How Can We Be Alert to God's Presence and Alive to God's Love? A Conversation with Helen Cepero

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I am joined today by Helen Sapero, and she is the author of Christ-Shaped Character, Choosing Love, Faith, and Hope. She also started the C. John Wieberg Center for Spiritual Direction at North Park Seminary and now does spiritual direction and formation at The Journey Center in Santa Rosa, California. So I just welcome you, Helen, to the podcast. How are you doing? Thank you. I'm good. Good. It's great to be here with you. Well, I thought a good way to just kind of start off our conversation here before we dive into the book is to talk a little bit about something that people might not be as familiar with, which is spiritual direction. So what is spiritual direction? What happens during spiritual direction? And then maybe, how did spiritual direction inform the way that you ended up addressing the topics that you address in Christ-Shaped Character? Interesting. Well, spiritual direction is kind of a misnomer because I don't direct anything in spiritual direction. It's a—I would actually call it a form of prayer, but in a dialogical way that the Spirit—we're both listening for the Spirit, but I set aside my life so that I can attend to the other person's experience and listen carefully. And, of course, I've done this for 25 years. So it—so I'm listening for certain things, certain themes that I know that are often—often will open up the person, person's experience to a deeper sense of Jesus with them or of God with them or of the Spirit with them or actually, well, yeah, for the most part, that's right. Once in a while, I'll meet somebody who's not a Christian, and it becomes then this broader sense of the universe, of this transcendence that they can't quite articulate, but they're longing for. But very often— but that's the usual way. And I think when I explain it biblically, you have the Old Testament experience of Samuel being called to Eli. And I know Eli was a bad father, but he was a good spiritual director. And he said twice, he said, I hear you. I hear something. And then the third time, which is three, is also always the charm. Eli says, that's the Lord and you need to attend to it. And he is a fine spiritual director for Samuel. And I think on the New Testament, I often point to those experiences after the resurrection where there's certain ways when Jesus speaks, when the very mournful, grief-stricken Mary thinks he's a gardener, but here's her name. Then she goes, oh, it's Jesus. You know, and it happens in different ways in those stories. They tend to be feeling-based in the resurrection. It's almost as if it's their depression, their fear that keeps the presence of Christ, which is with them, unable to see. So I don't know if that helps. I think so. I mean, as I think through, and I've done a very small, I participated in a spiritual direction class. So I taught for a group called Right on Mission, and they asked me to come in and demonstrate with their spiritual director how spiritual direction works for students. And so I had one session, and so I have that experience, but I'm wondering if that's normative. So, you know, how often do you just sort of let people talk versus prompting them to reflect in a particular way? I mean, I would imagine there's a real tension between prompting them to attend to Christ in the Spirit versus pushing them in a direction that maybe they're not going. That's a really good articulation. There's kind of a fork in the road. And you have to listen very carefully for when to speak and when not to speak. You know, I don't know if an example helps, but I think that's true. And we all have a tendency toward either teaching or fixing, and mine happens to be more teaching. And I'll meet with somebody and I'll realize I've gone into a teaching mode. It's usually with a question. Because a question is very directed, you know. Right. So what you're saying is... And I had a teacher once in spiritual direction many years ago who said she was wonderful. She said, don't forget, Helen, that a question is always a shout. And I have to kind of pull myself back and go back to the very last thing that the person said. So it really is a way of listening more than it is prompting. And when we've taught spiritual direction, we usually begin with a group where you listen to somebody's story, but you're not allowed to ask questions. You can only reflect on what people say. And that really puts teachers and pastors and psychologists off their game. I believe it. Which is great. Yeah. I mean, I think I sort of saw that coming out of the chapter on hospitality. I believe you talk about there the practice of the prayer stick. And it's sort of trading back and forth between one another. And so the way you're describing that, that's where my mind goes in the book to that chapter on hospitality. There's something about welcoming the other that almost requires listening and acceptance. Maybe not without a view of correction or movement or exhortation or those kind of things, but that initial focus on this is about sort of, I hate to say self-discovery because I don't really think that's what it is. It's more of a discovery of the work of the spirit in your life, a recognition of that. Would that be a fair way of putting it? That's fair. And it's usually underneath. I have a funny story about a listening stick story that I can tell, but I don't want to take too much time. But a woman I didn't know, I did a formation in Alaska with someone and we were in a group and we were doing the listening stick. And I was sitting with someone who I didn't know. And I went in and asked a question. And the question I asked was, what makes you sad? And while I couldn't respond to it because it was her next five minutes, right? And she listed everything that made her sad. And then she started to talk about the mountains in Alaska and puppies. And I realized that she had moved through sadness to something else. My friend who knew her really well said, when you asked that question, my heart sunk because she's depressed all the time. But there was something about listening long enough so that she could get it all out and then hear, actually, there's more. There's more here. And sitting with you because I'm longing for this more. And it was a remarkable moment. So I, I remember that often because underneath, even what are often disordered desires, are things, longings, and all kinds of things that may not be on the surface. Yeah. It's interesting to think about. I've had several guests on now who have talked about the biblical practice of lament. And it strikes me that that story kind of, it gestures toward lament, like that lament really does open up this sense of hope and corrected desires, maybe. It's purifying in a way. And so it's sort of fascinating. It is fascinating. And I think that that identifies the role of the spiritual director, which is a traditional name of the companion or whatever you want to call it, as witness, because you have to witness a lament without, you know, your tendency is to want to either fix.

Or help them to see that there's light, you know, light behind that black cloud or whatever. And, you know, through lament, your role is to witness, and you don't know when it's going to end. Yeah, we have such a tendency to want to correct what's wrong. Either correct what's wrong or correct what is perceived to be wrong. In other words, I'm not even sure why you think you should be lamenting about this. You know, that kind of thing. So fascinating. I love that. Spiritual director's role is one of witness, just to see what the Holy Spirit does through this interesting interaction of speaking and listening, communicating and listening. Love it. I think that gives clarity. And I think, you know, some of the, one of the endorsements I read on your book, you know, as I was kind of reading through your book and then I was looking to see what other people had said about it. One of them said, it's not a book, it's a conversation. And so I think that's an interesting way, when you do read your book, it doesn't feel like you're teaching necessarily. It does feel like you're drawing someone into a conversation. So talk a little bit maybe about how you think, did spiritual direction sort of influence the way that you wrote Christ-centered and Christ-shaped characters? I think it's sort of woven into that. It's actually on the beginning of each chapter starts with, let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. My personal experience and with an experience from my life. And then it goes into what the meaning is and then some biblical stuff and then possibly a, then there's a, I think there's usually a practice and then an ending, but it always starts with my experience. You know, Calvin said you can either start with God or you can start with knowing yourself. And for spiritual direction, it tends to be not about knowing, but about this kind of knowing, knowing oneself. So I mine those stories. Yeah. And a lot of it is about the stories. I mean, I find that a lot, even the biblical passages that you quote. Now, there's obviously not all stories in there, but a lot of what you do quote are the biblical stories, that narrative sort of leaning into the narrative theology of the scriptures to illustrate how this would work and how these various aspects would look, which is fascinating to me. So there's a, there's a point in your book and I'm going to, I'm going to read a quote and I don't expect you to remember a lot of times when I interview authors, you know, I'm more familiar with their work at this point than they are because I just read it. And so there you go. There you go. But you, you talk about this idea of, here's your quote. It says trying to please God rather than live as God's beloved in Christ leaves us dependent on our own effort, our own striving toward our idealized picture of ourselves. And so I read that and I guess my question is, how do you work and navigate that fine edge between the necessity of putting forth some effort and some discipline in our lives to sort of realign us and move us toward Christ versus recognizing that that effort is not what reconciles us with God or draws God's favor. Because ultimately none of those practices will save you. None of them are salvific, right? They're all about just putting you Godward. Yeah. And if they don't work, you toss them out. When I used to teach prayer practices, I'd always teach at least three, because some of these, some of these are not going to relate to you. So the narrow place is this, the idea that the point is to turn your life Godward. It's not about, it's not about doing. I mean, I, I grew up in the reform tradition where we talked about faith all the time, but it was all about works. And spiritual direction was, it was, it was amazing to me because it wasn't about what I did. It was about who I am and my being willing to own who I am, my experience, my longings, my, my longing for God. It wasn't about what I could do. It didn't. It was, that's, that's just empty works. And I don't know. It's a, it's a tricky thing to turn people toward. I mean, that is a narrow, that is a narrow thing. They often people come wanting answers and you, even the book doesn't give an answer. Right. Well, I, I found it hard. Yeah, I wrote a piece on prayer at one point, right? I talked about on a podcast, I can't remember, they get a little confused, but I've always had trouble with prayer. I was trained as an academic. I'm kind of a huge geek, right? I, I can read and write all day, but you asked me to pray. It's like, it's not my language. And so one of the things that I started to do was to read prayers written by other people. Right. To then start writing out my own prayers, like actually sitting down and, and sort of leveraging that tendency I have inside of me to try to articulate in a prayerful way. And then ultimately allowing that to grow into something that was a more vibrant prayer life. But, you know, I think there were comments on that, that episode and that piece that were like, you know, this is salvation by works. This is, you know, these practices are, are off kilter. And I can understand why people say that. I don't agree, but I can understand why they say that because it's an easy step from putting forth the effort and the discipline to get more, to gain proximity to Christ, right? To really sit in Christ's presence. It's a, it's a close step to doing that versus doing these practices as a substitute for Christ's presence. Right. But if study is the way that you experience God, then I would expect you to craft words that, um, that actually kind of formulate how your experience of God is. There's a, there's a, um, A book by Padre Othuma, which you've probably heard of. He's a, he's a poet called Being Here. And, uh, I mean, he's written collections of poetry and I listened to his podcast, but a very small book he has called Being Here explains how to write colics. And it's so interesting because if he's a word person, right? Yeah. Yeah. And he wants to help you pray. So he's telling you, here's a colic I wrote, and you can write this colic. You can say, this is who you are, God. This is, this is what I long for. I mean, it's like a four-step thing and it's so great because you're still experiencing your inner self at the same time while you're putting it into words and now you have it. Yeah. Which for people who, for whom study is not something that matters, you know, they don't necessarily have it. They might need to go to centering prayer every day, say, and just feel, sit in the presence of God or do breath prayer. But how great is study as a way. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll be honest, like when I read, I think it's in the first chapter, you talk about the breath prayer. I was like, this is a completely foreign experience to me. Like, I'm not sure I could ever, I could ever envision myself doing this and really loving it. You know, like feeling it deeply in my core. It's not that I'm closed off to it. It's just, it's one of those things where you tend to get a, usually I illustrate like this, like I have a...

I've been involved in weight training, and I've been a just sort of a gym rat since I was 14. And so it's the difference between me going to the gym to lift weights versus me going to do Pilates. Right? I'm open to both, but I have a heavy preference toward one rather than the other, right? You see, I'm a swimmer. I'm not a... So for me, swimming is that repetitive... So I actually find that the quiet prayer, you know, sitting, like using the word in Christ recently, just in Christ, this is where I live, you know, and this is where I swim, and this is my life. So it's so different. I'm very different than you, but I don't say to people, oh, this is what I do. This is what you should do. That never, ever occurs to me. But if you do write prayers, you know, there's a new black author named Cole Arthur Riley, and she's just, she's a wonderful writer, and she wrote a book called Black Liturgies that is her writing. But I think it's better to write your own. And that's why I like the Padre Otuma. Small book, write your own collects. They only have to be this long, right. Well, let me ask you another question, because when I read the first chapter of your book is on, you know, sort of embracing the love about recognizing that you are God's beloved. And one of the questions I had for you was, in your experience, do you find that when people are sort of embracing that identity, that they find it difficult to disassociate what they might consider to be prosperity or comfort from being beloved of God? So in other words, our experiences don't always lend themselves to, you know, people go through rather traumatic things. Terrible. And so, you know, sort of navigating those experiences, but also holding to this idea that we are beloved of God. Do you find that to be a tension point in that conversation? It can be. So often people come to me looking for the presence of God, so they often come in a lost place. Not often, not always, but, you know, I've experienced this trauma or my daughter has this. And then love seems so far away, right? But I know what you mean about the prosperity gospel. If people are really into that, spiritual direction is not their thing because it's just, it's just... I mean, Kate Bowler talks a lot about, and the prosperity gospel can enter so insidiously, not about money, fairly, but about blessings and about all these other things in our faith life, so that somehow we fail because we're suffering or there's trauma. I don't know if that answered your question. I think it does. I was just, you know, I was struck, I'll be honest, I teach a Bible study on Wednesday mornings, and one of the questions a few weeks ago, we were looking at Romans 8 and the idea of suffering, and what came up was, what is going to keep us from sinning in the new creation? Really interesting question, right? And so I said, I don't know that I want to give the surest answer possible, but the best I've got is suffering. Because we've so experienced the negative, the positive is going to be that much richer to us. And so we will come through refined through the suffering and then be able to embrace all that God has given us and recognize it as good. And so the best I had. That's fascinating. Yeah, I remember reading about a group at George Fox College who were working in spiritual formation with undergrads, and they got together as faculty and said, what helped us to move forward in our faith? And almost to a person, it was suffering. It was something that had happened. It didn't have to be this kind of suffering, but it was some loss of a friendship. It could have been a betrayal. It could have been all kinds of things. It wasn't prosperity that caused them to move forward and closer to God. It's kind of interesting. And they said, well, we can't do that with undergrads. But I experience meeting with a lot of seminary students and in every age, people suffer certain ways. And being in the suffering is important as well, the goodness of God. Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about, I think the chapter I probably resonated with most is the hospitality chapter. And I think the hospitality chapter dovetails so well with the forgiven as we are forgiven chapter. Oh, that was my hardest one to write. I believe it. I mean, I think as I was reading them, the question that kept coming to my mind is, do we really practice hospitality in the way that you're describing it in the church? I think, you know, we've sort of boiled it down to just maybe taking a meal to someone who is in need of a meal or something like that and almost an act of service, but not as sort of fully orbed embracing of this other as other. Is that a, you just talk about that a little bit. Like, what do you see? Is that an appropriate observation, I guess? It would be my observation. I think that's why people come to me often for direction because they go to church and they don't feel seen. And I wish I had a nickel for every time somebody said, I don't feel seen there. And, you know, you end up going back to, you know, Bible is kind of my second language, but the first name for God in the Bible is by Hagar who says, he's the one who sees. And what does it mean to be seen? I don't know, but I don't sense that happening so much at the church, at church. But I just went back to Alaska for a week and some of those people are in the church that my husband was pastoring and some aren't, the people that I saw. But I was telling a friend, I just feel really seen there for who I am, for what I have to give. And they're willing to be seen with me. And that's incredible. And it isn't spiritual direction necessarily. It's this, oh, I can companion you where you're struggling and I can be with you in this struggle. So yeah, I don't experience that. It's much more superficial, it seems to me, often in the church context. Maybe it's different in a small group. Maybe you experience something else. I don't know. It was interesting to me. I just, I interviewed a guest who is the lead pastor of the church of a church. And she said that she doesn't preach on Sundays. That in lieu of preaching, they do, they bring someone in to do a prayer of lament. And that that is part of their overall discipleship strategy, is sort of reconnecting in that way and giving other people voice to really recognize the ways the world shouldn't be and allowing other people to be, she didn't use this language, but I will, heard in that context. Heard, right. And so it's almost as if our, a case could be made, I'll say, that the structure of the way we do church, the cadence of it, doesn't lend itself to being seen. It lends itself to watching. Yes, that's right. It lends itself to being a consumer of whatever is going on up there. But I wouldn't say that about every church. Agreed. I do think every service needs to have a point of lament because there's always people suffering. So whether that comes in prayer, whether that comes at the church I attend at the end of the service, there's the person says, who has a prayer request? And people come up to the mic and they talk about, I mean, it just needs to be there somewhere because there's a huge crack in the world. Yeah. And if we can't acknowledge that somehow, but also joy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that was the other.

Just to give closure to that, she did say, you know, they focus on lament and celebration, lament and worship. And so those are two sides of the same coin in their church, which I loved. But I do think that it, it almost, having that lament, because it's a stranger practice for us, it teaches us to listen in ways that we otherwise wouldn't. Right, right. It's, and sometimes it's embarrassing, you know? Like, oh no, it's a person getting up again. Right. Oh boy, here they come. Yeah. Right. I mean, and I thought about that and then thought, no, no, that's Frank needs to say this today. And he needs to have a personal prayer about it, you know. It really is, it does require sort of a radical otherness. My wife and I just went to the orientation session for my son. He's going to college. And so we went on orientation and I've been involved in higher ed for a long time, kind of like you have. And so to me, so many of these things are just, I'm like yawning. I'm like, aside from not being at this institution, I could basically give this conversation. I got word a million times and then people start asking questions. And in my head I'm like, oh my gosh, please stop asking these questions. And you know, because like, how many times do I have to hear this? But that's a very, you know, once I sort of step back from that, you know, I realized, look, these people haven't been in higher ed for millions of years. They haven't, they don't understand what's going on. And this is a legitimate question for them. They're not just talking. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Talking to hear themselves talk. They have a legitimate desire to understand what's happening and they need this. And so that kind of calms me back down. I won't say I still love orientations, but it does remind me. It's like, yeah, just because you know this doesn't mean that they do. And we have to leave that room. But it is a radical acceptance of otherness to not just be annoyed when people are asking or doing things that you're just like, oh, yeah. I had quite a number of years ago now, but someone I'm in touch with again, was carrying a child that she knew would die and decided to carry it to term. That was her decision. She didn't come to me about the decision, but she stopped going to church then because there was no room. And when she went to church, they wanted to pray for healing. And the way she heard the voice of God from the doctor who said, your child has this syndrome where his kidneys are not developing and they're not going to develop. And he'll be healthy while he's in the womb, but then the child will die. And so none of them, no one in that church heard her say that. But she said it. And well, there was just no room for that kind of tragic and tragic choice. Right. I don't know whether I would have made that choice, but she did. Yeah. That's an extreme one. But the orientation one is very good because these people are facing trauma with their kids leaving. That's right. That's right. And they have to ask all the questions so they can look. Well, I will say, I mean, it resonated with me. I think one of the best pieces of advice I ever got, my son, when my wife was first pregnant, there was a misdiagnosis that my son would be born with a genetic disease. And so that was very early on and we had to wait for an amniocentesis. But I mean, in the interim, we're sort of in limbo. So I called a friend just to kind of tell him what was going on, ask him to pray, those kind of things. And he told me, he said, you know, you need to, during this time, you need to mourn the life of the son that you thought God was giving you and embrace the life of the son that God is going to give you. Probably the best advice anybody's ever given me. And just thinking about it, it's like, I located that my son and I are very different. Like we have very different interests in a lot of ways. We're the same, but very different, you know. And so I think had I not had that moment where God shook that picture of what I thought my son would be, I would have had real problems with my son growing up. I would have tried to force him in that mold. Into a mold, right. Yeah. But in being able to mourn something that didn't even actually happen, like he wasn't born with a genetic disease, but in being able to mourn that idealized picture, it gave me then release to accept whatever God gave as a blessing. Because that was your job all along as a parent. That's right. And just as he is. That's right. I once, there was a friend of mine who had a child who was born with Down syndrome and somebody said, well, you're called to the discipline of hope because none of the child may not follow the genetic markers, you know, that my children or your children have. But I, after having kids myself, I'm like, we're all called to the discipline of hope. We're all called, yeah. Exactly. For months and years at a time, we're called to the discipline of hope. No, absolutely. You know, part of what you're doing in the book, you're talking about choosing hope. And so I guess maybe one of the chapters I really enjoyed was watching for God. And so talk a little bit about that and how you counsel people to really watch for God. How do they start paying that attention? Well, I'm going to use you as an example. You pay attention to the fact that you enjoy study and you start to write your prayers. I will, you know, but watching for God is, you don't know. I think I used the illustration of the Iditarod, and you don't know what's on the landscape. You think you do. You dress what you hope will be there. But so things like wonder and surprise and lament and things about the body, which we don't often consider. You know, I feel this knot in my stomach whenever I talk about this or when the pastor speaks to me, I feel invisible. Those are a metaphor, maybe. Going deeper into those things. And I'm a word person. So if you give me a thick word like invisible, I'm off and running. You know, tell me not so much to ask a question, but tell me more about that. I want to know about this. Why this word, you know, or yesterday somebody used the word permission. And I'm like, oh, such a great word. You know, it could be freedom. It could be lots of different things. I don't know for sure, but tell me more because I can go deeper in that and know that we'll be on safe ground almost with a word like permission or recognition. Yeah. You know, one of the passages I've been reflecting on a good bit lately has been the passage in Philippians where Paul talks about God being able to do abundantly more than we could ever ask or think. And so as I was reading through this chapter on watching for God and just thinking through the concept, those things that you just listed, surprise, lament, all these different areas. It strikes me that oftentimes what it means to pay attention to God is watching for something that doesn't fit our experience. And instead of condemning that and pushing it away, looking at it and saying, perhaps this is a moment when God is doing abundantly more than I could ever ask or think. I'll give you a biblical example of that, which I love. And that's John 21, where Jesus says, have you caught any fish? And the disciples could do all kinds of things. They could blame the water. They could blame the night. They could blame the weather. But they say, which is the moment of honesty, right? They really show up. And then Jesus tells them to do something silly, right? Throw the net on the other side. And they do it. I mean, if that's the beginning of discernment, discerning God's presence, you know, throw the net on the other side. I'm willing. I'm at a dead end here. I'm going to try. I heard something new. Yeah, you're right.

That willingness to stop. Yeah, and really consider that just because my expectations haven't been met doesn't mean that God is there. That maybe this is a moment where he wants to expand my expectations and surprise me and do something different. Or do something different. Or maybe I've been looking. One time somebody said, you said to find a place where I feel like I can be with God. I thought it would be far away, but it was really just about turning the chair in my living room toward the tree. And once I sat down and looked at the tree, I thought, oh, is that all? Is that all I needed to do? There's a fascinating way in which, and I think this sort of permeates your book overall. There's this fascinating way in which the mundane events of life become more profound. At least they contain the potential for a profound understanding of who God is. And for a people who, and I would say for me personally, who are sort of enamored with the bigger things, right? I think being humbled back down to, no, it's the mundane moments of life, those little things that we should be paying attention to that often we dismiss or just power through. There's a contemplativeness to it that I think your book really emphasizes. Well, that is what contemplation is, right? I'm not contemplative in the sense of being a quiet person, which I tell everybody who sees me, you know, I'm kind of talky. I'm not, but contemplative as a core means with God. And it is so often in the mundane that things can open up and there's mystery there. And I'm always on the hunt for mystery because if there's mystery, then we're close to God because I can't define God. But I know that if you're sitting in mystery, we'll be close by. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hey, I know we're getting close to time. And so I want to, I like to close with all my episodes with this question. What do you think that Christians should be thinking about so that they can be more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ today? I think it's very close to what we just talked about. I think it's very close to knowing that God is in the tension between the crack in the world and the hope of the world, right? That's what Miroslav Volf talks about, that tension between the crack and the, and we live in that. That's our space. But God's is there too. And to be alert to, if I had could rename my book, I would rename it alert to God's presence, alive to God's love. To me, that's the heart of discipleship. Alert. And so very often when I meet with people, I'll say, well, we're just going to start with, I'll pray us in. And I say, keep us alert to your presence and alive to your love. To me, that's the heart of it. And it isn't about a certain practice. It's not about one particular thing. It's not about if you can study or it's not about, it is about, because it's happening all the time. Right. Yeah. Like study might be a way into it, but it's not the way into it. Worship might be a way, but it's not the way. Like that kind of idea. Yeah. And it isn't a certain kind of worship, even that makes, but worship may well be a way in, but it isn't everybody's way in. Right. And if you're a parent, then I expect to hear about your experiences of a father or a mother. If you're a teacher, that's where God is going to meet you. If you're whatever your, if you're retired, like I am and coming toward the end of your life, then maybe that's where God is going to meet you. Yeah. It's not going to be in someone else's life, someone else's plan. Yeah. I love that. Alert to God's presence. Say it again. Alert to God's presence. Alert to God's presence and alive to God's love. And alive to God's love. Alert to God's presence and alive to God's love. That's, I would have called this book, but they wanted to, they said, no, you signed up for character. I said, it's not about character. It's about being alert to God's presence and alive to God's love. Well, I don't like that. I will be dead honest when I read it. I was like, I can kind of see characters, sort of, but also not really at all. If I had made it alert to God's presence, alive to God's love, it would have sold better. And it would have, it would have, that's what the book is about. Yeah. And I'm not, I'm not keen on the word discipleship because we usually use it as a way of head knowing. And that's a way of knowing. And I don't discount that at all, but it's, it's not the only way. I definitely agree with you on discipleship. I'm less, I'm not so much opposed to it, but I do think it needs to be reformed and rehabilitated because I think it is much more closely related to mimesis or imitation. And, and in that, that involves so much more than just, Hey, I know this stuff. I've been sort of enamored with John Verveke's work on the four ways of knowing. I don't know if you're familiar with John Verveke, but it's a fascinating. He does propositional, procedural, perspectival, and participatory, all these different ways of knowing. And so as we think through those four ways of knowing, I think we have an interesting paradigm for discipleship that keeps us aware. And so even the way I would the geek way, I would sort of rephrase your alert to alert to God's presence and alive to God's love is recognizing God as infinitely more relevant than any other actor or factor we will ever encounter. Oh, I like that. And so that's drawn out of that sort of Verveke paradigm. And, and I, that's something I've, I resonate with a lot of what you're saying because I think it, it, it so dovetails together this idea of recognizing that God is more relevant than anything we're in than anything else we're facing, facing is really crucial. So, well, fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. This has been great. I really enjoyed the conversation and hopefully you did too. I did. It was great fun. Thank you, James. Really fun. Well, if I can encourage listeners to go out and get Christ-shaped character, despite the necessity for a title change, we're going to, I'll put the link in the bio. And they could change the title. It was never going to sell on the character anyway. So, because it wasn't that. Well, the link to it is in the bio and I'd encourage you to get it off the IPP website. They give me a 20% discount code. And so that'll be in the show notes as well. Please go check out Helen's work. You have one other book, correct? I have a book on journaling. Yes. As a spiritual practice. And that is one that I've used a lot as a teaching tool. So if you're looking for something that's not so much about journaling, again, misnomer. It's more about using journaling as an accessible pathway to formation, to learning about. And I'll link that one in the bio as well. Just so you can be familiar with Helen's work. But thanks so much for being here, Helen. I really appreciate you being on and we'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Finding uplifting news in today's headlines is often like searching for a needle in a haystack. At The Story Behind podcast, we believe in the power of finding heartwarming tales and are happy to share empowering stories with you every week. Get inspired by The Note a waitress received from a patron dining alone. And even hear about how one VIP passenger made a hardworking pilot get emotional before his flight. To start listening to The Story Behind podcast, visit lifeaudio.com.