The

The Welcome back to Nomad Podcast. I'm Anna Robinson and we have a slightly different episode for you today.

This is a devotional episode and we offer these a number of times during the year.

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.

But here we're going to hear some thoughts from Gareth Higgins, who is a writer and a

storyteller. If you want to dig deeper into some of the themes that Gareth raises in this reflection,

then you can check out his book How Not to Be Afraid, Seven Ways to Live When Everything Seems

Terrifying. Or you can go to his website,

garethhiggins.net or the porch community.net.

If you're interested in more of my work,

in contemplation and mysticism,

faith shifting and deconstruction,

then you can visit my website and sign up to my mailing list

at live light dwell deep.org. And the music for this devotional episode was written and performed by

John Bilbara, known musically as Wilderthorn, and you can find out more about John's work at

wilderthorthorne.com. You will hear from me again at the end of Garris's reflection, and I'm

going to lead you in a stilling exercise using the breath, and then a simple examine practice

to help us process and assimilate and contemplate

further on Gareth's words.

The examine is a really beautiful tool that was created by St. Ignatius of Loyola to support

his followers in discerning the movements of the soul. He talks about

consolation, which is a movement towards God, and desolation, which is a movement away from God.

...