Gareth Higgins - A Little Lower Than the Angels (N343)

Nomad Podcast

Tim Nash

Christianity, Faithshift, Deconstruction, Christianmysticism, Religion & Spirituality, Christianspirituality, Progressivechristian, Christian, Religion, Emergingchurch

4.7 • 658 Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this special Easter meditation, writer and storyteller Gareth Higgins invites us into a deeper experience of reality—one rooted not in fear, despair, or division, but in love.

With characteristic warmth and clarity, Gareth reflects on the challenges of our time: overwhelming empathy, collapsing certainties, and the temptation to believe that love is unrealistic. Yet through all this, he offers a simple but radical reframing—what if we are not only capable of love, but made of it?

Drawing from spiritual wisdom traditions and personal insight, Gareth gently calls us to see ourselves and one another as we truly are: not broken beyond repair, not merely surviving—but bearers of gifts and just a little lower than the angels.

Following Gareth’s reflection, Anna Robinson leads us in a gentle stilling and examen practice, inviting us to pause, listen, and carry the meditation into our lived experience.

Original music for this episode was composed and produced by Wilderthorn.

Books, quotes, links →

The creation of Nomad's thoughtful, wonderfully ad-free content is entirely funded by our equally thoughtful, wonderful listeners. Supporting us gives access to Nomad's online communities through the Beloved Listener Lounge, Enneagram Lounge and Nomad Book Club - as well as bonus content like Nomad Contemplations, Therapeutic Reflections and Nomad Revisited.

If you'd like to join our lovely supporters head to our Patreon Page to donate and you may even be rewarded with a pen or Beloved Listener mug!

If you're hoping to connect with others who are more local, you can also take a look at our Listener Map or join our Nomad Gathering Facebook page.

Additionally, we share listener's stories on our blog, all with the hope of facilitating understanding, connection and supportive relationships.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The Welcome back to Nomad Podcast. I'm Anna Robinson and we have a slightly different episode for you today.
0:43.9	This is a devotional episode and we offer these a number of times during the year.
0:50.1	If you would like to help us keep producing episodes like this one or the normal Nomad episodes and interviews and chats that we have as hosts, then you can support our work at patreon.com forward slash nomad podcast and you can receive lots of bonus material if you do that.
1:07.9	But here we're going to hear some thoughts from Gareth Higgins, who is a writer and a
1:13.6	storyteller. If you want to dig deeper into some of the themes that Gareth raises in this reflection,
1:20.5	then you can check out his book How Not to Be Afraid, Seven Ways to Live When Everything Seems
1:26.2	Terrifying. Or you can go to his website,
1:29.9	garethhiggins.net or the porch community.net.
1:35.6	If you're interested in more of my work,
1:38.5	in contemplation and mysticism,
1:41.0	faith shifting and deconstruction,
1:43.3	then you can visit my website and sign up to my mailing list
1:46.5	at live light dwell deep.org. And the music for this devotional episode was written and performed by
1:56.4	John Bilbara, known musically as Wilderthorn, and you can find out more about John's work at
2:02.7	wilderthorthorne.com. You will hear from me again at the end of Garris's reflection, and I'm
2:10.2	going to lead you in a stilling exercise using the breath, and then a simple examine practice
2:16.2	to help us process and assimilate and contemplate
2:21.3	further on Gareth's words.
2:24.8	The examine is a really beautiful tool that was created by St. Ignatius of Loyola to support
2:32.4	his followers in discerning the movements of the soul. He talks about
2:38.1	consolation, which is a movement towards God, and desolation, which is a movement away from God.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tim Nash, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Tim Nash and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.