This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with author and pastor Russ Ramsey. Russ is a pastor in the Nashville area, a masterful storyteller, and Jonathan’s go-to resource for all art-related questions. His love of art and story come together in his new book, Rembrandt Is In the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith. It’s an art history book, but more importantly, it’s a book about the beauty that comes out of stories of human brokenness. Beauty matters; nobody makes that case better than Russ Ramsey.Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Caroline Cobb is a singer-songwriter from Texas. In 2011, she decided to write a song for every book of the Bible in one year. That ambitious goal set her on a path that she’s still on, more than ten years later. She has said, “That year, I discovered that I love writing songs from the Bible: delving into a passage, putting myself in each character’s shoes, trying to understand how this one small story connects with the whole, then coming up with a way to communicate that story through song.” That project has led to four studio albums so far: The Blood and the Breath, A Home and a Hunger, A Seed, a Sunrise, and, most recently, A King and His Kindness. In this episode, Caroline speaks with Jonathan Rogers about producing without striving, the upside-down-ness of the Gospel, and the reasons she decided to take a sabbatical.Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Habit Podcast, we invite you to listen in on a conversation between poet Dana Gioia, former Poet Laureate of California and former head of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Cherie Harder, President of The Trinity Forum. They discuss the ways that poetry works as a kind of enchantment, creating a state of heightened consciousness and heightened receptivity, and Dana Gioia makes the case that beauty is a way of knowing the world as it really is. He also reads a couple of poems. This interview was recorded in 2020, relatively early in the pandemic, as part of the Trinity Forum’s Online Conversations series. If you don’t already know about the Trinity Forum, we hope you’ll seek them out. They’ve been good friends to the Rabbit Room, and we love the work they do to contribute to the renewal of society by cultivating and promoting the best of Christian thought, and helping leaders to think, work, and lead wisely and well. Find them at TTF.org & tune into their Lenten podcast series by searching “Trinity Forum Conversations” wherever you get your podcasts.Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Curt Thompson is a psychiatrist and founder of Being Known, an organization that develops resources for hope and healing at the intersection of neuroscience and Christian spiritual formation. His books include The Soul of Shame and The Soul of Desire. In this episode, Curt and Jonathan Rogers discuss the left brain and the right brain, the power of beauty to awaken us to goodness and truth, and Andy Gullahorn.Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christie Purifoy is a writer and gardener committed to growing flowers and growing community and cultivating beauty. Her newest book is Garden Maker: Growing a Life of Beauty and Wonder with Flowers. She’s also the host of the Black Barn Garden Club, an online community for aspiring gardeners.Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dorena Williamson is an author, a bridge-builder, a speaker, and a co-planter of a multi-racial church that has been doing beautiful work in Nashville for 25 years. Her most recent picture book, Crowned with Glory, is an ode to Black hair and Black girl joy. In this episode, Dorena and Jonathan Rogers talk about representation, writing the books you want to read, and the perils of "color-blindness."Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Activist and author Lisa Sharon Harper spent three decades researching ten generations of her family’s story through DNA research, oral histories, interviews and genealogical records. That research is the basis of her new book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World—and How to Repair It. In this episode, Lisa Sharon Harper and Jonathan  Rogers discuss truth-seeking, truth-telling, forgiveness, and repair.Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Philip Yancey has written more than 25 books, including What’s so Amazing about Grace, Disappointment with God, Where is God When It Hurts, and The Jesus I Never Knew. His most recent book, from 2021, is his memoir Where the Light Fell. In this episode, Philip Yancey and Jonathan Rogers discuss the complex interactions between identity, memory, and memoir, and the journey from fear to gratitude.Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David French is a political and cultural commentator and senior editor at The Dispatch. He’s a contributing writer at The Atlantic Monthly and the author of several books, including Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation as well as the French Press newsletter. He’s the co-host—with Curtis Chang—of the new podcast, Good Faith.  In this episode, David French and Jonathan Rogers discuss persuasion in a polarized and ideologically super-charged climate.Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kelly Kapic is a professor of theology at Covenant College. His most recent book is You're Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's Design and Why That's Good News. In this episode, Dr. Kapic and Jonathan Rogers discuss productivity shame, gratitude, and the truth that finitude is not a sin.Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.