Welcome to Life with God, a Renovaré podcast, a place for unhurried and thoughtful conversations about interactive life with God. I'm Nathan Foster, and today's conversation is with Mark and Lisa McMinn.

She was a professor of sociology. He was one of psychology. She's a spiritual director and he's a counselor. They're both writers and they live on a picturesque small farm in rural Oregon. There's a thoughtful gentleness about them both.

Their newest book is titled, An Invitation to Slow. Resist the Speed of Now, Make Space for Quiet, and Cultivate an Intentional Life. It's a book born out of a lived experience, an honest wrestling with how to live well.

Our conversation did not disappoint. Mark and Lisa spoke with me from their home, Fern Creek Farm outside of Newburgh, Oregon. At the beginning of each interview, I've been asking people a question. The same question the last couple months and I've got a new question that I'd like to start try out on you guys. Can I do that?

Yeah. Sure. Alright. Here it is. In looking back at your life, what has helped you in learning to navigate seasons of uncertainty?

Wow. What a great question. I'll start. I'll jump in with a sort of provocative answer. I was just pondering that yesterday doing a little writing about a time that I failed a board certification exam years ago, my first try as a psychologist. And just remembering again how I hate failure.

It's absolutely something I despise. But every time it happens, it seems to bring me around to some softer place in life, some better place. And it's not like I'd ever choose to go through it.

But it seems to have a way of happening and I learned from it and I suppose that's a grace that I can learn from failure. Mhmm.

Mhmm. It is one of those threshold experiences that's either gonna go bad or good, I guess. Right. Mhmm.

How about you, Lisa? What has helped you in learning to navigate seasons of uncertainty?

I've had a lot of change in my life, so I got to get used to it being the daughter of a military man. We moved a lot, so I had a lot of uncertainty. But I think I have felt more rooted in it as I've aged and realized the long game is one of being able to trust. And when I run into people like Julian of Norwich who she never got to see the all will be well that she hoped for in her own time of unrest, but she was trusting the long game. I've seen people older, ahead of me in life do the same and I think the older I get, the more I realize this too shall pass.

It's an impermanent uncertainty and even when things are well, that's not permanent either. Mhmm. Trust the long game. So I lean into that. I'm leaning into that currently as well.

There's a lot of needing to trust the long game.

People often miss the beginning of that quote of all shall be well and if I remember correctly, the first line is sin is inevitable Yeah. But all shall be well. And they're kind of holding that tension.

Yeah. I mean that was the big question she had was how With all of the sin in the world, individual and collective, all the chaos, how could all be well? This assertion that I got this. God saying to her, I've got this.

Is all well on the farm?

Well, you're going to probably hear about goat babies today. Want to hear about goat babies. Yeah,

all is well. I tend to be rather obsessive until they give birth, once I know that it's eminent. And they really don't need me to be there, but I want to be there and I find ways that I think they do need me to be there. But it is such a reminder, you know, the predictability of the daffodils are in bloom, the crocuses are in bloom, we've buds on all of our, you know, the blueberries are budding out and babies are being born, that as much that feels unwell, there is so much going right, so much goes And

it was just yesterday that two of these goats gave birth to three little babies. Lisa was out in the barn most of the day helping that process.

I slept really well last night. And

I just in the last week have put 700 pounds of cured chicken poop on our various trees and berry plants as fertilizer for next year's crop. So it's fun. It's like everything is awakening right now and we're getting ready for another year of growing food.

Yes. 700 pounds. They're not from how did you get did you have this delivered or you know Not from your chickens.

No, not from our chickens. There's a company not too far from us who takes chicken poop and they cure it and make it into pellets and so I go to the feed store and buy it in bulk and haul it home in my pickup. It doesn't smell great, but it works.

No, I was going to say, right now we smell like a chicken poo farm.

Yeah. Yeah. What is it like living there on the farm?

When people come, they often talk about the peacefulness and I think that's been our experience. It's a lot of work, but it feels peaceful too, place of quiet, a place of reflection, a place of goodness.

I would say it's also very grounding to live here. It's a reminder that there is another life that is so rooted to the soil, the plants we eat, the animals we share it with, the trees that are constantly gifting with everything they do. So I feel really grounded in a reality that is not just the one that we live in our jobs and in our grocery stores. It reminds me of a deeper a deeper truth.

Mhmm. The times I've been there, I I remark on two things. One is, yes, there's so much work Like and you guys care well. Like, you can tell that you're you're pruning and and cleaning and and it's all, you know, very nice. But then when I see you two work, you you move slowly.

You don't and and you don't seem hurried. Is that am am I getting a false view of of your life with that?

You might be getting a false view of Mark, but not Lisa in that because

Exactly. Yeah.

I think I think I carry the anxiety and hurry of it a bit more than Lisa does, But I love watching that in Lisa, the sort of way that she eases through life with a rhythm that's really attractive.

I would have said the same thing. And I think the other another difference, I don't know that this is relevant for anything, but I do something until my body and my desires stop. So I'm weeding and I don't have to weed everything. I just weed until, okay, that's enough for today. And that feels really a lot of internal freedom around that.

And I think that Mark does so much of what makes this beautiful because he's a bit more driven to finish a task. So there's benefit to that too. You get he gets more done in a day. But the gestalt of it altogether is perhaps a sense of slow.

What has been your collective journey of slowing? We

both had a career in academics and loved it. I mean those were good years and they were full years. And some of those years we actually did the farming thing also, so those were especially full. Really grateful for those. But I also think at some point I was an academic for thirty six years and at some point I started realizing it means less to me than it did early in life.

And I found something that means more. It almost feels like I think it probably takes too much liberty with the word miracle to use it in this context. But I feel like there's these little miracles that happen every spring when we see the seedlings pop up from the ground and we see the buds form and the fruit that gets produced every year. And so some of it feels more important than the work that I spent all those years doing, even though I think that was good work and I loved it. And then Lisa and I, and I'll let her speak for herself, but we're both helpers now.

I spend two days a week in a psychology practice, which I do from my home via telehealth. And that's a different rhythm too, to kind of compress my work down to two days a week and still be present to a world that hurts and to hearing people's stories and to walking with people and their suffering, which brings a lot of meaning to me and I hope to be helpful in the process of doing that for them also. Nice.

I like that answer. I think that's a good reflection of who Mark is. I was an academic for twenty years and I think I was always trying to find ways to slow things down. I would have a practice on Wednesday, it was as important as a class where I'd walk to a coffee shop and journal and it was just a way in the middle of the day to say, I'm gonna remember that it's not just this pace of life that can be so frenetic. But I think I've always been looking for slower ways of living so that some of that has come naturally to me.

It's not been as much of a learning curve for me. The spiritual direction I offer, I mean, that's just slow work and lots of space and silence and those who can, about half of them come and meet here at Fern Creek, a little prayer cabin I have, well, and I built together that sits on top of our goat barn. It's both crazy and delightful. But it means we're kind of meeting surrounded by trees because there's also crazy. We built the barn around a big maple tree and that just invites you to walk slowly, to talk slowly, to think slowly.

Mhmm. Do you feel like you're missing out as you guys slow down? No.

Maybe we are, but I like the way you phrased the question, does it feel like we're missing out? No.

Yeah, I don't think so either. I feel like there's so much more that we have actually received by going slow than we've lost by going slow.

I think that's some of the fears sometimes for people is missing out, but also just personally for me, slowing means that I intentionally have to say no to things. And sometimes, say no to really good things and feeling the pain of it. But in the end, yeah, I don't feel like I'm missing out either.

That said, my word for this year is engage Mhmm. Because I felt like I was giving myself a little bit too much permission to disengage. Mhmm. And that has been kind of delightful. So there is a making space by saying no so you can say yes to other things.

And the richness of that has been really good.

Lisa, really appreciated what you just said. And I'm glad we're sticking with this question a little bit because my initial response was no, I don't have any fear of missing out. But I think that's developmentally relevant. I mean there are certain times in life, younger years for example, where it's pretty important to sort of build, work hard, to do one's best, to be maybe even upwardly mobile if I could use that cliche. And then there are times where that becomes less important, times to pause and to slow down.

And so I think the answer to that question is really complex and and my personal answer is no, I don't really fear missing out right now. But I think I would have answered that differently a decade or two ago. Mhmm.

I found myself gravitating away from the phrase slowing down and replacing it with like right a right paced life or I mean, denotes, you know, there's a problem kind of. But just to find that right pace and then and I think I'd I'd piggyback off that, Mark, that developmentally or different seasons in life, the right pace is is different, you know. When your kids are little, slowing is not necessarily a realistic way to to do life.

That's right. And it probably is annoying to hear a podcast about slowing if that's the case because it's not it's not even possible at some points in life.

I remember having conversations with colleagues and students about some particular seasons are just going to be by definition for you to show up fully are going to be very full seasons. Yeah. When my father was dying and wanted to die at home and it was the end of the semester and a sister and I were taking the train back and forth from Chicago to Pennsylvania to help my mom care for him. It was a crazy frenetic time but I knew it was time limited and it was so important for me to show up for my parents in this way that that was a willing, it was a willing, fast, crazy pace to do that. And the train ride itself, I found, slowed me down because it took twelve hours to get there, twelve hours to get back and there was a transitional opportunity in that to frame for what I'm going to, which was being very slow with my mom and dad, framed going back to catching up, tending my students when I was returning.

So yeah, there are seasons when to be slow is not the invitation. Right now, you need to have everything you have to give for the season which you know cannot last forever, it has to be time bounded. But in the season, you know, you have that right pace so that you can at times push it.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

You're always pushing it, you can't can't sustain that.

I like the way you guys frame the chapters in your book. Slow to judge, an invitation to humility. Slow to envy, an invitation to gratitude. Slow to consume, an invitation to generosity. And that's just a sample.

But could you talk a little about this idea of kind of robust view of slowing?

It's a great question, Nate. I appreciate it because I think in our conversation so far, which I've loved by the way, we really are thinking about the chronology of slow, like the pace of life. And that wasn't quite what we were doing in the book. In fact, I worry a little bit that people will see the title and the cover and they think, Oh, it means I should just watch more Netflix. And that's not what we're getting at exactly.

It's more about these other dimensions of slow. Here's a metaphor that I like to use. Imagine that you're sitting with a friend or a spouse in a restaurant, you're trying to have a meaningful conversation, And in the parking lot right outside a car alarm starts going off. Now at first they might both kind of smile and chuckle and it's hard to hear one another and that's kind of it. But if it keeps going, pretty soon you might have a hard time thinking because that car alarm is just getting all your attention.

And if it keeps going even longer, it might make you cantankerous and irritable and bring out the worst in each person in that conversation. Well does it sometimes seem like we have a lot of alarms blaring right now in our world around us? And so that's the invitation to slow that we're hoping to sort of get to in this book is not just the chronology, but the emotion. How do we slow down the alarms? Do we slow down ourselves in a world that seems to have all these alarms?

Good. Thank you.

That word robust is such a good one to use. What have the spiritual practices been that help us to slow down so that in our moment of anger we might respond with empathy or in our moment of grasping we might respond with contentment or how can we recognize these are not necessarily going to be right at our fingertips unless we practice that ways to slow down our impulses.

What did you guys learn from writing the book?

So much. It was just a it was a beautiful experience. Lisa and I have each written our own books, but rarely have we written together. So that was part of it. It's just a chance to so I'm kind of a social scientist and well we both are, but I love the research part.

I mean it's kind of ridiculous how many references there are at the end of this book, and I hope that doesn't distract readers.

The graphs and charts, are they of your doing?

They are indeed. Everyone. Just loved finding out what's current in terms of the sort of pace of life that we're sort of engaged in. And then I loved just sort of turning the things over then to Lisa who invited people into these spiritual practices. And again, don't want to speak to you Lisa, but that was such it was lovely for me to watch what Lisa does so well in that prayer cabin above the goat barn.

She could do it on paper too, turns out, and it was lovely.

I think that one of the things I learned besides the process, and it was really delightful to let Mark be Mark, let Lisa be Lisa and see if we could do this together, but was the reminder that so many of these impulses of our day do have this pairing and that I needed to be reminded of that pairing that my anger could be met with empathy. It was so was good to just say, it's not that we know this because we're coming as authors who already know it, but we're exploring it together and in our own exploration we get to be reminded that there are these virtues, these Christian practices that will help me in this moment of unrest, of loudness, of uncertainty.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

There's that beautiful little passage in the epistle of James in the New Testament where James writes that we should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry. And I think you know for a year working on this book, actually more than a year, we had that reminder constantly in front of us and we were able to invite others into that sort of place and it was it was a lovely experience.

Just to tie into that, you guys do well with the research and and kind of giving the state of affairs and then gently moving into practical practices and you guys did a great job with the well, you complemented each other. I could I could see each, you know, the psychologist and the sociologist, right? You know, is good. What is your hope for readers?

I think it would be that they too could realize they don't have to live being constantly buffeted by whatever is out there buffeting them. And the news, I'm encouraged by so many people I'm hearing who are stepping away from the news for a while knowing that it is buffeting them in ways that are not helpful. So that they can be more intentional of how am I engaging up here and how can I tap what's down here and live out of this rather than living in a reactive place? So I think that's what I would hope is that it would invite them into this intentional depth that's right there waiting for them. They don't have to do anything but say yes to it.

Nate, you've published things and you know the little dance that authors do with publishers around things like titles and book covers and those sorts of things. And we talked with a couple different publishers in the process of getting this out And one of the early titles that was suggested was going to be The Power of Slow. And Lisa really wanted it to be the invitation to slow, an invitation to slow. And I I love that change. So if if to your question about what do we hope people get out of this, I I really want to lean in on the word invitation as much as the word slow.

It really is. That's the way we tried to write the book, is a sort of open handed invitation to consider consider a a way of being that slows us down. Mhmm. Mhmm.

It's one of the wonders of just reading books. Until you know. It has the potential to slow us down if we let it. Advice for people who hear us talking and they think it's on my to do list to slow down. I don't quite know how to do that or what to do.

Any advice you would have?

It is so easy to begin with the practice of just showing up to the moment that you have. Whatever it is, whether you're eating breakfast, to pay attention to what you've just put in your mouth to savor it. Pay attention to who you're eating with if you're eating with someone and even if it's yourself to pay attention to how am I showing up today? Do I have angst or do I have gratitude? I think it can begin so simply with just the moment you're in and paying attention to the moment you're in.

It doesn't have to be adopting some practice of 20 centering prayer every day. You know, it could be, what is the gratitude of this moment that I want to speak? I think I would say begin really small. Don't feel like you're climbing a mountain, all you're doing is taking a step.

That's a good word. That is a good word. And the other thing I might add to that is if someone has slowing down on their to do list, I would say good for you. Psychologists study stages of change and one of the important stages of change is to even consider thing before you ever do it. Just have it on that to do list.

That's great.

I like that. Lisa, what are you learning in doing retreats there at the farm about slowing and working with leaders?

One of the things I'm learning is it has so much less to do with me than it does creating a space where they can come encounter what whatever they and God have to encounter together. We have a well, you've stayed there with your father, but we have an apartment retreat with a couple bedrooms and a kitchen and some people come and all they want from me is to welcome them and then to leave them be. And I just love that they come and counter, they come and go. I see them walking the fields, walking into the forest, taking a nap in the hammock when it's up. And what that does to me is feel like the fullness has come of what Fern Creek was intended to be.

We have some that involve either me or Mark and me that we offer for people who want to sit with me as a spiritual director, and I have some who want me to do that at the beginning and the end of their retreat. We have an offering also for couples or ministry, people in ministry who would want some therapy as well as some counseling. So you know, it's quite a plethora of offerings and I love that too.

I was delighted to see your book come out and I thought, who better to have written this? There's a livedness to it and shows up in the pages. So thank you guys

for doing the book and sharing that. Thank you for those words and for the chance to talk with you about it. Delightful.

Thank you.

Yeah, is delightful. You have a very slow presence about you Nate. Your own way of asking questions, you don't rush with your words and it's a very easy conversation to have with Thank

you. I I I prefer going slow. Just I haven't always been this way, but it it suits me best to well, right paced. That's the you know, right paced. Yeah.

Yes. I like that a lot, Nate, the right pace of a thing rather than assuming it's always slow. Mhmm.

I always think that when I drive through a neighborhood and I see these signs that say slow down and I think, but you don't know how fast I'm driving. Right pace is the better option than just saying slow down.

But I think some of it too is I really want to shake off the kind of cultural lies that we buy into of how you have to do life and defining what a good life is. Jesus life offers something I think entirely different. It's abundant,

I think. Yeah. It is abundant, and I appreciate what Mark said earlier about the intention of the book as being an invitation rather than a you should. This isn't a list of how this isn't an attempt for us to tell you how you should live, but it's an invitation to consider options that may may help you flourish.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Love it. Thank you, guys.

Yeah. It's great to talk

with you again.

It was very good to see you as we talked as well.

And that was Mark and Lisa McMinn talking about their newest book titled An Invitation to Slow, Resist the Speed of Now, Make Space for Quiet, and Cultivate an Intentional Life. I had another conversation with them back in episode 138. It's titled Living Close to the Land. As I mentioned, both Lisa and Mark have written a number of books. Among them, Lisa has written The Contented Soul, The Art of Savering Life, and Walking Gently on the Earth.

Mark's book, The Science of Virtue, Why Positive Psychology Matters to the Church, won the 2018 Dallas Willard Research Center Book Award. You can find out more about their work and retreats at the farm on their website at ferncreekfarm.com. That's ferncreekfarm.com. I'm Nathan Foster and you've been listening to Life with God, a renovari podcast. We're grateful for all of you who helped make this work possible.

You can support renovari and this podcast with a tax deductible gift at renovari.org/donate. Renovare is a Christian ecumenical renewal effort offering resources and experiences to help people become more like Jesus. You can find a collection of thoughtfully curated articles, podcast, webinars, online classes, as well as information on events in our institute on our website at renovare.org. This podcast is edited by Will Rutherford and produced by Grace Pouch and Brian Moricon. Brian also wrote the theme song titled Be Kind.

Until next time, and be well, friends. Be well.