Rector’s Cupboard Podcast

Consider the Lilies with Leah Kostamo

On this episode of Rector’s Cupboard we spoke with Leah Kostamo about astonishment, conservation, environmentalism, all things outdoors, and how that connects with people and faith. Jesus often used metaphors from creation in his teachings. He used tangible things like dirt and spit to bring healing. Our awareness of the transcendent is often evoked by engagement with the natural world and planting a garden can be prayer.
 
References in this episode:
Planted, Leah Kostamo
A Rocha Canada 
Ecological Footprint Calculator
 
This episode we enjoyed Evolve Gin from Okanagan Spirits.
 

Poetry, Loss, and Hope with Susan Alexander

The Cupboard welcomes Poet Susan Alexander. Susan has won a number of awards for her writing and sat down with us to talk about the blessings of reading and writing and the power of language. Susan’s poetry invites us to consider what has been lost and what future hope entails.
 
Books and poets referenced in this episode:
Susan Alexander - Nothing You Can Carry, 2020
Susan Alexander - The Dance Floor Tilts, 2017
Lorna Crozier, God of Shadows, 2018
James Wright, Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota, 1990

Spirituality and Mental Health Dr. Sharon Smith

Sharon Smith has done a PhD looking at spirituality and schizophrenia. She founded an organization called Sanctuary that works with religious communities around matters of mental health, education about mental health, and the removing of stigmas about mental illness and struggle. Sharon is now a Vicar at St. Catherine's Church and a part-time instructor at the University of British Columbia.
We talk about mental wellness, about flourishing and languishing and about how to best care for one another.
 
Episode Terminology:
Spiritual Bypassing –Shifting done in conversations when topics become uncomfortable. There is a struggle to be with others in their pain so often spiritual platitudes are offered instead. In the context of mental health this can be seen in how things are framed. This has been done in labelling mental health struggles as evil or demonic so as to offer a spiritual solution.
 
This episode we enjoyed the Salted Lime Lager and Horchata Porter from La Cerveceria Astilleros in the brewery district of North Vancouver.

"Probably Not a Real Christian" with Curt Allison

Our guest Curt Allison has faced this accusation repeatedly in his life of faith. Curt is Minister of Outreach at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church in Vancouver. He directs the Gospel Choir and leads an LGBTQ spirituality discussion group called, The Word is OUT.
We loved speaking with Curt and continue to be compelled by his appreciation of a faith background that often told him he was unacceptable. In our current culture that can be so polarized, Curt demonstrates a love for all people. Curt tells us about his journey from Oklahoma to Vancouver, from “the fundamental fundamentalist” to a much more welcoming faith and a journey through the dark night of the soul to acceptance and hope.
 
Episode Terminology: 
Dark Night of the Soul - 16th Century Spanish Christian mystic John of the Cross used this term to describe the feeling of being cut off from God, from a sense of being alive, from prayers being heard. Dark Night of the Soul has come to refer to a part of the spiritual life that is experienced as barrenness. In more recent times it has been discussed alongside concepts such as depression. In theological terms, the Dark Night of the Soul spoke to the idea that God is unknowable and sovereign and may remove from us the sense of divine presence resulting in a feeling of lifelessness. Similar concepts can be found in the 14th Century work called “The Cloud of Unknowing”.
 
Exodus Ministry - Exodus ministry (using the metaphor of freedom from slavery in Egypt from the Biblical Book of Exodus) was one manifestation of “ministry” to people who did not fit the culturally and religiously accepted norms in regards to sexuality. These ministries often included a kind of conversion therapy that cast healing as either not being gay anymore or as being able to control and deny such an identity in terms of behaviour. In this episode Curt speaks of his experience in Exodus as actually contributing to his self-acceptance and even as contributing to the awareness that he was not alone in his experience. Many of the leaders of Exodus disavowed the programme including the president of the organization in 2012. The ministry closed in 2013.

Words Without Spin with Pádraig Ó Tuama

This episode was recorded in December 2020, before the events of early 2021 in the United States. Those events offer a clear example of the problem of spin and how words can be used to heal or to harm. All insurrections begin with words. All reconciliations start with the hopeful language of healing.
 
It was a tremendous privilege to speak with Pádraig Ó Tuama. We spoke about words and language and religion. Padraig read a couple of his poems for us and reminded us of the redemptive and reconciling possibility in words. Religious language can be edifying or destructive. Too often words within religious circles have divided people from one another rather than bringing them together. Hope can come in a poem. A small, but powerful refrain can change your day or your life.
 
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet and theologian. He is the host of Poetry Unbound, part of the On Being Project, author of Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community.
 
If you're interested in starting to read poetry but don't know where to start Pádraig suggests beginning with the following anthologies from Bloodaxe Books: Being Alive, Staying Alive, and Staying Human. 
 
Episode Terminology:
Pedagogy – referring to method or means of teaching, communicating knowledge.

So Long 2020

Cupboard hosts review the year that was.
Did we learn anything about humanity this year?
The terrible news was obvious and everywhere in 2020. We talk about what was hopeful, about what was disappointing, about how to see the humanity of the other.
And, remember the priest in Italy who conducted a Facebook live service not knowing that the happy, silly face filters were on? We talk about that too. 
Goodbye 2020. Welcome 2021.
Happy New Year from Rector's Cupboard!
 
Books, articles, and links discussed in this episode:
Italian Priest on Facebook live, YouTube Video, March 25, 2020 
New Yorker Cover, December 7, 2020 
The Rise and Fall of Carl Lentz, New York Times, December 5, 2020 
Our Divided Times are an Opportunity for Empathy. Really. – The Washington Post, December 29, 2020 

Christmas Special 2020

Not really gathered and really very distanced.Our second annual Christmas Special.This year we look at the Rankin Bass Christmas TV Special called, “The Year Without a Santa Claus”.How could it be Christmas without Santa? What if Santa got sick and sniffly and could not deliver presents?How could it be Christmas if we can’t gather with friends and family?
 
We’re about to find out.
 
Cupboard Master Ken Bell makes a lovely “snowball” cocktail for the crew.
Merry Christmas to all!
 
Referenced in this episode:
Mall Santas – The Washington Post, November 25, 2020

Sunny Boy with David Goa

The Cupboard welcomes back David Goa (with a special appearance from his cat). From the context of a consideration of Fathers and Sons, we speak about parental and familial love, about power, about blessing.
 
You may have had a great relationship with your Dad, or maybe it was troubled, maybe both.
 
David reminds us that gender concepts such as masculine are not to keep us divided and apart, but rather to make us open to the other. Being open to the other calls us to a hopeful and loving engagement with people who are different than us in gender identity, sexuality and belief.
 
David also presents a powerful reading of what for many has been a terrible story – the story of Abraham and Isaac in the Bible. How are we tempted as parents to see our children through lenses of selfishness rather than through hopeful call of freedom of personality and identity?
 
We have been blessed, in this life, with the ability to pronounce blessing on others. This is a vocation of parents, also a vocation of each of us in this world.
 
Article referenced in this episode:
My Son, The Prince of Fashion - Michael Chabon, QC, September 2016 
 
This episode we enjoyed Appleton Estate 12 Year Old Rare Cask Rum.

COVID Jumps the Shark

After Arthur Fonzarelli jumped the shark, there may have been significant episodes of Happy Days remaining, but the end was in sight. 
 
COVID 19 has been part of our world for a year now, but with the recent news of effective vaccines, there may actually be light at the end of the tunnel.
 
In the meantime, however it feels like we keep receiving the best news at the same time as the worst news. This will end, this pandemic, but before it does there will be a large number of deaths. Right now we are entering what appears to be another lockdown as case numbers spike around the world. 
 
In this episode of Rector’s Cupboard we gather to talk about if we are really, “all in this together”.  
 
This is how we treat each other? This is who we are? - Washington Post, November 2020
 

Listening Charitably with Lisa Ruddick

Does being human entail emotion, empathy and heart? How might we see the human in ourselves and in others? We speak with Lisa Ruddick (University of Chicago) about literary criticism as an example of the failure to see the human. Can we pay attention in order to see the deeper things? In listening beyond the hollering or viewpoint of the other, perhaps we can see their humanity.
 
Books and articles referenced in this episode:
When Nothing is Cool article – Lisa Ruddick, The Point Magazine, 2015
The Principle of Charity: Assume the Best Interpretation of People’s Arguments – Effectivology.com
The Tyranny of Merit – Michael Sandel, 2020
Wild Geese poem – Mary Oliver
 
Episode Terminology:
Bourgeoise – having to do with the middle class; and focused more on materialism, money and possessions
Post Criticism – the “critical mode” is one that has seemed to be the default mode of thinking and evaluating. Post-critical is an attempt to move past this way of understanding.
Post Humanist – sometimes thought of as “technocratic”, post-human means moving past a consideration of the human, the heart, the empathetic
Hyper-Moralism – “an error in moral reasoning in which you extend moral blame to a place that it does not belong.” There is a great deal of hyper-moralism in many fundamentalist movements and expressions