Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker – Details, episodes & analysis

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"Just try harder. Work harder. Think harder." But what if the key to creativity, whether that’s in our art or in the art of our daily lives, isn’t more effort but surrender? Carey Wallace, artist and author of The Discipline of Inspiration, joins Amy Julia Becker to talk about:

• How discipline and spiritual practices nurture inspiration
  
  
• The role of surrender in the creative process
  
  
• How all humans can explore their creative potential and embrace the joy of creation
  
  
• Art as a communal experience
  
  
• How the discipline of inspiration empowers meaningful change in our world that is good and mutually beneficial

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REIMAGINING FAMILY LIFE WITH DISABILITY WORKSHOP
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ON THE PODCAST:

The Discipline of Inspiration by Carey Wallace

Image Seminar: The Discipline of Inspiration (a five-week craft workshop)

Slow Productivity by Cal Newport

Jon Batiste interview on Fresh Air

Once a Queen: A Novel by Sarah Arthur

Once a Castle by Sarah Arthur 

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CONNECT with Carey Wallace on her website (disciplineofinspiration.org), Instagram (@disciplineofinspiration), or Facebook (@disciplineofinspiration).

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WATCH this conversation on YouTube by clicking here. Read the full transcript and access detailed show notes by clicking here or visiting amyjuliabecker.com/podcast.

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ABOUT THE GUEST:

Carey Wallace is the author of The Discipline of Inspiration (Eerdmans), The Blind Contessa’s New Machine (Penguin), and The Ghost In The Glass House (Clarion). She works to help people from all walks of life find inspiration and build strong creative habits to sustain a lifetime of creation. She performs as a songwriter, exhibits her own fine art, and has spoken on art, faith, and justice with students at Princeton, Julliard, Emory, Pratt, and Yale. Her articles and poems have appeared in Time, Detroit’s Metro Times, and America. She is the founder of a retreat for artists in Michigan, and the Discipline of Inspiration creative habit formation program, which has been in operation for over a decade across the US and internationally. She grew up in small towns in Michigan, and lives and works in Brooklyn. 
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How do we attend to diverse voices in our churches and society without silencing or patronizing each other? Author and professor Esau McCaulley, PhD, joins Amy Julia Becker to discuss The New Testament in Color: A Multiethnic Bible Commentary. They talk about:

• the importance of connecting church and culture
  
  
• the insights provided by scholars from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities
  
  
• the harm caused by limiting biblical interpretation to a Western-centric lens
  
  
• the role of the church in today's society
  
  
• the transformative power of listening and learning from each other

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AMY JULIA'S Books
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ON THE PODCAST:

NYT essays by Esau McCaulley

The Esau McCaulley Podcast

Reading While Black: book; podcast episode

How Far to the Promised Land: book; podcast episode
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CONNECT with Dr. McCaulley on his website (esaumccaulley.com) and on social media (@esaumccaulley)
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Watch this conversation on YouTube by clicking here. Read the full transcript and access detailed show notes by clicking here or visiting amyjuliabecker.com/podcast.
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ABOUT:

Esau McCaulley, PhD, is an author and The Jonathan Blanchard Associate Professor of New Testament and Public Theology at Wheaton College. His writing and speaking focus on New Testament Exegesis, African American Biblical Interpretation, and Public Theology. He has authored numerous books including, Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope, which won numerous awards including Christianity Today’s Book of the Year. Esau also served as the editor of New Testament in Color: A Multi-Ethnic Commentary on the New Testament.

On the popular level, Esau’s recent memoir, How Far to the Promised Land, was named by Amazon as a top five non-fiction book of 2023. He has also penned works for children, including Josey Johnson’s Hair and the Holy Spirit and Andy Johnson and the March for Justice. Esau is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and senior editor for Holy Post Media as well as the host of a new podcast with the Holy Post. His writings have appeared in places such as The Atlantic, Washington Post, and Christianity Today.
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In a society often obsessed with intelligence, can we reimagine a good life that encompasses joy, meaning, and respect for all? What does it mean to respect and support individuals with profound intellectual disabilities? What role do those most intimately involved in providing care have in advocacy? Professor Amy Lutz, Ph.D., author of Chasing the Intact Mind, joins Amy Julia Becker to discuss:

• How the severely autistic and intellectually disabled were excluded from the debates that affect them most
• Controversy and misconceptions about sheltered workshops/14(c) programs
• The importance of meaningful relationships and community
• Building a caring and committed workforce of caregivers
• Listening to caregivers and families

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FREE RESOURCE: 10 Ways to Move Toward a Good Future (especially for families affected by disability)
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GUEST BIO

Professor Amy Lutz, Ph.D., is a historian of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research locates at the intersection of disability history and bioethics. She is a founding board member of the National Council on Severe Autism (NCSA) and the author of Chasing the Intact Mind and several other books. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and five children, including Jonah, her 25-year-old son with profound autism.
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CONNECT ONLINE

• Website: amysflutz.com/

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ON THE PODCAST

• Chasing the Intact Mind: How the Severely Autistic and Intellectually Disabled Were Excluded from the Debates That Affect Them Most by Amy Lutz, Ph.D.
• The Lancet Commission on the future of care and clinical research in autism
• Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act
• United States Commission on Civil Rights 2020
• John Swinton
• Amy Julia’s essay about the spiritual lives of people with intellectual disabilities

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TRANSCRIPT: amyjuliabecker.com/amy-lutz/
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YouTube Channel: video with closed captions

Let’s Reimagine the Good Life together. Find out more at amyjuliabecker.com and subscribe here to receive my weekly thoughts and reflections.

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How does the pattern of Jesus’ life reshape privilege, wealth, and community? Paul Miller, author of “J-Curve: Dying and Rising with Jesus in Everyday Life,” talks with Amy Julia about the J-curve and how this daily dying and rising with Christ can create communities where the potential divisions of wealth and privilege are reshaped by love.

SHOW NOTES:
Paul Miller is Executive Director of seeJesus, a global discipleship mission, which he founded in 1999 to help Christians and non-Christians alike “see Jesus.” His books include “J-Curve” and the instant bestseller “A Praying Life.” Follow him on Twitter at @_paulemiller.

“The normal Christian life looks like the path of Jesus’ life—from life down into death and then from death up into resurrection and glorification. That pattern of Jesus’ life is the template for whole sections of my life, pieces of my day, my relationships, and it’s a very liberating grid. It has hope in it and gives meaning.”

“We don’t understand how critical our dying is to the creation of an inclusive community.”

“If I begin to live this J-curve, I become a community-creation machine. Everywhere I go I’m creating community.”

“The antidote to all of the problems of the power of money is love.”

“One of the aspects of evil is that it bends you to seeing that evil is the final word. And that leads to cynicism. You begin to see evil everywhere, and that in itself is evil because it leads to a cynical spirit where you begin to doubt even the good. That’s a disease of our age—an age of cynicism...Paul clearly looks at life through a resurrection lens and tells us to do so as well. What’s right and true and lovely? Be looking for those things. You’re hunting for the good.”

On the Podcast:

• Is God Anti-racist? article
• Scripture: Sharing in Christ’s suffering (Philippians 1:29, Philippians 3:10), 2 Corinthians 1, James 2:1-6, John 9, John 4:1-42, John 14, John 11:45-52, I Timothy 6, Colossians 3:1-17, Philippians 1, God of all comfort benediction, Fruit of the Spirit
• “The Sun Does Shine” by Anthony Ray Hinton
• Francis of Assisi
• Martin Luther
• “Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Ignatian Consolation and Desolation
• Penny’s diagnosis
• Way Maker
• Person of Jesus study

Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.

White Picket Fences, Season

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What would it mean for the criminal justice system to be unjust? And if it is, what should Christians do about it? Dominique Gilliard, author of “Rethinking Incarceration,” talks with Amy Julia about the history of injustice in this system, reimagining justice, punishment, and reconciliation in light of the gospel, and practical ways the church can love people who have been incarcerated.

SHOW NOTES:
Dominique DuBois Gilliard is the Director of Racial Righteousness and Reconciliation for the Love Mercy Do Justice (LMDJ) initiative of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). His book “Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice that Restores” won the 2018 Book of the Year Award for InterVarsity Press.

Follow LMDJ on social media

Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube

“Restorative justice says that for justice to be made manifest, there has to be a tangible pathway toward restoration for not only the person who has suffered from the offense but also the person who has caused the offense.”

“Do we really believe the things that we proclaim in our congregational spaces, and, if so, how does that inform how we vote, how we live, how we engage in the world at large?”

“Nobody is beyond redemption....the Spirit who has the ability to bring life out of death has the ability to bring restoration out of people who have caused offenses.”

“When we understand that privilege is something for us to steward, then that liberates us from feeling immobilized by it. It liberates us from actually denying it. We can affirm privilege is real and that we have a responsibility to steward it in a way that furthers the kingdom and loves our neighbor.”

On the Podcast:

• “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander
• Shooting of Kathryn Johnston
• Equal Justice Initiative
• Prison Fellowship
• Season 3 of Serial
• Chicago’s Million Dollar Blocks
• Old Testament gleaning laws
• “Compassionate Justice” by Christopher Marshall
• Bryan Stevenson and Equal Justice Initiative
• 67% of white evangelicals support the death penalty
• Interview with Bryan Stevenson about “Just Mercy”
• Psalm 139:23-24
• Resources from Dominique: What We Can Do powerpoint and Follow-Up Resources pdf

Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.

White Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love i

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The Black church has a gift for American Christianity. Are we all willing to receive it? New Testament scholar Esau McCaulley, author of “Reading While Black,” talks with Amy Julia about Black biblical interpretation, distorted views of the gospel, the importance of identity within a Christian’s story, and the Black church’s commitment to both the theological tenets of Christianity and advocating for justice.

SHOW NOTES:
Esau McCaulley (PhD, St. Andrews), author of “Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope,” a priest in the Anglican Church in North America, and a contributing writer for The New York Times. He is also the host of The Disrupters podcast. His publications include Sharing in the Son's Inheritance and numerous articles in outlets such as Christianity Today, The Witness, and The Washington Post. Connect with him online:

• esaumccaulley.com
• Twitter: @esaumccaulley

“There’s a whole story in the Bible of God liberating an entire people who are enslaved. This goes to the front of God’s resume. He says it over and over and over again, 'I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.'”

“The very practice of going to the Bible and asking God to meet us there is an exercise of hope."

"Look to the Black church in America. It has a long history of advocacy for justice along with remaining in the great tradition of things Christians will always believe."

“If our ethnicity is eschatological, if we go into the new creation as black and brown and white people, if we all come into the kingdom as our ethnic selves, then God is glorified in the salvation of each of us and each part of who we are. My blackness is not immaterial to the story of my life. I can’t tell the story of my life and what God has done in my life without talking about what it means to be Black and Christian.”

On the Podcast:

• Articles/Essays in The New York Times
• Scripture: Genesis 48, Exodus 12:37-38, I Timothy 6:1-2, Genesis 1:26-28, Luke 20:4, Sermon on the Mount, Revelation, John 9
• “Deacon King Kong” by James McBride
• “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” by James Cone
• The New York Times: The Bloody Fourth Day of Christmas
• Penny’s diagnosis of Down syndrome

Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.

White Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book White Picket Fences, and today we are talking about chapter 7. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at

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In an achievement-oriented culture, how do we risk vulnerability in order to move toward personal and racial healing? Cognitive therapist Niro Feliciano talks with Amy Julia about the complexities of privilege, race and identity, affluence and anxiety, and the hurt and the hope found within communities of faith.

SHOW NOTES:
Niro Feliciano is a certified cognitive therapist and co-founder of a multi-specialty mental health group in Connecticut where she treats anxiety in adults and adolescents. Connect with Niro: nirofeliciano.com, her All Things Life podcast, @niro_feliciano on Instagram, and Niro Feliciano, The Incidental Therapist on Facebook.

“Race is a part of my identity and it is so much a part of my relationships.”

“Affluence contributes to...anxiety and depression.”

“Identity and value is so linked to accomplishment.”

“Starting in the home, we have to validate our families and our kids for who they are and not what they do. We can’t constantly be focused on the achievement.”

“I am sure about Jesus. When we say Christianity and the Church has not always been inclusive, my feeling is—Jesus always has been.”

“Be compassionate towards yourself. Forgive yourself.”

On the Podcast:

• Podcast episodes with Niro: Super Bowl episode and White Picket Fences episode
• Niro’s podcast: All Things Life
• “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” by James Weldon Johnson
• “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race” by Beverly Tatum
• “Caste: The Origins of Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson
• Niro’s blog post on ridgefieldmom.com

Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.

White Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book “White Picket Fences,” and today we are talking about chapter 7. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.

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Fear often inhabits both wealth and poverty. How does viewing money and self-sacrifice through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus bring freedom and joy? Writer and speaker Marlena Graves, author of The Way Up Is Down: Becoming Yourself by Forgetting Yourself, talks with Amy Julia about wealth, poverty, faith, and the freedom that comes from being filled up with God’s love.

SHOW NOTES
Marlena Graves received her M.Div. from Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, New York and is pursuing her Ph.D. in American Culture Studies as she researches the influence American culture has on Evangelicals’ view of immigration, race, and poverty. Connect with Marlena: marlenagraves.com; @marlena.graves on Instagram, @marlena.propergraves on Facebook, and @MarlenaGraves on Twitter.

“Money can’t buy happiness or joy or peace. We can use money that God has given us for God’s ways, but to think that [money by itself] is going to satisfy—it really doesn’t.”

“The way of Jesus is to use whatever God has given us and whatever station of life we are in for God’s Kingdom.”

“The only way I can love people, love my neighbor, is if I am in tune and paying attention to God.”

“Prayer is putting your gaze upon God.”

On the Podcast:

• Scripture: Amos 5:24; James 5:1-6; Matthew 13; Matthew 19:24; Luke 5:27–32; Luke 19:1-10; Luke 9:51-56; Mark 9:35; Matthew 25
• Rich Mullins
• Pope Francis
• Penny’s diagnosis of Down syndrome

Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.

White Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book White Picket Fences, and today we are talking about chapters 6 and 7. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.

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What is the difference between equality and equity and how does that affect education? Subira Gordan, executive director of ConnCAN, talks with Amy Julia about the lack of equity in education, the effects this has on opportunities for children, the role of antiracism in education, and the questions we can ask to move our communities toward affirming antiracist policies.

SHOW NOTES:
Subira Gordan is the executive director of ConnCAN, an organization that is “leading a movement to improve education outcomes for Connecticut’s kids...to ensure that all kids in The Constitution State have access to a high-quality education, regardless of their address.” Connect with ConnCAN at @ConnCAN on Facebook and @conncan on Twitter.

“Your ZIP code should not determine your future.”

“Education is a great equalizer.”

“Everyone wants to keep what they have, and they don’t recognize that what they have was made possible by government policies.”

“We should be talking about how as a community we can affirm antiracist policies.”

On the Podcast:

• Episode with Patricia Raybon
• Research about Connecticut schools provided by ConnCAN

White Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book White Picket Fences. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.

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How does “color blindness” actually enable blindness to racism and the system of whiteness? Cara Meredith, author of The Color of Life: A Journey Toward Love and Racial Justice, joins Amy Julia to talk about racism in the north, the harm of “color blindness,” the tenants of whiteness, and creating space to process whiteness in a way that’s “not all about me.”

Show Notes:

Cara Meredith is a writer, speaker, and coach. Connect with her online: carameredith.com, @carameredithwrites on Facebook and Instagram, and @caramac54 on Twitter.

“Love helped me see color”

“Blindness [to racism] continues to exist.”

"The celebration of who we are as humans - it’s not just our personalities but it is also what we look like on the outside and where we’ve come from.”

“Whiteness is the construct. Whiteness is all of those things that keep some people in and some people out...Whiteness is the system that we benefit from.”

Continuing the Conversation:

• Read: The Color of Life (100% of proceeds from book sales through Cara’s website will go to The Swan Dreams Project)

On the Podcast:

• James Meredith
• Oregon’s racist history
• The Warmth of Other Suns
• Jemar Tisby and The Color of Compromise
• the Samaritan woman in John 4
• So You Want to Talk About Race
• Be the Bridge and Latasha Morrison
• Austin Channing Brown and I’m Still Here
• Robin DiAngelo and her episode on Krista Tippett’s podcast

White Picket Fences, Season 3 of Love is Stronger Than Fear, is based on my book White Picket Fences. Check out free RESOURCES—action guide, discussion guides—that are designed to help you respond. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.

Connect with me:

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Thanks for listening!