At Sea with Justin McRoberts

When Donald Miller’s book “Blue Like Jazz” was initially making its rounds through religious circles, one of the hot topics of conversation had to do with cultural taboos. Namely, that there was a pastor in the book who cussed and that drinking alcohol was somewhat normalized. As someone who grew up around people who both cussed and drank, I wasn’t scandalized at all. But a lot of folks seemed to be and a lot of that scandalization seemed a tad fearful.But not all of it. There was also a measure of care; a desire to protect people from things that might, for one reason or another, hurt them or cost them. There’s no question that, in the case of alcohol, there are reasons for caution. Communicating that caution without being condemning or overly-judgmental can be a bit tricky. Which is why I really prefer hearing care-takers approach issues like booze or cussing or tattoos or sex say something more like “I’m not comfortable with this and, having thought a lot about it, here are my reasons.” That rather than simply saying “it’s gross and wrong. period.”First, because there are some things that are, flat out, just plain wrong and the toxicity and seriousness of those things are lessened when treated with a similar weight as something like foul language or horror films. But also because it’s better leadership. Saying “This is the way I am going because, based on the information I have, it is a good way for me and I wonder if it might be better for you” is a thing I can respect and follow, particularly as it’s handed to me as a way to care; it’s also what is really meant oftentimes. But saying “I’ve discovered or seen a cosmic and unmovable truth that you don’t see about this very particular (and even small) thing. You should get on board.” is harder to swallow and is dripping with fear; fear of the thing itself and (worse), fear that I’ll choose poorly and unwisely given the chance. Fear makes bad religion and unhealthy relationshipFear also corrupts and undoes good religion and healthy relationship Fear is also what makes a thing “taboo” Fear isn’t a bad thing at all; it just shouldn’t lead. Similarly, in the theme of this podcast, fear can be helpful in navigating turbulent waters but it’s a mistake to allow fear to fundamentally define the waters as “dangerous.” Sometimes, there really are things in the waters that should be avoided, culturally and relationally. But sometimes (perhaps most often), it’s not that the waters are intrinsically problematic, it’s that I’m not a strong enough captain to do that navigation. That can be harder to say But it’s more humanly true And it’s more caring.  I would like fear to play its part in my life, keeping from things in the waters around me that can legitimately harm me. But only in the context of a more courageous and loving navigation of those waters.  If you’re a regular listener, I’m assuming you want that same thing.  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

The very first beer I ever had was, I believe, a Bud Dry. That’s probably not true for a lot of folks, but it’s part of my story and I like it as someone who tests as a 4 on the enneagram. At the time, beer pretty much only showed up at parties or in TV commercials and was never any talk about “hops” or or “malt” between beer drinkers. Which is to say, the culture around beer was thin. That’s not the case anymore. The most recent beer I had was last night at a neighbor-friend’s birthday party where we tasted 8 different beers from local breweries and talked about the differences in composition and flavor and complexity; the way people talk about wine or paintings or songs. Beer culture is a vital social space that, as a culture, provides a doorway into relationship and conversation even broader than wine or fine art does; probably more like music. Which is the thing I like most about the team at Harding House brewery in Nashville, TN. And why it means so much that, among the many excellent beers they’ve brewed and released are two beers named after words I’ve written. It’s been a legitimate career highlight to be included in their work that way. I got to sit down with them in Nashville a few weeks ago. It was a delightful conversation. Check it out. http://www.hardinghousebrew.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 just got off the phone with a long-time friend who is now a coaching client. It's the call I needed in order to finish this script. This beloved friend began the conversation with the nearly universal phrase: "I feel like I'm always in the middle."And I get that. Even though I disagree a bit. I don't think he's in the "middle," per se; I think he's trapped in a relationship with people who hold somewhat opposing perspectives (political, social, theological) and hold those perspectives more tightly and more dearly than they do the people around them. In other words, he is in a relationship with fundamentalists who hold differing opinions; People who are so sure that what they think is correct and who are so sure that the things they think are important that they are willing to sacrifice relationship in order to hold onto their perspectives and ideas.That's the actual trauma and tragedy of Fundamentalism; it strips people of their humanity and rends us from those we would otherwise love. I'm not allowed to be on a journey or in a process. I MUST come to conclusions and have some form of certainty. Namely about things the machinery I've aligned myself with has deemed most important. --in 2008, I released a collection of songs entitled "Deconstruction." The title was actually a remnant from my collegiate studies in philosophy, where I spent a bit of time around the work and words of Jaques Derrida. At the time, "post-modernism" was the buzz phrase, particularly as some of its core tenants threatened the seemingly secure hold Modernity had on daily life. Most western, white-male-dominated cultures stood firmly on the assumption that some things were "True" and, in their being True and immovable. That assurance meant that the building of institutions and rules of life were safer and would be long-lasting. What Derrida offered, though, was the suggestion that the language used to communicate and understand those assurances was fraught with contradiction and complexity; that language did not reliably point in the direction of a controlling and anchoring "Truth."Instead, words are bound together by the tension and connection found between themselves. There was (and is) no central reference point from which each individual word derives its meaning. More simply, if a word has "meaning," it has that meaning in relationship to the words around it. And that's the constant; language and the connection between words. Some critics read Derrida as one more expression of "relative truth," but Derrida was up to something fundamentally different; he was suggesting that the "constant" was relationship itself. The relationship between words and between the people who used them. For example: In a religious context, that Truth might be expressed in a phrase like "God is love. "For Derrida, the wild differences between what I mean by "God "and what you meant suggests a lack of common experience; there is no "thing" to be called "God." what there is, though, is the connection between you and me. And, in that case, meaning wasn't to be discovered in a common experience of whatever the word "God" meant; it was forged and fostered in the connection and tension in the relationship between you and I.He called this "Deconstruction."DERRIDADIAN DECONSTRUCTION: The inherent desire to have a center around which meaning revolves or in which meaning is rooted. The reduction of meaning to a set of definitions committed to writing (nothing beyond the text)How that reduction of meaning to language captures opposition within the concept itselfAt the heart of his initial work was (and is) a frustration about the inherent desire in human hearts to place "meaning" at the center of existence. That just because we are alive, our lives must have meaning. He found this problematic and sought to undo it. Derrida saw it problematic that philosophy was driven by the need to find a centering, grounding meaning at all. He bristled at the certainty with which philosophers sought to find meaning somewhere; believing their certainty in any kind of absolute blinded them. My religious training counters that idea by suggesting that the desire in human hearts to live in and with meaning is a hunger similar to the hunger for food, a thing to actually schedule one's days around rather than learn to ignore, for really any reason. The details, of course, are negotiable, to say the least; but that nudge at the core of one's soul that says "there's more. not just out there, but in you" is real; it's part of what it means to be human. And this is why I find myself struggling with the use of the word "deconstruction" as a description for so much socio-religious conversation recently. The way I hear it, I think we're mostly talking about reorganization and maturity and growing and discernment, all of which is not just fine; it's good. It's true. It's beautiful. And I guess I wish we would let good things be good, sometimes. Most of the institutional conversations i'm around feature a critique of systems that poorly reflect a central truth or Reality that deserves a better treatment and culture. For many, churches are problematic, not because they're organized around a reality that is non-existent, but because their corporeal practices distract from the beauty and goodness of that Reality. Yes, please? I like that a lot. But that's not deconstruction. It's something ( i would suggest) richer and harder and more communal and more fluid and more human; it's the work part of belonging to people. It is the practice of Beloved Community. I have long believed that one of the most corrosive aspects of Fundamentalism is that it convinces us that ideas and definitions are more vital and important than the people who hold them. In that light, Fundamentalism convinces us that change is a necessarily deconstructive process; things are either true or false, black or white, real or not, in or out, Biblical or sinful, sacred or secular - alive to the Glory of and service of God or fit to be torn down and trampled... there is no movement or growth or progress or even redemption; I've either got it right, or I've got to go. The glaring feature in that fundamentalist mindset is fear, mostly fear that the center won't hold if it's moved or challenged or not protected. And.. here's where I'd like to land this plane: I don't think that's what we have on hand, collectively and culturally. I don't think despair at the absence of existential meaning is winning the day. I think that nudge.. got a lot stronger.. for a lot more people. And a lot more people want to move whatever it is in the way of getting more of that nudge.I think we're seeing a scandalously broad awakening ... that this nudge and the fact that I sense it matters MORE than the words some paid professional uses to describe it, control it and commodify it. What I'm seeing is the fervent and sometimes angry tearing away at whatever artifice is deemed in the way of a clear vision of what's most real. I'm hearing conviction and frustration that there is, in fact, a center (though it might not be static) and that there are fundamental truths (though they may be interpersonal in nature) but that all this gatekeeping garbage culture is keeping people we love and like and want and need from the goodness of it. I don't mind the word "deconstruction" but historically, deconstruction is a very specific and often highly individualized process by which one unearths the very core and center of their being and decides that if there is meaning in their world or in their life, it must be constructed and held together by the sheer force of the own, individual will. So, if that's you, I get it, and that's real and can be terrifying and also really good. But if it's not, then consider that you might not be deconstructing. You might be feeling an invitation to a legitimate "awakening" to be shared by all kinds of people, with whom you agree and disagree; an awakening angled towards (and maybe even prompted by) a goodness, Truth, and beauty worth tearing things down for... as well as worth building around. 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

The ethos and heart of my next book is that just about nothing "is what it is." Instead, as the title of the book would have it, It Is What You Make Of It.I realize that shifting from "it is what it is" to "it is what you make of it" is a long process and can be a bit daunting.  More so when the "is" we have to work with,  our circumstances and opportunities is really sideways.When things go wrong or the unexpected takes over, it can feel like the most natural thing to do is  to navigate to, grab hold of, and cling to something  "solid" or "sure."What if, on the other hand, and on occasion, I read a lack of "solid ground" or the absence of a "sure thing" as an invitation into adventure?That's what I find inspiring and formative in Laura Joyce Davis. That, while I don't blame a soul for looking to "sure things" and more "solid ground" during the COVID era,  she and her family took it as an opportunity to dive headlong into the unknown and see what they could make of the pieces they found there.She is a writer and the host of the "Shelter In Place" podcast. She is also my guest on this episode of the @ Sea Podcast.Check it out. 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 think it was 6 or so years ago, I was in a session with a therapist who practiced cranial - sacral therapy.Which, in short, attends to the alignment of the body between the cranium (my noggin) and the sacrum (which is pretty much my tailbone). It’s a series of long tensions and pulls rather than muscle squeezing and all that.About 15 min into the session, she asked me, “It feels like you have some injuries on your left side.”“Yeah, probably.”She paused and then pulled me over onto my back and said, “tell me.”I’d never been asked before to recount my history of injuries. Regardless, I could recall all of them.broken anklemultiple sprained ankles (6-7)hairline fracture of my tibiaACL tearsome other mind of knee blowoutdislocated hip3 broken ribs (2 occasions)Broken collarbone (2x)Broken shoulderBroken wrist (2x)Hairline skull fracture (2x)All of it on the left side of my body.“That’s a lot of trauma.”My brain immediately reacted with something like, “What?! I don’t have ‘trauma.’ I just got hurt a few times.”She took my wrists and folded my arms across my chest. Then, pressing down hard into my shoulders, “Let’s see what we can do. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”After 30 more min, I stood up and felt ... new?It was really, really strange.I had to readjust to what felt like...Strength.But it was quite literally unlike any strength I’d felt in myself previously.I’d been used to the kind of strength normally prescribed by calls and challenges to “stay strong” or “be strong.”The kind of strength that’s was, in and of itself, an effort to maintain.This strength was just … there, holding my body together at my center.Literally, the only thing that had changed (the only thing that had happened) was that someone had felt the trauma(s) in me, kindly helped me acknowledge them as real, and then actively engaged with the places in me where I was still carrying, by injury, those pieces of my history.I think this is what is often meant by “entering into” someone’s pain.And the fruit of that work, that entering in was strength.—Lent begins today. It is a season characterized by the practice of fasting; the choice to deny myself of some joy or pleasure (or even some need); in short, a season marked by the decision to suffer. And, along with the opportunity to practice that personal disciplines in order to clarify my own life and connection with The Divine, Lent is also an invitation to reach out to (or reach into) a world actually bound together by the shared experience of pain and say something along the lines of“that’s a lot of trauma.”And then, if we are welcomed, enter in.And not to simply “fix” what’s wrong in one another (though that is a shared dream, too) but enter in because there is a kind of magic in the meeting of tired and wounded human lives;A hope for healing and resurrection and actually new life.And I don’t know exactly how it works.I just know it doesThat friendships are deeper after adventure, and communities are richer after trial.That there is a power and a peace available to human hearts and human lives that is accessible only through the doorway of pain and suffering BUT/AND it is a doorway that cannot be passed through alone.Sometimes it takes therapy.Sometimes it takes a podcast guest like Jennifer Kosometimes it’s friends or familyor a child sponsorship programor AA meetingsAlmost always, it takes someone saying, “I see this in you, and I would like to help carry it. I would consider it an honor.”And someone else saying, “Yes, please do. I trust you. Come closer.”And almost always,in timewhat we find between us and in usis not the diminished effort and energyof persons carrying more than they should(because we are carrying someone else’s burdens)we find a strength we didn’t know beforeand would rather not live without.  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

Often enough, the topic of pain gets tied up into the same kind of conversations had about “evil.”  Spoken of as a “problem” or a thing to be avoided. A thing that diminishes the human experience and limits relationships. Oddly, pain, including physical pain, is perhaps the most common human experience. in the eternally wise words of REM’s Michael Stipe: “everybody hurts”And there might not be anything quite as soul-binding as suffering together. Which is what makes the work Jennifer Ko does so beautiful, so good and so humanly true. Chronic pain and physical limitation take center stage in Jennifer’s story and her work. And rather than speaking in terms of “problems” and “ways to avoid,” Jennifer shares the reality of her pain as an experience and expression of her full humanity. I am regularly informed and inspired by who she is and how she shares herself. This is my conversation with Jennifer Ko.  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 didn’t know a lot about the actual life of Jesus before I was in my mid-twenties. Honestly, even after I started calling myself a Christian (which is far more interesting conversation now than it was then),  What actually led me to do the work of discovery and research wasn’t a sermon series; it was seeing a series of books or short documentaries on what people were calling the “Lost Years” of Jesus’ life. As the 4 biblical accounts of Jesus’ life have it, we can read about his birth, which is mostly about his mother’s faith and the political environment he’s born into, and then we actually get nothing until he’s right about 12 when he wanders off from his parents and ends up in a conversation with religious elders. THEN, there’s nothing until he’s about 30. In fact, all there is to read of the actual life of Jesus is roughly 3 years.So, I started noticing these books in which a whole slew of folks basically gave in to imaginative conjecture about what Jesus was doing as a young adult into his mid-twenties. In most of these stories, he’d gone on some kind of religious pilgrimage. Some folks suggested he’d studied with the Hindus and some with the Buddhists and others with other groups or tribes. Part of it felt like folks trying to make Jesus “one of theirs” instead of being challenged by him on his own terms, much the way Nationalists have done so destructively here in the US. And that was weird to see, even if it was a bit obvious.But, there was a whole other element to the “Lost Years of Jesus” narrative that gnawed at me namelessly for a while. I couldn’t figure out what bugged me until much later, after years of feeling a kind of distance between the life I was living and any kind of deep, cosmic significance; even though I was chasing that significance with every bit of my person I could muster. Why was it necessary that, in order to be a wise, spiritually insightful person, Jesus had to leave home and go be hyper-religious somewhere? What was this fascination with “exotic” religious experience? More to the point, what was missing on the ground beneath Jesus’ feet that would have required him to leave the people nearest him, the world with which he was most familiar (and was most familiar with him) and look elsewhere? Because if there wasn’t sufficient … if the neighborhood Jesus was in didn’t have any kind of sacred resonance… what did that say about mine?  In other words, these stories reinforced the same garbage sales pitch every other bad religious marketing scheme was rooted in; you’re not enough, your life is not significant as it is. The warm glow of Divine connection exists somewhere on the other side of all this mundane, nearly worthless stuff you’re doing like school and dating and working looking for new work and paying rent and talking through troubles in your key friendships enjoying jokes and wiping your kids' butts and fixing leaky faucets and on and on… God is real but God does not happily live where you live and certainly not in you and your boring, boring life. Here’s what I’ve come to: a religious narrative that doesn’t set the world around you and within you aglow with meaning and energy and hope and potential is absolute trash and is entirely undeserving of your time and attention. If you leave your religious gathering and your home seems darker because it doesn’t’ feel as good as the show the team of well-funded professionals put on, you aren’t being decoupled; you’re being swindled. Because, if the incarnation story of Jesus says anything clearly, (and I think it does) it announces, in no uncertain terms that God was pleased to live as a human being and to do so in such a way that for early 30 years, that life looked so much like yours and mine that we didn’t even notice it. It says that it’s not just “okay” to be human and have a job and a neighborhood and a family and friends and to sleep and snack and make love and fight and forget and remember and work and rest and learn… it’s sacred. It says you don’t have to LOOK for significance, you are significant. It says you don’t have to go on a pilgrimage to find holy ground, you’re standing on it now, and that the point of the pilgrimage is to come home and see the place you live more completely. Part of what I think you hear in my conversation with Kayla Craig is the way her integrated life gleans energy and insight from its various dimensions.  Parenting and neighboring and writing and on and on… not disparate elements to be handled one at a time, lest they detract from or lessen or even corrupt one another, but a living network of relationships beautifully tangled up in Kayla’s own joy and desire. Some of my guests are people who are doing remarkable work I want you to know about. Some of my guests are doing that remarkable work in a way that I find deeply challenging and informative. I’d like to do both. I think you might want to as 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

If you've been around me for any significant time, you'll likely know that my mother is a hero of mine. not in a cute "I love my mom, you guys" kind of way but more like "I hope I can be the kind of resilient and faithful and strong as that person" kind of way. From her very difficult childhood, marked by various in-house abuses and financial destitution to her adventures west to CA from Albuquerque, NM to the ways she held our family together while my father was falling apart and, more recently the relentless ways she cares for me and my kids, I marvel at her parenthood. Which leads me to this: The significance of parenthood seems to often allude faithful and respectful conversation. Either idolized in a kind of glass box and set aside untouched by critique or minimized in a smaller cardboard box and cast aside so that it doesn’t touch other vital things.Parenthood often gets treated as the alter on which all other aspects of life must be sacrificed or the pit of despair that must be avoided so that other aspects of life can be enjoyed and pursued. Either way, the battle lines are drawn:Career vs parenthood Adventure vs parenthood Romance vs parenthood Ministry vs parenthood Art-making vs parenthood And on and on. There seems very little middle ground And then there’s Kayla Craig, whose practice of integrating her parenthood and her career and adventure and romance and ministry and art is something like a marvel and (more important) something like a beacon and a call forward. She is, like I am, a parent. She is also working on a book of prayers for parents while co-hosting the Upside Down Podcast (on which I’ve been a guest) and producing another the Sacred Ordinary Days And what I love about her posture in doing all of that is that she doesn’t think it makes her special. It makes her normal. Well, I like her kind of normal. I think you will, too. This is my conversation with Kayla Craig. Check it out.  Links for Kayla CraigKaylaCraig.com Upside Down PodcastSacred Ordinary Days PodcastLiturgies For Parents  Links for Justin :JustinMcRoberts.comSupport this podcast 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

Most of the guests I host on the podcast share some kind of faith in common. For many of them, that faith carries the label of "Christianity." for others, that label doesn't fit quite as well or as comfortably.My last guest, Jon Steingard, is one such guest for whom religious labels are somewhat unhelpful, at least at this moment in his life and career.But, then again, maybe it's not about this moment or season for Jon, or for people like Jon, and maybe there are a whole lot more people "like Jon;" folks who feel placeless and are somewhat comfortable with that. . Maybe the fact that religious labels are so unhelpful and inaccurate with Jon "right now" actually says something about the ineffectiveness and extreme limitation of those labels.In 2008, I released an album called "Deconstruction" after doing a fair about of my own deconstructive work, theologically and philosophically, and socially.One of the questions I started getting from folks was some form of "okay, where are you now?"Where are you on this topic?Or this theme?Or this point?Or this idea?And it rarely felt like a real conversation when that happened. More often, It felt more like a test, a way for the person asking the question to determine how comfortable they were in relationship to me.I was asked to give (or, conversely, not give) to keep peace in the relationship. And relationships held together on the strength of either party passing tests of any kind, much less social and philosophical tests, well, those aren't healthy relationships. FAR less interesting, less helpful, and, in the end, far less human.I never get over the fact that, at the centerpiece of the Christian narrative, God becomes human.Which is to say:A person with political ideologies,and social leanings,and particular tastes,and complex, nuanced cultural affiliations - all of which require sincere, open, and courageous engagement and conversation.So those things can be "deal with," but so that, in learning to know Jesus as a whole person, those who chose to do the work of relationship might learn (and relearn ) to know and be known by God.I recently re-posted a short reflection that reads."The moment I refuse to recognize God in places and people that are unlike me is the moment I stop recognizing God."The question "Where are you?" or "where are you on this?" is just far too limited and far too limiting; it's also almost unavoidably judgmental in a way I don't want to be; it's almost always a conversation stopper and a relational hurdle.I'm more interested in questions like"How did you come to that?""Where does that come from?""why do you think so?"All of them feel far more like ways to know a person and far less like stopping someone in the hallway and asking to see their pass.In me, those questions are also ways I get to ask myself a more central question; the one that actually drives the whole of my work and life: "where is God?"When I ask, "how did you come to that?"or"Where does that come from?"or"why do you think so?"I'm listening for how that person's soul is searching for goodness and truth and beauty; I want to understand and appreciate how that person's soul attaches to and creates meaning and connection.I'm looking for the fingerprints of Divinity.I'm choosing and hoping to recognize God in places and people that aren't like me.When I predicate my relationships (as well as the questions and conversations those relationships can facilitate) on my ability to place you somewhere on a map of social/theological conclusions, I cut off the actual relationship.And I have come to believe that it is ONLY in actual relationship that I learn to see myself, see others and (yes) see God.Only in actual relationship; relationship that changes and evolves with new seasons and new information; marked sometimes by agreement and coordination and sometimes by tension, distance and strife - more than anything else; relationship that is characterized and driven by curiosity and interest and a sincere, care-oriented desire to connect.I hope this podcast can be the way you live that way, 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

Jon Steingard spent 16 years as a musician, songwriter and front man in a band whose success had its context in what some call the "Christian market." I've spent a bit of time there myself and there's a whole conversation herein about whether or not a marketplace can be "christian,"  (I think it can't). But that's what's significant and odd about that conversation is that what seems to bind that marketplace and its buyers together as a tribe is agreement on a very particular set of theological and social conclusions.So, when Jon began to question, doubt and distance himself from many of those theological and social conclusions, it meant having to intentionally begin a the work of reinvention. If you're a consumer of religious culture, particularly the religious culture Jon took part it, you might know that such a reinvention often comes with what can be a volatile mixture of frustration and disillusionment and respect and clarity and ... well... it can be a lot.So it's not that Jon has been undergoing a deconstruction that struck me; it's how he did it. Publicly. Peaceably. Humbly and with a posture much like that of the best leaders and .. well... pastors I know. He hosts his own podcast and show, entitled "The Wonder and Mystery of Being." He is a thoughtful  conversationalist, a very skilled songwriter and has quickly become a valued friend of mine.This is my conversation with Jon Steingard. Check it out. 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