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The Confessional Podcast Review

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I am a podcast addict. History, current events, personal growth, science – I listen to more podcasts than is probably healthy for a person. Some of my favorite podcasts involve people sharing stories about their lives. The types of deep, open conversations that would make most people uncomfortable. That’s my jam. The podcast I highlight here creates a space for those types of conversations and intimacy.

This image is taken from Audible.com.

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a minister and founder of the House For All Sinners and Saints church in Denver, CO. She is the author of 3 books, a YouTube limited series called Have a Little Faith produced by Makers, and an outspoken advocate for the outcasts. She began The Confessional podcast in April 2020.

The Confessional is a place for people to share things they have done they are not proud of. We all have done things we aren’t proud of, so the conversations had here are for all of us. The conversations in the podcast are frank, intimate, and use adult language. I get a big kick out of hearing an ordained minister use the F-word. If you don’t like coarse language, then this podcast may not be for you. The use of adult language only makes me enjoy this podcast more because the focus is on accepting and embracing our humanness, not about being “perfect” or conforming to what some religion thinks is appropriate behavior. Bolz-Weber focuses on honoring all our parts, not just the shiny clean pieces. She wants to have read discussions about all parts of the human experience.

Bolz-Weber offers the guest a prayer at the end of each episode. She emphasizes that while the prayer may be specifically written for her guest, it could be for any one of her listeners. She offers absolution not just to her guest, but to all of us. Her confessional encompasses all of us. Her grace, compassion, and love envelopes all who listen to the conversation.

The thing I love the most about this podcast is it shares stories of real humans in an authentically compassionate way. Bolz-Weber creates a space for her guests to share their biggest secrets and shames in life in a real, compassionate space. By providing a place for her guest to share their story, Bolz-Weber creates a space for all of our stories to be told, examined, and accepted. Being human is messy. We mess up. We do things we are not proud to admit. Bolz-Weber allows us to accept the flaws of our humanness, embrace our screw-ups, learn from them, and do better in the future. She practices the kind of compassion that Jesus taught. While I am not a Christian, I still believe Jesus was a good person and taught us how to love each other. Bolz-Weber is a walking example of the behavior of Jesus. Listening to these stories reminds me that while I am not perfect, there is always the opportunity to do better in the next moment.

Until we have examined our dark secrets, shames, and mistakes and accepted that we are fallible and imperfect humans, we are unable to embrace who we are and the journey we are undertaking on this planet. Until we can reconcile our undesirable pieces, we can’t grow into the person we wish to be. Bolz-Weber opens the door for each of us to examine and accept those pieces of ourselves so that work can begin.

You can find The Confessional on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Some of my favorite episodes of The Confessional

Dr. Ray Christian, Storyteller and Fulbright Specialist

Forgiveness and Reconciliation with Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

Kasey Anderson, Singer/Songwriter

Amy Brenneman, Movie Star

Megan Phelps-Roper, Former Member of the Westboro Baptist Church

© Catherine Haslag

The Alchemist

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Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man

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© Catherine Haslag

Gold Stars

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A gratitude practice became a part of my life a handful of years ago. At the time I started this practice all I could see was everything that was “wrong” in the world. I was wasting so much energy on what didn’t appear to be “right” and was looking for a way to shift that energy into something productive. Someone suggested that I cultivate a gratitude practice to shift my attitude and view of life. They challenged me to see the flowers on the wallpaper rather than focus on the cracks in the plaster.

I am a researcher, so I started this work by reading a few books on gratitude (365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life and The Gratitude Diaries are two books I recommend on the subject). This led me to add some basic gratitude practices to my life. I started sending thank you notes on a regular basis to my friends and family (the Dollar Store has a good selection of Thank You cards that work perfectly for this). I sent thank-you notes for gifts, phone calls, kind words, friendship, and just to let others know that I thought they were awesome. I also wrote a few things I was thankful for each day in my journal. This helped me to spend time acknowledging the good things present in my everyday life.

As time went on, I started to see all the things there are to be thankful for, even on the crappiest of days. The hot cup of tea in the morning, the car that starts without issue, a clear, star-filled night sky, indoor plumbing on the coldest days during the Minnesota winter. I discovered that there is ALWAYS something to be thankful for and nothing was too small for gratitude. Over time, I realized it was the little things that could get me through the hardest of days.

My gratitude practice has grown over time. Early in the pandemic, a good friend of mine and I started ending our conversations by sharing “good things” in our lives. Hearing what she is thankful for has helped expand my view of all the things available to be grateful for in the world.

About halfway through lockdown in 2020, I decided to add something else tangible to my gratitude practice, so I brought the gold star back into my life. This was a simple, visible, and slightly quirky way for me to show gratitude to myself and those around me. It was also a way to spread a little childhood joy in the grind of adulthood.

Many of us may be most familiar with the use of gold stars in the classroom. Gold stars would come to us on the top of an assignment we completed well, on a chart posted in the front of the classroom for good behavior, or in a loose form so we could put it on the front of our notebook or wear it on our shirt and show everyone how awesome we are. As a child, we loved to get those gold stars. It told us we had done something good and someone noticed our efforts and work. It was gratitude in a tangible form.

The gold star provided me with something visible to brighten up the day and restore some innocence to the challenges of 2020. I started sending gold star emojis and animations to friends via text for a job well done. I found some puffy gold stars at JoAnn’s and used them to decorate the inside of thank you cards. I ordered gold star stickers to share and included a sheet of them for each person in every family to whom I sent Christmas cards. It was fun sharing this simple joy. I wanted others to know that I saw them, I saw the good they were doing, and I thought they were awesome. Some of my family and friends commented on how the gold stars made their day. They too were taken back to the joys of receiving a gold star from their teacher for a job well done. I hope they shared their gold stars with others and kept spreading the gratitude. I have decided to keep a supply of gold stars on hand and bestow them to people on a regular basis as a way to say “thank you.”

There is an old story told by many indigenous tribes in North America that talks of a grandfather telling his grandson that there are two wolves fighting inside each of us. One wolf is evil and one wolf is good. The grandson asked his grandfather which wolf will win this battle. The grandfather said, “The one that you feed.”

I chose to feed the good wolf with gratitude and it was so simple to do. It can be shared through a symbol like a gold star or a thank you note, but it can also appear in less tangible forms: a pat on the back, saying thank you, or a kind smile to a stranger while shopping. There is no limit to gratitude. It never runs out and it costs us nothing to share.

© Catherine Haslag

Piney

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She started as a foster kitten. My boyfriend’s foster kitten three years before he was my boyfriend. Rather than being adopted by another family, he kept her, loved her, made her part of his. He was happy to turn his apartment into a kitty play place for her, for all of the kittens he fostered. He has a heart bigger than any space can hold.

I met Piney for the first time in Spring 2020. She is a skittish cat. She typically runs when someone walks her way. She hides from guests. She is scared of the loud, the unfamiliar, the new. She took to me quickly. Let me rub her belly. Slept on my feet. The next time I saw her weeks later she came running to me, begging in her cat way to have her head and neck scratched. This was unusual for her and her humans noticed.

When my boyfriend needed to be away from home for weeks to handle a family matter, I offered to take her so he didn’t need to worry about her. So she didn’t need to be alone. She spent the first day hiding in the covers on the floor at the foot of my bed. She snuck around the house, afraid of everything. All the sounds were new, the smells were different, and her male human was nowhere around. It was just us girls and she was uncertain.

It took some time, but she started to venture out. She didn’t run when I walked past her or bent to scratch behind her ears. She snuggled at my feet in the evening when I read and slept between my legs at night. She found the squirrels that live in the tree on my patio and tracked the birds that perch in the front bush. She climbed to the top of her cat tree and watched the cars pass on the street. She made this her home and picked me as her human. She became a different feline. My boyfriend was amazed at the change in Piney and decided she had picked her forever home. She stayed with me.

Piney has become my 4-legged furry teacher. Slowly wedging herself into my life. Between the covers of my bed. Balancing like a gymnast on my headboard and dismounting onto my nightstand. Our relationship expanded from sleepover buddy to roommate.

I am very particular about my home, yet she has charmed me into buying a cat tree for the office, a small hidey-hole for her in the living room, and rearrange my kitchen to allow space for a litter box. I love having her here, but living alone for the past 5 years has caused me to atrophy. I am not as malleable as I once was. Piney has made this clear to me. Loving her is easy but making physical space in my home for her has been a challenge.

I have become rigid in my middle-age. My adult life has been guided by routines, plans, and Google Calendar. Piney doesn’t fit in any of those. She can’t be scheduled and her needs are different than mine. She is teaching me to make space for the unscheduleable, for the belly rubs on the carpet at 6:13a and the catnap at my feet at 7:42p. She has left her paw marks on my heart, her fur on my couch, and kitty litter everywhere.

She is slowly prying me open to her, open to life. Reminding me that the best things in life aren’t planned. That there is time in the morning to sit and stretch for a minute. That your perspective can change with a purr and a good neck scratch. That change can bring good things into your life.