Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick

There are at least three wrong ways to write about heaven, and Brian Zahnd spent his new book carefully avoiding all of them — too sentimental, too sensational, too escapist to bother caring about the world right in front of us.
In this conversation, Brian and Michael talk about why heaven isn't a far-off destination but a realm woven through the space between every atom of this one, and why love and wonder might be the most reliable hints we get of its nearness. Brian shares the mystical moment in Rocky Mountain National Park that reshaped his understanding of the incarnation and makes the case that a faith stripped of transcendence eventually collapses into mere politics — however well-intentioned.
They also talk about pilgrimage, the discipline of praying written prayers, and why so many people are having real spiritual experiences with no idea where it's safe to talk about them.
Brian Zahnd is a pastor of forty-four years and author of Unseen Existences: Of Heaven, Earth, and the Divine Mystery in All Things.
Find Brian Zahnd online here.

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For decades, the church's answer to struggling marriages has been clear: pray more, submit more, give him what he needs. Sheila Wray Gregoire's research asked a different question: What if the advice itself is the problem?
Drawing on a survey of 20,000 women, the largest ever done on Christian women's marital and sexual satisfaction, Sheila lays out what the data actually shows: a stark gap between men's and women's experiences, the quiet damage done by teaching women that sex is only his need, and why so many couples reach intercourse on their wedding night only to wonder if something is broken in her. She makes the case, gently but firmly, that if a teacher consistently produces bad fruit, the teacher's teaching deserves a second look.
This is a rebroadcast of a 2021 conversation that remains one of the most meaningful in the show's history.
Sheila Wray Gregoire is a researcher and author of The Great Sex Rescue.
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We can know we are loved and still not be able to let it in. The gap between believing something and feeling it in the body is not a faith problem — it's a physiological one.
In this second conversation with Aundi Kolber, Michael and Julianne press deeper into what it actually takes to change: why being loved is not just a comfort but a biological prerequisite for growth, why asking someone to change before they feel safe is, in Aundi's word, cruel, and what it means to come home to yourself rather than keep fleeing from what hurts. Aundi also draws a line between the shame that keeps us stuck and the compassion that actually moves us — and why God is calling us home, not calling us out.
This is a rebroadcast of one of the most-listened-to conversations in the show's ten-year history.
Aundi Kolber is a licensed therapist and author of Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us Out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival and Into a Life of Connection and Joy.
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Most of us were taught, somewhere along the way, that the answer to pain is to push through it. Try harder. White-knuckle it. And for a long time, that worked — until it didn't.
Aundi Kolber wrote Try Softer as a love letter to her younger self, and in this conversation with Michael and Julianne Cusick, she unpacks what it actually means to pay compassionate attention to your own experience — not as self-indulgence, but as the very thing Jesus modeled in taking on a body. They explore why our survival strategies stop serving us long after the danger has passed, how embodiment is the missing piece in most approaches to emotional and spiritual growth, and why the command to love your neighbor as yourself may be more demanding than it first appears.
This is a rebroadcast of one of the most-listened-to conversations in the show's ten-year history.
Aundi Kolber is a licensed therapist and author of Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us Out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival and Into a Life of Connection and Joy.
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Most people who know the five love languages have tried speaking their partner's language — and wondered why it still isn't working. The problem usually isn't the language. It's something underneath it.
Dr. Gary Chapman returns with new research showing how personality, empathy, and the subtle dialects within each love language determine whether love actually lands. In this conversation, he and Michael explore why speaking someone's love language can backfire if it runs against their personality, what it looks like to confuse encouragement with pressure, and why the most important question in a marriage might be as simple as "How can I make your life easier?"
At 88 years old, Chapman also shares the turning point in his own marriage — a vision of Jesus washing his disciples' feet that changed not his technique, but his posture.
Dr. Gary Chapman is a marriage counselor, pastor, and author of The Five Love Languages, which has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, and his newest book, The Love Language That Matters Most.
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ENGAGE THE RESTORING THE SOUL PODCAST:
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