Reverend Libby Tedder Hugus and I have woven together the deep complexities of spirituality and wine's rich narratives. This episode is a tapestry of our life journeys, where Libby's roots in South Africa and the U.S. intertwine with her calling to forge a radically inclusive spiritual community. Together, we unpack the transformative power of generous hospitality and the paramount importance of a communal table where diverse faiths are not just tolerated but celebrated.
Our conversation meanders through the ebbs and flows of spiritual leadership and the brave decision to embrace rest and reflection, drawing insight from thinkers like Brene Brown and the enduring metaphor of Sisyphus. As Libby transitions from church leadership to the world of coaching, we explore the sacred practice of Sabbath and its counter-cultural invitation to pause from the relentless pursuit of productivity. This chapter of closure is a narrative about the courage to let go, to provide space for healing, and to discern the whispers of new beginnings amidst collective slumber keenly.
The episode is rounded out with stories of audacious goals and the exhilarating pursuit of a TEDx speaking opportunity, illustrating the potency of mental fitness coaching in unlocking our 'sage brain'. Libby's tales of wine tasting in the rolling vineyards of South Africa serve as a delightful backdrop, inspiring us to savor both the literal and figurative vineyards of our lives. Join us for a session that not only decants wisdom and wit but also pours out an invitation to embrace the diverse expressions of faith and the beauty of a church community as varied as the wines we adore.
Wines by:
https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFitnessCoachLibby
https://substack.com/@dearlybelovedroundtables
www.resonatenow.live/libby
See audio and video episodes at: https://communionwineco.com/podcast/
Find out more at: https://linktr.ee/communionwineco
Reverend Libby Tedder Hugus and I have woven together the deep complexities of spirituality and wine's rich narratives. This episode is a tapestry of our life journeys, where Libby's roots in South Africa and the U.S. intertwine with her calling to forge a radically inclusive spiritual community. Together, we unpack the transformative power of generous hospitality and the paramount importance of a communal table where diverse faiths are not just tolerated but celebrated.
Our conversation meanders through the ebbs and flows of spiritual leadership and the brave decision to embrace rest and reflection, drawing insight from thinkers like Brene Brown and the enduring metaphor of Sisyphus. As Libby transitions from church leadership to the world of coaching, we explore the sacred practice of Sabbath and its counter-cultural invitation to pause from the relentless pursuit of productivity. This chapter of closure is a narrative about the courage to let go, to provide space for healing, and to discern the whispers of new beginnings amidst collective slumber keenly.
The episode is rounded out with stories of audacious goals and the exhilarating pursuit of a TEDx speaking opportunity, illustrating the potency of mental fitness coaching in unlocking our 'sage brain'. Libby's tales of wine tasting in the rolling vineyards of South Africa serve as a delightful backdrop, inspiring us to savor both the literal and figurative vineyards of our lives. Join us for a session that not only decants wisdom and wit but also pours out an invitation to embrace the diverse expressions of faith and the beauty of a church community as varied as the wines we adore.
Wines by:
https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFitnessCoachLibby
https://substack.com/@dearlybelovedroundtables
www.resonatenow.live/libby
See audio and video episodes at: https://communionwineco.com/podcast/
Find out more at: https://linktr.ee/communionwineco
Well, hello again, my friends. Welcome to another episode of Cabernet and Pray, where we enjoy awesome wines and we talk about God and life and we just explore wherever it goes. And today our lineup includes two big boy wines and we're gonna go right for it today. So you are in for a treat if you're a wine lover. And also, we're gonna meet another super interesting person Today.
Speaker 1:My guest is Libby Teter Hugus. She is a reverend, a coach, an author and a speaker. She was the organizing pastor of the table, a radically inclusive spiritual community in Casper, wyoming. So we're making it to Wyoming today. This community has recently been tucked into slumber for a well-deserved rest after 10 years in active missional presence. She is the owner and lead mental fitness coach at Resonate Coaching. We're gonna do that. She has contributed essays to 10 anthologies and is the co-author of Marks of the Missional Church Ecclesial Practices for the sake of the World. She loves mountain air and international submersion travel and makes her home in the wild, windy Western frontier that is Wyoming. Libby believes generous hospitality can and will heal the world and that there is always room for one more around God's table. Welcome to the podcast, libby.
Speaker 2:Hey, thank you, Jeremy. It's a pleasure to be with you today.
Speaker 1:Now, is there anything else we need to know about you? I did my best in that bullet point list. Anything we missed that we need to know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that covers it. I mean, it's funny. One of the things that sometimes doesn't always come up, obviously, is the fact that I'm a dual citizen between South Africa and the United States, so my accent doesn't always give that away at the front. But I am very proudly South African and proudly American and have that in my heritage and my background.
Speaker 1:OK, so maybe we'll hear some fun words throughout the episode that will go hey, there's something there. All right, well, before we get into talking about life and ministry and theology, hold on, I didn't play right, oh no, my sound effect. There we go, there we go. That means it's time to talk about what we're drinking. Today, I am drinking something super exciting. I always love a good excuse to get out a great bottle of wine. This is a 2014,. Let's see, get on camera here. Bales Creek Estate. This is a petite sarah from Napa Valley. Napa Valley normally people think of as Cabernet Sauvignon. Obviously, petite sarah is another great one, primarily grown in California, these days getting harder and harder to find.
Speaker 1:This thing is big. I opened this up it's early afternoon where I am, and I was like, wow, I need a piece of steak or a food item to go with it. This thing is fire and all cylinders. It's got dark chocolate, black pepper, blueberries and tons of tannins, and people always ask what is that feeling? I get in the back of my mind. Or if you drink a wine that makes you pucker, right, that's the tannins. This one is loaded with tannins, so I'm going to enjoy this by itself just because we're going to have fun, but normally I'm going to save the rest of this bottle for a meal, because it needs a companion to go with this, and I think you're going to have a similar effect. Tell us what you're drinking today, libby.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's so funny when I credit where credit is due. My lovely husband helped me pick the wine. We're both connoisseurs of wine, but he's sort of the wine nerd for us, so he's the one that goes out and curates our cellar right, and he said the same thing. We had some really lovely friends who brought us some beef short rib last night. He's like we should have had this with beef short rib last night. So I'm drinking a Brunello today and it is a. I'm going to just try my best with the Italian pronunciation.
Speaker 1:You just get it all finally and go for it.
Speaker 2:Il Paradiso di Ferracina, brunello di Montecino, and it's a 2010. And Brunello's come from the San Giovesi varietal and so I was looking up a couple of things about it online and it says Brunello is an expression of San Giovesi and it's very particular to this area in Italy called Montalacino. So yeah, I actually haven't even tasted my wine. I'm going to give it a little taste and then we'll describe it. Ok, so, like on the palate, it's very mineral, like I can. Or on the nose sorry, on the nose it's really mineral. I can sort of smell the dirt, and then that comes through in some really big tannins too. One of the ways that one of the reviewers talked about it online is that it has lots of orange and fresh herbs on the nose, rose petal two, and it's a full to medium body wine. So it'll be interesting to see. And someone else has said it comes from organic grapes, which is new to me, so I'll be interesting to see how it goes over the course of our conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a lot of times, just as a general rule of thumb, when you go to old world wines, you get a lot more minerality there. When you go to New World so obviously for most of us that's American wines you get a lot more fruit flavors, and so that's just kind of a fun fact and you'll go oh, I'm drinking a French wine and this tastes different. Like well, it's probably more minerality you're tasting, but yeah, that's totally common in Italy and France and yeah, you're drinking a legit, that is a big boy wine right there. I'm so proud.
Speaker 2:You're loving it yeah.
Speaker 1:You're telling me what you're drinking. I was like, wow, this is impressive. So who doesn't see you? And I just want to say cheers. There we go.
Speaker 1:Cheers to you and to this there we go, there we go. Ok, so I want to start with a question that I ask each of our guests, and I love the answer to this because it gives people such a practical behind the scenes look at faith in real life, not just ideas on a page or in a sermon or even on a podcast, but really behind the scenes. And the question is how has your faith changed in just the last 10 years? And I don't know. I didn't know you 10 years ago, so you're going to have to give us all a little peek there, but I suspect, like most of us, you've been on a journey and you're constantly on a journey. What does that look like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, such a beautiful rear view mirror sort of question. It's fascinating because we're winding 10 years ago to like 2014,. End of 2013,. Beginning of 2014.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of change afoot in my life.
Speaker 2:I was sort of parting ways with the denomination that had raised and nurtured and educated me all the way through seminary, and so when I think about the changes that my faith journey has been on in the last year, it's really it's parallel to the work that I've done with this radically inclusive community that I know we'll be getting into describing in a little bit called the Table.
Speaker 2:It's very parallel to that journey, but it's also been what I would call like a progression of becoming that much more contextualized. So in 2014, I was about a year and a half out of seminary, and seminary and undergrad were really, on the whole, positive experiences for me, but they were also very theory-based, very head-based, very sort of intellectual, and I think my faith has become that more contextualized to the people I'm hanging out with, that more contextualized to the neighborhood I'm living in, that more contextualized to the local politics as well as what I like to call embodied. My faith journey has just become I've gotten comfortable in my own skin and in my own bones, which I think is hopefully a natural part of aging if we give ourselves the opportunity for that to be true. But then I have also looked for ways for my spiritual practice to become that much more embodied, paying attention to my lived experience, paying attention to what's my central nervous system feeling right now and, as a result of that, how am I going to show up to relate to God and relate to others?
Speaker 1:I love that answer. So you're saying when you graduated seminary you knew it all and it was all theory. And then you realize, oh, I had to figure out what actually to do with this right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's a fair question. I don't think I was coming out pompous. I think I was coming out of seminary really clear that there was plenty that I didn't know, but it had been such a heavily intellectualized process. It had been such a heavily thinking, heavy sort of work. I was reading, I was writing, I was reporting, I was discussing. Like it was just like thick in that world. I had some, really one of my. I completed a certificate in seminary, a spiritual formation certificate, which is like my jam, my happy place, and that provided sort of that counterpoint to the over intellectual intellectualization. But just coming out of seminary your head is just swirling. I mean, you've just put yourself through this really thick thinking, intensive experience and so the last 10 years have been a much more like discovery of how I and my personality show up to my faith.
Speaker 1:I love that answer and I might need to clip this because I actually teach seminary classes. I find so often that students are what you're describing they have all this intellectual knowledge and then even when they write papers, a lot of the classes I teach are very hands-on the practical. It's like literally the practice of ministries one of the courses, homo-letics the practice of preaching. These are how you get these ideas into real time and you realize they don't know how to do that for most of the time. They don't know how to take these ideas and go. What do you actually? How does that actually manifest in a community expression? I love hearing you talk of that's what you've been spending time doing. That's hopefully the goal for everybody graduating seminary. Most people who graduate are not as humble as you, as I have found. They usually think I know exactly how to do all of this and I'll tell you.
Speaker 2:I won't ever pretend to know things.
Speaker 1:All right, let's get into some of what you've been doing the last 10 years. You were the organizing pastor at the table, and that is about a 10-year run, as I understand it. What did you love about that role? What did you not love about that role?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so good.
Speaker 2:So the table was this experiment in expressing church and embodying church and being church in ways that are different than what the scholars would call the inherited church, like the church that has been in process for thousands of years.
Speaker 2:And so I loved the risky, entrepreneurial, experimental side of that ministry.
Speaker 2:And I loved because we were called the table. We had really discerned this shared, common table space of shared food, shared nourishment, shared spiritual pursuits. So I loved being the one who got to set the metaphysical table, the metaphorical table of, hey, like where's God at work right now and how are we aware of that and how are we going to internalize that and then become the kind of people that we want to become in the world? The parts that I did not like about that role were the difficulty of figuring out the administrative side of how to keep it rolling. So we sort of knew early on that there was some ways that this ministry was really sort of blossoming and growing, but bringing on the right sort of staff to come alongside of that growth was really really hard because of how to pay those people properly, and so in the end I had become sort of a de facto executive director of a nonprofit which is not my calling, and that became a really big drain on what otherwise had been a phenomenally life-giving experience for me.
Speaker 1:Now, did you move to Wyoming for that role, or you were in Wyoming and then that kind of blossomed out of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no. So I had moved to Wyoming because of the man that I love who I ended up marrying, and he and I. He had moved via a couple stops from Pittsburgh, pittsburgh, pennsylvania back to Wyoming in the 2008-2009 economy crash. So he had finished law school, couldn't find work anywhere else, came back home to where he was raised, and then I moved out, as I was sort of finishing seminary, from Kansas City, missouri to here because he had found work here and in both our respective communities we had been a part of faith communities that had a food sharing practice, and so we, together with our housemates, started something called Super Tuesdays S-O-U-P-E-R in the winter months, where we just hosted folks in our home for a big old pot of soup and a big old, freshly baked couple loaves of bread.
Speaker 2:And it was out of those conversations that we were having around our dinner table that I was beginning to realize that there was this whole segment of our acquaintances that were really hungry for spiritual spaces and were not getting it in traditional church.
Speaker 2:And so, to make a very intensive story very abbreviated, as I was leaving the denomination that raised, nurtured and educated me, I had sort of made friends there, and dupitously, with some female ministers in various traditions, one of which was the Presbyterian Church USA, and at that time this movement within the Presbyterian Church USA, called a thousand and one New Worshiping Communities, was happening. One of those ministers in town was like hey, we're having this like discovery weekend about this thing. Come, listen in. So I came and listened in, come to find out, the guy who was leading it knew Jeremy, my husband's pastor from Pittsburgh, and so it started. It snowballed into this whole conversation about you should come listen in to what we're doing with this network. And then that network basically just like opened doors and opened doors and open doors for me to participate in, exploring whether or not I could lead with them, and it became a home base for me.
Speaker 1:Love that because when I, when I read about your church's journey, yeah, I would not guess it's located in Wyoming. And I say that with the, with the. I need to admit I've never been to Wyoming, at least that I can remember, so I don't have a great grasp of it. I just have an idea of what I think Wyoming is. And then I was reading about this community. I'm going Wyoming. Really, like you know, I pastored in Portland, oregon, where it sounds like this was this is something you'd read in Portland. You know, it's just not not necessarily Wyoming, but this is. This is what intrigued me. I want to read something from the website that I thought, wow, this is super interesting. And I want to hear, I want to hear about this. You guys go with this.
Speaker 1:The table practiced radically inclusive welcome of the many wisdom traditions that grew from the. God is love, taproot, learning from and being blessed by Judaism, buddhism, the Baha'i faith, the yoga tradition, hinduism, islam and many others. That is a heck of a statement. So my question is how did that go? Like, okay, I'm just so intrigued. What? How did that go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm as surprised as you are, jeremy, so let's start there. Yeah, again, this comes back to that contextualized piece of my own faith journey that then, I think, got to blossom within the shared faith community. That was the table. So a little bit of a backstory, as, as the initial discernment team, that sort of gathered to do some brainstorming around, hey, what is this? How do we give life to this sort of gathered?
Speaker 2:We recognize that there's this, there's this phrase that's used in mission of theology, called the nuns and the dunes, and by that I mean the folks for whom spiritual tradition has never really been their thing but spiritual curiosity has been done, our folks for whom religious tradition has become irrelevant for many reasons, or they've been abused out, oppressed out, you know, left because it's no longer relevant.
Speaker 2:It's a spectrum of folks for whom we had a tagline in our community, called doubters and disciples together, where we no longer put emphasis on doubt as a bad thing but as a holy thing.
Speaker 2:And so, as we began to listen to this hunger among the nuns and the dunes, we were like what would it look like to to just open the doors and say y'all come and mean it and so surprisingly there's this like little underground of religiously diverse people in Casper that wanted to hang out with us and wanted to figure it out. So there were folks for whom the Jesus story was very, very familiar and very much a system of faith and belief that mattered to them. There were folks for whom the Jesus story was completely unfamiliar but they saw in us sort of the intergenerational Mr Rogers neighborhood like Mr Rogers was very much like a guru and an icon for us through which we saw our faith practice. They saw us being good neighbors and they wanted to participate in increasing the good neighborhood in their, in their context in Casper. And so it just became like this blossoming curiosity among our group where we were willing to be influenced by these folks that brought all of these varied backgrounds to the Jesus conversation.
Speaker 1:So did you ever have, like I don't know, a church hopper shopping around churches, not really understanding where they were going? Pop in on a Sunday and go what the hell is this? And then send you a nasty email like that a regular thing or no?
Speaker 2:you know, thank goodness, I'm trying to like rack my brain. I Don't know that we ever had that sort of In that sort of Nastyness. But there were folks that would come and hang out and be like, oh, like not for us, or like they would have conversations with me. They'd be like, can you tell us more? And like you know, we'd go grab a cup of tea or coffee or whatever, and and I would share the thing with them and they were like, well, that's not, that's not our Comfortable space. And and I had to get comfortable Saying to them like this isn't going to be everybody's cup of tea and if it isn't like that, that is a okay for us. Like we want you to find the place that's that roots you down and nourishes your system and your spiritual practice. So, like, go for it. Like permission granted right, which was very much a part of our culture, sort of that, that permission to be who God has made us to be, sort of Open-hearted, open hand posture.
Speaker 1:I love that. You know I was at a. I was at a wine festival this weekend and I was pouring wine for a Winery that I'm friends with the owners and the wine the wine maker happened to be there that day and so you know, he and I are saying there and we're pouring these wines and people are walking in, you know, at this festival, having no clue, you know anything. They're just trying a bunch of different wines and not realizing, probably, that they're trying this wine and the guy across the table Is the one that made the wine. You know that, yeah, and they would just react. You know just these real like oh, I don't like that, or this is too spicy, or I mean what, just, and most of it was really good. But you know just these raw reactions. Well, they walked away and I look at them and I said that's got to be a lot for you to sit here, like you have into making these different. You know bottles and they know they're talking to. They're just reacting off the cuff like does that ever, you know, really affect you?
Speaker 1:And he had such an amazing Reaction. He goes. No, he goes. You know, I've just learned he's like it's not for everybody and he goes I make the wine that I really like and I think is really good and Not there's no wine that everybody's gonna universally like and so if it's not, you know he said, if they they don't like my Malbec, I'll say, hey, go down to tense over, they have a Malbec you might really like. And it was such a cool response and I'm just hearing echoes of that and you going this is what we're doing and I'm totally cool with it, and if it's not for you, like you. But it seems like we have a hard time with that. When it comes to faith, we seem to be saying I'm not, this wine isn't for me, but there's something wrong if the church community isn't for me. Right?
Speaker 2:totally well and like how freeing for your winemaker friend to own that and to let go of the need to be liked and Accept that his wine isn't gonna be for everybody. Cool, like I think that that posture applies to the faith communities and the churches as well that we would just create space to accept that. There it like variety is built into the creative narrative of God, like variety is built into it, and so it's much more freeing to just be like we're gonna do this as faithfully as we know how and we're gonna co-dissern this and it's gonna be. It's gonna be co-led, but it does not have to be a One-size-fits-all.
Speaker 1:Love that that's so good. So one of the things on the website you you are very poetic with your wording, so I'm assuming most of this is driven from you there's this phrase says if the history of the table is like a river, then the leadership encountered boulders that blocked financial and energetic flow, which is such a great metaphor and way of explaining that journey lots.
Speaker 1:You communicate lots through that. My question to you is how did that Effect you personally, when you were so passionate about this work? How did it? How did it feel to be the leader? Obviously, this is more than a job to you and you're, you're. This river that is so beautiful and so life-giving is Encountering boulder after boulder. What is that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, that was from a blog and a letter that I had written to our community as we were sort of as the board Was sort of communicating to our community like the reason for our needing to back away and slumber. And I Mean there it's just been such a Mixed emotion sort of experience for me to recognize, okay, there are some very real boulders In inhibiting the flow of our mission and the flow of our ministry. Like let's pay attention to that. So my community sort of incessantly heard me quote Brene Brown. She's sort of like our other like Emotions guru and vulnerability guru, right, and she talks about how we can feel two complicated things at once.
Speaker 2:And so when I hear you ask me this question about, like, how did it feel to To experience these boulders, it was a both and like.
Speaker 2:I felt an immense amount of grief that the mission that had been so near and dear to my heart and the heart of hundreds of people that had invested in us for 10 years Was coming to a close. But I also felt relief and clarity that to keep To use the analogy of the Greek Myth of Sisyphus like to keep pushing a rock up a hill and get nowhere is not a faithful response to what God is asking of us right now. And so the relief of saying we're done for right now was really, really important. And so I mean, I'm still in the process of grieving the loss of this community, and I know I will be for a long time, but it doesn't mean that the, the, the original call wasn't valid or that the work that we did for 10 years wasn't valid. All of that Was so important and so fruitful, and now, to like use gospel narrative, it's time for me to let the seeds, like, bear fruit where they're supposed to bear fruit. Right.
Speaker 1:So, in that the way you describe this journey is so unique to me and, again, I've never heard a church use the kind of language that that you guys are you, you describe it as the community has been tucked into slumber for a well-deserved rest. It is so great. Now, that's such a unique and beautiful way to describe it. How did you arrive at this language? How did this become the way? Was this intuitive for you guys? Because this is not I. I've spent many a year in the church world and I don't hear churches talk like this. Where did this language come from?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, to start with, sometimes I mean, this was in the same blog that you just referenced and sometimes the holiest thing that we can do is sleep on it, like if we pay attention to the natural rhythms of our embodied human experience, we have to eat every day, we have to drink water every day and we have to sleep every day, like if we don't do those three things, we die. And so, right, really crazy things start to happen when we're lacking sleep, food and water, and like I mean they talk like science tells us like you go into psychosis when you don't sleep. And so science also tells us like when we sleep, our brain is getting rid of the toxicities that built up that day and Is giving us a fresh start on how we need to wake up with a fresh start. So for us, there was a lot of Heartache that went into this decision. There was a lot of stuckness that went into this decision. I mean, again, that Cisophist thing of like pushing a rock up a hill was very prevalent in our community for a long time, and so what we did Because this was this was a, this was a, a practice that mattered very much to our community we went away on retreat and we brought in a facilitator, thank goodness, a colleague of mine here in our Presbyterian Wyoming.
Speaker 2:She and I were having a conversation going into this retreat and she was so wise, because she knows that I work as a pastor and a coach and she was like Libby, like this is too close for you to coach your Community through this. This means too much to you. And I was like you are so right. And so we brought in a facilitator. This facilitator is extremely gifted and she facilitated the conversation for us on retreat.
Speaker 2:So we were away from our normal space, we were praying, we were listening, we were grieving, we were raging, we were lamenting, we were doing all the things and we were trying to find a Narrative around why we felt like we needed to pause. And then it came to us, like what I just described to you about the natural rhythms so right, like the earth has seasons, the body needs to rest, like this is natural to how God has created us and created creation. So before we just like quit and like, sell everything and stop, and before we rush into some unhealthy decision, let's take a pause, let's breathe, let's sleep, let's rest. And so it's not entirely clear to our board that the mission is over. Before we can discern if the mission is over, we need to Tuck ourselves into bed and stop being awake and like, say thank you, god for the day. And then and then like, while we're dreaming, like the Bible talks about dreams over and over again, right, like there were multiple times where spiritual revelations came in dreams.
Speaker 2:And so, while we're sleeping and dreaming and, to use Barbara Brown Taylor's words, learning to walk in the dark, like there's a whole another faith practice that happens when it's dark and when you're not forcing the light of day to be the thing that you're that's guiding you. So we're just trying to be faithful, you know and and really see. Like when the Sun rises on this sunset and the new light of day is there and our brain has been washed of all the toxicity, like, is God saying it's clear, you can move on. Or is God saying that was a heck of a day of labor. Good job, you're done. Like we need. We need the opportunity to be able to do that Like we need. We need the opportunity to really hear that. And I think the final thing I'll say about this is that it's really, really key for any church in any discernment space To say not everything has to last forever. There's no law about all of the things existing in perpetuity.
Speaker 1:So good. I can't even tell you how many conversations I get in with with pastors and, and you realize, at some point in the conversation there is this built-in assumption that whatever we do, we cannot let a church community die. And you know, I and the intent I think is good behind it. But you realize, as you're saying, like you're robbing this, this aspect of life that that we know is there, and we're pretending like it doesn't exist. And I just think you guys are onto something I love the image of, because we all know this right, there are days that just suck and you get to the end of the day and you're like I'm just shutting it down for today, I'm going to bed, my head's not in a good space, I'm emotionally all over the place and we're gonna take this again tomorrow and I think all of us know that feeling and for you to say it as a Community is so beautiful it's really Really healthy.
Speaker 2:And when you were saying that, the other thing that popped into my brain which is why my mouth opened was like this is why Sabbath is written into our theological codes, like, again to quote Barbara Brown Taylor. Barbara Brown Taylor says to practice Sabbath is to practice little deaths every week. It's like saying we are going to take ourselves off the hook of productivity and the myth that we manifest the things that we're called to Like. That has nothing to do with the God that is called us to faithful work. So, like you said, like it's such a healthy thing to come to that realization, let ourselves off of that hook and be like. That day was really hard. And now we're just going to be quiet for a minute.
Speaker 1:Let's reset, let's let's go night night, because that was a lot. Okay, one more question on this and then we'll keep going on new things. But again, I love, I've just drawn to the way you guys are describing this you this is from the website in order to realign and answer wholeheartedly the question who are we? We are sunsetting this chapter of the tables history in order to allow the co-creative energy of coming back into alignment with mission and motivation to be restored in rest and sleep and quiet, just again, all the things you're, you're, you're explaining to us.
Speaker 1:My question is what does this practically look like now? What does it look like to wake up the next morning and revisit? Because I think people understand, okay, you can say we had a good run, let's close it down, wrap that up. I think maybe someone might be intrigued going how do you wake up the next morning and reevaluate it? But you know you put it to sleep, but it's like what does it look like now? What is? Yeah, are you still in regular conversations with your board? Yeah, talk through that process. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So this, this was tough for us when we are trying to figure it out, because when it comes to human sleep, we've got sunset and sunrise right, so like there's some boundaries there that you know like okay, sunsetting, it's time to get in bed. Oh, sun's up, time to start again. So that that part was not clear to us, other than saying we have a sense that this needs to be sort of a sustained thing. There was some moral injuries that we had encountered as a community, connected to some interpersonal drama, a mental health crisis in one of our staff members and the financial piece that felt like such huge, out of our control sorts of things that we didn't really know at the time that we declared the slumber and sunset how long we needed to rest. So we sort of put a loose timeframe on it and said it needs to be through lent of next year, and so very, very practically what that looks like is there are no more public gatherings of worship, there are no more public facing programming.
Speaker 2:The board is meeting once a month to just work out the little bits and pieces of like business things that need to be addressed. Like you know, we closed down where we used to lease a venue and we were working out. We were working out the details of another building we thought we were going to take a hold of but now we're not taking hold of. So there's just like businessy things that have to be done. But we're also asking ourselves discernment questions in prayerful consideration every time we meet.
Speaker 2:And then we actually gave the book by Barbara Brown Taylor, learning to Walk in the Dark to our core folks that were with us at our final gathering, and so folks are reading that and we've asked them, like as they have epiphanies or as they have insights or questions, to drop a line to me. I'm done officially in my pastoral role at the end of December, so the board has welcomed a switch in my presence to them as a regular board member, starting in January, just to sort of ride out this sunset period and then, like, come March-y-ish, we'll sort of have another conversation of like are we ready to discuss if there is a sunrise At this point? But we're sort of like it's almost like we're in REM cycle together. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Like we're allowing ourselves to sort of like like calm down, like down, regulate the nervous system, like really take it slow, listen to the dreams that God is giving us and paying attention to the energy, so yeah, I thought it was cool that you invite people on the website even after it's, you know, closed, or sunset, or however we call it to, to, you know, contribute something, or hey, here's an idea I have. Here's something. I sense God doing anything. That's really cool. What was the collective response from the community? Was this really well received? Were there people having a hard time with it?
Speaker 2:Both and again. So so there were some folks for whom this was like not a surprise at all, Like they had joined, they had journeyed with us through the hardship of the financial questions. They had journeyed with us through the hardship of the staffing questions, like they were they're aware, they're smart, they're like humans with brains, you know. And then there were some folks for whom this was a big loss and pastorally that was really hard for me. We had one couple who sort of found us on our website Speaking of people church shopping as we were about to have that retreat, and they're like hey, like we think you might be the church for us, like when can we do this?
Speaker 1:And I wrote them back and I was like this is going to be awkward.
Speaker 2:And so like was just brutally honest with them. I was like, hey, we're in this massive transition, like, can I meet you for a cup of coffee? Told him the story and it ended up being that their family ended up having a very intensive cancer diagnosis about I can't remember the exact timeline, but it was a very, very, very, very exact timeline but but maybe like three weeks after our final gathering, and so I was still able to just like be pastorally present to them and love them where they were at, despite the fact that they couldn't be a part of our community. Right, so it's been both and.
Speaker 2:And we had a really beautiful final gathering where we actually took a ritual that the facilitator that had given us in our board retreat and we reapplied it to our final gathering where we had a bonfire and we invited folks to do a practice that had been a root practice, a ritual for us in our community called the circle of hearing, where they were able to say I am losing fill in the blank and I am trusting fill in the blank, and sort of give them a narrative for going into the slumber. And then they wanted the community to hear that they could say that out loud and then burn the piece of paper and sort of ritualize the grief right Of that experience. And it was such. It was such a holy like loving. It was holy ground. It was loving like people were just raw and honest with their grief. And now we're in this awkward in between space of being there, not together.
Speaker 1:Well, it just sounds like you are doing something very hard, very challenging, very heavy with all the emotions, and you're doing with such emotional intelligence and care and empathy. And just hearing the way you navigate the story and again, I think anyone who has sat in the church office and tried to do the things that you're doing and knows the complexities of the behind the scenes it's just incredible to hear that story, and so I just I applaud the way your community has handled it, the way you continue to handle it, the way you navigate it with such grace and humility is it's a really beautiful picture, I think, of the church and you're modeling a unique way forward that hopefully a lot of other churches take note of, and it adds options to what God may be inviting them to experience as well.
Speaker 2:Thank you, jeremy. I really want to acknowledge how much that, how much you just witnessed my experience and what that means to me, like it's very powerful to be witnessed that way and to be affirmed that way. Something that I have not anticipated, that I actually think is going to be a part of the fruit bearing of this slumber, is the opportunity to tell this story and to tell the way that we attempted to do this as faithfully and as imperfectly as we could. I actually am going to have the opportunity in early March of next year to give a workshop around how we discerned at the end of our season and I did not anticipate that like piece of my ministry and I'm actually kind of pumped that our story can help other folks do that hard listening, discernment work.
Speaker 1:So good. I think you have a gift to share with the church. Okay, so now you're pivoting. You're pivoting from pastoral work in a local church setting to pastoral work as a self-employed coach. Why change of role?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, this is a fun story. This is like this is less heavy, but still really, but still, I think, really important. So when I joined this network within the Presbyterian Church, usa called a thousand and one new worshiping communities. It's their, it's their denominational effort to create spaces for creative expressions of church to be empowered.
Speaker 2:One of the requirements was coaching that you be coached, and that actually was one of the healthy indicators to me when I joined this network, that like, okay, these folks not only take this work seriously, but they know it needs to be well resourced. And so I started out with a coach and then I was invited to join their coaching network. So I was trained in their coaching network, which became like such a fun, like sweet spot for me, like working with other new worshiping communities, leaders, listening to their stories, helping them move through their stories. And then, in 2020, that same coaching network sort of upped their game a little bit to provide the opportunity for their coaches network to become certified with International Coach Federation, which was a great way to sort of like legitimize and professionalize the work that we were doing as coaches. So I jumped on that and it transformed me, and then I had the opportunity to join a program called positive intelligence, which we'll talk about that in a minute connected to the mental fitness part of all of this. So this sort of became like a side gig for me, like I was basically being paid as an independent contractor to coach with folks and just timing wise, my max clientele was somewhere between like four and six. That's just what I could handle alongside of the, the, the pastoring work.
Speaker 2:Well, as all of this began to roll out that like wow, I'm not going to be a pastor anymore In sort of the traditional church setting, it just became clear to me like coaching is such a sweet spot for me and this is actually a way to serve pastorally and serve the church and beyond the church for sure, but to serve the church in a way that is.
Speaker 2:I mean, coaching just has this way of being a container for helping folks sharpen their inner abilities and their inner motivations, and so the way that it turned into like doing it in the official pastoral capacity was sort of a serendipity of the spirit and a serendipity of grace.
Speaker 2:I was participating in a symposium in September representing New Archbishop and Communities Pastors had a conversation with a woman who's a Presbyterian Church pastor, but she is an author, so she does not have a church and she got it approved through the sort of denominational polity sorts of ways to wear that author's hat in a pastoral way. And so she was like you can do that as a coach, and I was like I can. She was like you can't, and so I like went and did all the investigative stuff with our board of pensions and then I made a proposal to sort of the mid-council committee that oversees these conversations in our Presbytery, and they were super jazzed about it and I've had multiple conversations with them about coaching already, and so it was really honestly like pure mercy that that conversation happened in September and I saw a way to not only sort of entrepreneurialize my business as a coach but have it legitimized and grounded in my pastoral identity.
Speaker 1:Hmm, Love it. So now you refer to yourself as a mental fitness coach Another great place I'm learning. Yeah, what does that mean? Right, I understand physical fitness. What is mental fitness?
Speaker 2:Totally so. I like to talk about this in a Venn diagram. So if you think about sort of the overlapping Venn diagram of three circles, one of those circles being mental health, one of those circles being mental wellness and one of those circles being or over here mental fitness, they all overlap around like one human brain. So in my personal experience, my mental health can be affected by biology, by diagnoses. My mental fitness can be affected by trauma, by, you know, the way that my brain chemistry sort of is already set up, so I go see a therapist to help me work with my own neurobiology. You know, mental wellness is sort of the circle of the things that feed your overall wellness as a human being. Like you know, garbage in, garbage out, like what you eat is what you are, what you drink is what you are, and so paying attention to you know, am I exercising every day? Am I, you know, praying every day? Am I taking time? I'm a parent, so am I taking time where I'm not having to be on my parenting game, right, and I'm just feeding and nourishing the things that nourish me? And then mental fitness is the training of your brain, just like physical fitness, to engage the parts of your brain that offer you sage wisdom. Okay, so let me give this one more analogy and then ask me as many questions as you want.
Speaker 2:In August, my husband and I set a big, hairy, audacious goal to climb the Grand Teton, which is the highest mountain in the Teton range. It's somewhere in the 13,000. It's not quite a 14,000, or I think it's like 13,700 and something. Well, part of the approach that we were going to take was a rock climbing approach. There's another approach that you can take that doesn't require as much technical equipment. I have been in a rock climbing harness before this experience once in my life. So in order to go climb this mountain, I had to hire people who know how to rock climb and be like tell me how to rock climb so that when I put on the harness and I'm up on that silly mountain and I'm exposed at 13,000 feet and I'm sort of mentally freaking out like I need muscle memory to know how to climb this mountain and to put on the harness and to climb the rope and to get off the carabiner and I need to be able to be exposed to rock climb.
Speaker 2:So mental fitness coaching, then, is just a way. It's a system that I've learned through this beautiful thing called positive intelligence that teaches you about your baseline saboteurs. So I'm pointing back here to the base of my brain, where our amygdala lives, which is where fight, flight, freeze or fawn comes from. And so when I'm in those patterns, I can become aware of those patterns and then I can quiet the volume on those saboteur patterns and say to them like I see you, people, pleaser, I see you hyper vigilant. I'm going to ask you to take it down a couple of notches so that I can up level my sage brain and activate creative thinking, exploration, navigation, innovation.
Speaker 2:So this is where the positive intelligence things thing comes in and I've absolutely been loving exploring that, not only for my personal well-being and mental fitness, but then working with clients and watching them say like oh, that's why I get stuck in that excuse making loop all of the time. And now that I know that loop I can. So those loops are always going to be there, because that's brain evolution, like that's our brains, and to survive. But I can say to that voice that that catches me in my excuse making loops, like I see you, and we're going to quiet you so I can. I can move through the state in a slightly healthier way.
Speaker 1:We're going to deal with you too. We're getting to you Just watching you light up. As you explained. Your answer to that question is exciting for your future. Yeah, something you're obviously very passionate about, and yeah, sounds legit. You sold me Very good.
Speaker 2:Sweet, sweet.
Speaker 1:On that note, I think it's time for a drink break. Okay, After the drink break, I love asking people a wine question and the goal of this question like I have heard all sorts of answers, Libby and I'm from the really impressive to the really hilarious that the goal is to find. Is there a moment that you can think of in your own wine journey and I got to say, after the wine you chose, I'm expecting big things from the same thing, no pressure. Is there a moment where the way I like to say it, where the stars aligned and just that perfect wine, in that perfect moment where you took a sip and he's went oh, this, this is incredible. Do you have a moment like that? Is there something that comes to mind? What's your favorite experiences with wine?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is such a lovely question and such a good brain break. So the one that's coming to mind for me right now is the way that wine essentially, if we allow it to and this is not going to surprise you at all, given my wordiness is basically narrative. Right, it's narrative to varietal soil, the seasons that it grows in, who curates it, who makes it, and then how it's paired with food. And this is like where I get the most jazzed is the pairing of wine with food. So I'm remembering a moment that my husband and I just got to have together. That was really, really special in South Africa, so I'm half South African.
Speaker 2:We were visiting my folks this last end of December January so January 2023. And we went to this beautiful winery in Cape Town there's really good wine country in South Africa where there was a restaurant that's a Michelin star restaurant and we're like super nerdy about food, and so we went to this restaurant and it's called La Colombe, which means the dove, and everything about this experience was magical art, like you walk in and just from the time that you are there, they're painting a picture for you and you sit down and they've got a little note from the chef on the table and we did two different wine pairings. We did a world wine pairing and then a South Africa wine pairing with our courses, and so every course came with a wine pairing. So one of the silliest moments of this meal they were so playful with it was at the fish course of this fancy meal. They brought out an entirely black wine glass for each of us with a wine inside of it and said you have to guess the wine.
Speaker 2:And then the pairing was inside of like what looked like sort of an old school tuna can where you like pop the tab and then you like peel back the tuna tab, but then inside of this can is this like beautifully plated fish dish, you know. And so we, you are like smelling the wine and tasting the wine, but you can't see if it's white, you can't see if it's red, you can't see, like, what color it is, and we guessed the right varietal for the wrong cup. So like we just like I mean we got it completely wrong. But it was so lovely I mean the overall night and the pairings were so lovely but that moment of like having your senses taken away of sight and having to just go with nose and palate was a really fun challenge, so that's the one that comes to mind for me.
Speaker 1:What a fun experience. I love that. That would be. That would be super cool, yeah, okay, now, now we're going to get into the speed round, where I'm going to ask you a whole bunch of questions and just see, see where you go with it. Okay, so that's something that is blowing your mind right now.
Speaker 2:You know, not surprisingly, because my life is sort of in this very flux state of change.
Speaker 2:I think the thing that is blowing my mind is that life is only change. Okay, so when the images from the James Webb satellite there's a different word for it Space station came out of, like looking at the most intricate, farthest away images of the stars that we've seen, and all of these recent scientific discoveries in the last three or four years about how, like they're listening to the sound waves at the edge of the universe, that prove that the universe is expanding Philosophically, where I go with, that is, I am change, like I consist of change. So I think the thing that's blowing my mind because my life has changed right now and I'm the parent of these beautiful little human beings who are currently ages three and six, and like their life has changed we see it so clearly in littles, but it's applicable to all of our lives Like the thing that's blowing my mind is like changes all I have. And so how am I going to be a person who lives in that change Love?
Speaker 1:it. That's very good. What do you see as the main issues facing Christianity in America today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think Christians have lost sight, on the whole, of paying attention to the narratives that Jesus was actually inviting us into, and that then turns into an issue of needing to control the narrative or be in charge of the narrative or have power over the narrative, and being scared, frankly, of the change that I just spoke about.
Speaker 1:Right. What do you see as some of the main issues facing the church in America today, especially as someone who's creatively navigated it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to sound like a repeated, a broken record, and I don't mind, because I think this is true. Resistance to change is hurting the church. Resistance to open-hearted exploration of what of the future God is inviting us into and the mission that God has invited us to help tend to, in our world, in our neighborhoods, in our hunt, our globe Resisting that is getting the church into a ton of trouble right now.
Speaker 1:I agree. What's a problem that you're trying to solve? Hmm?
Speaker 2:I mean, as I shift into this coaching business, what I really want to solve is people's ability to see themselves as good and ability to see themselves as capable, Like. I want folks to know that, yes, that they're 100% responsible for the lives that they're living, and I want them to come from a place of like you are loved, you are good, you are worthy, you are capable, Like. Let's start there as we aim for the change that you're attempting to harness in your life.
Speaker 1:Oh, that is. We could do a whole episode on that, because that is one of my pet peeves is how the church has become the opposite of that, where those, the people who go to church, are the ones who constantly have their self esteem beaten down. You know over and over again and how ugly you are and awful you are. But guess what? I got good news and just as funny you reminded me last night my daughter and I were grocery shopping and there was one of those little money tracks, you know, looks like a fake million dollar bill or something in the shopping cart and it absolutely like tricked my daughter. She's, she's 11. And she's like, oh, dad, look at this. It got really excited. And I'm like, oh gosh. And so she's like there's money in here and I'm like, no, that's not money. I'm like that's, that's a Christian trying to trick someone. And she's like, no, it looks like money.
Speaker 1:And so we have this whole conversation, like in the middle of grocery shopping, where I'm like there are some Christians that think this is the best way. And she goes why would they do that? And I'm like I don't know. And I said you know, I could probably tell you what's on that card is you're awful and you're going to hell and you do this now, but good news, if you know, except Jesus. And so, like we're walking the aisles, I'm looking for groceries, she's like, mentally checked out, she's just reading this card, following me around and she's like, yeah, it is. It is kind of that, you know, and it was just like this, sad, like this is what it's become. But this is why I feel such a passion to to empower other people and other expressions and show people that's not the only way. The million dollar bill in the shopping cart isn't the only option we have available to us.
Speaker 2:So, yes, keep, keep following that curiosity.
Speaker 1:What's something you're excited about right now?
Speaker 2:Great question. Okay, obviously, I lit up around the coaching business. I'm super stoked to try it. I'm also excited to be part of the program in order to give a TEDx talk. So you know there's a difference between like the TED organization and then TEDx talks. So TEDx talks are locally organized and this has been sort of like niggling around in me for a hot minute and I finally found a program that does a really phenomenal job of like funneling you through the process and they have a ton of experience and they've coached a bunch of people to land stages. I'm in the middle of that right now and I am stoked that 2024 is going to be the year that I land a TEDx stage.
Speaker 1:Nice way to go. Is it in Wyoming?
Speaker 2:Okay, so not necessarily so. The way that this program works is that you know they're locally organized, all over you. They coach you to apply for as many as you possibly can. So what the averages are like, it takes about 86 applications to land a stage. That's not true for everybody, but Wyoming being slightly isolated, I think we have one current TEDx stage organization that's available to apply for, so I will apply for that one, but I will also apply anywhere and everywhere that I can. Nice.
Speaker 1:That's very cool. Is there anything else you want to add that I have not asked you about? You've got to get into.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've covered a lot of really beautiful grounds. I don't believe so. I don't believe so.
Speaker 1:Okay. How can our audience find out more about what you're doing? Where do they go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So right now I think the best way to connect with me is via my website, which is just resonate now, dot live. Resonate now, dot live I'm. I will be building out some sort of social media spaces in the new year and just haven't gotten there yet, but we'll get there soon. There was a short lived um sub stack based podcast that I co hosted with a co minister of mine at the beginning of last year called dearly beloved round tables, and so that's available on stuff on sub stack and I think you're going to put a link to that in the show notes. Um, so for now I think the website is the best way to go find me, and that website does list quite a bit of writing and anthologies and blogs and things like that that I've contributed to in the past.
Speaker 1:And then also you got a YouTube channel right.
Speaker 2:Yes, again, this is still being built, but that'll be, primarily yeah, that'll be primarily connected to the coaching business.
Speaker 2:So the goal there is to sort of meld social media and YouTube content both, with some people like the longer form content, some folks like the shorter form content, um, but but really building both of those spaces out. The YouTube channel is live right now and has a couple videos that are up, so you're very welcome to go hang out with me in that space. But, um, come, come, find me at will and look out for that TEDx talk too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we gotta, we gotta follow up on that. Well, hey, it has been great to get to know you a little bit today. We got connected through a mutual friend and I love meeting very interesting people who are following Jesus in beautiful and creative ways. And I love your story, I love the way you're being faithful, I love the way you're handling it and, uh, yeah, I'm just stoked that we got to share the story with more people today and, uh, and hopefully, more people get their own ideas of what God may be calling them to do in their own community. So thank you so much for taking the time to do this, this podcast, with us.
Speaker 2:You got it, jeremy. Thank you for the space and thank you for the the hospitality that this particular podcast provides folks like myself, and I know others to be curious around their faith practices and their, their rooted system and how they relate to God. It's it's a real joy to be with you today.
Speaker 1:Awesome. All right, friends, we hope you loved this conversation as much as I did. We got to explore all sorts of things. The church is beautiful and big and diverse, and we don't just need one expression of it. So hopefully today you're encouraged that there's lots of different ways that we can experience Jesus together. We'll catch you next time on Cabernet and Pray.