This is a short podcast discussing one's ability to remove one's self from a public employee union called SEIU; opting-out is not as easy as one might assume.  It also features a representative of the Freedom Foundation in a discussion of the critical First Amendment rights reflected within this issue.

Today's interview features William Snyder, the producer of EWTN Radio's Bear Woznick Adventure as well as the founder of Patchwork Heart Ministry, a non-profit Catholic youth and young adult ministry.  He shares a faith journey we can all learn from as we undertake to live more each day for Christ.  While in many ways his own life is an account of offering up suffering, he shares his personal story to better connect with the suffering world around us for Christ and His Church.  The interview concludes with a short discussion of this strange COVID-19 time in our history.

This podcast explores the life and work of John Carroll Collier, religious sculptor, fine artist, and illustrator.  As the creator of the Catholic Memorial at Ground Zero in New York City and the artist behind so many acclaimed works--both religious and secular--I believe that John Collier is arguably one of the greatest living visual artists.

Today on the Sounds and Words podcast, my guest is Wingham Rowan, former television journalist, current speaker, author, and Gig Economy expert. If you haven't noticed recently, today's workforce is changing at lightning speed. While Uber and Lyft may make headlines, the new challenges facing the modern workforce are much more complicated than this kind of limited news coverage may suggest. For instance, all across the USA and United Kingdom employees and contractors are waiting to see if their services may be needed at their workplaces within the next few hours. Complex algorithms are used by companies to calculate immediate staffing needs, and these employees never know exactly when their services may be required. This creates untold difficulties (and quiet desperation at times) for these workers' management of their personal lives. How, for example, does one arrange childcare in advance when one never knows the precise schedule? Even applying for other positions can become impractical. In Wingham Rowan's popular Ted Talk, he introduced the idea of Modern Markets for All, but what does this mean exactly? Our conversation explores the daunting problem of the Irregular Worker within the Gig Economy--from the United Kingdom across the pond to the United States.

Today's podcast on Sounds and Words features Virginia Pillars, author, speaker, and mental health volunteer and advocate. Our conversation explores her anguishing experience of caring for her daughter's own mental illness and how it changed and, in time, strengthened her Catholic faith. Using the painful story recounted in Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story and broken brain, fortified faith, we explored the many hardships encountered in caring for her daughter who suffered this sudden onset of paranoid schizophrenia. What are the lingering stigmas associated with mental illness, and how are they grievously mistaken? What does the caregiver need to always keep in mind? Is there a "cure" to mental illness?

I hope the podcast will strengthen you in your own faith--especially if you also are caring for someone in a state of mental illness. There is hope.

Professor Meg Roland visits Sounds and Words today from Concordia University.  She is also a former professor and academic advisor of mine from (now closed) Marylhurst University--not to mention an incredible guide across London and Rome in the fall of 2017!

Today's episode focuses upon the myth and truth associated with legendary King Arthur and the noble knights of Camelot.  It touches on some of the literary and historical records supporting that King Arthur may indeed have lived in some form--perhaps an amalgamation of different British kings of old.  She also explores the continuing fascination with these legends and why they touch our imaginations so deeply.  

Due to difficulties with Meg Roland's computer, Zoom conferencing was not used today; the audio is not perfect.

Today's podcast features author, lecturer, and Ignatius Insight editor Carl E. Olson.  Raised in a Protestant family where Catholicism was not looked kindly upon, Carl's experiences in college soon opened his young mind to the true identity of the Catholic Church.  Since his coming home to the Church in the 1990s, he has written a number of marvelous books on faith and Catholic apologetics such as Will Catholics be Left Behind, The DaVinci Hoax, and Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? .

This latest podcast explores both Will Catholics be Left Behind as well as his newest collection of scholarly essays on the fascinating topic of theosis entitled Called to be the Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Deification.  This episode begins with a discussion of his coming home to the Catholic Church as well as his reflections upon Bishop Robert Barron's Letter to a Suffering Church.  It also explores a recent controversial statement made by Pope Francis.

In this latest episode, Margaret Reveira, whose spiritual journey is beautifully conveyed in "Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story: Tools, Tips, & Testimonies," talks about her story of faith and a life lived for Christ.  How does one's life reflect the light of Christ in the secular workplace?  What set the Catholic Church apart from other churches when Margaret was trying to search for a new church home?  What does it mean to be spiritually fed?  These questions and more are covered in today's broadcast.

In this interview of Joseph Pearce, we spend the first part of the podcast discussing C.S. Lewis' conversion from atheism to theism, then finally to Christianity (with the help of J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson).  In the course of the conversation we also talk about the marvelous fiction of Lewis and Tolkien, as well as their associated motion pictures.  In the podcast's second half, we take a close look at Joseph Pearce's poetry.  He also graces listeners with a reading of several works from "Divining Divinity, A Book of Poems."