PODCAST · religion
Risking Enchantment
by Rachel Sherlock
Risking Enchantment is a discussion about beauty in art and culture, and its place in the Catholic faith. The show is hosted by Rachel Sherlock, and she is joined every week by a friend to dive into a particular theme or topic. We discuss literature, music, poetry, art, architecture and more, and talk about how experiencing these can hint at the transcendental and better inform our Catholic faith and how we live it out.
Episodes
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Painting with Sunlight: The Stained Glass Art of Harry Clarke
“The glory of colour, which was his chief gift, is a strange blend of dark beauty and almost spectral luminosity.” - A.Kelly In this episode Rachel and Phoebe put a spotlight on one of Ireland’s great artists: Harry Clarke. Famed for his stained glass art, Clarke’s work can be found in churches...
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In Defence of Frodo: The Trial and Heroism of Self-Sacrifice
"I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King In this episode, Jacob Moran returns to join me on a dive back...
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Strange Desire and the Mystery of Love in the Music of Bleachers
"I was feeling like I never was young Followed a dream and a strange desire You picked me up in the dead of the night And gave me a chance to move on inside of your mystery" - You're Still a Mystery, Bleachers In this February episode of Risking Enchantment, Matthias Conroy joins after a five…
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The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness: John the Baptist, an Imaginative Exploration
"[T]he life and work of the Forerunner, especially as presented in the gospel of John, greatly illuminates the poetic character of Christian life—indeed of all life" - Dwight Lindley, "The Poetics of John the Baptist" Risking Enchantment is back for 2025 and for our first episode of the year…
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The Ends of the Affairs: Medieval Ideals, Modern Trysts and the Offering of Redemption in the Works of Graham Greene and T. H. White
"I can imagine that if there existed a God who loved, the devil would be driven to destroy even the weakest, most faulty imitation of that love. Wouldn’t he be afraid that the habit of love might grow, and wouldn’t he try to trap us all into being traitors, into helping him extinguish love." -...
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An Integrated Faith: Tolkien’s Catholicism in his Life and Work with Holly Ordway
“I am not a reformer nor an embalmer! I am not a ‘reformer’ (by exercise of power) since it seems doomed to Sarumanism. But ‘embalming’ has its own punishments.” -J.R.R. Tolkien For this episode we are delighted to be joined by Dr. Holly Ordway, Fellow of Faith and Culture at the Word on Fire...
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Extraordinary Virtue in Every-Day Stories: Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
“I'm capable of a great jerk, an effort, and then a relaxation—but steady, every-day goodness is beyond me. I must be a moral kangaroo!” -Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell In our final episode before the summer break, Phoebe and Rachel are joined by their good friend, and long-time Risking...
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The Creation of Music and the Music of Creation with Katie Marquette
“Joyful singing and music is likewise a constant invitation to believers and to all people of good will to work hard to give humanity a future rich in hope.” -Pope Benedict XVI In this episode we are joined by Katie Marquette, host of the Born of Wonder podcast. We discuss our love of music, what...
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Publishing Catholic Voices with Mary Finnegan, Deputy Editor at Wiseblood Books
"We are watchful for works written in a contemporary idiom that yet reach the roots of fundamental questions, that honor the almost three-thousand-year-long conversations committed to these questions, and that incite our hunger for the splendor of truth." Masthead for Wiseblood Books We are...
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The Spirit of Adventure in Swallows and Amazons
“What does the Lord want of me? Of course, this is always a great adventure, but life can be successful only if we have the courage to be adventurous, trusting that the Lord will never leave me alone, that the Lord will go with me and help me.” – Pope Benedict XVI For this episode of Risking...
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The Great Expectations and Romantic Ideals of Dickens's Heroes
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” David Copperfield, Charles Dickens We are joined for this episode of Risking Enchantment by Catholic author Eleanor Bourg Nicholson. Eleanor has previously...
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This Mortal Coil: An Album of Loss and Subtraction, ‘Offerings’ by Typhoon
But if there’s nothing, if there’s nothing Then what’s that song that keeps hounding me? In the still dark of the morning Just one more cradle down the creek Au revoir my little memories Then tell me: this is not your loss, this is your offering - Wake, 'Offerings' In this episode we are joined...
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Poetic Vision: The Catholic Case for Everyday Poetry
Welcome back to Risking Enchantment! For our first episode of 2024, Rachel and Phoebe discuss the place that poetry has in our everyday lives, its importance in our faith, and why it’s good to learn poetry by heart. We highlight some of the poems that have been most impactful in our lives and...
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The Reed of God and the Potent Emptiness of Advent
"It is emptiness like the hollow in the reed, the narrow restless emptiness which can have only one destiny: to receive the piper’s breath and to utter the song that is in his heart." - Caryll Houselander In our Christmas episode of Risking Enchantment, we are looking at a seasonal devotional...
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Childish or Childlike: Labyrinth and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on Growing Up
After an unexpected hiatus, Risking Enchantment is back. In this episode we’re taking a look at some classic family movies and what they can tell us about our attitudes towards growing up, and our modern tendency to stay in a perpetual adolescence. We’re looking at the kingdom of Vulgaria in…
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The Mystery and Manners of Flannery O’Connor
“Fiction is hard if not impossible to write because fiction is so very much an incarnation art…The fact is that the materials of the fiction are the humblest. Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn’t try to write...
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The Sublime Mystery of Thin Places: Numinous Experiences and Liminal Spaces
“The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that He was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two.”...
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Rest and Recreation: Holidays and the Opportunity for Holiness
"The man on his holiday becomes the man he might have been, the man he could have been, had things worked out a little differently. All men are equal on their holidays: all are free to dream their castles without thought of expense, or skill of architect. Dreams based upon such a delicate fabric...
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BONUS Episode: Catholic Womanhood - Youth 2000 Talk
"First become a person" - St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross This bonus episode is the recording of a talk I gave over this summer for the Youth 2000 summer festival on Catholic womanhood. The slides discussed in the talk can be found by clicking the following link: Presentation Slides To find out...
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Making Whole: Finding Healing in Community and Nature
“Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation.” - Wendell Berry In this, our last episode before the summer break, Phoebe is back to discuss some of our favourite...
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Animating Creation: The Natural Landscapes of Studio Ghibli
“My films show the world’s beauty. Beauty otherwise unnoticed.” - Hayao Miyazaki In this episode of Risking Enchantment I'm joined by animator Robyn Conroy to discuss the highly acclaimed Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation company whose films offer a deep sense of the goodness of life and the...
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[Audio Fixed] “Seeing is both good and perilous”: Information and Action in The Lord of the Rings
Apologies for re-releasing this old episode, there was a technical issue which needed to be resolved. New episode of Risking Enchantment coming soon. Thank you for your patience! “You may learn something, and whether what you see be fair or evil, that may be profitable, and yet it may not. Seeing...
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The Doom and Gift of Men: Stories of Death and the Desire for Immortality
“Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life. You don't have to live forever. You just have to live.” - Tuck Everlasting In this episode, Rachel and Phoebe explore a variety of stories that explore the desire for immortality, and the challenge of embracing the reality of death. Beginning from...
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Celebrating Irish Saints: Miracles, Myths and Modern Perspectives
‘Out of the east came the Magi bearing gifts, hastening in their journey to the Christ child; but now Irish scholars arrive from western lands, bringing their precious gifts of learning’. - Sedulius Scottus As we’re approaching the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, we’re turning our focus to the...
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Something Inside: Hope and the Inner Life in The Shawshank Redemption
“[H]ope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies” The Shawshank Redemption In this episode of Risking Enchantment, Rachel and Phoebe discuss one of the most highly acclaimed and best beloved films of all time, The Shawshank Redemption. Released in 1994, it slowly…
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Entering the Anglo-Saxon Seasons: Poetry, Liturgy and Festivity, with Eleanor Parker
“[T]he Middle Ages…was in some ways immeasurably more humane and creative than its modern successors. It was happy to see human life as fully part of the natural world, shaped by the cycles of the sun and moon and the seasons; it was able to articulate a belief that material considerations,...
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Let Nothing You Dismay: The Ghost of Christmas Storytelling
"All these things happen on Christmas Eve, they are all told of on Christmas Eve. For ghost stories to be told on any other evening than the evening of the twenty-fourth of December would be impossible in English society as at present regulated. Therefore, in introducing the sad but authentic…
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Do You Reject Satan?: The Godfather and the Path to Power, with Katie Marquette
"A story that was a metaphor for American capitalism in the tale of a great king with three sons: the oldest was given his passion and aggressiveness, the second his sweet nature and child-like qualities, and the third his intelligence, cunning, and coldness. Suddenly I saw the story as one of...
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Over the Garden Wall: Finding Dante in the Unknown
“The Unknown is at turns gothic and autumnal, grim and threatening or comforting and even silly, with seasons of harvest and hearth giving way to snow and silence.” - Martin Cahill In this episode of Risking Enchantment I'm joined by professional animator Robyn Conroy to discuss the little known...
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Flannery O’Connor’s Vision of Grace in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
“There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored." - Flannery O'Connor For this episode of the podcast we're doubling up the Sherlocks as Rachel is joined by her...
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Autumnal Envy: A Season of Longing and Desire
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams. He began to say to himself: ‘Perhaps I shall cross the River myself one day.’ To which the other half of his mind always replied…
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Beauty in Brideshead Revisited: The Holy and the Hedonistic
‘But my dear Sebastian, you can’t seriously believe it all’ ‘Can’t I?’ ‘I mean about Christmas and the star and the three kings and the ox and the ass.’ ‘Oh yes, I believe that. It’s a lovely idea.’ ‘But you can’t believe things because they’re a lovely idea.’ ‘But I do. That’s how I believe.’...
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The Golden Age of Musicals and the Desire for Beauty
"Romance is the deepest thing in life; romance is deeper even than reality." - G.K. Chesterton In this last episode of Risking Enchantment before the summer break, Rachel and Phoebe share their experience of watching musicals from the Golden Age of Hollywood. We discuss their peculiar charm, the...
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The Universal Truths of C.S. Lewis, with Michael Ward
“The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary colour, or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in.” C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man In this episode we are joined by Michael Ward, author of the award-winning and best-selling…
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The World Turned Upside Down: Chesterton’s use of Paradox in Manalive and St. Francis of Assisi
“[Paradox is] truth standing on its head to gain attention." - G.K. Chesterton In this Easter episode of Risking Enchantment, Rachel and Phoebe discuss two of Chesterton’s books: Manalive and St. Francis of Assisi. We draw out the similarities in themes, characters, and messages between the two...
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The Silent Knight: Elizabeth Lev on St. Joseph in Art through the Ages
[Joseph’s] incomparable example as a saint fortunate among so many for having lived a common life with Jesus and Mary—a life of service to Christ, a service born of love. - Saint Paul VI on the Feast of Saint Joseph (March 19, 1966) We’re delighted to welcome Elizabeth Lev back to the podcast. In...
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The Grace of Gardening: Encountering Christ in Creation
“The Word himself was the first Gardener. In the beginning he planted a tree in the garden of Eden that grew the fruit of immortal life" - Vigen Guroian In this episode Rachel is joined by Reba Luiken, director of Allen Centennial Garden at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to discuss how...
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Jane Austen’s Moral Imagination: A Conversation with Haley Stewart
“The great abstract nouns of the classical English moralists are unblushingly and uncompromisingly used: good sense, courage, contentment, fortitude…Contrasted with the world of modern fiction, Jane Austen’s is at once less soft and less cruel.” - C.S. Lewis, “A Note on Jane Austen” In this...
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The Time That is Given Us: Productivity and Leisure in the Modern Age
“I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters Risking Enchantment is back for 2022, and in our first episode back Rachel is joined by Phoebe, to discuss our resolutions for how we hope to spend our time in the coming…
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The Humility and Extravagance of Christmas
“The more we are proud that the Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep, the more do we let ourselves go, in dark and gorgeous imaginative frescoes or pageants about the mystery and majesty of the Three Magian Kings.” - G.K. Chesterton For our…
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Stories that Endure: Reading the Classics
“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” - Italo Calvino In this episode Rachel and Phoebe are back to discuss Classic literature, what is it and why does it matter? We take a look at our own reading journeys and our hopes to try to become “well-read”, as well as a...
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Meaningful Remembrance: The Great War and its Commemoration
Who will remember, passing through this Gate, the unheroic dead who fed the guns? Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,- Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?" Siegfried Sassoon, 'On Passing The New Menin Gate' November has for many centuries held a place for Catholics as the…
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Doubles and Duplicity: Gothic Themes in The Woman in White Featuring Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
"I looked at her, with my mind full of that other lovely face which had so ominously recalled her to my memory on the terrace by moonlight. I had seen Anne Catherick's likeness in Miss Fairlie. I now saw Miss Fairlie's likeness in Anne Catherick." - Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White We are…
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Stranger Things in Stranger Times: Navigating Nostalgia in the Digital Age
“For us, we like going back to a time—and I’m sure nostalgia is feeding into that—where cell phones and the internet weren’t around. If you went off with friends, it felt like you really could get lost on a grand adventure.” - The Duffer Brothers In this episode of Risking Enchantment I'm joined…
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Tolkien: A Thoroughly Modern Medievalist featuring Dr. Holly Ordway
"One writes such a story [The Lord of the Rings] not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mold of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten,...
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Dante and Creation: Encountering God in Eden, Featuring Matthew Rothaus Moser
"[T]he first aim of Dante, in his landscape imagery [in the Earthly Paradise], is to show evidence of this perfect liberty, and of the purity and sinlessness of the new nature, converting pathless ways into happy ones." - John Ruskin For the first episode back from the summer Rachel is joined by...
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Keeping Your Word: Unfashionable Virtues in North and South
“[God] gave you strength to do what your conscience told you was right; and I don’t see that we need any higher or holier strength than that; or wisdom either." - Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South In this episode Rachel and Phoebe discuss North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Often dubbed ‘The...
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Lost in the Cosmos: Exploring Modernity and the Self with Walker Percy
“Why is it that of all the billions and billions of strange objects in the Cosmos - novas, quasars, pulsars, black holes - you are beyond doubt the strangest” - Walker Percy Lost in the Cosmos In this episode Rachel is joined by Shane Jenkins to discuss Walker Percy’s satirical self-help book…
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Heavenly and Hellish Creatures in The Great Divorce feat. Pints with Jack co-host David Bates
“If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce In this episode we are delighted to welcome to the show David Bates, co-host of the…
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Kingship in Camelot: The Quest for Justice in Arthurian Myth
“‘You will find,’ he explained, ‘that when the kings are bullies who believe in force, the people are bullies too. If I don't stand for law, I won't have law among my people.’” In this episode Rachel and Phoebe discuss the figure of King Arthur in Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, the biblical echoes of...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Risking Enchantment is a discussion about beauty in art and culture, and its place in the Catholic faith. The show is hosted by Rachel Sherlock, and she is joined every week by a friend to dive into a particular theme or topic. We discuss literature, music, poetry, art, architecture and more, and talk about how experiencing these can hint at the transcendental and better inform our Catholic faith and how we live it out.
HOSTED BY
Rachel Sherlock
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Risking Enchantment have?
Risking Enchantment currently has 93 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Risking Enchantment about?
Risking Enchantment is a discussion about beauty in art and culture, and its place in the Catholic faith. The show is hosted by Rachel Sherlock, and she is joined every week by a friend to dive into a particular theme or topic. We discuss literature, music, poetry, art, architecture and more, and...
How often does Risking Enchantment release new episodes?
Risking Enchantment has 93 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Risking Enchantment?
You can listen to Risking Enchantment on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Risking Enchantment?
Risking Enchantment is created and hosted by Rachel Sherlock.
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