My guest for this episode is Robin Russell Gaiser. Robin is a Certified Music Practitioner who, for over sixteen years, offered live acoustic bedside music to the critically and chronically ill, elderly, and dying in hospitals, hospices, rehabs, and nursing and private homes. She gives us in-depth insight into her experiences in her wonderful book, Musical Morphine: Transforming Pain One Note at a Time which won a Best American Book award in 2017 and was the subject of a TEDx Talk in 2018.
As a Christian, Robin has understood her work as a ministry and has been shaped and guided by Hildegard of Bingen’s insight that “All music is an adornment of God. Sound is our true abode…all things are formed in sound.”
Robin is also the author of Open for Lunch which was the subject of an hour-long National Public Radio (NPR) interview.
You can learn more about Robin, her books, and interviews at her website:
Mark Yaconelli is a writer, retreat leader, community builder, spiritual director, storycatcher, husband, and father. He is the founder and executive director of The Hearth. Previously, he co-founded and served as program director for the Center for Engaged Compassion where he helped develop a unique set of practices and training programs for assisting individuals, organizations, and communities in cultivating compassion.
In this episode my guest, Adam Tice, share with us two of his hymns and talks with us about his work.
Adam was named a Lovelace Scholar by the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada. He served as a member of the Society’s executive committee from 2007 to 2010. He was Associate Pastor of Hyattsville (Maryland) Mennonite Church from 2007 to 2012. Adam now lives with his family in Goshen, Indiana. He is text editor for the 2020 Mennonite hymnal, Voices Together. In early 2020 he joined GIA as Editor for Congregational Song. Adam also leads workshops in writing congregational song, currents in congregational song and a cappella congregational song.
One of the things I have recently learned it that there isn’t just capitalism and socialism, but different kinds of capitalism and different kinds of socialism. In addition, there are alternatives to both of these approaches to economics, like ecological or steady state economics. Some forms of capitalism work better that others. Some forms of socialism work better that others.
What is clear, is that the ways we have done and are continuing to do capitalism in the United States has significant problems. So there are innovative experimentations happening in this country to provide alternative capitalisms. Among those are innovators exploring local economics and economies. Two of those innovators are Stephanie Swepson Twitty and Kevin Jones.
Stephanie is President and CEO of Eagle Market Streets Development Corporation. Eagle Market Streets is headquartered in the “oldest thriving African-American Commercial Business District in the country” in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Stephanie is a 20+ year veteran in the Not-for-Profit Industry. She is an economic development specialist, focusing on small business development asset building and wealth creation.
Kevin, and his wife, Rosa Lee Harden, are serial entrepreneurs. Together they founded Social Capital Markets, SOCAP, and began Neighborhood Economics. Kevin has seven successful startups and turnarounds and is a co-leader of the Swannanoa Watershed doughnuteconomics.org social action team in partnership with the Hendersonville, North Carolina based Latino Coop, Tierra Fertil.
They are here to help us understand both what they each are doing individually and what they are doing together collaboratively.
Hospice care and palliative care are closely related and sometimes overlapping, but both of these areas of medical care still greatly misunderstood. This episode focuses on hospice care. For a better understanding of this important and vital ministry and form of care I turn to the Reverends Leah Brown, Kelly Belcher, and Jody Griffin.
Leah Brown is Associate Pastor, Pastoral Care at First Baptist Church, Asheville, North Carolina. She joined the FBCA staff in 2008 and was ordained in 2010. She coordinates and provides pastoral care for the congregation. Leah graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from UNC-Asheville. She received her Master of Social Work from UNC-Chapel Hill and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Her clinical focus is aging and end-of-life care. Leah worked as a hospice social worker at CarePartners Hospice and Palliative Care from 1994-2007.
Kelly Belcher is a graduate of Meredith College and Southeastern Seminary. She has ministered in churches in NC and SC, and served as a writer for a Baptist news journal and has served as a hospice chaplain for the past 10 years.
Jody was a United States Army Reserve Chaplain with the 167TH Military Police Battalion and a Retired North Carolina Army National Guard Chaplain serving in United States Army and Navy confinement facilities. From 2016-2022 he was a community funded chaplain at Avery-Mitchell Correctional Institution. He is currently the pastor of Central Baptist Church, Spruce Pine, North Carolina and chaplain at Medi Hospice, Boone, North Carolina.
In this episode, my guest, Dr. Caroline Knox, helps us understand palliative care as a developing area in medical care.
Dr. Knox is a graduate of Wesleyan University and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She trained in Family Medicine at St. Mary’s Family Medicine Residency in Grand Junction, CO. She was a general practitioner in New Zealand before pursuing further training in Palliative Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. Dr. Knox has practiced palliative medicine at Mission Hospital since moving to Asheville with her family in 2014.
I had interviewed Stephen and Rachel Mosley as a part of the Foundling House Interview (PGE 33) and wanted to do a full episode on their music.
Rachel and Stephen Mosley met in a freshman year high school geography class sometime late last century. Married for twenty years, they’ve just recently begun to write and perform their own earthy, soft brand of folk, and to share it beyond their own front porch. Their music is heavily influenced by whatever they’re reading – Flannery O’Connor, Wendell Berry, and G.K. Chesterton are favorites – as well by their five wild and unruly red-headed children. You can learn more about Stephen and Rachel at themosleysmusic.com. The songs heard on this episode, ‘It’ll All Work Out,’ ‘Brighter Days,’ ‘Quiet on the Porch,’ and ‘Running Out the Road,’ come from their album, Ordinary Time and are used by permission.
Rachel, Inspired by her artistic, book-loving family, discovered her love of children’s illustration and was delighted to find that she has a real knack for it. She uses a combination of hand drawing and digital illustration in her work, and loves to experiment with new and unique printing processes. As the proud mom of five little citizens of the world, her work is particularly inspired by travel, nature and classic children’s literature. You can learn more about Rachel’s work at rachelmosley.com.
A native of Nottingham, England, Dr. Darren J. N. Middleton received his Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from the University of Manchester, his Master of Philosophy in Modern Christian Doctrine from the University of Oxford, and his Ph.D. in Literature and Theology from the University of Glasgow.
Darren is author or editor of a dozen books, and over 50 articles and book chapters, addressing such varied subjects as Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis, Japanese author Shusaku Endo, English novelist Graham Greene, and American writer Cormac McCarthy, along with studies of the Rastafari, an interest growing out of childhood friendship with Jamaican immigrants to his hometown.
This episode is the second interview with and about Christians in social work. The last episode focused upon the practitioners perspective. This episode focuses on the academic perspective. I am honored to have as my guests for this conversation Dr. Tanya Smith Brice, Dr. Jon E. Singletary, and Dr. Laine Scales.
Tanya is Vice President of Education at the Council on Social Work Education. Previously, she served as the Dean of the College of Professional Studies at Bowie State University and the Dean of the School of (Education) Health and Human Services at Benedict College.
She has served on the faculties of the University of South Carolina, Abilene Christian University, and Baylor University. Her research centers on addressing issues of structural violence specifically as it relates to the impact of those structures on African American people. Her publications focus on the development of the social welfare system by African American women for African American children and documents structural barriers to African American families. She provides consultation to community organizations, religious institutions, and educational institutions on the impact of their policies on African American families. She has taught and lectured all over the USA, as well as in the countries of Ghana, Sweden, Uganda, Colombia and the Republic of Moldova.
Jon was appointed dean of the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work in 2016 after having served as Associate Dean since 2011. He has held the Diana R. Garland Endowed Chair in Child and Family Studies in the School since 2010 and first joined the faculty in 2003. Jon directed the Baylor Center for Family and Community Ministries. In the Center, he helped lead $2 million of grant-related activities focused on studying congregational ministries that serve low-income communities. His scholarship has focused on a range of Christian ministries, including family-based care for orphans and vulnerable children in Sub-Saharan Africa. More recently, his research has focused on Christian contemplative practices and the Enneagram as a tool for spiritual formation. Related to that research, Jon is the author of Leadership by the Number: Using the Enneagram to Strengthen Educational Leadership. Before coming to Baylor, he served as a Mennonite Pastor and a community organizer in Richmond, VA.
The teaching of Jewish and Christian scripture, and for Christians, particularly the example and teachings of Jesus, Paul, and the first writers of Christian scripture have emphasized the mandate to care for people. Some of the roots of the caring efforts of social work are in the Jewish/Christian tradition. There is much parallel and overlap between social work and Judaism and Christianity. Some of Christianity’s most important and effective ministries are done by Christians in social work.
This episode and the next seeks to give us a better understanding of social work and its relationship with Christianity. We will explore this relationship from two perspectives–that of practitioners and that of scholars. The engagement in scholarship and in practice really is not separated in my guests. They each participate in both areas, but for conversational purposes, we make the distinction.
Rick is currently a self-employed faith-based nonprofit consultant. Before becoming self-employed, from 1988-1998 Rick was Director of Services and then Senior Vice President of Always Reaching for Independence. From 2006-2008 he was Assistant Professor of Social Work at Calvin College. And, from 1997-2021 Rick was Executive Director of North American Association of Christians in Social Work.
Lauren ‘Lo’ is the Political Director for Sojourners. Prior to coming to Sojourners, with over ten years of research, policy, advocacy, and government relations, Lo worked in domestic and international public health advocacy for a number of large nonprofit organizations. At Sojourners, Lo is responsible for developing and implementing Sojourners’ policy strategy, positioning, framing, messaging, and advocacy for outreach and impact on Capitol Hill and the presidential administration.
Lloyd has served in contexts dealing with child welfare and those living with opioid addiction and HIV/AIDS. He served in several hospitals and was the director of social services of a front-line AIDS housing/hospice serving the neediest people dying of AIDS in the Philadelphia region. Lloyd then transitioned to teaching undergraduate social work students leading a Department of Social Work which later became a School of Social Work with the addition of a Master of Social Work Program. After 23 years of academic life, Lloyd was appointed as the current Executive Director of the North American Association of Christians in Social Work.