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CoffeePods
A series exploring Christian healing in a handy coffee-break sized podcast. Plug yourself in, pick up your mug of coffee, and let's go.
CoffeePods
What's in Your Cup?
Have you ever wondered what spills out when life bumps into you? In this deeply reflective episode, we explore the profound question: what's in your cup?
Through powerful stories and honest conversation, we unpack how the contents of our inner lives determine our responses to life's challenges. When someone bumps into you and you spill coffee, you spill coffee because that's what was in your cup. Similarly, when life's pressures mount, what emerges from us reveals what we've been carrying inside all along.
Kris shares a moving personal story about carrying the pain of a practical joke for nearly thirty years before finding healing through an unexpected act of forgiveness. Lisa offers the striking image of someone clinging to something dead and decaying on their shoulder – a powerful metaphor for how we sometimes hold onto emotional baggage long after it's stopped serving us.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn as we compare inner healing to computer maintenance. Just as we clean a hard drive and update software for better performance, we must examine what fills our emotional and spiritual cups, removing what hinders us and making room for what brings life. While we may never completely erase all fragments of painful past experiences, we can install new "software" through faith that helps us process those remnants differently.
Science confirms what faith has long taught us – Johns Hopkins Medicine reports that forgiveness leads to lower blood pressure, reduced pain, better sleep, and decreased anxiety and depression. These tangible benefits underscore the importance of this inner work.
Whether you're carrying decades of unprocessed hurt or simply feeling weighed down by life's daily stresses, this episode offers gentle wisdom for the journey toward transformation. As Romans 15:13 reminds us, may you "overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" as you discover what truly deserves space in your cup.
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Coffee Pods, a podcast of the Acorn Christian Healing Foundation Exploring what's happening in the world through the lens of Christian healing.
Speaker 2:We are back in windy England. My sunflowers bit the dust this morning in the high winds. It was a sad day because they've given me such joy. We finally got the rain and the weather has changed. So perhaps it's a perfect time for us to to kind of do inventory as we turn our focus toward colder weather and wetter weather and darker days unless that sounds gloomy, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. Okay, let me start with a less gloomy story, which might give us a segue into what we want to talk about today, which is sort of this personal inventory thing. We talked about strong women last week and we pointed to the idea that we were going to do some self-awareness in this podcast. So here it goes.
Speaker 2:There's a professor who had a class full of students and he was wanting to ask them a question. He said someone bumped into me and I spilled coffee. And he looked at the students and he said why? Why did I spill coffee? And so the students were all sitting there thinking well, this is obvious. And one of the students said well, because somebody bumped into you. And the professor said no.
Speaker 2:And another student thinking and they were more clever said well, maybe it was because the corridor was a little bit narrow and you bumped into him and you spilled your coffee. No, and the final one looked and said well, professor, maybe it's because your coffee cup had too much coffee in it. It was full and that's why you spilled it. And he said no. The answer is simple. He said I spilled coffee because coffee was in the cup that I was carrying, and so it's really important to think that when we get rattled, when we get bumped, when we're stressed, what spills over from our insides is what we're carrying on our inside. And so I thought that was a good thing for us to talk about what's in our cup you know, we talked about that at the end of last week and for us to reflect a little bit on how we can find healing and growth and peace with what we're carrying on our inside, so what's in your cup.
Speaker 3:That's a big question, isn't it? What's in your cup, and I imagine it changes quite often, like depending on how you are internally or even externally. So you know a number of different things that impact you, and we're going to look at some stuff about like what fills our cup. Aren't we, Before we go into that we want to introduce Callum, aren't we Before?
Speaker 2:we go into that. We want to introduce Callum. Hey, we have a guest. We have a guest who is joining us for the first time, but really he's the brains behind the operation for a lot of what we do at Acorn. He's one of these invisible people who makes such a difference on the way things look online and on the website and on the podcast. And he happens to be my son, so hi.
Speaker 1:Callum. Hey, thank you for having me, and I'm glad to be back with Lisa this time instead of just the two guys on the podcast.
Speaker 2:That's right, we did this once. I forgot that we did one when Lisa was away. So, yeah, it is good to have you both.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the trio.
Speaker 2:And your journey is very interesting because you just finished a year of what was it called. Pev MES oh sorry, pev is Provincial Physical Visitor Wrong. So we've got so many letters in the church it's hard to keep up. I have a PTO now, perm, to officiate, so all these crazy things. Tell me what you did last year, even though I do know this, but the listeners have no idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't want to be long-winded, but I spent the last year up in London in the Williston area, working for a church as a part of a scheme called the Ministry Experience Scheme. They do that in every diocese well, they try to do it in every diocese in the Church of England, and the idea is to give you a feel for church life, church work, and it's also kind of it kind of sort of serves as a path into discernment, and for me it has, because I've entered into discernment up in the Wilson area in the Diocese of London. So it's been a wonderful, crazy year full of twists and turns and lots of challenges, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. It's been really worthwhile to do.
Speaker 2:Well, someone said you can't pour from an empty cup, that you have to take care of yourself first, that you have to take care of yourself first. So it sounds like your time in Wilsdon with Father Adam and the church there at All Souls was a chance to fill your cup with new things and new experience of God, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1:The story is kind of fitting for me because I found myself the first day to the last day often rushing up against the walls of All Souls and Harleston with my coffee cup and having to be, excuse me, honest about what was in that cup on that day. So that story was quite fitting for me, especially for this last year, Cool.
Speaker 2:So, just like we have things that fill our cup that are good things, there are also things that fill our cups that are hard things we carry. I think my old counselor used to call it baggage. We emotional clutter and baggage past experiences, relationships be they good or bad beliefs, values, things that were never really healed, and so one of the hard things is to know that you've got a bunch of stuff in your cup that may not be so good and you have to make room for the stuff that is good, so that we're not carrying around all the bad stuff. So, Lisa, what do you think about the emotional clutter that you carry? And are you like me? I mean, I carry this like large suitcase around with me wherever I go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I pray each day that god might help me find a way to dump some of it along the side of the road?
Speaker 3:yeah, totally, and you know what's come to mind actually, just as we were talking about what's in our cup and baggage, I remember at one point in my life when I was living in nepal and a friend of mine said to me, um, that she's like, have you heard this story?
Speaker 3:And I think it might have been like a lewis carroll thing. So there might be people listening here who, um, know what I'm talking about better than I do, but it's about how this person in the story had, uh, like an animal I think, that they really loved and they took it around with them wherever they went and the animal eventually died. It's quite, it's quite a gruesome image actually. But this that this person loved and took everywhere died and they kept it like on their shoulder the whole time, always holding it, and it was deteriorating, it was smelly, it was gross, it wasn't in any way, and this person just could not get rid of it. They would not let this precious or what was precious to them go. And the the friend of mine, she, was saying I think that's how you're living your life, that you are.
Speaker 3:You are walking around with something on your shoulders that you think is needing to be there, um, and it's, and it's helping you and it's making you feel good, but actually it's gross and it's, it's dead. Essentially, yeah, you need to toss it aside, and that's kind of just when I hear what you said about emotional baggage or whatever it will be, when I hear the word baggage in that context, it makes me think of that image of sometimes you've got to get rid of it, but that maybe that's the hardest part is the removing the getting rid of the working I think it, I think it is um, I think um.
Speaker 2:When I think about baggage, I mean I, I'm immediately taken to a place in my life which was quite painful. A practical joke was played on me back in must have been 1983, 84. And it really hurt me, it really upset me and the person that was involved in the practical joke. I never really confronted them but I never forgave them and I remember carrying this pain, this baggage from this practical joke, with me for years and years and years for, for almost 30 years. And I remember having an opportunity to meet them in New York City and of course, life has gone on. They have a family now and children, and we met in New York and I thought to myself I feel quite bad that I've carried.
Speaker 2:We were at this really nice restaurant and I thought one thing I can do is is pick up the tab and I bought the meal for everybody and it was like a catharsis. It was a, it really was a letting go of the carcass, you know, and, and and it and there was an embrace after that meal which was genuine and it was almost restorative, like that relationship that died in 1984 suddenly had life again and there was a newness about the reality of the forgiveness. It was a making room for better things in my cup moment for me. And I remember walking out of that restaurant and I thought why did I do that? I couldn't afford that, I didn't have the money, but I did it anyway. And um, and they they were actually they had a whole lot more. You know, they were quite wealthy family and uh, and there I was at the time unemployed, and I thought why am I doing this?
Speaker 2:But sometimes you do these things and it's not about counting the costs, it's about doing the inventory and God saying this is what you need to do. What is it going to take for you to let this go, take for you to to let this go? Yeah, so that's kind of one of my things, because I often would get rattled and I realized that that that story and that hurt was still just under the surface and I. It's so weird how stressful moments in life bring up some of our past pain and that happened to be one of those unresolved things that I carried for over 30 years. So it's kind of cool that I'm going next week, I'm flying back to the United States for my 40th class reunion and so I'll be seeing a lot of my old school friends and I'm kind of excited. I'm sure we're all going to look at each other and say, when did you get so old?
Speaker 3:but but it, it's great, it's going to be really good saying about making room in the cup for new stuff and the good stuff because I think actually that that is possibly the hardest part is the making the room Because it feels so comfortable, even like sometimes even the negative feels super comfortable, because it's maybe what we're used to.
Speaker 3:And so I think you know we're going to talk about some inner healing work shortly and what that looks like, but it's really important that we do that't. We don't get resentful towards people. I mean you, you could have spent the last 30 years being super resentful and I'm sure there were times where you did feel like that, but actually God God did something in that moment where you and he got to share that dinner and you got to bless him. But I wonder, callum, what you feel about no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Thank you. This is a tricky one. I found myself asking myself lots of questions just then. How does one make space? I really like this cup analogy. It kind of gets me thinking in lots of different ways. Do we ever truly remove things from our cup?
Speaker 2:Or does?
Speaker 1:God, help us transform what is in our cup. And if we can remove things from our cup, how truly do we do that? How do we know when we've tossed it to the side? Because I have things that are spiky in my cup and occasionally something, as my dad just said it gets triggered, and so how do we deal with that? And how do we know when we've dealt with it? And I guess the final thought in that string is do we ever truly deal with it or is it always going to be there?
Speaker 2:I got a question to bounce off of that. If we put this in computer speak because you're a tech person. If you have tons of files that are bogging up your computer because you don't have enough memory, and you're looking at the hard drive on your computer system and you're like man, this computer's just not working right, it's inefficient, it's not doing great. Tell me, as a tech person, what are you going to do to get the computer working efficiently, so that it doesn't lag, so that it looks good, so that everything works like it's supposed to work when you turn it on? Tell me how you fix your computer.
Speaker 2:Thank you, you've just done that recently for me.
Speaker 1:Great, great question. And, and the first, the second one I'll leave it for. The second one is not the one that you want to do. The first one is you clean the hard drive, you wipe it, or you wipe the bits that are clogging it up. So that's, that's the obvious answer. The second one, which is a bit scary for this scenario you can wipe it, right I?
Speaker 2:it's possible to wipe the.
Speaker 1:Well, this is the thing about hard drives which might ruin your analogy is you never truly can clean a hard drive. There will always be bits of program, bits of files left.
Speaker 2:And isn't that what you just told us about forgiveness and the past?
Speaker 1:So I think that for me, in terms of my faith, the little bits of hard drive and my internal hard drive that are left, I leave with God. I mean, that's where my faith really comes into action is when I know that I've done all I can. At the end of the day, that little bit that's left, sometimes that's a lot of it I I look, help me out, I I'm really trying what.
Speaker 2:What do you do after you've cleaned the hard drive? You cleaned it up and you've gotten all as many of the fragments out of the way. What's next?
Speaker 1:you try to start anew, you try to try to have healthy, healthy habits in terms of what you're putting on that hard drive.
Speaker 2:And you reboot it, I guess.
Speaker 1:Reboot? Not necessarily, but you definitely are more considerate about what you're putting on there. So, yes, I would say there's an element of starting anew in terms of Okay.
Speaker 2:New hardware. Do you upgrade your hardware Software? You would upgrade your software. Oh, sorry, okay, Because the software helps it to run more efficiently. Yeah, okay, and I guess there are even opportunities to replace some of the actual hardware if that becomes problematic becomes problematic.
Speaker 1:I think the thing about software that would work well in this analogy is software is a bit like magic or a bit like God. Not like magic, a bit like God. When you download a new software, it often can take care of those little bits of remnants and really make a hard drive work like it's new again.
Speaker 2:So you have software for for that to happen and the thing I love is that I don't have to understand it for it to work. I can actually have and this is sort of weird but I can have faith that some computer scientist somewhere understands how it works and that I just trust that upgrading the software, doing the programmed updates on the system, that that will actually create more efficiency. I don't need to know how that works or how it happens, and it's the same way when I walked out of that restaurant. I don't know what happened and I don't know how it happened, but I trust that there was an element of a new software download happening with me and God and that he, you know, renewed my heart.
Speaker 2:You know what was the Sheila Walsh quote? That healing is not the absence of the storm, but it's the presence of peace in the midst of it that we find our way to a deeper place of calm. It doesn't mean the storm has left, but it means that we have a new way of living in it.
Speaker 3:And I like that. We can see, through the examples that we're sharing, that God definitely journeys with us in these things, that it's not a case of us trying to work out okay, if I do this, this will happen. You know, if I forgive this person, I'll feel better, they'll feel better. Right, and it's like this formula that you have to follow.
Speaker 2:It's so real, like the way that god meets us in each of these moments is so real and unique, I think, to each of us involved in the situations, and I think transactional thinking is so dangerous and when you start acting like you're manipulating God, then you're one step away from you know, being like one of these prosperity churches that you know if you give enough money, then God's going to do this for you and it's a transaction between you and God and if you forgive this person, then he's going to give you a new car, and I just don't think that that will ever be a healthy way of having a religious faith. I mean, I think I can be very broad in a lot of ways of understanding varieties of theology, but I have to put a boundary at the place where God becomes a tool for wealth and prosperity. I just think that's dangerous, honestly.
Speaker 3:It is, and that's why I like how Acorn you know, when we have prayer ministry at Hubs or however you interact with Ac acorn, it's, it's very gentle, um. It's not this forceful experience, um of trying to get you to be in a different place than you are now, um, and it's really very prayerful as well in the way that we um journey alongside people, and also it's holistic. So we don't really just look at one thing, we're looking at a whole person that God has has brought to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I, I think I've seen people on the the edge of the abyss. You know, the supreme agitation is in a hospital waiting room being told that a loved one has died and uh, it's, and it's amazing at that moment what bubbles out of people. You know what's in your cup when you really are faced with the death of a loved one or something that you know, something so traumatic, the things that spew out of people. It's remarkable because the bargaining comes comes out oh Lord, you know, if you do this, then I, you know, I promise I'll do this if you let this not be true, and the kind of things in that moment. And then the you know I've seen rage. I saw a guy go after a nurse with a knife one time because he was furious and he didn't know what else to do, and the thing that came up within him was somebody's got to pay for this.
Speaker 2:And the next thing, you know he pulls a knife out and and so you just hate to see people get to that place of being so far on the edge that the deep, deep depths of their brokenness come to the surface. And then they start being entertained and the world sees that vulnerability. And you know that's when you know the inner workings of that computer, are sitting in the middle of the room and you go, oh my gosh, this is not pretty. There's some elements of the design of a computer that must look gorgeous, but then there's some things that probably are messy.
Speaker 2:When you get inside a computer and you see somebody's kind of hotwired several things and you go what in the world is that? You wouldn't want people to see it because it's kind of your dirty, dark secret. So what's in your cup? It's not just about knowing the inventory, but it's about finding a way to become a better person, for us to become better people. So what would you say would lead us to, let's say, greater transformation? What can help us to make sure that what's in our cup is good?
Speaker 3:I think that's a good question Because also, I mean, I know we're using an analogy here, but I'm thinking about how did that coffee get in that cup? And so at some point there was a decision made, probably about I'm going to either have black coffee or a mocha or whatever it'll be, and that's that's in there. And um, it makes me realize when I think about that that also there is a level of responsibility as an individual I and other people have to take about what is in our cup, and I know a lot of stuff are presented with. It's just, you know the people say, you know it's the rolling of the dice, but also we do. We do make decisions and we can make decisions that make us transform and help us transform. So leaning into God and his word and you know his word for us individually at the time we're in, I think is a really helpful thing. But I worry sometimes that people put the responsibility for their own baggage onto other people.
Speaker 3:It's you know, maybe victim mentality is part of that, I don't know. But, callum, should we bring you in and find out what you think? But, callum, should we?
Speaker 1:bring you in and find out what you think. I think for me the answer starts with Jesus and I hope would end with Jesus. What does transformation look like? Gosh, what a question. And me, what a big mystery, mystery symbol that I put on your, your presentation for your healing academy. Lots of times I think it's an individual thing, an internal thing, but I wonder, instead of trying to give you an answer when I'm not sure, potentially bounce it back In your experience, both of you what does transformation?
Speaker 2:look like in others and yourself.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's been lots of moments of transformation for me, and a lot of it is coming to grips with things, finding a way to be non-anxious in the presence of something that's real. You could argue that there was transformation in my journey back in the 80s when I walked to the front of a church at a crusade and a lot of people you know, I have lots of liberal friends who don't understand conversion experiences and they talk about conservative religion with disdain, and then I share with them my story of actually having a kind of salvation experience at a Barry Woods crusade and they go well, what's that? That makes no sense. Well, for me it was a real moment of transformation and it wasn't magic and the whole. You know, I got saved, you know, I think I was being saved for years and years prior to that moment. But it was a moment of transformation because I went down to the front of this big church and I prayed with a stranger who I didn't know, and in that moment of praying, you know, I found myself really truly trusting God. And so what was actually happening inside of me? You could argue that that was simply the power button getting pushed and that my you know, my purpose and my system was being reinvigorated by the Holy Spirit, and so, from that point forward, there have been more and more and more transformations.
Speaker 2:You could argue that every day is a transformation, that each morning we wake up and we have an opportunity to grow, to deepen and to become new in Christ, to have stronger relationships, to be very self-aware and to deepen our faith. But I, you know, I think, deepen our faith. But I, you know, I think the reality is people struggle with transformation because it's scary. I think getting up in the back of that church that day when the preacher was saying who's going to be the caboose on my train, you know, the idea of walking forward and saying yes to God is actually quite frightening. And so transformation is stepping into a place of dependence rather than independence, and you're daring to allow yourself to become different and to grow to the caterpillar that comes out of the chrysalis and is a butterfly. You know the transformation into this new creation where the old has passed away. What do you think, lisa?
Speaker 3:I think initially, I mean, this is such a big question, I feel like I could ponder this for a very long time because I think, you see, transformation, like Chris, you've mentioned in many different ways God's character and being as much as possible and so things like for me. I've always been a very anxious person and I know this transformation when I realize God's peace is within me more than the anxiety has been, and that might be, that might change over a number of years. It's not that it always happens immediately, um, but very much. Yeah, I'm just thinking when I used to do youth work and the joy I would get when I would see some of the young people making decisions that were more wholesome for them, um, and, and that usually would be that they've, um, they've used their values, that they've, you know, got from god and scripture and their christian community, and seeing them make decisions and live lives that were just a lot more wholesome and holy, um, for them.
Speaker 3:I would say that was also transformation and I'll be. I'm one of those people where I, if I see people walking in their identity in Christ a little bit more, I get just so excited for them and I and I always, I've always thought why do I get so excited? But actually, thinking about the word transformation, I think that might be why. Because you can. When you journey with people, you can see them go from one place to another and again, it's not always linear, but you see it happen and you go. That that is a transformation, that is something to praise God about.
Speaker 2:I have a former student that Callum will remember really well and I don't think he'll mind me using his name.
Speaker 2:His name is Will Bigelow and I hope maybe Will will watch the podcast this week.
Speaker 2:But I've seen a transformation of a young college student who arrived at university kind of eager to grow up and to experience the world and he had this hungry faith and I've witnessed him go from that to being a really amazing schoolteacher now and husband and father of two amazing kids.
Speaker 2:I mean, he really is making a huge difference in his church, in the school, in his family. It's such a blessing and I just kind of sit back in the middle of the audience kind of watching his life unfold and it's a beautiful thing and we love each other very much and I get WhatsApp messages from him and it's so wonderful to continue to have a relationship with a kid that was 20 when I first started talking to him and you know, and all these years later, to see how God is still alive and working in his life. And of course, he will remember Callum when he was just a little boy and so it's funny how the you know how things come and grow and change and yet, uh, and yet the constant through it all is is God's active presence and a calming presence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:Do you remember Will Callum?
Speaker 1:I do. I do. Yeah, he's a great guy. I remember when he had more hair than he probably does now.
Speaker 2:So that's right, we called him Will Bigafro instead of big. Hello, I love you will very, very much. Um. Now will would appreciate some facts. So let me give you some hard facts, um, because I went and dug this out.
Speaker 2:It is actually in your best interest, um, to be a forgiving person who is self-aware and thinks about what's in their cup.
Speaker 2:Johns Hopkins Medicine reports that forgiveness can lead to lower blood pressure, reduce pain, better sleep, decrease levels of anxiety and depression. Chronic anger, by contrast, activates the fight or flight response response, and that raises blood pressure. So it's in your interest to be a forgiving person. Also, a Harvard health study found that forgiveness not only improves your mental health, but it does lower your heart rate and your blood pressure, and especially when people engage in what were known in this report as reflective practices sort of meditation, things like empathy and taking perspective. So you could argue that it is absolutely in your best interest to find out what's in your cup and make sure that it is not full of nasty bile and pain from your past, that you work through those things to try and make sure that you are carrying around the healthiest version of yourself you can, gandhi said, be the change that you wish to see in the world. So we should try and become the person that we're longing to to find in the world, each day when we leave our house I just got a quick question.
Speaker 3:If what would you say to someone who, if they were finding it really difficult to go into the process of inner healing or or just looking at some of the stuff that's in the cup? I remember once doing a sermon when we were at white hill chase at acorn, and we had a big cross, a big wooden cross, and we were talking about bringing our stuff to the cross and I remember one person at the end came up to me and they said I hit like I hear what you're saying but I can't even pick it up to bring it to the cross it up to bring it to the cross.
Speaker 3:It was just bringing it to the cross was just such a hard thing for them to do. What would you say, chris, as a minister, to someone who was finding it particularly difficult to do this?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's so hard because everybody is unique, and I think the worst thing that we can do as Christians is try and prescribe the behavior of other people and to say because how many times have we come across other Christian leaders who tell us what to do, and tell us what we need to do and tell us what's in our best interest to do? And so that model of leadership, I think, often pushes people away and in some ways, pushes them deeper into their pain. I think the better thing to do is I used to call it relational evangelism instead of confrontational evangelism you just come alongside people, come alongside and walk with them for a little while and you don't have to tell them what to do. You don't even have to tell them what you see. You actually give them an opportunity to tell you what they're looking at as you walk along, and then there may be opportunities in that to um, to for them to say, hey, can you hold this for me for a second?
Speaker 2:I know in chaplaincy there's a lot of times when you just walk along with people in their rooms as they're suffering from from a disease or they might be dying, and you have these little moments where the patient who's sitting there, will give you this piece of emotional baggage and they'll just hand it to you as a chaplain and they'll say, would you mind holding this for me? And they'll tell you something that's deeply personal Maybe that they cheated on their wife, or maybe that you know that they had a child that nobody knows about, who lives in California. I mean, you find this incredible stuff. And they just say, would you hold this for me? And this is a person who's about to die. And you think, what am I doing in that moment? I'm basically just giving them an opportunity to find God's holiness in their life.
Speaker 2:And so you know, sometimes you know you need to give someone a chance to rid their cup of the stuff that's kind of gathered on the top. Have you ever had a, a drink, and it has a little film on the top of it and you think, hey, would you just kind of scrape, sort of scrape this, scrape this film off so that I can drink the drink? And and so I know we're just killing this metaphor to death, but um, but really that's, that's what it is. You know the psalm 51 create in me a clean heart, oh god, and renew a right spirit within me. I I don't know how that happens.
Speaker 2:Um, your question was like how do we companion somebody who's searching? You can't beat them over the head, but you can love them. You can love them and walk with them and really be a reflection of God's love to them, and I think sometimes that's the most powerful thing you can do is just to embody the love of Christ with somebody who's struggling. Non-judgmental, non-anxious presence, all that stuff that you learn. I think that, to me, is the best way. Then they'll look at you and they'll say, man, what's in your cup? There's something good in your cup, because you have a countenance about you that I really I want to know what's going on with you.
Speaker 2:Back to my friend, will Bigelow. When I used to see Will, he always had joy in him and he still does today. And so you know, whenever we communicate, we connect, I always feel that radiance from his Afro. You know this joy that's just coming out of him and because he really genuinely loves Jesus and he longs to live for God. And you know and I can, of all the people that I, all the students I've ever come across, he's probably just one of the most amazing, faithful guys, and we've had several people from our ministry program who've gone on to be priests and they're serving churches and things, but old Will is he's still the guy that stands out to me as as uh somebody who really had uh, he got it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it in a. In a way it was kind of like that um, is it Japanese porcelain art where they, if you have a cracked piece, of porcelain, they they put it back together with gold.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And don't they celebrate the cracks? Yeah and the beauty of the, of the object, is the fact that it has all of these cracks and uh. And I think there have been a lot of people in my life who I look at and I say I think what makes them beautiful is not that they're these pristine, beautiful cups, but they are broken clay pots who understand that the treasure is within them and that they embrace their own reality and their frailty.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. Why don't we sort of bring it to a close with a short reflection? And I know you've got a couple of questions that maybe we could ask at the end of our day. I was looking at them this morning and actually I think they're really helpful.
Speaker 2:Could you go go ahead with them, chris, and let people Sure, sure, before I do the Callum, do you have any kind of final thoughts? Listening to us blather on about things? What are your, what are your thoughts on all this? And how do you, how do you see AcORN doing something positive to make a difference with what we're saying?
Speaker 1:I think transformation is the name of the game I mean. Acorn seems to be all about transformation.
Speaker 1:And an approach that's helped me in the last couple of years is to see transformation not as an end goal, but as a way of life, and I think ACORN is right there with me in terms of seeing it as a way of being to be daily transformers that sounds like we're talking about robotic creatures that turn into cars but to be agents of change and agents of love in a world that sometimes pushes back against both of those things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really helpful. I love that. The approach is that it is a way of life, because I also think it makes it a little bit more approachable. And maybe easy is not the right word, but if you think of it as an end point, it's like oh my word, at some point I'm gonna have to get to that point. How do I do it? Whereas daily it's just like well, we'll tackle this today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that callum, thank you well, I think one of the neat things is, uh, the fact that mr callum has helped us with this, which which is the Acorn Christian Healing Academy, which starts this Saturday, and this is actually one of the title slides from the event. So I'm kind of excited that we've got this really cool presentation that's queued up and ready to go, and Callum's been very much a part of making it look better. His old man is not real talented at all the fancy bits and he has helped package it in a way that hopefully will inspire people to think both about healing and about the theology of healing which is our theme for this coming weekend and the Academy will be up and running and how many people are coming.
Speaker 2:have you looked at the numbers we've got about 50 people 50 and some of those are going to be meeting like in groups right.
Speaker 3:I heard yesterday there's another group meeting in northern ireland so you can come, come as an individual and kind of like we are doing here on this podcast, or you can meet in a room with a group of people and listen and watch and practice the bits together and it turns out quite a lot more people are doing that, so that's brilliant.
Speaker 2:Great Be great fun, and I so I thank Callum for for cleaning up our our Christian Healing Academy cup so that we have good quality materials on the inside of the cup to present.
Speaker 2:That's palatable and people, hopefully, will take in some, uh, some good stuff and and carry it with them throughout the rest of the year and maybe the rest of their lives. It's not too ambitious to think that somebody can have an encounter with God. That's life-changing. Kind of just like I did at that Barry Woods crusade, you bump into things which finally make you say, yes, I'm going to be a follower of God the rest of my life. And so I guess the final thing to say would be, you know, to ask the question that we each need to ask every day you know, what am I carrying, what do I want to pour out? And then, perhaps the one I ask most mornings when I say my prayers is what do I want God to fill me with? Is that kind of a silly thing? But it's a daily thing and it's not just about going into the kitchen in the morning and having a cup of coffee, but it's actually really looking at self on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:And maybe the old monks had a good idea when they had these patterns of prayer where they would say prayers and they would say certain prayers on regular basis during the day to try and continue to journey with God deeper and deeper, and so I guess that's kind of what I want to do. But the folks that are listening at home, I hope they'll go away from this podcast and they'll go well. What have I been carrying? What? What you know, what? What do I need to do about that? What am I going to get rid of today, lord? What am I going to ask you to forgive me?
Speaker 3:You know take this thorn from my flesh, Lord. Yeah, absolutely so. Why don't we end with Romans 15, 13.? This is a scripture that's used a lot. It's made the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. What a promise.
Speaker 2:Overflow with hope I want that on a t-shirt.
Speaker 3:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a beautiful verse and it does tie this metaphor the cup being filled. That's fantastic and we're sustained by divine hope and divine peace. So that's that's fantastic and one of the things that we have heard. Lisa, some folks want a shorter version of the podcast, so we're going to explore some ways in the coming weeks to have we were joking and calling it espresso coffee, you know a coffee pod shorter version. We'll come up with a clever name for it, but maybe carve out a couple of the good bits from each episode and create some short form content.
Speaker 2:Thanks to the, to Mr Callum, who is the gifted one who can do all these fancy things, and so I'm not sure when we'll get started with the shorter form, but but we'll, we'll get cracking on it. And I haven't even thought about next week, but I'm thinking that, because it's the Academy and we're talking about biblical healing and theology of healing, I think, as we promised, we would be thematic and stay with the theme. So I think next week let's talk about um, interpretations of healing and the fact that there are lots of people who don't believe in healing and lots of people who believe in different kinds of healing. And why don't we just have a podcast about faith and doubt?
Speaker 3:yeah, that would be fantastic. Yeah, so come to the academy, gather some information and then listen to the podcast, where we'll we'll have an even yeah it's not too late to register, right, they can go to the website and they can.
Speaker 2:You got to register to get the link so that you can join us, because it's all on zoom, it's not in person and anybody can come. If you're in america, you'll have to get up really early in the morning, but then we'll record it and upload it, hopefully later, so that if you can't come in person, you'll be able to watch it at the same place that you're listening to this podcast and hopefully be blessed by what you hear.
Speaker 3:Nice. Well, thank you so much, everyone, for listening. We'll catch you next time. Callum, it's so good to have you with us. Thank you for getting us thinking a bit more and getting some questions.
Speaker 2:Uh to us and um, we will see you at the end, it's a blustery, blustery day, but like subscribe, that's it, that's the one, and the winds are blowing, thank, you Into the sunset into the light Keeps you there for the most glorious place.
Speaker 3:On the face of the earth or the sky?
Speaker 2:Hold on to your breath, hold on to your heart, hold on to your hope. March on to that gate a minute away.
