Spiritual Misfits Podcast Meeting Ground

Mitch has now officially become a pastor in the Uniting Church, and has the sweet wardrobe to prove it. In light of this Will, Hannah and Mitch have a discussion about the relationship between tradition and progress. How do we know what from the past is worth holding onto? How do we know if we’re actually making progress?

Plus the trio come up with a name for the metaphorical Spiritual Misfits pub. 
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Sara M. Saleh is a human rights lawyer, community organiser, writer and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon. She has many very impressive achievements to her name including being the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review’s Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize, which she did back to back in 2020 and 2021. Sara’s debut novel Songs for the Dead and the Living is out now (link below where you can buy).  
Sara is one of the voices that has been a helpful guide for me in recent weeks as we’ve seen the Israeli government cause enormous levels of destruction and loss of human life in Gaza. 
This conversation is really helpful for decoupling anti-zionism and anti-semitism and understanding why it’s so dangerous when these are conflated. 
It’s so obvious, as you’ll hear throughout this conversation that Sara holds a fierce commitment to any group of oppressed and suffering people, while striving for solutions that do not simply flip who is oppressing who. The way she speaks about liberation is so generous and beautiful and just. 
We talk about the limits of identity politics and the deep solidarity that can be found in shared values — and there’s just so much wisdom here. 
Listen deeply, share widely, and take whatever actions you can — great or small — in the direction of justice. 

Sara’s website:
https://www.saramsaleh.com/

Buy ‘Songs for the Dead and the Living’:
https://www.booktopia.com.au/songs-for-the-dead-and-the-living-sara-m-saleh/book/9781922848536.html

Follow Sara on Instagram: @instasaranade

‘A guide to Palestine for beginners’ (this is a fantastic doc):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lgiFGdUKiPfzC-xo6LZQXvGNIXGHyMYsGCA035kKc80/mobilebasic

Donate to the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network: https://apan.org.au/donate/


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Noah (8 years old) makes his podcast debut with a whole lot of wisdom on all the big questions.
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Radhika Sukumar-White is an ordained minister in the Uniting Church of Australia and she co-leads Leichhardt Uniting Church, a beautiful and vibrant community of faith, justice and creativity. We talk about Radhika's own story as well as some of the unique characteristics that make LUC the special place that it is and what other communities might be able to learn from their approach. 
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Michael Frost (the kiwi version who hosts 'In the Shift' podcast) and Shane-Meyer Holt join me for a rich conversation exploring their own stories and experiences around high control religious settings and their attempts to create much more open, gentle and generous communities these days. We talk about power dynamics, coercive control and the risk these things can pose to communities of all sizes - mega to micro. We also talk about embodiment, processing trauma and the kind of spirituality that embraces and listens to the body. There's so much good stuff in this one. Enjoy.

Check out the excellent 'In the Shift': https://intheshift.com/
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Mikali Anagnostis and Gabi Cabenhead are behind a new sacred art project called ‘Marion St’, an attempt to create “worship music that fits with the theology and experience of the progressive church.”

Gabi and Mikali are also young, open-eyed about the injustices often attached to religious spaces, while simultaneously passionate about their faith and its expression in community.

We explored some big questions together, such as:
- Why do churches with slick services often have narrow theology…and churches with inclusive theology often have daggy services? Is the best of both possible?
- What do young people in Gen Z think about spirituality and organised religion? What do they actually want from church?

This was a lovely conversation with two excellent humans. Enjoy!

Listen to ‘Whole’ by Marion St here

The songs ‘Shaping a New World’ and ‘Garden’ are featured at the beginning and end of this episode.  
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