Creative and Free

Creative and Free

By Christina HubbardArts
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Creative and Free episodes

  • Prayer Practice—Vanessa Brantley Newton: Good Things Are Happening [Eps 22]

    Does your day begin and end with God? Illustrator and storyteller Vanessa Brantley Newton leads a traditional Jewish morning prayer, the modeh ani, to set the day right and remember God is faithful. 

    The two-minute prayer meditation declares:

    • God is our unfailing supply of wisdom, grace and mercy.
    • He hears us.
    • We can be instruments of healing.
    • God speaks when we listen. 

      • Find Vanessa at her website VanessaBrantleyNewton.com and on her socials:

      • Instagram: https://rb.gy/3r1jel.
      • Facebook: https://rb.gy/7tup90and.

        • Links:

        • Interview with Vanessa: "I See You" Part 1: https://bit.ly/2FzmnuF and Part 2: https://bit.ly/3315sKI.
        • Alexander Massey on the Modeh Ani (including the full prayer): https://bit.ly/3kQLyIG.
        • Historical background of the prayer: https://bit.ly/2RVTxYt.
        • Get my free Psalm 23 meditation: https://bit.ly/3kpSRa0.

          • Full-length shownotes including quotes from this episode at christinahubbard.com.

          These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast.

          10 min
        • Vanessa Brantley Newton—I See You Part 2 [Eps 21]

          Dear Artist, are you kind to yourself? Vanessa Brantley Newton believes its crucial so we can show kindness to the world as Christ would. This is Part 2 of my interview with this vibrant illustrator and storyteller. Vanessa knows how to shake things up with the likes of Judy Blume and find out why she says she is perpetually 5 years old.

          We talk about:

          • Biscuits and jam at Hutchmoot,
          • How song and fashion inform her art,
          • Artists who have influenced her like Ezra Jack Keats and Eric Carle,
          • Finding joy in music, dance, and salty water dogs.

            • Find Vanessa at her website VanessaBrantleyNewton.com and on her socials:

            • Instagram: https://rb.gy/3r1jel
            • Facebook: https://rb.gy/7tup90and

              • Links:

              • Vanessa’s TED talk: Diversity Designed by Adversity: https://bit.ly/3iDViFp.
              • The Rabbit Room Arts Conference: Hutchmoot Homebound: hutchmoothomebound.com.
              • Get my free Psalm 23 meditation: https://bit.ly/3kpSRa0.

                • These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast.

                31 min
              • Vanessa Brantley Newton—I See You Part 1 [Eps 20]

                Artists see the world differently, and yet, we desperately want to be seen and heard. Illustrator and storyteller Vanessa Brantley Newton's mission is to help children of all backgrounds know they are valued. Her work touches adults just as profoundly, and her story of harnessing dyslexia, synesthesia, and stuttering makes her a powerful advocate for those who feel invisible or out of place.  

                In Part 1 of our two-part interview we talk about:

                • A childhood rich in diversity.
                • Tenderness and hardship as an African American child who wanted to be an artist in the 60's.
                • When loss helped her rediscover art.
                • How all sorts of people find themselves in her books.
                • How her characters talk to her.

                  • Vanessa is the featured artist this month. Find her work and a reading of her beautiful book Grandma's Purse at her website VanessaBrantleyNewton.com. 

                  Vanessa on Instagram: https://rb.gy/3r1jel

                  Facebook: https://rb.gy/7tup90

                  These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast.

                  24 min
                • Meditation—Josh Banner: Alive to Resurrection Hope [Eps 19]

                  How am I using my creative capacities to know God? Am I living in resurrected life? Josh Banner,  host of the Invitation Podcast, leads a 20-minute lectio divina style meditation based on Phillipians 3:10, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (NKJV). Specifically for creative people and artists, the meditation asks us to consider sharing our burdens with one another and with God so we come alive to resurrection within a deep awareness of fellowship.

                  Check out Parts 1 and 2 of this featured artist series where Josh talks about how creativity and contemplative prayer help us come alive to God.

                  Find Josh at The Invitation Podcast.

                  Links from this episode:

                  • Music: "Rhodes REST" by Ordinary Neighbors.
                  • 40 Ways to Spend Five Minutes with God (and other prayer resources): https://www.invitationpodcast.org/downloads.

                    • These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast.

                    25 min
                  • Josh Banner—Stay Alive to God Part 2 [Eps 18]

                    Josh Banner is a spiritual director and host of the Invitation Podcast. This is part two of our deep dive interview. (Here is Part 1). We discuss spiritual direction, how contemplative prayer helped him have more fun, and ways to find deep rest in things you are already doing.

                    We also talk about the following:

                    • A rule of life and using time well.
                    • Josh’s mancrush with superheroes of the faith.
                    • The summer book series with A Sunlit Absence by Father Martin Laird.
                    • How to pray during covid-19 and how to start praying with 5 minutes a day.
                    • Rich Mullins.
                    • The connection between creativity and contemplative practice.

                      • Find Josh at The Invitation Podcast: https://invitationpodcast.org/. Check out his free resources on praying to Examen & 40 Ways to Spend 5 minutes with God HERE: https://www.invitationpodcast.org/downloads.

                      Links from this episode:

                      • Part 1 of this interview: http://bit.ly/jbannerP1,
                      • Poet Susanna Childress: https://awst-press.com/susanna-childress,
                      • With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman: https://amzn.to/3l1IRVt,
                      • Phoebe Judge’s podcasts: Criminal: https://www.wunc.org/people/phoebe-judge. This is Love: https://www.radiotopia.fm/podcasts/this-is-love,
                      • Father Martin Laird’s books:
                        • Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation: https://amzn.to/2YAN60L,
                        A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation: https://amzn.to/2QcwuHW,
                        An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation, and Liberation: https://amzn.to/31harWZ,
                      • Norman Wirzba’s Living the Sabbath: https://amzn.to/31gWc4u.

                        • Music is by Ordinary Neighbors: https://rebrand.ly/b08f8.

                        These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast.

                        28 min
                      • Josh Banner—Stay Alive to God Part 1 [Eps 17]

                        Josh is the host and creator of the Invitation Podcast. He is a certified spiritual director, a retreat leader, and facilitator of contemplative prayer practices in prisons.  In part one of this interview, we talk about rediscovering the art of brewing beer, being human, and wakefulness.

                        We also delve into the following:

                        • Living well in a day.
                        • The balance of prayer and art.
                        • A theological anthropology of a farm shaping his imagination.
                        • The patient process of being an artist.
                        • Being both a spiritual and earthly creative being.
                        • Ignatius of Loyola and the prayer of examen.
                        • Deep art: what Rowans Williams calls “meaning plus” and Scott Cairns notes as “the generative meaning of art.”
                        • Developing a rule of life.

                          • Find Josh at The Invitation Podcast: invitationpodcast.org.

                          Links from this episode:

                          Josh’s essay in For the Beauty of the Church: https://amzn.to/3iHnvuo.

                          Music is by Ordinary Neighbors: https://rebrand.ly/b08f8.

                          These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast.

                          25 min
                        • Write a Letter to Your Pain [Eps 16]

                          “2020:  I wouldn’t recommend.” Have you seen the t-shirts? It’s funny and true but 2020 has something deep and meaningful to teach us. Pain is not in itself inherently bad or evil. Pain is a signal that something needs mending. Suffering is part of us. How we frame it matters.

                          In this episode I share a letter I wrote to a tough season in my life: 2019. It was a year of caring for a loved one through their trauma. It was difficult and frankly, I wanted to forget the year completely, but the practice of blessing it transformed it into a teacher.

                          Next I guide you through a process to write a letter to your own pain (whether that is pandemic, racial injustice, or something else) so you can speak new life into the experience. We will name it, describe it, react to it, learn from it, release it, and bless it.

                          It may help to listen to episode 15: Say Your Suffering and Bless It before engaging this practice.

                          I recommend finding a place to be quiet for 30 minutes. Have a piece of paper and a pen close by and get comfortable. It can be of great assistance to share your letter with a spiritual friend who can affirm your story.

                          Printable guide to help you craft your letter: shorturl.at/hrQX8.

                          My letter of blessing to 2019: the year I wanted to forget: shorturl.at/cwEIZ.

                          23 min
                        • A Meditation: Say Your Suffering and Bless It [Eps 15]

                          Blessing changes our experience. Liturgy gives voice to groanings and prayer we don’t have the words to say. This episode is a meditation with readings of blessing for today’s struggles of pandemic and injustice. It includes texts from poet John O’Donohue and author Douglas McKelvey. The sequence includes a blessing for our lives, a blessing upon the world, and a liturgy for a time of widespread suffering.

                          Full liturgy text HERE or at everymomentholy.com/liturgies.

                          The readings:

                          1. “For One Who Is Exhausted” from John O Donohue’s book To Bless the Space Between Us: https://amzn.to/3eTFHyJ.

                          2. Excerpt from a section in that same book “Blessing Our World Now.”

                          3. “Liturgy for a Time of Widespread Suffering” by Douglas McKelvey. Also found at Everymomentholy.com/liturgies. Available in the new book called: Death, Grief and Hope, Liturgies for Seasons of Dying and Grieving, available in fall 2020 from Rabbit Room Press.

                          These show notes may contain affiliate links. Proceeds go to keeping this podcast in your earbuds.

                          18 min
                        • Tending Gardens in Exile: Carolyn Arends :: On Pause [Eps 14]

                          Carolyn Arends is a recording artist, speaker, author, and college instructor. We talk about the ebb and flow of creative rhythms and bringing our doubts to God. Car­olyn is the author of 3 books and 12 musical albums, many of them award-winning. She's also the Education Director at the Ren­o­varé Insti­tute for Chris­t­ian Spir­i­tu­al For­ma­tion. She lives near Van­cou­ver, British Columbia, with her hus­band Mark and their two children. 

                          We chat about:

                          • tending to your garden during exile as a creative person,
                          • trusting the creative wind to blow as a gift of grace,
                          • setting the table and showing up to the work even when you don't feel inspired, 
                          • expressing emotions with God during disorientation through prayer and art,
                          • and how to watch, wait, and listen with God.

                            • She reads an excerpt from a sermon in Frederick Buechner’s book: The Magnificent Defeat. The sermon itself is called “Message in the Stars.” 

                            She plays a song "There You Are" from the album Seize the Day and Other Stories. Please check out another recent song with video called "After This" at Carolyn's website: CarolynArends.com.

                            Find the Renovare institute at Renovare.org/Institute/.

                            To stay in touch, subscribe to my newsletter at: ChristinaHubbard.com.

                            On Pause: Healing Words from Everyday Artists during Isolation is a special series to help creative people find groundedness, belonging, and courage during the coronavirus outbreak. I’ve asked artists to share words that are beacons of honesty, truth, and goodness to their souls during this time of distance as a global community on pause.  

                            These notes may contain affiliate links which sustain the production of this podcast.

                            26 min
                          • Monastic Bells and the Interrupted Life: Christiana Peterson :: On Pause [Eps 13]

                            Christiana Peterson is the author of Mystics and Misfits: Meeting God through St. Francis and Other Unlikely Saints. We talk about the artist as contemplative parent, story, and mental health. Her writing on the mystics, community, the spiritual disciplines of motherhood, and death have been featured in Christianity Today, Art House America, The Christian Century, and Bearings Online. She's a regular contributor to Good Letters, an Image Journal blog. She lives in Ohio with her husband and four children. 

                            We talk about: 

                            • finding space to process crisis in music and story, 
                            • making meaning from experience through writing and narrative, 
                            • bringing a rule of life to home, 
                            • disruption as an invitation to experience God and contemplation, 
                            • mental health and sharing the things that do not fade. 

                              • Christiana reads from: Padraig O'Tuama's Prayer: https://www.corrymeela.org/news/126/the-prayer-of-courage and Ronald Rolheiser's Domestic Monastery: https://paracletepress.com/products/domestic-monastery 

                              Find Christiana at christiananpeterson.com. Her upcoming book Awakened by Death: Life-giving Lessons from the Mystics is available for pre-order at Indiebound, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. It releases October 2020. 

                              Other resources mentioned: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien 

                              Hutchmoot Conference: http://www.hutchmoot.com/ 

                              On Pause: Healing Words from Everyday Artists during Isolation is a special series to help creative people find groundedness, belonging, and courage during the coronavirus outbreak. I’ve asked artists to share words that are beacons of honesty, truth, and goodness to their souls during this time of distance as a global community on pause.

                              This post may contain affiliate links.


                              20 min

                            About Creative and Free

                            From the publisher's feed

                            Where creative hearts come fully alive to the pursuit of joy. Join writer Christina Hubbard for interviews with creative leaders and spiritual practices to help you deepen your relationship with God…