Personal Journals
**The Airing of Grief**

Recording & compiling conversations about spiritual de/reconstruction, curating them by topic, and releasing them in episodes. Let’s stop having detached debates on social media and really talk.

Latest Episodes:

s2e8: All of Me is Here May 27, 2018

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

"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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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.

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The Airing of Grief

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:

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