Richard Foster helps introduce a new podcast from Renovaré called Friends in Formation, featuring Nathan Foster, James Catford, and Richella Parham.

Renovaré Podcast with Nathan Foster

Richard Foster, James Catford, Richella Parham — Introducing Friends in Formation

Eric Eugene Peterson has devoted much of his pastoral life to studying, teaching, and trying to live into what many think of as a one-time act: baptism. Eric helps us dive deeper into the waters of this well-known sacrament.

Eric Eugene Peterson — Wade in the Water

Nathan: Lacy. I've been noticing lately that a lot of folks are struggling and I had this sneaking suspicion that you might have something helpful to say to folks.Lacy: Hmm,Nathan: So do you.Lacy: do I have something helpful? Say folks who are struggling? Um, me too. Amy can say that you're not alone. there's a wonderful Quaker phrase called you know, this holding center. meaning that we're, you know, we're noticing that we are deepening in Christ and that we are, stable, but the storm is raging around us.Nathan: It's a unique storm and has been for you guys. Can, can you share a little about that with Doug and son?Lacy: Yeah. I'm, I'm married to an emergency room physician. he, serves our community and our local hospital. so that's meant that since March. We've had, a unique experience. Well, actually not unique, you know, worldwide, there's lots of healthcare workers. We've had this experience, of what it looks like to weather this storm.with this second, third, I don't know what they're calling this new, increase in COVID cases. we've had to really reconsider what our faithfulness looks like in this season.  So we, Doug and I were not sleeping in the same bed. We're all living in the same house.He has so far declined to sleep in the greenhouse. And I'm sleeping on a blow up mattress in the living room.Nathan: Yeah. Yeah.Lacy: yeah. And it's been, it's been hard for our kids. For our, our youngest daughter is still at home with us. It's been very difficult for her.Nathan: What's her struggle been?Lacy: You know, and I, I just want to say, I did ask her permission to make sure it was okay. That I, I talked a little bit about it, but, we're a bit of an anomaly in our community.We've been super careful. We live next door to my parents. And we just want to be super careful. So lots of the adults we've always had this belief, that it takes a whole lot of people to raise children. Don't have it all.Nathan: Wait a minute. You, you wrote a book about children. You're you're not the expert. You're not, you're not the mom of the year.Lacy: Good gracious. Absolutely not. Um, so yeah, we've sort of, had community around us and some of our community their faithfulness has looked like different, different levels of restrictions than ours. And so that's brought up big conversations in our house. In a really vulnerable act -- again I have asked her permission -- she said, you know, mom, all of these adults that have had spoken into my life all of these years, some of them, many of them, don't have the same level of  attention to this as you and dad do. She said, I'm wondering if, if you and dad are crazy. And I was  really grateful that she could give me her really true feelings, how she feels about this. And I felt really isolated and alone.Nathan: What'd you say?Lacy: I think one, lots of people are feeling this and lots of teenagers are feeling this. If we think of Dallas, Willard's different dimensions of the person and he talks about, and one is social context. Well, the main way that adolescents, one of the main dimensions of the self that they're engaging is their social context.And so they in this season have not had that, or they've had it in different ways and, and that's created a loss within them. And for sure they are feeling that. So I could hear that in her conversation with me.  And I needed to be able to, in that moment -- we were driving, which is a great place, can I say to talk, is to give them some space and, you know, as long as you can keep it on the road, it's a good place that they feel free to talk. And I was, I felt really grateful that she could talk to us about it. I felt like it was our faithfulness to continue in the path what looks like for us to love our neighbor well, which means that she, she couldn't do, she can't do all the social things that she's wanted to do and is so conditioned to doing. And I had to make space for her to be angry about it,that anger in this season lands with me.Nathan: yeah. Holding center. What does that mean?Lacy: well, practically for me, what does it look like right now? That's praying the Psalms. there's a little Salter that comes  from Paraclete Press, it's called, a book of daily prayer. The Paraclete Psalter. And, and thenNathan: Better than mine?Lacy: Well, it, what it does is it, has you read that throughout the different times of the day, so you have morning, afternoon, evening all of the daily office and you read through the whole Psalter in a month. Which, you know, we're at what, nine months in here. and what I really like about it is that it includes the lamenting Psalms. And so, part of the way that I've been able to hold center is by praying those lamenting Psalms. So that anger that gets pushed on me as a parent, which it happens. Is, I can funnel that into the lamenting Psalms and to God who can handle that. The weight of teenage, frustration and anger, honestly, I'm certainly no mother of the year, it's too much for me to bear. I can funnel it through these lamenting Psalms, and into God and God can handle it.Nathan: That's right. It's worth noting that God allowed certain Psalms in there.Lacy: Oh, yeah. And they're Oh, can I just tell you they're not pretty? One of the other pieces that, where we're having these conversations of consequence in our home too, is that, healthcare workers are exhausted. When their colleagues get sick, you know, they're taking on extra shifts, their shifts are longer in order to take care of patients.At our tiny hospital, the second COVID wing has opened up, the ICU is filling. So healthcare workers are dealing with their own anxiety. And their own faithfulness, you know, they came into this profession wanting to help people. And often our communities, different levels of people's discernment around this can really tick away at their sense of feeling United. So you know that they are all in this together. They can feel like that, that they're fractured from their community and  that can weigh heavy on them.Nathan: I remember sitting in a faculty meeting once and they were talking about bringing the faculty and staff together and kind of building, you know, some sort of community. And my friend was a history professor and his, his specialty was in world war II. He just kind of leans over and he says, well, we need an enemy.That's how you bring people together. There's a common enemy. You know, he was, he was big, somewhat, you know, serious. So what's confused me as I thought at the beginning of a pandemic. And some of these things that, that what we would see is a little of what it seemed like happened during world war II, we're in this together and buying bonds and let's, you know, save flour or whatever to kind of help the cause.And it's really confused me in a sense how that's not happened. And it does seem that some of the greatest divisions are among Christian folks. And, you know, what does church look like and how do we, and then the interactions with each other  have not been good and been really, really destructive.So I'm wondering if you had any, any thoughts about that or any potential ways to move forward or we can move forward.Lacy: I think that our experience as a family that has a healthcare worker as a main member of our family has implications for the division that maybe we feel as a nation. I wonder if Christians could see healthcare workers as fellow human beings. Who longed to have encounters with Christ, even if they can't really verbally articulate that. And the quote keeps coming to mind that we cannot proclaim the good news and be the bad news. So what would it look like, Church, to be the good news? To healthcare workers. And I think that's a, fateful question maybe that we could all live with. What would it look like? Because nurses and techs and doctors and all the folks who, are protecting us. Who are working long hours they're watching. And we can say lots of things. In fact, we write them on posters and we walk them in the streets, but who we are -- that speaks louder than anything else. And I think the next sort of group of people that I have the honor of listening to. And I mean, it, honor, incredible honor, our pastors and educators, and I, get to accompany them in spiritual direction and they're also experiencing incredible divisiveness. Depending on what, the decisions that are being made.  they're meeting resistance on all sides. What would it look like to be the good news to your child's teacher? To the pastor of your church.Nathan: What does it look like for you in this season to be the good news... to love well?Lacy: For us as a family, it means that I'm sleeping on a blowup mattress in the living room. Because my parents live next door. Because of, if Doug gets sick, I don't want to, you know, pass it off somewhere else. To be the good news looks like being vulnerable with people who  find theirselves in a different  place than I am, in terms of what their level of faithfulness is. And, having conversations over zoom, having masked conversations, it means to, for me to actually show up. I've noticed in myself what happens, when I sort of move into that judgmental space. And I mean, it's so easy right now to move there --  it's just so easy. In fact, I feel quite sure that I will, if I listened to this podcast, I'm going to be like, Oh, Lacy.So I almost want to beg forgiveness on the front end. But when I notice I'm moving into that judgmental space, I know that I have moved away from the person in front of me.  it's very difficult to judge up close. and it's easier to judge from a distance. So, you know, I'm, saying if we disagree, can we have a conversation? Can I hear what your point of view, which would you like to hear mine and my experience. I mean, in many ways, this is why I agreed to have the podcast to talk about this a little bit publicly. I want to move in, move closer. So that's vulnerability, moving closer, praying the Psalms. Oh, please definitely pray the Psalms. I thought about taking an Exacto knife and just cutting all the lamenting Psalms up like a little book, just read those, but cutting and pasting is really not my forte. but the other thing that has been a gift, and maybe I can , you know, turn it towards a gift.One of the gifts has been play. We have played more. I have personally played more in this season than I have played in my entire life. I think. Yeah. You know, I was born into a family who knows how to work.I mean, we are workers. I started waiting tables, I bet I was seven when I was, when I could hold plates, hot plates. I learned how to combine work in play, but just flat out play.  It is my youngest daughter who has taught me how to play. And it was out of necessity. It was, we were going to turn on each other and there, and then we were going to have like a homicide of some kind and we didn't do something if we didn't get out of our little house.And so it, it started in the spring and we were outside playing.  I have learned, right now we're out. So we've got a lot of snow this winter and we're out in the snow. We have a dog who had to have her front leg removed last Christmas. Her name is Maggie and she's a border Collie.So she, you know, she moves a lot. She runs the five acres all the time, and it was so difficult for her to learn to walk again without, I mean the back leg, they, they recover quite quickly, but that front leg is such a powerhouse. And she's done a great job moving without it, but I haven't seen her face light up until we got that first snow.And I mean, even as we're talking, I'm watching her outside, running through the snow with those three legs. And I mean, you know, she's hopping with that front leg and that there is just something about snow. That is inviting us to play. And something about Maggie only three legs.  She had cancer. We don't know how much longer we're going to have her with us, but just seeing that playfulness, she puts her nose underneath the snow and throws it up over her back.She kind of burrows down underneath it. She kicks it with her back legs. And it's just really inviting me to play.Nathan: Hmm, that's good.Lacy: And there's, there's something about those two P's right now -- praying the Psalms and Play. And it's again, it's I think it's that intersection of the deep, the deep sorrow of suffering. My grandparents,  got COVID and,  they got it at church.And my grandfather has a CT scan today. There is the very real named losses that are happening right now. And there is an invitation that seems to becoming from God through nature, inviting, inviting me to play.Nathan: Can I tell you about my cat?Lacy: I love cats.Nathan: So I needed a mouse cat. I have this, this barn that I'm working in and it had some mice, so I just need a mouse cat. So, so we, we got this cat that lived on the streets, you know, it was a stray and I didn't think I'd really see him around. You know, skiddish, whatnot. This cat. Oh my goodness. Well, first off it's like a dog.He follows me, like when I take walks, he walks with me and his little tail drags in the snow and he's just the most loving cat and. It has felt like play me and this cat, like we walk around together and I'm doing things around the yard and it, it just has felt like this little companion that God has given me the midst of this.So many adults struggle with play, self included. It's is there any word that you might give to people who hear you say play and they kind of, yes, but I don't know how to do that.Lacy: Yeah. First of all, think back to when you were a child, what did you do in your, in your, when you were very young? That you really enjoyed? Play can involve like a glorious loss of time. So when did you lose track of time and what did you do?Did it have something to do with being outside? Did it have something to do with creating something? Did you lose track of time as you were creating something? Did it have to do with telling jokes? You know, as my grandparents have suffered from COVID the last couple of weeks, this is  my grandparents that are the funniest. I learned to tell my first jokes from this grandmother and, in her deli on 42nd street in Odessa, Texas.  I learned to laugh with her she's hysterical. So we've been talking about all the different jokes that we used to tell and the funny things that happened as we worked in restaurants together over the years.So are there some things that you used to do with people that you love, that, you lost track of time that gave you that sense of being connected with someone bigger than yourself?Nathan: I love this phrase, glorious loss of time.Lacy: And it's not the kind of glorious loss of time that's happening right now in a pandemic. One more like we're on, you know, somebody says what's today's date and it's like, it's March three, four, or whatever.Nathan: That's where you forget, you forget that you're bound to a clock, right. And just, just, Oh my goodness. It's two in the morning. Wow.Lacy: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I am very uncoordinated. I have like low level coordination. But long ago, um, when I was at, I was a teacher at new covenant Christian school in Penfield, New York. And at this charismatic Christian school, in chapel, Wednesday chapels, the kids danced.And I come from a Baptist tradition and no adults don't even dance. Nobody danced. That's Southern Baptist. There are other Baptist traditions that are, are wonderful dancers. This was new to me and the children taught me to praise God and dance at the same time, but the kiddos taught me. So I would say to someone who's like, I'm not sure I know how to play.If there's a child around, ask them to teach you. So this is their mother tongue, and so they can teach you to speak it. So that would be the other. how about trying out dancing? There is a song that's come out of South Africa called the... I think it's called the Jerusalem dance and we found a couple of YouTube videos on it and we're practicing.This is kind of a lot throwback to 1980s line dancing and we're practicing it in our house. It's really kind of a lot of fun. I'm terrible...Nathan: Right. I believe you on both ends. How is play a spiritual act or can it be a spiritual act?Lacy: Oh, absolutely. Play as a spiritual act in many ways. One is that it helps us forget ourselves, but not in the sense of self rejection, but because there, there are, there's sort of two ways to go in forgetting ourself. Forgetting ourselves in freedom, means that we still have a sense of self forgetting ourselves in rejection is separation.So, so play invites us to, forget ourself through self acception. And that means that we're being accept. We receive ourselves as being accepted by God, and we show up with all, all of who we are. So play very much invites us into that. We can set ourself aside because we're fully there. play also helps us to experience unity.One of the ways that my youngest daughter explained unity to me once was, you know, mom, when I'm on the back of, Pepper, that's one of our horses and she's trotting, I know the difference between me and her, and when she moves into a gallop, I know the difference between me and her, but when she breaks into or run, I don't know the difference. And play helps us experience that unity with , often, with God.And with another, that, that we feel that deep sense of being connected. I mean, when we're dancing this Jerusalem dance and we actually nail off, well, we, when I actually nail all the moves Anwen nails and every time there's a sense of glorious unity between us and the Melody and beat of the music, it's it brings incredible amount of joy to us.Nathan: Sometimes when I'm looking at nature and I'll, I'll see a bug or a bird or something, and I'll, I'll just kind of go, you're just playing around. Aren't you like? Like there just feels to be this playfulness in the w there is no reason to make that flower so intricately beautiful. So I  think God plays.Lacy: One way, way that we have played is by watching movies together lately. That's, that is a way play. And we have watched a movie called my octopus friend.Nathan: Oh, I saw thatLacy: Oh, you know, he talks about octopus and how this particular octopus plays. So animals do play. And one of the things that I think play does for us as a spiritual practice as well is it opens us to be learners.I mean, when we have a sense of play, we are not trying to get things perfectly spot on. I mean, our inner compulsion for failure takes a break. And we can learn more. So if we have this sense of play in our lives, then our inner compulsion around getting things exactly right. And I mean, that's true right now in the pandemic.Right. For, for us as a family with a healthcare worker, we can have an inner compulsion, like, you know, where's our mask. you know how much hand sanitizer can one person schlep around town picking up groceries? I mean, we, when we, anyway, we got a bottle of some that smelled terrible. In fact, we all agreed that it smelled like horse manure or so we're walking around feeling like we smell so bad.With this hand sanitizer anyway. So what play can do is to help us lower that compulsion that we're all having right now, wherever your faithfulness lies.Nathan: Lacey, thank you for your vulnerability, sharing your story.Lacy: You asked me in the beginning, what did I want people to know? I think I want people to know the thing that I have wanted to know, which is that you're not alone. We're not alone.Nathan: I'll take it. Thank you friend.Lacy: Thanks.

Lacy Borgo — Holding Center

Marlena Graves — The Way Up Is Down

Roger Fredrikson (w/ Dallas Willard + Richard Foster) — Beyond Sin Management

Put on some headphones, find a comfortable spot, and set your heart and mind on Psalm 19 in this 15-minute guided meditation. This "audio retreat" is a collaboration with Joshua Banner from The Invitation Podcast.

Audio Retreat: Meditation on Psalm 19

Author and spiritual director Fil Anderson takes us deep into the heart, or as he puts it, the womb of mercy. “I’ve come to believe mercy is the most defining characteristic of God.”

Fil Anderson — The Womb of Mercy

"Every tongue tribe and nation will be together in heaven," says author and counselor Sheila Wise Rowe, "we have an opportunity to figure out how to do that now." She talks with Nathan Foster about racial trauma, and how healing comes through community.

Sheila Wise Rowe — Healing Racial Trauma

What kinds of healthy risks should we take? How do we discern God's voice? What if I'm in too much pain to pray? Carolyn Arends asks these and other listener questions to Pete Greig (founder of the 24-7 Prayer movement) and Lisa Koons (24-7 Prayer USA Director) in this webinar recap bonus episode.

BONUS: Pete Greig + Lisa Koons — Prayer and Action (Webinar Recap)

"You cannot think a spiritual muddle clear, you have to obey it clear." Oswald Chamber's words helped singer-songwriter and Director of Communications Brian Morykon overcome resistance and start a new album. He chats with Nathan about fear versus humility, joy in obedience, and shares two new songs.

Brian Morykon — Obeying a Spiritual Muddle Clear

When the life of Pastor Juanita Rasmus came to a screeching halt after what her counselor called "a major depressive episode," she found that she had to learn to be—with herself and with God—all over again.﻿ She talks with Nathan about that season which is captured in her new book, Learning to Be.

Juanita Rasmus — Treasures From a Dark Time

Diane Bolduc believes the local church could benefit from the rigorous honesty found in recovery programs like AA. Having experienced transformation through 12-step recovery, she and her husband now lead a ministry to help others find freedom from addiction.

Diane Bolduc — Recovery, Church, and Rigorous Honesty

Cindy Bunch, director of editorial at InterVarsity Press, believes that cultivating compassion toward self is a way to cultivate compassion toward others. This is at the heart of her new book_Be Kind to Yourself, which she talks with Nathan Foster about in this episode.

Cindy Bunch — Be Kind to Yourself

Myisha Cunningham is the Senior Pastor of Raven-Brook Recovery Church. From the context of being a black woman in a denomination with mostly white male leadership, she brings welcome perspective on race, white privilege, and how individuals and churches can obey the two greatest commandments.

Myisha Cunningham — Racism and the Law of Love

Beth and David Booram, spiritual directors and cofounders of an urban retreat center in Indianapolis, invite us to look for God in places we normally overlook, and listen for God in places we might try to ignore (like negative feelings).

Beth and David Booram — When Faith Becomes Sight

A conversational podcast on spiritual formation, spiritual disciplines, and life with God. New episodes every other Monday. Hosted by Nathan Foster of Renovaré, a nonprofit that provides resources, events, and learning communities to help people become more like Jesus. Learn more at renovare.org.

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Renovaré Podcast with Nathan Foster

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