LATIF NASSER: Hey, this is Radiolab. I'm Latif Nasser. Today, as we are in the thick of the giving season, we have a story about a really remarkable gift giver and gift receiver. Two people, basically strangers, who couldn't have been more different, but who managed to find a deep kind of connection despite those differences through a single gift. This episode was originally reported in 2017 by yours truly, with Jad and Robert at the helm. Enjoy!

[RADIOLAB INTRO]

JAD ABUMRAD: Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT KRULWICH: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: This is Radiolab.

SOREN WHEELER: So we got an email from you. [laughs]

JENNELL JENNEY: Yes. [laughs] You did.

SOREN: Yeah.

ROBERT: Not long ago, our editor Soren Wheeler and I, we got into a conversation with this woman.

JENNELL JENNEY: I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

ROBERT: Her name is Jennell Jenney.

JENNELL JENNEY: I like the Packers.

SOREN: Course you do.

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah. I guess photographer would technically be my job, but I do a whole lot of different things. None of which really pertain to the story at hand, but that's ...

SOREN: And our story really starts when Jennell sent an email to the Radiolab inbox, basically saying "I need your help."

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah.

SOREN: Something had happened to her that was ...

JENNELL JENNEY: Kind of wondrous and unexplainable and very weird.

SOREN: And as a result, Jennell had found herself stuck in a story. A story told to hundreds of thousands of people all across the country.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: What is happening?]

SOREN: A story that sits right smack dab in the middle of one of the biggest cultural divides in our country right now.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: It's good to see all of your faces.]

SOREN: But it was a story that wasn't hers. And she wanted us to help her find a way to finally tell her story.

JENNELL JENNEY: So to speak. I mean, do you want me to kind of just start telling you?

SOREN: Yeah, walk me up.

JENNELL JENNEY: Sure. Well, when I was 18, I went to a concert.

SOREN: A rock concert.

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah, it was—actually it was the Warped Tour. So it's like a festival. Yeah, a rock concert.

SOREN: Tons of bands on different stages all over the place. And Jennell is walking around between all the different stages and merchandise tables when she sees this tent.

JENNELL JENNEY: A 10 by 10 white tent with just a little table in front.

SOREN: A table with a sign on it that said ...

JENNELL JENNEY: "Be a bone marrow donor. Sign up to be on the registry. Save a life." Or something like that.

SOREN: So this was rock music and good deeds brought together.

JENNELL JENNEY: Essentially, right. Which is a pretty good mix in hindsight.

SOREN: And so Jennell read the sign and she thought to herself, "I'll sign up."

JENNELL JENNEY: Sure.

SOREN: "Why not?"

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah.

ROBERT: Did you knew—did you know what bone marrow was?

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah. Yeah, I mean ...

ROBERT: You knew that that would mean that they'd take a really long needle ...

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah.

ROBERT: ... and stick it in you and suck out bone stuff?

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah, I suppose at that point that was probably not the forethought. I think the altruistic, like, I'm gonna do something. Yeah. That was probably the main motivation.

SOREN: And all Jennell had to do standing in front of that tent was sign some papers and swab her cheek, because with a bone marrow donation they actually have to figure out if you're a genetic match with someone who would receive the donation.

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah.

SOREN: Which was part of what Jennell thought was cool about it.

JENNELL JENNEY: I always thought that, you know, it would just be an amazing opportunity to be the one person who could do something for somebody that, like, literally no one else in the world could.

SOREN: That's a deep kind of connection with someone, then.

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah. Yeah there's—you know, I don't know if either of you are only children.

SOREN: I am.

JENNELL JENNEY: But it's—yeah. It—you know how they're just like, you have cousins, you've got friends, but at some point there's not that—it sounds so stupid, but that biological connection, like, besides my parents or whatnot.

ROBERT: That you missed the idea of someone who was muchly like you and muchly in your world and muchly ...

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah. And also even the kind of the need. Like, somebody out there dependent on me on kind of that almost otherworldly level.

SOREN: So Jennell swabbed her cheek, signed the paper and then went about her normal life. And then about six months later, she got a call.

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah. Yeah, it was a phone call to my landline. That's how long ...

ROBERT: Oh my gosh. So what year are we talking here?

JENNELL JENNEY: It was 2009.

ROBERT: Okay.

JENNELL JENNEY: It was a phone call, and I remember very specifically it was a voicemail, because I hadn't had the chance to answer it. And they said something to the extent of, you know, "Hi, we're from the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry. We've done some tests and we've narrowed you down to be a preliminary match for a patient. So we need you to come in and do some further tests that involve, you know, blood and stuff."

ROBERT: Did you think "Oh no, I forgot that I did that?" Or were you thinking "Oh boy!" Or what were you ...

JENNELL JENNEY: Oh, I was so overcome with emotion. I remember just—just to think there's somebody—there's somebody out there that might be my person. So absolutely no hesitation on my end. I went ...

SOREN: So Jennell heads into the clinic because well—so bone marrow, the stuff in the kind of core of your bones actually produces all your blood cells. And importantly including your white blood cells which are a key part of your immune system. So what you're doing with a bone marrow transplant is taking a healthy immune system out of one person and putting it into another person whose immune system is—you know, cancer or—or messed up in some kind of way.

SOREN: The key is though, because the immune system is that part of you that, like, recognizes you from not you and attacks anything that's not you, you have to, like, fool the new body into thinking that this immune system is them. And so the parts of your DNA that have to do with your immune system, a couple key parts of that have to match with the donor. So that's what they're doing with Jennell, they're taking her in to, like, test her DNA to see if the stuff that marks out her immune system matches closely enough with this, you know, recipient so that the bone marrow transplant will work.

JENNELL JENNEY: And then maybe a month later, I get another call and this one I was able to answer and they say, "Well, we've done tests, and you are the ideal person in this eight million person registry to donate for this patient. You are a perfect match."

SOREN: Wow!

JENNELL JENNEY: "And will you do it?" And I was like, "Absolutely." So ...

ROBERT: Did that feel to you like a call of destiny? Like, maybe, maybe this was meant to be, then?

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah. There's something I feel that's, like, bigger than myself that's happening and I don't really—I mean, I can't really explain it yet at that point, but I know there's like—okay, here's a—there's a big thing.

ROBERT: Mm-hmm.

JENNELL JENNEY: So I go in, and unfortunately to disappoint you, Robert, the way that I donated bone marrow wasn't actually the real bad way with the big needle.

ROBERT: Oh, really? I mean, I'm not disappointed. I'm grateful for whoever. Have they come up with a small needle version, or ...?

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah. Well what they ...

ROBERT: Like a straw or something?

JENNELL JENNEY: Sort of. What they essentially do, and this is actually the far more common way of doing it now, is they inject you with all these drugs ...

ROBERT: Mm-hmm?

JENNELL JENNEY: ... and it—and it is like eight injections that boost your white blood cell count up to astronomical heights. And do you know, like, when you get sick, when your immune system kicks in overdrive and you feel sick? Imagine that, like, eight times over.

SOREN: Like nauseous, achy, shaky.

JENNELL JENNEY: Oh, so achy. Every bone hurt.

SOREN: And while Jennell is feeling achy and sick, inside of her, her bone marrow is pumping out a bunch of new baby blood cells.

JENNELL JENNEY: Unmatured stem cells that can really become almost anything.

SOREN: Then they just go in and grab those cells.

JENNELL JENNEY: They harvest you, I guess. So you have a needle in both arms, and you pretty much sit still for six hours until they suck all your blood out of your body, put it into a machine and give you back what they don't need. So I think they've got about, you know, one of those little IV bags ...

SOREN: Just a quart-size plastic bag.

JENNELL JENNEY: ... full of my stem cells. [laughs] And once you're done, they put some Band-Aids on you and they're like, "All right. Let us know if you need anything."

SOREN: And do you know anything about, like, what happens to your blood cells? Like, who gets it or what happens?

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah, they're—the whole registry is very very strict about patient confidentiality, but they did tell me that it was a 29-year-old man with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. And that's—literally that's all I knew for a whole year.

ROBERT: Did you look that up in the—in the ...

JENNELL JENNEY: Oh, of course. I did endless Google searches of "29-year-old man, acute lymphoblastic leukemia."

ROBERT: You were trying to get a real peek, you mean?

JENNELL JENNEY: Right. I was like, oh maybe he's worded it that way. And I didn't find anything, of course. But once that year is up, if both parties agree, then we can talk. And that's—that's kind of really interesting because I definitely was looking forward to that year mark. But once that hit, I kind of got cold feet. I really just wasn't ready to know exactly who he was. And then I was also worried that maybe this guy is like a real piece of crap. Like, maybe he's a Klan member or a criminal or something. So there is a part of that too.

ROBERT: [laughs] So you were worried that you open up the Sentinel and it would say, "Formerly ill person robs three banks and hits old ladies."

JENNELL JENNEY: Yes.

SOREN: "Horrible man saved by Jennell Jenney." [laughs]

JENNELL JENNEY: Right. It's so stupid to say, but I thought that. So I did end up eventually sending this email or whatnot in I think about October. It took them a couple weeks to actually give my info to my patient and vice versa.

JIM MUNROE: I was eating lunch with a friend of mine, and I remember having chips and guacamole. [laughs]

JENNELL JENNEY: By the way, my—my patient's name is Jim. So they gave Jim my info.

JIM MUNROE: And my phone went off in my pocket. There was an email in my inbox, and there was a scanned PDF attached to this email, and I opened it up. And she had filled this out with her own hand. And I just broke, totally. I just wept like a little baby in a—in a booth at a Mexican restaurant in the middle of Grapevine, Texas. And I got on Facebook. I saw a picture—I saw a picture of her and I was like, "Oh my gosh, it's gotta—it's gotta be her!"

JENNELL JENNEY: I'd gotten an email—or not email—Facebook friend request from—said this guy named Jim Munroe in Texas. And I was like, "Oh, okay. I don't know anybody in Texas." And then it clicked all of a sudden. This—this is the guy! This is him. I could see his picture, I can look and ...

ROBERT: Oh, what does he look like?

JENNELL JENNEY: Not very much like me. [laughs]

ROBERT: [laughs]

SOREN: It wasn't—it wasn't Jennell with shorter hair?

JENNELL JENNEY: No, right? Yeah. Tall ...

JIM MUNROE: Six foot four. I've got blonder hair.

JENNELL JENNEY: Blond hair—I think fake blonde.

JIM MUNROE: I should say it's dyed right now, but I have, like, strawberry blonde hair.

JENNELL JENNEY: But tall, blond hair, blue-eyed white guy.

JIM MUNROE: Blue eyes.

JENNELL JENNEY: Um ...

JIM MUNROE: I'm very handsome.

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah.

ROBERT: What are you, by the way?

JENNELL JENNEY: Short, blond-haired, blue-eyed person.

ROBERT: Short, blonde hair, blue eyes ...

JENNELL JENNEY: So I guess—yeah.

ROBERT: Okay. Well, so you're in the same ...

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah.

ROBERT: Okay.

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah, we could be cousins, I think.

JENNELL JENNEY: And yeah, so I looked at all of his pictures, and his wife who was a model, and these kids who were so adorable. And I tried to find as much as I can. And as far as his profession I was like, "Oh, he appears to be some sort of magician, so I guess we'll talk about that later."

ROBERT: So I don't even know, like, I guess why don't we just find out, like, where you're from and where you were raised. And ...

JIM MUNROE: Okay.

ROBERT: Let's do it that way.

JIM MUNROE: So I was born in Orange County, California. Fullerton, California. I went to school in Anaheim, high school in Anaheim. I was a baseball player, so I ended up going—I was a very very good baseball player. I got drafted by the—at the time they were called the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Now they're just the Tampa Bay Rays.

ROBERT: Oh, you were that good?

JIM MUNROE: Yeah, I turned down a professional baseball contract to go play at the University of Texas in Austin.

SOREN: And what did you play?

JIM MUNROE: I was a pitcher. I was a hard throwing right hander.

ROBERT: Huh.

JIM MUNROE: And ended up getting like I said drafted, and went to the University of Texas to play baseball. And that's what I thought I was gonna be. I thought I was gonna be a professional baseball player. And then my sophomore year of college, I blew out my shoulder. I had a surgery my freshman year, and then came back and was throwing harder than ever and then did it again.

SOREN: Oh.

JIM MUNROE: So baseball was kind of over.

ROBERT: Over at, like, 19? Like that's—oh.

JIM MUNROE: Yes, sir. Yeah. It was a pretty—it was a big kick in the head.

SOREN: But he finished up school.

JIM MUNROE: They maintained my scholarship as a medical redshirt.

SOREN: Majored in business and psychology.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah.

SOREN: Then moved out to Boulder, Colorado, got married and had a couple of kids.

JIM MUNROE: And one of my really good friends during this time was—his name was Tennyson. And he became one of my best friends. He wasn't just my best friend, he was like my brother. He was an athlete too, so he's a former college football player and he had also lost his football career based upon an injury.

ROBERT: Hmm.

JIM MUNROE: And then also knew magic and illusion.

SOREN: And magic was actually something that Jim had been fascinated by ever since he was a kid.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah. I saw a trade show magician when I was 10 or 11. It was at the Anaheim Convention Center of all places, at an optometric convention, both my parents are optometrists. And he was just doing trade show stuff at a booth.

SOREN: Do you remember what he was doing?

JIM MUNROE: He did a version of this trick called Cards Across. He made a cigarette appear. You gotta ...

ROBERT: Which he pulled out of your head, or out of somebody's ...

JIM MUNROE: No, he's just casually holding his hand and was holding a ZigZag in the tips of his fingers. And he goes to light it, and there's a puff of smoke and there was a—there's a real cigarette.

ROBERT: Oh.

SOREN: And the thought you had at that moment was, "I want to do that?"

JIM MUNROE: It was, "How did he do that?" and "That is cool." And, you know, I'm gonna go learn how that's done. So I just began to look at card tricks, and read books on all how all this stuff was done to figure out how it was done.

SOREN: So when he met Tennyson, you know, they started practicing together, and doing shows in front of friends and family. And pretty soon ...

JIM MUNROE: Sure enough, we start doing gigs. [laughs]

SOREN: They started doing these shows at, like, schools and festivals and stuff, and they would do these tricks, like a lot of kind of card tricks and number tricks, say, where you'd pick a random number and it would end up, it was written on a piece of paper in the shoe of an audience member or something like that. But then the show would turn into something else because the thing is Tennyson was a believer.

JIM MUNROE: Overwhelmingly so.

JAD: Believer, like in God, you mean?

SOREN: Yeah. A Christian.

JIM MUNROE: And Tennyson was very convinced.

SOREN: And so after an hour or so of magic tricks ...

JIM MUNROE: Just pure entertainment.

SOREN: ... Tennyson would say to the crowd ...

JIM MUNROE: "This has been great. We're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna give you guys a chance to take off because during the second part of this show, we're gonna talk about what the Christian perspective is and why we believe this Christian thing. If you want to stick around great, if you don't, take off."

SOREN: Now Jim says during this part of the show ...

JIM MUNROE: Tennyson in particular was way more of the evangelistic piece of this, and I considered myself more of a producer.

SOREN: Now Jim had actually grown up going to church.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah so I was—my parents went to Lutheran Church. I was at one point doing that, but still there's—you know, at the end of the day, it was just there was nothing in it that seemed to be satisfying.

SOREN: And so at this point in the show, Jim would sort of stand back a bit as Tennyson talked about how magic is actually all about the unseen, and behind the veil of reality there's a god watching over us. And Jim says he would be standing there on stage watching these people in the audience who were feeling this real connection with God.

JIM MUNROE: However, I wasn't having that experience.

SOREN: He's just like, "I don't feel what they're feeling," and he started to think to himself ...

JIM MUNROE: I didn't want to be the guy that said, "Well, I'm a Christian because my friends were." Or "I'm a Christian because I was raised that way." I want it to be true.

SOREN: And he just wasn't sure that it was.

JIM MUNROE: Right.

SOREN: And then after he and Tennyson had been doing this show for a year and a half or so, Jim got a call. Tennyson had been out hiking in the mountains, just outside of Boulder and ...

JIM MUNROE: He was found in a river.

SOREN: His body was partially submerged, just at the edge of the water at the base of a 40-foot cliff.

JIM MUNROE: In Peaceful Valley is what it was called. No one really knows how he passed away.

SOREN: It looked like he might have actually fallen from the cliff. The police thought maybe suicide.

JIM MUNROE: But it could be, you know, exposure to the elements, that kind of thing. Yeah.

SOREN: Jim says he was just devastated.

JIM MUNROE: He was probably the closest male friend I've ever had.

SOREN: Just felt like he was, you know, at the bottom of a hole.

JIM MUNROE: Bottom of a hole, kind of figuring it out. Best friend passes away. My wife and I as a result kind of got into this really strange season where you know I'm depressed, she's depressed. We're pretty much on the verge of calling it quits. And then my leg starts hurting, really badly.

ROBERT: Where in the leg?

JIM MUNROE: Underneath my right knee.

SOREN: Jim says he started popping Advil every day. At first just a couple, then more and more.

JIM MUNROE: And I'm trying to gut it out.

SOREN: Then one day he came home one day, and he says the pain was so bad he couldn't even get out of his car. And so his wife was like, "Look, we're going to the hospital now."

JIM MUNROE: And I'm sitting there in an emergency room, and this man walks into my room. He looks at me and says, "You have cancer."

SOREN: Jim had leukemia, which is cancer of the blood cells.

JIM MUNROE: So the white blood cells inside of your bone marrow have literally exploded out of control, and the reason why your leg hurts so bad is because your bone is breaking on its own.

SOREN: From the inside.

JAD: Wow!

JIM MUNROE: And he said, "If you don't do anything you're gonna die in two months."

SOREN: Just before Christmas of 2008, Jim checks into the hospital. And right away they do two things: one, they put Jim on the bone marrow registry in the hopes that he can find a donor. And two, just to keep him alive while he waits, they start putting him through round after round of chemo.

JIM MUNROE: And get this wicked concoction of stuff and then being let out.

SOREN: He loses his hair, his body starts to fall apart.

JIM MUNROE: And all you can do at that point is just hope, you know?

ROBERT: Like tick tock tick tock.

JIM MUNROE: Tick tock tick tock, yeah.

ROBERT: Hmm.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah. That's when you think you know what you believe to be true is in adversity. That's when you find out. And so for me it was not—it was not a Christian worldview. If there is an all-loving omnipotent powerful being that makes the universe go round, then why would things like, you know, suicide or murder or rape exist in a—in this constructed world of his?

SOREN: Jim just couldn't get himself to believe in the existence of a God like that, or really any God.

JIM MUNROE: You know, there wasn't any rhyme or reason or purpose. It was just this is—this is my lot. This really sucks.

SOREN: And then when he was at his lowest point ...

JIM MUNROE: I remember driving back to Houston, Texas, for more chemo and my phone rang. And I didn't recognize the number. And I said "Hello," and this woman on the other line, she said, "There's one person that we've been able to identify on the planet. Out of all the databases, everything, there's one."

JENNELL JENNEY: "You are the ideal person in this eight-million person registry to donate for this patient."

JIM MUNROE: Think about that. [laughs] In the world.

JENNELL JENNEY: "You are a perfect match. Will you do it?" And I was like, "Absolutely!"

JIM MUNROE: My wife and I were in the car together and it was just tears, you know? It was like, "Wow, that's amazing."

JENNELL JENNEY: So April 20—and this is important to remember. April 20 was when I donated.

SOREN: And as they were pulling the cells out of Jennell's body up in Wisconsin ...

JENNELL JENNEY: You know, one of those little IV bags full of my stem cells.

SOREN: ... down in Texas, Jim's doctors were telling him ...

JIM MUNROE: "Your bone marrow transplant is scheduled for April 23." On April 23, the nurses, they come inside of your room to celebrate your second birth. And then I remember Dr. Giralt telling me, "Are you ready to put your boxing gloves on?" But what he was preparing me for was a death. Come to find out later on they pulled my wife out of my room, and they said "We're gonna give this to him with all this medication. He could potentially receive this and reject this violently and pass away."

SOREN: Because remember, they're essentially replacing Jim's immune system with somebody else's—in this case, Jennell's. And in a very real way, they're replacing that part of Jim that determines who he is with someone who he clearly isn't, and so there's a real chance that the body will just short-circuit.

JIM MUNROE: So they give this drug the nurses nickname "shake and bake."

SOREN: It's designed to basically wipe out whatever is left of Jim's immune system, his white blood cells.

JIM MUNROE: Put inside of your IV, and your body just starts convulsing.

SOREN: And then they put Jennell's cells in.

JIM MUNROE: And they monitored me.

SOREN: And over the next couple weeks, Jennell's cells enter Jim's body, they get into his bone marrow, and they start producing new, white blood cells. Basically, producing a whole new immune system. And eventually, Jim is cancer free.

JIM MUNROE: I mean, it—it's literally like new life, you know? Now I will say this: some bells kind of began to go off in my head a little bit.

SOREN: Jim says before he even got the transplant, his doctor had come into his room and told him ...

JIM MUNROE: You're gonna be like a baby inside your mother's womb literally being born again. Because on April 23—and once again this is their terminology—there's someone else that's gonna be living on the inside of you, and this new system of blood is gonna be your life. Why is that interesting? You know, April 23—my new birthday's April 23. My old birthday is April 20. My new birthday is on April 23. That's on the third day.

ROBERT: And on the third day is significant 'cause of the biblical echo?

JIM MUNROE: The biblical echo, yeah. I came back from whatever I was in because of the only blood on planet Earth that could save me of my disease, so ...

ROBERT: So does this land on you the way it sounds to me like it lands on you now? Or did you go through like—like, what happ ...

JIM MUNROE: Those words. Yeah, those words in particular, bells went off in my head.

SOREN: But does that—but does that mean that you now suddenly believe in God again? Or for the first time? Or ...

JIM MUNROE: I mean, I—it's process, right? You follow, and then I think the puzzle pieces are kind of all swirling and coming together. But everything changed on that demarcating day, April 23.

SOREN: All thanks obviously to Jennell. And not long after they got each other's information and saw each other on Facebook, they hopped on a phone call.

JIM MUNROE: So she gets on and I get on, but it's all kind of like, "Hey! Oh my gosh, this is crazy! I cannot believe this! Isn't this nuts? Yeah, this is so crazy." And then she drops this on me. She said, "I went and got a tattoo of a jigsaw puzzle piece on the very spot where they stuck that IV in my arm to pull out the new blood, knowing that I was the missing piece in someone else's life, and without me that person wouldn't be alive." And I said, "Do you—" I was like "Do you have a ton of tattoos?" And she just said "No, I have one." You know what Christians believe to be true, right?

ROBERT: What?

JIM MUNROE: Is that their savior rolled up and showed them the very spot on his body where blood came out so that they would believe.

ROBERT: So you're just right down this road.

JIM MUNROE: You can't write this stuff.

ROBERT: You're—you're just—you're driving, like, at 100 miles an hour towards—towards ...

JIM MUNROE: No. For me, it was like I was being introduced to a person. There is an experiential understanding of that which was going on behind the scenes of this existence that was answering my prayer.

ROBERT: The prayer is for—the prayer is called, "Are you there?" That's the prayer.

JIM MUNROE: Mm-hmm. Yup.

SOREN: Are you there, God?

JIM MUNROE: Yup.

SOREN: Basically, Jim saw Jennell and her donation to him as almost more than just allegory, as, like, something close to a literal proof of the existence of God. Like, a very real,very present sign.

JIM MUNROE: I told her to—I told her that we need to meet. I said, "Can I please bring you out to Dallas, Texas?"

JENNELL JENNEY: He said, "I have to bring you to Texas." Which is my nightmare. I'm just kidding. [laughs] I wanted to go right into it.

JIM MUNROE: I remember her tone. She's like, "Yeah! Sure!" Super excited. So yes, I flew her to Dallas, Texas.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: Lights, camera, action. It's coming up.]

JIM MUNROE: I actually recorded it.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: This girl saved my life.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, man: Oh really? That's awesome.]

SOREN: In the video, you see Jim sort of standing at the bottom of this escalator at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. He's, you know, looking pretty thin and pale and nervous. And then the camera turns and there's Jennell ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jennell Jenney: Hi!]

SOREN: ... coming down the escalator.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jennell Jenney: [laughs] Sorry, I'm like the last one. Hi!]

SOREN: And they hug.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jennell Jenney: Hi, little guy!]

SOREN: And then his kids come up.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: That's my daughter, Theresa.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jennell Jenney: Hi! Aww, you're so cute. Yeah.]

SOREN: And eventually his wife.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jennell Jenney: So nice to meet you guys too!]

ROBERT: Okay, so now you go home.

JENNELL JENNEY: Mm-hmm we go to his house.

ROBERT: To his home.

JENNELL JENNEY: Right. And he lives in a very big house outside of Dallas.

SOREN: And they had dinner with the family, and then, you know, once everybody else was kind of heading off to bed, Jim and Jennell started to talk.

JENNELL JENNEY: And I think if I remember correctly, we were just outside by the pool and just talking and figuring out who each other was. And, you know, I was like, "So, you know, magician? What—what is that?" And he started telling me about what kind of magician he really is, and he is a Christian magician.

JIM MUNROE: [laughs] I'm sure that in her mind she's thinking, "Oh my gosh, I just saved a Christian magician from Texas's life."

ROBERT: [laughs]

JIM MUNROE: "Like, joke's on me. Isn't that wonderful," you know?

JAD: When we come back, Jennell becomes Jim's greatest magic trick.

ROBERT: So don't go away.

JAD: Okay, we're back. I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich. This is Radiolab.

JAD: And okay, well let's return to a story from Soren Wheeler. So Soren, you left us in the backyard. They were about to talk, right?

SOREN: Yup. Sitting in Jim's backyard by the pool, and he's basically telling her his whole story about his sort of loss of faith, and the cancer, and how she saved his life. And then he tells her that right after she saved him, he started doing the magic show again, that show that he used to do with Tennyson.

JENNELL JENNEY: And the show is called The Maze.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: My name is Jim Monroe. This is The Maze.]

SOREN: So we actually got to see Jim's show, and I have to say he's a pro. It's an impressive production, he gets big venues.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: Are you over here ready to have some fun tonight?]

SOREN: Usually thousand people or so, there's crazy laser light show stuff. And he does these really complicated illusions that are sort of half Penn and Teller, half David Blaine.

JENNELL JENNEY: Like for example, picking a random phone number out of the phone book, and it ends up being someone in the audience.

SOREN: And then their phone will end up, like, hidden somewhere.

JENNELL JENNEY: Something like that. And they're very good.

SOREN: So Jim is telling Jennell about all of these tricks, but then he says ...

JENNELL JENNEY: The second half of the show is about us. [laughs]

SOREN: He explains that the magic show at this point ends, he tells people they can leave if they want to, and he starts to talk openly, confessionally to the audience ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: Where I quickly found out that I had cancer.]

SOREN: ... in very personal terms about what happened to him.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: So my wife and I raced down to MD Anderson Cancer Center]

SOREN: And at a certain point he shows a video.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: I'm on the chemo now. But they say that the stuff in the chemo is starting to kick in.]

SOREN: He's in the hospital.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: My mouth is dry.]

SOREN: He's throwing up into a bucket. And he's pale and thin, huge circles under his eyes. And then he explains that right when he was on the edge of death ...

JENNELL JENNEY: That at his lowest point, this thing happened.

SOREN: ... a miracle happened.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: She said, "There is one, one person. Just one."]

JENNELL JENNEY: When his blood was literally poisoning his own body, somebody substituted their blood on his behalf so he could be reborn again. Three days after his birthday ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: On the third day, I came back from the dead.]

JENNELL JENNEY: So there's a whole three days thing there, which is the story of Easter and the rebirth. It's just he sees this as, like, definitive proof that there is a God.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: ...the statistical anomaly that continues to propagate this false ideology about supernaturalism and miracles. I'm that statistical anomaly that is wild that it's like being bitten by a shark and struck by lightning at the same time twice in the same lifetime. Or you might have to believe what I believe is true, and that there is something bigger going on behind the scenes, and his name is Jesus.]

JENNELL JENNEY: So yes, this is all being thrown at me.

SOREN: And is he saying all this to you by the pool? Is it all—it all comes tumbling out?

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah. Yeah.

SOREN: And how are you—how are you feeling inside?

JENNELL JENNEY: Stranger and stranger. Going down the wormhole because I am an atheist in the sense that I don't believe in the tenets of Christianity. I don't believe really in the tenets of any established religion I've ever seen. Honestly, I just think that once things are labeled and you're pigeonholed, and the exclusivity of really any religion is the cause for a lot of problems throughout history. But faith can be beautiful, and there's definitely parts of me and there's moments in my life that boy, praying and really feeling like that was going out to somebody would feel great but I just can't. I just can't do it. So at that moment, yeah, he's telling me this and yeah, and he's like, "Well, you know, you're here in Texas for this weekend, and would you be willing to come on stage for one of my shows, so I can introduce you?" And of course I said yes.

SOREN: Really? Of course? Of course you said yes?

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah, of course! I've always kind of looked at our story as something bigger than what he believes, than what I don't believe. It's bigger, it's capital B, underlined bold. It's big.

SOREN: Partly because Jim, at every show, he has the bone marrow registry people right there ready to sign folks up.

JENNELL JENNEY: And because of the show they just saw, he can get hundreds. I know that dozens of people have gone on to be matches.

SOREN: Wow!

JENNELL JENNEY: So this was truly the culmination of—from the moment I signed up to be on that registry, this felt like the zenith of this entire thing.

SOREN: So next night ...

JENNELL JENNEY: At Texas Christian University. Packed house.

SOREN: Jennell's in the audience.

JENNELL JENNEY: I was in, like, the front row.

SOREN: And during the second part of the show when Jim goes through the rebirth part, he stops and he says, "Guess what, everyone? That person who saved my life? She's here."

JENNELL JENNEY: He has me walk up on stage. The crowd went wild. The first time in my life I got a standing ovation.

SOREN: Because you're Jesus! That's why the crowd goes crazy, because ...

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah. Yeah. All of these kids in the audience, who are all pretty much my age as well at that point are seeing my being on stage as the—quite possibly the biggest proof they've ever had that there is a god.

ROBERT: Were you—was there any part of you that said I shouldn't be here or were you all there?

JENNELL JENNEY: There was a part of me that felt a little bit of an imposter?

ROBERT: Hmm.

SOREN: But for Jennell, she says that feeling was outweighed just by the number of people that were lining up at the bone marrow donation table. And so the next time she had a chance, she did it again. And again. And again. She's now appeared at the end of the show around a dozen times, all around the country, playing the role of Jim's personal savior. And she says the more times she did it, the more that feeling, that sort of fraud feeling kept popping up, each time a little bit louder.

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah. There's parts of me, there's little fibers in my being that are like, "Wow, if this is a sign, if there is a god, I'm a real jerk." This is such a beautiful, and really literal story being told to me about, like, hey, maybe there is a god.

SOREN: She said she started to feel that, like, if she's both perpetuating that story, and ...

JENNELL JENNEY: Refusing it, there's a special place in hell for me.

SOREN: And this is why Jennell got in touch with us, because she wanted us to help her figure out a way to tell a story that let her way of seeing the world into the room.

ROBERT: So let's stay tuned for that.

JAD: Okay, we're back. I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich. This is Radiolab, and we are telling you the story of a woman who saved a man's life. The man is so thankful that he comes back to Jesus, wants Christians across the country to hear his story, and wants this lady to help him tell it. But she's an atheist. So we're now gonna help her find a way to tell her side of the story.

LATIF: Okay, are you guys—is everyone there?

JENNELL JENNEY: I'm here.

LATIF: Jim, can you hear us?

JIM MUNROE: Yeah I can hear you guys. Jennell, can you hear me?

JENNELL JENNEY: I can.

JIM MUNROE: How are you?

SOREN: So our producer Latif Nasser actually started talking to Jennell about what exactly she wanted to do, and then they decided that we should just all get in the studio, Jim and her and all of us, and see if we could hash it out.

ROBERT: Okay.

LATIF: But I guess, like, Jennell, do you want to just kind of talk through what—what we've been thinking?

JENNELL JENNEY: Sure, I can try. And if you want to help me, Latif.

LATIF: Sure.

JENNELL JENNEY: So essentially, Latif and I have been talking about what would be the best way for me to kind of tell my side of the story.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah.

JENNELL JENNEY: My side of our story, so to speak, without so much of the religious stuff.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah, so when are you guys gonna do that?

LATIF: [laughs]

JIM MUNROE: Maybe I missed the point, I'm sorry. So you say "We," as in like, we are gonna do a version of that.

JENNELL JENNEY: Well, I thought you could help me.

JIM MUNROE: Oh, cool. Well, I have no problem ...

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah kind of just ...

JIM MUNROE: Yeah.

JENNELL JENNEY: Because you are so not only a magician with magic things, but also with words.

JIM MUNROE: Uh-huh.

JENNELL JENNEY: So maybe if we could—if you could help me?

JIM MUNROE: So yeah, totally. That's so interesting. My mind begins to spin.

SOREN: So at first, we suggested maybe Jennell could come out at the end of one of Jim's shows and just read a statement or something, and Jim said ...

JIM MUNROE: I, you know ...

SOREN: ... that's probably not gonna work.

JIM MUNROE: As you guys know, in this world—I mean, audiences come based upon how things are marketed and booked, and ...

SOREN: And Jim said, you know, he has to worry about, sort of as a business, the expectations of his sponsors and even the audience who are looking for a certain thing.

JIM MUNROE: I'm just thinking like a producer, because I'm totally up for ..

SOREN: So we were like, "Yeah, okay. Fair enough. Maybe it could be a Q&A after the show or something like that."

JIM MUNROE: I don't know. I'd have to really process it, but I'm totally open to it. I would always love to help Jennell figure—I mean, help her put it all together and like—I think, though, that ...

SOREN: So eventually we landed on a plan. Jim was gonna be doing his show up in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and we decided well, we could just do a show with him and Jennell the next night. So along with producers Latif Nasser and Annie McEwen, we headed up to St. Cloud, met up with Jennell, and that night we went to all go see Jim's show. It's a pretty big venue. There was probably like a thousand people there, all college students. And, of course, because Jennell was there, right after he did the sort of personal journey back to God ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: Check this out. She's here tonight. There she is.]

SOREN: It's a little bit hard to hear, but there was literally, like, a shudder of energy that went through the crowd at that moment.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: Ladies and gentlemen, I want to welcome to the stage, this is Jennell Jenney. Come on up here, Jennell. [applause] So yeah.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jennell Jenney: Well, you're the much better speaker than me, but what I can say is that I encourage all of you to consider signing up ...]

SOREN: So Jennell just pointed out that the National Bone Marrow Registry would be there that night, and she encouraged everybody to, you know, sign up and have a chance to save a life and do something good.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jennell Jenney: So please do that or, at least consider it.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: Show them the tattoo.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jennell Jenney: Oh, yeah.]

SOREN: And then Jim had her show the whole audience her puzzle piece tattoo.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jennell Jenney: I have a tattoo. Only one still!]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: There it is right there. [applause]]

SOREN: And once Jennell had stepped back off the stage ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: Before we close, I wanted to know if I could pray for you. Do you guys still pray in Minnesota? I need to pray. All right, so would you mind? I told you you could leave. I want you to pray this prayer with me, just say this in your hearts. Say, "Lord Jesus, tonight I choose to turn and start living for myself, my own version and my own story, and I want to trust you. I don't have all the answers, but I know you do. And tonight by faith I choose to follow you. Thank you for loving me. Thank you, in the midst of all of this randomness that I experience coming after me, for being [inaudible]. I love you too. In Jesus's mighty name, amen and amen. [audience cheers]]

SOREN: And then, just before everybody stepped out ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: Also, this is very important. I'm gonna be here another night. We're gonna be here tomorrow night. Have you guys heard of the podcast Radiolab? Hear about Radiolab, the podcast, anybody?]

SOREN: That was about three people that shouted out.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: They're in the audience. I'm just gonna say that. I'm not gonna point them out, but they're in the audience.]

SOREN: Nobody cared.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jim Munroe: And Radiolab is gonna be holding this forum. Jennell Jenney's gonna tell her side of the story of what happened to her through this process. All right? All right.]

SOREN: So after the show, we actually got a chance to talk to some of the people from the audience.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, woman: And then hearing the whole three days thing, I was like, oh my God! Wow. Oh my God!]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, man: Yeah, I couldn't believe that she was actually here.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, woman: Here in the room.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, man: Think about it. I would have been so shocked to sit right next to her.]

SOREN: Pretty much everybody was totally floored by actually getting to see Jennell in person, and they all seemed to take her story the way Jim does.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, man: She was a visual example of everything.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, woman: Put a face to this whole thing.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, man: Yeah, so many things fell in line where you just have to believe, in my opinion.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Latif: Yeah, yeah, yeah.]

SOREN: So the next night ...

PRESENTER: Good evening, everyone. Welcome. My name is Mark Springer.

SOREN: ... with much less fanfare, in a much smaller room, like, maybe a hundred people there or so, with the help of the religious studies program at St. Cloud University ...

ROBERT: Hear me okay? Yes, there I am. Oh my gosh.

SOREN: ... we did Jennell's thing.

ROBERT: All right, so I'm Robert Krulwich. I am one of the cohosts of a public radio program called Radiolab. I want to introduce also Soren Wheeler, who is our managing editor, who's gonna—he's gonna be adding his two cents from time to time. We're a very democratic show and, like, nobody controls everything and everybody pitches in, so he will too. And I want to begin by just telling you a story.

SOREN: So we brought Jennell up on stage.

ROBERT: So Jennell could you just come up here and sit. I guess might as well sit here.

SOREN: We told her whole story of, you know, donating, and then waiting a year to find out, you know, who Jim really was.

JENNELL JENNEY: ... he was in a wheelchair and couldn't talk. I had no idea that ...

SOREN: And then we brought Jim on stage.

ROBERT: All right. So Jim, the year is up ...

SOREN: He talked about, you know, his whole process of recovery.

JIM MUNROE: You're trying to get your bearings.

SOREN: He talked about how grateful and thankful he was. And then we turned back to Jennell.

ROBERT: Well, let's make this a little more complicated. Soren, could you just run the—I asked you, like, how you felt in that first round, and this is what you told me in the interview.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jennell Jenney: There was a part of me that felt a little bit of an imposter.]

ROBERT: Well now, why would you use the word 'imposter?' Why did you choose that word?

JENNELL JENNEY: Is this how we should start getting into the meat and potatoes of my thoughts?

ROBERT: I think so.

JENNELL JENNEY: Okay.

ROBERT: Yeah.

JENNELL JENNEY: Part of me—and at that time especially, thought that I'm up here again as this pretty hard and fast proof for a very compelling narrative for a lot of people and their faith that I don't particularly share at all.

JIM MUNROE: Can I ask a question?

ROBERT: Yeah.

JIM MUNROE: But I—knowing that ...

JENNELL JENNEY: You knew it at that point because ...

JIM MUNROE: Yeah. Yeah.

JENNELL JENNEY: I think we talked about that ...

JIM MUNROE: But I was—I was very concerned knowing that you, you know, didn't agree with what I believed to be true, that you would feel like you were in that spot. That's why I asked you.

JENNELL JENNEY: Of course, and I could have declined.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah.

JENNELL JENNEY: But I mean ...

JIM MUNROE: But at the same time, it doesn't make anything different in the fact that it's still what it is, you know?

JENNELL JENNEY: Exactly. I would have done it regardless of whatever it was. If the whole theme of your show was how great the Dallas Cowboys were, and it got everyone to join the bone marrow registry, I would have gone up there with a Cowboys hat. Honestly, Jim, every time I see your show even though I don't, you know, adhere to the religious tenets of it, I still get that feeling. And everybody, all my family, all my friends, whatever their religions, even my Muslim friends that I've told the story get, you know, that feeling. And, you know, what that feeling is is a little intangible, but I think it's something even a little bigger than—that sounds so crappy to say. Bigger than Jesus. That's really blasphemous, but I can't think of a better way to say it.

ROBERT: What did you—can you explain what that means?

JENNELL JENNEY: Well, you know, that there is good in this universe and there is good in everybody, and it is regardless of—the goodness is at the top of the list of you, and everything else as follows: your religion and your race and where you're born and your favorite pizza toppings and all of that. But at the very top is good with a capital G and underlined too.

ROBERT: All right. Jim, in your show you have a rather gorgeous take on moral relativism. You have a string of thoughts that this idea of being good and doing no harm and living as ethically as you know how is satisfying to some people, but in your view it isn't really enough.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah, this is where we—I mean, obviously there is some disagreement here. I think that there is good and I think that there is evil in this world. And I think that people in and of their own—left to their own vices, left to their own devices, I think that they struggle with being good. I think that even on our best day, I think that we fall short.

ROBERT: And so in hearing her account, you're just thinking what? That she's not—where does she fall? Where does this idea lose you?

JIM MUNROE: I don't—I mean, it doesn't lose me. I think it's phenomenally good. And I'm not not acknowledging it's good, I just think that for the Christian it's not about being good or bad.

ROBERT: Hmm. What is it about?

JIM MUNROE: I think it's about—I think it's about having a relationship with God. Does that make sense?

ROBERT: I guess it makes some sense.

SOREN: At that point, Jim, you know, he made it clear that he definitely wasn't condemning Jennell because she didn't have a relationship with God, but then we took a sort of different approach. We started talking about the unlikeliness of this whole story, which is one of the things Jim talks about in his show. And so at that point, I decided I should jump in.

SOREN: And I say this, and I really say this only because it is our job as a show that when we hear a story like this we dig in, we investigate, and we do that from a frame that is really focused on math, facts, science. And a couple things happen to you if you happen to be in my position. You run across stuff like this, and I'll just read from the Be A Match website. "A patient's likelihood of finding a matching donor on Be The Match registry is estimated to be between 66 and 97 percent." The chances that you'll find a 10 to 10 match in the way that Jim and Jennell were 10-to-10 matches is around 50 percent.

ROBERT: Wait a second. Wait a second. Which—that doesn't make sense to me. There were eight million people. She was the one.

SOREN: Yeah, let me say that this does not actually contradict with Jim and Jennell's experience of it. For that to happen to Jim is truly staggering. It is truly—it could be one in a trillion, you know, like the way that winning a lottery is one in a trillion.

ROBERT: Yeah, but how could—it can't be both. One in ...

SOREN: It can because what happens is if you back up away from the individual and ask not what are the chances this could happen to Jim, but what are the chances this would happen to someone, somewhere, it's like there's a story about you're golfing and you hit a golf ball and it goes however many hundreds of yards—I don't play golf so I don't know how far they go, but it lands on a blade of grass. And that blade of grass says, "Why me? Why would this golf ball crush me like this?" Which is a valid point. I would feel that too, but that ball was gonna land on some blade of grass. So you—like, the "Why me?" is still a true thing. It is a true experience, in a way.

ROBERT: Well, there is still this difference, I think. The ball can't point to anything greater in the ...

SOREN: No, the argument lurks behind this is that these things happen and it is just chance, right?

ROBERT: So this is the random view. How do you folks feel about that, that you were randomly there and you were randomly—'chosen' isn't the word. You were—the ball of mercy landed on you.

JIM MUNROE: I'm also not coming at it from just that angle. I wonder if it was just the bone marrow transplant if it would be—people get that all the time. I think perhaps the other bits and pieces of the puzzle maybe help shadow it in, you know, a little bit for me. And so I don't know, to me it's a multilayered cake.

ROBERT: I thought you really don't like this idea of—like, in this science version, there is no design and there is no first cause except the first random event that sets the thing in motion.

JIM MUNROE: Right.

ROBERT: Do you both—could either of you live with that version of what just happened to you?

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah. Well, that's perfect because that's exactly what you talk about in your show with the—all the different cards.

SOREN: Jennell's referring to a thing in Jim's show where he talks about how unlikely any particular order of cards in a deck is.

JENNELL JENNEY: And the idea of a particular set of cards being dealt in a particular way is 52 factorials.

JIM MUNROE: Which is pretty much impossible.

JENNELL JENNEY: It is impossible. I mean, it's an impossible number.

JIM MUNROE: Statistically.

JENNELL JENNEY: Statistically, right. Right. But yet you deal the cards and they happen right there. So this really gets into just the different viewpoints on the proverbial deck of cards and who's dealing them. Is it in a particular fashion? And I think, that's you know, what Jim believes is that there is a proverbial dealer and I don't, I guess.

ROBERT: Mm-hmm. And do you agree? That's pretty much the difference?

JIM MUNROE: Yeah. I mean, having given thought to that, I believe that there was some sort of you know, mind personality.

ROBERT: The "I believe" part is where you—is where you stand. It's faith.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It is. It's faith.

ROBERT: And Jennell, you're his savior, I guess. You saved his life, but in some way you don't—you haven't—do you worry about this at all?

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah, absolutely. And even right now on this stage, there is a part of me that in front of all of you, that I'm sure a lot of you were at this show last night. There is a part of me that is afraid of disappointing, that I don't share what you believe to be true. I mean, your entire experience pretty much points the arrow that like, I'm like an alliteration of Jesus in your story. And that's really difficult to reconcile as someone who doesn't have faith. And it makes me sad sometimes, because I think it would be a lot easier if I just believed exactly what you believe. And I think that I always am very afraid of letting that be known. Like, I'm super, like, clammy right now just saying it in front of this many people. I just feel like people would see your story—and it's so tremendously compelling, it's unbelievable and then see that that last piece of this little puzzle literally doesn't fit at all.

JIM MUNROE: I mean, it's not like I haven't—I haven't thought about that either and how you might feel. And I empathize, and I don't know how to answer that. You know, I just want to give you a hug.

JENNELL JENNEY: Yeah.

JIM MUNROE: There is an unconditionality to how I feel about you that I just—you can do no wrong in my eyes.

ROBERT: Here's for you the hardest thing. I was just trying to think about how difficult this must be. You have been saved—your life has been saved by her.

JIM MUNROE: Mm-hmm.

ROBERT: She is, in effect, your savior, and yet your belief is that unless she accepts Jesus, that in some sense she is outside of grace. And, you know, I don't know what you believe about hell and heaven, but that she might be punished. So what do you do about this weird combination? She's insisting "Nope, not for me," and you're insisting "Oh no, this is the way it is," and oh my gosh, is it hard for you?

JIM MUNROE: No, not at all.

ROBERT: Okay.

JIM MUNROE: And I'll tell you why. Because it's not my place to do that. I am very sorry to everyone who listens to this who ever feels like they got judged by a Christian. Because it's never their place to do that. And this is where I think most of the times, and everybody listening to this podcast has placed, has kind of positioned or pigeonholed Christians. And what they don't understand is that I'm not commanded to do anything but to love and to start conversations, right? I'm not the one—I'm not the one who was sent into the world to judge, all right? But what I—so putting it like that, I know where you want to go with this.

ROBERT: No, this is actually an honest question. You have to love the judge that may not love the woman who saved your life. That's hard, I think.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah, but at the same time that's not what I'm—that's not my place.

SOREN: I have to say, I think we were sort of expecting that maybe there would be a sharper edge to the differences between Jim and Jennell. But to be honest, their conversation that night,

and their story started to feel like almost an allegory for how to move through the world and hold your differences but still be one.

ROBERT: Let me just finish this way. Do you have a sense between the two of you—because obviously, you stay very very good friends. I mean, that's obvious. Is there some—something that either of you can say that explains why you can dignifyingly but emphatically disagree and still stay in such extraordinarily close touch?

JENNELL JENNEY: I think the idea of humility, and as Jim might even say grace, is absolutely essential, no matter your tenets of belief. And that's really what's gonna get you through conflict. So yeah.

ROBERT: And is it because you're in this big ocean of the world, and the two of you are just little little dots in it? And so whatever you think it's still you're in a big ocean and there you are together? Is that the ...?

JENNELL JENNEY: I think maybe, yeah.

JIM MUNROE: Yeah. And ...

ROBERT: But do you have her bigness thing? Do you feel small?

JIM MUNROE: Do I feel small?

ROBERT: Yeah.

JIM MUNROE: I feel tiny. Humility at its root word, it comes—the root is 'humos,' which means dirt. So when you become humble you become dirt.

ROBERT: That's better than the sea analogy, I think.

JIM MUNROE: I could keep going. You know, what God does with dirt is he creates things, but I won't go there.

ROBERT: [laughs]

JIM MUNROE: But we become dirt, and I think where we get hung up is that we want to be right. And that hasn't been brought into this yet. We want to be right. And right and wrong are—the words 'right' and 'wrong' are—I think in relationship are deadly words. I think saying 'I'm right, you're wrong' is not good for relationships. I think it's like let's find ...

ROBERT: And have you ever said "you're right" or "you're wrong" to her?

JIM MUNROE: No.

JENNELL JENNEY: I haven't said it to him either, I don't think.

JIM MUNROE: Never.

ROBERT: Well that's a nice place to land.

JIM MUNROE: I think so.

ROBERT: I think we're done. Now that doesn't mean we're done, done. That means that I'm gonna let these two people introduce the person who brought them together.

SOREN: At the end of the show, we had the bone marrow registry people there and encouraged people to sign up. And quite a few did. I think maybe 20 or so. But that was pretty much nothing compared to what Jim got at the end of his show.

JENNELL JENNEY: That's 150 people.

ANNIE MCEWEN: Wait, say that again?

JENNELL JENNEY: Just like 150 people signing up right now.

ANNIE: Did you count them?

SOREN: That's our producer, Annie McEwen

JENNELL JENNEY: I've been trying to. It's at least that.

ANNIE: Is this bigger than normal, or is it always like this?

JENNELL JENNEY: This is a little bigger than normal. I think anytime that I'm actually in the show it's a little bit better. So I've been told. [laughs]

ANNIE: And what does it mean—how are you feeling when you watch this?

JENNELL JENNEY: It's really overwhelming. Like, yeah, it kind of makes me want to cry.

ANNIE: Yeah. I mean, without you this wouldn't happen.

JENNELL JENNEY: It's almost too big to think of.

JAD: Well, thank you, Soren.

SOREN: Sure. No problem.

ROBERT: This piece was reported by Latif Nasser, produced by Annie McEwen with help from Bethel Habte and Alex Overington.

JAD: Special thanks to Julie Schmidt with Be The Match.

ROBERT: And by the way, they are one of the several bone marrow registries. This is the one that Jim and Janelle were connected to. It is called Be The Match. And if you want to donate, well, we made a special arrangement with them. All you have to do is go to Join.BeTheMatch.org. That's capital B, capital T, capital M, one word. And you'll get a spit swab thing in the mail. And maybe—well, maybe you can save a life. It's free if you are under 45. So again, that's Join.BeTheMatch.org.

JAD: Also, thanks to Ginger Galvin, Bryce Harney and Stu True with The Maze.

ROBERT: And to Mark Springer, Kevin Sharp, Jim Gray, Kelly Larsen, and the rest of the wonderful faculty and staff at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.

JAD: All right. I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: Thanks for listening.

[LISTENER: Hey, I'm Lemmon and I'm from Richmond, Indiana. And here are the staff credits. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes: Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Matt Kielty, Rebecca Laks, Annie McEwen, Alex Neason, Sarah Qari, Sarah Sandbach, Anisa Vietze, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Natalie Middleton.]

[LISTENER: Hi, My name's Teresa. I'm calling from Colchester in Essex, UK. Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.]

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