Episode 15 Shane Tucker and the listening art of “soul friendship”

Today: A conversation with Shane Tucker!

Shane is a Soul Friend (Spiritual Director) with a focus on artists and creatives, be they “yuccies”, “slashies”, painters, musicians, or any one in need of deeper and more sustaining, soul-level communing.


 

How we find spark:
Together, we make the Spark My Muse podcast happen.
I prepare something and you digest it.

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That’s all. :)

 

• If it’s worth nothing…um what? Are you serious? This just got more awkward..Aw…snap! I sincerely apologize. Let me know what I can improve and please come back and listen again soon!

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simply, tap into the river of gratitude in your heart and contribute what you can– HERE or use that Paypal button, over yonder.

 

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Thank you, listeners for making the show heard in 96 countries and a,l 50 of the United States!

With Love,
~Lisa


SHOWNOTES with links and highlights.

Wine Segment:
MINUTE 1:30 On meade and Irish wine

Snapshot of the segment:

• Meade is fermented honey and herbs added.

• Irish wine is (usually) white wine, with some honey and herbs.
• It is still often used during the wine toast in Irish wedding ceremonies.

 

Sparking your muse!

Shane-@-Ross-2012-MA conversation with Shane Tucker:

His website

His Twitter

Shane is…
• An ordained Anglican Preist

• A trained Anam Cara (soul friend in the Irish Tradition).

• He lived with his wife and family in Ireland for 11 years!


Conversation (podcast) notes:

MINUTE 3:00

How Shane and his wife and family happened to live in Ireland for 11 years.

4:15
How God begins to grow dreams in us

Working at the Willow Creek Church

People have long said that still seems true. When foreigners come that end up being more Irish than the Irish themselves.

7:20

One of the most potent lessons learned from the Irish was the necessity to put people first. They take time to connect with each other and share life.

9:00 A sense of call to minister to artist and creatives.

9:40 On why he feels a passion to serve the creative community: “I believe the creative of today is the prophet of old”. It is a prophetic call.

10:10

“Creatives are called to paint a picture of the future that God is calling us all into. His Kingdom coming.”

10:50

“When a creative (person) using their gift…it taps into something deep inside of us and reverberates…and it feels like echoes of home.”

12:00

Jesus invites us to “walk with me and work with me.”

12:20

answering: What is Spiritual Direction (or soul friendship) actually?

13:00

A soul friend is “the best friend you’ve always wanted.”

and the Saint Bridgette quote…

13:50

A good picture is in the New Testament of the friends walking to Emmaus and then Jesus come in their midst. Unpacking life.

14:00

“The Soul Friend is someone who helps us see how God has been at work in our lives…so we can (as St. Ignatius says) “to recklessly abandon ourselves to his loving care.”

15:20

The problem with the phrase “Spiritual Director” on two counts so I use “soul friend”.

18:00

How he was trained in soul care and soul friendship

21:00

On becoming an Anglican Priest…

25:00

What he find to be the deepest needs of the creative community he works with?

Affirmation and Presence

30:00

Living in a Creative Age (moving from head to heart)

31:30

There’s an affective moving in society leading with Beauty first and then Truth that leads to freedom.

32:00

Alan Crieder

Behave Belong Believe (in which order should be in what era)

33:20

“What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.”

35:00

The error of focusing too much on trying to convince people just intellectually.

36:00

Ignatian Spirituality

Celtic Spirituality

Soul Friendship
by Rev Ray Simpson (Church of England)

The Celtic Way of Prayer
by Ester De Waal

Holy Companions

42:30

on the hospitality and generosity of Irish spirituality.

The story of an Inn with 7 doors for the 7 roads.


Thank you so much for listening to the show!


 

To get alerts of the topics and the new and interesting folks coming to the podcast in future episode click HERE.

Here’s a tasting of who’s coming in the next few months:

Mako Fujimura

Nicole Unice

Shane Claiborne

and, yes, more!

 

Episode 6 – The Skinny on Wine Spritzers and Friendship as Creative Fuel

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Spark My Muse

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Show notes –
Spark My Muse podcast: Episode 6 – The Skinny on Wine Spritzers and Friendship as Creative Fuel

Screen Shot 2015-05-04 at 3.10.44 PM
Photo by Brett Bastello – Personal Creations (click for link)

Today’s episode covers the skinny on wine spritzers and also how friendship fuels our creative muse.

This episode is brought to you by
the book Dog in the Gap
10 essays inspired by the life lessons learned while befriending with the family canine. Heart warming, full of wonderful photography and good humor. Click the links to learn more to get a copy.

The Bonus Edition is just a $1 more and it contains lots of extras and goodies.

——

What is a wine spritzer exactly and why now is a good time to make one?

First, what’s up with the word “spritzer”?

The word “spritzer” comes from the German spritzen “spatter, squirt, spray, sprinkle”.

(additional note: just saying it involves some spritzing, right?)

The wine sprizter is just a simple drink combination of chilled wine and something that sparkles, such as sparkling mineral water, club soda, or seltzer water.

It’s consumed more for refreshment than anything else!

(It’s easy on the liver.)

• Drinking wine in warm weather or in the hot sun is always a bad idea. The spritzer is a good choice for summer because of its lower alcohol content, less calories, and being less inexpensive than straight wine consumption. Serving them is a great a way for you or your guests to not drink too much before the hambergers are ready at your cookout.

Too much wine (or any alcohol) during the summer will dehydrate you and you can quickly feel tired or ill.

Spritzers are mixed in various ratios and sometimes fruit juice is added.
The two most common are 50/50 or,
1/2 cup club soda to 1 cup of wine.

• The Spanish use red wine, fruit, and lemon soda. That sounds delicious!

I think wine or juice Spritzers are the go-to outdoor party beverage that provides a less expensive refreshing treat for outdoor entertaining and outdoor fun, sunny get-togethers, and bonding with friends. (They can be made without alcohol for teetotalers or children too–just skip the wine and add more fruit juice.)

• For parties, you can fill a punch bowl with the right ratios.

Some of my favorite wine spritzer recipes!

The Super Simple Spritzer

Just two ingredients:
6 ounces of a reasonably priced of white wine – or a blush wine–
plus 6 ounces of 7-Up (or try sprite or ginger ale).

 

Sublime Citrus Spritzer
2 lemon slices, 2 lime slices, 5 ice cubes.
4 ounces of your your favorite white wine and 2 ounces of lemon-lime seltzer.

Peach Dream Party Bowl Spritzer

6 quartered peaches and 2 tablespoons of honey.

Mix into a blender and puree. Place in a pitcher and chill for about two hours, then mix in a bottle of white wine, and stir well.

Finally, add a liter of cold sparkling water or seltzer.

Garnish with mint and extra slices of peach.

 

Citrus Ice Cube Party Pitcher Spritzer
2 lemons, zested
2 small oranges, zested (or 1 large orange, zested)
1 bottle white or blush wine
3 cups sparkling water
Directions:
Place the zest as a mixture into an empty ice cube tray, add water and freeze for 3 to 5 hours.

In a large pitcher, combine the wine and the sparkling water and then the citrus zest ice cubes.

Stir and serve.

 

White Wine and Fruity Sweet Party Spritzer
1 bottle of sweet white wine
3/4 cup white grape juice or apple juice
1 liter bottle desired-flavor low-calorie sparkling water, chilled.

(optional and delicious Assorted fresh fruits (such as raspberries, blackberries, pineapple, sliced kiwifruit, blueberries, lemon slices, lime slices, halved strawberries, or red grapes)
Directions
1 In a large punch bowl combine wine and grape juice.

Just before serving, slowly pour in sparkling water.

If desired, garnish individual servings with fruit. Makes 10 (6-ounce) servings
——

SPARK MY MUSE: On friendship….

David Whyte:

Friendship is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy all friendships die.


Little Prince

(previous entry)

C.S. Lewis

Friendship, unlike cooperation, is unnecessary to human survival.
Friendship, like philosophy and art is one of the things that gives value to survival.
how friendship differs from the other three types of love by focusing on its central question: “Do you see the same truth.”

Anne Lamott

In the course of the years a close friendship will always reveal the shadow in the other as much as ourselves, to remain friends we must know the other and their difficulties and even their sins and encourage the best in them, not through critique but through addressing the better part of them, the leading creative edge of their incarnation, thus subtly discouraging what makes them smaller, less generous, less of themselves.


My essay:

Pertaining to sparking one’s muse. Good friends, that offer selflessly the balance of honesty and gentleness, toughness and acceptance, encouragement and motivation breath life into our lives and our art. Being social creatures, as humans, we crave social bonds even though they inevitably cause us pain at times. Isolated, for too long, we shrink into ourselves with self-delusion, self-absorption, unwarranted loathing and aggrandizement.

Aloneness is a dread for many or a craving for those misfit. And even those misfit hope, sometimes, to find someone else in the dark that might recognize him and name him and finally tell him he is well enough and valuable. Only in the mirror of friendship can we have solid footing and might be drawn out into our best selves. Erotic love has too much fire and entanglement for that. Agape love too much work and abdication. Brotherly love too much responsibility and duty. Only a soul friend can birth you into your actualization most purely.

Friends and confidants help us be continually born into the next stage of development. We risk with them and they with us and the synergy makes us stronger. At its best it is a fountain of grace sourced in Originator of Love and Goodness.


Do you have a question or do you have an idea for the show? Please let me know! :)

 

Freedom from cynicism

“Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naïveté.” – Maria Popova

RBSP-Launch-Streak-Double-MKilliancropThere is a balancing act for those of us with a creative spirit and a thoughtful disposition. We totter between hope and cynicism. This is the ongoing waltz, or slam dance. 

Hope, without an anchor, leads to some inflated expectations that are soon slapped down by reality or disappointment.

But, in those disappointments, we can become wounded or hardened and grow an exoskeleton of cynicism.

Proverbs 17:22

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

The truth is, I don’t understand life that well. (Not suffering or joy. Both are weird to me, still.) All the pat answers fail desperately, as it is their nature to do. And so, when this happens a few routes remain:

1. You can shut you eyes and re-double your efforts. (You’ve molted but you want to stick the feathers back on.)

2. You can live with uncertainty. This works well for a time, if you can handle it, but in truth, no one is stagnant. This is merely a stage, not a destination, or place of solace and rest. This disposition gives way to a kind of state disenchantment or resignation, and sometimes a tart cynicism. It is the stone in the shoe of hope.

• Or, one can start over, but never in the same place.

3. You can become a contemplative (a mystic, a sage, or a seeker) and this means that you’ve let some things go, but you are still fervent on all the major points. Here, you have freedom from cynicism. You haven’t let the bitterness or the indefinite way of things beat you into a sad lump.

I’m not sure where you stand, but you stand somewhere.

Dispatch from Prison: The Question I Couldn’t Answer

inmatereading

“Why don’t people from your church come and help you here? It says it the Bible to visit us…”

A man asked me this question at the end of class.
He was an inmate: a lifer.

Prison is a place of lasting aloneness. A place where you are reminded that you are forgotten.

Trying to overcome it is a big deal.

Volunteer groups are cherished by inmates like fresh air. They thank us each time we come.

I didn’t know how to answer him. I sort of felt crushed.

Not just that he would ask, but that the truth was so simple and unreachable.

He suggested I speak to my church and invite them to participate. I already had.

“It does say that is the Bible. You’re right. I don’t know….

I’m sorry,” I told him.

 

“What keeps them from coming?” another man asked.

 

“Maybe because all people know about prison is what they see in movies. Maybe they are afraid.” I said.

That comment incited and 3 page letter the prisoner brought back the next week to help convince people from our church that they were not violent and they were also Christians who love the Lord, were re-paying their debt to society, and wanted the support and Christian brotherhood.

But, nothing like that can be taken out of a prison. (It’s a felony.) He had to keep his correspondence. I thought he was going to cry when he explained that he needed to keep what he wrote. Abandonment? That was probably what I was on his face.

It’s heartbreaking.


 

But, I also wondered if some of the reasons were really a greater indictment on Christians and human nature.

• Laziness

• Lack of compassion

• Self-centeredness

• Distain for outcasts

Could this be it?

If I asked people from my church, face-to-face this time, what keeps them from being involved, they might say,

“I’m just too busy.”

Or “I’m not really interested in that (in them).”

Or, “I don’t like criminals. They deserve to be where they are and we shouldn’t make things easier for them.”

or maybe,

“I’d rather be doing two million different things than that!”

And whatever the reasons, good or not, they hamper the work of Love.

 

 

 

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