Trained as voyeurs, consumers, and addicts of images from ever-younger ages, how do we (re-)learn how to see one another and the Lord Himself in a way that deepens our loves and attachments rather than obliterating them?  Rev. Hayden Butler joins us once again on the pod to think through this very challenging set of issues.  Let’s pod!

Easter is the hinge of all reality.  But how do we enter into a deep observance and transformative remembrance of Easter (and Holy Week itself) when we have, we often feel, “heard it all before.”  On this episode, resident Anglican priest of the pod, Hayden Butler, is going to help us think through what it means to truly enter into holy week this year–a year that has been like no other in our lifetime.

Artist: Bonnie Bruno

Self-awareness. Self-improvement. Personal growth. Personal development. Personal progress. Personal productivity. What happens when the paradigms and strategies of self-improvement that have saturated our culture find their way into the church? On this episode, Rev. Butler and I discuss the goal and shape of spiritual growth in an age of self-reflection.

“In spite of the pain and its failures, I love the church.” On this episode of the pod, I am joined by my friend, Pastor Cole Beshore, a third-generation pastor who grew up in one of the largest megachurches in the country and now pastors Ranch Church in South Orange County. Here Cole talks honestly about growing up as a pastor’s kid and how he’s navigated the call of Jesus to love and serve His church without growing cynical. I hope you enjoy it!

In lieu of some technical difficulties with our previously scheduled episode this week (don’t worry, it’s still on the way!), I am rolling out an episode that was released previously on our patrons-only channel, Love in the Ruins.  It is just me chatting about the poetry of John Donne.  Hope you enjoy it!  And if you would like to support the podcast with a few bucks and become a patron, just sign up for the newsletter, Love in the Ruins, over at our website, www.frombabylonwithlove.com.

Every year, Rev. Hayden Butler teaches Dante’s Divine Comedy to teenagers. Why? What does a 14th-century poem that very few adults have ever read in full have to teach teenagers–or anyone else for that matter–about life? I’m thrilled to have Rev. Butler back on the podcast to guide us as we journey from earth to hell to heaven and back again.  Say it one more time for the people in the back–Dante! Is! For! Every! One!  Let’s pod.

To entice you even more to pick up the Divine Comedy and read, Rev. Butler has created a Lenten Reading Schedule beginning this Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17th, where we will read the entire Divine Comedy by Easter!  I am very excited about this.  You can get a copy of the reading schedule by sending us a request through our Contact page on the website or by emailing us directly at [email protected].  I hope you will!

“Here am I, Lord, send me.” Many have read these words in Isaiah, others have imagined their implications, or even said them aloud, a precious few have actually followed through and surrendered everything to the Lord’s call on their lives. It was my great privilege to sit down with Pastor Ray Clancy, one of my true “anamchara” (the old Gaelic word for “soul friend”), to chat about what it was like to hear the Lord’s call to take his young family, leave everything behind, and plant a church in Ireland.

A new year has dawned . . . and it’s already off to a rocky start.  How should Christians approach and understand time and its passing?  How do we resist falling into a consumer/productivity experience of time?  What would it mean to experience time as a gift and creation of God?  In this episode, I sit down with Rev. Hayden Butler to think more deeply about a Christian sense of time and how to live within it.