The Expansionist Podcast
Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake invite you to listen in on a continuing conversation about expanding spirituality, the Divine Feminine, and the transforming impact of living attuned to Wisdom, Spirit and Love.
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The Expansionist Podcast
Beloved: Journeying Into the Heart of Belonging
Discover your inherent worth and the life-altering power of divine love as we traverse the concept of 'belovedness' in our latest Expansionist Podcast episode. We delve into the transformative impact of understanding ourselves as 'beloved,' a term that signifies our deep connection to divine love and our own intrinsic value. By examining scriptural stories, like the baptism of Jesus and the idea of a new Genesis, we illuminate the potential for personal renewal when we embrace this sacred identity.
In our conversation we share those pivotal moments of realization when the truth of belovedness dawns, offering a fresh perspective and the opportunity to reframe our relationships and self-image. We consider how the act of speaking blessings and recognizing our beloved status can co-create with the divine, we encourage you to listen and reimagine the language of your own life. The distinction between 'blessed' and 'cursed' dissolves in the light of belovedness, casting humanity in a more compassionate and unified framework.
This episode is an invitation—step into a journey where the recognition of belovedness becomes a daily practice, transforming how you see yourself and interact with the world. By acknowledging that our belovedness is a truth we inherit, not earn, we pave the way for a life filled with dignity, respect, and a profound connection to all creation. Tune in to uncover how this subtle yet powerful shift can revolutionize your life's narrative, relationships, and spiritual path.
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Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love. Hey, heather, hi Shelly, I'm so glad you're here in person. One of the things that I was hoping for was that I would not talk over you if you were physically present, but I've already done it. No, I'm really glad you're here even though I may talk right on top of you.
Speaker 2:It's all good, it's good. It means that there's genius, you're a genius, I'm learning from, so talk away.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that narrative that you have running in your head there One of the things that happens when you and I have conversations, and what we intended to create was a space for us to have questions, a safe space for us to question kind of everything. We have a hope that, in the practice that we have of theology and in the understanding of God and love and Christ and ourselves, and where we fit into the world, especially pertaining to where the divine feminine interrupts us and how it can nourish our spiritual path in understanding this about God. The wrestling, though, of questions and having a safe space gets me really excited, and so often, when you talk or say something wonderful, I want to say something wonderful too, and so we interrupt.
Speaker 1:So I was hoping that, while we had this opportunity to be together in the studio actually talking about things that we love, which is people and life and all of the goodness that we see around us, that while we have these conversations and while we invite listeners in and say, michelle and Heather are talking about that, what do I feel about it? You could also join in on table conversation on the podcast website or on the website in general, and you can enter the conversation if that's interesting to you. If it's not, listen or share the podcast with somebody else, but I'm glad to be having this conversation here with you today, absolutely, absolutely, and I love this topic that we are going to jump into today about beloved.
Speaker 2:It is a word that I hear you use over and over and over with individuals that you pastor and people that, uh, that are near and dear to you. Uh, it is this beautiful word. I'm not really sure the origin of the word, but today we're going to unpack this. Where does our belovedness begin? Where does it all begin? And start us out here with this understanding of why this word is so powerful and, uh, and what it means to you for for where you are right now, in your journey.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that you noticed my uh, frequent use of the word beloved. Uh, I think that it, in my understanding, it, is a source word for us. According to the Genesis story, god was having a conversation with God's self and said let us make male and female in our own image, and then God created them. And so the very source of us is love. According to first John, chapter four, first seven, god is love, and everyone that knows love knows God. And if you do not know love, then you do not know God.
Speaker 1:And so I go back to the very beginning that each person has been made in love, made in the image of divine love, made in the center of this community of self-emptying love, and in that source we are a reflection. And so when I call on someone's belovedness, I call past your given name, I call past the nickname that you've chosen for yourself or that your family has chosen for you, and I call to that original love. And I am reminding, maybe, the frequency of the word that I use, or beyond even nature speaking. This is where we began, this is in love and this is where we're returning, hopefully, through the realms, returning to the good, returning to love all the time. So I do love the word beloved. I think it keeps people a little bit off guard, if you haven't overheard it.
Speaker 2:And so it's not used that often. You don't hear people use it that much. Not as often as you use the word, that's for sure, and it's a true gift, like when you hear it. There is a distinction about the word. There's something behind it, and in 2nd Testament we both know the story of how Jesus was anointed with this word, given this image or this view, talk to us about that a little bit, how that came to him.
Speaker 1:I love this witness in Scripture that tells us of Jesus' baptism. This is before Jesus is going to do anything, before Jesus has entered truly into a ministry or into the maturity of what he's called to do. And the account in Scripture says that the heavens opened and he heard a voice from heaven saying this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. And this, starting at the place of belovedness, I think so much of the baptism story of Jesus reminds us that Jesus is demonstrating a new Genesis, that where we began in love, somehow we got off track and somehow we were misshapen. And Jesus comes and retells the story and reminds us of our own belovedness.
Speaker 1:And even beyond the story that we have and the account of Jesus, you and I had a conversation just moments ago about I don't think that's the first time belovedness was given to humans. I don't think that's the first time God. This is my opinion, but I suspect this is the language of love and I think that love has called belovedness and my expansionist theology allows me to interpret with a holy imagination. I imagine when the angel showed up with the message of God to Mary yes, beloved, we have a plan. Beloved spirit will come to you Beloved, highly favored beloved.
Speaker 2:Because you know that belovedness from her yes, absolutely that shot straight through to him. Yes, and so you know.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and I can imagine when she actually held the incarnation in her hands. I don't know that this happened, but I wonder and I feel like this is such a gift to have a holy imagination what it must have looked like for her to see the Christ for the first time. Sure, and then say, god looks like me, wow, and I think beloved would have come right out of it, that she would have even seen her own reflection. This is what God looks like. God has my eyes, god has that little crook in my ear. That's a beautiful thing, and I think that belovedness is where we begin. But it also offers us a space in the journey. It offers us a place to return to, to come back from paths that we have taken or paths that others have put us on and say holding the thought of belovedness allows us to make choices, allows us to offer other people a more excellent way. Holding onto the path of love through belovedness can reorient us, can give us back our true name, can help us return to our true selves.
Speaker 2:I'm sitting here thinking about, about your words today, and what strikes me is that when this announcement came to him, it wasn't given to him at birth, or when he went into the temple at 12, or when he walked along the the Jordan at 18 or right. It wasn't given to him then, but it was given to him Like it was reserved, it was held, it was attached somehow. It was attached. But here's this, here's this human that's living his life, possibly knowing that there's this greater calling that he's being shaped for. And then there's this community that he has grown up in. There's these people that in town, there's family, there's, there's work, there's all these normal things of his daily life that continue to be part of his, his livelihood. And then we get to this, the start of something about to break into the world. And here's this announcement.
Speaker 2:We know, you and I know that, the things that were said about him being fatherless for one, not knowing his dad's name, well, knowing his dad's name, did he know his dad's name? Yeah, Like here's a person born through the spirit of God to a woman, not through any male seed, that is, here's my beloved son. So if we look at our lives and we think about the missteps, the mishaps, the places that we wish that we could go back in a race, or that maybe we regret that even happened at all. And we get to a place in our life and we realize I'm beloved. How does that happen If we began at age 30, as he did, with this belovedness?
Speaker 2:Is it possible for all of us to begin at whatever age we realize? Wow, heather just called me beloved, I'm going to step into that. Or you know what I'm saying, like, like, how does this? How does this translate for us? How does this? Where does belovedness begin when all of our life? Maybe we look at it and say, wow, I made a mess out of those 35 years. All right, I made a mess out of those first 50, but now I am on this, this track, where I'm seeing myself differently.
Speaker 1:I love what you are bringing to my mind, this imagery that where do you start, where do you restart, where do you go, where is source? And when we go back to the source of love, I think that is where we can have so much confidence in new questions, new ideas, new paths of learning, new ways of being, new ways of loving the world. I think beloved is where we begin and I think that it allows us to detach from ways of thinking about ourselves or others, from unhealthy ways of thinking, from unloving ways of thinking. When we can use the language of God in belovedness and we can hear the voice of God calling to us beloved and then agree with that, then simply, I love you, I am beloved. I hear God language all over, that I am just that, and then I am beloved.
Speaker 1:That not only God loves us, but it allows us, I think, a deeper place even than self-esteem or self-love, but belovedness, coming from the authority of love that made the cosmos, that is making the cosmos. It allows us, I think, to step into co-creation, this invitation by Holy Spirit, by Sophia, into coming alongside of this realm, this kingdom that's being offered. Jesus said don't look to the left or to the right for the kingdom. The kingdom is within you and so, understanding this kingdom of love, this realm of love within us, I think belovedness is the threshold.
Speaker 1:Belovedness is where we enter into that and at any point you can cross the threshold, no matter where you were. I think it's significant that you said you know is in his 30s when he hears and beloved. I think that's enough time to find out that you may not be beloved. You know, you would have many, many interactions with people or yourself and maybe find another name, but just hear that interruption and go beloved, no, beloved.
Speaker 2:Yes, and imagine his mother, up to this point, being highly favored for this person's life. I can imagine he's calling this forward in him, this belovedness. Does somebody have to call it forward in us? Does somebody have to recognize it, or can we recognize it ourselves? There's a place where it begins. Do we recognize it, or does someone else see it in us?
Speaker 1:I think both could happen. I think it's a beautiful invitation to call out belovedness in other people as well, in the world, that all of us can begin the practice, not just of saying the word beloved, but in that intention, of when I address someone and I do name them the name that God, that source, speaks of them. Does it allow us to be firmly rooted in love, does it allow us to move and listen from a different place. But I think that's also how we co-create. One of the things that happened in the Genesis account is God makes this beautiful creation and then says to people name them. And what do we name people, neighbors or enemies. What if we just? I think belovedness turns our enemies into family, reminds us, and I think it calls to a deeper space. It calls, it allows a frequency to be emitted in our own voice Beloved, beloved. Beloved is where we begin and I love the idea that we begin anytime we need to. It's this constant returning, it's this turning to belovedness. It is taking every thought and going beloved.
Speaker 2:I wonder if one of the things, heather, that has maybe kept us bound or somehow unwilling to see our belovedness is the words around, some of the words around the Genesis story that either cause us to see ourselves as blessed or cursed, mmm, so there's these two ways that we can see ourselves, and many times we've been told that we're sinful, that we're bad, that everybody had to, everybody had to pass through that sin threshold. Oh, beloved.
Speaker 1:I have another way of seeing that, a different perspective. Perhaps In the beginning, when God is telling or when people are telling the story about this beautiful illustration that is happening, this beautiful story that is being told, god says let us make them in our own image. And there is this understanding that when us, when love, when the collective, when spirit, father and son, offer their creative power, one of the things they say is let us make male and female in our own image, and I think sometimes we figure that's a certain box and the other is a certain box, and I think that we need to allow things to be expanded in our minds and in our understanding. So when God says we'll make I make light and I make dark, that God also makes twilight and makes dusk and makes all the light in between. And so I think there is expansion in the idea that naming everything as beloved. We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend, and if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionisttheologycom Naming everything as beloved, including ourselves, all the parts of ourselves.
Speaker 1:I think very often we have learned language of diminishment. We have learned, particularly as women, we've learned language of less than and how deeply our souls need to be nourished in paying attention to the divine feminine, to the source of love, to this mothering God who is the source of us, and recognizing that belovedness comes from this source. And so for me particularly I intentionally speak the blessing of belovedness over people. It not only is for the hearer, for the person hearing it, it is for me in the speaking of it that I am also co-creating with God, but it also places me in a posture of humility and awe that I am in the presence of someone's beloved, no matter who I'm in the presence of. As CS Lewis said that you have never experienced a mere mortal, that's right. We have never experienced just someone who is loved, every person beloved, particularly when we pay attention to the fact that we are beloved, that daughters are beloved.
Speaker 2:So is it the voice? The voice you know, in the baptism there's a voice that is heard. This is my beloved son, so for us is part of how it begins that does it come through a voice, maybe not audible, like happened in for Jesus, but are we hearing the voice of the blessing or are we hearing the voice of the curse? You're not blessed, you're not worthy, you're all the things that you tell yourself that you're not.
Speaker 1:When you speak those words. I'm so reminded of the account in the book of Revelation where those walking with God receive a new name, and I wonder if we don't need to rename ourselves beloved. We don't need to go back to source and say this is who I really am, beloved. You don't have to feel belovedness, it can happen. But you don't have to know of yourself that I am beloved because love has called me. Beloved because I'm made in the image of love, because there is a higher authority and it is love than any other thought or name that has been given to us. Love names us and love has called us beloved. So for ourselves, choosing the voice above the noise, choosing the voice, and then we go to Song of Songs and the scripture of love. It is used so very often. So maybe we need to head back to that poetry of reminding ourselves that even the language that we use around our understanding, the language we use around God, but recognizing God's language about us, beloved, beloved is where we begin.
Speaker 2:Yes, If the voice is there as a reminder, and maybe the whole announcement was part of the theatrics of the author of the book Could have been, we don't know. Did that really get audible doubt Right? Did anyone else hear that in the crowd?
Speaker 1:And essentially the books weren't written by eyewitnesses, so maybe that part of the story got skipped. Yes, but can we use our holy imagination? We can, yes, can we ask ourselves the question of as I think the voice is important.
Speaker 2:Yes, and there's so many voices in our heads, there's so much information coming towards us to decipher and parse out that how do I even know if I'm hearing the voice of the beloved? Oh, that's such a good question, particularly if I'm not a person of faith.
Speaker 1:Our beliefs don't make or break us from being, don't separate us from belovedness. Nothing that we believe or don't believe could ever separate us, nothing that we do or do not accomplish.
Speaker 2:You're jumping out in the boat there.
Speaker 1:Belovedness is intrinsic to each person. It is not based on performance. It is not based on a choice that we make. Belovedness is bestowed on us. Belovedness is our birthright. Belovedness is given to each person made in the image of God.
Speaker 2:So how this begins to kind of get us back into this space of where does it begin? Does it begin before we're born?
Speaker 1:So because of my Christian faith and tradition, I would say unequivocally yes, and I would say that, based on the account in the text that says before the world was formed, god had you in mind and God had settled on you to be the object of God's affection, that you would be made whole and holy by God's love, wholeness, holiness, sacredness, our sacredness, all tied up in that belovedness. That happened before the world began. That happened when we were part of God's imagination. God has good, beautiful, expansive imaginations about us in the whole cosmos, for God so loved the cosmos that God gave yes. So with a lot of authority and with none. No, I do. I speak in the authority of love. Yes, your belovedness is even before you were born. You were born in love, you were shaped in love for love.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Just to sit with that and think about is wonder and all right there, just in the thought of that, I am beloved if we could if we could all grab the wire of that, we could all grab that wire and choose it.
Speaker 1:It can, I, can I offer that we wouldn't just choose it one time, that we would continue to choose the belovedness, because I don't think it's a one-time choice. Like I, chose to be beloved and then that's how I'm living my whole life, that's how every thought I have, that's the source of how I view other people. I think that it is a practice. I think it's a practice to choose that live wire and say this is the source, this is where I'm going to approach people from, this is where I want to approach myself from, this is how I will live my life, attached to the knowledge that, ultimately, love says I am very good.
Speaker 1:What a beautiful image, hopeful to, I think yes, and hopeful for the world, especially when I look around and when I look with Just input, and I see there's so much division, so many Places where we're different and that different pushes us apart. I think beloved calls us to unity. Beloved calls us home. Beloved calls us home to ourselves. Belovedness reminds us to look past someone's behavior, their choices, their beliefs, and Calls us to oneness, and this I have great confidence in. When Jesus prayed to God, he said Make them one like you and I are one, yes, and so calling us back to love. I Also think that's a form of resurrection, hmm, out of deadness into life, into eternal life, into real life. I Think love is the way, it's the more excellent way.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know you do.
Speaker 1:I'm convinced of it.
Speaker 2:She'll just, I have no doubt.
Speaker 1:I am convinced that love is the way. I'm not as convinced about other things as I used to be. I think that at this place in the journey, there have been many things that we, that I, once really held With a lot of confidence, with a lot of certainty, and I have given up that certainty for a better way. Yes, cult love, and you and me both.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why we're having these conversations, that's why we're asking the questions and going is it possible that there is a bigger, expansive, more beautiful way to experience other people, life, our own lives, and what about even ourselves? What if, in the dealing of the way we treat about ourselves or think about ourselves, is through the lens of belovedness?
Speaker 2:I was just sitting here wondering about, well, be loved, the love. It is, to be loved First by yourself or first by God? I think it's first by God.
Speaker 1:I could give you a lot of reasons. I could give myself a lot of reasons why I haven't earned that or why I haven't lived up to that, or why that has not been true, or what evidence is I have in my life where that has not been the case? And then I hear the higher voice Beloved, beloved, beloved. It's this calling back to self, back to true self, back to the origin of blessing, the origin of very good. Yes, when God saw her, very good. Yes, we talked earlier About maybe the inference in some people, without the idea of a holy imagination, if you only read what was written and was not written necessarily by an eyewitness, but through the accounts in the Genesis, accounts, when the woman is formed, god has said everything was good. I want. God sees God's creation and it is in the female form. She's beautiful and she is very good. Yes, I don't think we ever go from very good in God's eyes that we stay in highly favored, very good.
Speaker 2:Beloved. It's beautiful, hopeful and beautiful.
Speaker 1:And loving, and beloved and beloved. Yes, and it can be something that we practice. Maybe we've never practiced it before. It was not something that was handed to me Beloved, belovedness. I didn't practice this because my grandmother practiced this. Although she gave me many treasures, this was not one of them. This was something that I believe I heard spirits say, and I was so taken back by it. I was like I will be using that. Thank you very much. I recognized the wrestling that I had been doing and when I heard it, I was like yes, that is the language.
Speaker 1:And so glad that you did Right, yeah, and so good. The results for the people around me, the results for people who have experienced it and again, I think it is not just a word that there is a vocal transformation that happens to us when we utter those words about ourselves or about other people Again places us in a position of ah, this person that I am seeing, this person, that I am having a difficult interaction with, this person that is, you know, frustrating me, beloved. Maybe I do not love them at this moment, I want to, but maybe I can't, but God sees them beloved, and so there is a certain dignity, there is a certain respect that I have for beloved.
Speaker 2:So I want people to find this, I want them to taste it and I want them to experience it. So if I am instructing today that beloved and belovedness is attainable, you are saying it is a practice. Yes, I believe this. Yeah, so it is a practice. First, I have to know its origin. Where am I beginning? Am I 12?, am I 19?, am I 34?, am I 52?
Speaker 1:I think, wherever you are, you can begin it, belovedness.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you heard it from Heather straight out Wherever you are today, beloved is your choice.
Speaker 1:Beloved is your choice, and I think that is the threshold into so much more.
Speaker 2:Yes, so, if beloved is the choice, what is the?
Speaker 1:voice. I think the original voice is the voice of love, that we speak with the authority of God, and God said, and then the voice becomes ours Is love.
Speaker 2:Are you equating love and beloved as the same?
Speaker 1:No, no, although I think it's interconnected, but I don't think it's the same. I think that when I use the word love, returning to love, this is the way God describes God's self to us. Love says love creates, be loved. It's a call back into the source. Yes, it's an invitation Come home. Yes, come home to ourselves, come home to the source, the journey. Love is where we begin, love is the destination and love is the whole thing. Yeah, only more love. Love only ever expanding, love only ever growing. Love only ever reaching farther, including more, more of ourselves, our true selves, and hearing the voice of love practicing, and sometimes it may be with an unstable voice that we call ourselves beloved.
Speaker 1:But, as we practice, there'll be a little bit more confidence in the beloved, and I think that it's important to remember that when I call myself beloved, it does not originate from me. I am simply rehearsing what.
Speaker 2:Creator said yes. So here we are in this expansionist moment, and what we're expanding is this idea that we are beloved, that there is an example where God speaks and reminds the human person of Christ that he is beloved. Did he forget? Did he forget that he was beloved? Or maybe he questioned? Did he needed to be reminded that he was beloved? Did he not believe his mother when she said you are beloved, beloved. And so today, I encourage you, heather, encourages you to begin to begin today, knowing that you are beloved, that your belovedness is the essential part of who you are and is an opportunity, a threshold to return to the good.
Speaker 2:So be it.
Speaker 1:It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionisttheologycom.