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Think of it like a shot of espresso, for your soul. Short, weekly, and thought-provoking, The Saturday Stoke gives listeners spiritual encouragement and a bit of challenge for their weekend. Join writer, author, beauty chaser, and adventurer Timothy Willard (PhD, King's College London) for this short morsel of spiritual goodness designed to spur you on in your faith journey.
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Subscribe on itunes Transcript For 36 hours I stared at the mist gathering in the valley from my cabin perch and discussed the world and heaven with two close friends. It was mid-summer in the Black Mountains. The Black Mountains of western North Carolina rise to the clouds. A spur of the Appalachian Range, they contain six of the east’s highest pe…
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In 1994 architect and critic Jonathan Hale wrote a brilliant little book titled The Old Way of Seeing. In it, he laments the loss of life and play in modern American architecture. Hale points to 1830 as the turning point. Hale says prior to the 1830s architecture was altogether focused on something different. There was a magic to it—and intuitive b…
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Listen to The Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Why are we drawn to the idea of adventure? What is an adventure? What does the word mean? Certain words in our culture suffer from overuse and adventure is one of them. Watered down, these overused words become castaways in the lexicon of everyday language; once carrying significance, only to drift into the s…
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Listen to The Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Read the Stoke The stoke is back. And in my mind, we need it now more than ever. 2020 jolted us with a bit of despair and a dash of “Get me out of here,” or “Come, Jesus, come.” Seems like everyone believes their view is the best and if your view doesn’t jive, then you’re outta here. But we all know that reas…
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Listen to The Stoke Now is not the time to hide. In-doors, in yourself, in your heart, in your faith. A price was paid for you. Two thousand years ago the one they called Immanuel did something that shook the world. He introduced a new way to live, a new way to be alive. He invited me and you to be part of his kingdom—a spiritual kingdom—a spiritua…
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Listen to The Stoke “The fire is the main comfort of camp, whether in summer or winter.” — Henry David Thoreau Sometimes, all you need is a fire. The other day I went to the doctor for a routine check-up. The nurse and I chit-chatted about COVID and the crazy year we like to call 2020. I told her about the bonfires we like to have in our cul-de-sac…
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Listen to The Stoke If you and I want to contribute to making the world a better place, a more beautiful place, then we must learn to give up our self. This is a requirement of beauty—the kind of beauty we understand and see with the eyes of the heart. But beauty doesn’t seem to be on the minds of the public right now. It seems like the thing peopl…
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Listen to The Stoke Want to keep up with inspirational posts like this? Consider signing up for my Further Up newsletter (look in the sidebar to the right). Want to know why I call this post “The Saturday Stoke?” Read this. Don’t Fear Being an Outsider In our culture, the loudest voices win. At least that’s what we think. And that’s what we’re told…
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Listen to The Stoke A battle rages for your soul. The powers that be vie for your attention and when they seize your attention, they have your eyes, and your eyes are the portals to your heart. They know that if they can flood your attention with sugary sweet images, cliche stories, and the quick-fix that is the train wreck of reality television, t…
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Listen to The Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Time never stops moving. It clips off pieces of eternity by the second, minute, hour, day, week. We travel through time. But we cannot go back in time. Here are three hacks to help us be better time travelers? First, DON'T STEP ON THE SUNSHINE “Ah yes,” you say, “I was just thinking about this very thing for …
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Listen to The Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Read The Stoke If you ever have the chance, do yourself a favor and explore the Four Corners area where New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona all meet. It’s the kind of place that feels like God took extra care to create. In New Mexico, you can drive a hundred miles in any direction, stop the car, and step …
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Read The Saturday Stoke Potential. Potential surrounds us. The day giving way to night, the night filling with sounds and shadows. Every movement of time carries the potential for something else whether it’s sunrise or sunset. Clouds form, winds gather, and there is potential for a storm. Our very ex…
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Listen to The Stoke "Whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear or harm." (Proverbs 1:33, ESV) Theologians say the earth was formed from wisdom, from the logos or Word of God. There is in everything we see and hear and taste and experience, the wisdom of God. In the Scriptures, King Solomon urges us to seek the wisdom of…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Read The Saturday Stoke “Humility is a virtue of self-understanding in context, acquired by the practice of other centeredness.” — Lisa Fullam We live in a time in which cultural pressures make it hard to know when to speak up and when to be quiet. Sadly, social media and other channels of the world …
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Sitting with friends we heard them. Out there in the night, amid the terrible and beautiful sounds of a pounding summer storm cell passing through the piedmont. “Storms are strange here,” my friend Jo lines to say. “It will flood in one area while another remains untouched.” But not so on this night.…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunes During term time for our girls, once a week they pack in the old rover with their mom and head off to their Classical Conversations co-op. The fun and frantic morning fills up with feet running up and down stairs, with lunches being made, with arguments and laughter and finally kisses and good-byes. …
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Thoreau said, “All good things are wild and free.” His now-famous statement comes at the end of a rather lengthy but well-wrought and important essay on the value of “Nature,” walking, and wildness. In the essay, Thoreau notices how all great founders of nations and empires did so after being weened …
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Today I want us to take a few minutes to think about the power of words. How do we use them? What good are they? But even more than words, I want us to think about where we find words. We find words on a page. Before the internet—yes, I know, can we even think that far back to the dark ages?—the almi…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunesBy Timothy Willard
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunes “I don’t want to forget what I love when I get older.” That’s what my daughter, Brielle—who is ten years old—said to me the other day. She observed how grown-ups, as she called them, stop doing the things they love to do. “Why do they do that, Daddy?” she asked. And it’s a good question. Why do adult…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds. It’s a podcast that looks like Spanish moss hanging off of an oak tree in th…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds. It’s a podcast that tastes like buttermilk pancakes, and sounds like great h…
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Listen to The Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Today’s stoke is all about the hope of our faith. This week I marveled at the beauty of God’s word and how it weaves together a story of rescue for his children. As I reflected on the rescue part, my spirit recoiled at the truth of our exile status. First, exiled from the Garden. Then we witness the exile of …
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunes Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds. It’s a podcast that tastes like avocado toast, and feels like spring rain on…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe on iTunes It’s a crazy time to be alive. The Coronavirus has the world in a frenzy and for good reason. In these unprecendented times, it can be hard to know how to “be.” Fear grips some. Uncertainty plagues others. Some carry on like nothing’s happening. But I do have a few thoughts I wanted to share during t…
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Subscribe on iTunes Listen to The Stoke Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds. It’s a podcast that looks like spring daffodils on the side of a mountain and smells …
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Subscribe on iTunes Listen to The Saturday Stoke Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds. It’s a podcast that feels like your favorite old hat, and smells roasted mar…
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Subscribe to The Saturday Stoke Podcast Listen to The Saturday Stoke Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds. It’s a podcast that sounds like water crashing of a 500 …
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe to The Saturday stoke Podcast What is silence? How does one remember a time of hush? It’s a sound, but not really. More like what a sound feels like when you live it. More like what a sound looks like when you remember it. That’s what I remember. That’s what I remember from the morning when Jessie, Sammy, my b…
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Subscribe to The Saturday Stoke Podcast Listen to The Saturday Stoke read The Saturday Stoke I’ve caught myself telling my daughters to be kind to each other as I holler at them for being unkind. How embarrassing. Can anyone relate? What’s the matter Tim, can’t practice what you preach? Well, many days, no. But I do my best. I suppose the point is …
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds. It’s a podcast that feels like warm slippers on cold feet and sounds like winter rain on a tin r…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe to The Saturday stoke Podcast Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds. It’s a podcast that feels like a hug from an old friend,…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe to The Saturday Stoke Podcast ““Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury - to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind.” ” — Albert Einstein Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspi…
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Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds. It’s a podcast that feels like fresh snow on your fingertips and tastes like fresh apple pie. Thanks for joining me. It’s bee…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe to The Saturday Stoke on iTunes Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds. It’s a podcast that feels like home and tastes like fr…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds. If you were able to join us last week, I had some rather long-winded thoughts on Joy. After all,…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subscribe to The Saturday Stoke on iTunes Tis the season for Joy. What is joy, really? It’s an emotional and spiritual reaction to Beauty. We experience beauty with our whole beings. The Joy experience pulls on our hearts and minds. It irrupts into our lives, opening our eyes, changing our perspectives, and moulding our…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke I’ve been looking backwards lately. Something I do this time every year. I steal away for a long walk in the woods, or I’ll take a drive into the country just to think. It’s how I macro-edit my life. In the writing world, a macro-edit is what you might call taking a thirty-thousand-foot view of the material, and seeing …
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Subsribe on iTunes For as long as I can remember the outside world, with its natural wonder, has spoken to me through its beauty, and all the different elements associated with it; elements such as delight, Joy, awe, dread, longing, and hope. Creation Speaks. When I was boy, for example, I remember laying on my back ben…
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Introducing The Saturday Stoke Podcast Subscribe to The Saturday Stoke Podcast Listen to The Saturday Stoke The holiday season is upon us. And what a blessed time it is. Family and friends gathering for turkey and ham and football and long cold walks in the woods. Memorable nights talking around the fire.Well, that's what I remember from childhood,…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Coming Soon on iTunes! An ancient Japanese story tells about a Sakai tea man who found a brilliant Chinese tea jar. He was so pleased with his find that he invited the famed tea man Sen no Rikyu to a gathering of friends to show off the beautiful piece. But to the Sakai man’s amazement, when he served tea in the lovely …
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke Who I am was forged on the long road behind me. The road? It’s tangled and hard and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Before working from home as a writer, researcher and dad to three faerie-princess-warriors in North Carolina, I was a forty-something Ph.D. student who stepped out of his writing career to obey God’s …
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Subscribe to The Saturday Stoke Listen to The Saturday Stoke Who are you trying to impress? Stop it. Whenever I detect behavior from my daughters that I know they’ve picked up from someone else, I ask them, “Is that who you are?” They now the question is coming, and they’re quick with their retort: “No, Daddy.” Cue the eye-roll. But I also sense th…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke To be known. It’s a primary human longing. We seek it in everything we do. In our work and in our relationships, the desire to be known for something and by someone drives us. The lack of “being known” also contributes to the growth of despair in our lives. Negatively, the drive to be known can consume us. Kierkegaard s…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke I am tired of being harried by the noise of my world. I want to find peace in the midst of chaos. I want to make space for beauty in my life—I want it to touch me through not only my eyes but through my ears and nose and skin. I want to greet beauty in the smile of a random walker. So, I come to the meadow, my park of c…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke How can it be that God never changes? We almost can’t fathom it, can we? We live in a transient world; marked by change and movement toward change. Technology becomes obsolete after only a few months. We need new television shows, or we lose interest. And most people don’t stay in their current jobs for more than a few …
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Subscribe to The Saturday Stoke Podcast Listen to The Saturday Stoke When was the last time you felt really inspired? I recently met with a few men to discuss the passions and values that give life meaning and ignite it with passion. I left the meeting invigorated. The words we shared inspired my heart and sent ideas racing through my mind. I love …
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Subscribe to The Saturday Stoke Podcast Listen to The Saturday Stoke #5 Read The Saturday Stoke #5 “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward. Adventure i…
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Listen to The Saturday Stoke “Maybe all a man gets is strength to wander for a while. Maybe the only gift is a chance to inquire, to know nothing for certain. An inheritance of wonder and nothing more.” — William Least Heat Moon, "Blue Highways" Thank goodness for life’s backroads; for by-way living; for the green-dotted roads. You know, those road…
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Listen to the Saturday Stoke “The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists in shoving it all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.” — C.S. Lewis, …
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