This past year of discussing faith and life with some of the most genuine and brilliant minds on the show has been so fulfilling. I am partial to each and every one of them for so many reasons but a few changed me in ways that I’m most grateful for. Over the next few weeks I’ll discuss those few:
Aaron Niequist:
Somehow I had been able to at least fake that I knew what I was doing on this podcast. I’d emailed a publisher directly; luckily, they’d responded. Soon enough I’d be conversation with Dominique Gilliard about mass incarceration (which was a great conversation, but another time) and at the end of our chat I was at a loss for words. Dominque’’s book left me unsettled and entirely sad. It left me feeling hopeless, even though I know we are called to be hope when there is none. In short this book left me in lament—and American’s hate lament. For a considerable amount of time I stayed there and this posed a problem…the music.
Each episode is, for me, entirely unique, and so I try with intention to match the music for each episode to the subject of discussion. Not that I wouldn’t love one day to have a theme music, but right now I most often find, and worship, God through song. At some base level my heart sings things that my mouth is unable to voice. It’s overwhelming and entirely worth it; but which music could honestly fit a conversation about prison. For me I found that the music and the intentionality of the liturgies from A New Liturgy by Aaron Niequist. So I emailed and fast-forward a few weeks and boom…music is set and I felt comfortable with the emotion in the music fitting with the intention of the episode.
Often that’s the end of it for me: record topic, find music, insert, go on to the next thing. But this was different.
Aaron, in his response about music, asked if I’d be interested in chatting about a book he was writing that would come out mid-summer. So, being in the position I was in at the time, of course I said yes. Who would say no? The hardest part is always securing the interview.
The Eternal Current:
So I began reading the Eternal Current and what my heart had found in the music of A New Liturgy, my head found in the pages. Aaron’s book shook me, not because of the content, necessarily, but because of the introduction to The Examen form of prayer. In the past I’d meandered about in contemplation but never really tried to engage in it. But if I was to be able to speak with Aaron about his book that would need to change. So why not try?
Months went by and, as my wife will tell you, I don’t come to sleep early so I filled those times, intentionally, with the Examen. This process had me getting into parts of me that I’m still today working on and, through Christ, reforming and hopefully turning into a better human that I was yesterday and the years prior. I find the struggle and angst in my own being. I find facets of Jesus that I had never seen prior—both in God and in myself. As the weeks fade, it is finally time. Fire up the laptop, hit record, dial-up Aaron, and after the usual “can you hear me?” and sound checks ask him if he’s ready to go? The answer was yes but with a caveat.
Slight Changes:
June:
Times up. Time to rock and roll and work through this hour, all the while desperate to not make a fool of myself—a constant fear, in the discussion of God and the current of life, as we are called to join into the presence and peace of God. The difference this time, though, is me.
So the reason this conversation has helped foster some change in me:
Aaron asked me some questions: “How are you? What is God doing in your life through this? How is this podcast changing you? How has the book sat with you?” Honestly it took me aback…usually I’m the one asking the questions and I felt bare. But honestly I needed that and I think I was, and am, at a point I was healthy enough to answer that question.
Fast forward 20 minutes and I realized something in me had shifted. Community was happening in real time between a man I’ve never actually met as we spoke with conviction about how God was working in our lives. I was ready to talk about what I was ready to talk about but Aaron slowed me down.
This conversation and the practices from the book that fostered it have helped me slow down and see the patterns in life that I need to flow in too. To find grace where before I saw annoyance, to find compassion where before I saw rigidity; and it stems from slowing down.
If you’ve not heard this episode before you can find it on iTunes and right here: