After a brief debate about which of us is the more miserable, we discuss whether social media can help us engage with our shadow, detaching from the news without feeling guilty, and how hate actually tethers us to the object of our hatred. Also we have a discussion about Advent.
This year I’m thinking a lot about the need to focus on small things. Advent is part of that. The nativity accounts seem quite big and spectacular, what with exotic magi, strange stars and deranged rulers.
In this week’s episode we talk about prayer and laughter, about creativity, and about the everyday acts of hope that help us transcend the news. As usual I climbed onto my high horse about social media for a bit, as a listener wrote in quoting that bit from Shaun Lambert’s interview, where talked about ‘Freeing our attentional capacities from the virtual world is the number one ethical task’. Which I have written a bit more about here.
Well. It’s been a bit of a week and many people are struggling with disappointment, darkness and fear. So in this podcast we talk about how we can respond in these times. In particular, I wanted to frame joy as a choice – not as a kind of escapism, but as a revolutionary, even insubordinate act. Like Jesus' embodiment of nonviolent protest, choosing joy and laughter and hope in these times can be seen as defiance, not defeat.
This week, Joe interviews singer-songwriter Martyn Joseph. He talks about his career, the craft of song-writing, the pressures and joy of touring, and we end, of course, with a song.
One of the thing which struck me most is that Martyn emphasises the importance of ‘turning up’ - not just going through the motions but giving the best you can give for whatever audience you have and whatever you are doing.
Is God really in charge of the universe? Do prophecies actually happen? Lots of interesting feedback this week, coming out of last week’s chat about prophecy, guidance and generally ‘hearing’ from God.
For some years now I’ve been thinking about our life as a collaboration with God, rather than God micro-managing everything. Christians, to me, often drift into a kind of fatalism, where everything is pre-ordained and planned. Such a concept of God seems to me to be more controlling than loving.
In this episode we returned to one of the central questions of theology: is it right to pray for a parking space? As I say in the programme, I believe in an interventionist God, but I’m not sure he intervenes in quite the way we think.
I was also really touched this week by an email from someone who, in the middle of a sad and difficult time, experienced a moment of mindfulness and grace.
This week Joe interviews an old college friend, Shaun Lambert, about mindfulness, wonder, and the need to ’re-perceive' God. It’s a really great interview, connecting mindfulness with spirituality in a very profound and helpful way.
A lot of it is about the need to pay attention to ourselves and the moment we’re in. Attention is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. In fact I led a retreat on the subject the week before lock down happened – an event which caused us all to pay greater attention in a whole new way!
Well, it’s been a pretty rubbish couple of weeks, but amidst the anxiety there are some good things.
This week Joe and I chat a bit about comfort. My thoughts were inspired by giving a talk on Sunday on 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 which really describes how we are comforted by God (largely through each other) and how we then have to pass that comfort on. So we live in this virtuous circle of giving and receiving comfort.
Crikey. We’ve done three hundred episodes of this podcast. Who’d have thought it?
Anyway, this week, Joe and I talk about some of the things we’ve learned along the way and, indeed, are still learning. This is my list…
What have I learned?
That there are a lot of people out there who are in this situation.
We're still going and the audience is still growing. So there are a lot more people out there who identify with mid-faith crisis than we imagined.
One of the things Joe and I discussed on this week’s show was redeeming the word ‘religion’, helped by a listener who wrote in that ‘I’ve actually started to use the word ‘religion’ again… At its best, religion and religious communities can teach and empower us to become truly human and leave behind our selfish survival traits.’
I think this is absolutely true. ‘Religion’ is a tarnished word, stained by centuries of abuse, hypocrisy and cruelty.