Singer-songwriter Allen Levi lost his brother and best friend Gary ten years ago this summer. He memorializes his brother's life—and especially the year he was his brother's full-time caretaker—in The Last Sweet Mile , recently re-released by Rabbit Room Press. In this episode, Allen and Jonathan Rogers discuss the impossible challenge of putting words to the things that matter most, and the reasons for trying anyway. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.c...
Jun 27, 2022•50 min•Season 4Ep. 26
Helena Sorensen is an author, speaker, and writing coach. This episode was recorded live at the first Habit Writers' Retreat at Nashville's North Wind Manor. She speaks with Jonathan Rogers about the particular challenges faced by women (especially mothers) who are struggling to find the permission they need to write. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Jun 20, 2022•45 min•Season 4Ep. 25
Pastor Scott Sauls is the author of six books, most recently Beautiful People Don't Just Happen: How God Redeems Regret, Hurt, and Fear in the Making of Better People. In this episode, Scott speaks with his old friend Jonathan Rogers about the beauty that can grow out of past hurts. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Jun 13, 2022•48 min•Season 4Ep. 24
Jeremy Begbie is the Thomas A. Langford Distinguished Research Professor of Theology at Duke Divinity School. He teaches systematic theology and specializes in the interface between theology and the arts. He is a senior member at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge. Along with David O. Taylor and Daniel Train, Professor Begbie co-edited the recently-released collection of essays, The Art of New Creation , in which artists,...
Jun 06, 2022•47 min•Season 4Ep. 23
Robyn Wall is the author of the picture books My First Book of Beards and My First Book of Tattoos (Random House Kids), as well as a story in T he Lost Tales of Sir Galahad . In this episode, she speaks with Jonathan Rogers about perfectionism, baby steps, and watercolor lessons. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
May 30, 2022•34 min•Season 4Ep. 22
Flo Paris Oakes and Katy Bowser Hutson have been longtime songwriting collaborators through the Rain for Roots collective, which makes singable scripture songs for kids and grownups alike. Both children’s ministry directors, they think a lot and very deeply about the spiritual formation of children. In this episode, Flo and Katy discuss their most recent project, Little Prayers for Ordinary Days , a book of prayers for children that they wrote with Tish Harrison Warren. Support the show: https:/...
May 23, 2022•44 min•Season 4Ep. 21
Matthew Clark is a singer-songwriter, podcaster, and essayist. He’s exceedingly thoughtful and well-read, and all that thinking and well-reading makes its way into everything he makes–and every conversation. His most recent project is an album called Only the Lover Sings , and a companion book of the same title–a compilation of essays by various writers inspired by the songs on the album. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inform...
May 16, 2022•48 min•Season 4Ep. 20
Esau McCaulley is a Bible scholar and Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. He’s a contributing writer at Christianity Today, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. His book Reading While Black won the 2021 Christianity Today Book Award for the category “Beautiful Orthodoxy.” His most recent book is a picture book called Josey Johnson’s Hair and the Holy Spirit . Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informa...
May 09, 2022•42 min•Season 4Ep. 19
Singer-songwriter Sandra McCracken released her first book in 2021. Send Out Your Light: The Illuminating Power of Scripture and Song is a memoir of a creative life and a meditation on the creative process. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
May 02, 2022•39 min•Season 4Ep. 18
The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad is a collection of "newly discovered" tales of the Arthurian knight's adventures in the Wild Forest. In this episode of The Habit Podcast, husband-and-wife editorial dream team Pete Peterson and Jennifer Trafton discuss their work in bringing this work to life. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 25, 2022•44 min•Season 4Ep. 17
Leslie Bustard is a writer, a teacher, a conference organizer, a publisher, and a museum-goer, among other things. She recruited forty writers to contribute essays to Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for your Children , a book she curated and edited with her daughter Carey Bustard and editor Thea Rosenburg. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 18, 2022•48 min•Season 4Ep. 16
Mitali Perkins has been a nominee for the National Book Award. She was born in India, but has lived all over the world. So it comes as no surprise that her books for young readers all explore the crossing of borders of one kind or another. Her newest book, Bare Tree and Little Wind , is a picture book that tells the story of Holy Week. In 2021, she published her first nonfiction book for adults, Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children’s Novels to Refresh our Tired Souls . In this episode, Mitali a...
Apr 11, 2022•44 min•Season 4Ep. 15
Tom Douglas is a country songwriting legend and a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He recently released a movie—a one-man show called Love, Tom: A Letter of Hope to a Desperate World , streaming on Paramount Plus. It's a beautiful, wise, and honest meditation on the creative process. In this episode, Tom Douglas and Jonathan Rogers talk about harnessing hurt and rejecting idolatry in the creative process, and steering a middle course between apathy and anxiety. Support the show:...
Apr 04, 2022•45 min•Season 4Ep. 14
Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Louise Cowan Scholar in Residence at the University of Dallas. She has written books about Flannery O’Connor, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Walker Percy, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Her most recent book is The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints . In this episode, Dr. Wilson and Jonathan Rogers talk about the ways that reading great works of literature cultivates an imagination that moves us toward holiness. Support the show: https:...
Mar 28, 2022•37 min•Season 4Ep. 13
This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with author and pastor Russ Ramsey. Russ is a pastor in the Nashville area, a masterful storyteller, and Jonathan’s go-to resource for all art-related questions. His love of art and story come together in his new book, Rembrandt Is In the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith . It’s an art history book, but more importantly, it’s a book about the beauty that comes out of stories of human brokenness. Beauty matters; nobody makes...
Mar 21, 2022•44 min•Season 4Ep. 12
Caroline Cobb is a singer-songwriter from Texas. In 2011, she decided to write a song for every book of the Bible in one year. That ambitious goal set her on a path that she’s still on, more than ten years later. She has said, “That year, I discovered that I love writing songs from the Bible: delving into a passage, putting myself in each character’s shoes, trying to understand how this one small story connects with the whole, then coming up with a way to communicate that story through song.” Th...
Mar 14, 2022•37 min•Season 4Ep. 11
This week on The Habit Podcast, we invite you to listen in on a conversation between poet Dana Gioia, former Poet Laureate of California and former head of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Cherie Harder, President of The Trinity Forum. They discuss the ways that poetry works as a kind of enchantment, creating a state of heightened consciousness and heightened receptivity, and Dana Gioia makes the case that beauty is a way of knowing the world as it really is. He also reads a couple of po...
Mar 07, 2022•50 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Curt Thompson is a psychiatrist and founder of Being Known, an organization that develops resources for hope and healing at the intersection of neuroscience and Christian spiritual formation. His books include The Soul of Shame and The Soul of Desire . In this episode, Curt and Jonathan Rogers discuss the left brain and the right brain, the power of beauty to awaken us to goodness and truth, and Andy Gullahorn. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/list...
Feb 28, 2022•50 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Christie Purifoy is a writer and gardener committed to growing flowers and growing community and cultivating beauty. Her newest book is Garden Maker: Growing a Life of Beauty and Wonder with Flowers . She’s also the host of the Black Barn Garden Club , an online community for aspiring gardeners. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Feb 21, 2022•42 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Dorena Williamson is an author, a bridge-builder, a speaker, and a co-planter of a multi-racial church that has been doing beautiful work in Nashville for 25 years. Her most recent picture book, Crowned with Glory , is an ode to Black hair and Black girl joy. In this episode, Dorena and Jonathan Rogers talk about representation, writing the books you want to read, and the perils of "color-blindness." Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for pr...
Feb 14, 2022•47 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Activist and author Lisa Sharon Harper spent three decades researching ten generations of her family’s story through DNA research, oral histories, interviews and genealogical records. That research is the basis of her new book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World—and How to Repair It . In this episode, Lisa Sharon Harper and Jonathan Rogers discuss truth-seeking, truth-telling, forgiveness, and repair. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/l...
Feb 07, 2022•45 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Philip Yancey has written more than 25 books, including What’s so Amazing about Grace, Disappointment with God, Where is God When It Hurts, and The Jesus I Never Knew . His most recent book, from 2021, is his memoir Where the Light Fell . In this episode, Philip Yancey and Jonathan Rogers discuss the complex interactions between identity, memory, and memoir, and the journey from fear to gratitude. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for priva...
Jan 31, 2022•50 min•Season 4Ep. 5
David French is a political and cultural commentator and senior editor at The Dispatch . He’s a contributing writer at The Atlantic Monthly and the author of several books, including Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation as well as the French Press newsletter. He’s the co-host—with Curtis Chang—of the new podcast, Good Faith . In this episode, David French and Jonathan Rogers discuss persuasion in a polarized and ideologically super-charged climate. Support th...
Jan 24, 2022•47 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Kelly Kapic is a professor of theology at Covenant College. His most recent book is You're Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's Design and Why That's Good News . In this episode, Dr. Kapic and Jonathan Rogers discuss productivity shame, gratitude, and the truth that finitude is not a sin. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Jan 17, 2022•50 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Amy Baik Lee writes essays and short memoirs for The Cultivating Project and on her own blog, A Homeward Life . She is also the co-director of the Arts Guild of The Anselm Society . In this episode, Amy and Jonathan Rogers talk about the discipline of noticing small splendors, the ways that art reminds recipients that they mean something to someone, and the ways that time and distance unpack our memories to show us meaning that was there all along. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingf...
Jan 10, 2022•41 min•Season 4Ep. 2
It's a new year, and a new season of The Habit Podcast. if you are looking to form better habits, heed Justin Whitmel Earley, author of The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose in an Age of Distraction . His most recent book is Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Family Rhythms . The new theme music for Season 4 of The Habit Podcast is Drew Miller's song "Grace." Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informati...
Jan 03, 2022•48 min•Season 4Ep. 1
John Cal is a celebrity chef—at least among those who have participated in the Rabbit Room's Hutchmoot gathering in the past few years. His food-related essay/orations are a Hutchmoot highlight. In this final Habit Podcast episode of 2021, John Cal and Jonathan Rogers talk about feasting, fellowship, and other pleasures relevant to the Christmas season. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Dec 20, 2021•50 min•Season 3Ep. 51
Shawn Smucker has published five novels in the last five years—most recently, The Weight of Memory . He has also co-written some thirty books. Shawn and his wife Maile Silva coach, teach, and encourage other writers in a creative community they call The Stories Between Us . They host a podcast of the same name. In this episode, Shawn Smucker and Jonathan Rogers discuss revision, point of view, and when it's ok for writers to stop pushing and take a break. Support the show: https://therabbitroom....
Dec 13, 2021•48 min•Season 3Ep. 50
Daniel Grothe is a pastor, a rancher, and the author of The Power of Place: Choosing Stability in a Rootless Age . In this episode, Daniel Grothe and Jonathan Rogers talk about embracing obligation, the value of thinking small, and the possibility that God is a materialist. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Dec 06, 2021•42 min•Season 3Ep. 49
Jill Phillips is a singer-songwriter and the star of the Gullahorn Happy Hour along with her husband, Andy Gullahorn. She’s also a Marriage and Family Therapist . Jill will soon be releasing a new album called Deeper Into Love , a collection of songs that take a journey through grief, healing, and redemption. In this episode, Jill and Jonathan talk about the gap between the truth and how it feels, integration and disintegration, and going boldly into the house of grief. Support the show: https:/...
Nov 29, 2021•30 min•Season 3Ep. 48
