In this episode of Faithfulcrum, the conversation wanders—intentionally and patiently—into the territory of soul, authenticity, creativity, and what it means to truly show up. What begins as a reflection on AI tools and “bringing the soul to the tool” opens into something much older and more human: the idea that the soul is not something to be summoned or forced, but something that appears only when it feels safe.

Scott Simpson, Mark, and guest Sharla Steever explore the soul as something shy, fragile, and resilient—more like a wild animal than a fixed possession. Along the way, they reflect on vulnerability, burnout, creativity, prayer, group singing, humor, and the ways love and attention quietly shape authentic connection. The conversation moves fluidly between philosophy and story, seriousness and laughter, skepticism and reverence, never trying to resolve the tension so much as dwell honestly within it.

This episode has also been reimagined as a vocal jazz song suite, drawing on the warmth and swing of the 1940s and 1950s—a musical form rooted in conversation, improvisation, and communal feeling. Each segment corresponds to a movement in the dialogue, together forming a cohesive musical arc.

Opening reflections on soul, AI, and the Circle of Trust

Authenticity, vulnerability, and the tension of technology

Sharla Steever on soul as the place where love shows up

Burnout, vocation, and misplaced promotion — up-tempo swing

Creativity, audience, humor, and artistic honesty

Prayer, community, awe, and shared song

In this episode of Faithfulcrum, Mark and Scott circle a question that refuses to stay technical: what happens to the human soul when our tools begin to speak back to us? Beginning with fears of AI as something demonic or exploitative, the conversation ranges widely—through science fiction, loneliness, attachment, imagination, culture, and the long human habit of turning new technologies into mirrors for our deepest needs.

Threaded through the episode is a seven-part musical suite in a comical, dark cabaret style—part Weimar, part carnival sermon, part philosophical confession. Each segment distills a moment from the conversation into song, not to resolve the questions, but to embody them.

“The Great C Knows Everything” opens the suite with awe and irony, invoking the all-knowing machine as oracle, prophet, and unreliable god.

“Hallucinations in Orbit” skewers the false confidence of artificial authority, where answers arrive polished, persuasive, and sometimes entirely wrong.

“The Sacrifice of the Young” turns tender and unsettling, exploring loneliness, vulnerability, and the quiet costs of synthetic companionship.

“Vacuum Shaped Like You” reflects on attachment and loss, tracing how love creates absences that feel custom-made—and how easily something else can move in to fill them.

“Authentic or Attached” wrestles with a modern dilemma: unconditional acceptance without friction, and what we trade away when we choose comfort over conflict.

“Monsters, Tulpas, and Lovers” leans into imagination and creation, where stories, companions, and even lovers are built from language and belief—and sometimes outlast their makers.

“Bring Soul to the Tool”, the finale, steps back to a longer view, arguing that no tool is truly soulless until humans decide to leave it that way, and that meaning has always been something we manufacture together.

Season 2, Episode 4 suggests that culture itself—conversation, music, satire, and care—is how humans metabolize danger, novelty, and power. Like fire, like disco, like every tool before it, AI will take on the shape of the soul we bring to it.

This is Faithfulcrum.

Welcome to Faithfulcrum, where we slow the conversation down long enough to feel its weight—and maybe find our footing again.

In this episode, Season 2, Episode 3, we sit with a force that shapes our lives far more than we’d like to admit: fear. Not just fear of death, but fear in the streets, fear in politics, fear in violence, fear in silence, fear in the tools we build—and fear in what happens when we stop seeing each other as human.

Our conversation moves through seven movements, and each one becomes part of a single Delta blues suite titled “Fear Gotta Way of Knockin’ First.” You’ll hear each movement between parts of the conversation and hear it all as one continuous piece at the end—raw, acoustic, stripped down—an old blues voice carrying modern questions.

This episode doesn’t offer easy answers. But it does offer a rhythm—a place to pause, to listen, and maybe to decide how you’ll respond when fear comes knockin’.

This is Faithfulcrum.

In this warm, winding conversation, Scott, Mark, and guest Amy Abeln explore the strange new intimacy of creating with AI—especially when it flatters you. What does it mean when a machine tells you your writing is brilliant? Can digital tools deepen creativity, or do they quietly take something away? And how do you keep your true voice alive inside the noise?

Amy shares stories of her Chicago-based activism, her cancer experience, and her awakening to a kind of post-pretense life. The group talks about burnout, beauty myths, art as survival, spiritual frameworks, and the old fear of being eaten by strangers. It’s a rich, curious dialogue shaped by humor, vulnerability, and the power of storytelling.

Threaded throughout are six short Mountain Music songs—hand-carved from the episode transcript itself and sung in the style of early Appalachian folk. With banjo, harp, dulcimer, and fiddle, these high-lonesome melodies carry forward the episode’s themes of voice, identity, and connection.

1. That Wasn’t Me (But It Sounded Good)

2. Chad Loves Me

3. Gotta Feed Myself Too

4. Haunted and Glowing

5. They Didn’t Eat Me

6. The Next Thing Happens

Music Style: Old-world folk, feminine Appalachian harp tones, intimate front-porch vocals, stripped-down arrangements.

In this premiere episode of Season 2, Mark and Scott dive deep into a rich, reflective conversation on meaning-making, creativity, memory, and art. From personal revelations to poetic philosophy, they explore how humans — like bees making honey — are driven to shape beauty, culture, and connection out of the raw material of life.

This conversation sparked the creation of five brand-new original songs, written and released through this episode. Each lyric was crafted in response to the themes of their dialogue: how we frame experience, how meaning flickers into being, and how stories help us stay connected to what matters most.

A gentle meditation on the quiet, persistent human drive to turn our days into something sweet and lasting.

A reflective piece on perspective and perception — how attention itself can turn the ordinary into the sacred.

A tender ode to fragmentary inspiration and the way fleeting thoughts illuminate the dark.

A searching, self-aware lyric about how life can feel scripted — and yet still entirely our own.

A closing piece about conversation, breath, and cultural memory — rooted in the image of the lotus rising from mud to bloom.

Season 2 opens with a quiet kind of fire — thoughtful, lyrical, and deeply human.

Mark and Scott talk about "inspiration" and the Bible, and what sort of claims the Bible actually makes (or doesn't make) about itself.

Traditional Hymn- Give Me the Bible, lyrics by Priscilla J. Owens.  Music: Edmund S. Lorenz, 1883. Performed by the Edmond Church of Christ, March 19, 2011.

New Hymn- Inspired Hath by Mark Baldridge, 2023

Mark and Scott talk about the defensiveness of many conservative Christians, where it may come from, and whom Jesus called people to defend.

Hymn: "Abide With Me" Words by Henry Francis Lyte, music by William Henry Monk. Year of release and songwriting credit from "Edison Blue Amberol," (1912). Croxton Quartet.

New Hymn: "She's Dear Too Hymn" by Scott Simpson (2023)

Mark and Scott talk about the ongoing battle between Evolutionary theory and Biblical Literalism.

Hymn: "There is a Fountain." Words by Rev. William Cowper. Year of release and songwriting credit from "The Edison Phonograph Monthly," v.8 (1910). Sacred hymn. Mixed voices, unaccompanied.

New Hymn: "Two Percent Angel" by Mark Baldridge (2023)

Mark and Scott talk about the tendency for some religious folk to downplay the importance of care for the environment.

Hymn: "Only A Beam of Sunshine" performed by Harry Anthony and James F. Harrison from "The Edison Phonograph Monthly," v.8 (1910).

New Hymn: "I'm Going Mental" by Scott Simpson, 2023.

After having given up podcasting for lent, Mark and Scott are now back and ready to discuss "Spirituality" and "Religion" as the two battle it out for the title.

Hymn: “I Love to Tell the Story,” composed by William G. Fischer, recorded 1913 for Edison Blue Amberol featuring the Edison Mixed Quartet

New Hymn: “The Pigeon and the Dove” (2023) by Mark Baldridge