The Pocket Contemplative

The shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando rocked most of us, but perhaps especially those of us who are LGBTQ. Tom's church in Iowa City, called Sanctuary, put together a remarkable gathering to help process the trauma. You'll hear from some participants, gay and straight, about their experience there.

Lisa Cypers Kamen has hosted a robust 350 podcast episodes of Harvesting Happiness Talk Radio, in which experts teach her how to be happy. Val, Tom and Dave have her distill the best advice for you and then they kick around how God fits into a happy life.

Dave, Tom and guest Katie Imborek start to kick around how a centered-set approach to faith has proved to be the most powerful spiritual practice they've stumbled upon--and how it's shaping a new movement of churches.

A listener's question prompts Val, Tom and Dave to explore perhaps the oldest and most-difficult question about God. How can we handle the unfairness of suffering?

Many Blue Ocean churches have made this transition, but only one has done it so impressively that they got a book deal out of their process. This week, we hear from Tom's wife, Adey Wassink, who heads up the pastoral team at Sanctuary Church in Iowa City. We also hear from Katie Imborek, co-director of the University of Iowa LGBTQ clinic who, with her wife, helped empower the great things that happened at Sanctuary.

Tom, Val and Dave host a podcast called "Blue Ocean World," so you figure they've found something terrific in Blue Ocean Faith. In this episode, they go into the ins and outs of what that is.

Dave, Val and Tom look at Captain America: Civil War and The Nice Guys to see what they tell us about us.

Recently, Tom, Dave and Val talked about their bafflement at North Carolina's anti-trans HB2 law. This week, South Carolina's Erica and Adam Coates join the show to help interpret the ways Southern and Northern Christians are from different worlds.

Val, Tom and Dave are joined by Saher Selod, a sociology professor at Simmons College in Boston, to talk about all things Muslim-American. How has the experience of being Muslim-American changed since 9/11? Is it un-American for Muslim women to wear hijabs? Are they oppressed? And, per Donald Trump, just how much should non-Muslims feel threatened by terrorism?