Hello, everyone, and welcome to Speaking with Joy, a podcast to fill your soul, challenge your mind, and make you brave.

I'm your host, Joy Clarkson, and an evangelist for all things good, true, and beautiful.

So make yourself a cup of tea, find somewhere comfortable, and let's dive in to this week's episode. Welcome back to a series on my new book,

You Are a Tree, and other metaphors to nourish life, thought, and prayer. On this episode, I'm joined by

David Zoll to discuss the sixth metaphor in my book. Sadness is heavy. David Zoll is an author,

podcaster, and the director of Mockingbird Ministries. On this episode, we discuss the inevitable

burdens of life, whether people are sadder than they used to be, the refreshing power of humor to remind us that we are not alone, and the efficacy of Thomas Aquinas's remedies for sorrow. I hope this conversation lightens your day as much as it lightened wine.

Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Speaking with Joy. This is another episode in my series,

very loosely engaging with the themes and metaphors of my book, You Are a Tree. And I was particularly excited about this week.

I'm excited about all the conversations I have, but we're having back on the show someone who I spoke with, I think, just a little over a year now. It seems like a very packed year. So it feels

like it was two years, but I think it was just about a year ago. I'm very happy to welcome

on the show, Dave Saul.

Thank you for having me, Joy. It's great to be back. Dave gave a very kind endorsement of the book.

I was thinking this morning about the UK versus American lingo on books. So in the UK, if someone gives an endorsement, they give

a blurb. Whereas in America, it's like an endorsement. And I think an endorsement sounds very

serious. It sounds like I'm like a presidential candidate. I hereby endorse this book.

But, well, before I say other things, Dave, why don't you give a little bit of introduction to yourself and what you do and what you care about?

Sure.

Well, I'm an author as well.

We talked last year about my book, Low Anthropology, and I run an organization called Mockingbird, and we're a platform and a magazine and website

and do a bunch of podcasts myself, including The Mockingcast.

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