Checking In w/ Chris Hoke - Contemplation, Racism, Prison & the Church - Conversation #12 No. 53

In the context of the growing race protests across America, Josh checks in with one of his favorite conversation partners, Chris Hoke of Underground Ministries in the Skagit Valley of Washington State. Chris initially appeared in episode 19 in January of 2018. Chris has been a prison chaplain and now also is involved connecting former convicts with local churches. Josh especially wanted to reach out to Chris to discuss the question of race after the killing of George Floyd.

Chris will become a regular monthly contributor to the Invitation Podcast to help create conversation that connects the dots between deep, spiritual formation and the outcasts of America's industrial incarceration system.

ALSO, we are continuing our journey with Fr Martin Laird's A Sunlit Absence this summer. Sign up for our two webinar Q&A sessions with him at www.invitationpodcast.org/fr-laird-qa-webinar

Dying to Comfort Vs Dying of Comfort: A Journey to the Prison - Micah Matthews No. 33

Micah Matthews recently finished and MFA in fiction at Warren Wilson. This episode is his audio essay where he describes his visits to the prison with Josh. These visits cause Micah to reflect on the spiritual good of going outside of his comfort.

Without permission to take microphones and cameras into the prison, this essay is the next best way for you to come inside to taste and see the movements of the Holy Spirit in a prison.

The Invitation is in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to cover our capital budget. Please consider contributing financially so that we can create more creative spiritual formation content like this for you. tinyurl.com/y9gqmnha 

Please subscribe to the Invitation Podcast to stay in the loop with all the new content as it becomes available.

Thanks for joining this journey with us!

Much Love & Peace to you!

Josh

Update! Your Guide to Going Deeper With the Invitation no. 22

This is an update episode to invite you to go deeper with the Invitation Podcast by: 1. joining a summer-long, multi-episode retreat through the shema (Deut 6; Mark 12)of loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; and 2. to become a sustaining member of the Invitation as it seeks to become a non-profit. Here Josh shares the story of how he got into spiritual direction, started this podcast, became involved in the prison prayer practices...and how all these pieces fit together into a non-profit! Please subscribe to make sure you can download a free song, "Silence" that Josh and his wife, Susanna Childress (aka Ordinary Neighbors) recorded for the podcast.

Conversation # 6 Christopher Hall No. 16

Is it fair to connect social injustices like racism and our industrial prison system to our own personal belief in Jesus' ability to transform our lives? 

I am beginning to believe it is fair to do just this. Our collective, national sicknesses are deeply connected to my own sense of who God is for me today. If I come to believe that the Holy Spirit can transform my own life, then I will develop hope for my neighbors, even my enemies and hardened criminals. 

In this latest discussion Christopher Hall and I wrestle with these things. Chris is the newest president of Renovaré I trust because he is careful and loving with the church. As you listen to this episode, you'll hear my consternation with the failings of the church to believe transformation is possible. As I read more and more about racism and the incarceration system, as I complete my third year volunteering in local prison, I see the weaknesses of an American Church that continues to criminalize and scapegoat people of color, especially black men. Chris challenges me to be more hopeful in the church. He argues that the church might respond to this crisis if they only could be informed about the crisis. This is a delicate subject to bring up Chris says, yet it is gaining traction even among evangelicals.

How do we challenge American Christians to risk, to look and see beyond the confines of their own communities to see the struggles of their not too distant neighbors?

Author and activist Michelle Alexander describes the blindness of those who enable institutional, systemic racism. She says:

Martin Luther King Jr. in his speeches would often remind his audiences that, you know, most folks who support Jim Crow aren't evil bad people, they're just deeply misguided. They're blind, spiritually blind to the harms of the policies that they support. And I think the same thing can be said today, many people of good will are blind to the harms of mass incarceration and the devastation, the war on drugs has caused.

In this conversation Chris Hall challenges us to practice the spiritual discipline of moving our bodies and our minds out of our comfort zones into new "learning spaces" that we might be transformed into the character of Jesus.

I invite you to participate in this conversation, episode #16, a conversation with Christopher Hall!

Peace of Christ to you!

Josh

An Update & Short Meditation, 'Choosing Less' no. 8

In this episode Josh offers two updates in a reflective meditation, a kind of short retreat. If you are interested in the Feb 7-8 church leader's contemplative retreat, send him an email (josh at harderwyk dot com). Josh also explains his decision to step down from his position at Harderwyk. Huge thanks to the leaders at that church and to all the people as well. Listen to find out more. A new, proper website will be online soon. Stay tuned for more conversations and retreats coming soon!

Conversation #1 Joseph Byrd OLF no. 5

November 1, 2016

In this episode, I sit down with my spiritual director, Joseph Byrd OLF, to conduct the very first interview of the Invitation Podcast! Joseph has helped me and many others, even so-called 'hardened prisoners,' experience God's loving presence.  In this conversation with Joseph you can experience our shared joy and love for each other and God. Our deepest lessons are more 'caught than taught,' as God is a person to experience instead of a concept to explain. In this discussion with Joseph, my hope is that you will catch on to a new experience of God as I have over the past seven years.

Joseph says:

"Prayer is so much like music....What my sense of God has become is flow."

And goodness, does this conversation flow!

Join me for Conversation #1 with Joseph Byrd OLF as we cover topics like prayer, suffering, waking to God as if from a dream, music, prison outreach, CS Lewis, Dallas Willard, Teilhard de Chardin, St. Ignatius, St. Francis of Assisi, Isaac of Nineveh, Evelyn Underhill and more.