Transcript
Speaker: Hey friends, welcome back to Artists of the Way.
Speaker: I'm John.
Speaker: And I'm Nate.
Speaker: And we are the hosts of this podcast.
Speaker: And today, it is Artists of the Way.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Today, we are talking about gratitude.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Because Thanksgiving's right around the corner.
Speaker: Woo!
Speaker: Insert the Thanksgiving carols.
Speaker: And we're back.
Speaker: Thankful.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Nate doesn't want to hear my singing, I guess.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: Nobody really does.
Speaker: You're just confirming that my voice is just... Yes.
Speaker: So we're talking about gratitude, but not the same way we talked about it last year.
Speaker: We wouldn't want you to go back and listen to that.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: More varied content.
Speaker: More varied content.
Speaker: Content, content.
Speaker: So Nate, what are we talking about today?
Speaker: Gratitude.
Speaker: Expound.
Speaker: Well, I thought it would be nice to talk about since we're an art podcast.
Speaker: Is there any ways, any ways at all, that art can help us be grateful, help us with the pursuit of gratitude?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: No, Nate, that was my listening.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, I'm picking up what you're putting down.
Speaker: Yeah, good.
Speaker: Pick that up, baby.
Speaker: I'm picking it up and I'm going to give it to you.
Speaker: Because you've done a bit more thinking in general in my life.
Speaker: Why did you eat it?
Speaker: So I can digest it.
Speaker: People in the audio are like, what is happening?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Bring us into that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: Adventure time with Nate.
Speaker: Well, I think that art can be helpful with gratitude to all you naysayers out there.
Speaker: Oh, let me ask.
Speaker: Do you mean as a practitioner of art or as a receiver of art?
Speaker: I think I was thinking more of a, as a receiver of art, but I'm sure we could bring the other in too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was like, I had thoughts on this.
Speaker: I had to go back.
Speaker: Where are those thoughts?
Speaker: And yeah, here, here's some time with Nate to get the thoughts on a walk, driving in my car, I'm walking by my car.
Speaker: He's driving with one foot out of his car.
Speaker: Hopping on the other side.
Speaker: Like it's a skateboard.
Speaker: One thing that art does great is it gives you focus.
Speaker: It brings you into what are we looking at here?
Speaker: Like these paintings on the wall that the audio listeners are enjoying.
Speaker: There is this hallway here.
Speaker: And beyond the frame of this hallway, there's more stars out there.
Speaker: There's maybe a dog down below.
Speaker: licking at food in a bush or a dead bird.
Speaker: There's a dog?
Speaker: It could be, but we're not looking at that though because the artist has focused us
Speaker: on this hallway here.
Speaker: And because we've been given a focus, we can think about it in more isolation and be grateful that that exists.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And I think that's a lot of what gratitude is, is taking a second to focus on something and be glad that it's there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's a lot of what art does.
Speaker: for us because it shows us specific things that is not everything.
Speaker: It shows us these people in this story.
Speaker: And it shows them having a love or it shows us the beauty of a lily pad and such.
Speaker: And we can notice it.
Speaker: And I think that helps with gratitude.
Speaker: That's why movies connect and such is because
Speaker: it delivers something to us that we can identify with and it brings an emotional response that connects to something in our life.
Speaker: And then that can either bring about sadness or joy.
Speaker: But those are still closely associated with gratitude because we're connecting with something real, noticing it.
Speaker: And then we just have to take the step of being grateful that it's there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like that a lot.
Speaker: I'm just going to adjust your mic slightly.
Speaker: Just point it up.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: A little peek behind the scenes.
Speaker: We have to aim our microphones.
Speaker: No, I like that a lot.
Speaker: I think maybe the only thing that was coming to mind, not because I didn't believe that we could be grateful because of art, just because
Speaker: I'm tired.
Speaker: But yeah, this idea of like art helping us to slow down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think slowing down is something we hear a lot about, but we're bad at because of the day and age that we live in.
Speaker: But I think art helps us to do that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: especially when you intentionally engage with it, right?
Speaker: When it's not just I'm throwing on Netflix and I'm scrolling on my phone.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: But when it's like, I'm going to a movie theater, save the cinema.
Speaker: Or I'm going to an art gallery.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I'm sitting and reading a book, and my phone is in the other room.
Speaker: It isolates you.
Speaker: It isolates you.
Speaker: But that isolation, oh.
Speaker: I don't know if, I think I know what you mean by isolate.
Speaker: It isolates you into a moment.
Speaker: Yeah, it doesn't isolate you from the community.
Speaker: It focuses you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It sort of locks you in so that you have to reckon with this thing.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's something I'm very excited about for one of my birthday parties is I'm throwing on Conclave, which people will know.
Speaker: So I've gotten a group of my friends together who are all, I don't know what they're gonna make of this movie other than you, because we've talked about it.
Speaker: You know that'll make it.
Speaker: I do, but I'm just like,
Speaker: I think we often don't make time to just lock ourselves in and think through something or appreciate something.
Speaker: We see a thing, we come to a decision and we scroll.
Speaker: We come to our conclusion so fast.
Speaker: And then we move on from life.
Speaker: We see a good update from a friend.
Speaker: My health has improved.
Speaker: And we like it and then we move on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, art helps us to slow down and say, okay.
Speaker: There's a real story happening here.
Speaker: Let me just absorb this.
Speaker: I wonder, are there ways...
Speaker: Are there ways to bring that slower pace into our everyday life or ways to maybe let our walls down a little bit more to the world around us?
Speaker: Because I think that's another thing.
Speaker: That's the goal, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because art, quote, Lewis, in a not...
Speaker: Sorry, your pleas was amusing.
Speaker: I don't even know why.
Speaker: Stealing past the watchful dragons idea, right?
Speaker: That doesn't even just have to be my guard against the spiritual.
Speaker: That can be my guard against opening myself up to anything, you know?
Speaker: But art can steal past those watchful dragons and hit us somewhere emotional.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think Lewis is a great example of...
Speaker: of how he can really help with gratitude.
Speaker: And I think other good authors do this is because they –
Speaker: they draw out things from either the mundane or the fantastic that make that make you appreciate them like how a good artist can really describe the blowing of the the wind or like flying a kite or um how lewis is really great at describing heaven and that can make us grateful for our coming um
Speaker: Yeah, for our coming salvation, our eternal state, which is something I've been grateful for lately.
Speaker: I went to a men's breakfast the other day and a guy shared a little devotional there.
Speaker: He's a missionary from India, but young guy, just a little older than me, really pleasant.
Speaker: And what he shared about was
Speaker: Um, when Jesus sent out the disciples and they did all these amazing miracles and they came back and they're like, wow, this is amazing.
Speaker: Even the demons are subject to us.
Speaker: And Jesus is like, yes, nice, but don't rejoice that the demons are subject to you.
Speaker: rejoice that your name is written in the book of life.
Speaker: And he took that as that that's really the thing to be focused on.
Speaker: Like, instead of like focusing on like, I want to be a missionary that has like people like write books about later.
Speaker: It's this kind of thing.
Speaker: But it's like, no, that shouldn't be my focus.
Speaker: I should be
Speaker: focused on my relationship with Christ and what he has done for me, what he has for me.
Speaker: My name is written in the book of life and just stopping to think about that.
Speaker: Like I've done a couple of times, it's made me like verbally like yelling out excited, like, ah, yes.
Speaker: It's incredible that that's a real thing that if we believe in Jesus, that our name is in the book of life and we have a guaranteed ticket to spend eternity with Christ and new heaven and new earth, and it's going to happen.
Speaker: And that is the best thing that like dwarfs every other thing that we have.
Speaker: How did that tie into?
Speaker: No, you were talking about Lucas and his description of heaven.
Speaker: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker: Description of heaven.
Speaker: And yeah, so it's nice when art can help us recognize these good things in life.
Speaker: And I sometimes been thinking about how like the Psalms tell us to like shout to the Lord.
Speaker: And it's like nobody ever does that.
Speaker: it seems.
Speaker: You know, like, make a joyful shout to the Lord.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Maybe we should.
Speaker: And it just seems like that's not what we do.
Speaker: That's just weird.
Speaker: But I've tried it a couple of times and it's nice.
Speaker: And we can, and art can help bring about, remind us of those things of what we have to be grateful for, what we should shout to the Lord about.
Speaker: And it's a nice connecting with him and not just intellectually, but then our bodies and our souls are engaged at the same time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, art can be almost like celebratory of these things.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And help bring us into that.
Speaker: That's a good way to put it.
Speaker: I think we just spoke with Josh Reisner.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That will either have been the last episode or the next episode.
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: Time is weird.
Speaker: Time is weird.
Speaker: It's kind of like, to quote The Flash, time's like a big bowl of spaghetti, and all the different points are touching each other, and there's a bunch of marinara sauce, and you're like, what's happening?
Speaker: Now people are wondering why I'm quoting The Flash.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: I don't know I'm quoting The Flash either.
Speaker: That movie doesn't deserve to be quoted, but here I am.
Speaker: And now I've lost my point because of a silly quote.
Speaker: Oh, we just spoke to Josh Reisner.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And he talked a lot about like the pursuit.
Speaker: of some kind of treasure in the art.
Speaker: He wants to create a treasure.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I loved that word treasure and just thinking about art as reflective of a treasure and thinking about all these little things as treasures, the little moments are treasures.
Speaker: So you and I recently just saw Leif Enger at an author event.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Who's probably my favorite author.
Speaker: Him and Tolkien are locked in eternal combat.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: A currently working author.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: He'd be our favorite.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: I think him and Tolkien will be locked in combat forever.
Speaker: That's fair.
Speaker: I think Lewis is still number one for me, but oh man, I'm enjoying life.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 1.25 books in.
Speaker: It's just beautiful.
Speaker: And just, of course, people on the podcast have heard me talk about it before, but books like that, which are slow-
Speaker: Not in a painful pacing sense, but in a just, we're enjoying the world.
Speaker: It's relaxed.
Speaker: Books like that, which are relaxed, which take their time with beautiful prose, really can help you enter into this celebratory posture towards these treasures which we have been given from God.
Speaker: A lot of what Leif writes about is people.
Speaker: And then we can just really appreciate.
Speaker: He's just examining humanity and appreciating it.
Speaker: And that's good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, it is just beautiful.
Speaker: I just keep coming back to that idea of...
Speaker: Do we just not take enough time to appreciate these things?
Speaker: And do we need to take more time with art?
Speaker: I think of Our Town.
Speaker: Kentwood.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Kentwood?
Speaker: No, the play Our Town.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: There's a scene at the end.
Speaker: I knew that.
Speaker: There's a scene at the end where all the characters have died and now you're watching them walk.
Speaker: Whoa, I've not seen Our Town.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: They all die of old age.
Speaker: They die the most boring way possible.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Sorry, I'm spoiling Our Town, I guess.
Speaker: It's a classic.
Speaker: You should read it or watch it.
Speaker: But one of the sort of perspective characters throughout the play has just recently died and is coming into the graveyard with all these characters that she's known throughout her life.
Speaker: And she's looking back on her memories and then she's seeing these people again and she's just watching...
Speaker: The like one of the memories she steps into is because they're like, you can go back and revisit whatever you would want to, but you probably don't want to because it's probably going to be too painful for you, but you can.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: And so she revisits.
Speaker: Christmas morning where her and the man that she married at that point were just kids with a crush on each other and her mom has a present for her that she's just trying to wrap and they're just trying to figure this out and
Speaker: The daughter's just trying to reach the mom to just be like, just take a moment.
Speaker: Can we just have a moment to appreciate this and appreciate each other?
Speaker: And of course, the memory just keeps on going because that's all it is, a memory.
Speaker: And she comes out of that and she's just like, nobody, I don't remember exactly the line, but it's something to the effect of nobody really realizes, nobody really sees that.
Speaker: Do they?
Speaker: And the woman she's talking to, I believe is her mother-in-law says, no, they don't.
Speaker: And it's just heart-wrenching, but also such a great reminder.
Speaker: I was just this morning, I got up early before work to work on some Artist of the Way stuff, and I had Arthur up with me.
Speaker: And so I just laid him down on his play mat.
Speaker: And I just had a moment of just like, man.
Speaker: This is just not going to be forever.
Speaker: I'm not always going to be able to just lay down my son on this play mat and just watch him have so much fun grabbing a ring and seeing himself in a mirror while I just do a little bit of work and can just look over and see him there and just have him look at me and smile.
Speaker: And that's like the most important thing is just that little smile that we get to share.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we so often blow past that because we have projects to get done and work to do.
Speaker: But I think art is good at helping us slow down.
Speaker: It's just hard to get that slower pace into our lives and to take the time to appreciate those things.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: But it doesn't have to take much time.
Speaker: No, that's true.
Speaker: Sometimes it's just a couple seconds.
Speaker: A couple seconds to smile at your son.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We can do that.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Unless you're unable to smile, in which case I'm sorry for our insensitivity.
Speaker: And we'll... We'll do better.
Speaker: We'll do better.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're smiling again.
Speaker: Ah, dang it.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: Anyways.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it can be...
Speaker: just a little pause, a little moment of connection.
Speaker: Like I think about, there's like a scientific fact that if you just hug for 30 seconds, like you get so much more, like you're so much more healthy.
Speaker: If you just hug somebody for 30 seconds a day.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it, and it takes, sometimes it takes that 30 seconds for your brain actually to like fully relax into it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But if you can take like 45 seconds to just hug, um,
Speaker: your best friend or your significant other or your child um just hug for 45 seconds those are such meaningful moments i've had those where like i had my parents over and then they're leaving and my dad has just hugged me for like feels like a minute and it's like oh my goodness that was wonderful yes
Speaker: This Giving Tuesday, we're giving you a break from all the craziness of the last couple months of the year.
Speaker: Join us on December 2nd from 6.30 to 8.30 for a cozy Christmas kickoff with Artists of the Way.
Speaker: We're doing this at One Church in Caledonia, and it's going to be a wonderful event.
Speaker: It's going to be some delicious hot drinks.
Speaker: We're going to have some live jazz.
Speaker: We're going to have a bunch of resources for you to be able to enter into Advent with you.
Speaker: a spirit rooted in Christ and in the reason for the season.
Speaker: Some great meditative prayers that you'll be able to take home and integrate into your own preparation for the season.
Speaker: And what I'm most excited about, just providing a space for fellowship with each other as we enter into the celebration of the arrival of our Lord and Savior.
Speaker: It's going to be a beautiful night.
Speaker: It's going to be very homey, very cozy again.
Speaker: some wonderful music.
Speaker: I am just so excited and I want to see all of you there.
Speaker: So don't miss it.
Speaker: Go to our website or to our social media to find out more information and we will see you there.
Speaker: That's one of the great things about art and about prose is those small moments.
Speaker: I think it's those small moments that make heaven.
Speaker: You know, when I think about eternity and
Speaker: I'm like, really the things that I'm most excited about are just going to be able to just being able to share small little joys with people forever in eternity and in New Earth.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just being able to be like, Nate, look at this cool tree I found.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Isn't this amazing?
Speaker: And then I'm talking about it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That praise to God and celebrating this beautiful thing that he created.
Speaker: Being able to sit around a fire.
Speaker: Dude, what do you want to go do in heaven?
Speaker: What are we going to do?
Speaker: What shenanigans are we going to get?
Speaker: Well, I do want to jump off of a really tall thing because I want to see what it would be like to fly.
Speaker: Do you think we'll be able to fly anyway?
Speaker: Well, that's just conjecture at that point, so I don't know.
Speaker: I tend to be very waffly on...
Speaker: eschatology.
Speaker: I stick to the basics, which is like, we're going to get a new heaven and a new earth.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and God's going to reign.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And it's going to be great.
Speaker: And that's, which is, I probably need to, it's probably not very responsible of me.
Speaker: I should probably think out a more recent eschatology.
Speaker: How about you and I?
Speaker: In New Earth, we go and we climb a big tall cliff.
Speaker: I think that sounds great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Then we jump off.
Speaker: And then we jump off it.
Speaker: Should we do it?
Speaker: I think we should do it.
Speaker: I think that'd be great.
Speaker: We've made a deal.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: And you audience can join us.
Speaker: That's a great.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That was just like a really moving thought for me all of a sudden.
Speaker: Just that's another thing that's great about like art is just the community that is formed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And just.
Speaker: And I think art has an ability to connect people to each other, but there is still some sort of barrier, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a connection, but there's also a disconnect.
Speaker: There's a connection here with you guys as the audience, and there's also a little bit of a disconnect of time and all of that.
Speaker: Being able to live into the fullness of that community.
Speaker: I think art gives us snapshots of these things.
Speaker: But being able to live into the fullness of community with each other and community with God.
Speaker: Forever, which we already get in the church to some degree when it's functioning well.
Speaker: We just see through mirror darkly now.
Speaker: And I think that's part of what art does is it gives us these flashes of heaven, you know, still dimly.
Speaker: But it's good to have.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Are there any specific works of art that you've been thankful for this year that have been, that have been moving for you this year or have been like, oh, this is, this was needed.
Speaker: I've been really enjoying Leifanger books.
Speaker: Bring it back to Leifanger.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm reading Virgil Wander right now.
Speaker: And earlier this year I read Peace Like a River.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And those are just very rich experiences.
Speaker: Yeah, what else?
Speaker: Let me see.
Speaker: How about you?
Speaker: I'll see if I can think of anything else.
Speaker: I knew you were going to turn it back around on me.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just been such a dense year that I'm struggling to think through, like, what have I really connected with artistically this year?
Speaker: I have one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Andrew Peterson's album, The Burning Edge of Dawn.
Speaker: I forgot about music.
Speaker: How did I forget about music?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That is a lovely album.
Speaker: It's really good.
Speaker: It's this great, like, things are hard right now, but I think they're going to get good.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: album and it kind of plays both that middle both one side and both the other side yeah in the album and it's just very cathartic so i like that album a lot yeah i have i'm glad you mentioned albums because i think music has been the art that's been the most enriching to me this year there's two one and they're sort of a double feature in my mind even though they're not at all related but
Speaker: Two new albums came out this year by my wife's favorite band or one of them.
Speaker: She doesn't like to rank things, but I think it's her favorite band.
Speaker: 21 Pilots.
Speaker: And then my favorite musician, John Van Dusen, came out with an album.
Speaker: The 21 Pilots album was called Breach.
Speaker: And it's just this really...
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: It feels like a reconstruction of their faith happening in this album.
Speaker: Shay and I think it feels like you can see them wrestling with like, wow, we're in the music scene.
Speaker: We are some of the top artists and we're in this weird community that's maybe not helpful for us.
Speaker: And maybe we've sort of drifted.
Speaker: If you don't know 21 Pilots, I won't blame you because I don't know a huge amount about them, but Shay has shared a lot with me.
Speaker: But their albums have sort of like, there's like some stories to them at times and they've got kind of an inner lore to them.
Speaker: And as they've gone, it's like, it's gotten pulled more and more in that.
Speaker: And then this album just again, feels very raw.
Speaker: Like they are just wrestling with their own things.
Speaker: And so that just hit me at a point where I was,
Speaker: just a little overwhelmed and a little depressed and a little angsty and just this sort of like crying out to God of like, I'm not doing good enough and you're super important.
Speaker: And also I don't feel like everything's quite working out with you the way that I thought it was quite supposed to, but I need to get back to that.
Speaker: Like has just been so in, I've like listened to it on repeat so much.
Speaker: It's just like,
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And then that moved into John Van Dusen's album, which came out like a month or two later, which is just a just beautiful, worshipful album.
Speaker: Like it is all about praise.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Like if there was one word I could really boil it down to, and it's weird because it's John Van Dusen, so there's weird like punk rock stuff.
Speaker: I think you would really like it.
Speaker: What's it called?
Speaker: I do like punk rock.
Speaker: As long as I am in the tent of this body, I will make a joyful noise, part one.
Speaker: Well.
Speaker: It's a pretentious word.
Speaker: I got it.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: As long as I'm in the tent of this body, I will make a rejoin noise part one.
Speaker: I highly recommend it, though, to everybody.
Speaker: Just look it up.
Speaker: Every song is just really beautiful.
Speaker: There's one of my favorites is a poem by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Speaker: As long as you love me, Justin Bieber.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: There's one that he turned into a song that was a poem by Bonhoeffer while he was in prison.
Speaker: And that's where the title of the album comes from.
Speaker: And it's just so powerful.
Speaker: It's just this great reminder of like, no matter where you are, you know God is with you.
Speaker: And it culminates into this sort of bridge.
Speaker: And it is just Bonhoeffer's poem put to music.
Speaker: But the bridge is, as long as I am in the tent of this body, I will make a joyful noise.
Speaker: And that, in the context of Bonhoeffer, being a month or two away from being executed in Nazi Germany, is insanely powerful, man.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Just insanely powerful.
Speaker: But there's just some really beautiful relational music about Jesus.
Speaker: And it's a very praise-focused and love-filled album, I think.
Speaker: Wow, beautiful.
Speaker: And so that with Breach has been a very...
Speaker: interesting and sweet double feature, I think, for me.
Speaker: So those are probably the two pieces of art, other than rereading Leif Anger's books throughout the pregnancy.
Speaker: I think those are the two pieces of art that have been the most resonant for me.
Speaker: Though I also saw RRR recently.
Speaker: You are very grateful for RRR.
Speaker: I am, because it's just epic and awesome and amazing.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Any others for you?
Speaker: Art pieces?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: I mean, okay, I have art that I've enjoyed.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like I've been really into Mumford and Sons this year.
Speaker: Me and Ellie together, which is fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And their album that came out this year, they had an album come out after like years of no albums.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And it also had some like...
Speaker: Like one of the two of the songs seemed like very like, oh, this is like a worship song.
Speaker: And so that was cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they have another album coming out in February.
Speaker: Just another like boom.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: I've just been enjoying that.
Speaker: So I'm grateful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's been nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sounds like it's been a big music year for us.
Speaker: Step it up over art forms.
Speaker: Superman tried.
Speaker: Superman was real good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know if I'm like grateful for Superman because it was just really great, but I don't know if it like
Speaker: Not full of great.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: I just don't know.
Speaker: I don't know how much deep, rich stuff it did for me.
Speaker: You know, it was a great, wonderful.
Speaker: It's probably my favorite movie of the year.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: I take it back.
Speaker: I am grateful for Superman because it was very joyful.
Speaker: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker: I feel like there's another movie that I've seen this year that I was like, wow, this is great.
Speaker: And I can't remember what it was.
Speaker: I mean, Fantastic Four was a good, oh, Thunderbolts.
Speaker: That's probably what I'm thinking about.
Speaker: I just watch superhero movies.
Speaker: That's all I do.
Speaker: I'm just so uncultured.
Speaker: I host a podcast about art.
Speaker: And I'm like, well, I watch comic book movies.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: It's art.
Speaker: I think it's art.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Something we were talking about earlier.
Speaker: About like enjoying appreciating the little moments like you mentioned in our town coming back and realizing, oh, like these little moments are the things that that matter.
Speaker: I was thinking about something similar with like my work.
Speaker: Like I'm a graphic designer, but the
Speaker: The things I make, they're just like brochures and billboards and stuff.
Speaker: They're not like these big expressive pieces of culture, cultural art.
Speaker: But I've always tried to do a good job with them.
Speaker: And that matters to me.
Speaker: And I've wanted to like, it's a little like the little place where they go.
Speaker: I just want to like.
Speaker: life to be better because this was done beautifully, even if it's just a little thing.
Speaker: Um, and sometimes can feel like, Oh, I'm not really doing much artistically impactful kind of thing, like a big thing.
Speaker: Um, but I had a thought, I think it was this morning.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: about maybe like, maybe I'm kind of like just painting the corners in the room in life.
Speaker: You're cutting in.
Speaker: Well, just like the edges of a piece, like just making this over here beautiful.
Speaker: It's not like in the center.
Speaker: It's not this big thing.
Speaker: And I think it's a little thing.
Speaker: And I think our lives are full of little things and we need to paint those things beautifully and appreciate the beauty that God gives us.
Speaker: In those little places, because really, like in our town, like those that's those are the places that we return to that we think that that was a joyful place.
Speaker: That was what mattered.
Speaker: It's not that.
Speaker: necessarily the big accomplishments and such that we strive for.
Speaker: And it's good to have goals and things to push ourselves towards.
Speaker: But that's not what's ultimately going to satisfy is when we reach this peak, reach this goal.
Speaker: It's the...
Speaker: It's the things along the way.
Speaker: And so are we painting those corners, those little spaces beautifully?
Speaker: And are we taking a step back and appreciating the people who are in our little corner and realizing that maybe this is the main piece of art actually?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a good thing to think on.
Speaker: I'm going to think on that.
Speaker: And you guys should think about that too.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I think that that's the episode.
Speaker: So thank you guys for listening.
Speaker: Thank you, Nate.
Speaker: We're grateful that you guys listened.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I'll take this opportunity to say, audience, I'm grateful for you.
Speaker: You guys are great.
Speaker: It's just such a blessing to sit and think that, oh, people do get some benefit from this.
Speaker: And they tune in.
Speaker: They're like, do they?
Speaker: That'd be nice.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: Or we're just more content.
Speaker: They keep coming back.
Speaker: But no, seriously, I'm just so grateful for all of you who listen, who support Artists of the Way, who supported us through gospel, who are supporting us in this next chapter.
Speaker: And Nate, I'm thankful for you and grateful for you.
Speaker: It's been a blast having you on the podcast.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: As a co-host, it's been great.
Speaker: I think, an upgrade for the podcast.
Speaker: Thanks, buddy.
Speaker: Nobody has reviewed to say otherwise yet, so...
Speaker: Or to say so in the positive.
Speaker: But yeah, grateful for you too.
Speaker: Thanks, man.
Speaker: I'm really grateful I get to be here with you, even just to be able to sit and talk to my friend.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a great, nice thing.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Thank you guys for listening.
Speaker: If you would like to support Artists of the Way in everything that we do, Giving Tuesday is coming up because Black Friday is coming up, so that means Giving Tuesday comes up after that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So we have our Christmas concert on Giving Tuesday.
Speaker: You can find out more information about that.
Speaker: But that is just going to be a very warm, homely, inviting atmosphere for you to come in and just enter into the season of Advent, the season of Christmas, and prepare your heart.
Speaker: We're really just trying to curate like a little cozy corner of the world for us to step into that season together.
Speaker: So we're really excited about that.
Speaker: Come see us there.
Speaker: We're trying to fundraise enough so that we can put on our production of bandstand and grow the organization.
Speaker: So any amount, either as a monthly donor or a one-time gift,
Speaker: would be appreciated.
Speaker: So you can go to our website for that.
Speaker: And if you like the podcast, share us with your friends and your family, because that's how we get new listeners.
Speaker: Leave a review and we'll read it.
Speaker: We could read it on the podcast.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: People do that.
Speaker: They do do that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We could say, Jan4567 said, nice.
Speaker: Good job.
Speaker: Yeah, nice.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Yes, leave a review or maybe a YouTube comment and no, we'll just read the reviews.
Speaker: But leave a YouTube comment and then- We could read that too.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: We could.
Speaker: We'll read a YouTube comment if you leave a nice or a mean, either one, a nice or a mean YouTube comment.
Speaker: But it has to be, if it's just a mediocre YouTube comment, it won't be worth our time.
Speaker: You're just promoting your Etsy business.
Speaker: We're not going to be reading that.
Speaker: The HTTPS colon backslash backslash.
Speaker: One, two, three, four, Joey.
Speaker: Backslash Etsy.
Speaker: I feel like I've done this wrong.
Speaker: Hang on.
Speaker: Backspace Etsy.
Speaker: Backslash one, two, three, four, Joey.
Speaker: Quilter.
Speaker: Quilter.
Speaker: Backslash three, four, eight, P, Q, J, L, E, Q, equals sign, W, three.
Speaker: I said we're not going to read another podcast, man.
Speaker: We'll put something up here that you can click on for one, two, three, four, Joey Quilter.
Speaker: Now he is going to comment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You better one, two, three, four, Joey Quilter.
Speaker: I hope that somebody is like dedicated enough to make a new YouTube account or a new like Apple podcast account.
Speaker: That's one, two, three, four, Joey Quilter.
Speaker: If somebody does that, you will, you will be featured on the next episode.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: That is recorded.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Anyways, thank you guys for listening.
Speaker: God bless.
Speaker: We hope you have a great, wonderful Thanksgiving.
Speaker: And we look forward to stepping into the season of Advent with you guys.
Speaker: Yes.
