Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker

Amy Julia Becker

A podcast about reimagining the good life through the lens of disability, faith, and culture. Host Amy Julia Becker interviews guests in conversations that challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and help us envision a world of belonging. 

  1. -2 J

    How Do You Know Your Calling? with Karen Swallow Prior

    Some people get paid to do what they love, but most don’t. How can we find meaning in everyday work that we don’t always love doing? How can we discover our purpose in life? Author Karen Swallow Prior and Amy Julia Becker explore: Why passion is not the same as callingHow vocation centers on service and relationships, not just careerPursuing truth, goodness, and beauty in ordinary lifeHow multiple callings unfold across a lifetimeWisdom for discerning and living into a deeper purposeSubscribe to my weekly newsletter: amyjuliabecker.com/subscribe New! Take the Next Step podcast: amyjuliabecker.com/step 00:00 Introduction 02:04 Exploring the Call to Creativity 05:39 The Myths of Passion and Work 08:55 Defining Calling and Vocation 12:32 The Relational Aspect of Calling 15:31 Pursuing Truth, Goodness, and Beauty 22:28 The Intersection of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful 26:04 The Good Life and Purpose 31:46 The Role of Suffering in Calling 36:55 Navigating New Callings and Responsibilities 40:44 Finding Meaning and Calling in Everyday Tasks __ MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful by Karen Swallow Prior_ WATCH this conversation on YouTube: Amy Julia Becker on YouTube SUBSCRIBE to Amy Julia's Substack: amyjuliabecker.substack.com JOIN the conversation on Instagram: @amyjuliabecker LISTEN to more episodes: amyjuliabecker.com/shows/ _ ABOUT OUR GUEST: Karen Swallow Prior, Ph.D. is the 2025-26 Karlson Scholar at Bethel Seminary. She is a popular writer and speaker, a contributing writer for The Dispatch, and a columnist for Religion News Service. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Vox, The Washington Post, Christianity Today, and many other places. Her most recent book is You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful (Brazos 2025). CONNECT with Karen: karenswallowprior.com Facebook: Karen Swallow PriorInstagram: karenswallowpriorX: @KSPrior Substack: @karenswallowprior We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text! Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

    44 min
  2. [Take the Next Step] Ep 1 • Don’t Wait to Celebrate: Disability and Delight with Katherine Wolf

    17 SEPT. · BONUS

    [Take the Next Step] Ep 1 • Don’t Wait to Celebrate: Disability and Delight with Katherine Wolf

    This is the very first episode of my new podcast, Take the Next Step, and I’m sharing it here so you won’t miss the launch. Be sure to follow Take the Next Step with Amy Julia Becker wherever you listen so you don’t miss future episodes. (New episodes of Reimagining the Good Life are coming in October!) Follow the new podcast at: amyjuliabecker.com/step/ __ Feeling overwhelmed by the challenges of disability? Katherine Wolf, author, advocate, and co-founder of Hope Heals, joins Amy Julia Becker to explore how families can reimagine disability, build connection, and celebrate life.  From the dinner table to the slow work of recovery, learn how to find delight in the story you have. Discover: How to experience joy in the process, not just the outcomeDaily habits to cultivate gratitude and delightHow to build a supportive, connected communityWhy purpose and contribution matter for every family_ MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Katherine’s books, resources, gatherings, and inter-ability communities: hopeheals.com. Luke 14_ WATCH this conversation on YouTube: Amy Julia Becker on YouTube SUBSCRIBE to Amy Julia's Substack: amyjuliabecker.substack.com JOIN the conversation on Instagram: @amyjuliabecker LISTEN to more episodes: amyjuliabecker.com/shows/ _ ABOUT OUR GUEST: Katherine Wolf is an author, advocate, and co-founder of Hope Heals. After she survived a near-fatal brainstem stroke at age 26, her family’s journey through disability has become a public witness that good and hard can co-exist in the same story. Through caregiving, storytelling, and lived theology, Katherine is inviting others into a vision of hope, interdependence, and embodied resilience. She and her husband Jay live in Atlanta with their two sons. Website: www.hopeheals.com  Instagram: @hopeheals _ Take the Next Step is produced in collaboration with Hope Heals. Hope Heals creates sacred spaces of belonging and belovedness for families affected by disabilities to experience sustaining hope in the context of inclusive, intentional, inter-ability communities. Find out more about our resources, gatherings, and inter-ability communities at hopeheals.com. Follow us on Instagram @hopeheals. We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text! Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

    31 min
  3. 17 JUIN

    The Lucky Few: Finding Delight and Belonging in Disability with Heather Avis

    When Heather Avis says she’s one of “the lucky few,” she means it. In this episode, we talk about growing up with our children with Down syndrome, what it means to delight in our kids, and how all of us can participate in shifting the narrative around disability toward love and belonging. Our conversation highlights her new children’s book, I Like You So Much, and focuses on: Proclaiming the worth of our childrenThe role of children's books in shifting disability narrativesUnderstanding identityExploring mutuality in relationshipsThe importance of spaces of belongingDelight and celebration in parentingMENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: I Like You So Much by Heather AvisMore of Heather’s booksThe Lucky Few podcastSmall Talk by Amy Julia BeckerHeather’s SubstackReimagining the Good Life WorkshopSubscribe to Amy Julia’s Substack newsletter_ WATCH this conversation on YouTube by clicking here. READ the full transcript and access detailed show notes by clicking here or visiting amyjuliabecker.com/podcast. _ ABOUT: Heather Avis is a New York Times bestselling author, public speaker, podcaster, and a Down syndrome advocate. She is the founder of and chief visionary officer at The Lucky Few, an advocacy organization dedicated to shouting worth, shifting narratives, and reimagining what it looks like when we create spaces of belonging. She lives in Southern California with her husband Josh and three kids, Macyn, Truly, and August and two Goldendoodles, Maeby and George Michael. Website: https://www.heatheravis.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theluckyfewofficial/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheLuckyFewOfficial/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC99_OFh29y9lVqZyHY2Xztw Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lucky-few/id1349646917 New Book, I Like You So Much: https://www.amazon.com/Like-You-So-Much-Celebrating/dp/0310166594/ Photo Credit: © Camilynne Photography ___ Let’s stay in touch. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive weekly reflections that challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and envision a world of belonging where everyone matters. We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text! Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

    48 min
  4. 3 JUIN

    The Cost of Ambition with Miroslav Volf, PhD

    Ambition is the air we breathe—but what is it costing us? In this episode, Amy Julia Becker and theologian Miroslav Volf discuss his latest book, The Cost of Ambition. They unpack the hidden damage of a culture obsessed with competition and invite us to imagine a new way of being, for ourselves and our society, rooted not in achievement, but in love, mutuality, and genuine abundance. They explore:   Striving for superiority in American cultureThe dark side of competitionLonging for what we haveStriving for excellence vs. striving for superiorityThe illusion of individual achievementPractices for embracing love and generosityReimagining human relationships beyond superiority__ MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse by Miroslav VolfAbundance by Ezra KleinThe Sabbath by Abraham HeschelLuke 18:9-14, Philippians 2, 1 Corinthians 12:21-26, Mark 10:35-45The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)Works of Love by Søren KierkegaardSubscribe to Amy Julia's newsletter_ WATCH this conversation on YouTube by clicking here. READ the full transcript and access detailed show notes by clicking here or visiting amyjuliabecker.com/podcast. _ ABOUT: Miroslav Volf (DrTheol, University of Tübingen) is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and founding director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture in New Haven, Connecticut. He has written or edited more than two dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Life Worth Living, A Public Faith, Public Faith in Action, and Exclusion and Embrace (winner of the Grawemeyer Award in Religion and selected as among the 100 best religious books of the 20th century by Christianity Today). Educated in his native Croatia, the United States, and Germany, Volf regularly lectures around the world. CONNECT with Miroslav Volf on X at @miroslavvolf. Photo Credit: © Christopher Capozziello ___ Let’s stay in touch. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive weekly reflections that challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and envision a world of belonging where everyone matters. We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text! Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

    51 min
  5. 20 MAI

    The Myth of the Perfect Family—and the Truth of Love with Emily Hunter McGowin, PhD

    What if the perfect family doesn’t exist—and never was supposed to? Theologian Emily McGowin, PhD, joins Amy Julia Becker to explore family life in America and what the Bible really says (and doesn’t say) about family life. They discuss: the idealized version of the American familythe misconceptions surrounding a biblical blueprint for familycreating a home centered on love, not expectationsapprenticing ourselves to love through daily household practices___ MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Households of Faith: Practicing Family in the Kingdom of God by Emily Hunter McGowin, PhDAmy Julia's episode with Matthew Mooney about families, disability, suffering, and "the good life'Small Talk: Learning from my Children about What Matters Most by Amy Julia Becker__ WATCH this conversation on YouTube by clicking here. READ the full transcript and access detailed show notes by clicking here or visiting amyjuliabecker.com/podcast. _ ABOUT: Emily Hunter McGowin (PhD, University of Dayton) is associate professor of theology at Wheaton College. She is the author of Quivering Families and Christmas, and coeditor of God and Wonder. Her articles have appeared in Christianity Today and The Week. She is a priest and canon theologian in the Anglican diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others. She and her husband, Ron, also a priest, live in Chicagoland with their three children. Follow her on Twitter: @EmilyMcgowin and visit her website at: emilymcgowin.com. ___ Let’s stay in touch. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive weekly reflections that challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and envision a world of belonging where everyone matters. We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text! Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

    47 min
  6. 6 MAI

    RFK Jr., Autism, and the Story We Need Instead with Matthew Mooney

    Is disability a tragedy? Is it a gift? What place is there for grief and for joy in this story of disability so many of us are living within our families? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently portrayed disability as tragic, as something that needs to be fixed, in his comments about autism. In response, Matthew Mooney, co-founder of 99 Balloons, joins Amy Julia Becker to share a better and truer story of disability. They explore:  Societal perceptions of disabilityHow relationships change the story of disabilityRecognizing the inherent worth of every individualNavigating grief, loss, and sufferingCultivating the beauty found in communityMENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: 99 BalloonsAmy Julia's Vox essay: My daughter has Down syndrome. Would I “cure” her if I could?NYT Essay by Emily May: Kennedy Described My Daughter's RealityI Corinthians 12, Exodus 4, and John 9:3Hans ReindersRFK Jr.’s statements about autism_ WATCH this conversation on YouTube by clicking here. READ the full transcript and access detailed show notes by clicking here or visiting amyjuliabecker.com/podcast. _ ABOUT: When Matthew and his wife Ginny were 30 weeks pregnant, they learned their son Eliot had trisomy 18. Eliot was born eight weeks later and lived for 99 days. The Mooneys founded 99 Balloons, a nonprofit supporting individuals with disabilities locally and globally.  Matthew now serves on the 99 Balloons Board and lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with Ginny and their three children—Hazel, Anders, and Lena.  A writer, speaker, and consultant on disability and inclusion, Matthew is also an attorney and a PhD candidate in Theological Ethics at Aberdeen University. His work has taken him to Haiti, Mexico, Ukraine, Uganda, India, and beyond. Websites: 99 Balloons :: matthewlylemooney  Social: insta  ___ Let’s stay in touch. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive weekly reflections that challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and envision a world of belonging where everyone m We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text! Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

    52 min

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A podcast about reimagining the good life through the lens of disability, faith, and culture. Host Amy Julia Becker interviews guests in conversations that challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and help us envision a world of belonging. 

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