Make Saints: Recent Episodes
Drew Downs
Because (eternal) life is hard. We all need help; with life, work, love, and everything else. Make Saints is a podcast about that side of life. The part that's hard but seems like it's supposed to be easy. And that moment when we realize that none of us is perfect.
When we treat a portion of Christians as speaking for all Christians and their rhetoric is of domination and certainty, we all become its victims.
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When we misunderstand each other, is it always a mistake? Or something to fix? Sometimes we work hard to keep misunderstanding each other. On purpose.
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When the public is chilled by an assassination attempt, our responses can be reactionary, ill-conceived, and quite dangerous.
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The thing about being literal is that we think we’re being accurate, but we’re often being pedantic. And refuse to see it.
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We have to start preparing ourselves to proactively adapt for the future to put less pressure on our future selves.
Here’s what I mean about the struggle we have with recognizing things haven’t always been this way.
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Our brains have a natural capacity to adapt. But we often use this natural capacity to refuse to learn, or pretend we were always right.
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We’re driving the very concept of “literal” to such an extreme that it is becoming meaningless. And we’re all actually avoiding the truth.
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The way we see the world is full of optimism and pessimism. It is also full of blindspots and assumptions for how things will be.
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The long, strange history of the call to being different is now mostly found in chicken-little cries of oppression and demands for hegemonic culture.
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Many of us have become so disconnected from what it means for the state to respond to protest—for we cannot kill for peace, or for safety.
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When we give so much of our time and attention to evaluating, judging, and rating the stuff in our lives, can we actually like things?
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Revelation is the most misunderstood and abused book in the Bible. It is frequently used to abuse or to ignore rather than read it as it was intended.
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What is common? What does it mean to hold things in common? And most importantly, what happens when we prioritize the uncommon?
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We mix up our ideas about generational groupings with the ways we expect people to behave because of the time in their life.
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Holy Week is a week of special devotion, when we remember the last week of Jesus’s life. How we mark this time says a lot about us and what we care about.
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There are whole worlds we explore of alternative realities in which we got to do the things we would have done—if only…so what’s stopping us now?
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When we encounter an act of protest, our ability to listen is not compromised by the manner of protest but by our own magical thinking.
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Pitchers and Catchers report is a vibe. Hearing this one particular phrase brings so much joy and anticipation to so many of us.
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As the sports world normalizes gambling, we continue to think of this as a question of rights and choice. But should we?
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How we perceive the idea of being "on time" is an act of community participation. And influence. It is all about the negotiation.
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We're obsessed with static ideas about people, age groups, and the youth. Here's why we get it all completely wrong.
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The pursuit of understanding isn’t the same as accumulating knowledge for one’s personal benefit. The desire to accumulate is destructive.
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The thing about making resolutions is that we act like we actually will get everything right the first time—so let's get good at restarting.
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The success of New Year's resolutions depends on our mindset and how we approach living out our values in the world.
Check out:
Atomic Habits by James Clear
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When everybody is looking for a leader, we must recognize first that we are leaders, and second, what it means to be led.
You'll definitely want to read Seth Godin's book
The Song of Significance
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Celebrating the whole Christmas season when the world is ready to move on continues to be a truly subversive activity.
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Christmas is most famously the happiest time of the year. But our tradition offers us another side: why we need it to be.
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(and what to do about it)
There's a reason we can't focus. And why the people around us are acting weird. And have been. Here's why and what we can do.
Books I mention
A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload
By Cal Newport
Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—And How to Think Deeply Again
By Johann Hari
Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto
By Tricia Hersey
Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age
By Katherine May
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
By Oliver Burkeman
Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock
By Jenny Odell
And...
The series of interviews with Corey Doctorow by "On The Media"
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Many treat the month of December like it's the Christmas season. But it's another season: Advent. We should embrace that confusion.
Here are links to things I mentioned this week:
- Advent Conspiracy
- Diana Bass’s column about war, Christmas, and Advent
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How we greet each other in the digital age is being dissected in ways that pull us out of our place. Let's explore what it means to be.
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Thanksgiving may be the most tradition-focused holiday in the U.S. But its true value is in seeking to cultivate thankfulness.
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In the beginning, the challenge of podcasting was logistical. But even when it became easier to podcast, barriers to podcasting remain. But not for long.
That podcast episode I mentioned is from On the Media. A podcast you should already be listening to. Just subscribe.
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I took a break from podcasting for a few months. I needed it. And now I'm back. Here's why I stopped and what to expect going forward!
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Simple practices to make the most of the season.
And check out this episode about Lent from Season One.
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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We often like to celebrate when something awful is over. But what happens to the good stuff in the middle?
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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We did it! We made it to episode #50. How to celebrate? By asking a weird question for the moment:
What is achievement that can never be realized?
Check out the video version.
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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Making resolutions is an annual tradition. So is failing at them. Here's why we ought to rethink the project.
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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There's something worse than stealing Christmas.
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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Racism is evil. Without question. Or apprehension.
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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Obligation, generosity, and the gift-giving season.
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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Being replaceable is freeing.
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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Giving thanks is best when we mean it.
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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As holy days go, All Saints is hard. It compels us to see ourselves in relationship to all those blessed before us.
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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Social Media is not normal. Let's take a look at how the three challenges to communication impact social media.
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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The way we communicate within groups right now involves hidden roadblocks. Here are three solutions you can try.
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The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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Some of the anxiety people have about communication is mixed expectations. And sometimes it is about about control.
Check out the video version.
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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When we don't know what's going on, it can be that nobody told us. It can also be that we don't know our own responsibility.
Check out the video version.
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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Many of us are struggling to communicate and feeling connected. And the thing is, it predates the pandemic.
Check out Cal Newport's A World Without Email
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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We all know how it feels like to hit a wall; to get stuck. What do we do when we feel like we can't do anything?
If you haven't listened to this episode about getting unstuck, you should listen to that one, too.
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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We all know how it feels like to hit a wall; to get stuck. What do we do when we feel like we can't do anything?
The article in question: Why does Jesus tell the disciples to buy swords?
And if it sounds familiar, it's because I shared that article as an episode of this podcast: 27—Bearing Arms
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
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We all know how it feels like to hit a wall; to get stuck. What do we do when we feel like we can't do anything?
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay
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Some of us don't do vacations very well. Or we feel guilty about taking them. Here are five ways to help change that.
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay
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Some of us don't do vacations very well. Or we feel guilty about taking them. Here are five ways to help change that.
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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Why does religious freedom not look very...freedomy? Because it amounts to a one-sided conversation about what counts.
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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If you've ever been asked to simplify a complex idea, you know it's incredibly hard. So why do we pretend it is simple?
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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Who gets to eat lunch? Who doesn't? God expects us to show hospitality. So why do we insist on not feeding people?
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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What is the jubilee? Why do we pretend it is impossible? And why are we afraid of it? Because it is true freedom.
Watch The Problem in the Text on YouTube.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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No, Jesus doesn't encourage us to carry weapons. In this episode, we explore why Luke 22:35-38 says quite the opposite.
The script for this week's episode comes from the article: Why does Jesus tell the disciples to buy swords?
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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Let’s be honest. The Ascension is strange. But it is strangely important. And it could really help us now.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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The hardest part about being required to love is not the obligation itself. It’s that we insist on judging each other’s attempts.
Check out this earlier reflection on the Love Command.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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What is equal? What is the difference between equality and equity? And why is the distinction less useful than we think?
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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This is not an exhaustive response to the concept of abortion and faith; it is an exhausted one. About missing the point.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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There's a fundamental flaw in the way we describe freedom. And the strange thing is that this flaw is relatively new.
Check out Astra Taylor's Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss it When It’s GoneLots more on religious freedom.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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The thing about talking politics is we all start with assumptions. We're just never actually on the same page with them.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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We aren't just afraid of death. We struggle to recognize what role death plays in our lives and sense of value.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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The real problem is not that we dislike change. It is that we often choose to refuse to accept that change is necessary.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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We often talk about change like it's something we can avoid. It's not. It is literally how the world (and faith) works.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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We don’t want to admit that we don’t know why we do Lent. Because then we might realize what we’re avoiding.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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People often think they have a low view of mercy because they are being realistic. What they're being is pessimistic.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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Christians are obsessed with sin. But what do we even mean by the word sin? And what are we trying to do with it?
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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When we hear "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return," we are being invited to seeing things as they really are. Not as we thinkthey are.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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Back from a break to tackle an easy topic: racism. As in what we think we mean when we talk about racism. And what our public conversations are missing.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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In this episode of Make Saints, we tackle the twelve. As in disciples. What's with the number? And what to make of Judas.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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In this episode of Make Saints, we tackle the two worlds of Christmas: the sacred and the secular: and why it is all one.
Music by Lesfm and Coma-Media from Pixabay
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Our vision of peace is backward. We treat is like it is only a concept; and not something we can actually make.
For more information about the observer effect, I found this summary useful.
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Joy – this shouldn’t be a hard thing to talk about. But strangely it is. And I want to change that.
But first, let’s work through why joy, joy is what it is.
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There’s something about this time of year.
There are two features of this season that we can’t help but exhibit: anticipation and preparation.
We’re all waiting and watching for Christmas. It is coming soon. We want to get ready for it. So we prepare by getting gifts and making things to decorate or give away.
These are really natural parts of the season. Not of the season of Christmas, actually. But the season of Advent: the season before that famous season.
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Or, if you want to learn more about Advent, check out this homily.
These days, celebrating Thanksgiving is pretty meta.
The holiday is supposed to be about giving thanks as the Pilgrims did that one time with a grand feast of local cuisine with the indigenous people who lived there. Of course, the myth is certainly rosier than the truth. And we know that makes the celebration a bit uncomfortable.
So we shift our attention to the more general concept of thankfulness.
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A Special Message
I know you have thoughts about the young man who shot three people in Kenosha, Wisconsin. We all do. And, in a sense, that’s all our culture offers us right now: thoughts. Disparate, unconnected, intemperate thoughts.
Let's make some sense of the confusing thing that happened on Friday.
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There are three distinct visions of what an apocalypse is.
One is the popular understanding of apocalypse, which is best understood today by watching disaster movies. We can see that, to Hollywood, apocalypse is about all the things that blow up and how our time on this world will end.
A second vision of apocalypse comes to us from a certain corner of Christianity that preaches extensively about what they call “the end times”. They are most interested in getting very particular about how the world will end and who will be saved from imminent death by the grace of God.
The third vision of apocalypse is much older than Hollywood and rapture theology. And in this vision, we don’t focus on the destruction of a particular moment of the world ending. Because there isn’t one apocalypse.
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When talking about eternity, we are usually focused on the concept of life never ending. But life itself offers us a different vision of what it means. It all starts with that little thing we call time.
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The problem with complexity is that it can feel overwhelming.
The problem with feeling overwhelmed is that we are willing to take shortcuts to make the pain go away.
Here are three ways we usually deal with complexity:
- simplify
- harmonize
- give up
I offer us a different way to look at complexity
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What it means to look past the saintly.
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Who do you look up to? That act that we look up implies that they are above us. Whoever "they" is. Above. Better. And...well...perfect.
We aren't supposed to be perfect. Even you.
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