Audibility 3.9: Liturgy, Emotions, and Spiritual Disciplines

Join us this week as we sit down with two guests, Anna Whitaker and Meredith Byrd, to talk about spiritual disciplines. Anna is a new friend of ours and a senior Christian Studies major here at AU, and if her last name sounds familiar it's because we had her husband on just a few episodes ago! Mere is an old friend of ours and she's a junior HDFS major at AU; if her name sounds familiar it's because this is her fourth time on the podcast! 

In the first part of the episode (3:40-7:40), we have the usual friendly banter, hear a little bit about our guests, and introduce today's conversation! 

In the second part of the episode (8:05-33:06), we hear a little bit about the history of Christian monasticism and this idea of the "rule of life" from Anna, and look at a book about liturgies in everyday life, "The Liturgy of the Ordinary," with Meredith. We ask some questions about spiritual disciplines, like what even are they? We focus in on spiritual disciplines as sustaining us through the mundane, strengthening our Faith when we need it most. We talk about the de-spiritualization of Christianity and how the superficiality of some churches causes people to forget about the spiritual disciplines and the lose the wonder of Christianity. We talk about how if living in the spirit was easy, every one would do it; the spiritual disciplines are called disciplines for a reason. We discuss emotions and personal experience and discerning between when it's the Spirit and when it's emotion, moving into the next part of our discussion.

In the last part of the episode (33:36-1:00:36), we look at the misconceptions around being receptive to your emotions within the Church and Christianity, and juxtapose that against the example Christ set for us in His time on Earth. We take a look at the Catholic and Anglican Churches and discuss how they engage all of the senses using the spiritual disciplines. We talk about how we are spiritual creatures not trapped in physical bodies, but instead gifted them by God; able to use them to grow our spiritual selves. We need to exercise both the Spirit and the Body with spiritual disciplines.

We close out by discussing the personal nuance of the spiritual disciplines. Your walk with God is just that—yours. We share our own experiences with the spiritual disciplines and discuss how what works for one person may not work for another. Lastly, we encourage our listeners to lean into the ways they connect with God and implement disciplines and liturgies into their own lives to exercise their whole self and grow in their spiritual walks.

For more information on what we're all about here at The Audibility Podcast, go ahead and check out our website https://audibilitypodcast.com, and to get connected with us, follow us on Instagram, @audibilitypodcast.

Resources:

"The Liturgy of the Ordinary" by Tish Harrison Warren

"You Are What You Love" by James K. A. Smith

"The Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster

"Sacred Pathways" by Gary Thomas

"God in My Everything" by Ken Shigematsu