Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker

Race, class, identity, privilege. These are topics and concepts that divide us, but what if we could start talking about them? Through conversation and stories that follow the themes of my book, White Picket Fences: Turning toward Love in a World Divided by Privilege, we are going to explore these hard topics in order to move together towards healing. Show Notes:White Picket Fences bookResources: White Picket Fences discussion guidesDavid Bailey / ArrabonWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

Finding contentment and strength in all circumstances has never been easy. That was true for Paul 2,000 years ago writing from a prison cell, and it is true now for those of us in the midst of very ordinary hard days and those of us in extraordinarily hard days. This week, Amy Julia talks about small but hopeful steps people are taking in response to the recent protests in cities and towns across the country, and she explores the final verses of Paul’s letter to the Philippians and how they can find strength and contentment. She talks about how we can find protection in who God is and how that allows us to enter into conversations and relationships with an open heart. And finally, she shares a sneak peek at the next season of The Love is Stronger Than Fear podcast, coming very soon! Philippians 4:10-23Some Stories of Hope in a Week of HardshipTa Nehisi Coates and Ezra Klein’s interviewBetween the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

In the midst of a week of social unrest across the nation, how can we work towards peace? This episode looks at Paul’s words, “do not worry” and talks about how we can cultivate personal and social peace. Amy Julia examines the problems of reading the Bible individualistically and considers how we can also read it in the context of a broader community of faith and humanity. This episode is especially relevant for white Christians who are looking for ways to learn, listen, lament, and love. Show Notes:Today’s Bible passage comes from Philippians 4:1-9. I used N.T. Wright’s Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters and George Hunsinger’s Philippians commentary in preparation for this show. In the show, I reference the Destructive Power of Despair by Charles Blow, Episode 103 of this podcast, which is about love as the foundation, and a recent blog post I wrote offering 5 Small Steps toward Racial Healing. Also, I mention Niro Feliciano's podcast All Things Life episode titled From Hurting to Hopeful: Race, Privilege and Meaningful Action and this article about childhood anxiety from the May issue of The Atlantic.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

In a time of uncertainty and lethargy, Amy Julia offers thoughts on the nature of hope, the vehicle for hope, and the source of our hope. This bonus episode comes from a talk she gave years ago that details how she moved from fear to hope after her daughter Penny’s diagnosis of Down syndrome. She encourages all of us to cultivate hope—not optimism—in the face of fear. We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

Have you felt a little hopeless lately? Have you had a hard time feeling like your days have any meaning or purpose? Have you compared your life to the movie Groundhog Day? In this episode, Amy Julia talks about the way our imagination is linked to our ability to hope, and how right now it is hard to have hope in politics or the economy or our social or professional lives. She discusses the idea of cultivating the “spiritual imagination” in order to connect the pain of the present moment to the promises of the future, and how to bring the goodness, beauty, and joy of the future into the present moment. If you are struggling to feel hopeful, this episode offers thoughts on how to experience hope without denying the hardship of this time. SHOW NOTESPhilippians 3:12-4:1Yale Insights, The Language We Speak Predicts Saving and Health BehaviorN.T. Wright's Paul for EveryoneWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

The power of love works differently than the power of status. In this episode, Amy Julia shares stories of powerlessness in the midst of this pandemic, and she talks about how we will only feel increasingly powerless if our identity comes from achievement or social status. But if we understand our identity as given to us by God then we can enter into seemingly hopeless situations with the power of love. Show Notes:Philippians 3:1-11A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations, and a Little Girl Named PennyWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

How does God communicate love? In this episode, Amy Julia talks about how God uses people to carry “love letters”—messages of care and kindness and hope. She shares stories of how this happens right now when we pay attention to the whispers and nudges that prompt us to reach out and care for other people in need, and she refers back to stories in the Bible that show how God has always used people to carry his messages of love and blessing. SHOW NOTES:In this episode, Amy Julia speaks from Philippians 2 in order to talk about how God uses people to carry “love letters” from Him. She talks about the way God works through people, with reference to Mary and Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-45) and how God is humble, with reference to 1 Corinthians 13. At the end of the episode, she mentions a recent conversation on “the And” between her friend Ginny and her 15-year old daughter Rachel, who has Down syndrome, as well as a video produced by choirs and worship leaders in the United Kingdom to sing a blessing of peace: Conversation on the "the And" between Ginny and RachelUK Choirs and Worship Leaders Perform The BlessingAmy Julia also mentions her new podcast, Reading Small Talk, which will be available starting Thursday, May 7, in weekly installments, or is available as an audiobook here.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

Many people have read White Picket Fences and then asked me about practical steps they can take to respond to the harm they see in their own lives and communities. How do we move from considering the harm of privilege into participation in the healing process? Head Heart Hands is a free action guide that accompanies White Picket Fences and offers ways to respond to the harm of social divisions and privilege in a thoughtful, loving, and courageous manner. It's designed to equip anyone who wants to respond to the harm of privilege; it walks through the problems of “fixes” and then offers ways to engage your head, heart, and hands. Show Notes:PDF for Head Heart HandsWhite Picket FencesWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

In a time of social distancing, it’s hard to help other people. It’s hard because of the physical distance, but it’s also hard to feel motivated to engage in the needs of the world. Most of us feel needy ourselves right now, even if we are sheltering-in-place with relative ease. In this week’s episode, we talk about how to understand ourselves as beloved children of God, and how out of that belovedness we can find our way into the work of social healing using our heads, hearts, and hands.Show Notes:PDF version of Head, Hearts, HandsA Good and Perfect GiftSmall TalkPhilippians 2:12-18We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening! 

Science, medicine, and politics can answer lots of our questions about where the coronavirus came from and what it is doing in and among humans. But another set of questions arises in times like this. Can we find any meaning or purpose in this suffering? Can we find any meaning or purpose in our lives right now? Is God present, and loving, and real? Where is God in the midst of suffering? In this episode, Amy Julia looks at what Paul writes about who Jesus Christ is as a way to understand who God is in the midst of suffering and how voluntary self-sacrifice motivated by love equips and empowers us to find meaning and experience God’s loving presence in our current moment. Show Notes:Casey Cep in the New Yorker on the gift of church: https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-gospel-in-a-time-of-social-distancingN.T. Wright in TIME: https://time.com/5808495/coronavirus-christianity/NYT on politician turned Jesuit: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/opinion/sunday/cyrus-habib-jesuit.htmlC.S. Lewis quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/221026-a-man-s-physical-hunger-does-not-prove-that-man-willBloomberg Article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/divorces-spike-in-china-after-coronavirus-quarantinesPhilippians 2:1-10Romans 5:8John 3:16From White Picket Fences: "The privilege of whiteness and wealth can become a wall against the privilege of being human, loved not for status or performance but simply loved, and able to give love in return not because of obligation but in grateful response to an invitation. I have been given much that I do not deserve, and my very real social privilege has cut me off from others as much as it has also made my life comfortable. But social privilege is not the end of my story. The real privilege of my life has come in learning what it means to love others, that love involves suffering and sacrifice and sleepless nights and tears and heartache and great gifts.It makes sense to talk about privilege in terms of access to private clubs and schools and bank loans and preferential treatment by authorities. It makes sense to expose the injustices of privilege and call for them to be rectified. But there is also the privilege of cleaning the wounds of people you love, of participating in healing and new life, of becoming vulnerable and needy and receiving love and care. There is another type of privilege, privilege that connects instead of divides, that shimmers through the air like a liWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me:InstagramFacebookYouTubeWebsiteThanks for listening!