Excerpt from Life of the Beloved - Moment to Breathe
Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations
Release Date: 12/12/2019
The Great Annual Examen
Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations
SHOW NOTES Each year we hear about New Year’s Resolutions – we make plans to lose weight, become more organized, be on time more. All great goals, but how many times have those goals been forgotten in February? (I raised my hand too!) In today’s podcast we discuss “The Great Annual Examen,” a simple question and answer exercise to help you reflect on the past year and anticipate the year to come. There are several different categories given for you to reflect on: My Physical Health. My Emotional Health. My Relational Health. My Vocational Health. My...
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God's Design for our Dilemma
Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations
SHOW NOTES In this episode we are treated to a special preview of the Potter’s Inn Soul Care Institute where Gwen Smith teaches on Sabbath Keeping: God’s Design For Our Dilemma. The discussion includes the origin of Sabbath, why we feel so much guilt concerning Sabbath, and why God gave us Sabbath in the first place. Gwen also introduces her 4 Pillars of Sabbath: Rhythm - Sabbath is God’s built-in way of giving us rhythm in our lives instead of just running full-steam continuously. Protection - In a sense, Sabbath protects us from ourselves and the violence that we inflict on...
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Becoming the Beloved
Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations
SHOW NOTES In our heads, we know that being is more important than doing. But the reality of our day-to-day life is that we easily drift into a performance-based relationship with God and others. Jesus modeled a different way to live. In today’s episode, we learn how Jesus lived a life that began with acceptance by his Heavenly Father and ended by achieving more than any human being ever has. He has shown us the way---living as the beloved of God. RESOURCE RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST Moment to Breathe: by Henri J.M. Nouwen by Frank Lake ...
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I Think I Need 100 Days Like This
Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations
This cool breeze by the river bank. A great blue heron feeding in the shallows. The pilated woodpecker serenading the forest with its haunting song. I think I need one hundred days like this! Slowly, ever so slowly. Here. Now. This! Bit by bit and little by little, I feel a twinge of what may be life. A steady erosion has happened in me. It’s taken time to do this damage. It will take more time to regain what’s been lost. The locust have ravaged much I feel now. Sad stories, and far too many of them, have layered my heart with deep grief. I think I need one hundred...
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Blessing for the Brokenhearted
Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations
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Allison's Story
Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations
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The River of no Agenda
Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations
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Discernment: Finding Our Way, Part 2
Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations
Discernment is the process of gaining clarity on finding direction for the next step of our journey. SHOW NOTES Today’s podcast is part two of a discussion between Steve and Spiritual Director Martie McMane. Martie is a retired minister, artist, and spiritual director who used a collage process with Steve & Gwen to help them make some crucial life decisions during a period of repositioning. They continue the conversation today about how the collage process can work in each of our own lives Thank you for joining us in today’s conversation! ABOUT MARTIE MCMANE ...
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Ep 146: Discernment: Finding our Way, Part 1
Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations
Discernment is the process of gaining clarity on finding direction for the next step of our journey. SHOW NOTES Last year Steve and Gwen went through a period of repositioning: changes were on the horizon but any clarity about what to do next was clouded by the realization that they were not on the same page. They reached out to a trusted Spiritual Director for help and the result was what they called a “Discernment Retreat.” They needed clarity. They needed discernment. Today’s podcast is a discussion between Steve and the Spiritual Director they called on for...
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Ep 145: Walter Brueggemann's Prophetic Imagination
Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations
I am simply humbled at this stage in my career, to have the privilege to tell Walter’s story and to help amplify his amazingly relevant voice. Getting to know Walter has been a healing and restorative experience for me as a former pastor and a professor deeply committed to social justice when so much of the church and society has forgotten what the biblical text says about God’s care for the marginalized. — Conrad L. Kanagy SHOW NOTES Steve’s chats with Conrad Kanagy, the author of coming soon book Walter Brueggemann's Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography....
info_outlineTaken from Episode 32 - You are the Beloved
Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well being you desire? Don’t you often hope: “Maybe this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship will fulfill my deepest desire.” But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burnout. This is the way to spiritual death.
Well, you and I don’t have to kill ourselves. We are the Beloved. We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children, and friends loved or wounded us. That’s the truth of our lives. That’s the truth I want you to claim for yourself. That’s the truth spoken by the voice that says, “You are my Beloved.”
Listening to that voice with great inner attentiveness, I hear at my center words that say: “I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you in the depths on the earth and knit you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me. I am your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your lover, and your spouse...yes, even your child...wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one.”
Henri Nouwen (an excerpt from Life of the Beloved)