Welcome to the Loved Called Gifted podcast.

This is your place to come for musings about spirituality, identity and purpose.

I'm your host, Catherine Cowell.

CC: I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by Susannah.
Do you want to introduce yourself, Susanna? That would be really cool.

SP: Hi, Catherine.
I'm absolutely delighted to be here.
I live in Bath.
I am a mum and an ordinand in training and my real passion is working in prisons.
I am part of the chaplaincy team of Eastwood Park, which is a women's prison just outside of Bristol.

CC: Cool. Do you want to tell people what an ordinand is?

SP: Well, I mean, if I got this right, it means that I had to go through a lot of interviews to test with a bunch of very wise people whether I am called to ordained ministry, that's to say to be a priest in the Church of England.

So I'm partway through my training with an organisation called CMS, who I believe you know.

CC: Yeah, I do. I do.
So you're a trainee vicar?

SP: Yes, That's effectively, yes, absolutely.

CC: And when are you getting ordained?

SP: All being well next June.

CC: Excellent.
And before we started talking, you were in the middle of a sermon about Lamentations.

SP: That's right.

CC: So you're well into practicing.

SP: That's right.
So I love to preach and I love to speak and some great material in Lamentations actually I can recommend. It's very honest, very gritty.

CC: Yes. Yeah.
You talked about the fact your passion is working in prisons.
How did that start for you?

SP: I was asked to be part of a team of people that went into prisons in Bristol.
There are four prisons in Bristol and to be part of the preaching team for the Sunday Anglican services.
So in prison, there are lots of different faiths represented, each faith group having their own expression or service or whatever it may be of a gathering.
And so I was asked to go and speak.

They were looking for women to speak at the women's prison, which I'm always thrilled to take any invitation like that.
So that was six years ago, pre-lockdown.

CC: Do you remember what it was like being there for the first time?

SP: Oh, I do vividly, Catherine, because when I went into the prison the very first time the chaplain came and met me at the gate and there's lots of keys and locks and gates. It's a bit daunting and scary.
You really do feel like you're entering another world of which there is no return.
And there'd been a stabbing in the prison that morning, my first morning, a real 'baptism by fire', which was obviously very distressing and unsettling for people.
And so there was this kind of real atmosphere in there.
But nonetheless, I remember also how much I loved being there.

CC: It's really interesting, isn't it, that in that kind of moment that does not sound on the surface like the moment that's going to make you think I love being here and yet it did.

SP: Yeah, it's strange. It is.

CC: But it's also a real indication, isn't it, that there was a sense of call in that.
I'm wondering what it was in you that kind of connected with the prison or connected with that being there, the kind of ministry you were wanting to give.

Probably you weren't even thinking about wanting to give ministry at that point.

SP: I really wasn't. I really wasn't.
I think there must have been some part of me that was vaguely curious or up for it.
But it was definitely something bigger than me or spiritual that I suppose would explain - I don't have the accurate words for it - but would explain why there was something that just resonated and connected, and I felt weirdly at home going in there.

And then when I started, I liked to speak and do services very interactively.
So hearing from some of the women was amazing because they're so honest.

And that was my first experience and that has certainly been reinforced pretty much every time I go in there.

So I loved the feeling of being there and I loved the people I met from the get-go.

CC: Yeah.
So there was something about that honesty that kind of particularly calls to you.

SP: That's right.
I think in life, especially where I live here, a lot of people can - I'm guilty of this too - just go around small talk pretending that they're doing an actual better job of life than they really are.

But in prison, people can't pretend that life is going swimmingly.
And often they sleep, particularly with women, I don't want to generalise too much, but they have a lot of time to think and reflect.
And they're very good at being open about the things in their life that have been hard, what's led them to be there and kind of most excitingly the things that they want to look at or change.
But you've got to have a level of honesty to really do some business with one another, with God in that way.

CC: Yeah. And it takes real courage actually, doesn't it?
That level of honesty.

SP: Oh, it really does.
All the time I'm blown away.
It's very, very humbling and it's very moving.

I run groups in the prison and sometimes when the relationships of trust are established, as you say, the courage and just the willingness to look at themselves and say, "Yeah, okay, I'm going to own this part of my behaviour. I'm grieving and I'm sad."
It's a really heavy and a hard thing to bear, but this is the reality of the situation.
And this is how I'm feeling about it. This is maybe what I want to do about it.

There's a lot of that kind of really heartfelt reflection that happens, which is just a real joy to be part of.

CC: So what sort of groups do you run and what are they providing?
What are you doing?

SP: So for a long time, I was running a weekly group called 'Living with Loss', which was a seven-week course for anybody.
So it wasn't faith specific, even though I'm a volunteer Anglican chaplain.
I ran it with the pagan chaplain.
I ran it with, I think, a Sikh chaplain at one point.
And then I did it on my own.

So it's just really exploring all the ways in which it's very difficult when you're incarcerated to deal with the many layers of loss that you've sustained.

So that's everything from freedom, homes, family, and actual bereavement itself of people that you lose when you can't be with them and you can't be with other people to grieve that.

So it's a really specifically painful subject for people in prison.

CC: Yeah.
Not something that one would automatically think about, but yes, huge amounts of loss involved.

SP: Right.
So it's a really necessary group and a really necessary place for, it's usually eight or nine people who over the weeks develop a relationship where they can share how they're coping or not, what it feels like just to have an outlet, a safety valve for some of the really hard stuff they're having to process.

CC: And what have you seen the impact of that as being on some of the women that you've worked with?

SP: Well, I could rave about some of the great things about prison all afternoon, Catherine, but I'll keep it brief.

One of the real joys of prison life is the humour.

And women particularly, when they're encouraging one another and on side, not always the case, but when that dynamic is good, there's so much humour and there's so much support and love that you see in that group.

So someone will open up and talk about, you know, a lot of these women have had so much trauma.
It's all there.
There's very little counselling support, psychiatry, psychological support.
So in a way, it's a little bit of a therapy group just to be able to say that stuff, you know, this happened to me and then this and then this, and that's, they're all contributory factors as to why they're there.

So just having that feeling of safety to be able to express stuff and to be heard for the other women in the group, I try and draw back over the weeks and say less and less.

So it's really about them.

And then they get back and continue those relationships of support on their wings where their cells are.

CC: So you're really seeing people growing in their confidence in ministering to one another amongst other things?

SP: Absolutely.
And being inspired by ways in which, you know, there are some incredible women in there who have done terrible things, have had terrible things done to them.

But prison is then their chance to get away from that, to get away from those really toxic networks or relationships and to look at themselves and to want to change things.

Now that doesn't always happen, but when it does and other people hear that, that's incredibly inspiring.

CC: Yeah. Yeah. Incredible.
So you said you could rave about prison all afternoon. Maybe all afternoon might be stretching it, but what else would you rave about?

SP: I love the staff in the prison.
When I go in there in the morning, people are genuinely friendly and upbeat.
A lot of people feel calls to work in prisons.

There's a mother and baby unit and some of the staff in there have been there over 20 years.
There's a good feeling, even though I'm not trying to sugar coat this, you know, it is hard and particularly for a lot of the officers.
It's a tough job, but there is a real feeling of kindness, of grace, of humour.

You know, there is obviously a very, very serious side to everything that everybody does.
But even within that, there is a real feeling of warmth and team there.

CC: Yeah. Yeah.
And you have that sense of sharing, I guess, that feeling of vocation and call into that space that you're seeing in other people too.

SP: Exactly.
And nowhere more so than within the Chaplaincy team.

It's been a real eye-opener to me from a kind of, you know, to be working alongside other chaplains of, you know, very different faith backgrounds, but with the same big overarching purpose, which is to love and care for and serve the women in there.

And that's a great thing to be part of.

CC: Yeah.
Had you worked with people of other faiths before that, or was this kind of a first time for you?

SP: I had worked with people of other faiths, but I think not to that extent, and not such a broad team.

There really is everything from Rastafarianism to Jehovah's Witness to Quaker to Paganism to Spiritualism to, you know, good old Anglican, Catholic and, you know, Baptist, you name it, it's all there.

So it's a great privilege to be part of such a diverse team.

CC: So what have been some of the kind of highlights for you in terms of working together in that diverse team?

SP: It's the friendships that you build.
I'm very good friends with the pagan chaplain. She's probably my best mate in there.

And we have great conversations, as I do with many other chaplains, about the groups that they run, how their faith is relevant to the prisoners, how it can support them.

And for them personally, you know, how it's not for everybody, but if you are called to prison ministry, faith and spirituality is an enormously important part of what you're giving.
You can't give what you haven't got, right?

So that might look quite different to one of the other faith groups, but we will have that in common.
So it's, you know, sharing and listening to one another is as much of an interest as it is with the women we work with.

CC: I'm wondering whether your faith perspective has shifted or changed or grown as a result of that joint working with other people?

SP: Well, that's interesting.
I think it's a real buzz.
Working in a place where people really want to talk about faith and God and their own faith journeys.

I mean, we have people queuing up to come to chapel. I'm not naive you know, I know they might want to have a break from their wing or their cell, it's not all just because they're desperate to chat with us, but in a lot of cases, because that very deep reflection is happening, people are wrestling with guilt and shame - people are processing big, heavy, hard things that are way above my paycheck to sort out.

So being able to say, "Well, come to your Bible study or come and light a candle and let's chat." And that might be with a prisoner who would identify as a Christian or many, many times not.
And I try and be sensitive to, you know, how I will support people differently.
But it helps me see God at work in incredible ways.

And, you know, I do get frustrated when people say, "Oh, there, but by the grace of God, I'm so glad I'm not in prison."
And, you know, I understand what they're trying to say.

But for me, the grace of God is all over prison.
And I hope, I think of Jesus in every encounter that I have and it's him that's at work there.
And so to just be part of that, to see what is going on spiritually in prison is incredibly faith affirming.

CC: Yeah.
You talked earlier about the honesty of the women who you meet with.
And I'm wondering whether being in those groups with people who are so honest and so courageous, I wonder in what ways that sort of inspired you or changed you?

SP: Yeah, for sure.
I think sometimes when I hear from them some of their stories and some of their background, and I look at them, it's really humbling to think, "Well, you know, if they can do it, if they can get on with it, then me with the things that I struggle with, you know, it's just inspiring to see how they do that."

And when someone's really prepared to be honest with you, it then allows you to kind of drop your mask, as it were, and be honest back and really connect with people, which is when good things can happen, I think when God can move there.

CC: You were obviously going into prisons as a volunteer.
What was the moment when you felt that you had a call to ordination?

SP: I had worked as a counsellor for a long time with young people.
And I met one really extraordinary young man who had been sentenced, quite a big sentence for quite a heavy crime.
And he came to see me just before he went to the youth offending, doesn't exist anymore, but it was down in Portland.
And he said to me, "I'm so frightened, Susannah, not of going into prison because I know there are people there who I've grassed on and they're probably going to kill me," is what he said.
"What I'm frightened of is what happens after that. What if I come face to face with a God that I've done all this really bad stuff?" as he saw it.
And I suddenly thought, "Wow, this is a conversation that we can have."
And I used to go and visit him in this youth offending centre, in this prison, and saw his faith grow as he started out.
He didn't get killed in prison. In fact, he got released and carried on as a Christian.

But it was there that I thought, "This is the type of work that I really want to be doing as a Christian. This is how I feel."

There's plenty in the Bible actually about prison.
There are some great passages about prison doors being open, but about Jesus himself says, "It's about visiting me in prison."

So it just seemed to fit my funny shape that God might be able to use that in that setting and then going in, as I did then over the years that followed, just seemed to feel more and more like the right fit.

CC: So why ordination and not just more prison work?

SP: Yeah, well, one of the big ones for me is, I think, as I've said, many, many of the women talk about the shame they feel, the shame that it's brought on their families and on themselves.
That's trapped in their heads as they sit there for long hours on their own.
Many of them speak about guilt.

I often feel that that's where God needs to speak to them and be able to assure them of his forgiveness.

To get really gritty with the gospel, which is the ultimate way in which when we take all of those hard feelings and that honest reflection about guilt and shame, that we can know Jesus' forgiveness as a reality.

So having a dog collar is really just a shortcut for all that.

Yeah, I mean, yes, of course I'm there and I can sit with them and it's a great joy to do that, but they don't need me. They need God.
So it just, I hope, will be a way of assuring people that I represent, the one who they need to engage with and talk to about their guilt and shame.

CC: Yeah, I suppose it's almost a brand mark, isn't it?
Like quality control.

SP: Exactly, exactly.
I hope training is tough in many ways, formation, and I hope therefore that it's all worth it and that I as the Chaplain, at the end of it all, will be one that has really studied and feels more equipped to be able to be working in that way.
But God will use us wherever we're at, won't he?

CC: Yes, yeah, absolutely.
You're not the first person who's on this journey of ordination, who's talked about formation.
Do you want to talk a bit about what that is and what that means?

SP: It's an interesting term that is used a lot. You're right.
For me, it has felt like a deconstructing, a taking apart and a putting back together.

So I think I became a Christian, I grew up as a Christian in quite a specific way of thinking about faith, thinking about God, thinking about where I fit in.

And for me, this journey of studying theology, of meeting with lots of other people who are studying, of listening to the lectures, has really challenged and stretched and helped me sit in different positions, have different perspectives.

I'm really, the magnitude of God, how much bigger he is than we might feel we have in our head, in our little understanding.

When we do that, we're always going to be, I think, in for a surprise.

So yeah, it's really, really, the formation has been a deformation and a reformation, if that makes sense.

And it's very much work in progress ongoing.

CC: Yeah.
So some of that has been a reforming of your view of God, who is now bigger than God was when you started.

You've talked about deconstructing everything.
I wonder what pieces you are now leaving behind and what new pieces you are taking with you.

SP: I think that the pieces that I might be leaving behind is more of a black and white certainty that I had the answers.
This was who God was in my view. I feel a lot more comfortable with grey.
I feel a lot more comfortable with difference within any faith group.

There's always a spectrum, isn't there?
And to be able to understand that there is a spectrum and that is all part of us being made in God's image and reflecting his glory.

So there's a lot of letting go of narrowness, I hope.
I think the challenge is then finding the places where I do feel, okay, yes, well, this bit I do feel really sure about.

And that's again, evolving and growing.
It's not anything of the fundamentals, if you like, but just the nuance parts.

CC: That's interesting because I think quite often faithfulness is seen as being about holding onto the black and white and the certainty and phrases like I'm not going to compromise, sort of come into that.

So it's interesting that your growth in faith has been a step away from that into a comfort with a bit more diversity and more of a comfort with questions and I'm guessing mystery than you were before.

So what have been the advantages to that in terms of your own spiritual life?

SP: Oh, yeah, thanks. That's very well put.
The advantages have been that I have then been opened to learn and I've read some amazing books and theological thinking that I hadn't been exposed to previously.
And that's kind of filled me spiritually and resonated and broadened my own understanding and relationship with God and ways of praying and ways of being that are just more open handed and okay with people who have very, very different outlook to me.

CC: Yeah, because actually, when you're sort of working within a particular narrow furrow of your faith, then there's quite a lot of thinking and reading and books and podcasts and things which are sort of in the restricted section, if you'd like.

I just had this picture as you were talking of, you know, like there's the library in Harry Potter and there's the restricted section where you have to - there might be dangerous things in there.

SP: Yeah, again, you just hit the nail on the head.
Who knew there was so much wonderful stuff in the restricted section that was, "Oh, don't open those books because you know what?"

God is more than capable of dealing with all of it. And certainly being warned off it! I think that's one of the big things I've discovered that I've been told so often, "You know, you've got to watch out for this particular area or this little faction". And actually, when you do go over there and into the restricted area and kind of cross those red lines, what do you know? There are people who are absolutely on fire for Jesus who can teach you so much.
So yeah, it just busts a lot of myths, I think.

CC: Yeah.
And potentially gives you windows into things about God and things about faith that you just wouldn't have seen otherwise.

SP: Right.
Which is a huge blessing I'm so grateful for.

CC: Yeah.
So you've chosen to study with CMS, Church Mission Society.
So what's that been like? Where did you pick them?

SP: As I was going through conversations with the diocese, they actually recommended that because they recognised a pioneering ministry for me, i.e. maybe didn't fit that very neat little slot of parish ministry, they're probably thinking, "Oh my goodness, what are we going to do with her?"

And I think there were quite a few people at CMS who fit that label too.

In fact, when I started exploring a little bit, one of the lines that CMS hold about themselves is, "For those who have the gift of not fitting in."

And for anyone that that applies to, immediately you feel, "Yes, okay."
That's just a group of people who aren't necessarily falling into those very conventional, well-defined categories or easily defined categories.

So it's been great.

I loved that was their approach and a lot of what I have studied and I've just started my second year with CMS.

But the whole approach is very honouring to the experience you've had, the wisdom that you might have inhabited without even realising it, but then how that can be held together in a group of students with the different modules.
It's caused me to question a lot of what ministry is, what evangelism is, what spirituality is, and think about it through a missional perspective. Think about how there are people in the church who are called to be on the margins, which is where I love to be and meeting other people who love to be there.

And instead of feeling like a misfit and the odd one out, you're amongst people who get that, who can help frame it, encourage it and channel it in a direction that is kind of kingdom-based, kingdom-focused.

CC: I'm just really touched by the grace on both sides of that, that the diocese had that recognition that they couldn't provide in other places what you would need, but also the beauty of landing somewhere where they kind of say, "Well, we are for the people who don't fit, for the people who are bringing something new."

So suddenly you're not a misfit in that situation because it's for everybody.

And I'm guessing also that you are finding yourself with other people who understand ministry in non-traditional places on the margins, in places where others don't often go.

So you've got some commonality there, I'm imagining.

SP: Absolutely.
And to be with, as you rightly say, that group of people to study together and to learn from one another our different perspectives and lenses on the actual material that we're studying and engaging with is an education in itself.
It's helped me really understand different people's perspectives on what we're studying.

CC: Really feels like God's been calling you for quite a long time into this broader vision of who God is and where God might be working kind of from those first encounters with that young man in prison, with all your different chaplains, with all these women who've had so many different challenging experiences.

I can kind of sense your vision of God just expanding.

SP: Yeah, that's true. And I think I came to faith.
I really first became a Christian in my mid-twenties.
And I was always wanting to go and study more and learn more about God.

And I remember feeling very hurt at the time when people were saying, "No, in some cases, no, you're a woman. You've got young children. Go back home and look after them, really honestly".

And for a long time, I felt really kind of put out and probably resentful about that.

But actually now, looking back, as you say, Catherine, I think, as is always the case with God, when the time is right, it probably wouldn't have been and maybe it's a blessing that I dodged that bullet, right?

Because who knows what, I could have just been growing up studying more of that.

Whereas now, it is that beautiful kind of huge lake to swim in of other ways of thinking and understanding, seeing God.

CC: Yeah, there are two responses to that going on in my head.
One is absolutely that God works through those things.
And the other is, but that doesn't diminish the injustice of being told you can't because you're a woman.

There would have been other ways of having that necessary delay without there being the sexism, to be blunt about it.

SP: Yeah, let's call it what it is.
I'm grateful for a lot of what my early life as a Christian taught me, obviously.
And some of that is grist for the mill now of thinking, as a woman in the church, it's really tough.
And talking about it still is hard when you've again and again been made to feel less than and not entitled to do this in so many different ways.

But it really, really helps me to know that God isn't like that, that he is so different.

So it's thrown me back onto him in so many ways, but also given me a real heart for people who are excluded, know exactly how that feels in a very different way.

And so, that's important stuff to take into ministry, isn't it?

CC: Yeah, it's interesting you should sort of end with that kind of that parallel because as you were talking, I was thinking that there are so many parallels with that sense of exclusion and being told that you are less than with just the huge stigma, but that so many of the precious women that you know and you interact with must be feeling.

SP: Yeah, that's right.
And so, I might not have grown up in exactly the same way.
But I know that God, when he looks at his precious daughters, as you say, he sees them as worthy and wonderfully and beautifully made and worthy of respect and dignity and equality.

And so, I know that when, because he's put that so clearly on my heart, that he will do the same for them and that's how they need to see themselves in his eyes.

So again, it's just a reason to be saying to them, don't take my word for it.

As one woman on one of the wings said to me, she said, "Oh, my mum will only forgive me for what I've done on my deathbed."
And I said to her, "Mum, I don't need your forgiveness because I've been forgiven by the master of the universe."
I love that there's an authority that is higher than any of us can ever know or imagine who you can go to who'll tell you who you are, what your identity is in his eyes.

So, in a small way, my experience assures me that that's what he has for them too.

CC: Yeah.
I'm really aware of just how powerful those voices can be that say, because you're a woman, you can't and because you're a woman, you're less.
And some of that is over and some of it is just implied, isn't it, in just the way that things are.

And I'm wondering what for you have been some of the keys to moving from that influence, however, I don't know to what extent you sort of took that on internally, but moving from that to this sense of clear identity and preciousness in God's sight and equality.

SP: I think there's no shortcut for it.
It is a painful, drawn out, protracted, messy, just stumbling kind of process.

Well, it certainly was for me where time and again, the only way I can explain it is through the disappointment and disillusionment and pain.
And, you know, if I'm really honest, Catherine, me taking it on to some extent initially, and then you suddenly come away and you think, hold on a minute, was I actually colluding with some of that? What was it in me that allowed that to happen?

It's really only the kind of sanity of going back to God in prayer, in bits maybe, in bitterness and resentment at times, but then, you know, again, working through that with him, just drinking the pure water of scripture and what is it that he says, and then talking to other people who have different perspectives.

And I'm not even talking about, you know, in a very big way, but just finding allies, finding other women and men who see things differently.

I think for me, it had to be a real kind of times of desperation with God, where he would then break through and show me what he thinks, which is so different, and then living that differently, supported by other people.

It's still painful though, you know, still hard.

CC: Yeah. Can you think of any specific moments on that journey?

SP: I think the first time I went to talk to a woman in our city about ordination, never actually spoken to a woman vicar. I know that sounds nuts, but there we go.
It was just like feeling like I could breathe.
I was talking to someone who got me rather than constantly having to justify and explain.

So it really has been people who are supportive and this might sound strange, but just who are willing to get how hard it can be.

CC: Yeah. Yeah. Just thank God for those women who have made the path by walking it in the past.

SP: Absolutely. Yeah.
And there are men around too who do, you know, but yeah, I don't know if you've read the book Lessons in Chemistry.

It's a fairly mainstream book, but I gave it to a lot of people who I thought, well, you know, being a female scientist in the 1950s, in some ways, it's not that different to being a woman in the church in certain ways, in our contemporary culture.

And when you really applaud the hero of the book, you can maybe see how it feels to be a woman because a lot of people don't ever have that experience.

Now I'm speaking, sorry, I'm speaking from a real position of, you know, privilege in that there are people who have it way worse in way deeper ways than this, but in a small way, it does help once you understand how it can feel to be shut out and told that you're not good enough to be part of the kind of A-team, which of course is utter nonsense.

If you put it against what Jesus said and what the gospel's about.

CC: Yeah, I thought it was interesting, you talked a bit ago about having colluded with those messages and what occurred to me was that actually, actually it's really difficult not to when you're within a culture, particularly, I think if you've had a real encounter with God through a group of people who have a particular view, one default then is to think, well, these people know because it was under their ministry or through their influence that I connected with the only one with God.

So obviously if they're saying it, my first default will be to think, well, you must know what you're talking about.
And it takes a while to unravel that, doesn't it?

SP: Absolutely. Yeah.
That's it, you really get it there, because it's the air that you breathe and it's the water you swim in. And so to then jump out of that and occupy another space and to feel the, you know, you're not necessarily ostracised, but you don't have many allies.
It's a lonely path, but most importantly, you know that God is there and it's the right place for you to be. And that's all that matters really.

CC: Yeah. And moments like meeting with that woman who was a vicar and seeing God's call on her life and her exercising it, it really helps, doesn't it, to see people in those positions because it just states practically.
It's a bit like in Paul's letters where he might say all kinds of things about men and women in churches and stuff, but he has a whole pile of women who he's working with.

SP: Yeah. And I think it was Phoebe that he gave the letter of Romans to, you know, his great masterpiece. She was the one that went and preached to the church in Rome, I believe.

So, you know, there's an awful lot of stuff, interestingly, that doesn't get recorded and we don't necessarily hear about in the same way where all these women would have been behind the scenes or maybe not - maybe having a more prominent ministry role is just that the recording and reporting of that gets lost sometimes.

CC: Yeah. Yeah. This has been a brilliant, wide ranging conversation, Susannah. It's been great.
Do you have the sense of anything else that it feels important to say?

SP: If there are people listening to this who are interested in prison ministry, then please, please just consider this a little nudge and look into it.

Go along to your local prison and see where you can get involved.

And so, or, you know, any area of working within the justice system, there is so much need.

They're crying out for people, particularly of a faith background and prisons are desperately short staffed.

So I'm sure it would be an absolute blessing for anyone else to go and get involved.
So go and check it out and see what you think would be my little parting shot.

CC: Yeah.
And it sounds like from what you've been saying that actually this is an opportunity to have some really good spiritual faith conversations with some people who actually want to know about it.

SP: Yeah, absolutely.
And a bit like with the 12 steps of AA, you know, the last few steps are to keep passing on what you know to be true and that grows your own practice, widens your own heart, deepens your own experience of God.
And prison is an amazing place to do that because you'll get loads of opportunities all the time to talk about really interesting, gritty, spiritually rich conversations.

So yeah, that's great.

I think you probably got that, didn't you?

CC: Yes. Yes. I think we detected that in your conversation.

SP: Well, thanks for listening.

CC: Susannah, thank you very much.

SP: It's been a pleasure.

Thanks, Catherine.

CC: Hope you enjoyed this episode of the Loved Called Gifted podcast.

If you'd like to get in touch, you can email lovedcalledgifted@gmail.com.

You can find a transcript of this podcast at lovedcalledgifted.com.

And that's also the place to go if you're interested in the Loved Called Gifted course, or if you'd like to find out about spiritual direction or coaching.

Thank you for listening.