Introducing “Visitation Sessions”
For over a year now, I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a podcast. This is partly because I love good conversations, and those have become almost impossible to have on social media these days. It’s also because I’ve wanted you to know my husband Chris better. He is one of the healthiest, wisest, and most mature Christian men I know, and I think a lot of you would enjoy (and benefit from) hearing more of what he has to say.
Up until now, this has remained only an idea because I didn’t have the technical knowledge needed to produce a high quality podcast. Then, my good friend Kate Stapleton and I got to talking. Kate and her husband Casey are musicians who are working on their third album together. Every summer, they load their six children into their big blue converted school bus, and travel the country on tour. When they’re not touring, Casey, like Chris, teaches theology at a Catholic high school in Pittsburgh. Kate and Casey are two of the most fascinating people you will ever meet, and Casey is a tech wizard, who does all the producing on their albums. How fun would it be, we thought, to do a podcast together, as married couples and friends?
And it has been fun. Not just because this is allowing us to have the most uninterrupted conversations we’ve ever had (something that never happens when nine kids are around), but also because conversations about the things that matter are always life-giving. In conversation with others, we discover not only new dimensions to truth, but also new dimensions to ourselves. Our hope with this podcast is to invite you into these conversations, so you can make those discoveries along with us. We’re not here to teach you the Faith, but to share with you how we are living the Faith—and struggling with it, stumbling through it, and being changed by it. This isn’t a podcast that aims to give you all the answers, wrapped up in a neat and tidy black and white package. But it is a podcast that aims to show you the beauty of asking questions and listening to others and encountering Christ in the midst of it all.
For the next three weeks, episodes of “Visitation Sessions” will be available exclusively through my Substack. We want to give you to get a taste of what we’re doing, before asking you to sign up for something new. After that, this podcast will be available on Apple and via a Substack of its own (a free one). If you’re enjoying it, I hope you not only follow along, but share it with your friends, family, and spouses. Also, please weigh in below with topics you’d love to hear us discuss in future podcasts.
Thank you to everyone for being here, and thank you especially to the full subscribers to this newsletter, who have 100 percent made it possible for two Catholic high school teachers and their wives, with nine children between them, to not only take the time to do this, but also to bear the costs of launching it. Your support for my work is a tremendous blessing, and I truly thank God for you daily. I could not do this newsletter (and now podcast) without you.
Show Notes:
Here are links to books mentioned on the show and the books we’re reading.
Spiritual Theology by Jordan Aumann
The Temperament God Gave You by Art and Laraine Bennett
The Catholic Table: Finding Joy Where Food and Faith Meet by Emily Stimpson Chapman
Around the Catholic Table: 77 Recipes for Easy Hospitality and Everyday Dinners by Emily Stimpson Chapman
The Political Economy of Distributes: Property, Liberty, and the Common Good by Alexander William Salter
Atonement: Soundings in Biblical, Trinitarian, and Spiritual Theology by Margaret M. Turek
SHTF Survival Stories: Memories from the Balkan War by Selko Begovic
Little Women Abroad: The Alcott Sisters Letters from Europe by Louisa May Alcott
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
An Incomplete Revenge: A Maisie Dobbs Mystery by Jacqueline Winspear
Visitation Sessions