In the last week, we've all witnessed the terrible devastation unfold in Los Angeles. Images of destruction - of loss of life, property, and community - are filling our news feeds. Meanwhile, here in North Carolina, my region continues to recover from Hurricane Helene. How are we to process the impact of these natural disasters from both near and far? Josie Gwin is the CEO and co-founder of The Resilience Resource, an organization that seeks to equip individuals, leaders, and organizations facing challenge and change. She is a Mental Health Coach, a Spiritual and Psychological First Aid Instructor, and a certified Chaplain with vast experience domestically and internationally responding to disasters. In this episode, she and I discuss the initial impact of this most recent disaster on L.A. residents, the experience of the broader public watching the crisis unfold online, and how we can tend to our emotional responses in healthy ways. For more on her organization, see https://theresilienceresource.org/

Christmas Day is almost upon us, and during this last week of Advent, we focus on the theme of love - its challenges, its requirements, its embodiment. Today, I speak with baker and theologian Kendall Vanderslice about the way we offer and experience love through the foods we eat. She talks about her new book, Bake and Pray, and walks us through some of the traditional practices of Christmastide and Epiphany.

We live in a time that is dominated by cynicism and suspicion...and joy is sometimes in short supply. Today, I speak with artist and poet Corey Frey about the role curiosity and imagination have in cultivating a life of joy - and why we in the modern West have lost so much of our capacity for wonder. We talk about the power of paradox, the mystery of a dynamic and incarnate God, and the way the holidays habituate delight.