Grey Hamilton—college tennis coach, husband, father, and rando from This Little Corner—joins me to share the long, winding story of how he moved from divorced-family disillusionment and elite achievement into Christian discipleship, awakening through Jordan Peterson and the TLC community.

Raised without deep roots in church, Grey pursued excellence in tennis from childhood, eventually playing Division I at Ole Miss and entering the professional circuit. But his journey is far more than a sports story—it’s one of father wounds, cultural dislocation, relational idols, psychedelic descent, and personal resurrection.

We walk through:

• Grey’s early family fractures and his mom’s post-hippie secular progressivism

• His friendship with a steadfast Christian teammate

• A college romance with a rooted Southern Christian family

• The Peterson pipeline and awakening through “12 Rules for Life”

• His mushroom trip and the experience of unmoored identity and divine reorientation

• His struggle to integrate faith with vocation

• And the present tension: discerning where and how to plant roots for his family after losing his job at Baylor

We end with a deep dialogue about generational presence, community, sacred memory, and the weight of choosing place over platform in an era where meaning has been traded for mobility.

🕰️ Timestamps

00:00 Intro – Grey Hamilton, rando from TLC

02:30 Growing up in Pinehurst, NC – sports, divorce, and secular drift

14:00 Tennis becomes life – success, loneliness, and escapism

26:15 College & culture shock – from Columbia to Ole Miss

36:20 Meeting Rob – a real Christian friend amid a team of atheists

44:10 Awakening begins – Peterson, humility, and curiosity

51:00 Dating Savannah – gospel witness through family and relationship

58:00 Losing idols – breakup, injury, and collapse

1:07:15 The mushroom trip – seeing beyond attachment and self

1:17:30 From secular NPC to sacramental seeker

1:25:00 What Paul VanderKlay, Peugeot, and TLC unlocked

1:33:00 Working at Baylor – the promise and the disillusionment

1:42:15 Job loss and the wilderness – how to discern what’s next

1:51:30 Should we stay or go? Generational trauma, place, and permanence

2:01:00 What makes a good life? Local roots and eternal vision

⸻

🎙️ Guests Mentioned / Referenced

• Paul VanderKlay

• Jordan Peterson

• Jonathan Pageau

• John Vervaeke

• Rob Henderson

• Kale Zelden

• Dallas Willard

• CS Lewis

• John Mark Comer

• Ian McGilchrist

• Jordan Hall

• Ross Bird

• Ryan Peterson (Grey’s old coach)

⸻

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