Creative and Free

Poetry puts the past in perspective, positions us in the here and now, and propels us toward what is possible. Host Christina Hubbard shares three poems that have the power to sustain through trying times and give hope. Poems include: "Everything Will Be Alright" by Derek Mahon, "Thanks" by T.S. Merwin, and "For Those Who Have Far to Travel" by Jan Richardson. To get podcast updates, poetry, helpful links on art and faith, and a FREE MEDITATION, subscribe to Christina's letter at christinahubbard.com.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

We can learn to see God anywhere. Author and spiritual director Charlotte Donlon leads us in a spiritual practice called divine drawing. Using a story from her book The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other, Charlotte helps us engage our senses and memories to discover God in familiar places. Allow 20-30 minutes for the practice. Charlotte is the artist of the month. Check our Part 1 and Part 2 of our interview: The Privilege of Shared Loneliness. Links: Charlotte’s book: The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. Find her at charlottedonlon.com and on Twitter and Instagram @charlottedonlon. Share this podcast with a friend!  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

What if your loneliness was space meant for God? Charlotte Donlon and I continue the conversation about sharing the universal burden of loneliness in Part 2. She also reads a chapter from her book: The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. Other things we talk about include: Grief, loss, and Advent, The joys of having books and family around, Practical ways we can share loneliness with God and others, Inviting God into our creative spaces, How the arts help us to really see. Links: Charlotte’s book: The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. Find her at charlottedonlon.com and on Twitter and Instagram. Leave a review via Apple Podcasts/Itunes: : https://apple.co/3gB9leH. These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

There should be no only in lonely. Author, spiritual director, and podcast host, Charlotte Donlon believes its a privilege to share our stories of loneliness, including her own. She joins the podcast as artist of the month. We chat about her first book, The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. Other things we talk about include: Becoming a writer later in life. Paying attention to God during spiritual conversation. When rejection launched her deeper into her own loneliness. Her decision to live authentically with bipolar disorder. How gratitude helps us grieve well. Links: Charlotte’s book: The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. Find her at charlottedonlon.com and on Twitter and Instagram. Leave a review via Apple Podcasts/Itunes: : https://apple.co/3gB9leH.. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

Compassion allows a person to suffer with another. As creative influencers, we have an amazing power to share bits of ourselves through our creations: a joy, a heartbreak, or even an open wound from which we are still trying to heal.  This episode describes three ways the arts help us show compassion as wounded healers.  A guided 5-minute breath prayer is included to help you experience God's compassion personally: Inhale: Compassionate God Exhale: You see me. Inhale: Loving Father, Exhale: You welcome me. Inhale: Trusted Counselor, Exhale: You hold me. Inhale: Faithful Emmanuel, Exhale: You stay with me. Inhale: Gracious Healer, Exhale: You restore me. Links from this episode: Image of Pope Francis with Vinicio Riva CNN article on Vinicio Riva Return of the Prodigal bronze sculpture by Charlie Mackesy --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

"Courage---you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn’t want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself. " -- Maya Angelou. This is a different kind of courage: the courage to slow it way down and how to train for it. It's less about a big, bold leap and more about training one’s heart to make micro movements of faith. Imagine climbing a mountain, like a Colorado fourteener. You don’t typically just go out and hike one without preparation (especially if you’re from the Midwest). You train over time, day after day. You get stronger with small choices of effort and faith that propel you toward this goal to successfully climb a mountain. The courage to slow down is to dare to move at an unhurried pace and take a breather in the face of a frenetic culture. Here are some ideas to help you press into the resistance. Get your free audio meditation on Psalm 23: https://bit.ly/3kpSRa0. Leave a review via Apple Podcasts/Itunes. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

The central challenge is how to make space for the creative gladness we require in order to create. In this episode, I share about the core value of creativity and five ways to reignite your energy when it seems gone. I attempt to answer the questions: what do we do when our lives are constricted as they are right now with stress upon stress, fear, and anxiety? How do we create in unstimulating spaces? This podcast is all about giving artists confidence and motivation to arrange their lives to do their art and reveal God’s glory to the world. It stands for a well-functioning life cultivated and shaped by creative rhythms that restore and empower through story, celebration, rest, and play. A creative life is about making space to receive sustenance from God, the ultimate creator. Creativity itself is a sacred act, in which we participate in the act of creation like and with our God. Make space to receive and become the poema. The Collegeville Institute How to find creativity when yours feels sapped, blog article Cosmos from Chaos, interview with Luci Shaw, Andrew Peterson, and Carolyn Arends Leave a review via Apple Podcasts/Itunes. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

Hands tell a lifetime of stories. So does art. Using a piece called Rainbow Hands from the book A Cloud of Outrageous Blue by Vesper Stamper, Christina Hubbard leads a 10-minute visio divina exercise. Visio divina means “divine seeing” in Latin, as we gaze upon a work of art and experience God’s presence through it. Visio divina engages the eye and the imagination. It can be done with a piece of art, religious or not, or even a leaf or landscape you discover outside. Artist Tim Mooney says of visio divina: "It invites us to be seen, addressed, surprised, and transformed by God who is never limited or tied to any image, but speaks through them.” Access an image of Rainbow Hands and a transcription of the meditation here. Find Vesper's work at VesperStamper.com and on Instagram. Purchase a print of Rainbow Hands here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/vesperillustration. Book giveaway of A Cloud of Outrageous Blue through October 30!  https://www.instagram.com/p/CGi_9JZhjJQ/ Check out Parts 1 and 2 of the interview with Vesper. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

“It’s possible that 2020 is the year of the sketch phase.” Author-illustrator Vesper Stamper is the artist of the month. She joins me to talk about embodied art and fighting for joy. She also reads from her new book A Cloud of Outrageous Blue. The premise: a young woman with unique giftings finds herself in the middle of the plague of 1348. Pretty relevant. We also talk about: Humanizing others. Why the pandemic didn’t surprise her. Choosing faith over fear. Joy-bringers (like hummingbirds and chickens). Vesper’s thoughts on embodied art: "…We are creating unto something that other people will encounter and experience, right, so as much as God is creating through us—it really is part of the ministry of reconciliation, you know. We are reconciling the world back to God through these bodies, through what our bodies take in and produce. And that’s so important and that’s something to be embraced and there is no shame in that." Find Vesper at VesperStamper.com and on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vesperillustration/. She’s also on locals.com and thinkspot.com. Links: Vesperisms podcast: https://apple.co/315cFbg. What the Night Sings: https://amzn.to/2H2QL15. A Cloud of Outrageous Blue: https://amzn.to/33SBKIl. These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

Does shame hinder you from being the artist you are? Artist and writer Vesper Stamper came to faith in a creative environment that was “decidedly unshameful.” She’s the artist of the month. Her book What the Night Sings won multiple awards and her new book A Cloud of Outrageous Blue recently released. Vesper and I discuss restraint as the key to artistic longevity and joining spiritual practice with art. We also talk about: Being grounded to home. Solace and lifegiving input from gardening. The accident that propelled her into grad school, and unsuspectingly, historical fiction. Using her art to battle anti-semitism and dehumanization. Being believed. Find Vesper at VesperStamper.com and on Instagram @VesperIllustration. Find her work on locals.com and thinkspot.com. Links: Vesperisms podcast: Artistic Action-Creating a Final Work episode. What the Night Sings: https://amzn.to/2H2QL15. A Cloud of Outrageous Blue: https://amzn.to/33SBKIl These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

Does your day begin and end with God? Illustrator and storyteller Vanessa Brantley Newton leads a traditional Jewish morning prayer, the modeh ani, to set the day right and remember God is faithful.  The two-minute prayer meditation declares: God is our unfailing supply of wisdom, grace and mercy. He hears us. We can be instruments of healing. God speaks when we listen.  Find Vanessa at her website VanessaBrantleyNewton.com and on her socials: Instagram: https://rb.gy/3r1jel. Facebook: https://rb.gy/7tup90and. Links: Interview with Vanessa: "I See You" Part 1: https://bit.ly/2FzmnuF and Part 2: https://bit.ly/3315sKI. Alexander Massey on the Modeh Ani (including the full prayer): https://bit.ly/3kQLyIG. Historical background of the prayer: https://bit.ly/2RVTxYt. Get my free Psalm 23 meditation: https://bit.ly/3kpSRa0. Full-length shownotes including quotes from this episode at christinahubbard.com. These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

Dear Artist, are you kind to yourself? Vanessa Brantley Newton believes its crucial so we can show kindness to the world as Christ would. This is Part 2 of my interview with this vibrant illustrator and storyteller. Vanessa knows how to shake things up with the likes of Judy Blume and find out why she says she is perpetually 5 years old. We talk about: Biscuits and jam at Hutchmoot, How song and fashion inform her art, Artists who have influenced her like Ezra Jack Keats and Eric Carle, Finding joy in music, dance, and salty water dogs. Find Vanessa at her website VanessaBrantleyNewton.com and on her socials: Instagram: https://rb.gy/3r1jel Facebook: https://rb.gy/7tup90and Links: Vanessa’s TED talk: Diversity Designed by Adversity: https://bit.ly/3iDViFp. The Rabbit Room Arts Conference: Hutchmoot Homebound: hutchmoothomebound.com. Get my free Psalm 23 meditation: https://bit.ly/3kpSRa0. These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

Artists see the world differently, and yet, we desperately want to be seen and heard. Illustrator and storyteller Vanessa Brantley Newton's mission is to help children of all backgrounds know they are valued. Her work touches adults just as profoundly, and her story of harnessing dyslexia, synesthesia, and stuttering makes her a powerful advocate for those who feel invisible or out of place.   In Part 1 of our two-part interview we talk about: A childhood rich in diversity. Tenderness and hardship as an African American child who wanted to be an artist in the 60's. When loss helped her rediscover art. How all sorts of people find themselves in her books. How her characters talk to her. Vanessa is the featured artist this month. Find her work and a reading of her beautiful book Grandma's Purse at her website VanessaBrantleyNewton.com.  Vanessa on Instagram: https://rb.gy/3r1jel Facebook: https://rb.gy/7tup90 These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

How am I using my creative capacities to know God? Am I living in resurrected life? Josh Banner,  host of the Invitation Podcast, leads a 20-minute lectio divina style meditation based on Phillipians 3:10, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (NKJV). Specifically for creative people and artists, the meditation asks us to consider sharing our burdens with one another and with God so we come alive to resurrection within a deep awareness of fellowship. Check out Parts 1 and 2 of this featured artist series where Josh talks about how creativity and contemplative prayer help us come alive to God. Find Josh at The Invitation Podcast. Links from this episode: Music: "Rhodes REST" by Ordinary Neighbors. 40 Ways to Spend Five Minutes with God (and other prayer resources): https://www.invitationpodcast.org/downloads. These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

Josh Banner is a spiritual director and host of the Invitation Podcast. This is part two of our deep dive interview. (Here is Part 1). We discuss spiritual direction, how contemplative prayer helped him have more fun, and ways to find deep rest in things you are already doing. We also talk about the following: A rule of life and using time well. Josh’s mancrush with superheroes of the faith. The summer book series with A Sunlit Absence by Father Martin Laird. How to pray during covid-19 and how to start praying with 5 minutes a day. Rich Mullins. The connection between creativity and contemplative practice. Find Josh at The Invitation Podcast: https://invitationpodcast.org/. Check out his free resources on praying to Examen & 40 Ways to Spend 5 minutes with God HERE: https://www.invitationpodcast.org/downloads. Links from this episode: Part 1 of this interview: http://bit.ly/jbannerP1, Poet Susanna Childress: https://awst-press.com/susanna-childress, With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman: https://amzn.to/3l1IRVt, Phoebe Judge’s podcasts: Criminal: https://www.wunc.org/people/phoebe-judge. This is Love: https://www.radiotopia.fm/podcasts/this-is-love, Father Martin Laird’s books: Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation: https://amzn.to/2YAN60L, A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation: https://amzn.to/2QcwuHW, An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation, and Liberation: https://amzn.to/31harWZ, Norman Wirzba’s Living the Sabbath: https://amzn.to/31gWc4u. Music is by Ordinary Neighbors: https://rebrand.ly/b08f8. These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

Josh is the host and creator of the Invitation Podcast. He is a certified spiritual director, a retreat leader, and facilitator of contemplative prayer practices in prisons.  In part one of this interview, we talk about rediscovering the art of brewing beer, being human, and wakefulness. We also delve into the following: Living well in a day. The balance of prayer and art. A theological anthropology of a farm shaping his imagination. The patient process of being an artist. Being both a spiritual and earthly creative being. Ignatius of Loyola and the prayer of examen. Deep art: what Rowans Williams calls “meaning plus” and Scott Cairns notes as “the generative meaning of art.” Developing a rule of life. Find Josh at The Invitation Podcast: invitationpodcast.org. Links from this episode: Josh’s essay in For the Beauty of the Church: https://amzn.to/3iHnvuo. Music is by Ordinary Neighbors: https://rebrand.ly/b08f8. These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

“2020:  I wouldn’t recommend.” Have you seen the t-shirts? It’s funny and true but 2020 has something deep and meaningful to teach us. Pain is not in itself inherently bad or evil. Pain is a signal that something needs mending. Suffering is part of us. How we frame it matters. In this episode I share a letter I wrote to a tough season in my life: 2019. It was a year of caring for a loved one through their trauma. It was difficult and frankly, I wanted to forget the year completely, but the practice of blessing it transformed it into a teacher. Next I guide you through a process to write a letter to your own pain (whether that is pandemic, racial injustice, or something else) so you can speak new life into the experience. We will name it, describe it, react to it, learn from it, release it, and bless it. It may help to listen to episode 15: Say Your Suffering and Bless It before engaging this practice. I recommend finding a place to be quiet for 30 minutes. Have a piece of paper and a pen close by and get comfortable. It can be of great assistance to share your letter with a spiritual friend who can affirm your story. Printable guide to help you craft your letter: shorturl.at/hrQX8. My letter of blessing to 2019: the year I wanted to forget: shorturl.at/cwEIZ. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

Blessing changes our experience. Liturgy gives voice to groanings and prayer we don’t have the words to say. This episode is a meditation with readings of blessing for today’s struggles of pandemic and injustice. It includes texts from poet John O’Donohue and author Douglas McKelvey. The sequence includes a blessing for our lives, a blessing upon the world, and a liturgy for a time of widespread suffering. Full liturgy text HERE or at everymomentholy.com/liturgies. The readings: 1. “For One Who Is Exhausted” from John O Donohue’s book To Bless the Space Between Us: https://amzn.to/3eTFHyJ. 2. Excerpt from a section in that same book “Blessing Our World Now.” 3. “Liturgy for a Time of Widespread Suffering” by Douglas McKelvey. Also found at Everymomentholy.com/liturgies. Available in the new book called: Death, Grief and Hope, Liturgies for Seasons of Dying and Grieving, available in fall 2020 from Rabbit Room Press. These show notes may contain affiliate links. Proceeds go to keeping this podcast in your earbuds. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

Carolyn Arends is a recording artist, speaker, author, and college instructor. We talk about the ebb and flow of creative rhythms and bringing our doubts to God. Car­olyn is the author of 3 books and 12 musical albums, many of them award-winning. She's also the Education Director at the Ren­o­varé Insti­tute for Chris­t­ian Spir­i­tu­al For­ma­tion. She lives near Van­cou­ver, British Columbia, with her hus­band Mark and their two children.  We chat about: tending to your garden during exile as a creative person, trusting the creative wind to blow as a gift of grace, setting the table and showing up to the work even when you don't feel inspired,  expressing emotions with God during disorientation through prayer and art, and how to watch, wait, and listen with God. She reads an excerpt from a sermon in Frederick Buechner’s book: The Magnificent Defeat. The sermon itself is called “Message in the Stars.”  She plays a song "There You Are" from the album Seize the Day and Other Stories. Please check out another recent song with video called "After This" at Carolyn's website: CarolynArends.com. Find the Renovare institute at Renovare.org/Institute/. To stay in touch, subscribe to my newsletter at: ChristinaHubbard.com. On Pause: Healing Words from Everyday Artists during Isolation is a special series to help creative people find groundedness, belonging, and courage during the coronavirus outbreak. I’ve asked artists to share words that are beacons of honesty, truth, and goodness to their souls during this time of distance as a global community on pause.   These notes may contain affiliate links which sustain the production of this podcast. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support

Christiana Peterson is the author of Mystics and Misfits: Meeting God through St. Francis and Other Unlikely Saints. We talk about the artist as contemplative parent, story, and mental health. Her writing on the mystics, community, the spiritual disciplines of motherhood, and death have been featured in Christianity Today, Art House America, The Christian Century, and Bearings Online. She's a regular contributor to Good Letters, an Image Journal blog. She lives in Ohio with her husband and four children.  We talk about:  finding space to process crisis in music and story,  making meaning from experience through writing and narrative,  bringing a rule of life to home,  disruption as an invitation to experience God and contemplation,  mental health and sharing the things that do not fade.  Christiana reads from: Padraig O'Tuama's Prayer: https://www.corrymeela.org/news/126/the-prayer-of-courage and Ronald Rolheiser's Domestic Monastery: https://paracletepress.com/products/domestic-monastery  Find Christiana at christiananpeterson.com. Her upcoming book Awakened by Death: Life-giving Lessons from the Mystics is available for pre-order at Indiebound, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. It releases October 2020.  Other resources mentioned: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien  Hutchmoot Conference: http://www.hutchmoot.com/  On Pause: Healing Words from Everyday Artists during Isolation is a special series to help creative people find groundedness, belonging, and courage during the coronavirus outbreak. I’ve asked artists to share words that are beacons of honesty, truth, and goodness to their souls during this time of distance as a global community on pause. This post may contain affiliate links. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/creativeandfree/support