Way Collective Podcast

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 05/20/26, entitled The Mystery of the Present Moment. In this episode, we talk about the mystery of the present moment as an invitation to recognize that there is something precious going on in every moment of our experience, and to have "eyes to see" means that we can sense the infinite in the finite passingness of things. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 05/13/26, entitled Finding Mystery in Ourselves and Others. In this episode, we talk about what it looks like to encounter the mystery of a person beyond our experiences of them, and how upholding that we are always more than our past and present situations invites us into an unfolding compassion for ourselves and one another. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 04/29/26, entitled Relating From Mystery. In this episode, we talk about what it looks like to relate to the world from this sense of mystery and curiosity -- to disrupt our future storytelling and worrying with a sense of unknowing that always invites us back to the present moment to tend gently to what is going on within us and around us. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 04/22/26, entitled The Big Mystery. In this episode, we talk about the big, cosmic mystery within which all of our human dramas are taking place, gaining inspiration from the recent DESI 3D map of the cosmos, we remember that something incomprehensible, grandiose, and mysterious is taking place here -- and we each have a part in it. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 04/16/26, entitled Circling the Mystery. In this episode, we introduce this series on mystery by reflecting on how mystery is an orienting device, rather than a navigating one, and how there are areas in our lives where we need clarity, but there is also always an invitation to let the mystery hold all that we do. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 04/08/26, entitled What is Progressive Christianity? with Jim Burklo. In this episode, we welcome pastor and author Jim Burklo, who shared thoughts from his recent book, Water in the Desert, on the core convictions of a progressive Christianity that is centered on love and a common table where all are welcome. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is a special episode that is an our 2026 Easter Meditation, entitled, A Radiant Theosis: Catching a Flash of the True Self on Resurrection Sunday. In this episode, we talk about the Easter story from Matthew 28, and read it as a metaphor for catching a glimpse of the True Self, connecting that theme with our Lenten series and our Good Friday meditation. Christ is risen, and thanks for tuning in! 

This is a special episode that is a Good Friday Meditation. You can listen to this while walking the stations of the cross, or strolling your neighborhood or the coast, or while sitting down wherever you are comfortable. Happy Holy Week, and thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 04/01/26, entitled Giving Up, For Good. In this episode, we bring this series Giving Up and Waking Up to a close by reflecting on how this practice of letting go can extend far beyond Lent, and how when we have eyes to see things in our life that are no longer serving us and can detach from them, a deeper connection with our fellow humanity blossoms. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 03/25/26, entitled Unveilings of Our Unravelling Egos. In this episode, we reflect on the insights that came from our honest sharing about the ways our egos show up in the world, and how beneath our performance and protection, there is a profound, common longing for belonging in our shared human situation. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 03/18/26, entitled Come As Your Ego. In this episode, our community came dressed as our egos, and we offered as a reflection exercise for conversation about how our egos offer us a way to move through the world, and also invite us into deeper honesty and presence. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 03/11/26, entitled A Presence Beyond the Ego. In this episode, we talk about how the big picture of giving things up during Lent has to do with starting to separate from the ego's control over our identity, and how, when we start to loosen our grasp, we open into a much larger, truer Self. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 03/04/26, entitled Pilgrimage as a Practice. In this episode, Pat and Sheryl Kelly share about their journey through the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, how they experienced their post-retirement pilgrimage in Spain, and invited our community to reflect on the pilgrimages we are each being invited into in the liminal spaces in our own lives. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 02/25/26, entitled On Giving Up and Waking Up. In this episode, we talk about the Lenten theme of connecting practices of letting go with building loving presence, and how, when we are able to learn the prayerful practice of "dispassion," we become untethered from the unconscious stories, desires, and fears that run our lives. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 02/18/26, entitled Ash Wednesday Thoughts. In this episode, we talk about the ashes of our world, and how taking time to contemplate mortality actually invites us to integrate death into our perspective and come into a more present and loving posture in the world. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 02/11/26, entitled Reading the Bible Like Jesus. In this episode, we talk about how everyone picks and chooses certain parts of their sacred texts to emphasize, and how Jesus read and used his own sacred text, as a call for us each to engage more lovingly with our sacred traditions. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 02/04/26, entitled Protecting Our Neighbors' Belonging. In this episode, Dr. Karen Rice shares about how we can find belonging within activism by using our unique gifts to contribute to the better good, and help protect our neighbors' belonging in times like these. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 01/28/26, entitled On Beginning Again. In this episode, we talk about how we are each learning to treat ourselves and others with patience by getting comfortable with the rhythm of beginning again - and how, in urgent times, slowing down to get a feel for this builds compassion within us and helps us resist the callousness of our times. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 01/21/26, entitled Peaceful and Present, Together. In this episode, we honor our new partnership between Way Collective and First Congregational Church Santa Barbara, called Kin Commons, by looking at the value of practicing peaceful presence together, and how communities like ours that prioritize love can be a part of healing the world one small act of kindness at a time. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 01/14/26, entitled To Be Loved is To Be Changed. In this episode, we explore how faithfulness to our tradition is to let it flow, and how change isn't so much about new year optimization as it is about allowing ourselves to be refined by the ever-widening horizon of Love. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 01/07/26, entitled How Life Transitions Shape Us, with Tracy Johansson. In this episode, Tracy shares from her own personal narrative and experience how the transitions in life are actually invitations to deepen presence and lovingkindness with ourselves and others. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Christmas Eve Candlelight gathering on 12/24/25, entitled Carrying the Light of Love. In this episode, we explored how what is true of Jesus in the Christmas story is also true of all of us -- that we are each born of Love, and invited to carry love into a complex world with unique challenges in our time. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 12/17/25, entitled Joy as Things Set Right (Advent III). In this episode, we explored how Advent joy invites us into a new imagination where our world it set right, and how joy is what catalyzes our work for justice, bringing or inner and outer worlds into harmony. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 12/10/25, entitled Peace in Our Longings (Advent II). In this episode, we explored how the season of Advent is a season of learning to make peace with our longings, and how a making a contemplative spaciousness for our longings for a more just world can fuel our actions rather than our despair. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is a special episode where Tim got to sit down at the beginning of Advent with author, theologian, and historian Diana Butler Bass, entitled A Beautiful Conversation. In this wide ranging episode, Tim and Diana discuss the liturgical calendar and the cycle of sacred stories that compose a larger narrative of love, hospitality, mercy, justice, and gratitude, and how we are invited into a different relationship with time in the midst of our busy calendars. Diana also reads her essay from the book, "Blue Christmas." You won't want to miss it. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 11/19/25, entitled God is Beauty. In this episode, we explored how the metaphysical and the metaphorical registers of our God-talk dissolve into Beauty, and how perhaps it is the most apropos language to use to talk about God on our evolving spiritual journeys. This was the final and summative conversation in our series, Processing God. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 11/12/25, entitled When God Disappears as an Object. In this episode, we explored how, in contemplative prayer, God disappears as an other, and reappears as the sacred subjectivity of our very lives, leading us toward a more non-dual way of being and understanding, as we put on the mind of Christ. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 11/05/25, entitled A Life's Adventure Into Kriya Yoga with Lucy O'Brien. In this episode, Lucy O'Brien tells her story of life adventures that helped her break down cultural barriers, and how she found her way to the ancient practice of Kriya Yoga meditation as a way to focus, heal and grow. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 10/22/25, entitled Silence is the Voice of God. In this episode, we explored how process metaphysics encourages a certain contemplative posture of us -- one that invites us to tune in to the silent voice of God, and the graceful flow of our lives drawing us more deeply toward beauty and peace. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 10/15/25, entitled Ancient Wisdom & Science: Consciousness, Connection, & Compassion. In this episode, we explored how the felt sense of awareness is something that flows through all of life, and how neuroscience is expanding our understanding that we are hard-wired for kindness, connection, and compassion. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 10/08/25, entitled Processing God and Science, Metaphysically Speaking. In this episode, we explored how we can speak of God in ways that are consonant with science by exploring a process (event-based) ontology of the cosmos, and what a world of feeling and experiencing entities opens up for us in terms of a speculative cosmology and theology. Thanks for tuning in!  https://ibb.co/KQCX0N1 https://ibb.co/Kjn71hB3 https://ibb.co/rf04xj6r https://ibb.co/KpDckGdg https://ibb.co/dsdL0gsk https://ibb.co/KcCXVwTj

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 09/24/25, entitled Process Theology and God's Uncontrolling Love. In this episode, we explored an introduction to process theology's alternative conception of God's power, about what God can and can't do, and how a non coercive God can be a gift for your growing spiritual journey. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 09/17/25, entitled Processing Our God-Talk. In this episode, we explored the nuances of how we talk about God, the apophatic and cataphatic traditions, theopoetics, and how metaphor and metaphysic interweave as we explore the divine. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 09/10/25, entitled An Introduction to Processing God. In this episode, Tim shares about how his questions of God shifted through his cancer experience, the two different registers people speak in when talking about God, and how we are invited to widen our horizons and cross thresholds in our lives toward more loving versions of God. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 08/27/25, entitled Jesus as a Jewish Mystic. In this episode, Tim shares about how seeing Jesus as a mystic in his own Jewish tradition opens up an entirely different understanding of Christian spirituality rooted in inherent belovedness and oneness with God. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 08/20/25, entitled On the Beginningless and Endless Rest of God. In this episode, Tim shares about how rest isn't something we accrue like vacation, but rather a sustaining reality at the center of our becoming lives, and how even our wounds can be held from this unwounded place of rest. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 08/13/25, entitled Mindfulness as a Contemplative Practice. In this episode, Tracy explores mindfulness both as a modern research backed-way to reduce stress, and a timeless contemplative practice. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 08/06/25, entitled Finding Friends by Defining Enemies. In this episode, Damon Garcia explores the importance of understanding the difference between loving the enemies we make and those who are oppressing us, and much more! Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 07/30/25, entitled On Nonduality and Nonviolence. In this episode, we talk about how nonduality and nonviolence are a summary of the contemplative life, and how, when we can live into these postures in the small moments of our lives, they begin to transform everything around us. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 07/23/25, entitled Being Neighbors in an Isolating Time. In this episode, we use the research from Kurt Gray's recent book Outraged, to talk about the nature of our outrage culture and our divisions, and how we can overcome them and bridge with those with whom we differ. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 07/16/25, entitled A Moral Response for Our Time. In this episode, we talk about recent ICE activity, and frame a moral response from within the contemplative Christian tradition that upholds love as the highest law. Thanks for tuning in! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 07/09/25 in our series: Cracking the Code: How to Stay Human in the Age of AI. In this episode, we talk about how the spiritual journey invites us more fully into our humanity, and how the story of Jacob wrestling with God teaches us that our wrestling, wounding and surrender are blessed. Also, we are still including 3 questions at the end of the podcast for contemplation and conversation -- one on the self, one on the sacred, and one on society. Check it out! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 07/02/25 in our series: Cracking the Code: How to Stay Human in the Age of AI. In this episode, we talk about bracing ourselves for these technological changes, AIs impact on the environment and future job markets, and continue to reflect on our humanity in the age of AI. Also, we are still including 3 questions at the end of the podcast for contemplation and conversation -- one on the self, one on the sacred, and one on society. Check it out! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 06/25/25 in our series: Cracking the Code: How to Stay Human in the Age of AI. In this episode, we talk about what makes us human in contrast to artificial intelligence, and how creativity and mystery can keep us grounded as AI continues to evolve. Also, we are still including 3 questions at the end of the podcast for contemplation and conversation -- one on the self, one on the sacred, and one on society. Check it out! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 06/18/25 beginning our new series: Cracking the Code: How to Stay Human in the Age of AI. In this episode, our new Co-Curator, Tracy Johansson, gives us an introduction into AI, and begins asking core questions about how to use rapidly increasing technology to supplement our spiritual lives. Also, we are still including 3 questions at the end of the podcast for contemplation and conversation -- one on the self, one on the sacred, and one on society. Check it out! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 06/04/25 focusing on the theme of transformation. In this episode, we summarize the series by talking about how the theme behind each weekly theme has been a widening embrace of life, and how, when our inner space of embrace expands, we can hold more of life's joys and aches. Also, we are still including 3 questions at the end of the podcast for contemplation and conversation -- one on the self, one on the sacred, and one on society. Check it out! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 05/28/25 focusing on the theme of transformation. In this episode, we talk about how our personal transformation journeys, and how everything we encounter in our inner lives is an invitation for inclusion and integration. Also, we are beginning to include 3 questions in the podcast for contemplation and conversation -- one on the self, one on the sacred, and one on society. Check it out! 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 05/21/25 focusing on the theme of transformation. In this episode, we talk about how the journey of transformation is actually about "becoming what we already are," which is love -- and how the contours of this love helps us to see that love in everyone and everywhere when we can hold it non dually and say yes to the whole of life. 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 05/14/25 focusing on the theme of transformation. In this episode, we talk about how embracing our complexity can transform us. We contrast the true self and false self, and uplift how our trans and nonbinary siblings help us move deeper into our true identity. 

This is the recording from our Dinner & Dialogue gathering on 05/07/25 focusing on the theme of transformation. In this episode, Ethan opens up a beautiful conversation about reflecting on one's own identity and belonging through sharing about his story, and the people and land to which he belongs in his own journey of becoming more fully himself.