Season Three – Episode #1: Falling Upwards by Richard Rohr

Season Three – Episode #1: Falling Upwards by Richard Rohr

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Season Three – Episode #1. Dawn and Tanya are picking up the gauntlet once again to share with you our experience of where faith finds us in this season.  Richard Rohr’s enlightening, chock-full-of-wisdom Falling Upwards, about the second half of life spirituality, will provide a framework for this conversation. 

Our hope is to encourage women who feel on the fringe of their faith communities, left out, pushed out, misfit, or discouraged. Our intention is to spark hope in the hearts of church-weary, or church-wounded women through a fresh full hearing of scripture, and exploration through books and conversation. Let’s wrestle together to find new meaning for today in the ancient wisdom tradition of Jesus, and revel in the mystery of Christ.

The ego clearly prefers an economy of merit, where we can divide the world into winners and losers, to any economy of grace, where merit loses all meaning. In the first case, at least a few of us good guys attain glory. In the second case, all the glory is to God.

Season Two – Episode 10 Shameless, by Nadia Bolz-Weber

Season Two – Episode 10 Shameless, by Nadia Bolz-Weber

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Episode #10.  Shameless “is for everyone who ever felt ashamed of their sexual nature because of what someone told them in God’s name”. Nadia asks the daring question – Can the church now be the place of sexual healing? It’s high time for a sexual reformation! Guaranteed to spark some fabulously real conversations, this is a book everyone should read. Heads up for sensitive friends – our conversation touches on sexual assault and may be upsetting. 

“How bizarre that a religion based on the merging of things human and divine – a religion based on God choosing to have, of all things, a human body; a faith whose central practice is a shared meal of bread and wine that we say and sometimes believe is the body and blood of Jesus – could develop into such a body – and pleasure-fearing religion”.  (Nadia Bolz-Weber)

If you find this episode interesting check out Giftgirls Season One: Episode 5 to hear our conversation about Nadia’s book Accidental Saints. Also we highly recommend Nadia’s podcast The Confessional. 

 

Season Two – Episode 9: Freeing Jesus, by Diana Butler Bass

Season Two – Episode 9: Freeing Jesus, by Diana Butler Bass

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“The glory of God is man fully alive”

Saint Irenaeus

Episode #9.  Explore “all the Jesuses” with us, in all their beautiful, mysterious layers, as we respond to Freeing Jesus, by Diana Butler Bass. This book felt like reflective memoir, church critique, and Jesus love story all in one.  

 “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together”.

Colossians 1: 17

Season Two – Episode 7: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, by Bill Gates

Season Two – Episode 7: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, by Bill Gates

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Episode #7.   “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son” John 3:16. Created to steward God’s creation, we humans have in many ways turned away from our original calling. With humility and God’s unending mercy we can begin to change. Together we can face our apathy, despair, and denial, as we examine both the problems and opportunities before us. Join us in this urgent conversation as we respond to How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, by Bill Gates. 

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes -his eternal power and divine nature- have been understood and observed by what he made, so that people are without excuse.  Romans 1:20

Additional resources: Climate Church Climate World, by Jim Antal; Rising, by Elizabeth Rush.  Podcast – Bill Gates and Rashida Jones Ask Big Questions: Episode #4.  Website: Breakthroughenergy.com

 

“In energy, software, and just about every other pursuit, it’s a mistake to think of innovation only in the strict, technological sense. Innovation is not just a matter of inventing a new machine or some new process; it’s also coming up with new approaches to business models, supply chains, markets, and policies that will help new inventions come to life and reach global scale. Innovation is both new devices and new ways of doing things.” -Bill Gates

“When you pay more for an electric car, a heat pump, or a plant-based burger, you’re saying “there’s a market for this stuff. We’ll buy it.” If enough people send the same signal, companies will respond-quite quickly…” -Bill Gates

“Countries like the United States shouldn’t see investing in clean energy R&D as just a favor to the rest of the world. They should also see it as an opportunity to make scientific breakthroughs that will give birth to new industries composed of major new companies, creating jobs and reducing emissions at the same time”. -Bill Gates

Season Two – Episode 6: White Fragility by Robin Diangelo

Season Two – Episode 6: White Fragility by Robin Diangelo

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Episode #6.   Enlighten us dear Lord! “I don’t know if white Christians hate negroes or not, but I know that we have a Christian church that is white and a Christian church which is black.  I know that the most segregated hour in American life is high noon on Sunday”, said James Baldwin in 1965. How far have we come since then? Many of us white kids were raised to believe that the problem of racial inequity was mostly solved with the civil rights movement. With God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s gentle prompting, join the conversation as we investigate our own complicity in the complex structures that hold racism in place.

 

“Enlighten those who possess power and money that they may avoid the sin of indifference, that they may love the common good, advance the weak, and care for this world in which we live. The poor and the earth are crying out”.

-Pope Francis

 

Season Two – Episode 4 Conversation: The Idolatry Of God, by Peter Rollins

Season Two – Episode 4 Conversation: The Idolatry Of God, by Peter Rollins

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Episode #4.   Shake up all your theological assumptions with us as we glimpse our comfy Christianity, in all of its idolatrous ways, with Pete Rollins. Where do we find our identity? How does “the Christ event”  inform how we listen to the other. Equal parts brainy and experiential this book is a must read for anyone in need of fresh vision for what it means to be a Christ follower.  

“…people keep wanting to treat Jesus as a type of king. In contrast, he is constantly depicted as doing things that undermine this idolatrous way of relating to him. Showing weakness when people expect strength, powerlessness when they want power, and humility when they want majesty. In other words, we believe in Jesus (as the Idol) and Jesus informs us that this is not the case”.  

Peter Rollins