Hi Friend,

This email is a part of a short series on seed sorting- in this case I’m sharing some of the cool podcasters and their podcasts that I met at a recent gathering of podcasters, and reflecting on this much bigger question: how do we gather together well these days? The first section here is brief response to the wildfires. And I am inviting folks who are interested to our next remembering informational webinar!!! It’s so exciting that the next group is already forming! We will start in late March, close to the spring equinox.

***Words and Fires and Presence***

Sometimes I feel like my words fall, heavy, out of my throat and mind and down into my pockets, bulging like too much loose change. Those times when words don't seem to have much use. When there isn't much to say and yet there they are, clanking around, leaving my hands smelling like metal when I stuff my hands into my pockets, cold. Sometimes I feel like I take the spare change out and toss it on the table, moving it around almost aimlessly, all these coins that I've seen before, stamped with presidents and other Notable People who made a lot of decisions, many of which got us into where we are today.

These are the moments when I'm unsure about the use of words. They've been spent many times by many different hands, circling for years, these little coins. Is this all we have?  

I've been feeling some of that how-much-are-words-worth around the LA wildfires. Not just because of how horrendous and heart-wrenching it is.   But because of the decades of reports, movement-building, protests, films, lobbying, and the wide range of other forms of words used to say: we have to change because fossil-fuel-based economic systems and related systems of extraction is causing a grave imbalance in the macro-climate cycle. Which means.... dangerous winds exasperating fires. Hurricanes going places they have never gone before. Atmospheric rivers causing unprecedented downpours. Heat waves. We knew this could be our reality 50 years ago. And despite so much organizing, viable technological solutions (it's amazing how much cool stuff has been created) and the human capacity for ingenuity - here we are. Witnessing/experiencing this particular/latest/next inferno.

So much Unravelling.   

We are entering an age when everyone needs to think about what it means to have a "to go" bag.   And to deepen into the practices of hospitality.

Words, like coins, can still be thrown around in hurtfull ways, no matter how used up they may seem to be. Or tossed aside, ignored, in favor of policies/practices/cosmovisions that favor numbers with a lot of 0s after them.

Sometimes in these kinds of moments,  I want to let my body/hands do the listening and the talking.  If you or your loved ones are directly impacted by the LA fires, I hope you find what you need: the practical things, like food and shelter and companionship. And that non-material still deeply needed: Holy Presence.

Part of what has been lost, one of my clients reminded me recently, is the art of accompaniment.  

Still, these coins/words, still they do sometimes add up to something worth sharing. As small as they may be, they can still be powerful.  In the act of listening and sharing and thinking and being in practice of mutual aid and sometimes unexpected partnerships, there are pathways that can lead towards healing.

*****

Sharing other podcasters ways of playing with words… and thinking about how we gather 

Which brings me to the topic this email was originally going to be about: my experience at a Summit for faith and spiritual podcasters this past October.

The reflection that follows is in part a celebration of the power of deep listening and meaningful conversations; of regular people who have taken up microphones and headsets and tried to offer something of substance and value and hope for people they don't necessarily know.  Of the value of small change for big impact: people who are using the words that they have to the best of their ability. 

And this reflection is partly about this bigger question that was a steady theme for us in 2024 and continues, though differently, in 2025: what does it mean to gather well?? To gather people together who may not know one another, but who might, through connecting, be able to strengthen, inspire, support, and together realize something that would not have been realized had they not taken the trouble of gathering. 

I admit: I was surprised to be invited to join this particular gathering hosted by BYU Radio, on the BYU campus in Salt Lake City. Surprised...and suspicious. I quickly glanced at the speakers - not thinking that I would know any of them, but wanting to assess if this was some sort of a covert attempt to convert me to Mormonism. The lead speaker was Krista Tippet, host of the On Being radio show/podcast. Not only did I think she was not going to try to convert me to anything (except perhaps being a better podcast hostess and listening more deeply), but she was one of the people who got me into podcasting.  Less because I'm devoted to her podcast, but more because she was doing it: daring to bring conversations usually reserved for the private sphere into the public sphere. I love how she refers to her own ministry as a "ministry of listening."   So that won me over. And I loved the Summit's stated objective: for every person to leave the gathering with 4-5 people whom they could build some authentic collaborations with. What a wonderfully small ambition!  And I genuinely liked the folks from BYU radio, who had interviewed me for their In Good Faith Podcast several months earlier. Plus it was an all-expense paid trip to a beautiful location (Utah) that I have heard a lot about but never been to before.  Not exactly a hard decision. I said yes.

Honestly, I was blown away. By the hospitality. By the extent to which it really was interfaith. By the immense care that went into the planning. By the emphasis on "small" - less than 35 podcasters in total. By the extent to which I experienced myself as amongst "other people who are a lot like me." Our ReMembering and ReEnchanting podcast is an unpaid and relatively small part of what I do (teaching, researching, coaching, my own spiritual practices, and boutique consulting all take up much more of my time). Turns out that I totally fit into a group of people who love asking big and deep questions, have big hearts and sharp minds, love to listen and hear other people's stories, and love to wallow in existential topics from a place of inclusivity and curiosity.

What a good reminder: there are (still) many places where I can still experience unexpected moments of belonging.  And to keep questioning some of my own assumptions about where and who and how that is going to look. The Spirit keeps surprising me, and I delight in being surprised in these ways! 

I hope you also are finding unexpected places of belonging.

Small ambitions is part of what made this particular gathering so powerful. They wildly over-succeeded their goal that everyone would walk away with  4-5 connections.  And designating time for us to be in practice (actively podcasting, using their studios) together. Amongst other things, I was able to concretely experiment with some new directions for my own podcast, one of which is going to come out in a few weeks.

I know many of you are thinking about the gatherings you are going to host or attend this year. Some questions to think about are - what might it look like to make the ambition of the gathering... smaller?  And what does it look like to designate significant time - 6 hours, 8 hours over a 3-4 days - for experimenting/practicing the themes you are engaging with?  

I've been thinking a lot, as I sort my seeds from this past year, about what is the difference between those gatherings that I loved and inspired me and I got a lot of great people's information to follow up with, vs those gatherings which, like this one, I walked away with so much concreteness - where the conversations started at the gathering were able to be easily interwoven into my life post-gathering. Some of it is the coherence between practice and theory: in this case, podcasters have podcasts. There's a place for us to put what we are learning and thinking about podcasting directly into our work/lives; there's an obvious way for us to engage with the relationships we are creating.  This gathering also had a range of different experiences that we did together, (one day was on campus, another day was up in the mountains, there was an optional hike, dinners out, etc.) which jumbled people together in different ways, enabling us to get to know people better in different contexts. That also helped relationships deepen in a short period of time, and see oh, this is a place/way/area that I could work with/connect with this person. This same process worked particularly well in a gathering we went to in Hawaii last February - visiting different sites of practice where indigenous practices were being revitalized not only was super inspiring and helped us understand what was happening in Hawaii better, but it also strengthened our relationships with the other people with whom we were on the trip. And in this case, there was something very powerful about the relative smallness PLUS alignment of the people who were gathered. 

Here's a short (less than 30 minutes) chat from Lisa DeLay about our experience at the Summit that we put together in the studios. She subsequently came onto my podcast and we did an episode about our 'inner landscapes' that we released at the end of December. I'll probably be on her podcast, the Spark My Muse podcast, relatively soon.