In this episode, Ruth closes our podcast season on “becoming human,” reflecting on an incarnational spirituality that is lived in the God-ordained reality of our bodies rather than bifurcated from them. She invites listeners to notice what they now know, what questions have surfaced, and how suffering and honest inquiry shape theology and spiritual leadership, calling leaders to stay present to bodily experience in themselves and those they shepherd. Ruth closes with four practices—paying attention to the body, caring for it, praying with it, and biospiritual focusing—and concludes by once again reading Brian Wren’s “Good Is the Flesh” as an embodied blessing.
Season 29 is titled Becoming Human: With God in Our Bodies. Our goals this season are to confront the dualism between life in the body and life in the spirit, to hear stories of people who experienced their bodies as a place of encounter with God, and to explore the connection between the integration of life in our bodies and our spiritual lives with our leadership. We will be having deep, spiritual conversations with friends of the Transforming Center about their very human experiences in their bodies and how they’ve experienced God in and throughout these experiences. We will explore God in concrete bodily realities like gender, sexuality, race, ability, aging, illness, and death, to name a few.
Mentioned in the Episode:
Tarry Awhile: Wisdom from Black Spirituality for People of Faith by Dr. Selina Stone
Our Bodies Our Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor (Christian Century, Jan 27 2009)
Who Decides What My Body Means? by Brian Bantum (Christian Century, March 29, 2017)
This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley
Good is the Flesh by Brian Wren
Music:
Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist
Innocence from Music in Solitude
Springs of Living Water from Music in Solitude
We’re on Substack! “On the Journey with the Transforming Center” is our home for “reflection, conversation, and connection with our transforming community.” It includes thoughtful reflections from Ruth Haley Barton and the Transforming Center team, as well as alumni and friends of the Transforming Center, occasional special video teachings and guided practices, and space to interact with our content and respond with how God is working in your life through the posts. This is also where you find all of our podcast patron content! There are free and paid tiers. We’d love for you to join us over on Substack.
Support the podcast! This season patrons will receive special bonus conversations with each of our guests. Become a paid member of Substack today to receive these practices and so much more!
The Transforming Center exists to create space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. You are invited to join our next Transforming Community:® A Two-year Spiritual Formation Experience for Leaders. Delivered in nine quarterly retreats, this practice-based learning opportunity is grounded in the conviction that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self!
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