"Technology does a really good job of floating us past all of these inconvenient blessings." - John Mark McMillan Today on the show, singer-songwriter John Mark Mcmillan joins me to talk about his new music, technology's impact on the arts, confessing to an AI Jesus, and recovering a sense of meaning in our disenchanted world. If you’ve listened to the Makers and Mystics podcast or have been to any of our Breath and Clay events , then you’ll know that John Mark is no stranger to our community. H...
Feb 18, 2025•33 min
This episode offers a preview of the types of panels we'll be hosting at The Breath and The Clay 2025. It includes a live conversation with Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Victory Boyd, gospel recording artist Leeland Mooring, visual artist and curator Corey Frey, and podcast host Stephen Roach. This conversation was recorded live at the Resound Creative Arts event in Boulder, Colorado. Reserve Your Spot at The Breath and The Clay March 21-23 in Winston Salem, NC....
Feb 12, 2025•53 min
In this series of conversations, Makers and Mystics will highlight several of the presenters and themes for the BC25 creative arts gathering, March 21-23, in Winston Salem, NC. Today’s guest is Theo-poet and mystic Dr. de’Angelo DIA. The conversation explores the intersections of poetry, theology, and personal experience. DIA discusses how his early exposure to literature and comic book mythology shaped his understanding of sacredness and black charismatic spirituality. Stephen Roach highlights ...
Feb 04, 2025•29 min
In the season 14 finale of Makers and Mystics , Stephen Roach reflects on the theme of reclaiming wonder . Drawing from personal stories, spiritual insights, and the wisdom shared by this season’s guests, Stephen examines how we can rediscover awe and beauty in our everyday lives, even in a world that often feels disconnected from the miraculous. Stephen closes the episode with a thought-provoking insight: Wonder is not just an experience; it’s an invitation. It’s the residue of the divine, a ca...
Jan 28, 2025•15 min
Myths and storytelling have been a part of human culture since ancient times. From the oral traditions of indigenous peoples to the epic tales of gods and heroes, stories have shaped our understanding of the world, our place in it, and our deepest desires. For artists, these narratives offer more than a glimpse into the past—they are a source of guidance, inspiration, and meaning. In this final conversation of our ‘Reclaiming Wonder’ series, I am joined by renowned storyteller, mythologist and C...
Jan 16, 2025•56 min•Season 14Ep. 22
The new year is a time of reflecting, looking back over the lengths I’ve come, evaluating what has transpired in my life and in my inner life, and then looking ahead, seeking clarity and direction for where I will place my time, resources and attention for the months to come. I find that a large part of transitioning from one moment in time to another involves letting go of the past, often grieving our losses, and making peace with the life we have rather than pining after the life we thought we...
Jan 08, 2025•34 min•Season 14Ep. 21
Wesley Vander Lugt is a pastor, theologian, writer, and arts advocate. He teaches theology and directs the Leighton Ford Center for Theology, the Arts and Gospel Witness at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Charlotte North Carolina. Wes holds a PhD in Theology, Imagination and the Arts from the University of St Andrews, and his latest books are Beauty is Oxygen: Finding a Faith that Breathes and the forthcoming A Prophet in the Darkness: Exploring Theology in the Art of Georges Rouault. In ...
Dec 31, 2024•30 min•Season 14Ep. 20
The Breath and The Clay is returning to Winston Salem, NC!! Join us March 21-23rd, 2025, for our annual creative arts gathering! This event will feature musical performances, an immersive art gallery, keynote talks, various workshops, and community discussions. Participating artists include Sho Baraka, Kendra Adachi, John Mark McMillan, Molly Parden, Justin McRoberts, and many, many others. You can find out more about the event and reserve your spot today at thebreathandtheclay.com. Visual Artis...
Dec 17, 2024•3 min
Rob Bell is the New York Times Best-Selling author of fourteen books and plays, which have been translated into 25 languages. His visual art can be seen on Instagram @realrobbell. His band is HUMANS ON THE FLOOR, and his podcast is The RobCast. Today on Makers and Mystics, Rob and I are talking about his Interplanetary tale of love, loss, and bread, his sci-fi fantasy novel Where’d You Park Your Spaceship . In our conversation, we discuss following creative tangents and the long curiosity that k...
Dec 03, 2024•35 min•Season 14Ep. 19
Katherine May is an internationally renowned writer, podcaster and speaker whose work touches on nature, spirituality, slow living and neurodivergence. Her hybrid memoir Wintering was a global bestseller, adapted as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week, and shortlisted for the Porchlight and Barnes & Noble Book of the Year. Her most recent title, Enchantment became an instant New York Times bestseller. In our conversation Katherine and I discuss the common need for rediscovering pathways into ench...
Nov 26, 2024•39 min•Season 14Ep. 18
The question of when it is time to let go of a dream haunts most creatives at one time or another. Living out our sense of fidelity to a creative vision shifts and changes over time, just as the demands of life shift and change over time. But finding a way forward can be challenging, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Film producer Thomas Torrey has tackled this question in his recent musical drama Long December. Thomas Torrey is a writer/director/producer based in the Southeast. His prod...
Nov 19, 2024•33 min•Season 14Ep. 17
Makers and Mystics has teamed up with New Zealand's Sunday Sanctuary Podcast for a special collaborative episode. For the November 10th episode of Sunday Sanctuary, Stephen Roach joins host Petra Bagust for a chat about poetry, creativity, and the different ways that noticing the small wonders of the world can reopen, restore, and change our lives. In this segment of the conversation, Petra and Stephen discuss the wonder found in Maori culture, storytelling, and the gift of our elders. Petra Bag...
Nov 12, 2024•32 min•Season 14Ep. 16
For many people, and perhaps even for some of our listeners, the Bible elicits a very different response from one person to another. For some, it is a source of comfort and spiritual nourishment, even a great source of creative inspiration, while for others, it brings up difficult questions or even negative emotions and uncomfortable associations. But as we’ve talked this season about disenchantment and reclaiming wonder, I’m curious if taking a second look at this collection of stories, songs, ...
Nov 05, 2024•34 min•Season 14Ep. 15
Lacey Sturm is a Grammy-nominated queen of hard rock who secured a place in rock history as the first solo woman to top the Billboard Hard Rock Albums chart with her debut album Life Screams. With a career spanning songs like “All Around Me,” “I’m So Sick,” “Again,” “Impossible,” “State of Me'' and most recently “Awaken Love,” Lacey Sturm has proven herself as one of the most powerful and enduring voices in hard rock. She is also a sought-after speaker and author, penning the autobiographical bo...
Oct 30, 2024•42 min•Season 14Ep. 14
Russ Ramsey is an author and pastor with a passion for uniting art and faith. He has been in vocational ministry for more than twenty years and currently serves as the lead pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church’s Cool Springs location. He holds an MDiv and ThM from Covenant Theological Seminary, and is the author of six books, including Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith (Zondervan 2022), and Behold the King of Glory , recipient of the 2016 Christian Book Awa...
Oct 23, 2024•35 min•Season 14Ep. 13
Nick Leng is a Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter and producer known for his abstract blend of electronica, classical piano and ambient soundscapes. Nick’s music is hard to categorize but evokes a sense of musical synesthesia, which he describes as a kaleidoscope of emotions turned into sounds. Nick's musical journey began in his early years growing up in South Africa, where he was classically trained on the piano. His formal education provided a strong foundation for his...
Oct 15, 2024•35 min•Season 14Ep. 12
Edward Knippers is a visual artist whose large-scale body of work spans 50 years of practice and explores various genres, including figurative, expressionism, abstraction, and cubism. His work has been displayed in museums, galleries, and private collections worldwide and centers on the human body. His paintings often depict scenes from biblical narratives and invite us to consider the goodness, brokenness, mystery, and glory of embodiment, urging us to grapple with the temptation to avoid, sexu...
Oct 09, 2024•33 min•Season 14Ep. 11
Melbourne-based visual artist and electronic musician Mike Lane creates under the name Chalom, a name spoken to him in a dream. His practice consists of visually expressing dreams and meditations, with mostly found materials, embedded bible pages, penciled notes, and spray paint. Beyond the haphazard backgrounds of his paintings, brushes or tools are rarely used in the making, just hands and fingers employing scrawly texts, scribbles, and vaguely figurative forms. CHALOM’ s prolific work is a de...
Oct 03, 2024•24 min•Season 14Ep. 10
In this episode, podcast host Stephen Roach takes listeners on a journey into the world of ecstatic poetry. Drawing from the wisdom of Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton and author/scholar Michael Edwards, Stephen highlights poetry as mankind’s first language. He tells us, the meaning of a poem is not found in what a poem is about, but rather what effect the poem has on it’s hearer. Through reciting several of his own poems, Stephen reveals poetry and the poetic encounter as a doorway to wonder. Resou...
Sep 25, 2024•17 min•Season 14Ep. 9
Our voice is one of the most uniquely defining qualities of our person. For artists and writers, finding our voice is a foundational and often painstaking process of search and discovery. For many, finding the courage to acknowledge, I am an artist. I am a writer. I am a musician, takes a lot of courage. Speaking it out for the first time can be an act of bravery and overcoming self doubt, imposter syndrome and fear. In her book, The Mystics Would Like A Word, author Shannon K. Evans says, “Clai...
Sep 18, 2024•29 min•Season 14Ep. 8
Stephanie J. Spencer is a visual artist, author, nature-lover and an Enneagram coach who is not afraid of hard questions. She loves moving towards the struggles of the human experience to help people find new ways forward. Stephanie has spent years coaching individuals and teams from around the country, from major universities to local churches, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses. Time and again, she has seen the power of the Enneagram, imagery, and questions to open pathways for gro...
Sep 11, 2024•29 min•Season 14Ep. 7
When we think of wonder or beauty, we might be inclined to think in terms of an external appearance, a scene of nature or an attractive person. But what if wonder is something that grows from the inside out? What if wonder is way of seeing? And what if wonder is an interior force, one that begins in the hidden recesses of our perceptions? Today, on the show I’m talking with Oregon based, poet, writer and critic, Paul J Pastor. Paul serves HarperCollins as senior acquisitions editor for their Zon...
Sep 04, 2024•31 min•Season 14Ep. 6
Philosopher, Simone Weil said that attentiveness is the heart of prayer. In this episode, we discuss postures of attentiveness as gateways to wonder. Guests: Dr. Mary McCampbell is an author, educator, and speaker whose publications span the worlds of literature, film, and popular music. She is the author of Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy . Dr. Joe Kickasola is a Professor of Film and Digital Media at Baylor University. He is the author of The Films of Krzysztof Kie...
Aug 29, 2024•39 min•Season 14Ep. 5
Cleo Rinkwest is a South-African actor who has worked with the likes of Samuel L Jackson, The Walking Dead's Callan McCauliff, and Game of Thrones, Charlotte Hope. Through her acting, she seeks to perform stories that go beyond entertainment and enlighten her audiences to values of human flourishing. Her current film projects follow themes of justice and mercy, capital punishment laws in Southern Africa, the supernatural realm, and the impact of AI on humanity. In our conversation, Cleo shares a...
Aug 21, 2024•34 min•Season 14Ep. 4
One of the more powerful aspects of visual art, is when a single image encapsulates an entire narrative, or when viewing a painting or illustration, the viewer’s imagination is invited to fill in the gaps and finish the tale. I recently came across an artist whose work embodies this narrative quality. I found myself going back to his images and studying what story was being told through the characters and gestures in each frame. I was moved to create in response. Which, for me is always a sure s...
Aug 13, 2024•Season 14Ep. 3
Donna Matthews is a musician and creative artist. In the 1990’s she played lead guitar in Elastica and lo-fi, DIY band Klang, and in subsequent years devised and facilitated creative workshops for people in recovery from addiction. She is currently in her final year of a practice-based PhD in Music at the university of Glasgow. Interested in issues such as poetic intuition, inspiration, and gift, her work explores how the intuitive state might be conveyed through aesthetic form, whilst also expl...
Aug 07, 2024•44 min•Season 14Ep. 2
When we lack wonder, we settle for the evening news. When we lack spectacle, we settle for shock art. When we can’t see the burning bush, we set the dumpster on fire. By this point, the Olympics’ opening performance has been discussed ad nauseum. Most of us have grown weary of the vitriol and moved on. Therefore, I hesitate to add another voice to the fire, but as one who leads a community of mostly faith-based artists, the performance has held a particular interest to me. I have felt a measure ...
Aug 06, 2024•18 min
Wonder is all around us. In every moment, in every mundane or grand occasion. The earth and all that is in within it, is an unfolding poem spoken from divine lips in search of an audience. In this introductory episode, Stephen Roach shares the groundwork for this season’s exploration of Reclaiming Wonder. He says, “It is the artist whose work bridges the realm of everyday life with the realm of mystery and deeper meaning. It is the artist who again re-enchants the world and helps us to reclaim o...
Jul 31, 2024•13 min•Season 14Ep. 1
Around the turn of the century, German Sociologist, Max Weber coined the phrase ‘disenchantment’ as a way of describing society’s transition from a mythical or religious understanding of the world to a rationalistic, scientific view. Advancements in science and technology alongside a perceived decline of religious devotion rendered the world demystified or void of magic. Religious opponents celebrated this transition as a liberation from old superstitions and worn-out beliefs, to a world formed ...
Jul 23, 2024•3 min
In this live talk, recorded at the Audiofeed Festival in Urbana, Illinois, Stephen Roach encourages listeners that the value of a dream is not contingent upon its coming to pass. The value of a dream, he says, is in the dreaming. For anyone, who has grappled with the death of a dream or the pain of letting go, this talk will encourage you that a dream can take many shapes and forms and that nothing is wasted. Join the Makers and Mystics Creative Collective Take Stephen's FREE course on Creativit...
Jul 16, 2024•17 min
