On Questions and Clearing Our Heads
A Note from Your Podcast Host
Happy New Year, friends and followers!
At the end of 2023 I took the advice of one of my guests and read Your Vocational Credo by Deborah Koehn Loyd. Even though I sort of know what I’m all about, vocationally speaking, and have had a pretty good grip on that for years, the book was clarifying for me about the dominant skills I have that fit within my broader calling. One of those skills was what Loyd called “activist,” which (at first) turned me off completely. When I think of activism, I think of pickets, protests, and marches—things I’m not very good at showing up for. But Loyd said that one the dominating thought of an activist is something like, “Why isn’t anyone doing something about that?”
Why isn’t anyone doing something about that?! That question courses through my veins night and day about so many things: humanitarian crises, war, church abuse, climate change, the way we talk to each other, poverty, health care systems, education inequality, you name it.
My highest-ranked skill, though, was “communicator.” When I was five, my parents bought me a small table and chairs, to which I invited my younger brother to take tea with me and converse. I folded my hands on the table and pursed my lips in a serious manner. “Let’s have a conversation,” I told him and repeated myself because I liked the sound of the word conversation. It was big, bold, and ambitious. I silently willed my brother to be a smarter and more provocative conversation partner than any three-year-old boy should.
In many ways, over the last twelve months, Your Pastor Reads Books has been my way of saying to guests and listeners, “Hey, let’s have a conversation!” The show’s topics are inspired by our ministry lives and the books we read that shape us as disciples of Jesus, as spiritual leaders in the church, and as good neighbors to those outside of it. But underneath the surface of our conversation (and sometimes right on top of it) are the questions many of us are asking, “Hey, why isn’t anyone doing something about that.” And, more concretely, “What can we do about it?”
You’ve heard me and my guests talk about mental health, ministry burnout, church abuse, trauma, aging, identity, self-worth, surviving tragedy, discrimination, poverty, and much more. I hope that our conversations about books, which included a lot of question-posing and problem-naming, have cast a little light on your world. I can see how you might, to the contrary, think that all the questioning and probleming sounds rather dreary and dark. But my childhood pal G.I. Joe always said that knowing is half the battle, and I still believe him. The poet Christian Wiman says the same thing, but much more eloquently:
“Sometimes the best gift can be the starkest depiction of an intractable reality, that head-clearing unsquinting astringent allover intake of a truth.”1
My prayer is that the show, in some little way, encourages Christians of all stripes to read more, yes, but also to grab hands as we clear our heads, articulate our questions, and stumble toward truth and healing, together and guided by the Light of Christ.
If you listened, liked, supported, or shared the show in the past twelve months—thank you for being on this journey with me.
Heather
YPRB host Heather Weber is a book-obsessed pastor, author, and holistic life and leadership coach. She is the author of Dear Boy,: An Epistolary Memoir. Find out more about her coaching, pastoral direction, and creative projects at www.heatherweber.org. And, subscribe to her Dear Exiles newsletter at heatherweber.substack.com.
*YPRB may receive a tiny commission on purchases made through the links on this page, which helps support the podcast!
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