096 The Shape of Joy (with Richard Beck)

In a world where mental health issues and loneliness are at an all-time high, it’s more important than ever to find ways to cultivate joy, community, and meaning in our lives. But how exactly do you do that?

Maybe we need to turn outward rather than inward for answers.

That's what we are talking about with Dr. Richard Beck.

Dr. Richard Beck is a professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas He is a popular blogger and speaker and the author of several books. We interviewed him a bit ago about his Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age (which I recommend to people all the time if there are in that space of deconstruction). And today we are talking about his newest book, The Shape of Joy: The Transformative Power of Moving Beyond Yourself.

00:00 Introduction: Exploring Joy in a Challenging World
00:37 Meet Dr. Richard Beck: A Journey into Joy
01:16 The World's Worst Commencement Address
04:00 The Shape of Joy: Turning Outward
05:55 The Wandering Mind and Mental Health
11:38 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Beyond
15:28 Humility and Happiness: A Surprising Connection
19:13 The Power of Mattering and Transcendence
23:18 Mr. Kenneth's Story: Joy in Unexpected Places
29:34 Conclusion: Finding Joy and Staying Connected

Check out the DMIN in Spiritual Formation and Relational Neuroscience here. 

Stay Connected:

• NEED spiritual direction or coaching that aligns with this podcast? Connect with Cyd Holsclaw here.
• Join the Embodied Faith community to stay connected and get posts, episodes, & resources.
• Support the podcast with a one-time or regular gift (to keep this ad-free without breaking the Holsclaw's bank).

Transcript

Introduction: Exploring Joy in a Challenging World

[00:00:14] Geoff Holsclaw: In a world where mental health issues and loneliness are at an all time high, it's more important than ever to find ways to cultivate joy, community and meaning in our lives. But exactly how do we do that? That is the question for us a little bit today. We're going to be talking about the shape of joy.

This is the attaching to God podcast. Where we are exploring a neuroscience informed spiritual formation. 

Meet Dr. Richard Beck: A Journey into Joy

[00:00:37] Geoff Holsclaw: And today we have with us, dr. Richard Beck back for a second time. He is a professor of psychology at Abilene Christian university in Abilene, Texas. He is a popular blogger and speaker and author of several books.

We had him on previously to talk about hunting magic eels, recovering and. Enchanted faith in a skeptical age. It's kind of a weird title, like, but it's a great book. I recommend it to all sorts of people. And, uh, today we're talking about his newest book for those of you who are watching, it's called the shape of joy, uh, the transformative power of moving beyond yourself.

Welcome back to attachment to God.

[00:01:12] Richard Beck: Oh, excited. Glad to be with you, Jeff.

[00:01:14] Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah, I was so glad to have you. 

The World's Worst Commencement Address

[00:01:16] Geoff Holsclaw: So just to jump right in, this is how you start the book. So this is how we start the podcast in, I believe 2019, you were giving a commencement address, addressing, uh, to the graduating high school students of which I believe your son was a part.

And you started off with something like, do not follow your dreams. 

[00:01:33] Richard Beck: I,

[00:01:34] Geoff Holsclaw: So how did that go? And why did you do that?

[00:01:37] Richard Beck: Well, yeah, I, I, the title of that introduction is The World's Worst commencement address, graduation speech or commencement address. Yeah. So, uh, it was a bit of a risk, but my son was in the audience. I was invited by his senior class to give the commencement address. And, uh, instead of doing the typical graduation, go out there kids, you're awesome.

You're going to do amazing. Follow your dreams. You'll succeed. Uh, just what I felt was needed was something a little deeper than that. Which was to ask them to entertain, um, not necessarily the best day of their lives because those days are great, you know, one doesn't need a whole lot of help or mental health counseling when your dreams come true.

Those are wonderful days. And so I asked them to entertain, uh, who they're going to be and how they're going to get through the worst day of their lives. And I used the dot. That, that day, the, the, the dark, darkest day of their lives, um, is going to be their moment of truth. And so I said, don't, don't follow your dreams.

Uh, and the other thing I mentioned is like, cause a lot of our dreams don't come true. Uh, a lot of us deal with a lot of dissatisfactions. A lot of the plans that we had laid for ourselves when we were 18 years old didn't come to fruition and our life kind of went sideways or we've kind of ended up in a cul de sac from a career perspective.

And, um, Uh, look back with just a lot of, uh, regret or, or even just dissatisfaction. So how do you carry that burden, uh, as well? So, yeah, I told a graduating class, do not follow your dreams. Uh, instead ask them to entertain. Uh, what's going to happen on the worst day of their lives now as how far it went, it was bleak there for a while until I made the turn as I was kind of preaching doom and gloom and you know, your dreams might not be fulfilled and your life might go sad sideways and you might get a call at 3 a.

m. and you might 2 a. m. diagnosis. And, you know, as I'm going through this litany of woe, you can just see this kind of panicked look on the faces of the parents and administrators. Like this was a bad, this is a bad invite right here. And, but then I made a turn and I think, I think everybody appreciated the end where I got them, which is, yeah, we need on that day, the or worst day, um, sitting in the hospital, um, getting some bad news, facing a career setback or romantic heartache, uh, What are we going to turn to on that day?

What gets us through that day?

[00:04:00] Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. 

The Shape of Joy: Turning Outward

[00:04:00] Geoff Holsclaw: And, uh, the trajectory of the book is, is to say something like, um, those resources aren't primarily found within ourselves, but you unpack the story of like, we've been told that, um, All these resources of follow your dreams, your meaning, uh, self esteem or something like that are found within us. And so can you, and you talk about this curve inward, can you explain the title, the shape of joy, and then kind of maybe how Descartes as a philosopher, but then Freud as a psychologist have kind of set us on maybe a less than helpful path.

Hmm.

[00:04:35] Richard Beck: is just playing with a geometrical metaphor for the book that the argument is because of seminal thinkers Descartes, Freud, turned us inside ourselves to search for truth. Within ourselves to find our own truth, find my own truth, but also to look for health and well being to that's the Freudian turn to penetrate into the murky depths of the unconscious and uncover the truth about myself.

Uh, and so that inward turn made, uh, the modern psyche. The modern ego, very introspective, curved, curved inward. However, mental health science has shown that that curve inward has had some pretty disastrous effects on our mental health. It's made us very ruminative. Um, we, we spend a lot of time in our heads.

With a lot of negative self talk. And so I argue that what we need is a turn outward, like a blossoming flower. And so this middle part of the book is turning away from the self, stepping back from the self. So we talk about things like mindfulness and humility, quiet egos. Uh, and then, but then the final part of the book is the, is the turn outward, the shape of joy.

Uh, bringing in the, the science of transcendence and its role in, um, undergirding mental health.

[00:05:51] Geoff Holsclaw: So that's a, like the overview

[00:05:52] Richard Beck: Yeah, big overview. Yep.

[00:05:53] Geoff Holsclaw: great. I love it. 

The Wandering Mind and Mental Health

[00:05:55] Geoff Holsclaw: So can you, um, Um, talk a little bit about like the research, um, about the default mode and kind of the wandering mind and how, uh, our unhappiness kind of comes from the inner voices being too loud. Can you just kind of explain what some of that research has shown about our inner lives?

[00:06:14] Richard Beck: so, so, yeah, so the question about the default state of the brain, it's just like if the brain is left by itself and it's settling into its natural default state, like what is it, what is it doing? And Psychologists have explored this. One study I talked about in 2010 in Science, the journal Science, did this experiential sampling method where they would just kind of randomly ping people on a cell phone and ask, like, what are you thinking about right now?

And they discovered that like 47 percent of people When they got that prompt worth, we're not thinking about what they were presently doing, that their minds were, their minds were elsewhere. They were lost within themselves, not connected to, you know, the, the dinner table or not paying attention to the person standing right in front of them.

They just weren't. Environmentally present. So the default state of the brain is a wandering mind. So that's the, I'd kind of describe that as we just kind of wandered the lonely quarters of our inner self talk. And, but, but, and that might be fine, except for they also discovered, that excessive mental wandering was also a sign.

associated with increased unhappiness. So that's kind of a recipe for like widespread misery that our minds tend to wander. And that mental wandering, getting lost in ourselves is predictive of mental unhappiness. So I kind of use that to, Just one data point about how science is showing us that introspection, um, might not be as helpful as Freud promoted, uh, for, for the modern world as a root to mental peace and happiness. 

[00:07:56] Geoff Holsclaw: So are you, are you saying, or pushing back against like the popular advice of like, Oh, if you're unhappy, you need to become more connected with yourself. Like the reason why you're sad, depressed, afraid, or anxious is because you've lost. Uh, who you are, or you're not connected. Like I said, like you're not connected with yourself.

That seems to be a kind of like the popular kind of movement. Um, are you saying that that like approach might not be as, as productive or is there, is there some middle ground or,

[00:08:26] Richard Beck: Yeah, so I mean, uh, there's a lot of ways I could probably try to answer that question. I think, I think one of the things we, we do is What we've recommended for people is that when, is what, what the project is when they go inside themselves, like we send them inside themselves with an agenda. And so one of the things I talk about in the book is, is, uh, is, is the widespread mental health recommendation, like for self esteem.

So when you are inside yourself, what you're supposed to do is to rehabilitate. A negative self image into a positive self image. So we're inside ourselves pursuing self esteem. But we do that through engaging in these mental debates with ourselves. Um, so we get alerts, uh, of our failure or, or we get, Um, snubbed on social media or ghosted by a friend on text.

And so, you know, chains of, you know, neurotic anxiety go through our heads. And we try to kind of beat back that darkness in our heads to try to rehabilitate a damaged self perception. And I kind of describe it in the book, um, through this kind of weird story, uh, where I had a flat tire in my, on my car, it wasn't completely flat and I didn't have a pump to pump it up, but I realized I could use my bike pump to inflate my car tire.

And so I, so I attached my bike pump to my car tire and started trying to inflate my car tire with his bike pump. And I discovered two things. One, you can do that, like it's possible to inflate, but the, but the other thing is like it's exhausting.

[00:09:58] Geoff Holsclaw: Uh,

[00:09:59] Richard Beck: and I, and, and so to I use that as a metaphor that some psychologists have described as the weariness of the self.

That to re inflate or re uh, rehabilitate our, our self images is this constant effort that, that we're engaging in. We're constantly trying to inflate this, tire with a bike pump and, and that's exhausting as, as a project. And so our minds are not resting in a place of peace, but they are still excessively, um, working and churning away at, at these, uh, recommendations to go inside ourselves and figure ourselves out and, um, esteem ourselves and, and so to me, it's, it's, it's, it's the, The effort of that process isn't leading to

an inner tranquility. It's still more just internal churn. 

[00:11:00] Geoff Holsclaw: Okay, so we've been given these like projects or advice, uh, to do some internal work, but oftentimes it's just churning the same kind of ruminating negative process. So this is really curious to me, uh, cause I didn't know the history, uh, as well. Uh, but you said that there's kind of been people have started.

I've gotten dissatisfied with these approaches, uh, even early kind of adaptations of kind of Freudian psychoanalysis. And so can you talk about that shift into like cognitive behavioral therapy and kind of where that came from as well as ACT, uh, and some of those shifts as far as digging in concerns about digging into the inner life?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Beyond

[00:11:38] Richard Beck: Yeah, so I think Um, if you've been around the therapeutic community at all, you pretty much know that like cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT is probably the most widely used and widely recommended and empirically validated treatments out there. But the origins of a cognitive behavioral therapy began with its pioneer Aaron Beck.

And Aaron Beck was trained in a Freudian psychoanalytic

[00:11:59] Geoff Holsclaw: any relation? There's Beck's writing in psychology. There's tons of, okay.

[00:12:06] Richard Beck: no relation, no relation. Um, but, um, Beck was doing the Freudian move of, again, throwing his clients back in themselves, right? Looking for happiness, looking for joy in an introspective process. But what he discovered in his practice was he was making his depressive clients worse. Uh, psychologists call this depressive rumination, uh, where the more we think about ourselves and the more we churn up the past, the worse we feel. And, and, and so Beck realized that what his clients needed was not more thinking about themselves, not more, picking over past traumas, what they needed to do was what he described as a distancing, some cognitive distancing.

They needed to step back from their thoughts to gain a little bit more objective view of what those internal thoughts were doing. Now, uh, so that's the first step in cognitive behavior with every step back, look at your inner dialogue a little bit more critically with a little bit more distance, and then try to, um, engage in what's called cognitive restructuring.

Um, come up with better internal scripts, but now recently a lot of people trained in CBT, um, began wondering if that, that distancing needed to be, um, even more comprehensive. So this is the, uh, advent of the acceptance, uh, commitment based therapies that grew out of CBT. Um, and, and the acceptance based practitioners.

Um, borrowing from Eastern practices of mindfulness suggests that even asking clients to engage in restructuring is asking them to, what I describe as kind of re grab the flypaper, that they're back into debating their own thoughts and trying to re re engineer their own self talk. That what we need to do is that when those mental scripts pop up from the past, uh, self recriminations, you know, negativity, that we don't need to like change those or debate them.

We just let them go, right? We, we, we, we recognize that's a thought, but, but don't engage. And so it's more a practice of comprehensive self distancing. Um, and, and so that's the newest wave you're seeing a lot of. Uh, energy and studies about the effectiveness of these more mindfulness based practices in replacing the older cognitive restructuring.

But what they're both illustrating, uh, in, in my book is that the first step toward mental health is not engaging with the negative thoughts and, and being thrown back into your own mind, but taking, starting to turn away and step back. Um, to reconnect with reality and getting out of your own head.

[00:15:01] Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. So that'd be kind of like part of the, the beginning of the, uh, movement away from turning inwards to doing something else. And part of that process, I think spiritual traditions have used language, which sometimes can get a bad rap. So we could unpack that, but I've used language of humility to kind of like talk about that.

So can you, uh, you cover quite a bit, the research connecting humility and happiness. Could you kind of unpack that a little bit?

[00:15:27] Richard Beck: Yeah. 

Humility and Happiness: A Surprising Connection

[00:15:28] Richard Beck: In the middle part of the book, when I'm talking about this stepping back or stepping away from the self, um, I devote a chapter to the science on humility. And what's interesting, that might be a surprise for a lot of people, that if you grew up in a conservative Christian, uh, community, uh, context that humility has this self critical aspect to it, uh, it's, it's a form of like self mortification, uh, thinking, thinking less of yourself.

So if I, if I, if I'm getting prideful, if I have a success, I got to engage in a series of negative self appraisals. Don't, uh, and, and, and this affects like parenting practices. So we try to regulate our children's pride or self esteem when they experience successes by trying to say, Hey, don't get it too big a head.

And I describe this as like the Goldilocks game of self esteem. Trying to keep self esteem in this just right. location where you don't want it to be excessive because you don't want to be prideful or narcissistic or egoistic. But not only do you want self esteem to drop below into like depressive self opinions and insecurities, but again, we're back to that bike pump metaphor.

Like it's exhausting to constantly be trying to regulate the proper amount of self appraisal for health. And so we think humility is a tool in that game to knock our egos down. But the research on humility is actually pointing towards not self evaluation, but it's pointing to self forgetfulness.

Psychologists call this a hypo egoic state. You're just not thinking about yourself.

[00:17:06] Geoff Holsclaw: Mm hmm.

[00:17:07] Richard Beck: Humble people are just not in their heads. They're not self aware. They are available to others because they are not engaged in some sort of ego game in that relationship. So then the question is like, well, what, what promotes that self forgetfulness, that ease in their own skin where they don't need to name drop or promote themselves or stand there insecure, you know, as they feel their, their lives don't compare well with others.

Uh, and so humility has been rooted in, What psychologists would call like a, like a stable self identity. Uh, which, which might seem counter to what a lot of people think. That humility is flowing kind of out of this ego strength rather than an ego insecurity. So, so having a stable in Identity, feeling comfortable about yourself, kind of allows you to not necessarily engage in, uh, in practices of self promotion.

But neither do they cause you to be insecure whenever you meet somebody who's really successful or talented. You don't, you don't feel diminished by that comparison.

[00:18:10] Geoff Holsclaw: hmm.

[00:18:11] Richard Beck: Um, and so all that to say is humility has been being discovered in the last like 10 years. It's like one of the really interesting predictors of mental health and resiliency. 

[00:18:21] Geoff Holsclaw: Well, for the listeners, I will try to dig out some references from the footnotes and see if I can attach them in the show notes. For those of you who are interested in that, we also, uh, David's all wrote a book on called low anthropology that covers a lot of the same stuff where, um, you know, the self forgetfulness, not self loathing, just.

Self forgetfulness, you know, ends up being much more, uh, beneficial. That's what he called a low anthropology rather than the high needs of a high self esteem and a high achievement and a high kind of self regard and things. So you, uh, also kind of connect to the research on mattering, uh, and how this is also, uh, helpful in getting ourselves out of ourselves, but also in kind of growing our emotional and mental health.

Uh, could you talk about the. Why it matters that we matter. Yeah.

The Power of Mattering and Transcendence

[00:19:13] Richard Beck: mattering is a newer variable that psychologists have been, have been looking at, and it's, it's considered to be one of the most robust predictors of like mental health and resiliency. And mattering is just the, this simple conviction. Durable conviction that you matter, that your life has, you know, value and significance.

Uh, Brene Brown in her work on shame describes it as like feeling worthy of love and belonging. But it's also described as, uh, existential or cosmic significance, uh, because it's just a truth about your existence. And the reason why mattering is important. more predictive of mental health and self esteem is because we're self esteem back to the bike pump metaphor is something that is needing constant attention and rehabilitation given life events mattering doesn't need to be Rehabilitated because it's kind of a durable conviction now that that raises a question is like where does that durable conviction come from if it's not therapeutic journey of trying to get my head right about myself and is more akin to a belief, then that's where the turn outward toward transcendence comes from.

What is the source of that mattering? If it's not my inner appraisals, then where is it grounded? And that's where a spiritual conversation begins showing up because people who can make that move towards a transcendent source of mattering, uh, have a place where they can locate it and not just locate it, but re experience it and recover that.

Uh, because even if we do feel like we matter, um, a lot of times our mattering is a discipline of memory, uh, a revisitation of why we matter and recovering of that. Um, so Christians would call that grace. It is just the, the, the value I get, um, that I cannot earn. And it is something that also cannot lose.

It's just the truth. And then from that foundation, I can be self forgetful because I, I'm not in a, a rival risk game of comparison with other people. Uh, but neither. Am I also, uh, chronically insecure in those interactions either? Uh, because the source of my identity is located elsewhere. I mean, the way the poll would describe this is that our life is hidden in Christ, right?

Our value is hidden there and therefore safe, um, from the, uh, from the ups and downs in lives. And to connect back to the commencement address, That's the connection. On your worst day, when all the metrics of success and failure and heartbreak come crashing down, where is your value to be located? Is it located in the transcendent good?

Um, or are you going to be locked inside your head trying to rehabilitate a very negative, rehabilitate a view of yourself? Um, when. All the quote facts of your life are pointing to, to kind of a pessimistic outcome, you know, that, that, yeah, where do you turn? What, what, where do you turn? And I'm arguing that you're going to have to turn outward for, for that, that comfort. 

[00:22:34] Geoff Holsclaw: it's the spiritual traditions, you know, like Christianity that have those resources, that reality, um, not just a vague source, but really, you know, the Trinity, Trinitarian relations. This is why, you know, I host a podcast like this because psychology and the neuroscience, the findings, just, They seem to be pressing back to that ancient wisdom of like, yeah, humility can be turned, you know, in weird and bad ways, but there is like this fundamental health and life that has always been a part of it.

And mattering within a cosmic story, uh, leads to a flourishing life. You know, these are things that like, there's this convergent of all these findings, well, you end the book by talking about someone who's in circumstances, uh, that are. 

Mr. Kenneth's Story: Joy in Unexpected Places

[00:23:18] Geoff Holsclaw: Horrible. You are a weekly, you host, uh, a Bible study, which is good for you, but he also does it in a maximum security prison.

He's a, uh, a prison chaplain. Uh, and you end kind of, it's not the very end of the book, but near the end of the book, you talk about Mr. Kenneth, uh, as one of these cellmates that, uh, that is kind of living in a different place. Could you kind of unpack, uh, kind of his situation and how he's this example of.

You know, living in a transcendent source of joy.

[00:23:47] Richard Beck: Well, you know, so, so in the back part of the book, I'm talking about all of the, the science that's pointing us towards transcendence as, you know, the critical factor of mental health. Um, I talk about the science on gratitude, the science of meaning in life, the science of wonder and awe, um, but then the science of joy is, is also another example of this transcendent move.

Um, and so, you know, I think a lot of us who grew up in Sunday school classes have heard pastors talk about the contrast between happiness and joy. And that contrast has always been that happiness is. Uh, reflection of life events, things happen and I feel happy and, but then joy being this, something more durable, something that is present even in very grim circumstances.

And what's interesting about that is that psychologists of joy have, have kind of recovered that debate. Something I learned in Sunday school is now in literature reviews. In high level

[00:24:52] Geoff Holsclaw: Oh, good. So science has proven it that the, that the, the youth pastor was not totally out to lunch.

[00:24:59] Richard Beck: Because there are some scientists that define joy as a positive emotional state. And that's true, right? Like, if I get some good news, I feel joyful. I feel happy. Uh, but other scientists argue that, you know, That's true. There is a joy, a bliss, a happiness in positive emotional reactions. And that's what emotions are, as psychologists define them.

They are affective responses to events. Something happens, I feel angry, you know, I experience a loss, I feel sad. Something good happens, I feel joy, but other psychologists, you know, like you said, going back to those wisdom traditions are arguing that, yeah, but joy seems to also have this transcendent aspect.

It's not, it doesn't go up and down. It doesn't come and go. What's, what's that about? And, uh, the philosopher, uh, Robert Roberts, uh, I use his work and his definition of joy, and he defines it as like a concern based construal. Um, which is a perception of reality. rather than an emotional reaction to events.

And so to tell that story, um, as a prison chaplain, um, the most anxious time I have out there and kind of caring for those men is during the semi annual lockdowns. Texas prisons are like very hot during the summer and then twice a year they lock the units down for like these security checks. It's like can be up to three to four weeks and these guys are confined 24 seven.

Uh, with another cellmate, um, it's a very uncomfortable and unpleasant experience. And so when I finally get to go back out there and programming resumes, I just, you know, ask the normal question, like, how are you doing? How'd you survive? How was it? And the answers are pretty predictable. It was awful. I was going crazy.

I was, you know, my roommate and I just struggling to get along with each other. Um, but the story I tell is, is, is one year being interrupted by Mr. Kenneth. He's an older African American gentleman, been part of the study for years. Um, he walks in and said, Mr. Kenneth, like, how was your lockdown? And he says, Oh, I love my lockdown.

He's beaming happy. And I was like, that's surprising. Like, how is something so miserable, you know, bringing you this kind of joy. And he says, I love my lockdown because you know, it's my quiet time with Jesus. Like for three weeks, I'm not interrupted. I don't have to go anywhere. I don't have any knuckleheads bothering me.

It's just me and Jesus for three weeks. And so I kind of tell his, Mr. Kenneth's story and kind of said like, if you want to know what the secret of joy is, if you want to trace the shape of joy, like look at Mr. Kenneth, because His joy wasn't like a positive emotion to a good event. It was a positive emotion that was somehow enabling him to transcend events.

And so that's where I was trying to point to those graduates. Like what, what is the joy that's going to allow you to transcend the worst day of your life? And so back to that concern based control idea is that, is that Mr. Kenneth wasn't having an emotional reaction to an event. He was perceiving, construing his life differently.

And the way I describe it in the book is that you get there from a practical perspective by telling a bigger story. The story he was telling about himself, the story he was inhabiting, gave him perspectives upon his, um, on his life. life circumstances that created these emotional capacities for resiliency and even bliss on really bad days.

Um, and, and so that's the, that's kind of the secret there is like, can we, can we tell a story that's big enough that's located in transcendent goods that That stabilize our emotional lives and our identities through the ups and downs of, of life. 

[00:28:58] Geoff Holsclaw: Well, that reminds me of what, uh, Paul writes in, uh, Hebrews four. He says, four, verse four, rejoice in the Lord. Always again, I say it rejoice. And then he continues, let your gentleness be evident to all the Lord is near. Uh, and we don't want to forget that he wrote that letter while in prison.

Right. So he and Mr. Kenneth, like, you know, they're finding the, some other resource that

[00:29:24] Richard Beck: Uh huh.

[00:29:25] Geoff Holsclaw: to be at peace, uh, verse seven, it continues in the peace of Christ, which transcends all understandings will guard your heart and minds in Christ. So, yeah. 

Conclusion: Finding Joy and Staying Connected

[00:29:34] Geoff Holsclaw: Well, I thoroughly, uh, I told you this before we started, uh, recording.

I love this book. I loved your other book too. So thank you for taking some time. Where can people find you keep track of the stuff you're doing? Uh, you're, you're a busy guy.

[00:29:49] Richard Beck: Yeah, I, I, uh, there's two places. I have, I host my original blog still on Blogger, you know, uh, Experimental Theology, but I've also, it's also on Substack. So if you go, if you look for me on Substack Experimental Theology with Richard Beck, you can get, I write Monday through Friday every, every day for free.

So no, no, no cost or anything. Um, and so, yeah,

[00:30:11] Geoff Holsclaw: much writing done? By the way,

[00:30:12] Richard Beck: I don't know. I don't know. It's, it's,

[00:30:15] Geoff Holsclaw: must be a secret. I'm always like, I follow you on some stack. It's like, there's a new post all the time. I can barely get like one

[00:30:21] Richard Beck: Yeah, I have a busy mind. I kind of use my, I kind of use the sub stack to kind of get that stuff out of my head and out in the world so I can think something else.

[00:30:30] Geoff Holsclaw: Well, it's a great, it's a great follow. Uh, well, thank you again so much. Again, the book is, uh, called the shape of joy. Uh, it should be available, uh, wherever you buy books and, uh, well, I hope we can stay in touch and, uh, we'll talk, uh, again, sometime.

[00:30:46] Richard Beck: Yeah. Blessings. Thank you. 

Um,