At Sea with Justin McRoberts

A number of years ago, I sat in on a reading by the poet Gregory Orr. Gregory Or was then (and is now) a favorite poet of mine. In fact, he’s a favorite writer of mine. He was maybe five or six pieces into this reading when a conversation struck up between two of the other gentleman in the room. Sitting behind me, I heard one of them saying, loudly enough for me to hear,  “I don’t understand any of this” I’d definitely heard that about poetry or about poems before. I’ve probably even said that even as an English major and someone who writes poetry. “I don’t get it” So, that’s not the remarkable part of the story; to say or hear “I don’t understand this poem or poetry.”  What was notable was that the person he was talking to gave that moment of pause and said…“Actually, not everything is meant to be understood.” This need or desire and me to understand is, in essence, an expression of control. When I talk about “getting” something, when I talk about “understanding” something, part of what I mean by that is that I have a kind of power over it. Part of what good (if not great) poetry does is it disorients me to my own language; the words I normally would use to identify, name, pin down and control the world around me. Great poetry gives me the opportunity to get an attitude over my own life; to re-orient myself and my perspective to be, in fact, charmed again by the life I’m actually living. And while you will not find in me an enemy of liberalism on the whole, what you will hear me say is that a strict literalist understanding of life, scripture, relationship, and humanity steals from me the sacred joy and gift of being named in my life. See. when I name myself or a name my world, I generally do so (unfortunately) in a posture of power and control and in usefulness. All the while, near the heart of my being, is the desire to be more than useful  to be more than understood and more than powerful too, in fact, be loved And to be Beloved is a thing I can only be named from outside myself. Deeper than that: To receive that Title from someone else, from a culture, or from God, requires me to be in a position of powerlessness requires me to be in a position in which I don’t get to understand I simply get to receivePoetry primes the spirit, primes the mind, loosens to grips I have on the language by which I will control my life my definitions and postures me to actually become someone who can be loved. and is that not the thing in life that is simply wider, deeper, stronger, and better than any form of understanding: love One of the great tragedies of religious culture and religious practice is the propensity to lean towards literalism. Bot because literalism is an enemy in and of itself; it’s simply a limited way to understand the language by which we talk about humanity and the divine and history and relationship. Some things, yes, should be understood. But only in the service of posturing me to love my world better. The need I have (and desire I have) to understand the world around me should always be subservient to the deeper desire to love my world. To understand you should not be my goal; To love you well should.  And yes, sometimes when I don’t understand you and I don’t understand “why you are the way you are,” it can be more difficult to love you. On the other hand, sometimes the desire to just “get you” is too small a goal; I don’t get the great joy of discovering and learning and having to expand in order to receive you as you are. And that is the call of great poetry; to pause long enough to listen to the pattern, to the rhythm, to the placement and the choice of the words on the page or uttered by the author's mouth. That I would open myself up slightly wider to a different understanding of the same word that I might receive that word might receive that reality on a deeper level in a different way.And if I can do that with languagethen maybe I can do that with the people around me.Culture is usually formed and shaped and solidified by the words we use to identify the lines between people; I’m here you’re there and this is our relationship. Poetry takes those words and sometimes unpacks them and sometimes unpacks us with them. That we might look around our lives and inside ourselves and say something more like this:  “I don’t understand and that’s probably not just OK; that’s probably good. Because I’m not here to ‘get it… I’m here to love well.’” Links For Justin:Read Justin's SubstackOrder In The Low - NEW Book with Scott EricksonCoaching with JustinOrder In Rest - New Book of PoemsOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble

In a bio of mine, I describe myself as someone who desires to “provide language for the process of life and faith” I am a “words” person. Not everyone has to be or is. But I certainly care quite a bit about the words I use and the words that I take into my life. A lot of that came from a book I read a number of years ago by Marilyn Chandler McIntyre. The book is called “Caring For Words In A Culture Of Lies.” Right smack dab in the middle of the book is this notion she writes out with beautiful words. It says “The business of telling the truth and caring for the words we need for that purpose is more challenging than ever before simply the scale on which lies can be and are propagated can be overwhelming“ Because of that urgency, I’ve moved from just admiring and enjoying poetry to understanding poetry as a gift to great good and powerful culture. For a number of years, Tanner Olson has been making poetry and putting it in the world. He’s also one of those artists who recognize that the work he does requires a bit of translation. He’s not just a poet who puts poems in the world and hopes that people might or might not get them. He actually invites people into his process as a writer because he is actually doing the work of caring for the language is using and its impact on those to take it in. I’ve enjoyed watching him from afar I’ve enjoyed our growing friendship and I really enjoy this conversation I think you will, too.  Links For Justin:Read Justin's SubstackOrder In The Low - NEW Book with Scott EricksonCoaching with JustinOrder In Rest - New Book of PoemsOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble

During studio sessions with younger or inexperienced musicians, my dear friend and music producer Masaki Liu would often be asked questions like “What do you think about our chances?” Or “Do you think we can make it?”And, more often than not, he’d consistently respond with an intentionally cryptic piece of encouragement that went pretty much like this, word-for-word: “If you keep at it and stick with it, stay together as a band and keep making music, you’re going to be around for a long time.” Often enough, the band would take that as a compliment, though it wasn’t entirely intended to be. See, in that moment, what the band or artist wanted to know and hear was that they were good enough right there, right then. And that, because they were good enough, right there and right then, they had a more secure and hopeful future. The thing is… like just about everyone, including me when I started recording with him, … that young or inexperienced artist or band wasn’t good enough to “make it” right there, right then. Most of those artists and bands aren’t “around” right now making music. They didn’t make it long-term the way they were dreaming too. And there’s no shame in that: very few do. And I’m pretty convinced part of that part of why so few are still at it, investing in their chosen discipline years down the line is because it’s so easy to become focused to the point of obsession with early success or shallow metrics like being good enough, right now. Yes, there is something to be said for having talent for the thing I want to do. But, more substantial than that, the strengths and capacities that are necessary in order to make a career or a relationship or an organization or movement or dream work long-term are only developed over time and in a commitment to my own process of becoming. Early in my religious training, a lot was made out of what was called “The armor of God.”  In a letter written to new religious converts in Ephesus, The Apostle Paul encourages the Ephesians to put on this armor, as one might do in preparation for battle. He talks about the evil of the world and the dark forces they’ll be up against and prescribes the wearing of:  truth… righteousness … peace… faith.. But not so that they would go out and win battle after battle and conquer the world around them with the fervor of young soldiers. Instead, Paul prescribes the wearing of this armor (and this is from the letter itself):“so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground”When it passes, will you still be here? Will you still be standing? At the time of this writing, I’m just a few days away from the release of what will be my 5th book, overall. Entitled “It Is What You Make Of It,” there are stories in the book from the past few years of my work as well as from as long ago as high school and my childhood. The thing that binds together the stories in this book is the perspective and the wisdom I have from where I am. Which is to say, 'who I am now looking back on who I was'.I did what Masaki said to do. I stayed. I’m still here. And there simply isn’t a  singular victory or success in the entirety of my career that means as much to me as to say, “I’m still here. I’m still at it. And yes, because I’ve been at it for this long, I am better at what I do now than I’ve ever been at anything I’ve done previously. I am more equipped because I am more of the person I need to be in order to do the work I want to do.”The day I’m writing this is also the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. A moment in America’s racial history that opened the door for a great many people to enter into the work of justice and reconciliation, many of them for the first time. It is a good work. It is a necessary work. It is also a difficult work in which victories and accomplishments and benchmarks can seem small, at times insignificant, and far too infrequent. Which is to say that it is a work that can be deeply exhausting, particularly if I am deriving my energies from achieving the next success required of the work instead of becoming the kind of person who does the work, even in the face of disappointment See, there was and is a pearl of very practical and lifelong wisdom in Masaki Liu‘s decision to not answer directly the question being asked of him in the studio. If you want to know if you’re good enough right now, I’m not going to answer that question for you. The real question is,... Will you be here long enough to become the kind of person who does the kind of work you want to do today? Links For Justin:Read Justin's SubstackOrder In The Low - NEW Book with Scott EricksonCoaching with JustinOrder In Rest - New Book of PoemsOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble

Close to 20 years ago, I sat in a park near my place in The Bay Area, talking with Dave and JJ about their hopes and dreams. Having spent the first few years of their musical career between Arizona and California, they were right on the edge of a move to Nashville.They wanted to take a full, big league, swing at their work and believed that move would do it.Which is to say, they were doing what I regularly tell my clients to do, especially when young and less attached:They were betting on themselves and it has been a sincere joy to see them keep doing that.Because among the many rewards and awards available to professional artists, the joy of having stayed, over years and then decades is among the richest and most valuable.This is my conversation with JJ and Dave HellerCheck it out. Links for JJ and Dave Hellerhttps://www.jjheller.com/ Links for Justin :JustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastPre-Order the new book - It Is What You Make ItHearts and MindsAmazonBarnes and Noble Episode Sponsored by BetterHelpCheck them out - http://betterhelp.com/atsea Links For Justin:Read Justin's SubstackOrder In The Low - NEW Book with Scott EricksonCoaching with JustinOrder In Rest - New Book of PoemsOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble

In the 8th chapter of the biblical book of acts is a fascinating story about a man named Philip.Philip, a member of the early Church, hears what the writer of the story names as the voice of God saying “Go south.” So, he does And as he does, he comes across an Ethiopian eunuch riding in a chariot You know... like ya do. Upon this encounter, Philip hears what the writer of the story identifies as the voice of God says “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” Which Phillip then does. And standing there long enough, he hears the eunuch in the chariot reading from what we now call the Old Testament prophets; readings Phillip and his new religious community would be familiar with. From that moment, Phillip then engages in a deeply resonant conversion with his new friend in which he is asked to help guide and clarify the spiritual awakening Already taking place in the heart, mind, and spirit, and body in the chariot. Which is to say, the entirety of this story is predicated on Phillip’s ability, capacity, and choice to listen. Without that choice and without that discipline, there is no encounter, no relationship, and no story.In art, like in a relationship and, I would suggest, in good religion, listening comes first. A number of years ago now, perhaps 15 or so, a large group of teenagers from a different state descended upon San Francisco California, just next to where I live. Their mission was to call on the citizens of that city and its leadership to repent from sin and turn their eyes upon the Lord. Being from elsewhere, most of the rumors and stories they were familiar with about San Francisco were of the sordid type. It was, in their estimation and understanding, a broken place in need of rescue from the outside.Most of what they did with their time looked a bit like a protest, gatherings on the steps of City Hall holding signs about repentance while singing songs they learned in church services or at youth gatherings. And I’ll be honest right now and tell you that I don’t think the primary error here had to do with bringing their particular brand of the Christian religion to San Francisco. Instead, the thing missing here for me is that they did not talk to and listen to Christians whose religion was being lived out in San Francisco and included a deep love for that city. They did not go to the chariot and stand near long enough to hear or see or smell or sense what God might already be up to in the place they were going.I might go so far as to suggest that nothing on the other side of such an error was going to go well.When I started this podcast, my hope and intention was to bend my ear towards murky and turbulent waters in which important decisions are being made that change the lives and trajectories of beloved human beings. What I wasn’t interested in was attending to the problems in those waters as I understood them. Instead, what I have chosen and attempted to do is to hear what it sounds like for goodness, truth, and beauty shine and stir and grow in places I don’t fully understand and in people I don’t know yet.Which is to say, for the past six seasons, I have been learning to conclude more slowly and judge less harshly, and act more wisely,… primarily by learning to listen more carefully. Because, if I do not do that well, I cannot love well. Among the many short snippets of wisdom I have gathered on my Instagram feed, is this one I return to often.  In order to wisely and lovingly deliver goodness to another soul, (and here I would add: “or another place or culture,“ I need to know that soul, that place or that culture. The lifeblood of any good work is listening. Links for Justin :JustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcast Pre-Order the new book - It Is What You Make ItHearts and MindsAmazonBarnes and Noble Links For Justin:Read Justin's SubstackOrder In The Low - NEW Book with Scott EricksonCoaching with JustinOrder In Rest - New Book of PoemsOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble

The @ Sea podcast started out to be (and I hope continues to be) a helpful and hopeful guide through sometimes murky or turbulent cultural waters. Some of what that looks like is talking to people I don't align with politically, ideologically, culturally,...Not because it's enough to simply "celebrate diversity" but because the discipline and practice of listening is the key to moving beyond division to understanding and then towards care. One of the reasons I gravitate towards podcasts is for this very reason.My guest on this episode is Nick Laparra, whose "Let's Give A Damn" podcast is among my favorites. Not only because of the variety of his guests but I like the way he approaches his work.Nick is always prepared. He's also legitimately thoughtful (without being "heady") and curious (without being invasive).I think that makes for great listening.This is my conversation with Nick Laparra Links for Nick Laparrahttps://www.nicklaparra.com Links for Justin :JustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastPre-Order the new book - It Is What You Make ItHearts and MindsAmazonBarnes and Noble Links For Justin:Read Justin's SubstackOrder In The Low - NEW Book with Scott EricksonCoaching with JustinOrder In Rest - New Book of PoemsOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble

I remember being in a conversation, I think it was my Junior year of college, in which I was fully introduced to the term “hermeneutics.” I’d been familiar with “interpretation” before but the idea that there was a field of study based on the interpretive potters of readers was fascinating to me. It actually gave me a bit of altitude in understanding and appreciating the differences I was running into among people, specifically around religious ideas. The conversation was set up around a presentation we’d just heard by a Grad Student, who had written a paper on what she called “A Feminist Hermeneutic.” During our talk, one of my fellow classmates communicated his discomfort with the presenter’s angle, at one point saying “if you read the Bible, or anything, through a ‘feminist lens’ all you’ll end up with is feminism and not the Bible or whatever else you’re reading.”For a while, that thought stuck around and controlled the conversation as we talked about how important it was to read “great works” clearly and well. Then, our professor, who had mostly been quiet, asked “where did you get your interpretation?” The room fell silent. Literally, nobody had thought about it; the lot of us was quietly and unknowingly not only favoring our interpretive angle but not even seeing it as an angle. Now, for anyone who isn’t white or male, that encounter might not seem all that revelatory. But for us, mostly white men in that room, we’d not considered that our take on things was interpretive; we had assumed we were the baseline… Now, it’s both worth noting and it is unsurprising that the process of seeing my perspective and experience as one among many has been ongoing, at times uncomfortable and, more than anything, deeply enriching. Far from diminishing my understanding of Truth, recognizing my own hermeneutic(s) has come with far more mature and humbler respect for Divine truth, Scientific Fact, and Human the human experience of Reality. Holding my interpretations and perspectives more loosely has meant freedom.  I don’t have to be right in order to feel and be rightly placed. I don’t have to understand in order to feel and be seen or known  I don’t have to “get it” in order to feel and be respected.  If the Truth or Meaning does not belong to me, then I am free to belong to the Truth and for my life to have Meaning well beyond myself and my understanding.  It’s all just bigger and deeper and wider and just… more..  and far deeper and wider and more than my capacity to possess it. Which is part of why I’ve found the brick wall and friction that so often characterizes conversations about homosexuality or queerness and religion so… sad. At least some (if not a large part) of what is at hand in religious disagreement about human sexuality is a matter of hermeneutics; it is, in large part, an interpretive difference. And I’ll risk sounding naive here by saying that, while I certainly understand that some interpretive disagreements are more serious because some matters are more serious, I’m … flat out heartbroken by the ways this particular hermeneutic, theological and philosophical conversation ends relationships, personally and institutionally. And I’m not here to say “can’t we all just get along?” No, I want to say something else, entirely. During the second half of that  conversation my Junior year, the half led by our professor, he reminded us that the name of the course we were in was “Philosophy.” Which literally means “the love of wisdom.” He challenged us to note that what we were doing wasn’t philosophy at all. And while I wouldn’t have named it at the time, I can now: we weren’t pushing wisdom out of love, we were pursuing control by way of knowledge. We wanted to decide who gets in and who stays out, not just according to the articulation of their knowledge base, but according to whether or not their existing knowledge matched our own. That's a power struggle and has nothing to do with either wisdom or love. If I am truly to pursue wisdom, I don’t get to decide who else joins the chase. How much more is that the case If I am truly to seek God. And again, I’ll risk sounding simple-minded here: I sincerely wonder if the chaos and division and impassability of this space isn’t predominately because of a lack of sincere love between those arguing or conversing. I wonder if, as the Scriptures themselves warn against, too many of us are too full and puffed up with the knowledge that we lack room in us for the Love that would make our knowledge worth having at all. Earlier this year, rapper Propaganda released a song in which is written: “We ain't gotta be enemies but I got non-negotiables All ideas ain't equal, bro“ And boy do I resonate with that. Not all interpretations are equal and not all ideas are equal. But the people who hold those ideas and hold to these interpretations… are. And that is a thing far more vital than my rightness and far more weighty than my knowledge.  Suicide rates among LGBTQ teens in religious settings is statistically and significantly higher. And while there are many ways to interpret that data, here’s a thing I’m comfortable saying: it matters more that kids are made to feel less safe and valuable in religious settings than it matters that my religious interpretations are on point. So, forgive me for projecting a bit here. But if that’s not the place we’re starting from, then it’s no wonder we seem to be getting nowhere. So, I honestly don’t fully grasp why it is that, among the religious, we are so willing to delegitimize and dehumanize whole people (and whole people groups) in order to make room for our interpretive conclusions but I’m worn out by that sacrifice and wonder if God might be as well. Links for Justin :JustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastPre-Order the new book - It Is What You Make ItHearts and MindsAmazonBarnes and Noble Links For Justin:Read Justin's SubstackOrder In The Low - NEW Book with Scott EricksonCoaching with JustinOrder In Rest - New Book of PoemsOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble

I ask just about all my guests about life online. I'm of the opinion that "real" life happens there and I'm increasingly interested in the way it does; particularly when that happening takes on labels like "religion" or "faith" or "spirituality." I think a fair amount of personal formation takes place online and I'm intrigued (art least) by the people who take that formation seriously as well as take some degree of responsibility for it.My guest in this episode is Kevin Garcia, who has called himself a "digital pastor." And while I know there are a number of folks who might balk at that term out of wonder or even concern, I'm pretty sure there's a lot to it.There's certainly a lot to Kevin, who works with (and pastors) people at the intersection of faith, sexuality, and touch of psychotherapy. In that work, Kevin converses with, teaches, and digitally pastors people who often lack access to invested leadership and spiritual care.This is my conversation with Kevin Garcia.Check it out. Links for Kevin Garciahttps://www.thekevingarcia.com  Links for Justin :JustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastPre-Order the new book - It Is What You Make ItHearts and MindsAmazonBarnes and Noble Links For Justin:Read Justin's SubstackOrder In The Low - NEW Book with Scott EricksonCoaching with JustinOrder In Rest - New Book of PoemsOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble

I feel like I’ve always been aware of the sociopolitical battle lines between differing thoughts on “abortion” or preemptive war, but the comprehensive, nearly wholesale division and split between people with competing ideologies nowadays is … heartbreaking and scary. In other words, it’s no longer just that I think you’re wrong about this or that; it's that, if you entertain these specific thoughts, then you are aligned with that particular culture, which means you’re in this camp and part of this tribe and, as part of that camp/tribe/people, WHO YOU ARE offends and threatens me. I think the grief for me here is that, in conversations about competing ideologies these days, I am treated as if I am my ideas. Thing is: I’m not. I have ideas and some of them are weighty in my mind. But, as important as any of them might be, I’m not defined by my ideas. Heck a number of them are in conflict with other ideas in me, not to mention in conflict with some of my feelings and even the ways I choose to live despite some of those thoughts and feelings. I’m not trying to be a centrist. I’ve tried that and I just ended up lying to myself and others about things I really knew or believed or cared about. So, don’t hear me trying to communicate some kind of intrinsic value for “the middle.” I’m well aware that, in particular moments, there are toxic and destructive ideas and ideologies moving people to hurt other people and, in those moments, that idea or ideology must be dealt with, shouted down, undone, and deleted. But what makes that kind of effort worth it isn’t that there are better ideas; it’s that better ideas make for healthier people. And it’s that same value of/for people that seems to get lost more frequently than I recall. And maybe it’s always been a matter of identity. Maybe that’s new. I honestly can’t tell. What I know is that I don’t see minds changed very often. Nowhere near as I see enemies made and friendships lost.  During season 1 of this podcast, author Michael Wear warned against the desire or expectation to find a “home” in a political ideology out a political party; suggesting that the only places left where unchecked bias was not only allowed but championed was in the political and ideological; that these were the arenas in which it is still allowable to insult, judge and belittle; to dehumanize.So… as wishy-washy as this might sound, that’s become a metric for me in conversation and cultural engagement; if my ideas or political conclusions or religious convictions lead or allow me to think lesser of people, I’m in the wrong. Period. A few years ago, I talked in-depth with a dear friend of mine with whom I have some very fundamental disagreements, namely about religious matters. We were if I’m honest, really proud of our friendship that, in light of some vehement disagreements, we maintained a friendship. That, in fact, we didn’t avoid our differences so much as they actually enriched our connection. At one point, he said, “I think you’re wrong about God and I want to convince you of that because I think you’d be happier and better off without some of what you think.” We went on in that conversation to land on a metaphor of sorts we really liked; that if I’m aware of a fire in the building that threatens the well-being of others in the building, it is not my rightness about fire being hot or my knowledge of how quickly certain materials combust at specific temperatures that will get you moving to the door. It’s that, when I tell you that there is something in your environment that might hurt you, you’d trust and believe me because you know I want you safe and well.I can be right all day long about very important things; things you might be desperately wrong about. But if I do not love you, my ideas are powerless. The value of an idea is the benefit it affords human life. So, I’m not here to say “everyone should be nice.” What I am saying is that no idea is more important than the people who hold it… or the people who don’t agree.  Links for Justin :JustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcast Pre-Order the new book - It Is What You Make ItHearts and MindsAmazonBarnes and Noble Links For Justin:Read Justin's SubstackOrder In The Low - NEW Book with Scott EricksonCoaching with JustinOrder In Rest - New Book of PoemsOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble

I don’t know when the words “liberal” or “conservative” became insults. What I do know is that I can’t remember a time when they weren’t. So, maybe it’s always been this way to some degree. I’m not sure. My guest on this episode of the podcast is a voice who shows up on what many might call the “conservative side” of conversations, online and off. I’ve watched her navigate the nuances of those engagements without slipping into the snark and dismissiveness that has become a hallmark of political argument.  I’ve also marveled at her capacity to both belong to and deeply critique her own culture.A Ph.D., she is a Research Professor of English and Christianity and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. She is an author and contributor to a library of books including a very interesting book entitled “Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course In Contemporary Issues.” This is my conversation with Karen Swallow Prior. Check it out.  Links for Karen Swallow Priorhttps://karenswallowprior.comhttps://twitter.com/KSPrior Links for Justin :JustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastPre-Order the new book - It Is What You Make ItHearts and MindsAmazonBarnes and Noble Links For Justin:Read Justin's SubstackOrder In The Low - NEW Book with Scott EricksonCoaching with JustinOrder In Rest - New Book of PoemsOrder Sacred StridesJustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcastNEW Single - Let GoNEW Music - Sliver of HopeNEW Music - The Dood and The BirdThe Book - It Is What You Make itHearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble