Episode 151: Talking About Small Talk

Small talk can be a good ice breaker and a helpful, natural way to start a conversation, but it can also become shallow, impersonal and prevent us from really getting to know people. When does small talk undermine an opportunity to foster a meaningful relationship? On today’s episode, Tim and Rick speak with Beth Booram, a spiritual director, on small talk. They discuss how cultivating spirited, substantial conversations can lead to meaningful relationships with depth.

Transcript

Rick Langer: 00:02 Welcome to the Winsome Conviction Podcast. My name is Rick Langer, and I'm one of your co-hosts for this, along with my good friend Tim Muehlhoff. And Tim, I'm excited to hear what we have going today.

Tim Muehlhoff: 00:12 Who's our special guest? Okay, Rick, a quick story. I'm at Eastern Michigan University. It's absolutely pouring rain, and I'm jumping from dorm to dorm because I don't want to get soaked. I go into Jones Hall, and there's this comedy troupe doing kind of corny but kind of cool original sketch comedy. And I fill out a comment card and said, Hey, I'm a theater major. Uh, you ever need any help? Let me know. The next morning, uh, there's a friend of mine, lifelong friend, Dave Mexicott, and Dave Booram, Campus Crusade for Christ, is at my door saying, We would love to have some help. So that's when I first met Dave Booram, uh, who is just a very insightful person spiritually. Well, he's married to Beth Booram, equally insightful. So the Boorams I've known forever. And honestly, when you think of the Mount Rushmore of people who have most impacted my thinking both about Great Commission and spirituality, I'd tell you, I put Dave and Beth Booram uh pretty high on that list. And so absolutely thrilled that Beth Booram is with us. Beth is a spiritual director, congregational consultant, retreat leader. She's written several books. We're going to be talking about one of her books, Awaken Your Senses exercises for exploring the wonder of God. But her and her husband Dave, who's also an accomplished author, uh, they are together leaders of spiritual direction and facilitate the Fall Creek Abbey School of Spiritual Direction. And they are an amazing couple. We got a chance to reconnect about a year ago. We did a Zoom call, which was really fun. Beth has not changed at all. That's with you. Uh Dave and I look like we're in witness protection. She has not changed whatsoever. But Beth is absolutely a pleasure to have you on uh the Winsome Conviction podcast. Welcome.

Beth Booram: 02:13 Oh, it's such a pleasure to see you, Tim, and to be with both you and Rick for this time. And I have such fond memories of those times at Eastern Michigan. I still remember some of your jokes you wrote.

Rick Langer: 02:28 Wait a minute. Tim was telling jokes back at Eastern Michigan.

Beth Booram: 02:32 Oh, I so can I tell you one really quickly? Because I've got good Tim stories. He was I would love to hear it. Yeah, he would talk about uh cafeteria food at at the school. And he said one time he was eating a sandwich and pulled the bun off, and there was a cockroach sucking on a Rolade. And I still remember that. And but he, of course, he said it with the perfect timing and everything. It was just, I thought it was just hilarious.

Tim Muehlhoff: 03:00 Oh my, my, my. Rick, I did Bob Dylan singing show tunes.

Beth Booram: 03:07 Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: 03:08 Oh, wow. All for the glory of Jesus, Beth. All Great Commission.

Beth Booram: 03:14 Yes, that's right.

Tim Muehlhoff: 03:15 It is so fun to have you on. Well, it has been fascinating to follow your career, both as a spiritual director, as an author. Um, so Rick and I came across one of your short essays. It was on small talk, and it's so resonated with us because Beth, we kind of feel like today we've psyched ourselves out of having deeper conversations, that we just feel like there's no way we can talk about politics. Uh, when COVID was rampant, there's no way we can talk about mask mandates, there's no way we can talk about certain topics. So we've regulated ourselves just to small talk. And I think we've become impoverished because of that. So you uh said that these impersonal um dialogues really are draining us of vitality. So uh unpack that for a little bit. How is regulating ourselves just to small talk? Things that aren't deep or potentially controversial, how does that rob us of a certain kind of depth and connection?

Beth Booram: 04:25 Well, you know, when I think about being in a social gathering and in a conversation with someone, and I feel talked at, where it's as though, you know, it doesn't matter who they're talking to, they're just gonna say what they want to say or talk about what they want to talk about. For me, that is very uh draining because it doesn't engage me as a person, and I'm not engaging them as a person. So over time, I know for myself, and maybe I'm not everybody's this way, but I certainly am. I start to feel like I just can't wait to unhook from this conversation and move on to something that's a little more interesting. So there's a a level of energy it takes to just stay polite and keep things on the surface, and yet it just doesn't really serve the desire to have a deeper relationship with others and really to know another and be known by them.

Tim Muehlhoff: 05:25 What do you think we're afraid of? What keeps us at that shallow level?

Beth Booram: 05:31 Well, that's interesting. I I'd have to think about what we're afraid of. I usually don't think it's fear that keeps us from that. But it could be, you know. Um maybe it's the fear of losing control. You know, if I can if I can talk at you, if I can kind of maintain control of the conversation by sharing with you what I want to talk about, then I don't have to lose control of the conversation. And for instance, you won't have to ask me a question that I might feel uncomfortable answering. So it could be fear, but sometimes I think it's just a really bad habit. We don't have a lot of examples of people who engage us in a, you know, a really meaningful way about our lives. And so we just, in some ways, we are very poorly trained and poorly modeled in terms of having robust conversations with each other.

Rick Langer: 06:30 You know, Beth, that reminds me of a missionary that I knew. He was a guy who had been born in the Middle East, uh, as a Muslim, converted to Christianity. He he left the Middle East, but then he came back and has spent, he's probably in his 80s now and has spent a huge amount of his time in that context. Uh, concerned with presenting a witness with Christ, which happens a little different way there, but he was talking about the fact that people think that you can't have a good conversation about Jesus. And he said, Oh no, uh, they these are people who always talk about religion. So there's things with proselytizing, things like that. There's definitely boundaries and tensions with this, but the openness of people, if he's just sitting down and talking to them, he's a he's writes, he's an author, and so he'll talk about the books that he has and things like that. But it's part of the cultural context that you don't talk about sports, you talk about religion, or you talk about you know other more meaningful things. And I I think you're probably onto something that we have, whatever else may be going on with fear and things like that, we have a cultural adjustment that we've taken place to uh kind of say these are things we don't talk about, these are things we do talk about. And it could be a different way, but you know, this is kind of the context we we we live in.

Beth Booram: 07:50 That's right. Yeah, I think I wonder if we both fear self-disclosure and we fear um our own uh impulse to want to push. I don't know if we fear that, but we definitely have this impulse or an agenda sometimes to push. And so we know that that doesn't work well in conversation, and so we just keep it in a safe, superficial place.

Rick Langer: 08:23 Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: 08:24 You know, there's a communication scholar named Irvin Goffman who talks about front stage, backstage. That front stage is uh me as a professor at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. So when I talk to people, I'm talking on the front stage of acting like how they think a uh professor at a Christian university should talk what topics are off limits, or a level of transparency. They may think, oh, that was shocking to hear from a professor at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. So do you does that resonate with you as a spiritual director? Do people hold you uh to a standard of uh you're not really allowed to show your backstage to people because that would be unbecoming of a spiritual director? Do you feel sometimes that navigates the kind of conversations you have?

Beth Booram: 09:24 Um not exactly. And maybe because part of being a spiritual director is having some transparency between what I call the inside and the outside of my life, the external and the interior. So um, you know, I don't think of myself as I don't know that people put me up on a pedestal just because I'm a spiritual director. But in a spiritual direction session, my story is held back in order for the other person's story to for them to show up. And so in that place, um it's a little different because I am not going to um intrude in the space that they're occupying. And so I do hold back and don't necessarily show my my front stage or my backstage um persona.

Tim Muehlhoff: 10:27 But outside of that, let's say people just know what you do, but they don't necessarily go to you for spiritual direction. Do you think there's like a stereotype maybe that would would people would be at arm's length from you or or not expect you to be as transparent as you might be because of your vocation as a spiritual director?

Beth Booram: 10:51 Well, that's an interesting question, Tim. It's possible, but I am not aware of that. And it could be because of the circles that I spend time in. Um, I feel, and maybe it's my stage of life too. You know, I just celebrated my 70th birthday, and I'm kind of overcaring about what people think. And so, you know, maybe I I attempt to show up as I as who I am, both inside and outside. I want those to match. That's integrity for me. So um I'm I don't speak on stages like you speak on. I'm I the work I do is much more quiet and behind the scenes. So yeah, I don't know that that is as much an issue, but I can appreciate that it would be for you and for others who have similar uh, you know, similar vocations or similar opportunities in your life.

Tim Muehlhoff: 11:50 It is weird to have that stage. That is an odd thing. I was speaking on marriage one time and uh Noreen listened to me do that all weekend. And afterwards we were walking in the parking lot and I said, uh, hey, sorry, I do like half of everything I I said up there. And Noreen's response was half? I'm gonna trust she was joking. Um hey, let's talk about your wonderful book. Maybe explain this book to us a little bit, because on on Thursdays you focus on conversation, which one of the things we're gonna talk about in this episode about how to go deeper, go from that book. But tell us just a little bit about um the vision behind you and Dave writing this wonderful little book called Prayers at Twilight, Daily Liturgies for the In-Between Times. What was the thought behind that? And then why dedicate a whole day to conversations?

Beth Booram: 12:45 Yeah. Yeah, we had this idea for a long time, and finally we were able to kind of put it together and produce it, and we just love and often use it around the table, in fact, at Fall Creek Abbey. So David and I are the founders and directors of a small urban retreat center in Indianapolis where we host individuals for personal retreats. So we have strangers in our home all the time. In fact, we let's see, we'll celebrate our 14th anniversary on June 1st, and we've had maybe 14,000 guests over the course of 14 years. Because yeah, with COVID, we slowed down a little bit and then we've continued to taper back a bit. But yeah, we have lots and lots of people in our home that we've never met before. And so as we were thinking about the culture of Fall Creek Abbey, we wondered if we could name the values that have shaped our culture. And so we created this prayer liturgy of seven different liturgies or prayers, each day based on a different one that represents a value that uh we think has given shape and form to Falk Abbey. The first one is on quiet. So, yeah, conversation is on Thursday, and conversation has been a centerpiece of what of the work we do. One of the things that we love about offering hospitality to strangers oftentimes, and as well as people that we do know, is this invitation to gather around a table and to provide a nourishing meal and then to enjoy rich and meaningful conversation. And we have had tons of people sit around our table and I think really be impacted by feeling seen and heard and validated and invited to share their lives with us, and vice versa, we've done the same with them. So it's it's really been a part of our ministry of hospitality, which I think is one of the great unsung heroes of the Christian faith, yeah, is offering hospitality to folks and uh being seeing them the way Saint Benedict talked about it, seeing them as if you are um welcoming Christ. And that's what we try to do. We're very intentional about the way that we welcome people.

Rick Langer: 15:21 So the describe for our listeners just a little bit about what one of those conversation times on on Thursday night would look like, so to speak. I'm I'm kind of intrigued because I can fill in the blanks out of my own imagination, but I'd love to hear what you actually do and how these conversations are shaped or structured or how they play.

Beth Booram: 15:41 Yeah, they're not shaped or structured at all. We just kind of they just unfold. And they're actually not on Thursday nights. They're any time that we gather around the table, and which we gather for lunches now with um day guests who come, and then we do a spiritual direction training, and so we gather our students around the table. Um, so I'll think about one of the things that we do during Advent and Holy Week is we host half day retreats, and we have about 40 people who come through in a given week for each of those offerings, each of those weeks. And so, you know, when we sit down, we of course have everybody introduce themselves, and it's always uncanny how there are these serendipitous connections between people who've never met before. Um, we've had some crazy things happen in that regard. There's something about that that I think says God just takes delight in connecting people because you know we just see that happening all the time. And then what we will oftentimes do after we've um introduced ourselves and taken time to enjoy our meal is uh one of us will ask, for those of you who have been here this morning for your retreat, is there anything that would be good for you that you would like to articulate to the group? Anything that would be good for you to speak out? Because sometimes uh hearing my own voice describe what it was exactly that I received from God this morning can really solidify that experience. So we'll invite people to just share from their own experience what it was like. And that we give them, we always write a retreat guide that they use during Advent or Holy Week based on a theme. And so uh people will respond, and then those who are staying for the afternoon, we give them a re uh an opportunity to say, are there any questions you would like to ask? And so sometimes they will ask some questions. So it's a very unstructured uh conversation. We don't try to um push an agenda at all. And simultaneously we also feel the freedom to show up ourselves. So we will share things about ourselves, we will share things about you know, maybe the advent retreat itself and how we developed this particular theme. So um, yeah.

Rick Langer: 18:14 The emphasis then is just really on the openness to whatever's going on in the lives of the people who happen to be there more than directing a conversation.

Beth Booram: 18:24 Yeah, and you know I think what we sometimes don't understand is that the conversation that happens between people is only in part about the words shared. It's often a lot about the posture. You know, if I have this openness to another and I look them in the eyes and I respond to the story that they share, and I uh maybe speak some words of affirmation or something, there's something that happens in them and in me that is beautiful and good and begins to really shape the experience for both of us.

Tim Muehlhoff: 19:11 In that essay, Beth, on small talk, you said uh you give some guidelines of how to foster this. And one of the guidelines is one person speaks at a time while the rest listen, but then you talk about self-restraint, that there has to be a little bit of self-restraint of not co-opting the conversation too quickly. Can you unpack that a little bit for us?

Beth Booram: 19:35 Yeah, that's one of the real gifts I have learned from being a spiritual director is that it for listening to take place, one person can talk at a time, and everybody else needs to listen. And that sounds so elementary, right? We learned that in school. But at the same time, if you sit in many conversations, you'll notice that that's not what is happening. It's like one person talks, and the moment they take a breath, another person jumps in and adds their two cents. And it's it's I describe it as like playing ping-pong, and we just bat the ball back and forth. So the self-restraint is the ability to hold back from even the things that I think I might have to offer that are valuable or meaningful or can relate, like we call it parallel process, like you're talking about your dog, and I could also talk about my dog if I wanted to, but I hold back because I want to give you plenty of space, and I don't want it to be a competitive space. I want you to feel the freedom to elaborate and show up and speak from your own experience. So it's learning that self-restraint and giving that person your undivided attention that is such a gift. It's such a gift that, you know, I think very few people experience it today. It's rare to have someone listen to you with that kind of undivided attention. It's profound.

Tim Muehlhoff: 21:11 Roel Howe, who's a communication theorist, uh, developed this idea called agenda anxiety. That so many things I want to say in this conversation, and I start to get frustrated if my agenda isn't happening. Like I wanted to speak about this, this, this, interject, these different things. So, how could one, when I feel that anxiety start to arise, like, wow, you're doing all the talking, and I have like seven things I want to say. What might be a way of dealing with that agenda anxiety and showing that kind of restraint?

Beth Booram: 21:51 Now I'm so glad you asked that because I kept having this uh idea coming to my mind just now. So I will get to share it because I think it. It would be helpful. We use this in our School of Spiritual Direction Training for people who are interested in learning how to offer spiritual direction. And it comes from a book you might be familiar with, Tim, called Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott. Oh, yes. Yes. It's an older book, but it's a great book. And she talks about the beach ball. And she says, when you're in a conversation with someone and they um and you have an idea of something you would like to add to the conversation, you treat it like a beach ball and you notice it and you push it down. If it comes back up again, you push it down a second time. If it comes back a third time, you push it down another time. And if it comes back a fourth time, then it's probably something you need to share. So that is an example of self-restraint. It's like not taking that first impulse to say, Oh, I know just what you're talking about. Let me tell you about this. But instead, holding that back because that will compete with this person who is sharing their story or sharing themselves with you. And then you can learn to listen and hold back until it really feels like, yeah, I think this would be a meaningful intersection for us to share together. Let me tell you about this or let me ask you about this.

Tim Muehlhoff: 23:29 Yeah. Like four times. Did you say like on the fourth time?

Beth Booram: 23:35 On the fourth time. If it comes back up the fourth time, then it's a good indication that this is it would be a good thing to add. Because what often happens in spiritual direction that I've noticed, I'll be listening to my, we call them directees, my directee. And something will come up that I think, oh, that would be really good to share with them. Like it might be something I read in a book once or a verse of scripture or whatever, a story. And I'll push it down. And then the conversation just continues on. And it's like, well, that that just didn't need to be placed right there. It would have, it would have clogged the gears, it would have slowed things down and it wouldn't have gone where it needed to go. So, you know, it's it's just resisting that impulse, but resisting it a few times until you have that a sense that this would really add something. I'd like to share with you something I've been thinking about.

Tim Muehlhoff: 24:32 Beth, you're talking to two professors that I don't know about you. That beach ball the first time gets halfway up. I'm sharing it. I'm sharing it. Because we're academics and we share everything. So that is such a great practice. I'm not gonna give into this right away to jump in because it's only the second time the beach balls come up. I think boy, that's a really interesting discipline. Rick, what do you think of that?

Rick Langer: 25:06 Well, I I'm sitting here thinking you were talking earlier, Beth, about well, you know, you referred to Benedict, but just kind of conversational hospitality, making room for another person in a conversation. And I think about that habit with you know, pushing down the beach ball. I'm like, wow, that does leave the other person a lot more room. Yeah, a lot more, a lot more of the playing field is theirs when you do that, as opposed to always making sure you have your your quick reply. So that's it's a provocative thought. Because I'm I was pretty good with the push it down the first time, see if it comes back up. And I'm like, yeah, that sounds good. By the time you're working your up to three and four, I'm getting a little stressed over here. My professorial mode is going into the anxiety mode all of a sudden. Uh, so that's a uh that's a helpful thought to think of the value that comes out of the slowness to jump in. Not the refusal, but just saying I don't have to do it quick.

Beth Booram: 26:12 Yeah.

Rick Langer: 26:13 And in my own head, I'm thinking, well, wait, but what if I forget how important this was? And I think what you're telling me is, well, Rick, that probably means it didn't actually have to, sir, because the conversation moved on just fine with without that.

Beth Booram: 26:27 And I think it will come back. It will come back to you if it if it really belongs in this conversation.

Rick Langer: 26:33 Yeah, if it's as important as I think it is, I'll get my other shot. And if it isn't, we'll just all move on. So this is very helpful.

Beth Booram: 26:40 Yeah, just to be fair, I mean that that's a principle I would use when I was really in a mode of deep listening to someone. There's plenty of time for banter, and that's perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong about or improper about just having some back and forths with people, especially as you're settling in and becoming comfortable with one another. But it's when you really want to turn your attention and listen deeply to somebody that you use this method of self-restraint where you push the beach ball down and it gives you a chance to monitor that impulse we all have to want to share our two cents.

Rick Langer: 27:20 Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: 27:21 So when it comes to something like the Pomona dialogues, where a classic liberal arts school, that no doubt we disagree politically, socially on many issues, or the Brigham Young University dialogues, where obviously you have two faith traditions coming into contact with each other. Sometimes the critics will have their own agenda of listen, in this the conversation is not a success unless you, and then they list their laundry list. You explicitly shared Christ, you defended a certain biblical territory, which I think sometimes forces us into being bad conversational partners because we feel like we're going to get judged by our own side if we don't bring into the conversation a bunch of stuff right away and don't give it time to percolate and go deep. And and we probably need to address those pressures and reject them, knowing that God can have this conversation go in different directions by dropping breadcrumbs. You mentioned that in your essay, that breadcrumbs for us to follow. So let's say, Beth, based on what you wrote, uh I find a breadcrumb, like just a little opening. How can I take advantage of that opening and pursue a person when I see a breadcrumb?

Beth Booram: 28:46 Well, I think I I appreciate what you're saying. And I, you know, all of us have been uh either trained explicitly or implicitly to have an agenda in our conversations. And I think agenda and and winsome conversations just do not go together because people smell that agenda. They can feel it, they can sense it. So I think you're onto something that agendas just really don't belong in a robust conversation where you're trying to really get to know one another and be in respectful dialogue. So when somebody drops a breadcrumb, I think what um I am have been learning to do over the years is to pay attention to what that looks like. Sometimes it's just a very subtle tip of the hand. Like it might be an acknowledgement of something that feels just slightly personal or telling. It could be an acknowledgement of something I've been feeling lately or something in my story that uh, you know, and I'm talking about the person I'm listening to. They might say, Um, yeah, well, I I grew up, you know, without a dad, and and that was rough. So that to me is a breadcrumb. I pick up on that, and then I want to form a question that allows them to elaborate if they want to. And I always provide that caveat. If you'd be comfortable, I'd I'd really like to know what that was like for you to grow up without a dad. Can you say more about that? So it's first of all, learning how to identify those breadcrumbs, and then second, learning how to follow them up with this really open-ended and curious question. You use the word curious a lot, I think, Tim, and that is a lot of it. Of good conversation, is just being curious about people and wanting to know a little bit more about who they are and what makes them tick and how they think about things. And, you know, how did they become interested in that particular subject matter?

Tim Muehlhoff: 31:04 That's really helpful. Uh, one of the leading scholars on listening, he's written volumes. I used a ton of his stuff when I was in grad school. He said, boil listening down, if you can, to its most basic element. And Beth, what he said was the desire to listen. The desire. That's it. And I thought, oh, that was so good that people do feel that, that I really do want to listen instead of all these techniques about listening. He said, It's the desire to listen that is the most important thing about listening.

Beth Booram: 31:39 And you can imagine that you can't desire to listen and simultaneously desire to talk. Right? They don't, they can't, they can't exist in the same space. So it really is a uh uh an abandonment of that impulse to want to have something to say and and instead prefer that posture of listening.

Rick Langer: 32:02 It it seems like there, I don't know if there's a pride issue with this, uh that's not the right word, uh self-centered issue, where there's something in our fallen soul that shouts out, I need to be heard, and there's almost nothing in our fallen soul that shouts out, I need to listen. We just don't tend to wake up and say, you know what? I need to spend some time listening to people today. But we will wake up and want to be heard. We will have something happen and we want to be heard. And I've noticed in the last eight to ten years, there's a huge amount of uh element in some of the social justice discourse is about I need to be heard. And Tim and I have had the experience, I mean, very kind of in-your-face experience of the other person saying, I need to be heard, and you don't actually need to be heard.

Beth Booram: 33:05 Yeah.

Rick Langer: 33:08 I have some unique reason or standing, whatever, that I am a person that needs to be heard, and that's a matter of justice and righteousness, and your job is to listen. Um, and it it just strikes me that that becomes that appeals to something in our in our fallen nature. That listening has no counterpart to it, that we just don't come out and say, gee, let me listen some more. Um it doesn't seem to work that way.

Beth Booram: 33:42 I think you're right. Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: 33:45 And and that's a disposition, right? That's a heart uh disposition. Uh Beth, I wonder if you can comment on uh something Dallas Willard said that we we have found very interesting. Uh Gavin Ortland went and visited Dallas Willard when he was still lecturing at USC philosophy department and he attended a lecture. And here's a freshman at the very end taking on Dallas Willard, really disagreeing with Dallas Willard. And Gavin Ortland's just sitting there going, Dallas? Oh my gosh, like put this kid in his place. Dallas Willard did not. But it ends, they're walking to the car, and Gavin Ortland goes, Dallas, you could have this was a freshman. You could have absolutely dismantled him. And here's what Dallas Willard said. I'm practicing the discipline of not always having to have the last word.

Rick Langer: 34:46 Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: 34:47 Wow. How does that resonate with you?

Beth Booram: 34:50 I've heard that story before and just think it's a marvelous story, and it very much um mirrors, I think, the posture that I have tried to learn how to occupy in my relationships, both as spiritual director, but also as friend or as mother or grandmother or spouse. Um, I don't always do it well, that's for sure, but that impulse to have the last word is so prevalent today. It's like it's the stamp that I put on the conversation that says, I was here, or I won't or I'm I know more or I'm the best. And it's just um yeah, it seems to undermine the whole purpose of really meaningful, robust conversation to get to know each other.

Tim Muehlhoff: 35:48 It uh resonated with me when you said uh it means you won if you get the last word. Because I I did debate at Eastern Michigan and the thought that that the conversation ended and the person did best me did have the last word. And I'm gonna I just can't I I just can't let it sit there. That I need to counter the counter to show that um I could counter it. And and again, this all goes back to this dispositional attitude that we have towards others, and it's from the heart that we speak, is what Jesus said. Um so I we love what you're doing, Beth. We we love what you and Dave have been doing. We we think uh it's a heart of civility, is what we need more than anything to begin with. We so appreciate you joining us. Would you come back? Could we have you back on another episode? Because we want to talk about your book. Uh that's one of my favorites is Awaken Your Senses. And we we have a question we'd love to uh present to you in a future podcast. Would that be okay? Would you come back and join us again?

Beth Booram: 36:59 Oh, I would enjoy that immensely.

Tim Muehlhoff: 37:01 Beth, if they want to find out more about Fall Creek Abbey, how can they do that?

Beth Booram: 37:06 Yeah, well, we've got a website by that name, uh, fallcreekabbey.org, and you can look us up. And if you want to reach out, I'd be happy to have a conversation with you. I'm always grateful for those opportunities. So don't hesitate to reach out and ask for that.

Tim Muehlhoff: 37:24 Oh, we would uh again, that'd be awesome. Uh, and then again, a quick Amazon search is gonna list both the books that you have done, and your husband Dave is both a fiction writer and non-fiction writer.

Beth Booram: 37:39 Yeah, right.

Tim Muehlhoff: 37:42 Um, so if you want to find out more about us, go to winsomeconviction.com. You can see all of our past podcasts. You can sign up for our quarterly newsletter, uh, keep you up to date and everything that we're trying to do, but we don't take your listening for granted. So thank you so much for tuning in.