At Sea with Justin McRoberts

When Rachel Held Evans died, on May 4 of 2019, she left a significant m emotional and cultural void; one that was felt by her followers and readers but also one that was felt differently by those she was working alongside. See, Rachel was part of a whole tribe of persons working to establish and celebrate a new language for a generation of people of faith. In the long shadow of her passing, other...

The way I hear it used, the word “celebrity” almost always comes with a tinge of disdain. In fact, I was recently interviewing a band about their relatively wild public success and used the word “celebrity” to ask a question about how it felt to have the kind of influence they’d garnered. Boy oh boy did they distance themselves from that word. They wanted nothing to do with it. Not one bit.  The n...

I actually never watched the Batchelor. And that’s not a thing I say with pride or any sense of superiority. I honestly just don’t watch a lot of TV and haven’t since I was about 12, when shows like “The A-Team” and “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” took up space on the probably 20 networks available. So, when I connected with Ben Higgins on Twitter, I didn’t exactly know why a few of my online fri...

Stephen Pressfield calls it “Resistance.”  A number of religious traditions call it “sin.”  But regardless of the name folks apply to it, it seems to me that we generally share, cross-culturally and throughout history, a sense and a lament that things don’t work out perfectly; that things fall apart and that plans don’t always go in order.  In that light, part of what that means in my personal his...

I was setting up to interview an upcoming guest when she told me “I’m sorry I’ll have to be pretty strict with the hour and leave right away. I’m seeing my therapist right after this.”  “Absolutely,” I told her.  “We’ll probably talk for 45 min.” “Great. I’m really looking forward to this session with her.”  Now, it’s not just of note that this guest was looking forward to her therapy session; but...

Toward the end of the introduction of my most recent book, It Is What You Make Of It, is a kind of admonition; a clarion call, as it were. “There is a virtual army of contentious voices around you screaming that life “ is what it is,“ and particularly in places, you feel stuck. Your work-life quote is what it is.“ Your social life “is what it is.“ Your physical health “is what it is“ I’m saying al...

You know that friend who gets to the gym 7 days every week. I think we all have that friend (if we’re not that friend).  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a friend like that called “weak” for working out regularly. Quite the opposite.  Sometimes that friend gets called “obsessive” or something like that (often by people who aren’t taking their physical health as seriously) But.. even, in that case, th...

I remember sitting on the edge of a hotel bed, sorting through line after line of a ledger to figure out if the tour manager had missed paying me, two weeks prior, the $55 per night I was promised.  At that point, Frank Tate, who owned the label I was on and whose band was headlining the tour AND who I’d struck the $55/night deal, pulled some cash out of his wallet at said  “Okay. Here’s $55. Let’...

In his Legendary book “The War of Art” Steven Pressfield writes: “The professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the stars time to align in his career but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work. He knows that any job, whether it’s a novel or a kitchen remodel, takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much. . . [he] steels himself at the start of a projec...

A number of years ago, I sat in on a reading by the poet Gregory Orr. Gregory Or was then (and is now) a favorite poet of mine. In fact, he’s a favorite writer of mine. He was maybe five or six pieces into this reading when a conversation struck up between two of the other gentleman in the room. Sitting behind me, I heard one of them saying, loudly enough for me to hear,   “I don’t understand any...

In a bio of mine, I describe myself as someone who desires to “provide language for the process of life and faith” I am a “words” person. Not everyone has to be or is. But I certainly care quite a bit about the words I use and the words that I take into my life.  A lot of that came from a book I read a number of years ago by Marilyn Chandler McIntyre. The book is called “Caring For Words In A Cult...

During studio sessions with younger or inexperienced musicians, my dear friend and music producer Masaki Liu would often be asked questions like “What do you think about our chances?” Or “Do you think we can make it?” And, more often than not, he’d consistently respond with an intentionally cryptic piece of encouragement that went pretty much like this, word-for-word:  “If you keep at it and stick...

Close to 20 years ago, I sat in a park near my place in The Bay Area, talking with Dave and JJ about their hopes and dreams. Having spent the first few years of their musical career between Arizona and California, they were right on the edge of a move to Nashville. They wanted to take a full, big league, swing at their work and believed that move would do it. Which is to say, they were doing what...

In the 8th chapter of the biblical book of acts is a fascinating story about a man named Philip. Philip, a member of the early Church, hears what the writer of the story names as the voice of God saying “Go south.”  So, he does  And as he does, he comes across an Ethiopian eunuch riding in a chariot  You know... like ya do.  Upon this encounter, Philip hears what the writer of the story identifies...

The @ Sea podcast started out to be (and I hope continues to be) a helpful and hopeful guide through sometimes murky or turbulent cultural waters. Some of what that looks like is talking to people I don't align with politically, ideologically, culturally,... Not because it's enough to simply "celebrate diversity" but because the discipline and practice of listening is the key to moving beyond divi...

I remember being in a conversation, I think it was my Junior year of college, in which I was fully introduced to the term “hermeneutics.” I’d been familiar with “interpretation” before but the idea that there was a field of study based on the interpretive potters of readers was fascinating to me. It actually gave me a bit of altitude in understanding and appreciating the differences I was running...

I ask just about all my guests about life online. I'm of the opinion that "real" life happens there and I'm increasingly interested in the way it does; particularly when that happening takes on labels like "religion" or "faith" or "spirituality." I think a fair amount of personal formation takes place online and I'm intrigued (art least) by the people who take that formation seriously as well as t...

I feel like I’ve always been aware of the sociopolitical battle lines between differing thoughts on “abortion” or preemptive war, but the comprehensive, nearly wholesale division and split between people with competing ideologies nowadays is … heartbreaking and scary.  In other words, it’s no longer just that I think you’re wrong about this or that; it's that, if you entertain these specific thoug...

I don’t know when the words “liberal” or “conservative” became insults. What I do know is that I can’t remember a time when they weren’t. So, maybe it’s always been this way to some degree. I’m not sure.  My guest on this episode of the podcast is a voice who shows up on what many might call the “conservative side” of conversations, online and off. I’ve watched her navigate the nuances of those en...

When Donald Miller’s book “Blue Like Jazz” was initially making its rounds through religious circles, one of the hot topics of conversation had to do with cultural taboos.  Namely, that there was a pastor in the book who cussed and that drinking alcohol was somewhat normalized. As someone who grew up around people who both cussed and drank, I wasn’t scandalized at all. But a lot of folks seemed to...

The very first beer I ever had was, I believe, a Bud Dry. That’s probably not true for a lot of folks, but it’s part of my story and I like it as someone who tests as a 4 on the enneagram.  At the time, beer pretty much only showed up at parties or in TV commercials and was never any talk about “hops” or or “malt” between beer drinkers. Which is to say, the culture around beer was thin.  That’s no...

I just got off the phone with a long-time friend who is now a coaching client.  It's the call I needed in order to finish this script.  This beloved friend began the conversation with the nearly universal phrase: "I feel like I'm always in the middle." And I get that.  Even though I disagree a bit.  I don't think he's in the "middle," per se; I think he's trapped in a relationship with people who...

The ethos and heart of my next book is that just about nothing "is what it is." Instead, as the title of the book would have it, It Is What You Make Of It . I realize that shifting from "it is what it is" to "it is what you make of it" is a long process and can be a bit daunting.  More so when the "is" we have to work with,  our circumstances and opportunities is really sideways. When things go wr...

I think it was 6 or so years ago, I was in a session with a therapist who practiced cranial - sacral therapy. Which, in short, attends to the alignment of the body between the cranium (my noggin) and the sacrum (which is pretty much my tailbone). It’s a series of long tensions and pulls rather than muscle squeezing and all that. About 15 min into the session, she asked me, “It feels like you have...

Often enough, the topic of pain gets tied up into the same kind of conversations had about “evil.”  Spoken of as a “problem” or a thing to be avoided. A thing that diminishes the human experience and limits relationships.  Oddly, pain, including physical pain, is perhaps the most common human experience.  in the eternally wise words of REM’s Michael Stipe: “everybody hurts” And there might not be...