The Holden Village Podcast

Song leader Liz Rog of Decorah, Iowa believes that everyone can sing and loves to twine voices of all generations. Liz uses group singing as a tool for building community and for restoring our sense of belonging and connection in the world. Her song circles offer a safe, fun, and supported space where all voices are welcome. When we sing together in simple harmony, we build bridges of acceptance,...

Mark taught Old Testament and New Testament Greek at Lutheran Bible Institute / Trinity Lutheran College in Seattle. To learn more about Holden Village, visit: www.holdenvillage.orgTo hear more from Mark Gravrock, visit: http://audio.holdenvillage.org/node/17215

Terrill is a mostly-retired environmental engineer from the Seattle area who specializes in solid waste management. He was involved in the planning and design of large and small waste facilities in Washington and currently consults for the Chehalis tribe and Orcas (Island) Recycling Services. Since 1979 he has been a member of Holden’s Science & Technology committee and an advisor to the Garbo...

Emily Swanson is interested in the ways that language choices can influence our cultural, political, and physical world. She earned her Ph. D. in English from the University of Minnesota in 2007, with a dissertation titled, "Natural Arguments: Popular Discourse and Environmental Legislation, 1945-2007," and she spent two summers as a National Park Service ranger at Glacier National Park....

Kirsten is a minster of word and sacrament with the ELCA. She is currently living and working in Madagascar as the Country Coordinator for YAGM (Young Adults in Global Mission), a program of the ELCA. She is living in Antananarivo, the country’s capital and travels throughout the island supporting young adult volunteers and the work of church accompaniment. To learn more about Holden Village, visi...

Ben teaches worship and ecotheology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago where he is professor and director of advanced studies. After serving as Village pastor in 2000-2003, he studied at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (STM) and Emory University (PhD). His first book, A Watered Garden: Christian Worship and Earth’s Ecology, was published in 2011. His research on the na...

The Holden Village Artist Residency in Ecology, Spirituality, and Social Justice awards professional artists the opportunity to work and live for six weeks in the remote mountain community of Holden Village. With a new set of Holden Village Artists in Residence arriving this week, tune in to hear from 2017 Artist in Residence: Hal Baum! Hal Baum is a writer/performer from Chicago. His work has bee...

The Holden Village Artist Residency in Ecology, Spirituality, and Social Justice awards professional artists the opportunity to work and live for six weeks in the remote mountain community of Holden Village. With a new set of Holden Village Artists in Residence arriving this week, tune in to hear from 2017 Artist in Residence: Carrie Larson! Carrie Larson, a visual artist currently based in Hoquia...

The Holden Village Artist Residency in Ecology, Spirituality, and Social Justice awards professional artists the opportunity to work and live for six weeks in the remote mountain community of Holden Village. With a new set of Holden Village Artists in Residence arriving this week, tune in to hear from 2017 Artists in Residence: The Living Arrows! The Living Arrows are Traesti, Loren, and Alexandra...

Rev. David Hahn Ph. D. serves an assistant of the bishop of the Northwest Washington synod. He has served a variety of congregational settings in the Southwest. He’s an adjunct faculty at Luther Seminary teaching courses in the Missional Church, and Evangelism in Contemporary Contexts. He is keen on a theology of listening and how listening invites a new imagination for participating more fully wi...

Elizabeth Person is an illustrator and designer based in Everett, Washington. Using pen and watercolor, she sketches from life and creates "illustrative infographics," featuring Northwest themes and geography. Her artwork can be spotted on event posters, at northwest art festivals, in Metsker Maps of Seattle and on the blog Live in Everett. She has served as a Cultural Arts Commissioner...

Paul is campus pastor at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, SD. His passion is narrative theology. He tells his students he studies it to convince them their lives are stories and not answers because the Gospel itself is a story. He taught at Holden for the first time in 1993 and returned in various capacities every year until 2012. To learn more about Holden Village, visit: www.holdenvillage.or...

Rebecca is a poet and an English/creative writing professor at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL, where she has been teaching since 1994. Her poetry collection, Uncertain Grace, won the Hayden Carruth Award for New and Emerging Poets in 2001. In 2001 she was also awarded a Witter Bynner Fellowship by U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins and the Library of Congress, and she has served as the 2nd poe...

Exploring the intersection of worship and immersive creative experience, Jannele Mastin has been creating large scale artwork to illuminate teaching, worship and provoke deeper thought into God’s ways for over 20 years. Jannele has worked as a Senior Art Director for print, digital media and 3-D product in Kansas City while coordinating visual art opportunities and creating mixed media work for Ja...

Rev. Kris Voss-Rothmeier is a Presbyterian minister and middle school teacher in Portland, Oregon. In 1997, Kris was trained as an anti-racism workshop leader in St. Louis through the National Conference for Community and Justice and has preached and led workshops on anti-racism themes since then. In June 2017, he will complete a year-long course of study at the University of Portland which focuse...

Currently, Ron serves as Consultant for Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders of the National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East. He and his wife lived in Jordan for three years, representing Quakers, and regularly visited Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. Ron has led a dozen interfaith trips to the region. His memoir, Crossing Bounda...

Kathryn Schifferdecker is an Associate Professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN. She is also an ordained ELCA pastor, having served rural parishes in Iowa and Wisconsin. Her teaching interests include biblical narrative, creation theology, preaching, and questions of suffering. Kathryn is married to Doug Steinke and they have three children – Esther, Isaac, and Sarah (yes, all...

Katie Monsen is a lecturer in Environmental Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz, where she teaches courses in agroecology, climate, freshwater ecology, and watersheds. She also teaches the introductory course for the Sustainability minor and with the Rachel Carson College. To learn more about Holden Village, visit: www.holdenvillage.orgTo hear more from Katie Monsen, visit: http://a...

Jourdan Imani Keith is a contributing writer for Orion Magazine. Her TEDx Talk "Your Body of Water" is the theme for King County's 2016-2017 Poetry on Buses program. As Seattle Public Library’s first naturalist-in-Residence she designed "Natural Literacy," linking environmental and early childhood literacy. Keith’s essay collection, Tugging at the Web, is forthcoming from...

John is a Minnesota-based photographer. For 25 years he has made images for national magazines, Fortune 500 companies, and non-profit organizations. In 2009 he founded A Peace of My Mind, a multimedia arts project that explores our common humanity through portraits and storytelling as he asks people from across the country to consider the simple question, “What does peace mean to you?”To learn mor...

Linda first arrived in Holden as a child in August of 1951 when the Village was a mining community. Linda has volunteered with museum projects since 1999. Her goal is to help people understand the activities and folks who are part of the 100 plus years of history in this beautiful valley. To learn more about Holden Village, visit: www.holdenvillage.orgTo hear more from Linda Jensen, visit: http://...

John Marty is a state senator in Minnesota who works for public policies that serve the entire community, especially the homeless, those without healthcare and other vulnerable people. He believes we can build a more peaceful and just society that protects the environment and leaves a better world for future generations. John is the author of a recent book, Healing Health Care, which offers a road...

"Every Dress a Decision is a poem from my collection that I often think of when I'm here at Holden, because I love to hike here. So many other people hike here and then there's always that question of do we hike alone? This poem is called the girl who goes alone."As the Washington State Poet Laureate for 2014-16, Elizabeth Austen traveled to all of the state's 39 counties,...

Patricia Lull serves as the bishop of the Saint Paul Area Synod of the ELCA. She acquired nearly four decades of experience in parish ministry, campus ministry, seminary administration and a faith-based non-profit before taking on the role of bishop. With a longstanding interest in the creative convergence of theology, cultural phenomena and the ongoing reformation of the church, in recent months...

Jeff Kerssen-Griep, Ph. D. is Professor of Communication at the University of Portland (Portland, OR), teaching Communication across Barriers and Intercultural Communication, plus Interpersonal, Team, Public, and Instructional Communication (his specialty). His work explores communication practices (such as facework) that sustain authentic connections and socially just attitudes. To learn more abo...