…the more they stay the same. The landscape Fabric emerged out of in 2006 has only gotten more clear now. More people burned & bored. More people rightfully skeptical of Church, wondering if it has anything left to offer them. As we celebrate 20 years of Fabric, let’s also affirm why spaces like this one are needed more than ever.

Ian has a conversation with Christian Ledesma, principal at Minneapolis' Roosevelt High School that wonders about humanity in the era of AI, robotics, and automation while taking stock of where we are with leadership, community, and education after living through COVID, school shootings, and the recent ICE occupation of Minneapolis. 

Katie Eckeberger (@MrsOberger on Instagram) is a queer Christian singer-songwriter and a voice from Singing Resistance MN, who sang her way through “Operation Metro Surge” with courage. Ian McConnell starts a conversation with Katie about music, faith, and showing up when it's hardest.

A live conversation with Tabitha Montgomery of Flourish Placemaking Collective, whose work reimagines what public space can be when it's built with— not just for — the people who live there. If service is what we’re called toward, how can we make it a way of living beyond simply one-off events we participate in? 

The Loose Threads podcast is a series of interviews recorded in front of a live audience in Minneapolis, MN.  Our guests are people doing real, high-impact work in our community.  In this episode, it's Joe Davis and Dave Scherer, who have been walking and working together for years with overlapping passions for music, justice, teaching, and spirituality. Listen as Chris Tripolino pulls on the threads of their passion and play to see what inspires you and maybe connects us all!

Loneliness isn't just about being alone, it's about being unseen, unwoven, unplaced. This week we name the deep human ache to belong to something larger than ourselves, and ask what it would take to become a community that tends that fire in each other.

LINKS:

Keepers of the Fire |  Connect  |  YouTube  |  Coming Up

TRANSCRIPT:

The Ache This Week

I want to describe a feeling and see if you know what I’m talking about:

You're surrounded by people— at work, online, maybe even in a room full of friends— and you still feel somehow... unplaced. Like you're present but not quite part of something. Like everyone else knows how to belong and you missed the orientation. Literally happened to me. 

That's not just loneliness in the ordinary sense. It's something deeper. The ache to be woven in. To matter to a specific group of people who also matter to you. To not just be known, but needed. Do you know this feeling? Yeah!

Today, on this final week of Keepers of the Fire, I want to name that ache directly. Because I think it might be the one underneath all the others we've explored this summer. One thing; this is actually an ache, a yearning that has gotten a lot of attention. 

The Epidemic

Three years ago, in 2023, the United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy did something unusual; he issued a formal public health advisory declaring loneliness an epidemic. A crisis.

The statistic he cited was that about one in two American adults reported experiencing loneliness— and social isolation increases the risk of premature death by 29 PERCENT. That’s comparable to the health impact of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. We have entire cultural infrastructures built around discouraging smoking. We have almost nothing built around discouraging isolation.

And then to make it worse, the money-grabbing internet “manosphere” has very carefully and intentionally targeted young boys and young adult men to believe that they have no agency, and that their feelings of loneliness are the fault of others, like women or the feminist movement! I want to say outright: that’s a lie. Loneliness isn’t just an issue for boys and men, they’ve just been most successfully convinced they’re especially isolated, and then that false premise has been weaponized against others. 

To be clear: loneliness is a problem, but it isn’t isolated to a particular group of American adults. Some demographic groups seem to have more access to emotional and relational skills than others… catch my drift?

In an interview with Kate Bowler, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said loneliness is like HUNGER or THIRST— a signal the body sends when something we need for survival is missing. This is biology. We were created— literally, neurologically— for each other.

Matthew Lieberman, a neuroscientist at UCLA, found that the brain processes social pain— rejection, exclusion, being cut off— in the same regions it processes physical pain. Being unplaced from community doesn't just hurt emotionally. It hurts, the way a broken bone hurts.

So when you feel the ache for belonging— that persistent, restless sense that you're APART FROM something you were made to be A PART OF— your nervous system is telling you the truth. Pay attention to it.

Belonging vs. fitting in

Just a quick tangent here to say that belonging is not the same as fitting in.

Fitting in is when you adjust yourself to be ACCEPTABLE. You figure out what the group rewards, what gets you included, and you perform accordingly. It's exhausting. And it doesn't actually satisfy the ache— because the version of you that got accepted isn't really you.

Belonging is different. Belonging is when you show up as you ACTUALLY ARE — complicated, unfinished, uncertain — and find that there's a place for that person anyway. That you don't have to earn your way in or maintain a performance to stay.

Loneliness isn't just about being alone. It's about being unseen. Unwoven. You can be lonely in a crowd, in a marriage, even in a congregation— if the version of you that's present isn't the real one.

The ache for belonging is the ache to stop PERFORMING and start BEING YOURSELF. Bring your weird into the room. Let that freak flag fly, baby.

What the early community attempted

There's a description in the book of Acts of the earliest Jesus community that has always struck me as both beautiful and worth taking seriously:

'All those who trusted in Jesus were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.'

Now, I'm not going to tell you to sell everything and move into a commune (this isn’t actually a cult!). But I want to linger here for a moment.

In the ancient Greco-Roman world, your identity was determined by your bloodline, your ethnicity, your class, your gender. In Greco-Roman culture, people claimed ethnic identity from ancestors— you were literally born into your customs and beliefs. Religion was in the blood. The idea that people from different ethnic backgrounds, different economic classes, enslaved people alongside free people, women alongside men, could gather at the same table as equals— that was radical. Historically disruptive.

The earliest Jesus communities articulated a vision— particularly in Paul's letter to the Galatians: 'neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female'— that cut directly against the social order of their world.

Now— did they always live up to it? No. The historical record is honest about that. The vision outran the practice, as it usually does. Early Christianity quickly developed its own in-group dynamics, its own hierarchies, its own failures. This is not a fairy tale.

But here's what matters: they attempted something the world around them said was impossible. They tried to build a community where the usual sorting mechanisms— wealth, status, ethnicity, gender— didn't get to have the final word. Where the table was wider than the culture thought was reasonable.

That attempt— that stubborn, imperfect attempt— became one of the most transformative ongoing social experiments in human history. Not because they got it perfectly right. But because they kept reaching toward a vision that the world kept calling naive. 

Sound familiar? We get to be a part of that legacy. I want that for us.

What we're up against

Cynicism, though, is alive and well.

When someone talks about building systems that actually take care of people — a real safety net, genuine healthcare, communities where everyone has enough — they hear: too expensive. naive. Unrealistic.

Even the christian-adjacent politicized wing of the American Church has mostly taken that vision and turned it into an afterlife destination called “Heaven” that has little to do with the here and now, and is only attained through perfect behavior and putting up with unjust systems without reacting to it.

When someone talks about the kind of belonging where you don't have to earn your place, where you're welcomed as you are regardless of what you produce or contribute— they hear: that's not how the world works. grow up.

When someone talks about the vision Jesus articulated… a world where the hungry are fed, the lonely are placed, the marginalized are centered… they hear: nice idea. impractical.

The cynics have always tried to be louder than the dreamers. And the dreamers have always been the ones who got anything done.

Here's what I've been thinking about all summer, across these six weeks: the barriers to our yearning are real. The barriers to belonging are real. Some of them are structural; the way adult life is organized makes deep community hard to build. The built-in consistent access we had in school doesn't recreate itself automatically. The institutions that used to create connection have weakened. Many only experience anything resembling that kind of connection as a “perk” of staying employed in the same job long enough.

But some of the barriers are internal. I think we can say that, without shame. 

We wait. We wait for someone else to organize it. We wait for the perfect moment, the house clean enough to host in, the enough energy, the right invitation. We treat belonging as something that should come find us rather than something we actively, courageously seek out...

Priya Parker, who has spent her career studying how and why humans gather (The Art of Gathering), makes this point: when the focus of a gathering is on the 'stuff' of the event, we shrink a human challenge down to a logistical one. The mess isn't what keeps people away. The story we tell ourselves about why now isn't the right time— that's what keeps people away.

VIDEO: Priya Parker x Ezra Klein on The Art of Gathering

Connection takes courage. Belonging takes risk. Showing up and saying I want to be part of something, and I want you to be part of it with me— that's vulnerable in ways our culture doesn't reward.

But it is, I believe, exactly what we were made for. 

The barrier practice and the vision

As I wrap up here— one question.

What gets in the way of your own belonging? What keeps you from reaching toward the connection you actually ache for?

Maybe it's a wound— a time you tried and got hurt. Maybe it's the pace of your life. Maybe it's the belief that you're too much, or not enough, or that it's too late to start. Maybe it's the persistent, inculturated voice that says: just be content with what you have. stop wanting more.

Whatever it is — write it down. Or draw it. Don't overthink it. Just name it.

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In a few minutes we're going to take those outside to the fire. And we're going to offer them to it as a symbolic act of saying: I don't want this to have as much power over me as it has. I want to keep reaching.

Because here's the vision I want to leave you with— the one that has anchored this whole series for me.

Ever heard of the book of Revelation? It’s at the tail-end of the Bible, and when read literally, it admittedly sounds insane. But it’s not a history book, it’s a vision, a poem, a love-letter to a Church positioned against empire dominance— and at the end of it, there's an image of the world finally, fully healed. And here's how it's described: 'God's dwelling place is now among the people.'

Among the people. The ache for belonging, finally answered— not by escape from community, but by the deepest possible immersion in it.

That's the direction the whole story has been pointing. A world where the hungry are fed and the lonely are placed and the fearful are made safe and the weary finally rest and everyone gets to play and purpose gets to flourish— not someday in a far-off future, but here, practiced imperfectly, begun now, by us.

The cynics will always call it naive. You know by now I think that's a compliment.

The fire in your belly— The Ache— is not a problem. It's a compass. And the world needs more people willing to follow it together, rather than carrying it alone.

Tend the fire. For yourself. For each other. For the world that could be. May it be so.

The longing for stillness is its own kind of fire… quiet, insistent, easy to dismiss until you can't anymore. This week we practice the art of the honest pause, and ask what yearning reveals when we finally get still enough to hear it.

LINKS:

Keepers of the Fire |  Connect  |  YouTube  |  Coming Up

Underneath every longing– for love, for purpose, for belonging, for rest– there's often a simpler, older ache: to exist without fear. This week we hold that tenderly, name how far the world still is from that vision, and commission each other as keepers of the fire for ourselves, for one another, and for that big, divine vision of love that could be.

Good morning Fabric! Will you help me spread that greeting around a little bit?  See if you can high-five or fist bump 2 or three people near you and say “Good Morning”,  I’m glad you are here!” or “Hi Friend!”

Great work everyone! Thanks for helping to spread the welcome and to warm ourselves up a little for this morning! You might need it😊

I’m Heidi Esposito, director of children, youth and family here with Fabric, mother of two amazing adults with amazing partners, and mother to two adorable sassy pups, and…the master of fun!

We have been talking these last few weeks about the longing and the ache that humans have at the core of our truest selves. The fire in our bellies that asks if things could be different for us, more fulfilling for us and for our world. 

Two weeks ago, we talked about our longing for connection and relationships and last week Ian helped us to remember that the longing for meaning and purpose might really be our main mission in life. Purpose is the thing for each of us that connects our deep gladness with the greatest needs or hurts of the world.  If you missed those weeks, I encourage you to go back and listen to the podcasts or check out the livestream. 

Today, we are going to explore the ache or longing we have (or should have) for play and I imagine there might be some skeptics or nay-sayers in the room, thinking that play is for kids or for people that have much more spare time than you have, or like me lucky enough to also get to play for their job. 

So, before we start really digging in, I would like everyone to stand as you are able, and I’d like to do a baseline test on your propensity for playfulness. 

Play: Top Monkey

Score yourself a point if you laughed, stepped outside your comfort zone, connected with other people, felt a little less stressed, practiced flexibility or felt your brain being challenged. How many points did you get? Awesome, we are going to do well today. 

There is a guy named Stewart Brown, author of multiple books on play, producer of a series on PBS on play as well as on TED, and founder of the National Institute for Play, an expert on play you might say, points to science that shows that “nothing lights the brain up more than play” (and at my age, I’m particularly concerned and pleased about that😊) 

I think generally we agree that play is important for kids and for their development, but what happens to us as adults? Are we even willing to admit that we have a longing or yearning for play? I think that many adults are not willing to trust in the ache or longing, or it is stuffed so deep down, we would hardly recognize it, resent it  or it feels like too much of a luxury.  Where are you in terms of having or trusting in the yearning for play?…Fist-to-five…Fist (I don’t buy the idea that all people do or should have an ache for play)Five (I believe in play so much I have a big tattoo across my back that says “play-baby-play”

I think that is where a practice like the Daily Examen can help us to tap into the things that we are longing for, to notice and pay attention, to trust, and then to tend to that ache. 

There have been times in my life, actually many, many, many, times, that I have begun a practice of journaling it usually lasted for a page or two, but I have had some success at keeping a really simple gratitude practice – similar to the Daily Examen and when I page back through I notice patterns around where gratitude keeps showing up – patterns of times when I have been the most joyful, free, my true self, deeply grateful and the most alive.  I think looking back and noticing those patterns helped me to pay attention to the ache and longing that I have for play and helped me to tend to that longing with more care and importance and made me have the courage to try and add some new things into my life that aligned with the longing for play.

So, what exactly counts as play? Let’s work together to see if we can discover what play is and come up with a working definition for us. Take a look in your Sunday Papers and take out the 4”x4” square of paper.  Write “Play is” at the top. Kids, this is for you too!  We need your expertise on this! Ok you have 1 minute to write down your best definition for what play is.  Kids, you can write words or draw a picture of what play looks like for you. Ok Go!

Now, I want you to crumple that paper up into a little ball.  This side of the room turn and face the middle, and the other side to do the same. 

When I say “go” we are going to create a snowstorm of play ideas, your job is to throw your “ball” across towards the other side (or as far as a paper ball will travel) and then find one ball that isn’t your own AND (here is the important direction) gather in groups of 4-5 people. Ready Go!

OK, share what is on your slip with your group. And when you’re done, sit back down.

Shout out a few of the gems that you heard the best definitions. 

Although Stewart Brown says that defining play is a little like explaining a joke, he says that play is far more than simply having “fun” — Play is a FUNDAMENTAL BIOLOGICAL PROCESS and a CORE HUMAN NEED that is essential for survival, creativity, and well-being. For Brown, play is the purest expression of our HUMANITY and the truest expression of our INDIVIDUALITY, and the state in which we feel MOST ALIVE 

And I would add it is the fire in our bellies that CANNOT BE IGNORED.

And Play includes many of the things that you wrote down on those snowballs like…

That makes me wonder…if we can afford not to tend to our ache for play? Aspects of play have played an important part of all of the significant breakthroughs in the sciences, arts, and humanities.

Any chance you want to change your pre-message first to five research number? 

So why don’t we play?

OK, we are going to use play to discover those reasons that we lean away from that ache for play. We are going to bring out some bags of balloons, start some music and we are going to play and bop those balloons around the room. – when the music is playing keep bopping. When the music stops, hold onto the balloon in your hand or the one nearest to you. (play a couple of times, stopping the music every 20-30 seconds) 

Now, if you are holding a balloon, I want you to pop it using some part of your body. If you are sensitive or triggered by balloon popping, cover your ears. Once your balloon is popped, find the piece of paper inside, and bring it to the front. Ok start popping!

Adults lean away from play because…

What is the thing that is keeping you from tending to your ache for play? Take the longer slip of paper that is in your SP and write down the things that keep you from playing or trusting in the ache you feel for play. 

Later we are going to put these barriers into the fire that represents the fire in our bellies that  we want to keep burning that longs for play. 

Take a look at that list of benefits again - connection, building empathy, trust, problem solving, creative thinking, learning, teamwork/collaboration, curiosity, risk taking, thinking outside the box, mindfulness, reducing stress/anxiety/depression. We, especially in this current climate, are in need for play more than ever! I would argue that play might be the most productive thing we can do. 

Stewart Brown names play as something as critical to development as sleep and nutrition. So I think it might just be critical for us as adults too! 

Jesus of course knew this, so many stories that Jesus told were helping people draw back to the ache in their bellies, to show up in the world as their true-whole selves, including being playful. 

So, in this story from the bible written by Matthew, who was one of the writers who told the story of Jesus’ life, told this story about a time when Jesus was traveling about the region of Galilee teaching and helping people to imagine what it might be like to be part of God’s big vision of love for the world – to love and be loved. 

Now, I imagine at the start of his ministry, people were really wowed because he was saying things that seemed so revolutionary and so different than what they had been told who God is and how this big big love shows up in the world, and maybe, many were caught up in the movement of Jesus. 

As time went on, people and especially the religious leaders were starting to try and test Jesus and to maybe poke at the places that people were being drawn to that took power away from them. Even his disciples were noticing his popularity and were wanting to make sure they were coming along with him, so they asked: Hey, we were wondering, who gets the highest rank, who gets to be top dog in God’s big vision of love?  

To answer this question, Jesus called the children into the center. So, kids, can you come down and join me here in the center? I imagine Jesus looking at the adults, the ones that probably felt they were ranking pretty high, right in the eye and then told them. Dudes, unless you become like these geniuses, the ones that get it, that know how to be playful, to look at the world with eyes that are curious and filled with wonder, and willing to let go of all the crap and be free, you will have a hard time seeing and recognizing God’s big vision of love.  Connecting to our playful, wondering, curious, open side of ourselves might be the best way for us to live a deeply woven life. 

Kids, you already are the experts on play, so I’m going to have you do some playing and demonstrate to the grown-ups the fun and delight of play while I’m talking to them about what keeps us from being playful. Who likes toys? I’m going to give you a bag of stuff and I wonder if you can invent a toy or something to play with using those things. Sound OK? 

Alright losers, let’s see if we can figure out how to become a little more like children and embrace our yearning for play.

Let’s circle back to the Daily Examen…and wonder about the postures we could try out and practice that would encourage playfulness, taking the time, intention and willingness to be in our growth zones and try out play.

We need a  posture of BOLDNESS to be willing to fully engage in playing – no half-assedness or going through the motions. (Barbie story)

We need a posture of SPONTANEITY to being willing to let go of trying to control everything (Lizzie and my trip to AZ)

We need a posture of CURIOSITY – we need to slow down, notice things, ask questions, and be willing to look at things from new perspectives.

We need a posture of ENDULGENCE – practice telling ourselves that we are made to play. Turn to your neighbor and say “I am made to play.” Play is not an extra to add on that we get when we are extra good. 

We need a posture of MISTAKE MAKING – nothing grows our brains or loosens our hold on being perfect than doing things that will ensure that we are going to make mistakes and play is a great place to start. 

I want to give you a Play “To Do list” with three things for you to try this week. 

First, put play on your CALENDAR – it likely is not going to happen unless we do. Maybe it is game night with family or friends, or taking an adventure to explore in the woods, or trying out a new sport, or gathering a bunch of your recycling or stuff from a junk drawer and create, or turn on the music and hold a 5 minute dance party! It can be as simple as that, but put it on your calendar.

Second, look for ways to make your WORK more playful. I mean this is where we spend a lot of our time each week! You might really surprise yourself at how play can boost your energy, make you more collaborative, improve connections with co-workers, or open yourself up to new ideas when you are stuck. 

At Fabric we often start our staff meetings on Mondays with something I like to call Connection Before Content. We might do a drawing exercise, or word game, minute to win it style game, or something that I pull from my favorite website – PLAYMEO – check it out, there is a free version with tons of play ideas to get you started. But you can also take some of your mundane tasks and gamify them. I have been known to see if I can put away my dishes from the dishwasher taking less than 10 steps. It’s being playful.

Third suggestion is to find out your unique  PLAY STYLE. There is a quick 8 question quiz you can do to following the QR code on your Sunday Paper to find our your unique play style and it gives you some suggestions of ways to play that align with your unique preferences or style of play. It is much easier to build a routine of play if you start with ways that feel most comfortable for you. 

Let’s check out how our play inventors are doing. (have a few kids show what they made and describe what it is and how you would play with it)

As my shirt says…Play, shuffle, repeat.

What if your restlessness isn't a distraction from your purpose? What if it is your purpose, trying to get your attention? This episode explores the relationship between yearning and calling, and consider the possibility that the fire in your belly already knows something you haven't caught up to yet.

LINKS:

Keepers of the Fire |  Connect  |  YouTube  |  Coming Up