORE THAN 30 DRAFTS of a script) and longer story arc about what Jesus might have been up to between age 12, when we saw him in the Temple schooling the adults on theology, and age 30, when he finally starts his public ministry.
Haven’t you ever wondered about what Jesus was up to then? Where he went? How he was tested and formed? If he had powers even before the Holy Spirit anointed him at baptism? If he f*cked up,f*cked around, fell in love?
Here’s the proof-of-concept teaser for Joshua’s (hopefully! Anyone out there with pull want to do some Holy Spirit Traffic Direction for Joshua’s script?) prestige-television-series-to-be, The Lost Years. Despite all the grumbly things I have to say about AI, it really reels you in.
And here’s an excerpt from Joshua’s beautiful Substack, the Gospels of Rupture:
Somewhere along the way — I can’t pinpoint exactly when — the question shifted.
I wasn’t just asking: What does Yeshua the character want? What does this story need?
I was asking: Who the fuck really was this guy?
Not the sanitized Sunday School version. Not the theological construct. The person. The one who healed and exorcised and performed miracles. The one who grew up in occupied territory under Roman boot, navigating the corrupted religion of his fathers, and trying to make sense of gifts he couldn’t understand.
And the deeper I plumbed into Yeshua’s character and core wounds, his darkest yearnings and highest aspirations, the more I had to excavate within myself.
Who was I to write the story of how a precocious young mischief-maker from Judea became the Christ? What hubris made me think I could understand that singular figure better than scholars, priests, and pastors?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
And yet The Lost Years wouldn’t let me go.
Once you find out that Joshua grew up in a high-control Christian-flavored religious cult (spoiler: the Unification Church), and fell out with Christianity when he found his way out, it makes his creative process (he actually buried previous drafts in the forest at one point) — and the end result — even more fascinating.
Listen to our conversation above, watch the trailer, comment below about who you think Jesus was at 15, 21, 27 (per me, as I say in our conversation: A Hot Young Gandalf!)
If Hot Young Gandalf-Jesus had been born in 20th century England
…AND especially: forward this to folks you know who might want to make Joshua’s dream a reality, so we can all go to the movies together and be changed by this story.
Much love!
Molly
