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Nomad Podcast

Mark Vernon - Silence and the Search for God (N368)

Nomad Podcast

Nomad

Post-evangelical, Reconstruction, Liberation Theology, Religion & Spirituality, Christian Mysticism, Progressive Christianity, Faith Shift, Deconstruction, Evolving Faith, Religious Trauma Healing, Embodied Spirituality, Spiritual Direction, Mystical Christianity, Contemplative Spirituality, Christianity

4.7 • 689 Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2026

⏱️ 84 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What if the deepest encounters with the divine are not dramatic or ecstatic, but quiet, steady, and hidden in ordinary life?
Mark Vernon returns to Nomad to explore silence, mysticism, and the search for God after disillusionment. Reflecting on his own journey through priesthood, contemplative practice, psychotherapy and spiritual direction, Mark speaks about finding a form of Christianity rooted less in performance or certainty, and more in attention, presence and the inner life.

In this conversation, Tim and Mark discuss The Cloud of Unknowing, Julian of Norwich, William Blake, spiritual homelessness, and why the mystical tradition may still have something vital to offer those who feel drawn to Christ but no longer fit easily within institutional church life.

Following the interview Nomad hosts Tim and Anna reflect on their own relationship with mysticism, and the way it has shaped their evolving faith.

Interview starts at 12m 48s

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Transcript

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0:00.0

The

0:07.0

The Welcome back to Nomad Podcast. I'm Tim Nash and this is my old mate Anna Robinson.

0:41.3

Hello, hello. You had a rare offline meetup with a fellow nomad host the other day, didn't you? Did you have a nice time with Joy?

0:48.1

Oh, so nice. It was so nice to see Joy in person. So nice to see all of you in persons. A rarity, a rarity for me. Yeah, we went to a nice cafe. Actually, I got her to meet me at a cafe near us, a lovely vegan cafe in the park. And then it was closed. Classic Cornwall. I did check to see if it was open, but it's kind of, we got there. And then I was like, oh, no. But then we went to another lovely cafe with a vegan offering. Did you talk much about me and Nick? No, it didn't really, Tim. Oh, come on. It was lovely. It was just really nice to chat and catch up. Actually, we're doing a pop-up soon. You know, I do, well, I don't know if you'd know, but I do face-shift conversations. And the last one was on Easter. What do we make of that now? And I'm doing one with joy. So we were chatting about that, actually, because we're going to be thinking about how we engage with feminist theology. Oh, nice. That sounds interesting. Yeah, yeah. So that was fun. But mainly we just ate nice food. Anything else been going on? Been to any more raves or are your knees still recovering from the last one? My knee is actually still, I've got an ice pack on it at the moment. Have you? Yeah. They took a battering, didn't they? It really did. A few people through my work have mentioned that, which is funny. It's funny you forget the things you say on here.

2:03.0

I've joined a choir since our last chat.

2:05.3

Nice.

2:05.8

I know, really lovely, kind of sing Cornish folk songs, real mixture of kind of different things.

2:13.3

Yeah, lovely, lovely group.

2:14.8

And it's their 20th year anniversary of this choir.

2:17.1

Wow.

2:34.5

It's amazing. So that's been fun. Very enlivening. And I joined it through joining another thing that this lovely woman does, which is called Sing for Your Heart, Sing for Your Soul. And she does it once a month. And just loads of people gather. And she just gets people to sing a cappella four-part harmonies of really really kind of simple songs and then you get to walk around when you've got your part you walk around and it's

2:39.6

funny when you walk around singing because when you sing you kind of I sing and I can't I'm

2:44.8

automatically smiling when I sing and then you're walking around singing and just sort of looking

2:48.5

into people's eyes and sort of smiling and singing and oh it oh, it's just, it's really hard to explain. But it's very, it is very good for your heart and very good for your soul. I've heard it said that when you sing together, like the group's heartbeat begins to sink as your kind of breathing sinks. Wouldn't surprise me. It is quite, there's a alchemy that happens when, when you sing songs and

3:09.1

it's beautiful, isn't it? And this choir sing beautifully, like there's love, it's just the harmonies, the simplicity of it. And everyone's just so friendly. Everyone's just so lovely. And I'm, they're like, oh, you and you. And I'm like, yes. And I asked them how long they've been the choir. I've been coming for about 15 years.

3:23.7

I find it extraordinary because I've moved a lot.

3:26.0

I don't know why it's really blamed my mind,

3:27.2

but people who, you know. Amazing. How about you? Anything going on in the, oh my goodness, my perimen, the Nash household? I forgot your surname.

3:45.5

You forgot our surname in the last episode we did together as well.

3:48.6

I have this thing where, I don't know if anyone else.

3:50.7

It's literally written on the screen in front of you, Anna.

3:53.1

Look at the screen. It says Tim Nash.

...

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