Ian McConnell interviews Tabitha Montgomery

The Loose Threads podcast is a series of interviews recorded in front of a live audience in Minneapolis, MN.  Our guests are people doing real, high-impact work in our community.  In this episode, it’s Joe Davis and Dave Scherer, who have been walking and working together for years with overlapping passions for music, justice, teaching, and spirituality. Listen as Chris Tripolino pulls on the threads of their passion and play to see what inspires you and maybe connects us all!

Loneliness isn't just about being alone, it's about being unseen, unwoven, unplaced. This week we name the deep human ache to belong to something larger than ourselves, and ask what it would take to become a community that tends that fire in each other.   LINKS: Keepers of the Fire |  Connect  |  YouTube  |  Coming Up TRANSCRIPT: The Ache This Week I want to describe a feeling and see if you know what I’m talking about: You're surrounded by people— at work, online, maybe even in a room full of friends— and you still feel somehow... unplaced. Like you're present but not quite part of something. Like everyone else knows how to belong and you missed the orientation. Literally happened to me.  That's not just loneliness in the ordinary sense. It's something deeper. The ache to be woven in. To matter to a specific group of people who also matter to you. To not just be known, but needed. Do you know this feeling? Yeah! Today, on this final week of Keepers of the Fire, I want to name that ache directly. Because I think it might be the one underneath all the others we've explored this summer. One thing; this is actually an ache, a yearning that has gotten a lot of attention.  The Epidemic Three years ago, in 2023, the United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy did something unusual; he issued a formal public health advisory declaring loneliness an epidemic. A crisis. The statistic he cited was that about one in two American adults reported experiencing loneliness— and social isolation increases the risk of premature death by 29 PERCENT. That’s comparable to the health impact of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. We have entire cultural infrastructures built around discouraging smoking. We have almost nothing built around discouraging isolation. And then to make it worse, the money-grabbing internet “manosphere” has very carefully and intentionally targeted young boys and young adult men to believe that they have no agency, and that their feelings of loneliness are the fault of others, like women or the feminist movement! I want to say outright: that’s a lie. Loneliness isn’t just an issue for boys and men, they’ve just been most successfully convinced they’re especially isolated, and then that false premise has been weaponized against others.  To be clear: loneliness is a problem, but it isn’t isolated to a particular group of American adults. Some demographic groups seem to have more access to emotional and relational skills than others… catch my drift? In an interview with Kate Bowler, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said loneliness is like HUNGER or THIRST— a signal the body sends when something we need for survival is missing. This is biology. We were created— literally, neurologically— for each other. Matthew Lieberman, a neuroscientist at UCLA, found that the brain processes social pain— rejection, exclusion, being cut off— in the same regions it processes physical pain. Being unplaced from community doesn't just hurt emotionally. It hurts, the way a broken bone hurts. So when you feel the ache for belonging— that persistent, restless sense that you're APART FROM something you were made to be A PART OF— your nervous system is telling you the truth. Pay attention to it. Belonging vs. fitting in Just a quick tangent here to say that belonging is not the same as fitting in. Fitting in is when you adjust yourself to be ACCEPTABLE. You figure out what the group rewards, what gets you included, and you perform accordingly. It's exhausting. And it doesn't actually satisfy the ache— because the version of you that got accepted isn't really you. Belonging is different. Belonging is when you show up as you ACTUALLY ARE — complicated, unfinished, uncertain — and find that there's a place for that person anyway. That you don't have to earn your way in or maintain a performance to stay. Loneliness isn't just about being alone. It's about being unseen. Unwoven. You can be lonely in a crowd, in a marriage, even in a congregation— if t

The longing for stillness is its own kind of fire… quiet, insistent, easy to dismiss until you can't anymore. This week we practice the art of the honest pause, and ask what yearning reveals when we finally get still enough to hear it.   LINKS: Keepers of the Fire |  Connect  |  YouTube  |  Coming Up

Underneath every longing– for love, for purpose, for belonging, for rest– there's often a simpler, older ache: to exist without fear. This week we hold that tenderly, name how far the world still is from that vision, and commission each other as keepers of the fire for ourselves, for one another, and for that big, divine vision of love that could be.

Good morning Fabric! Will you help me spread that greeting around a little bit?  See if you can high-five or fist bump 2 or three people near you and say “Good Morning”,  I’m glad you are here!” or “Hi Friend!” Great work everyone! Thanks for helping to spread the welcome and to warm ourselves up a little for this morning! You might need it😊 I’m Heidi Esposito, director of children, youth and family here with Fabric, mother of two amazing adults with amazing partners, and mother to two adorable sassy pups, and…the master of fun! We have been talking these last few weeks about the longing and the ache that humans have at the core of our truest selves. The fire in our bellies that asks if things could be different for us, more fulfilling for us and for our world.  Two weeks ago, we talked about our longing for connection and relationships and last week Ian helped us to remember that the longing for meaning and purpose might really be our main mission in life. Purpose is the thing for each of us that connects our deep gladness with the greatest needs or hurts of the world.  If you missed those weeks, I encourage you to go back and listen to the podcasts or check out the livestream.  Today, we are going to explore the ache or longing we have (or should have) for play and I imagine there might be some skeptics or nay-sayers in the room, thinking that play is for kids or for people that have much more spare time than you have, or like me lucky enough to also get to play for their job.  So, before we start really digging in, I would like everyone to stand as you are able, and I’d like to do a baseline test on your propensity for playfulness.  Play: Top Monkey Score yourself a point if you laughed, stepped outside your comfort zone, connected with other people, felt a little less stressed, practiced flexibility or felt your brain being challenged. How many points did you get? Awesome, we are going to do well today.  There is a guy named Stewart Brown, author of multiple books on play, producer of a series on PBS on play as well as on TED, and founder of the National Institute for Play, an expert on play you might say, points to science that shows that “nothing lights the brain up more than play” (and at my age, I’m particularly concerned and pleased about that😊)  I think generally we agree that play is important for kids and for their development, but what happens to us as adults? Are we even willing to admit that we have a longing or yearning for play? I think that many adults are not willing to trust in the ache or longing, or it is stuffed so deep down, we would hardly recognize it, resent it  or it feels like too much of a luxury.  Where are you in terms of having or trusting in the yearning for play?…Fist-to-five…Fist (I don’t buy the idea that all people do or should have an ache for play)Five (I believe in play so much I have a big tattoo across my back that says “play-baby-play”   I think that is where a practice like the Daily Examen can help us to tap into the things that we are longing for, to notice and pay attention, to trust, and then to tend to that ache.  There have been times in my life, actually many, many, many, times, that I have begun a practice of journaling it usually lasted for a page or two, but I have had some success at keeping a really simple gratitude practice – similar to the Daily Examen and when I page back through I notice patterns around where gratitude keeps showing up – patterns of times when I have been the most joyful, free, my true self, deeply grateful and the most alive.  I think looking back and noticing those patterns helped me to pay attention to the ache and longing that I have for play and helped me to tend to that longing with more care and importance and made me have the courage to try and add some new things into my life that aligned with the longing for play. So, what exactly counts as play? Let’s work together to see if we can discover what play is and come up with a worki

What if your restlessness isn't a distraction from your purpose? What if it is your purpose, trying to get your attention? This episode explores the relationship between yearning and calling, and consider the possibility that the fire in your belly already knows something you haven't caught up to yet.   LINKS: Keepers of the Fire |  Connect  |  YouTube  |  Coming Up

We don't just want people in our lives, we ache for the ones who know us fully and stay anyway. This week we sit with the longing for connection that goes beyond convenience or proximity, and ask what it might mean to stop settling for less than we were made for.   LINKS: Keepers of the Fire |  Connect  |  YouTube  |  Coming Up TRANSCRIPT: Relationships: What we reach for in each other Before we get into anything else— before really introducing this conversation series or today’s particular theme— I want you to pull something out of your Sunday Papers. It's called a Daily Examen. If that word's new to you, here's the short version: it's an old prayer practice— centuries old, actually— where instead of asking God to fix your day or explain your life, you just look back over it. Slowly, and gently. You notice what moved you. What you're grateful for. What quietly grew you. And you ask, at the end, what all of that might be inviting you into next. Super simple prayer practice that requires no performance or right answers. Just noticing. We made our own version of it for this series— for the next six weeks we're calling Keepers of the Fire— and instead of just talking about it, I want us to actually do it. Right now. Together. So take a minute. Look at the front side. Grab a pen, or just sit with it in your head. Let yourself notice what you're actually grateful for. Then, let yourself notice what's brought you joy, energy, a sense of coming alive lately. Don't rush to explain any of it or fix it or figure out what it means or anything like that. Just let yourself want deep, big things. Let yourself ache a little. I’m going to give you a little time here to think about it, and then write or draw in the boxes on your page. However that landed for you, however much or little showed up, that's okay. That's the practice. Now, flip it over. The back side is a second copy, identical to the one you just did, because this isn't a one-time thing. Take it home. Do it again tomorrow, or Tuesday, or whenever you can steal five or ten quiet minutes this week. The fire you just noticed doesn't go out when you leave this room. And underneath all of that noticing is a question we're going to be living with together for six weeks— a fire most of us have learned to keep quiet in any number of ways. So before I tell you what this series is about, I wanted you to spend a little time with your own fire first. When you're ready— when you've done a little dreaming, a little longing, a little honest noticing— we'll talk about where we're headed. Starting with the first thing that fire always wants: relationship. SECTION 1: A turn in the road For the last many weeks we've been in The Book of Forgiving, looking back from where we stand, at real hurts, real wounds, charting a kind of path forward that can only be achieved through forgiving. That was important work, and I hope it did something for you. Today, we’re turning around. We're going to spend the next six weeks not looking back, but looking forward. Standing where we are and trusting a gut feeling. A sacred impulse. A fire in the belly that says: things can be better than this. That feeling has a lot of names. For the next six weeks, let’s call it The Ache. What is The Ache? The Ache is that restless, reaching, yearny feeling. The sense that the world could be different. That you could be different. That there's more available — in your relationships, your life, your world — than what you're currently experiencing. Kids feel it when they want a best friend who really gets them. Adults feel it when a conversation goes surprisingly deep and they think, “why don't I have more of this?” We all feel it when we watch the news and think: it doesn't have to be this way. [I felt it this weekend as I thought about 250 years of the American experiment, and remembered that there’s a reality behind all the mythologies that deserves attention as we work to continue collectively rejecting tyranny.] Th

After five weeks asking what it means to forgive, this week we flip it and ask the harder question: what kind of person am I in the lives of others? Becoming forgivable turns out to be one of the most liberating, and most demanding, practices there is. LINKS: Book of Forgiving  |  Connect  |  YouTube  |  Coming Up

Reconciliation isn't the same thing as forgiveness. We've probably been confusing the two for too long, and it’s had real consequences for real people. In this episode, let’s look honestly at what genuine repair actually requires, who's responsible for what, and why it's worth the hard work of getting it right.    LINKS: Book of Forgiving  |  Connect  |  YouTube  |  Coming Up TRANSCRIPT: Ian calls kids up and shares puppets (all the animal characters from Wally and Freya) Setup: We've been talking about Wally and Freya for a few weeks now. But there were other animals in this story— a whole community. And when something happens between two people, the whole community has to figure out how to respond. I need some helpers. Each of you gets a character. Facilitate a short, lively role play — you narrate, kids voice their characters: Wally did something that hurt Freya. Now everybody has to decide what to do.Name each option clearly as kids play them out: Get even — someone decides to do something mean back to Wally. Throw a tantrum — someone just explodes with feelings. Ask for help — someone goes to a trusted adult. Forgive — someone decides to let it go and move forward. Choose the relationship — someone decides whether they even want to keep being Wally's friend. Wally & Freya book Here's what I want you to notice: in any situation where someone gets hurt, everybody has choices. Not just one choice, but a whole menu of them. Some of those choices help. Some of them make things worse. And some of them are really, really hard. The hardest one (and the most interesting one) is what we're talking about today. The word you are going to hear me use is called “reconciliation,” and it means making a relationship better. It's not the same thing as forgiveness. They're related, but they're different. Here's the difference: Forgiveness is something YOU do, inside yourself. Reconciliation is something that happens BETWEEN PEOPLE. It takes both people showing up. Painting rocks… what are words we could use? The Distinction We Were Not Taught We have spent this whole series untangling forgiveness from the myths we inherited about it. Today we untangle one more, and it might be the most practically important one. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. We use them interchangeably. We shouldn't. Collapsing them into one action creates real damage: It pressures the wounded person to restore a relationship before they feel safe. It lets the person who caused harm off the hook for the actual work of repair. It produces what we might call false reconciliation, a surface-level "we're fine" that buries the wound rather than healing it. The Tutus: "The preference is always to renew unless there is a question of safety." But — and this is important — reconciliation is the fourth step of the Fourfold Path, not the first. You cannot skip to it. And sometimes, honestly, you never get there. To be clear: not reaching reconciliation is not s sign of failure either. That's reality. Lessons from the TRC In 1995, Nelson Mandela appointed Archbishop Desmond Tutu to chair South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission… a body tasked with the nearly impossible: helping a nation begin to heal from decades of apartheid-era atrocity. The TRC was empowered to grant amnesty to perpetrators who confessed their crimes truthfully and completely to the commission. Not automatically. Not cheaply. Truth first. Tutu's final remarks after submitting the report were: "We have looked the beast in the eye. Our past will no longer keep us hostage." Notice what the commission was called. Not the Reconciliation Commission. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Truth comes first. Always. What Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the TRC understood, and what we so often get backwards, is that healing actually does have an order. You cannot reconcile what you have not first actually named. You cannot repair what no one has ack