Friends + Friends

Just under 14 years ago, shortly after celebrating our first wedding anniversary, my wife and I moved to Houston, TX to work full time for a church for the first time. Within the first couple weeks of being there, we became friends with a fellow newcomer to the community, a woman named Cyndi Parker. Cyndi was on hiatus from her full-time position at Jerusalem University College in the heart of Jerusalem, where she'd spent the previous 5 years leading groups on historical geography tours of the Holy Land. We learned that we had more in common than simply being strangers to the community, and developed a fast friendship. 

She was leading a study at the church through the Fall of that year, which I attended and loved. She was easily the best teacher I'd ever heard... like... across any subject.

A few months later, in January of 2010, I was hired to play music for a weekend retreat for youth leaders in the area. Not like youth directors, ministers, etc. Rather, youth with a gift for leadership.

The speaker for the weekend was a guy named Jacob Breeze. He had lots of tattoos, connections to Haiti, and an overall vibe that I immediately connected with. Then I heard him teach, and he, too, blew me away. I've spent the subsequent years in ever-deepening friendships with each of these two folks, with an ever-deepening appreciation for their particular skills as teachers, question-askers, thinkers, etc. For more than 13 years, I've described them as the two best teachers I've ever known.

Since 2017, I've been working alongside Jacob at Holy Family Episcopal Church in Houston. And since 2019, I've been editing Cyndi's (now Dr. Cyndi's) podcast, Context Matters.

This week, I had the tremendous joy of getting to edit the first of two episodes of Context Matters on which Jacob is her guest. 

Cyndi is currently doing a series on the show called "Reading the Bible With...". Each interview is about reading the Bible with different people. For example, Reading the Bible With the Disabled, Reading the Bible With Children, Reading the Bible With Scientists, etc. And this week (and next), she and Jacob are having conversation about Reading the Bible With the Spiritually Wounded.

I count myself among those whom they're discussing, and but for each of their roles in my life over the last 13 years, I'm confident I wouldn't have the remotest interest in any podcast about the Bible. 

The Bible, which I once found to be such a tremendous source of hope and encouragement and deeper intimacy with the Living God... has become a bit complicated for me. I won't say it's necessarily triggering... but, it's certainly not something I approach with the same cavalier reverence I did before the experiences that brought about my particular spiritual woundedness.

You may love the Bible, and that's wonderful if you do. You may feel entirely indifferent to the Bible, and that's wonderful if you do. But, hopefully, we all have a certain amount of compassion for those who have been hurt by the Church or perhaps by its more outspoken (and all too often least representative) champions.

I'm sharing this for the express purpose of introducing you to two people who I love very much. I hope you'll give it a listen and see just why I do.

Thanks, friends. More soon!

Reading with the Spiritually Wounded (Simplecast)