"Leave everything undefined, including yourself. Befriend uncertainty. Fall in love with mystery. Kneel at the altar of Not Knowing. Give your questions time to breathe. And the answers will find you." Jeff Foster

About This Episode

This episode is a follow-up to last week's reflection on the Quaker wisdom phrase "Way Will Open." If we're going to trust that way will open, what do we do in the meantime? How do we learn not just to live with uncertainty, but to actually befriend it?

Scott explores this question through the lens of both Christian and Buddhist wisdom, and through the surprising insight that befriending uncertainty works much the same way as being a good, patient friend.

In This Episode

• The Jeff Foster quote that anchors this reflection: "Leave everything undefined, including yourself. Befriend uncertainty. Fall in love with mystery. Kneel at the altar of not knowing. Give your questions time to breathe. And the answers will find you."
• The Christian tradition of actively waiting on the Spirit — not passive, but attentive and expectant
• How the way we hold space for an anxious friend is the same posture we need with our own uncertainty
• The Buddhist practice of beginner's mind — approaching even familiar situations as if for the first time
• Scott's experience as a therapist: "I've never heard this story before"
• The compass as a tool for reorientation — not a guarantee, but a way back to true north

A Practice to Carry With You

This week, try approaching one conversation, one relationship, or one unresolved situation with beginner's mind. Set aside what you think you already know, and simply listen — to the other person, or to your own heart — as if you're hearing it for the first time.

We don't so much find the answers as we make space for the answers to find us.

Resources

• 📱 A guided meditation on this theme is available in the Living Compass app — search Living Compass in your app store or visit app.livingcompass.org
• 📧 Reach Scott at [email protected]
• 🌐 Learn more at livingcompass.org

"Leave everything undefined, including yourself. Befriend uncertainty. Fall in love with mystery. Kneel at the altar of not knowing. Give your questions time to breathe. And the answers will find you." — Jeff Foster

Episode Summary

In this Easter season episode, Scott explores the ancient Quaker wisdom phrase "Way will open" and its profound connection to the resurrection story. With honesty and hope, he reflects on why we sometimes close ourselves off to new life — and why trusting that way will open is both a radical act and a deeply grounded spiritual practice.

In This Episode

• Why "Way will open" may be the most-used phrase in Scott's coaching work
• How we sometimes unconsciously seal ourselves inside our own tombs — in relationships, at work, and in our inner lives
• The healing of the man ill for 38 years (John 5) and what his response reveals about our own resistance to new life
• Why way doesn't always open in the direction or manner we expect — and why that's actually part of the wisdom
• The cave illustration: sometimes the opening is right behind us, if we're willing to turn around and walk through the darkness
• Easter as a way of seeing — a counter-cultural mindset of hope in the middle of a world full of Good Fridays

Key Quote

"Do I believe that way will open? Yes, I do. Believe it? Heck, I've seen it."

Scripture Reference

John 5 — The healing of the man who had been ill for 38 years

Reflection Question

Where in your life right now might way be opening — perhaps in a direction you haven't yet turned toward?

Resources & Connect

• 📧 Reach Scott at: [email protected]
• 📱 Living Compass App: available in your phone's app store (search Living Compass) or at app.livingcompass.org
• 🎧 A guided meditation based on this episode will be available in the Living Compass app

Living Compass is a nonprofit spirituality and wellness initiative helping tens of thousands of people walk toward greater wholeness through the integration of faith and well-being.

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." — Ezekiel 36:26

Happy Easter! In this episode, Scott Stoner reflects on one of his favorite Easter metaphors — one rooted right here in Wisconsin: the slow, unmistakable thawing of frozen ground in spring.

Alongside the powerful images from the Easter story itself — the stone rolled away, the risen Christ, the road to Emmaus — the annual spring thaw offers its own quiet resurrection message. The ground that has been locked and hardened through winter softens, loosens, and comes alive again. And so can we.

The episode centers on Ezekiel 36:26: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

Just as our hearts, bodies, relationships, and spirits can become hardened — through grief, anxiety, depression, grudges, or the weight of what's happening in the world — Easter holds out the promise of thawing. And crucially, we don't cause the thaw. We receive it. The word resurrection shares its roots with resurgence — divine love never stops wanting to surge again in us. Our part is simply to loosen our grip and let it.

This episode is a companion to the guided meditation The Ground Begins to Soften, available on the Living Compass app. 📱 Download or access it at app.livingcompass.org

Jesus has risen. The ground is softening — in Wisconsin, in this season, in you. The thaw has already begun. Thanks be to God.

The Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast Episode: Disarmed, and Armed with Love

As we enter Holy Week, Scott reflects on one of the most overlooked details of the Palm Sunday story — how Jesus enters Jerusalem. Rather than arriving with military might, chariots, and armor as the leaders of his day would have done, Jesus enters humbly, on a donkey, armed only with love. This simple but profound choice sets the tone for everything that follows in Holy Week.

In this episode, Scott explores:

• What Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem reveals about the nature of true power
• Why healing and wholeness are always rooted in love rather than might
• How vulnerability and simplicity — not armor and force — are the hallmarks of love in action
• The through-line connecting Palm Sunday, the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday, and the cross
• Why, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, only love can drive out hate — and what that means for our world today

As the Lenten season draws to a close, Scott reminds us that cultivating healing and wholeness with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind is ultimately another way of saying we are choosing love — and that love, as Easter proclaims, always wins.

Blessings to you as you enter Holy Week — disarmed, and armed with love.

The Living Compass app is available in any app store or at app.livingcompass.org

Lent 2026 Series: Cultivating Healing and Wholeness in Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind

Episode Summary

We've all heard it: the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. But what if we changed the saying — and changed our lives in the process? In this episode, Scott Stoner explores how envy and comparison quietly drain our relationships, and offers a simple but transformative reframe: the grass is greener where we water it. Drawing on 40 years as a minister and licensed marriage and family therapist, Scott unpacks what it actually looks like to tend the relationships we already have — with intention, honesty, and love.

Key Themes

• How social media amplifies the comparison trap — showing us everyone's "outsides" while we live our own "insides"
• Why envy is a natural human emotion, and how to redirect its energy
• The Living Compass core principle: whatever we pay attention to is what will grow
• What good "watering" looks like — from simple expressions of gratitude to honest, loving conversations about conflict
• The gardening metaphor: tending soil, pulling weeds, and creating conditions for new growth in relationships

Quote of the Episode

"The grass is greener where we water it."

From the Counseling Room

Scott shares a practice he uses when working with couples and families in conflict: before diving into the presenting problem, he asks them to remember what they love about each other. The shift in energy that follows is a living demonstration of the episode's central truth — what we pay attention to is what grows.

Resources Mentioned

• 📖 Lent 2026 daily readings — livingcompass.org
• 📱 Living Compass App (guided meditations by Scott and Robbin Brent) — app.livingcompass.org

Reflection Questions

• What influence, if any, does social media have on how you see your own relationships?
• Is there a relationship in your life where you have been focused more on the weeds than on what is good and life-giving?
• Choose one relationship right now that would benefit from more intentional watering. What is one specific thing you could do this week to tend it?

A Challenge from Scott

Don't just take his word for it — try it. Choose one relationship. Water it every day this week. Be creative. And see for yourself whether it's true: the grass is greener where we water it.

Lent 2026 Series: Cultivating Healing and Wholeness in Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind

Episode Summary

What happens when the healing we pray for doesn't come? In this episode, Scott Stoner — pastor, therapist, and founder of Living Compass — explores one of the most honest and tender questions in the spiritual life. Drawing on decades of walking with people through serious illness, disability, and dying, Scott reflects on the crucial distinction between cure, healing, and wholeness, and why prayer remains transformative even when outcomes don't change.

Key Themes

• The difference between physical cure and deeper spiritual and emotional healing
• Why prayer changes us even when it doesn't change our circumstances
• Holding grief and anger honestly as part of authentic faith
• The "container" metaphor: how the spiritual life expands our capacity to hold suffering
• Walking with others through illness as its own form of healing ministry

Quote of the Episode

"Prayer doesn't always change outcomes, but it always changes us."

Featured Prayer

Scott reads the Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer (p. 461), from the Ministry to the Sick:

"This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen" (BCP, p. 461).

Resources Mentioned

• 📖 Lent 2026 daily readings — livingcompass.org
• 📱 Living Compass App (guided meditations by Scott and Robbin Brent) — app.livingcompass.org

Reflection Questions

• How does the idea that "prayer doesn't always change outcomes, but it always changes us" connect with your own experience?
• Where in your life are you being invited to expand your container — your capacity to hold suffering with grace?
• How might you bring healing and wholeness to someone in your life who is suffering, even when cure is not possible?

"Do You Want to Be Made Well?" Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast Lent Series: Cultivating Healing and Wholeness with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind

In this Lent episode, host Scott Stoner reflects on one of the most striking healing stories in the Gospels — Jesus's encounter with a man who had been ill for 38 years at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1–9). At the heart of the story is a deceptively simple question Jesus asks the man: Do you want to be made well?

Scripture John 5:1–9 — Jesus encounters a man among many who are blind, lame, and paralyzed near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem, and asks him a single, penetrating question rather than inquiring about the nature of his illness or how long he has suffered.

Key Themes

The Power of the Question — Of all the things Jesus could have asked, he asked only this. It is not a question meant to shame or judge. It is an invitation to examine our deepest desire and longing.

Getting Comfortable in Our Dysfunction — Sometimes we hold on to our dis-ease because it is familiar. Scott shares a personal story from his time as a parish pastor, when a church council member lovingly turned the question back on him after he repeatedly reported struggling with overwork and neglecting self-care. The community's gentle, loving accountability became a real turning point.

"I Have No One to Put Me in the Pool" — The man in the story believes healing can only come one specific way. Jesus gently shows him otherwise. How often do we say, "I'll be whole, I'll be at peace, I'll be able to let go — but only when this happens"? Healing often involves releasing our need to control the how and when.

Letting Go — Much of the invitation in this story is about loosening our grip — on ego, on control, on habit energy that keeps us stuck. The Divine source of healing may be closer than we think, and arriving by a path we didn't expect.

Resources Mentioned

• Living Compass daily Lent readings — available by email or as a free PDF download at livingcompass.org
• Living Compass app — available on all major app stores and at app.livingcompass.org (includes guided meditations)

Connect with Scott Scott welcomes your reflections on this episode. How does this story land for you? Where are you sitting with the question Do you want to be made well? Reach him at [email protected].

May you be safe, may you be healthy, may you be at peace, and may you live with ease.

Show Notes: Healing and Wholeness — Wrestling with God and Listening for Whispers Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast | Lent 2026

In this episode, Scott Stoner reflects on two powerful biblical stories that illuminate what healing and wholeness can really look like — not always peaceful or easy, but sometimes raw, wrestling, and hard-won. Drawing on the story of Jacob wrestling with God the night before his reconciliation with his brother Esau, Scott invites us to see that God is present not only in the moments of clarity and consolation, but in the darkness, the struggle, and the dis-ease we carry. Whatever we are wrestling with — a broken relationship, a physical challenge, an emotional weight — we do not walk through it alone.

Scott also revisits the story of Elijah from 1 Kings, reminding us that God's healing voice doesn't always come in the dramatic and overwhelming moments of life. More often, it comes as a gentle whisper — through Scripture, a meaningful conversation, a moment of stillness in prayer, or a quiet sense of being led forward. The episode closes with a beautiful reflection from contributor Robbin Brent, who writes that faith is not about certainty or the absence of questions, but about the willingness to keep trusting in the deeper reality of God's healing presence, even when circumstances seem to contradict it. Wherever you are on your Lenten journey, this episode is an invitation to be still, listen for the whispers, and trust that way will open.

The full Lent 2026 devotional booklet and the option to sign up to get the Lent daily reflections for "Cultivating Healing and Wholeness" by email are available at livingcompass.org.

Opening Our Eyes: Healing Our Vision Living Compass Spirituality and Wellness Podcast — Lent, Week 1

This episode explores the theme of "Opening Our Eyes" as part of the first full week of Lent, connected to the daily devotional booklet Cultivating Wholeness and Healing with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind.

Scott reflects on the many healing stories in the Gospels involving sight, noting that healing doesn't always happen all at once. Drawing on the story of the blind man in Mark 8 — who is healed progressively, first seeing blurrily and then fully — Scott invites listeners to recognize that moving from blindness to blurry is still grace, still progress.

He then explores the different kinds of "blindness" Jesus addresses beyond physical sight — spiritual, emotional, and relational — and how each can leave us seeing life less clearly and with less love and hope than we'd like. Whether it's a faith stuck at an early stage of development, emotions we've numbed to protect ourselves, or patterns of "othering" people in our relationships, these forms of blurriness are not causes for shame but invitations to healing.

Scott closes with the image of Bartimaeus crying out, "My teacher, let me see again" — reminding us that Jesus is in the business of opening eyes, and that Lent is a season to nurture and restore our vision in all its dimensions.

Free PDF of the devotional booklet and daily email reflections available at livingcompass.org. Contact Scott at [email protected].

Host: Scott Stoner, Episcopal pastor and licensed marriage and family therapist

Episode Summary

Recorded the day before Ash Wednesday, this introductory episode launches the Lenten podcast series centered on the theme Cultivating Healing and Wholeness with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind. Scott reflects on what it means to tend to our whole selves during the 47 days of Lent, drawing on his 40 years of experience as pastor and therapist.

Key Themes

Scott opens with a simple but powerful question: When was the last time someone genuinely asked how you're doing? He invites listeners to treat Lent as an annual spiritual check-up — an unhurried season to reflect on body, mind, heart, and soul. Healing, he suggests, is less like a lightning bolt and more like tending a fire: patient, gentle, and attentive. The Ash Wednesday words "Remember that you are dust" are framed not as shame but as an invitation to humility and openness.

He also introduces the Living Compass model of well-being — four quadrants (Heart, Soul, Strength, Mind) with eight dimensions of wellness — and reminds listeners that wellness begins with "we."

Resources Mentioned

• Daily readings booklet — PDF download or daily emails available at livingcompass.org
• Living Compass App — search "Living Compass" in your app store or visit app.livingcompass.org; includes guided Lenten meditations; free trial for one year, then $10/year
• Spanish-language content — daily reflections by Estela Lopez and Pedro Lopez (Bruja La De Vida), PDF available at livingcompass.org and posted daily on the Bruja La De Vida Facebook page

During This Series

Two new podcast episodes will be released each week throughout Lent.

Blessings on your Lenten journey.