The Slow Way

I find that Jesus is always in the business of calling us to his way, a way that will totally ruin our comfort seeking, surface level naval gazing. He demands a bigger, truer pleasure. The kind that wakes up our whole selves — our desires, our bodies, our moral courage, our self-giving love.  This is the final The Slow Way Podcast episode. I have delighted in recording these episodes, in sharing my writing with you in this particular way. I know some of you will be disappointed with my decision to close this part of my work down. Me too! I have loved being here with you and I wish I had endless finances and time and energy. But the internet is a tough place and I'm putting my resources toward my Substack letter and will continue over there to work towards new ways of offering you content. If you haven't yet listened to the audiobook of Blessed Are The Rest of Us you might enjoy that! I'm giving a copy away every week of September over on Instagram. Or you can get it the good old fashioned way. Thanks for being here on this 101 episode journey! What a thing we've done.  xoxo, Micha Find the audiobook for Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole here.  Leave a review for Blessed on Amazon here!  It's availble at 40% off the price of other booksellers at BakerBookHouse. Just use the code SLOWWAY at checkout. Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.   Find a transcript of this episode here.  Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Find Micha on Instagram.  Find Micha on Threads.   

Celebrating all the stories, all the practices, all my attempts to tell the truth.  Here's a link to Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole. Find it at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Bookshop.org Blessed on Amazon here! It's availble at 40% off the price of other booksellers at BakerBookHouse. Just use the code SLOWWAY at checkout. Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.   Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more. Find a transcript of this episode here.  Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Find Micha on Instagram.  Find Micha on Threads.     

It's true that the world is beautiful. And it's also true that the beauty and goodness in the world can dissolve in front of us. Life is unpredictable, like the author of Ecclesiastes says, it's a "chasing after the wind."   Click here for Robert Siegel's book A Pentecost of Finches. Here's a link to his poem "Aubade."  I love the Bible Project. Here's their summary of the book of Ecclesiastes.  Find the Lectio Divina scripture passage here. Here's a link to Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole. Find it at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Bookshop.org. Leave a review for Blessed on Amazon here!  It's availble at 40% off the price of other booksellers at BakerBookHouse. Just use the code SLOWWAY at checkout. Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.   Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more. Find a transcript of this episode here.  Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Find Micha on Instagram.  Find Micha on Threads. 

How we make meaning is how we live. And the gift of the spiritual life is that it teaches us to make meaning, to find our story in a bigger story. * I'm looking for stories from YOU about what The Slow Way means to you. Here's how to help! Record a video or voice memo of you sharing one or more of the following: Where do you listen to The Slow Way? How do you use the Slow Practices? How has The Slow Way mattered in your life? Send your voice memos to [email protected] and you might be included in my 100th episode! Find Richard Rohr's book Things Hidden here. Here's a link to Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole. Find it at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Bookshop.org. Leave a review for Blessed on Amazon here!  It's availble at 40% off the price of other booksellers at BakerBookHouse. Just use the code SLOWWAY at checkout. Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.   Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more. Find a transcript of this episode here.  Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Find Micha on Instagram.  Find Micha on Threads. 

I've been working out how to offer the young people I love a vibrant faith that insists on their own goodness, their own original spark, and I am still fumbling a bit to give them language for encountering God. I believe that the long-way of conversion is a good way. And that Jesus's invitation to move toward wholeness is the kind of faith I want for the kids I love.  I'm not sure if there's an answer to these questions, but I do believe that for all of us who are reconstructing our faith with courage and great hope, we have to do so with the understanding that the ones who come after us will carry the scripts we give them. Find Richard Rohr's book Things Hidden here. Find Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way here. Here's a link to Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole. Find it at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Bookshop.org. Leave a review for Blessed on Amazon here!  It's availble at 40% off the price of other booksellers at BakerBookHouse. Just use the code SLOWWAY at checkout. Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.   Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more. Find a transcript of this episode here.  Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Find Micha on Instagram.  Find Micha on Threads. 

When we pray, when we practice holding tight to the vision God has for the world, it makes sense that we might begin to make eye contact as a form of prayer. You are important. You matter. I see you. What is the life of loving our neighbor if it isn't the overflow of sacred love? Jonathan spent the day waiting to be seen. And my gift was that I had the longing of Holy Spirit in me, allowing me to see him, to take his hand in mine. Isnt' this the spiritual life? Presence, generosity of spirit, choosing to see ourselves as deeply loved by our Creator, and every other human we encounter as just as worthy of that love? Here's a link to Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole. Find it at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Bookshop.org. Leave a review for Blessed on Amazon here!  It's availble at 40% off the price of other booksellers at BakerBookHouse. Just use the code SLOWWAY at checkout. Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.   Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more. Find a transcript of this episode here.  Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Find Micha on Instagram.  Find Micha on Threads. 

The work of God is not just slow, it's remarkable. It's intricate. It's miraculous, precisely because it takes so much time. As I wrote last week, we are unlearning the ways of an anxious culture. When I first began this process of unlearning, I hoped it wouldn't ache to release the anxious ways I had followed all of my life. But it did ache, and it still does. Slowing our work and bodies, and attempting to realign ourselves with the rhythm of the natural world involves real risk. It can hurt. We need mentors for such a task.    Find Lore Ferguson Wilbert's new book The Understory here. Here's a link to Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole. Find it at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Bookshop.org. Leave a review for Blessed on Amazon here!  It's availble at 40% off the price of other booksellers at BakerBookHouse. Just use the code SLOWWAY at checkout. Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.   Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more. Find a transcript of this episode here.  Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Find Micha on Instagram.  Find Micha on Threads. 

Those unlearning the ways of an anxious culture are leaning into queerness as a metaphor for approaching the sacred: We are leaning into "possibilities beyond"...We're learning a new path.   Find Jonathan Merritt's children's book My Guncle and Me here. Find Queering Contemplation by Cassidy Hall here. Find the Contemplating Now podcast episode I quoted from with Therese Taylor-Stinson here. The prayer we pray in A Slow Practice can be found in The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton.  Here's a link to Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole. Find it at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Bookshop.org. Leave a review for Blessed on Amazon here!  It's availble at 40% off the price of other booksellers at BakerBookHouse. Just use the code SLOWWAY at checkout. Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.   Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more. Find a transcript of this episode here.  Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Find Micha on Instagram.  Find Micha on Threads. 

This past week I made it home for good after a wild month of traveling and speaking about my book, just in time to sit down with my toughest reader, my life companion, and my favorite guy around, Chris Hohorst, on his experience of Blessed Are The Rest of Us. We've never done this sort of thing before, and it was a delight.  A few more links! Find out more about Suzanne Stabile here. Here's a link to Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole. Find it at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Bookshop.org. It's availble at 40% off the price of other booksellers at BakerBookHouse. Just use the code SLOWWAY at checkout. Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.   Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more. Find a transcript of this episode here.  Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Find Micha on Instagram.  Find Micha on Threads. 

Last Wednesday night, I had the opportunity to gather with friends, family, and readers in the beautiful General Theological Seminary Chapel of the Good Shepherd, to talk about my new book, Blessed Are the Rest of Us. I was honored to have my friend, the beloved author Shauna Niequist, with me to chat about the process of writing the book, some of the books major themes, and even what I hope the youth group I help lead (who were also present in the room!) can take from this book.  So excited to share with you: The Blessed Are The Rest of Us Book Launch conversation, with special guest, Shauna Niequist!  Just a note, towards the end we took questions from the audience: You won't be able to  hear the Q+A questions from the audience. As best as I remember these are the questions that were asked: Who are "the rest of us"? How long did it take you to write this book? What does it look like for a church to be fully inclusive? How can we love and welcome Ace and other people with disabilities into our congregation? A few more links! Find out more about Shauna Niequist's books and other work here. Here's a link to Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole. Find it at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Bookshop.org. It's availble at 40% off the price of other booksellers at BakerBookHouse. Just use the code SLOWWAY at checkout. Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.   Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more. Find a transcript of this episode here.  Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here. Find Micha on Instagram.  Find Micha on Threads.