Anita Lustrea

I’ve been looking forward to releasing this podcast. For those of you who don’t know, my guest Lori Neff used to work with me at Moody Radio on the program Midday Connection. We logged a lot of great years together along with our friend and colleague, Melinda Schmidt.

Some of you have followed the former Midday Connection team on the Facebook page, Friends of Midday (https://www.facebook.com/friendsofmidday/). If you haven’t, I suggest you “Like” that page to keep up with what’s going on with us. I’ve not mentioned this yet, but Mark Breta, former MC technical producer, is currently editing these podcasts until I learn how to edit them myself. I’m getting there……but not there yet! Thanks, Mark!!!

Melinda is finishing her M.A. degree, this month, at Wheaton College Graduate School. I’m very proud of her accomplishment. She has had her hands full with the work, but she is loving the learning! I miss rubbing shoulders daily with her to hear what she learned in class.

Mark Breta is doing a variety of freelance projects, not the least of which is helping to edit and produce Lori’s podcast Everyday Prayer that I will be talking about on the podcast. Find it at www.lorineff.com. Lori and Mark are also starting up the Millrose Podcast. You can find it at www.millrosepodcast.com.

Lori, besides doing the Everyday Prayer and Millrose podcasts, is actively involved meeting with Spiritual Direction clients. She informed me that there is still room for you! You can read more about spiritual direction at her website, lorineff.com, and then click on the spiritual direction tab. Or you can contact her about spiritual direction at [email protected].

As for me, I’m recording the Faith Conversations podcast. In addition, last week I started a full-time job at Northern Seminary as the Director of Alumni and Church Relations. I had a great first week on the job and can’t wait to go back! Always a good sign at a new job. I’ll say more about Northern Seminary in the future.

You’ll hear several kinds of prayer talked about on the podcast this week, and one of the resources Lori mentioned is featured in the right hand margin. I highly recommend Richard Foster’s book, simply titled, Prayer.

Prayer – Richard Foster

I hope you’ll listen to Lori on prayer, and share the link and spread the word about the Faith Conversations podcast.

Lori recommends the following books:

Also mentioned and recommended is the Facebook page for Anam Cara: https://www.facebook.com/AnamCaraMinistries/

If you’re breathing, there is the possibility of conflict. Dr. Jennifer Degler is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to relationships and on this week’s podcast I talk with her about the essential keys to resolving conflict. Jennifer was a favorite guest on Midday Connection and I’m delighted to say she will be heard regularly on Faith Conversations.

Conflict can erupt with total strangers, certainly, but more often than not, it is those closest to us that know how to press the buttons that lead us toward conflict. If not cared for quickly, disagreeable scenarios can run on for a long time. Just think about the Hatfields and the McCoys. You don’t think your issues will get that bad? If you don’t deal with them in the right way and in a timely way, I’m not so sure.

Dr. Degler points us toward 5 keys to resolving conflict that marriage counselor and researcher John Gottman talks about in his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

These are transcendent principles that, though Gottman focuses on marriage, work for all relationships. If you are married, I highly recommend the Gottman book as a tool to work through. If you are struggling with conflict, a good first step is to listen to this week’s Faith Conversations podcast with Dr. Jennifer Degler.

Jennifer helps us look at criticism and how we respond to it as well as whether or not we have contempt for our partner. If you find yourself getting defensive in conflict, you’ll need to make sure you don’t fall into a couple of traps called stonewalling or flooding. Want to know what those are all about? Check out our conversation. You can also find great resources for relationships at Dr. Degler’s website, www.healthyrelationshipsrx.com.

Sharon took us all on a journey with her first book, Sensible Shoes. The four characters we got to walk alongside made us look deeply at our own lives. Most of us were left hoping we would get to see these four women again. We weren’t finished growing and some of us needed Meg, Charissa, Mara, and Hannah as traveling companions still. Sharon heard us and now we have Two Steps Forward.

Sharon’s series is its own unique genre. It doesn’t exactly fit into fiction or nonfiction categories. It is an interesting mix. InterVarsity Press doesn’t usually publish fiction, but since Two Steps Forward is deeply focused on spiritual formation, it’s a fit. Certainly these are fictional characters, but we get to walk alongside their spiritual journey’s learning how to develop our own life of faith even as we watch these women stumble forward and back. One of the surprises in my conversation with Sharon was her statement, “Unless I write it, I don’t know what happens to the characters.” She went on to talk about how she might even cry when a character takes her down an unexpected road in the storyline. It’s all a bit mysterious. I, for one, am glad she listens to the mystery and writes it down.

I highly recommend listening to the podcast, but going back and reading Sensible Shoes first, then picking up a copy of Two Steps Forward. You need to know that these books aren’t for the faint of heart. What I mean is if you aren’t interested in spiritual growth, don’t read these books. You’ll be invited to face your own stuff and journey on, or walk away and wonder what might have been.

Sharon certainly hopes you’ll take Two Steps Forward.

Two Steps Forward

For more information about Sharon’s books, visit Sharon’s website, sensibleshoesclub.com.

Michael Hidalgo says in his book Changing Faith, “Whenever we attempt to make God more like us, there is a good chance we become less like him.”

But we continue to try, don’t we? Thankfully, God doesn’t play by our rules.

On this week’s edition of Faith Conversations, I’m pleased to dialog with Michael Hidalgo.

Many of us used to claim 100 percent certainty about a lot of things. As we find ourselves in a changing world, our faith doesn’t go away, but it certainly has to change. Many of us are weary of those who claim Christ but solely define themselves by what they are not. Hidalgo talks about remaining open so we can completely engage with the heart of God so we can view and embrace this world the way he does. A tall order? Yes, but we are talking about following a big and wild God who is indescribable.

If you are grappling with doubts, this week’s podcast is for you!

Changing Faith

When I think of scriptural stories containing women, my mind doesn’t immediately go to the descriptor wicked. It’s probably not even the second or third thought that crosses my mind. Ann Spangler, however, thought differently and therefore got my vote for the Halloween episode of Faith Conversations.

Spangler did a play on the word wicked that this gal from Maine really likes. I grew up with the word wicked being a descriptor to the word good. So wicked meant really, very, especially. When I had great ice cream at my favorite hang out, Houlton Farms Dairy, it was wicked good ice cream, not just really good.  And good, in Northern Maine speak, was a two syllable word.  So you’d say the ice cream was wicked goo-ud! Ann Spangler means, by the word wicked, in her book Wicked Women of the Bible, bad and good, very and extremely.  To give you the fuller picture, there is the story of A Wicked Girlfriend: The Story of Delilah. Not a good woman. And the story of Wicked Old Sarah, or very old Sarah.  You get the idea.

Regardless of how Ann Spangler uses the word wicked, I like it for my Halloween episode of the podcast. I grew up the daughter of a Baptist minister and I’m delighted that Halloween was not a four letter word.  Our church had Halloween parties, not Harvest gatherings, it was a costume party in which devilish costumes were discouraged, but no one was kicked out for wearing one either, since it was a favorite time for the whole neighborhood to show up at the church.

On the podcast this week we’ll look at a few wicked women. We’ll touch on Jezebel, as you might imagine. We’ll look at a wicked smart woman named Abigail. And we’ll also focus a few minutes on probably the woman who does fit the season better than any other, and that’s the wicked sorceress,  the story of the medium of Endor.

I hope you’ll come along for a wicked goo-ud Halloween ride on this week’s Faith Conversations!

Having hosted a radio show geared toward women for nearly 16 years, when October rolls around I always think of breast cancer. Thankfully, due to the efforts of the Avon Breast Cancer walk, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and many other voices speaking up on behalf of women, most are aware that October is breast cancer awareness month. Even the NFL gets in on the act sporting pink towels and other pink paraphernalia.

Most women in North America know how to do self examinations and as uncomfortable as it might be, if you are a woman over 40, you don’t cancel on your annual mammogram appointment. Because most of us have someone close to us who has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Sarah McLean is my guest today on the podcast and she didn’t fight breast cancer just once, she did it twice! One of my dear friends, Sandy Towers, finished her second battle last year. In fact I have 3 friends who’ve walked this road and an aunt who lost her life to breast cancer. I dedicate this podcast to Sandy, Joyce, and Katie, as well as to my aunt Barbara.

One of the statistics that Sarah shares in the podcast is that 1 in 8 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. No one expects to hear those words at age 26 as Sarah did. Within a ten year period she would hear those words again. What tends to happen when your life is threatened is a reprioritizing and redefining of one’s life. That’s Sarah’s story as she moved onto an emotional roller coaster.

If you’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer or are walking the journey with a friend, you’ll want to listen to this week’s podcast. Sarah is the embodiment of encouragement. She discovered how to thrive even while fighting to survive. Check out Sarah’s website www.project31.us which supports the breast cancer community through outreach, education, and financial support.

Most of us want light, plenty of it, to accomplish the task at hand. We all know the stereotypical photograph of miners working below ground. It’s a picture of them wearing headlamps. They need light to do their jobs.

Nancy Ortberg takes us into the dark spiritually speaking on this week’s Faith Conversations podcast. She says the references in scripture of light in dark places are plentiful. And that’s a good thing because it seems like every other day I’m in need of a headlamp! I’m glad someone is talking about how to manage when you can barely see one foot in front of the other.

What has kept you in the dark? For some, it’s job loss, like I recently experienced. For others it’s that unexpected diagnosis and you don’t even know which way is up, let alone where the light switch can be found. Or maybe it’s the end of your marriage, through death or divorce.

Nancy says it well in her book Seeing in the Dark, that one of the hardest things is “the understanding that what is happening in the shadows is what is needed to get us to where we long to be.” Sometimes it’s hard to believe that something productive is happening in the shadows. Doesn’t the real work happen when we can see clearly and move ahead swiftly? In the universe of God, not so much!

Seeing in the Dark

As a native Californian, Nancy Ortberg uses the earthquake metaphor well, something this Midwestern transplant knows nothing about. But when she talks in the book about our souls having fault lines just like the earth, my understanding came into sharp focus. “For the most part you can’t see them from the outside, they are deep and hidden. But forces we may not even be aware of are exerting stress and pressure until these lines slip against each other and cause everything to move. And we never even see it coming.”

If you are in a dark place, or are journeying with some one who is, this week’s Faith Conversations is for you. Thanks for listening!

Beth Booram is a deep feeler who loves to think! That is reason enough for me to have a conversation with her. But she is also an extrovert with a penchant for solitude. And if you’ve read some of her books, you know Beth is an artist who sees the hand of God in even the smallest touches, tastes, smells, and audible encounters with creation.

Today, especially since it’s the inaugural episode of Anita Lustrea Faith Conversations, we will talk about Starting Something New, Beth’s latest book. Maybe you find yourself in a place of transition like me. Maybe you’ve always dreamed of launching your own business. Wherever you find yourself, the conversation with Beth will encourage you.

Beth, along with her husband David, is the founder and director of Sustainable Faith Indy (sustainablefaithindy.com). She leads The School of Spiritual Direction, offers spiritual direction, is a congregational consultant and speaks around the country on topics related to spiritual formation and Christian leadership. For more information about Beth’s writing or speaking, visit her website. (bethbooram.org)