50 - Source to You
B-RAD with Brad Toews
It is the dynamic interplay between spirit and matter that provides the flow of energy in my own life, and I believe, this is the spiritual movement of the whole universe.
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49 - Imagine That
B-RAD with Brad Toews
Literalism helps us explain the world. Know the world. Name the world. But it bumps up against its limits when it meets a more powerful tool of language - metaphor. What does this look like in the context of the Christian faith?
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48 - Unknowing God
B-RAD with Brad Toews
Our claims to knowledge (what we know, how we know, the extent of what we know) changes over time. At least it does if we're growing and evolving.
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47 - Past Lives
B-RAD with Brad Toews
We all have past lives, a collection of moments, strung together that make us who we are.
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46 - Something to Say
B-RAD with Brad Toews
I'm learning how to communicate better, both on this podcast and in my personal and professional life. I'm learning I have Something to Say, and how to say it.
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45 - Back-to-School for Adults
B-RAD with Brad Toews
Something about the shift in season, summer turning to fall and kids back in school, inspires an air of possibility for new habits and making change in your life.
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44 - Follow You
B-RAD with Brad Toews
I have a strong tendency and bias to depend on outside information and inputs, constantly seeking more knowledge to inform my choices.
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43 - When Marriage is a Let-down
B-RAD with Brad Toews
An interview my wife Dawna about her perspective on expectations, disappointments, and the let-down’s of life, in the context of marriage and our closest relationships.
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42 - Find your Frequency
B-RAD with Brad Toews
As if integrative medicine, transcendent spiritual experiences, and quantum physics weren't interesting enough in exploring energy and frequency, let's add harmonics theory to the mix.
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41 - Make Some Noise Drew Brown
B-RAD with Brad Toews
In this interview Drew and I sit down in his kitchen to talk about music and being a musician. We talk about how writing, playing, performing and producing honest music tells the story of our lives and gives expression to a re-imagined faith.
info_outlineThe story by David Foster Wallace goes like this; there are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “what the hell is water?”
This simple story challenges us to ask, at the very least, what are we really swimming in? And how can we even become aware of it?
Simone Weil says,
“There are only two things that pierce the human heart. One is beauty. The other is affliction.”
Things that pierce our heart offer a window into reflection but what if we could increase the frequency of the reflective moments of our lives? Revealing things hidden in plain sight, like the very water we're swimming in.
Whatever form our active reflection takes, the function is the same, to bear witness to our life.
Every once in a while I am struck with this simple, but profound insight, “you know Brad, it doesn’t have to be like this. You do have options.”
There are many things in our life beyond our control, things we don't choose. But we do choose our responses. We have options.
How do we become aware of the options? How do we have eyes to see the obvious?
By cultivating awareness between the experiences of stimulus and response. Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul, writes that we can choose which path to take:
- Be tense and lean into the event, reacting automatically, without pause or reflection.
- Be relaxed and lean away from the event, creating space between the event and our reaction to it.
Join me in this episode as we ask, along with David Foster Wallace's fish, "what the hell is water?" and are challenged to create a space, a pause button, a practice of reflection to help us be more aware of what is hidden in plain sight all around us.
In-depth shownotes, links, and other resources at Brad Toews.