Can you tell us about your beautiful new book first?

Yes.

Well, I always say I write the books that I need, that my soul needs.

And so Our Daily Breath devotional is 365 prayers and practices that whisper peace in a shouting world.

Our life is so loud.

Our internal voice is so loud.

The demands of, you know, just family life and work life is loud, and then we have the broader, you know, societal noise constantly bombarding us.

[laughs]

Uh, so as you're walking through this contemplation, these breath prayers, it's coming in here and starting to form you, what impact does that have to your community, those around you? How does it move from a prayer for me to a prayer for community and the chaotic world that we live in?

in?Yeah, exactly.

You know, I think if we look at, like, people who are really on the front lines who are doing work to make our communities more whole and more just, and, and calling out when, you know, the marginalized have been hurt and the vulnerable have been taken advantage of, and, and greed and power, um, are the ones kind of leading the charge, and you have these people kind of working day in and day out tirelessly to fight against that, if something isn't filling them back up, the burnout rate is huge, right? Like, and so if we want to transform our communities, if we wanna create a flourishing world where we're truly loving our neighbor as ourselves, we have to do that inner work.

If we're just doing the inner work, then it, it becomes a little bit of, uh, navel-gazing, right? Like, it comes a little bit of like, "Well, this is just about me." But the Christian story and who we are in Christ is never just about us.

It's us being transformed so that we can transform the world, so that we can...

We're remade so we can remake the world in Christ's love and in the power of Christ, right? And so that is something I tried to incorporate in Our Daily Breath is it's never...

It's always about us connecting with God, but it's never just about us connecting with God, because we also connect with God when we are changed alongside our neighbors, right? When we are living kind of in step and following the way of Jesus, right, a- and trying to be transformed and live our lives as Jesus lived his life, right? And so, um, because I am renewed, because I am paying attention to God's presence in the present moment, because of that, I can go out and do hard things, you know? It's this kind of yes and.

... uh, what hope do you have for this?

[gentle music] For me, contemplative practices help me be more awake to my real life.

They help me listen to my life.

And isn't that what we do as makers and creators, is that we are paying attention to our lives and letting all of it be sacred, letting all of it be holy.

And so I think there really is this kind of dance between quieting down, being still, listening to the one who is giving each breath, and then creating out of it.

It's that inhale, the contemplation [chuckles] is the inhale, and then the exhale is what we do with it, what we make and what we create.

[gentle music]

You know? And so I'm just curious for, for those artists and creatives that want to kind of venture a little deeper into the contemplative life, what would you say to them?

You know, I feel so strongly that this contemplative journey is for all of us, and it is for our real lives.

What was it that inspired you to actually write about breath prayer? Was there something that launched you into this work?

Yeah.

Well, you know, my first book, To Light Their Way, which is a collection of prayers and liturgies for parents, I have a section in the back of the book that's all breath prayers, and they're kind of like for when you're overwhelmed, for when, um, you're celebrating, for, you know, through all of these different kind of life circumstances for parents.

And it- there's a short scripture and a breath prayer that go along, goes along with that scripture.

And I heard from time and time again from parents, you know, really around the world, like, "We love those breath prayers," because, you know, while we love to go in and find a larger prayer day to day, something we love to turn to is a super short, accessible prayer that's easy to remember, that...

And that helps us feel better, right? And we, we can talk about the science behind breathwork later.

But so I started to hear that that was something that was really resonating with real-life parents in real time in our real world.

And so for those who might be still questioning, like, is this still meaningful because they feel they're inexperienced to pray on their own, how does your devotional help reframe that for them?

What would you tell them about why prayer matters and where would you tell them to begin? What is that going to look like?

You know, I think so many of us have this idea of what the perfect prayer life should look like, right? It's this beautiful morning every morning with your coffee or your tea and your Bible and a really soul nourishing book and the birds are singing and that sounds lovely.

But for a lot of us, that's not probably what our day to day looks like.

Right.

And so I started to wonder, you know, I'm in this season of work and of raising four children and being part of my community.

And I started thinking, what would it look like right here in my real life to pray without ceasing? And so broadening this idea of what prayer even is, is a really great start for those of us who are beating ourselves up or say, I don't have a good prayer life or my prayer doesn't look maybe the way it should.

Or I'm, you know, this idea of like, I'm not a good Christian.

know,

It was Iowa, right?

Oh, yeah.

And it was a small Iowa airport to like the eastern Iowa airport in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

I had a speaking engagement.

So I was getting on a plane and I my husband was dropping me off.

It's about an hour away from where we live.

I was getting out of my Vinny minivan and I see what looks like a band van getting out of a minivan as well.

Tell us about, you know, your work and who might be interested in checking those resources out.

Uh, so, you know, being the author of Our Daily Breath, Every Season Sacred, and To Light Their Way, and the creator of, uh, Liturgies for Parents, uh, tell us about, you know, your work and who might be interested in, uh, checking those resources out.

Absolutely.

Well, it's so funny because I have a Substack, and every week I make a playlist, right? I love music, and this is a way, you know, that we can connect with God and ourselves and each other is through music.

And I'm often putting music that I write to on those playlists, and it is not uncommon for Switchfoot to find [laughs] themselves on those playlists, which is kind of funny.

But yeah, I, I write the books I need, you know? And so To Light Their Way was my first book.

It's a collection of prayers and liturgies for parents, and it's really just simple prayers you can pray when you don't have the words yourself, right? And it's for all different situations, the small, maybe ordinary, seemingly mundane.

Maybe it's back to school.

It's only been out a little while here, but what's been your kind of early take on this song, Beautiful Life?