Kindreds

After a brief life update from Ashley (she's coming back to the podcast soon!) Katey talks with Cari Jackson about what to do when we long for spiritual community but have trouble finding a place where we fit in. Cari offers some ideas for how to begin creating community on our own, and we even touch on the Beyoncé Mass briefly. Rev. Dr. Cari Jackson is the author of five books, a speaker, a social healer, and a leadership coach. Cari is ordained minister, holds PhD in social ethics, and also has a law degree. She’s currently the Executive for Religious Leadership and Advocacy for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice,  and she’s worked across many different movements and organizations, bringing hope and healing and joy to the struggle for a more just, compassionate world. Read our shownotes at: http://kindredspodcast.com/2018/05/14/episode-18-searching-for-belonging-with-cari-jackson/

Katey joins author Rachel Marie Stone to discuss her latest book Birthing Hope: Giving Fear to the Light. We examine the simultaneous discomfort  and the awe we feel about how in the act of giving birth, we touch death as we bring new life into the world. We discuss the ways that the medicalization of birth has changed the ways that we think about birth, the importance of affirming women's self-knowledge of their own bodies, and the ways that birth can teach us about the nature of God. Rachel is the author of Eat With Joy: Redeeming God’s Gift of Food, which won won Christianity Today book award in the category of Christian Living, and was named one of Religion News Service’s “Top Ten Intriguing Books of 2013.” Her latest book Birthing Hope: Giving Fear to the Light will be available on May 1. Publisher's Weekly said "Stone’s style is reflective, making the book more of a meditation than a traditional memoir, and the prose is evocative throughout." You can pre-order Birthing Hope on Intervarsity Press.

On this episode Katey sits down with author Erin Lane about her decision to take a year-long sabbatical, what responsibility she feels for the time, and what lessons--like celebrating small victories--she has learned that we all can incorporate into our lives, whether or not we can take a year off from paid work. Erin is the author of  Lessons in Belonging from a Church-Going Commitment Phobe and the co-editor of Talking Taboo: American Christian Women Get Frank About Faith (Katey has a chapter in this book). She is a retreat facilitator for the Center for Courage & Renewal and Chair of the Board for the Resource Center for Women & Ministry in the South. Find her at erinslane.com.

We interview advocate Ashley Easter about her upbringing in the stay-at-home daughter movement, how reading scripture on her own paved the way for her to leave fundamentalism, and how she works to end abuse in all forms, both within the walls of the church and beyond. Ashley is a writer, speaker, and a powerful advocate for survivors of abuse, especially those who have been abused by leaders within their faith communities. She is the author of The Courage Coach: A Practical, Friendly Guide on How to Heal From Abuse. She’s also the founder of the Courage Conference, a gathering for survivors of abuse and those who love them to learn about ways that they can find healing from these past traumatic experiences. You can find her at ashleyeaster.com.

We talk with writer Cindy Brandt about her shifting faith journey, identifying as a feminist, and approaching parenting in an unfundamentalist way. Cindy is the author of an upcoming book on parenting from a progressive Christian perspective. Her website is cindywords.com where she blogs about faith,  culture, and parenting.  She’s the founder of the Raising Children Unfundamentalist Facebook Group which has over 11K members. She describes herself as “a social justice Christian and a feminist more interested in being evangelized than evangelizing.”

In honor of Valentine’s Day–and all of its baggage–Katey and her special co-host Matt (Katey’s husband of nearly five years) discuss what it means to be married. We talk about our failures in past relationships and how they inform our partnership today. We discuss how parenting has changed our relationship and how Matt’s background in psychology has helped us work through some of our toughest moments. If any relationship–romantic, professional, familial, and friendly–is going to be healthy and sustainable, we all need to do the deep work of self-discovery. Some of the psychological concepts that have helped us most include understanding transference and triggers. We’ll include some helpful resources to help you understand your own emotional make-up and how it can help rather than hinder your relationships. For more resources, check out our shownotes: http://kindredspodcast.com/2018/02/15/episode-13-lessons-in-marriage/

We take a brief hiatus from our month off from recording to talk about what has been going on behind the scenes with the podcast! We talk about why we decided to make a podcast, the ins-and-outs of how we put each episode together, and how our listeners can help us out by supporting our brand-new Patreon page at patreon.com/kindreds.

In this longer, year-end episode, we continue our conversation about bodies--but this time we're talking about pregnancy. And one of us makes a big announcement! Pregnancy can be a complicated experience, even when it's planned and even when there are no major physical complications. We talk about the weird ways that pregnancy changes not only our bodies, but also our mental and emotional lives. If that wasn't enough to deal with, pregnancy and childbirth can be very costly depending on where you live, what insurance you have, and what options you have for where to give birth. Speaking of costs, we discuss affordable childcare, paid family leave and our need for national policies that cover both. We discuss Jessica Shortall's "The US needs paid family leave--for the sake of its future" and the gender politics of who gets to take leave--paid or unpaid--when it's available. Connecting to our faith, we talk about our perspectives on Mary the Mother of Jesus. In particular we love Rachel Held Evans's piece she wrote on the Magnificat. http://kindredspodcast.com/2017/12/19/episode-12-pregnancy-and-paid-family-leave/

We discuss the complicated and often toxic diet, fitness, and "wellness" culture that feeds us the myth that in order to be our best selves, we have to lose weight, get into shape, and achieve our dream bodies. In our pursuits to be "healthy" (meaning thin), we end up doing a lot of unhealthy (and expensive) things! Plus we don't even have a shared understanding of what healthy means--not even among medical professionals. We attach all kinds of character attributes to the way our bodies look and what we do them. If we eat something healthy, we’re “good.” If we eat a treat, we’re “bad.” There's no in between. Achieving health is more than a personal quest. It's also a justice issue. We talk about how systemic poverty forces people to make hard choices between buying healthy food and paying the light bill, especially poor families with young children. We also call out the ways that churches have bought into this toxic diet and fitness culture--and have even profited from it. http://kindredspodcast.com/2017/12/07/episode-11-bodies-health-and-wellness/

In a follow-up to Episode 2 "Self-Care as Self-Preservation," we take on the topic of mental health. It’s something most of know we need to pay attention to in our own lives, and yet there are a lot of barriers to accessing quality care, especially when we need it most.

What does it mean to live in the world as white Christian women? We resist the urge to turn away from the discomfort of talking about whiteness and dive into the very real privileges of living as white people. We discuss white culture, the problem of "colorblindness," the system of white supremacy, and what our white faith communities have to say about race.

What does it mean to bear the burden of emotional labor?  This unpaid, unending work falls disproportionately to women, and it can be hard to define because it depends on the context. At work emotional labor includes adjusting the expressions of your emotions to benefit a colleague or client in a positive way (i.e. “service with a smile").  In relationships it can mean engaging in intensive conversations with friends and loved ones, listening to their problems, being in charge of hosting people when they visit, communicating with children’s teachers and doctors about their care, etc.

What are the dating dos and don'ts that single people are expected to follow if they're part of a church community? We discuss the experience of dating while Christian, specifically in the more conservative and evangelical world that we grew up in. We pay particular attention to the troubling double standards for men and women that we were taught as young people.

Can women get along with each other? Whether it’s in the workplace, in friendship, or in church, we’re often told that women are incapable of working well with each other. Is there something to this generalization or is it more of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Do you identify as a feminist? If so, what does that mean? We challenge the idea of “choice feminism” while discussing our personal struggles with decisions we’ve made that might not be perceived as “feminist.”