This Good Word With Steve Wiens

Why do we get so triggered by Facebook posts with which we disagree? Why can't we just smile and move on? This episode deals with the idea of dualism, and how our brains are still hardwired to keep us safe from sabertooth tigers hiding behind the blueberry bush even when they aren't there. It also explores a mindful practice that can help you to move on more quickly by detaching yourself - and your identity - from your feelings.  Also mentioned in this episode: Fun Parts Podcast! Check out the trailer for this brand new podcast that explores the relationship between sexuality and spirituality.  

Gena Thomas advocates for families who have been separated at the border. In this conversation, we talked about Gena's experience adopting Julia, a child who had been separated from her family at the border between the US & Mexico, and also about how she worked tirelessly to find Julia's mother, Guadalupe, so they could be reunited. You can read all about Gena's story in her book, Separated by the Border.   You can follow Gena on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and find out more about her work at www.genathomas.com Also mentioned in this episode:  Kids in Need of Defense Bethany Christian Services  In the Country We Love

I recorded this interview with Austin Channing Brown in July of 2018, but it's incredibly poignant given the events of the last few weeks, with the killing of George Floyd, the global protest, and the overwhelming call for systemic change. Please consider buying her book (which is currently #15 on the NYT Bestseller list): I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. 

Jessica Kantrowitz is a writer and theologian living in Boston, Massachusetts. She writes about theology, culture, social justice, and chronic illness, including her own struggles with depression and migraines. Her writing has been featured in places like Sojourners, Think Christian, The Good Men Project, and Our Bible App. She earned her MDiv from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.   You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and you can purchase her new book, The Long Night: Readings and Stories to Help You Through Depression here.   

Click here to buy my new book, Shining Like the Sun: Seven Mindful Practices for Rekindling Your Faith.   

We live in a multi-faith society which often results in misinformation, ignorance, disagreements, hate speech, violence, and even wars. What the Faith is a new community born out of a desire for empathy rather than division. To find commonality in the midst of chaos. To find out more about What the Faith, check out this episode's show notes. 

Bronwyn Lea is the author of Beyond Awkward Side Hugs: Living as Brothers and Sisters in Christ in a Sex-Crazed World. Find out more about Bronwyn and her book by visiting this episode's show notes! 

It's been almost a year since we lost our friend Rachel Held Evans. In fact, she was supposed to come out of her medically induced coma on Easter Sunday, 2019. Just two weeks after that, we lost her. I had the incredible opportunity to have a conversation with Amanda Held Opelt, Rachel's sister, about her journey of grief, the hope she's holding onto these days, and her renewed view about what resurrection means.  Her words were powerful and inspiring; I hope you enjoy this conversation. 

A custom of our Christian tradition is to keep vigil with Christ at different times and in different ways during Holy Week. One of the places from which we draw this custom is Jesus’ request to his disciples to keep watch while he prayed and agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane. We also know that there were those few—including Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ mother Mary, and the apostle John—who stayed near the cross and kept watch as Jesus suffered and died. Despite the horror of what was taking place, those most intimate with Jesus stayed with him to the end. Walking and praying through the stations of the cross is one way we can keep vigil with Christ during these holy days. Traditionally, there are fourteen Stations of the Cross—most of them taken directly from Scripture, along with a few that have been passed down in Christian tradition. This episode is based on An Invitation to Walk with Christ: Stations of the Cross Prayer Guide by Ruth Haley Barton.  Exploring Further: Transforming Resources; Lent Resources

You know when you meet someone for the first time and find yourself agreeing with almost everything they say? That was how my entire conversation with Jerome Daley went. His emphasis on soul-care, on finding sane rhythms for your life, and on the contemplative journey was all water for my parched soul these days.  For more, check out his amazing book, Gravitas: The Monastic Rhythms of Healthy Leadership. Jerome Daley is an executive coach, retreat leader, and conflict consultant who is passionate about helping leaders thrive...and build thriving organizational cultures. With over 20 years in people development, he strengthens leaders in the journey toward true identity and vocational calling. Making his home in the mountains of North Carolina, he and his wife Kellie are parents of three grown children. His great delights are taking spiritual retreats, drinking good wine, backpacking in the mountains, and playing with his grandson. More at www.Thrive9solutions.com.

Colby Martin (author of Unclobber: Rethinking our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality) is about to release another book, titled The Shift: Surviving and Thriving after Moving from Conservative to Progressive Christianity. Colby is passionate about carving out a space within Christianity that includes: a whole-heartedly affirming posture toward LGBTQ individuals, a broader acceptance of other spiritual practices and religious perspectives, an agreeableness toward science, and a commitment to always growing, transforming, and trusting that the best days are yet to come. Colby is currently partnering with other progressive Christian churches as a co-director for Launchpad Partners Inc, an organization committed to planting and resourcing similar faith communities all across the country. You can follow Colby on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and find out more about his work on colbymartinonline.com

If feelings of fear and anxiety are threatening to sweep you away right now, there is a way to pray that allows you to name your feelings - as big as they are, to welcome reality as it is rather than fighting it, so that you can let those feelings go and find peace even in the midst of the storm.  In this brief episode, I guide you through how to welcome any feeling you have, as big as it is, feeling it in your body so that you can eventually move through it and let it go. Using The Welcoming Prayer (originally written by Mary Mrozowski but adapted and widely spread by Fr. Thomas Keating), I teach the three movements of this kind of prayer: (1) Focus/sink in; (2) Welcome; (3) Let go.  I hope this method of guided prayer will help you to find a sense of calm and peace even in the midst of so much uncertainty.  Grace and peace, my friends.    Links: You can read more about Father Thomas Keating and the Welcoming Prayer here.  Creative Commons Music by Jason Shaw on Audionautix.com My new book, Shining Li

As the world struggles to come to terms with a new reality in the midst of a global pandemic, we are coming to terms with the reality that we're not as in control of life as we thought we were. In this episode, I share five practices for learning how to welcome reality - even when it's awful, scary, and painful - instead of fighting to try to control it. Music on today's episode is courtesy of audionautix.com.

The following excerpt describes the journey that Dr. Christy Vidrine Bauman took that resulted in writing her fabulous book, Theology of the Womb: "If it is true that God is a male, then His Divinity or Deity is expressed in His masculinity. Yet I am a woman, and there are parts of my body; such as my breasts, my vagina, and my womb that are telling a story about God that I have never learned or understood. This is an exploration of the significance of a womb that must shed and bleed before it can create. How will we engage our body which cyclically bleeds most of our life and can build and birth a human soul? How will we honor the living womb, that lives and sometimes dies within us?" Theology of the Womb is a book about the theology found in the cycle of the womb, which births both life and death. Every day each one of us is invited to create, and every day we make a decision knowing that from our creation can come death or life. Women’s voices have been silenced for a long time as society and the church

Maybe you haven't heard of Ali Hormann yet, but that's all about to change. She's a wedding photographer, pastor, comedian, mother of three, and writer who believes nobody has to be pigeon-holed into identifying as just one thing. We talked about body image, theology, comedy, parenting, pastoring, politics, and we could have talked for about sixteen more hours. Ali is hilarious and deep, and I loved this conversation. Check out Ali's photography business on her website or on Instagram. Follow Ali on Twitter and Instagram.   And if you live in Minnesota, make sure to check out one of Ali's comedy shows - she'll be at Rick Bronson's House of Comedy at the Mall of American on March 22nd and 24th.  AND - this is the last call for anyone who'd like to join the launch team for my new book, Shining Like the Sun. Click here to apply to be on the launch team (deadline is March 1st). 

In this episode, I did two readings from my new book, Shining Like the Sun: Seven Mindful Practices for Rekdindling Your Faith, which releases on April 7th. I can't wait for you to listen to these excerpts and also to get your hands on your own copy. Click here to pre-order Shining Like the Sun.  I also invited listeners to consider joining my launch team. The first 50 people to join the launch team will receive a final copy of Shining Like the Sun as soon as my publisher receives it in the warehouse, weeks before it is released to the public. Everyone on the launch team will get access to a pdf of the book, as well as access to a private Facebook Group in which I'll host several book readings and also lead a discussion on the contents of several chapters.  I hope you'll consider joining my launch team. Thanks so much! 

This is part 3 of a four-part series called "Surviving Your Own Copernican Shift." If you're going through a faith deconstruction - or reconstruction - or both, you need help understanding a framework for spiritual development that allows questioning, expanding, and believing new things. Part One was about understanding that disruptions are the first step of growing spiritually. Part Two was about learning how to see the invitations into new beliefs that disruptions bring. Part Three is about seeing your belief system as a snow globe - you need to get outside of it to see its limitations and also what you're missing.  Enjoy! 

Joanna Luehmann is a Latinx pastor and theologian who took to Twitter on Sunday night and Monday following the Superbowl to give a different perspective to the halftime show to anyone who thought it was oversexualized. She graciously agreed to talk to me with virtually zero time to prepare, and what she offered was a beautiful, challenging and timely critique to Progressive Christians like me who need to spend a little more time seeing how our own implicit biases cloud our vision. Please take some time to listen to Joanna's insightful invitation into a decolonized way of seeing the world.  You can follow Joanna Luehmann on Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Patreon.  Enjoy. 

Until the early 1500's, everybody assumed planet earth was the fixed, immovable center of the universe, the reference point for the entire universe (apparently it didn't occur to anybody how utterly convenient that was for those of us who lived there). When Copernicus discovered the earth was also orbiting around the sun, nothing actually changed - except how we see everything.  This episode (disruption) is part one of a four-part series on the essential movements when you have your own Copernican shift, whether it's about religion or science or a relationship. Nobody likes life as we know it to be interrupted, but without disruption, we'd never expand how we think so we can see differently. Enjoy. 

Andrew Bauman is the Co-Founder and Director of Christian Counseling Center: For Sexual Health and Trauma. He's a licensed mental health counselor with an M.A. in Counseling Psychology from the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. He's also the author of several books, including Floating Away, Stumbling Toward Wholeness, The Psychology of Porn, and A Brave Lament (with Christy Bauman).  We had a fascinating conversation about why it seems so easy for Christians to see themselves as hopeless sinners, but how hard it is to see themselves as good & glorious. We talked about why we use self-contempt and shame as a way to try to crucify ourselves because we don't really believe (even though we say we do) the work of Christ is enough.  I can't wait for you to listen.  You can get in touch with Andrew and the many resources he provides by visiting his website, and you can also check out his work at the Christian Counseling Center: For Sexual Health and Trauma. Other resources mentioned in this episode: