Episodes

  • Sacred Attention: A Conversation with Cole Arthur Riley

    Sacred Attention: A Conversation with Cole Arthur Riley
    Apr 21 2022
    In this episode with the founder of Black Liturgies, Cole Arthur Riley, we discuss the power of sacred attention, the importance of resting in the stories, and what it means to let the true self live in expanse. She defines contemplation as “a certain commitment to paying attention,” and mysticism as “a fidelity to magic,” and shares more about her contemplative writing process for her newly released book, This Here Flesh.
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    39 mins
  • The Unnamed Mystics: A conversation with Dr. Kimberly D. Russaw

    The Unnamed Mystics: A conversation with Dr. Kimberly D. Russaw
    Mar 15 2022
    In this episode, Cassidy interviews her former professor of Hebrew Bible and African American Biblical Hermeneutics and Womanist Biblical Interpretation, Dr. Kimberly D. Russaw, who is now professor of Hebrew Bible at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. In this episode they discuss contemplation and mysticism in the Hebrew Bible, the ways in which contemplation can clear us, and new ways to think about mysticism and contemplation: “One way to think about it is a person is in the subject position when it comes to contemplation but in the object position when it comes to mysticism.” Dr. Russaw talks about her work as a Womanist scholar, expressing how part of her work as a professor and scholar is to “engage others in life we may have read over, may have missed or misread all along.” As Dr. Russaw mentioned in her essay “Wisdom in the Garden,”: "Womanist ways of reading the biblical text are subversive in that, by and large, they disrupt tightly held images of God and God's relationship to humanity.”
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    33 mins
  • The Sacred Black Feminine: A Conversation with Dr. Christena Cleveland

    The Sacred Black Feminine: A Conversation with Dr. Christena Cleveland
    Feb 16 2022
    Christena Cleveland, Ph.D. is a social psychologist, public theologian, author, and activist. She is the founder and director of the Center for Justice + Renewal as well as its sister organization, Sacred Folk, which creates resources to stimulate people’s spiritual imaginations and support their journeys toward liberation. An award-winning researcher and former professor at Duke University’s Divinity School, Christena lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Her newly released book, "God is a Black Woman," weaves personal pilgrimage and societal reckoning to dismantle the cultural “whitemalegod” and uncover the sacred black feminine—and ultimately hope, healing, and liberation.
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    39 mins
  • Opening Unto Mystery: A Conversation with Dr. Elyse Ambrose

    Opening Unto Mystery: A Conversation with Dr. Elyse Ambrose
    Jan 18 2022
    Elyse Ambrose, Ph.D. (they/them) is a blackqueer ethicist, creative, and educator, whose research, art and community praxis lie at the intersections of race, sexuality, gender, and spirituality. Ambrose’s forthcoming book, A Living Archive: Embodying a Black Queer Ethics (T&T Clark, Enquiries in Embodiment, Sexuality, and Social Ethics series) centers blackqueerness in constructing communal-based sexual ethics.  Ambrose currently serves as Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethical Leadership and Society at Meadville Lombard Theological School as a Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow.  You can find out more about them at elyseambrose.com
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    36 mins
  • The Fierce Call of Love: A Conversation with Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis

    The Fierce Call of Love: A Conversation with Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis
    Dec 7 2021
    The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis—Author, Activist, and Public Theologian—is the first female and first Black Senior Minister to serve in the progressive Collegiate Church, which dates to 1628. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. Lewis and her activism work have been featured by the TODAY Show, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, among many others. In this conversation, Cassidy and Dr. Lewis talk about the role of contemplation in everyday life, the ways mysticism shows up in unexpected places, and the power of story.
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    35 mins
  • Breaking Barriers: A Conversation with Davelyn Hill

    Breaking Barriers: A Conversation with Davelyn Hill
    Oct 6 2021
    In this episode, poet activist Davelyn Hill and I talk about the ways in which mysticism is intertwined with community and communal care, "I don't think I can say that I am a mystic without being connected to community." She also talked about contemplation's connectivity to mysticism and the ways in which “each person gives us another picture of who God is," therefore “when I devalue you I lose myself." She also reads two wonderful poems in this episode, one about a tree outside her window she lovingly named "Deloris." Davelyn Hill is the Executive Director for Speaking Down Barriers. SDB is an organization whose mission is Equity for all. SDB seeks to build community across all that seeks to divide us by ending oppression and valuing everyone. She has a Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy from Converse College. Davelyn is working on a Masters in Creative Writing with an emphasis in poetry. Alongside providing counseling services, she has led support groups, presented research, and conducted university presentations around racial trauma and oppression. She enjoys facilitating groups and retreats around grief and wholeness. Davelyn Hill, also known as Davelyn Athena is an author, poet, and intuitive painter. Davelyn’s poem “Deloris” was published by the Plant and Poetry journal. Her poem “Questions” was been featured online through Spark and Echo.
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    28 mins
  • Breathing Mysticism: A Conversation with Dr. Angela N. Parker

    Breathing Mysticism: A Conversation with Dr. Angela N. Parker
    Sep 15 2021
    In this interview with Dr. Angela N. Parker, we discuss contemplation, mysticism and the movement of collective breath. On the topic of mysticism she said, “I think that’s what mysticism is for me: how do I replenish myself so that I can do what god has called me to do?” In this conversation she also explores the ways in which collective breath can allow us to move together in various forms of protest and collective care, “when I read Jesus in the biblical text I see Jesus gathering groups of people to actually walk against a Roman imperialistic supremacist system." Dr. Angela N. Parker a Biblical scholar currently teaching at McAfee School of Theology. In her research, Dr. Parker merges Womanist thought and postcolonial theory while reading biblical texts. Dr. Parker’s books include If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I: Black Lives Matter and Biblical Authority. In this book, Dr. Parker draws from her experience as a Womanist New Testament scholar in order deconstruct one of White Christianity’s most pernicious lies: the conflation of biblical authority with the doctrines of inerrancy and infallibility. In her second book entitled Bodies, Violence, & Emotions: A Womanist Study of the Gospel of Mark, Dr. Parker thinks through the issue of imperial violence and its effects on the bodies of Jesus, John the Baptizer, and the woman suffering in a flow of blood in Mark 5. This study allows Dr. Parker to engage real lived experiences of violence and emotions in contemporary society. “Allow what you’re fighting for to shine through… Find what you can do and work with that hurt… We are all too valuable to burn out.”
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    41 mins
  • The Privilege of Contemplation: A Conversation with Dr. Anthea Butler

    The Privilege of Contemplation: A Conversation with Dr. Anthea Butler
    Aug 23 2021
    Dr. Anthea Butler is Chair of the Department of Religious Studies and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her latest book is White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America. Her other books include Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making A Sanctified World. She is also a contributor to the forthcoming book, A New Origin story, The 1619 project out November 2021. In this episode Dr. Butler talks about the ways in which contemplation can often insinuate privilege, saying “even to say the word ‘contemplative’ at this moment is a word that says ‘privilege’… It means that you have time and most people don’t have time.” And reminds us of the everyday ways in which both contemplation and activism can be yielded to: “We tend to think about contemplation or activism on a big scale, I think we have to think about them as the everyday quotidian things that we do that can engender hope.”
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    29 mins