Episodes

  • S7 Ep2: Luigi Gioia on praying for healing

    S7 Ep2: Luigi Gioia on praying for healing
    Feb 21 2025
    We continue our 2025 season on Belonging and Healing with an inspiring conversation between Gillian and Anglican priest, Father Luigi Gioia. This is a rich and profound episode where they go deep into lived experience and the reality of what it means to pray for healing.

    The Rev. Dr. Luigi Gioia is the Theologian in Residence at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, New York City, and Research Associate at the Von Hügel Institute at the University of Cambridge (UK). He is the author of Say It To God. In Search of Prayer. The Archbishop of Canterbury Lent Book 2018 (Bloomsbury 2017), and The Wisdom of St Benedict. Monastic Spirituality And The Life Of The Church (Canterbury Press 2021). His books have been translated in six languages.

    TW: Mentions suicide.

    Together they discuss:

    • Why pray for healing?
    • The difference between being cured and being healed.
    • What is happening for people at Lourdes.
    • The healing sacraments.
    • The place of death in prayers for healing.
    • The difference between acceptance and resignation.
    • The importance of community in healing experiences.
    • Father Luigi's own very personal current experience of praying for healing.
    Links:
    Transcript for this episode is available on our website.
    Join The GoHealth Community
    Share your requests for prayers for healing.

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    38 mins
  • S7 Ep1: John Swinton - Presence and Belonging

    S7 Ep1: John Swinton - Presence and Belonging
    Jan 17 2025
    Gillian begins our 2025 season on Belonging by talking with Prof John Swinton, Professor of Practical and pastoral theology at aberdeen university. John is an registered mental health nurse, ordained minister and noted theologian, researching particularly in areas of mental health and dementia. He is also President of GoHealth, and a musician, recently releasing an album Beautiful songs about difficult things.

    Together they explore:

    • Countercultural presence
    • Absence because of mobile phone use
    • Getting comfortable with disruption in church
    • Mental health in terms of discipleship and vocation
    • Moving from ‘fixing’ to friendship.
    • Theology of the Psalms of lament.
    • Spirituality of darkness.
    • Helpful and harmful anger.
    • Solastalgia.
    • Belonging as being missed.
    • Learning to be kind.
    • The Denis Duncan Lecture 2025
    Links

    Join The GoHealth Community Here

    Beautiful Songs about Difficult Things by John Swinton

    Register here for the Denis Duncan Lecture

    Full transcript available here.

    Follow the GoHealth Community on our socials @guildofhealth
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    27 mins
  • S6 Ep3: Creation Cares - Taking Action

    S6 Ep3: Creation Cares - Taking Action
    Nov 8 2024
    What is ours to do? We've been deep in this theme of Creation Cares for a number of weeks as a GoHealth Community. In this episode Gillian talks with Clare Fussell from Operation Noah about what we can do in response, and what we can leave undone!

    Clare Fussell joined Operation Noah in January 2024. Clare has a background in coordinating environmental campaigns, with experience leading The Climate Coalition, managing Christian Aid’s Campaign Team, and being Environmental Adviser for Bristol Diocese. She is passionate about linking Christian faith with environmental action, and enjoys learning about permaculture and biodiversity through her role as trustee of Hazelnut Community Farm in Bristol, as well as through the eco work at her church. Clare is married to Luke, a renewable energy engineer, and they have two young children.

    In their conversation together Gillian and Clare explore:

    • Would Clare's teenage self imagine she would be doing what she is doing now
    • Responding to the Climate crisis by balancing the big scene with small actions
    • How Operation Noah has been supporting churches through the Bright Now campaign.
    • What churches can do in response to climate change and biodiversity loss.
    • Why climate change and environmental concerns are not a side show to the main purpose of the church.
    • Clare's three tips for avoiding activist burnout as a Christian engaged in climate justice.
    Links:
    Operation Noah
    The Hazelnut Community
    Burning Down the House Report - Tearfund
    The Lost Words by Robert McFarlane and Jackie Morris
    Borrowed Time - A Green Christian project
    The Loss and Damage Campaign - Christian Aid
    COP29 - United Nations Conference of the Parties
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    33 mins
  • S6 Ep2: Creation Cares - Noticing nature

    S6 Ep2: Creation Cares - Noticing nature
    Sep 27 2024
    What in Creation caught your attention today? Do you have a sense of why that might have been? These are some of the many questions explored in this beautiful conversation between Gillian Straine and Steve Aisthorpe.

    Steve is the Director of Kilmalieu, a retreat centre on the west coast of the Highlands, part of the Abernethy Trust. He is a coach, retreat leader and author of The Invisible Church (SAP, 2016) and Rewilding the Church (SAP, 2020). He was previously a mission development officer for the Church of Scotland and Executive Director of the International Nepal Fellowship.

    Together, Gillian and Steve explore

    • Kilmalieu retreat centre – what is distinctive about its approach.
    • How folk attending the centre connect with the rugged landscape around them.
    • How being at Kilmalieu benefits people.
    • The three ways of seeing.
    • The threshold prayer.
    • How connecting with nature cultivates resilience in the face of the climate crisis.
    • Rewilding the Church - Steve's book.
    • How folk listening can practice nature connection today, wherever they are.

    Episode links:
    Kilmalieu website
    Abernethy Kilmalieu Facebook
    Kilmalieu Instagram
    GoHealth Creation Cares series
    Join the GoHealth Community

    Facebook and Instagram: @GuildofHealth
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    33 mins
  • S6 Ep1: Creation Cares - nature connection

    S6 Ep1: Creation Cares - nature connection
    Sep 6 2024
    Spending a long time gazing at a flower with a small child, having your hands covered in soil and being held by a fresh water lochan. These are just a few of the ways the GoHealth team share their experiences of nature connection in this special episode.

    In this special episode we hear from members of the GoHealth team, chair of the board and a member of the GoHealth Community about their connection with Creation.

    Some of these reflections were recorded a few years ago just as we were emerging from lockdowns as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. A time when many of us were rediscovering a connection with nature.

    May listening back to these reflections help us remember and retrieve that connection if it has since faded.

    • Graham Fender-Allison shares a precious moment in his garden with his wee boy.
    • Steve Coles tells us about an exciting farm project he and his wife have set up and five things he has learnt in the process.
    • Gillian Straine describes how her labour of love in her back garden has helped her uncover deep wisdom about faith.
    • Gregory expresses his love and thirst for the outdoors.
    • Wendy Lloyd compares the cleansing of fresh water swimming with the satisfaction of having soil under her nails in the garden.

    Links:
    GoHealth Creation Cares series
    Join the GoHealth Community here.
    Wild & Other
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    19 mins
  • S5 Ep8: Rest and Reset - Zen

    S5 Ep8: Rest and Reset - Zen
    Aug 14 2024
    Learning from the wisdom of Zen meditation. In this episode Gillian chats with the Revd. Chris Collingwood, a Christian Priest, former canon of York minster and Zen master.

    The conversation explores the following:
    • Chris explains how he felt called to be a priest.
    • What Zen is.
    • How Chris got interested in Zen.
    • How he became a Zen Master.
    • How Zen practice fitted with his role as a canon at York Minster.
    • Christian theological connections with Zen and how it differs.
    • How Zen impacts on how people relate to the world.
    • The experience of non duality.
    • How Chris responds to folk in spiritual need - does he draw more on his Zen practice or Christian faith?
    • The practice of compassionate non judgement towards others and ourselves.
    • The one thing that Chris offers as encouragement to listeners.
    Links:
    Chris's book: Zen Wisdom for Christians.
    The GoHealth Everyday Healing Course
    Get your GoHealth journal here.
    Visit our website to get connected with the GoHealth Community.
    Find us on our socials @GuildofHealth
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    44 mins
  • S5 Ep7: Healing Histories - Embody

    S5 Ep7: Healing Histories - Embody
    Jul 16 2024
    Revd Ian Spencer helps us heal from a long history of bodies being denigrated by the Church. Drawing on wisdom from the Gospels, Zen wisdom and from Yoga, Gillian and Ian offer us a transformative body based way of knowing.

    The episode explores:
    • Ian's biography including Mindwell Ministries (you can read this in full on the GoHealth website: gohealth.org.uk/podcasts/healing-histories-embody/)
    • Ian shares what inspires him spiritually today.
    • Gillian and Ian get into the sad history of the church in relation to bodies.
    • Incarnation!
    • The importance of relationship with all things in our overall health.
    • Avoiding overwhelm and the impact we can have in the healing of the world.
    • Body based knowing.
    • Ian provides a really practical example of how to develop body based knowing.
    Links:
    Transcript is on the GoHealth podcast page gohealth.org.uk/podcasts/healing-histories-embody/
    Mindwell Ministries
    The body keeps the score, Bessel Van Der Kolk
    The GoHealth Everyday Healing Course
    Get your GoHealth journal here.
    Visit our website to get connected with the GoHealth Community.
    Find us on our socials @GuildofHealth

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    33 mins
  • S5 Ep6: Healing Histories - spaces and places

    S5 Ep6: Healing Histories - spaces and places
    Jul 2 2024
    There are few stones left unturned in this episode. The Revd Dr Dan Inman, Precentor of Chichester cathedral, leads us on a pilgrimage through liturgy, buildings, arts and pilgrimage itself. TW: Gillian and Dan also get into a delicate conversation about the handling of a specific historic alleged abuse case regarding Bishop George Bell.

    • Dan shares what a Precentor does.
    • Cathedrals as more than a quirky english moving museum.
    • How cathedrals and the liturgy provide a healing space for many.
    • How the George Bell abuse case was handled impacted the naming of places and spaces.
    • The possibility of liturgy helping to heal the wounds of historic abuse.
    • Pilgrimage, the why, what and where of pilgrimage for Dan.
    • Where Dan finds hope for human flourishing, as a Precentor.
    Links:
    Chichester Cathedral
    Bishop George Bell's name restored to Chichester Cathedral building - BBC News
    British Pilgrimage Trust
    Scottish Pilgrimage Routes Forum
    Alastair Mcintosh Poacher's Pilgrimage
    The GoHealth Everyday Healing Course
    Get your GoHealth journal here.
    Visit our website to get connected with the GoHealth Community.
    Find us on our socials @GuildofHealth
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    38 mins