Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker

In a society filled with disconnect and division, how can the Enneagram guide us toward compassionate living within our communities? Suzanne Stabile, teacher and author of numerous books, including The Journey Toward Wholeness, talks with Amy Julia Becker about the Enneagram’s identification of the nine different ways of seeing the world and the healing available through naming who we are.We're giving away a copy of The Journey Toward Wholeness! Go to today's post on my Instagram for more info!Guest Bio:“Suzanne Stabile is a highly sought after speaker and teacher...After 25 years of studying the enneagram, learning from people’s stories, cultivating relationships, and learning under Father Richard Rohr, she has become a bestselling author and world class teacher of the Enneagram and how individuals can best utilize this spiritual tool.”Connect:suzannestabile.comInstagram: @suzannestabileFacebook: @EnneagramSuzTwitter: @SuzanneStabileOn the Podcast:Books: The Journey Toward Wholeness, The Road Back to You, The Path Between UsWorkshop: Know Your NumberSubscription Service: The TableThe Enneagram Journey podcast: episode with Morgan Harper NicholsConsolations by David WhyteSpeaking by the Numbers by Sean PalmerInterview Quotes“[The Enneagram] offers an awareness that there are nine different ways of seeing the world and your way isn’t everybody else’s, and that’s the primary cause, I think, of all the disconnects that keep us dividing and circling the wagons and thinking we’re right and everybody else is wrong.”“I’ve learned to ask myself three questions...‘Why am I moving toward this person? What if anything do I hope to get in return? And does the other person want my help?’...And then my fourth question has become, ‘If I say yes to this, what does that mean I’m saying no to?’”“We are an imbalanced society.”“You can’t change what you can’t name...[The Enneagram] names the things you already know but you have not been able to articulate about yourself. And once you can articulate them, you can do something about it.”“To assume that we’re all having the same experience in a room, in a family, in a small group, in a women’s group—we’re just not. And to make room for difference [is]...for sure a step toward us living more compassionate lives as we try to live together in one city, town, group, school, church. All gifts are necessary.”“It doesn’t matter what you have to say if people can’t hear you.”__Season 5 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast connects to themes in my newest book, To Be Made Well, releasing Spring 2022. Learn more about my writing and speaking at We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

We’ve heard the rhetoric that demonizes Critical Race Theory. But should citizens of the Kingdom of God have a different response? David Bailey, executive director of Arrabon, talks with Amy Julia Becker about Critical Race Theory and peacemaking, the removal of Confederate monuments, and the use of history as a means to heal.Show Notes:Guest Bio:David Bailey is the executive director of Arrabon, which exists to “equip Christian leaders and their communities for the work of reconciliation. Our digital study series, worship resources, and Transformational Journey training modules are designed to help you build a reconciling community that brings healing and wholeness to our broken and divided world.”Connect Online:arrabon.comInstagram: @wearearrabonFacebook: @wearearrabonTwitter: @wearearrabonOn the Podcast:ArrabonBailey on previous podcast episodes: Waking Up to Privilege and Loving Our Enemies in a Nation DividedRace, Class, and the Kingdom of God study seriesWebinar—CRT: How to Respond as Citizens of the Kingdom of God (not yet available)Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw1619 ProjectNew York Times article with BaileyInterview Quotes“I think what’s even more important than what CRT is is our understanding of: What does it mean to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God?”“What is Critical Race Theory? How would people who engage in that discipline define it? What are some of the image-bearing gifts…And what are the ways that it falls short?…It is our assignment to be peacemakers. It’s our assignment to be people engaging in a ministry of reconciliation.”“We can use history to hurt. We can use history to hide. We can use history as a means to heal.”“You see the good, bad, and the ugly of humanity [in the Bible], but when we talk about American history, it’s almost considered you’re being un-American to say anything negative about our history.”“We can give empathy to folks whether we agree with people or not. I think this is a very important practice to do, particularly as a person who follows Jesus.”“What’s the right and honorable thing to do to speak the truth in love, to actually engage in the truth…to look at complex, sinful human beings and how we’ve engaged with one another and to actually be agents of peacemaking and reconciliation, not just only for today but for our children and the next generation.”___Season 5 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast connects to themes in my newest book, To Be Made Well, releasing Spring 2022...you can pre-order We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

A life without limits is part of the American dream. But what if living within limits is the key to a spacious life? What if we say “no” to hustle and hurry? Ashley Hales, author of A Spacious Life, talks with Amy Julia Becker about the benefits of limits, the goodness of interdependence within community, and the space needed to be attentive to others.Show Notes:Guest Bio:“Ashley Hales is a writer, speaker, podcast host, and holds a PhD in English from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She is the author of Finding Holy in the Suburbs and A Spacious Life. Listen to The Finding Holy Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and connect with Ashley at aahales.com or @aahales on Instagram and Twitter.”On the Podcast:Ashley’s books: Finding Holy in the Suburbs and A Spacious LifePsalm 16:6; Psalm 18:19Quote misattributed to Walter Brueggemann is from Frederick BuechnerSteven GarberInterview Quotes“Limits are actually embedded in creation.”“We have spread ourselves out so thinly that we have transgressed; we’ve gone beyond those good guardrails—those good, natural, human limits that God intended for our flourishing. We’ve bypassed them for hustle and hurry.”“God’s good limits are actually for our flourishing. They enable creativity. They enable rest. They enable purpose and joy and connection. And when we live without limits, we live exhausted, where the goalposts of success are continually moving.”“[How might choices] begin to bring more freedom for others, moving us outward from this boxed-in, closed-off sense where really life is all about me and my personal happiness and my sense of unlimited autonomy, which is what the American way tells us is the good life?”“To love someone well means that we are accepting constraints “ “Jesus invites us into the constraints, particularly of the church as our first and new family, so we can live for the life of the world...The point of community is to actually bless our world wherever we are.”___Season 5 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast connects to themes in my newest book, To Be Made Well, releasing Spring 2022...you can pre-order here! Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.*A transcript of this episode will be available within one business day, as well as a video with closed captions on my YouTube Channel.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

What is privilege? How can we leverage it to proclaim God’s love to the world and create communities that flourish? Dominique DuBois Gilliard, the author of Subversive Witness, talks with Amy Julia about the church and privilege, economic justice, and how to leverage privilege in order to demonstrate the Gospel in innovative and faithful ways.Show Notes:Guest Bio: “Dominique DuBois Gilliard is the Director of Racial Righteousness and Reconciliation for the Evangelical Covenant Church. He is the author of Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice that Restores, which won a 2018 Book of the Year Award for InterVarsity Press and was named Outreach Magazine’s 2019 Social Issues Resource of the Year. Gilliard’s latest book, Subversive Witness: Scripture’s Call to Leverage Privilege was just published by Zondervan. Gilliard also serves as an adjunct professor at North Park Theological Seminary in its School of Restorative Arts and serves on the board of directors for the Christian Community Development Association. In 2015, the Huffington Post named him one of the “Black Christian Leaders Changing the World.”Connect Online:TwitterFacebookInstagramYouTubeOn the Podcast:Season 3 interview with Dominique (about his book Rethinking Incarceration)Books by Dominique: Rethinking Incarceration and Subversive WitnessSubversive Witness video-based small group curriculumAmy Julia’s book about privilege: White Picket FencesScripture: Esther, Lamentations, Isaiah 58:12, Jeremiah 29:6-8, Psalm 139:23-24, John 13:34-35Justice depositsFREE RESOURCE: Head, Heart, Hands Action GuideQuotes:“There’s privilege connected to embodiment, so how our bodies are constructed…race, gender, able-bodiedness, mental cognition…this form of privilege slowly but surely starts to negate the biblical truth that we are equitably made in the image of God. It starts to create this sliding scale of humanity where some lives are respected, protected, and valued over and against others.”“We have been conditioned, and dare I say discipled, to think about good intentions as more important than the impact of our actions.”Season 5 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast connects to themes in my newest book, To Be Made Well, releasing Spring 2022. You can pre-order here! Learn more about my writing and speaking at We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

What is a meaningful life? Does thinking about disability change your answer? Heather Lanier, author of Raising a Rare Girl, talks with Amy Julia about her daughter’s diagnosis and subsequent reactions from medical professionals, parents’ expectations for their children, the gift of vulnerability, the power of language, and the truth that love is stronger than fear.SHOW NOTES:Heather Lanier “is a poet, essayist, teacher, and speaker. An assistant professor of creative writing at Rowan University, she is the author of the memoir, Raising a Rare Girl.”Connect Online: Website: heatherlanierwriter.comFacebook: @heatherkirnlanierInstagram: @heatherklanierTwitter: @heatherklanierOn the Podcast:Heather’s book: Raising a Rare GirlAmy Julia’s book: A Good and Perfect GiftJesus says, “Do not be afraid.”____Season 5 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast connects to themes in my newest book, To Be Made Well, releasing Spring 2022...you can pre-order here! Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.*A transcript of this episode will be available within one business day.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

It’s been a rough year. Protests, political division, a global pandemic. And our bodies ache. Our friendships feel strained. We’ve had too much to drink. We haven’t exercised enough. On a self-care level and a social-care level, we are not doing well. In the midst of all the personal and social turmoil, Season 5 of the Love is Stronger than Fear podcast begins next week. In this season, I’m looking for conversations about hope and healing. Not conversations that sugarcoat the hardship. Not conversations that substitute entertainment for real connection. But conversations that look at the hardship and hurt in order to name it and understand it so that we can move towards healing. Together. For this season of the Love is Stronger than Fear podcast, you can look forward to hearing from filmmakers and authors and practitioners about faith and healing, disability and healing, self-care and healing, and how we can begin to repair our social fabric. Our first episode will drop next Tuesday, September 7th. Do go ahead and subscribe wherever you get this podcast so you don’t miss an episode, and please spread the word about these conversations. And send me guest suggestions if you have them. My email is amyjuliabeckerwriter@gmail.com, or you can always fill out a contact form on my website amyjuliabecker.com.I look forward to this journey together into healing, wholeness, and hope. _____Season 5 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast connects to themes in my newest book, To Be Made Well, releasing Spring 2022...you can pre-order here! Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.👁‍🗨Accessibility: You can read the transcript for this episode here via the transcript tab or view subtitles on my YouTube channel soon.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

Can peacemaking dismantle racism? Osheta Moore, author of Dear White Peacemakers, offers a warm and welcoming invitation to White people as she talks with Amy Julia about antiracism, the difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking, and the equalizing nature of our belovedness. Show Notes:“Osheta Moore is a writer, pastor, speaker, and podcaster in Saint Paul, Minnesota, as well as a mother of three and economic justice advocate for women in developing countries.” Preorder her book Dear White Peacemakers: Dismantling Racism with Grit and Grace.Connect Online:Website: osheta.comInstagram: @oshetamooreOn the Podcast:Osheta’s books: Dear White Peacemakers and Shalom SistasDear White Peacemakers podcastHow to Be an Antiracist and White Fragility Galatians 3:28, Ephesians 2:16Osheta’s IG post after Ahmaud Arbery video was releasedEnneagramPenny’s Down syndrome diagnosisAustin Channing Brown, Myisha T Hill, Latasha Morrison, Rachel Cargle“If Jesus actually calls us to be peacemakers, what does that look like, and how does that look in our everyday lives?”“If I really care about your belovedness, I’m going to invite you into this work and listen to you and be patient with you and love you. But if you care about my belovedness, then you’re going to understand that there are systems that are continually oppressing me, like police brutality or school systems. You’re going to do what you can to change those systems so that I can move through this world as a beloved.”“Part of my nonviolent peacemaking practices is to hold onto the humanity of people.”“Do some intentional work of owning and acknowledging your belovedness…oftentimes we don’t see the humanity of others because we’ve neglected the humanity of ourselves.”“Belovedness can be the great equalizer that we need in this world.”__BOOK GIVEAWAYTo enter to win a copy of Dear White Peacemakers:1. Share this podcast episode on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter and tag Amy Julia Becker when you share.OR2. Go to this episode post on Amy Julia's Instagram & tag a friend in the post's comments.Shipping to continental US addresses only...Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.Head, Heart, Hands, Season 4 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast, is based on my e-book Head, Heart, Hands, which accompanies White PiWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

Why should Christians in particular participate in the work of reparations? Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson, the co-authors of Reparations, talk with Amy Julia about white supremacy, the harms and thefts of centuries of racism, and the imaginative, beautiful, restoring work of reparations. (scroll down for book giveaway!)Show Notes:Duke L. Kwon is the lead pastor at Grace Meridian Hill in Washington, DC, and Gregory Thompson is a pastor and the executive director of Voices Underground. They are the co-authors of Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair.Connect online:Twitter: @dukekwondc and @_wgthompsonInstagram: @dukekwondc, @gregory__thompson, @reparations_projectVoices Underground: vuproject.orgOn the Podcast: Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and RepairW. E. B. Du BoisLove Is Stronger Than Fear episode with David SwansonThe National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum#justicedepositsReparations in Tulsa, OKHBO: True Justice“If we understand racism for what it really is, the harms go far beyond personal relationships. They go deeper, they go longer, they go wider, and for centuries.” - Duke“We are calling people not simply as white people to engage in the work of reparations...We’re calling the Christian church—everyone who bears not whiteness per se but everyone who bears the name of Christ—because the Church itself as a community, as a corporate entity, was complicit in, and actually active perpetrators of, the evils of white supremacy.” Duke"Could it be true that our theological tradition actually invites us to [the work of reparations]?” Greg“…we invented education, markets, city planning—I’m not worried about our creativity once we start asking questions. What I’m worried about is our resistance to asking questions.” GregBOOK GIVEAWAYTo enter to win a copy of Reparations:1. Share this podcast episode on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, and be sure to tag Amy Julia Becker when you share.OR2. Go to this episode post on Amy Julia's Instagram and tag a friend in the post's comments.Shipping to continental US addresses only__Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.Head, Heart, Hands, Season 4 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast, is based on my e-book Head, Heart, Hands, which accompanies White Picket Fences. We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

“What does it mean for me to actually be a Potawatomi woman? To be a Christian? To be human?” Author Kaitlin Curtice, a member of the Potawatomi Nation, joins Amy Julia on the podcast to talk—and to ask questions— about racial and religious identity, holidays and traditions, and entering into an expansive understanding of the love of God.Show Notes:As both a member of the Potawatomi Nation and a Christian, Kaitlin Curtice offers a unique perspective on the never-ending journey of finding ourselves and finding God. Kaitlin’s book Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God  “shows how reconnecting with her Native American roots both informs and challenges her Christian faith.”Connect online:Website: kaitlincurtice.comInstagram: @kaitlincurticeTwitter: @KaitlinCurticeOn the Podcast:Kaitlin’s books: Native and Glory HappeningThe Doctrine of Discovery document“[when] your faith becomes the catchall for your identity, we lose the nuance of what it means to be human in a lot of ways.”“That’s what assimilation does…the church wants what is white in me but not what is native in me.” “What I want to do is help people ask the questions in the first place about America, about Christianity, about who they are…and that’s about belonging, right, about identity.”“Can we have thoughtful, reciprocal relationships with one another where the end goal isn’t, ‘Can I get you to heaven or not?’”“You can’t reconcile something until you actually acknowledge it. American Christianity has not acknowledged its complicity in the genocide and colonization of Indigenous peoples.”“When we learn to have this reciprocal relationship with the earth, we will become more humble as human beings.”“We take care of ourselves because we also are trying to learn to care for one another better.”“This journey [of decolonization work or anti-racism work] is lifelong, and it will involve us messing up and trying again and apologizing and fixing it and reading another book and then reading that book all over again…”“Every time we take a step forward or we do the action, that doesn’t mean that we’ve now reached the end and done all the things. We should always be doing all of the things and not think that we have to reach some finish line. We’re always doing it. That’s what being human is. That’s how we love each other better.”__Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.Head, Heart, Hands, Season 4 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast, is based on my e-book Head, Heart, Hands, which accompanies White Picket Fences. Check out free RESOURCES that are designed to help you respond to the harm of privilege and join in the work of healing. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.👁‍🗨AWe want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!

What does thriving, interdependent community look like? Rev. Dr. Matt Floding talks with Amy Julia about Friendship House, a sustainable housing model where graduate students and adults with intellectual disabilities live in interdependent communities. They focus on the beautiful work that is possible when communities refuse to believe in scarcity and fear and rather trust in the abundant love and provision of God.SHOW NOTESRev. Dr. Matthew Floding is the director of ministerial formation at Duke Divinity School and a founder of Friendship House Partners USA.Connect Online:Website: friendshiphousepartners.comOn the Podcast:Friendship HouseWestern Theological Seminary, Holland MIErik CarterPenny’s diagnosis of Down syndromeFriendship House locationsWestern Graduate Certificate in Disability and Ministry“Safe, affordable, community-oriented housing—seminarians needed that; people living with an intellectual or developmental disability needed that.”“…the community-building model that we hoped would build life together: eating together, praying together, and celebrating—finding every opportunity to celebrate life in each other.”“‘It’s not doing something to someone or doing for someone. It’s life together with someone. And receiving from.’ If we really truly believe that there is this treasure in each human being who bears the image of God, then it really is about mutuality and belonging.”“Everyone has needs to be met.”“The skills that come with interdependent living—social awareness, self-awareness, active listening skills, this attentiveness and attending to each other—these are foundational skills for people going into ministry, but they’re foundational skills for human beings who live in community.”“I have come to believe that person-first language is the key to my relationships across racial lines, economic divisions...before I label…with any label whatsoever, the disability community has taught me that they are a person first.”“The belovedness and the dignity that comes with being made in the image of God—the disability community gets that.”---Thank you to Breaking Ground, the co-host for this podcast.Head, Heart, Hands, Season 4 of the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast, is based on my e-book Head, Heart, Hands, which accompanies White Picket Fences. Check out free RESOURCES that are designed to help you respond to the harm of privilege and join in the work of healing. Learn more about my writing and speaking at amyjuliabecker.com.👁‍🗨Accessibility: You can read the transcript for this episode here, or see this episode with subtitles on my YouTube channel.We want to hear your thoughts. Send us a text!Connect with me: Instagram Facebook YouTube Website Thanks for listening!