The Ridiculous Hour

We live in a world that celebrates very visible things. Someone gets an award. Earns a degree. Delivers a speech. Writes a book. Starts a charity. Has lots of social media followers. The spot light goes there. People notice. Some form of social value is assigned. But what about the hidden things? The invisible acts? The excruciatingly beautiful sacrifices? Think about the nurse who cleans the vomi...

We live in a world obsessed with BIG. Big outcomes. Big following. Big titles. Big results. Big names. Big awards. Big wins. Big gulps. Big deals! Small, for the most part, doesn't make headlines. Doesn't garner attention. Doesn't even seem to wiggle the needle on the radar screen of life. Which is more than a bit ironic when you think about some of God's language about small things. Rather than p...

We walk the same paths around our postage stamp dwellings -- over and over again. The hallway. The bathroom. The kitchen. The bed. We drive the same routes to work and to the store and to the school -- over and over again. Stop light. Traffic jam. Car pool. We enter the same sanctuary, the same pharmacy, the same grocery store. We talk so much about God-with-us on the mountain tops and in the vall...

I've always associated boundary tape with controversy. Those little neon strips of plastic tied to twigs on trees scream conflict, boundary disputes, line drawing. And the yellow boundary tape with the words CAUTION or CRIME SCENE -- it shouts danger or tragedy. The stuff just never seemed to announce pleasant times to me. That is until 2019 when our family experienced four weddings and funeral an...

The new year is exciting, especially when we've crushed our goals from the prior year. But what about those years where we feel like we are starting again and again on the same goal? Same lesson? Same issue? It can feel a bit like passing GO on the Monopoly board without collecting $200. But what if going back to start isn't always such a bad thing? Or a sign of failure? What if it's a sign of gro...

I don't know about you, but when I imagine a Gallery Artist in Residence, I think of someone who is so elevated in proficiency that they are a bit guarded by the host gallery. Certainly they wouldn't want a clumsy member of the public bumping into the work or the master, would they? Join Host and Mission Founder Kat Silverglate as she shares The Ridiculous Hour Foundation's December 2021 Mobile Mi...

LOL, ILY, TTYL, BTW -- we type these little phrases now without wondering whether the person on the other end of the text or email or social media platform will understand. That last abbreviation, BTW -- short for "by the way," is usually reserved for an afterthought or a minor point. "BTW got dog food already." Or, "BTW alarm broken." It really doesn't seem like the the kind of introduction you'd...

Do you have a place you go to keep from going stir crazy? A place where you feel covered and protected? Like your dark cozy den where you hide away and watch movies with the family after an intense day? Or maybe the studio where you do art. Or the garage where you tinker. Even though you know life continues all around you, something about the cover of that space makes you feel secure. Join Host an...

Fragile seems synonymous with weak, doesn't it? Like a decidedly negative attribute. But think about really good graffiti. Museum-grade graffiti. Don't you look at it sometimes and think, "who on God's green earth would put something that stunningly beautiful out there where anybody with a $5 can of spray-paint could wreck it?" Or more bluntly, "who puts fragile things like that in the path of pos...

Ever prayed for a stranger? Ever had strangers pray for you? Don't you wonder sometimes if your prayers are heard? Do these "stranger prayers" remind us that we've been the stranger at times deeply in need of friendship?  Do they draw us closer to God? Join Host Kat Silverglate as she shares a true story about a stranger prayer and how God showed her and the stranger His remarkable prese...

Sometimes we have a moment where God's presence is simply undeniable. In the retelling, it seems... well, made up. But it isn't. It's as real as the device you are using to hear this podcast. Yet, when He nudges or pulls us in a direction, we hesitate. Because we are afraid?  Because we aren't sure how He'll be present with us in the doing? Because we feel ill-equipped?  Join Host and Mi...

We are a people who mark! Humans tend to mark things. We mark birthdays and anniversaries and dates of death. But humans mark in other ways. Sometimes in ways that aren't intended to build up or edify or help. A mark of judgment. A scarlet letter. What if we could form a marking habit that rocked us and those around us? What if we could practice it in such a way that no matter how challenging the...

Ice breakers can be mortifying to the extroverts out there. Forced connection in a quasi public setting challenges even the most extreme introverts at times. But what if breaking the ice in the midst of this socially distanced pandemic time is far easier than we imagine? What if we are melted in the process of opening ourselves to others and risking connection? Join Host and Mission Founder Kat Si...

God tells us that He takes our heart of stone and makes a heart of flesh. He gives us soft hearts, sensitive to his prompts and pokes and nudges. Which raises the honest question, what do we do when our hearts find it easy to resist God's prompts to go where He's calling? What if our feet told us a little of what we need to know about the hardening of soft hearts? Join Host and Mission Founder Kat...

Praise and compliments are tricky things, aren't they? People want to appreciate us for what we do or how we contribute. But sometimes, it feels a little weird. Like they are giving us credit for something that really belongs to God. Or we give a genuine compliment to someone who loves God and they shame us with their rejection -- "all praise and honor and glory go to God and God alone!" We slink...

We hear the word "just" and a number of synonyms come to mind. Fair. Equitable. Equal. Level. But there are other meanings to this word. Like this one: "I'm just a ____ [student, clerk, lawyer, friend, you fill in the blank]." Here, "just" is a minimizer. Are we unwittingly using the word "just" to minimize things God never intended us to reduce or minimize? What if our "just" is out of order? Joi...

How will we set the tone for 2021? Better yet, who will set our personal tone for the year? What power do we have in the setting of a life tone that will have significance beyond the horizon we can see with our eyes? Join Host and Mission Founder Kat Silverglate as she shares The Ridiculous Hour Foundation's January 2021 Mobile Mission Challenge -- How to Set the Tone.  Our mission story this...

We come to the end of a calendar year and we are already on to our new goals. "What's next," we ask? "What didn't we do that we should have?" "What progress will we make this year?" We starve in the process of moving from one thing to the other without pausing to pick up the fruit that has been falling around us all year long. How does one starve in a field overflowing with delicious fruit? The an...

As we approach Thanksgiving, we presume that mission organizations world wide will provide hope to the hopeless with meals and songs and messages of hope. And they will! And they do! But the need is always far greater than the supply those organizations can give. Always. We know it. We feel that nudge to do something and we ache for those who are hopeless, particularly while we have so much to be...

Fall reminds us with its dramatic leaves that we will be shedding our whole lives. Trees shed dead stuff, but people? We sure try to shed our dead stuff, don't we? We try to shed our burdens and sins, our unforgiveness and our hurts. But often we reach a new season only to find ourselves standing in the same pile of decomposing leaves. "I thought I shed that already," we think. So we decide to let...

When we are babies, we cry out and someone picks us up and takes us to the source of the solution. They take us to the food if we were hungry, to the changing table if we are messy, to he crib if we are tired. Babies find comfort in the solution, but they also find it in the delivery system -- in the one who takes them there. As adults, we need people who will take us to the source of help. People...

Join Host and Mission Founder Kat Silverglate as she shares The Ridiculous Hour Foundation's Report on Reaching Across Divides . We begin this episode clearing out a childhood home after the death of a beloved mother and we end with an event in Jacksonville Florida where 275 of our mission packs were used to "disrupt division" and exhort the church to build a bridge in culturally divisive times. C...

God is often prompting us to respond in subtle ways.  We hear a sermon, and a friend pops in our mind. "She's struggling in this area," you think to yourself. "This would really help," you decide. But you let it go, because you're afraid she'll think you're weird or intrusive or she might be embarrassed. You may not even notice this as a nudge from above. Maybe it's just indigestion? You read...

We are in the middle of unspeakable divide. Election divide. Racial divide. Divide divide divide. Often we don't reach because we are afraid to say the wrong thing, so we don't reach at all. We don't speak at all. We are silent. But what if we didn't have to say much of anything to effectively reach? Join Host and Mission Founder Kat Silverglate as she shares The Ridiculous Hour Foundation's June...

When we become ridiculously responsive to the promptings of God and we trust that it isn't all up to us, we start to see the tapestry of God's amazing hands working around us.  Join Host and Mission Founder Kat Silverglate as she shares some of what God has done with The Ridiculous Hour Foundation's April Mask Making Mission . Our story this month moves from an apologetic mask-maker who bless...