I wasn’t much of a podcast listener before 2021. It wasn’t on my radar and I didn’t have much occasion to put something on other than NPR. In May of 2021 however I took an organist/accompanist position at a church an hour outside of town, and suddenly I had occasion to listen to something during that long commute. I only go out one or two times a week, but that’s still a longish time to be getting to a part time job, and sometimes the timing doesn’t work out with what I want to listen to.
At that same time, Glennon Doyle launched her podcast, We Can Do Hard Things. I had not really known of her before until I found myself needing someone with lived experience in the addiction and recovery community. Her podcast reached me at just the moment I most needed something that dove headfirst into the messiness of life. She became my instructor and guide when my community around me seemed so upended and I needed grounding, understanding – a voice from the other side. Although I had started listening to the podcast because of my new job, and my new job was in a church, listening in and absorbing the hard topics Glennon and Amanda tackled was so much more church to me than church was. There are a number of reasons for this… The superficiality of American Christianity/Churchianity for one, and the fact that this was a job for me first and foremost. I still listen to it, though now that I’ve added other podcasts to the mix, I don’t hit every episode like I used to.
Pretty early on in this job journey I realized that church wasn’t going to be ‘church’ to me, so I looked for additional podcasts that would talk about spiritual matters. I started listening to Queer Theology with Fr. Shannon TL Kearns and Brian G. Murphy. I so appreciate the explicit message that not only are queer folx part of the God’s design, but a beautiful and needed part of having a fuller image of God. It comes out on Sundays, so I would often listen on my hour drive back from work and feel so utterly the disconnect between what ‘worship’ had been-its messages, ideas, and associated interactions, and the radical inclusion and directness. In our polarized society, many churches are attempting to navigate political differences by avoiding ‘controversial’ subjects altogether. This is the approach where I work. I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I want to be the kind of person who wants to include all beliefs and backgrounds, but on the other hand, I’m just not that person. And I can’t help but look at the Gospel and see the political implications! Jesus was not a fan of empire, domination, or exclusion. And that last one, exclusion, is why I stay where I am, despite feeling like it’s a lukewarm message most weeks. Because as much as I don’t respect extreme conservative beliefs (my respect ends once you claim T**mp won the 2020 election), I don’t want to see exclusion and further polarization. And that’s exactly why I sought out podcast voices that spoke more to me rather than leaving a physical community in search of an in person church that matched me. I want to want variety, and accepting the contradictions of my current job is a part of that growth.
I am not finished, though! When I got pregnant at the end of 2021, I started listening to birth podcasts. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, my first birth and postpartum was traumatic. This time, I was determined to do what I could to avoid trauma, which the first time was largely from feeling like I couldn’t speak up or use my voice in labor. So I started listening to a lot of birthing people who went through similar experiences and then went on to have a different subsequent experience. The link of birth podcasts and church is a little harder to make, but once again, this podcast spoke deeply to me. I think a beloved community should be willing to go into the dark, difficult, sorrowful and joyful places together, and that’s exactly what the birth podcasts that I listened to in preparation for birth did for me. Even now over a year out from my VBAC I listen to every episode on The VBAC Link. I even shared my own story! Telling our stories is such a powerful tool for healing and connecting, which is what I think church should be about. Jesus said, love your neighbors as you love yourselves. But how can we love our neighbors OR ourselves if we don’t KNOW our neighbors or ourselves? As the team behind We Can Do Hard Things contends, we have to KNOW someone, really, deeply, messily KNOW them to love them. And in sharing on The VBAC Link I opened myself up to be known by a podcast community AND I came away knowing myself better. It was the single most healing part of my journey in healing that trauma…so far. I am still actively confronting it and trying to do this work! One part of that journey I’ve recently added is the Birth Trauma Mama podcast with Kayleigh Summers. That one is hard. I am uncovering new layers of my pain in a community that has been through many of the same experiences… Which helps to hold me. Church should be a place to hold people in their pain. Not fix it, not bypass it, not explain it away as “God’s Plan” or “It’ll make you stronger.” The emotional rawness is also realness, and that is missing from so many communities because, well, it’s painful. Church should walk together in pain, however, and we can always look for ways to improve that.
All of these podcasts are beautiful and (mostly, except for Queer Theology) secular, but the last one that has been accompanying me the past year is a distinctly religious one. It’s called Another Name for Everything, and it’s with Fr. Richard Rohr. Essentially it follows the themes and ideas from Rohr’s book, The Universal Christ. I haven’t read the book (tiny human household, after all), but essentially he contends that Christ is infused in every part of creation-there’s no place, no idea that we can separate from God. Everything is related to everything, hence it all has another name–Christ. Without realizing it, this is sort of my contention in this post, too. Although most of the podcasts I’ve mentioned have nothing to do with church, they all have to do with my connection to others and myself. Although I still work for a church and I still value (aspects of) it, I am also at a point in deconstruction where I’m a bit over it and long for deeper more true connection. The superficiality of churches is something that I hope dies out in the coming century of church going upheaval. We can do better. We all deserve real connections amidst the real struggles, joys, and experiences in life.
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