Creating Sacred Space, Part One

How do you connect with God?

We’re all unique in the ways that we make connections with people and the world around us. There are entire curriculums dedicated to helping people better understand their personality types and how they can more effectively engage with coworkers, friends or family. In the same way that we need guidance and creativity in connecting with each other, we believe that we should put just as much if not more effort into finding better ways to personally connect with God.

A quiet time is a term many people (including us at Deep Spirituality) use to describe a time we block out every day to read our Bibles and pray. And as is the case with most religious activities, our quiet times can over time devolve into a ritual – something we know we should get done every day. If you’re trying hard to be a “Good Christian”, you likely can relate to feeling a level of guilt at some point about your quiet times: I didn’t spend enough time praying, I was half asleep while trying to read my Bible, and so on.

In this series, Russ Ewell and friends discuss their different approaches in how they spend time with God, and give practical advice on how to make your quiet times deeper, more personal and more intimate. In part one, they explain what it means to create a sacred space, which is a special state of mind you can achieve where you are free from distraction and able to devote your entire mind and heart to God.

Transcription

Russ Ewell: 00:06 Hello. I want to welcome you to the deep spirituality podcast. We’re excited today. We’re going to be working on some really cool stuff having to do with how to have a quiet time. And it’s pretty basic for a lot of people. They get up in the morning and have a devotional or what a lot of my friends call it “quiet time” where they read the Bible and they pray. Today we’ve got four of us on this particular podcast that is an addition to coming home. We had a couple of coming home, a few coming home podcast before and this pod is building on that, but we hope to put together about three of them. In the ensuing weeks, days, whatever it is, that are on how to have a quiet time with me on the podcast. Are Cameron, Chiara and Rhett and, uh, all three of them work with teenagers, and try to help teenagers learn how to have a quiet time. Later on, we’re going to be talking about a new idea that I think came, my wife really created, called DIY and which is really gonna talk about how to actually learn how to have a quiet time and then be able to do it on your own, for teenagers particularly, learning how to do that, learning how to have personal time with God. So this one is called creating sacred space. How to have a quiet time. Let’s call it chapter one. And before we get rolling any further and get into the deep part of it, I just want to find out, what Rhett and Chiara, think about a quiet time. What do they think a quiet time is and how do they feel about quiet times or quiet times hard for you. Just give me a couple of thoughts, and they’re are new to the podcast, so we’re going to get them loosened up and relax on the mics.

Rhett Snell: 02:01 Yeah. Actually, it was funny, I was listening to your guys’ podcast, the first coming home one where you talked a little bit about quiet times with Parker and David and I was thinking about what I think it is. And I realize that most of the time I’m doing it because I’m doing it because I think it’s going to help me control myself, control my emotions, control my day, I’m going to feel better. But really I was praying about it more this morning thinking like what it should be more as a way for me to connect with God. Like this is my time to connect and emotionally, spiritually, just think more about God and how he influences my day. So I don’t know, that’s kind of think what I think…

Russ Ewell: 02:40 So, you know, one of the things I always ask everybody who comes on podcasts is do they come from religious background? And not because it makes a huge difference. Like some people like me hit church and we’re like, all right, what’s a bible and what do you want? What? I had no idea what it was to have any kind of quiet time that was, you know, I didn’t have quiet time. So what’s your background?

Rhett Snell: 02:58 Yeah, so I definitely have a religious background. Grew up going to church my whole life. We started going to a Catholic church and then this nondenominational church. And so it’s always been part of my background. Mom woke us up every Sunday to go to church until about high school. Then she kind of let us do our own thing, whatever we wanted. And then through college pretty much totally dropped it.

Russ Ewell: 03:18 So you’ve been around this a long time?

Rhett Snell: 03:19 Yeah.

Russ Ewell: 03:20 You’ve been around this a long time…

Rhett Snell: 03:21 Yeah. Yeah. But I never really read the Bible though, actually. Like really that whole time, you know, like we,

Russ Ewell: 03:26 So you’re going to church, but you weren’t really reading the Bible.

Rhett Snell: 03:27 Yeah.

Russ Ewell: 03:28 You think that’s a lot of kids who grew up in churches do that or you think that’s common or uncommon?

Rhett Snell: 03:32 Oh, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Most of my friends who I grew up with, I grew up in Orange County, pretty conservative religious area and everyone went to church. But no one ever talked about the Bible. Like I’d never spend anytime reading it. So interesting.

Russ Ewell: 03:47 What about you Chiara?

Chiara Marquez: 03:49 My religious background? Yeah. I mean I grew up… My family also kind of popped into different kinds of churches, nondenominational denominational, Catholic. I started coming consistently coming to church when I was in high school. But prior to that, even though we were religious, we didn’t own a Bible either, like we didn’t even own a Bible, but we, you know, talked about believing in God and we went to different churches cause the people. So when I first started reading the, I, I didn’t even know like the books of the Bible or that there’s an old testament new testament, I felt like I had to be taught all that or verses or chapters and the whole concept of a relationship with God, that was just totally foreign. I thought it was just a whole bunch of stories that you just read and learned.

Russ Ewell: 04:33 Was the Bible considered boring or like me, I a was, I, you know, I didn’t want to go to church so I was not around it. But I did read it at age 12. My mom brought one home and I read anything you put, my mom’s by me, Shakespeare comic books and I’d read those. I read, I read anything. So I started reading it and I thought, “oh this is very interesting” cause I’d read literature. But did you find, did you find it boring or do you just, you what, what do you think it was? “It’s boring. It’s doesn’t apply.” What do you think was like, why didn’t you go out and just grab one?

Rhett Snell: 05:01 Yeah, I think for me when I went to the Catholic church, they kind of, it’s a very formal thing. Like someone stands up there, they have the big Bible that’s reading from the book of book of Mark and then you read it and it’s in King James and it’s like hard to understand. So it never even occurred to me that I should read it at home. I just was never…

Russ Ewell: 05:22 I think that’s not just Catholic churches are large churches where you get up and read it. So I don’t, I don’t, you know, Catholics are no different anybody else, right? Church I go to, we stand up and read it and I think a lot of people feel the same way. So I don’t think it’s unique to any particular church. What do you, what are you thinking over there Chiara?

Chiara Marquez: 05:35 Well, I mean for me it wasn’t, yeah, it was boring. But the problem was I didn’t understand it.

Russ Ewell: 05:40 What do you mean you didn’t understand?

Chiara Marquez: 05:41 I didn’t understand. Like I didn’t understand the stories. I don’t know, like school, I was okay at school, but when I started reading the Bible I felt like I had to reread things over and over and over again. Cause I didn’t understand the concept. I understand what’s going on. I understand the context or the how, what that had to do with me at all. I felt disconnected from it. So there wasn’t an interest.

Russ Ewell: 06:02 Do you think that is a societal issue or do you think that’s just? What I mean when I’m say societal, do you think it’s because society pretty much doesn’t put you in a place where you’re around the Bible, meaning wherever you go in society, it’s not because you know, the whole idea of separating church and state has kind of morphed into separating the Bible from society, which I don’t think that’s what separation of church and state means. But do you think it’s because you were never around the Bible that much with someone explaining it or…

Chiara Marquez: 06:28 yeah, I mean I think so. I didn’t…

Russ Ewell: 06:30 Do you know what I mean by society? Like in society it’s okay that sports, everybody gets inundated with sports. You see a game, watch a game, listen to a game, all that kind of stuff. With music, everybody, you know, now you’ve got Spotify, you got all these different things. Everybody gets that. But in front of you. But what’s the place? Where’s the place where you get the Bible put in front of you? Can you think of any places other than church?

Cameron Straw: 06:53 Well I went to, I went to like a school where they were putting it in front of us or, and I grew up religious too, so my parents would do like a family devotional sometimes and stuff like that. But I still didn’t feel compelled to read it. I wasn’t reading much of anything. Yeah. It’s just, but I think when I, when I hear you saying though, I think, cause if we all grew up religious, I think this societal push in our lives was maybe there, but I don’t think they were teaching us to read it as more as they were teaching us. Like they were reading it to us. But I don’t think there was even ever expectation on me to read it or I never got taught to read it outside of like it being read to me. So I thought it was just good stories. So for me, I didn’t really see a need to read it. Like, “why do I need to read it? I know the stories.” So to me, I’m like, “yeah, I know the stories of the sound good,” but there was no desire for me to go beyond that.

Russ Ewell: 07:41 What do you guys think about the people that you’re around now that actually go to church, do you think a lot of them read the Bible? Do you think not many of them read the Bible? Like is there a voracious appetite for reading the Bible? What do you, what do you think now that you’re in church, you’re kind of going, you’re Christians, when you look around that your friends yourselves, do you think there’s this, “hey man, I really love reading the Bible, I want to read the Bible?” Or do you think they’re still in that space of, “well, I don’t really understand it. I don’t know what to read. I, I’m bored by it.” What do you think?

Rhett Snell: 08:08 I think I see a lot of people still struggling to understand how to apply it to their life or how to make it real to them and still can be, “okay, I’m going to read through this book and read two or three chapters a day.” And there’s kind of this like routine to it or this way that it’s done, but it’s not, there’s, I found that for myself too, that I’m like, wow, I, there was a period of time, I know where I was that way where I was like, I was eating it up like it was, I would have a, I’d read the Bible before I’d go to work, I’d read it on my lunch break, I’d come home, I’d listened to it. And then somewhere along the way I think I just got tired or I don’t know, I didn’t want to keep diving deeper. And so there’s kind of lost a lot of that inspiration I guess.

Chiara Marquez: 08:45 So for me, like a quiet time or having a… Reading the Bible can become more, I feel more anxious actually about it because it feels, before it was just, you know, having information absorbing, I didn’t know anything about it. So it became interesting when it, I was taught how that actually applies to my life or what that really meant to me or, or that God cared about me personally. So when I was reading it, it felt like I was discovering new things and then it became more routine. Like this is something I’m just supposed to do. So then the people that I’m around, it can just seem like this is just what we’re supposed to do and this is what we have to do. And it’s, it’s stopped being, I don’t know, maybe there’s like a pride of like, why are, do you know it? Like, like what Cameron was saying, like, I already know these stories or I’ve read this before or I’ve been read this a lot of times.

Cameron Straw: 09:30 Well, yeah, and I think with working with teens like we do, I think it’s more of like, “oh, this is what my parents want me to do, or this is what I should do.” But I don’t think in the culture that I see in the church and stuff, most of it is not the first example you gave. It’s more of the second where it’s people are just doing it. There’s not really like someone’s hungry to do it, excited about it, passionate about it, talking about it. Because that comes out at someone when someone’s, like you said, someone likes sports, they’re going to talk about sports, they’re going to talk about what they are, you know, really interested in. And I did, I hear people talk about “Main! I read this this morning. It’s amazing.” You know. I think I’ve been there and I’ve seen that, but it’s seldom seen. Like it’s not something that across the board it’s most of the time. I think it’s the latter category where people are more just kind of doing it, out of a duty or something that we’ve kind of like we’ve talked about in the last podcast.

Russ Ewell: 10:18 Interesting, what do you think about that? That does that. Is that, is that sort of a, when you listening to you guys, it sounds like people don’t read the Bible very much, right? If I’m listening to just you guys, have you ever thought about that before? Have you ever sat there and thought, “wow, they’re, people aren’t really reading the Bible that much?” Did I surprise you with that question?

Rhett Snell: 10:40 I guess you kind of, I mean I guess I’ve been thinking about that actually, or this last week where I realized, man, like I’ve been talking, I’ve been around Christians all week, but I don’t know what any of the people who I live with are reading in their Bible right now. I don’t know what they’re praying about. I don’t know what’s on their mind or on their hearts. So I guess I kind of more thought of it as like a, it’s an us problem versus a god problem. Like they’re maybe not reading or not praying. I thought of it more as, oh, we’re not talking about it, but…

Russ Ewell: 11:09 Well I like what Cameron said that when, you know, if you’re excited about sports, like I walked in here, right? And you said, “what’d you think of those games?” And I think you’re a Packers fan, right? Yeah. Cause that’s why you brought that up. Yeah. I’m not a Packers guy I like Aaron Rogers, but you brought that up right away, right? Cause you’re, you’re excited about it and you’re thrilled about it. And, and that’s what Cameron’s talking about. And so we can draw, maybe we’re doing a generalized view because we’re taking it from our experience. But clearly based on what you’re saying, which is really cool insight, people aren’t so excited about what they’re reading. They’re talking about it. And that’s a sign that there’s a problem with quiet times. And that’s why we need to do this because it’s not a condemnation. If you’re out there and you’re not reading your Bible at all, or you’re struggling to get through it because you have a reading, a challenge, maybe you’re getting bored. Maybe you’re overwhelmed. Maybe you’re confused. Maybe you need someone to explain it to you. But for whatever reason, this isn’t about feeling really guilty and terrible about yourself. And that’s not where it’s at. This is about trying to figure out the problem. It’s almost like trying to get in shape, right? You can either look in the mirror and go, “oh my gosh, I’m just, I’m punked. I’m dead. I’m defeated.” Or you can say, “all right, let me just figure out where I start.” And today what we want to do is get people to come home to God by saying, “okay, can we get you excited about a quiet time? Can we get you excited about our relationship?” God, can you guys tell me a time in your life where you were super excited to get up in the morning and go read Your Bible? Can you think of that? Think about that for a minute. This particular episode is already talked about. It’s called creating sacred space, and I’m going to try to work with our group and we’re going to try to get into this first section of how to have a quiet time. Now when it comes to creating sacred space, how to have great quiet time. I want to read you a scripture. It’s a great scripture from the a CEV version.

Worshiping the LORD is sacred; he will always be worshiped. All of his decisions are correct and fair.

Psalm 19:9 CEV

Russ Ewell: 12:59 So when you’re creating sacred space, the reason I talk about this is we live in a pretty noisy world. There’s a lot of noise. I was listening to a podcast today and they were talking about political news and it’s overwhelming. It just fills your head and then there’s the noise of what your friends think of you, what your parents think of you, how you may maybe doing in school, how you may be doing in your sport, how your health is, what, what, what health thing could happen to you, how your finances are, is your car working, is your car not working? And so all this stuff feels our heads and gets us really focused on either circumstances or people. Have either of you ever had a time in your life where you were trying to have a quiet time, read your Bible and pray, but you couldn’t focus because you were so busy either thinking about a circumstance or you were so worried about a person that either of you ever had that happen before?

Rhett Snell: 13:49 Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Oh Man. Just last week I was, I was reading my Bible and as I was reading, I was just worried about, I had this, this meeting later, where I had to just explain how different things were going and I was, and so the whole time I’m trying to read and journal different things out, I’m just thinking about the situation and the people who I’m, who I was supposed to be helping, and I guess, aiding. And so I couldn’t really focus on what was going on in my heart. I was just thinking about the, I guess the situations. And then even as I was praying, there was different times that I’ve talked to people and they’ve asked me questions and I kind of think about, okay, like before I’ve been told I can be really indulgent in my emotion. So as I’m praying, I’m hearing that in my head. Like, am I indulging in my emotions right now? Am I doing this? And so I think of different people or hear them Kinda like as they’ve tried to help me. But then it’s kind of taken my eyes off of God. And on to, “okay. Are they, do they think that I’ve done a good job or is this good enough?”

Russ Ewell: 14:51 Yeah. Do you ever think that’s funny?

Rhett Snell: 14:55 No I guess it sucks.

Russ Ewell: 14:59 When I do that, you know, early in my Christian life, cause I became a Christian around 19 years old, but early in my Christian life I became so focused on people that literally I judged how I was doing as a human being and spiritually based on what they thought of me. And when I think of that, it’s funny, I’m like, “wow, how, how strange is that?” How, and that’s how you get into religious behaviorism where you’re so focused on your behavior that you actually never experienced a quiet time. I think one of the number one reasons that people don’t end up having a great relationship with God is that there’s so much noise in their head about what people think and what circumstances are happening that they’re actually not there. And so before I let Chiara and Cameron jumping on this, the word “worshiping” to me and people will go, “oh, look at the Greek, or look at the Hebrew and figure out what it was.” Okay, I get that. But worshiping to me means “I’m getting myself reoriented toward who really matters and what really matters that God is my singular focus.” That’s what worship is. It’s not just about, you’re great and I’m terrible. Some people think worship means “you’re a great, I’m terrible.” I met Magic Johnson once the point guard of the Lakers and when I met him I was in awe. I didn’t look at myself and go, I’m a dirt bag. I wasn’t focused on myself at all. I looked at him and I was like, I actually saw all of the Lakers. They were walking in the airport and I looked at him and I was like, “he is awesome. He’s just, he’s more awesome in person, right?” I was so focused, and that’s what worship is, is you’re so focused on God that you’re not thinking about your circumstances and you’re not thinking about people. And that’s what puts you in sacred space. You might be in a coffee shop, you might be outside in the park, you might be driving in your car, but you’re so focused on God that you literally don’t hear anything else. And that’s the space you want to get people into. It may seem complicated, but it’s not, when people study in the library, they do that, they put on headphones, they zero in on economics and they just, they don’t even hear anything else. That’s what worship is. It’s that focused that says, “I am so consumed and focused in devoted to God and he is so awesome. I’m just loving that I’m here.” And that’s the only way you can begin to have a great quiet time.

Cameron Straw: 17:09 Right. No, I’m totally like more of a circumstantial guy. Look at, you’re talking about circumstances or people and that’s a lot of the noise. But most of the noise in my head is that, and I just, Saturday I was, I woke up, I didn’t even have that much to do that day. I think I had a few appointments, but I was stressing off all things I had to do. I have some health issues. So I was waiting for some test results to come back. I was checking online, they weren’t there, so I was calling in and I’m trying to have a quiet time, but all this stuff’s in my head and I’m trying to read the Bible and I, but I did get to a place that I felt like I hadn’t got to in awhile where I actually started connecting with God and feeling that kind of, I don’t know, there was, I wouldn’t have called it sacred at that moment, but as you’re describing it, I’m like, man, I was able to kind of snap out of it. And stop worrying about it. Cut the noise off. And I was like, wow. And I actually wanted to read because it’s been awhile. Like, I haven’t really, I read all the time, read the Bible, but I don’t usually want to. And I don’t really enjoy it all the time because I’m usually seeing stuff about myself and, but I was able to connect with God and see God in a way. It was John 14 I was reading and it’s sort of similar to John 15 we’re talking about remaining in the vine and connecting to God and loving God and you know, obeying and that kind of connection. But yeah. So it was cool because I think I, but it was also kind of humbling to see that I don’t normally get, feel that and I don’t normally experience just God in that moment where everything’s quiet and I just want to be there reading, talking to God, praying. And I think I haven’t seen worship like that before, but that to me makes a lot of sense.

Russ Ewell: 18:40 Yeah. Because I think people see that word worship and they go “Oh, I can’t do that or what’s God got an ego problem?” And it’s not about that. It’s about seeing Magic Johnson in the airport, zeroing in and going, holy cow, 6’9″ specimen. This dude can ball and that’s all you, and then you, walk away and you try to pretend to be magic Johnson or I’m going to be Magic Johnson. And it’s that focus on someone that you think is noteworthy and worthy, inspiring, motivating. It’s not about making yourself feel bad about yourself, it’s about getting excited about this person that inspires you.

Chiara Marquez: 19:14 Yeah, man. Yeah. I do not have that quiet times can be really hard as far as focusing on solely focusing on God, especially with just technology, like my phone, like usually I’ll read the Bible, but it’ll be on my phone. Recently I’ve been having a paper Bible, but typically it’s always on my phone, so there’s either messages that came up from like the day before or whatever, and I just get so anxious that I try, I’m like, okay, I’m not going to read that. I’m not going to do that, but I can, like, I’ll, as I’m reading my Bible, all I’m thinking about is I really got an answer that text message. So then I think like answering those text messages or which then leads to like “scheduling for the next day or who I’m going to give a ride to or what I’m supposed to do that day,” or I just, it totally drowned out God’s voice. I don’t ever get to a place of like peace or calmness or just sacred space. I mean like, no, not ever.

Russ Ewell: 20:05 Especially, when I’m sitting in a podcast with a microphone poked in my face, that’s really hard. You don’t want you bringing up Chiara is really important. I don’t think you’re different. And that’s why the first step is just creating sacred space. This scripture says,

Worshiping the LORD is sacred; he will always be worshiped. All of his decisions are correct and fair.

Psalm 19:9 CEV

Russ Ewell: 20:28 So let’s talk about it because you just brought up something really, really cool. I’m like, I can see as I’m sitting here, I can see, we’re getting an email about a DIY, a suggestion on forgiveness and it just came through. Right? So that’s a notification that, “Hey, we could do this one.” All right, so you have an iPhone, I assume? Yeah. Most people are captivated and captured by the apple complex. So do you know how to turn off notifications? Yeah, you do. Do you know how to, uh, set up your phone? So the rings only for certain people a certain way. So you know, it’s just them. Yup. You do. Does everybody know how to do that? Yeah, for sure. Okay. So Rhett doesn’t know how to do that. So even though you do that, you still get messages that interrupt you?

Chiara Marquez: 21:16 No. So I actually do put it on do not disturb. I think about the messages. So if I like wake up and inside, you know, my phone is my alarm, like it’ll have it. So it might not ring, but it’ll be on it. Or if my phone goes like blank or whatever. And then I tap it again. It’ll just be there. It might not ring or vibrate or whatever. So I’ll, I’ll think about it. So it could be hard to get out of that space. So I feel like a quiet time most of the time I’m like, just try not to think about it.

Russ Ewell: 21:42 It’s hard to ever get to quiet. Yeah. Good. This is, yeah, I think you are normal. I think anybody who naturally gets to, so there’s a few things I do. Number one is I don’t care. It’s true. Number one is I’m like, it’s far more important for me to get together with God than it is for me to talk to anyone. But maybe my wife, I want to make sure I, you know, I’m going to connect with my wife, but that, that’s already taken place. So I m I don’t care who sends me a message. There’s only probably, like I have a house that I’m living. You’re like most people have a place I live and if it’s not one of the people in there, it’s not that important as just where I’m at. And so I get, probably, you know, probably average 150 emails a day, right? I get them and I just go, there’s only a few of those that matter. And so I think part of it is that I’m just talking to all of us. I’ve had to learn, cause I, you know, I was around before the smart phone, so I worried about, I didn’t even have a smart phone and I still worried about what people were thinking. Right? So part of what I realized is I had to stop caring so much about what people thought. So I think in order to get in a sacred space, what you’re teaching me about, what you’re sharing, in order to get into sacred space, before you even have a quiet time, you’ve got to decide what’s important and then you have to, and what it shows us all and we all do it. I do it too. I don’t want to make it sound… I’ll look and I’ll be like, “oh, what’s that?: You know, and I have to remind myself, “Yeah, Cameron sent me that message, but you know what? It’s not urgent and it’s not important and I’m just gonna move on.” And if I think it is kind of like, if camera’s send me something like, oh, he’s waiting on me on something, I’ll send him a quick message and say, Hey, I won’t be able to get back to you for a little bit. And I let them know and then I forget about it. So one of the things you brought up, in order to create sacred space, you have to get your priorities straight. And I’m not talking to, I think you’re just bringing up something that every listener will be like, yeah, tell me how to handle that. You have to decide who is going to matter. And it better not be more than five people. Like who’s going to matter enough for you to stop your day, stop your emotion, stop your movement and not be with God. And you just say, if it’s not, if I see those five people, I’m going to answer. If I’m in the middle, my quiet time, I’m going to stop and answer, but it’s not one of them five people. I’m just not going to do it and better to have someone angry at me than to have me not worship God. That’s the real decision. I think every, every person who has to make, and that’s what it means to get in a sacred space. The other piece of, do you listen to music? Yeah. What’s your favorite?

Chiara Marquez: 24:25 Actually right now I’m like listening to like Ella Fitzgerald, like in the morning.

Russ Ewell: 24:30 What do you listened to, Rhett?

Rhett Snell: 24:33 Yeah. I’ve been listening to a lot of country during the summertime. Like Thomas Ray. Who’s that? Thomas Rhett.

Russ Ewell: 24:40 Seriously. Yeah. You got send me some of his stuff. I ever heard of that dude. See, related to Drake, are they brothers?

Rhett Snell: 24:47 I think on just on the mom’s side.

Russ Ewell: 24:50 Are they j Cole’s people? Is it J Cole’s cousin? Okay. I need to get some of that. Will you send me some of that from Thomas Rhett? What are you listening to?

Cameron Straw: 24:58 In the morning or just for you? I’m just, I mean, I’m in Bon Iver or Iver or however you say his name, his new album. He did a little side project. Big Red Mountain. That’s pretty good.

Russ Ewell: 25:10 All right. Alright. You guys send me some of that. I want more. Good. So I’ve been working on a coming home Spotify list and you know, what we might want to do is we might want to create some Spotify lists because what you gotta do is you’ve got to get your music and the music you listen to. It can’t just be music. It’s got to have a story to it. So I’ve got one called turning points and it’s all Broadway music pretty much broadway music, a little rap’s in there and a little, a little pop, but it’s all Broadway, you know, Evan Hansen, Hamilton, a number of Broadway shows and I have them in a order in such that as they, as they play, they move me into a space of calm. And literally I have, I’ve measured my pulse, right? Literally my pulse goes down over the time. So the first 15 minutes and so music in the middle of a crowd or space should put you in a sacred space. So I don’t know if you guys ever listened to music in your room when you were a teenager or in college and you just, you left. Rhett You’re shaking your head. You…

Rhett Snell: 26:14 Yeah, yeah. No, I just, I picture myself in my room. I think I was probably in 8th grade and I had one of those MP3 or you know the Walkman with the cds and the like behind the ear headphones and listening to Linkin Park’s first CD.

Russ Ewell: 26:31 I know what that is. Linkin Park!

Rhett Snell: 26:33 I would just listen to them and just remember like banging my head and like kind of even watch myself in the mirror.

Russ Ewell: 26:39 He’s getting his groove on folks. If you’re listening you need to know that you need know this dude’s about to break dance and he is going to go to the 80s

Rhett Snell: 26:44 Yeah. But my mom would be yelling at me and I just, and I was not even in my room.

Russ Ewell: 26:50 That’s what I’m talking about. And I think what, you know, Jesus could go to a mountain, right? That’s a little difficult for us. We’re living in a city that has eight millions on people in it, right. And so you have to figure out how can I get in a chair in target, Starbucks and disappear and that playlist is a key step to getting there where you love what you’re hearing so much and it speaks to you so much. Literally it speaks to you and says, I mean some of the Evan Hansen soundtrack, literally when I’m listening to it, I’m just like, I relate so much to the music and then I’m, as I’m reading the scripture, it’s like they come together and God just puts me in a place. This is the first step, creating sacred space to being able to have a great quiet time. You’ve been able to listen to his talk for a while about the obstacles to having a great quiet time, the anxieties about having great quiet time. And so I hope you come back and listen to our next section. In the weeks to come. Thanks for listening. This has been deep spirituality, podcasts.