We do everything we do in this world through our embodiment. There remains a pervasive myth that we move through this world working and creating without leaving any trace of our own lived experience upon our moving and interacting, commenting and creating. With such a mythology the dominant voices become normative, and can be associated with objective truth, obscuring the understanding and experience from the margins. In biblical scholarship, whiteness is so often unarticulated in its effect on biblical translation, that it is as if in their interpretation scholars have left no imprint of their own lived experience and perspectives.

The Rev'd Dr Wil Gafney is an Episcopal Priest and Biblical scholar, specialising in a Womanist interpretation of the Bible. Womanism is an American Black women's feminist way of seeing; a lens centred in the lived experience of Black women, and especially interested in the well-being of those who are vulnerable and often exploited. In this conversation Wil speaks with Dom and Sue about the importance of attending to the multiple cultures and contexts of every text that we may be aware of dynamics of power in both the time of the text and in our own. 

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After 50 years of working with leaders globally, Margaret Wheatley, argues that leadership has never been more difficult. In the face of a multicrisis of climate and human created catastrophes, Meg points to the compelling need to awaken the human spirit and create “islands of sanity”: spaces of possibility and refuge created by people's commitment to forming healthy communities to do meaningful work. Peter and Margaret recall working together in past decades and return to this conversation with Dom and Sue in this critical time when a life-affirming vision of what it means to be most fully human is more critically important than ever.

Author of thirteen books including Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time and Restoring Sanity: Practices to Awaken Generosity, Creativity and Kindness, Meg Wheatley has trained countless leaders and activists. You can keep up with Meg’s work here;

https://margaretwheatley.com/library/current-thinking/

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Exploring a curious story that she thought might be “knotty and weird”, of two comedians from her student days who converted to Christianity and decided to become Anglican priests, journalist Lamorna Ash unearths a recurring phenomenon of a new generation discovering religion for themselves. Lamorna sets out on a journey that takes her across Britain to talk with Gen Z-ers wrestling with Christianity today. In some remarkable conversations and surprising encounters, Lamorna brings insightful perspectives to every kind of Christian expression from monastic movements to Evangelical youth festivals. The result is her new book, “Don’t Forget That We’re Here Forever: A New Generation’s Search for Religion”. The writing style is lyrical and beautiful, full of wisdom that also emerges in this first conversation with Dom, Peter and Sue.

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"Sooner or later, everything falls away."
With these words, author Parker J. Palmer begins his much-loved poem exploring the landscape of loss, grief and letting go. In this conversation, Parker reads the poem and reflects on the transient nature of reality and the great tapestry that holds all things together. 
Dom joins Parker in his living room in Madison, Wisconsin. 

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Alongside being the title of Pádraig Ó Tuama's recently released collection of poetry, Kitchen Hymns is also an informal term referring to the hymns sung in Irish homes that weren't allowed in formal church contexts, due to their being in the Irish language rather than Latin. 
It is this rebellious and honest flavour of sacred expression that has been at the heart of Pádraig's work for many years, and informs his new collection of poems exploring an embodied, liberated, and deeply human life of both faith and doubt. 
Dom joins Pádraig in his New York apartment for this conversation. 

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In the midst of our busy lives, we can so easily miss the sacred shining through every moment. Children are instinctively drawn to bewilderment and astonishment at the wonder of life, and yet it is a way of seeing that often fades as the rigours and responsibilities of adult life take over. 
Barbara Brown Taylor has been exploring the idea of reverence in her work for decades through her beloved books, such as An Altar In The World and Learning To Walk In the Dark. In this conversation, she speaks of the gifts of both reverence and irreverence in rediscovering a more attentive and alive way of being in the world.  Barbara and Dom share this conversation in Atlanta, Georgia. 

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What do we do with the weight of the past? We so often find ourselves clinging and grasping to that which has ended, getting stuck in self-loathing and judgement over that which we regret, or becoming too cautious and comfortable to step boldly beyond that which we have outgrown, leaving us struggling to live fully in the present moment and all that is emerging. 
In this episode, Rob Bell explores the many ways we get stuck looking in the rearview mirror and shares some liberating insights about how we can make peace with the past and create space for new life. 
Dom is joined by Rob in his hometown of Ojai, California. 

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While we may struggle to agree on the answers to life's biggest questions, we are all united in asking them. It is this shared questioning that binds us as humans, with each of us carrying a deep ache for something greater, something sacred and something real. 
Drawing on the wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has explored this soulful longing in much of his writing. In this episode of the podcast, Rowan speaks of this ache as being something to live into and celebrate, rather than something to resolve or close down. 
Rowan and Dom share this conversation in Rowan's home in Cardiff, Wales. 

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What if the way our brains have evolved is inhibiting us from seeing reality as it actually is?This is the groundbreaking theory of renowned neuroscientist, psychiatrist and philosopher Dr Iain McGilchrist, whose research on the two hemispheres of the brain and the different ways in which they operate sheds a great deal of light on so many of the problems we find ourselves facing today. 
Dom visits Iain at his home on the Isle of Skye for this conversation about how the brain works, what reality really is, and the fate of the human race. 

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Karl Rahner once remarked that 'the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist', and it is in this spirit that friend of the podcast Alexander John Shaia joins Dom for a conversation about recovering the mystical way of seeing today. 
Recorded in Granada, Spain, this episode explores how we can come to see the stories of our tradition less as historical moments, and more as timeless truths that are alive in our midst right here and now. 

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