Episode 29: The Gray Havens: The Ache for Home

 
 
 
 
 

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Transcript

Patsy: Hi, I’m Patsy Clairmont, and I’m a Boomer.

Andrew: And I’m Andrew Greer, and I’m a Millennial.

Patsy: And you are listening to Bridges.

Andrew: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations

Patsy: Season Two of Bridges is brought to you by Food for the Hungry.

Andrew: Meeting the physical and spiritual needs of people all around the world for over 40 years.

Patsy: I love our guests today. The Gray Havens have come to us with a song and some really important thoughts to help search our own hearts and our own lives. I like the way they think as well as the way they sing, and they’re real fans of someone you and I appreciate, C. S. Lewis.

Andrew: They sure are. In fact, C. S. Lewis’ book Surprised By Joy, which was his spiritual autobiography of sorts, made such an impact on Dave. Now, The Gray Havens is a couple, a married couple, Dave and Licia Radford. Made such an impact on Dave, and C. S. Lewis and his works have made such an impact on their entire family, including their little ones, that an entire record, their new record The Blue Flower, was actually inspired by that book.

And so they’re going to tell us about that inspiration, and then we’re gonna get into way more content because like you said, they are good thinkers, they are sweet people, they are kind spirits, and they’ve got a lot for us to chew on.

Patsy: It’s gentle music, it’s good music for the soul, but it also is deep. It’s like a river, and we invite you to lean in and listen.


Patsy: I found a bridge that really fits today’s conversation and our guests, and you’re gonna love it. It’s from C. S. Lewis, and it’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and in there it says, “But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I’m the great Bridge Builder.”

Isn’t that a great quote? I love that.

Andrew: It’s beautiful. It makes you sound intelligent, too, because you quoted C. S. Lewis and I know you don’t read him.

Patsy: I’m not even going to respond to that. But you could be right. 

I was thinking if I could hand you a bouquet today, dear friend, I would give you blue flowers.

Andrew: Our guests today are The Gray Havens, which are a husband-wife musical duo. Of course, Dave and Licia Radford, we’ve known each other for a few years, and Patsy’s gotten to know you now, so we’re so thankful to have you on Bridges. Thanks for being here.

Licia: Thanks for having us.

Dave: Thank you, guys.

Andrew: Yeah, you bet. 

Okay, so let’s dive right into Blue Flower because that is the title of your brand new record, which is inspired by a work of C. S. Lewis. So get us into the connection to Blue Flower from C. S. Lewis to your music.

Dave: So the title reference is a little bit obscure. I had been reading a lot of C. S. Lewis. I read all those books, Narnia books especially, about five times through on audiobook. We were moving, so a lot of trips back and forth to the storage unit and so a lot of listening. 

I read about a college course’s worth of Lewis that summer, and at the very end, I’d read a couple biographies on him, and I thought, You know what, I’m gonna read his own biography, just hear it from his own mouth, what was my experience and my faith journey

He’s a really famous author, apologist, scholar, and professor, and he writes his story in Surprised By Joy and a few chapters in is where the Blue Flower reference comes from. And this whole book is basically Lewis’ life story told in retrospect through the lens of his recurring experience with something he calls joy, which is this really intense experience. It’s what he defines as like an unsatisfied desire more desirable than any satisfaction. It’s like this ache that, in and of itself, is more powerful and to be desired than any satisfaction here.

His first occurrence of it, I think he’s 6-years-old. He grows up in Ireland, he’s looking out his windows, and there’s something called the Green Hills and kind of just this unattainable place. Like if I could just get there. Sometimes nature does that. You turn the bend and you come upon this scene and something stirs in you. 

And so that’s his first experience with it, and he says, “There I was six years old, a votary of the Blue Flower.” And that is the only time that the Blue Flower is mentioned in that book. I did the whole Kindle search. I looked for it. In fact, there’s only one other time that he mentions it in any of his writings that I’ve found, so it was like this reference or hyperlink to something that the reader is supposed to know. He says it like as if…

Andrew: As if you have context.

Dave: Exactly. As if you would know what that is. So I did some digging, and the Blue Flower was used in I think the 1800s in German literature is the first appearance of it, and it’s a reference to this very thing, this desire for something else, this unattainable kind of bitter ache.

I was intrigued right away by the book, but as the book continued on, the Blue Flower just kept coming to mind, the image and the symbol, and it just kind of stood forth as a really powerful symbol of joy. That kind of sent me down the path of writing.

Patsy: Such a unique approach. As I listened, I thought I’ve never heard anyone approach it not only through a C. S. Lewis writing but with such depth and thoughtfulness to placement of even sounds in the music and your references to different bridges that were important or highlights for you, like in the promise. 

I was fascinated. You guys like to think, don’t you?

Andrew: I want to hit on that idea. The Blue Flower seems like it is this representation of the German word, which I will not pronounce this right… Is it Sehnsucht?

Dave: I couldn’t probably do it better, yeah.

Andrew: The idea of that word, the definition when I googled it, was a yearning, a wistful longing, but it really is what you’re talking about here. Go deeper into that idea of like a longing that can never be fulfilled, which I think is a spiritual thing.

Dave: Yeah, I think that he’s saying that… It’s actually one of his most famous arguments for the existence of God, is his argument from desire, and he weaves it in his fiction, his nonfiction, his essays, his letters. He’s maybe most famous for the argument that if I find myself a desire for which nothing on this earth can satisfy, the most probable explanation would be that I’m made for another world. 

Hunger doesn’t prove that bread exists, but it proves that I’m made for nourishment and sustenance, and I think that he’s pointing to our desire for the transcendent as proof that it’s supposed to have a fulfillment point. I don’t think he’s saying in the book that this doesn’t exist; it’s just we’re made for another world. 

The touchstone of desire for that world is… I think what he’s saying the book is that it’s so powerful that even just that touchstone, that desire for that other, that transcendence, is more powerful than any satisfaction of something I could have here connected to the desire. So it’s part of the human experience to have a version of what Lewis is talking about.

Patsy: I’m curious, Licia, when he feels this draw into a Blue Flower, have you jumped into the bouquet? How do you end up on the same page?

Licia: Well, I had a similar experience to Dave as far as just reading C. S. Lewis for a lot of years, and I had read Surprised By Joy, but I think I was 18-years-old and I just didn’t fully get it, just in that season of life, wasn’t mature enough to fully grasp everything that he’s talking about and fully appreciate it. 

So I started rereading it but also just listened to the Narnia books a lot. We read them to our son for the first time in the last year, year and a half, and then he fell in love with the stories, and so we’ve listened to the audiobooks probably dozens of times with him.

Dave: Yeah, he’s listened to it more than us at this point.

Licia: Yes, but I’ve listened to it a lot with him, just in day-to-day life. We have it on while we’re in the kitchen. And just thinking about the ideas that Dave and I have talked about together while listening to all these stories throughout the day with Simon was kind of a cool experience.

Patsy: So you were both really immersed in the writings, so that does help to bring us on the same page, doesn’t it? 

I’m a big pusher of books. I love when people read because I think it makes us better conversationalists. I think it feeds and nurtures a hunger within us, like you’ve been talking about, Dave, that we all have these hungers or appetites, and what do they actually say to us about who we are.

Andrew: Yeah. Before we go to break, I kind of want to live on that idea just a little longer and both of you speak into this about being parents, which of course you have a 6-year-old, Simon, which is who you are referencing, I’m assuming, that you’ve been listening to that Narnia books with. Which what an incredible foundation of literature for someone at that age and that he’s hungry for it too. Sometimes we don’t give kids enough credit for what they’re able to understand and digest.

Patsy: Yeah, I love that she said that he loves this, and I thought, Ooo, way to nurture him at the right point.

Andrew: Yeah, ‘cause sometimes when you look at children and you’re like, Whoa, something I thought was not that interesting they found interest in. It suddenly spins it for me as an adult as well to have wonder about it.

But how do you all foster that feeling or that idea or that notion of this Blue Flower of Sehnsucht, this constant longing that will never fully be met, at least on this side of life, in your children, especially as your children are becoming of an age to be conversing with you and to be going to school and interacting with others. How do you steward that in them?

Licia: I think it’s difficult because you can’t force that to happen, that spark, that longing. It’s different for everybody, and you can’t manipulate it. But you want to foster that and you want to help lead your children into experiences of it, and so I think it’s just putting good, beautiful truthings in front of them and letting them experience that, and then certain things are gonna connect with your child. 

You never know what it’s going to be, and we’re thankful that Simon did take to the C. S. Lewis books right away. He loves Narnia, and he’s actually listened to the record a number of times. On his first listen through, he said, “Oh, I know what that’s from, dad. I heard that in Narnia. That reminds of Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” 

We’ll be listening to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. There’s a scene where the characters are kind of traveling, and they come upon a field of blue flowers. And Simon’s eyes got really big, and he said, “Is that where dad got the idea from?” And he’s putting those things together.

But other times I’m just shocked by what sparks joy in him or a longing in him, and he’ll take a photo of something that he thinks is really beautiful. He wants to capture that, and I don’t see it. But it did something in his little heart, and he wanted to draw a picture or take a photo or turn it into a fun little song or something. And I think just letting that happen. 

He makes a lot of messes in the house creating things, but I think that that’s… I just kind of let him do that. We use a lot of paper and pencils and glue and tape. He loves taping things together. But it just sparks something in his little mind and heart.

Patsy: I still love paper and glue and tape.

Andrew: I was like, they would make best friends. Let me give you her address. Anytime you’re tired…

Well, you are listening to Bridges. I’m the old Millennial, Andrew.

Patsy: I’m the young Boomer, Patsy Clairmont.

Andrew: And we’ll be back in a minute with our good friends The Gray Havens, Dave and Licia Radford.


Food for the Hungry Sponsorship Message

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Andrew: It’s pretty simple. Our friends at Food for the Hungry are giving us a unique opportunity to purchase Bibles for folks all around the world, and here’s the cool part, Patsy. It’s translated, ready to go, ready to read in their language, and that’s a rare thing around the world. 

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The Abide Bible Sponsorship Message

Patsy: “Shout out praises to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with joy. Enter his presence with joyful singing. Acknowledge that the Lord is God. He made us and we belong to him; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.”

That’s Psalms 100, verses 1 and 2, from my own Abide Bible. 

When we abide him and his words abide in us, everything changes — our perspective, our attitude. So it anchors my soul when I go to the Word of God. It teaches me better behavior than I’d have otherwise because I can really suffer from a case of the attitude. So this helps to keep me in a better place with a sweeter attitude in a difficult world.

The Abide Bible comes in two different versions. I don’t know if you have a favorite, but there’s a New King James and then there’s the New English translation. It is set up so you can journal, so those of you who love to do notes on the side, this paper is set up to receive those notes. It also gives you insights on the edges of the pages that help us to read the Word in a more meaningful way, to meditate in such a way that it begins to sink into the very depths of our being, to pray the verse so that we get better claim on the truth in it, and then to contemplate so that as we move forward the Word goes with us. 

So that is what I want to tell you about the Abide Bible because I believe in passing on the Good News.

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The Gray Havens singing “Blue Flower”

I saw you blue flower

And who's to say

Where you come from

Feels like far away


I felt you blue flower

In my soul

You got me longing

For something more


Now I want something more


Where are you blue flower

Come back and stay

'Cause I can't find anything

Better than this ache


Patsy: Well, I’d like to go back and ask a question of the two of you and that is how you met.

Dave: Okay.

Licia: We’re both looking at each other.

Dave: Yeah, we’re looking at each other like who’s gonna tell the story.

I had just graduated college, and halfway through college or so my parents had started to attend Licia’s church back home. And so when I graduated, came back home, my sister was going on this trip to British Columbia with the church. There was a First Nations reservation up there, and every summer they go and hold this camp. It’s been a really long-standing ministry, and my sister was going to go, and I had the bug to travel.

I had just come back from a trip to Venezuela for five weeks with a team from college doing something similar, so I kinda just volunteered myself to go on the trip. Are you needing anymore leaders to go or chaperones or anything like that? And they let me go.

So even though we were sort of going to the same church, we didn’t meet until we were in British Columbia. And I remember constantly getting her name wrong, like is it Alicia, is it Licia, and I just remember a few interactions with her there. I mean, we really didn’t get to know each other there, but it was just kind of, Who is this Licia girl? I don’t know. We crossed paths a couple times, and I think she just knew who I was because of my sister.

The person that was mentoring me at the time said, “Hey, are you looking to date anybody? Because if not, you should date Licia Keys,” which was her maiden name.

Andrew: Whoa. Your maiden name was Keys?

Licia: It was.

Andrew: No wonder there was so much struggle with Alicia or Licia. I’m sorry, that’s great. He’s like, “You should get with Licia Keys.” I’d be like, Well, yeah, I should.

Dave: Exactly.

So when we got back home, it was just one of those classic you try to put yourself in situations and groups and not be awkward about it. After one youth group meeting or something, there was a plan for all the leaders to go out to a diner afterward, and I told my sister to not sit next to me but sit one chair over and say you wanted to sit next to Licia so that when she got there, she would call Licia over and have her sit next to me.

Patsy: Strategy.

Dave: We had a few group interactions, and my intention was I was going to ask her on a date, if the evening went well. So we got into a conversation. It went well enough, and I was like, I’m gonna ask her. 

So we go out with a group, and it’s one of those lobbies where there’s not just like one door you walk out. You walk out into the lobby, and you have to choose far right or far left. My car was on that side, her car was on that side, and it started to rain a little bit. She went left, I went right with my sister, who kind of knew I was trying to ask her out. So we get to our car, and she’s like, “So did you ask her out?” I was like, “No, she went that way.” And then she kinda face-palmed her forehead, and she was like, “So you go that way.” 

So then I kind of chase Licia. I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna go ask her.” So I chase Licia down, and by this point, she’s walking back to the car, but she’s giving a piggyback ride to her brother, who is 18-years-old and bigger than her.

Patsy: This is not easy. 

Andrew: Yeah, a lot of dynamics.

Dave: It’s starting to rain. I’m like, “Hey, Licia.” I kind of stop her, and she turns around with her brother on her back, and he never got off her back.

Licia: I was so shocked that Dave was calling to me across the parking lot that I didn’t put him down. 

Andrew: Because he was introverted, kind of like that? It wasn’t like him to yell?

Licia: No, because I was introverted and Dave wasn’t, and I thought he was really cool. I just was like, Why does he want to talk to me?

Dave: So I said, “Would you go have coffee with me this weekend?” 

Licia: And I was so shocked I didn’t say anything. I just stood there.

Andrew: Plus, you had your brother on your back.

Licia: Yes. But he said something.

Dave: He just looked at me, and he was like, “She’s busy.”

It was the truth, in that they were going out of town on a family trip, but the way he said it was like…

Andrew: Go away.

Dave: But we ended up going out.

Patsy: Obviously.

Dave: Yes, exactly.

Licia: It worked out.

Dave: It worked out in the end.

Andrew: Your dad, Dave, was a pastor, and you both grew up in the church or around the church. So there’s kind of this thought, and maybe it’s a more modern thought, but being associated with the church, that “church people” are not thoughtful people, that to be a disciple you kind of have to kind of lobotomize yourself basically. Culturally, I feel some of that tension of, Well, they’re not thoughtful; they’re just judgmental. Those kinds of things.

That’s why I think it’s so interesting because you guys are obviously so thoughtful, and yet you’re a pastor’s kid. That’s not what people would expect. When they listen to a record like this, I don’t think they would think that’s coming from a preacher’s kid. What’s your response to that?

Dave: Well, front burner, bringing it back to C. S. Lewis, that’s what he thought. He’s an extremely thoughtful kid. Love or hate Lewis, you can’t argue the guy was an intellectual giant, just super smart. You don’t want to get into a debate with somebody on that level if you’re holding the opposing view. He’s razor sharp, and he’s 10-years-old, he goes to boarding school, he’s taught about Christianity. So he kind of outwardly becomes a believer. By age 13, he ditches it because he thought that his teachers were not being very consistent logically with teaching this.

He thought if they applied the same standards to other religions and the way that they point out their fallacies and the ways that they’re not true or whatever, he would say if they applied the same standards to Christianity, it falls flat, so this isn’t something I’m down to sign my life up for. And he had a really negative experience praying, so he walks away.

But he still has these encounters with this Sehnsucht, this longing connected with the Blue Flower, and he is forced again and again to come back to doubt his doubts about Christianity because he goes around and surveys everything he can possibly find. I mean, he’s actually, in his book, he’s desperate to find another answer than Christianity. He doesn’t want it to be true. He’s like, anything but this, basically, in his book. Anything but the God of the Bible. Is there anything else? And he keeps holding everything else up to his experience of joy and saying, Is this it? Is this the satisfaction that I’ve been hoping to find here? And the answer keeps coming back no.

It’s not even like he finds Christianity true that way. It’s not like, Wow, this gives me joy, so I’m going to do it. I respect Lewis an incredible amount for this because he surveys everything, he can’t find anything in the end more rational than Christianity because of the historicity of it, looking into everything else when everything is weighed in the balances.

And he talks about his conversion almost in a sad type of way. He’s like, You will never find a more unlikely convert, and it’s not like I was welcomed into the Kingdom dancing and laughing and saying, “At last.” He says, “I was dragged, kicking and screaming.” And it’s almost like he poses in the book like he’s in this game of chess with God, and finally, it’s checkmate because there’s no better rational explanation. 

And so in order to be a Christian, you have to be thoughtful. It’s not the opposite of thought.

In order to be a Christian, you have to be thoughtful.
— Dave Radford

Andrew: It’s not dumb faith.

Dave: Right, exactly. It’s just not true to say you can either have faith or you don’t. There’s no sideline position when it comes to faith. Everybody’s on the field. You can’t step back as a third party observer and say, “Oh, that’s interesting. This group believes this. They can have their own party going on. I’m just going to stand over here and not really participate.”

But that, in and of itself, is a faith position. You’re saying there’s no way to know. But that, in and of itself, is a faith position that you have to believe in. You can’t prove that. You can’t prove that a god didn’t create the universe, just like you can’t prove that one did, but one makes more sense.

To Lewis, in the end, I think it was his thoughtfulness, in combination with the desire, which he talks about in Surprised By Joy, those two things, I think, led him to believe that Jesus was who he says he was. I think that’s what he’s maybe most famous for is this rare combination of razor sharp intellect. With Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, just his addresses on BBC, which became Mere Christianity, just his wide reading, he's just a scholar first of all, and then second he’s a romantic and he loves all the stories and the classics.

At one point in the book, he says, “Everything I believe to be real I thought cruel. Everything I thought to be imaginary was exciting and beautiful.” 

Anyway, that’s a long way just to say that Lewis is both thoughtful and imaginative and romantic, and I think that’s what draws a lot of people to him.

Patsy: He certainly is popular, or at least his quotes are. You see them everywhere, but also, you see his books lining shelves.

Andrew: Yeah. You wonder if that combination isn’t what has given so many people access. I don’t think it’s the literature that is only meant for discipleship groups or only the most abstract content that’s supposed to be kind of our path to spirituality, but it’s something that combines the thoughtfulness of the journey of faith and doubt, along with I think the imaginative and the romantic is a complete indicator of God’s fingerprint or imprint upon us. So it’s interesting to see how those have lasted the test of time.

This is a beautiful conversation, speaking of beautiful works, and we want to come right back to wrap it up with our friends The Gray Havens.

I’m Andrew, the Millennial.

Patsy: Oh, you sure are, and I’m Patsy, the Boomer.

Andrew: We’ll be right back.


Patsy: Andrew, I understand, word is out, that you do another podcast with a friend of ours. Tell us about that.

Andrew: Mr. Mark Lowry, who was a guest on this podcast. He’s my co-host for Dinner Conversations with Mark Lowry and Andrew Greer. We have a ton of fun talking about all kinds of topics around the table, and you can find them at dinner-conversations.com.

Do you know something that we both love a lot of, Patsy?

Patsy: What’s that?

Andrew: That’s books.

Patsy: Food

Andrew: That too. But I hear you have a book club.

Patsy: I do have a book club. It’s called Porch Pals Book Club, and you can find out more about the book club by going to patsyclairmont.com.


Food for the Hungry Sponsorship Message

Patsy: Food for the Hungry is giving us a wonderful opportunity. I’m so glad that they have put this program into effect because of the literacy issue around the world, and this is going to help tackle that, plus bring the light of Christ into the lives of children that will be spread throughout the villages and the homes and the hearts of people. I love it. I love it. Tell us more.

Andrew: We have been given the opportunity, through our friends at Food for the Hungry, to purchase Bibles for people in communities around the world. The beauty of these Bibles is that they come ready to read. No matter where these folks are — that may be a community in Bolivia or Cambodia or Haiti or Kenya — all across the world, these Bibles are translated in their native tongue, which we think of being able to procure a Bible anytime we want, either through our technological devices or going to a bookstore, picking one up, or Amazon. It’s not as easily or readily available to other communities that are more rural and more impoverished around the world.

And so, of course, Food for the Hungry has been committed for decades to not only meeting the physical needs of people around the world, and of course, we helped do that through chickens last season. This season we’re getting to complete their mission, and that is meet the spiritual needs through the offering of a Bible.

So go to fh.org/bridges, and for $12, you can purchase a Bible for someone who is waiting to receive it across the world. And don’t forget — your gift is tax deductible.


Andrew: Alright, well, we’re back with The Gray Havens, and I wanted to bring back something you said at the beginning of our conversation where you were talking about spring of 2019, you were touring your last record, you were tired, you were worn out. 

What do you recommend for people in all places of life, especially when they’ve lost their words, and that may be just their words to journal, they may be writers, they may be songwriters like you. They may have lost the words to pray or to parent. Our creativity’s expressed in so many different ways, and when we get tired, we lose our way there. What’s your recommendation to see your way out of that or to the other side of it?

Dave: That’s a really good question, and I wish I could ask that to you because I’m no expert at this. But I’ll tell you one thing just recently because when you ask that question, I originally thought, you know, when you’re on the road, the reason you’re tired is because there’s no routine. Everything is different. You’re just kind of constant tyranny of the urgent, and added in with the travel element, meeting new people everyday, and smiling so much that your face is just totally…

Patsy: Over it.

Dave: Yeah, by the end of the day. That’s a specific kind of tiredness, but I don’t think you’re immune from that just because you’re off the road because I’ve definitely felt like that recently, and we haven’t played a show in 18 months. So that theory kind of falls flat.

I don’t have a soapbox to stand on with this at all, but I’ve just noticed even just in the… I’m most happy when I’ve had the longest stretches away from my phone or social media, and I feel the most refreshed when it’s in airplane mode or it’s not by me. I don’t know. We haven’t posted in a while and probably should.

Andrew: Oh see, there it is.

Dave: Yeah, exactly.

I guess that’s more of a space-creating type of thing, is I’ve lost the art of being comfortable with space.

I’ve lost the art of being comfortable with space.
— Dave Radford

Patsy: I think it’s a world issue. I think everybody’s had to rethink their spaces, rethink the quiet, rethink their priorities, rethink how they feel about themselves. 

I had half a dozen different doctors for different reasons — you know, everybody’s so specific these days in their training — and they all either retired or shifted the direction of their life, and I was like, Whoa, it took me forever to get this troop together, and now you’ve all dispersed and gone off in other directions. But I think that’s typical of where the world is at right now, rethinking what do I really want to do with the days, the months, the years that I have left.

It’s been discombobulating — there’s a good word — that what we’ve gone through, but it also has brought us to a place of kind of reordering because we find that a certain amount of structure is important to feel sane and safe. 

That’s just my throw in there. What about you?

Andrew: I definitely can connect with the practical of what Dave is saying, when my phone is down or away and I don’t even realize it’s down and away. 

For me, nature is definitely just a restorative place, and so that’s how I create space because, one, on a lot of trails and stuff, you still will find some difficulty getting service and stuff. So even if you have your phone because you want to take some photos or whatever, you’re not having a barrage of incoming things. Or often on a trail, I put it on airplane mode, so I can take photos, which is something I enjoy, framing things, because it helps me recognize what I’m seeing, but also I’m not experiencing any pings.

And then sometimes I leave the phone in the car and forfeit the photo, or I need to go get a real camera so I don’t have the phone. But nature provides that very restorative space, and of course, I think we are from the earth, I think we are designed to steward the earth, and I think we will always live in some context in an earth. I truly believe nature is a whole part of life forever and where God has entered into creation with us, so maybe that’s why. 

But I also have a lot of energy, and so you were talking about your son, Simon, how he’s got energy to spare, so where do you focus that. For me, getting out on a trail focuses some energy, so my body is working but my mind is free and maybe my spirit too. 

But Licia, with young ones, I want to come around the full table. You don’t get out of this one. They’re always there.

Nature is a whole part of life forever and where God has entered into creation with us.
— Andrew Greer

Licia: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I go outside with Simon a lot. A lot of walks, a lot of going to the creek, going on a trail, at first just to get his energy out, but then he started developing this love of bugs and plants, and he can identify things that I can’t a lot of times. So going out there for him, but then finding. now that I’m along with him, my mind is just opening up and I feel not so stuck in my little stress bubble but freer and more perspective. 

It’s really spiritually refreshing to be outside. It’s easier to pray and think about things.

Patsy: I think God’s signature is throughout nature. I learn so many things. So many principles come up out of the soil or go down in the roots, and it just is a place that anchors my soul. I love a blue flower.

God’s signature is throughout nature.
— Patsy Clairmont

The Gray Havens singing “Paradise”

Heard my name called like a song to say "it's time"

Comin' from somewhere now out across a great divide

Should I run, leave it all or stay behind?

You never know, maybe blue flowers grow on the other side

'Cause all this time

And still I can't get over dreaming of

Paradise

Just say I'm getting closer

'Cause I'm longing to find

Find home

Find home


Patsy: Bridges is produced by my co-host, Andrew Greer.

Andrew: And co-produced by my co-host, Patsy Clairmont. Our podcast is recorded by Jesse Phillips.

Patsy: And sometimes my son, Jason Clairmont.

Andrew: At the Arcade in Franklin, Tennessee. Jesse Phillips is also our editor and mixes our show. And our theme music is written by Kyle Buchanan and yours truly, and all of the instruments of the music were played by Kyle Buchanan at Aries Lounge in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Our transcripts are provided by Rachel Worsham. Thanks, Rachel, for all your work.

Patsy: If you like what you’ve been listening to, you can help us out by leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to our show.

Andrew: For more information about Patsy, myself, or to read transcripts and to listen to more episodes, go to bridgesshow.com.

Patsy: Catch you next time.

Andrew Greer