Welcome to Loving the Imperfect Podcast, a show for seekers of deeper contemplation. I'm Brianne Turczynski. For 10 years, I've been studying offerings from holy teachers and holy texts. I'm a journalist who has listened to the stories of many people throughout the years, and so I thought it was my turn, to share a thing or two about my journey and my thoughts on scripture and holy work from different faith traditions and practices, mostly from Sufi teachers, Buddhists, and Christian mystics. So join me as we imperfectly and clumsily make our way through each day, mustering up compassion and some words of love for the hours ahead.
Hello and welcome to Loving the Imperfect. Today's Psalm is 150. It was written by an anonymous Psalm writer, and it is a closing hymn of praise, which is perfect because today is our last episode of the Psalms. This is the end of season one. So here we go. Psalm 150:
1 Praise the Lord.[a]
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
-Borrowed from the New International Version
I like the last part of this psalm because it says, Praise him with the clash of cymbals. Praise him with resounding cymbals.
When a sound is resounding or an action is resounding, that means that it was strong enough or loud enough to affect or impact the people around it, or the surrounding people, that can be how our actions are. Or how we're praising God. It could be strong enough and impactful enough to affect those around us, generations and generations down the line.
So, I liked that verse because it really sends the whole point home. And it's the last Psalm. So it's telling you, Hey, praise the Lord in all you do and make your praise impactful for those around you. I think that's our takeaway for this, or at least my takeaway from this project is to make what you do impactful for those around you.
I kept getting nudges that I should start a podcast. I did it. I brought us through 24 episodes. And I've learned a lot about myself and a little bit more about my journey with God, and I'm glad of it.
Thought I would spend some time talking about why I started this podcast. Because today is our last episode, I thought it would be a good summing up. I wanted to share with you some things I learned along the way. I was prompted at the beginning by the Spirit, and the Spirit kept nudging me about doing some sort of podcast, or at least learn how to do it.
And at the beginning I thought, well, I have learned a lot, and there's a lot I could talk about. But once I pressed record, and everything started going, I realized how little I actually know. The books and the teachers and the people I talk to that I admire, teach me things. If you want to learn more about spirituality, about your spirituality, the way you can do this is by hanging around with people you admire whether they be priests or monks or spiritual directors.
Or maybe people, like authors, and you're just reading a lot of their books, and those authors become your teachers, whether they're here, living on this planet still or not. That's how you can begin. If I'm spending my whole life and all my work wishing to point back to God.
That is praise. And I try to do that in all of my creative projects, and even the way I raise my children. I'm not perfect 100 percent all of the time. I make mistakes, but with everything that I do, I try to point back to God. And I'm reminded of the Sistine Chapel in this way, it probably wasn't painted to be them pointing at each other, God and Adam, I think it was meant to be more of like they were going to touch.
Like God was going to touch man and give man knowledge, or give man reason or something, or give man life. But if you look at it, it does sort of look like they're pointing at each other, and so that's kind of where I got that notion, and I started looking at it in a different way, and I think that's what art is meant to do. It's supposed to entice you to look at it in a different way. And so that's what I did.
Adam is pointing to God, but he's not really pointing to God, he's kind of pointing downward, like it's a lazy point. And God is pointing at Adam. Adam is sort of pointing at God, but also pointing downward at the Earth. As if to say, I have to balance myself between the two. And I think that's what man is doing. Man meaning all humans. That’s a balanced life.
Pointing at God and pointing at the world at the same time. To figure out how to incorporate. God into the world we’re living in. We must be grounded in the earth. And we have to live in this world; that is very hard sometimes and confusing. And so, by that image of Adam pointing at God and pointing at the ground at the same time, to me, that means, he's asking a symbolic question, I know I must live in the world, how can I bring God with me?
I have to live in this world. I have to create and a lot of us have to create. And I create while I'm pointing at God. that's my way of praise. And I think if you're intentional about the way you're creating, creating a family life, creating fellowship with people, creating a dinner for your family, if you're doing all of this with the intention of love into it, then that's praise. That's praising God, I think.
So, like in the psalm, it doesn't matter how you acknowledge God or praise God or nature, whatever you do, do it with all you have, with your whole body, mind, and spirit. I do wish for all my work to point back to God in some capacity. I started this podcast because I have spent years interviewing and listening to stories and telling stories, and I wanted to learn a different way to get stories out into the world without relying on agents or publishers who, for someone like me, take eons to get back to writers and they usually get back to us with a rejection.
I learned a lot here about myself, about letting go of perfection, or the idea of perfection, and accepting the fact that my speaking voice is much harder to edit, and much more frustrating, grammatically speaking, than my writing voice.
I learned what it is to create, record, and edit a show. And I found that my favorite part of each episode was choosing the music and creating the posters. And I started this project with the intention to keep it going forever, or at least as long as it was enjoyable for me. Because if we're doing something with the intention of pleasing God or pleasing the creative spirit of love, the minute it doesn't bring you joy is the moment you should stop. And although this brings me joy doing it, there are so many other creative projects that I left on the back burner to do this show. And so, I wanted to take some time now to pick those back up and to complete them.
After 24 episodes, I feel very proud of what I've done here. I know that for me, I am only able to do it all with God's help.
I want to live my life with the awareness of my proximity to God. God is closer to us than breath, meaning God is inside and outside of us all. You don’t have to be on your best behavior for this to be true. It just is. To live a life with awareness of this proximity means that I try to be in sync with God's call as much as I can. And to hear God's voice and be always alert to it.
Like a parent at night listening for their child's cry. Because isn't that how God waits for us? How God listens for us. With anticipation. Like a parent listening for the moment their child needs to be fed.
When I first started this podcast and named it Loving the Imperfect, my spiritual director reminded me that to be imperfect means to be incomplete. And so, I thought that was perfect because, (Laughing). I thought that was perfect, because all of us are working toward completeness, and we won't really get there until we've attained union with God. We're trying to get there, and I think that God praises us for our journey toward God as we are praising God. Like that Sistine Chapel image.
For those of you north of the equator, I hope that you have a great rest of your summer. And if all goes as planned, I'll be back with interviews around the end of September or beginning of October. I might pop in here and there, but for now, I'm taking time for my writing. You can keep up with my work at my website, www.lovingtheimperfect. com, or my name, same website, www.brianneturczynski.com. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.
