I recently had the joy of sitting down with my old friend Jason Clark on his podcast, Rethinking God with Tacos. It was a conversation that felt like coming home…to a place I haven’t lived in ages, but it’s nicer than I remember.
Jason is one of the best sorts of holy troublemakers, hailing from a similar ‘Spirit-filled’ charismatic location as me, but (largely) remaining there and proclaiming the scandalous good news of a Blessed Trinity who dares love and liberate the entire cosmos into a lived experience of Divine union. He catches a lot of flack from some of his co-religionists, but stewards a growing online community with grace and good humor. I recommend you hop on his email list if you’d like to stay connected with Jason + receive an eBook/audiobook selection from his vulnerable Leaving and Finding Jesus.
It’s the first time we’ve really caught up in years; Jason and I didn’t waste any time! We cover a lot of ground—from my journey as a denominational mutt through Baptist, Pentecostal, and Presbyterian streams, to encountering God anew through discovering Christian mysticism in a neighborhood house church community (of all places), changing everything for me…at the dawn of the global ‘emerging church.’
We talk about the organic metaphoric alternative to ‘deconstruction,’ which I call contemplative composting: a third way beyond either clinging to yesterday’s manna or incinerating our past entirely. Instead, we can mindfully return stale religious experiences to our inner soil, letting them become the rich humus for what’s emerging next.
Jason and I explore practical mysticism—not as navel-gazing obscurantism but (with a nod toward Evelyn Underhill) as the art of union with reality. We reflect on Centering Prayer, the importance of consent in our relationship with God, and why reestablishing a loving relationship with our own nervous systems is a vital step zero for anyone wanting to compost their faith into something steady. We touch on The Divine Dance, my collaboration with Fr. Richard Rohr, and why living from union rather than for union changes everything.
There’s also a passionate detour into why progressive Christian worship music often sounds like NPR (and not the cool tiny desk concerts), why speakin’ in tongues still has a place in my contemplative practice, and—of course—our favorite tacos.
If you’re tilling the soil between deconstructing and reconstructing, between head and heart, between letting go and holding on…this conversation might be for you.
Listen on all the platforms here, or click below to watch!
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