• Soul School “lessons” are released each Wednesday (aka “Hump Day” aka Midweek).
• On FRIDAYS I feature guests and on a variety of topics!
FUNDING:
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BIO: Nicole Unice is on staff at Hope Church in Richmond, Virginia, and the author of the breakout book: “She’s Got Issues” which she wrote from her counseling and ministry experiences. The book produced and encouraged a refreshing and radical honesty that she’s built on in her new book “Brave Enough”.
Enjoy the Shownotes and links below and please share this with friends that you know CAN be “Brave Enough“. Thanks for listening!
#GetBraveEnough
xo
~Lisa
P.S. Would you like to get a special, cozy Spark My Muse t-shirt?
on the Richmond VA place and new midtown location.
1:30
Nicole’s podcasting experience (the Becoming Podcast) doing hundreds of episodes with her pastor doing 15 minutes shows for commuters.
Lisa asks: Is “campus” a Christian code word for mega church?
2:40
How she grew with Hope Church for 18 years, as they started out small in an elementary school “cafetorium”.
3;50
The “Youth Lodge” plans and the unique setting with wetlands and hills.
5:10
On the importance of Beauty, Setting, and Art in architecture and church building planning to evoke the imagination, inspire awe, and connect with the heart.
6:40
Collaborative workspace, and place where kids can do their homework and where people can enjoy the time away in a beautiful setting.
7:40
“artist come through the side door of the soul and preachers come through the front door.”
8:50
The history of the church and Christian tradition is one where the Church is source of beauty, wonder and connected to art because God is a the Creator.
9:40
Her first book: She’s Got Issues
6 main issues women (and men) face that can be a hinderance.
A rich relationship with God can come to a dead end as the ways we do life stop working.
12:00
How was it received? The #1 thing Nicole heard was, “You’re so honest.”
Why would honesty be such a revolution in Christianity?
12:40
She leaned into that for her next book “Brave Enough”
13:00
The story of how she got the title for the book:
To the question, “Do you think you can be brave?” Lucy Pevensie in the Chronicles of Narnia says, “I think I can be brave enough.”
14:35
Few women will self-identify as brave. [and not many men will either]
“After we identify the hinderances, what does it look like to walk forward in freedom?”
15:00
Brave Enoughis about Grace and its effects, inside and in action.
15:40
Nicole answering the question: Do men have the same problems in this area?
16:00
“Women hearing teaching from women is like hearing in your first language.”
16:30
Ways Nicole leads and teaches men.
17:00
on how women have to translate teaching from men into their “language” and context.
18:00
On how, similarly, Brené Brown was challenged (by a man) to include men in her writing and teaching. (Lisa)
18:40
How men and women have similar vulnerabilities though they might deal with them differently.
19:40
“up speak” tones in language in women and men revealing different insecurities. (Lisa)
21:00
Nuggets from the Brave Enough book:
How the ingredients mixed into something she didn’t expect. It follows a narrative “arch of the heart”. How we can be full and free and confident in life.
22:30
on why (inner) freedom is illusive for men and women.
On “Fake Grace” in our head. (the excuses we make or how we blame others). Inviting God/Jesus into those places.
24:10
We all (default) and go back to rules and laws and how to short circuit that pattern.
It’s about resetting the heart with a new spiritual reality.
25:00
Radical honesty about our ugly parts inside the heart.
25:30
Nicole’s Parable: The violently stopping of the elevator door…(and how it relates to our soul).
26:10
Open ourselves to God’s Presence and healing.
26:10
(Lisa) God uses what bothers us about other people is a mirror of what we don’t like in ourselves.
27:20
How our baggage works to impede our progress.
Brave Enough includes major parts on forgiveness
28:00
God’s breathing on us and giving us the mission of forgiveness, first.
Some of my thoughts on youth, now that it’s in the rear view mirror.
Youth: a chronic condition that ends in time.
teen star (CC file found here)
The stage of Youth: A time characterized by excitement, worry, hope, fear, misplaced confidence, and options (plenty of which are set to expire).
Nothing breathes fresh air into a situation like an eager youth ready to learn, try, fail, and keep trying. It inspires the younger ones and rallies the older ones.
Nothing is more endearing than a youth who prizes earlier generations and lacks the blinding hubris typical to the stage of the development.
and to the god of our age….Youth, Oh the beauty of it. Personified, Venus, her name. (Youthful Beauty…or what nearly every commercial directed at females is about.)
Like a baby unblemished and without scars, youth displays itself on the young like a pillar of potential, a stack of dreams and promises, shinning and magnificent, and frozen for just that moment in time. Though what youth feels this truly? Youth is a self-deluding time: The stage seems expansive when you are in it, and experience can’t bear this out differently because of the great lack of it.
Sustaining this impossibility of sustained youth, this age of supposed perfection becomes the futile and bitter plight for too many. And the fight for it is nonsensical.
Youth is a stage to be enjoyed and then left behind like outgrown clothes, once pristine, but all-too-soon ill-fitting and inappropriate for the rest of the voyage. Ballet slippers are shed for work boots.
How true that Youthful beauty is but one kind.Though who knows this?
By being convinced that beauty has a pinnacle (age 21?) too may rue the loss of this exterior sort of it–never realizing the false conception is not based on much more than societal conventions and symmetry…but it sells a lot of face cream, doesn’t it?
Yes, the flower of spring is glorious (youth indeed), but the whole plant, or tree, is the greater thing. An oak, a tower in homage to resilience, humanity in the full, of which youthful can never assail, let alone master.
The joy and glory of youth is the promise of accomplishment. Like graduation ceremonies and semi-finals matches.
Though what youth sees it this way?
And what about the resentment of youth by the no longer young?
Maybe it stems from the regret of the energy and options lost. The verve the youths possess can seem enviable. Though they (youth) don’t know it, their blatant inexperience and lack of wisdom, from the outside, seems pitiful, just like the weakness and lethargy of advanced years seem like that to the youth.
“What a young fool,” says the man.
“What a tired and bitter old man,” says the youth.
Both under-estimated.
And back to confidence.
Youthful confidence rests in that accomplishments are assured with effort and willingness. (Though it seems different to them sometimes. For them, confidence may rest mainly in feeling the power of mind and body so fully.)
This confidence is often shattered or dismantled within a decade because of the slings and arrows of life. But occasionally not, and never for the narcissist.
Sickness, financial strain, mishaps, circumstances, failure, and the most debilitating – early success – strip out the potency of youthful confidence. With persistence and determination this is replaced by the better things:
stability of character
the resolution of will
fortitude of spirit
But, best of all: the of acquisition compassion necessary for the species to survive, or even–sometimes– thrive.
(Oh, that it is empathic compassion, not pity, is the impetus for acts of goodness.)
And what of maturity of the youth?
A mature youth is only mature compared to his peers or the fools of older generations.
And for good reason. Maturity is a gift, not a certainty. It comes through time, but also by Grace, just as youth and health come. Though who knows this?
A “mature youth” is usually an oxymoronic attribute, as genuine maturity involves accumulating wisdom.
Maturity and wisdom come through testing and testing by the passage of time well-lived and the battles of life well-tested.
Youthful maturity is then only the bud of it which, if it is there at all, is necessarily nestled in humility (knowing well, or in some good manner, the terrible disadvantage of inexperience).
In the end, the unknown exists for all, but the degrees and varieties of it change as time passes and aging happens. Both exciting and terrifying–needing courage and inner strength.
My small hometown–Murrysville, PA–is undergoing a time of shock and pain because of the Alex Hribal’s attack. Two steak knives and a blood bath. Many heroes were made, but the event was and is traumatic–rocking the community to its core.
My young niece (the daughter of my brother’s who is a Franklin Regional Alumnus from the 1990s) was not allowed to attend her classes at the elementary building at Franklin Regional and her street shut down as FBI, State Police, and legions of first responders, media, and others have swarmed the scene.
My family’s church, the church were I was married, mourns as an entire community and feels trauma and pain deeply because several from their youth group teen were wounded. Some of them have undergone surgery.
All are expected to survive. Praise be to God for that grace.
It would be easy to say this youth of 16 years old is a monster, but students attest that he was very nice. Answers for why it all happened are left unanswered at this time.
In these times, the community of faith raises its voice in communal lament. We are comforted by each other and by a good God who is with us in our pain.
Sadly, violence has become a normal occurrence in school settings… and it may be your hometown that suffers next. But, parish the thought!
If not that, than surely you and your community will encounter pain and loss.
For that, here are some thoughts on Communal Lament.
1. About 1/3 of the Psalms are songs of lament. They are meant to be sung as prayers. They can be read with that in mind.
2. God invites us to cry out in our pain, not to suppress it, or put on a “happy face”. That kind of honesty dignifies our feelings and helps us feel our emotions fully, so we can move toward healing.
3. Communal laments are always meant to be expressed in the context of ongoing faith and trust in God.
4. Our laments (communal and individual) are a normal response to the pain and loss of life and living; they help us experience greater bonds of community and healing from God.
5. Laments of the psalms are unvarnished. That is an important quality to understand. They depict the anguish, desperation, pain, and messy feelings that often smack of ill-intension toward enemies and abusers, in parts. They may seem to condone retaliatory violence. But, that’s not the end of the story (song)…
6. If the reader or hearer pays close attention, she or he will notice each song ends in hope and trust in the Lord. This is key to the communal lament. All is left in God’s hands.
(In this way, our burdens lift and our faith grows.)
7. Communal laments are a cry from a whole group for Justice (things to be put to rights) and this ultimately necessitates the elements of…
• Mercy
• Forgiveness
• Reconciliation
• Restoration
• Redemption
Here is a resource on the types and categories of Psalms. May they be of comfort to you.
Join with your community and raise your voices in lament when your hearts are heavy with sadness, pain, and grief.
For your reflection:
Psalm 63
A psalm of David, regarding a time when David was in the wilderness of Judah.
1 O God, you are my God;
I earnestly search for you.
My soul thirsts for you;
my whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in your sanctuary
and gazed upon your power and glory.
3 Your unfailing love is better than life itself;
how I praise you!
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
lifting up my hands to you in prayer.
5 You satisfy me more than the richest feast.
I will praise you with songs of joy.
6 I lie awake thinking of you,
meditating on you through the night.
7 Because you are my helper,
I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings.
8 I cling to you;
your strong right hand holds me securely.
9 But those plotting to destroy me will come to ruin.
They will go down into the depths of the earth.
10 They will die by the sword
and become the food of jackals.
11 But the king will rejoice in God.
All who trust in him will praise him,
while liars will be silenced.
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