The Habit

Stephen Roach is a poet, musician, speaker, and creative coach. He hosts the Makers and Mystics podcast and is the founder of The Breath and the Clay, a creative arts movement. His latest book, a collaboration with Ned Bustard, is Naming the Animals: An Invitation to Creativity . In it, Stephen and Ned make the case that creativity isn't just a talent given to the chosen few, but an invitation ext...

Rachel Pieh Jones has been living and writing in the Horn of Africa for the last eighteen years. Her new memoir is Pillars: How Muslim Friends Led Me Closer to Jesus . In this episode, Rachel and Jonathan Rogers discuss the value of being an outsider and what it means to be a witness. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every Moment Holy, Volume II is a book of liturgies and prayers for seasons of dying and grieving. Doug McKelvey spent two years in dialogue with bereaved and dying readers as he wrote this book. In this conversation, Doug speaks with Jonathan Rogers about loving the reader, stewarding gifts and opportunities, and listening to the people you wish to serve in your work. Support the show: https://th...

The poet Malcolm Guite wears waistcoats. He smokes a long-stemmed pipe and blows smoke rings. He often ambles about in the countryside. He's not very tall. He loves breakfast. Draw your own conclusions. In this episode of The Hobbit Podcast, Malcolm Guite and Jonathan Rogers (who is not himself a hobbit, only hobbit-adjacent) discuss first breakfast, second breakfast, and elevensies. Thanks to Dre...

Wingfeather Tales  started out as a Kickstarter stretch goal for The Warden and the Wolf King , Book 4 of Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga. Andrew recruited five of his friends to write stories (and a poem) set in Aerwiar, the world of the Wingfeathers. He also recruited some of his favorite illustrators to illustrate. That compilation has been re-released in hardcover by Waterbrook P...

Winn Collier  is the Director of the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination at Western Seminary in Holland Michigan. He was friends with Eugene Peterson and was chosen by the Peterson family to write his authorized biography,  A Burning in My Bones . In this episode, Winn and Jonathan Rogers discuss friendship, “earthy spirituality,” and writing that goes beyon...

Author, gardener, and woods-walker  Hannah Anderson  wrote, “More than a metaphor, the natural world is a living, pulsating experience of truth that surrounds and enfolds us, teaching us deep realities without words.” She puts words to many of those wordless realities in her new book,  The Turning of Days: Lessons from Nature, Season, and Spirit . In this episode, Hannah...

Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a history professor at Calvin University and the author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation . In this episode, Kristen Du Mez and Jonathan Rogers discuss stories as a means of reframing reality, the role of fear in political storytelling, and confirmation bias. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member...

This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Benjamin Myers, author of A Poetics of Orthodoxy: Christian Truth as Aesthetic Foundation . In A Poetics of Orthodoxy , poet Ben Myers makes the case that Christian orthodoxy provides a “reality-based way of knowing what kinds of poetry, what poetic characteristics, most resonate with true human experience.” Poetry, he argues, is a kind of re-incar...

David O. Taylor is a theologian of the arts, Associate Professor of Theology at Fuller Seminary, and a director of initiatives in art and faith. His most recent book is Open and Unafraid: The Psalms as a Guide to Life . In this first-ever practical episode of The Habit Podcast, David Taylor walks listeners through the spiritual practice of writing psalms of lament. Click here for more resources re...

This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Jen Pollock Michel , author of A Habit Called Faith: 40 Days in the Bible to Find and Follow Jesus . Jonathan and Jen discuss the inescapability of seeing what we expect to see, habits as creating your own momentum, the stifling posture of spectatorship, and the lessons to be learned from finishing well. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/m...

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers and Tish Harrison Warren discuss the difference between true human vulnerability and the "curated" vulnerability of Instagram, writing as an inescapable encounter with one's own weakness, and the under-appreciated gift of receiving well-placed criticism. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for pri...

Lisa Deam is an art historian and the author of 3,000 Miles to Jesus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life for Spiritual Seekers . (She also blogs at The Contemplative Writer .) In this episode, Lisa and Jonathan discuss the process of writing as a pilgrimage, the human desire to leave signposts for those who come after us, the infamous “long middle” of the writing journey, and the instructive...

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with songwriter and storyteller Matthew Clark. They discuss the many facets of Matthew's mission to "make things that make room for people to meet Jesus," his tour van that he calls "Vandalf the White," and human creativity as a posture of synthesis rather than analysis. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystud...

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with speaker, singer, educator, and activist Ruth Naomi Floyd. They discuss the intimate relationship between truth and beauty, the liberating power of art, and the immense legacy of the African American spiritual. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with Joel Clarkson, author of Sensing God: Experiencing the Divine in Nature, Food, Music, and Beauty . They discuss writing’s role in waking us up to the physicality of the world, Jesus as both firstborn of creation and firstborn from the dead, and the limits of intellect to account for the depth of what it means to believe. Support the...

This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Renee Mathis, fellow writing teacher and mentor at the CiRCE Institute's apprenticeship program. They discuss Renee's experience as a Jeopardy champion, her philosophy on mentoring teachers, the teaching methods used by Jesus, rhetoric as the pursuit of truth in community, and the still-relevant application of Aristotle's principles of rhetoric. Support the sh...

It's the season for writing Christmas letters. This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with letter-writer Reagan Dregge. They discuss the art of physical letter-writing, the personal attention it involves from sender to recipient, and the inherent embodiment that comes with putting pen to paper. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener...

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with Randall Goodgame, songwriter, TV show host, and leader of the Slugs & Bugs universe. They discuss the essential role of collaboration in all of Randall’s work, the importance of writing out of freedom and not out of condemnation, and the irrepressibility of childlike joy. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/mem...

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with Christiana Peterson, author of Awakened by Death: Live-Giving Lessons from the Mystics . They discuss the link between mysticism and mortality, our culture’s lack of rituals for confronting death, the writer’s role in engaging with mortality as an antidote for self-absorption, and death’s ability to teach compassion. Supp...

This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Tsh Oxenreider , teacher, podcaster , literary tour guide, and author of Shadow and Light: A Journey into Advent . They discuss the challenging art of graceful endings, the perils of absolute accessibility, and what sets the Advent season apart from merely a "happy clappy countdown to Christmas." Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member Se...

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan talks with Crystal Downing, author of Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers. They discuss the danger of Christian celebrity, the strategy of shock in Dorothy Sayers' work, and the subversion at the very heart of the Christian faith. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privac...

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with Charlotte Donlon, author of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other and host of the Hope for the Lonely podcast. They discuss the two-way street between loneliness and belonging, the power of stories to de-stigmatize our loneliness, and the crucial difference between loving someone and understanding them. Support the sho...

Jonathan Rogers talks with Dane Ortlund, former Senior Vice President of Bible Publishing at Crossway and current Senior Pastor of Naperville Presbyterian Church near Chicago. They discuss the simultaneous necessity and insufficiency of theological correctness, the recovery of beauty as a meaningful philosophical category, and sanctification as the ongoing renewal of surprise. Support the show: ht...

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with Andrew T. Le Peau, former Associate Publisher at InterVarsity Press and author of Write Better: A Lifelong Editor on Craft, Art, and Spirituality. They discuss the simple power of physical exercise to generate creative ideas, what Andrew has learned as an editor about what gets in the way of the writer's voice, and the constructive tension...