If you benefit from this work please help to keep it going each week.Just pay-what-you’d-like (or what you can) to help. It’s appreciated.
Thank you. ❤️• VENMO: venmo.com/lisadelay• PayPal.me/lisacolondelay
Listen to a recent episode:
AND!
Don’t forget to pick a subscribe option that is best for you at (sparkmymuse.com) below:
Beth Allison Barr is my guest. She is the author of The Making of Biblical WomanhoodCompanion episodenotes and links for this episode can be found here in exchange for a small contribution to support this weekly work: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59908253Get the book here: https://bookshop.org/a/15826/9781587434709Listen now with the AUDIO PLAYER:
❤️Most events are free, but
donations are accepted and sign up is needed to watch a replay or attend live.
ENJOY what you find in this catalogue !https://www.crowdcast.io/e/lisacolondelay
Or, you can help an independent bookshop by shopping here: 🥰
http://tiny.cc/wildINDIE Please visit and support this weekly work and all the related and extra posts at Patreon (patreon.com/sparkmymuse)SparkMyMuse.com contains over 410 audio episodes, an online store, and resources. Roam around the website and enjoy!Gifts of $10 and more are veryappreciated. Thank you. ❤️• VENMO: venmo.com/lisadelay• PayPal.me/lisacolondelay
Listen to a recent episode:
• Help Spark My Muse in these two ways:
1. Share the program with another person today.
2. Leave a Rating/ Write a Review on iTunes HERE. (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id988423690&ls=1)
AND!
Don’t forget to pick a subscribe option that is best for you at (sparkmymuse.com) below:
If you’re late to hear this episode (and it’s not Christmas any more) or even if you don’t celebrate Christmas at all (I love you non believers very much-xo) you will still have fun hearing this episode that I do with my sweet sidekick Lori Neff.
Enjoy the bonus photo gallery of scary Santa photos, too!
• AND if you want to share a funny or horrifying Santa story or Christmas (or winter holiday of ANY KIND, New Years, Advent candle lighting gone awry, Chanukah hullabaloo, Kwanza craziness, whatever you want) story, or share photos, you can do that here at the Spark community page.
I will have some holiday time and I’ll need a break from consuming empty calories. Friends and fans will love to hear from you, see what you’re up to, and read of your tales.
Scroll down for detailed show notes with links and bonus material.
Will you help support the show?
You can help me pay the bills by purchasing this useful and encouraging book!
(Already read it or feeling a bit more generous? Please use the donate button (see left column) to contribute to the show. Help me make awesome things for your ears to hear each week.Much Love & Thank you! ~L)
Shownotes for the Special “Ask Sparky” Episode: Responses to 5 Burning Questions
MIN
1:30
1. It’s hard to pray to God as Father when you’ve had a bad dad. What should I do?
• How do we think about God? (usually like a human person or institution)
• God is Spirit not an old white man in the sky with a long beard.
What adjectives will help you connect with the Being typically called “God”
4:00
Hebrew word for God is a description too (yahweh “I am” a verb) that was not used. Adonai was substituted and that simply means “Master/Lord” and is a term of respect.
4:30
It’s misguided to think that God can be contained or described well using a “Proper Noun”. God can’t be called a proper name/noun…like “Billy” (and that would make Jesus “Billy Jr.”).
Hebrew names are descriptive when referring to people (not how we use names to address people today).
5:00
YAHWEH (Hebrew word), means I AM (or “is”) and works like a verb denoting Presence an Love in Action. It defies typical proper names and descriptions.
5:50
2. On Forgiveness
“What should I do to forgive when I can’t forget?”
6:10
Forgiving is a continual process.
Thinking of forgiveness as transactional–a debt clearing mechanism. Be an accountant and don’t worry about your emotions being on the same page.
7:20
Remembering that you are not your thoughts.
8:00
What Justice is actually (Shalom). Making things right and reconciliation.
8:50
3. What to do about envying others (in this case writers in the field) and being jealous of their success.
9:15
Seeing the negative emotions as tools. Reframing them to use them to find our calling, gifts, and passions.
9:30
Not getting caught up in “should” and “oughts” and comparisons.
9:45
When you can say of your work, “Wow, I get to do this!” you can have enough gratitude to be comfortable with the success of others.
10:15
It’s common and normal to get feelings of jealousy. It’s only when the take over our hearts and mind do we need to reevaluate and recalibrate what we are doing and thinking.
11:00
Deciding that the options of other people and the opinions should have huge power is a choice we can change.
12:05
4. Getting over feeling guilt and shame that keeps resurfacing.
Daring Greatly Brene Brown (the difference between guilt and shame.
• Guilt is important so we can learn and correct and grow and become better people.
• Shame is a belief that something, un fixable, is wrong with you.
Shame whispers lies in your ears. Shame becomes a decision of who we are as person.
14:05
Being put to shame by parents and others.
14:50
A mistake isn’t part of who you are.
Redemption is always possible. You can start anew.
15:10
My caveat.
15:50
5. Church isn’t working for me anymore and I feel guilty leaving the church, but I don’t feel fed.
In the U.S. we often go to church as a consumers and look for what we can get out of it. Church can be piss poor.
17:00
Look for ways to give and minister and find connection in other ways.
18:00
For me, small groups were a starting point that lead me to seminary.
18:50
Bringing back the potluck and sharing life with people.
19:30
Sometimes we sense church isn’t “working” when meaningful connection is lacking.
20:30
“we” is better than “me”.
Thank you for listening and sharing the show with others. If you’ve gotten an enjoyment from Spark My Muse, come back every Wednesday for something new, or save your mental energy and subscribe!
Shownotes: PART II
A conversation with Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality, author Tom Reynolds
Bio:
Tom joined the Emmanuel College (part of the University of Toronto) faculty in 2007. He is committed to an interdisciplinary, practical, and relational vision of theology, and his teaching and research address a range of topics related to constructive theology (particularly the doctrine of God and theological anthropology), theological method, intercultural and interfaith engagements, contextual theologies and globalization, philosophical theology, disability studies, and the thought and influence of Friedrich Schleiermacher.
Tom on Theodicy – The question of why does God allow suffering and how should we think about suffering.
1:00
How would Tom, as a theologian answer the question, “Why would a sovereign God allow a person to be born disabled and encounter such suffering?”
2:20
The Why questions and the answers are messy, ongoing, and evolving. These answers are limited and open to ongoing revision.
3:00
Reframing needed. Question the question and its suppositions about seeing suffering first and foremost as the issue.
3:40
If we are pitying a disabled person and seeing them how we would interpret suffering, we might be off base.
4:10
Exclusion as suffering. Social suffering is something we can alleviate as the church or community.
4:40
Tom on the central questions of Theodicy.
5:30
What would a good world be? Interdependent and that holds up the preciousness and fragility of life and human experience as valuable. Good things can be fragile things.
6:30
Does God cause suffering and determine it? Maybe it’s (all) unfolding for us in mysterious ways.
Who sinned? (disciples of Jesus thinking of blindness as a curse)
So the glory of God can be revealed. (What might that mean that we haven’t understood yet. [Lisa])
The story is less about curing the disabled and more about reveal Jesus’ power and legitimacy as the Messiah.
9:20
NT Wright author of Evil and the Justice of God
(on the Problem of Evil)
• God as the Incarnation steps into human suffering as a means to assuage it and also, in that, provides us a model for how to encounter it in the world ourselves, practically speaking.
The answers to suffering can become “incarnational”, not cerebral and (held) at a distance.
12:00
The why questions signal a (good) unsettledness which can be productive…
12:20
1. God is bigger than our questions and we should feel free to engage in dialogue with God and each other about God.
2. And because it calls us to live into the world and the lives of people will engage who ask, “Where are you?” and we can be there in presence and not (just) with answers.
13:00
“being-with”
(The heart of Incarnational living.)
13:30
In many cases God’s own presence is us to each other.
14:00
“Care isn’t so much “doing for” but “being with”.”
15:00
1 in 5 families regularly encounters a serious disability of some kind.
15:30
We (as a family) chose to continue to come to church even though it was sometimes messy so he (and everyone) could figure out how to make it work. (Lisa)
16:00
How can people in Christian Communities or leaders in Christian communities do better when it comes to being truly hospitable and caring well for people with disabilities.
17:00
Training ministers to come along side is important.
17:30
In his mission and intro to Theology class, what is framed is practical wisdom lived out in relationships of caring regard with other people. (not in the academic halls or in isolation).
18:00
On developing the perception to see/understand differently and to see places where people have been harmed by certain ways of seeing these…like the healing narratives…illness as curses from God, or metaphors of seeing and hearing language and attitudes (able-ism) for example.
18:50
How to show consideration:
Asking before you assist someone. Or asking how you can best help and not presuming that you know (or know better).
Listen first, then do.
19:30
Ministry doesn’t have to be deficit-focused to the “needy”…but rather possibility focused.
As all people of resources and gifts [are] welcome among the community…this turns things upside-down.
20:30
Think of people as sites of wisdom that help a community of belonging.
Members having the same care for one another. All can care and contribute.
Living out the image of God with shared affinity.
22:00
Transformative and vulnerable communion within our communities…being together.
23:20
[There is] dignity in participation. (Lisa)
Allowing people to serve along side means that we are equal.
25:40
Equality isn’t sameness. Difference doesn’t mean a hierarchy.
27:40
(Tom) Music is my therapeutic other life.
A Call for Help!
Will you help me meet my goal of raising $1,000.00 in August to keep Spark My Muse going? Use the Donate button on the left sidebar. Thank you for listening!
![Go, Be Free [SSL 212]](https://lisadelay.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/sky.png)
Beth’ Allison Barr’s book can be found here: https://bookshop.org/a/15826/9781587434709
Read my spiritual formation book— THE WILD LAND WITHIN
Available at tiny.cc/wildINDIE
