Blog – Page 3 – Revealing Voices: Podcast and Blog

Episode 60 – Earleybird’s Substantial Interview

June 26, 2023 Tony Roberts 00:36:41 Comments Off

Technical producer Kevin Earleybird Earley is our guest host for this episode of Revealing Voices. He interviews fellow creative and long time friend Substantial.
Prince George’s County, Maryland-born MC, producer, artist, and educator, Substantial, debuted in 2000 collaborating with the late Japanese producer Nujabes, who later worked on the popular show Samurai Champloo. Legendary rapper and activist, Chuck D of Public Enemy referred to Substantial as “One of the great MCs of our time.” His soulful and introspective brand of Hip Hop music has received critical acclaim from Ebony.com, The Source Magazine, HipHopDX, DJBooth.net, and Okayplayer.com. His music videos have appeared on MTV, VH1, and BET.
Substantial has performed in nearly 20 countries and has collaborated with artists such as Kool Herc, L Universe better known as Verbal (M-Flo), Oddisee, and more. Substantial has licensed music to major brands such as Ford Motor Company, Bentley Motors, and UBER and also had his music featured in films and television shows such as Kevin Hart’s Laugh at My Pain, Kill Me 3 Times starring Simon Pegg, Daytime Emmy nominated show Tough Love and it’s spin-off series Pillow Talk. Substantial has appeared in the documentaries, Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme and Give Back. He has also written and performed original songs for games such as PUBG Mobile, Mobile Legends Bang Bang, Arknights, Tree of Savior, and Renaine. Substantial is also a two-time Hollywood Music in Media Award nominee.
Earleybird and Substantial discuss taking a leap of faith, challenges for mental healthcare in minority communities, and the inspiration of music and the creative process.

HAIKAST VI – The Local Drafts

June 20, 2023 Eric Riddle 00:07:08 Comments Off

Fifteen years ago, on the day my divorce was finalized, I sat around a corner table with some friends at the Columbus Bar. This was not a celebration, but a solemn gathering of men who supported me through one of the most difficult times of my life.

A few months before, my best friend, Ben Stilson, and I had changed allegiances from Buffalo Wild Wings to Columbus Bar for a number of reasons – gigantic onion rings, best fish sandwich in town, first microbrewery in Columbus, and the kindness of the owner, Jon Myers. The Diesel Oil Stout was a revelation in local brewing beauty.

That night of the divorce, Jon was serving us. For old times sake, in remembrance of fun evenings I had experienced in England back in college, I ordered an absinthe. Jon brought it to the table, with the special glassware, spoon, and sugar cube. It was a bittersweet night, but one of remarkable fraternal bonding and creation of new memories as I started a new chapter of life.

Weeks later, Ben and I, along with our friend Patrick Fosdick, were forming a Columbus Young Professionals team to compete in a summer long “Amazing Race” competition. The goal was to solve clues that led us to special spots in town. We needed to take a picture at each location and write a blog post about it. We were looking for a fourth team member, so on a whim, we asked Jon if he would like to join us. He did and the 4 of us gathered at the front plaza of City Hall to begin the competition. We had forgotten to create a team name. In a moment of creative clarity, Ben offered up the name “The Local Drafts.” The double entendre of being recruited to this team and promoting Jon’s Powerhouse microbrewery immediately resonated.

So the Local Drafts ran around for 3 months, bonding while taking silly pictures holding empty beer mugs all over Columbus. We finished fourth in that summer of 2008. As we realized our formal time as a team was coming to a close, we reflected on the deepening bonds we had established and brainstormed how we could keep the fun going. So we organized a party called a Blind Beer Taste Test. We picked 8 beers in a particular style and randomly placed them into an elite 8 bracket. One person poured 1.5 oz samples into 2 separate glasses and after trying both, a vote was taken. There was then a Final Four round and a final head to head match to decide the champion of the beer style. In October of 2008, Keystone Light won the inaugural Blind Beer Taste Test competition in the Light Beer style. We loved it. And kept doing it.

I was not in a fraternity in college. I didn’t like the idea of hazing and the drunkenness associated with it. As the years went on and Ben, Jon, Patrick, and I invited more people to the taste tests, we realized that the fraternal bonds that developed through this ritual and all of the friendships that emerged outside of the taste test experiences were very special. No hazing required.

In 2012, we inducted a new “class” of 4 Local Draft gentlemen and 6 more by the end of 2018. The “organization,” and I do put that in quotes, waxed and waned in attempts to formalize, but in the end we decided we all just wanted to be together. Not to have meetings, but to have gatherings. Random happenings. Maybe it was golfing or hiking or helping someone move or supporting a Draft through a job transition, or planting trees, or volunteering, or organizing spur of the moment happy hours.

In 2017, we had our first overnight trip on a trip to Cave Run Lake in Kentucky – starting an annual tradition of a 3-night, out of state trip. It will take too long to tell the stories of Three Rivers, Michigan – other than to say the Drafts have all left a piece of their hearts with our gracious AirBnB host, Mary Doezema, and her idyllic acreage with its winding boardwalk through beautiful wetlands. The relationships with these men have all become such an incredible blessing for me.

I did not know any of these guys in high school or college. I hear about men struggling to have meaningful relationships as adults and I’m thankful that I’ve been able to cultivate enduring friendships. It’s not about the beer or working at the same company or going to the same church or following the same sports teams. The root is in sharing the same community and being committed to caring. In a way, it was born out of my suffering after the divorce and being full of gratitude for the men who walked beside me in my time of greatest need.

After my last hospitalization for major depression in 2013, my wife decided to share my bipolar II diagnosis with our church and friend group. When I returned home, the Drafts organized a game night at our house and a group of 8 men gathered around our dining room table to play for hours. The acceptance that I felt that night was an incredible experience of brotherly love. In the weeks that followed, I finally found peace with my diagnosis, knowing that I would be loved and supported through the recovery process. With that confidence, I have been able to cast aside the isolating effects of stigma to become a more steadfast advocate for mental health.

So to the original Drafts already mentioned and Robb Kelly, Joey “Yolo” Leo, Johnny Unitas Koefoed, Jeff Bradley, Josh “Draft Lite” Brown, Brian Hardy, Tyler Reynolds, Philip “the OG Quadfather” Roggow, Kevin Hurst, and Cruz Baisa – thank you. And since our motivation to formally initiate beyond 14 has waned over the years – shout outs to Mr. Brandon Andress, Derek Young, Chris “Toast” Myers, Darrin Clyde Myers, and Professor Slayer!

What a joyous occasion when we meet! Thank you for the last 15 years!

Circle table seat
Grief shared with friends, turns to joy
Mugs merge, cry of cheers!

Episode 59 – Running for Judge with Tim Fall

May 28, 2023 Tony Roberts 00:40:34 1 Comment

Judge Tim Fall is a California native who changed his major three times, colleges four times, and took six years to get his bachelor’s degree in a subject he’s never been called upon to use professionally. He’s been a trial court judge since 1995 and has taught judicial ethics to California judges for twenty years. Tim was in private civil practice for a little over seven years before taking the bench and had not seen the penal code since law school. He’s a quick study though (see the above comment about taking six years to get a four-year degree).

Tim writes and speaks about being a judge with a diagnosed anxiety disorder, and seeks to remove the stigma of seeking treatment for mental illness. His mental health memoir Running for Judge: Campaigning on the Trail of Despair, Deliverance, and Overwhelming Success (Wipf and Stock, 2020) is available in print, as well as from Audible and Kindle.

Sufficient Grace at Key Ministry’s Disability & the Church Conference

May 16, 2023 Tony Roberts 00:18:00 Comments Off

Reflecting on his pastoral career and work as a mental health minister, Tony shares what it is like to be a wounded healer with a bipolar thorn in his flesh.

HAIKAST V – Horticulture Therapy

May 16, 2023 Eric Riddle 00:06:15 1 Comment

I really enjoy the idea of volunteer work in public spaces. For me, it feels like the basics of civilization. Essentially, I am talking about convincing people that no one needs to get paid to benefit the common good. This is a difficult task on a number of levels.

First, people like to get paid.

Second, there are city and county workers who get paid to maintain public spaces who may not like volunteers working in these same areas.

Third, doing large scale projects to benefit the public good requires money, talent, time, and coordination.

Fourth, if the project is going to endure, maintaining public space designed and created by volunteers requires long term support from people who are paid.

This is even more difficult to achieve when doing landscape projects.

About three years ago, my friend, Ben, and I had just completed a volunteer landscape project and had ambitions for a bigger endeavor. We needed someone who had control over substantial amounts of grass (aka green canvas) and an appreciation for native plants.

We found our key supporter in Brian Payne, Director of the AirPark property on the north side of Columbus. In addition to the acre of land that he had already given us to create a meadow, he also has about a 2 mile People Trail going through his property.

We developed a fundraising campaign for $15,000 to purchase plants, signage, raised beds, and a bench for a project that we dubbed, the “AirPark Pollinator Path.” In year one, we completed the meadow and transformed an 800 square foot AirPark entrance area into a native plant bed.

We had only used about half of our money, so for spring 2023, we decided to take on over 7,000 square feet of space. It was much more than I had dreamed was possible when we started the fundraising campaign.

By the end of April, 15 new beds were completed. Over the course of one of the most incredible weeks of volunteer coordination, led by multiple Sierra Club members, the sod was removed, mulch was added, plants were layed out, holes were dug, flowers and grasses found their new homes, and water topped off the effort. And then a glorious rain fell that Saturday evening after we were done.

One of the new volunteers that came out mentioned that she is getting a Masters in Public Health. She shared with me that she is convinced that taking care of plants improves health. She wants to be able to explore that more in her education.

I told her that I am very confident that horticulture therapy is an effective way of improving physical and mental health. In my opinion, on any list of options that a doctor, therapist, public health official, pastor, or concerned friend may give to someone in need of support for their mental health, working with plants should be top 5.

I do have a broad definition for working with plants! There are lots of actions that I associate with horticulture therapy in my life. Planting, harvesting, cooking, floral arranging, smelling, weeding, watching the insect interactions, pruning, eating raw veggies straight from the ground, picking fruits from the tree, plucking berries from the bush, drying, saving seeds, composting, rubbing fingers on a mint leaf, waving my hand over the top of native grasses….

Imagine all of the things that you can do just on the other side of what you do not control – after germination, that beautiful creative act when the green shoot emerges from seed. That first glimpse of green has a name – radicle. It is in nurturing that life just one small step after the radicle moment that horticulture therapy emerges for me.

So in these beds of columbine, butterfly weed, western sunflower, joe pye weed, penstemon, aster, coreopsis, iron weed, spiderwort, rattlesnake master, wild quinine, prairie drop seed, little blue stem, and coralberry, our friends the bees, butterflies, bugs, bats, and birds will thrive. The fauna will bask in this culinary floral delight. This becomes their ecological home. The honor of shaping this home is deeply therapeutic for me.

My prayer is that you, dear listener, will thrive as your five senses are opened by interacting with plants – as you taste the pear, smell the elderberry, touch the baptisia, hear the wind through blue stem, and see the blazing star. And remember, in flashes of vibrant memory, the connections you have had with creation since your youth. It has always been there. Be there with it.

As we were wrapping up our final day of planting, the volunteers converged on a corner of the People Trail near a 3-way stop. People drove by slowly. Lingered. Walkers and bikers stopped to thank us. Some asked us what we were doing. People wanted to know who we were with… while the reasonable response was to say Sierra Club, I wanted to say, “we are with the plants.”

Slowing down, to smile
Stranger meets unexpected
In the common good

Episode 58 – Disability and the Church with Dr. Steve Grcevich of Key Ministry

April 25, 2023 Tony Roberts 00:39:36 Comments Off

Dr. Stephen Grcevich (MD, Northeast Ohio Medical University) serves as the founder and President of Key Ministry. He is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who combines over 25 years of knowledge gained through clinical practice and teaching with extensive research experience evaluating medications prescribed to children and teens for ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Dr. Grcevich has been a presenter at over 35 national and international medical conferences and is a past recipient of the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

In his role as President of Key Ministry, Steve serves the primary vision caster and spokesperson for Key and plays an important role in Key’s efforts to develop collaborations with church leaders, professionals and organizations both within and outside the disability ministry movement. He is responsible for strategy and oversees the implementation of Key’s ministry plan. He blogs at Church4EveryChild.org, is a regular contributor for Moody Radio Cleveland and frequently speaks at national and international ministry conferences on mental health and spiritual development. His first book, Mental Health and the Church, was published by Zondervan in February 2018.

Steve and his wife Denise live in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. They have two daughters – Leah and her husband (Max) are students at the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine, and Mira is attending Belmont University and is majoring in psychology. Steve’s work serves as a distraction from the abysmal performance of Cleveland’s professional sports teams.

HAIKAST IV – Going Green

April 16, 2023 Eric Riddle 00:05:17 Comments Off

I love spring and love moseying around my yard, marvelling at the flowers popping through the mulch and the abundance of – are they pink, magenta, maybe even purple – or simply, redbud tree blossoms. There’s so much to be thankful for.

That being said, please take a few minutes with me to consider the suppression of this beauty. The culprit is grass.

It’s mid-April and I just mowed for the first time this year. Thankfully, over the last 5 years, I have slowly transitioned the lawn into mulched flower beds and raised vegetable beds – drastically cutting the square footage of space for my human powered, reel lawn mower. It may not be the cleanest cut, but it’s pollution free and a good workout.

There are empty lawn lots across this country. Much of it is public space, maintained by the city or state. There are some immaculate lawns full of fertilizer, herbicide, and perfectly mown lines – my favorite are the diagonal strips that make X’s. Like a baseball field ready for the World Series. But I’m not talking about the outfield of the St. Louis Cardinals.

You may not realize where these lots are in your city because they are so incredibly unremarkable. The purpose of these spaces is to keep the grass from getting too tall to not get a complaint. They are the kind of places that no one cares much about, so they are rarely used.

The funny thing is that they don’t serve much of a human purpose, but we, as humans, can’t help ourselves from mowing the spaces every week to literally kill any chance of other living things from finding a reliable food source and safe shelter. If non-human life do risk taking up residence, they’ll probably get killed by a mower blade or someone who decided that the dandelions simply cast too yellow a glow on the turf.

CNN reported in April 2022 that in Palm Springs, California, it takes 63,000 gallons of water per year to maintain the green in a 1,500 square foot yard. That’s not even a big yard.

I could go on with stats from various sources about the immense cost of maintaining a yard – Business Insider magazine reported in 2016 that Americans spend more than $30 billion/year on maintaining their yards. Some reporters describe lawn as the largest “cash crop” in the United States because of that expense. Not cash for the homeowners who spend hours and dollars to – it is very odd to say – “raise grass”, but cash for the companies that perpetuate the need for these great green monoculture carpets.

What is the benefit of this cash crop?

I think it has a lot to do with control, senseless social norms, and the fear of wilderness.

A couple years ago, my friend and I approached the Columbus, IN city airport about the possibility of adding native plant space to the AirPark. We identified an acre of space between the Columbus Community Garden and a nearby subdivision. Thankfully, the AirPark Director saw the vision of creating habitat using native plants in the space that was the type of mow over zone I’ve been describing. The Director understands that maintaining the grass is expensive and takes up the labor time of his staff.

I had no experience in converting grass to a native plant meadow, so I followed the suggestion of our local Sycamore Land Trust. We began with spraying the field with Roundup 2 times over the course of 4 months. In February, we broadcast 40 different native plant seed varieties across the area and let it grow until July. In July, it was moved to about an 8 inch height to knock down the weeds and give more light to the germinating seed.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I went out into the field and did a 360 video of the space to send to my friend at the Land Trust. He was happy with the growth in the first year.

I brought to the field a large bin of harvested seed heads from my home. I added this seed to the edge near the bench we dedicated to my friend, Chelsea. It is exciting to have an acre that is growing wild in our city. I’ll do my best to protect the space from the temptations of turning it back into lawn. I know nature will throw flowers in the air where I had thrown down my seed. A colorful magic trick.

On Easter weekend, I walked the perimeter. It’s early in the season and there is hope already beginning to buzz across the acre. The city’s garden plots, just steps away, will be planted soon. The enhanced pollinator life in the field holds great promise in producing more bountiful yields for the gardeners.

It’s good to go a little wild. Caring for the environment is not about outcompeting your neighbor for the greenest lawn. It’s more about making a little more room for life and creating ecological landscapes that thrive with diversity.

Walking acre edge
Fall’s brown lingers, spring’s green shows
What grows next, who knows?

Episode 57 – Pastor Mark Sowersby, Forgiving the Nightmare

March 30, 2023 Tony Roberts 00:28:30 Comments Off

How do you forgive when you’ve been wounded deeply?

How do you move past the pain that keeps you up at night, leaves you isolated, untrusting, and afraid? How can you possibly forgive them, especially when they don’t deserve forgiveness?

Pastor Mark Sowersby shares his testimony with his ministry and book by the same name, Forgiving The Nightmare.

He writes —

“After living through years of sexual and physical abuse, the Lord brought me on a journey to forgive the ones who trespassed against me. Forgiving the Nightmare is a ministry to help people walk through forgiveness from past hurts or abuse by sharing the love of God and encouraging people to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

In 2019 I began speaking publicly about my personal journey, being transparent, open, and genuine. I have also written a book by the same name Forgiving the Nightmare Here is a link to my website and video.”
https://youtu.be/W07oCKA0iBk
www.forgivingthenightmare.com

FTN has been asked to produce a Forgiving The Nightmare TV series. They are fundraising to support this. Mark shares, “Thank you for your prayers and help. May the Lord be glorified. God bless you.”

https://www.givesendgo.com/FTNTV?utm_source=sharelink&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=FTNTV

HAIKAST III – Synchronicity

March 19, 2023 Eric Riddle 00:05:26 Comments Off

What are your thoughts on the cliche – “The universe is trying to talk to you?”

Humans run a wide range in the coincidence through divine intervention spectrum. The Universe talking to you falls somewhere closer to the divine intervention side. Living the majority of my life as a Christian who relies on research to guide my decision making, I have been trained to respectfully listen to this entire spectrum of perspectives without rolling my eyes. So I appreciate the Biblical call to pray without ceasing, but I also appreciate the cause and effect nature of reality.

I find that isolation is one of the many effects and causes of mental health struggles. I think part of that isolation is a desire to pause life, figure out how to stop having symptoms, and then play again once the struggle is over.

During physical sickness, that pause for me is often grabbing a 2 liter of sprite, a few cans of chicken noodle soup, crackers, and some Tylenol, and hanging on the couch for a couple days to recover. After the temperature is normal and the fatigue lifts, I press play and am ready to get back to work.

Society allows the time out and generally accepts that getting back to normal is a routine part of getting sick. We are expected to isolate and get well. There’s even a growing use of the term “presenteeism” – which relates to the issues caused by working while sick and the negative impacts it can have on getting others sick. Since the pandemic, presenteeism is being addressed by encouraging more self care before getting back to work.

Mental health struggles don’t often work the same way. Symptoms don’t reliably go away in 48 hours – sometimes they may hang round for 48 days or 48 months.

During a recent struggle with feelings of isolation, I went to a mental health support group called Faithful Friends. We ate together and decided to play a game called Mad Gab. The game focuses on trying to unscramble three lines of words that sound like nonsense, but can be phonetically aligned into a common saying. For example, try to figure this one out:

Key
Pure Rye
Sonnet

I will say again, a little faster:

Key
Pure Rye
Sonnet

The answer is:

Keep your eyes on it.

At the Faithful Friends meeting, this was one of the Mad Gabs:

Yule
Nut Bar
Hawk Howl Own

Did you figure it out? Here it is again:

Yule
Nut Bar
Hawk Howl Own

The answer to this one is:

You’ll never walk alone.

The 8 of us in the room played the game for a joyous 2 hours. One of my friends in attendance said he couldn’t remember the last time he smiled that much.

He is a music aficionado. He related the “You’ll Never Walk Alone” gab to a song by the same name from the 1940s. As he talked, it occurred to me that lyrics from the song are passionately chanted at Liverpool’s Premier League Soccer matches. We listened to the Liverpool crowd singalong that is included in the Pink Floyd song called “Fearless.” We then read the lyrics from the original Rodgers and Hammerstein 1945 musical Carousel. The chorus is:

Walk on, Walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone

The conversations that percolated around this song were very fortifying..

The next evening, I began reading The Antropocene Reviewed, a book by John Green. The first chapter is titled “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” Ha! I instantly sent a message to my music aficionado friend. He and I may share mental health diagnoses that bring feelings of isolation at times, but we also know the joy of rediscovering how connected we really are.

Physical recovery and mental health recovery are very different. In one, we are expected to isolate. In the other, we need to be encouraged to join a community of acceptance. We may not think that the universe ever talks to us, but we need to know that there are plenty of others who will.

Synchronicity
“You’ll Never Walk Alone” song
Appears twice this week

Episode 56 – Rev. Dr. Sarah Lund, Minister for Disabilities and Mental Health Justice

February 22, 2023 Tony Roberts 00:30:53 Comments Off

The Rev. Dr. Sarah Lund’s mission is to partner with others to share hope and healing. She is an ordained minister in both the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ. Sarah has served as pastor to churches in Brooklyn, NY, Minneapolis, MN, and New Smyrna Beach, FL. Sarah served as Regional Minister in the Florida Conference of the United Church of Christ and as a Vice President for Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, IN. She holds degrees from Trinity University (BA), Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv), Rutgers University (MSW), and McCormick Theological Seminary (DMin). Sarah received the Dell Award for Mental Health Education at the 30th General Synod of the UCC.

Sarah currently serves as Minister for Disabilities and Mental Health Justice on the national staff of the UCC and as senior pastor of First Congregational UCC of Indianapolis, IN. She volunteers on the national boards of Pathways to Promise, Mental Health America, Bethany Fellows, and Piedmont University. In January of 2022, Sarah joined two US Department of Health and Human Services national Think Tanks, the first about faith communities and suicide, and the second Think Tank about faith communities and youth mental health. Sarah is the author of several books about mental health: Blessed are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness, Family, and Church (2014), Blessed Union: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness and Marriage (2021), and Blessed Youth: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness with Children and Teens (2022), and a pocket-sized mental health resource book for youth: Blessed Youth Survival Guide (2022). Sarah blogs at www.sarahgriffithlund.com.