Ashes and Alleluias
psalms from under the heart
I have a couple of podcasts.
One is a interview podcast called All Things Made New (formerly CulturalSavage). On it, I invite people to come and explore the idea of the Christian spirituality of being human, that place where our lived experience of faith makes us better neighbors, better lovers, better humans. It’s a fun show, and I’ve had all sorts of people on.
All Things Made New is more of a traditional podcast, with the best quality I can produce as a DIY podcaster. Sometimes my kids show up to say hi and there can be background noise, but for the most part, it’s me and my guest’s disembodied voices talking about embodying faith.
There’s another podcast I have. It’s called Ashes and Alleluias, and it’s very different.
Ashes and Alleluias is a lo-fi exploration of myself. It’s just me talking for about ten minutes. There’s no production to speak of. It’s usually recorded on my phone, and it’s full of windchimes, cars, and ambient noise. There’s no script. There is just heartfelt emotion and ideas.
This podcast is my protest against the commodification of voices and ideas. I don’t need to turn myself into a well oiled machine and a produced package in order to have something to say. Ashes and Alleluias is my stance that says, “I’m still here” amid the commercialization and monetization of everything this world has to offer.
No one listens to it.
And I’m ok with that.
I don’t put Ashes and Alleluias out to be consumed. I put it out as my book of psalms, my heart songs about my life, myself, and my experiences. It’s a space where I don’t preform, where I don’t agonize over if it’s going to be good enough, where I don’t hear my inner critic shouting that I’ll never amount to anything.
Ten minutes of silence and speech accented with ambient noise might just be my antidote to creativity anxiety. It might just be my shield against becoming a brand. It might just be my path towards the true self.
Maybe it’s just more noise in the soundsphere.
Whatever it is, it’s something that I treasure.
So, I wanted to share it with you, not in hopes that you will listen and I’ll get a million streams. But rather that you might be inspired to do something, to create something no matter how lo-fi it is, to explore and get creative. Maybe it’ll ignite the fire in you to not buy into the shiny lies of capitalism, the ones that tell you you have to be perfect to matter.
You matter because you are you.
Perfection is the enemy of living, and I’m tired of fighting. So I’m going to live and record Ashes and Alleluias into the void—just for myself—as a protest, a proclamation of self-worth and self- exploration.
I hope you’ll join me.
If you’re in a season of unraveling, reimagining, or just aching to be met with compassion, I offer spiritual direction as a space to slow down, listen deeply, and be fully seen. It’s not about having the right answers—it’s about attending to the sacred in your questions. If that sounds like something your soul could use reach out to me via DM or click the button below. I look forward to seeing what we hear together.