Happy Friday, friends!
Here’s the latest in our scheduled No Sermons updates, that come out exactly whenever I think there’s something to say.
Our widening circle
Did we really get 2,460 views on our ‘Eyeing up death’ piece? Substack says so. I remain skeptical, but I’ll take it as true, since that feels good.
We’re active in two big (one of them really big) spirituality interest groups on LinkedIn, and there’s also been a lot of commentary action lately on YouTube channels, big and small, wherever has seemed germane.
Duplicate content, and this is why
The astute will readily see that the podcast and print content in No Sermons is identical. That’s because experience in another project like this (perhaps you’ll remember twtapodcast dot com) taught me that listeners don’t read, and readers don’t listen. This newsletter being a reading medium, you may indeed never have listened to any of the audio episodes. You don’t need to.
Topics thus far covered
My word, but we have covered ground. We’ve examined perspectives on death, on the religious mileage within paranormal experiences, and on improvising liturgy with smoke; we’ve done some debunking about Olden Religion, clarified what ‘Jesus’ means metaphysically, and considered how to emulate Him better than getting all isolated and meditative; we’ve also talked about what prophecy isn’t, and offered some Franciscan ideas for being nice. Oh, and I’ve explained why MAGA Christians all need a good spanking. That one got a LOT of attention, and so it should have.
Coming up next? Well, we shall see.
Chat
There’s a chat feature here at No Sermons, which looks like a tab at the top of your screen. Click it when you feel like saying something. Don’t wait for the Spirit to move you. Just click it. We do a lot of talking around here, and ‘we’ includes you, obviously. So just click it.
By the bye, if you want to reach me, or whomever happens to be in the shop besides me (remember, this is not the Duncan Fisher show), the e-mail address is ‘nosermons@substack.com’.
Spotify, Apple, and some other scrapers
I lost patience with Spotify last night and got on the horn with them and made them get our podcast onto their platform. My wrath was only partly justified. Half the problem lay with Substack. These two entities appear to have a strained relationship. That’s none of my business (or actually, it kind of is, I guess), but we’re now on Spotify, anyway, or we will be ‘in a few hours’, if I take their confirmation verbiage literally.
Yes, we’re on Apple, and I’ve seen us on one or two other platforms I’ve never heard of. Fine.
Things to be reading
Before I forget, I’ve been populating ‘Books We Like’ (see the tab on your screen). This is an idea I purloined from my favorite Mormon feminist podcast, because it’s a very good idea. Look within it for interesting titles, with synopses and easy links straight to Goodreads.
Hospice Podcast Project
Finally, I have an Episcopal funding body interested in a grant I’m finishing today for a podcast series (5 episodes or so) on the dying journey, called ‘Voices from the Hospice’. And I have an enthusiastic verbal Yes to the idea from the hospice where I spend a lot of time volunteering. Watch this space. This is very exciting to me, and to everyone else who has heard about it.
Let us go forth in peace, and be sure to forward this
Okay? Blessings on you, and here we go!
D+