s3e13: Verse Dec 03, 2019

THE FIRST EPISODE IN OUR MULTI-EPISODE SEASON FINALE!

With music being so integral to this podcast, running in parallel to the conversations and correspondence we feature, it’s not surprising that the conversations themselves start to sound like music in their own way. They flow like the components of a song. Verses, choruses (etc) repeating.

The more you listen to these stories, the more you can’t help but see their intersections—where they share space, and where they diverge. We’ve weaved together a lot of conversations, but nothing we’ve ever released has ever been at this scale or scope.

The idea is to expand to a larger dialog than ever before. To extend our “choir,” that cloud of witnesses, beyond any statement we’ve ever been able to construct. These stories will be told over more than a single episode, with different people having more or less to say at different points along the path.

“Verse,” this first part, is the one dealing with our points of origin. It’s not about where we are now, or even how things crumbled to get us there. It’s about where we came from, and how that shaped everything.

s3e12: Refrain (A Meditation for Your Cells) Sep 20, 2019

This week follows our previous episode, not just in sequence, but in substance. It speaks over all of the various stories we’ve been featuring for nearly two years now. Speaks to the process they each give voice to. Like a refrain.

As with our previous episode, Reprise, this episode specifically roots us in the sciences of process.

So from a conversation with a clinical psychologist, we now turn to a conversation with a molecular biologist. From the cycles and rhythms of growth and how they sit alongside trauma, to now probe deeper… smaller… into our very cells. To find what they have to say about release, surrender, context, and adaptation. How we’re sustained by the things we let go of along with the new things we grasp.

In commitment to process, the patterns of evolution emerge — weaving unities within diversities, and teaching us about how our experience changes us.
This conversation features Elizabeth Jeffries. She’s a PhD laboratory scientist and science writer, and she’s just released a book called, “Through the Kaleidoscope: How Exploring Cell Biology Transforms My Relationship With God.” You can find more about the book and Elizabeth at her website.

s3e11: Reprise Sep 09, 2019

It’s easy to view our growth as a separate thing from our grief.

…Impatiently, we might perceive the process of grief as something that we need to “get through” so that we can “move on” to growth… But in reality, growth is happening alongside grief as we adapt.

There’s some comfort to be found there. People a bit further down the line will tell you how much they learned in grief. And if you’ve had a harder season, where grief has seemed all-encompassing, it’s good to know that you aren’t in stasis. You are still in process and progress. You are still moving forward.

AND AS WITH SO MANY OTHER THINGS, VIEWING ‘DECONSTRUCTION & RECONSTRUCTION’ AS SOME SORT OF BINARY ISN’T ULTIMATELY HELPFUL.

s3e10: Come Home (To Your Body) Part 2 Aug 06, 2019

One of the key benefits to embodiment is that it’s substantial by definition.

In a room (sanctuary) or a nation where many people are prone to detachment and disembodiment, a lot of hollow ideas and promises get promoted as answers, and hope is placed in vapor. A community in which on-the-ground advocacy is discouraged while prayers for intervention abound is no place in which to be fully alive.

Maybe YOU are the miracle you need to see.

This episode, we continue with a meditation not only on embodiment, but groundedness, real advocacy, and life beyond the limiting narratives and labels placed upon us.

s3e9: Come Home (To Your Body) Part 1 Jul 29, 2019

Some of the most resonant stories in our culture are about either finding or coming back to a place where you belong. Home. But the ultimate home to come home to is yourself.

Part 1 (of 2) in our return to the theme of full embodiment, which is central to recovery and reconstruction.

s3e8: Plain Sight Jul 22, 2019

There’s a Sufi proverb from Rumi which says,

“I SEARCHED FOR GOD AND FOUND ONLY MYSELF.
I SEARCHED FOR MYSELF AND FOUND ONLY GOD.”

Whatever a ‘divine spark’ might be, it seems to be carried within our humanity. And yet many of us are healing from teachings and communities which suggested otherwise—which sought to divide us from ourselves, and to keep all the good things in external compartments… So we couldn’t own them. Couldn’t feel their affirmation or their embrace or their warmth.

Much of Christianity loves to talk about something like incarnation, but only in the sense of what it might say about God. It misses the equally scandalous dynamic of what such a concept might say… about us.

It was Jesus who said something about not building a house on sand, where the foundations could not handle a storm. When the storms come, often the unfortunate inadequacies of our constructs and - let’s say our sheltering, are laid bare. From within those shelters, we knew the roles we were required to perform. We knew how we were meant to appear. Many of us carried all of it out meticulously.

But the storms came. And the masks we wore came down with the rest of the house.

And yet, free of the illusion of those shelters protecting us, a burden is lifted. We sense the things that were there all along, however buried, or stifled or censored in us. And in rediscovering the things that were hiding in plain sight, creativity is ignited to build something better, with all of our resources intact.

s3e7: Death With Benefits Jul 14, 2019

Reconstruction is complicated. The length of the process we’re in can sometimes leave us longing for simpler times, or at least more simplistic ways of seeing the world. Not so much in missing the ideas themselves that we used to hold, but in nostalgia for that sense of clarity we used to feel (or think we felt) while holding them.

It’s not the same for everyone, but there’s a particular tension which can exist when you find yourself A) no longer attached to these former certainties, and yet B) missing the confidence and sense of self they gave you. You can change or lose your theology all day long, but it’s the former sense of mission and identity and purpose going away that really tends to be more difficult. And the gravity of that is something that comes and goes in waves.

I guess the main point here is simple: Reconstruction is not all happy dances and lightness of being. Plenty of the process will take us into the shadows.

If we don’t deal with trauma, we will perpetuate the cycle of it, weaponize it, and even develop an unhealthy dependence on it for a new identity, living only from our pain… But even in dealing with it, trauma can have a way of fighting back. It can rebound, it can cling, it can trigger.

It can even leave you longing for those simpler days when the world was black and white.

The process of reconstruction is so worth it.
But it’s tough.
It can be frustrating.
And it’s hard work.

s3e6: Valentines Day Jul 01, 2019

Many loves might come and go from your life, but you’re kinda stuck with yourself. Partners, friends, even family members… any time there is loss, the dust settles, and there you are. And that being the case, for those of us with some toxic theology and religiosity in our backgrounds, one of the most important things to grasp might be this: You aren’t tarnished. You aren’t hopelessly broken. You aren’t born guilty and somehow cosmically at fault for death and entropy itself.

You’re just a person. You delight, you suffer, you survive, and hopefully, you love. A lot.

You didn’t choose any of this. You just have to choose what you do with it.

And whether you’re reconstructing inside or outside of faith, that’s a liberating thing to learn and experience. In gain or in loss, in times of clarity and times of everything being a blur, you are a compass.

And you decide what that means, and where it points you.

s3e5: Good Grief Jun 23, 2019

are you tempted to believe
that you don’t have a choice
you’ve been screaming off your head
and now you’ve lost your voice

that you inherited the curse
and everything your daddy said
compounding like a chorus
or the interest on your debt

and it’s not funny
how momentum can tell a lie
to your face
and before you know it
there’s a bet on every horse in the race
and sunk costs are loading up your gun

it wasn’t wasted time
not a wasted dime or a tear
it’s such a sweet relief
such a good, good grief to get here

no hills on which to die
no reason and no rhyme
just chaos coming down
and the meaning we assign

and that’s not nothing
oh it’s kind of everything
it’s the scars that i can finger
it’s a song that i can sing
it’s the way her hair falls around her face

for every season there’s a burning sun
breaking through
it puts the shadows underneath your feet
if you move
to the rhythm of its crashing love

s3e4: State Change Jun 16, 2019

There's knowing we need change... and then there's boldly moving into it.

In the process of our Becoming, we take on new space, which gives way to new substance… which is only possible from within that new space.

Five considerations for this episode and its conversations:

1) The false promises of fundamentalism are still false promises outside of it. And it can be all too easy for fundamentalism to merely adapt and take on a new form, tricking us into clinging to it even longer in the process.

2) There’s probably more fear and binary thinking to unpack than we might have assumed would follow us out.

3) Maybe the truly renewed mind is simply one which can make a little more room.

4) Being part of a solution on the other side is more complicated than we’re used to celebrating, though the work is no less meaningful.

And 5) Maybe, if eyes are open, there is opportunity where we’ve been a part of causing pain – so that our regret and our redemption might even share a property line.

s2e3: The Safest Place Jun 10, 2019

There’s a particular contentment that comes in our falling in love again, dreaming again, hoping again. In our moments of rediscovered innocence, and in our informed and yet defiant idealism.

Whatever suffering we endure, there’s always the chance we might shut down to protect ourselves and avoid further pain (which is natural).

Any vulnerability we show to the people, institutions, or whatever else caused us trauma… is tough. It takes courage. But as we reconstruct life on the other side of grief, loss, and tremendous shifts in perspective, the greatest refuge to be found is in the new things we love.

It’s almost a kind of resurrection, where you’re armed with all you’ve experienced and learned, but open to something new and beautiful.

s3e2: A Greater Presence Jun 03, 2019

In certain religious ways of seeing the world, it can be easy to mistake presence for transcendence. We struggle to fully embody our own experiences in the ‘here and now’ when everything is made to be ‘the somewhere else and the not yet.’

There’s music happening, and all around us is a great symphony… but we treat it like echoes. It turns out that being fully intimate with our own experience can be difficult when we have to filter everything through an “eternal” worldview.

When that’s you, you end up holding each moment at arm’s length.

Many of us have thus experienced a subversion, or a suppression, of our humanity as a result of this perspective. A lack of full presence and embodiment doesn’t just diminish our experience of the world, but our engagement in the world.

So what of the other side? What’s there to be found? This episode has a lot to say about those questions. Maybe uncertainty brings some healing along with it.

s3e1: Targets May 26, 2019

For our season premier, we pivot from where we’ve been to lean more on where we are, and where we’re headed. In three stories of birth and rebirth, we look to the attribution of our targets once we’re on the other side. This is an episode of children, of parents, and of middle space. Of generations… and emancipations.

The Airing of Grief is back, folks.

Season 3 is here.

WHERE SEASON 3 IS GOING (and how YOU can be a part of it)! Feb 09, 2019

Season 3 of The Airing of Grief is coming very soon. Here is everything you need to know!

s2e23: Singing Over Shadows Sep 09, 2018

The Airing of Grief Season 2 has been long and dynamic and varied. So the question arises: How do you “end” a season like this? We’re not sure you really can. So maybe this is more of a pause.

We have a good amount of great calls still that would all be worth featuring in full, but none of them seems like THEfinal call of season 2. And maybe that’s poetic, because a tidy wrap up to something like this seems contrary to what we’ve been doing. This is bigger than any one story. Season 2 was driven by our need to diversify our voices and be more deliberate in bringing all kinds of people to the table. It’s been about the perspective which only comes from that broader spectrum, which we worked hard to chase down (and will continue to going forward). But there’s no one way to approach all that with any sense of finality. It’s difficult enough to sum any of it up and hit pause.

But we can at least try.

So here are some… vignettes.

An array of voices in a flowing conversation – meandering together like objects in shared, resonant space. A coda to embodiment and finding ourselves within each other’s stories.

s2e22: Fragments Sep 02, 2018

This is the third and final installment in a series of experimental discussions featuring the producers of The Airing of Grief. In this episode, Kevin shares his story – along with his answers to the "three questions" covered previously by Jamie, Derek and Jon.

You can spend a long time reforming and even reconstructing faith before you ultimately encounter some of the biggest and hardest questions. Sometimes gravity takes a long time to catch up.

s2e21: Personas Aug 26, 2018

We continue this week with another experimental episode in the form of a conversation between longtime friends. This time, our producers Kevin and Jon explore the "three questions" introduced in our previous episode, "The Meaning We Assign."

s2e20: The Meaning We Assign Aug 19, 2018

With just a few more episodes left to come in Season 2, we're taking a moment for a more experimental conversation within our format.

Three questions.

Pause. Take stock. Mark the time.

That's what our producers Jamie and Derek are doing in this discussion they recorded together – in which they field some questions that many of us are experiencing our own answers evolving in response to.

s2e19: Sacred Masculine Aug 12, 2018

From repressive constructs which drag us down and hold us back... some men are fighting the better fight to emerge newly embodied and in touch.

s2e18: In A Mirror Clearly Aug 05, 2018

So much of our spiritual baggage concerns how we perceive ourselves. Perhaps above all other aspects of reimagining our beliefs, there is an incredible amount of work to be done in reframing our biases and attitudes towards the person in the mirror. There are new places to find rest and new places to finally engage.

Words like "better" and "testimony" can take new shape in a new time of conscience. Each precipice gives way to new perspective. Attitudes shift – not only towards ourselves, but towards people who are as we used to be. In all of this, it can be a struggle to remain present, and plenty of confusion persists well into the process of deconstruction.

But the clarity we do find is worth it.

s2e17: Enough Jul 29, 2018

This episode is one that spans many issues and covers an incredible amount of ground thematically.

It is a story of childhood disconnection and fragmentation which detaches a person from any confident sense of self. It is a story of the resulting search for identity that can cause a person to place herself in the hands of abusive authorities and institutions. The need for approval, to have purpose, to be accepted, to be closer, to be ENOUGH... all of these things exploited by a system which seeks to keep us from reconnecting to who we were before our fragmentation ever set in. A system which just wants us performing to its expectations.

But this is also a story of learning to see the world through your own eyes. A story of coming back from the enticing manipulation which causes us to see ourselves as human doings rather than human beings.

s2e16: Liminal Space Jul 22, 2018

The word "liminal" comes from the Latin limen, which means “threshold.” It's a point of entry. A place of beginning. A liminal space is the time between the ‘what was’ and 'what will be’ – between the previous and the next.

Suspended and waiting and not knowing... It is a place of transition.

If we can learn to embrace the wait, we will also learn that we are being newly formed. Liminal space is where our transformations take their shape.

s2e15: When the Fires Subside Jul 15, 2018

It's strange how the people most concerned with a "hell" in the future are the most likely to carry a lot of it with them in the present. The world strains under weight of their fears and judgments.

And certainly, a lot of us were once a part of all that: The anxiety, the in-grouping and out-grouping, the marginalization and the distancing of ourselves from those cast out into the dark... Some of us only came to grips with how harmful all of this is when we experienced what it's like to be on the other side of this belief system. It's a trial by fire, and the perspective of the one being pushed into the flames will always be very different than the perspective of the one holding the match.

And yet, even in our rejections, we forge quality of character. And even in our loneliness, we cultivate truthful embodiment. Our resilience in trauma cannot be diminished, and our defiance in the face of a religious system which would seek to shut us down cannot be underestimated.

So here’s to the unexpected devastations and rebirths – the fires which brought us to the ground and then remade us. And here’s to the slow process of grief which yields a steady assent towards something better.

It's ironically kind of biblical: From the ashes, we rise.

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s2e14: The Source We Carried With Us Jul 08, 2018

The things religious institutions choose to focus on never cease to amaze many of us.

You get involved hoping to be formed a certain way, galvanized and empowered to change the world... but a lot of it just ends up diverting your attention to things that should be non-issues. A lot of it actually distracts from personal growth and societal change. There's a common value system in church which puts a premium on inconsequential, individual beliefs, and neglects the pressing issues of our time.

It's not just the direct abuses of church that hurt us. It's also the stagnation of our forward momentum – all the time wasted focusing on things which keep us from living completely embodied and engaged. If Christians spent half as much time fixing the world as they do singing at the ceiling and feeling unworthy, we'd live in a very different world.

Our freedom isn't merely a detachment from the thing causing pain. It's freedom to live wholly, to channel our passions fully, and to work towards creating the kind of world we'd like to live in. When we aren't stifled to the very core, we can see this clearly. The Source we once felt so distant from... is us. It's always been with us.

You can spend a long time feeling like you will lose your spark if you leave, but it turns out that isn't true.

The spark is within. And you take it with you.
SEE ALL EPISODES AND ESSAYS AT OUR WEBSITE: https://www.theairingofgrief.com/

s2e13: Complexity and Convergence Jul 01, 2018

When so much of who we are told to be is rooted in fear and simplistic thinking... embracing confusion and complexity is a truly revolutionary act.

Letting go of unearned certainty – and learning to celebrate the nuanced, the difficult, the complicated – means liberation.

And it might just mean a new and unexpected community on the other side as well. A convergence. Where what we've been handed can keep us at odds with ourselves and others, our defiance of it can open the door to a new world. Conformity brings with it paralyzing anxieties, but there is rest in contradicting that paradigm.

Finally, we can hold space for others in which we ourselves are truly present.

And without fear.
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SEE ALL EPISODES AND ESSAYS AT OUR WEBSITE: https://www.theairingofgrief.com/

What's season 3 all about? Jun 28, 2018

You're about to help us figure that out.

In 6 EASY questions.

ANSWER THIS SHORT SURVEY

(Plus, there's some exciting news in there)

https://theairingofgrief.typeform.com/to/BpCXvd

s2e12: Original Innocence Jun 24, 2018

We are born innocent. But then many of us are told we’re born guilty – accountable to some choice we didn’t make, but should definitely suffer for anyway. That framework of belief weighs heavily on Christians. Those of us raised in religious environments grew up exposed to this idea of a universal condemnation, where the only way out seemed to be when the proper formulas were adhered to: the right boxes checked and the right beliefs claimed. Arbitrary technicalities of escape to match the arbitrary judgment... All of it lacking humanity and compassion.

When you grow up believing you deserve eternal torment in some far off place, it becomes easier to stomach abuse at a more near and intimate level. Or at least, it's harder to believe you deserve anything better. Certainly harder to demand anything better. A steady diet of guilt and shame sets us up to endure great abuse while attempting to rationalize to ourselves how or why we’re being hurt.

Christian institutions in the church and the home are rife with abuse because so much of what they promote serves to enable abusers and silence the abused. So there’s something especially beautiful about human strength and dignity in the face of all that. Defying that world and its destructive assumptions, and reclaiming one's original innocence.
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SEE ALL EPISODES AND ESSAYS AT OUR WEBSITE: https://www.theairingofgrief.com/

s2e11: In Our Wake Jun 17, 2018

It's awkward to realize you struggle with the sort of faith you've been handed while you're actively and vocationally leading a ministry. And it’s awkward on many levels – practical, personal, not to mention spiritual.

There are consequences to administering a certain worldview, and shaping people's beliefs and religious practices. And there are consequences to stepping away from those things and leaving that life behind.

Whether people are affected by having been caught up in our wake... or they're affected by our waking from service to systems and beliefs we no longer find satisfying or resonant... there will be consequence. To everything.
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s2e10: Sacred Feminine Jun 10, 2018

The marginalization of any group of people is a tragedy which diminishes all of humanity. And within any marginalized community, a further tragedy occurs whenever a person embraces or conforms to her own oppression. Within the church, many women learn from the earliest age to do exactly that, denying themselves space, a voice, their own power, etc. The narratives surrounding women are strong, and can convince even the abused that their abuse is somehow justified, natural, fitting... even necessary.

Fighting those narratives is costly – and yet essential – to those who suffer because of them.

The Christian tradition has pretty consistently been on this wavelength of abuse, and has constructed its house within these inequalities, binaries, and compulsions.

Whether one remains a person of faith or not, it's a house that needs to burn down. And many are rising from its ashes.

s2e9: The Outside Body Jun 03, 2018

A "still, small voice." So they used to say. And whatever we call that voice – whether "spirit" or "body" or "gut" – it's there. An intuition. Giving us a greater sense of... something.
And for those raised in church especially, it can be incredibly easy to second guess ourselves, which can then make it even harder to act on that something. But that something carries with it our integrity.

As Alan Moore said,

"Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all that we really have. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch, we are free... An inch; it is small, and it is fragile, and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away; we must never let them take it from us."

s2e8: All of Me is Here May 27, 2018

When you trust something entirely – a person, an institution, a doctrine, whatever the case – when you trust something entirely, you can end up basing your entire life around what it tells you that you should be. It can make promises that you hinge your existence and all major life decisions on... and you won't know if those promises are false until it's too late.

Plenty of our faith and trust can be misplaced for a long time before we ever realize how much time we've spent denying ourselves a true life.

Faced with the suffocating expectations of small thinking in a system that leaves no room for all of you, the thing you trusted ultimately serves to crush you. To fracture and compartmentalize you.

When this is the sort of environment that we come from, the defiant act of demanding to be whole and known in our fulness is one of the most essential, healing things we can do. Pain is inevitable. But "the art of life is choosing the pain that brings life and love and truth rather than the pain that brings death."

s2e7: The Long Road Home May 20, 2018

Silence. Loss. Addiction. Pain.

The alienation of repression. The forced-feeding of narratives which foster our unhealthy reliance on an "Other."

These are all things that can distance us... from ourselves. All things that can leave us feeling disembodied from who we are and who we wish to be.

But the most important journey home is to ourselves.

s2e6: Either Side of the World May 13, 2018

It’s harder to see honestly in the distance when we’ve had such a culture of blindness up close. When it comes to love and justice, a people who run from it in their own home are not going to be well-equipped to perceive it in some far off country. The church culture most of us come from has been very slow to recognize its complicity in racial oppression in America… so it would stand to reason that the same culture is not coming to grips with its complicity in distant lands either. But there’s hope… It’s just going to take a lot more than just Christians or just non-Christians to move forward as humanity in any meaningful sense.
NOTE: This episode features the host of Failed Missionary, which is a podcast well worth checking out.

s2e5: A Reimagining in Three Acts May 06, 2018

From the experiences common to so many of us, to the experiences of others that we're just now coming to understand... we are surrounded by opportunities to imagine everything differently.

Our full presence is required for this moment.

s2e4: Shallow Answers in the Deep Apr 29, 2018

"Just give me the simple truth."

It's the sort of proud and stubborn thing church people say all the time. Pastors especially. Anything complicated is viewed with suspicion. Feared even. And so an ethos comes into formation: a subculture of people who think the answer to everything is found in their Bibles, which they insist on reading literally... even as they refuse to read them literately.

"...Just give me the simple truth."

It's enticing. It can make you feel confident in your lack of depth, and it can shield you from feeling the need to evolve or adapt in your thinking. It can make you wear grossly binary ideas as a badge of honor.

"...Just give me the simple truth."

The great irony of statements like this is that those who make them tend to also end up making a mess of everything, complicating relational dynamics and poisoning their own response to pain and suffering. In our insistence on oversimplification, we do not preserve an honest view of the core of things. In fact, we fail to recognize essential depth. Fail to appreciate nuance and diversity. Fail to comfort with any real traction. This avoidance of anything that isn't "simple" creates distance. We become two dimensional beings in a multi-dimensional world, offering false hope that does not ultimately satisfy. Trivial explanations and empty engagements fall flat. Our lives carry the pretense of having the answers for everyone, even as we remain in the shallows. And as clichés fail to provide any real comfort, many people have been sacrificed on the altar of our need for “simple” – their identities abused and their hearts left adrift, offered up to a hollow god.

Within this way of thinking, there is no space kept for the complexities of who we are, nor the realities of the things we face.

s2e3: From Cage to Catalyst Apr 22, 2018

The wounds received in faith community: false comfort, simplistic answers to complex issues, the refusal to even acknowledge or celebrate some of us for who we are... compounded with prayers to a God who seems always distant – quiet in crisis, and absent when we need presence most...

All these things cut deep.

But it is often our trauma and devastation which propel us into needed self-examination and forward motion.

But could our wounds be catalysts for new life within the very structures which caused them? Could there be a way forward for some of us that doesn't leave faith behind entirely? Is it possible to cling to a beautiful essence while still shedding the ugly dogma? Can we take what we've learned and allow it to completely reshape everything we believe? And might some of us find our way "home" if we could ensure that home no longer felt like a cage?

The third episode of our second season is one of reimagining – laying the groundwork for finding some reconstruction within the old construct. It examines the idea of "coming back" to faith without "going back" to what pushed us away.

s2e2: As Good As You Have Always Been Apr 16, 2018

Coming of age is hard enough without a religious culture feeding you the narrative that you are... somehow... especially defective.

But what if the burden of words and ideas that you were forced to live under were lies? What if they denied you your humanity? And what if shedding them meant life and love and liberation?

What if coming into the light of day as fully embodied was your victory and not your defeat?

What if you are as good as you have always been?

Our second episode of season 2 delves into the shedding of religious identity baggage and repression. It is a story of innocence stolen… and rediscovered.

s2e1: False Start Apr 01, 2018

We begin season 2, not with a story of deconstruction...

But with a deconstruction of our deconstruction.
A disruption to our disruption.
A platform offered, and taken, only to be refused.

And all of it is valid.

This is a moment's pause for reflection, taking stock and orienting ourselves deliberately. Breathe. Listen. Breathe again.

We dedicate this episode to good intentions... and false starts.

Surprise Episode: A Reckoning Between Seasons Feb 26, 2018

We find ourselves between Winter and Spring... between seasons 1 and 2 of The Airing of Grief... and between seasons of how The Airing of Grief is even produced.

In all these things... a reckoning.

This surprise bonus episode is a sneak peek of what's to come.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, it's a special request for your help in making season 2 happen.

Ep 13: Goodbye For Now Feb 11, 2018

Pretty much everything comes to an end, but grief can be persistent.

For some of us, it remains a constant companion despite how much it might subside. And that's because it's not purely an internal thing. Grief is also outside of us – something we cast like a shadow, with a shape that serves as its reminder. It tells us where we've been. It tells us who we've been. It tells us why we changed in the first place.

That might be why there is peace and rest to be found on the "other side" of grief. Not because it has been beaten and thus vanished entirely, never to be thought of again... but because it provides a contrast, as our darkest times now help us to appreciate the new light we've come to find. Faith, belief, certainty, dogma. These things stick with you even if you happen to let them go. But you will decide what they mean to you, and how they shape your perspective.

We don't have any power over where we come from, or what we're told to think or be. We only have power over what we choose to do with all of that. And that's enough.

OUR THIRTEENTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'GOODBYE FOR NOW' – THE THIRTEENTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, FINGERS CROSSED.

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, Fingers Crossed, as 'a tale of two divorces.' Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

We're a small team with big dreams. Please consider becoming a Patron to help us continue.

Ep 12: Fingers Crossed Feb 04, 2018

It's pretty obvious when "relationship" is extended with strings attached. Nearness and intimacy are dangled in front of you like some sort of bargaining chip from those who think they need to save you. But that compulsion is fundamentally at odds with everything that actual, relational vulnerability means. Church culture familiarized us with this bait-and-switch and its huge disconnect between means and ends – the pretense of relationship when what's really being offered is fear. The unspoken desire is that the fear would grab onto you again and result in your conformity.

Why aren't you afraid anymore? Shouldn't you be? Shouldn't that fear define you? Or at least motivate you to delve deeper into itself? Why aren't you rejecting the part of you that is seeking freedom from the tyranny of fear? Fear is the best.

And should you defy expectations, not allowing fear alone to manipulate you, that's often when the guilt and shame comes in. When you cannot be paralyzed by fear, guilt and shame make for a powerful alternative. How dare you, you broken thing? It's no wonder you struggle with these doubts and uncertainties. You haven't behaved well enough, so now you're just projecting.

Being condescended to by someone who refuses to ask the questions you're asking is... frustrating. You might find that people will explain to you ideas and presuppositions that you not only already understand, but used to cling to yourself. As though you are suddenly unfamiliar, and that's why you've stopped maintaining their viewpoint. It's like they don't have any frame of reference for a deliberate, purposed change. There's no way for them to engage the idea that you have become different intentionally. And they don't seem to realize that they are the ones who lack understanding and experience in what they're so intent on speaking to with authority.

Considering a new idea is a sure way to get someone who's only ever held one idea to talk down to you.

But the thing is, it's okay to demand your own right to live deliberately and listen to what truly reaches you. To some degree, we're all flying blind. None of us knows much of anything. And fear does not make the core questions go away. It just hides them, turning the wellspring of any inspiration and wonder they might have carried into a stagnant pool of cynicism and disillusionment.

A persistent thread of doubt is worth pulling on. It might just lead us somewhere better. Or it might even lead us back with a new perspective that makes everything we've known real and meaningful for the first time.

But it starts with saying "no" to the fear, and everything else that manipulates and reduces us.

OUR TWELFTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'FINGERS CROSSED' – THE TWELFTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM OF THE SAME NAME.

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, Fingers Crossed, as 'a tale of two divorces.' Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

We're a small team with big dreams. Please consider becoming a Patron to help us continue.

Ep 11: I Am Redeeming This Guitar Jan 28, 2018

A good friend once said, "To stay in touch with the essence while shedding the dogma has been the greatest challenge my spiritual muscles have ever faced."

Deconstruction is exhilarating, isn't it? It's often such a fascinating and encompassing process that we don't realize how much we've actually lost until we take a break. Ultimately, it's not the shedding of things which is overwhelming. It's the moment immediately after, when we recognize fully what we've done. That's when the anxiety really sets in.

What next?

The words of a friend echo again: "To stay in touch with the essence while shedding the dogma has been the greatest challenge my spiritual muscles have ever faced." It's incredibly difficult to hold on to the good stuff while purging ourselves of the bad, and it's often so much easier to just burn everything to the ground, assuming nothing of our past has anything to offer us now...

But that isn't true. Though leaving everything might be enticing, there is worth to what we have experienced.

It's just a question of how we engage it.

"God doesn't get to keep everything in the divorce."

For those who find themselves within the mess of the same divorce, those are important words. Whatever goodness you have known... whatever peace or comfort or joy... whatever lessons you've learned of compassion or love or justice (which is what love looks like when it goes out in public)... Those things still belong to you. It can feel like they don't – like it's wrong to hold on to them – but that feeling is not reality. Those things not only still belong to you, but they can still shape who you are and who you desire to be. Ground zero doesn't have to be ground zero for long. So as you begin to rebuild and grasp at new things, you might just find some of those old things still have a place as well. Whatever you've learned to cherish from within one worldview can still be useful and meaningful to you outside of it.

Maybe you still have some faith, so it's easy to attach all the things you value to that target.

But even if you no longer find yourself in the place of faith, your values are still your own.

Goodness is good – whether we believe someone is watching us or not.

If you think about it, virtue can be even more significant when it's detached from religious order or lawful observance. Goodness is truly remarkable when the person displaying it doesn't believe it factors into any sort of endgame or grand scheme. When people just live and move in goodness because it's good, and that's enough for them, that's actually pretty damn beautiful.

Because, if nothing we do matters, then really all that matters is what we do.

OUR ELEVENTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'I AM REDEEMING THIS GUITAR' – THE ELEVENTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, Fingers Crossed, as 'a tale of two divorces.' Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

We're a small team with big dreams: please consider becoming a patron to help us continue.

Ep 10: Dodged A Bullet Jan 21, 2018

If you ever happen to go through a season of dramatic change, some people will simply refuse to take you seriously. They'll dismiss you, talk down to you, or otherwise treat you as though you've changed flippantly. Often, they will explain their perspective to you, as though the only reason you now disagree with it is that you don't understand it. When you change, people will quickly forget that you used to hold to the same views they still hold to.

And why? The answer is simple. For them to embrace that you have lived their experience and known their perspective... and yet still changed... is painful for them. It's terrifying. So they will begin to engage you more superficially as a way of defense. And that response is frustrating. You may find you've never been more prepared to have conversations of depth and vulnerability... and yet your circle wants to avoid those things at any cost.

For many of us, it's not long after the change comes that we find ourselves on the margins. No longer trusted. No longer safe.

Because when you change, it doesn't matter how committed to being humble and kind you are, you can still be viewed primarily as a threat. People will do anything they can to maintain the illusion of what it means to belong, and to be included at the center. Even if it means minimizing the suffering of others to keep more simplistic constructs afloat, they will do it. This leaves little room for poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, desiring justice, etc... The very things many of us grew up being told we were to value specifically.

The real world, it turns out, is complex and nuanced.

And when you spend your life trying to dismiss complexity and ignore nuance, you spend your life trying to avoid the real world.

OUR TENTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'DODGED A BULLET' – THE TENTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, Fingers Crossed, as 'a tale of two divorces.' Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

We're a small team with big dreams: please consider becoming a patron to help us continue.

Ep 09: I Will Jan 14, 2018

It's painful to be hurt.

It's also painful to be the one doing the hurting.

We don't talk about that second thing as much, but the process of grief that it sets in motion is ultimately the same: Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.

That's what they say are the "five stages of grief."

It's a good list. But the idea that such a world-shattering process could ever be neatly labeled or easily digested really does a disservice to communicating what a mess the actual process is. Stages of grief cycle back and repeat, or a bunch can occur all at once, or in the span of minutes over a heavy conversation. It's a frantic world of emotional rock bottom.

The ability to cling to hope unravels, and the desperation is tangible as a new reality sets in...

The loss is happening.
It cannot be stopped.
It cannot be held back.

Time will not reverse.
Not even just this once.
Time doesn't care.

OUR NINTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'I WILL' – THE NINTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, Fingers Crossed, as 'a tale of two divorces.' Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

We're a small team with big dreams: please consider becoming a patron to help us continue.

Ep 08: The Braver One Jan 07, 2018

Not everyone believes in an "afterlife." For those of us in the throes of de/reconstruction, the reductive constructs of "heaven" and "hell" are the very sorts of things which might fall out of view for us entirely. In place of the easy comfort and utter terror those constructs once provided, we are left with something else: wonder. And along with wonder, we feel the full brunt of actual loss without distraction – without the certainty of afterlife that once kept us focused on then and there rather than what is different in the here and now.

No, not everyone believes in an afterlife... but to some degree, everyone believes in immortality. Death is not the end. Some part of us lives on – held in the particles and electricity of our loved ones' memories. We carry those we lose in the impressions they made, and every life leaves its mark. In some sense, so long as any of us are left, none of us is ever really gone. Love's memory is long. Call it "spirit," or call it a return to the cosmic glue of the universe, but something of our consciousness remains.

Matter transfers, energy shifts... and yet nothing is ever lost.

But that doesn't mean comfort comes easy. Tragedy is hardest on those left behind to remain in its wake. Sickness, death, loss... It is what it is. And even though all of these things affect every one of us, they never stop feeling alien. They never stop feeling like they've intruded on what should have been. We are sentimental, idealistic and romantic creatures of community. Our connections might sever, but they always remember the connection which used to be.

WARNING: This episode contains mention of sexual violence and molestation. While the content itself is not graphic, it is worth communicating up front for those sensitive to the subject.

OUR EIGHTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'THE BRAVER ONE (FOR JOANNA)' – THE EIGHTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, Fingers Crossed, as 'a tale of two divorces.' Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

We're a small team with big dreams: please consider becoming a patron to help us continue.

Ep 07: Easter Eggs Dec 31, 2017

A lot of us know what it can be like to raise the sort of questions about church and faith that most other believers seem unwilling to ask... Whether we're seeking clarification over some clearly poisonous idea, or challenging the integrity of a certain theological belief, or even just bringing up a biblical "elephant in the room" that is being avoided... Many of us have seen a similar result in how Christians respond or react to us: Fear. Shame. Gaslighting. Loss of trust. Loss of position. Loss of our voice within a community... Our expressed doubts are so often not met with comfort and embrace, but instead with painful separation.

It takes real courage to say something when the repercussions of that choice can so easily devastate our place within a community.

It's hard knowing that within many Christian settings, "raising an issue" tends to be the same thing as "becoming a liability." To be outspoken is to be outcasted. So many of us are always counting that cost – wrestling between the things we feel need to be said, and not wanting to be a ghost or pariah.

One of the strangest aspects to all of this is how many people we know who just observe the process of marginalization when those they're close to start asking questions or, God forbid, having the audacity to change. Many just watch as their friends are witch-hunted, blacklisted, and tossed aside under the pretense of "church discipline" or some other vaporous claim... And they seldom speak up on behalf of those being marginalized.

There is a something to this. It's called The Bystander Effect.

"The Bystander Effect is a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. Several factors contribute to the bystander effect, including ambiguity, cohesiveness and diffusion of responsibility." [source: wikipedia]

So it's pretty astounding... Inherent to the potential abuse of someone within a community is the potential that nothing will done about the abuse because a community is present. A crowd of witnesses can actually decrease the chances of anyone else speaking up or offering help. When there are many of us, it's less likely that any of us feel obligated. Our sense of responsibility shrinks within a crowd, even as the person being hurt experiences a magnification of shame and hurt that is only possible due to that same crowd.

Such a cruel irony many of us are coming from.

The Institution is a powerful one – it wields powerful concepts like "tradition" and "truth," and claims to have the market cornered in those arenas. And few have the guts to speak truth to it, or even ask it to account for itself... But we raise a glass to those who do. And we hope you find some resonant community in the voices featured in this episode. A lot more people think and feel the ways that fewer of us have the courage to articulate. But uncomfortable as it may be, it's important that we do the hard work of speaking up, and the even harder work of speaking up on behalf of others who've spoken up already.

Because there are consequences that should never be experienced alone.

OUR SEVENTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'EASTER EGGS' – THE SEVENTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, Fingers Crossed, as 'a tale of two divorces.' Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

BONUS EPISODE: A Conversation With the Producers of The Airing of Grief Dec 25, 2017

IT'S A CHRISTMAS SURPRISE!

BONUS EPISODE!

We gathered for a mid-season 1 special episode and ended up talking for 2 hours. The first segment we're making available here is an introduction to that conversation, and a way for us to introduce our listeners to who we are as a team.

We discuss what we hope to be doing with the podcast, and what makes us excited for the community we're seeing built. (We also get into personality typology, because we're nerds, confirming Derek as an Enneagram Type 5 in the process.)

Ep 06: Chasing Empty Mangers Dec 24, 2017

We find ourselves in the stark contrast. The new normal. The bottom of the pit after a long fall. We find ourselves at a time when all the dynamics we've known have shifted, and we begin to feel truly alone, whether in the vertical dimension, the horizontal dimension, or in both... It's that place of deep reckoning, where we begin to experience newfound empathy for those who've gone through it all before us. And it's the place where the seeds of newfound defiance are sown. Where we cry out from the ragged edge as if to say,

"I'm still here, breathing."

These feelings and experiences are especially typical at the holidays – when the rhythms of life quickly make clear to you that their patterns have been altered. And with so many traditions you've known having changed so radically, you find yourself reeling, struggling to catch up...

What does everything I have experienced mean?

Where is any of this even going?

What's the significance?

OUR SIXTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'CHASING EMPTY MANGERS' – THE SIXTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, Fingers Crossed, as 'a tale of two divorces.' Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

Ep 05: Love Is Not A Choice Dec 17, 2017

Decisions. Repercussions.
Actions. Results.
Choices. Consequences.

The failure... and the fallout.

The biggest surprise that comes with wrecking your life as you knew it is often how eerily quiet the aftermath can be. You almost wish everything about it would be more epic – that your existence could be scored and edited like a film, or that your external world would feel more visceral and more loud to echo the turmoil inside... But pain can be so very silent. And suffering so very magnified by the stillness imposed in time's absolute refusal to fast forward.

Grief can be at its worst when it's... mundane.

Things that were once vibrant and alive are gray and gone. Things that were full are hollow. The house is empty. That person can't be there to text anymore. You can no longer meet up with those people. You're no longer welcome in that place. (Or you can no longer stomach being there regardless.)

Gravity catches up.

It's often our failures which give us the courage to pull the Band Aid off and truly examine the wound. When you wreck everything else, you no longer have anything to lose. You start to realize that you might as well know the truth if everything is already upside-down. Fear loosens its grip when the worst case scenario has already happened, and there's no Old to cling to. Because the New is happening whether you like it or not.

What matters is that you own your part in the chaos. It's the only way to have a stake in the creation which follows it.

OUR FIFTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'LOVE IS NOT A CHOICE' – THE FIFTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, Fingers Crossed, as 'a tale of two divorces.' Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

Ep 04: A Tempest In A Teacup Dec 10, 2017

The loss of identity is a staggering thing, but we've learned to expect it... sometimes.

We expect an identity crisis to occur around the onset of adolescence, or we expect to have a "mid-life crisis" at some point... Because we're very familiar with those sorts of transitions. They are time-honored rites of passage, and – though what takes place during those seasons remains difficult – we've learned to accept them. We even know how to make light of them and keep a sense of peace. Still, any a process of metamorphosis, newly shaping who we are, is not an easy one. Even if we know we should expect it.

So how much more staggering is the unintended and unexpected identity crisis?

For so many Christians experiencing doubt and grief over a loss of faith, this has become their reality. There's this new and constant companion with them – an alien presence in their lives who turns out to be themselves. Whoever they are now, anyway. And whatever they're becoming.

Knowing who you are plays a major part in giving life a sense or normalcy. As humans, we take comfort and find purpose in having a place to belong and engage, and all of that begins within, at the core of you. Where you choose to be depends on who you are, and why. But if you no longer know HOW you identify, it won't be clear WHERE you identify either. And when you lose your compass, or when your sense of self shifts in dramatic ways, the world can seem to move along, unconcerned and unaffected. For those who still feel stuck within a religious culture, it's especially difficult to have an identity crisis and not really feel there's room to change. Room to rebuild. Room for a reckoning. Many of us feel at once overwhelmed by expectations and yet isolated or closeted at the same time. We feel as though we haven't had the chance to rediscover ourselves in clinging to the shell of whoever we used to be.

Nevertheless... From ground zero, from square one, from all of the constructs we ever knew being reduced to rubble... we learn how to identify in new ways.

And eventually, hopefully, we reconstruct in a way which enables us to recognize ourselves again.

OUR FOURTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'A TEMPEST IN A TEACUP' – THE FOURTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, Fingers Crossed, as 'a tale of two divorces.' Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

Ep 03: The Spirit Bears the Curse Dec 03, 2017

Community can be found in the strangest of places. When religion falls short of its aims, we might find relational depth –and even "congregation"– where we least expect those things... Maybe even in arenas that we've specifically been taught to fear or to treat with skepticism.

In the church, when we realize that truth and beauty can exist outside of the constraints and compartments we've allowed for it, many of us run. We run from the implications of having found meaning where we weren't supposed to. We clear out. We shut down. Anything to keep ourselves from being "corrupted" by that influence. We all know instinctively that resonance shapes us and informs who we are, and so many of us avoid the very connection and intimacy we so desperately need whenever the source is unfamiliar.

But though context can shift, content doesn't. Substance is what it is. And so, beyond the walls we prop up to stay safe... beyond our exclusivity and skepticism... beyond all of the parameters rooted in fear... and beyond the familiar ease and comfort of being thought of as "on the inside"... the margins beckon.

It turns out that the Light is brighter than we've been told. It can't be contained. The language we've always valued still has its place, and the ideal community we've always desired can easily take on new dimensions in a new environment.

And that's why the promises made to us by our faith communities may ultimately find real traction "out there" in the real world.

This week's podcast draws from seven different voices to weave a conversation about all of these things and more.

OUR THIRD EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'THE SPIRIT BEARS THE CURSE' – THE THIRD TRACK (AND FIRST SINGLE) ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, Fingers Crossed, as 'a tale of two divorces.' Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

Ep 02: The Devil You Know Nov 26, 2017

"I am the same man that I used to be /
I look the same in a lineup, at least /
Across a battlefield..."

It's one thing to deal with how other people respond to us when we change.

But how do we deal with ourselves?

How do we reconcile our longing for the simplicity of the past with our new – and increasingly complex – perspectives? The allure of the known. The loss of familiarity. Nostalgia. Heartbreak. "Regret stacked up on grief..." None of it is comfortable when we find ourselves in the immediate fallout – the result of a hurt that's still lingering somewhere nearby, and still refusing to let us look away from the mess (or our part in making it).

"...Like any existential crisis /
You can't know what the price is /
Until you feel the flame..."

OUR SECOND EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'THE DEVIL YOU KNOW' – THE SECOND TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO THE PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

Derek Webb has described his new album, 'Fingers Crossed,' as "a tale of two divorces." Our first season of The Airing of Grief Podcast dives into the album track-by-track, with each song providing the themes and musical backdrop for an accompanying episode. Whether you're new to Derek's music or a longtime fan, the topics discussed and the stories of our guests should prove themselves to be a compelling journey for any listener. Wherever you might find yourself on issues of faith or spirituality, there is room at the table for all of these voices to be heard and celebrated. Raw, real, and authentic, The Airing of Grief strives to be a safe place to strip away the pretense and really listen to the heart.

Ep 01: Stop Listening Nov 19, 2017

"We've been through so much / Lost and gained some trust / Honestly, I'm just glad we still talk..."

Change is inevitable. Some would say change is the only thing that's truly constant. Everything changes. But change can still hurt. And when we go through seasons of great change, it can surprise, confuse and alienate those we love... So how we respond to the gravity of someone's change can determine a lot. It can determine who's still near to us, and who keeps their distance. The choice is often outside of our control. And we've all been on both "sides" of that equation.

In the midst of our greatest loss, uncertainty, and grief, some will remain near. Others will find themselves barely resonating on the same frequency. And many will find themselves in the in-between. The three featured voices in this episode find themselves all over that beautiful spectrum.

OUR PREMIER EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'STOP LISTENING,' THE FIRST TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.' THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES A MUSICAL BACKDROP TO THE PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE'RE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

"...If we can get through this / We may have a shot / At something even we can’t tear apart"
– Stop Listening

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The Airing of Grief

You're about to help us figure that out.

In 6 EASY questions.

ANSWER THIS SHORT SURVEY

We begin season 2, not with a story of deconstruction...

We dedicate this episode to good intentions... and false starts.

We find ourselves between Winter and Spring... between seasons 1 and 2 of The Airing of Grief... and between seasons of how The Airing of Grief is even produced.

In all these things... a reckoning.

This surprise bonus episode is a sneak peek of what's to come.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, it's a special request for your help in making season 2 happen.

OUR THIRTEENTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'GOODBYE FOR NOW' – THE THIRTEENTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, FINGERS CROSSED.

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

OUR TWELFTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'FINGERS CROSSED' – THE TWELFTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM OF THE SAME NAME.

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

"God doesn't get to keep everything in the divorce."

Because, if nothing we do matters, then really all that matters is what we do.

OUR ELEVENTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'I AM REDEEMING THIS GUITAR' – THE ELEVENTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

OUR TENTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'DODGED A BULLET' – THE TENTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

The loss is happening.It cannot be stopped.It cannot be held back.

Time will not reverse.Not even just this once.Time doesn't care.

OUR NINTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'I WILL' – THE NINTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

OUR EIGHTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'THE BRAVER ONE (FOR JOANNA)' – THE EIGHTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

OUR SEVENTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'EASTER EGGS' – THE SEVENTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

OUR SIXTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'CHASING EMPTY MANGERS' – THE SIXTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

OUR FIFTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'LOVE IS NOT A CHOICE' – THE FIFTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

OUR FOURTH EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'A TEMPEST IN A TEACUP' – THE FOURTH TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

OUR THIRD EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'THE SPIRIT BEARS THE CURSE' – THE THIRD TRACK (AND FIRST SINGLE) ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO ANY PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

OUR SECOND EPISODE DANCES WITH THE THEMES AND IDEAS OF 'THE DEVIL YOU KNOW' – THE SECOND TRACK ON DEREK WEBB'S NEW ALBUM, 'FINGERS CROSSED.'

THE SONG ITSELF ALSO PROVIDES THE ENTIRE MUSICAL AND SONIC BACKDROP TO THE PHONE CALLS AND CORRESPONDENCE WE ARE FEATURING THIS WEEK.

ABOUT SEASON ONE:

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The loss is happening.
It cannot be stopped.
It cannot be held back.

Time will not reverse.
Not even just this once.
Time doesn't care.