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What if wonder isn’t a luxury but a way of seeing that heals how we live? Shelly and Heather open the door to a practice of holy attention, starting with a simple moment on a city sidewalk: a box labeled “Free Lemons.” From that humble gift flows a conversation about abundance, beauty, and the courage to notice what is already with us. We explore how awe differs from endless questioning, and how sensory prayer—touching, smelling, tasting—can reawaken the heart to God’s nearness and the dignity in our neighbors.

We move from contemplation to action, reflecting on Jesus’ everyday goodness: sharing meals, binding wounds, and paying the cost for someone else’s healing. That picture reframes what church can be in public life—a dependable address for kindness, patience, and steady help. Along the way, we name the noise that hijacks our attention, from relentless alerts to manipulative marketing, and we learn a kind of “spiritual caller ID” to tell the difference between a sacred invitation and a hollow distraction. Fear shrinks the path, but love widens it; the narrow way turns out to be the focused, expansive path of unity in a tribal age.

Around the table of belonging, even doubters and deniers find a seat. We remember that family is messy, yet held together by mercy, and that we’re invited to be light that points out goodness wherever it’s piled high—on street corners, in kitchens, in communities that choose service over spectacle. Come for the stories, stay for the gentle practices, and leave with a renewed desire to tell everyone where the goodness is.

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What if communion is less about rules and more about a living practice that heals our hunger for belonging? We sit down to reframe the table as a place of remembrance, courage, and everyday resistance—where bread meets body wisdom and wine meets shared responsibility. Starting with a growing pantry of rituals—anointing oil, candlelight, silence, movement, Celtic prayers, tea in warm hands, thresholds, altars, and blessings—we explore how simple practices become portals to presence without caging the mystery.

Our conversation traces a journey from fear to curiosity. We name the ways many of us were taught to gatekeep the sacred and how we’ve unlearned exclusion to embrace an open table. “As often as you do this” becomes a call to embodied storytelling: recalling meals, friendships, and the women who tended the sacred. We talk about communion as an inclusive act—bread as the food of the poor, wine as the drink of the privileged—and how the table trains us to make room, wait for each other, and carry love into the street.

This episode closes with a full blessing for the table: come as you are, unmasked and honest; receive what is given; rise sent to live what love has taught. If you’ve felt shut out of the sacrament or hungry for a practice that meets real life, you’ll find language, courage, and practical ways to host open tables in your home, church, or neighborhood. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a seat, and leave a review to help more people find a table where they belong.

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A single change of light can restory a whole room—and a whole life. We open the new year inside Epiphany’s gentle glow, trading the harsh glare of judgment for the candlelit mercy that helps us see what’s been true all along: we are held, invited, and free to go home by another route. Shelly and Heather explore how sacred rhythms, awe, and unhurried attention can shift our perspective from scarcity to abundance, from self-critique to compassionate awareness.

We draw on the Magi’s journey as a living pattern: follow the star together, arrive in joy, offer what you carry, and then refuse the old path back to fear or control. That “different way home” speaks to anyone told they don’t belong—including LGBTQ listeners—affirming that home is found where love, not empire, names us. Along the way, we unpack the difference between womb-like rest and harmful darkness, and why curiosity loosens the knot between judgment and certainty.

You’ll hear simple, profound practices: breath prayers to calm the body, lighting a candle to mark sacred attention, stepping outside to recover awe under a night sky, and asking better questions about where your light is coming from in any moment. We invite women especially to claim 2026 as a year of telling a better story—shifting the source of light so beauty, dignity, and hope come into view. We close with a blessing for Epiphany that softens judgment, widens the heart, and teaches us to carry light that is gentle, brave, and generous.

If this conversation brightened something in you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review to help others find the light. For resources and community, visit expansionisttheology.com.