The thing that I learned from my time working at the Justice Department is that good policy and making good policy takes time. It takes thoughtfulness. It takes deliberation. It's not crafted in late-night tweets.
Debra RienstraNovember 29, 2019
Refugia: a podcast about renewal
hosted by Debra Rienstra
Available on your favorite podcast platform
Welcome to Season 3!
After a year’s hiatus (to finish my book Refugia Faith), I’m back for another season of interviews with fascinating people whose expertise and wisdom can help us understand how to be people of refugia. This season, we’re focusing on “refugia church,” looking for models and ideas for how refugia can thrive in faith communities.
Subscribe on your preferred podcast platform, and look for new episodes each week through November. We’ll conclude with a summary episode, in conversation with my sometime cohost, biologist Prof. David Koetje.
What are refugia??
Refugia are places of shelter where life endures in times of crisis. From out of these small sanctuaries, life re-emerges, and the world is renewed.
We’re exploring what it means for people of faith to be people of refugia. How can we create safe places of flourishing— “micro-countercultures” where we gain strength and spiritual capacity to face the challenges ahead?
Host Debra Rienstra interviews a different guest each week, exploring the evocative idea of refugia from a variety of perspectives, from biology to worship to politics.
This is a podcast, ultimately, about watching for places where God is working at renewal—of the earth, of the church, culture, and society. It’s about seeking how we might participate willingly and courageously in that divine work.
For grammar geeks: “Refugia” is plural. “Refugium” is singular. I try to keep this straight, but both I and my guests mess it up sometimes. Meanwhile, the phrase “people of refugia” seems to reconstrue the word as a singular quality or state of being. I like this term enough, obviously, to put up with the confusing linguistic issues involved!
Host
Debra Rienstra
Debra Rienstra is professor of English at Calvin University, where she has taught writing and literature since 1996. She is the author of four books—on motherhood, spirituality, worship, and ecotheology/climate change—as well as numerous essays, poems, and scholarly articles. She writes the fortnightly Refugia Newsletter on Substack, a newsletter for people of faith who want to know and do more about climate. She also writes fortnightly for The Reformed Journal blog, writing about spirituality, climate change, pop culture, the church, the arts, higher ed, and more. Her literary essays have appeared in Rock & Sling, The Examined Life Journal, and Aethlon, among other places.
Debra was raised in Michigan and holds a BA from the University of Michigan and a PhD from Rutgers University. She and her husband, Rev. Dr. Ron Rienstra, have three grown children. When not writing (or grading!) or reading, Debra enjoys figuring out how to garden, solving crossword puzzles, hiking in the dunes near Lake Michigan, or listening to very wonky podcasts.
Episodes
To share your thoughts on Refugia, choose an episode and scroll down to the comments section.
Refugia are places where we are content to be small for a while. To wait, to be quiet, to practice simple virtues like hospitality and empathy. To build capacity on a small scale to prepare us for regrowth.
Debra RienstraNovember 23, 2019
You're at the intersection there of sky and light and water and earth. You're in the four elements; they're right there at the shore with you. And I think that kind of magic is what has always drawn people here.
Debra RienstraNovember 22, 2019
You just do the next thing that's possible to do and you hope that what that does is it grows into something that will live.
Debra RienstraNovember 15, 2019
Episode 9 Keep All the Pieces: Tim Van Deelen on Wildlife Conservation and the Ghost of Aldo Leopold
It's... loss. It really is. It's the sense that we are losing our biological richness. It's disappearing before our eyes. And if there are people that care about it, within a generation it becomes a memory, in the next generation it becomes an abstraction.
Debra RienstraNovember 8, 2019
Journalist and recent seminary grad Jeff Chu ponders the intersection of theology and farming, then describes the Evolving Faith Conference and other places of healing and fresh imagination for people who are, for whatever reason, feeling on the margins of the church.
Debra RienstraNovember 1, 2019
One of our conclusions is, people love the idea of lament more than the practice of it.
Debra RienstraOctober 25, 2019
Listen now In this episode, Christina Edmondson--Dean for Intercultural Student Development at Calvin University and co-host of the Truth’s Table podcast--reflects on the potential for refugia on college campuses. We also consider the virtues and difficulties of virtual refugia. For more background... Dr. Christina Edmondson…
Debra RienstraOctober 18, 2019
Listen Now Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, National Organizer and Spokesperson for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, takes stock of how the church is doing in addressing climate change and describes how young Christians are leading the way, finding refugia through intentional action. Kyle Meyaard-Schaap For More Background...…
Debra RienstraOctober 11, 2019
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the team of people who made this project possible.
- Thanks to all my guests, who were so generous with their time and wisdom. I’m proud to put your work on display whenever I can.
- Thanks to Kathleen Dean Moore, whose book Great Tide Rising inspired the idea for the podcast and who continues to inspire me with her prophetic voice, artistic skill, and personal integrity.
- Thanks to David Wunder along with the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship for providing support for Season 3 and to the several Centers and Institutes at Calvin University that provided funding to support an experimental pilot project during the summer of 2019.
- Thanks to my excellent assistants for Season 3, Ian Gilbert and Kathryn Gardner (audio editing) and Michal Rubingh (text editing).
- Thanks to my excellent assistants for Season 2, Josh Parks (text editing and publicity) and Philip Rienstra (audio editing). Could not have done another season without you.
- For Season 1, thanks to Calvin students Kayla Cooper and Garrett Strpko for doing so much of the recording and post-production, and to Jordan Van Eerden for batting cleanup. Thanks to Lauren Cole for much transcription editing and for developing the look of the podcast. Professors are not necessarily the most tech-savvy and we tend to be reclusive, but we can learn. Thanks for your patience with us.
- Thanks to Michaela Osborne and Stephanie Boer for vital logistical support during Season 1.
- Finally, huge thanks to John Hwang, whose passion and commitment fires us up and continues to make it all possible.