Cultivating Spiritual Growth: A Journey with Dina van Klaveren

Lynn Shematek: 00:00:00

Hello, friends.

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What does it mean to grow something

sacred, whether it's a congregation,

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a garden, or your own spiritual life?

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Join us as we sit down with the Reverend

Dina van Klaveren, Episcopal priest and

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diocesan leader and master gardener,

whose story is a gentle but profound

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reminder that faith grows best when it's

rooted in humility, intention, and care.

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I am Lynn Shematek of the Good News team

with Deacons, Jon Shematek and Lauren

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Welch, where hope is always in season.

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Jon Shematek: Dina van Klaveren,

welcome to our podcast.

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Good News!!.

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We're so glad you're with us today.

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Dina van Klaveren: I am

so glad to be with you.

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Thanks for having me, Jon and Lauren.

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Jon Shematek: We're really been looking

forward to having you, Dina, and we'd

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like to get to know you a little bit more

and find out what's important to you.

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And I see you're wearing a collar and

I know you're an Episcopal priest,

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and that you were, ordained in 2007.

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So you are.

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Close to or already into your

18th anniversary of ordination?

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Yes.

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You were a parish priest for a number of

years now you're on the diocesan staff.

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So tell us anything you'd like us to

know about you, Dina van Klaveren.

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Dina van Klaveren: Thank you and

thanks for doing the math for me.

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that's really helpful and it's nice

to think back to those early days.

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I serve now on diocesan staff in

the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.

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I am delighted to support our new

Bishop Carrie Schofield-Broadbent in

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her ministry around the diocese my area.

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at the moment is development and

stewardship and congregational

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vitality, and it's been really fun to

do something new and different after

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15 years in parish ministry at St.

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Andrews, Glenwood, and a few years

before that in Annapolis as a curate.

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I started this position about

a year and three months ago.

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It was right after my 50th

birthday, and it was really nice.

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At the age of 50 to do something

totally new and different and exciting

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and support the ministry and mission

of our diocese, which has been

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really good and challenging work.

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Jon Shematek: Yeah, these have been

really exciting times since Bishop

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Carrie, has arrived and we're all just

in a whole new world anyway, but all the

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wonderful, developments and, innovations

that we're doing in the diocese, I'm

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just wondering if this position is.

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I don't know if it's a new

position or not, are you're

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inventing it as you're going on.

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Dina van Klaveren: I probably am,

because it's fairly new for me,

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although it taps into some work that

I've been able to do in the past.

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while as a parish priest or chair of

the Board of Claggett, I've helped

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with capital campaigns and lots of

stewardship and fundraising efforts,

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this work is a little different

in that it supports, a breadth of

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ministry areas across the diocese.

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Through the Bishop's Appeal it also

resources, congregations that are

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facing new and different challenges

around stewardship, membership, how

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people give, planned giving challenges

there have been people in the role of

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director of development in the past.

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Bishop Carrie reimagined the role

in a really comprehensive way.

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And, that's got its challenges

and blessings for sure.

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Lauren Welch: what has surprised you the

most, in this last year in this position?

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Dina van Klaveren: Lauren, what surprises

me is the breadth of ministry across

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our diocese that I was not aware of.

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I've had the opportunity as a diocesan

staff person of looking at the parochial

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reports and thinking about ministry

and mission across the whole diocese,

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all 10 counties and Baltimore City.

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It's really inspiring.

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There are so many ministries that I

didn't know about, children that are

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being fed in parts of the diocese.

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every weekend 200 plus children

are getting backpacks full of

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food from one congregation.

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There's, a congregation that's

supporting along with other congregations

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in their area, 900 children.

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For lunch every summer day.

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it gives me the chills.

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I just got the chills.

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When you think about the expanse, the

breadth, the depth, the fullness of the

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ministry that we share as a diocese, I

feel very up close and personal to the

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deep spiritual generosity of our diocese.

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In this role, I celebrate that

and give thanks to God for that.

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then I get to ask people to be

generous to give more and in new ways.

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And again this year for things like

Sutton Scholars and Camp Claggett

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and all the things that, we care

about as a community of love.

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It's wonderful.

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I'm, there's disappointing days where

we didn't get the grant and then there's

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really upbeat days where somebody calls

and says, yes, I, I do wanna support that.

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I wanna write a check for a

hundred dollars or $10,000.

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gifts at so many levels are generous.

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Jon Shematek: Dina, I just love the

positive that came out I was guessing

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we might be hearing more about

obstacles in these troubled times.

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it's wonderful to hear all this

affirmation about the great work

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being done across the diocese.

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some of that's a pretty well kept secret.

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that's why we're doing Good News!!

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To find and spread that news around.

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that must be so heartwarming,

as you've suggested

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Dina van Klaveren: Yeah, it is.

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And I actually think There's

harm in not sharing it.

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So we are sharing it as part of

the Bishop's Appeal this spring and

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throughout the year we are sharing

all that data that we collect in the

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Bishop's Appeal is getting put back

together, tallied up and put back

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together and fashioned into Good News!!

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For the whole diocese.

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folks should know more about

it, in the months ahead.

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Lauren Welch: Is there anything

in your life that brings you joy?

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Dina van Klaveren: I had, dinner

yesterday with somebody who.

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says that when he counts his

blessings before he goes to bed,

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he often falls asleep before

he is halfway through his list.

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'cause his list is so long and I said,

I, teased him and said, you're gonna have

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to start at the bottom and go backwards.

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I do this thing in my own

emotional and spiritual life

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where I check how I'm feeling.

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if the feelings are unpleasant, I learned

this from Marshall Rosenberg in a book

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called Nonviolent Communication, which

I highly recommend it's an old book.

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A lot of people know it.

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he.

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Teaches us to scan ourselves for our

feelings and our emotional content.

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when the emotional content or feelings

are really unpleasant, they often point

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to an unmet need he's got this list.

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available online as a PDF download.

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I've used it, for years and with

my young adult children now 22

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and 19, I use this list to scan

and say, what are my unmet needs?

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How can I get those met appropriately?

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And those needs that can't be met

because that friend has died or that

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is not available to me at this time.

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Whatever it is, that's the Christian

experience of suffering and learning

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how to suffer, with some compassion

and gentleness for myself and those

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around me, and, connect with all the

resources I need when I'm suffering.

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What's bringing, me joy right now is

so many things because I do the scan

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and I don't have a lot of unmet needs.

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I am not pleased with everything

that's going on in the world.

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I'm not getting what I want.

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In lots of areas I would make a lot of

demands on things that are not happening.

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However, those things that are within my

sphere of control in my household in my

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workplace and in my community of friends

and family, I have so many blessings

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and so many of my needs are being met.

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Jon Shematek: Dina, is

that something you would.

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That exercise that you go through

looking at, your blessings and so on.

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And I we'll definitely have, we'll

make a note in our, our show notes

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about the book that you mentioned.

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is that sort of exercise or practice,

something that you think would benefit

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many people, if not all of 'em?

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Dina van Klaveren: I keep the

PDF, I have all these files on my

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laptop 'cause I want everything

to be organized and tucked away.

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Except I keep a couple pictures of my

family, my kids always available for me.

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And this PDF, I think it's four

page PDF of all the different

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feelings, all the unmet needs.

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So I can scan it and check in,

especially when I'm feeling really angst.

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Or stuck.

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I need to get unstuck sometimes.

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so I'll go to the PDF and read through

it and I find what it is that I need

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to work on, but on the way I realize

how many areas of my life are in good

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shape, how many blessings I do have.

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Lauren Welch: And it sounds like that

helps you deepen your spirituality.

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Dina van Klaveren: Yes.

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absolutely.

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It teaches me spiritually, it

teaches me accountability or agency.

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it's a bit like an Ignatian Examen.

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Where do I need to invite

God to help me do some work?

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So if I have a need for, health,

if there's something in my health

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that's not quite lining up, I'm not

feeling good, this happens to me

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as a native Southern Californian

in the winter, I get the blahs.

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I think other people

get the blahs and worse.

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but I just get into this funk where

I'm numbing with TV or on my phone

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especially when, I'm not happy with

other things happening in the world.

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I might start doom scrolling and

getting riled, and then I'm staying up

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late because my energy's getting amped

up, but I really need to go to bed.

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And so when I have an area like my health

or my sleep patterns that I need to

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work on, then this unmet needs list can

identify for me where I need to journal

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and talk with God and pray and ask for

some divine intervention, some help.

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Jon Shematek: Dina, I'm

wondering, you're a priest.

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Lauren and I are deacons.

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obviously we're all Episcopalians,

and so this message really

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resonates, pretty strongly.

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now some of our viewers and

listeners are, probably spiritual.

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everyone's got a spiritual

life no matter what they think.

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it sounds like this really applies

across the board, whether you

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have a belief system or not.

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Dina van Klaveren: I think one thing

that the Christian belief system does

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help many of us with is claiming the

right amount of agency, understanding

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where we start and stop, and where we

trust in something larger than ourselves

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that I use language like God for.

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When I get really clear about unmet

needs and what Dina needs to do,

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and then get really clear about.

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What I can't do, what I don't have control

over, what I need to entrust to God.

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then I can back away, from sometimes

having a grip on something and relax

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and learn my kids are both in college

one is 35 miles away and one is, Many

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states away learning to trust your

children into God's care and the care

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of those good people around them.

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learning how to trust your children in

their own care to care for themselves.

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is a kind of spiritual discipline

that whether we are practicing a

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faith or not, requires some tending.

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Jon Shematek: Yeah, I'm also thinking

about your transition from, parish

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ministry and what that must have

been like, into your new life.

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I'm gathering you go from place to place,

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Dina van Klaveren: It's a very different

rhythm I miss the deep relationships

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I've had with people over 15 years

of ministry together marrying people

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baptizing their babies being with

families through losses and really

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having a longer spiritual saga together.

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I miss that.

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yet there is something spiritually

fulfilling about driving around

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not knowing what I'll find

and getting into a new worship

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space I've never been to before.

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It's the joy of travel,

rather than the joy of home.

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being a rector in a place for 15 years,

you've got that comfort, of home.

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and it also is home.

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Sometimes you're like, it's just

home, travel, can be weary and

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oh no, I've gotta get there, I've

gotta plan, I've gotta prepare.

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I don't know where I'm going.

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and has some hassles involved.

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And it also has the unknown.

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Part of being a minister in a congregation

for a long time is that experience

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of staying grounded and at home.

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And what I'm enjoying right now is the

itinerancy, the trust in whatever I find.

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In fact, I'm learning now that

when I show up somewhere, It's

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pretty much, 99% the same.

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No matter if it's what we used to

call high church or low church, big

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church, small church, city, country,

those of us that have been doing this

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ministry for a while, can walk in,

scan the place and understand it.

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And mostly the folks that are welcoming

you are trying to explain, we do it this

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way, these wafers are for this, a lot

of that is actually self-explanatory,

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What I think is really interesting,

and I thought this when I was a parish

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rector, is that we each think that

our home is so special and unique and

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different from all the other places.

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they're all very much beautiful spaces

that people love and come together to

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take care of each other and the world

around them and to praise God together.

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There's so much unity and similarity

actually, between all of these homes.

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It's a little bit like.

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Traveling the world and seeing how people

live, there's a lot of similarities, even

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if things are quite different visually.

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So I guess deacons probably

know that you're more itinerant.

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You travel around and the bishop

might send you to different places.

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a priest can get pretty cozy

and grounded in a home base.

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Jon Shematek: Yeah, you're right.

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I was, active in parish ministry, as

was Lauren, for much of, 30 years.

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We were ordained together.

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oh.

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When was it Lauren?

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19.

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89.

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89 Look long.

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Oh my gosh.

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Before so many people were born.

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No.

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but it is interesting and we

get a little taste of that, what

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you're talking about vicariously.

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I served in seven parishes over

30 years, so that was the norm.

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Then and still is to some extent.

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one of the things I'm enjoying with Bishop

Carrie is vicariously visiting with her,

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her, and her social media every Yes.

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Time, she's anywhere else.

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You get a sense of that church.

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And, it is a source of joy to

see the common life that we have,

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in Christ and in the way that we

worship and the way that we are.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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so Dina, I know you have things outside of

the church that also give you, great joy.

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is there one you can highlight for

us and talk about a little bit?

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Dina van Klaveren: It's spring, so I

have to talk about what's happening

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outside this window in the yard.

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I am a master gardener.

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I became a master gardener during

COVID because everything went online.

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I could finally do it.

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This is a strange story in a way.

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I became a master gardener

because I wanted a really

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beautiful master plan for my yard.

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We have three and a half acres, and

I wanted this kind of garden and that

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kind of garden, and I wanted azaleas and

rhododendrons, and I wanted pathways.

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I've envisioned it so many different ways.

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I thought if I take a master gardener

course and become a master gardener,

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I would at least along the way,

develop the master plan for the

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yard and then I could execute it.

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That was the big plan.

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I like to know how to do

all the things in the yard.

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by the grace of God, I passed,

the Master Gardener Program.

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soil science is really hard I wasn't

great in sciences, but I really

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worked at it and tried to understand

how soil can actually make a plant

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grow along with light, so forth.

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and at the end of the day, I answered

the questions right passed the exam,

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but my real answer is God is amazing

and makes things grow because the soil

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science very, Intricate and difficult.

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I enjoyed that very much, became

a master gardener and along the

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way learned about invasive plants.

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And when we learned about invasive

plants, it was really depressing.

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it was like learning about

sin oh, everything looks

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great, and then you find out.

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All the bad stuff.

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I would go for a walk in the woods near

our home and I would start to see invasive

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plants in the woods and it ruined walks,

this is a drag now that I know too much.

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that's a little bit like being human when

you know too much about, human greed or

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how ego gets in the way of things, pride.

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Like sin.

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It was very similar.

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when you see those things, it can ruin it.

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I know lots of folks who leave

church because they saw sin somewhere

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in the church and they left.

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I determined I wasn't

gonna leave the woods.

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Just because I saw the invasives

and so I volunteered to pull

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invasives and, there's a lot to it.

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And I volunteered to do that as part

of my volunteering in Master Gardeners.

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and the more I learned, I got introduced

to somebody my family jokingly

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called my Master Gardener boyfriend.

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a professor at University

of Delaware, Doug Tallamy.

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He is a professor and and he has

written this book, Nature's Best

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Hope, which changed my life.

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it changed my spiritual life as

well, I'll tell you about that.

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And then I just got his new book.

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This just was released and I got it

in my hot little hands, called How Can

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I Help Saving Nature With Your Yard.

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And these two books along with Native

Plants for Wildlife Habitat and

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Conservation Landscaping here in Maryland.

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You can see I've got

lots of tabs in there.

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These are my go-to things right

now for, my hobby out in the yard.

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But, so here's what happened.

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Instead of getting a master

plan, I became convicted.

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I had a conversion experience.

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In which I had to face a really

ugly truth about myself, which was

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the reason I wanted a master plan

and a perfect lawn, was so that my

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neighbors would think highly of me.

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And that anyone who came on my

property would say, "this is beautiful.

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You are amazing people.

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: 00:18:23

You're an amazing gardener."

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you are, good people because

look at your yard and your

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: 00:18:28

beautiful lawn, all nice and neat.

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: 00:18:31

And I think in a community like where I

live on an old country road with lots of

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houses that were built in the eighties and

nineties, the lawn and cutting the lawn.

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Is a way to communicate that we

care about our homes, that we care

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about our neighborhood, if you will.

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that we're decent 'cause we cut our grass.

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we would worry when we would

go on vacation and not mow the

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grass in the summer for 10 days.

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we gotta get home and mow

before the neighbors think

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we've moved out or get cranky.

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So a lot of the desire to keep

your yard nice has to do with

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what other people think of you.

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: 00:19:07

And I had this real awareness

and it reminded me of times

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I've gone to a cocktail party

and I haven't been drinking.

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: 00:19:16

I just.

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Don't wanna drink any

alcohol at that party.

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: 00:19:19

And people feel very uncomfortable

when they're drinking and

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: 00:19:22

you're saying, no thank you.

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: 00:19:23

I'll just, I'll have, and you'll even

get something like soda in a glass

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: 00:19:27

that looks like you have a cocktail

so that people leave you alone

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: 00:19:30

Jon Shematek: maybe with

a slice of lime in it.

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: 00:19:32

Dina van Klaveren: You're

like tricking people.

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: 00:19:33

This is really a cocktail, but you're

just not drinking having a yard.

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: 00:19:37

That's a little messier or not as tame.

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: 00:19:42

Makes people anxious around you,

makes your neighbors anxious.

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: 00:19:46

it makes my husband a little anxious.

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: 00:19:48

This is something we are trying to figure

out, but what I realized is the more we

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: 00:19:52

invest in pouring fossil fuels into a

tractor to spend hours of our time, which

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: 00:20:00

is precious on our grass, so that it looks

really nice for the neighbors, that may

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: 00:20:06

not be the best investment of a fossil

fuels, b our time, and c, the land itself.

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: 00:20:13

And so what I've learned from

Doug Tallamy is by keeping my

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: 00:20:17

yard in a monoculture lawn, I'm

actually harming the environment.

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: 00:20:22

That monoculture of a non-native

grass that is my yard is not

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: 00:20:28

feeding the birds, the butterflies,

all the insects we depend upon.

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: 00:20:33

and how I'm getting around this with

my husband who would really like

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: 00:20:36

everything to be very neat and tidy is.

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: 00:20:39

He loves to feed the birds

in our backyard feeders.

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: 00:20:42

once we understood that if we don't

have enough keystone trees and enough

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: 00:20:47

native perennial plants in the yard to

take care of some of the insects that

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: 00:20:52

need to have their young in our yard

in order to then feed the birds, we're

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: 00:20:57

gonna lose population of birds in our

area, birds that we love to look at.

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: 00:21:02

And so this has led to a

whole new wilding of our yard.

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: 00:21:08

which if you come to visit me, you'll

see is a bit of a disaster zone.

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: 00:21:12

It is not the master plan I wanted.

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: 00:21:14

I've had to sacrifice.

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: 00:21:17

this idea of prominence and my own

ego among my neighbors, to let it

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: 00:21:23

look a little messy, to leave the

leaves all winter long and the stems

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: 00:21:27

of the native perennials so that

the pollinator babies can do what

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: 00:21:31

they need to do over the winter.

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: 00:21:32

I used to clear that all out

and mulch again, and then I

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: 00:21:36

learned it is already mulch.

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: 00:21:37

It's the mulch.

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: 00:21:39

some of the stuff that we get tricked

into thinking we need for our yards, for

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: 00:21:44

our lives, it's really just people trying

to sell us stuff and keep us in a loop.

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: 00:21:49

The piece that really gets me, that

I don't really hear people talking

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: 00:21:54

about, and when I talk about it, people

think I'm crazy the more I learn about

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: 00:22:00

how land has been used over time.

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: 00:22:03

The more I come to understand

that I'm addicted to some very

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: 00:22:07

weird notions of aristocracy.

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: 00:22:11

And here we are in the Episcopal

Church, which has bishops and priests

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: 00:22:14

and deacons and roles and hierarchy.

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: 00:22:16

And we think that serves

the kingdom of God.

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: 00:22:19

That's why we have it.

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: 00:22:20

And we also sometimes worship

the hierarchy or the aristocracy

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: 00:22:25

piece that's embedded in it in

a way that's really unhealthy.

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: 00:22:30

And I think we do this with our yards.

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: 00:22:32

many years ago, the people that moved

to this part of the world, Maryland, the

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: 00:22:36

Mid-Atlantic were from parts of England

that had great lawns to show that they had

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: 00:22:42

enough servants to keep those lawns cut.

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: 00:22:46

they didn't have a lawn mower.

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: 00:22:47

We have an electric one now.

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: 00:22:48

It's really lovely.

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: 00:22:49

They had people that they took advantage

of and oppressed and made cut their

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: 00:22:54

grass the longer the grass went

from the house down to where people

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: 00:22:59

approached, the more wealthy you were

because the more people you could

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: 00:23:03

force into the labor of caring for it.

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: 00:23:06

So when I want my lawn to look a

certain way so that the approach

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: 00:23:10

to my house is beautiful and I

live in a colonial style home.

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: 00:23:15

I am inheriting some of this colonial

ick around looking like an aristocrat

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: 00:23:21

like little plantation owners.

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: 00:23:24

It's really problematic because land

for most people at the time, was about

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: 00:23:28

food, was about animals being able

to graze, and it was about growing.

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: 00:23:34

The food they needed to eat.

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: 00:23:35

It was not about impressing people

on the approach to your stately home.

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: 00:23:40

So for those of us that wanna

have this stately grass in front

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: 00:23:43

of our stately home or townhouse,

we are inheriting this garbage.

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: 00:23:50

around what the land is for and what

our yards are for, I am growing more

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: 00:23:56

comfortable with turning the land.

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: 00:23:58

I wanna have areas where we can

play soccer and ultimate Frisbee.

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: 00:24:01

Don't get me wrong, I love grass for that.

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: 00:24:03

I wanna be out there for

Easter egg hunt this Easter.

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: 00:24:06

We're gonna be out in the grass.

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: 00:24:07

We're gonna always have some

grass to play on and picnic on.

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: 00:24:10

And I'm getting more comfortable with

wild areas in the yard that are not

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: 00:24:15

wild with invasives, but are really

intentionally native perennials

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: 00:24:21

and native trees to restore habitat

that's been lost in the Mid-Atlantic.

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: 00:24:27

And that's really what the Doug

Tallamy books are teaching me.

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: 00:24:30

So that's some of the work I'm still

doing and thinking about I have come

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: 00:24:34

to terms and I can admit that I'm

addicted to this aristocratic notion

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: 00:24:40

of, A stately approach to my home, down

a driveway with a lawn that's really

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: 00:24:45

green and gorgeous and cut neatly.

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: 00:24:47

I'm trying to learn how to give up

caring what other people think, and do

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: 00:24:53

what is right for God's planet more than

do what will make my neighbors happy.

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: 00:24:59

if any of my neighbors on my street happen

to see this will explain a lot to you.

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: 00:25:05

Jon Shematek: Yeah.

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: 00:25:05

No, it explains a lot to me.

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: 00:25:07

And I'm not one of your neighbors,

but it's, you're a real evangelist

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: 00:25:10

for Creation Care, and I really

loved also what you said Dina.

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: 00:25:14

to clarify, it clarified for me when

you talked about the intentionality

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: 00:25:19

of this is not just letting.

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: 00:25:21

Dina van Klaveren: Oh no,

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: 00:25:22

Jon Shematek: 'cause as you said,

what's gonna happen is the invasives

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: 00:25:25

come in and that's all you've got.

430

: 00:25:27

isn't it just like our lives

431

: 00:25:28

Dina van Klaveren: it's exactly.

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: 00:25:29

'cause it is just like my own life.

433

: 00:25:31

I might create space for something that

I think is gonna be holy and good, and if

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: 00:25:34

I'm not careful, something else might grow

in that space and my own spiritual life

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: 00:25:38

in my soul and in my heart and in my mind.

436

: 00:25:41

and so it's got a lot of overlap.

437

: 00:25:44

and yet.

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: 00:25:45

It's not a metaphor for me.

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: 00:25:47

So while it can be a metaphor for

spiritual life, the actual change

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: 00:25:53

to my yard is a spiritual practice.

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: 00:25:57

Allowing the grass.

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: 00:25:59

there's something called "No Mow May"

because you wanna let all the perennials

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: 00:26:03

and the areas of your yard foster all

the life of all those baby insects

444

: 00:26:08

It's really hard not to mow

until May or through May.

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: 00:26:13

It's really hard to host a party at your

house and not have a really nice lawn.

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: 00:26:17

not doing that is actually

a spiritual practice.

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: 00:26:20

It's a faithfulness to God's call

over what other people think.

448

: 00:26:25

Which is like the work of life,

the work we're all doing in life.

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: 00:26:29

Jon Shematek: The other element that

comes through to me so strongly in

450

: 00:26:32

what you're saying Dina, is humility.

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: 00:26:35

it sounded so Franciscan in a way,

that this is God's creation and

452

: 00:26:40

the way that we have managed to.

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: 00:26:43

change things for appearance, is

really counter to that whole idea.

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: 00:26:48

Totally.

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: 00:26:48

So much food for thought

and books for thought.

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: 00:26:50

We'll put all those books in the

show notes so people can find them.

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: 00:26:53

That's awesome.

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: 00:26:55

Thanks for all that.

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: 00:26:56

Dina van Klaveren: Thanks

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: 00:26:57

Lauren Welch: That was wonderful

because it, it not only shows what

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: 00:27:00

you've learned through gardening, but

how your whole life is intertwined.

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: 00:27:05

how your spiritual life your work

life and your living, is all one.

463

: 00:27:12

So thank you.

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: 00:27:13

Dina van Klaveren: Well said.

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: 00:27:14

Jon Shematek: Yeah.

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: 00:27:14

Dina van Klaveren: Yeah.

467

: 00:27:15

Jon Shematek: Dina, I'm just thrilled

that you've been with us today and

468

: 00:27:18

shared so much this was a really

interesting, exciting, voyage for me.

469

: 00:27:23

I always have to give Lauren an

opportunity to bring up the last

470

: 00:27:27

topic or ask the last question.

471

: 00:27:28

Lauren, please do

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: 00:27:31

Lauren Welch: Dina.

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: 00:27:32

You have shared so much wisdom today.

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: 00:27:36

what would you like to leave our listeners

and, people who are watching, what

475

: 00:27:41

advice would you like to leave them with?

476

: 00:27:45

Dina van Klaveren: Several years ago,

I was moving my parents from Arizona

477

: 00:27:48

to Maryland during the pandemic to

be closer to us as they were aging

478

: 00:27:54

I was thinking about how I'm gonna

need some patience to do all that.

479

: 00:27:58

And another, a friend said, it's

not patience, it's gentleness.

480

: 00:28:02

So I would offer to people the

word gentle, because the word

481

: 00:28:06

patience has never worked for me.

482

: 00:28:07

If I'm honest.

483

: 00:28:08

It makes me feel less patient.

484

: 00:28:11

But the word gentle transforms

how I breathe, how I interact.

485

: 00:28:19

it transforms me and my wellbeing.

486

: 00:28:22

So I would like to leave

your, community of Good News!!

487

: 00:28:27

With the word gentle.

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: 00:28:29

In any area where we are struggling

or suffering or doing something

489

: 00:28:34

new or hard to really consciously

be gentle touch, gentle gaze.

490

: 00:28:45

gentle words to seek some gentleness,

and I think it goes in my experience

491

: 00:28:51

thus far in life, the longest way.

492

: 00:28:55

Thank you.

493

: 00:28:56

Thank you.

494

: 00:28:57

for having me today.

495

: 00:28:58

Jon Shematek: Oh, thanks

so much We appreciate it.

496

: 00:29:01

Lauren Welch: You are welcome.

497

: 00:29:02

Jon and I want to thank those who

are watching and listening for

498

: 00:29:06

the gift of your time with us.

499

: 00:29:08

Until next time, peace and blessings.

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: 00:29:11

Lynn Shematek: This episode

of Good News has been brought

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: 00:29:14

to you by Listening for Clues.

502

: 00:29:17

For more podcasts, check out

our YouTube channel or our

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: 00:29:21

website listening for clues.com.